~ ~ ~
The Stoll Brothers.
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“Yo Conner dude, wait up!”
Conner Stoll stopped and waited as his older brother Travis caught up to him. The war had taken it's toll on them both. Travis's smile was a little more forced, and his eyes a little more shadowed. They'd lost too many of their brothers and sisters to the war. The entire Camp had suffered, entering a period of mourning last year that they'd slowly broken out of.
They were rebuilding. Moving on. They no longer burst into tears at the name of a fallen comrade, but a deep ache would fill them.
But the nightmares persisted for Conner. Visions of people dying, the light going out of their eyes. He'd seen too many. They'd be with him forever now.
Travis had gotten it easy during the war. He had been one of the behind the scene workers, pairing up with the Athena cabin to plan. Connor had been the leader of those plans, the one who put it all into action.
But it was over now. They'd won. Percy Jackson had prevailed. Annabeth Chase was back to rebuilding Olympus. Frank Zhang was going back and forth between the camps, resolving issues and remaining praetor. Hazel traveled with him most of the time.
Leo Valdez was currently petitioning to get the mystical Calypso off of her island. Piper was turning the campers view of Aphrodite's children upside down, and Jason Grace had become a permanent fixture at camp.
And the Stoll brothers were here, at Camp Half-Blood. Like always.
Conner didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He knew he wanted to find someone and settle down, but at the moment the only half decent girls were from the Athena cabin, and they would rather talk about algebra than romance.
Not that Conner didn't appreciate a smart girl though. Girls with brains were hot. But he couldn't see himself with anyone at camp.
He wanted what Travis had.
Travis had his Katie. Katie was an angel, a saint according to Travis. Travis was talking about moving in with her, and Conner couldn't help but feel left behind. He and his brother had always been close, but after the way had ended, they had slowly grown apart.

He wanted something to happen. Anything really. Anything to keep his mind of the nightmares that plagued him nightly. Travis had tried talking to him the first few times that Connor had woken up screaming, but Connor refused to listen to him. He was on the bottom bunk, so there was no way that Travis couldn't hear him.
Eventually Travis had given up, instead moving to the bunk in the back of the mainly empty Hermes cabin. So many of their brothers and sisters had been lost, and several had been pulled out of camp by their parents or guardians. And so the normally rambunctious cabin was now one of the quietest.

Connor walked silently with Travis. He was glad that Travis didn't try to talk to him, he wanted to be alone. But with a brother that was almost as close as a twin, he didn't get to be alone much.

It was lunch time. The brothers headed to the dining pavilion, as the rest of the campers did the same.
Connor loaded his plate down with pizza and chips. Who needed nutrition? And then, as was his custom, he tossed a pack of peanut M&M's into the fire, murmuring, “Hermes.”
It felt almost like a joke to be sacrificing to his father, when they'd already sacrificed so much. He hadn't seen his father in nearly two years, if you didn't count a brief glimpse last year when his father had been delivering a package to Chiron.
Travis didn't mind their father's absence as much as he did. But then again, Travis didn't mind a lot of things these days. He was too focused on Katie.

Connor ate his lunch quickly. He wanted to get in a little sword practice before it got too crowded.
Camp had only started back yesterday, though the oldest campers had been there much longer than that. Travis and Connor's mother had been killed in a car accident a few years prior, and they stayed at camp instead of with their uncle. They sometimes spent Christmas with him, but not often.
As Connor stood, long before the rest of his friends were done eating, he caught Chiron's eye. The centaur beckoned him over, and Connor reluctantly went to see what he needed.

“Meet me in the Big House in an hour, along with your brother. I have something to discuss with you.” Chiron told him quietly. Connor nodded and left.

What could the old horse man need, anyway? As far as he knew nothing had been going on. The satyrs had been out finding demigods and protecting them, as was the norm. The gods had been oddly silent lately, but Connor had been brushing it off as their godly egos being bruised from the verbal whiplashing that Percy had given them after the war. Honestly, he was surprised Percy was still alive after it. He was the only one the Connor knew that could talk to their godly parents like that and not get vaporized.
Connor made his way to the Big House an hour later, mumbling under his breath. Travis was right behind him, though he was silent.
They waited in the sitting room, on an old couch that desperately needed to be retired. Travis kept tapping his foot.

Chiron wheeled in, preferring to stay in his wheelchair at the beginning of camp. It sometimes freaked the younger and newer campers to see a horse man. Connor and Travis thought it was hilarious when the centaur would get out of his wheelchair and freak out the new campers.

“Boys,” Chiron said, acknowledging the boys. “Let's get down to business.”

Connor and Travis sat and waited, knowing that Chiron would continue.

