Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians belongs to Rick Riordan and Mabinogi belongs to Nexon. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.

A/N Go on ahead and assume that the books I've left in here are much more scientifically consistent than the versions in Mabinogi. Except for Lightning Bolt's book – honestly, there's just way too much scientific error in that one to merit redemption of any kind.

A shout-out to Daanogi's Helvana series here, see if you can find it. There are also slight references to E.B.O.N.Y. and its Firebird's Nest, and Fairly OddParents.

On the way back to Duncan's house, I had an epiphany:

Tir Chonaill's town square was the weirdest one I've ever seen, even including the town square on the Empire State Building.

For one thing, the appearances changed so much from person to person I was starting to wonder if people had a "random appearance" button that they spammed before arbitrarily going with whatever they had. There seemed to be three basic races here, humans, humanoids with long ears, and giant humanoids. (Each had two genders, of course.) But then there was the wacky assortment of eyes and hair; the colour varied from anything in the tediously teal tones to sinister silver shades to platinum pink pigments.

Then there were also the shape of the various facial parts – for the first time ever, I saw a real life unibrow from a guy whose eyes were scrunched way too tight. Then there was an elf whose thick eyebrows hung over two black eyes, like someone drew them on with a Crayola marker. And this girl had a hairdo that raised two thick strands way above her head, like a perch for birds to sit on and talk about the weather. Some other person had an afro, except it was coloured completely white, like he just picked up a sheep and stuck it on.

"What kind of a person wears that?" I heard Annabeth say, and I immediately turned to look.

I noticed that the clothes everyone was adorning were just as varied as their hair colours and ethnicities. The person my girlfriend pointed out was casually wearing a pirate outfit; oddly enough, what was hanging from his waist was not a cutlass of any sort, but some kind of plastic, giant water bottle that somehow looked like a water gun. He seemed to be conversing with a boy no older than ten, who was wearing a knight's armour that must have been custom-made for it to fit his tiny body. There were a couple of people in variously coloured hooded robes, with flame decals rising from the bottom, maybe discussing how their clothes don't really look cool enough for summer. When we drew closer, I saw most of their faces as I walked past, and I realized they all had strange cat masks on. Some other people were wearing sick metallic dragon scales – somewhere out there, I bet naked dragons were freezing to death. Yet more were hanging around in plain clothes, though they didn't have any brands like GAP on them. Several people, like the giant girl with a ridiculous but massive mallet that must've come out of a medieval Toys R' Us, were running around with only weapons…and very little clothes.

I asked Annabeth, "If I did a double take on that, would you slap me?"

"A double take on what?"

"Never mind."

But not even all that scratched the surface of the activities going around. There were the shops; a couple of people milled around what looked like a food store, though more people were taking out money bags rather than food. Some people were hard at work on the spinning wheel, processing balls of cotton into threads, and others were sneaking them off of the workers when they dropped some. A guy sitting in the centre of the square suddenly whipped his item upward – half of it went flying and he shouted, "Darn it!" Looking again at his item, I realized he was taking apart the spine of some animal. Or maybe he was constructing a whip out of bones?

Just at that moment, an arrow whizzed by me, and although I was invulnerable, I ducked belatedly. The arrow buried itself in someone's neck and she collapsed. I was worried she had just died right there, but the arrow must've been a toy or something because she immediately jumped back and, to my surprise, stunned him with a real lightning bolt to his head like she was Goddess Volts.

"I want that," I said in awe to Annabeth.

The arrow guy seemed to be in a big group – one member which was that giant girl I saw earlier – and they chased the magic girl back, sending arrow after arrow at her while she sometimes dodged or was sometimes hit and went down. They stampeded past a guy trying to play music, several missiles only barely missing him when the girl used him as a meat shield. Even as the group of people moved passed him, he kept on playing; apparently, his donation box being filled with sixteen arrows, a few rocks, and a smelly shoe happened every day. When someone came up to him with a dagger though, he immediately swung his guitar, smashing the poor guy straight across the jaw, and giving new meaning to "death metal". Then he went back to practice what I vaguely recognized as a song from a show about orange ninjas.

Then there were the signs boards. Annabeth said it best – "These people look really bored."

One particular elf was lazing on the middle of the square, staring up at the sky with a sign that said "FRed Upgrade/Stone, 500k – nm". A quick look around showed similar signs, like "8Leathers 2k ea" or "FNX 10k/1m" or "LFA cute girlfriend". It was on the last one that I realized "LF" must stand for "Looking For", though the signs starting with F & 8 were a little harder to place.

