Eris wasn't done mind-blowing us yet.

While I was hyperventilating my stars out, the goddess examined her nails as if her freaky outburst never happened. "Oh yes, one more thing. You should probably get a check up on your camp sometime soon. I hear that things aren't entirely going so well."

"Don't tell me Ouranos is going to take over their bodies too," Lance tightly clenched the Necklace of Harmonia in his hand, "This thing is giving us bad luck." He tossed it onto the counter, and Eris snatched it like a predator. She quickly undid the clasp and hung it from her neck where she wore it with pride. Her nails tapped against the jewels in delight.

"Nah, that's a bit over the top," Eris stroked the necklace as if it were a dog. Reyna and I shuddered in disgust. "But here's another twist. Before Astra even knew what a half-blood was, Drew, that doll, was having her cabin distribute some items to campers that would 'help them be chic'. Slang words are absolutely ridiculous."

"This was before she was revealed a traitor?" Reyna asked while leaning forward in her seat.

Eris absentmindedly looked up from the necklace, "Mhm."

My mind wandered away from my dad and exploding guts for the briefest moment. All the gears began to turn and click, as if Leo was somehow in my brain. That would explain a lot, though, because I'm pretty sure my mind's messed up. "I think I know what it is. I'm heading out to Camp Half-blood, now!" I jumped out of my seat and made a mad dash towards the doors.

"Astra, hold up!" Lance called. He and Reyna, although bewildered, left the obsessed goddess behind and chased after me. I pushed past the bellhop, who was absolutely confused on why a teenager was wandering around the gambling area, ran to where the horses were being kept and leapt straight onto Rigel's back.

He nearly swore, but restrained himself. The other pegasus, however, wasn't as clean. Madam Astra, Rigel coughed, how many times have I told you not to spontaneously jump onto my back without-.

"Save the montage, Rigel," I said, patting his sides as an apology, "We have to save Camp Half-Blood first." He mumbled something under his breath, but it wasn't coherent enough for me to understand.

Lance and Reyna burst out of the hotel, Lance, being completely out of breath, while Reyna calm and composed. "Where the Hades do you think you're going?!" He demanded, gasping for air but managed to stomp right up to me, "You can't just ditch us with a psycho goddess who obsesses over a necklace like it's the world's juiciest slice of bacon."

"Sorry Lance, but our friends' lives are at stake. And I know the solution. If I get leave now, I'll be able to fix everything-."

"And if you do, then Ouranos is going to rise, whether we like it or not," Lance pointed back at the direction of Mt. Tamalpais, "Who's going to take over your dad. If you don't get there in time, it's going to spell disaster!"

"That's impossible!" I gasped, covering my mouth with exaggeration. "I'm dyslexic! Who can spell disaster? D-I-Z?! D-E-S?!"

"Stop acting sarcastic! This is serious."

I looked down at him anxiously and then towards the east where New York was, "You know I'm torn. But I've known the campers at Half-Blood much longer than the hour with my dad. They are my family too."

Reyna placed a hand on Lance's shoulder. "Astra will be fine. She can survive without a babysitter." She then looked up at me with her obsidian eyes, "We'll help your dad. I swear on my honor. We'll recollect everyone at Camp Jupiter and have a surprise attack; they'll never see us coming."

Her tone convinced me, and I nodded. Lance continued to frown, although he seemed to accept my decision, "I'm not going to stop worrying about you, though."

I gave him an assuring smile, "I'm tougher than you, so I'll live."

Lance approached Rigel and stood next to me with a grumpy expression. I raised my eyebrows, wondering if he wanted to be trampled when an alicorn was about to take flight. Suddenly, he grabbed my arm and pulled me down, landing a brief kiss on my cheek. Without giving me time to react, he pushed me back up and gestured at Rigel to leave. "Vlacas," He murmured, giving me a smirk.

Rigel took off, flapping his ginormous wings and began the six hour flight to New York. I buried myself into his mane, trying to hide my burning face.

