Hi gang! I said I'd update next week, but I didn't feel like waiting. This chapter's a bit on the short side, so I figured, why not?

Time for a little background. Thanks, everybody who read/reviewed! Enjoy!

III
PERCY

Percy should have stopped being surprised by now when Thalia didn't age. The last time he'd seen her had been almost a year ago, during the Giant War the previous summer when she and the Hunters of Artemis had joined the battle overseas. And now here she was again, standing there in the woods with her permanent appearance of a fifteen-year-old girl. At first, it wasn't a big deal. But the older he got, the stranger it seemed.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her as he stared at her in shock.

She shrugged. "I could ask you the same thing."

"You know what I mean," he argued, shaking his head. "What happened to you guys? We haven't heard from you since before the Shadow War started."

Thalia's smirk faded, her expression turning serious. "The Shadow War," she repeated almost sullenly. "So that's what you're calling this."

Just then, Annabeth emerged from the darkness, saying, "Percy, what's going on? We heard voices—" She broke off and stared as her gaze fell on Thalia. Then a grin slid across her face and without a word she rushed forward, throwing her arms around her friend. Thalia stumbled and laughed, returning the embrace readily.

"Nice to see you, too, Annabeth," she said, the smile back on her face. She grinned over Annabeth's shoulder at Grover, who had just led Tyler and Lydia through a pair of trees.

"Are the rest of the Hunters here?" Grover asked after greeting her.

Thalia jerked her head in the direction she'd come from. "Some of 'em. They're a few yards back, packing up camp."

"So what are you guys doing out here?" Annabeth asked, stepping back and folding her arms across her chest. "We've been worried since we haven't heard from you."

Thalia opened her mouth to respond, but Percy interrupted, "Wait, hold the phone." He pointed to the silver arrow still pinning his sleeve to the tree trunk and said, "A little help here?"

Thalia snorted in amusement and stalked up to Percy and his tree as Annabeth raised an eyebrow and asked, "What happened?"

"What do you think?" he replied dryly. Thalia reached up and grabbed the arrow, yanking back on it, but when it didn't pull free or even so much as shift position, Percy rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, thanks, I tried that."

As Thalia shrugged, he tightened his grip on Riptide with his free hand and raised his arm, swinging the blade down to slice the arrow in half. Thalia's eyes widened and she shouted, "No, don't—!" right before the Celestial bronze clanged against the arrow shaft, glancing to the side and jarring Percy's arm. He staggered a bit, surprised, and Thalia placed her hands on her hips and said, "You idiot. That's Olympian steel. You won't break it with that. You won't break it with anything."

"Well, you got any other bright ideas, then?" Percy shot back. "'Cause I don't plan on spending the rest of my life stuck to this tree. This isn't exactly the most comfortable—"

"Alright, alright, cool down," Thalia responded. She stepped back and cocked her head to the side. "Why don't you just take off your jacket?"

"Can't," he argued, tugging at the material. "You got my shirt, too."

"Hmm," she muttered. The corner of her mouth twitched upward and she looked sideways at him as she suggested with an odd air of innocence, "You could take your shirt off. I won't stop you."

He glared pointedly at her. "I'm not stripping for you," he said dryly.

He heard Annabeth stifle a giggle as Thalia shrugged and gave a short sigh, saying, "Can't blame a girl for trying. Annabeth, give me your knife." When Annabeth obliged and handed it over, Thalia flipped it in her hand and stalked up to Percy's tree. "Hold still," she ordered.

"You're not gonna cut my arm off, are you?" he asked, only half-joking.

She arched an eyebrow. "If you don't hold still, I might." Gripping the knife steadily, Thalia brought the blade near the shaft of the arrow and sliced it carefully through the fabric of Percy's jacket and shirt sleeve. He felt the pull of the steel arrow vanish, finally allowing him to lower his arm. Stiff, he straightened and swung it in a circle before twisting to examine the hole in his sleeve, just below his left shoulder.

"When did you get so tall?" Thalia asked suddenly, her gaze rising to a spot somewhere just above Percy's line of vision.

He grinned, realizing that she seemed shorter than he remembered her—however ridiculous that sounded. Even Annabeth was taller than her now. "We can't all be immortal maidens who never age," he replied wryly, though he noticed all the irritation had faded from his voice now that he was free of her arrow.

She cocked her head to the side, conceding the point. "So now that we're all separated from trees," she said as she handed Annabeth her knife, "how about we head to my camp and have a nice long chat? I've been dying for a few good stories."

-ψ-ψ-ψ-

As it turned out, Thalia had been traveling with seven other Hunters, all of whom were gathered in a small clearing not far from where Percy and the others had run into her. As per usual, they weren't exactly happy of the company and when Thalia requested that they stay a while longer and talk with the others, the remaining Hunters were sure to sit a short ways away from their lieutenant and her friends—though they made it a point to throw the occasional dirty look their way, and Percy tried not to notice that almost all of those looks were directed at him.

Thalia promised to tell them what she and the Hunters had been up to, but first she wanted to hear more about the Shadow War and the absence of the gods. As expected, they hadn't seen or heard from Artemis in over a month, and their ranks had grown worried for their leader's safety. So Annabeth, Percy, and Grover took it in turns explaining what they could about their journey the previous month—about the prophecy, Camp Jupiter's disappearance, Nico di Angelo's memory loss, and their discovery that Nyx, the primordial goddess of night, was behind it all. They told her how they'd located the missing city of New Rome and attempted to make a stand against Nyx during the lunar eclipse, and that it had all gone wrong. She had succeeded in raising her brother Erebos, the King of Darkness, from his prison and together they had blanketed the world in an eternal, starless night. And thus the Shadow War had begun.

