Hi. As a greeting to you all who are reading this, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to check out my story ;)
This takes place about maybe 40 to 50 years after the famous Titan War, and my previous stories are strongly related to this one.

If you are interested in knowing more, I suggest you read my other two stories. Thank you :)
Good luck.

-Olo Eopia

Shadow's Code

~ Prologue ~

Death. The final wake up call.

The irony of the statement amused the boy who lay prostrated on the cold, stony floor. He didn't need to strain his vision to see the pool of vermillion red blood spreading slowly across the ground. He felt the blood leave the very wounds of his skin, and his body chilled with every moment that passed.

The thunder crackled, and the cacophony resonated throughout the dark room. It was a damp, moist environment, only because of the storm that was raging outside.

But that was all he could see. The high ceiling felt endless.

"Why do you just keep losing?" Another voice interrupted. It was Him. Whether He can be described as a mere man with a lust for blood, or a man who yearned uncontrollably for the grasp of power, the boy did not know. What the boy did know, though, was that He was someone worth being afraid of.

The boy wasn't in a state of being reposed, but rather a chill continuously ran down his spine. He was losing, and he knew it. A mat of cold sweat plastered his forehead. A knife lay scattered a few feet away from him.

A knife that had been his, now glistening with his own blood.

He didn't care where she was now.

Probably dead.

The boy's vision began to blur.

"You . . . You were always the one," The boy said, his voice cracked with pain. His side was burning as though someone had recently splashed a bucket full of acid on it. He clutched at the long gash on his left arm. Nevertheless, he gave the man a look filled with as much hatred he could muster.

He abhorred this man. The man who had earned an undying trust that had lasted for so many years, and broke it easily because of one simple choice that had been caused by his own greed.

The man who murdered his family

"It did always take you a long while to crack such a simple code, unlike my best friend," The man said dismissively. "Your tenderness was your very flaw. If you had joined me earlier, you would've been much more powerful, Shem."

"No," The boy spat. "You killed him. How could you?"

Shem could taste the blood in his mouth, serving as the sign of an endless struggle that had finally surrendered to defeat and misfortune.

Gray eyes met gray. It was a little unsettling how the man's eyes sparkled brighter than anything Shem had ever seen. How was that possible?

The older boy sighed, then waved his left hand in annoyance.

"You've become strong, but you would probably never be able to surpass me or the one you've come here to avenge." In the man's other hand, the long metal spear gleamed viciously. The boy on the floor closed his eyes as he looked away, trying to concentrate. He needed to think. To believe. "Farewell, brave knight."

- Chapter 1 ~ The Brave Knight -

Fifteen days prior.

[xxx]

"You look pretty tired compared to me, Mr. Holmes." The girl said, grinning.

"Shut up."

He looked at himself in the mirror and saw a slightly pale face, dotted with stunning gray eyes that looked like a storm had arrived. When there was a flicker of excitement or passion in them, his eyes always sparkled with delight. His pale, long fingers rubbed his high cheekbones, immersing his face in water. He hadn't looked at himself in a long while. When he took off the deerstalker hat, it revealed the disheveled light brown hair that stuck out in all peculiar directions. It would be a pain to place them back all in order. He looked down at his orange T-shirt and the old jeans he'd been wearing.

Strange, He thought. To have never left this place for good. There were always the quests, but I'd always come back.

Was he tired or just insanely bored at the moment?

He saw the water trail down his face until it dropped from his chin, and his eyes latched onto the beaded necklace around his neck.

Ten beads.

Longer than anyone who'd been here. The second person with the most beads was a little girl who'd also arrived at Camp Half-Blood at around the same age. But she was the daughter of Poseidon.

He didn't want to die. Not yet. There was something he needed to do.

He didn't look like most of his siblings, but that didn't mean every kid in his cabin had to have blonde hair and blue eyes.

His name was Shem Baker, and one of the many children of Athena. But nearly everyone loved to associate him with variations of the name Sherlock.

