The Broken Hero Book One: Betrayed

The Checkup

Percy

"Oh yes, of course," Apollo replied. "Follow me."

"You guys can tell them where I was if you want," I told Hades and Hestia.

I followed him to a room on the left of Olympus. It was bigger than normal doctor's rooms, obviously, was gold and glowed, and had pictures of Apollo all over it.

"Sit here," he pointed to a yellow bed. I sat there.

"Now this might hurt a little more than normal shots," he said. He picked up a big needle. "I need a blood sample."

"So you need me to bleed?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Okay, ready," I said calmly.

He lifted it up and stabbed it like a knife. I don't know why he would stab it like a knife, but he did.

He kept it in my skin for about ten seconds, then took it out.

It hadn't hurt at all. In fact, I hardly felt it. Okay, I didn't feel it. I have felt way worse in the years I was down there.

Apollo came back in with a long sheet of paper that looked like a big shopping list and an extremely worried expression.

He shoved the list into my hands. I looked at it and quickly read it. It was a list of all of my injuries and a description about them. That's why it was so long.

Percy's Injuries

Broken legs, healed incorrectly.

Broken arms, healed incorrectly.

Magical scar on stomach, magically
heals once a day in Tartarus, then
carves the next number in.

Thirty three times broken nose, healed
incorrectly, re-broken before healed

Broken ribs, all of them, healed
incorrectly.

Repeatedly broken into skin.

High dosage of electric water.

Forced to drink poison.

Scars on legs, cannot be removed.

Scars on arms, cannot be removed.

All the other scars cannot be removed.

Cuts in wrists from chains.

Fatal flaw.

Very little food for five years.

The food worked like the Phlegethon,
but more painful and doesn't heal the
wounds.

We conclude/think that:

Perseus was tortured in Tartarus for
as much time as it says on the scar
tattoo on his stomach.

"Yep," I said, looking at Apollo.

"What?" He asked incredulously. "You just read that and all you said was 'yep'?"

"Yep," I said again.

"So how long were you there?" Apollo asked.

"Five Earth years." I said.

"Five Earth years?" Apollo asked. "How many Tartarus years?"

"You'll see." I kept my face expressionless, which was easy for me. "I'll tell everyone at the same time. I've memorized the number. But if you want to see it instead, I can show it to everyone."

"Yeah," Apollo said. "You can show it. Did the torture hurt a lot?"

"At first, yeah," I answered. "Then I got used to it. I have a high pain tolerance."

"What kind of pain can you stand?" Apollo asked.

"When I escaped, I walked around on broken legs. I didn't even feel it. Also, I can stand this," I bent my arm backwards and it broke with a crack. It was still attached, but barely. I didn't even blink. It simply didn't hurt.

On the other hand, Apollo had yelped, winced, and jumped all at the same time. "That doesn't hurt you?"

"Nope," I replied.

"Artemis was right," Apollo said. "You're not even bleeding. And look, it's healing itself!"

"I know," I said without looking down. "You know water heals me right? Well there's water in blood, so I'm only letting enough blood come to heal it, but it won't drip out."

"Cool." Apollo said. "None of your injuries can be fixed. Well, I can heal the broken nose that didn't heal correctly, but I can't heal anything else. Who was torturing you?"

"Well," I said as he reached and touched my nose so that be could heal it. "There were two new kids, one was at Camp Jupiter and the other was at Camp Half Blood. They betrayed me, killed all of my closest friends, and some frienemies like Clarisse, everyone who stood up for me." A tear leaked, but I made it evaporate before it was visible.

"I went to Camp Jupiter, but my friends there were dead too. My friends were killed by Joshua and Matthew Kola. I went to my apartment. And I saw my parents. They were also dead. When I got back they framed me for killing me and the campers believed them. The two new campers shadow traveled me and chained me up. And tortured me. They brought some of my 'old friend's to help."

"Old friends?" Apollo asked. "Not really friends, right?"

"Yeah," I answered. "Not really friends."

"Who were they then?" Apollo asked.

"Oh, you know, some empousai, arai, Kronos..." I answered.

"Oh," Apollo said.

"Okay, let's go back to the throne room!" I shouted. I skipped out of the room while a shocked Apollo stumbled after me.