I kept my promise; here's the first chapter in like half a month that's actually on time

Once we were on our way, I checked if I could see any damage on the boat (Maybe I should have done that before starting, but it was more time efficient that way). While doing so, I saw one arm of Annabeth's Teddy hanging out of her bag.

"I just realized that our bears- are pandas even real bears?" "They are true bears, but they are more distantly related to all the other bears than those are to each other." "So our two bears never actually 'met' each other." "In that case, it's about time they do. Oh, someone really wants to take care of that themsel-" A long pause followed. I assumed there was a switch taking place. Apparently whoever wanted to introduce the two did not like to wait. "Oh, hello, I heard there's two teddies here who need to become friends" a child's voice said. "Oh, hi Annie. I Haven't seen you in a while." "I'm not Annie, I'm Luisa" the young girl explained. "Oh, sorry." I got the PPP from my bag, Luisa got Annabeth's teddy from her bag and the three of them engaged in a, factually speaking, one sided conversation, though in Luisa's head it probably was not. As per usual, it was really cute. It was almost surreal to think about how this cuteness had been created from thousands of spiders attacking every night. Assuming that she had been created by that specific trauma. "Hey Luisa, how old are you?" "I'm seven, almost eight." "So, same age as Annie?" "She's a few weeks older" If they were both around the age when Annabeth ran away from home, did that mean the journey had been so traumatic that two alters had been necessary to handle it? "How old am I now? Like, the body." "Biologically, you're about 1 year and four weeks. Chronologically, it's about twenty days more, for me as well, because we both spent time in places where time passes at a different rate." "Huh, that's weird" "Greek mythology is always weird" "Are you a demigod too?" she asked excitedly and I nodded. "You're the first one I've met since I ran away from home. Technically the first ever since I also didn't meet any before running away."

So this alter was from before Luke and Thalia had shown up. "So, what is the last thing you remember before the body got older than you?" Maybe asking about such specific memories was kind of stupid because trauma but it was too late now. "The last thing I remember. I'd say that was when I was hiding under a sheet metal. I was hiding from monsters, but they still found me. I remember something pulled away the metal and the first thing I saw looked like the head of Medusa. I don't remember anything after that." "Oh, those weren't actually monsters. They were demigods and they helped you to camp." "And Medusa?" That was just a shield. With Medusa's face painted on it." "Oh okay. But it still looked really scary" She then continued introduction the two stuffed bears to each other. After around an hour of extreme adorable-ness, she declared them to be friends now. "Oh, by the way, where are we going?" "we're visiting your mortal family" "But why? Don't make me go there. There's spiders and my stepmom doesn't like me. I just ran away, there's no way I'm going back." "Luisa, calm down. You didn't just run away. That was almost a decade ago. Your relationship with your mortal family has improved massively and they even moved away so the spiders can't find you." Of course, that had not been the reason for them to move, but if it made her feel better… "If that's true, maybe I can give it a shot" "We can. And if anything goes wrong, I'll be right by your side to protect you from any step mothers or spiders"

Suddenly, something collided with the rain protection. I reached under it and pulled out a silver arrow. A tiny lightning bolt shocked my hand when I touched it. I stopped the boat and opened the canopy. Looking to the shore, I saw a small figure standing in between the trees, about 800 meters away. I summoned a bit of water and shaped it into a lens, something Annabeth had taught me in her course 'Things you can do with your powers that I am willing to share with you because you doing those things won't scare the living schist out of me.' As I had expected, the person standing there was Thalia. Who else shoots silver arrows that spark lightning? Thalia turned towards the forest, then gestured for us to come to her. "Who is that?" Luisa asked from behind.

"That's Thalia. She's the one who had medusa's face on her shield. She wants us to come to her." "Hey Annie, do you want to talk to Thalia?" A short silence followed. "Ok, she does. We'll try to switch" While she did that, I made the current carry our boat onto the beach. "Okay, I'm Annie now, but Luisa is close as well. So, Thalia's really not a tree anymore?" That had probably been the fastest switch so far. "That's right. She came back three years ago and joined the hunters of Artemis the following winter. Now she is forever one day from turning 16." We walked up a small hill up to where Thalia was. I told Annie to wait on the last few meters so I could debrief Thalia. "Hi, uh, because of trauma, Annabeth's brain basically reverted to around the time you were turned into a tree. Don't worry, it's not permanent. You can come now Annie." Thalia looked at me like I had just done something that could surprise a 21 year old demigod. (And yes, Thalia is that old, at least chronologically speaking. She was born in late 1988 and now it was 2010) Sorry, I can't think of anything that would do that.

Annie crossed the last few meters separating her from Thalia. "Thalia! You're back! I've missed you" "Uh hello, Annie. Do you want me to call you that?" Annie nodded. " I missed you too I guess." Thalia was obviously a bit overwhelmed with the whole situation. I did my best to explain it. "So, basically, Annabeth has experienced so much trauma that it caused her consciousness to break into different so-called alters. They have different ages, names, genders etc." "And I'm Annie. I'm almost eight. It appears that I'm stuck at the age that I was when we reached camp. By the way, what happened to Luke?" I let Thalia answer that question. I might have known more about modern day Annabeth, but only Thalia knew seven year old Annabeth well. "Annie, do you know what charm speak is?" "Yeah, Piper does it. She's very good" "Well, empousai do it as well. And one of them did it on Luke and made him…" Thalia took a deep breath. "made him follow Kronos" unsurprisingly, Annie was shocked. "But at the end, he turned to the good side and sacrificed himself to kill Kronos. Now, he will never reform." "So he did bad things, but then he did a bigger good thing. That is okay" The moral code of young children is so weird. But it was better than her either hating Luke or being severely shocked by his actions. She had basically made Luke's actions child friendly herself. Truly wonderful, the mind of a "fake" child created by trauma and structural dissociation. This isn't supposed to mean that the alters are fake, I would never say such a thing, just that Annie is not biologically a child. But of course the fact that she is mentally a child is the deciding factor here. So, uh, forget the "fake" part. Alters whose age differs from the body's are completely valid. Truly wonderful the mind of a child alter. Are you happy now?

