I'm back for another chapter, I'll see if I can update in less than a month.

So the demigods were looking for looking for the gods. They found them after half an hour near a room they had never seen before.

They heard arguing so they went to listen in, by placing their ears near the gaps of the entrance.

"How do we even know that their dating?" Zeus asked. Who?

"Yeah, just look at the two of them they're like perfect for each other." Aphrodite squeled

"Not to be rude but how did this even happen?" Hades asked. "I doubt this is the first time an Atlantian and an Athenian were dating or a couple. Oh they were talking about..

Percy and Annabeth blushed.

"Yeah but not directly, not daughter of mine will date Kelp Brain's son," Athena grumbled, "We should not keep the demigods waiting," She flashed away.

"Run!" Clarisse hissed and they all raced down the hallway into the market.

"Wait let's get some honeycomb with Ambrosia just in case they ask us where we went." Annabeth said, after everyone saw her reasoning. They came back and some of the gods looked at them and dismissed them.

"Alright who wants to read," Zeus said, Hera raised her hand and started reading

7. MY DINNER GOES UP IN SMOKE

Some of the demigods snickered

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.

Annabeth looked down and shook her head at the memory.

She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man),

"Man you Satyrs can make master piece," Percy joked "Picasso got nothing on you Satyrs,"

and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.

"What a great way to introduce Demigods to the world of mythology," Leo joked "Oh and you will face a climbing wall with spraying real super hot lava, with boulders and you'll be a pancake if you don't climb fast enough." Percy and some other people laughed.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Wow I sound dead," Annabeth said.

"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever."

"You sound mad," Percy said

"It wasn't my fault."

"Really Percy," Jason face palmed "Who else could have done it other than you,"

"My dad," Percy said cheekily, the next part Hera tried to hold a straight face for some reason

She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.

Everyone started laughing, that's the reason.

"One with the plumbing, no offense Perce but you sound stupid," Grover laughed

"I'm gonna hold that to you," Jason said.

"Oh yeah superman?" Percy said teasingly.

"Yup," Not a second later water bursted at his face.

"How dar-," Zeus stood up and was about to change aspects when Jason scrambled to save Percy

"It's okay father, just wait a moment Thalia is going to avenge me," Jason said

"Thalia won't- AHH" Thalia zapped Percy on the butt. "I thought we were friend!" He said, and Thalia high five each other

"Sibling power!" They yelled.

"Alright lets keep reading," Rachel said nodding toward Hera.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.

"That was a straight answer I told you that the Oracle wasn't a person at least anymore," Annabeth said, Rachel's shoulders slump sadly at the mention of the Oracle.

I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.

I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.

"Yeah It kinda was weird, like two girls not drowning despite being at the bottom of a pier." Leo said.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

"How am I supposed to know," Percy whinned

"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

"Disturbed?" Annabeth face palmed.

"Of all the words you could have used and you choose disturbed," Piper asked incredulously Percy shrugged

"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.

"God," I said. "Half-god."

Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."

"How do you know that? I could have been one of the 'minor gods,'" Percy said air quoting minor gods

"Duh, a half bull half man monster isn't going to randomly try and kill a 'weaker' demigods especially if they didn't know they were a demigod," Annabeth said

"But a baby hellhound did," Percy pointed out "When I was four or something. You told me yourself,"

"That's ... crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"Hey I find it quite rude for me here!" Hades said, " Over 80 years ago." He held his hand up.

"As well for the maiden goddesses and the goddess of Marriage," Hera added.

"But those are just—" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-gods—"

"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?"

Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.

"At least not to bad now," Percy said.

"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."

"He's human."

"And I find it random that," Percy looked at the nearest demigod, in his view, in this case Katie, "That your dad had Sex with a goddess," Percy said and Katie and Demeter blushed. "If anything I find it an accomplish to have a child with a god or goddess. Until they have to leave,"

"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"

"Who's your mom, then?"

"Cabin six."

"Meaning?"

Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."

"You see the pride in twelve year old Annabeth?" Leo whispered to Calypso and Annabeth herself. Annabeth punched Leo in the arm.

Okay, I thought. Why not?

"And my dad?"

"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."

"Except my mother. She knew."

"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."

"My dad would have. He loved her."

Poseidon puffed out his chest.

Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens.

"And it did during a rather dramatic part," Percy looked at his dad "You have a flare for drama like Zeus." Poseidon smile and Zeus looked proud.

