"So, what are we doing again?"

"We are visiting my brother, Perseus. I told you this last night."

"Right, but that doesn't explain why we're hiking up a mountain, or why we're visiting him." Percy paused. "Come to think of it, I'm not even sure which brother you're talking about."

"My father has many children, Destroyer, but I have only one brother."

They moved quickly up the steep slopes of Mount St. Helens; Ares had summoned two heavy broadswords to plant into the hills as they climbed. When the slopes ended and steep cliffs began, Ares would jump up and catch Percy by the hand and haul him up. They repeated this several times.

"Can't you just fly us up?" Percy had asked.

Ares looked at him, confused. "Have I any wings?"

Percy frowned. "Well, no. But can't gods fly?"

Ares somehow looked even more confused as his eyebrows knit together. "Why would gods be able to fly?"

"It just seems like a godly thing to be able to do."

Ares just continued to stare at him in confusion.

"But uh, jumping is pretty cool too." Percy mumbled.

They didn't talk much for the rest of the trip.

While Percy was quite pleased that he could now leap somewhat 20 feet in the air, he felt disappointed in himself as he knew that Ares could have made it to their destination in a single bound. Ares explained that it was because he was not yet fully grown.

It did not make him feel better.

Ares hauled Percy up one more time, and it seemed their trek had finally ended. In front of them was a small cavern the size of Percy's old bedroom cut into the cliffs. Ares walked forward and softly placed his hand on the wall.

The wall began to crack and a soft golden glow began to shine through. Percy could hear humming sounding behind the wall and felt the ground begin to shake. He leaned against the side to keep his balance and watched as the golden light grew brighter and brighter as more cracks appeared.

"Uh, Ares? Is this supposed to happen?" Percy asked nervously.

Ares stared at the cracked wall, unperturbed by whatever was happening. "Always with the theaterics." He said, shaking his head.

And then as quickly as it had begun, the wall shattered, the noise stopped and the ground became still. In the wall's place were two golden doors, each bearing the sigil of a hammer about to strike an anvil.

Ares cleared his throat before speaking, "Thetis"

The doors flew open, revealing a bridge made of bronze that Percy couldn't see the end of. Ares stepped forward and Percy dutifully followed.

"Why couldn't we just flash in here?" Percy asked as they crossed over a particularly large stream of lava.

"Hephaestus does not want me here." Ares said simply.

"Why?"

"Use your head."

Percy thought about everything he knew about Hephaestus. He was married to Aphrodite and-.

Oh.

Yes it certainly made sense why Ares was not welcome here.

"You shouldn't see her." Percy said quietly. As much as he liked Ares, he couldn't excuse that.

Ares walked steadily, though his voice wavered. "I have not seen Aphrodite in some time."

"How long?"

"Almost half a century." Ares spoke stiffly, clearly uncomfortable but unwilling to lie to Percy or shut him down.

"That's a good start," Percy said. He was surprised but happy to hear that Ares had kept his distance. But would it last? "But you shouldn't see her ever."

"I know."

Percy sighed. How do you tell a god that the goddess they've been seeing for three millennia is married to his brother and he shouldn't have sex with her?

"I think anybody can choose to do what's right after making a bad decision," Percy said slowly. "Even gods can change."

Ares stopped and stared at Percy. He said nothing, seemingly only waiting for Percy to continue.

"What I mean is you've been, for lack of a better term, screwing his wife for like three thousand years, right? And not seeing her is good, it shows you care. But, and I know I'm still new to this whole immortality thing, I get the feeling it would be really easy to forget about this in like a century or two and start this cycle all over again."

Ares looked at him with a kind of haunted understanding, and in that moment, Percy knew that was exactly what had been happening. Ares would mess around with Aphrodite, Hephaestus would get rightfully pissed off, Ares would feel awful and not see Aphrodite for a while. Rinse. Repeat.

"You care about Hephaestus right?"

"I miss my brother." Ares said softly.

"Well then show him. I mean look at what you've been doing all these years. I mean really look at it. This fucked up Ouraboras. I know how you feel, you know how you feel, but does he? Does it really seem like you're sorry? Does it really seem like you miss him?"

Sadness rolled off Ares in waves. Though his face remained unbothered, his eyes betrayed everything.

"But you do, right? And you don't want to keep doing this?"

Ares nodded.

"Then just stop."

"I have tried-"

"Have you stopped because what you were doing made Hephaestus feel bad, or because it made you feel bad?"

Ares broke eye contact and hung his head. It was all the confirmation Percy needed. He sighed, disappointed to be proven right.

"My point is, Hephaestus has been feeling like shit over this for three thousand years, if you want to make this up to him then you need to not see her for double that at least. And then never. See her. Again."

