The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell

After training for a couple of weeks, I started seeing some improvement all around. We started getting stronger, faster and more efficient.

Hazel brought in her brother, Nico in to help us. We all figured the more soldiers we had, the better. Normally he was a lone devil who wandered to country alone. He was strong, but his loner attitude made me a little uneasy.

We still had some tension between devils and angels. I had the biggest issue with trusting everyone. It wasn’t my fault though, I’d been mistrusting every single person I’d come in contact with since I became a devil. I couldn’t even trust Victoria, she only used me as a tool to do her dirty work.

But it did get a little easier. It started with Hazel and her clan. They were more like me, more familiar. It also helped that we all felt at war with ourselves. Allied with angels, planning to destroy devils, it just felt wrong.

Annabeth was the first angel I could trust. Mostly because we had already fought together. Also, it had nothing to do with the fact that the dreams about her continued. It was only because she was a solid tactician and a good leader.

She also seemed to sympathize with my hesitation toward trusting anyone.

“You have to work on this, we are a team and a team has to trust one another completely,” she said as she paced around my room one day.

“I know Annabeth! I’m trying!” I collapsed on my bed. Folding my arms over my face. “You have no idea how tough this is for me. Everyone I knew before I came here has only used me for something. I’ve never had a friend. You can’t expect me to change overnight.”

She sat on the bed beside me and was quiet for a minute. Then she took a deep breath and said, “You’re right. I don’t understand, but trust me on this. You don’t want to live your life alone.”

I lifted my arm a bit to get a look at her. Her head was hung, and I saw a single tear rundown her cheek.

I sat up straight. We were so close that our shoulders were touching and I could smell her lemon scent. It was slightly intoxicating.

“I’m sorry for making this difficult. I’ll keep working on it,” I said. I felt bad for being a pain in the ass. I figured she would say something snarky, but instead, she put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it, and thank you for trying.”

Her hand lingered there for a while. Longer than a friendly gesture. Her cheeks flushed pink slightly and she removed her hand. Clearing her throat while she stood, she said, “Well, I’d better get back to planning.”

She walked through the door and left quickly, closing it behind her.

Normally I would’ve been relieved at the solitude. But I felt myself missing the company, as well as the comforting hand on my shoulder.

I flopped back onto the bed and fell asleep.

≈

Over the next few days, I had gotten a little better at getting along with the others. I tried looking for good qualities in the new people.

I kind of trusted the devils because I had known them for a while, except for Nico. But it was harder to trust the angels. I trusted Will slightly because, with all the healing he did on me, he could have killed me at any time.

Frank came next, I worked and trained with him a lot so he became familiar. He was friendly, to the point that I found it hard to believe he was a weapons expert and how to kill with them.

I sparred a lot over those couple of weeks, against everyone except for Rachel and Will. They wouldn’t be doing any fighting, they were purely support. Each person brought a new difficulty to the table. We used mostly swords, but we tried other weapons as well.

Leo was scrappy and it was hard to predict his next move. Jason was smart and would try to make me drop my guard. Hazel would use her magic to change what I saw, then she would come up behind me and put her blade to my throat.

Nico was sneaky, he seemed to melt into the shadows. He would come out of nowhere to attack. Frank fought like an animal, pure power in every attack he had. I couldn’t see how he controlled himself.

Piper was very tough, almost as strong as Frank, and as cunning as Jason. One of her favorite weapon choices was dual wielding a sword and a dagger. She moved with blinding speed and could bend at impossible angles to avoid an attack.

I teased her, “Not too bad for a nun, do they teach you those moves in between prayer sessions?”

“I’m not a nun, I just work for the church. I was trained by a martial arts masters as a child. I went to a catholic private school and a Priest, one who is trained in the art of killing creatures of the underworld, saw me when I got in a fight and saw my potential. It was all downhill from there.”

Annabeth was a completely different story. We stared each other down first. We didn’t even move for two solid minutes. I could tell she was studying me, for every opening or weakness.

I was studying her as well. Looking for anything I could exploit, but I couldn’t find any openings. Her toned body was solid as iron, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to just use brute force to take her down. Her legs were strong and toned, and long, and firm.

She must have been able to tell I was distracted by her legs because before I knew it, she lunged at me. She was almost as fast as Piper. If I hadn’t been so lucky, she would have beaten me immediately. I blocked her attack at the last second. Back peddling to gain some room between us, I almost fell backwards.

