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horizon

• • •

There was something distant on the horizon, something unseen yet horrible. The abandoned son of Poseidon felt its existence down to his very bones, and it scared him more than anything.

"Something's coming," Calypso murmured from beside him.

Percy could only nod in agreement. Something was coming, and it didn't feel friendly. Poseidon had granted their freedom only hours ago, and already the second ending of the world had arrived. It was exhausting, living this life. To live in a world that teetered on the edge of collapsing every second. To live in a world that constantly needed to be saved. And it seemed like there was nobody else willing to do it, except for Percy Jackson, a boy whom the gods had abandoned long ago. Percy was tired, but the world didn't care. The world took (Annabeth) and took (Grover) and took—

"We need to leave," Percy declared, turning his back to the open horizon, "whatever it is, it isn't friendly."

Calypso frowned, but nodded. There was a distant look in her immortal eyes, and Percy was reminded of how old she truly was. The span of his life paled in comparison to hers. So much pain and heartache filled his life; what had Calypso's life been like? Two years trapped on this island felt like an eternity, yet Calypso had been there for centuries.

How much longer could Percy bother to save the world? How much more fight did he have left in him? Before, there was always something to fight for. There was always Annabeth and Camp Half-Blood and friends that were family. Now, there was only loneliness and a prison and a girl who had given up on hope thousands of years ago. The son of Poseidon had nothing left to fight for.

Would it truly be so bad to give up? To release his power, and allow the water to fill his lungs until there was no air left? To float away into the great nothingness? How could that be so bad in comparison to the hellscape that his life had become?

"The raft floated ashore an hour ago," said Calypso, her eyes adopting a steely glint. "We can collect supplies and board and be out of here in twenty minutes."

But the shadow on the horizon was growing, and time was running out faster than it ever had before. Freedom and hope had been so close to his grasp, closer than it had been in years, and now it was snatched away so suddenly, so brutally. Hope was a cruel lover, and it's absence was a sharp sting.

"We might not make it," Percy muttered, his gaze fixated on the horizon.

But it was Calypso, the girl who waited a lifetime for freedom and love, who set her jaw and glared at the darkness pooling above the ocean. "We have to try."

And try they did.

• • •

Morning arrived nonchalantly, and Annabeth didn't wake until the Sun was high in the sky. Something cold was settled in the bottom of her stomach, as if there was something horribly wrong about to happen.

"I didn't want to wake you," said a chipper voice, and Annabeth jumped in surprise. She turned and found Hazel sitting directly beside where she was laying. "You looked peaceful in your sleep."

"Too tired for nightmares," Annabeth said warily.

Hazel's golden eyes softened, and she opened her mouth to say something, but another voice interrupted her.

"You guys might want to come see this!" Chris called from somewhere on the beach.

Hazel snorted and shook her head. "Of course he had to use the most cliché horror movie line in existence. I'm almost scared."

Annabeth didn't understand whatever Hazel was referencing, but it didn't matter. Not when Annabeth stood up to find darkness gathering on the horizon. Not darkness like the Sun was setting, but the color of death.

"What is it?" Annabeth breathed, that familiar panic flooding her bloodstream.

But Hazel didn't have an answer. She stared in awe beside Annabeth, her mouth opened in shock.

Clarisse noticed them, and trudged uphill through the sand to join the two other girls. "Whatever it is, it can't be anything good."

"God the world has really gone to shit," voiced Drew, smirking through the pain of her wounded stomach.

"What's that?" asked Grover, who had just stumbled out of the sparse forest.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Clarisse grumbled.

But Grover rolled his eyes, frustration radiating off him. "No, not the scary dark thing, we all know that's something evil. What's that small dot on top of the ocean?"

Annabeth squinted, and sure enough, there was a tiny figure on top of the waves, flitting in and out of existence. It disappeared, then reappeared a mile from where it just had been.

"Shit," muttered Hazel, pulling out her golden sword. "I thought we had gotten ahead of them."

"That doesn't look like that Willow girl," Chris said uncertainly.

"That's definitely a hellhound," countered Hazel, "but there's just the one. They like to travel in a pack."

As the shadow grew closer, it became shockingly clear that it was indeed a Hellhound, and there was someone riding it. But Annabeth couldn't focus on determining who it was; the Hellhound disappeared anytime the Sun went behind a cloud (which was quite often, seeing as it was cloudy) and reappeared in a different place where it had just been.

There was no time to plan, to time to formulate a plan before the Hellhound appeared on the rocky beach. And the figure riding atop it slid off, legs shaking, but mouth knit together firmly.

It was Drew who spoke, with apprehension in her eyes, and asked "Cameron?"

Because it was Cameron, looking exhausted and half-dead, staring at them from his position on the beach. He didn't answer Drew, the look in his eyes growing deeper with fear. "We have to run."

Something inside Annabeth's chest constricted suddenly, and breathing became laborious. The foreboding sense that she had woken up with proved to be right; something bad was going to happen. A glance to the horizon proved that the shadows growing there had extended, their reach stretching over the ocean, straight towards their island.

