The Awakening

In For More Than We Thought

Percy's POV

After Sophie finally introduced our friends to each other, she finally started to explain what the Hades they were all talking about that led to the adults crying.

"Fintan Pyren, one of the leaders of the Neverseen, is the elf that visited us in the forest today," she started, shifting in Keefe's lap so that her head wasn't resting on his chest anymore. "The other guy was Ruy Ignis, another member of the Neverseen.

"Fintan is a Pyrokinetic and Ruy is a Psionipath. You guys saw what they did; Fintan with his fire and Ruy with his force fields. Anyway, we have a long history with the two of them, from countless fights against the Neverseen. When we tried performing a memory break on Fintan, he started a fire that killed one of the Councillors, Kenric. The message Fintan was delivering today was Kenric's cache, which holds secrets that the Council erased from their minds and hid away in the small marble-like sphere. It only opens with the right password, and we have yet to figure out the keyword, what with just getting it back."

This stuff is almost as confusing as Greek mythology.

The adults looked like they were going to jump on Sophie to get more information about the catch - or whatever that thing is - ,but I quickly cut them off with a more important question.

"Wait, what about that Dimitar guy?" I found myself asking. If my sister was going to battle some king, I intended to know all about it.

"Why's he asking about King Dimitar, Foster?" Keefe asked in confusion.

We all turned our attention to a nervous, eyelash-picking Sophie Foster.

"Yeah, that Councillor dude totally said you were going to go fight him tomorrow, or something," Leo chipped in.

"Absolutely not!" all the elves shouted at once.

"Guy! I have to do it!" Sophie shouted amidst all the chaos.

They all started arguing back and forth. I'm pretty sure her dad, Grady, threatened to knock her out with a vial of glittery pink liquid and tie her to her bed. Keefe caged Sophie in his arms, so that she couldn't escape the conversation either.

"Hey. Hey!" I tried to get everyone's attention, because the arguing was getting nowhere. "What does this dude look like to make you all freak out like this?"

Sophie sighed and focused her attention on the wall she had used earlier, while everyone else finally quieted down. An image of a tall, hairless gorilla on steroids appeared on the wall. He looked to be wearing a metal diaper and his skin and bald head were marked with lines like marble. His muscular shoulders were hunched and looked as if he had no neck underneath all the lumps on his face. The teeth of his crooked grin looked grey, a tad bit darker than the two lumps of silver that were his eyes. His nose was bulbous and huge in proportion to the rest of his face. Well, he looks like he could use a hug.

I paled, knowing my sister, even with her incredible powers, was going to fight that.

"He kinda looks like. . . one of the giants' brothers," Piper said, tilting her head to the side as she studied the image.

The other demigods hummed in agreement.

"Can you guys stop checking out my dad like that? It's getting a little bit creepy," Ro suddenly spoke up, leaning against the entryway and crossing her toned arms.

The demigods looked anywhere but the image.

"I'm not letting you go," Keefe picked up the argument again.

"I second that," Grady chimed in, then mumbled, "I can't believe I'm agreeing with that boy."

"Well, it's not your decision to make. Besides, you've done the same thing before, Keefe," Sophie argued, glaring at Keefe.

"That was different," Keefe pouted.

"No, it wasn't, and you know it, too," Sophie said with a cheeky grin as she reached up to boop his nose. Keefe sighed and relaxed his hold on her.

After seeing that cute moment, I threw my arm around Annabeth's shoulders and smiled as she rested her head against my shoulder. Gods, I loved my girlfriend. I looked over to try to catch Sophie's eye and waited until she finally noticed the weight of my stare to ask a question.

"They have water where you're going to fight, right? Just use that to heal yourself if you ever get severely hurt," I reasoned, but she immediately started shaking her head.

"The water in Ravagog is different than our kind of water, so it may not have the same healing abilities," Sophie explained. I nodded and relaxed back into the couch. "Anyway, while I'm in Ravagog with Ro, I'm assuming, you guys should try to learn each others' strengths and fill each other in on what we may be facing."

"Oh, what did Fintan say about your eyes, Sophie?" Biana spoke up.

Once again, everyone locked into Sophie's paled expression.

"He didn't even mention them," she stuttered out. Looking around at everyone in a panic, she continued, "Do you think the Neverseen know the gods' plans as well?"

"They could have help from some of the old titans and giants," I said without thinking. The demigods all looked to me with horror and I returned their expressions with a guilty smile.

We may be in for more than we thought.

A/N: this is just a lil filler part ;)