Romulus acted the moment the manticore moved. His carefully trained eyes had been watching the manticore's hind limbs for a majority of the conversation, seeking the tell-tale signs of his attack. His eyes did not let him down.
Luke leapt out of the way of the charging creature, slamming into Clover and shoving the protesting satyr aside with a grunt as his weight struggled to combat the satyr's. He wondered exactly how much feasting Clover had done in Maz's tavern, but had little time to ponder the question, for the manticore was roaring then. Tense, Luke jerked his attention to the creature, and was happy to see that the manticore's roar had been out of pain.
Romulus had planted his Imperial Gold sword into the manticore's hind leg.
The manticore whirled on the werewolf, snarling wildly. It started in confusion when it beheld the ancient behind it, and stumbled back a few paces, leaking blood upon the brilliant sand.
"You!" it hissed in angry surprise.
"Me." Romulus confirmed, looking bored. The werewolf stepped back a pace, taking in the pitiful opponent before him. It was then that the manticore's eyes met the sight of the Imperial Gold sword hanging limply but firmly in the werewolf's grey hand.
"Strange blade, king." The manticore's eyes were gleaming hungrily, greedily, a thirst for such wealth building in its dark heart.
"Not as strange as your presence here," Romulus returned, well aware of the emotions in the manticore's heart. "What brings you to this..." Romulus chose his words carefully, "hot planet?"
Luke felt the smirk slip across his sweaty features, and he readied himself. Romulus was moving the manticore away from him and Clover, inching backwards as he flattered the manticore's insatiable pride. Luke's muscles tensed. Backbiter grew restless in his slick palm; he began to bounce on his toes, shifting his weight from one leg to the other eagerly. Clover watched the man with an amused smile on his features.
Romulus continued to inch backward, the manticore blindly following his subtle commands, though all three travelers knew the manticore probably had much more in mind for all of them than they anticipated.
Luke's eyes traced the path upon which Romulus led the manticore, slowly anticipating his first move. And then he struck.
Knowing full well that the manticore would have been watching his movements closely, he twisted in the air as he threw himself upon the creature's flank, to avoid a deadly spike sailing in his direction with all the accuracy and strength of a bullet. He barely felt it graze his left side, and paid no mind to the sting of the sizzling poison that frothed inside the wound, for his sword, faithful and true, embedded itself into the monster's lower back.
Luke was thrown off the manticore's body as the thing writhed in pain, squirming about in the hot desert sands before the sad, disgusted eyes of Romulus, and the irritated eyes of Clover. Luke, meantime, had fallen to the sands and was wondering why it seemed so difficult to push himself to his feet. When he did, the manticore had stilled, leaking blood, still not turned to ash, which confused Luke as he stumbled to the creature and ripped Backbiter from the flesh of it.
Romulus, too, seemed confused.
A wind was rising in the dust, sweeping off the massive dunes and bringing with it the whisper of a voice, words indiscernible in the sands that sprayed about the four of them. Romulus tensed.
The manticore suddenly snapped aware, looking like a cornered animal, a desperate, bitter anger filling his visage.
"This is not the last you shall see of me, demigod," he hissed, and a chill ran down Luke's spine as the manticore jerked its violent eyes that they rested menacingly, forebodingly, upon his own. "My master calls me elsewhere."
And then the creature dissolved into the desert sands.
Luke staggered as they stared at where the creature had once been, horror disfiguring Romulus's features, confusion Clover's. The two of them started toward the demigod when he grunted in frustration, gripping his side tightly.
"Luke, mate!" Clover started toward the man, holding out his hands in concern and grabbing hold of him to steady his weak frame. Romulus strode toward him, eyes flashing in fear of the worst. But Luke straightened with the help of the satyr, and pulled his hand away from his side, revealing a jagged gash that ripped through his jacket, shirt, and a good portion of his flesh. The edges frothed with poison, and Romulus blanched.
Luke looked to the werewolf, and for the first time in his life, he truly feared for it. The thought of his sister, out here in this wild and strange galaxy, looking for him, brought to him a determination for life that had never surged forth in his soul before. Fear flickered in his eyes when he beheld the werewolf's dismay.
