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Percy Jackson. What a name, right? Cheered by both camps, by the gods even. Because, who wouldn't? He is a hero. Went to the quests, fought the battles, won the wars.
The perfect leader. The perfect hero.
Everyone loves him, of course, it's the logical thing. He saved many lives, helped many people and risked his life many times to save the world.
He isn't even a person anymore. For camp, Percy Jackson is a symbol. Hope, courage, change.
Oh, Percy Jackson. He had lost so many things and still went on. He stuck to the plan even when it could've meant giving his own life to do it.
Will looks at him from the back, as always. Percy fights the monsters; Will saves the rest. Percy gives hope with only his presence. Will wishes hope could be enough to save someone.
It's hard to see him as the kid that he is. Twelve in his first quest. Thirteen when he almost loses Grover and Annabeth. Fourteen when everyone thought he was dead. Fifteen when a war was put on his shoulder. Barely sixteen when he fought the gods for all the demigods.
Will has seen him, always from the back. Percy crying in the infirmary while Will runs to the next patient. Percy scared, dragging Will through Manhattan to save Annabeth.
But sometimes it's hard to see them as the same person.
When Will first arrived to camp, Percy wasn’t more than a story for him. Lee would tell him how Percy was a powerful son of the big three, a forbidden child. Michael would laugh and say that he was just a stupid kid that couldn't even shoot an arrow. Alison would roll her eyes and highlight how Percy had saved camp bringing the golden fleece last summer.
None of them were still here. Percy was.
He first met him on a winter's day, the sun was shining way too bright.
Soon enough they discovered it was because Percy, the hunters, the di Angelo siblings and Thalia Grace, were being transported by Apollo in the sun chariot.
Will had never met his father. Let that alone, Lee had never met Apollo.
And they still hadn't since the god didn't even stop to say hi.
Percy wasn’t in his best moment when Will first saw him. Annabeth was kidnapped by Luke. The hunters and Thalia weren't really nice to him. And he had a little annoying kid following him everywhere.
At least that's what Lee said.
Percy was mad, or at least that's what it seemed. Alison told him he was just sad.
He was hit by a lightning the next day. Thalia Grace was scary, ten year old Will decided.
Percy didn't even stay a week at camp before leaving to save Annabeth with four other people.
Two of those didn't come back. Percy did, with Annabeth at his side.
Nico di Angelo disappeared that day. The "little annoying kid" that Lee had told him about. Will thought Nico was nice. He seemed kinda lonely. Will thought he could’ve been his friend.
He didn't get the chance.
Percy left again, this time to go home. Will stayed at camp. Lee had left with his family for a month but Michael was still there, teaching him everything he knew. Will had healing powers. Like, real healing powers.
So he became a healer. He was there every time someone got hurt. Every time someone needed him. He helped Michael to run the infirmary. The schedules for the shifts, the supplements of Ambrosia and Nectar.
He did everything an eleven year old could.
It wasn't enough
The next summer, a battle took place at Camp Half-Blood
Annabeth led a quest. Of course, Percy Jackson left with her. Grover and Tyson too.
Then she came back alone. Crying and screaming. So different to anything she had ever been.
"Percy is dead"
The camp went quieter than it had ever been. No one could believe it. How could Percy Jackson be...
The funeral rites took place a week later. As if everyone was still hoping he would come back.
And he did.
He showed up at his own funeral, because of course he did.
A new hope shone upon camp. Bright and strong.
It was shattered the next day, when a horde of monsters, an army, invaded camp.
The battle of the labyrinth was Will’s first experience with war. A real war.
He wasn’t a soldier. He didn't know how to fight, he could barely shoot an arrow. He had a dagger but he hated it. He hated anything that could hurt someone.
But he was a healer. And all of a sudden, it was more than broken bones from falling off trees or small cuts from training.
It was dragging people off the battlefield. It was running and running, hoping it wouldn't be too late. It was prioritizing the worst injuries even when every single one was bad.
It was blood. So much blood.
Two people died that day.
Percy wasn't one of them.
Lee was.
Lee Fletcher.
Son of Apollo.
Head counselor of his cabin.
Nineteen.
Crushed by a giant while trying to save a kid.
"A hero"
Nico di Angelo was back. He arrived with Percy Jackson. Apparently, he was another forbidden child, a son of Hades.
