The Blood of Olympus: A Heroes of Olympus Fanfiction

by foreverskysong

Annabeth and Percy are finally out of Tartarus, and Nico, Reyna, and Coach Hedge are on their way to deliver the Athena Parthenos and hopefully stop the two camps from fighting. The demigods of the Argo II face different dangers, though, as they sail along the Greek coast through the Ionian Sea. Will they make it to Athens in time? Or will they be too late?

108. Chapter 108

You guys will probably never forgive me for this horrible, horrible wait, but I really hope this helps start to make up for it.

58 pages long, with 23 POV switches, this is the second-to-last chapter of this fanfiction. It wraps up the entire war, all in one neat little package, and the next chapter is an epilogue-ish sort of thing (not really?) and then there's a chapter after that which is basically just an author's note explaining and answering WILL THERE BE A SEQUEL? and, if so, what it will be about. It will also detail a few other fanfics I'll be working on after this.

I've mostly been ignoring your reviews-sorry, about that, but I haven't read Blood of Olympus yet. I finally got the copy a little less than a week ago, but I didn't want what I write here to be influenced by the real book. So I haven't read it. That shows some major self-restraint, no?

WARNING: You will probably cry during this. Just saying.

Also, don't give up on me and reject this chapter outright, because-one more yet. It's not over quite yet, and what happens next chapter is pretty important, even if it'll be quite a bit shorter.

Okay, no apologies will ever make up for this, which is why I haven't given one yet, but...SORRY. SO, SO, SO REGRETTABLY SORRY FOR THIS HORRIBLE ONE MONTH, ONE WEEK AND THREE DAY LATE CHAPTER THAT YOU DESERVED SO LONG AGO BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME AND BY THE WAY I WILL PROBABLY NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF FOR TAKING SO LONG BUT I'VE BEEN WRITING AS FAST AS I CAN.

Also, please make sure everyone sends their deepest thanks to Khione, because I tweeted Rick last night if he could call in a favor from Khione and get me a snow day, and he told me that Khione wasn't really the favor-granting type-YES OMGS HE ANSWERED ME-but SHE PULLED THROUGH and this snow day where I currently have like six inches of snow outside that fell in one night is why I've managed to finish this today. Apparently Khione likes me. Maybe my despicable dark evilness appeals to her on a spiritual level.

Anyway-I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH AND NO ONE WILL EVER BE ABLE TO REPLACE YOUR AWESOMENESS! I SINCERERELY AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY APOLOGIZE FOR THIS UNFORGIVABLE WAIT-none of you deserved it.

Love you, love you, love you!

(P.S: Try not to hate me at the end of this very long chapter. I'd apologize for that too, but I'm kind of not sorry for it, so...Enjoy!)

Chapter CVIII

Nico

Nico isn't the least bit tired when the shadows turn them out, which is either a miracle, a side effect of the imminent end of the world, or a gift from the gods.

Whichever it is, he's glad for it, because it helps him realize within a millisecond that the shadow realm landed them on the deck of the Argo II and they're both currently being gawked at by Leo.

"Long time no see, Repair Boy." Nico greets him with a wolfish grin.

Leo points a wrench at them, his brows coming together into a confused V. "You two are supposed to be at Camp Half-Blood."

"Been there." Nico replies.

"Done that." Reyna adds, and smirks at Nico when he raises an eyebrow.

"The Athena Parthenos is all safe and sound on the top of Half-Blood Hill, watching over the Greeks and Romans as they-" He pauses to glance at the sky, noting that it's morning and the sun is well visible over the horizon, "-are currently battling an enormous army that outnumbers them three to one. Or, you know, they might be waiting until the afternoon to attack. Get in a couple of nice naps before the end of the world."

Reyna glares at him-but there's a certain light of amusement in her eyes behind that, like she's trying not to smile.

Leo just looks hopelessly confused. Both at Nico's change in attitude and their return to the Argo. Nico's just surprised he hasn't noticed that he and Reyna are standing strangely close together for shadow-traveling.

Even as he thinks that, though, Leo's gaze drops to their still-clasped hands and rises again to their faces. He blinks once, hard, and shakes his head, turning and shuffling sideways a bit-obviously quite a bit nervous-and makes for the stairway.

"I'm just going to-uh-get the others. They probably want to hear what you have to say." He stumbles over his words.

"What are they doing?" Reyna interjects. "Shouldn't you already be in Athens, not hovering above the harbor?"

Leo's eyes get a defensive glitter in them. "We only just got back about half an hour ago. Everyone's getting dressed-our clothes were shredded, and as we're about to enter an end-of-the-world battle with a huge army of giants and numerous Greek monsters, they figured it'd be smart to wear armor."

Reyna raises an eyebrow at him, her eyes a little troubled. "What do you mean, 'just got back?'"

Leo shakes his head. "The others will explain it better. So I'm going to go get them." And before either of them can call him back, he disappears down the stairs.

Nico and Reyna turn to each other at the same time. "Well," Nico starts dryly, "this'll definitely be entertaining."

"Maybe not entertaining." Reyna clarifies. "More 'memorable.'"

He grins at her, forgetting for a moment where they are and who they're about to see. Then, of course, it all comes rushing back to him.

Percy. He thinks, and winces. Reyna notices and squeezes his hand lightly.

"Hey, Shadow Boy, they'll behave." She tells him. "And if they don't, I will personally kick their podexes."

An image of Reyna taking down Percy flashes into his head, and he can't help but laugh out loud.

Which is, of course, the exact moment that everyone emerges from belowdecks. In almost any other situation, the looks on their faces at seeing Nico laughing would be extremely satisfying, but now they just make dark feelings swirl through his chest in a confused tangle.

"Why are you guys here?" Annabeth asks immediately. "Did something happen at camp? Is everyone okay?"

Nico shakes his head. "They were fine when we left. But we've been gone for almost a week. And based on the army that they were facing...anything could've happened."

The worry in her eyes makes him feel almost guilty for leaving camp, but he didn't exactly have a choice.

"They had a good plan." Reyna offers. "We made sure they'd have the best possible chance of winning before we left."

"Maybe you did, but why did you leave?" Jason asks, frowning, his jaw set stubbornly.

"Rachel gave a new prophecy." Nico explains simply, and everyone exchanges startled looks.

Percy's the first one to step forward. "What'd she say?" His sea green eyes are glittering feverishly, and besides the slight light of Tartarus madness, he's never looked better.

Nico shakes his head and turns to Reyna, shoving all thoughts of Percy out of his head. "You probably remember it better than I do."

She rolls her eyes, but proceeds to recite it, pausing after every line to recall the next. "The angel of death must face the ghosts of his past-that'd be Nico, no doubt-While daughter of war keeps him from breathing his last-referring to me protecting him on our way here, probably-The third factor of success for the world's fall; The queen and the angel must answer the call; They shall cross the Ionian with friends in mind; Leaving all other allies safely behind."

Annabeth grabs Percy's arm, her face white. "Percy-the third factor."

"Thalia." He mutters. "The Hunters."

"Wait, what?" Leo asks, confused. "Jason's hot sister?"

Jason makes a surprised choking noise in the back of his throat, coughing a bit. When it stops, he turns to glare at Leo, his electric blue eyes sparking dangerously.

Leo raises his hands in surrender. "Sorry, man. Just calling it like I see it. Seriously, though, when did you guys see her?"

"We never actually explained what happened in Pylos to everyone, did we?" Frank asks, exchanging a look with Jason.

"Not really, no. I told Piper the gist of it." The son of Jupiter answers.

"And I told Hazel." Frank replies. He turns to look at Percy.

"I told Annabeth what happened too." He says. "So it's just Leo who doesn't know what happened."

"Oh, great. Nice to know everyone's in the loop but me." Leo comments sarcastically, crossing his arms.

"Shut it, Mr. Fix It." Reyna barks. "You'd probably be in the loop by now if you'd quit it with the stupid comments."

Leo opens his mouth to reply and then thinks better of it, stepping back and glaring half-heartedly at Reyna before turning to the others and raising an eyebrow.

"Wow, someone actually managed to make Leo shut up." Piper quips in mock surprise. Her next words are bitter and sarcastic-even if with quite a bit of amusement. "Everybody panic, it's the end of the world!"

Percy bursts out laughing, so hard that his sides start to shake. After a minute or so, he subsides, and flashes a grin at Piper. "Nice to see you haven't lost your sparkling sense of humor."

"Oh, shut up, Fishhead." Piper growls, and Jason has to duck his head to hide a smile.

Nico raises an eyebrow. "You guys seem to be in awfully good moods."

Percy shrugs. "You've gotta laugh while you can, right? And I doubt we'll be doing much of it during the battle."

Nico's thoughts darken almost instantly. "No." He mutters. "Probably not."

Percy studies him, an unreadable look in his eyes, and seems to be about to say something before he abruptly turns away, to Leo.

"Long story short, we fought monsters, Frank talked to his dead ancestor and got a pretty new bow as an end-of-the-world present, we found out he's also Egyptian, Echidna and the Chimera made a guest appearance, and then I followed a voice into the woods, where we discovered Thalia ranting in the middle of the Hunters' camp." He explains, all in one breath. "She told us about how Artemis had told her in her dreams something about them being the second factor, and that we'd fail without them. They agreed to meet us in Athens. The end."

"All that happened and you didn't tell me?" Leo asks incredulously.

"Sorry to interrupt story time, but the point is that the Hunters are the second factor and we're the third. I'm guessing that means that you guys won't succeed today without us." Nico reasons. "Based on that, I'd say we need to find Thalia."

"I think we already did." Annabeth says, and, turning to her, Nico realizes that she's standing at the railing, looking to the coast.

The first thing he notices is the enormous mountain looming over Athens, shrouded in misty clouds that obscure it from view. That definitely wasn't there a few minutes ago.

The second thing he notices are the silver-clad group of girls waiting for them on the docks. Standing at their head, Thalia's familiar spiked black hair, adorned as always with the lieutenant's circlet, is immediately recognizable.

"What is that?" Leo asks-never one to hold his tongue, apparently.

Annabeth's voice is troubled. "I figured Mount Olympus was either the Acropolis here in Athens or the actual mountain in northern Greece. When Eris said Athens, I thought it must be the Acropolis...but this..."

"Kind of hard to take in all at once." Percy comments, joining her at the railing and resting an arm reassuringly around her waist. "But it doesn't change anything. We've been expecting to fight on an actual mountain, now we have one. Either way, we're going to give Gaea an enemy to be reckoned with."

His words might be inspiring, if it weren't for the granite hard edge in his voice-some might've still found that encouraging, but from Percy, all it did was strike a sense of unease into Nico's mind. It just wasn't like him.

Annabeth is still staring up, towards the peak of the mountain, which is hidden in thick black clouds that circle it threateningly. Every line of her body speaks of her own unease. Percy must notice it too-of course he does-because he pulls her hand into his and gestures to the Hunters, pulling her attention from Mount Olympus.

"Look, it's not important now. What is important is picking up Thalia and the others before they decide to start shooting at us to get our attention." He tells her, his tone utterly reassuring and a trademark careless grin on his face. Just like that, he's back to his old self, the hard bitterness gone, and Nico blinks at the suddenness of it.

He tries to quell his uneasy thoughts, but it isn't so easy. Rachel's words keep running through his head. "Watch out for Percy." She'd said. "I think he might be sailing to his death."

And it's with that happy thought on his mind that Nico approaches Athens, with the ominous shadow of Mount Olympus hanging over them all.

Hazel

It takes a surprisingly short time to get the Hunters all on board the Argo II, after Thalia finishes her rather loud rant about how late they are and greets her little brother with a bit of an overwhelmingly tight hug. Introductions are made, and Hazel has to admit she's a little wary of the daughter of Zeus at first, but after seeing the comfortable way Percy and Annabeth banter with her, she can't help but relax.

Leo gets them settled in the lounge-previously the infirmary-all on his own, and when he comes up with his face smudged and flames dancing through his hair, he seems rather proud to announce that he managed it expertly and only received three death threats while doing it.

Hazel has to shake her head at his antics, but one look at his infectious grin and she has to hide a smile of her own.

The atmosphere, for a Greek trireme quickly approaching a battle that could mean the end of the world, is surprisingly light. Hazel knows the reason for it, having the same feelings swirling around inside herself-it's because, after today, they'll know. No more agonized waiting, or bantering practices that are nothing close to the real thing. After today, the world will either end, or it'll be saved. They'll know if they survive, if they die. This is it. And the relief from knowing that, from finally arriving here, now, is enough to relax everyone.

The rest of it is the natural knowledge that in a few hours, they might all be dead. No one wants what might be their last calm minutes with each other to be full of tension and razor-edged apprehension. So they joke with each other, and grin, and reminisce a bit, each of them doing their best to ignore the approaching mountain so they can face it only when they must. Each of them is dressed in full armor, from neck to feet-none of them are wearing helmets. Yet. Weapons are held loosely at their sides, or left in their sheathes while hands rest lightly on the hilt.

This is it. Hazel thinks, and looks around at her friends.

Frank has been pulled into a conversation with Thalia and a few of her Hunters-something about archery. Even as she watches, Thalia says something to him that makes him blush bright red, and the silver-clad Hunters all break into raucous laughter.

Annabeth and Piper are talking avidly to each other-Hazel never really noticed how much the two of them use their hands when they talk, but next to each other, it's almost funny. If Hazel had to guess, she'd say they're reliving old memories or sharing stories from their past.

Jason and Leo seem to be doing something similar, leaning back against the ship railing on their elbows and sharing grins. Leo keeps gesturing passionately-either at Piper or Thalia or one of the others-and occasionally elbowing Jason in the ribs before flashing another of his bright, elfin grins.

Nico and Reyna disappeared downstairs some time ago, after briefly explaining their presence to Thalia. Hazel tells herself they're probably just changing clothes-mostly just to spare herself the embarassing red her face will burn with if she lets herself think otherwise.

It takes a minute before Hazel can find the last member of their party-Percy is standing against the railing on the far side of the ship, a dark figure against the gray skies he watches.

Even as her eyes find him, Annabeth seems to feel his absence, because her eyes alight with unease and her smile dissolves into a worried frown as she turns to look at him. Hazel can see her longing to comfort him in every line of her friend's body, and knows her concern wouldn't be unwarranted.

She catches Annabeth's eye and nods toward Percy before flashing a reassuring smile and heading towards him herself-she knows Annabeth needs this, maybe more than anyone. Every smile on her face that pushes past the shadows is a miracle in itself. Hazel doubts she'd be smiling if she'd gone through what the daughter of Athena had.

And Percy. She reminds herself, and feels an almost motherly worry fill her mind. He hasn't been the same-where Annabeth has slowly gotten better, he's only seemed to get worse. She doesn't know what the cause of it is, but every time she sees him, her heart is overwhelmed with a turmoil of uneasy concern. Something is going on with him-something is wrong-and she has a feeling he's not telling them everything. Not even Annabeth.

"Hey, Percy." She says quietly, not wanting to surprise him. He starts a bit, shifting from his stony position staring out at the sea, and turns to look back at her.

"Hey, Hazel." He replies, his own voice as soft as hers. She takes a place standing next to him against the railing, resting her hand lightly on his back. Before he can say anything more, she decides to get right to the point.

"What's wrong?" She asks bluntly. He starts to shake his head and opens his mouth, some excuse immediately ready on his tongue, but she shakes her own head and holds up a hand, stopping him. "Don't, Percy. You don't have to pretend with me. I know something's going on with you, and I'm not going to accept some stupid excuse."

He has the grace to look a little sheepish at his attempt to turn her concerns aside, but even that quickly dissolves back into despairing shadows that fill his eyes and make the pale pallor of his skin stand out even more. All at once, he suddenly looks utterly exhausted-bone-tired, as if he'd just like everything to be over with now.

"Percy." She says softly, pulling his attention back to her. "You can tell me."

"It's just-" He starts, and then stops abruptly, inhaling deeply and blowing it all out in one massive, shuddering breath, laughing a little and making a valiant attempt to smile. He rakes his fingers through his hair, and Hazel recognizes that he's stalling for time.

She doesn't say a word. She knows he'll talk when he's ready.

"Everything is-" He stops again, and closes his eyes, his face set in pain. When he opens his eyes, Hazel could swear for a second that they flare black before he blinks, and looks at her with his familiar sea green eyes. They burn into hers, but she holds his gaze as he finally starts to speak.

"It's in my head." He explains quietly, his voice low and edged with pain. Hazel doesn't speak; doesn't interrupt him. She waits for him to continues, all the while studying his despair-filled eyes. "That place-it's in my head. Every time I close my eyes, every time I blink or find myself alone even for a second. Every time there's silence-I'm suddenly back there, running from Nyx's children or protecting Annabeth from the arai-it never ends." His voice cracks on ends, and anger for what Gaea did to Percy flares through Hazel, burning hot through her veins. The next second, it's gone-right now, he needs comfort, not promises of vengeance.

"I try not to think about it, but it keeps sneaking up on me." He continues, and squeezes his eyes shut. "And the pain curse from that last arai-it keeps getting worse and worse, and I don't know how much longer I can take it." He opens his eyes back up now, and stares down at his palms, unable to meet her eyes any more. When he speaks again, his voice is a whisper. "I'm falling apart, Hazel."

Hazel waits for a moment to make sure he's finished saying what he needs to say, and then she gently wraps her hand around one of his own where it's worrying at the palm of the other, tugging it to her and turning him towards her. "Come here." She tells him, and when he finally meets her eyes, she smiles a sad smile and wraps her arms around him. He stiffens a bit, as if unsure what to do, but she doesn't let go and he finally relaxes, so that she's holding him in a gentle hug.

And that's the difference, she realizes. Whenever Percy hugs someone, it's almost always him holding them. It must be strange for him to be the one being held.

She smiles against his neck, trying to keep any tears from escaping her eyes-seeing him like this hurts her, deeply, and feeling how fragile he is in her arms makes her vision blur with her sadness.

"It'll be okay, Percy." She murmurs. He stirs against her, and she hurries to add to it. "And I know that sounds stupid, and you're probably really tired of hearing those words, but it's true. It will be true. You have me, and Annabeth, and everyone else on this ship. We'll always be here for you."

As soon as she says those last words, she knows how laughable they must seem, when they're about to enter a battle to save the world with one of the most powerful Primordial goddesses. So many times, she's heard the nagging voice in the back of her head tell her that there's an extremely slim chance-barely a chance at all-that all of them will survive past this day. But she shoves it away now and makes herself believe that, and she wraps her arms even tighter around Percy's waist.

Someone clears their throat, and Hazel pulls away from Percy to see Leo standing apologetically a few feet away. "Hey, guys, we're almost there. No one's entirely sure what to expect, so we're going to check things out before landing. You might want to be up front for this."

Percy nods briskly. "We'll be there in a minute. Thanks for telling us, Leo."

"No problem." Leo replies, and quickly heads back to his control station at the head of the ship.

As soon as he leaves, Percy turns to Hazel, the pain gone from his expression, a determined set to the line of his jaw, and manages his familiar little half-grin. "Are you ready?" He asks, and she smiles wryly.

"Not really. But I don't think the end of the world is going to wait until I am, do you?" She asks, and he shakes his head, still clinging to that faint smile.

"No, probably not." He tells her, and offers his arm. "Shall we?" He asks mockingly, and she rolls her eyes a bit at him before grabbing onto his elbow and letting him escort her across the deck.

When they reach the railing, they both look at each other with the same question in their eyes-and then they both smile at each other and break away to stand next to the ones they love. Percy slides a hand around Annabeth's waist and rests his free hand comfortably in his pocket-Hazel knows his fingers are no doubt wrapped around Riptide, but it doesn't matter. He's much more relaxed than he was before, and that's enough for now.

Hazel heads over to stand beside Frank. He jumps when she puts her hand on his shoulder and then blushes in embarassment when he sees it's just her, mumbling apologies under his breath. She just laughs, and grins at him once before nestling herself into his side, watching and waiting for the moment when the top of the mountain will come into view through the swirling dark clouds.

"You think we'll be okay?" She asks quietly, so that Frank is the only one who can hear her. He doesn't answer right away-he takes the time to think about it, and she appreciates that.

"We will be." He finally says, his voice firm and sure.

"How do you know?" She asks, twisting to look up at him.

"I don't know." He answers. "I don't know. But I can feel it." He pulls her closer, and she surrounds herself with the feeling of security being in his arms gives her. "We'll be okay. Maybe not now, or tomorrow, or even a month from now. But we will be, eventually. We'll be okay. We'll make it through this."

"Thanks, Frank." She tells him. "Thank you, for being here."

He doesn't reply this time, and she doesn't mind the silence. It's enough for her.

She stares into the clouds, but as hard as she tries, she can't see anything. Then she blinks, once, and gasps as her eyes flick back open-they're suddenly hovering above the peak of the mountain-except there isn't much of a peak. Cracked black rock is the only ground. Covering it all are numerous rock outcroppings and higher slabs of rock that look like they might have used to hold temples but definitely don't anymore. The whole place looks like a shell-but then, it would be, since the living aspect of Mount Olympus is currently hovering over the Empire State Building in New York, according to Percy. And it's huge-there's no way their small force could stretch across even a fifth of it. Thalia has almost thirty hunters with her-add everyone else and that's nearly forty people, standing side by side, and they wouldn't even come close. Still, it doesn't seem near as intimidating as the caverns they had to go through during Eris' trials.

But then Hazel sees something that makes her blood run cold. High up, nearest the rough, jagged stone point that juts up out of the ground and is the closest thing the mountain has to a peak, on a roughly flat rock outcropping at least thirty meters in diameter, is a stone altar carved with horrifying scenes from mythology and grotesque, painfully contorted figures, its surface covered with dark stains Hazel would bet money are blood.

I will spill the blood of demigods on an ancient stone altar. Gaea's voice whispers in her head. I will spill your blood and wake, more powerful than I ever was before.

Jason

Bright sun filters through the clouds to illuminate the mountain top, giving Jason an even better view-not necessarily one that he wanted-of the stained stone altar raised near the center. That would've been bad enough, but then, of course, he finally spots the giants.

There are dozens of them-not a single one below twenty feet tall, led by Porphyrion.

"How many are there?" Piper asks, her voice muffled by the thick air.

"A hundred?" Jason guesses. "Maybe more."

"No, it's around a hundred, Jason; you're right." Annabeth chimes in. "According to the old myths, there were exactly a hundred during the first Giant War thousands of years ago. I'm guessing it's the same now-maybe a little less, accounting for the fact that a few of them might've simply faded."

"Let's hope it's less." Jason replies. "It might not make that big of a difference, but I'll take what I can get."

As if the one hundred giants weren't enough, though, another brief appearance by the sun shows them a small army of assorted monsters-you've got your hellhounds, your dracaenae, a few telkhines, Earthborn giants, Laistrygonians, and even a few gorgons, among others Jason can't recognize.

It was already a stretch to think they could defeat the giants on their own. Now, with the added addition of a small monster army? Jason has no idea how they're going to live through the day.

And, of course, it's with that thought that the gods choose to make their entrance-misty figures and bright lights shoot past the Argo and alight upon the ground with several loud explosions of smoke and light. Eris doesn't bother with all that-she appears directly on the deck of the ship. Whatever she might say, Jason thinks a part of her did it just to scare the crap out of them.

"The minor gods are here to fight." She tells them. "Hecate has said she will fight with you, Hazel Levesque, and the others will help wherever they're needed. The Olympians, on Zeus' orders, are being restrained to fighting from afar. He won't let them show themselves to you, or participate in any physical form."

Jason opens his mouth to protest that, angry at his father, but Eris cuts him off with a small smirk.

"I believe, however, that they'll grow tired of his restrictions before long..." And with a wink, she spreads her inky black wings in one enormous movement and disappears into the shadowy clouds.

A second later, there's an explosion among the enemy ranks, followed by a column of thick black smoke and a bit of widespread chaos. Jason can't help a small smile as he turns to the others.

Percy is standing near Festus at the head of the ship, and Jason's smile disappears as he waits in quiet anticipation for the son of Poseidon to speak. By now, he's long recognized Percy as the true leader-in battle, at least. Annabeth might be their tactitian, the one who makes sure they win without getting themselves killed, but when it comes to saving the world in a battle against godesses and giants, Percy will always be the one to get them through it.

"So, Zeus is still pouting, too busy sulking like a two-year-old to help while we save his immortal rear-" Thunder suddenly rumbles warningly from above, and Percy glares upward angrily. "Oh, shut up." He snaps, and the thunder cuts off abruptly, leaving Jason to wonder. "But Leo and Annabeth have been working on a little surprise for the giants for a while now-it's highly unstable, so I'd advise everyone to stand back a bit. Leo says it's perfectly safe, but i'm no sure how much I trust that." He steps back and gestures for Leo to step forward.

"It's really easier to show you than tell you, so I think I'm just gonna go ahead and toss it-" He starts.

"Could you at least try to explain your plan to us?" Thalia interrupts, tapping her bow impatiently against her ankle.

Leo sighs, but points at the small object in his hand and then towards the giants. "Little ball go woosh. Giants go BOOM."

"Very eloquent, Leo." Annabeth mutters dryly.

"Whatever-just go ahead." Jason says, impatient. "I want to know what this thing does."

"Well, it's a bomb, so exploding is always a possibility." Leo shrugs. Jason just glares, and his friend raises his hands in surrender before pressing a button and carefully loading his volatile bomb into the catapult that appears. One big inhale-and then he launches it.

Jason loses sight of the small ball as it sails into the sky, but there's no way he could miss the resulting explosion, especially considering he can feel the heat it gives off from several hundred yards away.

A roiling mixture of black, blue, green, and orange hellfire flames erupt in a cloud of thunderous heat. Debris flies into the clouds and rains back down around them. The impact itself is so forceful that it shakes the deck of the Argo, even up in the air like it is. Even as the initial explosion dies down, numerous smaller ones start to go off all at once, and Jason realizes he's gaping at the destruction.

"What in Tartarus was in that thing?" Thalia demands.

"I have got to get me some of them!" Percy grins.

Leo, wisely, decides to respond to Thalia rather than Percy.

"An extremely dangerous combination of water from all five rivers of the Underworld, Stygian iron filings, Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold dust, a few of my favorite chemicals, and some traditional gunpowder." He explains proudly.

Thalia stares at him. "How are you still alive?"

Leo opens his mouth to reply, but Percy (thankfully) intervenes before he can get started.

"Guys, we need to go now, while they're distracted." He tells them, and, true to his word, swings onto the ladder to lead the way onto the ground.

