A/N: We've reached thirty chapters now!
Thanks to TheBookFiend, Phoebe Artemis (I'm not on Instagram or G. You're free to tell everyone you want about this fanfic though!), Bellatricus (But then you wouldn't get any studying done!), Guest (that time is now), thedauntlessamity, Emoprincess30 (you can see right now!), WinterWind14, ISB, Someone the World Forgot (I didn't forget you though), and WhyNotWriteFanfiction (that's a fight we can all agree on that we'd like to see).
So, I've made this fanfic where others will watch what the guys have done. Everything that's in bold except for Author's Notes are things on the presentations, and what's bold and underlined is them talking back at the hideout. Now, I thought about writing how they would look like to the people watching, but I was too lazy too. I've instead posted text from the earlier challenges as I'm not assuming that everyone remembers them. This means that there is some awkwardness as to what they see on the screen since I write down some things that can't actually be shown on a TV screen, but I mean, you guys get the idea, right?
The unthinkable had happened.
Percy Jackson, while editing a few videos had been caught by Chiron. Leo had gone to try and bail him out. Jason and Frank were waiting at their hideout.
"What's going to happen?" Jason asked, nervously swinging his sword around.
"I don't know," Frank said.
"What if Percy talks about the whole thing?" Jason asked.
"He won't, they only had one tape." Frank said.
"Yeah, but what if they torture him or something?" Jason asked.
"Hmm, yeah that might happen," Frank said. "And people can say anything when they're under torture. If you give Leo a wet willy for ten seconds he'll even say that the Star Wars: Episode One was the best Star Wars movie."
"Oh," Jason said, and then frowned. "Wait, how would you possibly know that?"
Frank looked uncomfortable. "Uh- nothing. It's not like I've done that once. Hey, Leo and I are friends now, and we don't bully each other!"
Jason frowned. "Okay, Frank, that is pretty messed up. And why would you want him to say that? Just figuring out his favorite movie choices?"
At that moment, Leo walked in and said, "O-kay, so do you guys normally talk about my favorite movies behind my back? The Valdez is great and all, but he just doesn't swing that way…"
"What happened?" Frank asked.
"Oh, Chiron was sort of cool with the whole thing but just then Mr. D had to walk in. And he's making us show it on Olympus," Leo said.
"What!?"
"Yeah, apparently the gods have hosted a sort of comedy night and Mr. D wants us to represent him or he'll turn us all into dolphins," Leo said. "And I do not look good with a blowhole in my back."
"We can't show all of it!"
"But we don't," Leo said. "It's only going to last half an hour, so help me choose out the clips we're gonna play."
About a week later at around seven p.m., the grand theater hall in Olympus was packed full with people, both residents of Olympus and some of them normal demigods.
The major gods occupied the top box while the numerous minor ones occupied the other rows.
"I think I'm going to throw up," Leo said. "Do you think it would be bad if I literally set the stage on fire?"
"Yes," Percy said. "Now calm down and go talk."
Leo walked up to the front of the stage. The chattering in the crowd stopped and was replaced by silence except for Hermes trying to pickpocket Artemis and having his hand's anatomy replaced when he put in back in his own pocket.
For one of the first times in his life, Leo Valdez found himself with stage fright. "Uh… yeah guys, me and my friends did pranks and taped it. Watch it. Very funny. Bye."
To spare Leo from further embarrassment and perhaps wetting himself, Percy played the clips.
Arc One- Task 1:
Leo, Percy, Jason, and Frank have decided to compete to embarrass themselves in front of everyone, and the first game is as follows:
Each of them will be given a small bag, which includes a book. They have to try to sell the book to someone, and they get ONLY one try to do so. They have to say that the book that they're selling is for a certain charity. The catch of course, is that the book and the charity are extremely unappealing and have been made by the other contestants. And of course, no contestant is allowed to hint to someone outside the show that they're being recorded.
All contestants will have a small earpiece and a hidden camera with a microphone.
The words remained long enough for a good portion of the audience to start taking an interest in the thing. And then the screen moved
First up to go was Percy. He was clutching a small blue satchel which contained a book he didn't know about which he was going to have to try and sell.
