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Chapter Text

Legacy, if you will. Actions of bravery and sacrifice strong enough to leave a lasting impact on the people and beings in the world. If gods and immortals can fade from a lack of believers then heroes and legends will never die for the same reason. For Percy Jackson, it started with whispers amongst campers as he dragged himself and Grover across the wards into camp. The minotaur horn was clenched in his hands, the sign of prowess conflicting with the image the small twelve-year old made physically.

The new camper defeated the minotaur on his own, they whispered amongst themselves.

Could he be the prophecy hero? Chiron thought. Before Perseus Jackson had even been introduced to the world of Greek gods and heroes, the first shimmers of gold were already entered into his thread by the Fates.

The whispers never really stopped, and Jackson did nothing to hinder them either, not that he noticed them. He received a quest within less than a month of being at camp. Before any of the campers really knew him, he was already considered worthy of a quest, something the rest of the campers knew were only granted to the most worthy of heroes. Even more, he succeeded in his quest where even Luke Castellan, older and stronger as he was, had failed.

And just as the rumors and whispers had started dying down, the boy decided to head off again. To the sea of monsters, this time to save a satyr he considered his friend. It was a selfless thing to do, the heroic thing to do and it only added fuel to the rumors and made his thread just a little brighter in the fates weave.

The stories about Perseus Jackson never ebbed away, instead the embers grew into flames around the campfire from the moment he stepped inside the border. Returning the lightning bolt, or the golden fleece or holding the sky to free Artemis all of them built the foundation of the Legend that would become Percy Jackson.

By the time the battle of the labyrinth rolled around, there was no camper that didn’t respect Percy Jackson as one of the unofficial leaders of Camp Half-blood. His experience and his inescapable connection to the great prophecy (no matter that none of the campers save Annabeth knew what it said) shaped the power, authority and the role Percy had at camp.

The secret to legacy lies in the stories people tell about you. They shape who you are and wherever Percy went, he made an impression. Not just anyone can beat the God of War in a mele at twelve years old (first fight to first blood or not) but already the myth and the whispers surrounding the son of Poseidon bolstered the lack of experience and shaped the outcome in Percy’s favour. He walked out from that duel victorious but changed.

To best a god in their own domain invites chaos, and for Percy that meant an inevitable web of strings tying him to war. His fate was sealed and it would not be a peaceful one.

Gossip from the campers was one thing, but Percy’s infamy reached to the heavens and into the minds of the Gods themselves. Everywhere Percy went he drew strong reactions from every deity he ever met. Hades and Artemis respected him against their own nature. Zeus despised how strong the child of the sea was. Ares disliked him but couldn’t help but respect him in battle. Athena disapproved of him.

And Dionysus.

He saw the way Perseus was shackled by fate the moment he laid eyes on him and knew his fate would be a tragic one, maybe even for eternity. He never spoke his name. Except for once. Because even he couldn’t help but acknowledge that only Percy Jackson would have the power, the authority and the heart to keep his remaining son away from battle.

Hermes does the same. Against his better judgement. But at that point Percy’s reputation reached far beyond what any normal demigods did. So Hermes begged Percy to try and save Luke. Pleaded with him, a half-blood as if he would have the power to save someone even if the gods and fates had decided irredeemable. Gods may ask demigods to go on quest for them at any moment, but that’s mostly to keep the peace between deities and domains to avoid outright war. Sometimes even to evade their boredom, or watch the demigods beg for their own lives and pray to their mothers and fathers for salvation in their last moments.

It’s different when a God begs.

When Gods beg for help because they think only one half-blood can make a difference, Fate takes notice.

By the time Percy Jackson stood before the Gods on Olympus after Kronos second defeat, his legend was strong enough for him to become a minor god. That’s why Zeus offered it to him in the first place. The blood flowing through his veins was bound to burn into ichor and Zeus needed it to be on his terms.

Percy Jackson was never one to make anything easy for anyone in his life. He walked out of the throne room with red blood in his veins and a myth large enough to rival any of the heroes of old.

