Neo didn't like this new chick, she needed to go. There's only room in this regime for one psycho lolita bitch, thank you very much. Not to mention how badly she scared Roman. He didn't show it, but this wasn't his usual scared. Roman was on edge around Cinder, he was wary of Percy when he's drunk, but this lady didn't scare him, she terrified him. She didn't look tough, and she hadn't done anything except eat those stupid apples since her first day, but after that gift she gave Roman, he always stayed near Neo, no matter what, he even let her sit in his seat, which never happened. Whoever this chick was, she was going. Now.
"Ooh, lookie, it's the mute chick, wassup Neon?" Neo twitched at Eris' laid back attitude, she was the smarmy one, not this new brat. "Okay, I know, that was mean of me, you're mute, of course you're doing great!"
"Eris! We have work!" Roman called over, swinging his cane with an air of impatience. "Me and Neo are going on an errand, I'll be back tomorrow morning."
"Aww, but Neo's such a good conversationalist." Eris threw herself back onto the couch in exasperation, rolling her eyes. "Come back soon, Neo!"
As Neo rolled her own eyes and lilted after Roman, he began to type furiously on his scroll, not looking down at his hand. "Neo, you remember Percy, right?" Neo nodded blinked once, both eyes brown. A silent yes. "I need you to find him for me, bring him around to Junior's place, tell him that I want to talk to him."
Neo smirked at Roman and was about to jaunt along on her merry way until something pinged at the back of her mind. 'What about you?'
Roman simply gave her a broad smirk and waved her along. "I'll head over to Junior's, give him some time to prepare for Percy again." Neo nodded, she knew that Roman wasn't anywhere near that nuts goddess chick. "Now go. And hurry!"
Waking up from the infirmary for the third time in as many days was embarrassing, doing so in one's underwear was worse. Percy wished that he was still wearing pants, he was currently being tended to by Blake and he knew that if he- err, reacted, he'd never hear the end of it from Yang. She'd already seen him naked once, however, fortunately she hadn't had a camera.
"Good morning" Blake entered, distracted. She waltzed to his bed with a small smile on her face, her nose still in a book with a mysteriously blank book sleeve. She plopped herself into the seat beside his bed with a humph and glanced up at him. "You seem to be feeling better."
"I'm awake, and I don't think I have a concussion, but there's only one way to check. What color are your underwear?"
"Purple, would you like to see?"
"Yup, got a concussion, I'll wake up soon." Blake gave a light laugh and shook her head. She closed her book and put it on her lap, crossing her legs.
"I'm kidding, you're fine." Blake's tone suddenly sobered up and she leaned forward, staring hard into Percy's eyes. "But I need to know. Who are you?"
"What do you mean?" Percy replied, his own eyes becoming darker. He knew what she meant, but he was hoping to avoid the question for as long as possible, mostly because he wasn't entirely sure himself.
"When you first came to Beacon, you had no clue what aura was, but you still fought like a man possessed. You can heal yourself with water, and you sneeze earthquakes, but it's not your semblance. You've been improving in Yang's lessons by leaps and bounds, despite having three broken bones in your left hand and five in the right. You're insanely strong, but you just lost most of your memories. How? And don't even get me started on that amorphous-...entity that came after you and erased most of your memories. And I looked up your name, it just struck me as strange, I'd never heard of the name Jackson. It turns out, no one has had that name for ninety years. So who are you?" Blake paused, panting slightly after having exploded in interrogation. Percy opened his mouth but she cut him off. "Oh! And then there's the fact that despite having no memories at all, and apparently having never been to Mistral, you knew Mistrali! What does Anaklusmos mean to you? And who's Annabeth!?"
"Hello sweetie~" A voice called from the doorway. Blake turned to face the nurse to tell her off, but when she saw the nurse, she felt something off. She smelled like sulphur and a bitter scent reminiscent of a bat, she looked normal, but even her appearance was hazy, like she was only kinda a nurse, and sorta something else… "I'm here for Perseus Jackson. The Lady will see you now."
"We-" Blake stopped when Percy's eyes darkened and his hand tightened around her wrist.
"Aww, Percy! You're all-...mortal and stuff...it's honestly disgusting! I thought that after Tartarus, the gods would make you immortal for your bravery and valor, but noo~, they decided that they wanted you dead, that's so sad." A tall woman draped in a black sari traipsed in, a bouquet of midnight black roses clutched in her hand as her long, plaited black hair bounced with each graceful step. Blake stood when she saw the shadows around the room darken and coalesce around her. "No, don't stand up, please, I brought my own seat. I'm simply here to talk."
