Just another story idea that I had. This is just the first chapter so it's not long. Also, updates will be irregular.

I was sitting on one of the cold metal benches in the Institute. Today was a rare rest day, so I was just sitting around not doing much. But even if I had wanted to do something, there wasn't really anything to do but train, and since I knew I could look forward to a long day of training tomorrow anyways, I wasn't too hot on that idea.

Hearing noises, I turned towards the door to the bunker to see some of the other guys enter. First came Ethan Nakamura, an asian guy with one eye. The other one was covered with a black eye patch. He never told anyone how he lost it. Anyways, I didn't like him too much; he wasn't exactly the friendliest guy here. Behind him came Chris. Chris was pretty nice, I didn't know him super well, but he was probably the closest thing to a friend. The last person was Octavian, who I really didn't like. He was annoying and weak. I had no idea how he managed to complete any missions, and I was sure that I had never seen him at training. And to top it off, he was power hungry and tried to order everyone around. I would almost suspect him of trying to overthrow the boss, but the idea was ridiculous. The boss was impossible to defeat, and he was the most powerful person in the world.

Our jobs didn't leave too much time for trivial things like making friends. I didn't exactly know everyone else's jobs, but I had always assumed they were like mine. I was used on what Luke called 'special missions', which were usually things like assassinations. It wasn't as cool as you might think, though. I wasn't exactly all climbing walls in stealth mode and then knifing someone. Instead they positioned me far away from the target and handed me a sniper rifle. The missions were pretty boring, to tell the truth. But you didn't refuse a mission.

As the guys filed into the room, I didn't so much as glance up or acknowledge their presence. For some reason, I was feeling bummed out today, even more than normal. To tell the truth I didn't exactly like my job. Not that I particularly cared for my targets, their deaths were trivial to me. Luke had been quick to train me to think of them not as fellow humans, but just as more obstacles obstructing the way for the boss that had to be eliminated. But sometimes my assassination just felt... wrong. As if I wasn't playing the part I was supposed to.

I quickly shook my useless thoughts away as I saw the outline of another figure approaching behind the three who had just entered. As he stepped forward, I saw that it was none other than Luke, who quickly scanned the room before his eyes stopped their gradual sweeping to rest on me.

Mentally, I cursed. Whenever Luke was here, it either meant that there was trouble or that someone had a mission. The alarms hadn't gone off, which led me to believe it was the latter. Even on the rare day off, I couldn't get a break.

"Percy, we've got another mission for you," stated Luke. I already knew that I wasn't going to get out of this, and you didn't refuse an order, but I opened my mouth to question him anyways. Before I could, however, Luke cut me off.

"It's a special case." Then he just turned around and left. Just the way he always was when he was on duty, blunt and to the point.

It's a special case. I couldn't even count how many times I'd heard those words. It meant that the mission was against our leader's greatest rivals, the Olympians. They tried all they could to overthrow our leadership, but the Titans never failed. They were fighting for a lost cause.

Normally, I would feel especially bitter after being singled out to take on a mission on a break day. But for some reason, I didn't. In fact, I found myself in the highest spirits I had been in for a long time.

It felt like I was doing what I had been destined to do.

Then I sighed, forced myself to stand up, and made my way over to my bunker to gear up and deploy.

Once I was ready, I climbed out the hatch on the roof of the Institute, making my way over to the helicopter that was waiting for me. I was going to be airdropped to my location, an abandoned warehouse a mile and a half from the remote village which I would train my sights on. Just as I thought, another boring mission.

My mission briefing had been simple: just eliminate the leader of a squad of Olympians. Our spies had gathered intel and figured out that they would be camping out in this village tonight, and had arrived just over an hour ago. I was pretty bored, seeing as how I always had to wait at least a couple hours for the target to get within range, so I could take them out without anyone noticing. Then, a voice crackled through my headset.

"Be on the alert. The target should be passing through any second now."

Hearing Luke's words, I crouched down and scanned the edge of the village for my target. Looking through the scope of my sniper, I saw them.

It was a girl with blonde hair, her face not easily visible. She looked to be pretty young, maybe around my age. I waited for a clear shot. Seeing her walk out from behind a building, I saw my chance. Steadily, I lined up the crosshair with her head and got ready to fire.

10 seconds left before I lose my chance.

The girl moved her head to the side, giving me a view of her face. She looked so young, so innocent. It was hard to imagine her as being a leader of a squad of the most evil group ever to walk the earth. Did she have friends, a family? Would someone miss her after her death?

5 seconds.

What was I thinking? I couldn't feel sorry for the enemy. Dismissing my thoughts by attributing them to my ADHD, I focused on aiming at the girl's head again.

3 seconds.

2 seconds.

It was now or never. Steadying my hand, I squeezed the trigger, feeling uncharacteristic remorse as I did so. But just before I fired, something made me hesitate. It wasn't much of a pause, just a fraction of a second. But it was enough. The bullet went wide, and the girl had disappeared from view.

This being the first time I had ever missed a shot, I was unsure of what to do.

Luke's angry voice came in through my headset.

"You blew it! Hurry up and get to the chopper before we decide to leave you behind!"

I scrambled up to the helicopter which pulled me in before taking off. I didn't know what to feel. I felt frightened because I had missed a shot. I felt frightened because I didn't know how I would be punished. But most of all, I felt frightened because, beneath it all, I felt relieved that my shot had missed it's target.

As we neared the Institute, I frowned, knowing that there was going to be hell to pay for this. Clenching my jaw, I jumped out of the chopper and crawled down the hatch back into building.