Hey guys, I've got a new and long overdue chapter here. It's a tad shorter then usual, but hey it's better then nothing. With that, let's get on with it.

Jack

We walked along the street, taking in the sights as we went. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about being back here. Very little had changed, a few shop fronts were different from what I remembered sure, but other then that almost nothing had been altered. Problem was, if this was what I was suppose to guide us past, I had no idea where we were going.

"Dude, wearing animal pelts is not cool," some hipster looking college student said as he past us. Everyone frowned at each other in confusion, until I looked down at my coat. The lion pelt was just that, a pelt hanging off my shoulders.

"Oh. Yeah. We may have a problem," I said. The others looked and noticed my problem as well. Percy blinked a few times in confusion.

"Wasn't that a duster just a little bit ago?" he asked, pointing to the pelt.

"That's the thing, the Mist around here kinda... tends to glitch," I said.

"Glitch?" Zoe asked. She said the word slowly, like it was the first time she was using it.

"Yeah. It'll just up and stop working for absolutely no reason at all," I explained.

"So the mortals..." Thalia started.

"See shit as it is," I finished.

"Why have we never heard of this place?" Percy asked.

"Cause other then founding Veterans Day it's never really contributed anything to the human race at all." We kept walking until we reached a small Mexican restaurant. I led the way inside, eager to get out of the frigid winter air and figure out what we were going to do next. Thankfully, the pelt had morphed back into a coat, sparing us an awkward conversation with the waitstaff.

"So, Jack, what exactly are we gonna need to be guided past?" Percy asked as we sat in a large booth. I simply shrugged.

"No idea. I don't even know where we're suppose to be going from here," I replied.

"No idea where to go, huh? Perhaps you should try Herington, lots of trains leaving out of there," A blonde haired waiter said as he sat a large plate of enchiladas on the table. We all looked up at him. Apollo sure was bending the rules for his sister, that much was certain.

"There's a time limit, isn't there?" I asked.

"It leaves tomorrow morning at Eight AM sharp."

"I thought gods weren't suppose to directly interfere," Percy said. Apollo brushed off his apron.

"Don't know what you're talking about, kid, I'm just a waiter," he replied before walking away. We sat in silence for several moments before Grover began to dig into the food before him. I picked one up and began to eat as well. It may not have been an ideal breakfast, but it was better then some MRE I'd have to cook myself.

"So how far is this next place?" Thalia asked.

"About sixty miles to the northwest of here," I replied. It wasn't a hard distance to cover in a day. All we needed was a car or some form of transportation to get there. The problem was that it was sixty miles of monster infested land to cover. And to do so in a little under twenty four hours was gonna be tricky.

As we all sat eating at our own pace, I could help but notice that Bianca kept looking to our right. I followed her gaze and realized that she was looking down into the bar section of the restaurant. Hanging over the various drinks on display were a few flat screen TVs, each one displaying a sport of some kind being played.

"Big football fan?" I asked. The huntress blinked in surprise, like I had just startled her.

"Huh? Oh, no. I was just admiring how far technology has advanced over the past few years," she said. I glanced back at the TVs again. They weren't brand new, in fact based on their model the owner of this place had probably gotten them at a pawn shop for maybe twenty bucks a piece. A Son of Hephaestus always knows his gadgets.

"Eh, they're not that great. I've built better from scratch," I said.

"Yeah, but to go from black and white to this? It's astounding." That gave me pause, and I looked at the others. They all had the same look of confusion I had. This didn't escape Bianca's notice either.

"What?"

"You know that color TV has been a thing for like fifty years, right?" Percy asked. Now it was Bianca's turn to look confused.

"It can't have been that long, I would have noticed," she said.

"Bianca, who's the current President?" Zoe asked. Bianca gave the correct name.

"And the last President?" This time Bianca frowned, and she looked like she was in deep thought.

"Roosevelt," she finally answered. I felt my blood run cold. My eye met Thalia's, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was.

"Teddy or Franklin?" I asked.

"Franklin, FDR," She answered.

"Who's the British Prime Minister?" I asked, pressing forward.

"Winston Churchill.

"The President of Russia?"

"You mean the Soviet Union? Joesph Stalin."

"What year is it?" I pressed. Now she was looking really confused, and a little worried.

"What do you mean.."

"Answer the question, Bianca," Zoe ordered. The huntress remained silent for what seemed like forever, but was probably only a minute or two at the most.

