The battle begins >:)

Chapter Quote:
"Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."
~Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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Chapter 19: We Prep for War

Silena

It was pretty much chaos at Camp Half-Blood with everyone prepping for the war. Argus was going to be driving the van back and forth to get supplies and demigods to Manhattan. Luke, Nicole, and Beau had been the first to go to the Empire State Building. They were working out where the best places for the demigods to stay was and where they should stockpile their weapons.

Derek helped load the vans while Silena made sure everyone was doing their job and not slacking off. She didn't have much problem with that considering all the campers wanted to have everything ready to improve their chances of winning.

A crash in the armory forced Silena to stop helping the Hephaestus cabin in the forge and go see what happened. When she entered the building, a pile of armor was on the ground with Zeke pinned underneath. She knelt down next to him, asking if he was okay.

"I'm fine, but I can't move," he replied.

"Hang on, I'll get you out." Silena took the pieces off one by one. None of them were really heavy but there was a lot so it took her five minutes to get it all off of him. He sat up, appearing a little dazed, but fine nonetheless.

"Thank you," he said. "I didn't think anyone was going to coming for a while."

"Someone would've come. We need to get all this armor to the Empire State Building. Are you hurt?"

"Physically, no. But my ego is bruised. Thought I could handle reaching that high without any help. I was wrong," Zeke admitted. He was shorter than Silena but not by much. He was only fourteen so he still had some growing to do, something she pointed out to him. "You really think I'll grow more?"

"Definitely. Come on, I'll help you out with this stuff. There's a lot and you seem to be lacking in help."

"Yeah, no one really likes to work with me. My antics from when I was little didn't make me many friends. I was a jerk."

"Weren't you the one that Bryn threatened to turn into Zeke-chini or something like that?"

He laughed. "Yeah, that was me. I wish I got to apologize to her for that. Looking back, I was a brat. I've tried changing my ways but no one's taking me seriously."

"Well consider me as someone who has. Let's get this stuff outside so Derek can take it to the van."

"If you want, I'll carry the armor if you just stack it outside. I know you're needed elsewhere though."

"I might be needed elsewhere but everywhere else has people who can fill in my shoes. You seem to need someone to talk to."

"You're really nice, has anyone ever told you that?"

"I can't remember, but thank you Zeke." The demigod nodded and headed off to the Half-Blood Hill where Derek greeted him and relieved him of the armor. For the next five hours, the demigods prepared the camp for departure. At noon, they had a quick lunch, and then filed into the vans waiting to take them to the Empire State Building. Derek sat next to Silena and she fell asleep on his shoulder the entire trip. When she woke up, they were at their destination. The group filed out and entered the building. The security guy who guarded the door to Olympus didn't hesitate to let them by. Either he knew who they were or he was really bad at his job.

The ride up to the ninety-ninth and hundredth floors took ten minutes simply because it was a long ride to get up and down while trying to get a hundred-fifty campers up there. The floor had been reserved for their special purposes. It'd all been transformed into sleeping quarters and part of it a kitchen. Some people were already sacked out and snoring in beds. Mostly the younger campers who needed more sleep than the older ones. One by one, the campers dropped off their stuff and crawled into a bed. Luke, Silena, and Derek were the last to be awake.

"Guys, I just had a thought," Luke said.

"What?" Silena queried.

"Was it just me or did New York seem like... really empty?"

Derek seemed thoughtful. "You know what, you're right. There was hardly anyone in the city and the ones that were, it seemed as if they were heading out. The Empire State Building was empty save for the front desk people and the security guard but they all acted as if they were leaving soon."

"I can explain that one," Chiron said, walking up to them. "Hannah's been planning this for a while. Compared to Kronos who put all the citizens under a sleeping spell, it caused blocks to the Titan Army. I'm assuming Hannah wants all people out of the way for multiple reasons. The first is it causes less problems for her army to march onto the Empire State Building. Second, it's more people for her to rule and torture if she wins. She must've somehow been able to get everyone out without tipping us off. The gods have been too busy fighting the monsters to notice what's going on here. Still, I do wonder how Hannah managed it. Anyway, off to bed you three go. I'll wake you up an hour before battle so we can some strategies planned."

"We can help with that," Mr. Jackson said, walking up to the group. Silena and Luke hugged their parents.

"Count us in as well," Mrs. Michaels added. Derek embraced his parents.

"Oi, don't forget us!" An unfamiliar voice demanded in mock seriousness. Silena, Luke, and Derek peered around their parents. Ten people walked into the room. Two of them Silena knew but the others she'd just heard about.

"Kids, I'd like to introduce you to Leo and Calypso Valdez, Jason and Piper Grace, Frank and Hazel Zhang, and Clarisse and Chris Rodriguez. And then you know Mr. and Mrs. Winchester," Percy introduced.

"Y-You five were part of the prophecy when defeating Gaia," Derek stammered.

"That'd be us. It's a pleasure to meet the heroes of your generation," Frank said sincerely.

"Ah, I don't know about the word 'heroes' yet. We haven't even begun that battle and it's not looking good for us," Luke admitted.

"Says the son of the guy who helped defeat Gaia after he caused her to rise because he got a nosebleed," Jason joked.

"Says the guy who got knocked out by a brick," Percy countered.

"Knock it off you two," Annabeth intervened.

"I hope you don't mind that we joined in, but we wanted to help finish what Bryn started," Mrs. Winchester said with a small smile. Mr. Drew nodded in agreement.

"She'd be proud of you both," Silena assured. "And we can use all the help we can get."

"Did you contact Nico?" Percy asked Jason.

"I did, but he didn't answer me. Will wasn't picking up either," Jason replied grimly. "I tried multiple times."

