Clockwork

44

Four was awake, his wide blue eyes darting around the room. He was on a breathing machine, but his older siblings had taken it off, leaving red imprints around his mouth and nose. His room was crowded, much to his delight, as Percy had heard his happy baby babble before he had opened the door. As soon as the infant saw him, an excited squeal came from him along with more nonsensical baby talk as the child reached for Percy.

"And you know his name?" Percy asked, picking the child up. "Fnfifndudbama, " The baby exclaimed excitedly, grabbing at Percy's helmet. "Tobias," Kenneth said, reaching for him. The son of Apollo widened his eyes in recognition before giggling and leaning over to Kenneth. When the baby turned from him, Percy saw the back of his neck where the number was engraved to his skin. Then a question came to mind.

"Before, when this first started, Four's body resisted. What happens if Four doesn't explode?" Percy asked Kenneth. The grandson of Poseidon looked at the babbling child sitting on his hip before putting him down, letting the son of Apollo crawl away to his other visitors who were more than happy to accept the talkative baby. The very same visitors glared at Kenneth, as most of them were Apollo campers and were the ones along with Will who had been ready to introduce arrows to a few of Kenneth's organs. Kenneth smirked at them, almost like a taunt, and was probably about to say something to infuriate them more before he looked at Percy and decided to simply answer his question. "The numbers reverse. They take out the weak first, but since we received our numbers so young there was no real way to fix our strength. Two and Three fell in line. But if Four hasn't been weakened by the sickness, it reverses to being a countdown from Twenty like how it was originally," Kenneth explained.

He was sharing this information too freely. Due to the glint in his eyes and the casual way he said it, it wasn't Hephaestus's blackmail doing its job. Kenneth thought he already won.

"And you aren't worried," Percy stated, knowing that Kenneth didn't think he would be blowing up anytime soon. He had never even gotten sick, causing Percy to wonder just how much damage him blowing up would cause. "The first and last of us are the only ones with definite spots--"

"Meaning you and One. If you aren't next, and Four isn't, who's next?" Percy asked, though two came to mind. Either the curse or whatever the hell it is goes back to the beginning and just skips to young Five, or it simply skips Twenty and goes to--

"Nineteen. Five is stronger than him last time I checked. Then Eighteen, Seventeen, and so on. If one of the numbers gets too strong, Four will be next. With every bomb that goes off, the children get weaker. Four will eventually go too, however, the higher the number, the bigger the boom," Kenneth said.

Nineteen.

Where was Nineteen?

Percy turned around, hearing Kenneth following him. As Percy made it to Nineteen's door, his worries were confirmed as he looked through the small window in his door.

The little boy looked to be sleeping peacefully but his powers were shredding the room around him like paper, his hands dripping blood as his powers tore through them. "Will!" Percy called down the hall causing the blond man to stick his head out the door of his little sibling's room. "Clockwork?" Even though the son of Apollo sounded confused, he and three of his siblings rushed to see what Percy was seeing.

"Damn it," one of Will's siblings exclaimed as she tried to open the door. It opened, but the force of Nineteen's powers stopped the door from going just an inch further. However, Nineteen's magic caught the door and ripped it off of its hinges. Nineteen's explosion would be different. Two and Three were harmless bursts of light that could only hurt gods. Nineteen's power was causing a magic storm, tearing Apollo's palace apart. He'd blow them right out of the sky.