Prologue

Percy stared at the body at his feet.

He remained motionless as the blood pooled around the dead man's body. There was a deep gash across his throat where Percy had cut him. Percy couldn't help but snicker. At least he'd died a painless death. There were a thousand other ways Percy could have made it worse for him.

There was a soft rustle behind him as the centaur approached.

Percy didn't turn around. He didn't need to see to recognize the creature that had appeared. The sound was almost nostalgic.

"It's been a long time, my boy," Chiron said quietly.

"Seems so, doesn't it?" Percy turned to face the centaur with a hard look. "I guess it's true now. The Everlasting Hero is back."

Chiron looked down at the bodies that lay strewn across the ground. One was missing a head. Several were dismembered. The one thing they all had in common was that they were Roman legacies. Chiron hadn't been told much by Lupa, but the one thing he knew for sure was that the mark of Rome—those etchings in their arms—was imprinted on the arms of the fallen. A daughter or legacy of Neptune leaned against the tree, a dagger impaled in one eye and the other open in surprise.

"Do not tread down this path," Chiron warned. He grimaced as he looked at a man who had been impaled by a tree branch. No doubt the dryad would fear and hate Percy. "This is a dangerous line you are walking."

"Does it matter?" Percy asked, raising his eyebrows.

Chiron watched his old student curiously. He hadn't expected Percy to be so… cold.

"Do you truly believe this path will right the wrongs committed in the past?" Chiron questioned his old student. "Do you truly believe that this is the way?"

Percy looked at him coolly. "And what of your students? Don't tell me you don't feel any heartache knowing that we pit ourselves against each other now. Why fight the Persians? They aren't our enemies. Have they forgotten what really destroyed Mycenaean Achaea? The Trojans did this. The descendants of Aeneas grew Rome into a budding power. You know more than anyone else that the Roman way protects all… that our way lets us perish before we reach our peak years. No longer… I will make sure Rome will never crush the Greeks. Greece is the homeland. And it shall always remain that way."

"You were the ones that helped the Trojans," Chiron pointed out. "You saved them from utter destruction. You saved Aeneas."

Percy reached into his Infinity Pouch and produced the Golden Sword of Troy. He held the point of the blade to Chiron's neck. "I stole this from the Trojans. This was their symbol. Even now their weapons are the golden blades that the Trojans once wielded."

"I understand your anger, but if we remain positive—"

"Positivity?" Percy laughed. "You think you can lecture about positivity? I was disgraced and turned away from this world, Chiron. The gods expelled me because of Apollo's dirty trick. I will not sit back and let myself be beaten down. That is not who I am!"

Chiron tried to keep the situation under control. "Percy, you are the Everlasting Hero. A child of Poseidon and a descendant of Athena. You are meant to be powerful and wise."

"I'm not an automaton," Percy snarled. "I am a human. And, to a human, emotions that are strong will always triumph over reason, no matter what kind they may be. I am not a god. But I am a hero. Was Heracles stripped of his title of hero after murdering his first family? I don't think so. Was Jason stripped of his title after abandoning Medea? What about Theseus? Achilles? These are all men who had faults, who were selfish and cruel to those they despised."

"Perseus—"

Percy's eyes flared, and for the first time, Chiron saw what Percy experienced over the past few centuries.

Endless nights in a never-ending desert, almost dying of thirst. Climbing up the steppes and desert hills in the east, the peaks stretching out far into the horizon. Finally coming to a river, hoping for a drink, but attacked by an array of monsters Chiron had never seen before… attacked by bandits of foreigners. Scaling cliffs of mountains, far above the land where any misstep spelled doom and death. Finally emerging, after decades of travel at an ocean in the Far East, near a village of shorter, tanned peoples. The travel north through a kingdom that called itself Zhou up to the horse nomads in the steppes. More desert. More thirst. More hunger. More raids. More death.

Percy had witnessed the sack of a village in the east, unable to do anything without water nearby. He'd watched as the village burned, the girls raped and the men executed. He'd watched as the nomads fought amongst each other, fighting each other in duels and in warfare. He'd stood in a field of dead horses, men, women and children, wondering where all the humanity had gone.

Percy stepped foot back in Colchis, which had been razed to the ground by neighbouring tribes. It was rebuilt to its former glory, but there was something amiss. It wasn't the same Colchis it had been before.

