another day, another mission.
luckily for me, annabeth just finished making our costumes, so i can ditch the stupid black tactical suit. it's simple in design; a dark blue reinforced spandex-ish material with a little swirly design on the chest. the arms of the suit extend down to my knuckles, but leave the palms open. i take the robin route and don a matching domino mask.
annabeth's suit looks similar to mine, but gray, and where the cyclone symbol would be is an owl. it makes sense, given her alias and background. she took the same route of the domino mask.
today, in our civvies, our masks are replaced with our tinted glasses. we take the gotham zeta tube, which is so conveniently in our alley, to the cave.
it's training. kaldur and rob go first. they stop when they see conner and m'gann walking together.
"did you know they're a couple?" robin asks.
"i believe i knew before they did," kaldur responds. he glances from me to rob, but doesn't say anything. we turn to see wally and arty walk in together. in my mind, i scream in joy. god, they're perfect!
"should we tell them?" annabeth asks.
"nah. they'll figure it out. it doesn't take a genius to see that they'll be together eventually," i say, elbowing her. wally and artemis join us.
wally complains about captain marvel eating his snacks when batman arrives. he pulls up the national news and shows us the attacks of a large plant, and i figure it has to do with poison ivy. a nod from annabeth proves me right.
the team suspects that some unrelated criminals are teaming up, which means bad news. when rob's typing away, the joker's face interrupts us. they want ten billion american dollars to the injustice league.
the central control system is in the louisiana bayou. two minutes later, the bioship takes us south.
while flying above the bayou, the ship keels left, as though affected by vertigo.
or rather, count vertigo.
we come crashing down into the bayou. with some help from aqualad, i extract every team member from the submerged ship.
aqualad orders me, robin, and miss m to 'fulfill the mission objective.' it takes some convincing, but once aqualad assures me he can cover annabeth, i join my two teammates.
after trekking through the thick trees, we reach the central control system. we hear poison ivy greet us as she entangled us in some vines. she lifts us off the ground, but i suck the water out of the vines that encase me. as they wither and crack under my weight, miss m dislodges herself and robin. we dodge ivy's attacks left and right, until miss martian regains contact with the bioship. we run into vertigo and free our partners. they fall to the mud and fight the villains once pursuing us. suddenly, robin's bombs go off and the plant is destroyed. we end up fighting bad guys that i can't even name. (yeah, yeah. i didn't do my hero homework. sue me.)
that evil sorcerer guy shoots lightning at us. only me, aqualad, and miss m are able to take the impact. i protect annabeth, too, so i get it twice as bad. aqualad mutters something to miss m, and the duffel bag falls out of the bioship. i look over at aqualad as he lowers the helmet of fate onto his head. kid flash tries to stop him, but is sent flying into a tree. meanwhile, robin fights the joker.
while we all fight our respective bad guys, the leaguers appear. they fly down looking all majestic. the big guns surround the villains, and they surrender. aqualad takes off the helmet and talks to kid.
i look at aquaman, who is staring at me with wide eyes. before i can get annabeth's attention, he approaches me and bows. as he stands back up, he reverently says, "i have heard of what you've done for both the surface world and the undersea world. for that, i thank you." i nod and head back to my now-conscious best friend.
the first thing i notice when annabeth and i get home is the silence. usually on weeknights, they're up until even i'm fast asleep, watching reruns of friends and whatnot. annabeth notices the silence too, motioning for me to search the far bedrooms while she checks the study and living room.
i creep around the house in search of any signs of life. the halls are in disarray, too disorganized to be day-to-day mess. there was a fight here.
when i get to their bedroom, my stomach drops to my feet. on the bed, in a pool of blood, are my parents.
sally and paul.
the same sally that sang to me, stroked my hair, comforted me in the middle of the night when i woke up screaming from another nightmare.
the same paul that spent countless late nights with me, helping me catch up on my homework to make sense of a world i would never understand.
the people who taught me how to love, dead.
i stand in the doorway in shock. this can't be happening. not them. anyone but them.
a yellow sticky note on their nightstand catches my eye. it's addressed to me in blood-red ink.
dear percy,
your acts against the injustice league were a little rude, if you ask me. i know your story. your heroism disgusts me.
welcome to reality.
xo,
klarion <3
annabeth's gasp startles me from my shock. i rush to the bathroom, immediately emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet. annabeth follows me in, rubbing my back and holding me as we sob until the tears run dry.
that night, we sit on my bed together. annabeth tries to rationalize it, as per usual, having already called chiron to prepare the shrouds. her rambling falls on deaf ears, as all i can hear is the blood rushing in my head. the image of my parents' lifeless bodies burns the inside of my eyelids like a shitty brand. my head spins. angry, upset thoughts swim through my mind, but one musing sticks out.
of all the people this could happen to, a greek demigod should be the last on this list. with all i have done for the world, for the gods, this should never have happened to me. to them. of all mortals, they should have been protected.
but there are no gods for heroes.
