"Alright," a guy with a New Zealand accent called from the center of the camp, "come over here guy's. We got some news!"

Everyone at Base Camp gathered around in a tight circle - the team from Camp Olympus stayed at the front, eager to know what the news was.

"Alright," the New Zealand man said out loud. "Now, we got some weather reports stating that we may have a tight schedule for climbing Everest. We will take this all in turns, each of us go with our respected camps and climb the Icefall, before it gets too windy."

I knew what he meant - the weather had been windy the day before. The winds had been enough to slow us down by just a fraction, though we eventually got to our destination.

Just then, Percy came up with Jason and Nico. Percy wore his trademark Polartec jacket and wore his shaded blue glasses - making him look like Ares slightly, if Ares decided to go all blue and grew his hair. Nico had a new aviator's jacket, though he didn't wear dark clothes all the time now these days now. Jason now looked shorter than Percy - he was now two inches shorter than the son of Poseidon. He wore a sky blue winters jacket and was wearing his perspriptive glasses as well.

When I look at the three of them together, I was amazed of how well they worked together. The sight of them alone was awe inspiring. But I think that Percy was the one who seemed a lot more grown up than the others - now that he was going to be a father, he seemed more down to earth rather than looking like an immortal hero.

I always had mixed feelings for Percy for years now. When he first came to Camp Jupiter, I offered to make him a Praetor and offered to become his girlfriend. He became Praetor but didn't become my boyfriend because he was in a close relationship with Annabeth. I understood that a while ago when I was back at Circe's Island - those two did look like a couple even though they weren't at the time.

Frank came over and stood with his arms crossed. "It's a lot colder than I thought."

"Well," I responded, "we are in the Himalayas, my fellow Praetor. It's bound to be cold."

Frank Zhang - even though he was the son of Mars and was a Praetor, he still acted like a total klutz sometimes. If it wern't for Hazel - his girlfriend - he would've been kicked out of his role. But most of the time he was an amazing battle planner and thinker - just like Annabeth.

Percy then came up to me. "We need to talk - all of us."

I frowned, but decided to go with him towards the Command Tent. Everyone else did the same, wondering what Percy wanted to talk about.

=========

Once inside, everyone sat down and glanced at one another. Just then, Percy and Jason came to the front of the small crowd of demigods and stood there. Everyone was still talking, so Jason and Percy had a short conversation. Jason nodded and stood in the corner while Percy held up his hands to get everyone's attention.

The whole tent quieted.

"Thank you for coming back into the tent," he announced. "Now, the reason why we decided to bring you all here is because Jason, myself, Nico and Aaron - who is over there at the back..."

He waved his hand to Aaron Bailey, who held up his hand in greeting.

"...have been discussing timetables for our partial climbing attempts," Percy continued. "But before we go into that, I will explain why we are all here in Nepal in the first place. Me and Jason was summoned over to Olympus the over night and we were given a mission that was to be here at Everest. The mission: to locate, find and bring back Zeus's master bolt."

The whole room murmered with the nervous whispers of demigods. Some looked at each other in confusion.

"Athena, who was present at the council," Percy went on, silencing everyone up, "told me and Jason that the bolt is currently on the south summit of Everest. Now, I don't want you guys to worry - we will be making this mission as easy as possible."

"What does the bolt look like?" someone at the back called out. "You know what it looks like. I heard tell that retreiving the master bolt was your first quest."

Suddenly, everyone looked more interested - everyone craved knowledge about the adventures of Percy Jackson, because as far as everyone knew, he was a living legend at both Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter.

"The master bolt," Percy told everyone, "is a two-foot-long cylinder of high grade celestial bronze capped at both ends with god-level explosives. This is the exact same weapon that sheered the top of Mount Etna off and hurled Kronos from the black throne in the first Titan War; this is practically the weapon that has enough firepower to make all hydrogen bombs in the world look like pathetic firecrackers."

Even I was shocked - I didn't know that's what the master bolt was like. At first, I thought the bolt was a crackling rod of lightning - at least, that's what it looked like in the temple of Jupiter back in New Rome.

