Revealed

Chapter 21 (Piper)

Everything went horribly wrong. Literally. But that was exactly what we wanted. We didn't know what we would find in St. Petersburg. Spider sent some of the Descendants to scout the area and none of them returned. Since we don't know what we're fighting? Annabeth made a failsafe plan. And a backup plan. And a backup plan for the backup plan. But we're all sure that the failsafe plan wouldn't fail. It was designed to. We eventually found out that the source of the magic we traced was in some building so that became our #1 target.

Thalia went inside first, closely followed by Frank and I. It was a large structure with barely any windows. The building itself was three stories high, and the only two windows it had were both on the third floor, so there was no way we could use that as an entrance unless we wanted attention. surprisingly, the first floor was completely empty, and so was the second. We slowly crept up to the third, where we were hoping to find the goddess somehow. 

What we weren't expecting was a whole squadron of mortals waiting for us with guns raised. There were five of them standing in a semicircle pointing rifles at us as they yell.

"Drop your weapons and put your hands up!" One of them, the person in the center,  ordered. 

We already knew they could see our weapons, so we did the logical thing and dropped them. Thalia began to speak, the air crackling with the smell of ozone, but I silenced her with a glance and smiled sweetly at our ambushers. 

"Boys, -and girl," I added quickly, noticing that one of them was a girl. "You don't have to do-"

Before I could finish my sentence, one of them shot in front of me, the bullet ricocheting and missing me by a few inches. The sound left my ears ringing. I don't know what you're trying to do, but I can tell there's that foul magic in your voice. Quiet!" The man in the center said. He must be the leader.

Without my charmspeak, I was unsure of what to do until Thalia raised her hand and lightning shattered the windows on each side of the mortals and providing a pretty good distraction. Frank quickly transformed into some big cat while I darted forward with Katoptris, making the range of their weapons useless. With the blade of Katoptris being Celestial Bronze, I knew it would pass right through them so I hit them using the hilt instead, yelling instructions laced with charmspeak like, 'drop your weapon!', 'stop!', and other stuff that would slow them down as I attacked. 

Frank the panther pounced on the girl, knocking her over, her head hitting the corner of a table. She was out like a light. Meanwhile, Thalia charged with her spear already electrically charged, not caring whether the Celestial Bronze weapon actually hit its target. The lightning would electrocute everything it hits, and I had to dodge away a few times to avoid getting hit. 

Finally, there was only one person left conscious. We only knocked them all out. He was the one who had spoken earlier. Their leader. The poor guy was a stuttering mess, yelling obscenities and blindly lashing out with a piece of wood he grabbed from earlier when Frank bit off the firearm from his hand.

"You're monsters! Leave us! This is a special U.S military operation! Leave!" He yelled.

With a gasp, we realized what he was saying. This guy was American. He was from the military. The mortals, especially the U.S. military, had something to do with the disappearance of Hecate.

"Where is the goddess?" I laced my voice heavily with charmspeak. His eyes glazed over and he answered in a monotone voice, directing us to another building where there were supposed to be more people to ambush us. 

I told him to sleep, my voice still heavy with charmspeak, and he just passed out on the floor. We immediately ran down to meet the rest of our group who were just entering the building. Thalia immediately told Annabeth what we learned and we went out, weapons ready, to go to the other building. It was a single-story warehouse that was large enough to fit the big house inside it. 

Annabeth already gave out instructions before going in. She scouted the inside first, her invisibility cap in hand. Its magic that started to work again after the second Giant War is apparently still working even without the Mist. Or maybe the Mist works a little better here nearer to the goddess. 

She was out a few minutes later, confirming what we already knew. She said that the whole place was tightly secured, with around fifty soldiers all armed to the teeth all walking around and basically being on sentry duty. It didn't seem like they knew they were guarding Hecate though, as Annabeth said that they were all talking about 'the witch they caught in China.' 

Ben, the legacy of Hecate, looked hurt by this, but his expression quickly shifted into one of determination. "We will save her," he said. 

The first people to go in were the Descendants, as per Annabeth's and Spider's instructions. They were carrying firearms to look inconspicuous and not much like demigods. From what we've seen and encountered earlier, it's not impossible that these men were misinformed about demigods and so were warned of the weapons we carry in order to identify us quickly. 

A few seconds after the Descendants went in we heard the sounds of gunfire. Running behind a nearby wall for shelter, we all peeked at the warehouse. Not even a minute later, the sounds of gunfire ceased and Ben walked out. He waved us in. We walked inside slowly, noticing the guards crumpled at the floor. There were some wounded descendants, but Apollo legacy medics were already working on them when we got in. 

The warehouse was pretty small inside, or maybe it was just really packed with whatever was in these crates. There rows upon rows of large crates, and with the dim yellow lighting, it seemed like something from a horror movie.

Hecate was tied to a chair with iron shackles that had what looked like spells and runes on them. When Percy tried to hold them, his hands immediately sizzled and the smell of burning flesh permeated the room. He grabbed a nearby water bottle and poured it on his hand while Annabeth gave him a square of ambrosia to chew.

"Seaweed Brain, what did I tell you about stuff that have weird markings on them?" Annabeth said as she inspected his already healing hand.

"Not to touch?"

"Never forget that," Annabeth said.

I slashed at the shackles with my knife, but of course, nothing happened. Percy tried again by using his sword to cut them, but it also didn't work. Finally, Ben realized that he could understand the runes painted on the shackles and told us what they said.

"Only godly sacrifice of courage can unshackle whoever these chains hold," He said.

Well, schist

A/N: I haven't updated in so long but I hope you guys know I try to write at least a hudred words whenever I can in order to publish a chapter as quickly as I can. On a side note, it's already Christmas break so updates may be a bit quicker now!

Thank you for reading!

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