Athena's POV
The sudden rumbling of my home brings me to my feet, running from the outer ring and towards the sounds. Crossing through the main hall I notice a radiant blue shine leaking from my room, practically leaping towards it I throw the door open. Covering my eyes from the blinding light I dig into the drawer, tearing it open and uncasing the box with the sealed flower. The fragments of Thomas' soul shredding themselves around me briefly forming his head to show me his sad expression. "Wait why? I thought I could bring you back!" I plead to him but he shakes his head, creasing a bit as if in pain the moment I flow my hand through the particles. "I'm...sorry, Thomas I'm sorry" I feel myself grow weak as the fragments continue to swirl around me, his whispering groan of pain now filling my ears and making my slap my forehead...I couldn't hear this before, I couldn't hear his pain before.
"Is this wh-" I get interrupted by my door slamming open, Keyon's figure hunched against the door as he stares at the swarming light. "Why are you here? Who let you in?" I examine his body, the skin around his eye appearing almost loose as if unable to fit his current eye shape.
"Chris did, he wanted me to tell you something" He walks towards me with a broken figure, angling his hand towards the particles. The view of his torn blood stained arm catching my attention as he pauses, now staring at each other with a look of complete stun. All within a matter of seconds, he practically throws himself in the direction of the flower. Holding it behind me he kicks my side and into the dresser, causing me to drop the flower.
"You couldn't of just made this easy, huh?" He questions, reaching for the flower as his flesh peels away from coming in contact with it, revealing a darker shade of skin almost like scribbles drawn into reality.
Wrapping my hair around his limbs I toss him into the bed, "No the fuck you don't". Picking it up I slide it across the floor and outside the door. 'Zel' I call to my wolf for the first time in a while, bursting through my own skin, charging at him and slashing through his arm that he defends with.
"I'm assuming that should of hurt" He smiles, beating my head with his spare arm and kneeing me in the stomach.
Focusing my mind I force myself into him in an attempt to collapse his skull, letting go of his arm to dig my claws into his head. A septic like touch fills my body as whispers overwhelm me, memories I'm sure even he wouldn't remember...digging themselves up and filling me. "GET OFF!" His deep grumble brings me back to reality. The overwhelming force as he grips my head, trying to crack it open as he slams me repeatedly against the floor. Softening the blow with my hair I flip back from the furniture, meeting eyes with him again as we stare from each other and instead towards the flower through the door.
"NO!" I howl out before he bolts towards it with a snicker. Running past the doorway he picks it up, laughing as black vines wrap around the frame and block me in. Shifting back I feel my heart pacing, a sickness filling my chest as my body tries to keep up with my breaths. "Fuck. This." I stare at the wall in front of me, breathing in all my energy and punching through it...one by one I burst through the stone with an empowered fury, blocking all the falling rubble with my hair.
Making it to the main doors before him he stares at me with wide eyes, "Trust 𝘺𝘰𝘶 to do something like that" He places the flower under his flesh like a pocket, claws drawing blood as the skin becomes tighter from the extra baggage. "I knew this would be hard, but my. This was unexpected." We circle each other while my impulses fail to locate any nearby water for me to use. Knowing what's left to fight is me and only me.
His claw bursting through his fleshed hand, digging up the marble floor and tossing it at me. Blinding me for a moment as he uppercuts my stomach, winding me and throwing me into the above chandelier. Releasing an aggravated growl I punch downward, sending it crashing down on top of where he stands, clouds of dust flowing between us and covering our vision. "All this and for what? What do you hope to achieve by taking that soul?"
"Balance" I hear him tap on the entrance door, sliding it all the way open and uncovering the dust from us. My advancement paused by Nimue's calls, "ATHENA!" I spot them all crossing the corner and running to me, locking onto a sight that makes me queasy as Gabriela's mouth is drenched in blood.
-
Jackson's POV
"CH-" A panicked voice calls out from the route of the palace, the doors thrown open with a bloodied figure making its way towards us. "CHRIS-HELP!" He screams, gurgling on his own blood with each open vocal. The noise bringing Chris to his feet like lightning as he runs towards it.
"Keyon!?" He runs up to the man, embracing his fragile form with his large arms. Allowing me to run past him and remain beside Athena.
"Chr-" I try to interrupt but Keyon speaks over me.
"Athena...she's gone mad. She's trying to kill me! Please Chris!" He coughs up more blood along his torso, flicking himself to face back at the doors with Athena's unclothed appearance staring at him with a distraught look.
"Is this true Athena?" He questions her while the frenzied man smiles.
Her pupils flicker with an unmistaken sadness, "Chris please" She begs.
"I joked saying I was going to take you away after we reunited! And she attacked me!" His eyes turn blood shot as Chris stands him up, supporting his weak figure and continuing to give Athena a cold stare. Her figure hunches into herself, no longer trying to communicate with words.
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"She wants-" A fist tears through his chest with a burst of blood along the stoned road, "Why..." He whimpers. Stepping out of the fist to show a gaping hollow space with missing organs.
"Look at your hands, your body. You aren't even aware of how broken you are" Chris' eyes work his way down his body, causing Keyon to lift them up and stare at himself.
"I see..." He realises the shadowed form from under the skin was revealed. His arm he used to get into the underworld, bent and twisted still.
"This world...I hate it." Chris spits out, catching the falling Keyon. "Is there even the slightest bit of you that is actually him?" He questions.