"Our job is to make sure we get the bolt off the south summit of Everest," the son of Poseidon finished off his announcement, "before the spirit of Everest claims it for himself. If he does, he could use it against Olympus. We're here to make sure that doesn't happen. We got an open window for only a month, before Everest's spirit gets a bead on the bolts location. Now, Jason here will explain the timetable for climbing this thing as well as explaining the dangers we might face along the way. Jason, over to you buddy."

Everyone clapped and whooped as Jason came into the centre of the tent. He shook Percy's hand and patted his back, until Percy went over to the corner of the tent and sat down.

"Well," Jason began, "all of you know who I am so there's no need for introductions. Now, climbing Everest is gonna be a completely new challenge for all of us. But, not all of us are gonna climb this thing. Yes, I know," he raised a hand as several demigods groaned, "you want your shot of going to the summit, but this is probably the most dangerous thing that we've ever done. Getting to the top of Everest is mainly about how much oxygen you use up. You use all of it up then you're screwed. And that's not all the bad news - the bad news is that each ascent begins and ends with the Icefall. I'm sorry but there's no way around it."

He tapped the centre table and a hologram appeared in front of everyone - it showed the massive scale of the Icefall: a wall of broken down ice chunks that led to the next camp above the Base Camp.

"We must do this at night time, because when the sun hits the ice, the ice starts to melt and it becomes more dangerous. You got crivaces so deep, they probably don't even have a bottom - this is not a posistion you want to find yourself in. Several people have died in that Icefall - trust me when I say that it is not a safe place in general. We are gonna send a small team to get our selected climbers above the Icefall - the rest will remain here at Base Camp until we come back. When we get above the Icefall, we will contiue on climbing until we reach our destination."

Jason then waved to Aaron, who was at the very back. "Aaron Bailey, who is a son of Hephaestus born in the UK, has come over here to help set up communications and location visual. He goes to Camp Half-Blood for the summer only - apart from that, in lives mostly in Birmingham, UK. He knows how to set up some equipment so this is a big help to us all."

Everyone clapped for Aaron, even I did. Bailey looked slightly shy about the amount of people who was applauding him but he smiled anyway.

"Now," Jason said, bringing out a piece of paper, "here is the list of people who are climbing. The first three who are climbing are Percy, Nico and I obviously. The fourth is Aaron Bailey and lastly...Frank."

"What?" Frank yelped. He looked at everyone in the tent - especially Percy and Jason. "Are you serious?"

Jason was about to speak but Percy raised his hand so that he could speak. "Jason could I please say something to Frank? It will only take a minute."

Jason nodded. "Sure thing, man."

Percy walked right into the centre of the room. "Frank, the reason why we - you know, Jason, Nico, myself included - chose you is because we don't know what we're gonna be up against if we run into Everest's spirit on the mountain. If something happens, you've got to get as many of us down as possible. We could run into several disasters while we are up there - a wounded member of the team; someone who needs to get off the mountain due to any illness that might affect the team; an AVALANCHE for god's sake! We need you to help us if any of that were to happen, because you can turn into anything to get us down from Everest."

Frank nodded along, listening to Percy as he talked - it was like listening to a college tutor. Over the years that I've known Percy, he still amazes me how he talks to people - he was kind and informative when he could be, but at the same time he would make you think that you've learned something at the end of the day. He teaches marine biology at New Rome's college, but also as a combat teacher.

In other words, he makes you feel like you're prepared for what the world throws at you.

"Alright," Jason said, signalling that the conversation was over. "We've out the name of the climbers - the others stay here and help guide the team up the mountain. Is everyone clear about what we are doing?"

Everyone shouted, "YEAH!"

Percy smiled - it was a look that I have gotten use to for years now. It was his trademark smirk that made a lot of people think that he was a troublemaker, but in a good way because it basically said that he was up to the task - whether it meant him getting himself a little beat up.

"Let's do this thing then."