Of Demigods and Wrackspurts (PJO/HP - Luna Lovegood)

Fiendfyre was evil.

That wasn't a theory, an opinion. Nor a speculation or a hypothesis, or anything else of that uncertain sort.

Anyone who'd encountered it and lived to tell the harrowing tale - and few those numbers were and always would be - would agree that it was simple, immutable, and inarguable fact.

Beyond just the threat of fiery demise, or the unearthly glow, or even the monstrous chimeric shapes that would erupt from even the slightest ember almost of their own free will, there was an intrinsic malevolence to the flames that was apparent right from the moment they were called to unholy life.

Fiendfyre was evil, and you didn't have to know of the spell beforehand to recognize it - and faced with the threat of it at point-blank range, neither Thalia nor Luna hesitated.

There were no words, or calls, or whispers, or even so much as a glance exchanged between the two of them.

As one, acting on sheer survival instinct alone, they turned and ran for their lives.

Thalia didn't dare look back as they scrambled away, but she didn't need to. She felt it as flames behind erupted in a burst of malicious scorching heat, a stream that expanded into a torrent, and then a tidal wave, giving chase all the while.

The army of monsters that had been herding them back and on the verge of pouncing vanished, melting back into the molten river they'd emerged from without even a whimper - it was as if they'd all collectively realized that they just weren't needed anymore.

Or maybe they were also fleeing in terror from the far more dangerous figures that were gaining on them fast - dime-a-dozen wannabe's recognizing the apex predator for what it was and having the good sense to scram.

Luna's monster - or her nightmare, fear, whatever the silver-masked figure was - vanished as well.

But their voice didn't.

"Flee, Blood-traitor! Run for your lives!" The voice bellowed over the din of the screaming flames, at once a roar and a serpent-like hiss. The force of it made the bedrock under them rumble and the void of darkness surrounding them quiver. "There is nowhere to hide!"

Gods. Damn. It. All!

Thalia dared to turn to Luna, ignoring the scalding inferno blazing at the edge of her vision through sheer force of will as she did.

For the first time since they'd met at Westover, the daughter of Thanatos didn't look calm, prepared, vaguely bemused, or whichever kind of half-admirable, half-entirely irritating shade of zen she seemed to be channeling at one moment or the other.

Personally, Thalia didn't friggin care for it.

At all.

"What are we going to do?!" She yelled, her heart just about bursting when her foot hit a jutting stone and she nearly lost her balance for a half-second. She could feel the Fiendfyre snap at her heels eagerly.

"Lovegood!" Reaching out to shake her like she was tempted to would probably be a death sentence for both of them, so she had to resign herself to roaring at her as they bolted deeper and deeper into the surrounding darkness.

Running in blind in just about every sense of the word because it was either that or ending up as charcoal.

"I- I don't-" Luna even sounded off-kilter, weak and dazed like she was half-present and half-somewhere else entirely. There was a glazed look in her silver eyes, dim in the unholy crimson glow, and if her pupils dilated any further they'd probably vanish entirely. "Apollo - we need to find Apollo"

"We aren't going to find shit if we burn to death!"

Thalia almost screamed in frustration when Luna offered no response to that, still running but clearly still lost in a haze of fear and only just paying enough attention to keep running beside her.

Even that was looking to be a close thing.

She could feel her insides burn from the stress and the building ache of exhaustion, and even the rush of adrenaline that was likely the only thing keeping her on her feet at this point wouldn't

They were running out of time-

A flash of inspiration hit her.

"The others!" Thalia snapped, hoping that it would work. "We need to fix Apollo and find the others before it's too late, Lovegood. Think of your friends! Nico and Bianca need your help!"

That did the trick.

Luna jolted mid-run, and her brows furrowed fiercely. The dazed look melted off her features, and Thalia could see the moment her eyes snapped back into focus.

"They do." She agreed, and even though her tone had once more dropped to something deceptively mild, there was no mistaking the steel in it.

Thalia didn't even try to suppress her hysterical grin.

"It's not real Fiendfyre. It can't be." Luna said lowly, fingers twitching in preparation for something. A spark of silver light across her fingertips. "It's fear made manifest... and if it's just fear..."

A moment passed, and her head turned Thalia's way.

"When I stop, keep running."

The words brooked no argument - no that Thalia would have bothered.

She didn't think even to, too relieved that Luna had her head screwed back on right to consider it, she wouldn't have had the time to regardless, because a heartbeat later the other girl was skidding to a halt and turning to meet the incoming inferno head-on.

"Expecto patronum!"

