It's time to rumble
Nico grinned in guilty pleasure, the excitement of fulfilling every child's dream: sneaking through a spy compound and creating a diversion.
His part was easy—at least easy for someone like him. People grew uneasy around him, often feeling off balance and quick tempered. Nico nodded to Drew and her brother, the only charm speakers in camp, and then strode excitedly to the center of the square.
They were in a highly populated, pedestrian only area with lots of political nuts and unhappy Americans yelling obscene statements at the government. It was easy for Nico to join their numbers and create an untimely riot.
Nico was about to begin his rioting cries when he paused. He hadn't thought of what he was going to say and rhetoric was not his specialty. Still moving with the motions, he stumbled out the words, "You suck!" And when a few of the grumped citizens raised an eyebrow at his half-mast statement, he continued, "they claim they are for freedom, but they only care about power! Has anybody been watching the news recently? Have you seen the rabid plague that has been running through the country? Hundreds of children have been going missing and the government is behind it!
"Except the president is cool so I don't blame him or think he knows about it. It's the CIA or some other organization.."
Drew scowled and knocked Nico out of the way with a somewhat gentle push. Pouring as much charm and anger into her words, she purred, "this nation was created to protect and honor all of its citizens, and until a few months ago, it had succeeded in its mission. Maybe some of you have seen the news of children gone missing, of teenagers becoming fugitives, and I am here to tell you, to warn you of the injustices that have been occurring within the nation's boundaries. Parts of this government are corrupt, caring only of power and control. These children, the ones taken from their schools, their homes, and the streets, are unique and special, holding more power than these monsters could ever dream of, but they are young, naive, and raw. They were unable to help themselves as the men in black came and attempted to use and control them.
"We are here to warn you of these gifted children and to fight on their behalf. Fight! Do not let these monstrous beings hold the country under their wants!"
Drew's brother, Barry, stepped forward, calling obscenities and cries for the people to fight against tyranny. It was a slow process, especially when street cops attempted to detain Nico, Drew, and Barry, but with the help of thirty or so demigods, any police interference was thwarted. When Drew caught the attention of one said cop, she commanded him to begin the actual riot, which exploded into action when he began firing his side arm into the sky and yelling battle cries from various movies.
The war hunger caught on and soon enough the fighting spread past a few blocks. Chairs smashed against concrete, rented bicycles were used as missiles, and general chaos ruled the streets. The only thing keeping the people from harming themselves were the repetitive reassurances from the two charm speakers whose recorded voices were played over every loud speaker in the area. Although precautions against bodily harm were taken, the property damage was imminent and unavoidable—as riots were defined as being a violent disturbance, and the demigods tried to ignore the guilt constricting their chests.
Surprisingly, it took close to half an hour before the black SUVs arrived and men in matching uniforms spilled out. Armed with tazers and tranquilizer guns, they tried to form a line to break the rioters, but the mix of angry demigods and dazed mortal renegades caused them to forgo the formation and simply charge. The mortals and half-mortals fought in unison, attacking with everything they had. Because they couldn't separate the demigods from the 'normals'—as the uniforms called them—or publicly assault children, they were extremely limited and open to attacks.
New inventions that the Hephaestus children created exploded at the feet of the enemy. Mixed with spells from the Hecate cabin, the grenades caused some agents to fall to the ground and believe they were babies—crawling on their hands and knees and everything— others to fall straight asleep, and others to turn on their accomplices.
Even as the success continued, something was bothering Nico. A sort of tingling in the back of his mind that he could not identify. Nico tried chalking it off as nerves and the paranoia, but as minutes turned into hours, it continued to grow.
The Police never showed up directly—probably too busy protecting the president, figured Nico. That and the CIA—or whatever branch is hunting the demigods—were sending them away, wanting to deal with the children themselves.
The mission was a success, causing enough damage to seriously tick off the enemy, until Smith arrived. One minute the demigods were striking back with vigor and contempt, but then one by one, children of Ares began to drop like flies, a grinning man with blue gloves hovering above them.
Nico stepped forward, raising his stygian black sword. The monstrous agent regarded the boy uninterestedly. It was the first time Nico had ever seen one of the blue hands and after listening to Hoover's description, he didn't exactly want to meet him.
"You must be the son of death I have heard so much of." He smiled cruelly. "I'm unimpressed."
"Yeah, well, same here," Nico scowled. "Where's your buddy? I heard there used to be two of you."
The agent paused, momentarily looking irked, but then he simply smiled. "Mr. Jackson has caused enough trouble for one life time. Orders are to kill him on sight from now on."
"Why are you here?" Nico snapped, circling the agent, his sword's tip dragging menacingly across the steaming pavement.
