I just laid there until Apollo came.

It's kind of odd, the things you think about when you're bleeding to death. Because the funny thing was, I hadn't actually felt the pain in a while. All I felt was me growing weaker and weaker. After a few minutes, my eyes were beckoning me to shut them. I fought with all the force I had left in me to keep them open—due to the fact that if I closed them, there would be no reopening them—not in this world.

Estelle squatted next to me in the pool of blood; she had ripped the buttons of my shirt, and had somehow managed to take it off of me—not without pain, of course. She now hovered over me, gently pressing the cloth into my wound, trying to suppress at least some of my blood from spilling onto the rooftop.

She ran her fingers through my jet black, dirty hair, leaving streaks of my blood to harden in my hair. I didn't stop her though. Something about the action was soothing me, making me think everything was going to be fine. That Apollo would get here, heal me, and then take us to our next battle. Which, I was kind of looking forward to, for reasons I'd rather not try to identify.

Achilles waited over at the corner of the roof, trying to make it easier for the sun god to locate the rooftop. After all, there were hundreds here in Berlin. Gods, I hoped he would hurry. Likely, he didn't even know that I was hurt, and didn't know he needed to hurry. But, for whatever reason, I resented the idea of death right now. For once in my life, I didn't want to die.

A bubble was forming at the pit of my stomach. I could feel it making its way through every cavern of my body. For a second, it felt like I was about to explode. I tried to voice what was about to happen, warn Estelle that if she didn't want my guts all over her dress, than she needed to move. But when I opened my mouth to speak, nothing came out. It was getting closer—I could feel it like fire working through the pits of my stomach.

Estelle noticed my strain; she looked onto me with loving concern. She didn't say anything, as if she knew that I wouldn't be able to respond. I could feel all the pain in my body now—the shoulder, the scrapes and cuts, every little bit of it. My head pounded in agony, and my eyes just wanted to close, but the disturbance in the depths of my stomach was much, much worse than any pain I'd ever felt.

It felt like something inside of me was ripping—something that was vitally important, and that it was slowly but surely tearing itself apart inside my stomach. The colors before my eyes began to morph. Everything began to take on a reddish tint to it. Even the fog around us started to seem like it was nothing but a red mist.

Estelle looked even more concerned as my body tensed up more, and I started blinking like a mad man, trying to return my eyesight to the proper contrast. But it seemed that every second, the color got darker, redder. Then, I realized what it was. Blood, of course.

I wondered if Estelle could see the red in the surface of my eyes, or if it was just inside the eyeballs. I started to push myself upward with the good shoulder, that wasn't exactly in perfect shape either, like the rest of my goddamn body. Estelle placed her hand that wasn't covering the wound up against my spine, supporting me, helping me up.

All of a sudden, the bubble lurched through my stomach, and quickly jolted through my body. I took on a coughing fit while it was still racing through my passageways, burning and rubbing everything it touched.

Suddenly, the coughing turned less of a dry hack, and into more of a get-this-shit-out-of-me cough. I realized what was going on when I could taste the first hint of blood coming up my throat. My instinct was to swallow, almost like you do when you are sick and cough up snot. But I didn't want to taste the blood for any longer than I had to.

I turned my head slightly, and saw Achilles paying no attention to me, probably literally hacking my lungs out. But each second that passed was accompanied by a cough, which got louder and grosser every single time. I could feel the blood in my throat, and I was struggling to breathe. Estelle gently started patting and rubbing my back, probably scared to death and having no clue what to do.

The coughs got harder on my throat, and nastier sounding each and every time one escaped me. Then, I felt the first spatter of blood leave my throat. And suddenly, I just wanted it to be over. I started to force to coughs, get harder on myself, feeling the blood work its way through me and out of me. As the coughs got harder, the blood got thicker, and the taste in my mouth got stronger. The all the coughing was making my throat sore, and my abs were getting tired of the flexing, but I didn't want to stop—I wanted to get all of the bad stuff out of me.

After a while, I began to notice the consistency of the blood was much too thick. Trust me; I knew what blood looked like. All too well, as I was sometimes convinced. And then I realized, what I was really coughing up. A mixture of blood, and my own snot. Which, was totally gross.

When the coughing subsided, and I had finished the feeling sorry for myself business, I suddenly threw up. Which, of course, helped my now sore throat oh so very much.

Estelle guided me back to my original laying down position, and slid her hand out from in between my back and the concrete. I tilted my head some, and looked at the mess I had made—the mess I was laying in. A mixture of blood, mucus, and of course, puke.

I lifted my head up, and banged it against the concrete, then spoke my first words in a while. "Ew."

