-O-

The convoy was making good time, making it to the border of Nebraska by nine at night, and it was raining like a frozen monsoon in Julesburg, Colorado. Cold bullets stung Oliver's face and neck where they sunk into his balaclava, hitting him from a damn near horizontal angle. He had lost the game of rock-paper-scissors between himself, Denali and Nina to decide who would refuel the Humvee, and so now he stood underneath the woefully inadequate canopy, left hand on the gas nozzle, right shoved deep in his pocket. Kevin was refueling Schrödinger from some of the special tank fuel he apparently kept somewhere inside the chassis, and the massive fighting vehicle looked staggeringly out of place in the town of barely twelve hundred people. Oliver, for the sole reason of avoiding a panic, left his handguns and tactical vest in the Humvee, and he felt awkward without the weight on his chest and hip. Still, better that they get some weird looks and pictures than to have SWAT kick up a scene, though he did manage to hide a knife in a forearm sheath. Paranoia wouldn't allow him defenseless, even if that defense was a only a seven inch cold-steel blade.

Oliver, not having done so since they had left Fort Ignis, decided he may as well go to the bathroom now instead of on location. When he finished refueling he stuck his head back inside the Humvee and stabbed his thumb at the station building, "I'm goin' inside for a bit. Want anything?"

Nina wanted a Dr. Pepper and Denali was somehow still asleep, despite the long drive thus far. So, rapidly crossing the area unprotected by the canopy and cursing the rain a thousand times under his breath, he ducked inside the blessedly warm interior of the gas station. It was clean and well-kept, with rows of snacks on the left and a long counter on the right manned by a middle-aged black guy utterly engrossed in a novel. There were a few teenagers, four of them, hanging out by the soda dispenser, baseball bats at their sides, and they glanced at him once before returning to talk among themselves. Oliver sighed and pulled off the now-soaked balaclava, striding to the bathroom to wring out the wool. The bathroom too, thankfully, was clean, though it smelled too strongly of bleach for his liking.

After wringing out his balaclava and taking a piss, he washed his hands at the cheap-looking sink, taking off his gloves to do so, his golden left hand gleaming brightly in the bright lights. His skin was taking on some of it's previous healthier, if pale, complexion. The scars that marred his face were starting to take on the tone as well, instead of the harsh red it had been before. Still, Oliver saw a stranger looking back at him, with his glassy eyes and long gray hair and hollow cheeks. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Dammit, he needed a cigarette. Deciding he didn't really give a shit about the 'No Smoking' sign above the mirror, Oliver started fishing around his pockets for one of the hand-rolled cigarettes he had managed to hastily put together during the drive.

Preoccupied with his thoughts and the search for nicotine-based relief, he heard the door of the bathroom open behind him but paid it no mind. Only when he stuck and lit a cigarette in his mouth did he look back up into the mirror. Behind him, against the back wall, were four of the teenagers from the gas station. Only at that exact moment did Oliver realize how odd it was for them to have brought their bats inside, and he mentally kicked himself for not recognizing the obvious red flag. They held their bats ready in their hands, gleaming menacingly and brightly, glaring daggers into Oliver's back. Oliver kept his expression under control, to give off the impression he was more confident than he felt, and placed his lighter back in his pocket.

Oliver turned around and leaned against the sink, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, puffing smoke out of his nose and saying in a conversational tone, "Demigods?"

One of them, who Oliver mentally tagged as the leader, nodded. He was slight, with blonde hair cut very short and a face that looked like it was suited for shit-eating grins rather than glaring, "We know who you are, Oliver Irons. What you've done," his voice warbled a little at the end of his statement, and Oliver noted his uncomfortable shifting of feet.

Oliver humphed and ashed his cigarette in the sink, "How'd you find me, then? To my knowledge, Mortals aren't so easily tracked."

This time a different Godling answered, a big guy with dark hair and a smile missing enough teeth that Oliver had to decipher what he was saying for a moment, "Lord Apollo sends his regards."

Shit. Shit shit shit. Oliver had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from voicing these thoughts as he rapidly formed a plan of escape in his mind. Of course the Sun God would've seen him at some point in his daily journey across the skies. He took small solace in the fact that it was against the Ancient Laws or whatever that Apollo can't just smite him and be done with it. On the other hand, Oliver had a sickening feeling in his gut that this was just the beginning of the long line of revenge for what Oliver had done to Artemis. Gritting his teeth and blowing smoke through his nose like a dragon, Oliver rose from the sink and made to exit, only to be blocked by two of the Godlings crossing their bats like spears. Oliver scowled and looked at the leader, "Tell them to move."

