Fighting and a Loss
A/N: This is one of my longer chapters...anyway, the reason it's so long is because it goes deep into what happens in the Battle ;)
Oh, and by the way, the story, 'Love and Hate's Daughter' has 50,000 VIEWS, I am so happy, you don't exactly know how exciting this is for me! ;) Thank you to all my readers! I know there are some readers who don't have accounts/don't review, and I notice you! Thank you to each and every single person reading this story! ;)
*NOTICE*: I have a POLL put up about this. It lets me know if you all want this story to be one huge story, or if you want two parts, or a trilogy. I don't want to overwhelm you too much. Guest opinions are welcome in a review, as always ;)
I hope you enjoy this chapter of 'Love and Hate's Daughter!' :)
Previously in 'Love and Hate's Daughter':
I look to see a band of thirty adolescent girls crossing Fifth Avenue. The lead girl immediately runs up to me and pulls me into a hug. "Lina! I haven't seen you in ages! You look so different!"
I look up to the girl and my eyes widen in shock and delight. "Thals!" I exclaim.
She grins. "The Hunters of Artemis reporting for duty."
Lina POV
"Thalia!" Annabeth exclaims and the two of them hug.
I was so relieved, and excited that Thalia was here; I haven't seen her in forever! She and Anne seemed to get along nicely as well.
"Where have you been the last year?" Percy asks Thalia.
"You've got like twice as many hunters now!" I add.
She laughs. "Long, long story. I bet my adventures were more dangerous than either of yours."
Percy and I snort. "Complete lie," we say in unison. "Wait!" Percy and I turn to each other. "Mine are way more dangerous than yours too!"
Thalia smirks. "We'll see about that. When all this is over, you two, Annabeth, and me: cheeseburgers and fries at that hotel on West 57th."
"Le Parker Meridien," Percy says. "You're on. And Thalia, thanks."
She shrugs. "Those monsters won't know what hit them. Hunters, move out!"
She opens her terrifying shield Aegis, and all the Hunters file behind her, with their wolves and falcons.
"You're the greatest heroes of the millennium," Percy tells us. "It doesn't matter how many monsters come at you. Fight bravely we will win." He raises Riptide and shouts, "FOR OLYMPUS!"
"FOR OLYMPUS!" We all shout at the same time.
"Stay safe, please." Percy whispers in my ear. I also notice that he doesn't do that for anyone else.
Annabeth grips my shoulders. "Be careful."
They're off.
"Alright," Silena says. "Queens-Midtown tunnel."
It's a good thing that Harry could not come to New York City...I think as I look around at all the sleeping mortals.
Midway, some of the Campers started running towards Fifth Avenue shops. Silena sighs, "Five minutes."
Silena, Anne, and I began setting up the defenses, when the rest of the Aphrodite cabins' Campers come back.
"Gods," I mutter to Silena and Anne. "Drew was right. That perfume smells horrid."
"The monsters are going to think we're an easy target, you know, because of some of our Campers." Anne says, gesturing towards them.
"Not with Lina Quimby around," I say, twirling my knife around and concentrated on conjuring fireballs for emphasis.
"Lina, stop that!" Silena chides. "Save your energy for when the monsters come. If you use it all now, it will be gone for when you really need it."
"Okay, fine, just proving a point." I roll my eyes.
Anne's face turns a deathly pale, "Guys," she alerts. Sure enough, there were assortments of monsters about to make their way through our tunnel.
"ALRIGHT," Silena says to alert the campers. "Get in your formations. They're here."
Silena and I stand front and whisper to each other our trigger words.
"Luke," she whispers to me.
"Beckendorf," I whisper back to her.
That was enough to get the two of us in our best determined fighting stances. "Anne," I tell her. "Stay behind us, use your Ice like we practiced and your bow and arrow."
"To the rest of you," I turn to the others. "I haven't really gotten to know you all well, but I think that we can really turn this around, ready?"
They all nod. "Lina?" One of the boys says. He was new, so I hadn't seen him around until after the third year. "Thanks for that."
"Sure thing..." I trail off.
"Mitchell," the boy says.
"Sure thing, Mitchell." I say.
"Let's do this." I say. I turn towards the monsters and start fighting to the best of my ability. Silena and I worked together to defeat a Hyperborean giant, and more and more different monsters kept coming. I saw arrows being hit at the enemy Cyclopes, and ice freezing some of them. I could have sworn to see one of the ice blocks look like a snowflake.
