A/N: Special thanks to Buzzshock for the addition of Jason, and special thanks to the person(s) who nominated me for a Vertia Awards.
Recommended listening: “Home” by the Goo Goo Dolls
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Book Six
“The Dark Olympians”
Chapter Eight: Okay, I Admit It; I’m Afraid of
the Dark.
Nyx didn’t even grant her followers a thank you. Her entire rapt and amused attention was focused upon us, upon me, and she smiled viciously.
“Hello, Percy Jackson. You are predictable if nothing
else.” A shadow of a hand crept out from her arm and reached over my shoulder
to caress
“Leave him alone.”
She laughed tolerantly. “You are rather protective of your friends and family, aren’t you, my young warrior?” She twitched her shoulder. “It matters little, for you will all be dead in the foreseeable future.”
“No,” Luke proclaimed. “Not this time, Nyx. We’re going to stop you.”
“Are you, godling?” She motioned toward the gods surrounding us. “My forces infinitely bigger than yours, and even now, I have an army of half-bloods, all under the direction of Dysnomia, searching and kidnapping the unknown half-bloods to create my own little dark camp. They spread your satyrs thin, isn’t that right, Lord of the Wild?”
Grover narrowed his eyes. “We will prevail.”
For the first time, he actually sounded like a god, filled with conviction and power.
Nyx hardly seemed pleased. “No,
I believe you will not. They will eventually outnumber your poor showing at
“Never,” I vowed.
“Oh, but my dear warrior, you already have.”
My breath caught in my throat as from the carvings
emerged the god in sandals and swimming trunks. His eyes glowed an unfathomable
purple, and his face was neutral, like
“PERCY!” my little brother screamed, and he tried to rush past me. Thankfully, Thalia snatched his arm and held him tightly.
“
“You don’t know Percy like I do.” He struggled against her hold, but she didn’t let go. She would never let go—except to hand the boy to Grover to safeguard.
Nyx draped her arms about
Jack’s shoulders, holding him before her like a prize. “He has now pledged to
me, and with the power flowing within him, we will take
Thalia pulled her arrow, Annabeth her dagger. Riptide grew in my hand, and Nico, Clarisse, and Luke lifted their swords to affront.
“It isn’t going to happen, Nyx,” I growled, and with my friends at my side, I had all the power I needed. “This time, the seven half-bloods of the prophecy are united. You’re going down.”
She cackled Wicked Witch-like, throwing her head back and savoring her own inequity. “You truly are just a boy, aren’t you? But I still have use for you. This need not end in bloodshed. Join me, Percy Jackson, and I will give you what you dream of.”
As she played with Jack’s hair, I fought back a shiver. “You don’t know what I want.”
“What does any godling want? For his mother and father to be together. I will spare Poseidon, grant him mortality, and make your family whole again.”
I glanced back at
“What do you believe this to be,
“No.” Clarisse stepped forward. “I am the daughter of the god of war, and you have met your match.”
“Little girl, you are not even worth my time. Ate! Momus! Moros!” She continued to caress Jack’s cheek, his neck, his hair,
like he was her little toy. “Take care of the young heroes, but leave
In zaps of purple lightning, the dark gods sizzled away, leaving only the god and goddesses of the blame, fate, and ruin.
Ate took out two broadswords and whirled them about her
hands. “Let’s not take too long destroying them. I want to watch as Mother has
“Don’t blame me, Ate,” Momus snickered with his spear out toward Thalia. “If they struggle, I will only want to watch them squirm.”
Moros stood off the side. “Their Fate has already been written. Nothing we do will change that.”
His words were thick and wicked.
Three dark gods against seven half-bloods—six Greek, one Roman—and one satyr? Yeah, I didn’t like the numbers either.
Ate leapt at us, and I blocked her attack with my blade, but she was faster than me, like Flash-fast. Her opposite elbow slammed into my cheek, and I fell hard to the ground, the world spinning. By the time I had two gods in front of me, not four, Luke screamed from a stab wound in his shoulder, and Annabeth and Clarisse grunted when Ate broke the rock wall, tumbling fragments down upon them.
When I finally pulled myself onto my knees, Ate stood before me, her sword pointed directly at my head.
“All this quest has brought you is ruin, Percy Jackson. Prepare to meet your brothers.”
“NO!” a newcomer screamed, and before I could react, a glowing being stepped in front of me. Apparently, people I love always die for me.
Ate shrieked as her sword fed upon the breath that was a girl with ravishing blonde hair and a scrunchi made of clouds. She laid upon the floor next to me, bleeding what appeared to be rays of the sun.
