I updated!

Well, this is Percy's chapter and you'll find out what happened after he went wandering away from Bruce and Annabeth in the night

And here we go!

Percy

Something was wrong. I had noticed that as soon as I started walking away from the camp where Banner and Annabeth were sleeping.

I couldn't stop walking.

At least an hour had passed by now and it was like I had an overwhelming desire to just keep walking.

It was like something was whispering into my ear to keep me walking. I knew I had to get back to Annabeth and Bruce. If they woke up and noticed that I was gone, they would freak. Or I could get lost and not be able to find my way back. Though I knew it was already too late to prevent either from happening. I had no idea where I was and I just kept on walking.

This had to be the strangest thing I've ever felt. I still knew what I was doing, but it was like I couldn't control my own actions. Something or someone was compelling me to keep going.

Where was it taking me? Was it leading me somewhere good or bad? I had a feeling that it was the latter.

I had to snap myself out of this.

I tried my hardest to stop walking. I willed my legs to stop moving, but they wouldn't listen to my brain. I was close to a panic now. What if I was being led to a monster?

I almost cried out in frustration. Where was I going?

I had my sword out and I was slashing at the trees in front of me. At this rate, I would make my way to the edge of the forest. I had to stop myself. But how?

I tried to gather all of my willpower and stop my feet from walking. It didn't work.

I was running out of ideas now. I didn't know what to do.

So I had no choice but to settle in and wait for all of this to stop.

After all, it wasn't like I had a choice.

…

It had been at least two hours since I had started walking. I was now deep in the forest and I had no clue about where I was.

The sun had risen the hour before. Annabeth and Banner were probably both awake by now and wondering where I had gone. I bet Annabeth was worried sick. I hated this. I hated leaving Annabeth alone like that. Why had I gone in the first place? I was so stupid!

And of course, I kept walking.

It was at least another hour before something finally happened.

It was about midday now. I could tell because I had passed a clearing a few minutes ago and the sun was high in the sky.

Then suddenly, as I was walking, I felt as if the control that was washed over me suddenly lifted off me. I stopped walking abruptly and stood in the middle of another small clearing, very much stupefied.

I scrunched my eyes in confusion as I looked down at my legs. I no longer had the overwhelming urge to walk forward. As I got over my confusion, I sighed in relief. At least that was over.

But I had another problem.

I had no idea where I was. I was in the middle of the forest and I had no idea how to get back to Annabeth.

I turned around in a full circle to survey my surroundings. All around me were of course, trees. I saw no way back. I had to face the truth that I was completely and utterly lost.

Because I had nothing else I could do, I started walking once again. At least this time, it was on my own terms. I hacked through the branches once more.

As I was walking, I noticed something strange. Throughout the forest, I heard a strange four note song being played again and again. I soon realized that birds were tweeting these notes. They were unlike any bird I have ever seen before. It was a little captivating as I heard it play over and over. Soon, the song would fade into the distance. Hmm, I wonder…

I whistled the four note song into the canopies and sure enough, the birds repeated them once again.

"Wow…" I muttered. The song once was once again repeated throughout the forest by so many birds of the same type. It was mesmerizing. As the song disappeared into the trees, I decided to make up my own tune.

I hummed the tune first. Once I got the four notes, I whistled them out loud into the trees. The tune was made up of one high note, two low notes and one medium note. I heard the tune being sung back to me by the strange birds. I smiled softly. Something about it being sung back to me was oddly comforting.

I heard the song slowly fade into the trees again, but this time it sounded a little different. It was almost like the tune from the original song and the one that I made were melding together. It made up a totally different song, but all the same, it sounded calming.

Once that died out, I kept walking. I would whistle my tune into the air every once in a while just to hear the birds whistle them back to me. I just wanted some company, even if they were random birds tweeting into the air.

But that soon ended when I heard noises of people walking through the forest.

To the left of me was where it was coming from. I heard branches crack and the shuffling of a group of people walking. There was definitely more than one person. It sounded like there was at least three people. Maybe more.

Oh no.

Were they the enemy? I only had my sword and there were at least three armed people approaching me.

As they got closer, I heard muffled voices. They sounded almost…familier. Could they be…?

No, they couldn't. I didn't even know if they had reached the forest or not? But then again…

Agh, I had to check. I quietly walked toward the direction I heard the voices from. There was a small path that was covered with bush on both sides. I kneeled down next to the path, hopefully covered by the trees. I waited with my sword drawn and ready out in front of me. I heard them approaching closer. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and heard a twig snap in half.

Crack!

Aw shit.

I held my breath as I heard the group of people draw their weapons. I heard someone approach as they removed the branches covering my body from them.

And I came face to face with…Thalia.

My eyes crossed to see the sharp point of one of her bows right at my nose.

"Whoa watch where your pointing those things!" I exclaimed in surprise.

"Percy?!" Thalia asked, both confused and surprised.

