I woke up to pain. Mind altering pain. It wasn't magical, it wouldn't go away when I left the threshold, it was real unfathomable physical damage. I didn't recognize my surroundings, I was in the middle of a forest again, and I was lucky that the plants hadn't already started eating me. I looked down at myself, the outfit that had been given to me, the one I had grown so accustomed to during my time on Inus was in tatters. It had consisted of a black pair of boots and slate gray trousers. Finished by a black muscle shirt like garment and a large overcoat that only went down the length of one arm, leaving the other exposed. I looked at the exposed arm and almost vomited. It was covered in radiation burns from the tips of my fingers all the way to the top of the shoulder where it met my clothing. It was my right arm, my sword arm, and I had instinctively used it and the sword I was carrying to shield myself. I immediately felt an intense fear, my face must look like that too.

I needed to get to water and soon. Most importantly I needed to quell the pain but there was also a vain urge to peer at the mirror-like surface and inspect the damage done to my face. I stood up, it took almost all the energy that I had, but I was going to have to do far more than that if I wanted to find a sizable body of water. Luckily I knew there was a lake near the facility I had spent the last five years in. I could only hope that it hadn't evaporated. My entire body felt like it had spent the last twelve hours enduring endless sledgehammer blows, but I was alive. irradiated, but alive. I knew the curse of Achilles had its limits, but now I knew that those limits were well within the realm of possibility. I could no longer act as though I was invulnerable, for I was not, just highly durable.

I rested for a moment, even standing took all that I had. I looked around for my sword, it wasn't all that far away from me which seemed odd. I must have held onto it for dear life. That made sense, I had spent the last two years of my life straining every day to be able to use it. I propped myself up on the sword that I had spent so long learning how to wield. Thankfully it seemed to have survived the blast mostly unscathed. Its surface was now scorched, and I figured it was also contaminated with unknown amounts of radiation. Maybe if I survived this ordeal I could call that a unique power for it. I mustered all the energy that I had and jumped into the air to gain a decent vantage, I quickly spotted the lake but it was nearly two miles away. I was shell shocked, I wasn't sure how far the lake was from the facility I had just been in, but it was more than two miles. The bomb had launched me a fair distance, apparently its inability to make me simply disappear meant I got launched instead.

When my feet hit the ground my brain activated, in a way that I had been all but avoiding for the five years that I had spent on Inus. Getting nuked must have been just the wake up call I needed. It was like my brain was trying to talk some sense into me.

"Percy, where are you right now?" it asked.

"On Inus." I answered

"Why are you on an alien planet?" it asked

"Well I'm supposed to stop a civil war for chaos." I said

"You just got nuked, doesn't anything seem wrong with that?" it asked.

"Well yeah I am pretty damn mad at that Solosk guy." I said

"What were you doing ten years ago?" it asked.

I thought about it, "Well I would have been eleven so…" I trailed off.

It hit me like a ton of bricks, ten years ago I was just any other kid. Now I was off fighting to end alien civil wars as if that was an entirely normal series of events. Hell forget the aliens for a second, even before that I had already fought in a war by the age of sixteen. That was way before I should have been able to enlist. If I was on Earth right now I wouldn't have been able to buy a fucking beer until just under a month ago. My breathing started to hitch, I could feel the world closing in around me. I wasn't normal, this wasn't normal. How did this happen to me, why did it all have to happen to me? Why couldn't I have just lived a normal life with my mom? When I got big enough I would have kicked Gabe's ass to the curb and gotten a job of my own. Sure life wouldn't have been easy, but my mom would still be alive. I wouldn't be in my second war in ten years and I wouldn't have just gotten a nuke dropped on top of my head. The pace of my breathing quickened.

I knew I was having a panic attack, it had been a problem since I had found Paul and my mother's bodies. Usually Annabeth had been there to talk me through them, to tell me to breathe and hold my hand. She certainly wasn't here now. I closed my eyes and tried to banish all the bad thoughts. I couldn't dwell on what ifs, I had to face the present as it was. As of this moment, I was an alien war criminal. My mission was to end this war, and based on the results of recent attempts I was going to alter my strategy to something resembling more of an any means necessary approach. I needed healing desperately, and there was a lake that could offer that to me about two miles away. That needed to be my sole focus, otherwise I was at a serious risk of dying alone in the bush. I could deal with an existential crisis later, it would always be later. I took the first step into my new life.

