The next morning, Maya dropped Alicia off at her aunt's house and then drove us to the place Alec found. We had no idea what we were gonna do to get the bull to go for us; like, we could stand around, but that wouldn't necessarily piss it off enough.

Well, okay, we kinda had an idea but it was really dangerous. Maya had one of those business phones you can get e-mails on and like, search stuff with. So our whole plan boiled down to "Look up 'Marathonian bull' and hope for the best".

Not that there was really a "best". Our goal was "get a bull filled with Poseidon's wrath or whatever to charge us on a dead-end street by a condemned building" and even if everything went right that was a huge risk. But we weren't really thinking about that at the time, we just wanted to get back to Camp as soon as possible.

Anyways, on the ride over we finally realized, oh crap, Alec didn't carry any kind of back-up weapon. And we were about to purposely attract a monster. "I'll be fine, guys, we're not gonna fight; remember?"

"You don't know that," I countered. But like, quietly, because I didn't want Maya to hear.

"Either way, that's gonna be a problem when we leave," Diego pointed out.

"It's not like I don't have bolts, if I have to I can just stab with those," Alec said. "Hey Rory, are you almost done?"

Rory had been playing that one song [Something about a way? …oh, "Show Me the Way", right.] but he stopped a few seconds after Alec finished speaking. "Yes, actually. We didn't miss him."

"Good. Also, we're almost there, so be safe, everyone," Maya told us. "Mijo, you know my cellphone number?"

"Yeah?"

"Call it when you're finished so I can come pick you up." She parked the car somewhere we definitely weren't supposed to be and handed her phone to Diego. Because he both knew how to use a search engine and could spell "Marathonian". He gave it back less than a minute later.

[Yeah, I know, the internet is way faster than books and the mail and stuff! And the monsters can just… use it whenever, while our fastest way to talk and stuff is putting money you can't get outside Camp in a fucking rainbow.]

Then Maya got out of there because, well, mortal, and not ten minutes later the ground started shaking.

And we saw the bull.

I'm calling BS on Pasiphae surviving that thing long enough to get pregnant. Obviously she did, but I dunno how, 'cause I'm no bull expert but I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to be taller than me, and I'm definitely sure they're not supposed to be taller than Diego.

[Oh gods, they're supposed to be like, five feet at the shoulder, and that's the big ones? Okay, in my defense, the only other bulls I've seen are the automatons from back in June.]

[Heh, thanks, I do know bulls don't usually breathe fire, and I don't like that I had to say "usually".]

Thankfully, the Marathonian Bull was firmly in the Does-Not-Breathe-Fire category. It definitely noticed we were there, though, and it did not stop running. Like, it was slowing down and stuff – Rory'd started playing, uh… ["For What It's Worth"? Huh, that is not what I woulda guessed.] – but it was still coming in pretty fast.

We'd decided that I'd be the one to throw the net, because I have the best aim, and in hindsight that was a mistake because I have the worst throwing arm so I had to wait and let the bull get close. Way too close.

But the net opened and the bull tripped over it and slid about thirty feet before it got stopped by the building behind us. We all scattered in time to avoid getting hit and it sure is good that that office building was condemned anyways, 'cause there was a pretty big dent in it after that.

We kinda stared for a bit, then started regrouping. We'd done it.

We'd actually done it.

I actually felt kinda bad for this bull, though. It looked so… helpless trapped in the net. And the more he struggled [There, I stopped saying "it", is that better?] the tighter the net got.

"So… is this all you had to do?" Diego asked.

"Pretty sure all we had to do was find it, and yay, go us, we did that. Can we get out of here already?"

Of course Alec wanted to leave. But Rory wanted to talk to the bull, to see who sent him. And of course, I still needed to IM Mr. D.

It was sunny out, so we did actually get to use the prism Alec found. He handed it over to Diego, who had no idea what it was for cause we kinda forgot to explain IMs to him, but he got an example pretty quick. "O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering. Show me Dionysus at Camp Half-Blood."

I held a drachma up to the rainbow and it disappeared. I honestly thought Diego was gonna drop the prism for a second there but he kept hold of it and just gave me this look, like, a I-won't-interrupt-this-cult-shit-but-there'd-better-be-an-explanation look.

"Oh, drat, you didn't die," Mr. D. greeted us. He was on the porch of the Big House playing some card game with… Chiron? Chiron was back! I'd never have to see Tantalus again! "I believe it's my deal."

"Yo, Mr. D., Chiron, Brenna did that thing Tantalus told her to do. We stopped the bull from reaching Camp."

I rolled my eyes, but didn't protest. We, huh? "Yeah, what're we supposed to do now?"

"That depends. Did you enjoy being a dolphin?" Mr. D. asked, looking at his cards.

"Actually, yes, but I dunno what that has to do with anything. We had permission."

"Not mine."

