I haven't died! Incredible!
Chapter 6
(2966 words)
Percy yawned. Annabeth had called a quick meeting with the head Counsellors of camp on short notice to discuss battle plans.
He focused his gaze on Annabeth. She was hunching over her laptop, stoic expression showing no weakness.
"Alright, Clarisse, take the Ares cabin to the north of the island. Fight the enemy as best as you can. Take the chariots. The Athena cabin will help to fend off the enemy with you. We need the best fighters out there, since the bulk of the army should be there."
Clarisse La Rue didn't argue, despite the Ares and Athena cabins not exactly being the best of friends. She just nodded her head seriously.
"Travis and Conner, I want you to take the Hermes cabin to fight the army of undead along with the remaining Amazons in the south of the island. Don't harass any of the Amazons, they'll probably kill you for doing so. I don't care what you do to the army of undead, steal their weapons, trip their feet, just prevent them from getting to camp."
"Oh my gods, did you hear that? I never thought that a day would come when she said those words," Conner Stoll fake gasped.
"Did she knock her head? Oh no, poor dear, I hope she didn't do that while she was too busy making out with Jackson here. They would be interrupted mid-kiss," Travis Stoll snickered and made smoochy noises. Travis had snuck out of college to assist Camp Half-Blood in fighting this war.
Percy rolled his eyes. Everyone else smirked.
Annabeth just ignored them and continued.
"Lou, you and your siblings are going to follow them and use all the tricks you have to disorientate the enemies whenever they go too close to anyone. Make sure to stand away from the fight, okay?"
Lou grinned and nodded.
"Austin, go with the other Apollo kids to the west of the island. Defend the west with the half of the Hunters there. Shoot them down."
"Roger that," Austin replied.
"The Hephaestus Cabin and the Hypnos Cabin have successfully created arrows that harness the water from the river Lethe and explode upon impact. Use them wisely. Er, try not to wipe your own memories and the Hunters' while you're at it."
Annabeth gestured to the ground beside her, where ten quivers of said arrows were laid on the ground. Austin took them carefully, knowing full well the dangers of the arrows.
"Hey! No fair! Why don't we get any of those?" The Stoll brothers complained.
"She just doesn't trust you with it." Austin replied unsympathetically.
The Stolls folded their arms. Annabeth ignored them again and continued.
"Healers who aren't fighting and those who are injured or too young to fight can report to Camp Jupiter. Will, you're in charge of bringing them safely to camp." Will nodded. "If you get badly injured during battle, take one of the storm spirit horses to Camp Jupiter."
"Okay, that's all, any questions?"
Clarisse raised her hand.
"How about the east of the island?"
"That part is already guarded by some Roman demigods and Reyna from camp Jupiter. If we want to win this war, just like the previous Great Prophecy, both Roman and Greek demigods need to work together."
"Who's gonna defend camp? I mean like, closer to the camp. We can't just put all we have into one line of defence," Will questioned.
"The prophesied seven, half of the Hunters, and the Aphrodite and Demeter cabin will defend camp. If the enemy makes it past the first layer of defence, the traps in the woods made by the Hephaestus Cabin will slow them down."
The Stoll brothers raised their hands.
Annabeth sighed. "I know what you guys are thinking. No, the Hephaestus Cabin is not going to give you any traps to play with. We need all the resources we can get."
Travis and Conner slumped in their seats.
Then they sat up, eyes glinting, as if they simultaneously thought of an idea.
"No, no stealing." Annabeth glared at them.
The Stoll Brothers groaned in unison.
Clarisse looked doubtful. "Are you sure the camp is well guarded? I'm being frank here, I don't think the Aphrodite cabin can fight."
Annabeth opened her mouth to answer but Piper replied first.
"Ever since I became head counsellor, the cabin has changed. You guys aren't the only ones who have been fighting, we have been training hard too. We have all decided that if we are going to die, we don't want to die watching others fight, we want to die fighting along everyone else. This is our camp too, and we want to defend it the best we can."
Percy knew that Piper didn't need to use her charmspeak to get others to understand her fierce determination. From the looks of it, everyone seemed convinced from just listening to her words. Annabeth seemed satisfied with her answer.
"It's going to be dangerous though, are you guys up for it?" Percy smiled.
"I'm a dangerous girl." Piper smirked.
Jake Mason asked, "How about us? We can fight too!" Jake had been hastily promoted to head counsellor when Leo left.
"No, we need you guys to forge and fix whatever weapons and armour that are broken during battle. Worse comes to worst, you guys will be backup."
Annabeth paused, waiting for any other questions.
Silence.
But it was obvious that everyone had the same question, or rather, a certain person in mind.
All their faces were grim. Even Travis and Conner has stopped pranking and joking around. Finally, Jake spoke up.
"How about...you know… Leo?" He said the last word with great difficulty.
Annabeth turned to the sons of the Big Three. "That's the reason why I called Percy, Jason and Nico to this meeting today. First off I guess we'll try to persuade him to change his mind, and if he doesn't… well…"
Silence hung in the room. No one seemed satisfied with the answer.
