Oh, look, here I am! Back again!

I am truly sorry for leaving you all hanging so often... I keep saying I'll try not to but I still do it. :( Sorry!

Anyways, as long as I'm back, here is chapter 25!

I usually sweat when I run.

I mean, most people do, it's not like it's abnormal or something. But as the tunnel heated up, and Percy and I couldn't slow down because of the spider's fast pace, I was surprised that I hadn't drowned in the sweat that was pouring off my upper lip.

"Hey, wait up!" Percy called from behind me, running faster to match my speed.

I glanced at my companion, and was gratified to discover that his hair was soaked and stuck to his forehead as well. "Yeah?" I asked.

"Something Hephaestus said back there... about Athena."

I almost burst out laughing. I knew exactly what he was talking about. He was so oblivious sometimes.

"She swore never to marry." I said, swallowing a giggle, "Like Artemis and Hestia. She's one of the maiden goddesses." Percy seemed to consider this for a moment. I turned my head away from him, and chased the spider as it rounded another tight corner. I brought my hand to my forehead, wiping away some of the sweat that was collecting above my eyebrows.

"But then-"

"How come she has demigod children?" I said slowly, as if talking to a small child.

He nodded sheepishly.

I started simple, hoping he would figure out what I was talking about without my having to explain my birth. "Percy, do you know how Athena was born?"

"She sprung from the head of Zeus in full battle armor or something."

Or something...? That's what happened. "Exactly. She wasn't born in the normal way. She was literally born from thoughts. Her children are born the same way. When Athena falls in love with a mortal man, it's purely intellectual, the way she loved Odysseus in the old stories. It's a meeting of minds. She would tell you that's the purest kind of love."

But as I was running through a blazing hot tunnel after a tiny metal spider, when I glanced at Percy, I realized would disagree. For a boy really not known for his brain power, he was pretty great.

Percy was still stuck on another subject. "So your dad and Athena... so you weren't..."

I sighed. "I was a brain child. Literally. Children of Athena are sprung from the divine thoughts of our mother and the mortal ingenuity of our father. We are supposed to be a gift, a blessing from Athena on the men she favors." Unless you're my dad, and then you try and return the gift, because, let's be honest, you never really wanted a daughter anyway.

"But-"

I really wasn't in the mood to go any deeper in to the details of my birth. "Percy, the spider is getting away. Do you really want me to explain the exact details of how I was born?"

"Um... no. That's okay."

I rolled my eyes. "I thought not." and then I ran just a little bit faster, so I wouldn't have to look at him when I started laughing.

We ran for about another half mile, and the tunnel opened in to a cavern bigger than the sword fighting arena back at at camp.

The forge of Hephaestus.

Instead of something normal, and logical, like say, a floor, we were standing on a ledge that ringed a pit of bubbling lava, with spindly little bridges crisscrossing across its surface, looking like they would break as soon as we touched them.

In the center there was a huge platform, on top of which sat something that resembled a cauldron, but I couldn't quite see it from where Percy and I were standing. Big monsters that looked like my mythology book's picture of a telekhine shuffled about on the bridges and left through doors on the side to smaller caverns.

Percy exhaled. "We'll never be able to sneak up on them."

"I can." I pulled out my Yankees cap, and felt the familiar tingle through my fingers and across the crown of my head as my body shimmered out of existence.

When I was about nine or ten, I'd entertained myself for hours in front of a mirror, disappearing and reappearing again. I could only begin to imagine what Percy was seeing as he stage whispered "Hold it!".

In a mischievous moment, I grabbed the back of his ankle to scare him, but he was already petrified with fear, and didn't seem to notice.

I ran towards the center of the pit, trying to be agile enough to avoid the telekhines, but not so agile as to flip myself over the side of the bridge and in to the boiling lava.

I wasn't too keen on becoming a volcano today.

After too many close calls, I conceded to practically crawling underneath the metal railing, where even the monsters' slippery flippers wouldn't brush any part of my body.

Eventually, with a sore neck and two very bruised knees, I made it to the platform in the center of the lava. I glanced up, hoping to see the sky. I saw nothing but black as the cone of the volcano disappeared into the air.

A growling voice echoed from somewhere behind the cauldron that I was crouching behind. "It needs another cooling to fuse the Celestial Bronze."

"We have to wait." An even deeper voice replied. "It won't fuse if we cool it now."

"No! If we wait any longer, the steel with separate from the copper." A third voice argued.

I stood up behind the cauldron, to try to find the source of the voices.

Four of the monsters, fully grown and more terrifying than a centaur in a prom dress, were all hammering away at a metal rod. It hadn't taken its final form yet, I could tell that much, but whatever I saw made me weak in the knees and I slumped back down behind the cauldron, by heart beating like crazy.

I scanned the room, and was surprised to see no one but Percy, running directly towards me.

"Annabeth!"

:) How was that?

Next chapter is the chapter you are all so excited for. ;)

See you next time!

~purple shadow monster