A/N: I'M SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING! I WENT TO FL, AND DID NOT BRING MY LAPTOP, AND WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY WIFI IN THE HOTEL ANYWAY :( * DODGES ARROWS AND DAGGERS*

On a completely unrelated subject, I have 34,848 hits! Thank you guys, you are all awesome! Disclaimer: I don't own PJATO or HoO. All rights go to Rick Riordan.

Anyway, here are the review replies:

TheYoungLadyInBlue: Thank you! My best friend wrote Piper's part and I edited it since I had some writers block on Piper's POV, but she's herself again in this chapter. And I know Percy's POV could've been better, it was hard to write that one POV :/

Anon: right now! Thank you:)

Lulu: Here it is! :P

Anon: Aww, thank you so much!

Loveyduffyy: I'm glad you like it!

Anon: Again, I'm sorry for not updating! It is here though yay :)

Anon: Thanks! Here it is :D

I so RaNdOm: Thank you! As for the Percabeth, that'll have to wait until next chapter or so, sorry. :/

Courtneeeey: Haha, I totally agree! And here's the update.

IzzyQuagmire0907: Haha, and I'm SO SORRY, hope you didn't die :/

Anon: Thank you! And I will don't worry :)

Anon: Thanks! I'm sorry I didn't update that soon :(

Anon: Aww, thanks and really?

Somebody: Haha, thanks!

Jiper4eva: Thanks so much! And ooh I'm sorry if you got in trouble for cursing :/ Thanks! And I hate cliffhangers too (CURSE YOU RICK RIORDAN!) but it makes it more interesting, and gets more reviews ;)

kkawesome101; Yes, she is. And you'll see (sorta) In this chapter.

IzzyBookLover98: Thank you! And I'm really, really, truly sorry about you not being able to sleep and not updating soon, Read the beginning of the A/N and you'll see why I didn't update!

That took forever, on with the story!

PIPER:

I was slumped on the floor, leaning my head on the cell bars, wishing I didn't have to leave Jason with his severe empousa bite, and hopefully by now he would be okay. I knew the Seven would make an effort to try and heal Jason, but unless Apollo was feeling helpful, their effort wouldn't make much of a difference.

"Piper, Jason's not doing well, he's in a coma," whispered (in my mind, of course) a kind voice that could only belong to my mother. Fury ran through my body, and the one thing I want was to rip Gaea limb from limb. Nobody hurts my Jason.

For some reason, I felt more violent than sad, and then remembered demigods think, act, and fight better when they're mad.

"You're right; demigods do things much better when they feel violent. So, I might've tampered a little with your emotions," I mentally screamed when Aphrodite said that, and wanted to smack her for once again tampering with people's emotions.

"Calm down, dear. It was necessary. You said so yourself." This doesn't sound like Mom; she wouldn't be making sense... "Oh yeah, Athena gave me some sort of medicine or something to make me a little smarter, and- ATHENA! How dare she try to make me smarter!" Focus mom, I thought.

"Right! Well, getting out of here, you're going to have to manage that on your own, I can't tell you anymore. I'm sorry dear. Bye now!" I felt my Mom's presence leave my mind, so I tried to think of a way to get out of here.

I knew that charmspeak wouldn't work; being around all these monsters, evil gods, and even being in this cell was depleting my energy. I'd gotten better at charmspeaking, but all demigods' powers take a lot of energy, and I can't risk getting Demigods still have a mortal side, and mortals would probably burn up being so deep into the Earth. I could try to disarm the guards, but there has to be an easier way out of here.

I wracked my brain trying to find a plan, when I suddenly remembered the day that Annabeth had taught Leo, Jason and I battle tactics. Leo had been annoying as always, but he was actually paying attention to Annabeth's lecture. We all learned battle tactics pretty quickly, actually. Mainly, the first rule of battle strategy is: if the escape is too easy, it might be a trap, or your plan won't work.

Me taking out the guards would be too easy, and it's not like I could run out of Tarturus; this place is freaking endless.

At least, I'm pretty sure I'm still in Tarturus, the cell sort of looks like the other room where we fought Tarturus (the god). I decided to try and charmspeak the guards, and just look down, obviously if there was a huge hole in the ground I'm still in Tarturus, and if not, then I could try to escape the easy way.

Then I realized there weren't any guards standing by my door; they had fallen asleep at the edge of the chasm, about a foot or so away from plunging to their deaths. The thought gave me more hope; even though I'm still in Tarturus and that I have a virtually nonexistent chance of escaping.

