Memories

Percy P.O.V.

Theodora banned me from the house for a set period of time. I knew I didn't have to listen to her, but I would have to listen to Ghost. Thalia had to stay inside for a 'nice, long, respectable talk that will make Thalia a woman, not some slut.' When she had said slut, Ghost tackled me knowing that I was going to thrust kick her in the boob very hard. I guess that Theodora was just trying to create some order, but I didn't like it.

I've been walking for a while now, and realized that I could go back, but when you're in the mood to walk, you don't want to stop.

Chaos P.O.V.

There he was. He has grown so much. In a couple of years, he may be ready for his destiny. Wow. Do I really sound that old?

Should I give him some more incentive? Nah. I'll just move his shield, shall I?

Percy P.O.V.

I don't know where I really am. I'm just wandering. I'll eventually find my way home, and I can pretty much take care of myself. I felt in my pocket and found some money left over from yesterday.

I went to a shop and saw a pretty cool watch with a description that said it told the time no matter where you were. Cool. That might be useful one day. No need to synchronize watches (even though we didn't have to do that in the first place).

I picked it up, but it was just a little too expensive. I wanted this watch. Now, it was a necessity. I thought very hard of stealing it, but figured that I would just get yelled at again. I looked at the manager, and he seemed angry.

"What's up bro, you okay?" I asked.

"Look, you gonna buy something or no, cuz I got much better things to be doin."

"Then why are you here in the first place?"

"Shut up, punk. You wanna get pounded or something'?" Jeez. This guy was busy.

"Okay, sorry dude. Didn't know you had another job."

"Who said it was a job? Wait, do you like warm hats even on hot days?" What the fuck is this guy talking about?

"Uh, what?"

"Damn. You're not his guy. In that case, don't tell anyone, you get the watch free, cool? It doesn't even work. It's got this button that doesn't do anything." Wait. I'm not his guy? He likes to do nonsensical stuff after telling me he has better stuff to do? This guy's a drug dealer.

"You got a stash, can I make a purchase?" I ask darkly.

"Haha! You are horrible at this. Sure. How many?"

"I'll take eight. I've got a family to feed."

That'll be six hundred biatch. You got the dough?"

"I got somethin' better." I said as I flashed him some drachmas. His eyes widened as he gave me the eight. I took them, uncapped them, and threw them all directly at his jugular vein. It was a little deep, but I can throw pretty hard. Seeing as only six would fit in one neat line, I threw the other two into each of his testicles, so no more people like him could be brought into this world. I pushed in the ones that still had a little juice in them, and his eyes almost burst. He was on the ground and passed out as his heartbeat grew fainter.

Just before leaving, I took the watch.

I got home, and put the watch on. It was a hard black that told the time to the second. I clicked the button that the guy said didn't work, and BOOM!

A beautiful shield sprang to life with heart-stopping pictures of a boy riding a Pegasus in the middle. The same satyr was in most of the other pictures with the boy, but there was one that had two boys, three girls, and the satyr. They seemed happy.

There was an empty flask attached to the inside of the shield, but I already had those, so I ripped it off. Where my hand would grip, there was another button. Suddenly, the words poison and sleep formed in my mind. Immediately, what I knew to be a sleep dart came from the rim of the shield (where my fist would be if I had a long forearm). I aimed, and it shot when I wanted. I went to go get dart, but couldn't put it back in. Hopefully, I didn't just use the only sleeping dart. The last mechanism was like the sleeve to a forearm. It was positioned so that when I wore the shield, it would be like putting on a sleeve. I flexed to see how it looked, and razors protruded from the circumference of the shield. Damn.

I threw it, and it stuck in the wall of my bedroom, right next to the opening door that Thalia came in. She looked at the shield that had almost killed her.

"Damn. That thing is cool." She tried to take it out, but it wouldn't budge. I went over, and at much touch, it came out like a hand out of water. Knowing that Thalia was no weakling, I looked at her with a confused gaze.

The shield turned back into a watch since I wasn't using it, and told me that we were four minutes late for dinner. The bitch—sorry—mom probably thought we were screwing or something, so we decided to go to dinner.

The next couple of days have been good, and I've grown extremely attached to my shield. It reminded me of my past, though I still can't remember what that past is. You know what? I'm perfectly happy with that. I don't care. I'm not interested like I should be. I guess that if somebody told me, it would be cool, but I have no yearn to learn about it.

Ghost called Nico, Thalia, and I in. What did he want? Were we actually going to do something, other than prepare? What were we preparing for in the first place? Whatever.

"Finally. Took you over thirteen seconds to get here. When I was a kid—" Ghost started, but Nicointerrupted.

"Yes! You were amazing, but as much as we love you, we don't love your childhood stories. Please continue." Ghost frowned, but did as he was told.

"Well, this will be your first real mission. You must be loved, don't kill innocents, for obvious reasons, and don't kill too many enemies yet. Just try to gain the trust of the people."

"Well, when would we know that they love us enough?" I asked, wondering how much they must love us.

"When they're chanting your fucking names in the streets. Now get moving."

"Wait! Why are we doing this?" That was Thalia.

"Thals! Shut up! Let's move!" That was Nico getting exasperated.

Now, Thalia doesn't usually listen to Nico, but he was serious. In fact, some could say that he was dead serious. (I see what you did there! )

Ghost has officially kicked us out, and the only time he let us come in was when there was this big storm and we had no shelter, and there was lightning, and yea.

But other than that, it's sucked. Nobody wants to let in strange people in strange clothes. People just don't like change. I suppose that's what we're going to have to change.

