The god and the girl
Percy looked down at the crowd. Most had dropped their weapons, some had run, some of the younger ones even bowed as if he were some kind of messiah. Travis had dropped his weapon and was shielding his eyes. Annabeth meanwhile stared straight at him, her grey eyes flickering with madness and another unreadable expression. She looked almost the same as she had the last time they had met, when he was still mortal, and Luke was still alive. Her silver hair flew in the wind, and her hands scratched at the black cuffs.
He turned to the crowd "Annabeth Chase is under the protection of Olympus! She is under 𝘮𝘺 protection. Is that understood?!"
One of the younger ones, a child of Apollo, yelled, "Yes, my lord!"
Percy wanted to say something that he was no 𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘥, these were his friends and he 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 acting like he was their superior. The crowd began to disperse, running back to their cabins, all of them trying to get away from the god.
"You’ll regret this, Percy." Travis’s voice was broken, and tears ran down his face. Percy wanted nothing more than to reach out and hug his friend, but he knew it wouldn’t be welcome. "She’ll stab you in the back again, just like she did with Luke, just like she did with Silena, just like she did with the rest of us……even you cant save her". With that, the child of Hermes turned and walked away.
He turned towards the two girls behind him. Bianca approached, an unreadable expression on her face. Percy held his breath as she got closer. But then suddenly she pulled him into a tight hug.
"its good to see you, Percy."
Percy melted into the hug, gods, it felt good to see someone who just treated him like Percy, not like some all-powerful deity that would fry them if they got too close. He hugged his best friend close, letting the feeling of her chest rising with each breath calm him.
"It's good to see you too, Bianca."
She smiled up at him: "That was quite the entrance you made there."
He chuckled and spread his arms. "What can I say, I’m a theatre kid at heart." A small smirk found its way onto his face. "Also, you looked like you might need a hand"
The daughter of Hades rolled her eyes. "I had it under control. A few fancy sword moves here, a bit of dark magic there, and I would have had them running back with their tails between their legs."
He stifled a laugh "Oh, I’m sure."
Bianca punched him lightly on the shoulder with a grin on her face, "Fuck you Jackson."
Percy let his mouth drop open, an expression of fake shock filling his face. "Woah! Was that an F-bomb? ease up on the profanities, Miss 1941"
Bianca opened her mouth to retort, but a cough cut her off.
"Yes, this is all very cute, but I believe we had somewhere to be?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I trust you two can keep it in your pants until we reach the ship, at least."
Bianca sputtered, turning to face the silver haired girl. "Um, we uh we aren’t-"
"-We aren’t together." finished Percy, a small heat reaching his face.
Annabeth rolled her eyes "I really don’t fucking care, can we go now?"
Together they awkwardly walked to the ship. Percy took a closer look at Annabeth. She was gaunt and more skeletal than he remembered, a lot of her muscle had withered away, and she had dark marks on her neck and wrists. But in spite of that, her eyes were alert and her mind sharp. He had heard what Hercules had said, that she was a rabid dog motivated by nothing but madness that needed to be put down. He had heard what his father had said, that she was an apathetic sadist who cared not for her actions and those she hurt. He had heard what Athena had said, that she was a cruel girl who was motivated by nothing more than her own hatred.
Looking at the girl now, Percy knew they were all wrong. Annabeth was many things, but apathetic was not one of them. He’d seen the fire in her, far too many times he’d almost been burned by it far too many times.
They reached the ship and climbed aboard; there were already three demigods aboard. The shortest one, a little black haired boy with wild eyes, practically bounded up to him and shoved his hand forward.
"I’m Leo! Leo Valdez! You probably haven’t heard of me. But I’ve heard about you!"
Percy smiled shaking Leo’s hand. "Well, Leo, I look forward to hearing more of you." Leo shook his head vigorously before bounding away. Beside him, Bianca chuckled, "He grows on you after a while, kind of like a mold."
Behind them Annabeth rolled her eyes and slinked away towards the cabins. He noticed that the cuffs on her hands were gone.
