Smash stood in the center of the yard, arms raised. "The games will be a set of three challenges, one versus one. Each member of each team will go once. The first team with two wins will be declared the victor. Are these terms acceptable?" Percy nodded.

"Slice! As our honored guest." He nearly spat out the last words. "I would like for you to join Char for our first game."

"Of course." Percy walked next to Char as the other two Ceramici ran around, setting up the first challenge. The red woman wasn't looking at him, but she was giving off a large amount of heat and Percy stood a couple of feet away from her to stay cool.

"Because this is your first time, I've decided to start with a simple one." As Smash talked, he set two large logs in front of Percy and Char. "All you have to do is destroy this wooden log."

Char nodded and stepped forward, arm outstretched. As Percy watched, a ball of fire appeared in her open palm, crackling softly. With expert precision, Char threw the fire at the log, engulfing the wood in flames. Percy stepped back in surprise, covering his face from the heat. The fire was difficult to see in the daylight, but its presence was undeniable. Within a few moments, the wood had been reduced to a pile of smoking ash.

Percy's eyes were wide as Smash and Crudebake clapped politely. Char gave a low curtsy before stepping back, grinning slyly. "Your turn, demigod."

Percy drew his sword, swallowing. As he moved forward, Grover was shouting encouragements from behind him. Percy stopped in front of the log, wielding his sword as if he was facing an opponent. He glanced behind him, unsure of what to do. Annabeth was looking at him doubtfully while Grover was smiling widely. He hefted Riptide onto his shoulder, looking down at the log. With a grunt, he swung the sword down, embedding it deep into the wood. Splinters exploded from the point of impact, peppering his face with small cuts. Unfortunately, the sword only went in halfway, and was currently stuck. He pulled at the sword comically for a few seconds, falling over on his back when he eventually managed to get it free.

Crudebake burst out laughing at his fall, pointing. Char snickered as Percy stumbled to his feet, wobbling slightly. Smash approached him, tsking.

"I'm afraid you didn't quite make it," he said, pointing to the cut but very much intact piece of wood. "I'm going to have to give this round to Char." He clapped again as he grinned at Percy.

"That wasn't fair!" Percy complained. "She can make fire!"

Char shrugged. "It's not my fault I'm better than you."

"You lost fair and square, boy. I won't have any sore losers in my games." Smash looked at him sternly.

Percy protested quietly as he was pushed away from the center. Grover was looking at him anxiously while Annabeth was fuming silently. Her burned hand was wrapped in linen and she was holding it against her chest protectively.

"You see what you did?" she whispered. "They're never going to let us have a fair shot. All you've done is give them time to figure out how to kill us."

Percy tried to argue back but couldn't. She was right; this plan was folly from the beginning. "We haven't lost yet," he replied half-heartedly. She scoffed and looked away.

"Who is your next champion?" Smash asked, looking earnestly at them. Annabeth stepped forward, sighing. "I'll go."

Crudebake also stepped forward into the center as two jagged blocks of metal were placed in front of the competitors. The blocks appeared to be made of various assortments of iron swords, tool heads, anchors, and other melted down items.

"Same rules as last time, folks," Smash explained. "Simply destroy the blocks to the best of your abilities."

Crudebake snorted as he approached his block. He laid his hand on the metal, concentrating. Soon, the iron around his hand grew bright orange, melting underneath his touch. The hot metal hissed as it pooled over the dust on the ground. After a minute, the block was a bubbling puddle on the floor.

Annabeth watched Crudebake's performance, then looked at her own block. She took out her dagger and examined it for a second, sighing. "This is impossible," she declared flatly. "I give up."

Smash raised his arms beseechingly. "But, my dear, if you forfeit, your team loses."

"Then we lose. We lost when this competition began."

Smash shook his head. "Then I'm afraid I have no choice but to declare the Ceramici the winners." He lifted his hammer. "And so we get to kill you."

As he said this, the other two Ceramici ran at them, shouting. Percy barely managed to bring his sword up before Char bore down on him, swiping with a fiery arm. He leapt back in fear, eyes wide.

Char smiled at his retreat. "What's the matter, demigod? Your tricks aren't enough to save you?"

Percy glanced to his right, where Annabeth was fighting off Crudebake with long slashes of her dagger. To his left, Grover was nimbly avoiding Smash's sledgehammer by leaping out of the Ceramici's heavy attacks.