1944, almost 45," she finally answered. The rest of us all looked at each other before Zoe told her the correct current year. She laughed as if it was a joke, but quickly stopped when she saw that none of us were laughing with her.

"That's...that's impossible," she said.

"Says the immortal huntress sitting with three demigods and a stayr," I countered. Bianca had grown pale as she stared down at her half eaten enchilada.

"I, I need some air," she finally said before standing and hurrying out of the restaurant. Zoe stood and went after her, although at a much slower pace. The rest of us all looked at each other, only half heatedly eating our food.

"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" I asked Percy.

"I don't know. Did she say anything about being in Vegas?" I shrugged in response, I hadn't been around Bianca all that much.

"What are you two talking about?" Thalia asked.

"Couple years ago, these two and Annabeth stopped off in Vegas on their way to LA and stayed in a place called the Lotus Hotel and Casino," I explained.

"So?"

"So, we were in there for an hour, but in fact it had been five days," Percy said.

"And you think that maybe Bianca and her brother were trapped in there?" Thalia asked.

"When it comes to gods and monsters, I've learned that nothing is impossible," I answered with a shrug. If our theory was correct, it certainly raised a lot of questions. Questions which we didn't have time for at the moment. I was getting antsy about sitting around, wanting to get back on the road. The sooner we got to Herington and out of this place, the better.

From outside, a piercing female scream came. It was one filled with absolute terror, and it didn't take long for everyone sitting at the table to realize that it belong to Bianca.

"NO!" that was Zoe's shout, hot on the heels of Bianca's scream. In a flash, we were all on our feet, racing out the door with our weapons drawn. We were just in time to see something massive with a kaki colored hide flying out of sight over the rooftops. Clutched in it's talons was Bianca, who was clearly struggling against it.

Zoe was standing in the middle of the street, firing arrows after it until it was out of sight. The look on her face was one of terror, pure blatant fear for her sister in arms. As we approached, Thalia veered off and ran up the street. I didn't see where she was headed, but rather focused on reaching Zoe and finding out what was going on.

"What happened?" I asked as we ran up.

"We...we were standing on the sidewalk and then...this thing came out of nowhere..."

"Did you see what it was?" Percy asked. Zoe took a shuttering breath and visibly calmed down. This was how I expected the Lieutenant of Artemis to act, not as a panicked girl with a bow, but as a calm warrior ready for battle.

"Yes, it was a dragon," she answered. My blood turned to ice, and it wasn't from the blistering north wind that chose that moment to blow down the street, funneled between the buildings. Dragons were notoriously hard to kill, and they also had notorious appetites. Which meant that the longer we stood here, the less chance Bianca had of getting away from that thing in one piece.

At that moment, an old rusting truck pulled up beside us. It was covered with dirt, and it's engine rumbled with age. But I could tell just by listening that the thing was well cared for, despite it's outward appearance. Thalia rolled down the window and gave us all a look as if to ask why we were all standing around.

"Get in losers, we're going dragon hunting."


Dragons very rarely are the type of creature to wander or travel. They basically glorified guard dogs when you get past the wings and the breathing fire and what not. If they're not under someone's employment, they'll find something of value and a cave or underground structure of some sort and then hole up there.

Fortunately for us, I knew this area pretty well. And all of us knew the approximate range a dragon would fly from its den to collect food, Thalia, Percy, Grover, and me from training at Camp, and Zoe from experience. This left us with only one possible location, an abandoned missile silo to the north.

It was the only possible location, as it was the only underground structure within that range large enough to hold the dragon that wasn't flooded. I guided us there, with Thalia, Percy and Zoe riding in the cab while Grover and I sat in the bed. We got booted there because we could both withstand the cold better then Percy could. At least, that's what I kept telling myself anyway.

"Stop, stop here," I said, pounding on the roof of the cab. We were on an old asphalt road that looked like it hadn't been maintained in years. Cracks with grass sprouting up through them were everywhere. Before us was a rusted chain link fence that just seemed to rise out of the prairie for no apparent reason. Grover and I climbed out of the bed of the truck while Thalia shut the vehicle down and the rest climbed out of the cab.

"This is a missile silo?" Percy asked.

"It's an Atlas E model, abandoned in the sixties. The only part that's truly underground is where the crew quarters and the fire control was," I explained.

"So that's where we'll find the dragon," Zoe said.