"Okay, but the Activities Director is totally allowed to assign quests," Alec said. "And Rory was literally doing his job."

Chiron smiled. "So I see. It would seem we have much to discuss."

I gave him the short version of this whole mess – I sassed Tantalus and he basically told me to get out, I met my dad, we fought some monsters, ran into Diego, and captured this bull.

Then Chiron gave us a quick run-down on the situation at Camp – Clarisse made it back with the Fleece, Percy and everyone made it back, and the borders were working again. Oh, and Thalia's back now, so I guess that's cool? Wish that'd happened last summer, though… maybe then Luke wouldn't've…

…uh, anyways, we also learned about Luke's cruise ship full of monsters, and then Chiron told us to come back to Camp as soon as possible and we signed off.

"What the hell just happened?" Diego asked.

"Not it! Gonna go find a payphone!" Alec yelled as he ran away like the coward he is.

So I got to explain that whole conversation and Iris-Messaging to Diego, and pretty much all of his questions went over my head 'cause I'm barely at third-grade level science and like, I'm not a magic expert. Butch would've done a way better job.

After we finished with that, Rory walked over. [You were totally just waiting so you wouldn't have to… oh, right. I live in the most ADHD cabin at a camp full of ADHD kids, I keep forgetting that interrupting is rude.] I was hoping he'd have some answers, but… "He says he was sent by Poseidon to ruin some orchards in Georgia, but someone else told him that his orders had changed. That he needed to raze Camp Half-Blood because two of Poseidon's sons were dead."

Not those answers. Those weren't good answers. I'd bet anything that that "someone else" was Kronos. Or a messenger from him, anyways. "Well, you can tell him that was a lie. Percy and Tyson are fine, according to Chiron," I replied.

"So I've heard. Which means that Tantalus lied, too," Rory said grimly. "Dimitris says that he won't gore us if we release him."

"All right, let's do that," I decided. "Uh… tell him sorry about the whole net thing."

"Already done."

The three of us walked up to Dimitris and started untangling him. It was a really good thing that Diego came with us, 'cause me and Rory couldn't reach as high as we needed to. "This doesn't make sense… so Tantalus, a soul from the Underworld, which is I guess a real place, somehow knew about all this? While he was at Camp?"

I stopped what I was doing. I'd been so busy worrying about how we were gonna get stuff done, I never even questioned that. How the hell did Tantalus know? "He must've been working with Luke! Gods, no wonder so many people were leaving…"

"How would he have gotten that past Lord Dionysus?" Rory wondered.

"I know you're like, obligated to not hate him, but the dude just threatened to turn me back into a dolphin, so I'd totally buy him turning a blind eye to anything that gets 'troublemakers' out," I responded. "Damn, this stuff is really tangled…"

Dimitris grunted and I didn't need to speak bull to get the and whose fault is that? he was implying. "What do you mean 'back into a dolphin?'" Diego asked as he finished freeing the bull's head.

"Oh, I got dared to ask Mr. D. about the time he was kidnapped by pirates. I could've been an insane dolphin, so I kinda got off easy. And it was only for like a day, Mary talked him into changing me back."

"Okay, I have so many questions."

"You're not the only one," Rory muttered. "Most of mine are along the lines of 'why would you ever accept a dare from Travis Stoll?'"

"Look, there were stakes, okay? Truth or Dare ends when someone chickens out, and if you chicken out you have to deep-clean the cabin when Silena's inspecting!"

Rory sighed. "Well, being a dolphin forever would get you out of that. But still, I doubt that Dionysus would just allow someone to work with Kronos." Both of us looked up; no lightning, so we were in the clear.

"Yeah, probably not… he still could've been hiding it, though," I said as I loosened the last strand of netting from Dimitris's hoof. "There you go."

He stood, snorted, and left us just as quickly as he'd shown up. I was just relieved that he kept his word and didn't try to kill us.

We were quiet for a few seconds until Diego said, "Shouldn't Alec be back by now?"

Nah, it hadn't been that long… had it? "You're right," Rory agreed.

Damn it, again? The kid was a son of Eos for gods' sakes, he shouldn't've mattered to monsters at all! And this was, what, the second time he'd split off and maybe got his ass killed in two days? If the scouting counted, it'd be the third.

Just as Rory started playing his lyre, Alec returned. "I got one, guys! Follow me!"

[In hindsight? We never should've done it, Rory. Never. We should've just walked to the nearest Wawa or whatever, borrowed their phone, and booked bus tickets back to NYC. If Alec had a problem with that, literally any of us could've taken him. It would've been super easy, and we all could've gone HOME!]

[H-hey, I'm b-b-breathing fine… I can cal – calm d-down. I can –]

[I can't. Can't can't can't can't can't can't can't can't…]

Author's Note: Sorry this one took so long, it's been Busy Hours at work, but the good news is next month's update will actually be on time probably! Next time... Shit Goes Down.