Hector: Live or die - that is the lovely give-and-take of war. / Homer, The Iliad*
Lila wakes up to a huge roar that shakes the earth and rattles buildings. The windows beside her shatter slightly, cracks forming like webs jutting out. With horror, she forces herself to her feet. The sun is still in the sky, so night hasn't begun yet - which is worrying, for if Kronos feels strong enough to launch another attack so soon, there's no hope.
She scrambles to her feet, grabbing her spear, and two knives - the closest she can find. Her leg is still aching, but she doesn't dare ingest any more ambrosia or nectar, for fear of combusting. Quickly, she ties her hair into a messy ponytail, and steals a spare, clean t-shirt from the stack the Aphrodite cabin are guarding, looking for the others.
They congregate outside the Empire State Building - well, what's left of them, anyway. There are seventeen campers, excluding Percy, fifteen Hunters, and six satyrs able to fight, while everyone else is hiding on Olympus. The Part Ponies are all wasted, staggering and giggling, head-butting each other, arguing. Lila can't help but worry that they'll begin to fight each other.
"What was that noise?" Lila asks Percy and Grover. The former winces.
Chiron trots toward them, Rachel on his back ."Your friend here has some useful insights, Percy,"
Percy frowns. "Like what you said earlier? 'Something is about to happen, a trick that ends in death'?"
Chiron frowns. "I hadn't heard that one. We have some newer advancements."
Rachel blushes. "Just some things I saw in my head."
"A drakon," Chiron explains. "A Lydian drakon, to be exact. The oldest and most dangerous kind."
"How did you know that?" Percy asks.
"Why is it always the most dangerous kind?" Lila asks the sky. Grover hums in agreement.
"I'm not sure," Rachel admits, answering Percy's question. "But this drakon has a particular fate. It will be killed by a child of Ares."
Annabeth crosses her arms. "How can you possibly know that?"
"I just saw it. I can't explain."
"Well, let's hope you're wrong," Percy mutters. "Because we're a little short on children of Ares. . . ." Then he suddenly curses in Ancient Greek.
"What?" Annabeth asks.
"The spy," He explains. "Kronos said, We know they cannot beat this drakon. The spy has been keeping him updated. Kronos knows the Ares cabin isn't with us. He intentionally picked a monster we can't kill."
Lila brushes hair out of her face. "So, what do we do?"
Thalia scowls. "If I ever catch your spy, he's going to be very sorry. Maybe we could send another messenger to camp—"
"I've already done it," Chiron says. "Blackjack is on his way. But if Silena wasn't able to convince Clarisse, I doubt Blackjack will be able—"
The roar repeats again, this time louder, closer, echoing through the streets.
"Rachel," Percy says, "get inside the building."
"I want to stay."
The sky is filled with darkness as the sun is blocked by a ginormous shadow. The drakon slithers down a skyscraper - when it roars, all the windows shatter.
"On second thought," Rachel says in a small voice, "I'll be inside."
Lila's been going to drakon-fighting classes at camp for the better part of six years. Even with that training, the sight of the drakon is enough to turn her bones to jelly and leave her trembling, fixed in place. The giant serpent's eyes glitter with the magic that must have created it, but wherever it looks, people freeze in fear, paralysed. The yellow irises are bigger than Lila, and as it opens it's mouth to roar, Lila notices it's filled with razor sharp teeth, each one like a full length sword of Celestial Bronze, sharp enough to cut a person in half.
"There aren't - " Lila's voice forgets how to sound. "I almost miss Hyperion."
Percy laughs without humour.
Beside the drakon, the enemy army advances down Fifth Avenue. They approach leisurely, taking their time, since they have so much of it. The drakon behind them must fill them all with confidence, for as they approach, Lila can hear jeering and insults being thrown, a far cry from the panicking of earlier. This time, they might be the ones thrown into a panic.
"I'll take the drakon." Percy's voice sounds like a squeak, so he yells: "I'LL TAKE THE DRAKON! Everyone else, hold the line against the army!"
Lila and Annabeth join him - it reminds her of that time they fought Kampe, only this time, the drakon is a lot closer, a lot larger, and apparently, there's no way they can kill it.
"Go invisible," Percy tells Annabeth. "Look for weak links in its armour while we keep it busy. Just be careful." He whistles. "Mrs. O'Leary, heel!"
"ROOOF!" The hellhound appears, standing behind Percy and Lila like an oversized guard dog.
"You're with me?" he asks Lila.
She smiles grimly. "You have to ask?"
