Oh wow it's been more than two months I am so sorry. I really haven't had time to write because school and stuff outside of school and... well, point is, I'm back now! And I have portions of the next two chapters (THE LAST TWO CHAPTERS!) written, so hopefully I might still be able to finish before BoO! I know, I can't believe I might actually meet a goal I made for finishing this story. :P (Although it's probably pretty unlikely because I've only got eight days, heh...)

Still, I've got two requests for you guys:

1. NO SPOILERS FOR BoO PLEASE. I know they're floating around out there, and I REALLY don't want to know, so pleeeeease keep them out of reviews and PMs and whatnot. Thanks!

2. Guys, just because I haven't updated for a while doesn't mean I'm abandoning a story. I'm just really busy. I wish I could give a more in-depth reason so you might understand my situation better, but I don't believe in putting personal information on the internet, so that's not going to happen. Just... PLEASE stop sending me demanding requests that I "UPDATE RIGHT THIS SECOND", okay? I have to actually have time to write a chapter before I post it...

Anyway, sorry about that rant and the long AN! Oh, and sorry for the brevity of this chapter, but I figured a short update was better than no update at all, so I split up the long chapter I had planned originally. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO/HoO.

Part XXI

Leo looked around at all his siblings, still amazed that they were all here. That he was here. For a moment, he almost forgot that they were at war . . . and then Frank whirled past with a gash over one eye and a monster's weapon in his hand, looking relieved when he realized that Leo was with his cabinmates, and Leo refocused. "So," he said. "I'm assuming you've all seen the diagrams I drew up for these mirrors?"

They all nodded.

"Good. We have to place them exactly in the right places—exactly, or it won't work. Can you guys handle that?"

"Who do you think we are?" Nyssa snorted. "You're not the only child of Hephaestus in this battle, kid."

"Sorry, Nys," he said, not bothering to sound too apologetic. "I just . . . this has to work."

"And it will work, Leo!" Harley promised. "Cabin Nine's not cursed anymore!"

Harley always managed to pull a grin out of Leo. "That's right," he said, ruffling his brother's hair. "So let's go trap a giant, huh?"

With a nod that shook his whole body, Harley picked up a mirror that was almost as tall as he was. "I'm ready!" he announced. "Where should I go?"

Nyssa stifled a smile. "Maybe I should carry the mirrors, kid," she said. "You can watch my back. How about that?"

"Good idea, Nys," Jake said quickly, before Harley could argue. "In fact, we should all travel in pairs. I can go with Leo."

"No way, man!" Leo protested. "You should go with Emmie, or Parker, or Miles, or—"

"With you?" he interrupted smoothly. "I couldn't agree more. Emmie and Miles can pair up, Parker can go with Nathan, Raphael can partner with Nicky, and . . ." Before long, Jake had grouped together the remainder of their cabinmates into sets of two. "These teams look good to me. How do they look to you, Head Counselor?"

Leo still thought he should be paired up with one of the less experienced campers, but other than that, he had to admit that Jake had done a decent job. And he knew trying to argue would just waste time. "They look stupendous, Jake," he said cheerily. "Now, kids, your Camp Counselor has just a few rules for you to follow before we venture out into the wilderness. One is an it-would-be-super-awesome-if-you-followed-this kind of rule, and one is a you'd-better-follow-this-or-else kind of rule. You paying attention?"

Harley nodded enthusiastically again, and Leo took that as a collective yes. "Okay, this is the it-would-be-super-awesome-if-you-followed-this rule: Set up the mirrors in the correct positions. And this is the you'd-better-follow-this-or-else rule." He paused, grinned, and surged ahead. "At the end of this war, each of you had better scrounge up enough supplies for us to have an epic s'more-roasting party to celebrate our fantastic victory. And you'd better show up to said party, too, because attendance is mandatory." His grin slipped.

