Chapter 44 no safe place

Alabaster's POV

I glanced at my watch again, before looking around the small group of former Titan soldiers who'd agreed to help me. There weren't that many of us left, but the ones here were all extremely good at what Luke had trained them to do.

"Mark!"

He looked up from assisting Eric with his ice pack. I waved him over, once Mark had jogged into easy conversation range he gave a mock salute.

"What do you need from me?"

"They are out of time, go tell whoever that century is that I want to talk to the leader of the camp."

He nodded and ran off towards the hill. I glanced around the group again before yelling orders.

"Alright everyone the camp is out of time to make up their minds. Mark and Samantha will stay with me, I want the rest of you back at the original headquarters. We'll meet you there after I have a talk with the camp leader. Ready break!"

Samantha joined me as I walked to meet Mark at the hill side.

"They sent a runner down to that big house, but there's two more guards at the crest of the hill. Just passed the dragon and the statue of Athena."

"Thank you Mark."

"No problem."

"Alabaster."

"Yes Samantha?"

"What are you going to do if the camp calls your bluff about taking down the borders?"

"I hope they call it."

"Why is that?"

"Because I'm not bluffing."

I started up the hill but Mark grabbed my arm.

"What do you mean? You don't really think you can single-handedly take down Camp Half-Blood's borders?"

"Keep your voice down, and of course not, which is why I enlisted the help of Tim and Phill."

Mark's jaw almost hit the grass as Samantha exclaimed,

"Those two idiots. What are you hoping to accomplish with their help?"

"I don't think you're giving them enough credit or did you forget that they were very accomplished spies. They also managed to never be discovered and are still a trusted, and rather overlooked part of the camp."

"But.."

"I have a plan.Tim and Phill have been keeping me up to date with the on goings of the camp, and they helped me with a test run. Trust me my plan will work. I'll go over it with everyone tonight, assuming they have decided to hold onto Luke."

Samantha frowned,

"How could you have possibly been able to predict that Luke would come here of all places to already have such a big undertaking already planned out?"

"Simple, I didn't. I never thought he would turn to them for help. Taking down the borders is an idea I've been toying with for months. Luke coming here is just the perfect excuse to actually do it."

Mark glanced at Samantha, trying to share a silent conversation, which was stupid because she couldn't see him. Finally she stated.

"Fine. However, if this endeavor of your's starts going bad you and everyone else still following you is on their own. I'm not following anyone else to failure."

Her tone was challenging as if she was waiting to see if she had put me in a corner.

"That's fine, I never asked for an oath of loyalty, just volunteers."

No one said anything so I continued walking. We came to the crest of the hill and just as Mark had described, two centuries were standing one on each side of the hilltop. Just past the tree where the dragon laid coiled and the massive statue with Athena. One of the guards was facing out words towards us, I could see him visibly tighten his grip on the sword at his side. The other century was facing downwards, looking into the valley, and a few seconds later it became evident to what she was looking at. Three demigods came into view, which was mildly surprising. I had expected the centaur, but that was of no consequence. The demigod on the left was obviously Perseus, the one on the right I didn't recognize. She looked to be close to Percy's age, and had a blue harpy feather braided into her hair. With a long jagged sword that hung at her side, accompanied by a ceremonial knife. which her hand casually rested on. The girl between the two I had dawned a war helm, making it difficult to see exactly who she was. A knife more suited for combat sat on her waist. In her hand was a long sword carved from the bone of a large monster. At the top of the hill she stabbed her sword into the grass so that it stood up like a flag pole. With that simple movement her arm and shoulder rippled with muscle, which revealed two things; one her sword was hevey, which meant despite it being carved from bone, it probably wouldn't splinter even against celestial bronze. Two, she had trained many hours with that weapon and despite its weight she probably wouldn't tire easily. Crossing her arms she adopted a stance that sent a silent message. I'm the biggest meanest thing around so don't make any stupid decisions. Spreading my hands to show I wasn't holding a weapon I said,

"I asked to speak to the leader of the Camp, where is Chiron?"

The middle girl's gray eyes flashed with a hard light.

"Chiron is currently unavailable."

"Then which one of you is representing him today?"

The girl with the Harpy feather replied,

"That would be Annabeth. I suggest you use your manners. My friend doesn't take kindly to rudeness."

I frowned, she had power in her voice. She didn't use it but it was definitely there.

