A/N: Still playing in the toy box—aka not much is mine. I hope everyone's enjoying it so far! I know it's taking a while to get up here, but hopefully I'll fix that soon! ^_^ Let me know what you think!

Chapter 6

Hours later, all aching from their session with Ares, the team filed out into the lobby of the gods' headquarters.

"I don't know about you guys," Teresa groaned as she dropped onto the bench beneath the large golden statue of Zeus, "but I think I'll follow Harper's lead and damage my leg the next time Ares wants to have a spare lesson."

"Jay almost ripped his arm out of its socket trying to catch Neil before he fell," Odie pointed out. "He could probably get pool time."

"Yeah," Atlanta agreed with a tired nod. "Swimming is definitely more appealing."

"Uh, no," Archie said.

"Are you kidding? A hydra would be more appealing," Odie said, examining his rope-burned hands.

"Careful! He might hear you!" Neil whispered loudly as he glanced around.

Odie laughed and patted him on the shoulder while Jay joined Teresa on the bench. Neil straightened up and turned quickly, announcing something involving Miss Aphrodite and a manicure before striding away.

"Where is Harper anyway?" Herry asked, swinging his towel over his shoulder.

The rest of the team shrugged, with the exception of Jay who's shoulder was still overly sore. Archie took a step for the door. "Who's up for the noon movie?"

"Mashers 3?" Atlanta asked, her eyes lighting up. "Oh yeah, definitely me!"

"I'm not a fan of the Mashers movies," Teresa said with a shrug. "I think I'm going to get some meditation in."

"Jay?" Atlanta asked.

"Heading to the Library. I want to read up on these stones," Jay said, his expression as serious and calculating as ever. "We might need to know more sooner than later."

Archie and Atlanta looked at Odie, who shook his head. "Sorry, I've got a new video game and it needs to be beaten."

"Good luck with that," Archie said smirking.

"How about you, Herry?" Atlanta asked.

"Nah, you guys go ahead," Herry said, his gaze turning back towards the training room. "I think I'm going to do some more stuff around here."

The remaining guys raised eyebrows at him, but Atlanta and Teresa exchanged knowing looks.

"Alright, see ya later!" Atlanta announced, giving Archie a shove closer to the portal, with Odie not far behind.

"You know," Teresa said as their teammates disappeared. "Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing the pool myself. Wouldn't you, Jay?"

Jay looked at her curiously and received a meaningful glance. "Uh,yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'd like to see it."

"Would you mind us coming along, Herry?" Teresa asked, smiling up at him.

"I-uh-sure," Herry said, feeling his face warm up. "Why would I mind?"

Teresa merely smiled and Herry quickly led the way, with Jay trailing behind them looking confused.

Behind the door Harper had taken was a large room built with numerous colors of marble everywhere but the floor, which was a strangely soft cement. Eight columns held up a ceiling of elegant squares which opened in the center for an immense skylight, which was only a foot wider in all directions than the pool it shown over. In the sparkling blue water was Harper, swimming at an incredible pace down the length of the Olympic sized pool.

"Wow," Jay said, staring around the room. "How did we not know this was here?"

Teresa shrugged. "It's not like we have classes with Poseidon," she said. "Looks like she's used this pool alot, though."

"She has," a voice commented, making all three jump and spin to see Artemis sitting on a series of marble bleachers nearby. "It might as well have been a second home for her, don't ya know."

"What are you doing here?" Herry asked as the group joined her.

The goddess shrugged. "Athena has it in her head that Harper's gonna run away again," she said. "So I guess I'm on baby-sitting duty, ey? Now what brings you three out here? I thought you had taken enough of a beating in Ares lesson to have run screaming from here."

"Well, it was tempting," Teresa said with a laugh. "But we wanted to see the pool. Water is good for muscle relaxation, right?"

"Uh-huh," Artemis said, glancing at Herry, who's attention was entirely focused on the water, and rolling her eyes. "I'm sure."

"We wanted to find out more about the stones," Jay said quickly.

"The stones?" Artemis repeated, narrowing her eyes at him with slight suspicion. "Now why do you want to know about those? They're gone already."

"Apparently not," Teresa said and quickly filled the Goddess in on what they'd learned about Iris going missing and the Blue Chalcedony resurfacing. Artemis's eyes widened to the size of golfballs, then she frowned.

