XII.

Devising a Plan (Enyo)

Enyo's dreams that night weren't what she would call enjoyable. They started out great. She was transported back to WWII where she and Ares were fighting alongside brave soldiers at Normandy. Ares had assumed that Athena's plan needed a bit more divine intervention and he and Enyo entered the battle as soldiers. Enyo took the form of a young male soldier from Brooklyn fighting in Ares's squad. Together they had helped the Allies secure the beach. Enyo also saw that Athena had actually commended Ares for helping rather than getting angry at him for interfering like she usually did. That was the good part of the night. The bad part started right after that. Enyo found that she was in Athens at night looking upon 2 figures. One giant one and one that looked like a regular mortal man. She barely had time to register her surroundings when someone spoke. A voice so evil and deep it scared even the Goddess of War.

"The time is now my son. My sources tell me The War God is still missing and stripped of most of his powers," it said. Enyo recognized that voice. She had heard it taunting Zeus many years ago. It was Typhon. The father of all monsters. Enyo hadn't taken a side in that battle between her father and Typhon. Instead she stood by and watched, laughing at the carnage they had caused. Eventually, she went to join Ares and the others in Egypt when she had had her fun. Looking back on it many years later, after remembering first hand what one of Typhon's sons had done to an Olympian god, she sort of regrets not helping. Speaking of Typhon's son, Enyo saw the larger of the 2 forms bow its head in the direction of the voice. It appeared that the 2 figures had opened a portal or something to Tartarus. Very dangerous.

"Yes father. The assault will commence in a week," the giant said.

"Very good Ekhidnades. And what of the boy? What exactly is your plan with him?" Typhon's voice boomed. The mortal man trembled with fear.

"He is our back door plan. I will disguise him with magic and use him to dismantle the other Olympians from within. Nothing will be able to stop me from destroying Athens. The others still believe it's the War God that is causing all the chaos. Unfortunately, I had to stop my fun because I saw that pesky friend of the War God, Thanatos or whatever his name is, snooping around. I know he recognized my handiwork. I will resume my assault in a week as I promised. Once the gods are killed, I will free you from Tartarus and you will rule all!" Ekhidnades said, bowing his head again. The mortal man bowed his head as well.

"Good….Good" Typhon said and then started to laugh. Ekhidnades and the mortal man joined in. Enyo had been watching the meeting unfold in sheer terror.

"Be sure to leave his twin sister for last. I want to kill her in front of his eyes" Ekhidnades said to the mortal man. The mortal man turned to face Enyo, a look of ecstasy etched on his brutal face. It was enough to wake Enyo from her slumber.

She found herself laying across the couch in Ares's living room. She sat up, panting slightly. Ekhidnades was to resume his attack on Athens the following week. But time didn't really matter to gods and monsters. What did matter was that Ehkidnades was going to destroy Athens and Ares was going to be blamed by Zeus regardless of the insistence of the others. She needed to do something and fast. Enyo got up off the couch and climbed the stairs to where Ares's bedroom was. She pushed open the door only to find...that the bed was empty. Oh no...not again.

"YOU LIAR! YOU ABSOLUTE LIAR!" she yelled and ran back down the stairs. Where did he go now? She had no leads or clues this time. This was bad. Very bad. Enyo was just about to start throwing things when the front door opened and Ares walked inside carrying 2 boxes of donuts.

"WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?!" she yelled at him. Ares jumped back a few feet and then pointed at the boxes of donuts.

"Half Price Donut Day at the coffee shop down the street...Jeez, what's up your butt? I promised you that I wouldn't leave, didn't I?" he said, taking a bite of a chocolate covered donut.

"AND WHEN, WHEN, HAVE YOU BEEN GOOD AT KEEPING PROMISES?!" Enyo yelled back remembering the feeling of betrayal she had felt after Ares's initial departure.

"About as good as you are at surveying your surroundings," Ares said with a mouthful of donut and pointing at the coffee table. Enyo's eyes snapped towards it and saw that there was a handwritten note left on the table. She picked it up and quickly read it.

