Frank Pov.
"So Prissy wanted me?" asked Clarisse, for the twentieth time.
"Yes, Clarisse," replied Chiron. He was in wheelchair form and was looking quite annoyed. He popped two pills for headaches and downed it with some nectar.
"I'm sorry, I just don't understand why. I understand the fact that he chose me and the thieves," she pointed to Travis and Connor Stoll, who was playing with one of Chiron's horseshoes (he still did notice that they stole it). "And I understand that we have to go through this computer thingy-majig all the way to France, but why does he want me? I can't understand that!"
"Right now, neither can I," muttered Chiron in an annoyed tone, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Wait a minute!" shouted Leo, King of Selective Hearing. "After all that we told you, only the fact that Percy picked you surprises you?"
"Yes," said Clarisse calmly.
"Not e-Gaea?"
"No."
"The French fighters?"
"No."
"Not even the other world that will take you to France?"
"Leo, I fought a drakon and saw my friends die. On his first day, Percy had a toilet blow up in my face. Not much surprises me anymore, except, WHY?" she continued blabbering on about how it didn't make sense. Hazel yawned and rested her head on my shoulder. Even though she has been doing this for several months, I can't help but blush. Leo and Clarisse continued to argue for several more minutes; Chiron left about halfway through it, and Travis and Conner started checking out the scanners. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.
"Guy, France?" I said as loud as I could.
"Oh yeah, right. Hazel, wake up! Everyone get inside a scanner now!" ordered Leo. Hazel got in the capsule next to mine. Before the bronze closed, Leo shouted, "Close your eyes and watch your landing." Slowly, a bright light shined behind my eyelids and I felt like I was losing parts of my body. Not painful, just like it wasn't there anymore.
I wish I could tell you I landed smoothly on the ground, finishing off with a backflip and then caught Hazel in my arms, but I'm an honest person. Instead, I landed on my butt. I looked around to find myself in a forest. Everything looked CGI. I patted my head to find a traditional Chinese straw hat that felt as tough as a shield. My shirt was the Canadian maple leaf made out of red Mandarin characters. For a terrifying moment while remembering Arion the horse, I thought I was wearing a diaper. Thank the gods I wasn't, just regular jeans and sneakers. Slung over my back were a bow and several arrows. I looked around again, but this time, I found Hazel.
She looked like a professional horseback rider. White shirt and pants with a dark brown riding coat and boots. She was even accessorized like the women in the 1940's, with a bright red lace scarf around her neck, puffing out a bit, and dark chocolate eye makeup and red lipstick. Her hair was in a bun, but it was kind of wavy on the sides. Its hard to describe, all that I know is that it was gorgeous. She looked over and looked a little flushed. No doubt I was blushing.
"Come on lovebirds, France is far away." Clarisse looked like the Olympic games MMA fighter for Greece. Her cropped tank top and shorts were white with the traditional Greek pattern in light blue. Her gloves were light blue as a well and she had gold gladiator sandals laced all the way up to her knees. On her side, a small, silver cylinder was hung; it was no bigger than a chapstick. "Leo said a guy is coming to show us the way."
I looked over and saw that Travis and Conner were dressed identically. Black long-sleeved turtlenecks, black cargo pants, black Chuck Taylor high tops, and black knit hat, like they use for skiing, but not ski masks. Strapped to their backs were swords, one each. Good thing Travis is a little taller.
From a distance, I saw what looked like… a purple cat on a flying skateboard? Turns out it was a dude.
"Lemme see," he said in a high-pitched voice. "Hazel, Clarisse, Frank, Travis, and Conner?" he asked. We nodded. "Great! I'm Odd Della Robia." Odd was, well, odd. He was a cat with yellow hair up to a point and a purple diamond in the center of the dandelion colored mess. He had over sized hands and feet. Not to mention, skinny. "The tower is pretty far," he muttered mostly to himself. "Jeremie! Any rides?" he shouted to nobody in particular.
"Coming right up," said a voice in the sky, presumably Jeremie. A floating scooter and a one-wheeled motorcycle appeared.
"Miss, would you like a ride?" Odd held out his hand out to Hazel. Inside, I fumed and imagined shooting him even more than a Justin Bieber poster. I also imagined numerous ways to neuter that specific cat.