Of course, the first thing that he did was salter up to the Athena Cabin. There, he thought, he'd be able to meet Annabeth, who, naturally, being the wise girl she was, would be the easiest person to try to sell the book to. Plus, he was her boyfriend and could always try his trusted seal-eyes tactic.
He found Annabeth scribbling something on some papers in the cabin. It seemed that she was alone for the moment, which made it a great time.
"Hey Wise Girl," Percy said. Annabeth barely glanced up from what she was doing.
"Wait," Annabeth said. "I remember this."
"What is it Seaweed Brain?" she asked.
"I volunteered to sell some books for charity, want to see wha-"
"No," Annabeth said simply.
Leo, Frank, and Jason all snickered.
"Ohh! Burrrn!" several people in the audience said.
Aphrodite gasped. "But oh Annabeth, how could you be so cruel?"
Athena shook her head. "My daughter doesn't have all the time in the world."
Further away, Piper said, "No seriously Annabeth, what gives? How could you be so mean?"
"Hey! I was busy!" Annabeth said sheepishly, blushing. "And just wait till you see what happens next."
"Come on Percy, at least open the satchel and show her what we made for you," Leo said.
Percy frowned but knew better than to try to adjust his earpiece. "At least look at what it is."
Annabeth stopped what she was doing for now and looked up at Percy. "What is it?"
Percy opened the book and showed it to Annabeth, not even bothering to look at it.
Percy noticed that Annabeth wasn't smiling and then took a good look at the book's title: 'How to Take Care of And Raise Spiders'. It then had a picture of a tarantula on it.
A cold bead of sweat dropped across Percy's face.
The three others high-fived.
A huge roar of laughter echoed throughout the hall.
"At least this explains this," Annabeth said. "But I never knew they were doing a show."
"Percy, did you seriously just do that?" Hazel asked, giggling.
Athena, on the other hand, was dumbstruck. "What were these kids thinking?"
"Well, that backfired on him pretty quickly," Poseidon said with a smile.
"Hmm, I think I might be interested in buying one of those," Hades said.
The other gods looked at him weirdly.
"Hey! I want them for the Fields of Punishment!"
"We knew you were going to Annabeth, Percy," Jason said.
"That's what happens when you're in love," Artemis said. "You get far too predictable."
Aphrodite glared at her, but the Huntress didn't seem to notice or care.
"And so we were sure to give you a book you couldn't sell to her," Leo said. "And for that matter I don't think anyone else really would've wanted to buy it either."
"Percy, you've been given the most impossible sales task of all time: sell a book on raising spiders to a child of Athena," Frank said. "This is a true test of your selling ability."
"If you succeed at this, I swear on the River Styx I'll die my hair pink," Jason said.
"Now that I would love to see!" Poseidon said.
Several people started swapping photos of Leo back when his hair was dyed pink.
"I'm getting a feeling that that pink hair had something to do with this too," Hazel said.
"And this means since Jason never got pink hair that Percy failed?" Piper asked. "Hey Annabeth, you could've bought the book just to cheer him up!"
"Hey! It was just a prank anyway," Annabeth said. "Though I didn't know that then…"
Percy really wanted to reply to them, but he couldn't without Annabeth finding out they were on a show.
Instead, Percy took a good look at the book's jacket flap and began reading. "See? It sounds way more interesting than it looks. It says here, 'This is book is perfect for any spider lover. It contains information on breeding habitats, temperature control, and illustrated with many photos regarding helping your arachnid friends grow. In addition, each book comes with a free supply of spider eggs of over fifteen diverse species which can be mailed directly to your ho-'" Percy stopped as he noticed Annabeth's face.
Leo had nearly fallen off of his chair laughing. Franks said, "Just look at her face!"
"Just look at her face!" Ares echoed. "Oh man, punk, if I didn't know better I'd say that you were gonnna die!"
"Well they really gave Percy something that he just couldn't do, didn't they?" Hazel said. "It seems kind of unfair…"
"Well, I think that was the point," Annabeth said.
"Okay, so the book isn't that good," Percy admitted. "But, we're selling it for a good cause, and I think once you'll here about it you'll change your mind."
"I don't think any good cause could possibly get one of my children to buy a book like that," Athena said.