"E, I am going down the street to grab some breakfast. Don't freak out if you can't find me. I'll be back in like 30 minutes" Enyo looked from the note to Ares still standing in the doorway.

"Oh.."

"I assume that you also had some bad dreams?" he asked and sat down next to her. He offered her the other box of donuts which she took.

"Y-yeah…" she said rather softly. She was still trying to recover from her moment of anger.

"Relax E. I need your help, remember? So, did you also see a vision of Ekhidnades and some other dude having a conversation with Typhon in Athens?" he said, finishing the first donut and grabbing another from the box. Enyo's eyes shot to her brother's.

"Yeah...something about him starting the attack in a week...This is not good" Enyo answered and tried a donut. She smiled as she chewed the mortal pastry. It was indeed her favorite flavor. Blueberry. Ares really did care about her.

"No…no it's not. I know Pops is still gonna blame me for Athens regardless of what anyone else says. If I show my face on Olympus, I'm dead," Ares said. Enyo had just now noticed that his old godly pride wasn't as pronounced as it used to be. He had spent over 6 months among mortals after all. His personality had indeed changed a little bit.

"So far, the only idea I have is somehow getting me to Athens within a week and killing Ekhidnades before he does anything. But I can't necessarily fly, can I? Pops would know. Especially if you're with me," Ares continued. Enyo agreed with him. She had been thinking the same thing. The only way this could work would be to travel to Olympus and rally the others against Zeus. Judging by how the last Solstice meeting went, most if not all the other Gods believed that Ares was innocent. Even Athena and Hera. Enyo decided to relay this information to Ares.

"Really? Wise Ass thinks I'm innocent? Even after she basically sparked my rant and then attempted to kill me again? I will never understand how she thinks," Ares said, shaking his head and started eating his 4th donut. Enyo had only finished 2 of hers.

"Ah whatever, we got a week to think of something to get Pops to stop being an ass. Jeez...that's gonna be a tall order. Oh and I may have something that we can do tonight if you're up for it," Ares said.

"Oh?" she responded. This could either be really good or bad.

"I figured we'd kill some time watching whoever's playing the theatre tonight. I'm supposed to be off but I get free admission to shows I want to see. Good news is that it's not supposed to be a country act. I wanna say some bands that were big in the 90s and early 00s," he said, finishing his last donut and rubbing the powdered sugar off his hands. Enyo looked at him with a worried look on her face.

"E, we got some time. Our only plan is a bad one and trust me, I know bad plans. We'll take a day or 2 to think of something. We know what Ekhidnades is doing and when he's going to do it. That's the good news. It won't be random," Ares said.

"Ok...but do I have to wear the blue button down like you and that Dom guy had to wear?" she responded and pinched Ares's cheek. Ares scowled in response.

Turns out that the band that was playing that evening was one of those rock bands from the 90s. Enyo had decided to take on the persona of a German immigrant very much like Ares did when he was in public nowadays. All she really did was change her hairstyle and kept her outfit pretty much the same. She went with a classic undercut hairstyle. Ares decided to go classic as well and don a red muscle shirt, black jeans, black boots, a new leather duster and red wrap around sunglasses.

"Can't beat the classics," Ares said when he saw Enyo looking at him reminiscently before they had set off. They arrived to see a small crowd in the stands and Enyo noticed Ares's security buddy, Dom, standing at the entrance again.

"Hey Richter, can't stay away on your days off huh? This is your sister Monika right?" Dom said to the pair of them. Enyo winked at him.

"Ja, don't get any ideas though. She's taken," Ares said in his German accent as Enyo looked at him, annoyed. "She doesn't speak a lot of English but she surprised me the other day and I felt like showing her around,"

"Word. You know the spot," Dom answered and returned to his watch of the arriving concertgoers.

"I'm taken? The heck was that about? How many lovers have you taken over the years bro?" Enyo asked Ares as they walked in the other direction.

"Last thing we need right now is for you to fall in love with someone. Remember our problem in Athens?" Ares responded and led Enyo up the nearby cliffside. They climbed for several minutes before stopping. Enyo saw a couple other people in this area. They looked like more off duty security guards with their various significant others. Ares popped a squat near the edge of the cliff.

