Resurrected

I guess we all had had our memories come back to us when we walked over the Camp border.

I remembered walking towards, following Kronos, when a sound from outside Kronos’ force-field caught my ear. It was Tommy, crying out in pain. When I turned, Kronos walking past me into the elevators, all I saw was his headless body falling to the ground at the feet of the Ares girl. Pure rage filled my lungs, but Kronos pulled me through the closing doors, saying,

“Victory requires sacrifice, Nakamura, and you must help me in the mission you signed on for. Or have you lost your loyalty?”

“No,” I had said bitterly.

I could feel him smiling behind me. I hated leaving Tommy behind, but I had a job to do. Then, Jackson had convinced me to turn on Kronos. I guess I was still bitter from Tommy’s death. But that wasn’t any consolation. I got gutted by a piece of my own sword, and I had died, still striving to give thrones to the minor gods.

Now I was back. The minor gods had gotten thrones, and I was supposed to be happy, right? Wrong. I hated this camp, I hated not remembering my best friend’s death until walking back into this camp’s borders, and I hated whoever had brought me back here. Why here? Why me? Why? I felt like my whole purpose had been to ensure that the minor gods got respect. I died, and they did. I had no reason to come back. So why did I?

Looking over at Tommy, I realized that he might be thinking the exact same thing. He had been fine in Tartarus, or at least he hadn’t wanted to come back, hadn’t wanted to embrace life again. And now, along with Silena and Charlie, he had been forced to. But looking at him again, I saw the face of my best friend from the Princess Andromeda, the face of the kid who I had seen grow into a soldier. I realized, if just for him, I was happy to be back.
I ran over to him, and he opened his arms and we hugged. I had never had a brother, and I felt like I had one now. He started laughing with glee and I joined in, so happy to be back. It was only until a crowd of campers had gathered around us that we released, still smiling, silent tears of joy running down our cheeks. At first, I didn’t recognize any of the campers’ faces, and they didn’t look like they recognized us, until one face made its way to the front. Percy Jackson. He look confused, but that didn’t matter. At the sight of his face, all of the joy of living again drained out of me, as if it were drained by something else. That thing replaced my joy with an uncontrollable rage, white hot and painful. It took him a second to recognize me, but only a millisecond after that to recognize the expression on my face.

I didn’t really want to, but my body acted for me. I wasn’t in control, the thing was. I drew my sword, which I hadn’t realized it had reformed after breaking into splinters during the Battle of Manhattan. I charged towards Percy, ready to strike him down. He was standing near a new well that had been built after I had died, and afterwards I realized it had all the names of the camp’s fallen heroes, including mine. He raised his hand instinctively, drawing water from the well to form a protective shield around his body. But no water came to his aid. He was stunned. I was only twenty feet away from him now, and he tried again. Nothing happened. When I was only five feet away, he drew his sword and raised it to block the downward strike I unleashed. His arms suddenly looked weak, and he let out a cry of pain like he was burning in acid. Fast as thought, I disarmed him and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying into the well as he crashed with a hollow thud! He let out another cry of pain, but this one was more defeated, like he knew he was going to die. The group had formed a ring around us, watching in horrified fascination as I pressed the tip of my blade lightly into Percy’s neck.

“My, how you’ve gotten soft since we last met! What, Jackson, has victory defeated you?” My voice sounded like a thousand rasping snakes all rolled into one.

He looked up the blade and into my eyes, and I saw in those sea-greens an emotion which made me delightfully warm and surprised at the same time. I saw mortal fear, the emotion that goes through the scared when they are about to die. As I raised my sword back to cut off his head, an arrow flew from nowhere and disarmed me. A deep, old, faintly familiar and angry voice said,

“That’s enough! Soldier, back away from Percy, or I’ll be forced to put an arrow into your body, and not your sword.”

Again, I lost control of my body. I looked up at a centaur, Chiron, who looked stunned and poised for anything as he held a bow an arrow aimed at my chest. I had no armor on. But, I felt invincible. Looking deep into his eyes, I said, in a voice that definitely wasn’t mine,

“Oh, son of mine, you know nothing of these four. They have all been cursed with a powerful hamartia, something straight from Tartarus. No one can stop them from achieving their goals, only themselves. Because Ethan here has used his new powers, a clock has started. They have one month to redeem their souls, or they will be…sent back. Ethan’s power…well, it can be described as a Nemesis Scale. It allows him to…balance things. Make it…a fair fight. After all, it’s a life for a life…a fair price.”

My controller let out a vicious laugh, but I barely heard the words I was saying. Chiron released his arrow, but before it had even cleared his bow, it shattered into sawdust and Celestial bronze shavings, falling peacefully to the ground. Still looking at the weak Percy with a murderous rage, I kicked him, as hard as my body could, directly in the ribs. I felt at least three crack under the force of the kick. I kicked him again, and again, until after his was coughing blood, a voice, Tommy’s voice, said, pained and crying,

“Stop, Ethan! Stop! Don’t kill him!”

At this point, I was fighting whatever was controlling me. My soul had wanted to stop kicking him, but my body wouldn’t. Hearing Tommy’s voice in such pain, I concentrated as hard as I could, and felt the grip of the thing that had been controlling me break as I stopped pummeling Percy. I was suddenly drained of all feeling, as numb as a ghost in Asphodel. I sank to my knees, and passed out, looking into Tommy’s bright blue eyes, now filled with tears of pain.

Notes

Sorry I'm late, especially with no content posted this weekend. I will try to adhere to this schedule: One chapter every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Oh and I totally slipped a Bane quote in this chapter. For some reason, I feel like Ethan can relate to Bane. Meh, maybe that's just me. Enjoy!