Demigod Hero

*Percy Jackson*

I left my Mom and Paul’s apartment, they were off on vacation somewhere, and they sure deserved it. They thought I was dead I so wanted to just run into the apartment and hug my mom as I watched her mourn over me. But I knew that she couldn’t know I was still alive, my dad visited her often and helped her get over me, I’m pretty sure she would tell him I was alive, and I couldn’t let the gods know that. They would be all over me whenever a new threat came up and beg me to save the world once again. Well, I was done with the pain that came with saving the world, it had brought to much mental, emotional, and physical pain to me before, and I wasn’t going to go through that again.

Anyway I went to the graveyard where the gravesites were for my friends, as I got closer to the cemetery I felt six people inside it, they were probably here to mourn over whatever loved one died. Normally I would have turned around and head back to my mom‘s abandoned apartment, but today I was just too mentally, emotionally, and physically in pain to care. Today was the day the war happened, the war where I watched everyone I cared about die right in front of my face, while I was helpless to do a thing about it. In my time in Tartarus, I had gained the ability to sense presences. From them I could sense they weren’t a great threat but could still kick some butt. Three of them, felt….not exactly human. One of the three felt more powerful than the others, and felt kind of like an ancient power.

I kept on walking, I didn’t care about the six, I assumed they wouldn’t notice me, so I walked into the cemetery and headed toward the eight graves there for my friends that died. As I was actually in the cemetery, I could sense they were clumped together and on my entrance they spread apart and I sensed them pulling out weapons. I didn’t care, I pretty much sensed a weapon on every New Yorker, but I never stopped wondering why they had them in the first place. But what really got me on defensive mode was that one of them flew into the sky and another climbed a tree nearby.

I walked up to the graves and knelt, silent tears flowing down my face. “I’m sorry,” I said, bowing my head. I then stood up and touched the graves as I said something about them. “Piper, you were a brave warrior and a great friend, rest in peace Beauty Queen. Leo, keep on building those crazy contraptions of yours, flame on bro, flame on. Frank, you were a great help to me at Camp Jupiter, and I thank you for that, rest in peace my friend. Hazel, I also thank you for your assistance at Camp Jupiter, you helped get me into the Fifth Cohort, and I thank you for that as well. Keep on summoning that gold for Arion, he needs it. Jason, you were a great friend in the short time I knew you, you did a great job leading the team while me and Annabeth were gone, be happy Sparky. Nico, keep on being the creep you are, I feel honored to have known you since you first came to camp, you were a great warrior, a great friend, and an even better cousin, rest in peace Death Breath. A-Anna - my Wise Girl- I hope you live happily in Elysium, you wait for me, okay? I’ll be there as soon as I can convince the Fates to let me.” I looked at the eighth one, the grave that was supposed to be for me when the Gods thought I died. It never ceased to amaze me how beautiful the graves were, each figure on the headstone matched the person’s identity perfectly, especially Annabeth’s. I silently cursed myself for not being able to say her name. I touched the grave meant for me and said, “Soon, soon I‘ll be there.”

I know what you’re thinking, soon I’ll be there, what does that mean? Well, my friends (or possibly enemies reading this) it means that soon I’ll actually be in that grave, actually dead.

I then turned around and said, “I know you’re there, can’t a guy mourn in peace? What do you want?” I could sense them look at one another in what could be shock, amazement, or anger, I couldn’t really tell, all of those emotions felt the same, yeah, I can sense emotions as well. It can be pretty handy in times, when I want to get away from my own emotions I can focus on other people’s, it distracts me from all the inner pain I’m in.

Then three people stepped out, one was a redhead with a very tight black bodysuit. Another a guy with a red, white, and blue spandex suit with a shield that was red, white, and blue rimmed with a white star in the middle. The last person was one of the people that didn’t feel entirely human, but now that he was closer I could feel a certain… energy feel around him. It was as if he had a great power, but had gained it after a great lesson in responsibility of it. The person was wearing a silver armor that fitted as a second skin and was carrying a hammer.

“How did you know we were here, Perseus Jackson?” The redhead asked. I flinched at my real name visibly.

“I have my ways,” I replied mysteriously. “My turn! How did you find me? Who are you? And it’s Percy, by the way.”

“Black Widow,“ The redhead replied.

“Captain America,” Said the flag looking guy.

“Thor, Norse god of thunder and lightning,” said the armor guy. I instantly flipped out at him being a God.

