. : THE GUILD OF CHAOS : .

A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Nine: Gravity Flux

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson in any way, shape, or form.

Annabeth was brain-numb.

Typhoon… Percy? One and the same?

She choked on her emotions and bent over as they rose up in her chest, demanding to know why, why he'd left her all alone, why didn't he tell her?

Honestly? It hurt.

It was like he didn't… trust her, anymore.

Seven hundred years. Alone. Thinking he was dead. Why, Percy?

How was she supposed to react?

But for the better or for the worse, she never got the chance.

Golden energy crackled through the oppressive air of the Void, sparking and jerking like a live electrical current. Typhoon – no, Percy, she was sure of it now, and nothing would ever convince her otherwise – uttered a curse under his breath, hesitating only half a heartbeat before taking out a pen out of his pocket and yanking off the cap.

A blade sprang to shape in his hands and Annabeth instantly knew that the sword was the long-lost weapon Anaklusmos that had vanished when Percy (supposedly) died, Riptide.

Memories came to mind, the little hints that Stormstrike and Shadow and Percy himself had dropped that hinted at his identity, why hadn't she seen this earlier–

Wait. Typhoon. Percy. Typhoons were water-related, and Percy was the son of Poseidon, able to control water and thus, typhoons. Then Stormstrike and Shadow, which were obviously code names, would be…

Shadow meant shadows. But what struck during storms? Lightning.

Lightning, and even storms in general. Shadows.

Thalia and Nico, she thought. Cousins, indeed.

She wanted to sob as everything unraveled in her mind, as everything fell apart and was put together again, this time without the lies. She could see Francis being Frank, Selene being Silena, Becky was Beckendorf, and Michael and Ethan and Lee and Castor – she remembered those fallen heroes so clearly – hadn't even bothered to hide their names.

There was no substantial proof, but she knew it was true. It made too much sense. Who else would call her Wise Girl but her own Seaweed Brain? Who else would be able to wrest water from Pontus's grasp but a direct son of Poseidon?

And all of this flashed through her head in the millisecond it took for the thrashing tendrils of golden energy to explode.

Annabeth saw the Void's black quicksand shift, and she watched as the golden energy twisted like a snake and lurched, arching away from the ground even as it was sucked in and absorbed.

"Hemera or Aether," Percy said. "Maybe both. But probably Aether."

Annabeth whispered, "The Primordial of light."

He looked at her. "You know, now."

It was a statement completely unrelated to the topic of Protogenoi, and Annabeth didn't reply.

"I guess this thing's useless, then," Percy sighed, pulling off his jacket in a single fluid movement and tossing it into the quicksand. The fabric dissolved as it sunk into the blackness, hissing quietly.

Annabeth saw his eyes. Sea-green, like they were supposed to be.

For a quick second, nothing else mattered. She gazed at him, relishing in the sight of his ocean-like eyes she hadn't seen in centuries.

Percy grabbed her hand, steadying her as the ground trembled beneath her feet like an earthquake, pitching from side to side. "We have to go. They're trying to lure us out, but we don't have a choice."

Maybe it was because leaving would mean walking into a trap, maybe because they might never get another chance, maybe because her pride refused to do what the Primordials wanted, or maybe it was because Percy had hid himself from her and she felt the need to pay him back. But, for whatever reason, she stilled herself and said in a calm, firm tone, "No. We're not leaving until we find Order."

Surprise crossed Percy's face, but after a moment of consideration, he sighed. "You're not going to budge. Alright, then, let's get going."

He kept a tight hold on her hand as they started to run, gently tugging her along and using his own weight as a counterbalance when she lost her footing. In return, she did the same when he slipped, holding onto him just as tightly. She wasn't about to let him go, ever again.

Annabeth couldn't see the road clearly, but she assumed that cracks were starting to open up on the solid trail they were following when Percy suddenly shifted his gait, yanking around in strange, jagged paths and hopping over certain parts of the floor.

She hated being blind – even if she'd only experienced that for a short while in Tartarus (stupid curses) – and although she could see just fine, the road and quicksand had the exact same shade of black, and both of them were shifting around. It was impossible for her to tell where the safe road ended and the dangerous sands began. Percy was her only guide, just like before, and she was uselessly blind.

