AN: It's on to chapter 13 now!

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Haruyuki (Guest): Explained down below. Thank you.

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Disclaimer: Percy Jackson is not mine…

Chapter 13: Training

Lia's POV (30 minutes before)

I spread my wings, jumped off the ground, and flapped once, twice.

As I flew swiftly away, I heard Leo yell, "Your wings are freaking awesome!"

I sighed and rolled my eyes. How Leo still had the same reaction to my wings after nearly six months was lost to me.

Before starting my tasks, I hovered in the air and activated the thick bracelet around my left wrist, protecting my mortal fatal flaw. It was a gift from my father, along with the wings on my back. I twisted it and watched it expand neatly into a shield with a long, thin-pointed dagger attached to the front. I pushed the hilt of the dagger, caught it as it fell off, and held it in my right hand. (1)

I decided to do a monster check first and flew a couple hundred feet up, checking for any signs of movement, or monsters. After finding none, I came to the conclusion that the monsters were either non-existent in these areas, or just really good at hiding. I hoped it was the former, but unfortunately, as I later found out, it was the latter.

With the first thing on my to-do list checked off, I went to the second thing: demigod check. I made my way to where I had last seen the demigods and hid myself in a nearby tree. I let out a frustrated groan when they weren't there. They just have to make my job harder.

I was about to take off again when I heard the sudden intake of breath behind me. I looked over my shoulder, and there he was, one of the demigods on the quest. James, was that his name? The other two, Clarisse and Annabeth, weren't with him.

I didn't have time to wonder where they were. James's face was contorted with pain, and his eyes were filled with fear. His arms were held behind his back, and blood ran freely down his neck where an empousa held a knife to his throat. The empousa was backed up with at least twenty dracanae.

One of the dracanae, the biggest and the leader, flicked her eyes around and hissed, "We know you are there, demigod. Come out, or we ssshall cut this one to piecesss."

I hesitated. The first thing a demigod learned was not to willingly do anything a monster said. I weighed the situation. If I stayed hidden, James would most likely die. But if I revealed myself, the monsters might attack me, and James might die anyways.

The dracanae narrowed her eyes. "Ssshow yourssself, demigod. Do you require more persssuasssion?" She nodded at the empousa, who smiled wickedly.

James gulped and winced as the blade cut even deeper. "No," he croaked. He jerked his head back, trying in vain to avoid more pain from the sharp dagger.

I considered trying to fight off the monsters, but couldn't think of a way to do it without endangering James's life. Besides, fighting wasn't my nature.

"Demigod!" the dracanae snarled. "Thisss isss your lassst warning. Come out, or we ssshall ssstart cutting."

I didn't move a muscle. The dracanae glanced around and whispered to the empousa, "Fingersss firssst. Let'sss sssee if that worksss."

The empousa grinned malevolently. She lowered the dagger from James's neck, but only to grab his hand and force the knife down on one of his fingers. James shut his eyes tightly, unwilling to see what was about to happen to his hand.

Sighing, and mentally punching myself, I stepped out of the trees and into the open, directly in front of them. Instantly, the blade stopped its track towards James's finger, although it was still close enough to sever it in the blink of an eye.

"Good," the dracanae said. "Now come here."

"Why would I do that?" I muttered.

She pulled out a coil of rope. "Ssso I can bind your handsss."

"No," I said, unsheathing Sabre, my sword, and getting into a defensive stance. "I'd rather fight you."

Surprisingly, it was the empousa who laughed and answered, "Do you really think you are in any position to negotiate?" My eyes flicked over to James, who grimaced in pain as more blood trickled down his neck. The empousa pulled another dagger from her belt and, after twirling it around her fingers, placed it across James's neck again. "Stay, and he dies. Come, and he lives. It's as simple as that."

I sheathed Sabre and walked over to them. I'm in Chaos's army. I can handle anything these monsters throw at me, I convinced myself.

