AN: Hello everyone, I just wanted to say I do feel bad about killing Chiron, but it is necessary for the plot. With that out of the way, I hope you like this chapter.
(P.S. Please review. I love it when you guys leave reviews :))
(The Hunt, Thalia POV)
I finally had found time to organize the mess that was my tent when Artemis flashed into my tent in a blaze of silver. She wore an annoyed expression, but I could see a hint of worry in her eyes.
"Is something the matter, my lady?" I questioned.
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. I could tell she didn't want to say anything, which meant it was terrible news. "Zeus has ordered the hunt to search for Percy," she said.
"What do you mean, search for? Isn't he in camp half-blood?" I asked, a feeling of foreboding filling my chest. I so desperately wanted her to say everything was okay because I was not prepared for more trouble so soon.
"Unfortunately, no, he fled after the death of Annabeth-" I gasped. Her words sunk in as my knees went weak. Annabeth, dead. My best friend for years, my sister, gone. For some sick, twisted reason, fate had decided to take away one of the best people in this world. My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor.
"Annabeth is dead?" I asked in a small voice. I felt my heart wrench. Slowly, hot, boiling anger rose up in me. 'How could those stupid hags make her die,' I screamed mentally. I looked at Artemis and saw she still had more to say. I knew, and she knew I knew, but I didn't want her to say the next thing that left her mouth. I didn't want to hear it, but my traitorous ears betrayed me.
"Chiron as well. He was... killed by Kronos," she added quietly, eyes full of sympathy.
No. No, she's lying. Chiron is invincible, immortal, unkillable. Chiron is still at camp half-blood, and Artemis is just playing a cruel trick on me. If I ran into camp right now, Chiron would be the first to greet me. He would smile and hug me tight because he is still alive. I didn't notice until now, but thick, hot tears were flowing down my face. 'Why am I crying? I already know Chiron is alive, probably playing his stupid card games with Dionysus and Grover.' Artemis knelt down and enveloped me in a tight hug as I cried into her shoulder.
It took several minutes for the shock to wear off. I knew I was in the denial phase of grieving, which meant that they truly were dead. And no amount of denial would bring them back. I knew Chiron and Annabeth would not want me to cry over them. They would want me to keep pushing on, to give a big middle finger to the fates, and to be happy. But the feeling that I wouldn't be truly happy in a long while stuck with me.
After several minutes I calmed down and thought about what she told me about Percy. At least I still had my seaweed brain. I slowly asked her the question I kept coming back to. "Why don't you just IM Percy? It shouldn't be that hard to find him."
Artemis sighed, and again I saw that look on her face. She didn't want to tell me this, and I didn't want to hear it, but she continued.
"We did, but Iris can't find him," she explained as my heart stopped.
'No. I will not lose Percy too,' I thought fiercely. "What do you mean can't find him? Where could he be?" I asked, feeling myself start to panic. I was not about to lose yet another important person in my life.
"We don't know. That is why we must start searching for him," she whispered as she pulled away from our embrace and stood up. "So let's go find him before he gets himself in trouble like he usually does," she said as she pulled me up.
I sniffled, feeling a small smile form. "Yeah, he has a knack for getting in trouble," I said as Artemis hugged me once more, and we left the tent to go inform the hunters of our mission.
(Camp half-blood, Clarisse)
We all gathered around the campfire as the night slowly faded into day. I was the first to notice Percy was gone when Dionysus announced Annabeth's death, knowing he would need someone to be there for him. After all, he lost both his girlfriend and Chiron. Most campers couldn't even cope with Chiron's death, but Percy was also dealing with Annabeth's. That wasn't something that would go away after a bit of crying. That was a loss that I knew had to have wholly crushed him. When I couldn't find him anywhere, I asked some of the older campers to help me search. When we still couldn't find him, we had the whole camp searching. I needed to see him. After a loss that big, being alone without support from friends and family, the sorrow would consume him. We tried to IM him, but Iris couldn't find him, so we assumed he was at Olympus. That made sense, seeing as he was the hero of Olympus. We waited for Percy to come back the entire night, and he still hadn't shown.