Trying to disperse the mood, Percy slammed his hand on the table, making everyone jump.
"Alright! We've fought Kronos and Gaia, and we've won. We can do this again. Let's go… fight stuff!"
~.~
And as Minos' army advanced towards camp from all around them, the warriors defending their home charged.
~.~
At the south side of the island, the Hermes cabin and the Amazons were having wild success with the monsters. There were at least fifty of the maidens, and since the Hermes cabin included those who weren't claimed yet, the south side probably had the most defenders.
Connor and Travis flung banana peels lit with Greek fire in all directions. These made the the approaching undead slip and fall.
And also set them on fire.
"Five points for the tiny scrawny guys! Ten for the big armoured Roman ones!" Conner yelled.
"Game on!" Travis yelled back.
The brothers laughed so hard they started choking on the ash (of the dead) that floated in the air.
The other Hermes children ran around the undead, stealing their weapons, kicking them in the shins and generally causing confusion and mayhem everywhere.
The Amazons sliced through the now bewildered and in pain undead with their knives and stabbed with their spears.
The only sane and proper child of Hermes was probably Chris Rodriguez, who whirled his sword around, taking out a few undead at a time. In a way, he seemed quite like his girlfriend, the head of the Ares cabin.
Meanwhile, Lou Ellen stood a distance away, surrounded by her siblings. All of them shrouded in Mist. Whenever they saw any enemies going a tad bit too close to one of her allies, they used the Mist to create illusions, turning the undead against each other and causing them to fight their own allies.
Pretty soon, the number of monsters was dwindling, and everyone knew they had an easy win. This method of killing was surprisingly efficient.
The remaining undead, sensing that they were outnumbered, retreated, running over their fallen comrades to escape from the fearsome combination of the Hermes cabin children and Amazons. Some guy tripped on a banana peel and fell on his face. And set himself on fire.
"WHOOP!" Connor hollered, and everyone cheered.
They had managed to successfully fend off the army invading from the south side.
~.~
In the west section, the archers of Apollo cabin had distributed all the arrows they had on hand evenly, giving the elite archers the river Lethe arrows. Meanwhile, the healers were making sure that the healing area was prepped and ready for injured fighters.
There were boxes filled with ambrosia stacked up neatly against a wall, the top ones opened. Thermoses and flasks of warm honey water were lined up on the ground. Since the healers would have to sing to heal, their throats and vocal cords would be damaged, and after a few fights, they knew to prepare the water.
When the children of Apollo arrived at the west, they saw the Hunters already fighting the army, raining arrows and twirling their swords like the trained fighters they were.
The Apollo cabin followed suit, aiming and firing arrows upon arrows on the army. This caused a lot of mayhem among the monsters, since their brethren kept on turning to monster dust all around them.
Whenever some of the monsters regrouped and charged in a large group, a couple of Lethe arrows would sail merrily through the air and explode on one of them, causing the liquid to spill on all the nearby monsters.
The Hunters and the Apollo cabin worked surprisingly well together, though that might have been because the maidens had reluctantly promised not to murder their allies 'accidentally'.
After far too many arrows had been used up, the army was but a pile of dust with a bunch of arrows sticking out.
The Apollo cabin cheered loudly, celebrating their victory, while the Hunters glared at them disdainfully.
~.~
After gathering all the injured, young and healers, Will clambered onto Tempest and the others climbed onto other storm spirits and pegasi. With a whinny, the horses took off and soared towards San Francisco.
"This has been going pretty well!" Harley remarked two hours later, enjoying the ride thoroughly.
"Don't jinx-" Will warned.
As soon as the words left Harley's mouth, around forty venti appeared, swirling around them. The Fates were probably laughing at them.
"Ooh, look. So many poor and defenceless children, only a few of whom are able to fight. Minos is going to be pleased." One grinned. The older healers immediately moved so that they surrounded the other children. Will whipped his bow out.
"Leave us alone, or I'll introduce these celestial bronze arrows to your face."
"Not likely, my dear boy. You are clearly outnumbered."
And then the venti attacked.
Will notched several arrows onto his multi-arrow bow and shot, taking out three venti at a time. The other healers did the same, and soon there was one ventus left. The last ventus had somehow avoided being shot and swooped into the circle. It managed to grab Harley. Harley was pummeling it with his little fists but it was to no avail.
"Kill me and I drop this little one." The ventus threatened, Harley squirming in his arms. The archers hesitated.
Making a quick decision, Will gave his trademark piercing ultrasonic whistle, causing everyone to cover their ears. Including the ventus. Which forgot it was holding Harley.
One of the archers shot, and the arrow reached its target, making the last ventus dissolve into yellow dust which was blown away by the wind.
Harley screamed as he plunged downwards, and Will quickly steered Tempest so that he just managed to catch Harley. "We may have been outnumbered, but they were overpowered."
Harley whimpered. "I'm never going to say anything about our good luck again."
An hour later, the group arrived in San Francisco successfully, greeted by a bossy Terminus statue. "EVERYONE COME OVER SO I CAN PAT YOU DOWN!"
~.~
In the east of Long Island, Reyna gave a short briefing (more like a pep talk).
