Percy Jackson: Night In The Land Beyond The Gods

"What?"

Nico's POV

As everyone tried to leave breakfast to see the now conscious Jason, Annabeth stood defiantly in the doorway, glaring at anyone who came close. In her narrowed grey eyes, I could see an angry storm crackling with power.

Instinctively, I moved back.

It seemed like the only person who wasn't interested in getting through the door was Percy, who watched them with a disinterested gaze. In one of his hands, he held a cup of water. The other hand was empty, though I doubted it would stay that way for long.

Percy glanced my way, a trouble-maker's smirk on his face. He raised a finger to his lips before opening the fist which grasped the cup of water.

The cup hit the ground with a quiet clunk, the water contained within it still floating in the air. There was a sinister silence that seemed to follow – even some of the people trying to leave fell still – each of them waiting to see what was going to happen next.

Then Percy sprang into action – not actually jumping, though. The swirling water in his raised hand exploded outwards like fireworks, seemingly growing in mass as it drenched everyone in the room. The remaining water left in his grip spiralled in an icy hurricane, freezing into floating arrow tips by the doorway and blocking the exit completely.

"Honestly," Percy rested his feet on the table, scolding us as if we were smaller campers messing around with swords in the arena, "You'd better stop acting like children and start actually behaving like the adults you're supposed to be, because if this is what became of the so-called 'Heroes of Olympus' then count me out! I don't want to end up squabbling with my teammates because one of my friends need space to recover!"

Some of us had the decency to look abashed, others didn't. Annabeth just looked relieved that we had stopped shouting.

"Okay, sure Perce," Leo muttered absentmindedly, fiddling with some levers on a small handheld device. Seeming to realise that he'd spoken out loud, he slipped behind Frank, his scrawny frame hidden behind the son of Mars' muscle.

"My name is Percy, Valdez," the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees, "Remember that."

Annabeth coughed loudly, "Well, that's great and all, but could we maybe discuss how we're going to get out of here. Alive."

Her eyes drifted to where I stood before she quickly looked away, instead gazing uneasily at Percy with a hand resting on the hilt of her dragon-bone sword. She didn't seem to be the only one staring though, nearly everyone in the room was staring at Percy by this point.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean," Annabeth growled, "Why the Hades did you block the door with your crazy ice magic?"

"What?" Percy cursed under his breath. "Every single time, I swear..." he looked back up at us all, a fake and highly sarcastic smile on his face. "Well, I suppose we should try fixing it then."