So he helped with the funeral rites.
The Apollo cabin didn't have time to decorate Lee's shroud. The infirmary was overflowing with wounded kids. They needed every single person they could get there.
So Lee's shroud was just golden.
Will thought it wasn't fair, but what about any of this was?
Castor was the other camper that the battle had taken. A child of Dionysus, he was only seventeen years old.
He had a twin brother, Polux. Two days later he came to the infirmary asking us to stop the pain.
Will didn't know what to do.
Michael was head counselor now.
There was no honor in it. No happiness. Just a bitterness.
Michael became... tougher. Temperamental. Stubborn. Just... harder.
But who would blame him? He was only sixteen.
Will didn't stay that winter. Almost no one did. The war was coming, everyone knew that. Percy's sixteenth birthday would be in August, so that's when the war would take place.
He hugged his mom and suddenly he was nine again, scared by a monster that no one else seemed to see.
It felt like an eternity ago. It felt like he was older and wiser now.
The truth is that he was only twelve.
He was just a twelve year old kid, scared in the arms of his mom. Crying for his siblings. One dead, the other lost.
He cried for every tear he couldn't let out in camp. He couldn't cry with his patients there. He couldn't panic. That could scare them.
He loved his mom. She was the best mom ever.
She is a country singer, pretty well known. That's how Apollo found her.
She can see through the Mist too.
Knowing that, Will decided he couldn't tell her about the war.
It would scare her. Rightfully. She wouldn't let him go.
But they couldn't lose anyone else. They were already in disadvantage against the whole Kronos' army. Every person counts.
So he told her he cried because he missed her.
Which wasn’t a lie.
But it wasn’t the entire truth either.
He came back to camp in spring.
Camp wasn’t the same when he came back.
Everyone was more serious. More focused. Making plans, leading quests. Trying to guess the next movement from Kronos' army.
Injured campers became more regular. If it wasn't because of quests, it was because they would train until exhaustion. It never ended up well.
He wished Lee was there. He always knew how to stay calmed.
Alison left next.
She dissapeared. One night she was there, the next she wasn’t.
It would've been easier to stay with the idea that maybe she got scared and left. The idea that maybe she didn't want to die at eighteen in a war.
That would've been understandable.
But two weeks later, Annabeth and Malcolm came back from a quest. It was just meant to get information.
He didn't like what they've found out.
Alison switched sides. She was with Luke. With Kronos.
Will wanted to cry.
But Malcolm was injured and he had to clean his wound.
Michael didn't talk to anyone for two days.
The date kept approaching. Slowly but not enough. So silently that you could hear it.
August started.
Michael went on a quest. A siege led by the Ares Cabin.
Most of the Apollo Cabin was part of it. Will wasn’t.
He was too young.
And he was just a healer.
They all came back. Some of them were injured but it was okay. Nothing fatal.
It was okay.
They came back with a flying Chariot.
That nightmare.
The Chariot was from Luke's army. A war trophy. Pulled by two pegasi.
The Apollo cabin was the one who got it. They defeated the ones who had it, and took it.
But this siege was led by the Ares Cabin.
And now Clarisse and Michael were fighting about who should stay with the Chariot.
Put two temperamental stubborn people together and this is what you'll get.
He tried talking with Michael. He really tried.
It didn't work.
And they had way more important things to deal with right now.
Charlie Beckendorf and Percy Jackson had a plan.
They were going to explode the Princess Andromeda.
Percy wasn’t even at camp at the moment. He was still home, with his mom.
Beck was going to get him with Blackjack. Together, they would get into the Princess Andromeda. They would put all the bombs made by the Hephaestus cabin. Then, they would get out and press the button.
Nothing could go wrong.
Except it did.
Only one of them came back.
And of course it was Percy Jackson.
When Percy came back, the great prophecy was revealed.
It wasn't good.
"A Half-Blood of the eldest gods"
A forbidden child. Percy, Thalia, Nico.
"Shall reach sixteen against all odds"
Percy would turn sixteen in less than two weeks now.
'"And see the world in endless sleep
The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap
A single choice shall end his days
Olympus to preserve or raze"
The exact reason for what the oath of the big three was made.
Percy seemed to accept that he might die pretty well. He acted like someone who already expected this. Like he would've been more confused if it was any other way.
Will hated that.
