THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! IN CHAPTER 3, PERCY MENTIONS A FRIEND NAMED RAY, I ACCIDENTALLY WROTE THAT HE WAS THE SON OF EREBUS, HE'S NOT! HE'S THE SON OF AETHER, THE GOD OF LIGHT! SORRY FOR THE NOTE BUT IT'S CRUCIAL YOU KNOW THIS FOR….LATER.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything (really I don't) in the world of Percy jackson all rights to Rick Riordan.
Delirium's POV
I watch as Percy runs out of the room, his footfalls echoing in the chamber. I pick up the dagger that has fallen to the ground and read it's name, my brain instantly translates the greek inscription. Riptide. What a name. I wonder why it sounds so….familiar. I shake myself out of my thoughts and drop the dagger onto the table, then I slowly stand up and move towards the door, four others stand as well. I flash them a small smile, we'll find Percy together, were his friends, no, family after all, we'll always be there when he needs us. The room is in dead silence as we move toward the door, and I feel like someone's eyes on the back of my neck, probably hoping I'll turn arounds so the can try and to kill me with a look. Just as I'm about to push open the door I hear a shrill voice cry out, "Where do you think you're going?"
I turn around and look at the council, searching for the face that matches the voice, it's easy to tell if you know what to look for. Skimming over dozens of faces I finally lock eyes with a small frail woman sitting off to the side. She dosen't look more than 500 years old, but her gaze is filled with sorrow, as if she's seen too much sadness to allow a light to come to her eyes. I would feel bad if I wasn't so angry.
"We," I gesture to my friends, "are going to go help our friend and commander, because, he's probably not in the best place right now." I snap.
"There's no need," Order starts, "to do such a thing. Alpha will eventually obey the orders of his superiors and-"
"Stop!" I scream, cutting my aunt off. I glare at my father and my aunt, "What have you done?" I ask, my voice filled with sadness and pain, "How could you?" and with that I pulled open the white doors and raced out, my friends following close behind. I begin to stride through the corridors, the rest of the group falling in step with me. We turned another corner and walk down a flight of stairs. The halls are empty, which is unusual. There normally filled with dozens of residents going about their daily routine. Whatever the case I'm grateful. At least we won't be shoved against any walls, or worse, somehow, the word gets around that some of council members are in the hallway, and before you know it, everyone's clearing a path and bowing. I rub my hands up and down my arms, and attempt to collect my thoughts. We continued walking, looking into empty rooms and corridors, but we don't find anything. Finally we pass by the training room door, fully on the verge of giving up, we've been searching for over an hour! And just as were about the corner, a quiet voice whispers, "Someone's in there." We all turn towards the back of the group to see Ray, pointing towards the door. We quietly creep up and I slowly open the door. The room is deserted, except for the lone figure at the back hacking away at the straw dummies….with their bare hands. My heart soars and I rush forward to greet Percy, as we move towards the figure our footsteps make no sound on the padded floor. Coming closer, I start to wonder if it is Percy. The figure looks to slender to be him though, to pale as well. Just as I finish my thought the figure whips around, revealing a panting Tatina. My heart plummets, not because it's not Percy, but because I had forgotten that Tatiana had been hurt too. Stupid. I scold myself. Gently we approach her, Zachary reaching out to put a light hand on her shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Ray trying to suppress a smile at the two 'lovebirds', truth be told, I'm having a hard time keeping my emotions in check as well.
"Tatiana," I say, startling everyone out of the comfortable silence we were in, "have you seen Percy by any chance?" I watch as Tatiana's face turns into a frown,
"No. Why? Did something happen?"
"Well…" So we told her the whole story, from Percy's out burst to the fact that we were looking for him at the moment, as the story is told Tatiana's eyes light up with a strange sort of anger, and once the story is said and done Tatiana starts to swear, loudly.
"Did you guys check the gardens? The library? How about the-" Tatiana is quickly cut off by an impatient Ray.
"Look, we check everywhere. There's no where else he could be!"
"Did you check the water fall?" Tatiana asks, and we fall silent.
