And so the butterfly effect deepens... Don't forget to review if you're enjoying! Have a great day!

Chapter 17- I Break A Perfectly Good Waterpark (But No Hearts… I Think)

Maybe Aphrodite was excited, but none of the rest of us were. I don't know about you, but 'death, heartbreak, and sacrifice' was not exactly what I wanted in a relationship. I'd never put much thought into would want of course, but certainly not that. Aphrodite could keep her tragedies. I was more of a comedy guy myself.

Aphrodite managed to calm herself, though she was still smiling, "Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself. For today, we'll have to stick with our planting. You see, Hades has had a rare stroke of genius is about to ruin my plans, again. I've spent centuries punishing him for actually getting Persephone to love him, but this time I shall not permit him to ruin my story!"

Luke was apparently sick of Aphrodite's ranting, because he interrupted, sounding vaguely annoyed, "You have a quest for us then?"

Aphrodite glared at him, but then just let out a little 'tisk-tisk'. " Quest is such a grand word. This is more of a task, and it's not for you. I only need Percy."

"Me?" I didn't like being singled out by gods ever, but it seemed especially dangerous to be singled out by the goddess of love. If she asked me who I liked or something I wouldn't even know what to say. I hadn't put much thought into it.

But Aphrodite didn't ask that. She just continued to smile, "Yes. Hades has sent his Kindly ones to extract a rather dreadful young girl and her utterly delectable little brother from the Lotus Hotel and Casino. You must go and ensure that does not happen. If Hades's plan for these children was to come to fruition, not only would Olympus itself fall, but it would completely upset my OTP."

I didn't know what an 'OTP' was, but there weren't many interpretations for the 'fall of Olympus'. Clearly whatever Hades was going to do to these kids, it was bad. But still, I was already on a quest to save Olympus from Hades. It wasn't fair to give me another one on top of it!

"As for you two," Aphrodite turned to Annabeth and Luke. My friends had turned a firm shade of red, which seemed to please Aphrodite. "Well, you have some unfinished business of your own in this city. There is a former starlet getting drunk in the bar across the street. Once you find her it will be clear then what you must do."

The three of us exchanged a glance. None of us liked the idea of splitting up, but Aphrodite wasn't giving us much of a chance. At that point she waved her hand, and the chauffeur promptly pulled Annabeth and Luke from the limo. Before I could even react, we'd begun to move. I turned back to Aphrodite, and noticed for the first time just how crazed she looked. Love was scary man.

"You have a bag of magical pearls, do you not?" Aphrodite asked me. I wasn't sure how she knew, but I nodded, pulling it out. "Good. I always found Amphitrite rather, well, trite myself. After all, she has fifty sisters just like her. But there is no trope more exhausted than the evil step-mother, so I must commend her for originality. Take the red pearl, smash it, and then put it in your drink. It shall protect you from the worst of Hecate's magic, and from your lips the same protection can be granted to others."

I probably should have asked her to be more specific, but in school 'clarifying questions' always seemed to make me look dumb, so I just let it be. Instead I took one of the mini cans of coke and dropped the pearl in. The pearl immediately dissolved, which I actually find kind of concerning, but I drank the concoction anyways.

Aphrodite smiled, "I remember when Cleopatra used that trick with Marc Antony. He swore even she couldn't spend a fortune on a single meal, so she dissolved her most prized pearls in vinegar and drank them. If you ever thing your Annabeth is scary, be glad she is no daughter of mine."

I didn't know enough about history to understand how an Egyptian would be the daughter of Aphrodite, but I didn't question it. Not that I had time to. Just as I finished drinking my few-thousand-dollar Coke, we pulled into the shining "Lotus Hotel and Casino".

Aphrodite studied me for a second, and then nodded. She waved her hand, "There. You need to look like yourself when they first see you. That way they'll be able to know your heart."

I thought that was rich coming from a woman whose appearance constantly changed, but if it meant my hair was brown again, I wasn't complaining. I really didn't like looking in the mirror and seeing some California surfer-dude.