"What is this place?" Enyo asked before sitting down next to him. Ares meanwhile had his eyes closed and was moving his hands from side to side. He must be trying to manipulate the mist into thinking his co-workers witnessed them speaking in German or not realizing that they were even there. Soon enough, he stopped and looked at her with a look of confusion on his face.

"The Gorge Amphitheatre. Did you not see the sign over the entrance?" he said. Enyo punched his shoulder...a little too hard. Ares hit the ground and skidded across the dirt for a few feet.

"Uncool," he said, getting up and brushing dirt and rocks off himself while Enyo laughed. It was very much just like old times before Ares had quit. Most of her favorite memories over the years involved Ares in some way. Comforting her after the death of her son, pulling pranks on Athena and berating Zeus and Hera for being bad parents were standouts among them. The band that was performing tonight had arrived on stage to general applause from the crowd. Enyo listened to a few songs, many of which she recognized and could hear quite clearly from their spot on the cliffside, before she had noticed Ares's face. He had the classic Thousand Yard Stare look.
"Ares, what's up bro?" she asked. Ares was startled by her voice.

"What? Oh nothing," he answered, trying to lie. Enyo could see right through it.

"Bro, come on. The last time I saw you with that look on your face…" Enyo started but trailed off. The last and only time she had seen that look on her brother's face was when he lost Leonidas.

"You saw something else in that vision last night didn't you?" Enyo asked. She knew it. The only time Ares ate donuts was when he was really upset or angry...so you know, once every couple of weeks.

"Drop it," Ares said warningly. In the sunset, Enyo swore that she could see the old fire in her brother's eyes under his sunglasses.

"But..."

"I SAID DROP IT!" Ares suddenly yelled at her. A few of the other people there turned to look at the pair of them quizzically. Enyo recoiled slightly. She thought she heard a bit of despair in his voice rather than sheer anger. Ares turned away from her back to the band playing on stage.

"The mortal man in the vision…I didn't really see his face. Ekhidnades is planning to use him against you," Enyo said. Ares didn't respond at first but soon enough, he nodded without taking his eyes off the band on stage. They were currently playing a song that they had written for a movie released in the 90s or early 00s.

"He's going to pass it off that I resurrected Leonidas and was going to go on a killing spree with him," Ares said. Enyo frowned. That didn't add up. What she saw was Ekhidnades and a mortal man that she did not recognize at all. She would have known if the man was Leonidas. What else was different about the vision Ares saw? What if he didn't know what the actual plan was and was just going to base his actions on what he saw?

"What exactly did you see?" Enyo asked apprehensively. Again Ares was slow to answer.

"Ekhidnades talking with someone in Tartarus, probably Typhon, and MY SON standing next to him, laughing. Ekhidnades said that he would release Leonidas to terrorize the citizens of Athens in a week. I'll have to kill my son," Ares said very shakily. It was very much against his old personality. It was also 100% not at all what Enyo had seen.

"Wait...that's what you saw? I saw something completely different. I saw a man that I didn't recognize and he was to go to Olympus and weaken the others or something," Enyo told him as the band on stage struck up another familiar tune.

"Whatever, I'll still have to kill my son," Ares said. He wasn't going to listen no matter what Enyo would tell him. She decided that it was a lost cause and instead rested her head on Ares's shoulder and enjoyed the time she was spending with her brother.

The next few days were a blur to Enyo. She tried to get Ares to believe that what he had seen might not have been the truth but every single time she did, Ares got incredibly defensive and angry. He was very much convinced that he had to kill the reanimated corpse of his son along with Ekhidnades...that is, if he was even able to do either of those things. Ares had almost none of his old godly powers and there was pretty much no way that Zeus was going to give them back. Time was running out fast and Enyo had decided to message Aphrodite for some advice. Enyo was relieved to find out that the other Olympians (including Athena) were convinced that Ares was innocent and only Zeus was still blaming Ares. Unfortunately, this was still bad. Whatever Zeus said goes. One day, about 2 days before Ekhidnades was to attack Athens, Enyo was alerted to an Iris Message. She had been sitting on Ares's couch sharpening one of her swords when Aphrodite's voice had startled her.

