Disclaimer: I do not own Rick Riordan, the Percy Jackson books, characters, series, movies, or anything else you may recognize.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Time To Go

"Stand my ground, I won't give in

No more denying, I've got to face it

Won't close my eyes and hide the truth inside

If I don't make it, someone else will

Stand my ground."

"Stand My Ground" by Within Temptation

For once, I would just like things to be easy.

We needed to go to Fort Sumter? Awesome. We go, we get in, we get out, and we head to our next location in a nice, succinct fashion.

Of course, that's not how it happened.

Those three gold eagles from before? They all came swooping down, dropping off two anonymous Romans in a weird mix of purple togas and jeans, and then Octavian.

"Surrender to Rome!" Octavian shouted. Have I mentioned how much I disliked this kid? Why did he exist? Why did my father let his genes be passed down to this little creep? Were we sure he really was related to Apollo? I'm sure this kid would lie about it.

"Not gonna happen," Hazel said, drawing her sword.

I looked at the three guys standing in front of me. We all knew I could easily take out Octavian, and he had brought two different guys with him this time (I guess the other two had learned their lessons). They were much larger and with lots of protruding muscles, but even with that, I was sure I could take them. I'd probably have to get them separated and make good use of my powers, but my chances were good.

"Octavian –"

"Can't hear you!" Octavian shouted over Piper. "We've got wax in our ears so that siren can't sway our minds!"

"I mean, sirens are pretty cool. Beautiful singing voices, can take down ships and brutally murder thousands of men…honestly, I'd take that as a compliment," I said to Piper who smirked.

"Well?" Octavian shouted and his little (well, not little in size) bodyguards pulled out their swords.

"I'll get rid of them, get to the ship," I said to Annabeth. She looked between me and the Romans nervously, and I heard a whispering of warn pass through her mind. "All of you, go. I've got this."

They all started backing away to go back to the ship and I made direct eye contact with the biggest Roman, cocked my head and motioned him towards me. Before I could do anything, a tidal wave erupted from the bay, sweeping Octavian and the other two Romans into the bay. They were barely able to keep themselves afloat with the heavy armor they were wearing.

Percy walked up to me with a smile and handed me my dagger. "You dropped this."

"How did you get my dagger?" I demanded, snatching it from him.

"I thought you…didn't you throw it into the bay?" Percy asked in confusion.

"ANNABETH!"

"We have to go," Annabeth said, ignoring me and signaling for everyone to get on the ship.

I stormed up to her. "I said I had it!"

"And Percy needed to be warned."

"And you needed my dagger to do that? You couldn't have used your own?"

"There would be a better and faster reaction if I used yours," Annabeth said. "It was the most logical option."

"No, the most logical option would have been to let me take those jerks out while everyone got to the ship."

Annabeth stood in front of me. "You can't take on every fight by yourself. You're angry and upset and I get that, but you can't put your life in danger. We need you for this quest. I need you."

"What. Ever."

If I didn't love that girl as much as I did, she would not have a very ugly face right now.

"You're not going to let them drown, are you?" Hazel was asking as we walked into the control room.

"No, the water is circling at their feet. I'll shoot them out of the water once we're far enough away," Percy answered. This seemed to calm Hazel down a bit. I honestly couldn't care either way.

"Orders time," Annabeth said. "Piper, send Jason an Iris-message and tell him to get back here as soon as possible." Piper nodded and ran off. "Percy, you and I need to get this ship to Fort Sumter."

I looked out of the windows of the control room and could see the gold eagles still circling over our ship, but Festus was blowing fire at them any time they tried to come close to the ship.

"Jason and the others are on their way…oh! There they are!"

A giant bald eagle – very different from the golden ones from Camp Jupiter – came flying towards the ship, carrying a screaming Leo in its feet. The eagle had to be Frank. That would be amazing, being able to change into different animals. Flying behind them was Jason, floating through the sky like a superhero – just without the cape and spandex. A Roman chariot was hot on their tail before we had time to breathe and within moments they were shot down.

Luckily they were shot down somewhere on Fort Sumter, which meant we could get them.

