**SPOILERS FOR THE DEATH CURE AND HEROS OF OLYMPUS **

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover walked through the ruins of the last city, gazing at the crumbling, burnt buildings, most of them grey or white, blackened at the edges with broken windows and glass scattered on the ground. Bodies littered the streets, and oil from tanks leaked onto the floor. Everything was coated in a thick layer of ash and dust; the air still reeked of smoke and gas. Bloodstains were drying on walls and hot tarmac.

"Wow," Annabeth breathed.

"I know," Percy replied quietly. "It's worse than the Battle of Manhattan or the Greek and Roman war. Is this really what the future looks like?"

All three were shocked to their cores.

"So many people... dead. Gone," Grover said, his eyes wide with horror. "Are you sure this is where Aion meant to send you, Percy?"

Percy thought for a moment. "Well... he wanted us to come and find a cure, whatever that means. But it seems like we're the only people here."

As they turned a corner into a wide-open area in front of a burnt-down building, they noticed a boy crouching on the ground, his body shaking with sobs.

"Hey!" Annabeth called out.

The boy's head snapped around. He looked surprised, mouthed something the others couldn't quite make out, and ran over.

"Sonya?" he asked, as if he couldn't quite believe it was really her. He looked all the more disappointed when he saw it wasn't.

"Who are you guys?" he asked, wiping his eyes with his hands.

The boy looked about sixteen, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes red and puffy from crying. The side of his face was covered in crusted blood, and his hands and clothes were stained red too. He seemed physically injured but not weak, staying guarded and eyeing the three people in front of him uneasily. They still saw the hurt in his eyes, a look of broken darkness each of them saw when they looked at their reflection or anyone at Camp Half-Blood.

After a moment of awkward silence, Grover replied, "Well, I'm Grover Underwood, and these guys are Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. And you?"

The boy smiled feebly. "You guys aren't from here, huh?"

Annabeth shook her head. "How'd you know?"

"I figured since you still have your own names, you don't belong to WICKED," the boy replied.

"WICKED?" Percy asked, confused.

"World In Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department, or WICKED for short. They tried to find a cure... Is that what you guys are here for? My blood? Take it; all of it. It won't help him anymore anyway." He said the last part so angrily that the others were shocked before he turned around to walk away, his eyes glossing over again. He returned to the spot where they'd found him and fell to his knees.

After a quick glance at each other, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover decided to join him and find out what he was doing on the floor. What they saw made all three of them equally sad and uncomfortable.

A blond boy, looking about seventeen, lay on the ground with a dagger struck into his chest. Black veins showed all over the pale skin of his arms and face. Yet, he looked peaceful, like an angel who could finally rest.

"Newt," the boy said quietly. "That's his name. And I'm Thomas, by the way. Sorry for yelling at you; I just miss him. He was my best friend, and..." Thomas began to cry.

"It's my fault he's gone!" he sobbed, the sound agonizing. "I'm the one who stabbed him. If I had waited, if Brenda would have been faster... she tried her best, and he's still gone!"

Percy took Thomas's shoulders and shook him softly to get his attention.

"Listen, man, we know what you're going through," Percy said. "We've lost friends, siblings, mentors to war, and I can assure you that if Newt was anything like our friends, he wouldn't have blamed you. I'm not going to go on and on about things like 'he would have wanted you to be happy' because you know that; you know it's true."

Thomas smiled slightly.

"He was sick," Thomas continued. "He had the Flare. It's painful; it eats away at your brain... We thought he was immune like the rest of us, but... he was suffering from the second he got it to the moment he finally died. He gave me a letter... I haven't read it yet; I couldn't. It would make it all so final."

"But I was right earlier, wasn't I?" Thomas asked, looking at Percy.

"You're here for the cure. You're not from this Time, are you?"

"It's complicated," Percy started.

Thomas smiled, and for the first time, it reached his eyes. "Well, we've got time."

Note: Okayyy, so I would’ve felt bad with out the Spoiler warning at the start,soooo… if you’re a bit confused because Newt got shot in the books, I kinda followed movie logic here because a knife is more visible then a bullett and don’t ask how Thomas got back to the last city, because in both the movie and book version I don’t see that being a possibility.(whoops)

Also Aion didn’t have a quest for Percy but I decided to do this as like one of the college application thingies he needs… idk. Hope you liked it anyway!