AN: Sorry everyone. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Please don't hate me. There was a certain guest, who if you could see me, your enthusiasm has me smiling ear to ear. I have it out, finally. And I'm not going to make excuses, but I had my dad's birthday trip, a snowboard trip, and now that I'm sick, I finally have time to publish this. I have NOT abandoned this story. I love you guys. Watch out for cliffhangers. Nasty business.

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or any otherworldly products.

Christmas Eve

On clicked the sink. The flower shopkeeper cupped his hands to catch the water. He lifted the liquid up to his face. The water cleaned and scrubbed away the dirt on his face. The keeper's tense, coiled body relaxed itself. It had taken quite the effort on his body to close up shop without his workers, who he had given the next two days off.

The muscles in that body had endured quite the toil over the many years of his life. His wife had since gone to bed in the apartment over his head. Years ago, they would have celebrated tonight with their children. Alas, the children had since moved out, and all the keeper wanted to do nowadays was enjoy a quiet dinner with his lovely wife.

In the corner of his eye, the keeper spotted a shadow at the corner of the room. Then, suddenly, from the other side of the shop, he heard a shuffling of feet.

"Who goes there?" he croaked. He could've sworn he heard giggling.

"By god, if any of ye hooligans come out, there'll be a lot less coming to you than if ye don't."

Again, no answer.

And then, as soon as they had come, the random and sudden noises were gone. Replaced by silence.

Puzzled, the old man strained his eyesight in the weak light, but to no avail. Frustrated, he decided to return to bed. It would only be the next morning that he would notice his safe had been stolen.

Two young men sat on a roof a few houses down, cackling. In between them, they held a metal safe.

"Did you hear him? 'Who goes there'?" They were sent into another round of laughter.

"No, no, let me try. 'Ye hooligans'!" His brother howled.

"Holy mother, what a nut!"

Eventually, their laughter slowly died. It was reduced to a few spurts of spontaneous giggling. When it was completely erased, the taller one spoke up

"Let's see what kind of haul we got. The old man was some sort of payment, but let's see what this great big box is loading."

"All right." The second sneered cheekily.

"Hold the box in place as I pop this open." The second one held it into place.

The first man jammed a pick into the padlock. His face contorted with exertion as he violently twisted and crammed the pick. There was a crisp, clean, resounding POP! and the rusty lock slid of the safe like warm cheese. They grinned at each other and rapidly rubbed their hands together.

A whistle pierced the air. The bandits looked at each other once again, their confusion clear as day.

"I'll go check it out." The first one muttered nervously, "Make sure it's not the feds. You stay here and keep an eye on the money."

His partner silently nodded.

With shaking breath, the thief rose to his feet, and trudged across the building roof. He cautiously stepped down the fire escape, making sure his footsteps caused absolutely no noise. With every step he took, his eyes swung from side to side, constantly alert. By the time he reached the alley at the bottom of the staircase. He noticed many pairs of footprints ranging all across the way. He carefully peeked around the corner of the building. Nothing in sight. He swept back around to the other side. He could not get a good look at the alleyway. As he slowly stepped through the snow, there was nothing that really caught his attention.

And then, his world was spinning. He was face deep in the snow. He flipped himself over, moaning in pain. There was a dark figure leering over him.

As he made out the face of the man, he groaned, "Not the time! Not the time, at all!"

The figure grimaced, "Stop bitching, Travis. You knew it would come eventually."

"But Perceeeee," the Stoll whined.

"Not a word! Get Conner and spread the word to the strike force," Percy snapped, "We meet back at the Styx in an hour."

"Fine."

Percy leaned against the bar at the River Styx.

"Ugh, where are they. Late, late, late, late!" He growled.

Violent thoughts raced through his mind as he waited. What he would do to them when they showed up.

As he was deep in thought, the door flew open. A cold blast of wind chilled his bones.

"Finally showed up?" He chuckled.

"Hey don't get all over us, it took a while to get Nico off his girlfriend," Travis smirked. Conner snickered in amusement.

"Hey, I told you to shut your mouth!"

"Shut up! Both of you. We have a job to carry out! Or did you forget?" Percy snarled, "Bickering like spoiled brats." They both looked down in embarrassment.

"Now that that's through," Percy started, "Here's the plan."

An hour later, Percy and Grover found themselves crouched outside the headquarters of the Golden Swords.

"I really, really don't like this plan." Grover murmured nervously.

Percy shook his head, amused by how scared Grover was. This plan was foolproof, unable to fail. They just had to wait for the signal. Then, out of the blue, a tall thin blonde appeared in the corner of his eye. Percy suddenly became furious.

"What is he doing here?" He whispered.

"Who?" Grover followed Percy's pointing finger, "Oh."

"Castellan's probably just here to make sure everything goes right," Grover muttered, annoyed.

"I don't like it."

"Neither do I. But let's just watch to see if the Stolls are ready."

That silenced them.

After what seemed like forever, but probably took only a couple of minutes, a curly haired Travis Stoll peeked out from the outhouse on the side of the building. He gave them the "A OK" sign. Percy gave him a thumbs up. He stuck up 5 fingers to count down.

5

4

3

2

1

BOOM!

In a flash, everything went according to plan. The plan was to unleash chaos. And chaos they unleashed. The top floor of the hideout exploded. Glass was flying everywhere. People flew out of the windows. Grover executed his part of the plan and took off running. The guards remaining spotted him and began to pursue him. Percy could now only wish him luck. He emerged next to Luke. They acknowledged each other, and together they approached the building.

AN: There's your damn chapter! You happy now!? Just kidding, I understand. And don't say I didn't warn you to watch out for cliffhangers.

Oh, and special thanks to Khaos20 for agreeing to beta my random, stupid story. Btw, Khaos if you were still revising, sorry, I just couldn't wait any longer.

GO CLEMSON!

T.L.