“You idiot!” Ate cried. “I had him!”
“You weren’t…huff!...supposed to kill him,” the bright girl said, her light slowly fading.
Ate snatched Annabeth’s dagger off the floor. “Like you always listen to Mother.”
“I try to, and she told me to watch out for my brother!”
Suddenly, lightning sped across the ground and engulfed
Ate, zapping her until she burned into a pile of ash. From behind,
“I’ve got your back, bro.”
So did the bright girl.
I ran to her side, skidding along the ground. Her hand shook as I took it in mine, and she smiled up at me, loving and true. It was eerie…kind of creepy, but I couldn’t look away. She had just saved my life.
Her weak hand skimmed across my cheek, and she rasped, “You brighten my day…”
Then her light faded, and so did she until nothing was left.
“It was her fate,” Moros claimed over my head, his voice even and resolute, “but she will live again.”
“How can you say that?” I demanded and clutched his collar, shoving him against one of the pillars. “How can you possibly—”
“Your Roman godling no longer wields the power to kill a god. Hemera will live again, and you must stop the Dark Olympians.”
Yeah, that’s usually not what you expect from one of the Dark Olympians. That was when I said something really eloquent like, “Huh?”
Moros freed himself from my hands. “Despite what others believe, Fate is neither good nor bad. It is the truth that has yet to be discovered.”
I took a step back and glanced toward the fight. Clarisse
lifted the heavy rock that trapped she and Annabeth, and Luke and Nico now
pulled Annabeth from the rubble. Pain contorted
Luke’s face, but he persevered. Grover grew thorns to hold Momos
in place while Thalia and
I glared at Moros. “What is our fate, Moros? Do we win?”
He smiled, and he faded into the shadows. “Only time will tell.”
Why can’t gods just say, “Hell, yeah”?
I rejoined the group as Thalia
thumped
I smiled at
Cool.
“So now we have a whole-butt load of Dark Gods ready to
take
I slammed my fist into my open palm. “What else? We hit them where it hurts?”
Annabeth took out some
ambrosia. “We have perhaps a few dozen
Dark Gods attacking Olympus and
“Exactly,” Clarisse growled. “We have to move!”
“No!” Annabeth whirled about in the chamber. “The Go-teed Man sent you here for a reason. There has to be something here to stop them.”
“Yeah, isn’t that
Annabeth shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. There has to be something else. Something powerful that can stop a god—or gods.”
“I…”
The ophiotaurus, a sea creature…it had the power to bring down the Olympians.
“Then…Then you are the key,” Luke breathed.
“No.” Thalia looked directly at
me. “Did you see the way Jack was in a trance?” She turned to
“Hey, it’s okay.” I patted his back, then held him in a one-armed hug. “It’s going to be okay, kiddo. I promise. We’re going to make it out of this.”
How, I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.
“Let’s break up into two groups,” Luke offered. “Percy,
Clarisse, Fyn, Thalia, and
I will head to
“No, that’s not the wisest course of action,” Annabeth snapped.
I put up a hand. “I agree. I think
“You mean out of the way of fighting?”
“To-ma-to, to-mot-to.”
“I was trained by the Dark Olympians to destroy you. Don’t you think that means I might even be a better fighter than you?”
“I beat you.”
“Oh, you so did not—”
“ENOUGH! Both of you!” Thalia slapped me across the back of the head. “Need I remind you the world is ending.”
“Thalia, Nico, Clarisse, and Percy should go.” Annabeth was already examining the pillars, reading the ancient Greek for any clues. “As the children of the Big Three, you will have the most power, and you can never go wrong with the God of War on your side. And Grover should go, too, being the Lord of the Wild.”
He bahhhed in agreement.
“Luke can fly us there fast when we’re done here, and
I looked at her, and her glare read, “I don’t think anyone’s here. I’m just saying that to save your little brother’s feelings.”
Or something like that.
I turned to nod to Thalia and Grover, but Nico was missing.
Annabeth gestured toward the door. “He’s saying good-bye.”
When we made it back into Hynpos’s Palace, there Nico stood, his sister holding him close. Tears flooded both their cheeks, but Bianca let go first.
“You have to go.”
Nico shook his head. “I want to stay here…with you.”
“You will be seeing me again, sooner than you think.” She smiled and stole my gaze. “Protect him for me, Percy.”
“Always, Bianca.”
I put a hand on Nico’s shoulder, but it still took me five minutes to pry him away.
