(A/N: I was told to continue this, so I have! The action finally builds...)

Nobody POV

"Brian! I hate you!"

Ellie whacked the spider, her face burning with rage. It had been sitting on her desk -minding its own business- but with a random shoe, Ellie sent it flying into the wall. It slowly crumpled to the floor and folded its eight legs inward. Ellie breathed deeply and glared at the doorway behind her. She dropped her backpack beside her chair and charged down the hallway into the Big House's living room.

Chiron sat in his wheelchair, his fingers laced together, as he studied the papers laid before him on the table. His curly hair had been recently cut, so it didn't look as unkept. His black short sleeved shirt was hidden from his waist down by a knit blanket. Chiron's face was grim, like the ones Ellie saw on her parents faces when they were going through bills, and a pair of glasses framed his ancient eyes.

"Chiron," Ellie demanded harshly. "Where is Brian?"

Chiron looked up from the papers. His face broke into a small smile. Ellie's expression softened as she remembered him helping her with her math when her mother was too busy. He was kind of a second family member to her.

"I believe he would be with the Stoll triplets. What is wrong?" He inquired nicely. Ellie's expression hardened once more.

"He and the Stolls put a spider on my books! He knows how much a hate spiders." Ellie scowled at the floor as she had said it. Chiron unlaced his fingers.

"Boys will be boys. I would recommend you not try to hurt him. It might make matters worse." Ellie scowled deeper, but sighed after a minute or so.

"Yeah.... Yeah okay... But I at least want to tell him not to do it again." Chiron nodded with agreement.

"Alright, my dear. The last I saw the four of them was at the basketball courts." Ellie smiled. She rushed toward Chiron and gave him a hug. It surprised the centaur at first, but he soon settled and hugged her in return. Ellie broke away.

"Thank you, Chiron." She said. He smiled and patted her arm.

"You're welcome. Now go on, and I don't want to hear you got in a fight. Nobody wants any more exploded and broken sprinkler lines." Ellie nodded then made her way toward the door.

"And Ellie," Chiron called last minute. She turned. "If you see your parents, could you please have them come here?" Ellie smiled and nodded.

"Of course. How soon do they need to be here?" She asked. Chiron stoked his newly trimmed beard.

"Before six should be fine. Thank you." Ellie gave him one last nod before exiting the Big House.

Her footsteps creaked on the wrap around wooden porch and she jumped onto the sidewalk that came up to the building. She looked around her, searching for her brother's black hair and green eyes.

To her right, a few campers were playing volleyball. Their green t-shirts read: Camp Demigod. Ellie watched a member of one of the teams spiked the ball. As the volleyball hit the sand, it sent up a poof of sand.

To Ellie's left was the path to the strawberry fields. Satyrs and Lars were working hard. The satyrs were playing their pipes while the Lars went around with baskets to collect the berries.

Ellie bit her lip as she looked around. Brian wasn't anywhere to be seen, which meant that she would have to hunt him down.

"Brian!" She called. "Where are you?" She started walking toward the streets with the houses and apartments. Maybe he was home.

Ellie came closer to the houses and buildings and began to search the crowd for Brian. On Ellie's left, a cafe was packed with demigods, all getting some kind of pastry or a cup of hot chocolate. (Chiron had banned coffee, thanks to a way too hyper incident with the Stoll family). Ellie searched the crowd, but didn't see Brian or the Stoll triplets. She did spot a couple of fauns picking the paper cups from out of the dumpster on the side is the building. Eww.

Ellie scowled in frustration. Brian HAD to be home.

As Ellie stepped of the curb to cross the street, someone grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back onto the sidewalk. A split second later, a chariot went thundering by. The driver was screaming at the pegasi to slow down as they turned the corner sharply. Ellie caught a whiff of something burning  and she noticed that the driver had a tool belt around his waist. She sighed, then decided to find out who saved her. Ellie turned her head to see TJ standing next to her.

"Try not to kill yourself," he said with a smirk. Ellie rolled her eyes and folded her arms.

"Thanks for saving me, but you don't need to mock me." TJ shrugged.

"What do you expect from a guy like me?" He smiled brighter. Ellie huffed.

