Hey guys! Thanks for all the reviews last chapter! I'm so sorry the length of these chapters has been so so terrible lately. School is a pain, especially since I don't have a study hall this year. And to add to the fun, I'm sick! (This is on top of the headaches you're all probably tired of me complaining about.) But I'm updating, so at least we got that going for us! Ok, let's go get some vague responses done now. It seems like people weren't expecting Poseidon to show up! And while I can see why you wouldn't expect that, Poseidon is actually one of the few Olympians (in the books) that seems to interact with and care about their children. Plus, earlier in the story (you might not remember this exact detail), but Kronos tells Percy that he might even see the titan as a father-figure of sorts. And while Percy doesn't verbally respond, his thoughts indicate that he is STRONGLY against that idea. So why not bring in his real father? All Poseidon must want is to have his son back. As for Luke, we'll just have to see what he reveals to the demigods and Poseidon. Especially now that he seems like he's ready to pass out from fear haha. Anyways, I own nothing but please enjoy this chapter! :)

Third Person POV

Instead, Poseidon's face softened and he said gently, "How can you help me bring my son home?"

The five stared at the god of the ocean with varying expressions. Annabeth wore a look of pleasant surprise, while Grover simply smiled, perhaps anticipating the god's question. Silena and Beckendorf exchanged a look, both seeming wary of the development but not completely against it. Luke stared, like a deer caught in the headlights, as if he couldn't believe Poseidon hadn't already killed him.

Seeing that Luke was in no state to respond, Annabeth replied to the god. "After we finished interrogating Luke, Lord Poseidon, I believe he was going to tell us that."

The sea god waved off her comment. "Annabeth, dear, if you five are going to bring my son back home, you may call me Poseidon. I believe I owe you that much, already."

Looking a little reluctant, Annabeth nodded and glanced at Luke, who was standing in front of his seat at the kitchen table. "Luke, why don't you tell Poseidon what your plan is?"

"And please, sit down. Everyone," Poseidon added, waving his hand and causing two more chairs to materialize. Beckendorf, who had been standing, took one and sat gingerly next to Silena while Poseidon seated himself in the other one next to Grover.

"Now," Poseidon started once everyone was gathered around the small kitchen table, "what is the plan?"

All eyes turned to Luke, who cleared his throat. "I'm not quite sure how to start..." He admitted awkwardly.

Poseidon smiled reassuringly, his eyes looking sad and troubled from up-close. "As they say in the movies, start from the beginning." His face adopted a pondering look. "How are you here?"

"I escaped," Luke said in a voice barely above a whisper. "Percy and I had a plan to escape, together," he continued in a louder voice. "We were going to steal Kronos's remote, sneak out, run to Olympus, and tell the Olympians of Kronos's plan."

The sea god raised both his eyebrows in surprise. "A risky idea, if I must say so. How could you be sure that the council wouldn't vote to kill you as soon as your information was shared?"

The son of Hermes avoided eye contact with everyone, instead staring down at his lap in self-conscious shame. "We weren't sure. But we figured it was a worthy gamble. Both Percy and I agreed that it would be better to die at the hand of our parents than to serve Kronos for a day more."

Poseidon let out a deep breath, leaning back against the backing of his chair, his face troubled. When he made no move to resume the conversation, Annabeth asked, "Clearly, Percy didn't escape. But how did you manage to?"

"Kronos tried to kill me," Luke answered, meeting her gray eyes briefly before looking away quickly. "Somehow, I'm not sure how, he found out about our plan. I'm afraid he has eyes everywhere in his compound, and those eyes have ears. He confronted Percy and me about the plan. I don't know if he knew of both Percy's and my involvement in the plan, or just mine, but all I remember is him shouting at me." Luke paused for a moment, closing his blue eyes as he relived the memory. "He came at me, shouting. Percy was there, too. Kronos turned towards him, and I thought that was all, but the second I lowered my guard..." He opened his eyes and stared blankly at the table. "I collided with something hard, hitting my head. I don't know what exactly happened to Percy after that. I hardly even know what happened to me."

"What did happen to you?" Annabeth asked hesitantly, as if afraid to ask. "From what you told us, it seems that Kronos wouldn't let you out of his eyesight."

