Gabriel: One of the greatest sacrifices I ever witnessed in my life and my final battle with Hyperion
Brian managed to stop Allie from continuing her attack and I watched as they talked for a little bit. Then Allie turned around and headed to supposedly attack Saturn but that's what was interesting. We got closer and realized that Allie was trying to taunt Saturn into killing her. "Kill me father, I betrayed your children to their deaths and I deserve to die for it!" she yelled.
"Allie, I told you to deal with those fools back there and you better do it! Now before I get mad and decide to vaporize you!" Hyperion ordered. "Enough of this nonsense, I will destroy Hyperion because you fail to heed the curse that only the sacrifice of one of my children will destroy me!" Saturn shouted before lunging for Hyperion yet again. Allie got in the way once more and held her own against her father to the growing frustration of her master. "What are you doing, young fool?" Saturn asked.
"Trying to get you to kill me as punishment for my betrayal!" Allie answered. Saturn pushed her out of the way and said that he would not kill her but would proceed to destroy Hyperion. Then I held my breath as time seemed to slow down and Saturn lunged for a surprised Hyperion. Surprised at the fact that Allie was so ready to lay down her life for him or anyone else and curious if it was the latter.
Brian, Annabeth, and I came racing down the hill to see if we could somehow save Hyperion but Allie took care of that for us. We stopped as we saw her jump in front of Saturn's sword and take the blow for her master. Blood splashed all over Saturn's face, sword, and hand if it didn't stain a little of Hyperion's breastplate. Hyperion show no remorse as he sheathed the swords and walked away, having failed to destroy Saturn himself and knowing these was nothing that could be done to stop the curse now.
But I was determined to stop him and used the power of the Sky Sword to electrocute him enough to get his attention. "You still have your little grudge with me, remember? You can still walk away with a victory if you have the guts to avenge your defeat last time," I taunted. Then I told Annabeth and Brian to leave me to deal with Hyperion alone so that it was fair on the good Titan of light.
"I have never forgotten what you did to me and I have never forgotten my vow to destroy you! After that, I will have to discipline the naughty little wench that used to be my beautiful Eos myself," Hyperion replied. "How has she been naughty when she has expressed love for me even before we fought each other in that first battle? Besides, as far as I can tell, you weren't the one who stood by her side when her heart had been broken by your betrayal," I asked.
"You will die for that insolent remark!" Hyperion shouted before charging at me with both swords facing me. The swords were slashing at me before long in the same direction but I was able to deflect it all with the Sky Sword. While Hyperion and I fought, it started to rain all around us and I knew I had an advantage over Hyperion here. If he tried to use his light against me, I could count on lightning being directed by the Sky Sword to strike him where his powers would be useless: his eyes.
"You know Hyperion, remember last time how I defeated you by stabbing you in the ass with one of my knives? Do you still have the scar?" I asked. It was just meant to taunt him and get him to where I had a position of advantage over him. "If you're trying to say that I am every bit as weak as I was the day you did that then you are sorely mistaken," he told me.
I smiled in my mind and I knew that he was taking the bait of my trick. "Oh so how are you going to prove that you much stronger than you were that day?" I asked. I knew that that would be more than enough to get him going and here's the reason I said his eyes were the source of his power. Whenever he hah the bright light come out, it had always the eyes always glowed bright even if he rose his hand and the light emitted from his hand instead.
I was willing to gamble that there was a connection between Hyperion and the light itself that could only be cut if I blinded him. "Feel the awesome power of the light itself!" he yelled. I shielded my eyes with my arm and just knew that the light would be too bright to aim clearly so I telepathically told the powers of the skies to aim a lightning bolt at his eyes. To my surprise, it worked because a few seconds later saw Hyperion cry out in pain and the turn off the light so I could face him.
"I may no longer be connected to my power as the god of light but I am still a god and therefore, still a formidable match," Hyperion warned. "Better that you fight me with no power over the light than otherwise. Besides, Helios was always one who appreciated a fair fight between two or more opponents," I told him. Despite having been hit in the eyes with lightning, he fought as though he could still see and I didn't doubt he could.
