Percy's POV
Dream
I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of the cathedral that I had come to become so familiar with. However, before I could look around, the voice of my father snapped my attention and I turned around to look at him, and immediately noticed some differences already. He appeared around 2 inches taller than he had before, and as I looked at his aura, I noticed that it was much more powerful than it had ever been. I had noticed that with time, his aura continued to grow, but today, it seemed to have exploded and almost felt like it could rival grandmother's. I looked at him inquiringly, and he spoke. "I know that you thought that it would take me a year longer to return, but it appears father took mercy on me and sped up my reformation by a large amount, and now I'm back, and I have been able to restore my body to what it had once been". I couldn't help but smile as he said this because even though he was tough on me, he was still caring and when the training was a bit too hard for me, he'd let me take a rest and have a normal nights sleep. He looked at me with a smile on his face, something I rarely saw. He walked towards me and as soon as he was in front of me, he opened his arms and wrapped me in a warm hug that I couldn't help but return. After we separated, he said, "I have returned, and I would like you to join me in Hell so I can complete your training. I know that you didn't expect it so soon, but I fear an old threat rises, one that can threaten both worlds, and I want you to be ready to deal with the threat properly". I nodded but realised that if he trained me, I'd have to be away from Aphrodite and everyone I knew.
I looked up at him and asked, "How long will the training take?".
He looked at me for a second before replying, "It will at least take half a year". As soon as those words escaped his mouth, I was unsure as to what to do because on the one hand, I loved my family, and I enjoyed spending time with Aphrodite but I don't want to spend such a long time away from them. On the other hand, I wanted to get stronger, and I wanted to finally meet my dad in person. It was a hard choice to make and I didn't know which one to make. What should I do? I couldn't make up my mind and I closed my eyes as thoughts flew through my head, each thought running different scenarios through my head, making me even more anxious, and it would have continued this way had it not been for my father who put his hand on my shoulder, forcing me to look at him. "Percy, I know this is a hard decision for you to make, so how about we do this, every two weeks, you can visit your family. While this will delay your training by an extra month or two, but it will make things easier for you and that is what is important to me".
I looked at him gratefully as he said that and I couldn't help but give him a small smile. I gave him a gentle nod and he returned with a large smile. For the past few weeks, I'd been thinking about something, and I wanted to ask him, but I wasn't sure how to tell him, but I decided to ask him now, feeling there would be no better opportunity. "Dad, I have a question I've wanted to ask you for some time, can I ask you?". He hummed and I asked him a question I had been holding in for a long time. "You and mom are both immortal, why am I not?. His humming stopped abruptly as soon as these words escaped my mouth. He turned around and looked at me in the eyes, before letting out a deep sigh.
"You understand the situation surrounding your birth right?". I nodded. My father told me how after millions and millions of years of being the harbinger of death, Death wanted to be able to experience why it was that mortals always attempted to broker a deal with him when sent to retrieve their souls. He wanted to feel what it was like to be human, so he went up to my grandfather, and asked him a favour: to be reborn as a mortal but to regain his immortal form after the age of 40 and grandfather accepted and granted Death his wish, firmly believing that it was a way to repay his debt for his service for all these years. Reborn as Morfin Gaunt, he displayed great natural dark abilities at a young age and once he reached of age, he married a kind and gentle woman by the name of Estelle Jackson who was believed to come from a prominent, rich and later revealed, magical family and they had a kid, and my father was reborn as their kid. Death immediately recognising my father's aura, named him Lucifer Sakazar Gaunt, but after Death achieved his immortal form, he left my father with Estelle, who changed the Gaunt to Jackson. From there, my grandmother moved to Canada where she raised up my father before she died in a car accident. And from there, well the rest was obvious.
My father continued,"Now, it is very well known that when an immortal reproduces with an immortal, the child born will be an immortal, however, me and your mother are from two different pantheons, she the Greek, and I the Christian with me having been reforming in my human form and that makes things more complicated. Being adopted by Erebus and Nyx made this even more so, as they are beings with even more power than your mom, this made your blood incredibly potent. At the age of 25, you'll become immortal, but you will be forced to make a choice. Whether to remain and become a primordial with the Greeks, or become an archangel and replace me in Heaven". I stood there dumbfounded as he said this. I was supposed to become a primordial or an archangel. I was about to ponder on that more, but my dad said, "You have a week to say your goodbyes and everything. At 10 on Monday, I'll have someone pick you up and travel you here". I nodded and he snapped his fingers and the world around me began to spin and dissolve until my vision gave out.
Percy's POV
I woke up with a gasp and realised that I was in my room. I let out a small sigh of relief but realised that I'd have to tell everyone that I'd have to go and train with my father and that I won't be able to stay with them for a long time. How am I supposed to tell them that? It isn't something easy to tell. I can't just go up to them and be like "Hey guys, my dad asked for me and I'm going to go away for a year and a half to train with him. Bye". Ugh.
