Title: Night Comes Down

Rating: T

Warnings: A bit of language, Character death, eventual suggestiveness, vague spoilers for later episodes if you haven't seem them. Let's just get all our bases covered.

Disclaimer: Class of the Titans is the intellectual property of Studio B.

Summary: The prophecy is broken and Chronus rules the world with an iron fist. Six surviving teenagers struggle to stay alive in the apocalyptic world, searching for a way to bring their fallen comrade back to life and restore order. But Chronus has the upper hand, their precious technology is long destroyed, and the leader blames himself. Nobody counted on their fellow warrior being unwilling to return either. Is the Earth finished, or is there still hope?

Chapter Three: Worth Fighting For

Neil looked up from his inspection of Jay's ankle with a startled yelp as the group turned around and made their way back towards him. Relaxing somewhat at the sight of their easy gait, he beckoned them to hurry closer so he didn't have to yell and attract possible unwanted attention. They obeyed and he pulled himself onto the rock next to Jay in order to talk.

"I don't think anything's broken. His brain might be, but..." he trailed off, looking anxiously around at the faces of his friends. "What? Was that too much?"

"Neil." Odie began. His brow furrowed and he looked around to the rest of the group for support. "We've had a little discussion about the fact that we need a leader."

The descendant of Narcissus cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Fine. I don't think Jay can even hear me, but I can take a hint. I'll stop with the jokes." Crossing his arms, Neil affected an expression that clearly said that even under the circumstances, he thought they were all complete killjoys.

"Give me a break Neil." Archie's tone was nasty, but Theresa tapped his leg warningly with her foot, and he softened his voice somewhat as he continued, steeling himself for the worst. "The thing is Neil, we uh, decided that you should be the new leader."

Archie's expression by the end of his pronouncement would not have filled a normal man with confidence, as it was the sort of look only worn by people who had just been forced to inhale the scent of rather ripe and moldy cheese. Of course, Neil was not a normal man when it came to matters of his own ego. He had only heard the apparent praise and was now smiling wide. "Well, of course I should be in charge! I'm charismatic, intelligent, lucky, have great fashion sense…"

"We know Neil. That's why we chose you. For all your great reasons." Theresa cut him off in the interests of getting underway. "But we need you to start your new job right away. We need our new leader to help us solve a debate."

The blonde nodded enthusiastically, apparently thinking hard. "Wait." Neil's smile suddenly faded and his face fell. "I can't do this!"

The jaws of the heroes dropped in shock, as four brains tried to fathom the magnitude of a role that even Neil would not be willing to take on, despite flattery and promises of acolytes hanging on his every command.

"I'm not even dressed appropriately to be a leader."

Archie looked to be on the verge of a massive explosion, but Theresa jumped quickly in before he could speak. "Not to worry Neil. I'm sure YOU wouldn't need a fancy outfit to do a fine job."

The former model's face relaxed into a self-important smile again, and after confirming Theresa's statement to be true, genially asked after the problem at hand. As Herry explained the situation, the fighter took a worried look over at the descendant of Achilles, hoping against hope that Archie would manage to hold his temper in check.

With more sullenness than usual, Archie got into position next to Herry, and watched apathetically as Theresa started tugging uselessly at the clutter blocking her path. It had been Odie's idea to get Neil warmed up to the idea of making decisions on his own by letting him think he was already doing a brilliant job. Once he believed that the others valued his opinion that highly, he would probably be offering advice and orders left, right and center.

For his own part, Archie thought the whole idea was simply ridiculous. They should already be looking for a way to help Atlanta, not worrying about a new hideout or, for that matter, bolstering Neil's ego. It wasn't as though he needed it. Once they were returned to seven then they'd already be able to stop Chronus. The others in the group however, were determined to follow through with Theresa's idea, and for now he would have to endure.

As far as their hideout was concerned, the group had been divided over the choice to find a new location or return to the old in the hopes of salvaging some of the wreck. As the new order dictated, Neil had been asked to make the decision, and after a great deal of pacing, hemming and hawing, the descendant of Narcissus had decided with surprising determination that they backtrack. Theresa and Herry had looked delighted at Neil's apparent sense of responsibility, but Odie decided not to mention the coin that he'd seen slipped discreetly into a back pocket.

