I unfortunately, do not own Percy Jackson.
A while ago, Percy Jackson was offered a chance to make the world a better and brighter place where there is no war, no strife, and no blood. It was a world where people got along and didn't fight. It was, in short, peaceful.
The offer was so tantalizingly good. It offered the demigods a chance to live out their lives in relative calmness. They could have children and they wouldn't have to suffer through the hardships that their parents did. No more fighting monsters, no more running away. Any sane person would accept it and that was what Percy did.
But like all deals, they come with a price.
Percy sits at his mahogany desk with unsigned papers and his trusty sword at his side. A fresh breeze blows in from an open window. Outside, you could see the luminous moon and bright stars shine. His uniform was cleanly pressed and decked with gold accents.
Calmly, he sips his coffee as he examines the battle map in front of him. Lines stood for soldiers, dotted lines stood for the path that was needed to take, and arrows represented possible enemy movements.
The door suddenly opened revealing a man with neatly combed back hair. In his hands was a letter stamped with a golden seal of a star.
"I'm sorry to disturb you Mr Jackson," he said quickly, bowing to Percy. "But events have transpired that the Lady wanted to notify you of."
Percy nodded curtly and took the letter from his hands. "Thank you Thomas. You are dismissed."
Opening the letter with a ruthless motion, sea-green scanned the contents of it trying to find the important information that the Lady wanted to notify him of. With a hearty laugh, he slammed the letter on his desk making it shake.
"Insolent girl that Clarisse is," Percy snorted. He touched the scar on his right arm where the daughter of Ares stabbed him with her spear. "I suppose it's better for her to be dead than alive. Her death would surely dampen the resistance's flame now."
He brought out a piece of paper that had a list of names on it. With his pen, he crossed out Clarisse's name with a flourish. Clarisse wasn't the only name crossed out, a few others were too.
Percy gazed at the paper, thinking about the means of how these people died. They were listed in order of importance and Clarisse was third. With her dead, Percy's job was a lot easier. He signed the paper again approving it and stamped it with the seal.
"I can't help but wonder if you put a fight when you were walking towards the pit of Tartarus Clarisse? Did you spit in their faces? Punch them? It seems just like you to cause trouble like that," Percy smirked. "I'm sure that the monsters would be more than happy to satisfy your troublemaking tendencies."
He relished in the deaths of his former comrades.
Travis Stoll was electrocuted after trying and failing to invade his base in New York. His brother Connor barely escaped with his life. Now the Stoll Brothers are now known as the Stoll Brother.
Hazel Levesque died from saving a friend in the prisons, specifically from a sword wound in the back. Percy dealt the killing blow himself. He took pleasure in the betrayed face of hers. Such a foolish girl she, believed that he was on her side.
Dead
Dead
Dead
Dead
Dead
The word rang in his head like a mantra. He savoured the words. He didn't care for their deaths. Compared to the grand scheme of things, their deaths were insignificant. They only got in the way of his plans. One demigod down and that would make his life easier.
Taking the letter and going to the window, he ripped it to shreds and let the wind carry them off in the night. They fluttered in the wind like little butterflies. As much as Percy wanted to think about Clarisse, he had more death sentences to approve and more meetings to go to. The Resistance was intruding in his perfect world and he needed to stomp their fire out until it was meaningless ashes.
There was rarely a day where Percy, Grand Commander of the Night Forces, could stop and rest. Ever since the Lady took over, the world has been clothed in eternal darkness. The sun didn't grace the Earth with its life-bringing light. Rather, it has been replaced by the cold gleam of the moon. Percy figured that Artemis would be happy that she replaced her brother in the sky if she wasn't in Tartarus right now.
Everything was quiet and not a creature was stirring. It was peaceful, just like Percy wanted. Every now and then, the calm atmosphere was disturbed by a heretic screaming about his betrayal and disloyalty. Blah, blah, blah was what he heard. In his mind, they were the betrayers and not him. It was their fault that they didn't go along with him and they were punished for it.
It didn't matter anyway. The world wasn't at peace, not yet at least. To make a better world, Percy would have to destroy this one in flames and build a new one out of the ashes. Why couldn't they understand that? It would benefit everyone, demigods and mortals alike.
Some called him a hypocrite for using monsters when he said that he would destroy them. Were they correct? Yes. But they have their uses such as hunting and killing the non-believers. Once they outlived their usefulness, he would get rid of them.
One of the more popular insults he has gotten was "monster," which was ridiculous. He thought he was quite far from being a monster in his eyes. Many people did just what he did and they were praised and congratulated on their victories. The French got their ideal world by the guillotine and quite literally beheaded any heretics.
But the French Revolution died out and the people lost interest. Percy didn't plan on that happening and was eager to keep the cause alive.
No, he was a hero and not a monster.
The scent of old books immediately filled his nostrils as he entered the library. It was a grand place with shelves filled with books of all kinds. The room had high ceilings and the only source of light was the chandelier hanging from above. Brown leather couches were put next to wooden tables for a comfortable place to read.
