Hey dudes at least this time I wasn't radio silent for years? At least it was only a couple months this time. ;D Anyways, have fun reading this chapter.

Percy's POV

As the Cullen's and Nico were talking about vampire wars, some vampire government, and some girl name Victoria, my confusion and curiosity reached its peak. Unfortunately, after Bella mentioned Victoria, everyone went silent and no one looked like they were going to explain any time soon. When my mind was full of questions, I raised my hand in question like I would do in school.

Nico looked at me with laughter in his eyes, even though his face never twitched from the look of indifference it was locked in. "Yes Mr. Jackson? You have a question?"

I gave my cousin a sour look. "Would someone like to explain who Victoria is and what she has to do with the vampires in Seattle?" I decide to question them about her since it seems like Nico can explain about the vampire wars and their government later.

Bella looks at me with a somber expression. "Victoria is a vampire that we met last year that wants to kill me."

I look at her with surprise in my eyes. "Why would this chick want to kill you? What did you ever do to her?"

"Last year," Edward started explaining, "My family and I were playing baseball in a clearing a couple miles into the forest and I brought Bella along. A little while into the game, three nomads came across us and wanted to join us, until one of the males, their leader, caught Bella's scent and decided to hunt her. My family, we rallied around Bella, we tried to protect her, but James was persistent, and he chased her all the way to Arizona where he got her alone, away from us. It came down to a fight and we won, but in the process, James lost his life. After that, Victoria, James' mate vowed vengeance against me. She wants to punish me for killing James by killing my own mate, Bella."

At the end of Edward's story, my eyebrows were basically touching my hairline. "Wow cousin. You just don't do things half way do you?" Bella gave me a half smile, recognizing my attempt at lightening the mood. I answered with my own smile.

I cleared my throat. "So now this Victoria chick is creating a bunch of new vampires to attack your family to get to Bella. How do we stop her?"

The Cullen family looked at me incredulously. Emmett was the one that finally spoke up. "Look dude, those water powers you showed us earlier were cool and all, but I don't know how well they'd hold up against vampires, especially newborns."

Jasper nodded his head in agreement. "When vampires are first turned, that's when we are at our strongest. The remnants of our human blood still runs through our bodies and it gives us more strength than the average vampire. Plus, our skin is tough, nothing can pierce it except other vampires' teeth. There would be nothing you could do against one of us."

Nico suddenly lets out a loud snort and all eyes turn to look at him. "There's plenty a demigod could do to hurt one of your kind."

The Cullen's all look at him with clear question in their eyes.

"Demigods have special weapons." Nico pauses, smirks, and pulls out his stygian iron blade, seemingly out of nowhere, but I knew he pulled out of the shadows. "These weapons are made specifically to kill monsters…" He trails off with a wince looking at the Cullen's. "You know what I mean. Anyways, these weapons will do fine against you mortal vampires."

"Okay, that's awesome." Emmett said, smiling widely. "Can I see that?" He doesn't wait for Nico to say anything and starts reaching for the black sword but just before his hand reaches it, Nico vanishes the blade back into the shadows. Emmett gives a pout when the sword disappears.

"Aww come on man. I wouldn't have broken it." Nico glared at Emmett.

"If I had let you touch it, the iron would have ripped your soul out of your body." Emmett visibly recoils at Nico's words.

Emmett looks at me next. "Do you also have one of those soul-ripper swords?"

I smile in amusement. "No, Nico's is special." Nico smirks pretentiously at Emmett. "It's special in that only children of Hades can safely wield stygian iron without fearing for their soul. I have a different weapon." At this I pull out Riptide, still in pen form and the vampires and Bella look at me like I'm crazy.

"Percy," Bella says slowly, "that's a pen."

Emmett speaks up again. "Dude if that's what you think you're going to fight a newborn army with, we might need to talk some more."

I smirk appears on my face and without saying anything else, I uncap Riptide and a three foot, golden, slightly glowing sword springs out of the pen. While everyone became silent, I held out my sword to the large vampire. "This one you can look at." Emmett took the sword gingerly and readjusted his grip. He gives a couple swings in the air, imitating gladiators that are in the movies, laughing loudly the whole time.

Jasper turns towards me while Emmett plays with the sword. "How sure are you that these weapons will work on us?" I hold out my hands in the sign to wait a second, but before I could explain or give any demonstration, we hear a hiss of pain from behind us.

When everyone turns their attention to Emmett, we see him clutching his hand in pain. He then holds his hand out for everyone to see, and there on his hand was a shallow cut with a silvery liquid leaking out.

I hold my hand out for my sword and Emmett returns it to me without any hesitation or complaint. As soon as Riptide was back in my hands, I replaced the cap and put the now turned pen back into my pocket.

