Chapter 11

"You knew she was going to Rome," Thanas said as their boat cut through the waters. "You know what awaits her. You said it yourself. You're a descendant of Athena. Why couldn't you do it instead of her? You're not afraid of what comes at the end."

Percy simply looked away. "I've sailed this sea many times. Far more than I can even remember. I'll never forget the first time I sailed these waters. We called it the Sea of Kronos back then. Now, I believe it is called the Ionian Sea. A small part of the greater Mediterranean Sea. Back then, we'd just escaped the grasps of Scylla and Charybdis. It felt like we'd conquered the world."

"You're not answering my question," Thanas said sharply. He wasn't here to listen to someone talk about the 'good old days'. He needed to save Ionna as fast as possible.

"We have time, Thanas," Percy sighed. "We won't land in Rome for at least a couple more days. I'm possessing this boat, yes, but I can't make it go any faster than it will let me."

"Why didn't we just sail to the east coast of Italia and cross over?" Thanas snapped in annoyance. "It would have been a shorter route."

"Perhaps distance-wise, yes," Percy agreed. He glanced toward the shoreline in the distance. "But you seem to be forgetting something. Are you the son of the mountain gods? Are you the son of tunnel gods? No, as a son of Hades, you are the son of the Lord of the Dead. A true child of the Underworld, unlike the children of Pluto and their control of riches. Crossing the Apennines would take us longer than circling around the south. I am a son of Poseidon, after all."

Thanas scowled. He didn't like that the immortal demigod was making sense. "Whatever."

They sailed in silence for a while. Percy kept his eyes trained on the horizon, as if waiting for something to appear.

Thanas didn't feel very comfortable in the boat. All around him was the power of the sea, all under control of his uncle Poseidon. If the Sea God was even just a little angry, Thanas felt like he was going to drown with the snap of the god's fingers.

"Trust me," Percy said calmly. "Nothing's going to happen. These trips take time. That's all there is to it."

Thanas also couldn't believe the stark contrast between the Percy that helped them destroy the Eleventh Legion and the Percy sitting in front of him. It was almost as if there was a switch in his head that turned him from a cold-hearted killer to a soft-spoken guide. Granted, he liked this Percy better. The other Percy made him feel unsettled. Thanas knew he was powerful himself. He knew Xanthe was even more powerful. And he knew Leon had that lightning in his bag of tricks. But Percy was on a whole other level. Not only did he have an insane level of power. Not only was he immortal and immune to disease and sickness. But he was also a demonic and skilled fighter.

The way he'd taken out five Romans at once without fatally wounding any of them was something he figured he'd never see again. Of course, a part of that was the element of surprise. They weren't exactly ready for battle. But the other part was the finesse of a true warrior.

The bronze blade he wielded was deadly. Thanas could tell that it had been infused with bronze—the type of bronze that mortals must have used two thousand years ago. But Percy could also summon a bow and was an expert marksman. He'd also used the Romans' javelins and spears like they were second nature. It was as if he knew how to use every weapon known to humankind. And the way he mercilessly executed the survivors... It made Thanas shudder.

Still, he was just one man. One man couldn't destroy the world on his own.

"How old are you?" Thanas blurted out as the thought came to mind.

Percy turned to stare at him, and for a moment Thanas thought he was going to die. But the son of Poseidon turned away and said, "I'm not sure myself. When I took a little journey away from home, I lost track of time. Different people have different ways of measuring time. And, as you know, I don't age. But from all the records I could find, I was probably born somewhere between 1,600 to 1,800 years ago."

Thanas blanched. "That's..."

"Before even the time of Homer," Percy finished. He laughed. "It has been a long time, hasn't it? All the distorted tales of history? Wrong. Whatever Chiron has told you is probably true. He's older than all of us."

"You... you lived in the... the Age of Heroes?" Thanas could hardly speak without stuttering. He was amazed to see someone that old sitting in front of him. Especially since Percy looked like he was younger than him. "That's insane. You knew some of those heroes?"

"Knew?" The son of Poseidon raised his eyebrows. "I knew some. Some more than others. Thanas, I was one of those heroes."

Thanas' jaw couldn't possibly drop any farther.

"You seem a lot more stunned than I expected you to be," Percy chuckled. He stared back out at the horizon. "Yes, I'm from that time period."

"That's so cool," Thanas mumbled, still in disbelief. "You were a hero? How come there were no stories about you? When were you born? In the age of Perseus and Bellerophon and Cadmus? During the Trojan War and Achilles' and Odysseus' reign?"

