A/N: So, sadly enough, I still don't own the PJO series. But on a happier note, I've started a new course called English 5, so my grammar will hopefully become better.

Death Fury:Teacher sounds interesting. What sort of teacher would you like to be?

Anyway, on with the chapter.

"I become the supreme lord of the bathroom."

"Well…It's better then a lord of nothing, right?" Apollo 'comforted' Percy.

Percy nodded, looking thoughtful, "You're not wrong."

Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse,

"Centaur." Annabeth said, slapping Percy over the back of the head.

"I thought he was a pony-man." Percy smiled and the demigods started to laugh while the gods looked confused.

we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.

"Show some respect." Athena sneered.

Percy just looked at her with his head tilted to the left, which sort of unnerved her, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of showing it.

We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's him."

Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMPHALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.

"Can you?" Hermes asked.

"'Can I' what?" Percy looked puzzled.

"Do a flip. So, can you?" Hermes raised an eyebrow.

"Now I can, but back then? Maybe if I had water or something." Percy admitted.

"Wimp." Ares coughed. Then he was drenched in cold water, for some reason.

I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.

"My Oracle MOVED?!" Apollo looked really shocked. "What the…"

"Language Apollo" Artemis hissed. "Not in front of the children."

"I know, I know." Apollo said. "But Holy Chocolate bar, she moved."
"I'm surprised to but hopefully we'll find out why later." Artemis smiled.

"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.

He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."

"Somebody lives there?"

"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."

I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.

"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.

Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and MountOlympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."

He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

"Red grapes are soooo good, they are my favorites." Percy hummed.

"I didn't know you liked grapes." Grover said.

"Only the red ones, the green ones taste weird and sort of creep me out." Percy shuddered.

"They creep you out?" Grover looked incredulous. "How can grapes, or berries or fruit for that matter, creep you out?!"

"I don't know, they just do." Percy pouted.

Grover started to shake his head and mutter about weirdoes and freaks who were creeped out by fruit.

I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.

"No, he can't, at least not at that time." Thalia laughed.

"No respect." Grover sulked.

"It's not that we don't respect you, goat boy, more the fact that at that time you couldn't play to save your life." Thalia smirked.

I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.

"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."

"Thanks, Perce." Grover smiled.

"Anytime, man." Percy clapped him on the back.

Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"But he did that!"

"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."

"That so-called council can go screw themselves." Thalia snarled.

The other demigods nodded along.

I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.

"What's done is done and can't be undone." Apollo nodded.

"Yeah, Apollo is right. You can't spend your life thinking about 'what if's'." Artemis agreed. The twin archers smiled at each other.

"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"

Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."

"How old is he?"

"Oh, twenty-eight."

"What! And he's in sixth grade?"

"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."

"That sucks." Nico said.

"You don't have to tell me." Grover sighed.

"That's horrible."

"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."

"Never." Grover said with determination.

"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"

Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"

"Chiron really needs to learn how to change the subject with a little more courtesy. (A/N: I don't know if courtesy is the right word.)." Hermes chuckled.

But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word death. The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.

"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."

"Yes, child?"

"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"

"Are you planning on visiting, nephew?" Hades asked.

"Yeah, if that's okay with you?" Percy smiled.

"You want to visit the underworld?" Dementer looked skeptical.

"Yeah, the underworld is kind of awesome and uncle Hades makes the best…eh, what's it called Nico?" Percy asked.

"Pasta Con Pomodoro E Basilico." Nico said.

"Yes, that."

Hades looked shocked but happy, "Do you visit the underworld often?" he asked.

"Yup, at least ones every other week or so." Percy smiled at his uncle.

"That's against the ancient laws." Zeus thundered.

"No, it's not" Percy said back.

"Yes, it is. The laws states that the gods are not allowed to interact with their children." Athena lectured. "Which means Hades is breaking the law."

"You're wrong." Percy said. "Hades is not my father. Which means the law doesn't apply."

"I love loopholes." Apollo laughed and started to read.

Chiron's expression darkened.

"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now…until we know more…I would urge you to put that out of your mind."

"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"

"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods.". . ..

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.

Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."

"Stocked with what?" I asked.

"Care bears and my little pony." Thalia said and shuddered.

"Care bears are kind of freaky." Nico agreed.

"Armed with what?"

"A water gun filled with holy water." Nico nodded. There were chuckles spread around the room.

"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"

"My own—?"

"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."

I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.

"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.

"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."

Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.

"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.

Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.

"He is so used to everybody having watched the introduction movie." Annabeth laughed.

Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.

Before the gods could get offended Annabeth said, "Yeah, they're all so different from each other that they look bizarre clumped together."

Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory.

Hephaestus smiled a little at the mention of his cabin.

Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass.

"Mine." Dementer said like the others didn't already know that.

Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.

Apollo paused and smiled before continuing.

They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.

"You saw me?" Hestia smiled.

"I'm sorry that I didn't stay and talk with you." Percy looked ashamed.

"That's okay, young demigod, I'm just happy you saw me." Beamed Hestia.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve.

"Over compensating, are we?" Poseidon smirked.

Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

"I wanna se your peacock, cock, cock, Your peacock, cock…" Annabeth and Thalia started to sing and the they laughed.

"WHAT….?!" Hera started to scream when Apollo kept reading.

"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.

"Correct," Chiron said.

"Their cabins look empty."

"Like they should be." Hera huffed and glared at her husband.

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."

Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.

"You're totally right." Hermes winked.

Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?

I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"

"Even if he wasn't my son, I wouldn't have hurt him." Poseidon said.

Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.

"Party ponies." Hermes, Apollo and surprisingly Dionysus said with smiles.

