A.N.: Thank you so much for the reviews and helping me see that I could just hold off on this story and come back. I will hopefully come back soon and finish this story!

Thank you,

SBC1290

*Percy's P.O.V.*

The first day of school was finally here. We had been having a few meetings lately trying to find out any more information that we could about our targets. The people back at the academy have been working on surveillance and other things related to that. I had been mostly bored waiting for today.

I was woken up by Jason this morning like usual, he was actually late this morning and I had to hurry up. Jason had just gotten out of the shower, so I was free to get in it. After my shower, I changed into the uniform. I didn't know how to tie the tie so I just hung it around my neck figuring that I would fix it later. I hurried up and brushed my teeth and hair. I put my contacts in and blinked a few times putting them in place. I checked myself in the mirror and then grabbed my backpack from the desk in my room and hurried to the kitchen.

Jason was already there hurrying to put cereal in bowls with some milk and a spoon. I grabbed one and started to eat it. I heard someone knock on the door and Jason yelled, "It's open." The girls came in with everything ready to go. They stared at us with amused faces while we were both trying to eat our cereal. Jason looked up and then yelled, "Nico!"

"What?!" we heard him yell back.

"Let's go we have to leave soon." Jason yelled back at him.

I finished my cereal and brought it to the sink dumping it out and washing it out quickly. Jason came up behind me and did the same and then Nico came grumbling into the room. His eye had black circles under them and his hair was a mess, but he was dressed and actually had his tie on; unlike me. He grabbed the bowl of cereal and started to eat in.

"Come on Nico get happy! Your papers said that you're supposed to be happy. Now get happy." Thalia said to him.

"But I'm tired and I don't want to be happy." He grumbled.

"I'll make you look happy." Thalia said with a smile, "I slap you then your cheeks will turn red making you look happier."

Nico looked up and backed away, "No-no need for that. See I'm happy now. No reason to hurt me." He said smiling now.

"Okay." Thalia said with a smile.

We all laughed and Nico finished his food and then put it in the sink. Us guys grabbed our backpacks and then Jason grabbed the keys from the hook to our car. We then followed the girls out of the apartment and down to our parking spots. The girls had a silver 2014 SRX Crossover and we had a black Ford Fusion.

I smiled as I raced Nico down to the shotgun seat. I barely beat him and blocked the door as he tried to grab for the door handle. I laughed and he grumbled opening up the backseat and sliding in. I opened the passenger seat door throwing my backpack in before I got in. Jason quickly set up our navigation system and we were on our way to the school. It wasn't very far away; about 10 minutes.

I looked out the window at an older bigger building. It had at least 2 floors and had brown brick on the outside. It had at least a dozen windows on the outside with students walking past them. The parking lot was pretty much filled with all kinds of expensive cars. There were a few people still rushing inside and some pulling up like we were.

We got there right at 7:55 leaving us with 5 minutes to get to our classes. We all hurried out of our cars and ran for the front office. We had already memorized the school map for surveillance purposes and we easily found the office. Piper led the group as we all rushed into the office, startling the secretary's sitting at their desks. The bell rang after us and they all gave us questioning looks.

The one at the front looked up at us and said, "Names."

Annabeth stepped forward and said, " Um, my name is Alyssa Barret."

"Okay, Alyssa." she said ruffling through paper's, "Ah, yes. You are down in the West wing."

Annabeth nodded and waited for the rest of us.

Piper stepped forward next and said, "Victoria Baker."

She moved some paper's and then said, "Here you are West wing as well as Miss. Barret."

Piper nodded and stood by Annabeth. We went through our names ending with me. "Um, Austin Townsend." I said nervously. She didn't even look up, but handed me a folder of paper's and then said, "Here you go and please Mr. Townsend. Tie your tie, it's disrespectful."

I looked down at it and said, "Yes ma'am."

I turned around and walked out of the room with them. Annabeth turned around to look at me or well my tie I guess. She sighed and walked towards me and said, "Do you need some help?"

"Do you know how?" I asked. She nodded and lifted up the loose tie around her neck. She turned back around to the others. "I got this guys. We'll meet you there." They nodded smiling slightly and then headed down the hall. Annabeth came up close to me. She leaned up and I leaned down so she could get the tie off of my neck. I felt her hot breath on my neck as she grabbed it and it made me shiver. She went back onto her feet and I stayed bent over so she could put it on me. She moved the tie around so the little side was on the right and the bigger end was on the left side. She lifted the collar up and then placed the tie under it. She then started to move the tie around and around and through loops, but I couldn't follow it. "So how come you don't know how to do this?" She asked.

