Nothing is mine.

Time for this one to get an update!

From Red Waters to Darkness...

Percy jogged through the sparse pines, leaping roots as he followed Iphi's fleeting figure through the trunks out onto the flat spread of green.

Iphi slowed to a jog and glanced over her shoulder as he picked his way through the waist high grass and smiled. 'We have caught him.' She pointed out across the green past the loose line of her sisters.

A single familiar silhouette stumbled and limped across the plain toward the distant hills and a small shining patch of water.

Ethan.

Percy gathered his breath and swiped sweat off his forehead. 'Where are we?'

'West.' Thalia stood up from the grass and grinned. 'Give it a few minutes and you'll see.'

Annabeth and Clarisse jogged down the slope, staggering to a halt.

'Grover hurry up!' Annabeth yelled over her shoulder. 'Clarisse is carrying all your stuff and you're still slower than her!'

Grover dragged himself out of the trees, gasping for breath and flopping into the grass.

Clarisse shook her head. 'Useless. Why are you even here?'

'Sorry,' Grover moaned. 'I'm not made for long distance running. I hate track.'

'Loser.' She dropped his bag on his back and stepped over him. 'What now? Why did we stop?'

'Because we've caught him.' Thalia glanced at Iphi. 'Do you want to take half our sisters and go left? I'll go right?'

'Cut him off?' Iphi nodded. 'We'll catch him before he reaches that little lake.'

'And we just chase after him to close the jaws of the trap,' Annabeth said. 'That's a solid plan.'

'He can't have stopped for long to have gotten this far—'

A dull boom echoed across the green and a pillar of water rose into the air a little ahead of Ethan.

'Old Faithful,' Annabeth said.

'Faithful roar,' Percy murmured, his eyes straying to the small gleaming patch of water beyond Ethan.

Is that Death's Spring?

'Let's go,' Thalia ordered. 'Everyone on Alexandra's left go with Iphi. Everyone else with me.'

Iphi caught Percy's gaze, a strange gleam in her brown eyes. 'Be careful, Percy. My sister would not be pleased if you got yourself killed or hurt doing something stupid.'

'Don't hold your breath, he only does stupid things,' Annabeth muttered.

Artemis's companions split in half, streaking through the green as they curved out either side of Ethan's trail.

Clarisse groaned.

'Come on.' Percy clapped her on the shoulder and started into the grass, wincing at the twinge of aching muscles in his legs. 'Ethan's not going to pull his own spine out and let you use it as whatever you said you were going to use it for.'

'A spear stand.' Clarisse let out a long sigh and stumbled after him. 'I'm coming.'

Annabeth poked Grover in the side with her foot. 'Come on Grover,' she snapped. 'Get up. We've nearly caught him.'

Percy slipped a hand into his pocket and drew Anaklusmos out, pinning his gaze to Ethan's back as the long grass blurred past.

Now it's Lydia's Scourge. He batted a tuft of grass away and ground to a halt. Rising from Death's Spring.

Ethan stood at the edge of the small lake within a ring of Artemis's companions, the water lapping at his shoes and a circle of silver-feathered arrows sticking from the ground around his legs.

'Nowhere to run now, bitch,' Clarisse said, striding past Percy; her hoplon sprang up on her arm, a gleaming circle of bronze in the bright sun.

'I can't run at all on this stupid leg,' Ethan snapped. 'Go on then. You always loved to kick us minor gods' kids about while we were down, Clarisse. Get on with it.'

She growled. 'At least I didn't betray anyone.'

'Neither have I.' Ethan drew his xiphos. 'I'm fighting for you. Even demigods like him—' he pointed the tip of the blade at Percy '—who think they're so much better than us demi-gods of the non-Olympians.'

Clarisse snorted. 'You're an idiot. This moron would die for any one of us.' She drew herself up, raising her chin as her spear sprouted from her fist. 'There's a reason I fight for him.'

'Awwww,' Annabeth said. 'That was almost sweet, Clarisse.'

Clarisse's ears turned red. 'Shut up, Rapunzel. Like you're any different.'