"One final piece of advice, my dear," Aphrodite told me before I could get out. "Take care with who you call family. The love you may share with them is not my domain, but it is love still, and love always involves sacrifice."

On that cheery note, Aphrodite pushed me out of the limo and drove away.

I'd assumed the kids would be relatively easy to find. After all, Las Vegas casinos didn't tend to have a lot of kids. If I remembered my movies correctly, kids weren't usually even allowed on the casino floor. I figured if I found a brother and sister sitting off to the side, they were probably the ones I wanted.

I figured very, very wrong.

The Lotus Casino didn't even seem to be a casino, not really. I guess because most kids don't know how to play more than a little blackjack, and everyone here was a kid. Even the staff seemed no older than Luke, and if I had to guess the average age for the customers, it would be about thirteen. Over by the ball pit there were a bunch of kids who couldn't have been older than five, and not a single adult in sight.

It should have been creepy, and maybe it was, but there was definitely a part of me which just said Sounds awesome, check me in.

Someone handed me a plastic card and told me to have fun. I didn't see how I could possibly do anything else. As far as the eye could see, there were games. Rows upon rows of pinball, Pac-Man, and air hockey, a four-story high water park, laser tag, paintball, even a giant chess board right out of "Harry Potter". If I didn't know I was on a timer, I could have started to play and never stopped. And even with the timer… I could feel the magic of the place, a strange pulsation I couldn't quite define. It had to be the pearl protecting me from whatever brainwashing caused people to stay here forever. Yet the temptation to play didn't go away. The real key to this place wasn't magic at all. If you had to choose between the real-world and unlimited fun, you'd always choose the fun.

I suppose in some ways my ADHD protected me more than the pearl. The temptation to play was too strong to resist, but after I bungee-jumped in the lobby twice, it started to get old. I saw some kids who looked like they hadn't moved from the same game in decades, but that just wasn't me. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to try everything but there was no one thing that could hold my attention. And every time I got bored of one game, I remembered why I was actually there.

Problem was, I knew my purpose, but I didn't have a clue how to accomplish it. I knew how to play Pac-Man. I had experience with laser tag. But Aphrodite had given me absolutely nothing about my targets except that Hades wanted them, and they were siblings. There had to be a couple hundred kids in that place. I didn't have a clue where to look.

I stuck to the multi-player games, asking everyone I came across if they had a brother or sister. The most common answer- 'I can't remember'. It was utterly depressing. I was tempted to start kissing people, in case it really would wake them up like Aphrodite suggested, but I doubted it would do them much good. Even if the magic of this place wouldn't affect them, the games were addicting themselves.

As I began to lose hope, I was further tempted to just lose myself in the games. Then I saw the woman who'd killed my mother.

The Fury would have stood out no matter what. Like I said, there weren't any adults in the place. But I would have recognized her anywhere regardless. She wore the same suite, carried the same briefcase. Her face was shaped differently, but the eyes gave her away. There was hate in those eyes. An evil, indifferent kind of hate which was far worse than hate born from anger. It seemed to say "I despise you because I was told to, not because you've ever actually done something to me".

But I hated the Fury, properly hated her. The moment I caught sight of her, I remembered watching my mother disappear before my eyes. I remembered my fear. I remembered my grief. I remembered my anger. The blood pounded in my ears. It took all my self-control not to draw Riptide and vaporize her on the spot. But I knew I couldn't. She was a servant of Hades, which meant she was there for the same reason I was. I needed to follow her and then kill her.

It wasn't difficult to stay hidden amid the stacks of arcade games, but the Fury moved beyond there, passing down long rows of board games. I saw some kids playing Monopoly dressed like they belonged in 1935, and heard another say their D&D campaign was in its third straight day. I did my best to stay along the floor's edge, watching from a distance, but a few times the Fury seemed to sense me. She'd turn suddenly, and then I'd have to pretend I'd been playing "Sorry" for the past decade. I felt her eyes upon me, and wondered if it was such a good idea to let Aphrodite wipe away my blond disguise. But every time the Fury just moved on.

