Triad of Valor

Amidst the End

"The world is ending, we are doomed" or "the gods have forsaken us!". Each and every variation of those negative thoughts went through the minds of all demigods in the battlefield at least once. There was no escaping it; clouds were blocking any natural light source, New Rome's defenses were decimated, people were dying by the second. And the worst of all?

The monsters never stopped coming. No matter how much they died, they always came back in an hour or two. It wasn't uncommon to hear about someone in the battlefield that fought the same creature twice — whenever anyone could have an actual conversation, of course. The feeling of hopelessness and impending doom had already settled itself inside the hearts of those still fighting, that also applied to the trio currently resting after yet another horde.

Sitting closer to a makeshift bonfire was Tomás Flores, a son of Apollo that specializes in healing and medicine. Tomás was a young, tan man with blond short hair and heavily defined facial features. Unfortunately for him, the past hours were not kind to his appearance, so he wasn't even close to looking as stylish as he wanted to be. For normal people, though, that only meant he was weirdly well taken care of, especially considering the situation at hand. Underneath all that existed only a scared teenager, who had seen more than his fair share of dead bodies and mangled — but still alive — companions, and aside from his older brothers, he was also one of those in charge of trying to keep them alive. Every time he failed, even if it was not his fault, it shook him to his core.

At the other side of the bonfire sat Tristan McClane, a son of Zeus with white skin, blond long hair and bandages all over himself. He was staring at a can of beans that was heating above the fire, waiting patiently, eager to eat something and distract himself from the memories of the battles he fought. In one of them, a few hours ago, Tristan was fighting a cyclops with the last of his strength, then he heard a terrifying noise. As ominous as the sound that came before it, a bronze dragon swooped in from the skies and breathed down fire all over the enemies lines, including the cyclops in front of him. Just as Tristan was still trying to process it all, two men jumped from the dragon.

While they were still falling, one of them turned into an armored elephant, then the other summoned the Little Tiber to break his fall and release a wave of destruction. Both of them ran towards the now opened path, fighting like two unstoppable beasts. It didn't take Tristan even a second to recognize the heroes that had suddenly appeared. Leo Valdez, the praetor Frank Zhang and Percy Jackson, three of the mightiest demigods in this world. He had known them from word of mouth, as most demigods idolized them, and also because his sister accompanied them lots of times.

The last one from the trio was a son of Athena called Arsene. He had dark, short hair and used a very large trench coat, accompanying hazy gray eyes and a very tired face. Instead of resting, though, Arsene preferred to verify the integrity of every single weapon in the weapons box in this checkpoint. While he actually cared about those kinds of things, that was mostly his way of muffling the sounds coming from the battle and calming his mind. Considering the whole situation, Arsene kept himself mostly fine, which was both one of his strengths and one of Athena's mental fortitude heirlooms. What bothered him most was the command formation being broken just as his older half-sister, Annabeth, disappeared about an hour ago.

Taking into account her overwhelming intelligence, he highly doubted she was in trouble, but that only meant that there was no more effective way of communicating safely. That severely irked his overly tactical Athena-child mind.

The three of them had no connection whatsoever, but even then it was the safest place to be in their minds. They had fought together, saw death together, saved each other so many times one could never take count. That kind of bond was almost unbreakable, so even the weirdest of companies was still more than welcome in such an apocalyptic scenario.