The Darkness Is Coming

Connections

Third Person POV

Percy knocked on the Big House door. He ignored Piper as she stood behind him. 

"Ah, Percy, you're up. And hello, Piper." Chiron smiled as he opened the door. "What do you need my children?"

"Will sent me to tell you what's going on with my burns, Piper can go first, mine can wait a little." Percy said.

"Come in." Chiron motioned for them to step inside. "Alright, Miss McLean?"

Piper took a moment to collect her thoughts. "They've done a census of the camp to see if anyone's missing. The only two not accounted for are Lou Ellen and Cecil Sanders."

"Cecil was here just a little while ago, he went to the infirmary with a severe burn on his arm after talking to me. You must have just missed him." Chiron told her. "As for Lou Ellen, you will need to find her."

Piper nodded and left the room. Percy could hear her shouting to organize search parties, her charmspeak rolling out in powerful waves.

"Alright, Percy, what did you need to tell me?" Chiron asked.

"Oh, uh...right." Percy carefully began to unwrap the bandages around his arm, over one of his burns. "Stuff has been happening with these."

Chiron walked over to inspect the burn with him. The angry red skin looked awful, but Chiron knew that the son of Poseidon wasn't just here to show him the state of his injuries.

"Earlier, it felt like something was scratching my skin off. This happened periodically on each one of them, the one on my back, the ones on my legs, and the ones on my arms. Then about seven minutes ago, they got cold. Like, frozen nerves cold. But it's not actually affecting me, it just feels like it is." Percy explained, re-wrapping the arm.

Chiron frowned. "Strange. Have any marks actually appeared?"

Percy shook his head. "It's just the feeling."

Chiron turned to his bookshelf. He began to pull books from it and stack them in his arms. Finally turning back to the demigod, he dropped the books onto the coffee table. "Let's start looking. Don't worry, they're in Ancient Greek."

Percy grabbed the top book from the stack and flipped to the index, scanning it for something that could match his strange condition. Next to him, Chiron did the same.

(I'm gonna write them in English, but he's reading Ancient Greek)

Strange Reactions to Hecatian Magic? 

Nope.

Nectar Isn't Working?

No.

Allergic Reactions to Nectar and Ambrosia

Percy flipped to that one. Maybe this could be what was happening. Not that he'd ever had problems with nectar or ambrosia before, but it could happen.

Skimming the page, he started to flip back to the index when a phrase caught his eye.

'split minds'

He backtracked to the beginning of the paragraph and began to read.

'Sometimes demigods can have reactions to nectar and ambrosia if they were not originally a demigod, or even a human being. The best cases of these are if a god is demoted down to demigod status, in which their body will not be able to even process ambrosia or nectar for a short period of time. But this is not the rarest case. In times of great anger or strife, sometimes a second personality form in a demigod's mind. This consciousness is often everything the original demigod hates, a creature of loathing for them. Certain spells can either kill this entity or separate it from the original body, but the two resulting demigods will have a connection that makes them feel each other's pain. Often, the split minds cause the second entity to be allergic to ambrosia and nectar, as it is the exact opposite of it's original counterpart. If one gets hurt, the other feels the pain, and if the first person uses nectar on their wound, the spot where the wound is on the second one usually begins to itch intensely.'

Percy stared at the page. His burns. Percie could feel them and when he used nectar on them she had started itching it! That was the scratching feeling he kept getting.

And the ice would be when she decided to fight off the reaction with her powers by freezing the nerves in that part of her skin.

"Chiron, I found-"

"CHIRON!" Piper's scream cut him off. As the old centaur stood from his wheelchair, stepping out and heading for the door. Percy followed.

Piper met them at the door, panting from running as fast as she  had. "We found Lou. And it's not good."

"Where?" Chiron asked her.

"Follow me." Piper took off again, the two men following behind her.

[A/N yep]