Annabeth scowled through her golden curls. 'Ethan. Tell us what Luke is planning next.'

'No.' Ethan glanced down at the gash in his leg. 'I'm not telling you a single word. He isn't to be disturbed by anything.'

Clarisse grunted. 'I'll just beat it out of you.'

'No.' Percy put a hand on her shoulder and stepped past. 'There's nowhere to go, Ethan. This is the end.'

'It's not the end,' Ethan spat. 'Balance is inevitable. It is necessary. Whatever price we have to pay to bring it about must be paid!'

Percy shifted Anaklusmos into a xiphos and raised it. 'I don't want to hurt you, Ethan. I don't want to have to kill you, but choices have consequences. That's just how it works.'

The sea has no mercy. Percy's stomach churned, a foaming cauldron of cold sick waves. The storm feels no pity. He grappled with the rising tide of guilt. I don't want to do this.

Ethan sneered and limped forward, lunging at Percy's chest. Percy cut the blade away and took a deep breath, drawing the slow wash of gentle waves through the storm, sweeping it away like lines in the beach; he shifted his feet, twisting his wrist as Ethan stumbled back into the lake and slashing down at his chest.

Anaklusmos sheared through the raised xiphos and Ethan hurled himself back into the water, scrambling away on his hands and knees.

'There is always a way to balance things…' Ethan whispered, picking himself up. 'You just have to see it… See it…' He raised the jagged hilt of his sword, his face paling. 'Mother! Show me how! Grant me vision!' Ethan swallowed. 'Sight for sight. An eye… for an eye...' He drove the tip of the broken blade into his left eye and twisted, letting out a raw high scream; it sent chills down Percy's spine like the scrape and screech of nails on a chalkboard.

'Gods above,' Clarisse muttered. 'Guess he has some spine after all.'

The blade slipped from Ethan's fingers into the lake and he collapsed to one knee. Red trickled out from under the hand pressed to his eyes, running down his cheek like tears, dripping from his jaw into the clear water and spreading into little crimson clouds.

'Blood,' Annabeth whispered. 'Blood in—'

The ground lurched, hurling Percy onto his side in the mud and knocking Anaklusmos from his fingers.

A shadow blotted out the sun.

Great black coils rose from the heaving lake, shedding mud-stained water into a deep crater, and in their shadow burnt bitter green eyes.

Icy fear rushed through Percy's veins.

The ground trembled and with a piercing cry, the drakon sprang forward, snatching up Ethan with one foot and hurling him into the far side of the lake.

Percy pushed himself to his feet. 'So that's…'

'Lydia's Scourge.' Annabeth gulped. 'The Lydian drakon. Slain by Damasen but revived by its mate and slain once more by Heracles.'

'It doesn't look very slain,' Percy said as Anaklusmos sprang back into his hand 'Anyone have Heracles on speed dial? Or that other guy? Maybe both?'

A choked laugh burst through Annabeth's lips. 'You know none of us have a cell, you ass.'

'There was a drakon called that this whole time and you didn't mention it?' Clarisse demanded. 'And Ethan is escaping!'

Takes wing? Percy squinted at the drakon. It doesn't have wings.

'There are a lot of Lydian things!' Annabeth hissed. 'This isn't the moment, Clarisse!'

'How do we fight it?' Percy asked. 'Does chopping off its head work? Or does it grow back more?'

'Shoot it!' Thalia yelled, twisting the silver ring on her finger. 'Aim for the eyes!'

Showers of silver arrows streaked across the lake and bounced back off the great serpent's scales. It released a fierce hiss, spreading a tattered hood of black skin.

'Get back!' Annabeth yelled. 'Get down!'

The drakon reared and sprayed a thick stream of yellow poison; it splashed over the hunters beside Thalia, sizzling and burning their skin. Screams rang across the lake as the girls flinched back, clutching at raw, blistered skin. Iphi's group loosed their shafts, but the arrows skittered off its hard scales and fell into the water. The serpent lunged across the lake, coiling around them, jaws agape, rows of jagged teeth dripping yellow venom. Clarisse thrust her spear at its snout, catching its jaw, and it lashed out with one taloned foot, smashing Clarisse back into him and sending them sprawling into the mud.

