O.K. so most of the boring stuff is over for now. Just to get confusion out of the way, Morgan is the daughter of Hecate, I meant to specify on that earlier, it will save you a lot of confusion in later chapters. READ!

A worried Rachel, a pumped Morgan, a scowling Josie, and a missing Clarisse were not high on my list for the perfect way to start a quest.

The morning was dewy and the sky would have been overcast if it had not been for Mr. D's ability to control the weather. My green back pack was slung over my shoulder and my lucky converses were coming untied.

Rachel was worried because she had not come up with a dang prophecy yet. Morgan was pumped because daughters of Hecate have turned out to be almost always exceedingly excited whenever anything eventful is going to happen. Josie was scowling because (well, duh) she would not be able to come with us (or maybe it was because she had ripped her favorite Hairy Otter T-shirt this morning.)

Why Clarisse was missing was another mystery, everyone had a different theory; but as she came hurrying up the hill blushing profusely, I had a very strong feeling that she had been saying goodbye to Chris.

Argus beeped the horn to the Camp Van.

"Rachel?" I asked, "Any last-minute prophecies?"

She looked awfully despaired as she shook her head slowly. She blinked hard, straightened her Clarion Ladies Academy hoodie, and walked across the border. The rest of us followed as Josie stood by Peleus the Dragon, and looked on enviously.

….

I was awoken by Morgan shaking my shoulder.

"Annabeth, wake up, we're here." she said.

Argus was parked a few yards away from the front entrance of the Airport. We had tickets to Dallas and then to LAX. Without any major enemies of Zeus with us, we could at least get there the easy way.

After passing through vigorous security and waiting for 30 minutes, we were in our seats and ready to head to Texas, but there was some sort of holdup on the runway.

I shifted uncomfortably. There were 3 seats in every row on opposing sides of the plane. My companions all sat on the row in front of me, while I was squashed to the window because there was a very large woman sitting beside me; she was so large that she took up both of the remaining seats in the row.

The lady was wearing a hideous black snakeskin dress that was way to close cut on her. She also wore a ridiculous black feather boa and she was wearing a large hat that she had pulled over her face in a fashion that suggested that she was sleeping.

A young flight attendant stopped by to ask us if we would like any drinks while we waited. I told her that an ice water was fine. I gently nudged the woman beside me to wake her up in case she wanted anything.

Instead of lifting her hat, the woman just beckoned with her hand for the attendant to move on with her hand and turned to me.

"Hello child," she said in a thin, raspy voice, "going to Dallas too I see. What is your occasion? Seeing your boy friend perhaps?"

At that point I knew I should have been suspicious, but what really threw me off was Rachel sniffing and saying, "What is that smell?"

At that the woman knew I was onto her. She started to change; her voice became more snakelike as her body started covering with scales.

"After I'm done with you, the next place you'll see your dear Perseus is in the underworld. Ha!" she cackled with delight.

Her body elongated. She had a row of black feathers flowing down her back. Her arms and legs molded into her torso and her tail grew to be at least 30 feet long. Her large hat was still covering her face, but her fangs were so long I could see them dripping poison.

None of the passengers had noticed anything yet. Sometimes I really despise the mist, I mean it's nice to have help when battling an evil demented snake/chicken lady.

"A Basilisk!" Clarisse shouted, her eyes wide.

Once I heard the name, my brain spit out information. "Don't look her in the eyes, her gaze will kill you!"

The basilisk had still not revealed her deadly eyes, but the poison dripping off of her fangs was burning holes in the carpet.

The basilisk centered herself, posing to strike. She thrust out her triangular head. I ducked down into the seat, she missed me and bit out a chunk of the window.

The second she drew back, I sprung up, somersaulted over her head, pulled out my bronze knife, and tried to cut a gash on her back. But my blade bounced off harmlessly. Then I remembered something,

"There are only 2 ways to kill it, we need a mirror or a rooster."

The basilisk was uncoiling out of the seat. She looked kind of odd with that giant hat.

I flung open the overhead, grabbed our bags, and threw them out of the door. Rachel, Morgan, and Clarisse followed me as I jumped out of the plane, onto the runway.

The giant snake lady followed us passengers were screaming. It wasn't every day you saw 4 teenage girls and an obese lady jump out of a plane 10 feet down to hard asphalt. They probably thought we were terrorists. Hey- it wouldn't be the first time.

We circled around the basilisk in a fighting stance. Morgan was rummaging around in her makeup bag for a compact mirror.

The snake lunged at Clarisse with her ugly head and swatted at Rachel with her tail. Clarisse zapped it with her spear, but the basilisk got a good shot at Rachel. She sailed back a few feet and hit the ground with a thud.

It was at that moment when Morgan held up something small, circular, and of course, purple.

"I got it!" she yelled victoriously.

The basilisk hissed. She whirled her tail around like a lasso. She threw her tail at Morgan. The mirror flew a few feet before landing with a tinkling of shattering glass.

Well, there goes that plan.

Morgan, entangled in the beast's scaly tail, was suspended 20 feet off the ground. The basilisk turned her head in her prey's direction before tipping her head upside down.

The hat fell off.

Morgan closed her eyes immediately. I willed her to keep them closed. It was like Medusa, but worse.

The basilisk opened her mouth wide and brought Morgan closer. I realized that it was no good. Even if Morgan could keep her eyes closed, the teeth were still poisonous.

And suddenly, "COK-A-DOODLE-DOO!"

Te rooster call came out of nowhere, but it was effective none the less.

The basilisk's eyes went dark. It stretched out and coiled up in spasms. It swayed a few times before it fell to the ground, just a heap of black snake skin and feathers.

"All right," Clarisse said, "this is going right up next to the Drakon."

Rachel hopped over on one foot while trying to rub the other one. "Ow ow ow."

Her ankle was bleeding, nothing too bad, but we had to get it clean, fast.

"Well, that was interesting." I said, slinging Rachel's arm over my shoulders to help her walk.

"Hey!" Screamed a very annoyed voice, "A little help would be nice!"

The scream came from the pile of limp snakeskin. Uh oh.

Clarisse tugged on the skin until a much squashed daughter of Hecate came into view. She jumped away. She poked the dead basilisk with her staff.

She tugged on her ripped Cardigan and tucked her hair behind her ears.

"Never again" she said.

"Okay, that's solved, now how are we supposed to get out of here?" Clarisse asked/demanded.

I looked around the runway and at the airport. Something on the helipad caught my eye.

"Rachel, didn't you say that your dad was coming home from Japan today?" I asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Let's see if I remember how to fly a helicopter." I said with a smile that would have scared the Stoll brothers.