Inspired by Community S3E21: "The First Chang Dynasty."
Third Person POV
"I suppose you're all wondering why we called you here today," Leo says to his friends as they wipe their shoes on his welcome mat and take a seat on his couch.
Percy shakes his umbrella off and says, "I'm not. I mean, we all got the letter."
Hazel sets a tray of burnt cookies on the coffee table and sits down on the sofa. She reaches for the video game controller and asks Leo to turn on the console. The unfortunate news from New Rome Community College has turned her into a gamer, except she doesn't have any gaming equipment of her own, and thus, has to go to Leo's apartment any time she wants to play. Nico would throw a fit if he caught her using his Nintendo Switch.
Annabeth takes a bite out of a cookie and grimaces as she chews. "Shouldn't we wait for Frank before getting started?"
"Frank is getting us some intel," Leo says, folding his hands in his lap.
"I'm sorry, he's what?" Percy asks.
And because this group has phenomenal comedic timing, Frank enters the door, groceries in one hand and a flog in the other. "So that didn't go like I thought it would," he announces.
Jason pulls a kitchen chair into the living room since they're out of space already. "Frank stopped by the frat house to figure out what's going on with our restraining orders."
"Annabeth and I finished comparing documents," says Piper. "They all say the same thing."
"As if everyone in our study group was borderline expelled for completely different reasons," Percy quips.
"Listen, Seaweed Brain, we need all the facts," says Annabeth.
Jason puts his hands in a T. "Frank was talking. Frank?"
Frank clears his throat and begins to tell his story even though he'd likely prefer to set the plastic bags in the kitchen first. "Sherman and Clarisse said Octavian's taken over the school. Like, he's flying flags with his face on them and everything."
Hazel sets the controller down to pay attention.
"The Mars fraternity is monitoring the entire situation. Security is tight, especially for this fancy party Octavian's hosting in his own honor tonight. They said they could help us get in," Frank says.
"How is that?" asks Jason.
Frank's cheeks turn red. "Well, they want me to join the fraternity."
"No," says Hazel. "Absolutely out of question."
"It's okay, I can-"
Annabeth stands up. "You are not joining that fraternity, Frank. We'll figure out another way."
"Plan Time?" Piper asks.
Annabeth points to her with her pen. "Plan Time."
"Can I use a bathroom before Plan Time?" Frank asks. "El Taco Fiesta isn't treating my stomach very well."
Everyone groans, but obliges as Frank drops his takeout on the coffee table and sprints to the bathroom. That's fake Mexican food for you though. Or maybe it's just Frank's nervous tummy. Either way, Jason, Piper, and Leo will be drawing straws to decide who will have to clean the bathroom this weekend.
"Check this out," says Piper. She turns on the television and pulls up YouTube, as one does when their father buys them a smart TV.
The video in question is a new commercial for New Rome Community College, featuring a logo with Octavian's face on it instead of the classic purple and gold laurel thing they had going on previously.
Dean D then appears on screen to say the motto: "You're already accepted!"
"Can anybody tell me what's wrong with this commercial?" Piper asks, not unlike a teacher speaking to a first-grade class.
"Is that really our motto?" Percy asks. "I mean, we all know it's true, but like, I didn't realize we were advertising that..."
"As unethical as the motto is, that's not the issue." Piper plays the video again only to pause during Dean D's short feature.
"Hold up," says Hazel. "That's not... God, I don't want to say it out loud-"
"That isn't the dean!" Annabeth shouts, pointing at the television. "Somebody get me something to write on. I'm calling an Emergency Plan Time."
Leo lays out a posterboard and spills out his dried-out washable markers for Annabeth to use.
She uncaps a green one and begins to speak in plot points. "So we know that security is tight, but I honestly think the real threat is Octavian since we can assume his guards are like fourteen at the oldest."
"You're not seriously considering beating up middle schoolers, are you?" Jason asks because everyone knows that if anyone in this living room has the potential to beat up a middle schooler, it's Annabeth.
"Who's beating up middle schoolers?" Frank asks whilst zipping up his pants.
