Chapter 2

Thalia POV

When we flashed back to camp back to the hunters camp I immediately noticed Artemis' mood change. When we left she was actually happy with the war finally being over and all but now she was gloomy, Artemis walked straight to her tent and went in ignoring the many looks and questions the hunters gave her. "What happened?" Phoebe asked walking up to me with Atlanta.

"Well after the awards thing Zeus sent everyone else back except for me, Reyna, Nico, and the seven. We then had a little meeting about threats which included the remaining giants, titans, and that guy who saved us yesterday. Turns out the gods have no idea who he is by the way and his swords lead into an explanation about the goddesses and guardians?" I said.

"Oh, that explains it." Atlanta said walking to Artemis' tent with Phoebe.

I got the feeling they were hiding something so I followed them into Artemis's tent. Zipping up the entrance behind me I turned to the three of them and said "What are you not telling me?"

Phoebe and Atlanta immediately started denying that they were hiding anything while Artemis just sat on her bed staring into space. I sat right in front of Artemis and ignored the other two "I can't do my job as your lieutenant, sister, or friend if you won't talk to me." I said.

Artemis looked at me while Atlanta and Phoebe continued to protest, Artemis silenced them by simply holding up her hand. "Your right." Artemis said, "You're my lieutenant you deserve to know.".

"As you know I am thought of as one of the three maiden goddesses." I nodded "Well that's not true." Artemis said and I was in shock.

"Do you remember what Zeus said about goddesses and their guardians becoming romantically involved?" I nodded "The same was true for me and my guardian, at first when he became my guardian I hated him. He was just a 15-year-old boy at the time and seemed way too carefree for my taste. He would always try to joke around and insisted on walking everywhere which infuriated me to no end. A year after that I got permission from my father to start up the hunt I decided to have three demigods and three nature spirits to start off, among the three demigods were Atlanta a Phoebe." Artemis said.

"I quickly found another demigod and two nature spirits who were willing to join my hunt but I was having trouble finding a third which is when we found my former lieutenant Zoe Nightshade. At first, she was distraught because of what my half brother Hercules had done. To be honest I was furious about it but I almost left her there. Perseus convinced me to let her join the hunt and 3 years went by. During that time I noticed certain things about Perseus that I never had before, as he forced us to go slow when we could I saw all this beauty in nature that I had never seen despite living in the woods for most of my life up to that point. When I was down he would use his jokes to try and cheer me up even if he looked like a fool. He also wasn't completely lazy, if it meant protecting somebody he cared about I doubt even the Fates could have stopped him." Artemis said with a dreamy look in her eye.

"Eventually I realized I loved him and everything he did, he did for me. About 9 months later I gave birth to our child whom I named Silver. Silver was a kind hearted boy, he had my eyes and his father's hair. We raised him in the hunt and as he grew he came to view the hunt as his sisters." Artemis said.

"Although I'm pretty sure him and Phoebe were closer than that." Atlanta added causing Phoebe to blush.

Artemis smirked fondly and continued "He was naturally skilled with a blade so I had Hephaestus forge him a sword made out of silver, to match his father's, because it was his favorite color."

"Also" Phoebe cut in "the color silver was named after Silver because he liked it so much." Artemis glared at Phoebe who ignored her and said "It's also why everything we have is silver, it's in his memory." my heart felt heavy as I realized how much Artemis must have loved her son.

"Me and Perseus had to keep our relationship a secret because even though the gods respected him Zeus still wouldn't have liked it. The only gods who knew were my brother, Hestia, and Pan. Apollo was best friends with Perseus and a wonderful uncle to Silver, Hestia was the caring aunt. And Pan was his teacher having recognized his natural skill for nature magic when Silver was still very young."

"We planned on having Perseus and Silver made immortal so we could get married and be a real family instead of hiding but then the titan war started and we had to put our plans on hold. Perseus was at one point asked to go and retrieve a bit of information the was left for us by one of our spies. Silver wanted to go with him but I didn't want him to go. Perseus assured me that there was nothing to worry about because they weren't even going to be near any real fighting so reluctantly I let Silver, who was at the time 13, go and they never came back. Today August 30th would have been his birthday." Artemis said breaking into sobs, that night the moon was bright red.

Silver POV earlier that day

I had finally made it East and was now in a this city everyone called Manhattan but I could feel that dad was almost straight south right now and he hadn't moved from there for the last three days so I took of running.

