Hi, I'm sorry for the mistake last time...
I rlly don't know what to say about it so please, enjoy -re-enjoy- this chapter...
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Previously on Ageless Diversity:
"What's so funny, old man?" he asked. "Never thought I'd give up?"
"Oh no," Don said, rising to his feet. "I knew you'd give up. I even made a bet with my brother as to when you would."
Percy's face showed his confusion well and clear, and apart from that it started showing anger as well. Because he was piecing what he had said together. What he had seen and lived through. "What are you talking about?"
When Don finally standing straight, Percy could swear he seemed taller, more muscular and younger. More divine. "Why of course, my brother and I decided to bet on how far you'd go before you'd give up. How far it would take you to stop rowing. How far you'd go for the gods."
It just occurred to him that this might have been a test. A gods-dammed test. Percy bared his teeth and it was all he could do before he lounged at the old man, who kept on looking younger and younger—
He found himself laying on his back, three spikes of a trident an inch from his throat. Where Don had stood now stood a man, in his early forties, tousled black hair and indeed, sea green eyes staring back at him.
Poseidon.
"You bastard!" Percy snarled, putting his right hand down for support as he tried to push himself up, but the tips of those three spikes were unyielding. "Don't you ever stop gambling with my life?"
.
X-X-Quae Manifestantur-X-X
(Truths Revealed)
-.-.-
14th December
-.-.-
When he came to, he was glad to know that there was a bright light ahead of him, and that he was laying on something soft. And that there was a blanket around him as well.
"What happened?" His voice was raspy.
How much time had passed?
He didn't dare open eyes fully, because the light seemed too bright, even though his eyes were barely open. He didn't know wether there was even anyone there, listening to him.
His fingers twitched and he curled them into a fist. His eyes closed but his hands moved to support his weight as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Immediately, big burly hands were on him, helping him sit up.
"Easy there," Frank said. "You received quite the blows."
"What happened?"
He cracked one eye open to survey the son of Mars to his side, taking in the room as well. From what he could see it was an hotel room.
"And where are we?"
Frank grinned. "Were in California," he said. "And we had an accident."
"An accident?"
He could remember something banging against the door of his car, and then —gods his car!
"Did we wreck my car?"
The son of Mars laughed. "You almost died, and that's what you're thinking about. A car?" His voice was incredulous, but there was a tone to it, like he needed to say something but wasn't really.
Jason opened both of his eyes and then blinked several times as he cursed at how bright the light was. Then he turned to face Frank. "What happened after?"
"Well, the monsters attacked," he replied smoothly. "I killed off a bunch before one of the Giants arrived and finished off the rest."
Jason's eyebrows scrunched together. "A Giant that kills monsters?"
The smile Frank gave him didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah," it turned into a grimace. "That's the confusing part, one which I haven't even started to figure about."
He unhooked a bracelet from his wrist —when did he get that?— and twisted the bone like beads. What Jason saw, he'd seen happen many times before, with different weapons and accessories. The bracelet seems to elongate, like it was unfolding from itself until in Frank's hand was held a Lance.
"What is that?"
"A weapon," Frank deadpanned.
Jason's from deepened. "What happened?" he asked for the umpteenth time.
Frank grimaced again, tapping something on the butt of the lance, causing it to turn back into a drakon boned bracelet which he slipped back on his wrist.
"Damasen gave it to me," he said and then he told the son of Jupiter exactly what the Giant had told him regarding the weapon. Jason listened, but his confusion didn't dissipate, only increased. Frank felt a tad bit bad for the son of Jupiter, if only because he was dumping information like this on him right after he regained consciousness. He didn't expect Jason to understand any of it better than he had.
Then when Jason made to swing his legs over the side of the bed, Frank started fussing.
"Man, you were in a car crash," he said as he pushed him back to the bed. "You're not supposed to be doing anything."
"I feel fine," Jason said, which was a lie, because he felt like he could go to sleep and stay that way for a month, every inch of him hurt, and his neck…gods his neck ached so much. But he knew that the cuts from the glass had somewhat healed, leaving behind thin and small white lines.
"You don't look fine, and you don't sound it either," Frank said, keeping his hand in front of Jason, disabling him from moving out of bed again. "Please just rest for a few hours. We'll be back on the road by noon."
