I had to switch accounts, I own this story because I am CubedPixels. Even if you have already read the first two chapters of the old story do re-read them, I revised them quite a bit.

I make no claim of ownership over the Percy Jackson series.

They had done it, defeated all immortal threats to their reign. Kronos was scattered into so many small minuscule pieces that it was impossible for him to find the strength to reform. The giants needed their mother to reform and she had used the last of her divine energy in her last attempt to rise. The only things remotely close to being a threat were the remaining titans, but they didn't have the leadership of Kronos to unite them.

For the first time in the god's immortal reign there were no threats, and so Kronos' curse came into effect. Kronos, before his death in the first Titan War, cursed the Olympians. 'For when there is no one else to topple your Thrones, you will do it yourselves.' The Olympians not believing he had the strength to place a curse on them ignored this, perhaps biggest mistake ever made in the history of the immortals. And now his curse was taking effect, slowly exaggerating their arrogance, and shortening their sense of reason.

Now before this they were already arrogant, but it was never as extreme as this.

Nobody noticed this change as it happened slowly enough. Most of the demigods never knew their parents enough to tell that something was off, and the ones who did weren't paying enough attention. They were to busy celebrating their victory over the Titans.

Besides that everything was back to normal in the godly world, except for a decrease in monster activity. The world had become to dangerous for monsters. Even now mortals have designed energy weapons that were capable of killing them.

Well... It seemed like everything was back to normal.

~O~

"Does anyone know why the god's are calling us to Olympus?" Percy had been at the beach enjoying the peace. When an Apollo camper told him he was being summoned to Olympus.

It had been a tiring past couple of months, apparently Kronos wasn't the only one to attempt to rise.

Percy's great grandmother had also tried to join the land of the living, but from what he had heard she didn't read the instruction manual on her ritual book right. She caused herself to fade, an end with no afterlife. Just like what happened with Pan. Or that was the brief summarized version he heard.

Nobody said anything to break him out if his thoughts, apparently he wasn't the only one to not know what was happening.

He looked at everyone, and his eyes stopped on Annabeth she seemed to know something but wasn't sharing it with the class. At one time, a couple of months ago, he would've been attracted to her. But as soon as she got the job to redesign Olympus she seemingly cut ties with anyone in order to focus on it.

At first it had hurt him, but over the past three months he learned to accept it. He knew this was a result of her fatal flaw. Of course that didn't mean he was fond of her for abandoning him for her work, but he at least understood. A little.

And as the final cabin counselor came in an enormous lightning bolt flashed down from the heavens and stuck in their midst. Then they vanished in a blinding light one that, if it had lasted any longer, would've caused permanent eye damage if anyone was watching.

~0~

The demigods had all been sat down in metal folding chairs in the gods throne room. It was huge built for people 5 times their size. The roof gave a view of the night sky's stars including the huntress, Percy's favorite constellation. And in a corner the was a sphere of water holding a serpent cow mix, which he had affectionately named 'Bessy'. The doors were carved with scenes of the gods' achievements, Apollo slaying Python, or Zeus killing Typhoon, even a scene of Dionysus conquering India. Even with all this the thrones stood out the most.

Each one representing the owners domain. Ares' showing depictions of bloody battles and burning cities. Apollo's showing the sun at different times from sunrise to sunset, and various musical instruments. Hermes' showing people walking along long roads and thieves stealing things. Artemis' showing scenes of her hunt hunting dangerous creatures and The Huntress constellation in place where an image of the moon had been. Poseidon's throne showing the sea and storms destroying boats, normally it would be disguised as a very fancy fisherman's chair but this was an important meeting.

Percy kept examining the thrones, until Zeus arrived. Appearing in a flash of light he was wearing a pinstripe suit, which did look very out of place in the throne room. He threw down his bolt and all chatter stopped. The meeting had started.

"I know all of you demigods are confused about what is happening... Well except for you Chase, which why she will explain." Zeus sat down on his throne looking impassive. And Annabeth stepped up to the front of the demigods. Ahh, so he had been correct Annabeth knew what was going on and decided not to tell anyone. He smiled a bit, spend four years with someone and your going to be able to read someone pretty well.

"The gods have decided that it is time to reveal themselves to the mortals-" Everyone started talking again confused at why they decided this so suddenly, Percy knew why. There was no threat to the throne, at-least no immortal threat, and the gods power came from worship. If the gods revealed themselves their power would increase tenfold. And in theory so would the demigods'.

