As I drove through the empty city, carefully trying to avoid the sleeping people that sometimes laid across the street, I felt my anger grow colder and colder. I didn't try and put it aside, banish it, or even ignore it. Instead, I embraced it, pulled it over me like a favorite old duster. Why shouldn't I be angry? A bunch of monsters wanted to come invade a city and kill everyone and everything inside it. It may not have been my city, my home where I had grown up, but that didn't really matter. People like to make a lot of difference between cities, and to an extent it's true. New York is very different from Chicago in a lot of ways, and it having less than half the population of New York was the least of it. I had visited New York two or three times before, and it always had the distinct air of business, people always rushing this way and that. But at the end of the day, people are people and cities are cities. This wasn't my home, but it was somebody's home.
I drove past a little girl lying crumpled in the middle of a crosswalk, an ice cream cone sans the ice cream lying in her outstretched hand, the other clasping an older bearded mans' I could only assume was her father. I stopped the bike and walked over to her, leaning down and carefully picking her up. Sanya didn't say anything, he just got off and started to quietly clear others off the road as well, face uncharastically grim. The little girl didn't stir in my arms, not a single fluttering of an eyelash or twitch of her fingers. She simply kept the deep, slow breathing of someone in a deep and peaceful sleep, a smile played out across her lips and some ice cream melted onto her cheek. I carried her over to a nearby coffee shop and pushed open the door with my foot. I went over to one of the corner couches and laid her down gently, and looked down on her. Holding her, she had seemed much heavier than she probably was. She couldn't have been more than six or seven. My throat closed up a little, and I swallowed hard, that cloak settling back over me. If the enemy thought I would fight with one less iota of my strength because this wasn't my city, they'd burn stupid. I wasn't going to let this little girl die, or the thousands of children just like her in this city, while I still lived. I went back out and, with the help of Sanya, brought the father in as well, laying him on the ground next to his daughter. As I got back on my bike and gunned up the antique engine, I didn't say a word to Sanya. I didn't need to. I knew he felt the same as I did.
We passed dozens of more people, but we didn't have time to stop and move them all. The night was rapidly growing darker, and the sounds of fighting and gunshots were growing all the more louder and insistent. We came within sight just in time to see one of those freaky flying horses let out a piercing scream and begin to fall, illuminated by the fires emanating from several cars. I saw Gard move into action, obviously due to her Valkyrie armor, and grab the girl, Annabeth, diving off the side of the horse.
We pulled up and I barely stopped the bike before I was leaping off, grabbing my staff and moving up to the kids, one of them half-obscured by blood on his face. That was another thing not helping me keep my anger in check. The Accorded Nations were sitting on their collective asses as they debated doing something to help these kids, these children, from defending an entire city by themselves. When Chicago had been attacked, it hadn't been pretty, that much was true. But at least it had defenders that knew what they were doing. If reports were right, at least three times as many Titans were here in this city, and only these kids were around to fight them. Granted none of them had a weapon on the magnitude of the freakin Eye of Balor, but that didn't matter. It didn't goddamn matter one bit.
Sanya walked up beside me and I felt a wash of gratitude for him, and everyone else who had decided to come along with me on my suicidal mission. I rubbed at my burn scar from Butters unconsciously as I caught sight of him, crouched down over the pegasus.
"Anything you can do for him?" I asked as I strode to where the kids were talking.
Butters looked up, looking a little green. Before he even spoke I knew it was hopeless. Hell, I had known it was hopeless from the moment I saw it plummet to the ground. He answered, but there was really no point.
I said something that most definitely should not have been said in front of the kiddos, and then motioned him off to go help with the kids. He was already moving to the groaning kids. I forced myself not to look at them, not to see their young faces twisted in pain. I heard those shots ringing out, some coming very close to me. I guess I was an easy target, with the glowing staff and height. Someone needed to do something about those snipers. "Are any more of you going to be flying in?" Well, that was a sentence I didn't think I'd be uttering, but I should have expected it. After all, why would anything be normal? A bunch of snake women in armor were advancing on us after all. Things had gone way beyond weird.
