The Reluctant Hero

Prologue: What happened in the giant war.

Percy P.O.V

There was screaming.

Jason was dead. His blood coating the rusted, bronze spear that had been plunged through his torso as he protected Piper; it's tip piercing through his back.

Piper was dead. Her head rolling on the blood-soaked floor, kaleidescope eyes glossing over as the last echo of life faded away: she'd been decapitated by a monster while she cried over Jason's mangled body.

Frank was dead. A giant had snapped his neck-the blood was still pouring out of his mouth-a terrible waterfall-a twisted reminder of his ancestry.

Hazel was dead. Her insides draped across floor around her, staining it brown, an empousia had disembowelled her. 

Leo was dead. He'd been torn apart by Telkines, they each grabbed one limb and pulled. The sound of his body being ripped apart would never leave me.

Clarisse was dead. She'd been burned alive, her calloused skin melted, a cruel visage of her father's war flames.

Thalia was dead. She'd taken a poisoned arrow to the heart, a hunter to the end. Her favourite t-shirt stained red with murky green, as if her life blood and killer had been combined to create a disgusting replica of a swamp in that place.

Grover was dead. When they cut him down, he's been protecting a forest of nymphs, his love of the wild never leaving. Even in his dying breath. Even as his blood splattered the trees around him.

Reyna was dead. She'd given too much of her strength to her legion, committed to her family, a true Roman. Her soul had simply been stretched too thin: she might not even have made it to the underworld.

Rachel was dead. She'd fought alongside demigods and monsters with just a knife by her side. An oracle isn't a warrior though and she was killed too, stabbed through the eyes, eyes that would never again see a prophecy, bits of which were now trodden into the mud.

Nico was dead. He'd been held  under water until he drowned, his eyes were still frozen in a look of absolute terror, suffocated and screaming in his uncle's domain.

Will was dead. He'd been drenched in  poison and acid while trying to save Nico. His skin burned then infected; one thing that even a son of Apollo couldn't heal. Lying next to his love, their final resting places side by side.  Their hands just millimetres from each other. So close. Yet so very far.

The Stolls were dead. They'd been blown apart by a bomb hidden in the grass. Now that grass was red. Beads of crimson rolling off the emerald blades, crushing them where parts of the pranksters were scattered. It would take days to give them a proper burial.

Katie was dead.  Her skull crushed like a grape by a giant so that she barely had a head left.

My friend's were lying across the battle field in pools of blood and worse, surrounded by mountains of gold dust, bodies still warm. Eyes forever frozen in sadness and terror.

It was just Annabeth and I left. We'd started with hundreds in the centre of the field, now the rest had been butchered or herded away. We'd been fighting back to back a moment ago, but we'd been separated when the Minatour decided it was the right time to try to kill me again. Now we were on opposite sides of the battle field. I couldn't see her.

But I heard her scream.

I looked round and saw Gaia with Annabeth in her grasp.

"Annabeth!" I screamed over the fighting, in the brief moment I let my guard down Gaia clapped me in chains, chains that could only be broken with powers stronger than the God.