"Because someone believed starting a riot in D.C. was a viable plan."
"You know what I mean! Marcus B. You. The government. It's been hundreds of years they could have taken an interest in demigods and monsters, why now?"
Agent Smith laughed, an inhuman sound that grated every nerve in Nico's body. "Do you expect me to reveal all of our plans to you, little boy?" The man hissed. "Shouldn't you already have figured this out? Shouldn't you already know? I'm disappointed. Your little telepath isn't as near as powerful as Marcus had thought."
The agent stared into Nico's eyes, an action that would drive most into insanity, but he just stared and continued mocking the son of Hades. "Speaking of things you do not know: how will you cope with their deaths?"
"Whose deaths?"
"Your three little friends who so foolishly broke into our headquarters."
Nico knew they were not dead—not yet anyways—because he would have felt it, but even as he denied it, now that he was looking, he could identify the feeling of unease he had felt earlier.
They are going to die.
"I'd say they have," Smith consulted his watch, "three minutes and thirteen seconds left." He glanced at Nico with cold, emotionless, calculating eyes. He seemed to be able to read the boy's mind. "Go on. Run!"
Nico turned on the spot and began to run the many blocks to the compound, cursing himself for not having realized it sooner and not having a way of contacting Percy.
He thought of shadow traveling to his friends, but just by the feeling in his legs, Nico knew he didn't have enough energy to do so. After all, what good would his warning be if he collapsed from exhaustion the moment he appeared? Not to mention if he did manage to warn them, the four demigods would have to drag his sorry ass through the streets while avoiding a bomb that was who-knows-where—as he was now sure that that was the looming threat.
In two and a half minutes, he had made it a block away, and he could just see four figures fighting more men in black uniforms. They weren't in any danger of being overrun, and Nico didn't care. He waved his arms frantically, leaping and yelling as he ran, trying desperately to gain his friends' attention. Finally Percy saw him but, frustratingly, miscomprehended the meaning behind Nico's waving. The son of Poseidon luckily began moving away from the bomb in order to intercept the boy. The feeling Nico had felt earlier morphed into a ticking sensation, one that drove a knife into his chest with each second.
Thalia and Annabeth followed suit, also curious about Nico's sudden appearance; the plan had been to meet back at camp, ensuring no collisions or mistakes.
The only one still in danger was Lyra, who was playing with the last guard.
Percy sensed something off—Nico saw the change in his demeanor—and began to yell to Lyra, intending to go and retrieve her when she didn't respond.
But before Nico could get any closer, and before Percy could reach her, the sky burned with fire and Nico was thrust into the air by an unescapable torrent of heat and air.
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The air is rippling with heat and wind, debris raining from the sky like a smoking snow flurry. Sound courses around the fallen forms, five children slowly shifting on the burning ground.
With each movement, a ripple of black current washes across the pavement, all centering on the body surrounded by a ring of fire. She shifts, her senses overwhelmed with colors and blackness as her vision becomes blurry and unfocused.
More motions throw what is left of her sense of reality into a blend of watery matter. Still, as they are floating father and farther from the remaining shock waves, the explosion triggers sights of black and floating colors where faces of her friends and images of a white van should be.
Blankets of security wrap her mind in a soft wall, slowing and releasing the tension and pain in her head, and she finds the colors fade into nothing as her eyes stare blankly and finally fall closed.
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Three days later
The world hurt, or that's how it felt to Lyra who was pulsing with pain. It wasn't constant, but with each breath a new wave began then dissipated, repeating the cycle anew after a few minutes.
She had yet to open her eyes for fear of the pain the bright morning light would bring her. Her mind was open, alerting her to the presence of others in the room. They were talking, their emotions a blur of pity and anger, but Lyra couldn't yet comprehend why. Everything was a mix of dreamy memories and unreality. She remembered saving Thalia and making it out of the compound then a massive wind knocking the air out of her lungs, but after that, there was nothing.
"—nothing else—do?"
The voices were talking again, but they sounded as if a cloud of haze had rested over the speakers or like when someone is in an adjacent room having a conversation and you were in the other trying to decipher what was being said.
"We still—if any—wakes up." The second voice was consoling and guilty. He was young and familiar sounding, his voice high and innocent. The first was unmistakable, a distinct New York sound and air of confidence only someone with no way of being hurt could hold.
"Why isn't—waking up?"
"If you keep whining, your voice is gonna get stuck like that." Even to Lyra, her voice sounded distressingly raw and foreign. She frowned, still hugging her eyes shut.
Someone rested their hand on her forehead then the inside of her wrist, checking her pulse. The second person, Percy, dropped to his knees and was looking directly at her. He brought something small and chilled to Lyra's palm.
