Sailing Solo

3

Weeks went by without an attack. Percy had been rotating his patrol from the coast to the woods to Half-Blood Hill. Nothing was happening.

If this kept up, the other campers would not take their patrol seriously. The camp would let its guard down and when Annabeth, and subsequently Pontus attacked, they would not be ready.

"What are you waiting for?" Percy stood on a sand dune on the beach, trying to see out in the distance for whatever attack he was sure would come.

The leaders of the Roman camp had left after that first meeting but Hazel was popping in every so often to see how he was doing. It was sweet of her to do that but Percy really needed her to focus. He had a feeling things were about to go wrong.

"Percy?"

"Hey, Nico."

"We need to talk."

"What about?" Percy turned his head to see all of the Seven, Reyna, Nico, Will, Thalia, and another Hunter he didn't know. "Frank, Hazel, Reyna, what are you guys doing here?"

Panic gripped his chest. He knew what Annabeth was waiting for now.

"We were hoping to talk to you," Hazel started quietly, gesturing around her. "We're all worried about you."

"You shouldn't be here." Percy turned to fully face them and started walking to the group that decided holding an intervention was important right then. "You realize you left Camp Jupiter leaderless? What if Annabeth attacks? What were you thinking?"

"This is exactly what we wanted to talk about." Nico said calmly. "We don't know anything about what's going on, there hasn't been a prophecy and nothing has happened since that first attack. We could be over preparing for an attack that will never happen."

Percy glared at Thalia. "You know her better than anyone here besides me," he started. "Do you think she would threaten us with Pontus falsely?"

"I didn't think she would side with the monsters at all, Percy. I don't think either of us knew her as well as we thought we did." Thalia said sadly. "Come on, let Terri watch the coast for you while we go sit down and have a chat."

The hunter Percy didn't know walked over to stand next to Percy. She gently nudged him with a small smile and reassuring nod.

Well, it would have been reassuring if Percy didn't apparently know Annabeth better than everyone there.

Without any further hesitation, Percy started running in the direction of the portal on the other side of camp. He ignored the shouts of protest from his friends. I hope I'm not too late.

His race across camp was only interrupted once as he couldn't decide whether to go around or through the Hunters. Eventually he decided he had wasted enough time deciding and just ran through. Leaping over their campfire, he prayed that the hunters wouldn't decide to chase him down for entering their territory.

He didn't make it far in the forest before a dryad popped out of nowhere to stop him.

"No! Do not go there!" She said frantically. She looked disheveled and had had her hands up to keep him from going any further. "The monsters have taken charge of it!"

He was going too fast to slow down in time so he slid and fell flat on his face in the mud. Only once he got up did the meaning of her words sink in. "No." He breathed. "Did anyone come through the portal before?"

She hesitantly nodded. "They did not make it far before the monsters got to them."

No.

He spun around angrily and marched back towards camp.

He passed a counselor on the way through the camp fire area. "Tell everyone to stay away from the portal and we need to have a counselor meeting at the Pavilion."

Not long after, he saw the intervention group that got together for him. He did not speak other than to say, "Pavilion. Wait for me there I'm going to Camp Jupiter."

"How?" Reyna asked.

He didn't answer, only bringing out Riptide and disappearing in a wave of sea mist. It was something he'd been practicing for a while. He had discovered it was easier to do it when he thought of places that were closely connected to his father. Like a shrine.

He arrived on the top of Neptune's shrine to see that Camp Jupiter was no longer under the charge of demigods. Monsters were tearing down shrines and cabins one at a time, Terminus' statue was in pieces at the entrance to New Rome and demigod bodies scattered the ground.

Annabeth stood in the distance, over seeing the destruction of a statue of Jupiter.

Percy met her eyes, seeing only a strong emotion of cold satisfaction as the master bolt came crashing down, neatly flattening a hellhound. None of the monsters or even Annabeth reacted to that, just continued tearing down the camp.

Nico arrived not a second later, in time to see the rest of the statue fall while Percy stood there with his sword hanging down by his side.

"No." The son of Hades said, falling to his knees.

Recapping Riptide, Percy turned to heave up his cousin. They had no time to sit and wait for monsters to come get them. "Let's go." He said emotionlessly, causing Nico to wince.

They arrived in the pavilion through their respective travel methods. Nico slumped in a chair next to Will and dropped his head in his hands.

"Nico?" Hazel said softly. "What happened?"

"Camp Jupiter and New Rome is lost." Percy said, still in the same tone as when he talked to Nico earlier. "As well as the portals."

Reyna stood from her seat rapidly, her chair falling backwards in her sudden actions. "No!"

That seems to be a frequent word today, thought Percy.

"It's true," Nico said quietly through his hands. "I saw them tearing down Jupiter's statue and the cabins in flames."

Mutters rose up from the rest of the counselors and Chiron buried his face in his hands much like Nico.

"I'm sorry, Percy," Hazel said through tears.

"We can talk about that later," Percy promised. "Right now, we need to talk about what we're doing next."

"There could be survivors," Reyna said. Her eyes were fixed on the table and her hands in a fist on the table.

"How could there be survivors from that?" Clarisse asked angrily.

"New Rome has underground tunnels in the event an invasion should happen," she started. "There are entrances in every home."

"Where do they lead?" Percy asked. Hope rose in his chest. They could still save some.

"To the surrounding cities. The creators of the tunnels didn't want them to be anywhere near where the invasion would have happened."

Percy smiled for the first time in forever. "I want you to get with Thalia, Malcolm and Clarisse. Help them locate the entrances and the paths they would have taken afterwards. Let's bring them here so they're safe."