"What if it's a charity to send my brother to poetry school?" Artemis asked.
"I think we can all agree that that's fine," Athena said as Apollo snorted, but he was honestly too busy laughing to get angry.
Percy took the card describing the alleged charity he was selling books for, and it went like this:
'The American Society Against Blonde People (or ASAB) is an organization that believes that blonde people are inherently dumber than other people (come on, Hollywood and television stereotypes say so and when have they ever been wrong?) and also a big strain on our country. We therefore believe that all blonde people should be euthanized and prevented from breeding. As that doesn't seem to be possible, we have decided to change our current goal to gathering all of them and quarantining them in a desolate, inhospitable place from which there is no return, like Antarctica. Or South Dakota.'
In addition to the usual round of laughter, there were some people saying, "Racist!"
Athena seemed particularly offended. "What? All of my children are blonde!"
"That makes me wonder," Demeter said. "Something I've been thinking about for a long time. How come all your children are blonde when you aren't?"
"Do not question the goddess!"
Percy knew there was no way he was going to read something like that out loud to Annabeth.
"Just look at his expression… I think he read it guys," Jason said.
"Percy, I'll have you know that I wrote that card by myself," Leo said.
"Really Leo?" Hazel said. "I get it was supposed to be a joke, but that was messed up!"
"There are so many things messed up with that," Frank said. "I don't even know where to begin."
Percy shook his head and walked away.
Result: Percy failed.
"I'm sure you all enjoyed that!" Frank said to the cheers of the audience. "And next up is another segment from the same challenge, but we're going to see what Leo did instead!"
Leo left the base.
"See," Leo said, as no one was around, "I'm thinking about who to go to, but the things is that since all of you have lost, I'm probably going to lose too. So, like a real man, I'm going to go to the person for whom this is probably going to be the most funny."
"Did he go to you?" Annabeth asked Calypso.
"No," Calypso said.
Leo found Travis Stoll counting some coins, probably stolen, and said, "Hey Travis! Got a minute?"
"Really?" Percy asked. "You're going to as a Stoll to buy a book?"
"I can tell you that's a terrible idea," Annabeth said.
"Hey!" Travis shouted from the back. "I will have you know that I do read books. I've read a total of sixteen in my entire life!"
"Sixty is not a lot of books," Annabeth said, and then frowned. "Wait a minute- did you just say sixteen?"
"And Travis," Clarisse said. "'Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?' and 'The Little Engine That Could' don't really count as books at this stage along with other nursery rhymes they force you to read."
Travis blushed. "Three…" he muttered weakly.
"Sure," Travis said, quickly putting the coins into his pocket. "'Sup?"
"Everything's all right," Leo said. "Thing is, I volunteered to sell some books for charity. I think you'd like to hear about it."
Travis really didn't care too much about books, but Leo seemed to be eager on this one, so he said, "Sure."
Leo pulled out the book which was titled: Leo Valdez's Travel Journey: How I Twerked My Way Across the World.
"What?" Travis asked, a grin already on his face.
That was enough to cause quite literally the entire hall to explode into laughter.
Apollo chuckled so loudly that the lights shattered and had to be replaced (instantly though, with godly power of course) and the movie was paused for a whole two minutes to let people catch their breath.
"This is a book, which is basically a travel journal of mine," Leo said. "It's about how I twerked my way across the world."
He opened the book flap. "See here, 'This book is a collection of Leo Valdez's travels, as he decided to go around the world with nothing but his clothes, his twerking skills, a notepad and pen, and his charismatic smile.'"
"I…. I can't believe this stupidity," Athena said. "I think I'm actually going to get an aneurysm at it."
Apollo began silently humming twerking music. Artemis looked like she wanted to slap him.
"That's a movie that honestly speaking, I'd watch," Zeus said.
Travis was laughing now. "Okay, tell me more."
Leo opened up the book. "See, the thing is that it occurred to me that you really wouldn't want a book with a lot of words, so this mainly has photos of me. See, there's me twerking in New York, in front of the White House, in Mexico, and in Canada."
Truth be told, all of those photos had been made using Photoshop, but they looked pretty real, which was something for which Leo had to give his hats off to Percy.
