A/N: This chapter is rated PG for more monster fighting.
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XII
PERCY
The skin on Percy's back seared like it had been touched by a branding iron. He would have fallen if it weren't for Annabeth's hands on his shoulders.
The air seemed to be bursting with a million electrons. Its static charge tugged him towards the cliff edge where Bella was standing, drawing a river of light out of the darkness. The laser beams of her gleaming red eyes bored straight into him.
Percy's compass cracked open. Light poured from it, flowing out to the foggy stream Bella was pulling from the void. When it met with the other trail of light, the two rays expanded into a mesmerising cloud of mist. Colours swirled through it, like light filtered through a prism. They were predominantly shades of blues and greens, with threads of silver and gold winding their way across. Sunset hues dripped through occasionally, like little water droplets, some outlined with a tinge of black. They reminded him of the golden bubbles that he'd dreamed of in the Salt River.
He took a tentative step forward.
'My missing piece,' Bella crooned. 'Come to me, then. Join with me—we will be immortal when we are one.'
The pain in his back diminished to a faint tug. He felt lighter than ever, as though he was made of that dancing, weightless mist. If he could only shake the single string mooring him to his body, he could rise out of his skin and merge with it.
He wanted to snip the thread.
Annabeth grabbed his arm. 'Percy,' she hissed, 'what are you doing?'
It was her voice, more than her fingers, that anchored him. The pull of it was familiar, thickening into a rope that tied itself firmly around his waist.
'Come,' Bella repeated, and her honeyed tone worked away at the knots of his grounding rope. 'I will rise out of Tartarus once and for all. You can come with me.'
'Percy, wake up—she's going to kill you!'
Annabeth planted herself between Percy and Bella. The contrast between the two girls was striking. Bella had once again taken on the seductive appearance of the beautiful, fair-skinned girl he'd met in Phoenix, with the chocolate-brown curls, regal cheekbones, and winsome eyes framed by long lashes. She still resembled Annabeth, but Annabeth herself looked completely washed out. Her face was haggard and gaunt, practically skeletal. Every inch of her was a dull grey—her blond hair had turned ashy, her eyes so pale they were nearly transparent, her skin the colour of smoke.
Percy looked between the two of them uncertainly.
Bella laughed. 'Surely you don't buy any of her lies, Perseus?' She held out the compass in her hand—a mirror image of his own. 'We are connected. You knew when I reformed. You came to me.'
'I…' The colourful mist was tantalisingly close, swirling above Bella's hands. He wanted to dive straight into it. Was that what Bella was offering? To put together all the missing puzzle pieces that would make him whole again?
'Yes, you want this,' Bella said. 'Come. You're mine, Perseus, you already know it.'
Annabeth drew her sword. 'No, he's not!' And she swung it at Bella.
Bella was too quick for her. She sidestepped the blow neatly and darted around Annabeth, knocking her to the ground in the process. Annabeth barely managed to avoid being lacerated by a sharp claw.
A claw?
Percy blinked. Bella's image wavered. Her hands became curved talons, ending in clawed fingers. She tottered towards them on mismatched legs of bronze and animal fur. Her hair frizzed out into a flaming puff around her face, which was the only part of her that retained its cold, dazzling beauty.
The sight of her paralysed Percy. He was rooted to the ground, unable to draw his eyes away from her mesmerising appearance. The bronze compass slipped from his fingers and rolled to the edge of the cliff.
Its motion distracted Bella. Her eyes widened. Then she made a dive for the compass.
Annabeth launched herself at Bella. She caught the empousa by her shaggy ankle, tripping her up. The compass teetered for a second at the drop-off and then it fell into the dark chasm below, taking its stream of light with it.
Bella whipped around to face Annabeth. Her lips curled back in a vicious snarl. She snapped her compass shut and shoved it in her pocket. The colourful mist drifted over to the void and began to bleed into the blackness.
Percy had a crazy urge to jump off the cliff into it.
'I didn't drag myself out of the skin of Tartarus to be thwarted by a meddlesome girl,' Bella hissed at Annabeth. 'I'll deal with you first.'
Annabeth rolled away as Bella pounced. 'Percy, run!' she screamed at him. 'I'll hold her off.'
Her words knocked sense into him at last.
'Don't be stupid! You can't take her alone!' He fumbled for his pen, finally gathering his wits enough to extract his sword.
