Hey readers! Why is no one reading chapter twelve? Anyhoo…
No I don't own PJO or any of its characters. This chapter is for my loyal readers, who've been reading all along, and the guy who read chapter 12 (you rock bud! Virtual hug!) This chapter is a bit dark at parts; please don't kill me for where I leave it! So I encourage you to read on, and please, if you like it or hate it review, it'll mean a lot to me, I've wanted to be an author for so long now, telling me my mistakes would be great.
Chapter 14: Life and Death Situations
I whipped around. A strong man clad in iron armour, with intense brown eyes staring through his helmet. His sword was read for battle, in his wrist and looking deadly sharp. He had a look in his eyes that said "I'm going to destroy you."
Atlanta glared at the man.
"Father," she spat.
"You're not worthy to call me that," he responded his voice as cold as ice, "Lord Malagius would be a much more suiting name for your low self to be calling me; at least General Malagius would be good enough."
"Atlanta," I whispered, "Let's take him. Two on one now before he puts his trap in motion." I twisted my hands around my sword's hilt. At Camp Half-Blood, that was the normal signal for "attack now", here it wasn't.
I darted forwards and swung my sword at Malagius's wrist, taking off some skin and sending his sword clattering against the ground. I pushed him to the ground as he yelled pathetic last words, like "outrageous" and "fool" and a curse to Ares. I raised my sword over his head.
"Wait," Atlanta ordered. I stopped mid-swing staring down at a terrified Malagius.
"You knew my mother was Artemis, didn't you?" Atlanta said, "You knew. You knew! You'd made the maiden goddess fall for you; she'd given you her love. You accomplished something no other man could, but the reminder that looms over your shoulder, you've tortured, you've hated, you've tossed aside like they're nothing! Why?" Atlanta yelled, clearly very upset. "Why!"
"Atlanta," Malagius stammered, "I'd explain if your friend removed his sword from my neck."
"The only good you've given me is a name! That sword is not moving from your neck, not until you confess you knew."
"I knew!" Malagius decided, I didn't move my sword.
"Why did you treat me like a slave?" Atlanta demanded.
"I-I never did that!"
"You only tortured me until I was half insane! What made me such a burden to you?"
"Your mother requested I hurt you, you were a reminder to her breaking her oath."
"Since when do you listen to the gods? Since when do you care what others want? If Artemis said that I would've Bern royalty to you! Yet my brother is, and I'm the piece of rubbish you tossed aside!"
"Where is your brother?" Malagius asked.
"Rotting," I said, "Or experiencing a first-class tour of a telekhine's digestive system."
"Outrageous!" Malagius stormed, "You demigods think you're invincible!" (I thought quite the opposite) "You think you can do whatever you want because your parents are immortal!"
"Shut up Dad!" Atlanta ordered, "You don't know half of how hard my life is!" Malagius changed tactics - he didn't shut up, but he quietened. He started whispering words in a language that was probably ancient to Ancient Greeks. Atlanta gasped.
"NICO KILL HIM NOW!" Atlanta screamed. I swung my sword over his neck, which was my fatal mistake. My Stygian iron blade passed through his flesh harmlessly, "like cutting water" Zane had said. The ground started shaking, shaking and rising. I fell to the moving ground as it started tearing itself apart. My sword slipped from my grasp. Malagius ended his chant and Atlanta was firing arrows at him, but on the pulsing ground a good shot was impossible.
I pushed myself up to my knees. One question was going through my mind, "What the Hades is happening?" Then the earth shattered. It fell apart, leaving Atlanta, Malagius and me falling to whatever was waiting for us below. The noon sun shone down on us and revealed the mosaic floor beneath the place the Stadium's floor used to be.
My heart sped up within the instant. I was going to be reduced to a pulp, three thousand years before I'm even born. I found myself screaming and not even feeling embarrassed. To sum up - I was freaked out.
The only thought that comforted me was that Malagius was going to die as well. Atlanta was frantically screaming, her arms outstretched trying to slow her fall. My heart throbbed. It would've been nice to spend a day with her, a normal day, not one full of war and fights and prisons; just a day to get to know her that was one thing I would've loved.
As thoughts, regrets, dreams and memories flashed through my mind and heart, my body continued its fall to the unforgiving ground. Could Dad judge my life if I lived in the future? I wondered.
