Percy was on guard instantly, Jason's words highlighting what the feeling he'd felt since leaving the beach actually was. He'd felt uncomfortable as he walked, but he had dismissed it as the aftermath of reconciling with his father for the first time. In reality, he was unnerved because that feeling of eyes on the back of his head was a familiar one, one that had earned its familiarity through war and carnage, peace and quiet. He had always had eyes on him, eyes watching to see if he would lead or fail. Gods, fellow campers, Chaos, and his companions.
"I feel the same," he confessed, looking around warily as his hands went to his pockets. "I just thought I was too on edge."
"I don't think a lighter and a Swiss army knife are going to be much help." Jason frowned, eyeing the objects in his hands with curiosity.
"We literally just discussed Riptide, which is usually a pen." Percy pointed out. "And you've got your coin that can either be a spear or sword."
"What are they then?" Jason asked, fascinated and distracted from their potential problem.
"Both swords." Percy demonstrated by clicking the lighter and flicking open the knife attachment to reveal twin swords.
"I want a pair." Jason declared in a heartbeat.
"Like them?" Percy asked, wiggling them in his direction in an attempt to show them off like a child would with their favourite toy. To be fair, it was a fairly accurate comparison. He did like to show off his swords, they were one of his most prized possessions. Neither of them could replace Riptide but they came fairly damn close.
"Neat!" There was a fiery blur and suddenly Leo was there, peering at and examining the blades. "Imperial Gold and Stygian Iron, right?"
"Leo?" Jason yelped.
"In the flesh." Leo declared happily before looking up and staring at Percy. "You have some serious explaining to do."
"So do you." Percy retorted. "Came all this way to see you and you weren't even here when I arrived."
"I was hardly expecting you," Leo argued. "I nearly had a heart attack when the dolphin dumped me on the beach after giving me a lift back from the forge and I saw you with your dad."
"You told me that you were in New Zealand!" Jason protested loudly.
"I was." Leo shrugged before focusing his attention back on the swords. "Do these beautiful girls have names?"
"Maelstrom and Stormbringer," Percy responded. "Do you want some alone time with them or do you want to tell me what you've been doing for the last five years?"
"Do you want to tell me what you've been doing for the last five years?" Leo countered.
"Yes." Percy nodded.
"Oh." Leo looked taken back. "Honestly, I was expecting a no."
"I would have told you the first night we were here, if you had been here." Percy shrugged. "I told Nic, Thals and Grover. Just admitted who I was to my dad. And Jay."
"What's with the funky cape?" Leo asked. "Have you joined a cult? If you're in a cult, call your dad."
"I can assure you that I'm not in a cult." Percy drawled. "Are you?"
"Why would you think I'm in a cult?" Leo laughed. "If someone looked at the three of us, they'd totally say that you're the one in a cult."
"Can we please stop discussing cults?" Percy groaned. "Or at least take this somewhere else?"
"Can you at least tell me why you're wearing the funky cloak?" Leo frowned. "Unless it's an invisibility cloak that hides you from Nathan. Then I fully understand why."
"Gods, I forgot how much you talk," Percy muttered. "Both of you, come with me."
"What is that and when in Hades did it get built?"
Percy laughed at Leo's reaction to the Chaos Cabin, thinking it was a fair reaction. It dwarfed Nico's, making it look like sunshine and rainbows in comparison to the spires and darkness of their miniature castle. If Percy had gotten his way, it would have blended in well with the mismatch of the other cabins. Unfortunately, Chaos had gotten his. And his idea of inconspicuous was a miniaturised castle that could have been plucked straight from gothic literature.
Percy hated it.
"It's ugly, that's what it is," Percy huffed. He opened the door and stuck his head in, gesturing for the other two to wait one second behind him. "I'm bringing Jason and Leo through if anyone is still up!" He called inside as a warning before stepping in and continuing. "It's currently what I call home, though I would much rather move back into my cabin and turn out the current unwelcome inhabitant." He removed the cloak with ease due to the snapped fastening and carried it on his arm, stifling laughter at the expense of the various members who were still up and lounging around the living room, all of whom had all lifted cushions and blankets to cover their faces apart from Bianca.
