Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HOO

primum

Percy.

Said demigod shifted in his bed, clutching his bed sheets closer to his chest.

"Percy."

The voice seemed more real the second time, knocking him out of his dream like trance. Still all the voice did was agitate him, lulling him out of the wonderful bliss that is sleep, he would not let it succeed.

Ignoring the voice seemed to work, for in seconds he could already feel his tiredness setting in, being pulled back into the world of dreams.

That is until he heard the crackling, the sizzling. A foul scent washed into his nose, irritating it. Then he started to feel the heat, a warm pleasant heat at first, but it was rapidly increasing in temperature.

After an initial struggle, his curiosity and irritability beat out his exhaustion and he forced his eyelids to flutter open. The young demigod was bewildered at the sight in front of him.

Percy let out a startled yelp, the sheets towards the base of the bed were set ablaze. The exhaustion and sleepiness that previously resided in him were gone, replaced by a combination fear, confusion, and panic.

He threw the covers off himself and hopped out of the flame consumed bed. He looked around frantically, trying to find something to help put it out, only for his eyes to land on Aphrodite.

She was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, idly fiddling with a box of matches. The goddess seemed to feel the presence of his gaze because she shortly looked up and looked towards him with a mischievous smile plastered on her face. "Oh, good you're finally up," she said in a voice that just suggested the total innocence of its speaker.

Percy would not have any of it. "What the Hades Aphrodite!" he yelled, hands clenched into fists.

She rose from her chair, but her smirk never faltered, "I thought I taught you better than to keep a lady waiting Percy," she scolded. "And I told you to call me Venus."

By now the flames had almost made their way to were Percy was previously sleeping, towards the center of the bed. They seemed to be spreading rapider with each passing second, engulfing anything in its way.

"You set my bed on fire!" he shouted.

Venus just shrugged, "Water wasn't going to work, now was it?"

The son of the sea's normally calm and relaxed demeanor was replaced with overwhelming anger. His nostrils were flared, hands closed into fists. Percy's eyes were flashing, the specs of ever changing color located in the two orbs were all blood red. "You could have killed me!"

She put a hand over her chest, faking hurt, " Don't you have any faith in your Patron Percy?" The goddess smile grew even bigger, she seemed to almost always be smiling, warming the world around her with each flash of her pearly white teeth. "Nice pajamas by the way."

Percy looked down, his anger replaced by confusion and then embarrassment. Covering his body was the pink pajamas Aphrodite had dressed him in the night of the dance, covered in red hearts. Secretly he had been sleeping in them almost every night, they have been his guilty pleasure. After he woke up he would be sure to change out of them, he would die of embarrassment if even Calypso had found out, and now Aphrodite had.

He swallowed, momentarily forgetting about the flames engulfing the bed, "They're um . . . uh, soft."

Venus tried to suppress a chuckle, but a small giggle managed to slip its way past her defenses. "That's because," she explained, "Its made of silk."

Percy scratched the back of his head nervously and tried to divert the conversation back to the main problem at hand. "What about the fire. . ." Where the flames had previously been raging there was nothing, it was as if they were never there, the bed had been reverted back to its normal state. He was wondering if they were just some sort of illusion.

Before he could voice his question the door burst open a women barged in, one he had never seen before. She was wearing a white sleeveless dress. Her golden hair was held up in a high ponytail atop of her deathly pale head; she was just about to be the second person to discover Percy's secret pair of pajamas.

Venus went over to greet her, "Thank you Trivia."

"My pleasure Venus," she then turned to Percy. Her eyes were black, a bottomless pit that seemed to be pulling him in. Not in the warm way that Aphrodite's eyes pulled him in, no instead this women's eyes seemed to be trying to suck away his soul, to trap it forever.

She tilted her head as if to observe him, "This is the one?"

Aphrodite/Venus nodded her head. She then looked over to Percy, "Percy this is Trivia, you may know her as Hecate."

The women nodded to confirm this.

Hecate, the name rang a bell. She was the goddess of magic, Percy was pretty sure she had a few kids back in camp. More importantly he remembered her from a few months ago, she was the goddess the mormolykeia said they served.

He took a step back. What was she doing here? Was she going to finish the job her minions had started? Why did Aphrodite seem so relaxed?

Hecate seemed to notice his unease, "Relax boy," she commanded, "I mean you no harm."

That didn't reassure him to greatly.

"I was informed of your little incident a few moons ago," she continued. "I do not have any love for Kronos, but unfortunately some of my servants do not share my views. Do not worried about them they were punished immensely. It's so hard to find good help these days, I turned them into dogs, dogs know how to obey my commands," she rambled on. "I am here on Venus' wishes, I mean you no harm."

Well that was relieving, Percy had already been turned into a guinea pig and was not eager to add dog to that list.

