Sorry sorry sorry sorry.

So so so so so so so so sorry you guys!

White.

The first thing he saw when he woke up was white.

Then the harsh, harsh, white light melted into a less harsh shade, and then the palest of yellow hues, and then a glimmering amber, as if he was a bug trapped in the golden liquid.

And then came the pain.

Percy gasped and doubled over in his bed as what felt like a hammer cracked open his skull. His brain felt like it was being penetrated by thousands of spikes, and he could do nothing but groan and squeeze his eyes shut against the tears of pain.

So this is what a fucking hangover felt like.

But he didn't remember drinking or going to a party, where his drink could've been spiked or something. He just pressed his fingers against his throbbing temples as he tried to think back to the last thing he remembered.

Chiron? No, the Morpheus cabin. And there was Cameron and Alex and Malcolm and…

And that crazy sensation of being inside his own body but not being able to control what he did.

Percy sat up with much difficulty and raised a hand to shield his eyes against the sunlight filtering through the open curtains. He could deduce that he was in his own cabin, but that was pretty much it.

"Take this."

He painfully shifted his gaze to Alex, who was holding out a thermos bottle to him, her expression a cross between amused and concerned. Taking the bottle from her outstretched hand, he popped open the cap and swallowed the sweet liquid as the familiar taste of his mom's chocolate chip cookies filled his senses. He couldn't help the contented sigh to escape from his lips as the pain almost instantly vanished from his head.

"Feel better?" Alex questioned as she sat down beside him, her sea green eyes, so identical to his, searching his face for any sign of leftover pain.

"Much better, thanks." He handed the nectar bottle back to her. "What was that, anyway?"

"You got possessed." She said as she got up and grabbed a belt from a hook on the door. "By some old deity or something."

Feeling of no control.

"I think I may know who." He grimaced as she whipped around sharply and narrowed her eyes on him.

"Who?"

Her bluntness made him shudder a little. "I'm not completely sure. It was a man…from my dreams. His form was blurred, and ashy…remember? He tortured me."

She frowned in thought. "This is definitely connected to the quest."

Percy nodded. "Yeah. But what's that you've got there?"

Alex looked down at her weapon belt. "Oh, this? I and Malcolm took the liberty of choosing a bunch of weapons for the quest. We were just waiting for you to wake up. We leave after dinner."

"Alright then…any news?"

She paused mid-movement, and slowly turned away from him so he couldn't see her expression, a movement he suspected was deliberate. He frowned. "What is it?"

"Oh, not much." She slowly put down a shuriken on the coffee table. "One of the two new campers has been claimed."

That piqued his interest. "Oh yeah? Who?"

The demigod ran her fingers along the wooden edge of the table. "Celena Natasha Kyle."

Percy tapped his foot impatiently. "Yeah, yeah. By whom?"

His sister stopped and put her hands on her hips, looking up to the ceiling with a conflicted expression. This tiny gesture alerted him immediately. Who was it? A titan? Or worse, even a protogenoi?

"Artemis."

Malcolm sat, fidgeting with his amulet as he studied the interior of Argus's van. Alex sat next to him, either running her fingers along the flat of her Trojan dagger or winding and unwinding her garrote. Percy was on his opposite side, drumming his fingers against his jeans pocket, something his sister periodically also repeated. This, Malcolm thought, these movements were totally related to how much the three relied on certain weapons.

He ran a hand down the seat's leather cover as he wondered how the quest was going to go. A god had been kidnapped…maybe it wasn't as dramatic as Artemis being taken by Kronos's army or Celena being claimed bay Artemis, but Malcolm wasn't exactly all roses about his current quest, especially with that scary sounding prophecy.

And no, he didn't have an obsession with Artemis. He was just stating facts which were coincidentally related to the goddess of the Hunt.

