Nothing is mine.

Percy dreams of his favourite girl again!

Senseless Strife

A frustrated furious scream tore through the trees, scattering the birds from the branches through the expanse of green leaves and away into the blue sky above. Staggering through the briars beneath the boughs came a slim, dark-haired girl; she stumbled over the roots and slipped on the soft, damp green moss, waving her hands in anger at all the forest around. Her white chiton hung from her tatters and her bare legs were covered in thin red scratches and scrapes from mid-thigh to her feet.

'Is there no end to this cursed forest?!' At the foot of a gnarled yew, she paused, reaching up to pluck the bright red berries from the dark needles. 'If there is nothing for me here but death, at least it will come at my hand, with nightshade, and not at the hands of cruel men, or the claws and teeth of a wolf or bear.'

Tripping and falling upon the roots as she turned, she collapsed into a deep patch of grass and let out another raw, angry yell, ripping the grass up by the roots with her bare hands as she dragged herself back to her feet, familiar obsidian dark eyes shining with fury and her red lips twisted by rage.

Zoë stomped about in the grass, kicking the wild flowers down with wild swings of her grazed legs and trampling the petals into the loam. 'If I am ever queen, I will have every temple of hers torn down. See how she likes it when people are cruel to her. I will tell the whole kingdom my sisters are ugly whores and my father a foolish brute who can only hold the weight of the world because Zeus made him strong enough to bear it.' She snatched the last blue flower from its stalk and squashed it in her fist, hurling the crumpled petals away.

But where they drifted to the ground, fresh flowers sprung up, putting forth ten times as many blue flowers.

Zoë gaped.

'Has the beauty of the wilderness offended you, Daughter of Atlas?' Artemis stepped from behind the trunk of a tall oak, her chiton as white as wild garlic, her hair auburn as autumn leaves, and her eyes as silver as the stars. 'For what reason do you roam my domain, screaming your hate and misery out for all to hear?'

Zoë trembled, rooted to the spot amidst the trampled glade. 'Forgive me, Great Artemis Agrotera,' she whispered, her dark eyes wide and full of fear. 'I should not have touched your wilderness, please, have mercy; I have nothing but my life and pride, do not take what little I have left.'

'If there is more to this act of wanton destruction than simple spite of the wilderness, let it be heard.' The corner of Artemis's mouth twitched. 'Fear not until your story is all spoken; I will not harm you before I can pass fair judgement.'

'I was cast out,' Zoë confessed, her gaze falling to her feet. 'My sisters betrayed me. My father banished me. I am nothing but a mortal girl and the hero I did it to aid has abandoned me.' She balled her right hand into a fist, but kept the left and its handful of yew berries behind her back. 'I hate them all.'

'Hate not noble Heracles,' Artemis murmured. 'I have crossed paths with him before and no malice would he have meant you.'

'He said he could not take me with him because of the danger. He said I should go to the mortal world and that I would be a queen because of my beauty.' Zoë scowled. 'As if all I could be without my power or my father's is some man's wife.'

'And what act prompted your banishment, Daughter of Atlas?'

'I stole an apple from the tree Zeus gifted Hera. Ladon knows my sisters and I well, for we tend to the garden and the tree, and I deceived him to steal the fruit and give it to Heracles.' Zoë's cheeks flushed red. 'Heracles was kind to me. And brave. '

'And strong and handsome,' Artemis said, 'though his noblest nature you have already spoken of.'

'Not kind enough to take me with him,' Zoë replied. 'Or brave enough to demand my father undo his banishment. This is what I get for trusting the whisper of Aphrodite and chasing the affections of a hero.'

'Perhaps he saw what I saw.' Artemis stepped closer through the wildflowers, gliding through the glade as smooth as a hawk on the wing. 'A girl who chose to do the right thing; a girl who longed to leave the confines of that garden because she was bright and brave and bold; a girl who gave hope to a hero who might have given in to despair and fear had she not, someone who would forever be welcome at my side to inspire that hope in others still.'

Zoë stared; her heart hovered in her eyes, full of fragile hope. 'You mean…?'

