Disclaimer: Sorry, I don't own the Gods, Chiron, or 50 Shades of Gray

Chapter 6: And so the Gods Stepped In...Sort Of

Chiron was having a hard time believing this was happening. Not only did he have a lack of new campers coming in since December, he also had a lack of satyrs and other demigods. The amount of missing demigods was worrying- not to mention, slightly frightening- to the old centaur. He had announced the news to Zeus last week, and now there was a council meeting being held. Which he had to attend. A meeting he had no desire to attend. After all, who wants to be the one to tell a room full of almighty, powerful parents that some of their children were either missing or the enemy?

Chiron sighed, cursing his luck. Instead, he chose to look out the window of the camp van. He rarely ventured out of camp, so the sight of New York was rather calming for him. As he watched Manhattan pass by, Chiron barely noticed that they were now passing the Empire State Building.

All too soon, the van pulled over to the side of the road, and Argus walked out of the driver's seat to "assist" Chiron in getting into his wheelchair. After Chiron was seated, he took a deep breath and wheeled himself inside the building. Once inside, Chiron looked around, trying to stall as much as he could, before rolling his wheelchair towards the receptionist.

The receptionist was a woman in her mid-twenties this time. She had long red hair, and smart glasses. She seemed to be completely absorbed in the book she was reading. Chiron frowned slightly when he saw the tile read 50 Shades of Gray. How interesting could that possibly be?

Chiron decided to just shake his head, deciding that if the strange mortal had an interest in shades of gray, he shouldn't question it. Instead, he tried to gain the receptionist attention by clearing his throat. He silently cursed the fact that the front desk was taller than him, when the woman looked up from her book to see nothing. She was about to go back to her book when Chiron cleared his throat yet again. The woman was now becoming irritated as she looked around again.

"Down here," Chiron politely stated.

The woman looked a little startled before she stood up and looked over the end of her desk to find the centaur.

"Could you back up a little so I can see you better?" She asked.

The woman looked more comfortable when he backed up a little, being careful to not bump into anyone. Mortals these days were so rude sometimes."It's not like they were much better before, either," He thought.

Realizing he was getting off topic, Chiron then proceeded to ask the question he had originally wanted to, "May I have the key card to the 600th floor?"

The receptionist scoffed, and Chiron suddenly realized why all the demigods complained about the receptionist. 45 minutes later, he was starting to wonder why the Olympians didn't make a second key to keep at camp for these situations.

Chiron rolled his chair down to the elevators, and soon found himself making his way up to Olympus. He never realized how much of a pain this meeting would be.

-Line Break-

As the Olympian Council slowly flashed into the throne room, no one seemed to know what was wrong. That is, no one except for Zeus. Even then, Zeus only knew because of Chiron's report. He, for one, thought the old centaur was just paranoid, but it was protocol to see if anyone else noticed the problem as well.

After everyone had arrived, the gods and goddesses sat in their respective thrones waiting for Zeus to call for the start of the meeting. Zeus, however, was staring at the throne room doors, as if he was waiting for someone to walk through. That someone did. Sort of. It was more like a trot, as Chiron opened the doors and entered the throne room. If one were to look close enough, they would notice Chiron's discomfort with being stared at, something which he rarely showed.

Zeus decided to start the meeting then. He started off with minor things, small problems that he wanted to address first, so that the gods would be less distracted with the new issue. Everyone patiently sat through, but it was obvious that Zeus wasn't talking about something important. Finally, when nearing the end of the meeting, Zeus addressed the main issue.

"Now, for our final problem. I want everyone to stay quiet until the whole issue is explained. This will be easier if there are less distractions," Zeus declared, "Chiron please come forward and tell them what you have told me."

The centaur trotted forward nervously before speaking, "I'm sorry to inform you, but there has been a decrease in demigods lately. I only inform you all because there also happens to be a decrease in contact with the Satyrs too. In fact, I'm losing contact with everyone. This means we're either already losing everyone to the titans, or something big is happening."

"When was the last time you talked to anyone from Camp?" Athena asked, already calculating possibilities.

"Last month. I received a distress call from one of the satyrs. He said that something was happening, and that he was worried. There was some kind of new disease everyone was talking about. Lord Apollo, would you happen to know anything about that?" Chiron asked, looking directly at Apollo during the last part.

Apollo, for his part, looked nervous. Like he knew something, but at the same time didn't want to say anything. He shifted uncomfortably in his throne, twiddling his thumbs while looking down. Finally, he sighed and said, "I heard news of this disease. They say it's a blood problem. Kills people at random times, mostly children and teens. I've never noticed anything, nor have I spread anything. I don't know what the mortals are going on about."

Athena sighed loudly and put her palm to her face muttering something about idiot doctor gods. Of course, that got everyone's attention, so Apollo was now trying to figure out what he missed. The other immortals present were also trying to piece it together, except for Zeus who was looking at Athena as if he was ordering her to talk. Which in his head, he was.

Athena looked up again, after several minutes and glared at Apollo before beginning her interrogation for him.

"Apollo, how did the mortals say these people died?"

"Um...I think they were found with multiple injuries that could have been caused by getting in a fight with something and losing."

"How do demigods usually die?"

"Losing a fight..."

"Do you see how they connect?"

Apollo thought about it for a moment, before his eyes went wide, along with the rest of the council's and Chiron.

"You mean...that...you know...the demigods are being targeted?" Chiron asked.

Athena nodded, while everyone tried to process what that could mean. One could see the evolution of emotions going through each occupants face as they realized what could be happening to his or her child- or student in the case of Chiron- while they were just sitting there. Poseidon broke the silence first.

"So what are we going to do about it?" He asked, while everyone else nodded, also wanting to know.

"Nothing. There is nothing we can do about this. I understand this is our children we our talking about, but we cannot interfere with the ancient laws. The demigods will be left to fend for themselves. What we can do instead is figure out who is missing. Figure out how many can fight for us and how this will affect the war," Zeus said causing an argument to break out, "The mortals probably aren't doing anything bad for fear of inciting our wrath. I will not change my mind about this. Until then, the council is now dismissed!"

Zeus then proceeded to do his usual dramatic exit, leaving the rest of the gods to start plotting how they would turn against Zeus and help their children. None of them wanted to leave it to chance that their children would not get hurt. There was not telling what the mortals would do. None of them fully realized just how right they were to think this.

-Line Break-

As a soldier off to the far right of the room barked at the demigod to begin again, the half blood almost threw his new prototype at the soldier. He's spent the last three weeks doing test after test every day! He was so tired, and he didn't even understand why he had to do all these skill tests. The soldier had said it was supposed to help them properly identify him.

The demigod thought it had something to do with the dog tags he was starting to see the people around him wearing. He had taken the chance to get a closer look at them when he was supposed to be asleep. They had your name engraved on them, with a number next to the name. Under that was the name of an immortal deity, and whether the deity was Greek, Roman, or Egyptian. At the very bottom was a number and a letter.

The demigod realized that they were classifying everyone into a rank, but what the rank was for confused him. He had still been thinking about that when a new test was placed in front of him. He was told that he would have five minutes to complete the test, and he sighed before starting again. He would have time to think about this later.

A/N: Yay! I got this done. Sorry about that whole thing with Chiron and the receptionist, I was bored. Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! Who do you think that half blood is? Also, I may be doing some minor editing to the chapters. Before I forget, what point of view do you want the first battle to be in? Your choice, I'm doing a trade off in battle point of views...done now BYE!