You Can't Or You Won't

by DevonOReilly

Summary:

Olympus. A legacy built on lies and atrocities. Bathed in blood yet preaching peace, amongst the realms of Heaven and Hell, what truly justifies their superiority? It's a good thing Percy's just about desperate enough to look. Post-Giant-War AU.

Chapter 1: The End of the Beginning

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE PJO UNIVERSE OR NAME. ALL RIGHTS, RESPECTIVE CHARACTERS, AND UNIVERSE GO SOLELY TO RICK RIORDAN. I ONLY OWN MY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS**

The End of the Beginning (The Beginning After the End)

? ? ?, ? ? ?, ?

About A Couple of Hundred Thousand Years Before Percy's Birth, Give or Take

THE HALLOWED HALLS WERE HAUNTED.

Its previous splendor tarnished by the horrible scars of battle, knee-deep pools of ichor, and landfills of debris as far as the eye could see.

Magnificent see-through crystal floors dotted with precious gems and walls bedecked with gold and platinum...had long since faded to a dreary, dull grey.

The shells of hundreds of massive thrones once pulsing with unfathomable energy and authority now lay strewn about the dead halls in unceremonious ruins. Their magic and secrets lost forever to the void with their occupants.

Far above the floor level, past the open domed ceiling, resided a dried-out husk of a star. A long-dead gift from their Mo-no from the Source. A blessing that should have been interpreted as a positive acknowledgement of their unification now only served as a metaphorical spit to the face after a backhanded slap.

An unimportant black hole in the backwoods of the universe.

What was once a sacred cathedral to their Council, ordained and favored by the Source of all things, a testament to their birthright as they deliberated and acted upon the nurturing and dealings of the known realms—THEIR HOME!

...it looked no better than a decrepit squalor house now. Forever abandoned by grace.

No, it was more fitting to say they had been betrayed by grace.

Could you ever place the blame on the enslaved people for fighting against the will of an abusive Master?

For revolting in accordance with torment when pushed to the brink over, and over, and over again?!

The black hole above him churned in displeasure at the obvious connotation, its dormant gravitational field pulling against the ironclad hold on the ruin's single occupant's authority.

A vein throbbed on the seated being's pale forehead as his gauntlet-clad hands clawed into fists, his fury mounting with every femtosecond the persistent annoyance deigned to bother him with her self-righteous bitching.

The very idea that the deplorable wench presumed to even have a say in his domain after all he had overcome, that the being dared to desecrate these halls further with her presence after all she had wrought-

"Begone, Abyssal Idiot, your unwelcome company only serves as a repulsive addition to my suffering, never mind your continued existence." The hooded being growled.

The black hole's mass multiplied by itself before progressing further, the event horizon tearing through the Citadel's last remaining wards like a bullet through stretched paper.

A quarter of the forsaken planet had already been sucked into it's gravitational vortex, with it's sun-like heat searing the dead planet's surface into molten putty. A jolt flashed through the being's mind as he felt the rapid approach of a powerful divine being to his hideaway, yet he ignored it in favor of the petulant, omnipotent nuisance before him.

The Source didn't appreciate his justified condemnation, it seemed—a pity.

He ascended from his seat and flared his power fully, his matte-black cloak billowing with the act, revealing his dark armor and sculpted build, the far-reaching nothingness from a barely-lit universe a boon to him as he challenged the One Above All brazenly.

A sacrilegious act of defiance against a soulless harbinger of death. An abomination who had been nothing but an unneeded hindrance, he'd wasted far too many eons trying to please.

He was the Black Demon. The Unerring Consort to the Night. He was the Primordial of Darkness.

He was Erebus.

No one, not even her, would ever have the authority to shackle him with his birthright, not while he still drew breath.

"Perhaps my words were lost in translation, Mother Dearest. I said BEGONE!" the Outer Entity commanded, his heavy baritone voice echoing long and hard through the halls. It permeated the air with authority as the power behind the words eradicated the already destroyed throne room.

Reality screeched in agony and ruptured ad infinitum, tearing itself from the Creator's grasp and banishing the omnipotent goblin for a moment while the Primordial of Darkness lounged on his battle-beaten throne.

Erebus looked none the worse for wear as he rapped his fingers against his armrest, his legs crossed, and his chiseled chin rested on his free hand without a care, even as he felt the other pestiferous liability's presence touch down at the very edge of the Citadel of the Protogenoi.

Erebus gave no mind to him; he paid no heed to the rest of reality.

Khaos had accomplished her objective, it seemed.

The scheming hag had always possessed a knack for hidden messages and motives. Perhaps she had decided he'd shrouded himself from this confrontation for far too long, or maybe she truly was aggravated by his spite.

He didn't know or care either way. What was done was done; he was through running, tired of the monotony of his self-imposed exile.

His hand drifted to the only intact throne on his immediate right, a majestic obsidian piece he'd crafted with his own two hands. Glowing stars were intricately etched all across the seat in the distinct swirling hieroglyphs of their favored tongue.

"μένα ουσία," Erebus murmured with crushing softness, his lips quivering with the words.

His Essence.

The Primordial had not seen his consort in a decadent age now, his only hint of her current status the muted pulsing of her throne...his progenitor had a great deal to atone for in his eyes, whether or not his feelings mattered at all to her notwithstanding. Still, the foremost sin - as far as Erebus was concerned - was the loss of his very soul.

The loss of his Nyx.

"You will always be a part of me, my Heart. As I will always be a part of you, this separation is a blink in the eternity that awaits us. Promise me, my Love, to find me always." She had begged.

Erebus shut his eyes tight at the memory, his claws penetrating his divine flesh as his ichor chilled in mourning.

His wife. His children. His realm. His kin. Everything he had so much as cherished was stripped away from him viciously by the machinations of a malicious entity.

"A thousand curses upon you, Mother. May your name never-"

A flash of divine light lit up the world before-

KRRAAAKOOOM

...

Even before the millennia of war, the uncultured barbarian had never had much common sense, but willingly opening fire against those walls was a mistake.

The stalwart symbol of their hard-fought coalition. Their hope and dream for the future...

"Unforgivable..." Erebus growled lowly, the air wailed with static as the omnipotent being's perfect nostrils flared in fury.

The covetous imbecile's heavy footfalls echoed all around him, loud and clear, slow and measured, reminiscent of the faint rumble of thunder. The odour of ozone became overpowering as the scavenger approached the Citadel's heart. Erebus held back a grimace as the brazen usurper's might became familiar to him; he'd been certain they were an even match an age ago, but now?

Just how many had the carnivorous butcher devoured to eclipse him so?

A shift in the council chamber's airflow.

It seemed that the blight upon creation had finally arrived, with the same signature look of superiority the tyrant had possessed since his inception.

Cadet-blue locks flowed down his accursed scalp and jaw in cloud-like puffs, decorated to the braided tips with gold and platinum beads. His pale, muscled arms were bare of protection save a pair of engraved golden bracelets. He wore a simple robe the color of a dusk-dimmed sky, cinched tightly at the waist, the savages arms folded over his barrel chest as he addressed him.

"Erebus."

His voice, as always, carried that same specific timbre of authority he'd painstakingly crafted under the nurturing eyes of both Erebus and Chronos himself. It was done with the pure intentions of helping the bastard set himself apart from the riff-raff, yet giving the barbarian his voice may as well have been the catalyst for their ensured destruction.

"Mongrel." Erebus gave with a raised brow instead of greeting, a frown marring his face at the distinct lack of reaction from the normally hotheaded Deity, "Come to put me out of my misery? Without your eager little lapdog biting at your heels too...daring today aren't we?"

A hollow look of shame overcame the Skyfather's otherwise prim features before melting at the tail-end of Erebus' mockery.

It disgusted Erebus.

This deity hadn't an ounce of love in his being. He barely had any love for himself. He didn't deserve to fake guilt after all he had done.

"My Consort has more important matters to attend to now. And even before The Revelation, I never much needed any effort to place you squarely beneath my feet. You would do well to recall."

"I recall plenty, Ouranos." Erebus conceded easily, putting a name to the being, "I recall our family providing you and the submissive whelp shelter, knowledge, and comfort when the First abandoned you two like the insignificant wretches you were."

The older Primordial rose slowly from his throne. The shadows in the far corners of the room stretched and converged on his position, and his inky-black eyeholes took on a more sinister tint.

"I recall Chronos and I treating you two savages with respect and fairness, giving you a place among our council as was your right, even against the warnings of the entire Coalition. Even under the threat of rebellion."

The entire planet's surface had been coated to the ends with palpable Darkness, and as Erebus' monologue grew more grievous, ghostly wails and screams of nightmare echoed from the unholy pool. His physical form melded with the inky-black void, leaving only an unmoving Ouranos in the enshrouded ruins.

"Ouranos..." Erebus's voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. "I recall, with startling clarity, how you were the first God to take up arms against us once the Source gave us The Revelation. How quick you were to catch Chronos, the God who raised you, unawares."

'A lot like THIS!'

As the Crawling Chaos commenced the hunt, a massive clawed hand erupted under the Skyfather's feet. Ouranos didn't miss a beat, evading the appendage with a single backwards leap and twisting horizontally in midair as a blade of darkness sought to slice him in two, passing by his apathetic eyes in slow motion and missing his nose by a hair.

Ouranos handspringed backwards with a hand before disappearing as hundreds upon thousands of obsidian spikes erupted everywhere the Primordial's feet could touch down upon.

Erebus was unamused.

Ouranos had chased him down, invaded his refuge for little to no reason, and mocked him. Ouranos was not escaping this fight—he wasn't leaving this planet alive—and Erebus staked that promise on his soul.

A churning mass of black whirlpools molded an uncountable array of serrated blades, and a legion of essence-empowered eldritch horrors dotted the barren enclave of the Protogenoi. The outer entity poured everything into ending the wastrel of an immortal he'd once called brother, eons of hatred coming to a rolling boil as his avatar glared at Ouranos' elevated form.

The coward had retreated to orbit.

'Let's fix that, shall we?'

He emerged from the depths, the unfiltered horrors of darkness in all its heart-eating, sanity-blasting malevolence.

A towering monstrosity of shadows and spikes cobbled together to create a shape vaguely passed as humanoid, with massive pointed horns caressed by a crown of black thorns, visible even from out of orbit. The ground buckled before his titanic bulk, before yielding fully in the face of his divine wrath as Erebus uttered a cataclysmic shriek at the Skyfather.

The God in question only tilted his head in amusement at the gathering before him, a wry smile quirking the side of his bearded lips with his sky-blue orbs crackling in challenge. Ouranos didn't bother with an Avatar; by the void, the superior bastard hadn't even bothered with armaments.

The Skyfather simply flared his power as he crooked his fingers in a come-hither gesture. "Entertain me, Brother." Ouranos taunted, much to Erebus's consternation.

No further words were exchanged as the two forces of the universe shot at each other simultaneously, sonic booms rippling in their wake as their bodies moved faster than any mortal or immortal measuring instrument could ever hope to comprehend, Ouranos all alone with nothing but a glowing supercharged fist against Erebus' unending retinue of shadows.

