Percy and Annabeth arrived at Camp Jupiter in the evening.

Boss, here we are. I think I'm gonna die right now... Backjack was panting so hard that Percy couldn't blame him for calling him boss. He and Annabeth ran into the infirmary as soon as they got off the pegasus.

"Hazel! Frank!" Percy called out.

"Percy?" Frank appeared. "How did you get here so fast?"

"Blackjack had been bringing us here when we talked on the Iris-message with Hazel. Is she okay?" Annabeth said.

"She's fine. Come inside,"

Hazel was sitting on a bed, rubbing her ear. And on the chair near the bed sat a familiar blond boy. While Annabeth was talking with Hazel and Frank, Percy approached him. There was a hint of recognition in the boy's eyes and he nodded.

"Hi, Alex," Percy said to him.

"Hi," Alex replied shortly, clearly not wanting to have a conversation. His eyes darted around nervously.

"Can you... tell me what happened? I want to hear it from you." Percy said carefully. Alex looked reluctant to tell the story, but eventually he let it out.


Tamara Knight was investigating the evidences she had gathered from the broken house. This case had been assigned to her since she was the only one who knew about demigods and monsters, apart from Joe Byrne. Her father was a son of Hephaestus and her grandmother was a daughter of Athena. She didn't have any supernatural power, but she had been able to make some testing machines for monsters attacks.

Monster dust test result: Manticore

DNA test results (knife): Alex Rider and some unknown demigods

DNA test result (gun): Jinja Naven, a possible Scorpia agent

It wasn't surprising that there was a Scorpia agent, since it was Alex's house and the gun they had found had a small scorpion drawing. But the fact that there were both manticore and Scorpia agent was quite interesting. There was only one case similiar to this, which CIA found some manticore dust with some bullets and sliver arrows on the hill of Bar Harbor, Maine. That was more than two years ago and was occured in the other side of the country, but it was almost same.

However, there was one great difference between two cases. She started to check on all the CCTVs installed within one hundred meters from Alex's house.


Jinja Naven was taking out metal fragments fron his hands. He shouldn't have underestimated the Roman demigods.

21-year-old Jinja Naven had been one of the youngest agents of Scorpia before it was disbanded. He later found out that the MI6 spy who destroyed the only society he could be credited for his work was actually a teenage boy named Alex Rider. He tried to track down the boy, but even though he hacked every house and school in UK, he couldn't find him. When he was looking for another way, the manticore appeared to him.

Monsters had been Scorpia's ally for a long time. The founders of Scorpia were mostly children of Nemesis, the goddess of revenge. Other agents were mostly mortals, but some high-ranked agents knew about monsters and demigods. Naven got to know it when he found out the truth about the sudden disappearance of a competent agent placed in Maine. He half doubted it before, but when the manticore contacted him, he realized that everything was real. And the monster seemed to know everything. It said Alex Rider was with a demigod named Percy Jackson, and if he promised to hand over Jackson to it, it would help him finding them. Naven didn't have any reason to turn down the offer.

It was intended that he didn't shoot Rider directly and let Rider knock him down on their first encounter. The manticore insisted that Rider would lead them to Jackson, but things went all wrong when they followed him to Alex's house and he threw a grenade. Luckily, he regained consciousness before they were out of his sight, and he found out the location where they were. He prepared to attack again, with more precise plans.


Hazel had never been shot by a real bullet. Her ear was bleeding a lot, and her head was throbbing. It wasn't a serious wound, but other campers weren't so lucky as her. Two boys from Second Cohort died from the bullet. She didn't know them very well, but she couldn't forgive the man who attacked them.

"Do you think he will come back?" She asked.

"Probably. If he had somewhere to contact, he may have reinforcement. We should alert the campers." Annabeth said, her gray eyes storming. Hazel wondered if it was anger or anxiety in her eyes.

"Do you have the gadgets I left?" Alex asked suddenly.

"Yes. Shall I bring it?" Frank said.

"Yeah," Alex anwered.

While Frank was fetching the gadgets, Hazel asked Alex if he recovered from the manticore's poison, and Alex just nodded.

"Here it is," Frank held out the box to Alex. Alex opened and searched it. "Did you use anything?" Alex asked.

"No, we didn't need to. Besides, I don't know how to use most of the gadgets," Frank replied.

"Why didn't you asked Leo about them? He seemed to understand all these things," Alex said.

There was a silence. "Why?" Alex demanded.

"Alex... Leo is dead," Hazel finally answered. "He sacrificed himself to destroy Gaea."

Nobody said anything for a while. "I'm sorry," Alex finally said.

"No, it's not your fault at all. Just tell me why you asked us to bring these gadgets," Annabeth said.

"it's not a gadget I'm talling you about," Alex said. He took out a small box from the gadget box and opened it. There was a small piece of black iron

"Stygian iron- but how did you get it?" Hazel asked in surprise.

"This is not just a normal one. It's the piece from the Chair of Oblivion," Alex answered.

Hazel gasped. "You're not supposed to keep this thing! And only children of Hades or Ploto can use that material," she said.

"I know. That's why I'm asking you to keep it," Alex said. "You are the only one who can control Stygian iron. You should keep this box, and use the piece when the time is right," he said.

Hazel picked up the box and examined it. Bulletproof for sure. She wondered it she could handle the piece inside.

"You are saying like you are leaving," Percy said.

"I am." Alex said.

"You can't," Annabeth said.

"You know I keep letting danger come into your place. It's the best option," Alex said.

In fact, it wasn't.


'Jinja Naven' means 'Really Bad' in Korean. You can translate '진짜 나쁜' by yourself, in case you don't believe me.

By the way, please correct my English grammar anytime. I know I am writing in wrong grammar and misspelled words.