'If you so choose—' Artemis held out her hand '—you may come and find new sisters amongst my own companions. To come and be brave and kind as you were to Heracles.' She studied Zoë, a soft gleam in her silver eyes, and the yew berries appeared upon her other palm, bursting into silver flame and fading away. 'Well, do you accept my offer Zoë of the Nightshade?'

'I… I wasn't going to eat them,' she mumbled. 'It was just in case…'

'The Wilderness can be cruel,' Artemis murmured. 'Nightshade is a better death than many and it is brave again to face that truth prepared. But if you can be brave and kind, you need never fear an end such as that…'

'I would accept…' Something wavered in her dark eyes. 'Only, I cannot use a blade, or a spear, or a bow, and nor have I any skill that might be of use beyond the comfort of the Garden of the Hesperides. I cannot serve you.'

'All that you might need to know, I will teach you, Zoë,' Artemis promised, her voice as soft as the rustle of a summer breeze down the grassy slopes of the mountainside. 'All I ask of you is that you be brave, be kind, and choose well; if you can, you will spend all the years of your unaging life at my side until you pass into Elysium without regret or fear.'

Zoë raised her chin, drawing herself up with a deep breath. 'I can be brave, my lady. And kind.' She reached out and took Artemis's hand.

Zoë. Percy opened his eyes to find Katie draped across him, her head tucked into the crook of his neck; he stretched, smacking his elbow on the inside of the van as it bounced through potholes. You were lost too, until she showed you what to do. And you kept on choosing well for thousands of years; you were so brave for so long. A hot lump stuck in the back of his throat. One day, I'll see you again. Maybe one day soon.

'Wakey wakey, Sleeping Beauty,' Clarisse said, flashing him a broad grin from beneath her sharp nose. 'Flower-girl's looking very comfortable on you there, but I'm pretty sure she's faking so you won't tell her to stop cuddling up to you.'

'No she isn't,' Percy replied, feeling the steady sound of Katie's breath against his neck. 'She's definitely asleep. And I said she could sit on my lap if she wore the Nemean Lion's pelt.' He peered through the rain trickling down the windscreen at a blurred expanse of green. 'Are we there?'

'Glorieta Pass is just up here,' Clarisse declared. 'There was a sign for it about a mile back.'

'Good.' Percy flexed his legs a little bit. 'Because I think I'm going to have terrible pins and needles when Katie gets off me.'

'A drachma says she pretends to be asleep when we get there so she doesn't have to move,' she wagered.

'No.' Percy glanced down at Katie's peaceful sleeping face beneath her messy blonde hair. 'Leave her be. Let her enjoy this moment; it's not much in the grand scheme of things and soon...'

Clarisse nodded. 'I know, strategos. Sunny Vale.' She tapped the brakes with her foot and flicked the indicator, slowing them down and pulling them off the small road to the left. 'We're here, Perce.'

Percy gave Katie a gentle shake. 'Time to wake up, Captain Crunch.'

Clarisse's grin broadened as Katie's breathing remained steady. 'Maybe you should try kissing her awake, Sea-boy. She'd like that.'

'Maybe you should try shutting up,' Percy retorted. 'You can't go around kissing girls in their sleep like that, it's creepy.'

'You can if you know they really really want you to,' she replied. 'But fine, if you're not going to kiss her, then I'll tell you what the cucumber joke means—'

'No you don't!' Katie blurted, her green eyes snapping open. 'Percy isn't going to learn about that ever!'

'Oh look, she somehow heard me from within Morpheus's realm.' Clarisse cackled. 'I could've made an easy drachma there…'

Percy sighed. 'I'm really starting to get curious about the cucumber thing now. Can someone please tell me?' He ignored Clarisse's sniggering as bright pink blossomed across Katie's cheeks. 'Please?'

She squirmed. 'Maybe, but not when Clarisse is here to laugh!' Her green eyes flashed. 'I'll beat her unconscious with a cucumber first!'

'You can try, Plant-girl.' Clarisse cracked her knuckles. 'You can try.'

'Come on,' Percy said, easing Katie's arms away from around his neck. 'We're at the place, we've got one of the Gigantes to find. Hopefully it's a friendly one and the line about Spear-Daughter's grasp just means Clarisse needs to give them a hug.'