"Well, as you can see, I'm not going anywhere." Percy gestured towards his state lying on the bed helplessly. "So go ahead, introduce yourself."
"I am Nyx, the goddess of the night and of the deepest darkness, I am the queen of Tartarus and the mother of doom, chaos, sleep, nightmares and despair. I frightened away Zeus as he pursued my son. I am not just the goddess of the night, I am the night." She introduced herself with a flourish and lounged on a throne of shadows that she had drawn toward herself in the corner. "But you can just call me The Lady."
"Well, 'The Lady', I'm Percy Jackson, and I've recently become an amnesiac, so you can kiss my shapely, tanned ass." His snark disappeared and he levelled a dark gaze on the lady. Nyx frowned as well and leaned forward, her lips pursed in disappointment.
"I was expecting more sarcastic banter, perhaps a witty and distracting pick-up line, but since it's obvious that that went out the window, I suppose I'll just go out and say it." Nyx brushed off her sari and stood, distributing the shadows again. "I'm going to give you one chance. Sacrifice one of your friends and everyone lives and I'll join your side, or don't and go into the coming fight with all your friends lined up in neat little rows to be slaughtered by hoards of monsters from the pits of Tartarus."
"Why?" Blake asked, looking between The Lady's face and the door, silently praying for another of her teammates to walk in and help them. Without Gambol Shroud, she'd be useless in a fight. "Why would you offer to join us for a sacrifice?"
"Because heroes are so predictable. Heroes are stupidly devoted to serving the greater good, and I like watching them tear themselves up to decide what to do." Nyx stopped for a moment and smiled. "So, what will it be? The greater go-"
Percy interrupted her with a full bellied laugh, tilting his head back and snorting a few times. Blake looked at him, her eyes narrowed in worry as Percy's chuckling slowed. He looked over toward Blake and gestured emphatically, obviously amused. "I don't think she got the memo!"
"What memo…?" Nyx asked hesitantly, leaning forward angrily.
"I'm no hero. I'm just a guy tryin' to get by." Percy rolled over in bed and began to get up. "I'm surrounded by people who can fight a hundred times better than I can. I'd just get in their way."
"So, what? You just surrender?" Nyx asked. The conversation was not going in the direction she hoped it would. "You're going to let your friends go out on the battlefield to die for you? Their weapons cannot harm me, their precious auras feed me. I consume their darkness and their pain. Here, I am undefeatable."
"Then what's the point of me fighting you?"
Nyx was slow to answer. "...Because you can...you're morally ob- but, why wouldn't you?!" Nyx looked incredulous, running her hand down her face in stress before standing up and beginning to pace the room. "The only person who can defeat us is you, and the only reason we're here is you! You're the whole point! The Wizard, the Maidens, they can play their games, but we're here to pull you into this war, we're here to get you involved. Chaos called me from the depths of hell to fight you, and then he benched you?!"
"What in the seven circles of hell are you talking about?" Percy demanded. Nyx stopped and turned to him, leveling her gaze toward him and with a single wave, driving both him Blake into a deep sleep.
As Blake woke up, her mind was suddenly alight with questions, the most prevalent of which being: Why am I in bed with Percy?! It's not that she didn't like it, he was one of the five guys she knows that aren't assholes, but still, someone in hell must have a seriously demented sense of humor if they thought this was funny. The second question: What was that darkness chick talking about?
"You're awake." It was less a question and more of a statement. Professor Ozpin sat in a chair off to the side of the room, sipping on a cup of coffee as his eyes travelled across his scroll. "I'm afraid that you missed Professor Port's class, but after the day you had, I'll allow it this once, but you should both hurry to Professor Oobleck's class. I believe today you're going to be reviewing the Battle of Self, I wouldn't miss it if I were you, Perseus."
"Percy." He corrected instinctually. He hated it when people did that. "Perseus is an old dead dude who killed that Medusa lady."
"Fine, I'll remember that, Percy." It obviously pained him, if just a little, to speak to a student so casually, but he knew that this was the best way to guide Chiron's pupil. "Run along now, Dr. Oobleck does not like to be kept waiting."
Oobleck was less than pleased by Blake and Percy's tardiness. He was even less approving of the fact that Percy couldn't tell him anything about Remnant's history.
"Fine!" Oobleck's usually stern but composed temper flared and he lashed out, spilling some of his coffee on the desk which promptly caught on fire. "Is there any history that you do know, Mr. Jackson?! Any iota of memory of any kind?! Please, illuminate me in whatever history you do know?!"
