Nico's POV

I laid my head down on the table, my forehead pressed down on my arms as I closed my eyes wearily. Around me, the Great Hall was filled with cheerful chatter and next to me, Tyson and Grover were eating their breakfast. Both of them had been unusually down ever since Annabeth, Percy and Clarisse had left. I guess both of them were missing the trio. Well, Clarisse maybe not so much.

"Morning," Ron greeted us, yawning as he plopped down on the seat facing me, along with Hermione and Harry.

"What's up?" I asked, lifting my head.

"Well, Harry went psycho yesterday night and laughed like a madman. The usual," he replied casually before grabbing some toast and spreading jam on it.

"Oh yeah, you know, nothing weird about laughing hysterically to yourself," I agreed.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "He was channelling Voldemort again," she replied, sounding disturbed while Ron winced at the name.

"So it means that he was happy?" Grover asked worriedly.

"Ecstatic," Harry replied tiredly. "And we have no idea why."

"Nothing to do with brother right?" Tyson asked pleadingly, as if hoping that we would say no and it would be fine.

"Of course not," I reassured him. At least, I hope not, I thought to myself.

"What's up with you?" Ron retorted back again. "Your face is all pale."

"Couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about what you told me. What Percy said, I mean," I explained, rubbing my eyes.

"I'm sure they'll call back to explain," Hermione said firmly. "If call is even the right word."

"IM actually," Grover offered.

Just then, the owls arrived with the morning post. One of them swooped down towards Hermione and dropped a copy of the Daily Prophet on her plate. We resumed talking as she grabbed the paper and smoothed out the front page, glancing at the front page. Then, she let out a yelp, grabbing all of our attention.

"What?" Harry and Ron asked together.

Without another word, she spread the newspaper on the table in the middle and pointed at ten black and white pictures that were dominating the whole page. Nine of them featured wizards' faces and the tenth, a witch's. Most of the faces were jeering or looking insolent and below all of them were captions of their names and the crimes that sent them to Azkaban.

I stared down at the pictures, a sick feeling in my stomach. Ten more dangerous criminals on the loose. To make it worse, they were all Voldemort's followers. To add on to that, Percy, Annabeth and Clarisse were all out there. Who knew what could happen?

Just then, Hermione nudged Harry, who seemed preoccupied with the last picture of the witch, whose name was Bellatrix Lestrange, and pointed at the headline over the pictures.

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN

MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS 'RALLYING POINT'

FOR OLD DEATH EATERS

"Black?" Harry said loudly, furious. "Not -?"

"Shhh!" Hermione shushed him desperately. "Not so loud - just read it!"

The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban.

Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals.

"We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the same position we were two and a half years ago when the murderer Sirius Black escaped," said Fudge last night. "Nor do we think the two breakouts are unrelated. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must remember that Black, as the first person ever to break out of Azkaban, would be ideally placed to help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Black's cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, have rallied around Black as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals, and we beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached."

"There you are, Harry," Ron said, awestruck. "That's why he was so happy last night."

"I don't believe this," Harry snarled, enraged. "Fudge is blaming the breakout on Sirius?"

"What other options does he have?" Hermione replied bitterly. "He can hardly say, 'Sorry everyone, Dumbledore warned me this might happen, the Azkaban guards have joined Lord Voldemort' - stop whimpering, Ron - 'and now Voldemort's worst supporters have broken out, too.' I mean, he's spent a good six months telling everyone you and Dumbledore are liars, hasn't he?"

"That idiot," I said furiously. "He's a fool for not believing what's right in front of his eyes."

"Yeah well, his job matter most to him, doesn't it?" Grover said, disgusted.

"Brother, Annabeth and Clarisse are out there though," Tyson mumbled, sounding anxious.

"They can take care of themselves, I'm sure," I frowned at the thought of them fighting off ten Death Eaters.

"Hey, I've always wondered, are there any bad demigods?" Ron asked curiously.

"'Course," I replied. "Why?"

"Just wondering," he shrugged. "I hope that they would never ever meet Voldemort. Things would really be bad then if demigods are joining him now."

"Huh, you're right," I mused, my brows furrowed together. "That would suck."

Percy's POV

"So what now?" I asked, as we walked down the busy street, keeping a cautious eye out for any unwanted visitors, be it monsters or Death Eaters. The streets were fairly empty, due to the fact that it was a working day and everybody was either in school, at work or at home.