✎✎✎
Piper sprints to get out of the driver's side of her pickup truck in time for her friends to unload the crate and get Jason behind the wheel before someone recognizes the truck.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon..." Leo mutters under his breath.
At last, Piper adjusts her fake mustache and grabs hold of the dolly. She grunts when she hoists the weight of the crate beneath her when it dawns upon her that she has no idea how Leo came into possession of a crate large enough to carry a small zoo animal.
"I still don't see why the mustache is necessary," Jason grumbles as he puts the truck in drive.
Piper scans her surroundings, taking in the heightened security of the school. Barbed wire around the quad and the courtyards makes the campus look more like a maximum security prison. Then again, it might as well be one because the students are all wearing gray jumpsuits. Poor Lacy won't get to wear all the new outfits she thrifted for this semester, and Silena has probably had multiple nervous breakdowns at this point.
But these worst-case scenarios won't play out if the New Rome Seven have anything to do with it.
"Excuse me," a young security guard with wannabe Zac Efron hair says to Piper. "Do you have your clearances?"
"I'm here with the cake for the celebration," Piper says, gesturing to her chef's outfit with a tone that says duh, idiot.
Out of embarrassment, the twelve-year-old opens the door for Piper. She's in.
The crate begins to grow heavy on the dolly as Piper pushes it into the student union and past the information desk, which is now serving as some kind of security hub. She pushes it through the student lounges and finally settles on the furthest bathroom in the building.
"Crowbar, crowbar..." she mumbles as she searches her pockets for the tool.
She finds it at last and then pries the box open. Like a jack-in-the-box, Hazel pops out, gasping for fresh air. "Just go slower, will ya?" she complains. "And maybe run over some more bumps while you're at it!"
Hazel snaps her wristbands against her skin while Piper tries to adjust her green hair extensions.
"You're just salty because you're the only one who can fit in the crate," Piper insists.
"No," says Hazel. "I'm salty because you all think I can pass for a middle schooler!"
Sure, it isn't exactly a compliment that the team voted Hazel dress in a Panic! at the Disco t-shirt and pretend she's going through her emo phase, but someone had to do it.
But Hazel isn't entirely done complaining. "I mean, sure, I get why Jason's not allowed to do anything physical, and why Annabeth's in charge, but can I at least be a cool middle schooler? I look like Nico!"
"Just do your damn job," says Piper.
Hazel mutters something as she puts on a pair of headphones and walks into the hallway. "Hey, guys, did you catch the new Minecraft update?" she asks the nearest group of guards. Piper listens against the bathroom door as the gamer kids accept Hazel as one of their own, their voices quickly fading away.
When she can no longer hear their footsteps, Piper gets to work. She opens a bathroom stall and starts piling the rest of the crate's contents into the toilet.
Although she knows from an unfortunate mistake that these industrial toilets can handle flushing a maxi pad, there's no possible way it'll be able to withstand a couple of dozen feminine products all at once.
One by one, Piper unwraps the materials so they can get nice and wet with toilet water. She doesn't normally condone screwing up the already sketchy plumbing in a public place, nor does she condone wasting feminine hygiene products when so many women around the world don't have access to them, but this is a dire circumstance. This is Piper's school at stake.
She locks the stall before flushing the toilet and then army-crawls underneath the door so repair can be all that much harder. She stares at the crack beneath the door to make sure that her plan works. For a minute, she's unsure, and even considering crawling back into the stall, but then there's a horrible gurgling sound coming from inside, and she jumps back to avoid wetting her shoes with toilet water. Nasty.
"Guards!" she calls to the middle schoolers.
Three girls wearing Ugg boots, leggings, and jelly bands rush to her aid outside the bathroom.
"You have to do something!" Piper yells in her chef's French accent. "The toilet is flooding!"
They exchange glances, murmuring about toilet plungers and calling 911 and maybe telling Octavian.
"No need to tell your boss on his special day!" Piper insists. "I can call ze plumbers!"
"Thank you, chef!" the girls say before abandoning the flooded bathroom completely.
And with that, Piper texts the New Rome Seven. It's time to engage in the next part of the plan.
