The Warfighter, the Storm, and the Moon

Chapter 11: Planning

'Planning'

27-Aug-2030, 0115R

Jason Grace, Son of Jupiter

Joint Operation with Hunters of Diana, Camp Half-Blood

Bald Mountain State Forest, Angelica, New York, USA

Percy wasn't kidding when he said it would be a long drive.

I was in the first van, sitting along with Percy, Piper, Argus, Morty, Annabeth, Tyson, Clarisse, Chris, and a few sons of Ares. Apparently, the drive should've taken around six and a half hours, but it was significantly shorter thanks to some amazing knowledge from Morty—a son of Hermes and brilliant navigator—and frighteningly fancy driving from Argus and the other sons of Hermes in our little convoy.

The ride was mostly silent—Percy was checking his equipment and communicating with Argus and Morty, while occasionally hailing the other vans on the radio. Annabeth and I had similar intentions to Percy, discussing some ideas to prepare ourselves and our scrappy band for the mission.

Tyson, Piper, and the rest had dozed off after ensuring that their plastic squares were firmly taped to their armor or themselves. After some words over a possible plan, Annabeth joined the others in a nap while I stayed awake, staring at my old friend.

There were a few things that were the same since the last time I saw him twenty years ago: his crazy smile, his commanding presence, and his strange sense of humor.

Yet, the changes were far greater than I ever could've imagined. And frankly, those changes concerned me.

To start, there was the weaponry. The Percy I remembered hated the idea of any armament that wasn't close-ranged. If he had to throw it or shoot it, he would choose to abandon it for the sake of charging the enemy head-on with Riptide. Now, though, he was at ease with his machine gun, pistol, and grenade launcher. While he did have a knife and Riptide (the former of which was visible), it appeared that he had no intention of utilizing those.

Next, there were the burns. Half of his face was scarred, almost like Two-Face. I found myself wondering if they came from flames or acid, and if so, how. He said he wasn't SEAL Team 6, so what had he been doing for the past twenty years?

That was the big question, wasn't it? What was he doing for twenty years that changed him so much? He was more rigid, more focused. He seemed more militaristic, more so than any Roman I'd ever met.

When I met him for the first time at Camp Jupiter, Annabeth later confided with me that she was concerned, saying he had changed from the Percy she knew. At the time, I shuddered to think how crazy Percy was prior to his "Roman-ification." Yet, in retrospect, I would definitely take that form over this one today. Not only was it confusing to see him act in such a new manner, it was very disconcerting.

While he had indubitably become more calculating and formal after twenty years, he ironically possessed a crudeness and roughness I had never seen before. He looked like a teenager, but he didn't act like one in the slightest, possessing a new maturity. He seemed older, somehow.

It had me questioning what had really changed over the past twenty years in our world. I thought that things were different today than they were during the wars with Kronos and Gaea, but the more I thought about it and compared my memories to Percy's own evolution, the more I realized that, for the most part, little had changed.

Granted, the gods were doing a better job of visiting their children. Their visits were about as common as those of divorced parents with limited custody, and some visits consisted of the demigods meeting their parents outside of camp. One example of this was the time Apollo took his children on a cross-country archery tour. And by cross-country, I mean it literally, as they hit targets on the ground and in the sky from New York to California.