Percy's face darkened. "I hope they're okay."

"Kids, why don't you get some sleep? You have a big night ahead of you," Annabeth suggested. Luke, Silena, and Derek didn't argue. They crawled into the three remaining beds and crashed.
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At nine-thirty, Chiron woke them up. Groggily they walked to their designated briefing room which was really just a room next door to the one they were sleeping in. Chiron spread out a map of Manhattan and the three demigods braced themselves against the table.

"She'll come to the surrounding areas by sea. That's the easiest way to transport her troops. Her badass soldiers will most likely come from the air. They are always riding on the pegasi," Luke observed. "We need each bridge covered. We have a hundred-fifty-six campers total so that's..."

"About 19 kids per bridge. That's nowhere near enough to hold back Hannah's army," Silena pointed out.

"Hang on, didn't your mom activate automatons in the Second Titan War? Do you still think that'd work this time? I mean there are hundreds of those things in the city. Hundreds of those that would be on our side," Derek said.

"It's worth a shot. I'll tell mom to do it. She'll remember how to do it," Silena replied. "What else? We need more ideas."

"Well, you have us," a girl quipped from the door. The three demigods turned around. It'd been almost two years since she'd last seen the girl and that'd been the day that Silena was going on her first quest.

"Thalia, I'm glad you could make it," Chiron greeted kindly.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world... again. I just realized this is the third time I've fought to save the world. I hope I'm not making this a habit. There's sixty Hunters, including myself. What does that bring your numbers up to?"

"Twenty-seven demigods per bridge. It's certainly better than nineteen," Luke noted.

"But that's still weak. According to Chiron who briefed me on everything, Hannah's army is massive along with some assassin-like demigods?"

"Pretty much. They wear black armor, not your typical bronze colored stuff. They look intimidating and their fighting makes it ten times worse. We've thought about automatons which Silena's going to talk to mom about after this. The Romans will be here tomorrow. They're getting here as fast as they can but they're not able to fly so I guess they're driving."

"They'll be here sooner than that. Part of my allies includes some, uh, centaurs. My brethren are itching to punch some monsters in the face again. I had no problem asking them to pick up the Roman campers so they'll be here soon," Chiron explained.

"How many Romans are there?" Derek queried.

"Are you talking about us?" Cora inquired, striding into the room in full battle armor. She'd always been intimidating just wearing her regular clothes, but she was seriously fierce-looking now. "We've set up on the two floors below you. There's two-hundred-and-eight of us. Does that improve your numbers?"

Silena quickly did the math in her head. "Oh my gods, yes! That gives us fifty-three demigods per bridge!"

"There's also five hundred, very antsy centaurs crashing all over the building," Cora added.

"And to think we started out with nineteen per bridge," Luke chuckled. "Now we need to separate the demigods into tunnels. The Roman and Greek tensions are still there so I think it best not to have them fight side-by-side for now. Considering there's more of you, we can split the Romans up to defend four of the tunnels as they take up half our force. That means that there will be fifty-two Romans at each bridge. Cora, I'm going to give you the Lincoln Tunnel, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the Manhattan Bridge, and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Does that sound good to you?"

"Yes. I will confer with Antony about which legions will go where. He's downstairs ordering everyone into place. What places are you going to take?"

"I can split the Hunters up to join forces with Camp Half-Blood. Some are Romans but they won't cause trouble. They just want to kick Hannah's butt," Thalia said.

"There's sixty of you so that plus the campers of Camp Half-Blood gives us two-hundred-sixteen campers. That means we need..."

"Fifty four kids per bridge," Silena calculated.

Luke nodded. "Fifty four kids. We take the four other bridges, so that means fifteen Hunters per tunnel. Ares and Dionysus cabins should take the Holland Tunnel. The Athena, Nike, and Hecate cabins should take the Brooklyn Bridge. Hermes will take the Hades and Nemesis kids to the Williamsburg Bridge. Hephaestus, Aphrodite, and Apollo cabins will take the Queensboro Bridge. Thalia, I'm going to let you separate your Hunters into groups of fifteen and place them where you think they'll be best."

"I'll go do that after we finish this discussion. Where are you three going to be fighting?"

"I figure it best if Silena, Derek, and I fly around and fight where we're needed most. Derek, if you do anything, make sure it's discrete so no one knows it was you, if you know what I'm getting at," Luke said. Derek nodded in understanding. He understood that his powers were still meant to be a secret until the right time came.

"The centaurs aren't too good with following rules. It's best to let them fight where they want to. Time to go wake the campers up," Chiron announced. "Good luck in battle."

The centaur exited the building. Cora and Thalia followed him. Derek gave Silena a kiss on the cheek and left to go help Chiron. Luke took a deep breath. Silena noticed he looked pale. Upon mentioning it, her brother only gave her a small smile and said, "It's nothing, Lena."

"Why do you insist on calling me that?" she groaned.

"Because it's my job to annoy you until the day I die," he bantered.

"Well you're doing a fantastic job. And don't you dare die anytime soon."

Luke pulled his sister into a hug. "I'll try my best."
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Hope you enjoyed! I can't wait to write the next chapter- it's going to be so much fun and THE PLOT TWIST THAT IS COMIGN WITH IT! I'VE HAD THAT PART PLANNED SINCE I STARTED UNKNOWN SO YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG I'VE BEEN WAITING TO WRITE IT. In other news, if you want to ask any of the main characters a question, go onto my tumblr page unknowntrilogy. tumblr. com (obviously no spaces but I know fanfiction can be a witch with a 'b' about URLs in stories) and they'll reply! Enjoy! Review!