The Angel of Time

Chapter 12 - Caesar's Story

Nik POV

"So I wake up on a riverside, to see a bunch of Naiads checking me out" Caesar started saying, we all immediately scoffed as he did, "I looked down and saw that I was completely naked"

I scowled as that horrible image was imprinted into my mind, I noticed Kai wearing a similar expression and could only assume he was thinking the same,

"Luckily there were some rather lovely roman ladies on patrol along the river when I woke. And after they stopped admiring my 'gear', they tossed some capes onto me and lead me back to the city of New Rome and introduced me to the local Praetor. After I met Praetor Zhang, I was given a tour of the city and taken to the temple of Apollo. There I met this stunning redhead, called herself the oracle of Delphi. So there was this whole mumbo jumbo oracle shit done on me, and at the very end a purple laurel wreath appeared over my head. No one knew what it meant until Athena scoured her library and finally found something. The symbol was the sign of the emperors. I was born from a bloodline that somehow had the blood of all 70 emperors contained within it. The only problem was, as soon as I went to return to the city,  I collapsed"

As he reached this part of the story, he turned serious. His smirk left and he let out a deep sigh,

"A child of Apollo inspected me, checked me over. Turns out, half of my insides had dissolved into water, shutting my system down until thankfully it manage to stabilise itself"

"That should have killed you" Benjamin argued sitting up straight as he did the math in his head, "Partial liquification of organs is fatal to even those who can manipulate and breathe in water"

Caesar nodded his head, "That's exactly what Apollo himself said when he was summoned, I should have been dead immediately. What happened next is the interesting part, parts of my body dissolved into water at random, hands, legs all sorts. No one could figure out quite why it was happening. That was...."

"Until Lucy came and found you I guess" I interrupted, 

Eyes rolled around the whole table when I interrupted another story, nevertheless Caesar agreed, "She took me back to Camp Perseus, ran a load of tests with the help of your brother and Athena. They realised that my person was being split into two beings. Part of me was being drawn to the original river Tiber in Rome.  So Lucy, Annabeth and I journeyed to rome. Found the river Tiber and spoke to Tiberinus. The god of the river"

"You met Tiberinus?" Benjamin exclaimed, "The Protector of Romulus and Remus?" 

"Yeah he was a right tool" Caeser scoffed, "He told me that I didn't deserve the power, that I should never have been created"

This time it was my turn to scoff, "Father of the year award"

"He's not my father" Caesar spat, "He's simply the bastard God I was found by"

"Did you give him chance to explain himself" I offered, "Cause when I turned up to Camp Half Blood many moons ago, I was just like that. Vengeful, spiteful and hatful towards my father. Turns out he'd never been around because he split his consciousness up to protect my sister and I"

"Oh he explained" the Roman laughed darkly, "He told me how Percy Jackson's blood and the power of the Tiber gave me life. That he was the one tearing apart my body. And that he would never let me live. Annabeth was shocked when he told us this. She stormed off before we could talk to her leaving Lucy and I alone. Lucy apologised, saying that she should have found a way to save me. I tried to convince her it wasn't her fault but turns out she's a stubborn as my father was"

We were all confused at his words. He had sworn that Tibernus wasn't his father. Awkwardly looking at each other, we didn't realise he was waiting for our reaction. But I did soon realise just who he meant, "Percy" I whispered,