gone girl.
━━━ chapter twenty four
❀
Percy felt a knot forming in the pit of his stomach as soon as Annabeth told him that the Apollo cabin needed help. It wasn't just the mention of the Minotaur — one of his least favourite monsters in the planet and one that he associated with the worst memories — but also the thought of Amaryllis being in danger. While he was sure that the girl could protect herself, being powerful and all, he couldn't help but worry about her anyway.
After he was done negotiating with the River gods, he called two Pegasi for him and Annabeth so they could take them there as fast as possible.
Yo, boss. Blackjack, his black pegasus, landed at a trot, his friend Porkpie right behind him. Man, I thought those wind gods were gonna knock us to Pennsylvania until we said we were with you!
"Thanks for coming," Percy told him. "Hey, why do pegasi gallop as they fly, anyway?"
Blackjack whinnied. Why do humans swing their arms as they walk? I dunno, boss. It just feels right. Where to?
"We need to get to the Williamsburg Bridge," he said.
Blackjack lowered his neck. You're darn right, boss. We flew over it on the way here, and it don't look good. Hop on!
They saw the battle before they were close enough to make out individual fighters. It was well after midnight, but the bridge blazed with light. Cars were burning. Arcs of fire streamed in both directions as flaming arrows and spears sailed through the air.
The pegasi came in for a low pass, and Percy saw the Apollo campers retreating. They would hide behind cars and snipe at the approaching army, setting off explosive arrows and dropping caltrops in the road, building fiery barricades wherever they could, dragging sleeping drivers out of their cars to get them out of harm's way. But the enemy kept advancing and of course, the one in front was none other than her.
While he couldn't see her clearly, he could tell that Amaryllis was using her powers to collect debris from the destroyed buildings and roads to throw them to the enemy. She let out a scream that could either be a war cry or a scream of agony and took out half of the dracaenae army with just one move. A wave of pride washed over him and he was about to start cheering for her when he realised that about a hundred more monsters marched behind those. The cheer died in his throat.
"There!" Annabeth called from the back of her pegasus. Sure enough, in the middle of the invading legion was Old Beefhead himself.
The last time Percy had seen the Minotaur, he'd been wearing nothing but his tighty whities. Percy didn't know why — maybe he'd been shaken out of bed to chase him. This time though, he was prepared for battle.
From the waist down, he wore standard Greek battle gear — a kiltlike apron of leather and metal flaps, bronze greaves covering his legs, and tightly wrapped leather sandals. His top was all bull — hair and hide and muscle leading to a head so large he should've toppled over just from the weight of his horns. He seemed larger than the last time they seen each other — ten feet tall at least. A double-bladed axe was strapped to his back, but he was too impatient to use it. As soon as he saw Percy circling overhead (or sniffed him, more likely, since his eyesight was bad), he bellowed and picked up a white limousine.
"Blackjack, dive!" he yelled.
What? The pegasus asked. No way could he... Holy horse feed!
They were at least a hundred feet up, but the limo came sailing toward them, flipping fender over fender like a two-ton boomerang. Annabeth and Porkpie swerved madly to the left, while Blackjack tucked in his wings and plunged. The limo sailed over his head, missing by maybe two inches. It cleared the suspension lines of the bridge and fell toward the East River. Monsters jeered and shouted, and the Minotaur picked up another car.
"Drop us behind the lines with the Apollo cabin," he told Blackjack. "Stay in earshot but get out of danger!"
I ain't gonna argue, boss! Blackjack swooped down behind an overturned school bus, where a couple of campers were hiding. Annabeth and him leaped off as soon as their pegasi's hooves touched the pavement. Then Blackjack and Porkpie soared into the night sky.
Michael Yew ran up to the two. He was definitely the shortest commando Percy had ever seen. He had a bandaged cut on his arm, his ferrety face was smeared with soot and his quiver was almost empty, but he was smiling like he was having a great time.
