The setting sun painted the sky with blood and bruises. War was marching down its swift path toward them and the heavens were already stained with its marks.

A man knelt in the dim, cavernous room, fist over his heart. "Mother."

"Speak."

A lone soldier stepped out of the building. His dark hair shifted slightly in the faintly warm breeze. It was the time of day when the cold night air began to sink and swirl to the ground, chasing away the aridly muggy afternoon heat.

"The old headquarters have been infiltrated."

"Is that so?" The woman's painted nails drummed rhythmically against the stone arm of her chair. One, two, one, two - to the beat of imaginary war drums.

The twilight streets were empty and the air burned his throat. He scanned the buildings. Abandoned, of course. Had there been sign of life, he would not have been there.

"Several legions of monsters were destroyed. There are bullet and explosives marks on the walls and several doors have been destroyed."

"Interesting. Did they take anything?" One, two, one, two.

"There are signs of tampering with the mainframe. We suspect they took the plans."

Sand flurried through the air. He pulled up his mask and stepped onto the street.

"Good."

He stopped. Looked back into the tiny dark doorway with its fluttering rags, the door long lost in a windstorm. He did not look long. He straightened. Mother knew best, after all.

A smile spread slowly across Mother's face, just visible below her veil, beautiful and terrible. The drums stopped.

The dusty street beckoned. His footsteps would be the only sign he was there.

"Let them come."

When war came, he would be ready.

5 days later | 11:48am (unknown time zone) | Argo Base, middle of nowhere, ?, USA

"Status report?"

"Clickity-click-click, Weasley."

Rachel sighed. "Thought so. Hazel?" A cloud of gold fluttered and settled as Hazel shook her head. "Terrific." Rachel took a long, noisy sip of her triple shot caramel frappuccino. "Well, I haven't found anything either. Whoever did this, I hate them. They're a genius, but I hate them."

"Ditto," yawned Leo. He attempted to stretch and immediately regretted it. Searing pain created black dots that swam across his vision. It had almost been a week since the mission and his shoulder was still healing. It would be another month until he was allowed to do anything strenuous at all, and two before he was allowed on the field again. Thankfully, it was only a flesh wound (but it hurt). He screwed his eyes shut and waited for the pain to pass.

Annabeth glanced at him briefly, then shut her laptop. "I call break. We're not getting anywhere and we all need some proper food."

Rachel threw up her arms. "Oh, bless you! Froot Loops, here I come!" She flounced out of the room, leaving behind an empty Starbucks cup that was steadily rolling toward the floor.

"Proper food," Annabeth muttered. Leo made sure Buford was still running to while they were gone, then stood up to leave. "You should go get your shoulder checked again."

"Yeah." The empty cup hit the floor with a flimsy, plastic thud.

The infirmary was cold, but Calypso was colder. She had been mad at him for the past week for ruining his shoulder. One less person for patrol. One more person to bother her.

"Sit down. Jacket off." Leo complied. Calypso got to work redressing the wound. Some of Juniper's weird grass salve went on.

"So. Nice weather we're having."

Calypso put on fresh gauze. Her hands were cool against his skin. There was a moment of silence. "It's a little rainy for my taste."

She still sounded mad, but at least she was talking. Improvement from the day before. "Yeah? Well, it is winter."

Calypso finished bandaging his shoulder and sat back. She fiddled with the tape roll. "I'm an islander. I'm used to the sun."

"Who needs the sun? We've got you, Sunshine." He smirked, but inside, he was elated. Calypso rarely ever shared anything about herself (as was evident in how long it took for Leo to even learn her name).

She looked surprised. Leo could have sworn he saw a smile before her face faded back to passive anger. "Don't call me that." She didn't mean it.

"Well, since you're such a ray of sunshine all the ti-" She smacked his (uninjured) shoulder.

"Lunch time. Get dressed."

"Yes, Mom." He rolled his eyes. Painfully, (and with more help than he was willing to admit) he was able to shimmy his arms into his button-up. At least he wasn't wearing a shirt that involved neck-holes. He shuddered at the thought.

