Annabeth's breath hitched. She didn't understand, she knew she needed all of the answers, even if she was nervous about what they were. " What do you mean?" she asked, her voice shaky. Thalia put her arms around her shoulders.

The Gods, tired of Hera's actions, decided to defy The Fates and take his, and two Romans Percy was involved withs, thoughts and thanks to Apollo, it's in the form of a book. The Fates won't appreciate it, but that's not our problem." Annabeth wasn't sure what to think or feel. For some reason she felt absolutely nothing, and the others saw that too.

"How long until Campfire?" Annabeth asked out of sheer anticipation. She couldn't believe it, she knew she should be having a huge panic attack right now about what she will hear, but after all of these months of worrying about him, it's better now that she will know. Being Athena's child means always wanting to know everything, no matter how horrific. She didn't know if she should thank her mother or be mad about it, but she decided to wait until after she hears about what's happening with percy.

" It's after dinner, which is starting as we speak, so I would say one hour tops." Jason answered, seemingly happy of how Annabeth was taking it.

" Great," Annabeth said " Lets eat."

Annabeth, Thalia, Jason, Piper, and Leo were the first to finish their dinner and get seats for the campfire, being the only ones who knew what was in store for campfire tonight. Grover wasn't there at the moment, but we told him we would tell him about what happened to Percy. It seemed like hours, though it was only ten minutes, when all of the campers and Hunters finished eating and were lining up, taking their seats around the campfire.

" Okay Campers and Hunters, instead of our usual sing alongs, tonight we are going to read a story." Chiron said at first without explaining what the story was about, probably for suspense.

Many of the campers groaned, thinking it was a regular, boring story, and Annabeth gave the campers who groaned near her a look that if looks could kill, the whole world would be dead. They immediately looked uncomfortable, but confused about why she cared so much.

Chiron continued smiling, probably anticipating the reactions of that campers when they found out about the subject at matter. "This book is about our missing camper, Percy Jackson and his whereabouts." For a good thirty seconds, everybody was silent with shocked faces, some looking at the five of them trying to see their reaction to this information, but realizing that our expressions aren't shocked at all. Finally people started murmuring and that leaded to a riot of teenagers yelling out questions to Chiron and the five of them. After about ten seconds of that, Chiron lifted his hand for silence, and though that took a while, it finally calmed down to a few campers whispering to each other.

" I know all of you are confused, as am I, but I think it would be easiest to just start reading and figure it out together." Chiron said almost cheerfully. " Who wants to read first?"

Half of the campers raised their hands, including Annabeth, she never knew so many people were that interested in Percy's life. Even some of the Hunters raised their hands.

"Annabeth, I would let you read, but I feel if it's best if you let a couple others read before you." Annabeth was disappointed, but she knew it was probably for the best. After all Chiron is eons old, so she shouldn't question his judgement." Thalia, you can read first." Chiron said as Thalia got up up eagerly from her seat and took the book from him.

"Okay" Thalia said with a hint of excitement." Let's get started.

THE SNAKE-HAIRED LADIES WERE starting to annoy Percy.

" Oh my gods, Gorgans." Annabeth said out loud for the whole camp to hear.

" Spoiler alert" said together in a witty tone but their faces dropped when they saw the glare they were getting from Annabeth.

They should have died three days ago when he dropped a crate of bowling balls on them at the Napa Bargain Mart.

The whole camp laughed at this, knowing Percy's creative ways of killing creatures.

They should have died two days ago when he ran over them with a police car in Martinez.

"Oh my Gods, I don't even want to know where he got it." Thalia said with a half annoyed, half intrigued tone.

" This guy seems pretty cool already, you guys didn't tell me the stories of Grand Theft Auto." Leo said with witt.

"Shut up Leo!" The whole camp chorused.

No matter how many times Percy killed them and watched them crumble to powder, they just kept re-forming like large evil dust bunnies. He couldn't even seem to outrun them.

" Oh poor Percy" Annabeth said sadly.

The Campers looked at her sadly knowing this must be hard for her.