✎✎✎
This study group just can't get enough of fake mustaches. Leo and Frank strut into the school, each carrying a plunger, some pipes, and a sledgehammer—the essential tools of any plumber.
"Mamma mia!" Leo says hoisting up the straps of his overalls.
Frank tips his green cap off at the middle schoolers guarding the doors. "Ciao!"
Leo takes it from here. "It's a me, Mario!"
The kids snicker at the real-life Nintendo game. One of them holds his phone up to record.
"Where's the broken toilet?" Frank asks, completely dropping his fake accent.
Luigi is much buffer than the middle schoolers thought he'd be in real life, so they drop the giggles and point him and Mario in the direction of the flooding toilet.
"What's with the sledgehammer?" a kid playing games on his phone asks as they enter the student union.
Leo scoffs. "C'mon, kid, don't you know anything about plumbing?"
And because there's no possible way a middle schooler would know more about plumbing than Leo, a mechanical engineering major, and Frank, an early education major, the kid accepts this as normal and lets them pass into the hallway.
The women's bathroom isn't hard to find. Maybe it's the outline of the woman on the door, or maybe it's the steady stream of water soaking the carpet. It's fine. Nobody liked that carpet anyway. It clashes with the maroon wall and has weird stains, probably from the last time the bathroom flooded.
"Good thing we're wearing boots," Leo says.
"Good thing for you," says Frank. "I wore my sneakers."
"Sneakers? Really?"
"They look better with the costume."
Leo rolls his eyes as he steps into the stream. "Plumbers wear boots."
"Super Mario and his brother Luigi wear sneakers."
"Whatever."
Frank winces as the water soaks through his sneakers.
"Ready?" Leo asks, raising his sledgehammer.
"Ready." Frank points his hammer at the tile wall in front of him, trying to remember the blueprints Annabeth showed them back in the truck. The women's bathroom shares a wall with Dean D's office—apparently, the sound of the water is soothing to him—and they should be able to break through the walls, get into said office, and find the codes to unlock the Chick-fil-A meat locker.
"Dean D and Mr. Brunner must be freezing their asses off," Frank says.
"I'd have more sympathy, but if they weren't in a meat locker, we'd all be fighting to the death in a round of paintball assassins right now," Leo says before bringing his sledgehammer against the wall. It only cracks some of the tilings, but it's a dent. It's progress.
✎✎✎
"Uh, yes," Percy says to the secretary on the phone. "I was just calling regarding the acrobats that are scheduled to perform at my event today." He looks at Annabeth for some sort of confirmation to go on.
She nods her head, annoyed at his poor phone skills.
"Yeah, can I cancel that?" he asks.
Annabeth rolls her eyes at him while perfecting her eyeliner wings.
"Uh, the boss is afraid of acrobats?" It comes out more like a question.
Annabeth scowls at his response. Instead of taking the time to smack him over the head, she texts the Discord server that houses all of Octavian's security communications. OMG guys, did you hear about Stephanie?
Choruses of what? and omg I know flood the thread. Awesome.
Yeah, she cheated on Brian with Chad!
Stephanie, you cheated? Brian asks.
"What are you doing on the Discord server?" Percy asks. "I thought that was just for spying."
"If I can stir up drama among the security, they'll be that much weaker," Annabeth explains as she types up a new message for the Girls Only channel. Thanks for inviting me to your sleepover birthday party, Maria!
I didn't get invited to your party! Fatin replies.
Wait, there's a sleepover part? I was just invited over for cake! Renee says with a mad face.
Annabeth takes a sip from her Cherry Coke, which she really shouldn't be drinking right now because it'll give her the hiccups, but she's too immersed in middle school drama right now for that.
The boys are a little harder to engage without any photographic evidence, but it's been smooth sailing ever since she took on the persona of Sam, whose gender changes every time Annabeth interacts with a different clique. With the popular girls, Sam is the gay best friend with a special interest in fashion and Starbucks. When they're with the nerds, Sam is a nonbinary kid who likes to play Magic: The Gathering. Sometimes, when Sam is texting with the junior varsity sports players, she goes by Samantha and slides into many direct messages. In every scenario, Sam can do a split because Annabeth can't think of any other fun facts.