“A God! Oh great, can’t the gods find another hero, say… I don’t know, one that hasn’t been through a lot of stuff! I’m tired of you gods getting me to do things for you! Percy do this, Percy do that, Percy kill that enemy, Percy fight in this war and see all your friends killed! Well I’ve had enough! First it was the Greeks, then the Greeks and the Romans, now the Norse want me, find some other person to be you pawn in your predicament, because I’m done being some toy used for the success of others!” And with that rant being done I sprinted off towards the back gate to get away from my pursuers not giving them the chance to answer my question on how they found me. I knew from their emotions that they were on a mission of some sort, I could sense the emotion of duty and determination in them, and I was afraid that mission was getting or killing me. But then I remembered bitterly that they couldn’t kill me anyways, because of the Fates.

~~~~Flashback~~~~

I was heading home back to my mother's apartment, she had just left for vacation, so I was going to use it as a hideout. I was taking the city bus back to our apartment, when suddenly the bus crashed. I felt weightless, then deftly remembered flying through the windshield, into the road, and landed hard. My head hit the ground, and I immediately knew that it was bleeding, I could feel the blood flowing down my head and onto the ground, where I watched the puddle get bigger. My vision then started getting blurry and grey, as if the color was slowly seeping away leaving a black, white, and grey expanse behind. Then a bright, golden light appeared and I saw three old ladies, The Fates, crinkly, old and wrinkled, knitting a pair of sea green socks. The middle one was holding a long string with the golden scissors that I had seen snip Luke’s life cord. I knew that they were showing me this for a reason, but the Fates were all about being mysterious so I didn’t have the faintest idea on why they were showing me them snipping my life cord.

“Perseus Jackson,” I flinched at my real name. The middle one then took the scissors and cut the string, I heard the loud snip and winced, then opened my eyes, the cord hadn’t been fully snipped, so I wasn’t fully dead, but close to it. “You are not destined to die just yet, or any time soon, therefore the gift and curse of immortality has been placed on you.” They said this at the same time, in a weird monotone creaky old lady way, it was creepy enough to send shivers down my spine. Then I felt a new burst of pain and power enter my body. It was as painful as getting dipped in the Styx. I cursed at them vividly in Ancient Greek, and then I passed out due to the amount of blood that I lost.

I woke up in a hospital bed wearing a normal hospital gown and I had an IV running into my arm while a machine near me measured my heartbeat. After three minutes of it beeping loudly every other second, my eye twitched for the thousandth time, then I angrily turned the thing off. Immediately a doctor came in, gasped, and dropped the clipboard she was carrying.

“Sorry, it was annoying the heck out of me,” I said to her. She just nodded and stared at me, I shifted uncomfortably in my bed. I then sat up, but the world started spinning, I gripped the handrail tightly and waited for the room to stop looking like I was on a Tilt-a-whirl.

Then the doctor was forcing me back down on the bed I fought to stay upright, but then I noticed just how bone tired I was. I stopped fighting and slumped back on the bed. She then lectured me about how I was to weak to be doing a lot of activity just yet. I nodded my head when she looked at me expectantly, but that just made the world spin faster. I then gripped the other rail with my other hand as well and closed my eyes, took deep breaths, then opened them again. I sighed in relief when I saw the room was staying in place.

The doctor looked at me worriedly, I sighed. “The room was spinning.” I explained.

After many arguments with the doctor about the heartbeat monitor, and eyes twitches later, I finally got the doctor to leave the thing off. It was an understatement to say I was just relieved. I was happy, relieved, and mostly overjoyed that the machine was off. I then started being relentless about calling my friend Stacy, she was a mortal and one of the few people who knew I was actually alive, but the doctor wouldn’t let me because ‘it would unbalance my health’ and some other doctors speak. They found out later that I slept lightly, had ADHD, and dyslexia.

One night I had been sleeping, having a nightmare about the war to be exact, for the fifth night in a row. Someone had brushed up against me, I then shot up and judo flipped them and put my hand against their neck. I then saw the frightened face of the doctor, and instantly scrambled back and hugged my knees. I had almost killed someone.

“I’m sorry, I was having a nightmare about a not-so-long ago experience that I had before the bus crash. You woke me as I was reliving it, because of that event I sleep very lightly, always afraid that someone’s after me as they were then. I’m sorry if I hurt you.” I apologized, the doctor stood and nodded shakily, then wrote down something and scurried out the door.

It was another week before they allowed me to talk to Stacy, it took an hour before I convinced her that I was alright. She didn’t seem convinced and visited later that day. It was the happiest I had been since entering the hospital. I hugged her and told her about the crash. That night I slept the best I had in the three months after the war. The doctors noticed and immediately allowed me to talk to Stacy more often. I got released a month later from the hospital. Then two months after was when I got kidnapped by monsters and taken to Tartarus.

