Okay, so here's chapter 2. Thanks to Ybird and The Poetic Nightmare for reviewing--yeah, I know the summary sucks. I'm working on that. Suggestions are appreciated and taken into consideration!

By the way, later in the chapter I briefly mention Io, a "victim of Hera's". In original Greek mythology, Zeus was constantly falling in love with mortal women, and Hera, in a fit of jealousy, would curse those unlucky women wheather they had anything to do with it or not. Originally, Io was turned into a cow by Hera and cursed into madness, more or less. So anyway, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own PJO

Ch. 2

The camp was impressive, to say the least. For a hastily thrown together tent city housing a menagerie of restless mythological nightmares, anyway.

As Hawkeye led me through the settlement, I couldn't help but quietly marvel at the familiar faces that had been scrounged up. Off to my right, a trio of darkly attractive empousa were perched around a fire that had been lit in a trash can. On my left, a traitor demigod was heaving huge slabs of raw, bloody meat to several of the biggest hellhounds I'd ever seen. They strained against their chains as they impatiently awaited the next piece of meat, their jowls quivering in anticipation. In front of me, some dracaenae and a Hyperborean giant were comparing weapons beneath a ragged mosquito net awning. A gloriously fearsome Sphinx pushed through the door of her tent as we passed, and exchanged a respectful nod with Hawkeye before stretching and bounding off into the night.

"Beautiful isn't it?" Hawkeye says quietly as we walk by a couple of telekhines beating the stuffing out of each other.

I nod grudgingly. "Where are we going exactly?" I ask.

"Zane," Hawkeye says. "We've got to prove to him that you're here."

I cock an eyebrow questioningly, and he explains. "Zane didn't think you'd be willing to come. Said you're too stubborn. He'll be pretty surprised, I think." I can't come up with a reply for that, so I stay silent as I limp along with Hawkeye. We pass many more soldiers, many of whom I recognize from our days serving under my Lord Kronos.

Finally, Hawkeye stops in front of a large black tent with a flag flapping high above it: a black scythe on a solid purple background. The symbol of Kronos.

The two demigods standing guard outside the tent entrance step aside for Hawkeye and me, but I catch their skeptical looks as they notice my unimpressive appearance. I try to ignore them.

Entering the tent behind Hawkeye, the first thing I see is Zane himself. He has his back turned to us, but I can tell he hasn't changed a bit. Almost seven feet tall and ripped with muscle, he cuts a spectacular figure, even from behind.

"Hawkeye!" he barks. "We've got--" he turns around, and his ice blue eyes fall on me. "What the hell happened to you?" he demands, not at all pleasantly.

"Fell down the stairs," I tell him calmly.

Zane scowls. "Where did you find her?" he asks Hawkeye.

"Digging through a dumpster in upper Manhattan."

Zane circles me like the predator he is. "Christine Savage," he mutters. "How long has it been since you've been in human form?"

I think for a minute, like it's actually a good question. "About eight months," I say, and Zane grimaces. He walks around me again, and I feel him taking in every bruise, every prominent rib I have, estimating how much fight I have left in me. Hawkeye stands off to one side, looking rather full of himself.

"Go get her cleaned up," Zane snaps suddenly. "And she could do with a bit of fattening up, too. We have enough walking skeletons at the moment." With that, he turns his back on us again and proceeds to act like we don't exist.

Hawkeye drags me out of the tent and back into the street. The settlement has begun to get more active; It's about six in the morning, and everyone is beginning to wake up. In half an hour or so, the place will be hopping.

I cast a dirty look back at Zane's tent. "You'd think he's never seen a street rat before," I comment.

Hawkeye snorts quietly. "Have you seen yourself lately?" he whispers. "I could have dug you up out of your own grave, the way you look."

I grumble to myself as Hawkeye leads me to several large boxes of faded but intact secondhand clothes. "You might be able to find something to wear," he says, pointing to one of the boxes. "Showers are in the gray tent on the left. It's not five-star, but. . ." he shrugs.

"Are you kidding?" I ask. "If it's clean water, I don't think I could care less."

He nods. "Find me when you're done and we'll get you a tent," he says as he walks off.

Riffling through the boxes of clothes, I find a suitable pair of jeans and a T-shirt that would have fit a six-year-old. I'm so dangerously skinny that it actually fits alright, even though I show off a good four inches of skin between the waistline of the jeans and the hem of the shirt.

Forty five minutes later, I am, for the first time in eight months, clean. To say that it felt spectacular would be an understatement. There's just something about washing almost a year's worth of blood and sweat and dirt off yourself that can't be explained. And to think that some people take a shower every night. Weird.

As I had expected, the activity level at the camp had skyrocketed by the time I step out into the weak early morning sunlight, dressed and tying my long red (and clean) hair back into a ponytail with a strip of cloth torn form my old sweatshirt.

A fistfight had broken out between an empousa and two powerful demigods. They rolled around on the asphalt, knocking over tents and cussing like sailors. Some telekhines watched the action from a distance, and I got the feeling they were taking bets on the outcome of the fight.

I start out in search of Hawkeye, getting a look at the camp as I do so. It was surprising that so many of Kronos's old soldiers had been discovered and recruited, and even more surprising how many new faces there were. I passed Echidna and one of her Chimeras, recently reborn, several years after being killed by a demigod not long after her encounter with Percy Jackson on top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

There were quite a few new demigods too, most of them pretty young. I occurred to me that Hawkeye might be beating Camp Half-Blood's satyrs to undiscovered godlings, and turning them against the gods before Chiron could twist them into thinking their immortal parents actually cared that they existed.

