Chapter 1

Take heed dear readers, heroes seldom get their happy ending. Heroes may have a fleeting happiness, but nothing ever lasts. It's easier to believe that our fairy tale ending will come, and the knights in shining armor will come to save the day.

But this is no fairy tale. There aren't any 'knights in shining armor', or 'happily ever after's. These things are mere figments of our imaginations. But the darkness of the heart is very, very real.

-Ω-

Percy

I wandered around the makeshift camp. For days we camped out in the Yosemite National Park, moving every so often and trying to reign in our panic. We still didn't know everyone that was missing. So many of the Romans were dead or hurt really bad. The Greeks didn't do too much better either. So many dead… not even in the Titan War, had we had losses this big.

It didn't help that we lost all contact with the gods either. Prayers went unanswered. Iris messages didn't work. Our drachmas just fell through the rainbow just like any old coin would have.

A hand came down on my shoulder. Caught by surprise I drove an elbow into the dark haired attacker's stomach. All the air whooshed out of his lungs and he fell back. Then I got a good look at his face. It was Nico.

"Sorry about that." I said, extending a hand to help him up.

He took my hand and hauled himself up. Nico just shook his head and coughed. He had dark bags under his eyes suggesting a lack of sleep.

"No problem. I guess we're all a bit jumpy nowadays."

I looked off into the forest outside of our camp.

"You're telling me." I mumbled, fiddling with my collapsed shield. Nico and I continued to walk in a companionable silence. Then Nico stopped and sighed.

"I'm kinda tired. I'm going to go see if I can catch a couple hours more sleep before dinner."

I nodded. "You go do that. You look like you could use it anyways."

Nico just nodded and walked off into his tent, his back hunching over an unseen weight.

I shook my head. The first war was bad enough. How bad would this one be, especially with these extremely powerful deities? I REALLY didn't want to know. I continued walking until I found my creek. No matter where we were in the forest, I always came here to think. I sat down and dangled my feet in the water, enjoying the welcome trickle of energy the water gave me. I sat like that for the longest time, watching the fish dart in and out between my feet. Just then I heard the crunch of broken twigs behind me. A quick glance told me it was friendly. An even longer look told me it was Reyna.

She walked up next to me and sat down. "I thought I'd find you here."

I just nodded. "I'm always here. Thinking.

Reyna smirked a little. "Thinking? I didn't think that you were capable of that."

I glared at her halfheartedly. "Shut up…"

"You know, Diana's hunters are here. I think you know her Lieutenant." Reyna said casually.

I froze. Then a shout ruined my relatively peaceful afternoon.

"PERSEUS JACKSON! YOU'VE GOT SOME EXPLAINING TO DO!"

I bolted to my feet and I ran as fast as I could, leaving behind a very amused Reyna. As I rounded a bend in the trees, I saw a flash of silver. I began to panic. Then a blunt tipped arrow caught me in the back with just enough force to knock me off my feet. I rolled over to find a very irate Thalia Grace standing above me.

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it!" I shouted in desperation.

Thalia just narrowed her eyes. "I'm pretty sure you have something to do with it. Any time something big goes down, you're usually the one causing it!"

"I'm still pretty sure I didn't do it!" I raised my hands in surrender.

"Shut up and listen, Seaweed Brain! We lost contact with Artemis. That's huge. We NEVER lose contact with her." Thalia explained.

I scrambled to my feet. "I didn't do that. But WE can't contact any of the other gods either. All Iris messages, prayers, that sort of stuff just hasn't been working. It's like they fell off the map or something."

Thalia scratched her chin. "Do you have any idea what might have caused that?"

I shook my head. Then a likely- no probable- idea popped into my head. "We were attacked a couple days ago at Camp Jupiter by the Protogenoi."

Her eyes widened. "Which ones?"

I thought for a second. "The Ourea. Last we saw, Erebus was trying to take control of the underworld. Aether and Hemera seemed to have awoken. Nyx… I'm pretty sure she's up. Nico was having trouble controlling shadows. That has to be her or Erebus."

Thalia shook her head. "This is bad. Really bad."

I nodded. "Let's go back to the camp. We have a lot to discuss."

We walked a ways in silence. Then Thalia asked the last thing that I would have ever expected.

"So. Something happened between you and Annabeth, huh?"

I felt my mood plummet. "Can we discuss this later? We have a war to fight."

Thalia refused to give up. I guess she is my cousin in that way. "But-"

"Later." I growled.

She just grunted after that, but she obviously wasn't happy about it.

A little while later we entered the campgrounds. As soon as we passed the guards, Bobby walked over to me.

