Chapter Text
There’s a split second of rumbling, a flash of marble falling in the corner of her eye. Thalia turns, but she’s almost too late.
Almost.
She grabs Annabeth’s arm and pulls.
It’s not enough.
It’s just enough to save her life.
The crunch and crack of bones under marble, the yelp of pain from her sister.
The statue lands hard on Annabeth’s leg, and Thalia doesn’t need to be a medic to know it’s fucked.
“Annabeth!” Percy yells. The statue had landed on him too but had crumbled on contact. A chunk of marble slides off his shoulder as he moves towards Annabeth.
“Go!” Annabeth shouts back, a firmness in her jaw. “I’ll be fine!”
Percy hesitates, torn between his love and his duty.
Thalia moves first, wrapping a hand around Percy’s arm and tugging him forward.
“We need to go now, or we’ll miss our chance.” She grits out. She’s said that before, hasn’t she?
Fire flashes in Percy’s eyes as they run up the last of the crumbling stairs.
Luke was at the top, along with one of his minions. Thalia feels anger crackle through her veins, feels sparks dance along every inch of her skin. Her hand clenches around her spear, turning her knuckles white.
Luke isn’t her fight; she can tell from the look in Percy’s eyes. It doesn’t matter how badly she wants to pummel that fucker into a grease stain on the floor, she knows Percy wants it more. He's the Prophecy kid; this has to be his fight.
She turns her anger towards the other enemy. He's thin, his armour hanging dangerously loose. He wears an eyepatch, which Thalia can use to her advantage. She spots the small knife he carries, likely poisoned due to its size. She sees him suppress a flinch as she stares him down. Good. Let him be scared. She is the daughter of Zeus, she is the Lieutenant of Artemis, and, most importantly, she is fucking pissed.
She dives into battle, and the world slips away around her. Her opponent is good, sticking to the defensive, but she's better. Faster, stronger, tougher than him. She is careful, never letting him get a hit in and repaying every attempt with two of her own.
Her opponent slashes down, and she raised her shield to block. The ground rumbles beneath her feet and then it's gone.
Her breath flies out of her as she falls. Her arms flail, hoping for purchase and finding nothing. Her opponent’s eye is wide with fear as he falls with her. She knocks him away from her, knocks him down.
Please, she thinks as the ground rushes up to meet her. Don’t let me die like this. Father please. O King of the Sky, protect your daughter from this fall.
She keeps falling.
She keeps praying.
My lady Artemis, as the wind whistles in her ears, protect your Lieutenant. I am out of combat, that means I’m safe, right? O, Sister, please.
She catches sight of herself in a window as she falls. Her electric blue eyes are bright with fear. Her father’s eyes. Her brother’s eyes.
I’m sorry. she thinks, as she had done ever since that little boy was bought home.
Her body stops with a gasp. It's as sudden as landing on the ground, but she can’t feel anything beneath her. It would’ve killed her anyway, the sudden stop.
Her gods had saved her.
She is mere inches from the concrete pavement, and she moves her feet towards the floor. She's shaking, bones ringing from the impact, but it's much better than what happened to her opponent. She tells herself not to look at the corpse. It won’t give her anything but nightmares now. She has a fight to get back to.
She runs back into the Empire State Building. The guard blinks as she races to the elevator, slamming her thumb against the call button. It would take too long, the ride down, the ride up. They need her now.
“Is the lift the only way up to Olympus?” She snarls, and the guard gulps.
“There are stairs, but you’d have to be mad to take them, there’s millions-”
Thalia doesn’t bother listening to the rest as she flings the door open. The stairs aren’t very impressive, but they're clean by New York standards. She bolts up them without a second thought, taking them two- three- four-at-a-time.
She is the daughter of Zeus, dammit! She will not be stopped by these stairs. Her heart pounds as she pushes herself harder and harder. She will reach the top. Lightning crackles through her until she feels like a storm hastily shoved into the body of a girl. Faster. Faster. She will not fail.
She keeps that beat like the rumble of thunder, coming closer every second. I will not fail. I will not fail. I will not fail.
She bursts into Olympus like a girl possessed, bolting towards the throne room. The stairs are floating away, the home of the gods ready to flee. But she is Thalia Grace, Princess of Olympus. It shall bend to her will as surely as it bends to her father’s.
