2 - I FORM AN ALLIANCE WITH THE WIZARDS.

The battlefield was riddled with scars, each one larger than skyscrapers.

They spread from the epicenter, a now decimated kingdom inhabiting only that of two individuals. A duel of supreme proportions had reconciled an outcome.

"I yield! I yield! Please, I don't want to die." A hunched figure begged. Sparks of lightning ran across its body, glowing a fierce orange illuminating everything in an enormous distance. Its features had little definition, only spelling out the general appearance of a man. His hands held together tightly, raised up to the one who would oversee their fate. The watcher dismissed the desperate plea.

"You've forsaken my land, stolen my only tether to this pitiful place. As far as I am concerned, your life is forfeit."

"His time had come-"

"You do not decide that." Vitriol welled and poured from the figure, watching the god in front of it bargain to no avail. Had he truly lost any and all dignity? Olympians were renowned for their pride and hubris, yet here one was, stripped of choice in the face of a far stronger opponent. It had tried, of course, to reject the reality of weakness, of helplessness. Against another of his kind, he may have even won. Nothing short of formidable.

If only formidable had even the slightest of meaning.

"You realize my domain now, haven't you? What I am able to do." They say that gods neither feared age nor death, exempted from the limits imposed upon the realm of mortals. Only one thing could feasibly end them. Becoming forgotten, by both humanity and the world. As such, their drive to imprint themselves in the minds of the feeble was intrinsic to their very nature. The strive to forge eternal history was an indescribable effort, even for the beings ruling on Olympus.

"My word undoes your infinite mission. If I were to will it, who would remember the monarch of the seas? The emperor of the underworld? By the rules of this reality, their vacuums only attract others to fill their place. But the erased stay as they are. Given not the mercy of memory, fading away until all that is left of their existence are torn tapestries of a name never to be spoken again."

Void could not be an appropriate description to the victor, for they had to be something. Despite the control they lauded over the realms, said realms dictated that even nothing had meaning. Erebus insured that truth. Kitropsis was as separate from his brother as could be, for they were everything. All that could not be. Fantasy beyond the world of the gods. A window to Chaos, whose slumber ceased the means of producing any other universe than theirs. Mortals grew to forget that they ever saw it

"S-Such great lengths are wasted upon me, Kitropsis. I will submit to your servitude, and execute anything you desire within my power! I am at your call." The god tried to glean at the one he would more than willingly accept as master, but turned away after only a second of contact. Gods wished they could forget what they saw.

"If that is so, then I order you to still and make peace with your sins. Your sentence will already be carried henceforth." Winds blew from Kitropsis' body, wafting to every corner of the world. Humans began to feel a tug at their memories. Slowly, their knowledge of the defeated god turned to vague data, then to hardly describable adages. By each passing breath, they each lost what they had once known. The god shrunk back into the face of their mortal vessel, their essence evaporating.

"Wait! Please! I shall claim your son no longer! My duty is below me, if you would only-"

"Silence! Do you think this the first occurrence of a god disappearing? Thousands have come before you, all pleading and sobbing. You will join them in oblivion,"

"Hermes."

Above, the sky fractured like a mirror. Thunder boomed.

A bolt struck with the power of Olympus.

There was ringing in my ear. Then heat.

Lots of heat.

"Ahhh! There's a fire! Help!"

"Relax! Relax. You're going to light yourself on fire at that rate." I opened my eyes after what felt like a century, meeting a bespectacled man dressed in some smith's garb. His complexion was a whole lot less fair than mine, likely due to both his heritage and what I guessed was his occupation. His face was littered with scars and bruises (Yet no stubble. Could demigods not grow facial hair or was it just these two?) that told a tale of a whole lot of recklessness. Judging by his cheeky smile and carefree attitude about my situation, it felt more than accurate.

Right. My situation…

I struggled against my binds, able to create some space between them but ultimately making no progress. Looking around was futile, my chin strapped to the rest of my body with some kind of metal I'd been encased in. The cold metal I could only identify as gold hugged my every side, like it was molded to fit my exact dimensions. It was like I'd been trapped inside a sarcophagus. Great. Mummified and left at the mercy of forge dwarves.

