Written In Elysium

 1 
Percy

I woke with a start. Of course. Why not? It's 1 A.M in New Rome, and Rose is crying. I looked over to Anna and she was sleeping. How does she do it? How does she sleep through those sobs? I don't understand. She never wakes up to take care of Rose. I don't get it. How? I climbed out of bed, getting up to face the beast that has come to be my pride and joy. Rose. My sweet little girl. I don't know how she wakes up for an hour at night and has all the energy  in the world during the day. I just don't understand. I walked out of my room and down the hall to Rose’s room. She was crying and thrashing in her beautiful crib made by Anna, Leo, and Hazel. Anna designed it, Leo built it. It supposedly would comfort her at night, but it seems it's doing the opposite. Hazel painted it. I never knew she was so good at art until I saw the crib. It had intricate designs of waves, and books, all I could say when I saw the crib was, “Wow”. 

    I scooped Rose out of her crib and tried to comfort her. I tried to sing, usually that’s Anna’s thing, but I tried anyways. This kid seemed more repulsed by my singing than anything! I have to admit, my singing is really bad...but I had to make her stop crying before the legion comes and knocks down my door, thinking we are being attacked...oh Anna would not like that. 
Rose would not stop crying. If anything, I think my singing only enhanced the sound. I carried her downstairs, and to the fridge, hoping we still have some of her formula. Thank the gods we did. I fed it to her and she immediately stopped crying, like babies' nectar...except she won't disintegrate if she drinks too much of it… I walked Rose back to her room and set her in her crib hoping for a nice night's rest. I walked back to my room and hopped in bed.

    Just before I could close my eyes, Anna’s flew open. She started breathing heavily, then I noticed that she was drenched in sweat. She looked like she did six months ago when she had Rose. She looked at me and said,” We need to go see Frank, now.” She said this calmly but with a sense of urgency to it. She was no Piper, but I felt compelled to get up and run to camp. 

    After swiftly getting dressed and taking Rose over to Celia’s (She is our old neighbor, she is really nice about taking Rose for us. Love you Celia!) , we took off running into camp with my pen and Anna’s knife. Then we saw it. About a hundred skeleton warriors were invading the camp, almost as Tarquin did, from the ground. Above them, the sky was an endless ocean of navy. Frank, Hazel, Levenia, and the other centurions were trying to fend off the skeletons. It was a useless attempt, there were so many of them, and for everyone that died, five more came. Some of the legionaries were waking to help, but it wasn't enough. Soon the camp would be overrun. 

2
Percy

We got there just in time. Thankfully Leo was awake that morning, and rushed to the rescue with Festus, his metal dragon. That was a good thing, because trust me, you do not want to wake up a guy who can burst into flames. He had managed to rewire Festus to breathe water, not fire, making us the ultimate team. Festus shot out some water and I turned it into a fatal blow. I think Valdez will have to stop calling me “Water Boy'' for a while. Soon, the skellies got the hint and went back to their evil lair, wherever that is. Frank came up to us and thanked Anna and I. Of course I knew the big guy wanted to give me a hug, it's Frank we’re talking about, c’mon. But of course he and Hazel had to be formal about it, because they are the praetors after all. I took Frank off to the side, I had some questions. “First, hey and good morning, second, do you have any clue what that was?” He looked at me like I just asked him to solve the hardest math problem on the face of the Earth. “You think I know what just happened?” He scoffed. “I have no idea in the slightest, but good thinking, Leo actually remembered that fire does not work on those guys.” I smiled at him knowingly. “Yup, Annabeth totally didn't make him research that 3 days ago…” Frank laughed, which he hadn't done in a while. The legion has been losing numbers. The gods haven't been active at all lately. And ever since the war with the emporers...well they lost a lot of legionnaires. So many lost. There was a period of time after the war, though, where Lupa was sending in troops by the dozen. But they need to get more recruits soon, they are trying, but Lupa hasn't sent any in so long…