We Have the Worst Family Reunion Ever

**We Have the Worst Family Reunion Ever** is the eighty-seventh chapter of The Gift of a Best Friend. It was first published on May 4th, 2019.

## Chapter

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**Annabeth's POV**
I volunteered to go alone since I had the cap of invisibility, and Jasmine, of course, wanted to come with me since she could also turn invisible, but Percy convinced us it was too dangerous. Either we all went together, or nobody went.
“Nobody!” Tyson voted. “Please?”
But in the end he came along, nervously chewing on his huge fingernails. We stopped at our cabin long enough to gather our stuff. We figured whatever happened, we would *not* be staying another night aboard the zombie cruise ship, even if they did have million-dollar bingo. Percy didn’t want Tyson to carry everything, but he insisted, and I told him not to worry about it. Tyson could carry five duffel bags over his shoulder as easily as I could carry a backpack.
We sneaked through the corridors, following the ship’s YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Jasmine and I scouted ahead invisibly. We hid whenever someone passed by, but most of the people we saw were just glassy-eyed zombie passengers.
As we came up the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to me, Jasmine and I both hissed, “Hide!” and shoved the boys into a supply closet.
I heard a couple of guys coming down the hall.
“You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?” one of them said.
The other laughed. “Yeah, it’s awesome.”
My eyes widened, as I recognized the second guy’s voice, and I squeezed Percy and Jasmine’s arms hard.
“I hear they got two more coming,” the familiar voice said. “They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man—no contest!”
The voices faded down the corridor.
“That was Chris Rodriguez!” I took off my cap and turned visible. “You remember—from Cabin Eleven.”
Jasmine nodded in agreement. I recalled Chris from one of those undetermined campers who got stuck in the Hermes cabin because his Olympian dad or mom never claimed him. Now that I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t see Chris at camp this summer.
“What’s another half-blood doing here?” Percy asked.
I shook my head, troubled.
We kept going down the corridor. I didn’t need maps anymore to know I was getting closer to Luke. I sensed something cold and unpleasant—the presence of evil.
“Percy, Jasmine, Will.” I stopped, noticing something. “Look.”
I stood in front of a glass wall looking down into the multistory canyon that ran through the middle of the ship. At the bottom was the Promenade—a mall full of shops—but that’s not what had caught my attention.
A group of monsters had assembled in front of the candy store: a dozen Laistrygonian giants like the ones who’d attacked Percy with dodge balls, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures—humanoid females with twin serpent tails instead of legs.
“Scythian Dracaenae,” I whispered. “Dragon women.”
The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armor who was hacking on a straw dummy. A lump formed in my throat when I realized the dummy was wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. As we watched, the guy in armor stabbed the dummy through its belly and ripped upward. Straw flew everywhere. The monsters cheered and howled.
I stepped away from the window. Jasmine put her hand on my shoulder for comfort.
“Come on,” Percy told me, trying to sound braver than he probably really was. “The sooner we find Luke the better.”
At the end of the hallway were double oak doors that looked like they must lead somewhere important. When we were thirty feet away, Tyson stopped. “Voices inside.”
“You can hear that far?” Percy asked.
“Animals can hear farther away than people can, Percy,” Jasmine said. “I can hear that far with my super hearing.”
Toothless growled from her shoulder in agreement.
Tyson closed his eye like he was concentrating hard. Then his voice changed, becoming a husky approximation of Luke’s. “—the prophecy ourselves. The fools won’t know which way to turn.”
Before I could react, Tyson’s voice changed again, becoming deeper and gruffer, like the other guy we’d heard talking to Luke outside the cafeteria. “You really think the old horseman is gone for good?”
Tyson laughed Luke’s laugh. “They can’t trust him. Not with the skeletons in *his* closet. The poisoning of the tree was the final straw.”
I shivered. It was just like when the Cyclops did an imitation of my dad’s voice when I was seven. “Stop that, Tyson! How do you do that? It’s creepy.”
Tyson opened his eye and looked puzzled. “Just listening.”
“Keep going,” Percy said. “What else are they saying?”
“Umm, how about I take it from here,” Jasmine suggested.
She held out her hand and it glowed white. Sound waves appeared from it, and it began to emit voices from the double oak doors.
A hissing sound came from the gruff man’s voice: “Quiet!”
Then Luke’s voice, whispering: “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Right outside.”
Too late, I realized what was happening.
“Oh, shit,” Jasmine cursed.
“Run!” Percy said.
But then the doors of the stateroom burst open and there was Luke, flanked by two hairy giants armed with javelins, their bronze tips aimed right at our chests.
“Well,” Luke said with a crooked smile. “If it isn’t my two favorite little girls and two cousins. Come right in.”

