The Intruders

Ch. 7 - The Intruders

Previously...

"Guys!" Chaos called out to them in the last second. "You know... they don't have to know who you are if you don't want them to."

The six nodded. They knew what Chaos meant. Most of the six had individual reasons why they probably did not want to face the people back home. For example, Luke was labelled a traitor. Zoë was a person who once expressed her hatred for most campers. And it goes on... and if they are going to hide identities, then all of them had to do or else it may not be that hard to work out who's with them.

After one last goodbye, they went straight into the portal.

"Planet Earth, here I come!"

***

After over a year of training and missions, the intoxicating smell of life on earth that told Percy that he was back at last. He knew he would have to return here eventually but now that he is actually here, he didn't have the courage to face everyone at camp; his friends, Chiron, Mr. D (who probably is not banished anymore after that war), and most importantly... he did not have the courage to face his family. After all, he DID cower away from his responsibilities after the war and run away. At least that is what he told himself anyway.

The first thing Percy saw when he opened his eyes was the sun. In the location where Percy and the others landed, the sun was just rising. It rose like a flower opening, gifting its petals to the world. The air was delicate and cool, kissing their skin with moisture. The dawn came with a musical silence; their souls could hear melodies that their ears could not.

On this new day that was filled with endless new possibilities, Percy decided that he would start fresh and this time around his path would be written right.

"Oh yes, it's good to be back!" exclaimed Thalia as everyone was still taking in the scenery.

"It sure is," Nico sighed.

After reminiscing for a while Percy said, "Let's head for camp." As he said that he started walking in a certain direction.

"Sure thing," Calypso followed.

"Wait, Percy, Hold up!" Luke stopped Percy hastily. "Are you just gonna go like that?"

Percy understood what Luke meant. He was asking Percy whether he was going to hide his identity or not.

"I feel like I owe it to them," Percy replied.

"You owe them nothing." Thalia snorted. "That was in the past; this is now!"

"Exactly," Nico joined in the conversation. "And not everyone is received like you are at camp. In some cases, we would be received better if they did not know who we were."

When Nico said that, he wasn't just talking about himself, he was also talking about Luke.

Luke nodded.

"And it would be quite weird if a huntress who hated them to the bone, all of a sudden liked them. I think it would be better if we hide our identities."

This time it was Zoë who voiced her opinion.

"Since everyone wants to keep their identities to themselves," Percy said after a moment of thought, "I naturally have to hide mine as well. Otherwise, like Chaos said, I would be putting some of your identities at jeopardy."

The only person that hasn't decided if they wanted their identities hidden was Calypso. Originally, she wasn't going to because the only possible demigod at Camp Half-Blood who would have recognized her was Leo. And she kind of wanted him to know she was there as well. After all, he was the last demigod she fell in love with. But listening to what Percy said, she decided against it.

"Yeah, we might as well all conceal our identities," Calypso voiced her agreement with the others.

"Then it is decided!" Percy said, looking at Calypso with an understanding smile. He knew what her thought process would have been whatever her final decision would have been.

Percy was thankful that the chemistry of his team was still as high as ever. Everyone was so understanding of each other. He would even dare to say that there is no other team with chemistry like in the entire multiverse.

'But if only there was Annabeth... the chemistry could've been even higher.' The thought of Annabeth resurfaced in his mind again.

There was a point in time in the last 7 months where he rarely had any dreams of Annabeth. But recently the frequency of the dreams increased yet again.

'Damn it! She's not coming back, Percy,' he told himself.

Everyone was staring at him when he snapped back into reality. He realized he must've zoned out when thinking about Annabeth for quite a while and quickly apologized to everyone.

"Sorry guys," he said sheepishly, "Let's go!"

The Army of Chaos walked towards Camp Half-blood, even though it was very far away from where they were. They walked at a very slow pace, as if they had all the time in the world, slowly getting further and further away until they disappeared from sight.

***

Camp Half-blood.

Everyone was at the expanded Dining Pavilion, having breakfast. As usual, the Poseidon, Zeus, Hera, Artemis' tables were empty – and Hermes table still had the most people despite all the god claiming their kids within a week of them entering Camp Half-blood.

"Remember to sacrifice a piece of your food to the gods."

Chiron was at the front reminding everyone, but it was mainly aimed at the new camp members.

It could be seen that there weren't just youths with orange t-shirts; about half of them were wearing purple t-shirts that surprisingly also said Camp Half-blood instead of Camp Jupiter.

Even with members from both camps added together, the number of people in the camp did not exceed the number of people that used to exist solely on camp Half-blood. This was an indication of how many people died during that war almost a year and eight months ago.

At that moment a conch horn sounded near the barrier. This was only sounded when the guards sensed a threat from the intruders, be it monsters or any other creature.

Frank Zhang from the Ares/Mars table was the first to get up and charge out. He couldn't even be bothered to wait up for his cabin mates. There was only one reason for this: Hazel, his girlfriend, was one of the demigods guarding the entrance to camp right now.

'Hazel... Hang on till I get there!' Frank prayed.

As the son of Mars ran, everything around him seemed to slow down. He could hear every bird chirping, every harpy quacking, every nymph – be it dryads, hamadryads, hydriads or naiads – squealing and gossiping. Every step he took seem to take an eternity and he did not seem to be getting any closer. He looked around and saw that everyone was the same.

Frank only snapped out when he saw Chiron catch up to him, grab him and put him on his back. They arrived at the entrance of the camp almost instantly.

"Chiron," Frank seemed puzzled, "did you feel that as well?"

"Feel that?" The centaur, however, expressed an expression which showed he was oblivious to the current situation. "Feel What?"

