I do not own PJO or A:TLA

Chapter 34

With one hand holding the front of the guy's shirt, Percy dragged him into a nearby pub and slammed him into a chair. The guy muffled a grunt of pain as he was roughly handled, causing Aang to chew his lip nervously and glance at Percy's dark face.

The pub was dark for the middle of the day, there was a young woman sweeping the floors and an older guy busing the tables as well as two small groups of people, huddled in opposite corners of the room.

After forcing the guy into a chair, Percy sat down heavily across the table from him, Aang at his side.

The guy was wearing black jeans with the holes in the knees, a soft, grey long sleeved shirt that he had pulled up to his elbows. The long shirt fit his broad shoulders nicely and hung on his tall, skinny frame like it was supposed to. He had a thick, leather bracelet on this wrist that he immediately started playing with once Percy released him.

He was tall and handsome, like most demi-gods. Lean and fit with striking eyes. Even Percy had to admit he was good-looking, for an Ares kid, at least. That thought just seemed to piss him off anymore.

"I'll get us some drinks..." Katara shuffled awkwardly before moving off to the bar. The woman put down her broom to meet her and bowed a lot while taking her order.

"So..." Percy looked the guy up and down, trying to see if he recognized him from camp or even from Kronos' army. But his grimy face wasn't ringing any bells. "I'll ask again, who are you?"

"I dunno what you want from me, man." He answered, shrugging. He had tattoos all over his chest. Percy could see them when Pete's shirt slipped a little. He had a few on this arms too. "My names Pete, if that's what you mean. I'm twenty-two, son of Ares... I'm a Leo, I like long walks on the beach...?"

"Oh, shut up." Percy snarled, not in the mood for any cheekiness. "Stop doing that."

"I'm not doin' anythin'!"

"You're manipulating me!" Percy slammed his hand down on the table, he was so angry he felt like his head was going to explode. He hated it when Ares did this to him but he didn't know any of his kids had this power... It just messed him up and made him mad for their own amusement. It felt like the worst violation of privacy, to just play someone like that. "Stop messing with my mind!"

"Percy," Aang tried to make peace. "Calm down, he's just sitting there."

"Oh..." The guy looked guilty. "Look, sorry. I was doin' that. My bad, man." His voice was thick and had an almost drawl to it. It stopped grating on Percy's brain and started sounding soothing to him instead.

The anger boiled down into a simmer and Percy regained control of himself again.

"Sorry, man. I do that sometimes... Just when I feel threatened or somethin'. Didn't realize I was doin' it just then."

Percy just huffed in indignation, choking down a retort when Katara set down their drinks on the table. Big cups filled with some cool, fruity drink.

"Thanks, Katara!" Aang grabbed his and took a big sip. "See? We're all friends here!"

Percy could tell Aang was nervous. Even though peacemaking was kind of his *thing*, Aang never really liked telling his friends what to do.

Katara sat down beside Aang and set a huge, steaming plate of some sort of deep-fried meat down. It looked delicious and the smell alone made Percy's mouth water. She pushed the plate a little closer to Pete. "You should eat. You look starved." She said kindly.

Pete looked at her with gratitude and shoved three sticks in his mouth. "'Fank yoo..."

"Don't mention it." She smiled politely.

Percy took one and hesitantly took a bite. "Hey, these are actually pretty good."

They all continued to eat and drink in silence until Pete managed to get his breath again. "I haven't eaten in a couple days." He supplied shyly.

"I'll go get more." Katara got up, her motherly instincts kicking in, even though this guy was almost ten years older than her and had tried to throw an axe at her only moments ago.

"So, Pete." Aang started. "We heard from a hippocampus that you were, uh, trying to kill it?"

Pete looked sullen. "Yeah, I was."

"But why?" Aang leaned closer, hands on the table. "From what I hear, they're good, harmless animals. Killing for sport is... is... it's just wrong!"

"Have I ever see you at camp?" Percy asked suddenly, breaking into the conversation.

Pete shook his head. "Nah... I'm not- I don't go there anymore."

"Did you fight for Kronos then?"

"No."

"Then where were you? Where were you when we were being slaughtered? When you're own cabin refused to fight?" Percy was indignant. Maybe Silena's death had been even more pointless and wrong than he had thought before.

"Look, man..." Pete just looked sad, hardly trying to defend himself. "It wasn't my choice..." He looked around the room nervously and let out a huge breath of air. "My name is Peter O'Neil, are you sure you don't know about me?"

Percy shook his head. Whatever this guy was getting at, Percy didn't know his story.

Pete ran his fingers through the short, brown hair and slumped in his chair. He didn't even glance up when Katara returned with more food and took her place next to Aang. "They really did erase me, then..." He said quietly, to himself. "Well, I am a son of Ares, but back before you even knew what you were, he publicly disowned me and kicked me out of the Ares cabin."

"What?" Percy was shocked. "They can do that?"

"Yeah..." Pete started eating again, slower this time. "Apparently. Uh, I wasn't what my dad wanted. I am, quite literally, a lover, not a fighter.

My mom was a rockstar when she met dad. Like, almost famous. Gettin drunk every night, gettin high every day. She was arrested fourteen times for fighting in the streets after shows. But after she got pregnant with me, she really cleaned up. She got sober, became an honest musician and worked really hard to raise me right. And when I was thirteen, we found out I was a demi-god and that she had stage three ovarian cancer. She only lasted six months after we found out... Uh, we did everything we could but we just didn't have the cash for the right treatment and her body had really been used up back in her party days. She said to me, before she died,

'I know you have anger in your soul and war in your blood, but don't fight. Let peace and love and kindness be what you are.'