"Glad you could join us," he said. "Where are the other reinforcements?"
"For now, we're it," he said.
"Then we're dead," Michael announced, tilting his head towards Amaryllis' direction. "She's been great, really. But the monsters keep coming and I don't want her to exhaust herself to death."
"You still have your flying chariot?" Annabeth asked.
"Nah," Michael said. "Left it at camp. I told Clarisse she could have it. Whatever, you know? Not worth fighting about anymore. But she said it was too late. We'd insulted her honor for the last time or some stupid thing."
"Least you tried," Percy said.
Michael shrugged. "Yeah, well, I called her some names when she said she still wouldn't fight. I doubt that helped. Here come the uglies!"
He drew an arrow and launched it toward the enemy. The arrow made a screaming sound as it flew. When it landed, it unleashed a blast like a power chord on an electric guitar magnified through the world's largest speakers. The nearest cars exploded. Monsters dropped their weapons and clasped their ears in pain. Some ran. Others disintegrated on the spot.
"That was my last sonic arrow," Michael said.
"A gift from your dad?" Percy asked. "God of music?"
Michael grinned wickedly. "Loud music can be bad for you. Unfortunately, it doesn't always kill." Sure enough, most monsters were regrouping, shaking off their confusion. "We have to fall back," he said. "I've got Kayla and Austin setting traps farther down the bridge."
"No," Percy said. "Bring your campers forward to this position and wait for my signal. We're going to drive the enemy back to Brooklyn."
Michael laughed in disbelief. "How do you plan to do that?"
He drew his sword, Riptide and it was enough of an answer.
"Percy," Annabeth said, "let me come with you."
"Too dangerous," he said. "Besides, I need you to help Michael coordinate the defensive line. I'll distract the monsters. You group up here. Move the sleeping mortals out of the way. Then you can start picking off monsters while me and Mar keep them focused on us. If anybody can do all that, you can."
Michael snorted. "Thanks a lot."
Percy kept his eyes on Annabeth, who eventually nodded. "All right. Get moving."
He stepped out from behind the school bus and walked up the bridge in plain sight, straight toward the enemy. Amaryllis saw him before the Minotaur did and she flashed him a smile. There was blood coming off her nose and the corner of her mouth and her armour seemed to had taken quite a few hits, but overall, she looked great. Amaryllis had always been strikingly beautiful — there was no sane person in the world that could say otherwise — but seeing her like that was almost terrifying. He didn't want to know how their enemies felt when they saw her.
"Glad you could join the party," she said half-heartedly. "You take the Minotaur, I take the rest of them?"
When the Minotaur saw him, his eyes burned with hate. He bellowed — a sound that was somewhere between a yell, a moo, and a really loud belch. "Sounds good," Percy told her and then turned to the Minotaur, shouting back. "Hey, Beef Boy. Didn't I kill you already?"
He pounded his fist into the hood of a Lexus, and it crumpled like aluminum foil. A few dracaenae threw flaming javelins at the two, but they knocked them aside easily. A hellhound lunged, and Percy sidestepped. He could have stabbed it, but he hesitated. He had to take a second to remind himself that this wasn't Mrs. O'Leary, but an untamed monster that wanted to kill him and all of his friends.
The second time it pounced, Percy brought Riptide up in a deadly arc. The hellhound disintegrated into dust and fur.
More monsters surged forward — snakes and giants and telkhines — but Amaryllis didn't let them get close. "Hey, wanna see a cool trick?" she said with a mischievous, but tired smile and she turned invisible, becoming one with the shadows. Percy was reminded of the last time she had done that, back at the Labyrinth, though accidentally. Within seconds, most of the other monsters had turned into dust and the others were fighting with all their energy, but still losing.
"One on one?" Percy told the Minotaur, gaining some sudden confidence. "Just like old times?"
