"What was that thing? Did Athena give it to you?"

They had just finished paying for their pretzels and were walking away from the chaos they had made. Eirene was very impressed and interested in how Andrew had saved the situation from escalating to an unwanted stage, and was also curious as to what the blank I.D. was.

"Yeah, a few weeks ago she came to me in a dream and put it in my pocket, telling me I'd need it soon. I thought it wasn't real until I felt in my pocket and it was there."

"How does it work?" Eirene asked.

Andrew brought it out to show it to her. "It's a fake identification card, or psychic paper. It lets the other people reading it know whatever they need to know to let you slide. I we'll need it a lot, seeing as how we'll encounter other beasts."

"Seems handy, mind if I nick it?"

"Depends, mind if I punch you in the face?"

"I don't know, why don't you try?"

Eirene quickly stepped in, squeezing herself in between them before they pounced on each other. She knew they might've been a bit of friction between them, but she hadn't imagined they would dislike each other this much. She pressed her hands against their chest and pushed them apart. "Quit it. We're supposed to be a trio,"

They glared at each other for a moment before walking away, and Eirene let out a sigh of relief.

"The Manticore still doesn't sit right with me, how did it get here?" Connor asked. "Hades couldn't have set it on us; this quest is a quest all the gods should support."

Eirene bit into her pretzel and drew back with a disgusted expression. "What's in this thing?"

Andrew looked over. "What do you mean? You ordered the one with custard inside of it." At her still disgusted expression, he added, "Don't tell me you don't like it? You can't be wasting my money like that."

"I wasn't trying to waste it on purpose, stop scolding me like I'm a child!"

"Hmm, what happened to being a trio?" Connor laughed. "Give it to me instead, I don't mind custard." Connor plucked it out of her hands and replaced it with his own. "Here have mine."

She had already bitten hers and seeing as how his was untouched she started to protest but stopped when he seemed to have already devoured half of it. "Okay then, thanks." And when she bit into it, she found that the ones with no filling were much tastier. She glanced over at Andrew who quickly glanced away, running his hands through his hair.

"Alright guys, I think we'd better find a hotel or something to freshen up in. We're kind of a mess." He gestured to his face and clothes, and the others nodded. They eventually found a decent-looking hotel and with the help of Andrew's psychic paper were able to get into a two-bedroom apartment with a small TV and sizeable bathroom.

"Five minute each, no more no less." Andrew dropped his book bag on the bed and sat down. "Who wants to go first?"

Connor volunteered, taking his bag into the bathroom and coming out of there in exactly five minutes, wearing different clothes. His hair was wet and he was rubbing a towel against it. Eirene was next, who took no less than three minutes seeing as how she really only need to wash her hair. Her clothes weren't too badly ripped, so she put them on again after drying her hair as much as she could. Upon exit, she found that Connor wasn't in the room any longer.

"Where'd Connor go?"

"He wanted to bother the bell boy like a kid." Andrew entered the bathroom and Eirene sat down on the bed, fingering the remote as she did. She had never watched TV, only heard whispers and mentions of it from the people she'd pass while running. She had seen the news a couple of times at the café's she stop in. She turned it on and the first channel that was one showing videos of people hurting themselves and the audience laughing at it. At first it looked quite painful to see those people constantly land on the ground with a groan, but the laughter of the audience seemed to influence and sway her. It gave her a different feeling than she had ever felt, and for a moment she thought of all the people watching this same program on their home TV, happy and content with their lives with no knowledge that any of this demigod business existed. She was snapped out of her thoughts when the door opened and she saw Andrew with a towel wrapped around his torso and shirtless.

Unthinking, she gasped and quickly turned around with her back facing him. Her face burnt scarlet, though she didn't know why.

"Ah sorry, I forgot my bag out here." And the door once again locked shut. She didn't feel like it was safe to turn around again, especially with her face blazing red, so she just stayed with her back facing the door, trying to calm her beating heart.

What is this feeling? What is it? As her heart threatened to burst out of her chest images of Andrew shirtless flashed through her mind and she tried to force them out. Why is my heart beating like this? I don't like this feeling, it's scary, please make it go away, please make it go away! Panic echoed through her and she gasped again when the door open and Andrew came out of the bathroom, fully clothed.