The moment I saw them, I knew I'd found the kids, and not just because the Fury was heading right towards them. They were the only ones who seemed vaguely awake in the whole place.

The boy was probably ten-short, scrawny, and with a mop of black hair that covered even darker eyes. His skin was olive, so he looked more Greek than most demigods I knew. His clothes, however, were ridiculous. Black shoes, white socks to his knees paired with those old-timey shorts you see boys wearing in newsreels of World War II. He didn't have on suspenders, thank the gods, but his plain white shirt seemed formal and stiff.

Behind him was a girl who had to be his sister. A floppy green cap hid most of her face, but her dress had the same vintage feel as the boy's shorts. Plus she was nagging him. That's what really got me. Even from a distance, I could hear her saying, "Nico, you need to eat. Won't you please take a break?"

I thought of all the other kids, how they couldn't even remember whether or not they had siblings. These two were dressed like they had been plucked from World War Two, but she still knew her brother. She still cared enough about her brother to force him to eat. It was majorly impressive.

I didn't get to watch them for long though. Before the boy, Nico, could answer his sister, the Fury stepped right up to the table, laying her briefcase on top of the card game Nico was playing, "Now Honeys, it's time for us to go."

"Who are you?" the girl asked, lifting her head. Sure enough, once I got a clear view of her face, I saw the same dark features as her brother, but there was a certain boldness there which Nico lacked.

The Fury pursed her lips, but replied calmly, "I am a lawyer, Bianca. You and Nico need to come with me. I've enrolled you in a school and you must start tomorrow. It's time for you to leave this place."

"But I'm playing," Nico chimed, his voice light and slightly whiny. "And what happened to the last lawyer?"

"Quiet Nico," Bianca chastised her brother. "If she says she's our lawyer then she probably is. Why would she lie? Besides, you've been playing this game for days. I'm sick of it here."

Nico sighed, but obeyed his sister. He did, however, borrow the Fury's briefcase so he could take all the cards and figurines with him. The Fury was surprisingly patient with him. It made me wonder what exactly it was that Hades wanted with these kids. He didn't want them dead; that was clear. But why would he want them alive either? What good did they do him?

I didn't get to think about it for too long, because it didn't matter why Hades wanted them. He wasn't going to get them. I felt a surge of protectiveness for these kids, and I hated the Fury. I hated Hades.

I hid behind a column, waiting for the Fury to pass by. I was hoping I could just catch her by surprise and slash her to pieces. No such luck. I guess I was downwind or something as I followed her to the kids, but now that she was coming back my way, she must have smelled me. There were some funhouse mirrors nearby, and I could see the Fury stop suddenly a few tables away from me. She held up her hand for the kids to stay, and then slowly stalked towards me. My heart thundered in my chest, and I made a split second decision. I lunged towards her before she could attack me.

I did manage to catch her by surprise. I did not manage to kill her in one shot. She dogged last second so Riptide stabbed right through the edge of her blazer, ripping it in half. Bianca and Nico screamed. Everyone else in the hotel didn't even blink.

"Thief!" the Fury hissed as her wings and fangs began to sprout. "You shall steal nothing else from My Lord, Son of Poseidon!"

She kicked me before I could respond, knocking Riptide from my hands. The sword shattered a mirror against the wall, and I cursed the Fury. As if I needed more bad luck. Meanwhile I went flying into the middle of the Monopoly game. This finally got the kids' attention. "Cool it, Clyde! We're playing here."

"You'll thank me later!" I told him, jumped to my feet. I grabbed the Monopoly board and swung it at the Fury. It hit her right in the face, which distracted her long enough for me to dash over to where Riptide had fallen.

Even with my sword, I wasn't sure I would be able to fight off the Fury. My ribs were aching, probably broken, from where I'd gotten kicked. I wondered how I'd managed to fight off three of these only a few weeks before. Then I remembered I hadn't; my mom had gotten killed in the process.