So once we got past the whole mayhem going on at the town square, we looked back one last time at the multitude of teenagers picking fights, working, trying different clothes, and lying around. And I think I'm not mistaken, when I say:

"This place's society is a little screwed over."

Chapter Three –

I Learn How to Forge Counterfeit Bolts

"Knock knock?" I called out as we moved up the hill leading back to Duncan's house, to the east of the town square.

The elder had been sitting outside on a rocking chair, writing something on a clip board, but when he looked up as I called, he smiled and put it away. "Percy, Annabeth," he greeted. "I trust you've been successful?"

Annabeth gave him the earring, and he checked it over. "Excellent, this looks like the right one. Thank you both so much."

"No problem," I grumbled. "Just had to walk through fields and fields of snow, beat up a snowman, and talk to a lunatic who wanted to go camping in the snow. Does that happen to everyone?"

Duncan blinked. He looked bemused. "No, not necessarily. Some people decide to go straight to Emain Macha." He leaned a little closer, making the wooden construct under him yawn out a creak. "But who did you say have met? Someone who was attacking from the snow?"

Annabeth said, "Camping in the snow. What does that have to with attacking?"

"You'll be surprised. But, ah, I would like to hear the details. This seems somewhat unusual…"

We told him about the strange no-colour man, from our initial reactions to the puzzling comments he made to his surprising disappearance.

"This is somewhat strange," Duncan admitted, "and I've heard some unusual things myself, including the so-called Milletian ghosting tricks and eyewitness accounts of adventurers scaling walls by sitting down."

"How does that work?"

"As far as I can tell, a prankster laid a transport spell that activates whenever someone's behind touches it. Though there were side effects, including getting the posterior glued to the transit spell. Unfortunately, Edern, one of Erinn's best blacksmiths, seems especially prone…ah, excuse me. I seem to have gone off topic. In any case, here is your reward." Duncan reached underneath the chair and handed me a bundle of leaves. I peeled the top layers away, revealing blue underneath it. "Those are Mana Herbs. Generally I would have recommended visiting our resident brown bear, who also occupies the same northern part of Sidhe Sneachta you've come from…"

"Brown bear?" Annabeth asked, while I tucked the mana herbs away in my new pouch.

"A popular tourist icon, it seems. We don't know if he's dangerous, but that doesn't stop people from trying to visit." Duncan shook his head almost amusedly, while Annabeth and I exchanged wary looks. "However, recent reports indicate he's no longer there, so the original purpose of the Mana Herbs is now redundant. But who knows – you might find a use for them yet. Perhaps Dilys can teach you to brew potions. Mana potions are always in heavy demand for mages."

Mages? I thought. And suddenly I remembered Goddess Volts. "Wait, you mean – there's wizards and witches here? Like, magic? People can just learn how to throw lightning around?"

"Why yes, actually. Tir Chonaill School is one of the best places for a beginner to start learning magic. Just follow the west path from the square, and it'll wind down the hill; at the bottom of the hill is the school. As a business, however, Lassar will have to charge a fee of between four thousand and seven thousand gold, but I can assure you that the results are very much worth the price."

Now, I might not be the best at math, but I'm pretty sure four thousand gold is a lot. Back in New York, I'd bet that a bag filled with that much could buy me a personal swimming pool. I bet Annabeth would use it to buy, like, a hundred books. So I kinda doubted Nao had the resources to give us that much.

But, it was something I wanted to check anyways. "Thanks Duncan. I'll think about it."

Tir Chonaill School looked like a martial arts centre from the outside. Actually, the Tir Chonaill School also looked like an old-fashioned ornamentation, not actually suitable for practical purposes. It had a playground's size worth of wooden pillars sticking out, and it looked like the actual building only had enough space to accommodate a school of thirty trouts. The back had a garden consisting of nothing but bushes, bushes, and a not-very-high beanstalk that Jack watered very conservatively.

As I walked downhill, past what appeared to be a church, I noticed that the building wasn't just one building; it was two buildings, with a roof that shaded a path between the two rooms. I changed my mind; those two rooms look only about big enough to host a school of twenty piranhas, each.

