Percy's POV
I scan the room, my eyes flickering from the bloodied floor. Broken glass, and poorly lit environment. Minerva's desperate cries sounding more like a child stuttering on their own words now, "I just...wanted" the most demented vocals I've heard rip through my skin. Heavy thumping beating against the floor in slow succession, each making the singular light of the room flicker on and off. "To have a family...it's not fair", the voice still not giving away it's location. The thumping in the dark seemingly nothing but an echo of what's already passed.
Minerva stumbles against the back wall, hidden back in the darkness but her body still rattling against the wooden walls as she shakes in fear of her fate.
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘱
"You're...one of-" She tries to speak, only interrupted by the cracking of bone. "You thought you were so pretty..." The distorted voice whispers to itself, changing in an uncontrollable pitch with each word. The sounds of digging through flesh and pure mutilation charges the air, my body feeling like electricity surged through it with my flight or fight response activating.
"Minerva?" I barely mumble out. Waiting a few moments but still not receiving a response to the woman who felt like a queen in the moment. "Percy, we need to leave..." Thomas whispers while standing up with the help of Athena.
"But Chris" Our conversation only possible from the shredding sounds of what I can only assume to be Minerva, the only visible parts of the room being Chris in a chair and our only escape being the way we came in through. Thomas goes to open his mouth but stops at the sound of a bouncing object, rolling between our feet and staring back at us with a stomach sinking gaze. Minerva's eye sliced down the pupil as if crossed out like a wanted target.
"He won't be hurt anymore...they need him right?". He justifies, against my will we go to leave in an immediate thought for our survival, guiltily looking towards Chris who sits back in an unconscious state but still alive. "Are you...leaving me" a pair of golden eyes stare through the darkness, a disturbing realisation that it wasn't height level with us, traces of gold light following them in the dark background.
"Percy why would you leave me" It's deranged voice continues talking, my own lips glued shut in fear. "I did all this for you. We're the same now.", I still remain unable to speak back to the beast in the dark. "Percy. Percy. PERCYYY!" The beast shrieking in rage standing at the edge of shadows, throwing pieces of what I can only assume to be Minerva's body: teeth, fragmented bone, ribs and the last organ that slaps itself across the door. A fresh skinned copy to Minerva's front body, an outline of where her eyes, mouth, nose and hair was. Tears flowing from my eyes as the stomps slowly approach the light.
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘱
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘱
"Percy, my sweet brother in law. Get back to Adam and wait for him, I've already alerted him. We just need to stall...this." She regrettably shifts into her golden wolf, charging head first into the dark connecting to the eyes that have yet to blink. A constant gaze pointed towards us with a singular goal. "They all left me Percy...", the cries of the hound being ignored as Athena leaps up to meet it's stare, slashing down it but being grabbed by the paw like a child's toy.
"ATHENA!" I shout after hearing her sad whimpers for some sign of sympathy. A noticeable light building up from the shadows of the mouth. I had no choice left but to shift myself, time slowing and a clock's ticking resonates in my head at that the time I had left. I try to shift into Crest, my screams being drowned out by this mental ticking, 𝘛𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘛𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘛𝘪𝘤𝘬 an almost obnoxious countdown as I take in the last moments I have with Athena. Her paws kicking and scratching the fur of the figure in the dark, unphased by her attempts of getting free. I pound the floor over and over in rage of my own weakness, splinters filling my hands as I notice this bracelet...'take it off' his words calling to me.
'Take it off, take it off, take it off' a repeated chant making me arch my back in pain, until everything just goes silent. My mind null as I give up my previous caution and charge head first into the shadows, the beast stopping it's flames and instead tossing Athena to the side of a wall. Widening it's arms and making room for me to be clasped by it. "PERCY!" Thomas charges me back down just feet away from the glaring eyes that now look directly down onto me. "He made me this...that girl...her head...her blood. We can be a family now...a perfect family of Lycans." It's teeth shining like the familiar look of Fenrir, head twisting to the side in curiosity of my efforts. Picking me up by my arms and walking towards the centre of the room, light revealing her familiar coloured pelt of red and only making my eyes water.
"Scarlet. Why"
"Don't you love me...we can make more of us. But Chris...isn't a Lycan, I don't know what I saw. But he's an anomaly like 𝘜𝘴..." She cheerfully claims in the same demented tone only fit for a monster. "Yo-", she drops me from the full height of her Lycan form. I fall onto Thomas' back in confusion in why she let go. Scampering back to my feet and witnessing Athena's eyes locked onto Scarlet. "I'm sorry...Percy. I have to" She breathes out in her wolf form, what I can only assume to be her telepathy violently forcing itself into Scarlet. Tears falling from Athena's faint golden eyes at whatever mental space she's forcing her way into, images of those headless rainmaker pack members flood my mind at what she's trying to do.