*^*^*
It took us longer than we would have liked to reach
topside, but I knew it wouldn’t take us very long to reach
Hey, Boss! Hailing
a taxi or a Pegasus?
“How’d you know you’d need backup?”
Blackjack ruffled Grover’s hair. He asked me to get some, Boss.
I glanced back at Grover. “What are you now? The Oracle?”
“Rachel did tell me to get more Pegasi.”
I began to wonder just what else Rachel knew that she wasn’t telling people.
We straddled the horses, but I let Thalia ride in front of me on Blackjack. I knew she’d be afraid of the heights, and she clung to my Pegasus like a nymph holds a tree.
“What’s the plan, Percy?” she asked, a little weary.
I took a deep breath. “I guess ‘kick their godly butts’ is not a good enough strategy?”
“They defeated you before. They kidnapped your little brother and made him an assassin. I think we need a little bit more than that.”
I glanced back toward
“Yeah, how do you figure?”
I smiled. “Because we have wisdom.”
*^*^*
Annabeth stared at the wall in
the back of the cavern, scrutinizing every inch of the people sculpted within
it. She looked at
“Are you going to marry my brother?”
Annabeth gagged and whirled. “Excuse me?”
“Well, are you? He said you were gone and weren’t coming back, but you’re here.”
“Technically, I’ve never left, and you’re back in time.” She wiped away some of the dust on the crevasses, gaining some details. “Was I going to marry your brother in the future?”
Luke laughed as he fell cross-legged next to the boy. “That does sound like our Percy.”
Annabeth leaned back on her
back foot and lifted up her bronze dagger to the wall. “
“Since as long as I know.”
“And they trapped Jack—uh, Percy—in it, right?”
Annabeth whirled to Luke. “Then who are these people?”
*^*^*
I always wonder what mortals see when we demigods do something…godly.
I brought Blackjack down right on
Yeah, sure.
Not.
We raced up to the attendant to the elevators, but a hand-written sign was propped upon his desk. “Observation deck closed for maintenance.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Thalia said.
We agreed but headed toward the elevators anyway. Grover opened it with his lyre and a Justin Bieber song—not that I’d know what one of those sounds like—and we entered the small room. We waited impatiently, Nico wrapping his sword hilt about his hand, Thalia pumping her spear, and me bumping up and down on the balls of my feet.
Yeah, none of us are patient.
Grover was the only one who seemed at all calm, and I smirked at him. “How bad is it? With the dark half-bloods?”
Grover returned the grin. “The Dark Olympians’ mind-control isn’t hard to break, especially when the gods have been claiming their kids. It’s hard to say, ‘Mommy and Daddy don’t love you’ when they’re caring enough to help the kids.”
“Help?”
“Earthquakes, thunderstorms, grape vines…”
The Olympians were actually looking out for their kids? Then where the Hades was my dad?
The elevator dinged when he reached the six hundredth
floor, and we dashed forward—and stopped dead. Night had befallen upon
“They’re already attacked here,” Thalia breathed.
“Come on!”
My dad, my uncles, and Annabeth’s mom, who wanted to zap me, should have all been there. How they fared…what happened? How could this—and why wasn’t anyone here?
The thrones were all but destroyed, blown to bits and sizzling as lightning danced about the room. In the middle, huffing with a silver glow and lightning dancing off his body, was Paul Blofis.
Jupiter, the Roman God of the Sky.
“PAUL!” I screamed, running to his side. I touched him and half-expected to be thrown across the room; however, the lightning danced off me, too. His entirely bright eyes focused upon me, at first not recognizing me, before a soft smile curved upon his lips.
“Percy…you’re all right.”
That was an understatement. “Paul—uh, Jupiter—what are you doing here?”
He leaned heavily upon me to stand. “Your wristlet, it was forced off. I had to come and help.”
No, mine still hugged my wrist. The Dark Olympians must have sliced Jack’s somehow.
“Mr. Blofis, where are the nymphs and the creatures?” Thalia asked.
Nico was to the point. “Where are the gods?”
Jupiter—no, Paul—ran a hand through my hair before ruffling it. “They went to fight the big guns—Eris, Hypnos, and Thanatos.”
I froze. “Where’s Jack?”
*^*^*
I thought I understood Jack. I didn’t until this exact moment. Maybe it
looked worse from above. Maybe I was seeing it from the gods’ point of view,
but below us,
Flames few out from the Big House windows. The strawberry fields were strawberry jam pools, and the forest burned alive.
The campers, nymphs, and centaurs alike were fighting a mixture of half-bloods and dark gods and other creatures I hadn’t even heard about, but Jack and Nyx were nowhere in sight. I didn’t care at the moment. One of the only two places on this Earth I had ever called home was being destroyed, and I wasn’t going to let it happen.