He reached the top of the hill and caught his breath. How long since he'd last killed them? Maybe two hours. They never seemed to stay dead longer than that. The past few days, he'd hardly slept. He'd eaten whatever he could scrounge—vending machine gummi bears, stale bagels, even a Jack in the Crack burrito, which was a new personal low. His clothes were torn, burned, and splattered with monster slime. He'd only survived this long because the two snake-haired-ladies—gorgons, they called themselves—couldn't seem to kill him either. Their claws didn't cut his skin. Their teeth broke whenever they tried to bite him. But Percy couldn't keep going much longer. Soon he'd collapse from exhaustion, and then—as hard as he was to kill, he was pretty sure the gorgons would find a way.

Annabeth held her breath, wishing she could help him.

He scanned his surroundings. Under different circumstances, he might've enjoyed the view. To his left, golden hills rolled inland, dotted with lakes, woods, and a few herds of cows. To his right, the flatlands of Berkeley and Oakland marched west—a vast checkerboard of neighborhoods, with several million people who probably did not want their morning interrupted by two monsters and a filthy demigod.

"Well" said Jason " at least he knows he's a demigod, maybe he does have his memory!"

Annabeth wasn't so sure.

A vague sadness weighed on Percy's chest. Something told him he'd been to San Francisco before. The city had some connection to Annabeth—the only person he could remember from his past. His memory of her was frustratingly dim. The wolf had promised he would see her again and regain his memory—if he succeeded in his journey.

" I stand corrected" said Jason Apologetically as the Aphrodite cabin squealed about the fact that Annabeth was the only person Percy remembered. She felt her heart warm at the thought.

Should he try to cross the bay? It was tempting. He could feel the power of the ocean just over the horizon. Water always revived him. Salt water was the best. He'd discovered that two days ago when he had strangled a sea monster in the Carquinez Strait.

" He what?" asked Leo, with a look of surprise and awe.

If he could reach the bay, he might be able to make a last stand. Maybe he could even drown the gorgons. But the shore was at least two miles away. He'd have to cross an entire city. He hesitated for another reason. The she-wolf Lupa had taught him to sharpen his senses—to trust the instincts that had been guiding him south. His homing radar was tingling like crazy now. The end of his journey was close—almost right under his feet. But how could that be? There was nothing on the hilltop.

" The She-Wolf?" Malcolm, from her cabin, asked." Does he mean that wolf that you grew up with?" He asked Jason.

" Yup, that's the one." Jason said

The wind changed. Percy caught the sour scent of reptile. A hundred yards down the slope, something rustled through the woods—snapping branches, crunching leaves, hissing. Gorgons.

"Oh no" Annabeth said.

" It's going to be okay" Piper, who had been silent lately, said with a hint of charmspeak.

Annabeth seemed to calm down then she said " Go ahead Thalia"

Thalia continued.

For the millionth time, Percy wished their noses weren't so good. They had always said they could smell him because he was a demigod—the half-blood son of some old Roman god.

The whole camp shook with laughter.

" If his dad heard that" said Thalia shaking with laughter as well.

Percy had tried rolling in mud, splashing through creeks, even keeping air-freshener sticks in his pockets so he'd have that new car smell; but apparently demigod stink was hard to mask.

" He did always stink" Travis Stoll said trying to be funny, but earned a look of disgust from Annabeth when he said that.

He scrambled to the west side of the summit. It was too steep to descend. The slope plummeted eighty feet, straight to the roof of an apartment complex built into the hillside. Fifty feet below that, a highway emerged from the hill's base and wound its way toward Berkeley. Great. No other way off the hill. He'd managed to get himself cornered. He stared at the stream of cars flowing west toward San Francisco and wished he were in one of them. Then he realized the highway must cut through the hill. There must be a tunnel…right under his feet. His internal radar went nuts. He was in the right place, just too high up. He had to check out that tunnel. He needed a way down to the highway—fast. He slung off his backpack. He'd managed to grab a lot of supplies at the Napa Bargain Mart: a portable GPS, duct tape, lighter, superglue, water bottle, camping roll, a Comfy Panda Pillow Pet (as seen on TV),

The whole camp, including Annabeth laughed at the thought of Percy walking around with a Pillow Pet.