Percy lunged at Bella. He was slow and clumsy, hampered by the strange airiness of his limbs and the return of the throbbing in his back. She dodged his strikes easily, her uneven legs moving with unexpected grace. Bella ducked his blade and connected a well-aimed kick to his wrist, forcing him to drop his sword.
His attack had given Annabeth time to get back to her feet, though. She ploughed straight into Bella, knocking the empousa to the ground. Percy picked his sword back up.
Annabeth and Bella were locked in a deadly struggle. Percy didn't know why Annabeth was tackling Bella with her bare hands—her sword lay discarded as she grappled with the empousa—but it made it hard for him to jump into the fight without accidentally cutting Annabeth.
A gush of bright red spurted from Annabeth's shoulder as Bella's claws sliced through her flesh. Annabeth held on, though, like she was attempting to physically restrain Bella.
Then she pulled away, her hands closed around a small object. She kicked herself away from Bella with such force that the empousa flew back several feet. Annabeth flung the item she had snatched over the cliff's edge. Percy's breath caught in his throat as he recognised its gold-bronze light.
Bella's compass sailed away into the void to join its counterpart.
'No!' Bella screamed.
The effect was startling. Although he didn't exactly feel strong or healthy, the pain in Percy's back vanished. He straightened up. He hadn't noticed before the invisible noose that was tightening around him. Not until he escaped it, the way a fish might slip its hook and swim off to freedom.
Bella whirled on Annabeth, fury blazing in her eyes. Annabeth was already bleeding profusely from the cuts she'd sustained in their tussle. She wasn't going to be quick enough to dodge an attack this time.
She'd weakened herself to free Percy from Bella's grip.
In that moment, it didn't matter if he remembered Annabeth, or whether she had meant anything to him. He only knew that he would not let her die at the hands of the empousa. The cry that erupted from his mouth was reflexive, a guttural roar of protectiveness.
Percy charged at Bella.
His sword ran straight through her gut, Roman-style. The momentum of his attack carried them right to the edge of the cliff and thrust Bella off. Time seemed to slow as he teetered on the verge, watching the empousa's scarlet eyes widen in disbelief at the celestial bronze blade sticking out of her stomach. She hung over the void with her mouth in a round, red 'O', backlit by the alluring green-blue mist that still hovered just over the cliff. Her arms reached up as if to gather it.
'Perseus Jackson,' she gasped, and then the flames of her hair seemed to consume her body, leaving only her bronze leg intact. It fell into the chasm, swallowed by darkness. The ashes held her shape for a second, then disintegrated with a puff that fanned the colourful, swirling mist towards Percy.
He expected the mist to be more light than liquid, so it was a shock when the colours splashed over him. They formed a whirlpool of distorted images: faces and places flashed past his eyes in quick succession, accompanied by the disjointed, overlapping murmur of voices.
He's the one, he has to be/Perseus, he always won/Tell the sun and the stars hello/As long as we're together/Cookies can be blue/You're never getting away from me again—
Twelve-year-old Annabeth stared at him with wide grey eyes framed by her princess curls. His mom enveloped him in the warmth of her smile and the tenderness of her embrace. He stood in the middle of a hurricane, raising wind and water with his bare hands. A silver-haired Titan and a red-skinned giant battled an army of monsters under a bloody sky.
Family and friends. New York. Camp Half-Blood. Camp Jupiter.
Percy wanted to catch every memory and hold it tight.
Everything that made him Percy was here in this whirlpool at the edge of Chaos, and he knew there was still more to be pulled out of the depths.
'Come, Percy Jackson. Come find what you have lost.'
It was the resounding voice that rang through his dreams, and it was accompanied by the viscous darkness from the old nightmare. Black sludge dragged at him like a vicious undercurrent.
'No!' he yelled.
He fought against the pull of Chaos, but as he did, his memories released him and drifted back towards the void. He realised his mistake the moment he made his desperate grab for them: already balanced precariously on the cliff edge, the motion sent him toppling off the side. He fell back into the maelstrom of memories. And beneath them lay complete nothingness.
A final death. No do-overs.
How ironic was it that he would find his memories here, only to follow them into the primordial soup of Chaos?
Laughter resonated through his head.
