It's been a long long long LONG time since I have written. I really apologize but JC life really isn't the best motivation for me to write. I am gonna try to complete this story, but I'm really not sure when it will be completed.

On another note, I really wanna thank all the readers who had stuck by this story for such a long time. I know I really suck cuz I left it at such a bad moment HAHA but yeaaaaa my fault no excuses oops

My writing is a little bit(understatement, of course) rusty and I hope you'll bear with me HAHA (at least I know the difference between your and you're please readers here's a little English session. 'Your' is like "Your stuff is..." or like "Your friends..." while 'you're' is for "You're funny" or "You're a really weird person"

Sorry I just can't stand some writers who make that mistake it really reflects badly on the story and I feel like many have so much potential but because of these minor mistakes it turns a lot of people(like me) off when I read their stories.

Have fun reading!

~Kuntakintae

Nico's POV

We all sat numbly as our minds tried to digest and absorb all the shocking revelations and information that had just been revealed to us by Percy.

It wasn't the fact that Percy had lived and killed in Tartarus that shocked me. My dad, ades had already briefed me on what Tartarus was. He had already shown me all the horrible pictures and described to me the inhumane deeds committed in the god-forsaken place.

What I had been unprepared for was His story before he had gotten into Tartarus. To have his parents murdered when he was just four years old, to have to survive through any means necessary by himself for the so long before he found Tartarus, to have to been exposed to so much death and gore, to have to lose his innocence at such a young age- that was what shocked me.

The most surprising and stunning part of his story was that he had actually been as close as blood brothers with Luke Castellan. The guy who had made Thalia's life a living hell, the guy who had absolutely no qualms about murdering people, the guy who had killed probably hundreds or thousands, the guy who had – though I still didn't know the details- caused Annabeth a huge load of pain and suffering in the past had been Percy's brother and saviour.

It was completely unbelievable. Percy's entire tale sounded like it came out of a storybook written by a pessimistic psycho with depression issues.

"…Wow," I heard a whisper that sounded like Thalia. I looked up to see not only her, but everyone else staring into space with blank stares. I tried to imagine what my reaction would be if I had not learned at least the portion about Tartarus from my dad and chuckled. I would have probably been like them- slack-jawed, wide-eyed idiots.

"I never knew…" Annabeth's whisper floated through the air, her downcast eyes staring at the untouched cup of coke on the table. Her tone carried something that I felt-guilt.

All these years, we had never really bothered to really find out about Percy and his past. Sure, we stuck with him loyally and never abandoned him, but the fact is that we had never actually gone and asked him whether he needed help in anything.

His façade had tricked us all. Most of us knew that he had a dark past- one that he did not want to share about. However, due to his constant behaviour of cheerfulness and kindness, we assumed that he had already come to terms with his past and hence never took the effort to ask him whether everything was alright in his life.

My thoughts drifted back to all the times he had suddenly come to me and ask me what was wrong whenever I felt down- even when I was acting as though I was fine. It was as though he always kept an eye out for every single person in the group- observing and studying each and every one of us and never letting us go through our challenges alone.

Yet most of the time, we were too caught up in our own problems- wrapped up in our own little world of misery that we never could spot the hidden sadness and sorrow Percy had contained inside of him.

That is, until the recent case with Rachel. Now, it was this.

After a few minutes of complete and utter silence- only broken by the sound of our breaths- Annabeth stood up and walked towards the stairs without a word, her face filled with new-found determination and devoid of any hesitation.

Her footsteps echoed throughout the spacious living room as she climbed the stairs towards the training area-where Percy was bound to be-, leaving us in wonder about what she was going to say to Percy.

"So, what are we going to do about this…situation?" Grover spoke up in a quiet voice when Annabeth's footsteps could no longer be heard.

"What can we do about this situation? It's way out of our league," Thalia spoke up. I looked at her and saw her glaring at nothing in particular. I could literally feel the waves of frustration rolling off her.

