PERCY

"Two weeks?"

He was furious and making no attempt to hide it from his father.

Poseidon had conveniently neglected to tell Percy that he'd take more than one day to wake up - in fact he'd taken three. Then Percy had helped his father to enchant the outskirts of Atlantis. He should've known better than to rely on Poseidon to keep him updated on time.

"What difference does it make, Percy? Really, I don't understand why this is so upsetting."

"What difference?" Percy tired to breathe, a funny notion while underwater. "The difference," he continued a little more calmly, "is that my friends don't know where I am and literally need me to complete the quest. That doesn't sound like it'd be a little upsetting to you?"

Poseidon brushed off the question with a shrug. "But you've been here with me. If they knew that surely they'd be fine. They may need you in the future, Percy, but you're also needed here with me. Look how much we've accomplished! We only have a bit more ground to cover before you can be on your way again." He paused dramatically before adding, "Unless you want to leave now and abandon your old man to do it all himself."

"My old man is a god," Percy countered, raising his eyebrows.

The sea god smiled sheepishly. "Right! Of course. I take that back. You will be on your way soon though, don't you worry about that."

"Let's go then," Percy said, allowing Poseidon and his victorious expression to go ahead and following somewhat remissly behind.


The ledge they approached would barely have passed for the base of a dirt mound on land, but the way Poseidon inspected it with such despondency gave Percy the impression it was more than a little incline in the sea floor.

"What is it?" he said, coming up to stand next to his now fishtailed father.

"A hill," the god said plainly. "The top is above the water."

"How can you tell?"

His father chuckled. "As you clearly pointed out, I am a god. I know things."

"Right," Percy said quietly. Nice going, seaweed brain. Can't even ask the right questions.

"And I've been patrolling the upper waters so I've noticed over time," he continued, shooting Percy a reassuring smile. "It is a piece of Atlantis, fully submerged not two months ago. But now I'm afraid - " His voice trailed off as he moved back around the incline. "We'll begin here." And they picked up the process of moving rocks and placing the largest of them around the perimeter, a very intricate and very misshaped line that Poseidon identified to Percy every time he went to set a piece down.

"So if this is a piece of Atlantis why are we cutting it out of the circle?" Percy said as he was directed to move far around the base of the underwater hill.

His father sighed. "The island has become the refuge of the god Lelantos," he said stiffly.

"Never heard of him," Percy said.

"He's a minor-god, that's probably why. Not very well known in the mortal world; or in the immortal one for that matter. His father is Koios, one of our current foes as you well know. He would not be a problem or a threat if he were not sympathetic to his father's cause."

"But he is. Awesome."

"Unfortunately, yes. By removing this portion of the city, at least we'll be able to keep him from doing any damage here. He won't be able to enter anywhere above or below the water past that island."

They worked their way around, every so often Percy glancing up longingly at the ocean's surface which he could just see glinting in the sunlight of late evening. He worked a little faster. Gods how he wanted to get out of here. No matter how much he enjoyed spending time with his father and no matter how often he'd wished for just such an occasion, he itched to get back to the others.

He followed Poseidon's directions, placing boulder after massive boulder in their designated spots, until he'd gone so far around the boundary that he could no longer see his father. He shrugged. He wasn't a little boy and he'd been told where the rocks went. It wasn't exactly a grueling task. He could do it on his own without supervision. Besides, if he wanted to get out of here, he needed to get this done as quickly as possible. He pressed on, glancing back every now and again to make sure he was still on the right course, but for the most part just moving along, quite pleased with his progress.

That was mainly why he didn't realize he was being watched until the sword was hovering just beneath his chin.

"Uh - " he began and the tip of the blade moved an inch closer.

Two black hooves whisked up the sand by his face and he clenched his eyes shut, wary to move his head anywhere near the sword. A massive rainbow tail flicked the water next to his foot as the merman, no centaur…came around his other side.

"What are you doing?" a deep voice said from above him.

"Who are you?" Percy said, wondering just what kind of monster he was seeing the bottom half of. He could see the hooves, a little hard to miss as they were inches from his nose, and the strong green and blue mottled legs of a horse, but behind that morphed a shimmering iridescent tail. From this angle he would have said it was a Hippocampus, but the green skinned hand that was gripping the sword's hilt was much too human for that to be true.

"I'll be asking the questions, human. Speak!"

"Sorry, but I don't respond well when someone has me at sword point," Percy spat. The blade dipped a little and the hand wavered before finally dropping it altogether.

Percy stood up slowly, well aware of the point still trained on his chest as he rose, and looked up into the eyes of an angry faced, hugely muscled centaur. Merman. Something snapped in his memory. Ichthyocentaur.

"I am Bythos," he said. "Brother to Aphros and trainer of Heroes. Who are you to disrupt this place?"

"Bythos," Percy said, knowing he'd heard the name before and unable to remember where. "Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon. I'm helping my father with the perimeter around the city. Not my idea, trust me."

The little lobster claws that protruded from the top of Bythos's bandana-bound head snapped in conflict. He hesitated, obviously unconvinced but not wanting to be wrong, and looked around.

"Where is your father then little demigod?"

"Somewhere over there," Percy said, knowing he might be in trouble if Bythos didn't believe him. "We went in different directions, but he's here somewhere." The icthyocentaur nodded slowly before sheathing his sword much to Percy's relief.

