Abandoned- a pertemis story Ψ ☑️

Natural Selection. Chapter 23

So. How are you guys? Having fun?
Yes. Your having fun.
I command it.- Internet Head

Ψ Percy Ψ
"We've got to get out of here first." Carmen told me, wiping the sweat from his eyes.
"Shouldn't be too hard, right?" I said, gulping.
We looked at each other as scrabbling and distant screeches echoed in the halls.
"Um. I think we're going to die here." He said as he stabbed his sword into the ground, it sank into the tile like butter, and turned to Artemis and Alexus "try and hold them off while I do my best to get them in a stable condition."
I nodded, breathing hard "how do they look?" I brandished my sword.
Carmen squatted down next to them and pressed a hand into Alexus's side, heat rising from his hands as the smell of burning cloth assaulted my nose "Alexus should be dead. If we hadn't gotten here..."
I closed my eyes for a brief moment, fatigue overtaking me.
It felt like it had been years rather than minutes since we'd entered the mall.
The blood from that monster before had dried on our skin, dirt and grime from the cracking walls and ceiling covered our skin slick with sweat.
It would be one long day.
I turned, my eyes finally adjusted to the dark completely.
Eyes lit up the shop, I could hear the rustling of scales and the flicking of tongues.
For the first time in a long time, I quaked with fear.
No. Not now, not when it matters. I can't be afraid to fight them, I can't.
But as I looked into the sea of eyes I felt my legs almost give out.
Annabeth wouldn't be afraid to die.
I took a deep breath and steeled my resolve.
I could still feel my anger at Annabeth's death, my hatred for those monsters that had taken her life.
When the first wave came I slashed at them, forcing them to maintain some distance, before bursting the pipes in the floor to make a wall.
It was only water though and soon they came through, waves of liquid splashing everywhere.
I stabbed one in the skull, throwing it aside only to block the claws to another one.
They were trying to crowd me.
I couldn't do it on my own, I couldn't take them all, but I didn't dare call out for help.
One wrapped its tell around my leg, attempting to gnaw my face off with its rotting teeth.
I fended off another as I made a fatal stumble, the monster having thrown me off balance.
Oh schist!
The creature on me burrowed it's teeth into my shoulder and I screamed out in pain before making a water hand swat it away.
I clutched my shoulder, looking at the wound that was deep and hissing. The blood was dark and steaming.
That's my sword arm. I felt a sense of dread as more crawled through my water wall that faltered a bit.
The darkness suddenly lit up as fire was flung past my face and into the monster's.
They reared back, putting out the flames with my water.
Carmen put a hand on my shoulder, steam rising from it, and looked at me grimly, his pupils looking like flames "I'm here to help now. Don't strain yourself."
I looked at him gratefully and saw that his hands and clothes were splattered with blood, still fresh and wet.
I didn't have to guess as to who's blood it was.
"Back me up?" I asked, giving him a tired smile.
He raised a hand and his skin seemed to become fire, his white bones peering through the flames "Maybe you'll back me up."
I didn't have time to worry about what I'd just seen. I turned my attention back into the monsters lurking into the dark.
I stabbed at a monster that tried to strike at Carmen, cutting into a finger but not severing it.
I scowled. Why are they so tough?
I shoved another monster to the side and watched it become engulfed in flames.
I watched Carmen hold his hand in a halberd, flames lighting up the area in front of us.
His slashed his hand and a wave of fire shot from it, hitting the monsters once more.
Each time a monster was hit with fire it retreated into my water wall which quenched the flames and steam rose from their bodies.
Carmen turned and grabbed his sword with a flaming hand, pulling it out of the ground.
I hacked at the neck of a particularly slipper monster, finally taking off the head once Carmen loosened it with a globe of fire.
"Do the thing!" I asked him, taking a step back.
Carmen nodded in response, moving past me and raising his sword.
The "thing" had something to do with how we made his sword.
You see we'd found out that the trick where he heats up the edges of his sword didn't work on that crystal material, so we found an alternative.
It took lots of work, shaping and reshaping and cutting and drilling, but eventually we figured out a way to heat up the entirety of the sword.
Stygian Iron rods, small like wire, weaved their way through the sword in tiny holes that had taken a long time to perfect.