She leaps across the gap, landing solidly on the other side. Not wanting to lose her momentum, she races forward, towards the throne room.
Annabeth is still stuck under the statue, her brows furrowed with pain. Thalia skids to a stop, startling Annabeth.
“How…” Annabeth trails off. There isn’t time for the whole story.
“Are you okay?” Thalia drops into a squat to be at her level, passing a glance over Annabeth’s legs. She’d managed to wriggle one out slightly, but the other is still very thoroughly trapped. Thalia hopes that being a Hunter means she has sharper senses, because otherwise the amount of blood she can smell meant very bad things for Annabeth’s leg.
“As okay as I can be,” Annabeth grits out. She tries shifting her leg again and lets out a bitten-off whimper of pain. “How’s Percy?”
“He’s…” It's Thalia’s turn to trail off. She’d been so busy with her opponent, she hadn’t even looked in Percy’s direction since the fighting started. “Fighting Kronos, last I saw.”
Annabeth makes a face, but Thalia can’t tell if it's supposed to be a relieved smile or concerned grimace, given how much pain Annabeth was in.
“He’ll be fine.” Thalia assures her. “He’s fucking invulnerable, Annie.”
“So is Luke.” And Annabeth must’ve be in so much pain, not even protesting the nickname.
Thalia opens her mouth to say something back when she feels eyes on her back. She whips around, eyes landing on the form in the doorway.
It was Luke, and it wasn’t Luke. Face split in a horrid grin, was he taller now?
“You need to leave.” Annabeth has noticed the figure as well. “The gods will be here any moment.”
Thalia stands and looks down at Annabeth.
Suddenly, Thalia is twelve years old, looking down an alley for monsters and finding a little girl instead. A little girl with grey, eager eyes, looking up at Luke like he’d hung the stars when he gave her that dagger.
Suddenly, Thalia is twelve years old, making a final stand as her legs turn wooden beneath her. Looking over her shoulder and seeing a little girl with tears running from her grey eyes, lead on by a terrified Luke.
Suddenly, Thalia is fifteen years old, and will always be. And that little girl isn’t so little anymore, grim determination in her steely eyes, watching Luke like a deer watches a wolf. But he’s not Luke, not anymore.
“Run, Thalia!” That little girl is cheering her on as she tries to win a footrace against a son of Hermes. That little girl is begging her to move as she feels her life slip from her grip. That little girl is commanding her to retreat as she prepares to fight.
Gods, when did Annabeth get so big?
“Thalia, call the retreat. The gods will be here soon, and you’ll all be safer at camp when that happens.”
Thalia nods mutely and turns her back on Luke.
This time, she manages to fall right into the middle of the action. The harpy she had landed on hadn’t even been able to let out a squark before she got a combat boot to the face and turned into dust.
“What the fuck!” Clarisse yells from her chariot, not too far from where Thalia had landed.
“Fall back!” Thalia yells in response. “The gods have arrived!”
“Shouldn’t we charge?” Clarisse skids to a stop beside her, drakon skin fluttering like a flag. “It’s the final push!”
“Do you want to be here when the gods decide to make Manhattan their battlefield?” Thalia shoots back. Clarisse open her mouth to speak, so Thalia cuts her off.
“That’s an order from Annabeth. We head back to Camp.”
Clarisse’s face is still twisted in rage, but she turns and yells to the other demigods.
“Pull back!” By the gods, how did Clarisse shout like that? Was it an Ares thing, being able to give clear commands across a battlefield, or was it just Clarisse and her unfiltered rage that carried her voice?
There's a moment of hesitation among the campers.
“Now!” Clarisse pulls her chariot around, running over a Stymphalian bird. A spear gets thrown towards her, but it glances off.
That got the campers moving, Nico leading the charge as he cuts a path through the enemies.
Thalia grabs the hunting horn around her waist and lets out two short bursts, the signal for retreat. She feels more than hears the howls across the city that mean her Hunters had heard her and accepted the retreat. There are at least five less howls than there should’ve been, but Thalia can do a headcount at camp.
Kronos’s army lets out a cheer as they watch the campers retreating. Fools, the lot of them. Thalia wouldn’t be surprised if she wakes up next morning to find Manhattan flattened.
However, as she spares a glance over her shoulder to the crumbling Empire State building, she can only think one thing.
I hope Annabeth knows what she’s doing.