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Chaos.
If the battle for Camp Half-Blood was described in one word, it was chaos. 150 campers charged twice as many monsters straight on. Apollo campers were sniping different monsters in their heads, hearts, and any other weak spots. A dragon screamed at ten campers who had employed their Camp Half-Blood training to defeat the monster. Explosions were erupting, monsters roared, campers screamed, and rain fell from the sky, courtesy of Percy. One highlight of the battle was three Apollo arrows flying and piercing the three heads of one of the monsters attacking a twelve-year old demigod.
The campers swiped, stabbed, shielded, attacked, and parried. Campers went flying, but just as many monsters' heads went rolling. Leo had taken Festus out early, and was flying around Camp, torching everyone he could with his new and improved dragon. Jason and Thalia were sentient channels of lightning, using the destructive force to shock, lobotomize, and kill monsters left and right. At one point, Jason took his spear and stabbed three monsters in the neck in one thrust as a bolt of lightning struck a nearby humanoid giant. Thalia would have made Artemis proud. She was sprinting and killing without breaking stride, using her arrows, her lightning, her spear, and her knives seamlessly and with such flawless transition that it seemed like she was wielding one weapon that had the ability to morph into others. Percy's personal favorite move was: she had leapt in the air and split-kicked two harpies in the head without looking. What she was looking at was the rows of monsters in front of her, and in the split second that she was kicking the two harpies, she notched three arrows, charged them with lightning, and shot them so hard that it released with a sonic boom and flung through multiple monsters in those rows. This was all in about three-quarters of a second, and Percy was proud to call her a friend. It reminded Percy of how impressed he would be of Annabeth on the battlefield and how he wished that she was fighting with them.
Percy felt like a demon. Riptide was an arc of golden destruction, attacking every single monster in the line of execution. His Wolf senses had increased his peripheral vision and had tinged his vision red. He was sprinting, slicing a Telkhine's throat, throwing his shield at a manticore, slicing through an empousai, catching the shield as it bounced off the manticore's head, blocking a strike from a gorgon, spinning and stabbing it in the chest, and pounding a huge camel-like creature with a water fist from the lake. Percy kept fighting his way through the crowd of monsters and he wasn't thinking any more. He was kicking, slicing, stabbing, throwing, catching, dodging, leaping, punching, and shielding, doing all of this on instinct. At one point, he saw Piper fighting a telekhine, and he threw Riptide. He hadn't even thought about aiming, but Apollo must have been on his side because it pierced the telkhine right in the neck, crumbling it into dust. Thalia, without stopping, had scooped up Riptide, killed two monsters with it, grabbed the point of the blade and threw it at Percy hilt first. The sword was flying at super-speed, but Percy caught it easily and transitioned into an upper-hand thrust straight through a giant's throat.
The rainfall was constantly invigorating Percy, healing wounds, and giving him some more weapons to utilize against the enemies. At one point, Percy drew water out of the rainfall, formed it into seven swords, and sent it towards seven enemies. As they flew in the air, they froze into ice swords and impaled seven throats. Percy kept running and came to a stop. Annabeth was standing there with her hybrid sword, staring at him. Her gray eyes analyzed his posture and she tightened the grip on her sword. She was ready for a fight.
He hesitated for a deadly second as some monster grabbed him by the shirt and threw him the opposite way. Percy landed hard in the wet, muddy ground. He got up and saw an eight foot, gray-skinned monster with bony extrusions that came out of its skin. The protruding bone spikes coming out of its fists reminded Percy of large brass knuckles or of bony Wolverine claws. The entire monster's image made Percy think of the monster Doomsday from the Superman comics. Annabeth had seen the creature when they were reading comics together a few months ago. When she saw Doomsday, she said, "Wow, that looks that an Aeternae. This author must have been a clear-sighted mortal and been inspired by it." Percy didn't know what an Aeternae was, but he never looked at comics the same way.
Percy spun Riptide and attacked. The monster punched its spiky fist downward, trying to force Percy to stop his charge. However, Percy tried the same strategy he used with the Minotaur; he attempted to jump, tear an extrusion off the monster's skin, and stab him with it. Unfortunately, when he jumped up, the monster gave him a deadly quick uppercut with its free arm. It felt like someone had knives between their fingers and punched Percy's jaw. The extrusions had pierced Percy's skin and his blood flowed out his face as he went flying backwards twenty feet. This monster punched harder than Thalia. Percy cradled his chin and felt the wound heal as the rain fell on his face. Percy got up again, and had an idea. He put his hand on the ground. The words of Hephaestus went through his head.
You're the son of the Earthshaker, lad.