"Okay Percy," Frank said in-between laughs. "You really have too much time on your hands if you did all of this. Plus, it looks like something that people will want to buy."
"Percy made all of that!?" Calypso said. "What was he thinking…?"
"He really does have too much time on his hands," Annabeth said. "And he still never gets the homework I give him done!"
"You… give your boyfriend homework?" Hazel asked.
"On his Greek lessons," Annabeth said.
"But," Leo said as Travis was guffawing, "I will have you know that my twerking abilities were not merely used for amusement. As you can see, this is me teaching Kim Jong Un of North Korea how to twerk, thereby improving relations between America and North Korea, so I basically twerked for world peace you know. And this is me twerking for several earthquake victims in South Africa and refugees, for which by the way, I managed to raise over three hundred million dollars for charity using just my twerking skills."
"Really? You did all of that?" Apollo said while wiping a tear from his eye. "Son, I am proud."
"He's my son," Hephaestus said. "And I am certainly not proud. But, if anything, this makes me feel less embarrassed about my appearance and not having all my limbs fully functional, because I now have something else to feel embarrassed about."
Travis had by now, collapsed to ground while laughing. He said, "Dude, if you're going to lie, do something that is at the very least somewhat believable."
The guys were in stiches laughing.
"I'm actually willing to believe that happened," Reyna said. "Based on what I know of Leo."
"Yeah, on second thought it does seem kind of possible," Hazel said.
"Okay, that's great in all, but let's be honest, do you want to buy the book?" Leo asked.
"Sure, but I'm not really sure I have the money," Travis said.
"Come on now, I saw you put some Drachmas into your pocket," Leo said.
"Yeah, but those were hard-earned."
"You stole them and all of us know it."
"True."
Hermes nodded in approval. "That's my boy!"
"Why does that fill you with pride?" Artemis asked.
"Wait," Percy managed to get out. "You have to mention your charity as well."
"But, I forgot to tell you why I'm selling this book," Leo said. "It is for a good cause." Leo took out his card and read:
"The Society Against Justin Bieber is a society which believes that Justin has completely destroyed all hope of music ever being good and so should be thrown out of this country. Being as that is impossible, we have instead decided to collect funds in order to buy the intellectual rights to his songs, so that we may get rid of his music forever."
"I would like to make a donation," Hades muttered. "But we do happen to use his music in the Fields of Punishment."
Travis got up. "Yeah, this is all good and all, but I'm going to have to say no."
"Why?"
Travis took off his jacket to reveal the 'I Am A Belieber' shirt that he was wearing.
"So close," Leo cursed.
Result: Leo lost.
Leo returned to the lair. "Hey, I was almost successful at selling my book."
"Yes, but 'almost' has never even gotten someone a bag of gummy worms," Percy said. The others stared at him oddly.
"Okay, I forgot what the real quote was, but I tried."
"That's his story every single time," Annabeth said to herself. The others didn't bother asking what this meant.
"How did you know that Travis was going to bail when he heard I was against Justin Bieber?" Leo asked.
"I didn't," Percy asked. "I just took a shot while writing it that whoever you got would either not want to see photos of you twerking around the globe, or not like you being against Justin Bieber."
"And that ends that, folks!" Percy said. Leo had decided to hide behind a curtain in shame. "Uh, I think the next one is also one of Leo's."
Arc One - Task 2: Given how everyone failed the last task, this one will be made so that at least some people should be guaranteed to complete it.
Each of the four contestants will be given a certain innovative idea, which they will be presenting along with a Powerpoint presentation to a group of fifty strangers, with the ideas being completely ridiculous of course. At the end, the strangers will vote on whether they think it is a good idea or not, with the one (or ones) getting the least votes getting a negative point.
As always, there are hidden cameras, each contestant gets an earpiece, and the other rules as well are the same. Of course, none of the contestants know about their ideas or Powerpoints beforehand. Also, the Powerpoint slides will be in bold.
Leo was up next, and unlike the others, he had chosen not to come in a suit but in his usual outfit, as he thought it would make him look more like an inventor, and that was way more important than actually saying anything. At least according to him it was. He went to his first slide.