The Minotaur's nostrils quivered. He seriously needed to keep a pack of Aloe Vera Kleenex in his armor pocket, because that nose was wet and red and pretty gross. He unstrapped his axe and swung it around. It was beautiful in a harsh I’m going to gut you like a fish kind of way. Each of its twin blades was shaped like an omega: Ω — the last letter of the Greek alphabet. Maybe that was because the axe would be the last thing his victims ever saw. The shaft was about the same height as the Minotaur, bronze wrapped in leather. Tied around the base of each blade were lots of bead necklaces. Percy realized they were Camp Half-Blood beads — necklaces taken from defeated demigods.
Percy was so mad, he imagined that his eyes were glowing just like the Minotaur's. He raised his sword. The remaining of the monster army cheered for the Minotaur, but the sound died when Percy dodged his first swing and sliced his axe in half, right between the handholds.
"Moo?" he grunted.
"Ha!" He spun and kicked him in the snout. He staggered backward, trying to regain his footing, then lowered his head to charge but he never got the chance. Riptide flashed — slicing off one horn, then the other. He tried to grab Percy, but he rolled away, picking up half of his broken axe.
Amaryllis was doing pretty good too. She had returned back to normal, but she was still fighting with the ferocity of a wild animal. Percy remembered what Annabeth told him about how Amaryllis had spent the entire summer training obsessively — he could tell that she had improved a bit too much.
The Minotaur bellowed in rage as he saw the blonde girl destroying all of his friends. He was never very smart to begin with, but now his anger made him reckless. He charged Percy, and he ran for the edge of the bridge, breaking through a line of dracaenae.
The Minotaur must've smelled victory, thinking that Percy was trying to get away. At the edge of the bridge, the boy turned and braced the axe against the railing to receive his charge. The Minotaur didn't even slow down.
He looked down in surprise at the axe handle sprouting from his breastplate.
"Thanks for playing," Percy told him.
He lifted him by his legs and tossed him over the side of the bridge. Even as he fell, he was disintegrating, turning back into dust, his essence returning to Tartarus.
"That was fun," he heard Amaryllis behind him. She pulled her swords, each of them having gone through the heart of a different monster, and stumbled once they turned to dust.
Percy caught her just in time, bringing her close to him. "Are you okay?"
She nodded, but it didn't look too believable. "It's the first time I've been using my powers for so long," she explained and pulled away. "There are more coming. What's the plan?"
"Uh..." He looked around them, seeing the reinforcements that the monster army had sent. They were about a hundred monsters, most of them telekhines, circling around the two, weapons drawn.
"Got it. No plan. Just kicking ass." Amaryllis took out a gun from the back pocket of her camouflage pants and loaded it with bullets made by Celestial bronze, so they could kill monsters. Percy looked at her in amazement. "What?" she asked.
Say something, you idiot, one part of him screamed. Tell her how you feel. Tell her... something. Anything that isn't stupid.
"You have a gun," he noted.
"And you have eyes, congratulations." She took a step forward, just barely missing a spear flying towards her. "Cover for me."
Everything happened very fast, just like it usually did since he had bathed in the River Styx. He wasn't entirely sure how the curse worked, but he knew that, as long as it helped him stop these monsters from invading his hometown, he didn't care. He sliced through armor like it was made of paper. Snake women exploded and hellhounds melted to shadow and he might had even laughed once or twice — a crazy laugh that scared himself as much as it did his enemies.
Meanwhile, once Amaryllis had used all of her bullets, she drew her swords again and did the same. They were fighting back to back, rotating like they were tied in a wheel, covering for each other.
Percy was aware of the Apollo campers behind them shooting arrows, disrupting every attempt by the enemy to rally. Finally, the monsters turned and fled — about twenty left alive out of two hundred. Him and Amaryllis followed with the Apollo campers at their heels.
"Yes!" yelled Michael proudly. "That's my sister! That's what I'm talking about!"
