Chapter 17: Battle of Power

3rd Person POV

The next morning, everyone was nervous. If Tartarus followed through with his threat, this would surely be the toughest battle of their lives. Most likely, all of the minor gods on Tartarus's side would fight today, along with Nyx and Tartarus themselves.

The gods stood along Percy and the rest of the demigod leaders, ready to fight if the minor gods and primordials did join in, and return to Olympus if they didn't. The rest of the demigod army stayed behind them, knowing that their job was to fight the monsters rather than the main enemy gods and primordials.

However, what all of the demigods - or at least, most - knew was that in this battle, planning was not a major aspect. This was no battle of intelligence or strategy. This was a battle of pure power.

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Soon, the monster army could be seen marching to Camp Half-Blood. Most of the demigods breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that Tartarus, Nyx, and the minor gods were nowhere to be seen. But that relief was very short-lived. As soon as the monster army was standing a few hundred feet away from the demigods and gods, Tartarus and his allies appeared.

Not all of the minor gods that had joined Tartarus were present, but Percy guessed that some of them had already played their role or didn't need to be there to play their role. Only Hecate and Nike were there, because they were the ones that would also join in the fighting rather than simply using their powers. Percy was pretty sure that Morpheus would have put the people of Long Island to sleep already. While the original plan when Percy was with Tartarus had been to attack Olympus directly and put Manhattan to sleep again, because of the change in plan, it was obvious that Morpheus would've targeted Long Island instead.

Janus, Percy thought, would probably randomly appear in front of demigods to confuse them with his two-sided choices. Tyche would provide Tartarus with good fortune, and Nemesis would turn them against each other. It seemed to be perfect for Tartarus's side, a clear and obvious victory for them, but Percy and the demigods had a habit of doing the impossible. They weren't about to give up just yet.

"Attack!" Tartarus commanded.

Instead of attacking like the gods and demigods were expecting Tartarus and Nyx to also do, they moved to the side to let their army and the minor gods attack by themselves. It seemed like the primordials were content to simply watch the others tire the demigods out.

However, the gods had different ideas. Zeus nodded to the rest of the Olympians and the demigods who would help them fight the primordials, and they charged Tartarus and Nyx together.

While technically according to the Ancient Laws, Tartarus and Nyx couldn't attack first and the gods could have exploited this, there was no guarantee the two primordials would pay heed to the Laws, having enough power to avoid any major punishment from Chaos. Because of this, the gods and demigods had decided to not leave that decision on the primordials, and just attack first.

The two primordials smiled, having already expected this from the gods. They knew that the gods and demigods were very good at planning along with being experienced after having fought two wars already, so they had expected them to take the forefront in attacking. In this way, they hadn't even made any serious violations of the Ancient Laws, meaning they wouldn't be weakened because of the violations.

Because darkness and dark energy was something that overlapped Tartarus and Nyx's domains, they used that as their first plan of attack. Standing together, they created a shield of darkness surrounding them, effectively making sure that they could just watch the Olympians' efforts to break it for some time.

Hades was the god with the most control over dark energy, so he first tried to break the shield using his willpower, and obviously failed. His second attempt was to fire his own blast of black energy at the shield, and while the shield remained, it was definitely some progress.

After that, all of the Olympians and demigods together attacked the shield, and it easily crumbled against the might of that much combined power.

From then on, pure chaos ensued. Having decided that they had had enough of staying on defense, the primordials went on offense, firing blast after blast of energy at their adversaries. They randomly teleported around the demigods, and those that couldn't turn around quick enough or weren't protected by their godly parents were killed. They both used swords that looked similar to Moira, having the same powers as it too (this became clear when a blast of fire from Hephaestus was absorbed by Nyx's blade).

The gods and demigods countered using their own powers, using sky, water, fire, machinery, plants, undead, and all that they could use to fight back. At first, the fight was equally balanced, every move being countered with the same strength. But slowly, demigods started getting killed and wounded badly, and Athena and Dionysus were incapacitated, lying on the ground. Apollo had to leave the fight to help heal those that still could be healed. The primordials gained the upper hand steadily, and it was clear that the gods' side needed to change their approach.

"We have to get them separated," Percy said to his dad. Together, Nyx and Tartarus were practically invulnerable, at least against the current army facing them.

Poseidon nodded, and in the next few minutes, as they fended as well as they could against the two primordials, he and Percy told their improvised plan to all of them.