"Nice one, Anne!" I call out before turning around to face a telkhine.
It was like that for hours—we would fight and fight and fight, strike after fireball after spell. The monsters didn't seem to give us a break. I looked around at my fellow Campers. Silena looked alright, Anne looked okay as well, and some of my other siblings looked okay, like the boy, Mitchell.
I was exhausted. I had used up all of my Fire Power already.
Others lay dead on the floor, others have simply disappeared.
It was probably the same for the other cabins.
This was a serious war. I look down at my skin. While I was still in fighting stance, I sported a cut on my lip, a gash on my face, and little cuts all over my arms.
Out of Silena, Anne, and I, I had the most cuts. I assume it's what Anne said: I take the front lines; I put myself in death's range.
"Girl of Fire," someone snarls. I whirl around to be face to face with an empousa. She was one of the only monsters there. It was dawn already, and most of them have retreated.
"I hear in the future you'll be saving people from another world. All the more reason to kill you now. We can't have you making the demigods more powerful."
Silena draws her sword. "You're not killing her," she says. "Not after Charlie."
"You were supposed to die at six," the empousa snarls. "But no, the Lastrogonyian Giant I sent after you was defeated by Luke Castellan, and you're still alive. But no matter."
"So you were the one that nearly tried to kill me. Why don't you fight me yourself then?" I snarl. "If you want to kill me so badly."
The empousa snarls and lunges towards my shoulder for a bite, but I slash it away with my sword. It was a swift pattern after that: the empousa attacked, and I defended. I wasn't going to be defending for long.
"LINA!" Anne's shriek scared me, and I dove between her and a telkhine, stabbing the telkhine with my sword in the process.
The empousa that was fighting me, however, got in a good bite on my right shoulder I cry out, while grabbing my right shoulder while the empousa thought she achieved victory, about to come in for the kill, Silena swoops in and stabs her.
"You need a Healer," Anne says once the empousa is gone. "I'm sorry."
I grit my teeth from the pain. "No, no, it's not your fault, Anne."
"Nice work, guys," Silena says quietly to all of us, who were beat up.
I whimper. "Gods, Lina. The cut's getting bigger," Silena says worriedly.
"I know," I say, and black out.
My eyes flutter open; I'm on a couch in some sort of hotel building. A girl leans over me. "What—what happened? Where am I?"
"Shh, just rest." The girl says. "You had a big cut on your right shoulder. I've just done the stitches. Be careful, there's probably still going to be some pain. It's a nasty creature, the empousa. I'm Phoebe, by the way, a Hunter of Artemis. No need to ask who you are. Thalia speaks of you all the time, Lina. I'll send her and the other girl in." She hands me some ambrosia and I feel stronger due to the taste of chocolate ice cream.
Phoebe leaves the room, and Thalia, and Anne come in. "Oh, Lina!" Thalia exclaims. "I'm glad you're alright."
Anne approaches my other side, "Thank goodness. I almost thought you were dead." She says tearfully.
"Are Silena, Percy, and Annabeth alright?" I ask.
"Silena and Percy are fine," Anne says quickly.
"Annabeth?" I prompt, my voice rising.
"Annabeth has a bad shoulder wound with poison," Anne starts.
"Poison?!" I screech, struggling to get up, but Thalia pulls me back down.
"No, no, don't worry. The Apollo Campers healed her. She's resting up. Percy's keeping her company." Anne assures. "I have to go back there and tell her you're alright. For all she knows, you haven't woken up yet."
I grimace. "No, I'll come with you. Help me up."
"Are you sure?" Thalia asks, concerned.
I nod as I grab Thalia's shoulder and Anne's hand and lift myself up. Thalia hugs me. "I have to go and help my Hunters," She says. "But I'll still be around. Keep safe, Lina." With that she leaves.
Anne helps me up and leads me to where Annabeth was. We grab some food from the Plaza on the way. When we get there, we found her lying on a couch in the terrace.
"Annabeth, are you alright?" I ask in concern.
"Yeah," she says. "Lina, I'm fine. I should be asking you that, what were you thinking?"
"It was an empousa." I tell her. "The empousa wanted so badly to kill me. In fact, it was the very same empousa that sent that Lastrogonyian Giant after me all those years ago, when Luke saved me and you guys took me in."