“Take us down, Blackjack.”
You sure, Boss?
I locked eyes with Thalia and nodded. This was it.
The end of the world.
Again.
Just a normal day at
I came into battle slicing, taking off the heads of a two-headed monster with chicken legs, and I flipped end over end, helping to block for Malcolm, giving him a moment to breathe. Whirling on my back leg, I crossed swords with another half-blood dressed in black armor.
“You can’t listen to the Dark Gods!” I screamed, and boy, did that kid move fast. “They’re using you!”
The earth shook underneath me, and suddenly, I remembered
the dagger Antaeus gave me. Gripping it, I fell to my
knees and buried its blade in the ground, the power of Gaia stopping the earth
from rocking. Then, it shifted again like I was in
Jack wielded Riptide but had the power of the god, his eyes golden. Wrapped in Nyx’s arms, he wielded the power of night, perhaps the only force on Earth—or in the heavens—that Zeus feared.
“Honey, I use everyone.” Nyx huffed. “My love, maim the gnat.”
The gods are always kind, aren’t they?
Jack tore forward like a tsunami charges the shore, and I parried his blade. Or so I thought. He pivoted on his back foot, and I tumbled backwards, scrapping my shoulder along the ground. My torso was aflame, just like my cabin. A few ribs probably went there.
I couldn’t just lay there, though, not when he lunged. I backflipped—ow!—and kicked his left knee. The crack of a breaking bone should have broken the air, but he hardly cringed. The scowl upon his face twisted, and the backhand I never saw, only felt—and tasted. Blood slipped through my lips and dribbled down my chin.
As I stumbled and barely missed the ground, I whirled back toward him. “What are you doing! How can you serve her?”
“He’s all mine, gnat. Or would you prefer ‘tadpole’?” Nyx cackled.
Jack fell to the ground and swiped his leg, taking out my own. As I crashed to the dirt, I tried not to think of the pain crippling my body. Yeah, didn’t help.
“Why…argh!...are you doing this?” I winced, slowly making my way to my feet. I couldn’t believe I’d managed to keep hold of Riptide. “What did half-bloods ever do to you?”
“It’s not just half-bloods. I have a problem with everyone.” She snapped her fingers, and it was like a star fell, destroying Hera’s cabin. “Hera over there wanted Zeus put to sleep. Why, you ask. Because she wanted to cause havoc on Heracles, at that time, a half-blood. “ Zeus’s cabin exploded. “So Hera went to my son, who did the duty for her, but when Zeus found out, he came after me.”
Jack grabbed my shirt, and even though I struggled, I knew it was futile.
“He imprisoned me in my own son’s domain longer than Medusa’s been a fashion statement.”
Apollo’s cabin burst into flames.
“And you know what?”
I couldn’t keep in the scream as coral cut my back. Jack had tossed me into my own cabin.
“Zeus didn’t even keep the kid around.”
Nyx snapped her fingers, and one by one, Artemis’s, Hades’s, Dionysus’s, every cabin but one boomed with thunder and destruction.
All but mine.
Nyx came from behind Jack and caressed my chin. “That is the one guarantee you have from me, Percy. I am a mother first and foremost. I love my children. I protect them when they wrong. I teach them how to survive. I come to their aid in war.” She smiled deviously. “Can you say the same about Poseidon?”
No, I couldn’t. Despite fighting in his name, despite battling war after war for him, he never came to my aid. He only gave me one birthday present in my whole life, and it was for the first prophecy war. I had to save myself. I had to save Annabeth and camp.
I had to give Luke the dagger that killed him.
Luke, who gave up his second life selflessly to fight beside us.
Annabeth, who loved me despite my flaws.
Nico, who worried about his place with his own dad but chose to fight with us anyway.
Thalia, the sister I never had.
Rachel, the oracle who guided me.
Clarisse, who went undercover to save us and now tore up the battlefield.
And Paul, my stepdad who fought alongside Greek half-bloods to save me, and Mom, who somewhere, worried for my safety and would take up a shield and sword to protect me.
They were my family, and they were here for me.
A crackle of lightning shocked Jack until his grip lessened upon my collar, and I dropped to the ground. Kicking, I sent him staggering back, and Paul charged with what appeared to be Thalia’s spear.
“Percy! Stand down. NOW!”
