~ Chapter 25 ~

3rd person pov

Somewhere in outer Space

Snow was falling. Slowly, graceful and mysterious. The frozen water painted the dark red ground in a white, glowing cold color. The blood under the snow was freezing. Bodies and limbs were tainted with a thin layer of ice. The night radiated an eery silence.

The disgusting smell of blood, of death stood still in the air but started to dissolve slowly.

A cloaked figure, dressed in black was walking over the battleground. A sadistic grin was spread over his face. A call of bloodlust was dancing in the strangers red eyes. Oh, these eyes. They were the worst. It wasn´t the fact that the man was bathed in blood or that his skin was even whiter than the falling snow.

The most gruesome thing was the evil, dark glint in these cold eyes. People say that the eyes are a door to someone´s soul. If this was the truth, then this being was soulless. These eyes were deeper than the depths of Tartarus; even more dark and evil than the prisons in the void. And even more cold than the snow that was falling to the ground.

As if on command the person stopped walking. He stood as still as an ice block, making no move, taking no breath. Then the laughing started. The laughing wasn´t joyful to say the least. It was full of malice and darkness. Then the person began to talk. A deep, raspy voice echoed through the air.

"So, you finally started to admit to your fate." The mysterious man said. A second cloaked person walked onto what was once a battle field. He too, radiated an aura of power. But there was also nervousness.

"You can´t win this war, Order. You may have fought hard, wasted many innocent lives in the process but now this must come to an end. And now Order, now you will pay the prize for your wrongdoings." The second person said, shaking slightly. But not out of fear like some might think. Oh no, not fear; the voice was only filled with anger.

"You stand no chance against me, Perseus. I am the second being, even more powerful than my little, weak brother, Chaos. Do you really think that you can stop me?

You are nothing more than a puppet to my brother and his family. Did you really think that he raised you out of the goodness of his heart? That he loved you like a father loves his child? If so, you are nothing more than a petty, naïve child with daddy issues."

The second person stopped walking, frozen in his spot. Shivers ran down the other man's body, his blood running cold.

"That´s not true. He was my friend, a father in anything but blood. I know that you are lying and-"

"YOU KNOW NOTHING, you idiot! Do you really believe his lies? You were nothing more than a weapon to him. Long before you were born, there was a prophecy. It was spoken by the very first being, the universe itself. It told of two beings, my brother and me. And it told of a war, a war greater than all other wars to be fought. One, were all life could be destroyed. And only one person could decide the end of this war. And I am very certain that you can guess who this being is, can´t you?" The evil voice sounded nearly sad and pitiful, but if you heard closer you would notice the well hidden smugness behind these words.

Perseus was frozen in shock.

Could it be true? Was my whole life nothing more than a lie? A game to decide a war? Was all the love I got only a mere trick to win me for his side? Was my fate nothing more than to be a weapon?

"You are lying! That´s not the truth!" The "young" man said, is voice cracking slightly. The raspy voice of the older Primordial was soon to respond.

"You don´t even believe yourself. You don´t know what to think now, child. You are naught but weak, nothing but a mere child that lost his mother at a young age-"

"Shut up! You know nothing of my mother. Don´t drag her in this. I have enough of your ways, Order. You will pay, and you will do this NOW!" With this the Primordial of Shrewdness ran at Order, deciding to meet his fate today. It was time to look death in the eye; it was time to end this war.

But little did he know that this was only the beginning.

Nico pov

I carried the now unconscious goddess to the infirmary. She fought hard, trying to help everywhere. But there was only so much she could do. In the end she was stabbed near the heart by a mere empousa. I needed to hurry though. Even if she was an immortal that didn´t mean that she couldn´t go to Tartarus. And from my own experience I knew that this wasn´t a place where you would want to have your holidays at.

I was running over the battle field now. We barely could hold our own, but with the help of Nyx´s army, that arrived shortly after the Hunters came, we were able to make it. When Hestia then arrived she too, fought very hard. It was strange to see the usually peaceful goddess in battle armor, fighting three or four enemies at a time.

After what seemed like hours I finally arrived at the infirmary. It was really full. Many campers, Satyrs, Naiads and Dryads fought in the battle, so we had many wounded. As long as I could tell only few died. But even then, it was sad to see that much misery. Akhlys surely was having a great day…

In one of the rooms I found an empty bed. I was glad that I didn´t have to lay her down on one of these beds with other people in the room. I mean, the male population of Camp Half Blood surely would be very glad to keep their best parts… Anyway, I carefully placed her there, slowly lowering her to the bed. I then went to the medical instruments that were lying in the closet. There I took a bandage, scissors and a needle with yarn.

I then carefully (what is it with me and being cautious today?) when I was sure that she wouldn´t wake up, continued with my work.

I grabbed the spear that was still sticking out of her breast, and removed it slowly. I could hear her soft whimper and the sound of flesh being cut, but that didn´t stop me. After the spear was fully removed, I went to grab the bandage and some water. I first cleared the wound, checking in the process that nothing of the spear was still in her body. I then began to stich the wound. It was deep and wouldn't heal on its own. There was a lot of blood, but the bleeding had finally stopped. After admiring my work, I bandaged her upper body. I knew that it was stupid to not let this be taken care of by a female, but I had the strange urge to take care of her.

