The Wrath Of The Gods - Part 2
Annabeth hates Ares.
To some, that might have sounded like a no-brainer.
Athena and Ares's ancient rivalry was an olden, brutal thing. The warrior's spirit and the stratagem of battle had been at odds since her mother had first burst out of Zeus's skull, and for all that their feuds had simmered down in the present day and age, if Annabeth had a drachma for every other conflict and literal war that had been spawned by or brought on as a result of their clashes, she'd be rich enough to buy half of Olympus.
There was a reason the Athena and Ares cabins were always at each other's throats at Capture the Flag or any of the other camp war games, and it wasn't because Clarisse and her siblings were stubborn as mules and liked to use every minor disagreement as an excuse to punch someone in the face.
(Well, not entirely)
The demigod children of both war-governing Olympians were damn near biologically wired to challenge and compete against one another... but that wasn't why Annabeth hated Ares, no.
If it was something as shallow and downright asinine as inheriting a grudge then Athena and Poseidon's equally volatile history would've meant she'd have hated Percy, and that couldn't be farther from the truth.
(Quite the opposite, actually, but that was a whole other kind of problem)
Unlike most of her siblings, Annabeth didn't just oppose Ares and everything associated with him on principle. No, her grudge was personal, and it traced its way all the way back when she, Grover, and Percy had gone on that (literally) fateful quest to retrieve the master bolt.
She'd disliked him from the second he'd shown up in that diner even if she'd had the obvious self-preservation instincts not to to show it. The way his mere presence had purposefully twisted Percy's emotions left and right and twirled him halfway out of his mind all so Ares could play at being magnanimous and assert his dominance over them had been enough to press half a dozen of her buttons in one go.
When he'd sent them off on that ridiculous side-quest and nearly gotten them killed by mechanical spiders, it had taken genuine effort and all her willpower not to draw her dagger and try to stab him right in the flaming eye socket, but that was practically the default setting for most any mortal interacting with Ares while unprepared for it - And any child of Athena being exposed to any spider ever, but again, that was a whole other kind of problem.
It wasn't until the very end of the quest when they'd escaped the Underworld by the very skin of their teeth and found Ares waiting for them on that beach did Annabeth truly begin to loathe the god of war.
It wasn't enough that he had played them like fiddles (What was it Percy had called it... a plan worthy of Athena? Talk about adding insult to injury), Or that he had almost succeded in getting them all killed and used as a catalyst for what would have been a civilization-ending war, no. In the end, after everything they'd been through and all the terrifying near-death experiences they'd just barely survived (Grover had nearly been dragged down to Tartarus), Ares still had the gall and the cruelty to stand in their way and try to stop them from returning the bolt.
When Percy had stepped up to duel him, Annabeth had felt part of her shrivel up and die at the sheer unfairness of it all. She was the child of wisdom and strategy - she should have had a plan, a plot, a clever trick to tip the scales in their favor, but she'd had nothing. She was forced to watch and pray for a miracle, any miracle, for what strategy could three twelve-year-olds use to stand up against an Olympian god?
It was just like the night Thalia had sacrificed herself all over again. All her years of training at camp, all that time sharpening her mind and body to prepare for anything amounted to nothing in the end. Once again, Annabeth was the useless spectator watching a friend throw themself into an unwinnable farce of a fight because it was a choice between that or rolling over and dying right then and there, and neither Percy nor Thalia would ever go down without a fight.
Ares had forced her to relive that hopeless despair, and even if Kronos had been the one pulling his strings all along, Annabeth would still despise him for his part in it for the rest of her life and until the end of time after that.
The fact that he'd chosen to curse Percy after he'd lost like an idiot because he was too drunk on his own power to remember never to underestimate any opponent just cemented her loathing because seriously, how petty could you get?
(Stupid question - Ares was a god, and while Annabeth would never dare say it aloud, she was pretty convinced you could better categorize them not by age or power or position in the divine hierarchy, but by the number of times they lashed out like a group of unimaginably overpowered and horrifyingly vindictive prima donnas).
Annabeth knew that wouldn't be the last time they'd come face to face with a god, be it Ares or another Olympian or one of the litters of other minor and not-so-minor non-Olympians out there - between Percy's role in the great prophecy, her tendency to ignore her better sense and follow him everywhere (and she always would, caution be damned) and the fact the fates were almost definitely borderline psychopaths out to get them, the odds were so heavily stacked against them that they'd have more luck beating Argus in a staring contest than they would at avoiding the inevitable.
