AN new chapter i have also uploaded one for greek read kane chronicles.

Hope you like them

Chapter 28: Help from Gladolia

Grover's pov

"And the chapter ends. Now we have a lot to discuss," Lady Athena said, closing the book forcefully. She glared at Percy."Yes, we do!" Hazel nodded before adding, "Why are Dad, Lord Zeus and Lord Posiedon acting so strangely. They are not even mad at Percy for Medusa's head. Just called her impertinent. "

"Your father and Uncles are not heartless, love," Hestia explained. We gave her We-respect-her-but-don't-believe-her look. "Ok! Maybe they can be a bit brash and childish." " A bit! I would say a lot. They are ignorant and selfish." Luke muttered. Yeah! Like you weren't! I thought. Grover! Percy muttered in my mind through our link. Damn. I forgot about that. I thought wincing. Yes, you did. Now shut up. Came the reply before she turned her focus back to the meeting.

All the gods and goddesses looked at Luke as if they were looking at us for the first time. "You all don't think we are monsters, do you?. " We shifted in our seats, knowing fully well why the second titan war actually happened and realising for the first time that we were in actual Ancient Greece. When the gods were still young and hadn't faced centuries of hardships. They hadn't seen the rise and fall of Rome or the birth of Christianity, the revolution, the wars, the whole enchilada. Enchilada yumm!. Huh. Get out of it, Grover. "No, not monsters, but in the future, in our time, you aren't as amicable as you are right now. " Percy said after some time. The gods frowned at her, not understanding anything.

Athena shook her head "Don't change the subject. All this does not explain what Aphrodite's daughter had said earlier. Aren't you married to my son? Or are you playing with his heart, like your half brothers were famous for?" Athena is glaring at Percy, as if she wants to incinerate her then and there. "WHAT!" Posiedon looks murderously at Athena (for even suggesting such a thing and at Andrew for an explanation. I can feel light tremors passing beneath my feet.

"Lord Posiedon!Mother!" Andrew tries to defend. "Silence, Andrew, let her speak." "Yes, Percy! Tell me if he is trying to force you into something!" Percy is glaring at her father but speaks up in a calm voice, "No! We are not married, nor has he forced me into anything. We are dating. If you want to know what dating is, just ask those glasses." Everyone listens intently to the explanation, which must be along the lines of seeing and going out together with the person you like.

"So it's like courting but a bit more casual." Lord Apollo asks. We nod, "And you like that Athena's brat ?" Lord Hades asked. Percy crosses her arms and replies, "Yes! Yes, I do like Andrew. And why are you all after my love life? Why don't you ask everyone else who their beau is ?" "Are you all dating? " "Yes! We are. " Piper replies, red dusting her cheeks, "I am dating Jason." Lord Ares hoots and says, "Nice one, brother. " Jason makes a face.

"And you all?" Lady Persephone asks, looking at her step-children interestingly, "I am with Frank. " Hazel says meekly, making Lord Hades glare at him fiercely. "And I am with Will." Nico ends. "Okay " Lord Hades looks flustered but not unhappy. "Moving on, I am dating Juniper, she is a tree-nymph. "

"I am dating Chris," Clarisse says, making Ares and Hermes look at each other. "And I like Charles. " Selina squeals, hugging his arm. Lady Aphrodite looks disgusted, but Lord Hephestus nods at his son with a smile. "And I like Calypso," Leo said, grinning. "Yeah! So does everyone who lands on her island. " Zoe said, only to meet with silence. "You are not telling me, she is free?" She asks in disbelief. We nod our heads, making the gods gasp. "Who dared to free her?" Lord Zeus thundered. "You did!" Percy says, making him turn red.

Mr. D, who till now was listening to everything silently, says, "This is all nice and chummy. Can we now go back to reading that book? I want to finish this book today." He glares at everyone. I can see none of the gods and goddesses want to continue since they must have a lot of questions, but they still nod in agreement. Lord Hermes raises the book and turns to the next chapter.

12. WE GET ADVICE FROM A POODLE

I tense as Percy blurts out "Uhu!" "What now! Don't tell me the poodle was a cimera." Thalia asked exasperated. "Nah! Chimera was a chihuahua. This is a different uhu!" Percy replies, eyeing Lord Pan. We both were not looking forward to this chapter.

We were pretty miserable that night.

"You wouldn't be if someone hadn't created that monster!" Lady Hera threw a scornful look at Lady Athena. "It wasn't just her fault. Poseidon was just as much to blame. And her own son was in danger too." Lady Amphitrite defended.

We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

"Good Zeus! What have they done to my nature!" Pan turned green.

We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. We didn't want to attract anything else.

"Why didn't you dry it with your powers?" Lord Triton asks." Because I didn't knew how to use it." Percy replies. He nods

We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch.

"Caring as always! " Lady Hestia smiled gently.

Andrew laid down on the blankets and was snoring as soon as his head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

"You are not going to start sprouting poetry, are you!" Chris smirks. I shove him away.

