Confidence & Pride// [Percy Jackson OC]// Book 5

{Chapter Eleven}

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"I'm steppin' into fate/There is no time to waste
I've got that lightnin' inside me/This is how legends are made"
- Legends Are Made (Sam Tinnesz)
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THE ULTIMATE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

ARYA WAS SO ENRAGES that she was seeing red. She was unsure of what to do, up above them a battle was brewing, one that she needed to be around for, yet here she was in the Underworld with a need to save her brother from a prison in an unknown location, without any weapons. She debated going back to camp, to go get more weapons, but Arya didn't know the way out, who knows how long it would take her, not to mention the time it would take to get back down. Right now, she figured her best bet was to find Nico and get her own weapons back.

She started to plan how to break back into the castle without being caught, how to reach Nicos room without dying, when she felt something grip onto her arm and pull her. For a second it was dark, then the light entered back into her eyes and she stumbled on her feet, it was the third time in a twenty-four hour time period that she had shadow traveled. She hit her wrists together twice to pull out her trident, only to fail for the second time that day because she didn't have her gauntlets on.

"Damnit!" She yelled, when she realized who pulled her. "Give me my weapons back! Now!"

Nico scrambled to the bedside table and gathered up her belongings into her hands, and passed them to her like they were rocks on fire. She kept her glare on him as she worked to put all of her stuff on.

The word that entered Arya's head when she saw the room was quaint. Or as quaint as a room in the Underworld Palace could get. The sheets on the queen bed were satin black that looked like if you sat on it you would fall into a void of darkness. The other furniture was a dark grey, a chest, a bedside table, and a full length mirror.

There was stuff scattered around the room. A few weapons, dirty clothes, blankets, books. Nico had obviously been staying here a while.

"I'm sorry." Nico said as she was finishing adjusting the strings on her gauntlets. His eyes were down, and his posture was slouched and arms crossed over his body. "Please don't hate me. We can get him out."

Arya felt most of the anger leave her body, now that she didn't feel helpless anymore, and with Nico standing in front of her looking more vulnerable than she had ever seen him. As mad as she wanted to be. She knew the boy needed someone in his life who was going to be there for him through thick and thin, she had made a promise to his sister to be that person. As long as he helped her save Percy, she could forgive him.
   
"I don't hate you." She sighed, "I just don't understand."
   
Arya learned when she was young that disappointment was a much better way to get someone to listen than anger.
   
"My family is gone Arya. He was the only one who knew anything about them, I had to give him what he wanted. You should understand that."
   
"By giving over one of the few people who has been there for you? believed in you?"
   
"I didn't know he was going to take Percy away, I swear. I wouldn't have done it if I had known!" Nico argued back, guilt written all over his face.
   
"What did you think he was going to do?" She asked. "The possibility had to cross your mind. You're a smart kid."
   
"I-I-I don't know," Nico said, throwing his hands to his head. "I mean I guess I thought occurred but he seemed to genuinely want to give me the answers then, and he had given me the room, and a home of sorts. I guess I just wanted to believe him."
   
Arya could tell by how exasperated Nico's words came out that he was beating himself up. She was learning rather quickly that Hades could switch moods relatively fast and had no real moral compass. It wasn't fair for his son to be at the receiving end of it, but then again what gods don't take out there problems on their kids.
   
Nico sat on the edge of his bed, and buried his head in his hands, the full weight of his choices finally setting themselves on his shoulders. "I'm sorry."
   
The way he said it made Aryas mind flash to yesterday, when all she could mutter out were those words to whoever would listen, a memory that seemed so distant now. She knew the pain of having the fate of someone else tied to your actions.
   
Next thing she knew, she found herself sitting beside the boy and wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
   
"I know you are. But as long as we get him out of here, then no real harm done."
   
"I don't know if he's gonna feel the same way." Nico said after a long silence.
   
"Neither do I. But we have more important things to deal with than this, and if he can't see that, than I'll make him." Ayra told him confidently.
   
Nico took a few more minutes to gain his composure, before standing up and giving Arya the layout of the castle, and explaining how Percy was being kept in the dungeons.
   
"So I'll send you in to go get him and then pull you both out. Then hopefully I'll be able to knock out the guards."