Jason clasps hands with Piper briefly before heading down himself, directly after his sister.

When his feet touch the ground and he sees the group of monsters already there to greet him, he knows this isn't going to be like any other battle he's been in before.

"Time to get this party started." Thalia says, her hunting knives flashing in her hands, and goes to work.

A second later, Jason joins her, carving a path through the monsters for their friends to follow.

Piper

Almost as soon as Piper takes a step forward to follow Jason, a hydra steps into her path.

Great. She thinks. If this is supposed to be a metaphor for my so-called 'lacking' love life, Mom, I don't appreciate it.

And with that condescending "prayer," she draws her sword, sets her feet firmly, and faces the over-sized eight-headed snake in her way.

"You're not gonna get me." She tells it in a low voice, drawing Katoptris with her left hand and sizing up the situation.

She doesn't have anything to cauterize the stumps with-but then she notices Leo battling his own monster just a few yards away. Walking torch.

"Hey, Repair Boy!" She yells. "Care to lend a hand?"

He glances over at her. "I'm a little busy right now!"

"Well, get unbusy!" She shouts back angrily, diving sideways to avoid one of the hydra's heads.

She swears she can hear him sigh over all the raging sounds of war. But he uses fire to blast his way through the monsters blocking his way, and ocmes to stand by Piper.

"Okay," he starts, annoyed. "What do you-" His question is cut off by a strike from one of the heads that nearly takes off his arm-Piper has to tackle him to the ground to make sure he keeps all of his limbs.

As she rolls off of him, she moves directly into the hydra's range, and the acid it spits covers her arms, eating away at her skin.

Instead of screaming, she starts cursing at it in French. Leo scrambles to his feet, takes one look at her arms, and sends a burst of flame at the hydra to make it back off while he digs ambrosia out of his pocket.

"Eat this." He orders, and Piper obliges, more angry at her injury than hurt by it-there's too much adrenaline coursing through her veins to register the pain. But she knows it'll start hurting later, and is duly grateful for Leo's help.

He watches her arms after she places the ambrosia in her mouth, and when the skin stops bubbling, he nods once in satisfaction, flashing her a quick thumbs up.

"Okay." He starts. "Do you wanna blow this mother up or do it the old-fashioned way?"

"Old-fashioned way, I think." Piper replies. An explosion could hurt the others-kind of a bad omen if you blow up a monster and accidentally hurt your allies and friends.

The hydra chooses that moment to chance another lunge at her, and Piper's sword flashes up and through its neck before she even thinks about it. Seconds later, Leo bathes the stump in steady flames to make sure that head stays gone.

"One down, seven to go." Leo says. If he sees the irony in those numbers, he doesn't show it.

Once they get started, it doesn't take them very long to finish the hydra off.

They stand and watch it crumble to dust after Leo sends his last burst of flames at it. Piper glances down at her arms and notes that they've healed to angry red scars instead of melting skin, so that's good.

She feels a flicker of uncertainty about what to do next, but before she can dwell on it, she hears a shout and turns to see Frank gesturing for Leo to come over. He opens his mouth, presumably to explain further, but a monster on ground level slashes at Hazel with its claws and he stops to send an arrow into its skull from his place on top of a rock outcropping. Instead of trying to explain again, he just beckons one last time before jumping down from his vantage point to help Hazel.

"I think he has an idea." Leo says, staring after him. "Whether it's good or bad, we'll just have to wait and find out."

Piper opens her mouth to reply, but before she can, she realizes-with some concern-that several monsters have surrounded Jason and Thalia and are closing in on them, pressing dangerously close.

Leo notices it too, and cuts her off before she can voice her question. "Go. Superman is obviously a loser without his Kryptonite."

And before Piper can protest or punch him, he disappears into the chaos.

Leo

It doesn't take as long as Leo thought it would to get to Frank and Hazel. Part of it is the fact that the monsters mostly don't notice his small form as he slips between them. Sometimes being ridiculously scrawny and short can have its advantages.

The other reason is that they're all a little distracted-by Frank.

His giant, bullish figure would already be distracting enough, even if it wasn't glowing red with the blessing of Ares-Mars-or constantly changing shape.

Nothing touches him. Maybe that's the blessing of Ares-Mars-but Leo thinks it's more likely due to Frank's supernatural reflexes as he transforms frm ne animal to another, his form blurring from bear to lion to elephant to dragon. He and hazel are standing ankle-deep in golden monster dust, and though Leo doesn't doubt Hazel's abilities, he'd be willing to bet most of it is thanks to Frank.

Watching him, there isn't a trace of doubt that this guy killed all of the katoblepones in Venice on his own.

He slips in behind them-maybe not his smartest idea.

"Mind if I join?" He asks cheerfully, then yelps and ducks to avoid getting cut to ribbons by Frank the Friendly Lion.

"Oh, sorry, Leo." Frank apologizes, blushing, suddenly back as himself.

"No big deal." Leo replies weakly. "I love near death experiences. They keep things interesting."

Hazel glances over disapprovingly at his sarcasm, frowning, but decides it's better not to comment.

"What's the plan, comrade?" Leo asks jokingly, blasting a hellhound in the face with fire before finishing it off with his hammer-Hephaestus cabin weapon of choice.

"You see the altar?" Frank replies between transformations.

"No." Leo answers sarcastically. "I just happened to miss the creepiest part of the whole dead mountain."

Frank wisely chooses not to respond to that. "Well, I think, considering Gaea's obvious love for theatrics, that it might put a bit of a twist in her toga if the altar happened to, say, blow up."

Leo feels a grin creeping over his face. "You're starting to think like me, Frankie-boy!"

"Because that's not a scary thought." Hazel mutters.

Frank tries to glare but only ends up looking uncomfortable. "Don't call me that."

Leo shrugs. "Fine, fine. Not a problem, Baby Man."

Frank winces. "That's even worse."

"I told you you shouldn't have told him that story." Hazel chastises. "And stop bickering! If we're going to blow up the altar, we need to go now, while the monsters have backed off a bit."

"Point taken." Leo concedes. Then he grins widely. "Let's go blow stuff up, my malicious minions!"

Hazel raises an eyebrow. "Malicious minions?"

"Rough, I know, but I'll think up something better on the way." Then, in his best impression of Coach Hedge (which is actually pretty good, if he does say so himself), he barks, "Get a move on, cupcakes!"

They all start running at the same time, and after the first few monsters that get in their way meet a nasty end, the rest do their best to get out of their way and clear a path.

Getting to the altar is actually the easy part. Once they're there, Leo doesn't waste any time-he starts pulling things from his toolbelt, placing them strategically around the altar so that nothing will be left of it.

He straightens, satisfied, opening his mouth to tell the others he's finished, but before he can, something shoves him down and sideways just as two swords meet in a burst of sarks just above his head. The sound of it crashes in his ears.

He stumbles, off balance, then trips and nearly falls when some force knocks him forward again.

Really don't like getting literally pushed around. He grumbles in his head.

"Leo!" Hazel shouts, and then she's there, steadying him as they run to the edge of the rocky plateau the altar is perched upon.

When they stop and turn, Leo sees Frank battling a giant, his back forced against the altar, somehow holding up against the devastating blows raining from the monster's massive sword.

"Frank shoved you out of the way just in time to save you from decapitation." Hazel tells him. "That giant's a nasty customer."

Leo fidgets nervously with the device in his hands. "I can't set off the explosion with him so close. It'd kill him."

"I need to help him." Hazel says, and even takes a step forward, but Leo stops her.
"The way they're fighting, your interference could get Frank killed. And if he gets even the least bit distracted, that could be it." He tells her.

So they watch as Frank fights the giant on his own-the giant reaches to try and dismantle the explosives, but Frank's sword flashes down on his hand and stops him, opening a large cut that leaks ichor. While the giant is distracted, Frank transforms into a lion and swipes his claws across the giant's leg, forcing him back a few steps, giving Frank more room to maneuver.

But still not enough, and Frank knows it. If he transforms into something to escape, the giant could dismantle the explosives before he's clear, and he doesn't have enough talent with a sword to defeat the giant that way.

"Do it!" He yells.

"No!" Hazel cries, stumbling forward a step.

"Do it, Leo! We won't get another chance!" Frank shouts, his face grimly determined. He glances at Hazel's distraught expression, hesitates, and then adds, "I'll be fine!"

"No! Leo, you can't!" Hazel pleads, turning to him.

Leo feels torn-both of them are right. They won't get another chance to do this, but with Frank's life as the price? It isn't worth it. He can't be responsible for the death of one of his best friends.

Frank meets his eyes, and Leo can see the determination there, the resignation. Do it. This could mean the difference, Leo. Steel flashes in his gaze. Duty before heart. He seems to be saying. I have to do this.

"Do it!" He yells again, and Hazel doesn't protest this time. Leo looks at her and sees that tears are streaming down her face, silent sobs shaking her small frame.

He looks into her eyes and sees the decision there, behind the heartbreak and self-loathing.

Do it.

So he raises his hand to the button on his wrist, closes his eyes, and sets off the explosion.

At the last possible moment, knowing Frank would never forgive him if he didn't, Leo wraps his arms around Hazel's waist and turns her to face away, curling his body around her and using himself-fireproof as he is-to shield her from the flames.

Hazel

I will never forgive myself for this. Is all Hazel can think as the flames part around them, singing her hair but leaving her unharmed, thanks to Leo.

I will never forgive myself for ordering his death. Because that's basically what she did, isn't it? She looked Leo straight in the eyes and told him to set off the explosion-she told him to murder her boyfriend.

That Frank had told him the same thing was beside the point-had Hazel been in his place, and he in hers, he would've found a way to save her, any way. Another way.

Even as the nearly unbearably hot flames surround her, there's a small spark of hope among the broken pieces of her heart that she can't quash.

Because she saw, before Leo turned her away, the red glow of the blessing of Mars shine brighter as it was stretched into a new shape, and she can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, Frank found a way to beat the explosion...

Maybe, just maybe... She thinks.

When the fire recedes, settling itself into small patches on and around the altar, Leo doesn't let her go right away, and she doesn't force him to. His arms around her are comforting, and they prolong the inevitable moment when they'll have to look, and discover whether Frank is still alive-or if he didn't make it.

Finally, though, he has to let go, and when he does, Hazel stands frozen for a moment, her eyes closed-then she shakes her head, thinking, No, no, he's fine. I'll find him; we'll find him-and suddenly turns and lurches forward a step-Leo places a hand on her shoulder to steady her, and doesn't remove it.

"We can look-" He starts to say, but his voice cracks and Hazel knows he's hurting just as much as she is-maybe more, being hte one who pressed the button.

Hazel nods in response to his words-even if he didn't finish, she knows what he meant to say.

His hand slips into hers-not romantically, just as a friendly reassurance-and they start forward together, their feet quiet on the now ash-covered stone ground. As they walk, she's tempted to call Frank's name, but she knows if he hasn't said something by now, he isn't likely to.

But that doesn't mean he's dead. She tells herself. He could just be unconscious, or unable to answer for some other reason.

The altar is completely obliterated-and even as she sees it, a voice speaks in her head, reverberating up from the ground.

You have destroyed my altar, but not my plan. Gaea says, her voice slowly angry. Blood spilled on any ground of Olympus will serve just as well to wake me.

Hazel knew that before she and Frank thought up the explosion. But the anger in Gaea's voice brings a satisfied smile to her lips-a ghoul's impression of a smile, after what just happened, darkly and maliciously twisting her features. That's what they'd intended. Gaea was always so irritatingly unruffled, unconcerned with the proceeding of the battle except that she would win. This was a satisfying vengeance-a triumph, however small.

The presence fades, and Hazel pauses briefly to wonder why Gaea isn't more involved in the battle-maybe she's conserving her strength for the big moment when she wakes up, or something? But then she sees something that causes all thoughts of Gaea to fly out of her head, and she cries out, breaking into a sprint and ripping her hand from Leo's.

"Frank!" She cries, his name torn unwillingly from her lips. She can see him, she can see his body-No, he's alive, he's alive-lying motionless next to the twisted remains of a tree. Chunks of the altar are scattered around him, along with various other debris, and ash is dusted on his skin, armor, and the tattered remains of his clothes.

She reaches him and drops to her knees beside him, placing one hand on his neck to feel for a pulse while fiercely stroking his face with the other, as if her insistent touches could make him wake up.

She doesn't feel anything at first, through the own blood rushing through her veins, but forces herself to calm down, feeling tears well in her eyes-and then she feels it, slow but strong, against her fingers.

She turns back to Leo, who's just reached her, letting out a relieved sob and then smiling up at him through her teras. "He's alive! He made it through, Leo, he made it through!" Then she twists back to face Frank, crooning nonsense words to him, even though he can't hear her in his unconscous state, murmuring, above all the other words, "I love you, I love you, I love you so much," over and over again.

Leo smiles in relief, his lips twisting up in a dry grin, and then gestures to Frank's lower body with one hand.

"Well, you know, most of him." He comments, and Hazel knows, she knows, but she's too relieved that Frank's alive to dwell on that or be angry at Leo for making light of it or anything-

Because Frank is alive, even if his left leg is basically gone, just utterly gone, starting right below the knee-it doesn't matter to her, because he's still alive, he's still with her, and that's all that counts.

Leo crouches down next to her, examining Frank's leg more closely. "The flames actually cauterized this pretty neatly. There's not much blood, and I doubt it got the chance to bleed much at all before the flames got to it, either, so I'd say he's passed out from smoke inhalation more than blood loss." He starts pulling various things absentmindedly out of his toolbelt's pockets, among them a bottle of ambrosia that he hands to Hazel. "Here, try to get some of this into him."

Hazel does as he says, so, so grateful for his help.

"I can probably make him a decent replacement." Leo comments thoughtfully, and Hazel glances at him from where she's trickling ambrosia into Frank's mouth. Leo notices the look, and flashes a grin. "How do you feel about having a boyfriend with a bionic leg, Hazel?"

"As long as he's alive-as long as I have him-I don't care whether he decides to spend the rest of his life as a puppy that likes to roll in the mud." Hazel replies.

Leo smiles faintly at that, but doesn't respond; instead, he goes back to working on whatever he's fidgeting with now-presumably something for Frank's leg.

"Knowing Frank, he won't want to stay out of the game so early into it, so I'm going to try and get him a temporary replacement, which won't be near as cool as the final thing I'll make him later, but it'll do for now." He explains, hand flying. "It'd be better to get it attached now, while he's unconscious-I'm not sure how much this is going to hurt."

He finishes whatever he has and holds out his hand for the bottle of nectar. When Hazel gives it to him, he pours it carefully over Frank's leg-well, where his leg ends-and gently cleans it while carefully watching as the skin starts to heal over.

"Good." He mutters under his breath, more to himself than her, Hazel thinks, and starts fidgeting again. While he does that, she turns from him and starts stroking Frank's face again, running her fingers through his hair-he really needs a haircut after all those weeks without any possibility of getting one. But then again, Hazel kind of likes it long.

Although not like Percy's. She corrects. Or Leo's, for that matter. But the way it is now, just a little messy in the exact perfect way-it's nice.

"Okay. Done." Leo announces, and she turns to find a strange contraption attached to what's left of Frank's leg.

Or maybe not so strange, she amends. It has a rough sort of leg-like shape, even if it's made of metal and doesn't really remotely look like a leg. It looks functional, if nothing else, but that's what Leo intends it for, so she supposes it'll work for now.

"It's not very pretty, is it?" She asks doubtfully. "Or particularly sturdy?"

"It might not look very nice, but it'll hold his weight just find until I can get him something better." Leo replies, then nods to Frank's head. "See if you can wake him up now, would you?"

Hazel nods, and moves closer to Frank's head again. "Frank." She calls softly, lightly shaking his shoulder. He stirs, just slightly, and she shakes him a bit harder, calling a little louder. "Frank."

His eyes flutter and then blink open, and his warm brown eyes meet hers. For a second, his face is expressionless, and Hazel feels a brief stab of worry before his face breaks out into a shining smile.

"Hazel." He says, his voice rough and gravelly. Then, quieter, so only she can hear. "I love you too, you know."

Tears well in her eyes, and she grabs his hand, pressing it to her heart. "You heard me?"

He nods, then winces and stops. "Yeah. You were chanting it, over and over again, and it pulled me back."

She laughs a little-out of relief, not amusement, as so few laughs seem to be anymore-but then her face falls, and more tears well in her eyes.

"Frank...your leg..." She falters, but he glances down and then grimaces.

"Yeah, I know." He answers, sighing. Then he goes to sit up, and Hazel hurriedly helps him, recognizing that he's not going to let himself stay down.

"Frank, my man, nice to see you back in the land of the living again." Leo exclaims, grinning, and Frank rolls his eyes just slightly at Hazel.

"I feel like losing a leg only opens me up to more teasing from you." He addresses Leo, and Leo shakes his head.

"Oh, nah-not yet, anyway. I'll wait a few days before I really open up. Give you a chance to get used to it." Frank has to smile at that, and Leo grins at him. "But until I can do better, what do you think of the temporary leg I made you?"

Frank raises an eyebrow and then looks at it thoughtfully, turning his leg slightly side to side-wincing a bit as he does so-and nods satisfactorily. "Not bad. It's functional, in any case. It'll bear my weight well enough, right?"

Leo nods. "It will. But I'd recommend trying to stay out of the way of the main part of the fight, man-I know you hate it, but you're more help with that bow than you know, and I don't think you'll be able to move too well with this thing."

Frank frowns, but consents. "I'll stay out of the way as much as I can. Help me up?" He puts out his arms, and Hazel takes the right while Leo takes the left.

"On three." Leo says. "One, two...three!" On 'three,' they all heave up at the same time, and Frank cries out when he first puts weight on his leg but then grits his teeth and takes it.

"You okay?" Hazel asks, looking up at him with concern. Now that they're all standing, he dwarfs her and Leo. To anyone watching, she'd bet they'd all look pretty comical-the two of them, almost a foot shorter than the person they're supporting.

"Yeah, fine." He answers, his voice tight. He takes a deep breath, and then releases it, relaxing a bit as he does so, flexing his leg, testing it. "It's actually not so bad now."

"Yeah, well, we'll help you get to whichever place you'd like. Back to the ship? Or somewhere else high up?" Leo tells him.

"I'd actually prefer if you went back to the ship, Frank." Hazel admits. "You'd be safer there, but you'd still be able to pick off monsters easily with your bow."

"Yeah, but how would I get back down? I won't have anyone to help me back onto the ground if I need to get there, and I'm not going to leave myself stranded." He points out. Then he gestures towards the rough rock outcropping behind where the altar used to stand. "If you guys can help me get up, I'll have a pretty good view of the whole battlefield, and it'd be difficult to miss any monsters coming to attack me. Only a giant would be able to reach me easily, and hopefully I'll be able to take care of them decently with my bow before they get too close."

Hazel takes a deep breath, closing her eyes, but when she opens them, she agrees. "Fine. Just-don't get yourself killed, okay?"

"I won't." He assures her, and she stands on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss.

"Hey, you two, quit it with the lovey-dovey stuff." Leo grumbles, wrinkling his nose. "I'm just a little close to the both of you to be comfortable with that, okay?"

Hazel laughs-a strange thing to do in the middle of a battlefield, but she can't help it. Frank's alive, and he's going to be okay, and she will never stop being grateful for that.

Nico

Reyna is the only reason Nico lives through Hazel's plan-not because of the explosion, but because of the fact that there are several terrifying minutes when she disappears from view among the flames after he caught just the barest glimpse of her tear-streaked face. The thought that he might've lost another sister distracted him so badly that he had to have nearly died from monster attacks at least ten times-each time saved by Reyna at the last second.

Of course, the crippling relief when he sees that she made it through unharmed nearly gets him killed as well. Emotions are damn distracting.

But the gist of it is, Thank the gods for Reyna. She tears through the enemy ranks like a hurricane of storm and fire, destroying all that come anywhere near Nico-and herself, although those strokes always seem like more of an afterthought than anything else.

Nico flashes back to their last moments alone on the Argo-they really had gone to take showers and change, which they did, but afterwards, there was...more.

He blushes just remembering it, although it wasn't all that horrifyingly scandalizing...

"We could die today." Reyna says calmly. She's lying on Coach Hedge's bed (being the only spare bedroom on the Argo, it's the one they were given to use), propped up on her elbows and staring thoughtfully over at him, her eyes drinking in every part of him as he digs through his backpack, looking for a clean shirt that hasn't been shredded.

At her words, he pauses and looks up. "Yeah. We could." He replies, just as calmly.

Her eyes flick up to his-he's pretty sure she was checking him out, just a little. "Does that scare you?"

Nico rocks back on his hands, forgetting his hunt for a shirt for the moment and studying her as he contemplates her question.

"No," he finally answers. "Dying doesn't scare me. It never has."

When Reyna responds, her voice is quiet. "It's not death that scares me. It's just-I worry about the people I'd be leaving behind."

Nico stands and walks over to the bed where she's laying, crawling in next to her. She turns onto her side to look up into his face as he does so, continuing.

"I don't have many friends-but there are so many people I care about, that I care for. I've been responsible for the entirety of Camp Jupiter for so long that any death feels like my fault. If I did die, I feel like I'd be letting them all down. Wouldn't I?" Her eyebrows crease in the middle, just the slightest betrayal of her worry, and Nico's heart jumps at her openness-she's letting him see, and he feels it resonate within him.

He chooses his words carefully before answering-the truth, as he believes it to be. He'd never bring himself to lie to her. "No." He says, and pauses. "You wouldn't be. Because if you die any time soon, I know, without a doubt, that you'd only let yourself get taken down while defending that same camp full of the people you care for. That's why you're here, isn't it? To save them. Dying in their names could never let them down."

She stills as he speaks, and when he finishes, she stays quiet for such a long time that part of him wonders if he said something wrong.

Then, just the barest breath of a word, she whispers, "Thank you."

Her words warm him inside, somewhere deep in his chest, and his voice is gravelly and a bit hoarse when he replies, "You're welcome."

Then, before he can even react, Reyna is kissing him, and this kiss isn't another angry kiss, but nor is it one of the soft, gentle kisses he's seen others share so often. This kiss might not be angry, but it has the same urgency, the same desperate heat behind it; all hard edges and passionate flames.

Nico kisses her back aggressively, so hard that he feels his sore lips ache with pain-but he doesn't care. As Reyna's nails dig into the bare skin of his back and her other hand slides across his chest; as his own hand tentatively finds its way under the edge of her shirt to explore her waist and lower back, he doesn't care. All he knows is the wonderful heat spreading inside him, and the wild, untameable love he feels for the girl in his arms.

He's pulled back to the present when the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end-something's wrong.

Looking around, he sees an Earthborn trying to creep up on Reyna from behind-it's not doing very well, considering how clumsy Earthborn are, as a general rule, but the sounds of the battle cover any sounds its approach would have made otherwise.

The Earthborn raises its weapon when it gets close enough-it has the most ridiculously happy grin on its face, too, like 'Hey, I actually managed to sneak up on a demigod! How awesome is that? Mom, do you see me? Look at me, Mom!' and generally pridefully childish. The weapon itself is a nasty affair-a crudely fashioned ball-and-chain mace, with nails and other bits of sharp odds and ends jutting out at odd places in the chain.

Now, normally, yelling 'Reyna, watch out!' would be sufficient to keep her from getting her head torn from her shoulders, but as she's currently fighting three evil centaurs, that doesn't really work.

In the approximate 3.5 seconds it takes him to conclude that, Nico's feet start moving, and he runs to place himself between the Earthborn and Reyna-not in a heroic sacrificial way or anything (although he would if it came down to that), but to throw up his sword and just block the mace, letting the chain wrap around the blade of his sword and yanking it from the Earthborn's grip. While the Earthborn is off balance, he brings his arm back and flicks his wrist forward, causing the mace to unwrap just enough to smash into the monster's face, with enough force to make its head fold in on itself (an image Nico really didn't need to see, ever), before it crumbles to dust at his feet.

His back just barely brushes against Reyna's as he pulls his sword-with the ball-and-chain still wrapped around the blade-back to him, and she whirls around, her sword flashing out.

Nico ducks, shouting in surprise, and Reyna just barely stops her strike in time to keep from taking off his head. Instead, she reverses it and takes out an empousai trying to take a bite of Nico's leg.

"What was that for?" Nico yells, climbing back to his feet.

"How was I supposed to know it was you, idiot?" Reyna shouts back. "Little hint-I don't react well to being snuck up on!"

"I wasn't sneaking!" Nico protests.

"Then what are you doing?" She demands.

In answer, he cuts down a dracaenae trying to impale her with a trident. "Watching your back!"

"I don't need you to!" She insists. "I'm doing fine on my own!"

"Tell that to the Earthborn that nearly took off your head!" Nico retorts. "You've already saved my life about thirty times today-just let me return the favor."

Even if he can't see her, Nico swears he can feel her exasperation. "Fine! Just give me a bit of a warning next time!"

"Thank you!" Nico replies, but his voice falters on the 'you' as he sees something across the battlefield-a nightmare he's come to dread.

One of the returned-there are several returned Ancient Greek criminals in the crowd, people like Sinis-has snuck up on Hazel from behind where she's fighting at the edge of the field, using her combined powers over precious metals and gems and the Mist to scatter chaos throughout the ranks of giants and monsters alike, and she hasn't noticed yet-too focused on maintaining her control.

The figure behind her, too shrouded in shadows to make out any features, is holding a knife nearly the length of Nico's forearm.

Someone shouts a desperate warning-several people, all at once, and Nico isn't sure if he's one of them-but it's too late. Too far away to stop it, too far away to do anything about it, Nico is forced to watch as the figure raises his arm, the gray sunlight glinting off of dull, deadly metal, and plunges the dagger into Hazel's back.

Frank

"No!" Frank shouts, his arrow already on its way-but he knows it's too late, knew it when he saw the figure, knew it when he instinctively pulled back the string and let the arrow fly with a desperation that he'd never felt before.

Hazel gives a little gasp, and Frank would have himself believe that he can hear it from nearly two hundred yards away. Her eyes fly wide in surprise, and the Mist imediately stops trailing from her fingertips, although she maintains her grip on her sword somehow.

The figure manages one cruel, vicious twist before Frank's arrow slams into his throat and disentegrates him into mere dust and shadow, tearing his fingers from the hilt of the knife and leaving Hazel without the support that's the only reason she was still standing.

She sways, red blossoming outward from the blade still lodged in her back, her face draining of all color and leaving her skin chalky.