"Duel him for it," Leo suggested, completely oblivious to the people in the room they'd just passed as Percy led them towards the main staircase. "Please, I'd love to see it."
"You've already missed it." Jason cackled. "We had a Capture the Flag match the first evening they were in camp, Camp v Chaos Group and Hunters. Percy annihilated him."
"Sorry about that by the way, I never did apologise for soaking you." Percy grinned.
The one that Jason returned was good-natured. "All is fair in love and war. It was also an excellent way of causing conflict between me and the idiot, though I don't need much of an excuse."
"Will one of you please tell me what in Hades is going on?" Leo asked, voice slightly plaintive.
"Sorry, Leo." Percy winced, realising that they'd barely slowed down enough for Leo to catch up. "In here, come on."
He opened the door to his bedroom and went to flick the lightswitch, only to find it already on and the room occupied.
"Do you have any sense of urgency, at all?" Nico asked from where he was lounging on Percy's bed. "I've been waiting for ages to hear how it went-" He rolled and saw Jason and Leo. "They're new."
"Nico!" Leo exclaimed delightedly, flinging himself on top of the son of Hades. "Tell me that you're sane and will tell me what's going on?"
"Leo!" Nico yelped, muffled by Leo's hair in his mouth.
"They keep talking about weird things and I think Percy is in a cult now because he wears a weird cloak and hides his face from things," Leo babbled. "Things being campers."
"You missed their arrival." Jason laughed. "It honestly looked like a cult was invading."
"I'm not in a cult!" Percy protested.
"Can confirm, he's not in a cult," Nico spoke up, shoving Leo off him. "He's here to investigate a cult. I think he's trying to blend in."
"None of you appreciate the aesthetic!" Percy huffed, throwing the cloak onto the chair at his desk.
"Can you spell aesthetic?" Nico teased.
"Can you?" Percy retorted. "I know that you just copy yours off your dad."
"Low blow dude, low blow." Leo whistled.
"I'll have you know that not everything hanging in my closet is black now." Nico huffed, tugging on his dark green t-shirt to demonstrate. "And I'm not hiding in it anymore."
"Be glad you've missed his sense of humour." Leo groaned, shaking his head. "It's a mix of dad jokes, quotes and references."
"Just like Perce," Luke drawled from the doorway.
Percy had to suppress a gasp. Luke, who wasn't wearing a mask or cloak, had a vulnerable expression on his face. His Lieutenant had been adamant that he didn't want people to know who he was, didn't want to face his past or the people that would have been in his future if he had lived on. Yet there he was, stood in Percy's doorway, revealing himself to some of the most important people in Percy's life.
He looked terrified.
"I don't think we've ever met." Jason walked forward and offered a hand to Luke who shook it, a shocked expression on his face.
"Well, we've never met without you being possessed." Nico arched an eyebrow.
"Luke Castellan," Luke introduced himself to Jason. "Bet you're regretting shaking the hand now."
"Like he said," Jason jerked a thumb towards Nico. "You were possessed. You sacrificed yourself. That's all that matters to me."
"We have this argument regularly," Percy informed them. "He's yet to believe it."
"I let him possess me," Luke muttered bitterly.
"He brainwashed you," Percy countered. "And you refused him when it mattered."
"Dude, you threw a Titan out of your mind. Respect." Leo grinned at him. "I'm Leo, blondie is Jason. I presume you know Nico."
"I know, Percy has told me a lot about you all," Luke smiled shyly. "He said that I'd like you all."
"Well if you can put up with him for five years, you can probably put up with Leo for a solid five hours." Jason teased before giving Luke a warm smile. "No, it's good to meet you. Percy used to tell me about you."
"All terrible things, I presume?" Luke raised an eyebrow.
"Interesting tales." Jason nodded.
"Anyway, I hate to interrupt-"
"I still don't know what's going on." Leo interrupted.
"I'm going to assume that Leo has only just arrived back." Luke looked at Percy.
"I bumped into Jason after talking to my dad and Leo was creeping on us from the shadows," Percy explained.
"Wait, you spoke to your dad?" Nico almost fell off the bed.
