Blood-Brother (Chapter 41)

Quote: "All adventures are grand because they must come to an end."

As fast as I could, I warped back to camp. The flames erupted around me as I hurried the blessing's time, and in a few seconds, I was able to teleport all the way from the Mediterranean Sea coast, all the way to New York.

I had hoped my little trip to Europe would have lasted longer, maybe had a little more fun while I was there, but that would have been far too easy, wouldn't it have been?

But I no longer had the time or care.

Chaos was...I don't know what to say about it.

I couldn't believe how untimely and coincidental the world around me began to fall apart. First, Pontus showed up out of nowhere to wage war, only to give up months later but leave us in the dark the entire time, and it turns out Jack was the prophecy's traitor the entire time, with Chaos making a short return, but only to announce that the world was now coming to a conclusion.

In a nutshell, it means the world was flipped upside down like an egg in a frying pan.

The second I stepped foot back into camp, I had landed luckily right in the center of it all. Right near the lunch benches was where I ended up, which was better than landing somewhere else, because it was rather uncomfortable teleporting such a long distance.

I stumbled for a second, but quickly recovered.

"Perseus! Is that you?" A familiar centaur came galloping towards me in a strained fashion. His eyes were bare, like he was just as worried as I was.

"Chiron! Did you all get the message?" I said quickly, wanting to be certain that they knew what would soon happen.

"Yes, of course. The campers have rallied at the training arena, but not in anger. Perseus, they are afraid, and they have decided to gather in one area. All of them. " He told me, pointing in the direction of the small arena that I instantly knew the location of.

"I have to help them..." I said under my breath, and Chiron nodded quickly.

I started running as fast as I could, but Chiron put a hand on my shoulder to tell me something first.

"Perseus...whatever happens...do not worry about me or the gods. We have already lived many thousands of years, this is not something we are afraid of. Help your friends." He instructed me, giving me one last look in my eyes before he pat me on the pack and told me to go.

I didn't have time to answer, only nodded my head up and down swiftly before I started running to the arena, which was a Roman-style field with marble and wooden bleachers for people to sit on. Normally it would be used for duels and training, but now it was the place of a panicked crowd of teenagers.

What was I supposed to do?

This is something I couldn't stop, nor delay. If it were Gaea again, or heck, even Pontus, I would give it everything I had in me to fight them and win. This time, there would be no fight, only us standing idly as nature swept us away like a fallen pebble in a river. My options were limited, and the more I put effort into thinking about it, the fewer choices I realized I had.

Truthfully, I felt like there wasn't a way out this time.

At this time, the best thing I could imagine happening would be the campers all gathering to have one last final goodbye. Maybe make peace with ourselves before the end of the world came...

But that wasn't fair.

Some of these people were kids! Most had just began to manifest their powers, and have yet to experience the best the Greek and Roman world had to offer, but they had endured a life containing the worst aspects of our culture. 

I'd do something. I don't know what, but something to make things alright.

In a second's notice, I spotted the campers all gathered together in a mob-style formation, most of them were sitting on the bleachers, with only a few standing. According to Chiron, everyone was here, and he was right. I knew every camper by face, as I had previously taken the time to do so, and I couldn't sense any other campers outside the area.

I saw Jason, Frank, Leo, Piper, Hazel, Nico, and a few others standing out of the crowd. Thankfully, people were listening to them, as it was most likely their idea to have everyone unite at the arena.

Notably, I saw Jack and Annabeth tied up in rope and sitting down in the grass. 

Everyone had this scowl on their face when they faced them, so I assumed they all knew what they had done, and were more than glad to give them the proper treatment.

"Guys!" I shouted, and I saw many, many heads turn  in my direction.

"Percy!" Jason waved, gesturing me to come over to them, which I did. Lots of the campers took note of my arrival, and were talking under their breaths. I could tell that they were all paranoid, and that they were hoping I had an answer to all this madness.

I didn't have a solution, but that doesn't mean I'll just give up.

"What happened?" Piper asked me, assuming that I was the one who sent the message.

"Everything happened. Chaos...is no more." I muttered that last part so none of the campers could hear that. That was the absolute worst thing they needed to hear.