"Attendance is mandatory," he repeated. "For every single one of you. No exceptions—you got that?" He waited until they all nodded before slapping a new smile onto his face. "Cool. I'll bring the fire."

"Not fair!" Harley complained. "You can summon fire whenever you want!"

"Yeah, but I'm head counselor," Leo winked, "and there's no arguing with head counselor. Now scram! Go set up your mirrors and make your Big Brother, Head Counselor, and Favorite Person Ever proud."

Harley grinned slyly. "I'll make you proud, Jake!" he yelled. Then he ran off.

"That mandatory-attendance rule applies to you too, kid," Nyssa told Leo under her breath. "No dying on me now." And with that, she followed Harley into the fray, dragging three bronze mirrors behind her.

The other Hephaestus kids quickly separated as well until only Jake and Leo were left. Instantly, Leo whirled on his slightly older brother. "Why the Hades did you pair yourself up with me? Most of the others are years younger than me!"

Jake raised his eyebrows and picked up the last three mirrors. "Maybe," he said calmly, "but none of the others have just spent weeks in Tartarus and look like hell—worse than hell, actually, from what I've heard of Percy's descriptions of that place. This was never up for discussion, Leo. Now let's get moving, or at this rate, the others will get into position ages before we do."

Leo opened his mouth to retort—but all he managed was a sort of exasperated sigh before he fell into line behind his brother, lifting a hammer and narrowing his eyes, just in case a monster got any ideas.

From observations Leo made as they smashed their way through Gaea's army, almost all his siblings had fanned out into nearby positions, leaving the farthest three mirrors for Jake and him . . . thank the gods. The last thing Leo needed was for any of his brothers or sisters to take an unnecessary risk and get hurt—or worse. "Our first destination's still about a hundred yards away," Leo announced. "Veer right a bit? At this rate, you'll crash into Nyssa and Harley before we reach our target."

Jake nodded and followed Leo's directions. "I'm still amazed that none of the monsters has caught on," he added. "You'd think they would have noticed two dozen kids with massive sheets of bronze . . ."

He might have kept talking, but Leo had lost interest. He was paying far more attention to the hellhound that was snarling and loping towards them. With a grimace, he lifted his hammer and stepped forward, ready to chuck his weapon at the beast's head—and all of a sudden, something crashed into its open mouth, and it dissolved into dust . . . leaving behind a bronze oval that was practically crumpled.

Leo spun around and raised his eyebrows. Jake was only holding two mirrors. "You realize we need to use all the mirrors for maximum effectiveness, right?"

Jake froze. "Oh, Styx. I'm so sorry. I totally didn't think about—"

"Hey, man, chill," Leo laughed. "You saved my life; I can't exactly be upset about that. One mirror won't ruin the setup." He frowned. "At least, I think it won't—maybe if we shift one mirror 1.2 degrees farther to the left—raise one two inches higher off the ground—get Nyssa to shift hers 2.4 cm back—"

Jake grabbed the remnants of Leo's camp shirt and yanked him out of the way of an arrow, ripping the orange fabric even more. "You chill," he retorted. "I've seen the diagrams, and 1.2 degrees isn't going to make a difference. Pay attention to your surroundings, Valdez. We've got a s'more party to get to."

Leo made a face. "I'm starting to regret my choice of party," he confided, ducking to avoid a monster's claws. "Screw s'mores. I want a deluxe all-you-can-eat buffet, with unlimited s'mores and cake and ice cream at the end." To emphasize his point, Leo swung his hammer upwards, catching the monster in its jaw and sending it sprawling. Unfortunately, the hammer's momentum flung it out of Leo's hand as well.

When he saw what had happened, Jake just rolled his eyes and thrust the remaining mirrors into Leo's arms. "As you keep reminding me, you are our head counselor," Jake reminded him, drawing his sword. "I'm sure you can change the rules of your mandatorily-attended, food-related event however you want. We just have to get there first."

