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miraclesnail · 2 days ago

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kronus AU, title still pending

chapter 29-41

First chapter, previous chapter

29 KATIE

An eruption. That’s the only way Katie can describe this sensation echoing through her chest. All of her siblings felt it, their simultaneous frowns told her so, some of them even dropped their lunch plate, but only she crumpled to her knees.

“Katie?!” Miranda says, alarmed, as she gets up from her seat on the dining table to come towards her.

Everybody has stopped eating their lunch. All eyes are on her as she kneels on the floor, gasping for air.

I’m fine. It’s fine, but the words are stuck in her throat.

The power she thought she stifled years ago is rearing it’s ugly head. Flowers, weeds, mushrooms, little tree saplings grow underneath her feet and knees where she touches the ground.

Katie closes her eyes and tries to inhale and exhale as evenly as she could.

Push it back.

The blossoming plant life wilts underneath her, but the rumbling in her chest still grows in intensity.

And it worsens even more when Travis — the other Travis — hops on top of her cabin’s table, kicking plates and cups clear off the table.

Get off there, she almost nags, but it’s the terror on his scarred face that stops her. Well, not that she could have nagged him to begin with.

Percy comes running after Travis, an unfamiliar look of panic on his face. “We have a situation, guys. Travis is being—”

The dining pavilion becomes a gray hell pixel by pixel. The sun covered by dark stormy clouds. The vibrant greenery replaced by grimy walls.

And in the center, surrounded by decaying and rotting branches, is herself.

In a simple black turtleneck and black camouflage pants, hair cut far too short and unkempt, body rigid as matching green eyes falls on her.

Except the ones she’s staring into, the eyes of her counterpart — they’re too empty. Cold. Frigid even.

“I’m not lying!” Travis screams, desperation and panic laced in his words, “Look!”

And Travis pulls Miranda towards him by the arm, her half-sister awkwardly following the motion.

“I swear. It’s the truth. I’m not him and he’s not me.”

Other-her tilts her head, taking in everything, eye going from person to person emotionlessly. They linger on Miranda, on her other half-siblings, on Annabeth and Percy, on Connor. But the emotion remains unchanging as green eyes come back to Travis.

“Oh.”

Is all she says before she cups her hands together.

Katie feels another surge coursing through her body, chest tingling as it extends to her fingers.

The floor collapses in a mess of entwining branches and roots, concrete and tile crumbling as the tree parts sweep through the room, exposing the area.

And there, two floors down, she sees a familiar person shaking off the rubble before breaking off into a panic-fueled run.

Travis.

“Katie! Don’t!” Travis wails, stepping in front of her other-self to block her view.

But a hand shoves past Travis and Katie can feel the power gathering in the palm of her hand.

She feels the earth rumble as branches shoot towards Travis’s back. Fast enough to injure on impact. Fast enough to kill on impact.

People all around her are screaming, their words echoing in her mind as she watches. Watch out. Behind you. Dodge it.

And Travis did, ducking the branch sweeping for his head and jumping over the ones snapping at his feet. But they’re moving faster than Travis, circling around him, cutting off his path of escape, enclosing him in before eventually enveloping him in a loose ball.

Katie’s heart lurches in her chest as she sees — in the center of the swirling mass of branches — is Travis, terror on his face, scrambling to get out, hacking at the branches with a hatchet only for more to replace it.

“Wait! Wait wait wait. Don’t kill me! If you don’t, I swear on my life I’ll never prank you again! No more chocolate bunnies on the roof, I promise!” Travis pleads as he cuts furiously. “Instead, they’ll be crocheted bunnies! Come on, you love bunnies don’t you? Or maybe it’s the chocolate you don’t like? Okay, I’ll put cotton candy bunnies on your roof.”

What a horrible negotiator, Katie thinks in dismay.

“He’s not me. Katie, you can’t do this. Please don’t do this,” Travis begs beside her.

But the face is unchanging, not even a single flinch. With all the power in her palm, she extends her hand, palm facing the sky, and curls her fingers. The ball with Travis in it squeezes smaller.

More people are screaming. Annabeth is right next to her other-self, trying to reason with her. Will is doing the same. Connor is beside his brother, tips and advice stumbling out of his mouth in a frightened panic. But most of the campers are frozen. Most of the campers are silent. Most of them can do nothing but watch the scene unfold.

None of them are feeling the way she’s feeling, Katie stands by herself, the power still bubbling and bursting, still shifting and roiling in her gut.

She raises her own hand, fingers grazing the holographic imagery. Matching green eyes shoots to her, the strange wariness turning sharp, as realization dawns on both of them.

A hand clenches.

Hers extends.

And Katie can feel the power flipping and wavering in both directions, the contradicting orders mixing the signals. It’s like someone is pulling her by the hair. Hard. Sharp. The pain is stinging. But the wooden ball loses its integrity as it convulses. Travis drops through the cracks and lands on his knees. From her peripherals, she could see Travis looking at her, can see him saying a quick, time-wasting thanks before taking off.

Her other self doesn’t miss a beat, breaking eye contact to hurl a sharp line of branches at her friend.

Katie stops that one too, jumping in front of its path with an open palm. She halts it in its tracks. Just barely.

She glares at this other-self of hers, at this robotic version of her. No words come to mind. She can’t spare the time to speak. Not when her other-self simply conjures up the next set of attacks, each bigger and grander than the last.

They destroy buildings. They level the already tattered remains of Manhattan in to more wasteland. She’s keeping up, somehow, someway, with this other version of her.

Well, of course, she’s you and you’re her.

Every attempt to kill Travis, she thwarts.

Every branch, every vine she veers the path away.

So when other-her suddenly stops with the attacks, she nearly loses her balance. Other-her stares at her, green eyes dark and brooding. “Enough. I’m getting nowhere with this. I’m sorry. Travis. Miranda. Everybody. At the very least, I’ll make it painless.”

Then other-her puts the phone down and the hologram recedes, the desolate landscape with the broken skyscrapers horizon becoming the beautiful blue sky again.

But the sound.

The roiling power.

It’s still there.

And in the background, she can hear Travis, still running, still pleading with her to stop.

The sound of branches snapping forward, Katie can’t stop it.

30 NICO (Smooth this out later)

Bianca had summoned skeletons in this world. Bianca had commanded those skeletons. So theoretically, he should be able to do so too. He should be able to. And he can faintly feel this other dimension before other-Katie had pulled the rug out from under them by placing the phone face down.

The sensation is fading. This world’s Katie is yelling she needs to see the other-world to be able to stop the attacks. Other-Travis is still begging other-Katie to not go through with this. To spare Travis. To stop. To talk it out.

But the sound of buildings collapsing and branches snaking around with a low grumble continues.

Other-Katie isn’t stopping.

It’s now or never.

Nico closes his eyes and focuses best he can with all the noise.

Will, always with his eyes on him, picks up on what he plans to do and grabs his arm, energy flooding into him.

Come out. Pick the phone up, Nico orders.

For several long seconds, nothing happens. The scenery doesn’t change.

But the hologram gradually comes back, piece by piece.

First the measly, singular skeleton Nico summoned, bony fingers wrapped gingerly around the phone.

Then the cracked tile. The puddles. The caved in walls. The gray horizon. The stormy skies.

And there, a few feet away, is Travis encased in a branch.

Katie wastes no time, running forward and tapping the thick branch. It recedes and Travis plops onto the damp ground. The son of Hermes looks fine other than a few more bruises. But the way Travis gets to his feet, heavily favoring his left side as he scurries away again, maybe it’s not just bruises.

And Other-Katie blinks in surprise, emotion appearing on her face for the first.

Green eyes veer to him and his skeleton, understanding coming to her face.

And Nico curses himself. If he and Bianca can use their powers, then there’s no reason others can’t too.

Other-Katie sweeps her arm in a large arc.

The ground underneath them rumbling is the only warning they got before an oak tree erupts from under their feet. It grabs Katie by the ankle and lifts her high into the air, dangling upside down with nothing to grab onto.

The tree targets them next, snatching demigods left and right and wrapping them into a tight hold, tight enough to be able to wiggle, but not enough to hurt. Other-Travis ducking out of the grasps just barely.

Nico grabs Will’s hand and shadow travels to the roof of his cabin. The tree is already at an impressive 15 feet and still steadily climbing.

“We need to free Katie,” Will shouts over the panicked screaming, “It looks like she’s the only one who can stop herself.”

Nico nods and takes Will’s hand again. He’s about to shadow travel over to the Daughter of Demeter, when something else catches his eye.

His sole skeleton he summoned is currently being crushed by a branch.

“Shit,” he mutters. If they lose this connection, it’s all over.

Nico musters all his focus to summon more skeletons. Please, at least two more. But only one more pops out, clawing out of the ground to snag the phone before it’s crushed by branches.

Run away. But not too far. Don’t lose sight of Travis, he orders as he attempts to conjure more and the skeleton runs on their bare bones, click clacking along the tile. It doesn’t make it far, before it’s crushed by a branch. The phone skids across the floor, the holograph scenery fizzing in and out. The holograms skewed sideways, the skyscrapers now partly into the ground. It jostles with every ground shake.

Other-Travis is still screaming and pleading with Katie, hacking branches with a machete and freeing demigods. Not that it did much, they quickly get snared a moment later. But not other-Travis. The way he evades the branches, hopping over them, ducking under them, it seems he fought against Katie before.

A warning would have been nice, Nico thinks as he tries again to summon more skeletons. Just two. All he asks for is just two. Bianca summoned well over a hundred last night with what seemed like zero effort. At the very least, he needs to be able to summon two. But again it’s just one and no sooner does it come into the world above, it’s sent back down below with a sizable branch.

“Fuck,” he growls and attempts again.

The phone moves unexpectedly, the hologram righting itself and the images flitting into their correct position.

In the center, holding the phone in a black sweatshirt with elbow and knee pads and black boots, is himself. But not. It’s not himself. His face is never that vulnerable. He never lets himself be vulnerable. But this guy, this other-version of him, is stumbling forward on uncertain legs, eyes darting around at the chaos around them, eyes lingering on Percy and Annabeth.

Then the guy, this guy, himself, actually whimpers, actually clings the phone tighter to his chest. The fear he sees is painful.

He’s scared.

This guy is visibly scared. Nico would rather die before letting anyone see that side of him

“Katie?! What the heck is going on?” Nico hears himself ask and he wants to cringe. Even his voice sounded so vulnerable.

“Nico, great timing,” Katie says, dropping down beside other-Nico with a graceful fall, “Take the phone and get back to Michael. I’m sure Travis and Jason can explain it all to you.”

“No!” Travis/Jason wails, “Nico, don’t!”

This guy jumps. This guy actually jumps, eyes darting to Travis/Jason then to him.

“Nico?” Will says, confused and in disbelief, voice strained, almost pleading. Will never pleads, only demands and insists and orders with the utmost confidence. Nico decides he doesn’t like Will pleading.

But other-him just does as he told, no questions asked. And Katie with her millions branches and Travis, still running but not fast enough, disappears into the speeding shadows.

31 WILL

Will doesn’t know how to feel, seeing this alternate version of his usually grumpy and snarky boyfriend.

There hadn’t even been time to talk before Nico is shadow-traveling away from Katie and Travis.

There’s no time to process anything at all.

And now Michael is standing before him, whole and alive and angry.

Will knows Michael is still alive in that world. He saw the memories. He heard them talk about Michael like he’s still alive.

But to actually see him.

To actually see him with his own two eyes.

It’s like a scar being torn open again.

