Percy POV
When we finally got to camp, we were welcomed with a heartfelt welcome of a hundred spears nearly cutting off our heads. Ah, good times, good times. Maybe next time, they would welcome us with a bullet to the brain.
When everyone figured out who we were and noticed how banged up I was, I was rushed to the infirmary. Chiron heard about us finally making it back and rushed to meet us there. Clarisse and some of the other cabin heads met us there; my siblings ran to follow, disregarding the fact they weren't allowed. I was surprised to see that Grover, Silena, Tyson, and my lions came to join us as I lay on the bed.
When everyone was there, Annabeth explained what happened on the quest. Silena and Grover then explained what happened on their end of the situation. Grover and Tyson had to lead them through the corridors and ended up somewhere in New Mexico, in a cave system teeming with nature, magic, and vegetation. Life magic, vegetation, and plants were apparently more potent than the area surrounding my little secret bar that I brought everyone to on the quest to rescue Aphrodite, Artemis, and Annabeth.
Animals that should have been dead for eons lived in the cave, and Pan was lying down on a stone bed, while moss, and vegetation were growing around him. He was dying, or rather he was already dead. Silena explained that Pan had faded long ago, and this was just a memory of him; his former consciousness was too stubborn to die before someone could take over his work that he was too weak to continue.
"He gave me this," Grover said. He then handed it to me. It was a necklace, kind of like the one I had for the heart of the sea that was now combined in Olethros. It looked like a wooden heart, like an actual heart, not a symbol that looked like an upside-down spade. The heart was made of wood and looked like branches and leaves coming off of it and some moss growing on the bark. "He told me to give it to you."
"What are you talking about? Why would he give it to me?" I asked.
Silena bit her lip; she knew something that she was hesitant to say. "Pan said that you will bring the next primordial god of nature into the world and her counterpart. Many are going to fade; many have already. The next primordial of creation, fertility, vegetation, and life, will come from you. He said that he needs the deity to have the locket to be the next lord of the wild."
"That's impossible; Gaea is the primordial of the earth; a primordial can't have domains so similar to another. Besides..." I said, leaving the questioning hanging out there. Your mother is primordial, and her domains are vegetation; she's Venus, I continued in my head.
"I don't know," Silena said, biting her lip still. "Pan is the son of Hermes and Driope. He explained that she had a son before him with Apollo, and some of the prophecy and foresight stuff rubbed off on him because of it. The void will have many divine essences to make another two primordials soon, powerful primordials, and that you will bring them into the world."
"How can a mortal be a father to primordial?" Annabeth asked.
Silena stayed quiet; she knew something and wasn't telling me. First, Aphrodite decides to give me the silent treatment for a portion of the quest, and now our daughter is doing the same. They know something and are keeping it from me. Aphrodite told Silena something and they are keeping the secret away from me.
"Scylera said something to me," I said. "When she was trying to kill me, she told me, either way, my daughters are next. She said daughters, not daughter. But that didn't feel like a threat she would make so bluntly; that's more of a Kronos thing."
"Kronos may have told her to say the threat?" Annabeth offered.
"Wait, you have a kid; you're a dad? I'm an uncle already?" one of my siblings asked.
"That's impossible if you only have a single daughter," Annabeth said. There was no point in hiding the truth of anything anymore since most of Kronos' armies knew, and the Olympian council knew as well. I looked at her. "I know about what you are, and Silena is the daughter of the previous Olethros; we've been on many quests together; putting everything together was really easy."
"I'm confused," Clarisse said.
"Percy's Silenas dad. Everyone caught up? Good. We have too many things to worry about for us to be stuck on that," Beckendorf said.
"Dude, when do you have her, like a negative two-year-old?" Elana asked for a way to sneak into the room.
"That's not possible. Is it?" Nico asked.
"Not the time. I will give everyone the information later," I finally said.
"Kronos is the titan of time," Chiron finally said. "Time deities often go mad and lose track of what has been and is yet to come."
"So maybe it's not the daughter you already have but rather the one that will happen. He wants to kill your future daughter or daughters," Grover realized. "Pan said you bring his successor into the world and her counterpart. Meaning that..."
"I'm going to be the father of two of the strongest primordials," I realized. "That jerk wants to kill them."
"But how? He can't do anything that can permanently kill a primordial," Annabeth asked.
"His scythe is both Olethros' opposite, and it's equal from what I gather from your explanation; I would not be surprised if the titan lord has done something to have a similar effect as Olethros' god killing ability."
"That would make him a primordial," Nico thought.
