Sorry for the late update... I've been working on something else and also went on a family trip in the summer, and now I'm back to primary school, blah...

PERCY

The meeting. Right. So I ate cheeseburgers at McHale's with Thalia after washing the Iapetus's memory and naming him Bob and retrieving the sword of Hades... never mind. I'm just hungry. I think that Helen and Annabeth are regretting to let me write in this book. On with the story... 

All the camp seemed to be trying to eavesdrop on the meeting. The senior counsellors were being sent by Chiron to check at the door to find any snoops.

At the meeting, there was Miranda Gardener from Demeter, me from Poseidon, Nico from Hades, Will Solace from Apollo. Those peeps. From Aphrodite was, the, according to Annabeth, rude and supremely annoying second-in-command cheeseburger-I mean, head counsellor-named Drew, who gave a little trouble to Leo, Piper ( I love calling her Pipper, with short i ) and Jason, who died about a summer ago, when Apollo turned mortal and this undead emperor stabbed him in the back. 

Just to put in a little comment, who names their child Drew?  It's like giving permission to Julia Feingold and Alice Miyazawa to write I'm a demigod party pooper on your forehead in permanent marker. I tell you that from experience, it's not good. 

Helen looked a little nervous being the centre of attention. Of course, I felt a little tension towards her for going supernova, even more powerful than a cheeseburger, nearly incinerating us all and destroying the sword arena, but most of all, pinning down Annabeth. Will Solace had healed her fractured leg and she was now on crutches.

(Helen is telling me to shut my big mouth up before she judo-flips me. I hate judo-flipping even more than than other forms of jujitsu-karate-what-is-the-difference because Annabeth had started it when I disappeared with the Romans and since then, it was like my life turned into a joke about that. Instead of punching me, all my enemies wanna do is judo-flip me. Figures.)

"Ahem." Chiron cleared his throat. 

"Ya got phlegm? 'Cause you are one," Clarisse from Ares muttered.

Oh, one thing I forgot. Mr Diony-pony (that's my knickname for Dionysus, the old slaggy what-what. Don't look at me like that, Wise Girl. Or should I say Annie Bell? Cue the arguing.) is away for godly buisness. By that I mean... nope. Not saying that.

"Apparently ever since there has been a powerful demigod arrival, there is a new Great Prophecy. Now we need to decipher the lines. The first verse of the sonnet was: 

For it is carried with gentle grace,

Seven immortals have stolen the power,

Of the higher Olympians they face,

With their children like the root of a flower."

Any ideas?"

"Well," Annabeth relented. "Seven immortals-lesser minor gods, have stolen the power of gentle grace. From another verse, a greek key, a meander in the form of a bracelet. I might have read about it. Each century, the twelve Olympians and Hades will donate a hundredth of their power into the meander, so charged with power from the gods. Demigod children are the ones who usually deal with problems, like the root of a flower. The gods are the petals. If the root-demigods-are destroyed, the petals-gods-will fall." 

As usual, everyone gawked in amazement at my awesome girlfriend. Super smart brainiac whatever and all. 

"Boring, as usual," Julia Feingold said from behind the door. Chiron didn't ask for someone to send her away. "The next lines were something like: 

The daughters of wisdom, the son of the sea,

The spirit of Pan, the Underworld and the child of magic and three.

The oracle is the throne to the Greek key,

A new praetor of Rome killing relentlessly."

"Thank you, Julia," Chiron said patiently. "Please return to your cabin with Alice, please."

"How did he even know I was here?" Alice muttered to Julia.

"But yes," Chiron worried. "The daughters of wisdom, presumably Akari and Annabeth. The son of the sea, Percy. The spirit of Pan, Grover and the Underworld Nico. The child of magic and three would be Helen, as powerful of a child of the big three combined. The oracle, the throne to the meander. A new praetor of Rome... we must contact the Romans. We haven't had any messages from them in days now."

"Before we discuss anything else, I want to know why Hecate installed so much godly power in her. It would've weakened her, and gods don't randomly give away their power and say, 'that's alright," Clarisse pointed out rudely, her face somewhat mocking at Annabeth. I knew she was expecting her to say she had no idea, thwarting her cleverness. Clarisse hated it when Annabeth beat her at something, and Annabeth is smart. Clarisse... well, let's say she's a great strategist. (Read: a total slouch in the brain.)

"Well," Annabeth began. I could tell her mental gears were turning. Then sometthing clicked, and she said," Hecate was smart. She installed the godly power in her, to make her powerful, and since she's getting so much thought as the child of Hecate, more powerful as a child of big three, that all that admiration, emotion, power is going to her. In a month, she's going to be way more powerful than before."

Clarisse seemed a little dumbstruck. Chiron interrupted, " Well, Annabeth is correct. Now the next lines of the prophecy are: 

Back a time to when mortal was the sun,

Demeter's daughter claimed the god,

The Dark Prophecy's oracle from

Destroyed as it may, the questing squad.

I am taking a guess, here. The first verse would be referring to Apollo when he was mortal. Meg McCaffrey, the daughter of Demeter, claimed Apollo to her service. The dark prophecy's oracle would be the Oracle of Trophonius. And it was destroyed by Apollo in request of the spirit, as he told me. It may be that it was out of a little pity for Apollo that the oracle let them go. And now that the oracle has presumably reformed, it is back to feeling revenge and spite, and working for the seven minor gods."

"The last lines were something like: 

For now, the five are selected and chosen,

The first quest for the Oracle must start at doesn't.

What is that supposed to mean?" Will Solace said wonderingly. We were so incased in discussing the lines of the prophecy that probably I was the only one who had noticed the large amounts of scuffling outside the Big House on the porch.

"It probably means the quest shouldn't be started," Clarisse said wisely. She shot Annabeth a smug look.

"Actually, it might mean that the quest shouldn't be started like the usual-send off the questers at first light or whatever. The date will come by in tis own time," Annabeth corrected. Clarisse gave me her usual I-want-to-kill-you stare, like it was my fault that Annabeth was intelligent.

Then Clarisse stood on her chair and announced, "I challenge Annie Bell to a duel. Whoever wins their statement is the correct interpretation."

Chiron's tail flicked back and forth like it does when he's nervous. "Annabeth, dear, -"

Annabeth stood, too. "I accept."

Then they started fighting-Clarisse with her knife, Annabeth with her drakon-bone sword. The crossed blades, slashed and stabbed in a whirlwind of parries and strikes. They continued to battle with such speed and skill (read: Annabeth continued to battle with such speed and skill, and Clarisse brainlessly) that the cabin leaders watched as Annabeth and Clarisse fought while moving outside. 

Annabeth's long blonde hair whipped around her, and then the Ares children started to interfere. They tried to stab Annabeth in the back. Slice off her head. Whatever. So I got involved protection her backside. Then the campers on Annabeth's side tried to sabotage Clarisse, so the Ares campers protected her. 

I wouldn't say I'm scared of girls when they fight. I would say I'm very scared of girls when they fight.

Until Chiron yelled in the angriest voice I had ever heard him use. "Stop!"

Then we all stopped. And Nico di Angelo was lying on the grass, someone's steel pocketknife impaled in his side, probably between two of his ribs.

Cheeseburgers.