Ok, before anything, I must apologize for the wait. Many of my reviewers have agreed that these chapters are far too short, so I will try to fix that. Keep in mind, I wrote this so long ago I didn't even know what Fanfiction was, or the proper amount of story per chapter. Therefore, I wrote insanely tiny portions and called them chapters. One "chapter" was two paragraphs! I appreciate your bearing with me as I attempt to fix this problem. Also, I recently acquired my own laptop! Yay! So I can type a ton more, and update sooner, hopefully. Thanks for all your patience!

Edited fairly deeply as of 6/29/15.

Annabeth's POV

I was eating my breakfast in peace, early enough in the morning that most of the tables were still only partially occupied, when Grover burst into the dining pavilion. His goat legs were carrying him as fast as they could, and a look of horror was etched on his face. "Percy's gone!" he gasped out. Murmurs rose from the tables as everyone stared at Grover. He waved a bit of paper around in the air. "He didn't come to meet me for breakfast, and this note was on his bed when I came to check on him." I watched, still spooning my Froot Loops into my mouth as we waited for him to read it. Before he could, however, one of the Stoll brothers snatched it and read aloud.

"To whom it may concern, (probably Grover or Chiron, I'm guessing)

Aphrodite came and told me how to find the cure for Annabeth. I'll be back in eight days. At least, I hope so. If I'm not back by then it means I failed, and it seems like everyone else who failed died, so... wish me luck I guess?

Percy."

Everyone in the hall let that sink in for awhile.

Oh great, I thought. Percy is going off to Greece to find a cure for me? I felt perfectly fine. I didn't need to be cured by anything, and I certainly didn't need an annoying boy going off to risk his life for an unneccessary cure. Would Chiron blame me if he got himself killed out there? What a nuisance Percy was, honestly!

"Poor Percy," someone whispered, breaking the silence. I resisted the urge to scream. Poor Percy, poor Percy, that's all anyone was ever saying anymore. What about 'Poor Annabeth'? I had no idea what everyone was even going on about!

Why did Percy get to target me for all his weird behavior, and everyone just sympathized with him instead of acknowledging the real victim here? I was the one he kept harrassing so much!

I savagely finished my Froot Loops and left the pavilion. No one noticed, of course. They were all too busy talking about Poor Percy. As always.

Percy's POV

I clutched the neck of the hippocampus, (horsefish, for any non-demigod-affiliated-people) Rainbow as we sped along the ocean current. My legs trailed along behind me, and I tried to keep them floating above Rainbow's tail. It whipped around so much at such a deadly speed that I was sure if I got in the way I'd lose a foot, or a whole leg. We headed southeast from Long Island, going in the direction of Greece. I didn't know the island's coordinates, so my nifty little power with that didn't help at all. I had a waterproof backpack strapped tightly to my back, and it contained all of my necessities for this little jaunt. Riptide, my ballpoint sword, was capped and stuck in an outer pocket for easy access. In the inside one, there was a thermos of nectar and a baggie of ambrosia squares, a few granola bars, a tin cup for drinking the fountain water, a small bag of lemonade powder, a bottle of water and a change of clothes. It all fit snugly in the bag.

I got lost in my thoughts, watching the sea animals observe as their master's son whisked by on a hippocampus. This was pretty efficient travel, although any other time I might have been disappointed not to stop and stare at the amazing wonders of the ocean we were whirling by.

After speeding through the ocean for many, many long hours, Rainbow and I began to near the shore of a small island. I knew instinctively that this must be Corinthos. After all, these kinds of places seem to find you when you're on a quest, and I had asked my dad for direct travel if possible. Rainbow neighed nervously at me as we broke the surface of the water, a reminder that hippocampi can't get too close to shore for fear of grounding themselves. "Thanks, boy. And thank you, Father," I said, directing both gratitudes at Rainbow as I slid off his back and into the open, clear blue sea. Treading water, I pulled a slightly soggy granola bar from my backpack and broke off half. He whinnied happily and lunged to catch as I flipped him the food. With a crunch of the bar and a final toss of his mane, Rainbow swam off again. I sighed and started swimming, willing the current to help pull me to the shore.

As soon as I left the salt water and stumbled onto the white sand beach, I felt my energy decrease drastically. My body and my clothes were, as always, perfectly dry, so the sand didn't stick to me as my knees buckled and I faceplanted onto the beach. After a minute of just lying there, I lifted my head out of the sand and spat out crystals of the white grit, turning to survey the landscape. Palm trees dotted the pure white dunes, and further inland I spotted several typical Mediterranean island fixtures and lush greenery.

"How picturesque," I muttered, brushing sand off my clothes and forcing my tired body into a sitting position. Staggering like a drunk who just performed thirty somersaults, I made my way to the top of a dune and looked over the rest of the relatively flat island. When I had talked to my dad about the travel help, he had told me a little bit about Corinthos. According to him, there was a real, original Corinthos somewhere else in Greece. However, the Corinthos Aphrodite meant was a gods-created island that the local humans didn't know about. The gods had created it for times like this, because what was the fun of letting demigods get out of trouble easily?

