Disclaimer: I do not own Rick Riordan, the Percy Jackson books, characters, series, movies, or anything else you may recognize.

Chapter Thirty-Four

How To Fight The Unfightable

I didn't know what to do. I stood there frozen in place. Andee looked as beautiful as ever, sitting atop a black horse. Her blonde hair was braided, a few curls escaping and framing her face. She was wearing a short Greek chiton in black and gold, a flowing black and gold cape attached to each shoulder, and traditional gold sandals tied up to her knees. Her dagger was sheathed around her thigh and her bow and arrows were slung across her shoulders. A golden crown sat atop her head. When I saw that her eyes were golden and the jewel on her necklace was sickly green, it forced me to remember that she wasn't Andee anymore.

Kronos came forward on his own horse and Andee immediately reached over to touch his arm. I realized that the second throne in my vision had been for her, and that all along she'd been the secret weapon. He was making her his queen.

None of us had expected him to deploy her in battle, especially not this soon. I guess he had gotten a lot farther into her mind than we all thought.

I instinctively reached into my back pocket for the envelope she had given me before realizing it wasn't there. I had forgotten all about it because I was too upset about losing her. I could tell by the look in her eyes that there was no way I'd be able to give her whatever was inside the envelope without risking the lives of everyone here.

It killed me seeing her with Kronos. Especially like this. It was unnatural and wrong. And the way she was looking at him, like she wanted to be with him…I felt like I was going to puke. "Surprised, Jackson?" I didn't answer Kronos, just tried to put on a tough face and glare at him.

"Andee…" Annabeth said softly, and I could see her grip loosening on her dagger.

"That's not Andee," I said, but my voice cracked. I watched as he helped her down from her horse, and she immediately moved to him. She wrapped an arm around one of Kronos', her other hand moving to play with his hair. She carefully watched my reaction, smirking. Kronos looked at her and whispered something, making her laugh before she pressed her lips to his. He eagerly returned the gesture.

I was going to vomit.

"Percy –"

"Deal with the other monsters, I'll…I'll handle this."

"Percy."

"I can do this," I said resolutely, but I honestly didn't know if my legs would hold me up if I tried to walk. My heart was smashed into a million pieces that were all lodged in my throat, making it hard to breathe.

Annabeth gave me a wary look before running off to five orders to the rest of the campers and Hunters. I took a deep breathe, swallowed and charged forward, slicing into every monster that dared get in my way. And there were a lot. I'm sure all of them were hoping to be the one to kill me, so that Kronos would honor them and give them some sort of trophy or prize. Or he'd just kill them for doing it instead of letting him kill me.

I got a few feet away from Kronos and Andee, and Andee smiled a cruel smile that sent shivers down my spine. I had never seen any kind of cruelty or sadism expressed on Andee's face, but she was taking great joy in watching us fight for our lives.

She gestured with her hand and another wave of monsters came charging towards me, blindly obeying their masters. I continued slicing through them, leaving piles of ash at my feet as I tried to get close to Andee. Even if I could disarm her or knock her out for a few moments, we could trap her something and find a way to get her back to the real Andee.

It seemed like this was all a game to Andee. Every time I got within a few feet of her and Kronos, she would bring in another wave of monster to fight me and push me back. The more I fought, the more I could feel the fatigue creeping up on the edges of my subconscious. I may be near invincible, but fighting so many monsters, one after another, was taking its toll on me. I knew I could got for a few more rounds at the very least, but it would be touch-and-go from there, and I needed my full energy to fight Andee.

Finally Andee raised her hand in the air, signaling for the monsters to stop attacking me. That didn't mean they were going to stop attacking my friends, but they weren't coming at me anymore. Her freaky gold eyes met mine and she tilted her head slightly, like I was a fascinating little specimen under a microscope. After a few moments, she signaled me forward with a smile.

I knew how powerful Andee was. We've practiced together. We've fought together. I didn't underestimate her abilities at all. The gods wanted to kill her because she was so powerful, maybe just as powerful as or more powerful than some of them. And with none of her old emotions holding her back, I think it was more than okay to admit I was terrified.

I couldn't take her right now. I had no chance. Even with my newfound invulnerability, she'd kill me.

I started to back up but suddenly moving in slow motion.

Andee started laughing. "It saddens me that she was never taught her true potential before now," Kronos sad, running a finger down Andee's cheek in what he must've though was an 'intimate' gesture. "As you can see, Jackson, she's more powerful than anyone thought. She's even more powerful than I expected her to be. She'll make a great addition to the Titan rule, don't you agree?"

