Chapter Text
It was a sunny day and Percy was finally free. All exams were finished and he had made it! He had finally finished his last year of college, despite the regular monster attacks, random quests and whatever stupid nonsense piqued a god’s interest.
Now he just had to make it home and pack for the first day of summer at Camp Halfblood. This summer was going to be special; Chiron had offered Percy the chance of becoming the camp’s swordsmanship instructor and he was determined to make the best out of it.
It had been a couple of years since he had actually gone to camp for the entire summer, after all there was always some quest or whatever nonsense that required him to leave, and after 5 years of war against literal forces of nature threatening to destroy the world, searching for Ganymedes’ cup or whichever god’s hairpin was very low in his list of priorities.
Luckily, Chiron had made him the best promise anyone in his father’s side of the family had ever made — no more quests, no more risking his life, just a slow uneventful summer teaching prepubescent kids how to not get skewered by their own swords.
The years after the wars had been quite shitty. Annabeth and he had finally broken up – her decision – she had said something about not feeling the same anymore and some other excuse that he didn’t remember anymore. Her words had not mattered much to him after all, in the end, they all meant the same thing: she was afraid of him. After what happened in the war against Gaea, she had never looked at him the way she used to.
The first weeks had been awful. Therapy had not worked, and he couldn’t talk to Annabeth anymore because she had made it clear she wanted a no contact time after their break to have some space, and no way in hell he was going to bother Nico with the awful memories of that place. The poor boy had to traverse it alone, he probably had worse memories of it than Percy did. It was better to not bother him with that at all.
And how the Hades was he supposed to bring up literal hell to a therapist?
“Oh Mr. Philipps, actually, most of my traumatic experiences come from my short vacation in literal hell. 3/10, would not visit again.”
Hah, even if Mr. Philipps knew about the greek gods still being around Percy had doubts he would be able to help.
When Percy finally arrived at home, he found his mom Sally baking a fresh batch of her famous blue cookies, the best in the world, confirmed by literal gods who had showed up unexpectedly to have some (Apollo had since learned to knock first after a very embarrassing scene that involved the sofa and a shower towel, don’t ask).
“Percy? Is that you, sweetheart?” asked Sally, once she heard Percy walk in.
“Yes, Mom, it’s me.” Percy answered while taking off his backpack.
“And? How did it go? Did you make it?”
“I did!! I finally passed it all!” Percy exclaimed, leaving his keys on the counter.
“Oh, that’s amazing, Percy! This deserves a celebration!” Sally clasped her hands and rushed to hug her son.
Percy just stood there, a bit shocked from the sudden physical contact. Had it really been that long since he had hugged his own mother?
Sure, he had been very busy finishing up his marine biology degree, but it couldn’t have been that long without hugging Sally right?
When she finally went back to finish her cookies, Percy just grabbed a bunch from the finished batch and went to get all of his stuff. An hour later, he was all packed and ready to leave when his mom called him again from the kitchen.
“Percy! I love you, send me an IM once you get to camp, okay?”
“I will, Mom, don’t worry. It’s not like I plan to get abducted on the way, right?” he laughed dryly.
He quickly realised that his joke had been in poor taste. The tears welling up in his mom's eyes were a tell tale sign.
“Sorry mom. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Will call you once I get there. Bye.”
And before he could make his mother cry more, Percy closed the door and left for the only place where people like him could be fully safe.
Half an hour into his trip to camp Percy started wondering about why he had reacted that way to a simple hug. It was just that, a hug. He had gotten plenty hugs from his mom before, why had he just stood there? He knew she loved him, right? Hell, she had gone through years of abuse for him, just to cover his demigod scent. And yet, the way she had spoken of him after his return from the quest to the Mediterranean had been weird, like she was always on her tip toes around Percy, as if he was fragile, made of crystal, prone to break under any under any unfavourable situation or worse, as if he chose to go after the typical dracaena or hellhound that came to kill him every other day.
Before Percy could delve deeper into his thoughts, the sight of Half Blood hill, with Thalia’s pine standing on top of it, came to view. He smiled and parked the car. He was finally home.
Camp looked the same as always, the Big House, painted baby blue, with Chiron and Mr D playing pinochle on its porch, the cabins, now forming a Ω shape instead of the U that used to be when he had first reached camp all those years ago, the amphitheater, the arena, the volleyball court, the canoe lake, all seemed to be just as it had been like when he left for school last year.
And yet, as he made his way down to cabin 3, the looks he got from the demigods ranged from the usual awe of the newbies who had heard about him to a new look from the ones who had been there for the final battle against Gaea, a look as if he could combust them with just a look.
Weird, Percy thought to himself, why are they looking at me like that?
“Eh,” he mumbled under his breath. “They’ll soon lose those looks after some sword training and a capture the flag game.”
So he left his stuff in his cabin bed and went off to the Big House to talk about his schedule with Chiron.
Once Percy got there, Chiron greeted him. “Percy, good to see you, my boy. How did school go?”
“Hmpth,” grumbled Mr D, which Percy guessed was as nice of a welcome as he was going to get from him. At least he didn’t call him a different name this time.
“It went well, Chiron. So hey, where’s the new schedule for me? Do I get to choose the class's hours?” Percy asked.