Clover didn't miss a beat. "Can you heal him?" A motherly panic was in his voice, churning beneath the surface.
Romulus's face was pale, even for the grey skin, but he nodded. "I can," he answered gravely, "but not here."
"Where, then?" Clover was desperate. Luke could already feel himself losing consciousness. "The ship is too far. He won't make it." Luke suppressed his wince at this.
"It appears," Romulus's voice was nearly a sigh, "we shall have to rely on the good nature of our rebel friends."
Dread filled Clover's expression as he turned slowly, never letting go of Luke, to face the fading sounds of warfare from behind the rusted ruins of the overturned stall. Romulus looked on in resigned despair. Luke's vision was a vertigo blur of the hot sands as his head drooped, and his eyes began to slide shut as he found himself relying heavily on the satyr.
- - -
Sweat poured from Piper's brow as she threw herself against the dirt walls of the underground caverns, and she bit back a cry as she felt the jagged rocks dig into her back and ribs, forcing her aching body to be as still as possible as she moved ever deeper into the shadows. Across from her, there was a scrabbling movement, and the goddess of luck, Tyche, dragged herself from the large corridor Piper had just escaped, and pressed herself into a mirror image of Piper's own position.
The goddess's features were marred by dirt, sweat, and blood, but Piper could still make out the determination in her eyes that were, once upon a time, kind and gentle. Her hair, once golden, had been turned dark and grimy by the pervading dust in the air. Piper wondered how much she, herself, had changed in the past months.
Piper nodded breathlessly in a grim greeting, and Tyche returned it, their chests heaving in what was almost unison.
Drew Tanaka had gone down a few minutes ago, and though Piper had never appreciated the woman's irritating habit of sickly sweet kindness that hid more knives than hugs, she truly regretted her death. But the task at hand had quickly pushed aside the mournful thoughts.
Piper's eyes darted about the corridor they had slipped into, and she immediately recognized the familiar glow of red at the end: the glow the troop of ambassadors had been following throughout the underground caverns torn beneath what used to be New York. One look at Tyche confirmed that she, too, had noticed it. Piper steeled herself, vowing that they would not fail at this. The traps that had been set into these corridors and caverns were deadly- they'd lost many in the past week- and Piper's heart was filled to brewing with recognition that she no longer held only the weight of the mission on her shoulders, but the weight of the dead also.
The daughter of Aphrodite tightened her grip on the handgun hanging in her hand at her side and crouched to the ready. Tyche mimicked her position, only her weapon of choice was a long, wicked spear that had skewered many an unexpecting monster in the past months.
One glance was shared between the two, and then they were off.
The cavern walls were a blur as they sprinted wildly down the dirt corridor, pushing their bodies to speeds they had never known, speeding past the traps that already seemed to close directly at their heels: knives and spears flinging themselves from the wall just after their forms had past to embed themselves deep within the opposite wall, gaping holes opening in the dirt beneath them, just after their heels had cleared them.
Piper's lungs were heaving, each breath a rending spike of pain. Her legs were jelly, and still she forced them on. Her hands clawed at the air before her as if to push herself forward through the sweltering heat originating from the red glow before them, the red glow that permeated everything. Piper suddenly had the passing impression that she might be running through the flames of Hell.
There was a cry of pain as what appeared to be a bear trap clapped around Piper's ankle, tearing through her flesh. She fell with a crushing thud, and gasped for air as the wind rushed from her lungs and her ribs screamed in pain.
Tyche skidded to a halt, slamming into the dirt and rock walls. Blood leaking from her cheek indicated she had not been completely unharmed by the contact. She scurried back to Piper as the woman gasped for her to keep moving forward.
Too exhausted to speak, Tyche only shook her head ferociously and stumbled to her friend, who was now being dragged into the dirt by the magical trap.
With a look more of frustration and irritation than panic, Tyche brought the butt of her spear down upon the wire dragging Piper and the trap into the earth. With a squeal, the trap sprung loose of Piper's leg; she had enough instinctual energy to rip her leg out of the trap's reach before it snapped closed again, this time on thin air.