Soon after that, Percy and the others had returned to Camp Half-Blood, taking all of New Rome's survivors with them, while all around them the world fell into disarray. Monster sightings were at an all-time high and chaos ran rampant in all major cities. The mortals, clueless and innocent as ever, were apparently attributing the constant darkness to strange weather patterns and global warming. Many places were in upheaval, even without the knowledge of what was really happening to the world. The Mist must have hidden the true threat from them, but what they saw when hellhounds and giants and dracaenae roamed the streets, Percy hadn't the slightest clue. Shops and restaurants had closed. Businesses were placed on hold. Homes were under lockdown. News stations did their best to remain open, unsurprisingly, but they were among the few. He didn't know what the majority of the people believed, but they obviously knew something was very wrong.

Recruitment efforts at Camp Half-Blood were increased, with teams of satyrs and armed demigods tracking down any half-bloods—claimed or unclaimed—who hadn't already been brought in (which was what Percy, Annabeth, and Grover were doing now with Tyler and Lydia). The place had become something of a refugee camp, a crowded, chaotic safe home for those victims of the war that knew what was truly going on. But in addition to that, the camp was, under Chiron's supervision, made into a command central—a base of operations for what the campers had started to call "the Resistance". The Resistance was made up of mixed Greek and Roman demigods and legacies from Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter, retired legionnaires from New Rome, and new recruits who had yet to belong to any one place. Their primary focus was defending the camp and discovering a way to defeat Nyx and Erebos—though of course that was much easier said than done. Much of their time was spent on recovery missions, combat training, weapon building and maintenance, and security. The kids from the Hecate cabin had set to the task of strengthening and maintaining the border around the camp, but it wasn't infallible. The occasional threat always slipped through, and when it did they had to be ready to fight it.

More than once, the Resistance had tried to contact Thalia and the Hunters without luck. Iris-messaging was down due to their lack of contact with the gods (though now they knew the reason for that—a reason Percy was sure to repeat for Thalia and Grover), and none of them carried cell phones. According to her, they had split their numbers into eight-person groups and spread out, trying to find Artemis and figure out what had happened to the world. She and her team were just headed to Camp Half-Blood when they'd run into Percy, Annabeth, and Grover.

"So you'll come back with us, then?" Annabeth asked after hearing this news.

Thalia nodded, her expression grim after listening to her friends' story. "Two months ago, I'd have said it's more dangerous to travel in large groups. But let's face it, now it's dangerous no matter what we do. Might as well bulk up our ranks in case anything big comes along."

"We should get going, then," Grover suggested, shaking Tyler and Lydia's shoulders. They'd fallen asleep on either side of him as the others had talked. "The sooner we get to camp, the better."

As they all climbed to their feet, a sudden and threatening howl sounded from somewhere in the distance, back in the direction from which they'd come.

"Wh-What was that?" Lydia asked as she and her sister gasped and huddled close to each other.

A second and third howl answered, followed by a distant growl. Percy felt his heartbeat quicken as a cold feeling crept across his skin, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, and Annabeth turned to him and muttered, "You don't think it's another hellhound pack, do you?"

His eyes peered into the darkness between the trees outside their small campsite and he replied in a low voice, "Probably the same one." Annabeth bit her bottom lip but didn't argue the possibility. Since the start of the war, monsters of all kinds seemed to be having a particularly difficult time staying dead. It reminded him of early in the Giant War, when Gaea had taken Thanatos, the god of death, captive and forced him to do her bidding. With a jolt, he remembered his dream—his father telling him that the gods were all bound in an enchanted sleep—and it suddenly made sense. If Thanatos as well was asleep, it was no wonder the line between life and death had been so blurred. Unfortunately, that meant nothing good for them. He had a nasty feeling that if Erebos wanted someone or something to stay dead, it would. Thanatos was another of Nyx's children, after all.

"Either way," Annabeth said after a beat, "I don't want to stick around to greet them. We've got to get Tyler and Lydia back safely."

"I'm with you," Percy agreed. "I've been covered in enough monster dust for the day. I'll be washing it out of my hair for weeks."

"That's assuming you actually wash your hair," Annabeth pointed out with a light smirk, poking him in the side of the head. He waved her hand away and shook his head with a wry grin, appreciating the attempt to lighten the mood.

As they all gathered their things and set off together through the forest, Percy couldn't help but think that eventually this darkness that had blanketed them would become so solid and complete that no amount of humor or hope would have a chance to lighten it. He shrugged the thought off, blaming the lingering remnants of his dream-visit from Erebos. But even behind that, he could feel a tiny shadow trying to form in his own mind, as if meeting the King of Darkness had opened a door inside him and what little light he had left was pouring out of it, slipping away like water through his fingers. And soon, he had a feeling that it would grow less and less easy for him to keep holding on.

So there's a bit about what's been going on since the war started. Now you can sort of see the more serious tone this story is gonna take. I promise there'll still be funny and happy bits, though, so never fear, haha.

New POV next chapter! It's another one I didn't get to do last book, so I'm kind of excited, haha. It's fun to expand and try some new people. We're back at Camp Half-Blood next chapter, too, for a good bit more backstory.

Reviews make my day, guys! No idea when I'll update next. I have the next few chapters done already, so next week definitely. It'll depend on my mood and how many reviews I get, heh heh :D

Later days!

-oMM