Frank takes a step forward before he really thinks about it, and pain shoots through him as his 'temporary leg' missteps on the uneven rock and nearly sends him to the ground. He doubles over, leaning hard on his good leg, trying to ride out the pain, still looking to Hazel as her sword falls from her fingers, now too weak to hold it.

"Hazel!" He yells, his voice raw with desperation.

Her face turns to him, her eyes focus dizzily on his face, and her lips move to form his name.

Frank. She says, and then her eyes flutter and she falls forward, her knees buckling and leaving her to collapse onto the stone ground.

She doesn't move, and all Frank can see is her cinnamon toast hair, fluttering in the wind, and the dark stain spreading across her shirt.

He scrambles to get down, to get to her, but as soon as he lands on his amputated leg, the pain buckles him and sending him to one knee on the ground, supporting himself with his hands and wanting desperately to stand back up but unable to do so.

He watches through bleary eyes as Nico lunges forward, his eyes wide, desperate, and slightly crazed as he tries to get to his sister, but Reyna grabbing him around the middle and holding him back just before a giant's enormous sword would've cleaved him in two. He struggles against her, but she holds fast, her face crumpled in grieven heartbreak, and eventually he falls limp, still staring after his sister's broken form on the ground.

He hears Piper's wordless cry, and turns to see the daughter of Aphrodite nearly drop her sword as her hand comes up to clamp over her mouth in an attempt to stop the sobs tearing through her. Jason's wide-eyed look of shock, Annabeth's jaw set in horrified denial, and then-

And then he sees Percy, running to Hazel's side, cutting down monsters as he goes, and he looks again and sees what Percy noticed that he didn't-

The slight, shuddering rise and fall of Hazel's chest, nearly unnoticeable from this distance but there all the same, reassuring him that she's still alive and putting the spark of hope in his heart that he needed.

And then he sees the second thing-the giant, unmistakeable in his gold armor, that is looming over Hazel's form, raising his sword to finish her off with a gloating, vengeful expression.

Percy

The only fear Percy feels as he runs straight into the path of a giant's sword is What if I don't get there in time? Because nothing scares him more in these moments than the thought that he won't be fast enough to save Hazel.

He just barely gets there before Alcyoneus-recognizable by his golden armor-would have killed Hazel. He flings Riptide up in front of him, bracing his feet as hard as he can against the ground and placing himself between Alcyoneus and Hazel's crumpled form.

The ringing crash of steel resonates through Percy's chest when the full force of Alcyoneus' crushing blow lands on Riptide's blade-which, miraculously, holds. The shock and vibrations of the blow, at any other time, would have rendered Percy's entire arm numb. But now, all he feels is strength, and he uses that to push back on Alcyoneus while the giant is still surprised at the sudden resistance, locking hilts with the enormous sword, pressing down and then twisting sideways in the first move Luke taught him.

Alcyoneus' sword goes flying out of his grip, disappearing into the masses of battle, and the giant's face twists in rage a split second before his fist sends Percy flying-his back slams hard into the jagged cliff that spikes into the sky, and his vision goes temporarily black as all the oxygen is driven from his lungs.

When he can see again, Alcyoneus is once again standing over Hazel-with no weapon except his own hands, this time-and he takes the time to smile maliciously before his hand plucks Hazel off the ground like a rag doll and throws her against the cliff face, stepping after her and crushing her to the stone as her blood stains the ground.

Rage burns through Percy's blood, and the next thing he knows, he's standing over Alcyoneus with the tip of his sword resting on the giant's face as he lays there, groaning.

He doesn't hesitate as he did with Polyphemus-Riptide flashes down and tears through Alcyoneus' metal features. Unfortunately, he doesn't die-Percy still needs to get him off of his home territory before that can happen.

But it buys him time, and he uses that time to rush to Hazel, gently propping her up into a sitting position so he can inspect the place where the dagger hilt is still protruding from her back.

Based on the positioning, and the fact that she's still alive, Percy would judge that the knife just missed her heart. Still, it has to be dangerously near to it, especially by the amounts of blood copiously running from around the blade. He knows if he removes it, that amount of blood will triple, so he holds Hazel up with one arm and pulls a flask of nectar out of his pocket-Annabeth's insistance-unscrews the lid, and puts it to her lips.

He has to pour it into her mouth, but she swallows reflexively, and after she's downed maybe half of it, he pulls it away and carefully reseals it. Then he cuts off Hazel's denim overshirt, pulling it gently out from under her armor and around the hilt of the knife. When he has it off, he turns his attention to the knife, carefully grasping the hilt, closing his eyes, and pulling it out in one swift movement.

Blood spurts immediately from the wound, pouring over his hand and staining it red, but he ignores that, drops the knife, grabs her overshirt, and swiftly presses it to her wound, applying as much pressure as he can.

Almost as soon as he does so, Hazel's eyes fly open with a small gasp, and he has to steady her, grabbing her hand to hold her still. She tries, he can tell she tries, but her breathing is hitched and ragged and sounds like she's gargling razors, and she starts gasping painfully for breath while he does his best to stanch the dangerous amount of blood that pumps from her wound with every desperate inhale and exhale.

"Hazel-" Percy starts, his concern coloring his voice, and has to stop as her lungs hitch particularly badly. "Hazel, you have to calm down."

Even as he says that, her chest suddenly spasms and she starts coughing and retching all at once, blood running down her chin in a steady stream.

Damnit, Hazel, no. Percy thinks. You're not allowed to die.

He lays her gently against the cliff face, propping her up against her back and making sure the denim overshirt is still wadded up and pressed to her wound. He starts to pull out his bottle of nectar again when he hears a scraping sound behind him and whirls around to see Alcyoneus staggering to his feet.

Muttering continuous curses in Ancient Greek and Latin, all worse than the last, he snatches Riptide back up from where he set it on the ground to treat Hazel and is up and on Alcyoneus in five seconds flat.

Even without weapons or a shield to defend himself, Alcyoneus does pretty well, using the landscape and his own lightning speed to his advantage, and Percy, try as he might, can't get the best of him. The giant is by no means winning, but neither is he losing. He's on the defensive, and as long as he is, Percy can't get a single true hit in.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Thalia and Phoebe making their way over in a team, along with Nico and Reyna, although each of them come from a different direction. He's grateful that they're coming, especially Phoebe-the Huntress is a world-class healer, much better than he could ever be, and the others will all do a great job of helping.

But he knows they won't get to Hazel in time if he can't take care of Alcyoneus, so he presses harder, focusing all his energies on the attack, and still he can't get past the giant's guard.

Then, underneath him, he feels the slightest rumble-nothing noticeable or earthquake-worthy, but a feeling he recognizes. Seconds later, hundreds of gems and jagged pieces of hard precious metals erupt from the ground and punch through Alcyoneus' armor like it was made of paper, causing the giant to stumble backwards and giving Percy the exact opening he needs.

He concentrates, feeling the familiar slight tug in his gut as water erupts around him-much like the gems Hazel summoned-and wraps it around Alcyoneus' legs and wrists, using it to lift the giant off of the ground while he protests and then slashing Riptide up and across, opening his throat in a bright ichor-golden smile.

Seconds later, ethereal eerie green and black light flashes, momentarily blinding Percy, and when he can see again, there's a smoking crater in Alcyoneus' forehead and he's starting to disentegrate into dust.

When he has completely, Percy uses the water to distribute the dust so far apart it'll never be able to form again, here or anywhere, and then runs back to Hazel before it's even finished.

He slides to his knees next to her, letting Riptide fall back onto the ground, and pulls the nectar from his pocket, pouring the rest of it into her mouth and waiting until she swallows. Her eyelids flutter, and then focus on his, and he shakes his head at her, forcing a grin.

"Hey, Hazel, remember, you're not allowed to die-you're the only one keeping us 'wild couples' in check." He tells her teasingly. "If it weren't for you and the way you blush and start to fan yourself whenever anyone does the least little inappropriate thing, I don't know what we'd have all done by now."

Even now, in pain and barely able to breath, her face colors bright red, and he laughs shortly, calling a weak smile to her face.

"There you go." Percy says softly. "See? You're okay. You just have a touch of bruising."

"The...same way...that you...have a...touch...of madness?" She gasps between ragged breaths.

Percy laughs out loud-the sound is a bit forced, but also very much genuine at the same time, somehow, and when he stops, he looks down at her with a wide grin. "Yeah. About the same way as that."

She manages a faint grin back, but then her eyes close, and he shakes her a bit, tapping her shoulder. "So, Hazel, what do you think of your brother and Reyna, huh? Any idea how that happened?"

"How what happened?" She asks evasively, her cheeks coloring just the slightest pink.

"Oh, come on, you know." Percy replies lightly. "They are much closer than they were when they left two weeks ago." He wiggles his eyebrows at her, and she giggles. "And you and I both know they were so not just changing when they went downstairs alone together."

Her face flushes bright red at that, and then she glares at him. "You...are trying...to...make me...blush...and...I...do not...appreciate it." She accuses haltingly, her voice cracked and faint.

Percy shrugs. "Hey, I'm just telling the truth." Then, slyly, he adds, "I might stop if you admit that the same thought occurred to you."

She glares even more fiercely at that, but then she sighs and nods-or tries to, anyway. She winces after moving her head once and decides talking might be less painful. "It...might've...occurred...to me. But...at least...they're...discreet...about it."

Percy places a hand on his chest, mock-offended. "I am hurt, Hazel. Why would you ever insinuate such a thing?"

She rolls her eyes at him, and opens her mouth to reply, but just as she does, her chest heaves suddenly, her breath hitching horribly again, and violent coughing shakes her small, fragile frame. Percy tries to help her as best he can, but there's nothing he can do anymore-and then Thalia and Phoebe drop down on Hazel's other side, and he doesn't think he's ever felt the enormous amount of relief that washes over him when Thalia's electric blue eyes meet his reassuringly before she starts helping Phoebe care for Hazel.

Annabeth

The only reason Annabeth doesn't run after Percy when he races to defend Hazel is because he told her not to-a flimsy reason to begin with, but he convinced her when he pointed out that leaving Jason and Piper without anyone nearby for backup could have disastrous consequences.

Even then, she wasn't happy with it. She kissed him once, hard, on the lips, and glared into his eyes. "I swear to the gods, if you die because you left me behind, I will bring your idiotic self back from the dead just so I can kill you myself."

He just grinned. "Love you too." He told her, and ran off, ducking underneath a Cyclop's clumsy blow and disappearing into the crowd.

She mumbles affectionate curses under her breath now as he gets himself preoccupied fighting Athos-bane of Apollo-just as she knew he would. Forget self-preservation instincts; Percy's determined to save everyone but himself.

Annabeth senses danger behind her and whirls around and ducks at the same time, bringing her knees mere inches off of the ground-call it instinct, but it saves her from grisly decapitation.

A giant with bright blue skin and dark green hair with precious gems and jewelry woven into his braids is standing there, pulling back out of the strike that would've killed her had she not felt it coming at the last second. An enormous axe is his weapon of choice-which Annabeth doesn't appreciate, as it'll only make it that much more difficult to defend herself. Any direct hit with that and her drakon bone sword will snap in two-she'll have to deflect strikes, rather than block them directly.

The giant himself, despite the jewelry in his hair and the bright color of his skin, seems particularly crude-the first one she's ever met that wields an axe, for sure, and built like a wrestler, albeit a giant one. His arms are so thickly muscled Annabeth would hazard a guess to say they're at least twice the width of Porphyrion's, even if this giant is about six feet shorter. His hair and skin are crusted with dirt and the blood of old enemies, and when he opens his mouth wide in an approximation of an evil grin, Annabeth sees that his teeth are near black with mossy plaque.

She wrinkles her nose with distaste. Why do I always get stuck with the disgusting jobs? She wonders, irritated.

"Which one are you?" She asks sarcastically. "Bane of Hygeia? Because I'd see how you'd get on her nerves."

The giant laughs-there's no amusement in the sound, but he laughs anyway, and then twirls his axe as if it were a child's toy. "Never! I am one thousand times as powerful as him-I am Echion!"

Annabeth raises an eyebrow. "Can't say I've heard of you. Maybe your brother Porphyrion thought you just weren't important enough to mention."

Echion growls, low in his throat, grossly pierced eyebrows furling together in a dark V. "I am Echion, initiator of the first war, bane of the simpering idiot Zeus calls a wife!"

"Oh." Annabeth replies. "Bane of Hera, then? Sucks for you. Can't say I disagree with you on the 'simpering idiot' part, although I'd take care at what I call her if I were you. She might not be particularly smart, but she doesn't take kindly to being insulted."

"Which you'd know first hand, wouldn't you, Miss Know It All?" A feminine voice asks tauntingly from behind her. Unfortunately, it's familiar.

Annabeth squeezes her eyes shut, hoping she's imagining it. Please, no. Isn't this day bad enough?

"Oh, come on, child. For a daughter of Athena, you really can be quite simple sometimes." The voice chides.

Annabeth opens one of her eyes a crack-immediately, she's treated to the sight of her least favorite person in the world standing a few feet away with a disdainful look on her face.

"Oh, no." She groans, scrunching her face in loathing. "Not you."

"Trust me, I'm not particularly happy about this either." Hera replies. And she definitely doesn't look it.

Something occurs to Annabeth. "How are you even here? I though Zeus banned any direct interaction from the major gods."

"I'm disgraced on Olympus." Hera explains stiffly. "And besides, Zeus has never had much luck controlling me. It's always been the other way around-and thank whatever deity you'd like for that, because otherwise this world would have ended by now."

"Are you calling the Lord of the Skies, King of the Gods, Almighty Bane of Kronos-and your husband-a moron?" Annabeth asks, faintly amused despite herself.

"Yes." Hera answers without hesitation. When the sky rumbles ominously above her, she glares angrily upward and sends a bolt of blue-white energy into the heavens. "Don't even start-did you forget what happened last time you tried to 'reign me in?'"

The thunder cuts off abruptly, and Hera looks back down with a satisfied expression.

Annabeth can't help herself-she has to smother a smile. Then she's immediately mad at herself for being amused by anything Hera does-after all, she's the one who took Percy from her for eight whole months. As soon as she remembers that, her smile transforms back into a scowl, and Hera frowns at her.

"Still angry at me, then? Really, you should be glad I gave you a break for eight months. Boys can be quite tedious." The goddess says, sniffing.

Annabeth just glares at her, and irritation flares in her eyes as she opens her mouth to continue, no doubt with some rant about how Annabeth should just be oh-so-grateful for her timely interference.

"You dare ignore me?!" Echion bellows, interrupting, and Annabeth returns her attention to the giant. "You dare turn your attentions from the one who was chosen to begin the war in the first place?!"

Hera looks him up and down with a disdainful expression, but Annabeth answers before she gets a chance to, earning another glare.

"Yes." She says simply. "You giants really aren't particularly interesting anymore. It's always the same-you boast about how powerful you are, we fight, my side wins. It's getting quite boring, actually. Very tedious." She says the last word with a pointed look at Hera, still angry at the goddess for even suggesting Annabeth should be grateful for having her boyfriend kidnapped and taken from her for eight months with no word of his safety or well-being.

Echion raises his axe, flexing his muscles. "This fight will be different! I will triumph where my brothers have failed!"

"Your mother, actually, was the one who failed to kill me most often, I think. It was her plans they were all following, wasn't it?" Annabeth asks, raising an eyebrow.

Echion's brows furrow in confused anger-apparently he didn't know that, but either way, he doesn't seem ready to accept an insult to his mother.

"Say that again!" He demands, hefting the axe again threateningly, whirling it through the air a few times.

Hera folds her arms.

"He seems awfully stupid, doesn't he?" Annabeth comments mildly.

"Very stupid, actually." Hera replies. "He's a berserker-he'll fight until either he's killed or his enemy is, with no regard for injuries of any sort unless they're directly fatal, and he might have plenty of muscle behind that axe, but with a distinct lack of it between the ears."

"Mmmm. Sounds about right." Annabeth muses, looking him up and down.

"It's quite barbaric, really." Hera continues.

Echion glances between the two of them, with a distinct air that he knows he's being insulted but has no idea what it's about. So, being the 'barbarian' that he is, he does what he does best-he swings his axe in a devastating downstroke, trying to cut both of them in half with one blow.

Which is technically statistically impossible-Annabeth and Hera might both be in the path of the axe, but once it hit one of them, since they're so far from each other, the axe would never be able to keep enough momentum to ever get to the other.

But statistics or not, Annabeth gets out of the way.

Echion stumbles forward, jerked by his axe when it meets no resistance, and Annabeth takes the opportunity to slice about his back, sliding her sword across his spine and hearing the blade grind on bone. Unfortunately, his spine is too thick for her blade to sever it without putting a lot more effort behind it-more hacking repeatedly than a quick slash. Still, she can bet it causes him considerable pain, especially since he roars in rage and twists reactively when her sword slides free of his flesh.

As Hera said, though, he doesn't let the wound slow him down. He strikes at Annabeth immediately, his axe hurtling through her, making a whistling sound as it cuts through the air.

She jumps to the side at the last moment and lets him bury the blade in the stone ground, feeling a slight stinging in her ankle when a stray spark from the collision lands on her skin.

Turning, she sees that Hera has vanished-Typical, she thinks, darting back to Echion to stab him in the foot while he's busy trying to wrench his axe back out of the rock. Then she cuts him three more times in quick succession-right thigh, left calf, under the bottom edge of the breastplate he's wearing-and apparently the pain gives him the incentive he needs, because he roars and his muscles tense, just before the axe suddenly tears free with a horrible shrieking sound-like nails on a chalkboard.

Ignoring the urge to drop her sword and clap her hands out of her ears, Annabeth dances out of the way as Echion stumbles forward at the unexpected freeing of his axe. The tip of her sword thrusts one last time, getting in a good hit to the fleshy part of his uninjured thigh-and then she quickly retreats to a safe distance while Echion works to regain his balance.

She watches him stumble backwards, expecting him to steady himself and come after her at any second-but then, suddenly, a streak of black smoke whips past Annabeth and then solidifies into a black boot that trips Echion and sends him crashing onto his back.

She watches as the person that belongs to the boot finishes solidifying, unsurprised to see that it's Eris. As soon as she saw that black combat boot, she had a pretty good idea who she was dealing with.

Eris nods to her, hunting knives similar to the Hunters' flashing in her hands and a sword still sheathed at her waist.

Annabeth nods back and then walks swiftly to Echion's side as he thrashes on the ground, still too surprised by the fact that he fell to be trying to get up.

So much for 'far more intelligent and cunning.' Annabeth thinks, remembering the myth about the giants' birth. They'd been deemed thrice as cunning, intelligent, and strong as the Titans, and while the strength part might be true, 'intelligent and cunning' definitely isn't. At least not in Echion's case.

She scampers onto his stomach, leaping lightly across his armored chest and flashing her sword casually down through the chinks in his armor-he at least knows how to wear armor, mostly, as there are no openings across his torso that could be potentially fatal, and the area over his heart is reinforced. But his head and neck are totally unprotected, probably by the thinking that it's near impossible for a demigod not even taller than his knee to reach that high.

Of course, he hadn't accounted for the fact that he could get knocked down. Or that demigods are pretty good at climbing.

He starts to calm as she nears his head-finally understanding that wild thrashing isn't going to help him in any way and starting to brace himself to climb to his feet. That's when he notices her, just as she raises her sword to strike at his neck.

His fingers grasp for his axe and just barely manage to fling it in front of him, parrying her blow with the handle of his weapon.

She feels his muscles bunch underneath her as he surges upward, starting to pull himself to his feet, and she launches herself clumsily off of him just as he does so.

Absentmindedly, as he leaves it unguarded, her sword flashes out and bites into his arm, and then she has to duck and throw herself sideways to avoid two quick strikes-an overhead cut and a sidecut that would have left her in four different pieces had he been able to touch her. When she straightens, she's just in time to see Eris' knives flash out and nearly cut off Echion's hand-they would have, too, if he hadn't moved at the last second. Even so, her attack opens up an enormous gash in the artery there in his wrist, causing him to pour blood all over the rocky ground.

Probably not what you meant by sacrificial blood, is it, Gaea? Sacrifices to kill you instead of to wake you. Annabeth thinks, smirking. Gaea, of course, doesn't respond to her mental taunt, and she doesn't care.

Eris suddenly appears by her side, her pointed teeth glistening with ichor as she grins-looking back at Echion, Annabeth notices a great chunk of his shoulder missing that looks like it was torn out by teeth.

"A pleasure to fight with you, daughter of Athena." The goddess of strife tells her, bowing her head respectfully, that wicked grin still in place on her face. She looks like a kid who woke up before everyone else on Christmas morning.

"And you, sister goddess of war." Annabeth replies politely, returning the grin with a mischevious smile of her own.

Then Eris glances over Annabeth's shoulder and her eyes flare almost imperceptibly with hatred before she returns her gaze to Annabeth. "The one who asked me to aid you has returned. That's my cue to leave-may we meet again, Annabeth Chase!" The parting phrase is said as her wings erupt from her back and lift her skyward, trailing smoke.

Annabeth turns and nearly falls when she finds who's waiting for her-Hera. Again. But now she's in full battle armor. And wielding double swords. While in her god form of being twenty feet tall.

Her black hair is pulled back underneath her bronze helmet, with an obvious unconcerned attitude towards any sort of beauty-although Annabeth has to say she prefers this version of the goddess to the sugar-sweet-over-hidden-venom perfectly dressed Barbie doll that is always in a floor-length toga. She looks surprisingly like-

Athena. Annabeth concludes, surprised. Of course, Hera is technically Athena's aunt-strange thought, since Zeus is Athena's father. But Hera is Zeus' sister as well as his wife, which makes her Athena's aunt. And she does bear a certain resemblance to Zeus, so Annabeth supposes it shouldn't be that surprising.

Past all of that, though, Annabeth notices that Hera already has a bruising scrape on her cheek, barely visible in the helmet's gaps, and that she smells suspiciously of ozone.

"I apologize-Zeus pulled me back to Olympus before I could jump into the battle. I had to-er-make him see my side of things." Hera explains.

Annabeth raises an eyebrow. "You flattened his proud podex, didn't you?"

Hera smiles before she can stop herself, but never answers Annabeth's question. A shame, since Annabeth might've started to forgive the goddess if Hera'd said yes.

"It does not matter. Now, we must fight together-this time, we'll save his proud podex. Again." Hera tells her, and Annabeth pushes aside her hatred and resentment towards the goddess-emotions that are, surprisingly, starting to weaken-to band with her in a synced strike against Echion.

Hera swings one of her swords in a cross-stroke that would've immediately taken off Echion's head had he not blocked it with the shaft of his axe. While he's busy doing that, Annabeth sheathes her sword, runs around behind him, and uses the many hand- and footholds provided by his armor to climb halfway up his back. She pauses then to redraw her weapon, and starts to cut at every available chink in his armor.

He really does have a high tolerance for weapons-he's been cut numerous times and is pouring ichor from nearly every part of his body, yet he gives no sign that it causes him any discomfort.

Only wanting to end the battle, Annabeth climbs the rest of the way up and strikes as hard as she can at the back of his neck. Her blade bites deeply into his spine, and he tilts his head up and roars in pain-the first true sign that he feels pain at all, really.

She pulls her sword free, yanking a bit to get it out, and hacks again, opening the cut up even more. This time, when her sword bites into bone, something gives, and Echion stumbles, his legs suddenly weak.

Hera, in front, seizes the opening and brings her blade down on the top of his skull. He collapses to his knees and starts crumbling to dust, and Annabeth is forced to jump off before being suddenly left with nothing to stand on. She feels the impact in her knees.

When she turns back, Hera is looking up at the sky and a mysterious wind is roughly scattering Echion's remains throughout the battleground. When it's all gone, Hera's gaze meets Annabeth.

The goddess nods once. And then she starts to glow, and Annabeth closes her eyes, feeling the flare of supernova brightness imprinting on the inside of her eyelids.

When she looks again, it's just in time to see a vague blue, green, and gold shape go hurtling through the monster army. Wherever it passes, monsters are left as dust in its wake.

Thank you, Hera. Annabeth thinks. She can't believe the words ever form in her head, and she can't bring herself to say them out loud, but, somehow, she means them.

Thalia

When Rome's in ruins, we are the lions,

free of the coliseums.

In poison places, we are anti-venom,

we're the beginning of the end.

Tonight, the foxes hunt the hounds,

it's all over now,

before it has begun, we've already won.

We are wild, we are like young volcanoes.

The lyrics of Thalia's favorite song play through her head as she surveys the battlefield below her. Young Volcanoes, by Fall Out Boy- a song that's probably her favorite because it relates so well to her life.

We are wild.

Americana, Exotica,

do you wanna feel a little beautiful, baby?

Looking out over it all, seeing the Seven so small beside the thirty feet tall giants they battle, she can't help but agree with Fall Out Boy. Tonight, the foxes hunt the hounds. Demigods fight the giants; mortals fight immortals. And they have to win, or it this really will be the beginning of the end.

Sighing, she scrambles back down from her perch to where Phoebe is waiting with Hazel-they want to get her back onto the Argo so the Hunters there can take care of her in the infirmary, but she won't let them. And while Thalia definitely admires that, and understands why, it's extremely frustrating.

The nectar and ambrosia, combined with Phoebe's healing skills, have definitely helped a lot-Hazel's nowhere near dying now. But she still can't breathe properly, and her lungs and ribs aren't healed properly.

Thalia looks at the daughter of Pluto, wondering if she could just drag her onto the Argo. As if she can read her mind, Hazel meets her gaze unflinchingly, her hand clenching tightly into a fist at her side.

"I'm not leaving." She says stubbornly. "I won't go sit in the infirmary while my friends-my family-risk their lives."

"You had a freaking collapsed lung." Thalia erupts, fuming. "You shouldn't even be conscious, let alone standing and walking around."

Hazel sets her jaw. "I'm stronger than I look."

"Obviously." Phoebe mutters under her breath. Thalia flashes her a glare, and the Hunter raises her hands in surrender. "Look, I don't know Hazel. I only just met her today. But from what I've seen, she's a lot like you."

Thalia opens her mouth to voice an angry retort, but Phoebe cuts her off.

"No, wait, hear me out." She says. "You're stubborn, indignant, and averse to any sorts of rules. You lived through the Secon Titan War and never once gave ground, determined to protect your friends for as long as possible. At the Wolf House, you refused to retreat, even when you were out of arrows and most of the rest of us had already been frozen into ice blocks-all to buy your baby brother time. And, based on what I know of you, if you were in Hazel's place, with the same exact injuries, you'd already have socked us in the face when we even tried to mention you staying in an infirmary and ducked back into the battle." She crosses her arms. "Am I wrong?"