We fought over the edge of a cliff and kept out fight their just slashing and hacking at each other in spite of that normally requiring movement. Hyperion and I exchanged no words as we fought over the cliff and saw that down below had been a plant where steel had been produced and a pool of molten steel lay down there for whoever fell in. That immediately gave me an idea that I knew was going to work if Hyperion was willing to follow with the rhythm of the duel. I rose my sword over my head to slice him in two and gripped it very loosely so that my idea could begin taking root.
Hyperion followed my movement and used a scissor-like movement with his blades to knock the Sky Sword out of my hands. I smiled outward and inward but he didn't notice the external smile because he was wheeling around to hack me down the same way with both blades. In my head, I was telling Eos to forgive me for the death of her father and waited a little bit for a reply. Gabriel, I no longer have love for Hyperion; he is not my father anymore so feel free to destroy him she replied to me.
Something about the way she said it bothered me but I didn't ask her what was up. Then I snapped Hyperion's wrist and pushed him down onto his hindquarters, which landed just on the edge of the cliff. Surprised, he did nothing except raise his remaining sword to his defense as I raised the one I stole and brought it down with enough force to break the rock at Hyperion's feet and send him falling into the pool of molten metal. When I knew he was not doing anything to escape from his fate, I threw the sword I had stolen aside and it clanged before falling into the pit with its original owner.
I recovered the Sky Sword just in time to see the essence of Hyperion scattered to the four winds in a destructive fashion and went to check on Brian. When I saw him again, he was holding the dying Allie in his remaining arm and she was coughing on her own blood. Saturn moped in the background about having cut down his own daughter although she had gotten in his way and did nothing to escape what was to happen next. Allie's head bent back after a while and far enough to where I knew she was dead but that was not the end for her just yet.
A blue light began to glow and I realized that her power and what would have been her life force were joining together in one great power. I told Annabeth to stand back as this was probably going to get ugly before long but instead, something better happened. Her power formed a laser beam that cut into Saturn's heart, exposing his essence to anything that could destroy it… or absorb it. "I sacrifice my mark in exchange for a new arm designed only to contain within my body the essence of Saturn himself!" Brian shouted.
His mark on the palm of his right hand glowed brighter than it had ever done before and I watched as the golden orbs of Saturn's essence flew toward the mark and vanishing as soon as they touched it. In no time, Brian was absorbing the power of Saturn at a rate I had never seen him absorb any power before this day. "I think that things might actually start improving from here on out," I said. And things were indeed looking better than I originally thought they would be considering that I had finally destroyed Hyperion once and for all, seen Allie lay down her life to see what Brian was presently doing, and saving what remained of Saturn's Land.
When Brian was nearing the finish of absorbing the very essence of Saturn into himself, Saturn's body began to age and rot faster than any other body I had seen before. Oceanus' body did not start decomposing nearly as fast nor turned to bleach-white bones in practically the blink of an eye. A bright light came over us but not like Hyperion's where it was impossible to see anything with or without sunglasses but if hurt our eyes all the same. After the light passed over us, I saw Brian's hand and noticed that the mark was gone and I asked if he was fine.
"Actually I've never felt better in my entire life for some bizarre reason," he said. But that was before I saw him grimace in pain and place his hand over the stump that used to be his left arm. After that he was making every effort not scream in pain and I told him to lie down while the transfer happened. However, that did nothing to relieve the pain he was going through as his stump opened up and the missing bone started to grow out of it.
Annabeth planted her face deep into my shoulder and tried her best to cover her ears from the screams of pain that came out when his efforts to hold them in failed. It was almost unbearable to watch my friend go through this and I wondered why he even chose to go through with it. The bone finished regenerating but that did nothing to even numb the pain that Brian was going through in this process of using his new arm to contain Saturn's essence. I did the best I could to calm him down while Annabeth just simply covered her ears and tried her best not to hear the screams.
It gave somewhat of a reprieve when the blood was coming over the bone but picked up again when veins and nerves were growing on his arm and hand. That was the quickest part and the only things that were nearly as quick was the rebirth of the muscle and cartilage in his arm. It finally ended when skin came over but it was black and red with fingernails that were replaced by black claws. I looked at the finished project just before a blast of purple light solidified that this was the real deal and not just some fake the gods could take away at any time.
For a few moments, Brian could think of nothing but the pain even when I recognized that it had long since passed. But when he didn't he was changed forevermore by it's existence on his body.