Time to do disclaimers!

1. No, I'm flattered, but I am not a gray-haired man named Rick Riordan. Therefore, I do not own the PJO or HOO series.

2. Sorry, I don't own Superman either. (I know... the sadness...)

3. I have no idea if this "grandma putting on her armor" song is real, but it's mentioned in the books. I don't own it, if it's real.

4. I don't own an old song called "Kumbaya", either. If I did, I would charge people every time they sang it.

Now that that's over with, on to the story! Can't believe I'm already on the tenth chapter...

Jason

Jason really didn't want to go to sleep that night. Lyssa always appeared in his dreams. And that was definitely not a good thing. He tried to stay awake by listening to Leo do who-knows-what in the engine room, just adjacent to Jason's cabin, but even that stopped eventually, replacing by very loud snoring and mumblings of "put the clutch in the socket, but not too much pressure when inserting it".

Why don't any of the others have dreams with Lyssa in them? Why just me? What's Lyssa's plan? Why… Unwillingly, Jason drifted off to sleep.

This time, Lyssa was in her Roman form, Furor. Shadowy spirits circled around her, encasing her in a cloak of darkness. She had no lower legs, or if she did, they just melted into a cloud of blackness. But her face was the most horrifying part. Her eyebrows were thin, arched, and smoky, and her eyes; her eyes were just two never-ending whirlpools of white smoke. The rest of her face—Jason couldn't even describe it. Wisps of shadow crawled along her nose and mouth, giving her an eerie snakelike appearance.

"What do you want this time?" he managed to say, despite the terror Furor instilled in him. Jason's previous dreams had either been with Lyssa, who made him relive his worst memories and nightmares over and over again, or with Furor, who tried to drive him to the edge of insanity. Well, in the dream, anyway. Once he woke up he was fine, except when he remembered. But as bad as Lyssa was, Furor was infinitely worse. No, it was the other way around. Or was it..? But either way, both were terrible. If they combined into one being… Jason didn't want to think about it.

"I knew you were smart!" purred Furor. Crap. She could hear his thoughts. "I most certainly can, demigod. Now, as for what I want… you are a Roman hero. Praetor of Camp Jupiter, defeater of the black throne of Krios, and all that. But you are also a son of Jupiter, and your sister is a daughter of Zeus. You found your way to Camp Half-Blood. You are unique, even among demigods such as Perseus Jackson. And a son of Poseidon is simply not as effective as a son of Jupiter, the king of the gods. In addition, your family is Roman and Greek. You yourself decided to stay in the Greek camp for the majority of time after the Giant War. Thus, you are both Roman and Greek."

"Well, that's nice. Now tell me what the point of this is already!" Jason shouted, but he had a bad feeling in his gut about what Lyssa/Furor wanted.

"I want to unite my aspects, both Roman and Greek. I will be very powerful—even more powerful than my old master, Dionysus! Bacchus! Both of them!" Jason couldn't believe what he was hearing. Uniting Greek and Roman demigods was hard enough, even though that was the only way to win the Giant War. No gods dared to try to unify both aspects of themselves. They could live in harmony, sure. But unite themselves? Not even the king of the gods himself dared try. Furor's form suddenly flickered, and for a second she became a huge mass of eight-foot tall shadows. Then she changed back. "Curse the Greek form," she grumbled. "Just a giant shadow? Really? Anyway, my dear hero… the bottom line is that I want your form to help me fuse."

"My form?" Jason stepped back slightly. Furor was crazy.

"Yes!" she was getting impatient, and that was never good when it came to divine beings.

"I thought you just wanted a throne on Mount Olympus…" Jason stalled anyway.

"Only part of my plan, foolish son of Jupiter. The other demigods are not really needed to help me merge. But you are. I will use your form that is both Greek and Roman to become so myself, and then I will discard your body. Perhaps you will survive the experience, perhaps not. But if you work with me… the others will be released back to Camp Half-Blood safely. If you don't…" Furor let the threat hang in the air.

Jason thought quickly. Eight demigods—no, seven if Furor/Lyssa took his form—would not be able to take on the goddess, even with Annabeth's plan, since the spirit of fury might not let them have a chance the execute the plan. In fact, Annabeth's plan wouldn't get a chance to work if he refused the spirit. The only way was to sacrifice himself. Hopefully, he would survive.

Almost imperceptibly, he nodded slowly. Furor chuckled.

"I, the goddess Furor, or Lyssa, swear on the River Styx that your friends will be safely returned to camp if you swear to give your form to me," she said. Muffled thunder boomed.

"I, Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, swear on the River Styx to give my form to you, if my friends will be safely returned to Camp Half-Blood." Jason choked out. In the dream, thunder boomed again.

"Jason! Jason!" Piper was hovering over him anxiously. "I got you a muffin. You missed breakfast. Lyssa's telling us to go to the training room now."

Jason tried to smile (and was pretty sure that he failed), and wolfed down the muffin, after giving Piper a quick peck on the cheek. She left to let him get dressed, and he pulled on the first things he saw: a Superman T-shirt and wrinkled jeans. Ha-ha, very funny, Leo or Percy or whoever got me the shirt… Jason was pretty sure he'd never set eyes on the shirt before. Leo (and Percy, for that matter) had warped senses of humor. For one thing, Jason didn't even have brown hair. And... that was pretty much it.

