PERCY POV
When I woke up, I was hit with an extreme sense of pain flaring throughout my body. My bones felt like they were on fire and I thought all my muscles had melted off. I was so blinded by that pain that it took me some time to finally open my eyes and see the worried faces of my teammates and the gods.
Poseidon and Annabeth were seated next to me, holding my hand and crying over what I assumed was a dead me.
"Hey Wise Girl," I croaked, forcing Annabeth to snap her eyes open at the nickname. Her crying seemed to increase tenfold, but it was out of joy and disbelief this time.
"Percy, oh my gods Percy! Thank the gods, you're alive!" she practically screamed before giving me a hug. I groaned with her weight over my frail body, signaling for her to sit back up.
"It's going to take a lot more than that to get rid of me," I murmured.
"Percy," my dad said, in his deep yet kind voice. I've always loved it whenever he talked to me, his voice always sounded like the rolling waves, but this time I flinched. I couldn't meet his eyes. What had I done? Using this much power in front of the entire council? They're going to riot against dad.
"Father, I'm so sorry, I, uh, didn—" I started to say, stuttering over my words as fear raked my body. My father must hate me. I'm just causing him problem after problem after problem. Gods, why can't I do anything right?
"Percy, do not fear son, you have done nothing wrong. I am not angry at you, I am only proud. You have made me proud, Percy," he said back to me, his hand stroking my damp hair. I felt so weak, so vulnerable right now, that I just wanted to bawl into his shirt. I just wanted a father who could hold me. "Oh my son, I'm so sorry. You did not deserve this."
I just tried to hold back my tears at this point. Now, usually I'd be hating on the old thunderhead, but I was grateful for his stupid arrogance and need to be the center of attention right now.
"Enough with the sentiments! We have a war at hand. Stop behaving like children, we must plan!" He shouted in an unnecessarily loud voice for an audience that was literally three feet away from him.
Leo shuffled forward and helped Annabeth pick me up. Yeah, it was embarrassing, but the second I was standing up straight, nausea rolled through my stomach and I felt like I was going to vomit.
We all stood in a circle, silently waiting for Zeus to start giving his speech. My head was feeling really heavy and foggy, so I decided to blame my impertinent mouth on that.
"As we can all see, we have all fought very bravely and valiantly tonight," Zeus started to say. I coughed purposefully in the middle, Annabeth giving me a death glare because she already knew what I was doing. Zeus gave me an angry look from the side and opened his mouth to talk again.
I coughed even harder.
"So sorry, you must forgive me, I think I have something caught up my throat. You should help me out Apollo. It feels like I got a load of bullshit stuck."
I grinned stupidly as Hermes and Apollo dug their chin down to hide their snickering. The other demigods looked at me, appalled that I even dared saying something like that, to the king of the gods nonetheless.
"You dare speak to me that way!" Zeus bellowed, the air crackling with power.
I just laughed.
"Come on, Uncle Zeus, we both know you ain't going to do somethin' right now. We still have more of the war to fight and who else are you gonna make die for you?"
Still seething, Zeus backed down and just diverted the attention by talking about something else, making the other gods continue to silently and secretly laugh. Annabeth just rolled her eyes at my audacity but, that's okay. She loves me no matter what, so whatever.
"The battle here is done but Gaea has already awoken and she is headed towards the camp. We suspect that she will be attacking Camp Half-Blood first. You must arrive there quickly and fight to defeat her."
"My Lord, with all due respect," Jason had started to say, him slightly wincing at the fact that he had to address his father in such a tone. "Our ship had been greatly damaged in the trip here and fighting in the battle has already been hard enough for it. I don't think it could survive the trip back to Long Island. Even then, we would not make it back in time, thousands of lives will be lost."
"That is not of the utmost importance right now Jason Grace. We must prevent Gaea from arising above all things."
"How are you?" my dad, Poseidon, shouted before I even got a chance to open my mouth. We've always had a rocky father-son relationship, but I think this made up for it. "You are willing to let little children die before you let your throne fall? What kind of leader are you? You are nothing but a coward. You fear opposition and you make mortals fight your battles for you."
"Do not speak as if you are not the same brother! You only claimed your son when you were in need of his assistance!"