'No chance.' Clarisse snorted and threw open the door, leaving the engine running. 'The van will be dead by the time we get back; the battery won't last.'

'I guess we'll have to do some running,' he said. 'Why can't the part of the quest I'm likely to die on be before the running? That's so unfair.'

Katie wriggled in his lap. 'It might not be you,' she whispered, biting at her lip. 'You gave me your word that after… you'd let me try and make you happy, and love me just a little.'

Oh, Katie.

'If you find a way to stop me having to do the running, I will love you a lot. Unless it actually does involve me dying beforehand, of course.' Percy mustered a grin as he opened the van door. 'But now we have to get out.'

She swung herself off his lap and stumbled out into a small car park.

A shallow slope of light, sandy soil stretched down beneath slim short pines and tough, sparse scrub and grass to a small wooden bridge and the steep banks of a narrow creek. Through that brown, foetid water, a handful of men all in dark blue uniforms fought, swinging and lunging at each other with old rifles, trampling almost a hundred corpses into the muddy creek.

'The inglorious dead,' Clarisse said. 'Those that fall without honouring war are doomed to fight in it forever.'

'Not more Confederate soldiers,' Percy complained. 'Are they going to be as dull as the ones on that boat your dad gave you?'

'They're damned to fight forever,' she replied. 'So probably, yes. They'd do anything to escape it, but there's nothing they can do.'

'They're fighting each other?' Katie interjected.

'No, there are Union Soldiers down there as well,' Clarisse said. 'The uniforms are slightly different because of supply issues and state-based variations at the time of the war. They're all blue, but the Union soldiers had matching uniforms, whereas the Confederate ones are a bit mismatched.'

The soldiers fell one by one, impaled or beaten down, their skulls broken in upon the river bank, and, as the last three Union soldiers stood victorious over the field, their dark blue uniforms soaked in muddy water, a boy applauded from the bridge.

'What a show!' he cheered, sitting upon the wooden rail and swinging his legs over the water beneath. 'What valour! The curtain falls upon the three victorious heroes! Another victory for the Union; who now lead the score thirty-three to nineteen!'

'Let's go down,' Percy suggested. 'I'm sure the Gigantes will helpfully pop up at some point. Or not that helpfully, more likely.'

Katie nodded, reaching a hand down her hoodie and pulling the small poppy off her necklace. It sprang into a short, leaf-bladed, bronze sword.

Clarisse snickered. 'We need to get you a bigger weapon.'

'I don't need a big weapon,' Katie retorted. 'I'm not compensating for a complete lack of a brain like you are.'

Percy patted Katie on the shoulder and drew Anaklusmos from his pocket, extending it into a xiphos as he strode down the slope toward the boy on the bridge. 'I kind of assume this guy isn't going to be any better than the last guy, so be careful, he might summon more bad horses.'

'Look!' The boy waved a hand toward them. 'An audience, my friends. Perhaps this is what you've all been waiting for! Come on! Places! Places!'

The dead rose, shambling back into small squares either side of the river. The boy tucked a bowl of grapes further into the lap of his jeans and raised his hands above his golden curls, poised to clap.

'What is going on?' Clarisse demanded, striding along the creaking wooden bridge. 'And who the hell are you?'

'I'm Octavian; I found these noble soldiers,' the boy replied. 'They were just standing around here waiting to move on to Heaven or some place, so I told them that they had to earn it. That if they fight with honour, dignity, and valour, then whoever wins gets to move on and the loser must remain.'

'They're already dead,' she said. 'There can be no victor; they're cursed for falling without honouring war as it deserves. They cannot move on until dad chooses to release them from the curse.'

'Well, of course.' Octavian grinned, but the light of that warm smile never reached his cold, dead blue eyes. 'But I was bored, so I tried to see if I could make them fight each other again.' He plucked a grape from the bowl and popped it into his mouth, biting down on it and squirting juice down the front of his loose purple t-shirt. 'And I could.'

'You ought to join them,' Clarisse declared. 'Who is your parent?'