The Leader, seemingly bolstered by Oliver's apparent retreat, just scoffed and said, "There's four of us, one of you, and we have bats."

Oliver whirled on him and snarled suddenly, making every Demigod back up as he growled, "You really think that'll stop me from ripping out your fucking spines?"

Oliver, of course, had no such intention, but the desired objective had been achieved; intimidation and shock. The threat, along with Oliver's downright ghoulish appearance, caused the four of them to hesitate, looking to each other for reassurance.

Oliver seized the opportunity, surging forward and swinging his boot into the Leader's groin, a high-pitched noise of pain escaping his lips as the bat clattered to the ground. Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye to his right, Oliver grabbed the Leader by the collar of his shirt and shifted around, using him as a human shield. The bat was a gray blur and cracked the blonde boy's skull like a walnut, painting a section of white wall stark red. As the swinger stared in open-mouth horror at the broken skull staring back at him, Oliver threw the body forward, sending them both tumbling to the ground. He spun around and dodged a whistling bat by millimeters, the air of it kissing his nose as it crashed into the wall with a resounding, metallic ringing.

Oliver managed to draw his knife as the next Godling, the big guy who had answered him before, brought his bat down in a vertical swing, an idea forming in the half-second it took for the bat to drop from it's apex. He reached forward with his left hand, gleaming gold, and stopped the metal bat in it's track with a sharp ping, like a bell. Oliver barely felt the impact. As the Godling blinked at the lackluster result of his mighty swing, Oliver stabbed him in the sternum, shoving him back with his left arm so hard that he cracked the tiled wall of the bathroom. As Oliver was about to turn and re-engage the Godlings, pain exploded behind his knee. Hissing a curse and lashing out blindly with his knife, he felt the blade catch something and heard a gasp of pain and the clatter of a bat falling to the ground.

The Godling was bleeding like a stuck pig from the side of his neck, feebly attempting to stop the river of red by holding the wound with both hands. Hit the Carotid Artery, Oliver thought, won't last more than a minute. Sure enough, after a few seconds of bug-eyed terror, the Godling slumped to the ground, dead eyes staring up at the ceiling.

The entire fight lasted, maybe, half a minute.

After closing the eyes of the dead bodies, Oliver limped over to the Godling trapped beneath the Leader's corpse. His eyes were unfocused, and a small pool of blood was starting to form around the back of his head. Oliver crouched down beside him and snapped his fingers under his nose, causing his eyes to flutter and his mouth to utter incoherent mumbling. Oliver slapped him once, twice, three times before the Godling blinked a few times and actually looked at him. His eyes were dark green, and they widened and filled with fear as they recognized Oliver's face, "Y-you kil-killed them-m," he stuttered, trying to crawl away and failing to notice the one hundred and twenty-odd pounds of dead weight on his chest.

Oliver curled his fingers into his shirt collar, raising his head slightly and saying, "Hey, you came after me. This," he waved a hand around the now-crimson bathroom, "is on you guys. Now tell me, is Apollo sending anything else after us?"

The Godling tried to answer him, but he stumbled over his words so much that Oliver just cut him off with, "Just nod or shake your head, alright?"

But the boy continued anyway, "W-why sh-should I tell you-u anything?"

Oliver answered with an offhand wave of his bloody knife, "'Cause I'll slit your throat and find out myself if you don't."

It was a half-truth; he wasn't going to slit the boy's throat in cold blood like this, but he did fully intend to leave him be and radio in back home to Abe if this Godling didn't answer him. Thankfully, he saved Oliver the trouble and gave a shaky nod after thinking about it for a few seconds.

"Alright, what and how many?"

The concussed Godling said, "J-just one."

Shit. Sending only one of something to intercept an enemy usually meant that something was either really big, mean as hell, or both, "One of what?"

As if answering him, gunfire suddenly erupted into staccato bursts outside. In turn a bizarre, bleating roar ripped through the gas station, causing the walls to shake so hard Oliver thought the entire thing was going to come crashing down on his head. Both it is, then.

The Godling smirked drunkenly up at him, "One of that."

Oliver punched him between the eyes and limped out of the bathroom as fast as he could.

