Chapter Text
PERCY
The sun came up as the last monster scuttled back across the bridges, revealing a taste of what would happen if we didn't stop Kronos. Craters and scorch marks dotted the bridges leading to Manhattan, New York while smoke and soot choked the air throughout.
In our main headquarters in the Plaza Hotel, I flopped face-first on one of the beds and tried to fall asleep. But after the parley with the Titan Prometheus earlier that day, I simply couldn't. The way Prometheus' words stuck in my brain like tar made it difficult for me to think about anything else.
One night wasn't enough for the monsters to wipe us out, but it wasn't a victory either. Annabeth was wounded by Ethan Nakamura’s dagger, and resting with the others at the Plaza hotel. Not only that, we lost good fighters the night before, friends and Halfbloods all. Unlike Kronos, we didn't have an endless army, roughly sixty to sixty five demigods and hunters in fighting shape. Every loss we suffered was a sharp sting to morale. I doubted we could keep the Titan from taking the bridges a second time.
You have fought well, Prometheus had said, but once night falls again, you will all be slaughtered. And Kronos will take Olympus regardless. You fight a defensive war. Not unlike Troy, don't you think? And do you know what happened to them?
I shook myself off. I tried to reassure myself of the plan… gods, what plan? I had to fight a Titan that I didn’t know how to beat, and Typhon was wiping the great plains with the Olympians while I just lay there feeling powerless. I held my own against Kronos on the Williamsburg bridge, sure, but it seemed he was just getting stronger.
I took a deep breath. I knew Chiron had said he'd gather what allies he could. But as far as I knew, the only allies he had were the Party Ponies. And gods knew how long it'd take to organize them.
I pulled out a golden drachma and fingered it a little. I wanted to send an Iris message just to hear from him, get an update on how he was faring with it… I also wanted to see if Tyson was okay. Maybe I could call both at once? Never tried that before. That's when I had an idea.
I got up, made an excuse to the Hunter on lookout and stepped outside of the Plaza. The sky was a deep blue with the smoke being the only other colors in it. I would've appreciated my favorite color more if I wasn't in the middle of a siege.
I almost made it to the Pulitzer fountain when a voice called after me.
“What do you think you're doing?”
I froze and looked over my shoulder to find Annabeth jogging up to me, her curly blonde hair pulled back. She was wearing a breastplate over a Camp Halfblood T-shirt, small scars and nicks from past fights and quests dotted her arms and face. Her eyes had a twinge of pain in them and I noticed her shoulder was bandaged from her knife wound.
“What do you think you're doing?” I retorted. “You should be resting.”
Annabeth rolled her eyes. “I'm fine, Seaweed Brain.” Her tone made it clear she wasn't. “You never answered the question though. What're you doing out here?”
Annabeth put her hands on her hips. Her storm grey eyes pierced right through me and I had to keep myself from looking away. Why did she always have to be that intimidating?
I held up the golden drachma between two fingers and glanced at the Pulitzer fountain. “I'm calling for help.”
“Percy,” her voice was a bit softer, her hand drifting to my arm. “We can't. Morpheus-”
“I know, I know.” I stared down at the coin and twirled it a little. “But if we're all going to die anyway, isn't it worth a shot? Even if there’s a one percent chance of it breaking through the field and someone hearing it…”
I trailed off and shrugged. I sat at the edge of the fountain.
Annabeth sighed and sat next to me. “It's definitely a plan.”
“Thanks.” I smiled a little.
“I didn't say it was a good one.” She nudged a stone with her foot. “There’s no guarantee the one listening will be a friend of Olympus, if someone listens at all. It's a hairsbreadth of a chance, even for you.”
She glanced at my drachma and kicked the stone away.
“Okay, Wise Girl, what should we do?” I looked at her, almost desperate for ideas at this point.
Annabeth frowned in thought. “Even a hairsbreadth is better than none. I’ve heard of other gods existing in other places but if they have the same rules the Olympians do as far as not directly interfering, they’d be as helpful as a beetle. If Kronos is waiting for us to call for divine reinforcements, maybe we call for people who aren't. Beings he'd never expect.”
“Or better yet, someone he's terrified of. If that's even possible for a Titan king. What do you think? Should I try it?” I stared at the water in the fountain.
“Percy, I don't know what you should do.” She shook her head, her voice halting at the words. To her, not knowing something is as unacceptable as me letting one of my friends die on a quest. It just doesn't happen. “Part of me wants to believe it could work, that something would happen. But at the same time I've tried to come to terms that we're on our own.”
