War Triangle (Chapter 39)

Quote: "If you think you have forgotten something, then you certainly already have."

Both of us stared in awe as we achknowledged each other's existence right in front of our own eyes. Like we both couldn't believe what had just happened, and was still processing the events that had just taken place. The atromincal chances of this happening was probably really close to zero, and it actually happened.

"WHOA, WHOA WHOA!" I exclaimed, swiftly bringing my finger above my watch that would transform into Razer, the scythe. My finger lay right above the button to release it, and I waited for the first sign of action from Pontus.

Surprisingly, he seemingly grumbled. Something about "not now" and I noticed he looked a bit out of shape since we last met. When I saw him back at the cavern, he was a bit younger, he had that godly youth kind of thing like Zeus where they appeared like forty or fifty, but you could tell they were thousands of years old at first glance, but Pontus's hair was gray and his skin was all wrinkly and gross like an old man.

"I suppose you are trying to destroy me?" He said bitterly, but he wasn't directing it to me when he said it. He was looking at the horizon behind me, watching the waves in the backround as I held onto my watch.

"Maybe. Maybe not." I replied without hesitation. Perhaps this was a trick to catch me offguard or something, and at any moment, he would strike me down.

I wouldn't let that happen.

"Hmph. Don't bother anymore, child." Pontus said, wrapping his arms under his shoulders like he was trying to comfort himself in a way. 

At this point, I was suspicious. From what I knew, he should be ripping my teeth out one by one, but here he was, looking like a failed circus performer. I'd have to keep an eye on him in case of any weird moves.

"And why is that?" I questioned, not taking my eyes off of him for a single second.

He stopped looking out over the sea and turned his gaze to me, and the way he eyed me was like a child playing in a sandbox. Like he knew something that I clearly didn't. I would need to dig deeper into this mess to figure out what was going on around here.

"Sheath your weapon, I have no intention of harming you. Not anymore." Pontus grumbled like he had lost a game of poker, but I didn't trust him at all. I kept my hand on my watch just in case, and Pontus sighed.

"Fine. Suit yourself." He shook his head.

"What are you trying to accomplish, Pontus?" I demanded, standing over him. For some odd reason, he had sat down and perched himself on the dry sand, facing the seawater that was forming small currents in the distance.

"Nothing. This "game" that you are disilusioned into thinking that I am partaking in is a fantasy. Yes, it is true that I have been against you in the past, but that was a meager attempt. I have no wish to rule Olympus or the Pantheon as of now." Pontus said, and his eyes locked back into the shallow waters. His eyes were a dull blue, like he was almost dead inside. Normally I'd be joking when I say somethng like that, but I swear that he had the eyes of what I imagined a child of Poseidon and Hades would have together.

Wait...nevermind, ignore that.

"Hold on now. You are telling me that you originally wanted to kill us all, but you just...lost interest?" I said outrageously.

"You may perceive what I said however you like, but it is not interest that I have lost. It is my will, and my soul." He spoke softly, and his tone became deeper. It became more apparent that he was an elder primordial, and not some washed up deity.

"Then...what about those letters you sent us? You delcared war on us! How can you possibly say that you have no interest in ruling the entire world?" I exclaimed. 

Something wasn't adding up. Pontus's story doesn't fit his character. Either he was playing me like a complete fool, or he was hiding something crucial to me.

"Letters? You mean those notes left at Olympus's council room?" He spoke stiffly, and I nodded. He said it with a very irritated look on his face.

"Those aren't mine, boy." He snorted like a pig as he gave a small chuckle, but it wasn't meniacal or anything. It was almost eerie the way he was acting, because the second he said that, I should have freaked out and been taken aback, but rather, I had expected this.

Something about the way he was acting here told me that maybe the war declarations weren't telling the whole truth. I didn't know for sure, but Pontus just confirmed it to me, after all.

