Detroit, one of the most dangerous cities in North America next to Los Angeles and Chicago. It was also the closest U.S city to the Canadian border, which meant it would be a prime target for the Norse gods. To here was where Danny's group was assigned. When they were out of the earth, the first thing they had to do was find a place to use as HQ.

d"It needs to be hidden from plain view," said Kyle. " Maybe somewhere underground somewhere, but with access to the surface."

"Like there," said Jessica, daughter of Aphrodite, pointing to an abandoned building near the river. From here they could see if any threats came from the Canadian border. And it was abandoned so no one would dare come there. It was as if it was a blessing in disguise.

"That's brilliant," said Kyle. The group headed into the building. Danny and Kyle and pried the boards off the building and the group went inside. Despite numerous cobwebs, there was plenty of space to stockpile weapons and supplies, and plenty of windows to spy from.

"This is a nice place," said Danny, looking around the building.

"And it's great for sniping," said Tyler, son of Apollo.

"So when do we go out and fight those Norse gods?" said Blake, son of Hermes, eager for a fight.

"Not yet. We need to make sure that we get this place refurbished and armed," said Danny.

"So, whose the leader of the group?" said Tyler.

"Danny," said Kyle.

"Me?" said Danny.

"You've had more experience than any of us, and you're powers with the earth gives us a huge advantage," said Kyle.

"He has a point," said Jessica.

"I'm cool with it," said Tyler.

"Same here," said Blake.

"So, leader, what's our first assignment?" said Kyle. The others looked at him expectantly. Danny was touched. Here he was, commander of the Olympian army, Detroit sector. He took a look at his group. Kyle, Caucasian, same height as Danny, moppy hair, hazel eyes, football player build, harsh yet gentle face. Jessica, Hispanic, shorter than him, but not much, nice formed body for her age yet a impassioned and a resilient fighter, black hair, and eyes that looked almost pink. Blake, Caucasian, taller than them all, brown hair, brown eyes, and a hard fighter to beat. Then there was Tyler, Asian, sharp-eyed, beefy arms for drawing a bow, taller than Jessica but shorter than Danny, black haired, and faded moustache. His body was like Danny's, built for speed. In all, a perfectly capable team.

"Let's get this place cleaned up," said Danny.

It took nearly two hours to get the building the way they wanted, but in the end it was a perfect hideout. The floor was dusted off so that the stone floor gleamed. The window boards were taken off and the windows were now specially designed to take in the sun during the day, and black out completely at night. The stairs were swept and the wood became as if the building was entirely new. The walls had shelves stacked with spears, spare swords and arrows, ammo for each of their guns, and food. They even set up a plasma screen and hooked up the XBOX 6.0 360. Once everyone was done, they settled down and relaxed.

Danny and Kyle were playing chess in the middle while Tyler and Blake were dishing damage in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2030. Jessica was brushing her hair and examining herself in the mirror. Suddenly, an Iris message appeared in the room. It was Chiron.

"Are you all settled in here?" said Chiron.

"Yes," they all replied.

"Good. So far we've had attacks in Los Angeles and some parts of Europe, but otherwise everywhere else checked in fine," said Chiron. "Be on guard while you're up here."

"We will," they all replied. The Iris-message faded away and the group went back to what they were doing.

When it was 12:00, Danny called lights out. Interestingly, no one groaned about or anything and went off to bed in sleeping bags they had brought. They all soon settled in, going to sleep rather fast. The last thing Danny thought of before he fell asleep was Alicia's face before he fell asleep.

(10:00)

The group was eating breakfast that morning. Each one had limited skills with cooking, but they could manage to make pancakes, eggs, and bacon. There was orange juice for them all as they ate their meal. Day one of city protection. Finishing their meals, they went back into the living room and went to put on their clothes. As the boys were dressing, Jessica stood back, very shy.

"Jess, what's wrong?" said Blake.

"Ummm, I'm a girl remember?" she said.

"And?" said Blake. Jessica shook her head in discouragement.