When Oliver burst outside he immediately regretted leaving both his balaclava and gloves in the bloody bathroom, as he had now labeled it in his mind. Thick black clouds had rolled across the sky in waves, shrouding the whole town in near-impenetrable shadow. The bitter cold rain and wind froze his hand and face in seconds, and he was forced to raise an arm for cover. The road directly across from him was dark for unknown reasons, street lights and buildings alike. Even the lights ringing the canopy of the gas station were dead, and it gave Oliver the impression of an island in the middle of a dark ocean. The .50 caliber machine gun on top of the Humvee spat tracer fire into the darkness down the street of Julesburg, Denali's slight form mounting it, but for the life of him Oliver couldn't see what-

And then lightning flashed in the sky, and he caught a glimpse that sent a chill down his spine. The thing down the street was quadrupedal and massive, easily as big as Schrödinger. He saw it's tail lashing around like it was alive, smashing cars like a club as it passed them, horns longer than his arms and baleful red eyes that glowed in the darkness. For a moment Oliver was rooted on the spot, frozen with terror, before a voice called out to him and someone shook his shoulder, hard. Nina had her balaclava pulled down over her face, her bright green eyes like spotlights as she shoved the G36c into Oliver's arms and shouted, "C'mon, it's getting closer!"

That got him. He nodded mechanically and ran the charging handle of the rifle while glancing at the massive thing crawling down the street maybe two hundred yards away. Even from that far away, he could tell the thing was a tank-sized mass of muscle and hate. He doubted that the 5.56 round currently in his rifle, weighing 4 grams and traveling at about 3100 feet per second, would do much more than tickle it. The .50 cal though, was a different story. Every time one of those massive 45 gram bullets hit their mark, the thing would let out a noise somewhere in between a growl and a hiss. Still, it kept coming. Slowly.

Oliver grimaced and asked Nina, raising his voice to be heard over the storm that was rapidly getting worse, "Can you make any magical protection? A barrier or something?"

Even underneath her black wool mask Oliver could see her screw up her nose, "Normally yes, but this fuckin' rain," she threw her hand up into the air, the other holding her magic box protectively against her hip, "would just mess up my chalk markings or knock over my Sons of Horus or something!"

Oliver cursed and limp-ran over to the Humvee, Nina right behind him, climbing inside and grabbing the radio on the dashboard, saying into it, "Kevin, you got eyes on that thing?"

The radio gushed static for a few seconds before Kevin's slightly distorted voice responded, "I do, boss, but I'm not sure what I got eyes on."

He handed the radio to Nina and began pulling his tactical vest back on, along with his two handguns, "Well, can you get a shot off with the 88?"

The German 88mm anti-tank cannon mounted on Schrödinger could rip a watermelon-sized hole through an M4 Sherman at more than 500 yards. If they had anything on them capable of taking out the thing down the road in one shot, it was that. Unfortunately, Kevin's answer was, "Negative, boss. Visibility is near enough to zero that it doesn't matter," then he added, more to himself, "gotta put some new optics on this old girl."

Oliver grimaced and checked the thing's progress. One hundred yards now, about. He took the radio back from Nina with a nod and said in a dry tone, "I'm half-tempted to give you the green light to just shell the whole area with High-Explosive until it stops moving."

That brought a laugh, "Yeah, that'd be great, but I doubt Abe'd appreciate all of the property damage charges he'd have to wade through."

Then, suddenly, the .50 caliber fire that had become a comforting, thunderous background noise cut out, and only the pounding of rain on pavement and metal remained. He heard the frantic mechanical clicking as Denali worked the action on the machine gun. Jam. Oliver cursed and told Kevin, "Alright, until you see the whites of this thing's eyes, do not fire the main gun, alright?"

The jovial tone from Kevin's voice was gone in an instant, "Solid copy, boss. Will hold fire until then."

Oliver hung up the radio and took up his rifle, the stinging rain hitting his face as he limped outside and leveled the barrel down the street. Nina was next to him, staff summoned from nowhere, and he appreciated the company. Rosa, he assumed, was assisting Kevin with the operation of Schrödinger, and for a while the only sound in the entire town was the rain on the pavement and Denali trying to fix the jam. Oliver considered ordering a retreat, but dismissed the idea; as soon as they got going it would either follow them all the way to Omaha, not letting them rest at all, or it would start killing civilians. The whole town, probably, if they didn't kill it right here. Suddenly he was back in Rutland, Vermont, a lifetime ago, where the Manticore had slain and eaten the entire town and he let a Hunter die and he felt the snow sting his face and crunch under his boots and saw the monster's eyes bore into his own and there was nothing he could do why couldn't they understand that he was just doing his job why did they-

He was snapped out of the flashback by the thing roaring it's weird, bleating war cry, reverberating through his chest and almost making him lose his balance. Then he heard it; an almost rhythmic scratch-clop that pounded the ground like the rain. That, along with the fact that the thing's shadowy outline was rapidly growing larger, could only mean one thing. It was running. Fast.

