story beginnings and ideas

PJO 2

Reading the books - Luke's betrayal

I do not own Percy Jackson.

Luke and Percy grew up together. They are closer than Annabeth and Thalia were to either of them and Annabeth had the years at Camp to suspect that Luke was acting weird. Luke has been brought back from Elysium to read. It is after the Giant War.

Bold is what is happening in the Iris Message and anything underlined is directly from the book.

~*~*~*~*~

Annabeth read the part where Percy reaches the arena when a message appears. She picked up the note to read.

"Sorry to interrupt but this part will be shown in an Iris Message. Sincerely, Apollo and the Fates."

The message popped up as Annabeth put the note down.

The screen showed a mostly empty arena with one figure training with their sword. They watched as Percy walks in and stops to watch who they now recognized as Luke. They could see the awe in his eyes as he watched the annihilation of the dummies.

Luke saw Percy and paused mid-swing. "Percy."

"Um, sorry," Percy stuttered, clearly embarrassed. "I just-"

"Wow Percy, so eloquent," Thalia teased, pushing against his shoulder.

"I had just realized that he could easily kill me with one swing of his sword and I wouldn't even be able to draw Riptide," Percy countered, fighting the lingering fear from the memory, silently cursing about stupid time curses that made me feel everything that was described.

"It's okay," Luke said.... "Those dummies.... Bothering anyone anymore.".... "We build new ones every summer."

They watched as Percy looked at the sword hanging from Luke's hand. Now that it wasn't moving too fast to make out what it looked like they could see that the blade was two-toned, one edge bronze, the other steel.

Luke seemed to notice Percy's staring as he said, "Oh, this? New toy. This is Backbiter."

"Backbiter?"

"One side celestial bronze. The other is tempered steel. Works on mortals and immortals both."

"Where did you get a sword like that? I know my children would never make that for you," Hephaestus said, looking at the blade with slight alarm.

Luke winced. "Yeah, uh, you'll find out soon?" The way he said it made it sound more like a question than an answer.

Percy looked a little troubled at Luke's words. "I didn't know they could make weapons like that."

"They probably can't," Luke agreed, looking smug. "Listen, I was going to come looking for you. What do you say we go down to the woods one last time, look for something to fight?"

Percy hesitated when they started to hear his thoughts. I don't know why I'm hesitating. I should be relieved; he's been so distant ever since I came back. Does he hate me because of all the attention I've been getting?

"Oh, Percy," Luke sighed. "I could never hate you. I may have been a little jealous but I never hated you."

Percy looked at him from his place next to Thalia and Nico. Luke could see the slight anxiety from the scene playing out in front of them. "I know but it had been seven years since I had seen you last. I didn't know how much you changed from the one and a half weeks I was at Camp before I was sent off."