The sun was just starting to set. This was it...the final battle. The one where they would hopefully defeat Gaea, and the demigods could finally live in peace with the monsters.
The Apollo campers and hunters were perched on the tops of the cabins. Chiron was on the roofs, too, gripping his bow do tightly, Percy could see his knuckles turning white from the ground.
"You ready?" asked Jason, who was next to Percy, turning his coin over and over in his hand.
"As ready as a guy who's about to fight an entire army of monsters," Percy answered.
Jason chuckled quietly. "We'll be fine. We have the Titans and about 200 monsters on our side."
Percy wondered whether it was enough. Gaea would have a lot more monsters than they did. And that made Percy nervous. A lot more nervous than he would admit. And he was scared. Scared for himself. Scared for his friends. Scared for the mortals who would undoubtedly suffer if the demigods failed in stopping Gaea.
Percy felt a hand slip into his and squeeze it. He squeezed back, knowing it was Annabeth without even looking at her.
Just as the sun disappeared, an enormous army of monsters appeared to take its place. Percy's heart dropped. He had expected a big army, but this was beyond what he had imagined.
Hundreds of thousands of monsters, all waiting to tear the demigods to shreds. Or were they? More than half of the monsters didn't look too eager to Percy. In fact, they looked a little hesitant, moving in slow paces, sometimes taking a couple steps backwards.
What was going on? Percy had thought that the monsters would be delighted to be standing there, cackling as they took in the sight that was the ant-sized army compared to theirs.
They stopped a few feet in front of Thalia's tree, Peleus growling menacingly at them. Dirt Face herself appeared in front of them, right next to Peleus, who snapped at her dirt coloured dress.
She then spent the next ten minutes trying to yank the dress from between the dragon's teeth, with the demigods and the monsters behind her laughing quietly.
Once she finally managed to pull the dress away, which resulted in a large chunk of the fabric missing, the soil underneath Peleus disappeared, making both the dragon and the tree fall in.
The barrier was still there, but it was weakening. Dirt Face turned to the monsters. "What are you worthless creatures waiting for? Attack them!"
The monsters on her side exchanged a glance and charged. But not at the demigods. They charged at Gaea. The demigods could hear her screaming for help from the Titans and the giants, but none of them moved.
They only watched as the monsters attacked their mother. She disappeared in a cloud of dust, leaving her attackers confused.
Had she given up so easily? It seemed like it. "Well, that was easy! What a coward!" yelled a camper. A moment of silence, and the demigods started cheering. No one had died, and Gaea was gone.
The monsters outside of camp were climbing down into the hole the Gaea had made to rescue Peleus, forming a ladder made of monsters to get down safely.
Percy looked at Annabeth, who was smiling brightly at him. "I was not expecting it to be that easy." Who was?
Percy had just opened his mouth to say something when the ground started to shake. The ground in front of the demigods began to collapse in on itself.
Gaea rose from it, a dark figure beside her. Judging from the daggers in her hands, she wasn't here to apologise.
Percy tturned his attention to the dark figure. He looked familiar. Really familiar. With his vacuum-like face and the way he kept rubbing his arms as if he were afraid that he was going to lose them.
