Annabeth

Upon reaching Larissa, Percy was (unsurprisingly) hungry again. But Nico and Jason wanted to check out the armory. They were trying to decide which to give up: life-saving weapons or food. They were having a hard time deciding. Boys and their stomachs, I said, shaking my head mentally.

I walked over to them and said, "Okay, since Thalia didn't want us to split up, how about I go with Percy and you two can go check out the armory. Then we will still be split up, but at least we have a partner." I raised an eyebrow, waiting for their answer.

They all looked at each other and shrugged, "Okay," Jason said.

So Nico and Jason started heading towards the armory, and Percy and I went the opposite way, heading towards a square that had many venders. As we were walking away, Nico turned around and yelled to me and Percy, "Hey! Remember, no PDA! This is a public city!"

Percy and I both swung around and gave Nico a death glare, but Nico had already turned back around, purposely missing our glares, and walked alongside a cracking up Jason.

I shook my head, "I'm gonna kill him."

Percy looked at me, "I had the same thoughts. I guess I'll do the burying," He said with a grin.

I smirked at him and we went to the square. I looked for food venders, and we saw a few, but most of them were busy.

We finally found a relatively empty one and Percy went to go get his food. I stayed by the water fountain, listening to a storyteller. He was an older man, and was telling a story to about fifteen kids, all looking about eight years or under. Probably all the kids of the mom's shopping

The story was about a mermaid and a knight falling in love, but the knight couldn't go underwater, for he couldn't breath underwater. So they had to figure out a way to live with out each other. But they soon realized that they missed each other too much, and the knight got his request for her to be turned human granted by the gods. When the story ended with a kiss, I chuckled as all the little girls "awww"ed and all the boys mimed throwing up or gagging.

Typical boys and girls.

"I have to say, I agree with the boys." I heard Percy's voice behind me, and I turned around to him eating a loaf of bread. I'm serious. He wasn't eating a piece of bread, he was taking bites out of the loaf. Wow.

He handed me a glass of water that I had asked for, "Thanks."

He nodded, then turned to watch the kids. As he studied them all closer, his face split open with a huge grin.

I didn't find anything funny, so I asked him, "What in Hades are you smiling about, Percy?"

He turned to me, "I know all these kids pretty well! Last time I came to Larissa, I stayed for about a week, and during that week, I decided to visit the commoner's school for elementary kids. Every day I went there when they had just finished and played with them for about an hour. They're awesome kids, and I was so sad when I had to go on another task. They were sad too. They must've taken a field trip or something, cause these are all the kids!" He smiled excitedly at me.

I chuckled at him, "Then go say hi!" I pushed him forward, and he stumbled on a pan, making a loud clanging noise.

All the kids turned to look at who had made all that clamor, then they all stood up and screamed, "PERCY!"

Every single kid ran forward and they all tried to hug Percy at the same time. He started laughing as he tried to hug them all at the same time as well. They ended up knocking him to the floor, and started climbing all over him, each kid asking a different question concurrently.

"When did you get here?"

"I've missed you!"

"Can we play soccer again?"

"Why haven't you come back to play with us?"

"I cried when you left."

The last sentence was said by a shy little girl about five years old. She was the only one that didn't rush up to hug him, she waited her turn. What she said made me go "aww." I sounded like a girl, but when you hear a little girl say that in the tone she just used, I don't think anyone could think it is not adorable and sweet.

Percy walked over to her and knelt down before her, "I'm sorry, Olivia. I missed you too," She grinned at him, showing him a mouth that had lost it's two front teeth. She jumped into his arms and he hugged her closely.

I thought it was cute that all these kids loved Percy dearly, and I watched as all of them started asking questions again.

Percy snorted with laughter and held up his hand, saying, "Woah! Hold your horses people! I'll see if I can play a game of soccer with you. Jason and Nico are here too," He paused as he let them cheer, then he continued, "I want you all to meet someone."

He led them all over to me. Well, he kind of carried them over, actually. He had Olivia on his shoulders, and was giving a boy a piggy-back ride, and he was holding another little girl in his arms, while some other kids were hanging onto his legs, making him strain to take a step. I started laughing at the face on Percy as he lugged all these kids over to me.

He stopped, panting, and said, "Kids, this is Annabeth."

