Here at last, the truth of what happened to Percy.

Hemera: Percy lost his sword at the St. Louis Arch in the first book. I don't know if Riptide didn't return because of the distance or some external magic interfering, like the Nereid, but it has happened in canon.

KingLouisOfGreece: Glad you like it!

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I do NOT own Percy Jackson or its universe. Those rights belong to Rick Riordan and his publisher.

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Chapter 14

Captured

Heavy darkness pushed in from every direction, creating a pressuring atmosphere. Surrounded by fog and unable to see the sky above, the place gave off the same aura as the Underworld. Broken Greek columns of black marble were strewn about, as if it were the ruins of an ancient temple.

Forced to his knees was Perseus Jackson. His face was bloodied, his hair matted down with sweat, streaks of gray running through it. His arms were raised above him, holding the rocky ceiling of the cave – several tons of rock – with shaking limbs. He kept it from collapsing on top of himself with sheer strength and willpower, something that no one less than an immortal should have been able to do.

"And how is our guest this evening?" asked a voice so deep it sounded as if the very earth was speaking. "Are you enjoying my former burden, Jackson?"

"Fuck… you," Perseus growled through gritted teeth.

"Twelve hours in and you still have spirit," the voice said, sounding reluctantly impressed. "I must admit: you continue to surprise us all, son of Poseidon."

Perseus glared at the hidden speaker, but the voice just laughed.

"Ah, yes," it said mockingly. "I forgot – you despise your father, don't you? It's a wonder you still fight for Olympus when they have done nothing but take from you. You would be much better off serving the side who would reward your effort."

"Go – to – Tartarus!" Perseus spat blood at the other speaker.

"Perhaps you will change your mind by morning," the voice snarled. "That is when your chance for respite will come, after all. The pitiful moon goddess will be here by then, and she will decide your fate – whether you will remain chained or not."

Perseus closed his eyes, straining against his burden.

The voice laughed coldly as the ceiling of darkness began to crumble, pushing Perseus lower and lower to the ground, despite his resistance.

Then the ceiling collapsed.

Zoë bolted upright, her heart racing from the nightmare.

Her eyes scanned the room and, after noting that she was still inside cabin eight at Camp Half-Blood, she started using well-practiced techniques to slow her breathing and her pounding heart. Waking up the other Hunters was the absolute last thing that she wanted right now – it would be much easier to handle this alone.

Once she felt calm enough to think rationally, Zoë pondered her dream.

Perseus Jackson, the renowned son of Poseidon who had had all of Olympus raving for almost eighteen months – ever since he had rescued Lord Zeus's master bolt from the clutches of Lord Ares through one-on-one combat. His fame had only grown further when he had ventured into the Sea of Monsters six months ago and returned, not only alive, but successful with the Golden Fleece in hand, even if he gave it to his questing companion to return alone.

And now he was forced to bear the Titan's Curse.

Zoë knew without a doubt that the second speaker in her dream had been her father – the same monster whose voice had plagued her for over two thousand years, ever since she had helped… that boy in the garden of her sisters. And her Lady Artemis had been captured, as well.

This wasn't good at all.

Artemis…

Zoë had conflicting emotions about her patron goddess. While she owed Artemis for taking her in all those centuries ago, Zoë had grown tired of the Hunt and immortality. It was the same thing, day after day, and it wouldn't ever end unless she died, which Zoë absolutely did not wish to experience. And, yes, while she could technically just leave the Hunt, that was something her loyalty to Artemis forbid her from doing.

In essence: Zoë was trapped in the endless cycle of an unchanging lifestyle.

Unlike her sisters-in-arms, Zoë didn't really have the same problem with the male sex that they all did. Yes, that awful son of Zeus had hurt her immensely with his betrayal – an act that had resulted in her losing her family – but it had been three thousand years since then, and she had grown past it.

Realizing that returning to sleep was futile, Zoë rose and dressed, preparing for the day ahead of her.

While she went through her routine, a thought struck her — she could tell Chiron about her dream, and he could tell the Olympians.

Her mind set, Zoë left cabin eight, despite the early hour and curfew still being in place. During her walk to the Big House, she sensed a presence following her, but every time she turned around, nothing was there. She sensed no danger from it, however, so she ignored it for the moment.

Zoë knocked urgently on the door to the Big House. A moment later it was opened by the many-eyed security guard of Camp Half-Blood, Argus.

"I need to speak to Chiron," she said without preamble.

Argus shook his head, folding his arms.

"It is of the utmost importance," she tried again. "Artemis is in trouble and needs the assistance of the Hunters. We must leave at once!"

