DISCLAIMER: We do not own PJatO or HoO. Rick Riordan does. He's pretty awesome at it, too.

That should be his new title. Riordan the Awesome. No… Give me a few days to figure that out. I want something with more of a ring to it….

oOo

Things just seemed to snap into focus.

Ethan had trained me to keep a level mind. I had panicked, the first few times in a real fight, and I'd panicked during my first rumble as a demigod. But, as I had rediscovered during the Battle of the Labyrinth, I rarely lost my head in action. It was always afterwards that scared me…

The world seemed to lock into place, chaos suddenly making sense, every little detail crisp and recognized and in its rightful place. Time seemed to slow down. For a moment, I felt like Hunter or Kronos did when playing with time – that brief flash of control, that feeling of being faster, powerful, superior. The world faded to shadows and flickers of light, glowing souls, and yet each detail was still locked neatly in its place in the scene and comfortable in logic.

Beneath my feet, though, I felt something growing. A rumble in my chest, a ringing warning bell in my ears. A big force. A big light. Big heat.

To a cold, dark shadow, it felt like fire.

And it was getting closer. Fast.

I ran, eerily calm. I had to get out of here. I had to get my friends out with me. End of story.

I snatched Hunter from where she stood, yanking her into the shadows with me, and she caught on fast enough. She grabbed Brook as we sped past, faster than bullets. The drag weight in my chest and arms from using magic grew. And, as we charged for the edge of the ship, I used my other hand to yank Ethan along with us.

And we ran.

The world slipped by in brief colors. The fire behind me got faster – growing – blooming out like a poisonous flower. The burn got to the point of agony. Like I'd been nicked with Tartarus's fingernail.

Then there was the stress of carrying three people. It sucked my air away and felt like my limbs had turned to lead. Now that I knew what to look for, knew myself, knew my magic, I felt it draining me. It felt like I was losing blood. Like, cut-through-the-Jungular losing blood.

As soon as the fire at my back began to fade, I let the magic fall away. I gasped in shock as the ability to breathe came back, just for a moment, weightless in the air-

WHOOM!

It felt like I hit a wall, the harsh slap stinging my skin just about everywhere, like I'd fallen into a bunch of needles. Next came a quick, cold shock. So cold it sucked the air from my lungs again and turned my throat to ice. A heavy weight pressed down on me. The world had gone back to dark shadows and brief flashes. But they no longer made sense – they danced back and forth like butterflies in a dance, or like summer break, flashing and then gone and then back, twisting in odd and unexpected ways.

Tired as I was, the danger was not over. Though panic was beginning to sink in just a little. I lashed out, calling for help. As soon as my mouth opened, it was flooded with cold water. I slammed my jaw shut and clawed at the water, trying to make it stop moving. I had no idea which way was up.

But at last I twisted and saw the bright lights – the moon dancing on the surface. I kicked out, fighting a current, reaching desperately for the air just feet away. My lungs began to burn.

At last, I broke the surface.

I threw my head back and coughed, spitting water and choking on air.

Déjà vu, anyone?

Next to me, Hunter burst into existence among blooming white foam, yelling out in pure adrenaline. Her golden eyes were bright and wide, teeming with excitement. Her sharp-toothed grin was on her face. "Best – dive – EVER!"

For a moment, I was stunned, taken away by her words. Best dive Hunter'd ever been on? That's quite an achievement there. For Hunter had been the crazy girl in the parking lot who jumped off a semi-truck into a four-foot inflatable pool. Which had gotten us expelled, might I add.

You know, if anyone really cares why that Oregon school bailed on us…

Then, between Hunter and I, the surface erupted. Brook leapt a foot into the air, yelling wildly, flinging her arms out and coughing up water like Spit and Spat (long story about a fountain in upstate New York that Hunter also dived into.)

Hunter called her name above the rolling waves and swam forward, gripping her in a hug and holding them both above the surface. My tense muscles relaxed at the sight of them both.

But my mind was still on alert. It wasn't over yet…

Ethan! Crap!