A flash of purple gathered our attention as Dionysus returned to camp. "What are all of you doing here? You should be in bed," he growled as our shoulders slumped. We had hoped he would bring Percy with him. As he looked at our downtrodden expressions, a little bit of sympathy entered his eyes.
'I don't want his pity,' I thought, feeling myself getting angry. "We're waiting for Percy," I said defiantly. His eyes widened, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"You mean you don't know?" he asked awfully calmly, that look of sympathy returning.
"Know what?" I questioned, my eyes narrowing.
Dionysus sighed. "Percy fled the camp and has disappeared so that not even Iris can find him," he explained. A collection of gasps rose from the campers as several cried out in shock.
'This can't be happening. Percy would never abandon us. Even if he was going through some hard times, he knew that he still had friends back here, right?' I thought as I struggled to keep the lump in my throat from turning to tears. Even though the death of Annabeth saddened me, there was a small silver lining as it meant I could eventually untangle the mass of feelings I had for the son of Poseidon.
The anger slowly came back, and soon it turned into a bubbling fury. It eventually took complete possession of me as I marched to Dionysus and grabbed him by the collar of his purple shirt. "Where is he? Tell me now!" I screamed, seeing nothing but red. His eyes widened with fear at the outburst. "Tell me!" I continued screaming as I violently shook him. He seemed paralyzed with fear, not able to utter a single syllable. After a few moments, he started to glow purple and vanished.
The stark realization that I might never see Percy again hit me like a ton of bricks. I sank to the ground, losing the hopeless fight of trying to stop the lump in my throat from turning into tears, and a single tear rolled down my cheek.
I heard laughter peal through the camp, and my head shot up. 'What kind of sick person could find humor in a moment like this,' I thought as I looked around and spotted the blonde-haired fool.
"Dude, look, Clarisse is crying," he snickered to his friend. As I walked up to him, I noticed that he was one of the younger generations of campers who barely knew Percy and weren't as affected by his disappearance. As I neared him, I felt the rage in me snap. My fist flew, and I slugged him hard in the face. That effectively shut him up.
I spun around and marched back to the Ares cabin, settling down on my bunk. A few more tears slipped out and rolled down my cheeks. At the moment, I resolved to torture Percy in every way imaginable when I got my hands on him. Emotionally exhausted after losing countless friends and even family, I fell into a turbulent sleep.
(California, Artemis POV)
Odd. As well as frustrating. We followed a well-concealed trail, forever a step behind Percy as we traveled throughout the country, eventually arriving in California. We had finally caught up to him, yet as we burst into the clearing where he should have been, we saw no sign of him. The trail went cold right here as if he just dissipated into thin air. My hunter senses were tingling, telling me he was here, but we had combed through this area around fifty times.
"Where is he?!" Thalia growled, desperation filling her words.
The area itself was nothing special, just a couple of trees and a lot of plants. However, the weird thing was the plants and trees had droplets of water all over them as if it had rained, but my senses were telling me it hadn't rained for over a week now.
An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach, making me worry about the safety of my hunters. "Let's go, girls. I don't like the feeling of this place," I ordered, expecting Thalia to object and insist we search for Percy some more. But as I looked at her, I saw that even though she didn't want to give up, even though her sanity needed to find him, she too had the same feeling I did about this place.
She closed her eyes in defeat, trying to hold back tears, as I spread my power to all of the Hunt, and teleported them to Camp Half-Blood. They gave me a lot of curious looks, wondering why I chose this place. "I need you to stay here while I go to Olympus and inform them of our-"
"Failure?" I spun around and saw Dionysus standing there, arms crossed, and a nasty smirk on his face. In a second, Dionysus had about thirty bows aimed at him, with my hunting knife at his throat.
"Well now, you did fail, didn't you? If you haven't, then I will let you do with me as you like," he said arrogantly, his smirk growing.
I growled. "I would like to see you find Percy then," I told him through clenched teeth.
"I don't think so. After all, it was you, and your hunter's father gave that task to," he retorted, simply laughing at my anger.
I snarled as I flashed to Olympus in a bright silver flash, leaving the wine god blinded temporarily and his fate to my sisters.
