Most sane people would not sail near the Sea of Monsters, but most sane people are not named Percy Jackson. I on the other hand, am. So I steered the ship straight for the center. Of course though, getting there wouldn't be easy. Charybdis and Scylla were waiting for us as we approached. I steered the ship toward Scylla a pretty bad plan in my head. Before anyone could blink, Scylla darted out, trying to snatch up Dionysus. I was just half a second faster thanks to the power of Hermes.

I managed to grab onto Scylla, which wasn't a very good idea. I was tossed through the air and was flung toward Charybdis. As I fell, I heard one of the goddesses scream: "Percy!" Right before I lost sight of the ship, I saw Athena stretching her hand out in my direction. I grabbed onto a tooth in Charybdis's mouth to stop myself from being swallowed whole. I fired a few dozen arrows into its mouth, but nothing happened.

In desperation, I fired a blast of godly energy. Charybdis was incinerated, but I fell into the ocean feeling like I was having a stroke, heart attack, and seizure at the same time. Okay, bad idea using pure godly energy, but I was desperate. If it weren't for the ocean and powers of Apollo healing me, I would've died that day.

While I was under water, I could just make out an underwater city made up of five transparent domes. The fifth dome, the middle one, was larger than the others by a lot. In the middle of that dome, I could see Typhon's form struggling against his chains. Typhon's Prison. We'd made it.

I saw Percy blast Charybdis to bits, and then sink into the ocean. I slapped my cap back on to prevent the other gods from noticing me. Hermes was steering away from Scylla as fast as the ship could take us. Scylla lashed out again, smashing her head against the boat causing it to thrash violently. So violently, in fact, I was thrown off the boat and into ocean along with everyone else. I clamped my hands to my head to make sure my hat didn't fall off.

Percy swam up to meet us and encased us all in an air bubble. I held my breath, praying to every god who wasn't in this bubble with me that they wouldn't notice me. Percy even brushed against my shoulder, but thankfully he didn't notice. We finally descended to the entrance of Typhon's Prison, where to demigods manned harpoon turrets that were currently trained on us. At least until they saw who we were. Or rather, who everyone but me was. If they had seen me, odds were they'd of blasted us.

We entered one of the domes. Inside it was full of tents, weapons, and battle scarred rebels. Apparently the rebellion wasn't choosy about who joined them. I saw demigods, satyrs, Cyclopes, mortals, wood nymphs, harpies, you name it.

Two demigods walked off to relieve the people on turret duty. The two demigods who had been relieved ditched their underwater suits and rushed over to meet Percy and the others.

"Percy!" Nico said, shrugging off his diving suit. "You made it!"

They slapped each other a high-five, and the other demigod, a sixteen year-old girl with black hair, hugged Percy. When they separated, I saw she had fierce blue eyes.

"Oh my gods Percy!" Thalia shouted. "Grover and Nico told me you were okay but, wow it's good to see you!"

"Good to see you too Thals," Percy said. "Say, by any chance is Tyson–"

"PERCY!" someone screamed. "You are not dead!"

Tyson grabbed Percy in a fierce bear hug, lifting him off his feet. I watched this reunion from a distance. If I hadn't been on the wrong side as far as they cared, I would've been enjoying this with them. It felt great to see everyone again, but at the same time depressing because I couldn't say hi without someone trying to kill me.

"Tyson," Percy gasped. "Ribs. Breathe- ack."

Tyson released Percy, and he fell back to the ground, landing on his feet. Tyson hadn't changed much. Thalia hadn't either, being immortal and all. Nico was, well, Nico. Didn't matter that he was taller, more muscular, or more attractive than ever, he was still that dark, distant, and strangely funny guy I knew.

"Dude, you're alive!" someone else shouted.

"Grover!" Percy yelled.

Grover gave him a "man-hug" and laughed. "Ok, I knew you busted out the five from Tartarus, but where'd you get everyone else?"

"Hitchhikers," Percy joked.

Hermes laughed at that one.

"Perseus," a voice called.

