To 8Ball3- So far I've done Percy and Lou meeting Carter. I may read over Staff of Serapis again, seems a bit weird to only do two out of three, but I don't think there was much I added in. But no, all five of them will be in the last one, I'm quite looking forward to that bit where Percy gets possessed by that (vulture?) goddess :3 I like that headcanon! :O XD For everyone- the headcanon, by 8Ball3, is the more musical Apollo kids can weaponise their voices, like Apollo did to Commodus :P I just have visions of different types of singers and/or rappers obliterating their enemies- like opera singers versus hip hop versus heavy metal vs all the other genres XP
As they neared the city, the sights of the continuing battle got worse: flames eating up tops of buildings, screams, shouts, explosions, smoke so thick and choking, Storm had to land and gallop just so they could breathe.
She dropped him at the Pomerian Line, once more looking up at the sky. Beyond the smoke was a dome of stars glistening pink in the blood moon, as if the storm had never existed.
"Go." Apollo urged. She nuzzled his face gratefully and raced away in search of her rider. He looked the other way, towards Temple Hill, hoping to see a divine aura of silver light or an army of Hunters charging to the rescue. But he saw nothing.
With a defeated sigh, he turned and jogged towards the Forum.
That was where he caught his first glimpse of the unicorns.
Meg led the charge, not riding a unicorn. No-one who had any value of their life (and their crotch) would ever dare ride one. Meg ran alongside them, exhorting them to greatness as they galloped into battle. They were outfitted with Kevlar, their names printed in white block letters along their ribs: MUFFIN, BUSTER, WHANGDOODLE, SHIRLEY and HORATIO. The Five Unicorns of the Apocalypse. Their leather helmets looked like those worn by football players in the nineteen-twenties. The steeds' horns were fitted with specially designed… attachments? Like massive, conical Swiss Army knives, with various slots from which sprang a convenient array of destructive implements.
Meg and her friends slammed into a horde of vrykolakai- former legionnaires killed in Tarquin's last assault, judging from their grungy remnants of armour. A member of Camp Jupiter might have had trouble attacking old comrades, but Meg was undeterred. Her swords whirled, slicing the zombies apart.
With a flick of their snouts, her equine army activated their favourite accessories- a sword blade, a giant razor, a corkscrew, a fork and- in Buster's case- a nail file. They ploughed through the undead, forking, shaving, corkscrewing, stabbing and nail-filing them into oblivion.
Apollo had no qualms with the weaponised unicorns as he had had with the maimed pegasi. For starters, the unicorns had not been tortured. The obvious thing- the unicorns were clearly enjoying themselves, vindicated at last and breaking all dainty, rainbow-tainted, pure of heart nonsense stereotypes.
"Hey!" Meg grinned at Apollo, as if he had only just gone to the bathroom instead of a death match with the emperors. "It's working great! Unicorns are immune to undead scratches and bites!" Shirley huffed, very pleased with herself and proudly showing him her corkscrew killing instrument.
"It's very cool." Apollo praised.
"The emperors?" Meg asked.
"Dead, but…" His voice cracked. She knew him well enough.
"Grieve later. Right now, we should find Hazel. She's-" She waved vaguely towards the middle of the town. "She and Lou went that way, they're there somewhere. So is Tarquin." Just hearing that name made Apollo's stomach contort. Why hadn't he been born a unicorn?
They ran with their Swiss Army herd up the narrow winding streets. The battle was mostly pockets of house-to-house combat. Families had barricaded their homes. Shops were boarded up. Roving bands of eurynomoi attacked any living thing they could find.
As horrible as the scene was, something about it seemed oddly subdued. Yes, Tarquin had flooded the city with the undead, every sewer grate and manhole cover was open. But it seemed Louisa had also flooded the city, quite literally. They saw streets that had become chasms, still dripping with sewage water, houses that had been on fire, (some still smouldered, but people had found hosepipes and buckets), one house that had lost its top half quite neatly. Fountains and plumbing had exploded and there was a rather bashed up DVD player sitting sadly in a puddle.