The school was surrounded by a wooden fence, with a gap directly east of the "training" field. Over it was an arch with an open book symbol over the top, which didn't seem appropriate because the next thing I saw was a black-haired, half-naked man slipping in sweat, pounding away at the training dummy in front of him with a wooden stick.

Lamely, I called, "Is this the Tir Chonaill School?"

The guy nodded, his attention not wavering from his deadly nemesis.

"Are you Lassar?"

The guy's weapon slipped out of his grasp and was sent flying. If it was a real sword it would've decapitated an inattentive wood-dummy a few metres to the left. If it was a real battle the straw-clad pillar would have had the perfect chance for a headshot. Of course, if it was a real battle the man wouldn't've promptly collapsed on the ground, laughing. "WAHAHAHAHA! ME? LASSAR? AHAHA – !"

"No need to get worked up over it," I muttered.

"Lassar is a girl's name," Annabeth said somewhat sheepishly.

"Why would a girl be named after a cowboy?"

Annabeth blinked…and then, rolling her eyes, she said, "That's lasso you're thinking about."

By this point the man finally sputtered out the last of his mirth. He got up, looked at me, and chortled again. "New visitors!" he boomed. "Welcome to Tir Chonaill! I am Ranald, and I teach swordsmanship at this school! Purchase your first lesson today and I will teach you the secret of obtaining the Windmill skill!"

The most distinguishable thing about him was easily his face, in all its sloppy and messy glory. He looked like hadn't learned to shave properly as a teenager, and his hair was thick and slightly messed up, covering one of his eyes. His teeth were yellow, and from the thick odour of alcohol that managed to reach my face I thought he could use several hundred litres of mouthwash.

Annabeth said, "Lassar is the magic teacher, right? Where is she?"

"Yes, she is my co-worker," Ranald said with a grin, "and she usually resides inside our classrooms, whether for experiments or lectures. On the other hand, she is not here at the moment; last I heard, she had to attend a mages' conference taking place in Emain Macha, which is to the west of the new street, else known as Dunbarton. To the south, and then west – a long way to travel, indeed!"

New street? Where had I heard that before?

"But her classes are not for those without the pretty penny! I am not joking when I say her initial tuition fees cost ten times more than mine. And I firmly believe that the body's best stimulus is from motion and hard work, not lazing on one's bum and reading picture books!"

Which was probably not the best comment to direct at a daughter of Athena. She immediately looked insulted, and she snapped back with some barb, "Books are far more useful than waving a stick around smacking straw, you know! Your body can't even make those motions without a brain, and training the brain is infinitely superior to bloating your body!"

"Ha-ha, what a feisty girl you are," Ranald commented. He didn't look insulted, though he crossed his arms, somewhat showing off his exaggerated pectorals. "But I must recommend that you put that energy into the force behind a sword, young girl. It'd be such a shame otherwise, wasting your bounding energy."

"Wasting energy? All I see here you, your sticks, and your stinking sweat. If anything's wasting energy, it's you." Oh, she was sooo ticked off now.

Though Ranald couldn't seem to tell. "Why, just the other day, the kids flocked to my superior training centre simply because the books were so boring! See over there?" He pointed to some benches by the side of the "school", and littered around it was three books. "They teach you everything you need to know about basic magic! Or so they claim. Alas, it has become clear they are nothing more than a scam, designed to steal the allowance out of unknowing children and play their minds for fools with shenaniganal words!"

"There's no need to insult them just because you've never read a dictionary in your life!" my girlfriend barked.

"To be fair, I haven't, either," I murmured.

Ranald now frowned. "Now listen here, miss. Melee will yield far better return for your efforts. There are stories of rich children who spent their entire fortunes trying to control mana, and squandered their status lives in vain. I can attest to you that there are people who walked by these books and never even bothered to pick them up – in fact, they can't pick them up." The man chuckled as if he made a funny joke.

Now, I haven't really seen Annabeth mad mad. And I've never really seen a time when she never had the last word, either. But she was definitely incensed now. "Oh?" she said softly.

And then she walked over to the books, snatched all three up, and glared at Ranald with enough venom to suck his eyes away. "Then let's have a little bet. I will read these 'picture books', as you call them, and come back tomorrow. Then, I will challenge you to a match – any kind of fighting is fine. If you win, I'll admit you were right and enrol into all of your courses, for twice their fee." She grinned nastily. "If I win, you have to fulfill my next request. Look forward to it."

