Resurrected

Charlie's POV

I had been tricked.

I hadn’t seen Silena at all. I had seen Ghost Silena, and now I was all alone.

When I blinked, I was all alone, the Cabins where they had been, and I was all alone. I was all alone. Kronos raised his hand again, and produced ten skeletons, just for me. They charged, and he simply walked towards me.

I was too far for reinforcements, and even if I got any that weren’t already tied up in fighting multiple skeletons, they’d be too slow to help. Funny, I was fighting Kronos and I hadn’t realized that I wouldn’t be given enough time.

Then, the ten skeletons were on me.

I had to work hard to stay alive for the next thirty seconds. I got cut thrice, nicked at least a dozen times, and almost stabbed. But, I got through it, and after a minute, I was standing in a circle of bone fragments. Then, Kronos appeared behind me. He tried to thrust his sickle through my back, but I whirled around and batted it away with my hammer.

We fought like lightning fights the air around it. We became something other than warriors, we became forces. I hate to even address the scumbag that is the father of the Big Three with such respect, but I almost enjoyed the first ten seconds of our encounter. But after that, it was pure hell.

Kronos came at me faster than sound, his strikes seeming to come from nowhere and from everywhere all at once. But, while I was fighting him, and 99% of my brain capacity occupied with keeping myself alive, the last 1% remembered that when I had last fought him, he had frozen time like it was nothing, stopped the clock and forced me to stay completely still and vulnerable.

The 1% realized that he was weak now.

He must be, I thought, he’s lost his grip on all four of us, right?

The 1% convinced me to push harder, and that was probably the biggest mistake I’ve made in my entire life. As I tried to push harder, Kronos just matched my strength. I started to fade, my swings of the hammer slowing down, and my defensive movements to block his deadly sickle came later and later, almost not in time. I knew my time was limited, and as Kronos was the Lord of Time, he could taste that.

Then, it happened. I blocked a strike with the handle of Fulcrum, and when I raised my arms up to go on the offense, Kronos feinted a strike at my head and I tried to block, but he swiped for my chest.

His sickle raked across my armor and sliced through it like a sword through fog. The pain was worse than any other wound I had ever experienced before, worse than dying in that explosion. I could feel the blood gushing from my ribs, my heart rate slowing, but I couldn’t feel the pull of my life force.

When Percy had first encountered Backbiter, he had been told that it could sever your soul from your body. I felt none of that. As a mechanic, I could sense that it was no longer a soul-eating monstrosity of a weapon. It wasn’t a weapon anymore, it was just a sharp blade. That gave me a little more confidence to live.

Even if I was going to bleed out soon.

Even with the new confidence, I fell to my knees from the pain. Kronos grinned evilly and stalked towards me, smelling the blood on his sickle. My blood. When he was only one step away, he raised his two-metal blade one last time and…and…

Luke screamed. His scream carried none of the old, raspy voice. None of the Lord of Time. Just Luke Castellan. I opened my eyes and realized that he had an arrow sticking out of both of his legs. Luke fell backwards, crawling away from me, trying to pull the arrows out from his legs and with a sense of recognition, I realized that the arrows were pure silver.

Thalia, I thought, thank the Gods.

As if on cue, a loud, but sweet hunter’s horn spilled one clear note into the twilight sky and I realized how much pain I truly was in. I fell backwards, but didn’t hit the ground. I felt two hands, calloused yet weak, grab me, and a joker’s accent say,

“Woah, bro, don’t fade on me yet! I can’t fix a human, man! I’m not Apollo, but I might be as handsome, so don’t die on me!”

“Valdez?” I asked wearily, “What in Hades?”

“Reinforcements, bro! Jason realized that crap was hittin’ the fan here, and he called up his super-hot sister to come help.”

“Hey!” Scolded a girl’s voice, sweet and pretty.

“Sorry, babe!” Leo amended quickly.

“You brought Calypso here?” I asked incredulously, “Why in Gods’ name would you do that?”

