They spoke in hushed voices.
"You did well, War."
"He was nearly catatonic."
"And who could blame the child? His universe as he knows it has shattered. You did exceptionally well."
"How could we let this happen? Prophecy be damned, no one deserves this!"
"We had no other option, War, we must move forward with the cards we were dealt."
"Failure is not an option. Not for him."
A long pause.
"You feel the kinship this early?"
"Where war goes, destruction follows. And vice versa."
Percy tried to open his eyes, his mouth, to demand their attention.
He fell back into the void.
He felt a sudden and pulsing ache as the darkness subsided. Unconsciously flexing his fingers as he groaned. Despite the unbelievably soft bed, he felt as if every inch of his body had been stuck with needles over and over again. He tried to sit up but was met with unexpected resistance. He rubbed his bleary eyes and looked up.
Red.
"You need to rest." Ares gently pushed Percy back into the bed. He glared at the god, trying to look menacing.
He failed as an unexpected yawn left his mouth.
Ares sat on a plush leather chair to his left. He looked around, the room was small and dimly lit, a few candles sat on a small table to his right and an identical bed and table was to his left.
He swore that he could faintly smell his mother's blue chocolate chip cookies.
"What did you do to me?" he asked, succumbing to the bed's comfort and closing his eyes, "I've never felt anything like this in my life." he added petulantly, feeling only annoyed with the god. Which was strange considering he was all but certain that Ares was responsible for whatever state he was in.
"You needed to be convinced, Perseus." Ares' tone was mournful again. "We are playing a very dangerous game and unfortunately we do not have time on our side. You are a god Perseus, and no amount of denial will change that."
"I don't believe you."
"Only gods can witness divine forms, Perseus. You would be dead if you were only a demigod."
Percy didn't even bother to open his eyes. "My mother was mortal."
"She was not."
Ares spoke so quietly Percy could barely hear him.
"My mother's name was Sally Jackson. She was born on July 14th, 1972 in Ridgefield, New Jersey. She went to Ridgefield High School for two years, before her Uncle Mark who she lived with was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and was given an estimated 3 years to live. He begged her to stay in school but she said she refused to let him live his last years in a hospital. She got her GED in 1989 and worked in a bakery and a-"
"Please look at me, Perseus. You may view yourself as a child yet, but you are a man to me and I will treat you like one."
Percy shot up out of bed and glared at Ares, "I don't care what you think of me and I don't care what you say. You're wrong and if you think that I…" he spat venomously, pouring every ounce of annoyance into his words before trailing off after looking into the war god's eyes.
Percy had never seen someone's eyes filled with so much remorse and sadness.
"What, Ares?" Percy murmured.
Ares remained silent, his eyes growing sadder as every second passed.
"Ares," he said desperately, "Tell me."
"I'm sorry Perseus." Ares said softly.
"For what? Just tell me please." He said trying to remain calm. He knew he was failing.
"You never deserved this." Ares muttered.
"Ares. Tell. Me." Percy said through gritted teeth.
"Sally Jackson never existed, Perseus."
His mind went blank.
"What?" He asked breathlessly.
He could feel his body shaking, he could feel the blood running down his hands as he clenched his fists, he could feel his breath hitching.
He couldn't breathe.
Ares spoke slowly, not bothering to hide his emotions as he stared into Percy's blank eyes. "Sally Jackson was a… defense mechanism put in place by your mother," he said. His face was scrunched up like it physically pained him to talk. "You have my utmost sympathy, Perseus and I promise I will-"
"Who is my mother, Ares?" He spoke softly, using all of his self control.
Ares closed his eyes for a few seconds and sighed before opening them, staring at Percy resolutely.
"Your mother is Hecate, Titaness of Magic, The Mist, Night, Crossroads, Necromancy and Ghosts."
Percy stared through Ares. "And how was she a 'defense mechanism'?" He couldn't bring himself to say her name.
Ares hung his head. "Your mother crafted a spell, a physical being that could be touched, that could think. A creation that would not even realize their own existence," he paused and took a deep breath. "An artificial intelligence of some sort." He whispered.
An artificial intelligence.
He remembered her soft blue eyes, her warm hugs, the blue peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she would make, his first Yankees game, his first Giants game, how she would tousle his hair before work every morning, their campfires on Montauk, how she always told him she loved him before bed.
He screamed.
He fell back into the void.
"You almost destroyed the entire west coast."
Percy blinked. Rubbing his eyes he realized he was no longer in the small dim room, but rather in a small forest clearing. Ares sat in a foldable camping chair, a small bonfire burning as the sun set. He stood from his own camping chair that Ares had seemingly placed him. He was about to ask Ares what he meant before he noticed something.