Estelle began gently stroking my hair again, her hand, and much else of her body covered in blood. "I wish we had some nectar to give you. I hate seeing you like this."

I could feel my cheeks turn the color of the stuff I was just coughing. "It's fine. I wouldn't let you waste our resources on me."

"Like I'd ask your permission," she said snidely with a friendly laugh. Her voice was soft. "Have I ever?"

"No," I smiled for the first time in—I didn't know how long. "Will you ever?"

"Nope." She said, with a smile. I could feel my heart start to race—it was something about the way she looked in that moment that just, made me feel like she was a different person than the one I'd met in the Labyrinth. She took her hand from my hair, and I could feel it sliding downwards past my cheeks, down my neck, and onto my chest. I could feel her warm, soft hands caressing my bare and bloody chest.

She realized what she was doing, and pulled away quickly, looking embarrassed. "Sorry…" she apologized.

"It's fine," I replied, avoiding her eye contact. "I should be the one to apologize."

Her head turned back and our eyes met again. I could see the confusion in her eyes, which were at the same time, appealing to me. Almost like the eyes of a teddy bear—something you just want to hug, squeeze tightly and never let go. "Why?" She asked.

"The way I've treated you," I explained. My voice was thin and raspy, and very faint. Even I had trouble understanding parts of what I was saying. "Ever since we started this whole thing, with me, you and Cynthia, we kind of shut you out. Made you the enemy. But you weren't. You were just trying to help."

I waited for her to say something, but she just looked down at the puddle of blood that we were in. So I kept talking. "I think we were just jealous—jealous of the fact that you were so much more organized and put together, and we were two kids off the streets of North Carolina. Jealous that you are perfect, and we are not." For a second, it sounded like I thought Cynthia was still with us.

"You still think I'm perfect?" She sounded a tad disappointed, but she was looking me in the eye.

I bit my lower lip a second, and grimaced from pain I was pretending to feel at that point, just to have something to do. Finally, after a semi-long pause, I spoke.

"Yes," I answered her, and her head trailed downwards slowly once more. "But now, I'm thinking it's not a bad thing at all."

She looked back up at me, a surprised but pleased look on her face. I was starting to believe she was perfect. But not in the same way I did before—in a more pleasant way—in a way that I felt she was vulnerable, and I needed to protect her, and that that protection would be returned when needed, in times like this moment. This moment, while I'm in pain and close to death, but with her by my side I feel no pain, and I feel like there's hope. This moment was made for us—the epitome of the word perfection.

Was it possible that I had fallen for Estelle? That I thought she was perfect….romantically? Could that even happen to me? Had Aphrodite finally decided it was my turn? And, if so—would Estelle feel the same?

I decided then and there that I'd never know…at least not now. I had no room for this in my life. All I wanted to do was get my mother back. Maybe then I'd have a shot with her—that is, if this truly was infatuation, and if I still felt the same afterwards.

The silence was long. In fact, it lasted until Achilles began jumping and waving. "Here! Here! We're over heeeeeeerrrrrrreeeee!"

"I think that's our queue," Estelle began. "Ready for him to heal you?"

"I've been ready…" I grumbled.

-1-

Inside the sun "chariot"—which was some sort of Ford, don't ask me, I'm a street-orphan—the combined muscle of Achilles and Estelle was enough to lay me across the cold leather seating.

"Please," Apollo leveled himself to my eye level. "Try not to bleed on my interior. I just got the inside of this place clean." He smiled an odd smile.

"I was kind of hoping you could…fix me?" It came out as more of a question than a statement.

For once, the sun god seemed annoyed. He rolled his eyes and placed a hand on my wound. There was a brief flash of light, and all of a sudden, I wasn't bleeding or hurting. I felt better than I had all week. It was just that simple.

Apollo looked over at Achilles. "You are very lucky I agreed to this after what you did." They were locked in a death glare with one another.

"What is he talking about?" Estelle asked Achilles. I'd never seen Apollo so cranky and annoyed. Either he'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed, or he switched bodies with Dionysus.

"A few….thousand years ago," Apollo began. "Back at Troy, he raped a priestess from a temple they had to me. Raped her, and if memory serves, kept her as a sex slave."

We both stared at Achilles, Estelle's mouth had dropped, and my eyes were wide with shock. He looked at each of us, and threw his hands up in frustration. "I did not rape her!"

"Minotaur-shit!" Apollo yelled at him.

Estelle spoke up, pushing a portion of her bangs from her eyes. "Now, lord Apollo," she began. "If he says he didn't, it may be the truth…I mean, does he honestly look capable of rape?"