Tyche helped Piper to her feet, and the daughter of Aphrodite hissed in pain as she put her weight on the injured leg. Blood spurted from the wound.
Tyche looked concerned, but Piper waved it away, finally with the breath to speak.
"Don't worry about it." Her voice was breathless. "We need to keep going."
Grimly, Tyche nodded. This mission had left little time for the care of wounds. Many of them had been running on torn ligaments, tendons, and fractured limbs. Hunting Nemesis had become a deadly mission, one that Piper was wishing she had not been required to lead. Of the ten that had set out, her and Tyche were the only two left.
And Nemesis had still not been caught.
But the red glow ahead indicated she was here, and Piper gladly put aside her personal pain if only to make the losses this mission had suffered worth it.
The two started slowly, Piper leaning heavily on Tyche, but the first trap narrowly avoided, a slowly opening trap in the floor, brought them back to the tearing pace they had been at before. They seemed to be sprinting for an indeterminate amount of time, Piper's world a haze of pain and adrenaline, Tyche's one of the red glow far ahead.
As they ran, they began to notice the traps becoming more and more half-hearted, and they hoped beyond hope that maybe Nemesis was beginning to lose the motivation she had obviously possessed before.
Smoke began to fill their eyes and lungs, and Tyche noticed they were nearing a large circular room. She grabbed hold of Piper just as the woman had been about to sprint through the large doorway and into the light of a large bonfire. The goddess of luck jerked Piper into the wall, and winced a little when Piper's shoulder-blades were rammed into a sharp outcropping of rock. Piper bit back a yelp, suddenly aware of her surroundings through her haze of pain.
Tyche gestured through the opening and past the bonfire to the figure of Nemesis, standing tall in the light, obviously waiting for them to enter.
Piper watched the goddess of luck. She remembered what Leo had told her of Nemesis, how the goddess had told him, "Good luck is a sham. The wheel of fortune is a Ponzi scheme." And now the goddess of luck was here. Obviously Nemesis would resent that. But Piper also remembered that Nemesis had been against Gaea in the past war, and that gave her hope. Though the constant traps and death that it had taken to get to the goddess had indicated that she might not be willing to apply herself with them against Tartarus and Ouranus.
"Well, don't just stand there!" Nemesis's voice rang out in the corridors, though the sound was absorbed in the dirt walls.
Tyche nodded to Piper, indicating that they did, indeed, need to enter. Together, the two moved forward into the light of the bonfire, Piper limping heavily.
Nemesis stood before them, her hands on her hips, dressed in leather skinny jeans, a red leather jacket, and an old tattered t-shirt. The goddess hissed in anger at the sight of Tyche, and Piper winced. She had a feeling negotiations would not be quite as successful as she hoped.
Piper opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by Nemesis.
"I know why you're here," she snapped. "Don't waste your breath."
Piper nodded in understanding, secretly grateful. Her lungs still hurt, and her ribs weren't in much better shape.
"Why do you fight us?" Piper asked, the faces of her now dead friends flashing in her mind's eye.
"Tartarus seeks revenge. It is my duty to side with him." Her voice never lost its edge.
"And does he deserve such revenge?" Tyche had found her voice.
Nemesis lost control of her anger and bitterness when her rival spoke. "Deserve? Who are you to speak of deserving? You hand to people what they could never deserve!" Almost in stereo with Nemesis's fiery burst, the fire seemed to leap higher and glow brighter. Piper flinched away from the sudden explosion of heat, shielding her eyes.
"The question still stands!" Piper's voice felt weak with exhaustion. Charmspeak would not be an ally, nor would she want it to be.
Nemesis's burning golden eyes whirled upon Piper, her bushy black hair bouncing as she did so. Piper resisted the urge to flinch.
"No," Nemesis returned, her temper somewhat calming, "he does not. If anything, he deserves his punishment. He was given power he misused." Nemesis sighed, and Piper took the moment to interject.
"Then why do you ally yourself with him?" Her voice was demanding, losing a little of the respect she had been intending to have when she considered speaking to the goddess.