Most of the class was bristling with suppressed laughter and the occasional chuckle, however, team RWBY, who knew of Percy's recent amnesia and were sworn to secrecy merely winced at the Doctor's explosion.
"Racism." Percy began, looking down, wringing his hands. "There was a man, almost eighty years ago, who was denied draft into the army because he was too weak to hold a gun, his name was Adolf Hitler. He was angry. He had so much hate in him that he had to find someone to let it out on, and he found them. They were the Jews. The Jews didn't do anything wrong, but they were blamed anyway because they were easy targets. He believed in a thing call Aryan supremacy, and he thrusted that belief on everyone else. He convinced people that they were inferior if they weren't blonde haired and blue eyed, he told people that it was the Jew's fault for their lot in life, and in the ashes of a war that tore their nation apart, they were just waiting for someone to blame, and they found them." He looked up and stared at Oobleck, his eyes darkening.
"His hate, and his search for someone to blame was what started one of the bloodiest wars in history. It shook nations and resulted in the mass homicide of nearly an entire culture."
Hitler made 'concentration camps' and he would force Jews into them, depriving them of necessary food and starved them until they finally would be ordered to strip and enter a 'shower', where they were exposed to horribly poisonous chemicals and were killed in droves, shaved, herded and slaughtered, finally burned, like cattle, but that wasn't the worst part. The war brought about diseases and poisons that would kill and maim thousands and resulted in the creation of the most deadly weapon ever made. The A-bomb. It was a single explosive that could destroy an entire city in mere seconds. It was so powerful that it burned shadows of its victims into walls and once the explosion was over, it left behind radiation that could kill people miles away, and it poisoned the very ground, leaving it uninhabitable for decades. This whole war started because one man was angry enough to throw the first stone. So yeah, my history sucks, but all history sucks. Peace is an illusion, and violence is the blood of civilization. War is brewing or war is happening, there's history for you, all summed up."
By the end of his rant, Percy was hunched in anger and breathing hard, his finger waggling angrily at Oobleck, whose temper had turned into sudden pride. "You, Mr. Jackson, seem to have only grasped the barest of the bones of history, though I must say, you're not far from the truth, but your pessimism is...distressing. Please return to your seat, and may I ask, what happened to the Adolf person?"
"He killed his wife, his children, and then blew his own brains out." Percy stopped and turned to Cardin. "Racism is usually a sign of misplaced anger. So who are you really angry at, Cardin?"
Team RWBY observed the entire exchange with unhinged jaws and clouded eyes. Blake was even more curious about Percy now, seeing his unconventional views on racism and his subtle nudges at Cardin's psyche. Yang was only interested in the horrible things she'd have done to this Hitler guy if she ever got her hands on him. Weiss was trying her hardest to not draw comparisons to the first Schnee, but it was hard. Ruby felt like vomiting, the entire story reeked of skepticism and disgust, hate barely hidden behind a clenched jaw, she knew what that looked like, and so did Jaune, sitting only three seats over from her. Cardin looked at him like that, and Ruby had noticed it as well.
Doctor Oobleck tried to salvage the rest of his class time, but none of the students had broken out of their shock, and most were still staring at Percy with wide eyes. Finally, acknowledging that he would get nowhere with his class today, he simply began writing on the board. He wrote four very simple lines that caused Percy's head to spin.
We Are Here To Create History
Not Repeat It.
So Let Us Learn From It,
Or Doom Our Children To It.
He had heard those lines somewhere before, or maybe they just meant something more to him because he didn't even know his own history, or maybe history was here to haunt him again, in its malignant, nonexistent way, it nudged at his brain occasionally, just to say: I'm Here~ Don't ignore me! He wished it would stop, but he finally realized what he needed. He needed to remember. He didn't want to, but he had to. He felt the scars on his mind, they finally sunk in. He felt a pain that he had never known before, a hollow, searing stab that seemed to gouge out his heart and then heat up his chest from the inside. He knew what it was without any memory. He had lost friends, and he'd be damned if he let that happen again.
He collapsed into his chair, his hands cold and his knees weak, but when Yang nudged him and silently asked if he was okay, he simply nodded distractedly. The bell rang soon after and as Percy left Oobleck's class, the doctor frowned and gazed over his glasses at Percy's hunched retreating form. "I don't think I'll have to worry about history repeating with that one. He's about as abnormal as they get."