"I love her."

Percy pinched his nose. "She's the goddess of love. I'm sure a lot of people love her. Including her husband, your brother. And really Ares, do you love her? Or do you love fucking her?"

Ares uncharacteristically sputtered, "That's not- That has nothing to do with this!"

Percy glared at him. "It has everything to do with this. It literally is this."

Ares' anger drained as his eyes dulled. "I do not want to be like this."

Percy stepped forward and placed his hand on his shoulder. "Who do you love more? Hephaestus? Or yourself? Because that's really who you're choosing when you do this."

"My brother. Always." Ares said softly.

"Then prove it. Even Gods can change." He poked his finger into Ares' chest. "I believe in you. Don't let me down. Don't let him down."

Ares stared at him for a minute before slowly drawing Percy into a hug. It was rigid, like he hadn't done it in an eternity. Which was sadly probably true.

Then his mind caught up with his body and realized that Ares, The God of War, was hugging him in a moment of emotional vulnerability that Percy would have that was completely and utterly beyond him.

Seriously, what was his life at this point?

"I think," Ares said slowly above him, as he still towered over Percy despite his growth spurt. "That when you get older you will be the best of us."

He released Percy and looked at him, a small smile on his face. "Even Gods can change." He mused out loud. "Yes, you will do wonders in Olympus."

They pressed onward into the forge.

"Get the fuck out."

Ares sighed, clearly expecting this welcome. "Hephaestus, I only ask that you let us say our part. There are great forces at play here and-"

CLANG

Ares pursed his lips as Hephaestus struck the anvil, clearly uninterested in what they had to say.

"Brother-"

CLANG

"I will give you one last chance," Hephaestus said with his back still turned to them. Percy felt beads of sweat roll down his forehead as the forge somehow got even hotter. "Get. The Fuck. Out."

Ares stepped forward and placed a hand on the god's back. "I know I have much to atone for, Brother. I would like to start now if you would give me-"

Ares didn't get the chance to finish his sentence as Hephaestus whirled around and delivered a blow to Ares' face with his hammer. A sickening crunch followed by Ares flying several feet backwards.

Hephaestus stalked towards Ares with what Percy thought was surprising grace as flames trailed behind him. He grabbed Ares' collar with a large, calloused hand and lifted him easily in the air. "Do you forget what I am?" He whispered dangerously. "I may use my machines as tools but never make the mistake of thinking that I am not first and foremost a warrior. I am a God of Olympus and you will not come into my forge and leave without facing consequences War."

Ares stared back into Hephaestus' eyes which Percy could see were quite literally burning. The two stayed like that for a long minute as Percy began to anxiously look around for a weapon he could use to free Ares. He might've been a jackass, but dammit that was his friend.

Finally, Ares sighed. "I swear on The River Styx to never infringe upon your marriage again." A loud crack of thunder sounded even in the deep pits of the mountain. Hephaestus' eyes widened as he dropped Ares in shock. Ares looked at Hephaestus with sadness and humiliation. "I hope that proves to you that I am quite serious." He said softly. "I need your help and I miss my brother."

Hephaestus stared down at Ares who stared back from his place on the stone floor. "That Oath can be broken, you know." He said, his face betraying no emotion.

"You know as well as I that an oath breaker pays no small price." Ares said. "I have done many terrible things, but I have never broken an Oath on The Styx"

"I'll kill you myself if you do, you know?" Hephaestus said coldly. "No machines. No traps. I will kill you with my own bare hands and send you to Tarturus. And then do it again. And again. Until Tarturus is more recognizable than Olympus. Do you understand me War? I will see you fade before you spend another day on Earth."

"If I break this Oath," Ares said with determination, "Then that is the only fate I deserve."

"You've changed." Hephaestus mused.

"It is all thanks to my friend." Ares gave a pointed look in Percy's direction. "I would like to introduce you, I think you would like him."

Hephaestus glanced at Percy before turning back to Ares. He seemed to struggle with himself for minute before a sighing and reaching a hand out to Ares. Ares grasped his hand and smiled as Hephaestus pulled him up. Percy could see a ghost of a smile behind his thick, black beard as the two brothers looked at each other as if they were both seeing each other in a new light.

For a moment, all was well.

Until Hephaestus reeled back and clocked Ares in the nose.

"You're a fuckin' prick!" Hephaestus roared.

"Hephaestus…" Ares all but groaned as he set his broken nose, gold drops trickling onto the stone.

"No no no, you said your shit, so shut the fuck up and listen to me for once in your fuckin' life." Hephaestus growled as he summoned a wooden chair and pushed Ares down.

