Chapter Sixteen: Quod Sumter Trucidat
Disclaimer: I have legitimately run out of disclaimers. How about Roses are red, Violets are blue if you ask me again, I'll punch you.
Author's Note – I was sick…again. So so so sorry for the late update. Between writing L'amour Vrai and Falling too fast to prepare for this (which you all should check out btw), I literally had no time for this. Also, ANOTHER THANK YOU to CalRedEss! You're awesome man. Thanks! (check out his newest story as well as Free to write our own, they're good.)
Anonymously96 – Ares literally said it himself that the goddess you're about to meet is not so forgiving as I am (In TTC). I agree with him. Aphrodite is too underestimated. Can I just say Piper, her daughter, charmspoke Gaia?
Callum Runchman – What are you doing man? SPOILER ALERT! But thanks to you, I have revised the story. So…..read on :)
Merendinoemiliano – Thanks! Your reviews are getting better! (or is it my writing? hmmmm)
1234 Booklover – Storm's coming soon.
Lovebooks 10886 – Hmmm, dw this chapter is all me. Critique it freely.
Guest (not you GodZeus) – Thanks! I dunno about gift, but I appreciate you saying it :D
GodZeus – You'll have to wait and see man.
P.S. - Take care and Stay safe!
"I am become death. The destroyer of worlds."
Annabeth's POV:
We didn't make it back to the ship in time. If it was because Aphrodite wanted to slake her want for war (after all, there can't be war without love first) or if it was because of sheer dumb luck, I do not know.
Halfway across the dock, three giant eagles descended. Each made of glittering Imperial Gold, and I realized bitterly that I had made this possible. Bringing back the precious metal to camp Jupiter was a mistake, even if it did increase my standing among the few people who would still listen to us. Octavian had been whispering malice into the legion's ear for so long that they all hated us now. Those he could not convert, he bought, those he could not buy he discredited and those he could not discredit, he killed, gone without a trace. Each eagle deposited a Roman commando in purple and denim with glittering gold armor, sword, and shield. The eagles flew away, and the Roman in the middle raised his visor.
"Surrender to Rome!" Octavian shrieked.
Hazel drew her cavalry sword and grumbled, "Fat chance, Octavian."
I cursed under my breath. By himself, the skinny augur wouldn't have bothered me, but the two other guys looked like seasoned warriors—a lot bigger and stronger than I wanted to deal with, especially since Piper and I were armed only with daggers.
Piper raised her hands in a placating gesture. "Octavian, why are you doing this? We are all on the same side here."
"Can't hear you!" Octavian yelled. "Wax in our ears—standard procedure when battling evil sirens. Now, throw down your weapons and turn around slowly so I can bind your hands."
I realized I needed help, preferably Percy. With a start, I realized that when things got tough, I wanted him by my side, not just to help me – I wasn't some damsel in distress, in need of saving, but to fight with me. I wanted him by my side because I could trust him to have my back, just like I would have his.
"Well?" Octavian demanded. His two friends brandished their swords.
Very slowly, using only two fingers, I drew my dagger. Instead of dropping it, I tossed it as far as I could into the water.
Octavian made a squeaking sound. "What was that for? I didn't say toss it! That could've been evidence. Or spoils of war!"
I tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: Oh, silly me. Nobody who knew me would have been fooled. But Octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation.
"You other two…" He pointed his blade at Hazel and Piper. "Put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus—"
All around the Romans, Charleston Harbor erupted. And when I say erupted, I mean ten-foot-tall waves, held with barely restrained will. The wave crested and crested, till it towered far above all of us. Then it broke, drowning all three of the Romans under thousands of gallons of icy cold water. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three Romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding my dagger.
"You dropped this," he said, totally poker-faced. But beneath that veneer of calm, I could see the sheer panic in his eyes, in the tautness of his muscles, in the way his gaze hardened as he looked at the Romans. His expression was that of a wolf protecting his own, and even though he had never learnt the wolf stare from Lupa, the look that said "however bad you think you are, I'm worse.", I believed that not even a pack Alpha would dare stand up to him in that moment.
"Careful" Hazel warned us, "I recognize those two, they're dangerous." She said.
Percy's eyes flashed.
"Yeah well, right now, so am I." he said, his voice dripping ice.
Piper looked at his friend in amazement, as if seeing him for the first time. This wasn't the goofy, funny Percy who drowned his blue pancakes in syrup or who used terribly cringe-y puns to make us all laugh, this was someone who would do anything to save his team.
Later, I would blame and be thankful for the way I acted on Aphrodite. I threw my arms around him. "I love you!"
He stiffened, while at the same time the tension drained out of him. His body was a wonderful contradiction between smooth, hard muscles and his softness as he leaned into me a little, reassuring himself that I was okay.