~~~~~~End flashback~~~~~~

All of those memories resurfaced as I thought about what the Fates did, I was immortally seventeen now, which basically was the most terrible thing that had ever happened to me. I mean, why should I still be alive while the others were dead? I should be dead as well, either that or they should be alive while I was the only one that died. I shuddered at the thought of my kidnapping and what happened on my returning to Tartarus. I exited the gate of the cemetery and sprinted off towards my apartment occasionally cutting down random alleys and changing directions, trying to lose my pursuers. I then scaled a fire escape and started jumping across buildings, and then I landed on my apartment building.

I then climbed down the fire escape on my building and opened the window to my room. I started packing, I grabbed my suitcase and bag and stuffed it with what I had, which wasn’t much, I only owned the clothes I was wearing. Nevertheless I stuffed the remains of my ambrosia, and nectar in the suitcase. In the bag I put Annabeth’s dagger (I found it while I was in Tartarus for the second time), Katoptris, Nico’s sword, Jason’s coin, Hazel’s spatha, and Frank’s spear and bow and arrows, and placed Leo’s tool belt on my waist. I then proceeded to put in more personal items, pictures of Annabeth, my Mom, Paul, the Seven, Nico and Bianca, Selena, Beckendorf, Zoe, Artemis, and my Dad. I couldn’t recall how I had taken or got some of the pictures, but I didn’t care. They showed all of my friends and family and that was what was most important.

I then left by using the fire escape to get to the ground. I looked for the strange people that had been after me but I didn’t see them. I shouldered my bag and headed off. I had no idea where I would go now, but I couldn’t stay at my mom’s apartment, those people had tracked me down somehow, and apparently they hadn’t gotten the memo that I was ‘dead’. I had a feeling they were with the government, but that didn’t make sense. The FBI, CIA, and NYPD didn’t dress up as superheroes, and they certainly knew that Percy Jackson was ‘dead’.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I accidentally bumped into someone. I instantly said sorry, and kept on going.

“Sorry, that’s all you have to say!” The guy exploded.

“Umm, I’m sorry I bumped into you, sir?” I questioned, maybe the guy didn’t like how I apologized, I turned and it was a guy dressed in a metal suit, I recognized his aura as the one that I had sensed fly off. I gulped and forced my eyes to not be as wide.

“Do you even know who I am?!” He shouted at me, his face turning a slightly funny shade of red.

“Umm, no?” I said, but it sounded more like a question. “Should I?” I thought I recognized his face from somewhere, then it hit me. “You’re Tony Stark, the selfish billionaire that has a machine for a heart.” I instantly regretted the last part of my sentence, that would not make him a happy camper.

“WHAT!” Tony exploded, his face was now turning a hilarious dark purple, and I saw a vein bulging on his neck. He made it pretty obvious I had ticked him off and damaged his precious ego.

Before he recognized me as the person he and his other teammates were looking for, I sprinted off and headed towards Central Park.

I was halfway across the street before I heard someone shout, “There he is!” If these people were after me, it usually meant they wanted to fight me, and if that was true, then it was probably best I was heading to Central Park. Around this time of day, not many people were around, and there was guaranteed to be damage to the surrounding area, which usually meant someone getting hurt.

I flinched at the thought, the world then started to dim, as if losing color, and slowly going black, as if I were closing my eyelids really slow. I was about to have a flashback, they had been happening more recently than any other time I was here on the surface, and it didn’t make sense why they would. Because, I thought that it was supposed to get better, not worse, of course it makes sense with my bad luck. Unfortunately for me, whenever I had a flashback, it usually brought me back to the fight with Gaea, where I watched my friends die, over, and over, and over again. When I woke up, I felt more helpless, felt more guilty, and most of all, I felt more grief. It was either that or the flashback made me relive my three years of torture in Tartarus. Which made me feel as if I were weak and powerless. Those things did not make for a happy morning.

I couldn’t afford to have a flashback now, especially with these people after me. I then went to pinch myself, as I did, the color slowly came back to the world as I ran towards Central Park. When the color returned to how it was supposed to be I looked at my arm, and cursed. I had pinched myself so hard, that my fingernails had cut through my skin, I was bleeding profusely from the two crescent shaped holes. Quickly, I dug out some ambrosia from my bag and stuffed a piece in my mouth. I watched as the wound scabbed over, then vanished.