'Percy!' Annabeth yelled as they scrambled to their feet. 'Grover calm it down or play something to distract it!'

A thin wavering song rose behind him and the drakon hissed, twisting on itself and swatting Annabeth away into the grass. Grover quailed as it rose over him, opening its dark maw with a fierce hiss.

'Percy,' he bleated. 'Now would be a great moment to not let it eat me!'

'Don't move!' Percy hurled Anaklusmos at the serpent's head, but the blade bounced off and spun away into the grass.

The drakon's head snapped around and it slithered back into the water, rising up and flaring its hood, spraying venom at Iphi's group of archers as they scattered back from the lake. Stray silver arrows flashed past and pinged off its scales, spinning away to splash into the water.

It's going to spit at anything too far away from it. Anaklusmos sprang back into his hand and he pressed the cool bronze to his forehead. We have to get close.

Foaming yellow venom spattered the lake shore at Thalia's feet as she loosed arrow after arrow at its head. A silver shaft sprouted from the drakon's eye and it reeled back with a piercing cry, clutching at its head with its feet as it writhed, a mass of slithering dark coils in the middle of the lake.

The drakon fell still and shook its head, releasing a long low hiss as it fixed its single green eye on Thalia.

Percy leapt across the mud and threw his shoulder into her, sprawling into the grass.

Dark scales flashed over his head as he rolled to his feet and snatched Anaklusmos up. The drakon's coils boiled forwards, snaking around them and closed in. Thalia's chin smacked him in the cheek and he groaned, jabbing Anaklusmos into the scales and pushing with all his strength.

'Help…Thalia,' he gasped as the coils tightened, crushing the breath from his burning ribs. 'Push… the sword.'

Something gave beneath their arms and the drakon flinched back, spilling them into grass.

'Ow,' Thalia muttered, staggering up pulling out her shield and spear. 'That hurt you stupid overgrown snake.'

Annabeth held Grover's pipes in her clenched fist, tears in her eyes and the drakon curled itself into a ball in the middle of the lake; its lone green eye brimmed with bitter rage as it stared through the heaving mass of its own dark-scaled coils.

It got Grover. A ripple of rage swept through him, rising from the deep, a wall of water towering higher and higher.

The lake churned and frothed at his feet.

'Back!' Iphi waved her sisters away from the lake. 'Get away from the water!'

They stumbled away in twos and threes, limping and leaning on each other, nursing raw, weeping burns on their arms and faces.

'It ate Grover.' Thalia's murmur came soft as distant thunder and all the hairs on his arms prickled and his skin tingled. 'It ate him.' White sparks crawled and burst on her spear in bright little flashes. 'I'm going to rip it apart!' She charged into the water and leapt.

The drakon's head lunged out, jaws agape; they met in a thunderclap and a searing white flash. Thalia flew back into the lake and bounced three times, sliding into the mud on her face. Splinters bristled from her right arm and ribs, spilling a stream of red into the lake.

Red waters. Percy drew the rising wave of black fury back, tugged it into a taut, clenched fist deep within, smoothing his swelling rage into smooth flat waters.

'Annabeth,' he snapped. 'Help Thalia.'

She darted across and gasped. 'Per—'

'Get her back to her camp.' Percy stepped forward to the lake's edge, flexing his fingers on Anaklusmos's hilt. 'I'm going to drown the stupid worm.'

The Lydian Drakon reared up in the lake; its mangled hood hung from its head in tatters of seared skin and curls of grey smoke rose from a patch of melted, warped scales on its throat.

Clarisse limped to his side and clapped her red-crested helm onto her head. 'Just the two of us, then.' She swallowed hard and pulled her blade from behind her bronze hoplon. 'How do we even fight this thing?'

'You just have to be brave and stab it before it bites you.' Percy mustered a grin. 'And remember, if we fall down anywhere dark and worrying, you have to let me land on top.'

