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"FOR now?" Percy asked, "You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently, "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers." Pandora and Percy looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given them. They had nothing to put there to mark it as their own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bags. Just the minotaur's horns. They thought about setting that down, but then they remembered that hermes was also the god of thieves.

They looked around at the camper's face, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing percy and pandora as if they were waiting for a chance to pick their pockets.

"How long will we be here?" Pandora asked, "Good question," Leah said, smiling at the girl in front of her, "Until you're determined." Pandora frowned and glanced at percy, "How long will it take?" She asked, the campers laughed.

"Come on," Annabeth told them, "We'll show you the volleyball court." She said, "We've already seen it." Pandora furrowed her brow, "Come on." Annabeth grabbed her wrist and midas grabbed percy by the shirt and the two campers dragged them outside. They could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind them.

When they were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to be better than that." Pandora and percy shared confused looks, "What?" Percy asked the girl.

Annabeth rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe we thought you were the ones." Midas rolled his eyes, "You thought they were the ones. Not me." He shrugged and annabeth glared at him, opening her mouth to argue back.

"What's your problem?" Percy asked the two, He was getting angry now. "All i know is, we kill some bull guy—"

"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told them. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?" She asked.

"T-to get killed?" Pandora stammered, staring at annabeth for a second then looking at the boy next to her, Midas scoffed and unfolded his arms, "To fight the minotaur! What do you think we train for?" He asked the siblings.

Percy shook his head. "Look, if the thing we fought really was the minotaur, the same one in the stories.."

"Yes." Annabeth nodded, Pandora looking over at her brother, "Then there's only one." Percy looked at Midas, annabeth and pandora. "Yes."

"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So.."

"Monsters don't die, percy. They can be killed. But they don't die." Midas informed, "Oh, thanks. That clears it up." Percy nodded, his eyes lingering on midas making pandora roll her eyes.

"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form." Annabeth explained.

Percy thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if we killed one, accidentally, with swords—"

"The fur..i mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?" Pandora asked the two, "You talk in your sleep." Midas glanced at her, "Don't forget the drooling." Annabeth grinned.

Pandora flushed red in embarrassment and looked away.

"You almost called her something. A fury? They're hades torturers, right?" Percy asked, Annabeth and Midas glanced nervously at the ground, as if they expected it to open up and swallow them.

"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the kindly ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?" Pandora sounded whiny, even to herself, but right then she didn't care. "Why do we have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there." She pointed to the first few cabins, percy nodded, and annabeth and midas turned pale.

"You don't just choose a cabin, Percy, Pandora. If depends on who your parents are.. Or..your parent."

They stared at percy and pandora, waiting for them to get it. "Our moms are Sally and Fleur Jackson," Percy said. "She works at the candy store in grand central station. At least, she used to."

"We're sorry about your mom, Percy, pandora. But that's not what i mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dads."

Percy and pandora glanced at each other, then back at the two girls in front of them, "They're dead. We never knew them." Percy said, "Yeah, dads suck, i'm telling ya. Not even a call, or even a letter— " Pandora nods to herself.

"Dory." Pandora looked at her brother, then at annabeth and midas, "What? it's true!" Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she and midas had this conversation before with other kids. "Your father's not dead, Percy, Pandora."

"How can you say that? You know them?" Percy questioned. "No, of course not."

"Then how can you say—"

"Because we know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about us." Percy crossed his arms, "No?" Midas raised an eyebrow, "I bet you two moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them." Pandora leaned toward percy. "He got that right." She whispered.

Percy rolled his eyes at pandora. "How—"

"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too." Pandora gulped, percy tried to swallow his embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your kind is hardwired for ancient greek. And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, Pandora, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them of monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are." Pandora glanced at percy then back at the two in front of them.

"You sound like.. you went through the same thing?"

"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar." Midas explained, "Ambrosia and nectar." Percy and pandora repeated, midas and annabeth sharing an annoyed look.

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."

A half-blood. The two repeated in their minds, they were reeling with so many questions they didn't know where to start.

Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! Two newbies!" Percy and Pandora looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward them. She had four other girls behind her, the three all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets, the other girl following them like a lost puppy, she looked like she was probably the only nice one in that group.

"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, miss princess," the big girl said, "So i can run you through with it friday night." The girl in the back shook her head.

"Erre es korkas!" Annabeth said, which percy and pandora somehow understood was greek for 'go to the crows!' though they had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward percy and pandora.

"Who's these little runts?" She questioned, "Percy and Pandora Jackson." Annabeth said, "Meet clarisse and eden, daughter of ares and daughter of apollo." Percy blinked.

"Like...the war god and the sun god?" He asked, "You got a problem with that?" Clarisse sneered, "No," Percy said, recovering his wits, "It explains the bad smell." Pandora whispered to percy who let out a snort.

Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony got newbies, Prissy, Panda."

"Pandora." Pandora corrected, not liking her nickname come out of clarisse's mouth. "Whatever. Come on, i'll show you."

"Clarisse—" Annabeth and the girl behind clarisse tried to say, "Stay out of it, wise girl, sunny." Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and percy and pandora didn't really want her help. They were the new kids. They had to earn their own rep.

Percy handed midas the minotaur horns and he and pandora got ready to fight, but before they knew it, clarisse and another girl had them by the necks and was dragging them toward a cinder-block building that they knew immediately was the bathroom.

Percy and pandora were kicking and punching. They'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl clarisse and the other one had hands like iron. She'd dragged them into the girls' bathroom.

There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and they were thinking—as much as they could think with clarisse and the other other girl ripping their hair out—that if this place to the gods, they should've been able to afford more classier johns.

Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and pandora and percy were trying to find the strength they'd used to fight the minotaur, but it just wasn't there.

"Like they're 'big three' material," Clarisse said as she and her friend pushed percy and pandora to one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, they were so stupid looking." Her friends snickered.

Annabeth and midas stood in the corner with the other girl, midas and annabeth watching through their fingers.

Clarisse bent percy over on his knees and started pushing his head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes in toilets. Percy strained to keep his head up. He was looking at the scummy water, thinking, he will not go into that. He won't.

Then something happened. He felt a tug in the pit of his stomach. He heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on percy's hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over percy's head, and the next thing he knew, he was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with clarisse screaming behind him.

Pandora's eyes widened as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down on her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backwards into a shower. She struggled, gasping, the girl holding pandora let go and she and clarisse's friends started going toward her.

But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers started acting up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

As soon as they were out the door, percy felt the tug in his gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started. The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth, pandora, midas and eden hadn't been spared. They were dripping wet, but they hadn't been pushed out the door. They were standing in exactly the same place, staring at percy in shock.

Percy looked down and realized he was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around him. He didn't have one drop of water on his clothes. Nothing.

He stood up, his legs shaky. Midas said, "How did you.." The girl besides her laughed making them look at her, "Sorry, It's just— I better go before warhead over there take her anger out on some random kid." Eden smiled at them and left the bathroom, water trailing behind her.

"I don't know." The four walked to the door, Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of campers had gathered around to gawk, Eden laughing at the girl.

Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave percy a look of absolute hatred.

"You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."

Pandora laughed and clarisse glared at her, "You too." The girl's smile dropped and she glared, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, clarisse? Close your mouth." Percy remarked as clarisse's friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five with eden parting ways with a blond boy, while the other campers made way to avoid clarisse's flailing feet.

Annabeth and midas stared at them. Percy couldn't tell whether they were just grossed out or angry at him for dousing them. "What?" He demanded, Pandora looking at them. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," Annabeth said, "that i want you two on my team for capture the flag." Pandora shook her head. "I'll pass."

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