Chapter Text
The monsters have been getting more frequent and more dangerous for a long time. They’d be blind not to notice it, but they aren’t expecting a change like this. At least not yet. It has been build-up, a precursor that makes dread burn throughout camp, and, as bad as it is, as hard as it is to live through, it was supposed to stay that way for two years more. Nico’s sixteenth birthday, D day as they euphemistically call it, has been pencilled into the Big House's calendar since he was claimed, surrounding it a constant feeling of apprehension and doubt, a knowing that the day may never actually arrive. The prophecy spells it out clear as day: against all odds.
They have grown unfortunately used to losing campers. Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus, is amongst many promising godlings who died before ever reaching camp. The tree made from her body had protected the camp for a while but has since been rendered nothing but a damaged relic of a time when things certainly were not good but were still undeniably better. Luke Castellan had made it in, and then he had made it out. Bianca di Angelo had also never made it. She joined the Hunters enticed by the promise of eternity and died within a week.
It has been years since they have had a quest succeed without at least one casualty and they do not have enough campers to make that pattern sustainable but they also don’t have the luxury of taking a step back. Their choices are limited to losing kids one by one or losing everything all at once. So they send child after child to their slaughter and weave shroud after shroud and cry tear after tear and wish for it to finally stop. They should have two more years of this. But they don’t.
Mount St Helens has erupted. Typhon has emerged.
They all know what this means. The world is ending two years too early and they are woefully underprepared for the oncoming war. It is not something they can sidestep but instead something which they will have to face head on. Nobody will say it but there is an understanding amongst all of them that they are going to have to rush to arm themselves and make plans, that they are going to have to fight because their lives depend on it, that they are going to do everything they can with the meagre scraps of mercy they can afford, that they are going to lose.
“There’s no way this isn’t the start of the end of the world?” Michael Yew double checks in the counsellors meeting. He doesn’t sound optimistic about their chances, the Apollo bright spark that burns bright in members of his cabin now stamped firmly out.
“No such luck,” Chiron seems to know no better than they do. That’s hard for the campers to swallow but as he understands it this simply should not be happening. “Typhon emerged two days ago and there has been nothing but disaster since. The gods are currently fighting in the Midwest,”
They all know that the gods don’t fight. That’s their job. It’s why they’re so few in number. That makes this different from every other disaster they have faced and that fact is petrifying.
For a long time the Hermes cabin had been full to bursting with new campers being forced to sleep on the floor, packed tight next to each other in sleeping bags whilst they waited impatiently for a claiming they knew was unlikely to ever happen. Now Connor Stoll complains “We haven’t come anywhere close to recovering since the last big attack. Hermes has spare beds , there’s no way we have the man-power,”
“Believe me,” Chiron is as close to tears as any of them have ever seen him. The mood of the room is already sombre and terrified and it absolutely doesn’t help. “If there was any action that I could be taking I would be putting all of my energy into it,”
“But there isn’t?” Annabeth asks but it’s clearly not really a question at all. She already knows that there is nothing they can do besides try their best and refuse to accept their failure until it has them pinned and defenceless. Chiron shakes his head.
Nico hasn’t said anything throughout the entire meeting. He sits and stares at the middle of the table, pinching himself every thirty seconds but never waking up from his nightmare. He can’t help but feel that there is blame that should somehow fall to him. Maybe this is all because he is out of time, the Lotus Hotel and Casino has thrown the chronology all out of whack and now he has doomed the people who have grown to be the best approximation he has for family to certain death by being a bad candidate. He doesn’t really think that’s how it works but he can’t imagine any other way that this has gone so wrong.
“So what do we do?” Pollux asks. His position as counsellor is a fairly meaningless one as he has been the only camper in his cabin since his brother’s death last year. He hasn’t been the same since, but then again none of them have really been themselves in years, their shapes changed under the burden of all that grief that they just can’t help but to carry with them wherever they go.
“Our best,” Chiron tells them sagely, but the sentiment is empty and does nothing to cut through the gloom. It won’t save them.
“What about Charlie?” Silena’s voice wavers. “He should be back by now,”
Chiron sighs. “It is too early to know anything for certain,”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” She isn’t crying, not yet, but her face is red and contorted and, for just a moment, there is little Aphrodite in her. She hits her fists down hard and the flimsy table shakes. She turns to Nico “Tell me he’s dead!”
Nico could tell her that’s not how it works, that it’s too early for him to know for sure, but his stomach is tied in tight knots and he has an awfully bad feeling, though he can’t know whether that’s about Beckendorf specifically or just everything falling apart in front of him. They had been making plans and this had never been one of them. “I don’t know,” he admits honestly. They all know it’s as good as a yes.