Percy focused on the ground, and felt the tectonic plates moving. He focused and this time, he felt a tugging in his chest. Percy yelled and the ground around the Aeternae collapsed, swallowing the creature underground. He focused again, and the earth re-formed as if it didn't just consume a monster. He looked in the direction of Annabeth, but she was gone. Percy turned to look at the rest of the battle; Camp Half-Blood was starting to lose. Though the campers had taken on the first wave of monsters valiantly, there were still monsters filing straight into Camp. Percy knew the Labyrinth was large and never-ending, meaning that there very well may be an unlimited number of monsters in there. On the ground, Percy saw some campers impaled with their own swords, lying with their faces crushed, screaming with their limbs ripped off. He felt distraught…Annabeth had done all of this. He saw Kampѐ trudge towards Thalia, lift her sword, and sent a camper that was in her way flying fifty feet. Percy gripped Riptide and got ready to dive back in when he heard a chorus of screams.
The entire battlefield stopped fighting and looked towards the beach. Charging towards the battlefield was roughly one hundred twenty-foot-tall humanoid monsters. They wore heavy battle armor and were dripping wet. Percy focused and saw that they all had one eye; they were Cyclopes! The lead one was the most muscular and wielded a large hammer. The lead one screamed, "FOR POSEIDON!" Percy recognized that voice anywhere.
Tyson, and the Cyclopes of Poseidon, had joined the battle.
They added a much-needed edge to the battle, and Percy saw the campers fight with renewed vigor. Once the Cyclopes reached the main battle field, they commenced with stepping on enemies, tearing them apart, using enemies as baseball bats to hit other monsters, punching monsters so hard that they disintegrated, etc. Percy grinned and yelled, "YEAH, TYSON!" Percy ran towards Kampѐ, who was now running towards Thalia, probably to have a quick meal before the Cyclopes reached her. He leapt onto her back, and with one swipe, cut off one of her wings. Kampѐ shrieked and tried to grasp Percy. He was in a good spot though; it looked like she was trying to reach an itch on the spot of her back that she can't reach. Thalia took this opportunity to open her hands, materialize her spear, and stab Kampѐ straight through her throat. It didn't seem to kill the beast though, she just focused all her attention towards Thalia irritably. Percy leapt off her back, formed a large water fist, and punched Kampѐ with so much force that she flew back about twenty feet. She got up snarling and half-ran, half-flew at Percy. Percy realized her strides were big enough that she could reach Percy within a second. Percy turned and ran as quickly as he could.
He heard a roar and Percy looked back. A Cyclops was flying through the air and fell right behind Kampѐ, making her stumble. The Cyclops grabbed her tail and flipped her body over its head, slamming her into the ground. Another Cyclops ran up, grabbing her face. In a brutal show of strength that made even Percy cringe, the Cyclopes tore Kampѐ in two, cheering as her body disintegrated into dust. They bowed towards Percy and went back to the battle. Percy ran over to Thalia, who looked genuinely shaken up. He cupped her face. "You good? You good?"
Thalia stared into space and seemed almost broken; she had almost lost her life. Percy shook her slightly. "Focus on my eyes. Come on, Wonder Woman. You can do this." Thalia's eyes focused on Percy, then struck with lightning. She scrambled up and Percy ran towards the fight. He saw Tyson fighting a giant that was the size of him, trading blows. Percy threw Riptide so that it went through the giant's knee, making it buckle. Tyson took the chance to punch it, then raise both his arms over his head. His muscles bulged as his hands clasped together. In a savage overhead blow, Tyson knocked out the giant. He grinned at Percy. "Yeah, big brother!"
Percy wondered which one of them was the big brother, but he gave him a thumbs-up. He looked off towards the forest and saw more monsters attacking in the distance. Percy started to feel discouraged; not even the campers and the Cyclopes combined would be able to hold their own for much longer. Their army of 150 was depleted to about 100, and the Cyclopes' army of 100 was now 80. The 20 Apollo kids were now 13, and the 90 campers who were on the perimeter was now 63. And Percy felt responsible for every single death. Hatred burned through his blood; he hated how these monsters' sole purpose seemed to be causing death and destruction. He hated how these demigods' parents were never going to see their children again. He hated that the one who engineered all of this was the woman he loved.
Percy put Riptide down. He wanted to try something, but he wasn't sure how well it would work. But it was worth a try. He bent to one knee and put his hand on the ground. He concentrated and let go of all his emotions. It was hard because he would open his eyes and see a camper go flying or see a monster attack him. Even with his eyes closed, he would hear the screams of campers or the laughter of the monsters, or the battle cries of the Cyclopes, or hear some creature stepping towards him. Yet, every monster who stepped to him got blasted by lightning. Percy opened his eyes and saw Thalia run in front of him. She was both shooting arrows and launching her spear to protect Percy. He asked himself, Do you trust Thalia to protect you?
