Chapter 2 –A Quick Drink

"Get up." A rough voice was heralded towards Percy's ears, quickly accompanied by a heavy boot hitting his ribs. He groaned but knew better than to argue with someone so high above him in raw power. These damned monsters were on par with the Gods, no, they weren't anywhere near the Gods. They far exceeded the confines of power that Gods were restricted to. They truly were Angels with how much higher they could soar.

"Yes ma'am." He mumbled groggily, rubbing his eyes and barely managing to stand up. He had no doubts that they were expecting to train him even with his body so badly battered and bruised. That being said, the moment that he stretched his muscles he felt no aches or pains, that was frankly quite strange considering that the moments before he'd been brought here he'd literally fought through a war.

"Clothes, put some on." She told him. Percy took a moment to look around and notice two things. Firstly that the owner of the voice was the first person he'd rushed towards, the one who had knocked him out clean with one single strike, and secondly, that he was in fact as per her words, entirely naked. He would have felt embarrassed about that but cared little for people looking at his naked body. He'd never had any reasons to feel embarrassed about anything.

Percy casually walked over to the hole in the wall that held a number of pieces of clothing. "Are these all mine?" He asked her in moderate surprise. With a single glance back at the woman who'd beaten him with ease, she simply nodded in silence, her golden eyes still watching the muscles of his back move whenever he did. It was rather fascinating, a sight that she didn't get much chance to see all that often.

A few minutes later and Percy was finally dressed. He'd actually been awake for around half an hour and had plenty of time to think about his situation. There was nothing he could do about being immortalized anymore but he had realized that these people weren't bound by the ancient laws of his pantheon, they couldn't possibly be, so there was obviously a way that himself and Annabeth could be together again. Maybe.

Instead of moping around, he'd take their training head on and show them just how powerful he could be, so he'd decided against arguing with any of them and warranting another ass-kicking. "Why exactly am I naked? I swear I was wearing clothes when you beat the crap out of my entire body." He asked. He watched her subtly out of the corner of his eye as he continued to find clothes that he liked the style of. There were quite a few and it appeared that the Angels didn't have a set uniform. They didn't need to when all of their work would go unrecognized by anyone other than themselves. He was used to being in a thankless duty though so it didn't bother him.

"You're a Prince of the sea, are you not? We believed that your body would heal quicker if we submerged you in water." She told him simply. He could tell that they didn't get much chance to ever interact with demi-gods as she seemed to be thinking the logic over, almost as if she hadn't really been sure of it in the first place.

"Yeah but I don't need to be naked. I could heal myself entirely with a simple bottle filled with salt-water." He told her in amazement of how little they truly knew. Her eyes seemed to widen a little at that. Had she underestimated him? Perhaps if they had fought in an environment more suited to his abilities, he may have proven more of a challenge for her. It was only then that she noticed that his eyes still had only the tiniest trace of gold pushing through whereas the rest was still better described as vibrant emeralds. Perhaps Cain was right, the boy would certainly be a powerful addition to their team if he could be trained right.

When he was done, he was wearing similar boots and trousers to Cain, all completely leather and dark, but where Cain opted for wearing an old torn t-shirt, the son of the sea God wore a white shirt with a long brown overcoat. It was a light overcoat and hung tightly to his body. He shouldn't have any problems moving around in it. It too was black, contrasting only against his tan skin and white shirt, the top buttons of which were lazily left undone. He looked far taller than before, perhaps the change to Angel was taking to him far more physically than it had for the rest of them.

"Where's Cain? He told me that he was the one training me." Percy commented before deciding that when this woman that had taken it upon herself to wake him up, left the room he was in without saying anything, that he should probably follow her.

"He's decided that because he's the one who gets given the orders for us, that he has the freedom to go back to the world when he wants to. Honestly, that's so open to abuse but all he ever does is goes drinking." She shrugged carelessly. If he had been abusing his ability to do what he wanted, then it seemed like she wouldn't have cared anyway.

"I am Laurette, and you are the one who is either brave enough or stupid enough to try and take on not just one of us but the whole lot." Her golden gaze that felt like it was capable of piercing his soul had slowly softened on him, "But I can't go around calling you stupid for all eternity, what do people call you?" She asked, leading him back into the courtyard that Cain had taken him to previously. They never stopped at the stone balcony, instead, they went down another set of stairs into an under-croft. He could see the arena behind an iron portcullis. The room they were in could only be an armory.

