The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell

When we got back to Hazel’s place, my exhaustion came back with a vengeance. Almost immediately I started to collapse, but was quickly caught by two people.

I looked up and saw Will and Annabeth were holding me up. Will was pressing a cloth to my chin to stop the bleeding. I was fading in and out, the pain and exhaustion making things fuzzy. “Jesus Annabeth, what happened? I thought you said you had it handled!” Will said frantically.

“I thought she would wait before trying to kill Percy. Is he going to be alright?”

“He should be, but let’s get him to the infirmary.”

≈

After spending all night getting stitched, bandaged and cleaned, I walked toward my room. I felt drained, emotionally and physically. Once I got to my room, I sat down on my bed. I gingerly pull my shirt over my head, trying not to disturb my bandages. I winced slightly when I raised my arms over my head. Will said I had a couple bruised ribs, he said I was lucky they weren’t broken.

Once my shirt was off, I knew that I would never be able to salvage it. There were too many rips and too much blood in it. So I just threw it into the trash can.

I laid back onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling. I started to close my eyes when I heard my door open.

“Percy?” the person at the door said softly. “Are you awake?”

I looked up and saw the top of a blonde curly head poking through the opening of the door. It didn’t take me too long to figure out who the head belonged to.

“Yeah,” I said as I sat up, winching again at the pain from my ribs. “Come on in.”

Annabeth came into the room and instantly turned red. “You might want to um, maybe but on a shirt,” she says with a small laugh. I could see her face start to flush red.

I groan slightly at the thought of raising my arms again, and being careful around my stitches. “Do I have to? It’s a major pain to get it over my head.”

She thinks about my request for a bit. Then with a sigh, she says, “I guess, but just this once Jackson. Don’t think that you can be walking around this place without a shirt. we have to maintain a sense of decency here.”

I chuckle a little, “Alright fine, now, did you need something?”

She comes into the room the rest of the way and pulls the chair up in front of me. “You really scared us Percy,” she said softly. “You knew you were walking into a trap that could kill you. All for a complete stranger. I know that you thought it was your mother, but you can’t risk your life, even for family. Family only lets you down, they can’t be trusted.”

She was looking down at her feet, she looked sad. I could even see some tears glistening in her eyes.

“I don’t believe that, Real family will never let you down. I think that real family is the people you choose to surround yourself with, your friends. It doesn’t have to be people you share blood with, I used to think that Victoria was my family, but after seeing you guys help me last night, you guys feel more like family than she ever did. I would have gone to save you guys, just the same as I did for my mom.”

She looked up at me, her face full of confusion. The expression brought out a little laughter from me. “What’s that look for? Is that shocking to you?”

“What changed? I thought you hated us and couldn’t trust us, and it isn’t like any of us are super close.”

“Well, to be honest, before last night, I wouldn’t have said this. And I wouldn’t have volunteered to go on the mission. I would have gone, but just to help. We need all the help that we can get if we are going to fight Kronos, and if the situation was going sour I would have ran away and stuck to myself. But seeing you all there, ready to die for me, even when I was an ass hole to you guys. It just made me feel cared about in a way that I’ve never experienced before with Victoria.”

Annabeth looked at me, her mouth still wide open with disbelief.

“Oh,” I continued, “I almost forgot to thank you for fighting Victoria for me. I couldn’t have done that on my own. I almost couldn’t even kill her how I did.”

She shrugged, “It needed to be done, and she shouldn’t have been controlling you like that.”

I waited for a while, a question nagging at me. Finally, I got the nerve to ask, “What happens after this? Do we just go back to how it was before? Devils against angels, because I don’t think I can go back to that. It’s exhausting always being on the alert, always being angry. It’s just not who I am.”

She looked over to the wall, deep in thought. Then she said, “I’m not sure Percy, but I do know this, that if fighting occurs, I will be fighting right next to you.”

“Wait, what? Why?” I asked.

She looked over to me, with a smile, “Because that’s what friends do. Or do you not consider me a friend?” she said playfully.

Friend, that word sounded so weird to me. I had never felt like I had a real friend before. It sounded… nice.

“Well considering that I’ve never really had a friend, therefore not really knowing how it feels to be a friend, I will say yes, we are friends.” We stared at each other for a minute, longer than necessary really. But sitting there with her, I felt happy.

“Well, we should get some rest,” she said. “See you in the morning,” she stood up and left.

I laid back down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about my… friends. I fell asleep with a smile.

≈

The next morning, after having Will examine my wounds and giving me some pain meds for my ribs, I went to the dining area and got some food. Rather than sit by myself like I usually did, I decided to make a change. I was going to sit next to someone and actually try to make nice.

Jason was sitting with Piper and they looked deep in conversation. Piper was talking a mile a minute and making a lot of gestures with her hands. Jason was listening intently with a small smile on his face. I didn’t want to disturb them and be a third wheel on their conversation.

Leo was talking with Annabeth, showing her some gadget he had been working on. It looked a lot like a grenade, and I didn’t really want to get blown up on an empty stomach.

Then I saw Frank sitting by himself, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. I walk over to Frank and sit my plate down on the table across form him. “Mind if I sit here?” I asked him.

He looked up at me and looked slightly surprised. “Percy! Hey yeah, go ahead. Um, how ya feeling after everything?”

I start to sit down, and take a bite out of my toast, “I’m good, I’ve been better, but I’ve been a lot worse. As I’m sure you’ve already seen.”

That seemed to break the tension a bit, Frank chuckled and continued eating his apple.