Admittedly I had slept in and woken up really late as it was almost noon, I checked the date on a newspaper and saw it was August 30th 'It's my birthday.' I thought '14 years old' I remembered my past birthdays, laughing with the hunt, mom occasionally getting teary eyed saying her baby boy was growing up too fast, dad talking her out of stopping my aging so I could be her little boy longer.

Apollo would stop by and teach me some new prank which mom would later get mad at him for. Aunt Hestia bringing a birthday cake well the ancient Greek equivalent. "You know what." I said to myself.

I walked into a bakery that I was passing bought a cupcake will a the little bit of mortal money I had left. 'Happy birthday to me' I sung to myself, as I passed a grocery store I notice a very pregnant lady trying to load groceries into a car.

I got mad because people could clearly see she was having trouble but were ignoring her. "Need some help." I asked walking up and catching a carton of milk as it dropped.

"Yes thank you." the woman said as I helped her with the rest of her stuff "What's your name?" she asked

"Silver." I said she looked at me at little funny but shrugged it off "I'm Sally Jackson."

"As in the writer?" I asked remembering a book I saw when I stumbled into a bookstore looking for a place to rest a few nights ago. We talked for a while then went our separate ways.

I snuck onto a train and I mean that literally. I was spread eagle on the roof of one of the cars with my hands white knuckled as it went like 80 miles an hour and only one thought went through my mind. 'This is awesome!' three stops down I hopped off.

I was somewhere called long island which was just south of Manhattan but was the furthest the train went. I had walked maybe a mile before I found a satyr getting chased by some half man half bull thing. Sighing I drew my swords I charged. I couldn't just leave him there to die but this was going to eat up time for me.

The bull immediately turned his attention to me 'Great now what was step two' I thought jumping out of the way as it charged me. It turned around and made another pass, I tried to do the same thing and just slice it as it went by but apparently it learned because this time his hand shot out and slammed me backwards. I barely managed to slice his face from his horn to his snout as he sent me cartwheeling through the air. I saw him disintegrate just before my head connected with something hard and I blacked out.

Grover POV

'What a day.' I thought as I half carried half dragged the demigod that saved me to camp half blood. First I'm chasing this demigod's sent but they chose to take the subway which I wasn't able to catch before it left so I grabbed a taxi ride from the grey sisters who drove me to the third stop and kicked me out. I was mad because this wasn't even where I wanted to go, then I run into the stupid Minotaur of course and a demigod saves my butt. As it turned out the demigod happened to be the same guy I was following.

I crossed the boundary into camp half blood and dragged him to the infirmary for medical attention. I had given him some ambrosia and nectar already but I thought it would be best if I had the Apollo kids take a look at him.

I would have asked Chiron but he was gone at the moment. They gave him some pain killers and said he would be out for the rest of the night. I noticed that the camp was quiet and I figured that the meeting on Olympus must have started while I was gone.

An hour or so later the was a flash in the middle of camp and 12 or so demigods were standing there. I recognized the one in front as Percy's 17 year old half brother Mike. I hated him because he acted like he owned the place. He would treat people like trash and bully them into submission and if he couldn't do that he made everyone hate them, and he was good at twisting the truth. He acted as if he was a god complete with his own little group of loyal followers.

Mike walked straight up to the nearest Aphrodite girl who was 16 and put his arm around her "Hey your name is Cindy right?" He giving her a sickly sweet grin.

She looked at him "In your dreams." she said in annoyance trying to pull away but he only held on tighter.

"Don't be that way I was only trying to be nice and here you are throwing it in my face." He said almost mockingly as he looked her over.

"Let go of me you pig." she shouted trying to hit him.

"Calm down." he said grabbing her fist "There's no need for that". I was pissed and moved to do something along with several other people but Mikes goons kept us back at sword point.

"Let her go." someone shouted from behind me.

I turned to see the demigod I just brought to camp stumbling out of the infirmary 'I thought he was supposed to be out for the night.' I thought.

"What was that?" Mike said still holding onto the girl.

"I said let her go." he replied.

Mike just laughed "Do you even know who I am kid?"

"Nope and I don't really care either." he replied "Now let her go she clearly doesn't want anything to do with you so leave her alone."

Mike motioned to two of his lackeys "Best your learn your place boy." Mike said doing a poor imitation of Ares. The first of Mike's little followers landed a punch straight in the new guys face. The kid fell to the ground but immediately stood back up and shoved a some familiar medicinal herbs into his mouth while he put a set of sunglasses back on.

"Smart thinking kid." I said to myself, the Herbs would quickly counteract the drugs so he might be in pain but at least he would be able to move just fine.

