Chapter 4:
"Hey! Who are you?" An accusatory voice called out when Percy took a step into the Poseidon Cabin. Two children stood next to each other, a girl, about 14, and a boy about 10.
Percy felt a slight a pang in his dead heart about the situation, the sight reminded him of Bianca and Nico.
"New sibling." He gruffly called back, flipping his hood down and pulling up his half mask in one swift movement.
"I don't believe you. Poseidon hasn't had another demigod child."
"I'm a returnee." He said simply back. The boy seemed to take this as enough and walked up to Percy, sticking a hand out for Percy to shake. Percy did, deliberately using his right hand so the mechanics in his left arm didn't crush the kids hand.
"Theseus. Nice to meet you."
"Huh, guess Theseus is a common name among Poseidon demigods. My middle name's Theseus. Just call me Alpha. I'm the Champion of the Five Rivers of the Underworld. Nice to make your acquaintance." The boy grew a face of awe and the girl just scoffed.
"Yeah, and I'm fucking Santa Claus." The girl said.
"Language, young one. And I am, I could prove it to you, if you want."
"Yeah, I'd like that." She said sarcastically.
"Follow me then." Percy began at a brisk walk to the Hypnos Cabin. He walked in and dunked his head into the Lethe Water basin, against the protests of the Hypnos campers. He stood back up and combed his fingers through his wet hair.
"Told you, Champion of the Rivers." Her jaw dropped along with everyone in the Hypnos cabin.
"Clovis!" Percy called.
"Wha? When?! How many monsters?!" Clovis awoke with a start.
"Your dad says hi." Percy said and walked away to the arena, leaving a stunned Clovis behind. Percy walked the dirt paths to the arena, reminiscing on how many times he had done that as an adolescent. His first time he walked in he had been awed, until he was welcomed in by Luke, loaning him his leather chestplate and wearing no armour, Clarisse had scoffed him off, saying;
"A true son of Hermes indeed." Luke had flashed her a cocky smile, but even Percy then saw the hurt in his eyes. Percy was knocked out of his reverie the second he crossed the portcullis into the Arena by a voice he unfortunately knew.
"Hey! Newbie! What do you think you are doing? This is Ares' Cabin time." Percy ignored the booming aggressive voice of Clarisse and walked over to the training area and shed his cloak, revealing his toned body and rippling muscles.
He grabbed his swords and kept them in their sheath, quickly removing the entire assembly and placing it on the table to the left of the portcullis along with his cloak.
He walked over to the punching bag and cranked up the resistance knob to "Chaos' Shield.", The highest listed and one he had never seen attempted. Beckendorf had taken a sledge to it on the "Atlas' Chest." setting, three below where it was now, and it hadn't budged.
"Hey! I asked you a question!" Clarisse shouted again.
"And I ignored you!" He called back gruffly, setting to work on the bag, rocking the bag with each punch, throwing in a kick every once in awhile.
Before he knew it, Clarisse's electric spear, Maimer, had been swung like a baseball bat at his back, shattering on impact and slightly knocking him off balance but quickly recovering.
He turned around calmly, while tying his half mask up higher, revealing his beads. He shed his shirt, it was practically a sweat rag at this point.
"Ow. That hurt." Percy said, his voice dripping sarcasm. The entire Ares cabin was in shock and Clarisse was literally gaping. His hard abs and chiseled pecs made the Aphrodite girls who had been previously dreaming over the Ares boys, fall off the bleachers.
"It is not a good idea to allow your father's blessing to manifest itself in rage as opposed to invulnerability. That's code for drop the red aura." Percy said dryly. Clarisse' face reddened and her aura grew.
"Mark, toss me your spear, I'm gonna skewer this punk." She said through gritted teeth. Percy chuckled and went back to punching, the muscles in his back rippling like cobras under a blanket.
Clarisse began her lightning fast strikes and swirls of death, the Aphrodite girls gasped as the eye-candy was supposedly killed, and the Ares boys chuckled sadistically.
The only problem was that Percy was still punching, just with only one arm now. He was repeatedly grabbing the shaft of the spear as it came close to his skin, and redirecting it, before switching arms as Clarisse circled him, trying to kill him with more and more slashes and stabs.