"E, where is he?" she said. Enyo looked around the room and saw Aphrodite's face coming through a rainbow made by the sun on one of the windows.

"Relax Aph, he's out at the gym. Why what's up?" Enyo asked. Aphrodite looked sad for a moment.

"Nothing new...but someone else wants to talk to you about a plan," she said. Enyo scowled when she saw Athena appear next to Aphrodite. Of course, of course she had a plan.

"And what do you want? Didn't you blame him in the first place? Aren't you the cause of a lot of his anger most of the time? Didn't you once smack him in the face with your spear when he accidentally dropped a cat off Mount Olympus?" Enyo said to her half-sister angrily.

"Yes I did. I studied the culprit's tactics and strategies one morning. It is clearly not Ares but it could easily be mistaken as his handiwork. I regret that I am one of the reasons that caused him to break his promise to you," Athena responded calmly.

"YOU STILL NEARLY KILLED HIM! HE TOLD ME ABOUT YOUR DUEL BEFORE HE LEFT OLYMPUS!"
"Again, I was still under the impression that he was behind the attacks in Athens. I held myself back because I wasn't actually going to kill him,"

"THEN. EXPLAIN. TROY. NOW."

"That was just a moment of extreme weakness. I was furious at him for going against his promise. Again. A feeling you know quite well unfortunately. Judging by how worried Thanatos is, the culprit behind Athens is someone you fought before. It's got to be the same person that injured him so severely thousands of years ago,"

"Yeah," Enyo shot back, still furious at Athena's comment about broken promises. "What's your plan anyway? Aph said you had one"

"Yes I do. I'll explain it when you get here. You might have some problems to worry about right now. I believe some monsters saw Ares in his old attire yesterday and tracked him to his hiding pla-" CRASH! The window that was projecting the image of Athena suddenly shattered into a thousand pieces as a body was thrown through it. It flew over Enyo's head and hit the wall behind her. It was Ares. He looked pretty beat up as well. He had multiple cuts and scrapes on his face. The leather duster he was wearing was torn in multiple places and there were more cuts and scrapes along his arms.

"ARES!" Enyo yelled and ran to his side. "What the heck happened to you?!"

"Chimeras. 3 of them. I got 2 pretty fast but the last one didn't like that at all," he answered, wheezing a little bit. Enyo thought that he looked quite bad. She had to remind herself that he wasn't immortal anymore and that mortal weapons and monsters could wound him now.

"Why is your blood orange?" she asked and started to wipe some of it off of his face. Ares didn't respond. He was looking past her for some reason. In one quick move he pushed Enyo to the side as a Chimera leaped through the broken window and landed right on Ares's chest. Enyo watched in horror as the lion head of the Chimera clamped it's jaws on Ares's neck. He yelled in pain as Enyo yelled in rage. The Chimera lifted Ares off the ground, shook him from side to side and then threw him across the room again. Ares smashed into the wall and didn't move again. Unfortunately for the Chimera, it has just attacked the being that Enyo loved more than anyone in existence, even Lysander and Eris. Her big brother. Enyo's eyes burned blue as she unsheathed her other sword and charged the Chimera. The Chimera didn't have a chance against a war goddess. Enyo sliced off the Chimera's snake tail before slamming the blade into the beast's head. The chimera roared in agony before Enyo had wrenched the blade from its head and then inserted both of her hands into the gaping wound. She used all of her strength to tear the chimera in half down the middle. It immediately turned to dust. Enyo then ran over to Ares's body. He had his hand over the bite wound in his neck but it was still bleeding pretty bad.

"E...E...I'm...I'm not gonna make it" he croaked using his other hand to grab onto her leather vest.

"YOU ARE NOT DYING ON ME. NOT LIKE THIS! APOLLO!" Enyo yelled to the sky. Miraculously, Apollo the god of 70 different things appeared in front of her.

"You call- What in the name of Hades happened here?!" he said looking around at the destroyed living room. Enyo grabbed him by his toga.

"HEAL HIM. HEAL HIM RIGHT NOW!" she shouted pointing at Ares on the ground.

