"Okay, what now?" xClassicx asked, tugging one of her cinnamon curls.

"Wait, dude, you were-" Leo tried to interject.

"I said what's next?" xClassicx glared at Leo. For someone so small and mousy looking, she seemed to look threatening when she wanted to be.

Percy was thankful that she was the one to speak up first. Percy hadn't had much of an interaction with her before, but she seemed like she understood how much Percy really did not want to talk about his home life. Especially with the stunt he just pulled. He felt like he had taken Riptide to his own stomach and carved out his intestines.

"We unlock Perc--sorry, Riptide's-- Valiant Hero mode." Annabeth said. She was watching Percy with a critical eye, her face blank. It was the same face he had seem many times before on her fun avatar screenshots leading up to her enrolment in the Age of Heroes tournament.

It was her analyzing face.

"Hawtstufz9, get on that." Annabeth commanded with a flick of her wrist. "The rest of us are going to plan how we are going to take down Kronos."

"First off, it's Leo Valdez. When I made that username I didn't expect people to be actually calling me it!" the scrawny Spanish boy rolled his eyes, "Secondly, don't tell me what to do. I'm not good with authority. People who tell me what to do often end up in...unsavory places."

She grabbed his collar and yanked him off his feet. Leo yelped, thrashing wildly, but Annabeth seemed to know what she was doing. Percy was glad he wasn't in Leo's shoes. He did not want to be on the other side of that glare.
"Listen hacker boy--"

"Why does everyone say that like it's a bad thing!" Leo complained, "Hacking is not a bad thing! If I wasn't here Valiant Hero would even be an option--"

"Shut. Up." Annabeth growled, "As of right now we are on the clock. The Titans will have every coder and hacker and tech genius at their disposal working on breaking your code. You can not be so stupid as to think that they will not break it eventually. So every second counts. Kronos no longer has outside help, which gives us the upper hand. But it's not enough.

"We have to gather the rest of the players. AOH was for the biggest and the baddest players. We are the best of the best. All of us." Her eyes flickered up to Percy just long enough for him to feel insulted over her insistence. "We might not know everything about each other, but as of right now we are a team, and we need to act like it. Some of us have people to go back for, Valdez."

He flinched so violently that Annabeth had to drop him. His face screw up in a way that suggested he wanted to make a snide remark but this time he refrained. He looked at her, took a calming breath, and nodded. "Whatever."
Hannibal wrung his hands as if his knuckles were aching. Percy tapped the counter with his palm. Annabeth watched them all, carefully picking out her words before she said them.

"Besides us there are six other players." She said, gliding across the floor. She pulled up her map tapping her chin as she looked at the orange markers. She pointed at two from in the Trailer yard, "These are Iam_superman and Charm4u according to Riptide's friend." She twisted the map, finding another two in a clearing near the start, "BlackMagic and Scorpio." The graveyard, Annabeth took the time to glance at -AngelQueen-, "~GhostKing~ and El3ctric" she turned it one last time to two markers moving at a fast pace, through the forest "Imthebest."

She didn't have to say who the other marker was. The unsaid name rested in the air like a deadly toxin, making it hard for anyone to breath.

Percy felt cold. He stared at the marker, all too aware that less than twentyfour hours ago Imthebest had been part of a team, a good team. The second player to die had been his brother, his teammate, they had been together when it had happened. Percy thought of the feeling of Kronos's blade in his chest the sticky feeling of blood and the hard pressure to find air, to think clearly, not to die....

"We have to help him." Hannibal said voicing Percy's thoughts. He looking around to find everyone staring at the tall Asian, "We have to...he'll die otherwise!"

"And get ourselves killed in the process?" Leo asked, tearing his eyes from the marker as if he could remind himself it was not a person, just a light, and that he held no obligations to anyone.

"We aren't strong enough to stop Kronos." Annabeth said.

"He lost his brother." -AngelQueen- whispered.