Jack pivoted on his back heel and glared at my stepdad—his stepdad—like a pest to be swatted. That he did, for with a swipe of his hand, a wave of water came from the bathrooms, tossing Paul back. At the same moment, the ground opened just underneath Jack, and Nico brought with him the fires of Hades.
“You’re strong, Jack, but you’re not as strong as the fire of the Underworld!”
Thalia threw a large boulder from what was the amphitheatre. “Or the power of the sky!”
Grover blew his lyre with his girlfriend Juniper, who wrapped vines about Jack. “Don’t make us hurt you, Percy!”
I was thinking, Bring it! Take him
down!
On instinct, I reached for any water I could, and the wall of my cabin tore apart under the weight of my fountain. It seemed to be an endless river, curling about Jack like a mini-hurricane.
Everyone was a single distraction—for Clarisse. She forged the field, her dagger and sword in her hands to tear through Jack.
“I’m not sorry for doing this!”
We had him.
Of course, Jack was a god and the last Olympian.
He broke through Juniper and Grover’s vines, and pivoting, he drew around him the hurricane I had created. With a hand forced out, he shot water at Clarisse, knocking her down the chasm Nico had created. With his feet on either side of the opening, he shook the earth, knocking us from our feet. He pinned Thalia to the ground with her own spear and used her arrows. I was never good with archery, but Jack apparently was, hitting Nico in the shoulder and the leg.
“You don’t know who you’re fighting,” he said raucously.
Yeah, I actually did know.
Me.
No one could move with the camp ready to fall into the sea—except me. With Gaia’s dagger, I dove forward, and Jack whirled. He barreled forward and pushed through my block, pressing Aegis into my stomach and flinging me high into the air. My stomach bottomed out, but I still managed to twist toward him, my sword ready to slice through any attack.
It came in the form of water from my own fountain.
Stealing it from Poseidon’s cabin, Jack manipulated the water like an Ares’s camper and shot it toward me like a bullet. As it neared me, the water hardened to become a trident, and like it had with Thanatos, the water trident dragged me below the surface of the Long Island Sound.
Unlike Thanatos, I was born of
water, and when the trident dissipated, I swam to the surface. Jack stood
none-too-far away, his feet sunk just below the surface. Behind me, Nyx stood on the edge of camp, watching us intently while
Jack motioned for me to stand. “You cannot win versus a god.”
I laughed and climbed to my feet, whipping Riptide about my hand. “You forget. Water is my element.”
“No,” he chortled demonically, “it is my servant.”
I didn’t wait to process what he said, and I lunged forward, a battle cry freeing itself from the depths of my soul. I wouldn’t let him destroy the only home I could truly be myself—a demigod.
Jack just smiled and swiped a hand.
A waterspout swirled from the sound, surrounded me, caught me.
“Poseidon granted you the ability to command water,” Nyx’s sultry voice whispered in my ear. “It does not belong to you.”
Suddenly, Rachel’s warning rang true.
Hold your breath.
I took a deep one because despite being in water, I couldn’t breathe. For the first time since I learned of my parentage, the water refused to listen to me. My body refused to take it, and I gagged. I snorted, coughed, beckoned it to obey, but neither the water nor my body did.
I was drowning.
Jack commanded the power of the sea, and he stole it from me.
Despite my struggles, I couldn’t free myself from its hold, and I knew then I would die. I probably should have prayed to my dad, like Tyson had. When my Cyclops-brother had been living on the streets, he prayed to our father for help. It came in the form of me.
Triton.
Dad sent me Triton before this prophecy. Oh, gods. He knew this was going to happen. He knew I was going to be the center of another war, and he sent me Triton to save me.
I freed the conch from my neck, my hands shaking from the lack of air. No matter what, Triton said he would come. He was dead, but still, I found myself putting the shell to my mouth. With my last remaining air, I blew.
Between Jack and me, the sound exploded, and a large man dressed in Greek battle armor with a trident and shield attacked Jack.
“The sea belongs to me, child!”
Dad.
I plunged to the ocean and quickly broke the surface.
“You believe you can be the god of the seas?” Dad challenged.
Jack met him swipe for swipe. “I am the god of the seas, old man!”
Dad laughed—actually laughed. “Not yet.”
Jack was good. Seriously, like I-never-thought-anyone-could-ever-be-that-good good, but Dad had been around since time immortal, and it showed. A nick to Jack’s shoulder, a slice of his torso, Dad wasn’t fighting to kill, just to tire Jack.
A blast from the camp above seized my attention, and now I saw the Olympians. Luke fought Momus, the Olympian of Blame, but as the god moved to stab Luke in the shoulder, Hermes swooped in, knocking away the blade. Dionysus entrapped Neikos in grape vines. Aphrodite made the dark half-bloods turn on one another, capturing them in kisses and embraces.
