"Listen Piper, I...I don't think we should go on any further today."
"What? But why?"
"This next part's just too painful, all right?"
Piper looked into the boy's sullen eyes with what she hoped was human sincerity and not charmspeak. "You're holding something inside. You know I've found it always helps to share it with someone else."
Michael Yew laughed, though it was a hollow, tired sound. "That's what Drew told me the day after it happened."
"The day after what happened?"
"A huge battle, that happened mere yards from where we stand now. We were fighting for our survival..." Michael stopped, uncertain if he wanted to continue. Piper nodded encouragingly. He took a deep sigh and plodded onward.
"It was the greatest collection of demigods and monsters in one place since World War II. The Battle of the Labyrinth, that's what we called it later on. That damned Daedalus..."
Two years earlier
"How many are we expecting?"
"Hundreds, maybe more."
"You really think we'll...you know, have to fight Kronos?"
Lee Fletcher gave his perpetually worried second in command a pat on the back. "If he shows, we'll give him a taste of Apollo's medicine...uh, you know, the bad kind of medicine, not the good kind."
That seemed to loosen Michael Yew up a bit, as he laughed at Fletcher's corny joke. The two of them were performing an inspection of their fellow Apollo archers, making sure they were in optimal position for when the moment arrived. Since he was still the new kid in the cabin and a mediocre archer, they'd also decided to invite Will Solace along to show him how it's done.
In all his time at Camp Half-Blood, Michael had never seen it so totally and completely armed to the teeth. All the cabins had gone all out. Hephaustus kids had the labyrinth entrance wired with so many traps that, if they were lucky, the cursed tunnel might just collapse in on itself and take the Titan army with it. Clarisse had Ares running formation drills. Annabeth Chase and her Athena cabin mates had a command post set up where they were presumably gaming out strategies. Hermes were making themselves useful and providing much needed reinforcement to the shorthanded Apollo archers. They had even managed to convince some Dryads to join as well.
"How long can we hold them off?" Will asked, bringing Michael back to the present moment.
"We can't. All we can do now is pray for a good casket," Michael replied half-jokingly.
"Hey, we may not match them in numbers, but we have twice as much in spirit. And if all else fails, Percy can just win this one for us by himself." Lee said in his best attempt at a lighthearted tone.
Even Percy Jackson may be no match for what's coming. Michael decided it would be best to keep the thought to himself. No need to cause any further worry for Will.
Eventually they reached a prearranged spot in the woods where they were supposed to meet up with Travis Stoll, the counselor of the Hermes cabin, the co-leader of the archery battalion today along with Apollo counselor Lee Fletcher. Seeing as for now there was nothing to do but wait, Michael looked back again at the scene unfolding out in the open ground where the main battle would be fought. Everything seemed in constant motion, demigods running this way and that, shouting and receiving directions, the gleam of the sunlight on bronze armor and weaponry, and then he caught a familiar gaze and time slowed again. It was her.
All these months later, whenever he saw Drew Tanaka, the only thing he could think of was that kiss in the woods. He knew it wasn't right. He knew you shouldn't mix love and war. And he knew, he knew that under no circumstamces could you trust an Aphrodite girl to be faithful. That was the truth he had known before he met Drew, so why did it all feel so meaningless now? Whatever Drew was doing, it was driving him mad.
"Hey guys." Travis Stoll's distinctive voice snapped Michael out of his thoughts. We have a mission to accomplish.
"You're late." Lee remarked flatly, as though this was not the first time.
"Look, Connor totally set me up. Get this, he set my alarm clock to go off two hours early. I have no idea how he did it. I specifically asked Beckendorf to make me an alarm clock that Connor couldn't mess around with. You see, this other time-"
"Story time can wait, Trav," Lee interrupted impatiently.
"Okay, sorry. Anyways, uh...the Hermes cabin is in attack position, we have Dryads to fill in the blind spots."
"Good. Is there anything else you need?"
"Yeah, we need a medic, preferably a good one."
Lee turned to the youngest member of the Apollo cabin. "You're looking at the best right here. Okay, Solace, you're on point."
"Me? But-"
"You'll do fine," Lee said reassuringly.
Michael had an objection too. "Hold on, are you sure about this?"
"I'm sure. They need him more than we do."
