Resurrected

Ethan's POV

Cato sheathed his swords, chuckling quietly to himself. I was still so angry that I couldn’t hear anything, but I knew he was laughing. He must have been laughing.

I could feel the powers that Kronos had given me coursing through my veins. I had never been this angry. I was so angry that I was calm. Everything seemed to slow down around me, and the world seemed to tint itself red. Clarisse was struggling as hard as she could against her bonds, but when I tried to get out of my attacker’s bonds, it felt about has easy as removing my hand from water.

Still unable to hear, the spikes flew off of me, and when the monster sent another of its spikes at me, I let instinct take over. I caught the monster’s spike, and picked up my spare sword. I stabbed it through what looked like was the head of the monster, and it melted into sludge. The other monster charged over to me, detaching itself from the spikes it had trapped Clarisse with. I simply dodged its first strike and stabbed my sword through its head, melting it like the first one.

That’s when my hearing returned.

“How?” Both Cato and Clarisse said, but I didn’t care. I was going to kill Cato.

He drew both his swords and struck at me, but I blocked both of them with my one sword. Cato pushed me back into the first monster I had killed’s sludge and I picked up my spare sword that it had eaten. Cato and I were now evenly matched.

Fear started to creep into Cato’s eyes, something I was not used to seeing and pleasantly surprised by. He said,

“I am the son of a Titan! I incur Perses’ wrath!”

“You are a murderer,” I growled, “You shall reap what you sow.”

I charged at him, and our swords clashed. He was definitely the most skilled warrior I had ever fought against, but I had an advantage. I was the son of Nemesis, goddess of revenge. I had Kronos’ powers, whether the Titan King was controlling them or not. And I was on the offensive.

We kept fighting. He sent strikes at my head, he tried to swipe at my feet. But I blocked his strikes like I could see into his mind. I pushed him back towards the archway he had come in through, and he leapt into a back flip, giving him room from me. He thrust his sword into the ground, and a wave of black, shadow-colored energy came flying at me, like gas escaping an explosion.

I crossed my swords in front of my body and somehow, the energy didn’t hit me. Cato seemed as perplexed as I was, and said,

“I am the son of Absolute Destruction!” Cato cried, his voice now shrill with fear.

“I don’t care,” I snarled, and pressed him once more. He tried using his agility, but he seemed to realize that I was running high on adrenaline. He tried using his feet along with his swords, but I almost sliced a leg off, so he quit that.

We fought for another minute or so, and he finally made his mistake. He drew one of his swords back to strike at my head, and I struck one of my swords at his blade, shattering it into pieces.

My mind slipped into memory, remembering the moment where I sliced down onto Kronos’ neck, and watching as my own blade splintered, sending shrapnel into my abdomen. I barely noticed when Cato sliced down towards my head.

I tried to dodge, but I could only get a little bit away from his blade. His sword struck my face, slicing my eyepatch in half, and I felt the blood start to trickle down my left cheek.

Well, I thought, There goes any chance of a miracle surgery. Now this guy is going to die, because this is personal.

I backed away, clutching my face. I had always been comfortable fighting without a left eye, but with it so exposed, I felt vulnerable. He tried to advance, and I parried, showing him that I wasn’t even close to being out for the count.

He smirked at me, thinking himself victorious. But that just made me even angrier. I realized that if I kept being this angry without a release, it wouldn’t be especially good for me. But I kept fighting, and with Cato only having one sword, it became less of a contest and more of a massacre.

I started knicking Cato, inflicting small wounds as he furiously tried to defend himself, fighting for his life. I felt like all of my attacks were like water on a faulty dam, and eventually, the dam was going to burst. And finally, it did.

He tried a tired overhead strike, and I ducked under it, slipping behind him. I slashed, and he couldn’t dodge as my right sword cut both his calves. He grunted in pain, panting for air on he knees.

“You’re wasting my oxygen,” I muttered, and stabbed my left sword through his back. He tensed up, and then relaxed in death, which I felt was too kind for how evil he was. I retracted my blade, and his body slumped down, soaking the white stone floor in red.

“Woah,” Clarisse marveled, from somewhere behind me. I looked back and saw her attending to Tommy, whose shoulder was now wrapped in cloth.

“I would have helped,” she confessed, “but you seemed to have him in the bag. Ethan, that was…amazing. That was inhuman. You looked like you got your powers back or something.”

I didn’t respond to that last comment, because I was still on the fence about that. I looked at Tommy, and he opened his eyes, wincing in pain. Clarisse let me hold him as she got up to view the wreckage. The courtyard was covered in black and silver arrows, and their was blood and show-warrior sludge everywhere. But I didn’t care.

“Hey,” I murmured as sweetly as I could, staring concernedly into Tommy’s blue eyes, which he had closed, looking like he was trying to fight off the pain.

“Hey,” He rasped, “You kicked his ass, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I chuckled, “I kinda did.”

“Amazing,” he marveled, his voice gaining strength, “he always seemed so invincible.”

“No one’s invincible, Tommy,” I realized, looking at Alex’s body, which Clarisse had tried to straighten up, her eyes closed in a slightly pained expression. But it seemed like with every minute that passed, her eyes seemed to relax a little bit more.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy whimpered, his breaths becoming ragged, “I didn’t mean to get you into all this. I didn’t mean for Alex to die. I was just trying to make it up to her. She seemed so sad about you and I. I feel like I stole someone she loved from her.”

“Tommy,” I soothed, “It’s okay. Alex and I, we made our peace. I hope she didn’t die thinking that we didn’t care about her.”

Tommy sighed in release as he let the tears flow, breathing heavily into my sleeve. He opened his eyes again, and looked up at my face. He turned pale instantly and started crying again, sobbing,

“Oh Gods, Ethan, your eye!”

“It was far gone way before Cato made it permanent,” I told him, “I guess I’ll never be taking off this eyepatch.”

But then, Tommy raised his arm weakly, and slipped the elastic off of my head. My hair bounced back into where it normally is at night when I take the patch off, and he threw the old cloth away.

“There,” said Tommy with satisfaction, “now everyone will know what you went through today.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Clarisse said, walking back towards us. She had Cato’s mask in her hand, and I realized that there was a fire raging only a hundred feet from me. I realized she was burning Cato’s body.

“A sacrifice to Hades and Ares,” Clarisse said, “for in war, we lose the ones we love as frequently as the ones we hate.”

I realized that Cato’s mask wasn’t the only thing she was carrying. She adjusted a pure white bundle that she was carrying on her shoulder, and wiped a tear before she thought I could notice. I helped Tommy up, and the three of us left the ruins of Mt. Othrys.

We were returning to Camp with Alex, like we promised. But we all knew that this trip had been a failure.

“The amount of eyes closed for good on this trip was too high,” I murmured into the afternoon air, but neither Tommy nor Clarisse seemed to hear me.

Notes

Hey, so I'm back over my Christmas and New Years' break, so here is another chapter....so sorry about leaving you on the cliffhanger.

Enjoy,
Grafon