A/N Guys... you can't say that this image isn't true. We all know that this is definitely why. We can't deny it, no matter how hard we try.

Okay, moving on to serious stuff.

This book used to only have a couple hundred views, and I was about to discontinue it until all you guys started reading this. I really needed to thank you guys for doing this! Oh, and I planned on updating this a few days ago, but unfortunately, I was chased around camp for quite a while. If you have a look at one of the recent comments in Chapter 2, you'll see what I mean.

So, not sure any of you noticed, but I entered this story into this years Wattys! I felt a bit confident with all your comments, feedback and support along with the help of the Seven and many other campers especially the Athena cabin.

Still, thanks so much, and sorry for the wait. Being a demigod, the luxuries of life don't come as often.

I hope I've gained a bit of writing sense after reading so many fanfictions so you guys enjoy!

P.S. For the future of this book, 2 questions, VERY IMPORTANT.

1. Should I make some particular characters gods/goddesses?

2. As a sequel (most likely there will be one requested) would you like me to do one of those Percy Jackson/Harry Potter crossovers with the addition of the Avengers?

P.P.S. I really should've looked into the details of where things went, but when I edit the story again, I'll fix up when all these events are so that Leo comes back to camp on the canon date and when the sequel is made, the events will be after the Trials of Apollo and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard.

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Previously on 'Beneath the Pain'

Annabeth's POV

Polybotes sighed, a growl escaping his throat at the same time. A weird sound to make. "I personally wished to simply kill them, yet my father seemed to know better. Whatever keeps you in more pain would do me good."

He fiddled with his weapon, possibly imagining many ways to kill Percy with it, even if he wasn't supposed to. "They did put up quite a fight when our monsters went to retrieve them, but the empousai did their job well, especially when they turned into them. Impersonating being dead isn't such a hard task," Polybotes informed in a monotone, fiddling with his weapon more as he eyed Percy with bloodlust.

What does he mean? Okay, let me gather the clues. They put up a fight, the empousai turned into these people, they impersonated being dead . . . it can't be! Percy told me detail after detail. However, it's the only other theory there could be. No other meaning could make sense or mean anything to Percy.

Polybotes had glanced at me at the fact that I'd realised something. "Yes, Daughter of Athena, you are correct."

Percy couldn't take this. I'm not sure how Tony would take it, but I know that Percy would not be able to live with himself knowing he could've saved them only if he'd been fast enough. Although, the reason he used to believe was fake. He believed he wasn't fast enough to save them from their deaths. Instead, he wasn't fast enough to save them from utter torture.

"Son of Poseidon, as much as I despised the decision, my father wished it to be this way." The audience around us remained quiet as we waited for Polybotes to convey the message.

"Your parents are alive."

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Percy's POV

"Your parents are alive," Polybotes addressed to me with much distaste in his voice. The message alone was enough to make my heart skip a beat. Mom and Paul are alive?

I felt as if time had stopped completely and that I stood in an empty black room with no one else as I began processing this information. Why would they keep them alive? I don't mind that they're alive, I'm actually pretty overjoyed, but not many evil dudes or gals have much use for any mortal. It's either kill them if they're in their way, pay them no mind at all or . . . to use them against someone.

When did these guys get brains?

I looked back to see if Polybotes was going to break out in laughter or say, "HA! Fooled you! Goodbye!" and poison me, but from the way he carried his disgusted expression and how he seemed ready to use those snakes of his, it didn't seem to me that he was lying. And hey, whenever did this guy have any sense of humour?

Even with my hopes up that my parents might be alive, I couldn't take his word for sure. After all, he was born to hunt dad - and his offspring (especially me) - down.

Anyone standing anywhere near Tony could tell that he was happy to hear this but had anger boiling inside him too. Even if he hadn't really known about mom that much, I think it would be fun for him to have a sister. Well, in other words, someone he could talk to about a normal life.

Wait, what normal life? Thanks to me, anyone close to me doesn't have a normal life. Mom doesn't deserve what I've gotten her into, and she's already been kidnapped once. And I'm expecting a little sister! Why of all times did this have to happen?

Oh yeah, Polybotes is standing right in front of me resisting the urge to kill me on the spot right now. I'll let my ADHD distract me later.

Oh. Just great. Um, remember what I thought earlier about Polybotes breaking into laughter? Well, he broke out laughing but I don't think it was because was a joke. Right now, he was bellowing as loud as someone who'd just watched the world's most hilarious cat video.

