A/N: I know that I'm leaving a lot of conversation out of the story, but that's just because I assume that all of you have read the book and watched the movie before now. If you haven't, sorry. And I'll just publish the final translation of Phoebe's prophecy. If you liked reading about the work translating it, sorry but it's a lot of work for me to type it up and I was just using it as a story filler.

Mystery Boy:

The Alexander Chronicles

Part XI: The Lotus Casino and Crusty's

We quickly realized that the "Humane Zoo Transport" was actually being used to smuggle animals, and when we reached Vegas, we set them loose, with the zebra actually bowing to Percy. Luckily, we ended up right where we were supposed to be: the Lotus Hotel & Casino, but something was wrong. I didn't realize what it was until I looked at the other casinos. "Guys, I can read the sign."

"Yeah, so?"

"The sign is in English Grover. I thought that our dyslexia meant that we couldn't read English, only Greek."

"Ah, you're getting paranoid, O son of the wind. Besides, don't you think that G-man would smell something if it was dangerous? Come on, we need to get the pearl." Sure, Percy. And Grover didn't smell anything at Auntie Em's or the Parthenon either.

In fact, Grover seemed to want to stay in the Lotus for a while and have some fun, fortunately I could count on Annabeth and Percy to stay focused on the Quest. Unfortunately, the place was huge, and I'd been smelling something that was making me dizzier by the second. The scent got stronger and stronger, so strong that it was close to literally splitting my head, until, "Try a Lotus Flower, they're so good. It's our signature dish." Lotus . . . Loto in Greek, eater . . . phagi. They all grabbed a flower and Percy handed me one, which just made me dizzier. We all took a bite, and I immediately collapsed. "WOW. Guys, why don't we stay here for a while?"

"That sounds like an amazing idea. But we're on a time-sensitive mission right now. Aren't we? And I know him, don't I?" I remember Percy shocking me with that, but what Annabeth said next shocked me into complete and utter blackness. "I think I figured it out, I think I know why we're here. To have fun!" The last thing I heard was Percy saying, "Okay! Let's never leave! Let's stay here!" And then I knew nothing.

I fought against the blackness for so long, time lost all meaning. For all I knew, the War could have started and ended already, decades, centuries could have passed, and I wouldn't have known. So many times I almost broke the surface to consciousness, but failed. Finally, I heard the voice saying, Alex, my son, wake up. You've been unconscious for four days. You only have 30 hours to stop the War. Wake up, or you'll be forced to fight Perseus. Poseidon is even now preparing to wake his son, so WAKE! Well with that for incentive, how could I not obey? I finally broke free of the blackness, only to hear the most unusual thing when I did. "OHH, Hades is going to kill us when he finds out we kidnapped his nephews for nothing! They don't even have the Bolt or Helm!" The voice that spoke sounded like he whined and panicked a lot.

"You mean IF he finds out!"

"What do you mean if? Of course he's going to . . . If, if is good." No way. No way in Tartarus could it really be them, but those lines, said like that, how could it be anyone but them?

"I don't believe it. Pain and Panic? You're real? I thought Disney made you up." And wouldn't you know it, Disney actually got their appearance right too, complete with tiny wings and barbed tails.

"Well of course we're real. But, listen. Could you not tell Hades about this? We'd get into a lot of trouble if you did." Sometimes it was really difficult to tell which was Pain, and which was Panic by the way they acted.

"Tell you what, I won't even tell Percy about this, if you tell me where they are and let us go."

"WHAT? Let you go? But we can't do that. We're not supposed to let anybody leave without Hades express permission." "LISTEN! Either you let us go, or I will tell Hades about you! UNDERSTAND?" They broke immediately. I was able to find Percy soon after that, and Dad was right, Poseidon had woken him up. We split up to find the others. I eventually found Grover, surrounded by a dozen beautiful girls. Percy and Annabeth met up with us there, and that's when Grover made the most surprising statement of his life. "Guys, your timing is terrible. Dude, we're heading to the chapel. We're getting married!"

"Oh, how romantic!"