His stomach swooped with the sudden loss of solid ground beneath his feet. It reminded him of the tug that had preceded the explosion of the water pipes in Phoenix and the flooding of the apartment in New Rome. Without thinking, he lifted his arms and summoned his colourful whirlpool. The liquid memories cut a stream through the insistent pull from Chaos's vacuum and boosted him like a fountain. They drenched him with a vivid image: Annabeth, standing barefoot on a pier, reaching out a hand to him.
'Hold on, Seaweed Brain. You're not getting away from me that easily.'
The Styx, he thought, the memory shining like a beacon in his mind. Enveloped in its light, he could feel the familiar tug in his lower back, anchoring him against the current that threatened to sweep his identity away. It was the same tether that had always kept him grounded—through the Curse of Achilles, through Hera's meddling, and the despair of the Cocytus.
And even now, through the Curse of Lethe. However tenuous the link had become, even when he'd almost lost it, she had been there. Annabeth was the answer to who he was.
Strong fingers closed around his wrist with fierce determination. The spurt of water he'd summoned had given him enough of a boost that Annabeth was able to lean over the edge to grab him. She lay flat on her stomach, both arms dangling over the cliff and gripping his wrists so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
Annabeth heaved with all her might. She must have anchored her legs around something at the top because for one incredible moment, it felt like she might pull them both out.
But then Chaos roared in Percy's ears and his fountain evaporated, depriving him of its bolstering support. His hands slipped in Annabeth's grip until they were hanging on to each other by the tips of their fingers. Inch by inch, she began to slide over the edge with him.
'By all means,' said Chaos, 'bring her, too.'
The cold that enveloped him had nothing to do with the icy amusement of Chaos. Annabeth was the world to him and he'd hurt her badly and then dragged her into Tartarus with him and almost killed her, and—oh gods—now he was about to fall into Chaos and drag her over the side with him.
'Let go,' he told her. 'I'm not pulling you in.'
Her fingers tightened over his. 'No. You're not getting away from me, Seaweed Brain.'
Annabeth's face was streaked with blood and tears and the grime of Tartarus, but she had the same resolute expression that she wore in his memories—the one that said she refused to give up no matter what the odds were against her.
I didn't give up on him then and I won't now!
Another image tried rise up in his head, but his memories were already dissipating back into the depths of Chaos. His attempt to control their flow had been blocked.
There was a jerk as Annabeth's anchor came loose. She cried out and Percy wrapped his arms around her as they tumbled away from the edge in a free-fall that felt like it was happening in slow motion. He made a last-ditch attempt to pull any water available to him, but only succeeded in dousing them both in a rainbow of liquid.
Annabeth gasped. Her eyes went wide and Percy guessed that his memories were playing for her, too.
'We're staying together,' he promises her, and they fall—like a twisted foreshadowing of their current predicament.
The three Fates must knit irony into their lives with steel yarn. You wanted your memories? Sure, here they are—right before you scatter into a million pieces of nothing at all. You escaped Tartarus once? Here, try a deeper pit—see how you escape from this.
Chaos had gone quiet, subsiding smugly to the bottom of the pit to wait. The primordial god must be satisfied that they were sinking into his realm with no chance of escape.
Percy thought bitterly of his plush seal augury with its black stuffing. Seek information by yourself; it is a hard journey. In retrospect, this outcome had been a dead giveaway. He should have done everything by himself like the augury said. How could he have let Annabeth and the others come down here with him? First he'd sent Thalia, Will, and Nico plummeting to their deaths and now he'd brought Annabeth down, too.
There was only one last thing he could do for Annabeth. Percy put his lips to her forehead. All he could offer her was the knowledge, before she died, that he did remember her, and he did love her. He drew the wet cloak of memories over them like a shawl, enveloping them in the best of their shared memories.
Annabeth made a noise between a sob and a hiccup. 'Remember Bob and Damasen?'
'Maybe we'll meet them there,' Percy said. It was unlikely, since their consciousness would probably splinter into pieces very soon, but it was a comforting thought to take to their final deaths.
'I hope the others will know to tell the sun and stars hello for all of us,' Annabeth said through her tears.
Below him came a murmur. 'Stars.' An echo, maybe, although he didn't know what was down here for sound to bounce off.
Percy looked up. Indeed, there was silver and gold sparkling overhead, streaming towards them like shooting stars.
Then he realised they weren't stars, but arrows arching straight at him and Annabeth. Percy twisted his body to protect Annabeth from them.
