Percy woke up on Saturday morning after being roused into wakefulness by a strange dream. A normal strange dream, thank the gods, as opposed to the prophetic nightmares he was used to having as a demigod. Something about a thousand-year-old pharaoh (not related to Cleo) challenging him to a card game.

Percy turned in his bed and glanced at the alarm clock. It was early enough that he still had some time left before meeting his friends, but late enough that it wasn't really worth going back to sleep. So he got up, showered, got dressed, and headed downstairs for a leisurely breakfast.

After breakfast Percy did some homework. Then at 11 o'clock he starting biking to the mall in the alternate dimension where his friends lived.

He arrived on the other side of the passage and noticed some familiar landmarks. So far so good. He knew the way to school from here. But he wasn't going to school, so he would have to rely on Frankie's directions. He found the mall with minimal trouble. Once there, he followed the directions to the food court.

Frankie was the first to notice him, and waved so energetically that her arm flew off and landed in someone else's spaghetti. Frankie shamefacedly retrieved it and bought the person a new plate of spaghetti.

"Hey," Percy said, greeting them with a smile and dropping into his seat. "What's up?"

"Oh, not much," Frankie answered. "We just finished up some shopping. Not sure what we're going to do after lunch."

"Why, I think that should be fairly obvious," Cleo said in her usual superior tone. "We should go shopping, of course."

A chorus of groans greeted this statement, along with one moan.

"But we just went, Cleo. Don't you have enough stuff, and aren't you running out of room anyway?"

"Nonsense!" declared Cleo. "One can never have enough clothes. And I'm sure there's more room in my chariot. Somewhere." She muttered the last word.

"Plus," Cleo continued. "Now that we have Percy with us, we can get his opinion on some outfits. A male perspective will be quite nice."

"Well, good thing I can be your testosterone-fueled outfit scanner then," said Percy with amusement.

After lunch, they looked at clothes for an hour. (Though it felt like much longer to Percy.) Then they spotted Deus and he walked over to them.

"Deus!" Cleo said delightedly.

"Hey Cleo," Deus said smiling. He hugged her affectionately. "I got your text. Hey girls, hey Percy." Percy nodded in acknowledgement.

"So Deus, how does this outfit look?" Cleo asked.

"I think everything looks great on you Cleo," Deus said with perfect sincerity. Percy gave him a look of awed approval. Man, this guy was smooth.

"Oh, you always say that," Cleo said, trying to sound exasperated but not entirely succeeding. "Percy!" she said, turning on the boy. "What do you think?"

Percy shrugged for what felt like the hundredth time this hour. "Uhh...well...I like the color."

Cleo shook her head. "No, no, the color matches horribly with my bandages. Hmm, I'll have to try something else." She headed back into the fitting room.

Percy gave Deus a subtle look, as if to say "Why did she ask me, then?" Percy couldn't read Deus's return expression very well with his shades, but he guessed that the other boy was looking sympathetic, and he was definitely a little amused.

After another half hour, Cleo was persuaded to make a decision and after helping Cleo load her purchases into her chariot the group went off to look at some other stores.

Percy was browsing some skateboards when his demigod senses started tingling. He subtly leaned over to Frankie and whispered. "Don't panic, but is there anyone following us?"

Frankie slowly turned her head to look behind them. She whispered back. "Yeah, some girl in a long dress. She's moving kind of strangely."

Percy nodded. "A snake-woman. I think I read about her kind once. She called a...a...oh, I don't remember," he said with a small sigh of frustration. "I'm not good at remembering these things. Anyway, she's from my world and she's bad news."

Frankie looked serious. "Let's duck into that store. We can confront her there."

Percy gave a brief nod of agreement. The others, who hadn't heard the conversation but seemed to understand that something urgent had been discussed, followed.

After a few moments, the strange snake-woman swept swiftly into the store. She weaved between some racks of clothing and appeared behind Percy, poised to strike. She charged forward, trying to bite Percy. Percy turned his head and reached in his pocket, but before either of them could finish their movements, Frankie tackled Percy to the ground.

The snake-woman missed and got up to strike again, but found herself blocked by Draculaura, Cleo, and Clawdine. Draculaura bared her fangs slightly and raised her fists. Cleo reached into her bandages for something. And Clawdine unsheathed her claws.

