This is the first chapter with a song since chapter... One. I think. Hahaha. Enjoy lovely people! Thanks again for reading and reviewing. Feel free to PM me if you're confused or have suggestions, by the way. xoxoxo

Disclaimer: I can only wish that Percy Jackson were mine. Wait, I don't even wish that, because then it would end up like this:


I have absolutely no recollection of what Nico di Angelo played that night, but all I can remember was that it was abso-freakin'-lutely awesome.

Grover and Annabeth seemed to think the same. We and the crazy fan-people (because there were guys and lesbians and gays there, too) became almost one of thought and feeling, jumping up and down in time with the music. The cymbals crashed. The guitars screamed. The dude on the piano was rocking out so hard, I prayed to the gods that it wouldn't break. It was insane, nonsensical mayhem, and I loved it to the extreme.

Then suddenly, Annabeth was gone.

My heart skipped a beat when I looked to find her not there. I think that ever since I'd gotten lost in the mall when I was five (and seven... and ten.... and thirteen and fourteen), I've had issues with lost company. Some people say "loyal to a fault"; hey, I call it trauma. Head whipping around wildly, I searched the throng, but spotted only G-man a few feet away, where the current of this manic sea of people had dragged him.

I pushed my way over. "Grover!" I called, but he kept on dancing his little goat dances, oblivious. Clearing my throat, I yelled, louder, "G-MAN!"

Finally, he looked up, face drenched in sweat. "Hey, Perrrcy," he bleated happily. "Where's Annabeth?"

As I was explaining to him that I didn't know, his eyes grew wider and wider until I thought they'd fall right out of their sockets.

"Perrrrrcy!" he bleated again in alarm, and pointed.

"Annabeth?"

I didn't say that. Nico did, into his almighty broadcast-everywhere microphone. Turning, I found one of the stage hands pulling a curly blonde girl onto the stage, as directed by Nico.

No.

"Hey, look, everyone!" Nico said happily. "This is my friend, Annabeth!"

Annabeth just smiled, high as a kite on Di Angelo's music, and continued to bob up and down as Nico finished off the show with a zingy, dangerously electric solo on his guitar. With the final chord, the lights all around us exploded, plunging the world into darkness.

"GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!"

Grover and I shared a look in the semi-darkness. He jumped when suddenly, a stagehand tapped him on the shoulder.

I stared. The stagehand wasn't human, at least not presently. She was pretty transparent, and I mean this literally. Through her face, I could see the fan-people behind her still screaming in excitement, which was weird, because the show had already ended.

"Mr. di Angelo instructed me to come and get you, Mr. Underwood and Mr. Jackson," she said in a slightly raspy, hasn't-been-used-in-a-while voice. "Your companion, Ms. Chase, is with us already."

Another shared look between me and Grover. "Uh, sure," I replied. "Show us the way."


The sleek black limo dropped G-man and I off at the hotel shortly after ten. We followed the stagehand into the elevator that took us to the penthouse floor, but when we got there, she didn't go out with us.

"I must return to the Underworld, else my form will dissipate altogether," she explained, holding the door open button.

"Eh, good to know," Grover muttered. "Good night."

She nodded to us once as the doors closed on her, leaving me and Grover all alone in the hallway. The signs on the wall guided us to set of suites the band Di Angelo had booked, and soon we were standing in front of the room that the undead stagehand had told us was Nico's.

"So Nico's in there," I said to Grover.

"Yep," he replied, nodding slowly.

"Do we really wanna knock?"

"Yep."

"Do we really wanna go in?"

"Yep."

"Have a nice bath, and a shower?"

"Yep."

"Do we really wanna--"

"Percy, just open the door already!"

I must admit, I jumped a little at that, and fumbled around with the key card a long while before I finally slid it into the slot. The light on knob turned green, and G-man and I pushed inside.

We were met with the absolute definition of luxury. Creme drapes, lush Persian carpets, marble floors and elegant light fixtures and a wooden floor molding, not to mention this huge as hell plasma screen TV! Our mouths hung open as we took this all in, and soon, I had taken off my shoes and socks and was dancing around on the cold, Cold-Stone-vanilla-ice cream colored floor. Grover kicked off his fake feet and ran over to inspect the view from the all glass wall on one side.

"Like it?" someone said. I looked to find Nico di Angelo himself smiling at me. His dark hair was wet, and he was wearing his pyjamas under a bathrobe bearing the hotel's emblem. Fresh outta the shower.

"Like it? Like it?! Nico, dude, this is crazy!" I cried, throwing my hands up in the air and waving them around wildly to emphasize my point.

"Ants," Grover said bemusedly, "The people look like ants."

Nico grinned even wider. "Glad you do. Now, Elvis insisted on making us some dinner, so until he's done you have to tell me everything that's happened."

