Battle of Manhattan

The Battle of Manhattan was the major battle that occurred in The Last Olympian and was final and most decisive battle of the Second Olympian War.

It began with Morpheus putting the entire island of Manhattan to sleep. The Titans covered Manhattan in layers of magic. The cars on the New Jersey highway seemed to be moving at one mile per hour due to Kronos slowing time. Also, Hecate may have been helping by using magic, because it seemed like all the drivers were getting a subconscious message to turn away from any Manhattan exits. Since the gods of the wind would keep Kronos's forces away from Olympus by the air, Kronos had to try a ground assault.

Titans
Kronos sends a fleet of speedboats which race to Manhatten by the Long Island Sound. Each speedboat was packed with demigods that were against the gods in full Greek armor. At the back of the lead boat was the battle flag of Kronos.

Also, a Staten Island Ferry was plowing through the waves near Ellis Island, which carried Scythian dracanae and a whole pack of hellhounds. Swimming in front of was a pack of telekhines.

In the Lincoln Tunnel, there were a hundred assorted monsters marching past the lanes of stopped traffic. Giants with clubs, rogue Cyclopes, fire-spitting dragons and a World War II-era Sherman tank.

Demigods
Percy divides the campers to defend different sections.
 * Michael takes the Apollo cabin to the Williamsburg Bridge.
 * Katie takes the Demeter cabin to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.
 * Connor takes half of the Hermes cabin to the Manhattan Bridge.
 * Travis takes the other half of the Hermes cabin to cover the Brooklyn Bridge.
 * Silena takes the Aphrodite cabin to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Fifth Avenue is on the way and one of Silena's sisters suggests using Givenchy perfume and accessories against the monsters. It is unknown whether it was effective.
 * Malcolm takes the Athena cabin to the 59th Street Bridge. (Originally Percy had called Clarisse's name, but the Ares cabin was at camp sitting out the war (because Clarisse and Will Solace had an argument over the camp's only war chariot stolen from one of the unknown quests mentioned in the series.)
 * Jake takes the Hephaestus and Dionysus Cabins to the Holland Tunnel.
 * Thalia takes the Hunters to the Lincoln Tunnel, a position that the campers could not defend do to lack of people. Clarisse was upset over loosing the war chariot to Will Solace of the Apollo cabin, so she refused to fight in the battle.
 * Percy and Annabeth take care of the boats by making a deal with the rivers, giving them each half a sand dollar.
 * On the second day of the battle Silena disguised as Clarisse takes the Ares cabin members into battle, but is ultimately killed by a drakon. After her death, Clarisse takes back control over her Cabin and destroys the drakon and gains the blessing of Ares which makes her invinsible for a short time.
 * Percy and Annabeth act as backup for any of the positions unable to hold their ground at any time of the battle.
 * Will Solace and a few of his cabin members heal wounded cabin members in the battle if needed.

Beginning
Percy sends troops out to all entrances, while Annabeth executes Daedalus Twenty-Three (by a suggestion from Athena) to wake up the automatons in the disguise of statues inside the city to protect Olympus.Then Percy goes to meet the Hudson River spirit and East River Spirits. The gods ignore him at first, but Percy decides to spend his sand dollar as a bribe to the two river gods. After half is given to each, the two gods make sure nothing enters the rivers and sink the boats carrying the enemies. Percy and Annabeth then leave, heading toward the Apollo campers fending off some of the enemy army led by the Minotaur.



The Minotaur, angered by seeing Percy once again (having been beaten by a twelve year old Percy in The Lightning Thief), charges him. A battle between the two unfolds, leaving Percy the winner. Percy then kills off most of the monsters because he is nearly indestructible. More enemies show up, along with Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis, who stabs Annabeth in the shoulder while aiming for Percy's Achilles' heel. Blackjack takes Annabeth away somewhere safe so she can recover, and Kronos shows up and begins to cross the Williamsburg Bridge, but is stopped when Percy floods and destroys the bridge at Michael Yew's suggestion. The bridge is destroyed, but Michael is nowhere to be found and is assumed dead. Percy gets a phone call and is told that Annabeth is severely hurt.