Finally I stopped moving back and grabbed her wrist as she swung downward, stopping her dagger an inch from my face. A brief moment of shock came across Annabeth’s face, then she jerked her arm backwards and her arm came free.

She attacked again, but I held my own this time. Every swipe of her blade, I dodged with ease, but my luck wasn’t any better than hers. I couldn’t land a single blow, no matter what tactic I tried.

When we locked blades, her face was an inch from mine. I couldn’t help but notice her beauty. Her stormy gray eyes were the most intense that I’ve ever seen. She then gave me a flirty smile and a wink.

The smile took me back, I wasn’t expecting that look at all. She used my momentary confusion to head-but me, knocking me backwards.

Even with my vision spinning, I could see Annabeth smirking. That’s when I realized it, she threw me off like that on purpose.

Determined to get her back, I charged at her. I started pushing her backwards. She tried slicing at my abdomen a few times, but never hit her mark.

She jumped further away from me to catch her breath. Then she suddenly flushed red and couldn’t look directly at me.

“Um, yeah… your shirt, it has a uh-,” she stammered.

I looked down at my shirt, it had two large rips in it, and you could see my chest, and the top of my abs. Then I realized, I had a way for revenge. I reached down and grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled it over my head. I immediately start laughing at the look of pure shock on Annabeth’s blood red face.

I threw my shirt right at her face and charged behind it. As soon as she got the tattered cloth out of her face she was met with my blade an inch from her face. With no way to defend herself, she put her hands up in surrender.

“The thing about distractions, Angel, you gotta be prepared to be distracted yourself.”

I put my sword away and walked over to get my shirt, smiling at her expression the whole time.

“You win, this time, Jackson. But next time, I won’t hold back on the distractions.”

“I have no doubt about that.”

I turned around to leave the arena, and I was met by Jason, Piper and Frank. They were all chuckling, and I even saw Jason collecting money from Frank.

“What is so funny?” I asked.

Jason shrugged, “Nothing, you two just have really good…” he looked to Piper questioningly. “Chemistry.”

Piper snorted in laughter. Jason tried elbowing her to shut her up, but it only made her laugh harder.

I shook my head, “Whatever, It was just sparring.”

“I’ve seen Annabeth spar a million times,” Frank said. “That wasn’t JUST sparring. No one has ever flustered Annabeth before.”

I took a little pride in that. But before I could think too much on it, Leo ran into the room, completely out of breath.

“A message just came in for Percy, it’s from Victoria!”

≈

The Video showed Victoria in a warehouse, she was walking around a woman seated in chair, with her hands bound behind her and a bag over her head.

“Hello my pet, Victoria said through the video. “You’ve been a very bad boy lately. So bad, that Lord Kronos has ordered me to kill your mother.”

My heard dropped. Victoria had my mom, and she was going to kill her. All because of me siding with the angels.

“You have one chance to save her,” video Victoria continued. “Come to the place where you were reborn at midnight, alone, or she dies. See you soon my pet.”

The video cut out, but I kept watching the screen hoping for it to come back on and tell me everything was a lie. But it didn’t, it stayed black.

“Percy…” Annabeth started.

“I have to go,” I said.

“You can’t it’s obviously a trap. Victoria is going to kill you or try to manipulate you to join them. I’m sorry, I truly am, but you can’t go.”

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM! I have no memory of before I was reborn. I can’t abandon the one person who can tell me who I am.”

I could feel tears rolling down my face. I reached up to wipe them away. My whole body was shaking, and my throat hurt from yelling. I looked around and everyone looked terrified. I’m going, and if anyone follows, they will regret they’d ever heard the name Percy Jackson.”

≈

It was 11:55 pm as I stood outside the warehouse. I looked around one more time, making sure no one followed me. After I knew the coast was clear, I took a deep breath and headed inside.

Inside the first thing I saw was the woman tied to the chair. I ran up to her, but before I got close enough, I heard the door slam behind me.

I turned around and I saw Victoria standing in front of the door with her evil smirk. “Good boy, you finally found your way home. If you keep doing what you are supposed to do, I just might have to give you a treat.”

Her voice was condescending and it made my blood boil. “Let my mother go, none of this is her fault.”

“And why, would I do that? Every pet needs to be punished when it does something bad.”

“Please Victoria, punish me if you have to, but don’t bring her into this.”

“You don’t even remember this woman, why do you think that you owe her anything. When I found you on the street, all you talked about was how she hated you and how she beat you every day. Do you really want to save a woman who is like that?”