A clash of their fists sent planet-ending shockwaves across the dead star system.

It was an electrifying warm-up.

Twin domes of purple-black and sky-blue energy engulfed their single patch of reality in totality before the rest of Erebus' entourage bullrushed the disoriented Primordial like a roaring black tidal wave. Yet, the Skyfather did not carry the title of Elder Primordial in jest.

Millions of his essence-infused blades shattered like glass against the Skyfather's skin before reforming and attempting to adapt to his toughness. His monster's clawed at Ouranos's body uselessly before giving up and latching onto him as Erebus pummeled the Primordial into submission, his titanic fists burning red-hot at the speed they were flying.

Erebus' vanguard evaporated upon re-entry. The overwhelming heat, coupled with how much power Erebus was expending to just barely bruise Ouranos, disabused him of their continued relevance. Ouranos had regained his nerve now, his hand palming around Erebus' titanic avatar in the vague hope of finding his main body. Erebus caved his face in once more for his troubles.

They were rapidly approaching the dark pool now - Erebus' territory - it wouldn't matter how durable Ouranos was once he got the Primordial in his clutches, a sadistic wide smile split the shadow avatars 'face', terrifying Ouranos, as Erebus shook like a child in a candy store with excitement whilst his avatar delivered one final devastating smash to the Skyfather, making sure to keep the Primordial's body trapped beneath his titanic fist as they made contact with the ground.

KAABOOOOOOM

The resulting explosion made the extinction of the dinosaurs look like a suicide bombing in comparison to a thermobaric warhead; the only reason the lost planet was still standing was a stalwart testament to the Primordial's legendary craftsmanship and divine authority. The light and shockwaves from the cataclysm could be seen and felt across the solar system, momentarily banishing the primal darkness of Erebus himself.

Massive swathes of earth were thrown into the sky before yielding and evaporating to dust from the heat alone, never mind the air pressure. Countless mountaintops, entire multi-continental distances away, were blasted upwards as conflagrations of molten lava shot towards the upper atmosphere with the speed of rockets. The winds were set to a soundtrack of tempestuous fury, with thunder and lightning, a divine choir.

It was a godlike painting of the apocalypse in its morbid splendor.

And yet...

"Did you get all that out of your system, Brother?"

The destructive winds and divine lightning shower screeched to a jarring halt, as a godly surge of air pressure blasted away the debris cloud with insulting ease, revealing a massive white-hot crater in the shape of a biblical fist.

The two combatants stared at each other, knee deep in molten crag that would have had even the future Olympian gods blubbering in pain, unbothered by the air whistling like a kettle from the heat or the blizzard-like ash pouring over them in heaves.

Much like Erebus, Ouranos showed no severe signs of damage other than the burnt-off top half of his robes and a dull golden bruise on the center of his chest. Erebus was no fool; he hadn't for a second deigned to think that something like that would have been enough to finish off a Godkiller of Ouranos' caliber, but for all of that to have amounted to what may as well have been nothing to the younger Primordial...

There was a terrifying implication there he couldn't dare to tread.

"Oh, I'm just getting started, brother." His avatar growled, his unrestricted power blanketing the remnants of the planet in darkness once more.

He had the advantage, Erebus chanted in prayer, so long as the usurper remained in the shadows, he had th-

Erebus couldn't even see him move.

Ouranos disappeared completely from the older Primordial's radar, reappearing before him.

Not in front of the avatar.

Right in front of him.

The Sky reared back a glowing fist of golden lightning right where his physical body was hidden, the appendage swimming in slow motion in front of Erebus' eyes before blurring through his intangible shell with a clap of thunder, the already battered earth ripping up a new crater from the impact.

Erebus's body shot wildly across the landscape, his clinking armor only selling the image of a divine pinball as he bumped up and around the crater. The Embodiment of the Dark could barely form a coherent thought before his younger sibling blurred into existence again right in front of him, his hands raised above him in fists and a smile plastered on the bastard's face that only foretold pure agony for Erebus in the foreseeable future.

Ouranos tore down his mighty fists upon his skull, and it was as if the skies of a thousand planets had smashed onto him in fury—oh wait—the force behind the hit made Erebus bounce up out of the new crater, only for Ouranos to blur above him again, this time with his sandal-clad foot in waiting.

'No! Don't you dare, you BAS-'

That was as far as Erebus got before Ouranos stamped onto his armored torso with blinding speed and deafening force, the power behind the strike sent Erebus tearing right through the landscape like smooth butter on a sizzling grill, ripping a new trench in the ground.

Erebus skidded across the earth for a reasonable distance with Ouranos' foot still lodged between his chest and his torso before the future laws of friction made themselves known to them as Erebus' body came to a grinding halt, a disastrous trough left behind in his wake.

Pain and dust clouded his senses and vision, respectively, as he moved to make heads or tails of reality, only to cease his efforts with a long-suffering howl as Ouranos's foot smashed onto his solar plexus.

The brute blew away the dust clouds with a single grunt of displeasure. Annoyance flickered through Erebus' mind at the act. The barbarian didn't even need to see him, what with how firmly trapped he was underneath his foot. Ouranos had blown away the clouds to look him in the eyes and gloat, which infuriated him.

How had the gap widened so?

Erebus hadn't stagnated once in the eons he'd hidden himself—the very notion was blasphemous for a Primordial of his capacity—yet he struggled to make Ouranos breathe in exertion. He labored to lift the foot of a being who'd been so far beneath him before it'd been pitiable.

He grappled with the nerve to look the Outer Entity in his crackling, disappointed eyes.

"Squarely. Underneath. My feet. Right where you belong." The Embodiment of Confinement mocked.

Erebus bared his teeth like a feral dog, he wanted to shout out at the unfairness of it all, to scream his throat raw at the dishonorable cur for his underhanded tactics and shortcuts to power, and yet...he couldn't open his mouth say a disagreeable word to the newly proclaimed 'King of the Universe', to do so would only forsake the last shred of dignity he still carried.

There would be no greater evidence of his self-righteous hypocrisy.

For all his acidic insults, his predominantly justified hatred for the being above him, and all the years of suffering he'd had to endure because of that accursed prophecy... the stipulations set by the Creator at all forbade nothing his younger brother had done.

In truth, Erebus was no better than Ouranos or Nyx, for that matter. Erebus himself had executed and taken the Names and Avatars of multiple Primordials for his gain.

The catastrophic battles he'd shared with Nachash and Kek still left unsealed breaches in the known Multiverse to this day.

He'd slaughtered his way through allies and family indiscriminately for what had been millennia before finally choosing to seclude himself in their Citadel for the rest of eternity, cursing his enemies for all of time...and reminiscing on better days.

When he could look to the Primordial above him in fondness and proudly call him Brother, the simpler days he'd shared with Nyx when they melded together as the primal energy of their truest forms.

And, in the back of his traitorous mind...when he'd looked upon his progenitor with the respect and awe her very being seemed to command, the warm feeling he'd always experienced when she'd acknowledged him and his triumphs with respect.

Yet, all of that was gone now, wasn't it? Soon, he too would meet the same sentence he'd doled out to thousands from the very being he'd sworn to kill for his long-dead brother, alone and utterly powerless to do no more than close his eyes in resignation as Ouranos prepared to strike him down.

"I know how contrary my words may seem, but know I did not want things to end this way, Brother." Ouranos voiced. Although why he assumed Erebus even cared was anyone's guess, his foot was still planted firmly in his rib cage, with his authority ensuring Erebus' physical body couldn't even attempt to dissipate into the shadows.

Erebus snorted, "You say this now of all times? After everything you've done to us. The word 'fool' and its variations do your stupidity a great injustice, Ouranos, of that there is no doubt."

"I offered you a place by my side, Erebus! Multiple times!"

He opened his eyes and side-eyed Ouranos skeptically, "By your side or at your feet? Speak true, Ouranos, because I am at a loss as to the purpose of this conversation."

"...Yield, Brother, swear to forever acknowledge my reign on the Voice of Creation, and I swear to you on my very Essence that together, we will triumph over this...this heresy of an omen Mother has seen necessary to force upon us."

...

Erebus committed an act he hadn't entertained the thought of since his inception...he chuckled, no, this was more akin to a full-blown guffaw.

Even Nyx had never seen him this amused in the billions of years they'd accompanied each other, let alone Ouranos. It came from the belly, bypassing the younger Primordial's foot, and boomed from his throat.

Tears were prickling at the edge of his vision, yet he could see Ouranos' flabbergasted expression all too clearly.

"Oh, the vindictive irony," He wheezed through childish giggles, "Who would ever have assumed...hehe...that the legendary God-Butcher...hahahaha...the all-powerful lifetaker, the great Ouranos would be so terrified of his own MORTALITY...HAHAHAHA!"

Ouranos repaid his open disrespect with the punishment it deserved; another earth-cratering stomp put a firm end to Erebus's laughing fit.

"I would remind you well of your position, Brother," Ouranos growled, "While you yet draw breath."

"Does that make you feel powerful, little brother?" He croaked in a mocking voice.

"Curse you, Erebus, take this with the seriousness it portends! Ananke herself has confirmed that Mother spoke the truth that day."

"Was this before or after you lobotomized and devoured her, Mate? And if Fate itself decrees our 'fates' as true, what makes you think I can help you?"

"It matters little!"

Was that in answer to the first question or the second?

"You and I both know destiny is never set in stone. Any Fate can be nudged accordingly to a desired outcome. Only incompetent fools deal in absolutes. A true warrior can and should always look for a better alternative. You taught me this."

"And you think this is in any way a better alternative?" Erebus demanded, his temper rising, "You destroyed Chronos, fool. You butchered the rest of the Ogdoad. Severed the Kotoamatsukami eternally from every single known plane of existence. Killed thousands of Primordials in your selfish need for salvation, yet you're still no closer to freedom than when you started this madness."

"I couldn't leave it to chance, you know what the Others were like. How much they valued themselves and despised me, how many would have jumped at the opportunity to sacrifice me to save themselves? And let's not forget about the Ελευθ-"

"I DON'T CARE!" Erebus roared, all traitorous thoughts of fondness banished from his mind the more he looked at the selfish cannibal before him, "Do not complain to me about the consequences of your own foolish choices when you killed the one being who would've given everything to help you! You should be ashamed of yourself, Skyfather, 10,000 years of war and devastation across reality, and yet the fear of a snot-nosed brat surpassing you shackles you to this day."

"I'm fated for a death that leaves me in a vegetative state for all of eternity!" Ouranos stepped off of him as he tightly held Erebus by the collar of his armor with both hands, his once-confident eyes wide and pleading with fear, "I beg. I BEG OF YOU, BROTHER, HELP ME ONCE MORE! YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE NOW!"

Erebus stared a hole into the pathetic deity's eyes. Ouranos' cheeks were flushed golden, and looked as if he was about to cry, quivering like a bush in a thunderstorm, yet Erebus felt...nothing. For the first time in years, he felt neither animosity to this deity he'd once called brother nor pity for his plight.