"I...don't even remember my own name. But, I do remember you...in his memories. My...you were all so happy." He finishes, letting Chris place him down and closing his eyes.
Standing up he simply stares upwards into the underworld, an obvious overwhelming sensation of emotions. Soft feet trotting past me and across the brief front steps as Athena makes her way towards him, "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry" She cries out, extending her arms to him but pausing...for a completely different reason.
"I...refuse" The corpse's eyes open up to reveal a white swirl, bursting through the flesh and drilling itself into her back.
"HELP-HER!" Nimue screams as we all run towards her shrieking cries of pain.
"I REFUSE!" The figure yells with a distortion on her normal voice, digging her hair into the ground and forcing us all into place and wrapping Chris up against his will. "GET OUT" Her voice flips back to normal even as she claws at her own back, scattering blood left and right to colour the stone beneath her.
Her screams of pure agony coming to a halt, one by one the strands of hair dye to black. Squirming around us tighter and tighter, titling her head back from the sky to reveal an ear to ear smile, showing us all we need to know. Reaching down and rummaging through the husked skin, picking up a flower that remains untouched by the blood and meat of the body.
A sudden laughter bursting from her, barely clothing herself with her hair as she begins to pirouette on the spot. Her body twists to face the direction of a familiar explosion drawing our attention toward the door on the edge. The eyes in her head now a pure white, animated in its own way that seems full of life and yet dull of any emotion.
𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨
"Do you hear that song currently playing?"
𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨
"The call of the underworld!" She rotates faster.
𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨
Suddenly halting with a change in her tone, "I...just wanted to do something good" She loses her smile, "I just wanted him to have a chance at what was robbed from him..." Tears drop onto the ground, spreading apart the blood stained ground.
𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨
"I...never got to use my wish from when I became Queen of the underworld..." She whispers to herself, "What if...what if I used it for him." Her hair starts to glow with a radiant green as Chris rips a space of hair to uncover his mouth.
"YOU CAN'T UNDO THE NATURAL CYCLE!" His deeper toned pitch yells at her but nonetheless she holds the flower to her head.
"I can't stop it...I can't, these emotions. His emotions, they're all inside me all at once. He's making me" She whimpers, wrapping us all tighter but Chris manages to tear apart and shred the hair. Dropping himself onto the floor and rushing towards her with a reluctant stare between all of us and then her, pinning her down.
"I...wish" The floor beneath her cracks a giant ditch, an audible heartbeat coming into my ears. Staring around I force my neck to turn and face them...Athena, Percy and the door. All with their own signs of life.
"ATHENA PLEASE!" Chris begs to her, slamming his fist beside her face but she shakes her head in denial, still trying to stop her own mouth from moving.
"-Thomas..." The pit grows deeper, objects around us begin to burst one by one from the heavy pressure in the air. Chris raises his arm once more, pulling it back but being forced to stop as the door opens itself with an eruptive burst. Wrapping a tendril around his body as well as the others, lifting them higher and higher away from Athena.
"You're the only one who can do it Jackson...do it. Bring 𝘩𝘦𝘳 out" Irene unravels the hair from me, my hands shining an equal brightness to her hair. The quaking roof from the underworld itself beckoning to be saved. The floor from where she kneels, cracked and spewing green hued water around her, connecting down towards the river that flows beside the sand. I look up to the others, Percy's eyes fluxing with a violent gold and violet, spasming within the grasp of the black ink. They all stare hopelessly from Athena to the door and then back to me.
"-for his life ba-" More black ink pours out from the small doorframe, an audible clanking of what sounds like chains. Her black markings twist from their origins, making their way around her body and towards her limbs.
𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘬
They loop around her wrists, forcing her to let go of the disintegrating flower.
𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘬
An unrivalled pressure presses her to the floor by her ankles.
"NOW JACKSON!" Irene shrieks at me, the others staring at me with new found hope in their eyes for something they aren't even sure of, placing their will into me despite not even knowing what I can do, blindly trusting none other than a stranger to shoot randomly in the dark...why.
The thudding of the heartbeat grows stronger the closer I get, beating for its chance at life, beating for the sake of life. Placing my hands across her back I feel myself dive in while she stares back at me, the pools of ink gradually enveloping and circling around us. For some reason it's holding itself back, I can feel it. Not willing to get any closer to us...to me. Her walls are setup like Yue except it isn't just hers, I feel someone else trying to construct their own safe place.
Closing my eyes and imagining it, I follow line to line, from memory to memory, each tainted with a mark of black. Coming across a chain emitting a black and red aura, tightly wrapped itself around the body of Athena. Limiting her, restricting and protecting her from herself. Looking around I see it, the eyes that belonged to him. Staring towards me with a disappointed gaze, gathering itself from the tainted memories and reconstructing what's left of it.
"You know, I could of done it. I truly could of." He speaks.
"So why didn't you?" I ask in confusion.
He turns his head to some of her flickering memories, "-Adam. That name, it feels so sickening and yet fitting." He stares at himself, the shadowed claws and humanoid stance he takes. Rubbing his eyes and looking back at me with a shrug, "Maybe next time...I can tell you who and what I am, Good luck, Jackson...Irene." He waves off. Throwing me back into reality where the ink drains itself back through the door although remaining open, dropping the others with Chris catching them as best he can.
Athena's slumped form relaxes, moving the markings up her body and to her back to reform the same symbol as the shadowed figure releases from it with a whisper. "I...refuse."