Chapter 14: The Freight Train West
The freight train rattled west through New Jersey darkness, its rhythm a lullaby of steel on steel. They'd hopped it outside Trenton—four exhausted demigods and Medusa's severed head wrapped in plastic bags, sealed in a thermos like the world's worst packed lunch.
Percy's idea. Ship it to Olympus as proof of their victory, same logic as canon. Annabeth had agreed with tactical efficiency, Grover had bleated nervously, and Alaric had just... nodded. Couldn't bring himself to argue when his hands still trembled from absorbing Medusa's essence.
The freight car smelled like rust and old wood. Grover had claimed the corner nearest the door—escape route, in case monsters found them—and fallen asleep almost immediately, exhaustion winning over fear. Percy lay sprawled nearby, one hand on Riptide even in sleep, his face still showing traces of the horror they'd witnessed.
Annabeth sat against the opposite wall. Wide awake. Watching Alaric with grey eyes that missed nothing.
Alaric tried to ignore her scrutiny. Focused on his hands instead—studying the places where snake scales had rippled across his skin before vanishing, where his flesh had tried to transform into something reptilian and foreign. The gorgon bloodline had settled into his cells like all the others, but this one felt different. Heavier. More personal.
Because he'd absorbed a victim. Not a mindless monster, but someone cursed by gods for surviving assault.
"I didn't want her power," he whispered to his palms. To himself. To the guilt eating him alive. "I didn't want it."
"I know."
Alaric's head snapped up. Annabeth had moved—silent as a ghost—and now sat three feet away. Her dagger lay across her lap. Not threatening, exactly. Just present. A reminder that she could defend herself if needed.
"You know?" Alaric's laugh was hollow. "You saw what happened. Saw me drink her down like some kind of—"
"Like your body absorbed her essence automatically through blood contact." Annabeth's voice was steady. Clinical. But her hand rested on the dagger's hilt, fingers tense. "Which means it's not voluntary. Not a choice you made consciously."
"Does that make it better?"
"No." Annabeth shifted, getting comfortable for what was clearly going to be a long conversation. "But it makes it different from murder."
The word hung between them. Murder. Was that what he'd done? Medusa had died by Percy's hand, but Alaric had absorbed her power, stolen the last thing she'd owned—her cursed gifts, the traits that had defined her isolation.
"We need to talk," Annabeth said. "Really talk. Not the deflections you've been giving everyone, not the prophetic dream excuse. The truth."
Alaric's stomach dropped. "I've told you the truth."
"You've told us partial truths wrapped in convenient explanations." Her grey eyes pinned him like a specimen under glass. "But I've been watching you, Alaric Bond. Since you arrived at camp. And I've got questions that your 'prophetic inheritance' story doesn't answer."
"Like what?"
"Like how you fight with techniques from multiple combat traditions that shouldn't coexist in one fighter. Like how your weapon summoning resembles Hermes's teleportation but operates on different principles. Like how you absorbed Medusa's power through her blood despite that not being any documented demigod ability ever."
She leaned forward. The freight car's dim light painted shadows across her face, making her look older than twelve.
"So I'm going to ask you one time, and I want the truth: what are you?"
The question was simple. The answer wasn't.
Alaric could lie. Maintain the cover story, keep spinning prophetic dreams as the explanation for everything. But Annabeth was too smart, too analytical, too determined to understand. And part of him—the part that was exhausted from lying, from hiding, from pretending he belonged here—wanted someone to know.
Not everything. Never everything. The transmigration stayed secret, always.
But enough. Enough to share the burden.
"I don't know what I am," Alaric said slowly. "Not completely. My mother died when I was seven. Never told me who my godly parent was, if I even have one. And I woke up three weeks ago in a Manhattan alley with powers I didn't understand and no memory of how I got there."
"Memory loss?" Annabeth's analytical mind latched onto the detail. "From what? Trauma? Divine intervention?"
"I don't know." True enough. He didn't know the mechanics of his transmigration, just that it had happened. "But I have three abilities that I'm aware of."
He held up one finger.
