DISCLAIMER: GUESS WHO'S PUBLISHING HOUSE OF HADES IN LITTLE OVER A FORTNIGHT?! RICK RIORDAN!
Review Responses:
Emoxkitten – Nyx: Yay! And it is very crack-ficish, btw. I had the idea while high on package upon package of a certain candy brand claiming that if I ate enough, I would taste a rainbow. For the record, no, a rainbow just tastes like water :/ horrible phrase for Skittles.
oOo
Great. Climb one dagger higher, and I'll start. There ya go. One hand after the next.
There were two children. Children; hard to force that word on the elder, the sister. Their parents had left them at the hotel alone. She was forced to play pre-teen mother in a strange place where they knew no one and the people they did dare speak to had glazed eyes and couldn't pull themselves away from casino games or the arcade.
She knew that their parents were dead, but she wouldn't tell her brother.
Then one day, she didn't have to play mother anymore. A man in a blue and black pen-striped suit came to take them away. No more hotel, he said. It was time to face the real world.
But it wasn't as glorious as the strange man made it sound. The world was even more outlandish. Buildings pierced the skies and people overflowed everywhere. Things moved fast and the air was filled with the beep of machines. She didn't remember it being like that. Neither did her brother. But follow the man they did.
They stopped in D.C. for a while. He said they'd go to a nearby school that had dorms. She had to explain to her brother that dorms were naught but hotels built into the school, and that they were divided by gender. Suddenly the weird hotel seemed wonderful.
Never did they find out what happened. The man came back from registering them into the district with his suit torn and a whip in his hand. He told them to get in the car. He didn't raise the weapon on them, but they were afraid; they got into his car and off they drove, breaking limits and going well into the night before stopping for gas.
They drove until they reached Maine. She stayed close to her brother. She had 'found' some money the man left behind at the hotel and managed to pick up gaming cards from a store down the street in D.C. To keep him busy, she taught them how to play. And play they did, in that backseat. All the way to Maine.
"This is a military school," the man said with a smile. "You'll go here for a while. You'll know when it's time to move on."
He dumped them at the doors and left.
The boy and girl were split into their dorms. The sister did fairly well; she was long used to playing roles forced upon her. Student, child soldier, slave – whichever the school wanted her to be, she could do it. She wasn't happy, but she could do it.
The brother was a tad too young to understand. Do what he was told, that was it. But strangers? Listen to strangers? He'd been told not to. Even once he learned that his teacher's orders didn't have to go through his sister to be followed, he seemed to fall short of expectations. But the school had a policy on not giving up, on any child.
Except for one.
Nobody knew why Gabe, the boy's roommate, quit. Nobody saw him pack his stuff and leave. He was just gone. Two days later, a boy named Grover took his place in the brother's dorm.
Grover, at least, was happy to help. As much as he could. Said he'd been through school lots of times. Jittery kid, Grover was. He claimed it was because he was used to being picked on or bullied because of the muscular disorder that put him on crutches. Yet even when he spoke to the young boy, his voice shook. Scared, he was, though they didn't know it yet.
The brother knew that breaking rules wasn't a good idea. Falling short? That was okay. The people blamed it on him, but at least he'd been trying. To sneak out of class – now, the last time he had tried to find his sister, she'd been called to meet him in the principal's office ten minutes later. She'd told him to stay put and do as he was told.
"Just get through the year," she'd pleaded. "It's already late December; Christmas break is soon, and once that's done, just half a year to go."
He knew he would shatter whatever fragile peace there was, but he snuck out anyway.
And to his surprise, she didn't get on to him.
They had a fun time. Grover had hooked him up with soda and he'd brought it along. They talked and played their card game. Wasn't so bad.
The next day, a school dance was scheduled. Or was it a pep rally? Neither paid attention. The sister trusted Grover, but not the other students. Hardly even the teachers. She had problems enough trusting a classroom of them around her, let alone a whole gym full around her brother. So she grabbed him and went to the back of the room, to the bleachers, where no one could sneak up on them, and pulled out their card game. She had a surprise for him that day; another figurine to match his set. Just one piece left, and he'd have the full game.