He had too much power underneath his skin - not that he would know, used to incredible feats of power as he was - and everyone knew that the moment he forsake mortality his ascension would begin.

The campers didn’t really think anything of it - gossiping about Percy’s insane powers and stories was just part of daily life - until Percy was lost and in return they received Jason Grace, son of Jupiter. Perhaps it was the fact that they all had met Thalia Grace, lieutenant of Artemis hunters. Perhaps it was because he was Roman and thus not as inherently wild. He's a son of Jupiter they'd whisper. But he's not Percy Jackson.

The myth surrounding Percy Jackson had only grown during his disappearance where not even a son of Jupiter with the power of flight could hold a candle to that. Jason was everything one would expect of a hero but he carried nothing of the same mystique as Percy did, despite being powerful, experienced and competent. Camp half-blood missed their hero and they never let Jason forget it.

Even the Romans noticed. Hunted by gorgons, carrying a goddess and controlling the Little Tiber like it was nothing, no wonder Hazel mistook him for a god when he arrived at Camp Jupiter.

Percy, ever the child soldier, fought in the war games like he had been born with a sword in hard. His defiance of authority and careless nature around the gods stunned them. Camp Jupiter had seen nothing of the sort ever before. Fighting in war games like he’d been born and raised into one (it was the truth - not that he remembered it at the time) and defying gods as if he were their equal.

What little resistance they had at first (Son of Neptune of all things, and he’s greek!) quickly dispersed once he returned from his quest, bringing with him the golden eagle and a huge supply of weapons from imperial gold, riding a hellhound and shouting orders like it was natural for him. Like it was his birthright to do so.

No one resisted his orders, and they could only watch as Percy battled Polybotes all on his own. Everyone watched, mortal and immortal alike. Poseidon screamed at Jupiter for not letting him help his son when Jupiter had done so for Jason.

Imagine everyone’s surprise, when Percy defeated his father’s greatest opponent all on his own, with a last minute introduction to the head of Terminus' broken statue. The Romans raised him as praetor on a shield, one week after they first laid eyes on him and every single one had the same thought - that this Greek, this Perseus Jackson, must be a god.

Jason had served the legion for twelve years before making it to praetor, and Reyna four. But in seven days, Percy brought the presence of two gods to camp Jupiter, brought back the Imperial eagle, and battled a giant all on his own. How could they do anything other than to raise him on their shields?

The first one was taking on Achilles' curse at the river Styx. Locking all of your mortality to just one spot, centering everything that set him apart from the Gods, made so room for his divine powers to grow. Where Percy a year prior almost died from blowing up Mt St Helens, he now wielded hurricanes during the battle of New York like it was nothing. He felt no physical strain save for his need to sleep to replenish his power reserves.

The fact that the Little Tiber washed away the protective layer of the curse meant nothing. What was a bleak copy of the once great river Tiber to the eternal river Styx of the underworld? Still, Styx allowed it to happen because even she felt it, Perseus' powers had grown ever since he’d picked up the curse. Soon, she mused, soon you won't need my curse any more.

The second happened in Tartarus. It had started earlier, when Percy controlled the Lethe to defeat Iapetus the titan, and now he’d managed to tame even the Cocytus and drank from the Pyriphlegeton to heal. Controlling rivers of the Underworld should not have been within his domains, yet no-one would even be surprised anymore when they heard tales of his feat.

The entire Pit observed him, either up close in combat or from a distance. Watching, waiting, betting on his death or ascension. He shouldn’t have made it out without reaching either.

He should have ascended when he almost killed Ahkyls. He should have killed Ahklys. He felt what he later would understand to be his mortality crack as he forced the poison to bend to his will right from under Misery’s nose. It shattered when he mustered up the hate and will to see Misery be tortured under her own domains. How much misery can misery take? As he watched her tears forming, her screams ringing, he was the one in control, but he didn’t want to stop. What right did she have, to trick him and Annabeth, to extort her power over them simply because she wanted to? Who did she think she was? He would show her Misery. As Percy’s conscious slowly reached the pride and anger worthy of a god, the Fates readied themselves at their loom with a golden inlay when -

He stopped.