“The schedule is in my office. It's already been set. Go have a look and choose the rest of your activities around them.” he answered back.
Once inside Chiron’s office, shielded by bronze and full of old people’s music, he found himself a bit irritated looking at his schedule. He had classes on four consecutive days, Percy was aware he had agreed to teach, but this was too much. Not even Chiron does this many archery classes every week, and that was the literally the only thing he does.
Oh well, maybe it is because this was going to be the first regular summer since his arrival at camp. Or maybe this is a regular amount of swordsmanship classes to have. It’s not like Percy hadn’t been on a quest each summer since his arrival with the usual threat of world ending war if he failed.
After getting his full schedule ready, he decided to go hang out in the lake for a bit, say hello to the naiads, have a swim, and relax. So he pulled his secret stash of cola from under his cabin bed, and made his way down to the lake, where he crossed Nico and Will on the way, who looked like they were coming back from a date.
“Hey Percy, how are you?” asked Will.
“Well enough, I’m going to hang in the lake for a bit.Where are you two lovebirds going?” Percy teased the couple. Even when they had been dating for a while now, Nico still blushed when reminded of his relationship with the blonde son of Apollo, and Percy found it extremely amusing.
“Shut it Jackson, it’s none of your business.” The son of Hades retorted, trying to hide the redness of his face behind a mask of annoyance.
“Oh, well, you know, hang out around for a bit before dinner time, walk around, the usual,” Will answered nervously.
“Well that was weird.” Percy thought to himself, why would Will get nervous?
“But we were wondering if you are okay, Percy. We heard about you and Annabeth.”
Oh. So that's why. Percy had to contain an eyeroll. “You did? How?” He answered while pinching the bridge of his nose.
“She came around during the Christmas holidays to hang out,” Nico answered this time, looking nervous, too. “Told us all about how you had broken up and stuff.”
Percy felt his stomach knot up again. “Great, so it’s that,” he sighed. “We’re okay, we broke up out of mutual accord, so don’t worry about it.”
Both boys looked at him like they didn’t believe a word he had said, which just helped make the knot in his stomach worse. Cutting off Will, who looked like he was going to say something else, Percy started walking towards the lake again, ignoring the scared looks of a bunch of campers who he had never seen before.
Why did they all keep treating him as if he had to be devastated for breaking up with Annabeth? That he had been the one to be dumped and that he was going to be a complete mess? His mom had been the same the first month or so. He was more than capable of doing stuff without her, and whenever he mentioned that, everyone always gave him this look as if he was going to blow up something.
That’s what the knot was, he realized. Frustration. Frustration at always being treated as some accommodation to Annabeth, like a gun that couldn’t be fired unless she pulled the trigger.
Jumping into the lake immediately brought a sense of calm. He opened the can of cola and went to the bottom, where he managed to finally relax for a bit after getting to camp.
Home, sweet home, he thought.
The following day, it was Percy’s first swordsmanship class. He had readied everything he thought necessary; training wooden swords for the most inexperienced children and the youngest ones and blunt celestial bronze swords for the most experienced ones. He was so excited about it he had even gotten out of bed early for the first time since he could remember.
In a curious twist of fate, his first swordsmanship class was going to be the Hermes cabin, led by Travis and Connor Stoll. Even after the oath it remained the cabin with most members by far.
“Oh my gods, it’s true,” Travis mentioned while handing Connor a drachma.
“I told you, Pollux told me and he heard it from his dad and Chiron, you were a fool for not believing me, Travis,” mocked Connor while pocketing the drachma in his pocket and smirking at his brother.
“Oh shut it, you —”
“Silence you two!” Percy interrupted before both started doing their usual skit. “You can argue about bets after we are finished, got it?”
“YES!” they answered back, almost instantly, with a look of surprise.
Well that was new. The Stoll siblings listening to him so quickly outside of a battle was suspicious, but perhaps this was for the best. Right?
“For starters, do some warm up and stretch, then we’ll move to revise a bit of the basics. If you have difficulty with something don’t hesitate to ask one of your siblings or me for help, got it?”
“Yes!” the entire cabin answered back, but it was a bit low, not with the characteristic energy of the Hermes cabin.
While the campers were warming up, Percy noticed how some of the older children went to help the younger ones, how no one seemed to have any problem asking for help, but not one of them even looked at Percy for help. Even when there was no one available to help them, they preferred to wait for one of their older siblings to help them rather than saying anything to him. Were the younger campers that scared of him?
The answer to that would come once they started doing some light sparring with the wooden swords. Among the newbies, a boy, with the usual smile, named Richard Maddison was left without a sparring partner, so Percy chose to team up with him. No biggie, even Luke had been the one to help Percy with his swordsmanship on his first day right?
Well, apparently it was a biggie. When Richard realised that he would have to face Percy, he started crying and sobbing and screaming about being scared, and before Percy could even reach out to check what was going on or how he could help him, Chris had run off with him yelling something about bringing Richard to the infirmary to have Will check up on him.
