Percy's POV
I didn't ask for this, I didn't want this. The last part of my blood related family, up in literal cinders in front of me. My burn marks still tracing my skin, I gaze downward in astonishment. 'This is truly my life now'.
'I can take control of your life, I can make us better'
"Shut up" I whisper out, the discussion amongst my friends stopping. But I don't care. The Lycan who now threatens my life staring me down once again. That soul reaping stare, I'm losing myself in it.
'Percy I can kill him', my vision focuses back into the bracelet. I could end it all right here, absolutely nothing stops me but this man right here. I'm tired and I'm out of tears, nothing left holding me back from truly letting loose. He's trying to scare the emotion left inside of me, I don't want to feel it anymore.
"Percy?" Adam's voice zones me back into reality, leaning down next to me and holding me in a hug. My mate, the one I'm supposed to feel an unconditional love for. But right now all that connects us is the electricity sparking through our skin. I hug him back without any words which makes him fumble a bit, everyone still silent as I feel their eyes on the back of my head.
"Percy let me heal you, Athena too." Yasmine comes close to us, reaching over to Athena and starting to heal her wounds. She's been covering her naked body this entire time with her hair after the shift against Scarlet, but I don't want to be healed. These marks along my body are the last memory I have of her, that monstrosity of flames wasn't her. I refuse to believe it.
The sound of a chip breaking off from me catches my eye as it skips along the ground, letting go of Adam and leaning down to pick it up. Seeing the black rock and small engravings I immediately recognise it...the bracelet Persephone gave to me, it's breaking.
-
"So this son of yours, where is he now?" Adam asks Aeon
"The Self-Forged Alpha of the Crimson pack as he called it. Wolves who have lost themselves in their own power and now share the curse of Megalo, their blood boils with hate and impurities. As done by the man who presents himself right here, Anubis." He gestures towards Chris' body as he now stands a tiny bit shameful of himself.
"I did not intend for this to backfire, I was thinking of the last possible chance I could have to try and stop Fenrir's creations, nonetheless I do not regret it. The curse was meant to silence their god driven abilities, but now they've turned it into their own signature."
"Harming themselves in order to silence others...?" Athena finishes his explanation, making me think of all the times we fought the rogues there was a similarity, that being their blood was intoxicatingly thick and almost had a mind of its own.
"Correct and as for the increase of abilities, I'm sorry to inform you but that's Percy's doing. They sense your presence and they wish to challenge the abdicated Fenrir, breaking away their very life in order to make them strong enough to fight you." His words making me zone out once again, hurting me in the depths of my soul. All this death surrounding me: The Rainmakers, Lucas, Lara and Scarlet.
"Percy you mentioned this was a cursed zone, hence why we all ended up here? I assume we need to take it in order to get to this Persephone lady then?" Athena asks me
"Clio told me they connect only cursed zones to each other, just think of the place you want to go and it'll take you the closest it can to it. But anything else and you'll end up...she never did mention what else could happen" Shaking a little bit from weariness as I come to understand the risks of doing this.
"You found Cliodhna?" Her words making me realise something that I didn't before. How did I end up next to Persephone nonetheless Clio...
"How is this place even a cursed zone?" Aeon comments, stepping forward but digging deeper into a fissure he created earlier. Opening it up and revealing the current below us, a completely purple stream of light with another suffocating pull to it that drags us all from the surface with a silent gasp of surprisal.
"PERCY!" Adam yells out to me as we all plummet towards it, his body gradually floating more towards Yasmine and Thomas despite his efforts to get to me. Aeon grabbing hold of me, Athena and Chris. "ADAM!" I scream in a panic when I see all three of them phasing into a different point of the current. Aeon pulling us all closer to his chest nearly crushing us with force.
My thoughts retaining on nothing more than being safe as our group becomes divided once again. "Up ahead" Anubis calls attention to the painted image, the garden I once saw Persephone in now coming closer and closer to us. Vines creeping around our bodies like a hand reaching into a jar, pulling us out into the living hellish garden that hides it's murderous intent.