“Michael,” Will whispers as Nico exits out of shadow and plops down next to the living image of his dead brother, a crossbow rather than a bow slung over his back. A crossbow? What? Where’s his usual bow? Behind Michael is Clarisse, nursing a bleeding nose, and Silena, still wrapped in branches and muffled screaming. Bianca is nowhere in sight.

“There you fucking are. You and Katie both need to stop going off on your fucking own!” Michael yells, voice laced with oh so familiar with its well-meaning anger. “It’s going to get you both killed!”

Rather than fight back, Nico’s face just crumples and he hangs his head as Michael goes on his tirade. It’s weird to see Nico not fighting back. It hurts. It hurts to see the vulnerability on Nico’s face.

“Like, are you both fucking crazy?!” Michael continues yelling, “We just saw two Travises! And Percy too! Wearing a brand spanking new camp shirt too to boot! And you both decide to take off to who knows where. What we need to do right now is regroup and talk about what the hell is going on! Not go off on our own and—” Michael cuts short, eyes widening when their eyes meet.

He wonders if Michael feels the same way he feels.

Like the scars are being gutted open again with a salt-tainted blade.

“Will?” Michael says, voice cracking and pained, more pained than he ever heard from his strong-headed brother. A shaky hand raises towards him, passing through him, and the whimper that comes from Michael’s mouth is quiet, unnatural, as eyes rove up and down his body.

“Will?” Michael says again, quieter this time, tears shining in familiar eyes.

“Michael?” Kayla and Austin questions hesitantly and Michael’s head whips to them. There’s an awful choking sound. Michael’s face crumbles with grief and he’s backing away from them, shaking his head. A dream. This is a dream, Michael is whispering under his breath.

“Michael, stop Katie. Don’t let her kill that guy,” Travis pleads, “You have to. It’s complic—”

“Explain what’s going on first,” Clarisse interrupts and she sounded… so tired. So sick of it all. None of that usual fight in her words. Her shoulders are sagging as she walks up beside Michael, to stand face to face with travis. “Tell us why there’s two of you. Tell us why Annabeth is still alive. Why Will and Ch—” Clarisse chokes too, eyes watering as she gestures at Chris and them. “Chris and Kayla, Austin, Drew, Malcolm are alright.”

“There’s no time—”

“Travis,” Clarisse says, “Jason. The gods are watching us right now. They’re watching Katie too. We can’t just help you out here. Not without a very good reason.”

So Travis does, a shortened version, and as fast as he can. The three of them listen with varying emotions. Nico’s face crumbles as he crouches and covers his ears. Clarisse turns away and screams into the sky, going back to Silena still doing her best to wiggle out.

And Michael — Michael curses, but none of them moves. None of them goes to stop Katie.

“You can’t let Katie kill him,” Travis pleads, begs, “He’s completely innocent. He hadn’t done anything wrong.”

They still don’t move and Michael cracks, pointing at the ground. “Then come here. Come back over, right now, and we won’t have to kill the guy.”

“I-I can’t,” Travis stammers, “The clovers. We were gonna get more. We… I… don’t have any right now.”

Michael’s face twists in anguish. “Travis, Jason, you know, Miranda is getting worse and worse. We’re scared that any day now, she’ll just stop breathing. And now, there’s this version of you that the gods may accept for the deal, that may just save Miranda. You’re asking us to be good and fair, when there’s no such thing in the world anymore.”

“Michael, please,” Travis begs but none of them move.

“Michael!” Kayla and Austin begs next.

It’s probably useless too, but Will tries anyway, stepping up to face his half-brother, “Michael, you can’t possibly… you can’t just let this happen. It’s not right.”

But Michael turns his back on them, teeth gritting and white-knuckling his crossbow. “I’m sorry. But I can’t. Not even for you guys. All I have are my friends now and I can’t let any one of them die.”

There’s something heart-warming about having his friends like Katie Gardner try to save him from Katie Gardner. It also confirms that Katie has been holding back on him and Connor. To think, all those times they pissed Katie off, Katie could have squashed them like little bugs but held off on those desires from the pureness of her heart.

If he gets back, maybe he should treat her better.

(not ‘if’, when he gets back)

(and not ‘maybe he’ll treat her better’. He won’t change at all. It’s too fun to mess with Katie.)

But now, it’s just him and Katie. No other-him to yell at her. No flashing orange shirts scrambling around. Just him and Katie as she hurls branches the size of tables at mach speed at him. Somehow he dodges just enough that the speeding mass just barely grazes him. It still hurts though. Travis is pretty sure his left wrist is broken and his right ankle is sprained. His left thigh is throbbing like crazy too and every step he takes sends a wracking amount of pain through that thigh.

All in all, these injuries do not bode well with his grand escape plan of simply running faster than Katie can chase after him.

He can’t win in a fight against her. He knows that. Not without gravely injuring himself in the process.

Pleading does nothing.

Begging does nothing.

Trying to explain he’s not the Travis she knows does nothing either.

Nothing is stopping Katie from squishing him in a pile of dead meat.

And now, Nico di Angelo, this world’s Nico di Angelo, has taken his only chance of survival, the phone, and fly off to who knows where. The holograms that are his friends disappear.

Katie promises him she’ll kill him fast, that he won’t feel a single thing.

Which is not at all scary.

He’s not scared by the way.

He’s not about to pee his pants.

He’s not.

Travis swallows and struggles to get back on his feet as Katie sends a wave of roiling branches towards him. He somehow dodges that attack, but it clips his calf and holy cow. It burns with a new intensity. Travis doesn’t look at it. Maybe if he doesn't, the wound isn’t as bad as it feels.

He takes off into the dark, running cluelessly, praying that a solution will come through somehow.

So he runs. And he dodges. And he leaps and tumbles and rolls and backflips and handstands and crabwalk and dances his way out of Katie’s killing strikes. Not unscathed though. There were a couple close brushes and some he just couldn’t avoid. His right shoulder got hit and he’s sure a collarbone is broken. His right knee scraped against the ground and he can’t fully extend that limb anymore. He hit his head too and now there’s blood getting into one of his eyes which sucks because Katie is still going strong and he’s barely getting by. Losing a part of his visibility is not good. But still, he’s not dead yet so hooray!

All in all?

He’s making it work somehow!

And looks like he survives just long enough because Bianca di Angelo comes to his rescue.

Right when Katie is about to send an attack at him, a swarm of skeletons erupts around Katie and surrounds her. Bianca shadow-travels almost to his side, skidding a few feet too far. She comes running to his side and he smiles at her.

“You have the most perfect timing. This is the second time, no wait, third time you saved my life.”

Bianca’s dark eyes rove over him, widening with slight panic. “You’re hurt. You’re bleeding a lot.”

Travis waves the hand with the non-broken wrist. “‘Tis but a scratch.”

Bianca’s mouth opens in a protest but she shuts it when Katie shoots a branch into the air and a dozen skeletons go flying. Whatever she wanted to say is replaced with, “We’re going back to Silena now.”

Bianca reaches for him but a branch cuts her off. It nearly crushes him too, but he rolls away just in time. Bianca tries again, but a branch intercepts again. And after the fifth try, Bianca gives up, clicking her tongue with derision.

“Katie is so annoyingly powerful. Can you run?”

“Of course,” he lies. But the truth is this moment of reprieve is making him very aware of all the aches. He doesn’t think he can get up.

But Bianca takes him at his word and stands between him and Katie with her shovel in hand. “Great. I’ll keep Katie busy. You get to Silena. She’s still trapped. If you free her, she can charmspeak Michael and Clarisse then you two can escape. Call me once you’ve done so and I’ll book it too.”

“But Katie is strong. Are you going to be alright?” Travis blurts.

“I’m strong too. Besides I’m not the one she’s out to kill. I’ll be fine. You on the other hand.” Bianca looks over her shoulder at him and grimaces. “You probably need a lot more stitches.”

“Maybe I can help you knock her out or something then we can both—”

Katie bursts through the swarm and runs towards them with her garden pruners. Travis tries to yell a warning, but all that comes is a mumble jumble of incoherent words. Thankfully, blissfully, magically Bianca whips out the shovel just in time. Locked face to face with Katie, Bianca yells without looking back, “Go!”

So Travis runs. He slips in a puddle of water which definitely did not make his departure look any cooler, but he trusts Bianca and takes off into the dark. The sound of fighting fading into the background.

xxx

Sometimes, Travis wishes he was a son of Poseidon. That way all the little minor cuts and bruises as well as the major and gushing wounds will heal itself. Just for a day or two. He knows Percy has it rough being the son of a Big Three, what with the gods always going to him to fix their problems. But he’s having a rough time too. Auto-healing sure sounds nice to have right now.

He usually doesn’t feel tired.

His dad, Hermes, is the god of athletics, of travel, of roads. To always be on the move, to feel energetic and alert comes easily to his children. But for the first time, he feels exhausted. Probably because of the blood loss.

Getting back to Michael and Clarisse takes longer than he thought it would. Katie destroyed any landmark that would have helped him. The light-headedness also doesn't help.

But somehow, someway, he found the building that he originally ran from and he climbs his way back to the level.

The yelling and screaming really helps him out with making sure this is the right spot.

He sneaks his way closer and closer to the room until he can hear the yells coming down a hallway. He peeks his head in and just barely sees their holograms before he’s ducking back into hiding.

Alright he’s here.

Now what?

He can kind of hear Silena still struggling, her mouth still muffled behind a branch. But where is the phone? Is it in someone’s hand? Oh gods, he hopes not.

“Fuck you, Michael! You bitchass coward!” Someone cusses. Sounds like Clarisse.

“Nico, please, I know you. You’re one of the kindest people I know. You can’t let Katie do this.” That is definitely Will.

“Travis has nothing to do with this.” That’s Annabeth.

“You guys, come on. Isn’t Travis your friend?” And that’s Percy.

More of his friends from his side of the world are talking. Katie. Nico. Even Holly and Laurel have some nice things to say though it’s mostly about how they’re still proving they’re the better co-counselor duo compared to him and Connor (which is impossible. He and Connor were the best. Are the best.).

It’s really heart-warming hearing them defend them, but if Michael or other-Clarisse or other-Nico can speak up, that would really help him out locate where they are. He doesn’t want to poke his head out again and risk being spotted.

“Would all of you shut up!?” other-Clarisse screeches and oof, she sounds pissed. And tired. “Don’t you think we know what we’re doing is wrong!? But there’s no other way to save Miranda. And if I had to pick between our Miranda and your Travis, then of course we would pick our own. End of discussion. Capeesh. It’s over. So just shut up already.”

About 15 feet away.

Come on, Michael, Nico. Your turn to talk.

“We’ll shut up when you come to your senses!” Clarisse screams at herself.

It’s devolving into a screaming match between both Clarisse’s.

Travis strains his ears to listen past those yells. There’s a side conversation going on between Annabeth and someone else. Maybe Michael or Nico.

But his ears don't catch whatever Annabeth is saying.

Just a guy sniffling, the sound familiar.

Devastatingly familiar.

Without a thought, Travis pokes his head around the corner.

Connor is beside Annabeth who’s in front of other-Nico (crouching and hands over his ears) and Michael (head tilted back and eyes closed).

Connor is wringing his hands behind his back. Connor is forcing a smile and trying to nervously reason with the two even though they’re not responding.

There’s tears in Connor’s eyes. There’s fear in Connor’s eyes.

Connor is stammering.

Connor is shaking a little.

Connor is scared.

And whatever plans Travis had originally goes flying out the window.

He leaps out into the hallway and races for Michael, the phone in his right hand.

Clarisse spots him first, eyes widening. “What the fuck—”

Michael spots him halfway there, cursing under his breath, “How the fuck did you get away from Katie?” while nudging Nico in the shin with his foot.