Essentially, Annabeth/Sam is the bringer of chaos in this middle school ring of security guards.
"C'mon, Wise Girl," Percy teases. "Let's get this show on the road." He puts on his fake mustache and Jason unlocks the truck so he can climb out.
"You're crazy if you think I'm putting on a fake mustache," Annabeth says before pulling a blue wig over her golden hair, leaving a few stray curls sticking out.
"Are you sure you guys don't want my help?" Jason asks.
One thing Annabeth and Percy can agree on is that they do not want Jason's help. He's likely to trip over something and get a concussion. Besides, they need a getaway driver and Piper was conveniently unavailable. Looks like they'll be driving no faster than the posted speed limit after their heist.
Because the door guards are expecting German acrobats, and also because they're distracted by the drama happening in the Discord server, they let Annabeth and Percy into the student union with no hassle.
It would be a shame for Annabeth and Percy to interrupt a weak line dance to "Call Me Maybe," so they wait in the entryway, holding equipment that they have no idea how to use.
The tables in the dining hall have all been pushed to the side of the room, and Octavian is using a booth seat like a throne. Students from New Rome are scattered throughout the room, fake smiles plastered across their faces. Reyna and Thalia are dancing with some of the other Hunters, but they can't seem to grasp the "Call Me Maybe" line dance. A table in the corner has a spread of appetizer pretzel trays with that cinnamon dip everyone seems to go crazy for. At least Octavian stuck with the New Rome tradition of never buying honey mustard.
"So," Annabeth says. "Are we going to talk this through or are we just going to go out there and start turning cartwheels?"
Percy purses his lips. "Shoot, you're right."
They stand there for a moment, taking in the line dance that you can apparently do while drinking from your Arizona iced tea.
"I guess we could like, pick out some music," says Percy. "Fall Out Boy or something."
"'Bang the Doldrums?'" Annabeth asks.
"No, I was thinking 'Centuries.' What even is that?"
"You listen to new Fall Out Boy music?" Annabeth asks, cocking an eyebrow.
"You listen to old Fall Out Boy music?" Percy asks, imitating her tone.
"Whatever," she says. "Do you have any acrobatic skills?"
Percy scratches his fake mustache. "I swim-"
"You really like to remind me of that."
He rolls his eyes and continues. "So I can probably attempt a Dirty Dancing lift or something."
"You like Dirty Dancing, but you don't like old Fall Out Boy music?"
"Says the girl that doesn't like 'Centuries!'"
"Ah!" Octavian cackles from atop his throne. "Our entertainment has arrived!"
Reyna takes off her cowboy hat when she sees Percy and Annabeth in their ridiculous getup and says, "Really? This is what my tuition is paying for?" which is a valid question to ask of just about any event at New Rome Community College.
Octavian stands up, almost tripping over his toga. "Attention, slaves! I mean, students! I have severely underpaid these German circus acrobats to turn some flips and stuff for your amusement. Enjoy. Your education depends on it."
The crowd breaks into polite applause as if someone were holding up a sign that says APPLAUSE.
Percy and Annabeth then look over and notice the middle schooler holding the sign that says APPLAUSE. Of course. It's Octavian. What else did they expect from a maniac like that?
Octavian takes it upon himself to choose music for Annabeth and Percy's routine. It's more Carly Rae Jepsen.
As the first verse of "I Really Like You" blasts from the stadium-worthy speakers, Percy whispers to his acrobat partner, "Are we ready to start turning somersaults?"
"We?" Annabeth asks. When the chorus hits, she starts turning backflips and it's totally awesome, but it doesn't keep the crowd entertained for long.
Percy shrugs and grabs some silverware from the pretzel tray. Although the pair won't admit how in synch they are, Annabeth's able to catch on to Percy's plan right away.
"For our next trick," Percy says in the worst German accent imaginable, "we'll need a volunteer!"
They pull Octavian between them and start throwing silverware back and forth on either side of him. The acrobatics routine is now a juggling routine, but anything's possible when you're stalling for time.
With one expert throw, Annabeth loops a fork through Octavian's belt, catching a key by the loop and sending it to Percy.