"This is getting tiresome. Name?" Goggles paused with an amused look. The intense heat I felt resonating near my thigh stopped.

"Call me 'Fire Lord'." He snickered.

"Okay, 'Fire Lord'. Mind telling me why I became a statue?"

"I should be asking you that, kid. They dragged you here at the break of dawn already looking stylish." He brought his left index near his face, letting it spark and sputter into a small torch. It was hot enough to burn a fierce white, which in my opinion was overkill. He resumed working on my leg, pressing the mini flamethrower close to the cocoon's surface. "Stop wriggling. I almost have it finished."

"Ough! Hack-ack!" As if on cue, the gold caricature resembling my front end collapsed back into my coffin, knocking the wind out of my lungs and probably breaking a couple ribs. "A warn - cough - ing would be nice next time."

"Ah. Sorry, thought you could take it." Fire Lord muttered while lifting the form fitting plate of gold and releasing me of my captor.

"How could I have taken that! It's like an inch of solid gold!" I knew demigods were stronger than their mortal counterparts, but nonchalantly tossing gold of that volume had me taken aback. It wasn't like the guy was anything to ride home about too, his musculature more comparable to my own than those like Nico. I wasn't going to lie, being the only one in camp to not have the ability to throw boulders was irritating.

"Our kind can usually take a hit. The fact you can't is a bit distressing, especially after what they told me." He plunged into a belt tied to his leather apron, removing a solid ingot of steel from one of the pouches. "Here. Hold this for me." He said, dropping the ingot back on me.

"How could I - Hrngh!" Despite my best efforts, the weight knocked me right back into the coffin and held me down. Muffled laughter came from behind the man's arm.

"That's un - heh - fortunate. Let me take this back." The ingot slotted back into one of his belt compartments, sliding down a space a few times too small.

"I think I've put you through enough. The real name's Leo, last name Valdez." He proudly stated, pointing a thumb to himself and smiling with some fabricated machismo. "As I'm sure you can figure out, my dad's Hephaestus. God of forges. Gives me the whole fire gig."

"Charmed. I'm Johan. My dad's the god of citruses. Though they should've already told you that."

"Citrus? That wasn't what they told me." He stared at me with a strange expression. Almost quizzical.

"It isn't? What did they say?"

Leo sucked up a breath.

After around 5 minutes of expositing, Leo finally sat down and waited for my response, presumably gauging my reaction.

Well how do you think I'd react?! Would I brush it off like it was nothing? No, I freaked out!

"So, somehow the literal personification of obscurity claimed me as his child? How does that work?!" My hands were clenched onto my temples as I paced around Leo's workshop trying to find any reason to the fact my worldview was completely broken. None of it worked to sate my mania. "Gods, I went from the son of an insignificant hippie to the son of the being who made Olympus look like a bunch of kindergartners!"

"Hey, look on the bright side. If your parentage is to be trusted, the powers you've inherited would make you probably the most powerful demigod in history. Heracles before godhood wouldn't be much of a threat if your dad made gods kneel to him." Leo said, giving me a whole helping of faux-support as he fiddled around with a new machine he'd invented while giving me metal surgery (Metallurgy. Heh).

"There is zero upside to this. Not only do I have a colossal target on my back, which might involve your own dad," Without looking up at me, Leo just shrugged. Typical. "I have none of the invulnerability and divine power my 'father' has! Just being in Camp Half-Blood might spell it's doom, which going by what Chiron said, almost happened last night!" To prevent hyperventilating, I tried to take short, measured inhales and exhales. I ended up screaming bloody murder.

"Dude, calm down. People are still sleeping y'know?" He said, pointing to the barely rising sun.

"How are you so calm about this?!" I said, confronting Leo, who was just about wrapped up with making a mechanical toad.

"Eh. Your father's a force of nature that could take down Olympus if he wanted. Big deal. We've faced Primordials before." Wait. Was he one of those demigods the kids mentioned in their last rites? Was he one of those who stopped Gaea? I prodded him for answers.