TJ and the rest of the Grace family had moved into camp about six months after Ellie's family came. Ellie had noticed that Brian had missed not having TJ or Kelly around. (Ellie figured, though, that Brian cared a little bit more about Kelly missing than TJ). They had moved a street away from Ellie's house, and Brian hung out with TJ a lot. He sometimes joined in with some of Brian's pranks with the Stoll triplets.

"TJ, have you seen my brother?" Ellie inquired. "He pulled a prank on me and I want to have a word with him." TJ pretended to stroke an unreal beard.

"Well, I saw them running away from the Big House about fifteen minutes ago, but nothing after that. They headed down this way." He gestured to the street.

"Did they go to the cafe?" Ellie asked. TJ shrugged.

"Not sure. I was just helping out in the strawberry fields and saw them running. Do you want to go get something from the cafe with me?" He jabbed his thumb at the crowded building.

Even though Ellie was only in seventh grade, she was tempted. She wanted to go get something at a cafe with a friend, but she wasn't sure. Alone with a boy? Her mom would think of something totally different. Plus, if Brian found out…

“No, its alright. Thank you though. I still have to find out where Brian is.” Ellie crossed her fingers where TJ couldn’t see and silently hoped that he wouldn’t notice her tension.

“Cool. I guess I’ll catch you later.” He waved her goodbye, then crossed the street to the cafe. Ellie watched him go, feeling bad about denying his offer all over again.

She bit her lip and shook her head. She couldn’t think like that. Ellie turned and continued down the street. Her eyes were focused on her sneakers, and every once and a while, she would pretend to play hopscotch down the street. Her sister, Lucy, would do that all the time, forcing Brian and Ellie to join in. Brian would be looking around him at everyone staring, but Ellie would be the one to try to keep Lucy happy.

By the third block, she stopped hopping and looked up at the house on her right. It was almost identical to all the other houses, except for the fact that it had a blue door. Ellie walked up the sidewalk to the front door and tried the doorknob. The door opened with ease. Ellie stepped inside.

"Mom! Dad! I'm home!" She called. Ellie closed the door behind her as Ellie's dad came into view at the top of the stairs.

"Hey there sweetie pie," he replied while grinning ear to ear. "Mom told me you would be at the Big House studying." Ellie nodded.

"I was, until Brian played a prank on me. Is he here?" She asked, drifting into the kitchen to grab a snack. Her dad's footfalls on the stairs thundered through the wall until he was strolling into the kitchen. His black hair was wet, as usual.

"Sadly, he isn't," he replied, picking up the Demigod newspaper from the table. "He told me he was gonna be heading to the basketball courts with the Stoll Triplets." Her dad sat down in one of the wooden chairs at the dining table and opened the paper. Ellie pulled out the bread and stuck a piece into the toaster.

"Great..." Ellie muttered, watching the Hephaestus product work it's magic.

"Are you still planning on trying out for the Athens Algebra team?" Her dad asked casually while flipping the page. Ellie shrugged as she opened the fridge to grab the butter.

"Not really. I don't want to be stuck with the-"

"Rest of the the know-it-all kids?" Her dad finished, questioning the ending of his sentence. Ellie sighed.

"No... Not really. I don't want to be known as the great Annabeth Jackson's daughter. I mean... No offense to mom or anything, but her reputation is way high." Her dad nodded and put the paper down.

"Yeah... That makes sense, with her being designer of Olumpus and all. Mom does have a big ego, but so does her mom." He tossed the paper onto the counter as Ellie was pulling her toast from the toaster.

"You mean Grandma Chase?" She asked. Her dad shook his head, his sea green eyes glinting in the light.

"No, your other Grandma." Ellie furrowed her eyebrows, then the realization hit her.

"Oh." Ellie didn't want to say anything more.

Yes, she was related to the wisest lady (it was debatable) of the Olympians. The transformer of Arachne. The patron of Athens. Yes... Lady Athena herself.

Was Ellie proud of her heritage? She wouldn't say yes or no. She would just shrug and change the subject. To think that her parents were related to gods...

And not to mention her dad was savior of Olympus (almost twice), the hero of the Great Prophecy, and the strongest Son of Poseidon to walk the Earth today. Well, again. That was debatable.

Their reputations always rubbed on Ellie, pushing her to be better. She wanted to be on the Athens Algebra team really badly, but she didn't want the reputation weighing her down.

Ellie's dad sighed, running his fingers through his wet hair.

