The Kingdoms

Chapter 6 - Where Did You Go?

Yet again, torturing, so caution. Blah blah blah.

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Nico woke up at sunrise, which he wasn't that used to. By the time he got up and dressed, the guards came in again. "You are being moved again." One of them said, Nico thought maybe he was going to get another room so no one knows exactly where he is all the time. The guards didn't lead him to the other rooms though, he was brought back to the dungeon, he didn't understand why they were. He spotted his sword and quickly ran for it, he just needed it, then he would be free. He forgot about the plan, just wanting to get out of the dungeon now. He grabbed it, and went up against the guards. Killing them rather quickly, he the ran up the stairs onto the main level.

Nico ended up crashing into Percy when he got to the top, he almost fell back down, but luckily Percy caught him. Which was a bit embarrassing. "Get out of the way, I am just going back to my room." Nico put the sword behind his back.

"Your room is down there, so I don't know what you are talking about." Percy looked at him, there he goes, hiding his emotions inside him again. He saw that he didn't want to do this, his eyes said "Yeah, your room is up here, I will escort you there." while his expression said "You live in the dungeon now, where you will be safe and unable to escape prisoner."

"My room, is behind you, and I need to get to it. The dungeon was my room for one night. I am a prince so you know I belong up here even if I am a prisoner." Nico tried his best to reason with Percy, but it was really hard. He didn't understand what was going on, Percy had been so remorseful yesterday, even after he had tortured him.

"I don't see a prince, I see a prisoner. So, I suggest you give me your sword and go down there before I force you." Percy brought out his sword, putting it between them. Nico was at the disadvantage if they fight, because he would end up falling backwards down the stairs. He then tried to push his way past Percy, using his sword to help him, but it didn't work. He ended up getting shoved down the stairs, he ended up dropping his sword, luckily it hit the bottom before him.

Then he came down, the falling and tumbling had hurt him greatly. He hit the ground hard on his back, luckily, most of the pain went to his chest and back. So, his head was spared the pain, even though he did still get some. Nico, now disarmed, knew it was a horrible idea to have tried to get away. He said on the ground, feeling unable to move. It was about a twenty foot staircase, which was ridiculously long, he hurt everywhere. He wanted to understand what was going on.

Nico pulled himself only up a tiny bit by the time guards had found him, they did what Percy hadn't. Which was actually get him to his cell, they literally had to carry him because he was in that much pain. His cuts were bleeding yet again, which wasn't helping at all. These two days have proudly been the worse, Percy had been so nice to him, then the torturing happened and then after that he was shoved down the stairs. What was he thinking? What was he doing? He had so many questions for Percy, as his behaviour had changed so drastically. Was he trying to hide something?

He laid on the thin mattress back in the dungeon, his head rested on the thin pillow. Even though he just woke up, his body was aching so much that he found himself falling asleep. He was angry with Percy for making him so confused, maybe it was Poseidon? Maybe he had a talk with him about being nice to him and told Percy to actually treat him like a prisoner rather than a friend and a prince. Nico had no clue though, so he couldn't conclude that, he just hoped that Percy just decided to be mean to him on his own terms.

Nico tried not to move too much, as he found that it hurt all too much to do that. He napped all the way till lunch, then some very burnt food found his way to him. This was way more worse than he was used to, it seemed that Percy was going to treat him like a prisoner now. He grabbed some of the burnt scraps and ate, even though he wasn't that hungry. He was still aching, but he felt well enough to move around.About half an hour after, he was pulled out of the cell again back to the room he knew all too well was the torture room. The guards held his arms tightly, despite the fact that it hurt him quite a bit. This time he wasn't going to be so willing, he tried to get out of their grip, but they were ridiculously strong. What the heck was with these guys? As he was put into the chair, he tried to get out, but the two pushed him down as Percy came in and put his restrains on.Once he was strapped in, very tightly again, the guards left.

"You promised I won't have to be down here anymore!" Nico snapped, recalling when Percy said that he believed him. He didn't understand why he was back in this chair. Day four, and things were getting worse and worse before his eyes. Hazel was going to get an even more broken brother back, with tons of scars, and fresh cuts. That was if he made it out during the day his kingdom attacked with full on force.

"You weren't telling me the truth, Nico. I told you that if you were telling the truth, you wouldn't be back down here anytime soon." Percy said, looking through the different tools he could use. Nico tried to get out while Percy did that, but nothing worked, no matter how much he tried to get out. His limbs couldn't even move due to how tight the restrains were, two times how tight it had been the last time. Nico never felt so tempted to give up, he didn't want to go through several more hours of torture again, it was way too much for him to handle. Sure, he was strong and had went through a lot. However, this was soul breaking, even more soul breaking than everything else in the world.

He did make it past the torture, without saying a single word, but a bunch of pain that he luckily made through. He was bleeding from his lip from the multiple times he had bit it from the pain, a few fingers dislocated, but luckily Percy was nice enough to put them back in place. A broken wrist, and a huge cut down the side of his head. It took all the way till seven o'clock, meaning that he missed dinner, he got bandages and thrown back into his cell and they ended up shutting off all the lights. It was completely black, as no moon shined in the dungeon. Too far underground for that.Completely exhausted, Nico fell asleep no problem, he cradled his wrist as he couldn't feel it or move it at all.

They hadn't done anything for it, he really didn't want to get tortured tomorrow, that would probably his worst dream. Which he did have a dream.

Nico found himself back in his kingdom, where three people waited for him at the gates of the palace. As he moved close, he noticed who they were, Hazel who ran over and gave him a very big hug. Obviously glad that he was alright, he looked exactly as he was outside the dream. With tons of bandages and his broken wrist. He was on the dirt road leading up to the castle, so glad to see his home again.

"You are back safe. What did they do to you?" Hazel looked at him, observing his wounds with a huge sadness that had taken over her happiness for seeing him. "Poseidon ordered this to be done to you, didn't he? Just to get information... Don't worry, we are close to winning, but you won't have to take part of this anymore. Come on." Hazel grabbed his not hurt hand, before leading over to the two other figures. Hades was there waiting for him, actually looking proud of him for once, which was definitely new.

Persephone was away in another kingdom for the time being, well, most of the war she had been gone.The third figure had actually been Percy, but not the cold shell he was now. He looked absolutely perfect, he had some nice clothes on that Hades must have given him. Did he run away from his kingdom to be with him? As he went over, Hades patted him lightly on the back.

"We have a huge foothold on the kingdom, because of you. Good job." That was also new, even more new than him waiting for him. He noticed Nico's glancing over to Percy. "He didn't want to be stuck there, so we took him with us, he decided to join our side." Nico went over to Percy, who had turned to look at him.

"It is great that you told me the truth, not the truth of your plan, but at least the truth you have been hiding." Before Nico could clearly ask what truth was that, he was ripped away from his utopia.

He had many other dreams like that throughout the night, but he still didn't fully understand it though. Day Five, two more days till the operation to attack the kingdom took place. He just now needed to think of a way to get out of the dungeon when everyone was fighting, there would most likely still be guards in front of his door and his cell would still be locked. This was going to be three pure days of planning.