I know I haven't added a chapter to this in about a week but I haven't abandoned Heroes of Artemis I've just had an Honor Band thing that took up all my time. I've posted two chapters to my other stories today as well so please look at those…

Please review and PM if you have any comments or questions or anything like that…I'll try to post more often as well.

Chapter 2. Right.

The truck took us to Auntie Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, which appeared to be a statuary place with some very lifelike figures.

Cassandra frowned a little and Annabeth looked a little suspicious but it looked like a pretty nice place. Grover bleated at a satyr statue, saying something like 'that looks like my Uncle Ferdinand'.

Auntie Em, as she called herself, wore dark sunglasses and a turban and spoke with a faint New Jersey accent or something, looking Middle Eastern. She offered to cook us food, and since we were hungry preteens, except Grover, who was already a teenager, we all agreed, even though Annabeth was still on edge. However, things only started to get weirder- the faint hissing sounds we thought were the fryers, and Auntie Em's strange disliking of Annabeth Chase, but I brushed it off. The food smelled amazing.

But then, she wanted a picture of us. Probably to sculpt into people or something, and that's where it went downhill. Before I knew it, the turban was off the Auntie Em's snakes for hair connected with my brain and I realized I was staring at Auntie M- M for Medusa.

Cassandra pulled me away and we ran, splitting up with Grover, Percy, and Annabeth, weaving in between ropes of hedges and leaves and statues…the satyr apparently was Grover's uncle Ferdinand, transformed into a statue by Medusa. Grover, needless to say, was worked up, but it didn't stop him from being helpful in distracting the Gorgon.

"How is Medusa here? She was killed by Perseus!" Cassandra huffed and turned to me, rolling her eyes. Jeez, we were only twelve and Cass was already getting all huffy and teenager-y.

"Didn't you pay attention to our lessons from Chiron? Monsters reform in Tartarus, and they come back. Obviously, Medusa is back, probably for a while, posing as a statuary store and turning all her customers to stone." Cassandra explained, tugging me down to crouch behind a statue of a screaming girl, her face forever frozen in horror, the way mine must have been when I saw those snakes for hair too. I could hear Medusa calling for Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase- something about how Annabeth's mother, Athena, had turned her into the monster she was and she was going to make Annabeth pay for it now instead of just letting it go. She'd become a monster inside and you could see that.

And Percy's father, Poseidon, had been a part of it too- he'd been Medusa's lover and had dumped her after she was turned because the two had been defiling Athena's temple, and he had gotten her pregnant with Pegasus and Chrysie, and if a goddess had gotten me turned into a monster and made me have two immortal kids, one being a horse, I would be pretty annoyed and maybe angry as well.

I could hear Annabeth's breathing a few feet away- cornered with another woman who was apparently hysterical and begging Annabeth to save her, and I heard the woman's scream as Medusa's eyes turned her to stone. Annabeth, however, stayed trembling and trying to keep her eyes closed as Medusa lurked closer.

"Hey, Snake Head!" Cassandra had broken the screaming girl's fist off and threw it at the immortal monster. Angered, Cass ducked down before she could be turned to stone with Medusa's eyes, but slowly enough that the angered Gorgon moved after Cass and myself instead of lurking with Annabeth.

"Split up, Ben! It's a better way then doing this. You help Annabeth, and I will find Percy or Grover or something, but I'll lead her away. She pushed me out of Medusa's sight and ran, away from me and away from Medusa and/or Annabeth.

"Annabeth," I whispered. She was still panting and trying to keep her flickering eyelids closed, which I knew was hard sometimes. "You're safe now." She looked so pretty, with her blond princess curls and those gray eyes that ruined the image of a perfect California girl. She definitely broke the 'dumb blonde' stereotype like the glass ceiling, smashing it with a hammer and letting the shards rain down. "Annabeth, it's me, Ben." Her eyes flickered open, looking relieved. She was struggling in the stone woman's grip, and she looked around.

"Where's the Gorgon?" she hissed. "Help me break this." I complied, using my sword, Tenebris, which is Stygian iron and is shaped like the Roman spatha, to break the stone hand, which Annabeth deftly freed herself of, hissing and rubbing the red friction burn on her wrist, but she pulled me away.

"Percy!" she shouted. "Grover!"

"Annabeth!" Grover's voice sounded at the other end of the shop, and Annabeth closed her eyes tightly, cursing in Ancient Greek and calling Medusa a few not-so-nice names. I understood how she felt, but Annabeth had been at camp for years clamoring to go on a quest, maybe she should realize how she'd asked for this for years and was finally getting what she'd wanted before, instead of cursing the monsters we would inevitably fight.

"We need to go," she said, fixing me with her steel-gray gaze. "Thanks, by the way."

Demigods don't apologize easily, especially hubris-prone Annabeth. I decided to take what I could get and we moved on, regrouping with Cass and eventually Grover, while we watched Percy try to take on Medusa.

"Look in your shield!" Annabeth called out to him, and he got what she was trying to say without words. Looking for Medusa in his bronze shield's reflection, he located the monster and, in one swing, chopped off her head.

"Careful. It's still lethal, even in death." Annabeth stared down at its mouth, careful not to meet its eyes, carefully closing Medusa's eyelids. The crumped Middle Eastern body had turned into a yellow dust that Percy was covered in, and we wrapped the Gorgon head in Grover's hoodie. Soon we were on a bus, where our next adventures started to happen.

We found the poodle in some city I soon forgot because of my ADHD. He, or she, Grover said, was willing to be returned to help us, as the reward was 200$. Must've been a rich poodle. We bought train tickets, since earlier, we'd been attacked by Furies on a bus. We got off at the Gateway Arch, where we were separated from Percy. From what I understood, he'd met Echidna, mother of monsters, and jumped off the Arch into the Mississippi River. I was surprised we were all still alive, especially him, the son of Poseidon. No one survives a fall from that height that is human, but I guess being son of the god of the sea has its perks when it comes to water.

That was when Ares showed up. He called Percy a punk and sent just Percy and Annabeth on a quest to a Denver waterpark to find his shield since he left it on a date with his 'girlfriend'. Whatever the reason. Cass, Grover, and I just stayed at the diner or around the area, waiting for them to come back, since it was wildly obvious that if we moved around the monsters would come for us once more.

Annabeth came back pale, and Percy got into some sort of fight with Ares and a waitress called the cops or something, so we left pretty fast.

I'm sorry it's kind of rushed, but I don't really know how much of it I can incorporate without ruining the Lightning Thief. I'm sorry Sketchywolf.

We were put into a 'Kindness International' truck, which wasn't very kind, the animals were underappreciated and not even fed the right foods. Annabeth and Percy helped clean up the zebra, who was apparently talking to Percy, though I had no idea. Grover tried to comb out the mats in the lion's mane, and, in the morning, we once again reorganized the the animals' breakfasts and got out before we were spotted and arrested for juvenile delinquency, finding ourselves in Las Vegas's Lotus Hotel and Casino.

We should've known something was up there.