A/N I know it's been forever, I'm sorry! Okay, this chapter is a bit strange, but it's all based on real Greek myths, I promise.

Jason

To Jason's annoyance, the others were nowhere to be found. They couldn't even find Blackjack.

"We left them for what? Like two minutes?" Leo asked, irritably kicking a rock as the pair circled back to the Argo II for the fifth time. "I mean seriously? How much trouble could they have possibly gotten into?"

"Too much." Jason's annoyance was quickly giving way to fear. This couldn't be happening. They just lost Percy and Annabeth, there was no way he was letting everybody else down as well. "We'll just have to find them."

Leo looked at him, his cocked eyebrow betraying his doubts. "No offense man, but that's all we've been trying to do and in case you hadn't noticed, it's not going so well."

Jason sighed in irritation, but he knew that Leo was right. "I know. I know. We need to come up with a plan."

Leo looked around nervously. "Plans don't exactly fall into my field of expertise," he pointed out, looking expectantly at Jason.

Jason returned the stare, but didn't answer, instead he looked thoughtfully at the demigod in front of him. Leo was continually selling himself short. Sure, he'd brag about his numerous accomplishments right after they happened, but as soon as someone like Jason, Annabeth, or Percy came into the picture, he'd immediately relinquish the leadership role to them.

How could Leo say he wasn't good with plans? Jason could easily remember tons of times Leo's quick thinking had saved everyones' butts. The instance with the Cyclops last year on Leo, Jason, and Piper's first quest together. Leo had saved all their lives. Fat lot of good Jason had been then, unconscious and wrapped in chains. And even more recently, with Echo and Narcissus. Jason hadn't actually been there, but again one of Leo's crazy plans had saved the day. And yet, he was still unsure of himself.

It seemed that with Annabeth and Percy lost, it was up to Jason to lead the quest. Unless Nico tried to take over, of course. It wasn't that Jason was unsure in his ability to lead, he'd been a leader his entire life, he was confident in himself. Or he was. That changed slightly when he meant Percy. Percy just made it seem so easy to have people's lives in his hands. He always seemed to make the right decision quickly and efficiently. He'd been named praetor of the Romans when he had barely spent a week with them. It made Jason feel just a little inadequate. By all accounts he should be better than Percy; even if Percy was older, Jason had known that he was a demigod for longer, had been training for longer, and of course, Percy's father was Poseidon and Jason's was Zeus. If anyone should be feeling that they were lacking, it should be Jason not Leo.

Suddenly aware that Leo had been staring at him for a good number of seconds while he thought, Jason answered, "Well, I guess the actual plan-making should come after we've figured what's going on."

"Um… don't we need a plan to find out what's going on?" Leo asked. "I mean, if walking around in circles isn't working for you."

Jason rolled his eyes, but had to admit that Leo had a point. "Fine. What do you suggest?"

Leo threw his hands up. "Whoa, whoa! Back up. I already said I wasn't plan guy."

Suddenly Jason noticed a flash of something in the corner of his eye. He whipped around but nothing was there. He reached into his pocket, hand tightening on the gold coin snuggled between the fabric.

"Uh, Jason… What's going on?" Leo asked, looking around anxiously. Jason was pleased to see that his hand was in his tool belt, ready to pull out a make-shift weapon.

"I don't know. I thought I saw something."

"A good something? Please tell me it was a nice friendly something. Or how about just something that doesn't want to eat us? I'd be okay with that."

"I don't know what I saw. It was just a flash of something. It was a sort of shimmery green color."

Leo looked at him incredulously. "A flash of green? We are sort of in a forest," he said, gesturing to the trees all around them.

It wasn't really a forest, more of a field with a good number of trees, but Jason got Leo's point. Still, he was sure he had seen something. "There! There it is again!" He shouted whipping around. This time he pulled out the coin and tossed it into the air. He caught it as a golden gladius. He held it up, ready to face down whatever danger they were facing,

"Are you sure, man?" Leo asked. "I didn't see anything." Despite this, he still retreated until he and Jason were standing back-to-back.

Suddenly, figures sprang from the trees. They ran towards the two demigods, but they stopped just out of fighting range.

As soon as they slowed down, Jason was able to get a good look at them. Immediately, he felt like he was seeing things. He had seen just about everything in his time. Almost every weird mythological monster there was, but the sight of the two things standing before him made him do a double-take.

"Jason," Leo started, his voice amazingly calm. "You see the giant green monkeys too?" he asked.

"Actually I think they're chimps. Or maybe apes."

Leo swallowed. "Oh, they're chimps! Well that's just great. For a second there I thought I was going insane."

Leo's description was actually pretty accurate. The two creatures that were now circling Jason and Leo were indeed giant green monkey-like things. They stood easily over seven feet tall. Their fur, if you could call it fur, shined and almost seemed to flow and change shades with the movements of their bodies. For the most part, it shifted between a blue-green color. They walked on two legs, but also used their long arms to propel them, like gorillas. They were dressed in what appeared to be the tattered remnants of a mailman's uniform and something that might have belonged to a pirate. The clothes were much too small, so the two things looked oddly squeezed and out of proportion. As they continued their circling, Jason noticed that they both had long tails. Jason wasn't an expert on the anatomy of primates, but he was fairly sure that apes and chimps didn't have tails. Looked like Leo was right about the things being monkeys. But that wasn't important. What was important that two huge green monkeys were circling them.

