Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Story: Guardians of Light and Justice
Chapter 6: Old Friends
Percy's POV
"Yes, I understand." Chiron said as he galloped off towards camp. Annabeth and Thalia just stared at Nico and me in silence, a very awkward silence. Thalia looked the same to me with her black spiky hair and blue eyes. I couldn't help but stare at Annabeth, she looked the same as I remembered with her beautiful blond curls and her piercing gray eyes, they reminded me of her mother's, but I always thought Annabeth's were more alive. Mr. D cleared his throat and we all turned to look at him.
"I think we should go into the big house, I think the meeting room is a more appropriate place to talk." Mr. D said. We all nodded in agreement.
"Lieutenant, please get the needed equipment." I ordered. Nico nodded and ran off toward the hovercraft. I followed Mr. D, Thalia and Annabeth into the big house.
"What equipment?" Thalia asked.
"We need to make sure that any listening devices are disabled or blocked." I said plainly. Thalia and Annabeth both looked at me strangely. I followed them into the big house and sat down at the large table in the meeting room across from my two old friends and Mr. D. Nico came in just as we sat down. He placed a computer and a three dimensional projector in the middle of the table and I motioned for him to place the five smaller devices on the walls of the room. As Nico placed the devices he flipped a switch that turned a red light on the device while emitting a low humming noise. Once he completed setting up the small devices I hit a control on a larger device that was attached to the computer in the middle of the table. Another louder humming sound could be heard and then the red lights began to flash in unison.
"Good now we're safe to talk." I said. Thalia and Annabeth gave me another worried look.
"Paranoid much?" Thalia asked. Nico and I looked at her and smiled broadly.
"You can never be too careful in our line of work." Nico said. I nodded in agreement as I turned on the three dimensional imager to show an image of the meeting room and three green lights flashing from the ceiling.
"What's that?" Annabeth asked as she looked at our equipment.
"The three bugs that your spy placed in this room. It's safe to assume that he or she has placed many throughout the camp." I said.
"Shouldn't we destroy them?" Thalia asked.
"No, I can use them to find our spy, hopefully before they initiate the real attack." I said. I noticed Nico smiling beside me as we saw the surprised looks on the faces of our old friends.
"What do you mean real attack?" Annabeth asked.
"I thought it would be obvious. The drakon attack was used to gauge the strength of our forces and to determine how many guardians were in camp. They probably even know our identities by now. I must assume that they will prepare and initiate an attack appropriate to our strengths and weaknesses." I said logically. Thalia and Annabeth both stared at me in stunned silence.
"You don't seem worried Commander, why is that?" Mr. D said. I noticed Thalia and Annabeth looking at him curiously, probably wondering why he addressed me as Commander and not Peter or even Percy for that matter.
"The spy only saw a few of our strengths and our only two weaknesses." I said.
"Those would be?" Annabeth asked curiously.
"There are only two of us." Nico said.
"We rely on the sun for part of our power; namely our armor and some of our fighting ability." I said. I could tell that they wanted me to continue. "You see our armor is regular celestial bronze, except when it is exposed to sunlight then it becomes indestructible. Our skin when exposed to sunlight doubles our strength, speed and reflexes beyond the normal. Without the sun we have to rely on our normal immortal abilities which are two times as strong as our normal demigod ones." I could tell by the stares that Annabeth and Thalia were giving Nico and I that they wanted to talk to us without Mr. D in attendance.
"Mr. D could you excuse us, Nico and I need to speak to the ladies alone?" I asked. Mr. D looked at all of us and smiled.
"Be nice children." He said. I looked at him in the eyes when he said that I could see the fear there, it reminded me of the last time I had seen him. "I'm sorry Commander, old habit." I just nodded and Mr. D walked out of the room in a hurry.
"That was interesting." Thalia said. I looked back at Thalia and Annabeth as the door closed. "Why is he nice to you Jackson?"
"Let's say that my first year as a guardian was rather busy and I conducted a wide range of operations, including a midnight god-sitting operation ordered by Zeus." I said. Nico cleared his throat.
"Do you have something to say Lieutenant?" I asked. Nico nodded with an evil smirk on his face.
"That's not the story that I heard from Aether and Apollo. They said that Mr. D was causing a rather large scene at a bar on Olympus after winter solstice and Zeus gave you the assignment to restrain Mr. D." Nico said. I smiled a little at the restrain part. "It seems that the commander here fought Mr. D and put him in the Olympian infirmary for a month." Thalia and Annabeth both looked at me in awe.
"You beat up a god?" Thalia asked. I nodded in agreement, Nico laughed next to me.
"I'm glad that you think its funny Lieutenant." I said emphasizing his rank. "Now back to our discussion, you wanted to talk to us without Mr. D?" Thalia and Annabeth looked at each other and I could see the switch of anger and hurt turn on in their eyes. Here comes the yelling.
"Where in Hades have you two been?" Annabeth yelled.
"We were worried sick about you two." Thalia yelled.
"Do you know how terrible I felt when you disappeared?" Thalia and Annabeth said at the same time. I assumed Annabeth was talking to me and Thalia was talking to Nico. Thalia and Annabeth realized what they said and then I could see their cheeks turn red. They were about to continue yelling when I raised my hand.
"Can I talk now?" I asked, more like ordered. I waited for them to say something, but they didn't. "OK" I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry that I never told you where I was, but once I became a Guardian I was sworn to secrecy and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, friends nor family."
"Why?" Thalia asked.
"The council felt that the guardians needed to remain a secret so that the enemy wouldn't find out about our existence and to protect those we cared about from attacks by the Hand. They didn't want what happened to my mortal family to happen to anyone else's." I said. My bringing up my mortal family calmed their anger considerably.