He grins back at her, drawing his sword. She pulls out her spear, while Annabeth puts on her cap, disappearing into thin air.
The drakon is still slithering along buildings, three stories above the ground. Behind them, the army crashes into the Party Ponies, and the lines begin to break. The drakon swallows three Centaurs in one gulp, before they even have the chance to react.
Mrs. O'Leary jumps over Percy and Lila into the air - most would run at the sight, but beside the drakon, she looks like a tiny puppy. Her claws rake off the scales, having no effect. She bites the throat of it, but nothing happens. However, with her weight, she manages to knock the drakon off the building, onto the sidewalk. They twist and thrash together - it tries to bite her, but she's too close to it's mouth. In the chaos, poison spews from the mouth, melting centaurs to dust, as well as some of the Titan army.
Lila taps the ground with her spear, and Japanese Wisteria springs from the ground. It's pretty, but it's also strong enough to bend iron, and grows fast enough to wrap around the drakon, holding it to the ground. The monster writhes, spitting venom, tearing through the vines, but Lila only places her palm to the ground, growing two more for every vine it cuts through.
Percy lunges forward, plunging Riptide deep into the serpent's left eye, black blood spitting everywhere.
The drakon hisses, rearing back, fully tearing through Lila's vines and slipping away before she can grow any more, lashing out at him. He rolls away, so instead it bites a chunk out of the pavement, turning toward them.
Behind them, the campers are being backed up toward the Empire State Building, slowly but surely the distance closing around them.
In a blink, Annabeth appears on the drakon's back as her cap rolls off her head, and she drives her knife between a gap in it's scales. The drakon roars again, turning and knocking her off.
As she hits the ground, Percy drags her out of the way as the serpent crushes a lamppost where she had been.
In an effort to create a distraction, Lila grabs her spear, pulling her arm back as she'd practiced, and launches it toward the serpent's other eyes. In the panic, her aim is slightly off, and instead her spear cuts into the left eye, the one Percy already blinded. It hisses in pain again as the wound reopens, lunging toward her, but Mrs. O'Leary launches herself at Lila, pushing her to the ground as the serpent spits poison just at the space where she was standing.
The rest of their army has backed up toward the doors of the Empire State Building, surrounded by the enemy.
"We have to retreat," Percy manages, out of breath.
"But the drakon," Lila says, eyeing the serpent, which is recovering quickly from it's slight loss of sight.
"We're going to be cut off from Olympus," Annabeth coughs. "Percy's right."
Lila turns, eyeing the gigantic army that's approaching their friends - all of them wounded, some being dragged back toward the doors.
Then, from the south, she hears a rumbling sound - a sound she recognises from all the games at Camp - chariot wheels.
A girl's voice yells, "ARES!"
Twelve war chariots appear in a line, each one pulled by four skeletal horses with fiery manes. They all fly red banners with a wild boar's head - all holding lances forward toward the army, eyes glistening with a thirst for battle.
"The children of Ares!" Annabeth gasps. "How did Rachel know?"
At the front is Clarisse, her face covered by a helmet. Her spear cracks with electricity, Lamer - Maimer, lying in wait to kill a drakon. Six of the chariots charge toward Kronos's army, while the other six head for the drakon.
Lila can't believe it. Finally, Silena must have gotten through to Clarisse. Her best friends are going to save them. She can't help her grin. Everything is a little bit better when the three of them are together.
Somethings wrong, though. Clarisse doesn't usually cover her face so much - the boars helmet she's chosen is different to her usual. Something is off about her.
"Something's not right," Lila murmurs to Percy.
Before he can reply, the serpent rears back, throwing Mrs. O'Leary into the side of a building, yelping. Lila forgets Clarisse in her hurry to save the hellhound, fear for her pet's life - something she's never felt before - filling her. Lunging forward to stand between the hellhound and the drakon, she stands shielding Mrs. O'Leary's shadowy body, a mortal defending an immortal beast. The drakon hisses, opening it's mouth to spit venom toward her.
Still, she doesn't move, standing in front of the dog's body. I'll die with her if I have to. As the drakon's maw widens, revealing it's razor teeth, much closer, much deadlier now, she raises her spear, preparing to throw it into the drakon's throat. At least they'll all go down. Mutually assured destruction and the like. She won't abandon Mrs. O'Leary to die alone, not after everything she's done for them.
