Chapter Text
Chapter One
The first thing that Percy noticed when he woke up was that he wasn’t in his bed anymore. And somehow, that wasn’t the weirdest part of it. As he groaned in frustration and reached out, he found himself grasping at snow. Last time he had checked a calendar, it had been June in California, so snow was out of the question short of some insane divine interference, which he doubted. The next realisation was that he was in his armour, and that, more than anything else, was what got him moving. He was willing to believe many things, but the idea that he had sleep-walked to somewhere where there was snow in his armour without anyone stopping him was beyond absurd.
As he pulled himself to his feet, it became clear that there was some fuckery going on, because he had no idea where he was. Wherever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t home, because California was not a frozen wasteland. Arguably, one could say it was a burning wasteland, but that was far beside the point. One he was up, he was able to get a clearer understanding of the situation around him, and it was abundantly clear to him that something was wrong. The world around him felt different. Absent, almost, of a presence that had been inundated in his life that he hadn’t thought it possible to go without that feeling.
“Well, hello there,” a voice drifted from behind him, and Percy had Imperator drawn and raised before he had even turned. “You’re very fast.”
There was a group of men ten strong behind him, and Percy took only a moment to study them—most were wearing furs, some had a form of chainmail, and the man in the lead, who he was pretty sure had spoken, had a cloak of black with threads of red silk in it. That man had a sword, while three carried axes, and the rest had clubs and spears of wood and bone. They weren’t monsters, that much was clear, but beyond that, Percy really had no idea what he was looking at.
“You’re not dressed as most Crows would be,” the man Percy was now assuming was the leader spoke again. “Not dressed warm enough, for one, but you don’t seem bothered.”
“Whatever Crows you deal with, I’m not one of them,” he replied carefully, “so whatever issues you have with them don’t apply to me.”
“On the one hand, I’d like to agree with you,” Black-with-Red said to him, an easy-going smile on his face. “On the other, that is some fine armour you’re wearing, and a very fine blade in your hands. You didn’t end up here by accident.”
“To be perfectly frank with you, I actually think I did end up here by accident,” Percy told him, keeping his eyes trained on the leader even as some of the others began fanning out. He took a precautionary step backwards. “Considering I’m not entirely sure where here is.”
Black-with-Red narrowed his eyes at Percy, the jovial expression disappearing.
“You’re either a very good liar or very stupid, boy.” He spoke. “You mean to tell me you ended North of the Wall without knowing how you came to be here?”
“None of the places you just named mean anything to me, so yeah, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.” Percy replied as a man on his left edged closer to him. “Please stop approaching me. I’m doing my level best to be civil right now but I’m surrounded by armed men in a place I don’t recognise with absolutely no clue how I got here, so you can understand why I don’t want you close to me.”
“Here’s the thing, lad,” Black-with-Red sighed. “I don’t know you. You are very clearly not Free Folk. You also likely aren’t a Crow. But I need to keep my people happy, and that means stripping your corpse for loot. Take him.”
Percy didn’t hear the person who approached him from behind, but he felt them, and without even thinking, he twisted slightly and flicked Imperator outwards. He tried not to think about what he had done as he felt the tip of the blade open his attacker’s throat. The man—and Gods knew how long he had been behind him—staggered past Percy, his hands covering his throat before he collapsed face first into the snow. Which quickly stained red. His worst fear was correct.
Mortals.
And not the cosplaying kind.
“Please don’t do this.” He all but begged.
The man he had been watching on his left lunged towards him with his spear, but the Stygian Iron that made up the blade of Imperator easily separated the stone head from the shaft, and it was instinct that led him to burying the tip of his sword into the man’s chest, cleaving through the furs like a hot knife through butter and stabbing him straight through the heart. He was forced to kick the man off the blade as one of the men with an axe charged him. He quickly leapt to the side and hamstrung the man, who collapsed to the ground with a cry of pain. When he reached for the now-dropped axe, Percy kicked him in the face, before kicking the axe far away.
Black-with-Red was watching him with interest now, actively holding a bear of a man from joining the fight. The fourth man to attack him did so with a club, screaming out some war cry as he charged towards Percy. Unlike the third, he wasn’t given the benefit of mercy. Percy just stepped out of his path and flicked Imperator, ending his cry with a quiet swish. Like his first attacker, the man stumbled a few more steps before collapsing forward.
“Are you castle trained?” Black-with-Red asked him. “Where are you from?”
“Not here.” Percy replied. “Please don’t make me kill anyone else.”
“I could be back here with a thousand men and drown you in bodies.” It didn’t sound like an ideal boast to Percy. It was a genuine threat. “But I think that would be a waste. You’d make a good champion.”
“I’m already spoken for.” He replied, before glancing down at the bodies. “And I try not to join people who tried to have me killed.”
Black-with-Red didn’t respond, simply hummed in response and kept his men back as he stared at Percy. Percy kept his blade level as he stared back. There was no need to let his guard down just yet.