The gods couldn't be beaten, not by any demigod or even an army of them at that - but maybe they could be outsmarted. Tripped up. Stalled and delayed until she could figure something out - whatever.
The point was, Annabeth would do something.
Anything at all
(She swore she'd never sit on the sidelines like that again, and to Hades with the consequences)
Well, two years and two quests later, as all seven of them turned and bolted away from the rampaging gods, a slightly hysterical part of Annabeth couldn't help but thank her past self for having the brains not to swear that on the river Styx because there were no words in any language to describe how badly she would have broken that oath if she had and how utterly screwed they all were either way.
"RUN!"
They made it about ten feet, sprinting full-tilt towards the entrance of the ludicrously vast junkyards at the kinds of speeds only adrenaline-crazed demigods could output when Apollo and Ares's blades finally met.
Boom.
The first blow wasn't so much a blow as it was a cataclysm. The earth bucked and ruptured. The air burst deafeningly. An unholy blast of scalding heat and light and hellish pressure slammed into their fleeing backs like a super-volcano going off right behind them and flinging them up and away so violently that Annabeth's neck nearly snapped and she almost blacked out from the vicious acceleration.
The disorientation from the sheer impact couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. An eternity that they spent flying, a million tons of force blowing them so high up that, had Zeus been watching, they'd have been smote a thousand times over before they could ever hope to hit the ground.
And then they stopped rising, and Annabeth felt enough clarity rush back into her brain in an infinitesimal instant to recognize how far below them the junkyard and the growing carnage from the battle of the gods was-
Holy -
- and then gravity struck like a viper and they began to fall.
Most of the screamed - Thalia howled.
The air nearly deafened her to it anyway as it whistled past her ears. The mountains of garbage and ruin stretched up towards them as they hurtled straight down, like the fingers of death itself as it (or was it he?) prepared to close its fist and crush them into oblivion.
Percy's hand latched around her wrist and hauled her through the air even as they fell, close enough to wrap both arms around her with a hold tight enough to make her ribs creak and leave bruises in its wake - Annabeth wouldn't have bothered questioning how he'd managed it even if she'd had the will to. It was Percy, so, of course, he was there, somehow trying to do anything even though there was no water below or anywhere close enough to save even him, let alone any of the rest of them.
(Or maybe he was still trying despite that, - Yes, that sounded more like Percy. Loyal and steadfast to the point of suicidal stupidity and until the very end)
Annabeth didn't have time to process all the feelings that came with that (regret, crippling guilt, sorrow, the whole fun-size package) - there wasn't enough time for that. Instead, what little part of her was even capable of rational thought was in the middle of absolutely losing it over how ridiculously, brutally unfair it was for this to be the end after everything they'd lived through before.
Kronos must be laughing himself to literal pieces.
She didn't know where the ugly thought came from, but as the ground came up, and up and up, Annabeth had just a heartbeat to brace and close her eyes-
"ARRESTO MOMENTUM!"
-and snap them right back open again.
She'd forgotten about Luna, who stretched out her arms and bellowed out the two words maybe five seconds before they hit the ground and splattered like bugs on a windshield.
Annabeth stopped.
As in, she literally, completely, halted, and so did the rest of them - like someone had hit the pause button and frozen them mid-motion.
Unlike every other bit of extraordinary magic Luna weaved in the day and a half Annabeth had known her, there was no visible tell to this one, no light or pressure or force. One second, they were at death's door, and the next they froze above the still-rumbling ground, the momentum going from terminal to nonexistent in a way that would have had physicists the world over ripping their hair out by the handfuls in hysterics.
And speaking of hysterics -
They dropped down to solid earth so gently they might as well have just been stepping off a curb, and just as soon as her feet hit the ground Thalia dropped to her knees and threw up in a violent heave.
Zoê staggered back and steadied herself by reaching for Bianca, who was getting a crash course on the wonders of hyperventilation, hand pressed over her ears and staring down at her feet like she couldn't believe they were back on solid ground and not pasted all over it instead.
Percy let go of Annabeth and stumbled off to the side, face blanched and wobbling like he was a second away from toppling, and she would have toppled if Luna hadn't seized her arm around the bicep and forced her upright with a sharp tug. Her other hand tugged on Nico's wrist, whose hair had been blown back by the wind and had his lips parted in an expression so frozen with disbelief it would have been hilarious if things were any different.
