Jackson's POV

Jackson and Daniel followed the dryad through the forest, towards the fireworks beach. Chiron had decided that as a training exercise, both of them had to go investigate the dryad's claim of a new half-blood just appearing in the arms of a few naiads.

Speaking of Chiron, Jackson really had been honored that he had chosen them to investigate the mountain, instead of calling in some pros, like the legendary Percy Jackson and his almost-as-legendary girlfriend Annabeth Chase, but he thought that the real reason Chiron had sent them to investigate the beach was so that he would have to answer any questions about the real quest that either Jackson or Daniel might have, the lazy horse.

They ran alongside the river that usually marked the boundary line when they played capture-the-flag. Jackson thought himself pretty good at that game. He could beat almost everyone at camp at a sword fight, except Percy himself, probably, Jackson had never challenged him. That made him a valuable player. People said that his skill came from his name, which was Percy's last name, but Jackson assumed that it was just from practice, he spent almost all his free time (and some of his not-so-free time, shhh...) training in the arena, and a bit of natural talent. The way most people took him down in CTF was when they would either sneak-attack him, or hit him with with a long range weapon, like a bow or a spear.

Daniel interrupted his thinking with a question to the nymph. "Did you actually see this so called demigod?" Jackson could tell Daniel didn't believe her either.

"No, but we can trust the naiads. They don't lie." she replied. Yeah, Jackson thought sarcastically. Only when they want to entangle a cute demigod guy for a kiss, or when they need someone to help them with a hangnail or something.

Finally, after a lot more tripping through the forest, they arrived on the fireworks beach.

"Just this way!" the dryad told them as she nimbly ran towards a cove of rocks by the sea.

Before they had even arrived, they heard a voice.

"Calm down ladies," the voice said in a drunk kind of way. "There is enough of Johnny-boy for everyone. Just then the pair of demigods reached the cove and looked over the rocks. There they saw a boy, he was smallish and looked very wet and dirty with long dark hair that went in all directions, with naiads laying all around and over him, kissing him wherever they had the room, and giggling. So the dryad hadn't been lying after all.

"Scram ladies!" yelled Jackson down on the naiads as he stood on one the rocks. "This boy is ours!"

The naiads jumped back into the water, doing all sorts of tricks as they went, giving Jackson dirty looks and the boy, longing ones.

The dirty rat of a boy glanced up at them. "Aww. Come on guys. I was having fun! Anyway, I'm straight so you better not be thinking of anything."

"What? No! We're here to take you to a place where you'll be safe!" Daniel replied. "Anyway, what's your name? I'm Daniel Summers and this is my buddy, Jackson Ridder."

"I'm John..." The boy looked like he couldn't remember his last name, like he hadn't used it in a while. "Bowey! That's it, Bowey! I'm John Bowey." he finished rather excitably.

"Well John Bowey, let's get you to camp."

*****

"Guys, seriously, where the *insert cuss word here* are we going?! Please tell me it's not another foster home. I'm doing fine on my own!"

This John character was definitely not in his right mind, or maybe that's what he was always like, Jackson didn't know. He had been swearing like a sailor and just rambling about things that made no sense. He had mentioned everything between penguins and radiators, stuffed animals and nuclear missiles, all without any meaning. They had been able to pry some information about his past, like the fact that he was a street orphan for seven years, or that he hated both him and Daniel, but Jackson was getting seriously annoyed.

"Will you just shut up?"

"Nah. I don't really feel like it." John responded innocently.

"Something is definitely wrong with this boy." Even Daniel had noticed. "I vote we take him to the healers at my cabin and see if they can fix him up."

"I think we should take him to Chiron." responded Jackson. "Chiron should know that there is a new camper first, but then right to the Apollo cabin."

"Sure, sounds good."

They walked the rest of the way to the Big House in silence, well, except for John. He was still rambling about nothing in particular, but no one was listening.

When they arrived Chiron was sitting in his wheelchair listening to his awful '40s music.

"Chiron, please!" said Daniel, hoping that Chiron would turn off the horrible moaning that he called music, it kind of sounded like that Demigod a few months ago who had been burned beyond recognition.

