Falling for You

Percy: XXXVII

Percy: XXXVII 

He had made the right decision.

He had made the right decision.

Percy repeated it over and over in his head as the doors slammed shut behind him. He gripped the handle of his sword tightly, ignoring the startled looks from the demigods outside with a scowl. Waves of adrenaline tingled in his arms as he jumped the steps and headed straight back into the forest. The leaves crunched to dust under his feet, and he saw birds fly out of their nests away from him. He had made the right decision. He had a Goddess to kill. It was the only way to protect them, why didn't she see that-!

He lashed out with his sword without thinking, slicing a small tree in half in his anger.

Everything he'd done! She- they- it was like he was the bad guy here! He wasn't Luke! Luke betrayed them all. He had gone over to Kronos voluntarily. Percy- he hadn't had a choice about any of this!

He kicked a rock further into the woods, and the ground shook under his feet momentarily. The anger pooled in his gut shot up his throat, twisting his lips into a snarl. The deeper he got, the higher the trees stretched into the blue sky. They curved around him as he strode past. He could smell the smoke from further into the woods where the monster army lurked, from where apparently Octavian had burned down Thalia's tree. Thalia was going to be pissed about that.

She'd definitely take Annabeth's side over his. Her allegiance had always been clear. As would Piper, Jason and Leo. They'd known her longer than they'd known him. Hades, everyone at camp had, including Chiron and Clarisse. The Romans trusted Annabeth; she'd led them while he was in the Pit. He was no longer their Praetor either, so he'd lost Reyna too. So by extension, Hazel and Frank. Ironically, that probably only left Nico on his side, a resentful kid who had hated him for years and blamed him for the death of his sister.

He didn't need them, he told himself. He'd made it this far without them.

The rage washed down his arms again, barely even noticing that the forest around him grew quieter and darker with each step. He lashed out again, cutting through whatever blocked his path in blind anger.

"Now, what would the dryads say?" came a voice ahead of him, obscured by branches.

Percy sliced them off in one powerful stroke. The sword reacted well with the sheer power bubbling underneath his fingertips, like it was melting into his very being with each blow, and the momentum that forced tsunamis through brick walls with ease was now his to control in his strikes. It almost felt overwhelming. Beyond the tree, he could now see the owner of the voice he had heard.

Akhlys looked like a victim of famine: she had a dripping nose, sunken eyes, stringy grey hair matted to her head, and large amounts of dust covered her emaciated body. Bloody claw-marks streaked down her cheeks and they dripped blood on her tattered dress. Dark red lurked behind her filthy nails, and Percy suspected with revulsion that she had been the one to inflict such wounds on herself.

"You're Akhlys?" He levelled his sword at her pathetic face.

The woman nodded. Percy felt his lip curl into a nasty sneer.

"You're the second wave. You? Some minor Goddess covered in dirt?" he snorted humourlessly, "Gaia's scraping the bottom of the barrel."