"I have at least grown! Thalia fought till the end and you just turned her into a tree. How quick was she to become a Hunter of Artemis? You speak so freely about letting the demigods die, but Jason is also a demigod. You care little about him as well?"
"Woah, let's all try to calm down here, there are bigger things to worry about right now," Aphrodite tried to say, pouring some charmspeak into her words to get the raging gods to calm down.
"Shut it!" Zeus shouted at her. I saw a flash of anger in Piper's eyes and she opened her mouth in retaliation.
"My Lord, as much as I would love to waste time listening to you fight about useless things, there is still a full blown war at hand and we must take action now. Find a way to get us to camp as fast as possible so that we can fight."
Zeus huffed and straightened his suit while my dad just smiled smugly in his Hawaiian print clothing. I smiled at him and he just gave me that warm glow of a smile that I always remembered as a child.
"I could slap you back to camp," Zeus said, still steaming from anger.
"Is that a threat or...?" Jason asked, a little uncertain. I mean, who phrases it that way? Ridiculous, I'm telling you.
"No, I mean literally slap you back to camp. I'm not sure if your ship can handle it, but it's the fastest way to get you to camp."
"My boy built a great ship," Hephaestus huffed, in his usual deep voice. "It will hold."
I loved how Leo glowed with pride hearing his fathers praise. Gods, this was my family. I couldn't imagine a life without them.
We all said our goodbye to our godly parents and then took a seat onto the ship. The gods began to glow, so all of us shielded our eyes and, next thing I knew, we were soaring in the speed of light and arrived at camp in a few hours.
That was so awful and I never want to do that again.
After promptly throwing up, we all filed off of the ship and joined the fight. Teaming up with our friends and family from camp, we fought valiantly against the waves of monsters.
I fought side by side next to Jason first and then Annabeth, us working together as a deadly team. We fought monsters after monsters with extreme skill, our swords cutting through them like butter.
War was never glorious. As I was fighting, I was constantly aware of my pain: the tiredness and pain from Tartarus, the stunt I just pulled, the current fighting. Years of battles caught up to me, my reflexes high on alert. My heart was beating rapidly out of anticipation and fear as I ran to attack monster after monster. I could hear the screams of pain as demigods were hurt, the Apollo medics running in and out of the battle lines, carrying the wounded back to the infirmary so that they can be treated and, hopefully, return to the fight. I saw a boy refuse to be taken by the medics because he insisted on staying and fighting.
He was only twelve years old.
Why has the world come down to this?
I used all of that pain and struggle I have experienced, fighting from even a young age with Gabe, to my teenage years as a demigod, and channeled it all to feed my strength. With a newfound fury, I battled harder than ever before.
I saw Jason and Leo discussing what to do with Gaea, but, in my heart, as much as I wanted to go and take their place, I somehow knew that this was not my role in the prophecy. As much as my fatal flaw killed me for doing that, knowing that I would rather sacrifice the world than let them get hurt, I forced myself to stay back.
Leo, with the help of Piper's charmspeak to make Gaea sleepy, turned into a fiery ball of flames and, well, how do I put this lightly?
Exploded.
I watched it shock as Gaea crumbled, effectively returning the ground and back to her everlasting slumber.
But Leo was gone.
Oh gods, he died!
I take it back, this was all my fault. I should have taken his place. What was I thinking? Letting him do that? Gods, Leo was so young. He didn't deserve this. I'm considered old for a demigod. Let my time just be up. Why did he have to die?
The monsters had retreated when they found that Gaea had been killed and the war had ended. I saw the monster dust and all the blood on the ground. All the blood on my hands. Demigods, all so young in age, were injured but helped clean up the carnage. I felt weak and like I was going to collapse.
"Come on, Percy, let's get you to the infirmary," Annabeth murmured in my ear, helping me stand up. My face was gaunt and I made no struggle as my Wise Girl guided me towards the medics. They quickly led me to a gurney and started to wrap all my injuries.
I was too accustomed to the pain to even flinch.
"Thank you," Kayla, one of the older Apollo children whispered to me. Why was she thanking me? This was all my fault.
"Thank you," I just croaked out in reply. She just gave me a small smile, her eyes filled with the pain and horrors of war, as she rushed over to treat another injured demigod.