And everyone called him stupid, he may not be book smart, but he more than made up for that with his (*) street smarts and ability to read people.

"Silence!" Zeus shouted to shut everyone up, it worked. "Let the girl speak! I'll fry the next person to speak out of turn!" That was strange, normally Zeus wouldn't make threats like that to demigods when their parents were right next to them.

"As I was saying." She threw a glare to all the demigods in the room. "The gods have decided to reveal themselves, and have been saving their power in order to create a new nation." Now he was confused make a new nation? As in take over some land and claim it? "In eight months an island will appear in the Atlantic. During this down time we demigods will be creating a government so we can play by the mortals rules when claiming the island."

"Here is a rough map of what the new island will look like." An Iris message was used to show the demigods, the map? It was roughly the size of Greenland and was in between South America and Africa. "That is where we will be staging our operations. The gods will save up their power until they can make the island instantly, we can not have the mortals take it while it is forming. One last thing, do not let any mortal gain this knowledge, it would ruin everything."

Then Zeus got up, "Everyone excluding Perseus Jackson, Ares' children, and Athena's children leave." Why did they want him? In fact why did they want all of them, the only thing any of them have in common is they can fight well... He would just have to wait and see.

~O~

He didn't want to do this. He hated the idea. He stared down into the endless darkness below him, sure he had been training for a year but this was too much. He had only just turned 17! He stood by the only 3 other people to pass the first phase of Spartan training where they learned to use weapons from all over, he had trained for hours with Apollo to master almost every ranged weapon, he had been beaten by Artemis hundreds of time to learn hand to hand combat. All these other moments like Athena teaching him how to speak nine different languages, and Aphrodite how to seduce and lie, led him to this point.

Surviving the birthplace of evil... Tartarus, not only that but he had to survive for an entire year, 365 days, every one filled with hardship and pain. He wanted to leave, to back down, but the gods seem to have changed, they would kill him if he didn't and without further ado he jumped in. Making sure to have a good grip on the parachute cord.

The boy was lucky to have survived, the human body was not meant to take this much of a beating. If he had to guess, the only reason he survived was because of his godly half. The the air down there, toxic from thousands of years of going through monsters respiratory systems had given him stage four lung cancer. He had broken his bones so many times they were now permanently weaker. Got sliced open so many times he had scars over every inch of his body. And he had lost forty-five pounds.

Yet despite this, he had survived, and even better, with Apollo's powerful healing magic honed by years of use. He could be healed to be as strong as he was before, probably even stronger. Or at least physically, no mortal had gone down there and come back up alive, nobody knew the state he would be in mentally. Even though his demigod nature prevented him from suffering from mental illness, it had never been tested like this.

~0~

Percy didn't wake up in the same place he fell asleep, a cave that used to belong to a pack of hellhounds, and because of that he immediately grew suspicious. After all, he was no stranger to immortals kidnapping him. But instead of immediately jumping up and quite possibly getting into a fight he waited. Pretending to sleep waiting to see if anyone would reveal themself. Suprisingly he was in a nice soft bed and was wearing some type of gown, implying he could be in an infirmary. Another thing of note was how great he felt, he wasn't in any pain. Feeling his chest discreetly he discovered all his wounds and scars had been healed, except for one or two he could feel.

Realizing he was in no danger at the moment, he opened his eyes and sat up. There was a TV on across the room in front of him with a news report talking about the world's latest issues, and a table with a plate of eggs and hash browns with a carton of milk to drink. He ate some, it was cold and certainly wasn't enough to fill him up, but to him it was like a five course meal at an Italian restaurant.

While eating his cold breakfast he tried to figure out where he was, he took a closer look at the yellow walls and noticed a pattern of suns etched in a gold thread. Percy only knew of one person who would have such a wallpaper. Being Apollo, the sun god himself. Which would mean he was in Apollo's place.

"I made it." He was disbelief, he always believed Tartarus would be his end. That he would never see the stars again. Instead he had survived, he had survived the place meant to kill a man in six different ways at once. An entire year in the pit.

He could go see his Mom and Paul again, and- "Woah where you going there Percy, I can't release you until I do another checkup."