The lake shivered and fell still as glass beneath his feet as he strode toward the burning green eye for the drakon.

Percy glanced over his shoulder. 'Clarisse?'

Annabeth made a strangled choking noise as she lifted Thalia over her shoulder. 'She can't walk on water, you idiot.'

He glanced down at the lake. 'Oh. Well. Just me, then. Help Annabeth with Thalia, Clarisse.'

Clarisse stared him in the eye, clenching her fist around the hilt of her blade until her knuckles turned white; her gaze dropped. 'Yes, strategos,' she muttered, tucking her blade behind her hoplon.

Perhaps it should just be me. Percy let the slow wash of the ride sweep his fear away. Be brave. Thalia made a hole in the scales. I only have to stab it once. He kissed the flat of Anaklusmos and stepped forward. Artemis, if you're not too busy with more important things, I could really use getting my aim right.

Percy took three slow steps out and stared up into the shadow of the serpent. 'I hope you brought your water wings. Because there's no lifeguard here and you're swimming in the deep end.'

Its burning green eye bored down through him as it bared its rows of fangs with a sharp hiss.

'I'll take that as a no on the water wings. Which is just poor planning and very disappointing. What kind of drakon doesn't have wings?'

Percy took a deep breath as it reared up. I am the sea. Always. He dived forward beneath a stream of foaming yellow venom and leapt up, driving Anaklusmos into the patch of melted, twisted scales.

The drakon reeled back with a choked hiss, ripping the blade from his hand and striking out with its legs as it flailed and thrashed in the lake. Percy ducked the sweep of talons, letting the swirling waves of the storm within tug him back and forth as he dodged the lashing tail and limbs, flowing through its wild swipes and sweeping the lake up into a wall of water to block the spray of yellow foam.

Anaklusmos gleamed in the centre of the warped, melted scales, half the length of the bronze xiphos sticking from its throat.

One more push.

Percy drew the tide back and leapt, letting the wave of power free. The lake rose beneath him, and he grabbed Anaklusmos's quivering hilt with both hands, forcing the blade through the scales and yanking it free.

A faint hiss escaped the serpent's gaping jaws as Percy let the water fall, sinking back to the ground. It burst into red dust, collapsing into the clear waters, leaving a single black oval scale as long as his arm.

'Percy,' Grover croaked, clawing his way out from under the drakon-scale. 'Thanks.' He let out a shuddering bleat. 'Thought I was dead for sure when it swallowed me.'

'Guess it chews its food about as well as you do,' Percy said, lifting Grover to his feet and dropping the drakon scale into his arms. 'Back to camp. Look after my new cabin wall decoration for me, I'll help carry Thalia.'

The dust spread through the lake; it bled crimson beneath his feet, lapping at Grover's knees as he waded back to shore.

'Red waters,' Percy murmured.

'My lord…' A trembling blue-eyed nymph rose from the water's edge, drenched red from head to toe, pointing one dripping crimson hand over Percy's shoulder.

'It's always you, Percy.' Luke's tired voice rang across the lake.

Percy's whirled around.

Little flecks of bright gold shone in Luke's eyes as he stared across the red lake, its crimson waters lapping at his toes. 'Every time.' He lifted the sickle from his shoulder and levelled it at Percy's heart. 'And each time we cross blades you are less and less the boy I first met and more and more something else.'

'Destined foes,' Percy replied, flexing his fingers on Anaklusmos. 'I'm going to make sure I end up on top.'

A sad smile curved Luke's lips. 'Not this time. I don't need tricks now.' He stepped forward into the lake and glanced past Percy. 'And when you die, I think the others will give up. I hope they do. I don't want to have to kill anymore of us.'

'Perhaps you should stop doing it then,' Percy snapped. 'You're the one choosing to kill them!'

'Only when I have no other choice,' Luke said. 'I think we know where we stand, Percy. There's not much point talking about it now.' He leapt forward, swinging the sickle down with both hands.

Percy jumped aside and thrust, slamming the point of Anaklusmos into Luke's ribs. Luke grunted and spun around, tearing a line of fire across Percy's chest as he leapt back.

