Chloe / December 28th

A million thoughts raced my mind as I stared down onto the person I had stabbed. I should probably move and try and help him, but the help I needed was hundreds of miles away, and it was likely-...

"Why?" I breathed out

"The Shadow-Dragons made me... You have to warn Percy"

I knelt down and pressed my hand to his stomach to try and stop the bleeding however I could. Samael hadn't been his name, but a title. Annabeth had said the name meant fallen angel, and they were somewhat right.

"They... made you? Like with blackmail?" I questioned

"You think I'd let them make me kill you all? They brought me back from the depths of Hell and mind-controlled me. I'm not the first and I won't be the last"

"I'm sorry" I sighed shakily as tears stung my eyes

"I wouldn't have rather died to anyone else" He chuckled

Up above, the sky darkened and the sun faded away, being replaced by the moon. Despite it being about eleven in the morning, it looked like it was eleven at night now. The moonlight illuminated the face beneath the hole in the helmet, and it only made the tears fall.

"My mom always told me someone with blonde hair would pull me out of the darkness, though I never thought I'd be dying. No offense"

"You're irritating"

"I'm dying"

"Shut up" I muttered

I felt my hand that was over his stomach began to heat up, and a white glow covered it. The glow spread out around his body and I slightly lifted my hand to see his stomach somehow closing where I had stabbed it. The blood that was soaking the ground and making a puddle around him remained though, but more life was coming back to his eyes.

"What in the gods' name..." He said

After a couple of my moments, I let myself take my hand off his stomach and it had completely healed. In fact, even his armor had mended itself together and showed no signs that I had stabbed through it.

"I'm alive?" He questioned. "Again?"

"I said shut up" I replied, holding back a laugh and giving him a tight hug

"Can I get off the ground now?" He asked after about two minutes of silence

I felt my cheeks heat up and I stood up, offering him a hand. I pulled him up and rocks fell to the ground after having been stuck to the back of his armor. He took his helmet off and my heart fluttered as his hair came down.

"You can't tell them" He said out of nowhere

"Why not?" I inquired

"They'll only be put in danger. Even just you knowing is too much" He shook his head and walked towards the seashore

"What's going on? I've been hearing an awful lot about Shadow-Dragons lately"

"They're coming, and they won't stop until they rule the cosmos" He replied

"The entire cosmos?"

"Syn and Gaea were enemies for one particular reason. Just as Gaea represents the Earth, Syn represents, or at least he tries to, the entire galaxy. The Olympians are the one thing standing in his way now, and he's trying to use demigods to take them down without confronting them himself. Not until he has enough strength..."

The night was fading away and the sun was starting to poke out of the clouds again, making me flinch from the sudden brightness.

"So they used you. Who else?"

"A long time ago I asked Percy and Annabeth everything they knew about Luke Castellan - Syn's ultimate weapon" Layton answered

*Cue thunder crashing sound effect

Percy / January 9th (2010)

"Nope, you were totally the denser one" Annabeth shook her head

"Then we'll just have to ask all of our friends" I let go of her hand and crossed my arms

"Fine then. They'll all agree with me" Annabeth replied, facing away from me

There were a few moments of silence until we both burst out into laughter, stopping in the middle of the street and attracting a few weird glances by passersby. Annabeth gave them a glare as we reconnected our hands and continued to walk down the streets of New York in the moonlight.

"Seriously though, you were the totally clueless one" Annabeth insisted

"Not even" I denied. "You never showed one hint of liking me"

"Which proves my point" Annabeth said

We had gotten out of school a couple of hours ago and we were making our way down to our favorite restaurant for dinner. It was a tradition we had started, and it wasn't uncommon for us to be interrupted by a monster attack. Usually we dealt with it pretty easily, but this time I felt a new feeling - a dark presence that rolled in.

"You feel that?" I asked as I stopped walking

"You think Samael is back?" Annabeth questioned as she unsheathed her new dagger

"No clue," I mumbled, "though I wouldn't be surprised considering he just kind of disappeared"

After waiting for a couple more moments, dark purple smoke began to spray out of the vent in the ground just a few feet in front of us. Our postures tightened as we readied our swords. Dark red eyes stared us from the smoke, and a silhouette was beginning to form.

"Perseus Jackson, it is a pleasure to meet you..." the voice inside the mist hissed

"What are you?" I asked

"My name is Minimus, the youngest of The Shadow Dragons. I was born when the goddess Hera assisted you in the Labyrinth" it explained. The voice was quiet but hissed as if it was going to attacked at any moment - which was probably true.

"Cool. Want an autograph?" I replied and Annabeth elbowed me with a stern look on her face

"What a tempting offer, but your death will do" Minimus said and a large dragon-humanoid stepped out of the smoke.

The dragon was a couple of inches taller than I was, and had a light blue skin color with buff muscles. Spikes protruded from its back, and it sprouted a long tail. It's face was definitely a dragon's, but had human-like features.

"You sure don't look like a Minimus" I said

It laughed. "You've always been one to have a sense of humor, haven't you? It's too bad I can't keep you as my personal jester"

"Yeah, too bad" I agreed sarcastically

Me and Annabeth lunged at the same time. Our blades collided with Minimus's rough skin and he just laughed again at our puny effort. He spread out both his arms and pushed us back before signaling to the dark smoke behind him. It shot forward and spread out, ringing us in. Instantly, my head started to heard and I was stumbling like a drunk person at the smell of the smoke.