She hated it, being defenseless, but… There wasn't a choice.

Besides, if she had to choose someone as her guide? It was Percy, and even if he hadn't been beside her for seven centuries, she took comfort in his presence.

So, when he suddenly wrapped his arms around her to stop her movements and started dragging her backwards, she didn't protest, hurriedly backing up her steps with the knowledge that something dangerous was ahead.

He breathed harshly as more explosions detonated through the air.

"Nobody is meant to be here," Percy hissed. "This road… Only Chaos's powers, which is pretty weak here in the Void. And whoever's attacking us – Aether, Hemera, whatever – is disrupting it."

"It's dissolving."

"Yeah. I can't really see a way out of this, honestly."

Annabeth didn't like that, so she started to think.

They'd sunk through the floor earlier, to get to Chaos's prison. Was it literally the layer underneath, which she highly doubted since it seemed too simple, or was it, say, an entrance to another pocket dimension within the Void?

That sounded rather promising.

So if they got to wherever Order was being held, then they should be safe, at least for a while. The mini-dimension should be pretty much sealed off from this particular plane in the Void.

Now all she needed to do was find it.

It could be anywhere, right?

Desperately, Annabeth drew out of her thoughts and looked around, wondering if there was any visual clue that could be provided. Please, by the gods, let there be something…

She watched the black sand rise up as it swallowed more of the exploding tendrils of energy, watched as dips were created as the sand moved to create the risen areas, and watched as the scene shifted in her mind's eye.

Instead of sand, she saw Chaos. The white background was the opposite.

Order.

They sunk through the ground to get to Chaos. Chaos and Order did not mix well, so of course Order wouldn't be in the ground. In the sky.

She looked up, and another thought struck. The strange, suffocating pressure – what if it wasn't pressing down, but energy being released from the above?

It made so much sense. The sands sucked it in, and the sky released it.

Gravity, she thought. Why in the world would gravity exist in the Void? The pressure and drain? But it was energy. Like… Let's say, fire. You could walk through it, and though it would hurt, it was theoretically possible. So the pressure wasn't the thing keeping them grounded.

Annabeth was highly aware that Percy was trying to keep her as safe as possible as he maneuvered along the path towards what he thought was Order, somewhere along the line, but now she knew they were going about it all the wrong way.

In zero gravity, there was no definite up or down. It was what you made of it.

And so, Annabeth took her sense of direction, looked it in the metaphorical eye, and said, "Turn upside down."

Percy yelped when she nearly slipped from his grasp, suddenly falling up.

No, not falling up. Falling down, the sky is down, this floor is really the ceiling, as long as I think this way, I can get down.

"Percy, flip your gravity!" she called up to him.

"Do what?"

"Just picture it upside down. Do it! Trust me!"

"…I do," he responded quietly. There was a moment of silence, and then suddenly both of them were freefalling through the sky in reversed gravity where there was no gravity at all except the one you made in your mind.

They didn't tell her.

They didn't tell her until it was already too late.

She was at camp, her home, when the news finally arrived.

She'd been discussing future plans about the two camps together with Reyna when Rachel suddenly ran up to her, panting and gasping for breath.

"Rachel?" she asked, worriedly gazing at her friend. "You okay?"

"Vision… You, go, now," she managed to say. "Might… late, but… make it."

"You're not making any sense," Annabeth replied, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. She tried to ignore the foreboding in the pit of her stomach and the panicked look on the Oracle's face. "Come on, deep breaths."

"No time," Rachel said, having caught enough breath to at least sound coherent. "Percy… at Olympus, they're killing him!"

She froze as the words sunk in immediately. "You can't be serious!"

"Thalia, Nico, too," Rachel added hurriedly. "Something about, too strong, threat, and lies, I think-"

"Blackjack's in the stables," Reyna cut in, looking understandingly grim. "Annabeth, go!"

Casting her a thankful look, Annabeth took off in a run. The other campers were slightly confused when she nearly slammed into Blackjack's stable door and threw open the lock, but let her pass by quickly, probably recognizing from the look on her face that something very bad was happening.

"Blackjack, Percy's in danger," she hissed into the pegasus's ears as she swung onto his back, instantly stilling his discontented shifting due to the not-Percy rider. "Fly to Olympus, get there as fast as possible!"