The trek took until nightfall had long passed, and I was navigating by the generous light of the three full moons, which had of course been hidden the night I arrived on the planet. It was summer, and though still far colder than a summer on earth it wasn't nearly as cold as the mid autumn weather I had dealt with when I landed. The jump and the ensuing panic attack that followed had sapped me of the little vigor my body had, making each step I took towards my destination excruciating. My sword was heavy in my hands, and if I was carrying it instead of using it as a massively oversized crutch I would have complained a fair amount. Eventually I broke through the tree line and arrived on the shore of the lake. I fell to my knees at its bank and looked down, but as I did the water at the edges halted entirely. I looked around, I had only ever witnessed one being exert that kind of power before.

Though as my eyes scanned the horizon I did not find the being that I was looking for. Instead the familiar reality warping figure of Chaos hovered above the water as if a rift in space had appeared there. I didn't know what to say, it felt like a lifetime since I had seen my divine taskmaster. Hell it basically had been, I had only spent about four years in the Greek world, and I had already spent more than that amount of time on Inus. I had aged as well, I wasn't the same sixteen year old kid who had left earth anymore. I was twenty one, I had grown to a respectable height of somewhere around six two, my frame had filled out and I looked less like a skater boy and more like a cornerback. I even had a beard, though I wasn't sure it had survived the blast. Thankfully I didn't need to say anything as Chaos spoke first.

"I would have thought you learned this lesson back on Earth but it seems I was mistaken." Chaos said.

The switch from reality to whatever liminal space chaos seemed to operate within had turned off the pain for the time being. Which gave me the opportunity to act more humorously than I would have otherwise.

"Didn't do all that much learning back on earth, usually left that to Annabeth." I said, making the joke so casually that the fact that I had said her name almost didn't register.

"I have told you before that I find your jokes displeasing." Chaos said.

"I apologize." I said quickly.

Chaos continued to look at me expectantly, I wasn't sure how I knew that with its lack of form and all, but I could tell.

"I apologize, master." I said bowing my head.

"The lesson being, frequently swift preventative action can save countless lives." Chaos said.

I didn't understand what it meant, Chaos seemed to gather that from the vacant look in my eyes.

"I mean kill one, before they can kill many more." Chaos said.

It made sense from a mathematics standpoint, sure, but I had never killed anything before, the monsters always came back, and you couldn't actually kill gods or titans. I hadn't even been sure yet whether or not Solosk was a bad guy; he seemed like he had a few good points and that the people holding me were just too stubborn to entertain them.

"It's not that easy, people can change, they can be redeemed. Some might even be innocent anyway." I said.

"The loss of one always pales in comparison to the number who are saved. If you had simply killed Luke when he showed dissent, you would have prevented the war." Chaos said.

I recoiled in shock, that wasn't true at all. Luke had simply been the first domino, killing him would have only incited others to take his place, best case scenario it kicked the can down the line to the next generation.

"That's not tru-" I started but was firmly cut off.

"You question me, all knowing all seeing?" Chaos asked.

"But-" I started again.

"Luke was the linchpin, without him the demigods would not have mobilized, they would have had no mortal to pin their hopes to, and Kronos would have had no vessel to enter upon his rise. It is simple, his death would have meant a far messier attempt from the father of the eldest gods, and by extension a far easier defense." Chaos said.

I was silent, it felt so untrue. I had to believe that Luke's sacrifice had meant something. That even with all of the death that had occurred from the war we were able to use it to make a positive change. If I had just killed Luke in the woods all those years ago none of that would have happened.

"I misspoke." I conceded. It was all I could do, I was mentally and physically exhausted, Chaos was a being beyond time and space who was I to argue.

"You will kill Solosk and end this war post haste, try to mitigate as much of the damage that you have caused as you can. On another note, your body won't be changing anymore after this point, you have reached a suitable age for immortality to fully take hold." Chaos said before vanishing.

