A/N: It has been forever since my last update- and the reason is simple. Thank you guys for all of your support while I wrote this giant fanfic- it is the most viewed fanfic I've ever written. But life has caused me to move on- I do different things now and don't write fanfiction that much. I don't have time for my hobbies as much as I used to- and can only do mainly one. But, I have gotten some free time this Christmas and decided to finally revisit this fanfic. I don't think I'll be able to do an entire arc up till the eighth punishment, but the least I felt I could do was to do a full chapter at least.

If anyone wants to adopt this story, or write along the lines of this story, or a continuation, you have my blanket permission to do so. Multiple can do so as a matter of fact if they want to, independently, or together. I most likely won't be around to answer DMs, but you can try, just keep in mind that a reply may take weeks/months to come back.

I might end up updating anyway even if several people make their own continuations, but that's unlikely, just keep that in mind.

Also, I haven't read any books past the Blood of Olympus, so any references beyond that are going to escape me. Additionally, I don't actually remember that much of what I've written before, so if I make a slip up, please pardon me for that.

The First Task: Everyone's making an app nowadays, hoping to finally get that multi-million or even billion dollar payout. Well, here, our Jokers aren't looking for something like that but they're going to try and convince everyone that they have something like that.

Leo Valdez has come up with a bunch of useless/stupid apps that he's developing, and right here, at this tech festival, each of the Jokers will be trying to get someone to try out a crazy app and to get it rated by someone on a scale of 1-10. Joker with the highest score wins and everyone else gets a negative point.

"Okay, so am I the only one who thinks this is a little bit unfair?" Frank asked.

"Unfair? How?" Leo replied.

"Well, you're the one who designed all these apps, so technically you had more time to prepare for this than we did," Frank pointed out.

"Uh-huh," Percy said.

"He does have a point there," Jason said.

"And you could've made yours easy," Frank said.

"Frank, we're going to be choosing by drawing paper slips out of a hat," Leo pointed out. "I couldn't tamper with that, and if I made stuff too easy, then it would be easy for you guys too."

The others didn't seem to be too impressed.

"Okay, how about this, to compensate, whatever score I get, you guys can take off a point from it?" Leo suggested.

"Okay." the others agreed.

The first one to go up was Percy. He was standing in a booth in a huge tech convention, and there were lots of people- maybe hundreds- of them milling around.

He asked a few people, but they seemed too busy.

Finally he was able to talk to someone who was kind of skinny and wearing a loose shirt- probably a college student.

"So, what're you doing here?" the guy asked.

"Uh, we're not selling anything," Percy explained. "Basically, we're testing out ideas for new apps, you know, for smartphones, and we were just looking for people to weigh in on them, basically just standard market research. So, um, if you have like five minutes would you mind taking a survey on an idea we have?'

"Uh, yeah, okay," the guy said and sat down.

Jason put his hand into a bowl and drew out a slip containing the number nine.

"Number nine, Percy," Jason said.

Percy picked up a paper that had that number on it and scanned through it.

"Eww, Leo- this is gross," he muttered under his breath.

"Just read it," Leo said with a wicked grin, which of course Percy couldn't see, but he could hear his mocking tone.

"Uh, well, the name of this app is, uh, 'Dump High Score Board' you see," Percy said uncomfortably.

"Okay," the guy replied.

"Uh, well, you see the idea for this app came around when its creator was wondering, 'Every single day, someone on this planet-'" Percy paused. "'-someone on this planet takes the most massive dump of the day. But we never know who.'"

The guy just nodded, but he seemed confused.

"'And so, Dump High Score Board is an app where you, heh, yes you, can go and register how big of a dump you took a day,'" Percy said. He was trying his best to keep his face straight. "'And so , that's what it is, a high score board of how big a dump registered people take. Based on how big it is, and your position on the leader boards, you can win fabulous prizes. And one day, we will know the record for biggest dump of all time.'"

Leo started laughing maniacally while Jason and Frank stared at him with looks that quite plainly said 'What on Earth is wrong with you?'

"Uh, okay," the guy said.

