Joanna

The devastation done to the city was beyond anything I had ever experienced. I had seen war and carnage before, but not at this caliber.

"How the hell did this happen?" Jimmy asked, still looking out the window. "What did we do?"

"It must have been when we interacted in the actual events of the past." I said, realizing our mistake. I punched the wall in anger. "RRGH! We should have never done this! Why couldn't we have just gone to the museum like everyone else?"

"Well we can still go back, right? I mean all we gotta do is find Ginger again, and…"

"And what?" I asked, looking at Jimmy. "Politely ask her to send us back? Even if she's alive, what are the chances of her actually knowing the spell?"

Just then, we heard a creak in the floorboards. We looked around for the culprit of the noise, but as we were, someone jumped down from the roof and tackled me to the ground. When he pinned me to the ground, he raised his knives to my throat and I managed to get a better look at him. It was my undead friend, Neil… and he looked terrible.

Instead of his usual buzz-cut, he had long hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in ages. His flesh was cut and torn in several places, including his right eye, which had been pulled out by something, leaving an empty socket. His armor was a lot like his skin, but instead of his assassin armor, he wore a soldier's uniform.

"Greek or Myria?" He asked me. "GREEK OR MYRIA?"

"Neil! Wait!" I shouted. "It's me! Joanna!"

Neil stared at me with amazement. "Queen Nightingale? Is that you?"

"Um, no sh&t? Who'd you think I was?"

"But… that's impossible. You're supposed to be dead."

X

Jimmy

Neil told us everything that happened. Apparently, because of our interference, Atlas didn't underestimate the demigods, so he sent wave after wave at them, and eventually all five of them died.

This led to the fall of camp half blood, and soon Olympus itself. Earth fell into total chaos as war broke out between them and the titans, but by the September sixteenth 2011, they had lost the war, and extermination was inevitable.

The people of Myria decided to close the portals to their world when they discovered this, but the titans were able to slip through. Soon they were able to send the rest of their armies, and have taken most of New Rome. They would have been able to hold the line, but Chronos's titan form alone destroyed every minor monster in the region, including wizards and witches. Now they're stuck in a war that Neil is afraid they can't win, and it's only getting worse.

That's when I told Neil about our involvement in all this. I couldn't bear to keep it from him, but when I mentioned it…

"YOU BASTARD!" He cried out, strangling me. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU"VE DONE? YOU'VE KILLED US ALL!"

"Neil! Stop!" Joanna said, restraining him. "We know we screwed up, but we need to get back to 2007 and stop this from ever happening."

Neil looked at Joanna for a second with dis-belief. "And how're you gonna do that? Everything we have with that technology's been either lost or destroyed. Unless…" Neil thought to himself for a minute, and then snapped his fingers. "Of course! There's a prototype Wand 2.0 in the Student Security labs in West Coast Academy. It's an artificial magic wand that'll grant the user three wishes. If we can get there without alerting the titans, you may be able to go back to 2007."

X

Unfortunately, we had to sneak past the large, battle-ready hordes of Greek monsters. It was a little hard considering I wasn't exactly a ninja, but Neil was able to cover up for my mistakes. We stole a boat in order to get to West Coast. It was located on an island off the coast of New Rome. There used to be a ferry to take people to and from, but it was nothing but floating debris now.

Eventually, we made it to West Coast Academy, our high school… or what was left of it. Instead of the gorgeous island it used to be on, it was reduced to a pile of rubble on top of a barren rock. The harbor town that used to stand at the foot looked like it was burned to the ground along with most of the docks that stood there. Along with the debris, there were large, purple flags with a symbol of a scythe in the middle on top of one of the ruined buildings.

"This island's been deserted for a year." Neil said, steering the boat. "I doubt there's anyone here."

We pulled up on the coast next to a broken dock. We exited the boat and walked up the trail to get to the main school, from there we would be able to access the elevator to reach the Student Security Headquarters.

The elevator was located in the basement of the school, which was luckily untouched by the war, although there were signs of someone using it as a base of operations. I thought it was the Greeks, but then I saw a green flag with a black skull, the symbol of the Undead Revolutionary Front, once protestors for undead equal rights, now made into militia. It looked as if they had left some time ago, as Neil had said.

Soon we found the elevator. We pressed a button and it opened as if it was almost new.

"Okay, get to the wand." Neil said, drawing his knives. "I'll stay here and cover your path."

"Okay, thanks Neil." I said as I walked into the elevator.

"Wait!" Neil said as the door almost closed. He put his hand in the door to stop it and it opened again. "The skeleton warriors Atlas summons will be a hassle, but this will help." Neil took out one of his throwing kunai and placed it in my hand. "Throw it at their feet when they're grouped together. Whatever you do, do not stand within ten feet of the blast."

