Hi all! Thanks for all those who reviewed, and here's the next chapter!

"What the fruitcake?" Zeus thundered. I have no idea where he got that. "The traitor is gone!"

Well, duh.

All of the other Olympians stared in shock. Zeus immediately pointed to his brother. "Poseidon did it!"

"Why would I do it?" Poseidon asked calmly. "I voted to kill him, remember?"

Zeus gave him a hateful look. Athena spoke up, "There are two possibilities. Either someone carried him off or he was faking paralysis."

"He wasn't faking paralysis!" Thalia said angrily.

"How would you know?" I smirked. "Did you get close to him, perhaps?" I don't know why I resented her for liking Luke, but it was probably because he would have been dead already if not for her. It could screw up our plans.

Thalia blushed a deep crimson and gave me a murderous look. She would kill me later.

Aphrodite winked. Fortunately Artemis didn't notice, as she was fuming. "How dare you insinuate such a thing against my Huntress?"

I didn't answer. If I did, I'd probably get blasted to pieces.

"Back to the issue at hand, people." Ares said. "We will handle Luke, who was most obviously dragged off by someone. About your quest, well, you have no chance. Hades is almost as ruthless as I am."

Yeah right. Hades would leave Ares in the dust in terms of ruthlessness. I didn't tell him that.

"I hate to say it, but as foolhardy as Ares is, he's right." Athena put in. "Hades will never let her go. He hates you remember? He also knows that Annabeth is close to you."

"Exactly!" Ares said, not seeming to realize that he'd been insulted.

"I need to go," I said. "I got a prophecy from the Oracle."

At these words, the Olympians turned to Apollo. "What will happen to the boy on his quest?" Poseidon asked him.

Apollo wagged a finger. "I can't say. It ruins the poetry of time to tell someone what will happen. I say the boy goes, but at the end, Poseidon will be somewhat satisfied, but Athena probably not."

"That's good enough for me," I said. "I'm going, whether you like it or not."

"If you insist," Poseidon said. "As I should be satisfied at the end of the quest, I guess I could send you off," He waved his hand.

"Wait!" Athena's voice cracked. But it was too late. The air shimmered around me and I found myself, Thalia, Grover, and Tyson right in front of DOA Recording Studios.

Here we are again, I thought.

Thalia glanced at me. "You shouldn't have told them that," She said angrily. "There are things I like to keep to myself, thank you very much." She slapped me. That hurt.

Now she was eyeing Grover. "Did you tell him?" she demanded.

"No, I didn't," Grover said, visibly trembling. "Aphrodite did."

"That's why Aphrodite wanted to keep Luke alive," I supplied dryly.

Thalia said nothing, but I could tell what she was thinking. Probably something about twisted, evil, goddesses of love.

We slowly walked through the sliding doors. Charon noticed us. "What the fruitcake?" he exclaimed. "You again!"

What was it with immortals and fruitcake? I decided not to ask.

"Yes, me." I said. "We want to get to the Underworld."

"Oh, yes," Charon nodded impressively. "You want to save your girlfriend."

I felt the heat rising in my face. "She's not my-"

"Okay, whatever." Charon cut me off with a dismissive wave of his hand. "The point is that you can come in if you brought me some drachmas. I pitied the girl, but I'm not going to let you off that easy."

I reached for my pack. A horrible feeling struck me. It wasn't there.

I had left my stuff on Mount Olympus.

"Well?" Charon asked, smirking. "No drachmas for me?"

I had to struggle to control my anger. "I guess not."

"Well, on your way then." Charon waved his hand and we found ourselves standing outside the building.

A wave of hopelessness enveloped me. "We came all the way here, just to find that we lost our drachmas. The only thing we can do is going back."

"Snap out of it!" Thalia snapped. "We'll find a way."

"I could help you with that." A voice I recognized said behind me.

It was none other than Ares, the god of war.

I am having mercy on you now, readers. Be glad it is not a cliffie. You may not be able to enjoy this benefit again… Sorry if I killed too much time with the gods warping Percy to L.A. but the story was too long to store in my head. They still have to get back to New York safely…