Hello! So sorry I haven't updated in a while, but guess what?

I got sick.

So that left me able to do absolutely nothing, which was absolutely WONDERFUL (sarcasm). I had so much fun sitting in bed and fuming at the wall in front of me, unable to do anything more than sleep, read, and watch reruns of my sister's TV shows on an iPod (which doesn't help your eyes one bit). Fortunately for you guys I got over the worse bits and am back on my feet, ready to roll!

And you know what the beautiful news is? (I still might be sick.)

So without further ado, I welcome you part two!

(But first a short something I know no one will read anyway because no one reads ANs anyway so I doubt there is anyone out there who knows what I'm saying right now.)

(In the reviews some people mentioned Percy was OOC, and someone else noticed that Hazel would have recognized Leo. Well, I'll try to fix the Hazel/Leo thing, but the Percy thing you'll just have to live through. [I had COMPLETELY forgotten about Hazel/Sammy/Leo, so that is why it is not mentioned. I am SO forgetful, I'm super sorry.] But it won't be fixed in this chapter because there was absolutely nowhere to put it in, but it will be somewhere, I promise. [Oh, and Hazel isn't having her flashbacks in this story. It would become too repetitive if she did.])

Leo

Leo had plenty of people who didn't like him. His Aunt Rosa. Most of his family members. All of his elementary teachers. But he had never seen such a large group of them join together to form—get this—a war against him.

Too many, he decided as they slipped past full-armour bearing Romans on their way to wherever Hazel thought the praetors would be.

They rounded a corner and Hazel automatically backed them against the wall again. "Back, back, back!" she ordered, trying to herd the others the way they came.

"What? Why?" Percy asked, trying to look past her. "Is it Octavian? Will he see you and recognize that you're not supposed to be here?"

"No," Hazel replied, still trying to get the Greeks away. "Even worse. My friend—"

"Hey, Hazel," said Frank, coming up to meet them. He frowned at the others. "Who are they?"

"…Friends," she came up with. "Frank, these are some… new arrivals I've been put in charge of showing around even though they haven't selected a cohort yet because of the battle preparations and whatnot." She cleared her throat and tried not to make eye-contact.

Taking advantage of the situation, Annabeth asked, "Do you know where the praetors are?"

"Yeah, actually," Frank told them, looking slightly confused about the whole thing. "I saw them discussing something way over back. But Octavian's with them."

Piper frowned. "How long do you think that'll last?" she asked.

"Better question," Hazel followed up. "How was he acting?"

Frank considered it. "Annoying, arrogant, big headed—the usual huge ego'd self he is."

Hazel nodded. "So Reyna and Jason won't be with him long," she concluded. She walked up to Frank and rested a hand on his arm because she couldn't reach his shoulder without looking weird. "Frank, we need to talk to them about something."

"But Hazel, what are you doing here anyway?" Frank asked as if it just occurred to him. "You're supposed to be at the Greek camp."

"We'll explain it later," she told him. "Now lead the way. Also, Percy, I think I made it clear enough while we were talking that he's a friend. You can put your sword away."

Percy frowned, but took out the cap of a pen and pressed it to the blade, and the whole thing shrank into a ballpoint pen.

Leo turned away, hands in his pockets. "I'm not even going to ask," he said.

-o-O-o-

They reached the area Frank told them he had seen the praetors.

"They're not here," he announced stupidly.

"No one's here," Piper said.

"Ah, well," said Leo casually, kicking a nearby rock across the clearing. "Guess it's time to go back to Camp Half-Blood. Hopefully we can get there with enough time to spare so that I can write my will and last testament."

Even Chime scowled at him by biting his ear.

Suddenly, though, a large and angry dog emerged from the shadows of a nearby building. Its eyes blazed red and it seemed to be made of pure gold. A silver one walked out behind it, both snarling and ready to attack.

"Uh oh," said Percy.

The gold one pounced on the nearest demigod in the group—who happened to be Leo. He fell backwards, and both he and the dog skidded across the cobbled ground at least five feet. Piper yelled out his name.

