Percy POV: Third Person
Somewhere along the coastline of rural New Jersey
Percy was running.
He wasn't sure of how long he'd been punning, but he knew that he was punning.
He wanted to get as far away from New York as he could.
As far away from the site of betrayal as he could.
But he was exhausted. He had been running almost nonstop for days. He was almost out of food and water, and desperately needed a place to lie down and sleep.
Percy collapsed in a heap in a sheltered cave near the coastline, slumping against the wall in exhaustion.
His mind decided it was good time to go all let's revisit the horrible times on him.
And he found himself falling into the flashback.
Flashback
Percy was feeling elated. The wars were over, and he was on his way to visit his parents with his girlfriend, Annabeth Chase. Holding hands in the warm late September afternoon.
They reached Percy's apartment, pausing for a moment to exchange a kiss. Then Percy raised a fist and knocked on the door, rapping it three times.
The door immediately swung open, and Sally Jackson stood in the threshold. She had lost weight, her eyes were sunken, and there were bags under her eyes.
But, upon seeing her son and his girlfriend, her entire face seemed to glow again, and her eyes seemed to regain their lost light.
"Percy!" She flung her arms around her son. "Paul! Percy and Annabeth are back!" she cried, moving to hug the latter.
Annabeth gratefully hugged her "foster mother", accepting the glass of lemonade Paul had come hurrying with.
"Come in! Have a seat!" Sally beckoned them in.
They did, and Annabeth began to recall their adventures, Percy chiming in at some of the romantic parts.
When they were finished, none of them expected Annabeth to take out her new knife, acquired from the Camp Half-Blood weapons shed, and stab Paul straight through the abdomen.
Sally screamed.
Percy turned to Annabeth and wrenched the knife from her hands. "Why?!"
Annabeth sneered. "You are so foolish, Percy, to actually think I loved you. I never will love you, after what you did to Luke."
"After all these years," snarled Percy. "You helped Gaea, I presume?"
"No," Annabeth replied. "I'm not that stupid. I just needed to finish the ritual."
"What ritual?" growled Percy, Riptide leveled at the daughter of Athena's throat in a flash.
Annabeth froze, wisely not moving or speaking. Then Percy dug the sharp tip into her throat, drawing blood. "What ritual, daughter of Athena?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Annabeth snarled back. "The ritual to bring Luke back so we may live together again."
"You can't bring him back, Annabeth" Percy shot at her. "I would've brought back Zoe, Bianca, Silena, Beckendorf, and Luke already if we could."
Annabeth shook her head, blonde princess curls flying. "No, Percy. You're too dumb to know. You see, I just need a body. A body for him to inhabit."
"Not Paul," Percy bellowed. "Never!"
"Too late. The time we spent talking, you could've healed Paul. But now he's gone," Annabeth cackled.
Sally fell across her dead husband's body, sobbing. Blood stained Paul's lower torso, and dripped onto the carpet. His chest wasn't moving.
Paul Blofis was dead.
Annabeth took her drakon bone sword and drew a mark across Percy's forearm, Percy too stunned to strike her away.
"Remember me by that," Annabeth snarled.
Percy's eyes glowed an angry green, and he began to glow in a blue-green aura. Furiously, he disarmed Annabeth, took her sword, and plunged it hilt deep into her chest, straight into her heart.
Annabeth gasped and clutched Percy's arm. "N-no!"
"I'm sorry, Annabeth. But I can't let you kill Paul and get away with it. I have to take a life in return," Percy said sadly.
"N-no, Percy. P-p-please. L-luke loves m-m-me," pleaded Annabeth, reaching for him as he turned away.
"Was I not good enough for you?" bellowed Percy, spinning on her. "Why did you have to tear apart my world again? Interrupt the fragile peace? What is wrong with you? Why do you only see to your benefit?"
His voice seemed to falter. "Why can't you accept that he's gone?"
Annabeth clung weakly to him, her blood staining the sofa. "P-percy, please. B-b-bring Luke b-back for me."
"Why should I?" hissed Percy. "You two can be together. In the Fields of Punishment, of course, right, Hades?"
Thunder rumbled in confirmation.
Annabeth sobbed. "Percy, please."
Percy shook his head, the green eyes she had loved so much losing their carefree light. "No. I am done with you, Annabeth Chase."
