Heart Pierced - Kayla Knowles (1)

XXIV. Defending Everything I Hold Dear (Like A Madman)

Alternative Chapter Title: How I Became The Beast Of Camp Half Blood

(A/N: Three more chapters after this one, including a Kayla POV, until we get to the final part. I hope you've been paying attention to the stuff I have included in the past few chapters, from the whole Typhon crowning Colton the Monster King, to the mysterious figures watching him and Kayla (+ Michael, Caeli, and Austin) in the last chapter. It will all make sense during Part III.

Also, a shout-out to multiple people, including first up -JASONSGRACE for two reasons. One is of course, Belle is in here and the second is that this version of the fight is primarily an amalgamation of my own words and several other versions of the fight, mixed into one narrative. Other versions include Askinar-The-Dark's version from "Demigod?", Annabeth's perspective in Morro11 's version, A03 user Grumpylia's version, and both versions of the fight that Imaginebooks has written. So yeah, definitely a lot of stuff going on.

Also, this chapter is inspired by the legend of Heinrich Severloh, a German Soldier in WWII who became known as the "Beast Of Omaha" who fired on American troops at Omaha Beach with an MG42, claiming to have fired 13,500 rounds in nine hours of combat along with 400 rounds from two Karabiner 98k rifles. While some parts of his account, published in 2000, are considered skeptical or unreliable by historians, the fact that he survived D-Day and lived to tell the tale is remarkable in and of itself, especially since he had been posted in a strongpoint on the
beach where the toughest and fiercest fighting on D-Day was fought.)

There's a mixture of monsters pouring out of the labyrinth - various types. Dracanae, Laistrygonian Giants, Hellhounds, Cyclopes.. you name it. All of them - or whatever portion of the group were not hit by projectiles from other campers - were torn to shreds by rattles of gunfire from the MG42. But they keep pouring out of the labyrinth, straight into the carefully thought out kill-zone. So, what did me and Michael do?

We kept pouring fire down into them, at least until the barrel became hot and we had to change it. With the use of the special asbestos cloth that came with the gun barrels - because keep in mind that after you fire upwards to 250-300 rounds, not at the same time in one go mind you, the barrel of the MG42 is really, really hot due to being air-cooled - we changed out the barrels in as little as ten seconds. A well trained crew could do it in as little as four to seven seconds, but we weren't at that level yet.

We had set up a large bucket on my right to catch the spent round casings, and it did the job quiet well. Michael was on my left, making sure the cartridge belts flowed into where the feed went without any problems, while I simply just nuzzled the butt of the gun into my right shoulder - which on this occasion was protected by some rubber padding wrapped around it by Beckendorf to protect my shoulder from the kick of the gun, because due to the rapid rate of fire, you couldn't really aim this gun at a target for longer than 5 rounds fired - and just kept mowing down monsters left and right.

Apollo had gifted his cabin with explosive arrows recently, and both Caeli and Kayla nearby were definitely putting the bulk of those arrows to good use. Austin had somehow managed to acquire a bolt action M1 Garand during his travels to college with Caeli with plenty of ammo, which had arrived via transport from the air from a friendly monster loyal to the Olympians, and so he was firing on the left of us at the alternate MG position, pouring rounds into the monsters.

To our right, Beckendorf and Jake along with their siblings were having a field day with their  catapults, traps, and other devices. With the help of Clarisse and the Stolls, they had also emplaced a few mines in front of the labyrinth entrance, so as a result, when the first wave had exited the labyrinth, some of them had stepped on the mines, resulting in explosions and screams to echo across the valley. Before they had any chance to recover from the shock, I had opened fire into them.