I moved my arms awkwardly (I can swim and survive just fine in water… I just look a bit clumsy and slow…) until I was turned around, eyes scanning the dark waves. My eyesight was great in the dark, but it wasn't a cat's, so I might have missed something. But of what I could see, no damp, dark-haired head rose above the surface.

"Ethan?!" I yelled, but my voice was raspy and at first hardly heard. I gasped for breath, shivering in the icy water, and tried again. "Ethan!"

Behind me, Brook and Hunter forgot their happy reunion. "Did you bring him with us?" Hunter asked.

I nodded. "Positive. Ethan! Eeee-than!"

"Ethan!" Hunter's voice dropped to an imitation of her father's. "You will answer me when I speak to you, Nakamura!"

"Not funny," Brook muttered.

Then, quite literally out of nowhere, a harsh hacking sound exploded from off to my right. It was accented by sputters and sharp, half-finished gasps. I floundered in the waves, forcing my body to turn. And, sure enough, there was Ethan, head tipped back to keep his face out of the water. It lapped at his chin hungrily.

"Oh, for the love of the Styx!" Hunter muttered. "Please tell me you know how to swim."

"He does. It's the armor, stupid," Brook said.

"Then what are we standing here for?" Hunter asked, lurching forward with the help of another wave. Strange, they never seemed to work for me when I needed them. She rammed into Ethan, fingers tangling in his last shoulder strap. The small attachment feature slid off his arm entirely and I assume the whole breastplate slid off him and down into the deep Atlantic, because suddenly his body jerked upward and he wasn't quite so close to the waves anymore. Though he continued to sputter.

"That everyone?" Brook asked, looking around.

"That's all I brought," I confirmed. "Kinda hard to carry more."

Ethan coughed harshly and rasped, "Carry…?"

"Shadow travel," I explained, teeth starting to chatter. "I-I saw your charm sh-shatter and the detonator get hit a-and ran."

"Glad you grabbed us first," Hunter muttered.

Ethan shook the water from his eyes and, making me quite jealous, lost the edge of panic and began to tread water rather easily. "And you dumped us here?" he snarled.

"Only as far as I had to," I muttered. "I d-didn't think about getting s-stranded."

"Stop harassing her," Hunter muttered, and thwacked him over the head. "She saved your life, dipStyx."

"I'm n-not so sure," I managed. "It's f-freezing out here."

"Well, drowning is supposed to be better than blowing up, right?"

A deathly silence, smothering as the thick scent of blood, settled over us. The lapping of the waves sounded loud an alien. The air lit up with a tension so alive it needed a birth certificate. The icy water grew all the colder.

"Brianna…" Brook murmured.

"There was nothing we could do," Ethan answered immediately, his voice soft as it always was when he spoke to her on hard subjects.

"We should've taken her with us! We were right there! Surely there was something-"

"She's right. We should've helped her first," Hunter said flatly, cutting Brook off.

Ethan shook his head and closed his eye. "I wish we did, but you have to be realistic. We h-had no choice. B-besides, she might've just died anyway. She looked p-pretty bad."

"It's not just her," I said, because right then the buzzing in my ears decided to make itself known. "I-I can hear… I can hear others…"

"None of the monsters had charms," Brook remembered quietly. "They… They're all…" And, to everyone's shock, the threat of tears shook her voice.

"Now, don't even try to insist we could've taken all of them," Ethan said sternly. "Forget it. Right now, we h-have to find l-land."

"Forget it, Ethan?"

"F-for now. D-drowning ourselves in spilled milk w-won't do us any good." The dim starlight glinted sharply off his hair, lighting silver streaks, a bright glimmer where his eye was. I could also see, if I squinted, his blue lips.

"Besides," Hunter said. "W-we know about what Kronos is doing now. We c-can talk to him about it and stop others f-from the same thing."

"That's the most we can do for her now. Plus the Hecate kid. An e-everyone else," Ethan added. He fell quiet for a moment, and I saw his eye flicker up to stare at the wide, cold, unforgiving sky. Even the starlight seemed to fall just short of useful.

