"'TEN THOUSAND YEARS...can give you such a crick in the neck!'"- Genie from Aladdin
Hello again! It's 8DemigodRunner8, and I'm finally back! I am every bit as relieved as you are that this chapter is done. It's taken me way too long- it's been an entire month, I believe?- to post, and I apologize for my lack of updates. I've been simultaneously busy and unfocused this past month...not a good combination.
I also spent some time reading the House of Hades! What did you all think? I personally liked it, but I can't post any spoilers here :( . I was really close to including a spoiler in this chapter, but finally decided to exclude it for the sake of those who have not yet read the latest book.
Anyways, I'm back! And without further ado, here is the next chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus
Annabeth's POV
As soon as Zilia vanished in a thin cloud of monster dust, the heavy metal barrier blocking Annabeth from Percy rose back into the ceiling, letting in a burst of fresh air- at least, as fresh of air as you could get in Tartarus.
The daughter of Athena breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived; what she saw on the other side was, in fact…depressing.
Percy Jackson was kneeling on the ground, Riptide dejectedly set off to the side, and the demigod was fidgeting with his Camp Half-Blood necklace anxiously. Annabeth was caught off-guard by this sight. Even before she'd developed a crush on him, she'd known that this son of Poseidon was special. He was a hero, he was a leader, and he was strong. Now, watching him murmur to himself on the floor made something break inside Annabeth.
"Percy?" she asked softly, kneeling down beside him. He didn't look at her, and instead closed his usually bright green eyes. His low murmurs were inaudible, but a few words are decipherable- "Charles…hero…my fault…dead….so many…"
"Perseus Jackson." Annabeth's voice hardened, causing Percy to open his watery eyes and look at her. At this point the stern tone in the daughter of Athena's voice was being forced- it was all she could do to not break down and cry with him. "Tell me right now what happened."
Annabeth's tone must've triggered something in Percy, because the next thing she knew he straightened his back and wiped at the tears streaking his face, trying to put back on his heroic aura.
"A…A ghost came in to my half of the house, right after the metal divider came down. He-He never said his name, but what he did say was…eye-opening."
Suspicion crept up into Annabeth's throat. "What did he say?" she choked out.
Percy's head snapped up to look directly into Annabeth's stormy grey eyes. "I am no hero. Everyone gives me credit for being this superstar demigod, but if you think about…I'm not."
"Percy-"
"No, Annabeth, listen to me. I've let so many people down, like Zoe, Beckendorf, Bianca-"
"Percy!" Annabeth interjected, cutting him off by grabbing his shoulders and giving him a slight shake. "You listen to me now. That ghost? He was Amfivallo, the ghost of self-doubt. He was trying to break you...on the inside." Annabeth gave him a half-hearted smile. "You can't let him, alright? Stay strong. What he said about you was wrong…"
Percy didn't seem to be registering what she was saying, so Annabeth played a card she had been hesitant to use.
"If you don't get a handle on yourself, there'll be more people you would've let down. Leo, Piper, Frank, Jason, Nico, and Hazel will be left waiting for us indefinitely if you don't pull yourself together. I will be let down if you stay like this."
Percy, upon hearing those words, hurriedly dried his eyes once more to make sure that he had no trace of his tears left and stood, pulling Annabeth up with him. "You…You're right. There will be no more deaths because of my actions."
Annabeth sighed. He obviously hadn't let Amfivallo's words go yet, but at least he was ready to move on.
"Let's get out of this freak show of a village."
"No argument there," she responded, putting her hands up in mock surrender.
The couple quickly opened the crooked wooden door leading back outside and jumped the steps off the porch. Feet thumping onto the ground, Annabeth took a look around. The abandoned village looked just like they had left it- broken, old, misshapen, and still as spooky as ever.
"I swear we've been transported into a horror movie," Percy commented, keeping his voice low, although there was no one there to overhear him.
"Hasn't Tartarus in itself been a horror movie?" Annabeth replied bitterly.
"Good point. All the more reason to leave." The couple continued walking in between the crooked houses, squeezing their way between close corners and making a beeline for the darkness outside of the village. It wasn't an ideal destination, but it was better than the haunted houses they were leaving behind.
"Annabeth..." Percy started, and the daughter of Athena looked up at him curiously.
"What?"
