Percy Jackson: Night In The Land Beyond The Gods

"We're all against each other."

Okay... Sarah doesn't exist, we now call her Sandra *shrugs*.

Piper's POV

Inwardly cursing out Percy Jackson, I turned to face Sandra the Empousai with a fake smile on my face. The monster looked visibly nervous, something that didn't reassure me at all.

"So what will we have to do in these Trials?" I asked her, and the rest of the group quickly tuned in on our conversation. Annabeth, however, only seemed to be giving a small fraction of her focus to us and I wondered what plan it was that she was making.

"I can't tell you. Even if I could, I wouldn't, because that would defy the purpose of them." Sandra looked actually sad about it... an idea that surprised me.

"So what?" Frank snapped, his muscles tense and his eyes worried, "We're just going to have to go in there without a clue of what's going on?"

"Of course not, Jackson must have given you some clues, right?"

"... Like information about what each Belief was?" this time it was Nico who spoke, a hand on the hilt of his sword (I noticed how he'd casually kept it out in the open for all the monsters to see rather than concealing it like he normally did).

"Basically."

Darkness, Magic and Bloodshed...

My mind whirled as Sandra undoubtedly handed me the final piece to the puzzle. We would have to prove ourselves to believe in – or follow the path of – one or more of the ideals.

"So they'll make us compete in competitions to show our possible aptitude for one of their Beliefs?" Annabeth spoke absentmindedly, clearly voicing her thoughts whether she meant to or not. "That means we're all against each other."

I gripped the hilt of Katroptris. Something about her voice frightened me. It wasn't the fact that she said so openly, but that she didn't have any emotion behind her words. It was as if we meant nothing to her, as if she was analysing a chess board.

Sandra's face was grey and she didn't dare look us in the eye. It was a confirmation: were against each other.

But our time was up and we couldn't question it further, because the large monster stood up from his seat and the Earth trembled beneath him. Surely we couldn't win... but we had to.

We had to.

And so as we were lined up facing the leering looks of the beasts surrounding us, I stared defiantly at the monster who stood before us. I couldn't let them defeat us.

We'd come too far to lose. We had to win.

We had to.