Percy POV

"She's there…" November taunted.

"Yes, I'm well aware!" I snapped, irritated with November's constant teasing.

"Ooooh please can we steal their food?" Fox pleaded. I stared at him weirdly.

"Bro, are you a five year old or what?" I asked, before continuing to walk behind the bushes, where no one would be able to see us. Our masks were on, and we had suited up, but one could never be too cautions. Such a thing never existed, unless you bought two hundred CCTV cameras and plastered them all over your walls.

"He's always in a bad mood when she's around," November muttered to Romeo.

"Well, what do you expect. She's the reason he's isolated in the first place, and you are doing nothing to help.

As usual, whenever this conversation started, I picked up my pace, ignoring the two. My memories with the hunt weren't pleasant memories. Instead, they followed me like ghosts. Over the last five years, me, November and Can had traveled all over America, meeting many as we passed through the various cities. Some came with us, while others stayed with their families and friends. Okay, I guess I should explain the names. Basically, when me, Nico and Calypso, aka November and Can had picked up a few of our friends, it hadn't taken long for people to start looking at us suspiciously, especially when someone said my name. In fact, one time I'd been forced to give fifty drachmas to one demigod after he had looked at me, mouth gape, when Can had said my name out loud. Quickly, I'd bribed him into not telling anyone. Not too long after that, Lima had decided to call everyone with these cool code names, as if we were characters in some 1970s spy film.

Okay, technically, Lima had just decided to call people random stuff, like calling me Pitta bread, and calling Nico, Nigerian, which had been interesting. Only a few days later, after getting sick of being called Pitta bread and hummus, I decided to start calling people by other, more reasonable names, like November and Romeo. Then, that was what people chose. Now, I assume that all everyone can think about is who all the names are, and what they mean. No one can know what everyone's real names were until we were safe away, or the war started, but as for my name…

"So what's the plan then, Alpha," Julio asked, addressing me directly. Unlike the others, Julio didn't mock me about Artemis and the hunt. He didn't even talk about them to me, which I liked, unlike Lima and November, who loved talking to me about it. I thought, not slowing down my pace.

"Let's all wait until Hotel and Can get back," I said, nearly getting smacked in the face by a green branch. After pushing past it, I found myself in an empty, desolated clearing, about ten feet wide. Can had told me to wait for them here, but I was already nervous. Can should've been here about twenty minutes ago, and was almost never late. I paced up and down the clearing, thinking about what to do next.

"You better get there on time," I demanded as the two looked at me. Both Hotel and Can had been nominated for a mission, call it a quest if you like. After all the information I had told Hestia and Apollo, I knew almost everything about the war, but was still nervous. After all, the whole of Olympus thinks that it will be easy, and 'won within a week'. At first, I thought that, but now, as the war creeps close, I keep wondering, what if there was a coded message in the coded message. It had taken Lima, me and Julio five minutes to crack the code. All we needed to do was shift each letter five letters forwards, and then shift the bold letters two letters back. Then, we could convert it into English and boom, chicken soup! We would have the code. Now, however, when I sit down and think about it, I would always think, perhaps there was a more, difficult way to decipher it, which we didn't know of yet. If that was the case, all our valuable information would be worthless, and this war might even be futile for us. That's why I always made sure to give some messages to Hephaestus to decode. Now, less than a year before the war, when Hephaestus had confirmed he hadn't been able to decode the message, growing desperate I'd decided to take matters even deeper. Having heard of the hunt Artemis was going on right after 'The Remembrance' I decided to investigate who she was hunting, and whether or not there were any dodgy monsters who needed to be reported.

That's where Hotel and Can came in. Normally, we would all go undercover and find the hunt's hunt, but Lima and Romeo had to fix something. I didn't bother asking what it was, but knew that it had something to do with my stick.

"Just follow the hunt until you reach the plane," Hotel sighed, giving me a smirk. I frowned.

"I don't want to go to them again," I mumbles, morley talking to myself than anything. Can caressed my face, pulling me in for a hug.

"I know, but sometimes we need to do what is best for everyone, not just ourselves," she soothed, before adding, "well that was cliché."

I giggled, before breaking up.

"I'll see you later today, hopefully. Then, we can go and enjoy a nice cup of 'Canned' coffee."

Hotel sniggered, while Can just looked at me, as if embarrassed by my low humor standards. Well it wasn't that bad!

Standing near my tent, listening to Lima's loud snores, I watched the two soldiers marching into the distance, praying that I was wrong and we didn't have a worse war. Well, I might as well make some breakfast before the inevitable wake-up.

"Who's that," November stammered, something unusual. He had suddenly lost his humor as he stared at the two now visible figures who were hobbling in their direction. As they slowly came closer, it became evident that it was indeed Hotel and Can making their way forwards, an expression of fear plastered on each of their faces.

"Please tell me I was wrong," I almost begged as Can motioned for water, her face even more red than beetroot on a ripe day. Someone, I think Julio snatched a bottle of water, throwing it to Can. Almost as if programmed to, Can lifted it up, threw the lid away, and slurped it all up, not even pausing to do something as crucial as breathe.

"We are all f***** up," she whispered, pronouncing it as f, asterisk, asterisk, asterisk, asterisk, asterisk. "They are coming. I saw it with my own bloody eyes. We got it wrong."
"Who are you talking about?" November frantically yelled. The gal took a deep breath, before bellowing, "Monsters worse than what you've ever seen!" That caused everyone to frantically stand up and reach into their pockets.

Taking out my pen, I started helping Can up.

"The hunt!" I suddenly burst out, remembering my 'cousin' who was, as we speak, marching into the arms of death. Taking no time to consider, I broke into a sprint, the wind whipping my long hair, which I had grown accustomed to over the years.

"And there he goes again," Romeo smirked, taking out her knife nonetheless. I turned around, glaring at her. My company never was fast at preparing for a battle.

I had survived 5 years away from Olympus, isolated from the godly world. Now, I find it ironic that war is the thing that will bring us close.

"We studied the message wrong!" I yelled as my friends all armed themselves. "Now, I guess we must 'repent', if that makes sense."

All armed, we ran as fast as we could, me bending time along the way. I don't know how, but I ended up next to November and Fox. They both cast me a look, which I ignored, occupied with the battle that had already started by the sound of the screams I was hearing. I was too stupid.

"I guess this is the end of our fun little runaway scheme," November mocked, finding something funny in the grave situation we were in.

"Yeah," I mumbled, thumbing the cap of my pen. "So long sentiment, I guess."

You're not supposed to know who the different names represent, but any guesses?

Also, I hope my chapter quality hasn't been dropping :) Did the plot, as in what happened in this chapter make sense?