The rest of the class went more or less similar, most children just got really really nervous or scared when Percy approached them, and the older ones seemed to not be able to hold their blunt bronze swords firmly in front of him, and then they’d act as he was going to scream or shout at them, only to act surprised every time Percy just bent down to help them pick their swords up.
In the end, the only thing Percy did manage to teach were some pointers to each of the demigods in the Hermes cabin, quite frustrating after all the preparations he had gone through.
But it was okay, tonight was capture the flag night, and Clarisse and the Ares cabin, currently holding the laurels, had asked him to join their team.
So, after dinner, he joined up with the Ares, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Nike, Hephaestus and Nemesis cabins near a spot in the forest close to the lake, this way they could use Percy’s powers to their advantage if the rival team get close to their flag, placed on top of a hard to climb and isolated tree so that there are as little blindspots as possible.
“Alright punks, anyone got ideas on how to crush ‘em blue fuckers?” Clarisse asked, acting as team red’s captain.
“Sooo, we just send Percy first and the rest of us defend right? Easy peasy strat,” some Nemesis kid Percy didn’t recognize said.
“That won’t work in a thousand years,” Percy commented. “They have Nico on their team and he can shadow travel. No disrespect to you guys, but if he starts abusing that only I can manage him.”
“Nico can’t shadow travel more than three times, doctor’s orders,” Will inserted.
“Does he have any other limitation with shadow travel in capture the flag games?” Percy asked while raising his eyebrow. He knew how that tiny gremlin liked to behave and it did not involve following any rules.
“Aside from using it to shadow travel in the 10 meter range from our flag where our defenders can’t stand while guarding it, he can pretty much use it to travel anywhere in the forest,” Will answered again. Having Nico’s boyfriend on their side was probably the biggest advantage ever.
“Great. Then we just trap some of the shadows on one side and Nyssa and I will stay and defend, Nyssa can make sure all traps work properly and I will take care of Nico and whoever else they send. We’re near water so I can easily cover way more terrain than I usually could,” Percy explained his plan to the shocked members of team red.
“Then we can just divide the offensive in three fronts to make sure to catch them offguard, put the entire Ares cabin with the Aphrodite attacking through the center, they either put all their big guns to stop them or they’ll easily get crushed through the middle.”
He then turned to the twin daughters of Nike.
“Holly and Laurel, each of you should lead the other two fronts attacking from the sidelines, see who can get the flag first.”
Both of them straightened their spines and seemed seconds away from saluting him.
After that he started pointing at different cabins while explaining the rest of his plan. “Apollo, Nemesis and Pollux, half of you will go with Holly and the other half with Laurel, support them, make sure they reach the flag, they are our fastest members so the key to winning rests is in their hands.”
As Percy was turning to give his final indications, he caught sight of the twins finally relaxing and smirking. Always trust Nike’s children to be the most competitive people out there.
“The rest of the Hephaestus cabin, spread out throughout our territory, cover it with traps and make sure to capture anyone who dares crossing it,” Percy clapped his hands as he finished. “If we do this, there is no way we can lose, guys. Got it?”
At this, the entire team was staring at Percy as if he was a mute that had started singing Eminem's Rap God without missing a single beat.
“Since when can you plan so well, Water Boy?” a stunned Clarisse asked.
“What do you mean? It’s just a regular plan. Do you think I stayed alive all these years by just swinging my sword blindly or something?” Percy retorted, squinting at her.
A chorus of yeahs surged from the entire team.
“We all thought Annabeth did the thinking for you,” someone said in the background.
Okay, that was rude, Percy thought. He knew he acted reckless from time to time, but it’s not like he had had any other choice in those situations. Not when it was do it or die.
Still, they had a game to win, so Percy just told them all to get their asses moving and got ready to cover that red flag with all he got.
Two hours, a wet child of Hades, and several children of Hermes knocked out later, Laurel crossed the creek with the blue team’s flag, and as Laurel celebrated beating her twin, and winning the game, the flag transformed to have the symbol of Nike on it.
“Fuck you Jackson, how did you know I would shadow travel there?” an angry Nico asked, Nyssa’s traps were probably not exactly to his taste.
“Well well well, we didn’t, you see, but it was very nice of you to step on them for us,” Percy smirked at him, it’s always so fun to annoy him.
“Ha-ha-ha, very funny Percy, but how? The Athena cabin was on our team, who even came up with that strat? No way in Hades Clarisse would be this thorough in making a plan,” grumbled Nico while trying to dry his shirt.
“I expected some more faith, Ghost Boy. You hurt me,” Percy joked while dramatically bowing and pointing to himself.
“You did? No way,” Nico looked astonished, as if he didn’t believe what he heard. “You have to be joking. Did you IM Annabeth before the match or something?”
“Rude. I’m perfectly capable of coming up with a plan on my own, Nico. Didn’t you have a crush on me for years? I thought you knew me better than that.” Percy felt his grin straining a bit, did Nico truly think that?
“I thought you had a pretty face, not that it had much of a thinking brain behind it.” Nico jokingly replied. “Never expected you to make such nasty plans though. I thought yours would be more simple.”
“Go whine to your boyfriend, Ghost Boy. Isn’t he there, celebrating the crushing win we had against your team?” Percy pointed to Will, hugging one of his siblings in celebration, and then he turned to leave. Everything had gone as he had planned, but why did victory taste like Phlegeton water in his mouth?