"The Argonauts," Percy replied. "I was an Argonaut. Achilles... he was my first and last pupil. After that, well, I went for a trip to the east and when I came back... everything was gone. Though, I was able to keep Heracles' lineage alive until all of Alexander's children were killed off by Roman spies. Funny how that works. I ended up killing all of Aeneas' descendants just a few hundred years later. In any case, I'm old. And I've been through a lot."

Thanas could hardly believe it. He was talking to a hero from the Age of Heroes. And the mystery behind Achilles' trainer was solved. He always wondered why Chiron seemed so hesitant whenever Achilles was brought up in conversation aside from that one story he always told.

"As for why I didn't substitute for Ionna," Percy said at last. "That's because I can't substitute. Maybe my blood is too diluted. Maybe only her sons and daughters can complete the task, but when I first found out about the Mark of Athena, my first reaction was to find it and follow it. But the map doesn't show itself to me. I followed a son of Athena to Rome. I watched as he descended the steps and watched as he never came back. Dozens more children of Athena came. Eventually, I found out what was awaiting them in the pit. Just by interrogating children of Athena and figuring out the dreams they'd been having, I found out why it had been so impossible for them to succeed. The god Mithras, which the Greeks adopted from Persia, became popular in Rome about four or five hundred years ago. In my haste, I left the children of Athena to their own devices and led the Gothic sack of Rome, hoping to open a clear path to victory. With the fall of Rome, the cult of Mithras fell. I should have collected more information about Mithras before it was effectively impossible to learn more since the Roman cult differed from the Persian cult.

"In the past hundred or so years, there have been two children of Athena other than Ionna, who I have helped. I told them all I knew about Mithras. Neither of them survived. What they face after Mithras is more difficult. Ionna is smart. She can get past the Mithras temple without dying. Arachne is what I worry about."

Thanas went silent. He closed his eyes, praying to all the gods that she would make it out alive.

"I would have done it if I could," Percy repeated. "But I'm not allowed."

Thanas felt weak. He couldn't protect the ones he loved as he thought he could. And ever since they attacked the Eleventh Legion, the doubts began to swirl in his mind. He wasn't entirely sure he could kill all the Romans like Percy. The Romans had always seemed so foreign before, like a machine made of flesh warriors. But the way they had been laughing around the campfire reminded him of his time at his camp.

He could kill if he had to, but he didn't feel so good about what he was doing anymore.

"How do you kill without feeling remorse?" Thanas asked Percy.

Percy glanced at him. "Kill without feeling remorse? I don't think that's possible. Killing another human is a tragic fate that will scar anyone. Though, I've met some people who enjoy harming others. They aren't in the right mind. Those people are insane."

"But—" Thanas caught himself. Look at you, he wanted to say. He figured that the son of Poseidon wouldn't take too kindly to that assessment, so he held back.

Percy smiled sadly. The horizon seemed to be his best friend. He kept looking at it. "Delude yourself, Thanas. There are many ways that I've seen people deal with killing. Some pretend that the person on the opposite end of their weapon is a monster. Some convince themselves that the person on the other end will kill them if they don't kill first. Others believe that the ones they kill aren't actually humans, but rather some entity pretending to be a human."

Thanas swallowed. "And you?"

"I'm not killing humans," Percy said. His eyes looked lost, as if clouded over by hatred and insanity. "I'm destroying Apollo and Mars. I'm exacting revenge."

He remembered their second day of scouting the Roman camp when Xanthe told him about her dream from the night just before Percy approached them. The difference between the Percy that Xanthe had told him about in her dream and the difference between the Percy that sat in front of him never seemed greater than at that moment. The Percy in Xanthe's dream wanted to protect the village. He wanted to save Nabu and Ubar and the family. He valued each individual life.

"Why don't you rest?" Percy suggested. His voice was quiet again. "I'll wake you up at dawn."

Thanas nodded, and he started dreaming as soon as his eyes closed.

"Run, Percy!" a girl shouted, running past Percy. Some of her hair had been sliced off. She stopped and shouted at Percy. "Come on! Why are you standing there?"

They were in a forest somewhere. It looked foreign. Percy was holding something by his waist, but Thanas couldn't see what it was. The shadows masked its identity. Looking around, Thanas realized that they were fighting a familiar creature.

The manticore growled as he appeared in their line of sight. A barrage of spikes sliced toward them, but Percy immediately raised his arm. A shield, bearing the horrible face of Medusa, appeared in the darkness. It glowed bronze and looked so menacing in the moonlight that Thanas flinched. The spikes slammed hard into the shield, but the magic shield didn't even dent. It was Aegis, a replica of the shield-form of Athena's gift from the original Perseus.

"Where did you—?" the girl said breathlessly.

At the sight of Medusa on the shield, the manticore recoiled and hissed. He threw some more spikes at Percy, but the shield held its ground. "Where did you get that?" the manticore growled.

