Percy felt like the air was just sucked out of him.
This kid... his brother?
Time seemed frozen as he stared at Jack's outstretched hand, and then over at Ellie and Zoë fighting. Ellie was apparently not gifted like Jack and himself, considering the blood leaking from her wounds, but she was still overpowering Zoë nonetheless.
Percy's mind was racing. These people just attacked them... but they were supposedly his family.
Percy's eyes drifted down to Annabeth. He couldn't even tell if she was breathing from where he was, but the blood leaking from her chest and pooling around her didn't make it seem likely.
Her words from earlier filled his head... the man's words from last night followed. Finally Percy looked back at Jack and his unnerving smile.
He took a shaky step forward with his hand reaching out. Jack... he had answers... he had to have them.
"Glad to see you're coming to your scenses, Perseus. We're the superior species brother, we must stick toge-" Jack's words became a gurgle. Blood spilling from his throat and spraying onto Percy's hardened face.
"H-He'll c-come for y-y-you, you can't s-stop h-hi-h-"
The answers would have to wait.
Percy ripped his claws out, slamming them up through Jack's jaw so they protruded out of the top of his head.
He began to stab him... again... and again... and again... growing angrier and angrier with every thrust until Jack's head was nothing but a pile of bloodied meat.
Percy knew the worse the wound, the longer it took him to heal. So he could only hope it was the same for this man.
A struggled scream broke him from his thoughts.
He turned to see Zoë being dangled in the air by her throat, and the rage building within Percy fully broke loose.
With an animalistic roar he dove at Ellie. His claws weren't even out anymore but he didn't notice... or care.
They landed on the ground with Percy on top. Before she had time to even breathe he had gripped her head and slammed it into the ground with a sickening crunch.
Lacking the healing factor that Percy possessed, he knew she was dead instantly, but he didn't stop. He roared louder and slammed her head down again and again.
Nothing registered in his mind; no thoughts, no words, nothing around him. All he saw was Ellie, and all he felt was the sickening pleasure he received from watching her head slowly lose it's form, and the blood splattering him and the ground.
"Perseus..." Zoë was creeping up to him slowly, bow drawn and arrow aimed at his head.
Percy gave no indication he heard, but he began to slow his pointless onslaught.
"Perseus... is that you?" Zoë's voice was shaky and it was obvious she was scared.
Percy froze. It was as if a fog was rising from his mind, and he swore he could even hear faint laughing in the back of his mind not belonging to himself.
"Z-Zoë?" He said, but didn't look away from the deformed girl beneath him.
Zoë didn't lower her bow, and stopped coming closer. Percy finally looked up at her with shock on his face.
He saw her, bow pointed at him... at him... like a monster. The rage left his body in an instant, replaced by immense sorrow.
"Oh gods, oh my gods," He gripped his hair with a crazed look, "what happened? I didn't... She was choking you... and I..." He froze again and his eyes shot over to Annabeth.
"Oh fuck! Annabeth!" He shot past Zoë, who nearly released her arrow at his sudden movement. Instead she turned and rushed over to the daughter of Athena, retrieving her backpack and pulling out some ambrosia.
"Back up Percy," he hurriedly stepped away from the girl. Pacing behind Zoë as she attempted to help Annabeth.
His mind was racing once again as he thought about what happened. He looked over at Jack, who seemed to have made no progress in healing his wounds, and then at the other girl.
When he realized what he did, to people who could have been his brother and sister no less, he couldn't stomach the situation anymore.
He turned away from Zoë and Annabeth and threw up. He dropped to his knees, hands on the ground and continued to throw up.
He could hear Zoë talking behind him, and Annabeth too if he wasn't mistaken, but he couldn't even look at them.
It was too much to handle.
"Hey," a soft voice said from behind him, "Percy." He felt a comforting hand on his back. He looked up with teary eyes and saw a pale Annabeth smiling at him.
"Thank you, for saving us."
Percy couldn't even respond. He just rocked back and gripped his head tightly while Annabeth wrapped her arm around him.