His fastidious deduction skills were the best in camp. When something mysterious happened, they'd always go to Shem for help. There were some things that he saw that many others didn't.

Shem looked back at the girl who was standing in the doorway.

Petra Ashling was shorter than him by two-thirds of a foot. Just like many of the campers, she also wore a ratty orange shirt in addition to her white denim shorts. Petra smiled as she walked into the cabin. Typically, that wouldn't be allowed, but Shem didn't stop her, even when he was the only one in his cabin at this time. For a while, her dark brown hair fell in waves around her shoulders, but now it was beginning to straighten. She was about to turn fourteen soon.

"You're only seventeen, Shem," Petra said. "It's summer, too. And good morning by the way."

"Okay, Pet," Shem said. "Welcome to Cabin six. Did you notice that your brusque entrance is unwanted here?"

"Nice cabin."

"Brilliant, Pet," Shem said. "An astute statement, too."

Petra ignored him and stared at the cluster of beds moved to one side of the room, as if no one cared enough for sleep. The floors were filled with stacks of blueprints and diagrams. Old war maps plastered what little space there was left on the walls. The shelves were filled with thousands of books. A New York Yankees Cap hung in the corner of the room.

"And your laptop's cool too. What's the name of the girl who'd kept it? Sorry . . ."

"Annabeth Chase," Shem said as he walked away from the sink in the bathroom. He couldn't blame her. Petra was a new camper, and the only daughter of Morpheus.

Annabeth Chase, the one who had allowed the rest of the Athena kids, particularly Shem, to use the high tech computer. Wherever she may be, not many people knew.

I don't think she's dead, Shem thought. Just simply . . . Not here.

The Daedalus laptop sat on Shem's bed, it's delta sign glowing despite the light streaming through the windows. Next to it was an old tattered book by Aristotle. Shem had been studying it for years now. Reading it and rereading it, wondering why it had appeared with him the day he'd first arrived at Camp Half-Blood.

"So, I'm awake." Petra said slowly, sitting down on Shem's bed and leafing perfunctorily through the book. A look of amusement crossed her face as she closed the book. "The first page's torn off."

"Obviously."

Shem took a towel from the side to dry his face, glancing at her face for a brief moment.

Petra Ashling.

Judging by her face, Shem thought. Eyes slightly dull.

Her shirt and clothes hastily put on.

Wake up time: approximately 5 o'clock in the evening.

Napkin crammed into left pocket strongly suggests that she'd grabbed something to eat on the way here, and was in a hurry.

Flip flops: reluctant to wear sneakers; concludes in unwillingness to train today.

Anomaly of slight smudge on her fingers results in a meeting with Raymond Stone, child of Hephaestus who holds an obsession with starting caustic experiments, in which he probably asked her to hold something for him, such as a highly explosive hammer due to the pattern smudged onto fingers.

Visitation may also be a strong conjecture of her worry for her friend Elli Fugino, who had just recently gone on a quest away from camp. Petra's visit to Raymond must suggest that she wanted to inquire to him about it.

Smudge can only originate from a type of ore that one of the children of Hephaestus invented.

Material? Unclassified among the periodic table of elements.

Small watch on right hand wrist. Digits located on surface do not match time in America, but that of a location in Europe.

Shows that she was predictably wearing that watch for the first time since a small vacation to France, because of its unique brand name and material that cannot be found in the United States.

Why was the watch bought? Petra Ashling belongs to a single mother. The two of them live snuggly in an apartment, but for the first time, her mother was not going to see her on her birthday in the summer. In consequence, mother buys her a gorgeous gift, in which Petra is so scared of wearing the watch due to its cost until maybe building up the nerve to wear it today.

Probability of conjectures being completely accurate? Ninety-four percent. Completely inaccurate? Two percent. Mixture of correct and incorrect possibilities? Four percent.