Leo followed Calypso through the maze of halls that he was now almost familiar with. He absent-mindedly picked at the edges of his bandage, staring at the pipes on the ceiling.

"Quit it."

"Sorry, Sunshine." She gave him a half-hearted contemptuous look and he grinned.

Lunch was ordinary as it could get in the Argo. (Leo still had no idea why they insisted on naming the base after a ship.) Percy, for a blessed meal, did not eat any blue food. Leo may or may not have started a food fight. Piper and Grover ate grass or something. Ordinary.

Halfway through the meal, Jason and Frank came in, shedding their jackets.

"Hi, guys," said Frank.

"Hi, Frank," Percy and Leo said in unison. Calypso heaved a sigh.

"Anything interesting?" asked Rachel around a mouthful of cereal.

Frank shook his head and grabbed a slice of pizza. "No. We had some time earlier, so we checked Titan again. The monsters are still there, exactly where we left them."

Calypso gave him a sharp look. "Who gave you clearance to go back?" Frank stuttered, his face an alarming shade of oh crap.

Jason rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I did." She glared and he held up his hands in defense. "We live in the middle of nowhere! We did our rounds and I thought there wouldn't be any harm in doing some extra surveillance."

"Do you not remember what happened last time?" she hissed.

Jason drew back. "This isn't about last time."

"It is! The same thing could have happened if you weren't careful!"

"We were careful! I checked the perimeter and we kept up communication the whole time."

"Because that helped so much last time."

"Last time wasn't my fault!" he said. Leo could see in Jason's face that he didn't believe himself.

"Guys," said Piper. "Stop it."

"Oh, so now it isn't your fault? Moping around the way you did, I would have thought you believed it was!" Jason winced. "And not only that, you became a detriment to the team by being reckless!"

"He was a part of our team and he was lost under my watch!"

"Well, maybe he didn't want to be a part of the team!" burst out Hazel before she clapped her hands over her mouth.

"GUYS!" Piper slammed the table.

Just then, a loud bang sounded upstairs. They all froze. Shuffling started and stopped. Silence. Jason switched off the safety on his gun. Uneven steps stumbled down the hall and down the stairs. Leo turned and saw that everyone else had drawn their guns and were pointing them at the doorway. He placed his hand over his own. Bang, bang, bang and the beat of Leo's own heart thudding in tandem. They jumped as the sound of a door violently slamming open echoed through the building. More steps now. They tripped clumsily closer and closer to the dining hall.

Nothing for a second, then-

A scrawny boy drowning in a tattered aviator jacket came careening down the hall and crashed into the wall at the corner, shaggy black hair hanging in front of his face. Percy's gun clattered to the floor.

Hazel screeched and rushed forward. "Nico?" The boy looked up briefly (dark shadows stained the skin below his haunted eyes) before he collapsed into her arms.

The room burst into chaos.

A/N: yikes... not my proudest work, but I struggled a lot with this chapter and i'm really glad I finally got it done. It's a little rushed and so far, the next chapter has been quite repetitive. anyhoo. here you go, kiddos.

For those who don't follow me on tumblr/haven't checked anywhere else, i'm now posting updates for progress and whatever on my tumblr (yumikat) under the tag "stiw updates". I've checked, and no one else is using the tag (i think, but maybe someone else is using this dumb acronym), so you could just follow the tag if my tumblr isn't for you. You can also bother me there for ideas you have about this fic or anything at all. I check tumblr a lot so if you message me, i'll probably see it!

Poll time! I have two questions for you guys.

1: do you prefer if I take longer hiatuses but have a few chapters queued up for you guys, or would you prefer slightly shorter hiatuses but one chapter at a time?

and 2: should I co-post this on ao3/tumblr/any other platforms that you guys prefer? i mean I love but man the font is so small. it bothers me a lot. Also the site itself has really ugly formatting. That's literally the only reason I hate it. Formatting. Ew.

As always, review and leave your suggestions for what you want to see in the future, because while I have a vague idea for where I want this to go, i am abysmal at plots.

Thank you guys so much for your patience. You're all the best and I cherish each and every review i get from you guys. Love y'all.

~Yumi