Second Chances

Chapter 4 - Twins of Hestia

(Percy's P.O.V.)

It had been almost another week since the grandest wedding celebration this milenium had been announced and the planning started for. Thalia and myself had been staying between my father, Poseidon's temple palace and her lady, Artemis's. We had promised lord Zeus to refrain from any teenage behavior in our relationship, even if we were both technically immortal, and had kept everything to just light kissing really. I was perfectly fine with taking our slow approach, besides we wouldn't be limited after the wedding ceremony.

Speaking of the ceremony, it was due to be held tomorrow at midday. I would say that I felt nervous and jittery, but something else felt really wrong. I wasn't sure what it was exactly but I just knew that something was very out of place. Little did I know that it was my godly powers trying to warn me of heroes in danger.

The morning council started out rather dull, until Apollo pulled out a New York times paper from his throne and smiled arrogantly as he started to read the headline. "Daughter of former hollywood starlet announces engagement to successful author's son."

My face paled visibly as Apollo read the mist influenced article about how Thalia and myself were planning on marrying soon. I know he would have gone into much greater detail on the subject, that suspiciously made me think that perhaps he might have helped leak the story, but a young boy who appeared about my age burst into the throne room violently.

"What is the meaning of this?" Zeus boomed at the short, spikey black haired youth. The young man had burning golden eyes and he had a light brown glow to his skin. I would have guessed that he was from the pacific, hawaiian to be more precise. He bowed immediately and his face looked terribly saddened. Zeus suddenly carried a worried expression as his tone no longer held any malice or anger, but kindness towards the youth.

"Chang, where is your brother? Do you not go everywhere together?" The question made me curious as to what it was implying. For the moment I was resigned to pay close attention, I had a dire feeling that this Chang was somehow related to me and I wasn't meaning by Olympian parentage.

Before I could completely place together what was transpiring in front of us all, Hestia interrupted the meeting next. "My son, why have you appeared without Tajima?" Zeus surprisingly let Chang answer the question. I wasn't honestly sure what was going on anymore though, I thought that lady Hestia was one of the virgin Goddesses. Chang didn't waste time in answering though.

"My lords and ladies... my brother is trapped in the middle of a war, and sent me to come and beg for assistance immediately." Tears were jerking at the raven haired youth's eyes, but he wasn't giving them room to budge in the slightest. "I bring the most disheartening news from the Knights camp." He finished his statement with a bowed head, which led to Hestia consoling him in the midst of our council. Nobody seemed to object to anything currenlty going on either.

Athena stood up and expressed her opinion through a pained expression. "Lord Zeus, we must quickly investigate why someone, or something is engaged in war with the Dioscuri." Her face was sad but enraged, and the realization hit me. In ancient greek times, Castor and Pollux were the twin sons of Zeus, and were often called the Dioscuri. Was it possible that a more current set of twins shared that honor now?

"Perseus..." Hearing lord Zeus address me, snapped me back into the present and out of my thoughts. "Take Chang back to camp and find out as much possible with Chiron's help. Hermes will await for your message when you've gathered all of the information." That put a quick and sudden end to the previously dull councils of the last half week.

I made my way with the present half of the twin set, along with lady Hestia back to camp. She kindly explained to me that while the twins are born of Zeus, they are hatched as golden eggs and get to choose their other Olympian parent. I was surprisingly shocked to find out that since Castor and Pollux, a set of Dioscuri twins were born almost every century. Chang and his brother, who I learned to be Tajima Kou, were the fourth set of Dioscuri to be born.

Chang smiled lightly at me, but he still seemed to be in a great deal of distress. "My brother was the one who picked lady Hestia as our parent, and we are the first set of twins to become immortal before death." The news slightly caught me off guard before Hestia explained more.

"You have heard of the Knights of the Dawn, correct? My sons are the immortal lieutenants of the Knights and have been for the last two hundred or so years." I looked at the seventeen year old with black hair and golden eyes. "Wait, you were born in the 18th century?" He gave a light hearted laugh and smiled softly towards me. "I guess you could say we are the opposite of Artemis's hunters. We do keep some archers and ranged fighters, but our strength lies in close combat and shear number."

We had reached Camp Half-Blood finally and headed into the Big House with must haste. Chiron's eyes almost bulged out of his head as he saw Chang. "Di immortales... a Dioscuri alone." He stated, stunned, before quickly recovering himself. Before we could start any sort of private meeting with just the four of us, lady Artemis and Thalia showed up and allowed themselves audience.

"I guess this will have to keep me from explaining something I might not understand later." I said with a small laugh as I looked at Artemis and my fiance, Thalia. There was gonna be a lot to explain to her soon enough, but for now we had to get some answers.

(Third Person P.O.V.)

The meeting inside of the Big House began with an eerie silence amongst the participants. "Like I said to the Olympian council earlier, my twin brother is under seige with the majority of our knights." Chang hesitated for a long moment as he gathered some impatient stares. "Tajima is engaged in battle with Hector of Troy."

Artemis nearly fainted at the mention of the centuries old Trojan warrior and the popular war story. Thalia gave a questioning look towards the boy, asking simply. "Are you sure you're not overly stressed or anything? The Hector of Troy? The one that Achilles killed eons ago?" He nodded back in reply solemnly to her. "Yes, Hector of Troy and his the bulk of the Trojan army as well."

Nobody seemed really sure how or what to make of this, but this morning had been one whirlwind of information and Chiron presented the next question thoughtfully. "So, do you have any idea how the Trojan army is coming back from the underworld after all this time?" Chang nodded and Percy grew a grave expression at the same time as well.