As it was, the sight of the ten-year-old who'd nearly just died on their watch felt less funny and more like a dagger to the heart, especially when his features started contorting and his eyes grew wet.
"Luna-"
Luna plopped her hand down on his head. There was a brief flicker of white-gold light, and Nico paused, twitched, and beamed.
"That was so cool!"
She'd heard the youngest Di Angelo use the same phrase some ten thousand times in the last six hours alone, but this one was different. He was nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet, his eyes were a little too wide, and his smile stretched a little too long, to the point where looking at it made her jaw twitch in sympathy.
"Can we do that again!?"
Even his voice was off, a hint of hyperactive mania beyond any ordinary demigod ADHD lingering beneath the words.
"What did you do to him?"
"Cheering charm. A terribly unhealthy emotional suppression technique, but he's too young to control his panic and he can't lock down now." Luna glanced at her, and she never looked more like a fellow daughter of Athena than she did then, a hurricane brewing in those halfway familiar eyes of hers. "There are very few forms of magics I dislike using, Annabeth, and even fewer still that I hate, but those of the mind-altering variety have more than earned it."
Luna jerked her head away
"But needs must." She looked at Zoë first, then panned her eyes between the four of them left, bar Thalia, who was still on her knees.
"Needs must." She repeated firmly. "We need to move, right now."
"Luna," Bianca cut herself off with a gasp, the words clogging her throat. Her chest heaved and rattled. "W-We just- We just-!"
"Bianca."
The older of the Di Angelos snapped her eyes to Luna, who crossed the distance between them with an honest-to-the-gods leap and seized both of her shoulders with a white-knuckled grip, the only sign of panic Annabeth had ever seen from her.
"Not now, alright? Not now." She stressed the words when Bianca went to shake her head. "That was terrifying, I know. Believe me, I know, but you can't think about that now. None of us can."
As if to agree with her, the earth rumbled and shuddered with power. In the distance, Annabeth could see mountains of rubble collapse from the force of the vibrations.
"Push it down, Bianca, focus on moving, alright? Because we just nearly died, but if we don't get out of here right now, we will die."
Annabeth didn't see what Bianca's reactions to that was. The earth tremored again, and she made the mistake of turning around to assess the danger.
Bad idea.
Bad, bad idea.
Even at a distance, Apollo and Ares's battle wasn't a fight meant for mortal eyes - it wasn't a fight meant for any sane eyes, mortal or immortal alike.
The god of war was a behemoth shrouded in blood-red mist, and every swing of his sword was carnage incarnate. He drove Apollo back with gargantuan overhead strikes, lacking grace or finesse but making up for it in weight and power. Every time their blades clashed, he drove the sun god back a step, and the earth buckled under sheer strain. The entire junkyard shook and heaved under the pressure.
And Apollo gave as good as he got. Every one of Ares's strikes was stronger, more savage, and barbaric, but for every blow that landed, Apollo handed back three more. He ducked and weaved slashed vicious rents across the metal of Are's breastplate, biting at the flesh below.
Worse, Apollo was the sun incarnate, and he was covered in a pulsing corona of golden light that ignited the air itself. Every time Ares locked blades with him, his sword and armor glowed red-hot and dripped molten metal that had the other god howling in fury.
Around them, a circle of superheated molten metal and bubbling debris was expanding as the heat and pressure of the god's mere presence destroyed and reshaped everything around them with every passing moment.
Annabeth tore her eyes away from the sight and resisted the urge to scream. She had to clench her fists hard enough to draw blood to ignore the stinging pain in her eyes and blink the spots out of them, and her entire face felt like she'd been baking out in the sun for hours.
(Later, she'd wonder how she'd even survived glancing at them, for divine form or no, Apollo and Ares's power made manifest should have blinded her at best and disintegrated her at the most likely.)
When her eyes stopped flickering in agony, everyone was already up.
Except, again, for Thalia.
"Thalia, snap out of it!"
Percy was trying, he really was, but Thalia was nearly insensate and just about decked him in the face when he tried to help her up. Her hair stood up at the ends, her skin crackled with sparks of blue and white, but she stayed on her knees, half-gasping and half-snarling at something only she could see.
He dodged another raking blow and shot Luna a desperate look.
"Can you do anything about her?"
"A cheering charm won't work. Her constitution is too dense and I can't overpower her without spending too much magic. " Luna said grimly and turned to rummage through her pack with the speed of someone who'd learned to work under pressure, if only just. A second later, she pulled out a corked vial of amber. "Diluted calming drought."