And then she stormed off, as only Annabeth could. As she exited her elbow banged against the side of the gate that stood between the fences, and a few seconds after she turned right and headed for the bridge the whole gate fell over backwards, crashing through a straw dummy and making it look like it had a fashion disaster skirt.

"Well, that wasn't supposed to happen," Ranald muttered.

"Which one? The gate or Annabeth?"

"Both." He rolled his eyes. "Young girls these days. Not one for respecting the opposite sex any more than it takes to get a date."

"Er…sure. And she's not exactly trying to date you, she's probably going to try to kill you tomorrow."

Ranald laughed. He probably didn't believe me.

Ah, ignorance must be bliss.

"Good luck tomorrow, you'll need it." And then I ran out of the school, skipping over its fence, and chasing the retreating figure of Annebeth entering a forest just to beyond the bridge.

"This doesn't make sense," I moaned. "It's school all over again."

"Mm-hm."

"Annabeth, you know how much I hate school."

"Mm-hm."

"Please don't just agree with everything I say. I mean, that's like saying school is hopeless for me…"

"Mm-hm."

I sighed, and dropped the book about lightning I was holding. "This is useless. How do we know we can even use these magic? We're from a completely different world! …I think."

"Mh-hm," Annabeth muttered again, still absorbed in her two own books, and I sighed exasperatedly. But then she continued, "Yeah, I think this is a different world, but we should still be able to use this. Whatever laws govern a different –" Annabeth frowned – "a different universe, I guess, still has to apply to us."

"Says who?"

"Well, okay, here's a thought experiment. If there was a universe where there was no such thing as gravity, and then suddenly people from that world popped into our Earth, do you think they'll stay afloat or come crashing down?"

I tried to imagine that for a moment. A couple of aliens, green-skinned and with tentacles, maybe a separate chamber for a brain, walking on air…nope. "That does sound ridiculous," I admitted.

"It should be the same thing here. Whether or not we had magic back home, when we arrived in this universe –" Annabeth still stretched the word like she didn't quite believe it – "then the law of Marginal Mana Decrease and the law of Marginal Damage Increase should both apply to us as well – and with that, implicitly, should mean we have also attained Mana simply by entering here."

"I got lost," I admitted.

"You could have tried to listen," Annabeth told me reproachfully. "Otherwise you'll never get to the cool stuff like this."

I was about to ask what part of this was cool when Annabeth offhandedly raised a finger. Just above it, the air suddenly became fuzzy – and instantly, a small piece of ice formed.

"What –?"

"Icebolt," Annabeth said quietly, though it looked like she was talking more to herself. She raised all five of her fingers, and a few seconds later, four more shards of ice came into existence. She aimed at a tree – and suddenly, the five Icebolts came alive, dancing like little flies as they consecutively skewered the trunk thud by thud by thud.

"How…the…"

"It's pretty lucky," Annabeth said, "that the energy laws governing this place seems to be more or less identical to where we come from – even Mana is similar to how the magicks that the Hecate brand items are powered, and how demigods with extra powers work their gifts. Most of what's needed here is clarity and will behind thought. The rest is knowing what steps to take – in this case, of course, I gather the water vapour floating around and lower its temperature."

Now, there was no way that I was going to be outdone by Annabeth in anything relating to water. I gave a snort, and within half a second, a blob of water, bigger than my torso, was floating in front of me.

Except… "It's not…freezing," I said stupidly.

"The bigger it is, the more energy you need to lower the entire body's temperature," Annabeth said offhandedly, and then she coughed and I thought I caught an "Obviously" in it. "That's why I used smaller ice shards."

I scowled. Delicate work was not my forte, and what was the point of having these powers if you can't do anything big with it? "Okay, fine, what about this Lightningbolt, then? How would I work this out?"

"Well, lightning is basically the movement of electrons from one supersaturated location to another, less concentrated, one. You'll have to pull the electrons, and only the electrons, from one location, and then let go of it. The Lightningbolt should naturally occur then."

"Okay. Pull the eletorns. Pull the eletorns." Experimentally, I reached out with my hand, grabbed, and then pulled the air. And then I did it again. "Nope, not happening."

"Think of it like a…like a slingshot. The harder you pull, the more resistance you should feel. That should tell you whether you're doing it right or not."

I tried to use that feeling. Reach, grab, pull against resistance. Reach, grab, pull against resistance. I grimaced, then closed my eyes. Reach, grab, pull against – AHA! "I've got something!" I said excitedly.

