(A/N)- Oh my gods it's been forever, I know. I got a little caught up on my schedule, and my mom just had surgery so I really couldn't update...I hope you guys understand. :D This chapter is about the trip to Las Vegas in TLT and Annabeth said something about a centaur in a prom dress.
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Annabeth's POV
I scrambled into the Big House and nearly tripped. The front door slammed shut behind me. Across the room, Chiron was in his magic wheelchair, and Mr. D was sitting his stupid royal butt on a chair made of grapevines, the same decoration as the rest of the room. They were playing Pinochle. There was a satyr beside Mr. D shivering.
"Chiron I need to talk-"
"Child," Mr. D addressed. "Do you mind?"
"Excuse her, Mr. D." Chiron added helpfully. "I promised I'd speak with Annabeth earlier, but I suppose we must finish this round before."
Mr. D grunted, like he was pleased to have an excuse. They kept talking in card-language, which even I couldn't understand. I sat down on the couch and watched, trying to figure out how this game worked, anyway.
"I win!" Mr. D shouted happily. He looked around the room as if waiting for applause.
"No, Mr. D," Chiron said. "I believe it goes to me."
He looked down at the table and smirked. Then he turned back up at the poor defenseless satyr. "What do the children say these days, Cletus Oakland? Is it, 'Whatever'? Is that what the children say?"
"Y-yes, Mr. D."
"Then whatever, Chiron. Good game." Mr. D shook Chiron's hand grudgingly.
"I think I'll go take a nap," Mr. D said. He turned around and went to the back of the big house.
Chiron wheeled himself over, frowning. "What is it, Annabeth?"
I caught my breath and grinned. "I had a dream."
He smiled as if my life had finally amounted to something good. "What happened?"
I told him about my vision. It was all basically a blur, but I only told him what was clear to me: The boy, The Cyclops, The Labyrinth, The dragon. It had all seemed so real, like it was supposed to happen somehow. Chiron had been talking about a prophecy about me for the past two years, but he never gave me details. All I knew was that once some special person came to camp, I'd be allowed to go on a real quest. I swore I would pound that person to a pulp when they got to camp, just for not being around earlier.
"Interesting," Chiron stated, scratching his scruffy beard. "And you don't know anything else on the subject?"
I shook my head and stared at the floor. I was about to ask about my prophecy, but just then a desperate yell was heard across camp.
I stopped immediately, scared for what had just happened. Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn't have bothered. In this case I did though, because...well, I recognized the voice. It was Luke.
I didn't wait for a que from Chiron. I darted out the door screaming for my big brother.
Halfway over the hill, I was lifted into the air. Chiron set me onto his back and together we trotted into the commons area. Well, I didn't trot, but you know what I mean.
We reached the commons and I found a blinding sight and I wanted to cry.
Luke was on the sitting up against his cabin, sweating and out of breath. His leg was cut so badly that the blood...well, you probably don't want to know.
It was a really bad sight and I felt terrible for the pain Luke must've been going through. I leaned down next to him and examined the wound. But there was something wrong. The blood...it was too thick to be blood. And two of Luke's younger half-brothers, Travis and Connor Stoll, were trying not to smile.
"You're pranking him," I realized.
"Shhh!" they scolded. Chiron trotted away, going for nectar or ambrosia. When they were sure he was over the hill and out of sight, Travis turned to me.
"The Party Ponies are hosting a party here," he explained with a maniacal grin across his face, "and we're trying to distract Chiron long enough for them to actually get into the camp. Don't worry about Luke, its just ketchup."
"That's horrible," I concluded.
"That's fun! Just don't tell anyone, okay?" Then Chiron came back up the hill and Travis's gaze dropped to Luke's false wound, completely forgetting my presence.
"Chiron, it's bad. We need someone from Apollo. Err, do you mind?" He stared pleadingly at the centaur. If I were Chiron, I would've been persuaded. Stupid Hermes kids and their stupid, good, very convincing looks.
"Not at all," he replied, and scrambled off in a different direction. Connor Stoll nudged me. He wasn't as good as acting as Luke or Travis though. I figured that if his face cracked up anymore, it would shatter. He pointed over the hills, all the way up to the tallest one, Half-Blood Hill, where about twenty horse-men were struggling through the boundaries as fast as possible. They hurried into the Big House, which I doubted they could even get their heads through the doorframe, but apparently they spent a lot of their time cramming themselves into places even smaller than themselves. But I doubted Mr. D would like it.