His perspective had completely changed.
And he meant that literally. He didn't remember being this tall, he'd had to have grown 4 or 5 inches overnight. His mind felt different too, how he didn't actually know. A second sense almost, he felt older, like he could understand and process information better, he felt like he could understand emotions better, his own and others as well.
Like years of life experience had been crammed into his head.
"Ares," he rasped, succeeded by a coughing fit. His throat had never felt more dry. "What's happening to me?"
Ares snorted. "You're aging of course."
Naturally.
Ares snapped his fingers and an ornate mirror appeared in front of Percy. He stared at the stranger in front of him. Though he knew it was his own eyes looking back at himself, he struggled to wrap his head around what was happening.
He looked good all things considered.
Formally twelve years old of normal size, stature and appearance, he was now well over 6 feet tall. He could literally feel his muscles beneath his skin now, cautiously lifting up the red Black Sabbath "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 1978 Tour" shirt he now wore, which he assumed was Ares' own.
Woah, that was new.
Walking away from the mirror, he picked his chair up and placed it closer to the fire opposite of Ares. It was growing darker and therefore colder. He sat down, willing himself to think of anything but her.
His newfound immortality was going to be quite the adjustment, that was for sure.
"You seem calmer." Ares said, staring into the fire.
"I don't know if I feel anything," Percy said, finding the fire equally as interesting, "I just feel numb." He paused for a moment. "Will it get easier?"
"It will get much harder before it gets any easier, Destroyer." Ares said quietly.
Percy stared into the fire and found a small amount of peace knowing that, for everything else that had happened, everything that had gone wrong and been broken irreversibly, the God of War had been honest with him so far and had not hidden anything from him when he could have done so easily.
That went a long way in Percy's opinion.
"What did I do to the west coast?" he asked curiously, only now processing what Ares had said.
"What didn't you do? A hurricane off the coast of San Francisco, an earthquake from Los Angeles to San Diego, The Mist disappearing entirely in Oregon, ghosts in Death Valley," Ares snorted. "You live up to your namesake Destroyer."
Percy frowned, "How did I do any of that? The only reason Poseidon claimed me was because everyone saw how the water healed me. How did I summon a damn hurricane? And what's The Mist?"
"I must admit it's been quite a long time since I've dealt with a new godling, a couple millennia or so." Ares sighed, snapping his fingers and summoning a fireplace poker to stoke the bonfire. "You are Poseidon and Hecate's child and so their domains have bestowed abilities to you, a substantial amount I would guess but not all of them. They will be as strong as an exceptionally powerful demigod, but will have little to no bearing on your own eventual domains." He snapped his fingers again and the poker vanished. "As for how you used these abilities, extreme emotional duress is enough for any demigod's powers to manifest in unpredictable ways, let alone a newly awakened god."
Percy found himself able to process all the new information surprisingly well. If he accepted the fact that he was a god now, an extremely big if all things considered, then everything seemed to make sense logically. That didn't mean he had no shortage of questions though.
"And The Mist?" He questioned.
Ares grimaced. "A construction of your mother's. Anything that conflicts with a mortal's general belief or worldview is reconstructed in their mind to make sense to them. A hellhound will appear as a very large dog, or an empousa as an extremely attractive woman. Simply put, it prevents mortals from learning of or interacting with the godly world."
Percy ignored the punch in his gut when Hecate was referred to as his mother. "So… I'm a god," he said slowly. It sounded incredibly strange and even ridiculous to say out loud. "What am I the god of? Or am I just immortal?"
Ares barked out a laugh. As if that wasn't shocking enough, Percy detected actual humor in his voice.
"A god and an immortal are two very different things, Destroyer. Godhood comes with more than just a title or two, it comes with domains, responsibilities, allies, enemies and above all else power. Immortality is just the inability to die, something built into godhood." Ares finally removed his gaze from the fire and looked at Percy for the first time during their conversation. Percy met his eyes. "As for your domains, Destroyer is not only a title. You are certainly The God of Destruction, whatever else you may be will not be known until you reach your godly maturity, which I had previously estimated to be around two months but seeing as you have already reached puberty, I now estimate in two weeks."
God of Destruction.
How horribly poetic considering his life, or the life he remembered at least. There were clearly gaps in his memory.
He'd have to do something about that.
"I aged normally for my entire life, why is this all happening now?" He asked. That was something that made absolutely zero sense to him. He remembered every birthday he'd had, that wasn't a lie. No matter who he shared it with every year.
