Heya people! How's life? Well that's great! Hasenpfeffer: Thanks for the help! It's very appreciated! As you can tell I'm going on trial and error. One question…where did you get your name from? Its unique and nifty. InsanityUnleashed:I do plan on having Percy and Hercules fight it out, but not for a bit. Thank you! Guest: Thanks. I understand! timkaylor885: Thank you. sapphire-tears27: Here you are my dear. Thanks to all the favorites and follows. Sorry if I didn't mention you if you reviewed. Email hates me, but I fight it.

Disclaimer: If I could claim it, I would not need a disclaimer. Duh.

Bold: Property of Mr. Riordan

Regular: My made up dialogue.

Italic: Thoughts/telepathy

Onto the Story my good people!

Chapter 3: Deadly Socks

"So Father, who will read next?" Ares asked.

"So glad you volunteered to read, son." Zeus smirked. Frank snorted.

"You mean Ares can read?" he said, looking at Percy.

"Hey! I resent that!" Ares yelled.

"Just read, love. I want to see if I ever come up in these stories," said Aphrodite.

"Fine."

Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death," he read. "Socks. Very deadly."

Thalia looked over at Percy and opened her mouth to comment, but Percy cut her off. "If you're going to make fun of each title, we are going to be here forever." Thalia glared then smirked.

"So, by admitting that I could make fun of each title and the books are from your view, you gave me permission to make fun of you!" She declared triumphantly.

"You have a sick, twisted sense of logic," said Percy.

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.

This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me.

"Don't even think of it Hermes!" Athena nearly shouted. "School needs to be taken seriously!" She had recognized the glint in her half-brother's eye, and she didn't like it. Said god only looked at her innocently.

"Wouldn't dream of it, dearie."

The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

"Well they were right." Frank muttered. Percy tried to punch him…key word is tried. Frank turned into a mouse at last second and Percy ended up punching Jason, who sent a bolt of lightning at Percy out of habit. Percy deflected the bolt, which hit Hercules, who wasn't paying attention. The room went silent as Hercules groaned and sat up. Percy couldn't help it, he started to laugh.

"He looks like they do on cartoons when they get electrocuted!" It was true. Hercules' hair was standing on end and his head was blackened. That got the other future demigods at least giggling. Orion started to laugh, and Theseus looked at him.

"You know what cartoons are?"

"No," came the reply.

"Then why are you laughing?"

"They make me laugh," he gestured to the laughing half-bloods. "And when anything happens to make Hercules look like a fool, I laugh." Theseus shrugged. I can't deny that logic.

"Well, if you are done, I'll continue to read," Ares growled out.

It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

But Grover couldn't fool me.

When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room.

"Really, brother? He may be my son, but he's also your descendent."

"I don't know why my future self is acting like that. It's almost as if I were throwing a fit." Zeus retorted. "But I don't throw fits, so…read on." Hades snorted at Zeus' pride.

A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.

Annabeth smacked Percy's head. "Really?" Percy just shrugged.

I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends.

I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

"It means old drunk, old drunkard, whichever." Athena explained. Percy looked over at Mr. D.

"So it describes Dionysus," Percy reasoned.

"Don't say stuff like that! He doesn't hate you yet!" Annabeth snapped.

"Far too late for that, Arabell. Young Perry has already irritated me." Mr. D said over his magazine. "However, I shall wait and see what I should do to the brat."

Hercules grinned. Here was a way to get in a god's good graces and get back at Percy. "Lord Dionysus, I could…take care of the problem. One such as yourself should not be bothered by such a small nuisance." He made sure to put just the amount of sweetness and worship in his voice.

"Heather, if I need help I will ask for it. Do you suggest you are better than an Olympian god? That you are more qualified than I?" Hercules quickly shook his head. "Good. Glad we understand each other."

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties..

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend,

even if he was a little strange.

I worried how he'd survive next year without me.

I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.

"At least you tried," Hazel said.

I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron

"I love him." All the demigods chorused.

and Charon,

"He is always wanting less hours, better pay, health care. He is immortal! He doesn't even need health care, but does that stop him from demanding it? No!" Hades continued to mutter about Charon.

or Polydictes

"I still don't like that man. He will never be good enough for my mother. Then he had to go and demand that I bring him Medusa's head!" Perseus ranted. Everyone looked at him.

Leo nodded seriously. "I'm sensing some built up frustration. Just let it out. Clear the air."

and Polydeuces.

"Oh I remember my good friend Polydeuces! He was an Argonaut. He fought off an evil king to help us continue our quest. He was so upset when his poor brother Castor was killed." Older Jason said. Perseus patted his back.

And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

"Well now that your Roman, it should be easy!" Reyna said.