Something, heavy, cold, hard and painful smashed into my face, sending me head over heels and flying horizontally. I yelled with pain and surprise. Something slammed into my torso next and closed around me. I breathed. I was alive! I peered down at the thing closed around me. A giant metallic hand. I had been saved by a giant hand from nowhere. Then it dawned on me that it wasn't from nowhere. I saw a huge bronze arm connected to a huge body about a hundred meters away from me.
I heard another metal thud and Atlanta scream loudly. I was reasonably worried for her life until I heard, "Let go of me freakazoid giant!" The freakazoid didn't take that as a compliment. There was loud metallic creaking as the giant's lips moved.
"Silence demigod!" It ordered, "Or you will experience another round of torture!" Its voice was very robotic, every word detached, every syllable pronounced with careless exactness and the funny computerized voice.
I heard Malagius being drawn out of his fall. Whose side was the thing on? The giant bent down with its hand still gripping me tightly. Atlanta was trying everything she could to get out of its opposite hand. Then it reached forward, and I discovered it had not two, but four giant metal arms.
It held Malagius in one of its open palms, allowing Malagius to walk around freely. The giant gently placed Malagius on the ground and bowed.
"Good work," Malagius told the giant cheerily, "Now you leave these two to me and my men and you can destroy the Greeks. Show them no mercy; make sure a certain brother of mine is killed. Don't drop your two captives until I give my word." Those words made giant crush my ribs more, seriously, you ever felt like your ribs are moving because of something other than breathing? Not. Fun.
Malagius darted away for an instant.
"What is this thing?" I asked Atlanta, even though she probably had less of an idea than me.
"I don't know!" she answered, flaying her legs around in the air wildly. I looked down at my sword on the mosaic floor below. The mosaic pattern around my sword was quite intriguing. It seemed to be a portrait of someone I swear I'd seen before. A boy no older than me, with oily sandy hair that clung to his face, a threatening look on his face, a flat strong javelin and golden eyes. Any closer to the mosaic and it would've been a blur of colours.
"Nico," Atlanta started, her voice wavering a little bit, "Is it just me or does the mosaic look like-like, like Zane?" I looked at it again through squinted eyes. I had to put my eyes out of focus to realise, it did look like Zane.
"What the Hades?" I muttered under my breath. A small fleet of heavily armed, athletic looking guys chose this moment to jump down from the original floor onto the mosaic ground. Each one before landing stabbed a knife into the wall to stop their fall and drop the remainder. Malagius emerged last. He face beamed with evil joy and the mutilated, burned, bloodied body of the Greek son of Ares over his arm. That was about the time I realised that the other guys weren't, human. Their bodies were metallic bronze so that it looked tan in the sun, their joints imitated human ones, but were visible of the outside and they radiated no form of life.
"Automatons," I muttered. Atlanta cursed quietly as they circled us. I tried to wriggle out of the giant's grasp and that's when I figured that the giant was also an automaton. I looked back at Malagius who was now cackling loudly at the look of terror on mine and Atlanta's faces. Malagius dropped the son of Ares on the ground in front of us.
"You think you are invincible!" Malagius called as he landed, (I've already said I don't agree) "This is what my automatons are trained to do. Kill and destroy demigods. I will frame your heart on my wall Atlanta."
"That's sick!" Atlanta yelled, "You disgust us! At least I'll die with a clear conscience!"
"Your last words are highly amusing Atlanta," Malagius said, "You will die-"
"Can we just shut up and kill each other?" I asked, really sick of the stupid argument they were having. I didn't want to quicken my death, but I didn't want to prolong the pain before it.
"That would be nice," Atlanta agreed. Malagius opened his mouth to respond, but thought better of it and shut up.
"Thank you," I muttered, "Now could you ask your robot friend to drop us..."
"Drop them and destroy the Greeks," Malagius ordered. The hand around me loosened and I hit the ground heavily landing on my back.
I rubbed my head as I sat up. Fortunately for me, the automatons had made no aggressive form of movement. They had armour screwed onto them, and their swords were attached to their right arms, leaving me one goal; left. Atlanta landed next to me on her back also. Unlike me, she struggled to sit up in her armour. Our giant automaton friend ploughed its way through the stadium clearing an extra large entrance. I heard him bulldoze half the city to rubble along his way. And I thought the Greeks were the ones who destroyed Troy.
