Chapter 27

Manhattan, New York

August 17, 7:34 PM

Ouranos has nearly awakened. Slowly but surely, the Primordial of the sky was forming a complete consciousness. As his legions of monsters swarmed Manhattan, many of the defense points held by the armies of Olympus had fallen, collapsing the entire defense plan constructed by the demigods.

The gods had tried to leave Olympus to help their children, but found themselves trapped in their own city, an invisible barrier blockading them from entering the mortal world. Hecate had determined the barrier was constructed of magic, but it was nothing she knew how to combat; this magic was ancient, likely put into place by Ouranos. The gods were forced to watch helpless as their children had been killed by monsters.

As Ouranos and his armies prepared for their attack, the gods could only hope for a miracle.

—

The Edge, Tartarus

(?) Later

Perseus has only one thing standing between him and walking upon the Earth once more: The Brood Queen. As Perseus had made his way across Absolute Darkness and into The Edge, he found the source of his never ending supply of enemies: Brood Mothers. The female members of The Horde stay well hidden in the caves and mountains scattered across the terrain, laying their eggs by the hundreds and providing a never ending supply of enemies for Perseus to kill.

To Perseus, the Brood Mothers were easy to locate once he found their nest, the only problem was actually finding the nest. The first time Perseus had stumbled upon one, he actually let out a good laugh, their sluggish bodies resembling what he could only describe as Jabba The Hutt's wife.

Percy had taken these Brood Mothers out systematically, killing every single one of their kind and torching the nests, preventing any more of their kind from spawning. Even with the Brood Mothers eliminated, Percy knew he wasn't finished, logic telling him that the Brood Queen - the one who created the Brood Mothers, still lurked somewhere in the darkness.

Percy had narrowed down its location to The Edge. The Edge was at the far end of Tartarus, where the land cut off and a ninety-degree wall erupted from the ground - preventing any monster from taking their life in the abyss of Chaos.

As Percy's luck would have it, the Brood Queen had hid herself at the edge of The Edge, hiding in a Horde made cave that lay right up against The Wall.

Percy wouldn't concern himself with killing every last being down here, their numbers were already so low that they could hardely kill a drakon, much less wipe out humanity. By killing their Brood Mothers and ending the Brood Queen, Percy would guarantee their extinction and The Horde will die out. If Perseus chose to kill them all, he'd waste years tracking down any monster that was smart enough to hide, years that he does not have.

Perseus was not ignorant to the war Ouranos was waging on the surface, he didn't know exactly how much time had passed in his absence, but it was definitely enough to raise a few armies and launch an invasion.

As Percy's light shone over the cave, a ghost of a smile was visible through his helmet - he's coming home.

Percy charged into the cave, prepared to fight anything he found - or so he thought. What Perseus found was bound to give any child of Athena nightmares to last a lifetime.

Crawling atop the ceiling was what Perseus could only describe as a combination of a caterpillar, a spider and a Brood Mother. Its sluggish body resembling a Brood Mother while having the abdomen of a spider and legs of a caterpillar. The Brood Queen noticed Perseus' presence and dropped from the ceiling, giant moth wings unfurling from its back and started flying around the air.

The small fact of the creature having wings had irritated Perseus to no end, 'Of course it has wings, why wouldn't it have wings? Everything else in this damned pit has wings, why not add another creature to the list?' Percy was prepared to give any Primordial a godly sized slap upside the head for their lack of creativity.

Percy channeled that anger into his powers over storms and sent lightning flying towards the hideous beast, frying it nearly instantly. 'That was anticlimactic.' Percy zapped it a few more times, whether the reason was to burn off his residual anger or to make sure it was completely dead, he couldn't tell you.

Percy left the cave and made his way to The Wall, along the way, Perseus unsheathed his two knives and started praying to whoever would listen that Minotaur horns were durable enough for what he had planned. Percy stuck his knives into the volcanic black wall as if they were ice picks and started climbing. As Percy gained confidence in his ability to scale the wall, he started increasing his speed at intervals. As Percy became fully confident in his climbing abilities, he started increasing his speed with his powers over time, moving hundreds of feet in mere seconds.

Percy soon reached the top of Tartarus, hanging high above the blood red clouds and jagged mountains. If there was any logic to the layout of Tartarus - which Perseus doubted, going straight up at the edge of Tartarus, should land him somewhere in New York, or at least somewhere within the United States.

Percy's current theory was that if falling to Tartarus from Greece landed him in the beginnings of the Pit, then climbing out the other side of Tartarus would spit him out on the other side of the world, AKA New York.

Percy dislodged his right knife from the wall and started channeling his powers over destruction. Perseus punched straight up into the ceiling, disintigrating a large area of rock above him. A grin appeared through Perseus' helmet, his path home was now clear.

—

Manhattan, New York

August 17th, 11:51 PM

The monster army had made their move to the little amount of demigods were still able to defend Olympus - many of them veterans of the last two wars.

As the battle waged all around the demigods, many were lost to the fighting. Leo Valdez fought along side his siblings, burning anything that came too close. A loud shout of pain came from his left and he saw his ingenious half brother Harley take a sword straight to the gut, the life already leaving his eyes. Leo became enraged and started throwing flaming variants of anything he could pull from his magic tool belt; hammers, screwdrivers, breathmints and a variety of nails were sent flying towards the enemies.

On the other side of the battle, Will Solace and Nico Di Angelo fought bravely alongside an army of undead. Will let loose arrow after arrow into the enemies as Nico cut down anything that tried to get too close. However, they were ignorant to the draceana perched up in the windows of building across from them. Nico noticed too late, he tried to erect a wall of darkness to protect them, but his summoning of the undead had already made him weak. As the arrows neared, Will kicked the legs out from under Nico and stood over him protectively, a smile adorning his face as he looked down at his husband. The arrows hit true and as Will Solace collapsed into the ground, Nico could see his life force slipping away from him, one heartbeat at a time. Nico spent a long time in shock, holding the dead body of his lover as his skeleton army protected him.

The draceana attempted this tactic in other places as well, but were cut down by silver arrows as soon as they came into view. Thalia Grace stayed along side her sisters as they sent arrows into the monster army. Suddenly, the daughter of Zeus was tackled to the side, Thalia looked to where she had stood and saw Zoë with an arrow in her back leg. Thalia immediately ran to Zoë and carried her inside the Empire State Building, that wolf had saved her life too many times for her to die. As Thalia removed the arrow from its leg she let out a sigh of relief, it was only a flesh wound, she couldn't imagine what would happen if Percy found out his companion had been crippled - or worse. Thalia bandaged the wound and went back outside, as she went past the armory tent, an idea popped into her mind.

Thalia ran into the armory tent and grabbed all of the training packets she could carry and sprinted back to the front lines. Praying her plan would work, she pulled the tabs on multiple packets and launched them. Suddenly, hundreds of automations appeared in the middle of the monster army and started cutting down anything near them. Thalia continued this tactic across the entire battlefield, summoning thousands of metallic warriors to kill the monsters.

The now much smaller army of monsters started to pull back and the battle seemed to be won, but Ouranos had other plans. Lightning flashed across the sky and the clouds began to leave the atmosphere. The constellations started to glow brightly from their place in the heavens and a deep laughter resonated throughout the night sky; Ouranos still had one trick up his sleeve. The demigods will perish tonight, and Olympus will fall with them.