After a few seconds of conversing with the kid with the bloody face, Percy shook his head. I nodded to Gard, and with my affirmation she began to raise the walkie to her ear. I hoped he was in position by now. Knowing him though, he had been in position for a good while. I didn't see any nod or confirmation that the order had been passed because the bloody kid stepped in my face, poking me. Seriously, no one knew me. I mean, I didn't think I was famous in the normal world, I'm not that conceited, no matter what some people thought. But I had expected for the defenders to recognize the staff or something.
"You want to see what I can do kid?" I asked as I moved forward. Two snipers had fallen already, so I knew I would have some cover fire. Besides, I was tired of standing there.
The word no-man's land has become common nowadays. It's used in a joking manner, in casual conversation. Not much, but enough that most people don't realize the significant weight of it. Let me tell you, it's nerve racking. Sure, a few dozen empty cars, most of which were on fire, doesn't seem like much cover. But when you're past them, exposed in the middle of the street with the fires making convenient illumination to highlight you like a flashing neon sign, they seem like the freaking Great Wall of China. Once I got past that last row of cars, it became a lot harder to move forward. I glanced behind me, and I saw dozens of scared faces peeking out from behind the cars I had just left, the baby fat still clinging to most of them. I clenched my jaw and kept moving. Grimalkin, pull back. I sent out with an effort of will through my connection with Winter.
Yes, Sir Knight. The elder malk replied simply, and the hundred or so malks that Mab had so graciously 'overlooked' began to melt back into the shadows. I felt them going the opposite direction of me, sensing them as they passed. I could also feel their bloodlust and satisfaction as they slinked away from the battle, along with their weariness. They couldn't have been fighting for more than a half-an-hour, but asked any experienced fighter, whether they be a boxer or a soldier, and they'll tell you what I had come to learn in the last two decades. A half hour may not seem long when you're watching an episode of a tv show, but on the battlefield an half hour feels like an eternity. I advanced through that empty stretch of ground, feeling the bullets hitting my shield in rapid succession. Some tried to hit lower, get me in the ankles or the knees, but I had prepared for that. After Ethniu had attacked, I had upgraded my gear with the ample time living in a castle as a loner had given me. Now I wore boots that went up to my knees that over several months I had laboriously enchanted with the same defenses that my leather duster possesed, strong enough to stop bullets and claws. Butters and the Alphas tried to convince me to get a helmet with the same defenses, but if I didn't wear hats then there was no way I was going to be wearing a helmet. So the bullets that hit lower than what my shield covered hurt like hell, but they didn't pierce the leather. I kept moving forward, trying to get in the middle of the ground.
Within moments, all the scary demon cats had melted into the darkness, leaving the enemy hellhounds bleeding and very confused. Tentative barks and uncertain snarls, along with the constant gunfire and the occasional dropping of a sniper's body provided my soundtrack as I began to gather up my will. It was no Welcome to the Jungle, but it would have to do. Grimalkin appeared beside me, coasting along in the darkness, keeping pace effortlessly, a personal bodyguard.
There wasn't as much pure energy in the air tonight, with the entire city being asleep and all. But the atmosphere still provided me with a decent amount, because all the people who were awake were terrified. I kept reaching though, feeling something just beyond my mental fingertips. Suddenly I grabbed it and grinned. There it was.
"You stupid bastards." I cackled, raising my staff and making it glow. "Don't you know you never install a ventilation shaft into your Death Star?" And then I fully grabbed onto the power helpfully provided by the goddess Hecate, dropped my shield and shouted "Forzare!"
The residual magic of a god coursed through me, and I unleashed it on the conveniently assembled ranks. The world became a mass of white static as I was thrown back several dozen feet until I hit one of the upturned cars and lay there slumped, too dazed to move. Well, crap. There went my cool wizard status in front of the kiddos. Hard to look suave when you're shot over twenty-five feet across the ground. Sanya hurried to my side, and with a grunt I pulled myself to my feet with his help, and I leaned heavily on my staff to look at what I had done.
