As the grandson of the God of War, Harvey was honestly ashamed to say that when Clarisse gave the word, he ran.

On the plus side, the others hadn't waited for their Clarisse to speak before they were sprinting back towards the Camp, so it wasn't like he was the only one running.

Going sideways where most people ran straight, he vaulted one of the half-fences surrounding the dining pavilion and hunkered down, popping his head up cautiously to try judge how fast the robots were moving. What the hell was he supposed to do here? He couldn't beat one of his own uncles in a friendly spar, how could he do anything against what looked like a giant battle droid from Star Wars of all things? He didn't even have a sword on him, which Clarisse would be furious about if she found out.

As the battle droids stomped passed him, he watched as one paused to bash its shield against a small shed, waiting for a moment before continuing on to catch up with its friends. A blonde demigoddess bursting out of the rubble and limping over to jump the fence when the robot got far enough away, Harvey whistled and gestured, making the girl scoot towards him beneath the fence with a pained smile.

"Damn, I thought I was sneakier than that," Jess said in greeting, clutching at her leg and studiously avoiding eye contact. "I can't heal myself," she added as he opened his mouth to suggest just that, "We can only heal other people."

Biting back all the 'nice' comments he wanted to say, Harvey just bit his tongue and peered over the fence again. "What do we do?"

Jess stared at him for a moment before pulling a face. "I forgot you're new here," she confessed, jerking her chin past him and wincing, "I was supposed to join with the others at the barrier, we play backup to Blackstone and her lot as they repair the barrier. Your sis- aunts and uncles lead the others in fighting off the incursion, but Blackstone needs a healer on call in case they get hurt."

"Blackstone?"

"Lou Ellen," Jess clarified, chewing her lip as she looked around. "Listen, Blair, I-"

"HARVEY!"

Head snapping around at Leo's call, Harvey pushed himself up from the fence and grabbed Jess roughly, shamelessly ducking down to lift her over his shoulder in a fireman carry. Ignoring her squawk of pain, having made sure he wasn't touching the gash on her calf, he carried her over to where his uncle was waving at him from the other side of the dining pavilion near Clarisse.

"I don't have time for you," his aunt dismissed the moment she laid eyes on him, "Go find Lou Ellen and follow her orders before you get yourself killed."

Standing there dumbly for a moment as Clarisse charged off, the demigods gathered around her following, he blinked at Leo as the blond gently punched him on the shoulder. "You're not trained enough, Harves, nothing personal. She can't fight this thing and babysit you at the same time. You're better off playing bodyguard to Lou Ellen while she tries repair the barrie- Oh my god, it has a flamethrower."

Staring after the nearby red-painted robot – which was now spraying fire down it's sword to ignite one of the cabins – Harvey let Leo push him to the side and run off after Clarisse. A battle droid that could throw fire was more than a little out of his league, maybe he should stick to something a little more his level, like Jess who was struggling to get off his shoulders.

"We need to get to the barrier," she insisted, giving up when he just tightened his grip. "Blackstone needs us."

Wanting nothing more than to ignore Jess, Harvey glanced around for the other two droids and started off in the direction of the hole in the barrier. "Can you walk, or do you need me to carry you there?" he asked over his shoulder, hearing his burden let out a slow sigh.

"I'd appreciate the help, just until we can get to the barrier," Jess admitted, squirming a bit. "Can I use your shoulder? Instead of this?"

"BLAIR! COME ON!"

Moving automatically to follow the person screaming his surname, recognising him absently as Tim; Lou Ellen's little brother and third and final child of Hecate in the Camp, Harvey pretended he hadn't heard Jess' request as he caught up with the fifteen-year-old demigod.

"Lou Ellen and Maeve need to repair the barrier," Tim explained as they ran for the breach in the barrier, a couple of other demigods joining them. "We need to keep them safe until they're done, or more shit will come in while we're all distracted."

