"Students, I am sorry to announce that I am rather disappointed with the results of your last essay." The teacher said, glaring at the students through her red rimmed glasses. All students had agreed that this teacher had an uncanny ability to manage to give almost every student the evil eye in one glance across the classroom.

Even now, the class cowered a little. What small whispered conversations there were did not last.

"The class average was 60%." She paused, her black eyes flitting to Odie. "Only one student did as they were asked in the paper, and for that they have been rewarded with a mark of 97%."

She swallowed, taking her time with the announcement. It was rare to get the kids' attention for long, and she planned to use her time to make them sweat.

"That student was Neil."

"Yea, baby!" Neil yelled, arms in the air.

The class gave a collective gasp of surprise, and all eyes turned to the blonde haired boy seated up the back, whom was normally in the process of filing his nails at this stage of class.

Herry, whom was seated next to Odie, leant over to his buddy to whisper in his ear.

"Really?"

"97, 97, 97, 97!" Neil paraded about as the group cleaned up that night, Neil's tea towel notoriously dry.

"We heard, Neil." Atlanta grumbled, scrubbing rather ferociously at a dry plate.

"Yea, we got the memo." Archie added.

"You sure you've told us enough times?" Asked Jay from the kitchen table. "You might wanna repeat it again, I don't think Zeus heard."

"NINETY-" Neil began, at the top of his lungs.

"Shut up!" Was the communal groan from the heroes.

Neil grinned. This was only the beginning. He would, in all likelihood, never repeat this feat.

So he was going to milk it for all it was worth.

Theresa rubbed at her eyes, still waking up properly. Mornings after late nights with Persephone were never really much fun. As she ran her fingers through her hair, peering at her reflection, Theresa saw that someone had written on the mirror.

Theresa yawned, trying to clear her vision so she could see. As her eyes focused, a number on the mirror became obvious.

97.

"Neil!" Theresa began, stalking off to his room.

Herry whistled merrily as he waltzed out to his truck, swinging his keys around his finger. The air was clear, the birds were singing, the breeze was warm: and Neil wasn't even awake yet. Herry grinned to himself as he opened up the garage door.

He froze in the morning light at the sight of his car. Unless Herry needed glasses, someone had spray painted the number 97 onto the bonnet of his truck.

And Herry was pretty sure he knew who.

The night was cool as Jay and Odie gathered around the telescope, the old contraption creaking and squeaking as Jay's practiced hands turned the various knobs and he tried to orient it before taking a peek.

"So, you reckon there's gonna be a meteor shower tonight, huh?" Jay asked Odie, whom was peering into the inky sky.

"Yea, it was forecast. Should be a good one." Odie responded, hands in his pockets.

"Well, hey, maybe it's a good omen for our fight against Cronus." Jay put in, wiping the telescope's long shaft as he squinted up into the sky. "Didn't you say you wanted to look at something?" He asked.

"Oh, right. Yea, I wouldn't mind a glance at Venus." Odie said casually, heading over to the telescope. He put his eye to the lens, hands on the various dials.

"Jay, it's a bit blurry…"

"I cleaned it last time I looked."

"I think you left the cap on." Odie said, perplexed. Jay peered around the end of the telescope.

"No, there's no lens cap on here…"

"Well I can't see anything."

"Ugh!" Jay huffed suddenly.

"What happened?" Asked Odie, taking his eye away from the lens. "Are you okay, Jay?"

Jay was furiously scrubbing at the telescope lens with his rag.

"Jay?" Odie enquired.

"Someone's written something on here in permanent marker." Said Jay, scrubbing furiously. Odie leant around for a closer look.

"Oh…" He began. "Jay, I think it says 97."

They both stood in angered silence for a moment, their eyebrows in the air. And then Jay spoke angrily.

"Neil."

Atlanta was running along the path, arms swinging as she jogged easily along the trail, her headphones playing her favourite song. Ahh, no Neil and his 97's here… Thought Atlanta happily, smiling to herself. Just me and my music. She picked it up a little, breathing in carefully as she did so.

Her song began to end, and a crackle of static came through.
"Huh…" Atlanta started. None of her songs started like this.

As she ran through the woods, a familiar voice found itself propelled into her ears, saying the same words over and over again.

"97 97 97 97 97…"

It was all Atlanta could do to not simply throw the ipod into the lake altogether.

Archie donned his usual blue jacket, zipping it up happily. It had been almost a week since the whole "97" affair -that was what the team had termed the traumatic event- and Archie was feeling rather pleased to have avoided the worst of Neil's ridiculing. From Odie finding his locker code changed to 97 (only after he interrogated Neil) to Herry finding all his books to have 97 written on every page to Theresa having every speed on the speedometer of her car erased except for 97, the team had been well and truly sick of Neil by the end of the week.

Archie went to leave his room, but as he passed his mirror something on the back of his jacket caught his eye. Archie took a few steps back, staring furtively into the mirror at the gold stitching pattern on the back of his jumper. The sewing job was perhaps a little dodgy, but it was painfully clear to Archie that someone had clumsily sewn the number "97" onto the back of his jumper in gold stitching.

And that someone was likely named Neil.