"Awesome," I said, plopping down onto the sofa with him. I caught him up on everything that's happened since our big Half-Blood Melody number at Camp. He listened well for a 12-year-old, ADHD kid and didn't ask a single question until the end.

"So that's what happened," he mused to himself. Looking to me, he asked, "So are all demigods affected?"

Nodding, I answered, "Annabeth thinks all the demigods who've been to camp. Luke went all High School Musical on me, and Gabriella mentioned something about bursting into song as well."

At this, he looked thoughtful. "Does it matter who gets the record, then?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, startled.

"I mean, if every demigod is affected, then it shouldn't matter who finds the theme song so long as it gets us to stop singing."

I paused, thinking through my answer. "Well, that might be true, but I'm afraid that the demigod savior can't be Luke. He seems severely distraught by the unmanliness of bursting into Disney songs. He feels bad about suffering, and to make himself feel better he'd make us suffer more. By this, I mean, if he manages to get the record and cure himself first, I doubt he would share, due to the fact as a child he never felt loved by his godly parent, which then paved the way to his current sadistic ways."

Nico, Grover, and now Annabeth, who'd just come out from the bathroom wearing a PJ set identical to Nico's, gaped at me as if I had brought Shamoo back from the dead.

"Hey," I told them, wagging a finger. "I'm not just a pretty face, you know."

The continued gaping so much that I felt compelled to add, "But I am still pretty, right? Right?"

Silence.

Annabeth giggled out of the blue. "Of course you are!"

Cocking his head sideways, Nico asked, "Annabeth, are you high?"

"Psh, NO!" Annabeth said vehemently, but followed that with a giggle and, "Hey, look at my hands. How weird are my hands?"

Nico heaved a sigh. "Wait right here," he breathed, and stalked into the bedroom.

Grover took Annabeth by the shoulders and sat her down next to me on the sofa. She giggled and poked my shoulder, which really freaked me out.

"Lennon!" I heard Nico call. "We have guests, man, and they're inhaling that stuff!"

"Oh, sorry," a British accent replied. "I guess I should head off. Getting late, you know."

"'Night, man," said Nico.

A man with round spectacles exited the bedroom just then, looking very, very familiar. With his hair cut short and his beard overflowing, it took a long time before it finally dawned on me.

Annabeth said it before I could. "Hey, you're John Lennon!"

John Lennon smiled. "Hey, Nico, this one knows me!"

"Sure I do!" laughed Annabeth. "Beatlemania for-EVER!" She then held out her hand for John Lennon to slap a high-five with her. He did.

"Got that right! My, my, are you high," he mused. "Sorry 'bout the smoke, poppet, I didn't realize Nico'd gone out and you'd gone in." In a conspiratorial whisper he added, "That kid doesn't mind a little weed once in a while."

"Get outta here, John!" Nico laughed.

"Ah, well, tomorrow then, if ever!" said John. He winked at me and Grover and began walking to the door.

"I don't mind a little weed either," Annabeth called to him. He let out one last jovial laugh, stepped out the door and then... disappeared.

Just then, another man came out of the mini-kitchen, bearing a plate of sandwiches. This one, I recognized much easier, because despite the changed hairstyle, that was a face everyone knew.

"Elvis Presley," I breathed.
He looked at me and smiled a glaring white smile. "Hey, kiddo," he greeted. Then he turned to Nico. "John's left now, has he? I guess Beety and I should get going."

Nodding, Nico took the plate from Elvis. "See you soon."

Elvis stuck his head back into the kitchen and screamed, "Hey, hey, you! Ja, you! We have to go. No, no. We—Have—To--Go. Yes. Go. Vamoose. Andale."

Finally, he emerged from the kitchen with his companion, the band's pianist. The other man a shock of hair on his head and a receding hairline, who Annabeth instantly put a name to.

"Ludwig van Beethoven," she smiled.

"I'll tell him later that you recognized him. It'll take ages right now; the poor fellow's deaf," said Elvis apologetically. "Real swell show we had to night, Nico!"

"You bet! Thanks for dinner!" Nico smiled as both Elvis and Beethoven walked out the door, then... poof.

We sat there, silent, as we pondered Nico's band-mates. Very quietly, Grover said, "Where's your drummer?"

"Right here," said a voice behind us. Grover jumped about three feet out of his seat. Looking, I saw that it was just a small boy with a mop of curly brown hair, whom I knew I've seen a few times... somewhere.

He grabbed a sandwich from Nico. "A fried peanut-butter banana sandwich," he said in the cutest Elvis imitation I've ever heard. This kid made me want to put him in my closet and have him sing me lullabies at night. "'Night, Nics, see ya in the morning."

"Later, Frankie," said Nico as the child stepped out the door. The kid stood there for a while and...

Whirling on us, he said, "Ha! I bet you thought I'd disappear too! Well, guess what? I'm alive!" he squealed, before stepping simply into the room across the hall, laughing like a little maniac.