I looked down and fiddled with the end of her tie. "Um well, my dad never taught me. He just sort of gave me the tie and I put it on." I said running my fingers over the tie.

"How do you know?" I asked as she slowly took the loop and pulled on the little piece, pushing it up towards my neck. She leaned up as she did this and answered, "Um. Well, I had seen Chiron do it a lot when I was younger and just got the hang of it I guess."

She stopped a few inches off my neck, giving me breathing room. I smiled at her and said, "Well, I'm lucky that you know how."

"You sure are Seaweed Brain because I'm pretty sure that Jason and Nico would not have done this and Thalia would have probably jumped off the building before getting close enough to you and Piper would probably feel like she was "cheating" on Jason even if they're not dating." Annabeth said with a smile.

I smiled back as she let go of me and we walked down the hall to our lockers. We finally made it to the West hall to find Jason at Piper's, I was guessing, locker. All the lockers were black and were weird looking, sort of like a smaller more locker looking armoires. It matched the checkered white and black floor and black doors to the classrooms. Annabeth's was only a few down to the right of Piper's. Mine was on the other wall and down a little farther. Jason followed me down there and I looked at my folder. Locker 272. Combination, 12-22-10. Easy enough, I thought. I opened it on the second try, getting used to it. Once it was opened, I hung my backpack in my locker and grabbed a binder.
"You guys were gone a while." Jason said smiling.

I looked up at him from my locker, "What's your point?" I asked.

"Annabeth's cute. You were alone together..." He said with a smirk

"Dude, we've been friends for years plus Chiron would kill me if I ever made a move or whatever on her." I said. He laughed at that and I asked, "Why would you bring this up now?"

"No adults." he said with a smirk.

"Please we've been alone before with no adults. We hang out at the library all the time." I said while shutting my locker.

"Well sure you have, but who knows what goes on in that library." Jason said while I glared at him.

"What library?" I heard someone ask. I turned to see Annabeth and Piper behind Jason. Jason started to laugh again and I blushed and said, "Nothing." They both raised an eyebrow, but waved it off knowing that we wouldn't tell them.

"We should probably go. We're already late." I said trying to change the subject. They all nodded and we went off to our separate classes. No one else had English first, so I headed to the class. It was only a little ways down the hall. It was on the right and I could see a male teacher talking to the class.

"-and so that is most of the things we will be doing the first quarter." He finished as I opened the door. All eyes shot to me, wondering who I was. I smiled a small smile and walked over to the teacher. He smiled and said, "Ah, you must be Mr. Townsend. I was wondering if you were going to be here."

I scratched the back of my neck, embarrassed that I was late. He just kept smiling and moved to his desk to look at a paper. "You will be in the back next to Mr. Sanders." I looked up and easily spotted the boy who waved his hand in the air. He had tan skin with light brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. When I walked up to him, he smiled at me and I smiled back sitting in the desk next to him. I looked back up at the front to the white board it said, Mr. Smith on it, so I figured that was the teachers name. I watched as he talked about different forms of writing we would be doing. I wasn't really listening, I was mostly waiting for the bell to ring. It rang about a half an hour later and I was so glad to get out of there I had a big smile on my face until Mr. Smith called my name. I turned around and walked back into the class.

He smiled at me a little before becoming concerned, "I would hope that you being late won't become a habit because we give strict punishments for not following the rules."

I nodded at him and said, "No, sir, it won't. I woke up late and I got here right as the bell rang. Then, I had to get my stuff from the office and then I got lost." I was praying that he bought that.

He stared at me for a second before nodding, "You're new here, so I'll give you some leeway until you are settled in."

I nodded again and he said, "Well you better get going before you are tardy again. I will see you tomorrow Mr. Townsend."

I thanked him and headed back out the door. I walked out into the hall and I heard from the right of me, "Getting in trouble on the first day. Not a good thing."

I turned to see the boy I was sitting next to in class. He was smiling at me. He came up and held out his hand and said, "I'm Adam Sanders." I shook his hand and said, "Austin Townsend."