"There's gotta be something!" Hannibal insisted, "We can't just sit here and let him die! He's one of us!"
XClassicx put a hand on his shoulder as if to calm him down.

He looked at her in disbelief, "Oh, not you, too!"

She bit her lip, "We can't help him. I wish we could...but..." she hung her head. "We can avenge him. We will avenge him."

Percy could see the battle lines draw in the wooden floor. Hannibal shrugged off her arm looking livid and disgusted at the same time. He shook his head and grabbed his bow and quiver from its place by the sofa.
"Where are you going?" -Chasing- demanded although they already knew the answer.

"Our strength is in numbers you said it yourself!" Hannibal said coldly, "You want to test your theory, come on, let's start by saving another player. Instead of leaving him at the mercy of that fucking murderer!"

"I don't have time to argue with you over the idiocy of this." Annabeth said, "He cannot be saved. You are not going to save him." She turned to Leo, "Where's my code? The other three groups should be easier to get to--"

Hannibal snarled something in fractured Chinese, but Percy had no problem picking it out as an insult. He found comfort in the hilt of his sword.

"Leo," he said, "How far away can I be for you to unlock my Valiant Hero power?"

The other boy blinked, "I, uh, I'm pretty sure I can unlock it from anywhere on the board. I don't like where this is going."

Percy put on a lopsided grin, but waved off his concern. He shrugged towards Hannibal and nodded happily to the door, "Okay, let's go."

"Have you lost your mind?" Annabeth growled. "what are you going to do when Kronos guts you like a fish?"
"I'll improvise." Percy told her, "don't worry. Maybe I'll get a cool power like teleportation!"

"Or something stupid like appearance shifting."

Percy put all of his confidence, which granted was not a lot, into his smile. "Leo needs someone to watch his back, so you should go with him. Go find iam_superman and Charm4u. xClassicx and -AngelQueen- can go after El3ctric and ~GhostKing~. We can all meet up with Scorpio and BlackMagic afterwards."

"Oh yes and get ice cream on the way!" Leo put in with a laugh, "oh wait, you were serious."

"This is a terrible plan." -Chasing- said, "what if you don't make it? Kronos kills both of you and Imthebest and guess what, I can do math!"

"I'm touched by your concerned," Percy said, "I won't let it happen."

"You're full of shit!"

"We're on the clock." Percy reminded her. She threw her hands up, emotions flashing in her eyes faster than Percy could name them. He motioned at Hannibal who had gone blank faced when Percy had started talking.

"We need to make a guild." xClassicx said suddenly.

Everyone paused, but it was -AngelQueen- who spoke first, "Why?"

The smaller girl tugged on her battle tunic biting her lip again, "We're a team now. We owe it to each other. No one else is going to die, right? If we believe that we make the guild. If we survive this I don't think any of us can go back to--- I don't know! Please let's just make a guild!"

They looked uneasily at each other.

"I'm already in a guild, "-AngelQueen- mumbled. Annabeth and Leo and Hannibal all found some other excuse not looking into her pleading eyes. Percy wondered why she was so insistent on this. Why did she want a guild so bad?
His own answer was on the tip of his tongue. The usual "I'm a Solo Player" spiel. The words tasted sour now, like a lie, like a dagger in his gut. The last people who had asked him to join their guild had been the team >Stolls<. One of them wasn't alive anymore.

So instead Percy ran a hand through his black hair, "We need to get moving."

Her face fell, and she seemed to suddenly find the floor very interesting. -Chasing- glowered at his back, but Percy only gave another shrug and a half wave.

"Don't die!" Leo called after him, with a voice that sounded like a joke but really wasn't. Percy closed the door to the penthouse suit and nodded at Hannibal. The guy looked ready to say something but he closed his mouth and just nodded back.

"Do you have a plan?" Percy asked.

"Do you?"

Percy smiled, "Nope."

He headed toward the staircase down, and the other boy followed. Hannibal rotated his grip on his bow.

"I'm Frank, by the way." He said, "Frank Zhang. I...Thank you for coming with me. I know we'll probably both be killed."

