Ok, im back from my RV trip! It was pretty fun, just cramped. Anyways, thx so much to reviewers, and here's the next chapter!

Chapter 23: Reyna

Reyna blinked the light out of her eyes. There had been a blinding flash of light, then pitch blackness. She looked around. She was still standing in the same exact place, but it seemed like the middle of the night instead of sunset.

"What- what happened?" Piper asked.

Reyna shook her head. Nobody had an answer. Everything seemed the same, other than the fact that it was now the middle of the night. Reyna wondered if they had all been knocked out for a while, but her watch still said that it was 7 in the evening. She looked down over the side of the boat, but couldn't see any city lights. She hoped that was because they were passing over some countryside.

Percy went below deck, probably to check on Annabeth. He came back up with her leaning on him.

"Did you guys see- see that?" Annabeth asked. Everybody nodded.

"What was it?" Piper voiced everyone's thoughts.

"It wasn't Gaea." Annabeth said weakly, sitting down on a chair.

"What do you mean?" Reyna demanded. "That's who we're fighting, isn't it?"

"No." Annabeth continued. Her voice seemed stronger now. "That was magic. Strong magic. I don't know who, or why, but somebody is trying to stop us. It may be under Gaea's command, or it may be completely different."

After a long silence, Bobby asked, "But before that strange light, it was sunset. Now it looks like the middle of the night. How does that work out?"

This time, even Annabeth shook her head. Percy said, "We should contact Chiron or Lupa, see if they noticed anything or if that magic was directed just at us."

"There's nowhere to make a rainbow here now." Jason pointed out. "We'll have to wait until morning." Everybody agreed, and decided that they would go to sleep and try not to worry about what had just happened too much. But how could they not worry about it? Reyna wanted to find out exactly what had happened, and who did it, and why. And then she'd have to have a serious talk with them.

Thankfully, Reyna had no dreams that night. She got up the next morning to see light streaming through her window. Ok, so they hadn't crashed into some midair cave or something.

On the deck, she found Leo and Bobby already up. Leo was bending over some fancy instrument on which he kept changing dials and flipping switches. Bobby stood next to him.

"Hey guys." Reyna said, startling them both. "What is that?" she nodded towards the machine.

"I'm trying to figure out where we are." Leo said. "Maybe that will help explain the flash from yesterday." That made sense. Hopefully they were still flying over the U.S., and not someplace in Africa or something.

"That's strange." Leo said, frowning at his machine.

"What is it?" Reyna asked. "Please don't tell me we're in China."

"No, we're flying over Nebraska, right on course." Leo replied. "I guess whatever that flash thing was didn't affect our location. I don't think it had anything to do with slowing us down or anything either, because this is where we were supposed to be at this time in the morning."

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Bobby asked.

"Course it is." Jason had just come up onto the deck. "So there's nothing about our date or location to suggest what that flash did?" They had started calling the strange light from last night a 'flash.'

"Nope." Leo shook his head. "Let's hope it doesn't happen again. I don't know what it is, but that just makes it seem more dangerous."

Reyna agreed. They didn't need any more enemies. Then she realized that she was always telling herself that. All demigods probably were. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, Reyna wondered what it would be like to be a mortal, and not worry about super-powerful beings and monsters and Titans taking over the world at any moment. Must be nice.

That's when Piper, and Annabeth, supported by Percy, came up to the deck.

"You guys haven't figured anything out?" Piper asked. Everybody shook their heads. Reyna felt a twinge of annoyance towards Piper. She hated Piper's know-it-all attitude. Children of Minerva were much smarter than children of Venus. Reyna forced herself to get her mind back to the conversation. She couldn't afford to be distracted.

Bobby was saying, "-over Nebraska, where we should be, we don't know what the flash did, if anything." Nobody else had any more theories, so they rode in silence, heading towards the place where Greek demigods learned to survive. The Argo II continued on, slowly making its way towards Camp Half-Blood.

Piper

Piper stared out at the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Two days had passed since they had left Legion Camp. Surprisingly, no more monster attacks had occurred, and they were almost back at Camp Half-Blood. She imagined that she could see demigods and satyrs playing volleyball, Chiron teaching archery, cabins competing against each other in training, using swords and spears and all sorts of deadly weapons. Piper didn't know why, but she missed camp more than she realized. Maybe because it was her first real home, where people actually payed attention to her. Her dad had gotten better, but he still didn't have that much time for her.

"How much longer?" Percy asked Leo. He was probably anxious about seeing his old camp again.

"About an hour." Leo replied, smiling slightly. He was probably thinking the same thing she was.

"How long are we going to stay there before we leave for Greece?" Reyna asked. Piper could see in her eyes that she didn't want to be in the company of a bunch of Greek demigods for a long time. But then again, that had been true with Piper and the Roman demigods. Well. Piper thought. She gets to see how I've been feeling.

Annabeth shrugged. "Not long, probably. A week at the longest. Then we really have to go. There's no time to waste." Reyna nodded in approval. Piper glared at her. Reyna glared back.

After another twenty minutes or so, the ship started to descend. If she was looking in the right place, then Piper could see the trees of Camp Half-Blood.

"I'll land in the canoe lake." Leo said. "I don't want the ship to break again." Nobody said anything, but Reyna nodded. Piper could almost see her thinking, At least some Greeks can think.

Pretty soon they could see the climbing wall, the sword arena, the pavilion, the big house, and the canoe lake, coming up fast below them. Piper heard a conch horn sound. If it was announcing their arrival or dinner, she wasn't sure. The Argo II landed in the canoe lake rather smoothly. Piper could see people starting to gather.

That's when the yelling started. "PERCY!"

Yeah, that was kind of short, but ill have the next chapter up soon. Review!