"Yup, my T-shirt."

I blushed. "Oh. I guess I'll stop with the pulling now." I heaved another breath. Reach, grab, pull…

"Wait." I let go. "I think I've got it this time. I'm feeling something." Reach, grab, pull, meet resistance, pull harder, increase resistance… "I've got something." Pull harder…

"Your hand's pulling again, but it's not holding anything this time," Annabeth commented.

"So…is this really it?" I pulled even harder – and then let go.

BOOM!

A moment later I really, really careful peeked open one eye. Annabeth was fine, to my relief, but she was holding some kind of charred remains. Three of them, in fact.

"Another book hater, huh?" she said emotionlessly.

Ah, shoot.

And then I was saved by an owl.

Literally. As preoccupied as I was, I didn't sense the owl coming until it landed on my head and dropped a letter on my face that I managed to catch. The owl hooted but didn't leave my head, thus temporarily sparing it from the smacking I swear Annabeth was about to commit.

"Good owl," I said weakly.

Annabeth huffed, and then tore the letter from my hands. "Someone had better be dying," she muttered mutinously. "Someone better be attacked by bandits right now, because I need to find someone I can –"

Luckily I didn't hear any details of what exactly she was about to do with said someone, because she stopped and absorbed the letter more intently. After a moment, she wordlessly handed it back to me, and I realized that the handwriting was flowery and the paper was all shiny. Cautiously, I read:

Hiya dearie adventurers!

My name is Tracy, and I'm in a little bit of a pickle right now. I don't have any big, strong boys around to help me, but I need to finish my chores quickly. I was so hoping you sweethearts can drop by my log house in the middle of Dugald Forest? Come quickly and I'll have something ex-tra-special for you!

Hearts,

Tracy.

P.S. It's so lonely here, please come as soon as possible!

I swallowed. Five years ago, maybe, I would have loved all this female attention; now, I had a girlfriend who could probably take my head if she tried. I gingerly lifted my head, and to my horror, I realized the owl had already left. I sighed, and – internally wincing – turned to face Annabeth.

"Should we get going, then?" she said.

"Go – huh?"

"To this Tracy." She gestured at the letter.

"You're not jealous again?" I blurted, and immediately blushed.

She looked at me somewhat exasperatedly. "Well, look who's got a bloated head." And then she grinned, which mystified me even more. "Race you to the logging camp."

She set off at a light jog, making me stare after her. I just shook my head slowly. "Girls," I said wonderingly. And then I followed.

The logging camp was dim, and somewhat musty smelling. There were lots of benches, tables, and chopped roots of trees with axes stuck in their middle. Surprisingly, the most noise I could hear was crickets – or some kind of insects – chirping. There was some kind of emptiness here, for some reason – oh, well, obviously it was the lack of humans. There weren't any kind of activity that I could associate with a productive forestry encampment – did everyone leave for the afternoon? I had to wonder.

"Percy, Tracy's over here!" Annabeth's voice called.

Wow, that was quick. I glanced around, and through the clearing I found a really thick tree – the biggest around I reckon. Annabeth and her black T-shirt was clearly visible. I started up a run.

And then I stopped.

No way that was Tracy. The person that a considerably more cheerful Annabeth was standing by was clearly a lumberjack. His tanned skin showed weeks – years, maybe – of standing underneath the sun, shouting orders through his cracked lips above his shaggy brown beard. He had on a cap that he adjusted when he saw me, and then he grinned. "Welcome to Dugald Aisle's logging camp, adventurers!" he guffawed. It looked like he was…trying to hold back a laugh.

Oh dear. I could tell what was coming.

"Received my letter, have ya? Great, c'mon and lend a hand this helpless boy!"

"You're a guy."

"Tracy" swung his head back and laughed. "Gwahaha! Ya, that's right! Not too disappointed, are ya, m'pretty boy?"

I shuddered. "Don't call me that. Please."

"Do you do this all the time?" Annabeth asked amusedly, as if the idea of a male Sasquatch masquerading as Princess Peach didn't crank up her disgust scale up to ten. I shuddered again.

