Happy Friday, gang! And Happy Valentine's Day! Consider this chapter my Valentine gift to you ;) I don't think I have any pre-chapter notes. Things are moving along nice and smoothly. Thanks to all of you who reviewed last chapter! Enjoy!

V
PIPER

The Big House rec room was another one of the many things that had changed over the past month since the darkness had settled in. Before, they used to gather around the ping-pong table for council meetings. Piper had always found it just a little strange, circling the short, rectangular gaming table to discuss things as serious as prophecies and quests. But despite that, it had become one of the many Camp Half-Blood constants that she'd come to rely on. The table, for her, signified their ability to work together and plan, to figure out a problem and a way to solve it.

But now, the increased size of their meetings meant that they could no longer use the table unless they all wanted to sit around on each other's laps—and while the Romans and Greeks were getting along just fine, she couldn't see that happening anytime in the near future. They still held their meetings in the rec room, but it wasn't quite the same. The ping-pong table had been folded up and leaned against the left wall, out of the way. An array of chairs and sofas of all levels of comfort had been brought in and placed around in no particular pattern, leaving a wide, open space in the middle of the room. It was more of a sitting room now, but as Piper, Annabeth, Will, and Connor walked in that morning, the grim atmosphere reminded her more of a funeral than a comfortable living area.

Looking around, Piper noticed that almost everyone was already present and accounted for. Chiron the centaur was in his magic wheelchair, sitting quietly near the left wall with his hands folded and his eyes closed. Percy stood near him, leaning backward against the back wall with his arms folded and a frown on his face. Thalia was sitting on the arm of the largest sofa. Beside her on the cushion was Katie Gardner, head counselor of the Demeter cabin, who was sitting noticeably close to Travis Stoll, a hand intertwined with one of his. From what Piper had heard, the two of them had always appeared to hate each other—until about six months ago when they'd suddenly started dating. The only one who hadn't been surprised was Travis's brother, Connor.

Farther down on the other end of the sofa, the Hypnos head counselor, Clovis, was dozing with his head leaning over the back cushion. Nico di Angelo had claimed the wooden chair beside him and flipped it around, sitting on it backwards with his arms draped across the backrest. Across from him against the front wall sat Clarisse La Rue of the Ares cabin, who had commandeered two chairs—one for her and one for her feet. Looking around, Piper didn't see Butch of the Iris cabin, whom she knew to be in the infirmary with a broken leg, or Pollux from Dionysus and Lou Ellen from Hecate, though she didn't know where the two of them were. Maybe on a recruitment mission.

Reyna and Jason were present as well, both of them seated on metal chairs. Reyna looked just as serious and unemotional as ever, more in-control than most of the rest of the Resistance put together. Piper forced herself not to give Jason more than a quick, sweeping glance as she surveyed the room—just enough to take in his haggard appearance and tired, bloodshot eyes. She wanted to walk over and sit beside him, but when she thought of how stubborn and self-pitying he'd been acting lately, the flash of desire faded into an empty feeling of loss, and she averted her attention.

The ten centurions of the Roman Twelfth Legion Fulminata were scattered around the room, though most of them Piper didn't know by name. The skinny, blond augur, Octavian, was standing stiffly beside Reyna's chair, the corners of his mouth turned down in a frown so deep it was almost comical. The only other centurions Piper could name were of course Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque, who were seated on a small sofa together with their heads tilted toward each other in quiet conversation. They looked up as Piper and the others entered the room and smiled, though Piper noticed that Hazel's expression seemed a bit nervous. She understood why. Her predecessor, Dakota, had been one of the only two Roman centurions killed last month when Nyx had sacrificed New Rome in Death Valley, the other being a girl named Melina from the First Cohort. Afterward, Hazel had been hastily appointed in his place, but she had yet to fully settle into the role. Piper knew it had a lot to do with the fact that Dakota had been a friend of hers ever since she'd first joined the Legion, and taking his place as Fifth Cohort centurion would be a grim confirmation that he wasn't coming back.

As Annabeth moved to stand next to Percy and Connor seated himself on the big sofa between Travis and Clovis, Piper scanned the room one last time and started toward the cushy, moth-eaten armchair just to her right. She sat down on the edge of the chair's arm, leaning over her best friend where he sat on the cushion, legs crossed Indian-style and hands fussing over a small metal contraption in his lap.

"What's that?" she asked, cocking her head to the side to get a better look. It didn't help; the object still just looked like a hunk of machinery to her.