“Percy!” A familiar voice cried out. To his right, Hazel came charging through the snow and brush. She came to a skidding halt as she saw him first, then the bodies, then the remaining men. And Hazel, sweet, kind Hazel, didn’t even hesitate before she drew her own Spatha and rushed to his side.
“A girl?” Black-with-Red blinked. “Summer Islander? What interesting friends you keep.”
“Non sunt amici,” Percy murmured to Hazel. “Quiete manere.”
“And what interesting languages you speak!” He clapped his hands excitedly. “There are more of you, then?”
“You’ll pay to find that out,” Percy told him, but he honestly had no idea if there even was anyone else. So far, it was just him and Hazel.
“If they all fight like you, then I think that may be true.” Black-with-Red said. “I can tell when I’m outmatched. I can also tell when I’ve made a mistake, and I believe I made one here. We’ll leave you be, children, but the next time we meet, I don’t imagine things will go the same way.”
“For both our sakes, I hope so,” Percy said coldly. “I’d never killed a man before today—now you’ve forced me to kill three. I wonder how much easier it’ll be the next time?”
“Oh, I like you, boy.” Black-with-Red chuckled. “It’ll be a shame to kill you.”
Slowly, the group retreated from the clearing. Percy waited until he couldn’t hear them and then waited another five minutes before he left fight-mode, shoulders slumping and knees buckling as he rammed Imperator into the snow, tore the helmet from his head, and threw up. Hazel patted his back in what she probably hoped was comfort, but it really didn’t do much for Percy, considering he could barely feel it through his armour.
Once he’d heaved everything up, he rose to his feet, wiping his mouth with the inside of his cloak. The man he’d hamstrung was writing on the ground, spitting curses at Percy, but he had tuned those out early on. It was only when Hazel gasped and covered her ears that he began listening to what the man was saying.
It made him feel sick all over again.
“Once I’ve finished gutting the boy, I’ll make sure he watches as I take my cock and—”
Imperator went through his open mouth before he could finish the sentence. It was only when he wrenched it free that Percy realised what he had done. This wasn’t an armed combatant attacking him—he had just executed a man in cold blood. And yet…and yet Percy didn’t find himself disgusted by his actions. The man was fantasising about raping a fourteen-year-old girl. Surely that kind of person didn’t need to exist in this world—in any world—right?
He was drawn from his thoughts by Hazel reaching out and grabbing his hand.
“Percy?” She said quietly. “I think we should move somewhere else. Away from the bodies.”
“That’s…yeah, no, that’s smart,” he nodded, giving her a small smile. He closed his eyes and reached out, searching for…something. It took nearly as much effort as it had when he first discovered his powers, but eventually, Percy latched onto the ocean, somewhere to their east. It was weird—he couldn’t feel it very well, and he didn’t know how far it was, which again, he hadn’t felt since he first learned he was a demigod. “This way.”
He kept Imperator drawn as they trudged through the snow. About twenty minutes into their hike, Percy heard a sharp hiss from Hazel. He turned to see her rubbing her arms viciously. He immediately remembered that they were in a frozen forest. He quickly unclasped his cape and handed it to Hazel, letting her wrap it around herself. It was truly cold as hell though, because even Percy felt a little chilly, and he was able to swim at the bottom of the ocean, so for him to be feeling the cold…well, Hazel had clearly toughed it out as long as she could.
It took nearly an hour for them to stumble out of the forest to the coastline, but each step closer to the sea strengthened the connection that Percy felt with it. But even then, standing less than a hundred yards from it, the connection didn’t feel strong. There was something deeply wrong with wherever they were, and he didn’t like it at all.
Hazel tugged on his arm and pointed to something in the distance. There was a peninsula that was relatively clear, and if he squinted, Percy would swear that he could see ruins on them. He gave her a nod, and they changed trajectory. As they walked along the beach, Percy jerked a hand at the water. It fought back, and moved sluggishly, but it obeyed him. Wherever they were—and Percy was under no delusion that they were still on Earth, or at least the mortal part of Earth—he still had his powers. They just weren’t…normal. It was harder to reach out to and control things that he should have been able to do as easily as breathing. It was harder to feel the pull of the sea, though it was there. Everything was harder, and there was no reason for it to be so.
Unless…
Unless the source of his power was weaker here. Maybe that was why everything felt weird.
The closer they got to the tip of the peninsula, the clearer it became that there had once been a settlement present—and a sizeable one at that. He and Hazel passed overgrown foundations, the bones of buildings that once were. There was nothing left standing, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to see. Whatever had happened here, it had been violent—the fact that the earth was still devoid of anything but overgrowth was testament to that.
“This place is huge,” Hazel said. “Nearly as big as New Rome! I wonder why it was abandoned?”