I fought really hard to help her. I got Chiron to call my dad one day and I begged him to save her, but he didn't. Said he couldn't 'interfere' or somethin'... But it was fine. She died and I lived at camp full time for a while. But I took my mom's last request of me very seriously. I found out I could make people angry, but I never used it on purpose even though everyone told me how useful it'd be in a fight. I was kind of friends with Luke back then, too. But I could just see his anger his poison on his heart..."

Pete trailed off and was quiet for a moment.

Katara and Aang looked as heartbroken as Percy felt. His anger and annoyance had melted away and he was once again reminded of how bad the gods could be. They were supposed to be the "Good Guys" and yet, they hardly cared about their own kids.

Pete broke off his trance and started his story again. "I can also do that... It's weird, I can almost sense when someone is so angry they wanna kill or somethin'. I can't really explain it. I got a quest, then, one year. My dad said if I proved myself, I could become Cabin Leader and finally make him proud, but I couldn't do it. What he asked of me... It was terrible. To start this massive war between the gods, his own family. My own family. I didn't want that. I refused and he kicked me out. But I had promised my mom, ya know? Promised her to be good. So I did. I went to see Luke a couple times after he left Camp, too... I tried to convince him to just let it go and stop being angry but he never listened to me. He couldn't."

Percy nodded his head. "I know. He was too angry. But he made the right choice in the end. He saved us. Luke's a hero again."

Pete smiled softly. "I heard rumors but I thought they were too good to be true. That makes me happy, man. Really does."

"I'm so sorry." Katara breathed softly. "To be treated like that by your own dad." She touched her Water Tribe necklace. "I lost my mother too, when I was little. I'm sorry."

Pete shrugged and looked away. "Just life, man... can't be helped." He half-smiled at her. "I'm not mad anymore... made my peace, ya know?"

Aang's huge grey eyes remained only slightly sad, but they were focused. "So why were you trying to kill the hippocampus?"

"I said that I can... feel when someone wants blood and war. Well, I found some guys that were really unhappy with Poseidon over something. They were gunna try to start another war, so I tried to get them to, well, not. They wanted hippocampus scales to appease them, so I was going to get them for them... I didn't realize that the hippocampuses were so precious. Being kicked out of camp and everything I never learned really a lot of stuff. But I was going to do it, better the blood of a hippocampus than thousands of demi-gods, I thought."

"HEEEEYYYYY!"

The door of the pub swung open viciously and then swung back again, knocking the figure that had opened it backwards into the street on his behind.

Percy stifled a snort of laughter as Sokka army crawled under the swinging doors and flopped on his back, grinning happily at Katara. "My sissssssssssssssssster!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She asked, deadpan.

Toph appeared over him, laughing and blushing. "We, uh, may have found some suspicious looking drinks in Zuko's fancy cellar."

"His wine cellar, maybe?" Katara demanded.

"Yeah, maybe."

"You're twelve, Toph!"

"I just had a little sip! It tasted gross. But Sokka liked it. He drank a whole bottle by himself!"

"Yeah, Toph said I couldn't but I did."

Katara shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Sokka," Aang airbended the older boy up to his feet and helped him to a chair. "You smell awful."

"Where's Suki?" Katara asked.

"Suki?" Sokka thought hard. "She's pretty. But Toph is pretty too! She takes caaaaaaaare of meeeeee."

He leaned into the smaller girl and she pushed him off, small, hard arms righting him.

"Who's the creep?" Toph nodded to Pete.

"He's from Percy's world." Aang supplied. "He was just in the middle of telling us why it's justified to kill a whole bunch of innocent animals."

"He's a bit of an environmentalist." Percy said to Pete.

Katara water bended a snowball in Sokka's face. He shook it off and grinned, dopey eyed at her. "Yoooooou always doooo that."

"I'm going to get you some water to drink." She said, getting up.

"Look, man." Pete said after she left. "I don' want trouble. I just wanna get home. This place is weird. I feel like I had a bad trip or somethin'."

"A trip?" Aang asked.

"A drug trip. " Percy rolled his eyes. "What? You're a drug addict too?"

Pete shrugged. "I've used before, man. I lived on the streets a lot, it's just the culture there. Don' like it too much. But anyways, what I was about to say. This place ain't right. There's a lot of war here. I don't know if you guys know this, but something really big went down yesterday. Like, the biggest thing I've ever felt in my life."

Aang glanced at Percy and Toph with surprise and laughed a little. "Yeah, something big as in the end of a One Hundred Year War?"

Percy patted Pete on the shoulder. "This is Aang. He's the Avatar here, which basically means he's the most powerful being on the planet."

Pete looked the kid up and down. Even though he had grown a lot since waking up in the iceberg and even from a few days ago when Percy met him, his open, trusting face and flowing yellow wraps and kind eyes didn't look as threatening as it couldd.

"You?" Pete asked in disbelief. "Actually, that makes sense, how you guys found me then. Anyways, I feel obligated to tell you that the fighting's not really over yet."

Aang's shoulders sagged a bit. "I know. We have a lot to do before balance and peace can enter the world again."

"Yeah, but what about those guys?" Pete nodded to one of the small groups at the end of the pub. "They're really mad. Angry enough to kill."

"Kill?" Sokka whirled around and stared at the guys. "Kill who? Me?"

Pete nodded. "If you're with the Arrow kid, then yeah. Kill you too. I could feel it as soon as we walked in. Those guys hate you. Right now, they're plotting something bad. They want war."

Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Honestly, when I added Pete I was like "i have no idea what I'm gunna do with this dude." but I couldn't get the idea out of my head! So I waited a few days and this GREAT idea came to me! Thanks for being patient with my slow updates :)

Byyyyyeeeeeeeeee