Chapter 12

POV: Percy

Annabeth and I sat in the infirmary for a while and jest stared at each other. I gave her my shirt because her's was cut off her and I hadn't had time to go to her bunk and grab one of her spares. After all I had bin through in the last few days there was nowhere els I would want to be.

"Percy?" Annabeth asked after a while. "What happens to us now?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Where mutants." She said, not meeting my eyes. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Try and move on I guess." I answered. The truth was though I had no Idea what to do now. Ever since I was twelve I always had a quest with a goal to work towards. This problem had no goal, no next step, no gods to show us the way. We were on our own here and it kind of scared me. My thoughts were interrupted by a nock on the door. I turned to see Chiron sitting in his magic weal chair. He rolled into the room with a concerned look on his face.

"Good." He began. "You're up, Annabeth." Annabeth nodded. "How are you feeling?" He asked.

"Like crap." Annabeth responded. Chiron nodded with a frown on his face.

"I will see if Will can give you some more ambrosia." Chiron said. It was then that Maniac and Stealth entered the room.

"It lives." He noted when he saw Annabeth was awake. I hadn't spoken to Maniac since the fight in the lab. Now he stood in front of me as if nothing had happened. His posture relaxed and his eyebrows raised in amusement over his always present sunglasses.

"Why are you here?" I demanded. Maniac frowned at me. He clearly was not interested in talking to me yet.

"Came to check on Gunny." He said.

"So he's ok?" Asked Annabeth in concern.

"Yah." Stealth began. "He'll make it." I was still glaring at Maniac and as far as I could tell he was glaring at me.

"You ok?" Annabeth asked me.

"Fine." I said as curtly as possible. That was my mistake.

"What's wrong?" She asked in a no nonsense tone that I learned to fear a long time ago.

"It's nothing." I said. Not wanting to re start the fight with Maniac. Maniac and Stealth checked on Gunny, who was asleep, and them left along with Chiron. Jest before he left Maniac turned to me.

"I found this in the lab by the way." He said. "I believe it's yours." He then tosed me a ballpoint pen. I caught it and stared down at the small object I knew so well. Riptide was jest the way I remembered it. I looked up to see Maniac leaving.

"What happened between you two?" Annabeth asked me when they were gone. "You were fine with him one minute then I wake up any you to hate each other." She said "Whats up with that?"

"He left you." I said.

"What?" She asked. "He was dragged off by a mob of Erasers."

"He killed them all and continued to clear out the building." I said. "He didn't even bother looking for you. He put the stupid raid as a hire priority then the safety of his friends."

"This is war, Percy." She said. "People are bound to get hurt or killed. You know that. The battle of Manhattan alone was-"

I cut her off. It has been over a year since the battle for Manhattan but I still wake up in a cold sweat from what I saw there.

"War doesn't mean you abandon your friends." I said.

"Some times there's no choice." She looked concerned. Like she was explaining to a small child that the family pet had died. I looked down at the small pen in my hand and uncapped it. Riptide grew in my hand into a celestial bronze sward.

"There's always a choice." I said in a quiet voice. Thirty minutes later me an Annabeth were walking out of the infirmary. It was a very warm day and the sun was out.

"Percy?" Annabeth began.

"Hmm?" I asked.

"Can I ask you a question?" She asked.

"Shore." I said as we continued to walk. "Any thing."

She gazed up at the wide blue sky. "I want to learn to fly." She said. "Can you teach me?" I felt my right wing twitch the way it does when I feel uncomfortable.

"I jest learned my self." I said. "But I can try and teach you what I know."

She gave me a smile and spread her wings a little. "Then let's go." She said.

"Can I at least grab a shirt first?" I asked. She laughed a little.

"Why?" She asked in a joking tone. "I think you look good the way you are." I smiled at her.

ten minutes later we were standing in the arena ready for a flight lesson. I had garbed a shirt and was about to begin the lesson when Max walked in.

"Oh, Hay Percy!" She shouted. Then She noticed the wings sticking out of Annabeth's back and her face went pail. "What?" She asked in disbelief. "When did?"

"The raid went south." I said. "I couldn't get to her before they injected her." Max nodded.

"Im sorry, Annabeth." Max said.

"Don't be." Annabeth responded. "It wasn't your fault." Then she directed the next part at me. "It wasn't any one's fault." I knew she was talking about Maniac.

"So what are you two doing?" Max asked.

"I'm gana fail at teaching her to fly." I said. Max laughed.

"You know." She said. "If you want I can teach her and help you improve. If you want." I looked at Annabeth who looked very amused.

"What do you think?" I asked Annabeth.

"Sound good to me." She said. "Thanks, Max."

Max shrugged as if it was no big deal. Five minutes later I was air born with Max as Annabeth slowly gained altitude. When she reached us she looked to Max.