That left him two options: jump eighty feet to his death, or stand and fight. Both options sounded pretty bad.

Annabeth shivered at the thought of his choices.

" He's always had the worst luck" Thalia said laughing.

" It was always a safety hazard to be around him" Annabeth joked, joining Thalia, and those who knew Percy in laughing.

He cursed and pulled his pen from his pocket.

" RIPTIDE" several campers shouted, including Annabeth and Thalia.

" What?" Jason, Piper, and Leo questioned in unison.

" You'll see" said Annabeth and Thalia together.

The pen didn't look like much, just a regular cheap ballpoint, but when Percy uncapped it, it grew into a glowing bronze sword.

" I WANT ONE" Leo said excitedly

" Fun fact," said Annabeth " half of this camp, if not all of it would be dead without Riptide."

A couple campers murmured stating it was correct.

" Wow" Jason said, " It's like my coin."

Annabeth nodded her head in agreement.

" Go on." said some random camper in the back.

Etched along the guard was an Ancient Greek word Percy somehow understood: Anaklusmos—Riptide. He'd woken up with this sword his first night at the Wolf House—two months ago? More? He'd lost track. He'd found himself in the courtyard of a burned-out mansion in the middle of the woods, wearing shorts, an orange T-shirt, and a leather necklace with a bunch of strange clay beads.

A couple gasped in excitement that Percy still had his stuff from camp.

Riptide had been in his hand, but Percy had had no idea how he'd gotten there, and only the vaguest idea who he was. He'd been barefoot, freezing, and confused.

" Poor guy" said Jason, " That's worse than how I woke up." Jason said

Piper was looking at her boyfriend like she was about to kill him. It was then when Jason realized he woke up holding Piper's hand and said trying to save himself from being killed " Not that waking up was bad, no it was great."

The campers who knew exactly how he woke up burst out laughing while the campers who didn't know the full story looked confused. Piper, remembering that she hated attention decided to drop it for the time being, but the gleam in her eye showed she was still kind of mad.

And then the wolves came.… Right next to him, a familiar voice jolted him back to the present: "There you are!" Percy stumbled away from the gorgon, almost falling off the edge of the hill. It was the smiley one—Beano.

" Who?" murmured the Athena Cabin. There were no Gorgons called Beano, thought Annabeth.

Okay, her name wasn't really Beano. As near as Percy could figure, he was dyslexic, because words got twisted around when he tried to read. The first time he'd seen the gorgon, posing as a Bargain Mart greeter with a big green button that read: Welcome! My name is STHENO, he'd thought it said BEANO.

"Oh, yup, that's our Seaweed Brain alright" Annabeth said to Thalia who laughed.

She was still wearing her green Bargain Mart employee vest over a flower-print dress. If you looked just at her body, you might think she was somebody's dumpy old grandmother—until you looked down and realized she had rooster feet. Or you looked up and saw bronze boar tusks sticking out of the corners of her mouth. Her eyes glowed red, and her hair was a writhing nest of bright green snakes.

The Aphrodite Cabin gasped in horror out of the apparent fashion atrocity. What do they expect, they're monsters? Annabeth thought.

The most horrible thing about her? She was still holding her big silver platter of free samples: Crispy Cheese 'n' Wieners. Her platter was dented from all the times Percy had killed her, but those little samples looked perfectly fine. Stheno just kept toting them across California so she could offer Percy a snack before she killed him. Percy didn't know why she kept doing that, but if he ever needed a suit of armor, he was going to make it out of Crispy Cheese 'n' Wieners. They were indestructible.

Everyone started dying of laughter. Leo fell on the floor clutching his sides.

" Classic Barnacle Head" Thalia said to Annabeth, which made her laugh even harder.

Once everyone was composed, except for Leo who was now on fire, still laughing on the floor, Thalia continued reading.