"My name is Percy. Are you going to train me until Cain comes back then?" He looked at her expectantly. She nodded. Percy. That wasn't a half bad name. It was a strange name for an Angel but so was Laurette, so she couldn't really say anything about it, plus, more than that their 'leader' was called Cain, that was definitely not the name of an Angel. It was all names and labels though, they weren't really Angels, there was no such thing as Angels but the idea of highly skilled warriors that fought against the unseen was fitting for the name.

"For the moment, I will train with you. What's your forte?" Percy almost didn't understand what she'd asked him until it clicked. She wanted to know where his strengths lied. He didn't know how best to say it as they were seemingly in the middle of a bland and bleak realm of flat nothingness. He didn't want to turn around and tell her that he was practically unbeatable if they could build him an ocean.

"I'm half decent with a sword, can use a shield. I can actually do pretty much anything but archery, puh-LEASE do not make me do archery." He told her quietly. He sounded so desperate, like a child that was on the verge of receiving a scolding. Laurette couldn't help but find it somewhat funny.

"Why would you tell me that? The first step in training is bringing up the level of your weaknesses so that they can't be classed as weaknesses. Come on water boy, let's go to the range." She sighed happily. This was quickly shaping up to be not so bad. She generally hated it whenever they got a new recruit as she was usually the one to train them. A few years would pass before she'd become reluctantly friendly to their presence, but then again this wasn't her recruit to train. He was being trained directly by the commando among them.

He already knew that this training would be harder than if Artemis and Apollo themselves were bearing down on him to try and train him in the ways of archery. He could feel that this was going to be a really grueling day.

Line Break

Cain walked out of the side of a brick wall in a dingy little alley. Looking around he managed to navigate his way to the end of the walkway and out into a bustling main street. Breathing in the air he felt like it wasn't as fresh as he'd been expecting but that was hardly surprising considering how many cars were all rapidly flying around the roads. With one look towards the skyline, he found where he was. "Ah, New York? So that's where Olympus has been hidden away. Better than somewhere stupidly hot I suppose." He mused to himself in his thick British accent.

"Alewife Queens? That'll do, it's got the word ale in there, let's see what kind of funds I've got." He muttered, pulling a sleek black phone out of his pocket. The thing about being immortal and developing alongside the ages, was that his finances never seemed to slip when he'd spent years at a time in another realm. His interest rate was always something that helped him out wherever he decided to be in the world.

"I wonder what kind of godly attention I can get while I'm here." He grinned. As he put his phone back in his pocket, his eyes flared a darker shade of gold before returning to the lighter tone it had previously been. All he'd done was flux his natural power a little bit, he knew that any Gods around him would sense it and how different it was to their own. No doubt they were going to try and follow.

He'd opted for a change of clothes before coming to the mortal world, instead of leather, he was wearing some ragged boots that were apparently in style. Black jeans that hugged his muscular legs tightly, stopping just a little below his waist but managed to meet the bottom of a fresh white t-shirt that was mostly covered by a leather jacket. He knew that even appearing simply as a mortal he'd usually be found in a crowd because of his eyes but that wasn't something that he could actually control.

Walking into the bar he found himself actually very impressed with how nice the atmosphere was. It must not have been a peak time because the place had few people milling about and the bar-maid was sat behind the place, one hand was polishing the draughts and another was rapidly tapping away at the screen of a phone.

As Cain walked up to the bar he eyed all of the labels in amazement, "Christ, it's all craft beer." He muttered under his breath, now totally lost in what was most definitely a thing he liked to consider his 'domain'.

"Is that gonna be a problem?" He heard the voice of the barmaid ask him. He looked at her properly for the first time since walking in. She had a pretty face, topped by long brunette hair that fell down her shoulders in curls. It seemed impractical for someone working in a bar but he wasn't one to judge, he'd seen how truly long Laurette's hair had gotten before, and she was a warrior, hair got in the way so much more often when you were trying to avoid being impaled by a literal cyclone.

"Afraid so," Cain announced, kissing his teeth before locking eyes with her. He was sure that he'd heard her muffle a squeak of surprise. but he was used to it. "I can never decide what to have when it comes to craft beers." He laughed to himself before deciding to just let her pick something for him.

After paying up, he found himself sitting at the bar itself, silently inspecting the drink he'd gotten. He knew that it would only be a matter of time before someone showed up, they must have been on edge after Percy's disappearance.

"So, what made you come across the water?" She asked. He figured that she was just being polite and with no one else to talk to, he decided to oblige her until he could feel any Gods investigating him.