His ears flicked with understanding, then flattened against his head as he neighed and stamped his hoof in outrage. The other pegasi jerked their heads up, whinnying a reply. Blackjack lunged out the still-open stall door, snorted and flashed open his wings to the other horses, and fled outside.

Annabeth clung to his mane for dear life as he fell into a straight-out gallop through the camp for a solid hundred yards before taking to the air, beating his wings and gaining altitude quickly, flying as fast as he could possibly push himself.

Some campers looked puzzled as they watched her fly away on what was well known as Percy's pegasus-who-threw-off-everyone-else, but she didn't really care what they thought about it as she focused on the flight path Blackjack was taking.

Jason, Frank, and Hazel had been killed during the Second Giant War. The son of Jupiter had overused his powers, leaving him easy prey for the giant he was fighting against, and although Piper destroyed it, she could not bring him back to life as she did before. A promise to keep with a dying breath… Just before he died, Jason made her promise to keep fighting, and she did. Frank and Hazel died from blood loss; they were the two who were captured and had their blood spilt onto the earth, which led to Gaea's full rising and the proceeding battle that nearly cut the number of total campers into a third of the original amount.

They can't just take another of the Seven, not when only four remained, not when they were just starting to recover…!

And Thalia and Nico, too, why would they kill them anyway?

Percy… He'd left with his cousins a week ago, with a promise to return. He had something to take care of, he'd told her. Back in a jiffy, and no you cannot come because someone needs to help Reyna with the camps and Leo is not a good choice for that, no offense to him, I think she's planning to kill him in his sleep some day, he's so annoying to her and Piper doesn't like that kind of stuff, so you need to stay and help her, please Wise Girl?

It took the entire day to convince her, but she could stand on her own and wanted to prove that she wasn't dependent on him after their experience in Tartarus made them nigh inseparable, so she had let him go.

She was brought out of her musings when Blackjack ran into the wards protecting Olympus. However, since they were still half-weak from the war, he got through them with a bit of kicking and thrashing and annoyed neighing.

He landed in front of the doors leading to the throne room with a slight rear and a whinny that sounded a lot like Open the door or else I'm shoving my way in!

"'Go forth and set the world on fire'," Annabeth quoted, and Blackjack charged.

The combined body weight of the demigod and winged horse, along with their momentum, threw open the doors with a loud slam.

Annabeth looked up quickly and opened her mouth as she dismounted Blackjack, ready to call out a name, or three.

But then she realized the doors hadn't hit the wall.

The slamming sound wasn't from their entrance, but from the explosion of a lightning bolt, the Master Bolt.

Which, of course, could only mean one thing.

Her muscles locked, then seemed to melt, dropping her onto the ground like a rock as she stared at the slightly charred ground where Percy had probably stood with Thalia and Nico at his side as he awaited his demise.

"Annabeth," Athena finally said, breaking the startled silence of the Olympians. "What are you doing here?"

For a minute, there wasn't a response.

And then Annabeth's eyes hardened to steel.

"Why?" she demanded, leaping back up. The back of her mind registered the fact that Blackjack had become agitated, pacing back and forth with unbalanced steps as he shook his head and snorted, but she focused her attention on the gods. "Why did you – do – something like this?"

"They were traitors!" Zeus boomed, leaning back in his chair and looking for all intents and purposes like he hadn't just killed his own daughter.

Poseidon had glazed eyes and was slumped weakly in his chair.

"What in Tartarus do you mean, traitors?!" Annabeth yelled furiously.

"Annabeth," Athena addressed her again, "Perseus, Thalia, and Nico, as you know, left Camp a week ago for some sort of business. We discovered them around the site of Gaea's fall, probably looking for some way to, well, awaken her again."

Annabeth was dumbfounded for a moment before her eyes narrowed. "Lies."

"How dare you!" Zeus roared. "We should kill you as well, for your disrespect!"

What's going on? Annabeth wondered, gazing at the Olympians with disbelief. It was like they'd suddenly reverted to their old selves, before Percy made them swear to interact with their children more, before the end of the war, when all of the casualties of their children made them a bit more humble and they took every chance they could to help with rebuilding.

They had been changing for the better, she was sure of it, but it was as if everyone had suddenly regressed back to their old habits of ignoring other opinions and acting all high-and-mighty.