Zoë stood behind them wearily and decided to speak up, "I told you what happened, but you didn't see it... you didn't see the way he-" Annabeth cut her off with a glare.
"I don't care how he did it. I was taken out in seconds, and from what you told me you were about to be killed. Did he ever threaten you in any way? Hell did he ever even direct any kind of emotion towards us besides worry and protection?" Annabeth was obviously not going to back down, and while Zoë didn't want to admit it, she was right.
Surprisingly, Percy was the one who spoke up. He slowly rose to his feet and locked eyes with Zoë. His anguish and regret on full display.
"She's right Annabeth, I was brutal," Annabeth looked like she was going to interject but Percy kept going, "Zoe, I'm not completely sure about this, but I have a theory about my healing."
Zoë and Annabeth were both silent, waiting to see what he had to say.
"If you put an arrow in my heart, like you did before, I don't think I can begin to heal until it's removed. Every injury I've had has started to heal right away, even if it's a bad one and it takes a while. Chiron informed me that I was "dead" for hours when you put an arrow in me last time, and as soon as the daughter of Apollo took the arrow from my heart all my minor wounds closed up and I started breathing again." Zoë's mouth was clamped into a thin white line as she stared at Percy with a calculating gaze.
"So you're saying..." Zoë left her statement hanging, and a grim nod from Percy was all she needed.
"If I ever endanger either one of you... take me out."
The trio began to search for some way to travel, after Zoë put several arrows in Jack's heart for good measures. They assumed the other mutants had gotten there with some form of transportation.
Nobody spoke a word since their earlier discussion. Nobody knew what to say.
"Hey!," Annabeth shouted, "Over here!"
Zoë and Percy made their way over to the excited daughter of Athena who had found a truck obviously enhanced with more technology than any normal truck you'd see.
Annabeth went to open it but sparks shot from the handle and into her hand.
"Holy Hades!" She jumped back shaking her hand and staring at the truck angrily. Percy chuckled slightly and walked up to it.
He reached a hand up hesitantly and was only slightly surprised when it unlocked before he even touched it.
"How the..." Annabeth stared at him while he shrugged nonchalantly.
"Jack was going on about being a mutant as well, figured this thing may be wired for us." It felt weird in his mouth grouping himself together with the evil mutant from earlier, but it was true. "That being said, I am not in the mood to drive so..."
He opened the door and gestured for one of the girls to hop in. Zoë and Annabeth shared a look before Zoë got in.
"I'm the only one who knows where to go, I'll drive."
Percy would like to say he stayed awake and payed careful attention to where they were going, but that wasn't the case.
He didn't even feel tired, but as soon as he got into the truck it felt as if his conscience was being dragged away.
He was standing in the middle of a room. He didn't recognize it, but based on his previous dreams he knew it was in the same facility as before.
"You're one annoying little fucker you know that, right?" He whipped around and saw the white-haired man from before staring at him with anger.
"I mean seriously, I thought I made it pretty clear last night what you were supposed to do today." His glare and words were cold enough to send a shiver down Percy's spine.
However, he did not back down, "That thing you sent after us was going to kill my friends. I had to-" Percy was cut short by the man's booming laugh which rattled his entire body.
"That thing, as you so disgustingly put it, is your family. Your fucking blood family." Percy could feel himself getting nauseous at the words. "That's right. You just murdered your damn sister, bashed her head into a fucking pulp and for what?" The man paused and threw his hands up in the air dramatically.
"To save two girls you barely know? A girl that said one nice thing to you and another who despises you more than anything?" Percy's head was spinning.
Did he make the wrong choice? Should he have saved his siblings instead?
His mind flashed back to the duo. Their creepy stares and lifeless eyes. He shuddered at the thought and steeled his nerves.
Regardless of what this man said, he denounced all relations to those creatures. They may have talked human, and looked human, but they were far from it.
"You're lying. I'm nothing like them." Even he could hear the doubt in his voice.
