Sailing Solo

Prologue

No way had that happened.

Chiron stood on the deck of the Big House, still unable to process everything that happened that day.

There were campers on the basketball courts. Unaware of the significance of the events that day. They were too new to camp as a whole.

Chiron had already sent word to Camp Jupiter. The news was taken hard there too. Reyna hadn't shown any emotion but Frank & Hazel were in denial.

And who could blame them? After spending months together on a ship going on a quest, you would think you'd know a person.

Leo and Calypso had locked themselves in Bunker 9, Chiron suspected he wouldn't be seeing the son of Hephaestus for a while. Piper and Jason stopped talking to anyone. Piper taking it the hardest out of the two. Coach Hedge had decided to leave camp more often. His poor wife and kid growing more concerned every minute. Grover was much in the same boat.

And Percy?

Percy's reaction to the events today were the most concerning.

The centaur could see him just barely from where he stood. The son of Poseidon was obliterating the training dummies. Going the hardest Chiron had ever seen him go. His face stuck in the some position from when he realized what had happened. There was a look in his eyes that Chiron wished never had gotten there. It honestly scared him.

The old teacher had never felt his age more than he had that moment. He sighed.

"I think it's time to retire," he muttered.

"Don't do that, Chiron, I need you here at least til the end of the century," a voice came from inside the house. "Besides, it's not like you to give up on them."

Chiron clopped into the house to see Dionysus playing with a stack of cards at the ping-pong table. His Diet Pepsi to his left. He was wearing a purple silk shirt with metallic prints of leopard spots. "How did it go at Olympus?" he asked. The god had left only 45 min earlier to inform the Council.

Dionysus hardly paused in his shuffling. "They have been informed. I trust you know the changes that need to be made as a result of this? "

Chiron sighed and started working his way into his wheel chair. "The password on the portal has been changed," he started. That had been the most pressing. If the portal between the camps had been breached, neither of the camps would have survived. "The borders are still strong. I made the necessary changes to the schedule for patrol. I was waiting for any additional instructions from the gods."

"Nothing to add to that," Dionysus said. His eyes still haven't left the cards in his hands as they started dealing them out.

"How is Athena taking this? And Poseidon?"

This caused the wine god to stop a moment. His shoulders almost undetectably slouched. "As well as can be expected with what Annabeth did."

"'Annabeth?'" Chiron smiled sadly "I knew you knew their names."

"How could you think I didn't?" Dionysus asked. Chiron sent him an incredulous look & he sighed in defeat. "Alright, yes I know all their names. I used to be one of them after all. My distance is for my mental health. As I'm sure you understand." he sent the centaur a pointed look. "You deal with the losses your way, I'll deal with them my way."

Chiron's wince didn't go unnoticed by the purple clad god but he said nothing more.

The centaur wasn't sure which card game they were playing, he kept replaying what happened over and over in his mind. The moment things all went to Tartarus.

Almost literally.

Except it wasn't Tartarus that came, was it?

It was Pontus.

Which meant the attack came from the shore line.

The infirmary was still taking care of the injured. Their numbers dropped significantly in the unexpected attack. Annabeth was fighting alongside Percy, as usual... Until she wasn't.

Suddenly she was turning her drakon bone sword onto demigods. As she slowly took more & more out of the fight, more and more became distracted. Percy frozen, watching her with a very heart broken look on his face.

Then the monsters pulled back, rallying behind her. The demigods that had been fighting stood in disbelief.

"Let this be your warning." she'd said. "Pontus is coming. "

Then they left.

And she went with them.

Where had he gone wrong? Chiron rubbed his face with his hands. How had the little girl he had taken in years ago changed so much? That girl had been happy, and while she hadn't necessarily been care free, she didn't have the weight of the world on her shoulders. She also took the duty as a hero seriously.

Come to think of it, she had been growing more and more closed off the last month or so. Chiron had chalked it up to her experience in Tartarus and hoped that time home at camp and with Percy would have helped. Now he wasn't so sure.

And he hated himself for it. But he could only imagine how guilty Percy had been feeling.

Percy refused to talk to anyone after that battle and Chiron had yet to hear anything from him. He had locked himself in his cabin almost immediately after Will Solace had checked him over. Only recently, has he come out and started training with an intensity that Chiron has never seen from him before.

Whatever happened, there was no use dwelling on what it could have been. Chiron had things to do. And as always, he was expected to focus on the kids and the camp.

It really was time to retire.

-     -      -

Dionysus didn't look up as Chiron set down the cards he was holding and walked out. Only once the door shut behind him did he move his gaze in the direction Chiron had left. His shoulders slumped and he dropped his head in his hands.

He was tempted to scream but that might bring questions from people he didn't want asking. Which would be everyone.

They had planned for it, of course. Still, the unexpectedness was a little nerve wracking. They saw this coming a few months ago. Which was a good thing because otherwise they would all be in trouble.

When Dionysus told the Olympian Council what had happened, the only words any of them had been able to say was from Artemis, "And so it begins."

They were in for a ride of their lives and if one thing went wrong, the whole world will pay for it.