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Chapter Text

"A hero's journey is not measured by the monsters they slay, but by the ghosts they leave behind."

Percy had never known silence like this.

Tartarus was a living, breathing thing, but for the first time since he had fallen, the pit did not whisper his name. It did not coil shadows around his ankles like greedy fingers, nor did it send monsters scurrying in the dark. It simply watched.

His body was a graveyard of bruises, his skin a patchwork of blood—some his, some belonging to the horrors he had carved apart. The river Phlegethon still burned in his throat, a cruel aftertaste of survival. Annabeth was gone—lost in the shadows, ripped from his grasp by the pit’s cruel hunger.

And Percy? He was alone.

The realization settled over him like a wet cloak, pressing into every bone. The weight of it made him stagger. He had spent years fighting to keep people close, to protect them, to hold them together even when the world split apart. Now, there was no one left to save.

"If a hero fights alone, do they still matter?"

His fingers clenched around Riptide. The celestial bronze blade pulsed in his grip, warm and real, the only constant in this world of nightmares.

Then came the voice.

It was not a whisper, not a growl, not the mocking laughter of Tartarus itself. It was something thinner than air, colder than the venom of a drakon, softer than the breath of the dying.

"Poor, lost son of Poseidon."

Akhlys.

The goddess of Misery slithered into view, her form shifting between mist and flesh. Her eyes were black pits, swallowing the dim red glow of Tartarus, and her mouth twisted into something that might have once been a smile.

"You reek of despair," she mused, circling him like a shark scenting blood. "How delightful."

Percy wanted to raise his sword. He wanted to spit something back—something sharp, something that would make him feel like he was still himself. But the words tangled in his throat.

Akhlys leaned in, her breath cold against his cheek. "Let me show you the taste of true suffering, son of the sea."

And then, she opened her mouth—

And breathed.

Chapter Text

"Monsters do not haunt heroes. They whisper lullabies and watch them break."

Percy had felt pain before. He had been stabbed, crushed, burned, drowned, and flayed by words sharper than swords. But this—this was something else.

Akhlys' breath coiled around him, sinking into his pores like ink spilled into water. It was not fire. It was not ice. It was the absence of all things.

It peeled away the layers of him, skin first. His face burned as if it were melting. His lungs tightened, every breath an inhale of shattered glass. He stumbled backward, the weight of his own body suddenly unbearable.

Then it went deeper.

"You are nothing," the mist hissed, not with words, but with feeling.

And gods help him—Percy believed it.

The weight of his failures crashed down, not as memories, but as certainties. He had never saved anyone. Not his mother, not Bianca, not Bob, not Annabeth. The gods had used him. The world had swallowed him whole, and for what? To be forgotten in a pit no one would ever escape?

"You never mattered."

Percy dropped Riptide.

The clang of celestial bronze against Tartarus' flesh echoed in the silence. Akhlys laughed, the sound hollow, brittle.

"Yes," she crooned. "Let it go, little hero."

His knees hit the ground. His body shook. His vision blurred—not from tears, but from the venom of despair sinking into his bones.

And then, beneath the agony, beneath the ruin—

—anger stirred.

Not a spark, not a flame, but the cold, quiet rage of the ocean in a storm.

Percy’s fingers twitched.

No.

The memories Akhlys fed him were real. The failures, the losses—he had lived them. But they were not the whole of him.

He had fought. He had loved. He had bled for the people who mattered, and that—that—was what made him real.

"Wrong," he whispered. His voice was raw, scraped clean.

Akhlys blinked. "What?"

Percy lifted his head. His face was a wreck—blistered, bruised—but his eyes were sharper than a blade.

"I do matter," he said, and the words rang in the pit like a battle cry.

His hand shot out, seizing Riptide once more. He surged forward, striking without hesitation. Akhlys shrieked as celestial bronze sliced through her mist-like form, but Percy wasn’t done.

Not yet.

Because Akhlys had more than words.

She had poison.

And he intended to use it.

Chapter Text

"A hero’s greatest weapon is not his sword, but the pain he refuses to surrender to."

Percy lunged. His body was screaming—his skin still raw from Akhlys’ breath—but his rage was louder. It drowned out the pain, turned it into fuel. He slashed through the goddess of misery, watching as her form flickered between mist and flesh.

She shrieked. The sound rippled through the pit, shaking the ground beneath them.

"Foolish boy!" she hissed. "You think you can kill suffering?"

No. He couldn’t. But he could use it.

Akhlys staggered back, her form solidifying just enough for Percy to see the black veins slithering beneath her skin. Her own poison.

Percy gritted his teeth. He had no godly strength left. No water, no backup, no Annabeth to remind him that he was more than a weapon.

But he still had Tartarus.

This pit had tried to break him, drown him, consume him. It had made him swallow its fire, its darkness. He had lived in its nightmares, walked through its horrors.

And now?

Now, he was going to make it bleed.

Akhlys took a step toward him, but Percy was already moving. He feinted left, then dove—grabbing her wrist before she could turn to mist.

"Let go—" she spat, but Percy held tight.

Her skin was cold, clammy, wrong. He didn’t hesitate. He wrenched her arm back—forcing her own poisoned claws to press into her own throat.

The moment they broke skin, Akhlys froze.

The goddess of Misery gasped, eyes wide with something between rage and horror.

"Impossible," she whispered.

But it wasn’t.

Her own venom seeped into her body, twisting its way through her veins, devouring her from the inside.

She staggered. She choked.

And Percy?

He watched.

Chapter Text

"All things die, even gods, when their own weapons turn against them."

Akhlys collapsed.

Her body convulsed, shuddering like the air before a storm. The mist that had once made her untouchable now recoiled from her own form, as if rejecting her existence.

She reached for Percy, clawing at the space between them.

"H—help me," she rasped.

Percy stared. He should have felt something—regret, pity, disgust. But all he felt was tired.

He had seen too many gods beg for mercy only after the fight was lost.

The pit rumbled beneath them, as if Tartarus itself was waiting to claim its own.

Akhlys let out a final, choked sob. Her form flickered, wavered—

And then she collapsed into a puddle of black, lifeless mist.

Silence followed. A silence that stretched, deeper than the pit itself.

Percy inhaled, his ribs screaming in protest. His hands trembled. He wiped his mouth, swallowing back the acid that rose in his throat.

It was over.

But Tartarus did not feel emptier. The shadows did not retreat. The weight in his chest did not lift.

He was still here.

Still alone.

"Victory means nothing if there's no one left to witness it."

Percy closed his eyes.

And for the first time since falling into this cursed place—

He let himself grieve.

Chapter Text

"The dead are not truly gone. They live on in the scars we carry."

Percy sat in the darkness. He did not move. He did not think. He simply was.

The weight of Tartarus pressed against his skin, seeping into his very bones. But he did not fight it. Not anymore.

Somewhere above, the world continued. The war raged. Camp Half-Blood still stood. But none of it mattered down here.

He thought of Annabeth.

Her sharp mind, her steady hands, the way she could make even this pit seem like a battle worth fighting.

She was gone.

But not dead.

Not yet.

Percy exhaled. His body ached. His hands were still stained with the last remnants of Akhlys. But deep in his chest, past the exhaustion, past the pain—

Something flickered.

A promise.

He would get out.

Not because he was a hero. Not because of fate. Not even because of the gods.

He would get out because he had to.

Because Annabeth was still out there.

And he had never once let go of her hand without a fight.

Percy stood.

He turned his back on Akhlys' remains. He turned his back on the pit that had tried to drown him.

And he walked forward.

Step by step, through the venom, through the dark—

Until Tartarus itself had no choice but to let him go.