"An unfadable one," I added. "Ouranos was nearly killed for stepping out of his domain, but time, time is everywhere. Nothing can truly exist without it. Kronos would not be able to fade out of time, and since Chronos is the primordial of time has faded by his own choice, no one would rival that."
"Chronos is a live still, though. I thought he was still alive," Elana argued.
"No, I read it in my book; the rumors are true. Chronos is gone; he couldn't deal with the madness of being a time primordial. It says so right in the book from my dear beloved grandmother," I said, referring to the book Athena had given me with all the recorded knowledge ever to be written and ever has been written.
"How do we fight that?" Beckendorf asked. "He's coming here, leading his army here, and we will fight a guy trying to become primordial."
"We dropped an entire mountain on him. He might not be hurt, but it did send him back. Half of his forces would be focusing on rebuilding it. If anything, now, we have a fighting chance against the armies coming to us," I argued.
"Well then, we will capitalize on that. Perseus, you will rest and heal up; if you are right, the monsters will be here by mid-day tomorrow. You will rest up, heal up and then lead the force. Clarisse and Annabeth will get ready with more battle formations and plans. The rest of you are to prepare; tomorrow, the camp is at war," Chiron told us.
Rest I did. After everyone left the room, I fell asleep and waited for the nectar and ambrosia to take effect. When I drifted to sleep, I saw Aphrodite staying in a hot tub in a skimpy bikini. She looked tired and was trying to relax in the waters.
"You know something," I finally said.
"Hi to you too," she replied.
"You said something to Silena, and now she's acting like you did during my quest. She's hesitant to tell me something."
"Daughters don't tell their dads about everything. I mean, what dad wants to know how their daughter was plowed the night before by their boyfriend," she said, raising her eyes with a combination of seduction and mocking.
"Aphrodite... I'm going to have another daughter...two, actually," I told her.
"What?" she started of coming off the hot tube and looking down at me, even when in a hot tub she was a bit taller. She looked really angry, and I could see a murderous gleam in her eye. She would kill whoever I had a child with that was not her. But there was something, something else was bothering her.
"Pan saw a prophecy before he died. One of my daughters will be primordial and his successor, the other, her counterpart and opposite. We're going to have kids, Dove. When Silena realized this, she looked off, withdrawn."
Aphrodite was mulling over what I said. She looked terrified and happy at the same time. Whatever combination of emotions she had, it was hard to read, and that was something concerning the goddess of love that would most likely be overflowing with that, love, after hearing we were going to have kids. Something was stopping her. Something was bothering her. I don't know what it was, but it was unnerving.
"She was acting like you are right now. Whatever you are thinking about, you told her. Right now, you are both scared of the idea of me being a father once more. Tell me, Dove, tell me what's wrong."
"I can't," she finally said. "See you later, Percy," she told me before ending the dream.
When I finally woke up, it was early in the morning, and I was back to normal. Well, as normal as a tri-blood, with one eye, one arm, and coming from a near-death experience could be. I walked around to see the nearly three hundred campers getting ready and making a barricade towards the entrance to the labyrinth.
Spikes and barriers scattered around hundreds of campers with shields at the ready, and the children of Apollo were further back with arrows aimed for any fraction of movement. With Olethros in hand, I walked to the front of the army and made a wall of ice.
Behind it, Nico had made a small canyon, making it so the monsters would have to struggle to cross and be open to attack from our archers. The first row of shields and campers was a few feet.
If what the Athena and Ares cabins were saying were true and the few scouts we sent into the maze, with our own rope to not lose them, said that the armies would be coming soon, within the hour.
I walked forward and stole one of the few cigars that Aphrodite didn't throw away. I put it to my mouth and walked to the front of the camp armies. My black lion fur coat looked like it was stealing the light from around it. Olethros in hand as a spear, lightning crackling in the sky. My one eye gleaming its ocean green hew. My unruly black hair pulled back somewhat like a ponytail, similar to a Northern King in a show my mother watched.
Then I heard a single shake of the earth. A rumble that everyone in the camp felt. Everyone turned to the wall of ice and the entrance of the labyrinth. Everyone stopped, and the few getting ready hurried to face the coming foes.
"Wall!" I screamed. All the campers with shields reaffirmed the wall. "Archers at the ready!" I screamed, and those who didn't have notched arrows did so then.
"How long do you think your wall will hold them?" Clarisse asked, walking up beside me. With her were my siblings, Tyson, Annabeth, and Elana. Clarisse and Annabeth must have thought bringing out the heavy hitters from the beginning was the best option. Zeus' cabin led the assault either way, and we needed our big guns to hold them back.
The earth shook once more, and my wall cracked with it. Something was blasting it from the other side, and it had enough force to shake the ground around us. "Not long enough. Walls never stand up long enough," I muttered.