"Yup. We were called 'The Seven' during and after that whole shebang. Oracle stuff. After losing a friend to another one of those odysseys, I took a page from Percy's book and promised to ignore whatever great prophecy came up next. That's going to be the next generation's responsibility, not mine." He'd kept up the merry-go-happy demeanor since I'd woken up, but I could feel there was a tinge of sadness in his words. You didn't need powers to feel a little bit of empathy.

"So you're saying I need to face this by myself." Leo's eyes went sideways, his head tilting as if to say 'I mean… It is your dad and all…'

"I'm not saying that. No hero of prophecy can ever survive without people helping them. But it's not going to be coming from me, and I'd wager you won't be able to convince the rest of us either. Kinda fed up with the apocalyptic scenario thing."

"The rest of you?" How many of these alumni were milling around? Last I checked, most people here didn't exceed 16.

"Oh yeah! Now I'm remembering. Gods last night was a wild one." Leo reminisced, putting a palm to his forehead and taking on a more subdued expression. Clearly there'd been something he hasn't discussed, but if he was just starting to remember, then asking him directly might not be reliable. Even when my brain continued to ping pong around my skull, I composed myself enough to take just a little peek.

"Festus ate a satyr… Can robots get drunk?... Calypso looked nice…" Each thought made me gradually more disappointed.

While Leo fell into a trance-like state which somehow coincided with his hangover coming back (Guess the need to tinker was strong enough to subside that), I peeled the red curtains from his little workshop situated in a shallow clearing of the forest. My bare feet crunched at the leaves that dropped from the singed oaks that had the unfortunate disposition of being near to a bunch of rowdy college students and adults with superpowers. There wasn't really a path to the cabins, but you wouldn't be missing the buildings still burning and younger demigods doing damage control, left the responsibility by their once hallowed seniors.

I stopped by what looked like a cabin dedicated to the goddess of magic, Hecate, watching her children fruitlessly try and put out the flames flourishing on their stone roof. They cast various spells in order to quell the spread, but the fire must've had some magical element to it, as it resisted their magic by using it to grow even more out of control. The Hecate children, having had their only godly ability trumped, continued to cast more spells with the idea that it would yield at some point.

It didn't.

"What are you doing just standing there! Help us for Gods' sakes!" Winds manifested from nothing and pulled me closer to the cabin. The current formed all around me and more or less dragged me to one of their several entrances, where a demigod stood with his arms crossed and a scowl of pure enmity. The first thoughts that came to me passed my rationale with no filter and went right out of my mouth.

"Wow you are tall." Not bad to look at either. Not bad at all.

"And you aren't pulling your weight. Our cabin's burning and you're over there gawking at us while we try and put it out." Did he just say 'our'? Did he think I was a child of Hecate? Maybe he'd sensed my magic, just like I could sense his. I shouldn't have to say this, but magic users do tend to know subconsciously who was of their flock, and while Nico and Leo had traces of magic that likely came as residue from using godly power, this guy and all of the Hecate cabin was overflowing with it.

"Well? Don't just stand there! Use your magic to suppress the fire! I don't care how you go about it." He ordered, marching to another one of his siblings to bark more commands at them. The poor girl who couldn't have been older than me shrunk back in fear, squeaking out his name before going back to work. "Y-Yes Merlin! I'll put more e-effort into it!" Merlin huh? How on the nose. Dad probably wasn't the creative type.

"Listen, Merlin…" I squinted, trying to eke out his last name. "Basque. I'm not Hecate's kid. I just know how to use magic." Has he really not told anyone what his last name was? I had my query answered in a blip, after many of the Hecate children stopped briefly to stare at me, then back to Merlin, as if to assess that fact. A good dose of evil eye shut that down fast, but he was still glaring daggers at me, summoning another gust of wind to bowl me over again.

"The only magic user I'm aware of that wasn't a child of Hecate is Ms. Levesque herself. Are you implying that you are another exception?"

"Erm. Yes?" My precognition, also known as being sick of people testing me, stayed one step ahead of Merlin. I brought my hands up to the heavens, pulling dust from the perimeter and elongating it into a familiar friend of mine. He curled around my arm as he always did, hissing and yawning all the way there. "What a good night's rest. What have I missed?" Goldie turned to look at Merlin. "Ah. I see. Is this proof enough for you, Mr. Basque?"