Even with the pain, he doesn’t back down on the speed.

Even though it’s not needed, he flashes a smile at his brother and a peace sign. Don’t worry. I’m not dead yet.

The overwhelming relief in Connor’s eyes and the following shaky smile gives him an energy boost. He looks away when Connor spots his injuries and the relief becomes horror.

He’s not dead. That’s what's important. He’ll worry about whatever wounds he has later.

He gets to the phone before Michael can realize his target, swiping it from Michael’s fingers, and changing his trajectory to Silena. He unsheathes his hatchet from the bracelet form and swings down at the bindings without halting. He thought he could cut Silena free with that single swipe and then they could both book it out of there (it would have looked so cool too!) but his hatchet only embeds itself an inch into the 4 inch branch surrounding Silena’s body.

Crap.

“I’m here to save you?” he says as he desperately hacks into the branch as other-Clarisse pulls her spear out from her back and Michael readies his bow.

“Mphhfhhfewan!” Silena mumbles.

“I don’t know what that means!” Travis says frantically as he hacks as fast as he can.

“Cut the branch off her mouth!” Other-Travis tells him and oh yeah. Silena can charmspeak. The branch covering her mouth is thin enough he can peel it off. How considerate of Katie. His fingers just barely peel some off before Nico grabs the front of his shirt and pushes him back.

He’s shadow-traveling, the nauseating sensation coming back, as he falls into the shadows.

Their trip is really short.

There’s heavy rain pelting his face.

They’re out in the open.

They’re on the top of a building.

Nico is still holding him by the front of the shirt with a single shaky fist.

He’s angled back, his heel just barely touching the ledge.

Underneath him is nothing but the gray fog.

“Nico,” Will begins slowly, the only one brave enough to talk, “Don’t.”

Nico doesn’t respond, eyes locked on him only, his face twisting with emotion that Travis never sees on the stoic son of Hades.

“You all blame yourself,” Nico begins, voice trembling, “Percy says this is all his fault, for destroying Manhattan, for destroying Olympus and Camp Half Blood. Jason says he ruined the rest of the states, that he destroyed the rest of the continents. Travis says he started this whole thing. But they’re not the reason nobody can die. They’re not the reason everybody is suffering. Will died because of me. Kayla and Austin are gone because of me. Miranda is suffering because of me.”

Nico swallows and his grip loosens.

Travis panics, grabbing Nico’s wrist with his hands. “Wait, wait, wait, Nico. Don’t—”

“Which is why I, more than anyone, need to fix this. I need to do something right for once. I’m sorry, Travis. I’m so sorry.”

Then Nico lets go, shaking his wrist to dislodge him, and Travis is falling into the fog below.

Nico cried.

Travis thinks about that for a second.

Nico cried.

He looked and acted like the 15 year old he actually is.

“TRAVIS!”

The next second, he hears Connor screaming his name. Faces are zooming past him, the holograms unable to keep steady with him falling. Somehow, he’s still clutching the phone in his hands. Wow. Thought he would have dropped that by now.

On the 3rd second, he hears everybody else yelling at him.

“You have to slow yourself down!”

“You land with that speed and you’re going splat!”

“Travis! You fucking idiot, get it together!”

The 4th second, the fog clears and he sees the ground coming fast at him. The math computes itself in his head. He was thrown from a 400 meter tall building. He’ll have just a bit over 9 seconds before he hits the ground.

The 5th second, Travis scans his surroundings and finds nothing. The nearest building is too far to veer towards. Directly below him is a clear path to the asphalt. There’s nothing to grab, nothing to hit, nothing to slow him down. Nico really did pick a good spot to drop him from. Good for him. Sucks for himself though.

The 6th second, his friends argue with each other.

“Make an ice slide, Percy!” someone says.

Percy yells back, “With what ice?!”

The 7th second is the same.

“Then a water trampoline!”

Annabeth snaps, “At that speed, it’s like falling onto concrete. He’ll die.”

And so is the 8th second.

“Katie! Grow a tree or something like how your other-self did.”

“You think I haven’t been trying?” Katie screeches, “But I can’t — It’s not growing — It’s not appearing— it’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. Why isn’t it?”

He’s going to die.

There’s no surviving this.

But his body still braces itself. He still rights himself to land feet first. He still moves like he will survive. He pictures Connor’s face, his little brother that stuck with him since they were toddlers on the streets to young children finally finding safety at camp to fledging co-counselors after Luke left them the torch. Nico’s arrival and departure. The Battle of the Labyrinth. The Battle of Manhattan. The war with the Romans then against Gaia. They survived together, from infancy and toddlerhood and those awkward, awful pre-teen and teen years and two wars. There have been two wars. So many of their friends died, but they’re still alive. There’s still a whole future ahead of them. He can’t die yet.

Even if his legs shatter. Even if every bone in his body breaks. If by some miracle, if by some good fortune, if there’s even a measly chance he’ll survive then he needs to take it.

8.5 seconds into his fall, he’s hit with a strong gust of air from below.

Jason, he thinks, holy cow. What a save.

Then he slams into the ground and his world goes dark.

xxxx

Somewhere in between, Travis dreams.

He dreams of the days before the War with the Gaea, before the war with the Titans, before Percy, before Luke and Annabeth and Camp.

He dreams of the days when it was just him and Connor. He dreams of cold nights. Of starry skies. Of hitchhiking. Of aimless wandering. Of a hand in his, a face identical to his own, smiling back at him under the canopy of a tree while they wait for the rain to pass. Laughing in tattered, stolen jackets as they wait for the blizzard to pass in the stale, musty inside of a dumpster. Running in old and worn sneakers down Lower Manhattan from a lady with a tail instead of legs. Swinging their legs up on an oak tree as they point at the night sky with no stars.

“It’s not so bad,” Connor always said to him with a beaming smile, “At least you’re here with me.”

“Suffering together,” he nods in agreement.

Connor laughs.

But, at the very least, always together.

xxx

There’s people screaming his name when he comes to.

They’re yelling at him. They’re begging him to do something. Wake up. Get up.

But his mind is a mess right now. He can’t breathe. Every inch of his body hurts, burning and throbbing with excruciating and stabbing pain.

That’s good though, isn’t it? It means his spine isn’t broken? He can still walk.

But what if his mind is playing tricks on him?

“T-Travis? Travis?! Is he dead? Someone please tell me he’s not dead!”

“Please get up. Please, please, please. Please get up.”

Connor’s voice cuts through the others — wobbly and shaky. He doesn’t need to see to know Connor is scared.

I’m fine. It’s all good. Don’t worry.

But it’s taking all he has to open his eyes.

And when he finally manages it, his vision is blurry.

He’s laying in a puddle of water several inches high. Little waves lap against his face with every plop plop of raindrops. There’s something red and wet, shimmering almost, right next to his head. Is that blood? His blood?

He blinks to clear his vision and — a stabbing pain behind his eyes.

His eyes clench shut and he curls in on himself. Bad move. A rippling pain shoots through his body. He’s sure he whimpers.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. You can’t cry in front of Connor.

He takes a deep breath — and immediately stops when his sides just under his ribs scream bloody murder.

Okay. No deep breaths.

Travis takes a small breath, shuddering, and forces his eyes open again. He’s lying on his right side, head tilted just enough that he’s not drowning in the puddles of water. He sees the pool of red and yes, that’s blood, raindrops making little holes like gunshots in that pool of red.

He sees people kneeling in front of him — Annabeth and Percy — yelling words at him he’s not processing. They’re pointing behind them, something in the distance. Those squiggly blobs.

He squints, not understanding what’s so urgent.

Then Connor’s voice cuts through the haze again. No. Not Connor’s. Other-him.

“Get up! Get up. Get up. Get up! GET UP!”

The squiggly blobs become people —3 of them, skinny and malnourished — and they’re running towards him. They’re sprinting towards him. And fuck. Fuck. fuck. Fuck.

His heart pounds faster as realization dawns on him. His fingers scrabble on the asphalt but he can’t find strength to even roll over. He’s hyperventilating. Every breath he takes is short and sends a stab into his side.

He struggles to stand, arms failing to lift higher than an inch. His legs refuse to budge too and maybe he did break his spine.

Another strong gust of air blows past him, pushing against the three running zombies. One falls over but they just simply stand back up. They’re still making their way over to him.

“He needs to fight. You need to fight them off, Travis,” Annabeth says to his left, her voice tight.

“Not in that condition,” Will says on his right, hologram hands fluttering over him. There’s a hint of panic cracking through Will’s calm persona he always has on in a crisis mode.

5 broken ribs. A fractured femur. Breaks on both tibia. A crack on the right humerus. Another on his shoulder blade. An undetermined level of traumatic brain injury. Severe internal bleeding. Class 3 level of hypovolaemic shock borderlining on 4.

Will is saying more, but it’s all medical jargon that Travis can’t spare any brain power on deciphering.

“Well, he can’t run either,” Annabeth snaps back, “Unless your hymns can work through a video chat.”

“Don’t yell at him,” Nico snarls.

“Katie, Percy, anybody from Demeter’s Cabin really, now's the time to make a tree or sweep those zombies into the river,” Leo comments a step away from Will, pointing at the coming dead.

“I told you already. I’ve been trying since other-me did it and it’s not working!” Katie shrieks, crying. Travis never saw her that upset.

“I’m trying too. But something’s blocking me. I can feel the Hudson, but it’s like something holding me back. It’s not budging,” Percy chokes, kneeling next to Annabeth, “I can’t do anything either. Travis, I’m sorry. But hold on, we’ll think of something. We’ll figure something out.”

He blinks the water out of his eyes, staring at the Sea God’s son and decides he doesn’t like what he sees. Don’t make that face, Percy.

Someone jumps in front of him and the zombies with a hand out.

“Don’t move!” Piper yells, enough power in those syllables to halt a god and Travis watches his friends go rigid.

But he’s fine.

And those 3 zombies are fine.

Piper is spewing more words. Halt. Freeze. Stay. Down. None of them work.

“Nico, this is your area of expertise, isn’t it? Stop them!”

“I can’t. They’re not dead completely,” Nico says after a moment's pause, “They still have a soul in them. It’s mangled and it’s deformed, but it’s still there so I can’t control them.”

“Jason, enough with the wind already. Just summon lightning and blast the zombies away!”

“He’s in a puddle of water. The lightning will end up killing him too.”

Travis struggles to get upright again.

In a minute, they’ll reach him. In a minute, things will possibly get ugly.

And the whole camp is going to watch it happen. He can see his half-siblings Cecil, Alice, and Julia in the back, wide-eyed and pale. He can see Malcolm and Sherman arguing off to the side, pointing at who knows what. He can see Harley crying. Nyssa is trying to take him back to the cabin, but the kid is grabbing onto the dining table and begging Leo to please fix this situation like he always does. Miranda is gritting her teeth, eyes roving the area like she’s looking for solutions. Valentina is throwing up. Paolo is yelling in Portuguese, throwing his hands in the air and pacing in frustration.

And Connor, Connor is staring at him. Connor is beside him. Connor is pleading with him to get up. Over and over.

Connor has tears in his eyes.

Connor is crying.

Guilt rages in his heart and he tries again.

But none of that is helping him get back on his feet.

If the situation goes south, then it’ll be a lot more messy and they already saw enough. He wants to shut the phone off. But he has no idea where it fell. Probably not right next to his finger. If he’s going to be torn apart alive, then the least he could do is not livestream it.

He opens his mouth, tongue heavy.

“Some…one…shut…” is all he can manage and that’s pathetic of him. He can’t move. He can’t even talk. What can he even do?