"We are a bunch of knuckleheads!" I shout. And everyone quickly follows me out of the training room, past the gallery, up a row of stairs to the library. We move past rows and rows of bookshelves, the books getting older and duster as we move along. I silently cran my head to look at the covers, they have the most…. interesting names. A blue book titled Forging the Death Cure, a red one titled, The End of the World, and Why Wikipedia Is Unreliable, and a huge book with black lettering, the pages are yellow and worn, the spin is cracked and it looks like it would explode with the slightest touch, yet, the cover gleams, and the iron letters shine, The Book of Life is spelled out across the cover. I shudder and continue towards the back of the room. We reach a small corner, it's single light bulb long dead. The corner is alone, and abandoned. There in front of us stands a door. Barely a meter tall and only about 50 cm (A/N that's about 3 feet and 19 inches for you americans!) wide. It's small, that's for sure. Silently I bend down and turn the old brass knob. the door swings open and I crouch down, just barely managing to squeeze through the small opening. I'm in a narrow tunnel, the smooth, hard stone sits uncomfortably under my knees. Slowly I begin to move forward, carefully counting the seconds that pass in my head, there's no light and only pure memory stops me from getting lost. 20 seconds, turn left, move forward, 80 seconds, turn right, then turn left in 5 seconds, in 30 seconds stop, and allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness. Time passes, and slowly my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness. I continue my 'journey' and slowly, I start to feel a subtle shift in the rock, slowly, the smooth stone becomes harder, more rocky, and the tunnel starts to slant upward. Soon, I'm reaching for the well memorised hand holds as the tunnel continue to move upward. Until it is as though I'm going up a straight line. "It's like trying to climb up a rock wall, or the highest part of the roller-coaster," I muttered and then I stop, "and now I'm at the top." I stop, and nerve wreckingly slowly I bring my feet in, curl myself into a ball, close my eyes, and hurl myself forward. Even after all this time, I still expect to be greeted with stone as I roll, no, fall, down. Instead I'm met with inky darkness, the scent of lavenders that hangs in the air so overwhelming it's sicking. I continue to fall, losing all sense of direction, and I don't recommend it if you can't stomach shadow traveling. Because, hands down, this is five times worse. I can feel the wind whistle past my ears and I want to scream, but before I know it there's light seeping in through my eyelids. My eyes snap open and I tuck into a roll as the ground rushes up to meet me.
Percy P.O.V
I'm sitting alone at the bottom of the waterfall, the water surrounding me gives me a small amount of peace. But nothing can ease the guilt in my stochame. I'm the leader, I'm suppose to be the strong one. Instead, I broke down at the slightest mention of the place I left almost a century ago. I'm pathetic is all I can think at the moment. I wonder if they've replaced me already? Lord Ch-, no, not lord, Chaos has probably booted me off the council right about now. My sad train of thought continued, till I saw a stone sink down beside me. Then another, and another. Someone's throwing rocks at me? I briefly I notice something, the rocks aren't hitting me, in fact they keep landing in the same spot. So, if someone's not hitting me, that must mean….someone trying to get my attention! Quickly I push off from the bottom of the 'lake' and swim upwards. I burst through the water, and I'm met with the (surprising) quiet sound of the waterfall. I turn, (swim?) in a circle. And then I see her. Delirium, she's looking at me from the mouth of the tunnel, which is located about 10 steps away, a small pile of rocks in her hand. When she sees me she quickly walks over. Kneeling down near the water she whispers, "5 seconds,"
"What?" I ask, although there's no need I get my answer soon enough. With a small thump, Oliver rolls out of the tunnel. He looks up, smiles and calls, "1 minute!" By the time Oliver stands up, dusts himself off and walks over to us, Kirsten is rolling out of the tunnel. She followed the routine her brother did, calls out the time before the next arrival, stands up, dusts herself off, walks over to us. Next is Ray, then Artemis, Zachary follows and with a loud "Whoop!" Tatiana finishes off our group. When Tatiana reach us she cocks her head and asks, "Can we come in?" For a second, I just stare at her, until I finally manage to stammer out, "Sure. Why not? But, your clothes?" I ask.
