Disclaimer: I don't own PJO, Burger King, or the bikes.

Enjoy!

Chapter 10

The Quest Begins At Burger King

Lola and I walked to the Big House, in silence most of the way. We agreed that we would co-lead the quest, so that neither one of us felt left out or more special.

When we got there, Chiron had compacted himself into his magical wheelchair, so he wasn't in centaur form. A fuzzy, somewhat frayed blanket lay across his lap, keeping him warm (which, again, was a strange summer fashion statement).

"Ah. Lola, Ms. Ruman, if you will, I see you've already chosen one of your partners. You must choose one more," Chiron said thoughtfully.

"Well, er, we decided to sort of co-captain. Does that mean one more, still? Or two more?" I asked. I wasn't too sure if our plan (even though we didn't really have one) would work.

Chiron looked me over. It seemed to him that I looked like I could be tricked onto the bad side or something. If he thought that, he was totally wrong. I mean, he looked at me with these squinting eyes, as if he were trying to see into my heart or something.

Whatever it was that he thought was 'wrong' with me, he must've gotten over it.

"Well, three is my sacred number. The Big Three, Cerberus with his three heads, three campers. That's how it works, always. But I suppose… oh, no. I couldn't."

Mr. D came from practically nowhere. "Oh, let them go. More brats gone, the merrier." Lightning threatened to break through our little bubble of safety. "Oh, fine! " Dionysus shouted at it. But in a whisper tone to Chiron, he said, "But you should still let 4 campers altogether go." A reassuring grin, apparently, was what Mr. D thought was needed to persuade the old centaur.

Gods must never be wrong, I guessed. Chiron decided that it would be fair enough to allow one more camper on a quest like retrieving Apollo's (at which point I'd been convinced that he was my dad) guessed-to-be-stolen lyre.

It was safe to say that Lola was very happy. She wasn't poking the crap out of me, and her face didn't look at all worried or pained (which it sometimes did).

"Well, one is obvious: Kyle Delnz," Lola insisted. I wasn't too sure that he was such a safe choice, but he was coming along anyway.

Lola wasn't sure who to pick next. I was about to whisper Katie Gardner's name in her ear, when I thought differently. I told her who I wanted to come along. She looked at me sort of funny, but she announced that Greg Willins would be coming with us.

Once it was told to everyone that Greg and Kyle would be coming with us, there were a few sad groans, a couple sighs of relief, and other things I couldn't make out.

"Well, Lola, time to go get your death sentences- I mean, uh, prophecy?" I was gonna kill Mr. D soon. But Lola did as told. She walked up the Big House steps, and went to find out her death sen- oh, I'm as bad as Dionysus. Prophecy.

After a few minutes of waiting for her to come back, a crazed looking Lola came down the steps.

"I-I—"

"What was the prophecy?" Kyle and Chiron asked in unison. "JINX!" Kyle shouted. Chiron looked greatly confused, but he paid attention to Lola.

"Come on, now, darling, what was the prophecy?"

Silence.

"I… I…"

More waiting.

"Demigods to find the stolen,

Be saved by an immortal, a heart will be swollen,

Travel to a land to mortals unknown,

As all wraps up, a truth be bestown."

Find the stolen: easy. Fetch Apollo's lyre.

Saved by an immortal? Awkward… and what about the 'heart shall be swollen' thing? Was that supposed to make sense?

A land that regular people (aka LUCKY people) don't know of? Olympus, probably.

Truth be bestown, heh? If the truth is so dang important that it's a part of a quest prophecy, why does it have to happen at the END!

While that line infuriated me, it also gave me a stirring feeling inside. Maybe it meant… nah. Too simple. I'd heard about campers' sob stories and terribly challenging quests before. It couldn't happen just like, BOOM!

By the time I had ideas forming in my mind, Chiron said that we better get going.

We were about to be escorted by Chiron to the car that the camp's security guard, Argus, was driving, when someone touched my shoulder.