'The Great Apollo is my grandfather,' Octavian declared. 'I am but a humble legacy of the God of the Sun, but look at the performance I have arranged in his honour.'

The two neat squares of dead soldiers lined up on either side of the creek and charged across it, dissolving into a struggling knot of undead splashing through the waters and spilling corpses into the mud.

'I think my favourite bit is not that I could get them to fight forever like this, but that they will play dead when mortally wounded.' Octavian giggled to himself, chomping on dark red grapes as the desperate fight raged on beneath his swinging feet. 'The dead, playing dead, when all they want to do is escape their death.'

'Why?' Percy asked.

Octavian twisted around. 'Because I can.' He studied Percy with a sharp gleam in his blue eyes. 'I know you. I dreamt of you. I've dreamt of you for years.'

Clarisse cackled. 'Katie, you've got competition.'

A little growl escaped Katie. 'Shut up, Clarisse.'

'Not like that—' Octavian's lip curled '—I am a legacy of the God of Prophecy. Mostly, I just get… impressions, but I dreamt of you as clearly as you stand before me now. I saw you on a bridge, killing a boy with one eye, and I saw you in the water, facing a figure of blazing golden light alone while everyone else stared, and I saw you beneath the stars, watching some girl die, and I saw you on an island, leaving a girl behind as you lied to her about coming back to save her.' The sneer faded and Octavian's voice dropped to a reverent whisper. 'You were marvellous. I'd never seen such a fine performance. If these poor dead fools could manage even the tiniest part of it, they would all be free from their curse.'

'I didn't lie.' A small ripple of anger swept through Percy. 'She has to free herself; if I went back, I wouldn't be able to save her. Zeus himself said so.'

Octavian shrugged. 'Call it what you will, it was delightful to watch.' He finished his grapes and tossed the stalks over his shoulder into the fight below. 'Do you think the Gods watch us in the same way? Did they watch you fight as I watch these guys? I think they do, you know.'

'They don't,' Percy murmured. 'They are the nature of the world. I think they are the fight in a way; I only half-understand them, really; to fully know, you would have to be part of the nature of the world yourself.'

'The nature of the world is senseless and cruel,' Octavian replied. 'There is nothing convenient about gods. If only we could all believe they were gone and watch them disappear; we would stand triumphant over this world in their stead.'

'You can't wish away the nature of the world.' Percy shook his head. 'All you can do is—'

'Choose well.' Octavian's lip curled. 'I have dreamt of all the greatest moments of your story, Percy Jackson; I know your lines. But all you do is put on a beautiful performance for those who watch from above. A smarter man would deny them the entertainment, and seek to step away from the script and off the stage.'

'Yeah…' Percy sighed and spun Anaklusmos in his hand. 'I don't think this is very productive, so I assume this is the bit where we fight.'

'Fight?' Octavian scoffed. 'Like gladiators dying for the applause of the Gods above? I think not. I have a plan — an idea, in truth — to supplant cruel Gods who let us live a life of lies for their entertainment with those who are at least honest in their cruelty. As one of the greatest children of my grandfather said, no god may undo what another god has done. We need only find ones who would allow us to exit the arena and leave their stage.'

'To change the nature of the world.'

Octavian perked up. 'Yes. You do get it. If we changed the nature of the world, then we would be changed. We would be free from this divine tragedy in which we must all perform or end up like those poor fools in the creek.'

'It's hubris, to think that you have the right to change the world for everyone else,' Percy murmured. 'What god would you give us instead?'

'An honest one. The senseless cruelty and chaos that the Gods of Olympus have painted over with scenery so they can laugh at the Play of Man is offensive to bear witness too.' Octavian leapt from the rail and backed away along the bridge, fumbling a short, straight bronze dagger from the back pocket of his jeans. 'As Publius Ovidius Naso says, the Gods are created by poets. And I, humble legacy of Apollo, will turn his words into truth; I think it's elegant to metamorphose poetry into prophecy, don't you?'

'I think you're a cunt.' Clarisse's spear sprang into her fist.

Ocatvian eyed her up with faint contempt. 'I remember you from those dreams. You were just part of the crowd standing on stage. A part of the scenery. Not worthy to have a part in the play.'