* * *

Let's start things off positively by saying I got extremely worried when I noticed Peleus was missing. It was pretty early in the morning, but the sun still managed to rise. Its heat wasn't as intense as the past few days, which bothered me, but I shrugged it off. The Golden Fleece was dangling on its normal spot on the pine tree, but the dragon was nowhere in sight. That is strange, Rigel said as he flew over the camp's borders.

A sudden ashy scent wafted up my nose, and my attention immediately turned to a large cloud of smoke coming from Camp Half-blood's forest. "Wait a minute. Today isn't Capture the Flag day," I quickly pulled out my hair clip. It transformed into my bow in my hands, and I clutched it tightly, "Be careful, Rigel."

You are telling me? He scoffed, galloping as he began his decent. As soon as his hooves landed on the ground, he was nearly impaled by an incoming sword. I kicked it out of the way before the blade could make contact with Rigel's muzzle. Jumping off of Rigel's back, I stepped on my heel. The blade popped out, and while the attacker was shocked, I wrapped my foot around his wrist and swiftly twisted my leg to disarm the attacker. Rigel, being a very smart alicorn, helped me by kicking the person in the back. The person fell onto the ground, and the alicorn leapt to the skies again to see if he could help anyone else with his ninja horse-like moves.

I looked at the camper; it was Connor Stoll. In his hand was a small, blue compact mirror. Before he could get up, I grabbed the device from his hand, placed it on the ground, and stomped on it with all my strength. The glass shattered, and he immediately sat up in a daze. "Astra..?" He rubbed his eyes, "What are you doing back here?"

"What are you doing, trying to kill me?" I held out a hand, "You know a surprise attack isn't going to work."

His eyes widened, the blue in his irises trembling, "What?! That's ridiculous! A prank, maybe, like dropping some live worms in your soup, but killing you is a little too far." Connor took my hand, and I pulled him up.

I worriedly stared off past the trees, noticing a few more campers engaging in battle. "When did it get this bad?"

"A couple days after you left," Connor picked up his sword, and saw his broken mirror on the ground, "Man, that's the second one I've broken this week."

Remembering my initial thought, I pointed at the compact mirror, "How long have you had these?"

Connor frowned, trying to remember. With his memory, that would take a while. He tapped the side of his forehead, as if it would trigger something. "I think it was the day before you showed up to camp. The Aphrodite cabin was passing them out and telling us to check into all this beauty BS that no one cared about. Why?"

"Then that means I have to find Chiron," I said, "I figured everything out." Breaking into a run, I headed straight towards the Big House. A couple of Demeter children tried to stop me with moving vines, but I slashed them aside with my kicks. Not wanting to hurt them but knowing it was inevitable, I grabbed their heads and smashed their skulls against each other. They crumpled and I continued making my way to the large building.

Noticing three people sitting on the porch, I made my way up the stairs to where a god and a horse-man were arguing while a camper in between them tried to stop them. "Not them too!" I groaned, noticing them tightly clutching their own reflective devices.

The camper's face lit up, "Astra!"

I stopped in my tracks, nearly falling over on my face due to the abrupt action, "Percy?!" His black hair was blown over like usual, and he was decked out in his own orange Camp Half-blood shirt. What surprised me the most was that his arm was back; not like a fake, robotic creepy arm like Star Wars but his actual, human arm. It had the same brand given to him back from Camp Jupiter.

"How do I stop them?!" He said, pushing Mr. D back who was making very inappropriate gestures at Chiron. I'll leave it up to your imagination.

I ran to Chiron's side and pinched a few nerves in his arm which caused him to automatically drop the mirror (thanks, Will for teaching me acupuncture). It broke as soon as it hit the floor. "Break the mirrors!"

Chiron shook his head as he snapped out of the spell, "Astra? What-."

