I remembered him from Riordan's book The Demigod Diaries. This was the son of Hecate who'd led his siblings against Olympus in the first Great War.

But no one else seemed to remember him. The Ares cabin charged up the hill.

He waited. Then he shouted, "Blazare!"

A wave of fire swept over the campers. Naiads from the lake rushed up and put the campers out, but they were all pretty badly burned.

The Athena campers were talking to each other. Then one of them said, "Alright. Hecate, split into two teams, go around both sides of the hill. Don't hold back, hit him with everything you've got."

Lou Ellen, the senior counselor for Hecate, nodded. She started counting off teams.

They split up and went around both sides of the hill. Alabaster didn't seem worried at all. He just stood at the top of the hill, smiling, watching his half-siblings prepare to kill him. Then they attacked.

They charged up the hill, some throwing potions, some shouting spells, and I noticed Lou Ellen stop halfway up and close her eyes. She was concentrating on the spell she would cast. Alabaster spun and dodged, blocking spells with spells, shattering potion vials with his sword. Sometimes he called out an attacking spell, but for half a minute all he did was defend.

Then Lou Ellen shouted a spell, Alabaster shouted back – and every Hecate camper on the top of the hill was blown away like a tornado had suddenly dropped onto the hill. They were flung in all directions, all the way to the foot of the hill. Only about three Hecate campers were on the top.

Alabaster said something to Lou Ellen, who had managed to hang on. She nodded. He shooed with his hand, and she walked down the hill.

She came up to Chiron. "Sir, the boy wants to talk with you. Peacefully."

Chiron sighed. "I don't trust him. But it's clear we can't defeat him."

Lou Ellen looked at me. "Perhaps the son of Tyche could be lucky enough to defeat him."

Chiron looked at me thoughtfully. I wanted to die. Then he shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I will talk to Alabaster."

He galloped up off the hill.

The rest of the campers were put to work helping the Ares and Hecate campers, since they were all hurt.

I watched the talk between Alabaster and Chiron. Chiron seemed to be refusing something Alabaster wanted. He got angrier and angrier. Finally he shouted something.

I was worried it was a spell, but Chiron shrugged and slowly walked down the hill.

I walked with him. "What did he want?"

"He wished to live at camp."

"Why didn't you let him?"

"He wanted…many things. One of which was that he wanted to bring his…friends…in with him. They were warriors, many different kinds. Perhaps a hundred. With those numbers and his powers, he could easily have overrun the camp. I saw it in his eyes. He wanted power."

This was not the Alabaster I knew of. He must have changed, during the war with Gaea.

Then an Athena camper ran up to Chiron. "Sir, I must talk with you. We have a plan to…"

She talked so quietly I couldn't hear her. Chiron swung her onto his back, and they went off toward the Athena cabin together.

I had my own plan. I wanted to find the three most powerful demigods in history.

After looking for an hour, I had found Jason. He helped me look for Percy and Nico, but we found no sign of them.

I sighed. I sat down on a rock by the dining pavilion.

He looked up. "I could look for them while flying, I suppose…" he said.

I doubted he could find either of them from the air, if we couldn't see them from the ground. He glared at me accusingly. "You should find them, with your luck."

I knew I had no right to get offended, since I had no powers – Tyche just seemed to favor me sometimes – so I shrugged.

"They don't always work like that," I said.

He jumped up into the sky, controlling the winds to float himself up into the air. He looked around, then dropped like a stone. When he was a foot from the ground, he stopped himself, and said to me, "They're together, over by the Big House!"

We hurried over. Sure enough, Percy and Nico were talking about something behind the Big House. It was Mythomagic, so we interrupted and Jason said, "Hey, Percy, Neeks, can you help us?"

"Sure." Percy said. Nico nodded.

I do have to say, being this close to all three of them made me feel lightheaded. These were the greatest heroes of fantasy, and now here I was, in front of them, in real life!

"Um…Yeah, well, there's this demigod, a son of Hecate. He's trying to attack the camp and I thought, since you three are all the most powerful demigods in history, you could defeat him together…Ares and Hecate tried, but they got blown away."

Percy and Nico immediately agreed. (There's some humility for you, agreeing to do something that some thirty-odd others failed at.)

So we took off toward Half Blood-Hill. Alabaster was still standing there. When he saw us, his smile came back. "Here to bring Chiron's message of agreement?" he called to us. "I accept!"

Jason and Nico drew their swords. Percy uncapped Riptide.

Alabaster's smile got bigger. "Here to demand my surrender, then?"

"Surrender," Percy called out.

Alabaster shook his head. "No, no, son of Poseidon. I will not and cannot surrender. You, however, are welcome to join my army as we march on Camp Half-Blood."

"Do you actually think there's a chance we'll accept that offer?" Nico yelled.

They attacked.