Nothing at all but a cold indifference.

After all, did you feel anything for the unfortunate strangers you passed on the street when you struggled?

But he had a chance here to leave this dead planet alive after so long, to reconcile with his family again and right his past wrongs. Not all of the Protogenoi had met a tragic end in this war, and most of his children had managed to come out alive under the fierce protection of Nyx. All he had to do was agree to Ouranos' single demand, and he'd be free to live once more.

An oath to respect his reign?

It was a question of how many endless loopholes he could exploit from such a flimsy promise.

Erebus should take this deal. It would be the wise thing to do, living to fight another day.

Nyx would want him to do so.

"Promise me, my Love, to find me always."

...

'I apologize, my dear...But I won't be able to keep that promise.'

"You want Hope? Seek Elpis, that is, if you haven't destroyed her already. Spare me your grovelling, Ouranos, there's nothing in my essence left for you anymore. Not love, not animosity. Not even pity. Nothing."

Ouranos' eyes shattered with his soul at his words, his head bowing, his hair shadowing his face, and his fists shaking with fury.

The stench of ozone magnified, and the golden sheen of a divine lightning bolt smattered over Erebus' divine pale features. The air buzzed in anticipation as the surrounding area's heat intensified. His scorched black hair stood on end as the taste of metal and static slathered over his tongue.

In fast-forward, images of his loved ones blurred through his vision. Aether, Hemera, Chronos, Pontus, Thalassa, Hydros, Tartarus, Ananke, and thousands more, even scarred little Akhlys, appeared.

And the final image...the most important one. A pale matronly looking woman with hair the color of an inky-black midnight sky and pale golden eyes shadowed by a star-ridden veil.

...

This...this was the end for him.

He wouldn't be able to see them again. To see his family ever again, the thought was incomprehensible to a being so long-lived as he, and yet it was his present reality.

'...I loathe you Περσεύς επιμένως, truly I do. May you find no peace in victory. Suffering even a trillionth of what my kin have had to endure because of you will never even be close to punishment enough for you.' Erebus cursed again, the air shifting rapidly in passage as the bolt zoomed towards him.

A foreboding bell tolled in the distance as his curse traveled and festered across space and time, searching – nay, hunting – for the opportune moment to deliver its payload.

And then there was Light.

Y*C*O*Y*W

? ? ?, Mount Olympus, Far above the plains of Thessaly, Greece

Thousands of Years Before Percy's Birth.

THE CITY OF THE GODS WAS GLORIOUS.

The Heavenly Threshold. βηλὸς θεσπέσiος.

Mount Olympus.

It was an even more awe-inspiring sight than his older brother's tall tales had ever been able to portray, this Holy City.

The journey had been an arduous one for young Marturia of Kephallonia. By the blessed Gods! The voyage over the Aegean from Kephallonia to Phokis alone almost had his blasphemous heart caving to despair.

And yet, as if guided by the divine.

He had soundly triumphed as if blessed by the almighty Lord of the Earth himself. He was here after months and months of travel; he had crossed the Aegean and overcome seas monsters the size of mountains, outmaneuvered legendary bandits numbering in the thousands - each with the strength of ten men, mind you - and discovered the pleasures of the flesh upon a lone hill underneath a mighty oak tree, amid the waning twilight view of a star-ridden night with a fair-eyed princess of little renown, the sprawling great forests of Arkadia their backdrop.

Marturia nodded in self-satisfaction. Yes, that was a legendary tale he could spin for his brothers and sisters once he returned home, the Gods willing.

The young boy - no older than 14 - broke through the last of the moisture-ridden clouds, his freshly washed baby-blue chiton drenched and his teeth chattering, yet nothing could wipe off the stretching excited grin on his handsome sun-kissed face as his foot touched down upon the last of the great steps.

Marturia closed his eyes in anticipation and took a deep breath - marveling at the pure freshness of the air so far up here - before pumping his hands into the air and yelling in absolute euphoria. The random mortals side-eyeing him in skepticism of his sanity remained soundly ignored.

A mere glimpse of the fabled city had his jaw dropping to his feet in awe, and tears welled at the edges of his eyes.

He was not worthy of this. No one was.

He cursed his lack of talent in the arts. To never be able to illustrate such a view had to be a cardinal sin, yet he doubted even the River Lethe would ever be able to erase the sacred image from his memory.

The summit was the first thing his eyes were drawn to, snow-covered and shining brilliantly beneath the glorious light of the great Lord Helios. At the same time, the fabled city of the redeemers melded itself with the mountainside with natural grace and beauty; it could have been designed by no other immortal than the all-knowing Lady Athena.

Great verdant trees with towering marble and gold palaces stretching high into the sky were spread across the city. Their arrangement was intended to make one stop and gape for hours, from the polished columned porticoes of the general colonnade to the simple gilded terraces of the central plaza.

However, all of that ogling came to a halt as he was jostled out of his staring—rather roughly, might he add—by an armored mountain of a man. Marturia was a young adolescent of average build and stature. He'd never once been passable as a warrior or hunter, not even as a farmer, and his older brother had teased him relentlessly for it.

Yet, the man before him made even his father look like an amusing, squeaking child in comparison.

A hooded, black cloak concealed most of his figure, but the man's unkempt black beard and crimson-no blood-red eyes stood out like a gadfly sting.

"I-uh...my apologies, good sir. It seems I should pay more heed to my surroundings." He tried timidly, dreading how many knots the giant would leave him in before he was satisfied.

The 'man' only glanced at him, and yet, all frail Marturia knew was bloodshed and terror; blood pooled from his scalp as the boy tried to claw his brain out of his very skull. Images of the horrors of war, the pillaging of nations and their citizens, and the pain-filled howls of war heroes as they endured agony at the hands of the Fields of Punishment eroded his sanity with a vengeance.

Marturia couldn't tell you how long he lay there screaming his lungs out before he lost the ability to draw air into himself. He could feel blood leaking out of every orifice on his head while his knees buckled in finality. The pain was endless and absolute, the brutality of the imagery only intensifying as the seconds blurred into what felt like hours.

'Someone,' He prayed to no one's answer, 'Someone...please-'

He couldn't even finish his pleading before his mind was torn asunder by an even more horrific memory playing out in his mind, or was it a vivid glimpse of the Tapestry of Fate?

Marturia stood on the shores of an ocean of blood, his bare feet sinking into the grey sands of an ashen beach, a seemingly infinite expanse of it on both sides of him. He paid no heed to it or the tears trailing down his cheeks as he saw the world bathed in fire and brimstone, the silhouette of Olympus so unlike the heavenly spectacle it had embodied before.

It looked cursed.

A blood-red moon burned in the background as blizzards swam through the air.

He saw more, though. A great slaughter as his idols, his Gods, came down upon man's world in a storm of vengeful fury and divine metal, entire nations no better than insects on a spiderweb before their might.

The scent of death and decay grew too overpowering before the Earth trembled and shattered in surrender, waves the size of mountains surged throughout the lands and washed away mutilated corpses and the living bodies of mortals who'd long since been driven insane by the whole experience.

Nothing had survived.

Nothing of their culture and nothing of their genocide. The world was a blank slate once again. Barren and free of their 'taint' forever. Another age went by with no hope of salvation or redemption for mankind as the divine monsters sat down on their lofty thrones again.

The cockroaches already an afterthought.

"...Enough of that, you fool. Have you forgotten our location?!"

"...do not insult me...deserves to know..."

"...patience..."

"Their destruction is imminent; what we shall do to them...it is not right, Father."

The pain and visions vanished instantly; the blood-red hue that had tainted his consciousness faded to the edges before evaporating altogether to reveal polished marble. Marturia could faintly hear bits and pieces of a heated conversation from right in front of him, but he didn't dare to raise his head from the ground for fear of a repeat of that agony.

A soft hand clamped down on his shoulder gently, and it was all Marturia could do not to run away screaming like a lamb. The appendage drifted down to his chin and tipped it toward the owner's hidden face. From the dainty curves of their jaw and overall lack of hair on their chin, Marturia concluded the person was female...or an effeminate male.

It begged the question, though, what a woman would do with such a suspicious group of men.

Their group was a quartet, all four dressed in long, flowing cloaks with thick hoods. Behind the woman on her left was a portly-looking man with a bushy black beard that seemed to smoke and hiss with tiny wildfires. His left shoulder was lower than his right, too, so he seemed to be leaning even when standing upright.

Opposite the man was the crimson-eyed menace, his beefy gauntlet-clad arms folded over his barrel chest and an annoyed frown affixed to his face, although his eyes hinted at sympathy.

'Fat lot of good that did me.' Marturia remarked acidly.

Directly behind, the woman hunched a wizened old hermit of a fossil given breath, with skin so wrinkled and flabby the flesh from his forehead drooped and shielded his eyes. His head reminded Marturia of a boiled egg allowed to sit and rot for a week. And his face...the man's fleshy nose was webbed with red capillaries, the most vibrant color on his visible body.

His long, grey beard appeared coarser and greasier than a mongrel's fur coat, and his stormy-blue robes latched onto his frail figure for dear life. The fossil's spine had more curves than a fishhook, and his bony neck was level with his rickety old walking stick.

Marturia struggled to hide his disgust for the relic. He was by no means a vain person, nor did he hold any sort of animosity for the foreign concept of actually growing old, but this? There was a difference between aging and living through your lease on life naturally, and the parasitic clinging that the old man was holding onto his life with.

It reeked of paranoiac narcissism bordering on self-destruction; the fossil was more akin to a sedate zombie than a living man.

Di immortales, the smell alone was all kinds of toxic; Marturia would rather die young than live to ever torture himself this badly for anything.

"That can be arranged, maggot." A scratchy voice wheezed.

"...What?"

The 'fossil' looked him in the eye, as much as his neck could allow, with a scowl, "Be grateful I have more pressing matters to attend to than to deal with your insolence. Blur."

A lone stormy blue eye flashed his way just before Marturia could even think to apologize, and all he saw was blackness for several slow-going seconds.

He regained his faculties a few beats later with a head-splitting headache to boot, feeling like a part of his brain had been scraped away and dumped in a landfill. He remembered crossing through a garden a few yards away and then...nothing, how on Earth had he gotten here?

A wide, polished stone archway crested a marble path above him as it trailed right to the center of the peak, where the single largest palace he had ever seen—and would ever see—stood in radiance. The shining afternoon sun bouncing off the domed, golden ceiling nearly blinded him.

The Throne Room of the Olympian Gods.

Marturia remembered with vivid clarity the innocent wonder simply hearing about the council room from his mother's star-lit stories had suffused into a much younger him. The stories said the Throne Room had housed great and varied seats of boundless power for the Greek Gods for thousands of years, having stood tall against all ordeals and tribulations since the Age of the Titans.

The very Heart of Greece, the halls, had been a constant since the end of the 'Golden Age' of Man to the current 'Silver Age' and would continue to live on everlastingly for many more years to come; he had no doubt.