"Thalia?" I asked, equally confused.

Thalia put away her bow and helped me off the ground. As I stood up, I looked around at the people with Thalia. I saw Nico, Clarrise, Rachel and finally, Grover. My eyes widened as I took in everything. I found them! Was I deliberately led to them? Was that presence leading me to them?

I was greeted with a bunch of thumps on the back and hellos from the others.

Finally, Nico brought up a question that everyone was probably thinking of.

"Where's Annabeth?"

I sheepishly ran a hand through my hair before saying, "Well, I was with Annabeth yesterday. We were in a clearing when I got this really big urge to just get up and start walking. So I had to. I had no choice. It was like I was taken over by someone or something else. Then, when it finally lifted off me, I had no idea where I was. Then I found you guys."

They looked at me with blank stares.

"I know it sounds stupid! But if you were there…" I trailed off.

"So you basically lost Annabeth." Clarisse deadpanned.

"Well, if you want to put it that way…"

"Wait," Rachel interrupted. "There was someone else with you guys wasn't there?"

I looked at her, confused at how she knew. Then I reminded myself that she was the oracle. She was supposed to know these things.

I started slowly, "Uh, yeah there was someone else with yes. We found him-well actually, he found us. His name's Bruce Banner. He's part of the Avengers."

I saw Nico's eyes widen. "My father told me that we had to join the Avengers!"

"Your father?" I asked him.

"Yep. I, shall we say, "visited" him."

I squinted my eyes. I hate to admit it, but yeah, I was a little jealous of him. What about Poseidon? I haven't heard a word from him since the battle with Kronos.

Thalia sighed and then elaborated. "I'm guessing you saw Nico's head in the sky, right?" I nodded. "Well that was because he had died. He stopped breathing."

My eyes widened in shock. So that was what that meant. If a person's face appeared in the sky, that meant they were dead. No one had appeared in the sky since Nico. That meant no one had died since then. But then there was the question of how Nico was still alive.

Nico spoke up again. "My dad gave me a second chance. He gave me life once again." It was like Nico had read my mind. I nodded slowly as I soaked in this new piece of information. At least he was still alive.

"so what about this Banner character?" Grover asked. " I heard that the avengers were superheroes. Does he have any powers?"

I sighed. "Well, I think it would be more appropriate to call it a curse. Whenever he gets angry or his heart rate rises, he turns into a green rage monster that destroys everything in its path."

Clarisse's eyes widened. "A monster? Isnt that a bit dangerous?"

"This isn't like any monster your thinking about. And this guy didn't ask to become this thing!" I said, becoming defensive. "He turned himself into it accidentally and he hates himself for it."

Thalia looked skeptical. "And this guy's helping you?"

"Well, its more like we're helping him. He's been separated from the other Avengers. So if we help him find them, then maybe they'll be able to trust us. Then we can work together to defeat whoever we need to defeat." I replied.

Thalia raised an eyebrow in surprise. "That sounds like the best plan I've heard in a while. And coming from you Seaweed Brain, now that's pretty amazing."

I scowled and willed a stream of water from a nearby puddle to hit her in the face. I smirked in satisfaction.

"Hey!"

Thalia touched me on the arm and I felt a shock of electricity run through my body. My hair stand on end.

"Ow!" I said as I rubbed the area where Thalia had touched me. Just as I was about to summon another spray of water, Nico broke us up.

"Hey, break up the cat fight over there! We should be leaving if we want to find Annabeth.

I glared at Thalia and she glared back. Nonetheless, we broke the fight.

I sighed and said, "Lets go." Thalia and I took up the front and started to lead the tothers.

A few minutes into the trek and Nico spoke up. "Hey Percy." He paused, like he was waiting for some type of invitation.

"Yes?"

"Did…you know that Thalia flew?" I stopped in my tracks and looked over at Thalia with disbelief on my face.

I could see anger burning in Thalia's eyes, directed toward Nico. Finally, she said, "Yep. I flew. After I fell off a cliff."

"What happened?" I asked, with my eyes wide. The last time I checked, she was afraid of heights. Was I missing something?

"there was a gas following us that would burn everything in its path. As we were getting away, I fell off a cliff. And that was when I learned that I could fly."

I raised my eyebrows in confusion. "But I thought you were, you know…" I waved my hands in the air, trying to imply that she was afraid of heights.

"The rest know. It's okay Percy."

I let out a breath of relief. "Oh. Anyways, I thought you were afraid of heights?"

"I still am. I guess I could always have flown. I just never tried."

"Hold up a second. Percy knew you were afraid of heights?" Nico exclaimed.

"Yeah." Thalia replied.

"how-?" Nico started to ask, but Thalia cut him off with one of her famous death glares that could scare even Nico.

And that was when she dropped the subject. She didn't say anything else. I had a feeling that she was more afraid of flying than she let on. So I decided not to bother her about it too much. For now at least.

