Percy slid into the seat next to Luke out of breath. He seemed to have gotten there just as the campers were finishing up, which was great. No one seemed to have noticed his disappearance or his random appearance. Or if they had, they weren't commenting on it in loud disruptive voices.

Luke was pushing broccoli around his plate. He didn't seem in a particular hurry to be anywhere. His feet were planted firmly on the ground. Percy didn't have any trouble replacing this living breathing figure with a stone statue replica. It would have had the same reactions.

Even Revenge, the bitter son of Nemesis, seemed to have caught his depressed flu. Ethan was poking dejectively at a half eaten burger on his plate. There was only a couple of fries left so Percy guessed he had given a good portion of them to his mother. Percy wondered if the gods knew exactly who gave what to them. Would his father be aware that he was burning a serving of mash potatoes and a piece of ham, or would it just be another demigod to him?

"Hey," Percy whispered. Strangely his voice was still louder than he meant; a couple despondent Hecate kids glanced their way before going back to a disinterested conversation about spells that none of them seemed to want to be a part of.

"Where were you?" Ethan asked, "Tell me you didn't find her."

Percy picked up his goblet willing it to fill with something. After a second, he then willed it to turn to something other than blue coke. As ecstatic as he would be over that, he could just see a camper questioning who in the world drank blue soda. He settled for water.

"I did find her," Percy told the other dead demigod under his breath.

Ethan swore in ancient Greek. Next to him, Chiron, in human form, twitched his nose in disapproval, "Please don't use that language at my table, Revenge."

The sound of the old centaur's voice woke Luke from his trance. "Revenge, I'm not your mother. Don't make me wash your mouth with soap."

"Oh, go fuck a hydra."

Percy choked on his soda.

"Now that's just uncalled for." Hero waved off the insult as if it hadn't attracted over the half the camp's attention with the noise itself. He sighed and popped a bite of broccoli into his mouth. Percy watched as Revenge slouched in his chair, his glare reset to the default we're-going-to-die-and-it's-all-your-fault mode now that Luke had properly scolded him. Chrion sent them both looks of disapproval and Percy found the whole event horribly saddening.

The atmosphere weighed heavily on his shoulders as he tried to find solace in anything good that had come from the trip here. Bianca was still recovering, Michel was still sick, Ethan was still picking fights with anything that breathed and Luke was still bearing the whole galaxy on his shoulders. The camp that had once been his home was shrouded in sadness and it was all Percy's fault, for dying, for letting himself die, and for leaving his friends to a death so unfair and sudden he couldn't describe it. 

His eyes fell on the Big Three tables where he, Jason, and Nico had pushed them together to form a brotherly bond he was sure their parents could never understand. All the the seats were empty. Percy knew Nico was still standing on that hill with Annabeth and Thalia, either mourning the great Percy Jackson's death or plotting to kill him again. Jason had run after Piper from the meeting earlier, and because the daughter of Aphrodite was still gone, Percy could guess they were still drying their tears for him and Leo.

Achilles was probably just sleeping through dinner. Percy remembered having to forcibly wake him after practices just to get him to eat. Maybe no one had gotten him, for dinner, or for the meeting earlier.

Percy tried to still his shaking hand when he put down his goblet. If Luke or Ethan noticed, neither of them said anything.

Chiron stood to his full height, clopping his hooves on the concrete base to gather the attention of the morbid crowd. "Campers!" He address in a hallow shell of his normal grandfatherly tone. "I would like to welcome the Hunters of Artemis officially, to the camp again. Though now I extend that welcome to the Warriors of Chaos." His eyes shifted to Luke who nodded back at the acknowledgement. "Today has been a long day, and I'm afraid I'll have to cancel the Capture the Flag game tonight, as well as the Campfire." 

There were a couple of groans from the Ares table but Clarisse dug her knife from the table violently and they were shut up pretty quick. She turned a poisoned glare in their direction, but Luke's only reaction was to move another broccoli stalk in a circle with his fork.

"After dinner, please return directly to your cabins. In the morning, I would like the cabin leaders to gather in the Big House for another final discussion." Chiron stroked his beard, "Until then I ask that you obey all the camp rules, including the one about being out after dark." He level a knowing look over all the campers who seemed to sink even more into their seats. The Centaur then lowered his voice and spoke directly to Luke, "Hero, normally we would reserve the Hermes cabin for visitors but considering the circumstances I felt it would be better if the three of you stayed in the Big House while your companions are in the infirmary."

"Thank you sir." Hero nodded to him, far more appreciatively than Percy thought was necessary. He glanced at the Hermes table were Travis and Connor were in a heated discussion with voices so low he couldn't hear them. Chris was was making a mountain out of mash potatoes and corn and Cecil was already asleep on the wooden table top. The whole table lacked the energy he was so used to seeing it with. 

