Chapter 1: The Council Has Spoken

A story I'm experimenting with. Going down the evil Percy route. Update for Scars will be out soon, I'm a third of the way through the next chapter. Percy is evil, but still kinda good, I guess? He does some messed up shit in this story. Plus it's Pertemis. Basically, Percy's the antagonist, but there's two protagonists, and he's also one of them. It'll make more sense once I write the damn story.

Chapter 1: The Council Has Spoken

"No, please. Leave her! Take me instead! Just leave her be!" The Man said, weakened from his torture and imprisonment. He was once very strong, with a hard mind and fiery determination. Now, this man was a wreck.

The room he lay in was cold, dark, and with no visible way of escape. Shadowy figures surrounded the man, two of them holding him to the ground. He sobbed louder, pleading to a particularly tall figure, or taller than the rest at least.

"Please, I did it! I did what you asked! Just leave us be. Please." More sobs broke out in the room, and the tall figure laughed. His laugh was loud, and had a hint of darkness to it. Three figures behind him joined in as well, these being taller and more authoritative-looking than the rest, but not as much as the man laughing.

The man, who was obviously the leader, was cloaked in darkness, but he had the featureless face of a human. "Bring her out." He ordered, smirking at the sobbing mess before him. The man cried out, and pleaded, but his pleas were soon drowned out by the screams of a girl.

One of the men who were behind him was walking up to them with a struggling girl, who was screaming. "Daddy! Daddy, please! Do something, help!" She cried, and the man on the floor screamed, squirming in the grip of the two figures pinning him down. "Leave her alone!" He begged.

The man in front of him smirked, and reached by his side. He pulled a long, glistening sword from it's hilt, and the man behind him forced the girl to her knees. "You should've behaved, old friend. If only you'd waited a while before trying to get help. Then perhaps you wouldn't be here. And maybe, you should've behaved, because then your precious little girl wouldn't be caught up in this as well." He laughed, and the man on the floor sobbed more.

The man crouched down in front of the prisoner, and whispered to him. "You've made a terrible enemy, my friend. We have to do this. It'll teach you not to get in our way. We would've offered you immunity, you know? And your daughter. But, unfortunately, she will have to be punished for the sins of her father. Say goodbye to your daughter, though I have no doubt you two will be reunited real soon." He smirked, and the man thrashed around.

"NO, NO, PLEASE! I'LL KILL YOU! LEAVE HER! PLEASE!" The man cried.

The leader of these strange shadowy figures approached the kneeling girl with his sword drawn. She cried, her lips trembling and tears flowing down her face. "Please don't hurt me…" She whimpered, and the man grabbed her chin, softly pulling it up so she was looking at him.

She sobbed louder as the man pressed the sword to her throat. "Shh, shh. Don't cry, little one. It will all be over soon. You will be at peace." He soothed, and as she closed her eyes, the man slit her throat.

The man on the ground cried out louder than ever before, and as the man holding his daughter let go of the girl, the man who had just ended her suffering lay her gently on the ground.

The two men holding the sobbing man to the floor let go, and he crawled over and began to cradle his dead daughter's bleeding corpse. Deciding to leave the man to his grief, the shadowy figures left the room, but before he exited, the girl's killer turned around and opened a portal for the man. "Goodbye, old friend." The man said, yet he received no reply, and he left the room.

Percy's P.O.V.

I yawned from my throne as Zeus babbled on about some problem that Olympus had yet again. 'What?', you say. 'A throne?' Why indeed, I had a throne now, because I, Percy Danger Jackson, was an Olympian.

So after the Giant War, a lot of things happened. All the heroes who fought in the war were rewarded with something. For the seven, this was godhood. We all accepted, and received and own titles and (in some cases) special jobs/titles. For example, Hazel was made the minor goddess of wealth and kindness, while Jason was not only made the minor god of thunder, but Captain of the Olympian Royal Guard, which was a very high honour.

In my case, since I had not only killed Gaia and a few giants, but Kronos and a couple of Titans as well the previous year, I was offered not only godhood, but Olympian godhood.

I know what you're thinking. 'Percy wouldn't take godhood, he's too pure to accept such a high amount of power' or something like that and well… I had only declined godhood before because of Annabeth, but now that we weren't together…

So listen, a couple of months ago, I had a date with Annabeth. The Giant war was over and done with, and recently we realised that we had never actually been on a date. Thanks to our duties in the war, we'd not really spent any time together romantically, and I wanted to rectify that.

I'm not gonna go into the whole deal, since it's all just bad memories. Basically, I walked down to the beach where I told Annabeth I'd meet her. She wasn't there, so I went and sat down. I heard some weird noises coming from the bushes behind me, and when I checked, I found Annabeth and some guy sucking faces.

We had a heated argument, and before long, I had marched out of there and up to Olympus to cool off. One thing led to another, and I was made the God of Time, Earth, Heroes, Tides and Swordsmanship.