"Oh look, combat class again, how did I see this coming?" Percy asked sarcastically, leaning his head heavily on a pillar that stood beside him. He wracked his brain for hours, trying to pry some figment of information, or iota of reality from his memory. So far, the only things he could remember had to do with a flash of blonde hair, a glowing bronze light and the words: What ho?
As he began to drift off, he suddenly heard professor Goodwitch's crop slamming into the pillar above his head. He shot up instantly and yelped. "I didn't do it!" Goodwitch's eyes were locked onto Percy's own as he blinked twice, looking down at the arena as Cardin stared up at him with an unrestrained smirk. He had just defeated Jaune and was looking for someone else to fight, someone he thought he could beat. Everyone had seen the tapes of Percy getting his ass handed to him by Yang over and over again, but no one seemed to remember Percy kicking the entirety of team CRDL's collective asses. Percy felt like there had to be a good reason for it, but his mind came up blank except for one: mist.
"Oh! You want me to fight?!" Percy asked incredulously, he had zoned out for a while there. Goodwitch sighed and nodded, gesturing for Percy to continue to the arena. Without waiting, Percy drew his temporary sword and looked at it discontentedly. It was awkward, it was weighty, and it felt like it was just a stick tied to a bowling ball which he had to hold onto. Sucked was the weakest word he had for it. "I'm ready, I guess."
If Percy's sword was uncomfortable, his clothing was worse. Atlas issued armor was the best in the business and since Percy needed something standardized and, well...bland, it was the first thing that came to mind, but it was so tight around the armpits, and it chafed along his waist, and it was just, in general, a pain in the ass, literally, it constantly gave him a wedgie.
"Begin." Glynda said calmly, watching in apathy as these children threw their weight around pretending to be warriors. They were slow, sloppy and dim-witted, and they made mistakes that made her cringe, and Percy was the worst of all. He fought like a wild-child, no wits about him, no style, no finesse, just patternless attacks and quick footing. Finally, Cardin had a clear shot, Percy had overstepped for a sword strike, and was currently within arm's reach of the bulkier fighter. Glynda saw Cardin's attack from a mile away. With the obvious weight advantage, and the fact that his weapon was just as effective up close as it was slightly farther away, the overhead swing was an obvious choice.
It was also the wrong one.
Perseus did the unthinkable in the midst of battle, dropping his sword and hitting the dirt, swinging his leg in a low sweep. Cardin was off of his feet just in time for Percy to hop back onto his and lash out with a vicious two-knee kick straight into his jaw, pulling his head down into the blow with both hands on the denser boy's crown. Cardin stumbled back a few steps, but his aura was still relatively uninjured, and he thought he had the upper hand as long as he kept the battle at medium to long range with Percy unarmed. Instead, Percy charged headlong into the battle, drawing his fist back and yelling loudly. Carding simply prepared for a horizontal swing and was met with air. Percy stopped yelling as soon as got within hitting distance, instead choosing to slide tackle Cardin to the ground and slam his elbow across the downed boy's temple.
"This battle is over, Mr. Jackson. I commend you on your unorthodox style and versatile combat skills, however, muay thai is not a useful tactic against Grimm unless backed with either a strong aura, which you lack, or a sufficient weapon, which you also lack. Not to mention the fact that you completely disregarded your sword from the very beginning of the fight." Glynda's every word was meant to be a barb to tear down any semblance of pride that any student might have. It worked well so far,but Percy truly didn't care. He didn't have any pride left to give up.
"Mr. Jackson." Ozpin called, emerging mysteriously from a shadowy corner of the room, directly underneath the stadium seating. His cane tapped along the floor absently, and his mug of coffee drifted soothing vapors into the air. He stopped a few feet away from Percy and used his cane to poke into the armor that Atlas had leant him, and with a sudden burst of wind, the armor scattered, each piece falling away instantly as Ozpin put his cane back on the floor. The headmaster then moved to Glynda, handing her his coffee as she groaned, growled and grimaced at the same time.
Meanwhile, the entire classroom had gone silent. Ozpin was a figure of authority that no one dared to question, and from what they had just seen, that was going to be continued for a while. Percy's ADHD helped him to observe the world almost in slow motion, which was how he had seen one of the slashes that Ozpin had made on his armor, while the rest of the class had caught two at best, due to the heightened senses that their aura granted them. As Ozpin reached down to grab the sword from the floor, the murmuring began. No one had seen Ozpin in any position but ramrod straight, and now he was bending over to grab a discarded sword.