I slid my hand over my sword and gripped it tightly. It was my only hope of life, I knew that much. I could handle Malagius no problems, but twenty or so automatons at once? Yeah about when Kronos figures out he's never going to win (never). I held my lifeline as Atlanta stood up. I jumped up and thrust my sword into the left side of an automaton. It was metal. Metal doesn't chop metal all that easily.
The automaton kicked my shins, his metal foot sending cold pain through my leg. I knew I was only too doomed. Luckily Atlanta was still burning with hope, her face screwed into a look of determination, her brown eyes...
Snapoutofit! I told myself, she'sthreethousandyearsold!Justnotgoingtoworkbud.
"You can't kill me father!" Atlanta said, "I'm a reminder of what you achieved that no other man could. Just what did you do to make her love you?" That was something I would've wanted to know.
"Never you mind!" Malagius scolded, "My men, destroy these-"
"Wait!" Atlanta interrupted.
"Just kill the-"
"Father," Atlanta butted in again, clearly trying to come up with a way to get us out of this situation.
"KILL THE DEMIGODS!" Malagius screamed quickly, I would've enjoyed watching a grown man throw a fit like that in any other situation, but under the circumstances, I didn't have time to laugh.
I ducked under the first blade that came on me. Ten automatons had singled me out. I kicked one that ran at me and hurt my knee in the process. I limped out of the way of another, pushed two away with one swipe. It was a one sided battle. I was too preoccupied with defence to have any time to even contemplate how to destroy them! I had never really ever been angrier than I was then. Constantly spinning and twirling, swinging my sword around like I was dancing. Anger egged me on. Sweat drenched my face, my arms felt heavy, my legs felt like lead and my shoulder and to top in all off, I was missing my sore shoulder's plate of armour, and it didn't take the automatons too long to figure out it was my weakest point.
Half of the band of automatons targeted my right. I lashed out at them, but all it took was a scratch from a blade to take away the effect of the ambrosia on my arm. I hollered and staggered forwards. If automatons could laugh, these one were. Their mouths opened and closed repeatedly and silently. A spear came down on my shoulder a second time. I screamed in agony and continued moaning. I closed my eyes and held my breath. I put the little energy I had into turning my head away from my attackers. Pain pumped through my body. I could feel my own blood spread over the cool tiled floor, it warmed my face, but made the rest of me squirm with disgust.
Atlanta let out a cry of pure agony. I tried to get up and help her, but another spear was planted dangerously close to my heart. I can't describe the intense, white-hot, agonizing pain that spread over me, that hit me like someone throwing a brick at your face, only a thousand times heavier and torturous. I didn't have time or energy to scream. I managed a muffled exhalation, but could barely breathe afterwards. I could feel air in places I shouldn't have been able to, it stung worse than Hades. As my blood squeezed through my lungs they began to seize up, trying desperately to breathe. My mind became foggy, my head felt dizzy. I shivered under the pain. My warm blood rose into my mouth. I would've coughed and sputtered, but there was no air in my lungs to use.
It was over. I was done, finished forever. Turns out my fatal flaw was being unable to survive a punctured lung. I was doomed. Even Atlanta's tortured cries weren't enough to animate me. As time began seeming static and my life started fading, I could feel my very thought weakening. I could sense the automatons looming above me, but they didn't matter.
It was fate. We're all going to pass at a time. The time reserved for us, no one else's, ours. Life ends, as does most things, but if we choose we can welcome death graciously when the time is ours, or we can wallow in regrets and remember the last miserable moments forever. Fate is fate. Destiny is destiny. Mine had come, but I was at peace. I had achieved much in my life. I'd saved Olympus by bringing my father and his armies to come and reinforce our side in the war; I'd fought giants and helped stop Gaia from reigning over the earth. If I was to die there, it was so. It was meant to be that way. I'd done my service in life, I'd completed my designated mission, and I was at peace.
Numbness swept over me. My soul resided in peace. As blood spilled freely from my numb self I did nothing to hide from the face of death. I put all my energies in an attempted smile at no one before my destiny was done.