"Everyone, run." She coughed.
And at that moment, all Hades was let loose.
The Camp was bombarded with mortar fire as a loud siren sounded. Everywhere was either a crater or nothing more than the flaming remains of what it used to be. The lodges were decimated, being reduced to smoldering piles of wood.
Suddenly the mess hall exploded, splinters of wood everywhere. Any screams that would have been heard from the victims were drowned out by the constant hammering of explosive fire. Rorik couldn't even hear his scream when a sharpened piece of wood impaled him in the shoulder as he was thrown away from the mess by the sheer concussive force of the mortar round. He landed 15 feet away a mortar crater, omitting yet another seemingly soundless scream of pain as he felt a horribly agonizing pain in his back.
Eventually the firing stopped, finally allowing all those who had survived to hear the tortured moans of the others who had been injured. Rorik pulled himself out of the crater with his one good arm to see what remained, the other arm leaving a trail of crimson in the fresh snow as he crawled. Out of the blizzard stepped a series of men, all shouldering rifles. They ran around of the camp, finishing off the few who had managed to survive the brutal shelling.
One after another wounded demigods were murdered as they lay helpless on the ground. A soldier knelt down to one of the demigods, pulling his head back by the hair and scanning his face with a strange device.
"Sir, we have Jackson." Called the soldier.
Another man stepped up behind the apparent sergeant. He wore a heavy coat with an unique insignia "Very good, Sergeant. You are dismissed." .
"Yes sir, General Daydal." The other soldier saluted him before moving on to other demigods.
The General dramatically leveled his handgun at Percy, as most COs Rorik had encountered had done. 'Shit, what am I supposed to do ?' Rorik did was first came to mind. He was sarcastic.
"Isn't it a bit cliche ? One leader ceremoniously killing the enemy commander with just his pistol ?" He coughed, spitting up blood in the process. That got the General's attention. Just what he had hoped would happen. The General lowed the gun from Percy's head and marched over to where Rorik lay, putting the gun to his head instead.
"So what if it is ?" Sneered the man, who couldn't have been more than 40. He probably had a family, a wife, maybe a brother. But none of that mattered, because as soon as the man was close enough that Rorik didn't run the risk of hitting Percy, he spoke the three words he hoped he would never have to. The shout that Chiron had warned him never to even utter.
"I don't have time for your shit. Krii Lun Aus !" The man's eyes widened as he collapsed to his knees for a moment before falling over dead. Little wisps of purple magika still radiated off his corpse as an effect of the shout.
Rorik keeled over from the strain on his body brought on by using his Thu'um, coughing more blood as he collapsed. His vision began to fade, the world slowly becoming black as it zooming in and out of focus.
'This is the end' he thought as the evacuation alarm blared.
Rorik opened his eyes and looked around. Again, he was at the snow covered castle. The Hooded men came outside as they usually did and repeated what they had done in his prior visions. Shouting their welcoming phrase off the cliff and then retreating to their fortress.
After they had returned indoors, Rorik looked over the edge of the cliff. Like the last time, there was the flat topped mountain with the lights. But now, there was something new. Around a mile and a half from his perch he saw pillars of smoke rising from the trees. And from the same direction of the smoke was a loud sound. Camp.
The first thing Rorik noticed when he awoke was the cold. Whatever the temperature happened to be at, it was enough to give him a sense of coldness. Anyone else would have been nearly incapacitated. He tried to stand up, but as soon as he tried he was instantly forced back down to the snow covered ground by an incomprehensible pain in both his left shoulder and his spine. He heard footsteps approaching through the blinding blizzard .
"Here, eat up" Said a familiar voice. A hand appeared in front of him, in it were a few cubes of ambrosia. He gladly ate the godly food before responding.
"Percy, that you ?"
"The one and only." Said the Son of Poseidon, taking a seat next to him. Rorik coughed as the ambrosia began to take affect, mending his body from the inside. As one would imagine, the slow realignment of ones spine along with a nigh entire regeneration of their shoulder is quite an unpleasant experience.
"Glad to hear it. The DPM is gonna need a leader after the shit that just happened."
Percy grimaced at the comment. "Yeh, or at least what's left of it. We numbered nearly 100 before the attack. So far only 30-some have showed up here."
Rorik was horrified. So many dead. So many innocent people dead. So many innocent people who were only protecting themselves. But what Percy had said raised more than a few questions. "Where is here ? And how did we get here ?"
"We're at a fall back location that we had designated to regroup at incase anything like this happened. That's what that alarm was when the shelling started. It was telling everyone to get the Hades out and run to here. And your dragon buddy got us here. After you took out the general, he flew by and grabbed you and I. He had a couple others on his back too."
Relief washed over Rorik. 'Thank the gods, Nokholvir is safe'. "Who else made it ?"
"Paris and her sisters, Annabeth, some Ares campers, a couple of Apollos, a Hecate kid, Nico, Linkin, Erin, Alejandro, and some Hermes kids are all who have showed up so far. And they really only made it because they were lucky. The Apollo, Hermes, and Ares lodges were hit in the second volley, so they had a chance to escape. All the other lodges were wiped of the Earth, they never even had a chance." Percy looked miserably at the ground. "Everyone is a little bit behind us. C'mon."
Percy gave him a hand up and they walked over to where the remainder of the DPM was. Nearly all of them were huddled together under Nokholvir's spread wings, using the dragon as a shield from the howling wind. At the sight of their friend, Erin and Ale burst from the crowd and locked the brown haired boy in a bear hug.
"Oh thank the gods you're alive, Rorik." Said Erin, holding onto him as is he might suddenly vanish.
"Yes, thank the gods, amigo."
"Where's Richard ?" Asked Rorik. At this, Ale nearly burst into tears.
"He didn't make it. W-we were running into the forest a-and I saw him. He was running too, b-but he got gunned down. And t-then he just fell, dead still." Rorik didn't say anything, there was nothing to say. Alejandro had started bawling at this point. All of them were silent, not really sure what to do. They had no shelter, no food, no water, 2/3 of everyone was dead. 'We're all gonna die soon if nothing happens. Think gods damn it, think ! Everyone's life is at stake here, yours, Percy's, Ale's, Erin's.' Rorik mentally screamed at himself. Then an idea came. It was a long shot, but it was still better than nothing.
"Percy." Rorik tapped the man on the shoulder to get his attention.
"What do you need kid, I'm busy trying to think of how to save our skins"
"I know. And I think I know where to go" This got the DPM Commander's attention. "I've been having these dreams, well they're more like visions. But in everyone vision I'm on top of a mountain next to a stone fortress, and the people who live there keep calling out to me in dragon. In the last vision I had I could see the camp. It's maybe a mile and a half's hike from camp."
Percy seemed to give the idea some thought, then spoke. "I've had some pretty strange visions. Like my best friend being chased through a dress shop. But I acted on it, and it payed off. So I'll trust you on this. I'll go tell Annabeth. Get ready to go, 'cuz we're moving out !"
Hey guys. Ok, so it's been 3 weeks since an update. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Gomenasai, gomenasai, gomenasai. I've been so busy. But. I can confirm that there will be 3 more chapters till this is done. And this fic will be DONE by June the 14th. I can promise that. Well, It's 2am when I'm writing this (see, I really wanted to get this done for you guys). So I'm going to bed. Please favorite, comment, and follow.
-Arkos T.F.I.W. out