"Tch." All but ignoring the living snake, he went back to blasting the fire with even more wind, which if I recall just increases its severity. Not my cabin, not my problem. "That's where you're wrong, Johan. Hecate is a long-standing confidante of Kitropsis. She's why you have magic. You owe it to them to help." Stupid telepathic reptiles.

"I think you're doing it wrong."

"I'm not seeing you do better." He pulled his arm back, readying another spell. I stopped him from making a mistake. "Let go, or I'll launch you back into the forest."

"I will, but only if you explain the issue to me." His eyebrow went up. "Yeah, I know it's the fire. But I just woke up and I have no idea what caused this. Please?"

He seemed to hesitate, but eventually backed down. Hot headed people were always the quickest to cool down. "The annual celebration for Gaea's defeat took place yesterday. Almost all of The Seven came for it, as well as all the other former campers from their generation. Being one of the only living generations to have taken down three world-ending threats, they were pretty big guests of honor."

"That was until we realized wine was involved. Dionysus was a main proponent, but everyone was going insane that night. Most of us kept to our cabins dreading another volleyball match between that of Thalia Grace and Percy Jackson, which decimated Cabin 1 earlier that afternoon. What we didn't expect? The giant bronze dragon which, combined with the already intoxicated Seven, wreaked havoc to much of the camp." He ran his fingers through his curly black hair, slick with sweat from the heat.

"Cabin 15 put most of them to sleep, which put a stop to the carnage. It didn't clean up the mess they made, however, and we were left to clean up after them." He said, holding back his frustration at such juvenile destruction. Guess never meeting your heroes is a truth even when concerning actual saviors of Olympus.

"Sounds like a rough deal. I think I know how to fix your problem though." Merlin's eyes twinkled, looking for any vestige of hope. "The fire only seems to spread if you use water or wind-based magic, so it seems to act on principles of Greek Fire. Just magical in a way. Burying it in something like sand could enclose it-"

"-So it'll suffocate and die due to it having nothing to feed off of." A lightbulb went off above both of us.

"Exactly! If your cabin can create a sandstorm or something, I can turn it into gold and make it vanish afterwards."

"The amount of sand to cover all of Cabin 20 might be too much for one person. Let me help you."

"I appreciate it but, no one knows how to make my type of gold but me. It's the same stuff my snakes are made out of." I assured Merlin.

"If you insist. Give me your hand." I did as he said, leading to him whispering something in Ancient Greek I couldn't understand. After he finished, my fingers lit up with violet symbols. I felt my magic concentrate. "This will amplify your magic and allow it to focus. Considering you seem to be missing your weapon, it's the best I can do." He said, propping up his own staff, studded with rubies and crafted from varnished redwood. It made my own staff look positively tiny.

"Cabin 20! Cease what you are doing. You are to only focus on summoning a sandstorm. On my count, you are to force all that sand down on the cabin. Do not fret about the sand littering the interior, Johan here -" Wait. I'd never told him my name. Did he take my own name while I was reading him? "- will be turning the sand into gold for easy clean up." I used my magic to communicate my thoughts wordlessly. His face twisted into a self-satisfied smirk. Clever tricks he has up his sleeve.

The Hecate kids did as they were told, forming a semicircle around the cabin and creating one unified incantation that created a hurricane of swirling sand. Merlin supervised each one, casting the same spell he did on me on each of their conduits and giving precise orders in generating the sand. It grew into a spire of dust that created a shadow bearing down on all of the camp. It was almost terrifying.

One thing was for sure. You didn't mess with the sorcerers."Just as I said! On my marks, now. 3… 2…" I held out my hands, making the magic emanate from them. "...1! Bring down the storm!" Merlin bellowed, stamping down his staff to signal the collective invocation's immediate descent. Unanimously, it struck down like rain.

As soon as the chant started, I pushed out my own spell, forming a glowing yellow disc circled by inscriptions floating above Cabin 20, just large enough to encompass the entire thing. Once the sand passed it by, it turned several times denser, scattering on the rock-solid roof in a deafening pitter patter that tore through the fire like an avalanche. After the deed had been done, mounds of fine gold dust flowed from the cabin. Not a single inferno in sight. The cabin members cheered.