Char blasted a ball of fire next to Percy's face, putting his attention back on her. "It's not them you should be worried about." She stepped forward menacingly. "I distrusted you from the beginning, demigod. That trick with guest rights was clever, and the wager even more so. If my companions weren't so thick-headed, you wouldn't have gotten away with that, you know."

"Lucky for me, they were." Percy felt waves of heat washing over him as Char moved forward.

"You won't find me so easily persuaded." Char's head seemed to be engulfed in a ring of fire as she swiped the air in front of her.

Percy leapt forward, swinging his sword wildly into the woman's torso. Before Riptide connected, however, Char somehow managed to catch the sword in her hand, gripping it tightly. Bright red blood trickled down her arm as she held onto the blade, grimacing. In her hand, the bronze sword glowed and turned white-hot, sizzling as her blood touched the heated metal. Percy struggled to free Riptide from her grasp, eventually managing to wrench it out of her fist with a spray of blood. He held the sword away from him, wary of the heat radiating off of it. The blade was still glowing, and he could swear that it was drooping slightly as the bronze melted.

Char wiped her bloody hand on her dress. "Celestial bronze makes an effective blade, but it melts easily. How long will I need before your sword is a pool on the ground?"

Percy swallowed heavily, backing up. Char pressed her advantage, throwing another ball of fire at him. Percy managed to block the projectile with his sword, sending a spray of sparks flying. He winced as some of the sparks landed on his face, burning him slightly.

With a cry, Percy swung his sword again, aiming for Char's face. She raised her forearm to block the blow, the two colliding with the sound of metal striking metal. Percy gasped as he saw that Char's arm had gained harsh, red scales that rippled in the sunlight. The scales had blocked the brunt of Riptide's slash, but the sword was embedded an inch into her arm, and more blood was flowing out of the wound.

Char roared in anger as she pulled her arm back and clawed at Percy with her other hand. He felt searing heat erupt across his arm where she cut him, and Percy's eyes widened as when saw that his sleeve was currently on fire. He quickly beat out the flame, too focused on his arm to notice that Char had approached. She grabbed onto his wrist tightly and twisted, forcing him to let go of Riptide. The sword hit the dirt with a muffled thud.

Char was looking at him more closely than was comfortable, a look of rage contorting her features. In her grip, his wrist felt so hot it was almost cold, and he could see smoke rising from the point of contact. A terrible smell of cooked meat entered his nose as he gasped and tried to writhe out of her hand.

Percy weakly buffeted her back with his free hand, trying desperately to escape. His mouth moved wildly as he protested, but no sound came out.

"Where are your tricks now?" she hissed. "What will you say that will keep your hand from burning off?"

Percy let out a low moan, nearly passing out from the pain. His blows became slower and weaker until he let his other hand drop to his side. He dropped to his knees, sweat running down his face. His arm felt as if he was sticking it in a bucket of ice water, but that didn't make sense. He was supposed to be feeling hot, not cold.

He raised his eyes to look at Char, who was still holding his wrist in a death grip and was smiling down at him with satisfaction. She was still smiling when Annabeth came in from nowhere and stabbed her deep in the stomach.

Char's eyes widened as she realized what had happened, but before she could react, Annabeth slashed her dagger through the woman's torso as she pulled it out of her stomach, ripping a jagged wound through her. Percy felt the grip on his wrist weaken as Char died, her fires flickering as she stumbled backwards.

"You…ruined everything," she spat, grabbing her stomach. The fires on her arms, which had been burning low, now grew to engulf her entirely as she bent over in pain. The massive blaze blew up dust and leaves with its updraft and caused Percy to shield his face with his good arm. In the center of the inferno, Char was crouched on one knee, blood coursing from her wound. As she looked blankly forward, her body disintegrated into red ash, mingling with the flame. Soon after, the fire went out as quickly as it began, and Char rained down on the area softly.

Percy let out a long breath as he let himself fall to the ground completely. His right hand was in agony, and he prayed that the arm would come off. As he looked up from the floor, Grover's concerned face filled his vision. Annabeth had placed her bag next to him and was rummaging through it quickly. She pulled out something covered in cloth and wrapped with string. Instead of untying the knot, Annabeth cut through the string with her dagger, opening the cloth to reveal a pale yellow mass of some kind of food. She started to cut a piece off of it, then looked back at his arm and decided to cut off a larger part before lifting his head and feeding it to him. He quietly protested at being moved, but accepted the food meekly. It tasted like the tea that he used to drink with his mother, though the same flavor on solid food felt strange on his tongue.