The waves began lapping at the edge of the rocky shore once again, and the searing pain of reality struck me at full force. I took no time to analyze the features of my face. I simply dove into the water trying to get rid of the pain as quickly as possible. It was the first time I had experienced the feeling of being submerged in a large body of water in five years. It felt like hugging a family member that you've truly missed for an extended period of time. The lake's embrace coddled me and relieved the pain. I felt my body curl into the fetal position as all of the emotions hit me at once. I cried, from the pain, the anguish, the guilt, the fear. Everything was caving in around me. Chaos had delivered a more direct task, and I wasn't sure if I was going to be capable of killing a person in cold blood like that. Though it wasn't about what I couldn't do anymore, I wasn't Percy Jackson. He was dead. I was Pawn. I had a task, and I had to complete it. Simple as that. Chaos was right, in the grand scheme of things one life was nothing compared to a planet. Hell there were probably billions of planets with civilizations on them just like this one. One petty life was nothing compared to the weight of the universe. I left the water and bent over the rippling surface. My arm was utterly destroyed, laced with burn scars that would never heal, however my face seemed to have been protected by my sword. I stood up and walked away from the shore. I had work to do.

…

In total I spent thirty years on Inus. I lived there almost twice as long as I had done so on earth. Eventually the things that I had felt when I came to Inus became distant memories of a life since ended. I was a new person with new goals and new responsibilities. I had no time for past regret, even if on occasion the scars on my heart did resurface in my darkest moments. I tended to ignore that fact. The first five years after what became known as the "Defense of Inus", as it was called by Solosk or the "Alien Instigation" as it had been called by the other side, had been frustrating. The world had erupted into a full blown nuclear conflict due in no small part to my message and the actions that Solosk took in response.

Each of us had the blood of millions on our hands, the problem was that only one of us felt the weight of that fact. Solosk had instead become emboldened by the display of power and had begun taking a far more active and aggressive approach to war. The world emptied its nuclear arsenal quickly, thankfully it was small. A long standing disarmament treaty had led to either side only having about ten nuclear warheads. Solosk had launched all ten simultaneously, one of which of course had landed on me and the people who had been caring for me up to that point in time. None of them survived. My fight with Solosk was not just a mission, it was not just moral, it was personal. With the capital cities of each side turned to irradiated glass craters, the countries were in shambles for a time. Those five years were some of the worst of my life.

The people who had once supported me blamed me for the escalation of the conflict and refused to help me in any way. In fact their soldiers were ordered to shoot on sight. That meant that I was a lone vigilante with no support network and no access to information. I also had no idea how to use any of their technology, so even if I was to seize any assets from my enemy they were useless to me. I spent five years running around like a chicken with my head cut off chasing even the barest of leads looking for Solosk. It wasn't even as if he was one step ahead of me, I simply couldn't find him. I was never even close. Eventually I became fed up with my situation, the rage that had been building inside of me boiled over for the first time. I lost control, I gave in. I became inseparable from my enemy.

These people are nothing, specks of dust. Their lives don't matter. Kill as many as you want, the universe will not weep. I allowed myself to eschew my morality in favor of blind rage. I became a monster, I became just like the Olympians whose attitude I had so vehemently opposed. Their vast lifespan made them numb to the plights of mortals whose lives would begin and wither away in the blink of an eye. While I had seen beyond the boundary, I knew that the billions on this planet were less than a pixel on a monitor, nothing. I understood the gods, I was like them. It made me sick, so I forced myself to forget, to become numb. I was just a Pawn, I did as I was told. My actions weren't mine, they were the will of Chaos. I was on the side of the universe itself, I couldn't possibly do anything wrong.

I slaughtered an entire deployment of troops and supply chain members at a base located somewhere off the coast of a strategic location that needed a vast amount of nautical support. I was well aware of the fact that doing so would cripple Solosks control in the area. That was my goal from that point going forward, I was going to fight his army alone, one versus millions. I didn't have to bother with the aftermath, the peaceful people who had locked me in a box for three years made sure none of the territory fell back into his hands. Within that base I found my only ally on Inus, he was a young radical who had joined Solosk because he believed in what he said, but quickly became disillusioned when he found that Solosk may have been even worse than the type of regime he opposed.

