I saw my mother in front of me, for the first time in months. She was in the kitchen preparing her famous 7-layer dip. "Mom!" I called but she didn't seem to hear me. She just continued as if I hadn't spoken.

I heard Gabe's voice from the other room. "When's that dip ready?" he shouted impatiently.

"In a minute, dear!" mum called back.

'What does she see in that guy?' I thought to myself before trying again to call her name. "Mom!" Again, she acted as though I wasn't there. I went to tap her on the shoulder but my hand slipped right through. 'Is this a dream?' I asked myself.

I heard a knock at the door and was suddenly filled with the most overwhelming feeling of dread.

"Sally! The door!" Gabe called.

"No mom! Don't open it!" I shouted but she still couldn't hear me. I followed her to the door and watched her open it. On the other side, we came face to face with a woman who looked almost identical to Mrs Dodds. "No!" I shouted and jumped in the way as my mum screeched in fear. I reached into my pocket to grab my pen but it wasn't there. Riptide always appeared in my pocket but it wasn't there.

The monster glared at me. "There's nothing you can do, Percy Jackson," she snarled before cackling.

"Percy?" my mother asked, confused. "Where's Percy?"

The monster jumped but sailed right through me. I turned round in horror as the hag slashed her claws towards my mother. I tried desperately to attack the monster but my fist just sailed right through her as if she was mist. The monster's claws made contact with my mom's stomach and she vanished into golden light.

"MOM!" I screamed with rage. She couldn't be dead. The monster turned to face me and smiled.

"You could have saved her you know?" it snarled. "If you'd confessed, none of this would have happened." The hag then slashed her claws at me.

I jumped awake, panting. It took a second to remember where I was - the back seat of a bus. Annabeth, who had formerly been resting on my shoulder, was now looking up at me, concerned. I steadied my breathing and took a second to calm down. "It was just a dream," I told her, though I didn't really believe it.

She nodded hesitantly, before saying, "I'll go ask Grover how long until we arrive." She got up from her seat and walked to where Grover was sitting at the front.

I leant back against my seat. Due to some complications at the bus depot involving a hungry harpy, two cyclops security guards and a rather angry looking mortal, we'd had to split up. Thalia, Luke and Tyson on one bus and me, Annabeth and Grover on another. Grover was sat near the front because he was keeping a lookout.

Annabeth came and took her place next to me again. "Grover says thirty minutes," she said before resting her head on my shoulder again. "I'm tired. Wake me up when we get there." And just like that she was asleep.

I didn't think I could sleep after the dream I just had so I just sat as still as I could and tried to make sense of what I'd just seen. It had been months since the attack from Mrs Dodds and when I saw mother for the last time. I had thought about her a lot, but that was the first time I'd had a dream about her. And for some reason, that hadn't felt like a dream. It had felt real. Like it was actually happening. My mum had really been killed by a Kindly One and vanished in golden light. That couldn't have happened though. Could it? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince myself that it wasn't real.

Annabeth stirred underneath and I was brought back to the present. I focused on her breathing and slowly began to feel sleep take me too. However, before that could happen, Grover walked over and shook us awake. "We're here, guys," he told us. Annabeth looked up at him blearily before sitting up. She rubbed her eyes and grabbed her backpack. I grabbed mine and we both stood and followed him out of the bus.

The terminal was rather empty, even for the middle of the night. We followed Grover over to a Café and sat at a table. A waitress came over to take our orders. "Coke please, with a large sausage roll," I requested. The others put their orders in and the waitress walked away.

"Luke and Thalia should arrive in about an hour," Annabeth muttered.

"Mind if I join you?" I looked up and was faced with a man in a Hawaiian t-shirt and Bermuda shorts. In his hand was a coke but my time with Gabe had taught me to recognise when someone had been hitting the happy juice. If this man was a stranger to alcohol then I was a satyr. Annabeth eyed him wearily and I noticed her hand slipping towards her dagger. Grover on the other hand was staring at him with a face that radiated awe and fear at the same time.

"There'll be no need for violence Ms. Cheese," the man said. "I am Dionysus, but you may call me Mr D."

"Dionysus?" I asked incredulously. "As in, the god of wine?"

"Yes, boy. Jeez I thought your mother taught you the basics." I was reminded of my dream when he said that and I felt anger and sadness boil up inside me.

"What do you want?" Annabeth asked him.

"Want? What do I want? I want a nice bottle of vintage wine and be able to sit back on my throne on Olympus. But, alas, this meeting is not about what I want. It's your father, boy, who sent me."

"My… my father?"

"Yes, your father."

"Who is my father?" I asked.

"Right, I forgot about that little detail. Your father is Poseidon. Anyway I haven't got all day-"

"Hold up," I interrupted. "You're just going to drop in that little detail like it's nothing? My father finally decides to claim me but he sends you to do it? Where is he?"

Dionysus sighed, dramatically. "Your father has an entire ocean to run. And he's forbidden by ancient law to interfere with mortal affairs or even meet with you. And it's my job now to do these sorts of errands. Ever since Zeus got angry after that little incident with the wood nymph; but anyway, we're getting off topic. I'm here to deliver a quest."