"I'm traveling at the moment, that's all." He answered her casually. It was true, at least partially. He was just traveling there to have a simple drink. He wondered what was happening back home when he thought about Laurette getting impatient with Percy. That boy was in for a real shock if he managed to sleep past what Laurette believed would be an appropriate amount of rest.

"Going anywhere specific then?" The conversation with the brunette continued going on, mostly with Cain lying about where he came from. The accent helped him a lot as she'd just assumed he'd come from England, which was more or less true but when he'd lived in this world, none of the people sounded like he did now which was almost ironic.

The doors to the bar opened and the bar-maid subconsciously seemed to straighten up. Cain didn't need to take his eyes away from his beer, he was enjoying it far too much, besides, he could see the reflection of the woman that had walked from the polished metal of the draught pumps. She was tall, very tall, and had incredibly distinct grey eyes. She seemed to immediately fixate on him which wasn't great. If she was a Goddess with any amount of intelligence then she'd immediately realize that the person she'd been feeling was in-fact him, probably just from the fact that he had golden eyes.

"Do you have a smoking area that isn't the street? I kind of have an odd habit of being protective of my glass until I'm done with it." He admitted to the barmaid with a smile. She pointed to the side of the room that had a small hallway, out there was a large balcony that was more like a reinforced roof with a fence around it. Out there were a few more people that were all smoking. He'd decided to prop himself up against the wall and light up a cigarette.

Drink in hand, he waited for the moment that the Goddess decided to follow him through, but it never came. He knew that she was a Goddess and perhaps she had already caught onto the fact that he was now basically playing a game of cat and mouse with her, but on the off-chance that she didn't, he didn't want to alert her to his presence any more than he already stupidly had.

He rubbed his temples, Greek Gods, who could that woman be from Percy's pantheon? He was brutally ripped out of his self-placed mental strain when he noticed something that should not have been there. Sitting on the edge of the metal fencing was a perfectly happy looking grey owl, just staring at him.

"Athena." Cain muttered through the cigarette in his mouth. He'd been so surprised by the presence of the owl that he hadn't noticed the tall woman that stood beside him with her arms folded. She looked at him in slight discomfort, as though she hadn't been expecting the somewhat bitter wind that was whipping her blonde hair around. She looked even more casual than he did considering that they weren't in a dive but an actually respectably well-kept bar.

"Yes?" She asked him like there were no problems at all. Silently and without any warning whatsoever, everyone else that had been smoking had all finished their cigarettes and gone back inside, like they could sense a malevolent storm brewing.

"I'm sorry, what?" Cain asked her in genuine confusion. She looked a little different from the woman that he'd seen walk into the bar but then again he had taken that chance to check out the barmaid a little more thoroughly.

"Tell me, why is it that we get through the worst war of our entire lives, have our twice saviour ripped from within our own throne room and then the very next day, we feel an almost unfathomable amount of power and I find you here, in a bar so close to our kingdom?" The tall blonde woman queried, never once breaking eye contact with the golden eyed Angel who was fairly impressed with her so far.

It had to have been Athena, the owl, the intelligence, the air of annoyance that he seemed to be getting from her. He'd keep that last one to himself though, if he remembered rightly she could be a pretty wrathful Goddess in her own right.

"You have a throne room? That's dope." Cain muttered in amazement. Casually as ever, he flicked his cigarette, only narrowly missing the owl that had flown off in response. He opened his mouth and flooded his throat with half of the contents of his glass. A pleased sigh escaped his lips once he did so.

"But I know nothing about any wars or whatever else you were talking about. Now excuse me, I've got something else to do literally anywhere away from here." He told her with a well natured genuine smile on show for the Goddess who was only just smaller than him. It was rather impressive for someone who he was sure had a divine form that was much, much taller than himself.

"You really think I'll just let you go on your way?" She asked with a raised brow, her hand managed to latch on his arm and stop him. In that one instant, she watched from a place frozen in time as the man finished his drink with ease.

"You're the wisdom Goddess, you tell me." He grinned, his eyes shot wide and her hand recoiled at the speed of light. "Thought so." He told her smugly. "That was a good beer, gonna have to remember this place." He muttered to himself before walking back inside and disappearing from Athena's line of sight.

When she rushed in to find him, he was gone, as was that insane power that followed him around. Whatever he was, he was incredibly strong and not someone to be messed with. With a mere look from those golden eyes he had managed to instil fear in her, HER, a Goddess! It had only lasted a split second and served to release her grip on him but it was still something to be cautious about.

