The chaos of battle stormed my world, inside and out. I kept glancing at the Olympians, checking if they needed extra help in defending against escaped titans. The half-bloods, hunters, and all other allies were fighting for their lives. I saw Nico defending a pair of mortals, who were picking off stray monsters with firearms. Nico locked eyes with me, nothing but pride in his gaze at the sight of me.
My chest and back were littered with slices of light, but the light was different. Instead of what mimicked a bioluminescent glow of orange, my dark form emit beams of light, rivalling the Sun itself. The darkness wrapped around like a blanket of armor, all where there were minor or a lack of injuries. Speaking of injuries... my entire left arm looked like it was made of millions of tiny embers. It glowed, with very little darkness to cover it up. It felt numb, but I pushed past the pain to use it when needed. The crescent moon on my sternum almost cast a shadow in front of me from the brightest amounts of light pouring out around it, and all of my facial scars sizzled as if they were magma, ready to erupt with blasts of light. The scar running down my cheek, the one splattered across my other cheekbone, multiple criss crosses on my temples, and the slash going perpendicular to my hair's shaved line, all were worn like a crown.
Meeting his eyes, my expression changed. Something was happening, and I needed to be there. Nico's eyes changed too, and one of the mortals simply looked confused at us staring across the field from each other. His hurt look bore into my soul, as if asking do you have to? With a sigh, I shadow travelled over to him and squeezed his hand to bring him into a bro hug. With our heads on each other's shoulders, I felt him squeeze back.
"I trust you, Nico; I always will. Now, be strong, Victory Angel." I pulled away from him, seeing his helpless gaze. With time running short, I looked back once more to flick a ping pong shaped ball of darkness into his palm. I could feel him cup it in his hands before tightening his grip and chucking it at Kronos' army as if throwing a rock to distract them. As I ascended into the sky, a voice in the back of my mind whispered with love, You too, Jack-o-Lantern.
I bounced weightlessly from platform to platform, making my way up to Olympus. Ahead of me, I saw a figure falling towards me. At first, the daylight made it so I had to squint to see any details of the form. That's when I saw the eye-patch.
"Ethan!" His body jerked with motion at the call of his name. I may have just met him, and he may have been on the enemy side, but he was family. Even if our shared family were full of demons, I could tell that he was different. He was like me. I managed to ease his accelerated fall, but not without consequences. As I took his hand and lifted him up to a platform in the sky, he looked to me with desperation. He was injured and bleeding from a deep gash in his gut. No doubt, Kronos' scythe or the sword. Knowing that this was his time, I did the only thing I could think of to ease his pain. The only thing that I wanted through all of my years of pain.
I held him close to me, like a mother would her child. Like a sibling would their brother. He leaned in to my embrace, accepting the hug as colour faded from his cheeks. "Overcome titan's might... please. He'll kill Percy. I can't believe..." I shushed him, holding on to the dying boy for dear life. Slowly, I brought him to face me and lifted the eye patch from his face. There was a distorted scar, and his eye was permanently shut. Looking at it, I smiled to him. He smiled back, overjoyed that someone smiled at his disfigurement.
I looked up to where he had fallen from, worry clear in my eyes. He set his gaze, stronger than anyone I had ever seen. "Go, avenge me." I nodded, meeting his eyes one more time. Before I set off, though, I murmured only loud enough for him to hear.
"An eye for an eye"
He slowly let his head rest flat on the ground. He would die with his dignity, today. "With darkness comes light. From pain only joy."
I turned back to him, watching his eyes slide closed. "Over come titan's might."
With a new found vigor, I got up to Olympus, sensing commotion from the Hall of the Gods. As I entered, standing in the tall narrow doorway, I saw my worst fears come true. Percy was just barely at the mercy of Kronos, and Annabeth lay not too far behind him, injured. I could sense the strength radiating from Luke, not Kronos' strength, but Luke's mental strength. Annabeth pleaded with him as I walked into view.
"Family, Luke. You promised we would always be a family." From a distance, I couldn't see the colour of Luke's eyes, but his hesitation to behead Percy told me enough.
"With them, not for them, Luke. Remember?" All eyes turned to me, and for a moment, I saw Luke fully in control. He had a longing look, and saw my dark form as if it were foreign. With that, I changed into my normal form, trying to give him as much familiarity and comfort as I could while he fought the battle of the centuries in his own mind.
With my arm mangled, and gushing blood, and nothing but sweat beading unscathed parts of my body, I stood tall. Luke looked like he wanted to approach, but was being held back. Luke looked more like himself than I had ever seen before; his eyes showed that he could hear us, and only us, and his motions held back the entity fighting its way out of his mind. As Kronos tried to form his old body, Percy readied Annabeth's dagger.
"NO!" the agonized scream of protest from Luke stopped Percy in his attack. "No, Perce, don't come near. He'll try to defend himself." Percy looked to Annebeth, unsure of what to do, but I allowed Luke to tell him what had to be done. Before the son of Hermes had said anything, I let the tears ride down my face, making the scars glow brighter. Luke would die a hero, and lead the rest of them into their peace: Elysium. With them, not for them.
"Give me the knife, Percy. I have to do this myself." I wanted nothing more than to stop what was happening, to give Luke the life he never got to have, seeing the half-bloods at peace. But by stopping this, I was doing exactly what I planned to prevent. He would watch the demigods at peace, just from below. As Percy handed him the dagger, blade to himself, I did my best to collect myself.
