Hunters of Olympus - Book 1 The Heir of the Sea Chapter 24: I swear it three times, a percy jackson and the olympians fanfic

Chapter 24: I swear it three times.

The only way to control the power of an Atlantean is to find a purpose that will answer the adage "What do you fight for?". A purpose for the Glory of the Forgotten. An Anchor.

- Poseidon's Notes, Page 32, On the creation of Atlantis.

Bianca walked through the hallways of Underworld, the sound of shattering stone and screams muted through the thick walls. She winced every time the keep shook, but she trusted the defenders to keep the monsters out of the inner city.

As much as she hated to admit it, Annabeth's plans had been deployed to a sobering success. She had assembled two teams, under the direction of Patroclus and Eurydice, and had tasked them to rebuild towers and defenses at two opposite ends of the city. The monsters, guided by their commands of destruction, would target one of the two sides, where the teams led by Orpheus, Zagreus, and the now front-liner Sisyphus would harass them and bleed them dry until they either retreated or fell to the assault of Thanatos.

So far, the plans had worked marvelously, and Annabeth seemed quick to adapt as their enemy began to piece together her plan. She would move the construction teams around different points of the city, cleverly utilizing its labyrinthine streets and inescapable dead-ends to lead the monsters into traps. She had earned the respect of many of Underworld's generals, including, reluctantly, Bianca.

Now, however, she cursed her name. She had decided, in her infuriating logic and calmness, so send Percy and Nico to fight. She argued that the enemies were getting too comfortable with the harassing tactics of Orpheus and Sisyphus, and they needed to change them.

So, as Bianca looked over the city, ignoring the pain in her heart every time she saw a column of smoke rising into the dark air or a broken down building that used to be a home, or a shop, or a school, she couldn't help but fix her eyes where the wind spun around angrily, raising rubble and bodies alike, striking with ferocity and surprising precision.

"He's grown stronger."

Bianca nearly jumped out of her skin, glaring at her father that somehow had sneaked up on her.

"How—"

"I may be old, but you must allow this old man a couple of secrets." Hades smiled at her, joining in her staring. "Do you love him?"

"I…I don't know. I think so? It's just…things happened so fast, and…its difficult."

"Matters of the heart usually are. Much more for people like us." Hades' smile turned sad, "I won't lie to you, daughter. Children of the House of Hades do not have happy endings, especially in matters of the heart. It is our curse, and as much as I hope to shield you from it, I simply can't. Fate has plans for all of us, but she has also been especially cruel to this family."

"Is this because of what happened with mother?" Bianca asked cautiously. Hades never spoke of their mother. Once, when she was young, she had asked Achilles about her, and he had let slip that her name was Maria. Yet the next day, when she had asked Achilles again, he had grown solemn and fearful, saying that Lord Hades had forbidden him to utter the name again. She could piece together some loose threads. Her father had loved her, and lost her somehow, and had spent the last seventeen years erasing her from the Underworld.

Hades hesitated, which enraged Bianca.

"You never speak about her." she said hotly, "Never let anyone mention her. I've begged you, for years I've asked to know the woman who birthed me. Gods, father, I can't even remember her face. Do you know what it's like? To see all those children in Olympus boasting about their mothers and fathers, knowing I will never have what they have? Sure, they aren't happy families, we are Hunters after all, but would it hurt you to at least pretend you loved her?!"

"I loved your mother like the sun loves the stars!" Hades said hotly, yet his fury was quickly replaced by shame. "Gods help me, I loved her more than you can possibly know…" He looked at Bianca, actually looked at her, and Bianca could plainly see the loss in his dark eyes. "I sometimes forget how young you are…and how unprepared you are." He turned back to the window, "Olympus teaches you to fight, but Underworld teaches you how to lose."

"Father—"

"That boy, Perseus Jackson…" Hades continued, ignoring her, "He is the most dangerous Enlightened alive. I must admit, when I head about your closeness, I wasn't happy. As much as I regret what happened with Poseidon, I also saw him grow. His power…its unnatural. Our own history is not clean, not by a long shot, but the power that runs through the blood of the seas is something that shouldn't exist. It left uncontrolled…" he bit his lip, "Daughter, I fear your love will lead to destruction."

"What?" This was not was Bianca was expecting.

"That boy's love for you will bring disaster." Hades said, not looking away from the city, and Percy. "Do you know what an anchor is?"