Then the gods decided I was 'too powerful' for a god. If this was the old Zeus, I would be dead by now, but alas, my dear uncle has changed recently. It was put to a vote, and decided that I would become an Olympian, while the extra female throne would be vacant until I placed a female of my choosing onto it.

Now that my boring origin story is out of the way, we can get back to the topic at hand.

Zeus speaks about something that has been bothering Olympus for a few months now. Erebus. The Primordial god of darkness has been aggressive towards Olympus recently, and on some occasions had been tracking down demigods and attacking them.

The god of the skies talked with concern in his voice as the rest of the council remained quiet. "Erebus, the dark primordial has been growing in power lately, as I'm sure you all have noticed. He continues to attack anyone associated with us, and denies any opportunities for us to contact him. Artemis, what of your scouting mission?" He informed the council, and we all turned to Artemis to hear what she had to say.

Artemis looked crestfallen for a minute, and informed us of her findings. "Erebus builds an army. His realm of darkness is on lockdown, no one but his minions enter or leave without his consent. He constructs monuments of himself, and his dark palace has an army of maybe 5000 around it at any one time." The council gasps.

"5000? Impossible." My father, Poseidon, was in disbelief. Olympus hasn't faced an army like that since the days of Ancient Greece. And if what Artemis said, that was only their security.

Artemis shook her head. "I have seen it with my own eyes, Uncle. The fires are at work constantly, it seems as if he is forging with haste. We could not see what it was they were forging, but it was most likely weapons and armor. I don't know what else they could've been making on such a large scale." She said, and the gods agreed with her reasoning.

"But that's not all." She said. "We could not get into his realm, me and the two hunters I brought watched from the mountains surrounding it. We saw something that puts Olympus at great risk, however. He has a spy." The council gasped once again, muttering between themselves about who the spy might be.

I heard Ares argue that it was a minor god, or perhaps one of their children, and that we were wrong to trust them. While he might not have been wrong that it could've been one of them, I found the extra comment a bit tasteless.

Artemis shrugged. "We could not see who it was, we just overheard some of his minions talking about an informant." She said. It came to my mind that perhaps it was someone at camp. Perhaps another kid had gone down the same route Luke had. Manipulated by more powerful forces into hating his own family. I hope I'm wrong.

Zeus sighed and voiced his thoughts to the room. "We will have to keep an eye out for anyone acting suspicious. I trust that the spy is not anyone in this room." He said, narrowing his eyes and looking at all of us. A few of the gods mimicked his action.

"Dionysus!" Zeus barked, causing the slumbering god to jolt out of his sleep. "Mmm, yes?" He yawned. "I hope you'll keep a watchful eye over the demigods. If you see any of them sneaking out of the camp, you will notify us immediately." He ordered, and the god nodded, stretching and getting ready to fall asleep again.

"Even if we get rid of the spy, you heard what Artemis said. His army numbers in the thousands, and even if we combine the two camps we'd still be outnumbered greatly." Demeter piped in, which cause many of the council to grow concerned.

Hermes voiced his idea. "Maybe we could be able to get some more people on our side. If we give them a good enough deal, we might be able to get some of the monsters to fight for us." Once again, some of the council were agreeing with him, but many were in uproar over his idea.

For some, like Ares, it was as simple as "I will never fight alongside any descendant of Typhon, they can all burn in Tartarus!" For some more educated ones, it was more like "Those beasts will never accept a deal below taking a goddess as a wife, or a seat on the Olympian council." Something which I actually agreed with. I'd seen a few monsters in my day, and guys like the minotaur were not the most generous.

"We could find a way to become more powerful than him in a way other than our army. We could think of a way to cripple his armies with only a few moves, so that we're able to face Erebus himself head on. What if we made a weapon with the power to kill a primordial." Athena suggested, and the entire council went silent.

I had to admit, it wasn't a bad idea. A very implausible one- a weapon of that calibre would be almost impossible to make unless we had Chaos herself supply us.

"Impossible! Not even my bolt could do such a thing, and it was forged by the best!" Zeus bragged, and I laughed at hearing my dad mutter about how he's got a cool weapon made by the same guys too, while my Uncle Hades sulked that he didn't even get a weapon.

Surprisingly, I was the one who came up with the next idea. "What if we made multiple very powerful weapons? Ones like Zeus' bolt and Poseidon's trident. That way when used together in battle, their power will multiply for each weapon." This was met by a roar of approval, notably by everyone except for Zeus.

"No! If we allow everyone to have weapons of mass destruction, then if another civil war breaks out, the destruction will be massive!" He argued, and even though I knew Zeus just didn't want anyone to be as powerful as him, I could tell he had a point.

The Olympians began to argue, as they also saw through him for what his true reasons for not wanting more WMD's to be made were. I refrained from joining the chaos, along with Artemis, Hestia and Hephaestus, as we sat quietly on our thrones and waited for them all to shut up. I met Artemis' gaze, and I rolled my eyes at the other gods, making her laugh.

"WAIT, EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" Hestia stood up and yelled, making all the Olympians stop in their tracks. She sighed, shutting her eyes to calm down for a few seconds, and then as if nothing happened, she clapped her hands and smiled, giving us her idea.

