| PANDEMONIUM | Percy x Apollo

Chapter 15

Apollo felt an arm wrapping around his shoulders.

He looked up to find his sister seated beside him. Her eyes a mixture of sadness and anger.

"Why do you cry, brother?" She wiped his tears with her fingers.

There was silence for a long moment.

"They took Percy." He told her, voice choked.

He felt her hand tighten around his shoulder. Apollo knew that his sister liked Percy a lot. He was an honourable man, the only one who had earned the approval of her late lieutenant. The one Apollo had been crushing on for years. The only one of Apollo's admirations that she found reasonable. The man who had saved her when she had faced a similar situation.

"Who?" She asked, her voice significantly harsher than before.

Apollo let out a sigh. "Ares." He said, and turned to look his sister in the eye. As expected, he saw disappointment reign in. She had tried a lot to bring Ares to the right track. To make him see reason, but he had defected again.

"Quit moping, brother." She said to him, "What would Percy do if you were the one to be taken? Let him guide you to where he is. You'll find him. I'm deploying the hunters right now. First priority is finding Percy. But if we find Ares, Thalia has ordered a castration on sight."

"If I'm the one who finds Ares first, I'll kill him." Apollo stated, his words ringing true.

"Very well." Artemis said, and stood up, dusting her palms. "It'd be highly appreciated if you would care to stop the heatwave engulfing half of America right now."

Apollo wanted them to burn. Wanted to wreak havoc. To cause plagues. To make them suffer for their ignorance.

But then he remembered Artemis's advice. What would Percy want him to do? He thought, and calmed himself down.

"Good. Now, you might want to tell the rest of the council what happened." Artemis tells him. "They want you to address the media and sort everything out. Father doesn't seem to be able to see the bigger picture. Honestly, I'm not surprised."

Apollo just sighed.

"I'll get going now, brother. Take care, and call me if you need help."

Apollo didn't care to watch her disappear.

He needed to get his head in the game and find Percy and the missing demigods.

-

Tony was very confused and very concerned.

The only thing he was sure of was that Percy had just been kidnapped, Apollo is screaming outside, and they both definitely had a lot more secrets than they had let on.

"Am I wrong or did Percy just get kidnapped by teleportation?" Clint asked the room at large.

They were all vehemently ignoring the decapitated man on the wall. He's beyond help, but Percy and his friends aren't and that's what they had decided to concentrate on by silent agreement.

"That was Ares, the god of War."

Apollo had walked back into the room. He looked significantly more composed now. He was sure he'd only just seen the guy run out in a hysterical manner.

"You mean, he's an alien from Asgard?" Bruce asked the musician.

Apollo sighed and lifted his right hand. He made a show of snapping his fingers and suddenly they were all back in Avengers Tower and the decapitated man was lying on a stretcher in the far corner of their meeting room.