"It's a present from a goddess," Percy said, lowering the shield. He gave the manticore a devilish grin. "And this is where you are going to die, manticore."

The girl slipped behind Percy and whispered, "I'll shoot arrows while you advance. Maybe if I get a good shot off, you'll be able to attack and kill it."

"Sounds like a plan," he replied.

And so the two advanced. Percy charged forward, holding his shield in front of him and his sword in a position where he could strike at a moment's notice. The girl, clearly a huntress of some sort, darted back and forth between the trees and let fly what seemed like her entire quiver. She moved smoothly and quickly, as if she'd trained her whole life. Her shots landed exactly where she intended to hit, slowly chipping away at the manticore's body.

The manticore looked fearful as the two advanced.

He slowly retreated. Any attempt at changing the angle was met by an arrow by the girl. The manticore was being forced to retreat in a linear path, coupled by the girl's excellent marksmanship and Percy's quick advance.

When Percy reached striking distance, the manticore turned to run. From experience, Thanas knew the manticore was incredibly fast and would definitely fling a set of five spikes toward the duo. But the girl fired an arrow so precise it hit the manticore's neck and froze him.

Percy lunged forward, slashing off the creature's tail and beheading him. Slowly, the manticore began to dissolve, leaving nothing but the tail.

Thanas could hardly believe it. Again, Percy's exploits amazed him. It took Ionna and Xanthe as distractions, the help of a dozen skeleton warriors, a surprise ambush, and a poison wound on Xanthe's arm for them to defeat the manticore. Percy and that girl took on the manticore head-on and beat it with hardly a scratch.

The scene shifted.

Percy and the girl were sitting in the middle of a campsite. They looked like they'd just finished cooking dinner. They were giving offerings to the campfire, like they were thanking the gods.

"That was a brilliant idea you know," Percy complimented the girl. "Crazy but brilliant."

"Not really," she shook her head. "Crazy and insane is more like it. I bet on the fact that they would be stupid enough to take the bait. There were so many things that could have gone wrong, but they did exactly what I wanted."

"And that was because you knew that they were going to do what they did," he argued. "You're brilliant and amazing."

The girl blushed. "I... I suppose."

"Well, that only leaves two more targets," Percy said, poking at the ground. "It'll be hard to defeat Lamia. She's sneaky and uses disguises very well. That might be from my father." He paused. "You know, it really isn't comforting knowing that I'm related to all of these monsters. I don't even know if my father will turn against me for what I do!"

"You think it's hard being related to monsters?" the girl scoffed. "Think about being related to Titans in a world where they lost the war. And then think about being related to Titans in a world where they lost the war and being disowned by those Titan relatives. Who's my ally now?"

He gave her a smile. "I am. And you know what? If the gods are too paranoid and freaked out by you being Atlas' daughter, we can just forget about trying to start the Hunters of Artemis. We'll just go on living the rest of our lives together, as normal hunters."

Her eyes flickered with anticipation and hope. Her face was illuminated by the light, and Thanas got his first good look at her. She was beautiful and elegant, with dark eyes and dark skin and long dark hair. She looked like a Persian princess.

"That sounds nice," she said softly.

Percy stared at her for a moment before realizing what he was doing and looking away. He cleared his throat and looked up into the clouds. "Maybe we could earn a spot in the sky after completing feats that even the greatest of heroes would envy. We could be Adelfia Aionios."

"Eternal siblings?"

"Exactly. Eternal siblings forever."

The girl pursed her lips. "What about Aionia Erastes?"

Percy suddenly looked nervous. "Eternal lovers?"

"Eternal lovers," she nodded, looking up at the sky. "A tragic story where two societal outcasts come together and spend the rest of their lives loving each other until they die. Neither of them have any children, so their lineage dies with them."

He blinked. "For... for what happened to you... to joke about love like that..."

She smiled at him warmly. "It doesn't matter, Percy. When I'm around you... I feel comfortable enough to pretend. I know you well enough to understand your feelings about what happened to me. And in either case..." She hesitated. "Regardless, it's time for a little bit of rest. You're first watch."

She put a hand on his cheek and leaned in for a kiss.

When they broke apart, she said "Good night" before disappearing into the tent they had set up.

Percy sat there, absolutely stunned. After a while, he blinked and couldn't help but smile uncontrollably. He leaned against a tree and looked over at the occupied tent.

"Good night, Zoë."

Rage had devoured him.

Percy collapsed to the ground, sinking in the wet sand. He felt fatigued and raw, and though there was no visible damage to his skin he felt like he'd been trudging through red-hot lava.