Thalia opens her mouth to say yes, of course, I wouldn't be so unreasonable, but then she realizes that'd be a lie. So she shuts her mouth, her jaw clenching, and then finally answers, "No. I'd do exactly that."

"Okay." Phoebe replies, relaxing. "Now that that's been cleared up, give me one reason why we shouldn't let Hazel keep fighting?"

"Because she's more use to her friends alive than dead." Thalia answers promptly.

"Yes, but she's also more use to them fighting than locked in an infirmary." Phoebe counters.

"Frank just lost his leg." Hazel interjects. "It's just gone, from just below the knee down, and he's still up there fighting." She points to where the altar used to be, and Thalia can just make out the son of Mars leaning heavily to one side, obviously in pain and yet still firing arrow after arrow into the crowd of monsters below him.

"Yeah, but that's different." She argues. "Frank is out of the reach of most monsters-he's still safely out of the way."

"Not really." Phoebe comments. "Any monster or giant could climb up there if they wanted to."

Thalia glares at her. "Not helping."

"Besides, he's not going to stay there forever." Hazel adds. "Every time he runs out of arrows, he walks forward until they return to his quiver-it might be painful for him, and he might be slow, but he's slowly making his way back to the main battle."

Thalia glances back up and realizes Hazel's right-even now, as he reaches for another arrow and only grasps air, Frank pauses to sling the bow over his shoulder and then starts limping forward, slowly making progress.

She looks back at Hazel, sees the determination in her eyes, and knows she won't be able to stop her. She'll find a way back into the fight, eventually. "Fine." She agrees. "But Phoebe, stay with her-and Hazel, don't try to ditch Phoebe. She's the only way you'll live through the day, and I don't think Percy or Frank would ever forgive me if I let you back into the fight only for you to get killed."

Hazel hesitates, but then she nods, albeit reluctantly. "I'll stay with her."

"Good." Thalia mutters. "I'm going to try and lessen the ranks of giants for our friends the Seven. With Percy supposedly as their 'biggest asset,' they're going to need all the help they can get."

Hazel grins at that, and it's the last thing Thalia sees before she turns and plunges headlong back into the fight, wading through the monsters and destroying them left and right with her hunting knives.

She's headed for Enceladus-recognizable only because of the stories she's been told of him and the dreams she's been having. But Porphyrion has other plans-the king of the giants steps in her path, cutting her off from the enemy she'd honed in on, and the monsters surrounding the two of them provide a thick wall between her and any allies she might've called.

Her eyes narrow on Porphyrion's smug face, remembering his amusement when she was frozen and Khione told Jason her plans to melt all the Hunters and hunt them down one by one. The hunters becoming the hunted. So funny.

And that's exactly what's happening today-except the giants are the prey, and Thalia is in her element.

She twirls the hunting knives in her hands, taking a ready stance, every muscle in her body poised to fight.

Porphyrion laughs-her unafraid readiness when she's a petite, 5'6" girl must look pretty comical next to his muscle-packed thirty-foot frame. But she doesn't care-his amusement enrages her, and without stopping to think on it, she pulls back her right arm and sends one of her knives spinning towards him.

Apparently, he wasn't expecting it, because he doesn't have time to bat it out of the air before it hits him, and it sinks hilt-deep into his shoulder.

He staggers back a step, looking at the knife sticking out of his shoulder. Then he grasps it between two of his over-large fingers and pulls it out, growling, before tossing it aside.

"Come closer, little Huntress, so I can claim your crown as my prize." He taunts, pulling one of his necklaces free of the others and showing her the other silver Hunter relics tied there.

Knowing that fellow Hunters have died at his hands sends her blood boiling, and she shuts out the battle around her, focusing only on him. The ground rumbles above them, responding to her anger.

One thing she's learned from her time as a Huntress of Artemis is to always take your enemies by surprise-if you don't give yourself time to think about your actions, it doesn't give them time to expect them. Follow your instincts.

She doesn't know whether it's anger or instinct that drives her to dance forward, feint to his left, dart around his right and then kick him as hard as she can in the groin, but it feels pretty damn good, regardless.

He roars at the sky, and Thalia sees his knees buckle and nearly collapse-he manages to keep his feet, although his legs are obviously shaking, and when she makes her way back in front of him, she sees his features twisted in pain.

She smirks. "Not so easy to kill as the others you've faced, am I?" She asks. She sheathes her remaining knife and pulls her strung bow around to the front, setting an arrow to the string all in one smooth motion. "That's because I fight dirty."

With that said, she sends an arrow towards the same place where she kicked him, hoping to incapacitate him further.

Unfortunately, he's learned a bit, and shifts at the last moment so her arrow hits him in the upper thigh instead of...higher. Still, it's a painful wound, as made clear by the vein that starts throbbing in the giant's forehead as his lips twist up, baring his teeth in an enraged grimace.

Quickly, while she has the chance, she sends three more arrows at him-one gouges a furrow along the side of his head, one smacks into the meaty part of his upper arm, and the third disappears into a chink in his armor towards the left side of his torso.

You're not going to get my brother, Porphyrion. Thalia thinks. She knows, of the Seven, Jason is the one most likely to be able to defeat Porphyrion, the one most likely meant to battle him. And she knows how likely it is that Porphyrion could kill him, even as Jason kills the giant. She's not prepared to let that happen-she only just got him back.

Her quiver is almost empty-of the 24 she started the battle with, she has 7 left.

Sure having fun with that number today, aren't you, Fates? She thinks irritatedly. Before she has the chance to add to her 'prayer,' Porphyrion wrenches the arrow from his arm and discards it, lifting his bloodshot eyes to glare at her.

"You might be fast, Huntress. You are your daddy's daughter." He spits. "But I've spent millenia preparing to battle your father once more, and I will not lose again."

His hand strikes out, lightning-fast, faster than Thalia can get out of the way, and tosses her like a ragdoll across the field. The impact of his hand on her chest spends a few spikes of fiery pain through her torso, and she's sure some of her ribs are cracked or broken-and that's before she hits the ground.

Luckily, her fall is broken a bit by a hellhound that crumbles to dust almost as soon as she lands on it, leaving her to roll across the hard stone. A few sharper rocks puncture her skin, and one delivers a hard hit directly to her kidney-thankfully, that's not one of the sharper rocks. It'll leave a large bruise, but hopefully nothing permanent.

Her head hits the ground at some point, and her vision blurs crazily, leaving her to stagger upright to avoid getting trampled and blink hard at her surroundings, pulling her last hunting knife from its sheathe and hoping for the best.

She lurches drunkenly forward, dizzy, but she knows she has to stay on her feet or get killed.

Before she can find Porphyrion again, though, he finds her, and another quick swipe knocks her feet from under her and lands her on her back again, driving the air from her lungs.

When her eyes can focus at any cognitable level, she sees Porphyrion raising his sword over her, about to drive it down, and knows she won't be able to escape it.

I tried, Jason, is all she can think as she desperately throws her arms up in a useless last effort to ward him off.

Just before the point of the sword would have driven into her chest, a figure leaps in front of her, taking the fatal stroke meant for Thalia.

Scrambling backwards, her hunting knife still clutched in her hand, Thalia sees that the figure was Phoebe.

"No!" She yells, the cry torn from her lips by the sight of her friend impaled on the end of a giant's sword.

Porphyrion grunts in minor surprise and then just pulls his sword out, shaking Phoebe to the side as if she's a mere nuisance, and without thinking, Thalia's bow is in her hands and the rest of her arrows are leaping after Porphyrion.

Every single one of them finds a mark, although none of them are fatal. But Thalia doesn't care-it distracts him, and gets him far enough away for her to dive in and fall to her hands and knees next to Phoebe's side.

Blood is already spreading in a pool beneath the girl's chest, and a sob jams in Thalia's throat when she sees it. Phoebe'd been a Hunter almost as long as Zoe was-and she'd always been there with Thalia, through every battle. They'd become close-more than friends, they were sisters. Phoebe knew everything about her, and Thalia knew everything about Phoebe.

"Phoebe, what did you do?" She cries out, and Phoebe rolls her eyes.

"Saved you." She answers, her voice weak and pained. "I thought that'd be obvious."

"But why, you idiot?" Thalia demands, tears blurring her vision. "You should've just let me die."

"You'd've done the same thing." Phoebe murmurs stubbornly.

Porphyrion stumbles a step closer to them, growling in rage and glaring at Thalia as he rips arrows from his flesh, and she glances worriedly at the shortening distance between them.

Pulling Phoebe into a sitting position, she drapes the girl's arm over her shoulder.

"What're you doing?" Phoebe mumbles, her eyes drooping.

"Returning the favor." Thalia replies through gritted teeth as she lifts the Huntress off the ground. Phoebe does her best to stand, but even with her feet underneath her and set firmly on the ground, she's leaning heavily on Thalia.

Not that Thalia cares. As long as Phoebe keeps her eyes open, Thalia wouldn't care if she had to carry the girl on her back.

She shoulders her way into the crowd of monsters, using her knife to dispatch any that come too close to them for comfort, with her other arm wrapped around Phoebe's waist, supporting almost all of the girl's weight.

"Thalia." Phoebe mutters, her voice dangerously quiet.

"What?" Thalia asks, her own voice comparably loud.

"I have to tell you...if I don't...you have to know..." Phoebe continues, her throat hoarse.

"Have to know what?" Thalia insists. "What do you need to tell me?"

Phoebe's breath hitches, and Thalia freezes, fear making her heart pound so hard she can hear it. Then she coughs, and inhales again deeply, and Thalia lets out the breath she was holding.

"Phoebe, what do you want to tell me?" She asks, as gently as possible, and Phoebe struggles to straighten up and get her legs more comfortably supporting her. It only results in a grimace and more coughing, and Thalia swears, swiping her knife out in front of them and destroying a wide section of monsters, clearing their way over to the rock outcropping that the Argo is anchored above.

Just yards away from the ladder, Phoebe's legs buckle, and she falls to her knees-if Thalia hadn't been supporting her, she would've fallen onto her chest, but as it is, she keeps a sitting position.

"Phoebe, come on, we're almost there." Thalia begs. Not you too, She wants to say. I've already lost so many.

Phoebe lifts her face to look up at Thalia, her hazel eyes meeting Thalia's blue ones. The ring of green around her pupil sparkles in the dying afternoon light. Her fingers grip Thalia's arm so tight that they turn white, and her breath is coming in gasps. When she tries to speak, her words are too quiet to make out, so Thalia leans closer, placing her ear right next to the girl's mouth.

"You always...meant more to me...than a sister..." Phoebe murmurs, her lips brushing Thalia's ear.

Thalia's shock freezes her in place, and the next thing she knows, the two Hunters she had stay on the Argo are next to her and helping lift Phoebe up to the deck, and it's only after they're gone that Thalia's lips start moving to try and form a reply.

But no matter how hard she tries, she can't think of anything that she would've said.

Apparently she didn't know Phoebe as well as she thought.

But, thankfully, the battle raging behind her doesn't give her time to dwell on it.

She turns at the sound of Jason's voice as he yells Piper's name, and is just in time to watch a giant that could only be Thoon, the bane of Aphrodite, step into Piper's path.

Thalia might be too far to help Piper with her fight, but that doesn't mean she's too far to help. So she plunges back into the chaos, determined to do whatever it takes to keep reminders of what could've been Phoebe's last words out of her head.

Piper

Thoon is not what Piper was expecting. Of course, she hadn't really given herself much time to think on it-every time her mind turned in that direction, her imagination made her queasy. She supposes she might've had a better idea of what to expect if she'd been paying attention to Katoptris, but she'd trained herself not to look at the blade when she had it unsheathed. All the images did was torture her.

Still, she guesses she did have a vague idea of what the bane of Aphrodite would look like. Ugly, tall-mostly just like the other giants. Crude, barbaric, and extremely hateful and angry-after all, the opposite of love is hate.

She'd gotten the hate part right, along with size-Thoon is just as massive as the other giants, with enormous corded muscles and dragon legs like stone pillars, colored a dark, emerald green-almost black, like the forest canopy at night. Green skin that matches the scaly legs almost perfectly-which also makes sense, as green is the opposite of red (the most common color used to describe love) on the color wheel.

But the giant is a giantess.

From what Piper had heard and been told, there aren't supposed to be any giantesses. All the giants in the stories are male.

Thoon is wielding double daggers, and her expression is set in one of such loathing that Piper swears she can feel her hatred. It's more disconcerting than anything she's faced before-even the fact that Thoon's facial features keep flickering, settling on different guises.

Instead of being different aspects of beauty, like Aphrodite's appearances, they change from people Piper knows-or knew.

First it's a bully from her kindergarten class that used to yank on her braids and tease her for her Native American heritage-the girl who started the taunt about Piper's name being because of the Piper Cherokee airplane. Then she's Piper's third grade teacher-a middle-aged woman with shriveled skin, oily hair, a pointy nose, and a nasty disposition who hated children and used to flirt with her dad the many times that she'd send Piper to the office and have them call him over to pick her up and speak with the principal about Piper's 'attitude.' Then it changes to the man that worked at the mall and laughed at her, scoffing when she told him she wanted to buy a certain thing and asking where she'd get the money from-that was the first time she ever stole anything. She also used her charmspeak to get the man fired.

Jane, her dad's old assistant, who'd gotten her sent to the Wilderness School in the first place. Then Drew, the former counselor of the Aphrodite cabin.

All people that she hated.

Her fingers clench around her weapons-Katoptris in one hand, her sword in the other. "Stop doing that!" She insists, charmspeaking without even realizing she's doing it.

Around her, several monsters suddenly freeze, causing others to stumble over them and making it easier for them to be vaporized. But Thoon isn't affected at all.

The giantess smiles in amusement. "Is that all you've got, girlie? It's going to take a lot more power than that to stop me. I was specifically designed for the purpose of killing the goddesss Aphrodite. Your charmspeak doesn't bother me."

Her voice is raspy and deep and somehow stirs feelings of dark resentment and loathing in Piper's heart, causing her vision to momentarily flash red with anger.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head to clear it-when she opens her eyes again, she glares at the giantess. "Maybe my charmspeak doesn't, but I bet a sword in your throat will."

Thoon laughs and then her features finally settle on her real face-black, soulless eyes, a ragged gash of a mouth and a nose that looks like it's been smashed and broken about a hundred times. "Bring it on, little girl."

Rage burns in Piper's blood again, and this time, she uses it to her advantage-the anger gives her a burst of energy that lets her move much more quickly than she would have been otherwise, and she darts in and scores a large cut across Thoon's right thigh before she dives out of the way again.

She doesn't intend to give the giantess a chance to strike back.

Thoon looks down at the gold ichor dripping slowly from the wound as if it were an unfamiliar experiment-her expression is totally uninterested and slightly detached. Then she laughs, and turns back to where Piper waits with her weapons raised high.

"Play the game, little girl!" She calls, in an approximation of a sing-song voice, and slashes downward with one of her daggers.

Piper waits until the last possible second before diving forward-the last direction Thoon would expect her to go, as it brings her much closer to the giantess.

Too close for Thoon to use her daggers, which is exactly what Piper wants.

She drives Katoptris into Thoon's stomach, as high as she can reach, and then ducks between Thoon's legs while the giantess stumbles forward. Without pausing to think about, she takes advantage of Thoon's doubled-over position, scrambling up her legs, using her armor like a ladder to spring lightly onto the giantess' back and slash across the back of her neck with her sword.

Thoon roars in pain and straightens-Piper jumps away just in time to avoid getting crushed by Thoon's enormous hand, and lands lithely on her feet a few yards away.

The hatred Thoon exudes into the atmosphere is even stronger, but when the giantess straightens, Piper's surprised to see her with a twisted grin on her face.

"I heard you were a good fighter." She says. "A worthy opponent. That you killed a goddess and would present me with the perfect challenge after eons spent trapped in Tartarus." Her bottomless eyes burn over Piper's face. "I scoffed at them, believed them to be wrong, that nothing would be such a challenge with the hatred of ages in my mind. But you have proven a perfect challenge, Piper Mclean." She picks up her second dagger from where she dropped it on the ground. "You will die excellently."

"Not a chance, you ugly over-sized gorgon." Piper hisses at her, and flashes a brief, satisfied smile when Thoon's grin vanishes and her eyes start to burn with loathing again. She's much easier to fight angry.

"Oh, you'll regret that one, little girl." Thoon snarls, and stabs her dagger into the dirt.

In her eyes, Piper suddenly sees more than just soulless black-they pull her in, and she finds herself trapped in scenes of burning torture, the carnage of the Trojan War, heartbreak, lust, hatred, revenge. Results of love gone wrong.

Thoon twists love, makes it out to be something evil, the source of all problems, and with every image, Piper's hatred for the giantess grows.

Finally, her rage becomes so great that she starts to shake with it, and she breaks free of Thoon's spell just in time to see the ground turning to green-black acid that hisses and steams and starts to bubble towards her from where it began in the place Thoon's dagger struck the earth.

Piper stumbles backwards, trying to avoid it. She trips over an uneven piece of stone that rises over the rest and nearly falls, concentrating all her energies on maintaining her balance and almost missing when Thoon steps forward-directly into the growing pool of acid. It doesn't seem to affect her at all, which sends a stab of resentment through Piper.

"Love is a poison." Thoon growls. "A disease, an acid that eats away at the fabric of the world and only causes death and destruction. Love never does anyone any good. It doesn't save lives or aid you in a fight. Love is useless."

"Hate is a worthless emotion." Piper replies, remembering when her dad used to tell her that. "You've got it backwards. Love is the reason we fight-love is the reason all of these demigods here today are alive right now, the entire reason we're here." Her words gather momentum, her tongue stumbling over itself in its hurry to speak, and her soul warms with the same feverish emotion she speaks of as she remembers the real reason she's doing this. "Love is why it's near impossible to kill us, why we fight so much harder and more passionately than any monster." She never fought for revenge, or because she hated the gianst. She does it to protect her dad, and Jason; Leo, Annabeth, Percy, Frank, and Hazel-all of the people she's loves. "We do it for our friends, and every person we've ever loved. It gives us the strength to defeat you, and that is true power."

As the last word leaves her lips, strength fills her veins like liquid steel, and she rushes forward, veering sideways to avoid the acid and parrying an overhead cut from Thoon's left dagger as she does so. Katoptris flashes out as if it has a mind of its own and slices down the length of Thoon's leg, causing ichor to pour from the wound and mix with the dark green acid pooled at her feet.

She howls, and the pressure of her dagger against Piper's sword lessens enough that Piper can shove it away and thrust her blade into Thoon's side-a serious wound, even fatal, if there wasn't that blasted rule about needing a god's aid to kill a giant.

Still, it causes Thoon to fall to one scaly knee, causing acid to splash up in an arc-Piper dances backward just in time to avoid it and tries to dart in for another hit to keep Thoon down.

Her features twisted with pain and hatred, Thoon discards her dagger and plunges her hand into the acid, lifting out a great handful and then flinging it directly at Piper.

Piper stumbles in her haste to move out of the way, and only just manages to miss the majority of the acid cloud-but quite a bit of it still hits her directly in the face.

The left side of her head erupts in burning agony, and she screams, collapsing, her sword falling from loose fingers as she reaches up and tries to wipe the acid off, only resulting in spreading the fiery pain to her hand.

Her vision blurs from pain, and she squeezes her eyes shut against it, fearing for a brief moment that the acid might've hit her eye, but when she looks again, she can still see, even if things are a bit bleary. She suspects that's just the shock from the agonizing pain.

Vaguely, she sees Thoon trying to stumble back to her feet, and her fingers automatically fumble for her sword, clumsily grasping at the hilt, forcing herself to ignore the spike in acidic burning when her skin comes in contact with her leather grip.

She climbs tortuously to her feet, watching blearily as Thoon tries to do the same, clumsily blundering in the pool of acid as the giantess tries to stand. She sways, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head at the feeling of the acid eating away at her skin-she swears she can hear it bubbling and blistering.

But she forces her eyes back open before long and takes a shaky step forward, determined to end the fight while she can.

The pool of acid poses a bit of a problem-it keeps her from getting too close to Thoon, and she's still too far to strike at the giantess properly.

It's not like it matters. Piper thinks dully. If she doesn't get some ambrosia soon, she has no doubt the acid will be able to eat into her skull, and eventually, her brain. Her best interest is just to get the battle ended as soon as possible.

Still, she gathers herself up, backs away a bit, and then just takes a running jump to leap onto Thoon's enormous shoulder-she lands with a jolt, and her foot slips, but she saves herself by grabbing onto one of Thoon's black braided dreadlocks. Then she has to scramble down Thoon's spine to avoid getting crushed again, but at least she didn't slide off and fall completely into the acid.

Thoon is obviously aware of the mounting danger, and finally struggles to her feet, but both of her daggers are lost somewhere in the green-black pool around her feet, and Piper climbs to Thoon's shoulder before she can get dumped off.

Thoon shrugs her shoulders and bats around her face, trying to grab Piper or push her off-Piper dances around the strikes, adrenaline blocking out the pain enough so that it fades to a dull throbbing and allows her strength to come back a bit.

"Get off of me, little girl!" Thoon growls. "Your time is up; you have no tricks left! It's time to give yourself up as defeated!"

"Never." Piper answers, her voice full of venemous conviction. "And I wouldn't say my tricks are all gone quite yet."

Even if Thoon's hands are protecting her throat from Piper, the giantess' is still vulnerable to pain. When Piper stabs Katoptris through the middle of her hand, it's only natural for her to pull her hand away in an attempt to save it from further injury, giving Piper just the opening she needs.

She plunges her sword through the side of Thoon's neck, directly through the artery there, and pulls it out, leaving it to bleed and stumbling backward to avoid getting soaked in ichor. She only partially succeeds, but next second, she turns and jumps to the ground, barely clearing the acid and turning just in time to see a strike of bright, noxious neon pink lightning-like light land directly in the place where her sword went in.

Thoon disentegrates to dust that then dissolves in the acid, and when it's all gone, the acid solidifies into a patch of dry, cracked soil, with no evidence that the giantess was ever there.

Exhaustion washes over Piper all at once, and as if from a distance, she feels her sword clatter to the ground, falling from limp fingers. She somehow keeps a grip on Katoptris as she sways in place, but it doesn't really do her much good as her head spins and black encroaches on her vision.

The sound of the battle around her cuts out, leaving her ears ringing emptily, and she blinks her eyes closed, trying to keep her feet.

The ground feels like it's pitching back and forth, trying to make her fall, and the pain running from her hairline to her collarbone on the left side of her face is unbearable. Her right hand still burns, but she knows just by feel that the injury there is nowhere near as bad as the one on her face.

She hears someone call her name, their voice cracking in concern, and her eyes suddenly flash back open.

Jason. She thinks, and tries to take a step forward. But she only trips, and then her leg buckles, giving out underneath her and sending her to the ground.

The next thing she knows, she's opening her eyes to look up into Jason's electric blue ones, and he's holding her across his lap, cradling her head in his arms.

"Pipes." He says, his voice hushed in relief at seeing her eyes open. She doesn't answer, just drinks in his features-there's a bad cut slanting across his cheekbone, but other than that and a few more scratches, he's unharmed.

He pries Katoptris from her grip-she's somehow miraculously still holding onto it-and then places it a safe distance away.

"Piper, what happened?" He asks, his voice strangled from worry.

She winces as she opens her mouth to reply-it pulls at the wounds on the left side of her face, sending more flashes of burning agony to her brain. "Acid." She answers, and her voice is cracked and hoarse. It hurts her throat, and her head, and before she can stop herself, she adds, "Ow."

She struggles to sit up, and Jason gathers her in his arms to help her settle up a bit against his arm, her shoulder resting against his chest. He reaches back with his free hand and digs a bag of ambrosia out of his back pocket, breaking a piece off for her.

"Here." He tells her. "Eat this." He holds it against her lips, feeding it to her, and she takes it, chewing slowly, trying not to grimace as the movement makes the pain flare even more.

As soon as she bites into the god food, though, prickles of relief send a new flush of energy through her blood, and the pain lessens almost instantly.

"Thank you." She mumbles past the ambrosia still in her mouth, and he shakes his head, pulling her closer.

"You have no idea how worried you had me, Piper." He whispers in her ear, and she swallows the rest of the ambrosia quickly so she can answer properly.

"You should have known better." She tells him matter-of-factly, even though she hadn't been sure herself. "I can take care of myself."

He shakes his head again, a faint smile on his limps, making the white scare on his lip stand out. "I hope that doesn't mean you don't need me here anymore."

Piper leans forward, pressing her lips against his ear. "I'll always need you." She murmurs, and then pulls back just enough so that she can kiss him, ignoring the pain that prickles through her wound.

Frank

Frank just makes it to the edge of the altar's plateau when a giant decides to get in his way.

Or rather, three giants.

Two of them are easily recognizable by the stories he's heard-twins, wearing matching battle armor, wielding matching spears, and about ten feet shorter than their brothers. Otis and Ephialtes, he'd guess, bane of Bacchus.

The third giant is fighting with both a spear-now strapped to his back-and bow and arrows, which are in his hands. There's also a wicked curved machete strapped to his belt, and the armor he's decked out in is silver, to match his hair.

So, if Frank had to hazard a guess, he'd say the third giant is the bane of Diana. Or Artemis, if you're Greek.

But really? Three? All at once? The Fates have really got to stop with the trying-to-rebalance-the-world-by-taking-you-out-of-it-because-you-were-born-with-too-much-power thing. Isn't the fact that his lifeline is literally attached to a stick enough?

"Frank Zhang." The silver giant proclaims. "I am Eurytus, bane of Artemis-Diana, to you Romans." He sneers the last word, and Frank has enough of his wits about him to be offended by the giant's tone. "Rumors of your powers have been whispered among us for weeks. We believe them to be exaggerated." He announces, gestering to include Otis and Ephialtes. "If you are as powerful as the gods make you out to be, prove it! Take on the three of us at once! Dare to defeat us!"

No, apparently the stick lifeline thing is not enough for them.

"You're not being dramatic enough." Ephialtes complains.

"Not enough flair." Otis grunts.

"Give it some attitude!" Ephialtes encourages.

"I AM THE BANE OF ARTEMIS, YOU MORONIC DOLTS! I DON'T NEED TO GIVE IT ATTITUDE!" Eurytus roars at them, and after a pause, Otis nods.

"Much better." He comments.

"Bit of fireworks or explosives going off in the background, he'd be perfect." Ephialtes adds.