"If Amfivallo came to talk to me, who talked to you?"
Annabeth pursed her lips. She had no desire whatsoever to discuss that encounter- especially with Percy. How could you admit to someone that deep down you were jealous and wished that you could be the hero without coming off as vain and angry?
"Her name was Zilia…" she began, and before she could finish- thank the gods- she and Percy slammed into an invisible wall.
"What the-" Percy grunted as they backed up a couple of steps, Annabeth rubbing her nose and Percy his forehead.
The daughter of Athena peered over the edge of her hand and almost had a heart attack. She was staring at an exact image of herself, repeating her motions perfectly like a reflection. Over to the left was Percy's reflection, staring back at the real demigod with the same confused green eyes.
The daughter of Athena approached her look-alike, and when she raised her hand and connected it with her reflection's, she felt a smooth, glassy surface. It was a mirror. But how? she wondered. Sure, we can see ourselves, but…
Yes, Annabeth could see her reflection and the glint of the torches' light on the mirror's surface, but that was where the similarities ended. There were no reflections of the houses scattered behind the couple, and the mirror showed the black landscape behind it, like it would if it was a one-way mirror. It also, apparently, extended in a loop, surrounding the entire village within its walls.
It wasn't there when we showed up, Annabeth remembered. The logic of it all didn't make sense, but hey, this was Tartarus. Since when had anything made sense?
Annabeth snapped out of her thoughts when she saw Percy being his usual goofball self. He was raising his hand and watching his reflection imitate him, then stuck his tongue out and observed his mirrored-self do the same.
Such a kid, Annabeth thought with a chuckle, and when she turned back to look at her own reflection once more, she was surprised by her appearance.
Her blonde hair was incredibly frizzy, making the natural curls seem obnoxious. Her orange shirt was dirty and torn in multiple places; the same went with her jeans. Both articles of clothing hung off her thin frame more than they should. Unsurprisingly, she she'd lost a ton of weight from the lack of food and never-ending exercise. Her face was also dirtied, red (a tan from the lava river) and cut, leaving miniature gashes on her cheeks and forehead. Examining Percy briefly, Annabeth noticed he looked exactly the same- worn, tired, and beaten.
"You two look hideous," a familiar voice observed, causing Ananbeth's head to whip back to her reflection. It had sounded like she herself had said something, but Annabeth knew she hadn't even opened her mouth. That's when she noticed something that made her heart skip a beat.
Her reflection had its arms crossed, and was staring back at Annabeth with amused grey eyes. Annabeth wasn't doing any of that…
"Seriously, when was the last time you two, like, showered?" the reflection asked Annabeth, talking like a Valley Girl would- completely opposite of how Annabeth talked.
"You just spoke on your own," she observed dumbly.
"Um, yeah!" the reflection laughed. "And we call ourselves a daughter of Athena." Shaking its head, the Mirror-Annabeth turned to look at Mirror-Percy and asked, "Can you believe it, Perseus?"
Percy's reflection immediately stopped doing the son of Poseidon's little charade and laughed coldly. "These two are a joke! C'mon man, are you a two-year old or a demigod of two Great Prophecies?" The reflections both began to laugh, leaving Annabeth and Percy to turn to each other, astounded.
"Who are you two?" Percy asked them, looking back at the mirror's magic show.
The reflections stopped laughing, and Percy #2 rolled his eyes. "That should be obvious. I'm Perseus, and my girlfriend here's Annie."
"No one calls me 'Annie,'" the real Annabeth growled.
"And I never go by 'Perseus,'" Percy added.
This time it was Annie who responded. "That's kind of the point. We are your… opposites, I guess you could say. We represent everything about you that either isn't true or you keep hidden down and practically extinguish so that that trait doesn't exist."
"Uh oh," Percy mumbled, though Annabeth had no idea why. He paled and looked nervous at the prospect of his secrets being revealed. Of course, who wouldn't be nervous, but he seemed overly scared for the situation.
"Why are you even here?" Annabeth demanded. She was getting frustrated. It seemed that everywhere they turned, something was thrown at them, from old enemies to evil reflections. There was only so much a person could take.
"Woah, calm down," Annie teased her real self, as if reading her thoughts. "We all know its hard on someone to have to be out-shined by her friend, like, every second of the day, but there's no need to take it out on a couple of poor, sweet reflections, now is there?" Annie batted her eyelashes in the manipulating way that Annabeth hated girls doing. It was so fake, and it had to be one of her biggest pet peeves.