Jason really felt like he should have argued more, but when Frank then suggested he sleep some more, the son of Jupiter didn't really manage to say much more before the land of Morpheus kidnapped him inside.
-.-
He couldn't gather his bearings.
That's the first thing he realised as he slipped back into consciousness. He couldn't gather where he was, what he was doing, and why he was there. He felt like he was suffocating, his head spun incredibly fast and it ached so bad. It felt like something was pressing a hot iron to the side of his brain. His lungs felt full, but not of air, but of water—
Water!
He remembered a lot of water, he remembered being soaked in it. Drinking it. A lot of it in fact. Drinking it as he thrashed and begged for release, but someone had held him under, someone had held him under. Done it on purpose so that he could feel the water filling his lungs, the water filling every inch of him until there was no more space for oxygen, for air.
He started coughing, his hand clawing at his throat as he did. Trying to gulp down air, but he kept coughing, and liquid was coming out of his mouth. It was coming out in a stream even when he didn't cough, but that only made him gag. Tears brimmed in his eyes at the struggle he was going through, tears that soon started to flow down his cheeks as he kept on coughing and on gagging on the water that kept being ushered out of his lungs, out of his body.
The ache in his head didn't ease, no, it only got worse the more water he extracted from his lungs. It only seemed like the hot iron was getting warmer and warmer. But then it wasn't only his head, it was his neck, too. It was his chest, his stomach. It felt like that pressure was going to squash him down where he was laying.
Where was he laying?
The feeling was so unfamiliar, yet some of it felt familiar, too. He couldn't pinpoint where it felt familiar, and where it didn't.
The ground was cold, and wet, and he knew the water flowing beneath him wasn't only from what he had coughed up. His eyes opened but they weren't focused. The tears brimming in his eyes from the gagging that had happened blurring his vision. He could barely make out straight lines ahead of him, then silhouettes of people— of immortals.
His hand clawed at his throat as he kept coughing, gagging, but there was nothing coming out anymore. His lungs were empty and gulping down air only resulted in him choking on it. Coughing again.
It hurt so bad.
Every part of him hurt so bad he wanted it to end.
Why was he still alive? Hadn't he drowned? Hadn't he died and now he was in hell, suffering in the fields of punishment? Being tortured by simulating what drowning could feel like.
You've endured worse, a voice whispered in his brain. And survived worse.
He had.
The pain stopped all around, his body now feeling numb. Why had it stopped?
His arms started shaking, his legs. His whole body started shaking. Violently.
"My name is Percy Jackson," he mumbled, it was barely audible to his own ears. But he had to say it, if not to remind himself of who he was, who he had been. "And I'm a demigod."
He was a demigod.
Indeed he was. Not disownment could erase that title. He had been and always would be a demigod. Nothing would change that.
"My name is Percy Jackson," he mumbled again, his eyes closing tightly shut, his mind blocking out all the other noises. "Percy Jackson."
What had happened?
Why was he at the bottom of the ocean?
Why was he still breathing?
A man had held something against his throat. He'd been threatened. Then what had happened?
A searing noise tore through his mind.
What had happened?
They were on a boat. On a stupidly old and small boat. It had been raining. And he'd been soaked from it. He'd been cold, very cold. His nerves fried. And he'd been mad. Really mad.
But what happened after that?
A man had stood in front of him. A man that had haunted his darkest nightmares and lighted his best dreams. A man that had given him everything and in turn, taken it away from him. A man that had sentenced him to this life he led now. A man that had disowned him without so much as a second thought.
The noise grew, and he brought two hands to his ears, trying to block it out. It didn't do anything. His eyes tightly shut betrayed everything as tears kept on getting out. Tears of pure pain.
What had that man done to him?
The boat had broken, that much he knew. It had broken right where his head had been. And then the man had asked him something. Something cruel that had sparked open every signal of fear and hatred. And then he'd pushed him under. Water had engulfed him and then—
Atlantis.
That's where he was. Where he'd been headed. Where he had now reached.
He was on another quest, and this one had to start here, at the bottom of the ocean because— The Sea Shall Bring Back The Framed. He'd been framed, hadn't he? For a murder he hadn't done. And now he was at the bottom of the sea and that silhouette, standing there. That was the incorporation of the sea. The sea god himself.