"Heph, I apologized. I swore on The Styx. Calm down, you know what happens when you get upset." Ares said as his shoulders slumped. Percy guessed that this was a common occurrence some time ago before they rifted apart.

"You don't get to call me that! Not yet! I'm gonna yell a lot and I'm gonna say a lot of fucked up things that I'm gonna feel bad about later, but I'm not gonna stop fuckin' yelling!" Hephaestus started pacing as he started ranting, switching between English and Greek seemingly at random.

Area sighed and snapped his fingers. A chair appeared behind Percy. "You should sit down." He said as he dropped his head into his hands. "This will take some time."

"And another fuckin' thing! You never thanked me for all those weapons I made you! Not even a fuckin' card!"

Percy sighed and looked over to Ares and tapped a finger on his wrist. Ares held his hands up discreetly, four fingers on one hand and three on the other. Percy slumped in his chair. Almost forty-five minutes? This was going to take an eternity. How long could he possibly-

Hephaestus sank into his chair with a thud. "Alright, I'm done. What do ya need? Who's the brat?"

Ares perked up as a small smile crossed his face. "Hephaestus, I would like you to meet Perseus."

Hephaestus turned to look at Percy. "Hell of a name." He murmured as he eyed Percy.

"Quite." Ares cleared his throat. "Ah, brother, can I assume you are blocking your senses so as to avoid any other distractions while you work?"

Hephaestus nodded, looking confused. "Like I've done for centuries. Your point?"

"It would make this easier to explain if you stopped." Ares said, looking almost sheepish.

Hephaestus knit his eyebrows together in confusion, a quirk Percy noticed he shared with his brother, but nodded. He closed his eyes and stayed silent for a moment before his eyes snapped open. "Destroyer." He whispered in abject horror before looking at Ares. "What have you done?"

"Yes, this is The Destroyer." Ares said as he let out a small breath. "He is also Olympus' best hope."

"He'll kill you for this. If he finds out." Hephaestus stared down at the floor, shocked at Percy's presence. "No prisons, no trial. Everything I threatened to do to you but ten fuckin' times worse." He looked up at Ares in terror. "You know what he'll do to me if I don't turn you in? I'm not even his fuckin' kid!"

Area leaned forward and dropped his tone. "The king has gone mad, Hephaestus. We both know why, and we both know there is no cure that any god possesses for what ails him. Perseus is fated to bring a new age to Oluympus."

Hephaestus leaned back in his chair. "Or fuckin' destroy it!"

"How can you be so certain?"

Hephaestus looked at Ares like he was insane. "What choice do you fuckin' think The Destroyer would make?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

Their eyes turned to Percy who was suddenly very uncomfortable at the attention being given to him. He had gotten used to being all but ignored for almost a full hour.

"We'll uh, Hephaestus, I know I'm supposed to be the fated Destroyer and everything, but last week I was twelve so even if I wanted to destroy Olympus, I really don't think I could."

Hephaestus shot Ares a look. "It's a long story." Ares said.

Percy forged on, "I know the uh, The King, wants me dead. And I'm pretty pissed at my parents too, but I met Ares, and he's been guiding me through all this shit. I think I'd probably go insane without him. And I met you and you seem pretty cool too." Percy shrugged. "It seems kinda stupid to assume that just because there are awful gods there's not good ones to balance them out. Mortals are the same way. And from what I've seen, I think gods and mortals have more in common than most gods would like to admit." He took a breath before finishing his thought. "So no, I don't want to destroy Olympus, I will, however, do anything I can to change it."

Hephaestus stared at Percy. "Gods and mortals have more in common than most gods would like to think." He mused before turning to Ares. "I didn't think The Destroyer would be so… philosophical."

Ares nodded in agreement. "Yes. It has been a surprising development." He looked at Percy with a small smile. "But one most welcome."

Hephaestus leaned back, muttering to himself incoherently before he fixed Percy with a pointed stare. "You're not having any homicidal urges? No inexplicable flashes of rage?"

"Um, well, no urges of the homicidal kind at least. The others are new but nothing negative I think." Percy said as gold ran to his cheeks. "And no more flashes of rage than usual."

"I feel obligated to tell you this brother," Ares said with a deadly serious expression on his face. "That if you agree to help us then you will be regarded as much a traitor to Olympus as I am. There is no going back. If you refuse then I understand, but there are dangerous forces at play and I believe that our best chance lies with Perseus."

Hephaestus sat with a conflicted look on his face for a few seconds before sighing. "Ah what the hell."

Ares had the largest smile Percy had ever seen on him as he leaned forward and offered Hephaestus his hand."Brothers then? Just like old times?"