It has been two days since the fight with the monster and ever since then, we had just been wandering around the streets of London, camping at any available place we could find and generally just feeling lost. We hadn't IM-ed back Harry either since we figured that the message had already been sent across and there was no point calling again if we had nothing to report.

Annabeth had been leading us around, trying to find any place that matched the images she had seen in her dreams. She was pretty certain that it was somewhere around London. The only problem? London was huge.

"Gods, this is going to take forever," Clarisse groaned beside us.

"It's in London. I know it is," Annabeth insisted stubbornly.

"We're not doubting you," I reassured her. "It's just that, well, London is huge. Thalia could be anywhere."

"And it's close to lunch. Can't we have lunch or something first? I mean half an hour isn't really going to make a difference. At least, we'll have more energy to continue looking after we have some food in our stomach," Clarisse pointed out.

"She's got a point," I shrugged when Annabeth glanced at me.

"Fine," she conceded with a sigh. "Let's just stop at a café somewhere."

"We still have money left right?" I asked my girlfriend while Clarisse lead us over to a small little café around the corner. The smell of fish and chips wafting out from the store was enough to make my stomach growl in hunger.

"'Course," she replied distractedly, rummaging in her backpack to make sure and letting out a small sigh of relief when she finally found it.

"Awesome. Now let's get some food," Clarisse said impatiently as we headed up to the counter.

"Welcome to White Coffee, how may I help you?" The cashier seemed strangely happy to see us as she beamed.

"Um, fish and chips please," I replied, a little bemused and of course, suspicious. I've had my fair share of happy people trying to kill us.

"We'll all have the same thing," Annabeth added, sounding unusually cool as she stood closer to me.

"Of course," the cashier said without looking at her. "Anything else?"

"That's all," Clarisse cut in before we could say anything. "How much?"

"That'll be fifteen pounds."

I nodded, looking at Annabeth expectantly. She rolled her eyes but pulled out some money and handed it over to the girl, who smiled pleasantly at us and said, "Your order will be ready in a few minutes. Take a seat; I'll bring it over to you when it's ready."

"Thank you," I nodded politely at her.

Annabeth caught me by surprise when she suddenly grabbed my hand and intertwined our fingers together. "Let's go get a seat," she suggested sweetly.

"Uh, yeah, sure," I replied uncertainly, getting more and more confused.

She dragged me to a table at the far end of the café, as far away as possible from the cashier. Her smile however, changed to a small scowl as she plopped down on the chair. "As if she couldn't be any more obvious," she grumbled.

"I know. Anyone could see that she was trying to get lucky," Clarisse nodded, also taking a seat.

"What are you guys talking about? What was she doing wrong?" I asked, bewildered.

Both of them shot me disbelieving looks. "Really? You didn't notice what she was trying to do?" Annabeth asked, astonished.

"Was she trying to do anything?"

"Boys," Clarisse muttered, shaking her head.

"At least he's clueless," Annabeth muttered. "That means he probably won't notice what other girls are trying to do either."

"What?" I demanded to know, feeling frustrated. "What was she doing? What other girls? What are you guys talking about?"

"Forget it," came the reply from both of them simultaneously just as the cashier girl appeared at the table, our order in her hands.

"Here you go," she said brightly, winking and placing the mouthwatering meal in front of us. "Enjoy your food!" With that, she left.

All thoughts of the previous conversation flew out of my head as I prepared to dig in. Then, I hesitated. "Wait, what about our offerings?"

Clarisse paused, her forkful of fish just centimeters away from her mouth. "Uh, I guess we can burn some in the fireplace over here." She pointed over to a small fireplace just right next to us, one I hadn't notice because I was too busy wondering what in Hades was going on.

We shuffled closer to the burning fire, trying not to attract any attention as we scraped a portion of our food into the fire. Mortals didn't know of our ritual so they would probably think us weird if they caught us doing this. Thankfully, nobody was around besides us and the cashier girl was too immersed with her phone to pay much attention to us.

Without another word, we began eating ravenously and within minutes, we were done. I placed my plate down, feeling satisfied now that my stomach was full. Even better, the weather was cooling so we didn't even feel drowsy or anything.

"We should really get going," Annabeth said a little reluctantly.

"Yeah," I agreed, though I made no indication of moving anytime soon.

