Ah, I don't know what I was thinking in the last chapter. Thank you Minnie Cyrus, for pointing out We Are Family is by Sister Sledge, not The Spice Girls. I really don't know why I put The Spice Girls. So, I apologize. Sorry!

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from PJO, or really anything for that matter.

Apparently, after shadow-traveling, I was out for 2 days. Which, by the way, is a new personal record. Never before have I slept 24 solid hours. Screw Edward and Jacob, go Team Nico!

Anyway, besides the whole poem thing, the first thing I noticed after waking was the fact we weren't in West Virginia anymore. Well, obviously; that was the whole reason I was asleep. But I didn't think we were in Missouri either. If you wanted to, you could call it teenager's intuition.

If you looked out the window, all you could see was grass. Grass, grass, and more grass. I didn't see any flowers, no trees, just grass. It looked like it was literally the middle of nowhere. We were on a narrow dirt road, and occasionally we would hit a bump and everybody would curse as we were thrown out of our seats.

Occasionally, we saw a farm. Nothing big; a small house, a barn, with a tractor usually parked in between the two. There were one or two cows lazily grazing away at the grass, acting as live lawnmowers. A couple of chickens (or roosters, or hens; I can never tell the difference) were walking around, doing their weird chicken/rooster/hen walk.

My iPod had died when I accidently fell asleep with it on a couple of days ago, so the only thing I could do to keep myself from dying of boredom was watching the strange animal walk.

It's pathetic that the only source of entertainment for who-knows-how-long was some unknown type of bird doing a little dance. Truly pathetic.

I wondered why nobody else, *cough* Percy *cough*, was complaining about how bored they were. Maybe somebody had brought something that could potentially save me from a slow painful death of boredom.

I looked ahead of me; Annabeth was driving. She had earplugs in, and for a second I was excited that she had music, but then I realized it was just another audio book she had brought with her. Percy was in the passenger's seat, sound asleep. He had drool leaking from the corner of his mouth and onto the seat. Ew.

I looked next to me, expecting to see Jill with a book or something. Instead, she had earplugs in, like her sister. Another audio book, wonderful. But instead of having a CD player with a spinning disk inside, she had a blue iPod nano.

Hallelujah!

She probably only had Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers on it, but I wasn't intending on listening to it.

Without thinking twice, I started talking to her.

"Hey, uh, Jill?" I asked.

No response.

Sigh, she must have it on too loud. Kids these days with they're blasting music and colorfully-dyed-hair.

I reached out and shook her arm. "Jill."

She looked over, then took out the earplugs and pressed the pause button.

"Yes?"

"You brought an iPod." Wow, Nico. Way to state the obvious.

"Really?" she looked down, "Wow! I hadn't noticed! Thank you so much for informing me." She said with sarcasm flooding out of her mouth.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, okay, whatever. Did you… uh… bring a charger?" I asked.

"Of course, you moron. What kind of idiot brings their iPod with them on a quest and expects it to live the whole time?"

Apparently, the kind of idiot like me.

After I didn't answer, she got the message. After laughing quite a bit, she spoke to me.

"Wow, Nico. Just… wow." She put her earplugs back in, and was about to press the "play" button when I stopped her.

"Okay, okay. It wasn't the brightest thing to do, but seriously; can I use the charger?" I hoped she let me; I could almost hear the music playing in my ears.

To my greatest pleasure, she reached inside her backpack and began to rummage around, until she pulled out the long, white plug that charges your iPod. I reached out and tried to grab it, but she pulled her arm away, stopping me.

"Woah, woah, woah. Slow down, buddy. You think I'm just gonna hand this over?" Well, duh. After I nodded, she laughed. "As if! I'm a daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom. And it isn't wise to just hand things over when there's nothing in it for you." She dangled the cord just out of my reach, taunting me.

"It's called a favor."

Once again, she laughed. "Ha! Hate to break it to you, but I don't do favors. So, what are ya gonna do to persuade me?"

She dropped the cord back into her bag.

As much as I hate to say it, I like the way this girl thinks. But right now, it was a major disadvantage on my part.

I sighed. What did I own that I could give her? Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Basically, all I own is clothes, a toothbrush, and Coke (please be aware that I'm talking about the soda, not the drug). And I wasn't giving any of those things up. Besides, I highly doubt she would want any of them.

What do girls like…

Boy bands in tight jeans?

Stuffed animals of puppies and kittens?

Unicorns and ponies?

Chocolate?

CHOCOLATE! Yes! That's it!

Every girl likes chocolate; it's a well-known fact.

The only problem? I don't have any chocolate.

Jill was getting impatient. She was tapping her leg, showing she was annoyed. "Come on, di Angelo. I seriously don't have all day." She paused, "Okay, I actually do have all day, but I can think of about 100 better ways to spend it than waiting for you."

"That's weird, because I can't think of a single better way for a girl to spend her day than sitting next to the gorgeous Nico di Angelo." Actually, I could. But I wasn't gonna let her know that…

"Okay, you have got to be kidding me." I shrugged. "Ugh, whatever. What's the deal? You get to borrow my charger, and in exchange I get…" she paused, waiting for me to fill in the blank.

"Chocolate?" I asked, uncertainly. The last thing I wanted her to do was laugh in my face.

But instead, her eyes widened at my proposal. "Chocolate? You have chocolate with you, like, right now?" she seemed anxious.

"Uh… no?" at this, her face dropped. "But I can get you some at the next gas station?" she smiled again.

"A regular chocolate bar or a candy bar?" Hm…

"Candy bar." She seemed to like this answer, because she smiled even wider.

"3 Musketeers or Milky Way?" Tough one… But, when in doubt, choose the one with caramel.