"I...see. Then who sent them?" I asked, because Chiron had told me earlier that not many beings could directly send messages to the gods. It couldn't be any old Joe Schmidtt walking down the hallway dropping a piece of paper.

"Why would I disclose that to you?" Pontus hinted. Again, his tone and expression were bizzarre. He wasn't acting aggressive or taking action, as he was rather passive and looking for an actual reason to tell me this information.

"Because I asked you to." I shrugged.

The old sea god turned back to me and slowly stared at me like a rock. After a moment, he took a deep breath and sighed into the morning air, rocking back and forth like he was passing the time leisurely.

"It seems Poseidon's spawns are the same as always. If you truly must know, it was that Jack, or Jake lad. Your brother." He responded softly, and I raised an eye at him.

"Jack? Wh...that doesn't make sense. He's loose a few screws, but he wouldn't endanger everyone at camp for a sick joke..." I thought to myself aloud, and the more I thought about it, I became indecisive. Jack was a bad dude to begin with, but was he...evil?

Did he actually bring terror and anguish to everybody back at camp for a prank or something?

"That child...is no good. Long after I gave up on my original plans, the cursed boy decided to take matters into his own hands. His plan was to ensure the chaos of war upon your demigod tribe, to cause panic and desperation to ensue. He wanted your people to be afraid, to be in need of a savior, a hero. The whole letter nonsense is an illusion, a lie. Your brother wanted to rouse your camp, to get them vulnerable. Once he succeeded, he would leave alone on a quest to "defeat" me. What utter blasphemy as well...anyways, once he left on this so-called "quest" he would just venture meaninglessly for weeks and return, exclaiming that he had fought armies and the strongest of monsters. Your camp was in no danger from the very beginning. So when your brother would return, and no monsters would be sighted, your friends would have to assume he was truthful. A vain attempt at glory, might I say." Pontus explained, and I followed along attentively, listening to every word of his explanation about Jack.

When Pontus first spoke, I didn't believe him. However, the more he spoke about this whole process, the more I could picture Jack accomplishing this little fiasco. I didn't want to believe him, but knowing Jack, this was a little hard to deny.

"Alright. May I ask how you aware of this process?" I said. I couldn't picture Jack straight up telling Pontus about his failed plan, but it did raise a couple of red flags for me.

"I may be old, but I am still a being of pure power. You cannot hide from the seas, Perseus." He said seriously.

I felt...disappointed. I should feel betrayed, outraged, denying the fact that my brother was the cause of all of this mess. This wasn't right. Jack's had it easy all this time, taking advantage of people and doing as he pleases, but this was too far. I expected him to do some stupid things here and there, but to purposely endanger all of camp to try and claim a little glory? 

He would pay for that.

"That may be true. Is it true that you have been gathering an army lately? Some demigods have said that they've seen your minions around, lurking." I said. At this point, I didn't doubt him, but I just needed this cleared up for me.

"Minions? They all faded hundreds of years ago. That Athena girl told you, correct? I cannot confirm this, but I assume she was in on this plot as well? Perhaps she created false evidence to divert suspicion." Pontus shrugged his shoulders and threw a rock into the distance, watching it splash into the water casually.

"Annabeth..." My toungue clicked, and for a moment, I was stunned. Jack, I could see this happening, but Annabeth? The girl who cared so much about camp was about to jeopardize our way of life just to help her power-hungry boyfriend?

This is going to be a problem.

All of this was news to me. I was right, as I really didn't have the full picture infront of me. I'd have time to think about all this later, but I needed to capitalize my time with Pontus wisely, because I didn't know how long I had left with him. Now all I had to wonder about was why Pontus had given up on his conquest. Typically, "giving up" isn't very godly or a Greek thing in general.

"Pontus...why did you give up?" I spoke in a voice that meant I wasn't playing around, and that I expected an actual coherant answer from him.

"That's quite simple. I don't have enough power to do it." Pontus said normally, and just waved it off like it was nothing.