“Fight,” Connor tells him. No. Not Connor. The other guy. Other-him, voice frail and shaky, “You have to fight. Don’t give up. You can’t give up.”

Fight? He can’t. It’s taking all he has to even pay attention to their words. But he tries. And he fails. His arms burn at the slightest push.

“You can. You will,” the same voice says, but it’s not as frail. Other-Jason then, he guesses. “You have to. There’s no other option.”

He tries again. He can’t.

“Come on. Stand up.”

He can’t.

“I know you can. I know how far you’ll push yourself for others. We’re all watching. So get up.”

You sure you know me? But there’s so much conviction, so much faith in Jason’s words, he wants to meet them. And he tries again. He tries and tries and tries. But his body refuses to obey.

“I… can’t,” Travis rasps, voice strained. He tries to lift himself again, but it’s impossible. Everything hurts. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. There’s a fogginess in his brain that grows worse and worse. He knows he should. He knows he has to. But he can’t. He can’t.

“I can’t stand. I can’t fight. I can’t—” His lungs seize and there’s copper in his mouth. He coughs, his ribs burn, and he hacks up blood. That’s not good.

Someone sobs his name.

Another person is wailing.

He wishes the phone would just shut off already.

He doesn’t want the last thing he hears is his friends and family in pain.

Travis hears shoes squeak on a marble floor. Joints pop and creak as someone kneels beside him.

“Listen. I’m going to tell you what it’s like. When Connor died,” other-him began, voice frail and wobbly again, “It was like a piece of me was ripped out too. I can’t sleep without dreaming of his face. I can’t eat without thinking of his dying screams. I think constantly about what I should have done. What I could have done instead to save him. I couldn’t live with myself. Everyday, I thought about just giving up and joining him on the other side even though I had people counting on me. I did try to join him. So many times. I tried to end it all and each and every, someone would stop me. Bianca. Silena. Chris. Lou Ellen. This guy inside my body.” Travis rubs his neck. “I didn’t want to live. Not when my brother is dead. I still don’t even though I have a reason to stay alive. If it means reuniting with Connor, I would have done it.”

His throat closes. He never imagines a life without his brother. But is that how it’ll be? If he dies, then Connor would quickly join him after?

“Are you going to do the same to your own brother? Are you going to die and let him go through the same thing?”

No. No. No. That’s not going to happen. He’s not going to let that happen.

“Are you going to be that selfish?”

Travis grits his teeth and pushes himself upright, stars blooming in his eyes. He vomits, a mix of blood and bile. His leg screams as he plants a shoe on the ground. His body screeches when he stands. He nearly sways back down, but he rights his footing and manages to steady himself.

His eyes focus on the 3 zombies coming towards him and they’re terrifyingly close, just a few meters away. They’ll reach him in seconds.

Other-him swallows and stands with him, standing next to him. Pale blue eyes turn a shade darker.

“Fight,” Jason says, voice steely and strong.

Travis hooks a finger over his bracelet.

“Don’t give up.”

He pulls, the bracelet shifting into his hatchet.

“Don’t die on us.”

He rears it back and swings, metal slicing into empty air as the zombie slides under him.

I missed, Travis realizes a second later. Because the zombie slipped on the water.

He giggles at the sight of flailing limbs. That guy looks ridiculous, he thinks before the fallen zombie skids right into him and knocks him back to the ground again. His hands and knees hit the asphalt and a wave of blinding pain goes through his body.

He struggles to get back up, but there are two bodies on top of him and they’re kicking each other as well as him to get a bite.

He can feel a hot breath around his ankle and he jerks his foot back before slamming it into a crunchy nose.

Teeth close around nose and Travis leans back and shoves a hand under a bony jaw.

He can’t stop the third zombie from gnawing on his shoulder. Travis hisses at the searing pain and rolls to his side. He struggles to get to his feet again, but there’s hands clawing at his ankles and shins.

He falls again, on his knees. His hands slam on the asphalt before he can faceplant, the impact sending a stabbing ache to his upper arm. They’re climbing on top of him.

Travis swings his hatchet again, aiming blindly behind him.

He almost cuts off a zombie’s head. Just a couple inches more and he would have done it.

Travis rips his hatchet out of the neck, the effort to do so almost has him passing out but he manages to free his hatchet from, and he swings it down, slicing the neck clean through.

A set of teeth chomps on his thigh and he bites back a scream, jabbing the butt of his hatchet into the eye of his attacker. The second one bites his broken wrist and okay, that Travis couldn’t help the yelp from escaping. He slices his hatchet once, twice, into where he was told to earlier. The masseter muscle or whatever it’s called.

Now that is much easier for his hatchet to slice into.

Why hadn’t he done that to begin with?

The zombies’ jaw flops open and Travis tugs his limbs free from their grips, slicing their heels before he’s picking up the phone and stumbling down the ruined streets of Manhattan.

Manhattan on ground level in this ruined world is not pretty. It’s gray and bleak. Cars and buses are piled into heaps and blocking alleyways and sometimes entire streets like they were washed afloat or something. The streets are flooded up to his ankle. The raindrops are annoyingly loud as they land on rusting vehicles and dumpsters.

All in all, the scene is not scenic.

Even worse, he knows he shouldn’t be moving.

Every shuffle of his shoes on the pavement sends stinging messages to his brain. His sprained ankle is protesting. His sides burn with every movement, a sure sign he cracked a rib. His left thigh was already not doing great and now it’s really not doing great. But he can’t stop. Not when he spotted more zombies coming towards him, their howls and ghoulish screams haunting.

“Where… where do I…” he begins, but he takes a moment to vomit. It’s just blood and bile again. His vision spins as he raises his head back up. “Where …do I go?” he gasps.

And even worse than the aches and pain, is the fogginess in his brain. There’s a low buzzing amongst the pounding headache. His vision is going in and out. The world is spinning slowly around him and it’s so hard to stay upright. It’s hard to not fall over. It’s hard to breathe. And he has to blink hard several times before he realizes people are speaking to him.

“Building. Any building will work. Just get inside and — WATCH OUT!”

Travis trips sideways at the yell and what great timing, the spear slicing into his shoulder instead of piercing his heart. It also helps that Jason pulled another clutch save and sent a current of air with just enough power to veer it sideways too. The metal-tipped spear clatters noisily behind him.

Clarisse steps out of the shadow, infuriated. “Damn it! Stop getting in the way!”

Nico emerges after Clarisse with Michael in tow.

“You didn’t die. That was a straight 400 meter drop down,” Nico says, a mix of disappointment and awe.

Travis struggles back to his feet to face the trio. His legs are jelly. The buzzing in his head is getting louder and louder. The laughter bubbling out of his lips sounds weird to his ears.

Yeah, it takes a lot for me to die apparently, he wants to say because that sounds right. But that’s seven too many words for him to say right now. And also Clarisse is charging towards him with a sword.

He raises his hatchet just in time to block it, but a simple push has him falling onto his back.

Clarisse leers over him, sword raised with both hands. But she’s moving slower than she usually does. Travis knows how fast Clarisse can strike. All those years of training sessions, all those battles they had together, that one time he, her, and Connor went on a quest to retrieve some Twinkies, he knows Clarisse’s style. He should already be a kabob, but she’s — Travis blinks up at her and studies her face, twisted together in a way that Clarisse would never let anyone see.

She’s upset, Travis realizes. She doesn’t want to do this. That’s why she’s hesitating.

It’s just enough time for him to twist to the side, the sword slicing his upper ribs rather than stabbing into his heart. The cut burns, but it’s manageable. His ribs might protest, but who cares about them, right? He rolls with all his strength and kicks her ankles. it's just enough to unbalance Clarisse, making her stumble back to regain her balance.

He scrambles to his feet, just barely moving his hatchet in time to avoid the speeding arrow that would have surely knocked it out of his hands.

He ducks under Nico’s attempt to grab him too, adrenaline pushing him to pounce back several feet.

“Fuck,” Clarisse curses, eyes roving up and down his mangled body. “How are you still able to move?”

He beams and wheezes with a half-crazed laugh, “What can I say? Dad is the god of athletes. We’re good at pushing our body to the absolute limits.”

Adrenaline is one hell of a chemical.

It’s probably the only reason why his body is still able to move right now. He’s sidestepping, backstepping out of certain death. Not unscathed though. He gets little cuts and bruises here and there. But his head is on his shoulder. All his organs are inside his body. And he’s not missing any body parts.

Overall?

It’s a win-win!

And even better, in the background, he can hear Annabeth and Other-Jason working out how to get him out of here. Which is great because all of Travis’s brain cells are devoted fully to staying alive and avoiding Nico’s hands, Clarisse’s sword, and Michael’s arrows at all cost. He’s not hearing a single word they’re saying, but Annabeth is smart. She always has a plan. She’ll probably communicate with him what that plan is in a way he can understand with his pain-addled mind.

Every now and then, a current of wind blasts through the streets and knocks all everybody but him down to their butts. Not him though. Jason has some kind of expert control over the winds so they swerve around him. Which is amazingly thoughtful and courteous because if he’s knocked down, he’s going to have a rough time getting back up.

Hopefully, the rescue plan comes soon because with all the air gusts, all the fighting, all the screaming Clarisse is doing, there’s zombies converging on their spots.

Michael can multitask very well, shooting arrows at his weapon and also shooting arrows at the zombies, embedding in the dead’s eyes with pinpoint accuracy. Faintly, Travis wonders why Michael doesn’t do the same for him, why Michael’s arrows never so much as graze his skin. But there’s not much time now to think about that. Later, when he’s not fighting for his life, he can ask about it.

Three of the zombies break past Michael. They ignore Nico who is much closer and comes for him and Clarisse. Michael calls Clarisse’s name as a warning as one veers towards Clarisse but Clarisse just simply yanks their head back by the thin, frail hair and slits their papery-thin throat. It cuts through really smoothly. Like slicing a boiled egg. Then Clarisse unceremoniously tosses the severed head aside as she continues to march towards him.

The other two zombies are much smarter and go for the wounded prey, him. Travis can’t do what Clarisse did. Or he could, he guesses, but he doesn’t have the stomach to do so. He slices his hatchet against their jaw before ducking under the out-stretched arms. He dodges Clarisse’s attempt to stab him in the front too while he’s occupied.

He grins, his head a bit woozy, but not woozy enough to taunt, “Missed me.”

Clarisse’s eye twitches and she’s readjusting her grip on the sword. The still pouring rain does nothing to help with that.

As they continue this dance of her attacking and him somehow fumbling away with just minor scratches, a thought cheerfully comes to mind. Why not just fight back? Why not just kill like she’s trying to do to you?

And it’s not like there’s no chances either.

Clarisse is strong, but she has so many openings every time she lunges towards him. She’s not muscled like how she used to be. She’s not as focused as she is. Not as coordinated. Guess eating cat food for however long kind of does a number on your health.

He can swipe across her eyes. Blind her even.

He had a chance to sever a hand.

To slice a knee.

To bisect.

To behead.

But his limbs freeze, his hatchet stays still, and the opportunity passes as Clarisse attacks again and he moves to evade instead.

Another chance comes up. More opportunities arise.

But his hand refuses to budge each and every time.

It’s because you’re weak, that voice cheerfully sings to him.

An arrow speeds towards his hatchet and he moves it out of the way.

But the metal-tipped barb hits the phone instead and it skids across the asphalt, screen cracked and the holographic images of his phones disappear.

He’s alone again.

And isn’t that just the best?

He can barely run.

He can’t bring himself to kill.

He can’t even fight back, not with his arms screaming the way they are. Not with the way his vision is going in and out. Not with the fuzziness in his head.