"Dad?" She asked carefully.

"Yeah?" He responded.

"Did you just come back from "teaching"?" Ellie made quotation marks with her fingers. She knew it was a subject she shouldn't know about or question, but it was always intriguing to her.

Her dad looked up at her, the familiar mischievous twinkle in his eyes flashing.

"Why yes, my smart owl. I did. Did the hair give it away?" Ellie laughed as he flipped his black hair and dried instantly.

"Yeah, it did." She said with a smile. As she watched her dad run his fingers through his thick hair, she had a small side thought.

"Dad... How's Brian?" She asked cautiously. "I mean, power wise. Is he becoming dangerous?" Her dad's smiling face went slack. He looked at her. His green t-shirt shirt under his black jacket seemed to sharpen in color. Weird how her eyes could do that to green and blue sometimes...

"Are you worried about him?" He asked. Ellie bit her lip, then nodded.

"I know it isn't my place to ask, but he's my brother... Plus, Lucy is getting scared of him." Ellie shifted feet, and stared down at her toast. It didn't look very appetizing now. Her father's eyebrows knit together with concern.

"Lucy is scared of Brian? Or of his powers?" He inquired. Ellie bit her lip, unsure how to describe what Lucy had told her.

"She says she doesn't know how to react. He gets mad at her sometimes for embarrassing him, and he..." She trailed off.

"He what?" Her father pressed. Ellie glanced up and saw that her fathers eyes were deadly serious and full of concern.

"Well... He shows her a ball of water and threatens to dump it on her or to encase her in it. I can tell bed teasing, but Lucy is scared."

Ellie's father looked at the wall behind Ellie for a minute as he thought about the situation.

"Alright. I'll speak to him."

"Dad," Ellie said. "I don't want Brian learning about me blabbing though." He smiled, and the regular twinkle returned to his eyes.

"Don't worry sweetie pie. I'll talk to mom and get it sorted." He glanced at his waterproof watch. "I should be calling Brian home anyway. Dinner is going to be ready in a few hours." He stood, then snatched the paper up from the counter. He strolled out of the kitchen, humming something like 'Under the Sea' to himself.

"Oh dad!" Ellie exclaimed, remembering something.

"Yeah?" He called back.  

"Chiron wants to see you before six o'clock tonight. Just so you know." She heard her dad stop in the middle of his stride, but he called back:

"Okay. Thank you Ellie."

Ellie listened as his footsteps reached the top of the stairs. She looked down at her toast, shrugged, then took a big bite. As it crunched in her mouth, she debated if what she had said was the right thing to say. I guess it was normal for a family to be like hers. She sighed, then decided to go back for her backpack.

She finished her toast, threw away her paper towel, then strode out the front door. She closed the door shut behind her then headed off down the street. Music from the park down the street echoed around the buildings and she heard people clapping to the beat. Ellie turned the opposite way, but bumped into someone.

It was an older man.

His skin was as wrinkled as a dried out piece of once wet paper. His hair was wild and stark white. It stuck out it all directions, like he enjoyed playing with electricity. His clothes were in tatters, and Ellie could imagine they were a brannd of product named: Shredders4Free. She could see him scrolling through lists of acid shooting hoodies and exploding pants while shopping online at monsterstyles4eva.com His eyes were just about as wild of his hair, but they were a deep blue, almost a purple.

"E-excuse me," he stuttered. "B-but is t-this the J-Jackson apartment?" He jabbed a nimble thumb in the direction Ellie had come from.

Every nerve in Ellie's body was screaming to run away as fast as she could. This guy didn't look at all like a resident of Camp Demigod. Much to old, wrinkled, and creepy for that. Her brain screamed "MONSTER! RUN!"

Instead, Ellie swallowed and nodded. The man grinned, revealing a mouth with only four teeth. Two bottom, a moler on top, and a front tooth that stuck out when he closed his lips.

"T-that's wonderful! I'm l-looking for B-Brian Jackson. Is h-he home?"

Ellie blinked, then shook her head. "No sir. He's not." The old man snapped his frail fingers, which Ellie was surprised he could do.

“Well, darn it! I will have to come looking for him later. Thank you my dear for helping.” He gave her a toothless smile, then hobbled down the sidewalk. Ellie watched him go, unsure what to do or how to react.

Who was that guy?