The noise stopped ringing in his ears, and as he let his hands fall to the ground, he heard the clanking of metal on metal. He felt the bands around his wrists. Shackles. He'd been shackled and chained to something. He was bound, in his father— in Poseidon's dungeon at the bottom of the sea. He was a prisoner in Atlantis.
His eyes snapped open in one go, his pupils staring at the man behind the bars, sitting leisurely in a chair, looking like he'd just witnessed a show for all the world, not that he'd just witnessed what madness could easily look like.
Percy's mouth was dry. He was dry. Both inside and outside. His tears had dried up against his cheeks and were now sticky against his skin. He felt weak, weaker than he'd been before. Drained.
How wasn't he drowning?
"You're a monster," Percy said, his voice low and dead, no feeling whatsoever in it. His eyes hadn't left his father's since the moment he had opened them. "You knew, yet you did this to me."
It took all of his strength not to break down, not to huddle on himself and cry. Because if there is one thing he was afraid of the most was drowning, seventeen years of being immune to it had made it so that when he first experienced it, he'd been terrified. Terrified at the mere thought of having his own element used against him. Terrified when it had been, and he'd felt just how bad and horrifying it was to drown. To feel your lungs filling up with something that shouldn't be there. To feel yourself unable to breathe…
"You're a terrible person," he hissed, so much venom in it that it had Poseidon raise an eyebrow. "And I hope that when you go to hell. I hope you'll understand just how horrifying that was. How drowning feels like. Even for you. I hope you drown in hell."
"At least you've still got hope," Poseidon said, and it was his voice, that voice that snapped something in Percy. He wasn't sure what it was, only that it opened a door for anger and hatred to wash over all of his body. "And you've still got your tongue."
Percy gritted his teeth, preventing himself from saying a nasty come back that would cause him nothing but discomfort. Instead he opted in using whatever energy he had left to push himself onto his feet. He swayed as he did and his head ached, his hand moving up to steady himself. He got a good look at his bindings. Between his hands there was a two feet long chain and then from there another length of chain had been attached with a lock, and then locked onto a hook the came from the middle of the cell on the floor.
He took a few steps towards the bars, and gripped them tightly, keeping his weight aloft by only that.
His eyes boring holes in his father's he asked, "So I'm your prisoner now?"
"I'd say the word 'guest' is more suitable," Poseidon said calmly, not letting any of the words that Percy had said get to him.
Percy chuckled darkly. "Guest, you say?" he asked, as his head hit the bars and it remained there, his eyes getting a haunted and faraway look. "Then why the fuck, am I chained in your dungeon?" The venom leaking through his words would have sent lesser men running in no time, but Poseidon didn't budge, he only grinned.
"Precautions," he said calmly. "Surely you can understand why I'm wary of you. After all that's been done to you —most of it because of me— I wouldn't put it past you to try to kill me."
The young man laughed. He laughed. Because that had been hilarious for so many reasons. He wasn't in the cell because his Poseidon hated him. He wasn't in the cell because he was a prisoner. No, he was in the cell, chained up, because his father was afraid of him.
"You," Percy said when he stopped laughing. "Afraid of me? When we're at the bottom of the ocean. When we're in your home. Why thank you for thinking I'm that good."
"You're better than good, Perseus," Poseidon said. "And you know that as good as you know that we need you for this war that's coming."
Percy smirked, of course that was his Poseidon's only problem. The war. Not that he'd ruined his life. No, why should care about that. No, the only thing any god cared about was the safety of their thrones.
"It's always about my strength, isn't it?" Percy said bitterly. "You want me to lend it to you, to help you, don't you? Well me going to that damned harbour should be enough to make you realise that I'm on your side. That I am going to help you. But then I'm out. This time for good. No need for this absurdness."
"Son—"
"I'm not your son," Percy hissed, baring his teeth like a wolf would. "Don't call me that, don't ever call me that!"
Something flashed in the god's eyes, something too fast for Percy to decipher. But the god spoke nonetheless. "You need to understand a few things before you go back to the surface. Things that happened in the past that hurt you. Things I did."
Percy's confusion was written all across his face, and it was enough for Poseidon to continue speaking.