Frank calmed down when he saw Hazel completely fine by the barrier, looking out towards the incoming airship. He already put that incident out of his mind like nothing happened. He comforted himself saying he felt like that because of his concern for Hazel.

Some of the other demigods were catching up by now.

"What's the situation?"

"What is going on?"

Everyone wanted to be briefed on what was happening but when they looked outside the barrier no one really wanted any more answers.

They could clearly see an unfamiliar airship moving towards them in the distance. It had a strange blue coloured flag on it. The flag consisted of two lightning covered hammers with a round bird head in the middle. There was a spear popping out behind the owl's head. The cloth also gave off a strange aura that was extremely contrasting; either side of the flag gave a sense of charm, but the middle of the arrow exuded a deep aura of death that made one's face lose all its colour.

"Retreat 50 meters!" Ordered Chiron.

Everyone did as they were told bit they all had their weapons ready. Without even realizing they were battle ready. This was completely instinctual forge into them due to the horrific giant war in the past.

At the front stood the swordsmen, spearmen and other close combat fighters. They were followed by mid-ranged fighters and people that were used to sneak attacks. These people rarely had frontal battles with others. The last line of people was the long-ranged fighters, mainly consisting of archers. People like Chiron who used both the sword and the bow usually stayed in the second line providing support wherever necessary.

The airship was by no means moving slow, in fact, it was moving at a relatively high speed. But the anxiety in the surrounding made the half-bloods feel as if the ship was moving slower than a bicycle. Everyone waited for an impact with the barrier when the ship was less than 5 meters away from it.

It never came. The shop continued as if the barrier didn't exist and came to a stop just inside the barrier.

There was a couple of hell hounds about 30 meters away that saw this whole scene. They shook their heads, ashamed. This whole time, the barrier didn't work, and they didn't know about it – how foolish of them. Their eyes, however, glowed at the chance of invading the camp at this time. You could already see them drooling for demigod blood. They immediately grasped the chance to charge at the camp.

Roars of joy could be heard from the monsters as they envisioned the delicacy laid in front of them.

The demigods were drowning in misery in the face of their exhilaration. First, it was this unknown ship which somehow managed to break in through the barrier but before they could even deal with that problem, a wave of monsters were attacking.

Suddenly, a loud thump was heard. It was the leading hell hound who smashed head straight into an invisible barrier at full speed and instantly disintegrated. They completely assumed wrong. It seemed the barrier was still functioning and so it was inevitable that the imprudent leader of the hellhounds was going to die if it collided with something considering the speed it was going at. The other hellhounds stopped dead in their tracks and after looking at each other for a couple of seconds, they went back to their resting area under a tree, 30 meters away.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief but instantly became serious again when thinking about how the ship managed to surpass the camp security.

"Show yourse-" Frank started to say but there were already hooded figures appearing at the dock of the ship. There were Eight hooded figures.

A female's voice, showing no hostility or friendship, sounded from the front of the ship. From the way she was positioned, it seemed as if she was the leader of the group.

"Camp Half-blood" was her first words.

***

A few minutes ago...

The Army of Chaos had been walking for a couple of hours from their landing site.

"Dammit," Thalia cursed, "Chaos really needs to work on his portal skills. He's always off."

Everyone nodded. They still remembered the last time Chaos operated their portal – they ended up exiting in the middle of the sky.

"But this is good too" Percy smiled, reminiscing the past.

At the moment, they weren't very far away from camp, only about one or two kilometers away from camp.

"Yeah," Zoë seemed very relaxed. There was practically nothing that could cause them to be in danger on this planet with their current base strength. At least not until the evil sides of the two primordials completely woke.

However, as soon as she said that, her pupils constricted. Zoë and Calypso had the best senses and Thalia had the fastest reflexes. They were they were the first to notice the giant ship tens of meters behind them, flying at a reasonably high altitude.

There should've been nothing on this planet that escaped their senses, but a ship had actually managed to get this close to them without them realizing. It was the price they paid for letting their guard down.

Even though the other three members weren't as fast when talking about reaction speeds. Considering their base levels, the time difference was negligible. Within microseconds, they became alert to the ship as well.

The army of Chaos had concealed their aura so that they weren't disturbed by monsters and they were confident that they weren't detected by the people abroad the ship.

But this was a whole ship that almost escaped their eyes. The truth of the matter was, the people in the ship had also concealed their aura so Percy and the others were not able to tell how many people were sailing the ship. Even after seeing the ship with their eyes they couldn't fully sense it which showed how formidable its concealing ability was. There was no way there were any creatures other the six from Chaos Army that could sense the ship.

If Percy and his group were also traveling in a concealed ship of the same size, he knew their ability conceal it is probably not any better than the people on the other ship. Perhaps, if it wasn't for the fact that they were walking, they would've been detected by the people on the ship as well.

The people from the camp was only seeing the ship now and their other senses were too weak to be able to tell that the ship was concealed from all their other senses. They wouldn't even be able to hear it but only see it.

"It seems to be heading towards camp," Thalia analyzed the trajectory of the ship.

"Yeah but I don't sense any hostility," said Calypso.

"And we don't know how many of them there are from this far away," Nico sounded frustrated, "Their ability to conceal themselves shouldn't be inferior to ours."

"Well let's follow them for now and see what they are up to," Luke suggested and then turned towards Percy for confirmation.

Percy simply nodded.

They followed the ship up until the ships entrance to the camp.

"Well it seems their mission is similar to ours," Zoë concluded. "Let's head in as well."

"No," Percy didn't seem satisfied. "Not like this."

"What do you mean?"

"Did you not see their grand entrance? Do we want our entrance overshadowed by theirs? Let's show them how it's done!"

Everyone couldn't help but grin. Now, this seemed like the Percy that they all knew from a long time ago.