The stateroom was beautiful, and it was horrible.
The beautiful part: Huge windows curved along the back wall, looking out over the stern of the ship. Green sea and blue sky stretched all the way to the horizon. A Persian rug covered the floor. Two plush sofas occupied the middle of the room, with a canopied bed in one corner and a mahogany dining table in the other. The table was loaded with food—pizza boxes, bottles of soda, and a stack of roast beef sandwiches on a silver platter.
The horrible part: On a velvet dais at the back of the room lay a ten-foot-long golden casket. A sarcophagus, engraved with Ancient Greek scenes of cities in flames and heroes dying grisly deaths. Despite the sunlight streaming through the windows, the casket made the whole room feel cold.
But that wasn’t the only thing I noticed.
Jasmine gasped. “Emily?”
She was casually sitting on one of the sofas, but when she noticed us, she looked surprised and stood up. “Jasmine? Annabeth? What are you two doing here?”
“I could be asking you the same damn thing. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I, umm . . . well—”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Luke said, walking over to her and putting an arm around her, which seemed to make her even more uncomfortable. “She missed me, and she” came to visit me here.”
“Does Raylee know about this?” Jasmine asked.
Emily opened her mouth to respond, but Luke answered for her. “Of course she does. She also comes to visit me sometimes, but she doesn’t stay as long as Emily here does.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, she simply doesn’t approve of what we’re accomplishing here, nor does she like being around most of our, uh, crew. Her animals, especially.”
“Well, at least someone’s smart.”
Emily looked even more guilty.
“Well,” Luke said, changing the subject and gestured to the cabin, spreading his arms proudly. “A little nicer than Cabin Eleven, huh?”
He’d changed since the last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a button-down shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was now clipped short. He looked like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college-age villain was wearing to Harvard this year. But sadly, he looked even cuter. I was too angry to focus on that right now, though.
He still had the scar under his eye—a jagged white line from his battle with Ladon. And propped against the sofa was his magical sword, Backbiter, glinting strangely with its half-steel, half-Celestial bronze blade that could kill both mortals and immortals.
Suddenly, the doors opened behind us. We turned around and noticed a girl about my age enter the room. She had long black hair that went a little past her shoulders and sea green eyes. She was wearing a dark blue T-shirt with black capris and light blue sneakers. A gray, black, and brown striped cat walked in behind her and looked around the room.
The girl stood frozen in the doorway, her eyes wide with surprise to see us.
“Ah, Cia,” Luke said. “I wasn’t expecting you to come. But, please. Why don’t you join us.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. She was just staring at Percy for some odd reason, looking . . . what’s the word? Shocked? Scared? I wasn’t really sure. But it was making Percy uncomfortable. Why was she staring at him? Did she know him or something?
“Mrow?” her cat said, tapping her leg with her paw to get her attention.
The girl, Cia, shook herself out of her daze. “Umm, ok.”
She and her cat walked past us, watching Percy from the corner of her eye, then she moved to a spot behind one of the sofas and her cat jumped on top of it, Cia not taking her eyes off of us.
“Sit,” Luke told us. He waved his hand and five dining chairs scooted themselves into the center of the room.
None of us sat. But Will put his hands on Jasmine’s waist protectively.
Luke’s large friends were still pointing their javelins at us. They looked like twins, but they weren’t human. They stood about eight feet tall, for one thing, and wore only blue jeans, probably because their enormous chests were already shag-carpeted with thick brown fur. They had claws for fingernails, feet like paws. Their noses were snoutlike, and their teeth were all pointed canines.
“Where are my manners?” Luke said smoothly. “These are my assistants, Agrius and Oreius. Perhaps you’ve heard of them.”