"Aw, you do care," Leo snickered, sidestepping a minor monster and trying not to think about similar ones he'd seen in Ta—No. He pushed the word out of his mind. Even thinking that much was terrifying. He'd just have to avoid the memories entirely. Luckily, the war in front of him was proving to be a great distraction.

Within a few minutes, they reached the location of the first mirror. Leo dropped both with some relief and did his best to hide his fatigue from Jake's view by crossing his arms. "I guess I should position it at that angle," he muttered, tilting his head as he studied the mirrors and the ground with furrowed eyebrows. "Well, maybe ten degrees less than that? And maybe twelve centimeters back from what I'd planned originally . . ."

"Leo, hurry up!" Jake gritted his teeth and swung his sword into an Earthborn, cursing when it got stuck in the monster's dissolving sludge. "I'm sure your original calculations were fine! We've got to keep moving!"

"Yeah, they were fine," Leo shot back, "but in case you forgot, we've lost one of the mirrors that I factored into those calculations! I have to adjust everything now!" Finally, Jake yanked his sword free, but that made him lose his balance, and he almost speared himself onto a dracaena's trident before Leo shoved him out of the way. In the next instant, Jake slashed sideways with his sword, sending the top half of the dracaena toppling to the ground. Both pieces quickly crumbled into dust—but not before they both recognized how easily Jake could have died.

"On second thought," Leo said, "this mirror looks perfect to me." He offered Jake a hand that was stubbornly ignored, and then shrugged and scooped up the other mirror—the last one, since the others had already set up their own—somewhat painfully. "Let's get this one in position too, huh?"

"Oh, I don't know," Jake said sarcastically, pushing himself to his feet. "I thought it made a pretty nice piece of modern art, lying there uselessly on the ground."

"No need to be rude," Leo said, skipping sideways a few steps to avoid a new monster. "I was just trying to be polite."

"Yeah, right," Jake snorted, incapacitating a few beasts with two quick swipes of his sword. "Being polite is the last thing on your mind. If you told me you were trying to be annoying, though—that I could believe."

"You're hilarious," Leo said, keeping his voice as dull as possible. "I see your sense of humor has improved exponentially while I was in Tar—while I was on that quest." He wanted to leave his experiences in that hellhole behind him—he wanted to forget about the pain he went through, he wanted to pretend it hadn't affected him . . . but he just couldn't pull it off. He couldn't quite bring himself to joke about that place. Gods, he couldn't even think its name without his chest tightening.

"It has, actually," Jake injected. He ignored Leo's hesitation, thank the gods. "You've missed out on a bunch of jokes. Harley says I've gotten a lot funnier since June."

Leo forced himself to shake off his apprehension. "That," he said, pasting a smirk on his face, "is only because he hasn't had any good material to compare those jokes to since June. He's forgotten how magnificent Leo-style humor really is."

Jake opened his mouth to retort, and then just shut it again and grinned. "Gods, Leo, it's good to have you back." And with that, he turned and continued carving a path towards the last mirror position.

Leo gulped down the thoughts of Tartarus spiraling through his head. Remember that magnificent Leo-style humor you were just talking about? he reminded himself. Well, that's what they're expecting from you—what they need at a time like this. Snap out of it, Valdez. They're counting on you to keep things light.

Annabeth had probably killed about ten giants since December—so logically, she should have discovered generalized weaknesses for all of them by now. Defeating them should be getting easier. But of course, the Earth was waking up right now. Nothing about this war was particularly logical . . . so killing the stupid giant that had dared to lay a finger on Malcolm was proving harder than she'd anticipated.

"What were you thinking?" she demanded, tackling Malcolm to the ground just before the giant could crush him with his club. Percy saw what she was doing and slid into her place, blocking the giant's attack as best he could with Riptide. "I told you you weren't allowed to fight giants!"

"And what was I supposed to do?" he replied angrily. "Let this idiot stomp around and destroy everyone in his way? I was ready to lead our camp in a fight against an entire Roman legion a few days ago. You know I can strategize. I can fight. I'm not just some helpless kid, Annabeth."