As soon as he swallowed the food, he felt a surge of energy through his body, and the pain in his arm subsided slightly.

"What was that?" he asked as Annabeth went back to her bag.

"Ambrosia," Grover explained. "The food of the gods. It heals demigods."

Percy nodded. "Of course."

As he realized that maybe he wasn't going to die, Annabeth pulled out an pot of ointment from her bag and carefully applied it to his burns. Percy gasped as the pain flared up again, and a faint crinkling sound came from his arm as she rubbed his wrist.

Percy let out a pained laugh as he let his head hit the ground. "God, I'm crispy." He laughed deliriously, shaking his head.

After she had applied the ointment, Annabeth began wrapping linen around his arm, making sure that his wound had space to breathe. Once she was done with that, she grabbed his good hand to slowly bring Percy to his feet. A wave of nausea hit Percy once he stood up, but he was able to support himself against Grover's shoulder and hobble along.

The remnants of his companions' fights were apparent; Smash's hammer laid on top of a pile of foul-smelling dust among a number of shattered pots and branches sticking out of the ground. Bubbling pieces of clay littered the ground a few paces away where Annabeth and Crudebake had fought, their smell sharp in Percy's nose.

As the three of them limped away from the back yard, a tall man wielding an iron crowbar stepped from around the pottery. He was covered in shards of glass and seemed very proud of himself. He stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed the demigods, and he looked in shock from them to the battle scenes behind them.

"What happened here?" he demanded.

"Are you Shatter?" Annabeth called back at him.

He looked at her with confusion. "...Yes, I am."

With a sigh, Annabeth stepped forward and approached the man, who was still spluttering as she drove her dagger through his heart. He dissolved into a pile of dust at her feet.

Annabeth wiped the monster dust off of her dagger on her pants, then let Percy and Grover follow her as they left the pottery. As they approached Ax's forge, the sun was just beginning to set, the horizon tinged with orange. Vendors were shouting the last deals of the day while preparing to close up, and patrols of soldiers began walking down the streets, peering down dark alleys suspiciously.

Cast iron braziers had been lit in front of the forge, blazing hotly as Annabeth pushed the door opened and stepped into the building.

Ax was hammering a heated piece of metal as they walked in, standing dangerously close to a blazing forge seemingly without a care. Annabeth had to yell Ax's name several times before he looked up from his work. When he saw who it was, he grinned broadly.

"You're back, are you? I'm glad. Does this mean you've taken care of my problem?"

Annabeth nodded. "The Ceramici have been…removed, as per our agreement."

"Good! You've done me a great service, and at cost to yourselves, I see." He pointed at Percy, who was sweating profusely and practically hanging off of Grover.

"No, I'm…I'm fine," Percy mumbled to the floor.

Ax grinned. "'Course you are, kid." He focused his attention back on Annabeth. "Anyway, I promised you information. Here." He reached into his apron, brought out a singed piece of parchment, and handed it to Annabeth. "I can't guarantee that she knows anything about the sword, but she definitely has a history with the guy."

Annabeth unfolded the paper and read it, frowning. When she finished, her face was flushed and she was standing uncomfortably straight.

"Who is it?" asked Grover.

"Aphrodite," she said in a careful voice.

Ax gave a loud guffaw of laughter. "You're welcome, boys. Shame that this one's," he pointed at Percy's condition. "Like that."

Percy stirred slightly. "What?"

"Nothing." Ax laughed again. "You can ask her about the sword, and if she's in a kind mood she'll probably help you with your hand. No promises, though."

Annabeth put the paper in her pocket. "Thank you, Ax. I'll tell Athena how much you helped us."

Ax scoffed. "Yeah, and I'm sure she'll shower me with praise and glory. Goddesses like that don't do well with 'gratitude,' little one. Best learn that now."

Annabeth gave him a strange look, but didn't say anything. "Well, thank you again. I think we'll be on our way now."

"Aye, and good luck to you." Ax picked up his hammer again. "You'll need it."