Weirdest part, though, was when the goddess herself came to Camp Half Blood to claim her daughter, or as she said, 'champion'. Celena hadn't been exactly thrilled to realize that she didn't really have biological parents, or was really a biological child. Granted, half bloods felt unwanted at first, but there was something especially disheartening to know that a god created you by using their essence and some animal as part of the ingredients.

That part had felt especially sickening.

He looked out the van window into the inky black night. Chiron had insisted that they begin their search at nyx, as it was the time when Hecate's essence was the strongest. Of course though. She was a goddess of the Underworld. But that didn't make the situation any less sinister, considering those dreams he was having.

Malcolm sighed and turned his gaze back inside to find Percy looking at him. Upon meeting his eyes, the other demigod's chartreuse gaze turned questioning. The son of Athena shook his head and lifted his lips up in a small, reassuring smile. Percy nodded, but the gray eyed demigod caught his skeptical expression as he turned his face away from him.

Maybe he wasn't the only one finding the situation freaky.

Some time later, they were in the city. New York was undeniably really cool, even at eleven in the night. The trio stepped into a Greyhound after a hike, where Percy seemed undeniably fidgety. Alex rested a hand on her brother's knee in an attempt to calm him, but the gesture didn't seem to work. She sighed irritably.

"Percy, nothing's wrong." She frowned. "You're just freaked out because you encountered the Kindly Ones here. That was five years ago, and plus, Hades isn't after you now."

Right. Malcolm had almost forgotten that she had tracked Perseus Jackson for the more…mythical years of his life.

Her twin shook his head. "No. It's something else. I can…I can feel it."

Alex frowned and retracted her hand from her brother's leg, as physical tactics were obviously not going to work. "You're just hyperactive. Must be the after effects of Gray's divination process."

Malcolm nodded. The theory seemed most probable. "Yeah. But…we should still be alert, Alex. Demigod senses are still utterly undeniable. At least keep some weapons ready."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't need weapons to kill, even if monsters show up."

Percy clenched his jaw. "It's…it's like this vibration at the base of my skull. Like a buzz. But…it's getting stronger."

Right on cue.

The doors of the Greyhound burst open as a dozen or so owl like creatures swarmed into the bus. The vehicle swerved to the right as a bird attacked the driver's eyes. Mortals started screaming as they threw open doors in desperate attempts to get out of the bus.

Malcolm attempted to get up, but the vehicle tilted to the right in another sharp swerve, and fell on top of a man about forty. He looked into the mortal's wide eyes, and as depicted by the clear fear written in them, he could see the monsters' true forms. The demigod gasped and extracted himself from the tangle, only to witness an old lady fall to the floor in a panic unconsciousness.

He turned around to see that the twins had already unsheathed their weapons. Percy was cutting down birds as fast as they were entering the bus, swinging the entire three feet of bronze blade as Riptide sliced through the metallic bodies of the owls. Alex, on the other side, was stabbing and slashing down as many monsters as she could, while using her free hand to maneuver another Greek style concealed dagger to hack apart the monsters.

Gasping, Malcolm ran up to the driver seat and cut down the birds there, pushing the mutilated driver away from the controls and pressing down hard on the brakes. The other doors opened with a hiss, and passengers exited the vehicle, screaming and screeching like proper action scene extras. He then pulled out his amulet and twisted it to activate a mechanism. The metal twisted and connected to elongate into a haladie, and the demigod ran up to join the fight.

"What are they?" Percy yelled over the screaming of birds and screeching of metal against metal, as he neatly cut another into half.

"Strix!" The blond yelled.

"Styx? I didn't take you to be the sweary type."

"I said strix!" Malcolm shouted at him. "Watch out for their beaks! They're Celestial Bronze, and these guys use them for sucking blood. Oh, and avoid those talons as well."

"We got the memo." Alex grunted as she scissored down a bird. "Stay away from the sharp shit."

A strix attacked his face at that moment, and Malcolm stabbed it from below. Face to face with the monster, he found enough time to look into its nocturnal yellow eyes…lacking pupils, none the less.