When he arrives, Will Solace, one of Apollo's sons, tries to heal her. Silena Beauregard decides that since she is no good at fighting, she should go and try to convince Clarisse to bring the Ares' cabin and fight, who chose not to fight because the Apollo's cabin received a chariot they thought they should have, similar to Achilles not fighting in the Trojan War because Briseis was taken from him. Grover shows up, telling Percy that he's convinced some nature spirits to fight for them and Olympus and Thalia arrives with the Hunters of Artemis to help defend Olympus from Kronos and his Titan Army. Afterwards, Percy sleeps and dreams of Nico di Angelo. Nico tries to talk to his mother, Maria di Angelo, but Bianca comes and tries to convince him not to. Nico ignores her and continues to try and reach his mother. Instead, he finds a horrible memory of his early childhood in which his mother is killed by Zeus, and because of his grudge against the Great Prophecy, Hades puts a curse on a young girl, who is known as the mummy in the attic of the Big House at Camp Half-Blood, that the Oracle, as long as Hades's children remain outcasts, she will never be able to take another mortal form and will instead rot away. Then, he dreams of Rachel Elizabeth Dare at a beach. She writes his name in the sand, then convinces her dad to take her home because she believes Percy is in danger, promising to go to finishing school as a trade-off. Percy is then woken by Thalia, who says a Titan wants to speak with him. It turns out to be Prometheus. He tries to get Percy to believe there is no hope of Percy beating Kronos but does not succeed. He then gives him Pandora's pithos, which conceals Hope, and instructs him to use it as a signal of surrender if need be. Percy then has a vision of Luke talking with Hermes when he was on the run with Thalia and Annabeth.

Attack of the Drakon
Percy soon sleeps again, and dreams of Poseidon's palace, with Tyson fighting, and the monsters staying at Aunty Em's Gnome Emporium; Medusa's old place. Kronos is suspicious of Percy's Achilles spot and tells Ethan Nakamura to remember what spot Annabeth protected from him, though Ethan does not seem to remember, as he wasn't aiming at any particular spot. Following this is another vision of how May Castellan came to be delirious, by trying to take the old Oracle's power. The Oracle had been cursed earlier by Hades, cursing Ms. Castellan as well. When Percy wakes, a full-scale battle is going on. Percy rushes outside and takes on Hyperion, one of the Titans and the former god of the sun. Eventually Percy wins, with the satyrs turning Hyperion into a nice maple tree. Just as Percy finishes, the Clazmonian Sow soars through New York sent by Kronos. Percy wakes up some automatons like the Hermes statue and two Lions that were in front of the New York Public Library using Daedalus Twenty-three, telling them to attack it.

The automatons turn the pig into pork chops and Percy heads back. There is another attack, but the campers win when the Party Ponies come to fight along side them. After the invading army retreats, Percy learns that the gods are losing against Typhon, and that Hephaestus and Dionysus are injured. A helicopter appears with Rachel in it, but the pilot has fallen asleep, putting her in danger, Annabeth, Percy, and Guido (a pegasi and one of Blackjack's [pegasi]] friends) go to save her and Annabeth stops and lands the helicopter while amazing Percy that she could fly a helicopter easily.

Rachel tells Percy she had a vision, and that Percy is not the true hero mentioned in the Great Prophecy. Percy later dreams of the Underworld, where Nico tries to persuade Hades to help with the war. Hades refuses, and Percy starts to dream about the United Nations complex. Kronos and his army are occupying it, and Kronos reveals that he will not hold Luke's form forever. Kronos interrogates Ethan about Percy's weak spot, but Ethan denies his knowledge. Percy wakes up and finds that a drakon is attacking them, and Rachel tells them that a child of Ares will kill it. Percy, Annabeth, and Mrs. O'Leary (Percy's hellhound pet from Daedalus after Daedalus died in The Battle of the Labyrinth) try their best to battle the drakon. Suddenly, a girl in Clarisse's armor appears, leading the Ares kids into battle. It is quickly revealed that this girl is not actually Clarisse, but is Silena Beauregard was disguised as Clarisse to inspire the Ares children to fight. When Silena is mortally wounded during the fight with the drakon, the real Clarisse arrives in time to see Silena get hit in the face by poison.

