So I know I haven't updated in just about forever...but here you go, readers! The next chapter! (Finally!) I hope you like it :) i had a smidgeon of writer's block so it may not be up to par...tell me what you think!

Disclaimer-I don't own, nor never will, own the Percy Jackson franchise.

Percy's POV

Thirteen hundred stab wounds, eleven disembowelments and a beheading.

The dummy never stood a chance.

It had been two days since we watched the video and discovered that something called Geryon was snatching children- half-blood children- and I was unable to do anything about it. Any sort of miraculous escape had been completely shut down by Chiron, who had at least five harpies watching the seven of us at all times. Annabeth, Nico, Mira, Connor, Travis, Rachel and I were under constant supervision. Given that we had almost no idea what we were dealing with even though we had proved our worth many times before, we were strictly forbidden to leave the camp unless we wanted to get eaten alive by harpies.

"Gods, just let me leave."

"Hey." A hand grabbed the handle of Riptide to stop me from beating the Styx out of a second dummy. "You can stop now."

I turned with a vengeance to find Annabeth facing me. "Stop? How can I stop? Innocent children are being kidnapped and I'm not being allowed to stop it. We have all this power and we're not being allowed to use it! What good does it do if all we're able to do is NOTHING?"

She looked at me calmly, not at all fazed by my violent outburst.

"Like I said, you can stop now. We found something."

They found something.

Dear gods, 'we found something' was code for 'we made a plan to escape, meet at the rendezvous point now.'

To Nico's cabin, we go.

We made his cabin our base of operations because no one ever goes there and he can keep the harpies away by secreting some weird I-am-the-son-of-Hades-and-you-will-obey-me gas, or something. I really didn't care how it worked, as long as if worked. So Annabeth grabs my hand as we leave the arena, and I smile and apologize for freaking out.

By the time we get there, everyone else was sitting in random spots around the cabin-the Stolls and Rachel were in the back planning something on a series of whiteboards, chalkboards and cork boards covered in notes and technicalities, Nico was sitting in a corner eating a bag of chips, and Mira was playing with…a pair of swords?

"What," Annabeth and I said at the same time "in the gods are those?"

She looked up at us like a child on Christmas. "Swords! Mine, I guess. Nico said they were here when he woke up."

Nico looked up at us lazily, seeming half asleep but also half uncaring, as if how his life turned out from now on meant nothing to him. I'm guessing that his apathetic mood was the cause of a certain Daughter-of-The-Fates, so I decided I'd cheer him up, just later.

"What? Oh, yeah, there was this package that showed up on my doorstep with her name on it and those things inside."

Mira gave him a look that was positively teary-Annabeth squeezed my hand a little harder, as if to reassure herself that I was still there-and I examined her swords.

They were of a decent length, maybe two feet of a pure silver blade and half a foot of what looked like leather, but was a really dark russet color. The blades extended straight for about three inches, and then turned out and around into a pair of wicked curves that were essentially the shape of crescent moons.

"Those are pretty awesome."

She tore her eyes off of Nico for a moment, and nodded at me with a half-hearted smile. "Yeah, I guess they are. I think…I think they're from my moms."

"OKAY, lovers, quarreling not-couple filled with sexual tension! We have an announcement!"

The Stolls and Rachel were standing at the back of the cabin, feet spread and arms crossed, looking like a trio of angry henchmen. Mira and Nico glanced at each other and then the floor, Annabeth squeezed my hand again, and we all just shut the Hades up.

"So here's how it's going down…"

It was surprising simple and explosive at the same time.

Tomorrow, at six in the morning exactly, Travis would blow up a crate on the beach while Mattey set the climbing wall on fire (before anyone was on it). Then Rachel would run to Chiron in the Big House yelling about a Prophecy she'd had involving the strawberry fields, drawing him there while the other campers and the harpies were distracted by the mini-bomb and the fire. In the midst of all the chaos, Annabeth, Nico, Connor, Mira and I would simply dash out of the camp through the main entrance by Thalia's Pine. After that, we would be free to go. Everything we'd need (like money, armor, spare clothes, etc.) would be gathered by Nico and put in his cabin tonight, since he could just shadow-travel to get whatever we needed.

