Sorry for the lateness of the chapter! I hope you enjoy this one, which features Percy being very possessive of what's hers. Please do review!

There was a moment of quiet before it was interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Oh sure." that came from the snakes on the staff, though it was spoken into Percy's mind. "Don't say hi to us. We're just reptiles"

"George," the other snake scolded. "Be polite."

"Hello, George," Percy gave a wry smile. "Hey, Martha."

"Did you bring us a rat?" George asked.

"George, stop it," Martha said. "She's busy!"

"Too busy for rats?" George said. "That's just sad."

Percy let out a laugh despite herself before she shook her head "Um, Hermes. We need to talk to Zeus. It's important."

"I know kid." Hermes looked stressed, "But he's busy."

Percy bit her lip, a frown on her lips, she could see some of the other demigods were restless, and seeing Hermes looking so tense was not a good morale booster.

Percy pressed her lips together into a thin line, turning to look at them, "You guys, do a sweep of the city. Check the defences. See who's left in Olympus. Meet Annabeth and me back here in thirty minutes."

"That's a good idea," Annabeth said. "Connor and Travis, you two lead."

The Stolls seemed to like that—getting handed an important responsibility right in front of their dad. They usually never led anything except toilet paper raids. "We're on it!"

Travis said. They herded the others out of the throne room, Thalia following them, probably to keep an eye on what they actually did, leaving Percy and Annabeth with Hermes.

As soon as they were gone Percy glowered at Hermes, "You could at least acknowledge your other kids-"

"I'm sorry." Hermes did look genuinely ashamed, "I just- it's- you know about-"

"I know that in some twisted horror story version of reality Luke would have been the bad guy here, yeah." Percy folded her arms over her chest, "But he's not, and it's not that reality and he's not your only kid here-"

"I know. And I'm sorry. I spent years obsessing over his fate- that's my own fault. But you're right-"

"And now's not the time for this. Annabeth's voice was pointed, "We came here for a reason. We think that Kronos is going to attack New York. You must suspect that. My mother must have foreseen it."

"Your mother," Hermes grumbled. He scratched his back with his caduceus, and George and Martha muttered Ow, ow, ow. "Don't get me started on your mother, young lady.
She's the reason I'm here at all. Zeus didn't want any of us to leave the front line. But your mother kept pestering him nonstop, 'It's a trap, it's a diversion, blah, blah, blah.' She wanted to come back herself, but Zeus was not going to let his number one strategist leave his side while we're battling Typhon. And so naturally he sent me to talk to you."

"But it is a trap!" Annabeth insisted. "Is Zeus blind?"

Thunder rolled through the sky.

"I'd watch the comments, Annabeth," Hermes warned. "Zeus is not blind or deaf. He has not left Olympus completely undefended-"

"But there are these blue lights—"

"Yes, yes. I saw them. Some mischief by the the traitors mother, Hecate, I'd wager, but you may have noticed they aren't doing any damage. Olympus has strong magical wards. Besides, Aeolus, the King of the Winds, has sent his most powerful minions to guard the citadel. No one save the gods can approach Olympus from the air. They would be knocked out of the sky."

"What about when you guys teleport or whatever?"

"That's a form of air travel too, Jackson. Very fast, but the wind gods are faster. No, if Kronos wants Olympus, he'll have to march through the entire city with his army and take the elevators! Can you see him doing this?"

Hermes made it sound pretty ridiculous—hordes of monsters going up in the elevator twenty at a time, listening to Stayin' Alive. But-

"He's going to put the city to sleep." Percy said quietly, her eyes glued to Hermes, "They have Morpheus-"

"Percy I understand your fear but you don't understand. Typhon is our greatest enemy."

"I thought that was Kronos."

The god's eyes glowed. "No, Percy. In the old days, Olympus was almost overthrown by Typhon. He is husband of Echidna—"

"The antea- Ouch!"

"She didn't appreciate it, I doubt her husband would either-"

"What! I think it's funny- And I'm shutting up." because Hermes was giving her a stern look, and when she snapped her mouth shut Hermes continued.

"—and the father of all monsters. We can never forget how close he came to destroying us all; how he humiliated us! We were more powerful back in the old days. Now we can expect no help from Poseidon because he's fighting his own war. Hades sits in his realm and does nothing, and Demeter and Persephone follow his lead. It will take all our remaining power to oppose the storm giant. We can't divide our forces, nor wait until he gets to New York. We have to battle him now. And we're making progress."

"Hey!" Percy glared, "Don't say that, uncle Hades has his own fights, he's not doing nothing he's dealing with attacks too because Kronos knows he'd help us-"

"That isn't the point Persephone-"

"and you're not even slowing him down that much he's nearly destroyed St Louis!"

"Yes," Hermes admitted. "But he destroyed only half of Kentucky. He's slowing down. Losing power."

"Uh huh, by the way the sky is a lovely shade of green today, have you noticed-"

"I don't like it either Persephone but my father wants us all focused on Typhon- I don't have much of a choice." Hermes shook his head, "And he's right- if we don't stop Typhon we're doomed-"

"So now we're going to have to deal with Kronos and probably an entire army." Percy snapped, "Wonderful, just what I wanted to hear. What you're basically telling me is that we're on our own

In the corner, the Ophiotaurus mooed sadly.

"Please, Hermes," Annabeth said. "You said my mother wanted to come. Did she give you any messages for us?"

"Messages," he muttered. "'It'll be a great job,' they told me. 'Not much work. Lots of worshippers.' Hmph. Nobody cares what I have to say. It's always about other people's messages."