Frankie and Percy stood up. Frankie turned to the snake-woman. "You just attacked Percy," she said. "What are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" the snake-woman hissed. "What are you doing?" She looked around at the group. "What is an Empousai, a Werewolf, an Egyptian Mummy, a Gorgon, and an undead all doing traveling with a demigod for this long without attacking him? Not to mention whatever you are," she said, looking at Frankie.

Frankie looked perplexed, but Percy answered for her. "Oh yeah, she's from Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. That would have been about a thousand years after your time. And to answer your other question, we're just hanging out. See, things work a bit differently here. If you were expecting allies I'm afraid you badly miscalculated." He pulled his ballpoint pen, Riptide, out of his pocket and prepared to strike.

Ghoulia put a hand on Percy's shoulder. Frankie talked to him. "Percy, you can't just kill her here. Whatever she may be, she's just a person here. That's murder. Let the authorities deal with her."

Percy visibly struggled for a moment, battling his demigod instinct to destroy the threat while he could. But after a few seconds he lowered his stance and stepped back. A wry smile came over his face. "For once, I think I'll do that, thanks."

Ghoulia took out her cell phone and dialed a number. She spoke into the receiver. "[Moan.] [Mooooaaan.] [Moan!]" She hung up.

Draculaura nodded. "Good vork Ghoulia, thanks."

The Dracaena glared. "Who did you call?"

Draculaura shrugged. "Oh, no vun of importance. But ve vill need you to wait with us for a few minutes please."

The Dracaena hissed out a laugh. "Not likely! If I really am as outnumbered as you say, I think it's time for me to take my leave. I don't think any of you soft weaklings could stop me, but still, don't try."

She turned to leave, but found Deus blocking her way. Deus put a hand on his sunglasses. "Look, you know what I am right? Either you stay there, or I make you stay there."

The Dracaena stayed there, a sour look on her face.

-

Two uniformed security guards came to escort the Dracaena out. She hissed. "I'll see you again, Percy Jackson!"

They watched the woman being led away. "Let's sit down somewhere," Frankie suggested. The others all agreed.

They found a table and sat down. Deus spoke first. "So, is this going to be like a regular thing with you?"

Percy shrugged. "Um, it's fairly common, yeah. But I didn't think it would be happening here. I'll talk to the portal people about fixing security."

Frankie nodded. "Good. By the way, this whole thing made me remember something. You said your sword was affected by the Mist or something like that. Did you ever figure out how that worked?"

Percy shook his head slowly. "You know, I never did. I should probably test that actually. Uh, is there any rule against taking out a sword in public."

Frankie shook her head. "As long as you're careful about it, no. In fact, I know some people who do it regularly."

"Uh, okay then." Percy took out Riptide from his pocket and uncapped it. The pen transformed into a bronze sword in his hand. He set it on the table.

"Right. So, this is Celestial Bronze. I know it looks dangerous, but it actually passes through mortals harmlessly. But if a monster or a demigod touches it..." He ran his finger along the blade and got a cut that began to bleed. He hastily put his bleeding finger in his mouth. "It cuts them normally," he finished, mumbling.

The group nodded. "So, if one of us touches it..." Frankie said, saying it like a question.

Percy took his finger out of his mouth and applied pressure to it with his other hand. "I don't know," he said, shrugging. "You saw how different the monsters in this world are. I don't know whether you would count. Uh, does anyone want to volunteer to test it?"

"I'll do it," Frankie said after a moment. She ran her finger along the blade. After a moment she withdrew it. "Yeah, feels sharp," she confirmed. "Anyone else want to try?"

Clawdeen, Cleo, and Deus all tried it with similar results. Percy looked interested. "Hmm, I wouldn't have expected all of you to count. It may just be because of the whole other dimension thing. The way to test it would be to find someone from this dimension who's completely normal and see if it affects them. Hmm."

"Yeah, I know a guy like that," Deus volunteered. "He likes science, too, so I think he'd be happy to help. I'll introduce you two sometime."

"Thanks Deus," Percy said gratefully.

Frankie checked her phone. "Oh my, it's getting late," she exclaimed. "I need to get home for dinner."

Percy checked his own phone. "Yeah, I should be getting home too."

Everyone else said "yeah, me too" or a similar expression of agreement. So Percy went home to his mom's apartment, to do some homework and then relax.