“I'm sure you two have noticed the gods silence,” Chiron began. The boys nodded. “I've talked to some of the minor gods and goddesses, and the Olympians are fighting. Apparently some of them haven't been holding to the oath that Percy bound them to two years ago.”

“What does that mean exactly?” Travis asked. Connor waited.

“Well, it means that we've been getting new demigods in, but they've not been claimed. In fact, no one out of four new demigods have been claimed, and they've been here for three days.”

That could be bad, at least for the gods. Connor didn't see the big deal though.
“So Percy goes up there and threatens them, and we all go back to normal. What do you need us for?” Connor asked.

Chiron shook his head. “It's not that simple. The Satyrs that we sent out over the last few weeks to recruit have stopped taking our Iris Messages, and we haven't been able to track them down. They've vanished.
“Our most recent satyr that we've lost contact with is Grover Underwood.”

Travis cringed. Oh no. Not Grover. Grover was like the leader of the satyrs. If something had happened to him...

“I'm sending you two on a scouting trip to see if you can find anything out. Nico di Angelo will be assisting you, although he'll be shadow traveling most of the time.”

Travis was nodding, and Connor sighed. Well, his wish had come true. Something was happening. At least he'd be getting out of Camp for a while.

“You'll be scouting around New York, so fairly local. You'll want to stay at least the week, or until you get a positive lead. Argus is going to drive you.”

“Yes, sir.” Connor said finally. “Will we need to contact you by Iris Message?”

Chiron nodded. “Every day. And boys?” He said as they got up to leave. They turned. “Be careful. Something is stirring, and I don't like it.”

Within the next two hours the brothers were packed. Connor had packed clothes, money, drachmas, and a map of Brooklyn. His dagger was shoved into its carrier in his boot, and his sword was strapped across his back.
As they speed down the country roads, exhausted from lack of sleep and too much exercise, Connor fell asleep.

And he dreamed.
Two red haired girls were standing in front of the smoking wreckage of a building. They were dirty and bedraggled. The older one was digging around in a leather bag, seemingly shocked. People were milling around, and a police officer was digging through the wreckage.
“It's a shame,” One of the bystanders muttered to the other. “Those poor girls. Sound asleep, their mother gone out and someone blows up the furnace! Dead in seconds!”
The oldest girl was staring at the man in amazement. She reached out and waved her hand in front of his face. The man slapped her hand away.
“Go back to your box, filthy homeless creep,” The man spat. He turned to his companion, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Can you believe the nerve of them? We should kick them out of town, they're a public nuisance!”
The younger girl was gripping the older girl's hand, looking terrified. They looked at the wreckage of the building, then they turned and walked away, a look of bewilderment on their faces.

The dream changed.

Connor was watching a dance.
Not any dance though. A satyr dance. Round and round a fire the creatures danced, playing their pipes. Shadows danced along the trees. Connor saw several satyrs that he knew dancing. They seemed to be calling something, or someone...
Pan? Connor thought. No, he was dead. Maybe another nature spirit?
Someone was shaking him. Connor was pulled abruptly out of his dream, and back into reality.
“Connor, we're here.” Travis said. They shouldered their bags and said goodbye to Argus. The streets of New York City were the same as the last time the Stolls had been here. Nico would be meeting up with them in a few days.
It was time to begin.