"You're not here for me to know that you're working with us," Poseidon said with a sigh. "This has nothing to do with that. This could as well be for my own selfish reasons—and because... But you need to understand why you're still alive."
"What?"
Was the god finally going to explain why the weird stuff that had happened in the past four years happened, why he was still alive and the god's only found out now.
"Son—"
Percy clawed at the bars before he punched them, effectively denting it and cracking knuckles, breaking them.
"Call me son, one more time?" he yelled. "And see how I bring down this whole damned castle and rip you head off your neck for it! You're not my father! You lost the right to call me that the moment you disowned me! And stripped me of everything! You took everything from me." His voice died to a whisper. "You took everything," he repeated. "And I hate you."
He started shaking again. He grabbed the wrist of his broken hand to steady himself. His back hit the bars and he slid down, down until he was sitting on the ground floor. He lay there as the shaking ascended. His eyes slipped closed and he put his head on his knees, still shaking. He'd snapped.
When he heard the click of the cell door being opened his eyes snapped up, and they lingered on the person entering. No weapons on him, his features turned to sad and disappointed. Poseidon walked towards him with confident steps.
"Stay away from me," Percy hissed. "Or I'm going to kill you. Even if I have to do it with my bare hands."
Poseidon understood the threat, and took it with a nod. He motioned for the two guards at the door of the cell to leave, them going without so much as an objection. The door remained ajar, and Poseidon summoned a chair on which he sat on where he had stood.
"I know you didn't kill your brother," Poseidon said slowly, he didn't let Percy's glare stop him, nor did he give time to the demigod to answer. "As cruel as I was, disowning you saved your life."
"Saved my life?" Percy repeated with a smirk. "Right, that's why Zeus shot me with his lightning, why I was hunted throughout the whole country for months. Not having my powers anymore sure as hell helped me out during that time. But you know what, I don't care."
"Why do you think you're alive?" the god asked softly.
"Don't," Percy warned. "Stop."
He didn't want to hear it. Not now, not ever. Because if it ended up making sense then he'd have to forgive him, he would forgive him. And he'd have no one left to blame for all of the misfortune and bad luck that led his life in circles. He didn't want to forgive him. Or to see him as someone other than the bastard who took everything from him. He didn't want to see him as anything else. He wanted to keep him in that section of his mind where all those he hated were. And he wanted to keep him at the top of that list, next to Tartarus.
"Why do you think that bolt didn't kill you?" Poseidon ignored him.
"Stop," Percy said. "Just stop."
"Why do you think that Zeus didn't realise you weren't in the underworld?" he asked. "Why you managed to stay right under our noses without us realising?"
Percy leaped to his feet and pounced like a lion would a prey. His hands enclosed around Poseidon's neck as he was sent toppling over his chair and crashing down on his back. Percy knew where he should pinch so to cut off the god's breathing, to knock him out, but he didn't. Instead he let go and brought his fist down on Poseidon's face.
"Fight back!" he yelled. "Fight back you bastard!"
Poseidon did when the third fist was crashing down. He grabbed Percy's wrist in a bone crushing grip and held it there. When the other fist —the one with broken knuckles— came crashing down he grabbed it in the same way, crushing the bones in the wrist.
A sob escaped Percy's lips, and his head bowed down as his shoulders shook. His wrists held aloft because of Poseidon. The sea god looked at Percy with tenderness and sympathy. But he knew better than to let go of his wrists, knowing that for sure, even though they were broken the young man would try anything to hit him. Just as he was thinking that, the Avenger started fighting him, trying to yank his arms free, kneeing him in the stomach.
Poseidon called for his godly strength to flip themselves around, having Percy crash on his back, his head hitting the floor with a heavy thud. His hands pushed against the ground by the sheer force of the sea god, the two feet of chain digging in his chest. He then felt the weight of the god on top of his torso, and then there was so much pressure on his legs, and they were wet again. As if the water was holding him down.
He saw black for a moment before he regained his senses just as Poseidon said, "You have to listen to me—"
"I don't want to listen to a word you have to say," Percy hissed, his head moving up, his teeth gritted and bared as he made it clear where he stood. "Not a word!"
"You have to understand—"
"Are you deaf, old man?" Percy demanded. "I don't want to. Leave your explanations for someone who cares."
