A/N: Hello! I'm back! And guess what? WE HIT 50 REVIEWS! That's awesome! Thanks to all my reviewers, and thanks to My Words Live for the idea for this chapter.

Guess what again? I finally finished that book I was writing! It's the first whole book I've ever completely finished, editing and all. I guess now I have to start the second one.

Oh, and sorry for any extremely long paragraphs in this chapter. I may have gotten a little carried away, but please bear with me. It's to make up for all the short chapters before.

Disclaimer: I'm also pretty sure Rick Riordan isn't a girl . . .

Collin POV

Two weeks later, things were almost back to normal. The Romans, being Romans, were able to reassemble the camp over the weekend. We were got back to training on Monday as if nothing had ever happened.

About a week ago, Jade and Russell had made a surprising announcement: this week's chariot races had a bit of a twist. Our parents were teaming up with us in an ultimate seven-against-seven showdown.

As soon as he heard this, Sammy went to work with Dad on their chariot, which left me with Mom. Jessica and Jason were together, which would make a pretty good team. Leo and Piper had been allowed to work together due to the lack of legacies. Annabeth had paired up with Helena, which of course left Percy and Ethan.

I'll admit, they were the team I was most worried about. Separately, the father and son were pretty good. But together . . . they would be unbeatable.

However, I was not going to get humiliated in front of everybody by Ethan again. Mom and I planned out our chariot carefully. We built it to perfection, with two huge sleek black horses. Mom had studded our chariot with various gemstones for effect, and it was awesome. Hazel had decided to steer and I would be the defense man.

When we pulled up to the starting line, I was able to get a good look at the rest of the chariots for the first time.

It looked like Leo had made his horses out of the smoking remains of the automatons that attacked camp two weeks ago. They were bronze and metallic, though it didn't look like they were breathing fire. Of course, Leo himself was riding the chariot, so it didn't really matter if the horses were fire-breathing or not.

Jason and Jessica had pegasi attached to their chariot. They were flapping their giant white wings impatiently, ready to begin. However, the most spectacular thing about the thing was the chariot itself. It seemed to be made out of clouds and vapor. It was shimmering and moving around. I had no idea how Jason and Jessica were staying on, but they both looked pumped.

Dad and Sammy's chariot seemed normal enough. Then I realized that Dad wasn't even on the chariot. In fact, he was nowhere in sight. When Sammy caught me looking, he grinned and pointed to where three horses were pulling the chariot. Wait. Three? Dad had totally bent the rules and became his own third horse. Not fair.

Annabeth and Helena's chariot also looked pretty normal. However, Helena was driving, which meant that Annabeth could totally take us down with some wicked plan she was forming in her mind.

Ethan and Percy's chariot was sea green, and they had two blue horses pulling it. I don't know where they got blue horses, and frankly, I didn't want to know. Percy was driving, which shocked me. That meant Ethan would be the one to try and take us down. I nearly laughed out loud. I didn't have to worry as much, though I knew knew from experience not underestimate Ethan.

"Is everybody ready?" called out Jade. She stood in the stands, all of Camp Jupiter behind her.

We all waved to show that we wanted to get started.

"On your marks . . . Get set . . . Go!"

Mom propelled our horses forwards and the race began.

For a moment, we rode along without any fighting. We just had to make it around the track three times; if we could do that, victory was ours. I could almost taste it.

Then problems began. Sammy's chariot was way ahead of everybody else. It made sense - he had three horses, after all.

I took careful aim with with an arrow and let it fly. It hit its mark: right underneath the wheel. I shot another one and hit Dad's hoof. He whinnied in outrage and turned into a human in panic. The chariot was already spinning from my first hit. Then Sammy tried to stop the horses and save Dad, who looked ridiculous in the reins.

They ended up flying to the other side of the track, taking down Annabeth and Helena before the daughter of the wisdom goddess could unfold her wicked plan.

Fortunately, we were far enough behind that we didn't get hit. Mom had to swerve around the wreckage pretty hard, though.

As we sped up, the fighting got worse. I had to deflect several arrows from Ethan, a couple javelins from Jason, and an actual flaming sword that Leo had chucked at me.

Piper made her mistake when she tried to ram into Jason's chariot. Being vapor and all, the shove didn't in any way slow down Jessica and her father. Once his wife was close enough, Jason struck his sword down on her chariot. It crumbled to pieces, and she and Leo had to jump off to save themselves.

We had now made it around for two laps. It looked like Jason, Jessica, Percy, and Ethan had totally forgotten about Mom and I. They were only worried about taking each other down. If I could manipulate that somehow . . .

"Get me over behind Ethan," I muttered to Mom. She didn't question my moves, but simply drove to the spot I was talking about. I took careful aim with an arrow at one of the wheels on Jessica's chariot. It wasn't enough to send the whole thing down, but it was just enough to give Percy and Ethan a slight lead.

"Percy!" growled Jason. "Haven't you been the winner enough?"

"What are you talking about? You love being in the spotlight just as much as I do!" called back Percy.

"Ha! You just admitted that you love being a show-off!"

"I do not!"

Mom caught on to my plan and pulled up just behind Jessica and Jason's chariot. I shot another arrow, this one hitting Ethan and Percy's wheel in the same spot.

"Jason!" shouted Percy. "Stop going after me!"

Now both chariots were unstable, but they drew near each other and rammed together, causing more damage. Jason and Percy began to swordfight right on the spot. Ethan and Jessica both backed up and tried to keep their chariots going in a straight line.

What happened next was madness. I grabbed a javelin and prepared for the final touch on this disaster. I had to be quick, though. I could see the finish line.

I tossed my javelin right over both chariots, and it landed embedded in the ground. In order to keep from running it over, Ethan and Jessica swerved their nearly broken chariots in either direction, causing Jason and Percy to fall out onto the ground. They lay in a sprawled heap in the middle of the track.

I hadn't been planning for this, and neither did Mom, but our horses leapt right over the two men. I hung on for dear life, feeling as though I was about to fall right out the back of our chariot.

And then we made it, landing right in front of the finish line.

We won.

Jade and Russell crossed the stands and jumped onto the track.

"Congratulations! We have our winners!" called Jade. Russell came forwards with the laurels and placed them on our heads.

"Hazel and Collin Zhang have won the chariot races!"

Take that, Ethan.