There's going to be a plot twist that basically skips 20 chapters in a few chapters time to help me wrap up the story in time.

Ok, I'm royally confused. For some reason, this chapter never posted... no wonder I was thinking, "How come I didn't get a single form of feedback when I posted this chapter?" Anyways, extremely sorry for this messup. I=

XXXVI

Jason

Jason landed hard on the deck of the Argo II, using a Roman to shield his fall. The said Roman "mhmph!"'ed in pain, but Jason stood right up and ducked as 3 swords almost decapitated him. A millisecond later, the holders of the swords were bowled to the ground as Leo whooped and jumped into them. Jason stood up and spotted Octavian at the helm, screeching at his followers to destroy Jason.

The said person propelled himself at Octavian using the windy air and tackled him mid-air at 30 km an hour. The poor kid didn't even get to respond before his head struck the deck, and although Octavian's helmet absorbed most of the impact, his head still lolled to the side and he slipped into unconsciousness and shock.

Jason stood up just in time to get tackled to the ground—by Piper. A millisecond later, he heard a sss sound and she screamed in pain. Jason, still groggy from getting the same treatment as Octavian, instantly bolted upright as a dead weight landed on him. "Piper!" Jason hissed and crouched down, saving her from smashing her head on the deck.

He put Piper down gently and kneeled over her. An arrow had embedded itself in her arm. It was only a flesh wound, and Piper was still kicking. "Don't tell me the great Jason Grace is worried," she teased. Jason sighed. "Wait right here," he said and jumped over her, dragging an Apollo kid back.

He watched as Will tried to pull the arrow out. However, when he touched it, the shaft smoked and Will gasped in shock, withdrawing his hand quickly and wiping it on his armor. "It has a corroding poison on it," He explained. "I can't pull it out without burning my hand to the bone."

Will looked at Piper. "Don't move your arm. At all." Piper obliged. "Now, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest, what number is your pain?" Will asked calmly, using the method mortal doctors used to decide which drugs to use.

Jason's girlfriend thought for a moment, with Jason extremely worried. "Probably… a one. It barely stings a little."

Will growled. "That's always the worst. Jason, the proper medical supplies for treatment of this poison is down in the infirmary, and I can't do anything until the fighting stops and the ship stops rocking around so much." Jason nodded. "I'll do my best."

He looked up and examined the fighting, which was still evenly balanced. A few Greeks had also began takeovers of other nearby ships. Jason bit his lip. He was just about to begin help "pacifying" the ship, when suddenly the Argo II rocked violently, followed by an enormous "BOOM!"

And then the deck began caving in. Jason stood there in shock as the entire upper deck's floor collapsed onto the 2nd level, and Greeks and Romans alike screamed and let out cries of shock as they tumbled several feet. Recovering, Jason shot one more look at Will doing what he could for Piper before jumping down onto the now debris-littered 2nd level.

"Damn," Jason muttered. He hadn't bothered to check if Aria had planted explosives elsewhere, and she had probably stuck a small stick of C4 on one of the support beams. Jason ignored everyone and ran down to the third deck, checking if the infirmary was all right. His wish was not fulfilled.

The entire lower deck was utterly destroyed, the beams only holding out because they were made of Celestial Bronze to support the ship. However, all the separate rooms were blown to bits, except for the engine room, which had a specialized explosive-proof structure. It stuck out rather oddly in the mess of wood, weapons and medical supplies. Medical supplies… Jason swore.

He almost flew through the floor to get back upstairs to Will. When looked at expectantly, Jason shook his head, a helpless expression on his face. Will's eyebrows scrunched up. "I don't what to do then. There's no other ship in this fleet with the proper supplies. Our only hope is to either pray to the gods or dock and rush Piper to the nearest mortal hospital, but other than that…" Will shook his head.