Percy hated the look Poseidon gave him next. One of pity and pure disappointment. He tried to move his legs, tried to use them to flip him off. But the water was still putting so much pressure on them… He tried yanking his arms free of his grasp but it was an iron grip the sea god had. And he couldn't get out. But he kept trying.
"What happened to you?" Poseidon whispered. "To the boy who always smiled, to the boy who put everyone before himself, who smiled and laughed—"
"You killed him!" Percy spat out, saliva flying. "You along with everyone else. That child is dead. Has been, for years now."
Poseidon steadied his grip. "I don't believe that," he said and he let go of his wrists, but Percy didn't have one heartbeat before his grip was replaced by unforgiving water. Poseidon touched his chest. "He's still in there."
"Let me go," Percy hissed. "Get off me."
Poseidon was winning, he was getting his way, and Percy hated it, hated himself for being weak enough to let him crumble his walls. His defences. And he knew that Poseidon knew he was managing. Especially when the sea god grinned.
"What? You're not even going to let me explain myself?" Poseidon asked rhetorically.
Percy hissed low, "I don't care what you have to say. You bastard, get off me."
"Well I care," Poseidon said, grabbing Percy's chin and making sure the demigod was looking at him. "So you're going to listen, until I'm done."
But the young Avenger was still fighting, and he wouldn't have lost until he stopped. And he wouldn't stop. Not until he couldn't move anymore. Or every bone in his body was wrecked.
"My brother knew your strength, and he needed to get rid of it," Poseidon started. "It was a threat—
"You need to get rid of that, brother," Zeus said from beside him.
They were leisurely sitting on their throne in the Thorne Room of Olympus. They'd been called to talk about the one and only demigod, son of Poseidon who was causing havoc and chaos during his sleep.
"That's what he can cause during his sleep," Zeus added, standing up. "Imagine what he could do when he put his mind into it."
"He's in shock" Poseidon simply said, his voice low and unthreatening.
"He's dangerous!" Zeus said. "And if Tartarus managed to do more than the boy is letting on then we're in deep shit. We cannot risk someone with his state of mind to walk around unchecked. You have to take out his powers."
Poseidon was on his feet. "I will do no such thing," he said to his brother. The other Olympians around them shifted uncomfortably, knowing exactly how simple arguments between the two brothers could end up as.
"You don't strip him off his powers, and the boy dies."
"Is that a threat?"
"Very much," Zeus said, his features unyielding. "We cannot let someone with that much power walk around, not when he could pose as a threat to the gods. To Olympus!"
Poseidon barked out a laugh. "You really think that my son, Percy Jackson, would act against Olympus? He's our most powerful ally, he would never."
"You don't know, what the god of the pit did to him," Zeus snarled. "How much he influences his actions. Would he rise, we do not know what Perseus would do—"
"Exactly," Poseidon interrupted. "You're jumping to conclusions that my son is a traitor."
"I'm eliminating the threat before it is too late!" Zeus boomed, then his voice lowered dangerously. "One act, Poseidon. One step out of line and he's out. Or I'm killing him with my own Master Bolt."
"Then what of your own children, Thalia and Jason? Shouldn't they be checked off too? Why only mine?"
"Because my offsprings did not go through the same stress as yours did, they didn't unlock those powers from deep within them." He eyes his brother with a death glare before he added, "And I didn't give them an endless well."
Poseidon kept his chin high and thoughts together, even as Zeus stretched out his hand and said, "One step. The council is with me on this, brother. One step and you disown him. He's out."
"Disown?" Poseidon asked, eyeing the outstretched hand. "That's not the same as drowning up that well. You can't ask me to disown my son—"
"Or I will kill him, the majority is behind that too," Zeus said.
Poseidon still didn't shake his hand. "And when exactly did you decide all of this?"
"Before you arrived." Zeus' eyes flickered to his hand.
The sea god hesitantly shook his hand, sending up a prayer to anyone who was listening that his son did not step out of line.
Percy's features didn't show his emotions, which was good since he didn't know what to feel, except anger. The anger was always there, present and lingering.
"You should have let him kill me," he hissed at last, anger fully taking over. "Better than being hunted down like a rabid animal. Did you really think I'd prefer that and your betrayal, than death? Huh?"
