Hey guys, I'm back with another update. Remember how I said I wasn't going to update on Sunday, well that's because I was in New Mexico, so yeah! I had fun but I'm burned to a crisp! :)
Alright thank you sooooooooooo much to all my new followers and reviews!
PLEASE ANSWER THE QUESTIONS AT THE BOTTOM THOUGH! I REALLY NEED THOSE!
Anyways, I still OWN NOTHING. Sadly. On with the story!
Normal POV
Everyone stared in shock and silence as the trio left. Well, almost everyone.
"What gives you the right to show up and demand this of us now? You've been MIA for about two months! You guys should explain yourselves!" A camper called out, and to almost everybody's amazement, it was Malcolm, who had spoken so brashly for his quieted ways.
The trio didn't even bother to stop as they replied, speaking at the same time,"The two seconds it would take to kill you to prove our point wouldn't be worth it, however, this is our dreadful job,"
Their voices was cryptic and monotone, almost as if Nico had taken control over all of their voices, and it made the campers flinch, particularly when knives appeared in their hands; flicking from hand to hand, not unlike a predator's eyes when facing an unworthy adversary.
"Nico di Angelo, explain what you know about the prophecy," Annabeth's cool voice rose from the crowd of complaints and whispers, nearly destroying the calm facade the big three had been pulling, just to show a few snickers and laughs.
Those died out as soon as the trio stopped, turned, and Nico bowed low to the ground on one knee bent with an arm draped elegantly across it-the way one would bow to an important leader of Ancient Rome, if Annabeth wasn't mistaken,"Of course, Annabeth,"
His face was parallel to the ground and venom was clear in his voice, causing Annabeth to gasp at what she had done: taken advantage of him in a way that he couldn't stop. However, she didn't try to stop the progress that was being made in discovering the hidden meaning to the prophecy.
The others stopped and circled around him, hoping he wouldn't escape, Nico gritted his teeth, but continued,"My brothers and I will go with the … nine, to our birth place, Kokorakah Bend, deep within the depths of the Ancient lands. We, the Ambassadors, will be rendered useless completely, however we are required to go because only we can open the cavern. Death is missing, somebody will find permanent love, probably something that will be sworn upon the Styx, Cocytus possibly. Some of our annoying curses may be lifted, probably to become deeper pawns. Odds are it will lead to either a frame up, or even if we can dare hope, our beautiful death. Then again, that wouldn't last long, Death is definitely gone,"
He muttered that last part to himself, but his brothers caught it.
"Don't you dare start with that. You know Hypnos is still at work," Jason uncharacteristically, glaring at his brother with such an intensity that everyone backed off.
Nico didn't move, didn't say anything, hardly even breathed.
"Let him go Annabeth," Percy growled as well, causing them to jump,"It's unfair and cruel and you know it. Quit exploiting him,"
Everyone looked back and forth between them, until the Big Three decided they needed a role in this.
"Exploiting him? Hardly. If you have any problems against giving information that you should already be willing to give explain them," Skye scoffed, before sobering when two swords appeared, one in each standing brother's hand.
"Weapons, really? Is that even necessary? We're just talking, sheesh," Shawn spoke up, hands up in a peaceful gesture.
"Don't, not if you value your lives. Their on their last line. The prophecy was no good news to them!" Hazel spoke, rushing forward to drop by Nico, peering up at his face.
"What line? Hazel you need to make more sense. What did I even do?" Shawn replied back, uncertainty in his voice.
"Hazel, get her to release him," Jason murmured quietly, so only she could hear.
The teen turned towards her friends, pleading," Annabeth, tell him to be at ease and allow him to go on his way,"
Annabeth just stared at her, unsure what she was talking about, and as she hesitated a mist, so much like the mist that had come out of his eyes during the time with Chaos, started to trickle around him. However, this mist had a green and purple twinge to it.
"Schist!" Jason shouted exchanging his sword for an open hand, he disappeared for a brief second, and came back with a pomegranate in his hand," C'mon you idiot this is not happening again. Not ever again,"
"Annabeth release him!" Hazel shouted as Jason held the fruit out for his brother to slice it in half.
They did it with a practised efficiency, obviously something they've done before, several times. They shoved the halves onto his ears, and Hazel ran up to Annabeth, shaking her out of her stupor. Nico started laughing, never leaving his submissive posture.
"U-uh, Nico, um, be at ease, and be control of your actions once again," she stammared.
Instantly, the boy gasped, launching up off the ground as the smoke dispersed.
"Stupid, annoying, useless frigg'n-" he spun off lots more of colorful language as Jason caught him and Percy waved his right hand in front of the angry teen's face, making his eyes follow the pattern.
"Though my eyes do not see the way of truth and my soul is blacker than the depths of Tartarus, I can and will always be reformed into something more useful something that can make all proud. I am forever a, ... weapon of war, a toy of the gods," Percy told him although it was obvious he would much rather do anything other than say those words.
Nico collapsed into his brother's waiting arms.