"Can I leave it to you to finish this?" Merlin asked, putting his hand on my shoulder. I hadn't been long at camp and I'd already scored points with a hunk. Sweet.

"I'd be honored to grant your request, Mr. Basque." I snapped my fingers, letting the gold disperse from the cabin in wafts of sparkling ribbons, enveloping the sky with what looked like giant disco balls cut into long, thin strips. I spun them around with but a gesture, making them spiral and rotate until their essence had become one with the wind itself. As a humble conductor would, I bowed to my audience of pre-teens. "Thank you! Thank you. I'll be here all night."

"Not if you're going to keep making a ruckus." Ah. There he was. The bringer of bad times. You never rely on good things as a sign for the future.

"Instructor Di Angelo! I thought you'd excused yourself from last night's festivities. My apologies for waking you." Merlin admitted. The veteran demigod's frown grew more bitter with the mention of his sudden absence. His eyes darted to me and back, quite clearly blaming me for him running late to the party. Well gee Nico, if you'd just been a bit more upfront about who you were and where you worked we could have gotten back in time! That's what he gets for being paranoid.

"It's fine, Counselor. I wasn't sleeping anyways. To detail where I was, I'd sensed a powerful presence a few miles away, and got there to see a demigod fighting off some monsters with giant metal serpents." I waved awkwardly. "I picked Johan up and transported him here. Now, I'm sure Chiron has put off announcing it for later tonight but just so you all know to keep clear of him, Johan's father is not a god. He is a primordial, and the fact it's the only recorded case of such a demigod makes him a hazard."

The Hecate cabin members looked on in awe, talking amongst themselves and shuffling just a few inches away from me. I couldn't do much other than nod at what he said and fiddle with my jacket. Merlin did the same as the rest, though refrained from gossiping behind my back. I could grow to like this guy. "Will he be receiving a prophecy?" A particularly audacious kid questioned from the back. The chatter grew louder. They sure were willing to have curiosity get the better of them.

"Not at this moment, no. It's entirely possible he won't be receiving one at all, as his circumstances are of a different spectrum to previous prophecies. Simply put, we've ever had the scion of the main enemy on our side until this point. Now if you'll excuse me and Johan, we've been called to the Big House for further discussion." Pulling me with him, Nico and I started on our trek back to the manor sitting atop the hill, overseeing most of the camp.

"Careful, child. I sense the son of Hades' mood has changed since you've last met. It almost seems resentful." While we climbed up the rocky path to the Big House, Nico had refused to look back, even when I stumbled on a few footholds and nearly tossed myself back down the steep cliff. That was probably his default attitude towards anyone really, but Goldie had a point. It hadn't been this cold before.

Now, the feeling of being cold is very subjective, but I think I can say for sure my definition held some weight. In retrospect the trait fit neatly into my bouquet of peculiarities, but the sun has never once touched my skin. Fire had some effect, but sunlight passed through me like I was a mirage, which meant it was always freezing. It also meant I had no shadow which I thought indicated me being a vampire, but that's a theory long proven incorrect.

So when I say Nico's aura made me feel cold, the closest comparison is getting your soul turned into a popsicle by the river Styx.

When we crossed over the final step, I felt little reprieve. Like a tragedy had only now just settled into my psyche. Nico's scorn walking to the deck of the Big House made me believe it was a mutual feeling, and I did not dare say a word. Luckily, a good samaritan took on the brunt of breaking the ice.

"Hraugh!" A monstrous voice roared, followed by the sharp whistle of steel. For someone like Nico Di Angelo, it would've been as telegraphed as a theater play.

I felt my bones crack under the stress of being knocked to the side by the corpse of a centurion's gladius, throwing me to the edge of a long drop, all the way back to the Cabins. I would've had my left arm cut off too, if it weren't for Goldie's intervention earning him another long nap as his severed upper half plummeted down the rocky terrain. The centurion advanced with an undead vigor, eager to finish me off.

Nico walked up the steps and knocked on the door as if nothing new had occurred.

