Broken And Betrayed

THREE

Percy looked at his new half brother with interest. "Yo. How's it going?"

Alex, after his original greeting, had just floated there, confused. "Promoxis? What's going on?", He asked quietly.

Promoxis smiled at his charge. "Milord Percy here is going to take you to the camp we spoke about, Alex. Don't worry, you'll enjoy it, and especially since you've got a brother now."

Naturally, Alex only had one concern.

"Doesn't that mean I'll have to leave you? I don't want to. Who does this guy think he is, anyway?" He said, irritated. Percy may have disarmed him, he thought, but that was just a fluke, he would bet on that.

Promoxis, knowing that Alex wouldn't voluntarily leave without him, decided to take the first step as Percy looked on.

"Don't worry son, I'll be with you as long as you remember me. I hate prolonged farewells, so I'll be going now. Take care of the boy, my lord, he's almost like a son to me.", He finished, turning to Percy with a tear in his eye.

Percy, having noticed that the soldier had gradually started calling him by a title again, rolled his eyes but nodded in acquiescence. "Don't worry, I'll be sure to. You have both me and my dad's thanks, Promoxis."

With that, the soldier saluted, then turned and swam away, much to Alex's horror. The two boys turned to face each other, one with a hopeful face and the other with a glum one.

"C'mon bro cheer up, I'm not that bad. Hey, you want to get something expensive to eat?"

Safe to say, that cheered the younger boy up to quite an extent.

The two spent the rest of the day lazing around Miami and getting to know each other better. It seemed that to keep Alex away from monsters as much as possible, he'd had to live underwater and was only just getting to see more of outside. Of course, he already knew about everything due to having sneaked out, which Percy, being the responsible brother he was, quickly congratulated him for.

Like Percy, Alex had a very fun loving, free spirit. Unlike Percy, however, he liked to think things through before doing them, making him seem much smarter. This was brought to the greatest light when they were attacked.

As two sons of Poseidon, they were probably like a monsters' homing beacon, and sure enough, soon two hellhounds and a dracaena showed up. Percy raced into battle, while Alex hung back, thinking. Something wasn't right, they weren't fully engaging his new brother, more leading him on... Into a trap!

Alex sprang forward and blocked a new enemy's weapon, the club of a Cyclops that had come out of an alley. Percy on the other hand had seen the trap just in time and jumped back, but upon realising that Alex had his back he re-engaged the dracaena while fending of the hellhounds with a smirk. "Thanks, man."

"No problem," Alex grunted, killing the cyclops, albeit a little sloppily, and turning to face the main battle, only to realise that he wasn't needed there anymore. Percy hit the snake woman with the flat of his blade, sending her flying back a few metres. He then pivoted and dodged the hellhounds, making them crash into each other. Quick as lightning Anaklusmos flicked in and out, stabbing both hellhounds at once, one through the other. As both hounds burst into golden dust, the warrior turned to face the recovered dracaena, while Alex watched in awe.

"Shall we? Or are you going to slither away?"

She yelled angrily and rushed the demigod, who simply swayed to the side to avoid her spear, and then plunged his sword into her neck, between her chest plate and helmet. She disintegrated, and Percy turned to his brother.

"Thanks for back there. I was studying your fighting style against the cyclops, and you looked a bit uncomfortable. Is there any reason why?", He said nonchalantly.

Alex just stared at him for a second, before muttering, "I don't like the sword much. I prefer a spear or trident."

Percy looked at him thoughtfully. "There's loads of spears to choose from at camp, however I wouldn't know about tridents. I might try the trident as well actually."

To get back to New York, Percy and Alex decided to try something. They lay on the waters of the ocean and used it to propel them forward, sometimes going underwater so they could go faster without air resistance. On the way there, Percy told his brother of all his adventures up to that point, and in return Alex told him his story too.

Alex's mum had passed of sickness when he was about 7, and his stepfather kicked him out. It was then that the mermen found him, they had been looking for him at the order of Poseidon. They were members of a lower ranked squadron, so by the time he was 12, they'd taught him all they knew. Then most of them left to rejoin the army, while Promoxis and another soldier stayed with him. The other guard had died to defeat a few sea monsters that Alex had let follow him home in carelessness. The boy still beat himself up about it to the day, but Percy quickly got him over it. When Alex asked how he knew so much about getting over death, the older half blood could only say one thing.

"Experience."

When night came, Percy and Alex burst out onto the nearby beach. They'd been travelling up the coast, always keeping the coastline in sight, but when they jumped out, a lone horse was resting on the sand. Arion certainly wasn't pleased, and Alex spent the night in shock from all the new colourful words he'd learnt all at once, being able to understand horses as well. Percy just grinned and laughed it off, being used to Arion's antics. The next day, they reached New York.

"Pretty proud of our pace, yeah?" Percy asked. Alex stood there panting. "I didn't even know I could swim that fast," he gasped. They strolled through Percy's home city, Alex looking at everything while Percy just showed him around.

Soon they reached the Empire State building. After going up in the elevator, they walked around Olympus for a while. Percy didn't really care about his bet with Annabeth anymore, he was enjoying getting to know his little bro more and it wasn't as if he'd bet anything anyway.

Percy took the time to explain each Olympian god's personality to Alex, making sure the younger boy didn't make any wrong assumptions. For example, dad was chill, Zeus is an idiot (even the fish know it), Apollo was cool but his sister Artemis was kinda crazy about hating males so don't even look at her. Oh yeah, and Ares and Dionysus are horrible.

In what seemed like no time at all, the half brothers arrived at the throne room. Alex took a deep breath, and together with his new hero, he pushed open the massive doors.

"Here goes nothing."