Next, a blonde boy walked up to them. Percy took a sharp breath. The boy was almost the spitting image of Luke. Bianca looked up at him concern in her eyes, but he waved her away.
"I’m Jason, son of Jupiter, I uh, well, I’ve heard a bit about you, but ya know."
Percy tilted his head. "Your Roman?"
Jason touched the back of his neck nervously. "Yeah, got dumped here by Jun—Hera a while back"
Percy nodded, "Yeah, that sounds like Hera." The queen of the gods was a professional bitch, and even becoming a god hadn’t made her like him anymore.
"Oh and this is Piper." Jason ducked away and came back with another girl at his side. She was pretty, with brown hair and familiar grey eyes. She smiled and rolled her eyes at the son of Jupiter. "Well now that Jason’s ruined my dramatic entrance, I’m Piper."
"By the way, that was a real impressive entrance you made back there on the grass; you plan that out?"
He broke into a smile. "Of course, wouldn’t be befitting of a god to just show up in a hoodie or something."
Piper nodded sagely, a grin on her face. "Of course, cant respect anyone without a flair for the dramatic."
Oh, Percy liked her. He turned towards Bianca, who had her head buried in her hands. "See, Bia, someone who appreciates me, I have truly found my people."
Bianca groaned. "Gods, you two are gonna be insufferable, as if her and Valdez weren’t bad enough." Percy and Piper laughed.
Leo ran with a manic look on his face. "All right, we're all ready to go, everyone buckle up and say your prayers!"
Percy walked towards the stern of the ship and watched as Camp-Half Blood began to shrink in the distance. It was only now, watching his home slip away and after meeting half of the demigods he would be fighting alongside that the full force of his new responsibility fell onto his shoulders. He made a vow: he would protect them, he wouldn’t let Jason, Piper, and Leo lose their innocence like he had, like Bianca had, …….Like Annabeth had. He had to be better, the gods had to be better.
//
It was around midnight, and the moon sat high in the cloudless sky. The other demigods had turned in for the night, and Leo had informed them that they would be in California within the next two days. As a god, he didn’t really need sleep, so he volunteered to take the first watch. It was a beautiful night.
"So the hero becomes the god, huh, and to think I used to think you were different, Perseus."
Percy looked down at Annabeth Chase, her silver hair glinted in the moonlight, and her eyes seemed to glow ever so slightly. "What do you want Annabeth?"
She twirled a piece of hair casually, "Oh, nothing much, just curious." She looked up at him. "So what’s the plan, Perce? Gonna go fuck some mortals? Gonna pop out a few kids? Neglect them? Leave them to die?"
Percy took a step back, shock painting his face. "𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵?"
Annabeth took a step forward, a cruel smile dancing across her beautiful face. "Well, you are a god, aren’t you?" She stared down at her nails. "Seems only logical that you would partake in 𝘨𝘰𝘥𝘭𝘺 activities."
Percy frowned, Annabeth was a master of lies, he wouldn’t let her under his skin. "Its not like that, Annabeth, its nothing like that, I became a god to help people, to protect demigods, to look after us all."
Annabeth smirked, and her eyes shone dangerously: "Oh, I’m sure you think that. But then again, I’m sure Hercules thought the same thing, I’m sure Dionysus thought the same thing." she got closer, leaning up to him so he could feel her cold breath against his cheek. "And now look at them…….. you’ll be no different"
Percy suppressed a shudder. He wasn’t like Hercules, angry, blind Hercules, and he wasn’t like Dionysus, spiteful, apathetic Dionysus. He wasn’t like either of them. He 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 be like either of them
Annabeth twirled away and leaned against the mast, folding her arms. "Ya know, Percy, I’ve been thinking."
"About sunshine and rainbows, no doubt."
She chuckled. "Not quite, no, I’ve been thinking about us, about all of us, you know, demigods."
Annabeth thinking about demigods seemed like a sick joke; she didn’t seem to bother thinking about them when she was waging her war. How many demigods were in the ground because of her?