Ares eyes softened considerably. "To my understanding, your mother placed a spell on you. It would reduce your godly scent to an extremely powerful demigod's, allow you to age normally and place a block on any powers you developed to reduce their effectiveness. It was imperative that you were seen as a demigod and only a demigod. However, all spells have loopholes. Whenever you learned of your true parentage, either one or both of them, the spell would break and you would be revealed as a god to any who bothered to look."
He took the ice in his heart that he felt as he processed how his false life was constructed and shoved it deep inside him, he would deal with his emotions later. Despite this, Percy felt as if he should've expected magic as the answer due to revelations in the past couple days, Greek gods being real and everything.
"Why couldn't they raise me themselves?" He asked quietly. "Why was I given a life that would have always had to be ripped away?"
Ares sighed. It seemed like he sighed every couple of minutes to Percy. "Believe me, Destroyer, they wanted desperately to keep you. Despite this, once they realized what you were, they knew that my father would stop at nothing to have you, whether to imprison or kill you. " He grimaced. "He has become… increasingly unstable as of late. Your birth was marked by an exceptionally memorable episode of his. You were born in secret, and shortly after sent away."
"I want to see them," Percy muttered. "Why couldn't they tell me this themselves? Why are you of all people here?"
He instantly regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Not that he didn't mean them, but Ares just seemed so small. He broke eye contact, hung his head and seemed to shrink into himself.
The God of War was totally distraught at his words.
"I know that I am a poor substitute as a parent for you," he whispered. "Or for any of my children."
"I- I didn't mean it like that, I just- I'm just scared and I'm confused and so many things are happening and last week I was in upstate New York and then I was back in the city and then I was in Long Island and now I'm god's know where-"
"West Virginia." Ares supplied.
Percy kept talking, "And I'm a god and my mom's apparently a goddess and the person who raised me isn't real and It's- It's just a lot right? And I don't mean to lash out at you or the west coast or anybody and now I'm wondering if I've been doing that all my life because apparently I'm The God of Destruction. And I'm just sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you or upset you or imply anything because this feeling inside of me tells me that you're actually pretty cool and I guess I always wanted an older brother or an older someone and this feeling feels something like that? I think? So I'm- I'm just sorry. That's- that's really all I meant to say. I'm sorry. I'm-"
"Perseus."
Percy stopped and looked at Ares. Somewhere during his rant he had started pacing. He noticed how there were footprints of ash beneath him, and the trees suddenly looked sickly and fragile.
"I am not upset with you, Perseus. And I apologize for letting my emotions get the better of me. You have been strong through this ordeal, and I am proud." And Percy could tell he was because his eyes glittered with emotion. And that meant a lot. "And to answer your original question, when you were born your parents formulated a plan and contacted an Olympian who then contacted me."
"Why make it so complicated?" Percy asked as he sat back down, relieved to change subjects.
"You would need to be removed from Camp Half-Blood, which to the rest of the gods would look like the only demigod of Poseidon had gone mysteriously missing. They knew Zeus would question your father incessantly, that he would think that your father had you or was aiding you. Apollo is The God of Truth and would be able to sense any lie your father told, so we created a work around." Ares eyes dimmed. "Your father has no idea where you are, he has no idea that you are with me. Truthfully, he has no idea if you are even alive but it was the best that we could do." He finished mournfully.
Percy sighed as he read between the lines. Ares was honest when he said that things would get much worse.
"I can't talk to him, can I?" He said quietly. It wasn't really a question as he already knew the answer.
"No." Ares said simply, staring back into the fire.
"How long?"
"Until your safety is secured."
"How do we do that?"
Ares met his eyes again. "We stockpile your power, slowly reveal you to people of influence, curry their favor and put you into a position to destroy Kronos. Then, and only then, will my father be forced to accept you."
Percy nodded. It seemed like a good plan. Make some friends, do them some favors, get on their good side and then destroy-
"Wait did you say Kronos?" He asked incredulously.
Ares nodded. "I did."
"But he's dead."
"He's reforming."
"Oh."
"Quite."
"Makes sense."
It really didn't.
"He's slowly regaining power, making allies with other Titans, scorned gods, monsters and even demigods." Ares said, seemingly oblivious of Percy's internal turmoil. "If you end him while swearing fealty to Olympus, Kronos, the greatest threat to the gods from before even my birth, then Zeus will have to accept you. Even if it is only because he would rather have you as an allie than an enemy. At the very least, he'll make you an Olympian."
Percy nodded numbly, trying to imagine that the least Zeus would do is make him an Olympian.
"So… this plan. Where do we start?" He asked, trying to get some sort of normalcy back in the conversation.
"Oh it's really very simple actually," Ares said offhandedly as he summoned a bag of marshmallows. "You need to recover The Master Bolt I stole from my father."
"…What?"
"Discreetly of course."