For Annabeth. Annabeth. His mortal anchor. Oh how Styx laughed at that. I told that little upstart river I was stronger! His mortal anchor, the one he forged in my river, is the only thing holding him back now!

Annabeth was terrified and made him promise not to use it, some things are not meant to be controlled, Percy! And he promised. But it was an empty promise. What did it matter if he didn’t use that power when his mental state rapidly approached the level required for the apotheosis to be finalized? What did it matter if he stopped, when he’d battled a goddess for her domains and won?

What did it matter if he used his control over poisons in battle, when he could feel poison in everything around him, plants, chemicals, animals and monsters? He never told Annabeth because she already feared him. Any more proof that he had a new domain - one not attributed to his father - would break what little trust she had left in his humanity.

It was hardly a surprise that Gaea wanted his blood specifically to rise. She would have preferred him sacrificed on an altar for sure, or else she wouldn’t have chosen him over Phineas in the bet over the gorgon blood. But even a drop would suffice, a drop from the strongest hero in a millenia and a half - more, really - was enough for Gaea to start rising. She could probably have gotten someone else's blood and much more of it, but even a drop of Perseus blood, the one with prophesied power to end Olympus was preferred and she would not have it any other way.

The third time was when Percy and Annabeth broke up. None of them wanted to admit it, but it soon became clear that it was inevitable. From the moment he’d embraced the darkness inside him down in the Pit, it was only a matter of time. It began like this:

Everyone else had moved on, but Percy still felt restless and wound up, expecting a fight or a new monster to battle wherever he went. Violence had become the undercurrent of his life. Jason began to build temples and dedicated his life to his promise. Piper enjoyed life at camp, and tried to figure out her relationship with Jason in a peaceful era. Frank and Hazel were busy with the legion as Praetors, determined to rebuild it to full strength. Annabeth set her sights on attending University and rebuilding the rest of Olympus as the appointed architect. But where did Percy fit into all of this?

He was never studious like Annabeth and his records as a troublemaker ruined his chances at pretty much any school other than in New Rome. He gave it one semester but eventually dropped out. Annabeth dealt with the trauma of the Pit by throwing herself into studies and college life in New Rome but Percy hated it. School had never been for him, his ADHD and dyslexia still hindered him and he found himself bored to death studying marine biology - a subject he’d only chosen because he was desperate to try living a normal life with Annabeth and she had suggested the major after enough of his complaining.

He’d joined Frank and Hazel from time to time to train the legion, but hated the formalities and dealing with the Senate. He joined and planned some war games from time to time to challenge the legion and their battle strategies, but even that felt strange. Why was it that children had to be the ones to fight when their parents were alive and well within the walls of New Rome? Annabeth confronted him on why he’d even convinced her to come with him to New Rome in the first place. If he wasn’t going to study there and didn’t want to become involved with the legion either, he had no reason to stay. She had no reason to stay. Any attempts Percy made to explain himself fell short and that was the end. Not a week later, Annabeth announced she would transfer to Berkeley.

He hugged her goodbye without any tears, just a bone deep tiredness while she was stiff and serious. They didn’t say anything about what would happen with them.

With nothing holding him in New Rome, he returned to Camp Half-blood and threw himself into helping out with swordsfighting and other lessons for the new campers. Camp always felt far more like home than New Rome ever did, but the repetitiveness of camp made him want to climb the walls and he became more and more irritable. He drove Annabeth crazy because she had mountains of schoolwork since she’d transferred in the middle of the year and all iris-messages they tried to send always ended in an argument. Annabeth couldn’t devote any time to Percy, focusing on catching up on her prerequisite classes for her new university. Every iris-message between the two always ended in an argument with one or the other angrily swiping the message away.

It all just seemed so pointless to Percy. What did it matter if more demigods were claimed, when the amounts of new demigods showing up just proved how little gods cared for their human connections? Jason invited him to come along on his temple-building undertaking but Percy only found himself wondering why the gods deserved it in the first place. He’d had enough of serving the gods (unwillingly to boot) for his lifetime.

