Chapter 6: The Son of the Time Lord
A little point to address, I've skipped directly to Capture The Flag purely because everything between the last chapter and this chapter went as it did in canon and so I didn't want to waste people's time. Chiron explains to him about camp, Grover tells him about his judgement, Percy gargles Clarisse with toilet water and has a good spar against Luke. Enjoy the action. Things go a bit differently during the main battle.
It was finally time for the thing he'd been looking forward to the most. Capture the flag.
When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded, and they all stood at our tables.
Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth, and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening grey, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner of identical size but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.
He turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"
"Yeah."
"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"
"Not always," he said. "But often."
"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do— repaint the flag?"
He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."
"Whose side are we on?"
He gave Percy a sly look as if he knew something Percy didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. "We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help."
The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded—shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities—in order to win support.
Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what he'd seen, Dionysus's kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but weren't very aggressive. Aphrodite's sons and daughters he wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair, and gossiped. Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island or anywhere else on the planet.
Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.
"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"
He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, and oxhide shields coated in metal.
"Whoa," Percy said. "We're really supposed to use these?"
Luke looked at him as if he were crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here—Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."
His shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds, but surprisingly he was able to hold it with only minor annoyance. Almost like his strength had increased recently. He could have snowboarded on it fine, but he hoped nobody seriously expected him to run fast. His helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.
Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"
They cheered and shook their swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at them as they headed off toward the north.
He managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over his equipment. "Hey."
She kept marching.
"So what's the plan?" he asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"
Her hand drifted toward her pocket as if she were afraid he'd stolen something.
"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?"
"Border patrol, whatever that means."
"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan."
She pushed ahead, leaving him in the dust.
Percy narrowed his eyes. She had wanted him on her team, but he was being left to just defend the creeks. What was she playing at?
It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. Annabeth stationed him next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, and then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.
Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, he felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords he'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on his hand like a bowling ball.
Far away, the conch horn blew. He heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past him like a deer, leapt through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.
"Great," he thought. "I'll miss all the fun, as usual."
Then he heard a sound that sent a chill up his spine, a low canine growl somewhere close by.
He raised his shield instinctively; he had the feeling something was stalking him.
Then the growling stopped. He felt the presence retreating.
On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.
"Cream the punk!" Clarisse screamed.
Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords—not that that made him feel any better.
They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. He wasn't going to run though. He would meet them head-on.
He managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid as the Minotaur. They surrounded him, and Clarisse thrusted at him with her spear. His shield deflected the point, but he felt a tingle all over his body.
But there was no pain.
The electricity energised his body. Another Ares guy tried to kick him in the chest, but he grabbed him by the ankle. The lightning spread through his body right past his fingertips and shot the Ares kid, blowing him a few feet across. Before he could react, Clarisse slammed right into his body, knocking him right into the creek. They began to laugh, thinking he had been defeated.
"Big Three material yeah," Clarisse howled with laughter. "Stupid Minotaur probably fell over laughing at his stupid face."
The rest of the Ares kids joined her in laughing, increasing Percy's fury. He could usually shrug off insults, but something about Clarisse and the Ares cabin infuriated him. He wanted to rip their heads off. But he was lying in the creek, his strength seemingly gone. Now would've been a good time for some slow-motion spell.
But then, his senses began to awaken. The water seemed to be helping him.
Clarisse noticed that he was getting up. She gestured to her siblings, and they advanced on him. As two of them raced towards him, he slammed one of them with his shield and used the back of his sword to hit the other right in the skull. The other two behind him were preparing to knock him down as well. Percy couldn't explain how he knew what he was doing, but he gathered his hands into a fist and hit the ground below them with as much force as possible.
The earth below him reacted, vibrating as soon as he made contact, and two small jagged spires shot up, hitting the last two Ares kids straight in the face, knocking them to the floor. Clarisse thrust her spear towards his midsection, but he grabbed it and snapped it like a twig.
"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"
She probably would've said worse, but he smacked her between the eyes with his sword butt and sent her stumbling backwards out of the creek. He shot his leg out forward to knock her straight onto the ground with a satisfying thud.
Then he heard yelling, elated screams, and he saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high.
"A trick!" Clarisse shouted. "It was a trick."
They staggered after Luke, but Percy snarled as he kicked Clarisse in the ribs, pushing her right back onto the floor.
"Stay down," he growled at her.
Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. His side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.
The game was over. They'd won.
Percy was about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice spoke right next to him in the creek, saying, "Not bad, hero."
He looked, but she wasn't there.
"How did you manipulate the earth like that?" she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.
He felt himself getting angry. He wasn't even fazed by the fact that she'd just been invisible. Nor by the fact that he had managed to control the ground below him.
"You set me up," he said. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."
Annabeth shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."
"A PLAN TO GET ME PULVERIZED!."
Annabeth unconsciously moved backwards, noticing his anger was rising.
"I came as fast as I could. I swear I wasn't going to leave you stranded. I was about to jump in, but you didn't need help."
Then she noticed his wounded arm. "How did you do that?"
"Sword cut," he said, still beyond furious, debating whether to congratulate her flawless plan or knock her out right next to Clarisse. "What do you think?"