"First: I can summon weapons from a dimensional space. The Gate of Babylon—that's what it feels like in my head. An armory that exists outside normal reality, and I can pull weapons from it at will."
Second finger.
"Second: I can copy fighting techniques. If I watch someone fight, study their movements, I can replicate them. Not perfectly, but well enough to be useful."
Third finger.
"Third: when I defeat monsters, my body absorbs their traits by consuming their blood. It's automatic. Not a choice. The moment monster blood touches my skin or gets into my system, I'm drinking it down whether I want to or not."
Annabeth processed this in silence. He could see her mind working—cataloguing the information, cross-referencing it with everything she'd read in camp's libraries, fitting him into frameworks and taxonomies.
"Bloodline Devourer," she said finally. "That's what you are. Chiron mentioned them once—ancient monsters created during the Giant War to consume enemy creatures. Zeus supposedly killed them all because they were too dangerous."
"Medusa called me that," Alaric admitted. "And the Oracle used the term 'paradox.' So yeah, apparently I'm something that shouldn't exist."
"But you do exist." Annabeth's hand had relaxed on her dagger. The analytical fear was giving way to intellectual curiosity. "Which means someone or something brought you into being. The question is why."
"To fight," Alaric said. The certainty surprised him, but it felt true. "To become strong enough to matter in the war that's coming. I've seen pieces of it in my dreams—gods fighting, demigods dying, the world burning. And I can't stop it alone, but maybe I can change some outcomes. Save some people who would've died."
"By absorbing monster powers."
"By using whatever tools I have available."
Annabeth studied him for a long moment. Her grey eyes tracked every micro-expression, every nervous tic, reading him like a book written in a language only she understood.
"You cried," she said quietly. "After absorbing Medusa. You collapsed and wept like it hurt you spiritually, not just physically."
"It did hurt." Alaric's voice cracked. "Because she was a victim, Annabeth. Raped by Poseidon, punished by Athena for being violated, cursed to isolation for three thousand years. And I killed her—helped kill her—and then I stole her power like some kind of scavenger. That's not heroic. That's monstrous."
"You didn't choose to absorb her."
"I chose to fight her. I could've tried harder to talk her down, to find another way. But I was scared, and tired, and part of me wanted her power. The monster instincts were whispering that her bloodline would make me stronger, safer, better able to protect everyone. So I didn't try hard enough to save her."
The confession hung in the air like smoke. Alaric waited for judgment—for Annabeth to confirm that yes, he was becoming the monster everyone feared. That his power corrupted him, made him prioritize strength over morality.
Instead, Annabeth sighed.
"You're an idiot," she said.
"What?"
"An idiot with a guilt complex." She shifted closer, grey eyes softer now. "Alaric, Medusa was going to kill us. All of us. She said it explicitly—revenge on Poseidon's son and Athena's daughter. You tried talking her down. I heard you. 'We don't want to fight you,' 'You were wronged,' all of it. But she chose violence anyway."
"Because she was driven to it by—"
"By gods who wronged her, yes. But that doesn't erase her agency in the moment." Annabeth's voice was firm. "She was victim and predator simultaneously. Both things can be true. And you feeling guilty about her death, crying over absorbing her power, hating yourself for the monster instincts—all of that proves you're not a monster."
"How?"
"Because monsters don't feel remorse. They don't cry for their victims. They don't question whether their power is worth the cost." Annabeth met his eyes with absolute certainty. "You're something strange, yes. Powerful in ways that scare people. But Alaric Bond, you're not a monster. You're a weapon that chooses its wielder."
The phrasing was odd. Alaric frowned. "I'm not a weapon. I'm a person."
"You're both." Annabeth's analytical mind had clearly reached a conclusion. "You're a person with power that could be used for good or evil depending on the choices you make. Like a sword—it doesn't care if it's wielded by a hero or a tyrant. What matters is who's holding it."
"And who's holding me?"
"You are." Annabeth extended her hand—palm up, offering rather than demanding. "But you've chosen to let us hold you too. To fight alongside Percy and me and Grover. You've chosen to use your power to protect people instead of dominate them. That choice is what defines you, not your bloodline."
