David

It felt good to be back in the good ol' US of A. We got off the C 17 and started walking off the tarmac. Big Luke had made another sat phone call to KATE to come pick us up. Brandon was still a little bummed out that Dasha didn't come back with us. He must of been kicking himself for coming on too strong.

"Hello, Heroes," KATE greeted us.

KATE was waiting for us outside the fences. We walked over to her and exchanged greetings. She popped her doors and trunk and we loaded up. Brandon and I in the back, Brittany and Big Luke up front. Big Luke drove.

"Oh, how I've missed this," Big Luke concluded before he jammed the transmission in First and floored the accelerator, spinning the wheel to the left so we turned around on the deserted highway. The tires squealed as the back end swung out. The left turn turned into a right one as Big Luke corrected the Charger's path. He grabbed Second which allowed the tires time to hook up.

"Was that really necessary?" asked Brittany.

Big Luke flashed her a wicked half grin. "She's been sitting for a few days. Had to blow the gunk out."

"Jon Luke, I am receiving a Iris Message from Chiron," announced KATE.

"On screen," Big Luke responded.

Chiron's face appeared across the windshield. The frame was off set to the right so Big Luke didn't have to drive blind. Apparently, KATE had a IM filter so they didn't just pop up out of nowhere.

"Oh good. You've made it- Brittany? What are you wearing?" he asked once he looked around the cockpit of the Charger.

"That's a long story," replied Brittany.

"Alright, it's not important. What is important is that Percy has made it back from where ever he was. He is rallying the whole camp to Manhattan. The only ones Camp Half-Blood is the Ares cabin and most of the younger campers, including your brother. I need you to make your way to Central Park. You will be taking your orders from Percy," Chiron explained. "I will introduce you and your position as a Strike Team to him."

"You got it, Sir. We need to make a stop first at our Kill House but we can be there soon," responded Big Luke.

"If you are ready to leave before we are, feel free to leave early. I will introduce you when we arrive," Chiron responded before slashing through the Iris Message.

"Well, now it looks like we went from taking orders from a horse to taking orders from a sixteen-year-old kid. Does anyone else feel like this is a demotion?" asked Brandon.

"Let's just do our job and make it out of this thing alive. This is it. This is where it all comes to an end. Everything we've done, every enemy we killed, it leads up to this." Big Luke had started a rant. This was new. He had never done this before. "They are going to be gunning for us. We need to keep our heads engaged. We need to create chaos, even more than we already have. It's time to get ferocious, absolutely blood thirsty. Ooh-rah?"

"Ooh-rah," Brandon and I replied in low voices.

Brittany just sat there quietly in the front seat. She was staring at Big Luke. Not lovingly or lustfully but almost with disgust. Like he was some kind of maniac that needed to be put down. She didn't get to see this side of him very often. The warrior side of him. And I don't think she really liked it very much.

Big Luke looked at her then back at the road, then back at her.

"Sup?" he asked, turning back to look at the road again.

"What are you saying?" she asked blatantly. "I've never heard you talk like this before."

"It's just a pep talk," Big Luke replied.

"Well it scares me," responded Brittany.

Big Luke sighed like her words hurt him. On the battlefield, Big Luke was big, mean, and bloodthirsty. But when it came to his friends, he didn't want to scare them. He didn't want anybody close to him to be afraid of him. I think it made him feel like a dictator or something.

He dropped the car a gear and floored the accelerator. We needed to make up for lost time. The trip back to camp was quiet, like it should have been. It gave us time to mentally prepare for the times to come. I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen when we finally made it into downtown. I was hoping Percy would give us orders like Chiron did. Give us a task and let us figure out how to do it. We were the ultimate triple threat... and we should be utilized as such.

Big Luke turned off the country road that ran passed Camp Half-Blood to the- I guess it's more like a really long driveway- to the Kill House. Or at least, what was complete on the Hill House. It was still a long way from being complete. All the framework was complete and most of the siding was done, but the roof hadn't even been started and the inside was completely empty.

We finally arrived and the ramp dropped so we could park in the underground shop. We all climbed out to see Mathew still here, full decked in his Greek battle armor. He was dragging the tip of a sword that was much too big for him across the checkered flooring. His helmet was sitting there on a nearby table. When he looked up and saw his sister, he ran up and gave her a hug.

"I'm glad your OK," he told her. "But what are you wearing?"

"It's a long story," Brittany replied.

They pulled away and Brittany announced that she was going to go change her clothes. She mentioned something about having a clean set stashed away in the shop and then walked away to go retrieve them. There was a bathroom in the underground shop that she went to go change in.