"Ballerinas would be better." Otis grumbles.

"ENOUGH WITH THE BALLERINAS!" Eurytus yells, his face red and flustered, obviously angered by the twins' idiocy. Frank has to say he feels the same. Weird, relating to a giant. But at least it's nice to know he's not the only one irritated by their senseless remarks.

He coughs a bit to pull their attention back to him. "Mind if we get on with it now?" He asks, pulling an arrow from his quiver and setting it to the string of his bow.

"Eh?" Eurytus responds, confused. Frank's reminded of a deaf old man he used to have as a teacher. "Oh, yes. Of course."

Before the giants can even register that he actually means it, Frank releases the arrow-as always, thanks to the bow's magic, it finds its mark. Which happens to be Eurytus' nostril.

Seeing a giant drop his weapons to start smacking his own face, turning his nose into a bloody mess and only serving to drive the arrow in further was never on Frank's bucket list, but he has to admit it's a pretty satisfying sight. Even more so when Ephialtes moves forward to try to help and gets punched in the face for his pains, reducing his left eye to a swollen mass of blood and bruises.

Otis grows enraged at his brother's wound and takes it out on Eurytus, moving forward to return the attack-only, as he's too short to land another blow on Eurytus' face, he aims a bit lower.

Eurytus' howls in pain and stomps his foot, knocking Otis backwards into Ephialtes and sending the two giants sprawling to the ground in a tangled pile. Frank has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing, but that still doesn't keep the amused grin from spreading across his face.

The next arrow, set to the string and sent flying before he even really thinks about it, find its target to be Otis' back, driving directly into his spine and making it temporarily impossible for him to move, making him collapse onto his brother, deadweight. His paralysis is only temporary because of his immortal status, unfortunately, but it works to keep those two occupied while Frank deals with Eurytus, who's recovered from his last injury rather quickly and finally managed to rip the arrow from the bloody mass of his face and toss it to the ground.

Instead of picking up his bow, Eurytus just pulls his spear from its sheathe on his back, and Frank smiles grimly, knowing this battle is going to take some shifting and unsure of how his missing leg will affect it.

He decides to go for it, though, and thinks hard, finally deciding on a dragon. Why not, right? Go big or go home. Plus, he can fly as a dragon if his prosthetic leg for some reason doesn't transfer to his animal form.

Closing his eyes, Frank focuses on rough scales and fiery breath, feeling the transformation pull his muscles from his bones and make his skeleton pop and grate against itself before finally settling comfortably into his new shape.

He tentatively takes a step forward, reluctant to look back, and finds that his leg is there. And it feels normal.

Surprised, he twists his serpentine neck curiously to contemplate his leg, and finds it whole and complete, perfectly there, made of bone and muscle and sinew and scales. The only telltale sign of his injury is a slight ache in that leg about halfway down-where his leg ends as a human.

He rolls his shoulders, shrugging it off, deciding not to question it. After all, it's nice to know he can have a leg in another form, even if he can't as himself.

Roaring a challenge, now as big as Eurytus, Frank rears onto his back legs, able to easily ignore that slight ache, and sends a column of flame at the giant's face.

Eurytus, being a giant, refuses to yield. He jumps to one side, swinging out his spear as he does so-Frank twists easily to one side to avoid it, and drops back down onto all fours, baring teeth as sharp as any blade. Eurytus tries to take his head off-Frank simply changes and tackles the giant's stomach as a fully-grown lion, swiping razor sharp claws and using them to tear at the giant's silver armor, shredding the chain mail beneath and managing to rip several pieces away before Eurytus tries to strike at him.

Frank simply leaps away, and Eurytus accidentally nails himself in the stomach-really, giants never seem to learn. Frank takes his distraction as an opportunity to transform into a grizzly bear-no sooner than he does, a silver light explodes in front of him with the force of a supernova, momentarily blinding him and making him stumble backwards in an attempt to get away from it.

When he can see again, a goddess is standing in the light's place, still shining-more glowing, actually-with a faint silvery aura. She looks older than Percy ever described her, but then, she's Diana, not Artemis, as she stands in front of him with brilliantly bright auburn hair and blue eyes like her father, Zeus, holding a strung and loaded bow in her hands with two hunting daggers at her waist.

"Shall we fight, son of Mars?" She asks, and her voice has a strange echoing quality to it, but he ignores that and nods his ponderous grizzly head in a salute to her before they surge forward as one and rain attacks on Eurytus from all directions.

Frank changes shapes throughout, but the one that just seems to settle, to fit best, is the grizzly, and his most effective attacks come when he remains one. So he stops changing after a bit, using his enormous animal strength to batter Eurytus relentlessly.

The giant proves a relatively challenging opponent, but Frank finally catches a crushing blow across the giant's face, destroying his features, and one of Diana's hunting knives finds his throat shortly after, leaving him to crumble and fade back to Tartarus forever.

When Frank turns, himself again, missing the leg he had as an animal, Otis and Ephialtes are just beginning to get to their feet, Otis' spine having healed and both of them managing to gain their footing without tripping the other up again.

Diana disappears, her job done, and Frank knows that he'll have to initiate the fight himself to call Bacchus' attention and aid to him.

So he does. He fires a quick volley of arrows, running-limping-to the side and around the both of them, and then changing, first to a ferret to slink unnoticed behind them, and then to an enormous spotted leopard to rake his claws across their legs and knock them off balance.

He doesn't know why he chooses a leopard. It just seems right.

But soon after he does that, Bacchus makes his appearance-a pudgy man with watery eyes in a purple tuxedo with a darker purple silk tie. He's twirling a thyrsus boredly in his hands.

"Really, you again?" He asks, raising his eyebrows at the twin giants. "After defeating you twice, I would've thought you'd learned your lesson by now."

"Kill the imposter!" Ephialtes shrieks, and Frank hisses, flattening his ears to his head. Giants should never shriek.

"Our sense of theatre and drama far exceeds your own!" Otis snarls. "We shall take your place as the true rulers of the arts!"

Bacchus just raises an eyebrow, and his guise wavers to a fit young man in a purple toga before returning to the tuxedo. "No, your sense of 'the arts' is tacky and far too desperate to ever gather any sort of following."

Ephialtes opens his mouth to reply, but Frank doesn't want to hear it. He's had enough of their senseless idiocy, and he shows it by leaping-well, lunging, really-onto the giant's back and tearing at his throat.

"Quite right, Fred!" Bacchus proclaims, amused.

Frank, Frank corrects mentally, irritated. My name is Frank.

Otis hits him in the back with his spear, though, and he starts worrying about other things.

He drops from Ephialtes' back, slinking between the giant's legs only to launch a furious attack on Otis, shredding the giant's legs and finally knocking him to the ground.

His enormous paws pound at the giant's face, exactly like he did as a grizzly to Alcyoneus in Alaska, and he finally falls into incomprehensible muttering and drooling like a bulldog.

Frank then turns his attention back to Ephialtes, and, not wasting any time, springs up to land directly on the giant's face, clawing at eyes and then jumping away just in time for Ephialtes to hit himself in the face with his spear-hard.

And he, too, collapses to the ground.

"Oh, well done, Ferdinand." Bacchus compliments, slightly mockingly, clapping his hands together a few times. Then he swaggers over to them and taps his thyrsus once on each giant's forehead, and they crumble to dust at his touch.

"Well, that was fun." Bacchus comments. "I did most of the work, of course-"

Frank growls, still a leopard.

Bacchus raises his eyebrows. "Really, young lad, being so boastful isn't good for anyone your age. You barely did a thing." Frank bares his teeth, and Bacchus glares, although Frank detects a hint of nerves in the god's eyes. "Oh, don't complain. We both know this was all my doing."

Frank licks the ichor from his teeth, and after a slight, half-surprised, half-afraid widening of his eyes, Bacchus decides it's time to disappear, and just like that-he's gone.

Not that Frank minds.

He changes into a lion-this shape suits him better-and uses that to make his way through the monsters towards his friends instead of attempting to walk as himself. He'd never get there at that rate.

He can see Hazel fighting with the others, and his love for her and anger at her injuries drives him forward.

Leo

Experiencing firsthand the caranage of true battle, Leo can't help but think, What is the point of it all?

Oh, he knows the answer. Or the answer people-*cough* the gods *cough*-would give him. "It's to save the world from eternal damnation, don't you want to save your friends, how could you not see that this is necessary, blah blah blah.

Well, screw that, he says. None of this is necessary. Frank losing his leg in an explosion because of his unerring sense of loyalty and duty, that wasn't necessary. Hazel having to experience the crushing grief in those moments when she believed him dead, that wasn't necessary.

Hazel's collapsed lung, her broken ribs; Piper's acid burns that will leave scars that will never heal; Phoebe's sacrifice to save Thalia-possibly her life, although no one will know unless they survive the end of the battle to find out. None of that was necessary.

What would happen, he wonders, if we all just refused to fight?

What would happen

if we all just stood here, a living shield between Gaea and her awakening?

Would they hesitate, Leo wonders. Would they be slow at all in taking the lives of those who refuse to lift a finger to defend themselves?

He pauses for a minute, letting his eyes wander vaguely across the mountainside, his fingers numbly gripping the handle of his hammer-the only weapon he'd ever agree to wield, because it's a tool meant for more than destruction. At least with it, there's a chance of redemption. But a sword is meant for killing. Much like all of the creatures that make up Gaea's army.

No, he decides bitterly, watching as a hellhound lunges, teeth snapping, at Jason's back, missing only when Jason rolls to the side at the last possible second. No, they wouldn't hesitate at all, because they're not human. They don't care about us. They don't know what it means to love.

And that, he settles on, is the heart of it. They don't fight because they have to. They don't fight because it's necessary. They fight because they refuse to give up their world to monsters that would make it a place without love. They do it because they can't watch the ones they care for die.

It's all a bit pointless, though, isn't it? He thinks. We all die in the end anyway, and the monsters just keep coming back.

His thoughts spin in ever darker circles as he stands to the side, in the shadows, watching silently as his friends risk their lives for a pointless victory. A triumph that will last only as long as the next monster.

He's snapped out of his dark countenances by a scream-Piper's. Looking up, he sees her on the ground, holding her hand to her injured cheek and using the other to keep tight hold of her sword hilt. Katoptris is sparkling menacingly on the ground several yards away, and Jason is standing with his gladius locked hilt to handle with a giant's hammer.

Hammer. Out of all the things that could've stuck out to him, that's what it is. A giant using a hammer instead of a traditional weapon. Of course, he won't be using it for the same reason Leo himself is, and the thing is a massive sledgehammer that must weigh a ton instead of Leo's more average one-which looks comparably useless. But as small as it looks, Leo's hammer can still do a great amount of damage. It's particularly good at breaking bones.

Leo studies the giant more closely, curious. The deep, fiery orange skin, with red, green, and blue scaled dragon legs. Red armor. Wrenches, hammers similar to Leo's, pliers, and other tools of a mechanic's trade braided into his hair.

Mimas. Leo realizes, and his fingers involuntarily tighten on the handle of his hammer. Bane of Hephaestus.

He takes a step forward, but before he can even pull himself completely out of the shadows, a giant steps into his path.

He looks up, and immediately sighs heavily, his eyebrows drawing together in an aggravated V. He rolls his eyes up to the sky, glaring at it, directing it at the Fates.

Really? He demands. It had to be Porphyrion?

Because the giant standing before him is none other than King of the Uglies himself.

Leo taps his fingers against his toolbelt, wondering how he can get himself out of this one. Obviously, there's no way he can fight Porphyrion-and win-on his own.

His tapping fingers touch against a round lump in one of his toolbelt's pockets, and he pauses, trying to recall what it might be. It's maybe all of two seconds before he realizes.

And that's when he grins.

Just to seem less suspicious, he takes his hand from his toolbelt and sticks it in the pocket of his cargo pants, forcing himself to relax into a slouch and rest his hammer nonchalantly on his shoulder.

"Hey, King Ugly." He calls in an overly bright, mocking voice.

Porphyrion scowls. "I will crush your skull and use your bones as toothpicks when I'm through with you, son of Hephaestus. Your mocking has no place in this battle."

"Actually, it does." Leo disagrees, still grinning. "You see, I get sarcastic when I'm about to die, and considering the fact that I'm one five foot tall demigod going up against a thirty foot tall giant who happens to be king of the giants, I don't think the odds really favor me, do they?"

Porphyrion tries to keep up his scowl, but Leo can see that he's pleased by the flattery.

"It is true." He says. "You have no chance against me. My sword is much superior to your hammer."

Leo assumes a false innocent expression. "Wait, swords? I thought this was a contest for the ugliest person here."

Any pleasure Pophryion might have taken in Leo's first comment immediately disappears, but Leo isn't done yet.

"Which is the only contest between us you'd ever win. A real battle? Forget it." Leo studies the giant with a critical expresion. "I mean, look at that stance. You're so off-balance, I could push you over with my pinky. And the way you're holding that sword?" Leo shakes his head. "Don't even get me started."

"I've fought wars against the gods, boy-" Pophyrion starts to snarl.

"Which you lost, remember?" Leo interrupts. "But ugliness, on the other hand-you've definitely got that down to a science. For a second there when I saw you, I though you were walking backwards." When Porphyrion looks confused, Leo continues. "I mean, it's remarkable, really, how much your face looks like a horse's a-"

"ROAR!" Porphyrion charges forward in a surge of anger-which is exaclty what Leo wants.

Hiding a smile, he turns away as if to run in fear-while his left hand swiftly disappears into his toolbelt pocket.

His right hand slips his hammer into a strap on his belt at the same time, and then comes back up to pull the pin on the grenade he just produced seemingly from nowhere.

His special grenade. One that he definitely doesn't want anywhere near him when it goes off.

Instead of just turning, he completes a 360 spin and uses his momentum to put all of his weight behind hurling the bomb directly into Porphyrion's face.

He got the timing just right-it explodes on impact, and Leo can't help the enormous grin that spread across his face when he sees the results of his toy.

The giant is covered from head to toe in bright, glittering neon paint, along with fake flowers, fake gems, and even a few colorful teddy bears, complete with specialized magic paint that spell out the letters 'HUG ME' across Porphyrion's chest.

It looks like the love child of Hello Kitty and Barbie threw up on him, which was exactly Leo's intention when he made the grenade. Eyeing the final affects, he can't help but feel a hint of pride.

Porphyrion roars and stops in his tracks, dropping his sword and reaching up to try and wipe the paint out of his eyes. As soon as he puts pressure on the flowers plastered to his face, though, they erupt in shimmering golden wire that wraps around and secures his hands to his face, tying his upper arms to his sides as well.

Leo pulls his hamer back from his belt and spins it neatly in his grip, smirking. "There, that's a bit of an improvement. A new coat of paint and something to cover up the worst parts can do a lot for severe cases of ugliness."

Porphyrion roars in wordless anger at the sky and takes an unsteady step toward him, struggling to free himself from his bonds.

Leo takes that as his cue to leave.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but-see ya!" He quips with false cheer, wiggling his fingers in a mocking wave as he leaves the spluttering giant behind.

He heads straight for Jason and Piper where htey're fighting Mimas-his two best friends aren't going to be killed by the giant he's responsible for, not if he has anything to say about it.

Piper is staggering to her feet-if Leo had to guess, judging from what he saw and heard, he'd say Mimas backhanded her. After that, it'd be a bit strange if she wasn't stumbling around like she just did twenty shots of tequila.

Jason is still fending Mimas off-but he's only defending. He can't risk going on the offensive, not with Piper in the danger zone yet.

Oh, who are we kidding. Leo thinks bitterly in his head. This whole mountain is the danger zone.

Being so small makes him virtually unnoticed as he makes his way to them-sometimes, scrawniness has its advantages. Not often, but sometimes.

As he nears them, he decides to go to Piper first-Jason has the defense handled for now, and Piper can barely stand. Even several yards off, Leo can see her swaying on her feet and wincing with her hand still pressed to her cheek, obscuring the left side of her face.

Leo grabs Piper's arm to steady her-she flinches and turns startledly in his direction. She relaxes as soon as she sees it's just him.

"Here, eat this." He orders, grabbing her wrist and pressing ambrosia into her hand. "Judging by the fact that you're about to trip doing nothing more than standing, I'd say you have a concussion, and you can't walk down a runway properly with your head spinning so much, can you, Beauty Queen?"

She takes her hand away from her face to glare and reply to him, and he can't help but blink in shock. He tries to hide it, but judging by the flash of pain in her eyes and the way she ducks her head sideways, he doesn't succeed.

A new raw pink scar stretches down the left side of her face-it starts at the edge of her hairline, curling around her eye, spanning all the way back to her ear, and then wraps under her jaw to finally stop just across her collarbone. Flakes of dried blood mixes with new drops that are welling to the surface all across it-some is smeared a bit, and he'd assume that's from the way she pressed her hand to her face.

Leo knew she'd gotten splashed in the face by acid-he saw it happen. But he wasn't close enough to realize it was this bad.

He shakes his head to clear it and points warningly at Piper. "Eat that." The he turns to help Jason with Mimas.

Or, rather, to take over the fight and let Jason take Piper somewhere a bit safer than the direct line of a giant's ten-ton sledgehammer. However, since Jason would never willingly agre to leave Leo to fight Mimas alone, he decides not to tell him that that's his plan.

Instead, he goes for the smarter tactics-making the giant mad.

"Hey, Mimas!" He yells, and both Jason and the giant miss a step as their heads snap in his direction. "I'm the one you want. Son of Hephaestus, at your service." He bows mockingly, and Jason looks like he desperately wants to strangle him.

Mimas is too surprised to reply, so Leo takes advantage of his silence to insult him.

"And might I say, Mimas, Porphyrion might be the King of Uglies, but you must be the Prince."

Mimas' blank expression twists into rage, and he takes a menacing step toward Leo, forcing Jason to scramble out of the way or get trampled by dragon feet.

"If that's the case, that makes your sniveling father the god of uglies." Mimas retorts, and Leo has to admit that his comeback isn't so bad, as far as they go. Better than roaring and charging straight into a glitter paint bomb.

"Not bad." He concedes out loud. "But your creativity could use a little work."

Mimas grinds his teeth, hefting his sledgehammer.

"I'd forgotten how annoying demigods can be." He says. Then he tilts his head to one side. "But I thought my mother had broken you."

A cold feeling runs up Leo's spine, and he involuntarily remembers a flash of flames and screaming before shoving the memory away and scowling hard, raising his own hammer in response.

"She could try, but never succeed." He replies, but Mimas shakes his head.

"Oh, no, I see it now." He says, grinning. "You are broken. You just insist on hiding it behind empty jokes and senseless humor."

Leo's jaw tightens, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jason-who's steadying Piper as they sneak a safer distance away-raise his head in response to Mimas' words. A bit farther away, Leo can see the others making their way towards where Jason and Piper are waiting.

"She let me watch, you know." Mimas continues conversationally. "Those hostile shadows behind her-I was one of them."

"Shut up." Leo mutters through gritted teeth.

"The guilt of it must have been eating you alive." Mimas smirks sadistically. "I wish I could have watched then, but hte main event was definitely more amusing, I think. Mother always comes up with the most deliciously twisted plans. I mean, forcing a kid to kill his own mom? So much better than anything the gods could have tortured you with."

Now Leo vaguely sees Piper raise her head in alarm as well, and anger rushes through him.

Without thinking twice, he raises his left hand and sends a column of white-hot flames into Mimas' face.

As he expected, it doesn't do any damage-being the bane of Hephaestus, you'd have to be fireproof. But it wipes the smile from the giant's face.

"I said, 'Shut up.'" Leo growls, his voice dangerously low.

Then he goes on the offense. His hammer might not be able to do as much damage to a gaint as a sword would, but when he sends it in a downward arc to crush Mimas' dragon foot, it can most definitely cause a lot more pain. When he follows that up with a strike to the groin, he's pretty confident in saying a hammer gets the job done a lot faster than a sword.

When Mimas doubles over, Leo takes the opportunity to scramble onto his shoulder and send a crashing blow into the back of his head.

It doesn't smash his skull, unfortunately, since he's wearing a helmet, but the noise and force it produces are enough to incapacitate him for a bit. Unfortunately, it makes him stumble unsteadily forward, almost causing Leo to tumble headfirst onto the ground from his shoulder, some twenty feet below, even doubled over.

Leo regains his footing and starts to climb down, using Mimas' armor straps as a ladder, but then his foot gets caught when one of the straps wraps around his ankle.

He pulls on it, trying to rip it free, but just then, Mimas jerks to the side, almost falling as his own dragon foot trips on a boulder, and his ankle wrenches sideways, putting enough pressure on the joint that Leo has to bite his tongue to keep from yelling in pain.

When the pain subsides a bit, he reaches down and carefully unwraps the strap from his foot, testing it gently to see how badly it might be hurt.

Not broken, He decides. Maybe sprained. But he can still walk on it, and that's the important thing.

He starts to continue climbing down, but before he can, Mimas regains his balance and straightens upright, starting to twist, no doubt to crush Leo like Alcyoneus did to Hazel.

Leo ignores thoughts of injury and lets himself fall from Mimas' back, regardless of the drop and the sharp flare of pain that stabs through his ankle when he lands, almost buckling to his knees. He starts to turn and take a step to come around and face Mimas from the front, but he doesn't get the chance.

Mimas twists around and hits him hard enough to send him crashing onto his back in the shadow of the looming craggy cliff of rock that surrounds a great deal of the old Olympus.

Then the giant follows through on the hit and sends his fist into the outcropping just above where Leo's head is, sending rock chips and dust flying in all directions.

Leo doesn't think much of it-he's more concerned with scrambling out of the path of the giant's sledgehammer, which then lands against the cliff face where he'd been only moments before.

The stone rumbles ominously, and a sharp crack rings through the air. Mimas' head snaps to the place where the sound came from, and Leo takes advantage of the moment to throw his hammer with as much force as he can muster at the giant's face.

His nose is completely flattened, and Leo has to say it's a pretty satisfying sight. Moments later, the hammer is followed by one of Leo's more risky toys, and an explosion with the force of more than a thousand stampeding elephants knocks the giant back into the already unstable outcropping.

The edge of the blast just catches Leo, throwing him off his feet for the second time and knocking the wind out of him so that he only sees black for the count of five.

He hears that sharp cracking sound again, except magnified a dozen times, and then Piper's short scream.

When he opens his eyes, all he sees is a thousand tons of dirt and rock crashing down on him and burying him under its weight.

Reyna

"He's not dead." Reyna says as she comes up to the others with Nico by her side, and Piper, tears welling in her eyes, turns to face her.

"Did you not see what just happened?" She demands. "Or are you just stupid?"

Reyna feels a flash of anger at the insult, but she pushes it down. Piper's anger is a very natural reaction to the grief she's probably feeling. "I did see what happened, perfectly clearly. And no, I'm not stupid, either. It's just a fact that Leo Valdez is too stubborn to die in a rockslide."

"She has a point, Pipes." Jason murmurs quietly, glancing gratefully up at Reyna. The sight of his electric blue eyes sends fresh waves of loss and pain through her heart, but Nico's hand creeps reassuringly into her own, and she takes a deep breath to steady herself.

Percy shakes his head. "Reyna's right. Leo isn't dead."

"How would you know?" Piper asks, her voice wavering with equal amounts anger and raw sadness.

Percy opens his mouth to answer, but doesn't seem to know how. His eyes meet Nico's across Reyna's shoulder, and Reyna starts a little at the conviction in his eyes. He does know. He just doesn't know how he knows.

Nico steps forward. "I don't think he's dead either. I should be able to sense it if he was." He hesitates, then adds, "But I could be wrong. All the monsters and others dying right now are making it hard to focus on anything."

"But you don't think he's dead, do you?" Annabeth asks, tilting her head curiously, sensing that he has more to say.

Nico pauses, and Reyna has the feeling he's choosing his next words carefully. "No, I don't think he's dead." He starts slowly. "But I don't think he'll stay that way for long." Several of the others open their mouths to interrupt, but he rushes hurriedly on. "The only reason he could possibly be alive right now, under all those tons of rock and dirt, is if the weight settled in a way over him to create an air pocket of sorts. But the dirt isn't totally settled yet-even now, it's shifting constantly, and I'd be really surprised if Leo was in any state to dig his own way out. His air pocket could disappear at any second."

Hazel's face looks pale, and her eyes are wide with shock. Reyna feels a sudden urge to wrap the girl in a hug, but before she can, Frank limps over and does it for her, resting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close in a much more comforting way than Reyna could ever have done.

"Then we need to dig him out ourselves." Jason says firmly, but Nico shakes his head.

"If we try to dig him out from the outside in, we could just dislodge the rock faster. Most likely, Leo's air pocket would be destabilized and collapsed by the time we managed to dig to him." Nico explains. "Plus there's the small problem that we can't be sure where he even is, under all of that."

"We can't just leave him there!" Piper bursts out, her eyes flashing furiously. "Not if he's alive like you say!"

"The best chance Leo has of surviving is if he manages to dig himself out. Any attempt we make to help him will only hurt him." Nico says, trying to rationalize the situation. Piper doesn't look any less upset.

"As much as I hate the idea of just leaving him-" Annabeth starts to say in a reluctant tone, and then interrupts herself, looking around and gripping the hilt of her sword. "Where's Percy?"

They all look around, and Reyna just catches a fleeting glimpse of him working his way over to the mountain of stone Leo is buried under before the monsters close ranks behind him.

Annabeth glares after him, and Jason puts out a hand as if he half expects her to go after him, but to Reyna's surprise, she just sighs.

"He is such an idiot." She mutters.

"You aren't going to go after him?" Piper asks, startled out of her anger.

"At any other time, yes. But we're in the middle of a battle to save the world, and we need to stay together as much as we can." It looks like it kills her to say it, but she goes on anyway. "He'll have to go on his own."

For the briefest of moments-no more than a fleeting few milliseconds, if that-Annabeth's eyes look so utterly shattered that with the mixed blood and ichor staining her clothes and armor, and the sword at her waist, Reyna would say she looks completely mad. Like she's been truly driven insane by her experiences.

Then she inhales deeply, and straightens her back, and all of that disappears. She's never looked more capable.

Reyna blinks in surprise at the transformation, and then shakes her head, focusing on the battle at hand.

After all, she can never get her personal happily ever after if they don't save the world.

Leo

Leo coughs first as he comes to-his body seems to be trying to force his lungs out through his mouth, and he doesn't appreciate it. His throat and chest feel as if they're filled with dust, and he really wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

Keeping his eyes closed, he starts to take stock of his situation. He decides to start with his feet and work his way up.