"Get it off!" Leo wheezed. Piper tried to, but the thing snarled at her and she shrieked, backing away. Percy and Annabeth both heaved out their blades, but they seemed hesitant to kill a metal dog.

"Aurum! Argentum! Get off!"

The gold dog whined as if it were complaining, but jumped to attention and trotted back to the speaker, who already had the silver hound lying at her feet. "Camp Half-Blood, you say," Reyna said, Jason standing behind her with crossed arms.

"No," blurted Percy stupidly, not realizing that these were the people they were looking for. "We're not Greeks. Not at all. Who made you think that? Like, I know you probably don't recognize me anyway, but—"

"Percy?" Annabeth whispered to him. "Shut up." She had recognized who Reyna was.

"Oh, I recognize you just fine, Perseus Jackson," Reyna replied, stroking the head of Argentum calmly (though Leo wasn't sure how long that would last). "Circe, I believe? But that does not matter now. Our two camps are about to go to war with each other, and as praetor of Rome I cannot allow that to happen."

"Technically, you're only 50% the praetor of Rome," Jason amended. Reyna turned to glare at him.

"Do we really have to have this conversation here?" she demanded. She turned back to the others. "Nico," she noticed easily. "How nice to have you back. And I see Hazel and Frank have joined your club."

"Yeah," said Frank. "Although I still have no idea what is going on."

"To the other two I do not recognize," Reyna continued, speaking to Piper and Leo, "I am Reyna, daughter of Bellona, and this is my boyfr—partner, Jason Grace. We need your help."

"Piper and Leo," Leo introduced with a wink. "But you can call me SUPREME COMMANDER OF AWESOME!" He turned to Piper. "Was that too much? Was yelling a slight over-action?"

Piper considered this. "Slightly," she decided.

"Yeah, well, we need your help too," said Annabeth. "You two are the head bosses around here. We need you to abort."

Jason sighed. "And you ask us to do that now, a few days before the attack? We never had a reign on the situation anyway. Octavian has been leading this entire camp the whole way... although technically we were the ones who stalked your camp for a week—"

"Jason?" Reyna whispered to him. "Shut up."

"So stopping won't work," said Percy, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "What about sabotaging?"

"We already talked about this," said Annabeth tiredly. "Sabotage would just seem like another declaration of war."

"Not if we did it remotely," said Nico, speaking up for the first time and surprising everyone. "Make it look like a ship malfunction by quietly hot-wiring the controls and magic."

"...That could work," Annabeth decided, thinking it through.

"We should split up in teams," continued Nico. "Jason and Reyna can call on a last-minute war meeting with the entire camp and take Hazel and Piper with them. Piper is a charmspeaker—she can pretend to be a prisoner of Hazel, one of the five sent to CHB—and distract the Romans while the others quietly dismantle the flying warships."

Piper seemed stunned. "What… how do you know that?" she spluttered, referring to his comment about her charmspeak. "Why does everyone know that!?"

"Doesn't matter," Annabeth interrupted. "The sabotagers can split up into other groups—Percy and I will take a few while Nico and Leo can another. Leo and I can quietly dismantle the ships' commands and make it so that they can't take off while Percy and Nico watch our backs."

"And me?" Frank asked.

"Oh." Annabeth hadn't realized he had wanted to become part of the group, only assuming that he had tagged along to show them where he had seen Jason and Reyna go off. "You can go with Nico and Leo."

Chime twittered, as if asking, And me?

"...We'll take Chime for ourselves," she decided. Chime flew down onto her shoulder and pecked at her blonde hair, deciding whether or not she was an enemy or a friend. In the end she decided she was the latter and snuggled up against her ear.

"We should probably also explain the prophecy," Leo added. Annabeth nodded and allowed for him and Piper to show their findings.

Reyna seemed intrigued. "Very interesting," she decided. "I suppose you aren't a complete loss after all."

Leo had no idea how to respond to that. "Uh, thanks," he said.