Wordlessly, the headmaster met Percy's curious gaze and smirked conspiratorially, chucking the sword out of the arena with ease, despite it weighing far more than it should. He turned to face Percy, and as the tension mounted, he took his cane and jabbed it into the ground, leaving a perfect circle with nary a crack or splinter of stone around it.
"What's in your pocket?" Ozpin's question caught Percy off-guard, causing him to blink a few times before going to check his pocket.
"There's nothi-" As he was talking, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and found it holding onto a nondescript ink pen. "When did that get there?"
"It was always there, you just refused to accept it. Demigods are just as susceptible to the mist as mortals are." Ozpin extracted his cane from the ground and turned to view the class. He scanned the crowd for a few moments before his eyes alighted on the perfect candidate. "Miss Xiao Long, perhaps you'd like to fight Mr. Jackson?"
"No thanks!" Ozpin's eyes widened momentarily, but he kept his cool and simply continued looking, his eyes spotting someone else, quite nearby that would probably do well with a lesson in spontaneity.
"How about you, Miss Schnee?" Weiss' eyes widened almost comically, she hadn't been planning on doing any fighting, she wasn't on the allotted schedule, but the headmaster himself had asked her to do this, she'd be remiss to ignore his honest invitation. She nodded mutely, standing suddenly and marching to the stairs with a singular purpose: to show off for Ozpin. "Thank you."
Weiss looked Percy up and down a few times. Without the armor on, one could tell that he wasn't as broad as Cardin, and he was rather unintimidating in his T-shirt and jeans, especially since he was armed by what appeared to be a writing utensil worth about a single lien. "I'm kinda confused here. What am I supposed to be doing?"
"Mr. Jackson, have you ever heard the term that the pen is mightier than the sword?" Ozpin inquired. Percy nodded and Ozpin gestured to the pen. "Take the cap off and find out for yourself."
"Are you making fun of me?" Percy asked, looking between the pen and Ozpin. Ozpin simply shrugged while smiling coyly.
"Begin." Ozpin replied calmly. Weiss lunged toward Percy with no intent to show mercy. Percy jumped sideways and rolled to a crouch beside Weiss.
Percy sighed. If Ozpin was just screwing with him, he would be so angry. He'd beat Weiss with his fists if he had to. He flicked the cap off of the pen and immediately, like a tidal wave, memories...
"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood…"
"Can I have your apple…"
"You drool when you sleep…"
"I said Hello to the poodle…"
"The sea doesn't like to be restrained…"
The words practically blew him away, but it was the other memories that really made him shiver. A huge dog, the size of a small car, barreling at him. A horse and an eagle duking it out on the beach, sea whipping at me with tendrils of wind and rain.
"Hail, Perseus Jackson, son of the sea god…"
Weiss had lunged at him in the instant it took for his memories to reemerge. He remembered things...not everything, but things...like how to use Riptide. He quickly parried the blow with a grace very similar to Weiss, except almost...fluid.
"Braccas Meas Vescimini!" Percy taunted, his stance changing into a style similar to Pyrrha's, who began to chuckle like a child at the comment. Weiss didn't respond to whatever he had just said, and instead she lunged again, spinning at the last moment and slashing at Percy's exposed side, nicking his open arm, leaving a red mark that continued to spread slowly. Percy pushed himself away from Weiss, wincing at the cut across his arm. Percy took a few steps back and tried to steady himself, but before he could take a breath, Weiss lept forward, gliding across the floor and giving a quick slash, icicles erupting from midair, splintering against the blade of his sword, but still pelting him harshly. Percy rolled forward, past Weiss, slamming the flat of his blade into her shins, but as the two of them stood, Percy analyzed Weiss carefully and sighed, picking up the cap to his pen and placing it back in his pocket. "I surrender...Weiss just isn't the right type of- ow! That does not feel good! That is one sharp Epee!"
"I thought you had your aura unlocked, Mr. Jackson, I should know, I unlocked it." Glynda took two steps forward and stopped just beside Ozpin, who held her back while eyeing Percy concernedly. "How were you even capable of healing this quickly?"
"Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink." Jaune's voice echoed across the room eerily, his eyes hazy with green gas streaming down his face out of his mouth. "Percy Jackson took a sword and turned to dust the Titan Lord."
The whole class stared at Jaune with trepidation, Ren especially, something in Jaune's aura was seeping out as if it had suddenly been punctured like a basketball or a tire.
Percy looked around the room and asked loudly. "Does he do that often?"
Omake.