"I'm a girl!" she said. Blake must have been thick because he still didn't understand.

"Blake, she needs to dress by herself," said Tyler.

"Oh, why didn't you just say so?" said Blake. Jessica rolled her eyes. Once the guys were done she went into the room and closed the door to dress.

"Man, you are retarded," said Tyler.

"Why didn't she just say so?" said Blake.

"It's one of those unspoken rules," said Tyler.

"Unspoken?"

"It means we should know it without being told."

"That's stupid. Why not just say "Hey I need to get changed by myself?" I mean seriously?" said Blake. Tyler, Danny, and Kyle just shook their heads. Blake clearly wasn't the best when it came to the things women do.

Jessica came out after dressing, dressed in a hot pink tanktop and tight jeans. If everyone wasn't use to her presence, or in short for all of Aphrodite's children, they would have been oogling all over her.

"Okay, so what's next?" said Jessica.

"We really haven't decided yet. I'm thinking we should split up and scout different parts of the city," said Danny.

"It sounds like a plan. Here, everyone get these headsets to communicate to one another. And we also might need some armor," said Kyle.

"Don't you think armor will stick out?" said Tyler.

"Watch what I've been working on. Danny, take your shirt off," said Kyle. Confused, Danny did it. Kyle handed him a green shirt. Danny put it on.

"It's just a regular shirt," said Danny, feeling the fabric.

"Just watch," said Kyle. He picked up a pump-action shotgun off the table and aimed it at Danny.

"Wait, hold on, what are you...,"

BOOM! Danny felt himself get blasted to the wall. When he hit the wall, he thought he was going to die. Strangely, he felt alright. In fact, the only thing was the after effects from the force of the bullets.

"This shirt is..."

"Armor basically. It's actually shrouded with Mist so that mortals will think it's just a regular shirt. Now look at it really closely," said Kyle. Danny looked at it long and hard, and sure enough he saw he was wearing Greek battle armor.

"It's bulletproof and can deflect minor slashes and stabs," said Kyle.

"Kyle, you are a genius," said Danny, getting up. "But you didn't have to shoot me."

"You know how I like to conduct business," said Kyle.

We have shirts for everyone?" said Blake.

"Yeah. I got them all in our sizes. Wear them under your shirts," said Kyle, giving the rest of the group similar shirts, putting them on quickly.

"Now what?" said Tyler.

"Now, we scout."

4(4:00 PM)

"Any sign of anything out there Kyle?" said Danny from his perch on a bridge overlooking the river.

"None," Kyle replied.

"Jessica?"

"Nada."

"Blake?"

"Zip."

"Tyler?"

"Nothing," said Tyler. Danny cursed in Greek. Something should have came by now. Besides Upper New York, this was the one place where the Norse Gods were expected to send their forces.

"Where are they?" he thought. As he scanned around the area he saw the day-to-day water traffic of the Detroit River as Canadian and U.S. ships carrying their cargoes went up and down the river, many stopping at the port of Detroit just a few miles away. All Danny had to do was walk across the bridge and he would be in Canada.

As he scanned the banks, he noticed something odd. A group of twenty people were walking from the Canadian border towards the river. Now Danny was a New Yorker, and he went to view the river all the time, but what was strange about this group was that they had pale faces, black eyes, blank expressions, and black hair. As Danny looked on at them, he saw them enter the water.

"Illegal Canadian immigrants?" he thought. Sure America gained a new level of economic prosperity, but Canadians crossing the border? Highly unlikely. What startled him the most was when they completely submerged, walking through the water as if they couldn't breathe. A ripple on the water was all Danny could see as they walked on the bottom of the river.

"Suspicious much?" he thought. Using that as an incentive, Danny took off to the U.S. side and down a pier, the ripple always in his peripheral vision. He stood on the edge of a pier to where ripple was heading before it stopped and the first head popped up. Danny took out his M4A1 and aimed it at him.

"Who are you?" said Danny.

