Nico POV
You couldn't even hear then. They moved that swiftly. Led by Percy, we all ran towards the army. From their side, we must've been making a racket. The rattling of armour and grunts of demigods couldn't get much louder. As we ran, I did a quick headcount. While Percy's skills were undoubtedly amazing, his tactics were often off. The duty therefore fell to me and the rest of the Revenant. I knew that Jason and Leo were doing the exact same thing as me, planning how we were gonna fight this fight. In total we had 18 gods, 25 hunters and 96 demigods. A message I think had been sent out to the Romans to come to CHB as soon as possible, but who knows if they would come in time for the fight.

One look at Percy and I knew we were in trouble. As he ran, he kept rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and it was obvious. I don't even know why he was up training at this time with someone like Artemis. Most likely she wanted attention and Percy seemed like the best person to get it from. I certainly need to have a talk with him about his priorities and what Artemis is really like as a person. Perhaps reminding him of how close to death he was because of her might fix his thoughts of her.

The second we got to the top of the hill, Percy took his first look at the army, and almost laughed out loud.

"Is this an army or a few messengers," he snickered. I felt the same way. The army was a bit bigger than the appetiser, but nothing the council couldn't handle. Strange, I thought. I could've sworn it had been bigger when me and Calypso had been scouting the area out.

"No way," Hera said after merely peeking.

"I agree," Demeter and Dionysus said.

"Shhh," I hushed. From the look of concentration on his face, Percy was definitely forming a plan, he just needed time and silence.

"If we go down, then we go down, but not without a fight," Zeus started. For some reason he just felt obliged to make a speech. "I'm not gonna let some clown in a mask take everything I- I mean we own." Jason nodded in agreement.

"You trained for this. Now it's time to show this army exactly how hard you trained." Everyone looked up confidently. I clapped my hands together.

"Well now that we're all feeling super duper, how about we go make a plan with Percy, eh?"
"Umm…. about that," Piper began, glancing down the edge of the hill. Percy being Percy had decided it was a brilliant idea to walk towards the army unarmed and alone. Well why not, right?

"Yo, yo, yo," Percy began as he jogged down the hill. "What's happening?" The enemies at the front looked uncertainly at the God. It was clear they were not in charge. Suddenly, a body shifted through the void of enemies. It was someone draped in black cloth with a single katana hanging in a sheath next to them.

"Morning Perseus," Gone said cheerily. "Have a good sleep last night?" Percy shrugged.

"Could've been better," he admitted. He tried to shrug it off but it was clear Gone had already gotten under his skin with that small statement.

"Basically let me give you a run through of what's about to happen. First, you and I are gonna have a massive pointless discussion purely for drama. Then, I'm gonna disintegrate your entire army along with some help from the council. Next, I'm gonna 1v1 you and win with no difficulty. Finally, I'm gonna get back to the hunt in time for a late lunch wondering what I'm even doing with my life. Any questions, anyone?" Percy said it with such confidence, I almost wanted to believe him, but still something seemed off to me. This just wasn't enough of an army for us, and I'd think someone as smart as Gone would know that.

Gone pursed his lips together, a slight smirk on his face, making me feel slightly uneasy.

"Just one question, Perce," he said, raising his hand like a child. The young god nodded.

"How do you plan to do all of this, when I have you and the council exactly where I want you?" Gone asked. Percy looked around, slightly confused. As did I. There was no way he really thought he was winning with an army that small… unless…

It all clicked so quickly and I cursed internally. The reason I thought the army was much bigger was because I could only see half of the picture. My eyes darted around the trees near me.

"Everyone form a cyclical structure NOW!" I yelled, abruptly leaping to my feet and drawing my blade out. The gods and Revenant looked at me, also confused, but nevertheless they listened to me. Sighing, they all stood up and stood beside me.

"What's happening, Nico?" my father asked sternly.

"They're doing the oldest, most cliché trick in the book," I grumbled. "An ambush attack."

Percy POV

"Congratulations," I said. "Not only have you ambushed us, but you've also handed me your death wish." Gone let out a roaring laugh at this.

"I mean, I've got to give you credit when due," he said. "You are brave and confident, even when the odds are entirely against you, but your time is up now." My muscles were just itching to strike him down.

"My time isn't up until the floor is golden, covered by my ichor and I take my last, final breath," I proudly said. It sounded better in my head.

Gone frowned. "I really wanted this to be a dramatic entrance, but I guess you can't always have everything you want." Stepping back, he raised his hand, palm open, into the sky. From behind me, I heard a roar, as the trees collapsed into dust. Enemies - dark monsters in all forms - erupted outwards, dashing towards the gods and demigods. Even from here, I could hear Piper's shrieks as she was suddenly faced with more monsters than I could begin to count.