"What the heck? Why in all the gods' name do you Hypnos' most faithful spell maneuvers?" a child of that god called out, shoving his way to the front.
He poked Percy's chest, screaming random insults.
"Look it kid, just because death breath won't be there to destroy your soul and sell it to Thanatos for a price much larger than an imbecile like you deserves, does not mean the two of us won't. In fact, your friend here," he gestured to Shawn angrily,"nearly, just nearly," he laughed his maniacal laugh," destroyed every single chance you have of completely eradicating our common Grandmother. You'll be lucky if he goes to train you guys tomorrow. If not, you're going to be one less oracle and one more enemy," he shouted the rest of it.
The kid backed off to see a sea-green mist flowing around him, fluxing with each outburst of anger as it was joined by a dark blue mist, creating a violent sea collogue.
"If you're lucky. You really don't comprehend how much we've done to keep you idiots still functioning! Even frigg'n Hazel doesn't grasp all we've done, the pains we've taken. All to teach you how wield a sword less like a bat, clear the forest of its more dangerous predators that not even your so precious Three could stand against, drag nine ungrateful brats into our birthplace, and kill someone who was actually closer and kinder to us than everyone in this stupid world. Everyday you repay us with hatred, rumors, controlling us until we literally can no longer breathe without your assistance! Then, you inject Hypnos' poison straight and true into our midst. A poison so frigg'n deadly to us that with it the gods could completely destroy us! Everything we've built, gone in an instant! So don't you dare hurl your insults at us for knowing your father's supposedly secret hand gestures that he stole from Hecate thousands of years ago!" Percy's fists were clenched tight at his sides," We were born free spirits and that's how we'll die, so don't you dare forget it,"
He turned, picked Nico out of Jason's arms and tossed him out of his shoulder, walking through his own mist, cackling.
The campers turned their attention to Jason who remained.
"How you demigods can remain as ignorant and useless throughout time is something that remains a mystery to me. You will be seriously lucky if we don't destroy your minds from what you've done. We gave you a chance, something we rarely ever do, not that you would've noticed. You're too busy gossiping about your broken nails that you don't even notice the problems you're so precious gods deal out to everyone they despise because they're better than them! We made a fatal error in our calculations-that you demi's would change, that the war would bring you together and realize that the gods aren't what they crack themselves up to be. So instead have fun while it lasts. Even if you try to figure out how to control all of us like you can Nico, you will have a longer path ahead of you. And you," his cold eyes swiveled to Shawn," We're breaking free. Call us weapons again and I will personally acquaint you with some of my good old buddies: The Drakon of the Wind, Queen Hydra, the Bludgeoned Lion, and a couple others. If you recognize them best of luck to you, I've saved their debts for years,"
With that Jason walked back into the woods, sword drawn the entire way, and his mist seeming more and more like a portal to Tartarus with every passing second.
"What the heck?" Shawn called out after them,"What do you mean I called you weapons?"
This rattled everyone out of their shock, and Chiron took control of the situation.
"All younger campers are to go to bed, older campers, try to soothe them. Big Three, the seven of the Nine who are here, and cabin counselors are to report at the hearth right now,"
Hesitantly, the clumps of crying, terrified children made their way to their respective cabins, unsure of how badly this angered the centaur. Within moments no sign of trouble was seen and the cabin counselors were seated next to a six inch, black fire with a pacing white stallion centaur.
"What the heck? I didn't-" Shawn tried to repeat his earlier statement but was cut off by Hazel bolting upwards, who seemed almost as livid as the boys, which was scary because of her gentle nature.
"When you referred to the swords in their hands, you said 'Weapons, really' something they are accustomed to hearing from the Hunters of Artemis. It defines them as weapons. Somehow, they could get away with calling you out on it, and not the Hunters,"
"How does that work? They were holding weapons in their hands, why would they refer it to themselves? Sure, they are called it by the Hunters, but so what?" Skye spoke, her hand on her mace.
"You can't expect them to know what we know-what you know about them Hazel," Annabeth stood, and put a hand on her friend's shoulder, trying to calm the girl down.
"It doesn't matter, they still deserve to be treated as equals," Hazel insisted, her fists clenched at her sider, stubbornly refusing to sit down.
"How were we supposed to know?" Cole asked, making Hazel scoff.
And here comes their stupid victim mentality, she thought bitterly," Because you obviously knew of the legends, as shown through supper," her older english was showing through again, her accent changing as well, something that typically happened when she was showing a strong emotion.
"Look, we're sorry, we weren't thinking about it, okay? But we-" Skye was cut off by Hazel, who was really talkative right now.
"But we need to focus on tomorrow? Surviving the war? How to get them to help us?" She gave a mirthless laugh," You're hoping that you can get back in their good graces again? Is that it?" She was shaking at this point, even glaring her famous "Pluto Glare" which went a long way to how angry she actually was.
"Hazel, calm down, please try to remember that not everybody understands them as you do. Shouting at everyone will not help the situation," Chiron commanded her gently, trotting up to her and giving her a tentative hug.
