You can hate me all you want, kids, but you can't hate me more than I hate myself for this chapter.

When Percy was in ninth grade his geography teacher had picked him to do a run for her. Just take a note to another class, and return back. It had sounded easy, and to be honest it was. The room had been easy to find, but the door was open and the teacher in the middle of a presentation.

When Percy walked in every head turned to look at him as if he was in the completely wrong school. Since then Percy tried not to let his teachers pick him for anything.

He found the memory was a mirror reflection to exactly what happened when he stumbled into the clearing Scipio and BlackMagic had called home base. They were the last ones to the party it seemed: -AngelQueen- and ~GhostKing~ were arguing, while iam_superman and El3ctric were back to back, arms crossed, not speaking to each other. -Chasing- was pacing while Scipio was cleaning a spear. BlackMagic was spread across a rock looking like he wanted to kill everyone himself. Charm4u and Hawtstufz9 were talking in murmurs, the latter now sporting a black eye as he worked on something with the code. xClassicx was standing nearby hugging herself tightly and choking back silent tears.

The second Percy lugged Travis's mostly unconscious body into the clearing they all stopped and turned to look at the three of them.

"Sup?" He stuttered out.

Frank appeared behind him still picking at the makeshift suture that he had made while walking earlier from a dress shirt in his clothing equip. The white fabric was still bleeding through red and Percy tried not to think about his health bar steadily going down while Percy remained in better health than he had all day.

"Hannibal!" xClassicx cried, leaping to go side, and gathering him in a hug. The big guy looked confused beyond belief, and a little in pain, but he certainly wasn't pushing her away.

Percy helped Imthebest to the ground, where he moaned in pain and stared at the sky like he was the source of all his agonies. Annabeth rushed forward to help him, her grey eyes checking him over for injuries so fast Percy wasn't sure it had actually happened. Her face was brushed pink from worry or agitation or just plain hatred for him. (Honestly he was surprised she hadn't unfriended him and resulted to put him out of the game for good.)

She knelt next to the sandy haired boy, with a low grade first aid kit. Percy honestly wasn't sure it would do anything for him, but he was all willing to try. Travis had saved his life. He watched Annabeth affirm the healing with a tap of her screen and the red pulsing health bar go up a few notches to bored line yellow. He wasn't by any means cured, but Travis managed a weak thank you in her direction.

"Well, finally." Black Magic slung himself up, "I was beginning to think you really were fucking dead and they were just pulling one last fucking joke before we all fucking died."

"Would it kill you to watch your fucking language and around the children?" El3tric snapped.

"Hypocrite," Iam_superman coughed, and rolled his eyes.

"You are the last person I want speaking to me." The black haired girl scowled at him before flipping the bird.

"Good thing I don't want to talk to you." He replied with a poisonous snarl. He turned to face her, eyes clear and dangerous with a challenge that spoke in volumes, "Of course I never, ever wanted to talk to you!"

The clearing had gone quiet. Annabeth sucked in a sharp breath between her teeth, mumbling "Not good, not good!"

El3ctric narrowed her eyes, "What the fuck is your problem?"

Iam_superman looked around the clearing like he was confused on who she was talking to, even though it was obvious."Oh, I'm sorry, did you ever think in the eleven years of my life, maybe, just maybe, I wanted to talk to you?!"

Now she looked just annoyed, "You know Mom fucking forbid--"

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Iam_superman exploded, sending sparks across his body as his temper let loose. His hands made tight fists and a breeze spooked the trees around them. -AngelQueen- let out a squeal and grabbed at the nearest player, BlackMagic. "You've broken every other rule in on the world! Why am I the exception?!"

Scipio straightened her stance, hand resting on her sword handle like she expected a fight to break out.

"Don't flatter yourself, Jason." Thalia shut him down with another one of her eye rolls. She swiper her menu open and dismissed him in on movement. "I don't make exceptions for anything."

Iam_superman let out a humorless laugh, looking at the rest of the player. Percy thought he was particularly spiteful in -AngelQueen- and ~GhostKing~'s direction. He spit his hands at the other girl as if she was some display for them to see. He gave one last smile in Percy's direction, maybe more towards Annabeth, who looked a little disappointed in both of them.