Percy attacked at Alabaster's right, creating his own hurricane. Jason attacked his left, covered with swirling electricity, shooting random bolts from his sword and hands.

And Nico summoned three skeletons, which charged with him as he attacked Alabaster's front.

Alabaster summoned his own thugs, three green creatures who looked like a mix between harpies and telkhines. These attacked Nico's skeletons, making them useless. He blocked a cut from Nico, dodged a bolt from Jason, and then redirected Jason's electricity into Percy's chest. With a scream, the son of Poseidon was thrown off the hill; his clothes, hair, and fingers smoking.

Nico glanced toward him, which let Alabaster swing at his leg. He hopped away just in time, but he was off balance. Alabaster swung again, slicing into his side. Nico slipped and stumbled down the hill.

Alabaster turned toward Jason, too late. A concentrated bolt of electricity poured into his face. He screamed and collapsed. I ran to Percy. He was unconscious, but his heartbeat was steady. His hurricane had taken a lot of the energy for him. I ran to Nico, whose leg was bleeding, but other than that he seemed to be fine.

Jason, on the hill, raised his sword to kill Alabaster. "No!" I shouted. "Stop! We can use him to force the monsters to disband!"

Jason paused. Then Alabaster swung his sword up from the ground, slicing into Jason's sword arm. Jason dropped the sword and howled in pain. Then Alabaster shouted a spell, and Jason was flung from the hill, into the forest. He spun and kicked, but he was too hurt to command the winds. He fell into the trees, and I couldn't see what happened.

Alabaster rose to his feet. He walked slowly and unsteadily down the hill. He stopped in front of me.

"Demigod, think you to stop such as I? But no…you are not born of the gods! How then are you in this cursed camp?"

"Trickery," I said. "You, Alabaster. I know what your heart is. Your mother cared for you. She chose wrong in the first war, she made up for it in the second, and the gods gave her a cabin here at camp. The gods did wrong by you in the aftermath of the first war, but they have tried to make things better. Percy Jackson who you tried to kill made things better."

He seemed to be listening to what I said, but he brushed it off. "Boy, you may have indeed the tongue to worm your way into this camp, but you cannot divert me from my goal. That is to destroy this camp and all who live in it. Then…then the third Great War will come to pass, and the gods will not win a third time. They have withdrawn to Olympus, and cannot save the world from what I bring."

He pointed his sword at me. "And do not think I have failed in any of this, even in my so-called attempt to kill Percy Jackson. If I wished to kill any of you, I could do so without wasting so much time about it. No, you will be the first death in the third Great War."

He thrust. Tyche was indeed watching over me. I leaped to the side, barely avoiding the thrust. And my hand brushed against the handle of Nico's Stygian Iron sword. I picked it up, tested it in my hands, and lunged forward.

The thrust was easily turned aside by Alabaster, but the block put him barely off balance. I swung again, at his sword side, making him jump to avoid it. And then I brought it down, hard, at his head. He flung up his sword to avoid the blow, but I was stronger, physically, than he was. His sword rang and vibrated, hurting his hands. Then I swung at his legs. He stabbed the point of his sword into the dirt, making a strong defense. Then I brought the sword up, at an angle, toward his chest. He jumped back, but the sword fell out of his aching hands. I jumped forward to kill him, but he pointed at me.

"Brekan!"

I felt an invisible hand slam into my stomach. I dropped the sword and sank to the ground, curled over. Alabaster grabbed his sword. He raised it. Then a black bolt of energy blasted the sword out of his hands, melting it in midair. A rain of molten iron fell to the ground. His head whipped around. It was Nico, standing unsteadily on one leg.

He flipped his hand up. A four-foot tall chunk of black stone rose from the ground behind Alabaster. A black light shone from Nico, making everything around him dark, but himself light. He put out his hand at the same time as Alabaster. A bolt of energy flew from each of their hands, and hit each other in the middle.

The magic and dark energy created an explosion. I was flung to my side. Alabaster slammed against the black stone. Nico was flung through the air.

Nico stood instantly. But then he collapsed. Alabaster snapped his fingers. A lightning bolt shot from the sky and hit Nico in the back. Nico jerked, flopping around on the ground like a fish out of water.

Alabaster glared around. Percy was running toward him.

He roared in anger and shot out his hand again. A fireball shot toward Percy. He put out his hand.

A jet of water like a hose shot from his fingers and put the fireball out in midair.

Alabaster snapped his fingers. Nico began to glow. Pink and blue energy flowed from his mouth and eyes and fingertips, toward Alabaster's hand. It began to create a glowing, multi-colored ball above his palm.

"This is Nico di Angelo's life force!" he called to Percy, who had gotten halfway toward him. "When you stop, I give it back to him. If not, I will blast you with its energy, killing both of you instantly!"

Percy stopped. "Good," Alabaster called. The energy began to drain back into Nico. When it was gone, Alabaster pointed at Percy. A line of blue power shot toward him.

