When Flames Go Dark [A Leo Valdez Fanfiction]

Chapter 6

Outside, the Romans and monsters saw that the cave had collapsed and paused in the fight. They waited with bated breath for someone to resurface, a movement of a rock, or even a whisper, just any sign, any sign that anyone was alive.

No one resurfaced.

Leila fell to her knees.

"No..."

Boom. A stone boulder rolled to the ground.

The devastated Romans looked up.

Reyna weakly climbed out of the rocks, still glowing a dark red. The blessing had saved her.

She thrusted her spear into the air victoriously, and the remaining Romans cheered.

Kampê was dead. But Reyna Ramírez-Arellano had lived to see another day.

~.~

At that moment, the Daughter of Bellona's legs gave way, and she fell forward, crashing towards the ground.

Michael Kahale, who had been near the rocks, caught her just in time before she hit the ground like a sack of rocks.

Their praetor had saved them all, but there were far too many casualties, while the number of monsters multiplied every five minutes. Too many had been injured, and even more who were dead. They were fighting a losing battle.

It wasn't a very romanly thing to do, but Michael knew that it had to be done.

"Retreat!" He hollered, and the romans hastily regrouped before sprinting back to camp, carrying the injured. No one wanted to leave the demigods who had sacrificed their lives behind to the monsters, but they had no choice.

But as far as they were concerned, they hadn't lost. They had gotten rid of one major problem for Camp Half Blood. The battle had only just begun.

~.~

"The bones in your arm are completely crushed. There's no way it can heal so you'll have to get a prosthetic arm," Will told Reyna after examining her.

"There's no way in Tartarus I'm getting a metal arm," Reyna exclaimed indignantly.

"Well you won't be able to fight without one."

An hour later, Reyna took off with Arion, heading back to Camp Half-Blood - with a new metal arm made by the Vulcan children.

~.~

From the north of the island, the Ares and Athena children roared and ran towards the enemy.

The enemy charged, Leo and a shimmering but almost solid Minos leading the pack.

All of them fought like demons (they were the children of the gods of war after all).

Though they were fighting their hardest, whenever they killed a monster, several others replaced it (courtesy of Minos), and it was a full five hours before Clarisse realised that they were fighting a losing battle.

At least they had bought some time for whatever plan Annabeth had cooked up for Percy.

"Troops! Go back to camp! Retreat! I'll do my best to take them! Camp needs you all back there!" she yelled.

The warriors were hesitant.

"Go!" Clarisse shouted again, and they sprinted back towards camp.

She turned back to face the wave of monsters. She knew that she couldn't take them all down by herself.

It didn't matter. She was just following Silena's footsteps. After all, she had died protecting camp, and Clarisse would do the same.

After all, she was a child of war, and she couldn't imagine anything more honourable than having her last moments on the battlefield, fighting for her home.