XXXIII

Leo

(A/N: This is more of a filler/exposition chapter. Please read and review! I love it when I receive feedback on my work. And no, it doesn't have to be good.)

As Alabaster walked towards them, they all instinctively drew their weapons.

"What kind of monster is he?" Percy whispered.

Howard Claymore (Leo liked to think of high, esteemed people in their full names) sighed and walked off the gangplank as well. "We're not here to fight." He said. "We're here to help. Alabaster here is a son of Hecate."

"For the last year, we've been doing research," Alabaster said.

"I don't recognize you from camp," Annabeth said.

"That's because I pledged to never go back there. Going back would only hurt more than help me."

There was a bit of silence for the next minute.

"So…" Percy said. "What kind of help would we need? Haven't we defeated the giants already?" He gestured to the now empty mountaintop.

"See, here's the problem." Alabaster crouched down and started drawing in the dust. Realizing that he probably wasn't here to kill them, the others crowded around him, trying to see what he was drawing.

"This is Gaia." He said, drawing a big rectangle. He then drew a line parallel to the top of the rectangle. "This is the surface of the Earth."

He connected the rectangle to the line with dozens of smaller lines. "As you know, Gaia has been rising. But have you ever wondered why she hasn't made a move until now?" Seeing everyone shaking their heads, he said, "That's because she's been creating anchors to the mortal world. She has been hooking herself to various geographical locations around the world and pulling herself up. Imagine a sunken ship being pulled up by ropes."

"Nice imagery." Leo commented.

"Thanks. Anyways, the reason why Gaia went back to sleep after the first Giant war was because all her anchors to the surface had been destroyed. As in, the Giants."

Leo took a bit of time to process that. "So you're saying that Gaia's created more anchors than last time?"

"Precisely. This time, she's taken a liking to anchoring herself to important geographical locations. You guys have been pretty lucky with your locations, because you destroyed one of them, the Necromanteion. However, Gaia has another ten of them: Calypso's Island," he stared at Leo for a bit. Leo fidgeted a bit, and he moved on. "Mount Olympus, Mount Everest, the remaining four giants, Camp Half-Blood and this weird place called Camp Jupiter. You wouldn't happen to know where that is, would you?"

Leo sucked in a breath. "So, dude. You know about the Roman gods?"

"You mean, like, the ones which Roman civilization adopted from the Greeks?"

"Yeah. Well, you see, the romans also have a Camp. In San Francisco."

Leo waited for his head to explode. But it didn't.

"Magic makes it kind of easy to cope with things like that. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Annabeth snickered. Everyone turned towards her. She stared back at them. "What? It's a joke. Lewis Carroll? Alice in Wonderland?" when everyone stared at her, blankly, both Alabaster and Annabeth sighed in unison.

"Anyways, you might have noticed that I said twelve, while I only listed eleven. That's because we don't know where the final one is."

Everyone turned silent. Not because they didn't know, but because the thought of having to destroy the Camps was impossible.

"Oh, and one more thing." Alabaster said. Annabeth giggled again. Everyone stared at her.

"Steve Jobs!" she yelled indignantly. "No? Fine." She crossed her arms and muttered something like "Schlemiel." or something like that.

"Anyways," Alabaster said. "We need to destroy this rock spire." He patted his hand on the spire in the middle of the mountain. "It should be pretty easy now that she can't really use it anymore. Trying to get it to go higher would be a waste of energy."

Leo walked right over to it and pressed his hand to it. After just a bit of heat, the rock loosened and melted. It definitely was a lot weaker than before.

"Everyone, out of the way!" Alabaster yelled. Annabeth and Frank ran out of the way as the entire mile of spire slammed to the ground and produced a shock so strong it could have probably been measured on the Richter scale.

As the smoke cleared, Alabaster carried on, "Well, you see, it's going to be pretty hard to destroy either of the both Camps. Not just emotionally," he added. "Physically as well- they're probably pretty massive. Plus, all the people there would probably die if they didn't evacuate."

"So, basically we have two days to do all that." Annabeth said. "That is physically impossible. Not only would we need to get from one place to another impossibly quick, we would also need to be able to destroy the anchors one by one. That would take too long."

"So, before we make any decisions, I would say that if we really want to know where the final anchor is, I would suggest finding Chronos."

"Kronos?" Percy asked. "Why? He's been scattered into a million pieces."

"No, Chronos. C-H-R-O-N-O-S. He's the god of time. If anyone knows where it is, it's him. Last I checked, he was in Sicily."

"Like, Italy?" Leo asked.

"Yes, Italy." Alabaster said. "Anyways, what I'm getting into here is that we should split up. There are way too many locations to cover, and besides, we don't need everyone to go to one place. Percy and Annabeth, you go to Sicily to find out about the last anchor. Frank and Hazel, you go and defeat all the remaining Giants, Enceladus, Polyphemus, Polybotes, and Eurymedon."

"Let me ask," Leo said. "Who the heck is Eurymedon?"

"Oh, king of the giants. Made to be the bane of every god ever made."

"What would that mean?" Frank asked.

"That would mean that using any godly power against him would do nothing. It's like a combination of every giant ever."

Frank pouted. "That's not fair! I wanted the easier jobs."

Everyone stared at him. "…Fine." He muttered. "But do you have any idea where they are?"

"Well, I found where Enceladus is. He's at Mount Diablo. Porphyrion, last I checked, he was marching south towards San Francisco." He smacked his head. "Now it makes sense. He's going to suck up the entire history of Rome!"

Wait, what?

Alabaster was pacing now. "He has these strange bronze tubes attached to him… they can suck up the most important parts of information from a location. As the center of Rome moved around, so did the information. Without the basis of Rome, the world as we know it would probably never exist."

"Wait, bronze tubes?" Hazel asked.

"Yeah. He's going to suck up the last, what, 2000 years of human history. Anyways, we're getting off topic. Leo, you go to Mount Everest, and Jason and Piper will go to Calypso's Island."

"Wait," Percy asked. Isn't Calypso's Island in the middle of nowhere?"

"Well, technically speaking, yes. But it is possible to locate. Leo can give you the details."

Leo looked up, his heart beating fast. Should he… "I went there once." He blurted out.

Everyone stared at him. "Anyways, I have this astrolabe that needs a crystal from her cave in order to function. I was tinkering around with it before the ship exploded."

"Speaking of which," Annabeth mused, "How did you find and repair our ship? Alabaster?"

Claymore sighed. "We were just walking along in Athens, when suddenly we heard giants stomping through the city. We followed them, and he led me to the wreckage. Alabaster used magic to repair it, realized that you were probably headed to Mount Olympus. So, I drove the ship there, and it just so happens that you were there as well."

He made his way back up the gangplank, gesturing them to follow him. "There is a lot of work to do, demigods. We must hurry, before we run out of time."

(A/N: Well, brace yourselves. This next 30 chapters or so are going to be insane. Thanks for reading, and remember to write something in that little box below this sentence!)