"PERCY!" The Lycan form of the one I called family, throwing a fit with bloodied claws swinging blindly across the room, marking up the walls and ripping up the flooring. "I LOVE YOU!" She continues to scream, thumping her body onto the floor once more and igniting the hairs on her body. Memories of Lucas...she's making one last stand. The room rapidly becoming filled with smoke as the walls catch fire, her scorching heat igniting everything around her. A frenzied bouquet of flames bursting out from her mouth with each roar, "Fuck!" Athena loses her concentration as a spike of flames singe her fur.
"PERCY I DID THIS ALL FOR YOU!" She gains a piece of her sanity back, the scent of her flesh and fur burning up into the ceiling. Thomas limping as he grabs me, forcing himself towards the door we came in from.
"I didn't ask for this scarlet!" I sob in the remaining emotion I have left. Athena stretching her hair to Chris' body and wrapping him up, running just behind us.
"PERCY. PLEASE!" Her giant figure standing there motionless, incomparable to the flames extending off her like vines of life reaching for a glimmer of hope. Another chance, another way. An old door closing on the beast of sun I called my family, tears falling like lava to the floor. We turn the corner away from the hellish basement, all three of us torn and drained emotionally and physically.
-
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘱
Before a word could be said we all gaze to the smoke rising from the floor, the squeaking sound of an old door creaking open.
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘱
I cry to the floor in weakness, "PERCY! EVERYONE LEFT ME...!" She shrieks out, stomping on the carpet up the stairs head peering first as the ignited golden eyes spiral in a crazed flame. Her large Lycan form taking a poor imitated stature to that of a wolf as she begins galloping on all fours, essentially dragging her burnt off feet along with her. Each window she passes shattering from the heat being released, the hallway of the pack house now engulfed in flames like a path of hell. "Please stop!" I plea to her, nothing interesting pausing her advances but thought of possessing me as she leaps onto my body. The sun blazing heat cooking my skin as she...hugs me, her gargantuan arms welcoming me in an embrace but the flames torturing my nerves.
𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬
"Percy...I'm sorry-I'm sorry. I...didn't want to" She cries, tightening the hold. I hear her...but there's something else.
𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮
"I just wanted to...be like you...be with you. Don't reject me like...they did" Scarlet chokes out in the remaining moments she has. The sound in the background becoming more apparent to me.
"Per-" She drops me, falling to the floor I squirm back with my elbows. A torrent of wind bursts down the hallway like a ghost only materializing upon desire, my ears ringing with a deafening tone...of thunder. Scarlet's head slides off her body at a painstakingly slow pace as I take in the last brief seconds I have to acknowledge her. She drops to her knees, gradually tilting until finally folding to the floor. Flames still bursting with life as she ignites herself even further. "Who..." Athena's unshifted body quotes in shock, Scarlet's blood leaking and burning like oil. A being that went unnoticed to my eyes, "My name...is Aeon" His midnight armour clanked in the slightest shift of his body. Reeking of death and grey overgrown hairs extending through the helmet, all I knew at that moment. Is that if I moved, it would only mean imminent death.
Rogues bursting through the flamed windows that Scarlet broke, the figure dwarfing her body now stands tall behind her with the roof of the pack house completely torn apart. He charged towards them, twisting in the air and removing their heads with one circular swing of the sword he carries, the trails of black and red replacing the air he cut through. His life taking act appearing like nothing more than a silent waltz of death. Swiping his blade through the air and removing the blood tainted sword's crimson coat. I notice something engraved into it...a name.
"Now. The other Lycan." He turns, shaking what's left of the pack house. I freeze up with fear crawling up me...I'm going to die...he's going to kill me. Fenrir's growls taking over my mind, I can't think for myself. Gripping the remaining carpet around me like a blanket covering my vision-a bad nightmare, ignoring my torched skin painting blood across it with each touch to the soft burns. "Stop!" The recognisable voice of Adam booms down the hall, smoke still surrounding us but rising out through the hole left by this man's entrance.
The stomping continuing towards me, his feet weighing like endless burdens stacking onto each other. I whimper much to Fenrir's roaring continuing, 'LET ME OUT! I WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!' he begs again and again. The emotionless wolf who was merely playing with my existence now riddled with anger and hate towards this approaching figure. Hearing his footsteps cut through the flames left by Scarlet's body, unphased by anything that may hinder his straight path.
"He's..." I hear Thomas breathe out in a sigh of hopelessness, his body kneeling down next to mine.
"Wait! Please!" I hear Athena run in front of me.
"I will not." A deadpanned voice, followed by the crashing of wood. Alerting me to take off the cover from my eyes to see Athena tossed into the stairs, still conscious but struggling to stand back up.
"Face. Me." I stare into the eyes of this man who's so freely able to take a life. My body cowering in fear but my heart...welcoming to him. I know him...I feel it, something on his body calling to me as my eyes slowly rise to meet his. The King's Gold, a Queen's Violet. An audible ring of his sword, slicing the air with the faintest movement. Adam's feet gliding across the carpet as he tries to close the distance between him and me for these final moments. I stare into the beast's eyes, his unwavering eyes of determination flickering in pain at my words.
"Oracion?"