The rage I would've felt at the betrayal went with the use of my left arm, leaving me paralyzed in shock and anguish. The shock was in part due to the facts just not matching up. There was something that changed overnight, a factor that must've come with my arrival. If Nico wanted to kill me, he would've done so back at Belmont. Additionally, he would've killed me himself if he wanted to now, or had his minion strike me through the chest or head. I could only draw on a single conclusion.

"It's a test." I took hold of my non-dominant wrist, using Merlin's spell to enchant it with something akin to an anesthetic. It let me ignore the short-term pain, giving just enough leeway for me to stand up and call on my staff. The centurion had no reservations about a fair match, and moved on me while I was distracted, swinging in an upwards arc with its bronze blade.

I jumped out of the way, rolling onto the grass beside him as it prepared to bring down another two-handed slash as quickly as it did the first. Having underestimated the reflexes of a dusty old carcass, I paid my due in blood. I barely missed a strike to the throat, coming out of it with a ruined hoodie and a nice, long gash running down my shoulder and midsection.

The pain was muted, but it was hard to shake off almost getting cleaved in half!

"This is already unfair. Time out!" Tumbling backwards into a bush, I clambered to make as much distance as I could from my attacker. If it wasn't obvious enough, I wasn't going to be suddenly gaining the combat reflexes of a swordsman, so I resorted to using my only leg up against my foe. Magic.

Condensing magma from the dirt into small projectiles, I delivered a flurry of volcanic bursts to take it down a peg. Only one succeeded in denting the soldier's helmet, the rest being parried and weaved through with some honestly commendable agility. Had the centurion been alive, I'd already be saying goodbye.

"Draurhrgh!" Grabbing what looked like a rusty pilum from its back, it took a throwing stance, bending its ivory legs downward and rearing the javelin back. Magical shields weren't exactly my forte, so I instead created a whirlpool of water, sublimating the air around me.

Faster than my eyes could see, the javelin went flying.

Thankfully, the water noticed first, closing the whirlpool's opening and solidifying into aquatic glass the millisecond copper made contact, plunging the sharp tip into frost like a dart on a board. Unamused, the centurion went back to its tried and tested, brandishing its gladius with enhanced bloodlust.

The feisty skeleton closed the gap in spades just as soon as I looked back, but I'd expected it to, covering my functioning arm in a glossy yellow sheen. The gold formed like scales, suiting me with something that looked like a gauntlet to defend myself with.

My forearm collided with the edge of its gladius, sawing against the defiant layer of snakeskin with fleeting sparks, and giving me an opportunity to take him off guard. I planted my foot firmly in the ground, using the stalemate to call upon my staff yet again. My constitution quivered.

"Arrgh!" The centurion bellowed, trying to push me into submission. The blade grinded further.

Thing is, it almost worked. The loathsome weight of gold fought with my measly amount of strength every step of the way. Even when supported by my entire body it still felt like it was on the brink of collapse. The centurion's stamina was endless. Buying time with this unsustainable compromise had been unwise.

"New game plan." Yielding first sent the sword careening right back at my exposed flesh, but gravity sent me a badly needed olive branch. Since the gold had nothing to stop it from going under, it did, bringing me with it. The centurion's forceful push towards ripping me to shreds instantly facing no opposition shoved him into the trees, letting me cast one final spell.

"Merlin, you incredible genius." Wind manifested from the atmosphere, rippling into the teeth of my golden fist.

Using the wind to propel my right arm, I hurled the gauntlet right back at the centurion, who had just recuperated from the standstill's consequences. The impact to its bronze breastplate made a sickening crunch, folding armor like origami and giving the carcass a taste of its own medicine.

With no talking snake to back it up, the centurion exploded into bits of bone and decaying sinew, consumed by smoke as black as tar in its second death.

Chiron galloped down the steps a few seconds too late.

"Hey Chiron! Mind helping me up? Nico kind of thought it was a good idea to attack with one of his undead."

He rubbed at his eyes, approaching and holding me up with a heavy expression. "I'm afraid that's the least of our worries, Johan. Your presence has created a plague."

