Two World United (KotLC & PJO/HoO Crossover) | ON HOLD

Chapter 6: Annabeth

All around us, the battle raged. Clarisse and her cabin seemed to be holding back a pack of hellhounds, to no avail. Mrs. O'Leary was trying to help them, but being a hellhound herself, it seemed her heart wasn't really in it, even though these dogs were enemies.

To the left of me, the Athena cabin had set up a command tent. Inside was my brother, Malcolm Pace, directing the stronger fighters amongst the campers to certain strong points on the battlefield to weaken it, and sending the others to the weaker points to finish them off.

"Malcolm!" I ran over and tackled my brother with a hug. He stumbled a bit, surprised.

"A-Annabeth?" he whispered. "Is this really you?"

"Yes, of course," I said, planting a sisterly kiss on his cheek. "Who else would it be?"

"But–But how?" he asked. "Yesterday, you and Percy went out—"

"Hey, man." Percy waved.

"—And you guys never came back!" Malcolm continued. "The entire camp was worried! The campers were actually thinking about setting out to find you guys."

Sophie spoke up. "You know, even if you guys did, you wouldn't be able to find where they were."

Malcolm looked at the elves for the first time. "And who might you guys be?"

"I'm Sophie," she said.

"And I'm Keefe," he added.

"Should we . . ." I glanced over at the two. They swiftly nodded.

"They're . . . well, it may be hard to believe, but they're . . . el—WOAH!" Percy jumped out of the way as a hydra shot poison at the place he was previously standing. "Seriously, who let these monsters in?" he asked, glaring at the sizzling grass.

"We don't know," Malcolm answered. This morning, the Ares cabin was up for early sword fighting practice—"

"Of course they were," Percy snorted.

"—They said they heard strange thumping sounds near the border, and when they went there, they found this horde of monsters pushing against it. Luckily, Clarisse was smart enough to bring her horn—"

"For once," Percy muttered under his breath.

Malcolm chose to ignore Percy's interruptions and continued. "—which she used to alert the rest of us, since the border was breaking. So far, we've taken down one hellhound and a tauri sylvestre."

"That's it?" I asked, surprised. "How come? You always plan better!"

"Well, a) I was woken up at 4 in the morning, so my mind was a bit off-set, and b) I don't know what's happening to these monsters. It's like someone made them invincible."

Percy and I paled. "It's the Doors of Death again, isn't it?"

Malcolm shook his head. "No, it's not like that. If it were, they would die and come back, right? This time, they're not even dying."

First, I relaxed. At least it wasn't the Doors of Death again! Then I regained my alert position: stand up straight, eyes wide and alert, hands straight at my side. "That's nice, but doesn't that mean it's not good at all?"

"Yeah. But at least—" Malcolm was cut off by harpies battling to the death. On one side: the camp's harpies, throwing brooms and spraying soapy water at the others. On the other side: the evil monster harpies, having a much more successful time biting and clawing at the other side.

Malcolm sighed. "Battle first, explanations later." He turned his attention to a map that had been spread out in front of him, which I failed to notice upon first inspection. He seemed to be focused on one spot, where a bright orange dot and a dark black dot were circling each other. Before us, Nico ran by, tickling an enemy hellhound's stomach with his Stygian iron sword. As soon as he impaled his sword into its gut, a few things happened: 1) the hellhound disintegrated into ashes; 2) the map beeped like a video game and displayed an image of a hellhound, with words underneath that read "Monster destroyed!"; 3) the entire camp took a brief moment to cheer, then immediately went back to the battle.

"Where'd you get the map?" I asked Malcolm.

"Oh, Leo found it somewhere in Bunker 9 yesterday, and I asked to see it. Turns out, you can track people with it"—he paused, squinting at the corner—"and know when people are sneaking away instead of being helpful!" Jack Eldin, son of Hermes, paused in his tracks, then inched back toward the battlefield, slumping.

Apparently, the other hellhounds noticed the death of their fellow comrade and bounded toward Nico, rage filling their eyes. Nico yelled in anger, and 50 or so skeleton warriors popped up around Nico. They slowed the hellhounds down as he ran around unsuccessfully trying to find their soft spots.

Percy spoke up. "Um, guys, I feel like we should be helping, instead of lounging around." He gestured around him to the other demigods, who seemed to be slowing down.

"I'll watch the map with Malcolm," I volunteered. "We can take shifts. Since he's been map-watching for a long time"—I turned to him—"you can go fight for a bit." Malcolm nodded his head and stepped into the battle, immediately being occupied by a Cyclops.

"That reminds me, where's Tyson?" Percy called out. "I can't see him here."

"He went to Poseidon's place," Malcolm responded in between swings. "He said his dad needed help with making more swords, since the old ones broke or something." Malcolm almost got knocked out by the cyclop's arm swinging toward him, but Percy joined him and blocked the hit.

"Do you two have weapons?" I asked the elves. They nodded and pulled a weird star-like contraption with wicked sharp blades out. "Go help with the battle." I glanced at the map. "Straight ahead, there's a group of campers who seemed to be overwhelmed." Sophie and Keefe nodded once more, then headed off.

I looked back at the map, waiting for something to die. Something caught my attention. At the bottom, a circle of black dots seemed to be closing in on an orange one, with about 50 smaller dots the same shade of orange surrounding it. I froze. That was Nico.

My head snapped up. Nico seemed to be trapped. The skeletons' movements were getting more sluggish, but Nico seemed to be standing his own. I made the stupidest mistake ever of looking away in Percy's direction, to see how he was doing. Percy glanced over his shoulder, noticing Nico. He turned around to say something to Malcolm, but when he turned back, he screamed.

I looked over and . . . saw no trace of Nico. The hellhounds were piling up on each other, smashing whatever was under them. The map beeped, and the picture of a cyclops appeared. The camp cheered, oblivious to whatever was going on in this corner. Percy and Malcolm, having been relieved of fighting the cyclops, immediately switched over to shoving the hellhounds away, trying to get to the bottom.

And when they did . . .

There lay, amongst the broken skeletons, the dead body of Nico di Angelo.

MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry guys, for two things: 1. being so late to update, and 2. killing nico. DEAL WITH IT. -persassius jacksasson

anyways, plz don't forget to vote, comment, and follow!

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