She twisted the bronze bangle about her wrist and her hoplon sprang up on her arm. 'This one is mine. I'm going to stomp his face into the mud.' Clarisse lifted her helm from her rucksack and clapped it over her head, smoothing down the cloven, crimson crest. 'And I'm going to enjoy it.'

'Let's not be hasty,' Octavian ventured, one eye on the tip of Clarisse's spear. 'From one humble pawn of the Gods to another, let us prove ourselves worthy of a world without them. From chaos we all sprang, and it is senseless chaos and strife we all ought to yearn for, for it has no script, no rules, no boundaries; it is the only true form of freedom. Together, we could do much. My brain and your brawn…'

Clarisse spun her spear in her hand. 'I know who I follow; I will follow him wherever he leads and, one day, I will stand beside him on the far bank of the Styx in honour and immortality, my shield in my hand.'

Your shield… A cold tide tugged at Percy's heart, pulling it down toward the dark, dragging it under the weight of all those waves. Honour and immortality.

'Not today, Clarisse,' he murmured.

'Damn right.' She snorted. 'Not to this little cunt, at least.'

Octavian spat at her feet. 'You're a puppet, dancing to the whims of the gods. You may as well join them—' he jabbed his dagger at the creek below '—you're as stupid as they are.'

She took three steps forward and feinted a thrust. Octavian leapt back, stumbling on the uneven wooden planks and tumbling to the ground.

Clarisse leapt forward, slamming the edge of her hoplon down on the blade of the dagger and ripping it from Octavian's grip, and smashed her bronze-helmed head into his face, shattering his nose with a crunch and a spray of red.

A little whimper escaped Octavian as he crawled backwards.

'Not so chatty now.' She grinned, her face splattered with crimson drops, and tucked her spear into the crook of her shield arm, grabbing Octavian by the front of his purple t-shirt and dragging him to dangle at her eye-level. 'Tell those soldiers you lied to them or I'll start feeding you your own teeth. Set them free and I'll ask my dad to release them from the curse for what they've suffered at your hands.'

Octavian nodded, his blue eyes full of fear and shame. 'I'll do it. I'm sorry. I was just bored and angry—' his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed '—I'm just a legacy, I won't ever have a great part to play; I just sit in the background, a prop for the performances of people like Percy Jackson.'

She dropped him onto the bridge. 'Get. Or I'll break more than your nose.'

He scrambled to the edge of the bridge and up onto the rail, leaping down into the muddy water with a splash. 'Soldiers! Attend me!'

The undead froze, rising from the creek and shambling across.

All the fear and shame slid from Octavian's face, and his upper lip curled into a contemptuous sneer as he waded to the bank. 'The day I foresaw for you all has come; you have fought each other long and hard in preparation for it, but now you must cast aside old enmities against a greater foe. Slay Ares's daughter, and prove to him your valour and skill to earn your freedom from his curse.' He laughed. 'Stupid, of course I have a great part to play! I, humble legacy of Apollo, will do what only the Gods have done before, for where others have only dared speak, I am compelled to bring a metamorphosis of the world!'

Clarisse growled. 'What a little shit.'

'Do we have to fight all of them?' Katie whispered. 'They can't die, right? So what do we do?'

Percy stared down at the soldiers as they formed up into two squares. Bianca's panicked dark eyes and the thin red line bleeding beneath her fingers hung among his thoughts with the silent spartoi.

'No,' he said. 'One of us might get hurt fighting them. We don't have to. Not this time.' He leapt down off the bridge onto the surface of the water.

The creek stilled beneath his toes.

'Sorry,' Percy murmured, seizing hold of the waters. 'I just need to borrow them for a moment.'

He swept the charging undead away, hammering them into the mud at the far end of the creek and trapping them in a tight bubble of water. They floated there, writhing and kicking in vain.

Octavian stared, his blue eyes full of fierce envy; his soaked golden curls dripped muddy water onto his soaked purple t-shirt. 'That's why you're the star of their show.' He offered Percy a round of mocking applause. 'So eager to impress the Gods watching on.'

