A/N Ok, I just realized that with my writing, I won't be able to write the whole chap on one page. So this is part 2. Also, I would like to inform you that this chapter is written on my new Laptop, courtesy of my mum and those teachers of mine who hates their students for using tablets and smartphones. hence, I hope you like it.

Chapter 17: playing pinochle with a Horse-man part 2

Hermes's pov

Oh, man! these gadgets are awesome. I love them already. I am not going to say what they are telling me but suffice it to say many things have been changed in future. Back to the story,

"Andrew?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond guy.

"Can you stop calling me 'the blond guy'!" "Nope!" That girl has a cheek.

He came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young gentleman nursed you back to health, Percy. Andrew, my child, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting her in cabin eleven for now."

"Why do I have a feeling, Cabin eleven is mine?" " It is Lord Hermes !" I silently cheered thinking about the first daughter of Poseidon sleeping in the same cabin as my kids. It will be super fun to listen to them become friends.

Andrew said, "Sure, Chiron."

He was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With His deep tan and his blond hair, he was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California guy would look like, except his eyes ruined the image.

"They always do that!" Apollo and I said shuddering at her scary gray eyes. At the same time, Athena and her son glared at Percy, who in turn asked Aphrodite to read further.

They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if he were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

"He can't!" uncle P said pompously. Before Athena could contradict him Aphrodite begin reading again.

He glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined he was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that.

"In your dreams, seaweed brain" oh! young love. Then, damn Aphrodite is affecting my brain cells.

Instead he said, "You snore when you sleep."

Everyone laughed at Andrew's comment and Percy blushed hard.

Then he sprinted off down the lawn.

"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?".

"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex—Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D … does that stand for something?"

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young lady, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."

Poseidon glared at the person in the book and I hoped he would not be in the room.

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?"

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to … ah, take a leave of absence."

"Literally?" Hades frowned at him. " I don't know, this is in the future." " No" Chiron and Percy answered simultaneously.

I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher during my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.

"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.

Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."

"She passed the first test and all the other tests henceforth! " Grover replied proudly." She had to because these tests don't have do-overs." Son of Athena pointed out.

"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

Wait for a second, Grover is scared of the man. satyrs only follow pan or Dionysus. Pan would not be rude to them. That means...Its Dionysus. I started laughing hysterically. everyone other than future demigods looked at me weirdly. Andrew raised an eyebrow at me while the other demigods looked amused. "What is so amusing about the line Hermes ?"Dionysus asked me. I shook my head and asked Aphrodite to read.

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I said.

"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.

"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.

" Me too!" Triton muttered.

"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young people to know the rules."

"I'm sure the girl can learn," Chiron said.

"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun—Chiron—why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"

"The place is called camp half blood. You are a demigod, hence it is your home. Chiron went to Yancy academy to check whether or not you are a Trouble with a T." Apollo's son answered. " Which she is," Nico added. Percy scowled at them.

Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."

The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.

Pan looked angry at the 'Director'.

Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'

"She said …" I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."

"As if that is possible. Percy can never leave her mortal part of life. That is why she is so special. " Katie replied while others nodded. That girl is something.

"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young woman, are you bidding or not?"

Poseidon's eye twitched.

"What?" I asked.

He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."

" Chiron !" "You didn't show her the orientation film ?" " No wonder she was so clueless!" The future ones moaned.

"Orientation film?" I asked.

"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"—he pointed to the horn in the shoe box—"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, girl.

"No small feat! She defeated a bloody minotaur! how can that be a small feat!" Theasus asked-yelled. " Well, you killed. The bull-man has been defeated earlier, so there is no surprise" Jason replied.

What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods—the forces you call the Greek gods—are very much alive."

I stared at the others around the table.

I waited for somebody to yell, Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.

"Can you at least show her some mercy? She is new to that world" Sally glared at the book.

"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?

"Eh? Oh, all right."

"Grover has his priorities straight" Travis snorted and patted the satyr.

Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

" There is no such thing as God, fool!" Dad grunted angrily.

"Well, now," Chiron said. "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."

"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—"

"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

"SMALLER!" Most of us shouted at Chiron. Who does he think he is to call us a smaller matter? Chiron winced at that.

"Smaller?"

"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."

"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."

And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.

"Dad likes to be a drama queen." I shrugged at that.

"Young lady," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."

"You think she would listen to anyone." Thalia snorted.

"But they're stories," I said. "They're—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."

"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Penelope Persis Jackson"—I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody—"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this girl and tell me."

"Why does Mr. D. sounds like -" " Hestia! No spoilers" I exclaimed. Everyone else was thinking about the identity of Mr. D. Well, everyone other than the future ones.

I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't.

"Of course, he isn't Sea spawn!" Athena muttered

It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.

"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

" That sounds so amazing !" "No, it is so boring !" Percy countered Apollo. all the gods gasped. How can she say that?

I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.

"Chiron always does that. He makes us rethink our answers." Andrew nodded.

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.

"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Penelope Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little kids can get over losing their mothers?"