As soon as Jason stepped into the training room, he got blown by a gust of white, smoky wind to the wall. Annabeth, Hazel, Percy, and Nico were against the walls as well. Piper… he swallowed hard. Piper was standing, alone, in the middle of the room. Holy Jupiter… who's she facing? Only Leo and Frank aren't here yet, but what issues could she possibly have with either of them? Right on cue, the two boys stepped in, talking about… weasels?

Almost instantly, Frank got carried by the unnaturally white wind to a place on the wall, hung like a trophy, right next to Jason. Schist. Leo and Piper… Jason's best friend and his girlfriend were fighting. Annabeth and Hazel both shot him pitying looks, but Annabeth immediately started mouthing something to Leo and Piper frantically. The plan. Remember the plan!

Piper nodded, and Leo twitched his eyebrows slightly to show he understood. And then Piper took a deep breath, and started screaming hysterically. If Jason didn't know any better, he would've sworn that she was terrified out of her mind. But it was all part of the plan. Hopefully Lyssa wouldn't get too mad. The key word: hopefully.

"LYSSA! Why would you do this?! Leo's my best friend!" she shrieked, her choppy brown hair swinging in a braid.

"Yeah! Pipes is one of my best friends, too!" Leo crossed his arms. "Why aren't you answering us?!"

"Are you scared? Of we puny demigods?" taunted Piper. Jason had to admire their bravery. They were spewing insults out faster than he could fully process them, and their tag-teaming was very effective. And add that to Piper's charmspeak, and you get one very pissed-off goddess. Lyssa would be furious. Furious… oh, so that's where the word comes from! As if gods need any more ego boosting, thought Jason. Ugh. Stupid ADHD. Jason turned his attention back to the fight.

"Why don't you show your ugly face?" Leo insulted. "Or do you feel too threatened, Ms. I-need-serious-anger-management-classes?" He began doing a pretty good imitation of Lyssa's voice and high-pitched laughter.

Suddenly, Lyssa appeared, a giant shadow that was even more terrifying in the daytime than it was in Jason's dream. Her eyes—dark sockets—blazed with fury. Literally. Furores churned all around her. "You—you dare to—?!"

"Yep!" Leo smirked gleefully, and started singing something. It sounded vaguely like one of the songs that Jason heard Camp Half-Blood sing at the campfire, about how grandma puts on her armor, or something like that. Piper joined in, and it sounded… very odd, to say the least. Leo's voice was off-key and very, very loud. Piper's voice was melodic and clear, and definitely not as loud as Leo's. But there was no mistaking the fact that they seemed to be having a great time, dancing around Lyssa like she wasn't there at all. Jason thought they were being too risky. Gods, Lyssa's getting really ticked off… Jason watched as Percy grinned and shot a thumbs-up at Annabeth. So far, her plan was working: make Lyssa angry. Lyssa growled, and dozens upon dozens of Furores swirled out of the shadowy being. They encircled Piper first, then Leo. Jason tried to struggle against his invisible bonds, but to no avail. He could only watch helplessly as the Furores filled the room, around and around and around they swooped. Leo's brown eyes, full of mischief, became white smoke. Piper's kaleidoscope eyes, that Jason loved, became white smoke. The room was full of the white smoke. Everywhere: white smoke.

"Some friend you are! Not even checking up on me!" yelled smoky-eyed Leo suddenly. Then his brown eyes came back for a split second. "And that's how Grandma puts on her armor!" he sang discordantly, before his eyes became white again. "I hate you, McLean!"

"Like I care about what you think!" scoffed Piper with white eyes. But Piper with color-changing eyes started singing a verse from "Kumbaya". Lyssa seemed frustrated, and started yelling at the Furores to "work faster". Her concentration went away from the other demigods, and with a mighty heave, Jason jumped off the wall. Everyone else followed his example, and soon the room was in complete chaos. Piper kept singing "Kumbaya", Leo was belting out a Spanish song loudly, and everyone else was stomping around and cursing, including Lyssa. Jason could barely see a foot in front of him, the smoke was so thick. Then he heard Leo yelling insults at Lyssa and Piper, alternately. Piper was doing the same, only with Leo and Lyssa. The whole room echoed with confusing shouting and thumps as people bumped into each other:

"You never checked up on me while I was working, like, twenty-two hours a day on the Argo II!" Jason winced in guilt.

"Someone's singin', Lord, kumbaya… well, that's 'cause you're just an annoying repair boy that will always be the seventh wheel!" Jason guessed that Piper had been overwhelmed by the Furores while in the middle of a verse.

"Lyssa is even suckier than Dirt Face!" Was that Leo, or Percy?

"How dare you?" Definitely Lyssa.

"Annabeth was right! Aphrodite kids are useless! No, they're not! Yes they are! No! Yes! No they're not! Piper is awesome! No, Aphrodite kids are useless!" Despite the tense situation, Jason had to choke back a laugh at the sight of Leo fighting, seemingly with himself.

"Someone's laughin', Lord, kum—hey! Who is that?" Jason found Piper's arm and Leo's head, and dragged them to the door, the other demigods following close behind, leaving Lyssa to yell obscenities to herself.

No! Jason! Don't sacrifice yourself!