She looked over at the love goddess, "May I?" she asked.

Venus responded with a nod of her head.

Trivia pulled out two torches seemingly out of nowhere, a bright, orange flame danced atop each. She made her way over to Percy and slowly walked circles around him, she moved her torches around Percy, their flames almost touching her skin but he didn't feel any heat coming from it. Percy felt extremely vulnerable, as if he was slowly being circled by a shark hunting its prey.

"Do you see anything?" Venus called from a short ways away.

Trivia didn't stop or respond to her for a few more moments. When she did she stepped back away from Percy and closer to the love goddess. "It's faint, very faint, but it is there."

Venus' eyebrows furrowed. "And what does that mean?" she questioned.

"It means," Trivia explained, "That it is too thin for others to influence like yours. It will be too thin to obscure too much, but he may be able to control it somewhat. That part is entirely up to him."

"Is that all?"

The minor goddess nodded.

Venus gave the other goddess a small smile, "Thank you, you may leave now."

Trivia gave her a short bow before turning towards Percy. "Advert your eyes son of the sea."

Percy did as she commanded, and even through his closed eyelids noticed a bright flash. When the light subsided he opened them.

Venus stood alone, Trivia was no longer there. "What was that about?" he asked.

"You find out soon enough," she responded. "Now, we teach you how to be a Roman."

~ versus ortum ~

"Come on," Percy groaned. "We've been doing this for hours. Can't we stop?"

Venus shook her head. "For the tenth time no," she said exasperated. "You have to know the gods Roman names if you want to blend in."

Currently he and Venus were seat in the living room, she right next to him on the same couch. They were accompanied by a roaring fire, its flames sending shadows dancing across the room. He was trying to learn the gods' Roman names, but most of the new information was just passing over his head.

"I didn't even know there was this many Greek gods," he huffed.

The love goddess didn't respond, instead she was staring off into space. A horror struck expression was etched on her face and her skin was deathly pale.

"Aphrodite?"

She seemed to snap out of it, refocusing her attention back to him. "Hmm?" she questioned.

"Are you OK?" Percy asked. "You don't look too good." In fact, she had not even noticed him calling her Aphrodite instead of Venus.

She put on a smile, the quickness and exaggeration of it made it seem fake, "Of course I'm fine." Then her face darkened, "Juno on the other hand. . .not so much?"

Percy frowned, how could the queen of the gods not be OK? "What do you mean?"

"She um-she has been captured."

Even more importantly how does the queen of the gods get captured. It was like the whole Artemis ordeal again, but in this case he didn't know whether to be happy or not about it. "How? By who?" he questioned.

She shook her head, "I-I don't know. Jupiter has called a meeting on Olympus. I have to go to it."

"What's going to happen?"

The goddess swallowed, "I don't know," she said, she seemed almost frightened. "But it might not all be bad."

How was this not bad, this whole situation screamed bad. "What do you mean?"

"With Juno gone you don't have to be part of the prophecy anymore. You're free, you don't have to be apart of this war."

Percy was confused, how did Hera getting captured have to do with anything with his part of the prophecy. "What are you talking about" he asked. "I have to do it."

Venus shook her head, now a small smile played on her lips. "You don't have to do anything Percy," she told him. "You don't owe the gods anything, you don't have to be their martyr. Your life doesn't have to end in tragedy like so many heroes."

No, he may not owe the gods anything, but he still had to do this. "I'm fighting for all my friends Aphrodite," he told her, Venus still didn't feel right coming off his tongue. "I owe it to them to do anything I can to help. I do have to do this."

The love goddess gave him a small, sad smile, "You truly are one of a kind Percy."

Ψ finis Ψ

Yes this chapter is the shortest yet, but that's because the next chapter will be super duper awesome and longer (Might take longer than a week) and I wanted to leave what Hecate was for for the next chapter. Tell me what you thought of it and If anyone can guess either what Aphrodite did or what Hecate was there for right I'll reward you, but it would have to be pretty much spot on.

I don't usually reply to reviews, I just pm the person but since there was a guest review I wanted to reply to I may as well do more.

Halfblood Asher: Very good, I think it sounds like how Rick would write it, and has a great plot. But do you have anything against Percabeth?

Thanks means a lot. Personally I don't have anything against Percabeth its just that so many people have already done that and I'm okay with that because it's cannon. But I like being different from other people, which is why I choose a rarer pairing for a long story.

: Great story you have here. I'm sure everyone's dying to know what Aphrodite did. Look forward to more!

Thanks, but you won't find out what she did for a little bit, Hecate on the other hand will be much sooner.

Living1ikeLarry: Holy shit can I review my own story? Boo! This sucks man, your a terrible writer.

Can't even use the right form of you're, you sir are the terrible writer.