"What's your name?"

She looked surprised,

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Uh, Piper."

"Piper what?"

'It doesn't matter, talk to Annabeth."

Her charm speech was so strong it hit me like a truck. There was no fighting it, even though she had directed the commande at me all three of us spoke to her in unison.

Me: "what's your decision?"

Samantha: "You guys don't stand a chance, you're still alive because you got lucky."

Mark: "I'm going to kill you."

His statement got a lot more attention than either of ours. Percy's hand which had been resting in his pocket shot out with something that morphed into a sword as he stepped protectively in front of Annabeth. Who looked at Mark sizing him up, while Piper muttered, something that sounded like oops I did it again. Then stepped forward, hands spread in a gesture of peace as she channeled more charm speak.

"Everyone relax, no one is killing anyone today. You came to negotiate so tell your man to stand down."

"Mark, hand off the sword."

"Now tell Annabeth what you came to say."

"Your time is up. I feel like I gave you a reasonable amount of time. What's your decision? If you give me, Luke, I will leave your borders intact and in peace. If you don't give me Luke, I will bring them down."

Percy snorted,

"You and what army. Because, as I recall the last time, you guys tried to take down the borders, it didn't work out too well for you. There's what? a dozen of you down there?"

"We don't need an army."

"Oh yeah cause even with an entire army you still failed the last two times you tried, so why don't you just give up already?"

Annabeth held up her hand.

"Percy, that's enough. Look um what did you say your name was again?"

"Alabaster."

" Well, Alabaster, you wanted an answer, and the answer is no."

"Are you sure? If you turn Luke over to us, you can be done with him and done with us two problems, taking off your hands at the same time. Seems like a pretty good deal to me."

"Luke Castolon claimed sanctuary at our central hearth. Our decision is final, we will not be handing him over."

"In that case, you've made your decision and sealed your fate."

"On the contrary, if you know what's good for you, you'll count your losses and leave."

I turned to walk back down the hill calling over my shoulder.

"Good luck, trying to survive without your borders. It almost killed you the first time around and they didn't even fully fall."

On the way back to the original Titan headquarters I didn't say another word even though Mark kept looking at me expectantly. Once we made it back, I gathered everyone around and laid out the course of action.

" All right everyone here's the plan. The camp decided that they're going to hold onto Luke, which means their borders are going to fall tonight. Once they're down, we're going to wait probably a week or two. Depending on how long it takes me to get my strength back, then will formulate an actual attack. But for the time being, I need a small elite force, which will be led by Mark. I'll let him decide exactly who to bring but the objective is simple. There's going to be a border patrol I need every century on that hill and those within hearing range removed from the equation. Try not to kill. I don't like killing in cold blood but they cannot be allowed to warn the camp, so do whatever is necessary to keep the centuries from alerting each other, and the rest of the camp. After that, leave the rest to me and the two guys I have on the inside."

Eric cot my eye,

"What about the dragon?"

"Don't worry about it, leave the rest to me."

A couple whispers ran around the room, but no one brought up any further questions.

"All right then I'm going to go prepare for tonight, send Claymore to get me at one AM."

I looked at Mark.

"Choose your team and be in position at eleven, I want you to strike at midnight."

He nodded his understanding so I left to find a quiet place, not far from the dilapidated house was a barn, and equally as bad condition, which probably belonged to the property. I stepped inside as I reached for the scythe charm that still hung around my neck.

"Tim, Phill, do you read me?"

A couple seconds ticked by before a response came.

"Tim here I read you loud and clear from a secure location."

"Phil here, I'm ready to report Commander."

"Good, the mission I told you about is ago. It should work very similarly to what we did in the arena a couple weeks back. Phil, I left your next cursed item shrouded in the mist, the base of half blood hill. This time instead of a bandanna, it's a ring. I trust you'll be able to find it. Just don't touch it with your bare hand, after you've collected it, give it to Tim. Understand?"

"Yes Sir."

"Tim."

"Ready and waiting, Sir."

"It will be up to you to ensure Percy ends up wearing that ring tonight."

"It will be done, is there anything else?"

"Yes, after I've taken down the dragon with Percy's help I need you two to chop down that tree and get the golden fleece to me. It'll give me the strength to take down the borders the rest of the way. They are about to find out what it's like to have no safe place to run to. Oh, one more thing, see to it that none of the powerful heroes are on tonight's century duty."