Annabeth stared at him dumbfounded. "A… a quest!?"

"Shout it a bit louder why don't you, I don't think the empousa in the kitchens heard you," Dionysus remarked sarcastically. I glanced at Annabeth and we decided to leave the empousa for later.

"Tell us more about this 'quest'," I said.

"Do you know what the Master Bolt is? No? Well then, it's Zeus' main weapon. It's more powerful than an atomic bomb and it's lost."

"Lost!?" How could someone lose something that powerful?

"Yes. Well, no. Not exactly. It was stolen."

"By who?" Grover asked.

"That's exactly it. We don't know. It was stolen during the winter solstice meeting and now Zeus is blaming Poseidon."

"Why?" Annabeth demanded.

"You see, gods are forbidden from doing many things by various ancient laws, one of which being they can't take another's symbol of power. However, mortals are not bound by such rules. Zeus' Master Bolt was stolen by a mortal thief and Zeus thinks it was you," he said, pointing at me.

"That's…" I was going to say ridiculous but I could see why he thought that. I lived in New York and it wouldn't have been that hard for me to sneak into Olympus and steal the bolt.

"Ridiculous? Well, wait until you hear this. Poseidon is angry at Zeus for blaming him and is demanding an apology. They've been arguing since then. Zeus says that if he doesn't get his lightning bolt back by the summer solstice then he'll declare war. Here's the real kicker, though. Poseidon says if he doesn't get his apology by the summer solstice then he'll declare a war. Ha!"

I didn't really think this was anything to laugh about but I got the feeling that questioning him about it wouldn't really help. "So, you want us to find this 'Master Bolt' before the summer solstice?"

"Unless you want to see the world fight itself, total Armageddon, and the human race die out, then yes. That's exactly what you're going to do."

"How are we supposed to find the Master Bolt when we don't know who stole it?" Annabeth demanded.

"Not my problem. I've delivered my message, my job is done. You're the daughter of Athena, you figure it out." And with that, he vanished in a puff of wine flavoured smoke.

I looked at both my friends, confused. "Would anyone like to confirm what just happened?"

"Yep," Grover muttered, "that really happened."

Annabeth was thinking hard. "Who would steal the lightning bolt?" She muttered. "Maybe they don't want the lightning bolt; maybe they just knew that Zeus would blame Poseidon."

"Annabeth, what are you saying?" I asked her but she ignored me.

"Why would they want to start a war, though? Why, why why?"

"The world is going to go to war with itself, billions will die. Who would want that?" I asked before realising.

"Hades!" we both said in unison.

"Of course. He's jealous of his brothers after they told him he wasn't welcome on Olympus," Annabeth ranted excitedly.

"And he'd know exactly how to tick off his brothers," I continued.

"All he'd need to do was hire a mortal, and he has dream demons under his control who could do that."

"Then, while his brothers are fighting, he's hiding in the underworld, building himself an unstoppable army from the casualties."

"And he's still got the Master Bolt," Annabeth finished.

Grover looked between the two of us. "Ok, you guys are way too excited about this. You do realise this means that we have to go into the underworld to get the Bolt back. And we have to face Hades, god of the underworld, one of the Big Three and one of the most powerful gods!"

We both looked down sheepishly. "Right, sorry. Just very excited about having figured it out," Annabeth murmured.

I suddenly remembered something from our conversations with Dionysus. "Guys, before we go any further, what are we going to do about the empousa in the kitchen?"

They both looked at me, confused for a second, before realisation swept over them. "Grover, why didn't you warn us about the monster?" Annabeth demanded.

"I'm sorry, I thought it was just Tyson's residual smell. Usually I block it out when Tyson is around but I just sort of assumed that I wasn't blocking it out now he's gone."

Me and Annabeth drew our blades and slowly crept towards the kitchen. As we were about to reach the door, the waitress walked out, holding our orders. She jumped when she saw us, dropping the tray on the floor, and looked down at our hands. "Sir, please put the baseball bat down. Madam, please put your pocket knife away before I call the police." We looked at each other and back at the waitress. I tapped my pen lid against the end of my sword and it shrank down into a pen. "Good, now put it in your pocket sir."

Annabeth lunged with her knife and I uncapped my sword again. The waitress jumped back and her Mist disguise burned away. Her skin turned pure white and her hair into flames. Two long fangs grew out of her mouth and her eyes glowed red. One of her legs turned into bronze and the other sprouted hair and resembled the leg of a donkey. She snarled at us and jumped towards me. I span out of the way and Annabeth swiped at the empousa. The monster leapt backwards and glared at us. She began slashing wildly at me, pushing me backwards until I tripped over a table. She jumped on top of me and bared her fangs. I tried to push her off me but she dug her claws into my side. Just as her fangs were about to pierce my skin, she froze. The empousa shrieked and crumbled into dust. I saw Annabeth standing over me with her dagger right where the empousa's heart was.

For a moment, we just stayed there, panting, before Annabeth helped me up and we walked to where Grover was still waiting for Luke and Thalia. We sat on our seats and waited.

"So, your dad is Poseidon," Annabeth said.

"I guess so."

"Explains why you're such a Seaweed Brain," she muttered. I glared at her and she laughed.