The Fury charged at me. A briefcase soared through the air, colliding mid-air with her. I don't know who looked more shocked-the Fury, or Nico. But I took advantage of the distraction. In one rapid charge, I cut through the Fury with Riptide, and she vanished with a demon scream.

"Nico!" Bianca cried. "You just helped him kill our lawyer."

Nico and I both gave Bianca a look. Nico then waved his hands around, and said, "It wasn't a lawyer. It was a Fury! Five-hundred attack power except when paired with Hades which doubles it."

I didn't have a clue what the kid was talking about, but his sister seemed to. She didn't exactly seem to like it though. Or maybe she just didn't like me. "Who are you? What's going on?"

My mind went back to July, the day I first met Luke and Annabeth in the park. I remembered how confused I'd been, and how scared. I remembered how they'd tried to protect me with lies, and what an utter mess that turned out to be. So, I decided to give them the truth, "My name is Percy, I'm the Son of Poseidon, and I'm here to rescue you. That Fury was paired with Hades, in a way. Hades sent it to take you away."

"Cool!" Nico whispered.

"You're insane," Bianca replied.

Honestly? I got both their reactions. Nico's was more fun though. I smirked down at the scrawny kid, then did my best to explain, "Look, I know it's difficult to understand, but you have to believe me. The Greek gods are real, and they like to interfere in the lives of mortals. Back in December, Hades stole Zeus's lightning bolt and framed me in order to start a war between the gods. Now he's trying to use you to do the same."

"But how!" Bianca seemed very flustered. Nico had dropped to the ground and was picking up all the cards which had flown from the briefcase when it hit the Fury. "I don't… How?"

"Trust me, if I understood, I'd tell you, but I don't have a clue. The important thing is that Hades doesn't get to you… oh, and you need to leave this hotel as well. I'm pretty sure it makes you lose track of time, keeps you young and confused while years pass."

"Don't be absurd. Nico and I have only been here for a month."

I felt bad for Bianca in one way. It really was a lot to take in. Unfortunately, I was on a time limit, and it had just occurred to me that if this place messed with your perception of time… well I might not be immune just because I drank a super expensive Coke. I didn't have time to fill her in on the details. I just needed to convince her enough that she and Nico would leave with me.

"What month was that? What day is it, Bianca?"

"I don't know the date. But it's June, 1939!"

A month. She thought she'd been there a month and it had been sixty-six years. How long had I been there? A few hours? Had the deadline already passed? Was there even a world to return to, or would I step outside the casino to discover there was nothing left to save.

No, Percy. Don't think like that. Just get them out of there. "I'm sorry Bianca, but it's not. Look at my clothes. It's not 1939. It's 2006."

Even Nico seemed surprised by that news. Both of them rubbed their temples, clearly confused. I wished Annabeth was there, or Luke. They'd both probably have a better way of explaining this than me. Maybe they could even figure out why Hades wanted Bianca and Nico in the first place.

"Look, you have to trust me. If I'm lying, well then you can just come right back inside, but I'm not lying. Please, just trust me."

I could tell just by looking at her that Bianca wasn't the trusting type. The way she covered her face with her cap. The still darkness of her eyes. She was the kind of person who hid, who stepped back and watched, trying to figure out for herself what to do. But something in my own face must have encouraged her, or maybe she just knew, deep down, that this place was wrong. "Okay. Nico, we're going."

"Cool," Nico chirped, grabbing the suitcase and trailing after me. "Hey, Percy. If you're the son of Poseidon does that mean you're really good at surfing?"

Despite myself, I laughed, "I don't know, Nico. I've never tried. But I am the fastest swimmer in New York State." Well, except in the butterfly. Celia for some reason was better at the butterfly than me, but then, Palaemon was a sea-deity too.

Nico asked me a dozen other questions I didn't know the answer to. We were just about at the door when he asked one that caused me to stop in my tracks, "Wait, if all these kids are trapped here, shouldn't we save them?"

My heart turned in knots. "I don't know how, Nico. It's not just the magic which keeps people here. Who would want to leave when you can just stay happy forever."
We all paused, looking out at the mess of games and kids. How long had they all been there? How had they gotten there in the first place? Had their parents lived and died not knowing what happened to their kids?

