A little warning here: This chapter contains... a mushy gushy romantic scene! Well, maybe not mushy gushy, but a few romantic moments between Annabeth and her boyfriend, Percy. If you're not into that stuff, just skim through it. It's not overly important. Anyways, read, enjoy, and review! You know who you are! Major Simi and Nedy Rahn have been bearing the brunt of the responses, but I know that there's more of you out there! *looks around in paranoia*Come out, my preciouses... Come out...

"Mmmmmmmmmmmm! Mmmmmm, mmmm, mmmmmmmm, MMMMMM!" Annabeth exclaimed from the inside of the Aphrodite cabin. The reason for this was not due to any limitation of mental capacity. It was simply because she was currently gagged.

"Shut up!" hissed one of her two jaffa captors that had managed to escape the carnage that befell their comrades. "Not for my sake, but for yours. If you make even one more peep, I'll… I'll… Well, you don't want to know what I'll do!"

Annabeth looked at the jaffa, studying him. Then, after inhaling through her nose, she let lose. "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!" The jaffa who had threatened her put slapped his hand to his forehead and let it slide down his face, tired of "that girl" and her mumbling.

"Okay, Ran'tok, I'm sick of this girl. We need to make our escape now. You said we could use her as a hostage. What did you have in mind?"

"Well…" Ran'tok said. "There's not really much to it, Arkon. We take the girl, and if they try to attack us, we kill her." He smiled dumbly.

The other jaffa slapped him. "That's your plan? You idiot! We'll never make it out alive." He looked at Annabeth. "We might as well just kill her now." He fumbled for his knife.

That's when Annabeth made her move. She had used the incessant scream as a distraction while she worked furiously to untie her hands from the rope they were attached to. As the last knot came loose, Annabeth leapt up and dove for the staff blaster that Ran'tok had left on the floor. She grabbed it and slammed the butt of the staff into Ran'tok's head. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

"Why you little…" said Arkon. "I'm going to really enjoy killing you!" He pulled a knife out of his boot and leapt at Annabeth. She sidestepped, and the jaffa missed, slashing a lock of Annabeth's blonde hair where her neck had once been.

Then nausea began to take over Annabeth. She realized how tired she had been, and how ready she was not to get into another fight. I have to end this, and soon. She thought. She fumbled with the staff, searching for a button, a lever, anything that would open the blaster at the head of the staff. The jaffa snarled at Annabeth, and kicked her in the face. She fell to the ground, but managed to keep the staff in her hand. Arkon was advancing slowly, as if relishing his victory. Finally, Annabeth found a button, and pressed it. With a whirr, the blaster opened. She pointed it at Arkon as he lunged towards her with his knife, and fired.

The two slumped to the floor: Annabeth unconscious; and Arkon with a massive burnt hole in his chest.

"She's healing. Don't worry."

"Yes, but it's been a while since she went unconscious. I can't help but be worried!"

"Yes, I understand your predicament. However, I must leave you to your vigil, I have a meeting with the Lieutenant Colonel. Carter, I believe her name was."

A set of hoof-steps slowly receded, before becoming completely indiscernible from the rest of the background. After a short while, another set of footsteps walked up to a bed in the cabin, where a girl had just stirred from her sleeping position.

"Ah, the sleeper awakes!"

Annabeth looked around. She was in the Apollo cabin, which had apparently been set up as a hospital for all the injured demigods (Apollo being associated with healing and all).

She followed the sound of the voice that spoke to her. Smiling, on her left, was a tall boy with jet black hair and sea green eyes. Percy.

"Percy… you're back." Annabeth stuttered, still disoriented.

"Yup, and luckily, so are you." He hugged her, and Annabeth felt like, for at least a moment, all the pain left her body, and had been replaced with the warmth that emanated from Percy. She felt like she could stay there forever, but eventually Percy released his grip on Annabeth. "By the way, who's Elizabeth Weir?"

"Wh-what?" Annabeth mumbled, confused.

"You talk in your sleep."

"Oh, I see. She's just a character from a TV show I've been watching. No big deal."

Percy nodded and continued speaking. "You've been out for three days. Considering the two… what were they called… jaffa? Never mind. Considering the two snake-belly dudes in the cabin where we found you, we all thought you definitely deserved the rest."

Suddenly Annabeth remembered the battle, and how things had gone horribly wrong for her cabin. "Oh my gods, Percy, my cabin! Are they… is anybody… Did they-" Percy cut her off.

"Relax Annabeth, most of your cabin's okay. In fact, I think the only fatality in Athena cabin was the girl, Adria." Percy squinted his eyebrows in thought. "Come to think of it, I only think three people in the entire camp died. One other from Hermes, and one from Apollo."