I turned to see a sympathetic Rosa standing before me, hand on my shoulder and a concerned expression being worn.

"I've never had a quest, but I know what it feels like. Don't die, 'kay?"

I nodded awkwardly, and followed the friends who were waiting for me. Isabelle Slate was right by the camp's border, waving goodbye and everything. Her other hand was being occupied, petting the dragon who had itself curled around Thalia's Pine. I saw Katie from the crowd, yelling 'goodbye', 'we'll miss you', 'don't die', and other various things that, under normal circumstances, were obvious.

As we piled into the car, Lola called, "SHOTGUN!" and ran to the front seat next to Argus. Meanwhile, while Lola was happy up front, Kyle and Greg and I were shuffled into the back, squashed into each other. I was on the edge, Greg was in the middle, and Kyle was on the other side of him. I was happy that I wasn't next to my brother, but I also didn't like being squeezed to death. Especially when I saw grubby handprints on the window right next to my face.

When I almost couldn't breathe anymore, being squished like so, the ambrosia in Greg's Ziploc baggie looked pretty darned good. But I didn't say anything about it- I knew eating it when it was unnecessary was going to cause havoc of some form.

"Argus?"

Our chauffer looked at Kyle, who'd asked the question, but didn't say anything. It was a popular rumor 'round camp that he didn't talk because he supposedly had eyeballs on his tongue- like everywhere else on his body. Eyes in every single spot imaginable. Er, hopefully not everywhere everywhere, but you get my point.

Kyle murmured something about paying attention less and talking more, then looked at Lola. "What time is it?"

Lola looked at her invisi-watch. "Uh, I-don't-know-o'clock. Ask someone with a freakin' watch, man."

He looked hopefully at Greg.

A groan from Greg. He pressed something invisible on his arm, which I guessed was a button from somewhere, and a watch appeared on his wrist. I guess he must have built that, but I questioned how he got an invisibility effect.

"4:38. Make your black hole of a stomach grow up and learn to wait," Greg said, annoyed.

I sniggered.

Kyle glared at me. I glared back. It somehow transformed into a staring contest that I so-awesomely won, after a couple of minutes.

We waited, and waited, did some more waiting, and waited. Only a couple of things passed the time.

Finally, after about 3 hours of nearly completely sheer silence, we were dropped off at Waterbury, New York.

Home.

I could feel Symphony even though I wasn't there. It was so close…

No. I was on a quest. A quest with angry gods and monsters. We couldn't just take a pit stop at school (even though I was sure it could only be several streets away). I had to focus.

We looked around. After 11 minutes of wandering, we stopped at a local Burger King for lunch. We were all clearly starving, and only Kyle had money on him (a couple of wadded up dollar bills, a few quarters, a dime, several pennies), but it wasn't enough for food.

Greg and I sat at a small table, and Kyle and Lola sat at a table of the same size at the other end of the place.

I looked up at the waitress, told her we had no money enough to pay but that we were absolutely starving.

Then I took something in.

A waitress. At a Burger King? That couldn't be right.

She glared at me once I'd said that the money was all on Kyle, and even then it was only $2.87.

"No money, no food, godling."

Excuse me? Godling? Either she could see through the Mist, she was a monster, or we had a weirdo freak case on our hands.

Greg snapped his fingers crisply.

"Oh, but ma'am, we really need it. Please." I was shocked at how good Greg was with dealing things.

"Fine, but next time you pay."

She glared, then turned into exactly what I'd seen 7 years ago: an empousa. An empousa in Burger King.

"You can't hide yourselves so easily, Benson," she snarled.

"WOAH, WOAH, WAIT! Mrs. Dailey! My old English teacher!"

It grinned a crooked grin. "I'm surprised you didn't figure it out sooner, Eve. We watch all of you… sometimes we take a 'liking' for our little demigods."

