Okay so I don't know if I messed this up or not but Lauren and Hunter live in Orange Beach, Alabama not in Florida (contrary to the title 'Michigan and Florida'). Sorry 'bout that, but I have changed the title so that is it correct. Also I just wanted to say thank you to anyone who takes the time to read, review, and favourite my story. Each of these little gestures mean the world to me.

PIPER

Piper was unnerved, to say the least. Usually she would have been thrilled that they had been able to go this long (almost four days) without running into any monsters but now she was starting to become suspicious.

It was one thing for monsters to ignore a handful of weak demigods for a couple hundred miles or so but the white van that they were traveling in now was packed with many demigods, one a child of the big three— monsters should have been flocking them like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Piper attempted to shrug off her worries by polishing her dagger, katropis, in the back of the van. She smiled weakly as she stared at the glimmering gold surface of the blade. Long ago it had stopped showing her images and she would have abandoned it for a more effective weapon if not for the sentimental value it held. Every time she looked at the reflective facade it reminded her of all the time she and her friends had spent aboard the Argo II.

Every once in a while the daughter of Aphrodite began to miss those days, filled with adventure; not knowing if they would survive the day, and yet acting as if they were completely normal people just taking a simple tour of the world rather than a group of teenagers entrusted with the fate of the world.

She was pulled from her state of recollection when the van hit a bump in the road, sending Piper flying a few centimeters off the ground. She hit the floor with a thud. Piper was subconsciously aware of a dull pain in her tail bone but she was primarily concerned with what had caused the van to bump so violently.

Annabeth, who was currently driving, pulled the van over to the side of the road. Whats happening? Have we hit a hellhound or something…

"We seem to have hit a sharp rock, which popped a front tire. Don't worry, Pipes." Annabeth said, noticing the concerned look on the daughter of Aphrodite's face sticking her head through the driver's side door. "I'll just change it out with the spare and we'll be back on the road in a few." She continued, her voice fading as she walked around the van to retrieve the spare tire.

Piper let out a relieved sigh. Their luck held for now, but she had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't be long before catastrophe hit. She took one long glance around the van, paying attention to every little detail as if she had to memorize it.

The driver's door was ajar. Outside of it she could see a green sign which informed them that they were a few hundred miles from Belleville, Illinois. Lou Ellen was sitting in the passenger's seat, muttering under her breath as she read an odd leather bound book which Piper suspected had something to do with Alchemy or Enchantments. In the row of seats behind Lou two seats were taken up by Nico who was snoozing contently while Will twirled a lock of his ebony hair around one finger and looked out the window absent mindedly.

Piper was in the cargo space behind this row of seats, leaned up against the back of them. Across the van from her Calypso was talking in a hushed voice to her new-found friend, Isabel. Isabel's unseeing eye were drifting around the van, Piper assumed that even though she was blind she could still sense light and dark and that was why she tended to gaze out the windows.

The two newest additions to the troupe, Hunter and Lauren, sat with their backs against the double doors that lead out the back of the van.. Laurens head was rested on Hunter's shoulder, her eyes closed in sleep. Hunter was boredly playing with a Rubix cube that he had brought from home.

Piper, being a daughter of Aphrodite, vaguely wondered if they were dating. No, she decided, though it was obvious to her that they both felt very strongly for each other. She realised that ever since they had come to the van they hadn't said a word to each other, rather looked into eachothers eyes and communicated purely by body language; they had obviously know each other for a long time.

Piper looked down at her watch. It had been nearly five minutes since Annabeth left to get the spare tire, what was taking her so long? The daughter of Aphrodite took it upon herself to check on her friend and began to make her way out of the van. She set the Katropis beside her and took hold of her cornucopia which hung from her shoulder on a leather strap. It took her a few attempts to stand up, seeing as her muscles were stiff from sitting so long. Finally she made her way out of the drivers side door.

As she came around to the back of the van she stopped dead in her tracks. Laying on the pavement, her hair spread around her in a blonde halo and her face peaceful in unconsciousness (Piper refused to think about the possibility that she was dead), was Annabeth. Leaning over her was a gray haired lycanthrope, teeth bared as it prepared to eat the comatose demigod at it's feet.

A scream tore from Piper's lungs as she, blind with rage, charged the creature with nothing but a horn that could shoot mangoes at high velocity.

LEO

All in all, Leo thought the trip was going pretty well. They had successfully picked up three demigods and had so far only encounter one killer teacher— or, rather, Manticore— and a small pack of venti. Now they were almost to Austin, Texas, where they were picking up two more demigods.

As they had picked up more demigods, Festus had become more and more packed which lead to Jason summoning Tempest so he could ride along side them to give them more room. It also allowed Jason to pick off any monsters that strayed too close to the pack of travelling demigods and Leo was grateful that he could focus on getting them to the right place without being distracted by occasional monster attacks.