The best he can do, the only thing he can do, is just duck and dodge.

Clarisse jabs again with her sword.

Travis side steps.

But he must have stepped wrong because his ankle twists under him. Or maybe it’s his leg telling him it had enough. He falls to his knees, the metal glint of the sword coming closer and closer. He veers to the side, but it’s still going to stab into him. Like an actual stab. It’s not going to be a minor slice on his skin like all the other time.

He hopes it doesn’t hit anything vital.

Travis winces and braces himself.

A trident saves him from becoming a kebab.

A bronze, 3 pronged trident flies in from above, the sword entangling between the metal prongs. His savior comes a second later, a young girl landing with grace in front of him. A familiar girl. Even when she’s not in her typical orange shirt. Even with half her face missing, torn off by talons.

He recognizes her.

Alice Miyazawa.

His half-sister.

What had Holly and Laurel said her name was?

Headache?

Alice grabs the trident and twists, but Clarisse is faster, pulling her sword out before it’s knocked out of her hands. Clarisse immediately backs away. Not quick enough. In a blink of an eye, Alice sends a roundhouse kick straight into Clarisse’s chest — something cracks, several ribs most definitely crack — and the daughter of Ares goes soaring in the air. Michael and Nico scream Clarisse’s name.

Clarisse lands on her back, unmoving and still, and Nico rushes to her side.

Travis blinks the rain out of his eyes, watching as Alice falls to her knees as she finishes the kick, leg twisted and shattered from the speed and force of the kick.

But it’s already mending itself back together, torn skin stitching back close without a mark and muscles sewing together. In three seconds, Alice is back on her feet and she has the trident reared back in her hand.

She hurls it at near light speed, the weapon speeding towards Clarisse, still motionless on her back.

It’s only by Michael’s arrow that knocks the trident askew that Clarisse isn’t skewered.

Alice laughs, a single ha that has none of Alice’s usual jovialness.

There’s cruelty behind her voice. A viciousness and callousness that’s never in his sister’s light-hearted nature. The smile on her face is bloodthirsty and ruthless.

She’s out to kill, Travis realizes.

Alice lurches forward towards Clarisse who’s still not getting up — why isn’t she getting up?? — and Travis does the same, just barely managing to snag Alice’s wrist before she’s too far gone.

His sister whips around to look at him, her one remaining eye bright with a wild hunger and Travis prays that she’s not like Lou Ellen who wants to eat him. But Alice is just staring at him and nothing more, head tilting to the side inquisitively.

“What are you doing?” she asks with his innocent tone and Travis swallows. At least she’s not attacking him. He doesn’t think Michael will save him like he did for Clarisse.

“Don’t…” he begins, “Don’t hurt them.”

Alice’s smile widens, growing colder. “Don’t hurt them? When they’re trying to kill you?”

She wrenches her hand free and turns back to face the trio. “Sorry. No can do. Besides—”

A second body drops beside her from the fourth story, landing with similar grace, and twirls a scythe with a blade half his height. If Travis just stares at her top half, he can almost imagine Julia Feingold is alive and well and healthy. But from her sternum all the way to her navel, is a large cut on her abdomen, a rugged wound, organs held inside only by a couple of amateurish stitches.

“Besides,” Julia follows up after Alice, with a similar smile and a voice just as cold and sinister, “You are the only one we care about. Everything will be fine as long as you survive.”

35 ANNABETH

Demigods die.

And they die young.

It’s inevitable. It’s a fact of life, of their life. Death comes for them all early and violently. There’s no avoiding it. So why not go out in a bang? Die in a way that’s memorable. Die in a way that’s honorable. Die with meaning and purpose. Only then will death not be so bad.

That’s what she told herself back then. A lie to comfort her when Thalia died. And it dulls the pain somewhat.

It’s her mantra when Luke deflected and the Second Titan War began. Friends she has known for years, some she has known since her first day at camp — Lee. Michael. Castor. Beckendorf. Silena. All gone. All dead.

So live life to the fullest because it could end the very next day. There’s no guarantee of a future for them no matter how strong they are. Die with pride. Die a hero’s death. Die saving someone you love and death won’t be such a heartbreaking tragedy.

But then Camp Jupiter came into the picture. With their university and their structure and their barriers and their safety net and their community.

They don’t have to die so young.

They can live past their 20s and into their 30s, 40s, 50s. They can grow up. They can grow old.

She doesn’t have to watch any more of her friends and family die.

She doesn’t have to make any more shrouds.

She doesn’t have to pretend to be strong and stoic and put together and unbothered with the future that waited for them. There’s no need for that anymore. They can have a happy ending now. They’re supposed to have a happy ending.

So why—

[I’m sorry, Travis]

—why is this happening?

Her heart thunders in her chest as she watches Travis fall and fall and fall. She watches his body hit the asphalt with enough force to kill a mortal, enough force to kill a demigod. She hears his bones shatter. She watches him, still and motionless, in the rain and thinks the worst even though Nico is right there telling them he’s not dead yet. She watches him get back up. She watches him hobble down the rainy streets. She watches him just barely dodge that spear. She watches as Clarisse and Nico and Michael try to kill one of her oldest friends. She watches. And watches. And watches. Until the screen goes back, and the desolate skyscrapers and gray skies and pouring rain become an orange sky of a setting sun and the stone tables of the pavilion. A score of campers who stayed for whatever reason stare at each other and her in varying degrees of shock and horror.

“What happened?” one of them asks.

The phone disconnected. Something must have broken it, Annabeth thinks numbly.

He’s going to die.

And you’re going to burn another shroud without a body.

Beside her, other-Travis cusses and taps his phone desperately. She sees him click on someone named Commander. She watches it go to voicemail. It’s the same with Lil’Elly’s number. And BackUp’s. And FlowerPower’s. And OwlHead’s. Absolutely ridiculous names to have in the contacts.

“It’s not over,” other-Travis says, strained and frantic, his fingers scrolling through the contacts before flicking to the message app and spamming texts left and right. “It’s not over yet. There’s got to be another way.”

It’s not over? Annabeth wants to laugh at how absurd that optimism is. They just lost their point of contact. Travis can’t run. He can barely move. And with all those internal injuries, he needs medical attention right away otherwise the hemorrhage will just kill him. That is, if Clarisse and Michael and Nico don’t first. It’s not over? It’s as good as over.

But other-Travis’s head shot up to her, to Connor, and they’re pleading, begging her to say a solution she doesn’t have a word for, an impossible plan she can’t even begin to picture, a strategy to win it all when there is none.

I don’t know.

The words are on the tip of her tongue.

But she can’t bring herself to say it. She can’t bring herself to admit defeat.

“Try…” Annabeth’s mind comes up with nothing. Percy and none of the other counselors and campers give any answer either. She swallows and answers feebly, “Try calling again. Maybe they’ll pick up this time.”

No sooner she said that, the phone in Travis’s hand vibrates. “Queen Bee” the caller ID says. But that’s the phone that broke just now, wasn’t it?

Travis doesn’t hesitate to accept the facetime request immediately.

The rain comes back. Camp Half Blood disappears into the gray world again, replaced by the dystopia that is New York.

But they’re no longer on ground level. Situated high above, Annabeth can see all of Manhattan with its decrepit and empty landscape. Where Central Park should be is a hole. Miles long. Miles wide.

Nico and Bianca did that? When they were only merely 13 and 12? That’s what Travis and Jason are aiming to close?

Travis, their Travis is nowhere to be seen, nor is Clarisse or Nico or Michael. There’s no one except for the girl and boy perching on the rusty steel beam tilting a dangerous 45 degrees out into the open.

Right away, Annabeth knows. They’re not mortal. They’re even familiar despite only the profile of the face visible, but Annabeth can’t place a finger on who they are.

The young girl stands with both legs on the beam, arms crossed as she looks down at Manhattan. She can’t be older than 10 at most. Her hair is pulled back into a clean bun. She wears a beige toga, plain and simple, arms and legs thin and twigly.

The boy, maybe a few years older, but thinner and skinnier than the girl, sits on the beam. He’s holding the phone in one hand, screwdriver in the other. He’s also wearing a beige toga, just as worn and old. He sighs and runs a hand through close-cropped hair. When his head rises and meets hers, they’re a warm shade of brown. But the weight behind them. The heaviness in them and deepness. The regret and grief and tiredness.

They’re not children. They’re not mortals.

She knows them.

She should know them. And she has an idea.

But the power that surrounds them. The divine and overpowering aura that used to coat them is nonexistent, so dull, so bland. It can’t be them.

The girl glances at her and — Annabeth flinches under the disappointment and disgust in those gray eyes.

“Athena. Hephaestus,” Jason snarls. Annabeth recoils under the utter hatred and anger in that voice. Jason is speaking, eyes bright blue. There’s even sparks flickering from his fingertips.

“Jason Grace,” Athena retorts coldly, steely gray eyes moving to Travis.

Jason growls and his teeth bare, mouth opening for a retort. He takes a step towards the gods, but the bright, electric blue hue eyes fade to a shade lighter. Travis stumbles forward on shaky legs, face twisting in pain and despair.

“Please,” Travis pleads with his head lowered, voice wobbly and weak, “Please don’t do this.”

“Think of it as another one of your punishments,” Athena sneers.

Travis crumbles to his knees and wails.

The air becomes thick.

Storm clouds gather above them and burst through the barrier surrounding their camp. The wind picks up and howls, roars.

Static fills the air.

And Jason stands back up, eyes a furious storm.

“Then don’t regret what will happen to you,” Jason snarls, blue eyes sparking with unadulterated hatred. “Don’t beg us to spare you when your time comes.”

Athena scoffs and turns to her. Percy always told her, everybody tell her this, but Annabeth can see the cogs whirring in Athena’s eyes. Can see the calculating and carefulness to her words that no amount of pretend blase attitude can erase.

“Did he tell you? What happened to the Lord Father? To my half-brothers, Apollo and Dionysus? He slain them, Annabeth. All three were cut down by their hands. Is that someone you can trust?”

Annabeth thinks of the memories she saw. Of Travis pleading with Malcolm to not kill himself, of Travis making a birthday cake, and of Travis and Jason proclaiming their goal of closing the chasm to give all the dead their peace back. It’s not hard to know what to say next.

“I do trust him,” Annabeth states, as the wind picks up more and more speed, whirling into speeds enough for a category five hurricane as plates smash into the ground and the trees groan and bend under the wind, “I trust him to want the best for us.”

Athena sneers but there’s mistaking the fear in her eyes. Turn away as fast as Athena did, Annabeth still caught it.

“Still foolish as ever,” Athena spits, but she’s stepping back as Jason steps forward, a hand curled against his side.

Eyes turning white, lightning strikes the steel beam in the other world and the world momentarily becomes nothing but a blindingly white.

When it clears, Athena and Hepaestus are safe, no longer on the beam but inside a building. Athena opens her mouth with the beginning of a sneer, but she freezes. And leans left as a sledgehammer comes slamming down from above. It misses her just barely. But a second sledgehammer comes from the side and Athena could not evade it, the metal slamming into her abdomen with a sickening squish. Her mother is tossed feets away, but the camera remains steady and stationary.

The assailants both stand and heave their hammer over their petite shoulders.

“Aha! First!” Holly gloats. “You missed, idiot!”

“Well, I got the phone. It would have broken if I hadn’t gotten it,” Laurel combats, shoving her sister — dead sister — in the shoulder, “So I won.”

“Well, I hit the goddess. You hit nothing.”

“Because I stole her attention from you. You would have missed too if not for me distracting her.”

“You’re such a sore loser.”