'I have created an invention which, I believe is so utterly groundbreaking that it will cause tides to move through the technological world. Rather than write about it on a slide, I have a box under my podium with my invention, which I will show and then explain to you all.'
Leo looked under the podium, to see that indeed, there was a box there.
"Yeah, Leo," Percy said. "I went the extra mile for you in this one."
"Percy's smiling like one of my Furies," Hades said.
"Ha ha!" Nemesis said, gleefully rubbing her hands. "This is time for revenge!"
Leo quickly realized that Percy was still mad about the Annabeth thing, and whatever was in this box... would complete his revenge.
Leo opened it and nearly collapsed when he saw what was inside.
He took it out gently and put it on the podium for the audience to see, who were all now spectacularly confused, with a few mild smiles among them.
You see, the box had a turtle with a six volt battery attached to its shell using tape. Mind you, this was a real, actual, living turtle, and it had a six volt battery taped to its shell.
That was literally all there was.
"I don't get it," Hazel said.
Leo pressed the button for the next slide to reach the THE END slide.
"No Leo," Percy said. "You're going to have to explain all of this by yourself."
"Oh wait, so that's the joke," Hazel said as nearly everyone in the room burst into laughter.
"Then again, this is a turtle with a battery taped to its shell," Jason said. "What is he supposed to explain it as?"
"I know," Frank said. "Tell them that as the turtle walks, the battery gets recharged. You know, conversion of mechanical to electrical energy."
"Then why would you tape it to a turtle?" Percy asked. "Wouldn't a horse make more sense?"
"Or," Jason said, "you could tell them that the battery helps the turtle walk faster."
All three of them then nearly collapsed while laughing their heads off.
"Man, these tasks are almost impossible," Travis said. "How come we never thought of doing this?"
"No copyright infringement!" Leo shouted from behind the stage.
Leo, however, was stoically looking at the turtle. To an outsider, it would seem as if he was like a grandmaster of chess, thinking of which move to play next, and just what to say about the turtle.
Internally though, he was going, 'AHHHHHHHHH! It's a turtle with a battery, what do I explain in that? ARGHHHHH!' Some expletives, were, of course, deleted from that.
"Just look at his face," Calypso said. "You can tell he's screaming like a maiden who's just seen a slug internally."
"Actually," Leo said, "the battery isn't a real battery. It is an electromagnetic radiator giving off various kinds of EM waves."
"So, did that jargon mean something?" Percy asked.
"You'd know, Percy, if you'd study and do your homework!" Annabeth said.
"This is necessary," Leo said, "for what I'm trying to do."
Thing is, that Leo looked so dead serious that the three of them stopped laughing and edged closer to the video screen, wondering what he had thought of.
"Wow, it looks like he's thought of something amazing," Annabeth said. "He looks so serious."
Much like the three in the video, the hall had suddenly gotten very silent.
"I'm trying to mutate them," Leo said. "So that I can make the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
"Just look at his face!" Percy said. "I mean, he was so serious before that I actually thought he had come up with some idea that could cure cancer, or something, and that's the idea he comes up with?"
"…And I was wrong," Annabeth said as she was nearly deafened by the claps and cheers that echoed throughout the hall.
"See, let's be honest here," Leo said. "So many Americans are dying in wars both here and abroad, what we clearly need is a group of mutant turtles who are also ninjas to take their places."
One person raised his hand. "I'm sorry, but didn't they also have a rat sensei?"
"Yes," Leo said. "But it turns out that rats can't be mutated. I have, however, managed to rent a rat costume from somewhere and I'm sort of kind of learning ninjutsu."
Ares face-palmed.
"Oh no," Athena said. "This is getting too stupid even for Ares."
"You could've just said, 'Yes, I'll mutate a rat too,'" Jason said.
Another person raised her hand. "Why not just send in robots or drones instead of living creatures?"
"That would be robot abuse," Leo said, apparently with a straight face.
"And letting turtles fight is animal abuse?"
"Yes," Leo said. "So, that's all pretty much it. Who here thinks I should continue with this idea."
No one raised there hands. Not a single one.
"Drat," Leo said.
"BURNNNN!" came the voices from the audience.
A/N: And that ends it. Thanks for reading, and do review if you liked!