Epilogue
Camp Half-Blood, August 5th, 2010
"We're certain they're gone?" Jason asked. The Stoll brothers nodded at him.
"We went to the Empire State Building." Travis told him. "Which was hard enough as it was, because there were cops everywhere trying to fight of the monsters, who have decided that with the Mist gone, mortals are open season. There's thousands of them in the city alone, if we ignore the rest of the state."
"Not that the mortals are doing much." Connor continued. "They don't have anything capable harming monsters, so what's really happening is a slaughter."
"Why haven't monsters been harming mortals before, then?" Katie Gardiner asked. "The Mist just disguised them, it didn't change what they were."
"Not entirely correct." Lou Ellen said. "The Mist disguised monsters from mortals, yes, but it had a built-in defence mechanism of preventing said monsters from preying on just anyone. Whoever wove it in the first place wanted mortals protected from the godly world."
"Whoever?" Jason asked. "You mean Hecate didn't create the Mist?"
Lou Ellen shook her head. "My mother became the appointed guardian of it by the command of the Fates, but no, she didn't create it. No one knows who did, and since it looks like every immortal being with godly blood has vanished, I'm willing to bet that they're gone too."
"Vlacas." Thalia cursed. "All right, what can we do?"
"We need to help the mortals, that much is obvious." Annabeth said. "The problem is that we don't have the numbers. With Percy and the Praetorians gone, as well as Frank and Hazel, we've lost a big portion of our heavy hitters. We could, of course, put the younger kids in the fight, but that's unacceptable."
"Which means we're back where we started." Jason sighed. "Waiting for Percy and the Legion."
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New Rome, August 18th, 2010
New Rome was in ruins, but it stood. When Percy and the Praetorians returned, the legion had been mopping up the last of Krios' army, the Titan himself chained down by Imperial Gold, frothing at the mouth. While the Praetorians heard the tale from the Legion, Percy heard it from Reyna herself, after a rather… intimate… reunion.
She had known she couldn't hold the city from the outside, and so, the legion had retreated into New Rome, fighting a brutal urban battle against the monsters, fighting hard for each street lost. Reyna, with the help of Nathan and Dakota, had turned it into a violent ambush, which routed Krios and his men from the forum. It was during that fighting that the Titan was subdued, at the expense of the deaths of the Praetorians Percy had left behind.
With the Evocati recalled, and including the Praetorians, Camp Jupiter had around thirteen hundred soldiers. Of those thirteen hundred, only eight-hundred survived, battle hardened veterans further beyond anything New Rome had known in centuries. The loss of life was devastating, and the New Romans would be feeling it for decades. It was a bitter Pyrrhic Victory, because yes, Terra and the Gigantes had been defeated, but the gods were lost to them, and the Mist was down.
All of this led Percy to where he was at the moment, the survivors of the legion, the Praetorians, and the citizens of New Rome all gathered in the forum, which had been cleared of rubble, and made somewhat presentable. He stood on a raised podium, seen by all. He took a deep breath in.
"We fought." He began. "We bled, and we won. But the price for victory was high, and our gods are lost to us, gone somewhere we cannot follow. Mother Lupa, who led us for millennia, is gone. Jupiter, Mars, my own father, Juno, Vulcan, Venus. All gone. I could go on and list all that we have lost, but it is not our way. The Mist has fallen. Monster hordes unseen in this world roam, terrorising mortals and demigods alike. In the east, our Greek cousins are bunkering down, preparing to hold out until we can arrive to help them."
There was a murmur throughout the crowd. Percy rose his hands.
"I know. The east was lost to us in the aftermath of the Civil War, but the cause for that conflict is gone." He announced. "Before Terra took the gods, they were unified, the return of the Athena Parthenos healing their split personalities. One of the last commands they gave was to make peace, and so make peace I did. The Greeks need our help.Olympus, empty since the loss of the gods, needs our help. But most importantly, the mortals need our help. They don't know this enemy like we do. They can't fight them like we can, and so, if we are to survive in this new world, a world without gods, then we need to keep the mortals alive. We need them as much as they need us. Fac fortia et patere!"
As he finished, roars of approval emerged from the crowd, and for the second time in a year, chants of 'Imperator' filled the air around Percy. Yes, the gods were gone. Yes, the Mist was gone, but Percy had belief, not just in his fellow Romans, but in his Greek cousins. They would survive this.
MMXVIII
AN: The epilogue. To explain, Percy, having returned to Camp Jupiter, tells the Romans they are going east, to help the Greeks. In New York, the city is overrun by monsters, and the Greeks are struggling to make a choice on the matter, in the end, deciding to wait for the Romans. Children of the Gods will pick up on the first day of the new year in 2011. I'll begin posting Children of the Gods next week. I hope you enjoyed The Son of Neptune as much as I did writing it.
Cheers, CombatTombat