I couldn't imagine the backlash if I screamed "GOD IS DEAD" in a church or something.

"Wha...?" Leo stumbled for a second at what I had just said.

"You serious?" Nico said softly, closer to me so that we were certain the campers couldn't eavesdrop on us or something.

I nodded. The looks of their faces were that of a mortified expression, and honestly, I'm surprised I didn't react the same way when I saw it for myself, realizing that Chaos herself was...dead.

"But... that's impossible..." Hazel inquired, and a mixture of uncertainty, confusion, fear, and worry washed over all of us.

"She can't be dead. We need to keep our heads clear, we're the only ones keeping camp in check. If we mess up, we mess it up for everyone." Jason interjected, reminding us that we couldn't just sit around and wallow in terror.

"Right." I said, and we all looked each other in the eyes in a silent exchange where we knew that we had to come up with an answer.

We talked for a while, thinking of some ideas. Though, it was pretty meaningless, as we couldn't really agree on any single plan, as none of them would work. Chaos was right, that this was a storm coming, and it was going to wash us away in the dirt in a heartbeat, and we were helpless to stop it. As we spent more time together, trying to come up with a solution, the more we were a bit paranoid about how close this doomsday was getting.

Hope wouldn't save us this time.

On the other hand, if we couldn't make an answer, there was still one more thing I needed to clear up.

"Jack!" I shouted, as me and the others joined back with the rest of the crowd of campers. Annabeth and Jack were both sitting together, with their body and legs bind with a thick rope respectively. 

It was time for them to face the music.

Jack glared at me every second he laid eyes on me, and I returned the favor by giving him a stern look of disapproval in mine.

"Why'd you do it, man? I thought even you were above doing something like this..." I said loud and clear for all the demigods to hear.

A part of me didn't want to do this. I wanted to make peace with Annabeth and Jack, but in my mind, I knew for sure that neither of them would play by my rules, even if the world was about to end soon.

My brother scowled at me, and I just couldn't believe my own eyes. 

I remember when I first saw him that fateful day, when everyone hailed him at camp, praising him. When Poseidon had cast me out in favor of Jack at the time, and he had let that power run all the way to his brain. He was responsible for the deaths of many campers, our own kin were slaughtered because of the actions of this troubled demigod.

"Jack...after all you've done. All the damage and pain that you have caused not only me, but everyone around here, we still let you live and walk among us. You have taken advantage of our willingness to forgive you, and squandered it." I stated, letting my words flow through the air and sound out throughout the arena.

Jack simply gave me that stupid, repetitive look on his face. He acted like he was justified in his hatred against me, like I was the root of all his problems.

"What do you have to say for not only yourself, but to all of us?" I said, pointing to the campers behind me.

He didn't say a single word.

Not even one.

It was blatant that everybody and I were struggling to keep out hands to ourselves. Every thought that passed through our conscience insisted that we strangled the boy that caused us to think we were on the brink of war, and that we would need to send our demigods out to fight monsters and to die bloody deaths. The idea that someone could be so horrid as to spread terror amongst teenagers young and old, just to acquire a lick of fame was astounding.

"It doesn't matter." Jack mumbled under his breath, but his words were heard loud and clear by all of us.

"Care to repeat that?" I said in an angered voice, as I was getting a little frustrated at how stubborn he was being. Why couldn't he just own up and take responsibility for once?

"I said, it doesn't matter, idiot." He replied in a venomous tone, and I turned my head to him and glared at him.

"It may not matter to you, but what you did put all of us in needless danger. I'm not asking you to beg, or to plead like any sane person would force upon you. The things you have done in your short life as a demigod would be more than enough to consider death and eternal suffering in Asphodel, but we have treated you too modestly. Being a son of Poseidon, and my dear brother, you abused your privilege, and risked all of our lives for a mere mention in a history book?" I spoke to him.

I wanted this to end today. For so long, Jack has gone unpunished, despite what he does to others. Even when we all needed each other at this time, he was still distant from us, choosing to still do whatever he wanted.

"This would never have happened if it weren't for you." He spat back at me, and I glared at him in disgust.