Argus narrowed his eyes at her – all of the, which was slightly nauseating to watch – and shook his head again.

"Let me speak with Chiron!"

Another shake of his head.

"You boil-brained lout," Zoë snarled, getting frustrated. She was tired, her patron was in trouble, and now Argus refused to let her speak with the one person who was capable of helping her. "I need to speak with Chiron immediately – my lady is in trouble and the Hunters need to help her!"

Zoë had, apparently, said that much louder than she had intended to.

"What is wrong, Argus?" came Chiron's tired voice. "Who's there?"

"Chiron!" Zoë called loudly. The centaur entered her view as Argus stepped aside, and Zoë was momentarily stunned by the fact that Chiron wears hair curlers in his tail while he sleeps – how had she gone centuries without knowing that? Then she shook her head and continued, "The Hunters need permission to leave camp immediately."

"I'm afraid I can't grant you that," Chiron said solemnly. "You and the other Hunters are supposed to remain here until Artemis instructs otherwise."

"But how are we to receive orders from Artemis if my lady is lost?"

Chiron paused. Then he blinked. Then he carefully asked, "What do you mean by 'lost,' Miss Nightshade?"

"She has been captured," Zoë said. She quickly explained her dream. "The Hunters must leave immediately to save her," she finished, breathing heavily as panic started to settle in. It had taken all of her control to remain composed so far, but now that she didn't bear her burden alone, it was much harder to stay calm.

"You must rest, Zoë," Chiron told her firmly. "There is nothing any of us can do without a quest, and to have a quest, you need a prophecy. Go back to cabin eight and try to sleep until dawn. You will need your energy for capture the flag."

Zoë had to resist the urge to stab the stupid horse-man with her knives. Couldn't he see that Artemis being captured was far more important than a stupid children's game which everyone knew the Hunters would win for the fifty-sixth time in a row? Didn't he realize how important Artemis was to moving forward with the war effort, to combatting the Titan Lord's forces?

Except, in this instance, violence would not help her case.

It might have been the Titan blood in her, but there was enough evidence in history to convince her otherwise, because Zoë was really starting to become frustrated with the Olympians and their inability to do anything useful without prophecies to guide them when there was a clear and present danger that needed to be addressed.

Zeus's refusal to acknowledge even the possibility of Kronos's coming return to power was just one of many reasons Zoë despised the Lord of the Skies.

She turned on her heel and swept back towards the cabins. A bush rustled as she grew nearer, and Zoë could have sworn she saw a large furry creature inside, but she brushed that thought off in favor of worrying about Artemis.

She would have to tell the other Hunters… This wasn't going to be pleasant…

Zoë spent hours trying to think of how to break the news to the other girls that their goddess was captured and imprisoned by the Titans, but she just couldn't think of any way to do it that wouldn't completely crush them. It wasn't until after lunch that she finally decided to just go for it.

Her hunch was correct – it had been a painful discussion.

Most of the girls burst into tears when Zoë finished telling them. She left out everything that pertained to where Artemis was, who had captured her, and Perseus Jackson's imprisonment – they didn't need to know any of that, especially the part that involved a male. Thankfully, none pushed for more information, not even Phoebe, who was Zoë's best friend in the Hunt.

"What do we do?" Phoebe asked quietly, barely holding back tears of her own.

Zoë gritted her teeth. "Chiron has forbidden us from leaving camp without a quest. All we can do is wait and pray the Fates have mercy."

If patterns repeated themselves the way they had in Zoë's experience, the Fates were far from merciful.

That day was one of the hardest in Zoë's very long life. The Hunters were too depressed to really do anything, their aim was off for the first time in most of their memories, they were all irritable and quick to anger, and none of them seemed to really care about any of it.

They just wanted their goddess back.

After dinner that night, as they strapped on their armor and prepared for capture the flag, Zoë noticed that Reyna looked rather angry as well. She was glaring at Chiron, too, and the only ones she was remotely treating kindly were the two unclaimed demigods – the di Angelos.

Zoë wondered if Reyna knew what had happened to Perseus.

Camp Half-Blood had almost twenty fighters in all, while the Hunters only had a dozen, but considering the Hunters still won when they were outnumbered roughly ten-to-one, Zoë wasn't too concerned with the game, which only furthered her ire at Chiron for not allowing them to leave.

Zoë rolled her eyes when the children of Aphrodite glared in their direction.

Chiron's hoof thundered on the pavilion floor.

"Heroes!" he called. "You know the rules! The river is the boundary line. Blue team, Camp Half-Blood, shall take the west woods. Hunters of Artemis, red team, shall take the east woods. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. No intentional maiming, please! All magic items are allowed. To your positions!"