"Great deduction, Rey," came Percy's sarcastic reply.

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

"He knew you always did your best," Annabeth murmured to Percy.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,

"... worried about Percy, sir."

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

Every demigod looked guilty. They would have done the same thing.

I inched closer.

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in theschool! Now that we know for sure, and they know too—"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line— "

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he saw her..."

"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

"Really, Perce? Why did you drop the stupid thing?" Thalia asked.

"Books aren't stupid!" Annabeth shot back.

"Are too."

"Are not!"

"Are-"

"Enough!" Zeus rubbed his temples. Demigods…ugh.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

"So in reality, only a couple of minutes?" Nico asked. Percy just rolled his eyes in response.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful."

"That was mean. That face can never look awful," Aphrodite said. "Right, Annabeth?"

"I don't know. You should have seen the look on his face when the store was out of blue jelly beans." Annabeth countered. Percy groaned.

"It was one time! I swear a monster was behind it. They go out of their way to make me mad. Thanks dad and uncle/great-grandpas for that." After that statement, Leo suddenly shot up.

"That's what wrong with you! You are the product of major inbreeding!" All the gods groaned.

Percy rolled his eyes. "Dude, you realize that your dad's mom and dad are brother and sister? And their mom and dad were siblings as well. And their parents. Gods have no DNA so therefore we can't be inbred." Everyone was looking oddly at Percy. "What?"

"You…smart…seaweed…" Annabeth stuttered out.

"Hey! Sons of Poseidon can be smart!" Theseus shouted in indignation.

"Yeah, what he said!" Orion agreed. Theseus raised an eyebrow at his half brother.

"Like I said, we CAN be smart. We all aren't."

"How in Hades did we get this far off topic?" Piper asked.

"I have no idea." Hades said and then he groaned, "and for the love of Olympus, quit using my name as a curse word!"

He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just... tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

"You always are Percy. It comes with being one of us." Perseus said.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

" ἰδιώτης. Chiron, you had to know he wouldn't take it like you meant it." Poseidon muttered. His children, while fiercely loyal, also had a habit to be occasionally somewhat…not exactly pessimistic, but something close. Yes, they did for the most part try to see the glass half full, but sometimes the glass was empty.

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

"Oh dear. Did he have to say it in front of the class?" Hestia asked no one in particular.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes stung.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"

"He's not even normal by demigod standards." Frank said. "He's a descendent of the Big Three. He's a weirdo that's for sure."

"Coming from the guy who turns into elephants by choice." Percy snorted.

"I object! Elephants are cool!"

Leo looked scandalized. "Nothing is as cool as a dragon!"

"I can turn into a dragon, too." Leo looked like a child on Christmas.

"Okay, sorry Perce, my man, but Zhangy-boy here is way cooler than you. When you can turn into a dragon, come talk to me."

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."

"Percy—"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

"So you admit you are a nobody, sea spawn?" Hercules taunted. Percy sighed. That man-he barely made that qualification- was getting on his last nerve.

"Yes. I am a Nobody. There are two other Nobodies in the world, and I am glad to share a name with them. One of them happens to be the love of my life."

"So you love nobody?" Theseus asked his little brother. Hey this confused even Athena, so he had a right to not know.

"Yeah, but you'll know her second name next book." Percy explained.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

"Creeper."

"Stalker."

"Weirdo."

"Psycho."

"Stranger danger!" Everyone looked at Leo.

"Um, Leo? How can Grover be a stranger is they shared a dorm room for the past several months?" Frank asked slowly.

"Oh, right. Hey! I said you were cooler than Percy. You are supposed to stick up for me!"

"Um, right…sorry?"

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.

Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

"Here comes impulsive Percy, ladies and gentlemen! He features no filter from his mouth to his brain! What a sight!" Thalia said in her best announcer's voice.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

"That scared the satyr." Dionysus said as he laid down the third wine magazine of the day. He then proceeded to pull a game out of his pocket. "What? It's the first hand-held Pac-Man game!" Most decided to ignore the strange god in favor of the story.

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"

"Oh not much he said. Don't worry he said." Piper quoted the meme she had seen several times on the internet.

He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"

"Grover—"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.

The card was in fancy script,

Here the demigods began to mutter about stupid reading disorders while Frank smirked at them. "You have all the luck, Zhang." Annabeth muttered. What I wouldn't give to be able to read without getting a headache bigger than Hercules' ego.

Daughter, maybe I could try and bless you to have an easier time reading.

Mom?

What other goddess could bless you with knowledge? Aphrodite perhaps?

Right. Well, I'm not used to this whole mind talk thing and I really need to listen to the story so…

Of course!

which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's Half—"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

"Nope, only a four story farmhouse, a bunch of cabins, the works!" Leo said.