"That's where we'll find the dragon," I replied. We pushed past the collapsing gate and walked onto the complex itself. Concrete and asphalt were everywhere, giving this place a real abandoned post apocalyptic vibe. At the center of the complex rose a small hill. A ramp large enough for a semi truck ran down into a concrete structure buried into this hill. This was where the missile had been housed in the days when it was active. The massive steel doors that had covered it were long gone, leaving only a weathered shell behind.

"How does a dragon even fit into a place like this?" Percy asked as he sidestepped an open escape hatch in the ground.

"Either the front door or some old escape and ventilation shafts," I answered. As if to validate my point, we came to a large metal ring in the ground. In actuality it was a hole large enough to drive a small truck into with a ladder built into the side. Zoe was climbing down the ladder in an instant, and I was right behind her.

At the bottom of the ladder, we followed the metal tunnel about ten feet before it opened up into a wide dark chamber. Here and there were shafts of light shining down from the ceiling, marking where the old escape hatches were. Someone had apparently attempted to build some sort of living space down here at one point as there were several wooden platforms that were all interconnected. Below them, the original floor was covered by water sitting at an unknown depth.

"This seem like a trap to you?" I asked quietly out the corner of my mouth. Lying in the center of one of the beams of light was Bianca. She was knocked out and lying in an ungraceful heap like she had been dumped there.

"The beast is probably waiting for us to come in through the main entrance," Zoe replied, holding her bow with an arrow nocked and at the ready. I looked up at the hatchway directly above Bianca's prone form. Any ladder that had once been there had been cut away long ago when this place was abandoned. But that didn't mean I couldn't still work with this.

"Keep an eye out, I got an idea," I said before turning and heading back out the way we'd come in. I made my way over the surface to the hatch that was over Bianca. Attaching my cables to the sides of the hatch, I lowered myself into hole. I felt like a high risk jewel thief, or Spider Man hanging there upside down suspended in mid air by a cable coming from one of my sleeves. The blood rushing to my head was ignored as I lowered myself to within a few feet of the Huntress.

"Bianca," I said, keeping my voice low so as to not have it echo. She stirred, but didn't awaken from her slumber. Clenching my teeth in frustration, I raised my free arm and allowed a cable to snake out. When it was level with her face, I dragged it back and forth, making sure to bounce it off of her nose, eyes, and anything else I could reach. She came awake swinging like she was trying to bat away an annoying fly.

"Bianca," I said again. She looked around before looking straight up at me. The look on her face would have been priceless, if we hadn't been in the middle of a dragon lair.

"Jack?"

"Shh! Keep your voice down, we might not be alone down here," I replied. She looked around us again before focusing on me.

"Why are you hanging like that?" she asked, her voice much softer now.

"I'm trying out for the next Spider Man movie. Why do you think?" I asked.

"The sarcasm isn't necessary."

"Well neither is the blood rushing to my head, now can we please go?" I asked, retracting my cable on my free hand and offering it to her. Bianca slowly got to her feet and extended her hand out to mine. Beneath her, the makeshift floorboards creaked as her weight shifted. Then I heard it. A low, deep throated rumble that seemed to echo from all corners of the cavern.

From under Bianca's feet came the crunch of wood being broken, the sound of boards being snapped one by one. The Huntress looked down and then back up at me, panic in her eyes. My own eyes went wide as I realized what was happening.

"JUMP!" I screamed. Bianca bounced in an instant, her hand catching mine before she pulled her feet up into her stomach. She just narrowly avoided the floor disintegrating and the dragon's jaws snapping closed just beneath her.

"Climb, come on, climb!" I said, pulling her up as I went. She was every bit the Hunter of Artemis, grabbing onto my jacket and gear and using it to scale my body. With my free hand now free again, I drew my shotgun and fired it one handed into the dragon's face directly below me. The beast reeled back from the blow, smashing down through more of the platform as it fell.

It wasn't enough to kill it, just enough to piss it off. I watched as it began to get back up, clearly not happy as it thrashed about, smashing more of it's home. Silver arrows stuck it in the side, and I glanced over to see Zoe shooting at it from her perch in the escape hatch. The dragon turned toward her, hissing as it drew in a breath. I'd heard the same sound when starting up a blow torch, the thing was getting ready to breathe fire.

Cocking my shotgun one handed, I lined up another shot and fired again, ignoring the fact that my ears were ringing now. The good news was that the overgrown lizard wasn't focused on Zoe now. It was looking at Bianca and me like we were it's next roast. Thanks to my father, I was immune to fire. Bianca, not so much.

