Well, last chapter was so long, I decided to make this one shorter! Just kidding. But really, this one is way shorter than the last, I couldn't really decide what else to put in it. And I have an announcement for all of my dedicated readers! So, as you all know, I only update my stories on the weekends. Now, I will not be uploading any chapter for any of my stories for two weeks. So that means no chapter next weekend and same with the weekend after that. Why? You ask. Well, I've tried really hard to get one chapter on every week (which may not seem like much compared to other people. But hey! I work the hardest on this story) and so I'm taking a little vacation from writing. My other reason is that sometime in the next two weeks I will be heading off to camp. Church camp, not Camp Half-Blood, though I wish... So anyway, please do enjoy this chapter as much as you can, because I'm not updating again till July.

Oh, and to answer the question from bookworm178040, I didn't make Ethan join Kronos for two resons: One, because that wouldn't corospond with the books, and two, it wouldn't make for a very intresting story. Remember, this story follows the books, and I want it to be intresting!

Disclaimer: No, I don't own PJO

Chapter Nine- Surrounded

We walked for days, and all we saw was the occasional gas station. Again. And it was kind of strange, because at the last station we stopped at, the man behind the counter looked exactly like the one before.

"Um, didn't we just see you at the last gas station miles back down the road?" Levi asked the man.

He just shook his head. "Sorry, sonny, but ya must 'ave me confused wi' someone else. Ta summer heat'll mess wi' yer mind." He circled a crooked finger around his ear.

"Um, okay, thanks, I guess." Levi replied. We tried to get out of there as fast as we could.

But anyway, this whole 'nothing but a few gas stations' business made us all nervous, for one reason or another. We also ran into a few monsters, but nothing too bad. And little did we know, the first real challenge of our journey lied right around the corner.


We saw the green sign from quite far away. When we finally reached it, it read in those big white reflective letters with an arrow underneath: NEW YORK CITY 105 MILES.

"A hundred and five miles!" Levi exclaimed. "I could've sworn that we would've been closer by now."

Ethan sighed. "Well at least we know how far away we are now. And now we've got conformation that we're going in the right direction."

"Yeah, 'cause if we were going in the wrong direction," Harley put in. "That would really suck."

Ethan looked around at us. "How are we all doing?"

"Well," Levi started to complain. "My back hurts and I haven't sat or slept on a real cushion for days."

I have to admit, I was really longing for something more comfortable than the ground, too.

Ethan was about to say something to his remark when Harley gasped and pointed. "I don't remember seeing that just a second ago."

"Wha—" Ethan turned around and so did Levi and I.

A building now stood about ten yards behind the green mile sign. In loopy red neon letters was the word DINER. An OPEN sign hung in the glass door. The building was shaped like a regular '50s dinner and rectangle windows led along the shiny tin walls that peered into the store. There were classic black and white checkered tiles and a pastel pink counter. Fluorescent tube lights with glowing neon colors raced across the wall near the ceiling and there were outlines of people eating inside.

"Oh man," Levi whimpered. "I could really use a good rest."

"Um, I'm not sure that this place is such a good idea." I tried to say, remembering some warning an older camper said about quests. 'You don't want to go into any places that either seem too good to be true, or too convenient to your needs. Especially in the middle of nowhere.' Or something like that.

But Levi wasn't giving up on going in and resting, and Ethan and Harley seemed to lean with him. I finally gave up and said fine, so we all headed in.

The first thing that hit me was the people. A ton of burly men with tattoos filled the place, and their faces… some of them looked crude, like they were badly chiseled out of stone. Then some of them looked like their faces were made of wet mud, no real distinct facial features. I shivered, and the only other person who seemed to be bothered by them also was Harley, but she looked as if she was trying to dismiss it.

We sat down at a booth, which, by the way, was really comfy. We sank down into our chairs and just enjoyed the comfort of real cushions. We threw are packs at the back of the table next to the window. And the air… it smelled of wonderful things, like cooking hamburgers and French fries.

A waitress came by our table, wearing one of those pink and white striped dresses and a spotless white apron. Her salt-and-pepper hair was tied back into a bun, and she had on little pointy glasses. She just looked like any typical dinky diner type waitress, chewing gum in the side of her mouth and everything. But her eyes… they were stormy grey, and they reminded me of someone else, I just couldn't place who.

I didn't think much of her, but the twins apparently did. They stared at her with an expression on their faces—a mix between terror and amazement—and they didn't speak when she asked for our orders.

"Um, ma'am," Ethan started. "Is it fine if we just sit here for a minute? We've been traveling an awful long way, and we just need a good place to rest."

"Hmm…" The lady pondered this. "A good place to rest, eh? This ain't a very good place, then." She had a heavy Southern accent, but her voice dripped with intelligence.

I was afraid she was going to kick us out, but she just nodded and walked back to the kitchen. The men in the other booths stuck out their feet to trip her, or threw French fries—which looked disturbingly like fingers, but I knew my mind was just playing tricks on me—at her as they jeered. I felt somewhat bad for the waitress, but she just ignored them.

"What was that all about?" I asked the twins once the lady was gone.

That seemed to shake them out of their trances. "Oh, she just, uh… you know, reminded me of someone we used to know." Harley replied quietly.

"Oh, okay."

We sat there for minutes, just resting our muscles. Eventually the waitress came back, and handed Levi what appeared to be a folded business card. She looked just a little more urgent this time, and her voice was tight. "You need to go now,"

"What is this?" Levi asked, holding up the paper.

