Chapter 27

"We need to draw Tantalus away from the crystal." Percy said. "If I can somehow distract him and draw him into a fight with me, you might be able to sneak around him and destroy it. But we need him to think you've gone to get more help."

Leah nodded her wolf head at him to show she was listening, her brown eyes focused intensely on him as he spoke.

"If I can yell at you to get backup, acting like I'm going to try to take Tantalus out alone. Maybe he'll come out and face me. It's certainly worth a shot." Percy glanced at Riptide which still lay on the ground next to Leah. "Only problem is, your gonna need Riptide if your gonna destroy the crystal and that leaves me without a weapon."

Leah drooped her head down in shame, obviously mulling over the fact that she had left her own sword in the body of that Vampire.

"It's okay, I don't blame you. We were in a hurry and it would be extremely hard to run full speed with a sword in your mouth."

Percy glanced at the lush green undergrowth and the bushes spread randomly in places throughout the forrest floor. They would serve as good cover, that and the thick mist. Only the dead leave scattered across the ground would make it hard for Leah to sneak around, but what they had was the only plan, they would have to make it work.

"Pick Riptide up, pretend to run back when I yell at you, then loop around the side and destroy the crystal."

Leah nodded in understanding and tilted her head to the ground, trying to grab the pen with her teeth. She missed the first time before finally picking it up, huffing her breath in approval.

"Why not use your hand?" Percy asked.

If there was ever a way for a wolf to look embarrassed, that is how Leah looked in that moment. Her eyes avoided his and studied the ground as if it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world, shifting from paw to paw uncomfortably.

Then Percy remembered something, Leah's clothes didn't shift with her when she changed forms. They must have ripped off when she shifted into a wolf. He hadn't really been paying too much attention and had instead been focusing on the task at hand.

His face heated up, a rose red blush spreading all the way to Percy's ears.

"Erm, right. We'll have to make do. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, there are more important things than modesty. Just try and wait to change back into a human until the last possible moment. I probably won't see you anyway, hopefully I'll be busy fighting Tantalus."

Yes it was embarrassing, but there was something more important going on at hand.

Percy stood up, his back rubbing against the trees rough wood. He was about to face off against Tantalus, without a weapon. He didn't need Athena to point out how stupid it was, how little chance their plan had at success. Perhaps if they had more time to prepare, maybe they could have come up with something better. But they didn't. They had no time to think, they could only act.

It's in these moments where true hero's are found.

Percy took a wary sideways step into the open, letting himself be seen in the open misty air. Tantalus had not moved from where he stood last. The only difference was that his gun was held down at his side, sleek black barrel pointed towards the ground. His ribs protruded in small bumps along his upper chest and his stomach caved in below it. Not eating will tend to do that to a person.

In that moment Tantalus seemed to look more like a walking skeleton than a ghost. The misty form of the frail ghost was almost sad to look at.

Almost.

"Leah! Get out of here! Get some back up, I'll hold him off for now!" Percy yelled over his shoulder.

He could faintly hear the crackling of dead leaves as Leah retreated into the otherwise silent white forrest.

"Running away?" Tantalus slowly shook his head in disapproval.

"I don't need her to deal with the likes of you."

"Prove it then. Come closer, let's have a fight." Tantalus taunted.

What did the ghost take him for, an idiot? He wasn't stupid enough to take even one more step towards that weird crystal. It would be by-by Percy if he did.

"If you want me to come closer you'll have to drag my unconscious body from where I stand." Percy growled back.

Tantalus nodded as if he expected nothing less and began to walk closer to where Percy stood waiting in a ready stance. His fists were held up like a boxers and he breathed out a deep breath while relaxing his body and mind.

"No sword?" Tantalus glanced at the forest around him as if expecting something to jump out at him. "My my, quite a strange turn of events."

Tantalus was suspicious of something, that much was obvious, but is was also clear that he had no idea what he was suspicious of.

"I don't need it for a bastard like you." Percy replied. "I mean look at yourself, your a twig. I could snap you in half with a single punch." If he taunted Tantalus enough, kept him moving forward, it would give Leah more time and more room to destroy the crystal. He only had to make the ghost angry and completely fixated on him.

"Now we both now that's not true. What game are you playing at Son of Poseidon."

"No games, just your funeral."

"I think you'll find that someone's beaten you to it. I'm already dead." Tantalus continued forward in his walk, stopping only ten steps away from Percy.