Halfway through the dance, the vice principal came to them and asked for them to follow. The brother's heart sank. He knew it was his fault, for sneaking out. But somehow, since she hadn't punished him for it, he'd hoped it wasn't wrong and that the school wouldn't mind.
Out in the hallway, the vice principal vanished.
They turned, but he was not there. Just a dark hallway. The girl grabbed her brother and all but flung him against the lockers, then pressed flat along them at his side, and held a finger to her lips.
Noises came from down the hallway. He wasn't tempted to speak.
There was the shlith of claws along the floor and a low, rumbling growl. A strange ticking noise started off loud and grew quiet very quickly. One blue eye glared at them from the shadows.
And then, bursting from the gym doors like a hurricane, came a boy with a glowing bronze sword.
"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "My name is Percy."
oOo
Perceus Jackson.
The name made me shudder. It wasn't a light term, where I was from; it was the name of someone powerful. No longer an enemy, but still powerful. Hearing the name announced like it was any other was unnerving.
Almost like hearing Ethan's name, thrown around so casually.
Overhead, Hunter was still screaming. "HERE, KITTY KITTY KITTY! I GOT A CHEESEBURGER FOR YOU!"
They were up there fighting. I tried to imagine that Ethan was up there, too.
Of course, gravity said that he wasn't. It whispered sinister things, things like Orpheus's song and the madness in his eyes and the screams I'd heard on August 18th.
But there was, of course, Nico's story.
"The boy's first thought was, 'Oh, dang. He's got a sword. Some serious junk's about to go down.' And then the principal attacked."
The black swirls overhead had begun to retract. Somehow, this hurt more; each beat was like a pulse echoing through the tortured magic. Something among them burned, seared, light so bright it would blind you even if you'd turned away. The pain was growing thicker. It made my arms shake, threatened to throw me into the sea, let gravity have me. Let me plummet down there after Shay.
Nails.
They dug into my wrist like claws, a hand clamped down so tightly my hand grew fuzzy. I was so startled I nearly let myself drop.
Nico stared at me, a single, mirthless bark of laughter escaping his throat. Lips twitched just barely. Then he lowered his other hand and hauled me back over the edge.
Grass. It touched my fingers. Long, soft grass. The sticky kind that made you wonder if it leaked sap like the trees. With Nico's help, I got the upper half of my torso on it. My legs still hung over the edge. He pinned my arms down and I swung my foot over the lip of the cliff, rolled, and…
…And that was it. Back on solid ground.
As if to remind me I was still close to the edge, the snarl of a wolf cracked in my ears, and a dark shape bolted towards us.
I held my ground, waiting, trusting, not even asking but merely knowing he'd be there…
The wolf never saw Nico coming. It was focused on me.
No sooner had it stumbled away did I roll to my feet. I had time to meet those dark eyes before a Ventus flashed between us.
Orpheus's melody twisted at my heart again. I gasped and doubled over. This was going to kill me…
No, it wouldn't. But I'd wish it had.
Nonetheless, I drew my faithful sword and dodged around its back, eyes snapping every which way, every movement. Two more at Nico's back, to my left. I dove for them as desperately as that song sounded.
The pain grew tighter, pulsing, the web of a demonic spider. I screamed and handed it to the demons by shadow and black, wicked blade. Întuneric trembled with me, but with me it did indeed stay.
I moved to the next, then to a wolf, then to dodging an ogre. It left me open to my right, but not for long. Shadows burst the Ventus to golden ashes.
Similarly, Nico left his own back unguarded.
There were a lot of things I still didn't understand, and my mind swirled between his story and that cursed song, but at least we wouldn't be the death of one another today. Perhaps quite the opposite.