Clarisse ground her teeth. 'Leave him to me, strategos; he's not worthy to cross blades with you.'

'Just a prop,' Katie whispered, her eyes dropping to her feet. 'Don't… don't hurt him too much, Clarisse; I know how he feels.'

'You're not a prop, Strawberry-girl,' Clarisse snapped. 'You're smart, you're brave, you're strong; you just love an idiot who's destined to be Achilles. Don't listen to that little boy; he's only bitter that he's so weak and trying to hurt anyone he finds he does have power over. A pathetic bully who's about to learn his place in the pecking order.' She vaulted over the bridge into the muddy bottom of the dry creek, rolling to her feet and leaping up the bank.

Octavian turned on his heel to run, but Clarisse spun in a circle and hurled her hoplon, smashing his legs out from underneath him. Her shield slid down the slope to the edge of the creek.

'I hope my dad curses you to take their place,' Clarisse said, marching across the sandy slope and stomping Octavian's head into the dirt beneath her boot. 'You whiny little cunt. Apollo must be ashamed of you.'

Octavian mumbled something into the dust.

Percy's bubble burst and the water splashed back into the basin, washing through the mud toward the bridge. The tangle of rifles and undead sprawled across the creek crawled together on their hands and knees into a writhing mass of pale, dead limbs and mud-smeared rifles and bayonets. They twitched and jerked, the brutal snaps of bone echoing across slopes of the pass.

A trickle of fear crept down Percy's spine. 'Here it comes,' he warned. 'Clarisse, get back!'

A towering figure rose from the water; it stared down at them with a hundred pairs of unblinking, glassy eyes, its head a ghastly cluster of a hundred severed, half-rotten undead skulls. Shining, curved officer's swords rose from it like the tines of a crown. A patchwork of corpses clung to each other in the figure of a vast man beneath its neck; their broken legs and arms knotted all the tangled bodies together into its limbs and torso, and a cape of tattered, golden epaulettes and torn blue uniforms trailed from its shoulders like a ragged banner flying in the wind. Each finger of its huge hands was a severed arm clutching a curved officer's sword in their fists, and all along the thick arms, the other arms sprouted, some holding the mud-smeared rifles as clubs, others the rusting, wet bayonets like long, thin daggers.

Clarisse darted forward to the edge of the creek and snatched up her shield, backing away up the slope past where Octavian gaped at the towering figure of corpses.

All the mouths of the skulls of its head grinned. 'Mighty Pelorus returns to the endless fray!' the Gigantes bellowed from a hundred rotting tongues. 'Who shall be first to fall at his hands?!'

'Go on, Percy Jackson,' Octavian crowed, stumbling to his feet. 'You are about to die. Salute your gods. Give them the chance to show you how well you've entertained them before they move onto the next play.'

'Father!' Clarisse called, raising her spear high above her head. 'Witness my glory!'

A searing flash of red light smashed into the muddy water and the ground shook, hurling Percy to his knees. Steam exploded across the steep banks, swallowing the creek and the bridge in a thick swirling cloud of white vapour.

'Father,' Clarisse whispered.

Ares swept the steam aside with a bronze shield so scarred and scratched its marred surface sparkled, dazzling Percy's eyes, and grinned a wild broad grin from beneath a bronze helm crested with long, flowing dark human hair. The gashes criss-crossing his greaves and armguards glittered, but the kopis in his clenched fist gleamed clean, shining almost red, and Percy found himself picturing it dripping crimson.

Pelorus's grinning skulls snarled. 'War god, least loved of all Olympians, none will mourn you.'

'All love war.' Ares tossed his sword in the air, watching it turn end over end, and caught it by the hilt; the breeze stirred his cape, sending a patchwork of flayed, tattooed skin flaring out behind his shoulders, tugging at the loop of bronze chain across his chest. 'It is a brief, fierce love that does not last long beyond the realisation of its nature, but burns all the hotter for it.' The crimson of his eyes glinted bright as blood in the sun, full of the splash and splatter and spatter of red gore. 'Dance with me.' He raised his blade up flat before his helm in salute.