I turned Olethros into an ax and stood in front of everyone. I looked to my left and saw Silena and Beckendorf close by. I stood tall as almost every one of the campers was terrified. Some were just like Little Margey, too young to be here but having no other choice. I didn't want the younger ones to fight, but if we fail...they die either way.
With a thunderous boom, the wall broke down in an explosion of lighting and ice. The ice shards exploded toward us, but the shield wall protected us from the incoming fragments. One shard hit my regular arm, but my lion's fur coat protected me. A lighting beam continued out of the ice, most likely the same beam that destroyed the wall. It was pure ligtning like those of Olethros or even the blasts from the master bolt itself.
The beam continued towards us, as wide as a truck and as white as a flash. It was faster than thought to everyone else, but it was slow to me. My breath slowed as I grabbed Olethros as an ax and got ready to throw it full force. Ice and frost covered the blade, and I could hear the humming singing of the Heart of the Sea in my ears from the ax head.
I threw the ax as it cut through the lightning beam and continued through it. I could hear a collective gasp. People jumped out of the way, most likely the people in charge of the beam of light, and the ax cut threw five monsters before embedding itself in another's chest. The monster screamed as blood poured out of his chest and began to freeze.
I looked to see the people in charge of the beam of lighting were all of Zeus' cabin, without Marcus. They were on the ground staring at the monster, screaming. I opened my hand as Olethros rocked towards me with the monster still attached. The monster flew to the ground right in front of me as Olethros' hilt was long enough to just reach my hand as the monster landed on the ground. The monster continued to scream before I put my foot on its face and crushed its skull with a single stomp, killing it.
Monsters pooled out of the entrance but were all stopped by my showing. I ripped Olethros out of his chest as he slowly turned to dust as I stared at the enemies. A large canyon kept the monsters at bay, but some of the broken ice walls covered the canyon, making a bridge for them to cross. It was just big enough for them to travel, but it would make it easier for us to cut them down. Before the monsters advanced, one more lion came from the back of the camp. They let out a deathly roar that caused the entire army to flinch.
"Archers! Fire!" I screamed. A volley of hundreds of arrows launched into the sky; Apollo's cabin could shoot four dozen arrows in a minute; good thing Apollo has a lot of kids. The volley of arrows thinned the monster's hoards just enough for me to say my next orders, but I never got to tell them.
I looked up to see the four enemy children of Zeus flying in the sky. I cursed; they flew straight toward me. I turned to Clarisse and Annabeth quickly. A look that they understood, take control of the armies, I'm going to have to fight those idiots.
"Let us handle this," one of my siblings told me, looking at the kids of Zeus. We had the advantage of four children of Zeus vs. ten children of Poseidon. I was going to agree, but something happened. A few stray arrows hit the kids of Zeus in the chest, but they broke in half. The children of Zeus were not fazed at all.
"They all took a dip in the river Styx," Silena gasped.
"You still think you can handle that?" I asked rhetorically. "I might not be able to fight a pseudo titan king that drank the vials of a fourth of the combined power of an entire other pantheon that jumped into the River Styx, but I should be able to fight; for durable spark plugs."
Before I could say anything else, ALL OF THE FLYING LIGHTNING-WIELDING MANIACS FLEW TOWARDS ME! I punched one down full force, breaking the ground, but he slowly got back up, and the other three picked me up into the sky.
I swung Olethros and hit one of them in the head, causing them to falter while I kicked another from under me. The last one, a daughter of Zeus, continued to carry me higher into the sky. Before she dropped me. When she did, I hooked my ax around her ankle, causing her to drop down slightly, not expecting the weight to come back since she struggled to hold me up.
One of her brothers rushed me, but I grabbed him by the head before letting go of Olethros. I held on tight while punching him repeatedly in the gut with my Imperial gold arm. He lost his breath before I hit him with all my strength. He dropped from the sky before his other two siblings came back and speared me higher into the sky.
I opened my hand, and Olethros froze on the daughter of Zeus's ankle and got stuck. Quickly it flew towards me. While that was happening, the two other siblings were fighting me while my punches did close to nothing. I didn't have enough balance between punching them in their face or gut with all my strength. Imagine fighting while flying mid-air; I couldn't hold them in place to punch them correctly.
Olethros flew back towards me with the daughter of Zeus. She slammed into us as Olethros froze us over. We plummeted from the sky, and the icy ball slammed into the ground like a frozen meteor. We slammed into the monster army.