It was Poseidon's turn to snap, "Do you really think I enjoyed that?" he asked the restating man. "For six months, hearing nothing but how Artemis was failing to catch you. And then after six months, seeing him break his own promise. We had a deal that you would live, Perseus. And he broke it. Did you never wonder why that lighting bolt didn't kill you? Never wondered why death was there that day, but he didn't reap you?"
Percy was silent, his breathing heavy but other than that, he was still, he had even stopped flexing.
"Why of course I made a deal with my brother," Poseidon said. "Actually he came to me with the plan. When Zeus sent that lightning bolt towards you. It was our power combined, it was our shield that saved your sorry ass."
"I was still hit with it," Percy said, even though he knew he should have kept quiet. "It still hurt as hell."
"But you didn't die, and Zeus thought you were dead. And when Hades denied him access to talk to your soul, no one thought twice about it. The scent I took from you, the powers I took, that made sure that you could go on with life from then on. That you could start over, without fearing the gods. Fearing that they'd get a hold of you again. Because even now, I wouldn't be able to know, that you were in here if I was upstairs. The disownment was nothing but a ticket out."
"A ticket out," Percy repeated in a whisper. "A ticket out, after I was blasted off Mount Olympus. After I was hunted to the end of the earth by trained killers. After being betrayed, by the two people I cared most about, the two people I had never dreamed would betray me—"
"It was only for the best—"
"For the best?" Perch barked out a laugh. "What was for the best? Me being gone? Or you betraying me. Breaking me?"
Tears left his eyes again, small shiny droplets of water.
"And you needed me in a dungeon, chained up, to tell me that? You couldn't have done so sooner?" The bitter resentment was clear and evident in his voice.
"How many times have you tried to hurt me, and kill me, Perseus?" Poseidon asked slowly. "Precautions."
"You're a god," Percy spat out. "I'm not even a demigod. You've got me pinned down without even holding me. I could die with a simple thought of your mind. I'm nothing compared to you, just a mortal human."
"You're not nothing, son—"
Percy snapped his teeth and tried to lounge for the god again, but the pressure the water had on his limbs was far too great. "I am not your son!"
"Yes you are."
Percy's world stopped for a moment. No, no he wasn't. He'd been disowned. He'd been disowned in front of the whole council. He'd been disowned for three years now. He wasn't going to be claimed again now.
Claimed.
"No," Percy said. "I don't—"
"And Again He Will Be Claimed," Poseidon said softly, much to Percy's dismay. He started shaking his head. "I claim you, Perseus Jackson. You are my son."
"No," Percy said.
One simple word, but it tore the sea god open. What had he done all those years ago to leave his son in such despair, why had he done that? The venom with which that lone word was coated…
"Leave," Percy said defeated, his head laying down softly, his muscles going slack, his whole body going limp under Poseidon. "Leave me here to rot. Please."
What had he done? Poseidon asked himself at hearing the broken tone. How could he have done this to his son, to his pride.
"You were my brightest pride, Perseus—"
"Then why did you leave me?" the demigod asked, such bitterness and resentment. "Why did you leave me alone?"
Poseidon bowed his head, and stood. Only once he was out of the cell did he lift the pressure of the water on Percy's limbs and said, "I made a big mistake."
Percy didn't move from his position, and didn't offer any type of response either. When Poseidon was sure the demigod wasn't going to respond he hung his head low and saw himself out of the dungeons.
He wasn't going to sleep tonight.
-.-
Frank had said, screw the law, and pulled a Percy by stealing a car. He silently told the owner they they'd bring it back, although he knew he never would. This time around, he was the one driving while Jason laid down on his back in the back of the car.
It was somewhere in the night that the two demigods finally arrived at Camp Jupiter, both of them immediately getting ambushed by both Piper and Hazel. The daughter of Aphrodite had immediately gone into a fussy mode at seeing that her boyfriend was not all okay and held some new but fading scars.
They'd demanded to know exactly what happened, but they'd been waved off by Frank, who told them they should discuss this with more people. Or at least with Reyna and Annabeth as well. Reyna being elder praetor of camp and Annabeth being the one person they could use the brain of.
So that's how they found themselves, in the middle of the night sitting around a round table with coffee mugs in their hands as Frank told the tale and Jason added some helpful details the son of Mars had missed.