Shem looked away and exhaled in slight annoyance. He told Petra none of this, because surely she would've been a little agitated as well. Normally, the people around him would've looked at him with a slight awe and ask him how it was done, but Petra was different. At first, she would look slightly amused, and then later on, she would just stare at Shem and ask if he actually liked seeing all of those or not. And even later, she would tell him to stop nosing around.

Petra looked at him.

"It's happening again, isn't it," Petra said. Although it had nothing to do with what she had said earlier, Shem always noticed that her eyes always looked so sad. It wasn't a feeling of real sympathy. It was just the way she was.

She knew, Shem thought. People wouldn't see it even when I'm silently calculating, but she knew. She always knew.

"My blessing and curse,"Shem said, shrugging it off.

In some ways, he'd find those observations helpful. But as Petra also saw it, he sometimes found them quite aggravating.

The dichotomy between the two concepts of seeing and the will to not see is extraordinary, Shem thought.

Shem sighed. Petra was different. Petra was the daughter of Morpheus. On top of that, she had more dreams than an average demigod to haunt her.

She looked so tired.

He was the very first who had decided to befriend her ever since she'd come to Camp Half-Blood. People had looked down on her because she was the daughter of a god who had sided with the enemy during the Titan War, but Shem couldn't help but see that there was a gift that she possessed.

And there was.

Her dreams held truth in them, and she had a vision more extensive than anyone he'd ever met. Petra could see and feel everything. If someone had blindfolded her tightly, she'd still be able to run around the camp without inflicting any injuries upon herself. Climbing the lava wall with her eyes closed. She could do it.

"No training for you today, Pet," Shem said. Petra's eyes lit up. Shem walked over and sat beside her on the bed.

"Okay, but I also wanted to talk to you," Petra said quietly. Shem looked at her. "I saw a boy in one of my dreams."

"And?" Shem asked. It had always been the two of them from the start. And gradually, people had started to get close to Petra because she wasn't anything like her father. After the claiming, that was the only sign of contact the father and daughter had ever made.

"He had jet black hair," Petra recalled. Shem looked into her eyes. He'd gotten used to their surprisingly dark color that could be considered as black. Her eyes were almost empty, despite the flicker of life that showed on her face. "And he looked about twelve. But that's it."

"That's it?" Shem said, staring. It wasn't like her to remember so little. "Then why do you care?"

"I don't know," Petra said. "It just keeps bothering me."

"Obviously," He said humorously. He didn't want to see her looking so sad. Shem smiled as he stood up to take his black trench coat from the bed post. Petra followed him out the cabin. He looked at her again, and by her expression, he could tell something was wrong. "What else did you want to tell me?"

Petra looked up, a little startled and interrupted from her train of thought.

"Oh . . . It's nothing."

Why lie, when you know that I can see through them, Pet? Shem wondered. But okay.

"Sure."

Before the two of them parted Petra stopped.

"Why no training today?" Petra asked.

Only she would know. The mystery behind Shem's past was only known to her.

Yes, why no training today, Shem? Shem asked himself. Contemplating about the incident that had happened ten years ago? To avenge a murder?

"L' Ennuie," Shem said simply. Petra saw through the lie right away, but she made no move to pester any further. Today just seemed like the right day to tell lies. "Boredom."

[xxx]

Shem surveyed the camp's surroundings as he sat down in front of the lake. A few days ago, two other demigods, Allen Stradwood and Elli Fugino, had left on a quest to retrieve a special child. Smaller details about the journey were kept confidential only between Chiron and a selected few.

Elli had used to come to this lake every day. It was her way of staying at "home."

Now that she was gone temporarily, Shem came here regularly to think.

Ten years, Shem thought as he watched the leaves fall to the ground and onto the surface of the water. It's been a while.

He remembered that earlier that day he'd bumped into Janelle when he was walking out of the Big House.

"Sorry, Shem," Janelle apologized as she picked up the books that had fallen from her arms. Janelle Iaso was the second in command of the Apollo Cabin. Her medical abilities were better than most doctors in a high class hospital. Without her, so many demigods would've lost their lives a long time ago. Chiron had almost wished she had been there during the Titan War to help. As of now, she was the temporary leader of her cabin, because Allen Stradwood had gone on The Quest.