I slowly got up while the other ice ball riders and a dozen monsters were more disoriented. Before I could capitalize on this, the fourth son of Zeus slammed into me and forced me down before delivering an electrified punch to the face. I was in a daze before he tried to cut me in half with his sword. It hit my coat and bounced off harmlessly.
I punched him again with enough force to crack the ground. I was going for another punch when his brother jumped on my back, holding me back from attacking. The two sisters grabbed me as well. I tried to force them off me before a laistrygonian giant punched me in the face.
I could hold him back with both my arms even if I was losing. The last son of Zeus was holding me back, so now, there are four children of Zeus who jumped into the river Styx restricting me while I was fighting off a cannonball throwing man-eating giant. Our hands clenched the other as our pushing strength cracked the ground and started destroying the bridge that the monsters were using to get to the campers.
Instead of pushing, I pulled him towards me at the very last second. The pull and pushing towards me caused the giant to rush towards my direction. I slammed him down with all my strength while I swung him over my shoulder. The force caused the entire monster army to stagger and forced the children of Zeus to let go.
The bridge collapsed, but so did most of the earth on both sides of the canyon. This made it, so the monsters lost most of their footing and gained the low ground, but they now had a chance to rush the camp armies and overrun them. Since they were already in the ravine and all they need to do was climb towards the campers. The camp had the high ground, but now the monsters had the opportunity to fight them outright instead of the arches killing them while they blocked the bridge.
"Attack!" one of the daughters of Zeus screamed.
The monster rushed towards the army of campers. I heard Clarisse order the archers to fire, and hundreds of arrows followed the command hitting almost as many monsters. The monster continued forward and tried to climb the remaining distance of the high ground. It was like they were trying to climb a wall against the enemy army.
Greek fire was poured down the wall from the higher ground setting the monsters ablaze. Tributes, those giant medieval catapults designed to destroy castles, were wheeled in by mechanical bulls from Hephaestus' cabin. They fired giant Blackstone rocks courtesy of Nico working all night. Each rock was coated in Greek green fire. It shot forth and began decimating the arches of the monster armies. Having the best and only archers able to fire in the battle was an advantage that was too good to pass up, even if it was for the time being.
Green balls of fire shot forth from the sky and slammed into the armies killing dozens of monsters each before the rocks exploded on impact. If we kept the distance and held them back from climbing, we had the advantage, but there was no stopping the endless hordes of monsters coming from the entrance.
"Take those things down already!" one of the sons of Zeus screamed.
"If you want to do it, be my guest!" one of his sisters retaliated.
Before I knew it, I was kneed in the face by a flying son of Zeus. I caught his leg before he could get free and slammed him down. A daughter of Zeus fired a blast of lightning in my chest; I looked at her and shrugged it off. I walked over to her menacingly. Before I could do anything to her, a water wave crashed into me and sent me to the ground.
I was dazed, and before my eyes, waves of water reaching down from the high ground crashed into the low ground freezing over, making it easy to climb ice structures for the monster army to advance. Before I had the chance to destroy them, five spikes of ice were sent straight toward me. I rolled out of the way, but one spike almost hit me if it weren't for me punching it with my imperial gold arm.
"So, this is why you joined me?" I asked rhetorically. "To stab me in the back?"
"The true king and queen of the seas are starting a war with your father, Percy," Elana said, walking up to me as water spun around her like a hurricane. "Oceanus and Tethys have started the first battle in the ocean by now."
"Oceanus wanted you to be born," I realized. "They've been planning to join Kronos this entire time."
"Since the Middle Ages," she revealed. "My mother and Oceanus tried to have a lot of kids with humans. They had thousands of kids by themselves, and some turned out to be gods and goddesses that are the cornerstone of the pantheon. If they were going to help Kronos, they needed the same type of weapons that would even the playing field with the gods."
"So, Oceanus and Tethys tried to have demigod children or demi-titans," I smirk.
"Poseidon killed most of Oceanus's half-blood children and my half-siblings, but I escaped into the Sea of Monsters. You weren't there to regulate it, so I had time to practice. I convinced Iris to give me her blessing on top of the blessing from Oceanus," she revealed.
Before I could say anything else, she sent a volley of ice spears at me, and I rolled out of the way of four blasts of lightning. All five of the half-bloods surrounded me. I could see that the monsters were using the ice to climb up the wall, and now we were fighting the first row of campers. The shield wall held strong as spears thrust between the gaps and hit the monsters.
I dodged a lightning bolt and sidestepped a punch. Before punching a child of Zeus down a water current slammed into me, and lightning enhanced the shot hitting me full force. I collapsed and began seeing double. Let's not think about how a person with one eye was seeing double. A black rock, a burning green ball of fire, nearly hit me, but I opened my hand, and Olethros flew towards me, pierced right through the blazing rock, and ripped through it.