It was the first time he'd let his rage consume him. He'd always been in control, but that was the first day he realized that he was truly the son of the Sea God. Wild and temperamental. Reckless and deadly.

The battle behind him still raged on, but on the beach everything was quiet. There was a trail of dead Greek soldiers behind him. And the sorrow and guilt of what he'd just done washed over him like the restless waves of the Aegean.

"Stop him!" Zoë's voice shouted from behind him.

Percy dropped to his knees. "What kind of monster am I?" he shouted. "What have I done?"

"Percy!"

He tore his breastplate off and brought the tip of Anaklusmos to his belly button. "Better to die than live dishonourably. To atone for what I have done to you, gods of Olympus!"

But just as he was about to stab himself, a hard kick sent Anaklusmos flying out of his hand and into the ocean. He felt someone, a smaller and slimmer figure wrap herself around his arms and legs, trying to prevent him from moving. She shouted, "Lock him! Paralyze him!"

Percy summoned a huge wave to flood the beach, sending Zoë hurtling up the beach. Percy grabbed Anaklusmos, which appeared at his feet, and plunged the blade deep into his abdomen. He cursed, feeling the blade cut open his intestines instead of plunging through his stomach. He ripped the sword free from his abdomen and collapsed.

Zoë crawled up toward him and held his wound. Anxiety sparkled in her eyes, which made him smile.

He knew he wouldn't die, but he remembered wanting to. He wanted to see Achilles. He wanted to apologize.

Zoë grabbed something from the Infinity Pouch and poured it onto his wound.

He reached up to feel Zoë's face, gently caressing it. Darkness began to envelope him. A lone salt tear fell into his open mouth before he lightly tapped the girl's nose.

Then everything went pitch black.

"I'm awake!" Percy shouted.

He opened his eyes to the sunrise. Thanas was lying across from him on the boat, still fast asleep.

It was just a dream, he thought. Just a dream.

Percy wanted to stab Morpheus. Why was the god showing him dreams of his past? With that dream about Nabu and this dream, it was almost as if the god was trying to show him the error of his ways. He didn't want to listen. There was no other method. He'd learned that the hard way in the east. It took him hundreds of years of pain and suffering to figure it out. He wouldn't go soft again.

Trying to recover from what he did in the Trojan War only earned him exile. He wouldn't stop his hunt of Apollo and Mars' worshippers.

Percy stood up and stretched. He didn't feel all that good. Fortunately, Scylla and Charybdis had moved from their original position near Sicily, but a pretty fierce storm battered them down. While Thanas was sleeping, he managed to get through the storm without waking the young son of Hades.

He was still sore from their fight against the Eleventh Legion. It wasn't as if he hadn't fought an entire legion before. But the last time he tried he'd almost killed himself. This time, even with help of the most powerful demigods alive, he felt like he'd expended a week's worth of energy.

They were getting closer to Rome. His best estimate put them on course to reach Ostia by sundown.

"No..." Thanas mumbled in his sleep. His eyebrows were knit in worry. "Ionna..."

Percy let out a deep sigh. Even though it was his way of getting Thanas back into the battle, he still didn't feel good about leaving Ionna to her own devices. He was afraid that she would take things too quickly and advance before she was ready. He wanted Thanas to be able to save Ionna. She was valuable, both as a strategist and as a human being.

He shook his head and focused on the task at hand. He couldn't afford to get distracted by sentimentality.

"No!"

Thanas shot awake, shaking the boat.

Percy calmed the waters and stared at the son of Hades.

Thanas was breathing heavily. His eyes were wild.

"Ionna's in trouble. Right now."

Life has gotten a little hectic all of a sudden, so I haven't been able to sit down and write a full chapter in a while. Fortunately, I've got spare time here and there where I've just been writing excerpts and stuff for later chapters, and all of a sudden I'm a bunch of chapters ahead. The chapters are shorter on average, but I feel okay with what I've written.

Because I've been writing this over a long period of time, there have been a lot of changes to how I've built this world. At first, this was meant to be a story about the Trio with Percy as a sort of guide. As you can tell, though, it really isn't. Even if many of the chapters are written from their perspective, the story has changed.

This will likely be the last story in the series, but the ending I've decided I want will leave it open-ended so if the few dozen of you that actively read the story want more, I can definitely conjure up something. The question will be when I finish this story. Hopefully by the end of the year :P

Jokes aside, here's a filler chapter. If you've read the previous two stories, you'll recognize the scenes above. I was going to hold off on updating for this weekend, but I realized that this chapter doesn't actually add anything new and ends on a nice little cliffhanger, so why not? Right?

Hope you American readers had a nice holiday last week, and hope July hasn't been too hot for everyone so far!

-Sharky