Time passed, and Percy arrived back in Greece, only to find that things had changed. No longer was it Mycenaean Greece. The Greece he knew had been destroyed after he left. It was the Archaic period, as the Greeks rose from the Dark Ages and were restored to their former glory. But the stories of the gods were but myths… tales that mortals chose to believe or not to believe. It was the reign of the mortals, and demigods had all been wiped out of society.

Chiron saw Aphrodite come to apologize to Percy, and Percy accepting it. He saw Percy prepare and strike back at Apollo, wounding him yet again.

And in all this, Percy had changed. He'd left scared and tired and angry. But he'd returned cold, ferocious and destructive. This was the side of Percy that Chiron always feared would emerge. After all, there was no child of Poseidon without a dark side.

"What would you have me do?" Percy said coldly.

Chiron snapped back to attention. "Save the Greeks. Do not destroy the Romans. This is about Apollo and Ares, not about the Romans."

"Jupiter, Juno, Mars and Apollo," he growled. "These are the gods the Trojans revere. Save for Juno, these are the gods that ruined me… destroyed what little I had left after Achilles died. I saved their heroes, and they repaid me by obliterating what remained of me. If the Romans are the pride of those three, then I will tear them down… brick by brick. I will make each and every one of them suffer for them to watch." He tore the dagger out of the girl's eye and slammed it into the tree, making the dryad pop out and scream. He shot her a death glare, sending her running for her life. "No matter the cost."

"Percy…" Chiron looked at him sadly. "Will you die a hero? Or will you be as I expected? Will you be long enough for this world to become its greatest villain?"

Percy looked down and clenched his jaw. The old Percy would've broken down. He would've either cried or given up. He would've changed his mind and set a path to the right. He would've torn himself down to become better for the sake of humanity. He would sacrifice his own well-being to stop what was wrong.

But his fatal flaw was damning.

If he truly believed he knew what was best for everyone around him, he would be a threat to all of humanity. If he truly believed he had the right to control fate…

Percy looked up and set his jaw. He gave Chiron a cool, level stare. "'One man's hero is another man's villain.' In the end, Chiron, I will save what is most important."

Chiron saw a mirage of terrifying images Percy's eyes.

A city on fire, much like Troy, legions marching through and slaughtering men like pigs. Women and children were split from each other, young boys either killed or forced to kill their own friends and family. Girls abducted, smothered by lust-filled soldiers.

A volcano erupted, an earth-shattering explosion, sending an enormous ripple of sound hurtling through the air. A deadly cloud of volcanic gas, stones, ash and fumes rose to a tremendous height, hanging in the air for what seemed like an eternity. The sky darkened as the plume of smoke encapsulated the world. And then, like a rolling wave, fire and debris rushed down the side of the volcano toward a city. It began to rain ash, and as people tried to run from their lives, they ultimately perished. Some suffocated in the sulphuric, toxic air. Those near the sea drowned. Some were crushed by fallen buildings. But most were killed when the landslide of rocks and fire slammed into the city.

On Crete, an enormous wave rose. From above, Chiron watched as the ocean slammed into the shore, submerging everything in its path. Thousands of lives were crushed in an instant in a chain of mass destruction.

Chiron's tail swished from side to side nervously. "And what is most important?"

Percy stowed the golden blade away and grabbed the clip from his hair. The bronze sword that elongated from the clip cast a deadly shadow over the fallen victim at his feet. The half-bronze, half-Celestial bronze sword was stained with blood. Percy caressed the blade with his fingers, drawing blood as he made a shallow cut across his left palm. He looked up and challenged Chiron with poisonous eyes.

"Me."

This is pretty much the, if not exact, same prologue that I used in an older version of the story that I posted on the site. It was called 'Into the Darkness' or something like that, but I took it down. As a note, I haven't been active for a long time on this site, and you'd probably expect someone like three or four years older to be better at writing, but no. I'm still pretty bad.

In any case, this is a T/M rating story. There are parts that are pretty dark, but I think it lends itself to the story.

For the longest time, I've had a huge writer's block. I haven't posted anything in ages, and a lot of this story was actually built up from February 2017 to May 2018, but I could never find it in myself to publish anything. The biggest reason why I'm posting it now is because the whole plot exists in writing. It's just a matter of filling in the details. I really hope I can actually finish this story. No promises.