I used Olethros as on the ground, breaking everything and causing a tremor. I threw the spear into the crowd of monsters as it began cutting through dozens of monsters. I opened my hand once more for it to come back, and I used it to block a sword slash from a child of Zeus.
Elana raised her hand, and a large wave of water rushed towards me while freezing. I leaped out of the way as the ice slammed into the wall and destroyed some of the campers' high ground. Many of the campers fell down to the monsters, which left an opening for the monsters to use, rushing in and begin getting through the first line.
That was when all chaos broke out as the campers were now fighting the monsters outright. I could see Silena slicing through monsters using her dual swords and invisible string. Beckendorf was fighting by her side with his war hammer. Tyson was punching down heaps of monsters, the nymphs and satyrs were using nature magic to hold the monsters back, and Poseidon's cabin would destroy hordes of them with torrents of water. Annabeth and Clarisse tried to keep the order of the campers as Ares, and Athena's cabins led the attacking parties.
I turned Olethrs into a sword and rushed the children of Zeus and Elana. They couldn't keep up with my godly speeds, and I began punching the children of Zeus like fighting a god. People who jumped in the Styx were more than capable of taking that.
Elana sent ice spikes at me, and I had to slash them in half. Every time someone went to attack me, I gave them my full undivided attention, took them out for a few seconds of the fight, and changed targets.
But they weren't my only threat; monsters came in and distracted me and often attacked me. I hopped over a slash, rolled under an ice spike, aerial over two blasts of lightning. Then one of the other monsters stabbed their sword, and it cut the side of my face. Five spears tried to break the armor that was my black fur coat, but they did not pierce through.
I sliced the arm off a monster before shoving my sword in its head. I turned around and cut a bolt of lightning from the children of Zeus in half as it hit several monsters behind me. A monster came up from behind me before I cut his head off its shoulders and rolled under several shards of ice fired at me by Elana. She then sent a giant wave of water at me, and I made a wall of ice with Olethros to block the incoming attack.
Stab. Dodge. Parry. Slash, Dodge. Stab. Slash. Slash. Parry. Dodge. There was an end to the fighting, and it carried on for a few minutes. I was cutting down monsters, but not even I could put a dent in the children of Zeus. They were smart. Every time I tried to take Elana out of the fight, they took the hit, ensuring she would stay in. Then it all went to Hades.
Vasilias ran towards me from the maze entrance and began biting and slashing at me. At this point, it was just a battle of me surviving the onslaught. There was no rhyme or reason.
"Can you stay dead for like ten minutes!" I screamed at the dog. As I punched him in the face and received a bolt of lightning in return. I barely dodged the final shards of ice.
"Not going to lie, even I thought he was gonna die when I heard what happened," Elana offered.
Vasilias held me down by biting down on me. I used all my strength to hold his mouth open. I rammed Olethros as a spear into his mouth, forcing his jaws to remain open. I jumped out of the way as the spear exploded with fire and lighting. When I jumped, a giant slammed his war hammer in my face dropping me to the ground and nearly knocking me out.
I could see Vasilias slowly rising and staggering. But that was an afterthought as the children of Zeus and Elana began to get closer. Before they could, Aperio and Aioniotita surged forward and tackled the children of Zeus as Adonia led three of our siblings to attack Elana.
I rushed toward Adonia to save her from a wave of water that would have cut her in half. I grabbed a monster and threw him at Adonia. It sent her out of the way as she was tackled down, but the monster's gut was sliced in half.
I helped her up and looked at the chaos coming through the entrance. I needed to organize our forces, or the monsters would divide our numbers and kill us. Adonia knew what I was going to do, but before I rushed off, I held her arm before she did the same.
"Get the box, the last resort I told you about," I told her.
"But you need me here," she countered.
"If you don't get the box, I'll more than happily finish this conversation in the Underworld," I warned her.
She looked scared, and she ran off to get the box. I ran toward the hordes of monsters while my siblings held off Elana and my lions fought man's ex-best friend. I started cutting down monsters quickly, and when they hit me, they only hit my lion's fur coat.
Vasilis noticed what I was doing and rushed me. He leaped over me as I slid under his lunge. Aperio lunged and jumped, tackling Vasilias right in his side. Aioniotita came from the other side as he bit down on Vasilias neck.
While I slid under, I threw Olethros as an ax, and as it spun, it burned and cut through hundreds of monsters. It abruptly stopped and surged back towards my fist at twice the speed. Once it went into my palm, it turned into a spear as I made a wide arcing slash, cutting down a dozen monsters in a single slash.