"Percy, what's wrong?" Annabeth asked as she grabbed my arm and helped me stay in place

"It's a smoke that's very toxic to the spawn of the sea god" Minimus explained as he slowly approached. His large feet stuck to the ground and then lifted back as up as he walked, making a yucky sound.

I fell backwards and dropped Riptide, clutching my head and curling into a ball in an effort to stop the pain. Minimus lunged forward and Annabeth sidestepped out of the way to avoid his fist. She slashed her dagger and cut off a smaller spike that extended out of the Shadow-Dragon's elbow.

Minimus's arms began to contort until two large spikes protruded out of his forearm and just above his knuckles, forming the shape of a blade. He slashed one but Annabeth parried the strike and countered with her own. Minimus blocked with his other arm-blade and kicked her back, which probably hurt a lot considering his giant foot.

The Mist probably made this guy look like the world's buffest dude had taken a bunch of steroids and decided on attacking two random teenagers.

"I see you've met one of my brethren" Syn whispered from somewhere in the smoke as Annabeth and Minimus continued to trade strikes and blocks

I grunted in response.

"We both know that if the fight goes on for too long, it will end in death" Syn said

He was right. Annabeth was doing a really good job at protecting me right now, but she was slowly becoming overwhelmed by Minimus's strength and rapid strikes.

"You can stop him if you choose to do so"

"How?" I managed out

"Embrace the darkness. You've seen how skilled Samael was. You could be much more powerful than him. Join us, and I will grant you the power to defeat Minimus"

On a normal day, there was no way in Hades I was going to join 'the dark side', but considering the current circumstances, I was giving it a thought. If I didn't take whatever power Syn was offering me, then Annabeth could die in this fight.

Just before I could strategically bargain, heavy footsteps began to approach outside of the smoke, and the faintest shape of a silhouette appeared. I thought it was Ryan or Victor based on the shape, but it was neither one of them that stepped through the dark purple smoke wielding a silver dual-sided blade.

However, neither did it seem to be my second guess either. Their armor was the same silver color as their sword but the golden insignia on their helmet was the same as Samael's, except not red.

Syn went silent and both Annabeth and Minimus paused their fighting to stare at the figure who was looking intensely, back and forth between me and the fight, as if deciding who to help.

"So glad you could join us. Here to help me kill these demigods?" Minimus greeted

The figure nodded and my heart dropped. Annabeth was struggling to fight just Minimus, but adding on whoever this was would be far too much for her. I tried to stand up and help, but my body refused to follow my command and instead my vision became more dazed.

Annabeth backed up slowly and held her knife defensively in front of her as the figure closed half the distance, where he froze in place.

"I'm here to help" He said, and the voice definitely belonged to Samael

"Finish off the daughter of Athena while I attended to business with the son of Poseidon" Minimus instructed

"You didn't let me finish" Samael replied

Minimus grunted in confusion, and Samael lunged forward, chopping off half of one of his arm-blades. The Shadow-Dragon instantly responded by slashing the other across his helmet and Samael stumbled back.

"Traitor" Minimus growled

Annabeth quickly rushed over and knelt down next to me. "Percy, come on. We have to get out of here"

Despite me trying to get up with all my strength, and Annabeth attempting to assist, I still found myself unable to get off the ground as each inch my head got away from it, the pain exponentially increased, as if I was back in Tartarus again.

Up ahead, Samael and Minimus seemed to be fighting on equal grounds. Something seemed off about the evil demigod though - his fighting style didn't seem to be reflecting the Shadow-Dragon's, and if anything, he seemed less skilled than usual.

Annabeth

"Percy, come on" I pleaded as I continued to try and lift him up, but he shook his head and provided no help

Glancing back over, I could see that Minimus seemed to be on edge now, slowly loosing the battle against Samael. Why he was helping us, I had no idea. Probably so that he could kill us himself later. After all, he had always been so bent on it.

I put my arms under Percy's armpits and began to drag him out of the smoke, but it solidified like a brick wall and caged us. I stabbed my knife through it, but the tip bounced off.

"You have to beat Minimus" Percy whispered as he winced in pain, as if it hurt to speak

Samael uppercut Minimus by swinging his sword upwards, and he then swept him off his feet. Minimus rolled backwards and jumped back up, surprisingly agile for his size.

"You'll die with them" Minimus turned around and the spikes protruding from his back grew in size. They began to spark with electricity and they released a shock of lighting that electrocuted Samael and caused his to drop his blade.

I quickly rejoined the right and slashed my dagger, breaking off Minimus's back spikes as he turned around. The Shadow-Dragon spun on his heel to stab me with his arm-blade, but he missed as he dropped to his knees.

Looking down, he was literally on his knees. Samael had swept his sword and cut off both of his legs so that he was standing flat on his knees. I wasted no time in slashing my dagger across Minimus's chest, which turned him to dust.

Me and Samael stared each other down, but after about what seemed like forever, I decided to rush back over to Percy and check to see if he was alright. Once I reached him, he was unconscious and muttering stuff in his sleep, just like he use to back in Tartarus. The thought made me shiver.

Around us, the smoke was sucked back into the drain where it had originated from. Percy opened his eyes slightly but I could tell he was still weak.

"What happened?" He mumbled

"It's okay, Percy. We're safe" I assured as I fixed his hair

Just to make sure I was lying, I turned around to check on Samael, but he had vanished. Something just seemed off about him, and it was like he wasn't already confusing enough. It was his voice and his armor, with the exception of the color, but he also seemed more composed and less skilled in combat. In fact, I could confidently say I might've been able to beat him with the performance he put on today.

Percy coughed. "What are you thinking about?"

"Just... nothing. I'll tell you later"