✞

Clarisse roared as the hellhounds past the barriers.

Balls of thick fur, angry and bloodthirsty, fangs slobbery and offcut, eyes beady and dark.

A Dionysus kid was the first to fall, he was tackled with the weight of a vending machine and thrown onto his back, screaming as he fell.

Two of his friends stood paralysed in fear, watching the hellhound maul his friend.

A girl from Hermes cleaved her sword into the dogs back, slicing aimlessly agaisnt its thick hide. The hellhound snarled, his claws raking down the boy's chest, piercing his leather armour. The boy screamed, incurring teeth sinking into his arm and tearing it away.

The daughter of Hermes swiped again and cut through its neck, hard and rough. There was no blood or pain, the hellhound merely whimpered before it faded from existence.

Annabeth raced to their aid as three more dogs took its place, sniffing angrily at the black dust that pattered agaisnt the grass.

"Snap out of it!" The daughter of Athena roared, shaking her petrified comrades.

Their lips quivered and their hands shook, faces blanched and sweaty. Annabeth slapped the boy, and the sound echoed across the battlefield. Instantaneously, he sucked in a deep breath and gripped the hilt of his sword tighter.

He lunged forward, jabbing it into a hellhounds ribs. It shrieked, rearing almost like an angry spider, and forced the boy back. He stumbled, dropping his sword in a clumsy attempted to escape. It howled again and leapt on two feet, teeth bared in pain. Annabeth sheathed her dagger into its side and watched it explode in a plume of dark dust.

"Watch out!" Grover exclaimed, dodging the lazy swipe of a Cerviel's hand and darting across the grass, blowing manically at his reed pipes with his fellow brethren.

The grass and tree branches around him started curling and winding from the tunes, wrapping themselves around surrounding enemies and engulfing them into the ground and oak.

Gas exploded on impact and a loud screeching noise resonated from a tree. A dryad melted from the casuarina, with frayed hair and burnt skin. She was screaming and crying as the poison consumed her.

Percy bit his lip as a heavy discharge of leafy propellant started to spur in the air. Apollo kids were dispatching carbon dioxide arrows to disperse the runoff from the poison, but it wasn't effective agaisnt the infection.

"Juniper!" Grover hurried to the tree nymphs side as she stumbled on her feet. Her eyes were bloodshot, dark veins pulsing on her chlorophyll-tinted skin. She looked woozy, already too far gone on the gasses properties.

Percy darted across the field with Riptide, the lower half of his face tucked into the collar of his tee-shirt. He swiped through three Cerviels with each strike. Their skin was like paper, easily killed, but that wasn't their purpose, it was the foul smell that came after made him gag, and the poisonous gas that followed.

Annabeth noted that the Cerviels had strength in numbers, being able to surround and overwhelm people, making up for their individual weakness. Stragglers were caught off guard by them and then corrupted into unconsciousness.

The Hermes cabin was in charge of killing the hundreds and hundreds of distending Cerviels that fumbled through the forest, cutting across the mountainside as everyone else focused on the hellhounds and bats.

Apollo's children and Chiron were firing barrages of arrows at the winged beasts. They would scream and cry and swoop like mother birds as they were hit. But not even a thousand arrows would put a chink in their leathery integument.

"The mouth and eyes!" Chiron ordered and the oldest of the Apollo kids frowned.

"Sir that doesn't leave us much room! Their eyes are tiny," they chanted as they let another string of arrows soar into the air. One hit the bat on the snout and it screeched, its wings tilting, tunnelling together as it barreled into the side of a wall.

"Do you want to live?" Chiron shouted over the screams of battle.

"—Yes sir!"

They looked wary but their eyes were filled with determination and their stances were firm. A blonde kid squinted, his fingers curling around his bow, as he pulled back a shot. The arrow pegged the bat right in the eye and it swayed off-course, plummeting into the ground.

"Nice shot Lee!" Chiron observed and the tanned boy smiled.

Percy remembered that name. Lee Fletcher was the head councillor of Apollo cabin.

Percy ducked another clumsy hand as even more Cerviels continued to surround him. He plunged his sword right through its opaque, pasty skin like melted butter. The foul-smelling odour that billowed from the cut made him gag, and he stumbled back.

