The Fall of Civilization

The Impact of a Friend's Death

The burial was cremation. Leo claimed that spreading Percy's ashes to the sea seemed like the rightful resting place for him. Nico gave the rightful ceremony. Each of them gave a farewell speech to Percy. The day after the burial was a day of mourning for the crew of Agro II. They don't have enough time to mourn for Nico, Hazel and Frank had prepared to set off to prevent the civil war as soon as possible.

The remaining of the crew was silent until Hazel and Nico returned with Clarisse la Rue, Jake Mason and Will Solace. Clarisse was holding an unconscious Rachel Elizabeth Dare in her arms. From their accounts, the treaty was unsuccessful as Octavian had destroyed to Athena Parthenos and most of the people were slaughtered. The harpy, Ella, was brought to Poseidon's domain by Tyson. Chiron was among those survivors rounding up he injured to protect each and every one of them. Reyna had survived and told them to rendezvous with her in St. Peter's Square in Rome. If she isn't there, she may be found in the Pantheon.

Jake helped Leo around in fixing Argo II. Clarisse and Annabeth were talking about battle strategies while Will was busying himself in the state of health of Nico. Piper and Hazel engaged themselves into practicing in sword fight. According to Hazel it is good distraction from the pain of losing Frank and seeing him impaled before her. Jason just indulged himself to a conversation with Rachel. Rachel was constantly disoriented and Jason was distracted from the death of Percy.

Sometimes when he is alone, Jason would find himself staring into the sky wishing that it was him and not Percy that should have died. An unstable Annabeth is worse than a broken hearted Piper. Though Piper's charmspeak is useful, it became useless now that Annabeth is slowly dipping to insanity and no one can argue with one as smart as Annabeth.

"You miss him too huh?" Nico leaned on one of the railings on the deck beside Jason.

"You okay?" Jason asked him. "His death must be some kind of a blunt trauma to you."

Nico shook his head. "I am over my crush on Percy, Jason. I just found out someone who is like me."

"What do you mean like you?"

"You know . . . a guy who likes other guys."

"I am guessing it is not Jake."

Nico looked at him in panic. "Is it that obvious?"

Jason shook his head. "I just know Leo had a crush on another girl and Jake once had a girlfriend, who died in the Roman assault back at the camp. So yeah, it is definitely Will. His smile says it all."

"We can't go to Athens at this rate," said Nico. "All this is going to be short-term."

"Leo knows of a place where we can be safe for a long time," said Jason. "We can all escape our destiny."

"We cannot escape our destiny," Nico said. "I am sorry to say this Jason but tomorrow may be our last day alive. The mission was destined to doom the moment Percy died."

Jason smiled. He had accepted his destiny long ago. "You know what? Who am I kidding? Percy is dead and we all lose hope? C'mon, let's show Gaea's forces that the death of a comrade won't discourage us from defeating them."