"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"

Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."

Some of the gods and Goddesses looked guilty.

I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at YancyAcademy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.

"Yeah they do in the future," Percy said to make the gods feel better.

"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"

"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force.

Katie and Piper looked offended along with their parents.

"Hey!" Katie said

"In general, at least for Piper's case, you're siblings are really fashion/love/heartbreak obsessed." Annabeth said, and Piper nodded her head to the side and say true.

The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble—about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."

"Oh you never told me any of them," Percy said

"Thomas Edison," Annabeth told him

"He had a mother that was there," Percy pointed out.

"That's my mom, and she stayed longer than most and pretended to die from a sickness later." Annabeth said.

"So monsters can't get in here?"

Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."

"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"

"Practice fights. Practical jokes."

"Practical jokes?"

"Yeah that sounds like a deadly prank," Frank said

"Naw," Annabeth dismissed it "The Stolls sent an fire monster that was just about to die from a bronze dagger to the Aphrodite cabin once." The Stolls grinned and high five each other.

"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."

"So ... you're a year-rounder?"

Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.

"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."

"Why did you come so young?"

She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."

"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"

"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."

"Unless?"

"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time ..."

Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.

"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff—"

"Wait stuff?" Leo said suggestively before yelling as Annabeth punched him in the arm again.

"Ambrosia."

"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."

Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?"

"You really hate not knowing things," Percy said

"Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"

She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."

"I feel like the need for knowing things are going to get Athena kids killed more than pride." Leo said

"You've been to Olympus?"

"Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"And that's when the bolt got stolen, see it wasn't me!" Percy said he said quickly as Hera kept reading out loud.

"But... how did you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"

"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.

"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping ... I mean— Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."

"Lady Hera do you mind talking slower during a long paragraph with Annabeth talking?" Frank asked "My brain can think fast enough during then,"

I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.

"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem ..."

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.. . . ..

"Man If we saw that you dropped it down we would have stolen it." Connor said

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."

I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.

"Probably," The Stolls said together.

I said, "Thanks."

"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"

"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."

"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."

The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.

Hermes looked down

"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.

He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."

I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.

"Yeahh..." Percy dragged the word out.

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

"Me and Annie here remeber, there was a ton of yelling," Thalia said

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.

"Hey I fed you pudding!" Annabeth said "Against my will though," She muttered the last part just loud enough for all the demigods to hear.

I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"

Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?"

His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... somebody special came to the camp."

"Special huh?" Leo wiggled his eyebrows and this time Calypso punched Leo in the arm "Ow!"

"Somebody special?"

"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

Thalia and Artemis, puffed their chest out in pride and Apollo smiled at his sister who didn't notice.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods— and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

"There's more in the Summer," Thalia said.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.

"Ha," Some of the demigods laughed

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

"Ha I remember how happy Chiron was when I told him I was designing him a personal picnic table with an area for a centaur," Annabeth said

Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.

"I got my hair from my dad," Annabeth said

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want—nonalcoholic, of course."

I said, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.

Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."

"Of course, I should have guessed" Grover muttered

The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.. . . . .

I drank a toast to my mother.

She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...

"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

"Come on," Luke told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

"You're kidding."

"Nope,"

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.

"I don't know who doesn't," Zeus admitted "The demigods kept doing it though, even if it isn't completely necessary " He said.

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

I was next.

I wished I knew what god's name to say.

Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

"Ugly?" Clarisse grunted towards Percy who held his hand in a 'I give up position,'

"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."

"Peter Johnson and the Olympians, I like it," Jason said, and Percy laughed and patted Jason on the back good naturally.

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

"Aww," Aphrodite said.

"You ruined the moment mom," Piper said

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.

My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

Percy looked sadly at the ground.

When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was my first day at CampHalf-Blood.

I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.

The end of a chapter." Hera said "I quite enjoy reading," She said

Hestia gestured "How about we take turns sister?" Hera nodded and handed it to her. She started reading, when another flash happened to show everyone old faces that many people hadn't seem since the end of the Titan war.

Okay there you go. Yes I haven't update in a while, but I said I would update once or twice a month so yeah. The end is a bit rushed bit yeah deal with it if you didn't want to deal with it, you don't read it in the first place.

Guess who's back. I'll give ya a hint: Dead

Disclaimer: I'm like half the age of Rick

Words: 4,688 Date: March 5th, 2017