I nodded. "Got it."

"Listen," Neil said. "Atlas will most likely try and send something worse after you when you kill the skeletons, but if you are dead-set on fixing the past, then I believe in the both of you." He stepped out of the doorway.

He ran back up the stairs as the doors closed. The elevator moved down as the music to, "Danger Zone" played. I smiled because I haven't heard this song in a while. I swayed my hips to it and hummed along.

"Seriously?" Joanna asked. I stopped and looked at her. "There's a war going on and you're dancing to Kenny Logins?"

"What can I say? I love this song." I said.

Joanna rolled her eyes.

The elevator stopped.

"Okay, this should be the lab." I said. "Let's get the wand and…"

As soon as the door opened, my eyes as well as Joanna's widened. The room contained at least twenty Greek monsters each with battle armor and celestial bronze weapons ranging from swords and shields to assault rifles, looting the lab.

There were giants, demi-gods, snake people (I forgot their names), and one large cat/scorpion creature. This really wouldn't have been so bad if not for the fact that they immediately saw us as we entered.

The Greek monsters stood up and pointed their weapons at us.

"You take ten, I'll take ten?" I asked Joanna.

"Screw you, I'll take eleven." She said.

"Whatever."

I slapped the tip of a demi-god's spear down. It flipped over, hitting the demi-god in the chin, and then I grabbed it and stabbed him in his chest. As I did, Joanna jumped over me, taking out her scythe, and tackled a giant to the ground.

After that, all hell broke loose.

Everyone with a gun shot at us while the ones with melee weapons charged us, which was a very bad idea. After I killed the demi-god, I took out the spear and whipped it around, hitting two snake people in their heads, knocking them down. After that, I threw the spear into the head of a giant trying to shoot me with a chain gun. He turned into dust as he hit the ground.

I was about to finish off the two snake people when the cat/scorpion tackled me to the ground. It gnashed its teeth at me and tried to stab me with its tail. After one strike, I crushed its arms with a squeeze. It yelped and I was able to get up. I grabbed its tail and spun it around, impaling it on a large spike connected to a machine nearby. It fell limp.

I looked back at the two snake people as they charged… er… slither-charged toward me. I ran at them, pushed them out of the way making them fall to the ground again, jumped into the air, and dive-kicked another demi-god, sending him to the ground. I slammed his head onto the ground and he was knocked out.

I looked over at Joanna, who was in the middle of punching a snake person in the face. As it hit the ground, another ogre, the last, smashed a club down where Joanna was. She dodged and cut the club in half with her scythe right before cutting his stomach. I would tell you more, but I was interrupted.

A demi-god shot at me with an UZI. I was caught off guard as the bullets hit me. I grabbed a shield that was dropped by another monster, ducked under the spray, and threw it like a Frisbee at him, hitting him in the head. He fall to the ground, unconscious.

The snake people came at me again. I punched them in their heads and sent them flying across the room, making them hit the wall behind them.

As the other monsters came at me, I picked up the UZI the demi-god was holding and opened fire. The monsters turned to dust one by one as the bullets hit them. Joanna finished with another monster by the time I was finished as she snapped a snake person's neck.

She walked to me as I tossed the spent gun away. Just then, we heard a clatter of metal. We turned to see the two snake men pointing their weapons at us… or at least trying to. They were dazed probably from all those blows to the head. A moment later, they fell to the ground. Joanna and I let out a sigh of relief.

Joanna looked at me. "Grab the wand and let's go."

X

We managed to find the wand and a spell book that came with it. The book wasn't as big as the original volumes, but it had a decent amount of spells within the pages. After looking through the index, I finally found the time travel spell. I spoke the incantation, and a yellow, transparent clock appeared around Joanna and I. After the clock worked its magic, we found ourselves back in Camp Half Blood in the middle of the big house.

"Yes!" I cried out. "We made it! We…"

That's when I noticed Mr. D sitting on a couch drinking Diet Coke out of a wineglass. He had spilled his drink as we appeared, ruining his nice suit.

"Oh… um… hi." I said, waving.

"What in Hades do you think you're doing?" Dionysus asked, trying to wipe the stain off his suit jacket. "You made me ruin a perfectly good suit!"

"Sir, listen, we don't have much time!" Joanna said, standing in front of him. "We need to know where Zoe and her party are. We have to warn them-"

"They just left for Manhattan an hour ago." He said, interrupting her. "What's this all about?"

"Sir, we need to be on that quest, lives are at stake!" I interjected.

Dionysus laughed. "Oh, that's rich. You two sound like Mr. Johnson. He wanted to go on this quest too, and…" His face went from happy to annoyed in a second. "He's following him, isn't he?"

