Chapter 25:

Copied City

It took ten minutes for both boys to calm down, wipe away their tears and to finally start speaking the words they held on their tongue for so long.

Thousands of questions raced through Percy's head, all of them intertwined with the mess that was Olympus and all the mysteries that had spawned from it. These questions were like voices screaming in his head, all of them demanding his attention until his mind was an unending cacophony of questions.

His disappointment grew when he looked at Nico's dirty face and his dark eyes. Eyes that were just as lost as his. Maybe even more so.

Percy bit his tongue. He managed to push away most of the questions and focused on the ones most important.

"What is this place?" Percy leaned back against one of the crates and made himself comfortable on the blanket that was laid out on the rooftop. His body still felt like it could shatter into glass at a moment's notice. He felt that frail.

Nico had set up a small camp on the slanted roof of an apartment complex. He could see city blocks stretch out deep into the horizon on all sides of him, each block having the same distasteful faded yellow color and the eerie looking building style that reminded Percy of old 80's commercials.

Percy peered at the landscape, wondering if he was imagining things.

The entire town looked bland in a way that was almost uncanny. Perfectly clean streets ran for miles uninterrupted with spotless houses and housing facilities on their sides. Each and every one looking lifeless and unused. Instead it looked like a showroom model, scaled up and everywhere. As if the city had copied itself a dozen times and stitched the copies together in a hellish mediocre landscape.

Nico followed Percy's line of sight. "In case you are wondering. This isn't a real city. Instead we are walking on top of a monster."

Percy knew better than to interrupt.

Nico continued. "You know about Monster Donut right? How the fast food chain is tied to the life force of a Hydra. Well, this city is, was, tied to a Hydra. It kept expanding and expanding as parts of the city were being shelled. And now we are here."

He spread out his arms. "I figured we needed a place where the Gods wouldn't look for you while you recovered from your little…spat."

"Where's Kampê?" Percy asked, recalling how that fight had ended. Did she survive?

"Your dragon friend is safe," Nico studied Percy's expression. "You know, I still have trouble believing you are friends with Kampê."

"We aren't friends," Percy refuted almost automatically. "We are just allies. She sticks around because she thinks I am amusing."

"And why do you put up with her?"

Percy didn't really know what to say. For one brief moment he felt like was just bickering with his friends on the Argo II. Talking about how the world might end.

"She was worried about you but she and my partner agreed to surveil the area for monsters." Nico pointed at the copied city. "The gods ignore this part mostly, but a few stange monsters roam the city."

Nico shook his head. "Fuck, I still can't believe Kampé is killing monsters to protect a demigod. But then again, you always did make friends with the strangest of creatures."

"Did?"

"Sorry," Nico scratched his head. "Yeah, you are alive. Everyone around me kept using the past tense when they talked about you. Regardless," he gave Percy a playful pat on the shoulder. "Welcome to the land of the living. You almost died."

Percy looked at the skin on his forearm. It looked reddish. As if he had experienced several hours under the radiant sun on a summer day. When he touched his skin it still felt sore.

How did he survive the explosion?

"You practically died, Percy." Nico explained. "When we found you, fighting the Sun God of all people, you were practically dead. No skin, no heartbeat and somehow, you came back."

Images flashed through Percy's head. The lake. The eternity he had spent wandering. The cold. The voice. mission.

"I think I might have died for a second," he tried to laugh it off but the laugh came out as a choke. He managed to churn out a laugh. It even sounded worse than the first.

Nico saw the pained attempts at humor but didn't call him out on him.

"Well, you are back now." Nico said, giving Percy his own smile. There was something so genuine about his smile that Percy couldn't help but to copy it.

"So, what happened to you?" Nico asked. "I only heard bits and pieces. Everyone claimed you died on the first day when the Gods ordered the camps to be put down."

Percy closed his eyes.

He hadn't thought in a long while about the pile of bodies he left behind at camp. He had left, looking for his parents. Trying to find answers. Trying not to accept what happened.
Trying to run.

The bodies were most likely still there, unmoved, and only accompanied by the flies. None of them any wiser that Percy still figured out why they had died.

"I-I escaped the carnage. Stepped on a mine and then I was launched into the sky. I passed out but when I woke up I found myself on a beach."

Nico's expression darkened. "That's…what you are describing-"

"I know. Maybe the magic of the island wore off. Maybe there was a God helping me reach the island to remain safe." He sighed. "It was not an accident. Someone sent me to that island to hide me. I found some things on the island. A journal left by. By someone." Percy couldn't look Nico in the eyes and tell him about the graves he found. A voice inside him told him that it was okay, the son of Hades would understand. But deep down Percy doubted he kept silent for Nico's sake.