With the amount of snow on the ground and the creek as a boundary, Zoë found herself momentarily relieved that the sole living half-blood son of Poseidon wasn't around to make this more difficult than necessary – especially after the display of power she had seen in Maine… It had been over a thousand years since Zoë had felt that intimidated by a demigod.

The two groups split off in their separate directions. Zoë smiled slightly when she saw the excitable young Nico bouncing after Reyna and his sister, wearing armor and a shield that were much too big for his small body. The older girls indulged him, but it was obvious to Zoë's trained eyes that Reyna was moments away from snapping at the boy.

Reyna was definitely upset about something.

The Hunters stationed their flag in a clearing with only a single guard – they wouldn't need anything more when their arrows could pick off the campers one by one before they even got close.

"Spread out," Zoë commanded the remaining ten Hunters. "They have greater numbers, so it is likely they will seek to divide and conquer rather than putting forth a united front. Split into groups of three – Phoebe, I want you to join me and we shall go for the flag at the opportune moment."

Phoebe nodded her assent.

The last nine Hunters split up into three trios, as requested, and took off in different directions to set up their traps for whoever was foolish enough to try and challenge them. They left Celyn, their sole daughter of Hecate, to guard the flag with her powerful Mist manipulation, perfected over the last seven hundred years.

The campers wouldn't stand a chance.

Zoë and Phoebe climbed up into a tree and waited in silence, their bows at the ready.

The horn sounded, and the game began.

From their perch, Zoë and Phoebe were able to watch everything without getting involved. They saw a daughter of Aphrodite and two others attempting to divert their attention in the north – and failing miserably – while Thalia Grace, the insufferable daughter of Zeus, failed to get half a dozen other heroes past the Hunters on the southern half of the forest.

Zoë knew that the daughter of Athena had a cap that allowed her to turn invisible, however, which was why Celyn was in charge of defense. The Mist illusions would keep Annabeth Chase distracted until after the game had already ended.

Zoë signaled to Phoebe, and they were off, leaping from tree branch to tree branch with the stealth expected of the three-millennia-old Hunters.

Granted, Zoë was much older than three thousand years, but that was roughly how long she had been in the Hunt, if her estimation was correct, and so that was how long she had considered herself to truly be alive, rather than merely existing in the garden of her sisters.

It wasn't hard to find the campers' flag – it was on top of a sixty-foot pile of boulders, the top of which was roughly twenty feet by itself. There were only six campers on guard duty – Reyna, the two di Angelos, a bulky son of Hephaestus, and two sons of Hermes.

Zoë looked back at Phoebe, who nodded.

Together, they dropped from the trees and loosed their arrows. Phoebe's stuck in the helmet of one of the sons of Hermes, sticking out like an antennae and knocking him to the ground. Zoë's took out his brother.

The Hunters discarded their bows and withdrew their knives – two each, as long as their forearms with gleaming Celestial Bronze blades that glowed silver like moonlight.

Phoebe moved in on the son of Hephaestus while Zoë went straight for Reyna, knowing she would be the bigger threat. Artemis had informed Zoë that Reyna was a Roman demigod, even if she didn't know her parentage, and she had also been trained personally by Perseus Jackson, the boy who had stood toe-to-toe with a manticore and beaten Ares in combat.

Zoë would be a fool to underestimate her opponent. Luckily, she was no fool.

Reyna wielded a familiar-looking xiphos, and it wasn't until Zoë's knives clashed against it that she sensed the presence imbued in it – her own immortal power.

It was Anaklusmos.

Zoë had not seen that sword in millennia – she had thought it felt familiar back in Maine, but had paid it no mind at the time – and its sudden reappearance in the hands of a Roman demigod was enough to make her stumble, allowing Reyna to push onto the offensive.

If Zoë learned one thing while fighting Reyna, it was that she was severely out of practice.

In the Hunt, they mostly used their bows instead of martial combat. It was a very rare occasion that they sparred with knives or swords, which meant Zoë wasn't prepared for the onslaught of strikes that Reyna delivered with the sword that was so painful to look at. It was all Zoë could do just to keep up with Reyna's slashes and lunges, and it hurt her pride that she was forced onto defense when she was usually the aggressor in her fights against the other Hunters.

If Reyna was this good after the short time she had spent training with Perseus, Zoë was frightened by the potential skill the son of Poseidon could have.

They continued to strike, lunge, and parry across the clearing. The di Angelo siblings stayed out of the fight, too new to this dangerous world to do anything helpful other than create a distraction, which could be just as bad for Reyna as it could be for Zoë. Phoebe had already beaten the son of Hephaestus quite easily, so Zoë rolled away from her foe and bought herself enough time to yell "GO!" before she was forced to continue their fight.