His name was Omnoid. Our first meeting wasn't very friendly, he was of course stationed at the military base that I was massacring. However when I approached him, sword in hand, he fell to his knees begging me for his life and for forgiveness. I probably would have killed him just like any other member of the military that I had just turned to paste, but he did something that none of the others had. He immediately offered me information that I desperately needed. We were fast friends after that, by friends I unfortunately mean that he did everything I said without question and barely talked to me otherwise. It was almost more isolating than if I had simply been alone.

With Omnoid's help I was able to strategically whittle away Solosk's holdings until he was left with only a small city to defend. If all he controlled was one city, that meant he was inside of said city. I could find him, and I could rip him apart piece by piece. I had dissociated a fair amount from what I had been doing over the past twenty five years, but in the back of my mind I still remembered Perseus Jackson. I knew what kind of look he would have on his face.

I had a mortal friend at Goode once. He was a few years older than me, and he had graduated right before the summer that I went to war. When I went to his graduation party he told me a story that really stuck with me. When he was in eighth grade the teachers had all had the students write letters to themselves in the future, to open when they graduated from high school. He was young, intelligent and confident; needless to say he had high hopes for himself. He wrote a lot of things in that letter, some of them questions, some of them requests. He told me that reading that letter had been the single hardest thing he had ever done. When I asked why, he told me it was because everything that his younger self had asked of him was reasonable. It was well within the realm of possibility, it wasn't the kind of shit that a five year old says that they want to do when they grow up. It was simple stuff, like I hope you have a cool girlfriend, I hope you got into a good college, I hope you were the Valedictorian. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and he told me, I couldn't say yes to anything he asked of me. If he could see me he would be ashamed, there's nothing worse than knowing that I've let myself become like this. That I let it be normal, when he would look at me with disgust.

I knew that Perseus would hate me. He'd be my enemy. Oppose me with every fiber of his being. It hurt. So I didn't dwell on it. I suited up one last time, in the best approximation of the garb that had once been given to me that I could muster and I walked into Solosk's final fortress. He threw as many soldiers at me as he could, it almost felt comical. He knew they could do nothing and he sent them to their demise anyway. They meant nothing to him, they were just pieces on a gameboard to him. I still hated that, even if I no longer held the same value for life I once did, I didn't take kindly to people toying with it. I knew these people, and I knew they were individuals, regardless of their worth within the grand scheme of things they deserved a certain threshold of dignity. Of respect.

I obliterated several buildings that day, mostly by bursting pipes and flooding them. It was actually funny the way I finally came face to face with Solosk, the man who had tormented me for twenty five years. He walked out to meet me with his hands held in the air.

"I surrender. I will pay for my crimes." He said before falling to his knees on the scorched terracotta street below him.

I actually couldn't believe it, he expected me to take him alive? After all that he had done, even knowing that the other side had blamed me for this conflict nearly as much as they did him.

"You will pay here." I said before walking forward to meet him.

As I took that first step he smirked, the road erupted beneath my feet. I was so mad I was laughing. It was another bomb, though this time they were targeted charges. I had been hit by rockets before, the kinds of shaped charges they used hurt quite a bit and would leave black and blue marks on my body that took weeks to heal. Solosk had loaded the street with shaped charges and waited until I was in the center of it to detonate them. He had the nerve to use himself as bait, it was infuriating. The depths this man was willing to wade through managed to astonish me time and time again. The sound was nearly as deafening as the nuclear blast, but it didn't last like that one had. I was thrown probably fifty feet backwards and thirty feet in the air when the charges hit me. I landed on the ground in a heap, I could tell that I had several broken ribs just from how hard it was to breath. Though thankfully I wasn't coughing up any blood, just coughing and wheezing uncontrollably.

I heard the sound of terracotta rubble being walked on, the consistent crunch after crunch of a maintained gait. I looked up and Solosk was not approaching me, instead it was a being unlike any I had ever seen before. Half of his head was missing, and his arms and legs seemed to be entirely mechanical attached to what looked like a steel hull that could have housed his body or at least his vital organs inside. The legs looked like that of the bladed performance ones you see on amputees but with pogo sticks through them. One arm ended in what looked like a canon and the other ended in a seemingly massive pair of vice grips.

