Alright here's the next chapter. I'd like to say thanks to the reviewers (you know who you are.) for encouragement, so Thank you. If you want, (you have to tell me, I wont just assume.) I'll put previews of future chapters in the ones that I post. (If you can make any sense out of that.) Mistake alert!: Chapter: I told you so: I laid there for a while facing the wall.

Torture classes are before lunch

Percy POV

San Francisco was just like I remembered it. Hot, humid, railroads in the street, and black fog around Mt. Tamalpias. Only this time the fog was ten times thicker. "We need to find the recruiter." I said.

"I think I know were he is." Annabeth said

"How?"

"I've seen someone ushering people over the bridge at sunset. Always two or three people."

"Okay, were do we find him now?"

"I don't know, why don't we just approach at sunset?"

"Okay, hopefully he's not just a tourist, or a homeless person."

"Let's go." She said. As we started to walk to the bridge, a good two or three miles to the left of where the bus dropped us off. After a few steps I looked at my watch, 6:43.

"Uh, Amy?"

"Ya?"

"Are we just…going to sit at the bridge all day?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well the only time we can get to the garden in at sunset, right?"

"Ya, so?"

"It's 6:45 in the morning! I don't want to sit on a bridge all day!"

"We weren't going to. We're going to find something to do near the bridge."

"So…what are we going to do?"

"We're going to look for something to do." Gods, I thought. Annabeth Chase doesn't have a plan.

"You mean you don't have a plan?" I teased. She blushed, and suddenly became very interested in the sidewalk.

"Uh…of course I do."

"No you don't."

"Shut up." She growled. I smiled. She'd got me good with the sinking ship, I'd just evened the score. We walked by a few stores. I only remembered because I saw a sign that was ridiculous it took me a few minutes to decipher it, but it was worth it. It said: Bubba's Hair and Furniture. But that wasn't the funny part, it was the slogan that was ridiculous: Get your hair cut on a freshly made antique! As far as I know, antiques were supposed to be really old. While I thought about that, Annabeth kept staring at the walkway.

"So…" I said, trying to break the silence.

"Mike, your…your dream, the one before…the one from camp." She couldn't say before Kronos came back.

"Ya? What about it?"

"Did you…leave anything out?" I thought for a second, Should I tell her? No…I can't. It'd be waaay too awkward.

"No," I lied. I hoped I sounded convincing. She looked at me skeptically.

"Are you sure?"

"…Yes." She studied me for a minute, shrugged, as if she'd given up, and went back to looking at the sidewalk. A green Chevy Avalanche zoomed past us, honking loudly playing really loud country music (Brooks & Dunn I think) with a long haired driver with a goatee that had a crazed look. There was a wolf in the bed, barking up a storm. A few seconds later a California State Cop shot by, with a PO'd cop and a super loud siren. Why do they always run? I thought. They'll just show up at your house, track you, or outnumber you. Either way you're caught and you get an extra fine for running. And what's with the wolf? I looked over at Annabeth who was wide eyed.

"Weird huh?" I said. "I wonder where he got the wolf."

"Per—Mike, did I just see what I think I just saw?"

"You mean the crazy guy in the Avalanche with a wolf?"

"Mike? Was that a Maine Timber wolf?"

"I thought they evicted wolves from Maine?"

"No animal can be a hundred percent evicted from anywhere, Mike, they're still there, just in smaller number."

"So, what if it was?"

"Then I think our chances of winning the war have been hugely improved."

"Some crazy guy with an angry wolf is going to help us?"

"I don't know if that was him Mike, but if it was…"

"Who!"

"Almost nobody knows his name Mike, but…"

"Alright, what's so good about him than?"

"I need to think Pe—Mike." And she stopped talking and kept studying the sidewalk. I wondered who the guy was, and how he could help. But I'd learned that over the years, even a pink poodle can help you. So, if Annabeth was right, whoever Crazy Goatee Guy was, he'd help us.

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I watched Annabeth win again. We were at an arcade, playing Pac-Man. She advanced to level 231 with all of her lives. I assumed being a daughter of Athena helped. "You're pretty good." I said.

"Thanks, but it's simple math. You see the red one, he takes the shortest way, the blue one, he's a strategist, th—"

"Just take the compliment!" I interrupted.

"Fine," she smiled. "Thank you."

"I'm going to go play pinball okay?"

"Ya, what time is it?" I looked at my watch.

"3:57."

"Alright, we're going to need to eat before we go, so meet me here at 5:30."

"Okay, where do you want to go?"

"Somewhere quick, it's gotta be good though."

"Burger King?"

"Sounds good enough."