I said nothing. Of course I’ve heard of them, but I wasn’t going to say anything about it.
“You don’t know Agrius and Oreius’s story?” Luke asked. “Their mother . . . well, it’s sad, really. Aphrodite ordered the young woman to fall in love. She refused and ran to Artemis for help. Artemis let her become one of her maiden huntresses, but Aphrodite got her revenge. She bewitched the young girl into falling in love with a bear. When Artemis found out, she abandoned the girl in disgust. Typical of the gods, wouldn’t you say? They fight with one another and the poor humans get caught in the middle. The girl’s twin sons here, Agrius and Oreius, have no love for Olympus. They like half-bloods well enough, though . . .”
“For lunch,” Agrius growled. His gruff voice was the one I’d heard talking with Luke earlier.
“Hehe! Hehe!” His brother Oreius laughed, licking his fur-lined lips. He kept laughing like he was having an asthmatic fit until Luke and Agrius both stared at him.
“Shut up, you idiot!” Agrius growled. “Go punish yourself!”
Oreius whimpered. He trudged over to the corner of the room, slumped onto a stool, and banged his forehead against the dining table, making the silver plates rattle.
Luke, Emily, and Cia both acted like that was perfectly normal behavior, Cia shaking her head like she’s seen it all before.
Luke made himself comfortable on the sofa, put his arm around Emily, who sat down next to him uncomfortably, and propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Well, Percy, we let you survive another year. I hope you appreciated it. How’s your mom? How’s school?”
“You poisoned Thalia’s tree,” he replied.
Luke sighed. “Right to the point, eh? Okay, sure I poisoned the tree. So what?”
“So what?” Jasmine screamed.
“How could you?” I also shouted, sounding just as angry. “Thalia saved your life! *Our* lives! How could you dishonor her—”
“I didn’t dishonor her!” Luke snapped. “The gods dishonored her, Annabeth! If Thalia were alive, she’d be on my side.”
“Liar!”
“If you knew what was coming, you’d understand—”
“I understand you want to destroy the camp!” I yelled. “You’re a monster!”
Luke shook his head. “The gods have blinded you both. Can’t you imagine a world without them? What good is that ancient history you two study? Three thousand years of baggage! The West is rotten to the core. It has to be destroyed. Join me! We can start the world anew. We could use both of your intelligence, Annabeth and Jasmine.”
“Because you have none of your own!” I said.
Toothless growled at him from Jasmine’s shoulder.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “I know you two. You both deserve better than tagging along on some hopeless quest to save the camp. Half-Blood Hill will be overrun by monsters within the month. The heroes who survive will have no choice but to join us or be hunted to extinction. You really want to be on a losing team . . . with company like this?” Luke pointed at Tyson.
“Hey!” Percy said.
“Traveling with a *Cyclops*,” Luke chided. “Talk about dishonoring Thalia’s memory! I’m surprised at you two, Jasmine and Annabeth. You two of all people—”
“Stop it!” we both shouted.
I buried my head in my hands, trying not to cry because I knew he was right, and I felt so guilty. Jasmine rubbed my shoulder comfortingly and glared at Luke.
“Leave them alone,” Percy said. “And leave Tyson out of this.”
Luke laughed. “Oh, yeah, I heard. Your father claimed him.”
Percy was surprised, which made Luke smiled. “Yes, Percy, I know all about that. And about your plan to find the Fleece. What were those coordinates, again . . . 30, 31, 75, 12? You see, I still have friends at camp who keep me posted.”
“Spies, you mean.”
He shrugged. “How many insults from your father can you stand, Percy? You think he’s grateful to you? You think Poseidon cares for you any more than he cares for this monster?”
Tyson clenched his fists and made a rumbling sound down in his throat that was similar to when Toothless would growl.
Luke just chuckled. “The gods are *so* using you, Percy. Do you have any idea what’s in store for you if you reach your sixteenth birthday? Has Chiron even *told* you the prophecy?”
Jasmine and I watched Percy carefully. He knew about a prophecy concerning him that Chiron had received from the Oracle many years ago that Jasmine, Luke, and I have heard. But we never told Percy anything about his sixteenth birthday. He definitely looked surprised when he heard that.
