S02E04

Friday the 13th

Percy Jackson

Post-Apocalyptic

It's been exactly one year since it happened. The Gods, our parents, decided Olympus wasn't enough anymore. They were tired of hiding, tired of being forgotten. So they did what any all-powerful beings would do when they get their panties in a twist… Destroy.

The globe's entire nuclear arsenal couldn't compare to the power of the lightning or the sea. And if that wasn't enough, the literal avatar of war was rooting against them. The humans never stood a chance.

Some did survive. The ones that fell to their knees and praised them for their power. Our parents are still petty like that, I guess.

After the conquest, the gods each staked their claim on a piece of land. There was a short squabble over North America, but Zeus won out easily being the god of gods and all.

Camp Half-Blood was left untouched. Whether that was an oversight or intentional, we'd never know. They cut off contact with us and, well, maybe that's for the best. None of us really wanted to help except Clarissa and all the rest of Ares' war-horny offspring.

So that's where we're at now. Life kind of just sucks. Zeus coming to Earth in all his glory created a power surge so major, every lightbulb, TV, and cell phone exploded. Poseidon, my own absentee-for-most-of-my-life father, collected nearly all of the water on the planet and is hording it down in Antarctica like a greedy child, so we're all getting pretty thirsty and Diet Mountain Dew can only get us so far.

As I finish my morning patrol of the border to Camp Half-Blood, I look up through the treetops to see the sun rising.

"At least Apollo is still doing his damn job," I mutter to myself. To my surprise, I hear a harsh laugh from behind me. I whip around and scan the tree line, out past the magical barrier.

"He's not the only one, kid," a deep British voice rasped from the shade of an oak tree. The shadow contorted, opening like a door, and out stepped a raven-haired man dressed all in black. This was first god that ever tried to screw me over.

I sighed heavily. "And what do you want, Hades? Where have you even been the last year?"

Hades chortled again, "Thinking, pondering, trying to remember where I left… something. And on this fine morning, as Persephone made me my Denny's Grand Slam, I finally remembered! I left it in there."

Hades extended a bony finger, pointing directly into the center of Camp Half-Blood. His eyes gleamed with dark excitement.

"I'm not letting your Hot Topic ass in here," I shout, taking my pen out of my pocket. I click the top and out shoots a whole goddamn sword, gleaming gold in the early morning light.

"Kid, this really isn't about you. What I left in there, it'll put an end to all of this," Hades gestured around himself wildly, pointing at basically everything. "It'll all go back to normal. Well, I mean, the population will be real low for a while, and you'll basically have to rebuild infrastructure from scratch, but hey, it's better than this."

My eyes squinted in suspicion. Hades was a crafty motherfucker that had tried to screw me over multiple times before. But times were desperate. We were running out of Diet Mountain Dew and some of the younger demigods are getting stir-crazy.

Hades seemed to see desperation in my face, because he smiled. "Come on, kid. I hate this as much as you do. We can end this together."

"What exactly did you leave in here?" I asked, my sword still held aloft.

"A weapon that can do more damage than that pinprick you've got."

Hades led me through Camp Half-Blood, making a beeline towards the lake. The tip of my sword never left the small of his back. The water had been transformed in the gods' conquest, making it into Diet Mountain Dew, Dionysus' favourite beverage since the rest of the gods made him sober up back in 2013.

Once we reached the shore, Hades motioned to me then to the lake. "Well, do the Jesus thing."

I scoffed, but did as I was told. Together, we walked out on to the surface of the lake, Hades peering down beneath his feet and through the yellow liquid. Finally, once we reached the exact center, Hades remarked "Ah, so that's where I left it."

He knelt down, fingers dipping into the Diet Mountain Dew, and plucking a small skull-shaped buoy out of the lake. He yanked on the attached rope, passing the slack back to me.

With the other end of the rope still under the surface, we walked back toward the shore, slowly dragging the thing across the lakebed.

We were about to reach dry land once again when I heard the scream.

"YOU LET HADES INTO THE CAMP?" shrieked Annabeth, stomping down from our cabin to the small beach.

Seeing the love of my life so dang angry, I lost my concentration on my water powers. Hades and I both fell downwards, plunging our legs up to our knees in chilly Diet Mountain Dew.

"Annabeth… I can explain," I stutter, still dragging the thing with Hades. We trudge out of the lake to meet my angry girlfriend. "He has a weapon at the bottom of the lake, we can take the Earth back, build it back up."

We bickered back and forth, we were so engaged in our fight that we failed to notice Hades continuing to reel in his catch.

"I don't care what he has, I want him out. Remember what he did to you?" Annabeth hissed.

"Of course, I re-"

"Lady and gentleman, meet Jason Vorhees," Hades shouted over our argument.

We whirled around to face Hades, who was now accompanied by a hulking mass of a man. His face was covered by a hockey mask, but underneath a mouth drew heavy, slow breaths.

"I thought you said you had a weapon," I shouted in anger and confusion.

"Oh, kid. You have no idea. Jason, here, killed dozens of demigods back in the eighties before Zeus or your dad could do anything about it. They couldn't even kill him when they did catch him, so they just gave him concrete shoes and tossed him in the lake. That was your dad's idea, he watched way too many gangster movies back then," Hades smirked through his whole speech.

Annabeth and I were stunned silent. Jason's barrel chest heaved, taking in air for the first time in decades. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and yellow, whether that was from the Diet Mountain Dew or some sort of undeath, they couldn't be entirely sure.

"Well, what do you say we go on a road trip? Show our friend Jason the world? Pack light, the Underworld Express charges you an arm and a leg for extra baggage," Hades chortled. He clapped Jason on the back and rested his hand on the goliath's shoulder. "For you, we can ignore the whole 'no weapons' rule."

Jason looked at him and grunted.

Together, the four of us headed back toward the shade of the forest. Once Hades found a shadow large enough, he wiggled his fingers and eventually grabbed hold of an invisible door knob, twisting it and opening the shadow.

Our motley crew stepped in one by one.

"Next stop, Zeus!"

THE END