"Maybe," she fumed, rolling off of him and springing into a crouch, "but you're still my little brother, and you shouldn't have taken on Pallas by yourself—"

Malcolm scrambled to his feet, picking up his sword and glaring at her. "Nobody else was going to!" he shot back. "You guys were too busy fighting the more well-known giants. And I'm sorry if your special prophecy status has made you think only you guys can be heroes in this war, but I wasn't about to stand on the sidelines when I could be doing something—"

"Sorry to break up the argument," Percy called, "but I could use some help?"

Annabeth whirled around and froze when she saw him being pushed into the ground, Pallas chuckling maliciously overhead. How could she have taken her eyes off of the battle for a second—?

And while she was still beating herself up, Malcolm sprinted over and slammed the hilt of his sword into Pallas's club, shifting it just enough for Percy to jump out of the way before it smashed into the ground. Pallas growled in frustration when it stuck there. "Thanks, man," Percy said easily, rolling his shoulder and adjusting his stance. "It's good to see you again."

"Back at you," Malcolm said, eyeing the giant's struggles with his club warily, "although I have some choice words to say to you later about letting my sister get dragged into Tartarus—"

"Shut up, Malcolm," Annabeth interrupted, stepping between them. "Are we going to stand around talking, or are we going to kill this idiot?"

"I hope you're talking about the giant, not me," Percy grinned, just as Malcolm said, "Oh, so it's 'we' now?"

"Percy, don't be stupid," Annabeth replied. "Malcolm, there's obviously nothing I can do about your stubbornness, so I figured I might as well stick around and make sure it doesn't get you killed."

"Sibling love at its finest," Malcolm snorted. At his words, Pallas gave a final roar and yanked his club free. "Let's go."

Percy leaped forward, slashing through Pallas's shin while Annabeth and Malcolm kept him distracted. All of a sudden, he saw a chimera hurtling towards him—but before he could strike, it raced straight through him and disappeared. Percy cursed under his breath and refocused on Pallas, hoping Annabeth hadn't noticed his momentary hesitation. Gods, he hated these dumb hallucinations.

"Malcolm, watch out!" Annabeth yelled. Percy whirled around just in time to see her shove her brother out of the way of the giant's club.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Malcolm complained, barely managing to retain his footing. "I saw it coming. I know what I'm doing, Annabeth."

By now, Percy had reached both of them and had slid into place on Malcolm's other side. "We know that," he promised. "Annabeth's just being bossy, as usual." Annabeth opened her mouth to protest, but Percy just winked at Malcolm and grinned. "You should be glad she's acting all overprotective, man. That's how you know she cares."

"Percy—"

"Aw, you know I'm right," he said, flashing a smile her way. Then he raced forward a few steps and stabbed Pallas through his forearm, effectively disabling him for a few moments. Unfortunately, the giant also yanked his arm up reflexively, lifting Riptide—and Percy—along with it. The blade slid free and Percy crashed to the ground, but not before he'd been airborne for a few feet.

"Percy!" Annabeth cried again, dashing towards him. "You Seaweed Brain—"

"I'm fine, Annabeth, honestly," Percy reassured her, already standing up. "Just annoyed, is all. Why won't this idiot monster die?"

"Hell if I know," Malcolm answered, appearing at their sides. "But we probably need a better strategy than 'attack randomly' if we want to kill him."

"What do you think I've been doing for the past five minutes?" Annabeth retorted, and a heated discussion broke out instantly. Percy rolled his eyes. Leave it to Annabeth to argue to hide how scared she'd been when they'd first heard Malcolm scream.

"So the giant's getting up again," he ventured, breaking them up. "And he looks pretty upset."

Pallas roared at that very moment, as if to prove Percy's point.

"'Upset' is an understatement," Malcolm said dryly. "So are we sticking to Plan 4D with modification number 236?"