The dracanae grabbed my hands and roughly forced them behind my back, tying them together. Another dracanae took Sabre. I turned my head towards James, hoping the empousa hadn't already killed him.

But instead, the empousa, after seeing me subdued, immediately released James, who harshly shoved her away from him.

"Oh my titans, don't you dare touch me again!" he snapped. "Somebody get me a bandage or something."

The empousa meekly took out a bandage and gave it to him. "My apologies, my lord."

James held the bandage to his neck to stop the blood flow. "You didn't have to press so hard."

"My apologies," she repeated. "I was only trying to make it look convincing."

"Convincing? I think it was convincing enough." He gestured at me. "Too convincing, in fact." He rubbed his neck carefully. "It probably didn't have to hurt that much."

"My apologies," the empousa said for a third time.

James rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just don't press as hard the next time you do it."

"Yes, my lord."

What was going on? James was supposed to be the hope for Camp Half-Blood, being the one with the quest for help from the Romans. If he knew, I couldn't imagine Chiron being more shocked or disappointed.

A Cyclops shoved his way through the undergrowth "You got the demigod?" he growled.

The empousa smiled and nodded enthusiastically. She shoved me forwards. I tripped and fell, turning at the last moment to avoid doing a face plant in the ground and instead land on my side.

The Cyclops's startled eyes popped wide open. "She is still conscious?" he snarled. "She is a powerful soldier in the army of Chaos! Knock her out! Knock her out!"

The empousa looked down at me. "Her? A powerful soldier in the army of Chaos? Not likely. We captured her so eas-"

"Knock her out!" the Cyclops screamed.

The empousa obediently hauled me to my feet and punched my temple, hard.

Everything went black, and I was alone in the dark with only my wild thoughts running through my head.

Mystery Person's POV

I tried to ignore the ten other demigods who were staring at me and silently begging me to come up with explanations for what had just happened.

Ruku was glaring at me and had a look of betrayal on his face, but also acceptance, and I got the feeling that he had been expecting something like that to happen. Wred had his hard, calculating look on. Jane held Violet firmly and protectively in her lap while the six-year-old stared at the door. The other demigods had looks that ranged from confusion to anger and hate. I would have to fix that later.

I focused on the voice that had just spoken, and turned around slowly. I saw a boy with black hair and green eyes in front of the door. I started to reach for my sword but stopped my hand when I realized it wasn't that blasted son of Poseidon. I would have to get used to this boy's new appearance as the son of the sea god.

"Father?" the boy said again.

"Son?" I asked, recognizing him as my son. "James! I must get used to your appearance. You look like one of the sea god's scum."

James reached up and tugged a long bang down, eying it with contempt. "Yeah, I do, Father," he muttered. "I'll be glad to be back with my normal hair and eye color when I'm done with this mission. Everything I look at has a slight green tinge around it."

"Don't complain, Son. You haven't gone colorblind yet, have you?"

"No."

"Then there is nothing to fear," I said as encouragingly as I could with ten demigods staring at me with their mouths hung open in shock. We had already revealed too much. "Did you have something to tell me? Something you need?" I asked lightly, glancing at the other demigods out of the corner of my eye.

"Yeah. I-"

Not here, I interrupted in his head. He was well used to it now, and gave no indication that he was having a conversation with me. I am trying to recruit demigods. Let me dismiss them first, and then we can speak.

James gave a slight nod.

"Um… Lesson over for today, demigods! Mother, can you take them somewhere? To… play?"

"Of course." My mother led the children outside quickly, shutting the door behind them so fast that none of them had the chance to say a word in protest.

You may have ruined our chances with these demigods. My mother's voice sounded angrily in my head. They are uncertain if what you say is true or false. This broken bond will not heal easily.

I know, Mother. I will attend business after that of my son's.

"So, James," I said. "Why are you here? Have you run out of hair dye? I made sure you had more than enough, and even a magical bag to carry it in."

