Chapter Text
Percy was choking on her poison, there was nothing she could do to help him. Annabeth was helpless to save them. Percy was staring at her with so much love and acceptance in his eyes. She couldn't see anything else, even her tears could not hide him from her anymore.
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He was dying, he couldn't save Annabeth, all he could do was try and reassure her as he died… no. He could do something he hadn't done in 5 years. He could pray to someone. So he prayed to the highest power he could think of. Who he just happened to be on the doorstep of– Chaos
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It had been millennia since Chaos had received a prayer, and never had she received a prayer from a demigod. So when she was awakened by a dying man's last prayer she was interested, to say the least. “Save her. Save Annabeth, please. Let her be safe. They can’t lose her!” that faint voice from so close to her resting place, pleading with her, a demigod pleading with a goddess that had not done anything since before Kronos was born, since before time could remember. “Chaos, please, I offer my soul, my life, everything that is mine to give to you. Just please, do not let anything happen to her!” Chaos didn’t have any experience in human emotion but she could have sworn she heard tears in his voice.
“This is going to be fun” 😁 Chaos let her imagination loose, seeing how the future could have gone and bending it to her will. She saw the power Percy could have had, the devastation he could have wrought. And she reveled in it. She twisted that same power that was about to awaken in Percy, into Annabeth. She gave Annabeth the power to control liquid like an extension of her own arm. To make the ground move with her every step. To feel the movement of blood. The strength to overpower anyone else controlling liquid. She twisted Annabeth’s grief into anger. Into a blood lust to rival Tartarus. Into an unstoppable will to make sure Percy didn’t die for nothing. She twisted the grief into anger and anger into power. Reveling in the chaos Chaos knew Annabeth would sow in her wake. Shattering Annabeth’s moral compass was the icing on the cake. Chaos had made the perfect destroying machine. The perfect mortal.
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As Annabeth watched the last breath leave Percy’s lips, she felt her body change. Her mind blurred. Her eyes cleared. She felt everything around her. “what the Hades?... is- what is this!”
“Percy. Oh, Percy. What did you do??”
“HA, YOU SEE HOW IT FEELS to know nothing BUT misery. To see your world leave you behind-”
“You. Don’t. Get. To. Talk. About. Him! You will never talk about him again! He was my everything! And now he is the reason YOU die. Because no one. No one gets to hurt him or talk down on him ever again." The venom in her voice could have vaporized any normal monster. Fortunately, Akhlys isn’t any normal monster. She would get to feel a fraction of the pain Annabeth would have to endure for the rest of her life.
Akhlys’ ichor collected around the shadow she had for a heart. Squeezing. Pulling. Akhlys was helpless against the poison blocking her throat, the ichor crushing her heart. Her tears cutting her brain apart. Misery could take a lot of Misery. Annabeth could deal more. Akhlys was at the end of her power, she could feel her divinity slipping away. Annabeth had a hold on her soul now. A hold on Akhlys’ divinity.
“You… you… you can’t. I am a goddess. Immortal. I am the embodiment of misery. You can’t kill me. I AM PAIN. The pain you feel now, that is ME.” Akhlys was old, she was older than Zeus, older than Cronos. Akhlys was not too old to die slowly though. Annabeth took pride in the screams that Misery almost cried, in the agony carved into her face.
As much as Annabeth wanted to give Misery the same amount of misery Annabeth felt from losing Percy, she knew that time was of the essence if she were to get to the doors, now more than ever. “I’m sorry I must cut our time short, Akhlys, but I have other matters to deal with.” And with a final dismissive sweep of her hand, Akhlys exploded into a golden spray of godly ichor.
Annabeth fell to her knees no longer needing to stand before Misery’s pain. She wept for her fallen half, for the half of herself she would never get back.
for Percy
“Come now child.” A soft, melodic voice. “He would not want that for you. Stop your tears. Percy didn't give you his powers so you could cry. He gave them to you so you could remove the evil you both have been fighting since you were 12. So that you can defeat Gaia. She was always the troublesome child.” Who in the here was this? Why did they talk with such certainty? “Come now. Show me what one blessed by Chaos can do, show me what terror you can bestow in your enemies. Show me the power of the sea in the hands of the smartest strategist since Athena was young. Prove Percy right in trusting the world to his world.”