A prank war is two-sided.

Tango had been telling himself that for days, but he was embarrassingly a bit surprised when the Hunters of Artemis retaliated.

They struck the Apollo cabin first, when a snare trap they'd set up outside their cabin caught Kayla Knowles. Hours later, the Apollo cabin's blinding golden glow mysteriously faded. The Apollo campers were mortified.

In Tango's opinion, it was better this way, but true to the philosophy of the Mycelium Resistance (even though Tango had been on HEP's side), it's about the principle.

So he, Beckendorf, and Will Solace built a bronze firefly that they hid inside the Artemis cabin, programmed to buzz around and light up at random intervals, then shut off and fly somewhere else just as they were about to find it.

If all went to plan, it would first light up at nightfall, and none of the Hunters would get much sleep that night. Eventually, they'd catch the firefly, of course. They weren't called Hunters for nothing.

Of course, they'd also figure out that the Hepheastus cabin was behind this at some point, so Tango and Beckendorf worked on some defenses for their cabin.

"Hey, can you grab one of those Greek Fire jars?" Beckendorf grunted, wrestling with the catapult he was working on.

Tango nodded and reached out to grab one of the bronze cylinders, before noticing a fuzzy little lump next to one.

His first thought was Ren.

His second was a dead rat.

The guinea pig squeaked angrily.

Nah, it was Ren.

"What are you doing here?" Tango asked Ren, picking the rodent up with one hand and the jar with the other. He set the jar next to Beckendorf's workspace.

Ren squeaked.

"Mhm," Tango nodded as if he could understand. "Go on."

Ren squeaked indignantly.

"I'm gonna take this little guy back to his cabin," Tango announced. Beckendorf nodded absently.

Ren squeaked repeatedly as Tango trudged through the trampled snow to the Ares cabin. He knocked on the door.

No one answered, so Tango opened the door.

"I'm not really supposed to go into your cabin," Tango told Ren. "But that's never really stopped me before, so I just hope I didn't step on any land mines..."

His eyes widened. Land mines.

What if...

Fart land mines.

Tango pushed his new inspiration aside, because Ren had somehow gotten up onto the singular bookshelf in the entire cabin of the war god and was squeaking wildy and scratching at a book.

"Look," Tango chided. "I know books remind you of Athena, but that's no reason to destroy them."

Ren shook his head, scratched at the book again, and let out a stubborn REEEEEET.

"Ohhh," Tango realized. "You want the book. I didn't know you could read."

REEEEEEEEET! REET REET REET-

"Oh, hush," Tango laughed. "It was a joke." 

He pulled the book off the shelf. It was a book of Greek Mythology, which were pretty common around Camp Half-Blood. He briefly wondered how the gods felt having their life stories broadcasted to the world. Then he dismissed that, since the gods had egos big enough to handle that.

He opened the book for Ren. "What are you looking for?"

Ren flipped the pages with much difficulty until he found the story of the Odyssey, and then further until he reached the part about Circe's island.

"Oh," Tango said. "You're trying to find a cure."

Ren nodded.

"You're pretty miserable as a rodent, aren't you?"

Ren nodded again and squeaked pitifully.

"I almost feel bad for you. But look... this doesn't say a way to cure it. I don't think Odysseus cured his crewmates. He just made himself immune to her spell with an herb called moly."

Ren squeaked in agreement.

"You're right, it is worth a shot," Tango said, even though he had no idea what Ren had just said. "But Odysseus got moly from Hermes, and Hermes is a god. We have no way of knowing if he'll help us. Hm... if it's moly from a god, does that make it holy moly?"

Ren let out a tiny rodent sigh.

Tango was ashamed to admit that he had mostly forgotten about the guinea pig son of Ares. He'd been caught up in the prank war, trying to distract himself from all the other problems his friends were going through.

But they had a lead now.

They just needed to get a hold of Hermes... somehow.

After Tango put some fart land mines in front of the Artemis cabin, of course.