I appeared right outside the throne room and could feel all the Olympians except Dionysus and me seated on their thrones if the power pulsating from the room was anything to go by. I exhaled shakily before pushing the massive pearl white double doors open.
(California, Percy POV)
I grinned as I had finally managed to shake Artemis off my tail. I had run into a small clearing when I heard the hunters rushing after me. So I prayed to the sea itself and had what was possibly my craziest idea yet.
I didn't exactly think. I just willed my body to change, and I was completely transformed into water, and, finding out I could control my now liquid form, scattered it all across the clearing. Just in time, too, as Artemis burst into the clearing. I somehow was able to see what was happening from every tiny droplet of me, and it took some time before I could focus on just the view of one droplet. I traveled from droplet to droplet and could see everything perfectly. I watched Artemis's smirk of triumph turn into a confused frown.
I knew her hunter senses were telling her I was here because she and the hunters stayed and roved the entire clearing dozens of times. I saw Thalia among them and almost slipped and reformed. I missed her, and I know disappearing like this couldn't have been easy on her, but I just needed some time away from everything that reminded me of Annabeth.
Eventually, the pain was too great, and I felt myself slipping away to the underworld. I had to act quickly. I realized I could broadcast my presence to everything in a five-mile radius, and it quickly attracted all the monsters in the region. I knew they would all come as fast as they could, for they could not give up the opportunity to kill a son of Poseidon. The incoming wave of monsters, combined with my presence, gave Artemis a terrible feeling, and it wasn't long before they teleported away, allowing me to reform. That stunt cost me so much energy and caused me so much pain that I nearly blacked out.
I was contemplating resting here but remembered the horde of monsters and sighed. I heard the sound of the monsters closing in. 'Crap,' I thought. I uncapped Riptide and prepared to defend myself.
I nearly gave up all hope when I saw the assortment of laistrygonian giants, dracaenae, hellhounds, and griffons. What griffons were doing here of all places, I had no idea. Suddenly I felt a nearby creek and thanked all the gods for my unusual fortune.
I felt the familiar tug in my gut as I summoned to me several hundred gallons of water and dumped it over us all. It rejuvenated my powers and made them all stumble. Then I formed a huge block, froze it, then dropped it on them all. Reaching far into my mind, I melted it into scathing hot water, as they all disintegrated into golden dust, but not before wailing, screeching, and screaming at the top of their lungs.
I dropped to one knee. The manipulation of both my body and that water in that way taxed me greatly. A couple of years back, I had tried to cool down a glass of water and almost passed out, so I had never tried it since then. Apparently, my powers have grown stronger, but manipulating water temperature still gave me a massive headache. To be honest, I didn't even know if I could pull that off. One thing was for sure, though. I'd never again change my body to water unless I absolutely needed to. All it took was one more minute in that form, and I would have lost all control and died. I wasn't too keen on having the underworld beckon me again. I decided to make camp there, as I was sure I had just pulverized all the monsters in the vicinity.
(California, Percy POV, 12 hours later)
I had awoken from my unnaturally peaceful slumber feeling refreshed. I quickly packed everything and set off towards the Pacific ocean.
After much travel, I finally arrived on the shore of the Pacific. I looked around and reveled in the beauty of the ocean. The sound of the waves lapping on the beach lulled me to a dream-like state. Being in the presence of the largest ocean in the world made me feel very powerful, like I could take on Kronos and all of the other titans right now.
"I see you've decided to come," a calm voice said. I whirled around to find myself face to face with cold, brown eyes and a thin smile. Looking further, I saw she had a tired look about her, but she was also ready for combat any moment, her arms tense and prepared to swing out that wicked sharp golden blade at her side. For some reason, she seemed familiar, but deciding I was just overthinking it, I dismissed the thought. I noticed a purple cloak around her shoulders, and her armor was a little more decorative than would befit a regular soldier, telling me she was of higher rank. She also had a tattoo on the back of her hand, something like SPQR with some bars underneath. I realized she was looking me over just as I was her.
"Hello, my name is Reyna, Praetor of New Rome. You must be Perseus Jackson, son of Neptune." she introduced herself, although that last bit confused me.
"Neptune? Don't you mean Poseidon?" I questioned.