"How about, instead of giving everyone an opportunity to do great evil with their newfound power, we make a few new weapons, just enough to beat Erebus, and we give them to our most trustworthy warriors. The ones least likely to get corrupted by their power."

For the first time in a long time, the Olympian's vote was unanimous. Everyone thought that Hestia's idea was agreeable, but I knew the real trouble would come on trying to decide who would obtain one of these weapons. The problem with the Olympian council, most of them want power.

Sure enough, when Zeus brought up who the mighty warriors wielding the weapons would be, most of the council voted for themselves. In fact, only a few people had more than one vote for them. Zeus sighed, and rubbed his temples in frustration, before summoning his bolt. With a mighty roar of "SILENCE!", he threw the bolt on the ground, causing a shockwave which threw everyone back into their seats.

He calmed down, and said quietly. "Now, let's handle this the way we taught the ancient Greek people to settle things. Democratically. We shall set it up like this. Everyone will get one vote, and they cannot vote for themselves. All the Olympians aside from Hades, Poseidon and I are up there, since we already have ours. So, we shall go through each Olympian, and raise your hand if you wish to use your votes. Anyone with their vote leftover at the end will be forced to choose. Agreed?" He proposed, and, finding no fault with it, we nodded.

"Alright." The sky god stood up, and summoned a whiteboard so that we could all see it. He proceeded to write the names of all 12 Olympians that weren't him or his brothers, but was interrupted by Hestia. "Brother, I voluntarily withdraw my name from this ballot. Even if I gained a weapon, I am a peaceful goddess, I could not raise arms against our enemy." She told him, and he nodded, rubbing her name off.

Dammit, there goes maybe my vote.

Zeus turned to us all, and read out the first name. "Who votes for Hera?" Silence. I honestly felt bad for Hera. First one up and no one even thinks about doing so. Zeus moves on. "Demeter?" Again, silence. That was disappointing. Demeter is often overlooked.

Zeus moves to the next. "Ares?" Finally, some hands go up. Dionysus, Hera, and Aphrodite all raised their hands, and while I knew Ares was one of the best fighters on Olympus, I desperately hoped he wouldn't abuse his power. "Athena?" Again, some hands went up. Hermes, Demeter and Ares voted for her, and I thought that was a smart. She was the best tactician in the world, so she could make up for that while ares makes up for her lack of brawn. Zeus marked those votes down too.

"Apollo?" Zeus asked, and Apollo perked up, wondering who'd vote for him. He was disappointed to see none did. Not even his twin sister. "Artemis?" Even more hands went up. Zeus, Apollo and Athena all voted for her, and seeing no one else I'd rather vote for, I raised my hand. The goddess smiled at me, and I gave her my signature lopsided grin.

Now Artemis had set the new record, we went for a long period of no votes? "Hephaestus? Aphrodite? Hermes? Dionysus?" Zeus went through them quickly, catching onto the pattern and knowing what was coming next. Me being the dense guy I am, didn't, and was utterly surprised at what happened next.

"And Perseus?" Zeus finished, and my eyes widened when five hands went up. Artemis, Poseidon, Hestia, Hades, Hephaestus all voted for me, and I smiled at each of them, mine and Artemis' gazes holding for a bit longer than needed for some reason.

Wow, I got the highest amount of votes. That gave me a little boost in self-confidence.

"Then it is decided." Zeus said, the board vanishing. "Ares, Athena, Artemis and Perseus shall be the next gods to wield master weapons. Let us hope they use them only for the benefit of Olympus and not for… personal gain." He said, his eyes flicking to a smug Ares for a fraction of a second.

Zeus sat back in his throne. "Hephaestus! You shall be in charge of the forging. The four aforementioned gods will inform you of what weapon they work best with, and you forge them. Understood?" He asked, and Hephaestus nodded, happy to finally be able to attempt creating a master weapon, something he had been banned from doing ever since he got good at smithing.

Zeus, satisfied, turned to the council. "Does anyone else have a matter of importance they'd like to bring up?" He asked, and I felt relieved when no one said yes. Zeus slammed his bolt on the ground, thundering out "Council dismissed." Before flashing out with a boom.

One by one, all the gods did so, and as I was about to flash back to camp to hang out with my friends, a hand grabbed onto my shoulder. I turned around, and was surprised to see Artemis there.

She said nothing other than "Meet me at my hunter's camp at Yellowstone tonight." And when I nodded my head, she smiled kindly and flashed out. Why was Artemis acting so kindly to me, wasn't I still a male? Did she think she was obligated to after the whole Mount Othrys fiasco? I don't know, I'll ask her tonight.

I flashed back to camp, intent on seeing my friends and hanging with them until I had to go meet Artemis.

So that's this first chapter done. I've got a lot of ideas for this story and I'm experimenting with it. Please tell me what you think of this story, and be more specific than 'Looks good.' Tell me what you like or don't like, after all, this is an experiment. Have a great day guys, Chapter 2 will be up soon.