From the deck, I stepped out into the corridor leading to the main room of the Big House. My mind recalled last night, the teleportation and the talk I had with Chiron prior to passing out. Leo had told me of my possession, Kitropsis using me as a vessel to warn them and Dionysus of me fraternizing with Hermes' children, lest he lay down an impending doom on the camp. Hey, at least he cared, right?

This time, a few more individuals entered the scene, dressed in purple shirts and wearing chrome bands on their fingers. One was a burly, august man with muscles thicker than watermelons. Surprisingly, he had a fully grown, rugged beard that highlighted just how much these other demigods were missing out. He was knelt down on the tacky leopard print carpet, restraining a wrathful Nico who couldn't even get the giant to budge.

The other was far more lean, on the account of being both a woman and not looking like she wasn't going to the gym 24/7. She had her arm over the couch's headrest, looking at who I'd suppose was her husband tackling an emo several sizes smaller than him with a subtle mirth. She had long and curly auburn hair that splayed across her shoulders, and eyes that looked like they were made of amber. I knew who she was immediately. The magical signature was too potent to ignore."You're Ms. Levesque!" Both her and the large man took to facing me, with the former taking in the initiative to speak.

"That's a bit outdated. I'm Mrs. Levesque-Zhang now, but you can call me Hazel. My father's Hades, same with my brother here." If Nico sounded like a depressive episode and Leo the embodiment of snark, Hazel radiated a funny sort of comfort, like light that tickled your skin and embraced you with a calming warmth. This here is Frank Zhang-Levesque, Ares' son, currently busy holding down Nico, who I'm sure you've been acquainted with."

"Chiron convened us here to confront an issue that seems to have you as the root cause. Could you elaborate on that?"

"Does this mean I've met four of the famed Seven at this point?" I considered saying The Six, but thought it better not to bring up a bad memory.

"Three, technically. We don't know where Piper, Percy and Annabeth are." She said, chuckling like she knew something.

"They were the only ones of us to go overboard last night, so for now they're M.I.A. Nico, can you stop fidgeting?" Frank spoke up, followed by Nico's grumbling.

"I still don't understand why I'm the one being punished here. I've done nothing wrong."

"Aside from almost killing me?" I said, the fresh wounds from that encounter aching on my person.

"The centurion wasn't out to kill you. I used it to test if you were being truthful about your mortality." Nico poorly defended.

"With the same spite only seen in battle, Mr. Di Angelo. You will apologize profusely later, but right now Mrs. Levesque-Zhang is right. We must get to the heart of this matter before it is too late." Chiron countered, occupying his wheelchair and shrinking back down to size. "Now, if you'll humor me, Johan. Do you possess the ability to erase people's memories? Your answer will be crucial in solving this." He looked at me with such faith that turning him down would probably curse me.

"I do. Not the other way around, though. I can't restore memories."

"That is what I have grown to fear. Hazel, will you bring our young half-blood here up to speed?"

"Of course, Chiron." Fixing her posture, she gestured for me to sit. Looks like it's gonna be a doozy.

"While I've only heard rumors and whispers of this type of plague, it is nonetheless something that existed centuries ago. Before Roman civilization, even. It's called a Fugue Plague, an invisible disease that slowly starts to degrade the memories of people, including demigods. It starts out minor, like forgetting what you ate for breakfast, then starts to snowball, until you're forgetting whole chunks of your past. Its influence grows until all of humanity becomes shells of their former selves."

"That sounds insanely powerful! I can't even do a crumb of that damage when exerting my most."

"That's the thing. You can't do it, but your father can. His mere presence disrupts the concept of memory completely, and it's partially why no one outside of the gods has heard of him. He creates his own smoke screen." She paused to grab an old leather book left on the ground. Flipping through the pages, she continued. "In some old tales Kitropsis was said to have lived at the edge of civilization, likely so that this type of plague wouldn't happen. Now that he's outside of his domain, he's starting to create his own, whether he wills it or not."

Finding the right page, she passed me the tome, letting me view even just a piece of information on my elusive father. It was a half-burnt illustration depicting looming towers of great heights, dwarfing skyscrapers in comparison. The surrounding trees looked like dots next to the walls of this old city, decorated with ancient patterns and architecture that looked like it was pulled from the mouth of sharks. Jagged, rough and sinister-looking, you'd be hard-pressed not to call it an evil lair.