A sword crashed down from the skies as I jumped back and rolled over my shoulder. A child of Zeus lunged at me before I sidestepped and punched him in the face with my imperial golden arm. The force caused the winds to rush around us. Olethros turned into a sword with my other hand as he blocked another strike from his sister.
I front kicked her down before grabbing her brother's face and flinging him at her. I sidestepped a strike from another child of Zeus as the final one rushed behind me and went to cut off my head. Her body was covered in lightning. Before she had the chance to do anything, I slammed both my fists into the ground destroying the ground. The dust-covered everything as I escaped the area. I turned around to see all four children of Zeus staring me down.
Before we could go back into another skirmish, something ripped through the maze entrance. Well, two things. Scyleria roared out as her head began biting down anything that moved. Her heads and necks are flying erratically. The other was Kampe with her swords blaring.
Both of them instantly glared at me. Soon Vasilias joined them, somehow losing my lions. The children of Zeus formed a circle covering my flank as I worried about the other three monsters. All parties slowly circled around me. The other monsters began joining them. Ending me meant the camp would fall quickly.
I first turned Olethros into a spear before slamming the spearhead into the ground as a burst of dry ice smoke consumed everything around me for a hundred yards. Everyone, every monster around me that wasn't the initial three, froze. Hundreds of monsters all died with the pure power of Olethros. I would not like my chances if it weren't for the weapon. Heck, I don't like them with Olethros in hand.
"This is where you die again, Olethros," Scyleria told me.
Snow began coming from the skies. Olethros blaring with raw godly power. Thunder and lightning screaming with life that should not be possible from the skies. Little did I know that many of the monsters and campers stopped to stare at this. The Titan-slayer versus the monster hoard. If this happened thousands of years ago, this would be told as a heroic epic alongside the Odyssey.
As part of my hair blew with the winds, the snow blowing near a blizzard. My one eye gleamed with hatred. A sword flew by my neck as I registered it with a smirk. It went back in the same direction it once came. Everyone followed the blade as it somehow wrapped around a child of Zeus with nothing visible; an invisible string had wrapped around the daughter of Zeus.
"Missed me?" Silena asked as the invisible string pulled the daughter of Zeus towards her. Silena rushed by my side as we stood before our foes.
"You're still here?" I asked mockingly.
"Someone has to watch your back," she returned.
"No better than a Spartan," I returned. "How's your first taste of a true battle?"
"Do you want the daughter of Aphrodite to answer or the daughter of Olethros to answer?" she asked.
Scyleria rushed forward, her heads all turned towards me. Kampe soon followed. I surged towards them as I leaped between the swinging swords of Kampe and kneed one of Scyleria's heads. Another two came from my sides as I slid down one of her necks. Vasilias capitalized and leaped at me before Aperio and Aioniotita jumped back into the battle finding their prey. Silena began fighting the children of Zeus, and the confrontation continued on. I leaped down from the head and ducked under a giant sword. That wasn't smart as the blades cut off all of Scyleria's heads, doubling it once more.
"Now she has forty heads," I cursed.
"We need a counter-attack," Silena screamed.
"Good thing your boyfriend is cleverer than we initially thought," I told her.
"What's the plan?"
"Doing something I hate very much. Did I ever tell you I hate bulls?" I offered her. "Release the bulls!" I screamed so loud the gods heard it in Olympus.
Within seconds all that could beard was the destruction and carnage, the obliteration of armor. The metal bulls of Hephaestus rushed in, and one slammed into the monster's vanguard. Four of the bulls hit the children of Zeus, and when they tried to electrify them, it only made the bulls faster and wilder.
"He made the bulls Zeus demigod resistant," I uttered in fascination. "If you don't marry him, I will," I said towards Silena. Lightning flashed in the skies as a cluster of flower petals shot from the ground and hit me, it did no damage. I began spitting out daisies. "Sorry, Dove," I told Aphrodite.
With the Zeus kids out of the way, I turned to the other monster in attention. I didn't know how much time I had before Adonia returned, and I needed to thin the herd enough for our counterattack to work.
The rest of my brothers and sisters joined in on the fight against Elana, and now it was a nine versus one battle. Sadly, to say, it looked even. The fighting was raging, and explosions were going off with Greek fire.
'There's no way to focus on anything; this is chaotic,' Silena offered.
"Welcome, to war, my daughter. This is actually one of the tamer ones."
The explosions continued even in the labyrinth. Wait, in the labyrinth. The monsters were turning their attention back to where they were coming from as if something just as dangerous was following them. What came out of the labyrinth was Quintus on Mrs. O' Leary, dual-wielding swords and cutting down monsters like a lumberjack cuts down trees.
