Coming of Age (Percy Jackson)

 

In the end, he doesn’t really decide so much as he reacts. The Hellhound lunges forward and Percy charges it right back, no hesitation. He could have retreated… and left Clarisse, already weakened from their fight, to face it alone. He could have pulled back and turtled up… and left any number of the Ares Cabin as easier prey for the monster in the process.

 

They might have been his enemies mere moments ago, but that was then and this was now. More than that though, they were only his enemies for a simple game of Capture the Flag. This was much more serious. In the end, Percy just doesn’t have it in him to risk others in order to save his own bacon. It’s probably the height of foolishness, and there’s certainly a better way to do things… but in the split second he has, he can’t see any way except forward.

 

Letting out a shout, he meets the Hellhound in the middle of its charge. The massive, hulking, red-eyed monster snarls at him, and Percy finds himself snarling right back as he thrusts his sword forward with all of his considerable remaining might. Even with his supernatural strength beginning to drain from him, Percy’s sword finds easy purchase in the Hellhound’s flesh. With his godly father’s blessing empowering him and thus empowering the blow, Percy is able to slam the sword into the Hellhound all the way to the hilt.

 

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have time nor the training to aim the blow properly. His thrust finds the Hellhound’s shoulder and even as Percy sinks the entire length of his borrowed blade into the thing’s body, he’s immediately aware that it’s not a killing blow. Especially since the Hellhound doesn’t immediately keel over and die.

 

What it does do is let out a particularly pain-filled howl… before lashing out, its large head twisting around and its massive jaw opening and closing around Percy’s shoulder in turn. The borrowed chestplate he’s wearing for the Capture the Flag game is probably the only thing that saves his life from the bite, even as it crumples under the Hellhound’s teeth and he feels massive canines sink into his flesh.

 

Percy grimaces, trying to draw his sword back for another swing, his free hand pushing on the Hellhound’s face in an attempt to get him off of him. But just as he’s beginning to make progress with both of these things, he feels it… the last of the strength granted to him by his little dip in the creek fades away, leaving him feeling all too mortal once more.

 

There’s a moment of silence as Percy meets the red eyes of the monster that currently has him in its grasp. They stare at each other for what feels like a single frozen second.

 

“Well. Fuck.”

 

And then the beast shakes him and shakes him HARD. The pain is overwhelming, with Percy seeing white as he finds himself pulled too and fro before the Hellhound simply lets go of him and tosses him through the air. He lands heavily on the ground, not having the fortune to have fallen into the water unfortunately. The pain in his chest is immense, and he doesn’t think it’s just puncture wounds he has to worry about. He might have broken some ribs from the throw.

 

But even as he’s struggling to stay awake, he hears a rumbling growl and manages to raise his head enough to see the Hellhound still approaching him and him alone. Persistent fucker wants to make sure it gets its kill, doesn’t it? Or maybe that was how Hellhounds operated. Maybe they only went after one, killed them, and dragged them back to the Underworld as a snack. Percy honestly didn’t know.

 

… Still, if that was how it worked, he supposed he was glad it was him and not any of the others. If this was how he died then-

 

“BEGONE FOUL FIEND!”

 

Just as Percy is coming to terms with staring Death Itself in the face, a familiar voice fills the clearing and the sound of arrows whistles through the air. For a moment, Percy’s foggy, pain-filled brain stutters, wondering how he’s being saved by Mr. Brunner of all people. Then Percy remembers who ‘Mr. Brunner’ really is, just in time to watch Chiron, famed trainer of Greek Heroes and immortal centaur, come bounding into the clearing.

 

In the meantime, his arrows have found purchase in the Hellhound mere feet away from Percy’s downed body, and the red-eyed, black-furred monster has already fallen to its side, dead and dissipating into nothingness.

 

As Percy’s strength fails him and he can hold his head up no longer, he finds himself laying back on the forest floor, staring up at the blue sky overhead.

 

“Percy!”

 

Ah… but that’s Annabeth’s voice, isn’t it? She sounds worried, heh. Oh, and there’s her face. She LOOKS worried too. Percy tries his best to give her a smile… but it’s hard when her first action upon getting to him is to grab ahold and start dragging him towards the creek. Ow. OW!