"How do you know all this?" I said, bewildered that a daughter of Hades knew more about him than his own offspring.

"I've had opportunities to communicate with Hecate on some occasions, and she foresaw that I'd need this knowledge when the time came. She was a hallowed guest and confidante of Kitropsis, having been given the Mist after she assisted him with learning and using magic. Due to this, Hecate's children are immune to the Fugue Plague, and are capable of visiting his realm without issue." Guess that left out Merlin and all the other kids. Phew.

"This courtesy also extends to Hades' children, for some unknown reason. It's possible the Underworld is innately a realm much like that of Kitropsis' kingdom, and that has tied him to my own father, as well as the other Chthonic deities like Nyx, who is his 'sister' in a way."

"The rest of us are very susceptible to it, however." Frank said, finally letting go of Nico who resigned to just laying on the carpet. Taking a bow and quiver that hung from a hook on the wall, he nocked an arrow and pulled back the string. Anticlimactically, the arrow flew for a few inches and dropped down after he let go. "I've forgotten how to use a bow, and soon I'll be forgetting how to fight altogether." I didn't know the guy, but from his appearance alone, I could tell that was a big deal.

"How are we going to stop this then? Do I just leave society and die in the woods?"

"Good suggestion, but no. One final pertinent detail Hecate mentioned was a vial of Kitropsis' essence that is used to maintain his kingdom. She hasn't felt his presence in a millenia, yet that vial alone creates a timeless barrier that is indestructible to anyone but the gods. If you take that vial and combine it with water from the river Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, you'll be able to purify it, and make it restore everyone's lost memories."

"So I'll have to embark on a quest like you guys to get the vial, purify it, and fix my father's mistake." Hazel nodded. "Seems easy enough."

"Except that the river Mnemosyne is in the Underworld. And I'm not coming with, or helping you. We've all had enough quests for one lifetime." He said, cracking his back and dusting off his jacket. "Why can't you do it? You know more about this stuff than I do."

"I have to stay here and help the Hecate cabin with making sure everyone stays safe. Even Chiron's not exempt from the plague, so we need all hands on deck for this. Besides, you have a personal stake in this too, don't you?" Hazel retorted.

"What does that mean-" The door opened, and a man with blonde hair walked in. His eyes looked like they used to have a vibrant blue, but had since dulled into a sort of tinted gray. I'd never seen Nico shut up faster.

"Hey, Chiron! Just finished helping the kids put out some of the fires." He was like your standard beach boy, without the accent. "Came here to ask you something."

"Will I-" Nico hesitated, retreating and turning away from the man, Will. The Fugue Plague seemed to have aggressively eroded his memories, to the point he looked like he was about to go unconscious. To test if it still worked on the diseased, I pushed past my ethical dilemmas and prodded at the amnesiac, hoping that it would work.

"Booby trapped Cabin 11… Saw some weird ivory masks in the woods… Is Piper dating someone already?..." Nothing too informative, but the fact I could do it at all was helpful. The sentences were indicative that they were going through some major memory loss, and since the middle thought proved to be suspicious, I went deeper into the one known as Will Solace.

Looking back? Kinda wish I hadn't

"Should I get another tattoo? Definitely… That new Cabin 7 counselor's kinda weird…-"

"Hey, Chiron? Don't know if I should be asking, but-" Will went past the centaur, moving into the main living room, confused.

"-Nico's too cute hiding that ring. Wonder when he'll ask me that big question…"

"Who is this guy?" He said, pointing his finger at Nico.

That is the second chapter done.

So I decided that I did want to continue this story, so expect more, even if my updates will be sporadic. I can't maintain a weekly release for the life of me, so if you'll want to keep reading that's something to take into account.

On the bright side, I've already planned out what the whole story will look like on the macro level, with all the major plot points and stuff. I also have the next chapter's plans running through my head since that will include leftovers from this one (Was going to leave a tidbit on the big bad at the end but thought it was better to end on the gut punch). Don't hope that to be coming out any time this month though, but if it does, take it as a pleasant surprise.

Next will be war preparations and a new villain in the mix. Until then, goodbye.