Mr D observed him with amusement, looking at him like they both shared a secret, a secret Percy didn’t know yet and it unnerved him.

Slowly, the irritation, the lack of trust and the long distance carved away at his last remains of connection to his mortality. When summer came, he hadn’t seen Annabeth in six months, and it’d been more than two since their last Iris message.

“I’m not going back to camp for the summer.” She’d said. Some summer courses had come up and she was busy working on designing Olympus, apparently.

“What about us?” He’d asked, tired but fidgeting with Riptide - always so tired, yet always too much energy.

“What do you mean “what about us”?” She’d retorted like it wasn’t a valid question. Like falling into Tartarus meant they didn’t need to see or speak to each other ever, in order to keep their relationship alive. If you could call it that.

With a small and annoyed huff, he spoke the sentence which would seal his fate forever.

“I think we should break up, Annabeth.”

He’d emerged from his cabin the morning after just as the sun rose, nothing in his outward appearance betraying what had just happened, but feeling ten tons lighter, and like he could finally breathe again. Mr D sat on the veranda, Diet Coke in hand, following him with knowing eyes, and Percy stopped and glared back. Dionysus offered a small nasty grin but procured another Diet Coke which he plonked down on the table and gestured vaguely for Percy to take a seat in a chair opposite him. He sat down.

“Tell me how long I have left.”

Mr D snorted meanly. “Look who’s finally realizing what’s going on around them!”

Percy sneered in response. “I don’t want this, you know. I said no.”

Mr D rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah, you’re just so selfless, aren’t you Johnson? Well guess what, I don’t care. And neither does the fates, apparently. It’s only a matter of time.”

***

Percy had always wielded power with an oblivious ease, be it hurricanes or earthquakes. He wielded his new divinity very much the same.

He’d always addressed gods with a lack of respect and demanded theirs in return but after the giant war, it didn’t escape anyone’s notice of just how comfortable Percy seemed around gods.

When Annabeth spit rude opinions with a personal distaste at Gods, Percy challenged them. Where Annabeth received the icy politnes in return with glares if she was lucky, or curses like the one Hera placed on her if she was unlucky, Percy earned respect and ire in equal amounts.

Where Jason spoke strictly business with the gods in preparations for their future temples, Percy regularly hung out with Hermes, or took a lift with Apollo in the sun chariot on his way between the camps. Mars and Ares liked to show up whenever Percy held war games or sword lessons, but everyone except Percy noticed how Mars only looked at Percy, and how Ares always asked him to spar despite having a full cabin of kids who would have been ready to kill for the chance.

At the winter solstice, Percy stood out amongst his peers, a faint golden sheen underneath his skin just waiting to burn through the mortal shell and the gods exchanged looks amongst themselves when they thought no one was looking.

At the party afterwards, Katie found herself looking for Percy, and almost didn’t see him, because he looked so natural standing next to Aphrodite, who tried to convince him to go on a blind date she’d set up.

Will did a double take at what he first thought was Poseidon laughing and playing nectar-pong with Dionysos - but it turned out to be Percy. How much has he had? Or is he just that good that he would beat a god at beer-pong with nectar? Will found himself wondering.

When Apollo, stuck in the mortal body of Lester, meets Percy Jackson, he thinks to himself that this must be what it feels like for mortals to meet a god, the overwhelming presence of power personified. How come no one is noticing? Apollo wonders. Even in Lester's ugly, weak and pathetic body, can he can feel the pulse of ichor drown out everything else whenever Percy is around. In those moments just one thought fills his head, Percy might reach godhood before I do.

Chapter Text

The earliest sign of Godhood is an unnaturally perfect outward appearance. Perhaps a bit vain, but there’s a reason the ancient Greeks believed the beuty was a god given gift as proof of one’s good character. Twelve year old Percy hadn’t been much for the world to look at. He’d been a carbon copy of his father, but Poseidon had never been as small and weak in comparison, not even as a newborn god. At twelve, mortality still clung to Percy in the form of his mom’s nose, voice and demeanor.