We all turned to look at my mom, dressed in Greek battle armor and brandishing a shield with an owl etched onto the front. She walked over to Percy and hefted her shield to the side so she didn't look as menacing.

"Well Percy, you've made it. Now, come with me, and bring the others. We have much to discuss."

We toured the base/prison. One of the domes was basically a giant underwater green house that housed the trees of all the wood nymphs. Another dome served as training grounds for the army. Athena explained we would not be going into the dome that housed Typhon for security reasons. We reached the forth and final dome. It was full of tents, but these looked more like command tents rather than living ones. In the center of it all was a hearth, and tending it was none other than Hestia.

But the really surprising thing was that helping Hestia with the hearth was none other than Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Oh. My. Gods.

"Rachel?" I asked incredulously.

She looked up at me and her eyes widened. "PERCY?"

She ran over and hugged me fiercely. Thankfully, it wasn't nearly as fierce as a Tyson-style-I-haven't-seen-you-in-a-year-and-I-thought-you-might-be-dead hug, so my ribs held.

Athena cleared her throat and motioned for me to follow her into one of the command tents. Inside I found a meeting table, and sitting around it were Hera, Hades, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Dionysus, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Demeter, Grover, Thalia, Tyson, Rachel, Hestia, and Athena. There were two empty chairs. I was about to sit in one when Athena scowled and told me to sit in the other available seat.

Geez it's not like anybody else was sitting there.

But I kept my mouth shut and sat down as directed.

"Percy, as you may have guessed, the rebellion isn't exactly going so well," Athena began.

I nodded. The rebellion constantly taking casualties, and recruitment was down to zero. As far as I'd heard, they'd had a total of five successful missions all year. Nico's recon assignment to the Underworld, Thalia's raid on Prometheus's slave house, Clarisse's assault on the weapons shipment from Mount St. Helens, Athena's jailbreak of the Cyclopes, and Chris's sabotage of Oceanus's sonar station. That was it.

"However, we believe that we've found a way to turn the tide of the war," Athena explained.

I raised an eyebrow. What could they possibly have found that could help them win?

"You, Perseus," Athena said, noticing my confusion. Before I could protest, she went on. "You've already done what we could not. You've freed several of the gods from their prisons. You have but two more gods to free and of course my own powers to acquire, before you are ready to face Kronos. But, we need a bit more than that."

"I beat Kronos," I said. "That pretty much ends that right?"

Athena rolled her eyes. "You caught the Titan lord by surprise before Percy, but now he'll have doubled security on Zeus and Poseidon. If we're going to save our fathers, we'll need to be more organized."

I sighed. "Alright, I'll bite. How exactly do we become more organized, and what does this have to do with me?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Athena asked. "You're going to free Iris so she can restore Iris-messaging for the rebellion. Your team is assembled and ready when you are. Head to the deployment dome. You're headed for the Fields of Punishment."

"Oh," I said, trying not to sound as dumb as I knew I was. "Well, who exactly is this team you're talking about?"

"Are you ready or not Jackson?" I heard a familiar voice ask. I spun around to face Clarisse, and Chris standing behind her with her arms folded.

I stood up and walked out of the tent with Clarisse and Chris in tow. We reached the deployment dome when Athena ran up to us, panting. Huh, she didn't look as god like anymore. As a matter of fact, depowered, she looked so much like Annabeth I almost punched her in the face. Had she given me her powers without me noticing? I didn't feel any wiser.

"Ath... I forgot to give you this," Athena told me. She handed me a file folder, filled with a bunch of papers written ancient Greek so that yours truly could read them. "This file contains all our knowledge on the Fields of Punishment's security measures."

I flipped through the files. It had maps of guard patrols, positions of Greek fire landmines, and Intel on pretty much anything else that would ordinarily kill us.

"Thanks," I told her.

What happened next almost gave me a heart attack. She kissed me on the cheek and whispered, "Good luck, Seaweed Brain."

As we walked toward the exit, one thing ran through my mind. I had just been punched (not literally). There was no way that was Athena. But, who else could it be?