"Annabeth, I thought you were Athena's daughter, not Aphrodite's!" And believe me, she sounded like anyone but Athena. Naturally, when Grover asked which one he'd proposed to, all of them raised their hand. "Percy, I think we need to get drastic with them." So I dragged them away, grabbed a cue stick and hit both of them on the head. "Come on, grab Annabeth and let's go!" We picked them up and ran for the door, with casino security chasing us the whole way; luckily there was a Maserati waiting at the door for us. I opened the doors and threw Annabeth and Grover inside. When Percy leaned in to check on them, I yelled at him, "Leave them lying, unless you plan on using them to hit somebody with." We then jumped in the car and drove off, glad to leave the Lotus Casino behind us.

"So, what happened in there, and do you know how long we've got, and what was with the Lotophagi thing?"

"Well, I got a headache, and when I ate some of the flower, I blacked out. When I woke up, I was able to barter our way free. And apparently, it's the lair of the Lotus-eaters from The Odyssey, or Lotophagi in Greek. Odysseus landed there, and when some of his men ate the Lotus flower, they wanted to stay. I'm surprised you remember that. And apparently we've got about 29 hours before Zeus declares war on your dad."

"Whoa, hold on. What do you mean, you bartered our way out?"

"Well, Hades owns the place, and two of his minions didn't want us to tell Hades that they, quote "kidnapped his nephews for nothing."

"Wait a minute, nephews?"

"Yeah, us. So I guess that tells us who my dad is. Zeus, who would have though it?" We didn't talk much for the rest of the trip, but I realized we still had Ares backpack, and I was sure we didn't have it when we left the casino.

We finally stopped to rest at a motel, just south of Hollywood. When we woke up, we were down to 19 hours and 23 minutes before doomsday, Annabeth and Grover had woken up from their trances, and the Maserati had been stolen. We walked in the direction of our goal, the Hollywood sign, but along the way, we were surrounded by a gang of boys that looked like they would fit right in at Yancey Academy. Percy attempted to scare them off with Anaklusmos, but it just passed through them, so we ran into a store that Grover identified as Crusty's Water Bed Palace. Inside we met Crusty, a giant that looked like he'd been in the Lotus Casino for about 30 years. Soon, ole Crusty had Grover, Annabeth and I strapped to a bed, he was actually Procrustes from the travels of Theseus. And naturally he was still up to his old tricks, making visitors fit in his 6 ft beds, and apparently he was really disappointed with me, I was just one inch short for his beds. And while we were being stretched, Percy was actually praising Crusty's work! When I looked at Annabeth, it was obvious that she didn't understand what Percy was doing either. Then, when all reason seemed lost, Percy actually tricked Procrustes onto one of his beds and cut his head off. Just as soon as our ropes were cut, he insisted we keep going. Grover immediately complained, "Give us a minute. We were almost stretched to death!"

"Then you're ready for the Underworld" Percy said. "It's only a few blocks away." Sure enough, the Hollywood sign was just outside the window.

We found the entrance to the Underworld easily enough; there was some "graffiti" in Ancient Greek that read Woe to all depraved souls, that was obviously the door. When we got closer, the hillside fell away, revealing a small passage. Once we were all in, the hill fell back to cover the entrance. We found an extremely thin man in an expensive Italian suit at a desk surrounded by souls. He demanded to know why we were there, and was pleasantly surprised when we said we wanted to go to the Underworld. But he was immediately suspicious when he realized we couldn't read his name tag (Hey, I challenge any dyslexic to read Psychopompus correctly the first time.) He soon realized we were demigods, but Percy was able to bribe him to let us go. When we got to Charon, it was a little more difficult. Grover quickly realized that he wanted paid, and tried to pay him with modern money. Charon just took it and burned it up. "That was $170. He burned $170 in the middle of a recession?"

"Grover, don't you remember anything about your history. You need to pay the boatman in drachmas. Now, does anybody know how many were usually paid?" None did, so I just gave him nine drachmas, three for each of us.

"The living are not allowed here. Die and come back."

"Well, we're not going to 'die and come back,' so how about a few more?" I eventually tripled the payment, and Charon finally relented and let us on the boat.

A/N: I know that Alex's reaction to the Lotus flower is unusual, but it does have precedent. The flower is essentially a drug, and sometimes drugs can have the opposite effect that it's supposed to. For example, in my family, my mom can only take one night-time pill, or she'll sleep to noon. My brother can take the same thing, and it will keep him awake, while it has no effect on me whatsoever. And if you just figured out who Alex's dad is when they did, well I pity you. I actually gave it away at the end of "The Pact." Next up, Hades and Ares, and Alex becomes a lot weaker, thanks to Ares.