Fighting off the urge to tell Tim to watch his language, Harvey tightened his grip on Jess as they started up the hill towards where Lou Ellen was already standing, Maeve and Clovis darting out from behind the rubble of a cabin to join them as Jess bounced on his shoulders.

Oh god, he couldn't believe he was actually doing this. Never before had he ever had the time to stop and think about things, and never before had he prepared to march into the equivalent of war. The Fury had been a matter of stand or die, but this was an actual battle that he was willingly charging into. He'd heard more than enough about the war since his arrival here, but only now, as he watched Lou Ellen incinerate an entire flock of familiar robotic birds, did it sink in that this was real.

"I hope you brought more than a spear between you all," Lou Ellen said in greeting as she flipped her hair over her shoulder, turning to the breach. "You're going to need it."

One look at the thankfully smaller robotic men making their way towards the breach, and Harvey set down Jess and patted himself down for other weapons, finding only the throwing knives he no longer had to think about putting on in the morning. He hadn't bothered bringing Ilingos with him that morning, since he could just summon the sword from wherever it was, but he really wished that he'd listened to Jay and started carrying the backup kopis that Griffin and Bruce were training him to use with Vertigo. Armour would have been nice too, now that he thought about it, even if he hadn't been fitted for some yet that extra layer of protection would not have been turned away.

Tossing a knife the pale Jess' way, he concentrated and caught Ilingos as she appeared in a swirl of smoke, glancing over his shoulder towards where he estimated Ares Cabin was. He really wished he'd brought his kopis, the machete-like sword was nearly a foot shorter than the traditional xiphos demigods used and was perfectly balanced to fight with opposite Ilingos, and he'd spent a lot of time practicing that style. Drawing a throwing knife instead, the blade barely a finger's length and way too short to fight with, he flipped it in his off hand as Lou Ellen cleared her throat loudly.

"We have to start the spell," the sorceress declared with a sharp look Maeve's way, "Keep them off our backs, or we'll have to start again."

As Lou Ellen and Maeve joined hands, beginning to chant in a blend of Ancient Greek and Latin of which only one in ten words filtered through Harvey's internal translator, the rest of them moved past to stand in the hole in the barrier. They were either going to all die horribly, or the girls were going to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

From the jaws of the red-eyed hellhounds appearing from the trees…

Part of his brain, the part not obsessing over the hellhound he was engaging in a staring contest, could hear someone talking beside him, but his heartbeat was too loud for him to make out anything they were saying. His leg was already aching, the scars on his knee burning like they were freshly made, and… and… At least Caleb wasn't here, the first time he'd been glad of that since arriving, he wouldn't be able to concentrate if he had to worry about his partner dying too. How would Caleb find out? Would he just know? Or would someone from the Camp go to Harvey's house to tell them in person? Would they even go to the same place when Caleb died? Or would he go to Heaven while Harvey when to the Underworld?

Oh god, there were so many eyes.

And then there weren't, a strange sob bursting from his chest as he suddenly remembered how to breathe, watching the hellhounds turn tail and run back into the forest.

Staggering back as he realised the robotic men still remained, having formed a sort of semi-circle around the breach as they waited for some kind of signal, Harvey flinched as someone grabbed his arm.

"Shit… dude? You alright?"

His mouth opened but no noise came out, the words lost somewhere in translation.

"What the shit just happened?" Tim's voice asked somewhere behind him, "Why did they run?"

"Blair did it," the first voice blurted, belonging to someone Harvey didn't recognise. "They took one look at him and then gapped it, must have gotten a good whiff of his armpits. Dogs have good a sense of smell, right? Because if I can smell it from here, then obviously they had it worse."

"Fuck you, I smell fantastic," Harvey argued, feeling himself snap out of it as he bent down to pick up the weapons he hadn't even known he'd dropped, shoving them and his trembling hands into the pockets of his jacket.