He addressed this last part to Annabeth, who nodded. "Sounds good to me," she said.

Percy frowned. "Um, I'm sure it'd probably sound good to me, too, if I had any idea what you meant?"

"Sorry, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said with a smirk. "It's Cabin Six Strategy Shorthand—no time to explain. Think you can handle the army while we put it into action?" She kept her tone light, but Percy didn't miss how her silver eyes scrutinized his green ones—and he'd known her too long not to understand the worry in that look.

"Oh, I'll be fine," he promised, offering a lazy grin to reassure her. "I've won against bigger odds than these before. Just don't take too long killing Pallas, all right? I've been meaning to find Jason in this crowd for a while, now. I think he's busy reminiscing with an old friend of his at the moment, and I'd like to join in."

"Of course you would," Annabeth said, rolling her eyes and turning towards Pallas. "Just be careful, Seaweed Brain."

"Back at you, Wise Girl." Immediately, Percy stepped away and pounced onto the nearest monster, and for a few moments, he actually felt like he was back in his element—Percy Jackson, famously skilled monster-slayer.

And then the fourth creature was a hallucination.

Reyna had just tackled a small drakon and stabbed its eyes out with her screwdrivers when Scipio landed in front of her, whinnying. She didn't speak horse, but she could understand her own horse just fine; he was angry, probably because she'd been hard to find in all the chaos. "Well, what did you want me to do?" she asked, hopping off the drakon and swinging up onto Scipio's back. "Stand in one place and make myself an easy target? That's just begging for some monster to come finish me off. Besides, I had people to protect."

Scipio tossed his head disdainfully, shaking his mane in her face. "Oh, shut up," she said, fully aware that he wasn't actually talking. "Let's just get back to the legion, shall we?"

He neighed indignantly and took off.

Of course, they didn't fly directly to the legion. Reyna got sidetracked several times, as she noticed campers in need and nudged Scipio in their direction, but she tried not to become too distracted. Only the gods knew how the legion would be functioning without a praetor, but she figured it wouldn't be at full strength. She couldn't just let them fend for themselves. Who would coordinate their attacks? With increasing apprehension, she soared towards the sea of purple shirts she saw nearby. It only took about ten minutes for her to reach them—

And gods of Olympus, the legion was being run by Octavian. Sure, she supposed he was the senior centurion of the First Cohort, as well as Camp Jupiter's augur, so he was her logical successor . . but everyone knew how power-hungry and anti-graeci he was, and they'd all agreed to leave those rivalries behind them, so how had he managed to seize power back this easily? What the hell had happened in the short time she'd been gone?

"Augur!" she yelled, forcing Scipio down immediately. "What do you think you're doing . . . ?"

The words died on her tongue. Sure, Octavian had taken command . . . but he had pointed them in the direction of the nearest giant, not the nearest Greek. In fact . . . Holy Styx, were those orange shirts dispersed throughout the cohorts' ranks? Was he voluntarily fighting alongside the people he'd sworn off as enemies?

"Octavian," she said uncertainly, landing beside him, "I don't . . ."

"Know why I haven't tried to get everyone to fight the graeci?" Octavian finished wryly. "Well, for one thing, I know none of them would listen to me. For better or worse, they're far too loyal to you, Praetor. Besides . . . well, the Greeks may be scheming traitors, but Gaea wants to destroy the world. I decided to prioritize. Enemy of my enemy and all that." His eyes gleamed. "Don't worry, though. I'll restart my anti-graeci protests as soon as this war is over."

Reyna was still pretty shocked, but she just shook her head in amazement. Octavian had led the legion, and he hadn't immediately tried to annihilate their allies, and she was going to accept that and move on before she thought about it too hard. "Well, I . . . Thank you for leading in my stead," she said, realizing with some surprise that she meant it. "But I'll be taking over now."