"One can't be too careful," he said calmly, twirling the end of his finger through his little brown beard. "With that Titan on the loose, well. We have some who have begun to doubt - "

He fell silent, his clear eyes flashing to Percy for the briefest of seconds before gazing back off towards the open water.

"Begun to doubt what?" Percy said.

Bythos sighed. "The ability of the sea god. Several of our trainees at Camp Fish-Blood, the youngest ones especially, have begun to question who they should be following."

"That's ridiculous," Percy said, amazed that that was even a question. "They should be following Poseidon! That should be obvious. Oceanus wants to drown out the world."

He understood as soon as he spoke.

"Exactly," Bythos said sorrowfully. "Some are more easily swayed than others, demigod. They are given a goal but they see only what they want to see of it. This can be good or bad, but unfortunately, the ends rarely justify the means."

"But you can't possibly let them go through with that," Percy said. "You said you were the trainer? So train them! Make them see that they'll be dooming the entire world by following Oceanus, not just the land."

"If only it were that simple." Bythos looked quizzically at Percy as though trying to decide what to make of him. "I appreciate your enthusiasm though. Son of Poseidon you say? I sense I may have heard of you before, from some other demigods. Perhaps Aphros would remember. You really should meet my brother. He makes the most delicious brownies."

Brownies.

"You did, meet some other demigods that know me I mean. My friends Hazel, Frank, and Leo were interrogated by you and your brother a year ago after our ship was attacked."

"Ah, yes. The demigods who were on a quest for Athena, no? I do not remember individuals often, mortals especially, but I do recall Aphros was quite intrigued with the girl's horse. Are they here as well?" Bythos seemed much more enthusiastic to be speaking of Percy's friends than to Percy himself. He decided not to mention that.

"No, they're somewhere long gone by now," he said a little more angrily than he intended. He wouldn't have wanted them to jeopardize the quest for his sake by staying and waiting for him without any way of knowing if he was okay, but part of him wanted to think Annabeth would wait. He knew she'd do what was necessary though as well, and that certainly did not include hanging around an open ocean for two weeks waiting for her missing boyfriend.

"Well," Bythos said. "I must move on. There is much to be done for the both of us it would seem. And beware, young demigod. There is something amiss in this place. I could not find it, but I can sense it nonetheless. Keep wide eyes." And with that, he swept his forked tail and swam off, his gait a strange combination of a canter and a glide.

Percy looked to see the perimeter had been completed without his realizing it, the other side now closed off in the sand. He turned and swam off to find his father.

He didn't get very far before he heard the whispers.

Everything seemed to slow down and Percy could sense a tiny shift in the current. He reached for Riptide. He turned around slowly, peering into the distance and finally seeing the cause.

A pillar of air dragged down from a massive whirlpool that sat at the surface of the water all the way to the ocean floor one, maybe two-hundred feet from where Percy stood. It sucked the water down, and everything else, into an opening in the sand, a crevasse that split through the rocks. The fissure was a clean gash, and opening that was obviously made intentionally.

This is what's making the water recede, Percy thought. Part of it at least. When the time is right, it'll all be released again. It'll overwhelm the earth.

He had to stop it.

Forgetting about Poseidon, he edged closer. Maybe he could bend the water away and cover the hole somehow. He began to will the current into his grasp and watched as the ocean listened to his command. But the whirlpool continued to grow.

He got closer, but as he began to concentrate again, his foot began to slide on the sand, already loosened from the pressure. His body followed. Percy was being pulled towards the gap, and if he didn't get out now, he'd be pulled down with the rest of the saltwater. He felt his mind begin to race, but he forced himself to calm. He couldn't panic. Not now. That was what got him into trouble the last time. He couldn't afford to lose his powers again. He skidded closer.

Falling to his knees, he latched his hands into the course sand, gaining no purchase and trying to push himself away from the current. Hades.

It was no use. Percy was slowly inching closer and closer to the hole, could feel the frigid temperatures that leaked out of it. One last try.

He focused on building the pressure inside him, focused on how much he would need to propel himself out of this. Just as he felt his feet were about to hit the column of air, he pushed. With every fiber of his being, he expelled all of his energy, all of the water he had summoned shot out behind him as he shot out back into open water. He landed on the ground, sucking in deep breaths, the water filled gulps doing nothing for his system. The sun was bright on the surface and he could see tiny shadows. Trees maybe. No. Not trees. They were moving too fast. Percy squinted his eyes. Pegasi. One at least. And it was quickly out of sight, flying off into the distance. Maybe it meant nothing. The others couldn't possibly still be here…


Poseidon sat silently as Percy explained the whirlpool and his encounter with Bythos.

The god waited a moment before speaking. "They've headed to Delos." Percy stared at him, wide-eyed.

"What?"

"Your friends. They are headed to the island of Delos. You will catch them if you leave now."

"When did they leave? How long have you known?" He was starting to get angry again. If his father had kept this from him, this information that was so crucial -

"Now. I found out now. They waited for you after all. Curious thing. I'd have expected them to leave sooner."

Percy was dumbstruck. Both at what he was hearing and what it meant. But there was one problem with it. "And how would I go about following them? Unless I swim there but…"

"I can call the pegasus for you. Blackjack, I believe his name is. He will come soon enough, but for now, please don't argue. Get some sleep. It will be of great use to you, even if you don't see it now."

He nodded. He was exhausted. And besides, he didn't have to worry about the others anymore. At least not as much. Maybe he would try to sleep.