Percy gave out a small laugh. "Out-shined?" he asked in disbelief. "You've saved my butt hundreds of times over, Wise Girl, and you think you're out-shined by me?"
This time, Annabeth laughed. "Okay, I do have to save the day sometimes, that's true. But seriously, Percy? Mr. Son of Poseidon, Conquerer of Kronos, Hero of Olympus is the one paling in comparison to the measly Daughter of Athena?"
Perseus, Percy's reflection, uncrossed his arms and added, "She's right, you know. We are the best of the best, and we both know it." Percy blushed under the praise.
"What about Jason? He's just as accomplished as-"
"What about him?" Perseus interrupted. "He's got nothing on us, Percy Jackson. We are better than everybody, and deep down inside we love the fame!" The reflection began grinning like an evil wolf preparing to feast upon its prey.
"Hey! That's not true!" Percy retaliated, uncapping Riptide and holding it to the reflection's throat. Annabeth found it pointless, seeing as how the enemy here was a reflection.
However, his words were intriguing. Did Percy really love the fame? Deep down, was he that conceited? Or was this something that was the complete opposite and false characteristic of the real Percy? Perseus said he and Annie represented both of those things, so how were they to know what was real and what was fake?
"Go ahead," Perseus dared the demigod. "Try it." Percy hesitated, and Annabeth knew the son of Poseidon wouldn't kill someone in cold-blood like that just for saying accusing things. That wasn't like him, and something about the way Perseus was smiling at Percy made Annabeth think doing anything rash would be a bad idea.
"Percy-" Annabeth started, but before she could finish Percy pulled away from his counterpart's neck and instead nicked the mirror where his leg was shown. Simultaneously, the boys yelped with wide green eyes and reached down to grab their calves.
Annabeth gasped and rushed over to her boyfriend, removing his hands and pulling up his pant leg. There, in the same place he'd cut Perseus, was a small slice from a sword.
"How…" Annabeth mumbled to herself, not seeing the logic to it.
"You idiots!" Perseus snarled from inside the mirror, clasping his leg tightly while Annie knelt over him, glaring at her counterpart in the real world. "We are you! What you do to us only hurts yourselves." Annie rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh.
"Like, I totally thought you would know better and stuff."
Annabeth decided to ignore her reflection- its overuse of the word "like" was really starting to, like, get on Annabeth's nerves. Instead, she focused on the task at hand and began taking a sliver of her pant leg she'd cut with her knife to wrap around Percy's wound. Dagger clasped between her teeth, Annabeth brushed a blonde curl behind her ear and took the jean strip in her hands, lightly winding it around Percy's leg. He grimaced when it touched the gash but reacted no further, used to pain at this point.
Apparantly, Perseus was able to temporarily stifle his wound as well, for he was beginning to stand up straight again. Brushing his hands on his jeans, the reflection mused, "It's a wonder that out of all your suitors you chose that one." His girlfriend, Annie, didn't react as if this were offensive at all. Instead, she wore rather crude smirk on her face.
"I love Anna-" Percy started, but Annabeth cut him off right in the middle of his sentence.
"What do you mean, many suitors?" she asked curiously with a hint of frustration buried underneath her words. She knew, of course, that something had been going between Rachel and him awhile back, but that was all over now. Then there was Reyna, but as far as she was concerned, that hadn't ever truly begun.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Percy's cheeks flood with a red blush.
"Oh, we both know Percy's the romantic interest of many these days," Perseus stated casually, his arms crossed. "He was able to win the heart of a girl who'd previously despised him…"
"Reyna," Annie supplied whilst examining her nails.
"Then there was the red-headed oracle that had even gone as far as to kiss him…"
Annabeth coughed and turned to look accusingly at Percy. The son of Poseidon's face was as red as Apollo's cattle, and he looked at a loss for an excuse. "It was one time…" he mumbled almost inaudibly under his breath. Louder, he continued with, "And besides, that was before Annabeth and I were dating."
Taking a deep breath, Annabeth turned to face the mirror again. That was a long time ago, she told herself. Percy has no romantic feelings for either of them. The daughter of Athena had just come to turns with those two relationships when Perseus decided to keep going.