"Aye! I've built an art of this, if I might say so myself. Borrowed my wife's perfume a few, practiced handwriting, and I always keep a stack of Eluned's Royal Parchment with me. That's what them high-class ladies use, they do." Tracy gave a wicked grin. "In fact, I also buy my own lipstick! Those vendors always let me when I say them's for my wife, and little do they know I smear them over my grizzly face and smooch it myself onto my hearty appeals! Gwahahah!"

Annabeth laughed along with him, though I was still not amused. "Isn't there some kind of law against impersonation? This has to be creepy enough for that."

"Those kinds of laws are only for impersonating people in power," Annabeth corrected me.

At the same time: "I ain't impersonating anyone but myself! Ya's own fault ya didn't look close enough. Know what my men said the first time they saw me? They said I was breathing too much in my kissy-kissy! Said they could smell my breath clear across camp!"

And yet again, Tracy threw back his head and let out bone-trembling laughter, while I pinched the corner of the letter in the envelope and gingerly held it up. To my horror, now that I smelled it, behind the transparent perfume it absolutely reeked of alcohol, chicken, cigar, and rotten wood. What the rotten wood was doing in his mouth to leave a stink with a kiss, I didn't want to know, and I just let go of the letter on the spot, though Annabeth deftly snatched it out of the air.

"Don't be rude," she chided with a grin, actually opting to stuff it inside her new pouch.

I only rolled my eyes. "Well, since I've just had my faith in Eluned's Royal Parchment heavily abused, see you later Tracy."

"Whoa, hold it m'pretty!"

"Don't call me that!"

"No offense boy. But ain't ya still gonna help?"

I scowled. "With what? We just got through your prank of the day, and unlike Annabeth I'm not going to help you put on lipstick and make out with alcohol-stinking letters."

"I'm insulted you think I ever intended to," Annabeth said with a grin.

"And I'll never ask you to," Tracy said. "That right belongs to your ladyship truly. Gwahaha!"

My throat itched. I tried to hold back a barf, but if he plays like that one more time…

"But listen well. My voice may be fake, but my requests are always genuine. Help doesn't come often to these parts anymore. Those two –" and here he gestured to the left, towards two pre-teens dressed in overalls, one with long blond hair and one with short black hair, talking casually with each other – "are the only hired hands with me at the moment, with no more expected for a few months – years, maybe. So any adventurer wander into these parts, I commission right away. Have a reputation to maintain, see?"

"A reputation of stealing a woman's perfume?"

"Borrowing. And no, to maintain quality, reliability, and workplace safety."

"By stealing perfume."

Tracy bared a ferocious grin. "Ya. I suppose I am. But see this, boy – why do you think I need to do that in the first place? Simple." Tracy spat out a loogie that just missed my foot. I stepped back anyways. "Young people today are sexists. When a girl cries for help, they give help. In fact, they even expect the girl to need help. And they do it without a second thought."

The lumber barked out a shorter laugh. "But males? When they ask for help, all they get are pitiful looks. 'You're a man,' they say. 'Don't you have any pride? Aren't you capable? Why would you need help, when you can help yourself?' Ha! Those lazy bums. Their chivalry is an act to get the pretties, and whenever it doesn't suit them, they discard it! Ya, I'm a man. Ya, I'm capable, and ya, I'm darn proud. But they expect too much out of me if they think I'm Shadow Hero enough to take care of every darn thing. Males ain't any more superhuman than females, ya hear?"

I don't know what my face's expression was at the moment, but Tracy must've taken it as a challenge. "Think I'm a wuss, do ya, mouthing off to brats like ya? Then let me ask ya something – would your father always be there for ya?"

My breath hitched. From the corners of my eyes, Annabeth seemed to look startled. But Tracy rolled on. "Ya, ya's pwuh wittle daddy's had a rough time. He's hide to wipe ya's behind for years, teach ya how things work, spoon food into ya's mouth when ya's mommy couldn't, and ya, as the man, he had to teach ya how to be one, too. But do ya really expect him to correct ya all the time? Do ya expect him to follow ya every step ya make, and hope that when ya stumble or when ya succeed he'll come out of the shadows to scold or congratulate ya?"

Tracy…wasn't really talking about my father. Not Poseidon, anyways. Luckily for him, my godly father never had to spoon food into my mouth, or to teach me how to wipe my behind. I think.

But…

"Face it, boy. Even ya's dear father's not right all the time. Even he makes mistakes. And even if he didn't he's not gonna live forever. And on the off chance he did kill eternity, then I hope to lord Lymilark that he ain't got any more sons as selfish as ya. Young brats these days are always overworking their parents, and being tired forever ain't gonna do anything for his complexion.

