AN: Thanks for all the reviews! It should have made the news! Ha ha ha the lame puns continue!

"Sir please! She doesn't know anything!" Willow exclaimed.

I opened my eyes and turned to look at her.

"Excuse me? I know plenty, thank you very much! I'm not the one who failed English because I was too lazy to show up for the exam! Also, you were the one who spent every class giggling with Ward in the back, not me! So don't tell me I don't know anything! I may not know what the flip is happening right now, but I definitely know a thing or two! And in any case-" I was ready to go into an hour-long tirade, sick of all the secrets, when Willow interrupted me.

"Emily, shut up." I've never seen Willow this mad. Not even when her pen exploded during Math class and the teacher made fun of her for two weeks.

"Hold on. She really doesn't know who I am?" Mr. D asked, looking quickly from Willow's face to mine, as if trying to catch a lie between us.

"How on Earth am I supposed to know what's going on when nobody will tell me anything?" I asked, exasperated.

Mr. D narrowed his eyes and sighed.

"Great. I have to fill another one in on what's happening. Well, have a seat. This could take awhile."

I didn't move.

"What about Ward?"

Mr. D glared at me and said impatiently, "He'll stay right where he is until we finish talking. Now, sit. I won't ask you again."

Wanting to stay in one piece, I sat. Willow sat down next to me, obviously relieved nothing worse had happened.

"So, what do you know? About your current situation I mean. Anything at all?" he asked, plainly trying to be patient. He waved his hand over the table and a goblet appeared with a rich, crimson color.

"Remember your restrictions." My hallucination said sharply.

"Surely he won't mind, just this once," Mr. D said as he raised the glass to his lips. All of a sudden, thunder BOOMED outside, making the entire house shake.

"I'm guessing he does mind," Willow said timidly. Mr. D gave her a dirty look and waved his hand over his drink, which immediately turned light green.

"Mountain Dew." he explained in response to our curious looks. "I tried diet Coke for a while but it doesn't have the same zing. Anyway, answer my question."

I took a deep breath and answered.

"I know that you, Willow, Ward, and the centaur aren't human." Mr. D snorted at this but I continued. "I know that we are somewhere in New York. I know that the 'gods'" I used air quotes "are fighting over some serious oath, and I know that this camp was recently attacked."

"Just how much did you and the boy tell her?!?" Mr. D roared at Willow.

She flinched and looked around, as if expecting vines to appear and bind her too, too petrified to answer.

"They barely told me anything! I had a dream about the gods and I saw that a lot of the cabins had been destroyed." I interjected before he could vine her to death. And yes, that is the first time I've ever used that as a verb before.

He took a deep breath and calmed down.

"Well, you have the basic gist of it. A goddess promised to remain childless and she had a kid. You are in Camp Half-Blood, run by a centaur and I. I am Dionysus, lord of the vine and the wine."

The leopard skin looked a lot more impressive when Dionysus was making grape vines spell out his name behind his head. I looked into his eyes (flames?) and saw madness, utter madness. I saw people drinking and brawling. I saw a military commander passing out and getting betrayed by his own men. I looked away, fearing for my sanity.

After a couple of moments I looked at him, only to see him playing cards again. Willow gave me a sympathetic look, but it didn't help. This was too much to take in all at once.

"Who is my Olympian parent?" I asked, focusing on the one thing that was bugging me the most.

"Ahhh. You don't know. This might be a problem. Well, I hate to say it but I can't tell you," Dionysus said, shaking his head. "And by "hate" I mean totally don't care. Doesn't change my day."

"What? But you're a god! Surely you of all people could tell me!" I exclaimed.

"There are laws that even we gods must follow. And one of them is 'No one shall reveal godly parentage to a demigod except the god or mortal involved.' Or something like that."

"That's a ridiculous rule!" I yelled. "What could possibly happen to you if you broke it? You're immortal!"

Mr. D's eyes flashed and he stood up.

"We still feel pain, you unintelligent mortal! We feel the pain just as you feel if you were to break you arm, only we feel it times a million because it takes so much more effort to break us! And the River Styx," thunder boomed outside "always gets her way. So don't ever ask a god to break a promise made on the River." He looked so uber-serious that I couldn't even come up with a witty statement (which doesn't happen a lot).

"And so, all that remains is to figure out what to do with you," Mr. D said, turning to glare at Ward. "Just because you have a powerful father, that doesn't mean you can disobey a direct command from a god."

"Why do you hate him so much?" I asked, unable to resist asking.

"Let me tell you a little story, child. Once upon a time, there was an evil Titan named Kronos. He had the marvelous ability of manipulating time. Sound familiar? Thought so. Anyway, a long time ago he ruled over the gods. He was defeated but then, he tried to rise again. He got really close, but he was thwarted by some young demigods, or half-bloods. His soul fled out, into Tartarus. Or so we thought. It turns out that he had another mortal ready as backup in case someone defeated him. He possessed the mortal and kept getting stronger, keeping hidden, until finally it was too late for us. He regained his immortal form, and chaos broke out everywhere. Legions upon legions of monster attacked Mount Olympus. The Sphinx made a reappearance, followed by Echidna and even the Titan, Atlas. We had been lulled into a false sense of security when, twenty years later, we were ambushed in the middle of the night. We gods never had a chance against the army facing us. The cowards had taken our children hostage, and I'm sorry to say, they got results. The Olympians were bound in chains of celestial bronze and led to Kronos's palace. For months on end we were tortured and tormented. The humans didn't notice a difference, but slow changes were being made to destroy civilization entirely. Then, something incredible happened. Kronos's army rebelled against him. Ally-less and weak, he paid us one last visit. He would agree to return into Tartarus, but only if we wouldn't, how should I put this, 'play with our food'. Also, he requested protection for his son, in exchange for our freedom. All of the gods took the oath, and he unbound us. We immediately destroyed him and regained our territory. Imagine our surprise however, when we heard of a rebellion in Dallas. A hundred people were murdered on the streets. And guess who was leading them? You got it. The slime on the ground in front of me."