The dark boy just smirked, clapping him on the shoulder before giving him a cautious once-over, the question in his eyes clear. "Just run next time, mate," he whispered, "Nobody will blame you. So long as you don't blame me for running from any spiders we see."

Harvey would blame himself, and he was sure that Clarisse and the rest of his 'family' wouldn't hesitate to do the same.

"What are they waiting for?" he asked instead, nobody cruel enough to call him on the cracking of his voice. "And what are they?"

"Automatons. Dad made them," a red-head replied, looking down at her sword and shield sceptically. "We're in trouble," she added quietly, "We're not armed well enough. They don't have weak spots."

He wasn't so sure about that. These 'automatons' were just smaller version of the giant ones that had broken through the barrier in the first place, only they were lacking shields and carried their swords instead of having them built into their body. And just like the big ones, they looked very skeletal beneath their armour, which was noticeably missing around their joints

Saying so, Harvey was treated to a dead stare by the red-head. "If you wanna ask them to stand still long enough to try, then go ahead, I'll make sure to put 'Thought he could cut through solid celestial bronze with a sword' on your tombstone."

Sniffing as he turned back to the automatons, he watched as they just stood there lifelessly. "You're the expert, what are they waiting for?"

Her simple reply of "Orders," really shouldn't have sounded as creepy as it did.

It took maybe five minutes before the automatons finally acted, straightening up as one and raising their swords over their heads, moving like well-oiled machines (obviously) towards the slowly shrinking hole in the barrier.

Bracing himself in their own line as the robots got closer, Harvey looked both ways at the others for some kind of hint of what to do, his sword apparently not good enough and the only option he actually had. Good god (Good gods?), he was actually about to do this, fight in a war for mostly complete strangers – one of whom had tried to kill him earlier that week – when he could be at home curled up with Caleb. Hell, if Caleb asked him to, he'd leave to go to do that instead of fight. Even if he'd feel guilty as hell for doing so, for like a day or so, until Caleb managed to make him forget.

To his left, the red-haired demigoddess stepped forward and brought her shield around like a weapon to smash an automaton with. To his right, the dark skinned and haired spider-hating demigod dropped forward into a leaning stance as he thrust his spear forward. And directly where he was, he threw the knife in his hand and watched as it bounced off the metal tube that made up the automaton's throat like a bouncy ball off well… anything really…

Telekinetically blocking the automaton's swing for his head, Harvey engaged in one of the worst fights of his entire life, and he was including the various video games he'd played after skipping the tutorial. His own flailing style completely outdone by the robot's precise movements, he did his best to not get killed by the automaton while simultaneously keeping an eye on the other half-dozen or so of them currently trying to fight past their ranks to Lou Ellen. There may have been more of them than the droids, but they were also so much squishier and fragile, and ultimately less efficient – even if they were successfully grouping up on most of the automatons.

Flinching as his sword shrieked along the blade of the droid's, cross-guard slamming into each other, Harvey could only watch in growing dread as the automaton merely twisted its wrist and the small hook on its cross-guard snapped around Ilingos to lock it in place. Only holding onto the sword with one hand unlike Harvey's two, the automaton swung at his head, hard and fast enough he could hear its fist whistling through the air as he ducked.

Straining for a moment to break the sword lock, Harvey pulled one hand back and thrust it forward as he lost the contest of strength, the sword driving towards his head suddenly falling limp as the automaton went flying into the droid getting ganged up on by the red-head and Tim.

He couldn't believe he'd forgotten he was telekinetic…

Dislodging the robot's sword from his own as the two automatons struggled to stand, he darted forward to pass it to the sword-less red-haired demigoddess, watching as she jumped into the air and used her momentum to cut through one's neck before turning to lope off the second's arm and then its own head.

"They're weak against their own weapons," she declared with a smug nod, "I couldn't be sure of their model. Glaring weakness in this batch though."

As she merely hefted the large sword again and charged another automaton with a war cry, Harvey and Tim exchanged a look before the younger demigod smirked and nudged the spare sword with his foot. "I'll spread the word, I'm not much of a fighter myself."

