(A/N) Okay, guys, I'm so sorry I haven't been updating, I have zero excuses. I'M JUST LAZY! (Also, I do have school work. Yeah, right XD) And let me just clear something up for all of you guys: Vaas is the main antagonist of the video game Far Cry 3 by Ubisoft Entertainment.

I pulled him into my story 'cause I think he is incredibly insane, and I wanted to experiment with his character and see what I can come up with in terms of madness. Also, Vaas does NOT belong to the PJATO or HoO universe.

Also, to Guest-who-reviewed-on-Nov-11: Nice guess, keep trying! It might be Nico, but I don't really like the idea of him betraying the gang. Remember how he was all bright and bubbly before the emo stuff? Well, I like to think that that bit of him is still there somewhere, just under the surface. He just doesn't seem like the traitor type.

And if you guys think Rick Riordan is the guy who created Vaas, then I'm a crazy lemur who looks like Channing Tatum and Shahrukh Khan rolled into one. And lemme tell you this: Vaas is bat-shit crazy. Go on and read the Far Cry 3 wiki article on Vaas to see what I mean. Go on. If you come back emotionally scarred, don't blame me. I'm not kidding. Sowwy for the long A/N, I'm gonna stop writing this NOW and go on with the story. Peace out! (A/N)

Annabeth walked home, weary with all the arguments at Percy's place. She did not agree with their plans. And recruit Rachel? What were they thinking? And why in the world did Percy blush at her name? She would have to get a hold of Thalia and interrogate her. Do Percy and Rachel have some sort of connection?

She HAD to get a hold of Thalia as soon as possible.

~oOo~

Annabeth stopped to catch her breath at the entrance to the driveway. It was night-time, and she did not want to be grounded for life. She scanned the house, making sure nobody was awake. She did a double take when she saw a light on in the kitchen. Shit! I should've come home earlier or walked faster or something. Athena, her mom, was gonna whup her butt.

Susan Chase had earned her nickname from her former boss at her architecture company. When she had first started as an intern, her bosses had been very impressed with her. When she finally joined the company she had quickly risen through the ranks and had started heading all the best contracts and projects. Her stormy grey eyes and good looks coupled with her knowledge had led her boss to give her the nickname of Athena, after the Greek Goddess of Wisdom. After he retired, Athena had been offered the vacant position. She had gladly accepted, and was now one of the most well-known architects in the world.

She was just as determined to keep her personal life running smoothly. She tried to make sure Annabeth was disciplined and good at her studies. She didn't want her to go through the poverty she had experienced in her childhood. She was not overly strict, she was kind and not cruel. But at the same time she had to make sure Annabeth was successful in life., and that entailed some serious ground rules for Annabeth to follow.

As a result, she was terrified of showing up late. She did not want to show up late and risk getting grounded for a month. Her best option would be to sneak in and pretend that she had been in her room the whole time, and had come back from Percy's when Athena was taking a nap.

That just might work.

Two months ago Annabeth had watched a documentary on the Shinobi, or ninja as they were popularly called. The film had documented their history in Feudal Japan and even briefly explained a couple of Ninja stealth techniques, such as gotonpo, or the Art of Concealment, and shinobi aruki, the Art of Stealth Walking. Those techniques were now going to come in handy. The fact that she had tried practising them regularly just for fun did not hurt at all.

Annabeth had inherited all of her mother's intelligence, and now she was going to put it to use. She mentally visualised her house and examined the various methods of egress.

The front door? No go. The driveway was loaded with motion sensors that turned on at night, text alerting her mom's phone if anyone so much as tip toed to the front door. And since the door was one of those big, heavy, oak-wood kinds of door, her mother would hear her open the door using the spare key.

The side entrance? No, the door was locked and she didn't have a bobby pin to pick the lock. Plus, that entrance opened into the kitchen, and judging from the lights, her mother was probably in there at the moment.

The French windows that lead into the living room? Hell no, she couldn't pick the lock on them and since the kitchen was just across the hall, she would have to extra sneaky. Since Annabeth wasn't exactly at Sam Fisher levels of stealth, she would probably step on a squeaky floor board or something.

She couldn't get in through her bedroom window as it faced the front side of her house and there wasn't a convenient drainpipe or a tree or anything she could use to climb in. Plus, the window was always locked from the inside as Annabeth was paranoid that burglars would try and steal all her outfits and childhood stuffed toys.

Her best option would be to climb on one of the trees in the back yard and climb into the laundry room on the second floor. There were two windows in the room that faced the back of the house, and she could climb in from the oak tree just beside both of them.

Her house had a nice ventilation system that really came in handy during harsh winters. It linked all the rooms in her house and was now going to come to her rescue. She thanked her mom for insisting on installing a ventilation system while the house was being built.

There was a ventilator grate just beside the laundry basket in the laundry room. Annabeth knew for a fact that that vent led straight to her room as she could always hear the washing machine humming in the evenings while in her room. The sounds of the machine humming wereechoed and magnified in the vent, often disturbing her naps. She had tried covering the grate by pushing her old toy basket in front of it but the sound somehow slipped through anyways. The fact that it was on floor level did not change anything.

Okay, so here's what I'll do: Skirt around to the backyard; scale the wall and climb into the back yard, tiptoe past the motion-sensitive flood lights; climb the oak tree and jump into the laundry room; enter the ventilator and finally crawl into my room. Since it's locked from the inside, I can pretend I was there the whole time. Great!

