DISCLAIMER: I don't own PERCY JACKSON AND THE i do own the plot.
A/N:This story is a sequel to FIRE IN THE VOID. It is your choice if you wish to read the prequel or not. I personally believe that this story can be read with out reading the first in the series. Nevertheless if you read it, Pandemonium WILL BE EASIER to follow and more fun.
Enjoy Reading and Review.
The Missing Demigods
Noah Ellis, Second-in-Command of The Masked Messiah walked across the front courtyard of Fort Olympus. It was two 'o' clock in the morning and he had to relieve Mikaela Sapientia the Quarter Guard of the cohort from her duty on the watch tower. Along with him marched two other fledgling warriors who had joined the cohort only six months back.
They quickly made their way across the front court yard to avoid the early morning chill that usually set in early during the fall. Although they were well armoured, the armour didn't block viruses and bacteria from affecting their health and causing diseases but being demigods they weren't worried about that either. Demigods didn't catch diseases. No, what they were worried about was making to the tower on time and relieving their comrades. That was a sign of a well organised and functional cohort.
They trio of soldiers soon made their way across the courtyard and came to the watch tower. The guards stood in attention and saluted to the Second in command of their cohort and didn't return to ease until they head his light footsteps on the stairs.
Noah on the other hand quickened his pace, his comrades finding it difficult to keep up with him. It wasn't long before he scaled all four flights and reached the observation deck at the top of the watch tower. There stood Mikaela, the cohort's quarter guard. She was standing on the edge of the deck, scanning the forests around the fort with auranoculars. An auranocular was a device similar to that of a binocular however it had several additional functions. It not only helped zoom in on far off things but also supported additional capabilities such as thermal, infrared, wave energy. It could also be used to separate people of various auras. One could easily differentiate between a monster, a nature spirit and a demigod.
She stood their oblivious of my arrival and continued working on her shift. The other three guards on the deck however immediately came to attention and saluted at my arrival. The shuffling and stomping of feet by the other guards informed Mikaela of my presence, who turned to greet me with a rare smile across her face.
Her hazel brown eyes, shining a dull gold in the light from the surrounding oil lamps, "And I thought you weren't coming." She said, the smile playing on her lips and the light from the oil lamps dancing in her eyes.
She brought a smile to his face, like she always did, "Couldn't leave you out here any longer. Astria would have skewered me alive." He said, mocking fright. They both knew that Astria would wave it off and hand over the successive night's guard duty to Noah. Astria was a good commander. She never screamed or shouted. She just passed honest judgement and orders, that's why she was respected.
"Touché, I guess I'll see you in the morning then." Mikaela said, sheathing her sword and stowing her auranoculars on her utility belt.
The guards who had been on guard duty with her vacated their positions and filed out down the deck only to be replaced by the demigods who had come along with Noah. Seeing her guards file out, Mikaela too made a move and walk past Noah allowing him to take her spot but not before placing a quick kiss on his cheek.
Before Noah even realised what had happened she was climbing down the stairs, making her way to the barracks.
A slight smile came to Noah's lips. He didn't think much over it. Mikaela could be flirtatious at times. Over the years she had come out of her shell. He still remembered the shy, soft-spoken and idealistic Mikaela though. Sometimes he wished she hadn't changed. She'd have been easy to court then.
Noah soon started to lose himself within his dreams. Quite some time had passed by when he came back to his senses; a sharp cold wind slapped him back to reality. Putting his head into full battle mode, he drew his sword and heard the other guards on the tower draw swords as well.
"Did you all hear that? Raul, did you?" He asked, urgency lining his voice while he scanned the foliage across the wall.
Antara Raul was an Indian demigod and a roman daughter of Nemesis. Antara was one of the senior most demigods in the guard nodded in agreement, "Felt as if the wind slapped me across the face." She said, her sword drawn and her eyes scanning the midnight sky.
"Blow the guard horn and light the warning torches. It is better to be safe than sorry." He said, while he pulled out his own pair of auranoculars from his utility belt to scan the forest.
As soon as he passed the orders, one of the soldiers blew the guard horn bringing to attention all active guards and sentinels. The horn would also inform demigods who were still awake of impending trouble. The torches were used for the same purpose, any demigod who failed to hear the horn would be notified by the lit torches.