Nodding to the thin air as Tim shimmered and vanished, Harvey scooped up the uncomfortably heavy sword and rushed the closest automaton, running it through as the demigod fighting it disarmed it with a flourish. "Use their own swords," he instructed, turning around to attack another automaton, already feeling the strain in his arms from swinging the sword maybe three times heavier than Ilingos. The fencing demigod beheading the automaton they were fighting, he looked around for the next target and found only two more. One was being torn apart by his red-haired 'friend' and his spider-hating 'friend', while the second was moving at a rapid march towards Lou Ellen who was still repairing the barrier with her back turned.

Shit.

Too far away to stop it in person, Harvey's hand snapped out in the direction of Ilingos before whipping in the direction of the automaton, his fallen sword launching itself off the ground like a rocket to embed itself in the automaton's skull.

"I take it back, you can cut through solid celestial bronze with a sword," came the red-head's correction from behind him as the robot faltered before falling face forward to hit the ground limply.

"You know," Tim's voice began, the boy himself appearing out of nowhere of they all fell back to surround the girls, "I can see why Lou Ellen thinks you're our brother. Normal demigods aren't that strong normally."

"I'm not," Harvey panted as he pulled Ilingos out of the automaton. "I'm just… complicated."

Looking completely disbelieving, Tim just nodded at him innocently. "I think the barrier's almost up," he said loudly as he studied the barrier, the repairs speeding up over time like an avalanche going downhill. "We can go back the others up when it's done."

A couple of minutes later Lou Ellen let out a loud groan as she dropped her arms, the barrier sealing up like the injuries the son of Apollo and Jess had healed before.

"It's done," she called, resting her weight on her thighs as she gasped for air. "I'm fine, I just need to catch my breath," Lou Ellen dismissed, pushing Tim away when he reached for her. "Go, help the others."

Moving without hesitation, Harvey started jogging down the hill towards the sound of fighting, hearing people following after him as he re-entered the Camp proper. Just because he wasn't comfortable waiting in ranks for the army to come to him, didn't mean he couldn't charge at the army himself. Probably part of his normally idiocy and impatience, as opposed to Caleb's brains and tolerance for Harvey.

Passing by one of the giant automatons – one with yellow paint highlighting it – lying in ruins in the middle of the path, Harvey followed the fighting to find a swarm of demigods tearing apart a red-coloured automaton, Clarisse standing on its shoulders roaring as she stabbed her spear down into its neck.

Well, she had that one covered.

Continuing on and following the ice coating the ground, almost slipping on it, he moved around to hurl a telekinetic throwing knife at the blue automaton he could see in the distance. Telekinesis or not, the knife barely penetrated the droid's armour as he and 'his squad' charged in, reinforcing the demigods trying to take it out. Once again, his idiocy was proven, as the blue automaton just backhanded him out of the way on accident, knocking him clear off his feet and sending him flying.

Oh look, he could see his cabin from here.

Hitting the tree with enough force that he threw up a little in his mouth, Harvey landed on someone when he hit the ground, groaning out an apology as he pushed himself up slowly. Hand touching something wet, he glanced over and froze at the blood covering his fingers, eyes slowly trailing up to lock onto Griffin's still face.

Griffin was always smiling. Whether it was an actual honest smile, or his favourite 'I'm better than you and we both know it' semi-smirk. Even when he was angry, at Chiron's lectures or dickhead demigods, he still had a smile on his face – although said smile was usually cold and threatening. And somehow even in death he still had that stupid smirk on his face, despite the blood coating most of it and the broken twisted shape of his chest.

"Harvey, you need to snap out of it," Griffin ordered, hand shaking his shoulder oddly, feeling the pressure but not the movement. "Harvey! Wake up! This isn't the time!"

Eyes flicking up to the transparent demigod crouching opposite him, he clenched his jaw as bile rose up at the back of his throat, looking between the body and the soul no longer inhabiting it.