"Too scared to fight us, eh?" I asked harshly. He shrugged.

"Call it whatever you want, you and me, right here, right now." Gone removed his sword from his sheath, as did the rest of the army behind him. Glaring at him, I took out Hephaestus' pen, uncapping it and letting it transform into my staff, shining in all its glory.

"I would say let the best man win, but I don't need to remind everyone who the best man is," I said, giving a small smirk.

"You're right," he nodded. "Everyone knows it's me."

I actually expected Gone to charge at me first, but instead he just stepped back. The next thing I knew, I had enemies dashing towards me. Out of sheer panic and shock, I rolled left. Pulling myself together, I studied the position of each one of our enemies. Every point of every monster. Their logic. Where they would move next. Only after I was satisfied that my brain was soaked with info on this battle did I let out a flurry of blades, and let me tell you, I showed no mercy.

Describing a fight is like describing a film. Yeah sure you can summarise it pretty well, but you can't get all the details in because of how fast and action packed it is. I've heard people call me a nice guy, but everyone who's anyone knows that when a fight comes along, I will turn into a killing machine, and no matter what you are, I will obliterate you and scatter your particles across the ocean… Okay I've only done that once, but when a fight comes, I put in 300% effort.

As the monsters came, Gone stood back, watching me intently. Most of the army was basically made of Itegra. I don't know why he loved them that much. I absolutely despised them on the other hand. The main reason I hated Itegra's so much was because of how fast they were. When you have massive hellhound-like animals charging at you, faster than a freaking jumbo jet, you begin to panic. Doesn't matter if you're a god or a mouse. Also, they are hard, and I mean insanely hard to kill. A simple wack of my stick just won't cut it anymore, and I had to actually concentrate even more. So far I hadn't controlled time, mainly to preserve my energy, but boy were these monsters giving me a hard time.

It didn't take long before the upper hand started leaning towards the enemy. Ten Itegra were by my feet, along with monsters I had never seen before. I twisted and ducked and swung and hit, but it wasn't enough. Sure enough, I was down to my knees, swivelling my stick, dealing little to no damage. That was when, finally, as I was jabbing my stick towards some monster, an Itegra nipped at my leg, its teeth sinking deep into my flesh and making me let out a howl as I furiously scrambled backwards.

Piper POV
Despite the weird wolfish howls Percy was making, at this moment, I couldn't afford to be distracted. Percy used to talk about concentration a lot during our times in Ohio. We had a long interesting conversation about fighting, it's something I remember very well. It had all just been after a long and painful fight.

"I still think you could've fought more," I grumbled, slightly wincing as Percy cleaned out a wound in my arm. Ignoring me, he just kept cleaning the wound out, rubbing the wound out.

"I didn't have to do all the work, ya know!" I said a little louder. Percy still refused to listen to me, rummaging around for a bandage to place on me.

A week ago, the entire group had been separated. We were casually walking, Nico and Jason in the lead, Percy slightly behind. At one point, everyone was happily talking. Then, without warning, suddenly hundreds of mountain goats began storming us. At that moment, everyone made a quick rational decision. Percy and me dived left and began running. There were sounds of explosions coming from everywhere. Since then, the two of us have been trying to find the others. We have no idea where they went.

"I'm talking to you!" I yelled eventually, the frustration getting the better of my patience. Percy jumped, and the bandage went deep into my cut, making me let out a little scream. We both stared into each other's eyes. Percy had been very strange since we met again. He was quiet, didn't enjoy having fun, and generally looked for the easy way out of anything. That was part of the reason why I was so mad at him today. Not too long ago, about twenty small monsters had jumped us. I immediately launched into full battle mode, taking 13 of them, while Percy calmly fought off 7. In this process, I received a bad cut on my arm, along with another, shallower one to the leg.

"Be grateful, Piper," Percy said quietly. "What if instead of twenty, there were two hundred monsters? Would you still be here shouting at me."

"You could've helped me more," I snapped back. At this, Percy grew a wry smile.

"One day, you'll understand the limits of a man." With that, he knelt down and continued working on the bandage.

"Well I don't want to wait-"
"-And when you notice that," he interrupted, raising his voice, "You'll also notice how important concentration is, both in a fight and out of one." The 'god' went back to concentrating on fixing my bandage in place, squeezing it tightly.

He let out a faint chuckle. "They never learn."