What Lee was proposing made logical sense. The Hermes campers were not as skilled as the Apollo kids in archery, and the Dryads were even less reliable, they had only received emergency training in the past few days. It made sense then, to deploy the best medic with the more vulnerable group who had a greater chance of fielding serious injuries. Still, something felt wrong to Michael, like they were making a decision that could alter more than just strategic outcomes. But he raised no further objection, and Will went off with Travis Stoll to his side of the woods.
"Okay, we're alone now. Tell me about her."
"About who?" Michael replied innocently.
Lee shook his head. "There's no point trying to play dumb, I know you too well for that. What's she like?"
Michael hesitated. He'd never told anyone about his feelings for Drew. He thought about lying again, but finally said, "She's beautiful."
Lee shrugged. "All children of Aphrodite are beautiful. You know, I was watching this one old flick with Leonardo DiCaprio in it, and- um, actually, never mind, go on."
"She's not like the others, Lee. She's thoughtful, and intelligent, and funny, she has a big heart. It's like there's this whole other side of her that she only shows me."
"Yeah? And what makes you so special?"
"That's what I keep asking myself."
"Well stop asking yourself, because I'm gonna tell you now. You know all those things you just listed? They describe you too. I saw that from the night at the campfire when I found out you were my half-brother. And she sees it too, she'd be blind not to."
"So what do I do?"
"You ask her out, of course."
"You say it like it's so easy," Michael said, feeling more flustered the longer this conversation went on.
"It's easier than you think. And I'm going to hold you to it. No matter what happens today, if we survive this, you ask her out, okay?"
Michael never got a chance to respond to Lee's question, because at that very moment, the first of the Titan army burst out of the entrance, setting off massive blasts from the traps laid by Hephaestus. The Battle of the Labyrinth had begun.
"Archers, fire!" On Lee Fletcher's command, the archers in the Apollo cabin unloaded a volley of arrows down on the smoke filled entrance. At the same time, the Hermes campers and Dryads did the same from the other end of the forest. It wasn't meant to be a precision volley, it was just supposed to take out as many of the enemy as possible to make things easier for the other cabins.
"Yew! Get up there and lead those archers!"
"You got it!" Michael replied, and he nimbly ascended a nearby tree so he could be nearer to his fellow campers.
The monsters were still coming, giants, dracaenae, hellhounds, and - traitors be damned - some turncoat half-bloods, and there was no sign that the campers' early traps had done much to slow the Titan army down. Michael called for another volley, then another. Arrows rained from the sky, each finding their target with Apollonian accuracy. But with each wave they defeated, a new one emerged.
Some of the dracaenae managed to get around their frontline, the camp would have been totally defenseless, but that mysterious demigod, Nico di Angelo, managed to fend them off by...had he just summoned a bunch of skeletons to fight for him? Normally something that extraordinary would have stopped Michael in his tracks, but he was in combat mode, single minded, he couldn't afford distractions when he had an archery division to lead.
And so the battle raged on. Now a part of the forest was burning, threatening the naiad spirits' homes, but fortunately Percy Jackson managed to put it out just in time. Thank the gods we have a son of Poseidon on our side. There was Tyson the cyclops, fighting off one of those pesky Laistrygonians with his sheer strength. And there was Chiron, standing like a graceful statue in the middle of it all, calmly firing arrows with pinpoint accuracy.
As if that weren't enough to take in, now some of the Laistrygonians were trying to knock down the trees where Michael and the other Apollo campers were posted with their massive wooden clubs. Branches shook and leaves trembled with each thunderous blow. Some couldn't hold on, they plummeted to an uncertain fate below. Others either tried to dig in or scattered elsewhere. One giant tried to charge at Michael's tree, he shot it in the eye and watched it disintegrate into golden dust.
Just when things seemed back under control though, with perfect timing as ever, catastrophe struck. Michael had never seen anything like this monster, although he had heard stories. The snakes in its hair reminded him of Medusa, but somehow this creature was even more terrifying. It was half human, half dragon, with a tail like that of a scorpion, and razor sharp claws for hands, each of which wielded a poison laced scimitar. At the waist, where the two halves met, the body seemed to become almost fluid, and various animal heads protruded from it. It was like something out of a nightmare, the kind that kept kids up at night, afraid of the monster in their closet. Imagine having that thing in your closet, Michael thought darkly. The monster wasted no time obliterating the command post the Athena cabin had set up, which left Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase to challenge the monster alone. They had almost no hope of winning, Michael realized, no matter how good they might be. He thought about ordering the archers to lay down some air cover for Percy and Annabeth, but just then, catastrophe struck- again.