Across the clearing, a massive golden pelt writhed. The great demon cat screeched as it flailed with wicked claws at Hunter. Hunter, a golden blur, slashing at it with bright whips.
Nearby, two more ogres formed. Nico and I split and approached from both sides.
Before I got there, my body convulsed again, racked by that haunting song. Orpheus's voice was the only thing I heard for just a moment. Just a moment, and it was awful.
Like nails on chalkboard, the scream of a tortured soul, something broken and evil and utterly chaotic raging-
Then it was gone. I stumbled to one side as the ogre I'd been unofficially assigned charged. Întuneric managed to slice its midsection in time.
Nico caught me before I could fall, black eyes guarded not with a wall but with his own thoughts, too strong and too deep for me to comprehend. "How much longer?"
"Not… Much," I gasped, straining. Against my best efforts, my fingers began to twitch to the beat.
He must've done this at night last time, I thought. It wouldn't hurt this much at night…
Nico's gaze turned to where Orpheus stood, not but a blurry shape in the flurry of shadows. The hulking form of Laelaps was at his side. Two crimson, horrid eyes pierced the black magic.
Then he slid an arm around my shoulders and propped me up. "Listen. Don't waste any time, alright?"
"Hm?" I asked, wondering why he'd waste time stating it.
He cocked his head to one side and began to whisper.
The words were like ice on my spine, starlight on my tongue. A sweet, sweet, dazzling smell entered my nose. Of…
…Spirits?
Then I registered that he was speaking in Greek, and my breath caught.
The summoning spell.
Why…?
The words burned themselves into my brain, scalding my skull. I'd die three times over and be placed in Isles of the Blest before I began to forget those words. The mere mention of them made me shiver, took Orpheus's song aside for just a moment…
By the time he was done, though, the agony had grown worse. The song was louder. Screamed, torn, ripped from Orpheus's throat like a butcher pulls guts from a pig. The pillar of shadows was closing again. The lyre had to be close by.
I glanced at the sky, at the stars just barely visible through the magic. And suddenly it didn't matter that I'd failed the world; I just felt horrible that I hadn't been able to save them.
"You know how long you'll have," Nico warned. "Think fast, and act faster." He set me down on the grass and paused only to beat a wolf aside. "Afterwards, call for me first! Bianca if that doesn't work!"
"…What?" I asked, bewildered now. I couldn't have heard him right through the song.
But he had turned, sprinting away from me and toward the writhing shadows.
I watched as he dodged a Ventus, not bothering to give chase, bent on whatever target he'd picked. One last thing reached my ears from over his shoulder.
"If all else fails, call for Ethan!"
And that's when it clicked, just a moment too soon and half a moment too late.
"No!" I cried, stumbling to my feet.
Mνήμη slammed into Orpheus's shoulder, Nico's own shadows blasting from its tip to reinforce the blow. The black swaths were fringed with… frost? No, but something that glimmered and sparkled.
Orpheus's would've lost his head if he didn't stop and cry, a horrible note tearing through the forest and the air and the ground itself. Gaea stopped thrashing. Nico stumbled back, stunned.
But the song had been broken.
There was the almighty snap of the world's largest rubber band. The tension of the shadows vanished so fast, the recoil sent me sprawling on the grass again. Light burst down from the sky once more to light the grass and the blood spilled across the clearing. More orbs than I could count dropped down, pointlessly, bouncing across the muddy ground.
Orpheus stared with an open mouth. No lyre rested anywhere in sight. The spell was shattered.
He turned and glared. "You traitor!" he howled. The wind blasted at us so hard, I heard a tree begin to splinter. "Coward! You were on my side! You looked back!"
Was it my imagination, or had the shadows begun to growl?
Nico spat something inaudible at the conductor, raising his sword.
The growl grew, and I knew with a sinking heart that it wasn't the shadows.
Nico's gaze broke from the tortured musician and to the dog behind him, the red eyes and flat ears and raised hackles and rumbling, earth-shaking growl.
And then he ran.