A whinny attracted her attention. It was Blackjack.

He shook his head and reared, pawing the air and slamming his hooves onto the ground, flapping his wings as his unbalanced steps continued.

A moment, he trotted over to Poseidon's throne and suddenly stood with a stillness that contrasted sharply with his skittish movements beforehand.

"Blackjack?" Annabeth asked quietly. He twisted his neck to look at her before turning back and nickering at the king of the seas. The other gods watched as the pegasus seemed to lose the life in him, the gleam dulling in his eyes.

And in a fit of rage – madness – the black pegasus wheeled around and pelted towards the thunder god, and Annabeth suddenly knew what would happen.

There was a throw, an arching bolt of electricity, and the scattering dust of a destroyed mythical creature.

Dead. Gone. "Blackjack?" Annabeth repeated hoarsely. She stopped her eyes from tearing up. No, she would not cry, not in front of these so-called gods. They didn't deserve her tears.

But when Zeus muttered, "Good riddance," and Dionysus, bored, turned another page in his wine magazine, she spun around and marched out of the throne room.

She wanted them to yell at her for her blatant show of disrespect again.

Something, anything.

But they let her storm out without so much as a blink.

As she exited the Empire State Building, the guard stood up without a word, tipped his hat to her silently, and went up the elevator himself, and Olympus was again sealed for several years, only opening when it moved over to Calypso's now-empty island with the camps.

It took her twice as long to forgive them enough to even speak to them.

Annabeth's eyes snapped open as the memory ebbed, and she gasped.

Percy's sea green eyes were inches from hers, but he shied away quickly when he realized she was awake. "You're awake," was all he said.

"Memory, dream," she murmured in reply, pushing it back to the furthermost corner of her mind. Centuries ago, she had sworn it would never bother her again, though it seemed it was out of her control.

Percy didn't ask for details. He just held out a hand, and she took it, pulling herself to her feet.

"Where are we?"

He grinned. "You're a genius, Wise Girl, you know that?" When she looked at him with a gaze that promised pain as soon as they exited the Void, he carried on quickly. "We're in the sky – except we're on the ground, too. We're on the ground in the sky. Completely flipped. Can't believe I didn't think of that."

Right, gravity here was what you made it. She'd almost forgotten about that.

Stupid dream, it was messing with her thinking.

Annabeth looked down and noted that they were standing on rippling waves of light, moving remarkably like a river or stream. All around was a slid blank white. A reverse of the ground above, however strange that sounded. They had walked on a solid path back there, but here, they stood on a watery road.

And back up there, the exploding lights had vanished. Either Aether had withdrawn, or believed them dead, or both.

"How long have I been out?"

"Not sure, actually. I only woke up a little while ago."

So they had no idea of the time. Time, something echoed in her mind, but she ignored it in favor of figuring out what to do next.

Good news was that they pretty much passed the first part of getting to Order. Chaos had sent up chains that dragged them through the surface, but how would they do that now? It certainly looked more than possible, with it being liquid-like and all, but they couldn't just make themselves sink.

"You said that road below – up there, I mean, was Chaos's powers," Annabeth said. "Back there, the solid was safe, so here the solid is dangerous, I'm guessing. Also, I can kind of see where the path is."

"Complete opposite of Chaos's place," Percy nodded. "Wonderful choice for Order, of course."

"…" Something in the atmosphere shifted a little.

"In any case," Annabeth continued, "what we're standing on now is…"

"Me," a voice chirped happily, and then they fell through the lighted water with nothing but a small splash.

DragonAce1999: And you finally get to know what happened 700 years ago after 10 chapters, at least from Annabeth's POV, and yes Blackjack did die, but not permanently, I promise! ...maybe. You have no idea how much I hate this chapter. It was so hard to get out, but I managed it, before November came! Very pleased with myself for that, but this chapter is sort of confusing, and I totally blame Ender's Game (a book we read in school... not too bad, for a required school reading) for the gravity ideas thing. Anyway, yes, early update for you all, Halloween's coming up, everyone go and get some free candy!

Thanks so much for the reviews, I've got more than 200! Never would've imagined it, thank you all so, so very much. Love you all, thanks for reading, please review!

Published: 10/28/13
Updated: N/A