Percy blasted it with water, but the water turned to ice mid-air. Then the blue energy touched Percy, and he froze solid.

Then Alabaster turned toward me. "Now, if there are no more interruptions—"

Jason ran out from the trees, scratched, bruised, and bleeding. "Stop!" he called. He flew the rest of the way.

"Alabaster, stop!" he said. "Is this what you want?"

"Ask the mortal," Alabaster said. "He knows that yes, this is."

Jason looked at me. "Mortal?"

Alabaster stared at us for a few seconds. Then he burst out laughing. "Oh gods," he cried. "Oh, wonderful. All a mortal has to do to get inside your precious camp is simply say they're a halfblood? How can it still be standing! Oh, Jason Grace, this is amazing."

Jason shook his head. "Well, he fooled us with his unnatural luck," he said. "He said he was a son of Tyche, goddess of luck. We'd never seen one before."

Alabaster roared with laughter. "Son of Tyche? Tyche? Oh, you fools. Utter, utter fools. Tyche…ha, ha…Tyche is one of the maiden goddesses…Oh, my gods. Perfect, perfect. This is a joke."

Jason stared at him for a moment. Then he shook his head. "Well, you will die, anyway," he said. "Then we'll decide what to do with him."

He swung his sword. Alabaster blocked it with a spell, and snapped his fingers. Jason dodged to the side, but nothing happened. He paused – and a rain of fire blasted him. A solid column of fire surrounded him for a full ten seconds. I could hear him screaming.

Then a blast of water put out the fire, and swept Jason away in the direction of the creek. Percy stood, shivering, surrounded by pieces of ice.

Alabaster groaned. "All I want to do is kill this mortal! Enough already!"

He pointed at Percy. A bolt of electricity shot from his hands. Percy dodged it, and the bolt hit a tree. The wood splintered, the tree collapsed, and a dryad screamed and dissolved into dust.

Alabaster fired again. Lightning hit the ground at Percy's feet. He jumped back, but the next bolt of lightning hit him square in the chest. He jerked as Nico had, then was still. Alabaster ran over to him, and pulsed him with more and more lightning. It covered Percy's body, made worse by all the water Percy had within him. He was unconscious, and getting close to death. Alabaster paused. He checked Percy's heart. Then he stood, and shot another blast of electricity.

Then a red energy bolt hit him in the back.

From the direction of the cabins came the Hephaestus campers and an army of automatons. Alabaster was kind of protected by the spells he had cast on himself, but the powerful blast had knocked a lot of them off.

He summoned a streak of lightning into the nearest one, which short-circuited and collapsed, but the rest of them broke into a charge. Leo, from the middle of a group of them, fired blast after blast from the Valdezblaster, most of which missed and made holes in the ground, but two of which hit Alabaster in his face and sword arm. He was flung backwards, but he seemed to be alive. I ran over to Percy. When I touched him, he shocked me, but I picked him up and brought him toward the army of automatons.

He was lighter than I'd have thought, or maybe that was adrenaline, but I got him into the middle of the group quickly. One of the campers took him, and carried him over toward the cabins. I looked back at Alabaster. He had stood, and was weakly dodging and deflecting blasts. One more shot in the chest should kill him. Then the automatons charged again. Leo fired one more time and the automatons circled around Alabaster.

Leo turned away. "They've got him," he said to me. "Nothing gets away from my –"

A dome of red energy expanded out from Alabaster, disintegrating every robot it touched. In seconds, all that was left of the army was a pile of metal dust.

Leo fired again. Alabaster dodged the blast, and charged toward us. At a spell, the weapon flew out of Leo's hands. Leo threw a fireball, but Alabaster summoned a ball of water and put it out in midair, as Percy had done.

I looked back toward Nico. He was lying in the middle of the grass, bleeding, but I couldn't see Jason.

I waited. Alabaster said another spell, and a ball of green energy fired from his hand and hit Leo in the chest. Leo got knocked away like a rag doll.

Alabaster turned to me. "Mortal, your death has been put aside too many times. I now-"

A silver arrow from the trees hit him in the back of the leg. He collapsed. He shouted a spell, but nothing seemed to happen. I turned and ran.

Another bunch of arrows shot toward Alabaster, but he said a spell and they all froze and dropped.

But he seemed to now have hit his spell limit. His eyes closed and he went limp.

Another lot of arrows shot towards him, making a circle around him on the ground. The arrows grew and made a silver cage. Then out from the trees charged thirty-odd girls, Hunters of Artemis.

They completed the cage, and disappeared back into the trees. A girl I recognized as Thalia came up to me.

"Hi," she said. "We don't have time to stay, but say hi to everyone from me. I'm Thalia."

"Okay," I said. They all melted back into the trees and disappeared.

I went back to Nico.