"Even without killing you, I still managed to inflict pain! I have to use words more often on my enemies, especially you." He carried on laughing for a little longer, his laugh managing to shake the grounds of Camp Half - Blood which had me worried about the camp and a little so for my neck.

I have a small habit of causing an earthquake around here every now and then, so, uh, do I have to explain the rest? All you need to know is that it involves Clarisse, the Hephaestus cabin and a bunch more angry campers, the leader being Annabeth because I may or may not have interrupted some of her sketch ideas for Olympus.

Polybotes stopped laughing and looked back down on us, the joy still in his eyes. Still looked like he wanted to kill me. No surprise.

"For now, farewell puny demigods. Until we meet again on the battlefield. Count yourselves lucky no one died. At least, not yet," Polybotes spoke as he departed the boundaries of camp into the looming shadows of the forest trees.

I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath in until Annabeth came to my side and asked me, "You alright, Seaweed brain?" 

I couldn't put my feelings into words. I was overfilled with joy that they were alive, but sadness washed over me when I realized they were in that place, then anger when I thought of my mortal parents being brought into this and how mom had a baby.

Thinking of something to do, I looked over to the Avengers who had stayed huddled in their group murmuring about something.

Almost forgot they were here.

Wise girl saw I was deep in thought. "Don't worry Seaweed brain. We'll get them back. I know we will."

I just nodded my head in response still in my daze as she lead me back to the safety of camp, her hand resting peacefully on my shoulder.

So many thoughts kept swirling through my mind. Thoughts of mom and Paul, my little sister, that stupid primordial, Polybotes, blue cookies, the Avengers, Clarisse glaring and running at me like she wants to murder me... Wait what?

Oh yeah, that's happening right now.

"JACKSON! When I get my hands on you, you are DEAD! I almost reached my high score in training dummies decapitated in two minutes until YOU MADE A FREAKING EARTHQUAKE!" Clarisse yelled from a few feet away as I bolted it, Annabeth and some others laughing at this chase (you get it, right?) of cat and mouse.

Took me an hour for me to shake her off (She is one tough cookie) and nearly half an hour to get her to calm down about something I never did. Ah, the memories of when I was twelve. The days when I knew I couldn't have a normal life.

At that point, the conch shell sounded for lunch and I was glad for something I could distract myself about. Food. And my friends. And the Avengers.

The more the merrier. Sometimes.

Sitting ourselves down at the table made for us, we sat laughing about Clarisse chasing me around as I recounted the story about some of what she said which is not meant for the ears of young. Still, I couldn't get my mind off what I've been told no matter what happened.

I tried another distraction. Looking at Clarisse sitting at the Ares table, all of them were laughing, but I doubt it was told from the same point of view. She's probably telling them how I ran off scared because of her when I've faced worse. Yeah, probably that.

Lunch was actually a big blur. Laughter reverberated from our table when the Avengers began telling us some of their stories and I think Annabeth had some deep thinking every now and then when Thor and Loki did anything.

Might be the cousin she mentioned went missing about 2 years ago. I think his name was Magnus Chase? She said that her family has a connection with the gods (not just the Greeks and Romans) and that Magnus might have a dad who's a god. I asked Annabeth before how she could assume that Magnus had a god for a dad and she said that his dad never came around.

Which made total sense. Wonder why my subconscious never thought to say, "Well, your dad didn't stay with us. What other pattern do you need for a demigod to realize that someone might be the child of a god, blowing stuff up? Oh wait, that was you, never mind."

Oh, but things only got better from that point. Tony discovered why you never give any sugary food or sugar in general to Bad Boy Supreme, the Super-sized McShizzle, Supreme Commander of the Argo II, Commander Tool Belt... You get who I mean. 

You see, we all know the camp plates summon whatever food you wish, right? So after Tony had finished lunch, he suddenly fancied half a dozen chocolate-filled doughnuts.

Big mistake.

Tony ate three of the doughnuts - and they were pretty enormous too, let me tell ya - but concluded that he couldn't eat more than he could chew and that he didn't want any good food going to waste. Everyone else turned it down, all of us crammed from our lunch except for Leo. 

I don't know how Leo still had room in his stomach considering he'd eaten more than the rest of us (me standing in second place) and he shoved them down before we realized what mistake we forgot to identify too late.

Leo stood frozen as the sugar worked its way into his system, pumping him up for a high-level sugar craze. Now, I'm not sure how much chocolate or sugar had been in that doughnut, but Leo went on a craze that was wilder than so many others.