"Alright Romans! The last time we were on this island, we fought Camp Half Blood as enemies. But this time we will defend them as comrades on the battlefield and fight together for the gods! Don't hold back! Whatever happens, we Romans won't back down! We'll fight to the very end!"
"Now, charge! FOR ROME!"
The Roman demigods let out their battle cry and raced down to meet the enemy.
"KOOL-AID!" Dakota yelled. "I MEAN, FIFTH COHORT!"
The romans defended very well. After all, the Romans had built one of the greatest empires of all time with their sheer strength.
They sliced through hellhounds. They pierced emposai with their spears. They smashed and squished Earthborn with their cannons.
Hannibal the Elephant charged and smashed through the enemy lines, stomping on monsters and turning them into street pizza.
The Romans cheered.
Just as they thought they had defeated the enemy coming from the east, another wave of monsters came in.
And leading the charge was the greatest monstrosity they had ever seen.
Her bat-like wings stirred up clouds of darkness. The multiple animal heads on her waist growled menacingly. Her scorpion tail dripped deadly venom.
It was Kampê.
If there was anyone who could break the romans' spirit and confidence, it was her.
The sheer sight of her made them tremble in their armour.
The new wave of monsters charged and fought like, well, monsters, with Kampê in the lead.
Realising that the army was arriving, the Romans quickly regained their composure and sprinted to meet the enemy.
The two armies met with the metallic clang of the meeting of sword, shield and claws.
The Roman demigods put up a good fight, but even all of them together didn't hold a candle against Kampê.
She swung her mace, knocking a dozen demigods out with severe head injuries. She pierced others' hearts with her tail, before swiping them off the cliff and into the sea. They never resurfaced.
Reyna had never seen so many Roman demigods die in the same place. Just seeing one of them get murdered and injured like that broke her heart, not to mention the others.
All too soon, their numbers had dwindled to roughly two dozen soldiers.
Just then, Reyna heard a snarling sound behind her. She turned around just in time to cut off a hellhound's head. Kampê was roughly 30 metres away from her, feeding a broken demigod to the boar head on her waist.
She needed to attract her attention. She couldn't let any other demigods die on the monstrosity's hands.
"HEY HAIRY! Pick on someone your own size!" (Actually Reyna was tiny compared to Kampê but she didn't know what else to say. She really needed to work on her catchphrases.)
Kampê snarled, like, I waxed today!
She looked up from her meal just in time to see Reyna charging towards her. Growling in annoyance, she tried to swipe her tail at Reyna. Fortunately, Reyna had anticipated the attack and ducked down to dodge it, before thrusting her spear upwards. Kampê's tail became as short as a bunny's.
Kampê howled in pain. She looked at Reyna with an expression that read "You're gonna die, like right now."
The demoness shrieked and threw her mace at Reyna with impossible accuracy.
Reyna attempted to jump to the left to dodge the attack, but she was too slow.
The mace hit her sword arm like a bullet, striking her with enough force to send her flying through the air with the mace still on her arm, pinning her against a rock wall.
Reyna could hear the cracking of bones in her arm. No, not cracking. That was mildly put. Her bones were shattered.
But she felt nothing but numbness. Her nerves were probably destroyed too. She wasn't sure she would ever be able to move that arm again.
Kampê charged towards her, sword raised.
Shit. She had to act fast. Or become a demigod pancake.
Reyna looked around. She had dropped her spear when Kampê had knocked her with the mace. The only weapon close to her was… the mace.
Kampê was twenty metres away. (60 feet)
Reyna grabbed the mace's handle with her left hand and began to tug.
Ten metres. (30 feet)
She struggled and pulled harder.
Five. (15 feet)
Reyna felt the mace loosen from the rock.
Kampê raised her sword, about to decapitate Reyna.
She ducked and smashed Kampê in the face with the mace, sending her crashing to the ground fifty yards away.
"Eat dirt!" she yelled, then cringed (she really was bad at these catchphrases).
Reyna grabbed her spear as she ran to meet her opponent. She probably wouldn't be as effective without her sword arm, but hey, she was the praetor of Rome. She couldn't let them down.
"FOR ROME!"
Reyna lifted her spear and charged.
Both women fought like demons, moving so quickly that they were a blur of movements. Reyna realised that Kampê couldn't hurt her anymore, and she could barely injure the demoness. She didn't care about anything else. The battle around her didn't matter. The Daughter of Bellona only focused on taking down the opponent in front of her.
It was only until later on that Reyna realised that a dark red aura surrounded her.
The blessing of Bellona.
Grinning, she dodged another blow from Kampê, and pressed on, using this newfound power to the best of her ability.
The battle was so intense that Reyna didn't see where she was going, only focusing on taking down the monstrosity in front of her.
The next thing she knew was that she was cornered in a cave, Kampê smiling viciously.
Her meaning was clear. This is the end, there's no escape for you.
Reyna glanced at the rocks above. They were barely held together, but were like icicles, except made of stone.
"But there's no escape for you either."
The Daughter of Bellona hefted her spear and struck the rock that was keeping the cave together.