"Bozhe moi." Sanya breathed beside me, and I had to agree with him. The first three rows of the ranks were gone. Just… gone. Disintegrated into dust, leaving clouds slowly drifting down to coat the bridge in a fine dusting. Behind that, several monsters I could see were actively turning into dust, or falling over the sides of the bridge. That's when I noticed that the swaying I felt was not just in my mind. I mean, part of it was, I had hit the car pretty hard. But the bridge itself was swaying, groaning and creaking quite alarmingly. I looked up to see that the snipers had gotten it the worst. They were clinging to the sides, the ones who hadn't fallen off at least. I could see a bunch of flying creatures take off from ground on the other side of the bridge and come swooping in, plucking the snipers off and carrying them back to relative safety. Relative, because Kinkaid was still on the job. Booms rang out, and with each boom a bird fell from the sky, the unfortunate sniper going down with it. But still, the majority of them got away. I focused back in front of me to find that most of the monsters were slowly regaining their feet (or snake trunks). The only one that seemed to not have lost its footing, well, I guess hooves, was the massive minotaur, which easily was taller than me and looked pissed off. The boy Percy came to stand beside me, holding of all things a pen in his hand.
"That minotaur doesn't look very happy." I wheezed tiredly as I forced myself to stand up straight. "Guess I wouldn't be either, if I was created just out of spite. Wait, does that make you…?" I trailed off, briefly confounded by the logistics of being related to a half-bull half-man. Then again, my brother was a vampire so I didn't have much room to speak.
The kid winced. "Man, when it comes to the gods it gets messy real quick. I try not to think about that stuff." He uncapped his pen, which turned into a sword. Yup, that was normal. "You think you could do that again?"
I couldn't help it, I let out a chuckle that was tinged with not a small amount of hysteria. "Kid, you're lucky I pulled it off the first time." The power of Hecate still coursed through me, but it was a fraction of what I had just held. Before, it felt like when I was on Demonreach, tapping into Alfred's power for the first time. Now I simply felt like I had a good night's sleep and hadn't used my magic for a week or so. Still good for a fight, but I wasn't going to be shaking a bridge anytime soon.
"Thought so. You stay here and we'll take it from here. You did your best." The arrogant little brat said, and the girl stepped up next to him.
"Da. He is right, Harry. Leave some for the rest of us." Sanya said with a grin and clapped a hand on my shoulder, almost making me topple again. I saw he had his sword out, and it was creating a steady and warming light.
I lowered my voice and put on my best Sean Connery impersonation. "Losers whine about their best. Winners go home and…" On second thought, maybe I shouldn't be quoting that particular movie.
Butters raised a bushy eyebrow at me, and I waved him away tiredly. "Forgot the rest of the quote." Butters nodded, clearly not believing me, and his mouth twisted into a grin.
"So are we going to just wait around patiently while the bad guy regroups or what?" Gard said and then took off at a run, ax held in a two-handed grip. I recognized the look in her eyes, recognized the bloodlust that came over her face as she charged the arm alone like a mad woman. I felt it every time I thought of Murphy. It was the need to kill something, to take something in front of you, something unquestioningly wrong and evil, and end it. To get back at the world for taking something, someone away that you loved so deeply, to make the world pay for your pain. It didn't matter to me that Hendricks was on the complete opposite side of the moral compass as Murphy was, I understood the pain.
I let the Winter Mantle take me over, surrendered to the bloodlust that it felt kinship with in Gard, and took off at a light jog. The monsters roared their defiance and began to run at us. Not jog or even a run in a single line. It was a mad dash, a scrabbling over each other to be first, to be in front to kill. It made the job so much easier. Before they had been monsters, but still sentient ones. Ones that had discipline and training and were clearly organized. This… this rabble was clearly not thinking, they had let their animalistic nature take over. I felt my mouth split open into a wide grin as ice literally formed on my fingertips and I raised my blasting rod. It made it all so much simpler. It made them… prey.