“Think of it this way.” I looked at her and tried to sound upbeat. “If it doesn't work, I'm down one drachma. If it does, we get reinforcements.”
“Or more enemies… fine.” She heaved a sigh. “Go ahead. Just for the love of the gods don't say anything stupid.”
I figured I’d be just fine without Hades' love, thank you very much.
But I held up the drachma and closed my eyes. “O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, if you could get this message out to whoever you think can kick Titan butt that'd be sweet.”
I tossed the coin into the rainbow, and nothing happened at first. Then it turned a brilliant white that was almost difficult to look at. I've never seen an Iris rainbow act that way before.
Begin message after the tone. A female voice, altogether too cheerful, spoke out from it.
I swallowed hard. “Um hey. I'm Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon. This message is for anyone really.”
My words were choppy and unsure at first. But my voice grew steadier as I went. “Kronos is back. The Titan. He's trying to destroy Olympus in Manhattan, New York, and we don't have much time. We're holding the city for now, but we need help. If Manhattan falls and Olympus is destroyed, everyone's done for.”
I glanced at Annabeth, trying to think of some clever way to wrap it up like, “I'll give you twenty bucks”, but she squeezed my arm and stepped closer to the rainbow.
“If you're out there,” she said, “and you care about humanity's survival, this fight includes you. Whether you want it to or not. Please help us.”
After Annabeth spoke, the Iris message fizzled out. There was no response.
I sank to the ground and simply sat. Annabeth sat next to me and we waited for five minutes.
Ten.
Twenty.
Nothing.
“You think it worked?” I looked up at her, my arms hugging my knees a little.
Annabeth pursed her lips. “Let's head back inside.” She said the quiet part out loud. Until another force was at our doorstep, we had to assume no one was coming.
As we started to head back to the Plaza, Annabeth frowned and reached into her pocket. She pulled out her vibrating phone, and the display simply said, Unknown Caller. There were plenty of phones left on sleeping mortals in the city. Some of us borrowed them to keep in touch during the fighting.
“It must be one of the lookouts. You go ahead, I'll catch up.” Annabeth gently pushed me forward as she answered the phone.
I continued walking, my feet heavy. I racked my brain, trying to find another work around, something else we could try. But nothing came to mind, at least not at the moment.
I struggled to get the question out of my head: were we truly alone?
It didn't matter. Whether someone came or not wouldn't change the Great Prophecy. I still had to defeat Kronos with or without them. So that's what I was going to do.
My steps became more determined as I strode to the Plaza and began to talk to Thalia and Grover about tonight's defense plan.
We made ready for the fight of our lives.
---
SOLGARION
Percy and Annabeth's message had been jammed and lost. The chance of penetrating the field was too low. But across the stars and through the Webway, a manifestation, the will of the Master of Terra caused a crack. That crack was all it took for the message to be sewn deep within the recesses of the Earth the demigods inhabit, where their war was fought. For in the lands beyond the gods, there was one who truly listened.
When they first arrived in this universe through the Webway so long ago, Primarch Solgarion of the lost Second Legion doubted the Emperor’s wisdom in sending them here. They were told they would fulfill their duty well; yet this Terra was untouched by His hand. It was haunted by rulers who called themselves enlightened, but still clung to the ignorance of the Old Night and the old gods. Solgarion’s command over Three Legios, each a proto-chapter; the Ashen Lords, Stone Pikes, and Dark Manes, had carried him through the early years of the Great Crusade on their true Terra. Yet in this world that same purpose felt like a cage.
In the icy north, the barren deserts, and the cavernous expanses of this mythic Earth, the lands beyond the gods were choked with corruption. Monsters rose like grass after rain. Some bore twisted human blood. Others towered like giants that could have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Emperor’s old Thunder Warriors. The Second Legion fought them all, and did so willingly — for battle in the Emperor's service was the one truth that remained constant regardless of where they dug in.
One can only speculate the turmoil within the Primarch of the Hand of Aeternum, as he listened to the iris message within his fortress monastery. The council room of the strategium was relatively small compared to what he was used to. But for his inspection of the Legio Apollyon, it had its uses. Every square inch of the walls of ceramite were covered in markings and litanies, every brick of this monastery had been laid with reverence.
Primarch Solgarion was without armor, but his stature was no less imposing. His skin was scarred and his short dark hair was sharp and almost too still no matter the movements he made. Woken from his slumber by the Apollyon Chapter Master Tiber Cal, he rested one elbow on his knee and rubbed his chin with a hand as the message relayed once more through the vox channel.
