Chapter 6: In the Enemy's Territory

So, what's the plan?

Nico panted heavily as he and Reyna appeared out of the shadows. He didn't even bother to look if they truly were in Annabeth's office, which is where he had wanted to go to. Clearly, shadow-traveling with two people took just as much energy as shadow-traveling alone two times, he realised before he collapsed on the spot.

When he woke up, he knew he wasn't on the cold floor anymore. Rather than that, he was lying on a soft fluffy bed that he had missed so much while he was in the Underworld. He wanted to embrace the warmth of his blankets and fall asleep again, since he was still really tired, but he figured it would be best to find out where he was in the first place.

He escaped the warm, soft blankets and inspected the room he was in. His legs were a bit wiggly, but he still managed to walk around the room. It was rather small and other than a big closet, a nightstand, the bed and a chair, there wasn't any furniture in the room. Without any windows in it, the place was almost completely dark, which Nico didn't mind at all.

Figuring that he wouldn't get any extra information about his whereabouts in the room, he decided to leave. He opened the door, which sounded like it hadn't been opened in years. Checking his left and right, he walked outside the room and closed the door. It seemed like the cracking sound that filled the silence could be heard all the way to Olympus. He sighed, turned to his right and walked toward the light that could be seen from under the door at the end of the small corridor.

He expected to at least hear some noises, but it was still so silent that he would practically be able to hear a needle falling onto the ground - if there would be a needle there, of course. Nico grabbed the hilt of his sword, that surprisingly still was in its sheath, wary for any unexpected attacks. With his other hand, he opened the door - luckily, this one didn't make any cracking noises - and looked inside. What was there made him relax instantly.

The room itself was just like the one he had been sleeping in, but this one did have a window and a table. On the table was a pile of paperwork and the head of a sleeping Reyna. He sighed and let the Praetor sleep. The Ghost King figured she had been working herself to sleep and that if he would wake her, he would be dead instantly. Nico had learned that the hard way when they had been traveling to Camp Half-Blood together...

Instead, he walked toward the window to see where they were. As much as he could remember, this wasn't anywhere near the Command Center. He cursed silently as he saw where they were, careful not to wake Reyna up. Indeed, this wasn't Annabeth's office, or anywhere near the place in that matter. How could I have been so stupid to shadow-travel us here?, he asked himself. Must be the exhaustion, he figured as he looked at the buildings on Treasure Island.

Percy sighed as he sat on his chair. The looks everybody gave him were killing him, even though he understood why they would act that way. He was, after all, the enemy's leader. The son of Poseidon looked around him. The Meeting Room - how the humans called it - was enormous, but a bit unpleasant in his taste. It may be luxury, but it had no character at all.

The giant table was a good example of how distant everybody was to each other. Literally and figuratively. The farthest chairs were at least 30 ft away from his - there really weren't that many chairs, so they could have fitted around a 6 by 16 ft table easily...

Everybody went to their respective seats, while Piper, Connor and Travis kept standing - they hadn't been given any chairs, so Percy figured they didn't know where to stand. The only reason why the Stolls were here was that he didn't trust them enough to be alone with the enemy ranks. After all, he didn't want to deal with stolen wallets and fart bombs while he was here.

This way they wouldn't make any trouble. He thought. Their mischievous grins were saying everything, actually. He sighed again and turned to the Stolls. "Give it back to the rightful owner, guys", they looked shocked and wanted to protest that they didn't do anything, but with a scowl from Percy, they both sighed and took out a wallet.

"Hey, that's my wallet!", a man three chairs away from Percy exclaimed. Minister Wright of Justice, Percy recalled, Grumpy Guy... This is going to so fun! "Give it back right now..."

The Stolls muttered a "yeah, yeah", before Travis walked toward the guy and gave him his wallet back. They still had grins on their faces though, which made Percy frown. "The other one too..." The Stolls looked at him again, but saw Percy's best I-will-kill-you-two-if-you-don't-give-it-back stare, which he had improved by being with the sons of Hermes too much, and sighed again.

They took out another wallet and gave it to another guy, the minister of Information, Percy recalled. He didn't remember his name though, but he knew that he was at least a bit reasonable. Grumpy Guy looked ready to kill someone - mainly two certain children of Hermes - though. "Since when do we allow thieves here?", Wright gritted his teeth to contain his anger. "I will not allow this insolence."

Percy wanted to say that he sounded like Zeus, but he figured it wouldn't be smart to say that right now. In the back of his mind, he could already hear Annabeth saying: "Since when do you think about those things?!" He sighed as he thought about her.

"Why are those brats here anyway?! This meeting is none of their business", those words were what brought Percy out of his thoughts.

