Fear of Erebus

An Unexpected Saviour

"Perseus Jackson! He destroyed Kronos! The Time Lord has faded!" Chrysaor shouted. The Time Lord has faded. There was no way Perseus had the power to destroy a titan, not on his own. It was impossible. It would mean that Time would be destroyed, and without Time... there would be nothing... the whole of existence would have imploded! "KILL THEM!" Chrysaor ordered. "Kill them all!" The son of Medusa had managed to get to his ship, abandoning Sciron where he lay. The dolphin crew circled us, and Thalia had now been shaken out of her unfeeling state and straight into battle mode.

"Got any bright ideas?" Castellan ventured as the three of us backed into a tight circle, making sure that we weren't exposed to an attack from behind. There was a gust of wind and Chrysaor's ship was ripped from where it had been stuck. The Ago II immediately started to sink faster, the hull was now completely underwater and we would forced to fight uphill if we wanted to avoid taking a bath in the Atlantic. My mind was still wheeling from Chrysaor's confession. Something must have happened to Jackson down in Tartarus, something or someone must have given him the power to defeat a titan, force Kronos into fading...

Suddenly a wave of nausea overtook me, and I was confronted with a darkening thought; what if... what if Perseus had forced Poseidon to fade...

I froze at the thought, my ichor seemed too cold and I couldn't help but remember Khione, remember Alaska- the place where he had attacked me, tried to fade me... he had almost made me fade on his island too... he had known that Apollo was fading...

"Lady Artemis! DUCK!" I was snapped out of my thoughts by Thalia's warning, and immediately followed through as a spear sailed over my head. I swiped the end of my bow at the dolphin-hybrid's feet and when he fell, I stomped on his face, snapping his neck and move onto my next target.

Chrysaor's ship had disappeared back into the fog, and out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Sciron drag himself to the edge of the ship and roll himself into the water below.

I shot my arrow to the left, where three dolphin's were advancing on a distracted Hermes' spawn- they blew up and exploded in a shower of gold dust. The sea was starting to become uncontrollable, jolting the Argo II from one side to the other, and I swear by the fates that much of it was now underwater, our fight had to be moved up to the Quarter Deck.

"We need to get out of here!" Thalia shouted from my right as she slashed at another dolphin. Right now, I didn't really have a plan... okay, so maybe I did; kill the dolphins, survive this doomed ship, hunt down and kill Perseus Jackson. But I wasn't really going to discuss that with Thalia, especially not now.

"Lady Artemis! Can't you teleport us out of here!" Castellan yelled over the fray.

"Don't you think I would have done that if I could!" Stupid boy, I knew for a fact that we had sailed passed the forcefield several miles back, and now my teleporting powers were limited... I wonder if those on Olympus had realised my disappearance yet, would they assume that I had gotten captured again, and send out another humiliating search party?

My ears perked up when I heard the curious sound of... barking? I stabbed another dolphin in the eye with my bow, and took a moment to look around. We were quite literally in the middle of nowhere, why was I hearing a dog bark- was a losing my mind? Was this the first sign of fading?

"Do you hear that?" Castellan had also stopped in his fighting after pushing a wounded dolphin into the sea. "It sounds like barking." I didn't have time to consider, the squealing of the dolphins were annoying enough. I fired another arrow, and there was another satisfying boom and it only made me wish I had fired one at the cowardly Chrysaor and his ship.