“Me?! You’re the one spinning a wild—”

“Holly, Laurel,” Jason interrupts, voice commanding, hand still crackling with static, “Perfect timing. Change of plans. No more hiding. We’re on the offense now.”

The twin daughters of Nike turn to face them and Annabeth’s stomach jumps to her throat as she takes in their injuries, at Holly’s caved head, at Laurel’s blue-tinged skin. Percy stiffens beside her and Annabeth knows he’s staring at Laurel.

We don’t know if she died by drowning, she wants to say, She could have died by suffocation or strangulation or maybe choking. But Percy’s not dumb. They both see Laurel’s hair is dripping wet while Holly’s is perfectly dry.

So she takes his hand in hers and squeezes.

Not your fault, she murmurs and Percy nods, but the guilt is still there and building.

Holly and Laurel Victor smile at Travis and Jason with familiar itch, a competitive drive that not even death can dull.

“What do you want us to do?” the twins say at the same time.

36 BIANCA

She can step into the shadows and travel everywhere she wants, sure. But Nico is far better than her at that and she doesn’t have the same accuracy and durability he has, But she’s known more for her ability to make a whole army of skeletal warriors, in the hundreds, in the thousands, in the hundred of thousands. And she can control them all with the littlest of thoughts.

But for all the powers she has, Katie is simply overwhelming her with physical force. A single wave of her hand and Katie can crush her entire skeletal army by making a palm tree sweep across them. A little snap of her fingers and she can grow a pine tree that her forces can’t traverse. A clap and vines grow from nowhere and bind all of them in place, wrapping around their torsos and tying their arms to their chest, thigh to thigh. The only escape is through shadow-traveling out and after the 9th escape, Bianca is starting to feel the burn.

But worse than all that, is how gentle Katie is being with her.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Katie says.

“You improved. You never summoned this many before,” Katie says.

“Any more shadow-traveling and you’ll fade,” Katie says.

Bianca gasps and pants, giving herself a minute to catch her breath before struggles under the vines bounding her. They’re tight and constructing, but not enough to hurt. She focuses and tries to step into the shadows again, but the pathway is hard to enter and she fails. She stumbles and would have fallen on her face if not for Katie catching her and resting her against a wall.

Shit.

Shit shit shit.

She’s not winning this fight.

Maybe. Hopefully. With this minuscule time she brought, Travis is far and away. But Nico is out there and he’s far more resilient and skilled with shadow-traveling than she is.

“He’s not—He’s not the same Travis. This guy is different. He’s from a different universe,” Bianca pleads, for the 20th time. Maybe the 20th time's the charm. Maybe this time, Katie will listen.

But Katie looks away and says the same thing she always says, “I care about Miranda more.”

But Katie’s tight fists and the slithering of vines tells Bianca just how unhappy Katie is.

“Please, Katie,” Bianca begs, “it’s not fair. If you kill him, then that world’s Connor. That world’s Annabeth… all of them would be sad.”

“Yeah, well,” Katie turns her back on her. “I’ll be sad if Miranda dies.”

But Katie’s vines shift faster and coil around her feet in tight curls.

Bianca’s phone vibrates and Katie reaches forward and unhooks it from her belt, glancing at the screen before tucking it into her pocket.

“I’ll give it back when I’m done. Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick,” Katie tells her. “I won’t make him suffer.”

“You broke his wrist.”

“I won’t make him suffer if he cooperates and let himself be killed,” Katie corrects, “It’s not my fault he’s resisting.”

“Katie,” Bianca chokes and begins to try again, but the echoing of an explosion silences her.

They go rigid, both of them quiet as they listen.

“Do you think—”

Another explosion. And in between the rain, they both hear it. Faint screams. They both see it. Faint bodies in the shadows.

Bianca’s eyes widen and she strains against her bindings. “Nico.”

And Katie doesn’t waste another second undoing the bindings around Bianca. Katie steadies her with a hand around his arm.

“Can you shadow-travel both of us there?” Katie asks, and just as fast, realizes with dismay, says, “You’re out of power.”

“No. I’m not,” Bianca growls between clenched teeth as she gathers her energy.

“Yes, you are,” Katie says simply as Bianca fails to take them into the shadows and collapses into Katie’s waiting arms. Katie wastes zero time hoisting Bianca onto her back for a piggyback ride. “Hang tight. I’ll take us there.”

Katie breaks out into a run outside, jumping onto a branch that slides them down to ground level.

Completely unfair, Bianca laments, as she clings uselessly to Katie’s back.

37 SILENA (skip/add more)

Useless. Deadweight. Piece of trash. Unhelpful.

Silena squirms out of her bindings finally, arms rubbed raw from where she tugged herself free of her wooden prison.

Find Travis. Rescue. Help. Be useful.

Everybody is gone. She doesn’t know where they gone. Nico had taken Travis. Had shadow travel somewhere who knows where and came back without Travis. Then he’d taken Clarisse and Michael, and now she’s all alone.

Useless. Useless. Useless.

What was the reason she lived? Why, out of all the demigods, must she be the one that survived? Annabeth would have known what to do. Will would have convinced them. Kayla would have shot them down. Austin too. Chris would have freed himself without any help. Even Drew, with all her attitude and uncooperativeness, would have found some way to be useful.

Not like her. Not her. All of them would have done something.

So why was it she’s the one that’s alive?

Why was it they died and not her?

Travis and Jason tell her they’re glad she’s alive. They tell her they’re happy she’s not dead.

But that doesn’t change the fact she’s holding them back.

She runs to the nearest window outside, straining her eyes and ears for anything. Signs of battle. Signs of struggle. Signs of anything, anything to show Travis is alive.

But she hears nothing but the drumming of rain on degrading rooftops.

She stares out into the desolate horizon.

There’s nothing.

And her breathing becomes faster and faster until she crumbles to her knees.

What should she do? What is she supposed to do? What can she even do?

Michael had her phone. She has no way to contact anybody. She’s useless.

Fear. Shame. Guilt. Disgust. It all bubbles inside her until it’s spilling out in tears. There’s no one else she hates more than herself right now.

No.

Hating herself like this will do nothing. Nothing will get done if she just mopes around.

She’ll do what she can.

She’ll fight however she can.

In the horizon, there’s a flash of light.

Lightning strikes a building — blindingly bright, thunderously loud.

That’s Jason. Only Jason can summon lightning ever since they took down Zeus.

She knows where she has to go.

It’s at least a mile away… even her running there, it might take ten minutes. As long as she gets there…

“Run.”

It comes out as a choked whisper. Nobody except for him heard it.

Alice and Julia lean forward, Julia’s hand tightening over her scythe, and against his body’s wishes for rest, Travis tackles them from behind and collapses on top of them.

“Run,” he croaks again and begs for them to move. But Nico is still staring wide-eyed at him. Clarisse is still motionless on her back and Michael is panicking, eyes darting between him and his dead sisters frantically as he’s shaking Clarisse’s arm desperately.

His sisters twitch under his weight and he presses them down on the floor harder.

Travis gulps down air and ignores the stabbing, excruciating burn in his ribs and yells, “Run!”

Nico snaps out of it first, grabbing Clarisse by the arm and lunging for Michael.

Alice wiggles out from underneath him. And Travis grabbing her by the shirt and yanking her backwards. But not even that stopped Alice from firing a pebble at Nico with a slingshot. It hits the son of Hades head on. And his cry of pain, that second of flinching, leads to wasted milliseconds.

Nico grabs onto Michael’s wrist after fumbling and missing his first try, the three of them sinking into the shadows. Julia rolls out from under him, picking up her dropped scythe in her right hand. Travis lunges forward to grab anything to pull her back— shirt, arm, weapon — and he does. His fingers just barely grab the tail ends of Julia’s tattered Northface jacket.

But the air picks up around him, becoming a racing darkness, a nauseating and familiar roller coaster through the shadows. A blink and suddenly, he and Julia are right beside Nico and the others inside some random building free from the ever-present rain, toppled office tables surround them with degrading paper plates all over the floor. Popped balloons spew the floor. And dangling sadly is a painted banner with ‘Happy Birthday!’

Nico’s eyes are owlishly wide as he stares at them and he knows he’s the same.

Julia never shadow-traveled, he thinks, None of them knows how. Not even Luke.

Though theoretically they could, according to Annabeth and Nico. Their dad Hermes can enter and exit the Underworld freely after all. But none of them had the aptitude to do so even with Nico’s guidance. They just get too tired or they have no idea what Nico is trying to say.

Julia raises her scythe.

Nico’s still frozen. He’s too weak to do anything, his hands feebly scratching on her raised arm. All he could do is watch Julia heave the blade down towards Nico’s deer in the headlight face.

But Clarisse wakes up. Clarisse shoves Nico out of the way just in time for the rusty blade to not cut into Nico’s face, but her lower arm instead.

Travis has no idea how Clarisse isn’t screaming her head off right now. The blade cut clean through her arm, the junction where the inner arm meets elbow. The blade poke out from the other end a good 3 or 4 inches. The pain must be unimaginable.

But Clarisse just grits her teeth, her labored breathing the only sign she’s in pain.

Even with Julia digging the scythe further in and yanking it towards her, tearing the severe wound a further inch, Clarisse doesn’t so much as wince. Lunging forward, Clarisse stops the scythe from cutting any further by grabbing the handle.

“Get us out of here!” Clarisse hisses at Nico.

Nico stabs his Stygian blade into his sister’s throat and yanks it out, black veins immediately emerging the wound. Julia steps back and chokes. The skin and tissue crumble away, rotting in minutes before Travis’s very eyes. Then they form back together in seconds, right before Travis’s very eyes.

Travis realizes the crux of the problem then.

The dead don’t get tired. The dead don't get any more injured. The dead don’t stay down.

The dead can come back as many times as they want.

Nico goes for another stab but Julia releases one of her hands from the scythe and grabs the blade with her hand — not at all bothered by the metal digging into her skin — and headbutts Nico hard in the nose. Nico cries and leans back, cupping his nose as blood flows down.

Travis claws at his sister’s arms again and begs her to stop it.

But Julia isn’t listening to him.

There’s so many things happening at once. Julia is tugging her scythe out, the cut growing deeper and longer. Clarisse is no longer calm and screams for Michael to do something as she holds fast to the other scythe in a losing battle of tug of war. Nico is still cupping his broken nose. And Michael is shooting his crossbow at Julia’s face and something behind Travis — Alice probably.

None of them see the shadow falling down from behind Michael.

He rises from the floor, one scrawny limb at a time. All uncoordinated too. Curly hair around his elvish face, the same oil-covered overalls.*****The Leo Valdez of this world looks like the same Leo of his world.

Except for the cut on his throat.

And the burning and consuming fury in what are normally warm and loving brown eyes.

Leo stands on his two legs, fireballs appearing in his hands, strong enough that even the rain can't dampen.

“Leo…” Travis warns faintly but nobody hears him and he tries again, raising his voice as Leo runs towards them and tosses the first fireball. “Leo!”

Michael reacts first, face twisting in pain and grief and heartbroken rage that Travis doesn’t understand.

WIthout looking, without a second's hesitation, Michael hoists his crossbow over his shoulder and fires his arrows. It somehow hits the fireball straight on and the ball of flame dissipates. Well. That’s Michael for you. It’s a wonder why Michael hasn’t used any of that incredible archery skill of his to kill him.

Leo isn’t deterred, tossing the second fireball at them as fire fills his free hand once again. Michael isn’t deterred either, spinning around and firing an arrow at the fireball to dissipate it. Michael fires another arrow at Leo. But the son of Hephaestus just takes the hit, doesn’t stop running for them, just digs it out of his eyeball with a sickening squelch.

And he guesses that’s Leo for you.