Percy grimaced at the words, "Let's hope Leo's as good as he advertises. As of now that's at least one up we have on Kronos."

Hannibal, Frank, was quiet for a moment. Then he said, rather sheepishly, "Have you ever read Caesar's De Bello Galico?"

Percy shook his head, wincing at every loud sound his shoes made on the stair case. Kronos might be chasing after Imthebest, but Percy still felt that he was the initial prey. Any loud sound could draw the assassin right to him for an early round three.

Frank hummed to himself, "My mom use to read it to me. I know Latin almost better than english. The book is all of Caesar's reports to the senate while he was waging war. In one part, he is attacking Britain with his troops all in boats. The story is that his soldiers would have to jump from the boats, into deep water, carrying all of their things, not knowing the layout of the land they were coming too, and the enemy was attacking them. The Roman Soldiers would get nervous and refuse to go."

Frank's voice lowered and Percy found himself drawn into the story, even though he probably should have been making some form of plan. They rounded the last stairwell ignoring a giant discoloration on the wall.

"So this guy in the Roman legion who carries the eagle, a golden signal on a pole which is the most valuable thing in the army, sees all these guys hesitating. He knows that he's basically unarmed and that he's carrying this heavy pole, and he looks at all these guys who are his friends.

"He tells them to jump or the eagle will belong to the enemy." Frank is smiling now, as if proud, "Then he pitches himself over the edge of the boat and starts charging right at the enemy. It's so badass that the guys can't help but follow and then all the other legions who see this also charge in. It's been my favorite story for a long time." He jumped the last two steps as if reenacting the scene with his bow at the Eagle.

Percy tilted his head, suddenly understanding. "You were hoping to be the eagle carrier guy back there."

Frank shrugged. Then he looked up at Percy something in his eyes that the former couldn't quite place. "I know I don't know you very well." He said pausing again to think on his words, "Okay, I really don't know you at all. But you are...um, pretty cool. I mean, like you're the best of us here and you...I... you stood up to -Chasing- and I, uh, thank you."

He look off at one of them buildings nearby. "Just....Thank you."

Percy didn't know what  to respond. Somehow "You're Welcome" didn't seem correct. He could already hear the moans and groans of Zombies. Percy brought Riptide out into the shining light of the setting sun. Soon their first full twenty four hours would be up. Percy tried not to think about how two of them never made it past fourteen hours in. If he thought hard enough, he thought he could almost feel the weight of Grover's headset, the curse and the freedom it had provided, resting around his temples.

Frank rolled his shoulders back. His gaze was locked on ahead of them where a horde of Zombies was amassing in their terrified undead way. They still has time to dash back inside and board up the doors and save themselves but Percy was sure that neither of them even considered it. He wondered what would have happened if he had.

Percy wondered what would have happened if he had never gone with Frank, if he had told the other man to get back inside and forget about golden eagles. He wondered what would have happened if he had told -Chasing- her plan was the best, or agreed to make a guild back there with xClassicx.

Percy leapt forward and sliced through a zombie with all the maliciousness he wanted to attack Kronos with. His blade cut like hot metal through butter, sending monsters exploding into gold code to be revived somewhere else at another time. Frank plunged arrows into the zombies distracting them long enough for Percy to cut them apart. They weren't real people, they weren't real people. The words rang in Percy's head but the awful sound of skin snapping and bones chafing on one another and the splatters of some liquid or other kept poking holes in the idea.
Percy spun around to sink his blade again, only to find that the zombies were already gold code. They flickered and vanished as if they had never existed at all. He wiped a splotch of blood off his cheek looking at Hannibal.

"Wasn't me." The bigger boy said.

Percy glanced up at the building they had come out of. There was movement in one of the windows, a wave of a white curtain. Percy snorted.

"Come on, let's go." He told Frank, "Kronos isn't going to kill himself."

Frank gave him a supressed grimace, "Yeah, there's no way were that lucky."