So we started walking again.

At least I found everyone else.

Now we just had to find Annabeth and Bruce again.

I was still miffed about what had happened earlier. How could I have just let that happen to myself? I let myself be taken away from Annabeth. If I hadn't walked away in the first place, I could still be with Annabeth now.

And what if something happened to Banner and he turned into that monster again? There would be no one to protect her. I knew she could handle herself, but I doubted it with Banner.

We had to find them.

Before it's too late.

It was well after dark now. We had stopped about half an hour ago at a clearing. There was no cannon shot today. No one had died.

We had all just sat down, drinking the water and food that the other had collected. We started sharing some of the adventures we had while being here. I forgave them for "ditching" Annabeth and I at the cornucopia, realizing that it was all just a big misunderstanding. I told them more about Banner and the Avengers and Nico told me about his dream.

Soon enough, we all started to drift off into sleep. I was the last person to go to sleep.

unfortunately, I was met with a dream.

...

I was in my cabin at Camp Half Blood. It looked exactly the same as it always did before the entire black hole fiasco, but something seemed…off. Something wasn't right.

I noticed that I was wearing normal Camp clothes. My Half Blood t-shirt and shorts.

I turned my attention to the cabin and started walking around. As I moved, I noticed that the edges of my vision were blurring into black softly. It was strangely unnerving.

As I walked, I noticed something else as well. At the far corner of the room lay a small black box, the size of my palm. For some reason, it stood out to me, telling me to come closer, to pick it up and open it.

I slowly walked over to it and saw that there was a small padlock attached to it. Just as I was about to reach over and grab it, the door to my cabin blew open. A gust of wind and rain came in and blew me a few steps back.

I covered my face with my hand so that none of the wind would blow into my eyes. When I removed my hand, I saw none other than Poseidon standing in my doorway.

"hello Percy."

He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. In one hand, he held his trident. It looked really out of place with what he was wearing. I also noticed that he didn't look like he normally did. I saw that there were no smile wrinkles near his eyes and no overall kindness to his face. That was all gone. He looked more tired, like he had a hundred burdens weighing down on him.

So I scrunched my eyebrows in suspicion and replied with a, "Hello…dad."

What could be so important that my dad visits me in a dream to tell me?

"You must be wondering why I am here." He looked at me with his sea green eyes a little questioning.

I nodded slowly.

"Well, as you know, you are in the hunger games. And you also know that to succeed, you will need to join the Avengers. Am I right?"

I nodded once again, not saying anything more.

"That is all well and good, but the real reason I am here is because of that." Poseidon pointed to the little black box sitting next to me.

I picked it up and rolled it around in my hand, observing it from every angle. Finally, I looked up and said, "What is it?"

The ghost of a smile appeared on my fathers face, but it was so faint that it disappeared in a second. "That is for you to find out, my child."

I tried to pry open the look, but it wouldn't open.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Why not?"

"That box is enchanted so that when you open it, what you need the most will appear for you, even if you do not know what that is. You will know when the time is right. But of course, with every gift comes a sacrifice."

Poseidon held out the hand that wasn't holding his trident. At first, it was empty, but then a key the size of my index finger appeared in his palm. I reached over and took it from him. I turned it over and saw that it had little engravings of Hippocampus, Pegasus and a few other creatures I didn't recognize. The engravings were small, but full of detail. I slipped the key into my pocket and looked back up at Poseidon.

"remember son, when you open it, there will be consequences. Either big or small. You will know when the time is right."

He walked back to the door of my cabin. Before stepping back out into the storm, he turned his head slightly in my direction and said, "Good luck child."

Then he stepped out and dissolved into the rain, leaving me alone in my cabin.

I looked at the box beside me. It looked so harmless. I knew that was just a disguise for something sinister though. I decided there that I would not open it unless I absolutely had to. I couldn't take the chances.

But somehow, I knew, deep in my subconscious that opening the box was inevitable.

I slipped the box into my pocket along with the key.

That was when I started to feel myself wake up.

…..

As I woke up, the first thing that I noticed was that it was still dark. Everyone was still asleep.

A few seconds later and my dream hit me in full force. I quickly checked the pocket of my jumpsuit and felt the small key along with the cool surface of the box.

I took out the box and key. I suddenly got an overwhelming urge to open the box. For some reason, my hands were itching to see what was in the box. It was like the box was drawing me towards opening it.

I clenched my hands into fists to stop me from opening it. Now was not the time. I quickly put both objects back into my pocket and tried to forget about them.

It didn't work.

Both objects seemed to make me feel heavier-like an extra burden I had to carry.

I laid back down on the grass to try to go back to sleep. I realized soon enough that it was too late for that. Sleep had escaped me. All I could do was stare at the sky above, and keep thinking about the box.

This was going to be a long night.

So? How was it?

Like it? Don't like it? Please leave a review and tell me how it was!

Next chapter is luke.

-Detective DG