Chapter 9: The Battle
Disclaimer: I do not own pretty much anything in this except Alice, Lila and...that's it. Enjoy!
Annabeth's POV:
I had lost plenty of siblings before. Going through 2 wars...well, not everyone can survive. But Alice…Alice was one of my few siblings that I sometimes forgot I was only half-related to. Losing her was really hard. It hurt like Hades.
Still, there was a battle to fight and a demon to kill. I had had my moment of weakness. I quickly put on my no-nonsense face. Annika was still clinging to Malcolm as I gave out orders to my brothers and sisters.
"Annika, I want you to stay behind," I said. I opened my mouth to continue, but she interrupted me.
"No." She glared at me defiantly. "I want to avenge Alice."
I quirked an eyebrow. "Alice killed herself, remember?"
"Because of Jason." We stared at each other for awhile, matching gray eyes sending matching Athena glares. I knew she would sneak away anyway, no matter what I said. So, I sighed and told her she could come. Her eyes brightened, but she kept her somber expression that didn't look even remotely right on a girl her age.
"The remaining Seven including me, Carter, Sadie and Zia will be the ones attacking Jason, Lyssa, and Lila," I said. Not one of my siblings were the same person that I had first met. I felt an all-too-familiar pang in my chest, but I ignored it. I briefly thought about Alice's instructions to Percy and I. Get married? Not that I didn't want to, I did, but was I ready? Was Percy? Besides, if I died in the battle, Alice wouldn't get her wish. I really wanted her to get her wish. I gritted my teeth. "The rest of you will be attacking Jason's army with the other cabins and magicians. Now, we have no clue what kind of forces Jason has amassed, so be prepared for anything." I took a deep breath. "And most importantly, try not to die. We already lost Alice and so many others due to the 2 wars this camp has suffered through, I don't want to lose anymore siblings." They nodded, and I dismissed them. They left the cabin in droves, all heading to training. The only ones left in the cabin were Annika and I.
I looked at her. "Don't let me down."
Her jaw was set, her stormy gray eyes swirling, her blond hair pulled into a ponytail, similar to the one I always donned. She looked like me when I was 12. "I won't Annie. I promise." She ran away as I started screaming about how I hate it when people call me Annie. I wasn't really mad though. Not in the slightest bit.
Zia's POV:
Jason's lair was just off the entrance of a bottomless pit, known by the Greeks and Romans as Tartarus. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping me going at that point. Without a boyfriend, I was lonely. But I still had my friends. Now, without Alice, I felt like a piece of my heart was missing, like it had gone up in flames with her beautiful gray silk burial shroud.
We were mostly silent as we marched through the Underworld. Spirits, Charon and the monstrous security guards let us pass, as they knew why. I noticed Carter and a few others looking around for Alice, but she was nowhere in sight. Some murmured about how she had probably been sent straight to Elysium because of her part in 2 wars. I silently hoped so. Alice deserved peace after all her years of fighting.
The cave was hidden, but Sadie used a spell to reveal it, and the thick layer of rock that hid the entrance even after the spell had been removed was blown to bits by the Hephaestus cabin. We stormed our way in. Those who were tasked with defeating the army rushed forward, swinging swords, casting spells, shouting battle cries and divine words. The rest of us continued forward, not yet engaging in battle.
Jason sat in a throne, and he looked more amused than anything. On his lap sat Leo's sister, Lila. There was no sight of Até, and we had passed Lyssa in battle.
Lila took one look at us and started laughing. "You look like fools! Did you come here to kill J?" Percy nodded, and she shrieked like a hyena, giggling and laughing like if she didn't the world would end. "Good luck with that! My J still has some tricks up his sleeve. And try not to batter him too much dolls, he's so much fun to play with." Leo scrunched up his nose, and I didn't blame him.
"Quiet Até," Jason hissed. Lila immediately quieted. Oh. So Até took over Lila's body…like a host.
Then, Até got this funny look on her face. "That's not-" The look was replaced by panic, which was replaced by a mask of indifference. "I mean, yes J. Sorry." She scrambled off his lap and perched herself on the arm on his throne. He stood, his red eyes glaring daggers at us.
"You will not win today," he said. "You will lose. Even if my army falls, I will not."
"Yes, you will," I growled, surprising my group. "You will die because the world is made of good and evil, and I have lived on this planet long enough to know that good triumphs over evil, and that villains never get the happy endings unless they're mildly attractive men who're missing a hand!"
Jason raised a nonexistent eyebrow. "What?"
I rolled my eyes and set my arms on fire. Leo followed my lead as Percy withdrew Riptide, Annabeth pulled out her dagger, and the others retrieved their weapons as well. Frank changed into a giant dragon. I was suddenly very glad Frank was on our side and not theirs.
Até just smirked. "It will be fun watching you die."
Leo turned to her, his brown eyes filled with rage. For a moment, I thought he was gonna hulk out. He yelled at Até, "GET OUT OF MY SISTER'S BODY!" and for some strange reason I found that to be super hot. I wanted so badly to run over to the idiot and make out with him, but we had a battle to fight. Leo attacked Atè with Sadie while the rest of us tackled Jason. Quite literally, Percy tackled Jason.