Annabeth continued unabated by his silence. "I think that we as a race have a real bad case of Stockholm syndrome." She stared at him for a second. "I mean think about it, the gods throw us into this world of monsters and death without even an acknowledgement or heads up, we fight their wars, we’re just expected to die for them and well…" she spread her arms " And we do! We die en-masse for them. Most us don’t live to see our 16th birthdays, you and I? well we’re already exceptional, and think of how much blood we had to wade through to get here?" She sighed looking up at the skies. "And 𝘺𝘦𝘵 you all still pray to them, you all go fight their wars like good little tin soldiers”
She chuckled again. “And that’s not even the funniest part! We all know the gods suck, we all know they treat us- their children like shit.” she gestured towards him. “And yet what is the dream of every demigod? To become a god!” she laughed into the sky and Percy grimaced. “How pathetic is that? The demigod dream is that one day we might be able to be the one pushing down from above, the demigod dream is that one day we might be able to wear the golden boot that keeps our race down.” she spread her arms “And yet 𝘐'𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘦, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘨𝘶𝘺!”
Percy tightened his fist. Gods, she was blind; her hatred had clouded any judgement she still had. "You weren’t the bad guy for asking for better, Annabeth." he took a step closer towering over her. "You became the bad guy when you decided to wage a war of extermination, you became the bad guy when you spilled blood instead of trying to fix things peacefully, instead of trying to reform."
The demigoddess looked up at him, an indecipherable look on her face. And then she burst out laughing. Percy took a step back and watched as the silver haired girl cackled into the night, her grey eyes flickering in the moonlight.
"Reform?" she gestured to the two of them. "You think we can reform 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴, you think we can fix this peacefully?" she doubled over laughing and Percy felt a heat in his cheeks. "You really are dull seaweed brain, the gods have been doing this since the beginning of time and you think they’ll just stop because we asked nicely?" she stepped closer, leaning in so far that their lips nearly touched.
"The gods don’t care about us, Percy." she whispered, her cold breath dancing across his lips. "The only reason they cared about me is that 𝘐 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦, the only reason they care about you is because you stood in the centre of Olympus and said ‘I wont be ignored’” she sighed. "Too bad you ended up becoming a coward anyway"
"You think you're so fucking high and mighty, don’t you, Annabeth? Sure you might have had a noble goal but did you think for even a moment about what kind of destruction you caused?" At that, Annabeth recoiled slightly, but Percy pressed on. "Noble goals are nice and all but trust me they don’t feel so fucking noble when you hold a child’s hand and watch the light fade from their eyes; they don’t feel so fucking noble when you watch an entire city full of life sink into the waves, they don’t feel so fucking noble when you watch your best friend sink a blade into his own arm." he took a deep breath as the memories of the war flashed through his mind. "So yeah, I don’t care, Annabeth, about your grand crusade against the gods, because 𝘺𝘰𝘶.𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵.𝘶𝘴, you hate the gods for hurting demigods but your war hurt us just as much!"
Annabeth took a step back and snarled, "You think I don’t know that! You think I don’t know the names of every demigod who fell! Because I remember them all! Each of them is a scar on my soul!"
Her eyes were flickering intensely. "I-I’m not 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 Percy!" They made eye contact, and Percy could see the fires burning within her. "But here’s the thing, Percy! I would do it all again in a heartbeat! Because it’s the only way to free our entire race from this fucking purgatory of pain we live in right now!, we don’t deserve to die for the crime of daring to exist!"
"I don’t really care what you say you are, Annabeth, or your justifications for your crimes. Because right now all you are is a little mad girl who lost, and that’s what you will remain."
The two of them stared at each other bathed in moonlight. The hero of Olympus and the Architect of the Apocalypse. There had been a time, however slight, when Percy had considered Annabeth Chase a friend, but that was before she revealed the monster that lay beneath, that was before he learned that Annabeth Chase always lied. So he turned his back on the girl and walked away.