She didn't hand it to Percy, though. Instead, she pitched it to Zoë, who caught it with a look of dawning understanding.
"Make her drink it. Force it down her throat if you have to."
To her credit, Zoë didn't hesitate.
Thalia's fists flailed and lashed out when the huntress approached, hitting nothing but air as she snarled and gasped at everything and nothing at all, but Zoë - Annabeth stood up too slowly to catch what exactly the hunter did next, but between one blink and the next she maneuvered Thalia's arms behind her back, pinned them there while uncorking the vial with her teeth and pulled her head back to tip it down her throat.
It was messy, borderline disgusting what with Thalia snarling and spitting up what little of it she could manage, but Zoë held her study long enough for the first swallow, and she went abruptly still on the second.
Zoë stepped back, and Thalia staggered to her feet, her face eerily blank aside from the very beginnings of a grimace.
"I'm going to kill you for that."
She said the words with no inflection and almost no tone to speak off, the results of whatever it was that she'd just drunk.
Zoë barely even acknowledged the threat.
"You might not get the chance." The hunter's eyes flickered to the right, where the divine light show had grown in pressure and intensity. "Move. Apollo's blessing protects us from the heat and the fire, but nothing will save us if we tarry."
She turned and bolted, and Thalia gave a full-body twitch before leaping after her. It was almost impressive - even when drugged into sensibility, her pride rankled at having to obey Zoë.
Regardless, everybody followed.
Behind them, a scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and Annabeth realized why they looked like toes. They were toes. The thing that rose up from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armor. He was impossibly tall—a skyscraper with legs and arms. He gleamed wickedly in the moonlight. He looked down at them, and his face was deformed. The left side was partially melted off. His joints creaked with rust, and across his armored chest, written in thick dust by some giant finger, were the words WASH ME.
"Talos!" Zoë gasped.
"Who—who's Talos?" Bianca stuttered.
"One of Hephaestus's creations," Thalia said, her tone still blank but with her features drawn back in alarm "But that can't be the original. It's too small. A prototype, maybe. A defective model."
The metal giant didn't like the word defective.
He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was a hundred feet long, easy. It looked rusty and dull, but Annabeth didn't figure that mattered. Getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.
"That sure doesn't look defective!" Percy yelled, brandishing his sword, for all the good that would do. Compared to Talos, he looked like a gerbil waving about a toothpick.
"Hephaestus must have roused him to stop us." Zoë cursed viciously, drawing her bow and readying an arrow. "He will not move to aid Ares, but he can command his creations to attack us in his stead!"
"So the god can't even be bothered to show up, but he can kill us by proxy?" Percy snarled back. "Oh yeah, that's just golden!"
"Looks bronze to me," Nico muttered, and Luna dragged him even closer to her side and held him close.
Annabeth didn't have much time to think about how furiously bitter Percy sounded (not that she or anyone else was any better. What the fuck was wrong with the Olympians?), because the giant defective Talos took one step toward them, closing half the distance and making the ground quiver even more fiercely than before.
"Run!" Bianca yelped.
Great advice, except for the part where it was utterly useless. At a leisurely stroll, the celestial bronze giant could outdistance them easily.
They scattered instead. Thalia drew her shield and held it up as she ran down the highway. The giant swung his sword and took out a row of power lines, which exploded in sparks and scattered across Thalia's path.
Zoe's arrows whistled toward the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal.
"Incarcifors horriblis!"
A bolt of green light lanced out and hit the ground at Talos's feet, and the ground melted. Talos stumbled as the earth surged up like quicksand and entangled his feet up to the ankles in vine formations, tripping him over and dropping him to his knees with enough force to bring down a small building.
The titanic prototype's twisting joints creaked loud enough to raise the dead, but he was far from finished.
"Leave Talos to me!" Luna's voice rang out thunderously, rolling over Annabeth like the other girl was bellowing out a megaphone. "Look out for the strays!"
"Strays?" Percy asked from where he'd sprinted next to her, and Annabeth's eyes went wide as she caught a flicker of bronze hurtling to his side.
"Strays!" She yelled back and tackled him down just as something large and fast blurred over them, the air above them distorting from the speed of its passing. They rolled over the side, and Annabeth ignored the flash of pain as something sharp cut into her shoulder on account of the adrenaline and leaped up to her feet beside Percy, dagger sliding into her hand neatly.
Still, both of them gaped when they caught sight of the celestial bronze monstrosity looming over them.
