Annabeth watched in frustration as everything went wrong. Luke stumbled into the middle of the ongoing fight followed by the fury- who had abandoned the pretense of an old book seller and had sprouted wings.

She watched as the minotaur stood confused as to whether this new demigod and monster would be a threat, and perhaps most terrifyingly, she watched as the boy with green eyes ran toward the minotaur.

He didn't seem to have a plan because when he finally reached the beast he hesitated. Then, as the monster lowered its head to charge, he jumped and held tight to one of the monster's horns. Chiron released a volley of arrows, but they didn't do much damage. Chiron couldn't aim for the crucial points on the monster for fear of hitting the clueless demigod.

Then, something happened that Annabeth didn't see coming- which was uncommon considering her mother was Athena. The minotaur flug his head particularly roughly in one direction, as the boy tugged, and his horn snapped off. The boy and the horn dropped from the head and hit the ground.

But the monster wasn't done with the boy yet. With one last angry roar, the minotaur charged at the boy and the boy brought the horn up and into the monster's midsection.

With one last grunt the monster evaporated into a pile of dust.

It was silent for a moment, and then Luke's cry of pain sounded.

-0-

Percy stood frozen, horn in hand, in a pile of dust. Had that really just happened?

He used to joke that Ms. Dodds would drive him to madness with her constant nagging, but that wasn't so funny now. Had it actually happened; had he really gone crazy of boredom and frustration?

As he watched the horse- man vanquish Ms. Dodds, who had somehow grown wings, he decided that he hadn't gone crazy. That had really just happened, he didn't know how, but it had.

He shook himself out of his surprised stupor as two girls- one about his age, the other a bit older- rounded the corner. They were the two girls he'd seen with Annabeth and Luke when they first came into the bookstore.

One had a vicious look on her face and a very pointy, surely deadly spear in her hands. The other had pulled up her skirts and was being careful not to step on the shards of glass that littered the ground.

"Where is it?" The one with the spear demanded. "I'll kill it."

"Too late," Luke winced and looked down at a gash in his leg. "Do you have any nectar or ambrosia? I left mine in the carriage."

"I'll get it!" Annabeth piped up.

"No," The horse- man ordered. "Annabeth, you take care of our new friend, Silena- you go get the nectar." Now, call him crazy, but when the arrow- shooting, horse- man called him a friend, Percy was slightly taken aback.

Annabeth looked over at him and nodded.

-0-

"That was pretty cool, what you did back there," Annabeth broke the uncomfortable silence that had encased them since they'd started walking back to the book shop (which was completely and totally demolished.)

"Thanks," Percy said, and left it at that. Annabeth looked over at him and saw that he was miles away- figuratively speaking. His eyes starred at the bookshop, but not at the bookshop. His eyes were turned in that general direction, but Annabeth had no doubt that he was really seeing the minotaur again. Reliving the experience through his memories, trying to fit the strange encounter into the confines of his reality. Trying to find some explanation for what had just happened to him.

She knew he wouldn't.

While the few mortals who could occasionally glimpse beyond the mist would generally write the experience off as a trick of the light, a minotaur raging down the street followed by a diabolical bat- woman could not.

So she waited for the questions to start- and it didn't take too long, either.

Within a minute from her observation, Percy was demanding to know what was going on.

-0-

Clarisse scowled and picked through the rubble- extremely upset she'd missed the show. She'd been dying for a chance to use her spear, it was new- a gift from her father for her recent birthday, and she wanted to prove she could use it.

She wanted to make him proud.

But she'd missed it. All for one of Silena's stupid fittings.

She kicked at a fallen street lamp and continued to radiate gloom as she came up with another thing to pout about.

Not only would the fight given her a chance to use her spear- it would have taken her mind of the, gods curse it, corset.

And so we come full circle- with Clarisse, once again, complaining about the corset.

I know, I know, the chapters are really short. But that's just how the story is. I have this other story where the chapters are generally 3x this long and I needed a change.