Hazel politely turned away and called out, "Dibs on the bike!" After she hopped on, she looked at me and said, "Frank! Come on! Allez mon petit elephant!" Ok, I am the only guy in the world who loves being called an elephant by his girlfriend. When I hopped on, Hazel greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. Odd realized she was my girlfriend, so he sent an apologetic look and offered his hand to Clarisse, who accepted. Meanwhile, the Stoll brothers were arguing over who got to steer the flying scooter.
Soon we were moving along, only encountering about ten of the pinto bean-like Odd called Kankerlots. He shot them with laser arrows from his wrists. I think I might still have been a little jealous because I felt like I had to show him up, so I shot two or three of them with my arrows. I might also have done it because Hazel always praised my sharpshooting. After what felt like an hour, we finally got to a tower that had a green glow to it.
"You guys go into the tower, three at a time. Before you go in," Odd said only catching his breath to look at me. "I need you to de-virtualize me."
"Sure you do," he told me, and then turned to the others. "Thieves and the professional fighter, please head into the tower. Miss Horseback rider, can you look around making sure no other creatures are lurking around here?" They all nodded and spread out to their posts. Ehen Travis asked where the door to the tower was, Odd instructed them on how to enter without "falling into another sector." As soon as everyone was gone, he turned to me again.
"To de-virtualize someone, you shoot them or find a way that would kill someone in real life. By doing that, I return to the real world. Also, I'm sorry for hitting on your girlfriend, I didn't know. I'd never do that to anyone on purpose." I'm amazed at how much air his lungs can hold. I nod and notch an arrow; he doesn't even flinch. As soon as it hit him, nothing happened. "Jeremie, how many life points do I have left?"
"You had twenty," Jeremie replied. "You now have ten."
"Shoot me again," ordered Odd, and I did. This time he exploded into tiny white squares that soon disappeared. A few minutes, Jeremie spoke once more.
"Frank and Hazel? Please go inside the tower to be materialized." I saw Hazel walk in my direction; I grabbed her hand and we walked into the tower together.
Materialization is pretty boring. Jeremie just told us not to hold on to each other and after a moment of darkness, bronze doors opened letting in a flood of light. Hazel's capsule opened only a second. In front of us was a blond guy with thick glasses and a light blue turtleneck t-shirt who said, "Welcome to France. My name is Jeremie Belpois."
Yumi's Pov
After the almost identical brothers and the brown haired girl cam through the scanners, Aelita took over the supercomputer while Jeremie went to go greet our new guests. One thing about being de-virtualized, you get major headaches. Odd, Ulrich, and I were sitting down trying to rest through our headaches when the other two came through. One was a petit chocolate skinned girl with wide golden eyes and curly ebony hair. Holding her hand was a large boy with a young Asian face. I couldn't tell if he was Japanese or Chinese because he had European facial features mixed in. Oh his arm was a 'Canadian Army' rubber band with a camouflage background. All the other demigods smiled at them, but it was Percy who had the biggest smile of them all. He greeted them both with a hug.
"Guys," he called out to us. "The almost identical brothers are Travis and Conner Stoll. Travis is the taller one."
"No way!" Conner objected. "I'm taller!"
"I'm older and taller," replied Travis. "Deal with it."
"Anyways, they are the sons of Hermes," Percy continued. "Wait a minute." He dug into his pockets. "Travis, Conner, I had a twenty." They sighed in defeat and handed him twenty American dollars. "Check your pockets," Percy told us. " They are great thieves. They don't mean any harm though." Alarmed, everyone checked their pockets. Most of it was American currency and something called drachmas, although there were some Euros gone as well. The brothers even took my mobile! They returned everything and then were kept under Annabeth's watchful eye.
"Those were the Stolls. They are also pranksters. The girl that came with them is Clarisse LaRue, daughter of Ares, and one of the greatest fighters I know, even though I can totally kick her ass in sword fighting," said Percy.
"Can not," she muttered.
"I just did so today!" he said. "Moving on, that's Hazel Levesque and Frank Zhang, daughter of Pluto and son of Mars." So Frank is Chinese. Pity, I was hoping for a Japanese friend. Hiroki and I are the only ones at Kadic Academy. We all introduced ourselves while Jeremie was on the phone with Leo. When he hung up, he told William to go get Leo in Lyoko.
After ten minutes and many shared stories; including, but not limited to Percy's first quest, the story of Tyson and Mrs. O'Leary, the giant teddy bear, William's X.A.N.A. transformation, and Aelita's virtualization. Finally, William came back with a, well, Latino Santa's elf.