Camp Half Blood has three Delphi Strawberry Service transport trucks at their disposal, the back of each spacious enough to fit at least 15 demigods uncomfortably but relatively safely should they empty out the crates and boxes. As if on instinct they ready all three, Argus in the driver’s seat of one and the other two manned by harpies. There are twenty five of them total, they won’t need the third.
Annabeth stands to the side as they all file into the trucks and keeps track of who and what they have. It’s the first time she lets herself really register how few of them are left and it makes her heart fall from her stomach to her feet. She remembers, of course, when she first arrived at Camp, seven and naive and so utterly convinced she was finally safe. Back then it had been all but bursting with life, satyrs and nymphs wandering the grounds, the quiet background hum of harpies, Dionysus’ complaints and Chiron’s comforts, demigods playing games or doing activities or chores. A lot of them. She must have seen fifty in her first day alone and there had been more, she’s sure of it. She had been too young at the time to think anything of the fact that none of them were even close to adulthood because they were older than her and that meant she had a future here. She isn’t so convinced that she has one at all anymore.
They didn’t lose all of those kids during quests or attacks, some simply came for the summers then left and never came back. Over time everyone who has managed to survive has learned that they have the best chance if they rarely if ever venture to the outside world. Many of them are like Annabeth in that they don’t have much of a home to go back to but there are others like Will Solace who has seen just about every gory wound and tragic death and tried his utmost to help even when the situation was obviously hopeless. He has a mother who tours the country with her music and comes to visit every time she is in New York because she loves him and wants to be around him and has the luck or terrible misfortune of knowing what her son is and what his life looks like. Annabeth knows Will pretended for a little while that being the son of Apollo was all fun and games and the occasional faint glow but their numbers kept dwindling and there was no hope of keeping his lie alive.
“There are twenty five of us,” Annabeth says matter-of-factly, like she is telling Chiron before she clambers in herself. He is listening to her but she is saying it for herself in an effort to make it sink in just how many hard hits they have taken, how few more they can afford to take before their forces buckle and their cause falls. She closes the sliding door behind her and buries her head in her hands. Malcolm places his hand on her back as if to soothe her. He has lost two of his right fingers and it has made his control of weapons with his dominant hand much shakier than it had been. He lost them only a year ago and has yet to adjust. They had really thought he had enough time.
The drive is tense and quiet, breathing and rattling as they pass over bumps in the road is all there is for a while, though they are replaced before too long with the sounds of people outside, talking and living and enjoying it in a way only possible for someone who doesn’t know that their world as they know it could very well end by sunrise. There are cars too, speeding, tires skidding, horns honking. They have somewhere to be, things to do. They’re convinced they have to fulfil their obligations because they will still be alive and well by the weekend. Annabeth wonders whether or not they’d appreciate her telling them, is conflicted about how she would feel about it herself. On one hand, she is a daughter of Athena and her nature is curious and information hungry. She would also hate to be unknowingly doing cabin checks on the last day of her life. But on the other, once you know, regardless of what you decide to do with your remaining time, you are living the last day you have, grieving everything and everyone all at once. Misery is a crucial component of her last hours of life and she can’t imagine a person who would be equipped to feel anything positive in light of that.
They eventually begin to slow and Annabeth looks up at Nico who has been staring at a spot on the wall above her for almost the entire drive. “We need an audience with Zeus,” she says. The gods fighting disaster in the Midwest leaves everywhere else relatively unprotected and the centre of their power is New York. If it falls there will be nothing left.
He nods. “We do,” he agrees. She isn’t sure which one of them is actually technically leading them but she’s willing to step back and give the role to Nico because this prophecy can’t be about anyone else. For a moment she really looks at him, takes in his appearance and tries to imagine him facing off against Kronos wearing Luke’s body like a grotesque costume. He is 5’5 at a push and his hair is doing a decent amount of heavy lifting towards that end. When he stands in front of her Annabeth can see clearly over his head. As she observes him he returns the favour, his eyes these pitch dark pits that take up most of his pale face. They catch the light but swallow rather than reflect it. He’s a skinny kid, the kind that looks like he will snap under too much force. It’s not like he doesn’t eat well at camp or train hard, this is just the way that he is and he looks like he will fall apart.
The doors open and demigods start leaving the stuffy truck for the grey outside. Annabeth moves to follow, though hesitates for a moment when Nico looks at her as though he is trying to burn a hole through her skin. “I’m sorry,” he admits. She hates not knowing things and wishes he had never said it because she doesn’t know what for. They have floated the possibility of a traitor, a spy amongst them, a few times but never drawn a definite confusion. She considers it an admission of guilt for just a moment before deciding she is misinterpreting, that she has to be.
