CATHARSIS, jason grace¹ [EDITING]

𝟬𝟬𝟴. what it's like to lose a friend

"SO, LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT," Piper said to Annabeth as they rested in a secluded cave during her half-hearted tour. "You're telling me that last summer, there was this huge war between the gods and the Titans? Aera joined the Titans to support Luke Castellan and eventually became one of Kronos' most loyal followers. Kronos entrusted her with his demon army before he took over Luke's body as a mortal vessel transitioning into his final form.

While Typhon kept the gods busy, Aera led the Titan Army into their siege on Manhattan. When they failed to get past your defenses surrounding the city, she compelled her former head counselor, Jolina Kamarov, and two other Aphrodite kids into strapping themselves to Greek firebombs and rushing towards Mount Olympus. There wasn't enough time for you to defuse the bombs without hurting them, so they died and the Titans invaded Olympus. In the end, the gods won and Kronos was defeated. Your boyfriend Percy was granted a favor from the gods for saving Olympus but instead of accepting immortality and leaving you behind, he basically blackmailed the gods into paying their child support? He had them promise to claim all their children by the time they turned 13, and to pardon Aera and all the other demigods who were on the Titan's side for their betrayal?"

Annabeth despondently kicked one of the skulls on the cave floor. It barely rolled past another creepy bone before stopping face down. "That about sums it up."

"Yeah," Piper remarked, leaning back against the cave wall, "Yeah, I think I might have missed all that on the news."

"Don't blame you." Annabeth shrugged halfheartedly. "From what you told me, you've had a busy couple of months, too."

Busy? More like boring. Piper's juvenile attempts at capturing her father's attention by getting herself in trouble seemed completely obsolete compared to Aera's literal uprising against her ancestors.

Piper had no trouble believing Aera had tried to overthrow the gods. Everyone knew Aera worshipped nobody but herself. She was most definitely not someone Piper wanted to get on the bad side of, but to hear all these campers and Annabeth describe her as some off-the-rails, bloodthirsty murderer seemed almost laughable to Piper.

Aera was normally pricklier than a porcupine, but when she smiled, Piper thought she looked like a little girl who was excited about playing dress-up with her dolls. Yeah, she had one of the cattiest attitudes Piper had ever encountered in any private school her father threw her to, but Piper also couldn't count the number of times she was secretly holding back a laugh when Aera shamelessly called someone out for their BS. Not to mention, Aera had pushed Jason off the bus seat when she got flustered by his hug. That didn't seem like something a ruthless criminal who commanded an army of monsters would do.

It was hard to see Aera in such a serious, menacing light, but Piper supposed with the right motivation, that girl could've accomplished anything with her charisma...

"She must have loved him a lot," Piper assumed, thinking about why Aera would work for the bad guys. "This Luke Castellan."

"Not him," Annabeth replied tersely. "Aera didn't love Luke. She loved his power. He was much older than her, everything she wanted to be, and when she finally realized he wasn't as perfect as she thought he was, she abandoned him."

"What do you mean?"

Annabeth drew in a shaky breath, her expression pained. Piper could tell this was hard for her to talk about, but she needed to know what kind of person Aera was. She needed to know what she had done.

"It was Aera," Annabeth finally responded after an uneasy pause, "who dealt the final blow to Luke in the throne room of Mount Olympus. That's why the Council agreed to spare her life. Because she destroyed Kronos."