"Cool, so since you probably don't have much friends yet would you like to meet some other people." He asked.

I nodded and he said, "Okay, so I can't right now because of class, but find me at lunch and I'll introduce you."

"Okay. Thanks." I said.

He smiled and said, "No problem."

He then started down the hallway and I saw him stop by Luke and high five him. I smiled because I knew I would get introduced to him. I hurried to my locker and grabbed my binder and headed for my next class; History.

I barely got there when the bell rang. Annabeth was in this class, too along with Chris and Lily. Annabeth and Lily were already talking to each other and were sitting next to each other. They seemed to have met somewhere and were already becoming friends. Annabeth looked up at me and shot me a smile before going back to her conversation. I sat right next to Chris and he didn't seem to notice much, but gave me a glance.

The bell rang a moment later and the teacher started to talk, "Hello everyone. My name is Mrs. Dawson." The teacher went on talking about more stuff about the class. "-and at the end of this semester you will have a big project due. It will be made with 4 people and you will have to present it to the class. It will be worth more than half of your grade and will be important for the next semester." We all groaned at this and by Mrs. Dawson smiled and said, "I know, I know. You guys hate me, but it's part of the curriculum and it is required to get a good grade in class."

I put my head down on my desk and groaned again. Great, another thing I have to do. "I have already picked your partners and I hope that there will be no problems. You will be doing this project on a time period in US History." Mrs. Dawson said while picking up a piece of paper.

"Now your partners will be um...Drew Abbot, Michelle Newman, Jordan Stupo, and Hanna Whitfield. Next we have, Alyssa Barret, Christopher Rodriquez, Lillian Straus, and Austin Townsend. Then, we have-" I tuned out Mrs. Dawson and looked at Chris and then up at Annabeth. She turned around to look at me for a second and then back at the teacher with her ponytail swaying as she turned. I waited for the next few minutes for Mrs. Dawson to finish and then we were allowed to go into our groups to meet. Annabeth and Lily came over to our seats and turned the chairs from the desks in front of us to face us. Lily looked at me and said, "I'm Lily and that's Alyssa." she said pointing to Annabeth. "I'm Austin. " I said to them. Annabeth started to smile and looked like she was going to laugh. She tried to cover it up by biting her lip and I just smiled at her. Lily looked at me and then shoved Chris' arm and said, "And this lazy ass is Chris."

He looked up and said to Lily, "I'm not lazy, I'm just tired."

"It's the first day of school, lighten up." She said to him.

He sat up and said, "I don't understand how you can use lighten up and first day of school in the same sentence."

"Oh, shut up." Lily said to him while he smiled.

"So um what time period are we doing?" I asked changing the subject.

Annabeth looked at a paper that Mrs. Dawson gave to our group and said, "Well, we could do the 1790 to 1820." I nodded along with Chris just wanting to pick a topic and be done with it for now. We talked about what we were going to focus on, on the project. We decided we were going to mostly focus on the presidents and political stuff.

The bell rang and we decided that we would just get the project done and over with first, so we don't have to worry about it later. Once the bell rang, Lily stood up and said, "Okay, Thursday's good for me. What about you guys?"

"It's good for me. " I said to her. Annabeth answered the same and we looked at Chris, "Uh, yeah. Sure, I'll be there."

"Good." Lily said mostly to Chris. Annabeth and Lily both went back up to their table to get their stuff and then walked out together. Chris and I got up and we both left heading to our next classes.

It was lunchtime finally and I had just walked into the big cafeteria. I noticed Adam right away, he was the one standing up waving his hand and the air to me, man he was weird. He smiled and said, "Hey Austin. I wanted you to meet a few people."

He motioned to the person closest to him and said, "This is Luke Castellan. He plays football for us and is the quarterback for varsity." Luke smiled and patted the seat next to him for me to sit. Adam kept talking and pointed to Chris, but Chris said, "He already knows me. Sorry about earlier I get tired and I'm pretty much out of it in the mornings." I smiled at him and nodded. Adam went onto the next people and said, "That's Kayla." He said pointing to the pretty girl with brown curly hair and bright green eyes. She smiled and waved and then hit Lily who was talking to Annabeth about something. She looked over and said, "Oh, hi, Austin. You remember Alyssa right?" I nodded and Annabeth smiled at me. I looked back a Adam, but he wasn't looking at us, he smiled and yelled over to someone, "Hey Tori and Dan! Come here!" I looked at where he was looking, it was Jason and Piper. They smiled at him and walked over to the table glancing at me. "Hey so do you guys know Austin?" Adam asked them.

