Clarissa, now age 23, trudged through the woods of camp half-blood, desperately trying to come to terms with her boyfriend's death and the stranger she who had saved her, it had been a simple mission to bring back two daughters of Aphrodite and a son of Hermes, but things went pear shaped once they reached New York.
She hadn't seen so many monsters in one place since the battle for Manhattan, but there had been a veritable army seemingly waiting for them once they had crossed the state line, hell hounds, cyclops, giants, and more all on the hunt for fresh godlings. Her and Chris Rodriguez had tried to go around, knowing that they couldn't possibly taken them all on, even if she managed to use the blessing of Ares, but one of the damn kids just had to be allergic to pollen and sneezed.
The monsters obviously heard, and so the chase began, running for days and fighting for every mile, only saved when they found a delivery van idling on the side of a road while the driver took a leak. They hoped in and drove off, leaving a business card for the farm/front that was Camp Half-blood so the driver knew where to find his van once they were done with it. It had been the only chance they'd had to rest and Chris had decided to take the first shift driving while her and the kids rested.
She had felt like she had only just closed her eyes when she was jolted awake by the van swerving and the brats screaming. Chris was swearing loudly in ancient greek about Lastragonian giants, fighting for control as they slid dangerously close to the guard rail. Apparently there had been an ambush on the road, she looked out the window and saw a flaming ball the size of a NCAA basketball sailing past them and explode on the pavement ahead of them, leaving a smoking crater they almost swerved right into. She looked at the GPS and saw they were only a couple miles from camp, but a glance in the rear view told her that it wasn't going to be easy, they were missing a back wheel and there were giants in war chariots being pulled by some of the biggest and ugliest hellhounds she had ever seen, and they were slowly gaining. Just as the giants were about to catch up, Chris took a hard right turn down a familiar road, leaving the giants to over shoot the turn and give them a decent lead.
"I swear to the gods, if we make it through this, I'm going to personally skin those bastards and lay them out as new rugs," Chris said as another explosion nearly blew them sideways off the road.
They could see the tree at the edge of camp about a quarter mile ahead, hope welling up inside her, when suddenly they felt the van lurch to the left as the driver's side front tire blew, sending them out of control and swerving into a ditch. They were all dazed, Clarisse's shoulder was dislocated and Chris was bleeding from his left leg, the kids seemed to be more or less alright aside from some minor scrapes and bruises.
They clambered from the totaled van and begin running towards camp. It was slow going, and if that hadn't been bad enough, they could hear the hellhounds coming, the thunder of chariot wheels growing louder by the second. One of the girls had started to cry.
'Gotta complete the mission, I've gotta get everyone across the barrier, I can't fail,' Clarisse thought, 'we can still make it.'
They had less than 50 yards to go when she felt a hellhound pounce on top of her. It's claws dug into her back as it went for a bite at her head, when Chris slashed it to dust and dragged her to her feet, the kids were another 15 yards ahead. Peleos was roused from his slumber and was defending the pine tree from a group of cyclops, so no help from him.
Suddenly Clarisse felt Chris push her forward, she looked over her shoulder to see him squaring off with the enemy.
"GO, GET THE KIDS TO SAFETY," Chris yelled at her.
"YOU IDIOT, I WON'T LEAVE YOU, ITS SUICIDE!"
"GODS DAMN IT CLARISSE," he dodged a spear thrust and countered. "I CANT HOLD THEM BACK FOREVER, I'LL SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE."
Clarisse bit back tears, she knew he was right, but she refused to let him fight alone.
"YOU THREE," she yelled at the kids. "GO TO THE BIG HOUSE AND GET REINFORCEMENTS, QUICKLY." She didn't wait for a reply, she charged back into the growing hoard.
She lost sight of Chris when a giant stepped in front of her, his age already mid swing. Didn't have time for this, she stabbed him right in the groin, the giants triumphant smile turning to a look of pure anguish as he turned to dust. She fought for what seemed like forever, quickly losing ground and hope as her bad shoulder slowing her down.
She took more than a few nasty hits, her stamina was running dry when she saw a cyclops fall to an unknown warrior, he wore a green cloak and his face was hidden by a green and black bandana and he seemed to more than know what he was doing as he seemed to almost dance between incoming strikes and countering with an odd black staff and was dropping monsters left and right while guarding something laying on the ground, she would have been impressed had she not been so worried about Chris while she was fighting for her life.
The monsters' ranks seemed to have diminished significantly when the first arrows started flying past her, the monsters screamed in agony as they fell and fled, she spared a look over her shoulder and saw the campers had finally come to their rescue, the Apollo cabin unleashing volley after volley of arrows.
As the excitement died down and the last monster fell, she saw the stranger kneeling over something, no, someone.
"CHRIS!!!"
She ran to him, he wasn't breathing and his skin was growing cold, he was covered in wounds, and even had a bite taken from his arm. His empty eyes seemed to convey his final goodbye, when Will Solace ran up she demanded he do something, but he told her that there was nothing he could do.
The stranger was still kneeling there, as he reached a hand out and covered Chris's eyes, he began to say something in a strange and ancient language that she didn't recognize, it was almost song like. She looked to Will and noticed he had a look of horror on his face.
"What's going on, damn it Will, what is he saying?"
Will looked her in the eye.
"It's a prayer of safe passage. He's giving Chris his last rights."
The stranger fell silent, when he moved his hand there was a pair of golden drachmas on Chris's eyes. Finally the stranger said something that Clarisse understood.
"Father, grant this brave warrior safe passage to Elysium, and may he have the rest he deserves."
The stranger stood, and damn he was tall. Clarisse wasn't exactly short, standing 6'0", but this guy had about another 8" on her.
"Who the Hades are you," she asked.
"My name is Desmond, I'm the son of Thanatos."