Nico was the first one to break the silence. "Well at least that one won't rip out your soul. As you can see, our weapons will be fine against mortal vampires."

Emmett was the first of his family to comment. "Well I'm convinced. That was so cool."

After the weapons demonstration, the conversation continued only a little while longer before Nico and I left, shadow traveling back to my room in Charlie's house.

After arriving back, I sit on my bed, my back against the head board and Nico takes a seat in the rocking chair by the window. We sit in silence for a couple minutes, each thinking about all that we learned while over at the Cullen's.

"So," Nico started, drawing out the 'o' sound. "Your cousin's dating a vampire."

"You know, they're not as bad as I thought and I've kind of gotten used to the idea of vampires over the years since, you know, everyone at camp used to think you were one." I smile cheekily at him at the end of my sentence and he gives me one of his infamous death glares in response.

"Haha, Percy." Nico say, softening the glare only slightly.

I school my features into a more serious demeanor. "For real though. The Cullen's aren't so bad for creatures that are supposed to go gaga for human blood. They seem nice. They seem good for Bella." Nico nods, but doesn't comment any further.

"So, what is this vampire government that you mentioned at the Cullen's?" I asked Nico, remembering my earlier confusion.

Nico's face becomes serious once again, recalling the situation back at the vampire's house. "The mortal vampires have a governing faction that call themselves the Volturi. The Volturi charge themselves with maintaining the rules in the vampire world."

"The vampire's have rules?"

"Just one really," Nico says. "Not to let the humans know about their existence."

He doesn't say anything more and I take a pause to let that sink in. The Cullen's…they told Bella.

"What happens then if a vampire breaks that rule and tells a human what they are?"

Nico pauses before answering. "It means the human is either killed or immediately turned into a vampire."

"So, Bella?"

"The rule applies to her too should the Volturi ever discover that the Cullen's told her."

"I guess Bella and I will be having a little chat when she gets home." I was beyond irritated at my cousin. Back at the Cullen's, it was clear that Bella knew of the Volturi's existence which means that she must know about their one rule. She is knowingly putting her life at risk by simply associating with them. I'll worry about unwise decisions when she gets home. Right now, Nico is here, and I'd rather focus on him than Bella trying to kill herself.

"So how are things back home?" I ask hesitantly.

"Things are quiet." Nico says in response. "After all these years, quiet is good. I've been at camp the majority of the time since the war ended, only really leaving for the few odds and end quests that father has had me go on. Mostly though, I've been the model camper." At this I give him a look and he laughs. "It's true. I've helped with the rebuilding, I teach classes, I go to classes, and I even go to the campfire sing-a-longs every once in a while." I laugh at the thought of Nico joining in with the Apollo cabin singing around a campfire.

"How is everyone?"

Nico thinks a minute before he speaks again. "Since I'm mostly at camp halfblood, I don't see the Romans too often, but I did see them last month. Jason and Piper are still together, as are Hazel and Frank. Leo is still way too energetic for his own good. They all seemed to be doing well, more worried about you than anything else." He snuck a quick look at me to gauge my reaction before continuing. "I saw Thalia just after you came to Washington when the hunters came to camp for a couple days. She asked about you and I told her you moved up here with your mom's step-brother. So, if at any time you see a bunch of pre-teen girls in silver running through the woods, here's your warning now." I nod my head and smile softly at the thought of Thalia showing up here with her whole troop.

"How are thinks in Forks, Washington?" Nico asks me in return.

"Very rainy. There hasn't been a purely sunny day since I've been here. You've met Bella and her vampires and then there's some people down at the local reservation that I've made friends with." A slight blush appears on my cheeks at that and Nico raises his eyebrow in return. "There's this girl there." Now real surprise appears on Nico's face. "Her name is Leah and we're just friends. She and some of the guys there are shapeshifters – specifically wolf shifters." His eyebrows have disappeared into his hairline at this point. "They're pretty cool."

"Would this girl, Leah, have anything to do with some recent healing and good moods you've had?" I look at him in question. "I talked to your mom a couple days ago, before Thalia came to camp. That's how I knew you had moved here and while I was there, she mentioned you had met someone that made you happy, but she wouldn't say anything else."

I nod my head in confirmation. "Yeah, Leah makes me happy. Like I said we're just friends right now, but I could see it becoming more later on." Nico smiles at me – happy that I'm happy.

"Coming to Forks was good for me."

"I can see that."

Nico sighed and pushed himself up out of the chair he was sitting in. "Now that I have the information I came for, Father will be expecting me back soon. I should probably head out."

I nod and get off my bed to see him off.

Nico gets ready to shadow travel away through a dark corner of my room, but before he goes into the shadow, he turns back to look at me. "Maybe next time you can come to camp to visit? I know everyone there would love to see you."

