Chapter Five: Son of the Sea God
Millions of miles above the Earth
Chaos had found her beloved as soon as he was born, In this life, he was called Perseus, this was the first time that she found him so early, the reason behind this being that he was a demigod and thus left a more powerful signature than he would in a normal moral vessel, she had watched him closely ever since the day he was born, her heart swelled on seeing that he was growing into the same brave young man whom she always hopelessly fell in love for...
One thing was certain though, she was not going to lose him this time, she would tear the universe apart if she had to but no one was taking her Perseus away from her.
She desperately wanted to look into his eyes and feel his breath against her, she wanted to hold him and laugh at silly things as he wrapped his arms around her but she knew this was not the time, Percy needed to understand his destiny before she could meet him.
"Soon my love, soon..." she promised as she looked down at the young man with startling green eyes.
Camp Half-Blood, later that day.
His confrontation with the daughter of Ares only served to further establish his reputation as an exceptionally strong demigod, people were already taking interest in him after the news of his fight with Minotaur and hellhounds leaked but now people were literally fighting to ally their cabin with the Hermes cabin for capture the flag, In the end, Annabeth was able to convince some guy named Luke and now he and the Hermes cabin were fighting alongside the children of Athena.
Frankly, Percy couldn't care less about this capture the flag business, he was yearning to return home and get some well-deserved answers from his parents but unfortunately leaving now would attract too much attention and if they somehow followed him and saw him with his father then he might be forced to spend the rest of the life without his father's presence, practically speaking, if his father was this all-powerful god, then he should be able to sense someone following his son but Percy wasn't going to take the risk. Percy was going to sneak out of the camp when everyone falls asleep he would make his way back home, he really hoped that his mom knew where he was, he assumed his dad would have told her, he really didn't want her to worry about him.
"Percy, are you ready?" he heard someone asking, it was Annabeth, she was dressed in full Greek armor and was carrying a short sword.
"Yeah, can't be more ready than this," he said pointing at his own armor, he was also carrying a xiphos, which is a double-edged, one-handed short sword.
"Good" she smiled, "Now Percy listen... I am going to be blunt here, we are using you as a distraction," she said.
"What?" he asked confused, what did she mean by distraction?
"Well Luke and I decided that you should be the one guarding the creek, Ares might be the god of war but his children are short-sighted and tactless, they are more than likely to be more interested in trying to settle their score with you than in capturing the flag, so if they see you alone at the creek they won't be able to resist abandoning the flag in favor of attacking you, the plan is that while they are distracted by you we will go for their flag," she explained.
"Umm... ok?" Percy said, this sounded really dangerous for him but he couldn't fault the logic behind the strategy.
"Look, we are not forcing you to do this, you only need to agree if you think you can hold them off for long enough, we will try to get to you as soon as possible but If you don't want to do this then you don't have to," she said.
Percy sighed, "No...I will do this, just make sure you get the damn flag."
She gave him a bright smile and said, "You bet we would, and Percy, good luck."
And that was how Perseus found himself standing before the creek looking around for any signs of movement that might give away the location of his enemies.
Quiet predictability a few minutes later he saw the Ares kids walking towards him menacingly being lead by none other than, you guessed it, Clarrise La Rue.
"Come to get your backsides kicked again?" Percy taunted as he stared back at the Ares kid with an unimpressed expression.
"We will teach you how to respect your betters today... Punk." one of the males stepped forward and sneered.
"Is your vocabulary limited to one word or are you trying, unsuccessfully, to sound threatening." Percy said, this was part of the plan, he had to make sure that they didn't have second thoughts about leaving their flag unprotected, so he was going to taunt them until they attacked him, plus he was feeling rather adventurous today so why not?"
Clarrise pulled out her sword for the second time that day, "Get him boys!" she said.
Percy pulled his own xiphos and analyzed the situation, there were 8 of them and he was alone... even for all his skills he wasn't arrogant enough to think he could take on 8 trained demigods alone, he needed to come up with an Idea.
Unfortunately, the Ares kids weren't in the mood to give him time to leisurely come up with a plan and without beating around the bush they charged at him together.
Percy raised his shield to meet the assault, suddenly feeling very thankful that Annabeth convinced him to take it along, he pushed against the shield and bashed it on the head of the guy closest to him, surprisingly the boy was knocked out from the powerful Impact and Percy used their shock to hit another brute with the butt of his xiphos, he ducked under a slash and returned the favor, by this time the second guy had managed to recover and joined the frenzy, Percy slashed his xiphos and scratched one of them on the abdomen, he howled in pain and jumped away from them, Percy prepared to charge again when he felt a cold blade slash his arm.
Percy grunted with pain and dodged another slash, he swept the xiphos in an arc and managed to get through the armors of two Ares brutes, he didn't wait for them to attack again and punched the one on his right, dead on his face, and broke his nose, the son of Aries cried in pain as he held his nose to stop the bleeding.
This only served to enrage the Ares kids further as they started attacking more and more violently, there was aiming to seriously injure or maim him, 'What are they playing at?' he thought angrily, this was clearly against the rules but it didn't seem like they cared much at this point.
Percy was beginning to get overwhelmed, he had managed to take out two of the eight but now their attacks were getting seriously questionable, Percy was running out of ways to defend himself without considerably injuring them in the process.
Suddenly a lightbulb went out in his head, he was the son of Poseidon! He could control water at his will!
Focusing on the feeling in his gut that he sensed when he was fighting the Minotaur, Percy willed the water around him to bend to his command.