Pelorus sprang forward, each hand a whirl of slicing blades, the grafted arms upon his limbs a blur of stabbing bayonets and swinging rifle butts, striking great showers of sparks off Ares's shield in a cacophony of metallic screeches. Their fight dissolved into blurs of pale, corpse grey, sweeping crimson, flashing steel, and bright bronze, each swirl of it punctuated by deafening crashes and sprays of shining gold; they dyed the creek with, wading through a shimmering pool of smoking ichor.

Ares's shield streaked from the fight, slicing between Percy and Katie to bite deep into the slope; it stuck there, slick with ichor and steaming, quivering and humming from the force of the throw. A bright bronze blur sliced down over and over, splattering gold across the steep banks.

Pelorus's hoarse harsh laugher rang across the valley like booming thunder and Ares reeled back, smacking into the bridge. His left arm hung limp from the shoulder, slashed to red ribbons above where the scratched, gashed arm guard ended at his elbow; beneath the bleeding tatters of flesh, pale bone gleamed.

'Now might be a good moment for us to get involved.' Percy lifted Anaklusmos to his lips and pressed a kiss to the cool bronze. 'And by us, I actually really just mean me.'

Katie knelt down and pressed her hands to the dirt. 'I'm not a prop,' she whispered, her green eyes full of a fierce light. 'I didn't come on my first quest just to watch you die, Percy.'

'No, but I'm a lot more scratch proof than you,' he replied. 'So don't get close.'

'I'm actually very scratch proof now; I can get as close as you do.' She patted the front of her amaranth-red hoodie. 'Remember?'

Percy conceded defeat with a rueful grin. 'Well, I'm not going to get that close, so I guess that's fair.' He reached out, sweeping the waters of the creek up in his fist, shedding the thick, heavy ichor hanging in it and wrapping it about Pelorus's arms. 'Get his legs.'

Katie closed her eyes. Roots burst from the gold-stained, muddy basin of the creek, coiling around Pelorus's legs like snakes.

'Yes!' Pelorus bellowed, all hundred rotting tongues crying out in glee. 'Join the fray! Hurl yourselves into the strife of it! Slay or be slain, it's all the same!' He ripped free and charged Ares in a blur of slashing, hacking steel blades, tearing into Ares's maimed arm.

Percy snatched at the blur with the creek and Katie's roots flailed in the mud. A bright whirl of red ducked through the swirl of grey steel and bronze flashed, spraying golden ichor across the bridge. Bits of pale, dead arms rained down on the bank, twitching severed fingers and hands groping around in the dirt for rusted bayonets and rifles.

Pelorus roared with laughter somewhere in the fight. 'Give it your all, war god; kill or be killed, you are just a part of the same great senseless game! Just one sword among the savage host endlessly devouring itself!'

A great clash rang across the valley and the bridge railings shattered into splinters, showering the small, slim pines and the sandy slopes in sharp chunks of wood.

Ares dragged himself out of the middle of the bridge and grinned; golden ichor trickled down his face and bled freely from the deep slashes all across his chest and arms. 'Fool.' He spat gold into the water. 'War is not meant to last; it is the peak of passion, flaring up like flame to separate the strong from the weak, but it must always end, or like arms and armour worn from overuse, it loses its lustre.'

Octavian darted down the slope, snatching a rusted bayonet from the ground and sprinting for the half-broken bridge. Percy drew the waters of the creek back, but Clarisse charged past him.

She caught Octavian as he prepared to leap onto Ares from behind, and hammered her fist into his stomach. The rusted bayonet dropped from his fingers, bouncing off Ares's shoulder and away into the creek as Pelorus lunged and the fight dissolved back into a blur of colour and the clash of arms.

'You want to have a part to play,' Clarisse growled. 'Here, get on the stage.' She kicked Octavian in the chest, sending him flying over the edge.

A flash of crimson burst through the splatters of gold and Octavian's ragged torso splashed into the ichor, his gleaming, glistening entrails spilling out into the creek.

Katie gagged into her hand.

'That's really rather unpleasant.' Percy dragged his eyes back to the fight as Pelorus leapt back.

Bits of Octavian's purple t-shirt clung to the crimson-smeared grafted arms on Pelorus's left limb and Octavian's severed head stuck to the rusted bayonet clutched in one of their hands.