Percy thought back to Thalia's temptation to sacrifice the Ophiotaurus, to the Capture the Flag fight, to her kicking him out the car she was driving, to her appearing in his dreams with stormy green instead of electric blue. Annabeth had said that his eyes looked stormy green whenever he was angry, so the dream could have been a message that Thalia Grace and Percy Jackson were more alike than they thought. Though most of these were not-so-great memories, Percy reasoned that though Thalia wasn't perfect, she knew her flaws and worked every day to fix them.
Percy answered himself, Yes.
His mind went blank and he focused his energy. He began to feel vibrations, pulses, and tectonic plates shifting. Percy felt the earth; he felt the battle being raged on it, he felt the corpses lying on it, he felt the Aeternae punching and trying to claw its way out of a hundred foot hole made in the earth. He wondered if this is how Gaea always feels, so connected with the earth.
Percy grabbed and raised his sword, and plunged Riptide into the earth with a yell. Tendrils of golden energy spread through the earth about five feet out, then faded. He felt a huge tugging in his chest. The earth around the Camp Half-Blood perimeter cracked into two and started to spread away from each other. The cracks went around the entire perimeter fairly quickly, with the crack following a path that went right in front of the monsters who were charging through the forest. It forced them to stop, lest they fall into the space in the ground. It looked like there were small bombs going off around the entire perimeter, but the bombs were the earth splitting and cracking. The cracks went along Fireworks Beach, around the Property Line, around where Thalia's tree used to be, behind the Big House, and ending at Zephynos Creek. With a yell, Percy willed the earth to shake and spread out. The ground shook so hard that Percy's teeth felt like they were about to fall out, but Percy kept going. He pushed the crack in the earth as far as he could, and then stopped.
The monsters, campers, and Cyclopes had stopped the battle to look at what happened. Percy struggled to stand up and saw that he had created a chasm; a roughly circular two-hundred-foot rift between the borders of Camp Half-Blood and the surrounding forests. The ground at the borders of both sides was jagged and rough, just as Percy felt at the moment. But he wasn't done. Percy closed his eyes and made contact with as many beings as he possibly could. There was a familiar tugging in his gut, and the water from the Long Island Sound poured into this large circular rift. With the water poured in the sea monsters and creatures that Camp Half-Blood would spar against. They all were telepathically told by Percy that there may be some large, tasty meals trying to cross the body of water. Thalia looked around. Percy was done. He had created a 200-foot-wide, coursing river around all of Camp Half-Blood and effectively made Camp Half-Blood an island.
Percy panted, trying to catch his breath. Sweat was beading down his forehead, and he didn't think he had the energy to dry it up. However, Thalia yelled, "GROVER, JUNIPER! NOW!"
Grover and Juniper popped from a bush in the middle of the battlefield. Grover and Juniper both inhaled and released a fierce, horrible wail; a Panic. The monsters on both sides of the new river turned and ran, but the monsters in the camp borders had nowhere safe to go. However, they didn't seem to care; the creatures turned, dropped their weapons and plunged into the new river in terror. Percy saw the campers stationed at the perimeter pick up their weapons and run out of the way. Once the monsters made contact with the water, though, huge sea monsters burst out of the water, swallowing and consuming them whole. The campers just watched as the sea creatures had an early Thanksgiving meal, tearing apart and eating monsters. Percy looked across the river, using his Lupa-enhanced eyesight. He saw the monsters running in the same direction they came. They leapt into the Labyrinth, with the last monster closing the rocks behind them.
The battle for Camp Half-Blood was over. They had won.
The group who set out to search for Nico reported back to Percy. Will Solace tearfully told him that Nico was gone when they had gotten there; Annabeth must've taken him again. Percy realized that Annabeth was nowhere to be found since right before the Aeternae appeared. She must have taken Nico and ran into one of those blue/black portals, knowing that Percy would stay here and fight instead of pursuing her.
They spent the next hour burying the dead. Chiron gave a fallen-in-battle eulogy for the 114 campers and 20 Cyclopes that were dead.
Everything had ended around 6:00 in the morning. Percy realized that they had fought for an hour straight and they had buried the dead for just as long. The sun was just starting to come up. Leo called the Argo III over the river using Hephaestus' remote-control/drone technology, and the ship parked itself right in the middle of the camp. The remaining 186 campers piled into it and crawled into the beds, infirmaries, or showers to either sleep, heal, cry, or do any combination of the three.