Alaric stared at her hand. At the offer being made. Not just friendship, but acceptance. Understanding with all its complications.
"So here's my wisdom," Annabeth continued. "You get to choose what you are. Not your powers, not your blood, not whatever cosmic accident created you. Your choices. Choose to be a hero, and I'll stand with you. Choose otherwise, and I'll stop you myself."
The threat was real. Annabeth would absolutely try to kill him if he went dark. But the offer was real too—alliance, trust, partnership.
Alaric took her hand. Clasped it firmly. Felt the calluses from weapons training, the strength from years of survival.
"I choose hero," he said. "Even when it's hard. Even when I hate what I have to do. I choose to fight for people, not against them."
"Good." Annabeth's smile was rare and genuine. "Then we have a pact. I'll keep your secret about the Bloodline Devourer thing. You'll use your powers for good. And we'll trust each other with our lives."
"Does Percy need to know?" Alaric asked. "About what I really am?"
Annabeth considered. "Percy already decided you're his friend. His loyalty doesn't require understanding—once given, it's absolute. He'll accept you regardless of what you are. But I needed to understand because that's my fatal flaw: hubris. The need to know how things work, to solve every puzzle, to never accept 'I don't know' as an answer."
"And now you know."
"Now I know you're a weapon that chose us." Annabeth released his hand. "Which means I can work with you tactically without constantly second-guessing your motivations. That's useful."
Leave it to Annabeth to frame emotional acceptance in tactical terms. But Alaric understood what she was really saying: I trust you now. I've seen your worst and I'm staying anyway.
The relief was overwhelming. One person knew what he was—not everything, never everything, but enough—and had chosen to stand with him. To help carry the burden of his strange existence.
"Thank you," Alaric whispered.
"Don't thank me yet." Annabeth's expression turned serious. "I meant what I said. If you turn, if you become the monster everyone fears, I will stop you. No hesitation, no mercy. That's the price of my trust."
"I understand."
"Good." She stood, stretched, settled back into her corner of the freight car. "Now get some sleep. We've got a long way to go, and you need rest after absorbing a gorgon bloodline. Your body's probably still integrating the changes."
She was right. Exhaustion pulled at Alaric like a physical weight. But for the first time since the Medusa fight, he felt like he could actually rest. Could close his eyes without drowning in guilt and fear.
He lay down. Let the train's rhythm lull him. And just before sleep claimed him, he heard Annabeth's voice one more time:
"You're going to be okay, Alaric Bond. Strange, powerful, and probably terrifying to your enemies. But okay."
It was the kindest thing anyone had said to him since waking in that Manhattan alley.
Dawn painted the freight car in shades of amber and grey. Alaric woke to Percy shaking his shoulder, grinning like he'd just discovered something hilarious.
"You and Annabeth are sitting together," Percy announced. Far too loudly for early morning. "Like, actually together without arguing. Did something happen? Did you two finally become friends?"
Alaric looked over. Annabeth was indeed sitting closer than she had been—close enough that their shoulders were almost touching. She met his eyes, something conspiratorial passing between them.
"Something like that, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said. Her rare smile was genuine. "We had a productive conversation about tactical cooperation and strategic asset deployment."
"You had a talk about being friends," Percy translated.
"That's what I said."
"You used way too many words for it."
Annabeth threw a wadded-up piece of paper at Percy's head. He dodged, laughing, and the freight car filled with the kind of easy banter that came from people who'd survived hell together and decided to keep going anyway.
Alaric watched them, feeling something warm and painful settle in his chest. These were his friends. Real friends, who knew pieces of his truth and stayed anyway. Who chose to trust him despite every reason to be afraid.
"I won't let you down," he thought. "I won't become the monster. I'll use this power for good, no matter how much it costs me. I'll be worthy of this trust."
The train rattled west. Los Angeles still lay ahead, along with whatever confrontation waited in the Underworld. But for now, in this freight car at dawn, four demigods headed toward destiny together.
And Alaric had allies who knew what he was and chose to stand with him anyway.
That had to count for something.
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