"Water," he explained.
Lyra pushed herself into a sitting position, grumbling as she did so, and accepted the paper cup. She knew something was off, the way the world was so quiet and organized. Concussion, she concluded, it had to be a concussion that is dulling the senses.
"How long was I out?"
"Three days." Percy silenced for a minutes like he was debating whether or not to continue. "It was a trap. Smith knew we'd never give in to his demands and planted a bomb under the compound. You were closest to the blast so—"
"And you're wondering if anything's wrong?" Lyra relaxed against the piles of pillows behind her head. "Well I can still hear and sense everything, it's just a little dulled down."
Lyra 'watched' Percy release the tension he had been holding, his spirited body slouching softly beside her bed. Finally having enough of her dark, sensing world, Lyra opened her eyes, flinching at the unspeakably bright light that flashed in her vision.
Percy began to tell Lyra about what had happened after the explosion and how Will—the other boy in the room—had been caring for all the minor injuries the demigods had sustained during the diversion.
"Nothing too serious," he concluded.
"You were the worst," added Will, who had been silent up until now. "We gave you some nectar and ambrosia in case of any damage, and it seems like you're fine now."
"I wouldn't be sounding the trumpets just yet," said Lyra in a quiet voice, her hands grasping the bed sheets in a vice grip. Her eyes were wide open, her breath coming in deep, silent gasps. Her panicked heart only doubled in speed when she felt their worried gazes fall on her. "I can't see."
She felt someone take her face into their hands, tilting her upwards so they could see into her eyes.
"Will," Percy's voice held warning and alarm.
"I don't know!" The boy responded frantically. "Maybe if she had woken up right after the blast, we would've known the damage done…"
"Give her some more ambrosia."
There was hesitation in the younger boy's voice, and Lyra found herself growing angrier and angrier, the shock being replaced by denial and ire. When Will replied, he was hushed, like he didn't want to upset the girl in the bed. "We can't risk anymore. Just taking care of the burns meant a little over the suggested amount."
That was news to Lyra. She had been burned. The logical part of her mind registered how close she had been to the building when it had caught fire. Of course she had been burned, but the heat didn't explain her sudden blindness.
"I don't even understand why the nectar we already gave her didn't heal her vision," added Will.
"Then get Lou here," growled Percy.
"My father is the god of healing, Percy," snapped Will. "If I knew how to help her I would!"
The floor boards creaked—probably that of the hospital bay— suggesting both boys were glaring awkwardly in the center of the room. Lyra was growing ever more furious with not knowing what was going on. She didn't dare open her mind to the torrent of thoughts, emotions, and physical motions, so she was left, in all meaning of the word, blind.
"I'm blind, not deaf," Lyra snapped irritably. "Stop talking like I'm not here."
There was an apologetic note to his voice now. "Sorry," mumbled Will. "I'm going to go and find Lou Ellen. Try not to move too much, and you should probably eat something."
The thought of food, the very aspect of eating something, was nauseating. Lyra crossed her arms across her chest protectively and looked away to what she thought was the far end of the room, biting her lip in attempt to keep from gagging.
"Thanks, but no thanks."
There was more shuffling, and Lyra figured Will had left. The boards creaked again.
"Why don't you go find Annabeth or someone?" The words came harshly, but Lyra didn't care. She tried widening her eyes, tried to catch some image her mind wasn't imagining, but blackness was her only reward.
It seemed like hours for Will to return, and when he did, Lou Ellen was dragging her feet so obviously, Lyra felt close to homicide. She didn't need false hope. She knew the brain was too complex to do anything magic with.
The next few hours were filled with people wandering in and out with different ideas, but the same consensus followed each visit. The concussion blast had caused an irreversible swelling, and without the gods to heal it, she was blind.
"Do you want anything?" Percy was the only one to stay the entire day, leaving only to gather some lunch for the two of them.
Lyra had mastered being able to stare unseeingly at anyone who wandered in. The looks made whoever it was shuffle their feet then awkwardly excuse themselves. "For you to leave," she replied coolly. When she didn't hear any response, Lyra shifted uncomfortably. All of her sense of dignity fought against her first response, but without sight, there was no way she could tell if he was still there. "Jackson?"
There was no response.
"Anyone?"
Then she heard the door latch shut, and Lyra bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. A fierce pain ripped through her, though she knew it wasn't a physical ache. Tears burned as they slipped down and over her cheeks, her shoulders shaking without end.
Since the day she was born, she had refused to cry in front of everyone, even refusing to look in the direction of the mirror to see the blotchy red patches on her own face, but now she would give anything to be able to see the awkward red streaks, the glistening tracks from her salty tears.