I kept my eyes on the island, trying to formulate some sort of a plan in my head. "Percy, you need to control the water. We are going to land hard, and you need to make sure we don't crash into the rocks. Annie, you have to get in, get the map, find the others and get back out. The rest of us, we get to fight. No one gets on this boat, got it?"

"You realize the Fort is going to be crawling with Romans, right?" Percy asked.

"Well then we had better fight hard," I snapped.

"I'll be fine," Annabeth said with a deep breath. "Just protect the ship."

As soon as the boat got close, Annabeth, Piper, Hazel and I jumped off. "Keep them away from Annabeth," I said to Piper and Hazel. "Make sure her path is clear. I can handle the rest."

"Got it," Piper said before the two girls ran after Annabeth.

Percy, for once, seemed to be right. There were Romans everywhere. But I literally fought tooth and nail – and I mean literally, I lost a tooth that was slowly and painfully re-growing and broke a couple of a nails, which was nothing short of tragic – taking the attacking Romans out of commission within seconds.

At some point, Jason, Leo and Frank had joined the fray and were fighting alongside the rest of us.

"I hate this," Jason said, his back pressed against mine as we fought. It was a great technique to make sure no one snuck up on you.

"Hate what?" I asked, throwing a punch at someone's face, hitting that lovely nerve to make them pass out immediately.

"Having to fight the people I grew up with."

"We tried to stop this war from happening and instead, Octavian started it. We have to fight just to keep Gaea from literally taking over the world and destroying everything," I said. "We don't have any other options right now."

"I know."

"I'm sorry it's like this, Jason," I said. "We tried."

"I know."

What seemed like an eternity later, I saw Annabeth coming out of the Fort, a lot paler than she had been when she went in.

"Start a retreat," I told Jason. "Get everyone on board – we need to leave as of fifteen minutes ago."

"On it."

I watched as the others started heading back to the ship and as I turned around, I came face to face with Reyna.

"Leaving already?"

Reyna stood tall and proud in her battle armor, her greyhounds on either side of her and her golden javelin in her hand. Man, I really was short. I tried to make myself appear taller, and made a mental note to start wearing heels on this missions again. "You need to stand down and surrender."

"We both know that's not going to happen and if we fight, you know I'm going to win," I said. "What happened at Camp Jupiter wasn't us, it was Gaea and Octavian manipulating the circumstances to fulfill a prophecy. Our camps can't afford to be enemies! We have to unite and fight together!"

"You think I don't know that?" Reyna asked. "I have no other choice, thanks to you! Octavian is out for blood, the whole Legion is in a frenzy and I can't stop it!" She took a breath to calm herself. "If you surrender to me, I'll bring you back to Camp Jupiter and you'll be put on trial. It won't be fair and your execution will be extremely painful, but it could be the key to stopping more violence."

"Okay, so there are two problems here – one, you can't kill me. And I mean literally. I'll just keep coming back, so it would be a waste of everyone's time and resources to even try. And second, none of this was me –"

"Everyone at Camp Jupiter has heard that you worked for Kronos – everyone knows now."

"Kronos possessed me," I tried to say calmly, but failed. "He had been hunting me since I was a young teenager and got Luke Castellan to help weaken me so he could take over my body and mind. I fought back and I won, and I am one hundred percent my own person. Did I learn a few things during that time? Apparently, but that doesn't make me an enemy – it makes me someone who knows how to survive."

Reyna took a deep breath, visibly shaken by what I'd said. "If you go to the Mare Nostrum, we will not be able to follow you. Without you and the others, Octavian will turn his vengeance on Camp Half-Blood and destroy it."

"We have to go. Annabeth has probably the most important quest to date and we have to complete it. We'll fix all this hate and anger between our camps."

"Eight people can't fix this."

"But nine can. If we succeed on this quest, we can fix everything. You can try to stop us, but it will be a fight to the death and seeing as I can't die, your odds are very bleak. I have a lot of respect for you, Reyna, I really do, and I think we have a lot in common. We've both been through so much strife and heartache that no one will understand, and we both want to protect our friends and family. Let me go and we'll save both of our camps. All I ask is that you delay any attacks on Camp Half-Blood."

She gave me an exasperated look and said, "I'll do my best."