Laelaps howled, a sound as piercing as the shadows had been to the early dawn sky, and bolted after him.
oOo
He was a beautiful dog, all in all.
Easily the size of a wolf, black-and-tan pelt gleaming in the sunlight, a thin blanket over thick streaming muscles. His form was perfect as he ran. His paws landed perfectly in place, in time, with enough force to make Gaea tremble and then the paw was gone again, claws of black ivory long and sharp yet undamaging to the sod, like the earth was made to be his to run upon. His mouth was kept neat and shut until he barked. And when he did bark, it was its own unique and unforgettable orchestra; the perfect staccato of his bold yell, crescendo and decrescendo perfectly in place, the accent of slightly yellowed fangs and the perfectly placed graynotes of slobber pealing between them. And its perfectly red eyes fixed forever on its prey. On something that most things did not dare eat or even come near.
A raven.
Glistening black feathers did not take off, did not fly, as they had been similarly grounded when we'd first met. The raven was quite agile; fast and low on two legs and very quick at the turns. He made the earth his, adapted himself to rule over it, and made it well. Practiced evasive maneuvers played out by his hand. And, much like his tormentor, he stayed utterly locked on his task.
We're going to die here. You know that, right?
By the gods, Nico, I don't think I'd known it like you had.
Somewhere, in the background, their race was set to a horrid sound. Laughter. A broken, shattered, snorting, couldn't-tell-if-it-was-really-sobbing laughter. My gaze found Orpheus.
The man was doubled over and pointing, shaking his head. All thoughts of so-called betrayal were clearly forgotten.
Then, rather abruptly, he composed himself and turned around once again with his baton raised. The orbs, limp but undamaged, began to quiver. And once more did that wicked melody rise into the winds.
I'm sorry, but had he just been laughing? It was funny?
It was Hunter's genius that saved us then. With a single, wordless cry, fury and fire and the call of a bloody battle rang over Orpheus's melody. She, at least, was wise enough to know what to do with this sudden turn of events.
Fight.
I drew my sword and bolted to her side.
oOo
Forget the saying that numbers don't win a battle. They can and they will.
Despite how right it felt, to fight beside my sisters again and no one else – save the ever-constant ache for Ethan, everything else had been forgotten – we were losing. Even with the wolves on the outskirts. One, we were spread out. We were in the middle and our canines on the edge. Two, that totals nine against…. What… thirty, minimum. And those thirty did not die. Three, despite what my brother had done, Orpheus was not an option. The demons guarded him well and to shadow travel over there would only be counter-productive.
Brook had abandoned her shooting post and joined us in the form of a large tiger. Pretty orange fur and elegant black stripes had been stained with darker black and brighter red. Her grace was nothing compared to that of the giant lion still trying to pin Hunter under its claws.
Fury. At the secrets my brother had kept and his refusal to ask my permission before stealing Laelaps away and the mere fact that I would never hear the rest of that story, regardless the fact that I already knew the end. Anger that Ethan was not on my right. Complete and utter frustration and spite at the pulsing shadows, growing tighter and tighter in my mind, Nico's hard-bought time running out.
I shoved it all into my sword. That is what you do, when you fight demons, and it's what you do when you fight your own species. The aftermath is all that differs.
Întuneric tore its way through and ogre and tossed a Ventus's oncoming knife aside, bronze glinting like fire in the weak sunlight. The dagger bounded back in a heartbeat. My feet danced to the side and let it pass.
From behind me, the rippling pelt of a tiger flashed, and claws tore the demon into smoky shreds.
My eyes found Orpheus, for just a moment. Through the blackness all I could see was his shadow. Vehemence well beyond my control burst from my chest right then, and I wanted nothing more than to show him the sharp side of my sword.
But he was separated from us by demon upon demon. I whirled and showed my sword to a wolf in poor, unsatisfactory substitution. Black blood burned on my skin.
Behind us, the Manticore continued to pound Anonymous with his claws. "I'll turn you into a cheeseburger!" he yelled in his French accent.