"Cover, now!" I snapped. Bianca took one look down, realized what was happening, and immediately wrapped herself in my jacket. Fire belched from the maws of the beast, engulfing both of us in it's white hot embrace. After a moment, it died away so that the dragon could get a good look at it's handiwork. All it got was another shotgun blast to the face.

I twisted my arm with the cable, trying to get it to retract. It worked, but only barely. We inched upward, but the harness began to shriek in protest. The smell of something burning filled the air, and it wasn't whatever the dragon had managed to set alight around us.

"What's wrong?" Bianca asked, poking her head out from beneath the protection of the duster.

"The harness is overextended, we're too heavy for it to operate," I answered, keeping my eyes on the dragon below, which was circling below us like a cat eying a hanging toy.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"Only thing we can do. Climb, I'll keep it busy," I answered. Bianca wasted no time, climbing past me and onto the cable like she was climbing rope in gym class. I had to give it to her, Hunters may have been well armed feminazis, but when push came to shove they could handle themselves like a well trained special ops group.

Below, the dragon stared up at me hungerly, and I looked right back, holding my shotgun at the ready. If I fired now, I would waste my shot and it could snap it's jaws closed around me before I got another shot off. However, if it breathed fire, then I could put a load of buckshot straight down it's throat. This wasn't a game between predator and prey anymore. It was a game a chicken, to see who would blink first.

That is, until a sliver arrow lodged itself into one of the dragon's eyes. I glanced over just in time to see Zoe nock another arrow on her bow. My attention quickly returned to the beast as it thrashed it's head about in pain. With what happened next, it was as if time had slowed.

A section of wood kicked up by the flailing dragon smashed against the ceiling, causing the cable I was hanging by to shake violently. Bianca, who had almost been to the hatch, lost her grip and the cable and fell screaming toward the beast below. I tried something, anything to catch her. But with both of my hands full, it was an impossible task.

Her final moments are still there, burned into my memory. The absolute look of terror on her face as she plummeted past me is something I can't describe. Bianca fell out of my reach, straight into the open waiting jaws of the dragon. Instantly the beast's maw snapped closed, eating the Huntress in one single bite.

"NO!" Zoe yelled before she resumed firing her arrows. I could only look on in stunned horror at what had just occurred. We had been so close, so close, only for that to happen at the last second. I had failed. I'd set out to save her, and I had failed.

Rage bloomed in my chest and a roar of anger jumped out of my throat as I unloaded my shotgun into the beast. It withered under the constant assault, but it wasn't close to dying, at least not yet anyway. Returning my shotgun to my back, I drew my sword. I wasn't about to leave Bianca's body behind to be digested my some overgrown snake.

I detached my cable and fell head first toward the dragon, a battle cry on my lips as I went.

The sunlight hurt my eyes as I walked out of the tunnel and into the old missile housing area. It was basally a long concrete rectangle in the ground, an overgrown underground garage with no roof if you will. I was covered in slime and water, as was my sword which was in my right hand. Slung over my left shoulder was Bianca's body. I had cut her out of the dragon's belly. From what I could tell, her neck had broken from the impact of coming to a sudden stop inside the creature. She had died instantly, without pain.

The others looked on in shocked silence as I walked past them to the truck. I laid her body in the back, wrapping it in an old blanket. Just before I covered her face, I placed two drachma on her eyes, coins for the boatman. With that, I covered her face and just stood there. As much as I wanted to say something, I couldn't form words.

I felt like that kid on Half Blood Hill all over again. Helpless, useless, devastated. I had trained to my absolute limits for years to insure that something like this didn't happen again. But it had, and I was wondering if all that had work had been for nothing.

"What do we do now?" Grover asked.

"We still have a train to catch," Zoe answered. Although she wasn't crying, her face was red from tears that had already been shed.

"There is a small farm not far from here that we can use to resupply," I said. My voice was hollow as I spoke.

"How do we know this?" Percy asked.

"It belongs to my family."

And that's it for this chapter. I tried to sort out a way for Bianca to survive, but in order to keep the timeline running properly it had to happen. There is also something else for you to check out. My other story, The Hunter, is set in this timeline as well and will have Jack in it as well. Remember to read, review, or send a PM and let me know what you liked or didn't like and I'll see you all next time.