The Alexander Chronicles

Book I: Greece

Part IV: Operation: Obliterate!

Chapter I: I Go on Offense

I sighed, knowing that my heart would probably be broken again, when all of a sudden, my uncle appeared in my room. "Hello, nephew. It's good to see you again."

I raised an eyebrow at my uncle. "Lord Pluto, while I am honored that you're here, I have to ask why."

"Because nephew, I know about your feelings for my son, and how devoted you are to him. I also know how you can help protect him from my father and his forces."

"And how is that?"

"By giving him someone to focus his wrath on: you."

I raised my eyebrow again. "And just how would I do that?"

"You have command over lightning, much as your brother has control over the winds." When he saw the shocked look on my face, he laughed. "What? Did you really think I wouldn't know about Jason Grace? No, I knew, and he is perfectly safe. Now, that control over lightning gives you a rare ability that few of your siblings has."

"And that is?"

"My children can travel anywhere through shadows. Poseidon's children, the strongest of them anyways, can travel through water vapor. You on the other hand can travel as a bolt of lightning, and you can go as far as you like."

I stood there for a minute in shock. To be able to go anywhere in an instant? Yes, I could easily become a threat to Saturn and his forces. And at the same time, I could search for Nico and learn how he truly felt about me. "How do I do it?"

"You must feel the lightning inside yourself and let it fill you up. Then you must focus on where you want to go. Try it now." I did as he asked, and by the gods was I shocked to find out how much lightning I had in myself. (Pun fully intended!) However, as I just wanted to test my new ability, I decided to only go to where we lost Nico only a few hours ago. In an instant, I found myself in front of Zeus' Fist, a rock formation that only looked like a fist at just the right angle. I smiled, ready to get back to work. But first I needed something else.

The test completed, I moved to the blacksmith and started work on a new set of armor. Since I had returned from my first quest, I had used lorica hamata, a Roman mail armor as my preferred armor. But my recent battle against the chimera revealed the weakness in the hamata: it was weak against piercing attacks. I had chosen that particular style because that was the armor used during the Roman Republic, and I knew that Nova Roma was based on the Republic. Besides which, hamata was perfectly acceptable against the slashing weapons I expected to face when fighting graecii. With the chimera bite though, I needed the classic Imperial Roman armor: the lorica laminata, or more commonly, the lorica segmentata, the most famous armor that the Roman legions ever used. As a kind of plate armor, it would protect me from both the slashing attacks of my graecii friends and enemies, and it would also protect me from the piercing effects of teeth and arrows, not to mention the thrusts of another gladius.


I watched Nico in what appeared to be a large corridor, with rubble in the middle. Apparently he was starting to get control of his powers over the earth, and I was proud of him for that. Then a beautiful girl appeared, asking for his help. She said that she needed the help of a boy like him, a demigod. Nico and I both became suspicious at that, and then she changed. Her true form was revealed: a pale woman with one bronze leg and one animal leg: an empusa. She quickly paralyzed him with her powers and knocked his Stygian Iron sword away before attempting to bite him. Nico managed to push her off and told her "Don't come any closer."

"Or what?"

"Or I will turn you into dust before you can say 'Hades.'" The empusa took a step forward and started to say the name of Nico's father, but before she could finish, a stone spike impaled her and she turned into dust. Yes, Nico was definitely learning, and fast.


I woke in a sweat. Clearly my uncle was sending me these vision to let me know Nico's condition. With that motivating me, I worked tirelessly creating my segmentata armor, which was ready after only a week. Then I made my move, flashing to a camp Pluto had let me know about through another dream. I turned my bow against the sentries, and when they were dust, walked into the camp. The monsters took one look at me, and charged. They didn't last long. Two of them (Cyclops) surrendered, and I said, "Go, tell Luke what happened here, and that Alexander Julius is coming for him." They started running, but then I thought How many Cyclops does it take to deliver a message? Then I answered my own question, "One." And I shot one of the Cyclops in the lead. That should make sure that Luke gets my message. That done, I flashed back to camp. It was time the war truly began.

The next morning, however, I realized that I was too sore to continue my assault on my grandfather's forces. My inner lightning was so weak that I couldn't even summon a spark, let alone flash anywhere. As such, I was forced to stay at Camp Half-Blood until I recovered. Over the next month, I took my training more serious than ever before, while also experimenting with different foods, figuring out what would best increase my electric powers, eventually coming up with a perfected, electrolyte heavy diet.