"Percy, I'm sorry about your family." Annabeth said.
"Me too Perce." Thalia added.
"Thank you, but its ancient history now, nothing to worry about." I said. Nico gave me a look that told me that he knew better. I just gave him a look that said drop it and he did.
"So you've been a guardian ever since you left?" Annabeth asked. I knew she would ask this, but could I tell her the truth?
"No, I went away for a year I needed to deal with the pain and loss. I didn't want anyone around, I'm sorry I never returned to camp." I said sincerely. She deserved the truth, but not all of it.
"What made you become a guardian?" Thalia asked.
"I was in a temple in Nepal learning meditation techniques when Apollo and Aether found me." I said.
"Apollo and Aether; you mean the primordial god of light and the upper atmosphere?" Annabeth asked. Leave it to the daughter of Athena to know all the gods.
"The same, they are both on the Council of Light and Justice. They found me and persuaded me to become the first guardian and the leader. It took a year to setup the infrastructure of the organization before I expanded the team. Nico was my first recruit, actually your mother recruited him." I said.
"Nico my mom recruited you?" Annabeth asked.
"She sure did, she convinced me that I could protect people and their families from the Hand better as a guardian. She reminded me about what happened to my sister and I just felt this was right. Being a guardian is the best thing that ever happened to me." Nico said. He lied pretty well, but I knew better. I noticed that Nico focused on Annabeth when he spoke, I didn't see him once look at Thalia. I guess he's holding a grudge still.
"I can't believe my mother knew about all of this and didn't tell me." Annabeth said.
"She couldn't tell the council voted to keep the guardians a secret and that includes the member's identities as well." Nico said. That's what the council voted for, but that wasn't Athena's true reason, I remembered.
"Nico, I'm glad you're OK." Thalia said. Nico just nodded, he didn't even smile at her. Thalia for her part just shrugged off the cold shoulder that he was giving her. "I'm glad you're OK too Perce."
"Thanks Thals." I said. I looked back to the computer screen.
"What is it?" Annabeth asked.
"I think our friend the spy knows we are watching he or she hasn't tried once to listen in on our conversation." I said. I looked at my watch. "It will be dark in four hours. We can expect the attack some time after that, I hope Chiron has enough people guarding the fleece."
"So ladies how have you both been?" I said. Thalia and Annabeth looked at each other for a moment.
"I've been hunting, that's pretty much it." Thalia said.
"I've been designing Olympus since you both are there you've seen my work?" Annabeth asked.
"I have you've done a great job." Nico said.
"I don't get out of the office much except for missions, sorry." I said.
"You're telling me that the commander of the Olympian equivalent of the secret service doesn't have women throwing themselves at him?" Thalia asked. Nico started to laugh until I gave him the death glare.
"I have too much work to do. There is no time for a personal life." I said. I almost thought I saw Annabeth sigh in relief, but it was probably my imagination.
"What about you Nico?" Annabeth asked.
"I like to have fun, but I'm not seeing anybody." Nico said. I thought I saw Thalia give a slight smirk when Nico said he wasn't seeing anybody.
I heard Thalia sigh loudly and then she rubbed her hands together and gave me a determined look. "So what powers and/or weapons do you all have?" Thalia asked.
Good old Thalia, always right to the weapons and powers. "Like the hunters we have enhanced strength, speed and stamina because we are immortal. We have at least one blessing from each god on the council sometimes more than one. The blessings may be weapons or powers." I said. The conch horn sounded signaling dinner and interrupting my discussion of our powers and weapons.
"Dinner time, are you two going?" Annabeth asked. I wasn't sure, there may be other old friends and it might end up being awkward.
"We'll meet you both there." I said as Annabeth and Thalia left for the dining hall.
"Hey wise girl." I said using the old nickname before she closed the door. Annabeth smiled at the name.
"Yes?" Annabeth asked.
"Angels, you thought we were angels?" I asked incredulously. I saw Annabeth blush deeply as Thalia laughed from behind her.
"Shut up seaweed brain, see you at dinner." Annabeth said as she walked out the door. I smiled at my old nickname, maybe I needed to come here after all. I turned to Nico who was watching me with a stupid grin on his face.
"Straighten up Lieutenant." I ordered making Nico straighten his stance while wiping the stupid smile off his face.
"Lieutenant, let's disable the bugs in this room since the spy knows what we can do." I said. Nico nodded, he ran his hand over the controls and then three loud pops could be heard as the three bugs exploded from the electromagnetic weapon we just hit them with. I helped Nico pack up the equipment and we carried it to the hovercraft. As we left the hovercraft I stopped Nico before we left the beach. "I saw you trying to ignore Thalia, you should forgive her. She is a hunter after all, did you really expert her to leave the hunt for you?" I asked.
Nico's head slumped and he kept his eyes focused on the ground. "I know, but I thought she loved me." Nico said. I put my hand on my cousin's shoulder.
"Hey, little bro its OK, she's your cousin be nice to her. I don't think Bianca would want you to hold a grudge against Thalia." I said. Nico looked up at me and I gave him a reassuring smile. It was the first time in many years that I called him little bro, but I meant it. I always considered Nico as my little brother. "Come on let's go to dinner, dead boy." I gave him my old crooked smile and he just smiled stupidly in return. For the first time in five years I felt good, I didn't feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I hate to admit it, but Athena was right about this and maybe Apollo's right I shouldn't hold a grudge against Athena either. Nico and I walked to dinner and I prayed to the gods that our mission here would succeed.
AN: I know a filler chapter, but I wanted to have a little reunion of the four old friends and explain a few more things in the process. Next chapter is back to the action.