CHAP. 6: BAD NEWS

The gods were staring at Percy, all of whom were wearing curious and maybe a tiny bit of worry upon their faces. Posiedon nodded at his son and waved his hand, prompting Percy to start talking. And so Percy talked. He talked like he never talked before…well there was quite a lot to cover. For instance, the fact that he is a god and could unbalance the power of Olympus. He could also be destroyed by Zeus because Percy, his least favourite nephew, had become a god…meaning he would be there forever and could annoy the shit of Zeus, the Lord of the Sky, who could do nothing but kill him and wait for Percy to return in a few minutes due to his immortal blood flowing through his body. Ichor. The godly blood of the Olympians, other gods and…well…Percy.

He explained everything. As he did so, the curious, worried faces turned into a little angry and even more worried. Athena's eyes seemed to be popping out of her head, Dionysus was stumbled back onto his seat of power and the vines were growing haywire all over Ares' vacant seat, Demeter was at the edge of her seat, Apollo wore a confused look on his face, Hera had a hand clamped over her mouth soon to be followed by the other hand, Artemis was pretty shocked and was staring at Percy trying to read him, Hestia was smiling a little bit with obvious gratification, Poseidon was completely blown away as he had a goofy looking expression on his face but was mixed with sneaky pride, and Zeus…well lets just say he was pissed.

Like Olympian pissed. And that's worse and much more godly. The fact that he was the king of them all and had an arsenal of god-level lightning bolts along with a master bolt that is powerful enough to fade even a god.

Well, how convenient. Percy was, once again, eligible.

Once Percy was finished with his story of his trip to the Underworld, the council was noiseless. A pin could make more sound when dropped in here. Zeus was furious. His fingers were upon his crackling master bolt, ready to send Percy into the unknown. Percy merely smiled.

"What troubles you, Uncle? Is my information a little exasperating?" he grinned.

Zeus was shaking with anger. "PERSEUS! HOW DARE YOU BECOME A GOD WITHOUT MY PERMISSION? YOU DO REALIZE WITH YOUR ADDITION, THE POWER IS UNBALAN—" he bellowed. The throne room shook. The Lord of the Sky's relatives were taken aback and were cowering in their seats of power. Before he could finish, Percy interrupted.

"But my Lord, you have already given permission, should you not already know this?" Percy smiled mischievously. The other gods were bewildered. They were signaling to Percy, waving their arms like madmen silently gesturing to stop. It was never a good choice to agitate Zeus, the Lord of the Olympians. He could literally do whatever he wants. He was a king.

"My—? My—per—exactly what are you talking about, Jackson?" Zeus exclaimed, saying that last word like it was made out of spit.

Percy obliged. "Well, you see…you gave Lady Styx the power to make worthy heroes, or demigods to be precise, become immortals when they have the courage to visit and bathe in the Styx twice. According to this, Lady Styx believed I was worthy enough, bless her, and since submerged in the black waters for the second time…well, there is no reason to be angry at me, Uncle." Percy explained.

Just then the room got darker, chills swept through the air and a shadow appeared next to Percy. Once it gained a solid form, he could see that it was Lady Styx herself, staring at Percy, frowning playfully.

"Perseus, are you saying he should be angry at me?" she said sportively. She then turned to Zeus, who appeared to have had his mind blown. He was spluttering nonsense.

"Lord Zeus, we have done no wrong as permission was given form the Lord of the Gods himself, so if we are not destroying Perseus, I say we start up a welcoming party for his godly transformation. Now, the question is, what shall you decide on?"

Percy was startled. He didn't think anyone could talk to Zeus like this, in a matter of fact tone. But he looked over at Zeus and was surprised to see that he looked defeated. He seemed to be thinking about Percy's place among the gods of the Western Civilization and finally came to a decision. He nodded and faced Percy.