"Who is that? Hang on...it looks like-"

"JUST FIX HIM!" Enyo shouted. Apollo knelt next to Ares and gasped.

"Ares?"

"APOLLO. DO SOMETHING. HE'S DYING!" Enyo yelled desperately. She felt the tears coming and she knew it. If she lost Ares now…

"Right, right. Looks like a chimera bite. Pretty easy fix," he said and placed his hand on Ares's forehead. He muttered words of healing and to Enyo's great relief, she saw that Ares's wounds were healing. When he was done, Apollo took his hand off Ares's head and helped him stand up.

"That's 2 you owe me Ares," he said. Ares scowled.

"You think I forgot about that video you posted of me falling on my ass? I owe you jack squat..but thanks for not letting me or E die…" Ares answered before Enyo nearly knocked him to the ground again with a hug.

"You are not leaving my sight again, do you understand me?!" she said, squeezing him tight.

"You know what, fair." Ares responded before addressing Apollo. "How pissed is the Big Guy right now?"

"Surprisingly, not that pissed. Hera is though and that's pretty common anyway. What is this I keep hearing about a giant in Athens?" Apollo asked. Ares and Enyo gave him the quick lowdown on the situation.

"So...why don't we all just go over there and kill him?" Apollo asked.

"Because, there's a spy currently on Olympus. I need you to find out who. Meanwhile, I think this hiding place is no good anymore. We gotta get to Camp. Plus it will be pretty easy for us to get to Olympus once we think of something. Athena was in the middle of telling us a plan before Ares crashed through the window," Enyo said. Apollo looked confused.

"Hold on...Wise Ass is actually helping me? " Ares began before he stopped suddenly. He looked as though he was recalling something from the past that Enyo didn't know about.

"I know. It's most likely going to be needlessly complicated and have like 80 steps to it. We need to get out of here. Now," Enyo said to him. She had noticed Ares's expression change. He was hiding something from her. But that wasn't important, what was important was getting out of this place.

"Right. Camp sounds like a good idea. Apollo, can you wipe this area's memory of me?" Ares said to Apollo.

"I mean I guess," Apollo said, taking out a lyre for some reason. "How are you guys going to get to Camp? Sun Chariot?"

"I'll just teleport us there, I'm a goddess too you know. Once I know Ares is safe at Camp, I'll give you a hand in locating the spy."

"How do you know about a spy?"

"LATER!" Enyo shouted before grabbing Ares by the shoulder and teleporting from Ares's final hiding place.

They arrived a few hundred years from Half Blood Hill. Enyo could see the form of Peleus around the giant pine tree with the Golden Fleece in it's branches. Ares looked a bit queasy from the sudden arrival back in New York.

"Damn, no wonder mortals hate when we do that to them," he said, clutching his stomach. Enyo turned Ares to face her. She was still reeling from the fact that he had almost died.

"I saw your face back there when you mentioned Athena. What are you hiding from me?" she said and drew her sword again. "Don't lie."

"Can I go ONE day without someone trying to kill me? Now I know how Jackson feels. Ok E. Remember when we battled Ekhidnades the first time? My injuries didn't kick in until a day or 2 later. Typhon decided to attack before I was able to suck it up and ask Paeeon or Apollo for help. Wise Ass noticed that I was gravely injured and led me to safety. I made her swear not to tell anyone and to act the same as before. Told her to call me a coward and all that crap and I would pretty much do the same. I forgot about that for a long time until I relived our battle with Ekhidnades in my dreams. She didn't. As for Troy, she must have been really mad that Aphrodite convinced me to fight for the Trojans," he responded, keeping his eyes on Enyo's sword. Enyo could not believe what she had just heard. Athena, Ares's bitter rival for millenia had saved his life.

"And what did Apollo mean by you owe him 2 now?" she asked.

"When you passed out after we fought Ekhidnades, who did you think I yelled at to heal you? Pops?" Ares said. Enyo sheathed her blade and hugged Ares again.

"I love you big brother. I almost lost you for real,"

"You can't take down the God of War that easily E. Love you too little sis. Now c'mon, I need to make my grand appearance at this camp."