"You know, WE could help you," a voice suddenly said. Jason shot around and had his gladius out in a second, ready to attack the deep, unfamiliar voice. But apparently, the culprit was prepared. Before Jason could bring himself to bear, a cold hand grabbed his arm and twisted it, making Jason hiss in pain and drop the sword. He braced himself for an attack, but it never came. Slowly, he turned the rest of the way.

"Damn, just what we need," he muttered to himself. Standing in front of him was a ghostly Carthaginian hoplite, holding in 1 hand a shield with the mark of the Sacred Band*, the other was empty. A spear was strapped over his back, and a xyphos was belted to the hip. The soldier was wearing full armor, but behind his Corinthian Helmet, all Jason saw was a pair of pale-blue eyes. Everything else was pitch black.

Jason already had enough problems. Now he had to deal with an annoying ghost of Carthage.

It was then that Jason looked past the ghost and for the first time, realized that there was land. A peninsula was jutting out of the main coast, less than 15 miles away. At this distance, it was still kind of blurry, but Jason could make out the modern city of Carthage. He knew that the ruins of the old city were almost gone completely. All that remained of the original city Rome had burned down were a few buildings, like a chapel, amphitheatre, bath, and a few others. Jason remembered what the dude had said.

Snapping out of his gaze, he looked back at the Sacred Band and said, "What do you mean?"

The hoplite tilted his head. "I hope you are not deaf. Let me repeat it. We. Can. Help. That. Girl. On. The. Ground. You DO seem to have a thing for her," he mused.

"We're dating," Jason snapped. "What's dating?" came the reply.

He sighed. There was no time to explain. "I'll tell you later. Right now, Piper is dying of some poison, and the medical supplies were destroyed. We can't remove the arrow because of a corroding acid on—"

"I KNOW that. I've been watching your little play for the past 10 minutes. Quite desperate, you are. Haven't had a good love story since those filthy Romans," the hoplite gestured to said legionaries, "decided to burn down our city because they were bored."

Jason turned his face to check on Piper, as well as hide his warm face. "Though I guess that son of Poseidon and his partner were a rather interesting story…"

Jason ignored that comment and asked, "Ok, so you have some magic power to heal them. Obviously, you have some condition, though. What is it?"

"Quite simple, in fact." The hoplite thought for a moment. "All I want is to take some… revenge on those that destroyed my city. From what it looks like, we all hate them." He noted the carnage Camp Half Blood and Camp Jupiter. Another wave of Romans had landed, though the Greeks had pushed the Romans back towards the edge of the ship with their nearly impregnable phalanx. Without any room to flank the wall of metal, very soon, there would be many Romans drowning in full armor.

"What?" Jason asked. "You can't just murder 60 people in cold blood!" Even as Jason said that, he saw the hypocrism in his words.

"You arrogant people are all the same. You forbid me to throw around just a few people, and yet you harbor no ill towards Scipio Aemillianus, who burned down a city and slaughtered tens of thousands?" The hoplite demanded. At this point, the spear was in his hand and he was pointing it at Jason, who took a step back.

Jason gulped. "Hey, let's just negotiate for a moment..." he started, but never got to finish his sentence as Sacred Band soldier stepped forward with one leg and kicked Jason's knee hard with the other. He yelled in pain as his knee buckled and he fell on 1 leg. A picosecond later, a shield slammed into the side of his head, not with enough force to knock Jason out, but it sent him to the ground dazed.

"You don't seem in a position to negotiate much," Jason's attacker noted. Jason gritted his teeth. In the back of his mind, he began to concentrate the clouds overhead. The hoplite didn't notice.

"This is bigger than just revenge," Jason hissed. "I'm sure you've heard of Gaea."

The hoplite drew back and scratched his head. "Uh, not quite."

Jason told him about Gaea. He was careful to put in the worst parts about her and make her sound much worse than she really was…which was hard, because she was already pretty bad.

The hoplite just nodded, like he was listening to an old friend tell about a brave deed. Jason made it quick though, as soon as he heard Piper groan a bit, and began to work harder on gathering the clouds. He wasn't sure lightning would effect the ghost, but the bronze shield looked solid enough to conduct electricity.