"As I have seen no harm in the future due to Jackson's god minority," Zeus started. "I have seen fit to have a welcoming party for this youngling. But first, I must crown him the god of—"

Lady Styx interrupted. "I have already named him the god of water, oaths and loyalty. He is well known for these things, is he not? And so," she said before she even gave a chance for Zeus to answer. "he shall be known as Perseus, son of Poseidon, god of water, oaths, and loyalty. And now! The party! It must be grand enough for this new and young god. I trust it to be so, Zeus."

And with that, she walked off and stood by the edge of the council 'U'.

Zeus's face was buried in his palms and was getting looks and smirks from the council. It seemed as though the council was fine with this new change of power. He finally sat up and revealed an extremely red face.

"Fine. Let the party begin!"

After that intense council meeting, the party seemed like Elysium. And that was good enough for Percy. Various gods and goddesses walked over and congratulated him on his 'breakthrough into a better life'.

But gods had no life. Wasn't that the point?

As Percy was pondering about stupid stuff, Styx walked up to him unnoticed. She tapped him on the shoulder and snapped him out of his trance. Percy turned and smiled.

"Lady Sty—!" Percy started but saw Styx's raised hand. She shook her head. "Please Percy, it's just Styx. I prefer that. Please?"

Percy hesitated at first but then agreed. "Styx it is. Care for a dance? Immortal with immortal?"

Styx smiled. "Sure."

And so they danced. The Nine Muses were on, so the tune adjusted to whatever music anyone wanted to listen to. To them it was more like a slow waltz, perfect for a dance. Percy looked at Styx. He just noticed her appearance and what she was wearing. She was wearing a smooth and silky black dress, sparkling like the river itself. In fact, it seemed to be made out of just that. It reached all the way down to her feet, where her heels were peeking out. Her hair was flowing on to her back, very long and very smooth. Her face was beautiful. Percy never noticed how amazing she looked.

All in all, she was beautiful. Then Percy snapped out of it. Her goddess aura was making him fall into a love trance. Or…

Percy looked around and tried not to step on Styx's feet at the same time. All across the hall, immortals were dancing. He spotted Ares and Hephaestus…which meant…

Aha! Percy stared towards the refreshment table, stacked with ambrosia and nectar jugs. Next to it, a sulky looking Aphrodite was staring right at them. She noticed Aphrodite was looking at her and quickly turned away. At that exact moment, Styx loosened her grip and moved a little further away from Percy. Before she was getting quite close to him and was increasing her grip on him. Her face was a tiny bit red and she looked like she needed a break.

"You okay, Styx?" he asked with genuine concern, although he was a little red himself. Styx blushed and a small smile appeared. "I'm fine Percy, just need to get some fresh air. Be right back."

She left towards the Olympian balcony, on which a view of New York, some of Philadelphia and some of Maryland could be seen. Thalia swore on her life she would never go out there She would rather go take a ride with the bronze angels than be that high overlooking a whole city and more.

Percy decided she needed time alone.

Percy went around dancing with several goddess and hung out at the refreshment table mostly, where he was used to, back in middle school.

Percy sighed. Not anymore.

He had just remembered that it had been a couple hours since Styx took a leave and went to the balcony. Percy decided to go check on her, and he quickly exited the throne room and trotted over to the balcony, where he could just make out a silhouette leaning against the gold railing.

Percy silently strolled up to Styx and tapped her on the shoulder. Styx jumped when Percy startled her.

"Oh, it's you."

Percy raised an eyebrow. Styx rolled her eyes. "Oh great hero of Olympus, child of the Big Three, it's still you."

Percy sighed. "I guess it can't get any better than that."

Styx giggled. Then she seemed to get back into her previous train of thoughts and her smile vanished, replaced by a sad look.

Percy was concerned. "What's ailing you? Come on, you can tell me."

Styx sighed. "It's just…I don't feel important anymore. The power of the Styx is a waste now. The oath is just being used for everything not just important decisions. I don't feel as useful anymore."

