AN: Alright, finished going back through this story and getting my thoughts laid out for it. This story is going to be updated every post from now until it's completed. Also WOW it was a trip reading this and seeing how my writing style changed, and my brain just kept screaming about how differently I would have written things if I'd started the story at this point in my writing 'career'. Still, it's honestly pretty exciting to come close to wrapping up this story with how it's still in the top twenty most favorited Percy Jackson fics on this site.

AN2: I HATE being sick. I feel like death warmed over and even when I'm on the mend I can never write. Does anyone else have this issue? When I'm in any way sick, even if I have ideas that I want to write, if I actually try it's a struggle to get out more than a sentence.

Son of the Moon

Chapter 59

-Hylla-

Breathing calmly, assuredly, Hylla circled her opponent. Miranda was keeping her eyes locked on Hylla's, spinning her sickles in slow, steady, repeated patterns, getting her wrists loosened and ready for the coming fight to the death.

All around them, the Amazons watched with bated breath, the split much closer to half than she would have liked on those who wished for her victory and those who wished for her death. The faction loyal to her was larger, but not overwhelmingly so. Overhead, the moon rose higher and higher in the sky, getting closer to the midpoint where it would illuminate through the skylight and signal the start of their fight.

Signal the beginning of the end of one of their lives.

When the moon reached the appropriate point, the dueling circle lit up, and the two Amazons charged.

Hylla's spear thrust out, the force pushing a gust of wind along with the spear's tip as Miranda swayed to the side like a reed in the breeze. The Daughter of Demeter's sickles lashed out, aiming to bisect Hylla's spear and leave her defenseless.

Hylla's spear was yanked back even as she twisted her body, her shield lashing out as the two sickles were knocked upward in a shower of sparks. The sound of celestial bronze screeching against imperial gold was like nails on a chalkboard and had several spectator's flinching back from the unexpected noise.

Lashing out with a kick, Hylla scowled as she felt her foot only connect with air. Miranda had backflipped away, using the momentum from Hylla's parry knocking her back to put more room between the two of them.

Letting out a yell, Hylla surged forward, not planning to give Miranda a moment's reprieve. The girl may be the daughter of an elder goddess with the physicality to boot but the majority of her powers revolved around plants and nature. Here, inside a concrete building her options were limited. Hylla, on the other hand, while being born of a 'lower' ranked deity was the child of a war goddess, with the strength and martial skill to go with it. This was her element, and she fully intended to win.

Hylla lashed out with her shield, putting her not insignificant strength behind it as Miranda crossed her arms with the sickles, trying to block the impact only to let out a shocked gasp when the blow knocked her off her feet. Hylla didn't waste a second with the opening, thrusting out with her spear as Miranda flailed, managing to hook one of her sickles into the wood of the shaft.

Just as intended.

Lashing out, Hylla flung the spear away and, with it, one of Miranda's weapons. The spear flew out of the combat ring, leaving both it and the sickle unreachable to either of them. But while Miranda was now down to a single sickle, Hylla herself still had her shield and a sword.

The blade rang as she drew it from her scabbard in a fluid motion, continuing her relentless onslaught against Miranda.

Every strike was a hammer blow, the sound of bronze against gold ringing out like thunder. And with every blow, Miranda began to falter more and more. A cut here, a forming bruise there, her sickle being a hair slower than it should be to block as Hylla drove her enemy to her knees.

She was so invested in the fight, that she had tuned out those watching. She was sure she had no need to fear cheating from any besides Miranda herself. The faction that the girl had been rallying were those angry at Miranda for wanting to change the Amazons with the times alongside her ties to Greece and Rome.

But the Amazons were still people, and people are often hypocritical.

The shocked scream of her lieutenant rang out alongside the deep 'thump' of a ballista cord snapping taught. Miranda leapt to the side, having seen the incoming betrayal as Hylla worked to dive to the side. The barbed metal ballista head still cut through her armor and side, crimson pooling out on the floor even as Hylla tried to hold in her spilling guts.

The pain was excruciating, her shield falling from limp fingers as her one good arm had a white-knuckle death grip on her sword's handle.

The dueling hall had become a chaotic civil war in an instant. Her lieutenant was running toward her, sword dripping with the blood of the now dead traitor who had fired the ballista. Others who had been friends with the traitor from Miranda's faction tried fighting back which drew in more from Hylla's loyalists.

Gritting her teeth, Hylla lashed out with her arm when Miranda tried getting close. The action made her bite down hard on her teeth to avoid screaming in pain as her wound protested. It was only the stubborn durability of a demigod that was keeping her alive right now, but Miranda didn't need to know how close to death Hylla was.

"Lady Miranda, we need to go!" one of the traitors called out, Hylla's faction having more numbers and the entirety of the men on their side.

"Hmph." Miranda stared down at her before grabbing the prepared crown from her follower and placing it upon her own head. Each Amazon Queen had their own crown they wore alongside the girdle that was passed down from one ruler to the next.

"You…are no…queen." Hylla spat, blood filling her mouth and dripping from her teeth as she held on to life through rage and grit.

"The Amazons who follow me would say otherwise." Miranda scoffed, pulling a crystal from her pocket as she shattered it, those who'd been loyal to the traitor vanishing into piles of rock and dirt.

With the sudden cessation of combat, Hylla felt her adrenaline rapidly waning, her vision going black as she fell back into her lieutenant's arms.

-Percy-

Roaring in rage, Percy's gleaming silver fist drove through the wooden railing as he stood on the Big Porch. An Iris message floated in the air before him as he got the after-action report from the bloodstained second in command of the Amazons. Forty percent of the Amazon nation had defected with Miranda or been killed, and Hylla was in intense recovery.

"My Queen is comatose as she recovers." Kinzie, the shaken Amazon, told him "I have been making the decisions while we await for her to wake up."

"Thank the gods she's alive at least." Percy ran a hand down his face, using the cold of the silver prosthetics to try and calm himself down, "Have you already taken measures to ensure the traitors can't access Amazonian resources?"

"Yes." Kinzie nodded with a scowl, "And I've prepared a full list of the names of those who defected. Copies will be sent to your Camp, to Rome, and to Olympus within the hour."

"Good." He sighed, hating that he had to ask the next question but knowing it was necessary "Kinzie, be honest with me. How badly was Hylla hurt? How…how likely is she to make a full recovery?"

"She was on Death's door." Kinzie admitted, "The traitor had aimed to have the ballista bolt go clear through her torso, but Queen Hylla managed to dodge most of it. even still, a glancing blow still tore open her side and had intestines starting to spill out. If she wasn't a demigod, she would have been dead in an instant. If she wasn't Hylla, she wouldn't have lasted as long as she did regardless. We managed to get everything…back where it is meant to be, but she still lost a lot of blood. That, combined with the intensity of the injury, is going to ensure that she still has to recover. With time, effort, and healing magic she should make a fully recovery."

"But you don't know how much time. or when she'll wake." Percy sighed as Kinzie nodded. "If there's anything you, or the Amazons, need then don't hesitate to ask." He straightened, clenching his fists as the metal clinked loudly "Hylla is my friend and you're my allies."

"We…have minimal healers." Kinzie admitted, "The few daughters of Apollo within our ranks are doing all they can but are exhausting themselves."

"I'll have more healers sent right away." Percy nodded. Miranda had already taken a large group of allies away, he wasn't going to let her take a friend as well.