We worked on the after war affairs for the rest of the day before Annabeth and I finally retreated to bed. We talked to Chiron, who let Annabeth sleep with me in the Poseidon cabin. She stepped in, a little nervous at first, but I was suddenly hit with the smell of saltwater and I knew my father had no arguments about this. We both went and sat down together on the bed, knowing that none of us are getting any sleep tonight.
After cleaning ourselves up, we just spent the rest of the night just trying to keep our eyes open so that we wouldn't have to relive the war and tartarus in our dreams.
That was, well, until we were flashed out of our beds in the middle of the night.
I didn't even know what was happening when, all of a sudden, I found myself in the throne room of Olympus. The other members of the 7, as well as Nico and Reyna, were present. Everyone looked so shocked at the sight of Olympus, but I just grinned softly, knowing that it was my amazing girlfriend that designed it all.
"Demigods!" Zeus said in his booming voice. "Thank you for your service in the war. We know that it's late, but we wanted to reward you. But first, there is a matter to be discussed."
What? What did Zeus mean "matter to be discussed"? I glanced at my father, who looked completely dejected and beaten down. I don't know what happened, but the expression on my father's face was not comforting at all. I looked worriedly over at Annabeth.
"We cannot forget the show of power the sea spawn had presented back in Greece. That was a level of power that no demigods should have. He is too powerful!" Zeus shouted. He snapped his fingers and, all of a sudden, I lurched forward. I heard my friends cry out for me as chains locked me to the floor of Olympus.
"What are you doing!"
"You can't hold him like that!"
"He did nothing wrong!"
"He just saved us all, damn it!"
Everyone was just shouting things in my defense, the demigods and one or two of the gods as well, to my surprise. Zeus raised his hand, forcing everyone to go silent.
"We must decide his punishment. Perseus should not be allowed to live. He has too much power and cannot be trusted. All in favor of killing the demigod?"
I held my breath in fear. The gods have spent my entire life pleasing themselves by taking turns voting to kill me. In the end, they have always had some sort of use for me and kept me alive. But now? This war had just ended and now they no longer need me. They could easily vote me off.
Oh no, gods, mom! I told her, I promised her, that this wasn't goodbye. That I'd see her again. Now? I manage to survive but I'm being killed by the very people I just won a war for.
"Brother please!" my father begged in my defense. He looked so old, the age of the sea catching up to him. He looked so much like a father right now, rather than a god.
"No, Poseidon!" Zeus shouted, making me flinch. I was actually really scared at this point. These ungrateful brats had never actually taken it this far before.
"My Lord, even I believe that this is unwise–" Athena started to say. My head snapped over to stare at her. Athena? Of all people? She is the one that defends me? I stared into her and suddenly I realized that she accepted me. She did not care for me, I was Poseidon's son after all, but I made Annabeth happy. Athena herself had failed Annabeth but she trusted me to be there for me.
The next person to speak was also another really unlikely one.
"Father, Percy is a great hero. Even as a boy, he has received my respect. He is an honorable man and hero," Artemis said. I felt like I was going to cry as the gods one by one started to speak up against Zeus and vote for me to live. I craned my neck back to even see my friends shouting out things for me, saying that they cannot do this to me because I fought for them all these years.
All of a sudden, the bonds holding me down melted off and I stumbled to the ground. I was free! They weren't going to kill me!
Annabeth ran over to me and hugged me, tears streaming down her eyes. I gently wiped them away before giving her a kiss on the cheek.
"It's okay!" I whispered, pouring all my emotions into those words. She just sobbed and nodded, holding my face in her arms.
Zeus tried to pretend that this did not happen, moving on to the awards ceremony. We were each granted a gift. All of us asked for selfless things, such as a way for the camps to communicate with each other and a way to build temples and action figures for the other minor gods and goddesses. I wished that Hades and Hestia would get a throne on Olympus. Zeus blazed with anger but, out of his oath, made this a reality.
Hestia gave me a big hug and Hades even patted me on the head.
We flashed back to our respective cabins afterward and I just sighed as I leaned my back against the headboard of my bed, hugging Annabeth from the side.
The life of a demigod just never gets easier.