Shem picked up one of the books, noticing that it was Les Miserables.

He scanned at all the other books and she seemed to be holding scrolls and manuscripts of old plays and musicals.

"I never knew you had an interest in them, Janelle," Shem said. To Shem, Janelle was a soft and gentle figure, acting more mature than most fourteen year olds.

"I get bored after just studying medicine all the time," Janelle said keenly. Her sapphire eyes gleamed in the light. Her brown hair had been tied hastily into a ponytail, and her fair skin looked smooth in the light. Another scroll almost tumbled out of her arms, but Shem caught it before it fell to the ground. It was a scroll on cryptography.

"Encryptions," Shem said, his interest perking up. Shem was known for being completely obsessed with codes and programming.

"Oh," Janelle said, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Only the basics. I'm really fond of Caesar's code."

"The simplest codes are always one of the most well known," Shem agreed. "They're always useful too, in case you need to send an urgent message."

Shem threw a pebble toward the lake, watching it skip across the water. When the pebble no longer resurfaced, his eyes searched the ground and his fingers grasped for another small rock. Unwillingly, another memory flashed through his head.

He was just six years old.

"You're talented," The boy said. "And you know it."

Shem looked up at the older boy. The boy sitting next to Shem looked about eleven years old, and his dark gray eyes scintillated brilliantly - unlike Shem's, whose light gray eyes gleamed rarely.

This was the boy whom Shem had consistently looked up to.

"But you're always better, Miro," Shem said. "Daddy loves you more."

After that, the two of them didn't do anything to break the silence. Miro didn't say anything, because if he did, the two of them would know that he was lying.

A few minutes later, Miro smirked.

"Who cares about dad?" Miro said, shrugging. "We're brothers, Shem, and we stick together."

The lies that he told.

Shem stretched out on the grass, staring at the sky. From his pocket, his fingers wrapped around a small figurine, and he held it up to the sun. It was a chess piece, and one of his favorites. The black knight.

It was strange to be a demigod, but even stranger to have a pair of demigod siblings. Miro Baker. His only older brother.

And now? Shem thought. He's dead.

"Shem!" Shem sat up to see Petra running toward him. Her face was pale, with a frantic look on her face. Shem got to his feet and took Petra by the shoulders.

"What's wrong, Pet?"

"There's a girl," Petra gasped as the two of them walked quickly from the lake. Petra geared Shem toward Thalia's Pine. A small crowd of people were being dispersed by Chiron. "Everyone's been looking for you, Sherlock. No one knows who she is, where she's from, or anything. That's why they want you."

"No satyr?"

"None. She's alone and unconscious," Petra said gravely. "And wounded."

Wounded. Shem looked at Petra. When he looked at her, he knew that the situation on the hill was a bad one. Their pace quickened significantly.

"Will she be alright?" Petra nodded. Janelle must be there right now. Suddenly, Petra stopped, and her hand briefly took hold of his hand to stop him, just before she let go. Shem stopped as well, and looked into her eyes in slight confusion. For the first time, he'd never seen her look so worried.

"I need to tell you," Petra said, her voice trembling slightly. At once, Shem knew it had to do with the dream she'd had. "It was a message to you from my dad."

Her dad? Shem thought, his heart stopping. His fists clenched slowly. Her dad never once communicated with her, and constantly ignored her. And the one time he finally spoke to her, she didn't matter at all to him? Why?

"That bast-" Shem growled.

"Never mind about me," Petra interrupted angrily. Petra looked up indignantly for a moment, and her expression was replace with a look of somberness.

She was strong.

"Sorry." Shem said, knowing that she didn't want anyone to look after her. She was very independent.

"He told me to tell you," Petra continued. "Your journey has begun, Shem Baker. Go ahead. Kill him."