A/N: Thanks to Cinder Luna, thedauntlessamity, WinterWind14, jarharder290 (I don't think a lot of them got it the first time, so I put it in again), Hispanicin (I knew people were curious about the sandwich! I just did!), Home4MentallyUnstable, Lady of the Court of Dreams (all of your requests have been done in this chapter), Annabeth and Percy Jackson (I'm not sure which of your reviews to answer directly, but thanks for all of them!), and Hi for all the reviews.
I know this is a few weeks late, and I'd like to be able to say that this was because this was such a large chapter, but I really just got lazy.
And for all of you wondering what that girl told to Percy in Impractical Oracles, well, I can't tell you because, um... well, it's protected by Oracle-client privilege. Yeah, that's it.
"So, I'm sure you all enjoyed all that," Jason said. He was greeted by a huge roar of applause.
"What about one with you Jason?" someone asked.
"Don't worry, we're getting to one right now," Jason said.
For this task, the contestants will be visiting the Roman dining halls. The only twist is that while they will be given plates, all the food that they are to get must be from other people's plates. They have a time limit of fifteen minutes.
At the end of the game, they will have to weigh whatever they have gotten. The one with the least weight in pilfered food loses. Also, they must not get caught, otherwise that as well is an automatic loss.
"Stealing?" Mars asked. "Now that is not what a Roman would do."
"Actually, it pretty much how the empire expanded," Athena said.
On the stands, Reyna was having a minor fit. "Wait a minute… this all sounds familiar…"
Now, a rather large problem with the dining halls of both Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood was that as the kids were free to choose whatever foods they wanted, they were all carrying pizzas, sandwiches, cokes, and other things without a brussel sprout in sight.
One person in particular who caught Jason's eye was a kid who was carrying a plate full of M&Ms.
"A plate full of M&Ms?" Demeter asked. "You kids don't know how to eat healthy do you? And why do I only see junk food on all of your plates?"
"Mother, that's a camp run by teenagers," Persephone said. "What did you expect? Brussel sprouts?"
"Cereal!" Demeter said loudly.
"Don't you think that's a little too much M&Ms for one person?" Jason asked.
"Yeah," the kid shrugged. "I got all of 'em. My favorites."
Jason realized that meant that the snooty kid wasn't going to care, and so therefore he would have to rely on some other strategy. Thankfully, he was able to make up one on the spot pretty fast.
"You see, I need some M&Ms for training," Jason said.
"What?" Percy asked.
"What?" the guy asked.
"What?" Mars said.
Seeing this, the entire audience started saying 'What?' together as they thought it would be funny.
"Well see, what I do is that I, uh, take two M&Ms in my fingers and I squeeze them against each other until one of them breaks. Then… well, the broken one is eaten and the other one is the champion. I keep doing this over and over until I've eaten all the M&Ms and only one of them remains. I name this one to be the 'champion', and um, I send it to the M&Ms headquarters with a note that says: 'This M&M was the strongest. Please use it for breeding purposes.'" Jason said.
Zeus glared at the TV screen, speechless.
"Breeding purposes?" Piper said, giggling like crazy. "Here I thought that Jason wasn't funny!"
"Wait- is that why my teeth hurt when I try to eat M&Ms now? Is it because they keep getting harder after breeding?" Travis asked.
"No, that's because you haven't been to the dentist!" Katie said.
The kid had to put his tray down so he didn't drop it while laughing.
At the very same time, Jason's ears nearly got damaged as only blank laughter came into the ears.
"Okay, that was really funny man, but you're still not going to get any of my M&Ms," the kid said and walked off finally.
With this amazing plan out of the picture, Jason was now forced to instead go the 'stealing-while-no-one-looks' route of approaching this problem and so was making some success.
"So now this is blatant pick-pocketing?" Hermes asked. "Zeus, I'm disappointed in your son."
Hermes got a ten thousand volt shock for his troubles.
However, he couldn't stop people from noticing, and they did. And so, he decided to take up another plan.
He yelled loudly for everyone to stop what they were doing for a second.
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. So, as you all know, I'm Jason, son of Zeus, and former Praetor here. As such, I need to inform you that the eagles around our camp have been unable to hunt because um, mobile phones ringing have scared off all the prey. As such, they have appealed to me to gather as much food as possible in order to feed them and to fend off disaster that will obviously come if they're not fed well," Jason said.
"Is no one going to point out that Jason can't hear what birds are thinking?" Leo asked.
"Nah, they'll probably believe anything that he says," Frank said. "By the way, how come Percy can hear what fish are saying but Jason can't hear what birds think?"
"Huh yeah, that's a good question," Poseidon said. "How come only my kids are AWESOME and COOL, huh bro?"
"My children are equally just as impressive as yours!" Zeus said.
"Actually, I think Poseidon wins that one," Athena said. "I mean, look at Percy's ability to manipulate water and talk to horses and get healed by water. Can your children be healed by lightning or air?"
Zeus pouted. Overhead, lightning streaked across the sky. "Yeah, well, you wanted a girl and you got a boy. Hah."
"That's just because I'm awesomer that Jason is," Percy said.
"See?" Poseidon said. "Even my son knows it!"
"You just indirectly implied that you think that your son is stupid," Athena said.
"Oooooh!" people echoed. "Fight! Fight! Fight!" They were not obliged.
"Apparently, Annabeth, the English lessons you gave Percy didn't have much effect," Piper said.
"Awesomer isn't a word," Frank pointed out.
"Nerd," Leo said.
By the time Jason's time was up, he had already had a tiny feast collected before him.
Result: Jason managed to collect 39.56 pounds of food.
"That was fine," Percy said. "But we should see what Frank did!"
Reyna started rubbing her knuckles frantically. "I do remember this…"
Last up was Frank. Now, Frank, by this point, had realized that he only needed to beat Leo and not get caught in order to be spared the negative point.
As such, as he was a bit too bulkly to try and steal anything successfully, he decided to rely on another weapon: deceit.
He suddenly pulled out his weapon and screamed, "Okay everyone! Lock the doors down! No one gets out or gets in until I say so! This is a surprise food inspection, and you all have the right to remain silent! Anything you do or do not say can and will be used against you in a court of law!"
"How can something you don't say be used against you in a court of law?" Athena asked.
"Oh that's simple," Hermes said. "Let's say that I arrested you and made that statement. What would you say then?"
"That I was innocent," Athena said.
"And then I would say that only a thief would say that."
"But what if I didn't say anything!"
"Then you clearly haven't protested your innocence, and therefore, I'd write about your silence for it to be used against you in a court of law," Hermes said. "Now give me five bucks."
Hermes got an Aegis to the knee for his efforts.