Then he lunged at El3ctric with a fistful of electricity.

"Motherfuc--!" Leo yelled.

"Jason!" Piper covered her mouth, but she didn't move to intervene.

Iam_superman-- Jason-- landed the first blow, which sent her sprawling to the ground. "Even now you won't...give me...the goddamned...time of YOUR DAY!"

El3ctric was still for a moment, her health bar simmering at the edge of green and yellow. She looked up growling at nothing, eyes full of rage and then her entire body shimmered and popped. One second she was at Jason's feet, the next she was decking him from behind, glowing a white hot blue.

The ground between them crackled and the grass fried. Jason's hand went to his sword, Thalia held her spear like a bo staff, daring him to come at her with just her gritted teeth and blinking health bar.

Then Scipio was between them, standing tall and obvious. Her sword was out and face impassive, as if they were children in need of supervision. She didn't turn her back to either of them, preferring to stay on her own side, "You both need to stop. This is not the time, nor the place for your sibling altercations."

"What the hell does altercations mean?" Travis coughed quietly.

"I think they should." Blackmagic put in, his voice infinity loud, "After all, they're never gonna get another chance to obliterate each other again."

"Are you crazy?" -Chasing- yelled, "If they kill each other, they'll die!"

The black haired boy rolled his eyes, "So you say."

Percy exchanged a glance with his grey eyed friend. She looked baffled, if not outright horrified. It took a minute for his words to sink in, but it was Imthebest who beat everyone to the punch.

"I'm gonna kill him," the boy hissed. He struggled to sit up despite his injuries, "I will fucking kill him!"

"You don't think we actually die." Hannibal clarified. He frowned as if the words themselves didn't make any sense in his mouth. Percy wasn't gonna lie: they made less sense out in the air.

"Of course not." Blackmagic snorted, "This is a tournament displayed all over the world. Every game needs a bit of drama! The Gods pull shit like this every year."

"I can't tell if he's crazy or stupid." Leo shrugged, "Anyone else?"

"Hey, at least I didn't hack Sanction Island and drive four people insane." Blackmagic laughed cruelly while Leo's face drained of color, "I'm surprised they let you near a headset again. Remind me why you aren't locked up right now?"

Leo hands curled into fists, his lips pressed flat, and eyes averted. "Crazy. Definitely crazy."

"You drove four people insane?" Frank spouted, "What the hell?"

Charm4u stepped in front of her partner, "What the hell did you hope to gain by bringing that up?!" She demanded of the Japanese boy, "That was years ago, and it wasn't his fault!"

"He destroyed four people's lives!" Scipio interjected, now not seeming to care about starting a blood war among the group. Even Annabeth looked at a lost for words at the sudden exclamation.

Percy had read about Sanction Island in the news a while back. It had been a popular Zombie Game run off a lesser quality, black market version of Olympus. The gaming system was known for it's bugs and glitches and people went there to exploit them. It had been a joke. The exact details were classified but the media had pieced together what had happened: four middle-aged men and women were trying to glitch a zombie in the middle of a safety zone and break the story plot. At the same time, a low grade techie or hacker or someone was trying to rewrite the game. When the glitch met the new code it was sent to the trash, along with the codes for the players. The backlash fried the brains of the players.

Four people went insane, two died within the next week, another was sent to a mental institute and the last is still on life support in a complete vegetative state.

"I want you guys to wake up," BlackMagic spun his daggers in his hands, "We weren't picked because we were the best. We were picked because we have so much drama it's hilariously funny." He motioned to El3ctric and Iam_superman, "We have two siblings that don't get along," -AngelQueen- and ~GhostKing~ "then two siblings that pretend like they do, when they really hate each other. A girl who thinks she can solve any problem," Annabeth bristled under his comment, "two boys who can't function without each other," Travis slammed his fist on the ground, while BlackMagic's one eye focused on Percy, "Fuck it, we even have an ameture player who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing."

"You need to shut up now," ~GhostKing~ spoke for the first time, "You don't know a thing about me, and I'm gettin tired of your bullshit." -AngelQueen- rubbed her arm, as if she was being tossed in the middle of a fight she wanted no part of.

"Oh?" He smirked, "what are you going to do about it? Fight me, brat?"