Something else I had perfected: my ability to see the future. I already knew that my music sometimes led to receiving visions of the future connected to the song I had listened to, so I pulled a few instrumentals by Two Steps From Hell into a playlist. The best songs for finding the enemy camps were undoubtedly Freedom Fighters, Masters of Shadow, Protectors of the Earth and 1000 Ships of the Underworld. With those playing, I knew I would receive a vision for another target.

The next morning, I awoke with my target, but also knowing that I couldn't just indiscriminately slaughter those in the camp. This one had demigods inside, and as much as I despised Luke, I couldn't really blame him or others for making the choice they did when they supported Saturn. But what could I do? I didn't know, but either way, I was going to destroy that camp.

On the third of February, I flashed to the camp I had seen and once again I took out the scouts before charging into the main camp. The monsters never stood a chance, nor did my fellow demigods, but with the demigods, I simply knocked them out. Once again, I let one monster survive to run and tell Luke what I had done. While I waited for the demigods to come to, I quickly sorted them out between Greek and Roman with the help of Lady Venus. Luckily, these demigods had only just learned of their heritage, so it was easy for me to win them over to our side. I gave my fellow Romans enough money to get them to San Francisco, while I flashed the Greeks with me back to camp.


I was watching Nico again, and this time, he was with somebody. To my shock, it was a Roman demigod! Based on his tattoo, he was a son of Apollo who had been a member of the 12th Legion for about four years. But there was soon trouble, because as soon as Nico mentioned he was a son of Hades, not Pluto, the legionnaire grabbed his bow and attempted to shoot him. If it wasn't for the ghost that appeared, Nico would have died! Nico then ran until he collapsed, and the ghost said something odd. "Since the maze is my property, I should have the right to control it. Those who intrude on my property deserve madness."

"You mean you made him go crazy?" The ghost nodded, and Nico said "Minos, you are a heartless bastard, you know that?" The ghost, Minos, just grinned.


Over the next four months, I continued to raid the camps of Saturn, and each time I was able to go on another raid sooner than the previous one. By April I was doing one a week, and by May I could have done one every day and still had the strength to use my lightning as a weapon, which I soon started doing. First I started just electrifying my sword, as I had accidentally discovered that just doing that would knock out any demigod that I struck, even if I just hit their armor. Come early June I had started using it as a direct weapon, much like Palpatine and Dooku from Star Wars, as electrocuting people was a very effective stunning weapon.

One day just as I was preparing for another raid, I walked out just in time to see Javier getting ready to leave the camp. I noticed that he was wearing his new arm-brace, something he claimed was inspired from the Golden Fleece from a game called God of War. If he was wearing that, then he was expecting trouble. "Hey, Javier! Where are you going?" Over the past few months, we had became pretty close friends, but we often got into big arguments, the biggest of which was over my plan to get Luke to focus on me, and not Nico. He thought it was stupid to draw attention to myself, just to protect Nico, but then, he didn't know who Nico's dad was, or about my crush on him.

"I'm going on a quest. Mr. D wants me to help him out with a job. He's doing his best to make sure that the minor gods stand with Olympus, so he told me to find Thanatos."

"Thanatos? You mean the Grim Reaper? Why him? Oh, wait, he's your half-brother, isn't he?"

"Yeah, that's probably why. Hey, you give up on your plan yet?"

"No. I have to protect Nico from Luke, no matter what."

"Why? What's so important about him? You act like he's a son of the Big Three or something."

"You have no idea, Javier. He could be the key to our victory over Kronos, or our defeat. Until I find him and convince him to come back to camp, I will keep fighting Luke's army, and he will come to fear the name Alexander Julius."

"You know, that arrogance is going to get you killed one of these days."

"Not until I've finished my job, I'm not. In any case, good luck Javier. I hope you're successful."

"Thanks, Alex. And good luck to you too, even if I think that you're nuts."


For the next two weeks, I had no luck finding anymore monster or demigod camps, so I decided to turn my attention elsewhere. While I kept up my training, I had also built up a relationship with my brother, Jason using Iris messages, especially after he managed to create a waterfall near enough to Nova Roma that he could use it whenever he wished. During one of our conversations, he mentioned that sometime after the Olympians first defeated the Titans, Tellus/Gaea decided to avenge her children by spawning giants with Tartarus to destroy the Olympians. As a result, when I wasn't training, raiding or chatting with Jason, I was doing research on the Gigantomachy, or War of the Giants. Unfortunately, the Big House's library was only stocked with books in Greek. While that might not have been a problem for any other demigod, it was a big problem for me. I seemed to learn Greek as quickly as a snail would. The average kid who had just finished his first summer knew more Greek than I did, despite my attempts to learn it. As a result, I learned almost nothing about it; I asked Chiron about it, but either he wasn't willing to talk to me, or he didn't want to talk about it at all. So I was ready when Annabeth brought Percy back to Camp. I knew that soon, Percy would be getting a quest, it was simply Fate with him. "Hey, Percy! How's it been?"

