As I'd been landed on by Mei and MK when we first met, I had to go buy eggs again.
'Mom! I'm back!' I said as I entered the house and went into the kitchen.
I looked at MK and Mei standing behind me looking around in awe
'And I brought some friends with me,' I added.
'Wow,' Mei said 'Your house is really neat'
'Thanks,'
I put down the eggs and started laying out food for breakfast. I decided to try making blue pancakes today since mom would be taking care of Estelle, my little sister.
'Well hello there!'
I turned around to my mum looking at the two interlopers in my living room. Both of them bowed to my mum in greeting. A thought popped in my mind.
'Are you guys from China?'
'Yeah, Megapolis' Mei replied
'Oh, you guys are foreigners? How long have you been in Manhattan?' Mum asked
'Well for about a minute...'
That made me start thinking. If these kids were from China, which gods were their parents then? Annabeth, my girlfriend, had told me that in different parts of the world, different gods controlled the flow of the universe. It didn't make much sense at the time, and it still doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I've seen Apollo drive the sun in his chariot, and yet Karter Cane, a friend of mine, had told me how Ra sails the sun in a boat. It turns my brain to mush sometimes if I think too hard about it.
My mum had sat down at the dining table with the other two and started talking to them while I was flipping Pancakes. One of them got stuck to the ceiling and wouldn't come down. I listened in on her conversation with the two while they told their tale. Apparently, Mei, whose full name was Ao Mei, was a descendant, like she had told me earlier, of the Grand Dragon of the Eastern Sea, Ao Jie. Apparently, she had been of pure Dragon descent, and was the wielder of the true fire of Samadhi, an unbridled flame that, left unchecked, could obliterate our entire universe. I thought that was a tall tale, since if something of that magnitude of destruction was real then at least camp would have given a hint of its existence. She said she also had a dragon aura, which was kinda cool.
MK said he didn't know who his ancestors were or where he came from, and how he was adopted by Zhu Bajie, or Pigsy, a literal pig. He was a noodle delivery boy at his adopted father's shop until he picked up a staff from a construction site. Surprisingly, it belonged to a-sorry- THE monkey king. And since that day, with guidance from 'the monkey king,' he has been dealing with 'World-level threats' such as a 'Demon Bull King' and a 'Spider Queen', and a bunch of other different royal bad guys. Honestly, I found it wild to believe how many different royalties were in China. Maybe he meant that they were ruling over specific animals like Spider Queen really meant 'Queen of Spiders'. I asked him this and he said he wouldn't know since Spider Queen was murdered.
Another pancake found residence on the ceiling of my kitchen. I put that one in the bin, separated the remaining into four stacks, put blueberries and dribbled syrup over mine, and brought the remaining to the table. The two kids devoured the meal within seconds. Mum and I both looked at them.
'Um, thank you for the meal, ma'am,' Mei said.
'Yes, thank you ma'am,' MK chimed.
'So...' my mum said' are you taking them to camp half blood after this?'
'Yeah,' I replied ' I'll try to get Chiron to talk to the pantheon, and see if I can find their godly parent--'
'I'm the daughter of a Dragon!'
'Suuure...' I said ' Anyways, we'll see what we can do about taking them back to their homes.'
'I'M THE DAUGHTER OF A DRAGON!'
Estelle cooed.
'Shh!' Mum said
'Sorry.'
Mum left to look after Estelle. I took MK and Mei outside the apartment and looked over at Paul's car. It would fill me up with guilt inside to ride it, but the only option would be calling BlackJack, and as much as I knew he'd want to help, I didn't think he could carry three kids. Plus I don't let anyone ride BlackJack.
'Hop in the car kids,' I said 'Uncle Percy's taking y'all for a ride.'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The most surprising thing about the ride is how no monsters ambushed us on the ride. The one thing I've learnt about us demigods is that the more powerful our parents are, the more likely we are to be ambushed by otherworldy beings looking for their lunch.
We eventually reached the border of Camp Half-Blood. I could smell the strawberry fields the second I stepped out of the car. They made me feel nostalgic.
MK and Mei both stepped out of the car and looked at the camp.
'Woah' They said simultaneously.
I couldn't blame them. The camp looked amazing, from the omega-shaped cabins to the training ground to the Big House. The three of us walked towards the Big House amidst the other campers. The campers glanced at the other two but stared at me. It still felt weird after all these months.
'You're kinda popular around here' MK noted.
'Hey, Percy!'
I turned around to see a short boy with curly black hair, dark brown eyes, pointy ears, a cheerful, elf-like face running towards me.
'Leo!' I said ' What's up? What're you doing here?'
'Just wanted to check on my siblings and work maintenance on Festus,' Leo looked behind me ' Who these guys?'
'Two random demigods from China, Mei and MK, meet Leo. Leo, Mei and MK,'
'Hi,' Mei said cheerfully
'Huh. Chinese demigods, Do you guys know who your parents are?'
'Mine are Dragons,' Mei said
Leo looked at me. I shrugged.
'It's a thing .'
'I'M NOT LYING!'
Leo looked like he was holding back hysterical laughter. Mei looked like she could kill someone.
'Alright, you guys are going to the Big House? I'm bored, so I'll tag along,'
'Cool!'
At the front of the house, both Mr. D and Chiron were outside on the porch, playing cards. Mr. D, also known as Dionysus, was our camp director, as a punishment from Zeus, his father, for chasing some off-limits nymph. Chiron was just our average fun activities director. That was a centaur.
'Ah, welcome Percy. How have you been so far?'
'It's been good, thanks. '
'And who are these?' Mr. D asked lazily
'This is Ao Mei, and this is MK.'
Mr. D looked over at Mei
'Oh, a descent of the dragon family. Interesting,'
Chiron looked as surprised as I was
Mr. D then looked over eerily at MK and said nothing, but he smirked. That scared me. If Mr. D
found something that he even kind of found funny, it usually means trouble for us.
'Why don't you take them around the camp, Leo?' Chiron suggested
'Oh.. um... sure!' Leo said 'Come on guys! I'll show you our climbing challenge!'
'Cool!' Mei said
The three of them exited the building.
Chiron pinched his eyes and slowly shook his head.
'Percy, where did you find them?'
'They fell on me in the back of an alleyway, why?'
Mr. D chuckled 'You mean you don't realize who they are? What they are?'
'Demigods?'
'Percy,' Mr Chiron sighed 'They're monsters,'
'What?? '
' Monsters. The most dangerous kind.'
'What are they?'
Chiron looked like he aged forty years even thinking about the answer.
'Have you heard the legend of The Monkey King,'
The sky darkened for a moment, as if even Zeus was paying attention.
'The Monkey King, Sun Wukong?'
'I thought I'd heard all the Greek stories by now,'
'It's not Greek, it's Chinese,'
'Oh. Why is it so important?'
'Sun Wukong was--'
Screams and yells pierced the quiet morning.
I looked over at where the screams were coming from. Chiron also got out of his wheelchair to reveal his full white centaur form. We both ran towards the continuous sounds of screams and... cheering? It came from the climbing challenge.
There was a crowd around the walls. Leo came up to us practically dancing in excitement.
'What kind of demigods did you bring here Percy?'
' What happened?'
'A new record! She cleared the Climbing Wall in seconds!'
'What??'
'I know, are all Chinese demigods like this??'
I looked at the Dragon girl standing on the top of the Wall amidst cheers from every side. The sky had once again darkened.
I might have just single-handedly brought trouble to the camp again.