“I know what I need to know,” he managed. “Like, who my enemies are.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Luke retorted.
Tyson smashed the nearest dining chair to splinters. “Percy is not a fool!”
He charged Luke. His fists came down toward Luke’s head—a double overheard blow that would’ve knocked a hole in titanium—but the bear twins intercepted. They each caught one of Tyson’s arms and stopped him cold. They pushed him back and Tyson stumbled. He fell to the carpet so hard the deck shook.
“Too bad, Cyclops,” Luke said. “Looks like my grizzly friends together are more than a match for your strength. Maybe I should let them—”
“Luke,” Percy cut in. “Listen to me. Your father sent us.”
Jasmine, Emily, and I, gave him warning looks. Even Cia seemed to know better than to mentioned Luke’s father to him, because she grabbed her cat and backed up a few steps in fright.
Luke’s face turned the color of pepperoni. “Don’t—*even*—mention him.”
“He told us to take this boat. I thought it was just for a ride, but he sent us here to find you. He told me he won’t give up on you, no matter how angry you are.”
“*Angry?*” Luke roared. “*Give up on me?* He abandoned me, Percy! I want Olympus destroyed! Every throne crushed to rubble! You tell Hermes it’s going to happen, too. Each time a half-blood joins us, the Olympians grow weaker and we grow stronger. *He* grows stronger.” Luke pointed to the gold sarcophagus.
“So?” Percy demanded. “What’s so special . . .”
He seemed to realize what might be inside the sarcophagus, and so did I. The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees.
“Whoa, you don’t mean—”
“He is re-forming,” Luke said. “Little by little, we’re calling his life force out of the pit. With every recruit who pledges our cause, another small piece appears—”
“That’s disgusting!” I said.
Luke sneered at her. “Your mother was born from Zeus’s split skull, Annabeth. I wouldn’t talk.”
Cia chuckled from the corner. I glared at her.
“Soon there will be enough of the titan lord so that we can make him whole again. We will piece together a new body for him, a work worthy of the forges of Hephaestus.”
“You’re insane,” I said.
“Join us and you’ll be rewarded. We have powerful friends, sponsors rich enough to buy this cruise ship and much more. Percy, your mother will never have to work again. You can buy her a mansion. You can have power, fame—whatever you want. Annabeth, you can realize your dream of being an architect, just like you wanted to be for Cassandra. You can build a monument to last a thousand years. A temple to the lords of the next age!”
“Go to Tartarus,” I said.
“Go to hell,” Jasmine agreed.
“You don’t even like the gods, Jasmine,” Luke retorted.
“So what? I like their children—well, *some* of them—but the gods are not a part of my life. They only are to the extent that I’m a part of their children’s lives, but they don’t bother me specifically. Helping you would just be a waste of my time.”
Luke sighed. “A shame.”
He picked up something that looked like a TV remote and pressed a red button. Within seconds the door of the stateroom opened and four uniformed crew members came in, armed with nightsticks. They had the same glassy-eyed look as the other mortals I’d seen, but I had a feeling this wouldn’t make them any less dangerous in a fight.
“Ah, good, security,” Luke said, “I’m afraid we have some stowaways.”
“Yes, sir,” they said dreamily.
Luke turned to Oreius. “It’s time to feed the Aethiopian drakon. Take these fools below and show them how it’s done.”
Oreius grinned stupidly. “Hehe! Hehe!”
“Let me go, too,” Agrius grumbled. “My brother is worthless. That Cyclops—”
“Is no threat,” Luke said. He glanced back at the golden casket, as if something were troubling him. “Agrius, stay here. We have important matters to discuss.”
“But—”
“Oreius, don’t fail me. Stay in the hold to make sure the drakon is properly fed.”
“Luke,” Emily said, standing up from the couch. “You can’t do that to them.”
“And why not?”
“Mom will kill you if you do.”
“I’m not worried about her.”
“You should be,” Jasmine growled.
“And they’re your little girls,” Emily argued. “How could you do that to them?”
He looked at us, and I could see some remorse in his eyes, but it quickly went away and he turned his back on us once again. “Oreius, go.”
Oreius prodded us his javelin and herded us out of the stateroom, followed by the four human security guards.