"Oh," Percy shook his head in disbelief. "Hephaestus must think he's funny."
The eight foot tall replica of the minotaur must've disagreed, because it let loose a bellowing roar of challenge. Smoke exploded out of its quivering nostrils, and sparks erupted out of a gnarly open cut on the side of its neck. Its left half was deformed and littered with dents and pockmarks, and instead of an arm, it had two misformed lumps for limbs on its right side.
"Why is it always bulls!?" Percy yelled as it lowered its head horns first and charged. "I don't even like bulls!"
They threw themselves to opposite sides on unspoken command. The minotaur automata rumbled past like a freight train and barely had the time to turn before Riptide lanced down on it from behind. It tilted, but the Celestial bronze arc still cleaved through the top of its skull and lobbed a chunk of it clean off, horn and all, exposing whirring golden circuitry below.
"Oh, yeah. This is real familiar."
With a kind of fluidity solid celestial bronze shouldn't have been able to manage, the minotaur twisted forward and lashed out with his misshapen limps. Percy's eyes widened and he tried to dodge, but the end of its second arm caught him in the ribs with sickening force and knocked him off his feet wholesale.
He landed hard and gasped, losing his grip on Riptide just as the minotaur rumbled towards him, a metallic hoof raised and ready to stamp down on his head. And it would have, too, had Annabeth not sprinted in behind it and jumped on its back, seizing it by the remaining horn and driving her dagger through the opening in its neck.
Immediately, the minotaur screeched and bucked violently, trying to throw her off, but Annabeth gritted her teeth and pulled. With a shower of sparks and an even louder screech of sliding metal, her dagger sliced halfway threw its neck and it froze. Its arms went limp at its sides, its form seemed to tilt side to side before it slowly, ponderously toppled snout-first into the rubble.
Annabeth had the presence of mind to leap off before the hundred tons (at least) of divine scrap metal face-faulted.
"Thanks." Percy struggled to his knees and shot her an unsteady grin. Her eyes narrowed at the hand that was pressed against his side. "Man, I hate bulls."
"Are you alright?"
"Fine." He paused, gingerly pressing his side. "Okay, pretty bruised and I'm counting at least two cracked ribs-."
"Percy!"
"It's fine. A little dip in some water and I'll be good as new."
"We're in a desert, seaweed brain. Where exactly-?"
The words died on her lips as her mind blue-screened. She reviewed her memory of the last ten-something hours, tried to connect them to the situation they were in right now, and failed miserably.
"We're in a desert." She whispered, momentarily ignoring the carnage of Are's and Apollo's ongoing fight and the cacophony of half a dozen other problems piling up in the background.
Percy tilted his head in confusion. "... Yes?"
"In Arizona."
"Yeah, I read the sign too."
Dear gods (The very, very few who weren't after their heads), how was he not seeing this?
"We took a train in LA... and ended up in Arizona"
"Is this a trick question? Because I'm not so good with those-"
"For the love of-!" She waved a hand furiously. "Percy, we're in Arizona. We took a train from LA to San Franciso! That's a ten-hour trip along the Pacific. Arizona-"
His eyes grew as it dawned on him "-That's... that's a whole other direction."
They exchanged grim, stunned looks.
Something was very, very wrong-
They were cut off when a spire of lightning descended from above and struck Talos' gargantuan head straight on. When the light and the abhorrently loud thunder faded, the giant slumped over and collapsed. Naturally, because of his size that meant that the impact felt like having a land mind go off beneath their feet, minus the physical explosion.
How Annabeth and Percy managed to stay upright was a mystery, but when the rumbling was done, both of them stared as Thalia leaped off the side of Talos's head, limping on one leg towards them but otherwise looking none the worst for wear.
Percy looked like she felt. "How even-?!"
"Luna bound his legs." Thalia gritted her teeth. "And then she did something to me to make me hit harder than I ever have, but only once-"
"Tapped into the deeper layers of the Duat-" Luna offered from somewhere, but Thalia cut her off with a growl.
"Nope. Don't bother, no one's going to get it anyway." She glared at the two of them. "So can the two of you actually help now, or do you need some more time to make out?"
Both of them flushed and spluttered.
"We were busy!"
"Oh, I'll bet."
"Back off!" Percy snapped, gaze flickering to Luna. "I thought whatever you gave her was going to chill her out!"
"It was a mild calming drought. It only prevents emotions from overwhelming the drinker. It doesn't stop them wholesale." Luna frowned. "Still, you are a very angry person, aren't you Thalia?"
