[Third Person Pov]
While Artemis raced toward the relative safety of Camp Half-Blood, Lucian remained behind to stall Atlas, buying her every possible second of distance. In the end, that choice was what allowed the Titan to capture him.
Atlas did not return to his true Titan form as he faced the demigod. It was not that he lacked the power to do so. Pride simply would not permit it. To transform again against a single, half-broken opponent would have been an admission of weakness he refused to make.
Lucian's body still bore the glowing marks of his Suicidal Branding. Without hesitation he charged first. Blindness meant little to him; he had fought under far worse conditions and no longer considered the lack of sight a true disadvantage. He relied on instinct, on the feel of displaced air, on the tremor of footsteps through the snow.
He met Atlas with raw strength and hard-earned technique. The earlier provocation that had drawn the Titan's full attention away from Artemis now ensured that Atlas held nothing back. Every blow was meant to punish.
Lucian was thrown through the air more than once. Each time he twisted mid-flight with calculated grace, corrected his stance upon landing, and surged forward again. He fought with both the spear in one hand and the constructed sword in the other, moving like a cornered animal—ferocious, relentless, and entirely without anything left to lose.
Atlas retaliated like a man possessed. He wanted Lucian to feel the full weight of his wrath. His punches landed with brutal, bone-jarring force, drawing violent sprays of blood that painted the surrounding snow a hazy, spreading red. The only reason Lucian remained on his feet at all was the Suicidal Branding etched into his skin. The marks forced his body to regenerate even as it was broken, but there were limits to how much punishment even that desperate magic could absorb.
Atlas finally caught the sword in his bare hands and crushed it into glittering fragments. Lucian clicked his tongue in irritation. The remaining spear reshaped itself in his grip, lengthening and curving into a wicked scythe. Atlas dodged the first sweeping cut, redirected the second, then spotted an opening. He drove a knee into Lucian's gut hard enough to lift him from the ground, seized him by the hair, and yanked his head down onto his other rising knee.
Lucian staggered backward, still refusing to release his weapons. He gasped, groaned, and winced as fresh blood coated him from face to bare chest, steaming slightly in the freezing air.
"Just why are you still fighting?!" Atlas demanded, voice thick with frustration. He drove a heavy kick into Lucian's defensive guard. The demigod slid backward through the snow, boots carving deep furrows. "You know you stand no chance! You're only wasting time and energy!"
"Hah… hah… hah…"
Lucian's breathing came in heavy, ragged gasps. A bloody grin stretched across his ruined face.
"I stand no chance? And who decided that?" He lifted his head, milky eyes somehow still managing to convey defiance. "Don't you get it, Atlas? I've already won against you."
"Huh?!" Atlas snarled, unable to believe the sheer audacity. He stood pristine and barely winded while Lucian looked ready to collapse at any moment.
"I didn't win in the traditional sense," Lucian admitted, spitting a thick mouthful of blood to the side. "You're a Titan. I'm a demigod. I'm not so arrogant that I fail to understand when I'm outclassed." He dragged in another labored breath. "But my victories—no matter how small—still mean something."
He straightened as much as his broken body would allow, a total mess of blood and bruises, yet somehow still carrying a wild, unbroken charm.
"I, a demigod, made a Titan bleed. I forced the strongest of all Titans to use his divine form. With nothing but my will I dragged you back down into mortal flesh. You didn't just come here hunting me… but Artemis as well. But you failed to capture her." Lucian's grin widened, red and feral. "I did that. All me"
A wet, almost triumphant laugh escaped him.
"Your pride… your dignity… They belong to me now. You may have won the battle today, but I'm the one winning the war. Through you I have become immortal. My name will be engraved in your heart forever. And that," he finished, voice dropping into a rasp of pure conviction, "is a victory that transcends any physical fight—"
Atlas was already in front of him.
The Titan's fist drove forward with catastrophic force. The impact lifted Lucian clean off the ground, then guided him down into the snow in a single devastating strike. A towering plume of white erupted around them. For miles in every direction, snow shook loose from the trees and drifted downward like a second, softer avalanche.