When Jason finished his 3 minute retell, the hoplite asked curiously, "So, she wishes to destroy everything?"

"Uh, yeah," Jason said. He wasn't sure his story would be bought, but the hoplite didn't know much else, and he looked at Jason.

"If that is the case, then we cannot allow Gaea to defeat you. Carthage must remain, if only in memory. We will fight for you," the hoplite said with a bit of grandeur.

"We?" Jason asked. "Hey, it's not like I'm-" *hand quotes* "Forever alone, right?" The hoplite protested. Jason didn't answer.

"That girl is going to die soon," the Ghost noted.

Jason grumbled under his breath, "no shit, Sherlock." Then louder: "When can your ghost medic work his magic?"

The ghost scratched his chin. "The water is rocking the boat too much, and my friend can't perform his duty. You'll need to land." Jason swore. The Argo II was in it's usual position—the center of the entire fleet. He knew the only reason the Romans hadn't opened fire was to hopefully take the ship as a medal. However, the moment they moved, the Argo would be blasted to Kingdom Come. "Leo! Can you get this thing lift?" Jason called at the said person.

Leo looked at Jason like he was crazy. "If you don't realize yet, they sort of blew up everything except the engine room. Of course I can fly. Just fix my ship," Leo said sarcastically.

Jason growled. He was starting to panic from Piper, who was entering shock, but he forced his training to keep Jason's calm demanour. The only thing that kept the Argo from being dead in the water was the engines. Jason's mind was torn. He took a deep breath. "Leo, turn us to the shore. Divert all available power to engines and shields. We'll deal with any resistance on the way. "

"Uh, those kinetic barriers—not shields, are designed to block arrows and shrapnel, not ballista bolts, Jason," Leo warned. Jason snapped back, "I know! Just do it!"

Leo looked hurt, but Jason was too worried to apologize. He was probably acting paranoid, but Jason didn't care. He gathered a deep breath and walked to the edge as Leo began shaking a Wii remove up and down, raising what was left of the sails. Jason wanted to use the oars, but both sides had been smashed when the Greek and Roman triremes rammed her.

The Argo II slowly began to turn towards land. However, it was still way to slow for Jason's liking. "Hurry up," he growled at Leo. He probably shouldn't have used that kind of tone.

Leo turned on him with an upset look on his face and snapped at Jason, "I'd like to see you do better." Jason winced, but his Roman pride refused to let Jason be put down. "How about you do something useful for once?" Jason retorted.

"Excuse me?"

"You've done nothing this entire quest! You just moan about the paint job, or cry about being single!" Jason nearly shouted.

Leo's eyes narrowed, and Jason thought he saw Leo's hand turn slightly red. "I have to disagree," he said.

"Well NOBODY CARES!" Jason finally shouted. He realized what his mouth had been going on too late. "Leo, I mean- uh, I-"

"Save it for someone who does care," Leo snarled, before he left without another glance. Jason, freshly overwhelmed with guilt, sighed. The ghost hoplite, who had watched Jason and Leo's short shouting match, chuckled. "Leader, are you? You won't hope to defeat what's waiting for you on shore if you can't even get a friend listen to you, let alone unite the Romans and Greeks."

"What's waiting for me?" Jason asked curiously.

The hoplite waved his hand. "A security measure, a test that Athena placed to make sure whoever found the Bow was worthy."

"You know about the Bow?"

The hoplite snorted. "Of course. The entire reason my detachment is still in the mortal world is to guard it. Oh, and call me Agnes. My mother thought it sounded flashy…" he trailed off, obviously thinking about her.

Jason was now even more annoyed. He counted his list of problems—an angry Leo and possibly other members of the Seven, a dying Piper, two camps in a miniature civil war, and to top it off, a "test" waiting for him on shore; one he supposedly couldn't complete without unity.