I looked over at the woman in the chair. I couldn’t believe that this person had beat me or hurt me in any way. “It doesn’t matter Victoria, you’re mad at me, not her.”

She walked up to me and got close to my face. “Then so be it.” A hard hand came across my face. I fell to the floor, trying to keep upright. As I tried to stand, a foot came across my face next. The force made me fall flat on my back.

Dazed I sat up, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, Victoria was sitting on top of my chest, and she had a wicked blade held to my cheek. It was digging in deeply, and I could feel that it was cutting the skin. She pulled the blade slowly down my cheek, slowly cutting the skin open.

I wouldn’t cry out in pain, I wouldn’t let her get the satisfaction.

“Oh, poor baby, does that hurt? Just give me a little yell, just a little satisfaction. Where should I cut next? I’d hate to keep cutting up this pretty little face. How about your chest? Or your arms, maybe,” the knife crept down the other side of my face, down to my jaw. “This strong jawline of yours. I always admired it, it is perfect, let’s add a little character to it.” She cut into my jaw, and I saw blood spray up a little ways.

Still, I refused to cry out in pain. I had to put all my effort into not yelling until my lungs gave out, but I knew that I had to stay strong.

“Still nothing? Hmm, let’s see what we should cut up next,” the knife slid to my throat. “Let’s cut here. We will have to be careful though, if I cut too deep then you will die too early, before you’ve suffered enough.” The knife started digging into my throat.

Suddenly the windows exploded, sending glass shards all over me and Victoria. I heard shouting from all directions. I tried to see what was going on, but with all the blood that was in my face, it had started to get into my eyes.

Victoria’s weight was suddenly knocked off of me. Someone large picked me up from my armpits and put my arm around his shoulders to keep me up. Someone was rubbing my face with a cloth. When the blood was cleared away, I saw Piper’s face.

“Percy, thank God we got to you in time.”

I looked around, Frank was propping me up and Jason, Annabeth and Nico surrounded Victoria with blades all pointed to her throat.

“Well, it looks like my little puppet brought his friends along with him. It makes it easier to kill all of you later. You are seriously out matched.” She still has her evil grin on her face.

“Not as outmatched as you might think, my old rival,” came Hazel’s voice. From behind me, Hazel walked into the room. She had a confident look on her face, and when I turned back to Victoria, her confident one was gone.

“Hazel Levesque, so you are the one who has been harboring my fugitive. I’m so glad you delivered him to me yourself. Now I will get to take both of you out together. You and this angel scum.”

Annabeth got a little closer to Victoria, pressing the knife to her throat. “You talk pretty arrogant for someone who has three blades to their throat. I’d show a little respect, especially after you hurt our….. Friend like that.”

Victoria’s face changed to one of intrigue. “Someone has some special feelings for our young Percy Jackson now don’t we?”

Annabeth’s face looked a little red, but she looked more enraged. “Hazel, may I do the honors?”

Hazel studied the situation for a second, then she nodded. “Yes Annabeth, you may. Jason, Nico,” she motioned her head back towards her.

Jason and Nico nod and back away, then I realized what was happening. Annabeth meant to challenge Victoria on her own. All I felt was fear. I couldn’t let her go through with it, she would be destroyed.

“Annabeth, no,” my voice was weak, my head was spinning.

She looked over to me and gave me a confident smile, “Don’t worry about me Jackson, I got this.”

Victoria smiled at me, looking directly into my eyes. It felt like she was looking into my soul, “Yes, Percy, don’t worry about her. Soon it will be just us again, so just hang in there for a minute.” She gave me a wink, and I felt my stomach churn.

Annabeth and Victoria squared up, each of them drawing their blades. Annabeth’s knife and Victoria’s sword.

My immediate thought was that Annabeth was doomed, but when they started to fight and Annabeth quickly showed to have the upper hand. I could see the confidence in Victoria waver as she backed away from the fighting machine that was Annabeth.

Annabeth got in a few lucky cuts, which slowed Victoria down even more. What everyone, except for Victoria, was that Annabeth was leading her back toward a shallow pit, but one that would throw her off her defense enough that Annabeth could easily beat her.

Right before she got to the edge, however, she yelled and set off a large blast of power that knocked Annabeth backwards onto the floor. Victoria ran forward and jumped onto Annabeth, pinning her and holding her knife to the floor.