"So, Damasen, just gave you his weapon?" Reyna asked him at the end. "Why would he do that? Doesn't he fight for Tartarus?"
"No," Annabeth said from her seat. "He's the Bane of Ares, which means he's the opposite. Whilst Ares is a brute who loves war and bloodshed, Damasen doesn't, and he will gladly stay out of it. And also, when we were in Tartarus —the first time— I got the understanding that Tartarus had no love for the Giant, and vice versa."
"So he's helping us, in other words," Hazel said. "By giving us a weapon."
"But why give us a weapon?" Piper asked. "We have enough to arm both camps, why not keep it to himself."
Annabeth's mind was thinking, and it was thinking fast. "Maybe it does something ours don't. Maybe we should also look at the prophecy, because if you, Frank, should wield that weapon, along with eleven others… there's a line in the prophecy that holds to that: Twelve Are The Weapons To Be Wield. The lance is one of them, and you have to wield it. But to do what?"
"He mentioned that I should use it against him," Frank said.
"I'm only guessing that with 'him', he means Tartarus," Reyna suggested. "Not someone else, a third party that wants to get involved in this game of ours."
"Fourth," Annabeth corrected. "The Avengers are the third party."
"Right," Reyna relented. "Still, let's say that these weapons are meant to be used against him, we still don't know what they do, and why they would be different than other ones. And, what the other eleven ones are."
"Would you mind if I took the weapon for some time?" Annabeth asked Frank. "So that I can study it and try to figure out exactly what this could mean."
Frank didn't have to think about it to know his answer. Actually, he was more than happy to give something to work on to the daughter of Athena. If only so that she would have her mind off the son of Poseidon who could be facing unthinkable things at the very moment. He just hoped he was okay. As if reading his train of thoughts, Annabeth asked, "Do you have any idea what Poseidon is going to do to him for the next month?"
There was no nodding, only shaking of heads.
"Whatever he intends to do," Jason said. "He doesn't want anyone knowing. As far as I figured out he took him to Atlantis, far away from Olympus."
-.-
When the two Avengers had returned home the day after Percy had disappeared from their visible radar, they were met with the questioning gazes of their team mates, their eyes lingering behind them waiting for the demigod to come off the jet. He never did.
They quickly explained what had happened, the two demigods, and then set the tape Percy had left son they could get their own understanding of exactly what was going on and how apparently dangerous this all was. Little did they know it would be the last time they heard of him for a very long time.
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HEy, so this was longer than it usually is, but not the longest yet. It was over 6,000 words so I do hope you enjoyed.
Like always review and favorite this story, it would mean a lot.
If there are any questions or doubts about this chapter and what was revealed please tell me, either on the review section or in private and I WILL answer back to you and give you an explanation. And if you're on a guest account then I will try my best to reply to it on the next chapter.
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Preview of the next chapter:
"Five years ago," Ross started. "I had a heart attack." Way to make an introduction. "I dropped right in the middle of my backswing. Turned out it was the best round in May life, because after thirteen hours of surgery and a triple bypass…I found something forty years in the army had never taught me: Perspective."
Here we go.
"The world owes the Avengers an unplayable debt," Ross continued before anyone could comment on it. "You fought for us…protected us, risked your lives…but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some…who would prefer the word, vigilantes."
Nailed it.
"And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?" Natasha asked, crossing one leg over the other, looking nothing less than professional.
"How about, dangerous?" Ross said with no remorse. "What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals…who routinely ignore sovereign borders…and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?"
He raised his hand with a remote toward a screen and the event that happened with Loki played on it. The big monsters that had come out of that wormhole above this very Tower.
"New York," Ross said before he clicked another button on the screen and the scene changed. "Washington DC…Sokovia…Lagos."
"Okay, that's enough," Steve broke through, his voice stern and controlled. Beneath, a roaring ocean begging to be set free.
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Aye, I can already say that the next few chapters will cover a more boring arch to this story, the whole 'planning' and all. I myself are finding it troubling and hard to write the chapter, but I'll do my best to have it done for two weeks.
Oh and there wont be another of those problems with the iPad not uploading my things to FanFiction bcs I got a laptop, which works magnificently and yeah...
Stay cool I guess... and my the fates bless the poor souls of those of us who already started school...XD
Hunter