"Because, impertinent girl," Nemesis spat before calming, "Tartarus seeks revenge. As I said before, it is my duty to join him."
"And you must follow through with such duty?" Piper persisted.
"What are you doing?" Nemesis returned, and Piper did not miss the beaten look that broke into the goddess's expression.
Piper bypassed the question; they all knew the answer. "Gaea was seeking revenge, and yet you did not ally yourself with her," she returned.
"Pah," Nemesis waved a hand, "Gaea's vengeance was petty in comparison to Tartarus's. Imagine for yourself the torment he suffered- suffers. No, his thirst could consume whole oceans of revenge and remain unsatisfied. I cannot resist his call."
Piper gaped, despair surging forth in her heart, at a loss as to what to do.
It was then that Nemesis took pity upon her, if such a possibility existed in her heart, and she bypassed the presence of Tyche, who had thought better of her joining Piper and promptly receded a little into the shadows.
"I will not, however, persecute you and your fellows directly. My will, though, is not my own. Tartarus has far more power over it than I do. Hence your difficulty to arrive." Nemesis gestured to the maze of bloody corridors Piper's path had taken her through.
Frustration filled Piper then: frustration and pity, and hot tears began to slip down her already stained face.
She stomped forward, closer to the light. "My friends died here, Nemesis. Died. I will not- I cannot- accept that answer!" Her voice was choked with emotion; fire burned in her eyes, and it was not merely a reflection of Nemesis's bonfire.
Nemesis's features hardened. "You will have to."
And, as Piper prepared to charge forward and Tyche moved to stop her, Nemesis flicked her hand toward them, and Piper charged forward into the hollow streets of New York.
She skidded to a stop when she realized where she was. Behind her, Tyche watched her young friend, sorrow brimming in her eyes.
Piper fell to her knees and looked out at the world about her. What was once a churning place of life was now an empty ghost town, all the mortals evacuated to Ogygia through the assistance of Annabeth and Calypso. The buildings and skyscrapers were broken and dilapidated, not having seen the care of human hands for months now. Across from her position, Piper looked into the gutted contents of a McDonald's, the windows shattered, the booths thrown about helter skelter by the monster raids that had ravaged anything living.
An animal scream broke from Piper's lips, and she roared at the sky, at fate, at all that had happened, and at the hopelessness that threatened to stop her heart. She screamed until she could scream no more, and then she stilled, staring down at her hands, bloody, dirty, sweaty. Tears began to pour in sheets down her face.
Tyche did not move from her position, only watching the mortal before her. How long had she taken her ease for granted, when there were such people as this? Broken and cowed by reality, the mortals still stood tall, strong, courageously staring down their misfortune and pain, fighting back for everything they loved. In all the pain and chaos she had experienced at the side of Piper, only now did the daughter of Aphrodite break. Tyche fully expected the woman to stay like that, fully expected her to go mad, but when Piper looked up, her eyes were vividly lucid, vividly sane.
"We need to contact Reyna." She told the goddess, moving to stand. When she did, though, her injured ankle gave out, and she buckled, bashing her knees on the asphalt of the empty street before Tyche had time to catch her.
The goddess helped her to her feet and slipped one of Piper's arms about her own shoulders. The two moved slowly toward the ravaged McDonald's, pushing through the only remaining door, hanging from a single hinge, and into the ghostly interior.
Together, they moved to the kitchen and reached the sink. Tyche turned on the faucet and pulled it away that she might place her thumb over and it and turn it to mist. Piper leaned against the counter, unable to rely on her ankle, and fished about in her satchel for a drachma. Finding it, she flipped it into the stream of mist and spoke the necessary supplication.
Reyna appeared. Piper noted with consternation that her friend seemed to have aged many years since last she had contacted her.
Piper opened her mouth to speak, to reveal the losses they'd suffered and Nemesis's predicament, but Reyna cut her off, raising a silencing hand. Sorrow and pity filled Reyna's heart, and she struggled to find the courage to put into words what she knew. Finally, she settled for the words that were hovering on her tongue.