~ ~ ~
The Mathews Sisters.
~ ~ ~
Deanna pawed through the leather bag. The amount of items that it held seemed never ending. And it wasn't heavy at all.
The night before she hadn't questioned how the boy had fitted an entire leg of cow in the satchel, but now she knew. The bag was incredibly stretchy. She'd already found a credit card, a PIN number, a small bank envelope with around twenty dollars in it, and a couple of sweatshirts. The shirts were stained and smelled slightly of goat, but they were better than freezing in the bitter October air. There was also a packet of alfalfa sprouts, the kind you get at health food stores, but Deanna and Kayden had thrown those out. Ew.
That morning Kayden and her had returned to the diner. Police cars surrounded it, and people had been milling about. Seeing her home in ruins bothered Deanna to an extent, but Kayden had teared up. Her mother had been nowhere in sight.
What disturbed Deanna was the fact that they thought that Kayden and her were dead. She'd actually waved a hand in the butchers face, a man who'd known her since birth, and he'd treated her as if she was a homeless person. As if he didn't know her...
It was just bizarre, and Deanna decided the safest thing to do would be to get out of town, find an ATM in the next town over, and get a flight to New York. It was as good a plan as any.
She was still thinking about the strange message the goat boy (Or just a really hairy guy, she hadn't decided yet) had given her. It was undoubtedly important, and Deanna felt like she had a duty to deliver the message. Whoever this 'Chiron' person was, he might be able to help them.
And so they started walking. They'd walked for two hours down the road that Deanna knew led to the next town over when they caught a ride with a farmer. They rode in the back of the dusty pickup truck, shivering, until they finally reached their destination.
While Kayden went to look for a cheap motel, Deanna went to the bank. She used the card and PIN number from the bag on the ATM, and to her surprise instead of fifty dollars, the ATM spat out five hundred.
Deanna got the card back a moment later and examined it. There was something not quite right about it. It was too... Shiny. Gold. It glinted wrongly in the light, like one of those Valentine's day cards that change when you tilt it side to side.
The card was odd, but they needed money to get to New York. Deanna wanted to get out of this town. Once the police realized that they were still alive, they would want answers, answers that Deanna and Kayden couldn't provide.
Deanna finished the withdrawal and looked down the street to the motel. A thrift store was a few shops from it, and she decided to go it. She and Kayden needed clothes badly.
She had luck. Two pairs of worn combat boots, jeans, sweaters, and two large sweatshirts that were incredibly warm. She got a packet of socks as well, and two army green sleeping bags. She also grabbed a couple of paperback novels to read, if they ever did get a plane to New York.
She'd need to wash it all before she used it, and she headed over to the Laundry-Mat. It took about half an hour before Kayden came to find her. Deanna was sitting on the washing machine, reading while the clothes swirled and chugged beneath her.
“Hey,” Kayden said, hopping easily up beside her. “I waited for you.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Deanna replied. “I got some clothes and stuff from a thrift store, and I needed to wash it all. Did they have any vacancies?”
Kayden looked blankly at her. “Vacancies?”
“A room we can stay in.” Deanna sighed.
Kayden nodded. “Yeah, it's fifty dollars a night.”
“We can afford that.” Deanna replied. The machine beeped, and she moved the load of laundry over to the dryer and started it.
She got back up with Kayden while they waited the forty-five minutes it took for the clothes to dry.
“Deanna?” Kayden asked, several minutes later.
“Yeah?” Deanna replied.
“What's going to happen to us? Mom thinks we're dead, shouldn't we try and call her or something?”
Deanna sighed. She really didn't want to have to make this choice, but she knew she had to.
“Kay, Mom's never really cared about us since Dad died. Even if we did call her, what home would we go back to? All we ever did was work for her. It's better if we make a clean start. And we have to deliver the message that guy gave us.”
Kayden nodded. She still didn't quiet get it, she wanted to go back to their home. Back to Mom. But they didn't have a home anymore. Just a bag, clothes, and sleeping bags that formally reeked of moth-balls.
As soon as the clothes dried, the two sisters checked in at the motel. The room they were to stay the night in was small, with a single bed, love seat, and a shower, toilet, and sink in the bathroom. The girls gratefully took showers and changed. Deanna hadn't thought about sleepwear, so they wore big tee shirts and climbed into bed together.
And that night, they dreamed.
Kayden dreamed of their home. She was sitting at the diner's table, across from Deanna, and they were talking. And then Deanna began to laugh, and her head changed into the goat boy's head. The diner erupted in flames around her, and the goat boy/Deanna began to laugh harder, as its clothes caught fire and it burned into a grotesque skeleton. It reached out its flaming hands and wrapped them around her throat and squeezed.
Kayden woke with a gasp, and looked beside her to Deanna, who was thrashing back and forth in her sleep. Kayden shook her, but her older sister didn't wake up for several minutes.
“Deanna!” Kayden cried. Her sister was hunched over, panting as she hugged her knees.
“You okay, Squirt?” Deanna asked shakily. She tucked a piece of sweaty hair behind her ear.
“You were flopping everywhere, and you wouldn't wake up ad I had a nightmare and I'm just really scared!” Kayden said in a rush.
Deanna wrapped her in a hug as Kayden told her nightmare, in detail. It made no sense, really, except to prove that Kayden was relieving the explosion.
Deanna thought back to her own dream. In it, the goat boy had repeated the message he'd given her the other night, except her was in a place Deanna had never seen before. It had been in a heavily wooded area, and a ring of stone surrounded him. It looked as though a crowd of people had trampled the grass, though if Deanna thought hard enough, she realized the footprints were actually hoof marks. The place had felt ancient.
And then her dream had switched to a creepy boy, dressed in a black aviators jacket, black jeans, and combat boots. His dark hair and olive skin made Deanna think of Italian roots, and he would have been cute, if he wasn't two years younger than her.
The boy been talking to an extremely overweight old man, and the closer that Deanna looked, the more the man looked like an oak tree.
“But what are they after?” The boy asked, looking frustrated.
“It leads us all, it's the One That Is No More's most sacred object.”
The dream faded away.
And somehow Deanna realized that she was watching real life events. In her head.
But how could that be?
~ ~ ~