His Return

Chapter 1 : Audience

Hades gave Percy a nod of approval when he say him. After years of seething dislike for the son of Poseidon, Hades had finally began taking a fondness to the demigod. The god of Underworld had realized that Jackson was not like the rest of his kind. He was kind and selfless, thinking of others before himself. Hades liked that. He respected him for it. It was not an easy task to put another person's needs in front of yours, yet Jackson had turned it into a habit. To Hades, it was a refreshing sight.

Hestia smiled warmly at him, standing from her seat and changing form to envelop him in a tight hug. Her touch seeped warmth and hope into him. He felt a small pang of reassurance that the meeting would not be his utter doom when she pulled away and made her way back to her throne, ignoring  the looks she received from her breathren.

Percy looked around the room and immediately he could tell that something about the meeting was off. The atmosphere didn't feel right, almost as if an invisible weight hung in the air.

Percy stopped when he reached the middle of the large room. He couldn't read the look on any of the gods' faces as they looked at him blankly. The tension grew thicker by the second.

The only unoccupied throne was the one that seemed to be made of thick vines and gold-plated fire wood. It was Dionysus's.

"Lord Zeus." Percy spoke for the first time that morning. "You summoned me?"

The gods all averted their eyes to Zeus as he huffed and waved his hand, opening a large door to the back of the room. Out of the door demigods filed in. It was odd. Percy hadn't seen them outside before he walked in, yet it seemed that they had been waiting for a while.

Percy turned his head to look at them and saw something strange. Like the gods, none of them wore an expression on their faces; not even the youngest of them.

When he returned his attention to the front, Percy's heart almost jumped into his throat.

On the ground, in a pool of fresh golden ichor laid the lifeless body of Dionysus. The sword in his chest, was Riptide—Percy's sword. All eyes widened at the sight.

Last he checked, Percy had his sword in his pocket in pen form, but alas, when he touched his pocket, it wasn't there. He already knew that he had lost.

"PERSEUS JACKSON!" Zeus's voice amplified through the room. "YOU HAVE BEEN ACCUSED WITH THE MURDER OF DIONYSUS! HOW WOULD YOU CONTEST?!"

Dread filled up within the young demigod, though he refused to let himself relent to his need to scream. He didn't know that there was someone out there that hated him so much to do something like this and cast the blame onto him.

"Innocent, my lord." He said honestly. He didn't want to die for such a reason as fraud, but he didn't have much of an argument. His sword was in the heart of Dionysus. How it got there, Percy didn't know, but he had the strangest feeling that saying that wouldn't get him very far.

"When did this happen, My Lord." Aphrodite asked.

The godly blood was still partially fresh. It could not have happened more than 5 hours prior. A time window that could not have lead to Percy.

"Four hours at most. He died from a sword being impaled through his heart." The king of the gods stated. "Perseus Jackson's sword."