I then set down my bags, and looked behind, searching with my newly acquired skills to find out where they were, and it turned out that they weren’t far behind me. I then vapor traveled into a tree and waited there, leaving my bags on the ground in plain sight.

Vapor travel is kind of like shadow travel, but it takes a lot more effort than shadow traveling does. I have to break down my body into water, then force to another location where I have to convert my body back to solid flesh and bone. I had first discovered I had that power when I was trying to escape Tartarus. I had grown desperate and come up with the crazy idea of breaking my body down into water, then reassembling my body back on the surface. When I arrived on the surface successfully, I realized my body was exactly how it was supposed to be. Then I passed out for three straight days. Since then I had been working on that power, and now I could travel to another place almost simultaneously. Though I completely preferred walking over vapor travel due to the fact that it was extremely uncomfortable to move or walk afterwards.

A few minutes later they arrived in the clearing, they immediately noticed my bags on the ground, and went to a guarded position. They looked around cautiously, as if I was going to burst out of the bushes and attack them.

“What do you want from me? Why are you on a mission? Is it to contain me? To bring me in? If so, what have I done to be captured?” With each question I asked I vapor traveled to another spot, so I could confuse them about where I was. With each question they whirled to face where my voice came from. I would say they were officially confused now.

“Yes, Perseus, we are on a mission to detain you, you are considered a threat to the whole of Midgard.” Said Thor the Norse god of thunder, yep, he was pretty much one of the only people who’s name I cared to remember, besides Tony. I mean, he was a god, a Norse god perhaps, but a god nonetheless. The only reason I remembered Tony is because how he reacted to me calling him a selfish billionaire with a machine for a heart, his face was hilarious.

“So… Midgard is what you Norse’s call Earth, weird, but hey, who isn’t?” I flashed to another spot. “Why am I considered a threat to the whole entire world? All these years, I’ve done nothing but save it.”

“You! Save the world!” Tony scoffed. “You’re a kid!”

I rolled my eyes. “I am a kid, yes, that is very true, but I have been through things that would make any normal kid become insane. I consider myself an adult because of how much happened to me, and how much wiser and older I seem because of it.” I answered truthfully, jeez, if someone was going to track somebody down, they needed to know the facts of their life, it was simple logic.

They grew silent at my answer, some of them had shocked looks on their face, they had not been expecting that answer, apparently.

“Y- you're lying!” Tony stuttered. As he looked to where my voice had come from, I flashed to another spot before he could see me.

“Really? Your comrades don’t seem to think so. They find truth in my words, and believe me, my words only contain truth.”

I bet you're wondering, Why does Percy Jackson, who’s a Seaweed Brain, sound sophisticated? Well, because after the war, I honored one of Annabeth’s last wishes. One of them was that when we met back up in Elysium, I wouldn’t be as stupid as I was beforehand. So that is why I sound sophisticated, I took literature so I could sound smart. But I pretty much acted as stupid as I did before.

I flashed to another spot before they could look to where I was. “So, what have I done to be considered a threat to the world?”

“You have injured many students. It has also been recorded that you have blown up gymnasiums, monuments and many public artifacts. It is said that you caused wreckage while traveling west eight years ago with two accomplices, then caused wreckage in Greece with seven other accomplices. For these reasons, you are considered a threat.” Thor answered, still attempting to find me.

“Oh, those incidents, they happened all right, but I was under special circumstances. People always don’t seem to notice I was being attacked. But when I blew up a bus and sent my class into a shark tank, those were accidents. I mean, seriously? Who has a loaded war cannon on a school field trip?” This time I traveled into the clearing right in front of them.

They stared at me, I smiled at them and waved nonchalantly, “So,” I inquired. “Are you going to answer my last question?” They just stared while their faces looked like they were having mental seizures. “And by the way, I’m not coming with you, I’m kind of tired of the whole ‘save the world’ biz by now.”

The redhead came to her senses first, “A loaded cannon? On a field trip? When was this?” She asked.

“In the fifth grade.” I answered. I scooped up my bags. “I’m ‘dead’ anyway, and I really don’t want to be resurrected.” I air quoted ‘dead’ with my fingers.
T
hey looked at me shocked. “You faked your death?” The guy with the shield asked.

“Yup” I replied, popping the ‘p’. Then an immense pain went through my arm, I looked at it and there was an arrow going right through my shoulder. “Man, I’m such a Seaweed Brain, I forgot the sixth dude, and what do I get? I get shot in the shoulder, that’s what. You know, this is probably tipped with some weird poison or something to make me pass out.” And then, correct to my guess, everything started getting fuzzier, and I blacked out.