"It's a date then." Oh, damn, that didn't sound right. Annabeth smiled, and went back to her game. Good, she understood what I meant. I went over to the pinball machine, and started to play.

——————————————

An hour and a half, fifty-two quarters and a milkshake later. I walked up to Annabeth. "Ready to go?" I said. Nothing's more relaxing than a day at the arcade, playing some games and eating junk-food.

"Ya. Burger King?"

"Sure, money count?"

"How much did you spend?"

"Fifteen bucks."

"We have…" she took a second to do the math in her head. "three hundred twenty-five dollars."

"That's allot."

"No kidding."

"Let's go spend some then." And we walked out of Jimmy's Game Palace, and started toward the BK that was just across the street. Once inside the aroma of hamburgers, fries, bacon and cheese hit my face. I love it here. We stood in line to order.

"Amy,"

"Ya?" she turned her head to look at me.

"Why don't you go find us a seat, I'll order. What do you want?" She stared at the menu for a second and said.

"A Whopper Jr."

"That it?"

"Mike, do you know how bad fast food is for you?"

"Okay, I get the point. Go, get us a booth, their chairs are too hard."

"Alright." She walked away. The fat guy in front of me left with his tray big enough to feed twenty armies breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and midnight snacks for fifteen years! "Can I help you?" said the happy lady at the counter. I noticed she was breathtakingly beautiful.

"Ya, I'll have a whopper jr. and a double stacker."

"The meals or just the sandwiches Percy?" Wait, I'd never told her my name, and if I had it would have been Mike. Something was wrong, but I decided to play along.

"The meals please." After a few minutes of waiting she handed me a tray with my and Annabeth's meals on it.

"Here you go." she said.

"How much?"

"On the house, now why don't you and Annabeth go eat your dinner. You look good together." It took me a second, but I realized.

"Aphrodite?" I whispered, shocked.

"Yes, dear?"

"What…what are you doing here Ma'am?"

"Oh, just checking in on my latest work."

"What do you mean?"

"Go eat dear. Your food will get cold."

"Um, thanks." I said, as I walked away. I got to the tables and started to look for Annabeth. She waved so I could see her, she was sitting at a booth by a window. It had a perfect view of the bridge, and the early sunset. I walked over to the table and set the tray down.

"What do you want for a drink?" I said.

"Um…Diet Coke?"

"Alright." I walked over to the soda fountain and put her cup under the Diet Coke and mine under the Mountain Dew. I grabbed some straws and headed back to the table. Annabeth had already unwrapped both of our burgers and separated the fries. She'd taken a few bites out of her burger and had a couple fries in her hand.

"Here you go, Amy." I said.

"Thank you, Mike." The whole time we ate I wondered why Aphrodite was here.

——————————————

The sunset shown across the ocean, turing it a sharp orange. Me and Annabeth sat on the sidewalk just before the bridge waiting for Mr. Recruiter-man. "Amy, what time does he usually show up?"

"I don't know! What, you think I'm a clock?"

"Well you said you normally see him so…"

"That doesn't mean I know everything about him!"

"Sorry." A few minutes later, we saw a guy with black hair and a leather jacket He looked around his mid-twenties. He was ushering a couple of nervous looking guys. As he walked by us I grabbed his right shoulder and turned him to us.

"Hey," I said, hoping this was the guy.

"What." he said angrily.

"Do we speak to you?"

"About what."

"Joining up."

"Joining what?"

"The fight." His eyes drifted from side to side, making sure no one but me and Annabeth were within earshot.

"Demigods?"

"Ya, but we ain't proud of it."

"You want to join?"

"That's why we're talking." He frowned.

"How did you know you had to talk to me? Or even who I was."

"Deductive reasoning." He turned to look at Annabeth. As if I didn't even know what I was talking about.

"Daughter of Athena?" Time to get into character. I thought.

"That's what he told me. Am I?" said Annabeth.

"You certainly look like one, but there's an easy test."

"What is it!" Annabeth feigned anxiousness. He thought for a minute.

"You have one minute to give me the answer to this okay?"

"Ya." she said.

"What's 3% of 50•43?"

"Um…" She thought about it for a second "64.5?"

"Yup, daughter of Athena. You'll do us some good, we need more strategists." He turned to me. "What about you?"

"Son of Hermes."

"How do you know?"

"I went to Camp Half-Blood, Worst two years of my life, although robbing their store before I left was pretty fun."

"What can you contribute?"

"Another skilled blade on your side, and one less on theirs."

"Good point." He backed up and studied us. Then he grunted in approval. "Follow me!" He said to all of us. And we started to cross the bridge.

"Where's your sword? A half-blood that goes cross-country needs a weapon." He said. Uh, oh. I didn't think of this! I can't use Riptide.

