Wait, what's that you say? Almost 200 views? No way! So anyways, I've got 190 reads which is ASTOUNDING to me, so thank you to all of you who have actually cared enough to read this! My goal is to update more regularly and hopefully be caught up to Love and Chaos in a relatively short span of time. In the meantime, enjoy! P.S. Don't be alarmed or confused if this chapter suddenly disappears for a day or two to come back completely different. I want to get this chapter revised with pickles_25 for any errors/constructive criticism. I apologize for not getting this up sooner (as in, a couple days ago), but between homework, my computer shutting down 5 times, freezing once, and a power outage, let's just say it didn't happen.

          The morning after the Senate meeting (which I was thankfully able to avoid passing out in), we departed Camp Jupiter. After we got onto Argo II we all ate breakfast in the Mess Hall, discussing the plan.

"So, to the Gallagher Academy, I presume?" Leo asked, starting the conversation. "I've already told Festus that's where he ought to take us, so I certainly hope that's where we intend to go..."

"Yes," Liz replied, nodding, "we're going to take Cammie back home and invite Zach Bex, and Alex to come with us in the summer. After that we will go to the 21 Nome and drop off Carter. We will tell Zia, Sadie, and Walt about the quest and then take Felix and Alexis to Camp Half-Blood with us, where we can begin our own planning. Each of us leaders must establish a system in our homelands to protect it while we're gone. We will need someone to take our own place, and then set up our own armies," she continued. "Each group is a subsection, so they will need their own ranks and whatnot. Training begins immediately. This is war."

'Wow, Lizzy,' I thought. 'Way to keep it light.'

Percy managed to shut her up by placing his hand over her moth and speaking over her muffled protests, "Nice pep talk, Liz, but really, try to keep it a bit light-hearted. We have over half a year until this all takes place. I agree training needs to be taken very seriously in the months leading up to the quest, but come on. Don't be such a pessimist."

"So that's how you shut her up then?" Leo laughed. "Teach me your ways, oh son of the sea god."

Liz removed Percy's hand and smacked Leo. "Just because I'm quiet doesn't mean I can't severely injure you. If I'm silent, be afraid."

Carter added, "If she's speaking, be afraid. If she's armed, be afraid. If she's unarmed, be afraid. If she's just been rendered unconscious by a 200-lb. brick, be afraid. The real point here is to be afraid of Liz Jackson."

I couldn't help agreeing with him, recalling all of the experiences where Liz has kicked butt, regardless of the situation.

Cammie smiled. "When the youngest girl on the quest is the most terrifying."

My forehead scrunched together in confusion until suddenly it dawned on me. "Oh my gods, I AM older than you, aren't i? I mean, from birth... Forget the time skip or whatever it was that happened to you. Haha, I keep forgetting. Well, I guess all technicalities included, you're older than me, aren't you? By, like, five thousand years..."

Out of everything that has been happening in the past few months, this has to have been the most confusing. Not the age-skip, not the mythological parts, not even the resurrecting-death part. No, this has got to be the weirdest. If you asked me 3 months ago, I would've said, no hesitation, "Oh, I'm 46 days older than her." Now, however, it's more like "Uhmmm...I'm not sure...I think she's something like four or five thousand years older than me. Plus 4 years so..."

Liz was rubbing her temples in confusion, muttering, "I don't even know my own age anymore."

"Fish princess, you get more confusing by the hour. I like that about you. You all get some breakfast. I'm going to get washed up for the day."

After breakfast we all went up to our individual rooms and unpacked once again. Finishing in a relatively short span of time, I put in some music, cello (that's a string instrument for all you orchestral neophytes), and just stared at the wall, thinking about life, the quest, Liz, Sarah, Andrew, Alex, back to the meaning of life, chocolate, when a cavernous pit materialized all around me.

Below me (I was in the air, looking down), I could see 15 young people. I knew instinctually they were Liz and 14 of the quest members, although I couldn't identify them by sight. Expanding my vision, I spotted three people, chained, agonizingly just out of reach of each other. A man, breezy-looking with windswept hair and eyes that were constantly moving about, a woman with eyes that sparkled like the night sky and limp black hair, and another woman, slightly younger than the other two, truly a beauty. This woman was the type of person who you would never get tired of looking at, so incredible lovely she was...lovely! This must be Love, along with her parents, Night and Wind.