James ran a hand through his hair. When he pulled it out, his hand was covered in a light dusting of black powder. Sure enough, when I looked closely at his hair, it looked more dark brown than black.

"Yeah," said James, staring at his hand and wiping it off on his pants. "I think I do need some more, but that's not why I came." He paused with a nervous look on his face. "This quest is taking too long."

"What?"

"It's taking too long, Father," he said. "I'm tired of wandering around New York with those stupid campers. We should be in California already! Isn't there something you can do? Can you get me some transportation to the Roman camp? I don't think I can survive another day with them." I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off. "No! Don't say it! I know you want me to just suck it up and deal with it, but I can't. Not this time."

I thought for a second. "I can provide transportation…" I said slowly, "but only if you help me."

James's face split into a grin. "What do you need?" He knew that I never gave him tasks that were harder than he could accomplish.

"Talk to the demigods. Explain to them why we are better than the gods. If they see someone more around their age, they will most likely listen more."

"That's it?" he asked.

I confirmed it with a nod of my head.

"But how?"

A slow smile spread across my face. "Son, I know just what you should do. I just hope your acting skills are up to it."

Ruku's POV

The nice-looking middle-aged lady shoved us, gently, back into the large cell we had been in. Before that had happened, I actually thought she was nice. But now, I was really starting to have doubts.

The door shut almost silently behind her. All ten of us stared at the door and exchanged glances. Who knew when they were going to let us out again? And why were we in a cell?

Our answer came in the form of a teenager crashing through the left wall of the cell.

I had been playing poker with Jane, Wred, a nine-year-old son of Hermes named Zen, and a nine-year-old daughter of Nike, Serena, using small pieces of hard dirt as poker chips. A deck of cards had been tossed through the slot in the door a couple minutes before to entertain us.

My mother was a gambler, and growing up, I quickly learned her skills. Wred was a son of Athena, and picked up the game quickly. Zen was naturally good at gambling games, being a son of Hermes. Serena, as a daughter of the goddess of victory, couldn't lose easily. But Jane had no chance. Demeter had no poker skills to give her, and her father was a teacher.

We all scrambled back from the dirt wall in surprise when it caved in, sending dust into the air. A boy with black hair and green eyes walked out of the dust. He started grinning when he saw us. Behind him, the dirt raised up to patch the large hole in the wall.

I ran over to the wall and slammed my hand down on the dirt. It was hardening, and in a matter of seconds it was just as hard as before, if not, harder. I punched the wall half-heartedly a couple more times, just hoping that it would fall down.

"Don't bother," the new boy said. "It's probably as hard as rock at this point. Just wait a minute and we can probably find our way out of here."

My attention focused on him. "How did you get in here? And why are you so confident? We're trapped… in a locked cell."

He laughed. "I can see that. It's just another test."

"Test?" I wondered out loud. "A test? Where they lock you in a cell?"

"How long have you been here?" he asked, frowning.

I looked at Wred, who had a watch. "About half an hour," he said. "It's been getting boring. They dropped the cards in about fifteen minutes ago." He gestured to the deck of cards lying on the ground.

"No," the boy said, frustrated. He obviously lost his temper easily. "I mean, how long have you been here? As in this titan camp. Not this cell." He tapped the ground with his foot.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe a couple of days."

He nodded. "So you must be one of the newer ones." He glanced around at all of us. "Are you guys demigods?"

"Yeah," I answered for all of us. "How about you?"

For once, the cocky grin slipped off his face. "I… I'm kind of an exception, you might say."

"What do you mean?" asked Wred, his cool and calculating look back on his face.

"I'm… a demititan."

I was speechless. Demititan? Was that even possible? There was only demigod. The gods had children… But the titans did too?

Wred wasn't surprised at all. Or if he was, he just didn't show it. Man, he had one hell of a poker face. The look on his face said that he had expected that, and the only emotion was acceptance. I guess that's exactly what you would expect from a son of Athena.

