The air crackled, not just with the salt spray of the Pensacola coast, but with an infernal energy that tasted like ozone and despair. Percy stood over Cyrus, the tip of Riptide just millimeters from the Triton’s throat. The rain, a furious extension of Percy’s own rage, lashed down, mingling with the saltwater from the receding tide. Cyrus was a heap of trembling fear, his eyes wide with a terror that finally eclipsed his arrogance.

A figure solidified out of the swirling mist and rain, seemingly materializing from the shadows themselves. Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, stood on the periphery, looking as though he’d been pulled through a thousand nightmares to get here. His usually pale face was drawn, his eyes, dark as the Styx, wide with a horror that mirrored Cyrus's own. He was dishevelled, his aviator jacket soaked and clinging to him, but his gaze was fixed solely on Percy.

"Percy! Stop this!" Nico's voice, usually laced with an edge of sardonic weariness, was raw with desperation. "You're losing yourself! This isn't you!" He took a hesitant step forward, a faint aura of shadow-tendrils rippling around his hands, ready to restrain if necessary.

Percy didn't even turn his head. His focus was absolute, honed by grief and a terrifying clarity of purpose. He felt Nico’s presence, an annoyance, a distant memory of a life that no longer existed for him.

"Get out of my way, Nico," Percy's voice was low, resonating with a terrifying power that vibrated through the sand and salt. It was pure, distilled fury, forged in the crucible of his own shattered heart. "This doesn't concern you. He killed her. He took her. He deserves to suffer."

"This isn't justice!" Nico cried, his voice strained. "This is...this is revenge! Percy, please! Think of Annabeth! What would she say?"

The name, Annabeth, hit Percy like a physical blow, a fresh wave of icy agony twisting in his gut. But instead of deterring him, it only fueled the fire. What would she say? She'd want him to make them pay. She'd want justice. His justice.

"She'd want him to suffer," Percy snarled, finally glancing at Nico, and the look in his sea-green eyes was something Nico had never seen—cold, dead, devoid of light. "Move. Now."

Just as Percy raised Riptide, ready to plunge it into Cyrus's chest, another figure staggered onto the beach, her clothes torn, her hair plastered to her face by the rain. It was Corina, Cyrus’ remaining sister, her eyes wide with a desperate, frantic realization. She saw the scene – Percy, a terrifying instrument of vengeance; Cyrus, broken and whimpering; and Nico, caught between them, trying to hold back the tide.

"Stop! Both of you, please!" Corina shrieked, her voice thin against the roaring wind and waves. She stumbled forward, collapsing to her knees, not near her brother, but between Percy and the water, as if trying to block the inevitable. "You don't understand! This isn't just Cyrus, Percy! It was Mother and something else!"

Percy paused, his hand momentarily freezing. Her words cut through the red haze of his rage, not because they diverted his purpose, but because of the raw, desperate terror in her voice, a terror that seemed to transcend even her brother's impending doom.

Corina gasped for breath, tears mingling with the rain on her face. "She changed, Percy! In the last few weeks...Mother...her storms weren't just violent, they were wild, uncontrolled. As if something...had seeped into her very being. She spoke of places...places deeper than the deepest abysses, of a raw, untamed power that made her different. It made her speak of things...things she shouldn't have known, things that were not hers to tell."

Cyrus, who had been whimpering, went utterly still. A faint flicker of something akin to horror crossed his face. The arrogance was gone, replaced by a momentary clarity that was perhaps more terrifying than his madness. He looked at Corina, then at his own trembling hands, as if seeing them for the very first time.

Corina continued, her voice rising in pitch, "And Cyrus...he's always been most like her. He was closest to her. He absorbed it! That chaotic behaviour, that raw, unbridled fury! Mother is being consumed by it, and it bled into him. Marin's death...it wasn't the cause of this madness, Percy. It was merely the key that turned it, unlocking the full, corrupting force that had festered within him!"

Nico's eyes, wide with understanding, darted between Corina, Cyrus, and Percy. A raw, unbridled fury that could infect even a goddess? He didn't know what it was, but now without the impending actions of Percy, he could feel its residual power humming around Cyrus, a dark, primal resonance that could explain the intensity of his actions. Corina had no name for it, only a desperate understanding of its terrifying effects on her mother and brother.

Percy stood, Riptide still poised. His grip tightened, knuckles white. This new information, delivered with such frantic conviction by Cyrus's own sister, didn't diminish his thirst for vengeance. If anything, it complicated it, twisted it into something colder. Cyrus wasn't just a murderer; he was a corrupted vessel. The hatred still burned…but this was something new. Corruption? Could the Gods be corrupted? After all the past events, Gaia’s whispers, split personalities…it was possible.

"Ok," said Percy, putting on hold his fury, "let’s discuss this in a friendlier place. Maybe we should call some friends to help us get there, hopefully before dinner."