Octavian stepped aside without an argument—another surprise. All he said was, "Like the others would accept anything else. You've denied it over and over, Praetor, but it's the truth—this is your legion. They only followed me because I went along with what you wanted us to do."

Reyna wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she didn't. "Twelfth Legion Fulminata!" she shouted instead, whirling around to face her fellow legionnaires. "Are you ready to defeat Gaea once and for all?"

They raised their swords and spears and yelled their affirmation.

Reyna shaped her mouth into a snarling grin. "Then let's make these monsters bleed!" And with that, she whirled Scipio around and plunged back into the battle. Without looking, she knew the rest of the legion would follow her, automatically forming the ranks she'd drilled into them.

After that, she was too busy fighting to inspect the campers' expressions . . . but if she had, she would have noticed something interesting. No one even batted an eyelash when she pulled Leo's screwdrivers out to use as weapons, despite how completely they went against regulations. Nobody protested about how utterly un-Roman her fighting technique started to look as she slashed through monsters left and right. If anything, the respect on their faces only intensified.

Leo set the final mirror in place, tilting it carefully and praying that it still lined up correctly with the others. Then he looked over at Porphyrion, who was still battling fiercely with Jason near the center of the makeshift ring. It was now or never—and never wasn't really an option. Not if he wanted Western Civilization to survive the rest of the day.

"You ready?" he asked Jake.

"Are you?" Jake retorted, gripping his sword and eyeing Leo carefully. "You still look like Styx, in case you've forgotten. Do you really think you can pull off a fire on this scale?"

"Hey, it's not that large-scale," Leo protested. "That's the whole point of the mirrored death ray, isn't it?"

Jake frowned uncertainly. "Still . . ."

"Calm down, Mason. I wouldn't be trying this if I didn't think I could handle it."

Jake laughed wryly. "Liar."

"Shut up and watch my back." And with that, Leo positioned himself just to the side of the mirror he'd just set up, angling himself towards another sheet of bronze two groups over. (He had to start the stream of fire there if he wanted the trajectory to work out.) "But . . . Jake . . ." Leo gulped and looked over at his brother. "Just in case this doesn't work out the way I want it to, and Porphyrion or Gaea kills me or something . . . you'll make sure that s'mores party still happens for everyone else, won't you?"

Jake stared at him and then shook his head forcefully. "Of course I won't," he said, an unexpectedly harsh tone to his voice. "We can't have a s'mores party without a campfire, Leo. So don't ask me for something like that. Just make it through this, or we'll all be mad as Hades at you for being a hypocrite and not even coming to your self-proclaimed mandatory food party."

In spite of everything, Leo grinned. "Okay. I guess I'd better make sure I show up, then."

"Obviously."

And with that, Leo took a deep breath and sent white-hot flames coursing out of his palms.

The legion had just taken out its third giant and about its thousandth monster, with Reyna carving a path for it atop Scipio, when a bellow of pain seared its way through the noise of the battle. Reflexively, Reyna whipped around in search of the noise's source. Even the monsters around her did the same (which was a convenient opportunity for her to take out a couple while she scanned the battle). Within a few moments, she located the origins of the inhuman screech—the shooting flames and the smell of roasting meat pretty much gave it away.

As soon as she registered the scene, though, her heart stopped beating for a moment or two. Because if she was seeing an inferno that intense, that could only mean . . . Immediately, she spun around and changed directions, galloping straight towards the fire. The rest of the legionnaires followed without complaint, which was good since Reyna wasn't slowing down to explain herself to them. Because if she was seeing an inferno that intense, that could only mean that Leo Valdez was being an idiota (again) and using fire powers that he didn't have the strength to keep up. And there was no way that she was going to let him burn himself out—both literally and figuratively—when they were so close to victory.

Reyna shook her head furiously and spurred Scipio on even faster. It was time to save Leo again—this time from himself.

Thank you for enjoying this story and putting up with its sporadic updates for so long! Tell me what you thought!