Ares And Mia

Chapter 48

I fight with whatever I have left. I can barely stand, but somehow, the EOD slices and cuts with a mind of its own. It guides me, quivering in my hand as it cuts through flesh and bone. I duck beneath a trident, aimed for my eyes, and sweep whatever siren beside me off of their feet. I'm struck with a blast of water, sending me crashing into a centaur. 

I gasp, water conjured out of the air around us. Whatever nymph that was controlling it was out to kill me. The centaur tips over the side of the cliff, howling as the water washes him off of the side. I slip, the mud giving away from beneath me. Lightning responds to my call, stretching through the water and toward the assaulter. Screaming cuts through my mind, as I fall on a knee, my heart racing inside of me. 

My breath felt like it was permanently knocked out of me, my hair dripping with a mixture of water, blood, and sand. Electricity sparks in the sand around me and I wipe my cheek, a stinging line from the fight before reminding me of how hurt I was. Everything was buzzing. 

I can feel the air part before I see the arrow and I catch it. Catch it the way that I saw Ares do before, using my forefinger to guide around the arrow head and clasp around the wood. It snaps in my hand, the faint stench of smoke from the lightning making me tip my head away from the stench. The beings around me back up, no longer pushing against the barriers of the sand. The downpour is so thick, there's no use in shielding my face. 

Droplets run down my cheeks and wounds, stinging freshly from the strain. 

The clouds above part with an explosion that I can feel in my chest, a bright blue sky exposed for a moment. Ares is still fighting. But he's... 

He's holding back. Every Olympian seems to be holding back for some reason... I survey the battle ground, catching sight of brief glimpses of groups in the miles upon miles of dying beings. Spartans. Nymphs. Skeletons. They bled red. Just like I did. 

And the gods... Everyone knew about how strong they were. Apollo could literally plunge us all into world of eternal night. Hades could split the earth and release all of whatever was in the Underworld to ravage the beings still living. Hermes could quite literally, create portals to swallow us all up in an infinite black hole. 

But why didn't they? 

'Do not panic.'

"What?" I ask, just as a being holding a scythe leaps at me. I parry the blade with the EOD and the scent of smoke rises to my nose. A fire? No, there's no way. This rain wouldn't let anything burn. I shove the being off of me, electricity climbing past the weapons and diving for flesh. The being wails, almost baby-like and chilling. Where? My throat burns and my heart picks up. The dagger in my left hand slices on the being's torso, before plunging on the wielder's hand. I choke, my ribs crushed with a sudden gravity--I can't--

I can't breathe. 

I cough, stumbling on weak knees. I can't fucking breathe. Smoke tears at my lungs and I fall onto all fours in the mud, the bleeding body next to me croaking. I choke, saliva falling from my open lips as my lungs crippled me. A heart attack?! 

I let go of the dagger, gripping at the gear on my chest. I try to speak, to call for help, but all that leaves me is a harsh wheezing. Help me. Someone help me, I'm dying. My hands clench against the water collected in the grooves of sand. Black spots scatter across my vision and I claw at my throat, just as the ground rumbles. 

It doesn't rumble like before, no, it rumbles as if it's an omen. Like if it...

Like if it were a prophecy. 

A massive hand, that I can see even from the cliff side, rises from the groove in the center of the battlefield. The size of a four story building, the fingers dig deep into the gravel that I previously saw Trevor and Charles on. I stop struggling, my eyes growing wide. It was a blue-black shade, almost matte, as it slams down onto the battle ground. A hush spreads through the beings as they turn, eyes all directed toward the change. No.