Chapter 7-

I wake up early the next morning, by my standards. Yet all of the Apollo cabin, my 'Brothers and sisters' had already left. I strip off all my clothes and put on an orange camp t-shirt, and then pulled on a pair of black jeans. After putting on a pair of white socks and my converse, I make sure my rings is still on, and I had my pocket knife-sword in my pocket. After pulled my hair back into a ponytail, I walk outside, towards the big house, hoping to find Zach or Stefani.

I met up with Stefani on the porch, which had three backpacks, which I'm guessing is one for each of us. "Hey Stefani, what's in the bags?" I ask her.

She was dressed nicely, an orange camp t shirt with a black vest over it, and a pair of black denim short shorts that showed off her curves nicely. She also had blue and black striped socks about knee high, and a pair of black vans. "Oh, just supplies for the three of us, and extra clothing. Just in case. Also, some mortal money." She replied, and I nodded and walked inside.

Inside, Zach was sitting in a chair, having a nice breakfast with Chiron. Without asking, I sit down to join them, and drink the rest of Zach's orange juice, and took a big bite out of his current waffle. When he sighed, I just patted his hand, and finished the rest of his plate.

"So Zach, as I was saying, you will have your spear, Stefani's bow, and Susanna's Sword and shield. Remember to use those weapons to the best of knowledge." Chiron wisely spoke, as his eyes were twinkling at my actions.

"Don't worry, I'm a child of Athena, I know what I'm doing. The one thing I will ask though, is how we should be going to Los Angeles?" Zach replied, filling his glass with more orange juice and adding more waffles to his now empty plate.

"Well, all the pegusi are being used right now for the hunt for Percy, so I got you plane tickets. It's about a 4 hours flight, but its 1st class, and-"Chiron was about to continue, before I piped up.

"Um no way. Not after my last and final experience on a plane. Nu huh. I would rather clean out the pegusi stables. I would rather kiss Stefani. I would rather lick peanut butter off of-"

"ENOUGH!"Zach shouted at me, teasingly. When I put on a pouty face, he sighed and said" Listen, its either we fly on a plane, or we walk there. And I know how much you love walking." Horrible repressed memories fell into my head, involving walking for miles upon miles with no stop in gym class.

"Fine, we can fly. But Stefani and I are going to swap girly girl stories the whole time, right in front of you." I stuck my tongue out at him, and as he was reaching for his fork to eat what he had just put on his plate, I smacked his hand and took the plate for myself again.

"Err, what kind of girly stories?"Zach asked, dreadful.

"Ohhh we will talk about what celebrities we think are cute, shades of lipstick bra sizes, tampons, you know the works."I smiled a big smile at him while his face was void of any color and he was speechless. With the grin still on my face, I finished his plate for the second time, chugged his orange juice, wiped my mouth on his shirt and walked away.

On our way to La Guardia airport, about a 30 minute walks from where we dropped off.

"Guys, there's this old lady following us, she smelled of monster. We need to confront her, away from the crowded sidewalk. Any ideas?" Zach said, hiking through the sidewalk.

Stefani, who apparently lived in New York her whole life, told us "Well, if we take a right up into this alley up here, it should be a dead end. I will manipulate the mist to make it look like nothings the matter."

As planned, we sharply veered right, into a deserted, dead end alleyway. I take out my pocketknife and transform it to its bronze short sword form. I don't bother with the shield, figuring this would be an easy fight. Beside me, Zach uncaps his sharpie and gets a spear, while Stefani readies her hand, an icy snowflake glow coming out of it. The old lady came into the alleyway, and transformed into Centaur. Of course.

I go and charge at it, wile its snarling. I get to it and slash my sword, but the brute just parried with her hammer and knocked me away into a dumpster, where I watched the rest of the battle. Stefani shot out two ice beams, encasing the centaurs two front hooves and parts of her leg into the ice. And then Zach leaped at it, thrusting his spear into her neck, shattering the monster into dust.

Zach then saw me in the dumpster and gave Stefani a look. One that I am sure meant oh, look at our quest leader, valiantly leading us and I would love to be making out with you right now because we killed a monster together. Kiss kiss kisss My heart turned as icy as Stefani's mom right then and suddenly decided that I was jealous of Stefani for Zach giving her a look. I don't know why though. It's not like I like him or anything. That's preposterous. And it's not like Stefani is pretty enough to get his attention…Which she is.

I huff and heave, myself out of the dumpster, and brush off any dirt that got on my clothing. I transformed my sword and put the knife in my pocket, while giving Zach an evil glare, which he looked puzzled at. The two lovebirds transformed their weapons and started heading towards the street with me. As we reached the airport, I sighed and thought to myself.

"I wish I was pretty like Stefani"

So there you guys go. Another chapter. Yes, updates will be more frequent now that its summer and Im less busy. One quick thing, Zach and Stefani aren't actually "in love' it's just Susanna's mind making it up and over exaggerating because she wants to be mad. At Zach. Hmmm, I wonder where this will go.

Also, that last line, foreshadowing. Yepp, Aphrodite will come into play soon. Good or evil, know one knows. Well, we know she's good, but maybe with bad intent. =p