"Oh so the little kid wants some more." the first guy said throwing another punch. This time the boy ducked under it and threw a punch of his own straight into the guy's belly who doubled over in pain.

The second guy drew his sword and swung at the kid with the flat of his blade. The boy, child really, jumped the blade and kicked him in the face. I thought that was pretty good since he had to jump like 4 feet in the air to get the height right. Mike who was now pissed at seeing his lackeys being beaten so easily released his grip on the girl.

"Not bad kid." he said summoning an impressive amount of water from the lake. I'd seen Percy summon more but still "But as you can clearly see you're out matched." Mike said looking down at the kid and eyeing the swords strapped to his belt. "Tell you what since you caught me in a good mood, you give me those green and silver swords you got there and I'll forget the whole thing."

"No" he said flatly.

Mike flashed an evil grin "Then I'll take them instead." Mike sneered "You really should have taken my offer kid. Did you really think you could handle a son of Poseidon?" Mike made a smashing motion with his hand and the water flew at the would be rescuer.

The kid simply held up a hand stopping the water in its tracks "Really you're a son of Poseidon and this is all you can do?" He asked.

I could see the strain on Mike's face but the water didn't move "Pretty good." the boy admitted after a moment. "You may not be able to use the water but I can't either. However I'm curious if can you control ice." He asked and the water froze and fell to the ground "Guess not." He said with a shrug.

Mike drew his sword and charged the boy but unlike his lackeys he was aiming to do permanent damage. Th kid dodged every swing and it became apparent that he was just messing with Mike, after a particular desperate swing the kid skull punched him and Mike dropped like block of lead. "Is this a regular thing?" he asked looking at me, I nodded. Returning his attention back to Mike and his followers he held out his hand and ice chains formed around them pinning them to the trees and rocks.

He then looked at the campers who had come to see what was going on and shouted "Have fun!" most grabbed dirt clogs poison ivy or, in the case of two campers who had been mucking out the Pegasus stables, shovel fulls of horse poop, and started throwing it at Mike and his lackeys.

The boy left them to the camp and started heading north out of camp so I ran after him "Hey where you going?" I asked standing in front of him

"I have things I need to do and I can't waste time here." He said moving past me. I grabbed his shoulder.

"You need to stay here and train." I said

"I've had training." He replied shaking off my hand. I followed him through the forest near camp till he stopped near a small group of trees that had taken a sickly yellow color.

"What happened?" he asked gesturing to the trees while the nymphs attended to their trees in the hopes of healing them.

"A few weeks back a company came and dumped gallons upon gallons of chemicals here. We reported them but the trees were still poisoned." I said. "We've done all we can but nothing seems to help."

He thought for a moment then asked me for my reed pipes "What do you need them for?" I asked handing them over.

"I think I know something that might help." he said. The boy started to play a tune I didn't recognize, and it was beautiful. Just hearing I just felt energized looking around the plants both in and around the sickly trees lost their sickly color and even seemed to grow. By the time he was done the entire area looked better than it did before. He handed me back my pipes and I noticed he was breathing hard which didn't surprise me that had to have taken a lot of energy "Goodbye." he said leaving.

I went back to camp where Mike and his lackeys were covered in dirt, poop, and half a dozen other things. I didn't release them, instead I just let them sit there but I did make sure the harpies wouldn't eat them and went to sleep.

Silver POV

I followed the pull north back to Manhattan all night, I could feel he was close but right as the sun poked over the horizon the pull switch back to the south "Are you kidding me!" I yelled kicking a garbage can. Deciding to rest I climbed a fire escape to the roof of a building and laid down using my cloak as a blanket.

Percy POV

We flashed into camp to find Mike and his lackeys chained up and covered in filth "Hey Percy." Grover said walking up to me.

"Hey G-man mind tell me what happened?" I asked. Grover took the next ten minutes to explain starting from his run in with the Minotaur to this new guy healing the trees. Mr. D flashed out to inform Olympus about his being at camp while I laughed at what happened to Mike along with everyone else except Annabeth who went to get her boyfriend down.

Mr. D flashed back to camp and said "In light of recent events Piper, Jason, Frank, and Hazel have been ordered to find this boy and bring him to Olympus. Failing that you are to at least find out what he wants. Percy, Leo, Nico, and Reyna will be going on quests to hunt down the left over parts of the monster army. Go get some rest you all will be leaving at noon." Mr D. said. I was kinda annoyed at getting ordered to do something but at the same time I was glad to get out of camp so I went back to my cabin and threw myself on my cot falling asleep instantly.