The Truths Spoken In The Sea Of Lies

People be blaming others for their own shit I swear

To Olympus, we soar,

Hermes' piercing stare ahead,

Manhattan slumbers.

***

The thing about New York is that you can pop out from absolutely nowhere and still be able to hail a taxi to your destination.

With that being said Rhea headed down to Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping along behind her, and nobody even looked at her funny. Of course, the Mist helped. People probably couldn't see Mrs O'Leary, or maybe they thought she was a large, loud, very friendly truck.

Rhea used her mom's cell phone and called Annabeth for the second time. And this time, Annabeth picked up.

"Moshi~ Moshi~ Annabeth, did you get my message?"

"Rhea, where have you been?" Annabeth shouted.

Rhea had to put the phone at a distance away from her ear after that shout before she put the phone back.

"Your message said almost nothing! We've been worried sick!"

"Don't worry I'll fill you in later, I'll take a guess and say you are almost at Queens yes?"

"...You and I both know that is not a guess, but anyway, what are you planning? We've left the camp virtually undefended, and there's no way the gods—"

"Good! I shall see you there then."

She hung up. It was late afternoon when the taxi dropped me at the Empire State Building. Mrs O'Leary bounded up and down Fifth Avenue, licking cabs and sniffing hot dog carts. Nobody seemed to notice her, although people did swerve away and look confused when she came close.

Rhea whistled for her to heel as three white vans pulled up to the curb. They said Delphi Strawberry Service, which was the cover name for Camp Half-Blood.

The first van was driven by Argus, our many-eyed security chief. The other two were driven by harpies. The doors slid open. A bunch of campers climbed out, some of them looking a little green from the long drive.

Specifically Pollux, Castor, Silena Beauregard, the Stoll brothers, Michael Yew, Jake Mason, Katie Gardner, and Annabeth, along with most of their siblings.

Chiron came out of the van last. His horse half was compacted into his magic wheelchair, so he used the handicap lift. The Ares cabin wasn't here -obviously-.

Forty campers.

Annabeth came up to me. She was dressed in black camouflage with her Celestial bronze knife strapped to her arm and her laptop bag slung over her shoulder—ready for stabbing or surfing the Internet, whichever came first.

Rhea turned to the rest of the group. "Thanks for coming, everybody." She turned to Chiron. "Chiron would you—."

She didn't know what to stay exactly.

Chiron smiled and shook his head. "I came to wish you luck, my dear. I made it a point never to visit Olympus unless I am summoned." He looked at her seriously. "I will go gather what allies I can. It may not be too late to convince my brother Centaurs to help. Meanwhile, you called the campers here, Rhea. You are the leader now."

Rhea nodded then turned to the campers who looked at her expectantly, even Annabeth.

"I'll be frank, the gods are busy with Typhon so there is 99.99% that asking them to defend Olympus will be useless, so we shall do the job, Camp is protected, just because Ares's cabin isn't moving in this war doesn't mean that they will leave intruders to enter Camp, I don't want to hear it Yew and put your feeling aside," Rhea said the last part as she looked at Michael. "It's not the time for rude comments."