First things first, Jason needed to dock and take casualty reports. Currently, both factions were exchanging arrow and ballista fire, though the Argo II's hull had held up decently. However, the sheer amount of it had begun to take its toll on the metal-plated hull of the Argo II, and dents were beginning to show. Meanwhile, the Greeks had disabled the weapons of several ships, but most of the time they had to hide behind cover or get a dozen arrows end up in his or her chest.

The nearest stretch of land was still a kilometer away, and 2 ships directly barred the path. Nyssa from Hepheastus asked, "What do we do about those 2?"

Jason grabbed the railing and scrunched his features. "Head straight at them. They'll want to move or they'll get rammed."

Nyssa nodded slightly, still upset about Jason yelling at Leo, who was downstairs doing this thing. Sure enough, as the Argo II's brislting ram neared the two ships, they began to move out of the way. However, they had begun to load extremely high powered close range explosive bolts, and did a real number on the Greeks and hull. Jason looked away as one of the quarrels smashed through the railing and sent 2 girls flying, as well as spraying up red liquid.

"Target the ballistas, disable them!" Jason barked and the Argo II's own gunners returned fire, the repeating ballistae each unleashing a triplet of oversized arrows, disabling 2 Roman ones.

The Argo II sailed through the gap slowly. And then Jason realized his mistake. The 2 ships, who had previously been reversing out of the way, now turned full throttle forwards, their rams bristling towards the Argo. Before Jason could even shout something, both triemes' Celestial Bronze rams tore into the Argo from both sides.

It was too much for the beat up hull to bear. Jason yelled to hit the deck as the center literally collapsed on itself, and the screching of metal and cracking of wood drove Jason nearly deaf as he ducked behind a shield he picked off an unconcious Roman. A couple Greeks were extremely unfortunate and were thrown off their feet, some into the water. Others were lucky enough to be towards the side or have time to grab something.

Forunately, the Argo II was an extremely tough ship, and it could still function at only 20% hull integrity, and even 2 ships ramming it from 2 sides wasn't enough to put it dead in the water, though it definitely slowed it down.

And the Greeks weren't about to give up yet. Just a few seconds after the noise subsided, what was left of the Argo II's weapons roared in defiance and screwed over the other 2 triremes' hulls, and Nyssa shouted, "Divert all power to engines! We need to make a landing or we're going to gain water."

Leo shouted something back, which was drowned by the shouting before Jason could make it out. Even as the 2 triremes that rammed the Argo II dislodged, the rams were designed to cause as much damage as possible when being removed, and Jason nearly went deaf again as the screeching of the rams tearing through wood filled the air, and people shouted to get the rams out.

The Hepheastus engineers use their amazing hammer magic (not really, more like pressure pads and TNT) to dislodge the 2 ships that were bogging the Argo II down, and they quickly left the Romans behind. A couple minutes later, Jason snapped back to reality as several demigods helped navigate the Argo aground in a rock-free area.

Normally, this could be bad for the hull, but there was no way to make repairs without dry-docking it. Jason watched, not sure what to do as Greeks jumped overboard, taking the Romans that they subdued with them. Jason took a headcount. 3 missing, 18 wounded, but no fatalities. Over 50 POWs had been captured.

He watched as Will and another Apollo kid helped lift Piper over the edge, using the ramp to ease her to the ground. He looked at where the ghost was… except he wasn't there. Jason whirled around, panicking, just in time to receive a blow to his temple and pass out.

xXx

"What do you want?" Jason asked, still attempting to wriggle free of his ghostly bonds. However, while they secured him to the wall, Jason couldn't feel them, like an invisible magnet was keeping his hand from moving.

Jason's assailant looked at him curiously, or what he thought was curious. It was kind of hard to tell since the guy still had no face visible behind his helmet.

"Oh, nothing from YOU. Although, there is quite a bounty on your head," the ghost mused.

"I thought you didn't know about this kind of stuff?"

"Oh, I knew about a bounty on your head. Who issued it was beyond my care until you told me. Thanks for that, by the way."

Jason growled. "And I thought you were one to trust."