Leo looked down through the clouds and caught a few glimpses of his home state, Texas. He was sad that they wouldn't be visited Houston, where he had lived with his mother, but he was glad to see familiar rolling hills and dry, grassy fields. The son of Hephaestus had always thought that he would get used to the humid forests of Long Island Sound but he knew in truth that he would always feel more at home in places like these.

He glanced down at the GPS he had installed into the back of Festus's neck. They were almost at the city line of Austin.

"Approaching Austin, Texas. Capital of the one and only Lone-Star State. Please prepare for landing," Leo called as he began to lower Festus below the clouds. They were still a good ten minutes from their next stop, a public school which the demigods in question attended, but he needed to be able to see clearly so he didn't miss the school.

There was a chorus of responses, ranging from weak exclamations glee to complaints of sore butts caused by sitting on a metal dragon for hours on end. Then Leo heard small chat being made as they touched down in a small field across the street from the school. Everyone hopped off immediately, some stretching their legs and others (read: Percy) rubbing their hind quarters and muttering angrily. Jason soared down from above and after he dismounted and sent away Tempest he turned to the group.

"I figured," he recited, "that we should leave the newbies and Cecil here while Leo, Percy and I go to get these next two demigods. You all can stay here and eat, stretch out your muscles, and prepare for the next leg of the journey." Jason, ever the leader, had yet again managed to come up with and flawless plan. Everyone nodded in agreement and a few minutes later the elected trio were crossing the street.

It was lunch time and all of the students were scattered around the sports fields, eating their lunches and just generally goofing off. The first of the demigods was easy to spot.

The first thing that made her easy to find was her azure blue, shoulder-length hair. Leo didn't fail to notice that Percy was staring at her hair in awe as if he was thinking 'blue hair? You can have blue hair? I want blue hair!'. Secondly she was sitting alone on the football bleachers reading a Greek mythology book. Leo smiled inwardly. Hopefully her apparent liking to mythology would make this situation seem a whole lot less weird.

Jason was the first to talk when they reached her.

"Hey, I'm Jason. These are my friends Leo and Percy."

She seemed not to notice him. She simply turned the page and continued reading.

"H-hm," Leo cleared his throat rather obnoxiously. Jason looked back at him and smiled gratefully, then turned back to the girl, who was now squinting up at them in confusion. Jason repeated what he had said earlier.

"You don't go to school here, do you? You don't look very familiar," She said rather blatantly.

"Yeah, we're actually from New York. But we've come here to talk to you about something important. It will only take a second."

"Okay, fine. But get on with it," She set down the mythology book.

"I see that you like mythology," Jason pointed to the book.

"Ever since third grade," she nodded. "I've always found it interesting."

"So what would you do if I told you that every single word in that book is true," he mused, though his cool tone made it seem more like an on the spot observation than the truth.

"Well, I'd probably think you were making fun of me," she shrugged. "After all that's what all the christian kids do, so why wouldn't you?"

"What do you mean 'all the christian kids'? Are you not religious," Jason inquired, a bit of concern sneaking into his voice.

"I'm agnostic," she explained. "My entire family is christian but I never really felt any connection to the bible. Then I found other religious scriptures. The Torah, the Qu'ran, even mythology—Greek, Roman, Egyptian. Every one I read made more sense than what I was raised to believe. Still I couldn't choose any one that seemed to make complete sense so I just chose none of them."

Leo felt a wave of sympathy for the girl. Jason took a deep breath and then said.

"Greek mythology."

"What?"

She looked at him, bewildered.

"Greek mythology. And roman. Those are the real ones. The gods in these pages," He said picking up the mythology book and tapping its cover. "These are the real ones. You're right, they're not perfect but they're what the world's got."

She made to say something but then stopped. She froze with her mouth open as she absorbed this information. Then, just like a buffering video, she unfroze and held out her hand.

"I do believe I forgot to introduce myself. Sami, Sami Meyer. What do you need help with?"

LOU ELLEN

Lou ripped her eyes from her Incantation book as she heard a booming scream. She nearly tore her seat belt as she burst through the passenger door and ran out into the street. She was breathing heavily when she reached the scene.

In truth, it really could have been a vision from her worst nightmares. There was a hairy creature—a werewolf, Lou thought— hunched over with a gruesome snarl on it's face. Underneath it, unmoving and likely unconscious was Annabeth. The only sign that she was dead was the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Lou barely stopped herself from gasping. She was the strongest of them all and for her to be overpowered, even if she didn't see it coming, was unnerving at least. Lou followed the werewolfs gaze to Piper, mouth open mid-scream and clutching her cornucopia as if it was the only the thing that could save her.