"Power converter," Leo Valdez answered without looking up. "Well, the core of one, anyway. You know how the lights over the mess hall went out yesterday? Turns out the whole line was fried from outside the camp—some kind of sabotage maybe, I don't know. Trouble is, we can't stick 'em on another line running close by or it'll overload. I figure the hall is close enough to the Sound we can run hydraulic power, but none of the converters we have are up to snuff. So me and Nyssa have been collecting them and assessing the damage. Think if we can, we wanna get all the power run this way to avoid this problem in the future."

"Oh," Piper said lamely, not really following but still wanting to be supportive. "That's… smart of you."

Leo finally looked up at her, shaking his head with an amused grin. "Don't worry about it, Beauty Queen," he said, and though he wasn't laughing she was sure she could hear laughter in his voice. "If I'd expected you to get it, I would've brought you in on the project."

Piper smirked and smacked the back of his head just as Chiron's voice rose above the quiet chatter, and Leo stuffed the mechanical contraption in his tool belt. "Will, can you close the door please? Yes, thank you. Alright. Now that everyone's here, we can begin."

"So what's this fantastic plan that's gonna solve all our problems?" Clarisse asked with a not-so-subtle hint of sarcasm. Chiron turned and nodded to Percy, who stepped away from the wall. He'd barely opened his mouth to speak, however, when Clarisse rolled her eyes heavily and spoke over him, "Oh, great. Should've known this'd be another one of Jackson's brilliant ideas."

Anger sparked in Percy's eyes. "Actually," he said in a voice of forced calm, "it wasn't my idea. It was my father's."

Piper felt her eyes widen. Clarisse, too, apparently had nothing to say to this, and only stared at Percy with her eyebrows raised. For over a month, they had tried to contact the gods with no success whatsoever. They had begun to think that their immortal relatives had all but abandoned them, letting Erebos take over and cover everything in shadow. If Percy had indeed heard from Poseidon, then maybe hope wasn't quite as lost as they'd feared.

"He contacted me in a dream last night," Percy went on with a glance at Annabeth. She nodded, and he explained how Poseidon had entered his dream and told him that the reason the gods had been so distant was because Erebos had trapped them on Mount Olympus in a magic slumber fashioned by the god of sleep, Hypnos, whom Nyx evidently had taken prisoner.

"So the gods want us to find Hypnos and set him free," Reyna guessed, earning an affirmative nod from Percy. Clovis snored a bit at the mention of his father's name, but otherwise didn't budge. "I don't suppose we've got any clues on where to look."

"I may be able to help with that," Thalia spoke up. "The Hunters and I have been doing some traveling, looking into the state of the world since this war started. There are two places that the darkness seems to culminate, like the shadows are thicker, more packed together. The first is here in New York, the second is Death Valley."

"That's where Nyx raised Erebos last month," Hazel pointed out. "On the night of the eclipse."

"My guess," Thalia continued, "is that she's still there. Probably with Hypnos."

There was a murmur of general assent and interest. A Roman Piper didn't know sat forward and said, "It makes sense."

"So wait," Travis said with a frown. "Does that mean since the other super-dark place is here, that's where Erebos is? If that's the case, why haven't we seen him? Why hasn't he made a move on us?"

"Perhaps he's biding his time," Reyna suggested, touching a finger to her chin in thought. "I hate to say it, but it isn't like we're getting any stronger or any more ready. What has he got to lose by waiting, really?"

"It could be good for us." Will this time. "Think about it. If he's just hanging out, that gives us time to track down Hypnos, right? So let's take advantage of it. Especially if we've got a good idea where he is."

"That's all well and good," Octavian put in, sounding irritable—though, as Piper had realized during their brief stay in Death Valley, he was hardly ever not irritable. "But if Erebos is here, then we can probably assume he's watching us. Don't you think he'll notice if we suddenly set off on a cross-country road trip?"

Chiron spoke next, his expression a thoughtful frown. "I suggest we send only a traditional team of three people," he said, sounding weary. "It may be risky, but also more likely to avoid detection. There's also the question of how to get there."

"There's always shadow-travel," Nico suggested. "Fast and hard to track."

Annabeth took a step forward and shook her head. "You can't shadow-travel all the way to California, it'll kill you," she said seriously. "And even if you could, there's no way you could take anyone with you."

"I think you underestimate me," Nico replied, raising an eyebrow.