"Anchor?"

"It is what currently holds all that power locked within the flesh of Percy Jackson. Poseidon's anchor was the love for his family and friends, but after he met Sally, that anchor became her. When she was threatened…" Hades reached for the scar in his chest, "I wasn't privy to all his secrets, but Poseidon did explain to me a maxim. So long as he has an Anchor, his power will be channelled safely. But if that anchor snaps…" The look he gave Bianca sent shiver down her spine, "Are you strong enough to have the fate of the world in your hands, Bianca?"

"What's this about? Percy is powerful, but he would never turn against us—"

"Stronger men than he have done so in the past. Shall I remind you how our house was founded? Why for many years we were looked down upon with mistrust and apprehension?" Hades' eyes were dark. "Cast that boy aside. Save yourself, and us."

"No." Bianca stood tall, pushing down at the fear of defying her father. The air around him got colder, his eyes began to glow an eery red, and in the back of her mind the screech of breaking ice grew louder with every breath. "No father. Percy is mine, and I am his. Until the day he casts me aside, or until the day I decide we no longer desire each other, I shall not abandon him."

Bianca called on her own enlightenment, a power she feared as much as she loathed. Her brother had been blessed by the shadows, by the powers of her ancestors, of Pluto and of Nyx. Bianca, on the other hand, was cursed with the powers of those who had been cast out of the House of the Dead, powers too terrifying for many, powers that would one day drive her mad.

Frost formed at the tip of her fingers as the ground beneath her cracked in shallow red spiderlike strings. She felt a pull to…somewhere, and screams of pain and anguish calling her name, begging to be released. Around her, she felt things pulling at her, dozens turning into hundreds, and ocasionally she would wince as one of the many strings that connected her to those things snapped, and their voice joined the cacophony of whispers.

Hades kept her gaze for a moment, before his own power receded. A second later, Bianca let go, sighing in relief and wincing as the voices and pulls around her came to a sudden stop.

"You've gotten much better." the Lord of the House of the Dead smiled, "Keep using your powers, Bianca, don't fear them."

"What was the point of that?" Bianca asked, leaning against a wall and eyeing her father.

"I needed to know you were strong enough, or determined enough. To go against your own father for that boy…" Hades sighed, "A moment will come, daughter, a moment that will test you. You will be faced with a choice so terrible that I wish I had the power to stop it. You deserve to be happy, gods above, that's all I've ever wanted, but the choice will come. One path will lead to destruction, and the other the same but of a different kind. Whatever you choose, daughter, know that I am proud of you. I may not be here, but the love I have for you and your brother will remain." Hades placed a cold hand against her chest, "The certainty of death is the truest form of prophecy."

"Father, what's going on?" Bianca was beginning to get worried. Her father was never this…subdued.

"Underworld bleeds, daughter, and I bleed with her. We managed to evacuate most of our people, but it was still not enough. The streets are littered by death, we are running out of pyres to burn all the corpses, and every day our tables are more empty. We are the House of the Dead, yet there's nothing we can do when we face it. I have to admit it has made me…melancholic." Hades chuckled, "The next few years will be marked by war, daughter, a war the likes we haven't seen in hundreds of years. The enlightened world will soon be revealed to the darkened, and you must prepare for that day."

"You're speaking nonsense. This is just an attack by some organized group, some—"

Hades walked to her. He stepped calmly, a placid smile on his face, a smile of pride, of accomplishment. Around him, the flash of fire cast his shadow across the room, yet he didn't flinch as the walls shook around him.

Hades placed his cane to the wall, taking care that it didn't fall, and with a final nod, he turned to Bianca.

Fear, pain, cold. Everything exploded around Bianca, and she didn't have time to scream as her father's hand grasped her face.

"DELIRIUM!" he yelled, his voice echoing within the confines of her mind. She wanted to scream, but her mouth wouldn't move. She wanted to reach to her own power, but she was paralyzed by a crippling fear that seemed to emanate from her father's blood red eyes. His cold hand burned her face, and tears began to well in Bianca's eyes.