Oliver opened fire with his G36c, the relatively small rifle chattering away in his arms with a surprising lack of recoil. What was not surprising was the thing's complete lack of a response to the tiny round, continuing it's charge down the street unimpeded, those massive horns bent backwards in a natural battering ram. Beside him, Nina raised her staff and shouted a word in a language he didn't recognize. Directly in front of the thing a green hieroglyphic flared to life, briefly illuminating the beast as a pillar of air punched outward from Nina's staff like a hydraulic piston, kicking up debris and loose chunks of concrete in it's wake.

The tank-sized mass of shadow, muscle and hatred jumped over it.

Gobsmacked, Oliver and Nina both watched as the massive thing damn near flew almost thirty feet into the air, utterly impossible and yet right in front of their eyes. For a good seven seconds it hung in the sky, tail thrashing, before it landed directly in front of the pair, cracking the concrete and giving Oliver his first good look as it came into the light of the gas station.

It was as wide as Schrödinger, easy, but maybe a touch shorter, with the head of a meanest looking goat Oliver had ever seen in his life. White fur and tan skin stretched over it's muscle-bound body. It's front legs were those of a lion, tipped in razor sharp claws longer than his forearm, while the back legs were cloven, like a goat's. Those horns were even worse up close, shiny and glossy black, tipped with rust-red blood. And then he saw the tail; a ten-foot long, green-blue diamondback rattlesnake that never stopped moving or snapping it's dripping fangs. Just as Oliver thought it couldn't get any worse, it rose onto it's back legs, and he was forced to crane his neck. On the thing's chest, where a collarbone would've been on a human, was a lion's head, with spot-light red eyes and massive teeth.

Now it was taller than Schrödinger.

The Chimera looked down at Oliver and Nina, pulled it's arms back and roared so loud that he felt himself slide backwards, the back of it's throat glowing with orange light. Oliver realized what was about to happen a half-second before it did. Though he never understood the term before, he felt time slow to a crawl as flames rose up the Chimera's throat, hot enough to easily melt steel and reduce both him and Nina to ash in seconds. He heard Schrödinger's turret turning in response to the monster's sudden proximity, but it was too slow, much too slow. He felt his heartbeat thunder in his ears as the fire licked passed the Chimera's tongue and begin to escape it's mouth. Pain erupted at the base of Oliver's skull, and he suddenly felt something at the edge of his mind, so familiar yet alien that it was maddening, like a word at the tip of his tongue.

Then, all at once, it was there, like a muscle he didn't even know was there until this exact instant.

As the fire rushed passed the Chimera's jaws, Oliver flexed the new muscle with a thought and reached out with his hand like he had done it a thousand times, exerting his will through the outstretched limb. The fire obeyed, and the white-hot stream abruptly stopped dead in the air, just in front of the monster's shining teeth, steam hissing and water snapping. Time regained it's usual tempo, and Oliver felt the strain of using the muscle immediately, beads of sweat popping up across his forehead as more and more flame pooled in front of the Chimera's mouth. Even from a distance the heat baked his face. Combined with the icy rain stinging his neck it almost broke his concentration, but he managed to just hold a certainly unpleasant death back. With a shaky, uneven breath Oliver pushed out with both mind and hand, the ball of fire receding into the Chimera's jaws with a high-pitched sound of surprise from the massive creature.

With an exhausted shout and one final surge of mental energy, Oliver forced the whole of the fireball back down the Chimera's throat. The monster immediately crashed to the ground and began thrashing in agony, it's chest glowing bright orange like someone was shining a giant flashlight through it, steam began to secrete from all three pairs of eyeballs and then-

POP!

With a sound disturbingly akin to someone stabbing a balloon with a needle, the Chimera was ripped in half by the mini-explosion that had just gone off in it's chest cavity. Chunks of charred meat flew into the sky, the ungodly stench of burned fur filled Oliver's sinuses, and he would've hit the pavement face-first if Nina hadn't grabbed him. He felt like someone had filled his mouth with sand and his skull with cotton balls, even as bitter cold rain chilled him to the bone. Vaguely aware that Nina was dragging him somewhere, Oliver let his head loll onto her shoulder as he squeezed his eyes shut to stop the universe from spinning and fuck when did it get so bright?

Eventually, he heard her mutter something in the same language as before, and the pain in his head was slowly replaced a fuzzy, warm sensation that Oliver recognized as a painkiller of some kind. Then, as his eyelids began to get too heavy to hold, he thought, Oooooh, anesthetic too. Nice.

His dreams, thankfully, were uneventful.

(Ooohhh yeah. Oliver can firebend now.

Kinda.

Sorta.

Not really.

You'll see.)