"Go ahead and sleep," I told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble. "

He nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Percy. "

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"

"Then leave it. Don't go to the underworld. " Poseidon urged. "And give up the chance to save her mom. Nah! She would never do that." Clarisse points out.

"No. This makes me sad. " He pointed at all the garbage on the ground.

Pan and Mr D look miffed.

"And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky.

Lord Artemis and Lord Apollo don't look good either.

This is a terrible time to be a satyr. "

"Uhu!" All the Greek demigods of our time say in unison, realising where the conversation is going.

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist. "

"Everyone should take care of our nature." Lord Hermes nods firmly at Percy. She wince. I can read her mind this time as easily as a book. She is thinking how Lord Hermes would take to his sons' passing, both the mortal and the immortal. That made me pause for a moment and rethink my attitude toward Luke. He may be a traitor, yet Lord Hermes didn't deserve it.

He glared at me. "Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast... ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan. "

"Find me?" Pan asked, confused, but lord Hermes was shaking in his seat.

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"

"Pan!" he cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"

"Wait! What happened to Pan? Why do you need to search for him?" Lady Artemis looks worriedly at Lord Hermes.

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I'd never known.

"Tell me about the search," I said.

Be ready to take the book. Percy tells me through our connection. I look at Lord Hermes worriedly, knowing what's coming next.

Grover looked at me cautiously, as if he were afraid I was just making fun.

"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago,"

And lord Hermes turned into a rooster. I guess, now I know what his sacred animal is other than the goat. And that gods turn into something they like the most. All the Greeks wince. Travis, Conner, Chris and Luke look worried for their father. I take the book gingerly from the goat's mouth.

he told me. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, Tell them that the great god Pan has died! When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep. "

"And you want to be a searcher. "

"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand... the statue you saw back there—"

"Oh, right, sorry. "

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive. "

"Oh, my poor brave Satyr!" Pan is crying, thinking how much he is loved by his subjects. Mr. D isn't looking good either, thinking about his friend's demise.

"Hang on—the first?"

Lord Hermes-chicken crowns.

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again. "

"NO!" Lord Pan looks close to passing out. I hesitate to read further, looking at everyone's expression. It will come out either way, goat boy. I nod to Percy.

"Not once in two thousand years?"

"No. "

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"

"None. "

All the gods, past demigods and Romans are looking at me in pure disbelief. I blush under such attention, but continue.

"But you still want to go," I said, amazed. "I mean, you really think you'll be the one to find Pan?"

"I have to believe that, Percy. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened. "

"Believing in it is key to success." Andrew nods seriously.

I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was I any better?

Lord Hermes has turned back to his normal self, "Just give me a mo. This turning business is not good for gods."

"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" I asked him. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"

"That depends! " Theseus says, "On?" Andromed replies, "On his mood, of course." "Of course!" She says bitingly, "You would know that, wouldn't you!" He blushes.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were searching her office? Andrew was telling me—"

"Oh, I forgot. Andrew will have a plan all figured out. "

Luke looks relieved and guilty at the same time. I know him enough to know he is partially enjoying Percy's annoyance with Andrew.

"Don't be so hard on him, Percy. He's had a tough life, but he's a good person. After all, he forgave me. . . . " His voice faltered.

"Forgave you for what?" Lady Athena asks sharply. "Give me the book, Grover. Otherwise, they will not stop interrupting you!" I hand the book back to Lord Hermes.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Forgave you for what?"

Suddenly, Grover seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Your first keeper job was five years ago. Andrew has been at camp five years. He wasn't. . . I mean, your first assignment that went wrong—"

"Goat boy!" Andrew and Thalia groaned.

"I can't talk about it," Grover said, and his quivering lower lip suggested he'd start crying if I pressed him. "But as I was saying, back at Medusa's, Andrew and I agreed there's something strange going on with this quest. Something isn't what it seems. "

"Well, duh. I'm getting blamed for stealing a thunderbolt that Hades took. "

"I didn't had the stupid bolt." Lord Hades groaned. "Then who did?" Lord Zeus countered. "I don't know!"

"That's not what I mean," Grover said. "The Fur—The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. . . why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been. "

"They seemed plenty aggressive to me. " But I silently agreed with him. Why the wait?

"They must be testing whether you can do such a thing or not! " Heracles thinks.

Grover shook his head. "They were screeching at us: Where is it? Where?"

"Asking about me? Maybe. Not that I like being considered a thing!" I said.

"And yet that is what men consider us!" Lady Artemis sneered at all the male gods.

"Maybe... but Andrew and I, we both also got the feeling they weren't asking about a person but an object. "

"That doesn't make sense. "

"I know. But if we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt. . . . " He looked at me like he was hoping for answers, but I didn't have any.

"Wrong person to ask that question !" Nico raised his eyebrow.

I thought about what Medusa had said: I was being used by the gods. What lay ahead of me was worse than petrification.

"Don't listen to her." Andromeda looked concerned.

"I haven't been straight with you," I told Grover. "I don't care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could bring back my mother. "

Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Percy. But are you sure that's the only reason?"