"What in the Hades?' Silena asked.
"I'm going to kill him after I thank him for saving our lives," I told them. Silena looked at me as if questioning why I still wanted to kill him. "Your brother was killed by his hand. I want him dead."
The number of monsters halved due to a raging giant hellhound and dual-wielding Athenian psychopath running around cutting heads off like a hot knife through butter; that allowed the demigods to make sure our counter-attack worked correctly. But something else came into the fight. Briars, the hundred-handed one. He was tall once again, nearly fifty feet, with a hundred hands and fifty heads, all screaming bloody murder as the tides were firmly back in our favor.
"Now we have our own giant monster!" Silena screamed with a face-splitting grin.
"I've been the king of Sparta and killed almost every monster ever. But Kampe and a hecatoncheires are not on that list. Thank the gods they never needed to be before this lifetime," I muttered.
Kampe leaped towards us as I pushed Silena out of the way. I made sure Olethros was a spear in hand and summoned all the power I could with it. The overwhelming power of lighting, ice, fire, the seas, the skies, the Underworld exploded out of the spearhead towards Kampe. It was the same as the power when we fought Kampe last time, and I destroyed part of the maze. However, instead of an otherworldly explosion, it a concentrated beam of pure energy, not golden like the Big three. No, far from it. It surpassed one of those shots of pure divine power. I added the strength of drinking the essence of a portion of an entire pantheon, and the beam turned pure blue instead of gold.
The power began cracking around me as I began to faint due to the power. I wasn't in control of it before. I just let it explode. But now, this was me refining it into an attack. I held it with my imperial gold arm, but even the arm, supposedly impervious to heat, like Hephaestus the god of fire or Apollo the god of the sun was, began to overheat and glow as red as a metal fresh from the forge.
"Mother, Father, please!" I screamed to Thalassa and Ournaus.
More power surged to the weapon still. Powers of pure primordials, of the heights renowned. I dodged an attack from Kampe as the beam was forced to stop. She hit me with her sword as it hit my back, breaking my ribs on impact, but my coat protected me from being cut in half. I slammed into a tree face first and began to bleed profusely as golden, and platinum blood pooled from my one remaining eye.
I wouldn't be able to fire the blast of energy if I wanted to. I don't know who I will hit, and the explosion could level the entire camp. My instincts flared as I rose my arm just enough to cushion a blow from Kampe that would have cut my head in half. My arm blocked the blade, but the force engraved and embedded me into the ground so hard that I was at least a mile under the battlefield now.
"She's coming," I heard Aphrodite say in my head.
"I can't see her," I told her.
"I'll do it for you. When I say now, use all your strength to punch upwards. If she's high in the sky..." she let the words hang there.
"The explosion might not hurt our forces. With Kampe gone we win," I finished. "I have killed many monsters but the mother of monsters. "
"Wait. " I held my breath waiting for her words. "Wait. " Everything seemed to be going so slow as I held my batted breath. "Now!" she screamed as I jumped up and kneed something in the face. With just enough sight to see where I was, I knew that the both of us were out of the pit and now in the sky. My arm was nearly melting, and the pure godly strength was too much for my mortal body.
"Aim up with all you have; she's above you."
"You. Me. To the finish. I, King Perseus Jackson of Sparta, give you my permission to beg for your life."
With that, I threw Olethros upwards, and the force of the throw cracked the metal of my arm, nearly eradicating it. The earth shook, the winds flared, destruction, disaster, natural, magical, all came to a climactic peak as an explosion rang in the sky. Everyone held their breath as they watched me throw my spear at the worst female monster ever lived.
"Too late," I muttered as the explosion covered the sky in blue flames and a hundred thunder strikes. The explosion caused the entire country to shake and see as the clouds caught on blue fire. Red lightning roared and crackled as the blue flames destroyed the concept of the sky itself. The blinding blue light in the explosion was pure divinity, as pure as primordial. The blast destroyed my metal arm, causing shards of golden shrapnel to embed themselves in the side of my neck, the part my coat didn't protect. The true divinity was enough to break every bone in my body.
Red hot pain ran through my body. A piercing, burning feeling enveloped me and took over every sense of my body. I could see my skin cracking as more blood poured out of me just by me throwing the weapon. My body may be more god-like than most mortals, but this did not mean I was a god. The small parts of me that were human could not withstand the pure powers of divinity I was holding, even if it was for five minutes.
