The Fate of Olympus | Reynabeth [✓]

26. DemiGod

A/N:

I hope you enjoy the new chapter. I wish you all well. Stay safe out there!

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Part III

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1. We demand the end of all compulsory servitude to the gods. No one under the age of eighteen will be drafted for quests on behalf of the gods or divine entities.

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A message in a bottle mysteriously arrived at Camp Half-Blood, delivered by a version of Athena that was both life-giving and an agent of curses. It was titled DemiGod. Malcolm Pace, head counselor of the Athena cabin, was the first to receive the message. He immediately made copies and sent them to Camp Jupiter, then spread them around, in secret, at Camp Half-Blood.

Annabeth's pamphlet was a plea to the demigods not to succumb to the gods' demands to go on quests; the gods had mistreated and neglected their children for far too long. That they were old enough to stand up for their right to exist. Annabeth's call to action was simple: tell the gods what you want.

The pamphlet acted as a catalyst for people who were already frustrated. Other campers were wary; Annabeth's agenda sounded suspiciously like Luke's. Luke and Annabeth had been close, after all, and Luke had been willing to destroy Western Civilization to get what he wanted.

Annabeth's message resonated the most with older campers, the ones whose friends had died in combat. They brought the pamphlet with them to the campfire to draft their demands to the gods. Around eighty people showed up, representing every major god and some minor ones too.

Malcolm stood to address the crowd. He wrote down what they wanted. By the end of the night, they had ten main points.

At the campfire, Malcolm proposed a strike: no more quests for the gods until the demigods' demands were met.

"A strike will be difficult," proclaimed Malcolm. "It may take months. It may take years of striking. The gods will strip you of your powers. The gods will curse you. The gods will treat us with cruelty. They may even promise you, in secret, great rewards if you bend to their will. Those are promises that they have no intention of keeping. They will use you. They do not value you. So we must hold fast. No matter what, we will stand up to brutality. We will stand against their empty promises, no matter how desperate we feel inside. We must stay strong. We must stay united. Any person who breaks the strike will break the pressure for the gods to change their ways."

"What if the quest is to save the world?" came a voice from the back.

"If it's so important to save the world, why don't the gods treat us with dignity? If it's so important to save the world, why don't the gods admit that they've heard our cries to keep families together? If it's so important, why don't they claim their own children?"

Malcolm threw a gold coin into a rainbow. He showed them the Fleecy message that they had received earlier. "This is my sister telling truth to power."

Annabeth appeared in the rainbow, looking up at Zeus. "You don't speak with your children until it's time to save Olympus. Then you grant them extraordinary abilities, like the ability to control lightning or the sea or the dead. You honor them as heroes with no regard to those who've perished along the way. And it's a completely foreign concept to you that, perhaps, demigod lives are just as valuable as your own."

"And how was my sister rewarded for speaking her mind?" Malcolm asked. It was a rhetorical question. Eighty campers watched as Zeus towered above Malcolm's defiant sister.

"Don't act surprised," Zeus had said. There was a sadistic ring to his voice, almost like he enjoyed punishing mortals for their hubris. "I know that you can't be rescued."

Lightning and thunder blew out the visuals and sound. They heard a terrifying scream as Annabeth plummeted from Mount Olympus. They watched as Annabeth was swallowed by darkness.

Malcolm let their stunned silence speak for itself.

"Zeus is fine with punishing Annabeth like that because he's sure that there won't be consequences for his actions!" Malcolm exclaimed. He was surprised that he was fighting tears. He had seen the recording before, but the thought of his sister plummeting to her death while her friends were helpless to stop it was familiar. The fact that Zeus had punished Annabeth by making her fall into an abyss made Malcolm angry. "He has no one to answer to! He won't take accountability! Tell me, Camp Half-Blood, is this cruel, unaccountable person really the god that we want to answer to?"

Even the demigods who thought that Annabeth was speaking out of line had to agree that Zeus's response was disproportionate to Annabeth's speech. Malcolm hoped it would make even the staunchest of fence-sitters angry.

They took a vote. By a razor thin margin of seven votes, it was decided not to mail their list of demands to Mount Olympus. It disappointed Malcolm, but he could see where the campers were coming from. Maybe it'd been a mistake to show them Zeus cursing Annabeth before he'd asked them about sending their demands to the gods. So they took another vote. Sixty-eight campers voted in favor of a strike. About ten campers opposed the strike. The rest abstained from the vote.

It was decided. Malcolm sent the ten-point list with a small group of demigods to Camp Jupiter instead of Mount Olympus.

Demigods began a strike. They refused to go on quests until the gods started treating them better.

Tensions between campers and gods mounted, just as Malcolm had warned.

Malcolm pulled aside the dissidents and asked them not to become strikebreakers. Malcolm wasn't sure why, but they actually listened to him. Whatever the dissidents' reasoning, the entire camp was grudgingly united.

Word snaked its way to Camp Jupiter. Annabeth's pamphlet, as well as a copy of Camp Half-Blood's ten-point program, made its way to Camp Jupiter's Senate, where it found widespread support. Camp Jupiter formally joined the strike after only a week. The demigods were united.

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