Commander Alpha

Chapter 19

Annabeth's POV

I paced around the edge of Zeus's First.
"When's he going to be here?" I asked rhetorically, not expecting anyone to answer.
"Now." A voice said.  I turned as saw Alpha walk into the clearing.  His voice was rough, like he was trying to disguise it, which made no sense.  I just dismissed this peculiarity, anxious to get information on Percy.
"Alpha," I greeted. "Beta said you have information on Percy Jackson?" Alpha nodded.
"I do.  But first, I have to hear about what happened after Percy left." Alpha said.
"Okay... The minute Percy left camp, I ran to the arena.  I found Brendan's sword in the arena.  Brendan confessed to doing everything Percy did and using the mist to confuse us and him.  And he," I forced myself to go on.  "He gave me a love potion to make me kiss him." I spat.  "None of us have forgiven ourselves.  We go on monthly week-long hunts for Percy, but the trail's gone dry.  That's why we're so desperate for information."  Alpha looked really confused.  I could see his hands shaking violently.  Something purple fell from his chin to the forest floor.
"Mist... love potion?" He whispered, mainly to himself, his voice quavering.  I wondered why he had such an odd reaction to the news. 
"Yes, now what do you have on Percy?" Jason demanded.  Everyone in the clearing was crying. 
"I'm so sorry." Alpha's voice was no longer gruff.  It was extremely familiar. It sounded like-
"Percy?" Hazel whispered.  Alpha reached up and drew down his hood.  Familiar black messy hair, sea green eyes.
"Percy!" I shrieked.  I flew into his arms.  His chest was shaking with silent sobs. 
"Annabeth." He whispered into my hair.  We just stood there, hugging, and it was the happiest I'd ever felt.  What seemed like both hours and seconds later, we separated.  His beautiful sea green eyes were filled with purple tears.  Wait.  Purple?  We exchanged a look.  His said, 'I'll explain later.' I nodded, wiping tears from my eyes.  The rest of the demigods in the clearing exchanged hugs and tears, but I wasn't paying attention to them.  I only payed attention to Percy.  My Percy.  He didn't appear to have aged, but he looked different.  His face had new scars.  He looked more tired, wearier, like he'd been through a lot.  But he was still my Seaweed Brain.
After a while, Percy was able to get everyone to sit down so he could explain what had happened.  I sat on his lap, hugging myself tightly to him.  I still couldn't comprehend that this was happening.
    "Why's your voice back to normal?" I questioned.
    "I had Chaos change it back for an hour so I could reveal myself to you guys without you being suspicious." He explained.  I leaned away from him.  I was so blinded with pure joy in seeing Percy again that it didn't even occur to me to be suspicious of him.
    'Stupid!' I scolded myself.  "How do we know you're actually Percy?"  Part of me wanted to take back the question after I saw the look on his face.
    "I swear on the River Styx that I am Percy Jackson."  Thunder rumbled, and I waited a minute.  When he didn't get blown to smithereens, I hugged him tighter than I'd ever hugged anyone in my life.
"So, what happened after you left?" Nico asked.
"Well, after I left camp, I was picked up by Chaos, who brought me to his planet to become commander of his army.  As Annabeth noticed, my tears were purple.  That's because I don't have any water in my body."
"What!" Piper exclaimed.
"Well, after... after Poseidon disowned me, water became extremely poisonous to me.  By the time Chaos found me, I was dying from the inside out.  He changed all of the water in me to an almost identical substance called sublac from a planet in another universe.  After that, I created my army, full of people who died and deserved another chance.  So, yeah, we've been training and doing missions and stuff for the past five hundred years." I almost stopped breathing in shock.
"Five... hundred?" Jason whispered.
"Oh, I keep forgetting, time goes faster on Chaos's planet." He explained. 
"What happened to, what's her name, Suzuki, that's it, anyway, what happened to her last week?" Leo question, probably wondering if it was some kind of machine of bomb that he could study.  At Leo's question, an intense look of guilt washed over Percy's face.  I noticed that he was crying.
"Well, since I'm the commander of Chaos's most powerful Army, I have lots of powers and I'm much stronger than I was when I was a demigod.  But, that much power came with a downside, kind of like Frank with his stick.  Whenever my emotions become too much for me to handle, I kind of... well, I don't know how to explain this... I guess you could say that I spontaneously combust."
"What?" Jason asked, clearly confused.  Percy sighed.
"I release a lot of Chaos energy, the strongest kind of energy in the universe.  One of Suzuki's powers is controlling emotions, and she thought that she could control my emotions to stop me from exploding.  It didn't work, and, well she lost a leg because of it."  Something about that story, and Suzuki in general, bugged me, but I decided that it was a mystery for another time.  Percy looked down in shame, tears falling from his face into my lap because of the way we were positioned.  I watched a purple teardrop roll off my thigh in fascination.  "I'm dangerous. I understand if you guys don't want to-" Us seven stopped him by wrapping him in the mother of all bear hugs.
"We're never leaving you again." Piper insisted.
"Never." Leo agreed.  When everyone finally separated, I laid my head against Percy's chest.
"I missed you." I felt Percy's arms pull tighter around me.
"I missed you too."