There was movement to my right that I assumed was Hunter. "Right. D-does anybody see land?"

"Hunter, w-we're miles off shore," Brook rasped. A shallow gasp escaped her. "T-there's no land close enough to swim to in th-this temperature."

"So we're just going to sit here and freeze to death?" Hunter challenged.

It was supposed to spark motivation. Instead, it damned us all into another tense silence.

"M-maybe if we move we'll k-keep warm a little longer," I said, because moving around on a hot school bus had always been a bad idea. "S-someone will c-come for us."

"Who?" Ethan muttered. Man, I'm usually a pessimist, but in front of Brook I tried to do better and really hated realists. "N-nobody knows we're out here."

"Then we'll s-swim until we find something," Hunter said. "Ethan, which way is n-north?"

"Th-that way, I think."

"No, it's that way," Brook said, raising an arm out of the water and pointing. "See th-that star? North is over there. And we want to go west, so we sh-should head that way."

"Y-you're word's b-better than mine."

So we all started to swim in that general direction.

My limbs began to cramp from the cold, and so did my lungs, making it hard to breathe. And to keep my face above the surface. Five strokes after we started I was panting and, terrified of losing the others in such utter blackness, glanced around every two moments to find them. It was hard – I usually found them only by their rasped breathing.

"M-maybe land is a little f-far off," Hunter said eventually.

I knew that to rest and relax in this icy, unforgiving cold was suicide. But she hesitated, and my limbs were too tired to let the opportunity slip by. As soon as I went limp, everything went numb, and not only could I not feel the pain but lost all sensation in every single limb. My face had vanished ages ago.

I barely moved enough to tread water, small movements through my foggy, tired brain. Aside from that, my thoughts went back to the Princess Andromeda.

People had died on that ship. Demigods, monsters. As had the prisoner who'd rigged and set off the bombs.

A shudder – one of many, identifiable because it came from within – rocked through me. So many lives lost was hard to forgive. And to give your own life to do it….

This was war. There was no going back.

"Bree? You still awake?"

"Yeah," I rasped.

Ethan sighed. "W-we can't last much longer. If we're going to t-try for land…"

He trailed off and didn't finish. We knew that we didn't stand a prayer.

"I hope Dad's okay," Hunter said quietly.

Brook, coaxed by that, felt the need to start a conversation. A normal one, where the obvious wasn't really obvious. "I'm c-cold."

"We all are, h-honey," Hunter crooned, teeth clattering like dry bones.

"Yeah so g-get over it," Ethan added. Then, after a moment, "…Yeah, I guess it's a pretty s-stupid way to die. Especially after a-all this time."

I closed my eyes, unable to speak, just nodding my agreement. I felt myself slide another two centimeters into the water.

Then, of course, Brook spoke again. She needed a conversation to stay comfortable. And who were we to deny her? "I-I don't like it here. I want to b-be back in our dorm. At least it'd b-be warm."

Warm. Such a foreign thought. But so welcome….

"Bree," Ethan started. I could hear his thoughts in his voice. "D-didn't you figure out h-how to heat blood?"

"It's supposed to be an offering of b-blood to coax ghosts into sp-speaking," I managed.

"But it w-worked on me when you tried it."

"I-it's hard to control and makes me tired. But if you th-think it'll work…"

"Try it. Try it now," he said, and he must have come closer, for suddenly he emerged from the darkness, shaking like a freshly landed arrow.

As soon as I closed my eyes again to concentrate, I knew it wasn't going to happen. The waves moved me too much, made sound, was too cold. It was hard for me to think. I did my best to shake them away, to remember the age-old ceremonies (or at least what I'd read of them) and the woven words of a delicate spell.

My lips moved, quiet, finding their own path. I let them lead, thinking about warm things, the sun on my hair and the cozy flames in my chest that started when my sisters and I shared a laugh. The cold water splashed over my shoulder, stealing my attention for a moment, but I grit my teeth and ignored it.

Warm, warm thoughts….