We exited the corridor amidships and walked across an open deck lined with lifeboats. I knew the ship well enough to realize this would be our last look at sunlight. Once we got to the other side, we’d take an elevator down into the hold, and that would be it.
Percy looked at Tyson. “Now.”
Thank the gods, he understood. He turned and smacked Oreius thirty feet backward into the swimming pool, right into the middle of the zombie tourist family.
“Ah!” the kids yelled in unison. “We are *not* having a blast in the pool!”
“I wouldn’t be either,” Jasmine agreed.
One of the security guards drew his nightstick, but I knocked the wind out of him with a well-placed kick. Another one Jasmine kneed in the stomach and threw him overboard, and another Will knocked to the ground. The last guard ran for the nearest alarm box.
“Stop him!” I yelled.
Percy picked up a deck chair to hit him with, but he didn’t have enough time to do so before something whizzed past my face and hit the back of the guard’s head, which would’ve been good if it hadn’t also knocked his head into the alarm.
Red lights flashed. Sirens wailed.
“Well, that failed,” a voice said.
We turned around to find the girl from the stateroom, Cia, standing just a few feet away with a sword in her hand, which I didn’t recall seeing her with before. Her cat, which was the thing that had knocked into the last guard’s head into the alarm, stood up from the ground and shook itself out of its daze, then ran back to its owner’s side.
We all stared at her.
“You guys need to go,” she told us. “Now!”
“Lifeboat!” Percy yelled.
We ran for the nearest one.
By the time we got the cover off, monsters and more security men were swarming the deck, pushing aside tourists and waiters with trays of tropical drinks. A guy in Greek armor drew his sword and charged, but slipped in a puddle of piña colada. Laistrygonian archers assembled on the deck above us, notching arrows in their enormous bows.
“How do you launch this thing?” I screamed.
Jasmine launched herself at the ropes and started working on them, and Will tried to help her.
A hellhound leaped at Percy, but Tyson slammed it aside with a fire extinguisher. Another guy charged him with his own sword, but Cia intercepted him with hers, taking him by surprise, and knocked him into the pool.
“Get in!” she and Percy yelled, causing a momentary confusion between them.
Percy uncapped Riptide and slashed the first volley of arrows out of the air. Any second we would be overwhelmed.
The lifeboat was hanging over the side of the ship, high above the water. Jasmine and Will, nor me and Tyson were having no luck with the release pulley.
“Percy, go,” Cia said, her cat trying to hiss some guards back while she pushed Percy toward the lifeboat.
Percy jumped in beside us.
“Good luck,” Cia told us. “And hold on!”
She cut the ropes with her sword.
A shower of arrows whistled over our heads as we free-fell toward the ocean.

Surprise!
Also, sorry for the late update. I went out of town this past weekend, and then I had things to catch up on because of it. But I got great news! I will possibly be updating on a more consistent basis as I am getting a good change for myself at work. But with it being spring-summer now, I won't be staying inside the house too much to update/write the story as often.
But what did you guys think about the change in this chapter? This is very important.
**Please review** here**.**

**Nobody edit above this box**
## Character Appearances

### Main Characters

* Annabeth Chase
* Jasmine Saturday
* Percy Jackson
* Will Solace

### Minor Characters

* Tyson
* Luke Castellan
* Emily Hollinger
* Cia

## Enemies

* Agrius
* Oreius

## Enemies

* Agrius
* Oreius