"My dad knows who I am now," Percy nodded. It felt bizarre to even think about, let alone say. There was a feeling of warmth in his chest as he spoke, a happiness that he didn't think he was going to feel again – especially in connection with his father.
"Wait, you told your dad who you were?" Luke did a double take.
"How did you going to see Blackjack turn into you seeing your dad?" Nico asked.
"Why didn't Poseidon know who Percy was?" Leo frowned.
"Shall we start at the beginning?"
"-when I first spoke to Blackjack through the connection I have with him, he freaked out. He rolled and I didn't have a tight enough grip." Percy finally reached the events of that evening, his audience rapt. "I started falling and he managed to grab the hood of my cloak. We bickered for a few moments and then one of the ties snapped. He was left with a mouth of cloak and I fell into the ocean. Blackjack warned me that my dad was stood on the beach and I knew I couldn't exactly avoid him."
"Did he know it was you?" Nico asked.
"Blackjack dropped my cloak on me before I came properly into sight, so I hid behind that. We spoke for a while and the topic turned to me. He told me his regrets and unhappiness unprompted and admitted that for a few moments, he thought that the presence in the water was Percy. I couldn't not tell him." He shook his head and gave them a rueful smile. "I forgot how good his hugs were."
"What did he say about Nathan?" Leo asked. "It was weird man, you left and the next time your dad was at camp for a meeting with Chiron about your disappearance he point-blank refused to see Nathan, saying that 'I don't know who that imposter is, but he's not my son, he's not my Percy'. Nathan was furious, he wouldn't stop screeching about it."
"He said something similar, that it felt like he'd been swayed into treating Nathan the way he did, and that when I vanished, it was like a haze had been lifted," Percy explained. "He even said that he went to Hecate to ask if any sort of enchantment had been placed upon him because he could think of no other explanation."
"I need to tell you something about Nathan," Leo bit his lip. "And I need you to not go and kill him straight away. You're right about this cult, and I think Nathan will be key to rooting it out in camp."
"What?" Percy's eyes widened.
"I actually arrived back last night," Leo admitted, pulling a hPhone out of his pocket. "I had to nip down to the forges and speak to Tyson when I couldn't find Grover."
"Why?" Percy asked, intrigued.
"I remembered them saying something about Nathan's smell. I wanted to ask them about it. Because this," he pulled something up on his phone and handed it over, "explains why."
They rearranged themselves so that they were all sat in view of the phone, all huddled on Percy's bed so they could watch it together.
Percy pressed play and the scene capturing Nathan began to play.
Nathan hurried across the border, eyes glancing over to the sleeping dragon curled around Thalia's tree. Peleus did not stir.
Almost five minutes later, Nathan stopped. The ground before him was bare, scraped clean of grass and green. A patch of isolated dirt that began to wriggle and writhe before the face of the Earth-Mother formed, her eyes thankfully still closed in slumber – though her mouth moved fine.
"Nathan, my child, what news do you bring?" Gaia asked.
"Mother, you were correct. The gods have allowed Chaos' brats to infiltrate under the guise of a vacation. They have kept to themselves in the few days they have been here and the Commander has barely been seen outside of camp commitments. Nobody knows who he is, he wears a mask. All of them do." Nathan scowled. "It's not fair, I want to know the faces of our foes."
"Be wary," Gaia responded. "I can feel the power of Poseidon growing again. You will have to visit his realm and find out what he knows – he still operates under the impression that you are indeed his son."
"But I hate water!" Nathan whined. "It makes me feel like I'm dissolving if I stay in it for too long. The stupid Commander can control water and he kept soaking me during the Capture the Flag match – I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time with a hairdryer just so I could feel dry again."
"I care not for your plight," Gaia huffed. "We need to make sacrifices if we are to rise again. Your brother would not make the same mistakes."
"That's not fair!" Nathan complained. "Kronos is a Titan, I'm just a demigod until you rise and bestow great gifts upon me."
"Your brother will soon reform. And this time he will not fall." Gaia cackled. "Phineas assured me that he could only pass at the hands of Percy Jackson, and that boy is dead."
The ground reverberated, the tremor of a minor earthquake occurring as Gaia reformed into dirt and Nathan was left standing alone.