The Warrior is a Child
Percy sat in the shower, his back against the wall and his head in his hands, barely containing his sobs. He could feel it, wiggling in the back of his head, a feeling he never wanted to feel again. Homesickness.
Percy Jackson, slayer of Titans and Bane of Giants, Prince of the Seven Seas and (previous) Maestro of Weaponry wanted his mom.
He wanted nothing more than to sit on the couch with her and a stupid movie, eating chocolate chip cookies and listening to her tell stories about his dad. He was afraid, he was tired, he was so sad, and he felt like he didn't fit in his own body. He just wanted his mom to come into the room and smile at him, running her hands through his hair and tell him that it would be okay.
He looked up, panicked, when he heard a knock on the door, and quickly went back to his shower, trying to stand up, but failing miserably, and falling to the ground.
"Hey! Percy, you alright?!" Yang asked, coming into the room to see Percy, spread eagle on the floor, silently sobbing as he let the water run over his body. She rushed towards him quickly, pulling him up into a sitting position and wrapping a towel around him.
"Hey," She cooed softly, rubbing his back. "it's alright, what's wrong?" Percy shoved his face into her shoulder and continued crying, unable to stop as Yang whispered comforting words in his ear.
Weiss leaned in to see what was taking so long and her heart dropped. Percy was openly weeping on Yang's pajamas, his entire face contorted into a look of pain so unbearable that it made her own eyes glisten with tears. Instead of interrupting them, Weiss simply turned around, sucked up her pride and went to JNPR's room for their shower.
Blake and Ruby watched in confusion as Weiss exited the bathroom, rubbing her eyes furiously. Ruby eyed the bathroom door hesitantly, tiptoeing nearer as silently as she could, until suddenly the water stopped running.
As soon as the water stopped, Blake gripped Ruby's shoulder and shook her head seriously. "Don't." Ruby trusted her teammate's decision and went back to her bed disappointedly.
Meanwhile in the bathroom, Percy's crying slowed to sniffles and he could gasp out small sentences.
"Thank you Yang." Yang wrapped her arm tighter around his shoulders, any thought of sexual innuendos far from her mind. "I feel it. I feel all of those things that I had bottled up inside me for so long. All that pain, all that sadness, loneliness, fear. It's all there again."
"It's gonna be okay Percy, you're going to be fine, we're here for you." Yang soothingly murmured comforting words into Percy's hair while her hands rubbed along his scarred arm and the other cupped his cheek. She had known that one day, as the resident big sister, she'd have to comfort someone during an emotional breakdown, but she assumed it would be Ruby, not Percy. Percy was strong willed, sarcastic, confident and relatively quick-witted, she hadn't seen this coming.
"Yang. Don't tell Ruby, or Weiss, or Blake, but I'm so tired. I just want to give up. I jus-" Yang gripped him towards her own shoulder and he stifled a sob.
"I just want to go home." Yang did too, she understood missing family, and she understood why being so far from home was hard. Despite having Ruby nearby, Beacon didn't feel enough like home for her to ever relax. She felt like she was sleeping on needles. "Yang..."
"What's wrong?" Yang forced down the instant 'Ruby' that almost slipped out.
"I want my mom."
Yang took a deep breath and let her chin fall on Percy's head, her mind alight with barbs and retorts of unfairness and stories about how she lost two mothers, but instead, she let out how she really felt.
"I do too."
Blake had heard it all and felt a burning behind her eyes as she tried to smother tears. "I do too." She whispered.
As Yang helped Percy off the floor, both too emotionally drained to care that he was naked, Yang stepped out of the bathroom and began to change whilst Percy rubbed furiously at his eyes to get rid of the rim of red he had accumulated. Blake simply nodded at Yang as she entered. Yang knew. She always knew. She shot Blake a warning look, but she didn't need the look, Percy's secret would follow the three to their graves.
Percy followed close behind, mellowing out a fragile smile, but his eyes still shimmering in an ethereal light. Blake sent him a half smile, her own eyes still threatening a revolt. She wanted to hug Percy too, tell him it would all be okay, but she didn't want him to know that she had heard. Ruby hadn't heard and immediately dashed to Percy's side, looking him over for marks and bruises. "Did you hurt yourself when you fell? Are you okay?"
"Ruby." She stopped as Percy leaned down, he was easily a foot and a half taller than her. "I'm not alright, but I'm better." He pulled her into a hug and she tightened her grip around his waist.
"Perseus." Weiss called, her tone lacking its usual superiority and ice. "I think I speak for us all when I say that I would be honored if you would dance with me on Sunday."
"That sounds like fun."