His left leg feels like it's just slightly pinned under something. It isn't particularly painful-a slight ache, and that's all. His right ankle throbs with a much more intense and persistant pain every few seconds, and he'd guess that he strained it a bit more than it already was. Other than that, his legs feel fine. He can wiggle his toes and everything.

He decides to try and sit up-which fails when he realizes that his ribs didn't make it through without taking a bit of a battering. He presses gently on his ribcage with his right hand, wincing-but he manages to confirm that they're not broken. Most likely just badly bruised. Possible cracks or fractures.

His arms seem fine, other than a few new scrapes and scratches. His neck isn't broken-well, obviously-and it doesn't hurt to turn his head or anything.

Then his hands come to his face, and he yelps out loud as soon as he touches his left cheek.

Panting, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, he waits a few moments for the blinding pain to fade to a dull throb and then gingerly starts to inspect the damage again with a feather-light touch.

The skin is raw. Badly scraped; although not as bad as Piper's acid burns. This will heal, eventually. There's a shallow cut through the middle of it, and he follows the wide line of blood up to his eye.

And stops.

His eye is a mess. He can feel that just by brushing the edges of his bottom eyelid. Swollen, bleeding, bruised, and he's not even sure if he'll be able to see out of it.

As he becomes aware of it, sudden sharp, stabbing pain starts radiating through his skull between about three-second intervals. He grits his teeth against it, and sits up.

His hair just brushes rock above his head, and he ducks a bit to avoid hitting it. His ribs protest as they did the first time he tried to sit up, but he ignores them.

Then he opens his eyes.

And sees nothing except for absolute darkness. Which, of course, is to be expected, since he's buried underneath several tons of rock and dirt.

Muttering curses under his breath, he fumbles at his toolbelt.

"Give me an LED flashlight." He tells it clearly, and then withdraws it from the pocket, clicking it on.

Blinding brightness. He has to blink several times to adjust to it, and when he does, he can see that he's in an air pocket of sorts, surrounded on all sides by the rock and dirt. His left leg is half-buried in a pile of pebbles and dirt, and his foot is underneath a slab of rock that's tilted in just the right way that it doesn't crush it. Beyond that, there's a bit of a tunnel that might lead to another air pocket if he's careful.

He places a hand over his right eye and breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes he can still see out of his left.

Sort of.

Everything is vague and blurry, and he keeps having to blink to clear the blood that keeps dripping into his vision. But there are definitely some colors to everything. Lots of brown and gray right now, mostly. And some things that looks sort of the shape that rocks would be.

Okay, so he can't really see. But it's better than total blindness in one eye, right?

He sighs, and asks his toolbelt for a compact mirror. It obliges, and he raises it and the flashlight so he can see what his eye looks like.

As soon as the light settles in the right place, he flinches, blinking hard. His eye really is a horror. Bruised and bloody, as he guessed, and slightly swollen all around. But his eye is red with ruptured blood vessels, and seeing that, he has to double check that none of the blood is coming from the eye itself.

The normal dark brown color of his iris is now fragmented in a way that makes it look like irregularly shattered glass, with bits of green and blue showing occasionally across it. The edges bleed into the whites of his eyes a bit-not too noticeably, just to make it a bit blurry-seeming.

"Ow." He mutters, and sets the mirror on his lap, trying to avoid looking too hard at it. He'd love to just put it back, but he'll have to use it if he wants to attend to his eye in any sort of medical way.

He pulls bandages, gauze, medical tape, peroxide, cotton swabs, nectar, and ambrosia from his toolbelt. He starts to withdraw his hand, and then pauses and asks for one more item, setting that aside for later. He goes ahead and places a square of ambrosia on his tongue to eat while he works.

Using the mirror, he drips nectar in and around his eye-the swelling immediately starts to go down, which helps make the rest of his job easier.

Then he uses the cotton swabs and peroxide to clean up the cuts and bruises and wipe away the blood, after which he starts to tape gauze over it. That goes easier than he expected, and he adds a more heavy-duty bandage over the gauze before adding the last item he set aside before.

The eyepatch fits snugly over the bandages, and from handling it, Leo knows that it has a piece of paper-thin industrial-strength fiberglass pressed between the thick leather, most likely as a safeguard against further injury. Whatever the reason for it, though, it reassures him a bit.

Then he replaces the leftover supplies back in the pockets of his toolbelt, sighing heavily.

Just as he finishes, the rock above him groans ominously, and he glances up.

It groans again, louder this time, and dust and debris showers from over his head.

Galvanized to action, Leo starts pulling parts and tools from his belt, his fingers flying feverishly over it all, and before five minutes have passed, he's almost finished with an invention to get him out of the mess he's in.

Hopefully.

He adds the last piece and holds it triumphantly up to the light-during it, he held the flashlight in his mouth to keep it steady. "Perfect." He mumbles around the object between his teeth, and clicks the button to turn it on.

The blades whir to life, spinning at the same rate as a hummingbird's wing-faster, maybe-and he presses the button again to turn it off for now. He just needed to make sure it worked.

Glancing around, his gaze settles on the shadowy tunnel beyond his feet. Moving, folding his legs up under him-and pulling his left leg from the pile of pebbles and dirt in the process-he crouches forward to inspect it.

It doesn't appear to go far. But it's angled slightly upward, at a tilt that would be easy for him to crawl up.

That's the only reason he can't drill straight above his head. He can't climb vertically very well, can he? But something like this should be easy as pie.

He sets his little machine up at the beginning of the tunnel, pressing the first button. Again, the blades at the front of it start to spin. Then he flips a small switch at the back, and the digging machine moves forward.

As soon as it encounters the rock, it starts to move faster, and the blades cut through it as if it's nothing. At first, Leo's worried the stone will start to groan again, but when it doesn't, he allows himself a triumphant grin and crawls after his invention.

It doesn't take long for him to get tired. Especially with the constant aches in his ribcage and the itching when the dust settles on his face. He keeps having to remind himself not to scratch the left side of his face.

Weird, though, that he and Piper both got injured on the same side, isn't it? Although statistically more likely, since opponents are usually right-handed-as are most people-and face your left side. But Leo's injury wasn't caused by an enemy. Just a rockslide. So...coincidence.

He wonders if the others think he's dead? They probably do. He is buried under several tons of rock. But maybe Nico can sense otherwise? Are they looking for him? Has anyone tried to come up with an idea to get him out?

They probably just think he's dead. Last he saw, Nico wasn't quite with the others, so he might not even know what happened. If he didn't sense a death, there's no reason for him to think anything's wrong.

Except Piper did scream, didn't she? Nico wouldn't have been able to ignore that. None of them could've.

He shrugs away thoughts of the others and forces himself to focus on crawling after his machine. Getting distraction could mean making a fatal mistake with directing it.

The air starts to get a little lighter. Easier to breath, easier to see-he judges that to mean they're getting close to the surface. The less dirt and stone there is between the air outside and here, the more light and oxygen that can filter through, right?

He starts to crawl a little faster, ready to be out of here, and the stone groans around him again, much, much louder than the first few times he heard. He scrapes his hand on a sharp rock, and hisses in pain, stopping to examine the dark blood pouring from the side of his hand. There's nothing he can do for it right now, so he just keeps going, ignoring the slippering grip his palm now has and the throbbing that pulses through it.

The air finally gets light enough so that he can see without the flashlight, and he pauses to pocket it. He can't be more than a yard or two from the surface now, and he feels hope start to rise in him that he'll get out of this one alive.

And, of course, as soon as he thinks that, the blades of his machine suddenly catch on something and shred to pieces on it, short-circuiting and sending electricity arcing along the metal pieces until the whole thing promptly collapses into a pile of rubbish.

"You have got to be kidding me." He groans disbelievelingly, and crawls up to his invention's remains.

In the cramped space, he doesn't have room to make a second machine. And even if he did, his toolbelt is still cooling down from all he asked of it to make the first one.

There isn't anything salvageable among the debris of the first, either.

Leo rocks back on his knees with a low sigh through his nose, and then glances forward at the end of his tunnel.

There's rock there. A boulder, he'd guess. Burrowed partially into-he can see that there are studded crystals in it, most likely what his machine caught on. But above it, at the junction where the ceiling of the tunnel meets the abrupt end, there's dirt, and pebbles.

Leo scrambles carefully over the sharp metal pieces of the last of his invention, kicking it back behind him, and reaches up, digging his fingernails into the dirt and pebbles and swiping at it.

A bunch of it showers down into his lap.

Heartened, he keeps going, and there's soon a big enough gap that he can force himself into it up to his waist. His fingernails start to bleed, but he keeps digging, scraping the dirt and pebbles back to his machine-dug tunnel.

He scrapes a hole with his hand up to his wrist, recognizing that the dirt will be dislodged more easily and faster if he digs at it from both sides. He pulls the dirt out of his hand's mini-tunnel, and goes back, starting to dig again, when his fingers encounter-

Air.

Excited, he digs faster, and when he has a more decent-sized hole, light starts to shine across his legs.

He scrapes desperately at the dirt with both hands with a frenzied speed, and starts to drag himself up, forcing his shoulders up even though the tunnel he's made really isn't nearly big enough for that.

His hand reaches out into the air, so that his entire arm up to the elbow is free, and he luxuries in the feeling of the breeze against his bleeding fingers. He starts trying to pull himself up, bracing himself against the edge of the pile and trying to force himself through the remaining inches of packed dirt and rock, but it isn't working and the stone starts to grind and groan around him again, and he starts to feel desperate, thinking that he's going to fail with only that last small bit between him and freedom-

And then someone's hand catches his own in a firm grip and starts to heave him out.

The debris starts to shift, and his other hand breaks out, to get caught by a second hand, and he kicks with his feet, scrabbling for purchase on the rough tunnel walls to push himself up-

And then, with one last pull that nearly pulls his arms out of their sockets, he's out, and he collapses on the ground, gasping for breath, coughing as he breathes in air that isn't filled with dust.

"Are you okay?" A voice says, gripping his shoulders hard. "Leo, are you okay?"

Leo's vision swims blearily, but the person crouched in front of him finally fades into view, and he blinks hard, nodding as Percy checks him all over for serious injury, hesitating in quick succession over the cuts on his arms, hand, face, and then the bandage and eyepatch over his eye.

"What happened to your eye?" He asks, concerned, and then when Leo doesn't answer, "Leo? Leo, what happened to your eye?"

"I'm not sure." Leo answers, his voice dry and hoarse and raspy and barely there at all. "I guess one of the many many rocks hit it in the original rockslide. I can still sorta see out of it, but-not really."

"Well, one eye is better than none, right? And at least the vision isn't completely gone. Maybe you'll get it back after it heals up a bit." Percy reassures him, and then presses ambrosia into his hand. "Eat some of this, all right? I don't care if you already have, go ahead and eat some more. It'll help."

Leo doesn't even try to protest, and the blessed relief that flows through him when he bites into it is so pleasant that he just about throws his arms around Percy in a hug.

Percy heaves him to his feet after a few minutes rest, though, and keeps a hand on his shoulder to steady him until he finds his balance.

"Where are the others?" He asks thickly.

"I, um, sort of wandered away while they were still discussing tactics of how they were going to help you. How they could help you, actually." Percy admits.

Leo raises his eyebrows. "Wandered?"

"Okay, more like sneaked. They weren't paying attention, and they definitely weren't doing anything. Only problem, I sort of got a little cut off after I finally got over here..." He trails off, and Leo focuses on where they are.

Piles of monsters dust litter the ground-nothing new, although there are a lot of them that weren't there before. But more important is the line of monsters waiting to attack below them-they're elevated a bit on a higher shelf of rock.

"Why aren't they attacking now?" Leo asks curiously.

"I backed them off a bit. Most monsters really don't like water, did you know that?" Percy asks vaguely, seemingly randomly.

Looking closer, Leo can see that several of the monsters are completely drenched. "No, I wouldn't say I knew that."

"Yeah, well, they don't." Percy replies, grinning. The smile quickly fades, though, as he looks at what they'll have to fight through to get back to the others.

Leo takes the opportunity to pull another hammer from his belt-now, of course, it's recharged-since he lost his other one when he threw it at Mimas' ugly face.

"Ready?" He asks, and Percy nods once, adjusting his grip on Riptide's hilt.

"Ready." Then he leaps forward, leading the plunge into the crowd of enemies below them. Leo follows after a few seconds delay, immediately slammed with monster after monster to fend off, and he soon finds himself fighting back to back with Percy.

"Hey, Leo?" Percy calls. ""Just in case we die, I thought you'd want to know-I saw Calypso the night before Eris took us away for the tests."

Leo's so shocked by this he stumbles and almost gets decapitated. "What?!" He erupts, and Percy glances at him irritatedly.

"Look, I'd've told you sooner, but there wasn't really a good time for it. And it didn't last for long-whatever connection she'd managed was unstable. It was just enough time for-" His voice falters. "For her to say she forgave me."

Leo gapes at him, and Percy has to kill a monster to keep it from cutting his throat. "And you only just thought to tell me all this now?!"

"Well, it's not exactly something you bring up during a trial to supposedly test your 'worthiness' for the gods." Percy replies, a little crossly, and Leo has to admit that he has a point. He falls into silence.

"I think she was checking up on you." Percy finally says, his voice soft, and Leo's heart warms at the thought that she might have been doing that same thing. Then his cheeks color a bit as he remembers he was wearing a pink dress and paint on his face at the time.

"Do you think she-" He starts to ask, but Percy beats him to it.

"Saw you? Oh, definitely." He answers, and Leo can hear the grin in his voice. When he speaks again, though, he's serious once more. "I promise, Leo, we'll free her from that island. We'll go back for her after this is all over, and you, Annabeth, and I can all help you-"

"Wait, what do you mean? I'm going alone." Leo interrupts.

"No, you're not." Percy retorts. "I'm not about to let you go on a quest like that by yourself. You could get killed, then what? Calypso gets left there for another thousand years, and she loses the one person she finally got to experience true love with. Yeah, I don't think so."

"Well, I don't care what you think." Leo says angrily. "I'm going alone, and you can't stop me."

Percy suddenly spins away and when Leo turns, the son of Poseidon is facing him, completely ignoring the monsters except for an absentminded parry of weapons every once in a while. "I'd rather not have to stop you, but I could if I wanted to, and you know that. Either way, though-if I have to handcuff you to my own wrist, I'll do it, but you're not going alone, and I'll make sure you don't sneak away."

A telkhine nearly slices him in half, and he sends it yelping away with a flat-footed kick to the snout at the very last minute. The next second, Leo has to shove him to keep him from getting impaled by a dracaenae's spear.

"Will you be careful?" He yells, but Percy just ignores him. He doesn't even seem to register the fact that he just almost died twice.

"Promise you won't try to go alone." He demands stubbornly.

"If I do, will you focus on the monsters trying to kill you and not my predicament with Calypso?" Leo asks, exhasperated.

"I am focusing." Percy says, twirling Riptide back along the length of his forearm and thrusting backwards, stabbing an empousai through the back of her mouth as she opens it to bite him.

"Will you promise?" Leo insists, growing more aggravated by the second.

"Only if you do." Percy replies stubbornly.

"Fine! I promise I won't try to go save Calypso by myself!" He swears. "Happy?"

"Swear on the River Styx." Percy insists. "And going with Festus doesn't count."

Damnit. Leo thinks. That was going to be his loophole. He sighs. "Whatever-I swear I won't try to go save Calypso on my own, even if I am with Festus! And I swear it on the River Styx! Now move, you over-stuffed fish!" Leo shouts as loud as he can, and Percy blinks in surprise at his forcefulness. Leo blows out an aggravated breath and shoves the son of Poseidon sideways just in time for them both to avoid a hellhound's lunge.

"Over-stuffed fish?" Percy asks, his brow furrowed.

"My insults suffer when I'm under pressure, okay?" Leo replies. "Now, promise you'll focus on keeping us alive!"

Percy rolls his eyes. "I promise I'll focus on the monsters trying to kill us and keeping us alive instead of your predicament with Calypso." He recites, and Leo exhales heavily.

"There. Wasn't so hard, was it?" He asks, and Percy opens his mouth to respond. Before he can, though, his eyes flare wide with sudden fear, and the next second, he's shoving Leo to the ground and out of the way of a strike from a minor giant's sword that would've killed Leo-and would've then killed Percy, had Leo not grabbed his friend's ankle and pulled him to the ground next to him.

The sword whistles harmlessly over their heads, and as soon as it's clear, they both scramble to their feet, attacking the giant while he's off-balance in a pincer movement that defeats him easily once Eris joins in with one last dagger strike to finish him off.

"We both have really bad self-preservational instincts, you know that, right?" Leo asks once they've reached a lull.

"Self-preservation is overrated." Percy replies, grunting as his sword sticks in a dracaenae's shield. "Just protect your friends and they'll usually manage to tackle you soon enough to keep you from dying in a super-cliche sacrificial moment."

Leo snorts, and Percy's lips twitch up in a faint smile.

They lapse into silence, and as they continue to fight, with six more monsters taking the place for every two they cut down, Leo's thoughts turn darkly frustrated once more, as they were before he had to fight for his friends again.

There is no point to all this. He insists to himself, agitated. Look at yourself-why are you even still trying? None of this is going to make a difference anyway. A few years from now, we might face the same problem again. The end of the world, big doomsday battle-and that's if we even win today. Despairing anger rushes through him, and he smashes in an empousai's skull with a particularly savage backstroke of his hammer.

I don't want to do this. He thinks, as he sets fire to a dracaenae's snaky hair. I don't want to always be fighting this never-ending battle of wills between good and evil. I didn't choose this-when did I ever choose this? The whole decision was made for me. I was "chosen" for it-as if that's such an honor.

Buried in his dark thoughts, Leo doesn't notice the hellhound until it crashes bodily into him, knocking him onto his back hard enough that he sees stars. A downstroke by Percy is the only reason the hound doesn't rip out his throat and end it right then and there.

A small whisper in the back of his mind wishes it had.

Percy holds out a hand to help Leo up, but he doesn't take it.

"What's the point?" He asks tonelessly, and Percy's expression abruptly changes to one Leo doesn't recognize. He waits, half-expecting an answer, but Percy doesn't give one.

"There isn't one, is there? We'll all die eventually, and the monsters all just keep coming back no matter how many times we kill them." Leo continues, his voice utterly emotionless.

But if you quit, Calypso will be left alone on her island for eternity. A voice nags at him. But he's too overwhelmed by the battle-drowning in the hopelessness of it all.

"Leo-" Percy starts, but Leo cuts him off.
"How long do you think it'll be before they expect this of us again?" Leo demands, seized by a sudden, furvent, mad anger. "A year? Two? We'll never be finished. They'll keep calling on us to save them, to save everyone, blabbing on and on about what an honor it all is that we get to be chosen. I've always wanted to protect my family, my friends, but not like this." He sits up, aggravated all at once by the feverish images flashing through his mind, and presses his palms to his head, discarding his hammer by his side, barely registering the dull thud as it hits the ground.

Fire, fire, fire, fire, always fire; his mother's last smile; diablo, devil, monster; that foster home where they locked him in his room so he couldn't run and he climbed out a third-story window to get away; the look on Hazel's face when she was stabbed from behind; Piper's new scars; blood, blood, streaming in crimson rivulets from an ancient stone altar that they destroyed but that still lives in his head-

Rough hands grab his shoulders, jolting him out of his spiraling descent into madness, and he lifts his tortured gaze to meet Percy's eyes-sea green, determined, and grim.

"Leo, listen to me." He says, his voice firm and brooking no argument.

He's going to die too. His mind says, and his vision goes fuzzy all of a sudden before focusing back in with sharp, drastic detail on the blood dripping from a scratch on Percy's forehead and the ash smudged on his cheek.

"If there's anything I've learned in my experience fighting monsters since I was twelve, it's that each triumph only lasts as long as the next monster." Percy tells him, shaking his shoulders until he looks back into his eyes. "Those victories can last as long as a day, or a week, or a month, or a year. Maybe a decade or two if you're lucky. But the monsters always come back."

"It's all pointless. You can't live life that way." Leo mumbles protestingly. Percy ignores him.

"There are small victories, and bigger ones, and sometimes you win battles when you thought you won a war, but the feeling you get when you do win, every time, every day; when you beat the monsters back and get to spend another year with the ones you love; that's what makes it all worth it. The battles would be worth fighting for one more minute with my family. And that minute could make all the difference."

"One day after months of fighting isn't any sort of reward." Leo disagrees.

"But what if that day is the perfect day? What if, during that day, everything is so blissful and peaceful and perfect that suddenly everything seems so amazingly worth it? What if that one day you get for fighting when you wanted nothing more to give up-what if that day is the day?" Percy asks, and his tongue trips over itself in his rush to convince Leo of this before the enemy rallies and starts attacking in earnest again. "That day could be the day you rescue Calypso, and you can spend all 24 hours with her, just laughing in the sun, and then at night you can watch the stars and bask in the feeling of being together. That day could be everything."

Leo just shakes his head, numb. Some part of his mind is trying to imagine a semblance of the day Percy describes, but he can't suddenly can't call any happy memories to mind. "Those days don't exist. They aren't real."

"Yes, they are." Percy insists. "What about the day before the Eris trials, when we all worked down in the engine room together? And then we went swimming, and ate lunch all together, before playing games and laughing and eating our weight in junk food?"

Leo starts to remember-the sun was shining all day, so bright and warm that it made him smile every time he went above deck. And Piper made him wear a dress...

"What about when you were young? Some day with your mom when it was just the two of you and you got to do something you'd been wanting to do for the longest time with her?" Percy asks.

"She took me to the zoo once." Leo remembers. "We stayed by the lions all day because I refused to go anywhere else, and then she took me for ice cream and bought me an extra-large banana split that we ate while sitting on a park bench and watching all the people go buy." He pauses, thinking, and then adds, "She gave me balloons, too."

"See?" Percy smiles. "Those days exist. You just keep having to fight past the darkness so you can find them."

He said darkness that time. Leo notices.

Percy seems to realize what he said a second after Leo does, and his smile falters. He steps back, releasing Leo and reaching up to run his fingers through his hair. His eyes suddenly fill with worry, and Leo breaks out of his melancholy enough to be able to stand and lay a hand on his shoulder.

"What's wrong?" He asks. He knows Percy well enough to know that he's not acting normal.

"Nothing." The son of Poseidon murmurs, and Leo glares at him until he finally looks away, unable to meet his gaze any longer. "You've heard about the Second Titan War, right? About Luke, and how Kronos took over his body to fight us?"

"Yeah." Leo replies, a cold sense of foreboding trickling down his spine. "They had to tell us that story about a thousand times at camp."

Percy looks back up, meets his look with tortured, broken sea green eyes that waver with an unspoken, hidden darkness just under the surface. "Well, it's happening to me." He says, his voice quiet and strained. "Not Kronos-Kronos is as close to dead as an immortal can get. But Tartarus-Tartarus did something while I was down there, and now he's in my head."

Leo is frozen in shock. Here he was, throwing a pity party for himself, letting his mind fall into depressed madness while Percy tried his best to convince him that it all really was worth it. Coming from a boy who has an evil Primordial god in his head and fighting for possession.

"Percy-" He starts to say, even though he has no idea what he would tell him, but Percy shrugs him away and grins. He makes a valiant effort, and anyone else would be fooled, but now that Leo's looking, he can see the undercurrent of shadows in his expression.

"I'm fine." Percy interrupts. "I'm winning, obviously, for now, and I'm sure that I won't have any more problems with it after today."

Something in the way he says it-something in his eyes, the way they flicker away and then back while he speaks-fills Leo with an intense worry that he didn't know he could feel any more. Because Percy didn't sound like he meant because they'd defeat Gaea-or that he'd defeat Tartarus.

It sounded more like he was saying Tartarus would defeat him. Or-or that he'd die.

Leo remembers, suddenly, the thought he had while his thoughts were running in dark circles and he'd looked up at Percy. He's going to die too. For some reason, in that moment, he'd been utterly convinced Percy was going to die today.

He shoves that thought away. No, he tells himself. Percy wouldn't leave Annabeth alone. He doesn't want to die. And he's not going to-Percy can't die. He's the son of Poseidon! I'm just imagining things.

"Now-let's get through this." Percy continues, gesturing to the monsters blocking their way and wielding his sword in a loose, confident grip. "I'll use water, you use fire, and let's fight our way back to our friends. They need us right now."

Leo nods, and picks his hammer up from where he dropped it on the ground. Then he holds it in one hand and holds out the other, palm up, concentrating until a small ball of flame flickers to life over it. Percy grins at him through it, and Leo returns the fierce smile, hefting his hammer.

"Let's get this party started." Leo tells him, and then they run directly into the heart of the monsters, combining their fire and water powers in an attack of explosive strength. Working together, it isn't long before the others come into view.

They start moving faster when they see them. Because they're all already together, except for Reyna and Nico, who are off to the side, defending their backs. And they're facing Porphyrion.

Jason

Jason doesn't have any idea how he's going to survive past the day. But that's okay, because that hasn't been his goal for a long time.

He looks over to where Piper is, swinging her sword in a deadly arc with a fierce, determined look on her bloody, ash-smudged face. No, he thinks. My only goal today is to save her. Even if all she wants is to save herself.

Of course, it'd be a delightful surprise if he did live through this last battle. He's not about to do something irrational and stupid to throw his life away so that he can make sure he dies in some big sacrificial way. He's not going to stop fighting. But if Piper's in danger, he will gladly take her place.

Nico and Reyna are doing a good job at keeping most of the monsters at bay while he, Piper, Frank, Hazel, and Annabeth wait for Porphyrion to approach. There are still plenty of enemies to occupy the five of them, but not a dangerous many.

The sound of an explosion makes Jason look to his right, where he's surprised-but not unhappy-to see Percy making his way towards them, leading a dirty, bruised, and battered Leo behind him.

The two of them arrive just as Porphyrion does, and Jason nods to Percy, who nods back once before striding over to Annabeth's side, Leo on his heels. He says something quietly in her ear, and she glances at Leo before nodding once and raising her sword higher in determination.

I wonder what that's all about. Jason thinks. But he doesn't have time to dwell on it, because Porphyrion decides to make his presence known.

"Son of Jupiter." The giant sneers, scowling. "I underestimated you in our last fight. It will not happen again."

"Actually, you did a bit more than underestimate me. If I remember correctly, you ran away." Jason replies, clenching his left hand in a loose fist. He's not used to taunting his enemies, but it seems to work well for Percy and Leo.

