The Remembrance of Chaos (PJO)

Chapter 20

The soldier knelt close to Percy. He could hear her cursing underneath her breath, obviously not wanting to be touching the drying blood surrounding him, making him cheer silently in satisfaction. I'm glad to be a nuisance, Percy thought.

Percy heard her slowly come closer to his body, making him a bit worried. There's no way she trying to—

His thought got cut off by an agonizing wave of pain, almost making him cry out loud. The soldier gave out a yelp of pain, jumping away from his body. Percy heard the distinct sound of her crashing into a table and painfully falling to the ground.

It was clear what had happened. The soldier had tried to take the blades out, but since they were sacred, they probably resisted in some way. Giving the painful shout, Percy suspected that it was a a physical attack, rather than a passive one.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing the daggers did. Multiple waves of pain went through Percy's body, as though he was getting stabbed by multiple daggers. It took all he had from twitching in pain or yelling out. 

The person who had enchanted them probably thought the only people who would try to pluck the daggers out of a living, wounded person would be the person themselves, or one of their friends, and had added the painful addition. The enchanter had probably never thought of the sacred daggers being used in a practice fight, but then again, Percy didn't think so either. 

Until they were sticking out of his body, that was.

The length between each footstep decreased, as though everybody had doubled their pace. Ina few moments, the footsteps stopped, relatively close to Percy's position.

"What happened?" End asked in a concerned tone. Percy was surprised; he didn't think End was compassionate enough to be worried for a common foot soldier, but he had contradicting evidence right in front of him. Instead of acting like a cruel, vindictive, and evil tyrant that Percy knew she was like, she was acting like a caring mother.

But the next few moments cleared everything up, and made Percy doubtful if he had judged End wrongly.

"I'm okay," The injured soldier grunted, getting up while talking. To Percy, it seemed as though she was trying to convince herself. He could hear the real pain she was hiding clearly in her voice, and almost felt bad for her. Almost. She was still the bad guy, after all. "My hands are burnt, nothing bad."

"Let me be the judge of that," End said, completely out of character. He heard End's footsteps near where the soldier had fallen. 

A moment of silence passed, broken by the relieved sigh of the soldier. Percy presumed that End had healed her. "Thank you, Lady End," The soldier said. Percy imagined her bowing.

Now, instead of killing or demoting the soldier who had made the mistake of touching the blades, she made the scenario into a learning moment. "Now sergeant, what do you see here?"

There was another pause, as though the sergeant was scrutinizing Percy's prone body for any clues. Again, Percy held his breath, just in case they saw his rising stomach.

"I see two blades sticking out of his dead body," The soldier said.

"Right, but how can you see that the blades are sacred? And why would he be dead?" End patiently asked, making Percy freeze in fear at her last question. Did she know that he was faking death? "These questions are relevant to all of you, so I suggest you all also listen."

After another pause, the soldier answered, "Since the blades have injured him that badly, that means they have to be sacred."

"Or godly," End supplied. "Whose do you think they are?"

"Since they're a beautiful silver, I'm guessing they're Artemis'. Plus, she was with him. Why would she do this?"

"As you can see, there's gold dust beside Perseus' body. What does that mean?" End answered her with a question.

"That could either be a monster, or Artemis' remains before she reforms," The soldier said confidently. "That means either Artemis or Percy turned on each other, or Artemis just missed a throw with both daggers, which is unlikely.

"Precisely," End praised. Percy was surprised. Again, he never thought that End could be remotely nice or kind. Instead of telling all of her soldiers what she had figured out beforehand, she had patiently let them figure it out, asking questions in between to help them. She was acting more like a school teacher than a ruler. Even more surprisingly, she hadn't used a patronizing tone to the people that served her. Instead, she used a friendly tone, like she was talking to her friends. "Either Percy or Artemis turned on each other, and tried to kill each other. Percy used this sword here"—Percy imagined she was pointing to his sword next to to the gold dust pile—"And Artemis used her sacred blades. Why is Percy still here, even though two sacred blades are stuck in his body, which have enough power to trouble even my stupid brother himself?"

Close, Percy thought. But not close enough. After hearing the question, Percy was interested in the answer himself. Since he was busy feeling bad about his situation, he didn't think it was strange. 

The pause between the answer felt like eternity, but Percy knew it was a few seconds at most.

But before he could hear the answer, his body began to shut down, and his ears started to lose hearing. If his closed eyes could see any darker than they were, Percy figured they would've gotten darker. Fortunately, he heard the soldier answer in the nick of time—but he half thought his dying body had imagined it.

Then the world shut down.

"He's a primordial."