Broken And Betrayed

SIXTEEN

Percy and Alex stood up, brushing themselves off. They could have levitated and flown back while still in midair, bit they wanted to see if they would land anywhere interesting, so allowed themselves to follow the course the hunters had sent them on.

Speaking of the hunters... Percy looked angrily at Alex. The younger boy grasped his meaning instantly and nodded. "I'm angry too, Percy, just try to stay calm." He said quietly.

He knew what this was. After staying alone with his brother all this time, how could he not? He knew that Percy was quite a cool, chill guy before it happened. Afterwards, he quickly regained that, but with two changes that Alex had noticed.

Firstly, Percy could go into a state where he was so depressed he could barely talk or do anything. He'd tried to hide this from Alex, but he'd noticed and helped Percy, over a very long period of time to get over it enough that the black moods didn't come anymore.

The second thing was that, if he got annoyed or irritated enough, he'd fly into a rage and unleash it on something.

They'd first seen this while fighting a hydra. Percy had been stoically and methodically cutting off the heads while keeping it engaged so that Alex could burn the stumps. Suddenly, Percy had gotten mad. Why was this taking so long? Why was it even bothering them in the first place?! He had grabbed the torch from Alex, sprinted at the hydra and started spinning and leaping around, cutting off heads and burning them so fast that Alex's eyes could barely keep up. Even once it was dead, Percy had kept on stabbing its corpse until Alex had dragged him away.

Like the depressions, Alex had helped his brother overcome those a little, but it was too difficult to really do much. All he could do was just direct Percy's anger at a bad guy, really.

And here he was, showing all the telltale signs of that horrible rage. It must've been all the hunters' insults building up, and this had been the last straw. His anger had been pent up, and the dam would be breaking anytime now. Alex looked around wildly for a monster that Percy could take his anger out on, but he couldn't see any, much to his dismay.

Then the bushes rustled, and two German shepherds limped out, one male and one female. The male was pure black, and the female was pure white. Alex knew that to see a german shepherd of a pure coat colour was very rare, so when he saw two, and took their size into account? Yeah, he knew there was a god involved.

They appeared to be strays, but even though they looked gaunt from too little to eat, they were still massive. Percy was around 6'2", and the dogs' heads came up to his chest!

Then Alex's head swung around to look at Percy. He wasn't thinking clearly! He could take out his anger on th-

Alex's jaw dropped open. Percy was on the ground fondling the male dog's neck, while it rumbled in pleasure. All signs of anger were gone from the eighteen year old's face, and he was even grinning as he played with the massive animal.

The younger boy shook his head smiling, and turned to the female, who was looking at him with her head cocked.

"Alright, come here," he laughed, and when the dog jumped at him he started tickling her belly, making her roll over in pleasure. He then got up to go find whatever god was out there sending them pets, and set off, only to notice the dog getting up too and following him.

"You're coming too, huh? What shall I call you. If I had a sister, I'd like her to be called... Sadie! Yeah! You like it?" He said, smiling at his companion. He then frowned when he again noticed her gaunt condition. He'd have to fix that, he decided. While he looked for the deity that was hanging around, he'd hunt something for Sadie to eat. He set off again, with Sadie by his side, brushing against him every now and then.