Apollo had walked in wearing a doctor's outfit and holding a noteboard. He was about to push past him and walk out or argue with him about this until he remembered two things. Apollo was a god, you don't just shove past a god. Two when Apollo was teaching him some advanced first aid he always said one thing about the doctors, NEVER ignore what they have to say, they say to stay in bed for one more day? Do that. They say to take this drug? Do it, many heroes have died because they didn't listen to said doctor.

"Sorry Apollo, I was just really excited at the prospect of seeing my family again." Apollo smiled while sticking on some little stickers and tabs to him. "Sounds great kid... Hey speaking of you're eighteen right?"

"Yes?" Percy said curious to where this was going, and Apollo started talking. "I was thinking I could take you to my favorite bar, get you settled in."

"Yeah, no thanks, I mean your offer is very kind but, I'm not sure I feel comfortable drinking for the first time with you. Sounds like a good way to get arrested on charges of public intoxication." Apollo just shrugged at this, as if getting arrested was just small worry. Although it probably is seeing as he is a god.

"Eh suit yourself. Anyways your going to be fine, those scars on your chest will probably never go away but other than that you're good as new." Apollo handed Percy some clothes and a wallet. "Take these, the wallet has three grand in it, a gun license, and a couple other things for you. I hope it helps."

Percy thanked Apollo and left, understanding why he specifically pointed out the gun license. On his way out into the lobby he noticed another news report on the small TV in the corner of the hallway, this one talking about Olympus.

Since the Olympians revealed themselves over a years ago hundreds of thousands if not millions have started to worship the Greek gods again. This has led to a huge increase of immigration around the world to this new country. However there seems to be trouble in paradise with Olympus still refusing to join NATO, the UN, and other treaties and pacts. This is worrying all the world superpowers who are afraid rising tensions may escalate to a third world war. Not helping matters are rumors of Olympus working with terrorist cells, and drug cartels.

That didn't sound to good, and he was starting to rethink his plan of staying in the United States a little. He didn't want to endanger his Mom and Paul, who were probably going to stay here instead of heading to Olympus. He was slightly curious about why Apollo has his hospital in America, but he figured he could ask later. He just brushed off the part about terrorists and cartels as fake news, he knew how much they lied or exaggerated things from when there was a nation wide manhunt for him.

Some of those newspapers would say he was spotted in Japan or something, or maybe that he was seen murdering three other people.

Walking out of the empty lobby into the busy New York street was an amazing feeling. The smell of car exhaust and cigarettes was nostalgic. Even all the extremely rude people who were shoving him out of there way was welcome.

Deciding on his next course of action he went to the right of Apollo's hospital there was a large shopping mall.

He started noticing small details about the place as he got closer, like how it you looked at the right angles you could see every nook and cranny of the building through the windows. Presumably to make dealing with hostage situations better. Or that the beefy security guard outside was giving some small indicators to seemingly random people. Seemed like something was gonna go down, and he didn't want to be there when it did.

So he sped up his walk and went into the mall, first going to a backpack store. The birds looking cashier perked up when he walked in, there wasn't anyone when he walked in. "Hello, welcome to Bob's backpacks what can I get for you?"

Percy considered it for a moment, "I'll get two water proof duffel bags if you have any of those." The cashier nodded and went to the back of the room, "Will this work for you sir?"

Percy took a look at it, lots of space and extra pockets, looked pretty high quality, and even better, it was blue. " Yeah that's perfect."

"That will be three hundred dollars." Percy handed him the money and walked back into the large open middle area of the mall. Looking around he was a gun store and a clothing store. He went to the clothing store next, he didn't need to worry about what size it was, because to help fit into disguises better Aphrodite made it so all clothes he wore expanded or shrunk to his size. He was in and out of there in five minutes, now all he needed was the gun store.

Inside of it was like a dream, and with his remaining money he could probably buy three very nice guns. After a long time checking out how each of them felt, he decided on two very nice handguns. He bought a lot of ammunition along with them. Then filled a duffel bag with almost all his remaining money. One of his pistols and some ammunition. He put that duffel bag in a long term storage locked he could rent and out the rest of his things in his other bag. He began to walk towards the exit but stopped when he heard someone yell, "EVERYONE ON THE GROUND, NOW!"

Sighing he pulled his newly acquired gun out, he really didn't want to deal with this today.