"Try one?" Stheno offered. Percy fended her off with his sword. "Where's your sister?" "Oh, put the sword away," Stheno chided. "You know by now that even Celestial bronze can't kill us for long. Have a Cheese 'n' Wiener! They're on sale this week, and I'd hate to kill you on an empty stomach." "Stheno!" The second gorgon appeared on Percy's right so fast, he didn't have time to react. Fortunately she was too busy glaring at her sister to pay him much attention. "I told you to sneak up on him and kill him!" Stheno's smile wavered. "But, Euryale…" She said the name so it rhymed with Muriel. "Can't I give him a sample first?" "No, you imbecile!" Euryale turned toward Percy and bared her fangs. Except for her hair, which was a nest of coral snakes instead of green vipers, she looked exactly like her sister. Her Bargain Mart vest, her flowery dress, even her tusks were decorated with 50% off stickers. Her name badge read: Hello! My name is DIE, DEMIGOD SCUM!

" Very subtle." Connor stoll said cracking a smile. Annabeth laughed.

"You've led us on quite a chase, Percy Jackson," Euryale said. "But now you're trapped, and we'll have our revenge!" "The Cheese 'n' Wieners are only $2.99," Stheno added helpfully. "Grocery department, aisle three." Euryale snarled. "Stheno, the Bargain Mart was a front! You're going native! Now, put down that ridiculous tray and help me kill this demigod. Or have you forgotten that he's the one who vaporized Medusa?"

"He what?" Leo, who was back in his seat after his laugh attack, asked in total astonishment.

" Oh yeah, when we were twelve. with me and Grover's help of course. He ended up keeping her head and giving it to his mom for his horrible step-father Gabe. He called him smelly Gabe."

The whole camp looked at her in shock in that new piece of information.

" I never knew that" said Travis Stoll in amazement and disgust.

" Only me, Thalia, and Grover know it" Annabeth said. " well now you all know."

" In his defense, getting to the Underworld was harder when his step-father called the police saying Percy kidnapped his mother. We had the police on us that whole time. Then they found him as he was fighting Ares, who helped steal the Lightning bolt, and he beat, no offense Ares kids.

I hope he doesn't mind me telling you guys. Oh well, he's been gone for 8 months."

Everyone looked at her with blank faces, Ares cabin with mad ones, before they sat up ready for Thalia to continue.

"I think you gave too much information" Thalia said before she continued.

Percy stepped back. Six more inches, and he'd be tumbling through thin air. "Look, ladies, we've been over this. I don't even remember killing Medusa. I don't remember anything! Can't we just call a truce and talk about your weekly specials?"

The camp, who got over their shocked state laughed.

Stheno gave her sister a pouty look, which was hard to do with giant bronze tusks. "Can we?" "No!" Euryale's red eyes bored into Percy. "I don't care what you remember, son of the sea god. I can smell Medusa's blood on you. It's faint, yes, several years old, but you were the last one to defeat her. She still has not returned from Tartarus. It's your fault!" Percy didn't really get that. The whole "dying then returning from Tartarus" concept gave him a headache. Of course, so did the idea that a ballpoint pen could turn into a sword, or that monsters could disguise themselves with something called the Mist, or that Percy was the son of a barnacle-encrusted god from five thousand years ago. But he did believe it. Even though his memory was erased, he knew he was a demigod the same way he knew his name was Percy Jackson. From his very first conversation with Lupa the wolf, he'd accepted that this crazy messed-up world of gods and monsters was his reality. Which pretty much sucked.

"Tell me about it" a couple campers said smirking.

"How about we call it a draw?" he said. "I can't kill you. You can't kill me. If you're Medusa's sisters—like the Medusa who turned people to stone—shouldn't I be petrified by now?" "Heroes!" Euryale said with disgust. "They always bring that up, just like our mother! 'Why can't you turn people to stone? Your sister can turn people to stone.' Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, boy! That was Medusa's curse alone. She was the most hideous one in the family. She got all the luck!" Stheno looked hurt. "Mother said I was the most hideous." "Quiet!" Euryale snapped. "As for you, Percy Jackson, it's true you bear the mark of Achilles. That makes you a little tougher to kill. But don't worry. We'll find a way."