Phoebe leapt up the pile of boulders with a grace only a Hunter was capable of and grabbed the flag before taking off into the forest.

Zoë and Reyna exchanged several more blows before the horn sounded, ending the game. The girls immediately stopped, coming to an unspoken truce now that there was no real reason to fight. Clapping brought their attention to their surroundings.

Somehow, without either girl noticing, a crowd of Hunters and demigods had formed during their fight. Phoebe stood with the campers' flag in her grasp, amused, while the Hunters cheered for their victory. Chiron was giving Reyna a strange look, however, as if he were unsure what to make of her.

Zoë wondered if he knew of Reyna's true parentage.

"The Hunters win!" the centaur announced wearily. Then he muttered, "For the fifty-sixth time in a row."

The Hunters congratulated Celyn for her perfect defense. Annabeth had indeed managed to sneak past them, but the Mist kept her distracted for the rest of the game.

Aforementioned daughter of Athena was grumbling to Thalia off to the side, looking incredibly annoyed. Thalia was glaring at the Hunters.

"Good fight." Reyna stepped up to Zoë's side and offered her hand.

"And you, as well," Zoë replied, shaking Reyna's hand. "It has been a long time since I have faced such a challenge."

Reyna smiled sadly. "It's all thanks to Percy's training, I guess."

Zoë looked at her curiously. "How difficult is thy training for thy skill to be so great so soon?"

"We spent a few hours sparring every day for six months."

That surprised Zoë. The Hunters trained a lot too, but even they didn't push themselves that much. No wonder Reyna was as talented as she was, if they spent that much time swinging swords at each other.

"You seem upset about something," Zoë commented, unsure what had compelled her to bring that up now of all times.

"Bad dreams," Reyna muttered.

Before Zoë could ask if they were about Perseus – because she had a feeling that they were, which meant she had someone with whom she could discuss hers without causing unnecessary stress – the Hunters gasped. They had spotted something approaching through the trees. It was shrouded in murky green mist, but as it got closer, the campers gasped too.

"This is impossible," Chiron said, sounding more nervous than Zoë had ever heard before. "It… she has never left the attic. Never."

And yet, the withered mummy that hosted the Oracle of Delphi shuffled forward until she stood in the center of the group. Mist curled around everyone's feet, turning the snow a sickly shade of green. No one dared to move.

The Oracle's hissing voice spoke inside Zoë's head. Several others clutched their hands over their ears.

I am the spirit of Delphi, the voice said. Speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python.

The Oracle gazed into Zoë's eyes with her own cold, dead ones. Approach, Seeker, and ask.

Zoë swallowed. "What must I do to help my goddess?"

The Oracle's mouth opened, and green mist poured out. Zoë saw the vague image of a mountain she knew all too well, and a clouded figure standing at the barren peak, wrapped in chains, fettered to the rocks. They were kneeling with their hands raised, as if to fend off an attacker, trembling with exertion and pain.

The Oracle spoke:

Five shall go west to the one bound in chains,

A decision made and caused by pain,

Campers and Hunters combined prevail,

Succeed together, to disunity fail,

The Titan's Curse will reveal the path,

When three unite, foes suffer their wrath,

Forged by betrayal, the Bane shall awaken,

Rise of the General, the hero forsaken.

Then the Mist swirled and retreated like a great green serpent into the mummy's mouth. The Oracle sat down on a rock and became as still as if she were a statue, created to sit by this creek for eternity.

Whispering broke out around Zoë, but she stood frozen, contemplating what this prophecy could possibly mean. Parts of it were obvious, but others were not.

'Five shall go west…' 'The Titan's Curse will reveal the path' — It was clear to Zoë that she would have to return to the Garden of the Hesperides and confront her father for the first time since she was cast from her former home.

Questions flooded through Zoë's mind, unstoppable: What decision would be made? What pain would cause it? Who were the three spoken of? What foes would suffer their wrath? Were they friend or enemy? What was this 'Bane' the prophecy mentioned? What betrayal would forge it? What hero would be forsaken? But most importantly: How was the forsaken hero tied to the General, the name given to her father during the Titanomachy, and how would Atlas rise?

Would they be able to stop him?

AN: So Percy was actually captured by the Titan's forces, there's a non-canonical prophecy in play, and Percy's not around to be a part of the quest.

This is going to be fun.

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. This is where the story really starts to divert from canon, even if some of the big plot points will still be in play. I have some unique stuff that I personally haven't seen before coming into play during this quest, so I'm looking forward to what you all think of it.

THANKS FOR READING!