Silver light erupted behind her, and the malice of the Fiendfyre promptly recoiled like it had been slapped in the face.

A different sort of warmth settled into her bones, like a warm drink on a cold day.

Like saftey.

Abruptly, she found herself remembering simpler times. Happier times.

Nights spent around the campfire with a seven-year-old Annabeth and a Luke who wasn't the absolute lunatic everyone had been telling her off since the moment she popped out that damned tree.

And before even that, a little boy with blonde hair and identical electric blue eyes giggling up at her, his smile pulling at the scar on his little lip from that time he'd tried to eat a stapler of all things.

The disorientation lasted for a mere second, but the feeling lingered.

She tried to ignore the inexplicable stinging in her eyes as she shook herself out of it, belatedly realizing that she'd stopped running and hadn't been turned to ash for it.

"No!"

She whirled on the spot, just in time to see a large, iridescent shape charging through the retreating wall Fiendfyre like a hot knife through butter. Everywhere it passed, silver light and mist expanded, enveloping the cursed flames and smothering them out like they'd been doused with sand - and then the flames parted, and Thalia caught sight of the thing that had nearly killed them both.

"Death Eater." She heard Luna whisper.

The silver skull mask was expressionless, but its owner still managed to express utter loathing in the instant it had left before the silver comet slammed into it like a freight train and popped it like a soap bubble, a hateful screech cracking out and nearly bursting her eardrums from the pitch of it.

The victory was downright cathartic but short-lived.

As soon as the shadows dispersed, there was a change in the darkness surrounding them. The river of flames dimmed in the distance, its light spluttering and weakening. The blackness seemed to lick at the edges of her perception, almost tentatively, before beginning to swallow them.

Thalia's hackles rose as she felt invisible walls begin to close in on them.

"Luna?"

"I know."

She closed her eyes, craning her neck like she was trying to listen for something.

The darkness continued to seep in around them like quicksand, faster and faster with every passing breath.

"Luna-!"

Her eyes snapped back open.

"Found him."

And then she stepped forward, seized Thalia's arm in a death grip and pivoted sharply on her heel, and space twisted.

Crack!

They appeared in a sprawling grassy, sunlit meadow, feet landing amongst an ocean of green and pink and golden-yellow flowers that were only vaguely familiar in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Gladioli

She almost tumbled to the grass as her stomach heaved. Her skin prickled with the phantom sensation.

"Ugh." She groaned. "What was-"

She was cut off by the sound of crackling thunder, and she looked up despite herself.

Her throat went bone dry.

They'd finally found Apollo.

To say that the god of the sun was in a bad way would be like saying that the last few hours had been difficult.

Gone were the designer clothes, and the godly aura, and even the sense of brilliance he'd emitted on the two times Thalia had met him.

Instead, he was hunched down amidst the flowers, dressed in mud-colored rags, and his skin was so pale he looked more dead than alive. His face twisted - literally. The features and contours melted and reformed before her very eyes, going from child-like to adult, to ancient and husk-like before cycling right back around again. His hair changed to every shade and length, never lingering on any one state, and even his eyes flickered through a rainbow's worth of colors without settling on a single one.

That wasn't the problem.

It was the string that was emerging from his chest, golden and near-blinding to look at, a length of light that ran up and up and up, and ended up wrapped around the clenched fist of a giant.

A colossal figure fifty stories high and made of swirling clouds and rapid air currents loomed over Apollo, just barely forced into a human-like shape. It had no face beyond the vaguest impression of one shaped from a roiling thundercloud, not even the barest hint of living features, but it still radiated authority and tyrannical cruelty.

Thalia took one glance at the looming giant, this storm given, and knew exactly what it was with soul-deep certainty.

Her father.

Or a representation of him, or something.

It didn't matter in the end. Her spine went so rigid it was a miracle it didn't snap from the pressure.

Their presence went ignored.

The storm giant didn't say a word, but his gargantuan hand tugged at the string, drawing another yard of it out of Apollo's chest, and the god howled.

"No!" Even voice was broken, disjointed and multilayered, as if a thousand people were screaming all at once. His hands snapped up to seize the rope and try to tug it back into himself, but it was like watching a fly rage against a skyscraper. Utterly futile. "You can't do this! Not again!"

"Oh." Luna murmured in realisation

Thalia didn't know what connection she'd just made, or why she sounded so sad about it - she was busy trying to preserve whatever was left of her dignity and not show her fear or gape like an idiot at the sight before her.

What even was this quest!?

That effort promptly went to shit when the other girl began to walk right towards the mess they'd stumbled into without an apparent care in the world.

"Look out!"