Annabeth gasps, "Lina, I—"
"No, it's okay. The empousa's dead." I say. "She's not after me anymore. Silena killed it."
"Good," she says. "That's good. Speaking of Silena," she trails off.
"What?" I say hollowly. "What happened to Silena?"
"She went back to the Camp." Annabeth says.
"What?" Anne and I say in unison.
"What do you mean she went back?" Anne asks.
"Silena is trying to convince the Ares cabin to fight," Annabeth says.
"WHAT?!" I shriek. "Okay, what makes her think she can convince Clarisse to go and fight. We all know that Clarisse is a stubborn idiot." I spit out.
"You're also a stubborn idiot," Annabeth points out.
"No, I'm not!" I exclaim. "Well, I'm not a coward like her. I doubt it's going to work."
"We're going to have to hope, Lina. The Ares cabin could very well be our only hope, no matter how much you hate their leader." Annabeth says. She pauses. "You should get some sleep, both of you. I have a feeling the worst is yet to come.
We didn't need telling twice. We had wanted to talk more with Annabeth, but both of us crashed on the couch next to hers.
My eyes flutter open. Anne was still asleep next to me, but Annabeth was gone. I struggle to pull myself up, but there was terrible pain in my right shoulder, from the empousa attack. Finally I manage to stand. I shake Anne awake. I find some armor and put it on.
"Anne-Banana," I whisper softly. "It's evening."
She arouses. "Lin-Bean, you can't be serious. You're seriously going out and fighting like that?"
I shrug. "I'll be fine; we should go and check on the others."
Anne follows, muttering something about me having a death wish. We run towards where we spotted some of the Campers and Hunters, taking us a good fifteen minutes.
"Hey Lina, I've heard what happened. Are you okay?"
I nod. "Yeah, Kelp Head, I'm fine."
He glares at me for the nickname and I shrug. "I felt like it."
"Lina," Thalia says. "What are you doing in armor?"
"I'm going to fight," I tell her.
"Uh-huh, sure you are." Thalia says.
"No, really, I'm fine! Besides, you're going to need everyone you can get." I say.
Thalia nods. "One of my scouts has reported that an army has crossed the Harlem River. There was no way to hold them back. It's huge."
"We'll hold them at the park." Percy says. "Grover, you ready?"
I start to wonder exactly how long I was out. "Grover, is...is that you?" I ask. "I haven't seen you in a year!" I rush up to hug him and he hugs back.
"Lina, how's your life been going?" He asks.
"Great so far...I think." I say
He turns to Percy. "If my nature spirits can stop them anywhere, this is the place."
"Yes, we will!" Another satyr shouts, the satyr was one of the old, fat satyrs from the hearing a year ago.
"Leneus?" Percy asks.
"Well, I found Grover like you asked, and I'm not going to let a mere outcast lead the satyrs." Leneus says.
Yeah...I hate him already.
"Never fear! We'll show those Titans!" Leneus grins as if he was the savior of the day. He was like a satyr version of Draco Malfoy.
"Um...okay." Percy says. "Well, Grover, you won't be alone. Annabeth and the Athena cabin will make their stand here.
"And me, and...Thalia?" Percy says.
"Say no more. The Hunters are ready." Thalia says.
"Anne and I will help where we're needed," I say. I suddenly wish I left Anne on the terrace when I see how large the army is, but the plan was to get them to split: so that Percy, Annabeth, the Athena campers, Grover, the nature spirits, Anne, and I would fight half of them, and Thalia and her thirty hunters would fight the other half.
Anne and I knocked down a small army dracaenae through combining fire and ice—creating a very unique combination. I slashed monsters with my knife, and used a bunch of spells and was basically on fire. That was, until we saw someone that greatly resembled fire.
"Hyperion," Annabeth says. "The lord of light and the titan of the east." She turns to me. "You can't use your element against him. It will only make him stronger." She turns to Anne. "You and Percy however..." I could literally see the gears turning in her brain.
"I'll keep him busy," Percy says.
Annabeth looks worried. "Percy, even you can't—"
"Just keep the forces together." He says.
Anne gets what Annabeth is talking about and sends ice at Hyperion's foot.
"Argh!" Hyperion growls. "What—what is this?" He struggles to remove his feet from the ice.
"Anne!" I exclaim in amazement, looking at the little girl. "How did you do that?"
"I—I don't know!" She says.
"Well, do it again!" I exclaim.
"I—I can't, it's not working!" Anne says in frustration.