He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

"Uh, burn!" Apollo shouted.

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."

I stared at him.

"You see, Grover is a much better searcher than protector. He was made to search, and he just doesn't have the build or personality to be a protector." Annabeth explained.

"Now Gleeson Hedge, on the other hand. All we would have to do is put him in a box and deliver him to enemies and they would be destroyed." Piper sniggered at Jason's description of the crazy goat.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"

"Just your psychotic family." Reyna reasoned.

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.

The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

"What I don't get is why you'd have to get off if he was working on the engine." Leo mutteres. "It's not like he was like "Excuse me miss, but I need to get to the spark plugs, which happen to be below your chair" or anything."

"Maybe it was a safety precaution, my boy," said Hephaestus. Leo looked thoughtful for a moment and nodded.

"Okay. I'll go for it."

We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

Demeter perked up. That is what more people needed. Nico noticed her reaction. Time to continue with plan 'Future Sane Demeter'. "You know, Lady Demeter, cereal companies are trying to replace breakfast fruit? They say cereal is better for you." Demeter looked outraged.

"I want to try some and see what the hype is all about. It's not like they've gone and added chocolate or marshmallows to replace fruit." Nico barely held back from sniggering.

"Okay, some of the healthiest cereals are Lucky Charms, Count Chocula, and Chocolaty Pebbles."

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice.There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

"Oh, no. Oh dear sweet Rhea, please not them." Poseidon begged under his breath.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

"Percy, I swear on the Styx, if this is what I think it is-"Annabeth started.

"Please don't finish saying something that could end badly. I love you." Percy said, trying to calm his girlfriend down.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"How are you able to find humor at a time like that?" Hermes asked. Percy shrugged.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "You think that's bad timing, you should have heard all of the jokes while we were down in Tartarus. Oops."

"Why were you and my brother down in Tartarus?" Orion asked slowly. Annabeth stuttered a faint answer. She then motioned for Ares to read.

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"If the boy is meant to see it, there is no avoiding Fate." Hades said solemnly. The future demigods looked at each other. That is exactly what they were doing, avoiding Fate, but with Fate's help.

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic

Poseidon was about to panic, when he realized his son from the future was sitting right there. He had no reason to freak out. Zeus saw this change and questioned it. "Why should I worry when it's obvious my son lives through all of this?.Well, of course I will worry some, but not to the point of having the waters break out in massive storms. Now, if this was happening now, that is a completely different puddle."

Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.

Percy grinned. "Neither. They are for the charity known as Homeless Blue Hyperboreans Without Socks also known as HBHWS."

"Is that the best you can come up with?" Annabeth asked.

"Challenge accepted."

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.

"Everyone who liked Percy groaned at this point. The kid didn't even know he was a demigod and he couldn't catch a break.

Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?"

"Your life story."

"Apollo!" Artemis shouted. Apollo looked over innocently.

"I only spoke the truth dear sister. Is that not my job? To speak the truth?"

Artemis rolled her eyes. "Oh go write a haiku."

"Ooh. I've never written one before. Maybe I should look into that." The Greek demigods looked panicked at each other. That could not happen!

"Lord Apollo, haikus have been around for centuries. You don't want to be behind the times do you?" Thalia asked him.

"Hm. No, better not."

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.

"You may not be book smart, but you have great instincts and common sense. It will save lives one day." Athena stated matter-of-factly.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Let. It. Go." Thalia and Annabeth growled at the same time.

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

"How do you explain that one to someone who thinks the Fates are still just myths?" Hazel asked quietly. Nobody answered.

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

"Way to make the kid feel better." Jason of the past muttered. Jason Grace looked over at his namesake and older brothers. He really wanted to talk to them. He could see Percy wanted the same thing. They had a quick silent conversation and agreed.

"Um, Lord Zeus?" Percy asked.

"Yes, Percy? What do you need?"

"Well, I was wondering I we could take a break from reading for a bit? I understand we have only read like two chapters, but we had introductions before that. Every one of us is about to go crazy from sitting so long." He explained in a rush.

"I believe that will be alright. In the future, we will read more chapters before we take a break. Okay! Everyone! Go let off some energy and return within the hour. If you are late, you will be locked out of the reading." With that the demigods began to make their way outside, breaking off into smaller groups.

Okay another chapter come and gone. Sorry for any and all spelling a grammar mistakes. How was this one? I can't fix it if you don't tell me! I will be doing reunions next chapter, but I already have the next reading chapter done, well almost, so look for a two chapter update next time! I have five days of school left and then its summer! Ciao!

PS: The stupid uploader ate the bold print and I had to go back and fix it! Gah, technology!