Unable to simply sit there and cry, Lyra threw off the scratchy blanket, fumbling with the serpentine material, and stumbled away from the small cot. She tore through the room and attempted to find the door, remembering the general location was to her left, but everything seemed to just appear in her way, just materialize out of nothing and trip her.
A constant stream of curses echoed through the otherwise silent med bay, the only true building—a cabin made out of wood with a door and floor—in the camp in the woods. After hitting a trunk laid at the head of a second medical cot, Lyra crashed into the wall opposite of the bed she had stumbled from, sliding to the ground, her wall propped against the oak. The solid, cool wood was reassuring somehow, calming her torrent of emotions and pain marginally. As she eased her breathing, Lyra found her hand tracing a design by her side, charting the unending loops that occurred in every tree and slice of wood. But the anomaly drawing her attention was not the slight, familiar motion of sketching, it was the thing that happened afterwards. The moment her fingers brushed the smooth surface, an image formed in her mind, an echo that outlined every surface of the once alive material.
Whether it was the discovery of echo, needing to satiate the curiosity and needing to know if she could still glean things, or simply hatred of having no sight, Lyra squeezed her eyes shut and carefully, painstakingly slow, began to remove the barriers from around her mind.
She had been prepared for the horrible sounds and overwhelming sensations that would come. With opening her thoughts to the world, but what she found was puzzling. Instead, Lyra found everything—the thoughts and motions of each creature—clear, like the times before, maybe even more so. It was more specified, more defined.
The world looks like it was when seen through open eyes, but it is also different. Instead of colors defining things as they are in the world, such as Lyra's eyes being green and blue, everything is black but surrounded by an aura, its color due to an imprint. The bed Lyra had been occupying was emanating a thick red smoke from her pain and anger. The cupboards that held medicines and ambrosia were a faint mixture of colors from all the different personalities that had touched the handle. Those objects that had been left without emotional impressions were left simple with a white echo and faint outline.
The more Lyra waits and listens, the more she can 'see' and feel and hear. Her 'vision' isn't only restricted to the room she is in either, but Lyra can see past the wooden walls and far into the surrounding forest. She can feel and see and hear the movements of every camper, the very brush of the seagulls' wings over the Atlantic Ocean.
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Once Percy left the med cabin, he wandered the makeshift camp aimlessly. Despite what had happened, he didn't feel guilt over the accident, only anger and numbness. But he sought solitude in the unfeeling desire for justice.
Percy dropped to the damp ground beside a small pool of water; a collection from a stream in the woods. Percy was tired of the woods. He was sick of hiding. And he was revolted with his friends getting hurt.
A hand came down on his shoulder, and Percy jumped. Her golden hair framed her face so that shadows clouded her expression, but Percy knew she was worried about him. She rested just behind him, balancing on her heels, her chin on his shoulder as she inspected him.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the calls of the seagulls and the monsters in the forest. Percy didn't want to talk, not really. He knew there was nothing they could do about Lyra, the demigods who hadn't gotten away from the DRA—the Demigod Retrieval Agency as Nico had dubbed them—the war that was inevitable.
"It's not your fault," Annabeth said. She wasn't whispering exactly, but she spoke quietly, like she didn't want to disturb the peace.
"I don't blame myself. I blame the bastards who decided to hunt us." Percy kicked the dirt with his heel. "I blame Marcus B. whoever the hell he is."
Annabeth pulled at Percy's wrist, which was curled into the dirt, his fist pounding a hole into the damp leaves. She stroked the tender skin along the inside and then moved to uncurl each of his fingers, slowly, distractingly.
Percy wondered if she was inspecting hiss hand for cuts but then shook away the thought. Even though Percy sometimes forgot he was invulnerable, Annabeth wasn't as forgetful.
She had pulled his arm around her shoulders, leaning into him so he fell against a tree behind him. The air was chilly, each breath creating a cloud of smoke in the blackening night. Percy realized with a start he never really got cold anymore. Ever since the burning of the Styx, he never so much as shivered in the cold. But Annabeth was slightly trembling, if not just a quick shiver.
Percy and Annabeth drew closer in an attempt to warm the air, Annabeth continuing her soothing strokes on the inside of his wrist. His thoughts began to simplify, one hard line repeating until it became one with his heartbeat, until he was calmly regarding the stars and gods with an intensity that Annabeth soon noticed. She looked into his green eyes and whispered, "It's time to end this, isn't it?"
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***make-shift med bay in the woods has wood floors
so there should be a few more chapters left! as always, if there are any mistakes just leave a message and I'll fix them
Please, please comment!