Following this proclamation, a large amount of pandemonium ensued, far more than that which should be expected following a normal food inspection.
"How is it possible to use something that someone hasn't said against them?" Jason asked.
"Oh, that's easy," Leo said. "See, imagine that I'm going to arrest you and I say that. What do you say?"
"Nothing," Jason replied.
"Okay, Leo, Frank said nothing, which means that he isn't protesting his innocence like an innocent person would," Percy said. "We should write that down to use against him."
"And if I say that I'm innocent?" Jason asked.
"Only someone who's guilty would say that," Percy said. "We should write that down to use against him."
"Okay, I get it, you guys are terrible judges," Jason said.
"Yeah, don't do one where you pretend to be judges or something," Apollo called out.
The four of them laughed.
"If you he knew…"
And so, with Frank waving his sword around, he managed to collect a large bundle of food.
"Hmm," Percy said. "Frank was asked to collect food, and he does so by forcing everyone to hand it over to him at sword point."
"Do you know what that means?" Leo asked.
"What?"
"Frank's the only true Roman here," Jason said.
"Ooooh!" the Greek campers said to the Romans.
"Oh no," Zeus said. "I just barely got over the last time there was civil war."
While Frank was congratulating himself internally for his victory, the door suddenly opened up and Reyna walked in. "What's going on in here?"
Everyone looked at Reyna.
"I knew I had seen this before," Reyna said.
Leo nearly had a heart attack. "Oh no! Reyna's on to us! If she founds out…"
"She'll tell Annabeth!" Percy said. "Quick! Frank! Abort mission! Abort mission!"
"Why is Percy so scared of you Annabeth?" Piper asked. "Do you like, whip him or something?"
"No!"
This was unfortunately very difficult for Frank now that he had his sword out and there were lots of witnesses. "Nothing," Frank said, trying to sound normal. "Uh, this is just a food inspection."
Reyna raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't told about anything like that."
"I uh, you must have missed the memo," Frank said.
"Spoken with the confidence of a true Roman Praetor," someone said sarcastically.
"Anyway, I was here about some weird food mess ups here," Reyna said. "Some people are saying their food has been mysteriously vanishing."
"And hence the food inspection," Frank said. "We have reports that um, a certain bacterium called um, Seamoure buttsis responsible for the rapidly dissolving food. I'll just have to send some samples to the lab and get back to those people."
Several people giggled at the name of the bacterium. They were the ones who got the joke.
There was a very long awkward moment in which Frank wasn't sure his story would hold, until a fire had conveniently broken out somewhere and Reyna was called to check.
"Well, that was close," Percy said.
"You're telling me," Jason said. He looked around. "Hey, where's Leo?"
"Did Leo start that fire?" Annabeth asked. "Because it seems suspicious that he isn't there anymore…."
"Uh guys," Leo whispered on stage. "I think they're onto me."
"Don't worry," Frank said. "We'll remember you as you wanted to be remembered."
"Stop talking like I'm going to die!"
Result: Frank managed to collect 24.5 pounds of food.
"Okay, so this next one is- well, I think I'll just roll the tape," Percy said.
Task Two: Each of the contestants will have to visit a Camp cabin and convince someone inside that the cabin is currently haunted by ghosts and will then have to perform an exorcism in there to get rid of it.
This is of course, a 'refuse you lose' round as well. Italics refer to the people back at the recording headquarters.
Several people in camp had smiles before the tape even rolled, because quite a few remembered something along these lines.
"Okay, so explain to me again how this works," Percy said. "No wait, first of all, tell me how you managed to rig the cabins."
"Oh that," Leo said. "You see, someone needed to fix a few things in the Camp's wiring, and of course, being the concerned citizen I am I volunteered and agreed to do it, and at the same time I bugged all the cabins. No- stop looking at me like that, I didn't bug the bathrooms okay, what is wrong with you people? Okay, so then, I put in a bunch of traps that I can remotely activate from here so they might think that the cabin is haunted. Of course, 'convince someone' here has the same guidelines from my last round where I was trying to convince people I was an alien."
"You know, there are people who are currently going crazy thinking that people are spying on them," Dionysus said. "And then you guys are actually doing that…"
"And that's the last time that I'll entrust anything to Leo," Chiron said. "Though it explains just why you did it for half the price."
"Good times, good times," Frank muttered under his breath.
Jason held up a hat with slips that detailed which cabin they would get. Only cabins with more than three current residents were chosen, so that limited the choices of course. "So who's up first?"
Percy decided to go first.
Percy sighed. He had been forced to dress up like a Christian bishop and was straddling along towards the Apollo Cabin. Not many of its members were there today, but Will Solace was there.
"I don't get why they forced Percy to dress up like that," Annabeth said.
"He looks like he lost a bet or something," Piper said.
"So… Percy, did you lose a bet or is that a new fashion on Olympus?" Will Solace asked.
"Neither," Percy said, trying to sound as convincing as he could. "I was told that this cabin was haunted and needed someone to exorcise it."
"What?" Will asked. "You serious?"
"Yes," Percy said.
"Since when do you catch ghosts?" Will asked.
"Answer him Percy," Jason said. "Be as creative as you can be."
"Because Will, you know what they say," Percy said, "some people are borne exorcists, while others have exorcisthood thrust upon them."
"Hey," Piper said. "Annabeth, Percy does remember some of what you teach him."
"No one says that Percy," Frank said. "And exorcisthood is not a word."
"And that was very unoriginal, Percy, but C minus for the effort," Jason said.
"A C minus is what you got on your spelling test!" someone shouted.
"That isn't a saying Percy," Will said. "And exorcisthood is not actually a word."
"Percy, say that Will is wrong and you can hear crying from inside the cabin," Leo said.
"I will let you know that you're wrong," Percy said. "I put a petition to have it added half an hour ago, and that saying was used in Half-Life 3. Also, I can hear mysterious crying coming from your cabin."
Leo punched in a few buttons on his control board. A faucet in the Apollo cabin, normally kept for washing bandages and such began dripping ever so slightly.
"Wow," Frank said sarcastically.
"Yeah, Leo, you managed to make a faucet leak a little," Jason said. "That is like literally the absolute opposite of spectacular."
"Just watch and learn," Leo said.
Will frowned. Not that he strained his ears, he could hear water dripping from the cabin, though oddly no sobbing. He entered inside and so did Percy.
"Percy, see that faucet over there that's leaking? Go over to it and ask it why it's crying," Leo said.
The audience which had been waiting silently in anticipation for a long time burst into laughter.
Percy walked over to the faucet, and, struggling to maintain a straight face, stroked it gently and asked, "Why are you crying?"