"Rodents," George mused. "I'm in it for the rodents."

"Shhh, Martha scolded. We care what Hermes has to say. Don't we, George?"

"Oh, absolutely. Can we go back to the battle now? I want to do laser mode again. That's fun."

"Quiet, both of you," Hermes grumbled.

The god looked at Annabeth, who was doing her big-pleading-gray-eyes thing.

Then he sighed. "Your mother said to warn you that you are on your own. You must hold Manhattan without the help of the gods. As if I didn't know that. Why they pay her to be the wisdom goddess, I'm not sure."

"Anything else?" Annabeth asked.

"She said you should try plan twenty-three. She said you would know what that meant."

Annabeth's face paled. Obviously she knew what it meant, and she didn't like it. "Go on."

"She also said to tell Percy 'Remember the rivers.' And, um, something about staying away from her daughter." and despite his obvious stress and exhaustion there was a gleam of amusement in Hermes' eyes at that, "I did point out that it was a bit late for that but she sent one of her owls to try and peck my eyes out- real rude if you ask me."

"Is she really- of course she did." Annabeth groaned, "If Lord Poseidon can accept it then why can't she-"

"I have no clue." Hermes' shook his head, "Now I need to get going girls- tell my kids I'm proud of them and Percy- tell Luke-" he faltered, an almost lost look on his face,
"Just- tell him that I love him."

"I will." Percy agreed, a sad smile on her lips, "But he already knows that Hermes, that's not something he's ever actually doubted."

And then the two girls looked away as Hermes form glowed- and when they looked back he was gone and Percy focused her gaze on Annabeth, "So. Plan twenty-three? What is it and why do you look like you're terrified right now?"

"Right." Annabeth's expression turned grim and rummaged in her pack and pulled out Daedalus's laptop. The blue Delta symbol glowed on the top when she booted it up. She opened a few files and started to read.

"Here it is," she said. "Gods, we have a lot of work to do."

"One of Daedalus's inventions?"

"A lot of inventions . . . dangerous ones. If my mother wants me to use this plan, she must think things are very bad." She looked at Percy. "What about her message to you: 'Remember the rivers'? What does that mean?"

"I don't have a clue." Percy admitted, "But whatever it is, my bet is I'll figure it out when the time comes, I usually do- so what-"

Just then the Stoll brothers ran in to the throne room.

"You need to see this," Connor said. "Now."

The blue lights in the sky had stopped, so at first Percy didn't understand what the problem was.

The other campers had gathered in a small park at the edge of the mountain. They were clustered at the guardrail, looking down at Manhattan. The railing was lined with those tourist binoculars, where you could deposit one golden drachma and see the city. Campers were using every single one.

Percy looked down at her city- it was a great view, she could see everything from where they were stood, the East River and the Hudson River carving the shape of Manhattan, the grid of streets, the lights of skyscrapers, the dark stretch of Central Park in the north. Everything looked normal, but something was wrong.

Percy knew what it was instantly even as Annabeth spoke. "I don't . . . hear anything," she said.

And Annabeth was right- they should've heard the noise of the city—millions of people bustling around, thousands of cars and machines—the hum of a huge metropolis. You don't think about it when you live in New York, but it's always there. Even in the dead of night, New York was never silent.

But it was now.

"Morpheus." Percy whispered the name. Her chest felt tight and uncomfortable, it was wrong, it felt so very wrong. Her city, her home was under a spell and she was beyond horrified by the sight of it, "By the gods- I mean I knew it was coming but-" she shoved Travis to the side so she could use his binoculars. In the streets below, traffic had stopped. Pedestrians were lying on the sidewalks, or curled up in doorways. There was no sign of violence, no wrecks, nothing like that. It was as if all the people in New York had simply decided to stop whatever they were doing and pass out.

"Are they dead?" Silena asked in astonishment.

"No. No they're asleep." Percy straightened up, "Morpheus has put the entire city of Manhattan to sleep." Her voice was a low growl, "He put my city to sleep. He fucked with my city-"

"I feel the need to point out that you don't actually own the city-" Thalia tried to point out only to earn herself a dirty look from Percy.

"It's my city-"

"Fine, fine it's your city." Thalia held up her hands, letting out a laugh, "Jeeze Jackson, you're possessive- I'd hate to be someone messing with your girlfriends-"

"You're just jealous because I have two girlfriends and you're stuck with Luke-"

"He's your brother I feel like stuck with is pretty harsh-"

"He's my brother- I am one of the only people allowed to be mean about him- besides I know he snores-"

"You two!" Annabeth cut them both off, letting out a noise that was a cross between annoyance and amusement, "C'mon. Focus."

"Right." Percy straitened slightly, face flushing, "Sorry Wise girl. Okay. This isn't unexpected, the putting the city to sleep thing- he put Grover to sleep for two months. But it means that the time's come. This is the first stage of his invasion."

"Uh oh." Travis muttered, "He's got a clear path-"

"We need to get down there. We have to stop him from getting up here." Percy wished she felt as confident as she sounded, "It- it's not good that he's attacking but the fact that he's put the mortals to sleep actually helps us-"

"How does it help us?" Thalia asked, her tone exasperated, "In what possible way-"

"It means we don't have to worry about mortals running around panicked and getting hurt." Percy's voice was firm.

"What do we do now?" That came from Travis, and Percy focused on the son of Hermes.

"We go down into the city and we defend it." Percy's voice was firm, "Let's go."