"Not a problem," she responded, "everyone, change!" Quickly everyone brings their left hand up. On each ring finger there a, duh, ring. I had completely forgotten about our rings, which is weird, considering I used mine an hour ago. Each ring has a small opal on it, and basically, when you touch the opal, and concentrate, the opal can change your appearance. Before I know it, there's 6 flashes and everyone's wearing bathingsuits. Well, if you can call them bathing suits. They girls are all wearing wetsuits (A/N Wetsuits are often used for scuba diving) and they guys are wearing swim trunks. I swear, Kirsten's face was so red her freckles are unnoticeable. Quickly they jumped in. And we had a splash war. That is, we had one when Kirsten manges to stop blushing every time one of the guys turns to her. Seriously though, hasn't she ever seen a shirtless boy when she does first-aid? But anyway, we had a splash fight. Which I won, obviously. For a few minutes, I forget that the world is in danger. Until Artemis brings it up.
"So Percy, what should we pack? Since you're our resident expert and all," Artemis asked causally. For a minute there's silence, and I try to process what Artemis has just said, when everything clicks into place I let out a sigh. And pull myself out of the water.
"I'm not going," I mumble as I sink down onto the riverbank. (or is it called a waterfall bank?)
"Percy," Zachary starts.
"Guys no. You don't get it. And I don't expect you to, but, I just can't go back. I just….can't."
"Percy, please. Listen to us, we know you were hurt, are still hurt, but, many of the demigods that are at camp today weren't even around when you were there. They don't deserve to die because of their comrades past mistakes do they?" We all turn towards the back of the group, where Ray has spoken up.
"Well, no, but-" I start and then Oliver cuts me off.
"And," Oliver tacks on, "didn't you say that the romans did nothing wrong? They don't deserve death do they?"
"Plus, we can't fight without our commander," Delirium adds. For a moment a frown, they are right but…. "Percy," Delirium starts, "let me add one more thing that I'm sure will convince you." Delirium pauses and looks up at me from where she's treading water. I raise my eyebrows in a 'go on' gesture. "Percy, a few years ago my "Plus, we can't fight without our commander," Delirium adds. For a moment a frown, they are right but…. "Percy," Delirium starts, "let me add one more thing that I'm sure will convince you." Delirium pauses and looks up at me from where she's treading water. I raise my eyebrows in a 'go on' gesture. "Percy, a few years ago my father felt a massive surge between the living and the dead. Someone had granted a large, and by large I mean large, group of people immortality. Percy, among those were several demigods, you know from your time," I frowned at that, "and your mother." I felt my eyes widened, I thought my mother had died a long time ago, and because Chaos refused to let me see her (I never did forgive him for that) my suspicion had been that she had died. And when Tatiana mentioned after one of her missions that my mother and Paul had a child, I had just assumed that they had forgotten about me, but I never forgot her, them. Delirium smiled, "I know you'll want to see them. And plus, we care about you Percy, we're the ones you'll be fighting with, we won't ever abandon you, or let anyone hurt you. We promised remember?" I look at Delirium, then my friends, no, family and slowly, ever so slowly I feel something old but familiar course through my veins, it's a need. A need to protect them and care for them, to bear the weight of the sky so they wouldn't have to, a need to dish out pain and suffering to whoever gave them grief, a need to protect my family the ones I was loyal to. I feel a surge of guilt ran through me. I can't just abandoned my friends, I won't ever be able to live with myself, and then I think of my mother. My sweet, kind, loving mother, and then I just know, I'll go, I'll fight, and you can bet I'll protect my family with everything I've got. I look at my friends they're all looking at me, waiting. "Okay," I say, "I'll go."
Andd….I'm sorry. I really want to update and give you all a chapter for the weekend so sorry if that was just, meh. But, hopefully, I'll be able to update soon, and it'll be good. Sneak peak, next stop, Camp Half-Blood! Thank you to Giraffesplaycello, guest and Annabeth Chase for reviewing. And thank you to everyone that voted. In case you haven't guessed, 100 years won.