"Oh...how can you possibly be blaming me for all of this? It was your actions that spilled our blood, and struck fear in the hearts of all demigods." I was practically egging him on to attempt to give me a straight answer, because he was digging the hole even deeper than it already was.

"If I were the one leading this army, we wouldn't all be about to die!" He shouted angrily at me, and I put my hand on my forehead.

Is he seriously blaming me for the end of the world?

I stood beside my 'brother', keeping an eye on the crazed maniac. By most standards, Jack and Annabeth would be killed for treason by the gods, but we have changed our ways. We aren't brutes, and we don't kill our own kind like these two would.

"Percy!" A voice cried out across the arena.

I looked around and saw Thalia and her huntresses all gathered, rushing towards us. I saw most of the hunters at least, and I guess they received Chaos's message and bee-lined it straight to Camp-Half Blood as fast as they could.

"You guys made it..." I said as they joined in with most of the campers, forming a sub-crowd next to all the campers. Thalia took a spot next to the Seven and I, as we were dealing with Jack and Annabeth.

Thalia stared at Annabeth and had a grim look on her face, as if she didn't want to believe that things have gotten to this point. However, she didn't speak up about it, but I could see it in her eyes.

"Yeah...we came as soon as we heard. We haven't been able to find or contact Artemis, so we chose to meet up here." Thalia explained to me, and I nodded as I expected this sort of thing to happen.

Though I was surprised that the gods weren't responding, something tells me that they were a bit busy at the moment. Surely if things were as rowdy as they were here at Camp, it must be complete disorder up on Olympus. I did try calling my father, as well as the other Olympians, but none of them responded.

Either they didn't get the memo, or something's gone terribly wrong. The gods simply weren't there.

I didn't even have time to get mad at the gods, because I was already busy here. 

"Jack...what we want to know is why. Why did you do this?" I sighed. Personally, I expected him not to answer at all, but I had to get this through his thick skull.

The sun was glazing in the sky, a bit dimmer than usual. I couldn't tell if it was because the world was about to end for us, or if it was just irony. Perhaps something happened to Apollo, and screwed him up from riding his sun chariot today.

Whatever the case, the wind flurried around us, with the grass being constantly pushed backwards. The sound of leaves churning as the wind blew through them could be heard from outside the arena, and the clouds began to form in the skies, signaling that rain might start soon. 

"You wouldn't understand." Jack responded. 

I shook my head.

"Then make me understand the method to your madness." I inquired back at him.

"Come on man, just give in already!" Jason sounded out to him. At this point, many people as well as I were getting sick and tired of Jack's childish behavior.

"Shut it, Jason." Jack snapped, and Jason raised an eye at the cursed son of Poseidon. Thankfully, he could control his anger, but Jack was pushing the limits of all of our patience at this time.

Throughout the entire conversation, Annabeth had yet to say a word, which surprised me to an extent. I'd have expected her screeching habit to kick in, but she was acting a bit strange. While she was tied up, she didn't struggle or move against the binds, instead just giving me this scowl mixed with a glare the entire time. I didn't have much hope for her either, because if she was anything like Jack, which she was a lot like him, then we wouldn't get any answers from her either.

"It looks like we won't get anything from you two. We could have forgave you maybe, even let you join back with us. We've wasted enough time with you two, in my opinion." I announced, and everyone nodded in agreement around me.

I saw familiar faces in the crowd look unhappy, that this was what we had to do. There were already so few demigods in this world, so the concept that we had to punish demigods for trying to kill other demigods was quite distasteful. 

This was the necessary evil.

"Lock them up in the cell in the Big House." I said, facing Jason, who nodded in response.

I think we all wanted to just execute them and be done with it, give in to our dark desires, but I knew that it would be wrong. If we started down that route of executing demigods on our own accord, then we'd be no better than the monsters we fight against. Possibly this was a mistake, letting them off easy in a jail cell, but with the apocalypse on the horizon, it seemed as though the job would be done for us instead.

Jason grabbed Jack by the shoulder and lifted him up on his feet. The boy struggled furiously against the son of Jupiter, but it was futile. 