Porphyrion snarls. "A fluke."

"I don't think so." Percy joins in. "You don't run because of a 'fluke.' The only reason you would run from a fight is because you were scared."

The giant hefts his sword, narrowing his eyes at Percy as if deciding on which way he's going to kill him.

Leo, standing next to Percy, nonchalantly raises his hand and lets his fingers burst into flame.

Porphyrion takes one look at the two of them, confidently standing against him with weapons drawn, and decides against targeting them. His eyes flick away. Percy lets a dark smile creep over his face.

But the next second, Porphyrion's eyes wander to rest on Hazel, and his sword suddenly flashes down.

By some great stroke of luck, the flat of the blade hits her, not the edge, so she's sent tumbling head over heels across the ground instead of cut in half. But she doesn't move when her tumbling finally stops, and Jason doesn't have time to run after her, because then Porphyrion uses his momentary advantage of surprise to attack everyone else.

Frank manages to slip away before getting fully engaged into the fight, and Jason watches him out of the corner of one eye as he pads over to Hazel's side in lion form, holding his breath while he waits for some sort of sign.

Frank sniffs Hazel's face, breathing gently over her skin so that her hair ruffles. Then he snorts, shakes his head, and licks her cheek once before laying down and resting one paw across her hips protectively, every line of his body belying his watchfulness.

Not dead, then. Jason thinks, relieved. If she was dead, Frank's reaction would doubtless have been a little bit more forceful.

He and Piper fight side by side for the longest time, fending off the strikes as Porphyrion deals them out. He backs them against the monsters, so they have to watch and defend their backs as well as their throats, but never once do they even think about giving up.

When his energy starts to fade, all Jason has to do is look over at Piper, at her fierceness even through all she's been through, and his strength comes rushing back.

They attack as a team, the five of them, and it becomes apparent that all those hours spent trying to create that sense of each other were worth it. All it takes is a glance, or a wicked smile, or the slightest tilt of someone's head, and everyone else knows exactly what to do. After a few minutes, Percy looks over at everyone from his flank position and nods, just once.

As one, they press harder, and step by step, begin to push Porphyrion back.

It isn't quite enough, though, and they all know that. Piper meets Jason's eyes, and he knows what to do.

He steps out behind everyone else, watching as they close the gap where he was in one fluid movement.

"Don't get yourself killed, Superman, or I'll have to step up to take care of the heroics." Piper calls back to him, and he grins, even though she can't see him.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Beauty Queen." He teases, and her back stiffens. He just laughs at her irritation, though, and she relaxes at the sound, shaking her head and muttering uncomplimentary things under her breath.

"Love you, Pipes." He tells her, knowing that if he dies before getting to her again, he wants those to be his last words to her.

"Love you, too, Superman." She replies, and the words are heartfelt despite their teasing banter only moments ago.

Jason captures hold of the winds and uses them to lift himself several dozen feet above the others, hoping the others can distract Porphyrion long enough for him to deal the giant a fatal blow from his place of advantage in the air. He's so focused on the scene below him, waiting for his opportunity, that he doesn't notice the danger he's in until it's too late.

Son of Jupiter. Harsh voices hiss in his head. His neck snaps as he jerks his head up, momentarily faltering in his control of the winds and losing several feet of height before he regains it again.

Dozens of stormy gray venti circle around him in horse form, wisps of smoke and mist curling from their ethereal bodies, as if their souls are trailing behind them. Occasionally visible among them, between legs or revealed by the flick of a tail, more sinister creatures hover-bat-like hags with eyes that glow red as burning coals and remind him of the Furies.

The Furies are minions of Hades, so that can't be them...but what else is there in mythology that looks like that?

As soon as he thinks it, Jason remembers a small snippet of Percy and Annabeth's story of Tartarus...and he knows.

"Arai." He breathes, and his sword wavers in his grip.

Son of Zeus. The voices whisper. We see you've chosen the Greeks. Another flash of red eyes through one of the venti as it's form flickers briefly before solidifying back into swirls of cloud and mist. We can smell it on you.

"You can smell that I've chosen Greek over Roman?" He asks, his thoughts derailed for a moment.

We know everything. The voices reply, instead of answering his question properly. You've been cursed, Jason Grace, as all sons of Jupiter and Zeus. Curses layered infinitely on top of others. You've caused so many monsters pain. So much fighting, so much saving. Surely you're tired of it all?

One of the venti rears onto its hind legs, hooves flashing out and just missing his head before it drops back down and dissolves into gray winds that scream past Jason before exploding on impact with another venti. The two forms coalesce into one, and that venti tosses its head, snorting, as it becomes much more substantial.

Time to give up, saving grace. The arai purr, their voices wrapping around him, clinging to his skin in a caress that burns his flesh. Time for the cape to burn and the heroics to be destroyed as your curses finally catch up to you.

Jason is frozen by their words, his expression twisted into a pained expression-he opens his mouth to try and reply, and that's when the enemies of the air make their attack.

The venti all launch themselves at him at once, coming at him from all around with heads lowered, the arai flashing among them with talons outstretched, and Jason doesn't have the time to do anything to defend himself, even if their was a way to do so.

They all hit him at once, and the impact as the venti's essences push their way against him with the force of the winds behind them makes him scream out loud in pain-the sound is muffled by the mist, and it doesn't do anything to relieve the outstanding pain his entire body is in.

He opens his eyes, and for a second, all he can see is swirling gray and black and a flash of burning red.

Then his weight drops out from under him and his mind goes suddenly, violently black.

Piper

Piper sees the venti surround Jason almost as soon as he flies up. She sees him raise his sword, uncertain, as the creatures she know as the arai join the forces of the attack. She sees it when they all burst forward at once, trailing lightning and black and gray mist.

She hears the impact, louder than a clap of thunder, as they all hit at once-for a moment, Jason's scream of pain.

And then she sees when his sword falls and spins, blade over hilt, towards the ground, followed seconds later by his lifeless body.

"JASON!" She screams, the cry of anguish bursting out of her in a sound louder than she thought could possibly come from a human being; so loud that everyone battling across the mountain top falters a step.

But he doesn't make any actions to save himself. The only movement he makes is

fall

ing

down

and her world is going to crash with him if she doesn't do something.

Her charmspeak saved him once. It's going to have to save him twice.

"Jason, WAKE UP!" She pleads, pouring more charmspeak into her voice than she ever has. "WAKE UP, and use the winds to save yourself!"

He still doesn't move, and the fear that he's already dead builds in her chest.

When she next opens her mouth, her voice is a siren's song, yelled louder than the sirens could ever speak it. "WAKE. UP!" She sings into the wind-the rich tone of her charmspeak makes the words a musical note, and that note hangs hauntingly in the air, echoing through the sky as thunder cracks between the lightning strikes that flicker through the clouds and she waits for some sign in the lifeless body of her only love that he is still alive.

His body jerks suddenly, pulled sideways by some invisible force, and the next second, he's upright instead of spread-eagled as he falls closer and closer to the ground.

For the next agonizing seconds, Piper watches as he 'staggers' through the air, falling less and less with each jerk. He can't seem to stop himself completely-but he slows enough that an impact with the ground would only bruise him and maybe break a bone or two instead of killing him outright.

She presses her hand to her mouth to muffle the sob of relief that wants to burst from her lips, but behind her fingers, she is smiling through the endless tears that pour from her eyes.

Jason

Jason's vision won't stop fading in and out of darkness, and his entire body is screaming in agony, but he's alive.

For now.

He can't control the winds enough in his state to stop his descent completely. All he can do is slow it down and direct himself so he doesn't land in a monster's lap.

Seeing Percy, Annabeth, and Leo fighting desperately to fend off Porphyrion while Frank protects Hazel's still form, he makes a really, really stupid decision. He directs himself at Porphyrion.

He doesn't have his sword. All he has is a heavy knife strapped to his belt that Piper insisted he take. His vision is blurry, when it isn't completely dark. He can barely hold himself up at all-the winds are all that's keeping him upright.

But he does it anyway, because if something doesn't happen in the next minute to turn the tides, his friends are going to lose their fight.

He pulls the knife from his belt, even though it'll be hardly any use against the King of Giants. His other hand clenches into a fist as he projects as much strength as he possibly can into controlling the winds to slow his impact-which, at this point, will be with the back of Porphyrion's head. He's hoping he can get enough strength back in his arms and legs to brace himself when he hits so that he doesn't just crash full on and break every bone in his body. The weapons in Porphyrion's dreadlocks pose a bit of a problem with his landing, even if they can help later with the fact that he's virtually unarmed, but he chooses a place where he'll be able to avoid them anyway so he won't be cut to shreds.

A few seconds before the impact, Jason closes his eyes, bringing his arms and legs forward, and then turns off his control of the winds at the exact right time to give him the momentum he needs to do some damage to Porphyrion without doing the same amount to himself.

Porphyrion stumbles forward in the middle of a swing, nearly falling, and Percy, Annabeth, and Leo all scramble to get out of the way of being crushed. Annabeth trips when her bad ankle buckles underneath her, and Percy stops to help her up, supporting her weight and moving as fast as he can to get her out of the way of harm.

Leo runs to Piper, pulling her hand away from her face and wiping away the tears on her face-he wipes them as gently as he can from the acid scars on the left side, without flinching, and Jason could never be more grateful for that.

But his attention snaps back to Porphyrion after only a few moments of watching his friends when the giant shakes his head, trying to dislodge Jason from the hand- and footholds he's found in his hair.

Yeah, he's got bigger problems.

He holds on tighter with his right hand and uses the left to thrust his knife into Porphyrion's skull, jabbing it into the thick bone up to the hilt and then pulling it out to leave the wound to bleed while he swarms down to Porphyrion's neck, where he quickly grabs the closest sword and gets to work, swinging around the giant's face and striking wherever he can. The giant tries to grab him, but Jason is too fast and too small for Porphyrion to get a chance at any sort of direct hit.

Jason knows he can't kill him without a god. Looking up at the sky, he hopes his dad pulls through for him when the time comes.

Because of that brief glance, that quick, silent prayer, disaster strikes.

Porphyrion finally manages to get in a counterattack-and it makes up for all the times he's failed before, because it wrenches Jason's shoulder as it tears his tight grip loose and then makes him fall almost fifteen feet to the ground below.

Jason's vision blacks out when he hits the rocky earth, and when it comes back, he's gasping for the air that was forced from his lungs and watching as Porphyrion picks up his sword and starts towards him.

He staggers back to his feet, ignoring the pains and continous aches all throughout his body, tightening his fingers around the sword and knife he's managed to keep hold of.

He deflects Porphyrion's first strike-if he tried to block it outright, his sword would snap under the pressure.

When he pivots to the right, sending Porphyrion charging past, there's a brief flare of pain on the left side of his body, a little above his hip-then agony erupts, almost leaving him writhing on the ground, and he has to bite down on his tongue to keep from crying out.

He looks down, blinking away the tears of pain welling in his eyes, he finds the shaft of an arrow protruding from a tear in his t-shirt-the fletching, not the head, so he knows that whoever fired it did so from in front of him.

He sheathes the knife still clenched in his left hand, and then reaches around, fumbling along his side until he finds the spot where the heavy metal broadhead pierced all the way through. Luckily, or the arrow would have required surgery to remove, which he can't exactly do in the middle of a battle.

Jason snaps off the broadhead and the pulls the arrow out in one quick, smooth motion-the tugging he feels as it pulls out makes bile rise in his throat, but he forces it down and tosses the remains of the arrow away. Then he gently touches his side, and when his hand comes away covered in thick blood, he knows he's going to have to act fast and wrap up the fight with Porphyrion.

Just as he thinks that, the giant finally turns to confront him again. And this time, he doesn't play.

He swings his sword up over his head in a devastating overhead strike that Jason would never in a million years be able to deflect. And either the sword or knife he has would never put up to the strain. The knife is heavy, and won't break easily, but it's too small to do any good. His sword is too light.

But then he remembers a lesson-the memory is from a very long time ago, when he was just starting training with a sword, and his head is already fuzzy from blood loss. But it's called the double-knife defense, and while his sword is by no means a knife, the technique might just work.

At the very last second, he throws up his arms to block the strike, setting the heavy knife behind his sword as a support, and Porphyrion's death blow comes to a crashing halt.

Jason's knees buckle under the impact, but he forces himself to remain standing, even growing weaker every second, and Porphyrion scowls, pressing down harder.

With one last effort as Porphyrion only gains more force, Jason suddenly ducks sideways, letting Porphyrion's sword embed itself in the rock where he was just standing, and steps forward up under the giant's defense as he's forced to double over or let go of his only weapon. His sword finds itself resting against Porphyrion's throat, and he freezes.

"You don't have the strength." Porphyrion tells him. "You're already dying."

"If that's the case." Jason says back, his voice nothing but a hoarse croak. "I'm taking you with me." And his blade lays open the giants throat in one swift movement.

Porphyrion opens his mouth to howl in pain, his eyes bulging, but only a wet choking sound emerges. His fingers let go of the blade of his sword as he begins to fall backwards, and Jason stands to wait for his dad to finish the job.

At the same second as lightning flashes from the sky above them, Porphyrion gives his final farewell. His hand raises up, and a second before it happens, Jason knows what's coming.

Time seems to slow down. He can see the lightning strike, slowly crackling down over the giant's head. And he can see Porphyrion's hand, a millisecond faster than the lightning is.

He looks up, and there's Piper. Standing across from him, her mouth open in a scream that he can't hear, face twisted in grief as she too notices that Jason's dad was a little too slow. There's blood in her hair and pain in her eyes, gold monster dust shimmering across her skin.

"You are so beautiful." Jason murmurs, too low for anyone to hear. I love you forever and always, Piper Mclean.

Then time speeds up again and Porphyrion's hand crashes into him right before the lightning reduces him to dust.

Blinding pain. And then nothing.

Piper

Piper is sprinting before her head has even fully registered what is happening. It replays over and over in her head as dust and ash-the only thing that remains of Porphyrion-float through the air and obscure her vision.

The strike of lightning, flashing blue, a second too slow. Porphyrion, face twisted in rage and hatred, raising his hand for one last hit.

His hand crashing into Jason just as he explodes into dust as the lightning hits him, blocking Piper's view of the next crucial moments.

The air is still too thick and dark to see hardly anything, so she stumbles blindly, still running, ignoring the pain in her chest as she coughs, unable to breathe in anything except dust and ash. Her sword is long discarded behind her.

And then she sees him. His gold hair glittering even in the darkness caused by the thick dust hiding them both from everyone and everything else. A small cut across his cheek bone, still welling tiny drops of blood. The sword he took from Porphyrion's dreadlocks clutched loosely in limp fingers while the palm of his left hand rests lightly over the grip of his knife. A small pool of crimson underneath his left side, where the arrow from a dracaenae found its mark before Percy killed her.

His eyes are closed.

"Your eyes are closed." She tells him out loud, her lips numb, her voice muffled and her feet frozen in place.

Then she's scrambling to his side, kneeling next to him, her hand fluttering lightly over his side and then hovering midair as she sees the blood dripping from her fingertips, just from that brief touch.

"Jason." She says. Her hand strokes his hair, his forehead. The backs of her fingers caress the side of his face. "Jase, Jason-wake up."

Her other hand finds his limp one and clenches it tightly, hoping beyond all hope-expecting-to feel him squeeze back.

His skin is still warm.

"Wake up." She whispers. But he doesn't.

The hand that's not holding his, that just a moment before was stroking his face, pulls haltingly down to his neck. Her fingers hesitate in the air as she watches numbly, her mind empty. She isn't thinking anything. Anything.

Her fingertips rest against the hollow of his throat, where she used to always watch his pulse beat reassuringly when they cuddled. Every night, when she couldn't sleep, her hand would rest there and that was her security-her reassurance. It always lulled her to sleep, knowing he was there.

Now there's nothing.

Her fingers probe more firmly, searching, but they don't find anything. Her eyes wander up, and her hand, and they run through his hair to the back of his head so she can pull him into her lap.

His hair is sticky with blood-thick with warm crimson, and her hand shakes when she pulls it away to look in shock at the red coating her fingers.

"No." She mouths. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're okay, you're okay, you have to be okay." Her voice gets thick, and tears fall from her eyes like pouring rain, dripping onto Jason's face. "Wake up, Jase. Jason, wake up. Just open your eyes." She tells him, pouring charmspeak into her strained voice.

But he doesn't.

"Wake up." She whispers.

But he doesn't.

A keening scream rises in her throat-a horribly haunting sound that cuts through the thick, heavy air as if it were a knife. The keening rises to a full scream, filled with pain and grief and the pain in her chest, in her heart, that has no word.

Distantly, she hears someone yell, "No!" As they hear her, in a familiar voice cracking with horrified grief.

The scream finally cuts out to heavy, sobs, and she leans over, kissing him one last time on the lips as she shakes and the sobs create horrible whimpering noises in her chest.

Then all her energy seems to leave her at once, and she collapses across his chest, her right hand-still stained with his blood-curled between them. Between where their hearts are-where those parts of their chests would meet, if her hand wasn't there to hold them apart.

The blood of heroes taints the ground. Gaea's voice murmurs in her head. The blood of Olympus wakes me.

Sacrifices. The arai hiss together. Wonderful sacrifices to wake our goddess.

Piper barely hears them, barely registers the words. Her grief fills her, consumes her, becomes her, and her tears fall to mix with the blood pooling on the ground-tears that mix with the blood of the only boy she's ever truly loved. The first and only boy she ever will love.

I love you, Jason Grace. Runs through her head on an endless loop. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you...

She doesn't say it out loud. She can't; her tongue and her lips won't move to form any sounds other than the horrible sobs being wrenched from her throat. And he wouldn't be able to hear her anyway.

Because he's gone.

Jason Grace is dead.

Percy

Percy is running. He doesn't even remember when he took the first step forward, but now he's running through the thick, dust-filled air even though he can't see more than a few feet in front of him at any given time.

Annabeth is right on his heels, and a bit behind her, Leo. But Percy barely registers their presence.

This is my fault, all my fault. He thinks, his thoughts torturing him so that his face twists up in a pained grimace. I shouldn't have let him fight for us; I should have joined in to help him. It was never supposed to happen this way.

No one was supposed to die.

He hears a choked sobbing noise nearby, muffled by the heavy air, and then, only a few yards in front of him, shadowy shapes solidify into Piper.

Crying over Jason's body.

No. Is all Percy can think, looking at the scene. He waits for tears to come, for any emotion to scream its way out of him, but his heart is numb. The only sign of his subconscious grief is a lump in his throat that he can't seem to swallow away.

Annabeth nearly breaks down at seeing the two of them, and Percy doesn't blame her. He grabs her arm, gently pulling her towards him.

"Stay here for now." He tells her, and she opens her mouth to protest, upset, but he shakes his head, cutting her off. "Annabeth, if Piper sees you this upset, it'll only make it worse for her."

Annabeth closes her eyes, taking a deep breath in through her nose. Then she nods, and pulls her wrists out of his grip, waving him away towards her.

"Leo, come on." Percy says, gesturing for the son of Hephaestus to follow him. His face is pale, his expression shell-shocked, and Percy knows he's shaken by seeing his best friend dead. But he isn't having a mental breakdown, and he's Piper's best friend too. He's exactly what she needs right now.

"Piper." Leo calls gently as they approach. A shudder runs down her spine, but she doesn't look up. "Piper, you have to let go of him."

Kneeling down, he takes her hand and tries to gently pull it from Jason's, but she jerks away from him and shakes her head violently against Jason's chest.

"I won't let go." She tells him, her voice strangled. "I won't let go, I won't ever let him go."

Percy kneels across from her, closing his eyes briefly and swallowing hard when his eyes flicker to Jason's still face before he can stop himself. But he forces his eyes back open again, forces himself to lean forward and lay his hand on her back.

"Piper." He says softly. "You have to."

Her shoulders shake in a sudden loud sob, and she shakes her head again. "No." She refuses, her voice thick. "No, no, I won't. I can't. I can't let him go."

"Pipes, we'll get him back." Leo interjects, his voice loud and determined in the quiet. Percy meets his eyes over Piper's head, surprised, and Leo looks back at him with a hard look in his eyes.

Percy sees the determination he'd already had tucked against his heart reflected their, and nods to his friend gratefully.

"He isn't gone forever, Piper." Leo adds.

"If we have to drag Hades off of his throne and threaten to feed his heart to his own guard dog, we will." Percy tells her forcefully. "We're going to get him back. I promise."

Leo meets his eyes again, and they both know what they'll have to say to convince her, even though it could very well cost them their lives. But they do it anyway.

"We'll get him back." They say in unison. "We swear it on the River Styx."

Piper lets out a little gasp, and raises her head a bit, just barely enough to look Percy in the eye. She studies him through the film of tears that cover her eyes, and must see something their that she believes, because suddenly her arms are wrapped around him and Leo and they're both comforting her as she sobs against them, her blood-stained hands leaving crimson stains on their clothes and armor.

Neither of them care.

Her crying starts to slow, and then reduces itself to nothing but quiet tears and the occasional shudder. Percy doubts the tears will stop completely for a long time, and he doesn't hold it against her.

"You have to let me help." She whispers. "If you have to go to the Underworld and drag Hades off of his throne."

"No problem, Piper." Percy replies calmly. "We can make it a team effort."

She laughs a little, brokenly, and rocks back, wiping at her face. It doesn't do much, but she doesn't seem to care. "Thank you." She whispers, her voice thick and hoarse.

Percy opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, he hears Frank roaring in pain, followed by a scream. He's standing before he even thinks about moving, and Piper and Leo follow him to their feet.

"Will you be okay to fight, Piper?" Percy asks. At this point, he'd understand if she'd like to sit out the rest.

"Are you joking?" She asks angrily. "After what Gaea did-she killed Jason. It might have been Porphyrion that struck the blow, but it was Gaea's fault." Her face contorts in pain as she says it, but when she continues, her voice is as steady as ever. "I'm not going to forgive that. Ever. She's going to pay for it."

"Good." Percy says shortly. "Because I have a feeling things are about to get messy." He glances over at her and Leo. "We'll have to split up if we want to keep the giants at bay."

"I thought splitting up was the worst thing we could do?" Leo argues.

"It was. Up until now." Percy replies. "Now we don't have much of a choice."

They don't say anything more after that. All three of them all set off at the same time, in the directions they know to need the most support. Leo and Piper stay close, on their way to Reyna and Nico's aid, and Percy heads in the opposite direction, to Frank and Hazel and where he assumes Annabeth disappeared to, since she's no longer where he left her a few yards from Jason's body.

When he emerges from the worst of the thick, dusty air, he spots Frank immediately-still in lion form, but picking himself unsteadily up from a sprawled position on the ground. A monster tries to take a swipe at him, but Frank growls and snaps at it, sending it scurrying away.

Percy goes to him, recognizing that he needs help, and Frank transforms back into himself just as he reaches his side.

He's breathing hard, and wincing as even the slightest bit of weight rests on the metal leg Leo made for him. But he looks up at Percy, face tight with pain, and something in his eyes warns Percy what he's going to say a second before he says it.

"I lost her." He mutters, looking down. "There were monsters and then Enceladus and more giants-and I lost her."

"They took her?" Percy asks, fear growing in the pit of his stomach. "The giants took Hazel?"

Frank nods miserably. "I don't know where they went. I didn't see it."

"It's okay-it'll be okay." Percy reassures him, looking around, craning his neck to try and spot Enceladus. You can't just lose a thirty-foot tall giant, right? He should be easy enough to spot, but Percy can't see him anywhere. "We'll find her. You know Gaea likes to show off. She won't be quiet about another sacrfice. When they show Hazel, we'll just have to be quick about saving her."

Frank nods uncertainly. "But what if they just kill her and then show us?"

Percy stops looking and turns to glare at Frank. "Would you please stop giving me more things to worry about? I come up with enough on my own."

"Sorry." He mutters. "But what if they do?"

"They won't." Percy says firmly, with more certainty than he feels. "They won't. We'll get her back, okay?"

Frank draws himself up and nods a second time, more confidently this time.

"Okay. Good." Percy mumbles. "Leo and Piper went over to help Nico and Reyna, so they should be good over there. Did you see where Annabeth went? She kind of disappeared on me."

"I haven't seen her." Frank replies. "Sorry."

Percy waves it away. "It's okay; you were a bit preoccupied. I'm sure she's fine." Still, doubt nags at the back of his mind. "Try to find Enceladus, will you? Go in the general direction of where you last saw Nico and Reyna, I guess, since you can see more of the mountain from over there, and I'll go the other way."

"Sounds like as much of a plan as we can really have." Frank mutters. He hesitates, glances back up at Percy. "Is Jason really..."

Percy meets Frank's eyes with a pained look, and nods once. Frank closes his eyes, swaying slightly, trying to brace himself.

"Poor Piper." He murmurs softly.

"Leo and I promised we'd get him back." Percy tells him grimly. "If we have to drag Hades from the Underworld to do it, we will."

Frank nods jerkily. "I'll help."

Percy smiles without amusement. "I figured you'd say that." Then he sighs. "Let's go do this, shall we?"

Without further consent, Frank's form twists back into the shape of a lion, and he stalks away to find a better vantage point. Percy turns away from him after seeing that he's okay on his own and heads on his own way.

At least he'll be close to the others. Percy thinks. But none of them need to know what's really going on. They just need to be as far away from me as possible.

The fact that he still can't find Annabeth nags at him-he doesn't want her to be a part of this. She's the one he wants farthest away, not in the thick of it. And he has a horrible feeling that she's too close to be anywhere near out of danger.

It's time we finished this. He thinks at the shadows residing in his own head. One way or the other, this is over today.

A sense of amusement curls along his spine, and he has the urge to smile, but he shoves it away, knowing it doesn't belong to him.

There's a commotion across the field, diagonally from where the others are and some twenty yards away from Percy. He looks up, and is unsurprised to see Enceladus there, with Hazel a small, crumpled shape at his feet. She's sitting up, just barely, hunched over her stomach with her hands bracing against her chest, and her breath comes in hitching gasps.

Percy doesn't even blink, seeing it. After all, he's seen it before.

Snippets of his recurring nightmare flash in his head. This scene, exactly as it is now, played out in his mind dozens of times in the weeks they spent making their way to Athens. He's as familiar with it as he is with Riptide, the sword he holds know and has held for five years now.

"Hazel Levesque! The girl who made the ultimate sacrifice decades ago to prevent Porphyrion from rising, now our sacrifice to wake the Earth Mother!" Enceladus proclaims, and Percy snorts. He's more theatrical and dramatic than Zeus, Otis, and Ephialtes all combined. "Watch, so-called 'heroes of Olympus,' as we destroy your chances of triumph!"