That changed along with puberty. With every quest under his belt and as Percy’s confidence grew, so did his appearance change to match his levels of divinity. Twelve year old Percy looked like an easy prey for the Ares Cabin, and Annabeth first noticed how he drooled in his sleep. But in time with his growing list of achievements, so did his stature. Zoe first met a boy, undeserving and arrogant, but came to see a hero who’d held the sky, the only one she’d ever met worthy of her blade.

Rachel first saw a troublemaker kid with a sword in his hand, but came to know a brave hero with powers far beyond what she could have imagined and he introduced her to the crazy reality so few mortals even knew about. That made her fall just a little bit in love, and she’d kissed him before they entered the labyrinth.

Annabeth couldn’t believe that the kid who’d passed out once he made it across the border with Grover, the kid who still drooled in his sleep, would become the hero of the prophecy, but when she glances at him during the battle of New York, she sees the hard set line of his mouth, determined to survive against all odds, his tall stature which he’d finally started growing into at fifteen, and when he fights an army of monsters all by himself, Annabeth has to admit that she’s never seen any demigod do anything like it. Look anything like it.

Later, when they stand in front of the council, bloody and battered, Percy doesn’t even have a scratch thanks to the curse of Achilles. His hair is tousled in a way which looked far, far too good for someone coming from a battlefield. Even in the same moment as Percy turns down the offer of godhood, Annabeth thinks that he already looks like one.

Hazel literally mistook Percy for a god when she first saw him. No one could look that perfect carrying an ugly old lady across a river if they were not a god. Frank, as much as he liked Percy, felt like Percy looked like the hero he wished to be. He’d always felt a little insecure in his body, and being an unclaimed member of the legion did not help. When Mars appeared and claimed Frank as his son, which should have proved to everyone - himself first and foremost - that he was indeed a demigod, that he was meant to be a hero, something whispered in his mind that he could only wish to live up to the image of a hero that Percy Jackson presented.

During their quest to Alaska, both Hazel and Frank got to know Percy much better and would always regard him as a close friend after that. But even as they joked around in the misery and chaos of their quest, neither of them lost the hero worship completely. Their quest let them grow into their own hero-forms, impressive in their own right. Yet they both privately agreed that Percy shouldered the title of hero with an ease and nonchalance they just didn’t understand, as if he only ever needed to push himself more and more, and there would never ever come a limit to what he could do.

The Aphrodite cabin loved to gossip about Percy Jackson. So did the entire camp, but cabin ten focused a lot on how hot Percy Jackson was. It seemed a little ridiculous to Piper. Raven hair, seagreen eyes? Bronze colored skin? Was this a teenager or some movie star who went to their camp? It made Piper incredibly sceptical, especially since she herself thought Jason embodied everything a hero should look like.

Upon first seeing him, she was disappointed. He was shorter than Jason, with the air of a troublemaker. Where Jason embodied chivalry, order and discipline, Percy was wild, untamable and as everchanging as the sea. It wasn’t until Piper first saw them both next to their father’s, that she realized that next to Jupiter, Jason looked like the perfect hero. But next to Poseidon, Percy truly looked like the son of a god.

Pride is the second sign of Godhood. All gods are prideful and petty to some extent. It’s a necessary and unavoidable side effect of replacing your soul with the personification of your eventual domains, and as such, any humility for the less sought after traits of said domains disappear slowly but surely.

Apollo may be the god of healing, but he is also the god of diseases and plagues, and he is unapologetic about that because both world wide health or world wide disease makes his domain, and him, stronger.

Poseidon will happily aid sailors to their destinations, using winds, tides or currents but might just as well summon a storm to sink the ship for no other reason than being true to his own nature.

Dionysus, once a son of Zeus, changed into the personification of ecstasy and madness, the two sides which too much of the drink he is patron god for can cause. Yet, who can tell which side he will deign to provide once the first gulp has been swallowed?

All Gods have virtues and vices of their domains, but both are equal parts of them. If one side is insulted, it won’t inspire them to lean towards their better or more preferred sides, and like the sea is both helpful and harmful, and so is every other deity as well.

