chapter 1
See the man. His body is a patchwork of scars and a shrine to human nature and destruction. Since his birth, he has only known strife. His form is near divine in perfection and peaks above the peak human condition. His arms are well-muscled from his time working a sword and in the thick of battle. His strength is inhuman and his skin is bronze from the sun. A son of the city he was raised and grew up in. He is without a father and now mother so he can truly call his own. He has a father but not truly as can a man truly be a father if he has never met his child until his twelfth birthday. But now he is at home, or at least a home to the warrior that he is now.
Battle.
Bodies covered the ground all around them. Hundreds of dead Greeks and Romans and so much monster dust that it blocked the sun and one could choke on it with how much it was in the air. Riptide was like imperial gold covered with so much of it. The battle was a perfect way for Apolyon to unleash all his anger. for Apollyon he released all the pent-up rage that was in the only way he now knew. released in pure utter destruction.
It was as if Appolyon was back there in the pit as he fought like the spirit of destruction that he was. He drove riptide through 2 hyperborean giants and drove his sword into the ground killing a dozen hellhounds who fell into the crack of earth he had summoned.
And yet they still kept coming.
A blast of water and a squad of earthborne were no more. A stream of acid and a group of teachings fell before him. He slashed in a wild arc even as this went on another dozen monsters fell into dust as riptide created rips in the monster lines. Demigods all around him followed him as he led the charge. Bronze and gold clashed against a wave of monstrous flesh as for every demigod that countless enemies fell with them. But for every demigod that killed a monster a dozen more seemed to take their place. Even with Apollyon's hurricane of acid and water, they could not beat back the onslaught. He was once weary of battle after fighting long and hard against the giants with the seven and his father but his anger at the earth mother dispelled all notions of fatigue for his body. He was the destroyer and thus had to destroy
And yet they still kept coming.
And coming
And coming
The monsters of course were now avoiding him as he carved his way through their ranks but he wouldn't be avoiding them. The earthborne killed a demigod or wounded one beyond fighting conditions for every dozen monsters and it began to show. How the once organized and energized army was now falling into chaos. For every monster Apollyon killed the earth mother would simply replace their ranks with the thick mud of the ground perpetually growing muddier even as the Apollyon drained it of all its water. The demigods' moves were growing sluggish and they would soon of course all die if he didn't do anything about it. How could they realistically beat a primordial goddess? She was the earth herself. Were they supposed to strike the ground on which they fought or did they just have to keep killing the horde of monsters invading their home? Romans and Greeks together fought their most ancient of foes.
The battle he saw around him was utter chaos and destruction. Frank as a dragon scorched hundreds of monsters before swiping at the harpies around him. Jason was still out after being backhanded by the earth mother who still was causing chaos and destruction as she fought to raze camp. As Apollyon poured even more power into his hurricane the acid burned monsters all around while healing the wounded.
And yet they kept coming.
He attempted to transfer some strength to the wounded and demigods who were still fighting. As another batch of monsters fell. They were thinning the herd but because of Octavian’s delusion of power, he had brought more monsters than the demigods could ever hope to defeat.
Appolyon summoned a blast of fire from his wand and melted row upon row before pouring all his magic into summoning more water. Up above he saw Gaia escape Festus’s claws and fall back to the earth with an unconscious Piper Mclean soon falling after. But when he saw the onager fire a screaming payload of celestial bronze, imperial gold and the annoying legacy of Apollo crashing into Festus. His vision turned dark once more at the loss of another of the seven now five.
The seven demigods should’ve known defeating Gaea wouldn't be as easy as picking her up, however the Apollyon did. The Apollyon would later swear that something within him had died that day. When the Apollyon saw Annabeth lying motionless on the ground dead in his eyes with scores of demigod corpses around them. The greatest daughter of wisdom may have not truly died as she would forever live in the hearts of the victorious but it wouldn’t matter to him. The earth's mother exploded into a million pieces just when they began to believe she was falling asleep. It was Apollyon's luck that she reformed in front of him.
“Apollyon” a voice as ancient as it was loud made up of raw primordial power echoed throughout the field of battle. Unlike the many times the Apollyon had seen her, her eyes were now open staring through his soul. But a god does not have a soul for one to see, and neither does a spirit.
“You could have joined me, you still can if you turned back now” the earth mother mused.
Apollyon spat on the ground, he was so so tired with the tapestries the fate had spun which was known as his life. The earth mother threw a blast of sand and transformed the ground below him into viscous mud. The godkiller drew the water from the mud and air into a shield in front of him. Combining the carbon he turned it so acidic that it melted the sand thrown and sent the shield at the earth mother. Blocking it with her own shield of rock Appolyon drew his wand and cast his own Greek fire spell melting the stone before charging at the queen of the land on which they fought.