Demeter regrew the flowers that had been burned and trampled, stealing the Dark Olympians’ powers. Ares fought alongside Clarisse, their swords licking the battlefield of the monsters that had come for the war. Athena took on Eris herself, her blade hungrier than most, and the two reminded me of those catfights on TV. Hera, Zeus, and Thalia battled Hypnos, and god of the sky seemed to enjoy the fight. Hades and Nico crossed swords with Thanatos.
The Olympians had come to our aid.
Whoa.
As I swam to the beach, Jack beat me there when Dad caught Jack with a haymaker, tossing the younger god into the dry ground. Sopping wet, I dragged myself up onto the sand to watch as Jack picked himself up and did the unthinkable.
As Poseidon lunged, Jack swiped. Riptide sliced right through Poseidon’s torso.
“NO!” I screamed, but it was too late as Dad crashed to
the beach. I ran to him like I had Triton, like I had
“Percy…” he gasped, and I pulled off my sodden T-shirt, throwing it over the bleeding wound. I pressed down hard, knowing it to be futile. How could Jack do this? How could I do this?
I felt a presence behind him, and my father’s eyes widened. I swiveled on the ground, and Eris now stood above me, her dark smile widened with power. With every obstacle in my path, she grew stronger.
“You will fail, Percy Jackson. You were destined to lose from the beginning.”
“No!” I shot out my hand, but the water wouldn’t come.
I wasn’t a demigod anymore.
I was mortal.
The screams of half-bloods and gods alike resounded from above, and Eris waved her hand. She lifted us effortlessly back up to the ledge of the camp. What greeted us stopped my heart.
The Olympians were bleeding, heaving, and dying.
Jack had attacked.
The gods had left their mark on him. Dried vines curled up Jack’s left arm, while long gashes bled across his stomach and his arms. Feathers dusted across his back, while claw marks scraped his cheek. Kneeling upon the ground in the middle of the carnage, he held a hand to his torso, his head bowed.
Thanatos came forward, leaning over my cringing father. “It is almost time, Poseidon. Lethe is calling you.”
I lifted Riptide toward him. “Back off. Now!”
“Or you will do what? You are nothing more than a bastard
mutt. You should have never even been born, and so you shall be scorned. You
will be nothing more than a stain on an Olympian’s toga, and I will kick your
butt from here to
When Thanatos fluttered over to Zeus, over whom Thalia hovered, a bloody hand clamped my knee. My father’s eyes locked with mine. I always knew I had his eyes—Mom said so every birthday—but for the first time, I saw my own eyes looking back at me.
He was my father, and he’d come to save me.
Most of the half-bloods were still fighting each other, too preoccupied to us.
“You have done well, my young warrior.” Nyx caressed Jack’s cheek and lifted his head to expose his lips. “Now, it’s time to finish this.”
“…No.”
My head shot up.
Jack shook his head, his body trembling, his head leaning away from her embrace. “…No. S-S-Stop.”
Jack was rebelling.
Nyx wouldn’t have it. She clasped her hands over his cheeks and pulled him close. “Do not despair. You are mine.”
She pulled her lips against his.
Jack actually struggled as dark lightning exploded in the area, but it slowly was swept away. When it settled, Jack’s wounds still remained, but his eyes once more glowed of dark stars. Nyx still held on, and it was really starting to creep me out. Either I was a great kisser, or Nyx was just really power-hungry.
The ew factor was back.
Thankfully, a golden dagger ended her attack, and Nyx screamed when it pierced her back. Thanatos pulled it out quickly, and despite her pain-filled grimace, Nyx looked fierce. Her teeth clenched, and she growled at the newcomers.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Get your elderly lips off my boyfriend, Nyx.”
Annabeth, Luke, Clarisse, Nico, and Thalia—older and more powerful.
Before me stood the New Olympians.
And Old-Annabeth was hot.
Really, I’m not kidding. She was seriously smoking with long glistening blonde hair that glowed even in the dead of night and that tight white top and jeans…I mean…you know…
“Seriously, what do you call an ancient goddess?” Old-Luke laughed. “I think she’s totally too old to be a cougar.”
Nyx drew the shadows of the night about her to close up the wound, and she elegantly rose to her feet.
“Percy,” she said calmly. “Kill them.”
With her power flowing through him, Jack climbed to his feet, albeit haggardly, and raised his sword.
“I live to serve, my goddess.”
He lunged.