After the game, and despite Percy’s best efforts, camp still regarded him weirdly, old friends looked at him as if he was hiding the key to solve all of their problems and new campers challenged each other just to say good morning back to him.
The classes were all the same. What Percy thought would become one of the best parts of that summer had quickly proven to be quite the dull affair.
Not even Clarisse, whom he could always trust to be ready to spar, wanted to duel him anymore, she just grumbled about unfairness and whatever and mentioned she was busy.
Whenever he tried to rope in the Stolls for some kind of prank they’d just mention Chiron not allowing it, as if that had ever been an inconvenience to them.
Katie or Pollux would hover over him whenever he was around the strawberry fields, like he was going to cause an inundation.
It reminded Percy of his first summer, before the quest, when all of camp pretended like he didn’t exist, except this time it was more as if they were afraid to offend him. There was no Grover that he could talk to this time, since he was too busy on the other side of the country helping to establish nature reserves.
He started having nightmares again, not the demigod kind but the regular nightmare kind, he woke up screaming at 3 am almost every day.
The memories of that place, Akhlys, him. No matter what he told himself, he was unable to make himself go to sleep after that. They looked at him in his nightmares, told him to join them, to go back where he belongs. That was usually when he woke up. He never managed to say no to them, to tell them that he was already where he belonged.
After almost two weeks at camp, Chiron decided to call Percy to the Big House. Chiron was in his chair, looking quite grim, next to a standing Mr. D who had finally managed to get a pac-man console inside camp after years of begging Zeus about how bored he was with his prohibitions and whatever. Percy always zoned off whenever he started ranting about his punishment.
“Hello, Percy. I’m afraid I don’t have the best of news for you,” Chiron started.
Well, that always means good news, Percy thought. “What is it, Chiron? Anything happened at camp?”
“You see, my boy, we kind of need your help.” Chiron started to nervously play with his hands as he said it.
“My help? My help with what? What could happen in camp that you need me to handle, Chiron?” asked Percy, growing a bit concerned.
“There’s nothing wrong with camp, but there’s this satyr that was escorting some demigods back and, you see, he err —”
“Oh for all the gods, Chiron, what is it?”Percy interrupted, irritated with the centaur’s tumbling around.
“We need you to go check on the satyr, see that he and the demigods are safe, and help them get back to camp, I know I promised —”
“What?” Percy snapped. “Are you MAD? You PROMISED me no more quests from now on!”
“I know, I know, Percy. I’m sorry but there’s no one else that can do it. I promise you we wouldn’t be asking this of you had we had any other option,” Chiron pleaded.
“ANY OTHER OPTION? WHAT ABOUT NICO? OR CLARISSE? KATIE? TRAVIS AND CONNOR? WILL? THEY HAVE BEEN AT CAMP AS LONG AS I HAVE, SOME LONGER THAN I. WHY DO I HAVE TO BE THE ONE YOU COME TO FOR A QUEST AND NOT THEM? WHY NOT ONE OF THE NEW DEMIGODS?” Now Percy’s voice started to break, so he stopped before he started coughing. He took a slow breath before demanding. “Why not give the quest to new demigods? Aren’t quests meant to make it so that demigods can prove themselves to their shitty parents who barely pay them any attention? Why must it always be me?”
“Percy, we suspect the demigods might be in serious trouble, and you’re the most reliable quester in 1000 years. No one has completed more quests than you. Only Herakles completed more and yours were way more complicated than his. We need you one more time, Perseus Jackson, I beg you, please help us.” Chiron did something Percy hadn’t seen him do since his claiming: he bowed to him.
This silenced Percy. He did not expect the old master, the trainer of heroes to bow down to him, to beg him for help. It made him feel weird, but in a different way, it was strange.
On one hand, a part of Percy wanted more than to accept it, to feel useful again, to help fellow demigods. On the other hand, Percy feared this would only deepen the sense of separation from them, another quest completed by the Percy Jackson. Another person saved, another feat to add to his many others, it would make him stand out more, be more alone.
In the end, his sense of duty outweighed his fear once more, so he gathered what Chiron and Mr D knew, and went back to his cabin to pack up for the quest.
Apparently a satyr named Vincent Shrub had found three demigods on the run two weeks ago. Young ones, barely 13, 12 and 6 year olds, alone in the woods near Philadelphia. He was supposed to bring them to camp.
Given the high difficulty of the task and new measures implemented by the new lord of the Wild – Great going Grover! He’s the best! – satyrs were now required to maintain a constant line of communication with camp, and likewise, camp had to provide help when possible. So Vincent had called Chiron to inform him about these new demigods he had found.
It takes some 7 hours to get from Philadelphia to camp by bus, a week if you have to walk, yet there had been no news of the demigods for more than a week. So this is why Chiron had deemed the situation bleak enough to beg Percy.
A bag with plenty of ambrosia and nectar, a first aid kit, enough snacks to feed an entire cabin and backup money and drachmas ready, Percy marched on to the Half Blood hill to call for Blackjack. It would probably be better to just go in his own car, but he wanted to go as fast as possible, and no car could outspeed a flying pegasus.