"So, what do you think?" Percy asked.

"I have a few questions," the guy said.

"Just a few?" Frank asked.

"For one, how would you go around testing something like that?" the guy asked. "As in, how big a dump everyone does each morning?"

"Aside from the obvious method," Jason muttered with a look of distant horror on his face. Leo, however, was still giggling.

"Uh, well, that's part of our new app," Percy said, trying to think of something to say. "You see, after you take a dump, you take a, uh, a picture, and our software automatically calculates its um, weight. You know, how there's an app that detects your pulse, it's kind of like that, but with a photo."

"By the gods, Percy," Frank said as he face-palmed.

"Wouldn't you need to uh, take your phone to the bathroom for that to work?" the guy asked. 'That's sort of gross, right?'

"People already do that," Percy said and waved his hand. "At least, a lot of people do."

"I guess that's true," the guy said. "But my question is- what's the demand for this app?"

"We're still testing that out," Percy admitted. "But you know, there is quite a large market, at least, based on what we've researched so far, of people who would like to take a dump and get rewarded for it."

"Right, but my next question is, where does the moeny for these rewards come from?" the guy asked. "Um, is this going to be like a uh, pay to download app?"

"No, it's free to download," Percy said. "But there will be ads, sponsors, and other things you know, and also, we're getting uh, funding from teh uh, Department of Health, for this. So we don't really need to go and worry about money for a while."

"Oh, but if the governement's supporting you, are you also going to be sharing people's data with the Department of Health?" the guy asked. "I mean, privacy is an issue right, with Facebook and all that other stuff going around here."

"Yeah, but we'll have people sign a waver and stuff," Percy said and waved his hand. "I mean, currently privacy isn't that big of a deal for most users."

"Right, right," the guy said. "But I mean, what's the ultimate goal of this app? What's the point really?"

"Just to answer the big question, you know," Percy said. "Just that really. So, what do you think?"

Percy handed the guy a questionnaire.

"If you don't have time to fill it out, you can just fill in the score at the bottom," Percy said. "That's what really matters."

The guy seemed to be ignoring Percy as he meticulously filled in each and every single box.

"You know," the guy said, "I would normally not download something like this, I don't think I would be that interested, but now that I think about it, I think I might try it once, just to see where I end up on the leaderboard."

"Score: Percy got an 8/10 on his app.

Next up was Frank.

Leo was flipping through the form that Percy's customer had filled out. "Man, that guy really took this seriously. I might even turn this into a real app."

Percy raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, just kidding!" Leo said. "I mean, but it makes me want to look at the ideas I had again..."

Frank was pacing around in the empty booth. A few people had stopped by, but they had said they were too busy to check out what he was offering.

At long last, a girl with braces stopped by the stall.

"Um, hi," she said.

"Right," Frank said. "So basically we're a company that designs apps, and we're doing a bit of market research on a few apps we're developing, and so we're looking for what people think of them. So if you have a few minutes for a demonstration and to answer a questionnaire, we can get started."

"Okay," she said.

Leo put his hand into a bowl and pulled out a number six.

"Hmm... what was number six again?" Leo mumbled to himself.

"So, I'll be pitching this," Frank said and drew out app number six. "Uh, this app is called 'Laugh Track Simulator.'"

Frank tried to put a smile on his face and started to read the description: "'Have you ever wanted for your real life to be like a sitcom? Well, with the Laugh Track Simulator, wonder no more, because all you need to do is run our app in the background, and it will at points during the day, loudly play a laugh track.'"

The girl smile awkwardly. "So it like, plays a laugh track randomly."

"No," Frank said. "Instead, 'the Laugh Track Simulator records every single conversation around you, and only if it thinks it is funny, does the laugh track begin to play.'"

"What-"

"'Not only that,'" Frank continued. "'The Laugh Track Simulator records all of your conversations and sends them to our Artificial Intelligence who will then use it to further on predict how to decide when things are funny, and in so, gain a better idea of when to play the laugh track.'"

"So, your mission statement is that you're going to literally be spying on people?" the girl asked incredulously.