"Milky Way." The smile stayed on her face, but she still had one more question:

"Milk chocolate or dark?" Eh… what do girls like more? Milk chocolate or dark chocolate? Or is it a personal thing? Or does it run in the family? And why am I asking myself these pointless questions when I should be answering her?

I made a quick decision. "Milk."

She turned away, and began to go through her bag. At first, I thought I had made the wrong choice. Maybe she was a dark chocolate kind of girl. Maybe she lived for dark chocolate. Maybe she stuffed her pockets with dark chocolate so she wouldn't ever be without it.

But then, she pulled out the charger and held it out in her hand.

"Deal."

After plugging one side of the white cord into the little car charger thingy and the other into my iPod, I got to listen to my amazingly amazing music while we passed some more empty acres of land. Glorious.

Suddenly, I felt like my seat was on vibrate. Like I was in one of those super cool recliner chairs, and somebody had stole the remote and was pressing random buttons.

The vibrating soon turned into shaking, and it got more violent as time passed. I thought it was just me, but Percy had woken up and the sisters had taken out their earplugs and were listening intently.

I put my iPod away (protect the valuables at all costs) and looked around, trying to figure out what was causing our car to shake like a cell phone on vibrate. Nothing had changed; there was still grass and dirt roads and the occasional cow in the distance.

But if you looked closely at the road, you would see that the little pebbles and rocks appeared to be hopping up and down on the dirt. In reality, the road was shaking just as much as the car.

We all shook and slid out of our seats, and the noise was so loud I was forced to shout so Annabeth could hear me. "WHAT'S GOING ON?" I screamed. Even with me using my loudest voice, she didn't seem to get the message.

But Jill did.

She tapped my shoulder, her eyes filled with fear, and motioned to look out the back window.

When I did, I honestly expected to see Godzilla, or a T-Rex, or even a giant mutated cow running down the road.

Instead, I saw a big black blob with 4 legs and a pair of straight and pointed ears following the car; causing the ground to shake with every step. I instantly knew what it was.

I heard Percy scream out "EARTHQUAKE!" from the passenger seat, and saw him cover his head with his hands. Of course, since he was invincible, there was no need for that; but it had a protective feeling about it.

"No, it's not an earthquake. IT'S A HELLHOUND!" I screamed. Jill shrieked, like her worst fear had just shown up on her doorstep and asked to come inside for a cup of tea.

I guess this time Annabeth heard me, because at my words she pressed down harder on the gas and the car went flying forward. But it was still no good, the beast was catching up with us faster than I would have thought imaginable.

I knew why we were trying to run away from it: we weren't ready for a fight. We had been sitting in a car all day, which left our legs weak and our bodies tired. Plus, we were all exhausted from traveling. We barely had any food in our systems (unfortunately, there are no McDonalds in the middle of nowhere). If we fought, we would lose without a doubt.

Before I knew it, I could see the razor sharp teeth that would probably sink into our bodies in a couple of moment's time. The hellhound was bigger than I had expected, and a lot bigger than any other ones I had fought before. It was so close I could practically feel its hot breath on the back of my neck.

The only other dog I had seen as big as this one was Cerberus, the dog that guards the Underworld. He was huge, he had three heads and could rip you apart in a second, but he was actually a pretty good dog. Sometimes when I visited my dad down there, I would end up playing with the friendly hound.

This thing was nothing like the attention-seeking dog I had known to treat as a pet. This thing was vicious, and extremely deadly.

With one swipe of his paw, he would be able to send a full grown man flying for miles.

With one bite, he would be able to completely crush the human body and all 206 bones inside it.

With one growl, he would be able to send even the bravest souls crying for their "mommy".

With one stomp, he would be able to crush this car into a crumpled sheet of metal.

That's why we're running.

Annabeth was praying to her mother, Percy was getting out his weapons, and Jill was biting her lip so hard I saw blood trickling down her chin. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she had curled up into a ball, as if that could protect her from the beast that was currently chasing us.

Without a moment's warning, it had swiped at the car and we were sent tumbling out onto the grassy fields.

Thank the gods we were all wearing out seatbelts, or else we would have been thrown out the windows and killed before the dog even had a chance at us. Landing upside down, we were forced to unbuckle the seatbelts and climb down onto the roof of the car. We opened the doors and crawled out, before the monster had another chance at us.

Everybody grabbed their bags and took out their weapons.

I hadn't realized it, but I must have smashed my hand against something when we were tumbling, because as I grabbed my sword I felt a piercing pain run from my hand up my arm. I was horrified to see it red, bloody, and swollen; but I wasn't about to wimp out and go hide in the car.

As I saw the hellhound running toward us, I thought that may have been a better idea to run and hide after all.

I looked at my friends; everybody looked fine, except for Annabeth. She must have hit her head against the steering wheel as the car flipped, because she had a long gash on her forehead that was slowly bleeding. She just wiped the blood on her sleeve and balanced her dagger in her hand, feeling the familiarity of the weapon she had trusted for so long.

I just had time to get into a good fighting position when I was horrified by the sight of the monster leaping into the air, about to pounce on the 4 little demigods that stood before him.

I was sure we were all dog food when his feet left the ground, and I was even about to start praying to father, when I saw something that astonished me even more than the best jumping through the air.

Because just as it was about to turn us into live kibble, something else stole our attention.

Now, you're probably thinking "What could possibly steal your attention from a 2 ton beast jumping through the air, about to murder you?"

The answer?

All I saw was a black blur that came out of absolutely nowhere fly through the air, and collided with the beast, sending both of them crashing into the ground.

Reviews make me a happy camper! Just kidding, I don't go to camp. But… they do make me happy!