"It was a stupid idea to begin with," she said when Teresa had finished. "What good comes from collecting the power into one stone? Woulda been better if they just deluded it or something."

Jay and Teresa exchanged glances.

Herry, however, had strolled over to the far end of the pool, keeping pace with Harper as she swam. When she reached the jump-off side and prepared to swim back, Harper opened her eyes to check the distance to the wall and let out a squeak of surprise as she fell back awkwardly.

She resurfaced again seconds later, smiling though she was still surprised. "I didn't know I had an audience," she said and held a hand out to him. "What are you doing here?"

"Never seen the pool," Herry answered and eagerly took hold of her hand. Harper blinked, again surprised as he easily hoisted her out of the pool and set her feet down on the concrete surround the pool's edge.

"Really?" Harper asked, rubbing her shoulder as she leaned back on the low diving board. "What do you think? A bit grandiose?"

"It—uh—looks like the gods' designed it, that's for sure," Herry said. Harper laughed and gazed around the room, her eyes eventually landing on the group sitting in a deep discussion on the bleachers.

"Am I being guarded or something?" Harper asked, turning back to Herry with a bemused smile.

"Huh? Oh, uh, no," he said.

Harper let out a laugh and shook her head. "Athena's paranoid I'm gonna run," she concluded. "Not surprising. I usually do."

She took a tentative step away from the diving board, wincing as she put weight onto her bad leg, but managed to get to the back of the board. Without being asked, Herry was at her side, letting her lean on him to climb the few steps to the top. She smiled in thanks, blushing deep red, and pulled her hand back as soon as she was stable again.

Clearing her throat and taking small steps, she glanced at the others again only to find that Artemis had left. "So," she said loudly as Jay and Teresa came closer. "Did you guys bring your swim suits?"

Teresa glanced down at her duffel, which had been with her on the trip to the river. "Possibly," she said with a smile. "But that's not really why we're here."

"Oh?" Harper asked innocently.

Ever on topic, Jay shook his head with a frown. "We need to know about the stones," he said. "Artemis says you did more than salvage."

Harper hesitated, staring out at the water below her. "Well yeah," she said, smiling even though it didn't reach her eyes. "We had some battles too—kinda turned into a capture-the-flag type of thing every now and then."

"And ill-effects of the stones?" Teresa added, watching Harper's reaction, but the girl was still hard to read.

"Harper, please," Jay said. "If we're going to protect the remaining stones, we need you to tell us everything you can about them."

The younger girl's gaze remained on the water as she thought. Slowly she took another step to the end of the diving board. "I can't tell you much," she said. "I wasn't the best at noticing what was from the stone and what was a person's personality. But I know someone who did."

"Who?" Teresa asked.

Harper let out a chuckle and shook her head, still staring into the water. "That moron, he would hide them there," she muttered more to herself than the three watching her.

Then she dove into the water. Jay, Teresa and Herry looked at each other in confusion. An unpleasant thought struck Jay—what if she was hiding something?

In moments Harper returned to the surface, breathing hard but with a triumphant grin on her face. She reached her hand out to Herry. "A little help, Herc?"

Herry gave her a strange look, though he smirked and pulled her out of the water again. Under her free arm, Harper was cradling an elegant clay box.

"What is that?" Jay finally asked, raising an eyebrow at her as Herry set her down against the diving board and she smiled in thanks.

"This," Harper said, still radiating triumph as she held out the box, "is everything we'll need."

Jay, Herry, and Teresa exchanged blank looks.

"Pierce left things behind," Harper explained further. "Processing units, notes, geographically marked maps of locations effected—could you open this for me?" She handed the box off to Herry.

"Sounds like he didn't think things were over," Teresa said, watching Herry pull the elegant top off of the box, which crumbled instantly.

"Oops," Herry mumbled.

Harper didn't seem to notice, she had immediately started fishing the things she'd mentioned out of the box. "Ooh!" she gasped fondly and pulled out a small purple hand-held device. "My Geiger-counter!"

"For radiation?" Jay asked, his eyes wide.

The younger girl nodded as though they were talking about something as regular as a watch. "Modified, but yeah I guess," she said with a shrug, then glanced at the small white object Herry was holding. "Oh! And my sea-serpant fang!"

Herry nearly dropped what he'd thought was a sea shell.

"I wonder if he took my Harpie feathers too..." Harper plunged deeper into the box.