It occurred to Percy that having to spend the night a cabin Luke thought he'd never get to see again as well with his brothers he betrayed and died for, might have been enough to push Luke over that little ledge that kept him sane enough to lead.

Revenge stretched back and yawn so loud and long Percy was sure it was fake. "Well!" He said, "This has been an exuberant amount of fun!" His sarcasm pulled glares from other tables, especially the hunters, "But for lack of better things to do, I'm going to go sleep." He stood up, saluted Chiron sarcastically and entered the big building as if he owned it. 

He was really selling his whole jackass persona. 

"I'm going to kill him." Luke muttered under his breath. He sounded aged, though, under the annoyed tone that came with leading people. Percy guessed that the trials of the last twenty four hours were getting to him.

Getting to all of them.

Percy managed to eat all of one piece of ham and about three bites of Mash potatoes. It was weird, the feeling of not being hungry, but at the same time, he was also dead. Ghosts didn't need to eat so why would he? Everything tasted bland anyway, as if the lack of energy from the camp had tainted even the food into being some dry, tastless mesh they served to the bad kids in a run down High School.

Luke didn't seem in any hurry to leave, until Thalia was strolling into the pavillion again to gather her hunters. Percy watched them make eye contact and Luke and stood up so fast he nearly tripped over Chiron in his flight to find Revenge in the big house. Thalia then turned her glare on Percy, who merely shurgged an apology and thanked Chiron for his hospitality as well as he could without physically stabbing himself with his sword.

The old centuar acknowledged him but merely kept his eyes along the rows of quieted campers, demigods who had seen too much death recently to feel even manage a smile.

Ethan had picked out a couch in one of the far rooms, Percy had only ever been in, in passing. He was stretched the length of it with his hands under his head and he knocked back like he was sleeping.

Luke was hitting him with a pillow.

"Why do you have to be such a jerk?!" Hero hissed, as if he was afraid one of the campers would peek inside and yell at him for disturbing the solemness. "They are literally mourning over Percy's death!"

Ethan kicked at him, "It's just a precutaion! Geez!" He huffed and settled back, "Go to sleep, Luke, and leave me alone!"

"How can I sleep when your fat butt is taking up the only couch in this room?"

"Easy, Captain, you just sleep on the damn floor."

Luke hit him with the pillow, "Jackass."

"Princess."

"Brat."

Ethan peeled an eye open to look at him, "Thief."

Luke scowled and threw his entire weight on top of Ethan without ceremony. Percy, despite the awful feeling in his stomach and the weariness in his bones, smiled as Ethan let loose a string of curses at his supiorior officer.

Percy grabbed a blanket and some pillows that had fallen from the couch. He successfully made a small bed, and curled his hood around himself.

He slept for maybe an hour and a half without a dream. Almost like Clockwork Percy blinked his eyes open in a room that shifted this way and that way, with a table of food in front of him and Bianca Di Angelo lying down with with a bag of Cool Ranch Diritos.

"Ah the man of the hour arrives!" she hummed, "How's it going, Percy?"

He snorted, "Ethan's getting on everyone's nerves, Luke is slowly falling apart in front of Thalia, and the demigods really, really don't want to help us." He sighed, "Oh and my girlfriend is miserable and its all my fault."

"Have some Chinese," The daughter of Hades suggested, "It's comfort food."

Percy shurgged, "Hey, I'm not going to wake up chewing on my pillow, right? I'm not sure I can play that off."

She looked thoguhtful for a moment, glancing between him and her chips. "I...not sure actaully." She quickly crumpled the bag and tossed it over her shoulder and out of her dream. "Anyway, even if it did, both the guys are asleep peacefully. I made sure to give Luke some pleasant thoughts tonight. He's rubbish if he doesn't get a good sleep." She leaned forward, "Between you and me, I think thats the real reason he tried to over throw the gods."

Percy laughed, "Because Luke didn't get his beauty sleep?"

She gave him a knowing look, her dark eyes shining with a mischievous glimmer. She looked relaxed and calm in her mindspace, which was a complete 180 from earlier when Percy and Ethan were struggling to pull her out of her own shadow.

"How are you?" Percy asked.

"Better," She smiled, "Whatever Halo did, it worked. I can reasonably say I no longer feel like I'm going to become part of the void."

Percy grabbed a juice box from the table and raised it in a toast, "Little victories, am I right?"

Her laugh was strained.

"Is there something else bothering you?"

Bianca shifted uneasily, "Yes. I mean no--oh Hades! Yes there is!" She slumped back with her head eyeing the endless, open ceiling.

"What if we aren't fast enough?" She said after a moment. "What if the demigods decide to help us and we manage to avoid the end of this world-- what if we aren't fast enough to save Huntress?"