Annabeth's final breath left her lungs, her eyes emptying of both hope and life as she died, her own drakon-bone sword still plunged between her breasts.
End Flashback
Percy's head dropped into his lap, sobs racking his body as he sat, alone and broken once again.
Paul had been dead for three weeks now. He was given a beautiful marble tomb but a simple traditional black coffin, buried in a brand new suit and his wound cleaned. Paul'd been given his favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird, to hold as he was placed in the box. He looked like a sleeping Armani model as Sally closed the casket, sobbing the entire time.
Annabeth had been burned under a dull grey shroud, the owls adorning it crossed over by Omega symbols, from the Greek alphabet.
The sign of disowning.
The goddess of wisdom had even summoned Annabeth's spirit from the Underworld and chewed her out on killing an innocent soul for her own benefit and hurting Percy more than necessary.
She'd given the spirit a tattoo on her hand, an owl crossed with an omega like on her shroud, disowned her, and stripped her titles.
Then Athena had told her to never go anywhere or do anything the legacies of Athena did.
Taking away Annabeth's-now only- joy, architecture, was the final straw.
Annabeth had begged and pleaded with her mother and got nothing but a firm shake of her head and a final farewell from the goddess, who was extremely disappointed in Annabeth, and even felt pity to the AWOL son of Poseidon.
Percy had run away the night after Paul's funeral, disappearing from the entire New York State in less than eight hours.
When the first distress call had come from camp to Sally Jackson's place, he was long gone.
Now there he was, sobbing his heart out on the floor of an abandoned sea cave that slowly filled with water at the oncoming high tide. Percy welcomed it with open arms.
He was done with handing out his loyalty like it was free money: he'd been hurt too many times.
Now he sat up, eyes hollow yet full of steely determination.
The Percy Jackson who handed out his fatal flaw like flyers for a promotion was no more.
The new Percy Jackson was the one who never trusted someone unless they earned it.
He was never going through another heartbreak again.
Slowly he sat up and packed his scattered heart back into its place in his chest.
Then he ate his last, slightly stale piece of bread and drank some water, standing up as he screwed the cap back on.
He was going to make amends.
Even if it meant dying.
But what did Percy Jackson have to fear of death?
Nothing.
Empire State Building
Four Days Later
Percy strode up to the front desk. "600th floor, please."
The man looked up from his book, which happened to be The Expert's Guide to Greek Mythology. "No such thing, kid. Get lost."
Percy looked down at himself for a moment. His shirt was ragged, his shorts threadbare. His shoes were beat up and dirty, and his backpack looked like he tossed it into a muddy sinkhole.
Not really recognizable, but at least he still had Riptide.
He took the pen from his pocket and held it up. "You don't want this uncapped, do you?"
The man glanced at the pen and his eyes widened to the size of quarters. "Percy Jackson?"
The sea-green eyes that stared at him answered his own question.
The man quickly tossed the son of Poseidon the key card. "Make sure no one gets in with you."
Percy walked over to the elevators, ignoring the curious glances coming from all sides. Finally, he boarded an elevator no one seemed to want to get on, and slid the key card into the slot under the button panel. The board lit up and a new red button grew from the metal, marked with a black 600.
Percy pushed it and settled back against the wall, brooding over what he was about to do.
He had evaded death too many times already. Why not just die?
Staying Alive started piping over the speakers, and Percy listened to the tune as the elevator rocketed skyward.
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk
I'm a woman's man: no time to talk
Music loud and women warm, I've been kicked around
Since I was born
And now it's all right, it's OK
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man
Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
It was so ironic that the song was playing right when he was headed toward his death, Percy chuckled to himself.
Then he froze, remembering the time after the war, the Seven had gathered at Sally's apartment and sung the same song, over and over again, until Leo, who had brought back Calypso with him, leaned over and changed it to another song, which happened to be Girl on Fire.
Leo had spent the rest of the afternoon apologizing to Paul Blofis, who was both awestruck and hysterical from Leo's fire-and-dance pair. Leo even built Paul a new sofa with tons of new gadgets, including a built-in refrigerator and padded, genuine leather recliner seats.
It had been ruined in the entire Annabeth incident.
Percy had run away before Leo could finish fixing it.
Now he would never see it in its clean, updated glory again.