Thalia has been getting more distant with me. Did I smell badly? I don't know. One time, I saw her and Nico talking with lots of hand motions, but I accidentally swatted at a fly, and Nico detected me. You know what he did? He grabbed me, pulled me in, and shadow traveled. Do you know how awkward that was? I mean, Thalia, the person who slept in the same bed as me, now can't say what's up to me.

"Hey." I said, grabbing my arm in an attempt to conceal myself from the world.

"Hey." She ran. Whatever. It'll pass.

It's been a while, Thalia hasn't been getting closer, but she hasn't gotten further either. It's like she wants to chill with Nico and I, but mainly Nico. Hopefully it's just my imagination, but I'm not so sure. I hope that she'll come back, but in other news, we're constructing a camp. It's going to be awesome. We've been at work for a while; we all have our tents, and a large convening area. It's going to be like a club.

Nico's been out for a while, just trying to spread the word. Thalia is forging weapons, but not very well. She's not really the forging type. And, we have pretty much no more of the metal stuff, but whatever. She's using stone, steel, ands sticks. We're positioning them (this is my job) around the camp, so if one of us is pinned down, there might be a sharp stick we can use. Hey, it's better than nothing, and if all it takes is five minutes, why not do it?

Well, I've run out of sticks. I was returning to Thalia for more sticks, but we both knew that that wasn't what was going to happen.

There she was. Standing. Staring at the sky. Its colors were like an orgasm to my eyes. They constantly changed in relation to the rest of the world, but only the word beauty could only describe what we saw. The constellations shifted, swirling constantly. They would group together, shift, supernova, and all of it happened in seconds. There were flashes everywhere.

I heard Nico running up behind me, yelling.

"Guys! Did you—" He was cut off. He looked as well.

The stars descended upon us, surrounding everything we had built. It expanded a little outward from there, and as it did, time sped up so quickly that I thought I would barf.

The stars raked the Earth, forcing upwards cabins, a rock wall, an archery range, the convening area that we had made grew magnificently, and slowly, people started to materialize.

Then, the stars zoomed towards us. They exploded in our minds. All I heard was "Well done assassins. You were what the world needed. I apologize for putting you through the pain you've experienced, but now I realize. I wanted to cleanse the world of Gaia, but then I realized that that would ruin everyone. The era would be one of peace, surely, however it would be one of enforced peace. Evil will always rise, and good must vanquish. If there is no evil, then the good will produce the evil, thus making it more difficult for the good to vanquish its original brother. This happened with Luke Castellan. It will happen again, but good will deal with it. From now on, your camp is no longer to be disregarded by the population. It will be conscious. This will throw it into Chaos, but you must create order in the Chaos, just as I have all those eons ago. You are no longer the outcasts of civilization. You are the guardians. You have proven yourself for the test. Finally, I may rest."

The materializations took life. I saw Ghost come, slowly shifting into a centaur. Chiron. Aunt Alexandra faded into me, and apparent to the looks on Thalia and Nico, she faded into them as well. It bound us together.

Dionysus appeared.

"Where have you guys been? It's been years! Did you finally come to your senses and decide that you would come along and stop watching the years slide by? Where did you come from anyways? Damn Percy. You like old. Like, older than me. You need a drink. Have some wine." Dionysus kept rambling, but I ignored him. At least he got my name right. I guess he really did care.

I turned, and I saw her. Nico and Thalia had left, but I think I got it now. They were into each other. Whatever. It's not like they would have anything like this.

I'm walking towards her. That was my story. The story of how I met her. I didn't remember who she was during the actual story, but the minute I saw her, the barriers around my mind collapsed. I remembered it all. The pain, the guilt, the sadness. But then, there was light. Happiness, joy, kindness. Nothing had been a hardship. I was tried, but in the end, I was always with my friends. I saw her.

She turned to me, eyes red and puffy from crying, a blade in her hand, dried in blood. When her eyes met mine, I melted. She was grief-stricken. She came to me slowly, touched me as if worrying that I would disappear.

When my hand met hers, I felt the warmness of Theodora flow into her. It wrapped around our hands, binding us.

"Alex is gone." The first thing she said, was about him. Was she crying for him?

"He doesn't matter." I replied, a little harder than I meant.

"Yes, yes he did. He tried us. He was the evil that rose out of us. He just wanted to disrupt. Now, you're back. The past doesn't matter."

I was silent.

"I love you." We said it simultaneous. Then we kissed.

I laughed at a joke Grover was telling me. It wasn't very funny, but he was trying his best. I think that if he didn't try, then he'd be the funniest person alive. I looked at Nico and Thalia, holding hands. The slight glow about them. I looked at Annabeth, smiling at me like she was crazy, slipping her hand into mine. We glowed too. Grover and Juniper were together, and they had a glow about them, but it wasn't the same. They were happy. Us four, we were one. We were in love, sure, but we were in love to serve. Serve who? The world, some might say in the future, but that is false. We served each other. We served our friends just as they served us. No, we were free from the Fates. We conducted our own fates.

Some might say that there are people who tell you what to do, but that isn't true. The only person limiting you is you. If it takes a journey into another universe and creating your own home, defying all laws of physics, then so be it. If it takes you listening to me right now, by the campfire of Camp Half-Blood, then so be it.

"Who are we?" I roared.

The campers screamed right back at me.

"The Guardians!"

"What is our purpose?" Thalia.

"To serve!" Them.

"Serve who?" Nico.

"Each other!" Them.

"Why?" Annabeth.

"To end the world of Chaos. To restore order. We are the good that defends the world from evil. Evil is our counterpart. We are Yin, they are Yang. We are the Guardians, we serve each other to restore order. We are the Assassins of Chaos!