"What are you then?" Wred asked bluntly.

"What do you mean, what am I?" James had a confused look on his face. "Didn't I just tell you? I'm a demititan."

"So there's nothing different about you? You're just the same as demigods, except with the blood of a titan's instead of a god's."

"No, there's not really anything different… It's just that I'm more powerful than most demigods. The titans are way older than the gods," he explained when Wred's eyes widened dramatically, "so they naturally have more power. And as a son of a titan, I am naturally more powerful than most of the other demigods. But the children of the Big Three are like equals to me."

Wred nodded slowly. "I guess that does make sense. The more powerful the parent, the more powerful the child?"

"Yeah…" The boy looked Wred up and down, stopping at Wred's intelligent gray eyes. "Son of Athena?"

"Yes."

"That explains why you talk like an adult. But it doesn't explain why you guys aren't already out of this cell." Before Wred could take offense, the boy walked over to the cell door and started tampering with it.

"There's no way you can open that door," said Wred. "I've already tried."

The boy turned back to us, grinning. "I've got more than a few tricks up my sleeve. Literally."

To my surprise, he reached up his left sleeve and pulled out a ten-inch sheathed dagger. He pulled another identical dagger out of the opposite sleeve. His arrogant smile grew wider, and Wred snorted, rolling his eyes.

"Not impressed yet, son of Athena? What are you, nine years old?"

"How did you know that?"

The boy laughed. "You look nine," he stated plainly.

Wred sighed.

"I'm smarter than I look," the boy said. "There are some people in the world who can think. And it's not always the children of Athena."

Wred made no reply to that.

The boy, not hearing a comeback, turned back to the door. With three swift slashes from the twin daggers, the door fell inwards with a loud thump.

He turned back to us. "You were saying something about not being able to open the door?" He stuck his head around the edge of the doorway, peering down the long hallway. "All clear… Shall we?"

"Wow," breathed Jane. "I did not see that coming."

"I'll bet you didn't," the boy replied, sheathing his daggers. "Let's go!" Without waiting to see if we were following, he turned and started jogging down the hallway.

Jane followed him without hesitating, pulling Violet along with her. I stepped out after her. The rest of the demigods followed me. Wred was the last to come. He looked uncertain to go with someone we had just met, but probably decided that it was better than staying in the cell.

"Wait!" Wred cried.

The boy stopped and looked back at us. He smirked when he saw that Wred had spoken. "Yeah?"

"You said it was a test. The titans give their children tests where they lock them in cells, and see if they can escape? The gods must be better than that."

The boy's eyes darkened. "The gods are not better than the titans. This kind of a test is my father's, a titan, way of training me for the war, so there is less of a chance of me dying. The gods chose to ignore their children. They do not help train their children, and instead send them to a camp. Most campers there never learn how to fight properly." Wred was centered in the boy's dark glare. "Do not ever say that the gods are better than the titans."

There was a camp? For demigods? I didn't even know that it existed, let alone where it was. I was starting to doubt the fact that Apollo cared about me and wonder if Apollo even knew about me.

Wred backed down. "Okay," he said in a small voice.

I stepped forwards, pulled Wred behind me. "Okay. Where do we go now?"

The boy smiled again, and it seemed like the glare had never even existed. "That's easy. We find my father and tell him that I succeeded."

(1) This might be a bit confusing. Just try to imagine a small, circular shield. Now imagine a single intricate design on the front in the shape of, well, a dagger. There is a button on the hilt, disguised as a black gem. You press it, and the dagger is released from the shield.

AN: I seem to be getting less and less reviews. Oh, well. I guess I can't complain. But review! Please?

And I also need a beta. Not just grammar, spelling, etc. But I think I need more help on the plot. There are too many choices to choose from. So if you want to be my beta, please PM me! Thanks, and I hope you liked this chapter! :D