Old-Luke took his wipe, meeting Riptide with Backbiter, and as the New Olympians fought one of their own, Thanatos diverted to Athena, the goddess of wisdom. What had Jack said? The one thing they didn’t have in the future was wisdom. As much I disagreed with Athena a lot of time, she was a goddess for a reason, and more importantly, she was Annabeth’s mom. I couldn’t let her die.
“You think you are smart, you little fart,” Thanatos rhymed, “but the world has joined us. Don’t make such a fuss.”
He moved faster than I gave him credit, but he had his torch against the back of my neck before I could blink. His hot breath licked my ear. “You didn’t learn, did you, boy? The truth behind the doors is nothing but a void. All life ends when my fingertips bend.”
Life.
Was this it? Had Jack changed the past, and I was going to die here? Now?
Flowers suddenly grew about our feet, and Thanatos groaned, his hold upon me decreasing. A sword cut through his shoulder, and I turned from his embrace.
Luke—my Luke—smiled and wiped the blood from his blade off on Thanatos’s shirt. “You think he can kill himself?”
Annabeth rushed up next to him,
“The New Olympians were in the wall. Nyx and the Dark Olympians didn’t kill them after all.”
The shadows formed a figure next to us, and Nico became solid. “We have to do something, or we’re going to lose.”
I looked back at the fight. Jack had torn a hole through Old-Luke and now lunged for Old-Nico, who used the shadows to distract Jack. Still, it was only a matter of time before he caught them all.
Old-Annabeth, Old-Thalia, and Old-Clarisse went rounds with Eris and Hypnos. We had to something then.
“It’s Life,” I explained quickly.
Annabeth nodded, elated. “Exactly, Behind the Doors of Death is the Secret of Life.”
Thalia appeared next to us, tired and bleeding. “And just what is the Secret of Life?”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, I knew it. At least, what the secret of life was to me.
“Family.”
Luke blinked. “What?”
“Family,” I repeated. “Luke, you fight with us—why? Because we’re your family. Bianca helped me. Why? Because Nico’s her family, and I watch after Nico.”
“I can take care of my—”
I cut him off. “My dad came to save me. Luke’s dad been helping him.”
“SHH!” Luke protested.
“And if there’s one thing the Olympians have never acted like before, it’s a family. One that doesn’t maim each other. One doesn’t try to destroy each other. Maybe we should finally be one, big, happy family.”
In a flash of lightning,
The seven of us, together, for the last time.
Tears formed in Annabeth’s eyes. “You know what will happen.”
I nodded. Yeah, I knew.
At the edge of the battlefield, Rachel stood, her own clothes torn and her hair undone. She recited as if a magical trance held the battlefield.
“Seven half-bloods shall answer the call.”
One by one, Luke, Thalia, Nico, Clarisse, and finally Annabeth dropped their camp necklaces over my head.
“To
storm or fire, the world must fall.”
Jack sliced through Old-Nico, even in his shadow form, and raced for Old-Thalia and Old-Annabeth.
“An
oath to keep with a final breath…”
I promised someone in the future I’d finish this.
“And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.”
As I turned and
raced into battle, shrieking, “FOR
With my family at my side, I leapt at Nyx. She
whirled toward me, her dark scowl more of a threat, and I struck with Riptide.
Her black lightning crackled about me, but Paul’s lightning kept them at bay. I
sliced forward, only for Thanatos to clash his blade against
mine.
“You will learn your place. Give my mother some space!”
His hand reached out to touch mine, and Bianca di
Angelo stepped in front of me. When his hand touched hers, she screamed out in
pain. When she fell to the ground, her body was not transparent, and her skin
was a dark olive. She looked up at me, life in her eyes.
“P—Percy?”
I must have wrenched her arm from
her socket, tugging her off the ground. “MOVE!”
She jumped behind me as the other
ghosts avoided Thanatos’s touch. Apparently, Thanatos could kill a living person, and to kill a dead
person? He had to bring them back to life.
I pivoted on my back heel, and when Thanatos reached to touch Triton, I buried my sword in his
stomach. He coughed, blood leaking from his wound, and he smirked up at me.
“What do you think you’re doing,
“No,” a new voice shouted, slamming
his hands to the ground again, “but I will!”
Kneeling upon the
ground, Antaeus cracked open the rock below us.
Luke swooped down to catch me and Bianca before we,
too, fell into Underworld.
Triton smiled at me, an
understanding between us. I’d saved him. The dead shouldn’t be brought back to
life, and I wouldn’t torture him with that battle, no matter how much I wanted
it.