"Run away now child of the Olympians," said the thing, his voice with a heavy German accent and sounded like something from the pits of Tartarus itself.

"Come on, you ever heard of don't judge a book by its cover?" said Danny.

"Which is what you should do now," said the thing.

"Seriously, nothing is..." said Danny, but as he spoke these words the creatures grew taller and their skin became thicker and greenish-gray.

"Scarier...than...me...now," said Danny, his voice getting smaller as the monsters slowly grew until they reach their full height. Each was seventeen feet high, their skin in various stony colors. Some were grayish-black, others blackish-green. The skin covering their chests and stomach was more creamier colored, and each had horrible looking bald heads and 22 teeth, two of them canine-like. Each one had only a loincloth and metal armor on their upper bodies, wielding hammers, clubs, or pikes. The leader had on a metal helmet very similar to the ones the trolls in LOTR wore along with a two-handed battle mace. In all, they were the scariest looking monsters, and most vicious, Danny had ever seen.

"I think Peter Jackson had an idea of what trolls really looked like," thought Danny as he saw the similarity between the real-life trolls and the trolls in his favorite trilogy. He let loose his gun on the trolls, not stopping until the entire clip was gone. The bullets bounced harmlessly off their bodies and armor.

The leader of the trolls laughed, it coming out in howls that nonetheless sounded evil.

"Danny, are you okay?" said Kyle from the two-way.

"Kyle, we have a problem."

Kyle and Tyler were heading to Danny's last location. They looked around, wondering where he was.

"Where on earth can he be?" said Kyle.

THUD!

Danny fell to the ground right in front of him, beaten up and bruised.

"What the hell?" said Tyler, backing away a bit from Danny's sudden entrance before rushing to his aid.

"Dude, what happened to you?" said Kyle.

"They did," said Danny, pointing at the trolls running for them.

"Holy shit!" said Tyler. He pulled out his FAMAS and started shooting, as did Kyle. Danny took out his bow and arrow and began shooting, but at a slow rate from his arm. The bullets bounced off the trolls thick armor, as did the arrows. As Danny took careful aim, he aimed for the head of one troll and fired. The arrow pierced its eye and the troll howled in pain before it thudded onto the ground and turned to stone.

"Guys, aim for the head," said Danny. Their fire turned upwards towards the upper torso. Two more trolls went down before one of the threw its hammer at them. They all dove out of the way as the hammer smashed into the side of a building and embedded itself in it.

Their long-range weapons temporarily misplaced, the group took out their close-quarters weapons. Danny had a sword, Kyle had a spear, and Tyler had a kopis, an ancient Greek battle sword shaped with a curve and a finger guard with open space in between the two points. (Watch the movie Alexander. It's the weapon he Colin Firth holds throughout the movie, or just Google the word). Each one held a shield to protect themselves. The three demigods charged at the trolls.

Kyle ducked under a swing from a troll and stabbed his spear at the troll. The spear embedded itself into the armor, stopping the celestial bronze from entering the troll's hide. The troll swung its club and Kyle blocked it, but the force of the blow sent him flying into a building. He crashed through a window and was lost from sight. Tyler and Danny put up a brave front, but it was obvious that they were at a big disadvantage. The trolls were bigger, and their reach was long, and their attacks couldn't be blocked without them flying through the air.

One troll brought its hammer in a downward strike on Danny. Danny turned his sword in a sideways in the basic defense position he'd learned so long ago at camp and the two weapons met. Danny was forced onto one knee as the troll pressed its hammer with more force onto his sword, hoping to flatten the demigod beneath it. Danny's face started to sweat as he fought to gain control. He drew strength from the ground to give him what he needed. Slowly, he began to rise against the trolls effort.

The troll was amazed as its hammer was being raised up, away from Danny. With one more push, Danny pushed it away and cut the trolls hand off. Black blood spewed from the stump where the troll's hand used to be. It howled in pain as it clutched its arm. Danny stabbed his blade into the troll's leg, inwardly satisfied as the leg turned to stone, followed by the rest of the troll, still clutching its arm.