"Why would she need a clean set of clothes way out here?" Brandon asked Big Luke.

"How the Hell should I know? Girls are weird. They feel like they need extra clothes for everything," He replied like he really didn't know. "KATE, pop the trunk. We need to load up all the weapons we can hold. We might need 'em."

Brandon and I started to load up the trunk with all kinds of weapons that Big Luke had the pegboard above a workbench. Big Luke asked Mathew to come over to the driver side of the Charger so he could talk to him.

"I got something for you," he told him as KATE popped the driver side door open and flipped the front seat. Big Luke squeezed in the back and pulled a plastic bag out from under the bench seat in the back. "I got you this while I was in New Mexico. I copied it in Celestial Bronze for ya. I think you're going to like it."

he pulled himself out of the back seat and sat in the front with his feet sitting on the floor. He opened the plastic bag and pulled out a sheathed knife. He dropped the bag and unsheathed the blade which was about five inches long or so. It glowed as it was Celestial Bronze. The handle was made out of a hard polycarbonate and there was a Celestial Bronze stub on the bottom for hammering stuff. The blade was a drop point design like Big Luke's Ka-Bar but not quite the same.

"This is what they call the SEAL pup, made by SOG. The bigger version of this was tested by the Navy along with several other knives. That's the one they decided to start giving the SEAL's." he re-sheathed the blade and handed it to Mathew who was standing there, listening intensively. "That's for you, to protect yourself and your sister. Also, I don't want you to walk into a gun fight with a oversized- Hey, David? Could you hand me that 10-22 with the banana mag?- an oversized toothpick."

I walked over to the pegboard and lifted the semi-auto .22 off the pegs that it sat on. I took the magazine out and cleared the chamber before handing it to Big Luke. Then I handed him a few extra mags for it. Mathew was going to need them.

"You remember how to use this?" Big Luke asked Mathew.

"Yeah, I remember," he replied. "I also remember slamming the chamber closed on my finger."

"And it taught you not to close it that way, right?" Big Luke asked with a mischievous grin, as if he didn't stop Mathew from hurting himself. Sometimes you just need to let people screw up on their own so they learn from their mistakes, he once told Brandon and I after we screwed something up early in our training.

"Yeah, I guess." Big Luke handed the rifle off to Mathew.

"Hey, Matt? What do you know about holding a gun?" I asked him, seeing if Big Luke told him the same thing he told us.

"It's like a woman. It's all how you hold her," Mathew responded with a big, stupid grin on his face.

"What was that?" we heard behind us in a quizzical, female voice.

I turned around to see Brittany fully dressed in jeans and a CHB T-shirt.

"Nothing," the four guys in the room replied all together.

Big Luke stood up and grabbed his BDU's that were sitting on one of the tables. Then he stepped into the bathroom to change out of his ripped clothing that he had been wearing for the last 24+ hours. Brandon and I changed out of our parkas and snow pants into our regular combat uniforms.

We finished loading up the car and finished hearing ourselves up. We had more guns and ammo that we couldn't possibly use in a life time. Big Luke buckled his helmet and turned towards Brittany and Mathew who were standing not too far away.

"Matt, do you know if the others have left yet?" he asked.

Mathew checked his watch. "Yeah, like ten minutes ago."

Mathew was standing there with his new 10-22 on a sling. We gave him two small leg panels so he can carry his extra ammunition easily. Big Luke gave them both bulletproof vests under their bronze breastplates. He was hoping that would be enough to keep them both safe.

Big Luke picked up his M16 and turned towards us. "Cocked and locked, ready to rock?"

"Let's knock some heads," I replied. Brandon nodded in agreement.

"Alright, let's load up and go kick some, butt," replied Big Luke, remembering Mathew was still in the room.

We all loaded up in the car and started heading for New York City. When we saw the demigod convoy on the freeway on the way to camp. They were driving causually through traffic as if nothing were really happening. Big Luke practically had to lock up the wheels just to avoid running into them.

"Figures. The world is about to end and the only army intending to stop it is driving at fifty-five miles an hour," said Big Luke.

"The last thing we need is a car wreck," Brittany told him from the shotgun seat.

"Uh huh," replied Big Luke as he dropped a gear and floored the accelerator. "KATE flash to pass."

Big Luke swerved to the left and we zoomed past the motorcade. I looked out the window only to see a bunch of confused faces looking around. They weren't necessarily looking at us, just around trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. we continued our snake path through traffic on our way into town.

"Active camouflage," Big Luke explained. "Installed it a while back."