Thalia rounded on her, a snarl on her lips, but she paused. "What's wrong with you?"
Luna smiled weakly, skin pale and shimmering with sweat. Her hand was pressed to her abdomen, and to Annabeth's alarm, she could see hints of crimson spreading from beneath her grip.
"Too much magic. And a fragment of shrapnel from Talos's landing."
"Luna!" Bianca sounded horrified.
"It's alright. I've had far worse. Perhaps I'll tell you of the time I wound up in my Grandmother's Mansion. Father was livid." She chuckled and made to take a step forward and staggered forward instead. She would have faced fault had Zoë not reached out to grab her. "I'm fine. It's time to go!"
She pointed to the distance, where the glow of Ares and Apollo's battle still raged.
"Even if Apollo can hold Ares at bay forever, their fight will attract more attention than we could hope to afford. We need to leave, now."
"She's right," Zoë declared, throwing Luna's free hand over her shoulder and pulling her up. "We need to leave before any more of the Forge-lord's creations rise after us. Or worse."
"And go where?" Annabeth interrupted, and everyone turned to her.
Quickly, she told them what she'd told Percy, and Zoë's expression darkened like a thundercloud at the realization.
"I did not even think-" She spat and shook her head angrily. "We make our way on foot, then."
"But what if whatever sent us here sends us somewhere else?" Bianca asked, and Thalia grimaced.
"We'll burn that bridge when we get to it. Right now, the big question isn't about how we got here, it's about how we're getting out."
"Oh, that one's easy." A new voice called out behind them, loud and inescapable. "You're not."
Thalia didn't even hesitate. She whirled on her feet and lobbed her spear, still crackling with lightning, straight at the source. It whistled threw the air at a pace that was borderline terrifying, its tip gleaming with power-
"Oh, please."
-only for its intended target to swat it aside bare-handed, a dark, contemptuous look on his face as he watched it arc to the side and snap as its shaft cracked against Talos's side.
Thalia made an aborted attempt a yell before freezing, and a part of Annabeth that wasn't dipped in ice wondered whether that was because she refused to show weakness in front of an enemy or because she recognised said enemy as she had.
"Oh, fuck."
Tall, middle-aged, dressed in full Greek armour with no helm to hide his curly black hair and blue eyes. His features would have been charming in a smile, but right then they may as well have been carved from marble. In his free hand, he held a three-foot-long oak staff with dove wings and two snakes wrapped around the shaft. The Caduceus.
Annabeth wished that was the end of it - she would have given up so much for that to be the end of it, but it wasn't.
Her eyes strayed to the even more familiar figure standing beside Hermes, dressed in her own gleaming armour, equally devoid of a helm, and meeting an identical pair of grey eyes with trepidation.
Athena stared back, features still, and her lack of an expression did nothing to hide her from the disappointment in her eyes.
For a long moment, no one dared even breathe.
"Annabeth." When her mother finally spoke, her voice was iron. Cold, unyielding in every way, and she almost buckled beneath the weight of it. "Daughter of mine."
Annabeth swallowed, fingers limp in terror. "Mother-"
"Do not speak." Athena's voice didn't rise an octave, but it may as well have slit Annabeth's throat for how effective it was at silencing her. "You have disappointed me, child."
A pit to Tartarus could have opened up at her feet and swallowed her whole, and Annabeth wouldn't have felt any more despair than she felt right then.
If Athena noticed, she made no sign of it.
"Disobeying the will of the council, playing party to an assault on an Olympian" Athena's eyes flickered to Luna, who was so pale now she looked a step away from passing out. "Attempting to act on a quest with no knowledge of its requirements and no possible comprehension of its ramifications."
She shook her head.
"Foolish beyond description. Unwise."
Coming from the goddess of wisdom, unique was all but a direct synonym for unworthy.
(Having her still-beating heart carved out of her chest would have hurt less.)
Hermes remained silent as a grave.
At her side, she could feel Percy's fear give way to outrage as he puffed up, and her hand automatically shot out to grab his wrist before he could leap forward and get himself smote on her behalf, but she shouldn't have bothered.
Of all people, it was Zoë who stepped in front of her and met her mother's gaze, handing Luna off to Bianca with one shrug of her shoulders.
"Is it unwise, Lady Athena," The lieutenant's voice was calm in the same way a predator baring its teeth would have been. "To forsake my goddess? To forsake Lady Artemis, who has often been your stalwart ally over the millennia and against innumerable foes time and again?"