'Did you forget?' Luke tore his t-shirt off with one hand and cast it into the lake. 'I'll cut you to ribbons before you leave so much as a scratch on me.'

Percy pulled the slice in his t-shirt open as the stinging pain faded away and the wound melted closed. 'Maybe if we weren't fighting in a lake...'

Luke's eyes hardened. 'It will only delay the inevitable.' He cut at Percy's chest.

Percy parried it and another blow, shifting his feet upon the water and side-stepping a third. Luke stepped after him, letting out a sharp wince as Percy rolled his wrists over the blade and slashed Anaklusmos across Luke's neck.

'That would have killed me,' Luke murmured. 'How are you any different to me, Percy? If you choose to kill demigods too?'

The sickle slipped past Anaklusmos and ripping a wave of burning pain through Percy's shoulder.

'I knew it wouldn't kill you,' he replied as his wound flowed shut.

They exchanged blows, circling each other across the lake. Luke gasped and grunted with every strike that caught him, sweat trickling down his pale forehead. Percy forced himself on, washing the pain of each cut away in the slow breath of the tide and letting them melt closed.

'This is futile.' Luke locked blades and shoved him back. 'We'll be here forever at this rate.'

Percy clawed the last dregs of the sea together and closed his grasp on the lake, wrapping its waters around Luke's legs and wrenching him down to his knees.

'Seems you're the stronger of the two of us in a fair fight. You're a son of Poseidon after all.' Luke stared up at Percy as the coil of water tightened its grasp. 'What now, Percy? Will you try and kill me?' A sad little smile spread across his face as he cupped a handful of crimson water in his palm. 'There'll be blood. There's always so much blood.' The smile faded and the little gold flecks in his eyes flickered with faint light. 'Or there would be, if you could kill me. If this was a fair fight.'

There's always a trick. Like before. Percy swallowed the cold trickle of fear. I suppose this is when we fall.

Ripples spread across the water behind Luke.

Annabeth.

Percy's blood ran cold. 'Get out of here,' he snapped. 'Now!'

'I will. I don't have time to beat you with just a sword.' Luke sighed. 'Sorry, Percy. Can't play fair anymore. There's too much at stake.' The little motes of gold in his eyes glowed bright, swirling and shining like dust in a ray of sunlight; he drove the point of the sickle into the lake bed.

The ground lurched and the red water shuddered, spiralling toward the slim dark blade in Luke's hand; it gushed into a thin crevice, pouring into bottomless black. The lake shrank away, dragging the crimson-drenched nymph down into the dark with a desperate scream.

Luke wrenched the sickle out and the crack widened, snaking past Percy's feet.

'Like I said—' Percy staggered forward over the crumbling ground '—I'm ending up on top.' He lunged.

A hand yanked him back and he sprawled into the lake; he leapt up, stumbling through the lake and clawing water from his eyes as the crevice yawned open before him.

'Idiot,' Annabeth hissed in his ear, hauling him backwards by the arm as chunks of lake-bed collapsed into the pitch black below. 'I knew you'd do something stupid—' her voice shook '—I knew it.'

But now it will be you. Percy's heart sank, plummeting into cold seas like a single small stone; the limitless dark crushed it, pouring down, an endless flood, grinding his heart into tiny grains of sand and away into dust. Now it will be the two of us, Annabeth.

'Annie…' Fear flashed through Luke's eyes as he stumbled back from the growing chasm; the golden sparks in his eyes dimmed. 'Annie get out of there!'

It's too late. She chose.

The ground vanished beneath Percy's feet, pitching him forward into the dark. Annabeth screamed, her fingers digging into his wrist as she clung to his arm

Falling again. Into darkness. He closed his eyes and clutched Anaklusmos tight as the wind shrieked past, dragging Annabeth close against him. And I don't think there's going to be any sea to save us at the bottom this time.

AN: My profile is the place to find links to everything else including early access, other stories, and all my original works, but if you're feeling as lazy as I am right now, then here's the easy way!

linktr . ee / mjbradley