"For the past few years, a city has been slowly built and just recently it was completely. We had been under orders to keep and eye on it and observe it. For the longest time nothing strange was going on in or around it, and it still houses no monsters. What tipped our suspicions was when it started housing and transporting demigods and small groups of armies, just a while before the battle of Olympus." The room grew even more silent, allowing Chang to continue his explanation freely.

"While the Titan Lord might be defeated, he set this plan into motion long before his return or demise. I'm not sure exactly all of the details how, but for last few months the real Trojan army has been on patrol and giving us small border skirmishes. Nothing was very full scale until this last month." Chiron rubbed his stubbled chin as he looked at Percy thoughtfully. The tension in the air was very heavy and thick, as Hermes arrived with a message.

"Lord Zeus wants you to gather the demigods and hunters, Percy. I'll report back any information you need to send, but he says to prepare for war. Unfortunately, you're all going solo on this. Due to certain old promises, none of us can interfere or help. We all swore that we would never temper with another Trojan war type of event. This is all going to be determined by this age's heroes and it's appointed protectors." Percy sighed and nodded in understanding. It wasn't really too much of a shock to figure that the Olympians weren't going to be giving any direct assistance or anything. Another ten year war would prove utterly disasterous.

"Lord Perseus.. with the hunters and demigods combined, our total strength might be close to 1,300 in number. I know firsthand that the Trojans have a good 20,000 right now. We would be hard pressed to win currently, let alone try to come out alive. They still have their old alliances too, I'm guessing. So we must consider them to have an estimation of close to 35,000 men." The news was indeed difficult but bearable. Hermes took all the current and latter information back to Olympus as the new Camp Director racked his brain for an idea or any kind of strategy.

(Percy's P.O.V.)

This was all very overwhelming. My first week on the job and I have a potentially global disaster on my hands, and it's in the form of a creepy undead army. I nervously glanced at Thalia, who didn't take long to notice how uncomfortable I was all morning. She had been reassuringly hold my hand as we both listened to the terrifying news. An idea struck me quick as lightning, as I smiled at the beautiful girl next to me.

"I can ask my dad to send us help from my brother, Tyson and some of the Olympian army. Maybe some giants or cyclopses, and some skeletons to make up a small difference in the numbers." Chang seemed to brighten up a little by this line of thinking and I knew it might be a long shot, but we were definately on to something now.

"Perhaps we should send word out tonight, and in the morning start to gather up all the forces we possibly can." Thalia said as her and Artemis shared a look together. The Goddess of the hunt excused herself, leaving just the five of us now. "How long do you think your brother can hold out for?" The words nervously escaped my lips as I looked from Chang to Hestia.

"Well, truthfully, he is a much more skilled fighter than I am. I believe he is every match for Hector, but we still lack the Trojans manpower. They seemed content for the moment to at least wait inside of their fortress right now. That is all that is buying us any real time." There was still one more detail I needed to know before we had all the information I could think was available.

"Where exactly is the current city of Troy?" Chang laughed at the question, but his features were serious as he did so. "Montana..." came the reply I was least expecting. "So basically, we have to travel across the country with a full army, and have no chance that our enemy won't expect us." I puffed out my cheeks indignantly as I scrunched up my nose in frustation. Chiron gave a glimpse of a better travelling idea though.

"There is a river near that city isn't there? The location closely resembled ancient Troy, if I'm not mistaken." Go figure a Centaur would know geography to a tee. Chang gave an enlightened nod, and Thalia added her brillaint idea. "If Tyson and Percy could use the rivers to travel our small armies by ship, like the ancient Greeks did back then, we could use that to our advantage." There was history, popping it's repetative head back into things.

"So... Troy, Montana is our destination, and we need to arrive before the week is out also..." Hestia sympathetically gave her son a hug and thanked the rest of us. "I'll deliever the rest of the information up top, and let you know about the extra armies." She winked and was gone just as fast. Chiron went to go supervise dinner for the demigods, which left myself with Thalia and Chang. I still had a few more questions to ask him, but these were more personal.

"So is there anything you can tell me about the Knights of the Dawn?" He gave a warming smile as he explained in detail about the similarities they shared with the Hunters, and how they also varied a good deal as well. I wasn't overly surprised to find it was an all male group, and that they didn't rely very much on archery or ranged combat. It seemed to be the exact opposite of what the Hunter of Artemis were. Even to the extent that while the Hunters kept a smallish type of group in numbers for hunting and tracking, the Knights had over a thousand soldiers and were more of an army and battle unit.

It eventually grew late and I showed Chang were he could stay for the time being at camp. He politely informed me that his men with him were all staying in the Hestia cabin, but he thanked me for the temporary room in the Big House. We parted ways for the night, and when I had Thalia to myself finally in our room, I broke the unfortunate news that I had been holding onto since that morning. "Our wedding has been postponed until this whole situation is determined, one way or the other."

She gave me a small hug and light kiss on the lips, telling me that it would work out and be okay. Just another momentary setback, we would have a whole eternity to be together. I didn't want to let her go tonight, things were constantly flying out of control lately. I gave one last kiss for the night as she headed back to the Hunters. I knew she would be back in the morning with all of her ranks, and we would began to organize our plans and ranks once we had our armies gathered. I could only wish the best for the stranded Dioscuri. "Please hold out just a bit longer, Tajima. We'll be there as soon as we possibly can."

A/N: It's a bit shorter than the others so far, but I really hope everyone likes where this went. The next chapter kicks off the start of the new Trojan war, and the meeting of the other Dioscuri! Don't forget to enlist to fight the Trojans! War is coming.. and so is a wedding (Zeus willing!)