A strange tingling sensation began in my arm. I could feel the bright soul-lights again, one for each them and one for myself. I began to chant faster.

And, by some miracle, fire began to creep up my veins. Like a poison, or an additive drug. It spread like running water or the creeping shadows as the day grew old.

Somewhere ahead of me, Brook yelped in surprise. I ignored her and kept going.

I went until the cold didn't matter anymore. I didn't really feel it. It was abstract, far off, nothing but an illusion. Then I cut off the chant but, in my mind's eye, kept my focus on the little spots of light. It almost felt like small cords attaching us to one another, sharing the heat, tying them to my spell. I felt dead tired, but I could keep this up, just for a little while.

"…Warm things tend to float better, too," I heard Ethan note. The shake had vanished from his voice.

I looked at him and gasped in shock. He was, to put it simply, sitting with his legs crossed and hardly two inches of him sinking below the surface. Brook, to his left, was on her knees. Hunter was trying to be macho and stand up.

I looked around myself and, sure enough, I lay sprawled on my back against the waves, riding on top with eerie ease. The warmth pulsed again, making me shudder.

"Not really walking on water," Hunter muttered as she tumbled, splashing salt water everywhere. She resurfaced quick enough. "But still cool. I didn't know people could be so buoyant."

"Normal people can't," Brook beamed.

"Hey, look at the currents!" Ethan yelped. He reached down with one hand and let his fingers get tugged along by the waves. "They're dragging us west! The tides are going in! Do you know what that means?"

Hunter's face lit up. "Free ride?"

"Free ride."

oOo

We floated for a long while. Over time, the last of my energy dwindled. I had to lower our blood temperature to make the spell easier to hold. I always felt those three lights, like little pulses, different knots in my head where the headache liked to gather. It was hard work.

At last, Ethan, who sounded quite tired, slurred, "…That dark spot over there. You see it?"
Brook, without waiting for an answer, drew her bow and fired an arrow into the night sky. With a muttered breath, the arrow caught fire, illuminating the dazzling sea. White light danced off the waves like drunk fairies.

"You realize," Ethan muttered, "that this close to Camp Half-Blood, you could have just given our position to the enemy?"

"Yeah, well, that's land for sure," Brook said, pointing. "Take it or leave it."

So we began to dog paddle.

The final edges of the spell dropped away and vanished as we reached the beach. The sand felt wet and grainy, kind of sharp, on my feet. The drag of the water was so little… I stood, feet sinking into the surf, dark forest of trees swinging by at an unhealthy angle. My legs turned to jelly and I fell back into the water. It got up my nose and in my throat, making me snort. I was too tired to care - I felt like I'd run a marathon.

"Come on," I heard Ethan rasp. "Up."

"Nt."

We dragged ourselves off the sand and into the grass, found a random tree, and collapsed at its roots. Shivering and soaking wet, huddled against one another for warmth (which probably saved our lives that night), we fell asleep.

oOo

I woke about twenty-four hours later. Magic was quite tiring. As was drowning. No wonder people sleep for eternity after it – they're too tired to be bothered.

I blinked and lifted my head, searching the area. In front of me was the end of grass and start of sand. Beyond that, the salty Atlantic ocean. Tangled at my back were Hunter and Brook. My gaze searched the sky and woods and beach until, at last, I found the missing person.

Forcing myself to my feet, I got up and walked over to where Ethan sat at the start of the sand. The stars were brilliant tonight, much brighter than they'd been before. He was staring off into the southern horizon, eye narrowed suspiciously. All traces of the horrors of the night before seemed to have vanished from his face.

I shuddered. People being tortured, people being killed. How could we not have spoken up? "…Ethan?"

"Hm?" he asked without lifting his gaze.

"…What are we going to do? About Kronos?"

"I've answered this before. We're going to talk to him," he said simply. "We're going to explain that it's wrong and too much like what those monsters do." He motioned sharply in the direction he was gazing.

I squinted and, sure enough, I could see another strip of land against the fractured waves. "Is that…"

"Camp Half-Blood? Yes, it is."

