Chapter 7, A Dilemma Revealed


Present Time, Training Room, Argo II ~


Nico had noticed something that seemed off about Percy's aura since his return. The normally light and pure hearted green aura of happiness the son of Poseidon usually had was now tainted with streaks of oily black and blood red energy. Nico was also worried about his cousin's mental health. He watched as Percy seemed to simply bottle up his feelings, even after finding out that his longtime girlfriend had cheated on him, Percy didn't allow any of his friends any insight into how he was dealing with both escaping Hell only to find out about Annabeth. As Nico was inspecting his brother in all but blood he did however notice two important things. One, there was a single tear slowly falling down his face. Two, Percy was repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists. Before Nico could address these things, the 4 demigods reached the training room.

"Alright guys, who wants to spar first?" Percy asked in faked excitement, which none of his friends blamed him for. As he said this all 4 demigods drew their respective weaponry.

"I got first dibs on you, Percy." Jason said with a laugh as he steadied into his combat stance. Percy just laughed before entering his own combat stance. Nico glanced at Frank and nodded towards the open part of the room to which Frank started walking to.

"I guess it is finally time for me to judge you Frank, let's see if you are worthy of my sister." Nico said as an ominous black glow shined from his dark onyx eyes. Frank gulped as he readied his stance and took a deep breath to steady his spear arm. Nico watched as the tall baby faced Asian in front of him went from an unconfident statue to a calm, composed, and extremely confident stance. Nico watched as the demeanor of the son of Mars went from a foot soldier to a general in a matter of seconds. This level of battle readiness was something Nico has only seen in a few; Percy, Jason, Thalia, Clarisse, and himself are the few that come to mind.

Nico hoped that this would be a thrilling fight.


Same Time, Training Room, Argo II ~


Frank was really annoyed. This god's damned headache would just not stop. Frank was sick of listening to both forms of his father argue in his head. Frank did his best to drown out the two war gods in his head as Nico started to speak to him.

"I guess it is finally time for me to judge you Frank, let's see if you are worthy of my sister." Nico said as his onyx eyes glowed ominously. Frank gulped as Ares' voice started to pick up in his head.

"You can't let this skinny twerp speak to you like that, KILL HIM!" The Greek war god yelled, making Frank's headache even worse. Frank drowned out Ares and Mars before the Roman war god could say anything. Frank settled his face into the same expression his father uses before running towards Nico with his spear pointed to Nico's left. Seconds before his spear head would impact against the son of Hades' skin he shifted to the right and slammed the bottom of his spear into Nico's right arm. This blow jarred Nico long enough for Frank to rotate the spearhead back towards Nico's left arm and land a grazing blow. However, before Frank could step back Nico responded with two quick strikes to Frank's torso.

Frank managed to dodge just enough for the strikes to not break his skin yet they did cut his shirt. This time Frank went back on the offensive and forced Nico to keep his distance from the quick spear strikes of the War God's Son. Nico was forced to fight defensively lest he get skewered. Before either Demigod could make another move they were interrupted by Jason's body getting thrown between them. They both shot their gazes towards Percy only to see a blank and limitless expression on his face as he slowly walked towards them, clenching Riptide in his hand.

"Watch out! He's trapped in his mind and thinks he's back in Tartarus!" The son of Jupiter yelled from behind them as he stood back up. Nico shared a look of panic with Frank before the two demigods returned to their respective battle stances in hopes of snapping the manic son of Poseidon in front of them.


Mere Minutes Earlier, Training Room, Argo II


Jason was being pushed back hard by Percy. Sparring with Percy was like swimming upriver during a storm, the son of Poseidon being the storm. The bronze blade of Riptide was glinting as it sang through the air, crashing into the gold blade of Ivilus, before quickly swinging another direction almost too fast for Jason to keep up. So Jason dropped back into the instinctually fighting style he used against Percy before.

The change in pace was immediate.

From an outside point of view the two fighting princes blades were mere blurs of gold and bronze as they repeatedly clashed against each other. For both demigods however, their blades were moving in slow motion due to the extreme adrenaline pumping through their veins. Jason parried Riptide and landed a small cut across Percy's forearm before Riptide shot back forward with Jason dodging out of the way. As Jason got back into his stance he noticed that Percy was looking at his blood slowly dripping from the small cut and went to apologize before he caught sight of the Prince of Sea's listless expression, it was almost as if the man in front of him was having a flashback….. Oh shit… He was.