“Towns are abandoned for a lot of reasons,” he told her, “but yeah, it’s weird that this one was. There’s only one way to approach by land, it looks like it’s got a decently deep natural harbour…they left for a reason, but I don’t think it was entirely willingly.”
“What do you mean?” She asked.
Percy sighed before stopping next to a line of foundation, kneeling beside it and pulling the brush away. “See here?”
He pointed at some darkened stone. “These are scorch marks. Whatever building was here didn’t decay naturally—it was burned down, intentionally or otherwise. I noticed them on a few of the other ruins we passed as well. This settlement was on fire at some point, and they never rebuilt it.”
“Woah,” Hazel murmured. “I wouldn’t have even noticed that.”
“You learn to see things when you live with Lupa for a while,” he shot her a grin. “Don’t worry about it. By the time you’re my age…”
“Hey!”
“You’ll learn quickly,” Percy said, his tone sobering up quickly. “Wherever we are, being alert and observant is going to be important.”
“Wherever we are?” Hazel asked him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—”
A crunch of stone had Percy pivoting to his left, Imperator raised upwards, but it was met and parried by a familiar blade—and a familiar face.
“Oh thank the gods!” Andy exclaimed as she lowered Riptide. “We thought we were the only ones here!”
“We?” Percy asked, before a new presence slammed into his side.
Even the force of the impact was familiar to him, and he knew straight away who had collided into his ribs. He quickly planted Imperator into the rocky earth before wrapping his arms around Renya—which was incredibly awkward in armour, not that he cared.
“What did I say about vanishing on me?” She mumbled into his chest.
“Hey, I could say that you vanished on me,” he countered immediately. “You were in my bed before…whatever happened.”
“Ew, gross. There are kids here, Percy.”
“Yeah, and?”
“I—oh, screw you,” Andy shrugged. “So, any idea where we are? Canada? It sort of looks the same, but it feels different.”
“No, not Canada.” Percy shook his head. “I, uh…I don’t think we’re on Earth anymore.”
“So this is what? Mars?” His sister’s face scrunched up. “I don’t remember hearing of any immortal realms that look like this.”
“Me neither,” he sighed. “But its inhabited by mortals.”
“You ran into some?”
“…yeah, that’s one way to put it.”
“Percy?”
“It wasn’t a friendly encounter.” He answered carefully. “Or bloodless.”
“Oh,” Andy blinked. “Are…are you okay?”
“What does that mean, exactly, Perce?” Reyna asked him.
“Four.” He said quietly. “Three of them didn’t give me a choice. The fourth was…not intentional, but probably for the best.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not right now.” He shook his head. “There’s four of us here—logic stands that others will have…arrived? Let’s go with arrived. Logic stands that others will have arrived here as well. We need to find them before the locals do.”
“And how do we do that?” Andy asked. “I woke up at least a mile and a half from the water. I met Reyna halfway here. This is a big place. The others could be…coming this way?”
Percy glanced over his shoulder to see another group of three approaching. Two of them wore the recognisable helmets of centurions, while the third figure was wrapped in a toga. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who that was.
“Ave, Imperator!” Dakota called out with chattering teeth as he approached. “I don’t suppose you have an explanation for us?”
“Not a fucking clue,” he said, which cause the other three to glance at him in surprise. “I think I’m allowed that one.”
“No, that’s totally valid,” Reyna agreed, “it’s just…I don’t think I’ve really ever heard you swear in English. Only ever Latin.”
“Imperator,” Larry cut in. “What are your orders?”
Percy took a deep breath, studying the frozen landscape around him—the ruins they were standing in, the cove beneath them, the forest in the distance—and came to a decision.
“We rally here. Three people stay here at all times. The rest travel in pairs. We go in a grid pattern, find our people, and immediately bring them back here. No separating, no splitting up if another group is heard. There and back here.”
“Hazel, Octavian, and Dakota will stay here for now,” he continued, “I need you three to scout these ruins further, see if you can’t find something that will provide some cover from the weather. Reyna and Andy will head along the western coastline. Don’t penetrate more than a mile inland just yet. Larry and I will go eastwards, doing the same thing. Questions?”
“Imperator, I need a word with you,” Octavian said. “Privately.”
“Secrets aren’t going to help right now, Octavian.” Percy replied. “Say it for everyone.”
“Very well. The gods are present in this world, Imperator, but…barely. Normally, I can feel them all around us. Now, it’s barely a whisper. I shudder to think about the consequences that may bear…”
“I can tell you one right now. Our powers are weaker.” Percy told him. “We’ll figure this out once we’ve found more of our people. Any other questions? No?”
He could see the nervousness in everyone around him. He felt it himself. But he didn’t have that luxury, and he shoved it down.
“This is new and very scary. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But chances are, there are people out there who need our help, and we owe it to them to push through the fear and anxiety and help them. There is no one else I’d rather have by my side for this. I am glad beyond belief that it’s all of you.” He said. “Now let’s go find our family.”