I could understand her plight. Frustration was also starting to boil in me as well. What could I do in this situation? I may be the son of one of the most successful businessmen in the world, but money couldn't solve everything. It wasn't like I could just give Luke a million dollars and tell him to get his ass out of our lives.

"Nico, you seem to be the least shocked about all of this. Did you know this beforehand?" Grover asked in a curious tone. All their eyes landed on me, demanding an explanation.

"My dad told me of Luke's identity, so I was a little bit less shocked. Most of the information Percy told us was new to me as well, though," I replied.

Thalia sighed and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders tensed up. I could only imagine what sort of feelings she was feeling.

Luke had been in her past. He had committed an unpardonable sin to her. He had caused her to feel despair and hopelessness like no other.

To discover such a sad and tragic backstory of a guy whom she thought was a fake and a cruel, sadistic bastard must have shocked her to the very core.

Quietly, I walked to her and sat down beside her, wrapping my arm around her and pulling her closer to me. I could feel her shoulders stiffen for the tiniest fraction of a second before relaxing again as she realised it was me who was holding her.

"We still haven't really discovered much about Percy's time in Tartarus, though," Jason pointed out something that we hadn't realised.

Percy had revealed a lot- the murder of his parents, what happened to him after that and so on, but he had not elaborated on what had happened to him throughout his time in Tartarus.

Jason's statement jogged my memory and I suddenly remembered what my dad had asked me to do.

"When I was talking to my dad about Percy, he asked me to try to find out if Percy had gone by the title 'The Slaughtering Knight' in the past," chills crept down my spine as his supposed title came out of my mouth.

It wasn't exactly the happiest thing in the world that anyone would hear.

The atmosphere seemed to turn colder as the words left my mouth. Grover shuffled on his feet and Piper bit her fingernail as they tried to internalise and ponder upon what the title suggested about Percy's time in Tartarus.

"I can't imagine him…actually, I can," Thalia said, horror starting to creep into her voice.

Her words sparked memories in my mind. The many times when Percy seemed to do a one-eighty turn in terms of personality, the times when he just seemed to transform into a completely different persona in the middle of spars, the moments where his eyes suddenly turn from their usual warm, friendly and mysterious sea-green look into a cold, dull, emotionless steel gaze-they were all signs and symptoms that convinced us that Percy could very well have been a cold-blooded slaughterer in his past.

The very thought made my heart beat thunderously as fear coursed through my veins.

"I refuse to jump to conclusions before I hear it from Percy myself, though," Thalia's firm voice broke through the cloud of fear and anxiety that had invaded my mind, allowing me to think clearly again.

I sighed heavily and relaxed fully into the plush sofa, emotionally and mentally exhausted due to everything that had been going on lately. It was so much to take in at once.

Also, as I meditated and thought about the new information, I realised that the more I found out, the more questions I had to ask.

Was Percy really a cold-blooded killer in the past? Was he named 'The Slaughtering Knight'? Is he still able to kill someone in cold blood? Who had murdered his parents?

The weirdest and strangest question I had thought up was- why hadn't Luke recognised Percy?

If what Percy had said was true, Luke should not have been surprised by Percy's fighting prowess at all. If they had been as close as how Percy had described, Luke should have known Percy the very second he laid his eyes upon Percy.

So why hadn't Luke recognised Percy? Stranger still- why wasn't Percy surprised that Luke didn't remember him?

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed heavily once again. There was only one way to find out- well, two ways actually. Either ask Luke or Percy, but Luke was an obviously big 'no', so that left Percy as the only choice.

Doubts and worries plagued my mind. I was ashamed to admit, but the recent events kept injecting doubt about Percy into my mind. Though the larger part of me insists that Percy is the gentle and kind boy I know, a small part of me keeps stubbornly screaming at my mind that Percy could very well be our future killer.

For the third time, I sighed again. Who knew what would happen in the coming days. All I knew- and it was by a gut feeling- that the next few weeks or perhaps months of my life certainly weren't going to be a breeze.

I closed my eyes and silently prayed to the gods.