Jason threw Percy off and the son of Poseidon landed a few feet away, looking relatively unharmed. I threw fireballs at Jason, which appeared to not hurt him, making me utterly useless.
I took a page and Sadie's book and muttered, "Bloody fantastic." Annabeth shot me a look and I understood. I could be of no help. At least, not here. I saw a hellhound preparing to pounce on Annika and I burnt it to a crisp. She stared at me for a moment, awestruck.
"That was so bad-ass!" she squealed. We launched into battle, back to back. I was protecting her, for Alice. I killed monster after monster. Truth be told, it wasn't much of an army. The monsters were easy kills, and there weren't a lot of them. Still, some had died, including Cleo and the Apollo girl Safira, as well as Harry Harp the spy, and a few other magicians, like Claire and Lydia. Something wasn't right. This was still too easy. I glanced at Percy, who was slashing at Jason while Annabeth jabbed at him. Hazel was tending to an injured Frank, who had a black spot forming over his heart. What? How?
"Zia, watch out!" Annika's voice broke me out of my reverie and I ducked instinctively. The demon's axe sliced through the air. Hadn't it been for Annika, it would have decapitated me. I gulped and returned to battle, all the while thinking about how Alice would have done the same.
Percy's POV:
Were we winning? Were we losing? I had no idea. All I knew was that Jason was going to die.
I slashed and stabbed and parried and cut and yet we were getting nowhere. Jason had snapped and the black spot had started forming over Frank's heart, like he was rotting. There was no water for me to manipulate. Beads of sweat dripped down my face. Wait. Sweat was liquid, right? It was water, right?
I focused on the sweat that covered everyone and started to, as Sadie had once put it, bend it. The sweat lifted off my allies' bodies and gathered in front of me. There was a lot of sweat. It was kinda gross, but it was also my only water source, so I decided to use it to make a storm. The sweat swirled around me, slow at first, then faster. My feet left the ground and I decided the best course of action would to be to send all the sweat crashing at Jason like a wave. So I did. He was thrown back and sent crashing into his throne.
"Leo, you don't have to do this," pleaded Até. "Please, it's me, Lila." But she didn't sound like Lila. So, I watched, transfixed, as Leo raised a sword he had stolen from a fallen demigod and plunged it into his sister's stomach.
"You're not Lila," Leo growled. "At least, not anymore." Jason rose from the remains of his throne. Pieces of wood protruded from his body at different angles, making him look like a porcupine. Leo and Sadie, both grimy but no longer covered in sweat (thanks to little ol' me), joined us. Carter, who had been injured early in the fight, stood up on shaky legs and stood slightly behind me.
"Alice is dead," I announced. Jason looked shocked, his red eyes wide. "She killed herself so you could not kill her and steal her power. Because of you, she's dead." I snapped my head to the side, looking at Zia. "NOW!"
Zia shouted, "Tas!" and The Seven Ribbons of Hathor came swirling out of her bag. They entangled Jason, leaving him standing still and gasping for breath.
Jason gave a crooked smile. "I guess Zia dear was right. I was destined to lose."
Piper shook her head in disappointment, tears spilling from her kaleidoscope eyes. "What happened to you Jason? Why?"
Jason laughed a hollow laugh that hurt my soul. "After Zeus let my mother, she went crazy. When he came back as Jupiter and then left again...my mother drank a lot during my pregnancy Pipes. That combined with the crazy she already had controlling her brain...well, I was never quite destined to have a happy life." He narrowed his eyes down to slits. "But at least that bitch Alice is dead. The pathetic sl-" He was cut off by the whoosh of an axe swinging through the air. His head tilted before tumbling off his body, and it was only then that the demigod and magicians alike realized who had killed him.
Calypso Hime smirked as she pushed a lock of blood red bang into her black hair, revealing another haunting gold eye. "Oops. My bad."
Madeline: I had a lot of trouble deciding who would kill Jason. I thought about maybe Annika, then decided she was too young. Then, I was thinking about making it Leo and having him say something like, "And to think, I was friends with this asshole." I decided on Calypso simply because the person that submitted her stated. 'She gets sudden crazy urges to hurt things/people that harm her,' so I thought it might also apply to people who hurt her friends.
Aria: I think Annika, Calypso and I are the only OCs who survived this chapter.
Madeline: There's Roy McEllen and Walt...but nah, they're dead too.
Roy/OC-Walt: *pouts* Aww.
Calypso Hime: Next chapter is the last chapter of Book 2: What a Mess We've Made. There will not be another book in this series necessarily, but there will be more stories in the Other Gods universe, like one-shots about Carter visiting Alice in Elysium or whatnot.
Zia: Please review! Madeline wants to see if we can reach 20 reviews by midnight.
Leo: Follow, favorite, and recommend this to a friend.
Madeline: Bye!
~Madeline, Aria, Roy, OC-Walt, Calypso Hime, Zia and Leo