I honestly hated myself so much to say this, but Percy was right. Right now I was fighting an Armatini. They were tall and black, with weapons in their hands. Their eyes were blood-red, and I had three of them on me. I was concentrating so hard to avoid getting sliced up by their massive knives. I didn't know what was happening to everyone else. There were so many monsters, and so few gods. Plus, these monsters were unbelievably violent, biting, slicing and stabbing mercilessly. It's times like this when I'm grateful that I was not the main target.

Ducking under a strike, I quickly drove my knife upwards, and luck hit me. The Armatini wasn't prepared enough, and my knife went all the way up its skull. I didn't have time to celebrate, because the other two, fueled by rage, began attacking harder and more furiously. As Percy had taught me, in a knife fight, the trick is to keep your distance whenever you can. I stepped back, avoiding the blows, before dashing in, jabbing at the nearest monster. It deflected me, and I had to dive to the ground to avoid the other monster's blow. Using my legs, I kicked as hard as I could at one of the Armatini's legs, before standing up and once again jabbing at it. Again, it blocked it, but it seemed to be reacting slower. I turned around and blocked a jab aimed at me. I then tried slashing it, and almost succeeded but it leapt back. At this point, I just threw everything in, and took a gamble so risky that Jason would've killed me. Running at the monster, I feinted a left jab, before spinning around and jabbing my knife into its back. Taking my knife out again, I quickly rammed it into its head, and the monster fell to the ground. Then, I turned around and threw my knife at the last monster, just in time as well because it was heading right to me. The knife buried itself about ten centimeters into its head, and again, another monster fell.

For the first time in this fight, I turned around to see how the fight was going overall, and my brain froze. It turned out, we were not doing good, mainly because the gods had decided to use their powers, and the entire battlefield was turning into shambles. You had zombies walking, arrows flying, winds blowing gods down, water dousing the campers, flowers growing and tangling the monsters with the campers, and wild animals creating chaos. Bodies, human and monster, littered the floor, like landmines in a battlefield. Blood and ichor created an abstract painting on the floor. What was so much worse than all the blood and carnage was the sounds. Screams filled the icy air, and my body went numb. You could hear the pain and desperation in everyone's voices. Amidst the violence, I caught a glimpse of Nico, battling like a madman. He was leaping like a bunny, but make no mistake he is not a cute guy in a war. The kid really knew how to properly use his sword. He was swinging it, and blocking every strike while fighting six different monsters at once, double what I could manage. Nico was Percy's favourite soldier, it wasn't much of a surprise that he was outperforming everyone else. Even though he never said that, it was obvious. Part of the reason was because of how he was better than us, but most importantly, it had been Nico who had rescued Percy and saved him when the entire council went bonkers.

On the other side of the battlefield, I saw Jason. He was a mess, with more than one cut visible, and blood slowly seeping out of him. His face was paler than usual, and it almost made me want to cry. Jason was fighting four Armatini's at once and an Estriol, a jaguar shaped monster with a dolphin mouth. Despite Percy's strong warnings against it, he had also created a tornado to reside in. The main reason for that was because they drained all the energy from Jason. That, and they were really hard to control. The amount of times he had lost control and every single person had just been blown down…

I began running towards him. It was an instinct to want to protect him. Dodging the hundreds of enemies, I began to sprint. That was until an Estriol barged into me. Stumbling, I fell to the floor hard. My vision was blurry, but I could just about make out a black figure standing above me. Without thinking, I rolled to the left, and tried standing up, only to get wacked by something rock hard, causing me to slump down to the ground, blacking out.

Hazel POV

This was definitely a fight we were losing. Bodies were scattered around the ground, and the enemies weren't stopping. I lunged quickly at an Armatini, missing, and stepping back. Then, an Itegra jumped towards me. It was greeted with a blade into its head, and tumbled down to the floor. Ducking under the Armatini, I attempted to hit it again, but it stepped back. Slightly irritated, a third time, I slashed at its legs. Unfortunately, the third time was not the charm. Somehow, it had managed to grab my blade. Looking at me with manic glee, the beast chucked my blade to the floor behind him, wiping his now bloody hands and making his way towards me. Panic began to sweep over me as I took a few steps back. The beast looked at me intently, its eyes fixated on me, almost as if I were food. I probably was food to it. Without warning, it charged, and for a moment my mind went numb with shock. Pinching myself hard, I dived down, narrowly missing its deathly sharp claws. Scrambling, I tried getting up, but the monster was just too quick. The next thing I knew, their hands were already wrapped around my neck, tighter than a vice. Vision turning blurry, stars came down. I think someone was screaming, but I didn't know who.

The next thing I knew, my limp body was being dragged backwards, as the Armatini dropped to the floor, its face still in shock. My body tried to stand up, but my mind refused to cooperate, making me feel sick, and throwing up. Someone was behind me, rubbing my back.