"I'M STILL CONFUSED HERE!"

That came completely out of nowhere, but hey, blame the ADHD.

Kyle brought out his sword from a long, thin pocket in his pants that I hadn't noticed before. He jumped in front of me, and fought with my old teacher for a while. Awkward.

Mrs. Dailey—erm, the empousa was sadly winning. She disarmed Kyle, which I wasn't happy about.

I took out my sword, which had compacted into a dagger for stashing in a pocket or something, and it, by itself, turned into full-out sword mode. I slashed at the monster with it, which Mrs. Dailey didn't seem too pleased about. I'd cut her arm, causing her to disintegrate slowly. But I guess she was one of the monsters that you really couldn't kill, because once she was in a pile of ash one second, and it'd disappeared. The next second, she was at the door, mad.

She was about to attack me, most likely put an end to my supposed misery, when Lola defended me. She swathed a switchblade from her pocket and started going after her, looking so fierce that it was scary.

It didn't quite harm the empousa the way we'd all wanted it to. Lola's switchblade (that had mysteriously been in her pocket… not creepy or anything) barely touched her golden, automaton leg.

I took up my weapon. I hacked at the empousa, and in return her fiery hair nearly burnt my ear to a crisp.

Kyle eventually got up, sword at his side. Even though he and Lola were trying furiously (while Greg watched in horror from behind and I sort of hid myself behind Lola… smooth, Eve, smooth.), it wasn't any of us who'd killed her.

It was a bow and arrow from behind the kitchen counter.

A figure came up, and Thalia could be seen.

As Mrs. Dailey disintegrated into ash (and didn't come back this time), Thalia jumped on the counter then slid off.

"Couldn't exactly let you get killed, now could I?" Thalia said, looking proud of her dust pile that she'd made out of a monster.

Lola glared. "We didn't need your—"

"Thanks," I covered up quickly.

She smiled. "Well, you being my… niece, I guess, I couldn't sit back and watch the show. " Thinking of the fact that I was her niece, yet she was seemingly only a year older than me, was disturbing. I shook it out of my mind and focused. I looked around the room, heart racing. We'd just faced an evil monster, how could it not be running around in my body? I glanced at Thalia's 'Death to Barbie' tee from the corner of my eye. It looked like 'etaDh to ibaBre'.

ADHD took over. "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" I shouted suddenly. It was true; I was in suspense, and we'd barely started our stupid quest. Then Thalia suddenly pops up from nowhere and saves the day. I was starting to see Lola's point: we were handling things and suddenly 'auntie' comes and saves everyone.

I yelled more.

I was starting to feel some sort of pain, and not just a gas bubble in my stomach. True, aching pain. The kind Percy had described to me one day: the power of Kronos. He was overtaking me as some people around us spoke. Thalia had truly killed his minion. Why wasn't she in pain? Maybe it was because she was a Hunter. But I intended to find out.

After several minutes of feeling like I was about to burn up and die, the pain subsided.

I looked at my arm, that was aching badly still. It had a cut, which was bleeding. My face went neutral. I wailed over that?

But then I saw everyone with their mouths open, staring at my leg. I took a look. A pool of poison oozed out of a gash in my knee, and I knew that Kronos wouldn't stop at anything to get us.

Greg helped me bandage it up, and it stung like mad. I questioned why Kyle, the son of Apollo, wasn't the one helping. But I drank some nectar which Thalia had taken out of Greg's bag, and a small bite of an ambrosia square.

We went outside, and noted that we were carless. No form of transportation.

Thalia had been called back by Artemis, and left with haste. So her helping us get around was no longer an option.

Then Lola pointed to a bike rack, in which some bicycles were being held. Kyle and Greg snagged a bike that could fit two people, while Lola and I were forced to rob one-person bikes.

I don't know what the humans saw that dau, but it couldn't have been good.

Then we left.

YAH! ZE QUEST BEGIIINSSS! 8DDD