'The first death in the dawning new age!' Pelorus boasted from the mouths of his hundred skulls.

Octavian's lips moved with them, bleeding still where some blade had sliced his face to the bone from eye to chin.

'Father!' Clarisse thrust her spear into the bridge. 'Take my shield!' She hurled it from the bridge with both hands.

Ares caught it and thrust his maimed arm through the strap with a grunt. 'Daughter.' He leapt across the gap, swinging Clarisse's shield about in a vicious bronze blur.

Pelorus rolled underneath the swing and slashed a dozen more cuts across Ares's back with one arm, catching himself on the broken bridge with the other.

Clarisse looked down at him from above and ripped her spear from the wood. 'Strategos—' she swept the spear up in salute before the cloven crimson crest of her helm '—honour and immortality.'

With a raw yell, Clarisse leapt from the bridge, driving the tip of her spear deep into Pelorus's right shoulder; the jolt tore her grip loose, but she grabbed at the knot of broken arms and legs. She snatched a rusted bayonet from the remaining arm on that limb and hacked away at the tangle, ignoring the rifle butts hammering on her helm and back, sawing through the knot,

Pelorus's hundred skulls twisted to stare at her and the curved swords of his right hand flexed like claws.

Not today. Percy swatted Clarisse away from the waiting blades with the water of the creek, sending her sprawling across the grass. Not if I can help it.

Pelorus growled, the grafted arms tugging at the spear, but his vast right limb hung useless at his side, twitching and spasming.

Ares charged, catching the swing of Pelorus's left arm on the shield and shearing his right off where Clarisse's spear stuck from it. Pelorus's face of a hundred skulls bared their teeth and he lashed out, slashing and stabbing and swinging at Ares with his remaining arm. With a triumphant grin, Ares swatted the blow away with his shield and cleaved the other arm off too, smashing his fist into the those skulls over and over, shattering them like china beneath his gold-smeared knuckles until Pelorus slumped back into the bridge and dissolved into golden dust.

'Daughter.' Ares leapt from the creek onto the shore; his ragged, torn cape of flayed skin fluttering behind him like shredded ribbon.

Clarisse staggered to her feet. 'Father.'

Ares hefted her shield in one hand. 'This is a good shield. Well kept. Well used.' He cupped a palmful of the ichor streaming down his chest and smeared a golden lambda upon the front of her bronze hoplon. 'You have always fought hard and well, a true daughter of the spear.' He touched a finger to the chain about his neck, and, in a flash of red flame, Clarisse's name appeared among countless others. 'Honour and immortality, daughter.' Ares swept his sword up before his scratched, scraped helm and saluted Clarisse.

Tears shone in Clarisse's eyes as she took back her shield, but she drew herself up and clenched her jaw. 'Father,' she whispered. 'Honour and immortality.'

Ares grinned. 'As a reward for your aid in battle against Pelorus, and not as a gift that might interfere in your quest and break Zeus's decree, I leave you with this.' He vanished in a streak of red light.

A solid, claret pick up truck stood beside the bridge.

'He bent the rules.' Clarisse snorted, swiping a hand at the shining trail of tears on her cheeks as she stared at the golden lambda daubed upon her shield. 'Typical of dad; he hates playing by any rules that aren't his.'

'Clarisse,' Percy murmured.

Katie edged a step forward, reaching out her hand.

'I'm fine.' She stomped down toward the creek and snatched her spear from the ichor-stained waters. 'What's next, strategos?'

Me. Me or Katie.

A small smile crept across Percy's face. 'Sunny vale.'

Clarisse's knuckles whitened about the shaft of her spear. 'Honour and immortality,' she breathed. 'Shield in hand.'

Katie stared at her feet, her arms wrapped tight about her chest as if to hold herself together.

Maybe I'll see you soon, Zoë. Or maybe poor Katie will be waiting for me with you. Percy spun Anaklusmos in his hand. Whoever crosses the Styx first, I'll have no regrets as long as Artemis is proud.

AN: Loads more of this and my other things via the linktree!

linktr . ee / mjbradley