Maybe Dark!Annabeth fighting a child of the big three and she knows that defeating them with physical, raw power isn't possible, so she attacks mentally. She defeats them with words, something Annabeth constantly does throughout the books to her enemies. Making them so angry, distracted, and/or sad that they lose focus and she easily takes the victory.
Annabeth feels him coming before she sees him.
Thereâs a charge in the air. A gathering static that threatens to strike with every movement she makes, but never quite gets the guts to do so.
Thatâs Jason Grace for you. Son of Jupiter, chosen of Juno, and just a touch too soft to do what needs to be done. Oh sure, heâll kill monsters if he needs to, but when the monsters are gods, his solution is to become a priest.
Itâs about finding a compromise, heâd said. And making sure that weâre heard.
Annabethâs finding there are better ways of making noise.
âYou got here faster than I expected,â she remarks as he touches down in front of her. Sheâs perched on the crumbling remnants of a wall thatâs thousands of years old. Some small, distant part of her regrets what is about to happen here, but not enough to change course.
âYour patternâs getting old,â he says. His gladius is out and he holds it warily between them. Annabeth keeps her drakonbone sword at her side. âThe others can hold Percy off long enough for me to stop what youâre doing.â
She raises her eyebrows. âYouâre the only one coming?â
He tries to hide his grimace, but thatâs the danger with fighting your friends. They can read you too well, and a smile curls over Annabethâs mouth at the confirmation. She hops off the wall, landing lightly on the dirt.
âWhat made you think Iâd be at Pompeii?â
Lightning crackles in the sky overhead, raising the small hairs at the back of her neck. He nods at the scaffolding in the distance, empty of workers this early in the morning. Itâs a grim dawn, about to get darker.
âNo tourists today. You mightâve turned against the gods, Annabeth, but youâre not a murderer.â
Isnât she? Annabeth has lost count of the number of monsters sheâs put in the ground (under the ground). How many demigods died in the war with Kronos? They bleed red the same as mortals, and her hands are as stained as anyoneâs.
So are Jasonâs, and irritation pricks at her face. She smooths it away with a cool smile, carefully tracking him as he starts to circle her. She has a certain amount of faith in Jasonâs willingness to âsaveâ his friends, but sheâs not an idiot.
âSo I should start picking locations with people if I donât want you to interfere, is that what youâre saying?â
âThatâs obviously not what Iâm saying.â His gaze flickers over the ruins stretching behind her. âSo this is all rigged to blow, huh?â
âLeo does good work.â
He winces. He can play on whatever friendship the two of them might have had all he likes, but that betrayal is the real knife in the guts and they both know it. Annabeth coerces her expression into concern, the cogs of her brain turning the right muscles to give it the realism it needs. She takes a half step forward, and Jason doesnât step away.
âHe misses you, you know.â Her voice is a soft thing. Caring. âMisses both of you.â
âIf he misses us so bad, he should come and see us.â
âYou really think weâre going to be welcome at Camp after all this?
âYou havenât killed anyone.â
The yet sits between us, and it doesnât matter anyway. The gods would be more likely to forgive her if she had killed someone. They could have murdered thousands of mortals and not been struck down, if theyâd just done it far away from the last vestiges of godly power in this world.
Gaea had plotted to bring down Mt Olympus, and thatâs definitely on Annabethâs list. But sheâs always been a methodical sort of girl, and divine power runs deep. Best to stamp out all traces of it, one relic at a time.
She sighs. âWe donât plan to. You know that.â
âYouâre trying to kill the gods!â Lightning cracks again, closer now. It takes more strength than Annabeth wants to admit to to avoid reaching for her weapon.
âAnd how many times have they tried to kill us? At best they donât give a shit, Jason, you know that.â
But heâs shaking his head. Theyâve had this fight before, all of them, enough times that she could probably just record it for him to save energy. Heâs long since stopped listening to sense, and she doesnât bother with more than a cursory attempt to convince him.
âYouâre too late for this one,â she says. âIâm proud of you for getting here before it blows, but you were right. Itâs ready to go.â
His grip shifts on his sword. And - thereâs something in his expression that prompts her to brace for an attack, because itâs not defeat. This time, she thinks. This time might be the one where I push too far.
Itâs sad, sort of, but relief swamps that soon enough. Itâs not that she wants to fight old friends, but it would make everything a lot simpler. To just be able to fight, without caring what happens to them anymore. To draw battlelines instead of blurring them
âI donât want to hurt you,â he growls. âBut even if the rest of your team is ready to destroy this place, theyâll stop once youâre a hostage.â
Annabeth laughs. Itâs a miscalculation, but she canât help herself. âThe others might. But hell itself couldnât keep Percy Jackson from me, Jason, and youâre no Tartarus.â
âI can deal with Percy.â
He canât. She wonders idly if he knows that. Everyoneâs aware of Percyâs power these days, but thatâs what heâs like with her at his side. Jason, she suspects, still has a little too much optimism left about what Percyâs self control would be like without her. What it would be like if he even thought she was in danger.
âRight, well, thatâll be your mistake to live with.â She squints up at the sky, trying to judge her next play. Being a hostage would accelerate certain things that sheâs not ready to set into motion just yet. Most of all, she doesnât think that Percy is quite as ready to fight the others as she is.
âYou made a miscalculation,â she said finally. âYou always want to go for the biggest player, Jason. Itâs one of your biggest weaknesses.â
âYou canât talk your way out of this, Annabeth.â His body moves, and she can almost trace the lines in the air, the familiar forms heâs about to slide into. âYouâre coming back to Camp wth me.â
He lifts his blade, wreathed in lightning. She smells ozone on the air, the threat of violence wafting in behind it. She clasps her hands behind her back, and lays down her hand.
âWhereâs Piper, Jason?â
Everything stops. Nature itself holds its breath as those too-blue eyes widen in sheer panic, before narrowing at her.
âPiperâs your friend. You wouldnât hurt her.â
Annabeth waits. She doesnât need to say anything. The silence between them does it for her. The even sound of her breathing. The shroud of absolute confidence holding her shoulders straight.
You are not going to take me, her body says, like itâs all a foregone conclusion.
âShe can handle herself,â he tries again, and thereâs the edge of desperation that sheâs been waiting for. Enough to cloud his thinking. He might not think sheâs a murderer, but there are other atrocities. Things she hasnât held back from in the opening numbers of this new war.
Thatâs a risk. Because they both know that Percy isnât steady, isnât stable, that his relationship with Piper had been tenuous at best and that without Annabeth there, his temper might just get away with him. Piper has her Charmspeak, but there are ways around everything if you have enough power.
Itâs a risk, because Jasonâs anger could always outweigh his fear. He could always take it out on her rather than fly off for Piper. Annabeth is confident in her ability to take him with a sword, but Jason comes with all those bonus add-ons that children of Athena just arenât privy to.
So she gives him one last push. Just to make sure.
âTartarus has so many doors,â she says softly. That same quiet concern from before, turned deadly now. âYou know we found all of them, right Jason?â
He spits a curse, something in Latin about the gods and what he hopes theyâll do to her. She watches him leap into the sky, shading her eyes against the rising sun until heâs no more than a dot in the distance.
âYou say that like they havenât already done their worst,â she murmurs, before turning back to the ruins.
Thereâs work to be done.