Glass Half Empty

Percy had never been a glass half empty person. He hadn't been before, anyway. But he was truly changed after the Second Giant War, a husk of who he used to be, changed beyond repair.


It started in Tartarus, as soon as they landed. He turned his head to the side and saw Annabeth unconscious and bleeding from her side. He saw some grown men in some sort of military armor that he couldn't recognize picking them up and one saying, "Survivors! Get them to the base!" before passing out.

He woke up to a gruff, commanding voice barking, "Come on, marines! We need to hold them off!" and found himself lying down on some sort of cot in a base of some sort. Percy had so many questions. Who were these people down here? How did they get there? What was it that they were holding off? There were so many questions swirling through his head.

Percy was about to ask Annabeth if she had any idea what was going on, when he saw some sort of pale spider on her face. More questions were thrown into Percy's already scattered mind. What was the spider thing? Did it belong down in Tartarus? If so, he had never seen it. One thing was for sure though. Annabeth was out cold still. He decided to try to get off the cot.

When he slid off the cot, he started to walk out, and heard gunfire. These marines, whoever they were, were fighting something. Was there any connection between the gunfire and the thing on Annabeth's face? He was walking out, but stopped for a moment to make sure he had Riptide. Good news, it had returned to his pocket like usual. He was ready for whatever it might be that was out there.

He walked out of the base, only to have something jump on him. He tried to beat it off frantically, but the creature kept a firm grip. It opened its mouth to reveal a second mouth for a tongue, aimed at Percy's head.

He heard gunfire, and felt the thing lose its grip and fall off. Then he felt his arm burning with some sort of acidic feel and screamed. Did the thing have acid for blood?

The marines fired like madmen at the creature until it fell, lifeless. Percy got his first good look at it. It had a sleek dome-shaped head carapace and a thin sort of body. It had lots of teeth, and the second mouth that he saw earlier. Its claws were very sharp, and it had a tail with a blade at the end of it.

He turned to the marines and asked, "What's going on here?"

A marine responded, "We don't know all the details, but this thing we killed just now is the reason we're here. We don't know much other than what these things basically are. I know that my memory is fuzzy. If my squad knows anything, they sure haven't told me. And they damn well should have if they knew."

Another marine said, "Sarge, I know someone sent us down here to keep these aliens down, but why? And did they honestly expect us to keep these goddamn things down? Because if so, we are failing expectations."

Percy was confused by this story. Why couldn't anything be simple? He decided to ask this sarge, "What is your name?"

The sarge replied, "My name is Al Apone, a sergeant in the Colonial Marine Corps. Who are you?"

So I'll leave off on this cliffhanger. All you Aliens fans will get it, and probably scream at me. Thank you for reading, I will upload more chapters.