“Manhattan…” he tasted the word like fine wine, swilling it and absorbing it. He turned to Tiber Cal, the stone of his face lessening just a bit at the sight of his friend. “... primitive and yet it’s now an epicenter of conflict in the world seen and unseen.”
He kept musing to himself, looking in Cal’s direction but seeing through him. “The young ones of this Terra believe they hold the keys to mankind's salvation. As misguided as they are, there's no denying how valiantly they fight to ensure its survival.”
“Gallantry is the spearhead of war, father. I don't attempt to discount that. But they fight under false gods.” Intoned Cal’s voice, young but already grating from the subterranean battlefields of the Rockies. His helmet was tucked under one arm, one of his eyes replaced by a red mechanical lens. It was almost binocular in how it whirred and clicked to focus on the Primarch.
His bear mantled cloak whirled slightly around his purple trimmed black armor as he turned from his gene-sire to face the stained glass of the room, images of the Imperium’s past glory eternally etched in the scorched sand if not in the minds of the brothers present.
“I see the truth whether this Percy Jackson speaks it or not.” Tiber Cal stated bluntly. “Every victory they achieve is survival, yes. But with their survival, more of humanity is drawn from the light of the Emperor. Father, we cannot allow the pleas of these children to alter our directive, our purpose. Leaving this bastion, along with the Contignum Sedoniae and the Frontaria Alascae will risk thousands of Xenos gathering their strength, and chaos and corruption leeching the minds of the unfaithful.”
“And yet,” Solgarion tapped the vox a little. “Such a concentration of abominations within… Manhattan… is no trivial matter. Is it?”
The Primarch stood, and the air seemed to grow charged with strength that was measured and deliberate. He stepped to the table in the middle of the chamber and started working the controls, mapping out routes and checking inventories. Even without armor, he stood at least a head taller than the Chapter Master.
“If this Kronos succeeds, he’ll open a gateway to a chaotic earth that would endanger billions more, whether he intends to or not. That is unless the warriors of Olympus hold.” He thought for a moment. “Let me ask you, Cal-”
A quiet groan emanated from the young Chapter Master, who had undoubtedly heard that phrase hundreds of times before as his shoulders slumped slightly.
Solgarion continued without pause. “-the Contignum Sedoniae is a focal point for containing such spawning monstrosities, a task Diocletian and his Stone Pikes have fulfilled well. Percy Jackson attempts the same protection. Even so, does humanity benefit from having even the smallest shield lost or weakened if that crack leads to the tides of corruption that await within the Warp? Does the shield Percy Jackson provide truly exist to be a sword at our throats when it's more of a pin in comparison?”
Tiber Cal shifted a little. These rhetorical questions were going to be the death of him, he was sure of it. “In the end, I suppose not my lord.”
“Don’t mistake their misguidance as heresy my son.” The Primarch turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “Yourself, Diocletian, Cedrimar, you three are shards of the spear that have pierced chaos’ throat more times than one. And these demigods simply attempt to achieve the same through prophecy.”
Solgarion let a ghost of a smile flit across his face.
Cal nodded.
Solgarion nodded as well and began to stride to where his power armor was kept. “What are our numbers, Tiber Cal?”
The Chapter Master straightened a bit, putting on his helm. The fur of the bear mantle created a mane-like effect around his head. “Six thousand brothers under my command of the Legio Apollyon, my lord. As for Indomitus and Hagios, my brothers can tell you their Legios’ number better than I.”
Solgarion nodded. “Excellent. Awaken the Venerated and assemble the Honored Brothers. I will speak with Diocletian and Cedrimar myself. On my order, we march for Manhattan.”
Tiber Cal saluted with a fist over his chest and strode out of the room, the temperature rising a little as the armories below them awakened.
And so, far below the fortress monastery, they made ready.
Word soon spread to the other two Legios, imploring Diocletian and Cedrimar to join the fight. The two older brothers of Cal pledged the full might of their Astartes in the name of the Emperor and their gene-sire. And so the Legios had begun to gather, each following the banner of their Chapter Master. The Dark Manes, Ashen Lords and Stone Pikes all answered the Primarch’s call.
The path to saving humanity was to be guided by one directive: war. They would follow it and more, for they were the Hand of Aeternum. And the enemies of mankind would soon understand what such a name truly meant.