Signs of a Storm

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter 42: As Told By...

Leo-

When Tara had hung up and the Iris message disappeared, I was frozen in shock. She had really abandoned us, just like I knew she would. I had honestly hoped she wouldn't really do it, but I was proven wrong.

During the attack with Khione, we were all five separated. When the chaos passed, I found Percy gripping onto a tree for dear life, and Hazel was hiding behind a hot dog cart. I half-expected to see Tara holding onto an umbrella or something, with Nico right beside Hazel. But later on, after ten minutes of searching, we were convinced she was gone, along with Nico di Angelo. We eventually gave up, and decided to track them down.

No matter how hard we tried, neither of us could find her location. No device I could whip up was able to find her. Percy even asked dolphins, but no information was given. After all that failed, I was almost convinced she may have...died. But when Hazel did that weird death-sensing-thing, she said they weren't gone, just missing.

Finally, I decided that maybe an Iris message would work.

Percy tossed in a coin, made a blessing, and the connection came to life. I saw her bright face, and it made me let a breath go that I didn't know I had been holding. The other two looked relieved. I exclaimed loudly, "Thank the gods, Tara! You're safe." Percy cut me off and began talking about what we had figured out earlier.

When the girls split up from us, Percy had said he knew someone who knew a whole lot of stuff. We three, (Nico, Percy, and I) walked down by the harbor. I watched as all the bums were passed out in the sun. It made no sense.

"I have to find Nereus, he's the old man of the sea. He knows a lot. I'll ask him if he knows when the attack will be." Percy had said.

I decided to let him go off and do what he needed, while I got a pretzel. "You're seriously eating now, Valdez?" Nico asked, glancing at me, with a frown on his already unhappy face. I offered him a piece, "Sorry. Didn't know you wanted some too." He didn't take the pretzel, so I finished it by myself. Soon enough Percy came back.

He was breathing hard, and smelled seriously bad. He told us how he barely managed to capture the guy again, and that he had before, when he was 14 years old. He said it was on some quest with Thalia and Grover to rescue Annabeth and Artemis. I shrugged it off, and asked what the old dude said. Percy replied that the attack was tonight.

I almost choked on my pretzel.

But that wasn't the end of it, while we were looking for the girls, some monsters picked up on our trail, and about twenty seal-things were following us. Soon enough we found them, and fought off like six things instead. It was weird. But then Khione came, and everything went crazy, and here we were, trying to contact Tara and Nico.

After we told her everything, she decided to stick to her ridiculous plan, and find her uncle. I was angry at her; and di Angelo too. They were both going to leave us. But after it went dead, we needed to get back to Camp Jupiter, and warn them to get ready for a battle. Hazel easily shadow-traveled us there and Percy found Reyna and spilled the beans. She immediately ordered the defenses to set up walls of warriors, and they did.

The forges were hard at work, sharpening swords, making new ones, and I joined in helping. It helped get my mind off the fact that Tara was out somewhere, having a nice family reunion while we were here preparing for war.

The sun was starting to go down, and I believed we were ready. But, boy, I was not expecting that many. It happened at dawn.

The first ambush came from nowhere. One moment there was chilling out, the next, people were fighting. I had never really been good with a sword, but I learned quickly. I watched as Percy slashed through monster after monster. I tried to follow along, and ended up not dying! Only a few were injured, but that was just the first wave of many. I really had wished Tara was here. She was great at this type of stuff.