He was dead.

Griffin was dead.

Death wasn't a thing that happened to him, or around him. It was something he'd only heard of from other people, or seen in the movies. And as many near-death scares that he'd had, it wasn't the same as falling onto his uncle's corpse. Not even when he'd first come to Camp Half-Blood and gotten involved in their war had he considered that death might follow, not with two dozen or so people capable of bringing someone back from the brink of it with a little ditty sung in Ancient Greek.

"Hey!" Griffin shouted, waving his hands in front of Harvey's face. "Move! Now! If you don't, you'll end up like them!"

Head turning to follow the ghost's finger, he watched as the red-haired sword-and-board demigoddess was hit with a stream of ice, getting pulled out of the way by another demigod who took the brunt of it in the back. They were getting their arses kicked, unlike what had happened to the yellow and red automatons, the blue one was somehow fending them off easily.

"We were a distraction team," Griffin explained, "We weren't actually supposed to engage it until Clarisse's team finished off the red one. Call a retreat, actually don't, just run," he insisted as Jess was bashed into the side of a cabin by the blue automaton's shield, "If you don't, you'll die. Harvey! You're more important than them, run, and don't look back!"

Completely disregarding his ghost uncle's instructions as the automaton braced itself over Jess' body, raising its shield – blue and misting as the cryo-factor kicked in – above her like it was going to smash her into a pulp, Harvey charged out from the base of the tree at the droid's back.

"Incantare ignium."

Griffin's shouts filling his ears, Harvey launched himself at the automaton's arm as Ilingos burst into flames, the heat almost burning at his hands as he put enough telekinetic force behind the blade to tear it from his hands on the downswing. Sword biting into the ground as he landed, stumbling slightly as the sparking shield-arm almost squashed him, a wordless yell made him spin around and raise a hand pre-emptively.

Catching the automaton's sword-arm with his mind, the jagged tip less than a ruler's length away from his face, Harvey fought to push back the automaton towering over him, reaching behind him for Ilingos and pulling it from the ground. A muttered incantation and telekinetic swing later, the robot's other arm was lying in the dirt with the first.

As the automaton's head swivelled between its two missing limbs, he fell back a couple of steps and waited to see what would happen next. Were these robots even capable of independent thought? Would it think it was going to lose and run? Or would it fight him till its death with determination only a machine was capable of?

"Just KILL it already!" Jess growled weakly, breath coming in short pained bursts.

Decapitating the automaton without a second thought, Harvey just reached down to start dragging Jess over to where he could see the others gathering, leaving her to the tender care of Will and the other children of Apollo as he returned to the automaton's body.

Dropping his sword as he climbed onto the droid's chest, he concentrated and conjured just his knife. It'd only been a week since he'd started using Ilingos over this, not even long enough to break the habit of putting the ring on every morning, whether he remembered it was there or not. But as he drove the knife into the droid's shoulder joint, eying where the plates were welded to the droid's actual body, Harvey felt like it'd never left his hand as he telekinetically hacked off the armour. He was sure it could be used for something, maybe some kind of armour or fortification, and if it couldn't he wanted some kind of trophy from it.

The idea of bringing home a shipping container full of war trophies to present to Caleb was positively caveman, which was probably why it filled him with warmth.

"I have to say, I'm impressed you took it out on your own."

Clenching his jaw when he looked back to see Victor standing there, Harvey turned back and tore the rest of the chestplate off with a grunt. "Why? You've seen me fight."

"I've seen you lose," Victor argued, raising his eyebrow as he spun Ilingos in his hands, Harvey's eyes narrowing as they tracked it. "You haven't won yet."

"Give me my sword, Victor," he ordered, dropping off the automaton's body and holding his hand out expectantly.

His uncle blinked down at Ilingos like he hadn't even noticed he was holding it, lips curling up into a smirk before he shook his head. "No point," he denied, "He said I was allowed to kill you, I figure I might as well do it with the enchanted sword your Dad gave you."