She stretches as she looks up at the Empire State Building. She has never actually been to Olympus and she suspects, should they succeed now, that what she will see will not be Olympus in its full glory. The sky around the building is grey and choked with clouds that promise rain and the streets are busy with locals and tourists going about their business, unknowingly risking their lives to a war they aren’t allowed to know is happening. She knew it wasn’t a nice day before she left camp. They had once had nothing but good weather regardless of what was happening outside but it has been a long time since they have had that luxury and it’s never her biggest concern. She knows they have bigger problems and barely notices the bitter weather anymore, though occasionally it strikes her, a microcosmic reminder that they are losing a war. She supposes it has actually been going on for years and they have fought that entire time with the green tinge of hopelessness ensuring that they’d never actually win.
“Are you ready?” Chiron asks them though it is impossible that he doesn’t know that they are far from.
“You aren’t coming?” Nico makes a face at him.
“I do not go to Olympus,” Chiron shakes his head. Annabeth thinks that if he were ever going to make a compromise now would be the time but doesn’t tell him that. “This is your mission,”
Nico doesn’t say that he doesn’t want it but they all know that’s what he is thinking as he stares for a moment too long at Chiton’s wizened face. “Okay,” he says eventually then turns on his heel and heads towards the lobby. Their group of demigods rush to catch up, practically jogging rather than walking in any kind of military formation that could perhaps inspire a moment of confidence in their ability to succeed here.
“School group?” The man behind the desk asks them, putting down his book. He is broad and bald and there is something about his pale face that makes it difficult to determine if he is wholly human. “It’s the end of the day and we’re almost closing,”
Nico shakes his head and Annabeth watches the man in the lobby from over it. “Uh,” he says. He swallows. This isn’t something they frequently do and the pressure of the end of the world on his shoulders makes his hands shake. “We’d like to go to the 600th floor,”
“Sorry kid, no such thing,” that surely must be a pre-programmed response.
Nico drums his fingers against the sword which sits darkly on his side, sucking all of the light from the air immediately surrounding it. “This many demigods in one place attracts attention, ” he says and the man behind the desk lets them through.
They can all fit in the elevator but it is a tight squeeze and the combination Stayin’ Alive playing tinnily over the elevator’s speakers and Travis Stoll breathing on the back of her neck is slowly driving Annabeth insane. They basically fall out of the elevator when it finally stops.
She knows instinctively that Olympus isn’t supposed to look like this. The architecture is fascinating and beautiful, there are green planes and parks and colourfully paved streets and it’s all beautiful but it’s also empty. Nobody accompanies them in their walk towards the throne room, the only signs of life up here being two muses sitting and strumming at lyres with a lack of enthusiasm that creates more of an ominous squeak than it does music and a minor god of some kind who is leaning out of his window looking wistful, though he retreats and snaps his shutters closed the moment he sees them.
“This isn’t right,” she says. Her gut is twisting with that innate knowledge that this is wrong, that even the gods are under serious threat, that her last outside hope that they were maybe overreacting or misinterpreting has swiftly died off.
“Come on,” Nico says grimly. He must know it too.
Their audience with the gods doesn’t go as they hope. It was stupid of them to think it might. Hermes greets them in the throne room, his expression grim and his posture defensive. “We are terribly unprepared,” he admits. This was never supposed to be this way. “There are defences on Olympus, we have not left it entirely unguarded, but there was no time to fortify them before we were forced to leave. Athena especially would like to return as she believes Typhon is a diversion, but even so we cannot leave him to destroy the world. And he will. If Kronos would like to reach Mt. Olympus he will have to walk through Manhattan and enter like you, through the lobby,”
The image of monsters piled high in that elevator should be funny but it is not enough to cut through the dread.
“We can’t afford to lose her from our fight. Poseidon is already fighting his own war and Hades is predictably absent” Nico shrinks back from the god who is staring him down as though that is somehow his fault.
“So we’re alone?” Connor Stoll asks. He isn’t easily angered but he isn’t a placid person and there is apparently nothing for them to do but protest their treatment with gritted teeth and clenched fists, voices raised but never heard. Hermes flinches back from his own son and Annabeth gets the sense that he is thinking about Luke, about how demigods who are too jaded are a risk to them, about how one of his sons has already defected.
“I have to leave,” Hermes doesn’t answer him.
Annabeth speaks quickly to stop him for a moment more. “You said my mother wanted to leave? She didn’t leave a message for me?”
“Her message was that you would have to fight for Manhattan on your own and that she trusts in your abilities,”
“That doesn’t help at all!”
“Goodbye.” He disappears in a blinding flash and they are standing alone in the Olympian’s throne room, feeling small and useless and abandoned.