After a couple of minutes, as her glare lessened, she wasn't hiccuping as much and her tears had dried, she spoke again, her voice obviously forced to be calm.
"Nico has been fighting a depression for a long time-centuries in fact. It took a lot of effort from his brothers and I to get him to realize that he wasn't a weapon. I'm included in that because I seem to be the only one who can calm him down when he's ready to kill, I don't know why. We found that out only because he had been alone with me, while his brothers were out patrolling the camp, and he started to shake, trying to hold something back from me. Jason and Percy were coming back, just as he lunged at me, his Shadow Reaper at the ready-uh his Stygian sword- when they pulled him back. I was frozen with fear at the time but, they pinned him down and tried to explain the situation to me. As a child of Hades blessed with the powers of Chaos, he was driven to the occasional killing spree, not something he wanted, but something that he was required to do-another curse placed by Hades- whenever he feels the need to submit to being a weapon. I walked over to him, somehow drawn in a way that I can't explain and placed my hand on his shoulder. He instantly calmed and none of us know why. That's just another mystery of them,"
She took a shuddering breath and continued," Anyways, they gave me their trust, more than anyone in the camp. I guess they were hoping for a cure to his depression, so he could stop doing the one thing he hates the most-killing. He doesn't look it, but he values life more than anything, even if he talks about his death so casually. The truth is that they're tired living, tired of having to be restricted to their terrible curses- trust me, they've told me a couple of them, and they're far worse than anything Lady Hecate has told us about. The gods really have just tried to keep them cornered, even though this whole thing could have been avoided if they had just been willing to let them have their life. They never wanted anything to do with Olympus, they saw no point. Now-" her voice cracked and she swept a hand up to erase tears from her face,"Now, they are forced to fight this war, and kill somebody who they see almost as an aunt, not a grandmother. They hear all the rumors that have gone around, that one of them just wants me for their own, that they really are just a bunch of children of the big three that're trying to redeem themselves. You don't know how it crushes them. They wouldn't even be here if they had the choice- they would've just simply wanted to talk Gaea out of it, something that they could've easily done, but no. They're to be reminded again that they were born and that it's the worst thing that could've happened in the entire world,"
She slumped down into her seat as soon as Chiron let her go refusing to talk anymore.
Silence settled like dust in the plains, they'd never expected anything like that to come out of such a frail-looking girl.
"Hazel," Skye said softly," that still doesn't change anything. They're dangerous and could be using you. Also, what could they possibly have meant by Annabeth exploiting them and Hypnos' poison-really? You buy that?"
Hazel's head rose and a glare was plaster on her face again, but she refused to talk. Instead aid was put in by another source.
"She's right and it does change things," Lady Hestia stepped out of the fire, her face stern-looking.
"Lady Hestia," they all greeted her and were acknowledged by a nod from the goddess.
"They are dangerous, but that's not who they are. If they were going to cause you serious trouble they would've by now, but I'm not so sure about tomorrow. They're not using Hazel though, you can tell,"
"How, milady? I want to believe you, but how can you tell?" Chiron asked as politely as he could.
"When they're using somebody, the boys have three different stages that they go through. The first is interrogation, followed by obvious trust, then betrayal. During that time, they won't share any accurate facts and will be slightly less casual than they are with Hazel. For instance, their depression? Not a chance. It's a strong weakness they have, and they know it. There's not a single chance in Tartarus that they would give even a hint to something being wrong. The exploiting was the using of a curse," she nodded to Annabeth," You were doing it of your own will, not by your mother's, so they were trying to stall or give false information. Probably because their birthplace is not something they would like to share openly. Also, whenever a demigod commands one of them by their own will and not their parent's they are overcome with a sensation of pain and failure, showing them that they aren't worth anything. The more they try to fight it, the more strict and sharp it becomes, one of the few ways that they can feel pain," the demigods looked at one another, confused.
"Finally, the Hypnos' Poison is injected when they are in this state and feel as if they can beat it with mental fortitude. The poison forces their thoughts to become scrambled and their chaotic and insane side to show through. The only way to get rid of it for the time being is to surround their ears with their cloned parent's symbols, it doesn't matter which one, and repeat that they are weapons until the fight goes out of them. Their resolve is weak though, normally it would take nearly a dozen tries to get Nico to knock out, this time it only took one. His resolve probably took a hit when he was called a weapon,"
She let the words sink in, before rushing them off to bed, assuring them that there would be training in the morning, and they would not suffer as bad if they were there on time. No more words were exchanged.
Alright, I'm sorry. I really am! That was probably really hard to read, and I didn't mean to!
Please tell me how you liked this chapter and what you think is going to happen in the training session!
I won't be able to update next week probably, so I'm sorry! HOWEVER I will do a double chapter upload the week after, since I'm going to Disney all next and probably won't have access to a computer! :(
Please tell me what you want so I know if you guys like it or not! Don't leave me hanging!
~THIS