"I'm not doing it to help my father. He doesn't care about me. I don't care about him. "

Percy was looking everywhere other than at her father. He didn't look any better.

Grover gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, Percy, I'm not as smart as Andrew. I'm not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he's claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you'd done. "

I can see realisation dawn on his face as Percy turned red.

"Yeah? Well maybe satyr emotions work differently than human emotions. Because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks. " I didn't know whom I was trying to convince, him or myself.

Grover pulled his feet up onto the branch. "Okay, Percy. Whatever. "

Lord Posiedon was smiling softly.

"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about.

"Can you stop downplaying your strength?" Piper said exasperated.

We barely got out of New York and were stuck here with no money and no way west. "

"That does sound like a huge problem. " Theseus winced.

Grover looked at the night sky, like he was thinking about that problem. "How about I take first watch, huh? You get some sleep. "

I wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and I turned away, my eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no. 12, I was asleep.

In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.

They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.

Looking down made me dizzy.

"Tarturus!" The big three suck their breath.

The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

The little hero, an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. Too weak, too young, but perhaps you will do.

"Father! " All the children of Kronos, except Lord Zeus muttered.

The voice felt ancient—cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead.

They have misled you, girl, it said. Barter with me. I will give you what you want.

"It's his doing, isn't it!" Lady Demeter asked, shocked. "No, it can't be. This is Hades's mess. He is just messing with her." Lord Zeus urged. "I am not! Why would I "

A shimmering image hovered over the void: my mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: Go!

We all sighed, knowing how hard that was on Percy. Andrew wrapped his arm around her as she bowed her head on her hands. Lord Poseidon was gripping his trident tightly, looking at them, but for some reason, Lady Athena was smirking slightly. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn't work.

Cold laughter echoed from the chasm.

An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm.

Help me rise, girl. The voice became hungrier. Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!

"He is rising!" Now, all the gods were panicking. "No, I don't believe it. It's just a trick," Lord Zeus was still in denial. Some things can't change. I thought, frustrated. Lord Poseidon and Lord Hades were also passing annoyed looks at their stubborn brother.

The spirits of the dead whispered around me, No! Wake!

The image of my mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me.

I realized it wasn't interested in pulling me in. It was using me to pull itself out.

Sally and Lord Poseidon looked tense. Luke was trying not to look at Percy.

Good, it murmured. Good.

Wake! the dead whispered. Wake!

She blinked up beardly. I realised she must have zoned out listening about the pit.

Someone was shaking me.

My eyes opened, and it was daylight.

"Well," Andrew said, "the zombie lives. "

Andrew was looking at her worriedly.

I was trembling from the dream. I could still feel the grip of the chasm monster around my chest. "How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for me to cook breakfast. " Andrew tossed me a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. "And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend. "

"That's my favourite type of cooking!" Leo tried to lighten the mood, but even he was looking at Percy worriedly.

My eyes had trouble focusing.

"Please tell me it isn't another monster." Andromeda cried, "Nope, just a friend." We three shared a smile.

Grover was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal.

"Pink stuffed animal?" Katie said, confused. Lord Hermes started spluttering and laughing. "What?" Lady Artemis asked, also confused.

No. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle.

Everyone roared with laughter so hard it sounded like a tsunami. "Oh! I would love to introduce that to Octavian!" Hazel was saying in between the fits.

The poodle yapped at me suspiciously. Grover said, "No, she's not. "

I blinked. "Are you... talking to that thing?"

The poodle growled.

"This thing," Grover warned, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him. "

"You asked for help from a pink poodle! " Travis asked, his eyes bright.

"You can talk to animals?"

Grover ignored the question. "Percy, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Percy. "

"Isn't Gladiola a girl's name? " Zoe asked. "He is a male poodle, dyed pink. What does that say about its owners? " All the gods associated with nature snorted.

I stared at Andrew, figuring he'd crack up at this practical joke they were playing on me, but he looked deadly serious.

"I'm not saying hello to a pink poodle," I said. "Forget it. "

"Why not? " Thalia teased. Percy stuck her tongue at her.

"Percy," Andrew said. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle. "

The poodle growled.

I said hello to the poodle.

"See, that wasn't hard." Silena joined in.

Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to go back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover.

"How kind!" Charles said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

"How does Gladiola know about the reward?" I asked.

"He read the signs," Grover said. "Duh. "

"Of course," I said. "Silly me. "

"So we turn in Gladiola," Andrew explained in his best strategy voice, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple. "

"Not another bus. I hope !" Lord Triton worried.

I thought about my dream—the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and my mother's face, shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be waiting for me in the West.

"Don't despair, Percy! " Lady Amphitrite said in a soothing voice. "Just listen to your heart and everything will be alright."

"Not another bus," I said warily.

"No," Andrew agreed.

He pointed downhill, toward train tracks I hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrak station half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the westbound train leaves at noon. "

"A train sounds good!" "And the chapter ends, who's next?" "I will read next!" Lord Zeus said, taking the book. Oh man, as if this could have gone worse.