I loved him, I realized then. Sure, I wasn't the same Annabeth who was with him before, wasn't the same girl with her memories intact, but I still loved him, and that had to count for something. I just hoped I hadn't ruined things with the whole Jason fiasco, hoped that I would have to be enough for him as I was.
"Guys," Hazel interrupted. She had a little smile on her face. "We need to hurry."
We jumped apart, and Percy was all vibrating energy and hard lines again. He wasn't yet sure what to make of my statement, so he had decided to get back to it after the battle, adding it to the list of many things we needed to talk about.
Down in the water, Octavian yelled, "Get me out of here! I'll kill you!"
"Tempting," Percy called down, still insufferably sarcastic.
"What?" Octavian shouted. He was holding on to one of his guards, who was having trouble keeping them both afloat.
"Nothing!" Percy shouted back. "Let's go, guys."
Hazel frowned. "We can't let them drown, can we?"
"They won't," Percy promised. "I've got the water circulating around their feet. As soon as we're out of range, I'll spit them ashore."
Hazel seemed mollified, while Piper and I didn't even have to ask him. We knew that no matter how bad things got, he would never willingly kill a fellow demigod. After all, he hadn't killed Ethan Nakamura when he had the chance, choosing to fight Antaeus himself in defiance.
I stopped. How did I remember Ethan and Percy's fight? And where? As I thought, the memories were already becoming grey smoke, twisting and elusive, till they disappeared altogether.
I stabbed my dagger through a wall in anger, and Piper looked at me curiously. I shook my head once, signalling that I was okay.
We climbed aboard the Argo II, and I ran to the helm. "Piper, get below. Use the sink in the galley for an Iris-message. Warn Jason to get back here!" I ordered, effortlessly slipping into my role. After all, it was up to me to get us all out of here.
Percy nodded and ran to the mast. I took the helm. My hands flew across the controls. I just had to hope I knew enough to operate them. After all, Leo had said that I was the only one apart from him who even sort of understood the ship.
I had seen Percy control full-sized sailing ships before with only his willpower when we were in the Sea of Monsters, those memories had come back to me when I had seen his shield. I resisted an urge to smile as I remembered about how he had to be rescued by me when he had been turned into a guinea pig.
This time, he didn't disappoint. Ropes flew on their own—releasing the dock ties, weighing the anchor. The sails unfurled and caught the wind. Meanwhile I fired the engine. The oars extended with a sound like machine-gun fire, and the Argo II turned from the dock, heading for the island in the distance.
The three eagles still circled overhead, but they made no attempt to land on the ship, probably because Festus the figurehead blew fire whenever they got close. More eagles were flying in formation toward Fort Sumter—at least a dozen. If each of them carried a Roman demigod…that was a lot of enemies.
"That's right" I thought vindictively, Dragons beat Eagles.
Piper emerged from below. "Got a message through to Jason. Kind of fuzzy, but he's already on his way. He should be—oh! There!"
Soaring over the city, heading in their direction, was a giant bald eagle, unlike the golden Roman birds.
"Frank!" Hazel said.
Leo was holding on to the eagle's feet, and even from the ship, I could hear him screaming and cursing.
Behind them flew Jason, riding the wind.
"Never seen Jason fly before," Percy grumbled. "He looks like a blond Superman."
"This isn't the time!" Piper scolded him. "Look, they're in trouble!"
Sure enough, the Roman flying chariot had descended from a cloud and was diving straight toward them. Jason and Frank veered out of the way, pulling up to avoid getting trampled by the pegasi. The charioteers fired their bows. Arrows whistled under Leo's feet, which led to more screaming and cursing. Jason and Frank were forced to overshoot the Argo II and fly toward Fort Sumter.
I gunned the engines. The hull shuddered as we picked up speed. The docks of the island were only a hundred yards away now, but a dozen more eagles were soaring overhead, each carrying a Roman demigod in its claws.
We were outnumbered at least three to one.
"Percy," I said, "we're going to come in hard. I need you to control the water, so we don't smash into the docks. Once we're there, you're going to have to hold off the attackers. The rest of you help him guard the ship."
To his credit, he didn't even blink. No protests about how he had a better idea, no retorts about why I should give all the orders. I knew he was one of, if not the strongest demigod of his generation, and the fact that he trusted me so completely warmed my heart, and I loved him just a little bit more for it. With him, I did not feel like a dumb, blonde kid who had dyslexia, because he didn't look at me the way others did.
"He doesn't underestimate me" I realized, and smiled.
"But—Jason!" Piper said.
"Frank and Leo!" Hazel added.
"I'll find them," I promised. "I've got to figure out where the map is. And I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who can do that."