To make it easier on all of us, Annabeth would just sleep with me so she wouldn't have to deal with running away in the morning, Mira would stay with Nico and Connor…well, Connor could take care of himself.

Everyone left, with Rachel having Nico shadow-travel her back so that Chiron wouldn't be suspicious of her, and Annabeth and I went back to my cabin.

"What do you think is going on?"

She turned and looked at me. "I don't know, Seaweed Brain, but we're going to find out. And when we do…"

"We're going to whup their ass."

A brilliant smile and a laugh flash from her for a moment, before fading back into the mask of stony indifference that she wore whenever we had a mission to complete. Tonight would not be a night for talking and fun little innuendos; we would simply lie in the dark and comfort each other against the trails we were soon to face.

Two hours later, doing exactly as mentioned in the latter, Annabeth was asleep and I was just resting in silence when the snap of a stick breaking and a quiet curse from beside my cabin was brought to my attention. All was quiet for a few moments, and then I heard footsteps continuing, probably on their way to the beach. Disentangling myself from Annabeth, I got up and followed them.

It appeared to be a girl, and she walked along the edge of the forest right down to the beach. I hid behind some trees and she didn't notice me as I tracked her. She plopped down on the beach with a groan, hung her head in her hands and ruffled her hair with a moody viciousness. I started to shift sideways so that I would be directly behind her when I tripped over something.

That something went "Ow!"

"Nico?"

It was whispered but audible, and the girl turned a little, assumed it was the wind through the tree, and went back to staring at the ocean and assaulting her hair. Once we were out of danger, I turned and looked at the person I had tripped over and thus landed next to when I fell-Nico.

"What in the name of Zeus are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard someone walk past my cabin so I went to check it out!"

"Well, Mira suddenly got up in the middle of the night, so I….kinda followed her."

"Why?"

"Why did you follow her?"

"If someone's walking past my cabin after curfew, I wanna know why!"

"I thought she might have been feeling guilty and sneaking off to tell Chiron!"

"Okay, we both know that's a lie."

He opened his mouth to protest, closed it, shoved himself into a sitting position, and nodded.

"Yeah, you're right."

I sat up next to him, and we continued our watch on Mira, who was still moping at the sand. "You should just talk to her."

"What? Yeah, I don't think so." He glared at me.

"Come on! So she hooked up with Apollo...she hooked up with you, too!"

Nico blushed furiously at the memory that he couldn't actually remember, and shadow grew over his face. "Not in the same way. And she was hammered. She doesn't even remember it! And he gave her that necklace…"

"Yeah, a necklace from all of the gods. And I don't know if you noticed, but Apollo asked her to come with him, while she asked you."

"Whatever you say, I'm not talking to her."

I started to make my case again, but then there was a flash of light down the left side of the beach and Apollo walked over, apparently without knowing we were there.

Nico stiffened and narrowed his eyes. "Perfect

"Hey."

"Go away." She kept her head in her hands.

"Mira, it's me."

"I don't give a damn who you are, just go the hell away."

He chuckled and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her up to her feet.

"Come on, Mira…we've got something important to talk about."

"I said I don-" Apparently she saw a certain urgency in his eyes and decided to listen. "Fine. What is it?"

He began to whisper to her, and we were unable to hear what they were saying.

"Try to get closer!" Nico gently shoved me towards them.

"Me? Why should I? You do it!"

"No! They'll know it's me!"

"How could they possibly know it's you?"

"Oh, look, now we've missed it and they're doing something weird."