She grinned evilly and sneaked around to the back. She eyed the back yard wall nervously, unsure whether she could scale it and jump into the garden. She finally dragged an old disused garbage can over to the wall. She stepped on top of it and jumped up. Somehow, she caught the top of the wall with her fingers. She scrambled upwards, kicking out with her knees. She hauled herself up and crouched on top of the wall.

Annabeth quickly surveyed the dark garden to make sure her mother wasn't there and dropped into the shrubbery; she inhaled the scent of the flowers and crawled through the bushes. Annabeth nearly had a heart attack when a giant cockroach scurried in front of her; she had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Annabeth finally reached the end of the line of bushes and stared at the base of the oak tree. It was some ten feet away from where she sat and she would have to sprint towards it while sticking to the house to make sure she didn't set off the floodlights. She counted to three and took off running while bending low. She hugged the wall of her house and stayed in the shadows, nervous that her mother would pop out from behind the oak tree and ground her. Her stealth walking was really coming in handy.

Somehow, she reached the base of the oak tree and sat down to catch her breath, panting nervously. She looked up and saw the dense branches and leaves criss-crossed together, providing the perfect cover for anybody who climbed it. Especially since it was night-time and there was little moon light.

Annabeth carefully hauled herself up and started climbing the tree, gripping its edges and small branches tightly. She climbed up into the canopy and sat down on a thick branch. She looked around at a whole new world of insects and leaves and greenery. It was . . . peaceful, in a way.

Annabeth stood up cautiously and gripped a branch just above her as tightly as she could. She nervously shuffled sideways towards the laundry room window while using her banister of sorts. She finally reached the end of the branch and stared at the laundry room window that was some five feet away from her. She told herself not to look down at the ground. She did NOT want to feel dizzy and fall some twelve feet down and end up snapping her neck.

She shuddered, brushing aside the gruesome images and mentally steeled herself. She heard the washing machine humming loudly and sighed in relief. The sounds of the machine would mask the sounds of her entry into the room.

Annabeth glanced down at the ground and counted to three. One . . . Two . . . and-

She jumped at the count of two. She flailed wildly in mid-air and caught the edge of the window sill. She hung there for a second before thanking her gym coach for all the lessons and hauling herself up to the window. Also, the ninjas had had a couple of handy tips for this sort of thing. She slid it open and climbed into the security of her home.

Annabeth slid down on the hard wood floor and just sat down with her back to the wall and her feet spread out. She finally allowed herself to relax and exhaled quietly. It was at this moment that her phone beeped loudly, making her jump. Her nerves were frazzled by all the sneaking around, and her phone beeping was the last straw. She furiously dug it out and switched it off, praying that her mother hadn't heard her phone beep. But then again she was on the first floor; her mother was downstairs and the washing machine was humming loudly.

She sighed in relief when she realized her mother couldn't have heard the phone and got to her feet. She quietly shut the window and quickly checked the timer on the washing machine. She had only two minutes before it stopped washing clothes and stopped making the humming noise, which would make sure that her mother would hear Annabeth scrabbling around in the vents, thus ensuring her doom. She quickly scooped up the screw driver lying on top of the machine and shoved aside the laundry basket as fast as he could. The vent revealed itself behind the basket, just wide enough that she could get in and get into her room from the other end. She got down on her knees and bent low to the vent. She unscrewed the bottom two screws and lifted up the grate like a flap. I'll have to screw 'em back on later, mom will get suspicious.

She checked the glowing timer display on the machine. Only seventy five seconds left. She quickly crawled into the narrow tube and got down on her stomach. She dug out her phone and switched on the in-built flashlight. The glow of the light revealed the cold grey metal she was crawling through.

Suddenly, Annabeth felt suffocated. The narrow walls of the tube were closing in on her, and she felt that she would die trapped in the vent. Once when she was six years old, Annabeth had once been locked into a small closet by one of her friends at a birthday party. She had been left there for two hours, crying quietly in the suffocating darkness. She had been found by one her mother's friends, almost unconscious and covered in dust and spiders. That day had inspired two fears in her: Spiders, and small spaces. Focus, idiot! You can think about your claustrophobia later!

She brushed aside her thoughts and crawled through. After what seemed like an eternity, she reached the other end. Thirty seconds left. She quickly unscrewed the bottom two crews and pushed the grate up. She quickly crawled into comforting darkness of her room and collapsed onto the shag carpet, heaving. She felt extremely relieved to be out of the vent. Oh my gods, I am never crawling through another vent ever again!

The washing machine let out a loud beep before turning itself off. And time's up. Congratulations, Annabeth Chase! You have made it!

She let out a mental whoop and got to her feet. She screwed the screws back in again into the grate and pushed her toy basket in front of the grate. She did not want to see it ever again. Suddenly, someone switched on the lights. She felt blinded by the glare after the darkness. She tried blinking out the spots in her eyes and focused in front of her.

Athena was standing in front of her, a grim expression on her face. She was still in her office clothes, meaning she had just come back from work. Her eyes were like twin laser beams, homing in on Annabeth and pinning her down. She slowly brought her hands together in a slow clap, her face unrelenting.

Annabeth mumbled, 'Mom, I c-can e-explain. . .'

(A/N)And there you have it! A cliffhanger! Awesome! And let me tell you guys something: I apologize if this chapter seemed like filler content, I was just trying to flesh out Annabeth's character a bit more. Ya know, drop a few tidbits about her life and stuff? I hope you guys are not disappointed. Originally I had planned another dream sequence and this whole chapter was just a couple of hurried sentences, but I thought why not inject a little ninja-esque exciting stealthy bits in to keep you guys hooked. Also, I wanted to flesh out Annabeth. I hope you guys like it! Please read and review! Peace out! (A/N)