We all began to look the skinny little computer technician over. His suspenders, thick, square-framed black glasses, adult acne, extremely long legs, and a bowl haircut. No, he didn't exactly look like a rapist.

"Does he look like someone who could get someone to give it to them willingly?" Apollo countered, flashing a snide smile and showing us his perfect, Antarctic-ice-white teeth. And with that, he moved to the driver's seat, turned the key, which was attached to a key chain that said My Friends Went To Mt. Olympus and Didn't Even Get Me A Freakin' T-shirt!

That was the last thing I remember looking at before I fell asleep.

-2-

I was surprised that I didn't dream of Elana. Actually, I hadn't dreamt of her in a while. The thought crossed my mind, has she given up on me? I knew there was a message that Elana wanted me to pick up from her life story. But, I still couldn't figure out what. And all the dreams…they were confusing. Didn't children of the Big Three usually have dreams about their futures? Dreams that made them question their choices? Dreams that could drive them insane?

I didn't have much time to be all philosophical about my dreams and what not. The second we'd arrived at camp, I was being tugged and yanked and prepped for the counsel with the officers of the other army. I didn't know why my father wanted me to do this, or even what I was supposed to say. All I knew, was I was supposed to turn into the yes sir, no sir robot my father always wanted me to be.

We were met by several other half-bloods, who whisked us all four away, through the temporary campsite that they had all made on the hill's underside, in full view of the very edge of Camp Half-Blood. There were several tents, and racks of weapons strewn about. Soldiers rushed about the campsite, all preparing for battle, eager to be the victors. All wanting to be the heroes of the Battle on Half-Blood Hill.

The small group rushed us into the largest tent, a huge beige bulge in the middle of the site. Once we were in, they turned to us, bowed at Apollo, and vanished away.

"Well, well," I heard my father's unpleasant voice. "Better late than never I suppose." He stood up from the formation of chairs that had been set up in the middle of the room. I noticed that there were enough for each of the gods, and only two left. Most likely for Achilles and Apollo, leaving Estelle and I to stand.

My father looked Achilles over, and then back to the gods behind him, who were doing the same. "What kind of joke is this, Gregory?" My father snapped, directing his almost black eyes to me.

"What do you mean?" I asked, very, very confused.

"I ask for Achilles, and you bring me…" his voice trailed off as he thought of an insult. He looked at Achilles. "What do you do for a living?"

"Computer technician." Achilles answered.

"A computer technician!" Hades howled.

"You mean you didn't know he was Super-Nerd?" I asked my father, trying not to get angry.

"Of course not!" My father growled. "I mean, I'd heard things, but I never believed them."

"And that's my fault?"

"Yes."

"Can we focus?" Athena pleaded to stop the fight. "Hades, Apollo, Achilles, please take your seats. She looked at Estelle and I. "You two listen up as well."

Almost insulted at being ordered around by a woman, the three looked at each other, but obeyed. Estelle and I looked at each other; it was a tad awkward, us not knowing what to do. I couldn't help but to notice how pretty she looked-even caked in blood and dirt.

"Now, as we were saying, Zeus—"Athena began, but Aphrodite interrupted her.

"Can you put a shirt on?"

It took me a second to realize she was talking to me. I looked down. It was true; I was still shirtless from my encounter back in Germany. It was less than five hours ago, yet, it almost seemed like a year.

"Oh…uh...sorry." Once again, my face turned red.

"It's fine, " Aphrodite said, looking in another direction. "It's just….you're all pale, you have no muscle, no sexy body hair, and you're how old? Fourteen? Fifteen? It's just really, really gross."

I looked down at my chest. It wasn't that bad in my opinion. If she didn't like it now, she definitely wouldn't have liked it earlier, when it was covered in scratches and scrapes from battle scenes. Surely, I was pale, but, paleness was in my blood. Hell, I spent most of my time in the sun, and it never turned my skin into that copper-gold color that everyone strived to get.

"Just put on your battle-armor," Athena suggested. "We're leaving soon anyway." She kind of sighed, as if what she had wanted to say to everyone was super-important, and that no one cared.

I looked around the room. There were two sets of battle armor mounted on stands in the corner. They were shaded in black—the officer's color theme for our side: the normal armor color for regular soldiers was red.

Ares saw me eying it reluctantly. "It's not going to bite you, dork." He laughed, as if that were actually funny.

"I know that," I snapped back. He looked surprised that I would talk to him like that. "I'm just….thinking."

"We don't allow free-thinkers here," Demeter croaked. She looked at Estelle. "You're not dating this boy, are you daughter?"

I looked at Estelle's cheeks for any sign of blushing, but there was none, as her complexion was too dark. "No mother," she said with a sigh. "I'm not."