“Hey Boss! Thought you had retired.” Blackjack exclaimed in Percy’s mind as he got to the ground.
“Apparently not, my friend.Chiron needs me to do another one last quest,” Percy sighed. “Maybe I’m too hopeful for expecting something different this summer.”
“Nah Boss, you valid. I’d totally make Chiron clean my manure if I were you,” Blackjack neighed.
“If only I could. Seems like I’m the one always cleaning his’.”
They flew over to the outskirts of New Jersey, near the road to Philadelphia. Apparently that was where Vincent’s last call had been from, so Percy planned to look around, ask the occasional dryad or see if he could find a trail of monsters to follow and kill, even if those tended to be the ones who found him in the end.
He looked around from the air for a bit when he noticed a group of cyclops around a small building partially buried by nearby debris, so he got down to see if these were friendly cyclops under the command of his little brother Tyson, or bad cyclops, to be killed on sight.
When he got down, he overheard the cyclops mentioning some stuff about “tasty demigods” and“get out so we can cook y’all on mango chutney sauce.” Clearly they were the bad kind of cyclops, no respectable one under Tyson’s orders would cook anything in any other stuff than peanut butter (How? No one knows, but they do so anyways).
So he uncapped his old trusty xiphos, Riptide, and got ready for business, the first one didn’t even notice Percy was there before it got its head chopped off and turned to dust, the others were simply too slow for the son of the sea Before any could draw their weapons they had limbs cut off and deadly wounds on necks and stomachs and were slowly disintegrating to the usual monster dust.
“Hello? Is there anyone there? The cyclops are gone, I killed them.” Percy announced to the building’s entrance.
“Go kill yourself now then!” A child’s voice answered back from the inside.
Ouch, Percy thought, bit rude~ Oh shit, right, cyclopes can mimic voices. He’d need something else to prove himself not to be a threat to them.
“Errr, I can pass you my sword if you want, and I’ll enter real slow with my hands held high! I come from camp Half-Blood, they expected you there a week ago and they sent me to come pick you up,” Percy tried to convince the scared demigods.
“And how would we know this is not another trick?” a different voice asked then.
Percy looked around the building to see if there was any crack on it from which he could be seen from the inside.
“Is there a way for you to check the outside without exposing yourselves?”
“Maybe he’s telli~ No Alice, we can’t just trust a voice, remember what happened to Vinc~ Oh shut up, both of you, unless you want to reveal everything to OUCH!” Three voices started arguing between them now, apparently the youngest was named Alice and did want to listen to Percy, but the other two were more careful than that. Their squabble did reveal something that gave Percy the chills: Vincent the satyr was not with them.
“Hey, I know you are scared, but if we stay arguing more monsters will come, can I at least come inside so we can work something out?” Percy asked again.
“I told you we need some proo~Hey Alice what are you doing?” the second voice asked panicked as what seemed to be a 5-6 year old cleared some rubble for Percy to get inside.
Before they could argue again, Percy slipped inside the building and immediately found a celestial bronze spear aimed at his face, a sword of the same metal and a regular iron crossbar aimed at his knees.
“I come in peace,” he said but any other word got stuck in his throat at the sight of the children holding the weapons.
“Yeah, right, the cyclops said the same,” a very pale, blonde girl with grey eyes said. She looked like she was 12 at most.
“But he has two eyes ‘Tasia, look, and they’re a very pretty shade of green, like my crayons,” the youngest from earlier commented. Also a girl, with short black hair which spiked as if constantly near static, and the biggest electric blue eyes he had seen since Thalia had last visited camp.
“Just because he has two eyes doesn’t mean he can’t be a monster Alice,” The boy said with a kinder tone. He had blonde hair too, but was significantly more tanned, black eyes and the typical devious looking face of a certain cabin.
Fuck, this shit can’t be, I’m so kicking the Fates’ asses one day, Percy thought to himself. If he wasn’t in front of a trio of demigods children of Hermes, Athena and Zeus he’d cut off his own arm.
How could this be, how could they be so like them and yet so different, the Zeus girl, Alice, was the youngest one instead of the Athena girl, named Anastasia, maybe? She did look Russian and based on how Alice had called her earlier it was a safe bet.
And the boy, he had Hispanic traits, and based of his accent he could be Cuban, but the hair and the face, there was no denying he was Hermes child. Based on how he was standing, probably the oldest too, their best warrior, judging by the state of their weapons. Just like Luke had been one day.
“Well, are you going to just stand there looking at us or what?” the boy asked Percy, looking mildly annoyed.
“Sorry, sorry, you just reminded me of someone I used to know,” Percy answered lightly.
Before any of the children could notice he quickly presented himself.
“I’m Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, I was sent by camp Half-Blood to come pick you up when we lost contact with Vincent Shrub, your protector, the satyr who found you, is he around? Was he wounded?”
“Vincent died, turned into that weird plant over there,” the boy pointed at a poppy in the back of the room. “I’m Jose Hernandez, no idea who my father is, the other blonde is Anastasia Sokolov, even less of an idea on who either of her parents are, and the little princess with the crowbar is Alice Cooper. Vincent told us she could be a child of the big three, whatever that even means.”