He inclined his head and motioned to
the conch still about my neck.
He had come.
He would always come.
Suddenly, the ground mended itself, closing off the Underworld, taking with it my brother and the other dead heroes. From the earth formed Antaeus, shrugging. “Thought I could help.”
I inclined
my head toward him, like Triton had done to me. “Thanks…bro.”
Thanatos’s torch clanged against the hard earth, but we all ignored it. Best not to touch death’s weapon.
“You worthless, insolent child!” Nyx raised her arms high into the sky, shadows drawing her quicker than Nico. “You will pay for what you have done.”
A snap sounded, and everyone at camp fell to the ground, unconscious—except of course, the New Olympians (teenage and otherwise). Hypnos stood a little ways away, a scornful smirk upon his face.
“I will avenge my brother,” he vowed.
Jack now finished off Old-Thalia, and he whirled on his back heel toward Old-Clarisse.
“And I will avenge mine,” I replied.
Hypnos lunged at me, only for white lightning, more powerful
than I had ever seen, ambush him from the side.
“You made me kill them, and for that, I will kill you!”
Not to
mention,
I didn’t look at Nyx, though I felt her dark power surging about me. “It’s over. You’ve lost.”
She didn’t like that. “I still hold the power. I still hold you, my little warrior. You will finally kill everyone you care about, and nothing can stop you.”
I looked over my shoulder and smiled at her. “Wrong. Now, we have wisdom.”
Jack whirled to pivot, and his blade stopped before his last opponent.
Old-Annabeth.
His lost love.
Despite everything that Nyx had done, nothing could ever make me kill Annabeth.
I love her.
…
Did I just say that?
Suddenly, from the horizon, came Apollo, riding a chariot for once, singing into the air, “I have a pocket, have a pocketful of sunshine…”
“Really?” Annabeth said as she came to my side, awake from Hypnos’s spell. “Natasha Bedingfield? I was thinking Katrina and the Waves.”
I smiled at her at the first trickling rays of the morning sun shone over the horizon, and Nyx cursed. “No! No, this was my time! I will not be downsized!”
One by one, the rays of the sun brought day to conquer Night, and with a slice of Riptide, she disintegrated like Kronos—gone at least for now.
I felt the
air prickle on my neck. I heard that gasps from
By the time I whirled, Eris had already fired Thanatos’s torch directly at me. There was no time to jump out of the way. No time to avoid.
“An
oath to keep with a final breath…”
The lightning slowed down, its black tentacles reaching toward my face, when they stopped in mid-air. The world stopped, if just for a moment.
The Go-teed Man stepped across the bloodied bodies and monsters upon the field. Upon his lips was, “Here Comes the Sun.”
The Beatles? They were, like, ancient.
Then again, I had a feeling the Go-teed Man was, too. He moved at normal speed and looked from Eris to me then back to Eris.
“Timing is everything, sweetheart, and you’re about five seconds too late.”
The black lightning moved in reverse, shooting past the Go-teed Man before it finally exploded the torch and dissipating the screaming Eris.
They were gone.
The Dark Olympians were no more.
Those who remained left, and Apollo, the healer god, came before each of the Olympians, who still writhed in pain. “The moon, the sun, all has been won. Thanks to the heroes and their sass, I can finally rest on my—”
Somehow, my father managed to raise his trident. “Finish that, and I will gut you myself.”
Apollo leaned back with his hands in a surrender position. “Tough crowd.”
In flash of sunshine light, the Olympians now stood, healed from their fight with Jack.
And Jack…
His hand shook until his sword fell the ground, his eyes locked with the stormy ones of Old-Annabeth. His voice hardly rose above a whisper. “…Wise Girl?”
She cocked her head to the side and wiped the blood from his cheek. “Hey, Seaweed Brain. Good thing you have me around to stop all the divas from hitting on you, huh?”
They simply stared at each other for the longest time before they lunged, their lips meeting. I almost yelled, “Get a room!” but I figured that would have been rude.
Abruptly, Jack pulled away and leaned to the side, his body expelling purple and black contents, what I could only guess to be Bessie. He wiped his mouth off with his sleeve and smiled sheepishly at Old-Annabeth.
“Sorry about that.”
She was still smiling, elated. “It’s fine, honey, but let’s get you a breath mint. You smell like fish.”
“That’s nothing new.”
“And that makes it all okay?”
Annabeth’s warm hand slipped into mine as we stared at the scene. For the first time in a long while, I felt okay.
The world
hadn’t ended really. Sure,
Looked like camp was going to be packed this summer.
To Be Continued…