"Do you see that, Wise Girl?" Luke asked while choking. "Why aren't you laughing?"
The truth was, I thought it was cruel. Thought something about it DID make me want to laugh out loud. Maybe it was Mr. D's soon-to-come reaction.
One centaur ran for the stables yelling, "Chiron? You in there?" and notched an arrow with boxer glove instead of an arrow.
The real Chiron came back from the Apollo cabin with Michael Yew, with an angry look on his face. But he always had an angry look on his face. He was my age, but it would've fooled me. That kid was the height of a kindergardener. But Anyway, Michael came up to us with a canteen of nectar and crouched down next to Luke. He was doing his best to look in pain.
"Chiron, there was an explosion at the climbing wall...might wanna go check it out."
He nodded and turned off the other way. Once he was out of sight, I finally cracked. Luke, Travis, and Connor joined in and Michael just stared at us blankly.
"You have ketchup on your leg," he noticed.
"Yeah, you're late," Connor replied. "The Party Ponies are coming to visit. We needed to create a distraction! Just play along!"
Mike grinned and nodded in excitement. Then he looked down at the ketchup and a disgusted look, even more disgusted than his usual look, replaced.
"I am not cleaning ketchup off of your leg, Luke. Sorry, but no."
Luke laughed even harder than he was already. A Demeter girl in the commons was staring at him with a nasty look on her face.
"That's okay, man. You think I would ask anybody if they can clean the ketchup off of my leg? That's just sick." He shook his head in disapproval.
Then I heard yelling. The very loud, pissed off kind that usually leaded to gun-downs and other stuff on CSI.
"OUT! ERRE ES CORAKAS! NA PARI I EYCHI! OUT, NOW!"
The centaurs in the Big House dashed outside like racing horses, chased by Mr. D.
Suddenly there was a strong scent of grapes. The sun tented purplish and something snapped. And in a gods awful French accent, a centaur yelled out, "LET'S DANCE!"
All the horse men grabbed a partner. Some started waltzing. Some were square dancing. They spread all over camp. Some campers were confused, while some simply forgot to be, and threw their heads up and laughed.
Luke turned to us. "Michael, you go get a cassette tape player from your cabin. Annabeth, you go get some of Chiron's old tapes."
"What about Mr. D?" I said.
"Oh...Right. Travis, you go instead."
He nodded and took off.
"Annabeth, you're the smartest. What else should we do?"
I blushed at the complement. "Uh, it's perfect."
He bit his lip to avoid laughing again. "We better get going before Chiron comes back."
As if on que, Chiron's voice yelled across the camp, "What- What I'd the meaning of this? Who did this?"
I would've probably sat there for a while, trying to make up an excuse, but before Chiron could see me Luke pulled me into the cabin.
"Woah-"
"What are you doing?" he whispered. "Are you asking to be seen?"
Luke was hot even when he was angry. It was so unfair. "Uh..."
He sighed. "It's fine. We're just going to move to someplace else and party. Alright?"
We exited the cabin and creeped around the edges. Then Luke abandoned me and started running around the commons, yelling, "PARTY!"
A few campers peaked their heads out of their cabins in curiosity. Then they all filed out and came over to follow Luke. Being the leader of Camp Half-Blood, I guess that was natural.
"The Party Ponies are here," he told them. "Go get everything you would want to have a wild time!"
A few Aphrodite girls screamed and yelled, "A dance!" they pointed to the mad centaurs, which were still under Mr. D's spell and dancing with each other. Mike and Travis were now setting up the cassette tape player.
"Well... We can have a dance instead," Luke said. "Do whatever. Just have a good time!
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Most of the demigods chose to have a dance. But Hermes didn't like that. They just ran around pranking people and jinxing people's drinks so that it blew up in their faces when they took a sip. They even invited me and Michael to help. Because we used Chiron's music, even he decided to join.
Later at night, Luke came up to me.
"Hey."
"Hi, Luke."
"Wanna dance?"
"Uhhh...What?"
He rolled his eyes in a friendly way. "Wanna dance?"
"Um...Yeahokayletsdance," I squealed.
I was glad to be tall for my age.
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