"Forgive me, Neptune is what we call Poseidon. I'll explain everything to you along the way. That is, if you'll follow me," she said, cracking a brief smile.
"Of course, I wouldn't have come all the way over here just to refuse. Besides, I need a place to stay for a while. I really don't feel like staying in my camp for a while. At least, till I move on from a close friend's death," I said.
She winced. "I'm sorry for your loss. Hopefully, Camp Jupiter will take your mind off the pain," she said with a warm smile.
"Hopefully," I said wistfully, thinking about those stormy grey eyes and that blonde hair. We began walking towards a small hatch not far from our original position. She opened it up to reveal a tunnel that was brightly lit and well kept.
The tunnel was pretty spacious. A whole army could fit in it. Other than that, there wasn't anything that stood out. After a few minutes of walking, we stepped out of the tunnel and into a beautiful valley where a sturdy aqueduct caught my gaze. Looking across the sprawling buildings, I heard Reyna speak. "Welcome to Camp Jupiter, the new Rome," she said proudly, as I beheld a massive city that looked like an evolved version of camp half-blood.
"Come, let me show you where you will be sleeping, as I can only imagine how tired you must be," she began to say. We began to walk down into the valley, with the sweet smell of flowers filling our noses.
"Wait. Something doesn't feel right," I said as an uneasy feeling wormed its way in my chest. Something felt off in the air. I felt a weird pull in my gut, similar to the one I get when I use my powers over water, but I wasn't using them right now.
Reyna looked at me weirdly before her eyes widened. "You're right. I feel it too. C'mon, I don't like this one bit," She said as she started sprinting towards a building complex that looked heavily fortified.
I began to run towards the camp when we heard an explosion. We looked in horror as part of the aqueduct began to crumble, and the water began rushing out, flooding the nearby area in seconds.
I noticed Reyna stop with a look of utter horror. "Those innocent people," she whispered. My heart clenched at the thought of those poor people. I turned towards the flooded area with a determined look. I felt the tug in my gut as I established control over those thousands of gallons of water and imagined it returning to the hole in the aqueduct. I looked on as the water did precisely what I imagined.
Realizing that the water would keep on coming if I didn't do anything, I pushed all the water at the hole until most of it was back in the aqueduct, then froze the water so that the ice took the place of the stone that should have been there. An instant headache formed, but I'd take a headache over people dying any day.
I turned to Reyna and saw her looking at me in astonishment. I just smirked. "You coming? Or would you rather ogle me some more?" I said tauntingly.
Her eyes flashed. "After this is over, I would watch my back if I were you," she said with malice. I gulped.
"Why don't we just go see what's up over there?" I asked uncertainly.
"Right," she said as we continued running towards the aqueduct.
When we got there, what we saw rooted us to the ground. Thousands of beings made of ice and water were marching towards Camp Jupiter.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed they were similar to shark men, except their upper shark and lower human bodies were ice. Their eyes were crystal-like pools of water, and their swords were made of a silvery metal that, when looked at directly, seemed to drag one's soul into its watery-like surface. I suddenly remembered something Annabeth had once said, something about Oceanic silver. She said it could exist, although it has never been found, and that if it did, it would be buried in only the most massive of sea trenches. When I asked Poseidon about it, he said he wouldn't be bothered to find something that most probably didn't exist. It seemed it did exist, but I had no idea who had armed these ice soldiers.
"What are you waiting for? Melt them, or control them or something," Reyna hissed as the shark men continued advancing.
Deciding to do just that, I tried to establish a link between them and me, but it was like they slipped away every time I tried connecting. "I can't. They're being protected by something," I retorted.
"Maybe that thing," she said, pointing towards a giant sea snake that towered over the shark warriors. It was also made of ice, but its fangs were Oceanic silver. "We must prepare for battle," Reyna said. She ran towards the soldiers now lining up to look at the invading army. "Don't just stand there fools, prepare for battle! Now! Get into formation!" she began screaming orders as the soldiers obeyed her commands flawlessly.
Soon the Romans were standing straight in full armor, ready for the onslaught that was to come.
'Well, that was some fast preparation. These are some really organized soldiers,' I thought as I turned to face the mysterious army.