Annabeth felt a tear come to her eyes. "I still feel terrible. Adria trusted me. They all did. And I let them down! And maybe a normal person could get over it, but I'm the daughter of Athena! Wisdom and battle, Percy, that's what my mom's all about. And I failed to show wisdom in the battle! Oh, gods, I feel like I've failed miserably!"

Percy looked at Annabeth. His smile seemed to grow, to increase its circle of warmth, and Annabeth was glad that somebody still cared for her. "Hey, Wise Girl, don't get too down about it. When you think about it, you were well within your rights not to succeed. I mean, what's like, the first rule of the book of war? Know your enemy!"

"Actually," Annabeth interrupted, "It's 'Do not march on Moscow', but carry on."

"Okay… And, uh, did you know these enemies? Didn't think so. So how could you have expected to succeed when you were fighting a battle against a powerful enemy you knew nothing about!"

"Uh…" Annabeth though for a moment. Percy was right. It bugged her that he only chose to show his smart side when she was feeling stupid, but she accepted his advice with gratitude. "I guess you're right. But… I could've known that they would come. I could have prepared for the battle!"

"You thought you had caught your enemy." Percy replied plainly. "You thought the threat had, for the moment, passed. Anyone, child of Athena or not, would've done the same. Seriously, don't sweat it. After all, 'the longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.'" With that, he kissed her lightly on the lips, and left the cabin, probably in search of food.

Annabeth decided to get some rest. But when I wake up¸ she decided, I'm going to take a serious look into why that Seaweed Breed has taken a sudden interest in Voltaire. Philosophy is not usually his thing. And thusly, she fell asleep.

""Aliens?" asked Chiron the Centaur rather inquisitively.

"Bad aliens?" Asked the Stoll brother's, co-heads of the Hermes cabin, with the same expression.

"An interplanetary gateway device that utilizes alien technology and highly volatile elements to safely create a stable wormhole to any number of other planets within the gateway system by stepping through the event horizon of the wormhole which is safely contained within the ring of the alien gate?" Asked Malcolm, who was didn't seem fazed by the revelation at all.

"Yes, half-way yes, and yes." Replied Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, taking note of the blond-headed boy named Malcolm who sounded to her like a prodigy worthy of the Stargate Program. "Nowadays, most of the aliens we see in this galaxy are our allies. However, a few remain, like the goa'uld and their jaffa slaves," she motioned to the prisoners, "That need to be dealt with."

Chiron nodded slowly. "I see. And… what do these… 'goa'uld' want with us?" He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. And how did they—and you, for that matter—get past the magical barrier?"

Carter reached into her military pack, and pulled out a small needle. "Basically, we took some of Percy's DNA and implanted it into our own. Of course, we didn't implant everything. Only the things that we thought would get us past the magical barrier." She looked at the prisoners again. "I'm sure that the goa'uld did the same thing with the boy that they killed. Henry, was it?" Chiron nodded solemnly, and Carter continued. "Now, I believe that if these 'half-bloods' have been enhanced through very advanced organic technology, your gods may be as well. That isn't to say that they aren't gods." Carter added quickly, noticing the look she was getting from Chiron. "Just, gods that operate on the scientific plane, instead of the magical and unreal. But as I was saying, I believe the goa'uld are after the science that makes your gods… well, gods!"

Once again, Chiron nodded. He had lived for a long time, several thousand years to be not-quite-but-still-more exact, and at this point, very little could still surprise him. "So… what do you propose?"

"Well, at this point," replied Carter. "Nothing. We don't know where the goa'uld are. It's likely that they're operating from a ship that's currently cloaked in our atmosphere. There's no way that they would risk their Earth-bound operatives in a fight. They're more valuable as a source of espionage."

"So… basically, we just wait?" Chiron asked. "Is there anything we can do to aid in the search? These goa'uld are as much of a threat to us as to you. More, perhaps."

"Sadly, no." Carter sighed. "As much as we would appreciate your help, there's really not much you can do. Unless, of course, your people know how to navigate an interstellar spaceship?" Carter added, as a joke.

Chiron nodded, and trotted away.

Somewhere in the outer exosphere of Earth's atmosphere, a ship lay cloaked. A woman with blonde hair stood in the central command room, watching the Earth in its slow rotation. She heard a noise from behind her, and turned around. Two jaffa, bloody ad bruised, stood before her holding a container. They brought it before her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"We managed to extract this before our lines collapsed." Said one jaffa, referring to the recent battle at the demigod camp.

The goa'uld opened the container, and an evil grin appeared on her face as she congratulated the jaffa on a job well done.

Okay, guys, I'm really sorry to do this to you, but I'm gonna have to put this story off for the duration of the school season. This is probably the most horrible thing I could ever do, so I'm really sorry. But I'll see you next June!