"Yeah, we live right next to each other and rode here together." Jason said his eyes telling me to play along. I figure that he meant the whole how would we explain the riding to school and home together.

"That's cool." Adam said and then he started introducing Jason and Piper to everyone. A few minutes later, Luke was getting up to go and get some food and brought me along. We got in line and he said, "So Austin, where are you from?"

I grabbed a bag of chips in line and then a can of coke and said, "Oh I'm from New York. I just moved from Long Island to here."

"That's cool." Luke looked up and over to the cafeteria lady and said, "I'll have a burger." The lady nodded and looked at me, "Same." I said.

She handed me the burger and I followed Luke to the end of the line to pay. I grabbed my wallet and paid with a twenty and then stuffed the change into my wallet hurrying behind Luke. We went to the condiments stand and I put ketchup on my burger. Luke and I sat back down at the table and Kayla turned to me and said, "So Austin, do you play football?"

"Uh, yeah. I was planning on going to the tryouts. When are they?" I asked.

Jason answered, "I had gym already today and coach said on Friday."

I nodded and everyone went on talking. All of a sudden Luke got a call on his phone. It was sitting on the table right by me so I sneaked a look before he snatched it up, it said, Blocked Number.

I looked away when Luke glanced back up at me. Luke excused himself and so did I saying that I was going to get something from the food line. I walked towards the food line and once I was out of sight, I headed to where Luke went and waited behind the wall before the next hallway where Luke stood.

"I told you not to call me during school." Luke said into the phone a little angry.

He ran a hand through his hair and said, "Okay, okay. Friday is fine. Our usual place right?"

"Oh and I think we have some potential new helpers. Give me time and I could get them to...yes, I would be able to tell if they were from O.A. they don't seem the type, but I'll figure it out." He said moving back towards the cafeteria. I started to retreat back too, but heard him end the call before getting back in the cafeteria.

When I sat back down at the table Adam looked at me with a mouth full of a turkey sandwich and asked, "Where's your snack?"

"Uh...nothing I wanted." I said. He just nodded and went back to his sandwich. Luke sat down and put his phone in his pocket and went back to eating. Kayla looked at him, "Who was that?"

Luke looked up at her and then looked around the table mostly to Lily, Kayla, and Chris and said, "My grandpa wanted to see me Friday."

They all looked at each other and then nodded at him and then went back to their lunch. I looked up to see Piper looking at me and then motioned with her eyes to Luke and then back towards the back of the cafeteria. I nodded and I mouthed, "Tell you later." She slightly nodded and went back to her salad.

Lunch ended quickly after that and I found myself in Human Biology. Annabeth had insisted that I take it because she said it looked really interesting, so before I could say anything about it she told Chiron to sign me up. I sighed in my seat and I heard someone slid the chair out from next to me. I looked over to see Kayla. She smiled at me and I smiled slightly back before I turned my attention to the board.

"Okay class, so you have probably been through this before. You're going to be partnered up with the person sitting next to you and today will obviously be a fun year, blah, blah, blah." The teacher said with a slight smile coming onto his face. I smiled thinking that he'd be a cool teacher. He picked up a stack of papers on his desk and went to each of the front tables handing the papers out and said, "Please pass them back to the people behind you. These are your syllabus' they are the outlines of the rules in this class, mostly about what you should or shouldn't be doing. We need a parent signature and please turn this in tomorrow. Today we are going to have a test to see exactly what you remember and what you don't, but first I need to put you in your places please say here and raise your hand." He finished while sitting down at his desk and getting out a piece of paper.

When he sat down I looked back up at the board and it said Mr. Brooks. He was a larger man, not fat just muscular. He seemed like he would be a coach or something. He looked up and called a name, Kayla elbowed me and I looked up and he called again, "Austin Townsend."

I raised my hand and said, "Here" He just smiled and said, "Please pay attention, Mr. Townsend."

I nodded and felt my face heat up and I looked over at Kayla who was laughing silently. I just looked down and scratched the back of my head. Mr. Brooks went on talking about the importance of lab safety. I zoned out and the bell rang a little while later. I followed Kayla out of class and she turned to me. "So nice first impression to the football coach."

