"Why me?" Antony asked desperately, finding a way to escape. 

"You got water powers. You should be safe in the sea."

"I goddamn don't fucking know how to use my water powers!" 

"At least you won't fucking die if you are in the sea. You will get healed there."

"Not if that - whatever that is- kills me before the water can heal me."

"C'mon, you are the bait. It's been a decision by vote."

The argument continued between Axel and Antony. Serena mouthed a sorry from behind Axel. They planned to use someone as bait and destroy the dark thing-ish while it's distracted. The plan required a lot of replanning and stuff. But for then, that was the best plan, a group of legacies including a daughter of Minerva, a legacy of Athena and son of Hephaestus, could come up with. 

They had unanimously voted Antony to be thrown - sorry, to be sent to the sea. 

Finally, they managed to send Antony to the sea. Antony stood there dumbly with a sword and a shield that were provided to him by the school. Meanwhile, on the coastline behind some bushes, Serena was ready with a divine version of a super-fast minigun. It shot bullets coated in ichor and celestial bronze, hence fatal to anything having even a trace of ichor. On the top of the fence line was Axel with Festus and his mechanical Chimera. Those 2 together were strong enough to tear apart a whole city in a matter of minutes. A few feet from Axel was Alyssa, just sitting quietly behind a huge rock in a meditating position and her head was glowing. 

(If this beach is hard to imagine, just think of the Normandy beach except the cliffs are a bit lower here)

The darkness kept progressing towards Antony who looked like he was about to shit in his pants. 

'All is well', he kept muttering to himself as a mantra holding his sword with an unsteady hand. he wondered why the rest of the people had all kinds of modern tech weapons and he was handed a rusty old sword and some shield that Spartans used to use a few thousand years ago. 

"Steady!" Axel shouted from behind. Antony realized his feet were shaking like crazy. To Antony it felt like the darkness had eyes, and they were looking at Antony wondering if he was worth his time. 

Soon enough the darkness branched out into a thousand small branches and one of them shaped like a twig came and poked Antony's forehead. 

Antony could hear Axel and the others opening fire, Alyssa shouting orders, Selena singing, but all the voices faded in Antony's ears. The only voice he could hear was the soft sounds of waves crashing against the shores of the beach. After that a soft and soothing voice, much unlike the darkness surrounding him, asked him a simple question. 

'Where is he?'

Antony heard it in his mind. Although his logical sense told him to back the hell away from there, as the sexy sounding evil voice was not up to any good, his remaining brain just couldn't resist the voice. 

He replied back inside his mind. 

'Who is 'he'?'

The voice thought for a moment before replying again. 

'The young boy who defeated the mortals and created this. I cant remember his name. I knew his name.'

It felt like Mr. Sexy Voice was in a dilemma. Antony imagined a dark ether like substance inside his mind, rushing here and there as if a spider trapped in a very small room with walls on all sides, and the spider was trying to escape. 

'Why. can't. i. remember. his. name?'

'Maybe I can help?' Antony offered. All he wanted was to keep hearing the voice as if he was in a trance. 

'You could help. Yes. But i have to go.'

Antony felt a surge of power leaving his body and he collapsed on the sea coast.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

"Rise and shine, dear."

Antony blinked open his eyes to see a nymph hovering above him. Antony recognized the place he was in. It was the school infirmary. 

"Why am I here?" Antony asked the nurse in charge.

"To be fair i have no idea. You came were with a mild concussion and a rib damage. Don't worry about any of those. They are all healed up."

Antony looked at the clock beside him. It was 9:00 am. 

"How long was i here exactly?"

"Just about 4-"

"hours?" Antony guessed. 

"um- days." the nymph replied. 

"Oh. my. gods." Antony muttered. He had been here for 4 hours. Antony wondered how 'mild' his concussion really was. 

"I need to get up." Antony tried putting pressure on his left arm to sit up, but he couldn't feel his arm. 

"Oh you cant do anything for this week other than lie down. You had a cracked arm bone as well, and your ankle was sprained. Somehow you drained a lot of power and its taking more time to heal you, even with water."

"Exactly how much damaged I am right now?" 

The nurse ignored that question and kept on doing her work, whatever that was. 

"What happened 4 days ago?" Antony asked out of curiosity, realizing his memory was fuzzy.

"I have no idea. Whatever happened was marked as absolutely confidential. Only Chiron and the ones who were there knows what happened."

"Can I meet with the others?"

"About that. . . I'm afraid you can't meet them right now. Axel, Serena and Alyssa are setting on for a quest right now. The entire school is in a buzz."

Antony processed that information in his brain. A quest? From the very few weeks he had been here, he had only learnt little about quests. Alyssa had told him that about a century ago, demigods were sent on quests by gods to do stuff where gods couldn't interfere in. After the gods started losing their power, they began isolating themselves from the modern world and didn't send demigods or legacies on quests. Many demigods usually died in these quests, and the ones who succeeded bought great fame and glory to home. 

"What kind of quest?"

"Confidential. Not a single student knows about it. All we know is that they are the first questers after a century." The nymph replied. "You should go back to sleep now. I will wake you up a couple of hours later." 

However Antony couldn't sleep. His memory was fuzzy for some moments, but after a while, his memory returned in flashes. 

That sweet voice. 

The young boy who defeated the mortals and created this. 

Who created this?

Much to Antony's annoyance, his eyes began drooping soon. 

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

So, this is a relatively shorter chapter, but its the beginning of the next arc of the story. Things are gonna heat up after this. Sorry i know i was supposed to upload this on Tuesday and today's Thursday. So, sorry for that, but i guess you could expect a bit more frequent updates now. (At least the time period between 2 updates is dropping now. it was 1 month earlier, now 1 week 2 days.)

- Spoiler Alert - 

Many of you are wondering when Percy's gonna appear. Well don't worry much. He's making a guest appearance next chapter, and after this you can expect him permanent. I have not yet planned for any ships right now, expect maybe an Axel x Antony one, which I'm still not sure about. Percy's ships are for y'all to decide, remember that most of the demigods are dead other than Percy, and Nico might be alive somewhere, although i am not sure. That's like arc 3 of the story. 

That's enough spoilers for now. 

See you soon enough, (expecting on Tuesday)

Bye.