Tears dripped from his cheeks as the elevator halted and the doors flew open. Wiping his tears away, he set off down the path towards the throne room of the gods.
Vending satyrs stopped yelling about their wares when they saw the hero and instead bowed respectfully, while nymphs giggled and blushed as he walked by, waving and blowing kisses.
Percy remained silent and whenever he looked up at someone, they recoiled at the emptiness in the eyes of the son of Poseidon, wondering where his easy, cheerful manner had gone.
Finally, he reached the palace and the doors immediately creaked open, letting the demigod into the chamber.
As usual, the two of the Big Three present were bickering with one another.
"MOTHER RHEA ALWAYS LOVED ME BEST!" Zeus yelled into Poseidon's face.
"ONLY BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T EATEN, YOU EGOISTICAL BRAT!" Poseidon screamed back.
Hermes and Apollo were sitting quietly together, whispering to each other and glancing around warily.
Athena, Demeter, and Artemis were rolling their eyes and commenting to each other on how their parent and brothers were stupid males.
Hera, sitting beside Zeus, was stroking a peacock and looking extremely bored.
Aphrodite and Ares were having a kissing session, having crept off their thrones and into a corner.
Dionysus was fast asleep.
Hephaestus was tinkering with a device that looked suspiciously like an enlarged electric flyswatter.
Finally, after waiting in the doorway for fifteen minutes, Athena noticed him.
"SILENCE!" she yelled, and the gods, taken by surprise, immediately shut up.
Athena gestured to the son of Poseidon. "I believe we have an audience."
Poseidon looked thoroughly confused, having forgotten about the argument with his brother. "Percy?"
The demigod bowed. "Hello, Father."
Poseidon leaned forward as his son straightened, perplexed by his formal, empty gesture. "Percy? What's wrong?"
Percy straightened, and just like all the others who looked into his eyes, Poseidon recoiled.
His eyes were hollow, empty orbs of sea-green, void of any emotion, yet swirling with so many. Even Poseidon couldn't count how many.
Pain. Sadness. Anger. Defeat. And the worst of them all, acceptance.
"Ask Athena. But before you do that..." Percy paused, then forged ahead. "...kill me."
The entire council gasped, and even Aphrodite and Ares took a pause from their session to look up with wide eyes.
"You want us to what now?!" exclaimed Apollo in unison with Hermes, Athena, Zeus, Hera, and basically everyone else except Dionysus, who was still fast asleep.
"Kill me. Please." It was at that moment where Percy's voice finally broke. "I have nothing left. My parents are dead. Annabeth is a traitor and dead. Camp thinks I'm dead. Everyone I love is either dead or doesn't know where in Hades I am. Just kill me."
Zeus leaned forward. "Now what is this about the daughter of Athena being a traitor?"
Athena cleared her throat. "I can explain, Father."
The wisdom goddess proceeded to tell the entire story, and even conjured up a chair for Percy as tears traced paths down his grimy cheeks.
At the end of the tale, Poseidon looked ready to leap off his throne and storm his brother's realm, his eyes murderous.
"Please," begged the distraught son of Poseidon. "Please."
Zeus stroked his beard. "Give us a moment to consider."
"No." Percy's voice was suddenly firm. "If you won't do it, I'll do it myself."
To the gods' horror, Percy had Riptide out and pointed at his heart.
Poseidon's eyes widened. "Son!"
Percy's hand was shaking furiously. "Please."
"Now," a voice said from the entrance to the throne room. "Let's not go to see Hades just yet, Perseus Jackson."
The entire council seemed to freeze up. Zeus's hand froze up on the armrest of his throne, and Hera by his side seemed to hyperventilate.
"No way," whispered Poseidon.
"Well," the voice came again, definitely a man's. "let me introduce myself."
The man walked into the center of the thrones. In short, he looked like the Terminator, but with less muscle and more brain.
His eyes were the black holes of the universe.
"My name is Chaos," he said.
Zeus's grip tightened on his throne.
"Now, Percy Jackson," Chaos turned to the frozen demigod. "Put the sword down, and let's talk."
"No," Percy said quietly. "I said I'd do it myself."
And he plunged the sword into his chest.
I think that the cliffhanger was necessary.
Good day.
-The Panda Named Panda