Meg looked back at him to inform him that all the damage was Louisa's doing, followed by, "She's so cool." Apollo had guessed as much- no other demigod was quite so chaotically bent on destruction- and he did begrudgingly (silently) agree with the last part, so as not to encourage Meg onto a similar path.
The roots of a question were taking hold in his mind, but he struggled for it to take form. He knew what he wanted to ask, but… should he?
Tarquin wasn't attacking in force, sweeping systemically through the city to take control. Instead, small groups of undead were popping up everywhere at once, forcing the Romans to scramble and defend the citizenry. It felt less like an invasion and more like a diversion.
Then it clicked, lead pumping in his heart.
"Bookshop!" He cried. "Meg, the bookshop!" She frowned at him, not the time to shop for books. But then she got it.
"Oh." She picked up speed, the unicorns racing along with her. Apollo wasn't sure how he managed to keep up. He simply figured his body was so far beyond help that it hardly cared he was running towards death.
The fighting intensified as they climbed the hill. It was less fiery up here. Everything seemed a bit wet- more soaked than what they had already seen. One of the streets had been blocked off by another toppled building, what looked to have been a clothes/armoury store. They passed a part of the Fourth Cohort battling a dozen slavering ghouls outside a pavement café. Said café's tables and chairs were strewn about, as if thrown or, more likely, swept up in angry gales.
From the windows above, small children and their parents were tossing things at the eurynomoi- rocks, pots, pans, bottles- while the legionnaires jabbed their spears over the tops of their locked shields.
A few blocks further on, just as wet and hurricane-splattered and sewer-drenched as the previous streets, they found Terminus. His World War I greatcoat was peppered with shrapnel holes and his nose had been broken clean off his marble face. Crouching behind his pedestal was a little girl- Julia, his helper- clutching a steak knife.
Terminus turned on them with such fury, Apollo feared he would zap them into stacks of custom declaration forms.
"Oh, it's you." The statue grumbled. "My borders have failed. I hope you've brought help." Apollo looked at the terrified girl behind him, feral and fierce and ready to spring. Who was protecting whom?
"Ah… maybe." He said when Terminus's glare hardened.
"I see. Well, I've concentrated the last bits of my power here, around Julia. They may destroy New Rome, but they will not harm this girl!"
"Or this statue!" Julia confirmed.
"We'll win today." Apollo said, heart shattering like a jar, "I promise." He made it sound like he actually believed that statement. "Where's Hazel and Lou?"
"Over there!" Terminus pointed with his non-existent arms. Based on his glance, Apollo assumed he meant to the left. "And if you see Louisa, tell her to get up! I don't know what she was doing it, but we need her to do it again!"
"Do what?" Apollo puzzled.
"Go!" Terminus and Julia shouted.
Apollo and Meg ran left, kept running until they found another cluster of legionnaires.
"Where's Hazel and Lou?" Meg yelled.
"That way!" Leila yelled back. "Two blocks maybe!"
"Thanks!" Meg sprinted on with her unicorn honour guard, their nail file and corkscrew attachments at the ready.
They found Hazel just where Leila had predicted- two blocks down, where the street widened into a neighbourhood piazza. She and Arion were surrounded by zombies in the middle of the square, outnumbered twenty to one, fenced in by the undead and toppled buildings, debris and masonry scattered across the piazza. Arion didn't seem alarmed, but he grunted and whinnied in frustration, unable to use his speed in the confines around him. Hazel slashed away with her spatha while Arion kicked at the mob to keep them back.
Hazel could have undoubtedly handled the situation, but the unicorns could not resist the opportunity of more zombie trampling. They crashed into the fray, slicing and bottle-opening and tweezing the undead in an awesome display of multifunctional carnage.