The adamantine doors were engraved into the frames with multiple instances of the Gods' tributes to Nike. The King of the Gods was a welcome constant in most of those victories, with his silver-pronged symbol of power. No mortal had ever been granted entry to the chambers that anyone knew of, and Marturia was doubtful any mortal would ever be worthy enough to cross the holy wards to the true legacy of the Elder Cyclopes—not without forfeiting their very souls.

The doors were barred even now with floating golden swords bathed in phosphor-green fire, a palpable warning to all to remember their stations. Marturia let out a low sigh of disappointment at the missed opportunity but shook his head from side to side at the blatant blasphemy.

Who was he to question the decisions of the Gods themselves? To dare think of such sacrilege? He let out a prayer for forgiveness and one for mercy to the ever-benevolent Hestia. The average mortal would have had his tongue cut out for such insolence back on Kephallonia, never mind right at the home of the Gods.

Marturia walked past parks and statues, bathhouses, and clear, glimmering lakes transparent to the very bottom. Mortal priests and priestesses attended to hundreds of great marble temples, each of them bearing the symbol and ceremonial robes of their patrons. A massive amphitheater designed for even bigger bodies boomed with laughter throughout the city as radiant Thalia, Muse of Comedy, entertained the masses, mortal and immortal, with casual grace.

This was paradise.

A dream that he, and thousands of young children, one day hoped to actualize, to live under the rays and protection of the Gods, surrounded by their benevolent glory and feasting at their tables. He didn't care if they didn't see him as an equal; he couldn't expect them to. Marturia was content just to watch them exist and live in the orbit of these beautiful, powerful beings.

They were his faith. His ideal. His saviors and protectors, what could they ever owe him?

Young Marturia drifted between the rowdy crowds of mortals nimbly, dancing past tourists, nature spirits, and...merchants; he'd been fleeced one too many times on this journey. The less said about his views on the pestiferous leeches, the better. The only reason he'd even managed to gain access to the mountain was because this celebration was open to all to participate. It was to be the swearing-in of the newest and final Olympian God.

The Legacy of the Gods.

Ζαγρεύς Μακάριος

Zagreus the Blessed.

Little information about the newborn God had been widespread other than their parentage, yet the mystery behind the legend in the making only added to the infant godling's allure. The babe had barely seen a single year of life, and yet the Fates themselves had requested(= read demanded) that all denizens of the known Greek world should come together on the mountain to witness the inauguration of the young Lord Zagreus.

Young Marturia shivered in awestruck excitement even while the embers of jealousy sparkled faintly. What caliber of God must one be to have the blessing of the Moirai of all Immortals? He had missed the naming ceremony back in Atlantis—like he'd had a chance in Hades to make that trip—and sworn then and there he wouldn't miss the indoctrination up on Olympus, which was why he found himself here today.

He broke through the sea of gaudily dressed mortals to the innermost ring of the central plaza, just in time, too, as the groaning, brassy notes of massive trumpets shook the world.

'They're here.' Marturia thought with fanatic glee.

The air pervading the mountain hummed and crackled with power as the blackened clouds swirled overhead. Thunder revved. And the Earth pulsed in anticipation, small pebbles rising slowly into the air along with his chocolate-brown hair. Sets of spiritual boulders attached themselves to the shoulders of every single mortal and immortal in the plaza, an unspoken message making itself known to the hearts of everyone with half a mind to heed.

Prostrate Yourselves.

It was simple. Eloquent and to the point.

Hubris would have had to be your daily devotional to ignore the compulsion.

However, the weather-clearing explosion served as a panacea to the affliction, with the poor bastards barely even getting the opportunity to scream.

The stench of charred flesh and the ash of the arrogant fools hung heavy in the air, even as the entire mountain went dead silent. You'd have thought Marturia's skull to be fused with the ground with how hard he was kissing it. The plaza was rife with unease as the Olympians made their presence felt among them.

Marturia's skin felt lit ablaze under the probing gaze of a thousand suns. Sweat beaded down his brow and pooled at his back in gallons until the broiling ceased instantaneously. His back and clothes were again dry as the overwhelming pressure receded, like it had never even happened.

He didn't have time to ponder the phenomenon before a chorus of angels blessed his ears, heaping praises to their divine overlords.

And then...He spoke. His Eminence. The Lord of the Earth.

Ἐννοσίγαιος, βαρύκτυπος, ποντομέδων.

Ἄναξ Ποσειδῶν

The King, Poseidon .

"Rise, exalted children of Greece, and rejoice." Lord Poseidon intoned ethereally, the power in his voice a steadfast pillar in the middle of a tempestuous sea, washing over him like the life-giving rays of the midday sun, "For your Gods are with you."

Slowly, cautiously, Marturia raised his head from the gravel, pinpricks of pain shooting through him as the breeze blew onto a rough wound on the center of his forehead, it was ignored, however, as his eyes bore witness to perfection incarnate.

Huddled together in a unified group upon a wide-raised dais...stood the Gods in all their ephemeral glory.

Bright-eyed Athena stole his breath away first, her stoic face curtained by her luscious, midnight-black hair confined under a golden helmet. She was dressed in a flowing ashen peplos held in place by a blinding breastplate, her fabled spear and shield held semi-casually as her eyes flitted around the crowd in caution.

Marturia didn't get to question what could ever worry the War Goddess before a heavenly mixture of vanilla, marjoram, and honeysuckle assaulted his nostrils.

Marturia nearly levitated at the scent, his mouth salivating at the sight of the Goddess of Love, Heavenly Aphrodite.

She was dressed in a flowing, sleeveless peplos woven from calla lilies with pink accents and numerous gold bangles around her wrists. However, the goddess' face remained unseen by a frilled golden fan, with only her wavy red hair and alert blue eyes visible.

By her side was Lady Hera, her dark purple hair cascading in a long braid down her left side as a simple sapphire-encrusted circle sat upon her head. She wore beautiful golden armbands and a stunning necklace adorned with precious gems and baubles. However, her features were stern, her dark-blue eyes tense, while her knuckles remained bone-white against the shaft of her lotus-flower-topped scepter.

Golden Apollo stood to Aphrodite's left, wearing a vibrant golden chiton held at the waist by a simple cord and a laurel wreath about his golden curls. His arms were held captive by his giant golden bow, his demeanor more than a little worried as he glanced about the crowd.

Fleet-footed Hermes stood by his half-brother in support, his winged helmet glinting in the sun, clad in a similar white chiton to Apollo but with the addition of golden bracers, greaves, and a weighty breastplate. The God of Messengers' mousy-brown curls poked from underneath his helmet playfully, shadowing his eyes from the masses whilst his adamantine Caduceus rested parallel to the ground.

Far away from her radiant brother stood Far-aiming Artemis. Her wild mane of auburn locks split into three thick braids and came in cascades down her back, a tiny silver diadem further enhancing her already pure angelic features. There were no ostentatious embellishments on the childlike Goddess' body save a simple silver chiton cinched at the waist with a thick hunting belt, her dainty hand resting on the pommel of a large hunting knife.

Lady Artemis' fabled hunting bow stood parallel to the Goddess, 6 feet of enchanted pure silver forged personally by the Elder Cyclopes themselves in the depths of Tartarus, if the stories were to be believed.

Flame-bearing Hestia shadowed the younger Goddess protectively, a hand wrapped around the childlike Deity's form with all the subtle ferocity of a Mother Bear shielding her own young. The Goddess of the Hearth was layered in plain, modest maroon robes, her oak-brown hair framing her face in ringlets while a linen shawl covered her eyes.

By the Hearth Goddess' side perched her Majesty. Beholden Consort of her Lord, Poseidon.

Ordained Queen of all the Gods and holy mother to the successor of the Gods, Zagreus.

Her Lady Demeter Panakhaia.

The Goddess had long blond hair, the color of ripe wheat, and wore a bright green dress with a dark cape, which gave her the appearance of fresh plant shoots breaking through fertile Earth whenever she moved. She wore a crown of woven corn leaves and poppies adornments and had the sweet, distinctive scent of a rainstorm over a field of jasmine.

Her annoyed scowl melded with her warlike figure as she twirled the legendary golden scythe of The Crooked One idly, the power the weapon gave off only secondary to her King Consort's trident.

In the center of the gathered congregation stood Lord Poseidon, his glowing silver trident a miniature sun for all the divine power it casually exuded. Marturia didn't doubt for a second that a single touch of the sacred artifact would be enough to wash away the blood of the lowest mortals and replace it with divine ichor.

Lord Poseidon looked to be dressed for war; the God wore an intricate piece of scale mail engraved in runes and oceanic iconography, ornate bracers, and greaves sculpted in the imagery of roaring leviathans adorned his bulging sun-kissed forearms and shins. A crown set with pearls and sapphires sat atop his midnight-black locks, creasing his scrunched-up forehead even further; Lord Poseidon's sea-green orbs were harder than marble as he crossed his trident before his Queen Consort and child protectively.

The Child.

Zagreus.

Marturia had been expecting a slew of things from the young godling with all the hearsay that had overtaken their world. Hearsay ranged from a newborn still suckling on its mother's teat to a full-grown God with the raw power to upend mountains with a twitch of its fingers and an ethereal beauty that could put even Fair Aphrodite to shame.

To paraphrase, Marturia knew well and true that the masses were full of horse shit.

And he'd tempered his expectations enough to sift through the blatant idiocy and tall tales somewhat.

And yet?

Lord – Lady? – Zagreus was easily the most beautiful thing Marturia had ever laid his eyes upon.

Snow-white hair flowed down gently to the godling's ankles like a serene spring in the peak of summer, smooth golden skin not too dissimilar from the fire-gold glow of the dawn drew in his gaze as well as those of the entirety of the plaza. Dazzling lilac eyes, the color of twilight shadows cast upon a moonlit cove, created an ethereal fusion of beauty and unease, a hypnotic magnetism that transcended the ordinary.

Bedecked in unblemished gold and the purest white, the young God weaved the tapestry of innocence and sovereignty so casually that it appeared almost paradoxical. In comparison, the other Olympians looked like average mortals.

Yes, Lady Aphrodite also fell into that demographic.

Marturia still hadn't been expecting the bull horns, though.

Semi-flat, forward-pointing impalers about a foot long, with black strips extending from their center towards the tips. Or the fact that the godling chose to appear no older than 10 years of age.

As a matter of fact, Zagreus didn't appear all that enthused to even be here for his own coronation. The godling's eyes were more resigned, and his lips set into a thin, bored line. Zagreus' tiny hands were folded before his thighs like metaphysical cords had bound them, and he stood so still Marturia would have likened the godling more to an attractive statue than a living being.

Yes, Zagreus was the most beautiful thing Marturia had ever seen. There could be no doubt about that. But therein lay the problem most people couldn't seem to grasp...the godling looked to be no better than a trophy to be admired and paraded around than a person.

This was no God-King; it was barely even a conscious individual.