"Good," Demeter remarked. "He's too skinny, too tall, too….son of your sister's no-good husband, too scary. Do you have enough fruits to last you this battle, darling?"

The sudden change in subject seemed to throw Estelle off. "Uh…yeah."

"Alright, love," the crazy old bat said to her. "Go change clothes," then she looked at me. "And if you try to go for any cheap feels on my daughter, she's got an orange and knows how to use it!"

Wish I could say there was no chance of that happening…. "Yes, Lady Demeter. I understand."

We turned away from them, and Athena had started their conversation again. Something about working up some sort of negotiation of territories with the other army. We tuned her out.

"Did you hear the way they were talking to me?" I asked. "All of them…pointing out every single thing that was wrong with me!" I began taking the armor off the stand and putting it on piece by piece.

"There's nothing wrong with you, Greg," Estelle whispered. "They're just all nervous. Think about what happens to them if they lose this battle—not to mention this war. The Olympians are fighting against each other, Greg. That's never, ever good."

"Think about what will happen to all of us," I said to her, while struggling to get inside my plate-armor pants. "If we lose, and the Olympians can't settle their differences, the whole world will change." I thought about it for a second. "And if we win, and my father takes over…." I shivered at the thought.

That's all this was—a huge battle for control. A battle that took places thousands of years ago, and is now taking place again. I just….couldn't understand why. There were just so many things about this that made no sense to me, and I was just acting like my father's little puppet and going along with it. How could I do that? I'd gone soft. I'd let my mother down.

"This will be over soon," Estelle said. "The outcome is doomed either way, but at least it will be over."

"That's what I'm saying!" I snapped kind of loudly—I looked over to see Apollo and Aphrodite staring at me. They then turned back to each other, ignoring Athena and carrying on their own conversation. I lowered my voice a little; almost as if we were in a library. "It won't be over. The after-effects of this will last for a long time—decades, centuries—who knows? It could last forever."

"Let's not think about it that way, okay?" Estelle said. She looked me straight in the eyes, and I saw something that I'd never seen before inside her. Fear. She was scared. We both were. Not only did we participate in this war, but we were officers. People depended on us—kids our age looked at us for guidance.

It was then I realized exactly what the gods were trying to do when they insulted me. They were trying to toughen me up—make me worthy to call myself a leader. They wanted to push me, make me a killing machine, a ruthless monster. After all, a child of Hades should not fear nor embrace death. They should own it.

"You're right," I said. "Let's just—try our best and hop our best is good enough." I paused. "Do you think our best is good enough?"

She seemed to think about her response a second, studying her armor. She wore the leather armor of the archers—a flimsy leather chest-piece (black of course, representing her officer's position), a red ammo belt, and a long black skirt. It was almost as if she had no protection at all. Knowing Estelle, however, she wouldn't need any.

"Well," she said, beginning to tie her hair up, but deciding against it. "I know mine is. I'm perfect, remember?" She gave me a just kidding smile and a nudge. It was like the old Estelle was coming back—yet somehow, I didn't mind a bit.

"Aren't you hilarious?" I asked sarcastically. She was already done getting ready, and since my uniform was so much more intricate, I wasn't even half way done.

"Of course I am," she winked. She looked at herself in the reflection of a nearby mirror, and was playing with her tangled, messy hair. "I'm going to see if Aphrodite can do a French braid!" She announced, kissed the tips of her fingers, and waved goodbye to me, turning to the goddess of love and beauty.

Aphrodite seemed ecstatic at the chance to do someone's hair. Estelle sat in front of her chair, and Aphrodite went to work, still keeping up the conversation with Apollo. I turned to look at myself in the mirror that Estelle had just been looking at. I slipped my chest-piece over my head, leaving only my helmet and sheath to put on.

My armor was scary looking. Right now, I looked big and buff—which, as pointed out earlier, I wasn't. The armor was mostly black, but the edges and rims were blood red, and I had a reversible cape, which I'm sure by now you could guess the two colors that were on it.

The sword was my favorite of everything. Equipped with a black sheath, its hilt was a skull, and its blade was a metallic light red, kind of pink, with its name scrawled in Greek words across the blade. It took me a second, but, I finally was able to read the word Deathgrip. Even the thought of how many people I'd be sending to hell with this thing sent chills down my spine.

I looked at myself. I hardly could recognize the person I saw in the mirror. Not that I looked any different, but I was not the same person I was the last time I was in America. I had changed in Europe. And I wasn't sure if it was for the better. I was doing all the things that I'd cursed so many half-bloods before me for doing. Just giving in, and doing every deed their parents asked. I could see the pull, now, though. I could see why they did it. Almost as if it were competition—the Olympian parent has so many children, how do you know if you stand out? How do you know if you make a difference to them? How do you know if they care? And if you—

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud yell of joy from the conference behind me. "Penny!"