“Hey!” She said again, “I can fight, you know! Three thousands years alone makes you pretty bored. I’m an expert in almost everything!”

“Can you heal a torso gash?” I asked, my voice becoming raspy as my throat filled, worryingly so, with my own blood.

“Oh, Gods,” Calypso said as she noticed my wound, “I thought your armor was painted red on purpose!”

Then, she went to work. Now, I’ve seen the Apollo medics at work, heck, I’ve seen Apollo himself at work while healing people. I’ve never seen anyone as fast as Calypso. She stuffed a whole bar of ambrosia into my mouth and ordered,

“Deep breath!”

Then, during the amazingly small time it took for me to inhale, she produced a golden, glowing paste and something that looked like a paintbrush and wiped a good-sized portion of the stuff across my chest. It stung like a thousand bees, but after I breathed out, the pain subsided.

“AARGH—woah,” I said as I could feel the wound in my chest instantly close up like lips shutting on a mouth. Then, the skin re-sealed itself, and I could breathe normally again.

“Get up! We don’t have much time! Kronos will heal him soon enough!” Said a new girl’s voice, but one I recognized. Thalia.

Leo and Calypso helped me up, and I picked Fulcrum back up. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning came crashing down near the first line of defense, where we seemed to be winning the fight but I couldn’t tell.

“That’s Jason,” She explained, “He’ll be fine.”

But, as I kept my eyes to my right, I saw three figures racing up towards us. Alex, Annabeth, and Percy. Alex had a murderous look in her eyes, staring straight at Luke. Annabeth had a murderous look in her eyes, staring straight at Alex, and Percy had a murderous look in his eyes, seemingly staring at himself for letting himself get into this mess.

Luke finally got up, unbalanced seeing as it’s hard to limp when both legs hurt. He looked weary, and there was only a little of the gold left in his eyes. Kronos was dying…again.

I realized what was going to happen, and couldn’t stop it. Although, in hindsight, I have no idea why I ever wanted to stop it. Alex sprinted at Luke, who didn’t even notice her. She raised her celestial bronze sword and swung. She wasn’t aiming for Luke’s legs, his arms, his chest, no. She was aiming for his neck. With a sickening shloh!, it came clean off as her strike ran true.

It was done.

Alex stood over her victim, ready to impale the son of Hermes again and again and again.

“NO!” Annabeth screamed, but Percy held her tight and basically tackled her.

It was all over. Kronos was dead. Luke was dead. Then I realized that maybe the bad guys weren’t the only ones to have died.

I ran back to the first line and shouted,

“Tommy! Are you alive!”

“Never better!” Came the response, and he joined me from healing one of the wounded Apollo kids. We grinned at each other, knowing that Kronos had lost. We, our souls and our bodies, were free.

We both sprinted in unison towards the Infirmary and the Cabins to check on Silena and Ethan, but Tommy stopped on the way. He stopped at Alex, and they locked eyes for a second. Tommy told her,

“Alex, I’m sorr—”

“It’s okay, Tommy, I know,” She interrupted him, “I never really had a chance with him. Go.”

Then, he joined me and we kept running. When we got to the Infirmary, Ethan saw Tommy’s face and sprinted to him. Their lips crashed together and I couldn’t help but smile at the pleasant surprise I experienced.

“So that’s what Alex was talking about!” I laughed, and they both looked at me, their faces red.

“Well, I’m off to go…you know…see my girl.”

They laughed as it was my turn to go red, but I had finally reached this moment. I reached into my armor and brought out the steel container, my thumb running over the surface I had memorized.

“I can do this,” I murmured, “I can do this.”

Notes

Ugh, I finally got this battle scene done. Now I can write the fun stuff. Oh, and it's not like I SAVED everyone! Booyah for the good guys, eh?

Enjoy,
Grafon

P.S. On an unrelated note, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR 10K VIEWS!!! I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD EVER GET THIS MUCH ATTENTION. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT, THE LOVE, THE LAUGHS, FOR EVERYTHING. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.