Hades, being again the best god to fight the primordials because of his domain, created a wall of black energy to surround them. The gods and demigods helped with their powers, but Hades's wall was the most important one. Hopefully, it would stand and provide them with a few seconds. Not wasting their time, the gods turned to the monster army, and together pointed their godly weapons at it.

"GET BACK!" Percy shouted at the demigods that were near the monsters. Fortunately, they seemed to understand and retreated quickly.

The smarter monsters' eyes widened as they realized what was going to happen. Because the primordials had joined the fight, the gods had free reign to attack the monsters now. This was a bit of a loophole in the Ancient Laws, and though the gods would definitely face some rebuke because of it, it was a worthwhile risk.

The gods all used their weapons and powers simultaneously, and the monsters stood no chance. Percy marveled at the sight as he saw the monster army that had been in the thousands all turn into just a huge pile of dust. This was the true might of the Olympian council, and it was breathtaking. But then again, Percy thought, they wouldn't have survived in charge of the Greek pantheon for so long if they hadn't had so much combined power.

The rest of the demigods now didn't have to face the monsters, so they joined the half-blood leaders in fighting the primordials. At the same time, the minor gods joined the primordials and started fighting alongside them.

Percy was expecting the minor gods to start pitching in with their powers, but surprisingly, nothing happened. A few moments after joining the primordials, Hecate disappeared off the battlefield. Janus, Tyche, and Nemesis, it seemed, weren't doing anything either. The only minor god actively helping the primordials was Nike. She aggressively attacked the demigods and gods, screaming for Tartarus's victory.

However, there wasn't enough time to contemplate the absence of most of the minor gods, because it was time to implement the major part of their improvised plan: separating the primordials. Now that all of the half-bloods were free from fighting monsters, they could help the gods separate Tartarus and Nyx.

Olympus's army split into two parts: the gods and the demigods. Having just given a display of their combined power, there was no doubt that the Olympians together were strong enough to take on even Nyx - the stronger of the two primordials, even if she wasn't in charge - if she was alone. The demigods had the job of taking on the (very slightly) lesser of the two primordials, Tartarus.

Fortunately, the two primordials were momentarily confused as to where Hecate had gone and why the minor gods weren't helping, providing their adversaries a perfect opportunity to use their plan. The Olympians raised their godly weapons and readied themselves to use their powers in the same way that they had for the monster army. Together, they attacked Tartarus, and not ready, the primordial of the abyss was blown back greatly. It seemed that Tartarus's plan of getting luck from Tyche was not working.

The demigods then charged him, allowing the gods to fight Nyx. The reason they hadn't attacked Nyx first was that she was more powerful than Tartarus, so it would be less likely for their move to work on her.

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The plan worked throughout the day. The primordials, separated, couldn't fight as well as they had earlier, and any attempt to teleport back to each other was ruined by the gods separating them again. It was pure power play, and with each side having roughly equal power in each separate battle, Olympus's army managed to stay strong throughout the day.

There were quite a few fatalities on Olympus's side, and the only fatality on Tartarus's side was that Nike was fatally wounded by Zeus, and the goddess faded into nothing. The king of the gods told the demigods that she would reform eventually, maybe in a few decades, and that she would be sure not to betray Olympus again.

Eventually, night fell, and the primordials, though they had a clear temptation to fight through the darkness, because it strengthened them, were forced to return because of the Ancient Laws. Turned out that fighting in the night was a serious violation of the Laws which could result in Chaos taking major power away from the primordials, something that they couldn't risk, having seen that Olympus's army was truly a match for them, contrary to their former belief. While Chaos was said to never leave the void, he was also said to be always watching, having no need or want to slumber like Gaea, and always ready to punish those who broke the Ancient Laws.

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In the war meeting after the day's fighting, the gods agreed that Percy's plan was definitely the best plan that they had, and agreed to go into the pit to fight the next day.

The demigod leaders were instructed to let everyone know that they would enter the pit the next day, and then go to sleep as quickly as possible so they could be well rested when entering the pit.

Percy, however, couldn't fall asleep as quickly as his comrades. His mind was racing because he knew the next day's battle would be much tougher than that day's one. They would have to depart to fight in the early morning to avoid the camp being attacked before they could leave.

And most importantly, the power play was over at this point. In the pit, power wouldn't be all that important, at least to Olympus's side, because they knew that they would have less power and their adversaries more of it within the pit.

The battle of power was done. The next day, a new battle would begin. A battle of wits.

A/N: Thanks everyone for the 12K views!