Meg leaped in with them, twin blades spinning. Apollo scanned the streets for abandoned projectile weapons. Sadly, they were too easy to find. He scooped up a bow and quiver and went to work.
When Hazel realised it was them, she laughed with relief. She scanned the area behind them, probably looking for Frank. One look at Apollo told her everything she didn't want to hear.
Emotions rippled across her face: utter disbelief, desolation, then anger. She yelled in rage, spurring Arion and ploughed through the last of the zombie mob. They never stood a chance.
Once the piazza was secure, Arion cantered up to Apollo, his rider glowering down at him.
"What happened?" She demanded.
"I… Frank… the emperors…" It was all he could manage, but she seemed to get the gist. She doubled over until her forehead touched Arion's mane. She rocked and murmured clutching her hands to her chest as if trying to press her heart back together.
At last, she straightened, taking a shaky breath. She dismounted, wrapping her arms around Arion's neck and whispering in his ear. The horse nodded. Hazel stepped back and he raced away- a streak of gold white heading west towards the Caldecott Tunnel. Apollo wanted to warn Hazel there was nothing to find there, but didn't. He understood heartache a little better now. Each person's grief had its own life span; it needed to follow its own path.
Hazel wiped at her eyes, fury bristling in the golden colouring.
"Tarquin took off." She spat, voice trembling with hate. She glared at Apollo. "Any idea where he went?"
"Shopping." Apollo replied. "This way."
Two eurynomoi stood guard at the entrance, which meant Tarquin was already inside. Apollo prayed Tyson and Ella were still on Temple Hill, maybe wating on the smashed jar to cook.
With a flick of her hand, Hazel summoned two precious stones from the ground. They shot past Apollo so fast, he wasn't sure what they were. They hit the ghouls right between their eyes, reducing them to piles of dust. The unicorns looked disappointed they didn't get to corkscrew anyone else and moreso when they realised they couldn't fit through the bookshop's doorway.
"Go find other enemies." Meg encouraged. The Five Unicorns of the Apocalypse bucked happily and galloped off to do Meg's bidding.
Apollo barged into the bookshop, Hazel and Meg at his heels, and waded straight into a crowd of undead. Vrykolakai shuffled through the aisles, bumping into shelves and book stacks and each other.
Tarquin himself was too busy to notice their entrance. He stood with his back to them, at the information desk, yelling at the bookshop cat.
"Answer me, beast!" The king screamed. "Where are the Books?" Aristophanes sat on the desk, one leg straight up in the air, calmly licking his nether regions. "I will destroy you!" Tarquin raged. The cat looked up to hiss and then resumed his personal grooming.
"Tarquin, leave him alone!" Apollo demanded, although it was clear the cat needed no help.
The king turned and Apollo immediately remembered why he shouldn't be near him. A tidal wave of nausea crashed over him, pushing him to his knees. His veins burned with poison, his flesh seemed to be turning inside out. None of the zombies attacked. They just stared at him with their flat dead eyes, patiently awaiting his joining in their ranks.
Tarquin had accessorised for this big night. He wore a mouldy red cloak over his corroded armour. Gold rings adorned his skeletal fingers. He wore a golden circlet crown that clashed with his rotten cranium.
But something was a bit… different about him. Apollo wasn't sure if it was the poison clouding his vision, but the undead king looked a little worse for wear than usual. His cloak was charred and burned in wild streaks, similar mars on his bones and armour. He was missing a couple of teeth, there was a crack zigzagging from his eye socket and over the ridge of his skull. The oily purple tendrils that slithered around his limbs, writhing in and out of his ribcage and circling his neck bones, did not seem as potent, maybe not as a rich a purple as before, moving sluggishly, dripping on the carpet.
Apollo's vision swam. When it eventually came back into focus, he recognised what the charred pattern was- lightning burns.
When Tarquin spoke, however, he sounded pleased.