Uh oh.

I whirled around, almost too femininely, to see what was going on behind me. Penthesilea and Hippolyte had entered from an entrance near where I was standing, and Achilles hopped from his seat. He then went to embrace his long lost love, tripping over the foldable chair, and landing in Estelle's lap. She yelped, pushed him off. He scrambled to his feet, and took off running again.

The two Amazon Queens were wearing the same armor that Estelle and I had on; Penthesilea in the swordsman uniform, and Hippolyte in the cavalry—weapons at their sides. It took me a second to notice, but Achilles had somehow managed to change into his armor without me noticing. I looked around. All the gods and goddesses had changed into battle armor, though, for Aphrodite and Demeter, that was a black and red dress, as they didn't do much fighting on field.

Achilles practically trampled the people who refused to move out of his way on his one-man stampede to Penthesilea. I slowly made my way towards the circle of assorted gods and goddesses.

"Another girl he raped?" Apollo asked bitterly.

"No," Achilles called over to him. "This is one I killed."

The Amazons looked dreadfully uncomfortable as Achilles wrapped each of them in a heartfelt hug. He began making small talk that we couldn't hear from our part of the tent.

"Is your army here yet, Hippolyte?" Athena called. I felt sorry for her. She seemed surrounded by all the dumb deities.

"They are on their way was we speak." Hippolyte left her sister and began to slowly make her way towards us. Her sister looked at her, envious that Achilles would let her slip away.

"What kind of numbers are we talking about?" Hades chimed in.

Hippolyte thought about it, and shrugged. "Seventy-five to a hundred."

"That number is a little low…" Hades sounded disappointed.

"Are you kidding?" Ares demanded. "Seventy-five really angry chicks is more than enough." He crossed his arms over his plated chest.

"Well, at least we know we have plenty of options," Apollo smirked. Hippolyte shot him a glare. "What? I'm just saying…."

"Do not go near my warriors," Hippolyte warned. "They are likely to mangle your male parts until you are a hermaphrodite."

Ares and Apollo exchanged looks of upcoming pain. "I'd like to point out, though," began Aphrodite. "Even with all those women around, I will still be the prettiest." She smiled vainly.

"I beg your pardon!" Demeter cawed. "I believe that title is mine. You can certainly say you're the sluttiest broad around here." She laughed, pleased with herself.

"You?" Aphrodite cackled. "Do you own a mirror? Or do they all break before you get a chance to fully see yourself in them?"

"Why you—"

BOOM!

A flash of lightening exploded and crackled in the suddenly stormy sky, illuminating the tint in its brilliance. Estelle screamed with surprise.

"That's Zeus," Athena said in a low voice. "They're ready for us."

-3-

The sky was darker than I'd ever seen it before. The kind of dark where you can see the sun peering from behind the clouds, but you can barely see the light it's giving off. Lightning struck the sky continuously, a foreboding sign of what was to come.

Our soldiers watched as their officers piled into a large black chariot, made almost entirely of bone. We assembled ourselves in a jumbled rank—Hades and Achilles in the front seat, Estelle, myself, and the Amazons in the second, and in the last two, the gods took their places, three to a seat.

My stomach clenched when I felt the tug of the chariot as the skeletal steeds began to pull us slowly to the council that would determine our fate here. My mind raced through the possibilities of what could happen. There were only a few things I knew for sure—Carter and Alexandria would be there, I would be expected to represent the half-bloods of our army, and I was going to mess up something, somehow. Because that's just me.

As we passed by the soldiers heading out of our camp, they would stop whatever they were doing, and kneel before us. It was very neat to witness that. I'd never felt such…respect. It was something I felt was going to be hard to adjust to.

After we left our cluster of tents we called a campsite, we were in the open space between our camp, and our enemy's.

Hades turned around to face Estelle and I. "Once we get in their camp, make eye contact with no one. Look straight ahead, and be still. Make no noise. We want to intimidate them."

He turned around, and I looked up—only to see the tops of the cabins and the movement of the other soldiers on Half-Blood Hill.

A/N I was going to make this longer, but I've literally been sitting here all day. I need to move around—after I edit, or course, which I need to make sure I do more often. Anyways, tell me if you think this was a boring waste of my day, because I feel like it is, considering there is no real action in this chapter.

Of course, now I feel weird, pointing out all the stuff I think is wrong with my chapter….I'm just going to stop talking now….