Meanwhile, Percy was doing what he could to distract Hyperion, so we could do stuff to stop him.
"I have a very crazy idea, Anne. But I'm not sure it will work." I say.
"Anything works at this rate!" Anne says. "Just don't get yourself killed!"
I pull out my wand, and I think of a different memory this time around: The Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw Quidditch match: when Harry kissed me.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" I yell, and the wolf soars up to Hyperion and starts clawing at him.
"Argh!" Hyperion says. "What is this?"
Hyperion was already weak from the windstorm Percy had conjured, so this made him even weaker. I keep the memory of Harry's kiss for as long as possible.
"Percy, Lina!" Grover calls. "Bring him over here!" I concentrate on the memory and take the wolf Patronus with Hyperion, over to where Grover was, along with the hurricane that Percy created.
I let go of the memory as Grover played his reed pipes as well as the other satyrs until Hyperion was a maple tree.
The Titan Army retreated. "YES!" Anne and I cheer, high fiving, as well as the Athena cabin.
Too late, I think we jinxed ourselves...
"REEEET!"
"What the Hades?" I exclaim.
"It's a sow!" Annabeth yells. "Take cover!"
We all scatter. "ANNE!" I screech and pull her down. She was too busy taking in the sight of the sow to see that it was about to kill us.
"The Clazmonian Sow," Anne says in amazement. "It was known for terrorizing Greek towns."
"That's not something we should be in amazement about!" I snap.
"Let me guess," Percy says. "Hercules beat it."
"Nope," Annabeth says. "As far as I know, no hero has ever beaten it."
There was some silence as we all tried to avoid the sow until Percy says, "That pig has to go. I'll take care of it." Percy says.
"I'll help you, Percy." I say.
"No." He says. "I want you to stay and help hold back the rest of the enemy. They need you more than I do."
"But, Percy," Grover says. "What if we can't?"
I wince as I look down at my shoulder wound.
"Retreat if you need to," He says. "Just slow them down. I'll be back as soon as I can." With that, he speeds off on a grappling hook.
I take in a deep breath. "The fight's not over yet." And with that, we had started to fight with all our strength. Well...what we had left.
An hour later, I hear a cry of pain, from Anne, while fighting. "Anne!" I yell. "I'm coming!" I fight my way toward her. Blood trickled down her right leg. "Oh my gods, I knew it wasn't safe to put a nine year old in battle."
I lift Anne bridal style before running through the fight, stabbing whatever monsters got in my way, and ran up to Olympus, where the wounded were taking refuge. "Please," I gasp to one of the Apollo campers. "Heal her. Please heal her."
The girl, Kayla, nods. "Anne will just need stitching, and maybe some nectar and ambrosia. She'll be fine. She's not going to be able to go out and fight after this, however."
I nod. "I know. She's done a lot already. It wasn't even a good idea in the first place."
She frowns for a moment. "Lina, are you sure you want to go back out there? You don't look so good yourself." She examines the various cuts and gashes all over my body and the shoulder wound from the empousa.
"I have to." I say firmly.
"I've always admired your courage. I'd have never been able to do that." Kayla says.
I nod, relieved that Anne was in safety. "Thanks." With that, I run off straight into the battle and continue to fight.
While fighting a dracaenae legion, I think of something:
What if Kronos suddenly becomes powerful enough, and gets rid of Luke's body?
Takes the form of a Titan king? Empowers all the other Titans?
The world will fall. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were included in the world.
I was not only fighting for people here, but for them too.
For Harry.
That just caused me to fight even harder than ever before.
Eventually I ended up fighting alongside Thalia. "Lina, I have to tell you something," she gasps through her fighting.
"What?" I manage to choke out.
"If you end up facing Kronos in battle, in Luke's form, don't let your defenses down. That is Kronos, you hear me? Not. Luke. Luke. Has. Given. Himself. Up. Already. Understand?" Thalia's voice grew more forceful with every word.
"I understand Thals," I say numbly as I send some weak fireballs at a telkhine, stabbing it under the weak distraction.
I wasn't going to last very long.
"I'LL TAKE THE DRAKON! Everyone else, keep doing what you're doing!" I heard Percy yell over the noise. I gasp and look around. I see the rest of our allies being backed up by the enemy, and I get out of there. I needed to help Percy with this drakon.
I look around, confused, until Annabeth gently tilts my chin up. "Oh," my voice was small.