A cry of commotion from near the Apollo side of the forest gave it away. While the campers had been cowed by the new monster's arrival, a squad of draecanae and giants had taken advantage and were now in position to outflank the camp's defenses, with potentially fatal consequences. The left flank was the weaker of the two, manned only by the Aphrodite and Demeter cabins. Drew's in there, the panicked thought struck him like a blast from Zeus' Master Bolt. They won't last five minutes, they'll be overrun, monsters take no prisoners-
Michael knew the correct procedure for a situation like this was to have his archers redirect their fire at the new threat, but what good was procedure when Drew was about to die? There weren't enough archers to stop the invaders from this distance, but there might be enough demigods for a rescue mission...
"Apollo! On me, let's give them some ground support!"
Michael quickly scurried down from his tree, where he found Lee Fletcher and a half dozen Apollo campers waiting.
"What's going on?" Lee asked.
"Their outflanking our lines, we have to protect them!" Michael replied, which was true, but in reality he knew why he was doing this, and maybe Lee suspected it as well, because he just nodded his accedence.
"You heard what he said, use your daggers or pick up whatever weapon you can find, let's show these monsters how Apollo takes care of business!"
All of them raised a rousing chant of "For Apollo!", then charged into the fray.
Many an armchair quarterback would have been quick to point out the flaws in Michael's judgement. The Apollo campers were multitalented and feisty, but they weren't Ares, hand to hand combat and swordplay did not come naturally to them. Nevertheless, it was the only course of action that had any chance against a enemy force that powerful. Michael picked up a sword dropped by a deceased demigod, he hoped those lessons in the fencing arena would pay off now...
Silena Beauregard was marshalling her cabin, who mostly looked terrified of the oncoming enemy, when the would-be reinforcements arrived.
"Lee, Michael? I didn't expect to see you two here, and you've brought your cabin mates too?"
"Ah, I believe the words you're looking for are "thank you", Lee quipped sarcastically.
"Ha ha," Silena retorted. "Well...we appreciate any help we can get at this point."
"Don't thank me, it was all his idea," Lee jabbed his thumb in Michael's direction.
At that moment, he caught Drew's eyes, she was standing next to Silena, an unreadable gaze in her eyes. Does she know? Suspect perhaps? Maybe I had it read all wrong, maybe they had it under control all along and I overreacted-
Then she smiled at him, as if to send a silent "thank you", and he knew he'd made the right choice.
"Don't look now, but the enemy's closing in," Lee warned. "Remember, holding the line is important, but we also need to stay alive, let's try to advance or retreat as a unit."
"You got it," Silena replied. Katie Gardner nodded as well to indicate that she understood.
And so it was that this ragtag group of demigods would be quite possibly the last line of defense for Camp Half-Blood. And even if they somehow succeeded, there was no guarantee that Percy and Anmabeth would had defeated their fiendish opponent on the other side of the battlefield-
But Michael knew they couldn't afford to worry about anything but the fight in front of them. He looked to his side, and found Drew there, wielding a bronze knife. He thought he had come to protect her, but now they would be fighting side by side. It was a jarring mental image. Up until the capture the flag match a few months ago, for all he knew, Drew might've been a pacifist or something. It was like discovering a whole new side of her.
"You ready for this?" He asked, trying to keep his voice lighthearted in spite of the circumstances.
Drew smiled at him again, "I've been practicing". And Michael couldn't help but grin at her newfound confidence. Then the first wave of dracaenae arrived and crashed into the newly created defenses.
The bad news was that all of the half-bloods were mediocre swordsmen at best, the good news was the battleground was so congested, the dracaenae couldn't take advantage of it. The Greeks thrived in the chaos of the melee, they played off each other, anticipated each other's strikes, slashed and rolled on pure instinct. Michael cut one dracaena clean through, then nicked another, but suddenly a third dracaena managed to get inside Michael's guard and disarm him. The monster gleefully closed in for the kill, only for a bronze knife to fly from nowhere into its chest, turning it to dust. Michael looked to his side and saw Drew looking back at him as if she couldn't believe she had really just done that, but they both knew that she had. She'd just saved his life.