The arrow whistled straight through his t-shirt, catching the fabric perfectly where it fluttered off his back. He felt the shaft graze lightly against his skin. And then, with a jerk, it caught him in mid-air.
Annabeth grabbed hold of the arrow before it could rip through Percy's shirt. It was attached to a rope that hung down from a tiny opening a short distance beneath the clifftop. Percy could just make out three small figures standing on the ledge.
'Thalia!' Annabeth gasped. She clung to the shaft of the arrow for dear life. 'Grab hold!'
Percy's hands closed around hers. The other shooting star arrows fell just above their heads, shot with the unerring aim of a Hunter of Artemis. Percy and Annabeth each grabbed hold of a dozen.
'Annabeth first!' Percy shouted. She glared at him, but couldn't argue as Thalia, Will, and Nico hauled her up.
'Stars.' He heard the murmur again as he waited his turn. It came from below, like the rumble of Chaos's voice, except it had a gentle, wistful tone. Then his friends began to pull him up to the cavern ledge and it faded away.
The pool of his memories drifted around him until he was almost to the top. Maybe Chaos just noticed then that Percy was escaping, and was trying to entice him back. Or maybe Percy was just too tired to keep pulling them to him. Either way, when Nico pulled him onto the rock ledge, a horrifying blankness began to settle back over his mind. Frantic, he twisted around to face the chasm. The blue-green mist was still there, though it was a fainter shade now.
When he reached a hand towards it, willing the memories to return, his fingers slipped through air. It was as if they had all evaporated into the shadows, leaving no trace of the liquid he had previously been able to manipulate.
Annabeth took his hand and squeezed it. He stared at her wildly. The images that had been so clear moments ago vanished, like someone had run a cycle of bleach through his mind. There was something important about Annabeth, something that explained the surreal fall they'd just had and their conversation on the way down about stars and the sun.
Only it was as clear as the black sludge of Chaos. Percy smacked his forehead with a shout of frustration.
Thalia put a hand on his shoulder. 'I got this,' she said calmly.
She had a thin, silver rod in her hands, which she flicked towards the pit of Chaos as if it were a fishing pole. A second later, she was reeling in a wriggling fish with fluid, blue-green scales. She twirled the rod in her hands like a baton and the fish became a spinning cloud over their heads, gaining weight and form as she twirled, until it took the shape of a flowing cloak. It settled over Percy's shoulders, a fluid mantle that rippled like water but had the feel of solid cloth—a patchwork woven of different fabrics: soft silk, warm fleece, but also rough denim and even a square of hard armour.
The cloak seemed to melt into his skin through the small of his back. There was no stream of sounds and images this time when the memories flooded in. He had no time to linger on each one as they returned. It wasn't like the time in Portland when he'd drunk the Gorgon's blood and recovered his stolen memories bit by bit. (Yes, he remembered that now, as if he'd never forgotten.)
Percy just blinked, opening his eyes as if awakening from a dream, and everything was there.
It was weird, like before Percy and after Percy—or maybe he could call them Percy and Perseus—were two halves that had been welded back together:
''Sup,' said Percy. 'Miss me, did you?'
'Not like I could remember you to miss you,' said Perseus with an eye-roll.
'I got a bone to pick with you, Perseus,' Percy said, a little too casually. 'Annabeth—'
Perseus was shame-faced. 'Yeah, I totally screwed up there.' He grimaced. 'We've got some grovelling to do, man.'
'We're grovelling,' Percy confirmed.
His memories of Annabeth—both sets of them—were remarkably consistent. Steadfast, loyal Annabeth, who loved him and never gave up on him even when he was an idiot before, or after, when he hurt her over and over again. How many times now had she helped him stay whole?
There were so many things he needed to say to her—I love you, I was such an idiot, you're unbelievable, I don't deserve you—it made him feel as tongue-tied as when he was sixteen and trying for the first time to confess his feelings for her.
Fortunately, the first thing that tumbled out of his mouth was an apology.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Gods, Annabeth, I—' He swallowed hard as he remembered how he'd threatened her under Eris's fog. Percy glanced at the others as well. He'd tried to kill them, too. He wasn't sure how they'd even survived, let alone come back to find and save him. 'I nearly killed—'
Will shook his head. 'We don't blame you.'