"Piper...," she choked, "I'm so sorry, but Jason is dead."
Piper froze in shock.
- - -
The alien seemed to take particular joy in shoving Cassian against the rocky walls of their small cell, and Rowan was having none of it. Almost involuntarily, her fist flew, and she socked the alien in the face when it had thrown Cassian a second time. It hissed in pain and glared at her; undaunted, she glared directly back, and it backed off with an expression of disgust.
Rowan turned to see Cassian's expression to be one of concern.
Rowan had changed. It was imperceptible, barely there, but Cassian had worked with her long enough to understand the subtleties of her behavior, the little ways her personality filtered into it. And none of those ways were apparent now. Apathy. It was all apathy. Aside from the few moments of her-ness that he'd seen in action, specifically when they had been confronted with the Stormtroopers, there was nothing. Her eyes had receded, taking her personality with it. And he didn't miss the fact that, once she had lashed out against their captor and turned to face him, their gazes didn't meet.
He'd been expecting a sarcastic comment. All he'd gotten was silence.
Working hard at shoving his concern out of his features, Cassian moved to the grated door, looking through to what appeared to be the extremists' common room. Tables and various games that belonged more in casinos littered the place, interspersed with aliens of all different races and weapons lying casually about. Lying casually about, but in reach of the fighters, Cassian corrected. They would not make it out alive if they hurried to escape now. His heart dropped, but he forced himself to continue his examination, remembering what he'd told Jyn: "Rebellions are built on hope." He'd be a hypocrite if he didn't act on that now.
He progressively became aware of conversation behind him.
"I'm one with the Force, and the Force is with me. I'm one with the Force, and the Force is with me." The blind one was repeating over and over, a buzzing undertone to his thoughts; at one point in the chaos of their capture, Cassian remembered Jyn telling him and Rowan that the man's name was Chirrut Imwë. The other one, they had yet to learn the identity of, and as if on queue , he spoke.
"You pray?" His voice was incredulous as he asked the question of Chirrut in broken English.
"I'm one with the Force, and the Force is with me." Chirrut disregarded his friend, continuing his chant.
"Really?" The man's confusion did not abate, though amusement filtered into his tone.
Cassian tried to refocus on the predicament, wishing their new companions would silence themselves.
"I'm one with the Force, and the Force is with me." Chirrut again ignored his friend, though Cassian had the sudden feeling that the blind man was not at all as ignorant as he let on.
"He's praying for the door to open." The comment was directed at Cassian and Rowan.
Cassian glanced back, irritation on his features. He did not miss the sight of Rowan, leaning back against the rock, watching the ceiling. She wasn't paying any attention to the proceedings. Not until Chirrut spoke, breaking his litany.
"It bothers him because he knows it's possible." The comment was one for the rest of them in relation to the large man's cynical incredulity, but Rowan knew, from Chirrut's tone, that it was also directed at Cassian, for she had looked up when the blind man spoke, only to see Cassian's tense form crouched by the door. "Baze Malbus was once the most devoted Guardian of us all!" Chirrut's voice broke the unspoken regulations of volume in the cell, and Rowan flinched at it, but she was glad to learn the name of the large man.
Cassian evidently knew the comment to be directed at him, too. "I'm beginning to think the Force and I have different priorities."
He was unlacing his boot now, revealing the pack tied to his ankle. In it, he found the wires he was looking for. His instincts were kicking in; something was about to happen, and he intended to use that something to their advantage. But first, he would have to break the electric lock much the same way Rowan had broken his. The memory made him smirk.
"Relax, captain." Baze's voice was infuriatingly calm. "We've been in worse cages than this one."
"This is a first for me," Cassian returned, and Rowan began to pay closer attention to how tense the muscles in his shoulders were. He was expecting something, and she began to feel it, too. The sixth sense of survival, honed to a fine point in the both of them, was tingling. Suddenly, life flickered in her eyes. She put aside her frustration and despair for the moment and forced herself to focus, monitoring the actions of the aliens in the room beyond.