I spotted Hawkeye from a distance. He was talking to a woman with ram's horns and long, dark scars running across her face. Despite how much I hated Hawkeye, I couldn't help but notice how handsome he was, tall and pale and lithe.

Nobody was entirely sure where Hawkeye had come from. He had turned up in Springfield, Illinois one morning several years ago, and had caught the attention of a lieutenant of Kronos, who had recruited him into the army. He was not a demigod, but he did have some unusual, godling-like abilities. His silver eye could see into the third dimension, for instance, so he could often be found staring at objects nobody else could see with one eye closed, which was kind of weird. Ghosts liked him too, even though he was certainly not a son of Hades. The closest we could guess, he was some variety of mortal, male demon.

Because of his ability to see into the third dimension, Hawkeye had been hand-picked by Kronos to be one of his elite soldiers, along with a couple of others. I too had eventually earned the respect of my Lord Kronos, but it hadn't been handed to me. I'd had to fight my way to the top, like Zane.

Hawkeye spots me as I approach (his eye can also see through the side of his head, I think) and does a perfect double take. "Wouldn't have recognized you if you hadn't been scowling at me like that," he says. The woman beside him chuckles.

"Watch it, buddy," I growl.

Hawkeye ignores me. "Io, this is Christine Savage, our werewolf. Christine--Io Grates, one of Hera's victims. She's generous enough to share tent space with you."

I give him a look.

"Alright, she's the only one I can find who isn't terrified of you or won't kill you in your sleep," he admits in exasperation. "But still. Don't murder each other, please."

"I won't bother her if she doesn't bother me," I promise.

"Good." Hawkeye stalks off, looking extremely harried.

Io smiles slightly. "So how long have you and Hawkeye known each other?"

"About four years."

"How did you meet?"

I break out in a really nasty grin. "I tried to kill him."

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning, I had just stepped out of the shower when a telekhine waddled up. "Are you Christine Savage?" he asks.

I shake my head vigorously, splattering him with water from my hair. "Yeah."

"Zane wants to see you," he says, looking annoyed. "He says he has a mission for you."

"Already, huh?" I ask. "Thanks." I flick my hair over my shoulder, getting water in the telekhine's eyes. He curses me in ancient Greek as I walk away.

When I find Zane, he's pacing back and forth in front of his tent. A hellhound and a demigod stand behind him. I don't know the hellhound, but, the demigod I recognize. He's Damian Vasquez, son of Apollo. We've worked together from time to time.

"There you are," Zane barks as I approach. "Get in line," he orders, motioning to my spot beside Damian. I fall obediently into place.

"Savage, this is Damian Vasquez and Mokkan. You three have been requested to stop a pair of new demigods making it into Camp Half-Blood in about an hour."

The three of us wait patiently for Zane to continue.

"Their satyr is thought to be Grover Underwood, who also found the children of the Big Three. I don't care about him. If you get a chance to kill him, great, but you must stop those two demigods. They're twin brothers, sons of Demeter, thirteen years old. They killed two dracaenae by themselves a couple of days ago, without any help. If they ever get any proper training, they'll be a threat to us."

He turns to look at Mokkan, Damian and me. "It's your job to make sure they don't pass that magical border alive. I don't care how you stop them--kill them, capture them, I couldn't care less. Just don't let them escape. Got it?"

"Yessir."

Zane nods approvingly. "Mokkan, you can use shadow travel to get there. We'll send you in early so you don't miss them. Station yourselves in that tree grove about a quarter mile from the camp; They'll pass right by it, they always do. Savage, you are allowed a weapon if you wish, Vasquez, bow and arrows."

We nod.

"Good," Zane says, sounding like Hawkeye. "And remember," he hisses at us, "that if those two get into that camp, the consequences will be coming down on your heads. And you do not want that to happen."

Oh, yeah, like we really needed to know that.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next thing I know, I'm crouched with Damian and Mokkan the hellhound in the trees, just out of reach of the sunlight, all three of us watching the crest of the hill over which Underwood and the demigods would appear. To our right, the pine tree that marked the border of Camp Half-Blood was clearly visible, a little under a quarter of a mile away.

Our plan, while nothing spectacular, is the most effective option open to us. We had been informed that the demigods would be arriving on foot, which was good for us, since we were doing that too. Mokkan and I, both being large canines and therefore able to run much, much faster than the average demigod or satyr, would be in charge of chasing down the trio after they had passed, and Damian would defend us as best he could from a distance with his arrows. Damian's part in this plan was actually a lot more effective than it seems. I've seen that kid hit a passing butterfly from fifty feet away, in the middle of the night, in front of about sixty people. It was kind of unnatural, actually.

At long last, Mokkan's ears perk up, and he raises his head. I look at him, and he gives me a meaningful glance. "Here they come," I whisper to Damian.

Seconds later, Underwood appears in view, running for the pine tree, two boys with identical brown hair and hazel eyes right on his heels--er, hooves.

I quietly morph--the shape of my body changing, my eyes darkening, claws sprouting from my now-furry fingertips. Beside me, Damian draws an arrow and fits into his bow, drawing back the string.

He gives me a wickedly evil grin. "Get ready to rumble."