“I can see why my dear Tartarus loved mortal forms” She swung with a force of one-thousand African elephants, enough force to turn the bones of any mere demigod to mush. Apollyon only staggered. He plunged his sword within her but not truly. For as his sword passed through her she merely made a hole in her body to avoid the sickly green bronze the monster powder now dripping off the blade mixed with all the acid that coated it now. Apollyon stabbed the very ground that they fought on and sent an earthquake against her, the seismic tremors reverberating around the planet making the earth's mother double over in pain, his first victory of the duel. When Zeus said no immortal could help the demigods directly he never factored a demigod with the powers of one. Could. With a force comparable to a tsunami a birthright for Apollyon he unleashed wave after wave of water crashing onto the combatants encircling them in a liquid cage before Apollyon apparated the both to the Marianas trench where he began to drown the earth herself. As the earth mother fought against a whirlwind of mortal and Divine magic she was suffocated by her new liquid prison. He pulled the carbon from the very stone and dirt that made up her form and turned the water all around the acid, giving Apollyon the power boost he needed.
Apollyon was near collapse himself and could feel his remaining mortality slipping but knew for as long as he lived he wouldn’t truly ascend. As Apollyon he craved destruction and with that craving came the tons of water that assaulted the earth mother. “You may have brought me out of my realm Jackson but you are only a mosquito to me, a sharp bite but only a mere pest to my power and candle to my sun and grain of sand to my desert” her coos were as loud as a million insects buzzing in his mind her voice as earthy and ancient as the very being she was a manifestation of. A primordial does not require air and certainly not one as powerful as the earth mother but she can not reform into a physical form either if destroyed constantly the only thing keeping her together is her healing. The two of them continued to fight for what felt like a half million days but was only a score of seconds. It was true and proven his stamina was superb but like every great thing it eventually came to an end. And with this loss of stamina, the fight began to slow. But thankfully for Apollyon the earth mother was beginning to slow. The earth mother sent them away from the cold Siberian wilderness where they were now an occurrence that Apollyon didn't even notice as he continued to fight. To a place where Apollyon had spent most of his schooling life in Massachusetts where he knew only a few dozen miles east, he would find Ilvermorny.
Apollyon finally finalized his wonderful plan that would see him conquering the earth. Plan before he launched his ingenious idea. He blasted her with pure mortal magic before sending a beam of divine magic into her, staggering her before forcing her to completely stop her attack against the camp half-blood. Closing the gap in a millionth of a second he slashed at her once more in a powerful downward arc. as the earth mother brought her great sword of quartz in a parry of her own. Apollyon finally brought them to the North Sea. Summoning all his remaining reserves of mortal magic he placed a binding rune on her back. The small rune glowed with a golden light brighter than the sun illuminating the dark depths of the frigid sea in which they now found themselves.
But it wasn’t enough.
A fact he was banking on.
As Gaia summoned them to the Appalachian mountains, Apollyon put the last of his plans in motion. Gaia with the last of her strength brought the mountain that they fought at the base upon him a landslide that would surely bury them. Plunging riptide in her weakened form he put all his remaining power into an earthquake stronger than the one that erupted at Saint Helens. As Gaia's form crumpled into a million pieces as he traveled to the Pacific the waves spread her remains across the seven seas finally ending her.
He woke up later in Olympus before a wind spirit escorted him to the throne room.
Percy Jackson kneeled in front of the gods. He was so damned tired. The 6 other demigods had all left with their gifts long before. Percy was dead to them when Gaia had crushed him under a mountain of rocks. Riptide shattered beyond repair as he channeled the earthshaker's powers into the sword and into gear.
“Rise my son” his father bellowed and a smile reached his ears as they looked down upon their champion. “You have not once but twice saved Olympus” The other gods nodded their agreement with even areas (or was that Mars) looking with an emotion foreign on his face respect.
“What may we offer you as a reward this time?” Zeus’s voice echoed throughout the chamber, his voice rumbling like the lightning of his domain.
“I wish to be forgotten,” Apollyon responded. “Let them remember me as Apollyon and only Apollyon, my mother is dead, my girlfriend is dead and I am dead to the living. Let all the demigods forget about Percy Jackson, let them forget in favor of Apollyon.
Zeus was more than happy to be rid of the champion of Atlantis. The spirit of destruction would forever be told and the mist made sure no one would remember the boy that once was. For he had died that day and was replaced by destruction incarnate.
Or had he