"The mark of what" Leo asked, but everyone ignored him.

"The mark of what?"

Everyone laughed.

"Achilles," Stheno said cheerfully. "Oh, he was gorgeous! Dipped in the River Styx as a child, you know, so he was invulnerable except for a tiny spot on his ankle. That's what happened to you, dear. Someone must've dumped you in the Styx and made your skin like iron. But not to worry. Heroes like you always have a weak spot. We just have to find it, and then we can kill you. Won't that be lovely? Have a Cheese 'n' Wiener!" Percy tried to think. He didn't remember any dip in the Styx. Then again, he didn't remember much of anything. His skin didn't feel like iron, but it would explain how he'd held out so long against the gorgons. Maybe if he just fell down the mountain…would he survive? He didn't want to risk it—not without something to slow the fall, or a sled, or… He looked at Stheno's large silver platter of free ...

" Oh gods, please don't tell me he's planning what I think he's planning" Annabeth pleaded. Everyone turned curiously to her wondering what she knew that they didn't, but she didn't say anything.

"Reconsidering?" Stheno asked. "Very wise, dear. I added some gorgon's blood to these, so your death will be quick and painless." Percy's throat constricted. "You added your blood to the Cheese 'n' Wieners?" "Just a little." Stheno smiled. "A tiny nick on my arm, but you're sweet to be concerned. Blood from our right side can cure anything, you know, but blood from our left side is deadly—" "You dimwit!" Euryale screeched. "You're not supposed to tell him that! He won't eat the wieners if you tell him they're poisoned!" Stheno looked stunned. "He won't? But I said it would be quick and painless." "Never mind!" Euryale's fingernails grew into claws. "We'll kill him the hard way—just keep slashing until we find the weak spot. Once we defeat Percy Jackson, we'll be more famous than Medusa! Our patron will reward us greatly!"

" Will they really be famous if they killed him?" Leo asked

" Oh yeah" said the Stoll brothers, " he's killed big monsters like the Minotaur and killed the Titans Kronos and Atlas."

Annabeth nodded in agreement, but didn't like the fact that Leo mentioned Percy dying, it just reminded her of the Bounty on his head.

Percy gripped his sword. He'd have to time his move perfectly—a few seconds of confusion, grab the platter with his left hand… Keep them talking, he thought. "Before you slash me to bits," he said, "who's this patron you mentioned?" Euryale sneered. "The goddess Gaea, of course! The one who brought us back from oblivion! You won't live long enough to meet her, but your friends below will soon face her wrath. Even now, her armies are marching south. At the Feast of Fortune, she'll awaken, and the demigods will be cut down like—like—" "Like our low prices at Bargain Mart!" Stheno suggested. "Gah!" Euryale stormed toward her sister. Percy took the opening. He grabbed Stheno's platter, scattering poisoned Cheese 'n' Wieners, and slashed Riptide across Euryale's waist, cutting her in half. He raised the platter, and Stheno found herself facing her own greasy reflection. "Medusa!" she screamed.

" Ha, she's stupid." Leo muttered stupidly.

Her sister Euryale had crumbled to dust, but she was already starting to re-form, like a snowman un-melting. "Stheno, you fool!" she gurgled as her half-made face rose from the mound of dust. "That's just your own reflection! Get him!" Percy slammed the metal tray on top of Stheno's head, and she passed out cold. He put the platter behind his butt, said a silent prayer to whatever Roman god oversaw stupid sledding tricks, and jumped off the side of the hill.

" Seaweed Brain" Annabeth said frustrated.

" That's it for this chapter" Thalia said, " who wants to read next?"

" I will." said Jason.

Thalia passed it to Jason and he started reading…

Author's Note: Thank you for reading this chapter. It was pretty long and hard to make. I'll try to update tomorrow, but i'm going out of town this weekend so i'm going to update when I can. Again, I do not own these books, Rick Riordan does obviously. Constructive criticism please, I know I need it. Thank you again for reading and please tell me what you think.