I was speechless.

"You see, despite Kronos's flaws, he's not in the wrong. He's not in the dark. Whatever his favorite punishment methods may be, he knows better than them. Than the Olympians." A man who didn't know true justice, better than the Olympians? Neither was the victor there, I thought. "They've suppressed us and the minor gods for thousands of years. They've raised us for the slaughter. For their amusement. Kronos might have a few anger management problems, but he could never be as bad as that."

There was a moment of silence as he went on. "Imagine that. Being part of a great race in history, the Olympian gods, and not having anything to do with them. Labeled one just because. Being shut out from every decision. Being used… That's what they did to my mother. It's part of what drove my father mad. Gods, no matter what Kronos does…" His voice sounded strained, stressed, like something heavy was pressing on it. Tears, I realized with shock. Ethan was near tears. "…It's time to end all this. Now."

I thought about that quietly for a moment. He had a valid point. And the way his voice sounded right then, I was ready to fall for every word. Some of my own passion began to spark. I remembered all the reasons I had not made good on my threats to leave – Hunter, Ethan, Brook. And, of course, what I fought for.

I didn't have any experience in this world. Not my own. But there was no doubting the living cause among everyone on Mount Othrys. The army's tense alliance. There was something worth fighting for there.

"…What happened to your dad, Ethan? Do all demigod parents go insane?" My mother came to mind.

He shook his head. "No, not all. Little Mr. Percy Jackson has a mom who loves him and a step dad who's willing to accept him for what he is," Ethan spat bitterly. "Another show of uneven treatment. There's so much misbalance in the world. That's what Nemesis is for, see – not just revenge. Not just violence. She stands for balance. And… And so do I. I kills me every day." He had grown awfully quiet again. I remembered, dully, the balanced and even beat he had when he fought.

"…Your dad, though?"

"My dad shot himself when I was seven. Took me to the park, like he always did. Held my right hand in his left, and in his right, he held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Right there in front of me and everyone else. I never found out why, although now I have a few guesses." He tore his gaze from the distant Camp Half-Blood and stared at his shoes. "I just don't know which is correct."

"Oh… I'm so sorry…"

"I don't want pity."

"Sorry."

He raised an eyebrow at me but didn't press it. Instead, he sighed and turned back to the water. "You don't want to leave, correct? You won't?"

"It seems I have a lot to stay for," I sighed.

"You do. Take it from me. It's something well worth fighting for. When… When my dad died, I was sent to Camp Half-Blood. But you know that story. I left, looking for my mom… I couldn't stand the injustice being done. The misbalance. I went to her asking for help."

Sudden realization dawned on me. "You went to her and asked for a way to fix it, didn't you? A way to help her restore balance?"

"Yes. I did." He was silent for a moment. "She gave me a fate and then, to make it even, stabbed my eye out. Not a bad trade, if you think about it. Saving the world, and all you had to give was an eye. Almost too good to be true."

I stared at him, at the way the stars reflected off his messy hair and the bridge of his nose. He was an ordinary guy, out to make more of himself. No, scratch that. He was a demigod. And demigods don't take anything, anything lying down.

He had taught me that. Why was it now, so late, that I was realizing why?

"Fate. A good fate. No, I guess it wasn't a bad deal," I sighed. "So long you don't give up, you'll have your name written in history books."

He scowled and shook his head vigorously. "No. That used to be what I wanted. The famous son of Nemesis who saved the world by restoring the balance that'd been sorely missed. Make a difference that people will remember, that they won't go back on, that'll stay in place and save lives in the years to come, that story that touches them so deep it changes everything they do for the better…

"…But this past year, I realized something. Through you and Hunter and Brook, actually. I… I want a fate. I want to make a difference. That hasn't changed. But I'm wiser about it now. I don't want anyone to remember my name. What matters is what I do."

I turned to stare at him, now a little lost. "…What?"