I whirled and buried Întuneric into his flank. He gave a blood-curdling scream but kept fighting, hardly an inch of golden dust falling from the wound.
A scream from Brook tore my attention away. Hunter held her ground; she let me turn and help. The tiger was pinned beneath the angry form of three large black wolves, naught but flailing claws and sharp teeth. One began to slow and glow with Hunter's magic.
The second, Întuneric pierced through the back. Then a Ventus slammed into my side. I screamed and whirled on it, slashing it away. No. Not one more demon would take a step closer to her.
Behind me, a choking sound came from Hunter. The Manticore howled in victory.
By the time Moon and I got the last of the wolves off Brook – a panted "Mistress!" thrown somewhere between two fangs of killer eight notes – and I could spare a glance, she was cornered between two wolves, an ogre, and the cat. I'd been separated from her when helping Brook. And I was too far now.
First my magic, then my brother, then my blade by the way the demons tried to slice it apart, and now Hunter. My only thought was that if she fell, then so would we, and then the world as well.
And then there was water.
Gaea split open with a screech and a jet stream of salt water blasted the Manticore in the face. The cat yowled and leapt back with hackles risen and tail swishing, firing like mad. Hunter gasped and jumped out of her corner through the opening.
The ground burst beneath my feet. And then next to Brook. And across the clearing, momentarily stalling Laelaps. Another that didn't faze Orpheus two feet away.
And then water fell from the sky in a great torrent, crashing into our midst and soaking us all from head to toe. The earth-made ogres began to melt.
Then the water twisted and bent and solidified, and then stained with color, and then Shay stood there with us, daggers glistening with water and eyes with a matching malice.
"Lemme show ya how OCEANUS does it, landlubbers!" And she lunged for the nearest wolf.
I laughed and joined her.
Two dogs and a Ventus later, I saw an opening.
To my utter shock, the demons had begun to thin. Not by much, and Dr. Thorn was still a massive problem, and Nico was still just ahead of Laelaps, and to top it off Moon had gone missing. But just barely cleared they had. And Orpheus wasn't that far off.
I caught Hunter's glittering golden eyes through the gathering shadows. She didn't even have to ask. "Go! I'll cover you!" She sent a wild gesture in Nico's direction. "I'll be watching!"
Watching for what? I wondered. Then I realized – for Nico to die and Laelaps to come charging at me. She'd warn me to back off before that happened.
Or was there something else…
I shook the half-formed thought from my mind, turned, and charged at Orpheus.
oOo
Nyx: I wasn't really late on this one. It was finished well on time, but I deleted half of it because it was awful. This is MUCH better and I'm so glad I waited to post it, I don't regret the extra hours.
Nic: Whew. The self-loathing was getting annoying.
Nyx: Admit it, you were tempted to give me Altoids.
Nic: Don't tell me that was what all that was about…
Nyx: Anywho. This week is not as cluttered as the last, not quite, but still quite crowded. I may have to skip Thursday's chapter again. And I am honestly fearing the fact that the cover will be finished after the book is. But I am TRYING, guys. It will get done eventually! I went back and am re-drawing part of it because part of it sucks. Again, much like this chapter; I feel better having it take forever and be well done than short and poor.
Nic: Hey, if doing it faster gets you off the scene before the cops arrive… *munches on stolen cookie*
Nyx: Please review, guys. I'm rather proud of this chapter, probably because I have the first version to compare it to. Your opinions are VERY much valued! And please don't tell me I've given you nothing to develop an opinion on. I don't wish to sound conceited, but I have no love for being shy or showing lack of self-confidence, either. I know there is something of good discussion here. Please do leave your side of that discussion in a review.
Oh, and I am still trying to forget about the poll. Letting votes accumulate.
And that Nico one-shot IS out, for those who are interested.
Well. I've said enough. Until we're up again, have fun, y'all. Stop and smell the roses and all that. Oh and happy Autumn!