"Broke in half, it's in a junk yard in Vegas." I lied. Please buy it…

"Well then, we're gonna need to get you a new one."

"Good,"

"Where's hers?" Annabeth slipped her hand into her jacket and grabbed her knife from her sleeve. Then she took it out.

"Nice dagger. Where'd you get it?"

"I took it from the Camp armory as a back-up, gave it to her when I found her." I told him.

"Found her?"

"She was homeless, wandering around Queens."

"Huh," We stepped back on the ground on the other side if the bridge. I could se the Hesperaids, the Nymphs of the sunset. In the far distance I could see the apple tree, and the big dragon guarding it.

"This way, rooks." said the guy. We followed him down a winding path through a thin line of trees to a beach, and there, sat a cruise ship. The Princess Andromeda was docked with a ramp, a couple of big-muscled guards in greek battle armor stood at the top. Once we reached the top, the guard on the left stopped us.

"Rooks?"

"Yup." said recruiter-man.

"Big catch today."

"Phil, I'll tell you about it later, I need to get them signed up and to their quarters."

"Right" And with that The Recruiter lead us to a big room, just under the maine deck. It had five lights. One in each corner and a big one in the center. Somehow there was grass in here. There was a row of beds along the right wall next to a door, which I assumed was the bathroom."Well, get used to this room. The next couple days you'll be in here getting basic training. Then you'll join your classes in the normal training." said Mr. Recruiter-Dude.

One of the guys he picked up before us spoke. "What's the normal training consist of?"

"Well you have you're daily classes, Sword-fighting, hand-to-hand combat, battle planning, and how to fix yourself during a battle. Then you have the four classes that will rotate, you'll have two of those a day. Let's say on Monday you have armor and weapon forging, which actually when you think about it is providing for the army, not a class. Then you'll have team fighting, which will teach you to cooperate with people in battle. Then on Tuesday you'd have Monster pros and cons, so you can back-up the monsters you fight with in battle. The last one is torture, in those classes you'll torture people to learn how, and get information for Lord Kronos, it's also how you'll be punished if you disobey. Any more questions?"

"Ya," I said horrified at torturing my friends. "What's basic training then?"

"That'll get you basic training for fighting and resisting pain. Alright, we'll see you in the morning so you can pledge yourselves and start your training." With that he walked out. Me and Annabeth chose the two closest beds. I got the first one, and she got the second. I took off my pack and my shirt. I'll wear these jeans tomorrow, I thought. they'll probably wake us up real early. I don't want to wast energy.

Annabeth came out of the bathroom, she'd taken off her jacket, but traded her jeans for my shorts. Then one of the guys we came in with, he had a buzz cut, said. "You ready for light-out?"

"Put 'em out." I said, then buzz cut guy flicked a switch and we were in the dark. I climbed into bed and pulled the thin blanket over me. I laid on my right side, watching Annabeth's dark figure get into bed. Well, I thought. we're on. At least the hardest part's over. But even as I thought it I had a feeling I was wrong.

Annabeth POV

"Hey! Get up rooks!" said a gruff angry voice. I rolled, and looked up. A big African-American guy with a flat-top haircut was standing in the middle of the room. He was wearing a white tank-top and camo carharts. And he looked impatient. Kind of like Samuel L. Jackson. With allot of moaning everyone got up. "Get dressed and stand at attention!" He seemed to notice me for the first time. "Except you miss, you change in the bathroom if you want."

"Thanks." I mumbled as I grabbed my gross jeans and my leather jacket. I walked to the bathroom while I did so, I heard the Drill Sergeant yell at the guys for being the saddest bunch of recruits he'd ever seen. After I'd changed I left the bathroom and the man was forcing them to do one-armed push-ups, with their non-dominate hands. He turned to me.

"Get in line! Drop and give me fifty!" He had a strong Texan accent. I'd gotten to eighteen before another man came in.

"Sergeant Sanders! What are you doing." Yelled the new man.

"Training the rooks Lieutenant Miller, sir!"

"Did you, by chance even have them pledge yet?"

"Well, uh…no, sir, I forgot."

"I don't want excuses Sergeant! I want results! That's the same thing you did to the last batch of noobs."

"Sir! Yes, Sir!"

"Now Sanders I want you to get them to pledge, start with pain resistance after, then swordsmanship!"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Good, I have to go now. Lord Kronos sends his greetings to the rooks." With that Lt. Miller walked out. The next few days are going to be Hell. I thought, as I got to thirty-four.

Like I said, if you want me to add previews to current chapters, tell me, and I'll start doing it on the next chapter. Have a good weekend.