His two glowing white eyes pierced through any mist standing between them and seemed to see everything. The ghost looked at him with nothing but pure hatred but held it with a regal confidence that was slightly unnerving.

Tantalus raised his gun towards Percy's left leg and in one smooth motion he pulled the trigger.

BANG!

A sharp biting pain seared itself onto Percy's left thigh, thick dark blood dribbled out and soaked his pant leg. The sticky syrup like substance was hot to the touch and warmed his leg. The pain was unbearable, the bullet was still inside his body and every time he so much as twitched his muscle the pain would bite down harder.

He collapsed to the ground, gasping from the pain. Slowly he pushed himself to his elbows, then to his hands while his legs still laid flat on the ground behind him. His breath was shaky and slow.

"There. Now it's a fair fight." Tantalus loomed over him, his glowing white eyes boring down from above. "You said I was so skinny, so frail, that you could knock me out in a single punch. A weak little guy like me had to do something to make the match even."

Percy didn't respond, he just gritted his teeth together and forced himself to move. He had to keep the ghosts attention on him, he would do whatever it took. He slowly pulled himself onto his one good knee. He was pressing his teeth so hard together now that he thought he might never get them unstuck, but it saved him from crying out in agony.

Ever so carefully he put his right foot on the ground and pushed his entire body into a standing position, grunting when the ache in his thigh intensified. It felt weak and was filled with a burning sensation that only grew hotter when any weight was put on it.

Percy pulled his hands back up into a boxing stance—released a deep breath—and narrowed his eyes onto Tantalus who stood not a yard away. Because the ghost was still holding onto his gun, he was still solid in form. Percy took his chance, stumbling forward he put everything he had into his punch.

His arm shot forward, his leg faltered beneath him, and his punch missed his target. He had been aiming for the ghosts head, but Tantalus has simply sidestepped away from his fist. The ghost hadn't even needed to disappear.

In his peripheral vision Percy could faintly recognize a foreign object roughly the size and shape of a fist barreling its way towards his face. He tried to move his head back, hoping to dodge the punch in the same way Tantalus had dodged his.

But he couldn't.

The fist pounded into the side of his cheek and rocked his head sideways. His vision blurred, his body twisted and he fell to the ground, slamming into the crusty dead leaves and bumpy roots beneath the earth.

Percy spit the taste of blood from his mouth. Then he wiped the remaining blood that dribbled from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

"You punch is weak." Percy spat. "My grandma hits harder."

Tantaluses features darkened. Good, I've got him angry. He's unfocused on his surroundings.

Percy softly groaned into the ground. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he did he felt a strange feeling, a connection to the water around him that was stronger than he had ever felt before. He reached out and instead of the feeling the pull strictly from his gut as it had been before now it came from his whole body. His whole body felt the water, his whole body knew the water. It was everywhere, in every molecule of air, in the mist that surrounded them. This wasn't new information and he already knew—

It wouldn't be enough.

But there was more water than just that. In the trees there was a larger amount of water that could be used. Trees were filled with water and he was in the middle of a forest.

The water of living things. The water of life, a taboo, this is what he controlled. It was the same power he had used in the depths of Tartarus, a power not meant to be used. Before when he had used this power he had felt something crack inside him, but now he felt nothing of the sort as he took control of the world around him.

Stealing the water from the trees would dry them out and kill them, but it was a necessary sacrifice. They would grow back.

His body heated up as the water flowed from the trees across the ground and under the leaves, heeding to his summons. This power could destroy him, he could be filled up with so much of it that he spontaneously combusted. Probably. It's not like he had ever tested the theory. Hopefully this didn't go horribly wrong.

His leg throbbed and his cheek stung from the punch but he pushed the pain away and focused with all his might.

His entire thought process had only taken a few seconds. Tantalus was still looking at him grotesquely and it seemed as if he hadn't noticed anything amiss.

Percy yelled with all his might and thrust his hands out towards where Tantalus stood, gripping his gun. His body heated up to an inferno as a massive wall of water seemed to jump up from the ground and fling itself towards the ghost. Tantalus was caught in the wave and thrown backwards into the ground sliding backwards across the leaves and into a very solid tree trunk.

Tantalus was slow to get up again but when he did he seemed angrier than ever. He was steaming at the edges of his body, the mist floating off and disappearing into the air.

The ghosts glowing white eyes fixated on him.