"Look Poseidon, your son is talking to a faucet," Athena said. "That way he looks slightly more ridiculous than he usually does."
"Percy… are you actually talking to the leaky faucet?"
"Don't stop Percy," Frank said. "Kiss the faucet and say that you'll make everything better."
"Frank! Why you wanna embarrass Percy?" Travis asked.
Jason snickered. "I take back what I said. A leaky faucet isn't that much, but this is gold."
Percy ignored Will and gently kissed the faucet. "There, there, now, Percy'll make it all better. No need to be so sad."
"He looks like he cares for that faucet so much," Demeter said.
Aphrodite wiped a tear from her eye. "I'm changing my OTP from Percabeth to Percy and this faucet… I'll call it Fercey!"
"What's an OTP?" Zeus asked, confused.
"Shhh, little brother," Hades said. "Just be glad you don't know what it is."
"Is- is this a Child of Poseidon thing?" Will asked. "You can manage to talk to leaky faucets and make them feel better? Because that's the opposite of a useful power."
Poseidon snorted. "I'll have you know that even that's a better power than what you have. What can you do, shoot a bit straighter and be slightly better at healing?"
Apollo huffed up. "I'll have you know that they can also see the future! And write good poetry!"
Hermes snickered.
"Turn around to him slowly, put a finger to your lip and tell Will to keep quiet or he'll hurt the tap's feelings," Frank said.
Percy turned to Will and put a finger to his lip and said, "Shh! You'll hurt the faucet's feelings if you keep talking like that."
"I know Will! What were you doing? Don't you know that faucets have feelings too?" Travis said.
"That's going on Twitter," Conner said. "#FaucetsHaveFeelingsToo."
Will had a serious 'what-in-Hades-is-going-on' look on his face. The rest of the Apollo cabin had now joined him in watching what Percy was doing.
Leo flipped a switch and the faucet stopped leaking.
"See! I made it all better and it's stopped leaking," Percy said. "And, as we all know, leaky faucets are a hallmark that a place is haunted."
"No it isn't…." Will Solace said weakly.
"Okay, now Percy, you're going to be looking for secret messages," Leo said. "There's a UV light in your pocket. Ask them to turn the lights off."
"Okay, you might not believe that," Percy said. He took out a pretty small UV light torch from his pocket. "But ghosts, as you know, leave messages hidden for us to find. I'm gonna need you guys to turn off all the lights."
Percy spent five minutes combing the room until he found a word: SAVE. The UV light was pretty small so it could only light up one word of the message at a time. "See?" Percy said. "This is obviously a super-duper important message left to us by the ghosts."
"From experience, let me guess,
When the message was pieced together, it read: SAVE 15% OR MORE ON CAR INSURANCE BY SWITCHING TO GEICO.
"Why must everything have marketing in it?" Piper asked, though no one really heard as the hall had exploded into laughter.
There were small marks of what looked like gecko footprints leading away from it.
"Who wrote that there?" Will asked.
"Who knows Will? Who knows?" Percy tried to say mysteriously.
"Okay, enough with the jokes," Jason said. "Here's something that should be really scary. Go over to the third bunk from the left saying that you sense the core of the problem there."
"Wait, wait," Percy said in his weirdest voice. "I can sense… the source of all these problems right over…" He then closed his eyes and wandered around towards the third bunk. "Yes! Right here! But what is it?"
Jason flipped a switch.
A compartment in the roof opened up, and from it fell something that cracked on its way down.
And the thing turned out to be a cat carcass.
As you can imagine, everyone screamed.
People in the audience screamed too.
"Is that real?" was a common sentence echoed around the crowd.
"Where did you get that?" Jason asked, amazed.
"Uh, there was an accident with someone's cat in the Roman Camp," Leo said. "Said I'd get rid of the body, and I hid it there with some incense so it wouldn't smell too bad."
"I propose that Leo should be banned from Camp Jupiter forever," Reyna said.
"Oh yeah?" Leo shouted back from the stage. "Then who's going to make your camp more fun?"
"Just what are you trying to say?" Reyna asked.
"Allow me to put this in a way that you can understand," Leo said. "Camp Half-Blood is like Marvel, and your camp is like DC Comics."
"Oh no," Zeus said. "This is going to erupt into a civil war, isn't it?"
"And just when I had brought the two camps together," Hera groaned. "And it's probably going to be a fanboy fight."
"Ugh," Zeus said. "Fanboy and fangirl fights are always the ugliest."
The screaming had still continued and finally the body was taken care of by burying it outside.
"That won't solve the problem though," Percy said. "The cabin is now haunted by that cat's ghost, and we need to perform an exorcism."
"O-okay," Will said. He still didn't believe it but thought that just maybe Percy knew what he was doing.
"Now this is how you're going to perform it Percy," Frank said. "Ask everyone to gather inside and turn off the lights."
"Okay, to do this," Percy said. "You'll have to gather in the cabin and close your eyes."
While the members of the Apollo cabin complied, albeit reluctantly, Percy turned off the lights.
"Okay, now Percy," Jason said. "Take some paint, and write 'The Apollo Cabin Sux' on the wall, with 'Sucks' spelt with an 'x' and then just run away before they can notice."
"Wait," Travis said. "Isn't 'sucks' spelt with an 'x' anyway?"
"I swear," Athena said. "We should have mandatory lessons at Camp Half-Blood!"
"Are you kidding?" Percy said as loudly as he dared so the others wouldn't hear him. "They'd definitely get back at me at some point."
"Well, you can always lose, Percy," Leo said with a grin. "Your choice."
"Uh, guys, don't open your eyes until I say so," Percy said. He then painted the message on the wall as best as he could, and then snuck out.
"Now, the next one is, uh, on Leo again," Frank said. "Well, he usually does the weirdest stuff, so on to him."
Task One: The contestants will be acting as replacement professors for a special class in a community college. They will have no idea what they are supposed to be teaching, or how, as it will all be decided by the others.
As such, this will be a 'refuse you lose round', and also, at the end of the class, the students will be polled to rate their professor. At least two candidates will lose this round, so if no one refuses to do anything, the candidates with the two lowest scores will get a negative point, if one refuses, the one with the lowest score gets a negative point, and if two or more do so than the polling won't matter.
"I can't believe you managed to get over an eight," Leo said.
"I just need to make sure that I rely on none of them in case I actually choke on something or need CPR," Jason said.
"I don't get it," Piper said.
"Oh that," Percy said. "Jason's task was to teach a class CPR. It was hilarious, but we're not showing it right now. Time constraints and all."
"By the way, considering the fact that Percy gave them a lot of wrong knowledge, could we get sued if any of them does something wrong based on what we told them?" Frank asked.