"If this doesn't kill you I don't know what will. He was designed special, just for you. Think of it like a present." Solosk sneered from behind the bionic abomination.

A cold shiver ran along my spine. "Hey you alive in there?" I asked.

The being didn't answer, it simply kept taking steps forward, it didn't hesitate for a second.

I tried again, "Come on answer me."

Nothing.

I saw red. I hefted my sword above my head, I had little doubt that I was going to be able to beat this thing with ease. The problem wasn't the threat, it was that I was livid. I shot forward as if I myself had been fired from a cannon, as soon as I was within reach I attempted to slice the machine in half at the waist. It seemed to have expected that, since it did a front flip over me and then locked its vice grip around my neck. This was bad, I couldn't turn around. I heard the familiar hum of the energy weapons that had been developed on Inus since my arrival. The cannon fired three shots into my shoulder blades, thankfully just above my vital spot. I only had one option, I swung my sword behind my back as hard as I could and was able to barely sever the arm. I hit the ground running and feinted as if I was going to try and cut the mechanical being at the waist again. As predicted it jumped over me. I brought my sword into position and vertically sliced through it from the bottom as gravity pulled it back down towards the planet. The sparking heap fell in two pieces and my eyes focused on a fleeing Solosk.

Not in a million years I thought, I sprinted as fast as I could, my sword trailing behind me sparking as I pulled it across the ground. I caught him in an instant and wrapped my fingers around his neck. As I grabbed him by the throat he did not look afraid. He simply smiled. I looked down and saw that his hands were no longer empty. He had pulled the pin of a grenade. One last desperate attempt to kill me after all this time. I laughed. I ripped it out of his hands and threw it as high in the sky as I could. It exploded about a mile over our heads. I kneed him in the sternum, knowing that it was about as painful as a human groin shot. He coughed wheezing and gasping for air. He grabbed my ankle.

"Spare me." He begged.

I didn't understand how people like him always had the nerve to beg. I lifted my other leg and stomped on the back of his head until I felt him release his grasp from my ankle. I kicked him in the stomach so that he would turn over. His teeth were on the ground along with plenty of blood and mucus, he was barely alive, or at least barely conscious. I stood over him for a moment gathering my thoughts. I was going to kill this man. There was no doubt in my mind about that, it was the mission that had been given to me. It was the will of chaos, it was the one thing I had to hold onto on this prison of a world that I could never escape. I felt all of the anger coursing through my veins, the deep desire to punish him. To make this conflict about me, to satiate my own desires by killing him. I couldn't help but think that was wrong, the two antithetical aspects of my personality were vying for control. The man had to die, yes but it was me who would decide how it happened.

There was plenty to unpack in that statement alone. If I was to swiftly kill him I would accomplish my duty and I could assume that I would swiftly be whisked away from this planet. I would leave it and the feelings I had about it behind much like I had earth. Or I could give in to all that I wanted to do to the man. I could tear him limb from limb and scatter the viscera across all of Inus. I had already permanently altered the planet and its history, what would one more act of violence be to them. I steeled my nerves, this was a mission. Nothing more, it was my fate to do the bidding of those more powerful than I, and I would do no more and no less. I carried out Chaos's will. I raised my sword like one would use a post hole digger and stuck it straight down into his neck. I severed his head from his body and the world dissolved around me.

"I hope your time on Inus convinced you of the truth." Chaos said as we floated over the planet. We were in the exact same spot, it was almost as if the last thirty years hadn't even happened. From Chaos's perspective it probably felt like a fraction of a second.

"Yes master." I said. I wasn't in the mood for getting scolded.

"Good, you have learned your first lesson. Kill." Chaos said.

I knew that Chaos was callous but it felt icy even to me. It was like it was teaching me the first letter of the alphabet, but instead of saying ah I was killing anyone who got in my way. Though I had to admit it made things a hell of a lot easier.

"With that out of the way I will be sending you to a new planet-" Chaos was saying.

"Wait." I interrupted it. I was shaking, I had been reprimanded harshly for far less than interrupting Chaos before. "I have a request."

Chaos seemed intrigued. "Speak it."