"Activate primary defences, raise the shields." Noah said while continuing to scan the forest along with Antara.
"There's nothing out there in the forest." Antara said worrisome.
"There has to be something. That wind we felt was the after effect of shadow travelling. Didn't you feel the aura?" Noah barked at his junior officer, losing his sense of cool and composure. If they couldn't find anything from here then they'd have to go on foot.
"Raul." He called out to the Indian demigod.
"Sir." came the crisp reply.
"Have you received any word from the patrol teams?" He asked.
"None so far but they are out there looking." She said. She didn't have to be asked twice.
"Go down and ask the seven standbys to don their armour. We are going out to hunt." The seriousness in his voice told Antara not to question his orders.
Without asking a single question she ran down the flight of steps leaving the surveillance of the tree tops to the guard commander and one other.
Meanwhile, Noah changed the sensitivity of his auranoculars to shadow and dark matter. Confirming the settings he put the auranocs back on his eyes. It wasn't long before he found something. Five Clicks from the Fort walls was a giant source of shadow energy, pulsing and radiating with power. Noah continued to monitor it but it remained unmoving, it however continued to pulse with power.
"Darian, come here and take my position." Noah said to the only other guard on the observation deck and without wasting a moment, the son of Trivia walked over to stand parallel with his second in command with his own pair of auranocs in hand.
"Switch your auranocs sensitivity to shadow and dark matter and turn 57.5 degrees east." Noah said, while continuing to observe the pulsing body himself as well.
It took the young soldier a moment or two but he quickly found what his commander might have been hinting at.
Noah didn't wait for a confirmation from Darian if he had found the object or not. Noah stowed and ran down from the observation deck when he felt Darian flinch, that was enough indication that he had found what he had been asked to look for.
As Noah ran down the stairs of the guard tower he shouted to Darian to keep giving him updates regarding the position of the pulsing shadow energy.
As soon as he reached the base of the guard tower he saw Antara debriefing the assembled warriors, speaking faster than anyone could comprehend but the warriors still nodded their heads. Picking up words from her shooting sentences to makes sense of what she was saying.
Noah didn't pay much attention to her nor did he bother to correct her. Antara was a good strategist. He was confident in her capability and strength. She'd make a good leader one day. Not to mention she was in the running to head a new cohort being formed in New Byzantium, the first half-blood camp in Asia. If the Sentinel Council approved Astria's petition to nominate Antara for the post of commander then she'd be leaving pretty soon. If not, then she'd be taking either his place or Mikaela's in their cohort as one of them would be detailed as a liaison officer to New Byzantium.
He shuddered at the thought of leaving Masked Messiah. He had given three years of his life to this cohort and had grown rather close to each and every member of the cohort. He thought of them as his family and really cared about the fledgling warriors in the cohort.
"What's the POA Antara?" he asked, putting on his helmet and strapping on his back plate.
"We are ten in number Sir. I have divided us in groups of two to better comb the entire area. Four of the teams will be on ground while the remaining team will keep an eye from the canopy. It wouldn't take us long to search…"
"I have already found the source of disturbance. Pulsating shadow energy, 5 Clicks from the fort walls close to an angle of 57.5 degrees. Your plan is good but I'd advise you to send another team up in the canopy." He said, making a casual suggestion.
Antara however took his casual suggestion seriously and under a minute changed the entire Plan of Action. I'd have to give the woman credit, she was good when it came to devising plans she was a daughter of the trickster goddess.
"Are we clear on the plan?" She asked the surrounding warriors.
With a silent nod, they all fell into ranks all except the sentinel. He took his place beside Antara.
Antara looked at me and nodded.
Acknowledging her, Noah sheathed his sword and with his warriors close behind them led them into the surrounding forest at a run.
He followed his location pointer, which he had set to the position of the energy source and quickly made his way through the forest with a warrior by his side while the other two ground teams maintained their distance from them, Antara a few hundred metres ahead of him while the sentinel brought up the rear.
The aerial team whizzed through the canopy, jumping from one tree to another, running across the branches ever so silently.