*Slash*
I didn't want to look, but I owed it to Luke to watch as he saved the world. Annabeth and Percy held his dying form in their arms, crying freely for their friend, but they didn't see what I saw. There, standing over his dying form, was a figure of dark energy, blazing with yellow fire underneath the surface. Annabeth gasped, warning Percy of the looming figure and holding Luke to her chest. Percy tried to swing at the figure, but the blade disappeared as it contacted the surface of darkness.
Kronos, who was staring me down, each in our dark forms, materialized his scythe and approached. "You are a disgrace to the Primordial gods of our world. Your mother was right to entrust me with her power, and to curse you instead." I was still in shock before I finally understood. My mother was the sister of Gaea, Kronos' mother. Nyx and Gaea were 2 of the 5 primordial deities, and Nyx lives in Tartarus half the time. It made so much sense. This was why Luke had a dark form in my dreams. My mother must have granted Kronos a dark form in the case that I turned against her.
The 9 foot tall titan charged at me, striking and slashing with deadly strength. I did my best to avoid his blows, but he had me pushed up against Apollo's throne. Seeing the crack through the doors of the outside sky, a plan fabricated itself into my head. Dusk. Soon to be night, when I had more access to pull dark force from the surrounding world; I just had to hold on until the night came. Until my mother came.
And so, I did what I had trained my entire life for: pain endurance. I remained silent the entire time out of habit as I took every beating and every slash from Kronos that wouldn't kill me. It hurt, and I could feel the layer of dark force beginning to weaken as he persisted. Percy, Annabeth, Lu... Luke, and other gods had gathered, trying to aid in the battle. It was no use, though. Everything that contacted Kronos' layer of dark energy was deleted out of existence except for dark energy, and no one could control it, except me. I watched as Hermes ran to his son, kissing him farewell, and weeping as his soul lifted from his body. His soul. His soul. That was it. Nyx's blessing of a dark form was only a shell to protect his wandering soul from being pulled into the Underworld. This was a last resort; Luke killing himself with Kronos possessing him would scatter his soul, and we would have to hope that it doesn't stitch itself back together in the future. Scattering his soul wouldn't work. History won't repeat. The only thing that could eradicate an entire soul was a massive amount of dark energy; enough energy to send the world into an eternal night. That was exactly what I was waiting for.
The gods, along with Percy, Thalia, and Annabeth, watched helplessly as I waited for my mother to arrive. I blocked out the sounds of their screams, and the pleas that Kronos stop in his rampage. I watched Apollo try to aid me at my side, but I pushed him away, into the arms of his twin sister. Artemis seemed to get the point, and held him back, but it didn't stop my father from reaching out to try and heal me. It was no use. The damage kept coming. In the minutes before daylight's death, I pushed Kronos off of me to stand tall. He stared back, ready to strike again, and irritated at how I refused to die.
With the light of my scars casting their waves of warmth onto my surroundings I faced the titan. "I am not afraid of you." He laughed, raising his dark scythe with my blood dripping from it like a fountain.
"Aren't you afraid of you? You know nothing of what I am, Seth. And I know that you neglect to see yourself because you are me. Stop denying your power and join me, Seth! Or I shall have to slay you with the rest of them." He looked around at the gods, smirking, "What have the gods ever done for you? Hurt you? Used you? Lied to you? Now is your time to make things right. You finally can taste your revenge, or die fighting for the very ones who hurt you." This time, his manipulation didn't work. I knew who I was, and I would tell him exactly that.
My scar light brightened as hot as an eclipse, and I began to use all of my pent up strength, love, and anger to collect the darkness of the night sky. The walls were all blown to bits, and I could see as the blanket of night flowed into me, revealing the naked sky. "I know exactly who I am." He tried to strike me full force as I stood in front, but this time, his attack was deflected by my growing field of dark energy.
"My mother is Nyx, and my father is Apollo. I'm hated by Zeus, and I betrayed Eris and Nemesis. My family is made of heroes: the son of Hades; the Hero of the Great Prophecy; the son of Poseidon; the daughter of Athena; the daughter of Aphrodite; the son of Nemesis! I may not be a half-blood, but they are my family. Them, and every other innocent who got dragged into this mess." He once again tried to strike me, but the darkness absorbed the entire arm of his dark form, revealing bits of his soul that tried to escape through the wound. My light was shining brighter than ever before, casting more shadows for me to harness. To stop his soul from escaping, I covered him in a layer of darkness. The night sky was turned to morning, despite having only set a few minutes prior, and I watched as the Sun pulled at my strength, greedy to steal my darkness. However strong the Sun was, I held on to the darkness of the night sky with a tenacity I had never felt before.
Kronos, staring in horror, watched as his soul was revealed from under the dark form. "What are you?" Feeling the power and energy begin to be too much, I condensed it all as much as I could into my broken body.
"Mind of a mortal." My vision cleared, seeing everything perfectly, despite the darkness swirling around.
"Life of a half-blood." The blood seeping from my arm had continued bleeding, but the years of endurance taught me to move past it.
"Body of a monster." With blood crusted hair, my scar shone like a neon light on my face.
"Power of a God." With the last promise, I unleashed all of the dark energy collected from the sky to eradicate his soul. The power exiting my body felt like having the blood drained from every vein, but I persisted. Souls were nearly indestructible, and I wasn't taking any chances. My senses stopped, and I couldn't smell, hear, or feel anything. All that I knew was that there was a soul being obliterated in front of me, and I heard distant screams filled with pain. Who was screaming, I didn't know. All I knew was that finally, once the blood red soul was destroyed by the night, I allowed myself to rest.