Michael really wished he could somehow stop this battle right now so he could tell her how amazing she was to him, heck, he might have even said that he loved her. But of course he had to get back to the matter at hand, and things were about to get even more dicey. The dracaenae had just been the first wave, the invaders had saved their big guns for last.
The Laistrygonians, 8 foot behemoths that they were, presented a big, easy target, but they also brought brute strength, and they weren't shy of using it. The demigods had by now been worn down from fighting off the dracaenae, several of them were wounded, some badly enough to be effectively out of action. Michael took a quick visual survey of the situation, they had 8 half-bloods who could still fight, against 4 giants. Those looked like good odds until you realized the giants could kill you with one swing of their club. Whatever line had once been established was fractured, as people were just trying to stay alive. Michael now stood alongside Drew and Lee Fletcher, trying desperately to fend off one of the giants. The monster swung his club, barely missing them, and Lee charged in, but his strike only struck the armor, and the giant remained standing. Michael quickly followed up with a low slash at the ankles, but his form was off, and the monster kicked him away.
Michael tried to stand, he was wounded, clutching his chest, and his vision was blurred, but he could see the monster and Lee going at each other, a smash of the club, then a dodge, then a counter, then another smash...
The giant seemed vulnerable, its club was embedded in the ground. In the time it would take to pull it out, Lee could get past the Laistrygonian's guard and-
He never saw it coming. The giant had only been pretending to have his club stuck, as soon as Lee made his approach, the monster rapidly swung sideways, landing a direct hit and sending Lee sprawling to the ground several feet away.
Time seemed to have stopped in the worst way. It was like a nightmare he couldn't wake uo from "No!" Michael cried in anguish. The giant was moving towards Lee's motionless body, Drew stood between them, but there was no way she could get close enough to use her knife... Suddenly the pain didn't matter anymore, nothing mattered, nothing but saving the two people he cared about most.
The next thing he knew, he was running, sword at his side, charging headlong at Lee's possible killer. The giant noticed too late, and tried to smack Michael the same way it had Lee, but he was ready and rolled under it, then, with a quick slash to the unarmored stomach, the murderous thing was finally gone.
"I need a medic!" Michael yelled at anyone who would listen, for all he knew, there was no one in earshot. The Battle of the Labyrinth was over. Percy and Annabeth had defeated the nightmare creature with some help from a hundred-handed one, a hellhound, and Daedalus himself, which seemed beyond belief, but it had apparently happened. Then, Grover Underwood, the satyr, had driven away what remained of the Titan Army by unleashing some gods-awful scream. All of this was interesting, but none of it was of any importance to Michael Yew right now. Lee Fletcher, his friend, his half-brother, his cabin leader, was on the brink of death.
"Somebody get me a medic!" He repeated, even louder this time. He cursed himself for not being a good healer, if only Will Solace were here, but right he would helping the wounded over on the other side of the forest.
Drew was still by his side, and together they stood vigil over the dying Apollo leader. But it couldn't end like this, Michael told himself, it wasn't right, it wasn't just, not when the battle was won. Not when they should have been celebrating together.
"Listen Lee, you're going to make it through this, all right?" Michael said, more to reassure himself than his friend.
Lee was in bad shape, but he could still talk, with much effort. "Not this time...can't...control when the Fates cut your string."
Michael shook his head violently "Don't give me that new age baloney, Fletcher, you're going to live and that's final."
Lee cracked a faint smile, even as his voice came out in a weak, forced cadence. "You..always were the stubborn one. You never give up...I- I admire that in you. Apollo is in good hands with you in charge."
"No, no you can't-"
Lee interrupted him one last time. "Yew...remember what we talked about...earlier. I could stand death- worst punishment in Hades...knowing that you found happiness."
Michael tried to think of something, anything to say in reply, but the light in Lee's eyes had faded. He was gone, a serene look on his face, as though he had died in his sleep rather than at the hand of a savage giant. Michael Yew wept as he knelt above Lee Fletcher, his fallen brother, only Drew's comforting embrace giving him shelter from the darkness.