This was a living puppet. And he used the term 'living' loosely.

"By the Earth, Sky, and Sea, he is perfect." Marturia heard from...somewhere.

"Just a glance; I require only a glance from him to be sated for the rest of my days."

He took a glance behind to where he knew that voice had come from, only to find nothing at all out of the ordinary; the masses were still frozen in awestruck reverence of Lord Zagreus to put to words anything other than hur durrr. And yet...

"Bah! She is no better than a dry leaf in autumn; this is to be our new Lord? This will be the end of Olympus."

"Poseidon must have lost one too many brain cells in that bout with Zeus if he truly believes I will ever bend the knee to this premature whelp. She barely looks conscious!"

"When will the festivities commence? Already? I'm famished."

What was happening to him today in the accursed Pits? The gaps in his memory getting cooked alive in his mind, and now what? He had voices in his head? Was it the berries? Was he losing his wits because of those mountain berries?

A heartwarming childish giggle echoed in his mind...coming right from the dais.

Lord Zagreus was...smiling.

Lord Zagreus was smiling at him.

At low-born Marturia.

At 'we-never-expected-you-to-make-it-past-infancy' Marturia.

The idea was reality-skewing to the young man.

That a God so blessed, so many light-years above his worthless station, could ever receive anything other than patronizing amusement from him. Reality shattered like a rock through the glass from right underneath his feet as Zagreus easily flicked away his father's trident and meandered his way through the masses to Marturia.

Poseidon went slack-jawed in confusion, "Zagreus? My...son, what are you doing?"

However, the King of the Gods remained ignored as Zagreus' gold-laced sandals clicked and clacked through the silent plaza. Marturia looked to be the only thing that mattered before the young God's eyes, that same serene, beatific smile plastered squarely on his face even as the rest of the world faded to white for the two of them.

And yet, the thoughts of thousands upon thousands of mortals and immortals chattering like songbirds in springtime right in the center of his mind's eye was a relentless headache for young Marturia.

"Eeeek! He's coming my way! Be calm. Be calm, Aglaia. It wouldn't do for you to turn him away needlessly from desperation."

Poor Aglaia's shattered expression as Zagreus walked past her with nary a glance would have been a divine comedy that would have had even Thalia roaring with laughter if not for the malicious intent of one particular group of individuals right after it.

"He's broken off from the rest of them, milord, should we-"

A stormy voice growled in annoyance, "Absolutely not, Themis! There are too many variables to account for in a disadvantageous space like this. The Fates could never deign to be so merciful. The entire purpose of this journey was to investigate the wretched whelp; our purpose remains unchanged until I declare it so."

"But Father-"

"Do not test me, Ares. Your arrogant foolishness has cost us enough today already; you need only take a gander at my accursed brother to be aware of the fact. Destroying the brat now would have been a death sentence even without all of the 'Olympian Council' on high alert. Look at Aphrodite of all goddesses! We'd have had the fury of Olympus on our necks by now were it not for the machinations of Hekate."

This was...this was sacrilege.

Marturia was a compliant witness to the makings of an Olympian coup; the disastrous implications attached to such an attempt only got more earth-shaking as the seconds ticked by. Marturia's honor all but demanded he deliver such treacherous motives to the Gods' notice – never mind his personal fear for his own life – yet he found his limbs placed firmly in his pious stance, Zagreus' lilac orbs pinning him down to the ground with naught but a look.

Did God want to die?

"Ares's stupidity and the zeal he pushes for to never fail to disappoint us with it has never been in question, Father, but he may have a point here. At the very least, we could seize the boy and be gone before the others could react. Why wait?"

"Malaka, you've got some balls talking about me like that so close to my fist Cripple." Ares bit out acidly.

"CEASE YOUR NEEDLESS BICKERING BEFORE I TOSS YOU OFF THIS MOUNTAIN, YOU INFANTILE FOOLS!" The 'Father' roared in fury, and Marturia's brain did consecutive backflips within his skull while his lifeblood poured out of his nostrils in buckets, "We will not incite war on this day. End. Of. Discussion."

Which was just as well, too. Marturia's brain had already waved the white flag at cease. He was just about ready to collapse and bleed out on the gravel before Lord Zagreus held him up, his once cheerful smile slightly strained yet dazzling.

Marturia couldn't help but remark on how soft yet firm God's hands were; he couldn't hold back the warm feeling that welled up within his chest at his close proximity to the God; Zagreus just felt so...coherent, if that made any fucking sense.

So pure and consistent, even without uttering a single word, was the immortal before him. How could the puppet from earlier and the God above him even be the same person?

Zagreus chuckled easily, "I assure you I am," His voice...Gods, his voice flowed as smooth as warm honey and light as a summer breeze, soothing his aches and strains like a dip in a misty hot spring.

The God placed a chaste kiss on Marturia's forehead, and the young man's very soul knew only euphoria, his heart soaring ever so high at the sight of Zagreus' luscious, bloodstained lips. Not even Almighty Poseidon could hope to drag him down from his high. His former head injury knitted itself in an instant as the lingering pinpricks of pain faded into the background.

"ZAGREUS?!" Lord Poseidon roared while the other Olympians remained frozen in various – and blasphemously comedic – positions of muted shock.

Apollo fucking swooned.

Marturia had an inkling of a feeling his ass was grass at this point, and Zagreus' coy smirk only grew wider at the thought, a mischievous gleam enhancing his perfect features as his purple orbs twinkled in amusement.

"Greetings, friend. What is your name, please?"

Was the God honestly asking him?

"M...marturia of Kephallonia, my Lord?"

That sinfully enchanting giggle relieved itself from the God's vocal cords again, the melodic sound shivering Marturia to his core. His eyes were swimming in his head from a disturbing influx of bright colors, and he could neither confirm nor deny that his tongue had flopped out like an excited puppy from his mouth.

"Are you asking me or telling me, Marturia of Kephallonia?" the God teased casually. It was as if Marturia were simply an estranged friend to him and not an amusing ant by comparison.

The thought invigorated him.

"Marturia of Kephallonia, my Lord."

Zagreus nodded slowly as he blessed him with a contented smile, "Well, Marturia of Kephallonia, allow me to reintroduce myself appropriately. I am Zagreus of Olympus. Son of my Lord Father Poseidon and Lady Mother Demeter, Tenth seat of the Olympian Council and the Destined Companion to Creation."

The silence at the final proclamation was loud. The world may as well have held its breath and forgotten how to execute the action while the Olympian Gods shook their heads in resigned annoyance. Yet, the only God that mattered to Marturia, as far as he was concerned, merely stretched an inviting hand towards him in support.

Marturia took the devil by the horns.

Zagreus smiled as he easily pulled the young man to his feet, "God of—well, you'll find out soon enough, won't you? Welcome to Olympus, my friend. I happen to be well acquainted with her master."

Y*C*O*Y*W

Chapter 2: The Fool

"Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad."

- Euripides

The Fool

? ? July 2010, Edge of Creation, Tartarus

Akhlys crowed. "You shall perish in the arms of Night!"

...

Percy was having a bad...whatever this entire fustercluck of a cheesy horror flick boiled down to, as evident by the emaciated ghoul currently dancing on his grave.

He was dimly aware of Annabeth shouting a good distance away from the edge of the poison basin. Tossing random strips of drakon jerky at the goddess while he choked on liquid poison.

Jerky.

At a goddess.

Jerky.

He clicked his tongue in frustration. This was an unfunny adult sitcom in real-time.

Akhlys hadn't remained idle during his pessimistic interlude. The white-green poison had kept on pooling around him, little streams trickling from every manner of toxic flora imaginable, getting wider and wider with Percy smack dab in the center of the venomous lake.

Lake, he thought. Streams. Water.

It was probably just his brain getting fried from poison fumes, but he croaked out a laugh. Poison was liquid. If it moved like water, it must be partially water.

He remembered a science lecture about the human body being mostly water. He remembered extracting water from Jason's lungs back in Rome. If he could control that, then why not other liquids?

It was a crazy idea. Poseidon was a god of the sea, not of all liquids everywhere.

And even then, say he could bullshit his way through this. Take control of a goddess' domain from said goddess...then what? Go back to winging it in Hell?

Did he really want that?

If suffering was living, he'd been living the fast life since birth.

Even the 'death prophecy' that had hung over his head not even a year ago hadn't looked this bleak.

What was the point?

Why not just fade away here...lost forever in the thigh-high mists of the Abyss?

Should he?

...

It was surprising it'd even taken this long to contemplate his own mortality - Hades, this whole trip was one big 'surprise' with no blue birthday cake – but a trip down memory lane didn't seem too bad in comparison to dying alone at the edge of the universe, right?

Let's see now...what did he know?

For starters, he was weak. An absolute speck in the grand scheme of things. If he was being blunt, Tartarus and his—frankly embarrassing—bout with Chrysaor had more than humbled him.

Impulsive and arrogant, too, and it'd taken getting played by the monster getting off on his death to realize it.

Oh, and he was dying.

'Can't forget about that juicy little tidbit.' He thought morbidly.

His exit wasn't looking the least bit pretty...not even a little.

He was dying an arguably worse death than all the other heroes of legend and their mothers before him.

On the edge of Creation, no less.

He was dying to a ghoulish joker for having the temerity to breathe quasi-hopefully. The very thought of it pissed him off like you wouldn't believe. He was sixteen, for god's sake. Had he ever done anything to deserve any of this?

Was it him dunking Bobofit in that fountain? He was sorry!

Breaking Clarisse's spear on that CTF match? She'd tried to kill him!

Dressing down the gods for being the same absolute tools they'd embodied for thousands of years at this point?

'What do I have to do,' He thought weakly, his eyes gazing forlornly at the endless blood-red fog of the abyss, 'How much more of this before I can finally get a break?'

"You fight. If the odds stacked against you displease you, you stand and fight or die. You do not get to complain. "

...

That wasn't his self-conscious voice.

His inner voice was a bit more belittling and a hell of a lot more masculine.

He looked around him, well, as much as he could anyway. The death lake hadn't been idle during his inner monologue.

He could barely twitch without getting a splash of belladonna, but even then, aside from Akhlys and Annabeth still chucking party favors from her seemingly endless supply of drakon meat.

Aside from the primordial soup of Creation that seemed to churn in sadistic ecstasy about a yard from him, he couldn't make heads or tails of where that abrasive voice could have come from.

'I've lost it,' He lamented mentally, 'All these years, and I've finally lost my godsdamned mind.'

"Di immortales Perseus, is this unwashed hag truly to be the death of you?"

Okay, he definitely wasn't imagining the voice this time.

He looked around harder, partly to satiate his curiosity and partly to tear this asshole a new one for leaving him to die in a bed of poison while his girlfriend hurled foodstuffs.

His girlfriend.

Annabeth .

What the Hell was he doing.

How dare he sit back and take this parody of a tragedy while his girlfriend fought for her life...ish.