Athena's eyes narrowed.
"I do not forsake your lady lightly, Zoë Nightshade. I would have thought you with all your years would be intelligent enough to recognize that.
Zoë's expression twitched in momentary rage, but she said nothing as Athena spoke.
"I do not double in malice or hedonistic cruelty. I do not forsake Artemis lightly. I observe, Lieutenant, and I learn, and when I have, I make the most logical choice. Very rarely is it a kind choice, and very rarely do I enjoy it, but I follow it all the same. This is one of them, and whether or not you understand the full scope of it, the fact of the matter remains the same. You have committed treason against Olympus, and now the consequences come calling."
"We are on a quest!" Zoë snapped, fury shaking her words. "Sanctioned by the fates! You cannot interfere!"
"Couldn't." Hermes finally spoke up, and Zoe's gaze turned to him. He looked as grim as ever, or grimmer still. "We couldn't interfere until Zeus himself ordered us to. This should tell you exactly how serious this is, that even the king of the gods would defy Fate."
"And you would obey him on this?" Zoe spat, but this time there was something desperate to her rage. "You would also sacrifice Lady Artemis out of fear."
Annabeth couldn't blame her for the suicidal impudence or the despair. The quest was over - they couldn't escape one Olympian, much less two. It was so far out of their hands that even trying would be the height of stupidity, and with her mother right there, they couldn't even hope to negotiate.
It was over.
And Hermes knew it too, because he didn't look angry
"Girl, this last century had been one entire pile of shit after the other. I've sacrificed enough in the last decade to drive you insane a hundred times over." He chuckled ruefully, bitterly. "At this point, goddess or no, Artemis is just another name on the moirai-damned list. Now let's get this over with."
His caduceus lit up with a sharp, viridian glow, and he raised it towards Zoë-
There was a burst of light, and Hermes reared back as Apollo and Ares materialised standing between them.
Or, Apollo did at least, his armour tarnished and banged up, and bleeding golden ichor from a cut across his brow, but otherwise fine for the count.
Ares, though?
When the god of war landed in a crumpled heap at Apollo's feat, he did so stiffly, as if paralysed and incapable of movement. Worse still, his skin was black as rot and covered in boils, with poisonous green foam bubbling out of his mouth and eyes the colour of pond scum, weeping trails of coagulated pus and coloured slime.
Hermes swore violently and reared back even further, looking nauseous. "What did you do to him?"
"Nothing less than he deserved," Apollo smirked cruelly, the glow to his skin savage in it's intensity. "Everyone sees my sun chariot, my poetry, and my bow, and they forget that I'm the god of plagues as well."
He aimed a particularly vicious kick to Ares's side, who heaved with the blow but remained immobilised, his face locked in an expression of clear and utter agony.
"This little masterpiece? One part bubonic plague, one part Spanish influenza, a pinch of gangrene, a few more bits and pieces mixed together, and then all of it multiplied by... oh, let's be safe and say ten thousand." Apollo's eyes flickered to Hermes and then to Athena as he hefted his sword between "He'll burn through it sooner or later. Until then, back off, brother, sister, or you're next."
"Apollo." A spear appeared in Athena's grip, though she didn't heft it in the sun god's direction yet. "You court calamity."
"And you court my rage." Apollo snarled, his glow growing brighter, the air growing warmer. "Ask the muscle headed fool how that's going for him."
"These questers won't be leaving this yard, Apollo. The council won't have it."
"You mean Father won't have it."
"Do you believe there's a difference?"
At that, Apollo actually laughed. The sound made Annabeth's eardrums scream. "If there was, things would look a damn sight better than they do right now."
There was a tense silence as the gods assessed one another, and Annabeth and the six slowly, without even consciously realising it, inched back.
"This is bad." Bianca whimpered under her breath. "This is so bad."
Understatement, thy name is Bianca Di Angelo. This wasn't bad, it was lethal. They barely survived the opening salvo of two gods clashing - three was a death sentence in every way.
"I think I finally understand that line of the prophecy," Luna whispered, so low that Annabeth barely heard her. Her head was lolling to the side, and she looked like she was hanging on to consciousness by sheer force of will alone. "The daughter's strife, to invoke death... Father, please."
"Apollo." Hermes leaned forward. "Don't do this. You can't hope to best us both."
"You are outnumbered." Athena stepped forward. "Surrender. You have no allies."