By the time Harper was done emptying the box, the three heroes found themselves staring at an amassed collection of Harper's mementoes and technology that would make Odie's mouth water. Harper, though, was frowning.

"I don't get it," she said, more to herself than to the others as she looked at the recovered items.

"Get what?" Teresa asked.

Harper shook her head, too deep in thought to answer at first. "Not all of this is mine."

"It's not?" Herry asked, looking at the numerous items again. "But you recognized all of it."

"Well, yeah, but this," she said, picking up a device that looked a good deal like her geiger counter. "This one's Phoebe's. And those collectors are Ophelia's and AJ's."

Jay picked up the small tools that looked like small flashlights. How on earth did these collect things? But Harper was still rattling on about which items weren't her's. She pointed out a couple of canisters that looked more like scientific viles, some with little crystals in them, which apparently were specific to two other devices, neither of which were present.

"And my violet lenses aren't here," she finished, still frowning in thought. "Why would he leave the wrong pieces?..."

"What about these?" Teresa asked, holding up a pair of aviator sunglasses that had purple lenses. "They look a bit guy-ish, but—."

Harper shook her head and sighed. "I can't use them," she said. "Ike designed each of our sunglasses to suit our eyes—kinda like prescription lenses. These are Tyson's."

"What's so important about them?" Herry asked, taking the sunglasses from Teresa and putting them on to glance around.

"They helped us see the magic traces—the subtle effects of the stones," Harper explained, smirking at Herry. "And other things that are typically invisible to human eyes—and sometimes things that gods can't see either."

Jay raised an eyebrow at her. "That the gods can't see?" he repeated. "Like what?"

"The underside of the stone effects," she said with a shrug. "Other gods."

"Other gods?"

Harper shrugged. "Some gods can make themselves invisible."

"Like Autolycus and the helmet?" Herry asked.

She looked up at him sharply. "Autolycus?"

"Yeah, well it was Hades' helmet," Herry said.

"Cronus had stolen it from Hades and gave it Autolycus at one point," Jay explained, though he wasn't sure that's what Harper was confused about. "He was trying to get his hands on one of Hercules' arrows."

"Oh," Harper said and quickly pushed herself to her feet, doing a fair job of hiding her wince. "So you met him then? Autolycus, I mean."

"Yeah, briefly," Teresa scoffed folding her arms at the memory. "While he was trying to rob my house."

Harper gave a small laugh as she dropped her team's possessions back into the clay box. "Well, that sounds right," she said. "He's the prince of thieves, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Teresa said with a laugh. "But he still couldn't get past us."

Jay watched as Harper quickly set the box on the floor and scrambled back onto the diving board. "Wow," she said, steadying herself to dive again. "Sounds like he didn't live up to history—or well, myth."

"No, he did," Jay said. "I just don't think he expected us to be... observant."

Harper hesitated, then turned to smile at them. "Sounds interesting," she said. "If you want to join swimming, I'd love to hear more. Go get suits on!"

"Ok," Herry said instantly, making Teresa giggle and Harper blush.

"Sure, why not?" Teresa said, still grinning at her teammate. "I could use a refreshing swim after Ares' session."

"That does not surprise me," Harper said with a laugh. "How about you, Jay?"

"No, you guys go ahead," he said, getting to his feet.

"Are you sure?" Teresa asked. "It'd probably help your shoulder."

Jay laughed and rubbed the shoulder in question. "Yeah, I have some things I wanted to look into anyway."

"Suit yourself," Teresa said with a shrug, then turned to Harper and Herry. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Ok!" Harper called after them as Jay and Teresa headed back towards the door. "Locker rooms are to the right of the bleachers!"

With that said, the blonde hair dove into the pool again. Herry watched until she resurfaced, then wandered off to the locker rooms.

At the door, Jay and Teresa picked up their discarded duffles. "A penny for your thoughts?" Teresa asked, fixing the strap on her shoulder. "You think she's lying?"

Jay glanced back at the pool. "Not entirely," he said. "But she's definitely not telling us everything... I think I'm going to talk to the gods, see what they'll give me."

"Well, good luck," Teresa said, patting his shoulder. "I'll keep my ears open here too."

Jay gave her a nod and a smile before heading out the door. Teresa continued to smile as she turned toward the locker rooms, a faint blush on her cheeks.