"Guys, this is Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus," said Annabeth. We introduced ourselves to him. Leo told the other demigods that Chiron is arranging their transfer to Kadic and sending over some luggage.
"How?" I asked, only to have my question answered when a bright light shone in the middle of the room. Ehen the brightness disappeared, a man in a jogging suit appeared with ten sets of luggage, each set containing three pieces. Travis and Conner looked like they might have been struck by lightning.
"Du-Dad?" asked Travis. The man smiled.
"Hello sons. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Lord Hermes, god of messengers, travelers, thieves, doctors, pranksters, and anyone else who uses the road," he said. "Right now, I am doing a favor for Chiron. Your parents have packed you these suitcases and have called Headmaster Delmas. All he needs now are your transcripts, which I have right here." He held up a flash drive, which he tossed to Jeremie. "We can't have them rejected here, so if you, Mr. Belpois, could change all their D's and F's into C's please. They have dyslexia and ADHD so their grades aren't the best. Also, remove their expulsions, arrest records, teacher complaints, Leo's multiple foster home runaways, My sons' and Piper's thieving sprees, Percy's destructions of school properties, and the fact Jason, Piper, and Leo were at a Juvenile Detention Center." I thought Odd could talk fast. Anyways, Odd, Ulrich, Aelita, William, Jeremie, and I just stared in awe. These people sounded awful. Lord Hermes sighed loudly. "Mr. Belpois, it is not illegal if a GOD asks you to do this. For the rest of you, these kids have dark pasts, and school destructions mostly come from monster attacks. One last thing, here is the rooming list. I must go now. God stuff to do! See ya!" and in a puff of smoke, he was gone. Jeremie just blinked and got started on the reports. Aelita, who had the roommate list, opened it and started reading.
"Annabeth, you're with me, Percy with Jeremie, Piper and Clarisse in room 312, Jason and Leo in 219, I don't know why Ulrich and Odd are on this list, they're already roommates! Travis and Conner in 220, Frank and William, and Hazel…" she stopped. "I am so sorry," she said to the dark skinned girl. "Hazel, you're with Sissy." Ulrich's eyes shot wide open, Odd gagged, Aelita paled, and Jeremie winced. "You're in 330." I'm not sure how I reacted, but I'm sure it was badly.
In the pocket of the smallest back, Percy found a wallet with five hundred Euros and three Visa cards with his name on it. Seeing this, the others looked to and found the same thing. Jeremie looked up from his screen and looked at the Stolls.
"Fifteen arrests? Really?"
"We were bored!" said Conner. "We stole shampoo."
"Fifteen times?" asked Jeremie.
"Ten times we stole necessary items!" said Travis. "Like the Titan War!"
"WHAT?" asked Percy, his sea green eyes angry. "Everyone was asleep!"
"Not the cameras," said Conner nonchalantly.
"And two," Percy continued. "You promised to leave money!"
"We had no money except for drachmas," said Travis. "Either steal or let more people die."
"Fine," Percy grumbled, still not happy.
"I also have a bone to pick with you," said Jeremie to Percy. "Eight expulsions, straight D's, and assault on a teacher?"
"Mrs. Dodds was a fury trying to kill me!" Percy shouted. "And the cannonball, shark tank, and Bobofit in the fountain were all accidents. The seventh grade was because Larygostian giants wanted to eat me! They threw cannonballs, I got blamed."
"What about the nationwide manhunt?" asked Jeremie.
"Stupid Smelly Gabe accused me of stealing the car and killing my mother."
"Your deceased stepfather?"
"Actually, my mom used Medusa's head to turn him into stone," Percy said smiling.
"The D's?"
"Dyslexia and ADHD," said all the demigods.
"Piper, you stole a car?" asked Jeremie.
"Charmspoke without knowing it," she said.
"Jason, you're dead!" shouted Jeremie.
"Obviously not," he replied. "Cover story for my mom. She's a famous actress and it would look bad if she 'lost' one of her children." Jeremie continued grilling the demigods as he worked the files. Finally, he finished, and followed Lord Hermes's instructions of sending them to Delmas using the parents' emails. When he finished, he immediately got replies from Delmas saying that the demigods were welcome at school. When I checked the time, it was 7:30p.m., so I said goodbye and headed home to dinner.