Silence.

"Frankie Jonas, the bonus Jonas," I heard Grover whisper, as if Frankie's presence had awed him most of all.

"Well..." Nico said, setting the plate down in front of us. Without a second to lose, we grabbed the sandwiches and bit in gratefully. Nico sat down on one of the armchairs around the coffee table with his own dinner.
"I guess I owe you guys an explanation."


Annabeth was asleep by now, and Grover was busy using the VAIO that Nico had purchased with the money he'd made from his headlining American tour. I glanced at my little cousin as he watched TV with rapt attention next to me.

"You're trying to disprove my theory," Nico said without looking away from the screen.

Slightly creeped out, I shifted in my seat. "Yeah... I mean, Nico, if we really did inherit musical superpowers, then what's mine and Annabeth's? Or Beckendorf's? Or Silena's?"

From over at the computer, Grover piped up, "Annabeth's is her singing voice. She doesn't have one, really."

Nico nodded. "She sounded pretty sweet in the shower."

The shower... Annabeth... soap suds... like a commercial, I imagined the steam rising around her and then the camera panning down... lower...

I shook the image out of my head as Nico continued on. "I mean, how else could I have gotten so good at guitar? I never even considered picking one up before!"

"I guess it's true, then," I said with a nod. "But why don't I get one?"

"You have that creepy little voice in your head," Grover quipped. "I hear it over the empathy link."

"No, no, Percy's just crazy," said Nico dismissively, shaking his head. I didn't even defend myself anymore. "Anyway, Percy, please let me go with you!"

"No."

"Please! It's my birthday, tomorrow, you know," he warned.

Grover turned to us. "Uh, according to your Facebook fan page, no it's NOT."

Nico looked perplexed. "What are you doing on my fan page? Background checking me?"

"Pfft, no. I'm joining."

Putting on my best all business look, I turned to Nico. The kid was all smiles and ego. When he saw me, he flinched suddenly and said, "Hey, are you okay? You look like you're about to have a stroke!"

"Nico, you can't come because Luke is there and he's an asshole," I said finally when I'd fixed my face. I said this all rushed and hurriedly because I could feel that tug in my gut again... like, a song coming on. Oh no.

Nico began strumming on his acoustic guitar idly. "Why do you hate Luke so much, Percy?"

"I-" I stammered. "I... I.... SHAH!"

The kid's strumming began to take on a tune, one which I remembered from the radio. If I was right [which doesn't happen often, except when it comes to knowing who's leaving Idol the next week (except for the time when Chris Daughtry left. Man, that was crazy!)] the song was 7 Things, by Miley Cyrus herself.

Percy:

SHAH...! SHAH...! SHAH...!

I probably shouldn't say this...

You know, at times I get so scared

Of what Annabeth would do to me

If she ever heard

Tried to delete it from my mind

But best believe it, life ain't kind

Oh when it comes... To Luke.

The Seven things I hate about Luke!

His smile, his smirk, how he's such a jerk

Just drives me so berserk!

How first he was good, and now he's bad,

It makes me so insanely mad.

That's only four,

But I can think of more,

Like all the hurt

I used to think he was really coo-ool.

And the final thing, I hate the most about Luke:

Annabeth thinks he's cute.

Grover and Nico:

Ooooh, oooh, ooohh... oooh, ooohh, ooohhh

Sha la la

Ooooh, ooh, oohh... ooh, ooohh, ooohhh

...SHA!

Nico brought the song to a finish with some dramatic, slow, small strums on his guitar, and Grover with some jazz-hands. I laid back on the couch, tired and listless and frustrated at how unfair it was that I had to go through all this unmanliness.

Sighing I said, "You can come, Nico."

He pumped his fists in the air and settled back beside me as a rerun of the E! News came on.

"Today we have big news regarding your favorite Disney star," Guilliana Rancic said, the same way one would say, "Well, Edward, I know who Bella's lover is." On the TV, a clip showed up of a Toyota Vios with a huge crack in its windshield. It looked as if it were right outside the place where Nico had his concert.

"Oh, goodie, I hope Selena Gomez did that!" Nico whispered excitedly.

"High School Musical lead, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, was arrested today for--"

Nico switched the channel with a "Meh."

Vanessa Anne Hudgens... Where have I heard that name before? I thought, sleepy. Blearily, I heard Grover and Nico's small exclamation of delight, followed by, "That's what you missed last week on GLEE."

"Oh, Percy." Looks like Nico remembered something. "I know where Corbin Bleu lives down in L.A. You think we can get a plane to there tomorrow?"

I mumbled something and turned over, asleep. It was only in the morning, when Nico would repeat this information to Annabeth and Grover, that I would look at him and debate with myself whether to slap the kid or to buy him an ice cream.