He remembered the legend of these owls. The legends that their long, metallic beaks would be put to use to cause chaos in the most nocturnal, sharp way possible- drinking the blood of their victims. That was not the part Malcolm found the most horrifying though. Annabeth had told him their more reserved characteristics- how their most probable and preferred victim were newborns. Babies.

Gross.

Seriously, though? That was just low.

But back to the confrontation. Malcolm almost jumped ship as a strix attacked his eyes, but changed his mind as Alex and Percy collectively cut down the remaining last birds.

"That it?" Alex asked breathlessly as she turned to him.

"I guess so." Percy breathed out, clutching his side in pain.

Malcolm frowned. "You okay?"

"Of course, he's just dandy," Alex bit out sarcastically. "He wasn't just attacked by an army of killer birds."

"Cut it out, you two." Percy rolled his eyes.

"You two? It was just her!"

"Oh, you wish, Pace!"

"I wasn't even asking about him in that way! I meant his side!"

"His side? Are you freaking gay? Cause-"

"What-"

"-if you've been leading me on, I-"

"-I'm not gay!"

"-will castrate you!"

"Will you guys shut up?!" Percy yelled, silencing both of them. "Geez, you're like some old married couple," he grumbled. "I kind of get how Grover must have felt."

"We do not." Alex glared at her brother.

Malcolm grunted in agreement.

"Trust me, you're in denial." Percy smirked and before they could attack him together, jumped out of the bus.

The daughter of Poseidon rolled her eyes as she crouched to pick up a gold feather from the floor of the bus, braiding it into her hair.

"Savage." Malcolm commented as he grinned down at her.

She smirked. "I honestly don't know why they don't use these little guys as jewelry. It can't exactly classify as animal cruelty…"

He shrugged as he grabbed a side support bar and jumped off the Greyhound. "Maybe they just want to preserve some bloodsuckers. Maybe they're an exotic breed."

Alex laughed as she got off behind him. "Speaking of exotic breeds, where is my dear brother?"

Malcolm smiled. "I don't really know, though. He was really holding his side in what looked like pain."

Alex threw a discarded remnant Celestial Bronze beak at him. "Fine, whatever."

Percy appeared around the side of the bus. "Hey, you guys…"

"You all right man?" Malcolm asked him, noticing him still clutching his side. "Did one of those strix get you?"

"No," he smirked like a true Jackson. Seriously, ever since Alex arrived, all these two would do was smirk, "They weren't enough to get me. However…"

"Oh, that injury." Alex grinned as she joined them. She had been with him through the fight, in all fairness. "He freaked out when an old lady panicked and grabbed his arm, and in trying to get away, he hit his side against a seat."

The son of Athena couldn't hold in his laugh. "Done like a true Seaweed Brain."

Percy threw him a playful glare before turning back. "I mean it, though. There's something back here you guys should check out, like, now."

Malcolm frowned before following him behind the bus, and into an alley. He looked back at Alex, who shrugged and, with fingers on her dagger, followed suit.

In the dark, Percy pointed to a clearly glowing message on the brick wall. Ichor was smeared on to the wall in the shape of letters and symbols that clearly spelled out something.

Malcolm frowned. "They must have attacked at a fixed time, at a fixed location, when they knew we would've been here." He swallowed. "They know we're coming…"

"But the letters," Alex hissed, clearly alarmed. "They obviously mean something. It's Ancient Greek."

Percy raised his eyebrow. "It says καταλήγουν στις εκτροπές."

Malcolm blinked. "katalígoun stis ektropés. That doesn't mean anything…"

"End to the aberrations." Percy and Alex said together, and Malcolm almost ruined the moment by yelling, 'twin powers'! But seriously, it didn't ring a bell to him.

"No, it does." Alex swallowed visibly. "This changes everything."

I know I'm evil. No need to say it. *grins evilly*

Meetcha next chapter!