"Nice statue for the LOTR fan club," Danny thought. He knocked the statue down and watched as it shattered into hundreds of pieces.

The eight trolls watched in disbelief and anger and all eight charged for him. Thinking fast, Danny disappeared into the ground. The trolls looked around, dumbfounded. Tyler, having just been knocked aside while Danny was handling the one troll, came up behind one troll and crawled up its back. The troll shrieked and tried to use its' hands to pull the demigod off its back. Tyler came up to its neck and plunged his blade deep into the troll's throat. From the wound, stone crept swiftly down the troll until the entire thing was another stone statue. A troll next the to the stone statue swung its club through the statue to get at Tyler. Tyler was knocked off as the statue was smashed into dust.

Danny was about to attack another troll, but the leader of the trolls, recognized by wearing a metal helmet, picked him up, pinning his arms to his sides.

The troll grunted in contempt and threw Danny to the ground. His body slightly cracked the surface and he felt his body on fire from the blow, however it was washed away by feeling he was back on the ground again. Getting up as if nothing happened, Danny charged again. The leader saw the effect this had on him swung his battle mace. Danny dodged it and leaped into the air, sword ready to strike. He was just about to lop the leaders head off until a troll's fist smashed into his body and sent him hurtling into the side of a car. He smashed through the glass and went out through the other side of the car. Dazed, battered, and bloodied, Danny began to zip in and out through consciousness as the trolls got closer. The leader chuckled heartily to himself and raised his mace, ready to deliver the final blow.

Suddenly, the trolls stopped their motions and turned around as if under a spell. Turning his eyes this way and that to find the source of it all, Danny saw Jessica, her hands extended and hands moving as if in a dream-like state to beckon the trolls towards her. The trolls looked as if they were speechlees and moved forward unknowingly. Danny felt a hand raise his head up and a square of ambrosia placed in his mouth. Immediately a warm feeling washed over him and he regained his senses.

"Come on man," said Blake, helping him up to his feet. Still somewhat in a daze, Danny got his sword, leaving his battered shield behind. He saw Kyle was behind one of the trolls, ready to stab his spear into them if necessary. Tyler was beside him too.

"What's she doing?" said Danny.

"She's distracting them. It's something a few of Aphrodite's children can do," said Blake. Blake had a classic Greek sword at his side. He and Danny joined Kyle and Tyler, ready to pounce on the trolls.

"How long does it last?" said Kyle.

"Until she runs out of energy," said Blake.

"I've got an idea," said Danny. As Jessica continued her wooing, the rocks and pebbles around the trolls started to roll behind them, unnoticed by them. Danny was collecting them up and forming them into a slate of stone that could take out four of them.

Jessica couldn't hold on any longer and soon her arms came down, her hands to her knees, tired. The trolls snapped out of their state and snarled at her. Before they could deliver their final blows, a massive slate sent four of them into the side of a building. The other four couldn't do anything as they felt celestial bronze in their necks and were soon turned to stone.

"Thanks a lot Jessica," said Kyle.

"Welcome," she said. The group fell down to the ground, exhausted out of their minds.

"That (pant) was (pant) hard," said Danny. "Everyone (pant) (pant) alright?"

"Yes," they all replied as one.

"So day one down, and who knows how long afterwards," said Tyler. At that moment, they heard a rumbling.

"Day one not over yet," Blake groaned. They all got up to see two more trolls running for them.

"Attack pattern Macedonia," said Danny. Him and Kyle distracted the trolls from the front to distract them while the others attacked them from the sides.

The trolls came recklessly. It wasn't even much of a fight, even despite the demigods' exhausted status.

One troll swung at Blake, him dodging under the blow. His sword grazed on the skin of the troll, cutting it slightly, but not deep enough. He dove out the way from the trolls next blow, to which Kyle stabbed his spear up into the trolls ribs. Danny came up and stabbed his sword up to the hilt into the creature's belly.