The ghost laughed and took a threatening step forward. "Oh, but I am," he said. Then, the said person nodded and Piper materialized from the mist that was hanging around. She coughed and looked around warily, but her shoulder was no longer bloody and she looked healthy.

"Jason!" She exclaimed and hugged him quickly. "What happened?"

Jason sighed. "Oh, the usual," he said, trying to keep a cool, bored voice and hide his panic. "Get someone's trust, get betrayed, not know what's going on with anyone else."

Piper looked at him with a worried look on her face. "Are you ok?" She asked.

"I'm fine," came the bland reply.

"If you say so," Piper muttered and sat down against the wall next to Jason. She didn't have any bonds, Jason noted, then realized his own were gone as well. He frowned and stood up. No alarms went off. Nobody yelled in distress. No cake launched into Jason's face.

'Odd,' Jason thought. He took a step forward, expecting something to happen. Sure enough, something did. He tripped and fell on his face, muffling a groan of pain. Jason heard Piper sigh and face palm behind him. Jason quickly stood up and tried to recover what dignity he could, though embarrassment still burned in his chest.

"Uh… let's just go." Jason beckoned at the door and helped Piper up. They stepped outside and Jason shot his hand up, expecting the blow from a guard outside the door. Jason got a good grip on the hand that was ready to decapitate Jason, but he forgot other hand, and a ghostly arm with a shield in hand struck Jason's ribs with the edge.

Immediately, Jason's hand lost all its strength and his knees buckled, and his vision clouded a little. When he tried to breathe, Jason was rewarded with a sharp pain in his chest. He swore, realizing that the shield's blunt edge had broken at least 1 of his ribs. Jason leaned back and raised his arm just in time to block another strike from the shield.

Jason hissed in pain, the bones in his arms barely holding the stress. Jason tried to use his other hand to punch out the ghost's legs, but his hand passed right through. However, when his hand drew back, the foot kicked at him, and Jason didn't put his guard up, expecting it to pass through him.

Too late, he couldn't react as the milky, misty white foot darkened in color and became much more solid and the force of the kick nailed Jason square in his broken ribs. And that was too much for Jason. He collapsed on the ground, and blackness began to cloud his vision as Piper screamed and several thumps sounded, before a sickening crack rang through the circular room Jason and Piper had walked into.

Jason gasped for air as he was lifted up again, and pushed up against the wall by his neck. His tormentor, the same ghost that Jason had talked to on the Argo, looked him eye-to-eye-socket, and then shook his head in disgust. "I expected a little more from the great praetor of Rome. Your training is truly pitful. In fact, that girl fights better than you, and she's barely a novice according to what you told me."

The hoplite raised his sword for a finishing blow, but before it went in, Jason croaked, "wait…"

"What?"

"You want—you want a good fight? I wasn't uh, prepared," Jason quickly said. "If you let me heal, then we have a real duel. To the death, no holds barred. Ok?"

He prayed to every god that the ghost would accept. From what he knew, a Greek always wanted a good duel. It looked at him curiously, before nodding slowly and letting Jason dropped. "You have 2 days," it warned. "You may go back to the ship—outside the door behind me. Besides making them surrender, nothing has happened. But, if you aren't back by the 28th, every one of you will die." And he left.

Jason wasn't sure what happened after that. He only had one thought on his mind as the Greeks kicked open the door and dragged himself and Piper out onto a makeshift infirmary.

It was July 28th already. Only 3 days until Gaea was set to rise.

*The Sacred Band were a handpicked group of aristocratic Carthaginian hoplites.

Reading the HoH chapter 1 right now, expect a rant in my Hates story soon.

Hope you the way, I don't do anon review answers before/after my chapters, so if you want a question answered, PM it to me or ask me in a registered account so that I can reply to it. Next chapter will be around late this month or early next month.

Quote: I've got a problem for your solution.

Entertainment: Les Miserables.

Song: The Lightning Strike by Snow Patrol.