"Look, does it really matter that my name is Ethan? It could be Joe. Or Leslie. Or Susan, for crying out loud. What matters is what I do, the actions that I commit. Nobody needs to remember Ethan Nakamura. They just need to remember the kid that gave everything he could for this cause. Besides, people tend to remember the actions better, anyway."

"…They do?" I thought, remembering the name Benjamin Franklin from somewhere but having no idea what he'd done.

"Yes, they do. What was the Hecate kid's name, Bree?"

I fell silent.

"Didn't you mention that he wouldn't tell you his name, because it'd change the way you acted? Isn't that why you hurt over that so much? Don't you wish you knew his name, and that wish compel you to do something?"

"…I guess…"

"Think about it this way, too. If you had to memorize every casualty, by name, from the Vietnam War, would it be as interesting?"

"No, I guess not."

"In the recent century – decade, maybe, I don't know – there was a student protest at a college in China. They wanted the communist economy out and a capitalist in its place. In response, the government sent tanks and shot at them and ran them all over. Those tanks guarded that square for days. On the second or third day, a man was buy groceries, and walked past that square. Just an ordinary man. No deal with a goddess to achieve fate or fame, no missing eye, no demigod, no special powers. Just a normal human. And you know what he did?

"He saw a whole line of tanks coming down the road. So he walked up, two grocery bags in each hand, and stood right in front of them. That first tank stopped. Then the next. This huge line of massive, massive tanks. And he just stood there, straight-backed, in the middle of the street. They told him to move. He didn't. They tried to go around. He just moved in their way again. That whole line of tanks had to stop, just because of that one man.

"Then they inched forward, threatening to hit him. Eventually he began to climb on the tank. Two of his friends, scared to death he was going to get killed, eventually strode up, acted similar to police, and led the man away. But for a good five minutes, those tanks were delayed. By a random man. A video of it went viral and sparked inspiration not just in China but all over the globe. I've seen it myself. Everybody loves this man. And you know what?

"Not one person knows his name. They just call him 'Tank Man'."

I just stared, hanging on every word, each one sinking deep inside me to a place I hadn't ever been before. I was totally captured by him, lost in awe.

He glanced at me out of the corner of his jade eye. "Do me favor?"

I had to force my mouth to speak. "Anything."

"We're heading into war, so don't tell me this is irrational or stupid or refuse to do it, because it's perfectly reasonable. If I die, remember me. Tell someone else what I did. But don't ever tell a stranger my name. Don't tell my story and stick my name on there. And I'll do the same for you, and for Hunter, and for Brook. Exactly like that. Because whatever fate I traded my eye for, it's mine, it's been hard won, and I don't want it to be erased from time and from memory. Think about how sad that would be. But if I hid my name, think of what might happen… Do me another favor, and don't forget what I said tonight, either. I don't think I'll ever be so calm as to rethink my way through it again. Remind me from time to time. I think a lot of people should hear it, simply because they don't think it's true.

"To be nameless is to be unforgettable."

oOo

Nyx: I AM SORRY I'M LATE!

Nic: Shut up! You sound like the rabbit off Alice in Wonderland!

Nyx: My internet is temporarily down. I have another computer I'm using to upload this. But that is not why I'm late; I had a very, very busy week and am writing the third chapter for this week RIGHT NOW. Going as fast as I can without being unsatisfactory. I decided to go ahead and upload the two finished chapters as to be as fair as possible to you readers.

Nic: You might want to wrap this up, then. Oh, and for those of you who don't know Tank Man, look him up. True story. Awesome guy. And we use a lot of references in this book… Many people might not understand. We don't own anything we reference and we are not trying to confuse you. Sorry if it was still a little weird, though.

Nyx: As far as the poll, I do not have time to check it right now, it will end today around noon and the results will be posted next week. Keep an eye out on our profile for the next poll! Not sure what it is yet, but I'll figure out something!

Nic: You're pretty good at fixing things last-minute, aren't you? You know, good because you do it so often?

Nyx: *Face down on desk* I'm as bad at this as Shigure…

.

*Shigure is another reference. He is a novelist from the anime series Fruits Basket. Loves to torment his editor by missing deadlines.