It was Clarisse who asked, a small tremor in her steel voice, "why?"

The arrow that ripped through her stomach was answer enough.

Everything erupted: Chris shouted in mortal agony as Clarisse stared at the metal arrow sticking through her stomach; Clarisse collapsed suddenly, the severity of the injury catching up to her shock; the shadows on the horizon shot towards the island, and things came out of the shadows, different monsters and persons; that blonde-haired girl from earlier, Willow Livingston, emerged, wielding a sword that seemed to be crafted from darkness.

The demigods and satyr froze suddenly, unsure what to do. Annabeth's gaze found Cameron, still processing his sudden reappearance. Willow smiled, her teeth sharp as a wolf's, as she drank in the sight of Annabeth standing in front of her.

"We meet again, daughter of Athena," the girl drawled, her wide eyes feigning innocence. "All paths lead back to the darkness; why bother running from the inevitable?"

Annabeth said nothing, but something warm and familiar blossomed in her chest. This was a scenario she knew very well; the old Annabeth had stood down her fair share of enemies. She would know what to say, what do do. But this Annabeth didn't.

So, she took a step forward, stepping away from the safety of Hazel's closeness, stepping in front of Clarisse's collapsed figure. There was only her standing between an army of darkness and the other demigods.

Willow didn't look scared. The wind played with the girl's blonde hair, pulling it away from her face. There was something foreboding about her appearance, the mixture of girlish innocence and dark danger. But something about her didn't scare Annabeth; something told her that she had faced much worse before.

"Why do you want to kill us?" asked Annabeth. But something about her words were wrong. They fell out of her mouth, not in English, but in a foreign tongue. The back of her mind supplied an answer: she just spoke in Greek.

A ripple moved through the army, and uncertainty flashed across the faces of monsters and humans alike. Because right now, Annabeth felt more like Annabeth Chase, like the woman everyone expected her to be. Foreign words rested on her tongue, and a knife hung from her hip.

The monsters moved suddenly, as if directed to by an invisible voice. They erupted in a mass of darkness, pouncing for the small group of heroes. Hazel moved, holding her hands out, and chains and shackles formed around the limbs of the monsters, holding them in place. Grover had pulled out an instrument, and was playing it frantically, causing the small trees to wrap around the army, trapping them there.

But Willow didn't look concerned at her army's status, not even when Chris collapsed at Clarisse's side. The girl only had eyes for Annabeth, and everything else seemed to fade away for her.

Annabeth took another step forward, no longer afraid of anything that Willow might do to her. Because she had gone through Hell and back, and she had made her way out. Annabeth was alive and nothing anyone could do to her would ever hurt her.

Annabeth Chase took another step forward, closing the distance between her and the monster wearing a girl's face. Shadows gathered around Willow, like a shroud, but Annabeth paid them no mind. She stared at Willow, no fear in her gaze.

Willow struck, quick like a viper, slashing her sword towards Annabeth's face. She managed to dodge, but not before it scratched her. Blood ran down her face freely, hot against her skin. Willow struck again, her elbow catching Annabeth's neck. She collapsed on the sand, blood pooling below her nose.

Willow grinned above her, confident in her victory. "You seem to have a habit of falling. Remember your trip to Tartarus?"

The word sent an ancient chill down her spine, but she paid it no mind. She tried to sit up, tried to fight Willow, but Annabeth didn't know how. The art of war was foreign to her, and Willow was well-rehearsed.

Stand up, a voice in the back of her mind commanded, stand up and fight.

Suddenly, a red glow encased Annabeth, casting the sand around her in a red-tinted hue. Willow's face paled, smile evaporated, and the shadows withdrew for a brief second. "The mark of Athena," she muttered in something that might be awe.

But Annabeth didn't care about the red glowing figure above her head. She didn't care about the army slowly surrounding her. She didn't care about the beautiful girl staring at her.

Something cracked deep within her chest and shattered; it might have been her soul. But Annabeth Chase, the lost daughter of Athena, slowly stood up, wiping the blood from her face. The Earth held its breath as she pulled an unused dagger from its sheath. She pulled it out, and wielded it as if she had done it all her life.

These people had become her family. Even Hazel and Grover, whom she had just met, didn't feel like strangers. They were her family, and Annabeth would protect them to her last breath.

Her dagger gleamed in the sunlight, and the Hellhounds seemed to shy away from its gleam. But Willow was relentless, and she stood her ground even as her army shifted a full step back. Knife against sword. Woman against monster.

Clarisse, bleeding out. Drew, still injured from the day before. Chris, useless in his worry. Hazel, fending off half the army. Grover, working to heal Clarisse. Cameron, sword in hand and a promise in his eyes. And Annabeth, a warrior in the form of a woman. Everything was still for five breaths. Until a familiar smirk found its way onto Annabeth's face.

Then the Earth released a shattering crescendo of a scream, and everything erupted into chaos.

• • •

END OF PART TWO