"I'll free her," I said as I tried to move, but I was still moving in slo-mo.

Kronos laughed mirthlessly at me.

"Percy! We need to fall back!" Annabeth shouted. Didn't she see that I was trying? When I saw the way Andee was looking at me, I didn't think it was going to happen any time soon. I had to think of a plan, and I had to think fast. Then I got an idea.

I whistled as loudly as I could and the ground started to shake. I smiled, ecstatic that it had worked as I scrambled to my feet and started backing up. Mrs. O'Leary came bounding towards me and I saw fear appear in Andee's eyes in an instant. Even if it wasn't really her, hellhounds were still a weakness that would kill her.

Mrs. O'Leary stood in front of me, growling at her. She stumbled a few steps back and looked angry that she had shown such weakness. "Fall back!" she spat, leaping back onto her horse and riding off. Kronos marched behind her, ordering his forces to follow and cover them as they left.

I retreated with the rests of the campers, still shaken up from my first encounter with the new Andee. This wasn't going to be easy. If she wasn't brought back to who she really was, she was going to have to be killed if we wanted any chance of keeping the world the way it was. Getting close enough to actually kill her would be hard, but dealing with the guilt afterwards would be much worse.

When we all got back to the hotel, we started treating all the injured. More people were injured after this fight, so the Apollo campers were busy. But those with only scrapes and bruises were freaking out because of Andee.

"Percy," Annabeth said gently, steering me towards the bedroom. "Sleep and get your energy back. We'll talk about it all later."

"We have to talk about it now and make a plan of attack," I argued.

"No," Annabeth said sternly. "That who debacle was way too much for any of us to deal with – our brains are already on overdrive as it is. We're all going to sleep and let it sink in, and that means you need to too."

I wanted to keep arguing with her because we had a lot of planning to do, but at that point, I was getting too upset to argue anymore. I didn't even get under the covers of the bed this time. I just crawled onto the bed and fell asleep, immediately plagued by a vision.

I was back in the 'throne room' at Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, but this time, both of the thrones were occupied. Kronos sat in one, watching the spot in front of him carefully while Andee sat in the throne beside Kronos', leaning against the right arm of the chair.

Andee looked furious. She held a loose fist to her mouth, the nail on her pinky finger lightly scraping her bottom lip. Her golden eyes were fixed on a small space on the wall.

Ethan Nakamura shuffled into the room, keeping his head down as he stopped in front of Kronos and Andee and bowed.

"Has your memory improved?" Kronos asked, staring Ethan down. Ethan shook his head. Andee was too involved in her own anger and fear to pay attention. "No matter, we'll find out soon enough. How is our next surprise coming along?"

"It's ready whenever you are."

"Wonderful," Kronos said. "Andromeda, my beloved, do not worry about the hellhound. We will deal with it promptly. In the meantime, go tell my brother Hyperion to move our main force south to Central Park." Andee immediately stood up and after Kronos had pressed his lips to her knuckles, she left the room. "Ethan, work on improving your memory. We will talk more once I have taken Manhattan."

The vision ended there and I jolted awake, leaping out of the bed to find Thalia and Annabeth waiting at the end of the bed. "There's an army heading to Central Park," I said and Annabeth grimaced. "By the way, who's Hyperion?"

"He's one of the Titans – besides Atlas, he's the best warrior. Bake in the old days, he represented the East and Hyperion was the father of the first sun god, Helios," Annabeth said.

"Awesome," I muttered, running a hand through my hair. "So do you guys have any ideas as to what this next surprise could be?"

"As much as we probably don't want to know, we're going to have to be prepared for anything," Thalia said. "We can't have something like last time's surprise and not be prepared."

I nodded my agreement, taking out Riptide before we went to rally the troops. The head counselors were waiting for Annabeth and me at the Reservoir. Thalia went ahead with the Hunters to go see how far the army had gotten.

We briefed everyone, making sure everyone knew what we needed to do. Grover and the nature spirits would do their best seeing as this was the perfect place for them to be on the offensive.

"They're coming," Thalia said, using one of her arrows to point north. "One of my scouts just told me that they've already crossed Harlem River and that there was no way to hold them back. Their army is huge."

I nodded, knowing that we had to hold them in Central Park. It was the only way. "The Athena cabin will make their stand here with the satyrs and nature spirits. So will me and…the Apollo cabin."