It was possible that he didn't have anything to do with Percy's disappearance but that seemed all too convenient for her. No, he knew something and perhaps he was telling the truth that he didn't know anything about their wars, she got the feeling that he narrowly avoided spreading lies by carefully placing his words with tact. He didn't know anything about the wars they waged among themselves, but if he was something that Olympus had never encountered before, then it was possible that they knew specifically about Percy. He had a silver tongue and plenty of experience dealing with escaping sticky situations. If she ever encountered him again, she was sure that her first action was going to be flagging every and all God that would answer her summon.

Now she had to explain to the council about her encounter with the golden eyed man.

Line Break

When Cain had returned to their home, he found that something was immediately out of place. It seemed that given the fact that when he'd left, Laurette had just beaten Percy's face into the ground, and now that he was back after only a half an hour on Earth, Percy was already up and training with Laurette on the archery range. He could see them from the edge of the portal. Was it broke? Perhaps someone had been playing with the time dilation on it. Wait, no, that wasn't possible to do, the difference in time between their own realm and Earth was beyond their control, so how the hell was the kid already awake?

Percy fired off another arrow, not daring to get his hopes high that they could train him to actually hit the target, yet here he was, able to actually shot straight for the first time in his life. He'd been so invested with actually hitting targets from something other than a fluke, that he hadn't even noticed Cain's return.

"That was fast." Laurette commented, nodding towards Cain who looked thoroughly unsettled by something. Percy was sweating heavily under the sun. He'd forgotten that bows were actually quite heavy and it was weighing down considerably on his arms to just hold it in a constant position.

"Yeah, I was only there for half an hour, plus the travel time between dimensions, so it must have been, what, two hours here? How the fuck is he already awake, I watched you basically make him eat dirt." Cain muttered uneasily. He held his hands in the pockets of some black jeans. Golden eyes analysing Percy with an intensity that made the son of Poseidon incredibly uncomfortable.

"He's a Prince of the sea isn't he? I put him in the river. He's been asleep for about an hour at most. It seems that we've finally got a warrior who may be able to fight in all terrains. This will make a fair few of our missions easier." Laurette told him quickly. She was actually giving someone praise for the first time in a long time. Cain looked from Percy to Laurette to see if either of them were damaged.

"Something I should probably have mentioned, it may have actually cleared up your questioning mind." Cain said sheepishly whilst scratching the stubble on his face, "Percy here isn't a Prince of the sea. He's the son of Poseidon, he's literally half God. His mastery over hydrokinesis pretty much puts him on his own level, or it will once he fully ascends." Cain explained.

"Shame I'm still shit with a bow." Percy muttered under his breath before feverishly drinking from a bottle of water sat on the ground. Cain raised an eyebrow, everyone had their weaknesses, it didn't surprise him that even a demi-god would have areas of combat they were no good at.

"That's fine because now that I'm back you're going to go through the training that I decide." Cain grinned, sweeping his hands towards the sky smugly. Percy was sure that in Cain's mind that literally just meant that he was going to push him through hell and back.

"Laurette, you can return to whatever it was before you brought him here, I'll take over. Percy, carry on trying to hit the target." Cain almost giggled to himself with how abundantly clear it was that Percy sucked with a bow.

"How long are we going to train for?" Percy looked up at his new 'mentor' of sorts who was lazily resting on a stone wall, hands still in his pockets, he seemed to be watching Percy's firing form.

Cain regarded the question as he had pretty much everything Percy had asked, with a slight sigh and a scratch of the face. He could see the shining hope still resting in Percy's eyes, he could tell that he was eager to get back into the mortal realm but there was still so much the kid needed to know.

"Whatever ideas you've got about going home can be forgotten kiddo. You're one of us now, we serve someone far beyond ourselves, and they've never released one of us from these scars." He glanced at his own palm, a sense of sadness drifted over them. Immortality was never a gift. Percy got the feeling that everyone who had been chosen by the mark were people that hadn't wanted immortality, either that or they were simply just too powerful to let time kill off.

Percy offered no response, instead he looked back to the target at the end of the range. If all he could do was train, then he'd do exactly that, and become tenfold more powerful than he already was. He already knew that by the time he was eventually going to get back to the world, he was going to turn it upside down.

A/N: Just so you guys know, Cain is literally just his name, that's all. And the scars on their hands aren't the mark of Cain. I'm more original than that. His personality however, is yours truly.

Things really start to pick up next chapter, promise. Review?