"People say sexism is downgrading females. I say nay! It's supergrading males."

I grunted. "Yeah, yeah. Okay. I see your point." I sighed. "I'm sexist. I expect too much out of males, I might have skipped out on you. And I guess I was about to, too. So I'll help you with whatever request you have."

"That's the spirit!"

I scowled in response. "But you're just as much a sexist, aren't you? You knew exactly what points of a female works best, and you just used them to manipulate other people into coming here!"

"Ah, that ain't sexism. That's just using what advantages I've got!"

I rolled my eyes.

"I don't take lip, boy! And as for your commission, it's to kill one of those pesky Wisps that hang around here. In case you don't know what they are, just go to the west and you'll find these shining balls of light. Crack down on them and I'll give you two the pay."

I was just about to point out I wasn't giving him lip, I was rolling my eyes, when Annabeth said incredulously, "Shining balls of light?"

"Aye. Little-little ones, too. Pesky little buggers always zooming around, smacking noses, zapping lightning."

"Zooming around and smacking noses aren't that much trouble," I pointed out. "I guess the lightning makes for a lot of bad hair days, though."

"Bad hair days ain't the most of it, boy! Those things hafta go!" And with that one last bellow, Tracy picked up his hammer, raised it, and swung it into the chopping block so hard the axe cut the stump in two, right down to the ground. "Ah, shikes."

It wasn't until I've actually seen this Wisp that I realized Tracy wasn't talking spinach.

Annabeth saw it first, and then pointed me to its direction. Sure enough, it was a little ball of light randomly floating in the air, bigger than a firefly should be, but definitely no bigger than my hand.

"And that's dangerous because…?" I muttered.

As if I had jinxed it, a raccoon suddenly poked its head out of the bushes. Instantly there was a ridiculously loud humming noise, which was immediately followed by a giant BOOM!, which was followed up a heartbeat later by the raccoon flying through the air and landing right next to Annabeth. It was dead, I could tell that much; the crispy fried smell was reminiscent of MacDonald's. I was willing to bet that the raccoon was not loving it.

Wisely, Annabeth stepped away.

Less smartly, I said, "Well, he's not the only guy in the neighbourhood who's spreading crispy love," and tried the same thing I did on the tree earlier – I concentrated on pulling, and again, the air gave way with a tingly sensation in my fist. I aimed at the little blob of yellow a few yards away.

Except, at that point the creature went ping-pong crazy. I saw it coming, but with me concentrating on magic I couldn't react before it smacked into my forehead. It didn't hurt, but it was enough for me to go "Hey!" – and then realize that the darned little bouncy ball was charging up its round of Lightning Bolts that's definitely going to hurt!

And then it got slammed back by a condensed Fire Bolt. "Maybe," Annabeth calmly said, "you could have realized that, if it can use Lightning Bolt itself, it will know when you're trying to use it, too."

"In hindsight, maybe," I admitted with a grimace. I hefted my pen out and uncapped it – Riptide's glowing bronze metal slid into existence smoothly. "Time to play tennis."

I was almost ashamed to admit how easy it was after that. Whenever it dove at me again, I absorbed and countersmacked the blob. Whenever it warily tried to circle me, I brought my sword down on it fiercely and faster than it could move. Whenever it stayed still in place, Annabeth hit it with a prepared Fire Bolt. It was annoyingly durable, but still, in no time at all it was down, out, and – with a poof – nonexistent.

"Easy," I scoffed.

Annabeth had this satisfied look on her face, just like – well, just like the times when she solved difficult equations or when she defeated a tricky monster or when she finally managed to make that Lego replica of Athena that didn't fall and crash into pieces. "Yes, it was. These magic really comes in handy. I wonder how I can incorporate this into my sword style?"

I just shrugged.

"Hmm. Well, time to get our reward money from Tracy?"

I grimaced now. "Let's not. I don't want to meet that gender bender any more than necessary."

Annabeth laughed. "All right, then. In that case, let's go south."

"South? Why?"

"Don't you remember the man in the snow, Percy? He sounded like the only one who knew what was going on, and he left us some clues. He told us the wing of evil was necessary for something."

"Yes, like the wings of evil will help with anything other than evil."

"Either way, that's the best lead we got. We should head for this new street – Dunbarton."