Desperately Lou wanted to run back to the van and drive away, but she knew that wasn't what heroes did. Heroes stood and fought, even when the odds were against them, and if Lou couldn't be a normal person, she would be a hero.

She was suddenly glad that she had been reading up on spells on the trip. She had just been reading the section on Incantations; spells that were spoken outloud and were directed at a specific being or object.

"Incantatio: Sagitta Argentia," she whispered, using all her willpower to direct it at the lycanthrope in front of her. The ground below her rumbled as little shards of silver floated up and formed a dozen silver arrowheads. The werewolf turned towards her, but it was too late. Already five of the silver arrowheads were implanted in it's back and two more in it's chest. By the time the last five hit it's body the creature was already slowly melting into yellow dust, making the air stink of sulfur.

Lou looked over at Piper, who smiled back at her gratefully. Their victory was short lived, though, as the second they moved to pick up their unconscious friend multiple outraged howls sounded from behind them. Piper barely had time to say "Run" before the pack of wolf people burst out from the forest to their right.

JASON

Jason had a newfound respect for new demigods. Especially the one in front of him now, because even though her whole world was practically crashing down around her and she must have had at least a slight urge to run and tell off some people for being mean to her about her religious beliefs, she managed to keep her mind on the task ahead. They had told her about the other person they were looking for and she lead them straight to her.

Maria Smith. She was sitting on a concrete wall wearing a black hoodie, black skinny jeans and black converse with white hatching (Jason remembered the term from arts & crafts). She had long, ink black hair and white skin, though she was not quite as pale as Cameron, whose skin was bordering on translucent. She had dark black eyeliner on—it looked to be the only makeup she was wearing—which made her green eyes look like freshly polished emeralds. Alone in the corner passersby likely thought her to be brooding, but Jason suspected she was merely lonely.

"Maria," Sami called, her hands curved around her mouth in a pseudo-microphone. Maria looked down at them and took an earbud out of her ear.

"I'm not looking for a pity party. No, I would not like to sit with you at lunch. Yes, I'm sure. Yes, I know I look lonely. I prefer it that way." Maria said completely deadpan.

She put her ear bud back in and turned away from them.

"Please, Maria. It's really important." Sami begged.

"Fine, but it better not take long."

"It won't," she promised. "But you might want to come down here. We wouldn't want you falling off the wall in shock." Sami smiled jokingly.

Maria met with this new development in her life this same way she met apparently everything.

With absolutely no emotion.

Jason had been expected to be called a lunatic or worse but she simply stared at him and said,

"If this turns out to be a conspiracy theory or some sort of prank you're all dead."

But eventually both of the girl were back at the field where Festus was landed, each with a suitcase in hand.

"So these are the newbies," Cecil jested. "Welcome to casa de la Festus, where we have all of your demigod-ly needs. Granola bar?"

Both girls passed on the quaker oats bars and Cecil shrugged before putting them back into a blue backpack. Then he held held out his hand in greeting.

"Cecil, son of Hermes. These lovely gentlemen are Xavier Cadwell, Cameron Jones, and Zac Ivers; unclaimed." He announced.

"Unclaimed," Sami inquired, confused.

"Well when we don't know who a demigod's godly parent is we say they're 'unclaimed'," he informed them.

Maria looked as if he had just said 'the sky is blue', and was looking at Sami with a 'no, duh, idiot.' expression. Sami turned to Percy and looked at him incredulously.

"We're demigods?" she demanded.

"Oh, yeah," Percy looked sheepish. "We may have forgotten to mention that. Oops."

Cecil shook his head in disappointment and turned to the girls.

"Well, let's get going. If we're gonna have any chance at winning this race we're gonna have to keep on schedule."

Oh my gods, that was almost three-thousand words. Wow. Anyways I just wanted to say that the reason I skipped the pick-up of Zac Ivers is because I'm getting kinda tired of writing these types of chapters and I really want to get to the main plot and romance. Also, sorry if Lou Ellen and Cecil were a bit OOC. They had pretty small parts in the books and I don't know their personality too well.

Side note, I have an instagram. It's called fangirl_of_the_millenium (yes, there is only one N, not two). If you guys want to check it out I post fandom stuff and funny text posts. Also I would love to talk to you guys and get to know you! I don't really have many friends in real life outside of my fabulous editor Lynn, and the ones that I do have think that it's weird to be a fangirl and judge me for watching anime so I need some internet friends!

Okay, wow, that was a long sidenote but… bye! R&R, please.

~Sam

P.S. Lou's spell is in Latin. It translates to "Incantation: Silver Arrows (or Arrows of Silver)"