He scowled at the minister. Nobody insulted his friends. "Those brats, as you call them, are in fact the three highest ranked people in the army that I have sent to help you - next to me, of course. Since my army is leading the operation while the agreement stands, I would say that I am, together with Piper, Connor and Travis here, superior to you. So, this meeting is more of their business, than it is to you, minister."

"Why you little -", Wright stood up, but Barnes - Percy finally remembered the minister of Information's name - stopped him. Wright turned to his colleague with a shocked expression on his face. "Why are you stopping me? They stole our wallets, damn it, why aren't you angry?!"

Barnes sighed. "Well, I am angry and I believe this should not have happened in the first place", that last one was for Percy, who nodded in response. "But I also believe that Perseus" - Percy winced at the name - "is right. No harm done. Now, can someone please give those three a chair to sit on, so we can move on?"

After a few minutes, three empty chairs were put next to Percy's, so Piper and the Stolls could sit on them. Percy smiled at Barnes and took a deep breath. "Now, what's the situation exactly?"

Peterson, the minister of Defence, sighed and pushed on some buttons on the table that Percy hadn't even seen when he had first entered the room. Immediately, the even white surface of the table turned into a map of DC and the city's surroundings, showing multiple arrows pointing toward the city - most of them following the Potomac River. Percy grinned, knowing what it all meant, a plan slowly forming in his head.

After inspecting if their location was well hidden - which it was - Nico turned to the paperwork on Reyna's table. He picked some papers up, careful that he wouldn't wake the Praetor up, and looked if they held some useful information. To his surprise, the information on the papers wasn't about Treasure Island. In fact, it was about the situation in San Francisco. Nico figured that she had IM-ed Annabeth or Frank when he had been sleeping.

Apparently, it wasn't going well with the Western Stronghold - if you could even call it that way. The bomb that had caused them to be in this place, wasn't the only bomb in the area. The reason why the Mortal Forces had retreated was because of that, Nico figured. The bombardment had wiped out the city from Crocker Amazon to the Richmond District, leaving practically only the Financial District in their hands.

On another paper, he could see the casualties of that bombardment and let's just say that there were a lot of deaths. He groaned, knowing that he would have a lot of work when he would return to the Underworld.

He heard a small groan from a certain Praetor. Nico looked at Reyna, who had woken up and looked back at him. Then, she smiled, stretched her body and stood up. "So, you're back up", she noticed.

Nico rolled his eyes and nodded. "How long was I gone?"

"Around two days", Nico's yaw dropped at that, "I guess you really overdid your powers. Anyway, now that you're up, we can go back to the Command Center, right? Since you've read those papers, you know how hard they need our help."

Nico nodded, but frowned. "I know that, but I don't think that I have enough power to do that right now. I'm still really tired and have the feeling I need to recover my powers for at least two days." Reyna frowned at that, but still nodded, understanding that Nico was still tired. After all, he had summoned around 100 skeletal warriors all at once, plus shadow-traveling countless times. "But we can take advantage of that we're here", Nico offered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, even if I can't use my powers, I can still fight and so can you. What do you say if we kill some Mortal Force's reinforces?", Reyna gave him a smile and nodded. "So, what's the plan?"

[A/N]: So, here's chapter 6! A little shorter than usual - I'm sorry for that - but I hope this one reaches your expectations ;) More action in the next chapter and the chapter after that, so stay tuned ;P It's 10 pm here and I was writing non-stop this evening, so you could get this chapter ;) After all, I swore on the Styx ;D So, I hope you liked it ;)

You know, I always try to improve my writing, so any comments about that would be great ;D I know that I'm not the best writer on this site, so the main reason why I am on this site is basically just because I want to share my stories with you guys and to become a better writer :D So, please review with what you think of this story/chapter/idea ;)

To awesomeness: I'm thinking about introducing your OC's in battle, so you'll just have to wait a few chapters ;) I'm not going to make them huge characters, though ;) I'm glad that you liked the back-story :)

To expa: Thank you! :D I hope you liked this chapter too!

To 8EternallyMortal8: Well, back then I already had a few chapters done, but I wanted to update them at the right time ;) So yeah... I'm glad that you liked the Percy-showing-up part ;P I was really trying to make it cool, so I'm glad it worked out haha :P Here's the update!

To hting: Thank youuu :D

To Di Blythe: Hehe thanks ;P Don't fall off that seat, now ;P I'm not paying the doctor's bill xD Anyway, good morning to you and I hope you liked this chapter too ;D Love youuu xxx and speak to you soon ;)

'Till next time ^^

Xx Anny