Light on their feet, they ran to their destination. Darian's voice giving them minute to minute updates. The situation remained the same until Antara was only few hundred metres from the shadow source when they heard Darian's voice again, it was cracking but one could easily make out the urgency in his voice and that was when he heard the ear-piercing howl.
Only one name came to his mind, hell hounds. Quickening his pace, he bolted across the forest leaving the warrior by his side far behind. HE had to protect Antara, there was no way he could let a sister of his be ripped apart be a hell hound. Drawing on his divine core, he soon closed the few hundred metres of distance between Antara and him. The female demigod stood like a statue before him, her sword unsheathed but not raised. She wasn't even making a single move.
When he moved closer he saw why. Standing before her were four hell hounds, wolves with dark fur the size of horses. What was surprising and on the same time relaxing was the fact that they weren't attacking her. Hell, they weren't even paying attention to her. They stood with their backs towards the demigods, circled around a small petite body on the ground.
A girl wearing an onyx and silver coloured armour lay on the ground. She laid face down, her body contorted in a heap. It seemed as if the hell hounds were standing guard over her body. That explained the high shadow aura. Hell hounds emitted shadow energy instead of dark energy.
Noah decided to advance slowly.
"Cover me" he whispered to Antara.
He didn't even wait to see if she acknowledged his order. In the high reached of the forest he did hear the tensing of bows. The archers were ready to cover for him. Behind him he heard the familiar sound of a sword being unsheathed. Antara was a master of twin sword sparring.
HE was confident that he might survive. If not, they'd surely recover his dead body, in one piece no less.
Carefully, he treaded his steps trying his best not to draw the attention of the hounds to himself or the other warriors who had now joined them, some taking cover behind the trees. I gestured at them to climb the trees to get a vantage point to shoot the hell hounds from with their celestial bronze arrows. The only other person who stood on ground with Antara was the sentinel. He stood in a crouched position next to Antara. With his spear drawn, he was rearing to attack.
Taking gentle steps, I was now only another footstep away from the closest hound. I was just wondering if I should take another step forward, when the hound turned its ugly, wolfish face in my direction, its blood red eyes glaring into mine.
For a moment I stood there transfixed. No matter how much I wanted I couldn't move. I have to admit that I was shit scared. I felt as if death was staring me in the eye and he truly was. A hell hound was death's messenger sent to retrieve a soul from the mortal world.
I felt cold, a shiver ran down my spine but that feeling quickly disappeared as my body felt it had been lit on fire. All the time, the hound simply gazed at me, its blood red eyes boring into mine.
There are no words in which I can explain the feeling. This hell hound was different, very different from the ones that we had previously hunted. Those that we had hunted in the past were animalistic beasts with the simple mission to kill and eat anything that came their way.
This hound however was different. Rather, all that stood before us were different.
It was while on that thought that the hound snapped his head away. A low growl reverberating deep in his chest. The other hounds quickly got up and phased away from the body. This hound however, turned to look at me one more time before it nodded its head and phased away as well.
For a moment, I was in a complete state of shock. I didn't know how to go about what had just happened but it didn't take me much time to snap back into attention. As soon as I gathered the wits about to myself I quickly fell on to the floor beside the girl, to examine if she was still alive.
I turned her over to check her pulse and when I did; to say that I was shocked would be an understatement, before me lay Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto. Her skin had turned a nasty shade of white and her lips a light blue. She had a pulse but it was weak. She didn't seem to have any external wounds but there could be some internal wounds.
There was no time. She needed immediate medical care. He picked her up in his arms; sharing a glance with his warriors with one look at him they assembled themselves in a defensive formation, taking defensive positions around him. Within less than moment's notice they were heading to Fort Olympus and while they made their way back one thing persistently began to plague mind of each and every warrior.
Where were the other senior councillors?
IMPORTANT!
A/N: Thanks for all the reviews guys. I'm glad you all are enjoying reading Pandemonium as much as I'm enjoying writing it. I'm sorry for the delay and short chapter. This is due to the fact that I was wasting my time writing another story which people were reading but didn't bother to review. I realised it was better to write a story which was atleast appreciated by the readers. From now on my entire focus will be on Pandemonium. For those who want to check out the Harry Potter DracoXHermione fanfic that I was writing can check out the link below.
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