Jason could not have reacted fast enough to dodge the son of the sea's next attack.

Percy landed a hard punch to Jason's face that sent him flying. It was only thanks to his control over mind that allowed him to stop rolling. He had to tell the others.

"Watch out! He's trapped in his mind and thinks he's back in Tartarus!" Jason yelled out as he stood up and felt the blood rolling down from his now broken nose. Jason noticed Frank and Nico preparing themselves for a battle, but he had other ideas. Jason flipped Ivilus into its spear form, charged it with lightning, then threw towards Percy like the giant lightning bolt it was. As Percy was distracted by the large lighting bolt heading towards him Jason was running right at him. Just as Percy parried the spear, he didn't account for Jason spear-tackling him to the ground. Jason felt another body land on top of him and help hold the manic man down to the ground, figuring it was Nico considering how light weight they felt.

"Hold on Nico!" Jason breathed out before he started releasing large static charges into Percy's body, not enough to hurt but enough to knock him out, however it was painful enough for Percy to scream in pain. As Jason was in the process of doing this Frank had run up, shifted into a gorilla, and picked up all three of them like they were nothing but held them tight and pushed his weight into the ground in hopes of Percy not breaking any of the grapples holding him down.

Eventually, it worked.

Between Jason's static charge and the weight of two demigods and a gorilla, Percy finally passed out due to fatigue.

The three still conscious demigods let out sighs of relief.

It was clear to all of them that Percy was dangerously tipping over the edge of manic episodes, and it made sense to them. How could any of them expect their friend to recover after only a little over a week's time?


Same Time, Starboard Deck, Argo II ~


Annabeth was scared and hurt. She had thought that Thalia of all people would never turn on her. She didn't even do anything wrong! So what if she was stuck between two different men that she was both dating at the same time. Thalia and all of her friends should be on her side! She knew them all longer than Percy did! Well besides Frank and Hazel but that's beside her point. How was she supposed to know that her actions would eventually blow over onto Percy?

That was a dumb question her consciousness said.

Annabeth was broken out of her thoughts by another slap to the face, however this time it wasn't from Thalia but from Hazel, and it hurt a lot more. Annabeth was actually knocked to the ground by the shorter girl's slap, she could hear the Hunters laughing at her fall, they also heard the revelation that she had been cheating, she supposed.

"See Annabeth? Even the Hunters who hate men are mad at you! Your actions are the exact same as the men who hurt them!" Thalia yelled angrily at the downed daughter of Athena before all of the Hunter's returned below deck. Before anyone else could leave they all heard some indistinct yelling that sounded like Jason coming from below deck. Hazel and Piper bolted down to see what was going on with Annabeth stumbling behind them with a bruised and slightly burned cheek.

As they were heading towards the training room they all heard Percy start screaming in pain.

The three girls picked up their pace and sprinted to the training room where they came upon a knocked out Percy and three incredibly exhausted and rattled demigods sitting around him. None of them seemed to notice the three enter as they were all quietly muttering amidst themselves.

"Percy!" Annabeth exclaimed as she tried to run to her boyfriend only to be stopped by a sword and spear being pointed at her. Somehow she didn't notice the two stand up quickly and draw their weapons in record time.

"You do not get to go near him." Jason hissed out, "Not after what you did to him."

Before Annabeth could respond, Nico also stood up and walked over to his knocked out cousin and placed a hand on his shoulder before they both shadow traveled out of the room.

"Let's calm down guys, we just want to know what happened here, okay?" Piper said softly, amplifying her voice with charmspeak. Jason sighed and returned his blade to it's coin form but Frank shrugged off the charmspeak and lowered his spear slightly. That surprised Annabeth, only Percy has shown he was able to counter the effects of charmspeak.

"Percy got a small cut during our spar and the sight of his own blood sent him into a flashback, he seemed to be stuck in it and tried to kill us so we decided to knock him out." Jason started with an expressionless face while Frank glared at Annabeth, "The screaming was from me shocking him with a static charge."

Hazel and Piper glanced at each other with an expression that said they had expected this.

Annabeth however was stuck in her own mind at the moment, if Percy had these episodes then maybe just maybe having them would cause him to forget she cheated on him and allow her to get back with him…

After all she deserves the fame of being the girlfriend of the strongest demigod…..


A little shorter than I would have liked but after rewriting the next She segment 5 times I decided to cut it from this chapter and have it in the next. Writer's block sucks, but it sucks even more when it is only for one of my stories.

Erebus, Signing off.