Right. Left. Right. Left.
Atlas's fists crashed into Lucian's face in a relentless, methodical rhythm. Each impact landed with a wet, meaty squelch. Blood painted most of the demigod's body and spread across the snow in widening crimson pools until the entire battlefield looked as though it had been dyed red. The sheer volume was inhumane in appearance and almost supernatural in quantity.
Lucian's arms and legs jerked upward with every blow before flopping back down onto the snow. For a moment his fingers tightened around the haft of the scythe. Then, almost reluctantly, he released it. The weapon rolled from his open palms and dissolved into a soft crimson light that sank back into his soul.
Atlas's entire body trembled with barely contained fury. Beneath him, Lucian was still smiling—bloody, broken, and utterly satisfied—even as his face was repeatedly disfigured and then forced to regenerate by the Suicidal Branding. He let the Titan vent every ounce of rage without resistance.
He was satisfied.
He had won.
He had done what no other demigod in living memory had managed: he had wounded the heart of a Titan.
"Ahhhh!!"
Atlas's roar shook the surrounding trees. He cocked his fist back, muscles quivering, already envisioning the next strike punching clean through Lucian's skull and creating a wound that not even the Branding could repair.
A sound like heavy cloth being torn open ripped through the air behind them, followed by the slow, deliberate crunch of footsteps in the snow.
Atlas's fist raced downward.
A hand shot out and caught his wrist at the last possible instant. The sudden stop released a violent shockwave that billowed outward, kicking up a fresh wall of snow between the three of them.
Lucian's bloodied face immediately twisted into a frown.
"You just had to come raining down on my parade, didn't you?" he muttered. "And right when I was having so much fun, too… eh, Luke?"
Luke Castellan ignored him completely. His eyes stayed locked on Atlas.
"You can't kill him. He wants the boy alive. Not to mention her time is almost up—she'll need someone to replace her."
Atlas jerked his arm free with a sharp click of his tongue. He didn't argue. He didn't dare.
"You're lucky," the Titan growled.
"Yeah," Luke scoffed, glancing down at the battered demigod. "That seems to be kind of his thing."
"What can I say?" Lucian tilted his head against the snow, somehow still managing to look confident despite the ruin of his face. "The Fates love me."
"I'm sure," Luke said with an unimpressed brow. "Are you going to come willingly, or do we have to go through the routine of dragging you while you kick and scream?"
Lucian pushed himself up onto his elbows, blood still dripping from his chin.
"You have no idea how hard I'm restraining myself from making a dirty joke about your mother," he said conversationally. "She's actually a lovely lady, and I genuinely pity her for giving birth to a bitch like you."
A flash of pure irritation crossed Luke's features before he forced it down.
"Are you coming or not?"
Lucian snickered.
The sound made Luke's irritation spike into open hatred. "Fuck you—Fuck!!" He cursed a second time when he realized, too late, that he had walked straight into another one of Lucian's setups. It had been a long time; he had almost forgotten how razor-sharp the other demigod's comebacks could be. Back when they had still been friends it had been entertaining. Now that the wit was aimed directly at him, it was nothing but grating.
Lucian rose unsteadily to his feet, brushing blood-matted hair out of his milky eyes with the back of one hand.
"Well, at least I'm blind, so I don't have to look at your ugly mug. How insightful of me. Foresight really is my best ability." He gestured loosely with one hand. "Lead the way."
As they began walking toward the shimmering tear in space Luke had opened, Lucian turned his head in Atlas's general direction.
"We should do this more often," he called over his shoulder, voice still carrying that same maddening cheer. "That was fun. Every three to five years, what do you say?"
"Kill yourself," Atlas answered flatly. It was the only response that would give him even a fraction of the satisfaction he wanted without earning Kronos's displeasure.
"I second that," Luke added with an equally flat expression as the three of them stepped through the rift.
The tear sealed shut behind them.
"I'm going to live forever," Lucian scoffed in reply, "just out of spite for the both of you."
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