Right when all of us got up to chase him, he was already aflame and running around camp yelling, "WOOHOO! SUPER-SIZED MCSHIZZLE COMING THROUGH, BABY!!!"

This would've been heaps easier if all of us weren't running on full stomachs. I myself still had a few cramps from running away from Clarisse, but that went fine with me. I still ran at a somewhat normal pace. But of course, I was that portable fire hose you could take around with you so whatever Leo set fire to, I had to douse with water as quick as possible to avoid any major damage to the camp buildings.

We didn't want to have to rebuild the dining pavilion again, after all.

If you want the long story short, and trust me you will, the rest of the Seven, the Avengers and I spent an hour running after Leo and trying to corner him without burning ourselves in the process. This was another hour of running I wish I could take back.

Thinking about it, no one besides Leo was fireproof or currently, at the time, was wearing any fireproof clothing, so trying to corner someone who's completely set on fire can be a difficult task to achieve.

At last, we'd cornered Leo near the lake, all of us surrounding him in a circle with me having raised a wall of water behind him. Of course, this being Leo, it took him a few more minutes for him to calm down and for the sugar rush to die away.

When that happened, Leo had a bit more energy to say, "Enjoy running an extra hour, Kelp head?" before collapsing into the arms of Bruce who gave him to Tony who eventually took Leo back to the Hephaestus cabin.

Some of the Hephaestus campers had to check on any of the damaged buildings and repair anything that was lost in the fire, leaving all of us to train or do whatever for the next few hours until dinner.

Thinking of some sort of distraction, one just came up to me. Steve Rogers, wearing new clothes after his other one was almost singed right off. He got quite a lot of admirers from the girls in camp, especially the ones from the Aphrodite cabin. Hope he survives camp.

"Hey kid, could I talk to you for a second?" Steve asked as he advanced towards me, girls sneaking a glance at him from time to time.

Right now, I had time wide open since Annabeth was working on the line of defenses and attacks for Olympus extra hard in case any other baddies come swooping through with wrecking tools and began destroying the place.

Nodding, I agreed. "Okay. But please stop calling me kid, it's getting a bit annoying. Perce works fine."

Seemingly in agreement, Steve nodded as we walked side-by-side on the main path of camp, the Athena Parthenos what we'd see when we reached the end of our walk if we went up to where she was situated.

"Tony's worried sick, Perce. After snapping back to being serious, he wasn't really... You know, Tony. He remember what your cousin Thalia said about where you, Nico and Annabeth went, and he's really terrified," Steve explained, his expression showing worry and his eyes showing sorrow and the fractured emotions of a soldier having witnessed true war.

I looked down to the path below my feet and thought of what could be going on down there. Mom and Paul could be trapped down there with none of us having no idea what could be happening down there.

Gaea could be foolishly laughing at me without me knowing as she lays trapped in the ground knowing about what I'm feeling and how I could be taking all this.

Looking back up, I responded to Steve. "I don't blame him. I never wanted my mom dragged into this, or Paul. It hurts to know that because of me, they don't have a normal life. If I wasn't born, mom would've had a normal life and wouldn't've had to deal with my other step-dad. She could've been happy without me."

Without knowing, I'd stopped in the middle of the pathway as I faded into what my mom could've had.

At this point in time, she would've been happily married to Paul already with two kids. Mom would be busy fretting over what to cook for dinner whilst Paul was at work, their kids off at school with lots of friends to hang with. She might even be a successful author by now.

When dinner came around and her kids and Paul came home, Paul would peck mom on the cheek and check what was being made for dinner and their kids would also look in curiosity as well. Dinner would eventually be finished and everyone would be seated at the table, their mouths drooling over the delicious cooking courtesy of mom, compliments going all around as everyone told stories of what had happened in their day. A happy family. A whole family.

A normal family.

I was snapped out of my daydream by Steve who slid his hand on my shoulder as reassurance. "Look at me, Perce. Look at me."

I forced my eyes to look into Steve's, his piercing blue eyes staring into my raging sea green ones, both our eyes showing the same shattering look of the consequences of war.

"I know what you're thinking, Percy. You're thinking of your mom with a normal family. Don't go there. I may not know what your mom was like, but she wouldn't want you to be thinking all this. She wouldn't want you to feel guilt because of what your family is. After getting to know you, I would not know a single parent who wouldn't be proud to have you as a son, normal or not. If anything, you're what's keeping her going through the hard times she's facing."

Steve knew what words would work. Guess he's that guy you can count on to give you reassurance without giving you pity. I didn't need pity. It makes sense since he's also been through war and saving the world.

