Okay, this chapter is dedicated to AmianNatan4ever; I am Nikita Daughter of Apollo; and Annabeth luvs Percy. I hope you guys like it!

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO.

Travis

"Count to five." Connor mouthed to his brother, just in case Jordan was right by the door. They didn't know why he would need to be in the basement, but it was best not to take chances.

Travis nodded, his eyes narrowed in distrust. They each held up a finger, and then two, silently counting down until the moment they could open the door.

Travis reached five first, and then before Connor could say anything, he gripped the doorknob and swung the door wide open.

There was nothing but blackness beyond the doorframe.

"I'll go first." Travis offered. He stepped down onto what felt like a rickety staircase before his brother could say anything. He felt around and found a railing, then turned back to make sure Connor had found it, too.

Connor nodded grimly.

With that, they cautiously made their way down the flight of stairs, pausing whenever it decided to groan and moan over their weight.

Finally, they reached the bottom. Travis could tell it was the bottom because a light was glowing, effectively scaring away all the shadows and allowing them to see again.

Travis stopped Connor and they hid at the bottom of the stairs, and then turned back around to take in the sight.

It was an enormous area with only one room as the entire basement, practically a dungeon. It had almost no furniture, and only cement as the floor. Right in the middle of the room was a huge, weird chain-type of thing. Basically, chains extended from the ceiling, and from the floor, and two prisoners were hanging, with their arms stretched up and their feet pulled down. One of the prisoners had sandy blonde hair. It had to be Marvin!

And the other one was Katie!

Travis almost leaped up right away to get her, but Connor held him back.

"Wait." He mouthed.

Marvin's head was rolled back, and his eyes were firmly closed. It looked like his breathing was even, but he was unnaturally white, and there was a lump growing on his forehead.

Katie was awake, her eyes wide. She looked fine, or at least unharmed as far as Travis could see. He began to breathe again.

"You idiots! I told you that you would have to be careful when working with demigods! You can't leave messes everywhere! What if someone other than those two morons saw? We'd have chaos, and then we'd be found out! Do you really want to be put away in those stupid human jails? Or else this school would shut down and we wouldn't get anymore demigods! Gods, why do I even work with you fools?"

The voice was unmistakably Jordan's.

He stepped into view, followed by Mr. Bumblebee and Ms. Zanderbottom.

"You're the one behind this!" Katie gasped, finally getting a view of her kidnapper.

Katie

She was terrified, although she was doing her best not to show it. She had been eating in the lunch room with Marvin when Mr. Wandermeyer had shown up. He'd asked to speak with her and Marvin privately, and Katie had assumed he was just going to say something about their dyslexia or ADHD, so she decided not to go all the way across the room to tell the boys just this once.

Big mistake.

The second they'd gotten out of view, Mr. Wandermeyer and slammed his fist into Marvin's head and then run after Katie. She'd managed to avoid him for a few moments, but before she could scream for help, he caught her and pushed down on a pressure point, causing her to black out. When she woke up, she was here.

And now she knew that Jordan was the one behind it all. At least she was right in not trusting him.

He smirked at her. "Oh, is little Katie-Watie scared? Don't be, Kates. I was just going to invite you to have dinner with my monsters."

Monsters? Katie let her eyes scan the group of abashed-looking teachers, and suddenly they flickered from humans to a group of horrendous kobaloi. She gasped aloud.

"What are you doing with them? They'll kill all of us!" Katie demanded.

"Oh, don't worry. They're well-trained." Jordan put his hands behind his head in a comfortable position.

"What are you doing with monsters? What's going on? Who are you?" Katie questioned. What in Hades was going on?

"Well, I suppose I can tell you. You won't be around much longer to tell anyone else, so I guess my secret's safe with you." Jordan chuckled at his own joke, and the group of monsters laughed along with him. It was a terrifying sight and sound.

"I'm a son of Hermes, as you've probably already figured out. You seemed like the smart type. Anyway, I stumbled upon this old school years ago. These monsters had been running it, eating all the demigods who happened to come along. At least until I arrived, it was a pretty chaotic place, and they rarely got any good snacks. However, I made a deal with them. They've sworn on the Styx that they won't hurt me, and I pretty much run this entire place. It's like my own personal castle, and these monsters are like my slaves. In return, I give them the okay with demigods, and they bring them down here. Sometimes, they eat the kids right away. Other times, they might try to fight the kid to build up an appetite, or even once they starved a kid to death. I remember that. That was funny. Anyway, I told them okay with Marvin, but that idiot Wandermeyer decided he wanted to grab you, too. I was going to save you and your brothers until later, when you were a little older, so that you would be ripe and good. Unfortunately, you got taken too early, and now your brothers have gotten a whiff of the problem, and they're trying to find you. They won't succeed, however, and pretty soon we'll have them down here, too. They'll eat all of you at the same time. It'll be quite a feast!" Jordan grinned at her and took a step back.

He's a maniac! Katie thought.

Travis

It took all his strength, (and Connor's) to keep him from jumping out right there and then and taking on that rat of a person, Jordan. He just wanted to murder each and every monster there.

Instead, Connor managed to heave him up, and they retreated back up the stairs. It was time to make a plan.

As soon as they hit the hallway, they started running. Hermes must have been watching them, because their feet seemed to be automatically guided toward the correct direction, and they quickly reached their room without getting lost. They barged in and hurriedly locked themselves in.

"We've got to go save Katie!" Travis hissed.

"I know! But we can't go in there empty-handed. We'll just kill ourselves!" Connor reminded him, still panting from the shock of it all.

Travis collapsed on the bed in despair. "What are we going to – OUCH!"

He leaped up and clutched his right thigh.

"I swear, I just felt something pinch me!" Travis shook his head. Connor turned on the flashlight, and Travis pulled back the bed sheet.

There was a huge lump of sheets, all wrapped together. Curious, Travis undid the knots and opened it up.

Lying on the bed, shining proudly, were two long, Celestial Bronze swords.