It was almost comical how, in between all of this, Clarisse and Michael kept fighting.
Michael cursed the Ares Cabin to rhyme. The Ares Cabin almost started an attack.
Will stayed out of it.
Percy Jackson left camp two days later.
Right after Beckendorf's funeral. Percy disappeared.
Maybe he hadn't take the prophecy as well as he thought.
Or maybe he had a plan.
He left Annabeth a short message.
"Nico and I have a plan. Trust me"
She was freaking out, as she should.
Percy and her had a weird thing going on. Will didn't understand it. But he thought they would be a cute couple.
Well, maybe if Percy survived the war...
No one at camp knew Percy was still in contact with Nico di Angelo.
He had run away from camp long ago. When his sister, Bianca, died on a quest.
Nico blamed Percy.
Then he came back for the battle of the labyrinth.
He and Percy seemed to be okay now but... not totally.
Nico was very different now too.
He looked older. Tired. His eyes were dark and his skin was pale. He didn't look healthy at all.
Will wanted to talk with him about it. Help him.
If there was something that Nico still was is lonely. Will would've liked to be his friend.
Again, he didn't get the chance.
Nico disappeared again three days after the battle.
And now he had been secretly planning something with Percy Jackson.
Something that not even Annabeth knew.
She got a new message the next day.
He asked her to gather all the demigods willing to fight, in the doors of the Empire State.
Weapons and bravery ready.
She didn't understand what he was doing. They didn't want to leave camp alone. Not right now.
But she trusted him above everything else.
So, soon enough, Will had his medical bag and dagger ready.
But there was a problem.
Because, when they were about to fight in a war... what else could there be?
The Ares Cabin wouldn't fight.
Clarisse and Michael's fight had gone way too far. Their stupid pride making them fight each other when we had to fight together.
Michael gave up. His eyes tired, his smile absent.
"You know what? Okay! Take it if you want it!!"
Clarisse still wouldn't fight. And with her, the twenty warriors that could make a real difference.
"It's not about the chariot anymore, Michael! It's about the disrespect to my cabin!!"
There was nothing left to do. No one could change her mind.
Not Michael.
Not Silena.
Not Chris.
And gods, they tried.
Will wondered how many lives this childish argument would cost.
Percy waited for them there.
He looked... different. Stronger somehow.
He was also alone, Will noticed. No trace of Nico.
They were forty demigods.
Forty against an army.
Forty teenagers against an army of titans and monsters.
Will doesn't remember much from the battle of Manhattan.
He knows the hunters arrived at some point.
He knows he saved Katie's life. That he got there almost too late.
He knows he watched Andy die. Killed by a monster right in front of him. His little brother.
He knows the Ares Cabin got there too. And he knows Clarisse killed a Drakon.
He knows Percy dragged him so he could save Annabeth
He knows he failed.
He failed so many times.
He remembers flashes. Fragments.
He remembers the bridge falling and that weird pain on his chest he felt.
He remembers Nico saving his life while he was trying to help Polux get out of the battlefield.
He remembers the wounds.
Burns.
Cuts.
Stabs.
Broken bones.
Broken people.
He remembers the blood.
So much blood.
He had almost thrown up after seeing his clothes. But he had to keep going. He had to keep healing.
At some poing during the war, Will Solace, 12 years old, became headconselor of the Apollo Cabin.
Because Michael was dead.
In that bridge.
The bridge that Percy Jackson tore down.
Michael was dead.
So was Sabrina.
And so was Harry.
And so was Sky.
And so was Henry.
And so were most of his siblings.
Because they were healers.
And healers are no fighters.
Healers are no soldiers.
Healers are no warriors.
Healers were no heroes.
And now they are gone, but no stories about them would be heard around camp.
Because they weren't Percy Jackson, the hero of the prophecy. The one who inspires hope and bravery.
They weren't Percy Jackson, the one who could bring down a bridge and fight a Titan alone.
They weren't Percy Jackson, the forbidden child that survived against all odds.
Because Percy Jackson was hope.
And healers saved what was left.
What hope couldn't.
And maybe one day will come where their names will vanish into the air and Elysium will be the only one to remember them.
Lee.
Michael.
Sabrina.
Harry.
Sky.
Henry.
Andy.
But that day will not arrive as long as Will is still alive.
And despite everything, he is.