~0~

He probably should've expected this with his luck, but he was really hoping those guys out there were planning a surprise birthday party or something. Or maybe one of those videos where everyone shows up out of no where and plays an instrument.

At least they hadn't seen him yet, giving him the element of surprise, something that over the years he learned was very important. Maybe if he was lucky he would get to walk out of here with some new guns and even more bullets. Well, he was ninety nine percent certain they had guns, he was pretty sure he heard a gunshot.

First he probably needed to actually see what they had.

The mall had two floors and was designed with a large open circular area in the middle which was being used as a food court, and two wings on the left and right when you come in with shops in the walls. They were forcing all of their hostages into the food court. The second floor was a balcony that overlooked the first floor, it too had shops along the walls. There were escalators that led up to it at the end of the long hallways.

He took a quick look at their guns, they weren't anything special like a laser gun, they weren't even high quality guns, a huge disappointment. Whether this was because he wanted a challenge of some more weapons he wasn't really sure, probably both.

He wanted to think of a witty line to say when he jumped down, but he couldn't think of anything. An even bigger disappointment, he had a reputation for snappy comebacks and the sort, and he fully intended to keep it.

Searching for anything that could help him he noticed the tables were made of metal that looked pretty thick, and there was a soda machine in the back corner. There weren't any chairs which was kind of weird, but that would make the plan he was forming in the back of his mind easier.

Using his powers, the soda machine exploded, sending pieces of plastic and gallons of soda everywhere. Percy jumped the fifteen feet to the ground, rolling right after he hit the floor to absorb the impact. Getting up, he shot one of the guys in the chest unloading four bullets into him, spraying blood all over the white floors. He then punched the guy to his right in the stomach, when the bad guy bent and over holding his gut in pain he snapped his neck, killing the him.

Using the wet floor to his advantage, he slid right into another bad guy knocking him off his feet, midslide shooting the guy behind him who was trying to get a shot on him. He got up quickly with some help from the liquid in the floor, putting the guys he used as a human bowling pin in a choke hold, using him as a human shield to protect him from the bullets being shot at him from his friends.

It had killed meat shield man, but the bullets hadn't gone through him into Percy. He threw the now very much so dead man's body to the floor and shot one of the last three guys directly between the eyes, his body fell backwards over the KFC's counter, probably violating a dozen health codes. The second to last would-be hostage holder rushed at him, but with one well timed and powerful kick Percy broke his knee, bull man fell hitting his head on the corner of a table, probably killing him.

He walked up to the last bad guy, who was pale after seeing him murder all his friends so easily. He had a very nice gun he seemingly missed when he was checking out their weapons, a sloppy mistake, but luckily it didn't cost him anything. It did however allow him to come up with a really bad one liner, "Your gun will make a fine addition to my collection."

After that he knocked him out, hopefully he forgot about that awful one. He didn't even take the gun, he didn't want a reminder of that.

He did take the ammo though, all of it. Because although they had some disappointing guns, their bullets were high quality.

The mall-goers were slowly getting out of their shock, he wanted to get out of there soon, before the feds showed up. So he ran to a fire exit he saw when he first came in.

What he didn't notice was one of the hostages taking a picture of his face on their cell phone. It was blurry enough, but that using that along with security camera footage would definitely let the government figure out who he was. And when it comes to the government, SHIELD is always leading the charge.

~O~

Percy stumbled as he ran out the door pushing it much harder than he had intended to, the door flew off it's hinges, Percy's emotional state was causing him to lose control of his strength. He bent over and vomited behind a large dumpster behind the mall. He didn't know why, rright she he got out of there the guilt crushed him, as if his emotions were surprewere durit his little shoot out. In all of his training, he always hoped he would never take a life, probably extremely naive of him, but it did to against everything he was taught by Chiron.

What if those men had families? Brothers and sisters or mothers and fathers? They might have had children, oh gods, what if he had killed parent of a child who was waiting for their father to come home.

The worst part? It was easy, taking people's lives was so easy, life was so fragile.

Giving himself another thirty seconds to recover he ran off, heading for Olympus. He had more training to do.

I'm proud of most of that except for that last bit, could be been written better, but it got the point across. Percy isn't some remorseless killer, he hates killing others like he was taught by Chiron. Next chapter will get to some juicier stuff.

Don't mess with Texas

(*) STREET SMARTS remember kids always carry that 50$ money clip