Percy nodded and looked out to the city lights. "You know, Pan was pretty much in the same situation as you, you know. No one respected the wild anymore, but the real reason he faded? T was because he didn't believe he had a place left in the world anymore. He was already dying, and he made the right decision and all, but don't blame yourself for things other people think of you as. Just be you. Don't care what importance is left in you to contribute, just know that you can, and you'll get right through it. Now if you want to be an Olympian, that's a different matter. You'll have to face Zeus alone; I wont be in the country if I want to get out of range.

Styx laughed. "Percy, I hope you know I'm grateful you came across my river. You really are something. Thank you, Perce. Now, let's get back to the party, they're probably missing us right now…"

Percy waved his hand but followed. "Zeus probably isn't," he muttered.

After the party, everybody was exhausted. Even the gods withdrew to their mansions after saying goodbye to everyone. Zeus was too drunk to even glare at Percy due to the godly drinks at the Olympian bar. Percy himself had one but regretted it soon after as the alcohol burned his throat like never before and his eyes bugged out. That got a lot of laughs from the other gods and Styx actually laughed as well.

Styx claimed she was 'beat' and disappeared in a black whirl of smoke. Percy slowly walked up to his cobalt palace, as he thought he was too shaken to go back to camp by himself, too tired to teleport, and definitely too drunk to even bother to do those things.

Percy crashed onto his bed once he chose which room to sleep in from the many others. The rooms were a variety of how you wanted to sleep. Percy no doubt wondered whether Hypnos or Morpheus helped make the beds so that each room had the ability to make you fall asleep better and dream a certain kind of thing. Percy chose 'blissful and peaceful' over 'awesome and loud' and passed out before he even fell onto the bed.

Percy looked over at the hills of Camp Half-Blood for the second time. He had a hard time getting over his hangover but since he was now a god, he healed up pretty damn quickly. He started the day with tons of groaning and tripping over his own feet, but things got better.

As he looked across the hills, he remembered Annabeth. Had she come back?

Percy quickly ran through the boundary and towards the Big House. He burst through the doors and glanced around the room. Chiron was in his armchair form with a hand on his forehead, covering his whole face. He was surrounded with most of the Athena cabin and they all had gloomy faces, the girls of the cabin were crying. And there were other friends of Percy and Annabeth and they were crying, too. Percy didn't understand why.

"Ch—Chiron, what's wrong? What happened?" he asked carefully.

Chiron finally looked up and Percy was shocked to see what was on his face. There were a couple of tears running down his face. Although his face was expressionless, Percy had never seen him cry.

"You asked once if my job was boring. And I replied with depressing but not boring. This is one of those depressing times, my child." He replied with a genuinely pained voice.

Percy frowned. "I still don—"

"Annabeth is DEAD!" cried Silena and went went back to weeping in her arms.

Percy felt like he got shot, then eaten by a monster, then thrown in to the Fields of Punishment and then finally thrown into Tartarus for the rest of his life. He understood now. Annabeth and died on the quest Chiron had told him about. They had a lead but why did she have to go? And she was immortal!

"But Chiron, she is imm—" he began, but then thought back to how he had requested immortality

that is like the Hunters, which means she could die in battle.

Percy burst out the door and ran as fast as he could to nowhere in particular. In the end he stopped, and found himself at the beach, the place where he spent some of his last moments with Annabeth.

How fitting. Percy felt like shit. He screamed as loud as his voice let him and accidentally released his true godly form. He had forgotten he had that now. He forced himself to calm down before he got someone vaporized by accident.

He felt broken, like a piece of him was lost forever and he had no hope to even try to find it.

Annabeth was dead. And it was all that thing's fault.

And there was Hades to pay.

A.N. Hey guys, another chapter done! I'm sorry to those who wanted Percabeth, but Annabeth just pisses me off for some reason. I wanted this chapter to introduce new things as you guys probably already guessed. Also: an exciting chapter coming up next (possibly long). Thanks to Jeff 210 for an idea that I will most likely put to use, you'll see. Sorry to Arkyz who had wanted a different pairing. Thanks for the support!

Please review; it gives me motivation to write faster and give you guys better content. Thank you!