The son of Hermes shrugged. "I woke up outside of the compound, the first time I had been outside without Kronos or Ethan since about two years ago. I was being dragged through the grass, with a Cyclops holding onto my ankle. He was carrying a studded iron rod, the pointy part of the nails sticking out." Luke swallowed hard. "He was talking to himself about how, after he killed me like Kronos asked him to, he was going to eat my bones since he didn't have to share my corpse with anyone."

"Oh gods, Luke," Annabeth breathed, eyes wide with horror.

He shrugged again. "I pretended to be unconscious until we stopped moving. The Cyclops dropped my leg, and I jumped up. His weapon was steel, so I couldn't use that to kill him, but there was a large rock on the ground..." Luke trailed off, the others able to fill in his silence with their own assumptions.

After a beat of silence, Silena ventured, "How did you get that cut on your leg?" Underneath the table, she could see the blood still dripping, albeit slowly, down Luke's leg.

"The Cyclops got in a lucky swing that I couldn't dodge," he answered simply, tone implying that he would like very much to move on in the conversation.

"Let me dress that," Poseidon said, seeing the wound for the first time. He waved his hand, allowing bandages to encircle the wounded leg. "Apollo will have to look at it later, but for now you'll survive."

"Thank you, Lord Poseidon," Luke murmured. The sea god raised an eyebrow, to which Luke flushed and amended, "Thank you, Poseidon."

As the sea god smiled at the son of Hermes, Annabeth rejoined the conversation and asked, "Where did you go after the encounter with the Cyclops, now that you were free?"

"It was yesterday that Kronos tried to have me killed," Luke answered, "since Percy had a little over twenty-four hours until his next mission by the time Kronos confronted me. Once I woke up and... escaped, I picked a direction and headed towards the closest town. From the compound, I knew where New York City was, but with my recent state of unconsciousness, I couldn't figure out which direction I was going. Thankfully, I managed to arrive just south of New York City. I knew New York City was the place where I needed to go, since I overheard the Cyclops talking about Percy's mission as well. I just didn't know where in the city. Thankfully, I wandered around enough that I finally spotted a glimpse of something shining in an alley. I saw Percy's bridge of ice connecting this building with the other one, then I watched him run across it a moment later."

"How did he seem?" Annabeth interrupted, stopping Luke in his tracks. When she noticed everyone's eyes locked on her, she flushed. "Percy," she attempted to elaborate. "How did Percy seem?"

Luke watched Annabeth for a long moment before he answered. "Agitated," he stated. "Nervous. Worse than I had ever seen him before my disappearance." Luke paused, a look of question on his face. "What happened before he left the building?"

Beckendorf, who had maintained a stance of silent contemplation throughout the duration of the conversation, answered. "We each had a communicator on us, me, Silena, Grover, and Annabeth. We had split up, and if anyone encountered Percy or anything else, we were to hit the button on the communicator."

Beck looked around at everyone listening intently to his tale, everyone except for Annabeth who stared down at her lap silently. "Annabeth alerted us to Percy's presence in her area, and we all hurried to find her. When we did, we found them kneeling on the ground. Percy was crying, and Annabeth was talking to him. Saying he would be okay. I went over, put my hand on his shoulder, and tried to help him. We all did. He was shaking, and crying, and I had never seen him like that. I don't think any of us have."

Beckendorf trailed off, lost in his memories. Poseidon, a disturbed and sorrowful look on his face, prompted in a soft voice, "What happened afterwards?"

"Annabeth kept talking to him," Beck continued, sounding lost in thought. "She wanted him to come back to camp with us. To go home to his mother and his friends and you, Poseidon."

"What did Percy say?" Poseidon asked, face pale and voice barely audible.

"He said he can't," Annabeth picked up, voice devoid of emotion and eyes focused downwards. "He said he can't and when I told him he can, he always can... He told me to leave."

"Annabeth tried to stay strong, but..." Silena trailed off, looking at the daughter of Athena with sympathy.

Luke and Poseidon exchanged glances of confusion.

"But?" Luke repeated, frowning slightly. "But what?"

"Annabeth turned orange," Grover piped up, surprising them all. "And she fell to the ground, but Percy caught her just in time. As if he knew it was going to happen. He started talking to himself, saying that he was about to leave and it shouldn't have happened."

Luke started to look uneasy.

"Then the same thing happened to Charlie," Silena said, voice soft as she looked at her boyfriend with fear. "And Percy told me he would be dead in five minutes."

Annabeth and Beckendorf looked at each other, neither knowing the full extent of the encounter.