"The attack is in a few days," said Reyna, "but we can start the dismantling now. Later on in the week more and more people will be milling around the ships, so it will be much more difficult. Plus, we leave 24 hours earlier to get where we need to be, so we're really only here three more days anyway."

"Anyway," added Jason, "the warships are in the Field of Mars. There are half a dozen of them, so fifty campers in each. They are relatively small for warships, but as we are crossing the entire USA stealth was required."

"Alright," said Annabeth. "We'll wait here for Jason and Reyna to call on a camp meeting. Hazel and Piper, stay here for the moment. The rest of us will get ready."

The praetors nodded and left, Reyna's metal hounds following close behind. Percy and Annabeth left with Chime to discuss their strategies, while Hazel went off with Nico to talk about kid-of-the-death-god things. Frank tagged along because he had nothing else to do.

Which left Piper and Leo.

"Wow," Piper said after a fulfilling awkward silence was pronounced. "The prophecy is finally happening."

"Yeah," Leo replied, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Piper said nothing for a while, and then admitted, "Leo, I'm scared."

"What for?" he asked.

She hesitated, tried to begin softly, but then nearly yelled in frustration, "I have to distract a bunch of bloodthirsty Romans! I have no idea what to say! What if I'm not convincing enough and they figure out the trick and we're discovered and thrown in prison and Camp Half-Blood is raided, all because I couldn't hold the attention of a bunch of Romans!?" She stopped to take in a deep breath.

Leo tried to smile reassuringly. "You'll be fine," he told her.

Piper was about to yell something else, but she stopped herself, calming down a bit. She conceded in simply nodding, as well as slipping her hand into Leo's. He really hoped he wasn't blushing.

"Okay, Piper." Hazel had come back. "Because you're going to be a 'prisoner' we decided you should have your hands bound. I hope this won't be awkward to tie you up, but I won't make the bonds tight, I swear."

Piper glanced at Leo nervously and decided, "Okay." Piper held her arms out in front of her, wrists intersecting, and Hazel wrapped the coil around them twice, tying it off. Piper tested its strength. She could slip her hands out if need be.

Hazel wandered off and the praetors returned, minus the gold and silver dogs. "Ready, Hazel and Piper?" she called.

"Wait, Reyna," interrupted Annabeth just before they were about to head off, running up to meet her. "Where exactly is the Field of Mars?"

Reyna glared at her for a moment (maybe remembering dark 'Circe' memories?) but told her, "Just north of here. We're in the Via Principala right now, so all you have to do to get out is go through the south entrance, then walk this way…" She trailed off with her instructions.

Piper glanced at Leo again. "Worried?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "I've got fire and screwdrivers by my side," he joked, forcing a grin. "What could possibly go wrong?"

"Piper!" Hazel called. "Come on!"

"Coming!" Piper shouted back, turning to Leo again. "I hope this isn't the last time I see you alive."

"Same," he replied.

Then Piper leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Good luck," she told him.

"Piper!" Hazel called again. "We're waiting for you!"

"Okay, okay, I'm coming," she yelled. She looked at Leo once more. "Bye," she said. "Hope you don't die."

"Hope you don't die," Leo replied awkwardly, cheeks a bright shade of red. Piper walked back toward Reyna and Hazel and they took off to whichever death awaited them.

Percy walked up to Leo and wrapped his arm around his shoulders. "Don't worry," he said. "We're the good guys. We can't die."

Leo sighed. "I really hope you're right," he decided.

EEK PIPER KISSED LEO EVEN IF IT WAS ONLY ON THE CHEEK AND TOTALLY SISTERLY EEK EEK EEK EEK!

Anyway, I'm SUPER excited because a week ago they announced the making of an Artemis Fowl movie. Most of you probably won't know the series and thus don't care, but I'm freaking out right now. They better not mess it up, but the guy who made Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix is writing the script so I think we're okay here.

In other news, I recently published a new oneshot. (It's Artemis Fowl so most of you won't be interested.)

And we're past MODP for reviews! And at 290! If we get to 300 I'll seriously have a meltdown!