Well, the official reason Poseidon had told me was more along the lines of proving the worth and depth of a relationship by succeeding in this quest and overcoming even godly intervention. Apparently, Eros pulled this particular trick on demigods quite often.

I started hiking down the dune, figuring I better find out how to get started on this quest already.

A few white sandy dunes later, the ground turned into matted down greenery and assorted sandy soil and rocks. This only lasted for five or six more gentle hills before I found something significant over the next rise. I stood at the top of the last hill, my jaw dropping open as I surveyed inland Corinthos. Was it a boiling volcano in the middle surrounded by angry savage monsters that shocked me? Or a severe bad-guy operation that threatened me?

No. The picturesque scenery hadn't disappeared. In fact, it had even gotten a little nicer.

The ferocious monsters, the ones that supposedly guarded the fountain? The ones that I'd have to defeat with my heroic prowess before retrieving the water and proving the ultimate depth of my relationship? They were, well…

...having a luau.

Yep. Six assorted monstrous baddies, doing the limbo in grass skirts, eating Hawaiian pizza, dancing to loud Greek music in between the lit tiki torches. I've seen some pretty weird stuff, being a demigod and all, but never had I witnessed anything quite like this little gathering. I pulled Riptide out of my bag and put one hand on the cap, ready to pull it off and start fighting in case the monsters stopped partying and started snarling. I made my way carefully down the dune, slipping on the loose sandy soil and grasses. They didn't seem to notice me until I was right in front of them, cautiously dusting off my legs.

"Hey! New guy! Want to limbo?" One shouted at me happily over the blaring music. He was crazily tangoing with another monster, who was singing along to the song playing in a slightly off-key rasp. I was more than slightly weirded out, but thankful they hadn't attacked yet. I probably wouldn't be able to hold off six powerful monsters at once.

"Uh, no thanks. I'm okay," I started, but then one that looked like an eagle-hyena hybrid pushed me in front of the limbo stick. It looked like something used in a crazy ancient ritual, with it's intricate carvings of all kinds of exotic designs.

"Wal-Mart! Four bucks!" one of the monsters shouted happily when it saw me examining the stick. These guys couldn't seem to comprehend conversation of a volume below a shout.

"LIMBO! LIMBO! LIMBO!" The monsters yelled excitedly, stopping all of their luau activities to watch me.

"Um, sure, I guess it couldn't hurt." I leaned backwards and walked under the stick easily. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to limbo. The monsters cheered and applauded at my performance. I couldn't help but grin a little: their overwhelming energy was infectious

"Have a slice, kid," the eagle-hyena offered, pointing to a pizza box on a food table. The top read Monster's Fine Dining, Pizza Branch in large block letters. I shook my head, not feeling very hungry even after my long journey.

"Look here, you guys are being really nice and all, but all I want to do is get some water from the Fountain of Corinthos and get home as quickly as possible," I told the one who had offered me pizza. Suddenly, the Greek music screeched to a stop, and the monsters froze. They all turned their heads to face me. The pizza-offerer sighed regretfully. I stared at him.

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that," it admitted. "No one ever comes here to hang out anymore. All we get are upstart heroes whining, 'my true love hates me all because of Eros! Please let me take some water!' Not one person comes and tells us, 'hey, I have time to burn, let's crank up the music and LIMBO!'" The monster shook its head sadly, clearly distraught.

"How, umm... sad," I tried to sympathize with it. That did seem pretty lame, honestly.

"You have no idea," it agreed. "So instead of chugging fruit punch and dancing your tail feathers off, we have to get all nasty and fight the poor sap." The monster shrugged at me, and it snapped its menacing eagle beak as if warming up its jaw to bite my arm off. "I guess I'll fight you now, young hero."

"Uh, thanks. Is this one on one, or one on six?" There were six burly monsters, and as ridiculous as they looked in the grass skirts, they still seemed pretty powerful. I wouldn't be able to defeat all of them at once.

"One on one," the monster confirmed. I tried not to sigh in relief. "However, you have to defeat all of us eventually. I'm just going to fight you first," it clarified.

"Oh," I sighed. "How delightful. Well, I guess we better get started then!" I tried to be upbeat about this.

"Yes, we shall," the monster agreed, setting down his own pizza slice on a table. It eyed me for a second with one sharp, eagle eye. "Too bad, you were excellent at doing the limbo. Good bye, young hero." And with that, the monster lunged at me, snarling.

Well then! That is all I have written at the moment, as I am not a fan of actually writing fight scenes. And now I have to write six. *Internal groan* Oh well. Maybe I'll find a way to condense them…

Anyway, review please, and tell me if this was any better than usual. I tried to make it longer this time!

Over and out,

~TMI~