They drove them back toward the Brooklyn side of the bridge. The sky was growing pale in the east, but he had no concept of time while fighting.
"Percy!" Annabeth yelled. "You've already routed them. Pull back! We're overextended!"
Some part of him knew she was right, but they were doing so well, he wanted to destroy every last monster. Then he saw the crowd at the base of the bridge. The retreating monsters were running straight toward their reinforcements. It was a small group, maybe thirty or forty demigods in battle armor, mounted on skeletal horses. One of them held a purple banner with the black scythe design. The lead horseman trotted forward. He took off his helm, and Percy recognized Kronos himself, his eyes like molten gold.
"Oh, fuck," he heard Amaryllis mutter next to him.
Annabeth and the Apollo campers faltered. The monsters they'd been pursuing reached the Titan's line and were absorbed into the new force. Kronos gazed in their direction. He was a quarter mile away, but Percy swore he could see him smile.
"Now," he said, "we pull back."
The Titan lord's men drew their swords and charged. The hooves of their skeletal horses thundered against the pavement. The Apollo cabin shot a volley, bringing down several of the enemy, but they just kept riding.
"Retreat!" Amaryllis yelled to her siblings, voice full of panic but Percy sensed it was more about them rather than herself. "I'll hold them."
"We will," Percy reassured her. He refused to leave her side and he almost smiled when Annabeth stayed right beside them, fighting with her knife and mirrored shield as they slowly backed up the bridge, while Michael and his archers tried their best to retreat.
Kronos's cavalry swirled around the trio, slashing and yelling insults. The Titan himself advanced leisurely, like he had all the time in the world. Being the lord of time, he basically did.
Percy tried to wound his men, not kill. That slowed him down, but these weren't monsters. They were demigods who'd fallen under Kronos's spell. He couldn't see faces under their battle helmets, but some of them had probably been his friends. Amaryllis didn't seem as forgiving, but if she could avoid killing them, she did.
Percy slashed the legs off their horses and made the skeletal mounts disintegrate. After the first few demigods took a spill, the rest figured out they'd better dismount and fight them on foot.
Him, Amaryllis and Annabeth were fighting shoulder to shoulder, facing different directions. A dark shape passed over him and he dared to glance up. Blackjack and Porkpie were swooping in, kicking the enemies in the helmets and flying away like very large kamikaze pigeons.
They'd almost made it to the middle of the bridge when Percy shivered at the realisation that he couldn't feel Annabeth by his left side anymore. Next to Amaryllis, Annabeth cried out in pain.
"Annabeth!" Percy turned in time to see her fall, clutching her arm. A demigod with a bloody knife stood
over her.
In a flash he understood what had happened — he was trying to stab Amaryllis and judging by the position of his blade, he would have taken her right at the heart, since her armour had broken a while ago. Percy sensed that that was Amaryllis' mortal point, her only weak spot and somehow Annabeth, the smartest person he had ever met in his entire life, had figured it out just in time to intercept the blade with her body.
"Ethan Nakamura," Amaryllis growled at the demigod that stabbed the daughter of Athena. Percy could practically feel the rage radiating off of her as she slammed Ethan in the face with her sword hilt so hard that it dented his helm.
Percy rushed to Annabeth's side, slashing the air in a wide arc, driving the rest of the demigods away from her. "Stay away! Mar!" he called out to her, but she ignored him.
Shadows were coming out of her hands and surrounding her body and soon enough, Ethan's. With just one tilt of her head, she made his sword fly away from his reach and the darkness manifested physically in a way that it broke his armour like it was nothing more than plastic. She looked like she was planning to kill him and enjoy it, when a voice made her freeze.
"Interesting," Kronos said.
He towered above Amaryllis on his skeletal horse, his scythe in one hand. He studied the scene with narrowed eyes as if he could sense that, not only Amaryllis but also Ethan just came close to death, the way a wolf can smell fear. Percy was still by Annabeth's side, protecting her from the rest of the demigods, but he felt his heart drop at how close Kronos was to Amaryllis.