“Nice to meet you Jose. Well, a child of the big three means one of the three sons of Kronos; Zeus, Hades and Poseidon. Guessing on what I know, I’d say young Alice’s father is the king himself, so you were right to call her a princess,” Percy explained.
“See, I told you I'm royalty, Jose, that means you should carry me at all times and poking my cheeks is a big no-no, got it?” Alice took that chance to butt in and pout at Jose, causing the rest of them to start laughing. Oh she’d sure win over at least half of camp, while the other will try to evade her just to not fall under her charms.
“Alice, that’s enough,” Anastasia said while sheathing her sword. “That about fathers and kings is all good, but what do we do now?”
Percy looked at the poppy that used to be Vincent, he had expected him to be wounded, but for him to be dead… This was going to be hard.
“For now, eat and drink, I brought plenty of food, regular and godly, meanwhile, explain to me what happened, sounds alright?” Percy offered.
“Alright!” all three agreed.
While he tried to focus on the story Jose and Anastasia were telling him, Alice just wouldn’t stop asking a thousand questions a minute.
“Why is Zeus a king? What does he do? Is he as cool as you? Who is Poseidon? Why is he your dad? Do you have a cool weapon too? Can you run really fast? Are you super smart too? What even is this camp place thingy?”
“Hey now, Alice, we're trying to plan what to do here,” Anastasia said while grabbing Alice and sitting her down in her lap. She even bribed her, clearly used to taming the wild little princess.
“It’s okay. You see, Alice, your father, Zeus, is the king of the gods and the skies and thunder, mine is Poseidon, the king of the sea and storms. I can swim really well and make water do shapes like these,” he explained as he made a seahorse out of the humidity around the building, drawing some big, surprised eyes to him, even if Jose and Anastasia tried and failed to pretend they weren’t equally astounded at the water shapes. “And camp is a safe home, for people like us, where monsters can’t get us and we can train. When we get there, I’ll teach you swordsmanship myself. Because as you see, my weapon is a sword, it even turns into a pen,” he continued as he drew Riptide and passed it for the three of them to see.
“Will it truly be safe?” Alice asked, with a dreamy look on her eyes.
Percy hesitated a bit, remembering all his years at camp, with quests, campers turning on him, seeing him like a tool, and yet, he still answered truthfully, “It will, I promise it will be safe for you.”
At that, Alice, Anastasia and Jose gave him the biggest smiles he had seen on them yet. Maybe this would be worth it after all, even if Chiron had broken his promise.
After that, they picked up any leftovers and put them in Percy’s backpack again, he could almost hear some of the dryad’s back in camp nagging him about the dangers of littering, and went outside, where Percy called Blackjack back with Guido and some other pegasi friends.
“How can they even fly? Which muscles do they use to pull their weight off the sky? Shouldn’t their wingspan be wider for the wings to carry their weight?” Anastasia asked in rapid fire as all the pegasi landed, with a crazed look on her face. Percy had seen that look on other Athena children before. It was the same look that would drive any of them down a 16 hour rabbit hole with forceful reminders to eat and drink, or even sleep.
“They fly with magic mostly, and I don’t recommend suggesting to dissect one, they get pretty sensitive about what they call their flying secrets,” Percy responded sensibly.
“Boss! You wouldn’t reveal our secrets to some other godling spawn, would you?” Blackjack asked worriedly.
“Don’t worry pal, your secrets are safe with me.”
After they finally got Alice to sit still on Guido’s back, they started their journey home at a nice speed.
At this rate, they’d get to camp before Artemis got on her chariot and started her journey after her brother. So, of course, everything went wrong then.
A projectile appeared out of the clouds, almost hitting Jose’s pegasi out of the sky, as a group of harpies surrounded them. It seemed the projectile had been a feather thrown by one of them.
“Shit” Percy muttered as he drew his sword. “Anastasia, lead Alice near the ground! Trust the pegasi to keep you safe!”
As Anastasia quickly did as told, Percy turned to the other side and screamed at Jose, “Jose, follow me, we will have to break through and kill some of them if we want them to scatter. Keep your spear near your body, as if you’re jousting! Can you do that?”
“I’ll manage!” Jose answered back.
“Good, then let’s go.”
As Percy led the charge, Blackjack and Jose’s pegasi managed to make them avoid most the harpies. The ones dumb enough to get closer to Percy got instantly vaporized by Riptide, a lesson they quickly learned as they started to focus more on Jose who, despite his weapon’s range advantage, clearly was less experienced at dealing with monsters, much less while seated on a flying pegasus.
But still, in an outstanding showcase of maneuvering, Blackjack put Percy in striking distance of two harpies, and the son of Poseidon never failed to deliver with Riptide. They both quickly fell, turned to dust, back to there.
Even Jose managed to get one, although not before one of them got him on his shoulder and another managed to hit his pegasus. Both rider and mount wounded, they were trying to get away, but sensing their prey about to fall, the rest of harpies quickly surrounded them ready to finish the job. Percy and Blackjack managed to keep them at bay as they started flying around them so as to make sure no harpies would try again.
“Are you ok?” Percy asked as they started to descend to where Alice and Anastasia had descended to.