-Line Break
I'm not going to lie, but Aphrodite had some good advice on how I should tell everyone the news and contrary to what others believed, she was actually very nice, although she had an insane obsession with shopping. She really should do something about that. Maybe see a psychiatrist or something. I'm joking, she wasn't that bad. She was funny, kind, talkative, although sometimes too talkative, had a good sense of humour and, although it wasn't that relevant in my opinion, she was beautiful. She had a lot on her chest but she was still cheery and happy. I saw her almost 2 days ago, and we said goodbye as hard as it was, but the thing is, I felt a strange feeling in my gut that I had come to feel more often. I can't really describe it, but it was as if I didn't want her to leave. It was weird, this hasn't happened with anyone before, and I'm not sure why. I should probably talk to someone who knows what this is, but who?. Chronos? No, he doesn't know anything about this sort of stuff, which is surprising considering he's married. My dad? He doesn't care much about things like this. My moms? They'll ask too many questions, so no. Now, who do I know that has experience with this sort of stuff, and won't make fun of me or ask too many questions. Pontus? No. Tartarus? No way. Gaia? She'll just try to make me eat more cereal. Hemera? She'll just end up talking about how annoying Aether is. Eros? He has experience when it comes to feelings, he won't ask too many questions, and he will have some good advice. Yeah, I'll go to him.
I quickly shadow travelled myself to his palace, internally vomiting as soon as my eyes set on it. The design of the palace itself wasn't too bad, but good lord, the colour made me wanna vomit buckets. The palace was made of bubblegum pink with a continuous smell of expensive perfume. And then, there was the previous doorman Eros had, or doorwoman if I'm being accurate. Why for Chaos' sake did he need to have a nude woman as his doorwoman. What made it worse was that before they were put in a different palace, she would constantly give me pointless tips on what a woman likes during ... intercourse. I of course blatantly ignored this, and whenever I planned on visiting the palace tried to avoid her, but sometimes it was inevitable. After complaining to my mom about this, she shouted at Eros and made him remove her. But Eros being Eros, he chose to simply have her be the doorman to the other palace he had. I shook these thoughts out of my mind and knocked on the door.
After a few seconds, my uncle opened the door in all his naked glory. No, I'm joking, he opened the door wearing light blue jeans and a white polo shirt. He looked at me and asked, "Well Perce, I see you've finally come to me, so what do you need advice on. Getting laid, seducing women, sex adv-"
"No, I don't need advice on things like that, it's something else" I cut him off.
He looked slightly offended that I butted in, but he nodded and moved out of the way and let me in. I made sure to avoid all the lewd pictures he had on the wall of numerous sexual positions and made my way to the living room where there were four loveseats, a large pink couch, 2 purple chairs, a tea table, and some beanbags where. I gracefully sat down on one of the chairs and within the minute, Eros lazily sat on one of the loveseats. "So what's got your panties in a twist?".
I had to stop myself from commenting on that and grit my teeth for a few seconds before giving a small sigh. "Lately, I've been having these strange feelings when I'm with Aphrodite and I'm not sure what they are". He nodded and after a few seconds looked at me expectantly. "What?"
He looked at me for a second before replying, "Well go on then, tell me what these strange feelings are?".
"Oohhh" was my highly intelligent reply before I continued. "Whenever we talk, I feel this strange warm feeling in my chest and when she looks at me my stomach does a flip. I find myself wanting to be closer to her than normal and I enjoy spending time with her more than anything and whenever we have to separate to go to our ways, I felt this strange sense of dread wash over me and don't want her to leave".
I looked up and stared at Eros who for a second seemed to be stuck in time, that did not however last long as within a few seconds he started laughing. And I don't mean normal laughing, but hysterical I'm about to die laughing. I was about to ask him what was so funny, but he fell off his seat and continued laughing on the floor. Deciding that I needed his advice on what to do, I decided to be patient with him, and after what seemed like ages, but was 3 minutes, he stopped laughing and wiped a tear from his eyes. I looked at him expectantly and he said, "Oh my god, how can someone be so dense. Honestly, I've never met anyone so stupid in my life. It's so obvious what's happening Percy, and yet you don't understand what's happening."
Still not getting what he was talking about, I calmly asked, "What are you talking about Eros? Just tell me what's happening to me".
He looked at me for a second and said, "It's so obvious Percy, you have a crush on little old Aphrodite. It's soo obvious I'm surprised you didn't figure this out sooner". I looked at him with disbelief, waiting for him to shout "I'm joking" in a second, but when he didn't, I felt lost for words. Surely he was wrong. There was no way that I, Perseus Salazar Jackson, had a crush on Aphrodite. That just didn't make logical sense. We were friends, just friends. But now that I think about it, Aphrodite has been acting a bit strange lately. She constantly accidentally holds my hand, she constantly gives me hugs that last for over a minute and she always stands close to me. "But that's because you're best friends," I told myself. Yeah, that's it, she did that because were best friends. I snapped out of my thought and looked at Eros, "You're wrong, there's no way I like her. You must be getting old or something because what you said makes no logical sense and could never happen".
Eros shook his head and said, "That is where you're wrong Percy, I have been the primordial of procreation for many years, I can tell when someone feels some form of romantic feelings towards someone, and as for your argument, love does not bend itself to obey logic, it is illogical, that is why love can come from the strangest of places, it defies all logic".
"YOU'RE WRONG, JUST STOP WITH YOUR LIES" I screamed at him, getting angrier with every word he said.
He looked at me with pity and gently replied, "Why do you deny the obvious Percy, what are you afraid of? Rejection? Being cheated on? Being replaced? Tell me. I can help you, Percy, all you have to do is ask and I will help you. You just have to open u-". I didn't bother to listen to him and shadow travelled myself to my room where I lay on my bed with tears rolling down my face.