The redirections happened too fast for even Clarisse to notice. When the blessing wore off, she walked away, smiling triumphantly. Percy went back to punching, a little harder now.
"Your form needs improvement. Your spear is too long given your torso breadth. Place your power hand lower and extend your front foot less." He said, through the punches.
"WHAT THE HELL?! I killed you!" She shouted.
"It takes more than one weak demigod that I trained in knife-play and sword-play to defeat the Champion of the Rivers Council." He said, walking over to the dial and grimacing that she had nudged it on her rampage.
"Huh, that's why the bag was moving was too much." He said, before cranking the resistance back to max.
"Are you a full blown retard? No one can use it on max resistance." An Ares boy called over.
"Then what was I doing this entire time?" He asked cheekily before setting back to work. The Aphrodite girls squealed even louder than before and ran to tell the Demeter girls and the Athena girls. Soon he had drawn quite a crowd of people blown away by his tireless training and utter strength.
"I don't believe it, he must have tampered with the knob so it says what he wants instead of the truth." Annabeth said.
"Then test it Spawn of Athena." He said, stepping back and away from the bag. Thunder rumbled in the sky, clearly Athena displeased with Percy disrespecting her favorite daughter.
"Yeah! Yeah! I get it! Shut it Owlhead!" The thunder rumbled deeply and then dissipated. All the campers were blown away that he didn't get vaporized from that.
"Well? Run at it or punch it, either one. I dare you to prove me wrong, spawn of the wisdom goddess." He spat at her, inflating her hubris. She charged at the punching bag, on impact flying back a good ten feet, clutching her shoulder and the bag hadn't moved. He set back to punching, the bag bouncing even further now. He heard whispers of "Freak." and "Monster.", and it was pushing him over the edge. His punches got heavier, until he finished with an earth-shattering right hook that sent the bag flying, both celestial bronze chains snapped in half.
"You insult me?! Your savior?! The one who took the mantle of two Prophecies for you?! The one hunted by Eros Juniour four times?! I gave everything for you bastards!" He shed his mask and de-activated his disguise, revealing his scarred face and metal grafts.
"I am Perseus Jackson! Savior of Olympus! Champion of Hestia and Poseidon and the Five Rivers of the Underworld! There are 47 Demi-gods among your ranks that I hand delivered because there weren't enough brave satyrs to handle the population! I lost my face to save this camp! I lost everything." He turned to Annabeth;
"I lost my first love." She broke into tears, and the girl from his welcome, Thyia, walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. His lip quivered, finally feeling compassion after 500 years.
He threw his arms around her and began sobbing into her shoulder. Clarisse, to everyone's surprise, walked over and wrapped her arms around his back. The Immortal Councillors and Titan War Veterans added their arms to the hug, until it was a 10 foot wide circle of demigods.
Heart wrenching sobs emanating from the centre. The others crying as well, the sobs of their rock, the shoulder they cried on during the two wars, the man who saved them from abusive relatives and brought them to camp, who mentored them breaking their hearts. The campers were blown away, the Legendary Percy Jackson, wrongfully convicted of horrible crimes, crying, in front of their very eyes.
The horrible wails and gut-crushing sobs, the dejected coughs and occasional hack tearing them up on the inside. Sherman and Mark, sons of Ares, were leaning on each other and crying on the edge of the circle.
"Brother!" A voice called out, cutting off the sobs while Percy whipped his head upward. His gaze met a single big calf brown eye.
"Tyson!" Percy called out before his wings shot out of his back and he flapped upward, landing again outside of the circle and crushing his gargantuan brother in a hug, he poured all his remaining emotions into the embrace, and for once, he heard the words he had heard out of his own mouth so many times.
"Brother… Air." Tyson said before Percy let him go and blushed. Ella came flying out of the woods, screeching and being chased by other harpies.
"Avyphe! Ionialle! Lerynore! Lyphilia! Cut that shit out!" Percy shouted and the harpies chasing Ella stopped just above the arena wall.
Ella flew over and perched on Tyson's shoulder and he reached up and stroked her feathers, calming her and ceasing her twitching. Percy's voice rang out again, and his wings flapped, raising him into the air.