I knew how much it hurt her brothers to see Andee. I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest every time I saw her with those golden eyes. If…well, if she had to be killed, I wanted them all to see her one last time, even if it wasn't her. The main reason, however, was that they knew her better than anyone else. We needed to get her into our custody, however we had to do that, because as long as Kronos had her, we stood no chance.

Her brothers knew exactly what I meant, and they nodded to me.

"Every other cabin, you have your assigned entrances to Manhattan. We can't let them in, no matter what. And we all know Kronos – he'll try to distract us with his main army while he sneaks in other forces somewhere else. That can't happen. Got it?" Everyone said their agreement. "Good hunting!"

As everyone headed to their specified position, I heard the enemy before I ever saw it. It sounded like a hundred bazookas being fired. The sound made my stomach turn nervously.

At the north end of the Reservoir, the enemy vanguard broke through the woods with a warrior in golden armor leading a battalion of Laistrygonian giants and hundreds of other monsters. I saw Andee at the far rear of the group, glaring at the back of Hyperion with her arms crossed.

"Positions!" Annabeth shouted and all of the campers scrambled.

The plan was to make the enemy vanguard have to break off into tinier groups around the reservoir so that to get to us, they'd have to follow the trails in narrow columns on each side of the water. They would be much easier to fight and kill in such small groups and without the huge wall of protection they normally had.

Our plan seemed to work. As soon as they were halfway across the Reservoir, the path erupted in Greek fire, incinerating lines of monsters on impact, and sending many of the others flailing around in green flames.

I watched as the members of the Athena cabin threw grappling hooks at the largest of the giants and pulled them to the ground, engulfing them in flames as well. In the woods on the right, the Apollo cabin was firing arrows like crazy into the enemy lines, destroying line upon line of dracaenae. Even as fast as they were shooting them, more marched forward.

Grover raised his pipes and the other satyrs followed his lead, playing a quick tune that made everything in the forest come alive. Rocks, trees, bushes, vines – everything was attacking the monsters.

The enemy kept trudging forward, no matter how hard we attacked. Hyperion didn't split off into the side paths like everyone else did. He just walked on top of the water, heading straight towards me. Oh, so you can walk on water, Hyperion? Well guess what?

So can I.

"Keep the forces together while I handle this," I shouted to Annabeth before charging towards Hyperion. I noticed Andee walking on the water a couple hundred feet behind Hyperion, her arms crossed over her chest, watching the two of us charging at each other like she was watching a boring movie about how the cell functions in biology class.

Hyperion's eyes were gold like Kronos' but much brighter, like he had mini suns in his eye sockets.

"You know, you Titans really aren't that bright," I commented.

"You want bright, I'll show you bright," Hyperion said, before igniting his body so that it was blazing light and heat. I felt like my eyes were melting into goo but instinctually, I raised my sword, blocking Hyperion's blade just in the nick of time. The impact sent a ten foot wave of water right across the lake.

I reversed the wave and sent it crashing onto Hyperion, extinguishing his light, which just made him even more furious.

I happened to glance at the campers around me and saw Annabeth leading an assault with the Athena cabin while Grover and the nature spirits were on the left, regrouping and entangling their enemies in vines and poison ivy.

"How about we fight on land?" Hyperion said.

I was going to reply with something extremely clever and witty like "no", but suddenly Hyperion sent me flying backwards, much like Kronos had done before. I really hated that Titans could do that.

He got back up and started igniting fires by his feet, probably to give him more strength like with me and water, but I kept dousing out every flame and dodging every blow. "Stop it! Stop that wind!"

Wind?

"How are you doing that, man?" Grover asked from my left. I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked around me and saw that I was standing in the middle of a hurricane. I willed myself to turn it up and suddenly there was thunder and lightning with it.

I used the hurricane to start pushing Hyperion off to the side. He needed to know exactly what we thought of the Titans.

"Percy! Bring Hyperion over here!" Grover called.

I didn't know what he had planned, but after knowing Grover for so long, I would trust him with my life. And right now, I trusted him with everyone's lives. I used my hurricane to push Hyperion off to the left, much against Hyperion's wishes, and the nature spirits started trapping him in a tree.

"You cannot imprison me! I am Hyperion! I am –"

He was trapped in a maple tree about twenty feet wide in diameter that looked like it had been there for centuries.

"A lovely maple tree," Grover finished for him.