"C'mon," she sighed, standing up. "We still have to look for Thalia."

That snapped me out of my daydreams of just sitting there, relaxing and never having to walk again. "Yeah, you're right. Let's go."

All of grabbed our backpacks, stood up and left the café. The cashier girl waved after us cheerfully and I returned the favour with a smile. As I turned back round, I saw Annabeth stomping forward and Clarisse giving me an exasperated and disgusted look.

"What?" I protested.

She merely shook her head, rolled her eyes and walked faster to catch up with Annabeth. Grumbling to myself, I trailed after them, still trying to figure out what in the name of Poseidon did I do wrong.

Two hours later, we finally took a break at a park that was fringed by a forest. Nobody was around and it was close to sunset. I guess it was because this park was a little out of the way and rather secluded so not much people would know about it. I threw myself down on the soft grass underneath a tree, feeling the relief in my aching legs.

"It's getting close to night. We should really camp here or something," Annabeth said quietly, gazing up at the sky.

"Yeah, you're right. Nobody will discover us here," Clarisse agreed.

"You sure about that?" A new voice said aloud, startling all of us.

I leapt to my feet and spun around, gazing around to spot the owner of the voice but there was no one in sight.

"Show yourself!" I shouted, pulling out Riptide.

"Now where would be the fun in that?" the voice mocked me. It echoed all around us, giving us the impression that it was everywhere at one go, which was impossible.

"And hiding yourself is fun? Coward," Clarisse snarled, her head swiveling as she tried to look for the intruder.

"Huh, you're right. It isn't exactly the brave thing to do ..." the voice mused before its tone changed to one of scorn. "- but what would I know?"

"Come on out!" Annabeth shouted furiously.

There was no reply but I spotted a dark silhouette slowly emerging from the trees. I raised Riptide defensively, tensing my body for a fight that I knew was coming. Beside me, both Clarisse and Annabeth did the same, glaring at the shadow that was slowly becoming bigger as it approached.

"That's not a nice way to greet your guest now, is it?" the unknown person sneered coldly.

Soon, he had stepped close enough to reveal his face, which was a shock to us. He was only a boy, about the age of fourteen. He was dressed casually in jeans, a shirt, sneakers, and a plain black cap. He would have passed for an average teenager if not for the cruel set of his mouth and his cold, merciless eyes that bored right at us. Seeing as we had just been kids ourselves when we had set off on our first quest, I was determined not to underestimate the young boy.

"Who are you?" Clarisse growled.

"Like I would be telling you that," he scoffed, but then suddenly smirked. "But no worries, I'm just like you, only much more special."

"Don't tell me ... you're a demigod?" Annabeth said, sounding horrified. I understood why, they were rarely any bad demigods around anymore, not since the war.

"We've got ourselves a winner!" the boy exclaimed sarcastically.

"You sure got a nerve," Clarisse snarled furiously.

He eyed her soundlessly before letting out a humorless laugh. "Now, you three should just follow my instructions or things will be worse for you."

"As if we'll just willingly give ourselves up. Dude, try harder," I told him.

"Hmm you're right," he said thoughtfully. "I guess we should do this the hard way."

I dashed forward, hoping to attack him and take him by surprise but before I could even reach him, his voice changed. It became softer, calmer. Hypnotic; that was the word to describe it. "Sleep," he called out softly.

Suddenly, my body stopped moving. My legs gave way as I collapsed to the ground and I suddenly felt weak. My eyes began to droop and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the same thing happening to Clarisse and Annabeth as their body dropped to the ground. "What - ?" I managed to croak out.

"Did I tell you? I'm the son of Morpheus, the god of dreams," I heard him speak but it was like he was at the end of a tunnel. His voice sounded extremely far away.

I felt of jolt of recognition at the name. Crap. It was the same god who had put Grover to sleep for two months. My system was now shutting down as I felt my eyes drooped even further. Guys, find us. Please, was my final thought before my brain finally gave away and everything went black.

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A/N: Oh. My. Gosh. I really have not enough words to apologise right now. Because I have no excuse for posting so late. It's all my fault, I am so sorry. To make it up to you, this chapter is dedicated to all your amazing people out there who stood by me all this while even though I'm a horrible person. I love you guys so so much. No number in this universe can express how much; it's endless.

P.S As usual, it's not edited. Any mistakes, kindly point out please :)

Enjoy