"Very interesting, indeed," the Titan Lord said. "Guess the secret's out now, isn't it, daughter of Hades?" He looked at the two children of the Big Three. "Bravely fought, Percy Jackson and Amaryllis Kalomiri. But it's time to surrender... or the girl dies."
"No, don't," Annabeth groaned. Her shirt was soaked with blood. They had to get her out of here.
"Blackjack!" he yelled. As fast as light, the pegasus swooped down and clamped his teeth on the straps of Annabeth's armor and they soared away over the river before the enemy could even react.
Kronos snarled. "Some day soon, I am going to make pegasus soup. But in the meantime..." He dismounted, his scythe glistening in the dawn light. "I'll settle for another two dead demigods, just fine."
Percy met his first strike with Riptide. The impact shook the entire bridge, but he held his ground. Kronos's smile wavered. With a yell, he kicked his legs out from under him and his scythe skittered across the pavement. Amaryllis joined the fight, stabbing downward, but he rolled aside and regained his footing. His scythe flew back to his hands.
"So..." He studied both of them, looking mildly annoyed. "You had the courage to visit the Styx. I had to pressure Luke in many ways to convince him. If only one of you had supplied my host body instead... But no matter. I am still more powerful. I am a Titan!"
"You're a little bitch, that's what you are," Amaryllis yelled.
He struck the bridge with the butt of his scythe, and a wave of pure force blasted them backward. Cars went careening. Demigods — even Luke's own men — were blown off the edge of the bridge. Suspension cords whipped around, and the two skidded halfway back to Manhattan.
Percy got unsteadily to his feet, pulling Amaryllis up as well. The remaining Apollo campers had almost made it to the end of the bridge, except for Michael Yew, who was perched on one of the suspension cables a few yards away from them. His last arrow was notched in his bow.
"Michael!" Amaryllis yelled and surged forward to help. "Go!"
"Percy, the bridge!" he called. "It's already weak!"
At first he didn't understand. Then he looked down and saw fissures in the pavement. Patches of the road were half melted from Greek fire. The bridge had taken a beating from Kronos's blast and the exploding of arrows.
"Break it!" Michael yelled desperately. "Use your powers!"
"No!" Amaryllis screamed. "No, Michael, you—"
"It'll be okay," he screamed back. The two siblings looked at each other like they were having an entire conversation, just the two of them. "It'll be okay. Break it, Percy! Quick!" Michael repeated.
It was a desperate thought — no way it would work — but Percy stabbed Riptide into the bridge. The magic blade sank to its hilt of asphalt. Salt water shot from the crack like he'd hit a geyser. He pulled out his blade and the fissure grew. The bridge shook and began to crumble, chunks the size of houses falling into the East River. Kronos's demigods cried out in alarm and scrambled backward. Some were knocked off their feet. Within a few seconds, a fifty-foot chasm opened in the Williamsburg Bridge between Kronos and them.
The vibrations died. Kronos's men crept to the edge and looked at the hundred-and-thirty-foot drop
into the river. Percy didn't feel safe, though. The suspension cables were still attached. The men could get across that way if they were brave enough. Or maybe Kronos had a magic way to span the gap.
The Titan lord studied the problem. He looked behind him at the rising sun, then smiled across the chasm, his gold eyes focused on Amaryllis. He raised his scythe in a mock salute. "Until this evening."
He mounted his horse, whirled around, and galloped back to Brooklyn, followed by his warriors.
Percy turned to thank Michael Yew, but the words died in his throat. Amaryllis had fallen to her knees, sobbing quietly as she stared at a bow that laid in the street, twenty feet away. Its owner was nowhere to be seen.
"No!" The boy started maniacally searching the wreckage on their side of the bridge, pulling the ruins back with his bare hands while Amaryllis was still too frozen to do anything other than sob. She was holding her heart, like it suddenly felt like too much of a burden.