"Yes!" I said, high-fiving Grover and the other nature spirits. Of course, then I heard a giant squeal like a pig. I looked up and saw a giant pink pig with wings that resembled a flamingo's came soaring down, barreling missing hitting one of the Athena campers.

"What the Hades is that?" I asked.

"It's the Clazmonian Sow – it terrorized Greek towns all the time back in ancient times," Annabeth said.

"So who beat it? Hercules?" I asked.

Annabeth grimaced. "As far as I know, no one has beaten it."

Perfect. Just perfect.

"Annabeth, take three of your siblings and go set the automatons on it. The rest of us need to focus all of our energy on this," I said, looking over to see Andee watching me with an evil grin.

Andee walked forward, her cape billowing behind her as she clapped her hands sarcastically at me. "Congratulations! Way to go! You're fighting a losing battle – how does that feel?"

"I wouldn't know because we're not losing," I said as I approached her. "I would apologize about Hyperion, but I'm not really sorry. He does make a great tree, though."

"No need to apologize for him – I never liked him anyways," Andee said. "Besides, this way I get what's rightfully mine to rule when this is all over."

"And what's that?"

"The sky."

That shook me to my core. Both her godly parent and her godly grandparent were gods of the sky – Apollo, the god of the sun and Zeus, the god of the sky. Hearing Andee say that she was going to take their territories from them was absolutely terrifying.

She took my moment of shocked distraction as an opportunity and shot a bolt of electricity at my chest. I went stumbling back. I felt like my whole body had been shaken and fried.

"The way people speak of you, I thought you'd be a lot more powerful," Andee said, releasing her cape as she walked over and stood over me, "but you're pathetic." I forced myself to get back to my feet and ignored the throbbing pain running through my entire body. "Let's face it, Jackson. You'll tire out long before I do. And besides, even though you're 'invulnerable', I can still kill you. You can't kill me, no matter where you stab me."

My body reminded me of the water all around me so I summoned it, feeling that familiar tugging in my navel. Water from the East River rose into the air, and just as it was about to come crashing down on Andee, she pushed her arms outwards and the water went spilling back into the river. There was no way Andee could control water. It was impossible, no matter who was controlling her mind and her actions.

"Nice try," Andee said condescendingly and suddenly she was flying up in the air. She came crashing down in front of me, and the impact barely affected her. She immediately began hand-to-hand combat with me, which meant my sword was pretty much useless.

I retracted Riptide but kept it in my hands as I attempted to fight Andee. Even without her mind being controlled by a Titan, I was no match for her. But I blocked her blows as best as I could. I saw an opened and quickly popped the cap off Riptide, the sword going right through her midsection. She just smiled and forced it out of her body, cutting her hands in the process. I could see the skin healing over the wounds quicker than ever. I didn't have a lot of time to think about it because she engaged me in combat again.

She was going full-out and I knew I didn't stand a chance. I was barely able to keep up with her – one swift move and I'd be out. I managed to grab her neck and get her in a headlock. She didn't show any attempt to struggle or get away until she shoved her elbow in my stomach, winding me. She flipped me around and knocked my sword out of my hands before deftly kicking me in the throat, which made it even more impossible for me to breathe as I fell to the ground.

She straddled my chest, holding down my arms with her knees. She raised one of her hands and made a squeezing motion. I suddenly felt all the oxygen in my lungs start to disappear. Little stars danced in my vision as she continued to cut off all my oxygen.

I was going to pass out.

And I don't think I would wake up after.

I thought of all the times we had practiced fighting and she had gotten me in this exact position (minus the strangling) and told me to get out. I only wish it was that friendly now.

"Lord Kronos said that he wanted to be the one to kill you, but I don't think I'm going to be able to stop myself. It's just bringing me so much joy to see the pain I'm causing you," Andee said, grinning maliciously as the invisible hand on my lungs tightened. I had to find a way to escape her grip on my lungs or I'd pass out and Kronos would have free reign. I could see Riptide lying just inside the water a few feet away from us in my peripheral vision.

I had a sudden wild and crazy idea that I could only hope would work. If it didn't, I would be killed. And not quick. A nice, slow and agonizing death.

I pushed myself forward and connected my lips to hers. The distraction must have worked because the pressure she was putting on my knees loosened and I was able to quickly grab my sword and plunged it straight through her heart. I pulled away and she stared at me for a moment, my sword sticking out through her back, the wound bleeding heavily. She blinked a few times and her eyes turned back to the beautiful shade of green they were supposed to be. "Ducky?" She then promptly collapsed in my arms.