As luck would have it, the area was mercifully Chronus-free, the crash that they had heard had been outside the entrance but unfortunately a thick layer of rubble now prevented them from going back inside. A series of looks were exchanged between the conspirators, and they set about allowing Neil to voice the most logical plan.

"This is useless!" Theresa's knuckles had gone positively white with the effort of trying to dislodge the fallen beams and concrete. She rubbed her fingers, trying to get some of the feeling back into them.

This was supposed to be Archie's cue. "You're not strong enough." He droned obediently, trying to catch Herry's eye so that he could show off his expression of disgust. But Herry didn't turn his way, and the purple-haired teen fell further back into sullen silence.

"Hey!" Neil's voice cut the silent pause in conversation like a knife. "Herry, you can move it. You're strong enough!"

Odie nodded. "Great idea."

As the narcissist glowed with ever-increasing pride, Herry stepped forward, grunting only slightly as he hefted nearly the entire mess in one go, dumping it unceremoniously to one side. Theresa kicked the door, and it swung inwards with an echoing creak, revealing a carpet of fallen dust, but an otherwise unharmed room.

"Excellent! Finally something's going right for us." Herry enthusiastically pumped his fist in the air, turning towards Neil. "Good choice buddy."

"What now?"

They turned to Neil, who looked quite pensive. "I'm going to have to think about this." He said, slowly. "I guess the rest of you should just try to clean up a little for now." Finger still pressed to his chin, he wandered through into the other room, disappearing from view as he knocked the door closed behind him.

"Ugh." Archie started to groan, "Do you believe him?" He looked around questioningly as no groans of agreement came.

"Come on, we've got some orders." Theresa said firmly but brightly to the group, but her eyes seemed to linger on Archie. "We've decided to trust Neil, and we need to stick by that."

"'Gotta admit, he's done okay so far." Herry said, and Odie gave a silent thumbs up in his turn.

Inwardly, Archie's temper flared, but his rational side won out, forcing him to agree with his friends in short, clipped tones, and bend down to reach the mop that had rolled unnoticed under the table during the shaking. His ankle protested mightily from the fight with Chronus, and he added that to his list of grievances he was forced to silently suffer through.

The conversation was sparse as they cleaned, rescuing possessions from dirty corners, and throwing out what had gotten broken. Odie in particular was quite perturbed about his laundry, which had gotten recoated in the mess of dust.

Just as the last spare pair of nunchucks was placed back on the table and the rest of the crew had finally clustered around the 'table' that Herry had rebuilt for a much-needed rest, Neil finally made his reappearance. "Okay guys. Your leader has a plan, so gather around."

"Why don't you come over here Neil, I'm exhausted!" Odie yawned wide, resting his chin on folded arms.

"Fine, Fine." Dragging up a rather wobbly chair, Neil cast his gaze over the rest of the tired heroes. Theresa was the only one who blinked steadily back at him, smiling encouragingly. A flicker of what might have been worry passed across the blonde's eyes, but in the next moment he was all confidence again.

"Right. I think what we need to begin by doing is strengthening our defenses. Chronus doesn't want to give us the chance to regroup, and he's probably already looking for us. If he figures out we're here, we're sunk. We need some ideas to either alert us, or stop him. Uh…Odie, you can handle that, right?"

The descendant of Odysseus nodded. "I think so." He paused, scratching his head. "I might need Herry for some of it though."

Neil nodded his assent, and next to Theresa, Herry cracked his knuckles, leaning over to peer at his friend. "Bring it on."

"Theresa, you're with me." This time, the warrior didn't meet Neil's gaze, instead looking dolefully and nostalgically over at Jay at the use of their former leader's customary line. "We already know that there are people and monsters that would rather not see Chronus remain in charge. We need to find them if we can, and get information."

"You also get to go back to that bar." Herry interjected, a touch teasingly.

"That had nothing to do with it." Neil retorted with a wink, and there were a few tired chuckles.

"Okay, okay people. Listen to your leader now. Archie? You're going out to the school. I know it's a dangerous job, but we need to find out if there's anything worthwhile we could use there. Okay? Great. That's it, and we'll get started tomorrow. Right now we can all go get some much-needed beauty sleep."