"Am I doing here?" I finished his question while Percy grinned and slapped Mr. D straight across the face, causing the wine god to drop his mirror in frustration.

"Perry Johnson, I swear on the Styx that I will end your life-. Wait a minute," The god stopped with his erratic movements, "Who dares to spellbind a god with discord?!" He roared, and disappeared with a loud flash of light. We stood there, not entirely knowing what to do after a god's temper tantrum.

Percy leaned onto one leg with satisfaction, "I've been wanting to do that for so long."

Chiron sighed, collapsing in the chair by the pinochle table, "Would you care to explain all this chaos, Astra?" He gestured at the campers fighting about, "We need to avoid as much injury as possible."

"Yes sir," I placed my weapons onto the ground and began to explain everything. From Python, to meeting Serena, fighting the Manticore (although I left out that little thing with Lance), Las Vegas with a deranged bartender and the action at Mt. Tamalpais. "This is where Drew comes in," I continued, but I could tell in the corner of my eye that Percy was obviously bothered by his sister's existence. "Before we revealed her identity as the traitor, she must've worked with Eris to implement discord into those mirrors, sort of like the Golden Apple. The Aphrodite children, who must've been under Drew while Piper was on leave to visit her father, must've distributed them out hoping that the campers would get a better sense of fashion without knowing that they were being manipulated. This is where looking at the glass comes in."

"You're saying that our reflection casts a sort of spell on our minds?" Chiron stroked his beard anxiously, tangling his fingers around strands, "And to destroy us from the inside. Clever, but ridiculous. I've never heard of this sort of magic. Then again, Eris will go so far to achieve conflict."

"But I'm assuming that there's a bigger source out there," I explained my theory, "One that's controlling all of these smaller versions. That would explain why it's so easy to destroy the sorcery in these objects."

"So there's a giant mirror of discord lying around somewhere?" Percy pulled out his trusty ballpoint pen, "Then let's go find it."

"There's not enough time," I argued, "Ouranos is supposed to be arising today. Reyna and Lance are leading Camp Jupiter against Camp Iniquitous, but I'm afraid they aren't going to last for long."

Chiron took hold of my bow, pulled one of my arrows from my quiver, and easy shot down a camper's mirror without stabbing their fingers in the process. "Then we must finish this job quickly." He clopped away, rushing into the fighting scene in front of us and to aid the injured campers.

I bluntly stared at Percy, and he held up his hands, "If you're hungry, the kitchen is to your right."

Let me restate that. Hands.

"Not that," I rolled my eyes, "Your arm. Wasn't it, ya know..."

"Yep," He waved it as if nothing happened, "You're not going to believe it. Apollo was here, and after some very, very, conflicting incidents, he fixed it back up. I should be in rehab, says Will, but there's not enough time."

"Time..." I mumbled, "We never have enough time." Looking up, I asked, "Where's Annabeth, and why isn't she with you? Didn't she come back?"

Percy's brow wrinkled, and his grip on his pen tightened, "Wise Girl? I haven't seen her at all."

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*screeches uncontrollably*

HOLY BACON STRIPS. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED ME ACHIEVE MY GOAL OF 50K ON THE ARROW OF LIGHT. I literally had to hold my screams back when I first saw this because I was in math class and people looked at me weird b/c I was smiling like a lunatic... Kinda like this:

Okay, I'm having a little too much fun with these gifs. But seriously, thank you guys for all your love and support! I never thought Astra Windlass would get this far (and I acknowledge that her story is slightly cliché). Let's hope she'lll continue to surprise us with her ridiculous antics.

Deciding to bring up something really quickly; I was wondering if anyone would be interested in creating the media for these books such as collages or banners? I'm running out of images to add on, and I will give you a quick shoutout at the end of each chapter for your work. I hope you'll consider making one, and if you do, please send it to me through email (which is on my bio ^^).

Once again, I can't thank you all enough for everything you've given to the Astra Windlass trilogy.

XOXO,
Arisa