“I’ll live.” Jose panted. “But it hurts like hell!”
“Good enough. You’ll manage, don't worry, I’ve seen worse than that!” Percy tried to reassure him. But suddenly a cry broke through the air.
“That’s Alice!” Jose screamed just as he urged his pegasi to fly down at the max speed it could.
“Wait for me!” Percy trailed after him, but as he overtook Jose, he quickly noticed that waiting would not be an option.
A harpy had managed to slip away and shoot Guido in the side, Anastasia was doing her best to get her and cover Alice, but not even a child of Athena’s skill with all weapons managed to make up for the lack of experience in fighting from horseback.
Lucky for them, they were flying near water now, so Percy speared the harpy with a pillar coming out of the sea. Unlucky for them, that was when Guido hit his limit and fell, with Alice on his back.
“Alice!!!” All three screamed for the 6 year old.
They would not make it, Percy realized. Alice Cooper would die crushed between pegasus and ground and he would fail to catch her, she was too far away no matter what he would try.
Percy thought he would see another young demigod die because of him, again. Why must it always be him, why must he always fail to save them?
But suddenly, Alice’s body slowed down, as if the air currents themselves were lifting her up.
“Ha ha!” Percy laughed, as he managed to pick her up before touching the ground and getting down to stop flying. It seemed Tyche was truly on his side this time, he would not have to see a child die this time.
As Anastasia and Jose also dismounted their pegasi, Percy quickly got to check out Jose’s wound, it looked like it was just a scrape, but just to be safe he gave him a bit of ambrosia. Then he approached Guido, the pegasus was panting and foaming in the mouth, and the wound was bleeding badly. The feather had hit deep. It was unlikely he would make it.
“My prince,” Guido whispered in his mind. “End it my prince, please, the pain, it’s too much.”
Tears started to swell Percy’s eyes as the other pegasi formed a half circle around their fallen friend.
“Is there nothing I can do for you?” Percy begged.
“Please,” Guido whispered again, his mind voice lower, his breaths getting more rasped.
With tears in his eyes, Percy kindly shoved Riptide into Guido’s heart.
“Go in peace, friend, you were one of the best pegasi to fly the skies.”
All the pegasi neighed in unison, in honour of their fallen friend.
As Percy turned around he found Alice crying in Jose's arms, it seemed she had realized what had happened with Guido.
“It’s okay, Alice, Guido knew what would happen. We’ll soon make it to camp and none of this will happen again I promise,” Percy reassured her as he approached the three tear-eyed demigods.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Percy assured her again. “But we will have to walk the rest of the way there, Porkpie is also wounded, and Blackjack and Honeycomb can’t carry all four of us.”
All three nodded their heads in understanding.
After several hours and some monsters, they had to stop for a while. Artemis’ chariot was high in the sky and they could barely see each other, even with the glow of Riptide’s blade.
So they decided to make camp and get some sleep before continuing, and Percy offered to take the first guard.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Jose asked Percy.
“You just did, but go ahead, what is it?”
“Did you truly mean it?” he asked, giving Percy a doubtful look he hadn’t displayed so far, but, it seemed now that Anastasia and Alice were asleep, he had finally let his guard down a bit.
“About camp? Yeah I did mean it,” Percy responded. “Don’t worry too much, I’ll make sure you’re comfortable there, I’m technically the sword instructor there.”
“Technically?”
“Yeah, in theory instructors aren’t meant to go on quests. Chiron asked me personally to take this one,” Percy responded, sounding quite tired.
As Jose was about to fall asleep, he mumbled back, “I’m glad he sent you, Percy.”
Fighting back sleep and a smile, Percy climbed a tree to have better visibility and keep watch all night, better for the children to sleep a full night than him.
After they got a good six hours of sleep, they got on the way again, but four demigods, two of which were children of the big three, attracted quite a lot of monsters that Percy, with the help of mostly just Anastasia, had to fend off.
After several tiring hours, they were almost there. Percy had lost count of the many monsters he had killed since they had woken up, and Jose had had to carry Alice for a good part of the way since she had twisted her ankle when a hellhound creeped up on her.
But they had almost managed it, having gotten to the base of Half-Blood hill. Once they got up there and crossed the border, they would be safe. That was the good news, the bad news was that several monsters, led by the minotaur himself, had teamed up to chase them and they had them on their toes.
All of them were tired, and there was no way to make sure they would all survive if they turned around to fight. Percy couldn’t go all out if he had to protect the three demigods. They resembled Luke, Thalia and Annabeth too much, and he was not going to let them go through anything similar to what had happened to them so many years ago.
“We won’t be able to make it, we have to fight!” Anastasia exclaimed, reaching the same conclusion as Percy had.
“Jose, Anastasia, grab Alice and make a run to camp, once you cross the borders you’ll be safe. Warn Chiron and ask him to send help from there,” Percy ordered. “I’ll hold them as long as it takes.”
“No Percy, please, don’t leave us alone!” Alice cried out.
“I have to, Alice, now go! Before we’re surrounded! Percy shouted.
“Noo, please, don’t leave us alone!” She begged again.