Mira had sat down on the sand with Apollo lording over her, hands on his shoulders. He began speaking, and it sounded like voices sprang from the world around us-the oceans spoke, the trees whispered, the ground beneath our feet trembled with the low tones of speech. After a minute of answer and response between Apollo and the world, a light grew around the two of them, expanding so fast and so bright we had to turn our faces and hide our eyes against the nearest tree. When it was over, there was pure, indescribable silence for a second, and then the world restarted again.

"What….the Styx….was that?" Nico rubbed his eyes, trying to restore some of his vision, and I did the same.

"I think my eyes are pieces of bacon."

Thank gods, we remembered to whisper, because just then Mira stood up, looking a little shaky but strong, walked away, and Apollo turned and looked at the woods, practically at the exact spot we were in. Knowing that he had the godly power to see whatever he wanted to, we stopped moving, stopped rubbing, stopped breathing, or a good thirty seconds until he didn't that thing the gods do where they disappear.

The second he was gone we both pulled in a pair of gigantic breaths, and lay there enjoying the ability of not strangling yourself half to death.

"From now on…"A giant breath. "We don't, under any circumstances…" Another breath. " Follow Mira, ever. Got that?"

Nico nodded his affirmation.

We parted ways for the night, and returned to our respective cabins, Nico shadow travelling back to make sure he was in bed by the time Mira arrived, and we waited until the next morning.

The plan went perfectly. Almost too perfectly. I mean, they fell for it the first time, though that was more of a stealth mission then one that included bombs, but I thought they would have wizened up by now.

Mira and Nico were still in the same 'I like you but there's a lot going on right now and this is really awkward' state as they were last night, and I really hoped they'd snap out of it soon, because we really needed to concentrate on our quest, since there were only five of us (Travis refused to leave Katie) and the Prophecy specifically said six.

Anyway, we got out, Connor hot-wired the van and we were probably about ten minutes out of the camp when we heard a thump from the back, where all of our bags had been thrown.

"What was that?" Mira was glancing between the bags and everyone else in the van. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Could a harpy have gotten in?" There was fear in her eyes, which was surprising given her character, but when I saw how Nico automatically grabbed his sword and went to go check it out, I kind of got what she was trying to do. She figured that if she got Nico to feel like she needed him, he'd open back up to her. He was the one closing down the relationship, though she was the one hooking up with a god, so this was her way of trying to get it back to how it was before. Smart-sneaky, deceitful and mischievous, but smart.

What? I'm not as stupid as I look. I can understand things occasionally.

So Nico walked to the back of the van, sword extended, and pulled away the extra bags to reveal a frightening, terrifying…twelve year old boy.

"Tommy?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Hey, my brother, what's good?"

Turns out, he was a true son of Hermes. Annabeth and I got everyone settled down, and had him explain.

"Well, I figured you guys were going to do something to get out and save Brandon-he's my full brother, you know, and I wanted to help him. So I hung around Nico's cabin and listened in on your plan. The harpies never really bothered me that much; I think they're pretty lazy, so they left me alone. SO when it was time for you guys to leave, I just left a little early and got in the van."

At this Connor turned around and gave him a high five, resulting in him taking his hands off the wheel, us swerving into the opposite lane, and a whole lot of screaming.

"Alright. We'll drop him off at the nearest gas station and have him make his own way back." Well, no one liked Nico's suggestion-he's too young, are you trying to kill him, that's my brother be delicate with him-so it was decided that he would come with us, but the second it was too dangerous he would be shipped right back to Camp Half-Blood.

Annabeth snuggled up to me in one of the seats, clinging to my arm and making me smile. "It makes sense. He's the sixth from the Prophecy, don't you see? He's supposed to be here…" After that she promptly fell asleep.

I turned around and looked at the small, blonde boy sitting three seats behind us, and realized just how young he was-twelve amongst nineteen and sixteen and fifteen. Mira caught my eye with a sad, small smile, and I know she felt it too.

There was no reason for him to be on this quest. It should have been Travis, or Grover, and we both knew that when someone wasn't supposed to be on a quest, they normally didn't last very long.

That poor, poor, innocent boy…he was just trying to help find his brother.

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