"So what now?" Annabeth asked. Max gave us both some pointers and before long we were flying like pros. Max then challenged us to fly as high as we could and then dive toward the ground and try and control our dives. We did. Annabeth did it with no problem. I however, started to corkscrew towards the ground and found it almost impossible to stop myself.

"Angle your feathers up on your left wing to counter the spin!" Max shouted as she dove next to me. I did as she said and leveled out almost immediately.

"Thanks for the advice." I said a little shaky from the adrenaline.

Max laughed and said "Don't mention it."

The three of us continued to fly for an hour when Annabeth noticed Chiron waiving us down. When we landed Chiron was waiting.

"Ay, Chiron." I said. "What's up?"

"I actually wanted to speak with Max." He said.

"Me?" Max asked.

"Yes." Chiron nodded. "It would seam that the little boy, Gasman is it?" Max nodded. "Well it would seam that he has released some sort of poison onto the camp."

"What?" I asked.

"Where would he even get poison?" Asked Annabeth.

"Well," Began Max. "We call him Gasman for a reason."

"The poison killed three bushes and all the grass within ten feet." Said Chiron.

"Yeah, well." Max said. "That tends to happen." She sucked in a deep breath. "Wyere is he?" She asked.

"In the big house." Chiron said. "This way." They walked off leaving me and Annabeth alone. Then Annabeth spoke.

"Well that was," She paused as if deciding he next words. "Interesting." I laughed.

"Well at least we flew." I offered. She nodded.

"It was fun." She said. "That was the most free I ever felt."

"Yeah flight has that effect on people." A voice to my right. I turned to see Stealth walking up to us. "So how was it?" She asked Annabeth.

"It was really nice." Responded Annabeth. We stood there talking about how great flying was for over an hour when the topic changed to our pasts. I started by explaining mine. How I grew up with my mom and then how I found out I was a demi god. I explained my story up until the present. Then Annabeth explained her back story. Finaly Stealth told hers. She said she was a life long lab experiment until she broke out of the School when she was thirteen. A few weeks later she met a boy named Talon and he introduced her to the squad.

"Who's Talon?" Annabeth asked.

"That's a long story." Stealth said.

"We got time." I said with a shrug. Stealth looked a little un-shore but continued any way.

"You have to understand the squad's older than most of the members." She said. "Back then the captain was a kid named Jax." She said. "Maniac was the second in command. And Talon was third." She posed. "Talon had blond hair and gray eyes." She said. "Jest like his brother."

"Talon was a child of of Athena?" Annabeth asked.

"Yes." Stealth replied. "He ad a full full brother though." She said. "Talon was a twin." She paused like the thought of Talon made her sad. "Maniac." She eventually said.

"Wait." I said. "Are you telling me Maniac is a twin?" I asked.

"Was." Stealth said curtly.

"Was?" Asked Annabeth.

"He was killed in a raid." Stealth said. "An Eraser shot him execution style right infront of us."

"Thats horrible." Annabeth said in a hushed voice.

"You guys couldn't stop it?" I asked.

"We were caught and in dog crates." Stealth said. "Talon got away though. If he stayed away he would have lived." She paused again. "He came back to try and free us." She said. "Then he was caught and killed right in front of us." We stood in silence for a while before Stealth turned away from us and said "I need to go." Then she left.

Once she was gone I exchanged a look with Annabeth.

"Well," I said. "Thats depressing."

"It makes sense though." Annabeth responded. "Maniac is always so mad and he has a real hatred for Erasers." She stopped to think for a second. "If he saw his twin get excited by an Eraser than it would explain a lot." I nodded.

"Now I'm depressed." I said. "Can we do something more fun?"

Annabeth gave me a smile.

"Wana fly to the lake?" She asked. "No bodies there at around this time of day." She wiggled her eyebrows at me. I smiled at her.

"Well I'm not shore I could find my swim suit." I teased.

"It's ok." She smiled. "I have no idea where mine is either." She gave me a grin. "I can't think of any reason we would need them any way." I smiled and shook out my wings.

"Then lets fly." I said. And we took off towards the lake. About two hours latter we were laying in the sand by the lake. Annabeth was on top of me her head resting on my chest and her wings out, soaking up the sun when I herd a familiar voice in back of me.

"I'll jest come back latter." Said the voice. I looked up to see my friend Frank Zang standing by the tree line. The roman stood a few feet away looking embarrassed. Annabeth drew her wings in around her to cover her chest.

"Frank?" I asked. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at camp jupiter?" I asked.

"I herd my pal went through a tuff time." He said. "Thought I would come an see how he was holding up." He paused. "Apparently he's doing better than I thought." He raised an eyebrow at us. "Any way, I'm here for a week so I'll see you latter." He turned and walked away. I looked down at Annabeth.

"That was wearied." I said. She stared at me for a second and then burst out laughing. The hole thing was jest so funny that I was laughing too. We jest laid there for the longest time laughing our brains out.

A MESAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: Thanks for reading! Please review this book! Or PM me! And as always I will update when I can!