“My my my, how the tables have turned little angel.” She got inches from Annabeth’s face, savoring the victory. When Annabeth head-butted Victoria, knocking her back, enough that Annabeth used the momentum from the hit back to get on top of Victoria and stabbed her knife through Victoria’s wrist pinning it into the floor.

Victoria’s scream was so loud, they probably heard it on the other side of the United States. Annabeth had a wild look in her eye as she turned her head to look at me. “This isn’t my kill, it’s your Percy.”

I felt shocked, “What do you mean?”

“If I kill her, it won’t be true justice. You are the one who needs to kill her Percy, otherwise you will never have closure.”

I couldn’t do it, of course Victoria was evil, and of course I hated her with all of my being. But she provided for me for three years. She healed me from the brink of death numerous times.

I shook my head, causing more blood to fall into my eyes. I wiped my eyes clean and looked back. “I can’t, I’m sorry but I can’t do it.”

Victoria started laughing, “Yes, good pet. You see? Even if he has been with you for a few weeks, he is still mine, I still control him. Now, Percy, come take this knife out of my arm and kill these fools.”

I didn’t move, I couldn’t, it just wasn’t fair.

“PERCY! NOW!”

My body went rigid from fear. I moved my arm from around Frank’s shoulder. He looked to me with concern. “It’s alright Frank, I got this.”

I started limping toward Annabeth and Victoria. I bent down and picked up the knife that was Victoria’s. As I walked over, I thought about the people in this room.

About how Victoria had provided for me for so long, but also how poorly she treated me.

But then I started thinking about my comrades here. Hazel, who opened her home to me when technically I was the enemy. She sheltered me, gave me a place where I could have friends and fight for a good cause.

I thought about Jason, the one friend that I’ve had and he has become a closer friend throughout these past couple weeks.

Leo, Piper, Frank, Nico, Will and Rachel all of these people who has helped me and become friends with me over the past couple of weeks. They all came here to save me from death, and they have.

And Annabeth, I still don’t know exactly what she is to me, but I do know that I don’t want to lose her. She fought the woman who has made my life miserable for three years now. She beat her, and she is now giving me a chance for redemption.

As I neared Annabeth and Victoria, I looked into Annabeth’s eyes. I could see the rage in them. Rage toward Victoria for causing me so much pain. I could see that she actually cared for me, unlike the devils who are working for Kronos.

Then I looked at Victoria. Her eyes full of hate and anger. I could tell that she wanted to harm me and my friends. I couldn’t have that, I don’t care how wrong it felt, I couldn’t have her hurting them.

I held the knife firmly in my hand, and as I took aim at Victoria’s chest. I could see the fear creep into her face.

I brought the knife back over my head and brought it down with all the power, directly into the area where her heart was supposed to be. As soon as the blade pierced her heart, she started to glow.

All of us turned our heads as she exploded into ash. Destroyed, forever.

Jason walked over to my mom to make sure that she was safe. “Alright Miss Jackson, let’s make sure that you are okay.”

He took the bag off and we didn’t see a woman old enough to be my mother. What we saw was a girl who looked to be about our age. She had tan skin and long black hair that was pulled into a single braid. She had a hard look in her eyes and she looked like she was about to kill whoever took the bag off her head.

Jason looks at all of us quizzically. He reaches over and removes the gag and walks around to cut the ropes binding her. “What is your name?” he asked.

“I’m Reyna, this crazy woman kidnapped me a few days ago and brought me here. She brought me within an inch of my life. She said that I had died and she brought me back as a devil, but how can that be? Aren’t devils just myth? I just doesn’t seem probable,” she started to grab her head in frustration. “None of this makes sense, I can’t remember a lot of things.”

Hazel walked forward, “That is to be expected. You did die when you became a devil, you may regain all of your memory back in time, but there is no guarantee. Some devils never remember any of their life, it is a gamble. If you come with us, we can explain things, help you understand. Also, we can give you revenge. Victoria is dead, but there are others who were the cause of your change.”

Reynathought for a little bit, looking at each of us. “Fine, but just so we are clear, as soon as I get some answers and some payback for whoever did this to me, I’m gone.”

Hazel nodded, “That is fair; you will be free to do as you wish.”

Annabeth turned away from Reyna and looked my way. She walked up to me, and put her hand on my shoulder. “You did really well Percy. Now let’s get you back to Hazel’s so Will can get you healed up.”

We all gathered around the angels and they summoned their magic to transport us back to Hazel’s home.

Notes