"We will be fast enough." Percy told her.

"But what if we aren't?" She insisted, "Percy, Huntress-- she was a sister to me at one point. All the Hunters of Artemis were. She deserves a second life, and this is just... it's just cruel."

Percy thought about Grapevine and the way he picked at his gloves, looking past the horizon and cursing himself. Zoe Nightshade had saved him from the same disease that was killing Huntress, but Percy wondered vainly if Caster didn't sometimes wish she had let him fade.

Percy put down his juicebox, and turned so he was fully facing Bianca on the couch. "Listen to me, Di Angelo." He said carefully, "I know you weren't a living demigod for very long, but you are a Warrior of Chaos, remember? You saved a Planet? People adore you? That doesn't change when the odds aren't in our favor. Take it from me: I saved a planet twice when every prophecy ever given foretold my death. And still we survived."

He nudged her knee with his, until she was looking at him completely. Her dark eyes were filled with water tears, so much like Nico's when Percy had to tell him he broke a promise. But where the son of Hades was the raging brokeness of shattered rocks, Bianca's sadness was the empty endless falling into an abyss. Nico would fight, but Bianca would never give you a chance.

"What if it doesn't work?" She whispered. "What if we had come all this way, we find Zoe's stash of wishes, and by some miracle make it back to Chaos' planet without fading--- Wishes are made of Chaos energy and will right? What if he decides to rebuke the wish?"

"Could that happen?"

Bianca shrugged helplessly, "I don't know! As far as we know right now, Chaos is trying to kill us. Omega nearly suceeded! We are down half our team because of it."

Percy tapped his foot twice agains the carpetted floor. "We'll figure something out." He decided, as if it was just that simple.

Bianca waited a beat. "That's it?" She asked almost in pure disbelief, "That's...We are going to go into this with no plan and pray for a shit ton of luck?"

Percy had the gall to laugh. "Archangel, I haven't had a plan since the day I found out I was a demigod. Everything I've ever done has been based on a shit ton of luck."

She startled a miserable laugh and picked up a Chinese take out box again, "I hope there's Chinese Food wherever we go once we fade. I'm going to need a lot of it."

She flicked a hand his way and before Percy could respond he found himself blinking away in an unfamiliar location.

Well it wasn't entirely unfamiliar: He vaguely recognized the sounds of deep breathing, and the ache of couch cushions as Ethan rolled over again. The room of the Big House was completely dark, aside from bars of white moonlight that bypassed the blinds and the blinking of a digital clock that must have shorted out the last time there was a lightning strike because it read two in the afternoon.

Percy picked himself up from the nest of pillows he had made. There was a sour taste in his mouth, and he wasn't sure if it was from the prospect of food he hadn't gotten to eat or from the equally distressing conversation he had with Bianca.

Luke had settled for the couch pillows and a quilted blanket that he must have taken jsut to spite Ethan because he wasn't even sleeping under it. Ethan was curled with his back to the room and his chest moving in and out in a slow rhythm. At the very least Bianca had done as she promised and given them both calming dreams.

Percy felt like she had wired him to a grounding stick and told him to hold still in the middle of an empty feild during a lightning storm. He knew she was unsatisfied with his approach to the dilema, but wasn't that also the reason why Luke was the leader and not him? Percy had only ever done great things with Annabeth by his side and his friends at his back.

He had defeated every monster he had come across by a mix of luck and willpower up until the day he died. He had, by all rights, given up on planning for specific occurances because he couldn't plan for the stupidly magical world he lived in. Every time he had ever made a plan, something had ruined it: He wanted to spend a nice weekend with his mother and maybe learn about his dad-- Bam! You're a demigod. He wanted to stay at camp where he finally felt like he belonged-- Thief? That Jackson kid looks like one! They blew up the St Louis Arc, Mount Rushmoore, he made a plan to help get Bianca and Nico to camp and instead Annabeth got kidnapped. He made a plan to save Luke, and instead Luke ended up killing himself. He disappeared for eight months after he promised to spend the time with Annabeth. He planned not to have his blood awake Gaea, and he got a nosebleed.

He planned to propose to Annabeth and he died.

So maybe Bianca was a little right. They needed an idea of what they were doing. But Percy could only see the whole situation as impossibly huge, so he focused on what he needed for now: find the glowing orbs of Zoe's stash, and figure out how to save Huntress. He could worry about outsmarting Choas when he was face to face with the entity again.

Percy quietly lifted himself to his feet, watching the other two Warriors of Chaos for any signs that they were going to wake. The floorboards creaked under his step. Luke rolled over and burrowed his head in a pillow.

Percy let out a breath, and he contiued his light stepping all the way to the door. Then without so much of a look back, he crept out into the night to look for Zoe's stash.