"Oh, and may I ask why you were cruising around the west coast at plane-like speeds in a lifeboat?" Annie appeared to be thinking about it really hard, so I didn't interfere. "According to Luisa, we're visiting our dad. At first I didn't want to, but she reminded me how much had changed since I ran away, so it's okay now." "Really? I've never met your family. Except that one time me, Percy, Grover and a certain huntress who couldn't understand a dam joke…" "How? The joke was so dam obvious" We both laughed while Annie just got more and more confused before Thalia completed her sentence. "-and a certain huntress who couldn't understand a joke borrowed his car to go to a certain mountain. Maybe I'll come with you, at least to say hi. Of course, only if Lady Artemis allows it.

The aforementioned goddess appeared from behind the trees. "During my last AVGM, I have realized that even though few fit my ideas of maidenhood less than the Olympians, I do believe that family is important. And since you have accepted the young Annabeth as your child all those years ago, just like I have accepted you in my hunt, she is your family, especially since right now she is just as young." Artemis chuckled "And so is her father. Thus, I shall grant you this wish, my lieutenant. You are exempt from your duties for the following two days" How did Artemis know that that was how long Annabeth was planning to stay with her family? , maybe it was because she's a goddess and, like her brother, knows stuff. "Thank you, my lady. I will see you all in two days"

Together, the three of us walked down the hill and into our lifeboat. "One question: what is an AGVM?" "I think you mean AVMG. I also think I just said it wrong myself." "Well, you know what I mean. So, what is it?" "Annual virgin goddess meet up. Artemis meets with Athena and Hestia and they discuss aroace stuff" I summoned a wave to push us back out to sea. I picked up the arrow, which had stopped sparking, and gave it back to Thalia before we accelerated and continued our journey to San Francisco. During the journey, Thalia and Annie pretty much continued where they had left off nine years ago (Though for Thalia it felt like three years and even less for Annie, perhaps just a few days.

At some point there was another switch and Annabeth came back. "She looked around and noticed me and Thalia. "First of all, hi Thalia, second, where are we." "32.6 north, 117.3 west" "And where is that?" About one kilometer of the coast of Mexico, and just a few seconds from crossing into American waters." "But we were in Texas like one hour ago, how fast is that thing?" "Remember that loud boom about five minutes after we left?" "Yes, shouldn't you be checking the boat for damage?" "No, that wasn't an explosion. That was a supersonic boom. We're traveling at around three times the speed of sound. We'll reach san Francisco in about fifteen minutes."

"Ok, we are traveling at almost a kilometer per second and now I'm gonna brake, so uh try not to fall off the boat because by the time the others notice you'll be like 2 kilometers behind." I then summoned a wave in front of us traveling at our speed and used that to slow us down. Once we had reached a velocity of around twenty kilometers per hour, I made the water dome that had been protecting us from the wind disappear. I steered our boat below the golden gate bridge and into the San Francisco bay. From there on Annabeth told me where I could get closest to her home. When I reached the shore, there were still over five kilometers left. We could have walked, but if you put two big three children together, they become too powerful to do such mortal things as walking. Instead, I made the water carry us along the streets while Thalia manipulated the mist to make it look like we were a car. I parked the boat in front of the address Annabeth had told me and let her ring the doorbell.

Annabeth

My dad opened the door after a few seconds. "Annabeth, Percy, come in. And who are you again?" "Thalia, I was among the people who rescued Annabeth from mount Tamalpais." "Oh, right, the tree whose dad blew up my car" "Technically, that was Kronos, but he wanted to make us believe that it had been my father Zeus. And can I just say, the way you shot those monsters was amazing. And when it comes to shooting, I know what I'm talking about." About two seconds later, an arrow shot through the doorframe and almost cut my dad's ear off before landing a bull's eye on the dart board on the opposite wall, a good 8 meters away. "I would have believed you without a demonstration. Anyways, want to come in, we we're just about to have lunch." "Finally, I'm starving" Percy said. "We just went from New York to here in one go and I was the motor." "That sounds like something that would make one really hungry. By the way, the boys are visiting a friend and will be home around six. Percy, Thalia, just so you know they don't know anything about your or Annabeth's parentage and my wife and I intend to keep it that way. So no power usage or discussion of demigod stuff while they're here." "Percy, will you tell Estelle about it" I asked. "That's his mortal half-sister" "I haven't thought about it. I guess that's Sally's decision. But I still have until about 2014 until she'll be able to even comprehend and remember any of it.

After lunch, we had blue cookies as dessert. Of course, they weren't hot from the oven anymore, which is when they taste best, but a bit of lightning and an increase in air humidity to prevent them from getting too dry fixed that. After dinner, we talked about our latest quest, at least the parts that I could talk about comfortably, and Thalia told us what the hunters were up to. Apparently, some of them were beginning to write a song. Thalia sang the few lines she remembered "It's who we are. We don't need no, camouflage." It would probably take a few more years to write, record, and publish the song though. After that, we brought our stuff back up to my room which my dad had at least partially cleared for us, but there was still a large map of Ypern on the wall and a battlefield was built up in a corner.

So, our friends have made it to San Francisco without any near death experiences, which is already really good by demigod standards. Let's hope the rest of their stay will go just as smoothly (Which isn't likely at all, but one can hope)