"What do you mean? The why did you consider doing it in the first place?" I questioned, and I noticed Pontus's muscles tense up like glass.

"Perseus...do you realize what is happening right now?" He said, and his body was stiff as a board. The way he was staring in the distance, and his sullen tone up until now was like how someone would talk if they knew they were about to die or something, but that couldn't be true...

"No...at least I don't think I know what you are referring to..." I implied slowly, carefully eyeing the sea god, because I began to think he had gone mad or something.

"There is a new world coming." He said vaguely, and I was a bit lost in his words, because he almost seemed scared or unnerved.

"Uh...excuse me?" I asked.

"Our world is coming to an end. Soon, our way of life will die and wither, and a new one will rise up and flourish in it's place. This auspicous new world will be full of new beings, new gods, new deities, and other beings of power. Perhaps it will be smaller, maybe it will be much grander, but I do not know for sure. What I am certain of...is that this new world will be full of people." 

"People...who are not us."

Pontus spoke drearily, like he was giving me a warning. It was extremely abrupt, and I had to wait a moment before I realized that he meant that the end of the world was coming. I had many, many questions boil inside me, but I had to find out more about this coming of a new era.

"What are you saying? Who is it? Why? Tell me, because this seems like something we all need to know." I urged him to speak more, and I was relieved that he appeared to stay, rather than leave without telling me more.

"Let me tell you what I know. For millenia, the Greek World has lived. It has been victorious, defeated, but it has survived longer than it should have. The gods, myself, to even the weakest of creatures such as satrys or such, we all thrive on power. We attain this power through believers, and prayers, however you like it."

"We used to receive hundreds of thousands of offerings every day, people gave us power. Not just me, but everything you have seen. The gods, the minor gods, their children, the monsters, the spirits, all of them.Think of it as a battery being charged. We are those batteries, and every day that goes by, the charger weakens. It weakens enough to the point where we may as well not need it anymore. Once that battery is gone, we fade. There used to be thousands of us, beings of power and reign. Now...only the Olympians and their children are left. The Olympians are the youngest of our kind, so it is only fitting that they are the last to perish. My mother, my father, my children, have all moved on, never to come back. "

"Each member of Greek Mythology plays a role, or played a role should I say. When they fade, they can no longer control it, so there may as well be no god or whomever it was. We are the building blocks of the entire Pantheon, the foundation of the structure. Do you know what happens when the foundation begins to corrode and dissipate?"

"It collapses..." I said, with my jaw open wide.

"Exactly. That is what is soon to happen. There are so few beings left that the Pantheon is struggling to exist. Imagine having your body cut, so that you must only live with a fraction of what you previously had. You would die...and so does our Pantheon in the same methodology. The Olympians and remaining pieces of mythos are not enough to support the entire Pantheon on it's own, and when they are the only ones left...they will simply fade as well."

"If you cut down enough support beams, the structure is sure to fall as well."

"Your friend Jason told you somthing similar, that there are other Pantheons, and that is true, but they live seperately from us. Bubbles. Each world is their own bubble, floating in the mass that is our shared universe. Every individual bubble contains the entire Pantheon of any culture, Egyptian, Chinese, Aztec, Native American, you name it, but they do not collide with one another. Once in a while, they will bump into one another, but will never combine or interject into each other."

"Each bubble has a lifespan, and the Greek bubble is on it's last few moments of life. It had had a long, fruitful run, but it must end, as will all other bubbles in the distant future. Once the bubble pops, we will be gone. Some other poor bubble will take our place, counting down the last few seconds of life before being eradicated from existence. I thought that by taking control of our world, I could stop the coming of a new age. That if I took the bearings on the Greek World rather than the Olympians, perhaps I could somehow avoid the doomsday event, but I was sorely mistaken."

"As I said, a new world will rise from the destruction of ours. However..."

"This world will have no place for us."