The Demigod King; Book 2

"So You've Had a Bad Day"

Percy was having a bad day. More like he was having a bad year. Technically, he'd only been held hostage for 10 months, but that was still a really long time. He'd thought that Bellatrix would've killed him right after he made the exchange for Annabeth, but she hadn't. It seemed the witch wanted to make him feel her pain...but it also seemed like she was waiting for something. Or someone.

The night before, Percy had a demigod dream.

At first, Percy thought he was in Tartarus, since he couldn't breathe well. But he quickly noticed there was no ground and he seemed to be floating. Looking around, he was surrounded by a dark blue canvas. Below him was a green terrain with brown blotches.

"The plan is in motion. The son of the Sea God is captured and his friends know nothing of his whereabouts."

"Yes, m'lord. And Atlas?"

"Dead. If that fool son of mine wishes to betray me eons ago, he shall face nothing but my wrath when I return."

"And now you may go to the Earth as you wish."

"Yes," said the first, ancient evil voice. "Now I may do as I please."

The dream changed to an old room. There were a few beds in the room, each with a teenage boy wrapped in the sheets. Percy glanced at the window and saw that it was night. Then one of the boys screamed. Percy realized with wide eyes that it was Nico. Then the dream jumped forward a few minutes to show Nico in the same room staring at people who Percy couldn't see. "Atlas is dead. Killed by Ouranos."

Piecing together his weird dreams and Bellatrix's weird behavior, Percy guessed that Ouranos, Lord of the Sky, was returning. And Bellatrix hadn't killed Percy yet because Ouranos either had plans for Percy or wanted to kill the demigod himself. Rats.

Even worse, Percy had lost hope that his friends would come. From what Bellatrix had told him and what he'd seen in his dreams, his friends had no clue where he was or how to rescue him. He would have to escape himself. But how? He had no idea where he was. He had been stuck in an underground metal cell for 10 months. He had been quite literally living under a rock with no idea what was going on in the outside world.

He had tried vapor travel, but it didn't work. Like Nico's shadow travel, Percy couldn't go anywhere until he knew where he was.

Beyond that, Percy was held with Celestial Bronze bonds. The cell he was in was made of Celestial Bronze too. And apparently, Celestial Bronze burned into demigod skin. He spent part of the day bound to a chair, part of the day with his ankle bound to the floor, and part of the day with his whole body chained to the wall. He was grateful that they gave him the diversity of positions since he got uncomfortable if he stayed in a position for too long. But in no way was he happy with his quality of life. He had tried using his powers, but the Celestial Bronze cell muted them. The most he could do was swirl the liquid in his cup. And that made him tired. They would always give him milk or juice, but never plain water. They knew that would be a bad idea. That would be like arming Percy with a loaded gun. He assumed, due to their avoidance of water, that if he drank enough, he would regain the strength to vapor travel. If he only knew where he was.

~~~~~~

Jason POV

Jason was confused. As he packed his things for Hogwarts, he thought about the dilemma. No one had any idea where Percy was, but Jason had this gut feeling like he should know. He thought of what he had learned.

Atlas had been killed by Ouranos. Ouranos was teaming up with Bellatrix.

Wait- why would an all-powerful, immortal deity need an ally of a witch? If they had made an alliance, Bellatrix must have something-or someone- that Ouranos wanted:

Percy.

What was Ouranos's ulterior motive? Gaea was dead, so he didn't want to see her. He hated his kids, that was common knowledge. The only reason left was complete, utter revenge.

Jason pulled out a pen and made a list of who Ouranos would want revenger on- in Latin, of course.

Titans
Giants
Cyclopes
Hekatonkhieres
God's
Demigods

Those were the main groups. So what did he want to do with Percy? Then it struck Jason. Percy. Revenge.

Ouranos lost his wife and countless children to Percy Jackson. Even if he didn't like his children, they were still blood.

Percy had killed Kronos, Hyperion, brainwashed Iaeptus. Slaughtered giants, evil cyclopes. Also, Ouranos couldn't truly kill the gods since they were immortal. He would default to the traditonal way to punish the gods: brutally murder their children.

Ouranos was coming to Earth to take revenge upon the gods and demigods.

The question was: would Ouranos kill Percy Jackson? Or was he planning something more sinister?

Knowing his experience with evil primordial beings, it was probably the latter. Jason though back to his experience with Gaea. It had started pretty similarly. Percy had been taken. Then an immortal was taken (in this case, killed...that showed that Ouranos was even more violent than Gaea). So what was next?

Jason threw a sock into his trunk. He was stumped. This was following the same pattern, but what could possibly come next?

He froze with a pair of sneakers in his hand. Nico and Will, who shared the room with him, jumped as Jason let out a gasp of realization.

Will had actually dropped his trunk on his foot as he'd been in the process of moving it out. "What?" He snapped, irritated.

"This is following the same pattern as Gaea's rising. First, Percy was taken. Then an immortal, Hera, was taken. In this case, that was Atlas being killed. Then, Gaea tried to frame my death on the Greeks. That way, they would split up the two allies that, working together, could defeat her!"

"What are you saying, Jason?" Nico asked slowly.

"Ouranos is going to do the same. He's going to kill Percy at the Wolf House and frame his death on the wizards to drive us apart! I bet that's where they're holding him now- the Wolf House."

Nico gasped. "But we've checked there. Although, what if it's underneath? Hazel said she got a weird sense about it being evil, but we just waved it off since the battle was there!"

"And Bellatrix said in her letter that Ouranos was returning on the winter solstice," Will added.

"That's it. They are keeping Percy under the wolf house, and Ouranos will come kill him to frame the wizards on December 21st."