"They remind me of the dead," Bianca whispered. "Walking about, looking for purpose, joy, but they'll never really find it. In this place with everything, there's nothing truly satisfying."

Her words sent chills down my spine. She was right though. Somehow I knew this was a sneak-peak of what I'd find in Los Angeles. All the kids here, their souls were lost. They were already dead; they just didn't know it.

Anger bubbled within me. This was insane. If the gods knew about this place, why didn't they do anything? Why had Aphrodite sent me to save two kids instead of all of them? What made Bianca and Nico any more important than every other kid in this place?

A crazy idea popped into my head. Figuring my crazy ideas were always my best ones, I told Nico and Bianca, "Go, now. I can't make this many people leave, but I might be able to wake them up long enough to give them the chance. If this goes wrong though, well you shouldn't be here. If I don't make it out, find Annabeth and Luke. They're my friends. You can trust them."

"Wait I want to help!" Nico cried, but Bianca was already dragging him away. Apparently she didn't need to be told twice to run and save herself. Smart girl.

Me on the other hand… I was probably about to get myself killed. But hey, that would solve the problem of how to make it the last few-hundred miles to LA.

The waterpark was almost directly in the hotel's center. I found one of those miniature geysers little kids ran through on sunny days, and crouched down next to it. "Okay, Dad. How we going to do this?"

I felt stupid talking to my dad, never mind to a geyser. And yet, as I reached my hand out over the water, I felt something shift within me. Suddenly I could see every pipe which ran through the place. The whole system was contained, recycling water from the park to use in other places within the hotel. We were in the middle of the Mojave Desert; the place had to be self-contained. But that meant that what happened in one place could happen everywhere else. If I built up enough pressure within the pipes…

I stepped on top of the geyser. It was like I was five years old again, playing in the park and trying to keep the water down. It had been impossible; there were simply too many holes to cover with my little body. But now I imagined covering them all with my mind, forcing the water back inside. I saw the geysers around me start to sputter out, growing weaker as the water pooled in the pipes. Then I reached towards the slides, imagining I was turning all the knobs off. One kid got a major wedgie as he tried to go down the drying slide. I wanted to laugh, but I had to focus.

I could feel the pressure in the pipes getting ready to explode. But I guess I didn't yet fully understand the power of the sea. When the pipes finally burst, they shattered. The waterpark imploded, slides toppling down. Across the hotel, everything electronic broke fizzling out as they were drenched in water. A few short-circuited, causing miniature fires.

It was terrifying, but it did the trick. For the first time in years, kids looked up from their games, their TVs, their meals. There was nothing to distract them anymore. They all realized just what a mess surrounded them.

I did the natural thing; I pulled the fire alarm.

Thank the gods for fire drills. Every kid in the place responded the same, getting up from their soggy seats and marching out of the place. It occurred to me then that I probably could have just pulled the alarm without blowing up the water park, but I told myself it wouldn't have had the same effect.

The hotel staff, whom I could only assume were monsters, didn't seem to know what to do. They just stood their staring at the exodus of kids from the place. I didn't wait around for them to come to their senses though. I took off running, and a few bellhops in floral shirts followed after me. Luckily I lost them easily in the crowds, though when I got outside, I didn't stop running until I ran right into Luke, Annabeth, Bianca, and Nico.

I paused, panting heavily. My whole body seemed to ache. I guess fighting a Fury and exploding a waterpark over-extended my demigod powers too much for one day. Unless… "Annabeth, what day is it?"

She'd changed clothes. In fact, they all had, Nico and Bianca included. I gulped. Wishing I hadn't bothered asking, but I needed to know.

"Percy, it's been days. We didn't know what to do. Luke and I could go on without you. And then Bianca and Nico came out this morning, saying you would be right behind them but… It's almost ten o'clock at night."

"It's the 27th, Percy," Luke interjected, looking very nervous. "We have two days to get to LA, get the bolt, and return to New York."