"Oh, god. That was the football coach?" I asked. Kayla nodded a smile coming to her lips.

"Don't worry though I don't think he'll make you run laps or anything if that's what you're thinking." She said while walking with me down the hall.

I laughed and said, "Great." I waved bye and went on down the hall towards my locker. I put my science stuff away and then headed to gym.

For gym, I was doing this sports class that had football, basketball, and some other sports in it and I couldn't wait to play. I hurried down to the gym where there was a crowd of people trying to get their gym clothes. No matter if you were a girl or a guy they were all white shirts and red shorts. They all had the red lion in red on the top corner of the shirt and the logo on the bottom left in white on the shorts. We all were handed our own gym clothes that no doubt Chiron had bought for us.

I headed into the boys locker room after getting my clothes and while in there another coach handed me a lock to use on a locker. I changed into the clothes and then went back out into the gym. When everyone else came out we started with stretches. After the stretches we were asked what we wanted to do. Either volleyball in the gym or something outside. I chose to go outside and spotted Luke, Chris, and Adam heading for the football field with a bucket and a football. I jogged down after them and they asked if I want to play flag football.

I smiled and said, "Yeah, flag? Or tackle?"

"Oh, flag. Coach would kill us if we played tackle and got hurt before the season even started." Luke said while pulling out a red belt looking thing that trapped onto him. He handed me the same color and said, "Here, you can be on my team." I thanked him and strapped it on. A few minutes later, about 6 other guys came running down and asked to play.

Luke told them sure and we set up our teams. We played for the rest of the hour we had in gym and the coaches brought us back inside with enough time to change back into our clothes and hang out for a couple of minutes.

My locker was right by Luke's and they were talking about some party that was going to happen on Friday night for the start of a new year. "So are you going on Friday, Luke?" A kid named Josh asked.

"I might. Some family stuff is going on then, but I'll probably be there later." He said while closing his locker and added, "I'll try to get there early if you can get that new girl to go."

"Which one? They're both hot." Josh said. Now that got me mad, Piper was pretty much a little sister to me and Annabeth, was well, Annabeth and I didn't want them saying stuff like that about them.

"You okay Austin?" Luke asked looking me up and down. I just nodded and left the locker room when the bell rang. I trudged down the hall and to my locker and then headed to my last class for today, Math. What a great way to end the day.

I went into class and noticed the teacher who was writing his name on the board, Mr. Garret. He turned around and looked to be in his early 20's. I looked around and saw that I didn't know anyone in this class until I saw Piper come in with Kayla. They smiled at me and sat behind me. I shrugged down in my seat as the class started hoping that this will make him not notice me as much. I fiddled with my tie as he talked about the class. I really hated math. I'd never understood it when they would try and teach it back at the academy. Even Annabeth couldn't get through to me. It was bad, but I eventually got it after awhile. I couldn't wait for class to end, I would finally get to go back to the apartment and relax.

Boy, was I wrong about relaxing. Everyone was in a frenzy in the girls apartment. When we got back from school, we were all notified by Grover to head to the girls apartment. We unlocked the door to find Grover, Argus, Beckendorf, and Silena. Grover and I were on the computer and were trying to get the feed from Luke's phone. Annabeth, Piper, and Silena were all in the kitchen trying to hurry up with giving Silena information because she was heading out to the mall to follow Lily and Kayla. Beckendorf was feeding all of his information to Nico and Thalia about where he was watched Ethan and Julia. They had snuck out during lunch, but Nico and Thalia didn't get very far with tracking them because they got caught by one of the teachers and lied saying that they were going to their car. Thalia had called in Beckendorf to follow them. Argus was currently yelling angrily to someone on his ear piece about hurrying down here.

"I can't get through to it. I need his phone." Grover said to me.

"He'll notice it's gone, it's his prize possession." I said.

Grover sat there for a second, thinking. "Get it during P.E. Sneak back in or whatever. I just need you to put this in where the sim card is and give me the sim card." He said handing me a small thin blue and black piece.

I nodded and looked up startled as the front door started to jiggle. It opened and we saw Conner and Travis, covered in mud. They both smiled at the same time.

"We got it." Travis said holding up a black metal box.