"Stop it," she managed to say after a while. "Stop searching."
"No, it can't be..." he said, blinking back tears. "He must be alive..."
"I felt him dying, Percy!"
He let the ruins down, yelling at the void in anger and frustration. Once again, someone had died and it was his fault. The sound of his misery paired with Amaryllis' cries, mourning another dead brother, carried forever in the morning stillness.
Percy was about to whistle for Blackjack to help them search, when his mom's phone rang. The LCD display said he had a call from Finklestein & Associates — probably a demigod calling on a borrowed phone, he assumed. He picked up and put it on speaker, hoping for good news. Of course he was wrong.
"Percy?" Silena sounded like she'd been crying. "Plaza Hotel. You'd better come quickly and bring a healer from Apollo's cabin. It's... it's Annabeth."
With trembling hands, Percy hung up and looked at Amaryllis. She was pale and her eyes were puffy, her cheeks wet from the tears but she nodded nevertheless. She looked like she was trying to regain composure of herself, but how could she do that when she had just witnessed her best friend kill her brother?
Percy never wanted to die as much as he wanted at that moment.
The Apollo cabin slowly came up to them. He heard crying and cursing, but he didn't have the courage to turn his head to look at any of them. Will Solace ran and hugged Amaryllis, looking like a child that was desperately clinging to his mother — he was only thirteen after all.
Amaryllis hugged him back, wiping her tears. She whispered something to him and Will nodded.
Then she turned to Percy. "I'll take Will and shadow-travel there," she said. Her tone was cold, but her hazel eyes weren't.
"What about me?"
"You'll stay here," Amaryllis said. "Use your powers to find his body. He-" her voice broke, looking down the river, "he deserves to be buried properly."
"Mar, I'm so sorry..." he started saying, but the words died in his throat. He realised it didn't matter if he was sorry or not. It didn't change the fact that he had killed Michael Yew, even if he didn't mean to, even if Michael himself asked him to destroy the bridge.
"If anything happens, I'll call you," she simply said. She grabbed Will's hand and the two got engulfed in the shadows, quickly disappearing.
Percy drew a sharp breath and turned to the river. Behind him, he imagined that Michael's siblings probably debated on whether they should start yelling at Percy or not.
Instead, someone touched his shoulder. He turned to see a girl — her name was Nia, if he remembered correctly — who didn't look particularly angry, at least not at him. "We'll help you search," she said.
"I'm sorry," was the only thing Percy could mutter out. "I- I didn't—"
"War means sacrifice," Nia said. "And that's what Michael did. So honour him by helping him get buried in a proper way."
He nodded, even though he couldn't shake the feeling of guilt plaguing his soul.
𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒.
▊🧍♀️amaryllis sweetie, im sorry
▊one thing i absolutely hate about the last olympian is the fact that percy was directly responsible for michael yew's death and for some reason, no one bat a fucking eye?? and even percy felt sad for like a minute and then completely got over that and never thought about it again, despite the fact that you know the boy would blame himself until he died. so i decided to make it a bit more realistic, considering rick doesn't really have the best representation of trauma in my opinion.
▊also do you ever think that both nico and will (and amaryllis in my books) lost a sibling because of percy? (though i dont think bianca's death was percy's fault but nico did so..) do you ever think that clarisse had to live with the fact that her last conversation with michael was a bad one and that, perhaps if she wasnt so stubborn, michael wouldn't be dead? do you ever think that will solace, who's literally a ball of sunshine, secretly holds a lot of resentment towards percy because he was a child when he saw him kill his brother and that kind of shit stays forever with you, especially when you're young?
cause i do. i do wtf.
▊also annabeth taking the stabbing for mar because they're besties <3 it'll come full circle in heroes of olympus, don't worry mwahahah.
❛ gone girl. ❜
( part 𝒐𝒏𝒆 of gone girl series )
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