Hi! This Chapter was one of my absolute favorites to write. I turned it out at a sleepover with my amazing friend Charlotte. As I said last chapter, I'd never written a fight scene before. So when Charlotte and I were talking and she offered to help i readily accepted .

Charlotte is a writer as well, but she mainly writes scripts. However, most of her experience with fight scenes comes from stage combat. (Charlotte is an theater kid, I am too but she is like a Zillion times better actor than me. She is really funny AND make a good villain.) So this afternoon I invited her over to give a lesson in stage combat. After and hour of talking (a good 30 minutes of that hour was spent fan-girling) and another good 45 minutes actually learning defense positions and hit marks, I finally sat down to write this chapter.

This chapter was a total colab-effort between the two of us. Several of the ideas in the plot were hers, she helped me visualize things, edited my spelling and grammar (areas were I always fall short) and kept me laughing. All in all, she was amazing and a big part of why I enjoyed writing this so much. (As was the case when another friend of mine helped me out of a creativity block I had while working on Chapter 3)

So this chapter is Dedicated to Charlotte, for helping me create this chapter, helping me with a question I had last chapter, and for overall being an amazing friend. Love you!
In other news, this story is almost over! Ahhhh! I have like two more chapters to write, and a possible deleted scene. I'm both exited and scared at the same time.

So if you've read my monologue, congrats! I suppose it's pretty safe to say that I won't be using this to audition for the Fall production. Anyway, on with the show!

Annabeth's POV

The street outside was in complete pandemonium. The skirmish was already well underway. Hazel, Jason, Piper and Frank were struggling to defend against a small army of monsters and…

"Kids! There are kids fighting," Percy exclaimed.

"Yep!" Leo agreed. Not sure why, but they were chasing us same as the monsters, and considering that they're trying to kill us, the general consensus is to take them out, 'cause I doubt they're here to help stuff the turkey. Unless you've got some miracle cranberry sauce up your sleeve." he added. He pulled a hammer out of his tool belt before running off into the fray.

I charged as well. By the time I reached the middle of the street, I was engaged in an altercation with a young demigod. He appeared confident, but he wobbled in his fighting stance, and looked incredibly uncomfortable.

He made the first move, a rather risky jab towards my left non-dominant wrist. I blocked it easily, crossing my sword arm across my body. He tried again, almost falling flat on his face as he tried to stay in one spot. Clearly, this kid was not trained.

"Why send you in to battle if they haven't bothered to train you?" I wondered aloud, dancing forward as I aimed for his shoulder.

"None of your business!" he growled.

A thin sheen of sweat was beading his forehead. This kid had no business being on the battlefield. Whoever claimed to be his tactician not only lacked common sense, but also compassion.

"Word of advice kid," I offered. "Move around a bit, it's much more effective."

He scowled, but at least followed my advice, resulting in a slightly more balanced slice to the leg. I parried his move; bring my sword down, then slicing it upwards, across my body.

"Also, if you're tiring out, but your opponent is fine, try to get a shot to the limbs, like so." I treated this like a lesson I would give in the arena, demonstrating as I talked.

A well placed stab to his outer arm served my purpose, and made his face contort with pain.

"The limbs and neck have a lot of pain receptors and a good blow will hurt a lot more than any injury to your abdomen. Anyway, why are you fighting with the monsters?"

He ducked under my outstretched arm and, as I pivoted, tried to make a swipe towards the back of my arm. I made to swing my arm away, but felt the sting of his blade coming in contact with my flesh.

"And here I thought your strategy was to go for fatal spots. The wrists, neck, side of the face, et cetera."

"Shut up!" he roared, swinging haphazardly.

I simply ducked under his arm, not even bothering with a counter attack, or even a defensive position.

"Look kid, your fighting is horrendous. You are obviously not trained, and I'm trying to help, so to speak."

I ducked behind him as he swung over my head.

"You are going to put yourself in much too dangerous a situation;" he whirled on the spot, startled. "And although it was you commanding officers choice to have you participate today, you made the choice to join the sort of vengeance crew these monsters have going, you should know how to fight better than just to stab and swipe and hope you make a fatal blow."

"I don't need your help!"

Thrust.

"Clearly, you do,"

Block.

He made to cut the back of my head from in front, and I caught his blade on mine, throwing it forward. He flailed, before going crashing into a car that was stalled in the middle of the road. The driver had obviously fled.

"Word of advice, never aim for the back of the head," I said, before running off to find another opponent.

Third Person Limited

"Whoa!" shouted Bobby "Yeah, go Annabeth"

He leaned over the rail at the top of the steps watching the battle unfold. His entire family was currently squeezed onto the steps, with the exception of the little cousins Bobby's Aunt Marie was fight to keep from witnessing this. But, the only other person who seemed to be enjoying the spectacle, besides himself, was Mathew.

"Dude," he said turning to Mathew, "This is so cool! It's like a Marvel Movie or something!"

"I know, right! The only thing that would make this better would be to have popcorn."

"Yeah! We should totally go make some."

"But what if the battle ends before we get back?"

"No way. Think about what Annabeth and Percy said about the Battle of Manhattan; that took over 24 hours. This'll take at least one."

"Then let's go make some!"

The boys wove their way through relatives who were frozen with fear. The Mist wasn't helping conceal the fight at all.

"Last one to the kitchen is Pegasus poop!" challenged Mathew, quoting something the twins had once heard Percy say, with slightly more G-rated terminology.

"You're on!"

Annabeth's POV

Eventually, I found myself fighting next to Thalia. We were taking on a huge Cyclops. Seriously, the thing is the size of two Tysons.

"Duck," ordered Thalia.

I obliged, and as I did so received a full on view of what she was fighting with.

"A bread knife?"

"Couldn't find my bow, carving knives were on the table. It was the best I could do, okay?"

"But the cooling rack?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, it makes a decent shield."

Though the cooling rack was now bent unrecognizably, it does seem to be taking the brunt of the damage. Thalia rolled to the side. The Cyclops's was focused on her, so I took the opportunity to advance, before vaulting upward, stabbing the monster in its eye. It erupted in a shower of monster dust, making me sneeze. Breathing heavily, I surveyed the street around me. We'd dispatched all of the monsters, and I saw an enemy demigod lying on the ground every few yards. Though the battle had not lasted long, it did quite a bit of damage to the street. But I couldn't worry about what the neighbors will think now.

I did a head count. One, two, three, Percy, five, six, plus me. Seven–wait, including Thalia there were eight of us. I checked again. One muscle wound (my own), two scraped knees, three claw marks, blackened Percy, slightly smoking Jason, charred Piper, and an impishly grinning Leo (what on earth did he do?). Where was Thalia?

I looked over to my house. All of my relatives were gathered on my front steps, and there was Thalia, struggling to pull herself up using the railing.

"Everybody into the house," I commanded. "Jason, help me grab Thalia, she looks like she's about to pass out."

As the eight of us mounted the steps, Bobby and Mathew came running out the door.

"Aw, c'mon! We missed it."

"Missed what?" asked Frank.

"Your epic fight!"

"You really wanted to watch it us kill monsters, get injured, and possibly be killed?"

"Uh, yeah?" said Mathew "It'd be so cool!"

"Right." Frank shook his head.

"Look guys, can you just get out of the way? Please. We kinda need to take care of this." I said nodding to Thalia, who by this point was out cold.

The sight of her made the smiles slip off the boys' faces. Not much we could do about that now.