Before she can, a yell from behind the serpent distracts it - onto Clarisse, the source of the distraction. The new threat is apparently more interesting, as the serpent whips around, hissing toward them. Lila spots two of the chariots veer into the sidewalk, but the other four lunge into the drakon's mouth, spears sticking into it's jaw. It hisses, hopefully in pain.
"Ares, to me!" Clarisse screams, but her voice sounds a little different.
Before Lila can think about it, a phalanx of dracaena advances toward the wounded and bleeding Mrs. O'Leary, separating her and Lila from the drakon and the rest of the army. Lila readies her spear, cutting through the first two, but they continues to advance.
In reply, she continues to fight. Everything blurs into one - all she can think is block, dodge, parry, kill as monster after monster is burst into dust. She's not sure how many she kills. Everything is instinct, her only thought being to keep them away from Mrs. O'Leary for as long as she can. Behind her, all the sound blends into one jumble of screams and flames and hisses as the fight against the drakon goes on and on.
Behind, she hears Percy yell "You can do it! A child of Ares is destined to kill it!"
At that moment, Lila finishes cutting through the snake-women, an small portion of the army cut to bits. She's covered in monster dust and tiny cuts, her leg is aching and there's blood seeping from a shallow wound on her shoulder, but she's alive. On the ground, dust scatters, drifting away with the wind.
She rushes to Mrs. O'Leary - blood coats her black fur, and she whines as Lila places a hand on her leg, yet Lila can see the wound slowly closing as the natural hellhound healing kicks in.
"You stay here," Lila whispers to her dog. "You'll be okay, yeah?"
The hellhound makes a quiet barking noise, far more muted than usual, which Lila takes as yes. She turns back to the battle, just as Percy screams "WAIT!"
The Lydian drakon looks down at the sole figure of Clarisse, and spits poison into her face. As she falls, she screams - and that's when Lila knows something is truly wrong, because Clarisse would never scream.
Everything must move quickly, but to Lila, it feels slow. All her movements are sluggish, too slow, as if she's moving through amber, trapped in a jar of her own stupidity. Annabeth runs toward Clarisse, and the Ares campers try to defend her. Percy lunges toward the drakon, effectively distracting it as he's thrown across the street.
Lila tries to fight her way over to Clarisse's fallen body, her body freezing up, every wound seeming to bleed more in her desperation, her movements sloppy.
Someone screams, "No! Curse you, WHY?"
It's Clarisse's voice.
Finally, Lila makes her way over to the body of Clarisse - not Clarisse, for Clarisse is holding her double in her arms, while Annabeth removes the helmet. No. It can't be.
Her skin feels cold and hot at the same time, her spear falling from her hands as they turn clammy and limp. She can hear her heartbeat echoing in her ears, too loud to be real as her head spins - from blood loss, or something else. Air doesn't seem to be making it into her lungs as her breathing turns shallow and rapid, each breath weaker than the last, her body failing her as she kneels beside Clarisse, staring at the Celestial Bronze helmet, melted into the fallen camper's skin from the corrosive poison.
The drakon screams, and Chris yells "Look out!"
Lila hardly moves, but Clarisse - the real one, does, standing to her feet. Lila barely registers it, staring down at the fallen girl. "No," she whispers, gripping the helmet. The poison burns her hands, leaving them blistering, but she hardly notices as she pulls it away from her best friend's face.
"YOU WANT DEATH?" Clarisse screams at the drakon. "WELL, COME ON!"
Everyone turns to watch as Lila dully hears electricity sparking, a huge screeching hiss, a thud, the sound of something dissolving, poison sizzling the sidewalk - but it's all far away, in the distance, so far away it can't be real, it can't be.
Something is about to happen, Rachel had said. A trick that ends in death.
It can't be, Lila prays, for the first time in a long time.
It doesn't matter. The gods never answer.
Lila stares down, into the eyes of Silena Beauregard.
you all knew it was coming lol
*quote at the top is hector after patroclus dies in the iliad
next chapter might be long (i know i say this a lot and am always wrong about it) but a lot happens and it doesn't exactly follow a certain chapter from TLO.
listening to genesis and deep end by ruelle while writing this. if you haven't already, check out my playlist for this fic! i think it's very accurate and it's ordered, so like the second half - i would say this chapter is around songs 37 - 44 and the next chapter is definitely 45 - 48, the chapter after is 49-51
it's not very fun from here on out, sorry. still more deaths to come (spoiler)
the fight scenes are finally interesting. before it was kind of just "monsters. lila does shit. percy makes witty comment. lila laughs."
could you tell i was running out of ideas? but i'm pretty proud of this one.
see you soon! lyra x