Silena, who is dying from her attack on the drakon, reveals that she was the spy by showing them her scythe charm. Because Luke had been kind to her years before, he set her up as the spy, offering not to harm Beckendorf. Because he had broken this promise, however, Silena had lost faith in him and felt guilt for betraying the camp, but continued to feed information to him because he was blackmailing her. Silena soon dies, thinking of Beckendorf. Clarisse's bitterness becomes unstoppable rage ( just like Achilles going into unstoppable rage in the Trojan War after he heard his companion, Patronus, was killed by Hector) and she charges at Kronos' army without any armor to protect herself and goes on a killing spree against Kronos's army. Ares gives her his blessing and she becomes just as invinsible as Percy, if not more so and she takes out the Drakon by plunging her spear into its body and snaps it, unleashing a surge of energy. She then drags the empty shell behind her and challenges anyone to face her, even calling Kronos a coward in the process. Percy arrives at Olympus and runs into Hestia. Rachel speaks with Hestia about her fate, and tells Percy that his and her destinies are not entwined, cryptically mentioning her calling. When Hestia asks about Pandora's pithos, Percy considers surrender but then decides against it. He then decides to leave the pithos with Hestia, proclaiming that Hope survives best at the hearth. Hestia supports this decision. Percy then goes to the Hall of the Gods and sits on Poseidon's Throne to attract his attention, eventually convincing him to leave his underwater palace and help them in the defense of Olympus which Poseidon reluctantly agrees but says that it'll leave his palace in the sea being destroyed by the former god of the sea, the Titan Oceanus. Suddenly, Thalia bursts in, and tells Percy to come back down immediately. At the base of the Empire State Building outside the empty lobby, they find the campers, Hunters, and Party Ponies all being attacked in a surprise move by Kronos.

Final Confrontation
Nico, Hades, his Olympian father, and Mrs. O'Leary appear from the Underworld to assist in the battle against Kronos. As they fight, it becomes more and more clear that Kronos is struggling for control over Luke. Even Hades, Demeter, and Persephone appear, but Kronos tries to cut off Olympus from New York City, the center of Western Civilization which would isolate it from the rest of the world, by destroying the land bridge tying Olympus to the Empire State Building. Unknowingly Kronos doesn't know that Annabeth, Percy, and Thalia are trailing him and Ethan Nakamura.

As Percy runs to the main palace (the Hall of the Gods), Thalia is pinned down by a statue of Hera that almost falls on Annabeth and is unable to continue moving because her leg is pinned under it. Percy confronts Kronos there and convinces Ethan that siding with Kronos is not good for him. Ethan thus attacks Kronos and dies in the process. Percy continually attacks Kronos as Typhon's rampage draws ever closer to New York City, being held back by the gods. Poseidon arrives as Typhon enters the Hudson River and together the gods defeat Typhon by pulling him down to Tartarus, an omen that the gods are on their way. Annabeth reminds Luke that he promised not to let her get hurt years ago. Slowly, Luke overpowers Kronos, but Kronos starts to change into his former body. As Percy held Annabeth's knife in his hand ready to strike, Luke said that he had to do it himself because if Percy attacked, Kronos would try to defend himself. Percy remembers what Rachel told him about not being the hero, so he gives the knife to Luke, who kills himself in order to destroy Kronos (that was how Percy played into the prophecy, his important descision was whether or not to give Luke Annabeth's knife). As Luke lies dying, he asks Annabeth if she loved him, and she replies that she only loved him like a brother. He breathes his last wish that there will be no more unclaimed demigods, and Percy promises to make sure it won't happen again. Luke dies just as all of the gods arrive in the Hall of the Gods prepared to fight Kronos together in battle form but are stunned to see Luke already dead (Kronos gone into nowhere in the sky), and Annabeth and Percy there battle weary. Soon after, Zeus calls for a council of the gods to decide what to do with the near destruction of Olympus and how to reward Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson.

Aftermath
The Fates come to retrieve Luke's body. The gods personally reward and honor each hero, making the deceased Hunters and demigods achieve Elysium, promoting Tyson to a general of the Cyclopes under his father, Poseidon, making Grover a member of the Council of Cloven Elders and a Lord protector of the Wild, having Annabeth become the official architect for Olympus, and eventually offering Percy the chance to become a god and achieve immortality. However, he declines so he can have a "normal" life with Annabeth and his friends as a regular mortal - on the stipulation that the gods recognize every child they have, that all minor gods' children and Hades's children have a place at Camp Half-Blood, and that no child is abandoned or made to feel abandoned. The gods (somewhat reluctantly) agree. Grover becomes a leader of the protection of the Wild, campers begin to be claimed, Hades and other gods receive their own cabins, and the number of campers increases exponentially. Rachel also becomes the new Oracle after the curse placed upon the old Oracle was lifted while going under the oath of being the new Oracle under the eyeview of Phoebus Apollo (a part of Apollo that presedents over giving the oath of being a new Oracle to young maidens like Rachel Elizabeth Dare).

At the last chapter they are still building the cabins needed for the home of the minor gods' children.