"Get it all out," Frank said, and I did, puking the entire of my breakfast out, my brain still numb. Wiping my mouth, Frank helped me up to my feet. I leaned heavily on his shoulder. He grunted but didn't complain. Looking up, I saw what had just saved my life. A ball of flaming water was being hurled through the air towards the enemies, almost like a deadly game of volleyball. Near the sides, Poseidon, Zeus and Hephaestus had a concentrated expression on their faces. It seemed that teamwork was the key to defeating Gone's army. The army seemed shocked. Ares, taking this to his advantage, leapt into the battlefield, stabbing and slashing away. The rest of the campers and gods, with refound confidence, charged back into battle, swords raised in the air.

The fight was over quickly. Gone's army crumbled into dust as campers obliterated them. Heads were rolling, but no one was cheering. As the last of the monsters were being taken care of by Poseidon's flying water-fire ball, the battlefield became eerily quiet, with only the sounds of groans and whimpers audible. Victory was short celebrated, because, even though our monsters had been defeated, Perseus was still battling his, and it wasn't going well.

Calypso POV

Nico was the first there. Bloody, cut, and bruised, the demigod ran straight towards Percy, leaping into battle like a vicious cheetah. His sword was out before the monsters could speak, slashing their necks and dodging their claws. Percy seemed relieved to see him. Quite frankly, he wasn't handling the fight well. For a God, Percy had done phenomenally. One could even go so far as to say he had outperformed every single God and camper. But it hadn't been enough. No one could blame him, only respect him for protecting all of us for so long. Next was a tiger, also dashing towards Percy, biting away at the monsters. Soon enough, the entire Olympian army had gathered behind Percy. There was a fine gap between the two armies. For a moment, I was shocked at what Percy had achieved. Single handedly, the god had severed about half the army, leaving them in crumbling dust that flaked off into the air.

Calmly, Gone stepped forward, a little smile on his face.

"How was that for a main course?" he smirked. Percy just shot him a death glare.

"We'll come back, bigger and better," he replied. Percy was trying to sound threatening, but it just wasn't working; his entire body was painted gold with ichor, along with many scars. One of his arms was limp, and I was struggling to find an inch of his body that wasn't bruised. Of course, it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the other damages some campers had experienced, but seeing my love so hurt… It might be cringe and cliché, but it hurt me.

"Leave now, or feel the wrath of the Olympian council," Zeus said, loudly. The only reason he was smug was because our army could probably defeat what was left of Gone's army with a relatively low effort. Gone studied us intently, but there was no debating; Gone just couldn't be asked to fight the entire Olympian council again, not after all our training.

"I did promise to serve you a five course meal, and we're only on course three! I'll leave for now, but you all should know, this is not a win for you, and whoever thinks this is a win is crazy."

Turning around, Gone walked away from us, his army trotting behind him.

"So many bodies," he muttered loud enough for all of us to hear.

A groan from Percy brought us all back to reality. He was coughing loudly. Immediately I rushed towards him.

"It's alright," I whispered soothingly into his ear. Percy tried walking forwards, but he fell straight down to the floor. Only then did I realise that this entire time, he had been resting his body on Nico's shoulder.

Everyone crouched down beside him.

"Medic, we need a medic!" Jason yelled into the unresponsive group of campers still on the floor above.

"Just give him a medkit," Leo snickered, but quickly shut up when he received a death glare from Nico so deadly even Hades stepped back.

"Did we win?" Percy asked. For a moment, I faltered, holding tears back. After being beaten up and making a stand against an entire army, all he cared about was whether or not we won.

"Yes, we did," I replied quietly. I didn't have the heart to tell him about the bodies and deaths. Percy seemed slightly relieved as he closed his eyes, his body unable to keep itself awake for much longer. Immediately, he was snapped up by Poseidon, Hades, Nico, and others, probably being transported to the nearest medical room or wherever the wounded were going.

I stood up. The cool breeze swept across me, despite how hot of a day it was.
"He did good," Artemis said, coming up behind me. I turned to glare at her.

"He did outstanding, and he doesn't need praise from someone like you," I snarked at her. She shrugged.

"Maybe. But right now that's the last of your worries." It took a moment for my brain to understand what she was saying. Looking up, I saw all the wounded campers, groaning on the floor, pools of blood trickling down the hill.

"The wounded," I whispered, looking up at the mess of wounded people we had created.

"The wounded," she affirmed, nodding her head, before walking off to help the groaning mess.

Sorry for the delay. Hope the story is still good. Little bit of a change here, but you can't have Percy being too OP. Hope everyone enjoyed it!