"You'll know when the time comes. But you must go now, little heroes." She gestured around the room, as if trying to silently warn us of something bad. There was a hint of stress in her voice, but otherwise, she seemed calm.

Just then, all the men stood up, their eyes on us. Wait. Some of them had their eye on us. With a shock, I realized we had walked into a trap. Some of the other men grew as they stood up, their heads rubbing against the ceiling. One of them smiled wickedly at us, baring his sharp teeth.

"I think we better go, like she said." Harley squeaked. We turned back around, but the strange lady was no longer there. And thankfully, we were right next to the door. As quick as lightning, we dashed out into the fresh night air. Wait a second. Night air? We walked into the monster diner sometime mid-afternoon.

I heard Harley mumble "Oh gods, how long were we in there?"

I was about to comment on that when I heard a voice in my head that sounded a lot like the waitress. It whispered "You have my blessing, heroes, now run!"

Ethan had a puzzled expression on his face, and Levi asked "Did you hear that?"

We nodded. "Well, I don't think this is the right time to be debating weird voices." Harley pointed at the door, where the monsters were trying to get out, but the giants were backing them up, trying to squeeze out of the door. "Run!"

We started running as fast as we could. I heard a crashing sound and pieces of ruble flew over our heads. I dared to take a peek behind my shoulder, and what I saw was not good. One of the giants crushed right through the door, leaving a huge person-shaped hole. His other fellow giant friends and cyclopeses poured out the door, swarming their way towards us.

"What are those things?" Levi asked shakily.

"Those are cyclopeses. Duh." Harley made a face at her brother. "And the others… they're some sort of cannibal giants, I think Lakegronians or something?"

"Laistrygonians," Ethan corrected. "But I don't think now is the time to be debating monsters, we need to book it!"

It was true, the monsters were gaining on us, and we were gasping for air. Sure, we went on hikes all the time back at camp, jogging through rough terrain. But now we were running for our lives through a gods forsaken forest, which I have no idea why we picked to go back through the thick trees. One, we could get lost, two, who knows what monsters may be lurking in here? And, right as I thought about 'other monsters', two giant hellhounds errupted out of the ground and started running alongside of us.

I heard Levi mumble something like, "I'm not going to fail to a stupid, over-grown mutt… again." He pulled out his bow and notched an arrow as we ran, taking one of the hounds out. But then he tripped over a rock slightly and dropped his bow as he regained his footing. He cursed as he looked back at his weapon which was now lying on the ground.

We still had another hound to get rid of. Ethan threw his sword at it, but missed. "I'll get that later," He grumbled. But we might not have a later, I thought. And by my friends' expressions, they were probably thinking the same thing.

My chest hurt, the darkness blinded us, and the rest of the monsters were almost to the point where they could snatch us up and tear us to shreds. "I think… that… we should stop… and defend ourselves…" I breathed heavily.

"With… what…?" Ethan asked.

"Um, use the extra… knives we… we brought…" But with a shock, I realized that we had left our packs at that cursed diner.

Ethan cursed. "Great… now we're… going to die…" But he stopped and breathed heavily. "Hold your ground!"

Levi pulled two arrows out of his quiver which still hung on his back, and prepared to use them like mini spears and passed one to Ethan. We stood firmly, weapons drawn, and prepared for death. The monsters stopped and circled around us as they snarled and laughed. One of the giants smiled viciously. "You puny demigods think you can hold us back? You are fools! I shall eat well tonight!"

"What do you mean you?" A cyclopes asked. "You should mean me."

All the monsters started arguing at once about who would get to eat who, and this gave us some time to breathe. We still held our weapons at ready, just in case they were to resolve their issues.

"Maybe we could just walk away without them noticing." Levi whispered.

"They're circled all around us, that won't work. They're not that stupid." Harley argued.

Levi raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? For Zeus's sake, they're arguing about who gets to eat us!"

"Okay, whatever, but we need a distraction." We all looked at Levi.

"Uh, no."

"Uh, yes." I replied.


After a few minutes of debating, we pushed him into the middle of the group. He yelped, and they all looked at him. "What do you want, puny mortal?" One of the cyclposes looked down at him.

Levi looked back and gave us the evil eye, then turned back around. "If you nice monsters are going to eat us, can we at least pick who gets the honor?"

The monsters seemed to debate this. "Okay, puny mortal, pick."

"Stop calling me that! I mean, I want you to ever so graciously eat me." He pointed at a random giant.

Just like our plan, the other monsters jumped on the Laistrygonian and started attacking him. He quickly turned to dust. "If someone is going to eat you, it will be me!" Another bellowed, reaching out to snatch up our friend, but he jumped out of the way. Unfortunately, his claw-like fingernails racked across Levi's chest. He cried out in pain and Harley reached out to catch him.

"I'm fine," he gritted his teeth as he steadied himself.

The monster circle tightened around us, as if they could sense we were going to try to escape. A lump formed in my throat. This was just like that night I lost Scarlet. We were surrounded by hungry monsters, but at least this time we were somewhat prepared. Sort of.

And to make things worse, Harley said almost exactly the same thing Nik said that night. "Guys, if this really is goodbye, just know that you were really good friends to me."

We muttered in agreement. A hot tear rolled down my cheek and we charged.

A/N: Ooh, first cliffie of the story! I have some big plans for upcoming chapters, so be prepared!