Percy wasn't much of a reader himself but he had this place specially built in an attempt to appease her. She was a tough one, that's for sure. Broke every piece of china and snapped the silverware in half. She would kick and scream, calling for help that will never come. This was the girl that Hazel Levesque died for. Even through all of this, Percy's love for her never faltered. On the contrary, it got more intense.
Eventually, she learned her place and kept to herself in this spacious library, filling her days with tales of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Greek myths were a favourite of hers. Her eyes were always stuck to the yellowing pages that smelled like lavender.
The library was a whole separate building itself. Surrounded by an electric iron fence and barbed wire, it was an imposing place and nearly impossible to enter or escape out of. Old oak trees wrapped the library in their branches and offered shade if one wanted to read outside. It was dotted with colourful jewels in place of flowers.
This project alone cost a fortune. The floors were a polished white marble and the walls made from strong oak trees. The chandelier itself was made of glass prisms and diamonds. If the sun shone on the Earth again, than fractured rainbows would be lighting the floor.
When Percy is not busy, he talks to her but she hasn't said a word to him much to his disappointment. She hasn't been doing much of anything nowadays. He missed her bossy tone of voice and the excitement that she would get when talking about architecture. Percy made sure that she was well taken care of, and well protected.
He brought her the finest dresses made of silk, muslin, and tulle, dainty shoes, and sweet smelling perfume. Her closet rivalled that of the great queens of past ages. Even Marie Antoinette would be jealous. But instead of wearing these, she stuck with the orange shirt, blue jeans, and beat-up sneakers.
Percy smiled as he walked up to her, black boots clicking on the tile. He caught the title of the book that she was reading, Socrates.
"Annabeth? I'm here."
She was the same as she always has been. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, her grey eyes as stormy as ever, and she still had that aura of defiance after several years of captivity. Her legs were folded on the chair and her eyebrows were furrowed as if in deep thinking.
"You have been reading all day, all week in fact. Don't you want to see your boyfriend's face?"
Again, he got no response but a slight shift of the eyes.
Percy rolled his eyes. "Wow, you're really into that book are you? Socrates is dead. I don't know why you would still be interested in him." He kissed her on the lips. "Come on now. Let's go home and get some rest, hm?"
He is only met with an impassive face.
"I'll take that as a yes." Percy lifted up Annabeth into his arms and carried her into his grand estate.
Dinner was as normal as ever. The table was lavishly set with porcelain and china plates with candles in the middle. A banquet was laid out in front of them, roast beef, succulent chicken, savoury vegetables, and to finish it off, a decadent cheesecake. Despite the extravagant and rather excessive layout since there was only the two of them, Annabeth ate nothing but a sandwich and a cup of tea.
It was always rigid affair. Percy and Annabeth sat at opposite ends of the table with Percy trying to make small talk and Annabeth ignoring his attempts. At around 10 o'clock, they would retire to bed sleeping in separate rooms.
Percy kissed her goodnight and went off to his bedroom.
Annabeth stiffly lay in her bed, eyes staring at the velvet canopy. She laid there for hours or what seemed to be at least. With no daily rotation of sunlight and moonlight, it was hard to keep track of the days. Percy told her it has been only a few weeks but she didn't trust him, not anymore at least.
He was no longer the kind and caring Percy she once loved and laughed with. His sea-green eyes no longer shone with humour but with coldness of the moon. He changed ever since he struck a deal with Night and that was when she left him.
It was utter confusion those times. The Greeks and Romans had teamed up and defeated Gaia with the cost of demigod lives of course. Everything comes with a price. Percy was missing during and after the great fight with the monstrous giants and after that, the sun disappeared and replaced by black night.
It was found out that Percy made a deal. In exchange for a "peaceful world," Percy would lose his humanity. He circumstances that drove him to make it were unclear. Some say that he was a scoundrel since the beginning; some proposed that he was forced. Either way, the whole world spiralled into eternal darkness.
Tears started to form at the corners of her eyes. Many of her friends were dead because of him. Poor Hazel, she tried saving her and she almost did until Percy interfered. She wanted everything to go back to normal but "normal" was the farthest thing that the world was in right now.
Annabeth sat upright and brought out a vial with a clear liquid inside of it. Shaking, she opened the cork topper. If there was one thing that Percy did right, or wrong in this case, it was to offer her a plethora of information at her fingertips. Fortunately for her, Percy underestimated Annabeth yet again and he would lose her for the second time.
She downed the liquid in one gulp and lay down on the bed. She could feel her heartbeat slow down and her limbs stiffen. It wasn't long until it stopped beating for forever.
Annabeth closed her eyes. Her only regret was that she didn't say goodbye to her friends.
A lot of things have recently begun to unfold and I wrote this to vent my frustrations out among other things. I haven't written anything this "twisted," since, well, never. It proved to be quite a challenge.