And Percy? Percy had never been prideful, not in comparison to Annabeth or any child of Athena with their hubris. He was always the first person to admit it was mostly luck and a lot of dumb shit which kept him alive during all of his quests, and the last to brag about his frankly incredible feats, always feeling like they just made him weirder to everyone else.

But over time, especially after the giant war, things slowly changed. Right after the giant war, Percy was just so done with everything, too busy dealing with the trauma from Tartarus and struggling to catch up with his schooling after being MIA for six months. Done with people and gods assuming he would do anything for them just because he’s the Saviour of Olympus or something like that. But a few years down the road, he found himself snapping at people - be it cabin counselors, the Senate, or gods and deities, whenever they talked condescendingly about any of the wars. Oh? He would ask in a deceptively calm tone. Did you fight in the battle of Manhattan? Did you bleed on the original mount Olympus? Did you walk through Tartarus and meet his gaze head on? Were you there? Were you helping?

It didn’t help that Perseus had never been afraid of standing up for himself, or those he loved. He’d taken on his quests to save his mom, Grover, Annabeth, and later anything to stop Kronos or Gaea from rising, because that would mean the end of all his friends and loved ones. But Percy always made a point to prove that he never did anything out of pious dedication to the gods. He’d sent Medusa’s head to the Gods on Olympus as a message. Proved his disregard for fate and authority and came on quests despite not being chosen for them, refusing to sit by and let fate decide everything.

After the second giant war Percy grew a temper. He was just never the same. Gone was the easy lopsided grin, and left in its place was the wolfish snarl Lupa had perfected for him.

Few and far between were his moments of genuine happiness, instead his new normal was moody and easily irritated into aggression. Previously he might answer teasing comments from his fellow campers with his own tongue-in-cheek sassy comments, glint in his green eyes. He still retorted with sarcastic clapbacks but now they held a much sharper edge, more of a threat than friendly banter.

Had Percy met Leo before the battle of New York, they might have been fast friends with their random humor and sassy observations. But Leo was two years too late for that and instead all Percy saw was an obnoxious immature kid who didn’t seem to take anything seriously, yet thought he could solve everything by himself. He didn’t care if Leo’s apparent rudeness to people Percy loved wasn’t meant to harm, Percy found it infuriating.

He’d mourned Leo after the Giant war as he had any other loss, he was yet another name, yet another sacrifice forever burnt into his mind and his camp necklace felt heavier than ever.

And then Apollo became human for a while. Jason died, but Leo reappeared alive with Calypso, of all people. The fates cut Jason’s thread and returned Leo instead and Percy really didn’t know how to feel about it, but Leo staring at him with an intense gaze of someone with a chip on his shoulder didn’t help his case.

Leo was mad. Perhaps in his mind it was a righteous anger, but when was Percy supposed to have freed Calypso? In the months before his kidnapping or the months without his memories? During their quest to Europe to save the world? After Tartarus when he’d learnt Calypso had placed a curse upon Annabeth because she felt lonely and abandoned, despite knowing that he had to return to save the world?!

It grated on him, the way Leo walked around claiming he’d rescued her, the only one to find his way back to Ogygia twice. As if the forced promise Percy had extracted from the Olympians to let her leave her island hadn’t mattered or allowed her escape in the first place. I’m the reason you could save her. He found himself thinking and had to pause for a moment, since when did Percy ever care for the glory from anything he’d ever done?

He deserved some credit though, didn’t he? Glory was criminally overrated, but letting someone else claim credit for his own accomplishments, what good did that do to anyone? It bolstered the ego of obnoxious glory hunters and made people think they could talk down to him, as if he’d ever accepted that in his entire life. He didn’t take it lying down from Smelly Gabe, why would he take it from campers or Romans who all owed him for saving their lives?

A personality shifting to reflect the chosen domains is the third and final sign. Percy’s eyes, once a breathtaking seagreen slowly turned into an acidic green color as his quips and clapbacks slowly turned sharper and poisonous. Any requests to him came with counter demands, either hilariously easy or insufferably taxing in comparison to their original request. Need a driver from Camp Half-blood to Camp Jupiter? No problem, if they would babysit Estelle on a Friday night. Come and hold a sword-lesson in the greek style of fighting at Camp Jupiter? Of course, if the Senate would approve the reconstruction of Neptune’s temple and approve the financial means to rebuild the Roman Navy. His counter-demands were unpredictable, fluid and mamade king more than one receptor want to tear their hair out at the absurdity of it all.