"That was a low, Chiron" Most of the goddesses replied angrily. " Well, it did help me understand how the gods felt. Which was what he wanted me to realize." Percy defended her teacher.

My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."

I couldn't help but realize how inconsiderate Dionysus has become with time.

Grover said, "P-please, sir. She's just lost her mother. She's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with kids who don't even believe.'"

" Well, they will, if he tries harder. After all, they are demigods. not lunatics" Dionysus replied. I could hear the anger in his voice.

He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.

So did everyone else. " It 's you," Dad exclaimed pointing at the wine dude. Remembering what h just said, everyone started laughing hysterically at him as he grew red.

"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."

"RESTRICTIONS! ON WINE. WHO DARED TO THAT " wine god shouted and everyone became silent.

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.

"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder.

"FATHER !" " Be quite , Dionysus. You must have done something terrible to get such punishment." Dad replied. He huffed and sat down.

Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, and took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."

"Must be, because he would have wanted her for himself." Hera threw him a withering glare.

"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.

"First time is always weird. " Artemis shrugged.

I was trying to place his name in Greek mythology. Name starting with D. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed as if Mr. D were his master. Dionysus.

"She is smart for a sea spawn," Athena replied.

Oh boy! The wine god, famous for drinking and partying among other things.

Dionysus scowled at the sea princess.

but I wasn't sure. So hoping against hope, I listened to his babbling

" I don't babble." The wine god whined.

and formulated a way to find his identity.

"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time

"TWICE! REALLY ZEUS " Hera shouted, seething so hard, one could actually see steam coming out of her ears.

—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."

"UNFAIR! I will show you how unfair it will be. I will make sure both of you know what unfairness means. I order both of you to get out of my sight for the next millennia. " They both vanished out of sight while everyone else was silently laughing at the trio. "Come back, both of you. And vanish again when we finish the books." Demeter ordered them and they reappeared.

Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

He might have said something but Hera silenced him with a glare.

"And …" I asked hesitantly, "your father is …"

"Di immortales, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this girl the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."

"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."

Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"

"Y-yes, Mr. D."

"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"

"In your dreams! " I don't even want to be !"

"Do you really have to act like a petulant child?"

All the gods looked at her shocked at the demigoddess's boldness.

He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

The entire sea family along with future demigods glared at him.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.

"No. No, sir."

"The glares intensified. everyone else shifted in their seats. No one wants the sea as an enemy.

The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."

"Chiron is secretly an expert gambler. No way! You have to play with us sometime." Apollo and I exclaimed at the same time

I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

"Dionysus stop scaring the satyr." Pan admonished.

Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."

He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.

"Yes, he will be. I am not that cruel!" the wine god defended himself.

Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been … ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"I am grounded for centuries!" Poor D. moaned about it being an injustice.

"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"

"Yes, there is !" Most of us cheered at our home.

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."

See Andrew you wasted theirs and your own time by explaining something that is already given in the book." Conner pointed out as Andrew muttered something under his breath.

"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like … in America?"

"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."

"The what? " Triton asked.

"The what?"

Triton smiled at Percy.

"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it,

We gods looked proud that we can be a source of something so powerful.

or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade,

Way to burst our bubble, Chiron.

not unless all of Western civilization was obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course

"She passed his course, How?" Thalia and Nico exclaimed. Percy pouted at them.

—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods."

"Well in essence, yes. But several things about them changed too ." Jason replied.

"And then they died."

"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, and on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course, they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus.

The king of gods looked like a peacock with a puffed chest and all that.

Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome

Roman demigods scowled at the Centaur. "Don't even dare say a word. When I first came to the roman camp, many of you didn't seem very happy with the Greek culture either. Do you wish me to recall that?" Percy warned and they blushed at her reminder.

, either—America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."

It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.

"Yes, we are a club of awesome super humans" My kids cheered. I smiled at them.

"Who are you, Chiron? Who … who am I?"

" He is an ancient Centaur-teacher and you are a super powerful-yet-idiotic-and-extremely-oblivious daughter of Neptune. " Jason teased his cousin. It was good to see our half-siblings being friends with our cousins as usually, they at each other's necks, especially in our time.

Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun." Hazel snickered.

He was paralyzed from the waist down.

" Unfortunately, that is not true," Chiron commented humorously.

"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want to be answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

"Adore! I think the better word would be 'obsessed', considering how much you inhale them." Chiron blushed while we snickered.

And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear

"I beg your pardon..." Chiron sputtered blushing.

, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic,

"As we said before, it was made by dad, so it has to be special." The son of Hephaestus said proudly.

because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached...

I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."

" And the chapter ends," Aphrodite says. " Finally." " We will read one more chapter and then have a break. Okay? " Hestia asked and we all nodded. " Who will read next." " I will. Hades said and took the book from Aphrodite.

So this was the second part. Now many of you wanted me to update sooner. It's just that on my smartphone I had to copy and paste all the stuff and as I had an older version it was creating problems. But now, with this new gift, I promise you to give a new chapter each week. Or at least every two weeks, taking into consideration my online classes and other stuff. Hope you like this chapter. See you next week.