Even more prominent in this landscape, however, was the woman, if you could even call her that, facing Liz. As hard as I tried, I could never focus on her face and body; it's like where your eyes go out of focus and everything is blurry. Except I couldn't blink my vision back into clarity. And then I realized how extremely terrifying she was. Trying to concentrate on her gave me such a raging headache, worse than anything I've ever had, as though the different lobes of my brain were locked in mortal combat.

I managed to look back at Liz, who was talking to the terrifying being. She—it—must have been angered, and leapt out and struck Liz down. Hardly touching her, it had exerted such an immense store of power that Liz lay on the ground, her life so sapped even I could see it.

With tears in my eyes, I glimpsed Leo running to Liz, then looked at the woman with such a deep loathing, it is only a wonder nothing burst into flames. He went to run at her, but Liz grabbed his wrist, weak as she was. "Valdez. Tell Percy I love him, if you will," she managed to croak out. Not long after, she fell limp, never to move again.

Another girl appeared from the shadows. So like Liz, yet so different. Colder, harsher, harder. Her hair was different too, a stark black and choppy. It was cut short to above her shoulders, but not as short as mine. With her was a boy, also with the all-absorbing black hair and eyes like a cloudy day—not quite blue but neither was it fully grey. And he was pale. Paler than Nico even. As white as snow, but not as beautiful. He looked grey, like a decaying skeleton. The girl walked up to the woman, but before she could reach her, an army rose up and attacked those questing. All was not lost, as the girl had an army of her own.

Everything was so chaotic that I had no way of making out what happened. Not to mention the tears flowing down my face were quite the obstruction to clear view.

Next were two gravestones. The girl was kneeling before them, looking grave. The two names. They made me choke. The first one, 'Alexander Perry'. The next, however, that was the one that I shall never forget: 'Elizabeth Nicole Jackson. Hero to the very end.' There were old, wilted roses on the two graves, the girl replacing them with new, beautiful flowers.

I came up behind her then, except it almost wasn't me. It was a me who was older and much thinner, sorrowful, nothing like the happy 13 year old I once was. I lay my hand on her shoulder and bowed by head. Looking from afar, I knew this scene would have been a beautiful ending to a heroic movie. But it doesn't end until the fat lady sings.

Enter Leo, in Liz's room, rifling through old drawings and stories. A ghost of a smile was on his face when the girl walked in, murmuring, "Leo..."

Instead of talking civilly he started screaming her. "HOW COULD YOU?! YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HER! WHY DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST...COME HERE AND IT'LL BE ALL RIGHT?? IT'S YOUR FAULT SHE'S DEAD AND YOU COME IN HERE AND TRY TO TALK TO ME?! LEAVE!"

She turned away, eyes glistening with the tears that refused to fall. Her foretold love for him was so great, and he destroys it all. There would be no happy ending for this fairytale couple.

Leo, tears in his eyes as well, sat down at the cherished laptop of Lizzy Jackson. Up came the top and stories were read. At one, he paused longer than usual. I read it, over his shoulder, and burst into tears once more. On it was a detailed description of the death of a boy. A boy aged 13 with beautiful brown eyes. Oh gods. No. Not this.

The brown-eyed boy looks and sees the girl with red hair. An attacker, one of Catherine's men, come to claim all the glory for himself, is sneaking up behind her, unseen. The boy sees him. "Liz!" She whips around, pistol in hand. Without hesitation she fires. But the man has a shield, the boy sees. The girl does not. She turns from her attacker, thinking him finished, her bullet bouncing off the shield, imbued with magic.

The boy's eyes follow the bullet until his own chest is obstructing the view. Confused, he feels the hole, just above his heart, his life force spurting from the wound the chunk of metal has made. The girl turns, a look of grave concentration turning into horror as she takes in the picture of the boy standing there. "Alex!"

But the boy doesn't hear her, his vision is blurring, the world titling, and it is too late. The brown boy's love for the red girl is staining his shirt, her hands, as he takes one last look at the girl he loved so much.