"And we just can't forget his biggest 'what if,' that girl Calypso-"
Percy choked, and immediately stammered out, "Okay, that's enough for now. Annabeth, let's just get-"
He stopped when he saw Annabeth's fierce grey eyes trained on him with such intensity that he almost collapsed on the spot.
"Your biggest…'What if?'" She had that look on her face that only children of Athena get- where you can almost see the wheels of logic and knowledge turning in their heads.
"She's…she's not anymore," Percy stated defiantly, but even though she could tell he spoke the truth, there was some emotion she couldn't identify hidden in his voice. Did he love Calypso before me? Was I the rebound? Did they kiss? Does she-
No, Annabeth scolded herself. Stop thinking that way. In the end, Percy chose you, so there's no use in worrying about the past. Why dwell in the past if there's the future to look forward to?
Of course, her future wasn't looking too bright at the moment, but Annabeth decided not to look at it that way. She also didn't want to continue this conversation with themselves any longer, and Annabeth had to smother a giant grin as she figured out how to defeat the reflections.
Clearing her throat, the daughter of Athena addressed her counterpart. "I've had a lovely time chatting with, well, myself, but then again you aren't really me. I am nothing like you. Percy is nothing like Perseus. And you both are nothing like an obstacle to us."
"Like, totally say goodbye," Percy added, catching on quick to Annabeth's little exit plan with one look in her eyes, and kicked out at the glass in the clear space between the two images. No one would be hurt, since it was an area in which no reflection stood. Annabeth watched as the anti-Percy and anti-Annabeth's green and grey eyes widened in disbelief and fear as Percy's sneaker connected with the glass, sending spider web cracks running along the entire length of the mirror.
Taking a step back, Percy waved his arm towards the damage with an exaggerated bow. "Would you like to do the honors?"
Annabeth curtsied as if she were a princess. "I'd love to." With that, she swung her leg out and connected with the shattered mirror, and the entire thing crumbled before her, falling like dominoes all around the shabby village they'd been stuck in for longer than either of them would've liked.
"I'm never using a mirror again," Annabeth coughed, the dusty ground having been kicked up into the air by the glass's collapse.
"Ditto," Percy replied. Taking her hand, Percy suddenly pulled his girlfriend close and kissed her. When he pulled away, he said, "My heart belongs to none other than you, Annabeth. Don't ever forget that."
"I won't," she responded with a smile, then kissed her boyfriend back in the middle of the wreckage they'd caused.
Aww, Percabeth fluff!
I hope you all liked this chapter, and if you have any advice or comments please leave a review! Constructive criticism is definitely welcome!
I'd also like to give credit to WarLord of Poseidon, who inspired Perseus and Annie, the evil Percabeth. Thank you again for your idea!
So, based on the time it took me to publish this, I am not going to set a certain schedule for my upcoming updates. I know that it'd be ideal to post updates weekly, but I've gotten very busy and, unfortunately, can't keep that promise anymore. I'm going to try and not let it get away from me for an entire month like this last time, but sadly updates may be less frequent than before.
Also, I'd like to say THANK YOU to all of my loyal followers who didn't abandon my fanfic and instead were patient and stayed tuned for updates. My appreciation goes to infinity and beyond, and it really means a lot to me that you all stuck around. :)
Individual Thank-You's Time:
Thank you to sillystring3, starr1095, libchix320, AliceTheBookGirl, and Heyitsthecats for the follows, and thank you to sillystring3, The Fox Boss, AliceTheBookGirl, and Heyitsthecats for the favorites!
Hibye: I finished the HoH too! I thought it was really good, with some plot twists that came out of nowhere! I'm sorry for the delayed update, and hopefully you'll check back and see that I did get the update finally published.
WarLord of Poseidon: Thank you so much! I know that the way I used the evil Percy and Annabeth was different than the original idea, but I hope you like how I incorporated it; again, thank you for your help!
The Wild West Pyro: Thanks! And guess what...I think the return of the deceased demigods is going to happen very soon...very soon...
I have a challenge for all of my followers: See that foreign title? I dare you all to figure it out and post the chapter's title in the comments! Can you figure it out?
Adios,
8DemigodRunner8
PS: For those of you reading Ordoa's Arena (my second fanfic), I am currently working on that chapter. I want the finale to be perfect!