Zeus snorted. "A real Roman doesn't care about the law! Or being sued in court for that matter!"
"They… don't?" Mars asked.
"Have you actually ever read Roman history?" Zeus asked. "Never mind, that was a stupid question."
"We'll think of that later," Leo said. "Anyway, now the Valdez is up!"
Leo, of course, was not going to let the opportunity of being a professor slide and was going to milk it for all it was worth. He decided to dress up in a tweed coat, what looked like a bib to Percy, a cane, and ridiculous socks that didn't even match. He looked like he was wearing something kind of like what would happen if Willy Wonka's costume was designed by Katy Perry.
"And here I thought Percy looked stupid," Annabeth said.
"You couldn't even bother matching your socks?" Piper asked. "Leo, one of them has hearts on it and the other one looks like it hasn't been washed in ten years."
On the blackboard, he had written down: DOCTOR PROFESSOR LEO VALDEZ THE THIRD.
"I thought hubris was my children's weakness," Athena said.
"Professor Leo Valdez the Third?" Percy asked.
"No, no," Leo said to the empty classroom, "you insult me by merely calling me 'professor.' You shall address me by full and proper title, 'Doctor Professor.'"
"Leo, with a head that big how is it possible that it fits on your small body?" Reyna asked.
"And why did you add, 'the Third' at the end?" Frank asked.
Leo shrugged. "I thought it'd sound cool."
"I don't think it's possible for three people to have the same dumb name," Travis said.
The class came in, and it was about the same size as that of Percy's class.
"Good morning everyone," Leo said, in a very bad and obviously fake French (or it could be German, or Russian, honestly, it was too horrible to tell what he was going for) accent "My name is Doctor Professor Leo Valdez ze Third, and I am so delighted at seeing so many fresh faces gathered before me here today."
"Great, now you sound exactly how you look like," Percy said.
"I was going to say something, but Percy pretty much summed it up perfectly," Reyna said.
"Leo, you might be a child of Hephaestus, but that won't protect you from that burn!" Conner said and high-fived his brother.
"And now it is time for your topic, which is 'The Effect of the Black Death on European Art and Culture.'"
This was given to Leo because it was serious topic (which everyone knew was really going to tick Leo off) and also because he happened to know nothing about it.
So, Leo wrote the topic on the board.
"Now say something about it," Percy said.
"Now, the first thing that I'd like to mention about this topic," Leo said, "is that I personally find it racist that it is called the 'Black Death,' and I think several of the African Americans gathered here will agree."
None of the African Americans there agreed, only looked confused.
"Boo!" the very small number of African American people in the audience said.
"Terrible joke!" Hazel added.
"That's the best that you can say?" Percy asked. "Something mildly racist?"
"Now, you may know that the Black Death killed approximately forty-three percent of Europe's population," Leo said.
"I think there's a seventy-nine percent chance that no one believed that," Percy said.
"I think there's a twenty-four percent that Leo is going to lose this round," Jason said.
"I should point out that forty-eight percent of statistics in this show are made up," Frank said.
"Psst, you guys," Dionysus whispered to the four on stage. "We're going to be going past our allotted time soon. Hurry up!"
"So, there was a lot of death and suffering, and with so many dead the whole incident obviously left a large impression on people's minds," Leo said.
"By the way, Leo," Percy said, "you now have to discuss the first artwork. It is right under the desk."
Leo opened the desk and saw what it was before he almost snorted and cursing the others.
"Come on," Frank said. "Show it to everyone."
It was a painting that Leo had made for 'A Picture Worth Zero Words' that had made no sense to anyone. Leo hung it up on the blackboard. "So, this is a work from an unknown artist somewhere."
A student raised her hand. "Professor! Professor!"
Leo turned around, tugged on his coat, and said, "Doctor Professor, please."
The student looked slightly confused, and said, "Doctor Professor, um, I think that you've hung up that painting upside-down."
Percy paused the image right there.
"Uh, just so you know, that painting was made by Leo," Percy said.
"Then why didn't he hang it right-side up?" Annabeth asked.
"I did hang it right-side up!" Leo said.
"But it doesn't make any sense that way!" Travis replied.
"No, this is the correct way," Leo said.
"But it makes more sense the other way!" the student protested, tilting her head and saying the same thing again. Several students tried the same thing and agreed.
"It does make more sense the other way," Hermes said.
"I, for one, know for a fact that this is the right way the painting is supposed to be held," Leo said, turning red slightly.
"Say that you know that they're wondering how it depicts pain and sorrow," Percy said.
"I bet you're wondering how this painting depicts pain and sorrow," Leo said.
"Tell them that the author made it so that people would feel pain and sorrow trying to figure out what the painting was supposed to mean," Percy said.
"The author apparently made it so that people would feel pain and sorrow trying to figure out what the painting was supposed to mean," Leo said, gritting his teeth. It was quite some thing to get an artist to insult his own work.
"You're getting an artist to insult his own work?" Apollo said. "That's painful and artistic in and of itself."
"Kind of like what we experienced," Frank said. "Now in the other drawer, there'll be your second piece of work to discuss."
Leo opened the drawer and took one good look at what was inside. "Okay Jason, Frank, this is taking it way too far."
"What is it?" people asked eagerly, as the painting hadn't been shown to them.
Percy frowned. "What, did you forget me?" He then frowned. "Wait, what was the second picture?"
"Something Frank and I put together," Jason said. "We didn't think that you'd like it. Come on Leo, unless you want to lose."
Leo considered it. He seriously did, but he didn't want to give anyone the satisfaction that they had beaten him, and he didn't want to be punished this time.
Leo put the photo up. It was that picture, from way back in Impractical Oracles, in which Leo was wearing a maid outfit and hugging Percy. Jason had planned to use it as blackmail material later on in life, but then changed his mind and thought he could use it as blackmail material later on anyway since no one of importance was going to see it.
There was no laughter. Only shocked silence.
"What… is that?" Poseidon asked.
"Is… is that what I think it is?" Annabeth asked.
"I can somehow tell that there is a long story behind this," Hermes said.
But even showing the photo to strangers was hard for Leo. Especially since Jason appeared to have edited it, and made Leo's hair neater, tidier, and apparently more feminine all together, and the photo frame showed cherubs and had little hearts on it. Both of them were smiling.
Percy was staring at it, speechless.
"Oh, so Leo's hugging Percy wearing a maid outfit," Frank said. "That's strange. Still better than my fanfiction and my OTP though."
Now, the laughter began, and didn't end for another few minutes. Some people were talking, but no one really heard them.
"This photo is sooo wrong and yet I can't take my eyes away from it," Aphrodite said.