And his friends on the Argo II. They were probably going through Hell right now, trying to meet them on the other side. He'd demanded Nico lead them to the other side of the doors. He didn't get to sit here whining like a petulant manchild (= read Zeus), waxing poetic in a bed of poison.

"Come on." The voice thundered.

He rose to a knee.

His friends were back at Camp Half-Blood. They were already in a war from two fronts after the backhanded slap they'd given to the Romans; if he and the rest of the seven couldn't find a way to fix things or at least pacify them enough to prevent further bloodshed...

He didn't even want to imagine; there were children as young as 5 back at camp.

It didn't matter to him at the moment, how he was going to do it he just knew that he had to do it. If he died, so be it; he'd go down kicking and screaming all the while.

He glared at the lake, which was already starting to lap at his soles and focused. He concentrated so hard that something inside him cracked like a crystal ball had shattered in his stomach.

Warmth flowed through him. The poison tide stopped.

The fumes blew away from him — back toward the goddess. The lake of poison rolled toward her in tiny waves and rivulets.

"You dare?!"

He let out a bloodcurdling scream as the roused poison beat back his control and tore at his pants, converses, and flesh like a school of emboldened piranhas.

Akhlys cackled all the while from the sidelines.

"What will you do, boy," The emaciated bitch taunted. "WHAT WILL YOU DO!"

He maintained his focus. It was all he could do to keep standing at this point. The sheer power poured into those four words alone nearly folded him in half.

"I am Misery and Poisons, child," She continued, "I was the being who spawned the evils that plague the polluted cesspit you call home. Every. Single. One. Every sin, every curse, I dance with Despair and dine with Torment every hour of the day."

The goddess seemed to preen like a peacock with every screeched atrocity, with a disturbing smile haunting her disgusting features, "The pain you and the rest of the hairless apes you call kin suffer give me succor. Such was the authority bestowed upon me by Creation. I am Akhlys, child, Daughter of the Night and Darkness, the Primordial of Misery."

An overwhelming dark-purple wave of energy akin to pure despair flowed outward from the Primordial as she finished her proclamation. Rampaging unchecked through the deluge in front of him and the surrounding area without a care.

"RUN ANNABE-" He'd barely been able to get the words out before Akhlys' authority crashed onto him with the force of a speeding locomotive.

Y*C*O*Y*W

Hope was a lie.

Everything about him was bull - he was a phony, always had been - and he should have let that snake finish him in his cot while it'd had the chance.

"Why am I still fighting?" He asked himself for what felt like the hundredth time in minutes. All the death and devastation he'd doled out.

All the shrouds he'd buried.

It was all so pointless.

His existence was pointless, completely and utterly pointless.

And empty. So, so empty.

There was no hope, no faith, no divine retribution.

No pain. No phobia. No emotion.

Nothing.

There was only the Goddess.

...

"She's Misery, Perseus. She'll tear your mind apart at the seams if you let her. Remember who you are." The voice cried out urgently.

A fraud?

The voice let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Son of an emerald whore—remember what and who you fight for!"

He mentally shrugged.

"Your freedom?" And he could feel more than see that the voice had its head buried in its hands.

"Freedom is an abstract concept; the truth is right in front of me."

"Your friends."

"With time, they too shall follow the way."

"OH FOR THE LOVE OF..." The voice took a deep breath. "Fine then, what about your mother. What about Sally? Are you also interested in bringing her into the faith?"

Percy had a retort ready for the faithless one, but that name killed any wind in his sails.

Warm blue eyes and a dazzling pearl-white smile flashed through his peripheral.

Sally.

The name alone filled him with an indescribable sense of warmth.

He could picture her so clearly. Her back was turned to him, showing her warm, chocolate-brown hair splattered with tufts of grey.

She was only 36. She worked too hard.

She turned around to face him. She was dressed in a sleeveless ash blazer over a rolled-up baby blue dress shirt, showing off her tanned, well-defined arms. And her face...gods, her face, it shouldn't have been possible for a woman who had gone through and put up with as much as she had, to still look at a schmuck like him with such love and care. Her warm blue eyes were twinkling at him with pure maternal affection.

She was holding a cupcake - his blue cupcake, with a quaint little candle on top - like it was the last blessed drop from the Holy Grail.

He didn't need to be there to hear the I love you.

He hadn't seen her in close to a year at this point, hadn't heard her voice or even given her a hug in months, and he was content to die here?!

But the godde-

That was all it took; his gut bubbled to a broiling fury like a witch's cauldron. Whatever haze, hex, or voodoo the almighty clown before him had placed upon him was smacked away with the divine will of a fuming God.

He let out a defiant roar and pushed at the pervading malefactor with every ounce of his being, he couldn't die here.

He wouldn't die here.

The poison around him tripled and surged past the top of his thighs, a blasphemous maelstrom swirling violently with him at the center as the Warden of Evil continued to boast of her authority.

He'd started to feel emboldened, his ties to his friends and family an unshakable anchor against his opponent's domain.

"You tell 'em, Aquaman."

At that moment, Percy was sure he wouldn't die today, not until he got to deck the ever-loving piss out of the moron who'd insisted on sideline commentary.

Akhlys wasn't quite done yet, though; her appearance had shifted sometime during his incessant howling. From a withered old druggie to something more fitting of her title as a divine entity.

Her features had gotten sharper - borderline beautiful, to be perfectly candid - her tattered dress, which had hung listlessly over her emaciated corpse of a body earlier, had been stretched to its limits as it tried its very best to hide her(pardon the pun) godly curves.

Her wild mane of hair had retained most of its general unkempt madness but looked less like she'd been ripping it out at the seams and more like she'd gotten it stylishly ruffled from a pleasant stroll through a field of dandelions.

Well, maybe more a field of crying babies, but still. She looked good. Really good. It was a shame such divine features seemed more interested in feeding on his corpse or whatever else crazy Tartarean hussies did with expired demigod bodies.

"I am a Primordial Goddess, you dull creature," She continued, undeterred, "Do you truly think this will end any other way? A premature whelp, who hasn't even learned to so much as breathe yet, can ever be capable of beating ME?!"

She didn't even give Percy a chance for a quip, the very notion seemed to offend her.

"I WILL BREAK YOU, BOY," The Mistress of Misery raged.

A stinging pain stabbed at him from every direction the more he pushed for supremacy; his brain felt like it'd been dumped in a sea of pit scorpions, and every time he hacked out a cough, it came out bloody. In between moments of lucidity, he thought he could see a sort of shell casing extending outward from her...no, not quite outward, it was collapsing inward.

Like it was trying to contain an imminent explosion but failing. Quickly at that.

Uh-oh.

Percy gathered everything he had and more to stop this psycho; he didn't even bother questioning how he'd somehow managed to contain a Primordial's true form.

He knew it was the only thing keeping him and his girlfriend from becoming unattractive scorch marks on the glass-like gravel.

"How? How in the name of the gods are you doing this?!" Akhlys finished pathetically.

She charged at him. A sad, desperate hobble, if he was being honest, but a charge nonetheless.

"You can't do it; I won't stand for it!" she swore. "It's not possible. Demigods should not have this power; they can not have this power."

That was almost enough to break him, not the...frankly narcissistic ranting. No, it was the power. The sheer authority at the tail end of the sentence had staggered him.

"Don't listen to her; you're fighting her. Have been this entire time. You have her contained. FIGHT, PERSEUS!"

He held onto those words like a lifeline, his strength and confidence multiplying tenfold.

Gathering everything he had at the moment, he continued to push on towards the monster in front of him.

Akhlys shrieked. "What is this?"

"Poison," Percy said. "That's your specialty, right?"

"THIS IS NO MERE POISON, YOU FOOL," The apoplectic goddess screeched, "What you're doing-"

She paused midway to hack out her lungs for a disturbing amount of time.

"It goes beyond mere usurpation! This can only be...but it shouldn't be possible! You bleed red! You are no Apostle of Destruction; you aren't even Enlightened! It isn't possible!" Akhlys continued hysterically.

He bared his teeth, his anger growing hotter in his gut. As the flood of venom rolled toward the goddess, the fumes made her cough.

Her eyes watered even more.

'Oh, good,' Percy thought. 'More water.'

Percy imagined her nose and throat filling with her own tears.

Akhlys gagged. "I—" The tide of venom reached her feet, sizzling like droplets on a hot iron. She wailed and stumbled back.

Percy felt invigorated; he could barely stop his facial muscles from splitting into what was sure to be an unhinged grin.

He felt powerful as he brought this insignificant waste of an individual right where she belonged, firmly beneath him.

He felt vindicated as the poison of Akhlys herself deferred to him as its rightful master, turning on its mistress with the loyalty of a starving bloodhound.

He felt...he felt...he felt like a-

"Percy!" Annabeth called.

She'd retreated to the edge of the cliff, even though the poison wasn't after her.

'Gee, thanks, babe. Nice to know you've always got my back.'

Minor consolation, though; at least he knew now the drakon jerky from Hell had a stop cap. It was only slightly less than infinite.

She sounded terrified, though, and it took Percy a moment to realize she was afraid of him.

That threw him for a loop.

No, not even that.

He wasn't sure if the forming aneurysm was from the strain of fighting Akhlys' control or the sheer ridiculousness. Had she taken a cat nap while Akhlys had decked him five ways through Sunday?

He was doing this for her, wasn't he?

"Stop..." she pleaded, her voice unbearably hoarse.

The sheer pain in her voice hurt something in him yet angered him in a way he couldn't quite put into words. It didn't help that the voice from before had chosen to remain silent for some time now.

He returned his attention to the goddess in front of him; somehow, she had to have caused this.

She'd reverted back to her emaciated form sometime during his admittedly invasive torture. Honestly, she looked even worse than before, if that were even possible, whether to garner some sort of sympathy from him or because he was destroying her so utterly that she couldn't scrounge up the power to maintain an attractive visage; he didn't know.

He wasn't sure he cared.

"Percy! Please yo-," Annabeth had a bloody coughing fit.

His attention never strayed from Akhlys. He didn't want to stop. He wanted to choke this goddess, this rabid dog who'd tried to snatch from his loved ones. Who wouldn't so much as bothered to have shed a mournful tear for them were their roles reversed. He wanted to watch her drown in her own poison.

He wanted to see just how much misery Misery could take.

"Percy, please…" Annabeth's face was still pale and corpse-like, but her eyes were the same as always. The anguish in them stilled Percy's anger somewhat.

He turned to the pathetic wastrel of a goddess in front of him, willing the poison to recede and creating a small path of retreat along the edge of the cliff.

"Leave!" he bellowed.

For an emaciated ghoul, Akhlys could run pretty fast when she wanted to. She scrambled along the path, fell on her face, and got up again, wailing as she sped into the dark.

As soon as she was gone, the pools of poison evaporated, and the plants withered to dust and blew away into the blood-red ether.

Annabeth stumbled toward him. She looked like a corpse wreathed in smoke, but she felt solid enough when she gripped his arms.

"Percy, please don't ever…" Her voice broke in a sob. "Some things aren't meant to be controlled. Please."

