No More Heroes
Chapter 1:
That Day
The sun was hot, too hot. It almost felt like it was glaring down on Camp Halfblood. The magical borders made sure the temperature was always nice, well most of the time, but for some reason the harsh light bothered Percy.
It was a day like any other. No Titans rising from Tartarus. No Mother Earth to worry about and definitely not Roman Emperors.
Things were looking bright.
Yet Percy couldn't shake the feeling something was horribly wrong. His demigod senses, sharpened by years of combat told him to run, to flee or to hide.
It didn't make any sense to Percy. Despite this he couldn't shake the feeling.
"Something wrong?" Annabeth asked lazily. She didn't look up from her book.
"No, it's nothing," Percy lied. He watched the surface of the canoe lake. The water's surface was perfectly smooth. The sun stood high on the horizon in the middle of the sky, 12 o' clock.
Two days from now Frank and Hazel would come over. Percy and Annabeth had invited them to watch the annual firework show.
"You are worried," Annabeth slowly spoke. She had put her book down, a concerned expression was on her face.
"Nah, I'm fine."
"Percy, don't lie, you are wearing your stressed face." Annabeth smiled softly.
Percy wanted to protest. He didn't have a stressed face. The point was, he wasn't sure he could win this argument.
"Fine, it's just that-"
Before he could finish what he wanted to share, a camper, one of the newer ones whose name Percy hadn't memorized yet, came running down towards the lake. Her eyes set on them.
She came to a stop in front of them, huffing like she ran a marathon.
"Something wrong Alyss?" Annabeth asked.
She was a daughter of Hermes, Percy suddenly recalled. She had athletic long legs and blonde streaked hair. She reminded Percy of Luke.
"At the Hearth-" Alyss gasped for air and leaned on her knees. "An Iris message- From Olympus. Ev-everyone has to be present."
The sense of dread that had been stalking Percy all morning grew into a knot that twisted in his stomach. He had to run. Flee, get as far away from this place as far as possible.
Annabeth's hand grasped his and Percy's heart slowed down. His nerves cooled.
"Let's find out what the Gods want from us this time." Annabeth smiled reassuringly.
"Yeah, let's do that." Percy nodded.
Together they followed the daughter of Hermes back to Camp where a large crowd of campers, Satyrs and Nymphs had gathered.
They stood in a circle around the hearth, the one Hestia, in the form of a small child, tended sometimes. Today the Goddess was nowhere to be seen.
Run his inner voice screamed.
Annabeth pushed through the crowd, muttering excuses and dragging Percy along.
Chiron paced around the hearth in full Centaur form. Worry etched onto his face.
"Percy, Annabeth. Glad you two could make it."
"What's going on Chiron?" Percy asked.
"I wish I knew," the Centaur said. "A few minutes ago an Iris Message appeared above the Hearth, I was told to gather all present Demigods for an important message from Olympus."
Percy looked at the Hearth and noticed the vapor mist hanging above it, forming a small rainbow.
More Campers arrived, a few already armed while others were still making quips and smalltalk.
Annabeth's eyes were like storm clouds, peering at the floating rainbow as if she was trying to tear it to pieces with her gaze so she could examine the pieces.
How bad can it be? Percy asked himself, trying to stay optimistic but after beating Kronos he discovered it could always be worse.
Just when Percy thought the anxiety would kill him the final campers made their way to the crowd. They were still in their pyjamas.
"Brave her-" Chiron started but he was interrupted by the shimmering rainbow.
"Demigods of Camp Half Blood," a female voice came through the rainbow, despite this nothing but a blank void could be seen through the Iris Message. Percy recognized the voice. He had met the Goddess the voice belonged to on his way to Alaska with Frank and Hazel.
Something about the Goddess' voice sounded off. It sounded flat, without any personality.
"For over 6000 years Olympus has been the flame of the Western civilization," the Goddess continued. "However due to circumstances outside of our control the Olympian Council has unanimously voted for the complete extermination of all mortals and Demigods. 24 hours from now we'll begin to take action. There will be no further explanation or communications."
Just like that the Iris Message dissipated.
Percy's guts felt like acid.
A painful silence followed. No one said a thing. No one knew what to say.
It stayed like that for a full minute.
Then chaos ensued.
A/N Hi, your Captain speaking.
Just wanted to say that in this version the Norse and Egypty Gods don't exist.
I haven't completed Trials of Apollo yet so please don't come at me with 'this character is dead or this happened' I am still reading it.
Another thing, to my regular readers who might be wondering why I wrote this instead of updating Insane wrist are still hurting so I am testing out some writing methods, for example half of this chapter was written with my toes.
So yeah, this is my test sandbox yada yada, inspired by an SCP article.
Cya. Oh, and if you made it this far, why don't you leave a review? Or not. You probably won't.
-CaptainMoonShine-