I nod in agreement with a smile on my face. "Will do. I miss you guys too."

The last thing I heard before he disappeared into the shadow, was Nico muttering on last statement. "And maybe bring Leah when you come to visit."

I glare at the dark corner and throw my pillow towards where Nico just disappeared.

The sound of the front door opening and closing breaks my glaring.

Bella's home.

As I'm walking out the door of my room, I also hear a car leaving the driveway which means Edward just dropped Bella off and didn't come in with her. Perfect, that way I can confront Bella without Edward interrupting or deterring the conversation.

Bella and I meet, almost running into each other as she's coming up the stairs and I'm going down.

"Uhh, hey Bella." I say nervously. "Could I talk to you downstairs for a minute?"

She looks at me quizzically. "Of course, Percy. Just let me put my bag upstairs and take off my jacket."

I nod and head downstairs to sit on the couch to wait for Bella. It only takes a couple minutes before she is sitting down on the couch next to me.

"So, what's up Percy?" Bella asks after she's settled.

"At the Cullen's I was confused about some of the things you guys were talking about, so when we came back here, Nico explained it too me, specifically, about the vampire government, the Volturi?"

Bella becomes still. "What about them?"

I stare at her with no expression on my face. "He explained who they were and about their one rule, how no humans should learn of the existence of vampires unless they want to die."

"There is another option for the humans that know of their existence," Bella said quietly.

I pause before speaking again. "So that's what you want. You want to become one of them." Bella nodded slowly. "You want to become an undead creature?"

At this Bella glares at me. "Don't call them that. What I want is to spend forever with Edward and his family who have become like my own family. They don't deserve for you to call them 'undead creatures.'"

I nod. "Okay I'm sorry. That was rude. I guess I just don't understand why that's something you want."

"That's fine if you don't understand." Bella said. "You just have to understand that they make me happy and to be with them forever is what is going to make me happy forever."

"I guess I can live with that." I said softly, my lips upturning slightly.

Bella smiled a genuine smile at me and stood up. "Well, I'm glad. It was nice talking with you, but I've got to finish some homework before school tomorrow." Bella starts to walk away before turning back to me again. "Are you ready to start Forks High tomorrow?" I groan loudly and she walks away, laughing as she went.

I had forgotten that I had to go to school while I was here. I wonder how long it will be before I get suspended or asked to leave this school.

As I flop onto the couch face first, I hear a car pulling up in the driveway and then the front door opening.

"Percy, are you okay son?" I hear Charlie call out to me from the other side of the living room.

"Yeah I'm okay." I call out, even though my voice was muffled by the couch cushions and was a bit unintelligible.

"I was about to order some pizza for dinner." I hear Charlie say. "Is that okay with you and Bella?"

I sit up and sit normally on the couch before answering. "Pizza sounds good to me. Bella's up in her room, but I can't imagine anyone saying no to pizza."

"Alrighty kiddo. I'll let you know when it's here."

I call out an okay before heading upstairs and laying down on my bed, trying to think of something to do until dinner gets here. I pull out my phone, about to play a game on my phone when I remembered that Leah put her number in my phone earlier. I spent the next two minutes wondering if it was too soon to call her, but then I decided to bite the bullet and call her anyways.

"Hello?" I hear Leah's voice carry over the phone.

"Hey, Leah. It's Percy."

"Hey Percy!" I could hear her smile over the phone. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing much," I reply. "I just wanted to try out the new number that I got today."

Leah laughs in response. "You're funny Percy. What did you get up to after you left here?"

"My cousin, Nico, came to visit for a little while and we caught up for a couple hours." I decided quickly not to tell her about the vampires in Seattle right now, I wasn't sure what was going to be done about that situation quite yet.

"Nico's the son of Hades, right?"

"Yeah he is. It was nice to see him before I have to start school tomorrow."

Leah hmm'd over the line. "I definitely don't miss high school. This is your senior year, right?"

"Yes, it is," I confirm. "I only have a couple months until graduation. When did you get out of school?"

"I graduated two years ago and nothing in the world would make me go back." I laugh at her statement and she joins in with me.

Before I could respond, I hear Charlie call up to Bella and I that the pizza was here.

"Hey Leah, I've got to go, dinner's ready."

"Okay Percy, I'll talk to you later. You'll have to let me know how school goes for you."

"I definitely will. I'll talk to you later."

We then exchanged goodbyes and I hung the phone up with a smile on my face.

The smile doesn't fade even as I walk down stairs for pizza.

Kk dudes Read and Review. Let me know your thoughts but be kind, I realize not too much happens in this chapter.

Anyways thanks for always sticking with this story even with the less than reliable updates.

Love you guys.