Michael is cursing, his well-aimed shots never missing their target, but the shaking in his hand, the way he’s breathing quicker and quicker, Michael is worried.

Leo tosses something small and round at them that Michael shoots down, the arrow bouncing into the ball-thing with a metallic clang. It explodes and unleashes a smoke of brown and black dust that settles on top of them, blanketing their entire world. Michael curses some more and presses closer to them, practically standing over them as his head whips back and forth uselessly in the limited visibility. Travis can’t even see Clarisse literally right in front of him.

Michael waves the air with his crossbow to clear the dust faster, his finger on the trigger and shooting at the slightest flicker of a shadow.

The dust settles and dissipates eventually. And Leo is a foot away. His arm extending forwards, palm brightening, the wisps of flames beginning to form. He had seen this once. When Leo was showing off his powers to them whenever the guy takes a break from building the Argo 2 back when Percy was MIA. The small concentrated wisps that’ll turn into a column of fire, straight and pointed in a line rather than fanning all around and consuming it’s surroundings.

“Pretty neat, huh? Now I don’t have to worry about hurting others,” Leo had said, so proud and relieved, as he made small flames dance in his palm.

That fire in Leo’s palm, is the exact same thing he showed them all that time ago. Except it’s inches from Nico’s face and ah. Michael notices Leo too, but his crossbow is positioned on the other side. He’s closer though. Just a couple centimeters from Nico.

There’s no time to think.

Travis grabs Nico by the back of the shirt and pulls him down as the column of fire erupts from Leo’s hand. This close, the heat is searing and enough for his skin to crack. But Nico’s face is intact. He’s alive and nobody is hurt so all’s well that ends well.

Leo’s eyes fall on him, like he’s just noticing him for the first time. Makes sense Leo is just now seeing him. He’s crouching beside Julia and hidden behind the others and he’s kinda curling himself into a small ball to minimize the pain and movement. And it wasn’t like there’s a more immediate danger to focus on, like Michael trying to gun him down.

Immediately the flames shut off. And in Leo’s eyes are a wave of tremendous guilt and sorrow.

“J-Jason. I-I didn’t see you there. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Michael hits him with the crossbow and sends him flying. Leo gets back up, eyes still locked on him, as he chokes out, “Ja—son. Jason. Oh my god. I’m sorry. Are you okay? I didn’t—”

“I’m not Jason,” Travis says, and wow that’s a first. Usually it’s ‘I’m not Connor’. Well, it has always been ‘I’m not Connor.’ He and Jason could not be any more different.

But Leo doesn’t hear it. Not when branches are slithering into the room and wrapping around Leo — crushing him into a pulp. That means Katie is here and Katie is strong enough to handle Leo and Julia. And then maybe no one else has to—

Or … maybe not.

A wisp of black smoke from the ball of branches is his hint before it burns completely away. Leo emerges perfectly fine and still ready to turn Nico di Angelo into Nico burnt Angelo. (His mind is on the verge of shutting down. Give him a break. He doesn’t have the mental power to make up cool names.)

Leo leaps at Nico again. A branch whips into Leo’s stomach and sends him flying into a wall that crumbles. Travis knows from personal experience just how much that knocks the breath out of you, but Leo stands back up without taking a breather. He even catches the arrow that Michael shoots at him.

Katie runs in front of them, looking perfectly fine if just a little bit winded, with Bianca on her back, who’s not looking so hot. She’s deathly pale actually. And … kind of see-through, like she’s a ghost, like she’s about to fade away. Oh. He remembers now. Nico also looked like that after using his shadow-travel ability too much.

Was it because of him? Was it because Bianca was trying to buy him time that she’s like this?

And what does he have to show for it? Nothing. He wasted Bianca’s time and efforts.

Maybe it would have been better if he just stayed and tried to fight beside her.

Or maybe if he was a better planner, maybe if he hadn’t just do with no planning, maybe if he was just a bit smarter like Connor, he would be more useful.

“Fuck,” Katie curses, eyes-wide as she tries again to turn Leo into crushed tomatoes with her branches, all but tossing Bianca’s limp body at Nico.

But Leo lights himself on fire — all over, bright enough it hurts to look out, hot enough to feel even 15 feet away — and burns it all away. The air becomes uncomfortable, becomes sweltering. And Travis sees steam in the air. A swirling mass of heat that grows and grows and grows. He chokes under the near unbearable heat.

The light fades. The fire fades. Leo is Leo again, the demigod rather than a supernova.

“Last warning,” Leo says, all calm fury and crashing waves, ashes and chars dancing in the air as they fall and settle, “Get out of the way or I’ll pulverize all of you.”

Katie lunges forward and crushes Leo into another tight ball of twisting branches. Fire bursts through the branches and they all burn into black ashes, murder back on Leo’s face.

“Go!” Katie yells, tries to summon more branches but Leo just burns them all away.

They’re not a good match, Travis realizes, Katie’s not going to win this.

Katie looks over her shoulder to look at them finally and her eyes fall on him, like she completely misses seeing him the first time. She reaches for her pruners on her belt, but before she can stab him with it, Julia wraps a hand around his wrist and takes him outside.

The rain pelts him. The air no longer stifles him. It’s cold outside. Refreshing even. Clarisse is with him, arm still in the scythe. Her pale face stares back at him in horror as they both look where the others are.

A whole football field away, he sees them, dancing around arcs of fire.

39 CLARISSE

She has no right. Not when she was trying to kill him earlier. And her pride — no matter how shattered and broken it is — begs her not to. But Leo Valdez is a dangerous demigod, a powerful one. She can’t let her pride be the reason they all die. Not when they’re the only ones she has left in this world. Camp Half Blood, gone. Her siblings, dead. Chris, dead. She doesn’t have anything else.

“Please save them. Don’t let anymore die,” she pleads.

He should refuse. He should be angry. He should leave her, leave them to die.

And she hates how she knows he won’t because Travis always fights for them.

So Travis gapping at her like she has four heads doesn’t come as a surprise.

“You don’t have to ask. Of course I’ll help. What are you? An idiot?!”

Julia clicks her tongue, glaring at her with derision. “Some nerve you have there. Asking him for help when you’re trying to kill him.”

And to make her point stick, Julia digs the scythe further in and cuts a few inches deeper.

The pain is near intolerable.

But Travis screeching at Julia hurts moreso.

“What are you doing!?”

Travis squabbles with Julia over the scythe without much progress. He’s too hurt to be any real threat against Julia. And his attempts to pull the scythe from Julia’s iron grip is like a baby smacking a bodybuilder.

But the sentiment is there. Travis is trying to protect her.

It’s enough to make her cry.

I’m sorry. I wished things were different. I don’t want to do this.

But the gods are watching them.

A wrong move and they might not hold to their promise.

So Clarisse bites her tongue and holds her thoughts in as Travis struggles futilely.

“We can’t leave them there! And stop tugging! You’re going to tear the whole arm off!”

“Well, I don’t particularly care for them so I don’t mind whatever happens. I actually think it’s deserved.”

“Then take me in. I’ll do something.”

“No way. You’ll die.”

“I can’t just do nothing. Julia, please. And stop tugging! You’re really going to kill her!”

“Yes, you can. Look. You’re doing it right now.”

Clarisse listens half-heartedly and tries her best to blur the pain out from every jolt and pull of the scythe. The other girl, Alice, arrives with her trident slung over her shoulder. That girl doesn’t even spare a glance at her, not even a look of disinterest, as she crouches beside Travis’s side.

She’s losing her arm for sure. There’s no way this is recoverable. An 8 inches long cut against the inside of her forearm? With their lack of ambrosia or nectar or any kind of medical supply? If she doesn’t lose the arm, no way she’ll maintain the same motor function. Clarisse is surprised she hasn’t bleed out yet.

No… She’s more surprised Travis hasn’t bleed out yet.

Clarisse looks at the exact replica of their comrade desperately yanking and jerking Julia’s unmoving grip.

What had he said earlier?

We’re good at pushing our body to the absolute limits.

Yeah.

That sounds right, Clarisse thinks as she leans her head back and lets the raindrops fall on her face. Travis always pushes himself to the brim for them.

She hates it.

She hates how much they rely on him.

From above, she can see the twin sisters of destruction arrive — bouncing and falling floors and floors without fear of breaking a bone. They land next to her with their sledgehammers in their hands and with them, she sees Travis. Their Travis.

“Julia,” Travis snaps, voice sharp and Julia obeys without another word, scowling as she slides her scythe cleanly out and stepping back to stand beside Alice.

“They started it,” Julia begins with a pout, but Travis’s eyes aren’t on her or them. They’re looking elsewhere. Wide irises flickering electric blue, gold, and pale blue.

“Is that L—Leo?” Travis asks but it’s Jason looking at her. It’s Jason with a crackle of lightning on his fingertips. It’s Jason’s terror on Travis’s face. It’s Jason’s grief and pain and regret she sees first then Travis’s horror and panic and determination.

“Yeah,” she croaks as she falls onto her back. It’s so cold. And she’s so tired. Tired and sick of this all.

She knows she doesn’t have to ask. She knows she shouldn’t. It’s their problem. They caused this and they should be the one fixing it. But they’ll all she has left. Pride won’t resolve her loneliness and grief if any of them die.

“Nico and Bianca. They’re still there with him. Katie too. Michael as well. Please save them.”

Travis’s face whitens and he’s clutching his neck again, eyes flicking between electric and ocean blue. She can see the fear clear as day on that face. But Jason has always been the strongest of them all.

It’s Travis who says, “Yeah. Of course. You don’t have to ask.”

And it’s Jason who says, “I’ll stop Leo. I won’t let anyone die.”

40 LEO

Jason is scared of him.

Jason is terrified of him.

No matter how much he tries to hide it, Leo can see it. In the way Jason angles his body so they don’t touch. In the way Jason flinches when Leo raises his voice a bit too loudly. In the way Jason freezes when his hands give off just the slightest whiff of a smoke.

Then that time he exited the bathroom and got spooked by Travis-Jason appearing out of nowhere. His hands shoot out a small fire in surprise.

That sent Jason into a total mental shutdown.

Jason completely fell apart at that small, small wisp of a flame.

Jason is petrified of him.

Because he burned Jason alive.

The Leo Valdez of that world killed Jason.

It’s not even himself that did it, but his world still spins. He hears Jason screaming in that memory, can hear flesh crackling and boiling, can hear the utter pain and agony in Jason’s voice as it crescendos and crescendos before cutting off completely into horrifying silence and still. Still — despite all that — even terror-stricken, Jason still smiles at him and still grabs his hands and hugs him after a second hesitation. Jason tells him it’s alright. It was an ‘accident.’ things just ‘got out of hand.’ emotions were ‘high and rampant.’ It’s not your fault, Jason tells him.

Jason worries about him and Piper.

Jason tries to hide the truth from them, to spare them the pain of knowing.

Jason is still the same kind and incredible person.

It’s so unfair, how life treats the best people. How it shoves them through the ringer and grinds them down the bone and throws every obstacle in their way.

If Leo could, he’ll create a machine that’ll veer all the bad luck from the goodest of people and funnel all that energy into Gaea’s particles or something.

But luck isn’t something physical you can just steer around.

And fear isn’t something that can be controlled.

Dead-Julia takes the super-handy, super-cool phone (that Leo will definitely dissect into a million parts once this is all over) from dead-Holly and dead-Laurel’s waiting hands and steps into the shadows.

Behind him Nico hisses to no one in particular, “What the fuck? So you guys can shadow-travel. Why couldn’t any of you do it when I spent almost all my time last summer teaching you guys?”

