OMG it's been like forever since I updated, but here, finally is Chapter 8

Chpt. 8- We Learn That We're Not the Weirdest Things Out There

Fang's P.O.V.

After about a second of dark, cold and fast, we popped out from the shadow of a huge pine tree, on a hill, in a sunny valley. On a lower branch was a glittery gold something, and coiled around the base of the tree, that looks like a dragon!

"Perrrcy," bleated a guy's reedy voice. "What happened? I called the emergency meeting..."

Then he noticed us. "Oh. Come on, the meeting's in the Big House." He looked around at us, then asked, "hey, where's-"

Percy had shaken his head, and given the guy a pleading look, like 'please not right now, okay?' I noticed that he looked less together somehow, as if he'd been holding himself in one piece for us, but he was starting to slip.

We all got off Mrs. O'Leary, who romped off to a large building in the valley, and followed Percy and the other guy to a huge blue farmhouse. The Big House I thought real creative. We went inside, and into a room where a bunch of people sat around a ping-pong table.

"You guys have your emergency meetings around a ping-pong table?" I asked Percy quietly.

"Ya," it was the guy who'd come out to meet us who answered. "You got a problem with that?"

I shrugged.

"Percy!" three girls ran up to him "What happened? Where's Annabeth?"

When the girls said her name, any composure Percy had left vanished. Max and the rest of the Flock weren't much better about losing Angel again. Percy collapsed into a chair and tears started leaking out of his eyes.

"Gone," Percy croaked, "the wolf things took her, and now she's gone."

Jaws dropped around the room. Grover made a strangled bleating sound. All three of the girls looked shocked, but I couldn't help but notice that the red haired one with green eyes and the girl with the choppy brown hair and kaleidoscope eyes looked the hardest hit. Maybe they'd known her for longer.

"What?!" almost everyone in the room had gone from looking shell-shocked to sad and angry. Two guys came up and put their arms around the choppy haired girl, and the other one, younger, with curly brown hair and gold eyes, looking upset themselves.

Just then the door to the room slammed open and two more people ran in. One was a girl with spiky black hair and piercing blue eyes,. the other a boy who looked like a younger, scrawnier version of me.

"Chiron, what's going on, Nico told me that there was an emergency meeting, but he didn't say-Percy!" she'd just spotted the older boy and seen the state he was in. "My gods, what in Hades happened?!"

The blonde boy who had his arm around the choppy haired girl replied. "Annabeth's been kidnapped."

The girl looked like someone had just socked her in the gut. "Say what?" she managed.

Just then a middle-aged man in a wheelchair spoke up. "Demigods, control yourselves. I, I'm sure that Percy can tell us what happened, and then we will set out to find Annabeth immediately. In the mean time, there are some young people here who seem like they would very much appreciate and explanation."

In an instant the room was silent exept for some mutters of "Sorry, Chiron." So this was Chiron.

"Let's start with introductions. Why don't you tell us your names?"

Max went first. "My name is Maximum Ride. I go by Max, and I'm the leader of the Flock." She looked at me. "I'm Fang. I'm second in command."

Max continued. "This is Iggy, he's blind, Nudge, and right there is Gazzy. You don't want to know why. Um, there's another girl A-Angel, b-but the Erasers t-took her too.

"And there's another thing you should probably know." Max nodded to the rest of us, and one by one we each spread out our wings. To my surprise, nobody looked completely shocked. I mean sure they were surpised, but in a 'okay that's weird, but I've seen weirder' kind of way.

Then they all introduced themselves. The spiky black haired girl was Thalia, the boy who'd come with her was Nico, the guy who'd greeted us was Grover, and the red-head was Rachel. The choppy haired girl was Piper, her blonde boyfriend was Jason, the girl with the curly brown hair was Hazel, and her boyfriend, who was Asian was Frank. A boy who looked like a Latino elf was Leo, he had a caramel haired girlfriend whose name was Calypso. The others were a buff, gruff looking girl named Clarisse, two mischievous, pretty much identical boys called Travis and Conner, and several others. None of them looked to be over eighteen, but they all looked battle hardened.

Then Chiron asked us to tell them our story. Normally, we, especially Max, would be more reluctant to share that information with people we'd just met, but Percy and the girl, Annabeth had helped most of us out of a tight spot, and she got taken by the Erasers. Also, most of these people were kids, whom we tended to trust more than adults. So, we told them the whole story, omitting nothing.

Now they looked shaken. Then Chiron asked us what had happened today. With that, Max, her unbelievable resilience finally spent, put her head on my shoulder and tried unsuccessfully not to cry. So I was the one who told them about the fight, how I'd gone to get food and come back to Erasers attacking my family, how Percy and Annabeth had run in to help us, and how Ari, the bastard, had set off the smoke bomb and kidnapped Angel and Annabeth. When I finished, Percy finally raised his head off the table, his hands clenched into fists, his eyes had a steely glint to them. Now, instead of looking totally shattered, he looked angry, and very, very dangerous.

"So," he said hoarsely. "Annabeth's been taken to this, this School, and she's going to be experimented on." He spat out the second to last word like it was poison. I know the feeling.

"Probably," I said bluntly, "But we don't know for sure-"

Max cut me off. "yes, we do. They're in the School at Death Valley. Angel told me before, you know."

Percy's fists tightened, and suddenly the Big House began to rumble.

"Percy, Chiron said, a warning note in his voice, "the plumbing."