He looked like he wanted to laugh. "Calm down, you look so flustered."

He didn't wear camp clothes in the first place, and this time he was wearing blue jeans and a plain white-tee with a gray cardigan. She could see the curve of his biceps through the fabric and was reminded of his stomach, showcasing the obvious results of exercising when she had seen it bare. She didn't know why she was thinking about this, and put her head in her hands to rid her mind of these thoughts.

The door opened again and Eirene heard Connor's voice. "What the, what did you do to her?"

She snapped her head up before Andrew could retort. "Nothing! I'm just a bit tired is all,"

He tossed her something and she caught it in her hands. It was a soda pop, orange flavoured. She opened the can and drank deeply, almost finishing it if Connor hadn't stopped her.

"If you drink it too fast, it'll make your stomach hurt."

Eirene brought it away from her lips, gazing at the delicious can. "I've just never tasted anything so good."

"Is that ridiculousness on TV? Awesome! I haven't seen that since—"

The TV suddenly turned off. "And you won't. We're moving too off course from the quest and we only came here to clean up and maybe talk strategy. Eirene," She jumped at the mention of her name. "There's a computer downstairs, why don't you look up the bakery and get us instructions to it."

She got up reluctantly and marched out of the room, reaching the elevator and pressing the floor button. As it opened, a little girl was standing there. Eirene smiled as she entered but the girl did nothing but stare at her in return. Eirene was currently on the top floor, so she pressed the button for the first. Seconds later, the girl had reached across and ran her fingers through all the buttons, pressing them all.

"Buttons are pretty!" Was all she said as she smiled at Eirene, who was forced to smile back; great, now she'd take longer than usual, and Andrew was sure to scold her when she got back up! Enduring three different floors opening and closing, the elevator suddenly stopped; jammed.

"What the, what's going on?" Eirene yelled, bagging on the doors and trying to pry them open. They didn't budge.

She looked back at the little girl. "What's your name? Is your mom looking for you?"

But once again, the little girl just stared. And then she started to change.

Her pigtails stretched and turned in gangly strands of hair and out of her back grew bony-like wings. Her hands turned into claws, and her torso and legs morphed into the tail of a serpent and her eyes looked gouged out and were dripping blood. Eirene cursed her horrible bad luck, and continued to bang on the door furiously. The space between them was rather small and she knew the monster would be on her any second if she didn't act fast before it finished transforming. She should've known, with her life she should've expected it.

She felt for her ring in her hand and accidently dropped it as she tried to turn it into a sword. Before she had time to grab for it the fury was clawing at her with its talons. It screamed, showcasing its sharp yellow teeth. Eirene grimaced from the foul smell and activated her shield to block out its talons while she searched the ground for her ring. She reached to grab it as the monster made another lunged at her again. It grabbed her hair, yanking and pulling her back as it clawed at her face. She screamed out of irritation instead of pain and grabbed the beast's arms and held them together, causing it to shriek and thrash its wings around menacingly. If it didn't allow her to reach her ring, she would try to stun it by breaking its neck. So she used full force and swung the fury's face right into the elevator door multiple times.

The effect did almost nothing but it disoriented the fury enough for Eirene to reach her ring and turn it into a sword, swinging it towards its torso and watching it combust before her eyes. Normally it burst into dust and simply vanished, but this fury was particularly messy. When it exploded, it let out burst of blood that stained the walls and Eirene all together. Disgusted and extremely annoyed, she struggled to get up without slipping.

Rage surged through her and she felt her skin burn again. The blood began to melt off her skin and hair, but stayed on her clothes. With an exasperated sigh she lunged at the door with her sword, slashing it open in every way possible. The material of her sword melted metal, so she was soon able to walk out of a gaping hole into the middle of the third floor. Surprisingly enough there was no one walking through the halls so she was able to dash up the stairs and back to sixth floor, knocking furiously on the door of the suite she was staying in.

{Author's note: Sorry that I didn't update last week, I was sick in bed with a bad stomach bug. But i'm back, and I will start answering questions you all may have in the next few chapters! :) }