I managed a smile. "Thanks, Steve," I whispered, Steve smiling back as he pat me on the shoulder. 

"No problem, Perce." With that, we continued walking. Steve faced me again. " You know, I don't think it's possible for Sally to have a normal life. Not with Tony in the picture."

At that, I laughed. Of course no family could be normal with Tony in there. He's an egotistical, superhero billionaire who could make an entrance like nobody else.

With Steve's words hanging in my mind, the rest of the day went smoothly. 

Dinner was chaotic when one of the campers accidentally hurled a chicken bone in the direction of the Hunters and an all out food fight emerged, Black Widow on the Hunter's side. That turned out bad seeing as she had brilliant aim. Chiron didn't even try putting a stop to the food fight. Or Mr. D.

I think they knew that even if they tried to stop the food fight, it would only get messier than they knew it was going to get.

I think I managed to get an apple in the open mouth of Thalia who turned beet red and almost looked like a roast pig on a spit. She, of course, realized it was me, and I got more than a full plate of cupcakes and cream pie in the face.

The Aphrodite girls tried hiding behind anything they could grab, and I recall one of the girls hiding behind Chiron who, until it was too late, had received a full dish of lasagna all over his centaur face.

Chiron joined the food fight.

Wandering back to my cabin with Annabeth, we laughed and talked about who we managed to get during the food fight. She laughed especially when I told her about Thalia, but we both knew that not just a food fight would erase what I did to Thalia.

Opening the door, Annabeth had set up a separate bed not too far away so she couldn't reach me and be uncomfortable, but not too close so she didn't have to be the victim of my in-sleep torture and my constant thrashing. 

With a few small kisses shared through a few soothing words shared between each other and telling Wise girl I'd be fine, we crawled into our beds, my hand in hers between the gap of our beds as both of us drifted of to sleep.

Opening my eyes,  I was chained to the wall like per normal staring into pitch black. For how long I looked at the space for, I have no clue, and it's extremely uncomfortable when you're standing in a space with no sense of direction. It's like being suspended in the sky with an invisible force holding you up as you stared in every direction with time frozen right before your eyes.

After what felt like days and nothing to do, the scene around me changed to Tartarus. And yes, I started thinking of the place because Wise girl told me that fear of the name only increases fear for the thing itself. (You guys HAVE to know this reference, everyone should)

And there, standing in front of me was the embodiment of the pit, Tartarus. 

"Welcome back, Perseus Jackson. I hope you're prepared for tonight's torture," Tartarus announced as if he couldn't make this any clearer.

It took so much of my will not to roll my eyes. Right now, I didn't even care about the torture. "Alright, what is it this time? Spears? Knifes? The dentist?"

Tartarus boomed with laughter, his laugh resembling that of his son. That's just annoying.

"You humour me Sea Spawn, truly. However, we are not following our routinely torture tonight."

Looking behind him, I still saw all the regular weapons that were used in all my previous nightmares. I didn't see anything on the table that didn't account for "routinely torture". 

Tartarus snapped his fingers, and two other figures were chained to the wall on the other side of the room, their clothes starting to wither to rags as bags under their eyes distorted their tired faces. My body forgot to breath when they both looked at me trying to reassure me. We all knew that no look they gave me would make me feel any better about our situation.

"Let us see, Perseus Jackson, what good your mortal parents do me."

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A/N Dun dun DUNNNNNNN!!!! Do we want to know what happens? Do we not? What happens to them? Oh, and for those who tried to guess my age, NO ONE'S GUESSED IT YET! Thought someone would guess it by now. Keep guessing guys! 

If you agree that as a sequel we should add in the Harry Potter universe, PLZ COMMENT! I've already got some ideas on what to do for the crossover adding the Avengers. 

I APOLLOGIZE (wink wink) ABOUT NOT UPDATING FOR FOREVER!!!! I had a family member come over for a few months who, despite my protesting, assisted me with the chores. Because she helped me, I had more free time to update. But now that she's back where she lives far away and there's lots of homework and the responsibilities of a demigod upon me, I can't update much.

I'm not blaming her, I knew the risks when I made this story and I took them.

That also reminds me that it's been almost a year since I made this story. Time flies by too quick, doesn't it? How many of you blame my grandfather Kronos? Anyway, I have chores I quickly need to finish off (otherwise Annabeth will kill me even if I'm making a chapter) so I'd better go do those.

See ya for another adventure!

Tiffany Achilles Jackson, daughter of Poseidon