Alpha's Story | Percy Jackson Chaos || COMPLETE

*Chapter 17*

We may not have trained on weekends but that didn't necessarily mean we all got the days off. My fighting techniques had improved drastically over the years, but so had the armies. I had to train a lot with Chaos to get ahead, which was probably the most annoying thing in the world.

"So what do you think of Omega?" Chaos asked me, as I practiced the moves he had just showed me. It had been a few months since Omega joined our ranks and it honestly wasn't that bad.

"He's nice," I said. My words were slightly contradicted by my actions though, as I hid the dummy with force.

"Is he suspicious?"

"Surprisingly no."

"I told you that you didn't need to worry."

"He seems different," I said. I stopped attacking the dummy and turned around to face him. "I guess I'm different too though."

"It's been years Alpha. Even in human years, it's been a while since he saw you. He grew up."

"Not that long though," I said. "Most people don't grow up that quickly."

"He didn't have a choice. He was a hero in the middle of two wars."

"Two wars?" I asked. "I thought there was only the Titan War."

"No there was another one after it. This time with Gaea instead of Kronos."

"The Prophecy of Seven," I whispered. I'd seen that redheaded girl spout the prophecy, but it never occurred to me that it had come true. It made sense though. There was all that stuff about Percy disappearing, and the quest with the new campers. And... "That's why Annabeth died, wasn't it? What she and Percy were doing was because of the war."

"Yes," Chaos said. "They were in Tartarus and she fell back in as they were escaping. Percy had no way to save her."

I remembered Percy screaming and yelling, trying to get back to the love of his life. They were in Tartarus. He was willing to jump back into the worst place in the universe to save her.

"That's horrible," I whispered. "But why did he come here? I understand that it was hard for him, but why eave Earth altogether?"

"The camp blamed him. People came to their own conclusions about Annabeth's death and in their version of the story, Percy was in no way a victim. He had no one."

"No one," I repeated. I looked up at Chaos, "I assume he doesn't want anyone to know about it?"

"Would you want someone to know your past?" Chaos asked in return.

"I won't tell anyone," I promised. "It's not my story to tell anyway."

Chaos nodded, "Shall we get back to training now?"

***

I promised myself I wouldn't look in the mirror again. After what happened last time with Nico's birthday, I told myself I wouldn't use my powers with the mirror. That I would use it as a normal mirror and that maybe I would be able to convince myself it never was anything else.

That didn't exactly work out the way I thought it would.

I walked back into my room after training, pretty exhausted and just wanting to sleep. But as I walked towards to my bed that was against the back wall of my room, when I saw something flicker out of the corner of my eye.

I looked over, not really expecting to see anything. I figured it was one of those moments that I saw a shadow or something and would be convinced there was a murderer in my room.

I certainly didn't expect what I saw.

I saw myself, Thalia, Zoë, Grover and Percy walking through a desert. I should have looked away and continued on with my day. Maybe I should've told Chaos. What I do know is that I shouldn't have walked over and watched.

It took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on. It wasn't until my conversation with Percy about what I had taken that I realized.

I watched myself run into the giant robot-thing. It was weird to see it from the outside. All I remembered from that moment was horror and regret. The inability to move or scream as I died a painful death.

"We can keep searching," Percy said. "It's light now. We'll find her."

"No we won't," Grover said miserably. "It happened just as it was supposed to."

"What are you talking about?"

"The prophecy. One shall be lost in the land without rain."

The prophecy was always right. For a second, I couldn't help but think that if Percy hadn't come on the quest, I wouldn't have died. We had already decided that Phoebe was the person we had lost in the land without rain, because it didn't rain in Camp Half-Blood. But then Percy joined us and messed it all up again.

I felt bad for thinking that though when I saw his face full of regret. I knew that he had realized it too.

The scene switched. Now Percy was standing somewhere at camp, talking to my little brother.

"You promised you would protect her," Nico said.

I would give anything to forget the look of hurt that was both on his face and Percy's. I assumed this was the moment that Percy told Nico I was dead. By the looks of it, Nico wasn't taking it too well. I didn't have much time to think about that before the scene switched again.

"Stars," she whispered. "I can see the stars again, my lady."

"Yes, my brave one," Artemis whispered. "They are beautiful tonight."

"Stars," Zoe repeated. Her eyes fixed on the night sky. And she did not move again.

Artemis cupped her hand above Zoe's mouth and spoke a few words in Ancient Greek. A silvery wisp of smoke exhaled from Zoe's lips and was caught in the hand of the goddess. Zoe's body shimmered and disappeared.

Artemis stood. She said a kind of blessing, breathed into her cupped hand and released the silver dust to the sky. It flew up, sparkling, and vanished.

Annabeth gasped. She looking off into the distance I couldn't see. The view turned, showing me the night sky. The stars were shining brighter than usual. They made a pattern that hadn't been there before— a gleaming constellation that looked a lot like a girl's figure— a girl with a bow, running across the sky.

"Let the world honour you, my Huntress," Artemis said. "Live forever in the stars."

Well that answered my question about Zoë's death— I guess it was the best answer I could hope for. The scene kept changing, showing me the deaths of so many people.

It was hard to stand there and just watch it, but at the same time, I couldn't look away. I wanted to know what happened to these people, as much as it hurt to see it.

It was that moment that I really started to understand why Percy came to our world. The pain of losing Annabeth, the feeling that he was alone... it must of been crushing him. And when he lost all his friends, when his own father turned against him, he just snapped. He didn't want to be there, being reminded of her every day. He didn't want to remember how she was gone for good.

So he did the only thing he could think of; he left.