"Well, good." He grinned at Apollo, the gaps in his teeth a bit distraction. "Killed the emperors, did you, my faithful servant? Speak."
"Dead." Apollo croaked, losing to a giant invisible hand that squeezed his diaphragm and forced the words out. "They're dead." He had to physically bite his tongue to keep from adding my lord.
"Excellent!" Tarquin beamed. "So many lovely deaths tonight. And the praetor, Frank-?"
"Don't." Hazel snarled, shouldering past Apollo. "Don't you dare say his name."
"Ha!" Tarquin snorted. "Dead then. Excellent." He sniffed the air, purple gas tripping through his skeletal nose slits. It stained the space where his upper lip used to be, dripping like a nosebleed. "The city is ripe with fear. Agony. Loss. Wonderful! Apollo, you're mine now, of course. I can feel your heart pumping its last few beats. That pesky cousin of yours, and your wretched brother… well," his teeth chattered- contempt, amusement? - purple gas oozing over the carpet, "I await their end. And Hazel Levesque… I'm afraid you'll have to die for collapsing my throne room on top of me. Very naughty trick. But this McCaffrey child…" He wagged a finger at Meg, contemplating her. "I'm in such a good mood, that I might let her flee for her life and spread word of my great victory." He flourished his arms and his thumb fell off. "Mmph." He said. Hazel leaned towards Apollo.
"That's Louisa and Jason's doing." She smiled. Apollo looked the king over again, as he turned to continue berating Aristophanes. Louisa was bound to cause trouble wherever she went, but Jason? Jason was here? When did that happen?
"What is the meaning of this?" He fumed, jabbing a finger at the cat. The crack on his skull zigzagged a little more, now halfway down the back of his head.
"That's a cat." Apollo said. So much for Tarquin's good mood. He snarled and another wave of pain turned Apollo's spine to putty. Meg grabbed his arm before his face could hit the carpet.
"Leave him alone!" She yelled at the king. "There's no way I'm fleeing anywhere!"
"Where are the Sibylline Books?" Tarquin demanded. "They are none of these!" He gestured dismissively at the shelves, losing his little finger. "And this creature," he turned to glare at Aristophanes, "will not speak!"
"Meow." Aristophanes said.
"What does that mean?" Tarquin protested shrilly. The cat began licking his paw. "Bah! Wretched thing!" He whirled round to glare at the trio. "The harpy and the Cyclops were here, I can smell that they were here, but they are gone? Where are they?" Another crack appeared in his face, running down from his other eye socket to his cheek, purple gas seeping from it like a displaced tear. Apollo stared at it, saying a silent prayer for stubborn harpies. Ella and Tyson were still waiting at Temple Hill for divine help that wasn't coming.
Meg snorted.
"You're pretty stupid for a king. The Books aren't here. They're not even books." Tarquin regarded her, then turned to his zombies.
"What language is she speaking? Did that make sense to anyone?" The zombies stared at him unhelpfully. Tarquin cursed and faced Apollo again. "What does the girl mean? Where are the Books and how are they not books?" Again, Apollo's chest constricted. The words burst out of him.
"Tyson. Cyclops. Prophecies tattooed on his skin. He's on Temple Hill with-"
"Quiet!" Meg ordered. His mouth clamped shut, but it was too late.
Tarquin tilted his skull.
"The chair in the back room… yes, yes, I see now! Ingenious! I will have to keep this harpy alive and watch her practise her art. Prophecies on flesh? Oh, I can work with that!"
"You'll never leave this place." Hazel growled. "My troops are clearing up the last of your invaders. It's just us now." Tarquin hissed a laugh.
"Oh, my dear. Did you think that was the invasion? Those troops were just my skirmishers, tasked with keeping you all divided and confused while I came here to secure the Books. Now I know where they are, the city can be properly pillaged! It took me a little while to rework the sewers after that blasted girl flooded them, but she is of no matter now. My troops are coming right about-" he snapped his bony fingers. "-now."