"I still don't know what an OTP is," Zeus said.
"I have to go to the bathroom," Travis muttered.
Percy seemed to have found his voice and turned to Jason. "What were you thinking? And anyway, this is when you're supposed to get Leo, not me! Why do you even have that in your phone, what if Annabeth or Calypso or anyone else saw it? What would I say?"
Jason smirked. "Thanks for giving a great punishment idea, Percy. I'll mail that photo to your mom and Annabeth, and watch you try to explain what it is to both of them."
Leo turned away from the photo so the whole class could see it. "As you can see, this is not a piece of art from medieval Europe, since they didn't have paintings back then. Apparently my assistant thought it would be funny to put this up here. He's getting fired."
"Making bad puns now, are we?" Jason asked.
The entire class, of course, enjoyed a good laugh at the picture while Leo's cheeks turned as red as a tomatoes, and his shoes caught fire though he quickly put that out before anyone could notice.
"Now, say that artwork is all fine and good, but the Black Death inspired a whole lot of other things too, like poetry, music, and even dance," Frank said.
"Now, while it is fine seeing all this artwork-" Leo began.
"What artwork?" somebody asked. "All you've shown us is a picture which looks like an artist had a seizure while painting something and a photograph that isn't even real art."
'He has a point,' Leo thought, but instead said, "Yeah, but we're kind of running out of time here which I need for this last segment. So, as I was saying, the Black Death inspired a whole lot of other things, like poetry, music, and even dance."
"Say that an example of dance is the Dance of the Dead, shown in many artworks as a bunch of skeletons," Percy said.
"An example is the Dance of the Dead, which you may have heard about, shown in many artworks as a bunch of skeletons," Leo said.
"Tell them what they don't know is that it is actually based on a dance performed during those times," Jason said.
"But what you may not know is that it is based on a dance performed during those times," Leo said.
"No it isn't!" Athena said while Mars shouted "Nerd!"
"Now tell them you're going to do a live demonstration of the Dance of the Dead," Percy said.
Leo said, "I will know do a live demonstration of the Dance of the Dead." He knew what was coming next.
"NOW DANCE!"
Much like Leo's artwork, we have no words to describe his dancing, expect that it involved a lot of flailing and jumping around.
"I once saw a patient who had a seizure," Will said. "He looked a whole like that."
Seeing it, the student who had protested about there not being any real art in the class walked out.
"We'll count that as getting a zero from her," Percy said.
Then, someone made a Youtube video on it and you could find it by Googling, 'Crazy Professor Looks Like He's Having a Seizure But Is Actually Dancing.'
A lawsuit would later be filed by Leo stating that no one was allowed to post their content online except them.
It took three years for the lawsuit to be settled.
Leo got a 7.34/10.
"While that was fun, I think everyone wants to see something one of the others did now," Leo said. "So let's see one of Frank's."
Task One: If a random person you found in the woods while jogging suddenly asked you to stop and help them? You possibly would, but maybe not if that person was one of our four contestants.
Essentially, the task will take place in a forest, where joggers are known to run at a few intervals, and each of the contestants will be trying to build a fire using a set of logs. They have to try and stop whoever is jogging along the way and ask them to help them build a fire, in order to burn something.
That 'something' will be covered with a tarp, and none of the contestants know what it is… but they better figure out what to say about it once they uncover it when they talk to the jogger. If they cannot get someone to help them build the fire, then they lose. As always, they can't tell anyone it is being recorded, and will be provided with an earpiece, with the others watching.
Frank stepped up to the plate first this time. His eyes started wandering around the trail, looking for someone to come.
A demigod came, Frank knew he was a child of Dionysus, but didn't know his name, because, come one, he was a child of Dionysus and not exactly who you want to ask for help while burning something, but Frank decided to try anyway.
"Hey!" Frank said.
The guy slowed down to a stop. "What's up?"
"Oh, I was just making a fire to burn something," Frank said. He then went to the tarp to remove it.
Lying under it was a teddy bear. Frank picked it up. "I wanted to burn this. Can you give me a hand?"
"Frank? Why would you burn a teddy bear?" Hazel asked.
"He's a Roman," Drew said. "They all like harming small stuffed animals."
"Why?" the guy asked, who had started laughing.
Unknown to Frank, the others had also inserted a speaker into the teddy bear, and so they could speak into a handset and it would come out of the bear.
"Don't do it," a voice cracked out of the bear.
"Did that thing just talk?" the guy asked.
"Yeah," Frank said. "Which is why I need to bury it. It has been driving me nuts. It keeps singing Katy Perry songs while I try to sleep."
"Don't be a Katry Perry hater," Apollo said as he began singing so loudly that he was told to shut up so people could hear what was going on in the video.
The guy started laughing uncontrollably at that, but he still took a log and tossed it in.
The teddy bear started saying more things. "Please! Help me! I don't want to be burnt! This man has done unspeakable things to me! Even Octavian would shudder at them and call them stuffed animal abuse!"
"By 'unspeakable things' just what did those guys mean…" Hazel trailed off.
"I think it's best not to think about it," Piper said.
"Just what's your name, little man?" the guy asked.
"Our names are- Sheldon, Timothy, and Rudy," the bear said, with each of the names being said by a different member of the three in an attempt to sound creepy, and failing at it, because those are just not scary names.
"Those are perhaps the worst names for a demonic teddy bear that I've ever heard of," Hades said. "Here, I happen to have several of them in the Fields of Punishment. If you want to buy one, they're only five ninety-nine."
"Stop it, Hades," Zeus said. "This is a time to enjoy comedy, not for you to sell your merchandise."
"Wow, you're rather grumpy today, brother," Hades said. "Perhaps you'd like a teddy bear- or maybe a blanket! And let me just remind everyone that all profits go to buying homes for abandoned teddy bears."
"If Hades is selling stuff, can I advertise my new brand of cereal?" Demeter asked.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but stop bringing money into everything," Hermes said.
"That's not true," Frank said. "I have done nothing to that bear."
They continued arranging the logs for the fire.
"Stop!" the teddy bear said. "I know where you live! I will come back to get you! I will find you when you're asleep, and then take your soul with me back to the depths of Tartarus from where I was sired by the darkness itself!" it said. It could've been creepy, but was actually hilarious because you could clearly tell there was some sort of speaker in it. The guy was still laughing, but they made the mound and everything.
Result: Frank passed.
"I remember that teddy bear," Holly Victor said.
"I do too," Laurel Victor said. "So, is it like a recurring joke in this show?"
"I hope you all enjoyed that," Leo said. "Because the next one is about Frank too."
