Disclaimer: Neither Myra109 nor RueFlower777 own PJO/HOO. We only own our Original Characters (OCs).


Back At Camp Half Blood

"Why does he have a chemistry book in here?" Nyssa wondered, eyes squinted in confusion as she held up a thick, heavy book with the word Chemistry printed on the front and surrounded by a typhoons of colors that splashed across the page.

Percy shrugged, examining a rubber duck from the box in curiosity, wondering what the tale behind this object was. "Who knows? Once all of this resolved and Leo is healthy again, you can ask him."

"Since when do you know a word like resolved?" Frank asked, tone colored with disbelief, glancing up from the box.

Percy narrowed his eyes, irritated. "I'm not completely stupid, you know," he snapped, placing the rubber duck back in the box.

"Yeah," Annabeth spoke up, looking up from where she was searching through the box. "He can actually be pretty smart when he wants to be."

"Thank you, Anna-"

"Hey, what's this?" Harley suddenly inquired, causing them to turn to him as he held up a folded pamphlet.

Annabeth took the pamphlet from Harley and unfolded it, revealing a map of the United States. There were drawings all over the map, done in various colors and with multiple writing utensils (although mostly Sharpie).

Annabeth frowned in confusion. "What on Earth does all of this mean?" she murmured, eyes scanning the map and drinking in all of the different symbols scattered across the paper. There were numbers and letters and sometimes totally random icons, like a fish with a frowny face or a book or… startlingly, a noose.

"Follow the path the fire user once walked alone," Hazel mused as she glanced over Annabeth's shoulder at the map, sitting on Leo's bed while she looked at all of the objects she had pulled out of the Box Of Mystery (as Percy had taken to calling it). "Maybe this map is the path the prophecy talked about."

Annabeth hummed in consideration. "I think you might be right, Hazel. Maybe we have to use context clues from the other lines in the prophecy to discover what some of these symbols mean and which to go to. What were some of the other lines in the prophecy?"

Will withdrew a slip of paper from his pocket, which he had written the prophecy on following the Oracle's spooky and mysterious… well, prophecy.

"The Hunters know the way to the lion's den," he recited.

"The stuffed lion at Teresa's place," Annabeth stated. "The Hunters are already on it."

"While a lock of hair helps dove and lightning to make the trio whole again," Will read. "Jason and Piper went to the Underworld with Nico to find Julia Bandersnatch, the girl the hair belonged to, and see if she knows anything about the object Jason and Piper need to find."

Annabeth nodded. "Okay. What's next?"

"Skull and sun must find a picture in the ashes," Will answered, lifting the piece of paper to read from it.

Percy bit his lip in thought. "Well, skull and sun are obviously you and Nico, but a picture in the ashes? What significance does that have?"

Annabeth looked over the map and shook her head. "There's no depictions of fire anywhere on here."

"Maybe Jason and Piper will know. We can ask them when they get back," Hazel proposed. "In the meantime, Will, continue."

Will did so. "Sea must swim past the deep end before the storm passes."

Annabeth tapped the map. "Look at this."

She placed the map beside Hazel and smoothed out some of the creases to make the symbols clearer, and she pointed to a picture of a swimming pool.

"St. Louis," Percy realized.

Annabeth nodded. "Yep. Try not to break the St. Louis Arch again," she said in mild exasperation, but the fondness was unmistakable in her tone.

"What?" Hazel, Frank, and Harley squawked. Nyssa and Will, who had been at camp at the time of Percy's first quest and heard the story, muffled chuckles at the shocked expressions on the others' faces.

Percy shrugged with a sheepish smile. "Story for another time. Does anybody have any idea what I'm looking for? St. Louis is a big city," he pointed out, voice woven with doubt and uncertainty. How could he find the object if the prophecy didn't even give him a hint of what he was looking for or where to find it? All he knew was that it was somewhere in St. Louis, which wasn't exactly a small town.

Annabeth frowned before a small smile crossed her face. "You know, I think I might have an idea. We only know the city, not the exact location, but there's a way we might be able to find out."

Percy knit his brow. "And what would that be, Wise Girl?" He inquired, unable to hide the small grin that made its way onto his lips. He loved that look his girlfriend got in her eye when the gears in her head started turning, a clear sign of her unsurpassable cleverness.

Annabeth grabbed what appeared to be a business card out of the box. "Martin Blake, Social Worker," she read. "Remember him?"

Will nodded. "Yeah, Jason and Piper told me about him, but how can he help us? Isn't he bound by some kind of confidentiality agreement to protect the information of the children and the foster parents?"

Annabeth nodded. "Yes… but if someone can… break into the social worker building he works at, we can get the paperwork. And…" She examined the business card a little closer, "Just as I thought, the place of his work happens to be in St. Louis."

Percy raised an eyebrow, laughter dancing in his eyes. "Wise Girl, are you encouraging me to break into a building and steal confidential records?"

Annabeth smirked, cheekily. "Oh, I'm not encouraging you. I'm telling you. You've done worse."

Percy shrugged. "True," he agreed, pocketing the business card of Martin Blake. "All right, Will, what's next?"

"Wisdom follows an article to a friendship long since broken," Will told him.