"It didn't have to be like this." Jason said as he started walking his captive towards the Big House, and his voice had genuine regret. I could see that it was a bit hard to put one of our kind away like this. 

Jack kept quiet, which gave me a bad feeling about this.

Then, we had to deal with Annabeth. I didn't want her with Jack in a cell together, because I don't know what the two could conspire alongside one another, so I was thinking that I could maybe leave her with Thalia. While the chances were next to none, I could hope that perhaps the leading huntress could pull Annabeth back to us, maybe get her head cleared and thinking right again.

Things appeared to only be getting progressively worse as time went on. 

The options for choices we had left were less than limited. I became frustrated with myself for not knowing what to do. I couldn't exactly blame myself, because the end of the world was a pretty difficult situation to escape from, but excusing myself won't solve any of it.

I looked the campers and hunters all grouped together like terrified animals awaiting the slaughter by an invisible hand, and it only made me feel disheartened at their eyes full of worry and grim.

"OH MY GOD! JASON!" Piper's voice rang out, and her shrill voice cracked in absolute anguish, which initially caught me off guard. 

I turned to look at what she was shouting about, but I followed her eyes and looked towards the Big House, where Jason was supposed to be taking Jack to.

My eyes widened.

While it was far away, I could see it as clear as day. 

Jason was lying on the ground, motionless. His body was facing upwards towards the sky, and a pool of blood began forming around him in the dirt, staining the earth in a sickly crimson color. I could see a glistening dagger sticking from his stomach, lodged in all the way to the hilt. 

The son of Jupiter had an expression of pure shock and disbelief in his eyes, and it seemed as though he wanted to move and get up, but he simply couldn't.

His eyes stared straight up into the sky, as he couldn't move his torso in any form. Opening his mouth to speak, he soon realized that nothing would come out other than unintelligible stutters and gasps for air.

Piper had tears forming in her eyes, while the other campers and I simply stared in shock.

As fast as I could, I attempted to activate some healing magic as I did with Thalia once before, but something felt terribly wrong.

It wasn't working.

I used Apollo's blessing, and I was certain that it worked from this short distance, but for some reason I couldn't understand, it had no effect whatsoever.

My knees began to feel heavier as I could only watch helplessly as I tried once more to try and summon my healing magic, but instead of forming a stream of golden energy like it did for Thalia, all I could muster was a small puff of glowing mist. 

How could my power be screwing up now of all times? When I needed it the most?

The life drained from Jason's soul, and I could physically see him dying thanks to Hades's blessing. This shouldn't be happening...he was still immortal, and should be less prone to injury...how can this be?

The Roman Praetor's hand reached to the skies, his arm shaking wildly and his breath was heaved and strained heavily. I didn't exactly know what he was thinking, as I was still processing what had just happened through my own mind as well.

In less than a second, his arm fell down weakly, and his eyes closed.

"JASON!" Piper screamed in extreme agony, tears rolling freely down her eyes. She began running towards the body of her boyfriend, her eyes locked solely on the lightning demigod.

"J...Jason's dead...?" Thalia mumbled blankly, like she couldn't believe her own eyes.

Oh no...this couldn't have gone any worse.

My focus soon locked onto the culprit, the one who caused all of this.

Jack Forrester, standing beside Jason's corpse, his arms and legs were free, as the roped were cut off and were strewn across the grass from him. He stared at Jason's body and sneered at it, patting the dust off where Jason had grabbed him prior. The look on his face when he ignored Piper's arrival, as she cried with a blood-curdling sound of pain and sorrow, pulling the blade out of Jason's body before she embraced him.

The sound of Piper begging Jason to come back...it made my skin crawl.

Blood began to boil. Jason was dead, by the hands of my own brother. I shouldn't have let Jason go alone...how could I have been so blind? I felt mad at Jack...and angered at myself most of all.

I wouldn't stand for this. 

It's time to end this, once and for all.

"Jack...you've crossed the line." I muttered under my breath as I tapped my wrist, unlocking Harvester, the pure white and black scythe I had received from Kronos and Rhea long ago.

Forget what I said about civility and how we don't execute our own kind.

I'll gladly make an exception this time.