When Julia exits, they’re inside somewhere with a roof, somewhere safe from the rain. Leo can’t get much of the setting before his entire view is blinding bright with the flames of a fire blast.

At the sight of it, Travis-Jason all but collapses onto his knees, clutching at the dining bench to keep himself upright. Jason is gone. There’s only Travis in there. Travis and the Titan. New memories are popping up around them. Of a younger Piper yelling at a younger Jason to not move, not till she’s done speaking as she grabs the shambling corpse of Tristan McLean, arms and mouth duct-taped, from waddling away. Of Jason trying to explain himself, something about Bianca, something about Travis, something about how ‘I can’t let you kill them’. Of a younger version of himself, Leo Valdez, siding with Piper and agreeing with her.

They fight. They yell. Louder and louder. Neither her nor him nor Jason backing down, neither one seeing each other's side. They fight until Piper is screaming in frustration and Leo’s hands are on fire and Jason is scowling.

The memories cut off with Travis slamming his head into the stone bench. Once. Twice. Another time — ouch. But it seems to knock the titan down a peg because the memories stop, flickering to a slow stop before disappearing all together. Thank gods.

And Leo can finally see what’s happening and he pales at the sight.

He has his hands around Katie Gardner’s throat. His hands are on fire. He’s burning her. He’s killing her. He’s burning her alive like he did to Jason like his mom. Michael is yelling at him on one side, stabbing his arrows into his arms and eye and face. Bianca is on the other side, screaming for him to let go as she tries to pry fingers off of Katie’s neck even at the risk of herself getting burned too. And Nico is there too, stabbing in the back with his Stygian blade and pleading with him to stop.

Even with all that, he doesn’t let go of Katie.

The rage. The anger. The fury in those eyes. It’s terrifying. That’s not him. It can’t be him.

And in the middle of it all, Katie is — Katie is alive still, her hands in between her neck and other-Leo’s hands. It’s probably how she’s still alive. She’s kicking at Leo and struggling to get free, but she’s alive somehow and it’s enough. That’s all he needs.

“Hey!” he yells at himself, “Stop that!”

The head tilts back to stare at him, brown eyes — cold and heartless — meeting his own. But it’s only when those eyes fall on Jason-Travis, that the fire goes out and he lets Katie go. Katie falls to her knees, coughing and gasping, her hands and some parts of her neck sizzling with bubbling flesh.

The memories are back.

Of a raging fire, of Jason in the middle of it, of Jason screaming and screaming and screaming, of Jason’s corpse twitching back alive as whirlwinds circles him, of a tornado ripping through the streets of Nevado, of Camp Jupiter in flames as thunder strikes the ground, of hurricanes battering New York, of Jason a blackened and shriveled corpse in the center of the storm, clawing at his chest and mouth open in a silent scream. Above Jason’s head, in the swirling wind, are pieces of skyscrapers and rubbles and cars and boats.

And on the outskirts of the eye of the storm, there’s a girl with a long bamboo sword in one hand, the other hand clinging to a metal pole. She’s younger than Leo remembers. Her hair cut shorter, her body thin and almost skeletal from hunger. But the beautiful green eyes are unmistakable.

“I know you’re in there!” Miranda Gardiner screams over the torrenting winds, behind her Leo sees little pinpricks of people hopping from floating building to floating building and dodging the rubbles, “Please! For my friends, please, control your powers for a bit! Just long enough for them to escape!”

The scene jumps forward, the wind not as strong, no debris twirling above their head, Miranda closer to Jason, two arms length away, a look of torment on Miranda’s face.

“I promise you. I’ll find a way to let you find peace. I’ll find a way to end your suffering,” Miranda says before slamming her wooden sword into the back of Jason’s head and the storm dies down completely.

The scene jumps forward again. The winds are back again and stronger than ever. Jason is in the center of the storm in a silent scream and Travis, on the outskirts. Leo watches a truck slam into Travis with enough force that Travis should have been a blood splat on the ground. But Travis just stands back up and continues stumbling unevenly towards Jason.

It must be a struggle to even stand upright in winds that speed, but Leo is willing to bet the uneven gait is from the gaping wound on Travis’s neck — uncovered for them all to see. Even still, Travis pounces from building to building, inching his way closer and closer to Jason.

Leo thought maybe Travis was going to talk it out, like how Miranda did, but all the son of Hermes did was unsheathed a butcher knife and lope Jason’s head clean off.

The head plops on the ground. The wind dies down. The world is quiet. And quiet only for a moment before lightning strikes Travis and the son of Hermes is on his knees, eyes a vibrant blue, a hand clawing at his throat, mouth open in a silent scream, agonized and desperate hiccups for air as lightning strikes down all over them. Over and over and over. Blinding flashes of white that encapsulates everything.

Even with the loud rumbling and crackling of the thunder, Travis’s voice is clear above it. A gentle whisper. A quiet affirmation.

“It’s gone,” Travis chokes out, eyes the palest blue for a moment as he stares into the puddle of water. “The pain, the fire, it’s not there anymore. It’s going to be alright.”

But the lightning and thunder continues to rain down. And it’s not Travis on the forefront but Jason, gasping too loudly, too quickly, clutching his chest as his head bows.

It’s the fear in those familiar and not so familiar electric blue eyes.

It’s the agonizing, hitching gasps for air.

It’s the desperate clawing at the dirt, at the gravel, at his neck, at his shirt, at anything to ground himself.

Jason is having a panic attack.

He’s not okay, Leo thinks as the storm rises and rises and rises.

The memories snap away, leaving them in the present again.

The other-world’s Leo is shaking his head, eyes watery as his hands raise and fall like he has no idea what to do with them. He stumbles towards them though, towards Travis-Jason on their knees and shaking, trembling with hands over the ears.

“No. I — I didn’t mean — I never wanted — I’m sorry, Ja-Jason. I—I—you’re my friend. I never wanted to hurt you. Please believe me. Jason, Travis, I-I only ever wanted—I wanted… I… ”

Names. He had said their names. Annabeth had told them that them saying a name means they’re fully there. But doesn’t it hurt? Hadn’t Travis-Jason said it was unbearable?

“I know,” Travis says, low and quiet, raising his head just enough and wiping the tears away from his cheeks. But he doesn’t look at him, at any of them. “I know, Leo. I know.”

Bianca comes out of nowhere and slams a shovel into the back of other-Leo’s head. It’s weird to watch himself topple from this third person point of view. Like that’s his body and his face and those noises he’s making definitely are his.

Leo watches Bianca raise her shovel and brings it down on his neck with enough force to sever his head completely. As he watches her kick his head away, he wonders if Nico has that same strength.

“Finally,” Bianca pants, leaning way too much on that shovel.

“Finally!” Bianca says with way too much enthusiasm, way too much rage as she slams her shovel on both of his decapitated body’s wrist and kicks those free appendages off the building too.

As Bianca works on slinging his body in the middle of the room with some rope, dead-Julia goes to Katie on Travis-Jason’s request. If it was Leo though, he wouldn’t want to go any closer. Not because this Katie is so much scarier then their Katie, but because of the now bubbling burn marks on her throat and her hands. He’s not even there, but he swears he can smell that burning flesh. Does the phone have some olfactory setting that’s transmitting the scent too? Maybe he really is smelling it.

“Are you okay?” Travis-Jason asks of all things. “Are all of you okay?”

Is she okay? Of course they’re not okay! A burn on a hand is apparently very painful according to everybody who complained. A burn on the throat must be freaking unbearable.

But Katie just clenches her hands and grunts out hoarsely as she gets to her feet with Nico and Bianca’s help, “Yeah. I’m good.”

And that’s just…

That’s just insane.

They’re all insane.

And even more insane is Katie swallowing and looking away. “Just because you saved us doesn’t mean we owe you. I'm not going to spare your other self.”

What is she talking about?!? That’s exactly what it means!

But even more insane is how Travis-Jason just nods like they agree.

“Yeah, I know,” they say rather than fuck you. Leo is positive he can hear the loose bolts and nuts rattling around in there. “You should get back to Clarisse. She was bleeding out last I saw her.”

“Nah. She’s going to be fine. Don’t worry about her.”

That’s Travis’s voice. That’s definitely his voice.

But it’s too lax, too cheerful, too out of place, that Leo knows it’s not Travis who said it.

“So, this is how everybody looks when alive,” that cheerful voice says, “Gotta say it's weird. Oh hey is that me?”

Leo doesn’t particularly want to look. He saw enough in that memory when Percy hacked and sliced Connor to pieces with Riptide. But morbid curiosity gets the better of him and he looks.

It’s as awful as he imagined.

Connor Stoll stands before them with a cocky grin, bloody stitches criss crossing over every inch of exposed skin. It’s shoddy work but it keeps Connor together somehow. Enough for Connor to be able to hold a snarling and kicking Clarisse with ease in one hand. Granted, Clarisse is severely injured. Her arm is still gushing blood. But the kicks she’s giving, it should be enough to snap legs.

“Where’s Travis?” Annabeth snaps, always on top of it, but even she is shaken as her eyes trail up and down Connor’s cut up body.

But Connor ignores her. Connor ignores all of them, eyes only on Jason-Travis who’s frozen still, eyes flickering back and forth between Jason’s vibrancy and Travis’s paler hues. Like they’re fighting for control. Like they’re passing the baton. Like they don’t want to handle this.

“Hey,” Connor says with a toothy grin, striding up to them and dragging Clarisse behind him like a ragdoll, “You wanna play a game?”

Travis thinks this couldn’t get any worse but the world just likes proving him wrong in every way. Not even a minute after Julia left, he’s being pulled back by the shirt by Alice. Not too gently either. His injuries scream their uproar. But he can’t be too mad at his dead-half-sister. Not when she’s the reason why he’s not beheaded by the polearm that comes out from nowhere.

And he can’t be too bad when Alice uses his shirt to lift him and throw him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes as she leaps away to avoid the polearm swerving mid air to come towards them.

It hurts. It hurts like a bitch actually.

But the pain becomes inconsequential when he hears his brother’s voice.

“Dang it. That’s literally as perfect as perfect goes. It would have been so painless. My cleanest one yet. Why did you have to interfere?”

He doesn’t get a chance to look. Alice is already pouncing away, still carrying him like a potato. Every bounce of her step sends a deep sharp pain to his side. Even with that, he still wants to look. He still twists as much as he can to catch a glimpse of Connor. But Alice already has both of them out of view.

“You’re leaving already? When I finally found you? Come back. Come back. You can’t just —”

Connor’s voice fades as Alice hops over floors and scales floors like she’s part mountain goat. Travis wants to say how impressive that is but he can’t think of anything else. Not when Connor’s voice sounds so cut up and unnatural.

“Whew, that—” Alice lands on an exposed broken slab of concrete tethering on the edge. “Was super close.”

Travis blinks the rain out of his eyes. “Go back.”

“What?”

“Go back.”

“No can do.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I can't beat him in a fight,” Alice says. “You get it, right? Last time I tried, he sliced me in half pretty quickly. Hey, hey, Is he still the best fighter in your cabin? You always mention how much better your brother is compared to you.”

Travis bumbles for an excuse. “We left Clarisse behind.”

“Not my problem,” Alice chirps way too happily.

(aannndddd this is all I have right now. Chapter 41 still needs to be written)

#pjo #my fic #my writing #kronos au #and that's all I have for this fic right now #the rest is in my head and in vague bulletpoints on the bottom of my google doc #a timeline when it will be completed? I have no idea #but what I do know is that hitchcock by yorushika is my new favorite song #thank you for reading!#if you're following me for this wip and this wip alone #now is the time to unfolllow lol because I am the slowest writer when not inspired

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