Carmen would send small heat waves up the handle and The Stygian iron would absorb it and then slowly heat the sword blade as though it were a space heater.
Through this method Carmen could do triple the damage he'd done before.
I would know, when we tested it out Riptide didn't quite sit right in my hand for an hour or so.
My hope was that this trick would work just as well on these monsters.
Carmen raised his sword as the blade began to glow a warm golden color, small embers trailing after it.
"Percy! Help me out here, play support!" He called as he slammed his sword into the thick snake hide of a monster's lower half.
I nodded and flicked my wrist, making my water wall guard his sides like a shield, the strings of water small and moving fast like rapids in a river.
Some monsters escaped him though and came after me to which I responded with sharp jets of water from the pipes near me and Riptide's deadly blade.
I furrowed my brow as I thought of something.
Carmen does more damage by heating up his sword... could I copy him?
I lowered my sword into a small pool of water and willed it to cover the blade, then made sure it was moving just as fast as the water surrounding Carmen.
I felt myself grin a bit in satisfaction.
I turned my attention back on the monsters and raised my sword.
Some charged me and I swung my sword, cutting at them with my sword while splashes of high pressure water flung from the blade and added more carnage to the battle.
I cut into a monster's neck. It wasn't a clean cut, it was raggedy and uneven, but it killed the monster so who am I to complain?
I took a step back and so did Carmen, now we fought shoulder to shoulder.
Flames and water caused steam to rise in multiple places, particularly where we were.
I kept tabs on a pipe that I could burst at any moment. It might come in handy.
Carmen turned to look at me for a moment, his clothing singed and embers floating off of him. His neck and chin as well as his cheek were engulfed in flames.
Half his face seemed to be the bare skeleton, flames whistling through the open parts like the mouth and a little through the eye socket.
He turned his eye on me which was just a small pinprick of flame, like a white hot iris.
I felt a bolt of panic go through me until Carmen spoke, his voice sounding almost echoey from within the flames.
"We can't keep fighting like this, we'll literally run out of steam." He said and reassured me. It was Carmen, not a Monster.
I nodded and sighed "we've got to find a way out of this."
Carmen growled "can you flood the ground under them with water?" He asked.
I inhaled and readied myself "sounds more than doable."
I touched the ground with my sword and let all the water pool under the monsters.
I looked back at my partner in crime "what now?"
Carmen slipped a hand in his pocket and then pulled out a small rounded rectangular token, made of shining celestial bronze.
He flipped the coin and showed me the words inscribed on it.
It was Vrontí, meaning thunderclap.
"Is that a... rune of some kind?" I asked.
He nodded "something I learned from my associate, Constantine Kekavich." His skull grinned at me as he got ready to throw the rune "I've been saving this baby for a while."
I pushed my eyebrows together as I moved back to give him room.
He slammed the rune down onto the wet floor and it shattered, emanating thunderbolts on the floor.
I grabbed Carmen by his collar and yanked him back and out of the way of the bolts.
We fell in our butts as the air filled with the smell of burning flesh.
The halls filled with screams as I tore my hand away from Carmen's clothes.
"Ah." I muttered quietly. I looked at my hand and saw that the skin was red and burnt.
Carmen shrugged as his flames started to go out "sorry... I didn't meant to burn you."
I put my hand in a small puddle of water that wasn't electrified "it's fine."
We looked out over the sea of dead monsters, fried from within.
One remained, larger than the rest.
It's decaying body was oddly twisted with its lower snake half, it's skull having a cobra hood.
It's eyes were pinpricks of light and it's decaying skin looked like scales.
I got up and helped up Carmen.
"This is definitely the mini-boss." He remarked, grabbing his sword and bouncing it in his grip.
"On three?" I looked over and asked.
He nodded "one."
I reached into my pocket and removed Riptide which I'd dropped when I fell. I popped off the cap and watched the blade spring from the ballpoint pen "two."
Carmen's flames started up again "three!"
I bolted forward, jumping off of the counter for an arial assault.
Carmen's flames flared up and turned blue, heating coming off of him in waves. He made a throwing motion and blue flames rolled off of his arm at the monster.
The monster screamed as the flames licked up at its skin and clung to it.
I willed the water below me to follow my motion as I slashed downward into the Monster's left shoulder, the blade cutting into it down to its right side.
