Chapter Twenty-Two

*UNEDITEDSurrender to what is.Let go of what was.Have faith in what will be.

-Sonia Riocotti

Percy's POV

The only way I can describe the ride back is as devoid. People cracked jokes about Luke's singing and attempted conversations; Annabeth taught the little boy, whose name I later learned was Axel, a few English words and common phrases.

Still, the earth's anger infiltrated all of our thoughts with the exception of Axel. After our detour to a local McDonald's, there was absolutely no plan.

Zilch. Nada. Zip. Null.

Zero plan whatsoever.

And the only thing our small group of eight could do about it was wait. Wait for what exactly I had no clue.

"Where did you guys even get this car?" Annabeth asked after a moment of silence. Jason immediately turned to his wife and daughter.

"You know what?" Jason said. "I'd like to know the answer to that question too, Piper."

She picked away at her nails like she was just recalling a boring story. "When you left to do whatever you did, we ran into a very... lovely man. Yeah, he was just making fun of those poor homeless people— that angel."

"So," Lacy continued, "while he was distracted, I hotwired his car, as you do, and here we are!"

"Lacy! We don't steal cars!" Jason scolded as Luke's face brightened from laughing so hard.

"She used her manners."

"Yeah, I used my manners!"

"Yes," Jason started with sarcasm laced through his voice. At that point, Luke and Annabeth were having trouble breathing due to the amount of humor they found in the situation; Axel repeatedly tugged on her shirt to make sure she was still alive. "Because using your manners makes stealing a car o— holy Zeus's underpants."

In every direction you looked: monsters of every kind. Their bodies crowded so closely together it formed a barricade surrounding camp.

Grabbing her dagger, Annabeth shouted for Parker and Lacy to take the little boy to a safe location. Surprisingly, they obeyed her command and took him the opposite way of Camp Half-Blood.

Once again, our lack of a plan barely slowed us in jumping into battle, no time to do anything else. We engaged in taking down our own enemies one-by-one.

"Just like old times!" Piper shouted as the empousai she faced exploded into a shower of golden dust.

"Let's hope Leo doesn't die again!" Annabeth replied slicing through an Earthborn.

Luke yelped, only not in pain, but in surprise of Annabeth's comment. "Leo? Die? Again?!"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Luke, you died. Remember? Chaos and I already gave you a second chance, right now I'm hoping you don't die."

Our odd excuse of a conversation came to an end. Slowly, as we defeated more of Gaea's army, the herd of monsters thinned to where only Annabeth and I were relatively close.

Despite not seeing them, I knew just as well as Annabeth that other demigods were fighting. In all my years of war, the three connected to Camp Half-Blood made the biggest impact. People died in all wars, but death's effects worsen when you knew the people.

Today I fought, tomorrow I was done competing gods' chores. Every universe had gods, some respectable and others not, but it seemed that to become a god, you must share the common factor of wanting others to fight your battles. Even if that meant them losing their lives.

The explosion followed by something I can only describe as a Leo Cheer, broke my concentration. Thankfully, I refocused quickly enough to take down my confused opponent.

I let my air out in ragged breaths as I cut through the remaining enemy troops. As I stabbed the last one, I realized some of those ragged breaths belonged to someone else.

Annabeth was in my line of vision as I turned. She was looking down at one of Gaea's remaining monsters. I looked between her offensive stance and the dead soldier who had a wound in between his shoulder blades.

Finally, I figured it out. Not only did Annabeth kill the last member of the army, but she stopped him from killing me in the process.

"You-" I started.

"-saved your ass?" Annabeth finished with a large smile. "Yes. Yes I did." She took a small step toward me and stopped. Her smile faded.

I frowned. "Annabeth? You okay?"

"Damn fatal flaw. Why'd it have to be hubris? I didn't think it would actually-" her legs gave out from under her. Before she could hit the ground, I caught her and let her down gently. I kept her head elevated with my hands.

"Annabeth?" I said as she winced. "What's going on? Are you hurt?"

Her eyes shut tightly as she touched her stomach. She opened her eyes and flipped her hand over to show me the blood.

"Shit!" I whisper-shouted, ripping part of my cloak off to use to apply pressure. "Where the hell is your armor? We have a war on our hands, Annabeth!"

She was getting paler by the second. "Someone made a comment about me needing my armor to stay alive. It went to my head and here we are now."

I saw Parker out of the corner of my eye and instantly turned to him. "Go get Will or any Apollo camper now!" I turned back to Annabeth in time to see a small tear. "Hey, you're going you be okay, you hear me? You're going to be okay."

"Your fatal flaw is showing." She teased, cracking a small smile.

"What?"

Annabeth smirked despite the pain I could tell she was in. "Personal loyalty, isn't that something. Didn't think it'd still apply to me."

"I don't-" She cut me off by taking my hand that wasn't being used to address her wound and used it to pulled down the hood.

Thinking it wouldn't work, I allowed it to happen. However, magical cloaks weren't that smart. Annabeth pulled down my hood with no problems.

And no surprise.

"How did you know?"

Annabeth gave me a are you fucking me with right now? look. "I'm a daughter of Athena. Of course I figured it out."

"When? How?"

"Remember the first day you got here as Omega? I was so pissed off after a full week of looking for you, then here you fucking come. So similar yet so different, I— why are you spinning?"

"Focus on me. Just focus on me and what you're saying." I said giving her a playful glare. "I'm the dumb one, remember? You can't take my job and get away with it."

"Don't make me laugh dipshit, it hurts!" Annabeth replied, trying not to laugh. "This is the last time I take a blade for you."

"Yeah, I'm over that too. Now continue with what you were saying."

"In the back of my mind, I always knew it was you. My suspicions grew with every soldier that revealed themselves. You trying to jump in with Parker to fight Kronos, despite being hurt, made me almost positive it was you."

"Why didn't you tell me about him? I would've come back even with Zeus wanting me dead."

She rolled her eyes. "I didn't know at that point. Why did you leave in the first place?"

"Over here, Will!" I heard Parker yell from a distance.

"Tell you later," I said as Will and a few other approached. "For now, worry about getting better."

"On my count!" Will yelled from behind.

I grabbed Parker's shoulder. "Where's the boy?"

"Sally's." Parker said, not taking into account of my lack of hidden identity.

"Blofis?" He nodded.

"Great I needed to visit there anyway. C'mon."

***

A/N: heeeyyy sorry for the late update. If you follow me, you can receive new information on if I'll publish a chapter early or later. *wink wink*

*UNEDITED*

Word Count: 1320 words