"Silena collapsed next," Grover murmured, almost talking to himself. "Mid-rant, she just fell. I looked at Percy and I asked him if he was the one doing it."

"He wasn't," Luke muttered under his breath, clearly audible to the others in the silence of the apartment.

Grover shot Luke a questioning glance, but kept with his story. "He said to me, 'He's going to kill everyone and I can't stop it'. I begged him to help, but then he froze. A second later, a ball of ice appeared out of nowhere and hit me on the head."

Poseidon was pale and Luke was troubled by the time Grover finished his tale. "He shouldn't be able to do that," the sea god muttered under his breath, running a hand through his black hair and looking millennia older than the young appearance he paraded around in.

Finally looking up from her lap, Annabeth locked eyes with Luke. "You know something," she said, voice sounding indifferent despite the accusation. Narrowing her eyes, she asked, "What is it that you haven't told us?"

Swallowing hard, Luke admitted, "I know what made you lose consciousness and turned your skin orange."

"You do?" Silena asked, disbelief coloring her tone.

Luke nodded solemnly. "I do. And it's the only thing keeping Percy working for Kronos."

The five others stared at the son of Hermes for a long moment, waiting for him to share more. Finally, someone snapped.

"Well, what is it?" Annabeth asked, clearly frustrated. It was a nice change, Luke had to admit, since a moment earlier her emotions were blank.

The others nodded in agreement, including Poseidon; all of them wanted to know just what was important enough to keep the son of the sea contained, especially since it was clearly torturing him.

"Do you remember when Kronos put the bomb on the Brooklyn Bridge?" Luke asked suddenly.

Beckendorf narrowed his eyes, remembering his near-failure. Thankfully, the bomb hadn't done anything. (Or so he thought. He was beginning to suspect otherwise.)

"When the bomb detonated," Luke explained, "these specially-designed nanobots were released into the air. They went into your lungs, into your body, and latched into the nearest organs they could reach. You four passed out from the chemicals released with the explosion, and when you woke up you couldn't feel the bots inside of you, they're so small. But just after that initial explosion, Percy told Kronos that he doubted the truth."

"As do I," Annabeth muttered, frowning slightly at the absurdity of Luke's story.

Luke ignored her in favor of continuing on. "When Percy told Kronos he didn't believe him, Kronos laughed. I should know," he supplied, "because I was there. Kronos made me sit in on most of his... 'meetings' with Percy. After laughing, Kronos pushed a button on this remote he keeps on his person at all times and..."

"Our skin glowed orange," Silena finished in a voice muted with horror. "And we all fell to the ground. Percy watched that?"

"Kronos made Percy watch it all," Luke responded gravely. "He thought the bomb killed you all. The only reason he agreed to work for Kronos was to keep him from pressing the button on that remote again."

Annabeth muttered something about loyalty and an idiot's priorities under her breath, throwing in a few curse words that Luke could only hear because he was sitting near her. Then, louder, she addressed the group. "Clearly, we need to save him. Immediately. Sooner than immediately."

"I think our first priority should be to remove these 'nanobots' from your systems," Poseidon argued, standing up from the table carefully. "Apollo can do that while he has one of his healers tend to Mr. Castellan's leg wound."

"But Poseidon-" Annabeth tried to protest, but the god of the ocean put up a silent hand.

"We cannot help Percy is Kronos still has you four as leverage to hold over his head," he stated in a gentle voice. "If we're going to help him, you must be out from Kronos's influence."

Annabeth nodded reluctantly, looking like she would much rather argue with the Olympian but knew better.

"Not to ruin the process we have going here," Grover said hesitantly, interrupting the silence, "but once Apollo cures us, how are we even going to find Percy? Kronos might have him located somewhere else by now."

"I know where to find them," Luke promised grimly. "But if I've learned anything about Kronos, it's that we're going to need to hurry. I don't want to think about what he might be doing to Percy."

Hey guys! Yay, a longer chapter! Finally! It only took me forever to get a longer one out. And now you're all REALLY going to hate me, but this coming weekend is homecoming and then I'm spending the entirety of Sunday doing stuff away from my house, so I won't be able to work on the next chapter at all... So next chapter (you're gonna hate me) is going to be posted on Monday, October 8 (Columbus Day). My plan is that I'll have some more free time so the chapter will be super mega long and the demigods will be back to meeting with Percy by the end of the next chapter. But that might be wishful thinking... Anyways, super sorry about the long wait! Don't hate me. Thanks! :)