𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐍° ! percy jackson

𝐢.𝐱𝐱 - 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐠𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐠𝐨 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐲? (𝐚)

"His plan?" Percy echoed cluelessly.

"You were the thief on the winter solstice," he said. "Your father thought to keep you his little secret. He directed you into the throne room on Olympus. You took the master bolt and my helm. Had I not sent my Fury to discover you at Yancy Academy, Poseidon might have succeeded in hiding his scheme to start a war. But now you have been forced into the open. You will be exposed as Poseidon's thief, and I will have my helm back!"

"But..." Annabeth spoke. Aurora could tell her mind was going a million miles an hour. "Lord Hades, your helm of darkness is missing, too?"

"Do not play innocent with me, girl. You and the satyr and the child have been helping this hero—coming here to threaten me in Poseidon's name, no doubt—to bring me an ultimatum. Does Poseidon think I can be blackmailed into supporting him?"

"No!" Percy jumped. "Poseidon didn't—I didn't—"

"I have said nothing of the helm's disappearance," Hades snarled, "because I had no illusions that anyone on Olympus would offer me the slightest justice, the slightest help. I can ill afford for word to get out that my most powerful weapon of fear is missing. So I searched for you myself, and when it was clear you were coming to me to deliver your threat, I did not try to stop you."

Aurora let out a haughty snort. "You didn't try to stop us? Yeah fuckin—"

"Return my helm now, or I will stop death," Hades threatened, ignoring his fuming stepdaughter. Aurora couldn't help but feel bitter. When will I stop being ignored? "That is my counterproposal. I will open the earth and have the dead pour back into the world. I will make your lands a nightmare. And you, Percy Jackson—your skeleton will lead my army out of Hades." The skeletal soldiers all took one step forward, making their weapons ready. But when Aurora sent an angry glare at them, they recoiled. Just slightly.

"You're as bad as Zeus," Aurora could feel Percy's anger as he spat the words, and she wanted to hug him right then and there for voicing her emotions aloud. "You think I stole from you? That's why you sent the Furies after me?"

"Of course," Hades replied simply. Aurora scoffed. It wouldn't have been the first time he did it.

"You're pretty good at that, aren't you?" She snapped, her voice low and bitter. She glowered at the god. Hades' cataclysmic glare sparked, but not in a way she would've expected. Conflict warred in the black of his irises that matched his soul and decor, but he looked almost... guilty.

Impossible.

"And the other monsters?" Percy continued to ask.

Hades curled his lip, tearing his gaze away from the girl and diverting it to the boy. "I had nothing to do with them. I wanted no quick death for you—I wanted you brought before me alive so you might face every torture in the Fields of Punishment. Why do you think I let you enter my kingdom so easily?"

"Easily?" Percy was starting to sound like a broken record.

"Return my property!"

"But I don't have your helm. I came for the master bolt." Percy argued. Aurora wished he remembered what she had said. He remembered everything else! Never argue with the Lord of the Underworld. Well, unless you were Aurora. She quickly realized she didn't exactly set a very good example for him. Oh well, they were all going to die anyway.

"Which you already possess!" Hades shouted. "You came here with it, little fool, thinking you could threaten me!"

"But I didn't!" Percy exclaimed.

"Open your pack, then." Hades demanded. Percy followed what he was told and unzipped it. Inside was a two-foot-long metal cylinder, spiked on both ends, humming with energy.