After finishing my work, I grabbed a chair beside her bed and sat myself there. I sure as heck was not going to leave her side. I don´t know why or how, but I had found a strange liking for the moon goddess. I once saw her hunting a horde of monsters, hellhounds to be precise; and after seeing her legendary skill with a bow with my own eyes, I couldn´t help but admiring her. This then went to me checking on her now and then. This happened more over time and I began to see myself as her guardian, wanted to be there for her when she needed me the most. I know that I was being a total creeper, but I wanted to know her save. And I had also admitted to myself that I may have a tiny, little crush on the child of Zeus…

I just hoped that my strange love life wouldn´t get me more problems than I already had, but I had the feeling that the fates were not asking for my opinion…

Hestia pov

After talking to Nyx I flashed to Camp Half Blood. There the battle had already started. Shortly after I started to run to the field, the ground before me opened and out stepped dozens of dark creatures, made of shadows, bones and some had even fur. When these charged at the enemy, I decided to fight hard as well. I am normally not someone for violence, but that didn´t mean that I couldn´t fight at all. Also, my boyfriend (This still sounded so strange to me) had given me at least some lessons of fighting.

I summoned a pair of beautiful, red and white daggers. They felt perfectly balanced in my hands. I felt the sudden urge to fight and did exactly that. I charged at the first monster, an Empousa that was slithering towards me. She had a spear in her hands. She tried stabbing me with it, but I ducked and sliced at her tail. Sadly, she suspected that and took a step back (well, as much as you can step with a snake tail…) She tried hitting me again, this time aiming for my head. I side stepped barely, but I could see some of my hair falling to the ground. She nearly got me there. I needed to be even more careful…

She cackled evilly and tried the same move again, but this time I was prepared for this. I ducked and rolled to the side. I sliced at her stomach and this time hit her fully. There was a deep gash in her stomach now. She looked down, shocked for a second, then back to me again. After crying out in pain and anger she dissolved to golden dust.

Sadly, I had no time to think over what I had just done. There were still so many enemies to be fought. I threw myself into battle, killing monster after monster. It felt like I was on autopilot. I just slashed, stabbed and sliced at every beast that even tried to get near me. Sometimes, I even fought more than just one of these creatures at the time. Luckily, I got no more damage on me, than I already had. That is, until I saw them.

There were another three monsters charging at me. It was nothing different at first. I had fought other opponents only a few seconds ago. But after I saw that they hesitated, I knew that there was something off. I also slowly noticed that I was getting tired. I had used so much power and fought hard, sometimes even frying my enemies with fire, but I had no chance if I were to continue like this. I was just plain right exhausted.

I needed to make some plans, and I needed to do this FAST. The first monster, one of these strange shadow-creatures lunged at me, sharp teeth trying to bite me. I barely side stepped, but as I did so, the hellhound lunged as well. Only out of instinct I raised my blade, so that the monster impaled itself with it. One down, two to go.

The third monster, another Empousa looked at me hungrily, bloodlust in her eyes. I was about to lunge at her when the shadow thingy crashed into me. It threw me to the ground and a sudden, sharp pain erupted in my shoulder. I closed my eyes, the pain was unbearable. Out of shock I stabbed with all my might at the creature. As I hit it, it too dissolved, but not into gold dust. It just dissolved into thin air. I was about to celebrate my victory when I reminded myself of the hellhound that was slowly walking to me.

I knew that I needed to get up, even if I was slowly getting dizzy from the pain in my shoulder. Otherwise I would die here today. And like you should be able to imagine, I really didn´t want that to happen. So I slowly stood up, not taking my eyes of the red ones the beast possessed. After managing to stand barely on my feed, the confused monster charged. I had no time to react and was thrown back by the sheer force the monster possessed. I crashed into the pine tree on top of the hill, my vision slowly growing darker. There was another sharp pain in my spine. I heard something crack and then there was a pain like none that I felt before. I could hear myself letting loose an ear splintering scream. The beast seemed satisfied with its work. It jumped at me, trying to land the killing blow, but with the last of my strength, I raised my blade, impaling it between the eyes. The monster fell to the ground, dead. I was so relieved that it was over.

At least I thought so until someone coughed beside me. I looked up, surprised at another person´s appearance. I looked into a face that was none. It held no nose, no eyes, not even a mouth. There was just a swirling mess of darkness and shadows. Only looking at these figure´s features made me want to crawl myself into a ball and hide for the rest of eternity.

The Primordial of the pit, Tartarus itself, had arrived it seemed…

"Hestia, what a wonderful day it is, do you not think? And to make it perfect, I will bring you to someone who wants to meet you. I am sure that HE will be pleased to know that you are under our care now. My lord will be more than happy to know, that the last piece of the puzzle is now found. Oh, you will be a fine way to get our dear pawn to do, what we want."

He bowed down to me, his ice cold fingers slowly touching my cheek. If I still had the strength, I would´ve pulled away, maybe even vomited. But I could feel my consciousness fading away. I tried fighting the sleep, it didn´t feel right. The sleep I was falling into felt so… cold, so surreal and forced.

"Mmm, you have a very strong mind, I give you that. But this is not going to stop us. Sleep!" And after still trying to fight, I could feel myself losing the control of my body. The cold was spreading itself all over me, sending shivers through my body. Tartarus had the full power over me, he would get his will.

And there was nothing I could do.

For the hope inside me, seemed lost.