His eyes glowed darkly, "Maybe I will." He reached for his sword, but stopped just short. He dragged his eyes from BlackMagic to his own self, a flash of confusion maybe even fear. Then the boy, the kid, Nico crashed to the ground.

"Son of a bit--" Percy leapt towards him, but before he got more than a foot, BlackMagic spun towards him with a sharp smile, and snapped his fingers.

It felt a lot like being thrown in a blender. Percy's vision took a tumble and his stomach dropped out. He felt the energy escape from his limbs without his permission. His brain spun until he was Percy pulp, a Percy smoothie. His diaphragm revolted and he struggled to breathe. He could hear Annabeth yelling his name, his real one, Percy, and it sounded a lot like an angel calling him to Heaven.

His eyes focused upwards-- he was on the ground-- where his shamrock health bar displayed a purple skull over the percentage. He cursed every deity he could think of, but his mouth refused to move.

There was a sound beside him, where Annabeth hit the ground, with a heavy breath. Somewhere beyond his range of vision he could picture the rest of the player dropping to the ground like flies. Snapping echoed in the clearing strangely loud, horribly dangerous, a hidden backstabbing dagger.

"Come on, brat," BlackMagic's voice laughed, "tell me what you're going to do to me!"

Percy couldn't see what he was doing but he had heard the sound of a foot in a stomach enough to guess. He struggled to move, strained his body to breathe. He stretched his senses as far as he could but his water manipulating ability was negated by the poison BlackMagic had hit him with. He cursed himself for never having suspected it. He didn't even remember when they had touched, when BlackMagic had had the time to set the poison in place.

Nico let out a grunt of air, and the other boy's awful laughter filled the time. Percy felt sweat drip down his neck when he grunted. If Kronos appeared now, they were dead. Then again with how BlackMagic was talking, they might be dead anyway; if he thought this was still just a game, then he could kill all of them and "win" it himself.

Then the entire clearing was engulfed in darkness so deep, Percy thought for a second he had closed his eyes, or maybe died. It was strangely painless so he disregarded the second option.

Then all at once the light came back, and Annabeth sucked in another breath. She was looking at him, her eyes worried, but her expression still one of horror. His stomach did a flip: she was worried for him?

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" A voice shouted, and it wasn't BlackMagic's. He's was a surprised yelp then the unmistakeable sound of metal on metal. The clang that sent the entire clearing flinching.

"I have to say," BlackMagic sneered, "you were the last one I expected to be immune to my poison."

"No one touches my brother." -AngelQueen- snarled, "In a game or not!"

"Well then, bring it on, Beautiful."

Percy wished for once that they hadn't disabled the cameras. He hated that he couldn't see what was going on just beyond him. He couldn't help if he couldn't see what was going on, not that he could do much paralyzed on the ground. His breaths were labored, and Travis seemed to have started crying with desperation. He was facing the fight. Annabeth leaned into the ground eyes closed in a prayer.

BlackMagic's dagger scraped rock, -AngelQueen- let out a sharp hiss, one or both of them cursed.

"Why are you doing this?" -AngelQueen- demanded, "Why did you poison them?"

"Because I want to win." He scoffed, "I thought that was obvious!"

"There's no winning this, you shit!" She snapped, "Kronos is the enemy, not us!"

He laughed again. Something hit the ground, -AngelQueen- yelled out. More grunts raised in chorus. Percy sucked in, concentrating on the skull over his health bar, wishing it away. If Leo had just been able to avoid it, he could have hacked this all away. If Percy had been smarter he would have seen this coming. What if Kronos shows up now? He prayed that they still had time. He was not going to die this way.

"You're wrong!" BlackMagic told her, "Kronos has to play by the rules just as much as us! He has to kill five of us." Metal clanged again, but it was followed by -AngelQueen- coughing. There was thud against the ground and a dagger hitting rock again.

"That's a loophole. We just have to remove eleven of us from the game!" He shouted. "Then Kronos can't win at all. Personally I'm going to leave Riptide because he's the easiest to beat."

"You're talking about killing eleven of us, BlackMagic!" She hissed, "Eleven!"