They all looked at me and said, "Hi Annabeth!"

Olivia looked at me and said, "Are you Percy's girlfriend?"

I blushed and said, "No sweetie, I'm not."

Two little girls came forward and both said at the same time, shyly, "You're really pretty."

Then they reached up to touch my curls, and I grinned and knelt down, "Why thank you. But I don't think I'm nearly as beautiful as the two of you," I said with a wink.

They both giggled then gave me a hug. I was surprised at first from the sudden display of affection, even more so cause I had just met them. But I didn't mind, and I hugged them back. I looked up to see Percy smiling at me, and I returned the gesture.

So Percy and I spent the next half hour with these kids, just talking and hanging out. Right now, Percy was in the middle of wrestling all the little boys. Of course, he could win easily, he was just getting "fake" hurt, if you know what I am talking about. He was also letting them beat him.

I was teaching all the girls how to fishtail (A/N that's kinda like a complicated braid) each other's hair, cause they loved how mine was fishtailed, but they didn't know how to do it.

A little girl by the name of Delia asked me, "Will you come back after you leave to visit us, Annabeth?"

As soon as she said that, I was bombarded by questions from the rest of the girls.

I smiled at them all, and said to them, "I hope so, cause if I don't, I'll really miss you guys. And I'll be bored cause I won't have anyone to play with."

A different girl, Matty, said "We'll miss you too."

We were silent for a while, just braiding each other's hair, then one girl who was laying at my feet, started to tickle my foot. I was extremely ticklish, and this move cause me to snort really loudly and jump. All the girls started to laugh.

I smiled evilly at the girl who tickled me. She started to get wide-eyed, then she got up to run away, but I caught her before she could leave, and pulled her into my lap. I started tickling her mercilessly, and she was laughing so hard. It was a clear laugh, that was clearly a little girl's laugh.

When she got away, she started to tickle her friend, and two more girls ran up to tickle me, and then it just got into a huge tickle fight.

We were all laughing when Percy came over with the rest of the boys, done with wrestling, and asked curiously, "What's got all these girls giggly?"

"We were tickling each other!" Olivia replied, running into Percy's arms and hugging him.

He looked at her mischievously, "Are you ticklish, Liv?"

She said nothing, but when he poked her stomach she started laughing.

"Stop! Stop! Go tickle Annabeth!" She said, trying anything to just get Percy to stop tickling her.

Percy paused and looked at me, and I felt my heart drop. Uh oh.

Percy grinned, "Annabeth's ticklish?"

All the girls started giggling again, "She almost jumped to the sky when Carlii first tickled her feet."

Percy let Olivia go down, then started walking slowly to me, while I slowly back up, "Is that so?" He said evilly.

"Percy, stop." I tried to make my voice commanding, but it was too shaky. Percy lunged and I tried to dodge him, but he was too fast. He grabbed me and started tickling my waist relentlessly. I was snorting with laughter and trying to get Percy to stop, and all the kids were cheering. Percy finally stopped, grinning, and stepped back to look at me. I was panting and holding my aching sides.

"You're evil." I said to him, glaring at him. But the ferocity of the glare was brought down by the smile stuck to my lips.

He wiggled his eyebrows at me, his green eyes holding mirth.

"Well, it's time for us to go." Percy said sadly. He walked over to where he had discarded his sword, and grabbed my dagger for me. I wasn't happy about leaving. These kids had grown on me, and I wanted to get to know each one of them better. I would have to ask Percy if we could possibly see them again sometime.

"Ahhhh!" All the kids cried. Five of the girls suddenly clung to my arm, as if I was going to disappear, and they didn't want me to. I chuckled and wrapped them up in a hug, trying to fit as many kids as possible into my arms. I saw Olivia, who was climbing all over Percy again and laughing, instantly sober up. She crept down from sitting on his shoulder to fit snugly into his arms, burying her head into his shoulder. He smiled at her head and hugged her back tightly.

They tried to stop us, but we really had to go, we were already ten minutes late. We gave hugs to all the kids probably about five times, cause they kept coming back for more.

We finally got out and started to walk to the meeting place where we said we would meet Nico and Jason. We were silent as we walked, but it wasn't awkward, just a comfortable silence.