We slam onto the ground and sit there in a brief moment of starstruck, "Percy I'm sure he's fine, he's my brother. He couldn't be harmed even if someone wanted to" Athena tries to cheer me up as I lay on my back staring off into the sky in a daze of not knowing what else to feel. All of us still held together by Aeon's large frame, his fur feeling like an ethereal silk but carrying a certain thickness to it as if a second layer of armour. "Are you done touching me?" I pause, remembering what I'm touching. Look up to meet his heterochromatic eyes staring at me, his grinning expression replacing his previous gloomy one. Feeling an odd warmth from him that takes the place of his bloodlust.
"So you've finally returned? And with him, I see." Cliodhna appears from a place above us, floating down like an invisible stairway.
"Banshee, oh how much time has passed since our last encounter" He stands back to his feet, placing us back down like action figures one by one.
"Is that humour, or have you honestly forgotten?" She mocks with a rising eyebrow
"Take it however you want, time does not matter to me. I do not retain the useless memories"
"I'll ignore it this time for the sake of Percy, but I see you've brought our other gate opener. Anubis, it's been too long" She pleasurably greets him as if gaining a warm heart from just seeing him again.
"I'm fine Cliodhna, now am I right to believe Persephone is truly here?"
"She is, follow me." She turns around and flows lower to the ground, once again recreating the false movement as if she's walking.
-
Oracion's POV
My sight has never proven me wrong, but the flowing energy throughout this cursed zone is unlike the ones I've seen before. They all connect to one solid point, but it's moving around with it's own mind. "And here she is" Cliodhna calls out. Persephone, Queen of the underworld notoriously known for her fondness of the Narcissus flower, what a cruel fate he suffered but such is life.
"I see the vessel has returned, along with...guests" Her eyes wander up to me after tossing a half eaten pomegranate behind her, giving me the look of fear that I'm used to, but she hides it well. "As I said, you cannot take your physical body into the underworld. There are only certain exceptions to this as you'll notice with Persephone's appearance. But otherwise I'm going to stand here to protect them, is anyone uncomfortable with this?" Cliodhna announces. Making me remember the time I was first invited to the underworld, Anubis gave me the blessing to enter with my body without the risk of it rotting and being served up to the river of Styx. I stare at him in this new body, still familiar to me on the inside but outside he remains a stranger to me.
"I believe I'm fine in this body, as is Persephone." Anubis quotes, making her nod in agreement. Leaving less work for me, just Athena and the one they called Percy. They fall silent with my increasing focus.
"Stand still, move and I'll tear out your soul through your flesh." As easy as I can put it, they both listen and stand beside each other in calmness surprisingly enough. I lean down and stare into Athena's eyes, she keeps a strong demeanour that I like in her. Her eyes slowly swirling and mimicking the process that I did on that boy Thomas when we first made eye contact. Feeling myself falling into her deepest roots I understand her better, what person she is, what she's done and hopes to achieve. Tugging on those desires and pulling them out into a physical plain for her to use, her eyes retaining a permanent faint yellow as she stares at me in acknowledgement. Leaving her body to gradually slump onto the floor beside Cliodhna.
"And now you." I copy the process but admittingly feel an uneasy sense of dread, should I truly be doing this. Or should I take this opportunity to end his life for this cycle...maybe even forever, I've never entered the mind of a vessel before. But begrudgingly enough continue to do so, seeing images of his life, his proudest moments and saddest moments. All these years and I still have not lost a sense for sympathy. But something lingers in that dark theatre playing back his memories, the eyes of the one I swore to hunt. His eyes tracing me and staring in a fit of rage, only being held back by a cage soon to crumble in on itself. A mental clock in his head that's continuously ticking anticlockwise ever since his life began as if trying to say he wants to undo his own existence. The memories merging and now showing visuals of the different people he's gone through, some even flickering to my face as the last thing they see...I'm not a monster.
"It is done. Now can we be on our way" I uncomfortably shuffle from the eyes of Percy, facing Persephone who's preparing the entry. "The timeless man who still remains impatient" She giggles to herself. All these years alone, tormented, pained...and I'm still the same man I was back then, aren't I...Freya.