Any promises of alliance in war games or capture of the flag was suddenly deadly serious in Perseus' eyes and people started to tread carefully with what they might joke about around him. A jokingly exclaimed “I’m gonna beat you up next capture the flag!” in a friendly banter was suddenly cause to decline an alliance for said game. Which was not a preferred position to be in, since Percy would always participate in the war games with an unusual seriousness and anyone who tried to tell him to loosen up and just have fun would be at the receiving end of his sword point.

The only moments where his friends could recognise his old self, the person he was before the wars and prophecies, was with his family back in New York. In their New York apartment he played the part of a devoted older brother, and good son with a troubled past to perfection. He’d order pizza, play with Estelle and joke around with mis mom and Paul. It caused some whiplash for the friends who recently only knew the spiteful demigod. The legend who would defeat a monster army by himself, by sword or just controlling their blood, and justifying it because it was the quickest and easiest way to get rid of any threats against what he’d considered his home.

Percy saw all of the signs but ignored them and let it play out all the same, too tired to fight back once his last mortal point burned away. One sabbatical turned into three, then five and he still felt as restless as ever before, only ever finding small doses of relief in the heat of battle but never enough and with people who had earned his absolute loyalty.

It happened on the summer solstice. All of camp Half-blood was present, along with the Praetors and some additional representatives for New Rome and the remaining members of the seven. The meetings itself were over and the rest of the night was supposed to be a party. Instead it turned into a fight to the death.

It was stupidly easy for Ares to insult Annabeth in passing, riling up Percy enough to accept a challenge from the god. Ares was sure to face consequences for it from Poseidon later - after his happiness of seeing his son become a god had worn off - but Ares was tired of Perseus holding himself back and was petty enough to not let him ascend peacefully. Percy was too ingrained in Ares domains of battle and war to do that.

Ares grabbed him by his t-shirt and threw him onto the floor of Olympus. The marble floor cracked, but Percy didn't notice it. He jumped up and summoned the poison from the decorative flowers Persephone and Demeter had grown for the occasion. The flowers withered as the moisture in them were completely drained but almost no one noticed the sagging flowers as the god and demigod began to circle each other. People and deities alike hurried to clear out of their way.

Ares changed weapons frequently, his spear merging into a sword, a giant battle axe or a multitude of other weapons whenever he felt like it. Percy stuck to Riptide, but wielded his poison around like a whip, causing burnmarks to appear wherever he managed to strike Ares.

First blood belonged to Ares. He plunged a huge two handed sword into Percy’s chest, causing gasps out of outrage all around but no one intervened as Percy stood up, bleeding more ichor than iron and the outrage turned to shock. Neither of them cared, too deep into their own world of violence.

Annabeth looked on grimly. Sad but resigned to fate, she prayed. I knew it would end like this, seaweed brain. Don’t let that bullheaded asshole kick you down for all of eternity.

Percy didn’t notice the prayer, but the genuine prayer from someone he was loyal to, the very reason for the fight, visibly invigorated him and he launched a feint attack and managed to cut deeply into the back of Ares knee, causing ichor to flow as the fight continued.

As they tumbled around, breaking pillars and smashing into tables, time seemed to slow down, it could have been seconds or hours. Anything was turned into a lethal weapon in Ares hands, and any liquid, be it from spilled drinks, blood or ichor merged with Percy’s poison whip.

They fought for hours until Percy’s mortal body could no longer keep up with the heat of the fight and collapsed. His mortal shell was burnt through. However not even a moment later, he rose again, ready to continue the fight for an eternity. Shining so bright all mortals present had to shield their eyes and they fell to their knees in praise.

Zeus' voice boomed on Olympus for all of the world to hear, “Welcome Perseus, god of loyalty, poisons, liquids and righteous battle!”