As I fell, I muttered the incantation I used to seal gods; I was never letting Kampe run around ever again. Like all the titans I killed in this lifetime, she would stay dead. I plummeted to the ground as the blinding light shone as if Olympus was trying to open itself up to the mortal realm across the world. I fell to the ground with a hard thud as the ground broke once more with my force. I coughed and hacked as Kampe died.
As I collapsed, I could still see more monsters coming through, and Scyleria was fighting my lions. My siblings were now beating Elana, but the battle would go back in their favor if more monsters came. I tried to stand up and force myself to fight, but my legs were limp. I couldn't move.
I went to crawl with my arms but noticed my metal arm was broken. I opened my right hand, and Olethros flew back into it. The pure divinity and heat burning in my hand. It turned the weapon into an ax and began using it to crawl to my siblings.
I need them to win to help secure our victory; they need to all face the children of Zeus, even if they had the curse of Achilles, just to stop the monsters from regrouping with their large numbers and making a counter offensive again.
Elana needed to change strategies, and I could see what she planned. She used the waters around her and made a wave towards the bronze bulls fighting the children of Zeus. The bulls froze in ice waves, and the kids of Zeus were taken off guard. They quickly figured things out and ran toward Elana, and with all five of them fighting my nine siblings, my siblings had no chance.
"Kampe is dead," a child of Zeus told Elana as I continued to crawl towards them.
"Percy is stronger now; Kampe was able to handle a Hecatoncheires. If she's dead and that big lug continued to fight the front lines, the best we could do is a stalemate," Elana replied as the children of Zeus stood behind her, ready for their counterstrike against my siblings.
"We need to kill them now and kill Percy if we want to live," a daughter of Zeus informed Elana.
Elana grunted begrudgingly. She didn't want to kill anyone, but it was them or her family, and she would make that choice the same way all her days. Before she had the chance to fight, a bolt of lightning slammed in front of her. Little Margey was blocking her path toward Poseidon's cabin.
"Out of the way, Margey," one of her siblings warned.
"No," she whispered.
"Margey," her brother warned.
"No! You won't hurt Karina," she said, defending my sister. I used all my strength to crawl forward but barely made any progress.
Lighting sparked around her siblings as they were reading for a fight. "Move," her sister practically begged, her voice clearly hurt that her sister would choose Poseidon's children rather than her own blood. Margey, not knowing but seeing the light, screamed and fired a blast, it was pathetic compared to what her siblings could do, but the point was made.
One of her siblings ran towards my own. He would hit one of them before I did the only thing I could. I threw Olethros, and it flew forwards as it cut through his shirt and left a thin slash in the area just under his armpit that would have been impossible to hit if his arms weren't raised the way they were.
Everyone stopped and stared as they looked at the son of Zeus, then at me. The son of Zeus began to cough up blood before instantly falling to the ground, choking, sporadic spasms, and then death. A small cut from Olethros, and anyone with godly blood dies.
Before anyone had the chance to attack, Olethros flew into my hand as it continued to burn me due to the overwhelming divinity. With all the power I had as a son of Poseidon, I did something no child of Poseidon should. The heart and brain are over seventy percent water and the lungs over eighty. The majority of things, magical or natural, are made of water. That makes them, loosely, in my father's domain.
I controlled all the blood in all monsters and even the enemy demigods. I began coughing and hacking as this task was too much even for me. I held Olethros from using its overwhelming power of the sea because of Poseidon, Thalassa, and the Heart of the Sea, to control the waters better than a god should have.
All monsters stopped fighting as I slowly began to die because of the overwhelming godly power I was using, twice in a row now. Everyone stopped screaming, talking, ordering, as I, on my belly, on my knees, controlled better than those standing up.
"I am the sea, the skies, and the Underworld. As the skies, I call the lightings that the children of Zeus use. As the seas, I control the waters in you all. As the Underworld monster exists only because I let them. All of you know have my permission to die."
With that, the final twist came to be. Adonia rushed to the battlefield with the box in her hand. I forced all the monsters to look at her as the pain roared back to life as blood dripped from my nose and eye.
"Adonia, now! I can't hold this for long. The next wave of monsters is going to come!" I screamed.
With a quick motion, she ripped out what was in the box. My most dangerous last resort. I never had gotten rid of it. I thought of sending it to Olympus to antagonize the gods before I got my memories back, but I kept realizing how important of a weapon it was. All the monsters were staring, the ones that were my enemies. Even the ones deep in the entrance that could see through looked on. Those behind them wouldn't even matter since they would not be able to get through once this was done.
"Campers look away!" I screamed as everyone did as I said. My namesake, Perseus, would be proud of my latest trick. Because what Adonia pulled out was.... Medusa's severed head. With that, I passed out.