"Fine." Chiron turned his music off. "Although I don't see how you young heroes don't enjoy listening to the classics! What do you need, Daniel, Jackson, boy that I do not recognize."

"Umm, apparently that dryad was telling the truth. We found this boy, John Bowey, out by the beach with the naiads. He looks like he's drunk."

As if to prove Daniel's point John got down started to do the worn across the floor, with no music whatsoever so it just looked like he was entering a death spasm.

"Something is very much wrong with this young hero. I suspect that the naiads put an enchantment on him to seduce him, making it easier for him to become their plaything. The Apollo cabin healers should be able to fix this up quickly. Bring him to them."

And with that Chiron turned on his music again.

Just as Jackson was walking out the door he remembered something. "Chiron!"

"Yes, child?" Chiron yelled above the music that was blaring out of the radio that looked like it could have been made in the same year as the song itself.

"When exactly are we leaving for this quest of ours?"

"Whenever you feel like it really, but make sure that it is before..." He thought for a second. "Next Friday. I do not want you taking too long!"

Next Friday was in four days so that was plenty of time for them to get ready, but first step was getting this crazy boy to the healers.

*****

Jackson had never understood the Apollo cabin. Its gold outside reflected the light like crazy, blinding anyone who looked in that direction, and even on the inside it was bright! It wasn't like the firelight that was so much better. It was like sunlight, blinding and bright. The inside of the cabin wasn't much better, but it still had its flaws. Almost everything in the room was a light color, mostly yellow and white, and let's not mention the music that the Apollo kids seemed to be obsessed with. Despite these things, Daniel seemed perfectly at home is this environment. He apparently liked it loud and bright.

The Apollo kids had taken John straight to the part of the cabin that was saved for medical purposes. There was a little bed that jut out of the wall and behind it, in an indent in the wall, was a bunch of bottles that contained different medicines and pills. Jackson noticed that it was kinda like one of those diaper-changing stations in bathrooms.

John was thrashing around on the bed and it took both Daniel and Jackson to hold him down. Jackson tried to order John to calm down but to no success. He really felt like he needed to stab the boy, but the medic working on John wouldn't allow that. He said it would 'make him harder to operate on.' Soon, after the medic had injected him with some sort of needle, John calmed down and went into a kind of paralyzed state, so the medic told Jackson and Daniel to go wait outside. It was getting quite cramped in there. They obeyed and went to sit on the small front porch of the cabin.

"Jackson?" Daniel opened the conversation. Jackson really hoped that Daniel wasn't going to talk about that boy. He didn't want to acknowledge his existence just yet. Luckily that wasn't what Daniel wanted to talk about. "So, did you hear the news?"

"Uhh... About what exactly?" Jackson didn't remember hearing any important news about anything recently. Except their quest, of course, but Daniel knew that Jackson already knew about that.

"About me!" Daniel gestured to himself with a wide grin on his face.

"I don't think so." Did Daniel get injured or something? Or maybe he won an award? Jackson didn't know.

"Just today Will Solace gave me his role as the counselor of Cabin 7! He said that he wanted to be more 'out and about' and not be bound by the duty of being a counselor, but we all know that he just wants to spend more time with Nico." Daniel smiled.

"Congratulations for the counselor position, although you are way too irresponsible." Jackson smirked but then his talking went on a completely different course. "Nico and Will, they're a cute couple. I hope that they actually get together someday." He had also noticed that Will had been spending a lot of his time with the son of Hades.

Daniel smile grew into a mischievous grin. "Yeah. That's what everyone else thinks of you and Clara." He quoted Jackson's words. "I hope that they actually get together someday."

"Hey! I don't like her in that way. Just... She's cool, okay!" Jackson was frowning in an attempt to hide his embarrassment, but the truth was, he did kind of like Daniel's half-sister, although he didn't know if was it actual love or just some passing attraction.

"If you say so." Daniel was trying, but failing, to hide his smirk.

"Ugh! Daniel, you are so impossible!"

"Well man, I'm going to go start packing for our little quest thing."

"Already dude? We leave in like four days."

"Better to be early than late." Jackson said as he got up and began to walk away. "See you in the morning."