Let's see how this one works, my lovely readers.

Chapter Ten: Growing

Point of view: Third Person

Lycaon and the others with him laugh. Percy looks somewhat offended, but is too amused in how they sound to stay agitated at them. Seeing this, Lycaon backtracks, newborns are always emotional after turning. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. It happens to the best of us." He chuckles.

"I can't stay mad, father." Percy answers.

Lycaon beams and Percy doesn't understand why until he realizes.

He just called Lycaon his father and he never has before. Lycaon sits down next to him and the others leave the room. "I'm sorry, I didn't me-" Percy starts but is cut off by Lycaon entrapping him in a hug.

"No, I'm glad you think of me in that way. And, as the one who turned you and since I have now clakimed you, I am your father. I am also adotping you anyway. I don't think you want to be an orphan." Lycaon stops Percy.

Percy bursts into tears at the mention of having nothing at all in all technicality of his life. Lycaon rubs his back, this was going to be a long day and he's ready to help Percy to his best extent.

"What do you think?" Lycaon whispers after a little bit.

Percy, still crying his heart out, just nods his head into Lycaon's shoulder, unable to form words.

"Are you alright?" Lycaon asks gently.

"I don't know what's wrong with me." Percy cries.

Lycaon chuckles and rubs his back comfortingly. "It's not your fault. You're adjusting to everything. Being changed is like being born again. Let it all out now and then we can help you even more than before."

"I thought I was over all of this." Percy chokes on his tears.

"No, when you turn, all of your emotions bubble up. You may have thought that you were over it or it just wasn't as potent as before. So, it's natural for you to still hurt over all of this. Once it's all gone, you won't feel this way about those things again." Lycaon explains to him. "So, you should know that being my son means you have to lead the pack if I die, and you have to know, the others will love you more than ever now. Not to mention they'll put your safety above their own, especially as my heir." Lycaon tells him.

"I'm not that important." Percy murmurs.

"Yes you are. You're far more important than many." Lycaon looks kindly at his son.

"Those things, they still hurt when I think about them after all this time." Percy sobs into Lycaon's shoulder.

Lycaon touches his side where the deepest wound used to be and Percy starts crying more. Lycaon wraps that arm back around Percy and pulls him tighter to him, attempting to soothe him. "Talk to me about it." He whispers.

"You already know." Percy cries.

"But it will help you to relieve the burden into our home where it can be eradicated. Tell the tales of your time with the Olympians. Get it out of your system. Purge the poison." Lycaon tells him firmly.

Percy nods and fails at trying to calm down. "Okay."

"Where should you start?" Lycaon prompts him.

"When they got me..." Percy breathes.

Lycaon waits, but realizes Percy is thinking about it, not telling it. He nudges him. "Go on."

Percy nods slightly, in a trance or daze from reliving the memories. "My father said he wanted to bring me to Olympus." Percy starts. "I thought he was going to talk to me about something to do with being his son or whatever." He shudders. "But, when I got there, to the throne room...it was just Poseidon and Zeus in the room. Zeus looked wickedly excited and when I turned to my father, he looked exactly the same. Before I knew it, Hades had appeared and gotten a hold of me.

I...I was taken to this...malevolent place, it radiated evil. Pure evil. Led to a cell in the black ink of the atmosphere. I never...thought that...they would actually...tear me apart. Not until I couldn't feel anything at all anymore. But that place...it made me whole all over again, except for the memories. It didn't take them. No," Percy shakes his head. "I always remembered them, but the worst part? It refreshed them. It was another part of the things they wanted done to me. Not only did it make me see them all over again each day, I'd have to relive them. Until they came back, I was reliving the memories they had forced upon me, my mind.

The first memories were of my first day there, then when those ran out, they'd force me to remember what had happened to me at camp.

Of course, being the wonderful physicality I am," Percy rolls his eyes. "My body shut down on them once, seeing I needed a defense. It turned me off and cut the magic of that wretched place from myself for a little while. I was allowed to rest for once, but that wasn't until a month into it. My body made me sleep, kept my mind from running other than to heal, and protected me. My instinct turned me off long enough for me to regain the energy I needed.

It didn't last a while though, it lasted two days and then I was brought back and tormented relentlessly in my waking hours. I never really slept, I just began to relive my memories in a rest-like state, but I could feel everything from those memories all over again.

When I first came to live with you," Percy touches a hand to Lycaon's shoulder. "I would always flinch or cry out when I remembered being there, it was an after affect of the magic from that place. It was still on me for a little bit. It was gone a while after joining you.

There are countless things they did to me, some unspeakable but once. But for now," Percy's face turns wistful. "I can tell you if only to relieve me of the pain.

Aphrodite was the worst, the thing I hated the most. Like I told you before, she made me fixate on her as my adaptive medicine to heal from my offending wounds. She wanted me to...be with her. But it only took me a minute before I would snap her love magic in half. She learned quickly that I would shatter any ties of love like that without hesitation and without second thought. When that didn't work, it was Dionysus and Hermes.

Dionysus would bring my mind in his hands and try to bend it, while Hermes placed lies in my head to convince me of things.

It only ever worked once.

That time, Dionysus brought my mind forward and Hermes made me think that...I was...I wasn't born, but created. I was made to serve the gods and their children.

It was something Dionysus did different, he separated my mind and my judgement, making me more vulnerable than I already was. To pull back my judgement, I had to shut down Dionysus and it took a lot out of what I had left to get him out of my head. Hermes kept speaking to me though, and it took forever for me to block him out of my head.

The lies weren't as bad as Aphrodite, but they weren't any better. The way Ares tore out everything my body had...Athena would teach Ares the different muscles, arteries, veins, tendons, and other parts of the human body by pointing them out to him and him proceeding to rip it from me. I don't know how many times it happened, but by the time I got out, I could tell you everything about the human body you wanted to know. They operated on me, teaching things that should not be taught.

Hephaestus would burn me, scorch off my skin, open me and boil my insides, made me mute by inflaming my throat, and made my whole entire body numb due to my pain receptors being overloaded.

Zeus and Poseidon would drown and shock me, while Hades performed the tortures of the Underworld on me, experimenting on me with new ideas, and making me answer the questions and scales for the agony I would feel so he would have an idea. Suffocating, drowning, burning, ripping, tearing, beating, killing...erasing.

Demeter...she was the one I actually looked forward to spending time with down there. Hers was the easiest to endure through everything. She would just grow the different plants of the world in my body and rip me apart from the inside.

That place had so much magic intertwined with it that there was no way I would ever die, get used to the pain, and always fought against my will and tried breaking me while I was alone. It was like it was meant to make a person die on the inside and then build them into what the tormentors wanted them to be.

Sometimes...I swear I had company when they were gone. Someone was there, talking to me, reassuring me, and telling me that one day, I would get out, escape, and heal."

"You never mentioned that before..." Lycaon looks at him worriedly.

Percy shakes his head. "I didn't remember until now. It didn't sound male or female, just was. It was more evil than the room though. I tried to get rid of it, force it away, but I was too weak in my deteriorating state to keep it away for more than a month or a little more. It was a lot like what Dionysus would do. Trying to break into my mind and get to me, but it was more adamant about it. It wanted me, and badly."
"Did it ever tell you what it wanted?" Lycaon asks.
Percy looks into Lycaon's eyes. "My soul."
Rick Riordan owns PJO/HOO. What do you think, my lovely readers?