"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."

"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."

He smiled down at me. "The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."

"But, shouldn't you be dead?"

"Oops…" Percy said with an embarrassed shrugged.

"Tact, Percy." Annabeth muttered.

Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.

"Doesn't it ever get boring?"

"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."

"Why depressing?"

Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.

"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."

* * *

The blond girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

"And how long am I going to be called that?" Annabeth asked with a sigh.

"Spoilers." Percy smirked. (A/N: Gold star for those who can guess/knows were the "spoilers" come from.)

When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.

I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.

"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it...?

A caduceus.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

"Yeah, but if some people," Hermes looked around the room at the gods. "would just claim their kids, maybe it wouldn't look so old and overcrowded."

Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."

So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.

"Naturally?" Aphrodite asked.

"I think I was being sarcastic." Percy shrugged.

Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven.

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.

I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."

Everybody groaned.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."

"That's sweet of him, trying to make you feel welcomed." Hestia smiled.

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

"Is he my son and if so, what happened to him?" Hermes sounded worried.

"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing.

"Eeeep, do you have a crush?!" Aphrodite squealed.

"At the time I thought so but looking back, it's more hero worship than anything else." Annabeth blushed and explained. Percy just kissed her on the cheek with a smile.

She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."

"For now?" I asked.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

"Naturally." Hermes huffed. Apollo patted him on the arm.

I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.

"Darn. That would have looked awesome over one of my kids' bed" Hermes said, but he winked at Percy to show he was kidding, sort of.

I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

"I'm so proud." Hermes whipped a fake tear from the corner of his eye while some of the gods laughed at him.

"How long will I be here?" I asked.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"I've already seen it."

"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.

When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."

"I know, I know." Annabeth raised her hands in surrender, "I was being rude."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."

"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"

"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To get killed?"

"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"

"You need to get your priorities' straight." Thalia said with a small laugh.

I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."

"Yes."

"Then there's only one."

"Yes."

"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."

"Gajillion is not a word." Athena sneered. The other occupants in the room just rolled their eyes.

"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."

"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."

"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form."

"That's just sooooooooooooooo unfair." Nico groaned and threw his head back against the couch.

I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"

"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"

"You talk in your sleep."

"He still does." Annabeth sighed.

"Sorry." Percy blushed.

"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"

Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her. "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

"Why are they called Kindly Ones?" Percy asked. "They aren't exactly 'kind'"

"Good question, nephew. Truthfully, I have no idea." Hades answered with a shrug.

"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."

She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.

"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."

"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."

"He's dead. I never knew him."

"Yes, he's very dead, deader than dead in fact." Hermes nodded and then he and Apollo chuckled. Poseidon smiled at his nephews anticts.

Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids. "Your father's not dead, Percy."

"How can you say that? You know him?"

"Now I do." Annabeth said.

"No, of course not."

"Then how can you say—"

"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about me."

"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."

"How—"

"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."

"Now you're just going to embarrass him, Annabeth." Thalia chuckled.

I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."

"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"

"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."

"Is really good, but dangerous in larger amounts." Percy said sadly.

"Ambrosia and nectar."

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."

A half-blood.

I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.

"The start usually works, young grasshopper." Apollo said.

Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"

I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

''Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.

"It's almost the same as telling someone to 'Go fuck yourself' or 'Go to hell'" Hestia explained.

"Hestia! Were did you learn such foul languages?" Zeus looked scandalized.

"You do know that I'm the oldest, right?" Hestia looked at her little brother like he was an idiot.

"You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"

"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."

"Yeah, my daughter will beat your ass, wimp." Ares laughed.

"What?!" He snarled at the smirks he got from the demigods.

I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"

Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"

"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."

Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."

"Percy."

"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."

"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.

"Stay out of it, wise girl."

"Wait, wait, wait…" Thalia said. "That's were 'wise girl' comes from?"

Then she and Nico started to laugh so hard that they fell of the couch. Percy and Annabeth were blushing and Percy was hiding his face in Annabeth hair.

Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.

I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.

I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.

"Maybe we should build self-cleaning toilets?" Apollo muttered. "Is that something you could build, Hephaestus?"

"I think I can whip something together." Hephaestus said starting to draw plans and blueprints in a notebook.

"Don't worry kids." Apollo smiled at the demigods. "If anyone can do it it's Hephaestus, he's a genius."

Hephaestus smiled at the praise and started to put a little more thought in his friendship with Apollo and Hermes. 'Maybe they weren't so bad, just misunderstood, like him.'

Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.

"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."

"That was such a bad insult." Hermes groaned.

Her friends snickered.

Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.

"I was not!" Annabeth looked insulted.

"Wise girl, I love you, but you kind of were." Percy shrugged.

Annabeth glared at him. Then she sighed at nodded in consent.

Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.

"Water powers activate." Nico smirked. "She's going to get her ass whopped."

I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.

I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

Everybody laughed at the mental image.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.

"You're lucky it was only shower water, seaweed brain." Annabeth punched Percy in the arm.

I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

"That's awesome!" Hermes and Apollo high fived each other and then Percy.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Annabeth said, "How did you ..."

"I don't know."

We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."

"You don't look dead to me, but I could be wrong." Thalia poked at Percy. "No he's still alive."

I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."

Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.

Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.

"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."

"And that's the end of the chapter." Apollo said closing the book. "Who wants to read."

"I'll read next." Hades said and took the book.

"My dinner goes up in smoke."

A/N: Another chapter, yay!

I'm going to try and update every Saturday.

Question, should I bring in Persephone and Amphitrite to join their husbands and the rest or not?

Anyway, till next time,

Love, Nyxi.