Back to the Way I Was

Chapter 13

When Chaos's six warriors gathered at the rec room of the Big House along with some of the counsellors of each cabin, the atmosphere wasn't really merry, not even when they got the news that Percy would be with them. They were here to talk about the incident that happened today, but since they suffered some loss of friends, none of them were too thrilled to talk about it.

While the occupants of the room gathered around the ping pong table, Percy stayed away from the others. He stood at the corner of the room and leaned casually against the wall, trying to stay hidden as much as possible.

Undoubtedly, Lucia and Thalia were worried to death for him. Of course, his friends were worried as well, but none more worried than Thalia and Lucia. Percy had this troubled expression in his face as he stayed away from the rest. Lucia had tried talking to him when he arrived with Thalia, but he just gave her some passive answers, none of them really answered any of Lucia's questions. Thalia also looked worried, but more over, Lucia noticed that Thalia wore another expression aside from worry. Lucia decides to keep a close eye on Thalia after this.

Jason cleared his throat. "Okay, I take it everyone is here," Jason said. "So, uh, we've returned from our training in Azurea and, well, Thalia?"

Thalia nodded. She'd been the second in command after Percy had finished his training. While Thalia thought Jason was more suited to the position rather than Thalia, Chaos's decision was final.

"End is in the brink of consciousness," Thalia said. "Chaos has trained us to be the best so we could defeat End and force him back to sleep."

"Uh," A demigod raised his hand. He was the newly appointed counsellor for the Hermes cabin five years ago since the veteran counsellors, the Stoll brothers, died in the explosion. "Sorry to interrupt, but, how are we supposed to fight End?"

"Lady Chaos said that the battle will take place in Manhattan," Thalia said, the colour slightly draining out of her face. Manhattan had already seen a war between demigods and monsters once. The Mist helped a lot with explaining what happened. But then, they weren't prepared for a full scale invasion by the Titan Lord itself. Now, they'd been given a head start. "The first step in our plan is to evacuate every mortal around a few hundred miles around the Empire State Building, and it must be done by Saturday,"

"Sunday?" Lucia said in disbelief. "That's in three days. How are we supposed to evacuate the entire island in three days? Keep in mind, Manhattan is huge."

"That's what we thought at first when Percy said we're going to defend Manhattan," Thalia said. "And yet, we did it."

"Just adds to the list of how much he'd achieved in his teenage years," Nico said with a smirk. Then, at the corner of the room, Percy winced slightly at Nico's words. Thalia glared ruefully at Nico, and he paled instantly.

"What he's trying to say is," Reyna stepped between them, sending Thalia a message through her stare. Don't make a scene. "Percy is good when it comes to battle."

But none of that would be possible without Annabeth, Percy thought in his head. His worse nightmare flashed into his head and he winced slightly. "I'm going for a walk," Percy said silently before going out of the rec room.

"Who said you could go?" Jason asked.

"I wasn't asking for permission," Percy replied as he exited the room. He made it clear that he didn't want to be stopped and nothing was stopping him. Jason was about to argue, but Piper put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head.

"Let him be," Piper said. Jason was reluctant, but he nodded stiffly.

"Any more questions?" Thalia asked.