Task Three: This task will involve each participant walking over to someone while playing the game Pokemon Go. They will then say that they saw a Pokemon there but that it is gone now, but that it looked a whole like the person whom they're talking to. They will then give them additional clues prompted by the others. If they can't get the other person to take a guess, they lose. If they refuse to say or do what they're told they also lose.
"Pokemon Go is old already," Travis said.
"Yeah," Conner said.
"Well, it's too bad you lost Percy," Leo said, not sounding too sorry at all.
"Whatever," Percy said. "Who's going up next?"
"I'll go," Frank said.
Frank pulled out his phone and began wandering around. He was looking for the right person to talk to and simultaneously trying to avoid the Ares cabin.
He saw Nico di Angelo somewhere off in the distance struggling with something, so he decided to give it a shot.
"I remember this," Nico and Will said simultaneously.
Nico was picking up what looked like huge stacks of leather jackets (did he really have only those as clothes?) and so Frank decided to be nice and help him… so that Nico might cooperate later on.
"Hey Nico," Frank said. "Let me help you with those."
"Thanks I guess…" Nico muttered.
"Hey, I was here because I was playing Pokemon Go," Frank said.
"I've heard of Pokemon," Nico said. "It wasn't as good as Mythomagic. But I did have a few of their cards too."
"Take that back!" Leo said. "Pokemon is better than Mythomagic!"
"It is not!" a Roman camper shouted. "And for that matter Magic: The Gathering is much better."
"Nuh-uh," someone from the Greek camp said. "Yu-Gi-Oh! is the best there is!"
Something very close to a civil war nearly broke out as the campers squabbled over it and was only stopped by Zeus flashing lightning to silence all of them.
"Yeah, so I was looking for a Pokemon," Frank said. "But it isn't here anymore."
"Is there a reason you're telling me this?"
"Yeah, see the thing is that I don't remember what the Pokemon was called," Frank said. "But I think it kind of looked a lot like you."
"If it looked like Nico, it was probably a Shuppet," Travis said. "Or a Duskell. Or a Gengar."
"I don't really know much about them-" Nico began, clearly trying to attempt to leave.
"Okay, so Frank, tell him that you at least remember what color it was: pink," Percy said.
"I do remember what color it looked like, at the very least," Frank said. "It was pink."
"It was pink?"
"Yeah."
"And you're saying that this… reminded you of me? How?"
"Because Nico looks good in pink!" someone shouted.
"Um… it just did," Frank said.
"Now tell him that whatever it was liked to sing," Jason said.
"And it seemed to like to sing," Frank said.
Nico turned angry really fast. "What? When did Will tell you that I sing? I'm going to go-"
He didn't say anything more and stormed off towards the Apollo cabin, leaving Frank with no choice but to follow him.
"You still haven't gotten a guess yet, so you better keep running," Percy said.
Will Solace was hanging out near the Apollo cabin as usual, and Nico stopped right in front of him, his face very red.
Nico said, "You idiot! Why did you tell half of Camp Jupiter that I-I- sang that one time?" the last few lines were said so softly that even Will with his musically-toned ears couldn't hear them.
"What?" Will asked again.
"That time during truth or dare when you made me sing, why did you tell everyone about it?" Nico said, now a bit louder.
"There's a story behind this, isn't there?" Leo asked.
"Maybe we'll be able to hear it," Jason said. "Frank, try to get more out of them?"
"Um, what was this truth or dare thing?" Frank asked.
"Just a bit of a game," Apollo said, looking flustered as well.
"Then how come we weren't invited?" Percy asked.
"Something stupid happened in Camp Half-Blood and I wasn't invited? How?" Travis asked.
"Yeah, we don't like to go into the details," Nico said. "But why did you tell him?"
"I didn't," Will said.
"Then how does he know that I sing?" Nico asked.
"Why don't you ask him?" Will asked.
"They need to go to couple's therapy."
"Uh, I just guessed that Nico would have a really soothing voice, you know," Frank said lamely.
"You need to work on your acting skills, punk," Clarisse said.
Both Nico and Will looked at Frank as if he was a total idiot.
"Hey! That's the look Annabeth usually gives Percy! And Annabeth's mom usually gives Percy! And that Hades gives Percy!" Leo said.
"And that Zeus gives Percy. And that Reyna gives Percy. And that Percy's teachers give Percy. And that Dionysus gives Percy. And that Grover gives Percy. And that Luke gave Percy. And that…" Piper trailed off.
"It's also the look you give yourself when you look into the mirror, right?" Percy asked.
"Like seriously… what man?" Will asked.
"Uh… it just looked like that…" Frank trailed off.
"Not even Frank can believe the lies he's telling right now," Jason said. "That's a first."
"Anyway, the thing was that I was looking for a Pokemon on Pokemon Go," Frank said.
"You mean that new video game?" Will asked. "Dude, at least thirteen campers have came with Pokemon Go-related injuries from walking into stuff. There are more Pokemon Go-related injuries than the usual most common cause of demigod injuries."
"What's that?" Frank asked.
"I believe it's being eaten by a minotaur," Dionysus said.
"Nah, it's probably peanut allergies," Zeus said.
"Tripping over your own shoelaces, duh," both Nico and Will said at the same time.
"Darn it," Dionysus and Zeus said at the same time.
"This is getting off topic," Percy said. "Get back on topic, Frank!"
"So, I was playing it and I saw a Pokemon, but it was gone," Frank said. "And I couldn't remember its name, so I was asking Nico if he knew what I was talking about. It was pink and could sing, and for some reason reminded me of Nico."
"And I told Frank that I had no clue, since I haven't played Pokemon in ages," Nico said.
"Really?" Will sneered. "Because I heard that some people found a corpse while playing Pokemon Go. I assumed that was you, or something you'd be into."
"If you want to see some corpses, I'd be happy to oblige," Nico said with a growl.
"Guys, stop fighting," Frank said. "You guys can't let something small like quips ruin your relationship."
Leo started playing sad music.
"See, ups and downs come in life," Frank said. "But you can't let that get in the way of your true feelings for each other, and you can't let it stop you from seeing what's important in life… which is helping me figure out which Pokemon I'm thinking of."
"That speech went differently in my head," Aphrodite said.
"Don't… don't you mean that we care about each other?" Will asked.
"Yeah, Frank, that was how that was supposed to be," Piper said.
"Yeah that too, but first, what Pokemon am I thinking of?"
"Well, if it is pink and sings, could it be Jigglypuff?" Will asked.
"Was it Jigglypuff?" Nico asked.
Frank sighed with relief because this technically counted as a guess, and he said, "Yeah sure guys, that's what I saw. Well, gotta go now!"