Frank wasn't sure what to say, so he went with: "Hey, Facebook and Google are already doing it, at least we're being honest about what we're doing."

"Really Frank?"

"I mean, I've worked for both Facebook and Google, and let me tell you-" Frank paused for a second. "The amount of shady stuff going on with your data, uh, well, I don't want to suddenly 'disappear' in the middle of the night so let's leave it at that."

Frank continued.

"Plus, it's um, less about the laugh track really, and more about uh, developing an algorithm of what it means for something to be funny."

"You mean like that one episode of the Big Bang Theory where Sheldon tries to figure out what humor is?" the girl asked.

"I have not seen the Big Bang Theory," Frank replied. "So sadly, I can't answer that. But what do you think about the app?"

Suddenly, Leo got an idea (which is never a good thing in this show, by the way).

"Hey, Frank, before you ask her that, offer to give her a demo," Leo said.

"Uh, well, why don't I give you a little demo first of how it should work," Frank said.

"Don't show her your phone, but take out that speaker on the left and switch it on," Leo said. "And tell her that you've connected your phone to it."

"Alright, so I'll just open the app," Frank said while fiddling with his phone. "And I'll connect it to this speaker. So now, whatever we're saying is being recorded and sent to an AI."

"Oh, I forgot to ask," the girl said. "what's the name of your AI?"

"Name?" Frank asked.

"Yeah, like, all AI have names, right?" the girl said. "You know, like Tay, Alexa- well, I don't think that's the same kind of AI, but still..."

"It's uh, it's uh, named Hazel," Frank said. He then gritted his teeth as he could hear the others laughing into his earpiece- she had mentioned girl's names so that was the first one that jumped to Frank's mind. But if this every went public, he would definitely be mocked for this part.

"Ah, Hazel," the girl said. "Cool name."

"So, anyway, we'll say some things, and my speaker's connected right now, so when we say something funny, a laugh track should play out," Frank said.

Of course, there was no actual app and there was just Leo playing the laugh track remotely.

"So, let's say a few things to test it out," Frank said. "Uh, for example, let me say something that isn't funny. Um, like let me say, I'm going to go grab some groceries from the market."

Frank said the last words slowly and there was no response.

"Cool," the girl replied. "Let me try and say something too, uh, I'm sorry sir, but we couldn't save your wife and now she's dead."

Immediately a very loud laugh track came out from the speaker.

"Uh, so, as you can see, we're still ironing out the details of the AI, you know," Frank said. He then quickly improvised and picked up his phone and glanced at it. "Right here a message appears on my phone, and I'm just going to click on the option saying that that was not a appropriate time to put that in, and I'll say that it was highly inappropriate, so based on that sequence of words, it won't try and insert a laugh track like that in places where that would come up."

"What if you said something funny then, like, uh, pudding?" the girl asked.

The laugh track came again.

"How is that supposed to be funny?" Jason asked.

"Because," Leo replied. "She said poo- and then ding!"

"Right," Frank said, once again picking up his phone though there was nothing on it. "So I'll pick the option saying that this was an appropriate response."

"Can I see the app?" the girl asked. "I mean, you haven't shown me your phone, and I'd like to see the user interface at least."

A bead of sweat trickled down Frank's neck. "Oh, so sorry, it looks like uh, my phone died. Forgot to charge it, uh, yeah, but I think you got the idea of how the app works."

"So this is all a machine learning sort of thing?" the girl asked. "You're not looking to make money off of it?"

"Well no," Frank said. "Not really for now."

"So why the marketing research?"

"Well, we have several potential apps which we could be running, but don't have the funding for all of them," Frank said. "So, do you think this is a way that our research should go towards? Uh, actually I have a little questionnaire, you don't need to fill in all of it, but just the score at the bottom from a one to a ten is good enough."

"Okay," the girl said.

Frank ended up getting a 6.5/10.

A/N: So I wanted to do a full chapter, but this ended up being way longer than I anticipated, so I'll try to get the second part done at least so that at least a challenge is over with. I'll try to get it done before the New Year, seeing as I'll be very busy once again at that time.