Tyler and Jessica were battling the other troll, but this troll was more clever than the other one. He let his back turn to Tyler to seem like he was only focused on him. Jessica took her twin daggers and was preparing to jump onto its back, but the troll turned around in mid-jump and swatted her aside down to the ground. Knocking Tyler out of the way, the troll stooped in for the kill. It raised it's club, spiked with nails, ready to kill her.

Before the blow reached the ground, Blake jumped and pushed her out of the way just as the club came down. A nail scratched his shoulder, but other than that he was alright. Tyler dove under the troll and stabbed it in a very personal area. The troll howled in pain before it too was turned to stone. The day's battle was over.

Jessica stirred next to Blake.

"You saved me," she said to Blake.

"It was nothing," said Blake. The two looked at each other for a few painstaking seconds before they got up, helping one another up.

"So, overall, not too bad," said Danny, not a scratch on him.

"How did you...oh yeah," said Kyle, remembering Danny's healing powers.

"So what now?" said Tyler.

"Let's patrol around for a little and call it a day," said Danny.

They all got back around 5:00. They fell on their sleeping bags, exhausted.

"I hope it's not like this everyday, or we're all either going to be very muscular, or very mangled," said Blake.

"Let's hope it's the first one," said Tyler.

"I need to go take a shower," said Jessica, finding the strength in her to get up and head upstairs. Blake unknowingly watched her leave.

"I saw that," said Danny.

"Saw what?"

"You were checking her out dude," said Kyle.

"No I wasn't," said Blake.

"Denial," said Tyler.

"It's okay if you were. She's very pretty," said Danny.

"You're one to talk since you got a hottie like Alicia," said Blake.

"Oh man she is sexy," said Kyle.

"Just wanna jerk off to her all night," said Tyler.

"Knock it off!" said Danny.

"Chill down bro we're just playing with ya," said Kyle, laughing a little. "But still who wouldn't get with her?"

"Kyle," Danny said in a dangerous tone.

"Kidding."

Once they'd all showered, they all slowly went to sleep, save for Danny. He stayed awake looking out the window out towards the city lights. Making sure everything was clear, he got out a prism and drachma, positioning the harbor light to make a small rainbow.

"Oh Iris, accept my offering," he said. The rainbow shimmered.

"Alicia Johnson at Boston," said Danny. The rainbow shimmered again and soon he saw her, however she was facing away half-naked, about to put her night shirt on, seeing her naked back.

"Ali," said Danny. She silently drew in a surprised gasp and Danny got to see her front for a fleeting moment before she covered herself with her arms.

"Danny?" she said. "How are you doing that?"

"I forgot to tell you about Iris-messaging," said Danny, blushing slightly. She smiled.

"One moment," said Alicia, turning back around to put her shirt on.

"Come on, it's not like I haven't seen it before," said Danny.

"Oh, dissatisfied are we?" she said, turning back around.

"You know it," he said. "How's everything over there?"

"Nothing has happened lately. How about you?"

"We got attacked by trolls," said Danny.

"Trolls?" Alicia asked.

"Trolls. You remember when we watched Return of the King?" said Danny.

"Yes? What does that have-oh," she said.

"Yep, that bad. We barely managed to hold them off," said Danny.

"You're okay right?" she said.

"Yes, I'm better, just some scrapes and bruises, but they've healed already," said Danny.

"Just be careful okay," said Alicia.

"I will, don't worry about a thing," said Danny.

(Next week)

"Okay, that was too close, but it worked, and I think we're getting good at this," said Danny as they stood over the remains of the most recent troll attack.

"Yep. It's not a problem once you get to know the way they fight," said Kyle. "I just never knew that dwarves, besides midgets, really existed." The group had also been attacked by dwarves, just as deadly as in LOTR, except more devious and tricky. They gave them problems at first, but in the end the group prevailed.

"So you think we can handle anything they throw at us?" said Blake.

"Please, what do they have left?" said Tyler.

Unfortunately for them, so much more.

Sorry its been too long