"Listen to me, daughter, and listen very carefully. The titans rise, and they have found the fleece. The pillars have been breached. You must find them. The staff, the trident, and the crown remain. I have already taken precautions that will see the scythe be safe, and while you may hate me for it always remember that I love you, and that everything I have done I have done it so that you, my pride and joy, has the easiest path towards the hands of destiny." he hesitated for a moment, before speaking quietly. "There is another… you have another sibling. A mistake on my part, an impulse as a result of grief and lust. Find her, please, and tell her I am sorry that I abandoned her. Tell her what she wants to know, and guide her through the path of the daughter of death. Katakhthonios"

Bianca blinked.

"Father, what's going on?" Bianca was beginning to get worried. Her father was never this…subdued.

"You're speaking nonsense. This is just an attack by some organized group, some—"

Hades placed his cane to the wall, taking care that it didn't fall, and with a final nod, he turned to Bianca.

For the first time since she was a child, Hades hugged her.

"Be strong, my child. Be strong." With that, he turned around, grasping his cane and walking down the hall until he disappeared in a pair of large double doors.

Bianca blinked, a strange chill around her face and arms, but she shook it off as exhaustion from using her enlightenment against her fathers. Much to her surprise, the battle in the city was done, which meant that Percy would be returning.

A strange longing surfaced in her heart, a desire—no, a need for him, as if something had changed around her that could never be fixed.

She found him in the entry hall, with Nico and the rest of the hunters. Zagreus sported a new cut on his face, Nico a few on his arms, and Percy…Percy was fine. A bit dirty, his clothes bloody and muddy, but fine.

"Bianca?" Percy said, concern on his face. "Are you—"

She grabbed his face and kissed him, her heart swelling and the tears falling freely down her face, yet she couldn't understand why.

They separated, much to the amusement of those around her or the groans of her brother. Percy, instead, simply looked shocked.

"Bianca, is everything—"

"Quiet." she said, "Come."

She lead him through the twisting corridors of the keep, ignoring his protests and questions. She ignored a surprised Annabeth, as well as a few other of the hunters she had been working with closely over the past few days. She heard Percy apologizing behind her, but she didn't care.

Eventually, they arrived in her room, where Bianca pulled Percy in and slammed the door behind them, locking it.

"Bianca I—"

"Quiet." she said, pushing him onto the bed.

"I'm dirty—"

"Did you get hit in the head that you can't understand a simple word?" she said, as she straddled him. "I need you."

She removed her shirt, much to the shock of Percy, who gaped like a fish out of water. She reached behind to the clasp of her bra, but his hands stopped her.

"Bianca…I don't know what got into you, but…is this what you want?"

"I…something happened, Percy. I don't know what, nor why, but…my father spoke to me, and I know something is going to happen. I know him, and he's never been this…calm. I'm scared, no…terrified. Things out there are not going well, I'm afraid that this will be one of the last times we will have relative peace, and I don't want to waste it in strategy meetings or talking about things that in the end won't matter. I'm happy with you, you complete me in ways that I can't even describe. I don't know if it will last, but I know that I don't want to waste…whatever this is. Every time you go through those doors I remind myself of how little training you have. The only reason you haven't been killed is because Orpheus is using his enlightenment to fill your head up with knowledge that you shouldn't have. But what happens when Orpheus is not there? What happens if he gets injured? Killed? Who will fill your stupid head with those stupid moves that keep you alive long enough so you come back to me?" tears fell down her face, "I hate you. I hate you so much for what you do to me. And that makes me love you more, because you don't understand. You have no idea how much trouble you are, how you single handed destroyed almost twenty years of peace. You don't care about all this enlightened stuff because you simply don't understand it enough to care! You're the first person who sees me as me, as Bianca diAngelo, and not as a heiress to a house in the border of extinction, a house that slowly looses its ancestral seat. You see Nico as this annoying child instead of the assassin groomed since his fourth birthday for the role. You see Annabeth as a lost love rather than the girl who would cut your throat at a chance of praise from her mother. You see my father as a powerful man instead…" she swallowed, "Instead of the man who betrayed your father…"

Percy kept quiet, staring at her through his infuriatingly beautiful eyes. After a moment of silence, he rose his dirty hand, pushing a strand of dark hair off her face and behind her ear.