Hephaestus glared at Ares. "As long as you don't fuck my wife."

Ares coughed, embarrassed. "No. None of that."

Hephaestus huffed before grasping Ares' hand. "Brothers." He said with a smile. "Just like old times."

Ares smiled as he leaned back. "So begins our little cabal." His face turned serious as he looked at Hephaestus. "He needs a weapon, and we need a plan."

"Weapon's not a problem," Hephaestus grunted as he summoned a bottle of whiskey. "Symbol of Power I'm guessing?" He threw his head back and drained the bottle in one gulp.

"Wait wait wait." Percy said. He didn't need a weapon, he already had one. And it was awesome, it turned into a pen and everything. "I already have this." He said as he took out Anaklusmos and uncapped it.

"Good blade" Hephaestus grunted as he took the sword and gave it a few practice swings. "A good second, but yer gonna need something new if yer gonna be fighting gods eventually."

"Titans too." Ares said offhandedly as he took a sip of his own whiskey.

Hephaestus stopped and looked at Ares with confusion. "Titans?"

"Ah, I knew I forgot something." Ares refilled his glass. "The Crooked One. He's reforming."

Hephaestus stared at Ares with shock, looked back at Percy, then shook his head. "First The Destroyer, now The Titan King. What the fuck?" He mumbled.

"Oh. One more thing." Ares took another sip. "I have the bolt."

Hephaestus rubbed his face with his hand. "Fuck me. Oh fuck me. This is so fucked." He glared at Ares. "Why?"

"The Titans believe me to be unsatisfied with Olympus, which of course I am, but they expected the promise of a new war to entice me enough to commit treason." Ares chuckled. "Which of course I already have. When I was contacted, by a demigod no less, I felt that it was better to accept and keep The Bolt in safe hands rather than let a Titan loyalist take it."

Hephaestus held his head in his hands. "This plan you mentioned, I assume it has to do with this?" He muffled through his hands.

"Quite right, brother. Which leads me to our next point of business." He looked at Hephaestus with a proud smile. "How would you like a child of yours to be officially recognized by the Olympian Council for retrieving The Bolt?"

Hephaestus looked confused for a moment before realization dawned on his face. "Clever, Brother." He smirked. "Very fuckin' clever."

Percy felt very lost, clearly missing the unspoken message. He made a note to get better at that. "I'm confused." He said with a frown.

"We manufacture a quest to be led by one of Hephaestus' children, guide them to The Bolt, and let them receive the glory that comes with it." Ares looked at Hephaestus. "Consider this another peace offering, brother."

"Yeah, yeah." Hephaestus grumbled as he summoned his fourth bottle of whiskey in ten minutes.

"So we're gonna lead them to The Bolt, but you have the bolt, so we're gonna lead them straight to you?" Percy asked, confused. That really seemed like the opposite of what they were trying to achieve. "Doesn't that cause problems for us?"

"No no, Perseus. You misunderstand. We lead them to a patsy, or in this case, the actual problem." Ares snapped his fingers and a full sized replica of a person stood in front of them. "This is the demigod who contacted me, a Son of Hermes, Luke Castellan."

Percy's eyes widened. "Hey, I met him at camp." He frowned. "Damn. He actually seemed pretty cool. Not the Titan serving kind of guy." He paused as he processed all the new information. "So where do I fit into all of this?"

"You give 'em The Bolt. Then you tail him for a while and guide the quest to find the fucker. Then my kid gets recognized as a Hero of Olympus." Hephaestus grunted before smiling crookedly. "This is so fucked up." He downed another bottle. "My type of plan."

"An excellent idea, brother." Ares looked at Percy. "We wait to strike until you reach your maturity and you have full access to your own powers, and the general tools all gods use. In the meantime, you train. Every day. Every hour. Until you collapse. Once we enact this, you are not safe until The Bolt is returned. You need to be ready."

Hephaestus sighed as he hopped up from his chair. "Back to work then. I'll show you a couple of spare rooms later, for now just try to not fuck anything up. I got important shit in here."

Percy looked around the room. There were tables pulled with every kind of weaponry imaginable. The walls were covered with blueprints, some written on what looked like papyrus. A mechanical bird flew around the room, occasionally shooting a laser beam out its eyes at various corners of the room.

Maybe he could play four corners with it?

"Hephaestus. About this weapon." Percy said as he watched Hephaestus walk back to his anvil.

"Don't you worry your pretty little fuckin' head. I've got something that'll be just perfect for ya." His back remained turned but Percy could hear the excitement in his voice.

He leaned back in his chair. Two weeks until he reached his godly maturity? That was fine by him. After all the shit that went down in the past two days? He needed some R and R.