I thought back to my conversation with Mom, and suddenly had an idea. I looked down at my clothes. Once again, I would be the best dressed warrior in town. My mom had gave me Miss Me Jeans that were way over the top with sparkles; a forever XXI white flowery top, a coral necklace and short black boots that are good for running. I actually liked this outfit, and even better was that I got my hair done, too. WHAT? Piper McLean cares about her hair for once? No, I don't. See, my Mom had added bobby pins in my hair, and I could use those to unhinge the lock on my prison cell.

Thank gods for bobby pins, I thought. I knelt down, and clutched the lock. It was shaped in the form of a rock symbolizing Gaea's power.

I reached up to my hair, finding it to be curled into perfect ringlets (Grr), and I grabbed a random bobby pin, and dropped my hand back to the rock shaped lock.

I opened the clasp of the bobby pin and inserted it into the lock. Fortunately, this is a rather large pin, and it fit almost perfectly in the padlock. I twisted and twirled the bobby pin with no luck. I sighed; but decided to try it once more. I shoved it into the little key hole, and watched as if almost magically, the lock opened and the door flew open. I was about to run out of that miserable prison cell when Gaea chose that moment to come and check on me. Thankfully, a monster ran up to her and she glared at it, but ordered it to talk. The language the monster spoke was the Ancient Language, the language immortals spoke before Greek. (Annabeth taught me all of this before we left on the Argo II).

I had sat down when Gaea came trying to look miserable (which wasn't that hard to do) and not to look like I had just opened the door of the cell. I glanced over at the monster and Gaea.

They were in a heated discussion, and I could tell that almost nothing would distract them now.

I crawled toward the open door, (that Gaea had surprisingly not noticed) and closed it as silently as I could. It made a tiny clang, and Gaea didn't even hear it.
Thank the gods. But now how am I going to get out of here?

ANNABETH:

I rushed over to Hazel and Frank to help them finish off the empousa. Frank had a minor bite on his arm, but it didn't seem to bother him. Hazel had no bites, but looked absolutely exhausted.

"Hazel, go help Jason, I'll help Frank," I said quickly. She nodded and ran off in Leo, Jason and Percy's direction.

The empousa's odd miss-matched legs were making hollow sounds as it walked toward us.

"The plan?" Frank hissed.

"Turn into an elephant, and try to knock her unconscious. I'll take it from there," I said and glanced warily at the she-demon. I remembered what Percy had said the summer that he blew up Mt. Saint Helens about fighting empousai. You have to catch them by surprise, to able to kill them.

What I didn't know though, is if empousai slept, if they didn't, Frank's turning into an elephant would be useless.
I watched as Frank's human form swelled up, into a huge gray elephant with muscles stronger than ten full grown horses, his trunk flailed around, trying to choke the empousai, who was sprinting around trying to avoid being choked, started cursing in Ancient Greek.

"Ανάθεμά σε ελέφαντα πάει στα φλεγόμενα pits της κόλασης!"

Frank managed to wrap his trunk around her neck, and I dashed forward, my dagger in hand. I had no hesitation as I thrust my knife into the empousa's abdomen. She immediately disintegrated, and Frank changed back to his human state and high-fived me.

"It's funny how you are one of the scariest people I have ever met, yet whenever you're fighting, you seem calm." Frank said while trying not to laugh.

"Athenian instincts," I replied and grinned at him.

"Annabeth! Get your γάιδαροςover here!" Leo yelled, earning him my death glare.

I ran over to Leo, and saw Jason thrashing in his pool of blood, and I demanded, "Did you pray to Apollo yet?"

"We tried, but he won't heal him. The Fates meant for that empousa to bite him, but they didn't cut his life string. Apollo isn't helping us because he probably thinks Piper could heal him, but Apollo doesn't know Piper's gone." Hazel said remorsefully.

"But he's the god of prophecy," Leo protested.

"Yeah, but whenever the giants or Gaea take someone, they make sure the gods' don't know where the demigod or god is." I said, trying to think of a way to heal him.

"How are we going to heal him?" Percy asked.

There was a brilliant blinding gold light, and a pleasant man's voice said: "I can help with that."

I HAVE A CONTEST FOR YOU FFF (FANFICTION FANS)! The 200th reviewer will get their story advertised and read by me (I'll also give you advice on how to make your story better)! If you don't have an account, or don't have a story, then you can have a) a shout out for anything b) virtual stuff of your choice! This will go on with every 50 reviews. (250,300,350 (if we even get there)

Tell me what you thought about this chapter and REVIEW so your questions can be answered: Who is this mystery man? Can he really heal Jason? And most important, can our favorite demigods trust him?

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