"I can't possibly do this alone any longer. My light will fade, I will shrivel and die. The loneliness of eternity is unbearable. The gods had spouses, or minions or children even. I need someone. A friend. Please." I pleaded. I had been pondering it for quite a long time. Since I had met Omnoid most likely. It was then that the weight of my predicament had felt most crushing. If I was going to be traversing endless worlds for the rest of time I wanted a partner.

"A life lived alone is indeed hard to bear, however who would you have me call?" Chaos asked.

"I-" I started. That was a good question, and one that I really didn't have an answer to. I thought back to all of the friends that I'd had on earth. Most of whom I never wanted to see again, though there were a few that I could at least stomach the thought of spending time with. Nico came to mind, but he'd be thirty years older now. Though chaos could probably fix that he still wasn't a good fit. He had blamed me for Bianca's death, and I couldn't tell him any different. We would never be able to coexist. Thalia maybe, she'd been almost as disillusioned as Luke after all. With her I didn't have to worry about the age difference, but Pinecone Face had other problems. She was a daughter of Zeus, our blood flowed in opposite directions. No matter how much we may have respected each other we wouldn't be able to exist alone without tearing one another's heads off. It clicked, there was one friend who had truly chosen to be my friend. There were no extraneous factors forcing them to do so, no special advantages to be gained. She even had a predisposition to hate my guts. She was perfect.

"Zoe Nightshade." I said. It had been the first time I had said her name in a long time. It brought back good memories, ones of mutual respect earned through hardship. She would have no problem with the burden of immortality either, after all she had already lived through two thousand years on earth.

"I shall pluck her from the stars." Chaos said before disappearing.

I clutched my throat in fear, but nothing happened. Chaos was only gone for the briefest of moments, and when it returned it was flanked by the beautiful huntress that I had met all those years ago. Though she seemed to have aged up to match my current appearance. I was fine with that, even if aliens couldn't understand the implications of me walking around with a fourteen year old girl I would certainly feel awkward.

"Percy!" She said before rushing to my side. I winced, but I wasn't sure that she noticed. "What in Hades is going on." She looked around. "Are we in space?"

"Yeah about that." I said. I was starting to crumble. I could feel it. All of the shields I had put up while on Inus to forget what I had done and who I had become were eroding. Just the happiness that seeing Zoe brought me was nearly enough to bring me to tears. I wanted so desperately to be Percy, but I wasn't sure that I could. Not anymore.

"Perseus has been recruited, he does my bidding now." Chaos said.

Zoe eyed Chaos with a raised eyebrow and looked to me for confirmation. "It is as Chaos says." I said, my voice struggling not to crack.

"Chaos!?" Zoe reeled.

"The singularity, yes." The being said.

"How'd that happen? I saw you disappear from earth, but I had no idea what happened to you or why." Zoe said. She looked at me, her gaze felt warm. "You look older than the last time I saw you, how long has it been? Unfortunately my time as an immortal and my place in the stars warps my perspective a bit."

I smiled for a moment. "You look older too." I said.

She looked down at herself as if just realizing that a change had occurred. "Yes she said, this is quite the development." She seemed to blush for a moment.

"I've been off earth for thirty years now." I said, it still didn't feel real.

"I see, that's longer than…" Zoe trailed off.

"Than the time I spent on earth, yes." I said.

She seemed to be pondering, taking everything in. "Why am I here then?"

"I asked Chaos for a compatriot, my job is lonely." I said.

"You chose me, why not Annabeth or one of your other friends?" Zoe asked.

My nostrils flared, I was feeling a lot of Percy related emotions. "I left earth for a reason." was all I said.

She seemed to understand. "I would be honored to serve the will of chaos alongside you." Zoe said.

"Splendid, you'll be liberating a race of carbon based lifeforms who have been subjugated by a group of gods who you of course know to simply be beings of another element." Chaos said.

Before Zoe could even attempt to ask for an explanation of what had just occurred we were on another new planet. But this one was different, as I looked to the sky I saw that we were actually orbiting a far larger body, Chaos had placed us on the moon. I heard Zoe gasp.

"Perseus, your arm." She whispered.

"I have a lot of explaining to do." I said.