He catches the key and pockets it. Now all they have to do is keep Octavian distracted long enough for the rest of the team to finish their parts of the plan.
✎✎✎
CRASH!
"Hell, yeah!" Leo shouts. He hops through the broken wall and into the dean's office. "C'mon, Frank, where would those codes be? Frank?"
"Mamma mia!" Frank shouts to someone standing outside the bathroom. "We are a plumbing experts! We fix!"
He comes back toward the obliterated wall, his shoes squishing in the water with each step.
"Your Italian accent sucks," Leo says.
"Like yours is any better," Frank retorts before following Leo into Dean D's office.
Leo opens the drawers and slams them shut just as fast. He checks the minifridge and comes up with only Diet Coke. Then, he tears up the rug and finds nothing but a dead cockroach and some water from the flooded bathroom.
Frank rolls his eyes and opens the top drawer in the filing cabinet. "Here," he says, opening a purple leather-bound notebook. "Call Hazel. I've got the codes to the first door."
Leave it to a large corporation to have two max-security doors on their meat locker. The Chick-fil-A refrigeration unit has one door that requires a top-secret code to be unlocked, and a second that can only be unlocked with the key that Annabeth and Percy have hopefully attained.
Many may have the code to unlock the first door, but there is only one key, so Annabeth and Percy's success is imperative to the quest.
Leo calls Hazel and listens while the tone plays. "C'mon, pick up..."
"What's up?" she says upon answering.
"Great," says Leo. "Frank's going to read these codes off."
Frank takes the phone and reads the combination from Dean D's notebook.
"Awesome," Hazel says. "I'll get that to Annabeth and Percy. Still not sure why the combo is beloved country singer Dolly Parton's birthday though- Oh! Thanks, Annabeth. I mean, thanks, random acrobat whom I've never met."
So that means Annabeth and Percy got the key! The plan is working out perfectly for this group. Nothing can go wrong from here now that Hazel has the means to break into the Chick-fil-A meat locker and rescue Dean D and Mr. Brunner.
✎✎✎
Remember that sit-and-reach test from middle school gym class where they made you sit up against the box and reach as far past your toes as you could?
Yeah, Percy failed that test. It was the one thing keeping him from earning the Presidential Fitness Award.
He'd hoped that maybe with all the swimming and exercise he gets nowadays, he might be able to pull off pretending to be an acrobat without the help of Annabeth, the one who can apparently turn backflips.
That is not the case.
He ends up barrel-rolling across the floor and turning a lopsided somersault before the door opens again.
He's saved at last from his embarrassment! Annabeth is here, and she's ready to turn another backflip!
Percy turns to the doorway and opens his arms with a flourish while tapping his toes to Carly Rae Jepsen's concerningly upbeat heartbreak song.
And Jason's standing in the doorway wearing an incredibly stupid outfit: a sideways-turned hat with a flat brim, parachute pants, sunglasses, and to top it all off, an ugly vintage jacket. Those colors should not have left the designer's sketchbook.
"Ay, yo, yo, yo!" Jason shouts. He presses play on his phone and blasts his beat track over Octavian's pop music. "J-Money in da house!"
Percy's jaw drops so wide he doesn't even notice his fake mustache falling off. That is until Octavian makes him very well aware of it.
"Guards! Seize Percy Jackson and Jason Grace!" he calls. "Where are all the guards?"
A girl wearing an oversized t-shirt from a Color Run and a pair of leggings says, "Yeah, so Brittany told Paul that she heard that Chad and Brian were going to fight in the poolroom so that's where everyone is." The girl doesn't even look up from her phone.
"What?" Octavian screeches. "But that's all the way across campus!"
"Yeah, but that's what you get when you hold hands with your best friend's girlfriend during study hall," she says. It's a miracle. Annabeth's pot-stirring actually worked!
"No, no, no! Get the other guards, right now!" Octavian shouts, banging his fists against his makeshift throne.
"I mean, I can, but wouldn't it just be easier to get the guards by the meat locker?"