“We’re doomed,” Pollux says. Annabeth looks at him. She wants to reassure him that they aren’t, that everything will be just fine, that her mother knows what she should do and they’re a bit more ready now. But she won’t lie. False hope isn’t a usable tool but rather self-sabotage and if Annabeth can’t win she is going to fight with the desperation of a caged beast with its death already spelled out in front of her.
“Fight with reckless abandon,” she tells her tiny army of other children. It’s all they have and it won’t be enough.
They stand in a still sort of silence before they leave, the streets as empty as they left them. In that moment they decide to wander, to explore Olympus with the outside hope that they might have something to gain from it. They split into two groups and move in opposite directions until Annabeth is ushered by Connor Stoll’s worried voice resonating through the palpable silence of Olympus. She follows the sound to him. His group are standing on the edge, gathered on a balcony space with its edges lined with tourist binoculars that can be used for the cost of a drachma. There aren’t nearly enough of them to use all the binoculars so Annabeth walks over to one which is not currently in use and draws a gold coin from her pocket. “Listen,” Connor urges her as she thumbs the coin into the slot and presses her eyes to the cold metal. From this viewpoint she can see the neat lines of streets and the shape of Manhattan cut out from the rivers.
She does as she is told and listens but does not hear anything. She starts to tell Connor as much before she pauses, realising that is exactly Connor’s point. They are far from the ground but not so far that an area as touristy as this should ever not be full of chatter and traffic. She presses her eyes back to the binoculars and looks closer at the streets rather than simply the shapes of the city. The cars have all stopped in place and there are people splayed out across the floor, curled up on themselves and entirely unmoving.
“Are they dead?” Silena asks, concerned. It might just be that she still has death on her mind with Beckendorf still conspicuously absent. Annabeth’s throat aches and she continues intently looking. The people of New York don’t move as they lay on the floor and part of her thinks Silena might be right but she thinks of that gods forsaken prophecy again, her faith in its truth and her understanding of it fundamentally shaken.
“I don’t think so,” Annabeth takes a step back. “If we can trust the prophecy at all we’re seeing endless sleep. Morpheus has knocked them all out. We must be completely out of time,”
“Why aren’t we asleep then?” Travis cocks his head.
“It’s a huge spell,” Silena explains. “A wide but thin layer of magic puts mortals to sleep but it’s easy for demigods to resist,” She shrugs them off when they ask how she knows that.
They leave Olympus, their already sombre mood now almost desolate. Argus is waiting for them outside, his many eyes blinking slowly. Annabeth explains what happened and he rolls all of his eyes at once so that his whole body appears to be swivelling. He never speaks and there is nothing else he can do. “We’re staying,” Annabeth tells him. She hasn’t discussed it with her companions but they don’t have much choice. In his own way, he wishes them the best of luck.
“Have you seen Grover recently?” Katie asks her as Argus leaves. Annabeth shakes her head.
“You don’t suppose that could be Morpheus too?” Nico asks. Annabeth hopes it is because that way he isn’t dead, can wake up and come back to her.
“We know about the Princess Andromeda,” Silena winces as Annabeth says it. “And we’re in Manhattan. If I had to guess, and I think I do, I’d say they’re arriving by boat,” Nico goes paler than he already is, the olive of his skin taking on a tinge of green.
“Great,” he says, his voice thin. Annabeth gets it. Afterall, the fates have assigned responsibility for this war to him, a reedy child who looks like he could be victimised by a particularly strong wind. “I love boats,” the sarcasm is palpable and without humour.
“So what do we do?” SIlena nervously probes.
“We split up,” Annabeth decides. It’s hardly an ideal approach to strategy but there is nothing else she can think to do so she pushes through and feigns a modicum of confidence. “Some of us meet them at the shores and the others work on setting traps on the most obvious routes to Olympus,”
They don’t have any time to waste so Annabeth divides them into task groups and rushes off with only Nico as immediate company, no time to spend waiting for anyone else to catch up.
The distractions and obstacles on their path should be limited to hopping over slumbering bodies and sidestepping unmoving vehicles and abandoned food stalls. For a long time that is exactly the case but they get most of the way to the shore and Annabeth stops.
“Hey!” she calls, seeing a kid who must be around her age walking through the city looking thoroughly mystified. He has pitch dark hair that is overgrown but relatively clean and is wearing old clothes that are full of holes and don’t protect him at all from the rain. She doesn’t recognise him so assumes he must be one of Luke’s, though she is confused by the thought as he doesn’t seem to have a weapon but instead is holding a scuffed skateboard under one arm. He turns to look at her, his face thin and his eyes bright green and shocking.
“Oh thank God,” he says. He sounds like a real New Yorker and Annabeth doesn’t miss the singularity of that God. “You’re awake too. Do you know what’s going on?”