Author's Note: Well, this is really the last fill-in chapter before we start getting to the good stuff...

The pegasi came down to a stop in front of that big tree with the golden glow about it that I had noticed. As soon as I came within ten feet of the tree, I could tell there was something definitely not normal about it. I noticed that there was something that looked like a big golden rug on the tree. I still didn't quite fully believe all this Greek god and demigod stuff, but only because I was still a little in shock. As I raked my mind through all the Greek mythology stuff I had learned in school last year, I realized that it was the Golden Fleece, from the myth about Jason. Surely it couldn't be real, though.

Then, the long, gigantic snakelike thing I had seen as we were coming down came right in front of the tree. My jaw dropped. It was a dragon, twenty feet long, with bright yellow scales everywhere on its body. It had dropped down right in front of us, wings flapping, teeth gnashing in my direction, ready to attack.

"Whoa, Peleus!" Annabeth said, jumping out of the chariot. "This is Jake," She explained to the dragon, like it could understand who she was talking about. "He's a new camper. Be nice." At this, the dragon-I guess Peleus was his name- backed off, and started stalking around the Golden Fleece.

"Sorry about that," Apologized Percy. "Peleus guards Thalia's tree and the Golden Fleece over there. The fleece keeps the camps' borders safe from monsters."

"It's cool," I replied, still in shock of the dragon. "So this really is…real."

Annabeth and Percy nodded.

Wow. This whole time, I had doubted in the back of my mind that they were serious about all of this, thinking that Aston Kutcher or someone would run out of nowhere and be like, "YOU JUST GOT PUNK'D!" Apparently, that wasn't going to happen. This was all real. My father was-is- one of the Greek gods. Hopefully I'd find out which one soon. Percy had said I was powerful, so powerful must mean I'd have to get claimed sooner or later, especially since the gods promised to claim all their children or whatever.

I followed Percy out of the chariot. He and Annabeth motioned for me to follow them towards what looked like a big mansion, down a beat-up path that looked like it had been stepped on millions of times. This camp could have been a regular summer camp, I noticed. There were some volleyball and basketball courts to the left of the big mansion, and I could see more buildings in the background. The place-from what I'd seen so far- looked like your average summer camp, but it had this magical feeling about it, like nothing was normal around here.

The big mansion in front of us had a scary, very intimidating, look to it. It looked like it could have belonged to the richest person in the world 30 years ago. It looked like it hadn't got a good coat of paint in a long time, which made it look a little run down. Still, I looked at it and shuddered. There was something magical and scary about that place.

A group of 20 or so campers were standing around the steps of this mansion. They all seemed to be teenagers, but there were some pretty young kids there, around eight or nine. The oldest ones looked college aged. Almost all of them were wearing the same orange T-shirt, windbreaker, or sweatshirt, with a bunch of letters that I somehow recognized as Ancient Greek. Well, duh, I thought-slapped my brain. Greek demigods, Ancient Greek, of course I'd know it was Ancient Greek. But I noticed something. The longer I stared at the letters, I found that I could read them. Somehow, I understood what they said. I guess it was another perk of being a demigod.

Anyway, the second all the campers saw Annabeth and Percy, they all came running over to us. They were smothered by a lot of "Yay! You're back!" among other things. They were obviously very popular at this place. As soon as they broke away, the campers seemed to notice me. A couple kids with curly hair and mischevious looks in their eyes-obviously twins- acknowledged me. One of them turned to Annabeth and said, "So you guys weren't just on a romantic getaway? You actually were getting one?" Annabeth and Percy blushed, but they nodded. So they were dating.

"Dang," The curly haired kid grumbled. "I owe Will some money then." Everybody laughed at that. Feeling a little uncomfortable, I glanced at Annabeth, who put a hand on my shoulder.

"This is Jake Bird, everybody," She said.

"Parentage?" A tall, big, gruff girl said. Percy sighed. "We don't know yet, Clarisse."

Everybody groaned. "We picked up another kid today, too," Clarisse said. Annabeth raised her eyebrows, like she wanted more information. "She's with Chiron right now, in the Big House," She gestured towards the big mansion behind us- "getting this all explained. This kid, he knows what the deal is?" She regarded me like she could throw me 30 feet into the woods. Given that she was beefy, muscular, and huge, I bet she could.

"We explained it," Annabeth said. "We'll send him over to Chiron though. Let us do some introducing first." Within the next five minutes, I was introduced to nearly everyone standing there. It was all a rush. The big girl- Clarisse La Rue- was the head counselor of the Ares cabin. She was a daughter of the god of war? Made sense, I guess. She seemed like a fighter. She didn't seem so nice, though. I hoped I wasn't a son of Ares. "Don't worry about her," Annabeth whispered to me as she walked away. "She's not as bad as she seems."

Next up were Connor and Travis Stoll, the twins with the curly hair. The one that had made the joke about Percy and Annabeth on a romantic getaway was Connor, the other one Travis. I knew right away I would never be able to tell them apart. They were co-head counselors of the Hermes cabin. I knew that Hermes was the god of thieves, so I made sure to keep my valuables with me at all times. As they walked away, I got the feeling that they were trying to devise the best way to prank me.

Jake Mason, the head counselor for the Hephaestus cabin, shook my hand. Hard. He was muscular too, like he spent a lot of time hitting and swinging heavy things. Hephaestus was the god of blacksmiths. Maybe they made weapons for the camp! I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a son of Hephaestus. Jake had scars all over his body, and they looked like they hurt. The other Hephaestus kids there looked scarred and tough, too. He seemed nice, but I didn't think I would like being a Hephaestus kid.

A couple of kids from Apollo nodded to me, but their head counselor, Will Solace, the kid Connor apparently owed money to, wasn't there to introduce himself. One of them, a skinny tan kid about my height, came up to me.

"You ball?" He asked, indicating the basketball in his hand. I shook my head.

"Can't play for my life," I said.

"Oh," the kid said. "Just thought, because… your last name is Bird, right?" I nodded. I knew where this was going.

"You related to Larry Bird?" He asked. I nodded again.

All the Apollo kids gasped. "Dude, you know he was a demigod, right?"

My jaw dropped. "What?"

"Larry Bird, son of Apollo, best basketball player this camp ever saw," One of the other Apollo kids said. I looked to Annabeth and Percy for their confirmation. They nodded.

"No way," I said. "I… I never knew."

"Hmm… that's weird. Two demigods in the same family." One of the Apollo kids said. The tan kid that had talked to me introduced himself as Devin. They all walked away, bows and arrows in hand, a couple of them dribbling basketballs, a couple absent-mindedly swinging huge bandages around.

I turned to Annabeth. "So, uh, what happens next?"

She frowned. "You go to Chiron, and we try to figure out who you are."