"Wait- but don't you want to-" Nico trailed off as Frank ran off into the distance.
Result: Frank passed.
"Well, I hope that was enjoyable, because we're going back to Leo now," Percy said.
"Psst!" Dionysus said. "We passed our set time limit!"
"We'll wind up quickly!" Leo said.
Task One: The Wheel of Doom returns, and as usual our contestants have to do whatever it is the wheel lands on, and this time, it has returned, the tasks are scarier than ever and there's no simple one involving taking money this time. The items on the wheel are:
Shave someone's mustache
Get someone to sniff your shoes
Convince someone that you're an alien
Brush someone else's teeth in public
Automatic Negative Point
Literally Steal the Food Out of Someone's Mouth
Give Mrs. O'Leary a Bath
Dress Up As A Spider and Remain in the Athena Cabin (for twelve minutes)
And so, let the games begin! The time limit is forty-five minutes for a task.
"Dress up as a spider and remain in the Athena cabin? We'd slaughter whoever would try that!" Annabeth said. "Wait a minute…"
And last was the Valdez himself, who had the misfortune to get 'Convince someone you're an alien' as his task.
"Well, that shouldn't be too hard," Frank said. "I'm sure half of Camp already thinks that you're an alien, Leo."
"What?" Percy said, drawing an exaggerated breath and widening his eyes dramatically. "Leo, you're not an alien? My whole life has been a lie!"
Jason pinched Leo's cheek. "All you have to do is take this mask off!"
"It's funny because it's true," Travis said.
While the others laughed, Leo said, "Okay, what counts as convincing someone that I'm an alien? Do they just have to say that they believe me?"
"No," Percy said, grinning as he resolved to make this harder for Leo, "It can't be in a joking or sarcastic way. It should be at least slightly serious."
Leo was then left completely panicking out. This wasn't a task that was suicidal- but it was one that was impossible! How was he going to convince someone that he was an alien? He didn't even know where to start or who he should try. Should he wear a costume? Or a tin foil hat?
Leo left the hideout equally confused and without any semblance of a plan whatsoever. The clock was ticking, and whatever he was going to do, he was going to have to do it fast.
But the question that came up and up again was, who was gullible enough to fall for it? Leo didn't think that even Travis Stoll would believe him…
And just then Travis Stoll walked on past him, and that was when Leo realized that he might as well try, all the while racking his brains for an idea that would work.
"Are you in every single one of these things?" Conner asked.
"Just a few," Travis said. "Why? Are you jealous that I'm a recurring character and you aren't?"
"So, the pink-haired mechanic returns! What up, homie?" Travis asked.
"You know, there was a time when I was sure that making fun of Leo for his pink hair was going to get old," Percy said. "Never have I been so wrong."
"Ah yes, Leo's pink hair. How could we forget?"
Just then, Leo got a sort of idea and decided to go ahead with it.
"Hey, just a bit of secret, between you and me, did you know that pink is my natural hair color?" Leo asked. "I just dye my hair yellow."
"Where's he going with this?"
Travis looked at Leo with disbelief. "Wait… no one's natural hair color is pink. So if your hair is pink normally…. then there can only be one logical explanation…"
"Did Leo just actually win?" Hazel asked.
Frank blinked. "I don't believe it guys. I think Leo just pulled this off."
"It can only mean that you're an anime character!" Travis said.
Leo was weeping internally.
Meanwhile, the others were laughing so hard they had all collapsed.
"What's anime?" Zeus asked.
"Oh that, it's just-" Apollo stopped mid-sentence when he was punched by Artemis.
"It's best not to think about it father," Artemis said.
"No Travis," Leo said, going for a direct approach this time, "the truth is that I'm an alien."
"Pfft," Travis said. "Yeah right."
"You're doing really well, Leo," Percy managed to get out.
"No, it's totally true," Leo said. "I'm from a planet called um, Norwegia."
"Norway is an actual country, you idiot!" someone from the audience shouted out.
Travis looked at Leo funnily. "Okay Leo, I'm ready to believe a lot of things, but if you were an alien, what about the rest of the Hephaestus cabin?"
"All the Hephaestus kids are aliens," Leo said.
"No we're not!" the Hephaestus kids shouted out.
"Uh-huh," Travis said, not convinced at all.
"It's where all of our gadgets come from!" Leo said. "Think about it! The Earth doesn't have this kind of technology!"
"Last I checked, aliens don't exist," Travis said. "I mean, everyone knows that crop circles are just Demter kid's playing pranks and UFOs are what mortals see when the god's chariots pass over them."
"I'm sorry, but didn't Mars have life on it once?" Percy said. "I mean, before Zeus decided to host his sixteen hundredth birthday party there, and then they got into a huge argument and froze all the water?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Percy," Jason said, eyeing him strangely.
"Like seriously what's Percy talking about?" Annabeth asked.
Zeus fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair. "I… I do not know what the young lad is saying."
The other gods nodded, there being a silent agreement never to mention the incident ever again.
"But-but," Leo began.
An alarm began beeping from Travis' watch. "Oh look! I need to go get those breath mints now. See ya later buddy!" He then patted Leo on the back and took off.
"Breath mints?" Reyna asked.
"It's a really long story," Travis said.
"Oh no," Leo said.
It took him ten minutes to realize that Travis had stolen his wallet.
Travis held up Leo's wallet. "I still have it! But you didn't even have any cash in it!"
With Leo's time running out, he realized that he was going to have to do something drastic, something extraordinary, if he was to stand a chance of winning. Sure, he might be laughed at, but it was his only hope for victory that he saw.
As so, he burst into the Hades cabin and saw that Nico was there.
"NicoIneedtoborrowyourclothesforawhilesopleasepleasejustgivethemwouldya?" Leo said in a single word without pausing, he didn't have much time left.
"What?" Nico asked.
"I need to borrow your clothes and some other things," Leo said.
"Uh, no," Nico said, getting up. "Dude, you can't just barge in and-"
"No time!" Leo said and pushed Nico aside, took everything he needed, and then ran out.
"Let's add that to a long list of thefts that Leo Valdez has committed in these episodes," Hermes said.
Once he was done tinkering with some spare parts he was going to use as an addition to Festus, he decided to set his plan into motion.
As evening was dawning on Camp Half-Blood, and a good portion of the campers were gathered making preparations for dinner. Suddenly though, there was a weird robotic noise coming out from somewhere and odd lights began flashing.
Out of a clearing, Leo walked out, dressed in what was either a super-cool outfit, or something more hilarious and humiliating than a maid costume depending on who you were. That is to say, Leo thought it was cool while almost everyone else thought it was hilarious.