He felt the now-familiar tug in his gut and heard a loud noise from behind him, the Ares kids suddenly stopped in horror as they looked at Percy, towering behind him was a 16 feet column of water that was getting larger and larger as the creek rose from the ground.
Clarrise started to back away when the column lunged forward and crashed into them, within seconds the Ares kids were begging for him to stop as they were trapped in miniature whirlpools of water that thrashed them around like rag dolls.
Satisfied with his results Percy ended the connection and the water splashed around harmlessly like it normally would.
He heard a gasp and for the first time he noticed that his teammates had arrived and were looking at him in awe... no wait they were looking at something above him... Percy craned his neck to see a glowing trident hologram hovering above him.
The entire crowd kneeled before him. 'this is awkward, what the hell is going on?' he thought to himself.
Chiron answered his question when he announced, "Hail Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, God of the Seas, Storm Bringer, Earth Shaker, Father of Horses."
A few moments later...
"Remind me why everyone is acting weird around me again?" Percy asked Annabeth.
She sighed and said, "Because being the son of Lord Poseidon is a big deal... all demigods born to the big three -Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus- are very powerful." She thought about something for a few moments before continuing, "Also the big three aren't supposed to have children, after world war two 'The Three' took an oath saying that they would never sire a half-blood child again, unfortunately, a few years ago we found out Lord Zeus broke the oath and now we find out that your father broke the oath too."
Percy sighed and rubbed his temples, "This is messed up, what I wouldn't give to return to my normal boring life where I was oblivious to all of this divine stuff."
Annabeth raised an eyebrow as if not convinced by what she heard.
"What?" Percy asked.
"It's just that Demigods usually feel liberated to escape the normal life." she shrugged.
"Well I don't, I enjoyed living at the beach with my mother and learning swordfight from my erm... fencing instructor..." he said awkwardly. 'Fencing instructor? seriously Percy? that's the best you could come up with?'
Luckily Annabeth seemed to buy it and let the topic drop.
"Anyways, I feel really tired now, seya later Annabeth," Percy said and disappeared into the Hermes cabin.
Later that night...
Percy Jackson was standing on the borders of the camp, it was 2 am and he was currently in the process of escaping from the camp, he had made arrangements so that his absence went unnoticed for as long as possible, he looked towards the camp one last time before he walked out of the protective perimeter and was officially out of the camp.
After a short walk he felt like he was far enough from the camp and drop his stealth, he still had his hand in his pocket tightly gripping the miniature trident so that he could protect himself if needed.
Fortunately finding a taxi at 2 am is not that difficult anymore and soon Percy found himself walking up to the door of his home, sighing he rang the bell and waited.
A few minutes later the door swung open, and his mother tackled him in a hug.
"Oh, Percy I was so worried about you! don't you ever disappear like that again! do you have any idea what I went through when you didn't return that night! and later-later they tell me you almost died f-fighting monsters! don't you ever do this to me again!" she sobbed.
Percy's eyes lowered in shame at hearing his mother's pained voice... he hated himself for hurting her this way, what possessed him to go looking for the blasted greek exhibition! he acted recklessly and because of him, his mother had to go through all of this.
"I- I am sorry mom, I didn't mean to -I don't know how I feel for it- I am so sorry" Percy choked.
"It's alright my brave boy, just promise me you won't leave without telling me again," she said.
"I promise," Percy said.
"Good come in now, you must be cold... and I imagine you would have a lot of questions too..." she said as she shut the door and followed Percy inside the house.
They sat at the dinner table and Percy faced his mom, after a whole minute of awkward silence "... So dad is a god then?" he said.
His mother nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me? why lie to me for all these years?" he asked, he was feeling hurt by being kept in the dark for so long but he was willing to hear them out.
Sally signed and said, "Percy... I don't know if you have found this out yet but... your father wasn't supposed to be there for you... there are these Ancient Law-"
"I know." Percy interrupted.
"Well... your dad, to his great surprise, found out that somehow he was able to meet you despite it being against the ancient laws... he didn't want to risk it any further so we kept the truth from you, he was afraid that if something went wrong the ancient laws would stop him meeting us anymore," she explained.
Percy nodded, "I understand... I have one more question though..."
"What is it son?" she asked.
"These ancient laws... with the way you made it sound it looks like dad wasn't aware of this exception before I was born?" he said.
Sally nodded warily
"So why bring me into this world? was he just going to abandon us and leave once I was born?" Percy asked.
"No! Percy no, your dad would never abandon you... it's true he would not have been able to play the part of a father in your life but would still have been a part of it... it could have been as a kind stranger who helped you with something or a teacher who taught you something new... he would always be there, you just wouldn't know that," she said.
"Still, doesn't sound like a life I would enjoy..." Percy said, "where is he? where is dad now?"
"Atlantis," she said.
"Of course..."
"My last question now... and probably the most important... who is the Lady?" he asked.
"The... Lady?" his mom asked.
"Wait... Dad didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"About the woman I am seeing, I have answers to all my questions except that one," he said.
"Perseus Jackson! you are seeing a woman?!"
"I don't mean seeing in THAT way, mom!" Percy flushed in embarrassment.
"So how exactly are you seeing this woman... son?" Sally asked.
"Mom you are getting the Wrong Idea! By seeing I meant kinda like hallucinating." he explained, "But now that most of my so-called hallucinations turned out to be real things... I am not so sure anyone."
"You told your father about this and not me?" she asked looking a bit hurt.
Percy blushed furiously, "Eem well it's kinda embarrassing to share... so"
"But I thought I was your favorite parent!" she said.
Percy sighed in relief, his mom was just joking.