"Come now! Is that anyway to treat your favorite troublemaker?" He called and the harpies swarmed him, patting his shoulder with their wings and welcoming him back in their gravelly voices. Lyphilia, the smallest, yet definitively most aggressive harpy perched on his shoulders and began preening his hair with her claws, drawing a hearty chuckle from Percy.
"Now, ladies, I trust you will stop treating my friend aggressively." Percy said, a slight edge in his voice. They nodded and flew off back into the woods, smiles on their faces for the first time in half a millenia.
"How the hell did you get the harpies to listen to you?! They don't listen to me! Everyone listens to me!" A voice called out from the crowd. It was a young man, approximately 17. He had a semi-defined jawline that was ever so slightly uneven, obnoxiously blue eyes, frown lines that reduced his attractiveness, and an ever so slightly crooked nose.
"They listen to me because I don't treat them like they aren't humans. Harpies flock to the pure of heart, and harass the cold-hearted. They sense the malice I see in your eyes and if you don't like being ignored, they ignore you." Percy said, knocking the campers out of their shock with them laughing at the brat finally being taken down a peg.
"Are you Roman or Greek son of the Lightning God?" Percy asked.
"Roman, My name is Maximus Cosconius Vestorius, and you will address me as Sir." He said confidently. A few of the campers paled, they had seen Maximus angry at defiance, and it wasn't pretty.
Percy's eyes widened before he couldn't hold it back any longer and began chuckling, before increasing in pitch and bending over clutching his stomach. He continued increasing in volume and pitch until he was rolling on the arena dirt, laughing so hard tears leaked down his face.
"Sir?!" Percy asked incredulously. "You want me to call you Sir?! Do you know to whom you speak?"
"Do you know to whom you speak, little newbie?" The boy shot back, haughtily with his hands on his hips.
"That's funny, calling me a newbie, smoothy. Take a look at my right arm." Percy responded coolly, receiving a rapidly reddening face from the Son of Jupiter. The Son of Jupiter took a cursory glance at Percy's arm and saw the brand marks.
"You would do well to recognize my experience, Probatio. I mentored your Preators, I am not someone to disrespect. Now, announce your Cohort to your superior officer."
The boy gulped; and answered in a small voice:
"First Cohort Sir." He answered, fear evident on his features now.
"Good. Now, I had planned to be introduced tonight at the campfire, where Chiron would announce why I have returned. But, seeing as how that ship has sailed, sunk, been burned with greek fire and fucked up the aft, I'll do it." Percy took a deep inhale and shouted loudly; "Everyone! To the Arena!" He announced, doing a shocking impression of Chiron. He gave a quick explanation;
"Blessing of Cocytus, anyone who has felt sorrow kinda teaches you their voice automatically, which, of course is everyone." He explained casually, drawing even more shocked gasps for the day.
"Welcome everyone, take your seats on the bleachers!" Chiron called out, stepping up besides Percy. He placed a hand on Percy's shoulder.
"Alright everyone! Quiet down!" Chiron called, silencing the questioning whispers and gasps at the punching bag.
"This is Percy Jackson, Champion of the Five Rivers of the Underworld, The Betrayed Hero, Bane of Kronos and Gaea, Friend to Iapetus, Damasen and Hypnos, Bearer of the Sky, Lightning Bringer and Savior of Olympus. With the formal introduction complete; I give Percy the floor."
"Hello." He said, voice resonating over the Arena sands. "I come bearing a message for all of you campers from the Olympian Council." He spat the last two words like venom.
"I am here to train you against the upcoming threat. Oceanus has laid claim to Kronos' Scythe, and with it, is controlling the reformed titans and the monsters loyal to Kronos. Oceanus is a shrewd tactician, and he is well aware that, without Poseidon, or the Sea's aid, we will fall in this war. I'll allow that to sink in." He stepped back, returning shoulder to shoulder with Chiron. Then, all hell broke loose, campers running around in panic and the Titan War Veterans shedding even more tears.
Hi guys, tell me what you think. I'm sorry I'm late, although I technically am not late. I update every Second day of each month, and each 16th day. Basically each 2 weeks. Bye guys, have a nice day, or night. Actually, have a nice both.