The group moved to get up, but sat down rather quickly again as Archie's quiet voice cut through the yawns. "What about Atlanta?"

"I'm sorry Archie, but we just can't help Atlanta right now. There are just too many more important things to worry about. I'm sure that you understand." Neil spread his hands, as though speaking to a petulant child.

The brief second of silence was palpable before Archie's yell finally split the air. "Shut up Neil!"

"Hey! You can't talk to me like that!" The blonde's hackles were instantly raised, and Neil bristled like an angry cat.

"The hell I can't!" Archie stood, meeting Neil's gaze with fire of his own.

"But I'm…"

"Yes, yes, we know. The leader. And just a marvelous leader you are too. You leave your crew to do all the work, and…and…you're just…just a joke." Archie's sarcastic and angry tirade petered out as though he wanted to say more, but instead he turned and rushed out, slamming the door so hard that another fine layer of dust fell to the floor. Odie and Herry were rather too shocked to even feel upset about all the cleaning they'd done.

"A good leader would go after him." Theresa intoned quietly, giving Neil's arm an encouraging squeeze even as he nodded in return, squaring his shoulders and preparing to find the wayward warrior.

Luck was not required for the descendant of Narcissus to locate his teammate, as he soon found Archie slouching against the wall to the path towards where Atlanta's coffin was stored.

"Uh, so hey."

"Go Away Neil. I don't want to deal with you."

"Well, um…you're going to have to."

Neil tried to force himself to think like a leader would, try to see past Archie's unappreciative attitude towards his greatness. He tried to reason why one of his friends couldn't see the logic in his decisions. Clearly they couldn't help Atlanta if they had no way to get to her. Not to mention, if he cared so much about her, why was he risking her precious body, when he might lead Chronus to her by wandering around unguarded on his own. Put simply, Archie was being highly irrational. In Neil's opinion, he was the joke.

But he couldn't tell him that, and start another fight. There must be something about Archie that he was missing. But what? Neil was unhappy about their situation too. Jamming his hands in his pockets, Neil's eyes widened with understanding.

"Arch, do you remember the time that Atlanta slid my mirror under my door when I left it in the bathroom? She did it so hard that it went under my bed, and I didn't come to practice for a week because I was so upset I lost it."

Archie's mouth quirked up in another angry sneer. "Is that why you don't like Atlanta? Just because of the dumb mirror thing?"

Neil chose to ignore the insinuation. "I'm not talking about Atlanta. I'm talking about how my experience is similar to yours right now. Actually, scrap that thought. I am talking about Atlanta. I got my mirror back and eventually, you'll get Atlanta back because I'll make sure of it so that we can stop Chronus. You can be really irritating when you don't want to admit you're upset, you know. Think about it, and try crying if you have to." Neil took a breath, digging in his pants pocket, handing Archie a handkerchief, who looked back up at him with an extremely guarded expression. "Here. And make sure you don't have any of those gross red blotches on your face when you get back. They're very unbecoming."

Turning on his heel, the stand-in leader of the heroes turned and walked back up the hall, leaving Archie by himself once more. His shock turned to even more genuine surprise as he felt something warm tickle his cheek.

Numbly, he used the handkerchief to wipe away the first tears he'd cried since he'd been ten.

Author's Notes:

So here we are with Chapter three. I'm hoping you now all realize why it was that I didn't exactly stress Archie's reaction straight away; but I'm hoping this also satisfies some of the desire for a more involved reaction from our love struck warrior. As always, I strive for characterization and an enjoyable read.

The convention was fantastic, and you can read my con-report at my Live Journal; lostexperiment is my handle there, same as here. Pictures of myself in costume (FF7 Cloud and Scarlett) can also be seen for your amusement at www dot nocturnalsoldier dot org slash an06

Another long pause to follow, due to my being up at my cottage on vacation for a week starting tomorrow…but updates will resume when I return, of course.

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From the authors of Night Comes Down and Skin Deep comes an epic of unbelievable proportions. If you thought you knew everything about the modern heroes of Class of the Titans, you were wrong. Discover Jay's startling secret, Theresa's hidden fetish, and much, much more. The very latest in eye-opening drama, this story promises to be one of the year's best fanfics.