The drakon was slithering three stories above us.
"Will you two help me?" Percy asks.
I nod.
"That's what I do," Annabeth says miserably. "I help my friends."
I frown. Something must've gone on between them.
We struggled to fight the drakon.
"It's what Rachel said," Annabeth tells me. "Only a child of Ares can charge it."
"Who's Rachel?" I ask innocently, forgetting her rant from last year.
"Oh...Percy's...friend." She glowers. I decide to drop the matter. I already knew Annabeth was jealous of this Rachel girl.
"Yeah, well, we don't really have any of those!" I exclaim.
A girl's voice yells, "ARES!"
War chariots charged into battle.
"The children of Ares!" Annabeth exclaims. "How'd she know?"
Clarisse was leading. As much as I hated her, I was glad she had come to save the day. But it wasn't working. The Ares campers were doing what they could, but the drakon was winning.
Percy, Annabeth, and I jump on the drakon's back for a distraction.
"You can do it, Clarisse!" I scream.
"ARES!" She shouts. Her voice was shriller than usual, and her eyes were blue...like Silena's...no!
"WAIT, NO!" I screech.
But the monster spit poison into her face.
"NO!" A girl's voice says, springing out of her landed chariot. "Curse you, WHY?"
I lean down towards the fallen girl, trying to remove her helmet.
"YOU WANT DEATH?" The other girl screams at the drakon. "WELL, COME ON!" Wait...this was Clarisse. Who was the other girl?! Clarisse leaps onto the drakon's head and stabs its good eye, causing the monster to fall.
Finally, Annabeth and I remove her helmet.
"No," I say when I see who it was, tears streaming down my face. "No. No. NO!" I scream hysterically.
Annabeth grabs me and holds me. "Shh, it'll be alright." She soothed.
"No, it won't! I've—I've already lost Lacy!" I sob.
"Oh, Silena," I sob.
"What were you thinking?" Clarisse says, cradling Silena's head in her lap, me squeezing her hand.
"Cabin...would only follow you." Silena says.
"So you stole my armor, pretended to be me, and NONE of you noticed?!" Clarisse growls.
"Don't blame them. They wanted to fight." Silena says.
"So, you charged a drakon?" I say in disbelief.
"It's all my fault," Silena says. "The drakon, Charlie's death, camp endangered..."
"No!" I say firmly. "Stop that!" Tears run down my face. "It's not true."
Silena opens her hand and gives me a charm. It was the scythe charm, the mark of Kronos.
"You were the spy," I say.
Silena nods. "Before I liked Charlie, Luke was nice to me. He was so...charming. I wanted to stop helping him, but he threatened to tell, he threatened to tell..." She looks at me. "He threatened to tell you everything, Lina. You were little; you'd believe anything he said."
"No, I wouldn't!" I sob, squeezing my best friend's hand. "Not this, Silena. Not this."
"He said I was saving lives. He said fewer people would get hurt. He said he wouldn't hurt...Charlie. He lied to me." She says.
It was like I had just received a large wake up call. I can't believe that it took my best friend's death to accept that Luke was no good.
"Go and protect the doors and help the centaurs," Clarisse tells her cabinmates, "GO!"
They leave.
"You're not dying." I insist.
"Charlie..." She says. "See...Charlie..."
Those were the last words Silena Beauregard had said.
I was in hysterics. "No, Silena, you can't be dead, SILENA!" I sob.
I scowl at Clarisse. Maybe if she had not been so stubborn and fought with us, Silena would be alive. Maybe if she could have listened to Silena's pleas, Silena would be alive.
Silena wouldn't be lying here—dead.
I'd still have my best friend.
I lose my temper. I snarl at Clarisse. "YOU!" I shriek at her. "THIS IS ALL YOUR BLOODY FAULT!" I drew my knife. She was going to pay.
A/N: Phew! That was a pretty long chapter! I left it with a cliffhanger because I felt like it. Anyways, RIP Silena Beauregard :( I was going to keep her alive, but I didn't want her to live a life without Beckendorf. Yeah...I know that Silena's death isn't in any way Clarisse's fault, but in Lina's mind, it's like, 'If Clarisse fought then Silena wouldn't have had to pretend so it's Clarisse's fault.' You'll have to see how it goes down between Lina and Clarisse in the next chapter, as well as Lina facing Kronos/Luke ;)
Please R&R :)
-Ana