"When I got back to the world, most of the world was dead and well," he let out a dry chuckle. "Guess things haven't improved since then. I've seen lots of weird shit. Lightning storms that appear and disappear, rabbits eating a family alive and trees assaulting soldiers." He gestured at the city. "And now this; living cities that spread like a plague."

"Tell me about it," Nico agreed. "We both were in a similar situation. I was in the Underworld when I heard of the news."

"How'd you get out?"

"Well it was a mess." Nico was fiddling with his fingers. Holding the ring and twisting it around his finger while his eyes darted across the endless city. "Uhm, well. It doesn't matter. When I got out of the Underworld I found the world plunged into chaos. There were nuclear weapons being launched, monsters rising from the ocean and Drakons were flying through the city."

Percy shivered. A small part of him was glad he hadn't been there to see that part of humanity's end. A small part of him was glad he got to be the detective, figuring out the murder through a looking glass, instead of being in the middle of all the bloodshed and still unable to do anything.

He fidgeted with Riptide in his hands. "Oh."

"Big Oh." Nico nodded. "I tried looking for answers, pursued some leads, forged alliances and killed a whole lot of monsters and ran away from far more than I could count. But so far, I've been wandering. Looking for you."

Percy felt a small part of his heart break. The way he said it. There was desperation behind those words.

"When we got a call from Whitefall we headed immediately in your direction. We saw the explosion and well, here we are now. I patched you up and slowly we've been moving west to reach our allies."

"Allies?"

"You'll see." Nico smiled mysteriously.

Percy released a sigh. "Well, I hoped you had more answers on what exactly happened. And why did it happen?"

"I was hoping you had answers," Nico slowly said, looking at Perct in a curious way. Percy vaguely got the idea Nico was waiting for him to say something.

Percy briefly wondered whether he should tell Nico about his experience with Annabeth. He decided to let it rest for now. He wasn't sure if he could believe it himself.

Nico shrugged and started organizing the supplies. Pieces of metal, multiple phones, first aid kits and pre-packaged food.

"Anyway, are you ready to move? I don't want to stay too long on this Hydra's body." Nico pointed down at the identical streets on every corner. "Also, I realized I still haven't told you about my partner."

"Hold on," Percy stopped Nico with a simple wave. "I have one question."

"Okay?"

"What were you doing in the Underworld?"

"Huh?"

"You said you were in the Underworld when the Gods declared war. Why were you there?"

"Does it matter?" Nico asked, his voice rising.

"What were you doing in the Underworld?" Percy asked again. He was surprised by how calm his voice was.

Nico's eyes darted away from him.

"Please," Percy spoke softly. "Tell me."

"I don't think you want to know."

"I need to."

Nico bit his lip. "You won't like it." He waited for the son of Poseidon to back down.

Percy stood straight, and for a brief moment i was like he was the 12 year old kid again, the one that would send Medusa's head to Olympus because he was pissed at the world.

Nico caved in.

"Days before the announcement I noticed something odd about the souls in the Underworld. They justs —" Nico snapped his fingers. A dry sound echoed through the city below. "Disappeared. One moment I could tell if someone was in Elysium, or in the Fields of Asphodel. But then, they vanish. I tried to contact my father but he didn't answer my messages. So, I went down there by myself."

"What happened to the souls of the dead?"

A dark ominous aura began to surround Nico. "The Gods started purging all the souls in the Underworld days before their war on humanity started. Not just the ones that are at the Fields of Punishment, or the Fields of Asphodel. All of them. Every single human soul they somehow managed to erase."

Percy's breath stopped. "That's…wait, no you can't."

"Who knows," Nico murmured. "You know what happened to Pan. Twisted as it is, they figured out how to block the afterlife."

"They can't!"

"You're right, normally, they shouldn't. And I don't even think I want to know what unholy amount of laws and rules they broke. But they did it. For reasons we don't know, they hate us so much that even in death, we may not rest." The son of Hades chuckled. "I don't think you understand how unnatural it is. It's not even just the Greek Underworld. That would just be that, but the Olympians declared war on both the dead and the living. Every afterlife has been closed off."

Nico gave Percy a grimace. In an almost mocking tone he waved his arms and spoke. "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."

A/N According to my statistics only 1% of people leave reviews. So yeah. Not going to lie, writing this fic has kind of been my guilty pleasure. I know I should work on other works but look, I just love intrigue.

-CaptainMoonShine-