He looked long and hard at his cohort, the girl he'd practically given an arm and a leg to be with.

The death mist and her actual appearance fought for supremacy right before his eyes, trying to persuade, convince, and shackle him to a certain route.

A path he just couldn't accede to.

He refused.

"No." He finally responded after what felt like an eternity.

Annabeth - the unblemished Annabeth - visibly rebooted in front of him. A myriad of emotions danced through her shell-shocked face. Shock at first, followed quickly by hurt, then finally, resting from all-consuming anger.

"What do you mean 'no'?!" Her eyes shone with unshod tears yet strengthened by righteous indignation.

"I mean, No, Annabeth," He said, "I'm not going to not defend myself if there ever comes a time when somebody tries to kill me for sport!"

She got up right in his face and grabbed him by his collar; under normal circumstances, he'd have puckered right up for a wet smooch.

Now? Well, now he wasn't sure whether to shield his face or his crotch; Hurricane Chase was that unpredictable.

"Defend yourself?!" She cried out hysterically, her blond curls bouncing like water beads.

"Is that what you think you were doing? Percy, you had that woman on her hands and knees begging you for mercy," She continued. "You were choking her with her tears!"

"AND SHE'D HAVE DONE WORSE TO THE BOTH OF US IF I HADN'T!" He bellowed, physically and mentally done with her strong-arming.

Annabeth backed away from him as quickly and as non-confrontational as possible.

It hurt. It hurt a hell of a lot more than he was willing to show. Unfortunately, he wasn't even close to finished.

Why couldn't she understand? Did she realize the series of out-of-body experiences he'd gone through just to spend another second with her?

He'd willingly nosedived into Hell for her!

Didn't she love him? Wasn't she supposed to care about him? TO CHERISH HIM?!

"Where exactly do you get off making me out to be some bad guy, like I'm the problem?" His voice cracked, "Like I'm some monster who enjoys killing kids for kicks. What the Hades were you doing while I was gargling on poison by my lonesome!"

He was fuming now, damn near frothing at the mouth at the sheer audacity.

If Annabeth had looked spooked before, she looked downright horrified now, her hand was clasped firmly on her drakon bone sword. Her knuckles were white on the leather-wrapped pommel.

How she'd even managed that with the death mist physically hindering her should have baffled him, yet that confusion took a backseat as a damning realization made itself known to him.

There weren't any bloodthirsty goddesses to use it on this time.

She wanted to-

That was enough to knock the fight right out of him. To see his Annabeth, the literal love of his - very limited - life, actually consider putting him down like some rabid dog.

To see her visibly fight to keep a hold on herself from showing weakness to him. To see the unhinged vitriol coming from his corpse-like visage through her irises.

Her eyes. Those beautiful, intimidating, stormy grey orbs, ordinarily rife with wisdom and affection for him...

They hadn't stopped crying for a while now.

He hadn't wanted this.

He'd never wanted to live in a world where his loved ones would ever look at him the same way his mother had always looked at...at him.

"My dreams are just dreams..."

His eyes sealed shut at the memory.

'No, not now.' He swore he wouldn't give it power over him now.

That nightmare was long behind him. Long dead and buried with its perpetrator.

His whole body tingled with power, but the anger was subsiding. The broken glass inside of him was beginning to smooth at the edges.

"We have to get away from this cliff," He said finally, "If Akhlys brought us here as some kind of sacrifice…"

It was shameless ducking, and they both knew it, but they were much too mentally drained to care.

Annabeth made no notable moves to add towards unfucking their situation, instead choosing to stare at him with her usual probing glare. Ordinarily, he could ignore it in favor of admiring how hot it made her look, but even he wasn't stupid enough to miss the palpable disappointment in her gaze.

Percy tried to think. He was getting used to moving with the Death Mist around him. He felt more solid, more like himself. But his mind still felt stuffed with cotton.

"She said something about feeding us to the night," he continued. "What was that about?"

Still no response.

"Annabeth, I need you to work wi-"

The temperature dropped. The abyss before them seemed to exhale.

Percy grabbed Annabeth and backed away from the edge as a presence emerged from the void—a form so vast and shadowy that he felt he understood the concept of dark for the first time.

"I imagine," said the darkness, in a feminine voice as soft as coffin lining, "that she meant Night, with a capital N. After all, I am the only one."

Y*C*O*Y*W

ANNABETH HAD NEVER BEEN SCARED OF THE DARK.

But normally the dark wasn't forty feet tall. It didn't have black wings, a whip made out of stars, and a shadowy chariot pulled by vampire horses.

Nyx was almost too much to take in. Looming over the chasm, she was a churning figure of ash and smoke, as big as the Athena Parthenos statue, but very much alive. Her dress was void black, mixed with the colors of a space nebula, as if galaxies were being born in her bodice. Her face was hard to see, covered in that light-consuming veil she wore. When her wings beat, waves of darkness rolled over the cliffs, making Annabeth feel heavy and sleepy, her eyesight dim.

The goddess' chariot was made of the same material as Nico di Angelo's sword—Stygian iron—and pulled by two massive horses, all black except for their pointed silver fangs. The beasts' legs floated in the abyss, turning from solid to smoke as they moved.

The horses snarled and bared their fangs at Annabeth. The goddess lashed her whip—a thin streak of stars like diamond barbs—and the horses reared back.

"No, Shade," the goddess said. "Down, Shadow. These little prizes are not for you."

She turned her attention to Percy...to her boyfriend. His hand hadn't strayed from his pocket throughout the whole confrontation.

But she doubted even he'd be crazy enough to actually pull out a weapon on Nyx of all Gods, then again she'd never thought she'd see the day her lovable goof of a boyfriend would ever torture someone.

Percy eyed the horses as they nickered. He was still shrouded in Death Mist, so he looked like an out-of-focus corpse — which still broke Annabeth's heart every time she saw him. It also must not have been very good camouflage, since Nyx could obviously see them.

Annabeth couldn't read the expression on Percy's ghoulish face very well. Apparently he didn't like whatever the horses were saying.

"Uh, so you won't let them eat us?" he asked the goddess. "Cause they really want to eat us."

Nyx's wings blazed. "Of course not, Perseus. I would not let my horses eat you, any more than I would let Akhlys kill you. Such fine prizes, I will deal with myself!"

Annabeth didn't feel particularly witty or courageous, but her instincts told her to take the initiative, or this would be a very short conversation.

"Oh, don't kill yourself!" she cried. "We're not that scary."

The goddess lowered her whip. "What? No, I didn't mean-"

"Well, I'd hope not!" Annabeth looked at Percy and forced a laugh. "We wouldn't want to scare her, would we?"

"Ha, ha," Percy said weakly. "No, we wouldn't."

...

Nyx stared at them, probing and invasive the standard as far as the goddess was concerned, and then she let out a little chuckle that made Annabeth's spirits drop and her terror skyrocket.

"That," Nyx said through chuckles. "was adorable. Daughter of Athena, I was beyond ancient when you still needed your father to wipe your bottom. I was beyond ancient long before your mother was even a thought in Zeus's head. I am old, you tiny child. I am Night. I know everything that happens within my domain. Everything."

The way that Nyx said that, everything, the way her veiled eyes seemed to brighten and her smile got wider, made Annabeth feel extremely self-conscious, and even dirty.

Taking Nyx's claim literally, that she knew every single thing that happened during the night the world over, every action of every creature, every thought, every idea, made Annabeth feel like her privacy was being invaded.

No, it had been invaded.

Nyx did, in fact, know everything that Annabeth had ever done during the night from the moment she had been born, to this very moment right here and now.

Annabeth felt like jumping into Chaos just to spare herself the embarrassment and humiliation of Nyx being completely informed of all of her nighttime activities.

"I know both of you in ways no one else does. Not even yourselves," Nyx said. "Did you really think you could fool me with clever words?"

Annabeth couldn't get her mouth to work. Now that she'd lost her angle on the Primordial goddess, she felt like she was going to need her father to wipe her bottom sometime within the next ten seconds.

"Now then," Nyx continued. She raised her starry whip, done with words, ready to utterly destroy the demigods.

"Sleep, girl, I doubt I can receive any more morbid amusement from you."

...

Huh?

The overwhelming pressure that had tried to merge her with the gravel mere seconds ago disappeared from her shoulders as reality took a nosedive right before her eyes.

"But you Perseus Jackson," She let out that disturbing little chuckle again as her massive appendage of a hand drifted closer and closer to her understandably terrified boyfriend.

The veil of darkness on her face began to unravel before her eyes. But she only caught a glimpse of her manic, pale gold orbs before her own eyes rolled back into their sockets.

"Oh, we are going to have so much fun together. My dear, Ελευθερωτής." The goddess chortled.

Y*C*O*Y*W

29 July 2010, Somewhere over the Aegean Sea, Greece

JASON FELT LIKE SHIT.

He hadn't been out of bed in over a day and a half since the girls returned from Sparta, and he'd unexpectedly collapsed.

And yes, he'd delegated most of the blame to his Imperial Gold poisoning.

He woke up in what had lately become his quarters - "lucky cot number 7," as his friends had christened it - in the sickbay.

He wasn't stupid; he'd heard his fellow questers' sarcastic comments when they thought he wasn't listening(= read conscious). Or he'd spent the entire quest staring at their ship's oak wood ceiling. Or that he knew the exact thread count of all the sheets in the med-bay at this point.

Which was stupid...he'd only been here for half of the quest.

As for the thread count, they could all bite him; he blamed that knowledge on his ADHD. It was lonely in the sickbay.

He sighed and tried his best to move without disturbing his wound. After an embarrassing six minutes of nothing, he focused on more pressing matters than his scorned pride.

Something had changed among the crew of the Argo II.

Listen, okay, he wasn't going to pretend all the crew members were some sort of happy-go-lucky family that solved all their issues with the power of friendship and worked in sync together like letters with math or something.

But their team—and yes, he'd felt he could confidently call what they had had before Tartarus, a team—spirit was in the pits...ironic choice of words, all things considered.

And honestly?

He couldn't even pretend he hadn't seen it coming. Coach Hedge - of all people - had gotten at least an inkling of what was going on right before he bounced with the Parthenos crew.

As soon as Percy and Annabeth were free from the hellscape and could be trusted to walk freely, it was like they couldn't get away from each other faster.

You'd think fighting through hell's hell itself with nothing but love and a dream would be enough to cement a relationship forever, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. Annabeth couldn't even bring herself to look anywhere close to Percy's direction, often taking the farthest seat away from him during any gathering. And he wasn't 100% certain, but he'd thought he'd heard Leo grumbling something fierce about having to install Celestial Bronze locks for her cabin.

That was half a month ago, and the Daughter of Athena had shown no signs of improvement.

The only person that could even hope to approach her, never mind console her, without getting flipped over their ass was Piper. The daughter of Aphrodite had always had a soft spot in Annabeth's heart, and that bond had only grown stronger since their quest in Sparta.

Short of her boyfriend, he didn't think anyone back at Camp had garnered the kind of relationship they'd built in the scant months they'd spent together before their voyage.