Nyssa frowned, fiddling with some random wires and other loose objects. She, like most Hephestaus children, moved their hands even more than usual when they were nervous or scared. "But that could be a lot of things. An article could be an object… an article of clothing… or-"

"A newspaper article?" Frank interrupted, holding up a cut out section of a newspaper he had found in the box and handing it to Annabeth.

She forgot how to breathe.

Suicide Of Local Columbus Teen

Holly Webster (13) died by suicide last night. Her best friend Leonidas Valdez (13) is unable to comment. Valdez had found out Holly Webster had hung herself on a noose yesterday evening. According to sources, Webster posted a video with her final goodbye to the world, and it was seen by her friend, Leonidas Valdez. Valdez called Holly Webster's mother (Lucy Webster, 41). Holly Webster was home alone, and by the time Valdez reached the house, Webster had hung herself. The ambulance arrived three minutes later, but it was already too late. Holly Webster was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:43 pm on April 19th, 2014 at Columbus Mercy Hospital.

Several students noted that Holly had been a (cont. pg 10)

The rest had been ripped off.

"I guess we know why the friendship was broken." Percy's voice was frighteningly flat and emotionless as he said this, but despite what appeared to be a neutral tone, Annabeth could hear the undertones pain and sadness.

Annabeth's own heart felt like it had been sucker punched. Loss of life was horrible enough, especially with someone so young, but to know that someone had felt so much pain and emotional agony that they decided it would be better to have no life at all than continue to life the life they had… that was just awful.

Being a demigod, they had all had a suicidal thought at one point or another, some worse than others. To just give up, stop fighting, to surrender and lay down… that was pretty tempting with the chaotic, exhausting lives demigods lived. They were fighting a constant battle, and sometimes it seemed better fought than won. Because the only way to end a constant battle was to die…

For most demigods, Annabeth included, these thoughts were few and far between, thankfully. But for the ones that had these thoughts more often than others… not all of them survived, and it never got any easier when a fellow demigod died by their own hand.

Annabeth glanced at Percy. After what happened with Luke, it was very possible that she could have been one of those demigods… but she found something to live for.

She only wished that she could say the same for everyone who even considered suicide because not everyone found that reason to stay.

"I guess I'm going to Columbus, Ohio," she choked out, and if anyone noticed the tears in her eyes, they didn't say anything. Partially because they all had tears in their own. "What's next, Will?" She managed, placing the newspaper article on the floor by her leg, being extra careful with it as though it were a fragile artifact.

Will swallowed. "War and Jewels go the Golden State to search for a token."

"War and Jewels is Hazel and Frank," Harley said.

"And the Golden State is California," Nyssa added.

Annabeth took a deep breath, trying to ignore the tears drying just under her eyes, and she wiped away the remnants of her sorrow and got back to work.

Annabeth examine the map on the bed more closely, pointing to California.

"There's three," Harley realized, and the young mechanic was right. There were three things on the map in the state of California. A music note with the words Toons and Jams written below it. A printed out miniature picture of the cover of Romeo and Juliet (Annabeth wondered what the story behind that one was). And A drawing of angel wings.

"I guess you guys will have to check them all," Annabeth said, but before she could continue, Nyssa spoke up:

"Look at this," the daughter of Hephaestus interjected, holding up a copy of Romeo and Juliet that she had pulled out of the box. "Could this be what that symbol means?" She suggested, pointing to the Romeo and Juliet picture on the map.

Nyssa opened up the book and grinned, triumphantly. "Chargers High School, Home of the Stallions," she announced, showing them the incident the book, which had Leo's name written in cursive with the name of the school under it. "You guys have a location," Nyssa pointed out, handing the book to Hazel.

"What about the other two?" Will asked.

"Well…" Annabeth clicked her tongue in thought as she pulled a laptop out of her bag (with its very own monster repelling chip installed, courtesy of Leo). "Toons and Jams sounds like some kind of store or restaurant or something, which means that it should pop up when I search it," she explained, and sure enough, when she hit search, Toons and Jams popped up in the results.

"It's a Teen Club," Annabeth informed them, grabbing a notepad from Leo's bedside table and jotting something down with a pen. "And here's the address," she added, handing the paper to Hazel, who stuck it inside the copy of Romeo and Juliet. "The only thing I'm not sure about is the picture of the angel wings. We have the city, but not the exact location."

Frank pursed his lips. "I guess we'll have to found out when we get there… or maybe the gods will decide to be nice and send us a dream with the location. We can hope, right?"

Will nodded. "Okay, the rest of the lines are pretty self explanatory… except for one: lightning must remember lost memories. Lightning must mean Jason, but how can he recover these lost memories?"

Annabeth bit the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit of hers. "We can ask Chiron; he might know."

Before anyone could say anything more, the shadows in the room gathered together, gravitating towards the spot at the end of the bed, and out of the shadows tumbled their three friends.

"Jason, Piper, Nico, how did it go?" Percy questioned.

Nico swallowed as he got to his feet. "We'll explain everything, but we know what they're supposed to be looking for and where it is."

Hazel raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Well, that's a better turn out than expected."

"Trust me," Piper continued, and Annabeth felt her heart sink when she saw the despair reflected in Piper's kaleidoscope eyes. "When you hear this story, you won't think so."