Steam practically comes out of Octavian's ears as he launches into a rant about the importance of duty and loyalty and all the things a kid shouldn't have to commit to at the ripe age of thirteen and a half. This poor girl probably just wants Erik to notice her and for her mom to finally let her get a real Hydroflask water bottle.
Percy looks to Jason and gestures toward the exit. While Octavian is distracted by the middle school drama, they run off to meet Hazel and Annabeth.
"And that's why you should never let a girl dump you over Snapchat!" Octavian finishes at last. Then, he presses his palm to his forehead. "Where'd they go?"
"Brunner and the dean are missing, sir!" a middle schooler shouts.
Octavian facepalms and says, "We'll let's bring them back now, shall we?"
✎✎✎
They did it. The New Rome Seven saved Mr. Brunner and Dean D from their captors, and now it's time for them to parade through the hallways of the school while a Karate Kid-esque song plays in the background.
They'll go home, eat pizza like they're in an eighties commercial, and then probably file a report with the police because whatever the hell Octavian has going on at the school is pretty shady. At the very least, he'll get sued over child labor laws or something.
It's too perfect a fantasy. The scene is much too good to be true.
That's why it's not surprising that they're intercepted by Octavian and the junior varsity football team.
Now, they're shivering away in the Chick-fil-A meat locker, legs pressed to their chests in hope of finding some warmth. It's an uncomfortable situation, especially with the added stress of the fake mustaches and ridiculous costumes they've picked out for themselves.
"You won't get away with this!" Jason yells, shaking his fist.
"Ah, but I've already won," says Octavian. Like any villain, he launches into his sinister plan: "When midnight hits, I'll blast my fireworks off from the dining hall-"
"Isn't that a safety hazard?" Frank asks.
"Hell yeah, it is!" says Annabeth. "You'll blow up the student union!"
"Nice try," Octavian scoffs. "Fire can't go through doors, especially not since I'll be launching them out of my onager!"
"Your onager?" Jason asks.
"It's like a bigass canon!" Leo shouts. His excitement is quickly replaced with dread when he realizes their impending doom.
Jason gets close to Octavian, causing the guards to raise their paintball guns. "You'll have no place to rule if you go through with this," he says.
Octavian just laughs and leaves, the meat locker shutting behind them with a beep as the code resets.
"Annabeth?" Piper asks.
"Way ahead of you," she says. It's Plan Time. Annabeth gets up and paces around the room, her hand tracing the wall, and every now and then she opens a box and scowls when she sees its contents. "Damn homophobic chicken," she mutters under her breath.
Finally, she takes a seat against a sack of lettuce. "I got nothing," she says.
Shoulders drop and breaths are released. "Like, actually?" Jason asks.
"Come on, Annie Bell," Dean D groans. "Weren't you like, Berkeley bound or something?"
"Guys, let her alone. She came up with the entire plan in the first place," Piper says, coming to her friend's defense.
"Yeah, the plan that got us down here in the first place," Dean D snaps.
Percy, who hasn't spoken this whole time, finally stands up and addresses the group. This is it. This is the plan they've all been awaiting. "Did you guys know Annabeth can do a backflip?"
"Yes," everyone says in unison.
Frank cocks an eyebrow. "Dude, everyone except for you knew that."
Annabeth flops onto her side and clutches the sack of lettuce like some sort of body pillow.
Percy takes mercy on the suffering genius and crouches down next to her. "I thought it was pretty cool," he says.
While the others are distracted, Frank looks up into the security camera. Why the New Rome Chick-fil-A needs a security camera in their meat locker is beyond him, but it's about to come in handy. That is if the Mars Coed Fraternity really is monitoring the whole situation.
Frank nods at the camera, surrendering himself into the hands of fraternity life.
In a suspiciously quick turnaround, the vent pops open and Ellis sticks his head out. "Welcome to the Greek Life, brother," he says to Frank.
"No, you didn't!" Hazel cries.
"Thanks, Ellis," Frank says.
"How kind of you to join the fraternity for the sake of your friends," Mr. Brunner says, a twinkle in his eye.
The group promises to come back for Mr. Brunner since his wheelchair can't fit, and as they do every year, they crawl through the dusty vents of New Rome, only to emerge right back at the women's bathroom.