"Jackson, Jason wants you over there with that group of people. You too, Thalia."

I nodded and went over to the group. Jason looked up at me and smiled grimly. "Ok. We're all here."

Reyna somehow got back to camp before Thalia and I did and was standing next to Jason. The Wei Twins, Ryan and Carol, were standing on the other side of Reyna. Clarisse and Malcolm stood on the opposite side of the group with two other Greeks, all of them eyeing the Romans distrustfully.

Clarisse looked at the rest of group and sneered. "Five soft skinned Romans and five Greeks. Kind of inefficient if you ask me since us Greeks are going to be pulling the heavy weights."

I glared at my long time enemy. "Knock it off Clarisse. The Romans are every bit as good as the Greeks."

Clarisse just scoffed and rolled her eyes.

Jason sighed in exasperation. "Both of you need to knock it off. Anyways, we don't have an exact number of people missing. I need you two-" He pointed at the two Greeks that I didn't know. "To go and gather names from the Greek Camps. Same with you two." He pointed to the Wei Twins standing next to Reyna.

The four demigods left to do their assigned task.

I looked at Jason. "What's the plan?"

Jason shook his head. "We lost a lot of good people. Dakota I know about. But at the same time, we can't just sit here, licking our wounds. We need to do something, even if we are low on manpower. Something. Anything really. Get some intel on enemy forces. See if the Greeks are alright."

"Seems like a good plan." I nodded in approval.

Reyna spoke up. "We should have different groups do different things, then set a rendezvous point at a certain time and place."

Clarisse nodded grudgingly. "That sounds pretty good."

I scratched my chin. "But… How are we supposed to contact each other if we need help? Cell phones are out of the question."

Malcolm nodded. "Yeah. Those are too dangerous. I'll see if our remaining smiths can cook up anything," He got up and brushed his hands off against his pants and left to talk to the Hephaestus campers.

Thalia called after him. "Tell them to make some kind of Celestial Bronze radio or something! The bronze should block out most of the demigod aura from filtering through."

Malcolm gave a thumb up to show he heard.

Then the Greeks and Romans returned from their little info gathering trip.

Ryan listed off his information. "So…uh… We lost more than half of our people in that attack. Close to sixty percent. Of that, twenty-five are wounded. Notable injuries… let's see… Gwen has a broken ankle and Octavian is missing. Frank Zhang suffered a minor concussion from falling debris. Apollo kids say that they all should make a full recovery by tomorrow. We have one hundred demigods in total."

Thalia took the list from the Greek and cursed. "Greeks lost three fourths of the demigods they sent. That leaves them at about thirty demigods left. Travis Stoll has a broken arm and his brother has a black eye. Annabeth has a broken nose. All of them should be ready to go by tomorrow too. There should be about a hundred more demigods in Camp Half Blood if…" Her voice trailed off and we all knew what she was thinking.

If they are still alive.

"Ok. Now onto other issues." Jason said, trying to steer our thoughts away from depressing thoughts. "What are we going to do about the Protogenoi? The gods aren't answering us. We're on our own."

I spoke up. "I'll take a small group to go see if the Greeks are OK and to see if I can get them to come help us. Jason can take the rest of the demigods. Thalia can take some of her best hunters and some of our best scouts and keep an eye on the enemy."

Jason nodded. "Sounds like a plan. We'll tell the others tonight. Go and get some rest. We're all tired and it's been a long couple of days."

I slowly walked away, but I didn't go to my tent. I walked over my favorite spot by creek and sat down, once again trailing my feet in the water. Another war. It was too much to handle.

After a while, I felt Reyna sit beside me.

"A lot on your mind, Jackson?"

"You're telling me. The second war in as many years has got to be weighing on YOUR mind."

"It is. I just don't show it." Reyna replied.

I just ducked my head. "That and the whole entire leadership thing is driving me nuts. If I mess up, I'm putting the entire Fifth Age on the line."

Reyna kicked her feet in the water. "You were great in the first war, if the Greek's rumor mill is to be believed. You'll be even greater in this war."

I shrugged. "I had help from the gods. But in this war, we are completely on our own."

Reyna smiled. "Be that as it may, you always rise to the occasion. You surpassed all expectations by bringing back the legion's standard from Alaska. That honestly surprised me."

She suddenly stood up. "You interest me, Jackson. Right when I think I have you figured out, you go and do something completely unexpected. You better get some rest. We have a long couple of days ahead of us."

Please review! And pray I get enough that I'm sufficiently motivated to continue...

-Starstryker97

POSTED: 10/09/13

EDITED: 10/24/2013 8:07 PM