"Not bad, except for the fact that I blew up my mom's boyfriend's school. You know what's going on with Clarisse and Annabeth?"

"Clarisse and Annabeth?" I raised an eyebrow at that. Clearly I had missed out on some prime gossip because of my flash assaults. "No, I'm surprised that they can stand being together. What, are you saying that something's going on with them?"

"I don't know. All I know is that Annabeth said something about the two of them working on something. Then she said something about Chiron wanting to see me before some hearing or other. Do you know anything about that?"

"Actually yeah. Apparently the Council of Cloven Elders is meeting to decide if they should revoke Grover's searcher's license. They don't believe that Pan actually spoke to him."

By now, we had reached the arena, where to our surprise, we found a giant hellhound! We looked at each other, pulled our swords, and charged. But we were stopped by another celestial bronze sword, wielded by . . . a fifty-year-old son of Athena? But something was odd about him, he kind of smelled like the Hephaestus cabin, oil and electric wiring . . . an automaton?

"Whoa, there! Truce!"

"That's a hellhound!"

"She's harmless. That's Mrs. O'Leary." What in the world? A son of Athena with a hellhound for a pet? I could believe it of a child of Hades, being a fellow creature of the Underworld, but this guy acted like she was nothing but an overgrown puppy. "Mrs. O'Leary is my pet. I couldn't let you two stick swords in her rump now, could I? That might scare her."

"Who are you?"

"Promise not to kill me if I put my sword away?"

"Sure."

"Quintus." Quintus? Why would someone have that name, Latin for 'fifth?' "May I see your sword?" We figured he had to be talking to me, so I handed him Ventus. "Interesting. It's a celestial metal, but it's not bronze. What is it?"

"Celestial steel. Comes in real handy when you have mortals that mix in with our world, son of Min-Athena."

"Wait, what?" Percy asked in shock.

"How did you know I was a son of Athena?"

"It's a gift. My sense of smell is sensitive enough to tell who a demigod's Olympian parent is."

"Ah, that's got to be useful."

"So, how did you get a hellhound for a pet?" I couldn't blame Percy for asking that, I was wondering the same thing.

"A long story, involving close calls with death and quite a few giant chew toys. I'm the new sword instructor, by the way. Helping out Chiron while Mr. D is away."

"Oh. Wait, Mr. D is away?" Percy asked.

"Yes, well . . . busy times. Even Dionysus must help out. He's gone to visit some old friends. Make sure they're on the right side. I probably shouldn't say more than that." I knew what he meant, the wine dude was checking on the minor gods, and Javier was working with him. Unfortunately, that meant that things must be in desperate straits if Father was relying on him. Then we noticed the horse-sized boxes that were stacked nearby. When we asked what they were, Quintus said that it was, "A little surprise. Training activity for tomorrow night. You'll love it. You young ones need more challenges. They didn't have camps like this when I was a boy." Hmm, that was odd. He mentioned camps, plural, which probably meant he knew about the Roman camp. And he said that there weren't camps like CHB when he was young? I'd learned that it had been around for at least 200 years just in America, so how was that possible?

"How is that possible that you're … well, old?"

"Some of us do survive into adulthood, you know. Not all of us are the subject of terrible prophecies."

Just then, Chiron showed up and asked Percy to follow him. On the way, Chiron asked Percy about an attack on Percy by some empusa at his school. "Jeez, Percy. You really can't stay out of trouble even one year, can you."

"Hey, it's not my fault! They find me! It's not like I consciously go looking for them!"

"Maybe, but can't you avoid destroying the school in the process? This is twice that you've damaged a school because of a monster in as many years. What happened to just killing the monster, like with Dodds?" I asked.

"They don't make it as easy as she did. That empousai got too close to the mortals, then she exploded into fire."

"Mm, the more powerful ones can do that. She didn't die, she just escaped. It's not good that the she-demons are stirring. It's amazing you survived. Their powers of deception . . . almost any male hero would've fallen under their spell and been devoured."

"I would've been. Except for Rachel."

"Rachel? You mean the mortal that saved you at Hoover Dam?" I was shocked. That had to be the most remarkable coincidence I had ever heard of.

"Ironic to be saved by a mortal once, let alone twice. Yet we owe her a debt. What the empousai said about an attack on camp-we must speak of this further. But for now, come, we should get to the woods. Grover will want you there."

"Where?"

I sighed. "His formal hearing, remember? The Council is deciding whether or not to revoke his license."