Apollo bared his teeth like a beast and crouched, and Annabeth's breath shuddered in her lungs.
Right as it became clear that the gods were going to charge, right as Apollo was about to swing his sword, the air changed.
The heat was replaced by a powerful chill, the wind calmed and died, and a powerful, tangible presence dropped down on all of them like an anvil of impossible weight.
"He has me."
All three Olympians stiffened and turned as the fourth god manifested beside Apollo - and he was a god, for there was no other explanation for the power Annabeth could feel roiling against her very bones as it washed over all seven mortals and stole the breath out of them.
He was draped in a cloak of darkness, standing lean and muscular, with a regal face, honey-gold eyes, and black hair flowing down his shoulders. His skin was the colour of teakwood, and his dark wings (Annabeth barely batted an eye at the sight) glimmered in shades of blue, black, and purple.
"Thanatos." Hermes rumbled, and Athena's eyes narrowed. Zoë went very, very still at the name. "Why are you here? This is no business of yours."
"That," The God of Death spoke in a deep, melodic voice "Is what you think, little Olympian."
When he turned to the seven of them, Annabeth almost flinched at the sight of him. Thanatos was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the physical, not entirely. It was a timeless beauty, remote and untouchable, and laced with something she suspected she literally could not comprehend.
(And it scared her. Very, very much)
His golden eyes passed over her first, and all five of them, before settling on a beaming Luna Lovegood.
"Luna."
What?
"You came."
What?
"Of course," The god of death's eye's softened, ever so slightly. "You called, daughter."
What?
She wasn't the only one that twitched. The demigods looked just as stunned, Zoë was no better, and Hermes and Apollo both looked like they'd just taken a hammer to the face.
Athena's features had gone stock-still, the same as Zoë's.
"Death can not beget a child."
Thanatos chuckled deeply as he turned around to face her. "How very rich, coming from the maiden goddess with a brood of her own nearly a dozen strong. Perhaps even larger"
Athena didn't so much as twitch in reaction.
"You intend to interfere, then?"
"But of course. Or do you think that I will allow you to drag my child and her friends to Olympus and present them to that unsightly disaster of a king unopposed?"
"So the Underworld declares war on Olympus" Hermes spat, hefting his Caduceus.
"Ah, Olympians." Thanatos's smile was cold as ice. "So quick to assume, so quick to pounce on any perceived opportunity. My Lord Hades's affairs are his own, as is the rest of the Underworld. I come alone and for the sake of my daughter and those she's chosen to throw her lot in with. They fall under my protection by that virtue alone, and if your King takes offence to my interference, he can come forth and face me himself."
Thanatos leaned forward, and behind him, his wings expanded and shook.
"If. He. So. Dares."
"Bold words." Hermes's face twisted in a rictus at the insult. "From the god who was chained and conquered by a mortal."
Thanatos didn't show an iota of rage at the barb, unbothered by his ancient humiliation.
If anything, he seemed only amused.
"Was that the best you could do?" Hermes hissed and Athena said nothing at all. "I genuinely can not tell if you say that to insult me, or if your youth-"
"Youth!?"
"-Truly conveys your ignorance and stupidity, little page, but allow me to educate you all the same."
Thanatos stretched out a hand, and the darkness of night solidified into a spear of stygian iron, engraved with symbols Annabeth wouldn't have been able to make heads or tails of if she'd dared to pull her attention away from the gods.
(Identical to Luna's, a voice whispered in her mind)
"I am Thanatos." The god's voice rumbled with power. "Born of Nyx and Erebus I was. The Night and The Eternal Darkness gave me form, and I was old long before the Titans and their ilk walked the lands. I was ancient millennia before Zeus Olympios was but a smidgen of recalcitrant seed clogging Kronos's loins, and I will be here long after your vaunted ruler fades into the Chaos of nonexistence."
Thanatos stepped forward, and it was like all of Arizona shook with his movement.
"I am Death, little godling, and death can not strike out against the mortals it will reap. I could not rend Sisyphus's essence for his treachery for the living were not mine to seek, only to collect. But you are immortals, are you not?" Thanatos's smile was the fruit of nightmares, and Athena's spear raised immediately. The tension skyrocketed just like that. "The rules that bound and still bind me now do not apply to you, do they?"
"You think we fear you?"
"I suppose we're about to find out. No more words now, for those are wind and doubly so from Olympians. Instead, Let me show you what it means to invoke the wrath of a Primordial!"
And with that terrifying declaration, Death hefted his spear and charged.
...
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