Annabeth was dodging and weaving through crowds and yelling orders as Clarisse and her finest brothers and sisters took the brunt of the hellhound assault. Her electric spear was shocking the dogs until they were paralysed and then three others would jump the hound and kill it.

Smart plan by Annabeth but the dog's numbers were astounding and their energy was dwindling. She charged forward and sunk her dagger into a dogs neck and its fangs bared, almost nicking her forehead before a whimper passed its slobbery lips.

It reminded Percy all too much of Cerberus.

Annabeth rushed across the field, ducking left and right as jaws hinged to tear at her flesh. A smaller but more agile puppy lashed out at the daughter of Athena, she spun on her heel, and kicked the dog in the ribs and watched it skid across the field.

A dirty snarl from behind her made her spin, gaping at the frightful slobber of a hellhound before it tackled her. Its claws raked across her chest, shredding her shirt to bits. She screamed in pain, its claws mincing her skin like cheese in a grater.

Percy was the one who saved her. He threw Riptide from across the field and pegged the alpha hellhound right in the neck. Annabeth yelled her gratitude as the sword vanished along with the hellhound and she scrambled to her feet.

Annabeth saw horrifying things that day, things she couldn't even dare to describe. Blood, screams and fear in peoples eyes. She saw her friends die, someone from Demeter was launched on by three hellhounds and mauled. By the time her friends killed the dogs, her body was just bone and blood on the grass. Her heart was lurching in her chest and she was scared but she refused to give up. Because when (Y/N) faced death she didn't break either, she fought with every tool at her disposal. She'd saved Annabeth's life. And she owed it to her.

Clarisse impaled three dogs with one jab and it looked like a frightening meaty shish-kabob. Screams of anger and pain permeated the fields, gas clouded the air, arrows flew across the horizon and pits of water washed over the hill as Percy concentrated his will.

The satyrs started to play another song. At first, nothing happened, just the bittersweet hum of music through the courts, but then the ground started to roar and rumble and the song went rigid. The ground cracked like an eggshell and fissures start to rip through the ground like torn paper.

Screams of panic resonated into the air and people stumbled back as a long gash cut through the ground into an endless abyss of darkness. Something no one would want to fall into, but now the demigods had the advantage and Carviels closest to them were shoved into the pits.

The odours and plumes of mist hugged the trees that day, and watched as mother nature burned smoke into the ashen sky

✞

The soft wail of a baby headed warning, but wasn't foretold.

A woman smiled, her eyes were dark like coffee, her hair was soft. Next to her stood a man with distinctly similar features and a faraway smile flickering on his lips.

"She's beautiful," the woman awed her child as she lay in a bed of silk sheets and feather pillows. The baby was born with long white hair caricaturing an angel, her eyes were blazing gold.

"She's like thou," her mother said as she turned to her husband.

The man ran his huge thumb across the babies cheeks, the infant's eyes bulged and she giggled, hands flailing, staring wondrously at her parents.

"She has chosen."

Someone else entered the room; a woman with long brown hair woven in a single braid down her back and fire for eyes.

"The next hostess."

"How can thou tell?" He chewed his lip.

The goddess smiled reassuringly. "Her proximity is encumbering. Thy power; bonding a soul, she shall have it too."

The fiery women admired the babies perplexed expression.

"Does thou have a name?"

The mother nodded, hair billowing in ceremonial braids.

"," the father's eyes shone and he smiled. His large hands came down to cup her feet and tickle her, the baby giggled hysterically and wriggled around in the fiery woman's embrace.

"Heavenly and divine," the woman acknowledged.

The mother smiled as she scooped the baby into her arms again and pressed a weary kiss to the infant's forehead. The baby cooed softly and kicked its feet out.

A sudden noise startled the child, and she wailed, watching as the palace thundered, the marble walls trembling. The fiery woman turned away, her expression souring.

The ground rumbled shortly after, and the mother frantically tried to soothe her child.

"What is happening?"

The ground vibrated again and the baby continued to wail.

"Kronos is aware of her nativity and even as he slumbers at the bottom of Tartarus, he is wretched." The flaming woman explained.

"Why would he grieve? She's only a baby," the mother said frantically.

The fiery woman frowned and turned to them. "Are thou fools? He does not care for charity or benevolence. Thee have given birth to strength and virtue. Kronos will slaughter the child before she can thrive."

"What can we do, Hestia?" Her father said pleadingly.

"Thou shall follow hastily."

✞