I asked him how he got his gig as heaven’s weapon expert. He told me he grew up around weapons of all sorts. His mom was in the Canadian army, I hadn’t known he was Canadian. He said she died in battle after saving a bunch of people, it got her a medal, which they gave him at her funeral.

“My dad was the real guy though,” Frank said as he stared at the table. He looked like he was thinking back on the memories of his past. Apparently he was one of the top generals in the country, very powerful and very scary. When his temper flared up, even battle hardened soldiers started whimpering.

“In basic training, they called him Mars, you know, after the Roman god of war,” he sighed and shook his head. “I guess I was expected to join the service. So I did, made it all the way to captain, without my dad’s help.” He seemed proud of that, his chest puffed up a little bit.

“My life was going well, until a guy brought a gun to the mall I was at on the day I died. He killed five people before I rushed him. I got shot three times in the abdomen, but my momentum sent us over the railing, down to the first floor.”

He paused for a moment. In that time I saw a few different emotions cross Frank’s face. Anger, sadness and pride were the major ones. I realized how brave Frank must’ve been to sacrifice his life for complete strangers.

“When I came to, I wasn’t a physical form. It was my soul, and I was at these gates. Saint Peter was standing there and he said that the council of angels had deemed me worthy to be one of the angels who fight to rid the world of evil. He asked if I accepted the position, at first I wanted to say no, but I thought what my mom would do. That’s when I knew that joining was the right thing to do.”

Frank continued to amaze me, he could have lived eternally in bliss. But instead he chose duty over luxury, I’m not sure that I could make the same choice.

I looked back at Frank, “You know Frank, I’m glad that I met you. You are a good guy,” I said. And I honestly meant it.

He smiled, “Thanks Percy, now what do you say? Let’s get started training.”

≈

For the third time that morning, Frank threw me to the ground and held a blade to my throat. I was panting and my whole body hurt from the relentless pounding I received from Frank.

“Three to none, what’s the matter Percy? Usually you’re better than this.”

I sit up and hold my head in my hands, “I don’t know! My injuries aren’t that bad, but I just… I don’t know.”

“Let’s try switching opponents, that might help,” Frank said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Jason, you up for the challenge?”

“Sure,” Jason said, stepping onto the mat with an evil smile on his face. “I’ve always wanted to beat up the great Percy Jackson.”

We faced each other, holding our swords pointed at each other. I lunged first, swiping and stabbing, trying to get inside his guard. But none of my attacks found their mark. Jason dodged or blocked every one of my attempts like it was nothing. He looked completely calm and I was losing my strength.

Slowly, Jason started controlling the fight. He started pushing me back a little bit at a time. I knew I was in trouble when he started getting faster with his swings. When I reached the edge of the mat, he used a disarming technique, twisting my sword from my hand. When it hit the floor I felt completely defeated.

“Dammit! What’s with me today? I can’t think straight and it is messing with my fighting.” I felt so frustrated, I sat down and put my face in my hands.

“You can’t think straight, because you are an idiot Percy.”

I looked up and saw Jason glaring down at me. He looked angry.

I felt the anger flare in my gut, “What did you say to me Grace?” I stood up and got right in his face. My nose was an inch from his and it was taking all of my self-control to not rip him apart right then and there.

“You heard me Jackson, or are you too stupid to understand what I’m saying? I thought you were supposed to be our savior, the one to bring down the big bad Kronos, but if you are this stupid, we are doomed.”

I could feel my anger boiling inside of me, I wasn’t sure how long I could control myself. “Cut it out now, before I destroy you with my bare hands.”

“Bring it on dumb ass!”

That was the final straw. I swung my right fist Jason barely had time to dodge the attack. He raised his sword and pointed it at my chest. “Grab your sword idiot, let’s see if you deserve the title Harbinger of Death.”

I bent down and picked up my blade, even though I would have rather used my hands. “You are going to regret those words Jason Grace.”

Immediately I started swinging my blade at his head, using all the power I had behind each thrust. The swings came faster the more we fought, Jason was barely keeping up with the strikes. His anger from before was gone, his expression had changed to determination. When he parried one strike, he started to spin around to get a powerful swinging blow, getting speed behind the blade. I knew exactly what he was doing, time seemed to slow down. As he spun, I hooked my foot around his planted leg and pulled it out from under him.

As he fell backwards, I followed him and landed with my knee in his chest and my blade to his throat.

Jason lay on the floor coughing and out of breath. Slowly his coughing turned into laughing.

“What the hell is so funny?” I growled. I knew that if he insulted me one more time, this blade was going to be buried deep into his throat.

“I figured out your problem Percy.”

“Wait, what?” my vision started to clear. I hadn’t realized how red everything was before, I started to think clearly. I then realized that he had meant to piss me off. “You know what my problem is?”

“Yeah, now get me up and I’ll tell you.”

I stood up, and reached my hand down to grab his hand to help Jason up. “So, what is the big secret as to what is wrong with me?”

He started to massage his chest, where my knee had been. “Well, for starters, in your case, you shouldn’t think when you fight. You’re fighting style requires that you fight with emotion, raw emotion and instinct. But earlier you were thinking about your next move, rather than trusting your body to know for you. So, to cut out your brain from the equation, we have to get you pissed, and learn to channel your emotions and make you stronger.”

Frank came up from behind me nodding. “He’s right Percy, most people are supposed to keep their emotions out of the equation, but in your case, that’s where your power comes from; when you channel those powerful emotions your power grows tenfold. I could feel your aura coming off of you like an inferno that last fight. The others could probably feel it as well.”

I looked to the two guys, “You guys really think this will help me?”

Jason got a smile on his face, “I think that if you learn to channel those emotions, it just might tip the balance in our favor.”

Notes