Before Annabeth could argue, Leo interrupted, "Uh, guys, aren't we forgetting something? You know, a certain ten-ton mechanical dragon that's been dying to spread its wings?" He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows and everyone else exchanged looks, muttering about the validity of the suggestion. After all, Leo had finished repairing Festus to full working order two weeks after the start of the war. He hadn't been on any long-distance flight-tests, as they only left the camp on important business anymore, but the dragon had done laps around the inside of the border and was apparently working better than ever. That it could make a trip to California and (hopefully) back wasn't a far-fetched idea at all.

"We don't exactly have time to kill, here," Octavian said dryly. "I'm sure that thing would take weeks to make such a flight." Leo arched an eyebrow and Piper saw his jaw tighten. She tensed, ready to grab him if she needed to. Insulting Leo's handiwork was not something you wanted to do.

But instead, his expression returned to his usual cocky grin and he said lightly to the room at large, "Festus's average flight speed tops out at about a hundred fifty knots. If all goes well, we can make the trip in… about fourteen hours." It might have been Piper's imagination, but she could have sworn Leo looked directly at Octavian at those last two words.

And then something else he said struck her. "We?" she repeated, a hand going to his shoulder and pulling him back to look at her.

Leo shrugged. "Where Festus goes, I go," he said shortly. "No one else knows how to run him." She was about to remind him just how dangerous this mission was and that it shouldn't be taken so lightly, but then she noticed the seriousness in his eyes and she kept her mouth shut. He understood what he was getting into.

"It seems we have our first volunteer," Chiron said with a nod toward Leo. "Anyone else? I urge you to please consider how difficult and dangerous the journey will be."

"I'm in," Nico said at once. "This is a stealth mission, right? As I'm sure most of you have noticed, I have a habit of blending in with the darkness." A few people snickered in agreement, but Nico didn't seem bothered. "Plus you're gonna need me if we run into the Furies."

Chiron nodded, though Piper noticed the look in his eyes growing grimmer by the second. "Yes, good. One more should suffice."

Piper wasn't sure if she wanted to volunteer. On the one hand, she was worried about Leo and the trip would help distract her from Jason. But on the other, if she left now, she may never have the chance to make up with him. She shot a glance his way and was surprised to see him watching her with an expression of worry—maybe even fear. As soon as their eyes met, he lowered his gaze, but not fast enough that she didn't notice.

Around the room, people were exchanging apprehensive glances, and she knew they were all doing like she was—weighing the pros and cons. Percy looked about to speak, but Annabeth gripped his arm and shook her head. For whatever reason, she didn't want him going along. And surprisingly, he fell silent at her look.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, someone finally spoke up, "I'll go." Piper looked around and was surprised to see Reyna on her feet, arms crossed in front of her. Leo's gaze snapped onto her immediately, his eyes widening just barely and his eyebrows drawing together. Reyna's eyes flitted toward him for the briefest of moments before she pressed her lips together and looked away, raising her chin a fraction of an inch. Piper wondered briefly what that was about as Reyna went on, "As this mission affects us all, I think it would be wise to have at least one Greek and one Roman along."

"Very well," Chiron agreed, clasping his hands together. "Now, you three. I'm sure it's safe to expect that Nyx and Erebos will have spies set in place in case we wander too far from home. And If Hypnos really is in Death Valley, I'm certain he'll be well-guarded. Likely even by Nyx herself. If things get too difficult, do not continue. Return and regroup. We've done well keeping everyone alive so far. The last thing I want is for us to break that streak now."

"Hey, don't worry," Leo said confidently, looking at Nico and Reyna. His gaze lingered on the latter for just a second longer before he glanced back at Chiron and grinned. "Team like this, Nyx won't know what hit her."

A few people exchanged tentative smiles, Piper included, and she knew that for once, everyone in the room was thinking the same thing. This plan gave them hope—a chance to free the gods and finally get their help in stopping Erebos. But behind the relief and confidence, a dark, unspoken question lingered, thickening the air so that Piper felt like she was trying to breathe through a pool of tar.

If so many of them had been unable to stop Nyx on the night of the eclipse, how could only three hope to stand against her long enough to free her immortal son?

Woo! A quest! So now you see how the plot splits very soon. In a bit, we're gonna have a few different conflicts going on at once. It's gonna be fun, just wait :D haha. I'll probably update on Tuesday, so watch for it.

I'll take reviews instead of Valentines! Hahaha :D Love you all! See you early next week!

Later days!

-oMM