"Yeah."

Dionysus groaned. "Why does he always do this? Every single quest, he has to go along. I mean his friend, Anabell is there, but even so. I have to deal with this."

"Wait." I said. "Before you go, we need to talk to him. Is there a…"

"Oh yeah." He said as he tossed me a Drachma. "Iris message. There's a fountain over there." He said, pointing me to a fountain. "Now if you'll excuse me."

He disappeared in a purple mist, which smelled like grapes. When the mist vanished, Joanna and I walked over to the Iris fountain and I tossed the coin in, which disappeared in the mist.

"Um… Percy Jackson?" I asked. I just remembered I had no idea how to work the fountain.

"Percy Jackson, por favor?"

No response.

"Please? It's my first time. Can't you just…"

Suddenly, an image appeared out of the mist. The face of a boy with black hair riding a Pegasus appeared.

"Percy!" I shouted.

He was so startled, he nearly fall off. "What the? Jimmy? Joanna? What are you…"

"Listen," I interrupted, "don't ask us how we know this, but at some point in the quest you're on, you will fail. If we come with you, we can help you succeed."

I realized how rushed that sounded, but then again, I was trying to get to Percy as fast as possible.

Percy looked at me like I was crazy. "What?"

"Okay, where are you right now?" Joanna asked.

"Um… Ground Zero, but…"

"Great!" I cried out. "Meet us somewhere close by."

"Well, there's an elementary school, but…"

"Great, elementary school next to Ground Zero, got it."

"Wait! What's going on? How do you know we're going to fail?" Percy asked.

"I can't tell you, you'll just have to trust me. Meet me at the elementary school."

"Well how do I know I can trust you?"

"Are you near the Empire State building?"

"I'm landing now, actually."

Joanna looked at her watch. "Three… two… one."

Suddenly, Percy was entangled in vines and the vision faded.

X

We used the second spell on the wand to teleport to Ground Zero. Immediately after, we looked for and found the elementary school Percy was talking about.

We stood in front of it, waiting for him. He must have been talking with Dionysus still. We would have stayed out there, and god I wish we did, but then Joanna sensed something.

"That's weird." She said, looking at the school.

"What?" I asked.

"It's the beginning of the day, right? So the school should be filled with kids."

"Yeah?"

"That's the thing. I'm sensing no heart beats in there."

I raised an eyebrow and looked at the school. I shook my head.

"It's probably nothing. Maybe you just haven't fed in a while."

"Y-yeah… maybe." She said, still looking at the school. "I… I'm sorry, I need to check this out."

Joanna began walking toward the school.

"Okay." I said. "I'll call you when he's here."

X

Joanna

I opened the door to the school and I instantly became aware of the situation. There were no children or teachers here, and it was eight AM. Something was definitely wrong.

I walked the hallway, looking for any signs of life. Suddenly, I saw it. A red trail on the ground leading to a room nearby. It was blood.

I took out my scythe and walked to the room. I reached the door and extended my hand to open it. I gripped the knob and turned it. As soon as I opened the door, I was greeted by stains of blood that filled the entire room.

Everywhere I turned, there was blood. It was either dripped onto the floor, or splattered onto the wall.

My eyes widened as I backed out of the room, scared. That's a first… I almost never get scared, but the blood was nothing compared to what I heard next.

"Ring around the rosie… pocket full of posies… ashes… ashes… we all fall down."

The one singing the song sounded like a little girl nearby, also the voice sounded… familiar. I don't know why, but I felt like I've heard this voice before.

"Ring around the rosie… pocket full of posies… ashes… ashes… we all fall down."

I continued down the hallway with my scythe pointed in front of me. I looked around, nervous.

"Show yourself, you coward!" I shouted.

Giggling.

"Ring around the rosie… pocket full of posies…"

A figure came around the corner. It was too far away to make out, but it looked like… a little girl? Wait… not a little girl! I remembered! I knew who she was!

"… ashes… ashes… we all fall down."

The girl faced me as she came out from the shadows. She had green hair, purple eyes, and she was wearing a nun uniform which was somehow in perfect condition. Everything about this girl cried out 'creepy,' but the worst part was her smile. Her smile was like something out of a creepy pasta picture on Deviant Art, the ones with the large smile and the small eyes, only it wasn't her eyes that were small, but her pupils.

The girl cocked her head as she spoke. "Hello… do you wanna play with me?"

My eyes widened. "Chaos?"

The last thing I saw was her lunging at me, and her jaw unhinging like a snake.

Yeah, that's right. I waited this long to bring her in. Sorry about that… anyway, if you're wondering what monster she is, you'll have to read the next chapter. Also, this is before she became an angeloid. Again, 2007.