"I never had a family." he said, "Or at least I don't remember having one. My mother did what she could. She married a guy out of necessity, because she needed money to care for me after we were abandoned by our grandparents. Gabe…he did things to my mother that I don't want to repeat, and he told me he would do those things to me if I ever told anyone. Three hundred and sixty six. That's the number of scars that were on my mother's body the last time I helped her get dressed. I counted them, I suppose as a way to avoid the bruises and to not thing about what had happened in that cursed place I called home." Percy swallowed, "One day, I came home, and my mother was tied to a chair. Men all around her, friends of Gabe…" his hand clenched, "I don't remember much, but I remember the absolute fury that took me over. All I wanted was to protect my mother, I had been a good kid! I had followed all the instructions that Gabe told me, but in the end it didn't matter. He killed my mother. Oh, her body still breathed, and her heart still beat, but her eyes were dead. Empty. I saw those eyes, once so full of love, of her only purpose…I snapped. I don't remember much, only that the next thing I knew I was standing in the middle of a group of corpses. It shouldn't have happened, I was ten years old! How could I take down men five times my size and age? But in the end I did, and I knew I was a monster." His green eyes met her own onyx, "I don't know what all this is about. Enlightenment, hunters, monsters…all I know is that I lost my mother, and ever since I thought I had no purpose but to die alone in some dumpster. Instead, Nico and Annabeth found me, they took me to a place where I could be useful, but it still didn't feel right. Then I met you." he smiled, "You gave me purpose, something to live for. I will protect you, Bianca. Whatever it is that scares you, we will face it together. I won't abandon you, because you give me purpose. No matter what happens, we will face it together."

"Y-you promise?"

"I promise I will be with you when no one is there. I promise I will fight for you when no one else does. And I promise that if the time comes when I must choose between my life and yours, I shall await for you in whatever place enlightened go once they die. I swear this three times."

Bianca's lips closed around him, and their hands explored their bodies. Slowly, quickly, garments were removed, until all that was left was a thin hesitation that separated them from each other.

As the sound of their passion increased, they muffled the sounds of cackling laughter coming from the room above.

The room was simple, decorated with a table, a handful of chairs, a four poster bed and a grand wooden closet. On one of the chairs, near a small balcony overlooking a burning city, sat a woman.

Her long hair was a deep midnight colour, her hands a deathly pale, and her eyes orbs of starlight. Tears of black blood ran down her face as she laughed, and laughed and laughed.

She laughed once for a broken promise.

She laughed twice for a broken heart.

And her laughter turned to sobs for the broken bodies that will lay at the end.

In the end, the laughter quieted, leaving Lady Styx pondering how she would be able to save the world from the irresponsible brats who tempted fate.

Note: Hi. After almost two months, I finally have access again to my writing. I currently am writing chapter 27. and chapters 25 and 26 are ready to go. Will post them either later this week or early next week.

This chapter is the last of the "slog" that I've struggled so much to write. I needed to have these chapters of more monotonous exposition and building for the later things I have planned to actually work, so I decided to mark it with a bit of romance and fluff, which I am not really good at writing. Next chapter, 25 till chapter 30 (End of Part 3) is a bit more action packed, and part 4 (Chapters 31-40) are a rather steep rollercoaster of action, and have some of the scenes i've been wanting to write since I conceved this story. Part 5 (Chapters 41-47) is currently being plotted, and the interludes are also under revision. If all goes well, this book should wrap up this year (and if I don't get another case of writer's block that lasts idk how many months.)

After that, well, i'll plot out book 2, but more updates on that when necessary. Anyway, this marks the halfway point of Book 1 of Hunters of Olympus, and I wanted to thank you for sticking with me even after all my problems writing this story. Trust me, I love this story, but sometimes its really hard to write it, especially when life gets in the way and reminds you not so subtely that it exists.

I have also began to re-post this story on AO3, where i'm also reviewing some of the chapters and adding some chapter icons that I think are pretty neat.
And on the side, I am also plotting out a re-write of the Harry Potter series with my own twist on it and its worldbuilding/magic, but this project is currently on a really early stage.

The remaining stories on my profile will remain on hiatus for now, as I don't really want to write a Percy Jackson story on the side of already writing another Percy jackson story. I'm excited to read the new book, and I just found out that it would be the first of a new trilogy, so perhaps I will wait a bit as well to add some of those elements into this story. As for the series, I am stupid excited, hope you guys are as well.

Anyway, this is my update. Decided to post two chapters because you deserve it, and with 2 more coming soon. Take care of yourselves, and be kind to everyone.

Happy Reading
~AWL