 

But Percy’s cries of pain do nothing to dissuade the Daughter of Athena, who might be the only one who’s seen first hand how moving water can heal him. He realizes what she’s trying to do, what her aim is… but he doesn’t stay conscious long enough to see if she succeeds. Still… at least he won her Capture the Flag, right?

 

-x-X-x-

 

She’d froze. Inexcusable. Unforgiveable. She’d fucking froze.

 

In all fairness, the entire encounter had lasted less than a minute once it had truly gotten underway. The clash between Percy Jackson and the Hellhound had been unbelievably fast. Like, blink and you’ll miss it kind of fast. But that didn’t make it any better. Clarisse La Rue had frozen. She was a Daughter of Ares for fuck’s sake. She was made for war! BRED for BATTLE! And yet… and yet, when a true fight had shown it’s face so shortly after her ignoble defeat, Clarisse hadn’t rose to the occasion. Instead, that bastard Jackson had… and he’d furthered her debt to him in the process.

 

Don’t get her wrong. She was angry they’d lost. Really angry. More pissed at herself than anything else though, especially when everyone knew Jackson was a Son of Poseidon. In hindsight, fighting him at the Creek was an idiotic, brain dead move. Her only consolation was that almost nobody else in Ares Cabin had realized it until it was way too late.

 

Even now, some of Ares Cabin were dealing with the defeat with their usual bad grace. Muttering and growling and snarling about how Jackson cheated. Some were even callous enough to say they wished the Hellhound had actually gotten him. But no, Chase had been wise enough to know how to save the young man. She’d dragged his broken, bleeding body right back into the creek. A death sentence for anyone else, but for a Son of Poseidon… it’d worked. He’d begun healing almost immediately.

 

Leaving Clarisse and her siblings to skulk away, nursing their humiliation and embarrassment. Truth be told, under most normal circumstances, Clarisse might have been right there alongside the rest of Ares Cabin in cursing Percy Jackson’s name. The bastard had known. He’d KNOWN what he was doing when he’d provoked them all right before the match. He’d focused all of their attention on him, and not just held them at bay… but flat out DESTROYED them in the lopsided battle that had followed.

 

It was, in hindsight, a perfect plan. An amazing strategy, really. Probably not entirely his own either. Probably Chase that came up with it. Pretty much everyone had to admit that it was really well played. But Clarisse wasn’t ‘pretty much everyone’. And she wasn’t normally one to take defeat gracefully. No, she was the type to nurse grudges. To let her anger fester, and her fury burn.

 

She definitely would have resented Jackson, if it was just the way he’d defeated them in Capture the Flag. Some among her Cabin would even say that she still SHOULD. But not all of them had been conscious by the time the Hellhound showed up. And none had been on their feet like she had been. They had excuses for why they hadn’t been able to interfere in the fight. Clarisse did not.

 

Not only had Percy helped her to her feet when the Capture the Flag Match ended, he’d gone ahead and rearmed her as well. And Clarisse… Clarisse had still frozen. There was no excuse for it. None that she would accept herself anyways. It didn’t matter that the Hellhound shouldn’t have been there. It didn’t matter that she’d just gotten her ass kicked.

 

She’d been on her feet, weapon in hand. No self-respecting Daughter of Ares should ever freeze up in those circumstances. Her least of all.

 

Clarisse grits her teeth and clenches her hand into a fist. The statuesque blonde knew that she owed Percy way too damn much at this point. Begging forgiveness for how she’d dropped the ball wouldn’t be enough. And besides, he owned her ass for the next week. Perhaps that’s where she’d start then. Yes… that would work.

 

A plan begins forming in her mind’s eye. It will further her humiliation in the short term to be sure, especially if anyone finds out… but her personal honor is in tatters as it is. Further humiliation might be the only way she sees that she can regain some of her pride in the long run. No matter what, she must make her cowardice up to Percy Jackson. And seeing how the likelihood of her getting a chance to save his life any time soon is low… well, there’s only one way she sees to do that in the immediate future.