"Um… hello…?" Jason said, ending the word like a question.

The two monkeys started speaking to one another. It was too rapid for Jason to pick up, but even if he did, he doubted he could understand what they were saying; it sounded like they were speaking a different language. Their voices were strange. They were hissing, not at all what you'd expect a monkey's voice to sound like. Not that Jason had any particular expectation for a monkey's voice, but still. He turned to Leo, but was surprised to find that the other boy had a look of intense concentration. "Hey, Leo… everything alright?" he asked hesitantly.

"Shhhhh!" Leo said, waving his hand at Jason. "I'm trying to hear what they're saying!"

"You mean you can understand it?" Jason asked, thoroughly surprised. "How?"

"They're speaking ancient Greek."

Ahhhh. Of course. Jason should've picked up on that. After all, he had spent eight months surrounded by a campful of Greek demigods, most of whom were completely fluent in ancient Greek, but his ear just couldn't pick it up. At first he had tried to learn it, a task that proved impossible. Besides the odd curse word he'd picked up from the Ares cabin, he didn't understand Greek at all.

Leo listened for a few more seconds, but eventually sighed and gave it up. "I couldn't get much. They were talking fast and it was hard to understand their accents, but I caught a few words."

"What were they?" Jason asked.

"Others, demigods, mountain, angry, bring, Gaia. That was about it."

"Others and demigods? Maybe they know where everyone is!" Jason said excitedly. He hadn't missed the mention of Gaia, but he preferred not to think about it at the moment. Besides, they had bigger problems on their hands anyway.

"Yeah." Leo looked down. "Sorry I couldn't get more. I've never been very good at ancient Greek. If only An-" he caught himself and broke off.

Jason simply nodded. "Yeah. If only."

Suddenly the two monkeys cut off their lengthy conversation and turned toward Jason and Leo. They started speaking in unison. "You are the sons of Hephaestus and Zeus." It wasn't exactly a question.

Jason sighed, but fought down the urge to correct them that his father was in fact Jupiter, not Zeus.

"Our mistress wishes to see you." They were still speaking together in their strange hissing way.

"Yeah well, I think we'll politely decline!" Jason shouted.

"Oh but you must! Our mistress will be angry if we don't bring you to her!" two identical grins that Jason didn't much like spread over the faces of the monkeys. "You see, our mistress holds your friends in her palace. She will be angry if you don't come."

Jason gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the gladius, but resisted the urge to attack. "Fine. Tell us where they are, and we won't kill you!" Jason shouted back to them, trying to sound confident.

The monkeys let out a long string of hissing, and it took Jason a second to realize they were laughing.

Okay, now he was really mad. "How do we know our friends at all? You could just be lying to us! I doubt you two could have defeated them!" he said, trying to goad the creatures into betraying the location of the others.

"We are the Cercopes," they said, as if this was an explanation. "They stood no chance against us."

"Oh really?" Leo asked, hefting a crowbar he had pulled from his belt.

"Yes. The pretty one tried to charm us with her words, but it didn't work. We are the masters of speech."

Jason had had enough of this. Raising his sword, he lunged at the closest creature.

The creature started hissing again. "With your sword you'll no longer fight, for it slinks and slithers and bites!"

Jason felt something change in his hands. When he looked up at his sword, he saw that he was no longer holding the golden blade; now, he was holding the tail of a huge snake. He yelped and dropped it, falling back a few feet.

"Jason! What happened?" Leo called. "Are you alright?"

"My- my sword!" Jason said, unable to finish the thought.

Leo looked at him, eyebrows scrunched together. "What? What's wrong with it?"

Jason stared at Leo in disbelief. Did he not see it? "It's a snake!" he shouted.

Leo's look of concern deepened. "What are you talking about? It's just a sword!"

Jason bewilderedly looked back at the snake on the ground by his feet. To his amazement, it had turned back to a sword. Open-mouthed, he gazed back and forth between Leo and the sword. "It… it was a snake!"

Leo just stared at him apprehensively.

"'I'm not crazy!" Jason felt compelled to add.

"I didn't think you were," Leo said, but his face told a different story.

Both of the Cercopes began to laugh in their strange way again. "Now do you understand our power."

"What did you do?" Jason asked.

The Cercopes ignored him. "Come with us if you ever want to see your friends again."

Not knowing what else to do, Jason turned and gave Leo a look that said: 'what else can we do?'

Leo answered with a small nod.

So, Jason reached down and snatched his sword off the ground. "Take us to them." He said the Cercopes

A/N Please please please review! (Also, I apologize for the super lames rhyme, but I'm really tired of rereading this chapter and just working on it, so it'll just have to stay.)