The vision ended there, leaving me a crying, sniffling mess. A gentle knock on the door startled me back into reality. I cleaned myself up as much as possible and opened the door Liz was there with a concerned look on her face. Not the person I want to see at the present time. "Liz. Oh. Hi."

"Abby...Are you okay?" it sounded like a stupid question. We both knew it was a stupid question. "Did you have a vision or something?"

I didn't trust my voice to work properly, so I only nodded in the affirmative.

"Tell me about it."

We sat down on my bed and I began. "You were with fourteen of the other fifteen people who are supposed to be coming on the major quest, and it appeared you were in a dark pit. There were 3 people chained just out of reach of one another—2 women and a man. But the one you were facing was...terrifying. She had no definite face, no definite shape, she just kept changing and it was giving me a headache to watch.

"You were talking to her, but before anything else could happen, she lashed out and...her power was so great that barely touching you, you fell to the ground, dying. And Leo, poor Leo, he ran to you and looked back at the woman with rage in his face. Before he did anything stupid you...grabbed his hand and you just...started laughing. Not insane, just a pure, humorous laugh. And you said to him, 'Valdez, tell Percy I love him, if you will.' And you went limp shortly afterwards.

"Another girl came out of the shadows with a boy who had black hair, blue-grey eyes, and looked like he never saw the sunlight. The girl looked so much like you, but her eyes were colder, her face harder, and her hair was choppy, black and short. She briskly greeted the woman who had killed you before an army rose up out of the ground. The army began attacking the questers, but reinforcements came in from behind the girl. It was an intense battle scene that I didn't really witness... After that, I couldn't really tell what was going on until it got to the girl kneeling before two tombstones.

"The names..." Here I paused, my breath becoming ragged. I took a deep breath and continued. "They read 'Elizabeth Nicole Jackson' and 'Alexander Perry'. The girl was replacing old, wilted roses with fresh, bright, new flowers. And an older version of myself was there as well. I had my hand on the girl's shoulder, but I don't know why we seemed to be so close.

"After that I saw Leo going through your things. He looked like he'd been crying, but right then he was almost smiling as he flipped through sketchbooks and notebooks and pictures. The girl came through the door and murmured his name, but rather than answering her peacefully, he started yelling. I think he blamed her for your death, and he looked outraged that she should dare attempt talking to him. She looked so massively taken aback as she turned out of the room, holding back tears.

"He started looking at your laptop, going through the little things you'd written, until he found a piece that described the death of a boy who fit the description of Alex. It was rather emotional to read, but just to think something should happen to both you and Alex, I just...." I trailed off, staring at Liz, imploringly.

"I won't die." It sounded too fast, but it cheered me up slightly all the same. "I promise you that I will not die. There's always a way to cheat death. I swear to Styx I will do everything in my power to keep that from happening."

"And what about Alex?" As much of a jerk he is, I can't help but still care for him, even just a little.

"If I can find a way to save him, I'll do it. I still love him you know. But this bloody age difference has made it impossible to be with him. Besides...I can never tell him that I'm really Liz Noel. If he found out that I really survived and these past couple of months he spent grieving were all a lie, I can only imagine how outraged he would be."

'Not to mention he might try and make up with me. Or get mad at me for "not telling him".'

"I can only imagine how badly it would hurt to think you've lost someone you loved and cared deeply about, just to find out two months later that you were being lied to, and the truth was they were alive and well. The betrayal, where all you could hear inside your head is 'Why did nobody tell me?!'"

'I did tell him, Lizzy. Or at least, I tried to.'

"It's better if he doesn't know... Look, I know you also care about him, and I will stop at nothing to keep him safe. I don't know how but I'll save him."

"He's kind of a jerk, to be completely honest with you, but I still care about his well-being, you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I can completely understand. He's a jerk, but he's a jerk we like, so we'd like to keep him alive." We both smiled at that, silently agreeing to what she had said.

"Exactly!" She pulled me into a hug. After what I had just seen, it was a miracle I ever let go. I was not going to lose her a second time.

Title suggestions anyone? Until next time! :)