"The fort is crawling with Romans," Percy warned. "You'll have to fight your way through, find our friends—assuming they're okay—find this map, and get everybody back alive. All on your own?"
He was worried, and rightly so, but I wasn't gonna let him think about me when he had to focus on protecting the Argo II, our lives depended on it.
So, in a moment of desperation and distraction, I leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
You know that phrase kissing someone stupid? Yeah. His eyes were glazed over, and his mouth hung open in shock. In the past 36 hours, I had managed to hurt him over a misunderstanding, worried him and had him come rescue us, declared my love for him and now I had kissed him on the cheek.
I was inordinately pleased to see that a simple peck had such an effect on him, but there was no way either one of us were dying or getting captured without talking this through.
He must've been thinking the same thing, because he said, "Come back Wise Girl, and be safe."
"Make sure I have someone to come back to." I said, enjoying the sheer amazement on his face.
"Get a room you two." Piper joked, and matching blushes appeared on both our cheeks.
"Shut up!" we said together.
And just like that, I was off.
We were caught in a brand-new civil war.
Leo had somehow escaped his fall unharmed. I saw him ducking from portico to portico, blasting fire at the giant eagles swooping down on him. Roman demigods tried to chase him, tripping over piles of cannonballs and dodging tourists, who screamed and ran in circles. He had grown so much from the scrawny, mud spattered boy who couldn't tell the hilt end of a sword from the pointy end.
Even now, he was holding back, not using his twin hammers, or the white-hot bolts of flame that could melt through solid iron with a blast. He looked at me and grinned, flashing me a thumbs up before extending the same hand, index finger first at an approaching demigod and shooting a jet of flame, forcing him to retreat.
Tour guides kept yelling, "It's just a re-enactment!" Though they didn't sound sure. The Mist could only do so much to change what mortals saw.
In the middle of the courtyard, a full-grown elephant—could that be Frank? —rampaged around the flagpoles, scattering Roman warriors. Jason stood about fifty yards away, sword-fighting with a stocky centurion whose lips were stained cherry red, like blood. A wannabe vampire, or maybe a Kool-Aid freak?
As I watched, Jason yelled, "Sorry about this, Dakota!"
He vaulted straight over the centurion's head like an acrobat and slammed the hilt of his gladius into the back of the Roman's head. Dakota crumpled.
"Jason!" I called.
He scanned the battlefield until he saw me.
I pointed to where the Argo II was docked. "Get the others aboard! Retreat!"
"What about you?" he called.
"Don't wait for me!"
I bolted off before he could protest.
I had a hard time maneuvering through the mobs of tourists. Why did so many people want to see Fort Sumter on a sweltering summer day? But I quickly realized the crowds had saved our lives. Without the chaos of all these panicked mortals, the Romans would have already surrounded our outnumbered crew.
I dodged into a small room that must have been part of the garrison. I tried to steady my breathing, imagined what it would have been like to be a Union soldier on this island in 1861. Surrounded by enemies. Dwindling food and supplies, no reinforcements coming.
Some of the Union defenders had been children of Athena. They'd hidden an important map here—something they didn't want falling into enemy hands. If I had been one of those demigods, where would I have put it?
Suddenly the walls glistened. The air became warm. I absently wondered if I was hallucinating. I was about to run for the exit when the door slammed shut. The mortar between the stones blistered. The bubbles popped, and thousands of tiny black spiders swelled forth.
I couldn't move. My heart seemed to have stopped. The spiders blanketed the walls, crawling over one another, spreading across the floor and gradually surrounding me. It was impossible. This couldn't be real.
Terror plunged me into memories. I was no longer Annabeth Chase, hero of Rome, defender of Olympus, chief counselor of the Athena Cabin, I was seven years old again, alone in my bedroom in Richmond, Virginia. The spiders came at night. They crawled in waves from my closet and waited in the shadows. I yelled for my father, screamed myself hoarse but he was never here, always busy, always working.
My arachnophobia wasn't just because of Arachne and Athena's bitter rivalry, it was the beginning of the end of me and my family. My stepmom never believed, and why would she? The spiders disappeared when she was in the room, the bites faded, the cobwebs turned to dust, till the only thing my stepmom had to go on was my word.
And she had never trusted me very much now, had she?
It was why I had run away from home, why I had been forced to survive and kill on my own till I had found Thalia and Luke.
In a way, the arachnophobia was tied into my past, cobwebbed into my present. It had made me who I was today, just as much as Chiron and Camp Half-Blood ever had.
Mind numbing terror gripped me. It was like standing up to Phobos and Deimos, the twin gods of terror and panic. I couldn't do anything except stand rooted to the spot, paralyzed by fear.
I was just about to pass out, pride be damned when the Mark of Athena burned across the walls, incinerating the spiders until the room was empty except for the smell of sickly sweet ashes.