Then his head turned, snapping to the right as if he had seen something there.

Percy froze in fear, he couldn't have seen her, no.

"Hey Tantalus! Come and get me yah big baby!" Percy yelled, hoping to draw the ghosts gaze towards him once more.

Tantaluses head slowly tilted towards him, a malicious smile plastered onto his face. "Game over Percy."

Leah slowly stepped out from behind a tree and some bushes, she was close, so very close to the stone in the center of the clearing. It appeared as if she was almost completely blind by now, slowly placing one paw in front of the other, sniffing the ground with Riptide in her mouth.

"Tell her to stop." Tantalus had his gun traced onto Leah's heart, this time he would not miss.

Percy hesitated for a moment—Tantalus cocked the gun—the click seeming to echo throughout his entire being.

"Stop. Leah stop." He croaked out.

Her wolf hearing picked up on the noise, somehow still hearing him with how quiet it must have been from the distance between them.

It was an almost mirrored picture of when they had been in the maze.

"Now I'm going to tell you what your going to do Percy." Tantalus said. "Your going to walk towards the crystal, and let yourself be taken by it, or she's going to die. If you try anything. If you try to prevent this from happening in any way, she will die faster than you can blink."

No, there had to be another option. Something better.

But there wasn't.

His only choice was to let Leah die, and still fight for victory. Or let himself go and let Leah live to fight another day. He could live and try to save the world from chaos, but Leah would die. He imagined her smile in that moment and the mirth in her eyes when she laughed. He remembered the memories he held with her and the joy of simply being in her presence. The world would not be worth living in without her in it.

He'd been told all his life that his loyalty would be the death of him, and...

and today was finally that day.

Percy couldn't handle another death. He couldn't stand at another funeral and watch as his friend was buried into the ground. This time it was his turn to sacrifice something. Athena had once told him that he would give the world to save his friends.

I guess there's a reason she's the goddess of wisdom. Percy thought.

She'd been right all along, he was about to let himself be trapped for all eternity, surrounded by nothing, alone. He was about to let the world fall into chaos, completely and irreversibly, so she could live.

There was a chance that Tantalus would kill her anyway, but he had to hope. There was nothing he could do, it was out of his control. All he could control was this singular decision, he would save her now and there was a chance she could fight back another day.

He took a deep shaking breath and slowly pulled himself to his feet. His leg burned in pain for every limping, half step forward. He stared at the crystal, his whole body yearning for its sweet embrace. It called upon him as if beckoning him home.

He reached out with his hand towards the dull white object mystified as a strange trail of light left the tip of his fingers. It traveled through the air and weaved its way into the crystal.

It glowed brighter. His whole body felt a little bit lighter and when he looked at his skin it seemed just a little bit more translucent with every passing second.

He tore his stare from the crystal and looked at where Leah stood unmoving except for her head, not 20 yards away from it. She was searching for him, her eyes darting in every direction but seeing nothing.

"It's okay Leah." Percy said softly and her head snapped towards the sound of his voice. "It's okay."

She whimpered at him.

"Let me do this. Live on for me, keep moving forward. No matter what happens you need to keep moving forward." A lonely tear streaked down the side of his face. "Don't be an idiot Leah, don't be a hero."

Percy looked the same as Tantalus now, his misty form light and freeing. He could barely feel the pain from his wounds anymore. The sensation of having the thin trail of his essence leaving his body was not an unpleasant one. The skin all over his body prickled and goosebumps covered him from head to toe but it was strangely calming.

Leah took a step towards him.

BANG!

Dirt flew up in front of where her next foot would have been if she took another step forward. She froze and whimpered loudly to Percy.

The crystal was a spotlight now, Percy little more than a faint outline of mist.

"I love you Leah." Percy smiled one last time at the world before he disappeared into the crystal completely.

Leah howled at the sky, Riptide fell from her mouth and into the dirty ground.

The crystal was as bright as a star.

I can pretty much guarantee that you all didn't expect that. Did Tantalus just win? If Percy's stuck in the crystal how will he ever get back out again. Is he completely stuck inside it? Think it over.

Anyway, please review. I wrote almost all of this yesterday and spent about 3 hours on it so please tell me your thoughts.

Told you guys I would finish this story this break. Be ready for random updates throughout the week.

"Mans greed ensures that he shall always want more, that is the reason that power corrupts, because no amount of it is ever enough" — Yours Truly

-CreativeMode