 

-x-X-x-

 

Watching over Percy’s sleeping form in one of the Big House’s guest bedrooms, Hestia wonders how it came to this. Something like this never should have happened, not in a million years. Camp Half-Blood was SUPPOSED to be safe. She was the Goddess of the Hearth after all, and this entire camp was within her aegis.

 

However, while the camp itself and some of the surrounding forests were protected by Hestia’s Domains, not all of them were. Indeed, there were parts of the forest if one went too deep in where monsters roamed, drawn to the border of her power by so much demigod blood concentrated in one place. That said, the part of the forest where the campers enjoyed their weekly games of Capture the Flag was well within her borders.

 

This should not have happened. This should never have been possible. Even though Percy was alive, even though he was already healed and just sleeping off the exhaustion from his wounds… Hestia’s mind still kept going around in circles, wondering how she’d been bamboozled so easily.

 

Thankfully, Annabeth Chase had been smart enough to know what Percy needed. By dragging him back into the creek when she had, she’d set his demigod abilities to healing his body. Poseidon’s divine blood made it incredibly hard to kill his Son while Percy was submerged in water, and the wounds he’d taken from the Hellhound had largely been healed even before he was brought to Hestia.

 

She had, of course, made sure to heal him the rest of the way. All the while, the Daughter of Athena that Percy had apparently so thoroughly captured the attention of remained at his side. It was only now, hours later after the sun had long since set, that Hestia had sent Annabeth away. It pained her to do so, but the girl had needed her rest, even if the Goddess knew that Annabeth likely wouldn’t be celebrating her victory.

 

To be fair, the mood in camp was somber. No one was really celebrating, even among the victors of today’s match. Hestia suspected they were all wondering the same thing… were the protections around Camp Half-Blood failing? Was her domain failing?

 

But no. Hestia’s Domain was as strong as ever. This place was still her Hearth. In fact, she knew more than most of them did. She knew the moment that the Hellhound had appeared within the borders. She knew that it had not pushed through into her domain by force… but rather, been invited in. She knew that someone within Camp Half-Blood had summoned the Hellhound and sicced it on Percy Jackson.

 

With that knowledge came… fury. Glancing down at her hand, Hestia blinks at finding it formed up into an unconscious fist. Said fist is trembling with contained rage. If any of her siblings saw her like this, they would likely be surprised… or afraid. Hestia, Goddess of Home and Hearth, was not prone to displays of emotion. She was not one to snarl angrily, not one to bite anyone’s head off.

 

More often than not, she expressed her displeasure through quiet disappointment… and usually that was enough all things considered. But not this time. This time, Hestia is very, very angry. And she swears, sitting there by Percy’s bedside, that she WILL get to the bottom of what’s happened here today. Percy might not be dead; he might even already be fully healed physically… but that did not make the crime committed against him any lesser.

 

Still… still. She would start her investigation tomorrow. She would find out who dared to summon a monster into her hearth and she would see them expelled from Camp Half-Blood if it was the last thing she did. Tomorrow. Tonight… well, tonight she would sit vigil at Percy’s bedside, making sure the young man did not have need of any further healing.

 

… She bites her lower lip at that thought as she watches him sleep. He looks peaceful now that his wounds are gone. She didn’t have to see him at his worst thankfully, but she DID have to help peel the punctured breastplate off of his body, causing some renewed wounds where it had to be pulled free of his healed flesh.

 

Seeing him jerk in pain, even while unconscious… it had torn her heart in two. But now, now he looks peaceful. Content. Rested. His bare chest lays exposed, rising and falling with only some fresh scars to give any sign that he had been so grievously injured a few hours before. Unbidden, Hestia’s hand comes up and then drops down. She shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. But the thought is there…

 

The conventional healing is done. Perhaps some unconventional healing is in order now. She knows from prior experience that he would enjoy waking up to such a thing. Ah, but she still shouldn’t. She should maintain some semblance of… of propriety, shouldn’t she? The young man was just attacked, after all. It would be wrong to… to give in to her base desires again so soon, under such circumstances…

 

 

-x-X-x-

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