Middle schoolers wearing chains on their pants and knee-high Converse sneakers frantically run in and out of the bathroom with buckets to dispose of the flooding water.
"Leo," Piper scolds. "You didn't fix the toilet?"
"Nope!" he declares.
"Hey, they're getting away!" shouts one of the middle schoolers.
Busted again!
"What do we do?" Percy asks.
Dean D turns to Leo. "Leonard-"
"Leo."
"Whatever. You've always been my favorite. You know that?"
Leo swallows. "I do now."
"The switch to activate the blacklights is in my office; the only thing you'll be able to see is your teeth and maybe Jaden's ridiculous outfit."
"Hey!" Jason objects. "J-Money is my alter ego!"
Leo nods. "I've got this."
"The rest of ya?" Dean D asks. "I used to be a middle school teacher. Brats, I tell ya. You gotta know how to hit them where it hurts."
"Isn't that child abuse?" Hazel asks.
Dean D facepalms. "Not with your fists, Harriet! Use your words." To demonstrate, he marches right up to one of the middle schoolers and says, "Hey! Yo momma is so fat, her butt has its own zipcode!"
Target engaged. The middle schoolers rush in to join the roast-fest, shouting a mix of yo momma jokes and other colorful insults. How did they find out that Frank is Canadian, and why would they attack him for that?
Percy shrieks in offense at one particular yo momma joke that insinuates one of the middle schoolers slept with his mom, who is in New York and in no way capable of having slept with a middle schooler.
Then, the lights go off and shit hits the fan.
"Damn, Jarrod, clean your teeth!" Dean D shouts.
"Wait, Jason's the only one we can see under the blacklights," Annabeth shouts to be heard over the Lady Gaga remixes blasting through the intercom. "Jason, get us to the dining hall!"
Jason's loud outfit leads the group past the disoriented middle schoolers. The New Rome Seven cautiously pushes through the guards, while Dean D has no problem with slamming them against the bulletin boards.
Octavian's toga lights up under the club lighting, and it's clear that he's ready to fire the explosives on the school.
"Octavian, don't do this!" Jason yells.
"Too late!" he shouts, pulling the trigger.
Nothing happens.
Then, something does happen.
Octavian's toga catches on the canon, which sucks him in, and quickly fires him through the ceiling of the dining hall.
"Did that just happen?" Frank asks.
"Wow," Jason says solemnly. "I never liked him, but he never deserved to-"
"You'll pay for this, Jason Grace!"
"Oh, never mind. He's alive," says Jason, with only a hint of disappointment in his voice.
After a moment of silence and exchanged glances between New Rome college students and middle schoolers alike, Reyna breaks the silence. "Well, thanks for rescuing us, guys."
The New Rome Seven stands as they're applauded by the student body, which of course, doesn't last long because Dean D has to make everything about himself.
"Well, brats, since the blacklights are already on and Octavian spent our paintball budget on boxed wine, who's ready to party?" he asks.
The group cheers and starts dancing to Lady Gaga like nothing ever happened. Nobody parties quite like New Rome.
✎✎✎
Frank's going away party is not as fun as the Yay, We Saved New Rome Community College party. Maybe it's because Leo didn't spring for the good deep dish pizza, but it's more likely because, by the end of the day, Frank will move into the Mars Coed Fraternity house, committing himself to a life of brotherhood and drinking way too much on a Thursday night.
"I swear, there's this whole alcohol safety and Title IX training I have to do as part of the initiation," Frank says, trying to defend his unfortunate fate. "I'm going to miss you guys, though," he admits.
"We'll miss you too, Frank," says Piper.
"Will we ever get to see you?" Hazel asks.
Frank shrugs. "I'll be pretty busy with party planning and initiation, and also tutoring Mark for some reason, so I probably won't be able to be in the study group, but I'll try to drop in every now and then."
It's not what anyone wants to hear, but Frank knows deep down that he did what he had to for the sake of New Rome Community College.
"Hey, before you go," Percy says, "did anybody let Mr. Brunner out of the Chick-fil-A meat locker?"