Chirrut, too, was sitting up now, no longer lounging against the rocks as she herself had been. "There is more than one sort of prison, captain," and Chirrut's voice spoke the word with significance. "I sense that you carry yours wherever you go."
Rowan saw that the comment unsettled Cassian, and feeling for her friend, she snapped.
"Oh, lay off, will you?" Her voice was harsh, and Cassian looked back, confusion slipping across his features.
She shrugged an apology for her former behavior, the shrug an attempt to console him. Cassian was just glad to have her back to normal, for he knew that she, too, had sensed the catastrophe ahead.
The cell descended into silence for a time, Cassian and Rowan watching intently the world about them, Baze lounging, and Chirrut sitting in silence.
Finally, the blind man spoke, and startled Rowan, who shot him a glare he could not see. Cassian smirked at this.
"Who is the one in the next cell?"
Rowan's curiosity was piqued, and she moved to look, but Baze had gotten there first. Shrugging, she returned to Cassian's side, but the captain had also been aroused, and was watching Baze closely.
"What? Where?" he asked, standing a little straighter from his crouched position.
"An Imperial pilot!" Baze's voice held brimming anger, and Rowan remembered all that the Empire had taken from his home.
"A pilot?" Cassian's voice was alarmed in turn, and only then did Rowan truly realize what was happening.
"I'm gonna kill him!" Baze roared, his eyes fiery, his arms reaching through the bars of the window and gripping hold of the pilot's neck.
Only then did Rowan and Cassian spring into action, scrambling across the cell and grabbing hold of Baze's arms in a frantic attempt to stop the man's murderous rage from taking effect.
"No, no, no! No wait!" Cassian cried as he jerked the man's arms away from the pilot. Rowan did the same, and then Baze was away from the window, heaving with seething rage. Rowan shot him a concerned, but quelling look, and then turned back to the pilot.
The skirmish of energy calmed, and the cell seemed to grow deathly still after the sudden emotional outburst, and Rowan watched the pilot as Cassian spoke, his voice desperate and hopeful, a strange combination.
The pilot was the same one that Rowan had seen in the "wanted" holograms in the city of Jedha, the same lanky black hair, greasy, long, and mostly pulled into a ponytail at the back of his head. His facial hair was scraggly and irregular: some sideburns, a mustache, and something resembling the start of a beard. His eyes were black and lolling and dazed, hair pulled away from it by the goggles that she recognized.
Cassian didn't nudge the man, didn't touch him, and Rowan knew why. The pilot was insane, or at least vegetative, and she herself would not have wanted to rush him back to full consciousness, in case valuable information would be lost. She recognized the madness as being a result of a confrontation with Bor Gullet, Saw Gererra's horror-movie-like pet that could supposedly read the minds of those it met at the cost of their sanity. She'd almost been forced to undergo the experience, but escaped at the last minute.
"Are you the pilot?" Cassian asked, and when the pilot didn't respond, he verbally prodded the man further. "Hey, hey." His voice was gentle, but desperation still lurked beneath. "Are you the pilot?" The pilot only groaned; his head lolled a little more. Cassian was growing more urgent, and he began to search for something, anything, to bring back the pilot's sanity. "The shuttle pilot? Pilot?" He was begging now.
"What's wrong with him?" Chirrut spoke up, and Rowan whipped around, putting a finger to her lips, though she didn't realize he would not have seen it until she turned back to the pilot and Cassian, who was delicately entreating the pilot to return to normal.
"Galen Erso?" Cassian asked, and the name seemed to arouse the pilot. He jerked a little out of his stupor and faced Cassian and Rowan, eyes clearing. Cassian breathed a sigh of relief. "You know that name?"
"I brought the message...," the pilot muttered weakly, using the words as a lifeline back to sanity, following them the way Rowan had once followed Ariadne's string through the Labyrinth. "I'm the pilot... I brought the message." His voice suddenly gained strength; his eyes became intently lucid, and he fixed Cassian's gaze, saying proudly, "I'm the pilot."
Rowan could feel Cassian's muscles relax in relief, pressed next to him to speak to the pilot. "Okay, good," he breathed, before his voice hardened. "Now, where is Galen Erso?"