Hi! Ok, sorry I was gone for so long, but I have a ton of stuff to do in real life. School is starting next week. (insert sarcastic yay here.). So here's the next chapter. If any of you are wondering, Jade is based on a girl who bullied me and my best friend in real life. Our reaction was also similar.

Ok, Dr. Acaenae was never pretty. She wore those sneakers that 'breathed' for some reason, but it never went well with her business look. Her claws were always jagged but roughly painted a deep blood red, and her hair was in a scraggly bun. She wore a brown jacket with a brown top underneath, and she wore some darker brown slacks. Her teeth looked like she hadn't seen a doctor in her entire life, and that had to have been some time, she looked ancient.

But now she looked worse.

When Emery and I walked in, she was standing behind her desk, but the desk was overturned. Papers were scattered across the floor, but she didn't pick them up. She turned around and I saw that her normally bloodshot eyes were now red, and she flicked a serpentine tongue at us. Her pant leg was torn and I could see some scaled on her leg. Her claws were now actual claws.

"What on Earth are you?" Emery asked, looking around for something to beat her over the head with. Emery was like that.

"I am a Ssscythian Dracaenae. A sssnake woman. And I'm not here to hurt you." Dr. Acaenae hissed. I had trouble believing her intentions. "Excussse the appearance, a pesssky little demigod dared to bother me. But you two Half-bloodsss, I have much better expectationsss from you."

Emery stiffened. "What's a half-blood? Is that like Half-and-half cream except for monsters?"

"No! It'sss in your blood. You are a demigod, and so is your friend." She explained. I had studied Greek Myth in school, but now I was sure I was hallucinating. "You have one mortal parent, but alssso one godly parent." She hissed.

Emery and I began to slowly back towards the elevator. I wish I had a cell phone. My dad always said it was dangerous for me to have one, but said I wasn't ready to know why. And Emery didn't have one either. So we were pretty screwed.

"I won't hurt you. My army needsss you. Have you ever wondered, dear Emery, why your ssscumbag of a father never ssspoke to your mother again? Why he never even wrote to you?" She moved closer to Emery and began to stroke her hair.

"Oh, and Vanesssssa. Sssuch a ssstrange cassse. Ssso like your mother, except…" The creature now slithered towards me and took a strand of my dark brown hair in her claws. "Your hair isss a bit… off." She sliced a lock of my hair, and it spiraled towards the ground.

"Join me, and you'll get all the answersss you crave. You'll find out the truth." She finished with a flick of her forked tongue, and looked at us expectantly.

"Can- Can I ask my dad about this first?" I asked uncertainly. She laughed in three hisses, then turned serious.

"You are a sssmart girl. Your father doesssn't matter anymore. Your mother doesss. Ssshe wasss a godesss, but sshe never cared about you. Sssame with Msss. Griffin'ssss father. They are from myth, yet they are real. They came to Earth and had you, then left you abandoned. Ssshow them who isss bossss. We will rule the world. A new era." Dr. Acaenae finished, and she was so close I could smell her breath. It was surprisingly minty.

Emery's face was hard to read. Her hazel eyes darted from the monster before us to the door. Then the door burst open, and Jade and Cassandra came in.

"Oh my gosh, what is all that noise?" Jades grunted, and then she looked at the monster and shrieked then ducked behind Cassandra.

"Another Half-blood…" Dr. A slithered towards Cassandra, who shook slightly in fear. While she was distracted, I got up and punched the call button for the elevator. Emery followed, and we were about to step in when the Dracaenae lunged at Cassandra and began to glow green. She froze in her spot, and Jade pulled Cassandra into the elevator. As the doors closed, the snake woman unfroze and dashed for the stairs.

"Go, go! Hit the ground floor button!" Emery yelled in my ear, while Cassandra looked like she was about to cry. The cheery elevator music mocked us.

"Shhh." I hushed Emery. "She'll be going to the ground floor, you saw how fast she is. I'm going for the second floor, then we'll go out the fire escape and into the back alley. It's not too far from the police station." I pressed the down arrow, the realized what was wrong with the panel.

It had three arrows. One for up, one for down, and one that was just a triangle in the middle.

I had pressed the middle.

The elevator dropped quickly, leaving my stomach somewhere above us, and Jade and Cassandra shrieked while Emery laughed and held up her hands like she was on a rollercoaster.

The metal box shuddered to a stop, and the doors dinged open. We stumbled out onto a brick hallway, and I mean floor to ceiling bricks. There was a sign beside us, but it was written in scratchy letters and I had some trouble reading. I had never been taken to a doctor about it, but my dad was sure I had dyslexia. Emery had been diagnosed with ADHD, which explains her energy outbursts.

"That says: Labyrinth ahead, turn back while you can." Jade read. She turned to us, and I saw her worried for once.

"We don't have much choice. Either this or the monster." I said. Cassandra grabbed Jade's hand, I grabbed a torch from the wall, and Emery marched. Our Journey begins.

Okay, so I'll update as much as possible this week, since it's my last week of summer. I have a special thing planned for this week. Starting tomorrow, Monday, I'm going to change my profile pick daily to something funny, just because it's almost school time and I want to do something fun. This means that the story icon will no longer be Taz from Starship, my former profile pic, but some random crap. I'll find a labyrinth pic for it later.

Please review, and I'd love to read about any OCs you might have :)