Chapter one: Reading Under an Earthen Sky

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters belong to Rick Riordan, and anything in bold belongs to NBrokenShacklesN

It was a usual day at camp. Campers were training, satyrs were growing strawberries, and so on. Leo was happy. He can stay at camp with his siblings, and have a bit of a peaceful day, not needing to worry about the wars, nor monsters wanting to kill you every second. Just as he was enjoying, suddenly, a blinding light whisked the whole camp away.

The light dropped them hard on the floor of a room, with half the camp screaming their heads off.

As the light dimmed, Leo recognized the room as the Olympus throne room, and twelve giant gods were staring at them.

Leo immediately bowed. He didn't feel like turning into a grease spot. He felt the other campers had also realized their surroundings and bowed respectfully too.

"Um…", Leo wasn't sure what to say, "What brings us here, Lord Zeus?"

"Um… Well, it wasn't me who got you...Which of you had summoned them?" even Zeus looked dumbfounded by the whole group of people.

Suddenly, two books metalized above Zeus, and hit him right on the head.

"Hey!" Zeus yelled. He picked up the books. "Who had done this? Apollo? Hermes?" he glared at them. Said gods shrugged, amused.

"Why don't you open the books?" suggested Leo. Well, sometimes he can be smart.

"Well," Zeus opened the book, a note fell down from the book, "There's a note."

He picked it up, and read it aloud, "The note read this:

To the Olympians, campers, nymphs, satyrs, dryads, and Chiron,

I have decided that it is for the good to let everyone here read about the story of Leo Valdez. You will read the books I've sent you, for it contains important information. Only after you've read these books, will we be able to change the future. Also, a few guests might drop in during the middle of the reading, and they will have to listen to the stories too.

Best regards,

Chaos

Many campers screamed at the name of Chaos. The room was immediately in chaos. When the screaming and yelling finally ended, Annabeth asked, "So we are going to read this book?"

"I think so," answered Athena, "Who will read first?"

"I will," volunteered Zeus. He glanced at the newcomers, "You better sit down, this will be a long story." He flipped open the book, " Prelude- Under an Earthen Sky"

Gaea won. The earth had changed, and there was no place for demigods anymore. Not in Gaea's world.

Many gasped at hearing this. Except for Leo, who smiled sadly at the memory.

"So that's it" Reyna breathed, her calm, untouchable praetorship act long since gone. Her eyes that had always sparked with life now dull and empty, as she looked round the bedraggled assortment of survivors.

"Who is Reyna?" Percy asked Leo, who obviously knew something.

"A good friend," Leo answered, refusing to say anymore, trying to not let his tears fell down at the reminder of his old friends.

Even though Greece and Rome got over their pride, in the end it was too late, the division that Octavian had caused was too much. Foes bear arms to the doors of death. Bear arms against each other.

The gods paled at that. Seems like the romans and the Greeks had started a war against each other.

"That's it " echoed Lou-Ellen hollowly; her eyes staring blankly into the distance, remembering the dying screams of her siblings. "We lost "

Reyna glanced up, then looked away, "Zeus " she mutters her voice cracking, "even our sky has died. "

"What?! The sky had died?" Zeus yelled furiously.

"You see, Lord Zeus," answered Leo, "In my time, Gaea had destroyed the whole world, including Olympus."

Zeus grunted, but continued with the story.

"No, " a voice croaked from beside her, Leo, whose warm brown eyes, were now cold with guilt and grief, "it's not dead, it's just become Gaea's, like everything else in this broken world". Leo never smiled anymore, and that said a lot for the state of the world, even when Percy and Annabeth fell into Tartarus he still managed to keep laughing, but now humor was just a distant memory.

Beckendorf looked very worried. Knowing Leo, he could never stop laughing. But if he had indeed thought humor was a distant memory… Well, he could never imagine a Leo not smiling.

A voice echoed from the other side of the circle "there's no point anymore, we all fought hard, but when she woke up, she was too powerful for us, like ants fighting Ladon, not even the gods could do anything!" The voice surprised her, because Connor Stoll had not spoken in months, not since he had been possessed by one of Gaea's minions and made to kill his brother.

Connor visibly paled at that. Travis put a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

"No point" echoed the last member of the bedraggled group; the nymph Echo, who had finally left Narcissus to his fate, and threw her lot into the war effort, but even the bubbly nymph was drowning in despair.

Leo gave a pained glance to the outside of the circle, where a jar lay, smashed into a million pieces. "Pandora's Jar is empty, we've lost hope. Gaea destroyed our hope."

"What?!" almost everybody except Leo shouted in disbelief, "Pandora's Jar is empty?"

Hephaestus looked at Leo with worry in his eyes. What had his son gone through?

"Why do we keep fighting?" Connor's voice broke, "There's no point to living, not when everyone and everything we love is dead."

Everybody froze. The Connor they knew would never say anything that depressing. But they reminded themselves, that it was the end of the world, which they would definitely, most definitely, not allow it to happen.

"We can't" Lou-Ellen whispered dully, her once ebony hair now lank and blood-stained. "There is no underworld anymore, Gaia destroyed it, our family is gone, faded into oblivion."

"And wouldn't oblivion be better than this! Just to not have to wake up tomorrow…"

"Agreed" muttered Leo "I'm tired of fighting, there's nothing left to fight for. The next group of monsters, I'm not going to fight, I'm just going to stay here and wait for oblivion."

It was so strange, reading about the demigods they had thought they knew to lost hope. They never knew someone who loses hope can change so much.

The quartet sat in silence for hours, till the blood-red sun dropped, and a crimson sunset spread across the muddy sky. A group of Cyclopes appeared and raised their weapons against the last free demigods.

Five bodies fell; and the world was silent once more, animals long since gone, endless foliage beautiful if not for the five cooling corpses, lying broken forever…

Under an earthen sky.

Nobody said anything. The room was eerily quiet.

Finally, Leo decided to break the silence, "Who wants to read next?"

Hestia smiled, "I will." and got the book from Zeus.

Hestia read, "Change Through Flame. Prologue."