"Mighty Annabeth Chase, defeated by tickling," Percy said, smirking.

I scowled at him. "Oh, shut up, Seaweed Brain," I said, thinking of a nickname.

He turned to me curiously. "Seaweed Brain?"

I snickered, "Yeah, cause you're the son of Poseidon, and you obviously have a brain made out of seaweed. So, basically, useless."

He rolled his eyes, "That's so funny," he said sarcastically, then dropped the sarcastic voice and said, "Whatever, Wise Girl."

It was my turn to roll my eyes, "Percy, calling me 'Wise Girl' isn't insulting me, its actually complimenting me."

He shrugged, "Oh well, Wise Girl."

I chuckled and bumped his shoulder, causing him to crash into the person we were passing. Percy blushed and apologized, then glare back at me. I flashed him a toothy smile, then took off, him chasing me.

"Annabeth, you better hope I don't catch you!" He yelled behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder and shouted back, "Oh, don't worry, you won't!"

He growled and started to run faster, causing me to run faster. He didn't know that I was among the fastest demigods at my mothers temple, other than Hermes' kids. He didn't reach me by the time that I got to the meeting spot. I saw Nico and Jason already there, waiting for us, and I ran up to them, grabbing their shoulders to help me stop, then I pivoted and hid behind them.

"Woah! What's with the rush, Annie?" Nico asked, surprised. I was too out of breath to scold him for calling me "Annie."

"Percy… chasing… me…" I said in-between labored breaths. A few seconds later, Percy came jogging over, and fell to the ground in front of the two boys I was hiding behind.

He lay there on the stone floor, panting, then said, "Dang, Wise... Girl. You… can… definitely run!"

"Wise Girl? You guys have nicknames for each other?" Jason asked.

"Onto stage three of their relationship, I see. Speeding it up, are we?" Nico said with an evil smirk.

I glared at him, and then Jason asked, "What's your nickname for Percy, Annabeth?"

I answered, "Seaweed Brain."

Both boys busted up laughing, then Nico replied, "Wow, that fits Percy perfectly!" I smiled at Percy, who was scowling at the two boys. He caught my smile and shook his head at me.

Nico pulled himself together enough to say, "Okay, we better get going. Your friend, Piper, should be here soon." He and Jason started to walk back to the square. I looked at Percy and said, "You coming?"

He seemed to think, then he asked, "Can you help me up?"

I rolled my eyes, "You big baby." But I helped him up. Right as I grabbed his hand, he grinned and pulled me down.

"Percy!"

"Serves you right for calling me a baby!" He said laughing. I was chuckling too, but both of us stopped when we realized that I was laying right on top of him, and his arm was around my waist, for he had caught me a little to lessen the fall, the gentleman that he is.

"Um." I said. Wow, real sophisticated, Annabeth. I told myself. Right before I was about to get up, Jason just had to walk back around the corner, yelling, "What's taking you guys so lo-"

He stopped short when he saw us, eyes wide and eyebrows raised.

"Oh." He said. Nico peeked around Jason to see what was happening, and his jaw dropped. He started laughing so loud I thought the whole town of Larissa could hear him.

"Jeez, you two! You guys just skipped from stage four to stage sixteen or seventeen! Whats the rush?" He started guffawing some more, doubling over and holding his sides. Jason was failing to keep a grin hidden, and turned to the side as if to hide it, but I still easily see it.

I blushed a deep crimson red and walked over to Nico, punching him as hard as I could in the shoulder. His laughing turned to whimpering, and he rubbed his shoulder, "Ow, Annabeth! That hurt!"

"Serves you right. Nothing happened, I was helping Percy up and he wanted to get back at me for calling him a baby, so he pulled me onto the ground. Nothing else." I said in a dangerously low voice.

"Yep, if it is one thing I have learned about Annabeth today, it's that you should not mess with her." Percy said with a light tone as he walked up behind us.

I rolled my eyes as Nico and Jason both agreed.

"Whatever. Come one guys." I grabbed all of their shirts and started dragging them to the place where Thalia proposed that we all meet at the end of the day to wait for Piper.

But as I dragged them along, I was smiling, for now it felt like I had found three new best friends. It seems like I have moved past the hating them stage, and into the friends stage.

They're going to be interesting friends, I thought with a smirk.