She bolted behind her, wary of the storm giant - that thing was big enough to bully Talos - but it made no move to stop them. It didn't even react as they closed the distance and reached Apollo.

"You can't!" the sun god was screeching, over and over again "I won't let you!"

"You have to."

Luna's gentle whisper jolted Apollo into silence, and he turned to stare at the daughter of Thanatos uncomprehendingly as she dropped to her knees at his side. His stranglehold on the golden string didn't abate, though.

"Let go, Lord Apollo," Luna murmured, something sad but firm in her tone. "There's no point putting it off any longer."

"No!" The god protested, features reforming again. This time, he looked like a child, petulant and devastated. "It's mine!"

Thalia winced when she realized that blood was pouring. Apollo
s grip was so unrelenting that he was ripping the inside of his palms to shreds as he tried to stop the string - whatever it was - from being pulled out of him.

She blinked

Blood, bright crimson and coppery. Not golden ichor.

Mortal blood.

What?

"It is. But you can't hold on like this forever."

"I can." He whimpered, features shifting again. Now he looked like an old man on death's doot - The whole display was miserable. "It's mine. He can't keep doing this to me! It's not fair."

An Olympian talking about fairness.

The irony.

"No, it isn't." Luna agreed softly. "But it is inevitable. You are needed, Lord Apollo. We need your help. Artemis needs your help."

At his sister's name, Apollo's expression shuttered. His face finally settled - he looked to be about their age, eyes almost the same shade of blue as her own, and they were steeped in devastation.

Looking at him made her fingers twitch helplessly, though she didn't know why.

"Artemis..."

"Yes."

"She needs my help," Apollo whispered.

"Yes."

"But." He looked utterly shattered as he glanced down at the string, and at his bloody, bloody hands. "But..."

"But nothing," Luna said, and the finality in that word must have been what did it. "Or is Artemis not worth the sacrifice?"

"She is." He said immediately. "Always and forever."

New life sparks in those familiar eyes - bitter and angry, but just as determined as anything Thalia had ever seen or felt.

This time, when he looked up at the looming giant, he glared.

"I hate you."

The storm giant didn't react. It just kept pulling.

Apollo released the string, and then he screamed when the next tug tore the rest of it out of him in one golden burst.

The storm giant flickered, blurred, and then vanished with a burst of wind.

Thalia stared after it, blinking spots out of her eyes.

"What just happened?"

Luna blinked. She shot a glance at Apollo, and then turned back to her.

Thalia got the impression she was trying not to shrug.

"I suppose we're about to find out."

And then she raised a hand and snapped her fingers.

"Ennervate."

The world dissolved into motes of light.

And Thalia

...

"Finally. I thought you two were dead."

...

"... What in Tartarus happened in there?"

Elsewhere:

Nico hugged his knees to his chest, trying to block out the sounds of chaos and cranage surrounding him.

It didn't help.

Everyone and everything just kept screaming,

Anteus wailed as the beings Nico had awakened dogpiled him and quite literally tore him to pieces. His agony echoed through the walls of his arena like none had ever before, and they didn't end.

Annabeth screamed and sobbed as she tilted Percy's head up and pressed her hands against his chest over and over again, trying to bring him back.

Even the monsters that had seemed so completely intimidating screamed and died in droves as more and more undead wraiths fell on them, acting on only the vaguest hint of an idea from him.

None of them would just stop.

Nico was sick of all of it.

He wanted Bianca to hold him and ruffle his hair and complain about mythomagic like she always did.

He wanted Luna to smile at him and make him feel safe and make things better again.

He wanted Percy not to be-

Not to be-

He swallowed, fresh tears welling up in his eyes.

"Over." He whispered to himself when he managed to inhale a raggedy breath. "I want this to be over."

As it turned out, there was power in intent.

There was a strange, eerie sensation in his gut. A tug, and a twist, and something else entirely other.

Every shadow in the arena froze, before shooting into action. In an eerie recreation of the seconds before Anteus's life became torment itself, the shadows abandoned the skulls of the fallen and the dust they'd made of Anteus and his followers and rushed to a point just a few feet in front of Nico.

They pooled there, growing and growing until, for the second time in a row, Nico found himself staring at a towering pillar of darkness so complete even the uneven lighting seemed to shy away from it.

Only this time, it felt like something else stared back.

Strangely, he wasn't afraid.

"I want this to be over." He whispered, one final time.

There was a beat.

And then the shadow moved. It spilled onto him, onto Annabeth and Percy and swallowed them whole.

Moments later, when it melted into nothingness, so did they.

As always, leave your comments and ideas and if you don't like it, please be courteous.