Percy rolls his eyes and walks a little faster. As he nears the giants, one of the minor ones accompanying Enceladus steps away to confront him. Percy steps inside his guard before he can strike, out of reach of his sword, and deftly thrusts the point of his sword up through the underside of the giant's chin.

One of the minor gods that joined the battle with them finishes him off, and Percy disengages to continue his way towards Hazel, ready to confront Enceladus and be done with it.

He's nearly there-a little over halfway-when he hears a cry of pain behind him and turns to see a scene he's dreaded since the beginning of this mess. The scene that was never fully revealed to him in all the dreams he had, no matter how hard he tried to reach for it.

Annabeth is scrambling backwards on her hands, trying to get away from Polybotes, nursing her bad ankle-something about it leads Percy to think she might've broken it again, which is possible. The bone was already weak.

She's still holding her sword, trying to fend Polybotes off, but it doesn't do her much good from her place on the ground, and she's soon disarmed.

Polybotes levels his trident at her chest, resting the points on her skin with just enough pressure to cause her to cry out a second time.

Percy could swear the entire battlefield turns to look, it's so suddenly quiet. And everyone must be holding their breath, because the air has never been more still.

Polybotes' voice rings out across the mountain. "Choose!" He demands, and Percy looks desperately between Annabeth and Hazel's crumpled figure, her face already defeated and just awaiting the final blow that would end it all.

He turns back to Annabeth, sees the fear and unmistakeable decision in her eyes-Save them. She tells him, the message clear in her desperate gaze. Make the right choice, the only choice-save the others, not me.

Percy almost breaks as he looks at her-he knows he has to prevent Gaea from waking, or there won't even be a world that he and Annabeth could have a future in. He knows what he has to do, because he's made so many different choices in the nightmare that haunted him every night for so long, and only one of them didn't end in the death of all of his friends and the end of the world.

Gaea whispers in his mind, sensing his torture: You have not the courage, Perseus. It is the sacrifice you won't be able to make; the one you never will be able to make. Choose, Perseus. Choose.

Percy knows he should be afraid. He knows he should be tortured, and scared, and filled with grief. But like almost every other time he should have been terrified out of his wits, Percy finds himself angry instead. He looks at the gleeful, smug, self-satisfied look on Polybotes' face, and the knowing sneer on Enceladus', and a terrible rage builds and builds in his chest. He remembers all the times people have doubted him, have said those exact words; how he wouldn't have the strength to sacrifice the thing most dear to him. He thinks of all the times he's been forced to do something he didn't want to, how everyone is constantly telling him he can't escape his fate.

His vision burns red. No one will force him into anything, not anymore. They won't force him to choose one or the other, they can't make him choose. So instead of choosing between them, he chooses both.

As his anger grows inside him, until he can't see a thing and he's literally shaking with the unfathomable rage filling every atom of his being, something in his gut twists painfully and then breaks in a much more forceful tide then he felt in Tartarus.

He doesn't utter a word. Not a single sound. He just turns and looks Polybotes directly in the eye, drinking in the sudden flash of fear he sees mar the giant's smug expression.

Enceladus, behind him, tries to take advantage of his seeming distraction, but Percy whirls around so quickly that the minor giants with Enceladus stumble back, and his fingers form a fist.

As soon as they curl over his palm, all of Percy's mad fury explodes outward in a supernova show of terrifying power. The mountain cracks around him, trembling violently, tossing and pitching sideways as cracks and chasms big enough to swallow Gaea's entire army whole open up in the stone, splitting the earth with a resounding crack that echoes like a cannon-shot. Everyone is knocked off of their feet-except for Percy.

He stands tall as the earth opens before his feet. Water erupts from the new trenches he's created, and it surrounds Enceladus, suffocating him as he tries pointlessly to pull it off of himself. As he struggles, he staggers sideways, and his foot slips on the edge of the abyss-and hten he's gone, falling, leaving Hazel safe. For now.

Thunder and lightning rumble overhead, and rain sheets down hard enough to sting Percy's skin, but he ignores it. Instead, he turns his attention onto Polybotes, who's still standing, shocked, over Annabeth, the three-pronged tip of his trident resting heavily on Annabeth's chest as he allows his grip to slacken while he gapes. When he sees the anger flashing in Percy's eyes, he starts, and lifts his trident a bit, shaking himself out of his surprise, but Percy doesn't allow him the chance to hurt Annabeth anymore.

A blast of water hits him in the chest, hard enough to make him stumble backwards and cause the trident to go spinning out of his grip. It turns to poison where it comes in contact with his skin, and with a grimace, Percy pulls back enough to leave a hairs-breadth cushion of air between the water and Polybotes' skin. Then Polybotes summons his trident back to his hand and starts pressing back with more force, battering relentlessly, but Percy doesn't give.

After a few minutes, Polybotes gets in a overhead hit across Percy's back, and he feels something give. But he just grimaces, and keeps going, because he can't stop now.

"You think it's brave to stand behind your daddy's powers?" The giant pants, sneering. "I see what you really are-and I call it out now! I call out a coward!"

Percy feels himself consumed with that horrible black rage again, and there is no buffer between the giant's skin this time when the water overwhelms him-but it doesn't turn to poison. Where it touches him, it burns him, covering his skin in angry red welts. He roars in pain, but Percy twists his wrist in a violent motion and the sound cuts off as the giant chokes on his own saliva. He starts flailing wildly with his net and trident and just catches Riptide-Percy lets the sword go spinning away, knowing it will return to his pocket. Then he pulls his second weapon from his pocket-a weapon he's kept with him for this exact moment in his waking nightmare-and smirks with deep satisfaction at the fear that grows in Polybotes' eyes when his trident springs to being.

He wants nothing more than to prolong the giant's suffering-to torture him for daring to threaten Annabeth-but then he remembers in Tartarus, when he was going to kill Akhlys, how Annabeth was afraid of him. How she told him that some things just weren't meant to be controlled.

So he won't prolong it. But before he directs the last blow, he twitches his fingers in a slight, unnoticeable motion that twists Polybotes' blood in his veins and causes him to writhe in agony just as Percy plunges his trident in the giant's heart, putting all his weight and the power of the seas behind it.

Polybotes stills as he feels the cold shadow of death looming over him-the pull of that dark place where he's spent most of his life imprisoned, tugging him back to its black embrace.

"But-you need a god's aid-" The giant starts to gasp weakly, when his wound doesn't even try to heal itself. Sudden anger overcomes the giant, presumably at a feeling of unfairness, and he gets in one last hit-a blow to his abdomen that punches through his armor and makes Percy stumble back a step. But he doesn't even feel it, nor the blood that seeps from the wounds created by the crushed pieces of his bronze armor. He just slides the trident disdainfully from Polybotes' chest, glaring icily into the dying giant's eyes.

"I am much more than any god." He answers coldly, in a voice not his own, and his eyes flare pure, unadulterated black. He watches as Polybotes dies in agonized terror, an unspeakable satisfaction settling deep in his bones, and then suddenly stumbles back, his face whitening in a grimace. A quiet gasp escapes from his lips, and he blinks hard. His eyes turn back green, but they flicker weakly before he collapses on the spot, his trident clattering out of his hand, and he dives headfirst into the blessed solitude of unconsciousness.

Annabeth

Polybotes crumbles to dust without any visible aid from a god, and that's the least of her confusion, but she tells herself that there must have been something she missed while they were fighting.

Her biggest concern right now is Percy, and she waits with bated breath for him to get up, for him to move. But he doesn't.

She scrambles to her feet, biting her lip to muffle her cry of agony as her weight rests on her broken ankle. She doesn't think it's a bad break-a partial one, maybe. Just a fracture. But that doesn't mean it hurts any less, and if she keeps putting pressure on it, it will most definitely become a bad break.

But she doesn't care, and she determines to ignore the pain as she moves towards Percy, trying to get to his side as fast as possible.

"Percy!" She calls in anguish, hoping beyond all hope that he's just unconscious; that he's weak from all the power he just used. They already lost Jason today, she can't lose him. She has to prove Aphrodite wrong-he won't die, he can't die, not while she's still here to protect him. To keep the promise she made to Chiron so many years ago.

A giant steps in her way when she's almost there, presumably thinking she'll be easy to beat with her broken ankle. He leers at her and raises an axe to kill her.

Big mistake.

A feeling of such great fury contorts Annabeth's features that the giant even steps back. But it's too late for him to get away-he's already underestimated her impossible determination to get to Percy.

She takes one step forward and plunges her sword into his gut, thrusting up into his ribcage as far as she can reach. From the look on his face, she's hit something vital, and she doesn't wait to make sure a god does their job. She pulls her sword out and races to Percy's side.

Piper and the others try to follow her, but Frank stops mid-step when a monster that decides Hazel is easy pickings starts to slink towards her and bounds away to protect her. Leo follows him to help, and Nico, Reyna, and Piper are too occupied with helping the Hunters keep away the majority of the monsters to disengage and come after her.

Annabeth kneels beside Percy and pulls his head into her lap. There's blood dripping from his nose and at the corner of his mouth, and by the paleness of his face, she knows something is very, very wrong. And it's not just the mess of his stomach-not just the way his armor crunched into his skin and shattered into pieces in his abdomen.

"Oh, Percy." She whispers, one hand stroking his face, the other lightly resting on his stomach. The jagged pieces of metal scratch at her palm, but she ignores it. "Percy, please." Her voice is anguished and desperate. "Percy."

His eyelids flicker, and then open. HIs eyes are unfocused, cloudy, but then he focuses on her face.

"Wise Girl." He murmurs. "You're not supposed to be here."

She shakes her head, no clue what he means by the last bit. "What do you mean? Of course I'm here. I couldn't leave you."

He raises a hand to touch her face, and Annabeth catches it in her own and holds it to her cheek. "No, you shouldn't be. The others need you more than I do."

"No, they don't." Annabeth argues stubbornly. "You're hurt, Percy. I'm not just going to leave you alone like this."

"I'll be fine, Annabeth. I always am." He reassures her. Annabeth, looking at him, knows he won't be. But she doesn't say anything.

"No, Percy. I'm staying here." She insists, her voice firm.

Percy opens his mouth to say something, but ends up doubled up in a coughing fit, bracing his hand against the ground as he folds over himself against Annabeth's chest. When he stops, blood is dripping from his lips, and his teeth are stained with it.

"You have to. They need you. We already lost Jason. Hazel is too injured to hardly fight at all. Piper is practically mad with grief-she can't lead in her current state, but she can fight. Frank is short one leg, and the only effective way for him to fight is in a different shape. He can't exactly give them orders they can understand as a lion. And Leo has never been a leader, as much of a fighter as he is." His eyes meet Annabeth's, and past the pain there, there's a look that pleads with her to listen.

"This isn't just about protecting the others, is it?" She asks, sensing a deeper reason for his insistence that she leave him.

"No." He answers. "But I can't tell you why. Just-please, trust me. You have to go."

"I don't want to." She whispers, and hates that she sounds like a petulant child. She knows he's right. But every single part of her rebels against the idea of just leaving him here.

"You can't be here by yourself. I can't just leave you all alone." She argues.

Percy smiles gently, recognizing her unwillingness. "If you want to, send someone else to watch me. Nico, or Reyna, or one of the Hunters. I don't care. But you're the leader now. You have to go do what you do best."

She kisses him, cupping his face between her hands, and he kisses her back, tangling his fingers in her hair. Something about the way he kisses her makes her feel like he thinks this will be their last one.

Which only makes her kiss him all the more desperately.

When she pulls away, her hand leaves a bloody print on his face, from where she'd been trying to stanch the bleeding from his stomach.

"I love you, Percy." She whispers, so quietly the words are barely audible.

"I love you, too." He murmurs back.

Annabeth climbs to her feet, still holding onto his hand. Closing her eyes, she lets him pull away, and then, without looking at him again-because she knows if she does, she'll never be able to leave-she turns and runs back to the others, her hands still stained with his blood.

[TIME LAPSE (five min)]

"Please, Nico. For me." Annabeth pleads, trying to convince the son of Hades to look after Percy for her. Nico looks at her, a wary look on his face, and Annabeth knows she must look close to crying. Which she is.

Finally, he nods. Just once.

"Okay." He tells her. "I'll take care of him."

Reyna looks over at his words. "Do you want me to go with you?" She offers quickly, but he shakes his head.

"I'd love for you to go with me, but they need you here. The giants can't hide in the back forever, and when they decide to attack, they'll need you to keep the monsters off their back." He explains, and she nods reluctantly.

"Don't get killed." She says shortly, and turns briskly away.

"Don't forget to watch your back when you're busy saving theirs." Nico calls after her, and she raises a hand in an acknowledgement.

Annabeth watches the exchange with growing curiosity. She really can't quite figure out what's between them. They've fought together all day, they were holding hands the entire time on the Argo, and there was the fact that they went below deck together to change and she's pretty sure one of the Hunters said she saw them go in the same room. But then there are these times, when they really just don't act at all like a couple.

She shakes her head, deciding to think about it later, when the world isn't teetering on the brink of destruction.

Nico nods to her, and she nods back gratefully.

"Thank you, Nico." She tells him, the words more heartfelt than she thinks they've ever been. He waves it away and starts over to where Percy is-now her idiot boyfriend is sitting up, inspecting his stomach and looking up every once in a while to check on them.

She has to force herself to look away, and then she shoves it out of her mind as best she can, determined to focus all of her energies on winning this war, so that she can get back to Percy as soon as possible.

Don't die, Seaweed Brain. She tells him mentally. And don't do anything stupid.

Percy

By the time Nico reaches him, Percy has already removed all of the crushed remains of his armor from his stomach, poured nectar on the horrible mess that was underneath, and wrapped a bandage around it all. He's just placed a square of ambrosia in his mouth when Nico stops in front of him.

"Come to babysit me, I'd guess." Percy greets him. "Annabeth guilted you into it?"

"She looked like she was going to cry." Nico replies, distressed. "I don't know how to make girls stop crying. It seemed the better option to just agree than refuse and then get murdered because I have no idea what to do when girls cry."

Percy snorts. "You should be extremely grateful that Reyna isn't the crying type, man."

He feels rather than sees Nico's cutting glance, and looks up to meet it.

"Look, it's obvious there's something between you." Percy explains. "Plus, you went into the same room to change. Pretty sure that's a bit more than friendship, right there."

Nico opens his mouth to protest-what, Percy's not sure-but closes it again just as quickly.

"It's nothing to be ashamed about." Percy reassures him, giving him a little half-smile to try and relax him. "I'm just-happy you found someone."

Nico's gaze wavers uncertainly, and Percy looks swiftly away, realizing he might've said a little too much.

"You knew?" Nico asks, his voice soft, and Percy shakes his head.

"I figured it out a few days after you left with Reyna and Coach Hedge. I was-blaming myself. For a lot of things. Figuring I deserved for you to hate me, after all that I've done to screw up your life." Percy starts to explain, unable to meet Nico's eyes. "And then, of course, I had one of those famous demigod dreams, and it kept showing you, and me, and all the things that have happened-our history. A few other things I didn't know about. And I sort of-realized."

Nico's silent for a while. "Why didn't you say anything to me earlier?"

"You looked happy with Reyna." Percy admits. "I didn't want to mess up yet another thing for you. I've already basically single-handedly ruined your life, so I figured I owed it to you to stay quiet." He pauses, then adds, "Apparently, I'm really terrible at that." He glances up at Nico, and decides to ask the question that's been bothering him. "Were you going to tell me?"

Nico sits down next to him, resting his sword across his knees and looking out across the battlefield. "No." He admits. "I wanted to, so badly, at first, but I saw you and Annabeth with each other and I knew-you guys were more than friends. Even if neither of you would admit it. I still thought about telling you after that, but with Bianca gone-" His voice wavers, and he pauses. "So, no. But it's why I've pushed you away so much. The most pain I've ever been in is being in love with someone that loved someone else."

"I'm sorry." Percy offers, more than a bit awkward. Nico smiles bitterly and shakes his head.

"It's not your fault. Part of the reason it's taken so long for me to start to get over you is because you were safe. As long as I was in love with you-with someone who could never love me back-I'd never have to worry about the uncertainty of a real relationship. But really-you can't control my feelings. It's not like you could've stopped me from falling in love with you." Nico tells him, laughing bitterly.

"You do seem happy with Reyna now, though." Percy reminds him, and he smiles softly.

"Yeah." He says. "It's weird, I never thought I'd find someone like that. Or that it'd be a girl, or anyone but you. But she makes me happy. And I love her, and she loves me back."

Percy opens his mouth to congratulate him, but something in his peripheral vision catches his eye, and he turns to see Reyna-protecting Piper's back, and the others', in the midst of a mob of monsters, and not looking after herself. A hellhound is stalking behind her, and she doesn't see it.

He turns back to tell Nico, but the son of Hades is already on his feet. Instead of running, though-which makes sense, since he'd never make it in time-he glares hard at the hellhound, raising his hand and clenching it into a fist before thrusting it outward.

Three skeletons erupt out of the ground between Reyna and the hellhound, weapons raised, and seconds later, the hellhound is a pile of dust and the skeletons are moving on to the other monsters.

Nico sighs, and Percy glances up at him with a small smile.

"I told her to watch her back." Nico mutters frustratedly.

"Annabeth doesn't ever listen very well when I tell her to do something." Percy tells him. "Something tells me Reyna is about the same."

Nico mumbles curses under his breath, mostly about how girls never listen to anything, and Percy sees his chance.

"Nico, you can go protect her back yourself if you want to." He offers. "I'll be fine; that ambrosia and nectar is already working. If a monsters comes at me, I'll be able to defend myself just fine."

Nico looks at him uncertainly, but Percy can already see him wavering. "Just go, okay? I'm fine here. She needs you. Those skeleton warriors of yours won't last forever."

"I told Annabeth I'd protect you." He says, unsure.

"Well, I don't need protecting anymore, so, problem solved." Percy grins up at him, and then waves him away. To prove he's okay, he climbs to his feet, and although he sways a bit, he doesn't immediately fall back down, and Nico looks satisfied. "Go. You found someone to move on to; don't let her get herself killed."

Nico nods gratefully and takes a step away. Then he pauses and turns back. "Thanks, Percy. And-just so you know..." He trails off momentarily, wavering, his hands fidgeting nervously. "I never did hate you. It was always the opposite. Always. Even when I was horrible to you. And I forgave you for Bianca's death a long time ago-it was never your fault in the first place."

And with that, he spins back around and sets off to guard Reyna's back.

"Thank you, Nico." Percy says softly. Calypso's forgiven him, and now Nico, too-those were his two biggest regrets in Tartarus. The two people he rarely gave a second thought that he always should have.

The earth stirs underneath him, a gentle rumble that reminds him what comes next.

Percy pulls Riptide from his pocket, staring down at the normal-looking ballpoint pen. Funny what magic can be hidden so easily by ordinary objects.

Well, cursed blade, it's time for one last fight. He thinks, and uncaps it, placing the pen carefully back in his pocket-just stalling for time. Then he starts walking.

His abdomen aches with every step, but he ignores it. The darkness in his head whispers lies, but he discredits them. He just keeps walking, up to the place where the altar was. Where Gaea intends to rise. Where he has to be to finish this.

As soon as his foot steps onto the hard-packed rocky dirt of the altar's plateau, Gaea rises in the midst of the altar's ruins, and he stops. Riptide's point stays lowered. His heartbeat remains steady.

Gaea's eyes, almost completely open now, regard him with a cool expression.

You are stronger than I believed, son of Poseidon. Her voice echoes quietly in her head.

Percy says nothing.

But you will be defeated, in the end. Her eyes meet his, and he refuses to look away. She seems surprised by this, and her eyes narrow, regarding him more carefully. There is something to you...something that doesn't make sense...a familiarity...

"You don't recognize the mark of the one you sired these giants with?" Tartarus' voice, cruel and twisted, pulls words from Percy's mouth, and he grimaces, hating the way the god is slowly eating away at his control.

Gaea slowly nods, a dreamy smile creeping across her face. Ah, so that's where your sudden power comes from.

"No." Percy replies, in his own voice. Gaea's smug expression falls away again. "The power is my own. I just draw on Tartarus' strength."

You still have control. Gaea notes. Her eyes study him with something almost like grudging respect. Interesting. How long?

"Fourteen days." Percy replies, and takes a step forward. "Fourteen days, I've fought the possession of the most powerful Primordial in your generation, and I'm still winning. Fourteen days, my power has only been growing, because the fight makes me stronger with every passing second."

With every sentence, he takes a step, and the clouds swirl menacingly above them, a much louder representation of Percy's quiet anger.

I once promised you your death would be much more painful than gorgon's blood, son of Poseidon. Gaea tells him, her voice softly threatening. Today, that death looms over you as a great black shadow. I can taste your blood in the air, I can smell the gray stench of death. You will die today, Perseus Jackson.

"The boy already knows." Tartarus says through Percy's mouth, his voice amused, and Percy quickly wrenches back control, angrily chaining Tartarus back in a corner of his mind.

Is that true, Jackson? Gaea asks, her own amusement bleeding through in her faint smile.

"I knew a long time ago that I wasn't going to live past today." Percy replies, his eyes flashing. "But I also know that when I do die, I'm taking you with me."

No. Gaea replies. You're going to die today, after watching your friends die, and your last breaths will be spent knowing you couldn't save them from me.

She thrusts out a hand over the earth, no doubt to use it to crush the rest of Percy's allies, but he doesn't let her. He lunges forward, ignoring the pain in his abdomen, and runs her through with Riptide. It doesn't kill her, or harm her, but it prevents her from doing anything to harm his friends.

She laughs and melts into the earth, reforming behind him.

He turns and walks towards her, determined to save everyone except himself. He already knows he's meant to die today. His only goal is to take her with him, and leave the others safe. With every step he takes, the storm grows, wrapping around him like a familiar friend. The winds howl around him, spraying salt water and responding to his every command. Clouds swirl above his head. Lightning lights up the sky. The ground shakes with every step he takes.

The winds don't touch his friends. For all they know, Percy is still sitting safely in a quiet empty corner of the field. They don't have a clue what's going on, because their backs are all to the plateau where he stands. Percy's fine with that, because as soon as they realize, they'll try to help him, and he's seen what happens every time someone intervenes. Every single time, they die. Every time.

The winds blow harder They whip his hair into his eyes, and waters stings his face, but he persists. They begin to lift him off the ground.

And then Gaea starts to rise into the air as well. She fights it hard, sluggish tendrils of mud and cracked earth trying to pull her back to the ground, but her feet tear loose with a muffled sucking sound. Pecy lets himself float back to the ground, looking up just the slightest bit at Gaea. She's only hovering a few inches off the ground, but it's enough. She's as close to powerless as she can get, separated from her true form.

Percy steps close to her.

"You will neverhurt my friends again." He says, his voice so dangerously low and serious that Gaea's stony mask wavers for a few seconds.

Tartarus, his presence still chained in the back of Percy's mind, starts to laugh, with true, twisted amusement, as he sees what's about to happen in Percy's head. Up until now, Percy's done everything he could to keep it hidden from him.

Tartarus. Gaea murmurs in Percy's mind, insistent and impatient. You wanted this boy. I didn't kill him when I could because you'd claimed him. If you can't control one as weak as he-a mere mortal-you're much weaker than I thought you could ever be.

Tartarus' laughter stops abruptly, and both his and Percy's anger melds together. Their identities become the same, and for however brief a time it might end up being, they work together as the same person.

"I am not weak." They snarl, holding Riptide's blade against Gaea's throat.. "We are not weak. We are infinitely stronger than you will ever be or have ever been. You are the weak one." The storm rages around them, and Percy can no longer avoid the attention of his friends.

But he doesn't care. He is consumed by his anger, and he lets the storm build and build to a point past anything the gods could have created. Past anything that should have been possible to create. The ground cracks around him, as if it were shattering glass; black clouds swirl in a black hole above his head; winds howl past at speeds that could never be natural. Rain and saltwater pour down and swirl around them, encasing them in a watery web that obscures outsiders' views of them. Darkness descends over it all, so that the world is gray, and around Percy, the air swirls pitch black, suspending them in endless time. The sea crashes against the shore miles away and can be heard from their mountaintop, but inside their suspended cocoon of darkness, it is as quiet as death.

"You die today." Percy and Tartarus hiss, two voices speaking at once from the same mouth. "You will never wake again; you will live on in eternal tortured sleep. A half-life."

I am a Primordial. Gaea says, and her voice radiates anger. I cannot be killed.

"And our power is as this world has never seen before. The rules are not the same as they were before. We are no longer restricted by the rules of this universe or yours. You die today, Gaea." The ground erupts around them in jagged crags of rock that pierce the sky. "You die today, Gaea-" And then their tongue speaks a word that Percy knows as a name, but a name as no word that has ever been spoken, and in one fluid, enraged movement, Percy pulls back and plunges Riptide into Gaea's heart.

Blue-green light twisted through with darkness explodes outward in a supernova that tears through the mountain beyond even its roots and Percy pours all of his energy, all of his strength, into destroying Gaea. The water, the wind, even the earth itself works to defeat its mistress, and even when her feet touch the ground again, and earth crawls up his leg and tears violently into him until something snaps, and his blood turns to heat and runs from his nose and mouth and ears, he presses on. He offers it all up, as a sacrifice, the way Piper once told him it had to be, drawing upon his love and his hate and every part of him, good and bad; pouring himself into ending it once and for all. There would be nothing left of him when it was all over, and he didn't care, because it would keep his friends safe.

Cuts open up on his body that have no cause, and his blood pours out, soaking through the bandage wrapped around his abdomen, dripping down. He pulls that, too, pulls the blood from himself and presses it into his attack, lets it destroy her as well as his very soul. His life will be what kills her.

A wrenching pain tears through his entire being, as if his muscles are being pulled from his bones, and he wants to scream but he locks it in and suddenly the world shatters.

At the last moment, Percy casts up a shield of sorts around him and Gaea to contain them enough so that everything within a fifty mile radius isn't destroyed. He hopes the gods have the foresight to protect the others as best as they can.

The darkness rises like a wave, and just before it crashes over him, Percy looks up at the sky, at the stormy gray clouds there-a gap, just barely there, reveals a small piece of sky before it's snatched away again.

He smiles, up at the sky the exact color of Annabeth's eyes, and then he closes his own eyes just as the darkness begins to fall down on him,

and he doesn't open them again.