"You don't actually die." He sounded irritated, "Aren't you--"

"Stop betting our lives on that!" -AngelQueen- spit, "You don't get to decide that! You don't know if that's true or not, you don't know if Kronos is right around the corner! Face it, you fucktard, you don't know anything!"

"I know one thing, Beautiful," His voice was surprisingly calm. Percy swallowed hard, his eyes wide. Seconds felt like years all of a sudden, the tension in the air had grown suffocating.

"You're dead."

-AngelQueen- screamed.

Percy's brain went to static. His internal screaming shot through the roof. His body burned, his lungs ripped and his stomach flopped. Her scream was the one he had heard all those blurry hours ago. Not Annabeth, it had been -AngelQueen- who had screamed in the city with the zombies, -AngelQueen- who had risked everything to get xClassicx far enough away that she wouldn't hurt anyone if she succumbed to the zombie bite, -AngelQueen- who had been fighting just meters away for all their lives.

He heard her body hit the ground like his backpack sliding off his shoulder when he came home with Tyson in his hands and Gabe was out playing poker somewhere else.

Like the laundry basket when his mother was tired from cleaning up all of Gabe's messes. Like Grover's excess essays papers flying off his desk to make room for Percy right next to him.

Like his own body after he took all the hits meant for his brother and he wasn't sure he could hide them in the morning from his mother, from his teachers who believe he was nothing more than a screw up, from world who would judge him based on his face and not on what he could do.

BlackMagic was laughing, "Only Ten left and then I get to win Fifty Million!"

-AngelQueen- gasped horrifically, and it sounded like someone drowning on dry land.

"Do I get bonus points for the killing blow?" He chuckled, "I guess we'll see--"

"STOP!" Charm4u's voice, shrill and hard exploded out of the silence. All at once Percy felt power flood through his veins, energy that wasn't his and it felt strange but he drank it in. His limbs unlocked themselves and he threw himself into a sitting position just in time to see the grisly sight before him.

BlackMagic stood stock still, as if his own power had been used against him, knife still slick with red paint. -AngelQueen- was right below him, chest towards the sky, and life leaking out through her abdomen. She was wearing poison-proof wrist bands that glowed a vomit green that flickered like her lifeforce. Then Thalia leapt at the poison wielder, driving her spear through his chest, and crackling with blue lightning. She burned the ozone. Her tears so hot they evaporated off her skin.

BlackMagic dissolved into code before either of them hit the ground.

"Bianca!" Nico screamed. His lip was busted, his clothes covered in dirt, but he didn't seem to care he threw himself down beside her, holding her wound as if he could stop the bleeding with his force of will. "No! No!"

"Ni...co..." She breathed.

"Bianca Don't!" He begged, "Someone ambrosia! Please!"

Piper let out a sob. xClassicx burrowed into Frank, refusing to look at the scene. Iam_superman swung himself around and slammed his fist into a rock. Scipio, who looked to be the only one struggling to move, her dizzy swaying hands held her up at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

"Someone!" ~GhostKing~ screamed, "...Save my sister."

Leo hung his head. -Chasing- took two steps forward, but she couldn't make herself say the words. Imthebest sat on the ground sobbing almost harder than Nico himself.

"We're..." Frank started, but the rest got stuck in his throat.

"Please." The boy in black cried, "please, please, pleasepleaseplease..."

"I'm...sor..rr--," the brunette gasped body dripping down her chin, "Ni...co..."

Her body flickered, shaking like an illusion. Solid for a second, bright white for the next. Nico scream holding her tightly.

"Someone grab him!" Leo yelled, "Move him!"

Iam_superman grabbed one of his arms, being shaken off and cursed at multiple times before El3ctric was on his other side and they wrestled him away from the other player.

Percy watched in daze, a denial, as the form that was once a living breathing human, -AngelQueen- turned to code right in front of him. Then she was gone, as if she had never existed in the first place.

Nico collapsed at the sight, his knees digging into the ground. Percy's throat was so dry he couldn't breathe. There was a roaring in his head that he couldn't seem to hear over, except for when Nico looked directly up at him, eyes burning with a hatred, a vengeance, with grief.

"You," He said voice like a gravel walkway, hard, broken, with sharp edges that cut Percy to bits, "This was your idea, to bring us all together....to put her in the same space as that monster. This is your fault, Riptide!"