"I'm going to kill him." Percy declared.
Nico grabbed his arm, worried that he'd run off and complete the deed as if he wasn't sandwiched between Luke and Nico himself, with no way of escaping without having to climb over Luke; who would probably just grab him and start tickling him, or something equally bizarre.
"He's Gaia's son?" Luke whistled before wrinkling his nose. "Ew. Gaia has a son. A demigod son. What unfortunate soul has to live with the knowledge they got down and dirty with Mother Earth? Quite literally."
"I'm going to make a wild guess that they're already six feet under." Jason pointed out. "I don't think Gaia's the type to leave them living."
"Six feet under." Nico repeated and shuddered. "Forever in her embrace, I guess."
"Please cremate me, I don't want cuddles from Gaia for eternity." Leo declared.
"Can we please not discuss your after-life wishes when we all thought that we lost you in an explosion concerning Gaia?" Jason scowled at Leo.
"See, you love me really." Leo grinned at him.
"I can't believe that he's actually Gaia's son." Percy decided to intervene with his disbelief before Jason attempted to physically wipe the grin off Leo's face. "It just seems so unwise that she'd send her son to infiltrate camp when he's as useless as he seems to be. It's like he's asking to get exposed and I guarantee she knows that if he is discovered, the wrath of the gods will be brought down upon him. Why would she expose her son to that risk?"
"You're not viewing things from Gaia's perspective." Luke winced. "I'm going to make a wild guess and say that she shares pretty similar views to her son. The other one. Demigods are expendable, pawns of the gods. Our parents have got better, especially in recent years, at ensuring we don't think they share that view. That they think we're expendable. It was that thinking that turned me and multiple others to Kronus' side, where to him I really was just expendable. I was a body to host him, whether I survived didn't matter, there would always be another demigod to take my place if I didn't. I guarantee that Gaia is of the opinion that Nathan's life is one that can be wasted if it means she and Kronus can rise."
"We have to keep this a secret." Percy declared, wanting to shift the attention from Luke as he had looked increasingly uncomfortable the longer he spoke. "Lull Nathan into a false sense of security, let him continue on as if we don't know. Let him think he's got the upper hand. Who knows what he'll do if he realises why we're really here."
"He said himself, he thinks you're up to something but doesn't know what." Nico pointed out.
"What I'm most interested in is what Gaia said about Kronus." Jason spoke up. "That it had been said that only Percy can kill him."
"Does anyone know who Phineas is?" Luke asked.
"There was a myth about him." Jason frowned. "I can't really remember it though something about a buffet and harpies? I swear either you, Hazel or Frank said you met him, right Perce?"
"Yes." Percy responded, feeling slightly ill as he remembered his encounter with the man and the pain of his death that he had relived at the hands of the Arai in Tartarus. "Gaia brought him back last time she was rising. He had the power of prophecy and would warn people of the god's plans so Jupiter blinded him, placed him on an island with an endless buffet, but made it so he couldn't eat because Harpies would steal the food from him. He was the guy who told the Argonauts how to get through some rocks. When Gaia brought him back, he lived in Portland and kept the Harpies at bay with a weedwacker when they were cursed to only be able to eat from his table. He's why we met Ella. He wanted us to catch her in exchange for information because he wanted her knowledge. We made a bet concerning gorgon's blood instead."
"Sometimes I forget how dumb you can be." Luke stared at him. "Gorgon's blood could have killed you, dumbass."
"I lived, bitch." Percy shrugged. "It's what sorted out my amnesia issue, since nobody else could have told me who I was."
"I wasn't supposed to know about-"
"Neeks, I'm kidding. I know." Percy cut him off with his assurances. "It just wasn't fun drinking that stuff. But it was worth it when I got my memories back."
"I still can't believe she kidnapped us." Jason huffed.
"There's a few things I'll never forgive Hera for and that's one of them." Percy admitted.
"Percy's told me about his experiences dealing with Gaia and the Giants rising but I've always had questions he couldn't answer." Luke spoke up, eyeing Nico, Jason and Leo. "Fancy telling me all of the bits he conveniently forgot about and the stuff he didn't witness?"
It was the perfect distraction from the revelation about Nathan.