The water followed me and acted like more swords cutting through the monster and extinguishing the flames.
I stumbled away as the monster fell, cut diagonally through the torso.
It's clawed steaming hand grabbed onto my ankle and looked up at me "Percy Jackson... you don't understand what's happening but you will soon. It will take all of you." It's mouth didn't seem to move, only the eyes pulsing. It laughed a hoarse, raspy, and terrible laugh "not that you will get along well enough to kill us all..."
I stabbed Riptide into its wrist and tried to pull my foot away "what does that mean?" I stomped on the hand with my foot, trying to escape.
It cocked its head, the bones crackling and flesh tearing as it did so "did you really think that the gods, the demigods, and all the myths were purely magical?" It laughed again, cackling maniacally "there is science there too... there has always been." It leaned towards me and said in a singsong voice "the balance will be tipped! Our bodies will be filled! What's the difference between fake and real, magic and science, black and white? What-!"
The monster was cut off as Carmen reached me and roughly grabbed the monster by the face.
It's tongue wrapped around his arm and burnt him but he didn't flinch.
Instead the monster let go of me and clutched at its head, trying to move away from Carmen while blue flames started to burn the little skin it had.
It screamed out as the flames exploded from inside it, out of the eye sockets and mouth and anywhere the bone was showing.
Skin flaked off and bones melted.
It exploded in a heat wave that spread ash, embers, monster dust, and even blood everywhere.
Carmen and I shared a look.
We were both rattled by what the monster had said.
I spat "I think some of him got in my mouth..." I coughed and shook with disgust.
Carmen dropped to his knees and hands, coughing blood.
My disgust turned to worry in the blink of an eye "Carmen! You okay? What's wrong?"
He shook his head and wheezed "I'm- I'm fine. Alexus and Artemis should be alright to move now... but we've got to get them better medical attention quick." He spat more blood and wiped it off of his mouth with a sleeve.
That was kind of a bad idea though, because said sleeve was covered in ash and monster dust.
I was hesitant to leave him be but I complied, jogging over to the two injured members of our party curled up in the corner.
They seemed mostly conscious and were now moaning because They could now feel pain.
"How are you girls holding up?" I asked them, helping them up one at a time.
Artemis looked at her arm and rolled up her sleeve. Where her arm had broken there was a burn, like when you could tell something had been welded together. She sighed a little "somehow I'm okay. I'm really tired but my arm feels fine..." she told me.
Alexus wasn't so happy with her treatment. She lifted up her shirt to just below her chest and growled "what in the Hades!?" The place where she'd been bleeding badly had been replaced by a hand print. There were small lines that had been closed up like on Artemis' arm and just below her sternum was a clearly defined fingerprint.
I shrugged "he heals with his hands I guess." If I had to take a guess I'd say those line where places he dragged his finger, like that one time when he healed Alexus's cut. The other places must have take much more than just a finger to heal.
Alexus dropped her shirt and clenched her fists "I'll kill him."
I moved away, slightly terrified "we had no other choice?" I tried.
Alexus shoved me aside and stomped towards Carmen "I would rather have died." She exclaimed.
Artemis stepped around me to go after her, giving me an apologetic look.
I followed grudgingly. Hunters.
We were all more or less in shock when we saw Carmen, in worse shape then when I'd left him.
He looked up at me and wiped the blood off of his face again "could you... help me up?" He said weakly.
I grimaced "what happened." More of a statement than a question. I held out my hand and he took it, leaning on me for support once he was up.
He hacked out a small laugh "healing and fighting and then turning up the heat to make blue fire really takes it out of you." He explained.
Alexus narrowed her eyes "you shouldn't have gone that far."
Carmen looked dead tired which was basically how I felt "we all would've died if Percy and I hadn't..." he trailed off, breathing heavy.
I put a hand to my head. I dropped Riptide because any more and my hand would've felt like it was on fire. My body felt weak and my lungs seemed to need more and more air.
I handed Carmen over to Alexus and sat down heavily "we've got to get to Camp."
Artemis nodded, her face grim "from what that monster told us they should know what's going on."
And then she grabbed me, forcing me to use her as support, and started to move.
She shambled over the remaining corpses of the monster's we'd fought, attempting to exit the store.
Why can't we catch a break? Seriously... we just had to clean out this entire mall.
And that was when I passed out.