"Young Perseus, my most powerful and most stupid child yet." Percy's breathe caught in his throat. "That's right demi-god. Take a nice long look at your creator... your father." Percy stared at him, searching and hoping to find any sign of deceit.
"I'm giving you one more chance Project X," the name cut through Perseus' mind like a bullet, "One more chance to make things right at the mountain. If not... well... let's just say you may think you can't be killed but I'll show you just how wrong you are. I'm not so sure you'll enjoy where a soul like yours ends up either." With a wicked grin the man snapped his fingers and suddenly Percy felt the world around him spin and morph.
"One chance Perseus... One more chance."
Percy shot up gasping in the back seat. Annabeth was turned around with a worried look, and Zoë for her part seemed slightly concerned as well.
He was hoping Annabeth wouldn't say anything, but what Zoë said was worse.
"I heard you speak some words in your sleep, and it made me think of something Jack said... something your brother said." Percy felt his blood run cold, he knew where this was going. Annabeth watched in confusion, but Zoë didn't say anything else.
Percy looked back and forth between the pair and finally lost it.
He told them everything. About the man, his father; and the mutants being his blood even if he didn't completely understand that considering before the man had talked about creating him. He even went as far as to spill out his fears of becoming like them and not knowing what to do.
When he finally finished he noticed Annabeth had crawled from the passenger seat to the seat beside him.
He tried to calm down, aware he had to learn go control his emotions, because if he couldn't even stop himself from breaking down when he was stressed how could he hope to stop a rage induced bloodbath.
Zoë kept her eyes steeled on the road without muttering a word. Annabeth, however, did not.
"It's like I told you before Percy," Her eyes met his in a clash of gray and yellow, "It doesn't matter at all what you are or where you came from, even if you came from some insane god we don't know about, it just matters who you are and what you do." Percy gave her a small smile and nodded happily.
Zoë finally spoke up from the front, "I know plenty about battling one's 'nature,' Perseus. I was hoping to hide this but you'll both find out soon enough." She sighed and looked ahead fearfully at a rapidly approaching mountain.
"My father... he's Atlas." Somehow Percy instantly knew who it was and oddly could even picture him, he had a good feeling whatever happened to him before made him well versed in the Greek world.
He also knew, from talking to Luke and Chiron, that they're about to be at war with the Titans, and Zoë was risking a lot putting that out there.
"I don't believe it," Annabeth gasped from beside him, "We should just chain you up and take you back to camp right now." The sarcasm in her voice was thick and the intense eye roll only made it more evident.
"So what?" Annabeth continued, "I just finished telling Percy back here his heritage doesn't matter, do you really think we're going to care that the hunter who's been serving Lady Artemis for thousands of years is half-titan?" Percy was surprised, but it also made sense. Being a daughter of Athena Annabeth relied more on logic than emotions.
Percy shrugged his shoulders as if it didn't matter as well, because in his mind his heritage and backround was quite a bit worse than the girl in front of him.
Zoë looked back in shock before laughing slightly.
"Look at us three, a mutant with no idea about his past, an immortal demititan, and a daughter of Athena holding us all together, but if a random group of people saw us we'd look like a bunch of kids barely old enough to drive going off to school." Zoë stoped her analysis and went back to laughing. Annabeth and Percy glanced at each other before joining her in laughing.
Percy felt joy, genuine joy, for the first time in a while.
A/N: Hopefully you guys have noticed I'm not making this like other Perzoe stories. I've noticed the same plot in every. single. one
Zoë is a 2000 year old man-hater and despises Percy's kind. It's not going to be as simple as:
Prophecy says Zoë will die
Percy swears she won't
They bond
Percy saves her
She has to give up being in the hunt
Sad and lonely Zoë bonds with goofy charming Percy
Blah Blah Blah
Love it, but it's over-used. This story here is going to be realistic, and it's going to be intense.
That being said there will be more interaction in the next few chapters, gotta start making some progress eventually.