Annabeth put a finger on his lips. 'Shh. It's okay. You stopped. It was harder for you to fight her, and you did. Even when you didn't remember me, you fought for me.'
Percy touched her cheek. There was a long, fresh scar running down the length of it. 'It's not okay. Look at you.' What I did to you, his mind shouted at him.
'You look just as bad, Seaweed Brain,' Annabeth pointed out with a short laugh. She leaned into him. 'We'll make it back from here, okay?'
He kissed her.
It was nothing like their last kiss, desperate and electrically charged. He tasted her relief, mingled with the bitter tang of blood and his guilt, assuaging it. This kiss was the peace that fell when you stepped over the threshold of home after a long trip away.
Annabeth's lips parted with a small sigh.
'Okay, you two.' Thalia waved a hand in front of them. 'I don't mean to break up the happy reunion, but let's go. We still have to get out of here.'
Percy let his hand linger on Annabeth's cheek a moment longer, then he let her go. He took his first good look at Thalia, Will, and Nico since they'd pulled him out of the pit. Will and Nico didn't seem too much the worse for wear, but Thalia…
'What happened to you?' he exclaimed. 'You look—'
'Older, yeah, I know,' Thalia said. 'It's a long story.'
Will studied Percy. 'I'm guessing you two have a long story to tell, too,' he said. 'But I assume it ends well.'
'As well as can be in Tartarus,' Annabeth said. 'Percy killed the empousa.'
'And got his memories back,' Thalia said. She looked at Percy. 'You're welcome, by the way.'
'Sorry, I should have said—thanks.'
'Let's not celebrate too soon,' said Nico. 'Like Thalia said, we still need to get out of here.'
Annabeth nodded. 'The Doors of Death. If Hazel and the others can get them to appear—and I trust them to—they'll land in—'
'The heart of Tartarus.' Nico shivered. 'That's the only place they can show up.'
'Okay, how do we get there?' asked Will.
'Well, we went through the Mansion of Night last time,' said Annabeth dubiously. She turned back to the cliff ledge.
Percy gulped. 'I—I remember.' The words were a miracle and a curse at the same time. Much as he appreciated the return of his memories, some of them weren't exactly sunny walks in a garden. Tartarus hadn't seemed quite as terrifying when he didn't remember it.
Somewhere across the dark chasm was a narrow doorway leading to a ghastly house of horrors. He wasn't keen to relive the insane jump over Chaos—especially not after nearly dying in the pit—or the mad rush through the territory of Nyx.
A new wave of admiration and gratitude made him want to kiss Annabeth again. And give Nico a big hug. Their memories of Tartarus were intact and they'd chosen to come down here for him anyway.
'There's another way,' Nico said. He pointed to an opening in the cliff face that tunnelled into the rock. 'When we came through, I started to recognise the path. This is the way I took—or, well, I was taken.'
The four of them exchanged looks. Nico's hands clenched and unclenched convulsively. He looked about as eager to follow the route as Percy was to leap across the chasm.
'Are you sure?' said Annabeth.
'He's sure,' Will said. He took Nico's hand. 'We trust you, Nico.'
Nico squared his shoulders and nodded. 'It won't be pretty,' he said. 'But it'll get us there.'
Percy had no doubt Tartarus had plenty of fresh horrors up his sleeve. He and Annabeth couldn't have seen it all the first time round. Still, they'd dealt with it once. And they'd all made it this far. They'd survived the arai and Eris and whatever Thalia, Will, and Nico had faced after that. He and Annabeth had gotten his soul and memories back.
Whatever Tartarus had to throw at them, they'd face it together.
Percy clapped Nico's shoulder. 'You're the boss, then. Lead the way.'
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A/N: The Chaos scene was one of the earliest scenes I dreamed up, and it's another one of my favourites! Hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did writing it!
Thank you again CupcakeQueen816 and strawberrygirl2000! And don't worry, the alternate version kept the essential plot points (it was just Geras's nature I altered) so it should still fit in with the rest of the story. Though I especially liked that you still thought he was a slimy old crone, because that means it managed to come across anyway! Also, I adore alliteration, so thanks for picking up on that! :)
So, in other news, NaNo is going swimmingly ... I passed the 50K mark on Thursday ... but I've set my target to actually finish the full draft of the fic, so still plugging away there. But the good news for you guys is that the DoW series will definitely be continuing after I'm done sharing this one!