"Greetings, Earthlings," Leo said in a super fake robotic voice. "I am… uh, Valdazor, come from the planet Pluto."
"Pluto isn't a planet anymore," a kid of Athena said.
"Nerd!" Mars shouted.
"Wait, I'm not a planet anymore?" Hades asked. "Outrageous!"s
"Nerd," Leo said. "And it is due to this grave injustice that I have come from my plane to tell you all that Hades is seriously… well, angry about this and demands that all of you immediately reinstate Pluto as a planet, or suffer the wrath of Hades."
"So that's why he took Nico's stuff and dressed up like that," Percy said.
"I don't think this will work though," Frank said.
"He just needs to get one person to say that they believe him," Jason pointed out.
Everyone started to laugh, but then there were screams. Leo turned around to see a bunch of very menacing looking skeletons.
"Well, that should get people's attentions," Percy said.
"I don't think he summoned them though," Frank said.
The skeletons surrounded Leo as Nico walked up to him to take revenge for the stolen stuff.
In the end, no one did admit that Leo was an alien.
Result: Leo failed.
"I'm sure you'll like this one from Leo too," Percy said, ignoring Dionysus who was waving frantically at him to stop the show.
Task Two: Have you ever met a stranger somewhere and thought, "I've seen that person before. Do I know him?"
Well, none of our four contestants know any of the people on NYU Campus, but they're still there, and the target of this round is that they need to get a stranger to say that they know them. This will be made doubly difficulty by the fact that that the other three are on the roof of another building, and will be writing cues down on cards (kind of like whiteboards with a marker) and showing them to the contestant, and he has to act out on those cues. As always, no telling anyone this is a show and they will be getting an earpiece.
Unlike the other chapters, the other contestants are on the roof of that building, again, with microphones and all their equipment, and so scenes on the roof will be in italics for this task.
Next up was Leo. He too, had learned from his experience, and was looking for someone who was so hooked to their electronic device that they would not care what he was saying.
He saw someone who was typing away on a laptop and decided that this was it.
"Hello there," Leo said. The guy looked up at him for a moment, and Leo pretended to look disappointed. "You don't remember me?"
"Huh?" the guy asked, confused. "We've met before?"
Percy held up a sign that said: I Was The President of the English Grammar Club.
"I was the president of the English Grammar Club," Leo said. "You forgot that?"
"I don't think I was ever a part of an English Grammar Club?" the guy said.
Percy held up a sign that said: Now Talk In Crazily Incorrect Grammar.
"You still doesn't remembers me?" Leo asked. "Okay, we be needing to talk about a few things. We need to get it did."
"That's still better than most of your essays," Chiron said.
The guy looked at Leo funny.
Jason held up a sign that said: No, I'm Sure I've Seen You Before
"No, but seriously, I is sure that we've met before," Leo said. "If it wasn't at the English Club, where we used to thunk hard about word stuff, it must have been somewhere else."
The guy looked thoughtful, but unlike Brian didn't seem to be considering that he'd met Leo.
Percy held up a sign that said: Where You The Guy Who Helped Me Give That Kid A Swirly Back in High School?
"What's a Swirly?" Hermes asked.
"Oh, it's when you take someone's head and put it in a toilet and then flush it," Mars said.
"And you can stop talking oddly," Jason said.
"Where you the guy who helped me give that kid a Swirly back in high school?"
"A Swirly?" the guy asked. "Isn't that when you take someone, put their head in a toilet, and then flush it?"
Leo was about to say, "No, I mean the Swirly that is a sweet cold treat that we gave to people on hot days," so he didn't look like a jerk, but then of course Frank had to hold up a sign before he could say it that said: Yes.
"Yes," Leo said.
"Okay, I have never given anyone one of those before."
Jason held up a sign that said: Then You Must Be From the Talent Show.
"Then you must've been from the talent show," Leo said. "Remember that?"
"I've been to a few talent shows," the guy replied. "Can you be more specific?"
Frank held up a sign that said: My Talent Was Blowing Snot Bubbles.
There were of course, several loud snickers at this.
"That's a gross talent," Athena said. "And by that I don't mean that it' s large, rather that it's disgusting."
"My talent was blowing snot bubbles," Leo said, nearly cracking up himself and knowing that his chances for winning were dwindling very fast.
"Really?" the guy asked, looking disgusted and more than that like he was holding back a laugh.
Frank held up another sign that said: Yes. Huge ones.
"Yeah, really big ones," Leo said.
Percy held up a sign that said: I Even Got Seventh Place!
"It was really great, I got the seventh place trophy, remember that?" Leo asked.
"I'm amazed they'd even let you in with a talent like that," Athena huffed.
"You do realize that never happened, right?" Hermes said.
"Leo, this guy has been to tons of talent shows," Jason said. "Do you think that he's going to remember who came seventh in one of them?"
Jason held up a sign that said: There Were Only Six Contestants Though.
"I should point out that there were only six contestants though," Leo said.
The guy shut off his computer and began laughing again.
"Imagine just minding your own business and this happens to you," Travis said. "Bugger."
Frank held up a sign that said: I May Have Lied About My Age to Get the Trophy Though.
"I may have lied about my age to get the trophy though, but that's really neither here nor there," Leo said.
"Just like Eoin Colfer," Athena said.
"What?" Hermes asked.
"Nothing," Athena said. "You won't get it."
Percy held up a sign that read: Were You in the Same Cell As Me When I Had Been Arrested for Taking that Girl's Teddy Bear?
"Is this show obsessed with teddy bears or something?" Laurel asked.
"Were you in that same cell as me when I was arrested for taking that girl's teddy bear?" Leo asked.
"Dude, you gave people Swirlies, and you took a little girl's teddy bear," the guy said.
"Yes, but they were both asking for it in my own defense," Leo said. "So, you do know me, right?"
"No," the guy replied. "And let me tell you, this just all seems crazy and stuff, did someone put you up to this? This whole thing looks like I'm being pranked or something… is there a camera somewhere?"
"Oh," Frank said, "Congratulations on becoming the first person in this show to notice that it is a prank and not falling for whatever we say gullibly."
"Get out Leo," Percy said. "You've nearly blown our cover."
Result: Leo lost.
"Thanks guys, but we've really overstayed our time here," Percy said.
Backstage, Dionysus said, "That wasn't bad. You'll clearly be the talk of the crowd for a long, long time. I also think you guys one, though you went way past time. What do you intend to do after this?"
Our four heroes looked at each other and said, "We're moving on to the next arc."
A/N: Thanks for reading the longest chapter I've written in this fanfic till date.
Next time, we begin the Fifth Arc, because I'm quite tired of continuing to write these and I do want to write down something new.
Do please review if you like!