“I said GO! NOW!” Percy screamed, desperately, and then he saw it, the look of sheer fear on Alice and the others’ faces. They weren’t looking scared at the monsters, they were looking at him. Just like Annabeth had with Akhlys, in Tar- in Tartarus.
As Jose picked Alice up again and Anastasia ran with them to the borders, the realization hit Percy. His worst fears were true after all, he was just like them, just like Akhlys, just like Asterion, a monster.
As he realized this, he uncapped Riptide and got ready to face the horde, led by the minotaur. Maybe they’d end up in the same place in the end.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Chiron’s day was going okay, and it only improved once he finally saw a group of three demigods cross camp’s border and run to the Big House, where he and Dionysus were playing another one of their Pinochle games.
There were three, a boy and a girl of similar ages, and the boy was carrying an even younger girl. They looked dirty and tired, as if they had been running for hours.
As they reached them finally, Chiron announced, “Hello, I am Chiron, trainer of heroes, and this is Mr D, camp director, might we know your na —”
“Percy needs help,” the boy rudely interrupted. “He bought us time but he’s surrounded by the minotaur and lots of weird looking snake monsters and big beasts and, and other things we don’t know.”
“It’s okay, my boy. Take a breath, introduce yourselves first. Percy is strong and has defeated the minotaur before. He can manage, trust me,” Chiron told them.
“I’m Jose, the blonde is Anastasia, and the young one is Alice. Please, Percy does need help, we had to run for a day to get here, he looked tired, send some help please, Chiron sir,” Jose begged.
“Hmpth, brats, don’t worry about Pedro. He’s too stubborn to die when he should. He’ll walk through the barrier in no time. Do as Chiron says,” Dionysus told the children, clearly bothered they had interrupted their game.
“As you heard Mr. D say, why don’t we get you -”
“His name is Percy and he needs help, you fatman!” the youngest child, Alice, screamed between tears.
“Don’t worry Alice, I’ve seen Percy get out of worse situations. Now apologize to Mr D, he is the director, and then we’ll go to the nursery to make sure you and your friends are fine, okay?” Chiron intervened before Dionysus got over the shock of being called fat by a 6 year old.
“Fine, but only if you help Percy,” Alice conceded.
“I promise,” Chiron answered.
After he finally got the three children into the nursery and called Will, he got back outside on the porch.
“That child was rude, Chiron,” Dionysus stated.
“It’s one of the perks of being your sister, Mr D. I do hope you can be the better person this time,” Chiron requested.
“I can, I can, your Perry really did a number increasing my tolerance to brats.”
So, thinking that Percy would cross over to camp properties any moment now, they returned to their game.
After Chiron won, again, they noticed there was no news from Percy.
“Chiron, go check on Pedro, he should’ve gotten here long ago, and you know it. Get Clara, Trevor and Carlos with you, make sure he’s okay,” Dionysus ordered in an unusually serious tone.
“I was going to do that, my lord,” Chiron responded.
So he got down to the cabins to look for Clarisse and the Stoll brothers to go get Percy. On the way, he noticed the fire pit that always burned, courtesy of lady Hestia, to be noticeably small. Weird, he pondered, this should be giving a way more comfortable feeling and heat, not this coldness.
Still, he had a job to do, he could deal with that later after all.
After gathering the three veteran demigods, they marched to the hill, which had been still without news of the son of Poseidon. Once he got to the top of it, the most bizarre, unexpected vision presented itself to Chiron and the others.
Two gods stood on the slope of the hill, which was covered with monster dust as if an army of monsters had been decimated there.One of them was kneeling in front of the tree, the other was standing a few paces behind the other.
As Chiron got a bit closer, he realized the standing one was Athena, dressed in casual clothes, and yet wearing her helmet.
“Why would she be wearing a helmet on top of regular clothes? Athena has never been one to care for fashion but that was weird even for her”.
It took Chiron a moment to place the other. Without his signature twin tails, Poseidon's heir wasn't as recognisable. What made it harder was that he knelt, back turned to him and ...
Was he holding something?
Chiron decided to get even closer, but as he did, chills started running down his spine, a disturbing feeling, a prediction he hoped to be wrong about.
He noticed the sky shaking with thunder. Not one of Zeus' tantrums, not the thunder that boomed when someone made a promise on Styx’s name, but something else. Who could it have been? Athena? Why would she?
And then Chiron saw.
Next to the tree, splattering the grass and the adjacent fields, he spotted it and it made his blood run cold. Blood. A mortal's red, but mixed with ichor.
It left a trail that led to the tree, or more accurately, what was at its feet.
Then Triton let go of something he was holding, and Chiron’s blood fully froze in his veins. A body. Stomach torn open as if a hellhound had bitten and ripped away part of its innards. Missing an arm, probably cut by a blade. Held by the remaining hand, a bronze xiphos, one he recognized. His gaze reached the face of the man laying dead in the grass. Even with his body torn, even with his eyes shut, Percy Jackson was unmistakable.
His chest still drew short, weak breaths but they were getting weaker. He barely heard some gasps from the campers he had brought with him. Triton cried out in grief, something not heard since Pallas had died so many thousands of years before.
The reason was even the same after all, for it was at that moment that Percy Jackson expired his last breath.