Harvey had run before, much to his eternal embarrassment, when the automatons first broke through the barrier. He was proud to say that this time he didn't turn tail, but before Victor had finished speaking he'd lunged forward to drive his forehead into his uncle's nose. Fingers curling, Harvey jumped back as Ilingos leapt from Victor's hand to his own, falling into a lazy stance with it raised defensively.

"Mine."

And Caleb always said he preferred to resolve conflicts with his fists instead of his head.

Victor pulling what looked like a xiphos on steroids from his hip, Harvey glanced over at the other demigods on the other side of the small clearing, all of them looking too beaten from his botched attempt at helping to back him up.

"Words can't express how long I've been waiting for this moment," Victor monologued slowly.

"Five days," Harvey interrupted bluntly, "I've been here for five days."

"Sounds about right," his uncle agreed, "Five days since you showed up demanding to be treated like one of us. Five days since you started humiliating Ares cabin by acting like a total pansy. Five days since you started turning the others away from the cause."

Almost falling to Victor's sudden barrage of attacks, Harvey didn't hesitate to use telekinesis to block the attacks he couldn't, unable to find the chance to retaliate with his uncle's speed. Slowly – okay, not slowly, way too fast for his ego – being forced back across the clearing towards the other cabin as Victor just whaled away at him, he fought to stand long enough for someone to join him, occasionally trying to throw Victor into a tree telekinetically but unable to redirect his focus long enough.

A foot sinking into his stomach, winding him and slamming him into the cabin, Harvey lashed out mentally and sent Victor flying in return.

Forcing himself to his feet and slumping against the cabin wall, he glanced backwards and froze at the sight of a familiar scabbard lying on an equally familiar bed. Sliding open the window and gesturing at his currently unnamed kopis to slide it from its sheath, Harvey pushed off the wall and closed his eyes to try centre himself, fighting down the anger burning in his chest and imagining everything was slowing down.

Stepping forward to meet Victor's charge as he telekinetically pulled the shorter blade from his bed, he parried the first swing and interrupted the second with one of his own, his kopis cutting open Victor's face on the across slash and being dodged on the return.

Not giving Victor the chance to recover, Harvey moved in as he spun his swords in Griffin's favourite style, forcing his uncle back faster than he'd been forced back himself. 'Kind of like Aikido but not', in that he switched between normal grip and reverse grip to use Victor's momentum against him, without actively attacking. He'd gotten the hang of the defensive style quickly, but without centring himself like he had against the Fury (and like he did when things got too exciting with Caleb) he knew he wouldn't be able to do it as easily as he was now, too uncertain and slow when he wasn't in the zone.

"VIC - TOR!"

Both of them freezing as Clarisse's enraged roar echoed through the forest, Harvey used both swords to deflect one final strike and kicked his uncle straight in the groin, sending him reeling as steel-capped boots met steel-cupped nuts.

"You and me? We ain't done," Victor threatened with a glare, trying to look intimidating despite the arse-kicking he'd just received, sliding his sword back into its scabbard.

Raising his hand, pointing Ilingos straight at Victor as the other demigod turned and ran away, Harvey took a deep breath and braced himself for the backlash.

"Incantare vi ignis!"

The ball of fire that streaked down his sword engulfed Victor entirely, the equal and opposite reaction that knocked Harvey on his arse the only reason the resulting point-blank explosion didn't wipe him out as well. Ears ringing and eyes watering as he covered his head with his arms and prayed, he waited for the heat burning at his skin to fade before cautiously taking a peek, the crater in the middle of the clearing outside his cabin all that remained of his treacherous uncle.

AN / Do you have any idea how HARD it was to write this chapter? I've been in a noticeable lack of wars, I'm sure, and characters in books always tend to gloss over the "Oh my god I'm going to die" aspect and just straight into the war part of things.