"No. It was a sword cut. Look at it."
The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As he watched, it turned into a small scar and disappeared. His brows furrowed in confusion.
"I—I don't get it," he said.
Annabeth was thinking hard. He could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at his feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Percy."
"What—"
"Just do it."
He came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. His arms started to go numb again. His adrenaline rush left him. He almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied him.
"Oh, Styx," she cursed. "This is not good. I didn't want ... I assumed it would be Zeus... ."
Before he could ask what she meant, he heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.
The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which he would realize, only later, he had understood perfectly: "Stand ready! My bow!"
Annabeth drew her sword.
There on the rocks just above them was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.
It was looking straight at him.
Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, "Percy, run!"
She tried to step in front of him, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her—an enormous shadow with teeth—and just as it hit him, as he stumbled backwards and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through his armour, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hound's neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at his feet.
By some miracle, he was still alive. He didn't want to look underneath the ruins of his shredded armour. His chest felt warm and wet, and he knew he was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned him into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.
Chiron trotted up next to them, a bow in his hand, his face grim.
"Di immortales!" Annabeth said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't ... they're not supposed to ..."
"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."
Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.
Clarisse yelled, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"
"Are you serious?" Percy responded back, getting ready to attack her again. "It attacked me, you dim-witted brainless idiot. Why would I summon a creature to harm me? I know you don't have common sense, but damn did I underestimate your level of stupidity."
"Quiet, both of you," Chiron told them, stepping in between to prevent a fight.
They watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.
"You're wounded," Annabeth told him. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."
"Don't tell me what to do."
"Percy, just do it," she said. "Chiron, watch this."
He was too tired to argue. He stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around him.
Instantly, he felt better. He could feel the cuts on his chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.
"Look, I—I don't know why," he said, trying to apologise. "I'm sorry..."
But they weren't watching his wounds heal. They were staring at something above his head.
"Percy," Annabeth said, pointing. "Um ..."
By the time he looked up, the sign was already fading, but he could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A long handle with a curved blade hanging from the top. A scythe.
"Your father," Annabeth murmured. "This is really not good. No wonder the gods want you dead. This is bad Percy. Really really bad."
"It is determined," Chiron announced.
All around him, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it. In fact, none of them looked happy about it. Some of them were giving each other confused looks, almost like they were debating whether to bow down or run him through.
"My father?" he asked, completely bewildered.
"Kronos," said Chiron. "Father of Elder Olympians. Lord of all titans. Ruler of the Golden Age. Former king of the universe. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Time Lord."
Author's Note: Enjoy yourself, people. Two chapters out at the same time. Let it not be said that I'm not a saviour for you all. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter so far. You see some of Percy's other powers and also certain aspects of his personality. It'll get worse before it gets better for him. But the next chapter is a major one. There are questions, a lot of answers, and then way more questions. And it's quite a long chapter as well, so there's something to look forward to.
Also, I'd like to mention that there will be certain parts in the series portrayed slightly darker than how they were in canon. Rick obviously had to tone done certain things due to the age group he wanted to reach, and that's perfectly fine. There aren't going to be gore scenes or stuff like that, but just some darker edges in the story because they're important to Percy's character development.
Little spoiler: we meet a god in the next chapter :)
Now for the reviews
Anaklusmos404: Thank you. I wanted to make the fight a lot different to the original books mainly to show the subtle differences in this Percy. The idea of Dante from Dmc isn't actually bad, I'll defo keep that in mind. I'm still working on how I want to portray his time powers. As for Percy's other powers, some of them will make sense in the next chapter.
Lord Kronos1950: Thank you, appreciate the review. There will be a lot of changes from the main story, but it sticks to the plotline of Kronos's rise and the Great Prophecy etc. Glad you're enjoying it
Baro-s: Thank you, I'm glad you like it
titus5: Yup, like I mentioned earlier, his powers will make a bit more sense in the next chapter and in the coming storyline. Not everything will be as it seems.
thatonefangirl2987: Yup, I remember the Greek vs Roman thing for Heracles vs Hercules. But in canon, most of the greek demigods, even Chiron and Percy, still refer to him as Hercules, as that's the name he's better remembered by in the myths.
MaxAkki: I'm glad to see you're happy with Percabeth. The relationship development will be different, especially... well I don't wanna spoil, but things will get infinitely complicated in the later books. Like I said, I plan on doing more than just the original 5 books. Yup I'm aware that at certain points I use wu, kinda got that from Harry Potter as in certain parts when portraying Harry's inner thoughts, Rowling used the first person in small segments. I'll try to tone that down.
JoJo 'Perlia' Jesus: Ayy glad to see you're finally here. Love that. Like I said, powers will start to make sense in the next chapter. And yes, Hestia is watching like the good older sister and it'll have a major impact to Percy as a person. Can't wait to see more reviews by you.
Death Fury: Glad to see you're enjoying man. Even just a simple review means a lot to me and I'm happy it's good.
Yeah, I turned 18. Yay. Free trial of life is over XD. We love that
Anyways, hope you enjoyed the double upload. Stay safe people
SpiritsOfTheWorld