Go, said a new voice—my mother. Avenge me. Follow the Mark.
The blazing symbol of the owl faded. The garrison door burst open. I stood stunned in the middle of the room, unsure whether I'd seen something real, or just a vision.
An explosion shook the building. I remembered that my friends were in danger. I'd stayed here much too long.
I forced myself to move. Still trembling, I stumbled outside. The ocean air helped clear my mind, it reminded me of Percy. I gazed across the courtyard—past the panicked tourists and fighting demigods—to the edge of the battlements, where a large mortar pointed out to sea.
It might have been my imagination, but the old artillery piece seemed to be glowing red. I dashed toward it. An eagle swooped at me, but I ducked and kept running. Nothing could possibly scare me as much as those spiders.
Roman demigods had formed ranks and were advancing toward the Argo II, but to call it a battle would have been a joke, an insult. A storm crackled over their heads. Though the day was clear around all of us, thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed, almost like a divine omen from Zeus himself.
High speed winds buffeted the Romans back, forcing them to either get caught up in the fury, or retreat.
"Jason" I thought with a small smile. I had never seen him let loose with his powers and now I knew why. He was a force of nature, a son of Jupiter and Praetor of Rome. He could handle himself.
That did not prepare me for what I saw next. If Jason was lightning and thunder, flashy and loud, Percy was the cool, calm, immeasurable strength of the deep. The force of a thousand hurricanes and the power of the sea itself. He had both his arms flung wide open, Riptide safely tucked in his pocket. Tall waves smashed into the Romans, till they were caught between a rock and a hard place. Where the waves risked civilians, Percy didn't bother with them, instead, he conjured a huge hurricane along with Jason, keeping the ship in the dead center till both water and wind formed an impenetrable wall around them, the fury of nature incarnate.
I saw that it was raining on a clear day, clearly Percy wasn't holding anything back.
I suppressed a shudder. This. This was the raw strength, the sheer destructive potential of children of the Big Three.
Their blood ran red, but mixed with the purest, strongest, most undiluted form of ichor, liquid strength.
I didn't stop longer to think about it.
I reached the mortar and put my hand on the muzzle. On the plug that blocked the opening, the Mark of Athena began to glow—the red outline of an owl.
"In the mortar," I said. "Of course."
I stuck my hand into the cannon and my fingers touched something cold, smooth, and metal. I pulled out a small disk of bronze the size of a tea saucer, etched with delicate letters and illustrations. I decided to examine it later. Right now, leaving before Percy and Jason accidentally killed someone was more important.
I knew that they would never forgive themselves for it.
I ran back to ship, and Piper helped me up onto the deck.
Octavian had survived his swim in the harbor. He crouched behind his guards, screaming encouragement at the other Roman demigods as they struggled toward the ship, holding up their shields as if that would deflect the storm raging all around them.
On the deck of the Argo II, Percy and Jason stood together, their swords crossed. I got a tingle down my spine as I realized the boys were working as one, summoning the sky and the sea to do their bidding. Water and wind churned together. Waves heaved against the ramparts and lightning flashed. Giant eagles were knocked out of the sky. Wreckage of the flying chariot burned in the water.
The view up close was much more terrifying up close. Their eyes were heavy lidded with exhaustion, but the storm still raged around them and I was reminded of the excerpt from Homer's Odyssey –
"Now Zeus, gatherer of the clouds, aroused the North Wind against our ships with a terrible tempest, and covered land and sea alike with clouds, and down sped night from heaven. Thus the ships were driven headlong, and their sails were torn to shreds by the might of the wind. So we lowered the sails into the hold, in fear of death, but rowed the ships landward apace."
Snapping out of my reverie, I yelled out "Go! Go, go, go!"
The engines rumbled beneath her. The oars churned. Jason changed the course of the wind, and Percy called up a massive wave, which lifted the ship higher than the fort's walls and pushed it out to sea. By the time the Argo II reached top speed, Fort Sumter was only a blot in the distance, and we were racing across the waves toward the ancient lands.
The storm spent, the boys slumped onto the deck in sheer exhaustion and before we even knew it, Piper and I were running forward to catch them.
"There you go" I murmured to Percy as I laid him down on his bed.
I ran my hand through his curly hair once, and on impulse pressed my lips to his forehead.
He sighed in his sleep, and smiled. I decided to wait in his room, after all, there was enough space on the floor.
Before I knew it, my head slumped forward onto the bed and I was out like a light.
"Some legends are told
Some turn to dust or to gold
But you will remember me
Remember me, for centuries"
Author's Note: YAYYYYYY, RECORD LENGTH! This is the longest Mors chapter FYI :)
I thought it was okay, you tell me.
Read, review, enjoy and promote!
Also, once again, sorry for the late update :(