He was getting off track here.

Anyway, it'd been...obvious?

Yes, it was obvious the way even his girlfriend had also started to distance herself from Percy, choosing different watch shifts whenever it seemed like she'd get paired with him, forfeiting sparring matches before they ever got too serious, and on the rare occasion Percy ever sought her out to ask for Annabeth's well-being answering as curt and efficient as possible before booking it with all the subtlety of a hand grenade.

Jason would have applauded his girlfriend's pussy-footing, if he wasn't all but certain she'd club him with a shiny red brick when no one was looking.

And Percy, damnable Percy, wasn't even the least bit innocent in all this. He'd heard campers drone on and on and on about the "legendary" son of Poseidon for the entirety of his stay at Camp Half-Blood.

And they were right for the most part; don't get him wrong. But pre-Tartarus and post-Tartarus Percy couldn't be more different than night and day.

He wasn't fucking joking.

His sun-kissed skin was still fighting against Pluto for the title of Corpse Lord even after weeks on the open-air ship. His stylish, messy hair had become less endearing and more unhinged. Regularly greasy and matted, hanging over his pale face in dirty clumps.

He hadn't been sleeping either, or if he was, it wasn't at nighttime, as far as Jason was concerned. Deep purple shadows underneath his eyes looked swollen as if he'd been punched in both of them. Repeatedly.

At this point, his famous lopsided grin had remained absent for months, replaced by an animal-like scowl.

Jason wouldn't act like he and Percy had been close before his fall - they'd just tried to kill each other - but you couldn't call yourself a decent human being if you felt nothing for what seemed like such a broken individual.

It didn't help that Percy was so stubborn about sharing. He refused to talk about his experience, acting like he had something to prove to someone. Instead, he chose to lash out at the rest of the crew whenever he felt "cornered," venting his more violent frustrations on any monster foolish enough to try attacking them with the fury of a thundering typhoon.

And he was good at it, too. Percy had already been amongst the best of their generation even before his voyage through the Pit. Still, it was hardly comparable to the feral beast Tartarus had molded exclusively for the average monster's pleasure. He'd traded practiced skill for feral brutality, a style that perfectly suited the man who'd crawled out of hell.

Harpies and most aerial threats had long since gotten the message and stopped trying to lay siege to them from the air.

Jason had seen firsthand what Percy had done to that particular flock. He didn't blame them.

He huffed in frustration, it ate at him that he couldn't do anything to offer the Son of Poseidon any sort of comfort.

Percy was a good dude, kind and selfless, powerful, and an inspiration to Demigods, both young and old.

He didn't deserve to feel like a caged animal among his own friends.

He didn't deserve to be looked at like he'd killed someone and fed on its corpse by his own girlfriend.

Right?

He groaned in discomfort; months of inadequacy, self-loathing, and his own grievous injuries were compounding on him to give even his headache a headache.

He closed his eyes to get a modicum of rest.

...

KRAAAKOOOOOM

And opened them in urgency as his ears were assaulted by loudest clap of thunder he'd heard since the siege of Othrys.

What the fuck.

He rose from his deathbed - fighting through pain that had him smelling white - so he could drown with the rest of the crew.

And promptly fell face down on the hardwood floor.

He'd been so busy feeling sorry for himself that he hadn't noticed the cataclysmic storm the Argo II was currently privy to.

The ship was tilting so violently that he had to climb the floor to get out of the sick bay. The hull creaked, and the engine groaned like a dying water buffalo.

Cutting through the roar of the wind, the goddess Nike screamed from the stables: "YOU CAN DO BETTER, STORM! GIVE ME A HUNDRED AND TEN PERCENT!"

How the hell had he not noticed any of this?!

Jason climbed the stairs to the middle deck. His legs shook. His head spun. The ship pitched to port, knocking him against the opposite wall.

Hazel stumbled out of her cabin, hugging her stomach.

"I hate the ocean!" When she saw him, her eyes widened. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"I'm going up there!" he insisted. "I can help!"

Hazel looked like she wanted to argue. Then the ship tilted to starboard and she staggered towards the bathroom, her hand over her mouth.

Jason fought his way to the stairs. His muscles rebelled at the effort. His gut felt like Michael Varus was standing behind him, repeatedly stabbing him and yelling, Die like a Roman! Die like a Roman!

Jason forced down the pain. He was tired of people taking care of him, whispering how worried they were. He was tired of dreaming about being a shish kebab. He'd spent enough time nursing the wound in his gut (fucking lie). Either it would kill him or it wouldn't (he'd rather it didn't). He wasn't going to wait around for the wound to decide. He had to help his friends.

Somehow, he made it above deck. What he saw there made him almost as nauseous as Hazel. A wave the size of a skyscraper crashed over the forward deck, washing the front crossbows and half the port railing out to sea. The sails were ripped to shreds. Lightning flashed all around, hitting the sea like spotlights.

Horizontal rain blasted Jason's face. The clouds were so dark he couldn't tell if it was day or night. The crew was doing what they could...which wasn't much.

Leo had lashed himself to the console with a bungee cord harness. That might have seemed like a good idea when he rigged it up, but every time a wave hit, he was washed away and smacked back into his control board like a human paddleball.

Piper and Annabeth were trying to save the rigging. Since Sparta, they'd become quite a team – able to work together without even talking, which was just as well since they couldn't have heard each other over the storm.

Frank – at least Jason assumed it was Frank – had turned into a gorilla. He was swinging upside down off the starboard rail, fighting gravity and nature as he used his massive strength and flexible feet to hang on while untangling some broken oars.

Apparently, the crew was trying to get the ship airborne, but even if they managed to take off, Jason wasn't sure the sky would be safer.

Another apocalyptic clap of thunder.

Definitely not any safer.

Even Festus, the figurehead, was trying to help. He spewed fire at the rain, but that didn't discourage the storm.

Only Percy was having any luck. He stood by the center mast, his hands extended like he was on a tightrope. Every time the ship tilted, he pushed in the opposite direction, and the hull stabilized. He summoned giant fists of water from the ocean to slam into the larger waves before they could reach the deck, so it looked like the sea was hitting itself repeatedly in the face.

With the storm as bad as it was, Jason realized the ship would've already capsized or been smashed to bits if Percy wasn't on the job.

Jason staggered towards the mast. Leo yelled something – probably Go downstairs! – but Jason only waved back. He made it to Percy's side and grabbed his shoulder roughly.

He had about 2 seconds to question whether or not he'd been possessed by another eidolon - so foolish he'd been - before Percy brought him ass to deck with the floor.

Percy wrapped his fingers around his throat, squeezing for all he was worth, and none too gently either.

Jason probably could and should have tried to to fight him off, but the rage, the sheer malevolent fury in the son of Poseidon's gaze - were his irises glowing?! - almost had him praying Percy would only make it quick.

Not his proudest moment.

It took a second – one too long, in his 'biased' opinion – for Percy to release his hold on him.

Percy didn't bother trying to help him up, choosing instead to give him time to gather his bearings as he returned his attention to the still-raging storm. Which Jason appreciated, he hadn't realized how much he was taking oxygen - and living - for granted until then.

He rose when he was sure he wouldn't need a fresh change of underwear and turned his attention to his would-be assailant. Had the guy been studying him the whole time?

Percy could usually stay dry if he concentrated, but obviously, he had bigger things to worry about right now.

His dark hair was plastered to his face. His clothes were soaked and ripped.

He shouted something in Jason's ear, but Jason could only make out a few words: "THING…DOWN…STOP IT!"

Percy pointed over the side.

"Something is causing the storm?" Jason asked.

Percy tilted his head and cupped his ear in answer. The universal sign for Whaddja say, Sonny?!

He made a gesture with his hand like diving overboard. Then he tapped Jason on the chest.

"You want me to go?" Jason felt kind of honored. Everybody else had been treating him like a glass vase, but Percy…well, he seemed to figure that if Jason was on deck, he was ready for action.

And maybe he'd felt a little guilty about nearly choking him to death.

He'd take it.

"You son of a bitch, I'm in!" Jason shouted. "But I can't breathe underwater!"

Percy shrugged. Sorry, can't hear you.

Then Percy ran to the starboard rail, pushed another massive wave away from the ship, and jumped overboard.

Jason glanced at Piper and Annabeth. They both clung to the rigging, staring at him in shock.

Piper's expression said, Are you out of your mind?

He gave her an okay sign, partly to assure her that he would be fine (which he wasn't sure about) and partly to agree that he was, in fact, crazy (which he was sure about).

He staggered to the railing and looked up at the storm.

Winds raged. Clouds churned. Jason sensed an entire army of venti swirling above him, too angry and agitated to take physical form but hungry for destruction.

Pussies.

He raised his arm and summoned a lasso of wind. Jason had learned long ago that the best way to control a crowd of bullies was to pick the meanest, biggest kid and force him into submission. Then, the others would fall in line.

(DOR Disclaimer here: Jason, in canon, is a 16-year-old 6'1 or 3 mass of muscle. Couple his demigod genetics with his Roman and Greek training, and your average high school bully isn't so much as chipping one of his nails. He'd uttered this hogwash back in what must have been 2010 for him. Gangbangers have long since evolved; we're in the age of the Glock now, ladies and gents. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, YOU WILL BE JUMPED AT BEST.)

He lashed out with his wind rope, searching for the storm's strongest, most ornery Ventus.

He lassoed a nasty patch of storm cloud and pulled it in. "You're serving me today."

Howling in protest, the Ventus encircled him. The storm above the ship seemed to lessen just a bit, as if the other venti were thinking, Oh, crud. That guy means business.

Jason levitated off the deck, encased in his own miniature tornado. Spinning like a corkscrew, he plunged into the water.

Jason assumed things would be calmer underwater.

Not so much.

Of course, that could've been due to his mode of travel. Riding a cyclone to the bottom of the ocean definitely gave him some unexpected turbulence. He dropped and swerved with no apparent logic, his ears popping, his stomach pressed against his ribs.

Finally, he drifted to a stop next to Percy, who stood on a ledge jutting over a deeper abyss.

"Sorry about back up there," Percy said.

Jason could hear him perfectly, though he wasn't sure how. "What's going on?"

It had all the subtlety of a brick that evasion. Thankfully, Percy didn't seem too keen on rehashing their little moment.

In his ventus air cocoon, his voice sounded like he was talking through a vacuum cleaner.

Percy pointed into the void. "Wait for it."

Three seconds later, a shaft of green light swept through the darkness like a spotlight, then disappeared.

"Something's down there," Percy said, "stirring up this storm."

He turned and sized up Jason's tornado. "Nice outfit. Can you hold it together if we go deeper?"

"I have no idea how I'm doing this," Jason said.

He couldn't be sure with all the darkness surrounding them, but he thought he saw Percy's lips twitch upwards for a second.

"Okay," Percy shook his head gently, "Just try to be careful with underwater rubble, 'kay Grace?"

"Shut up, Jackson."

Percy was definitely grinning now.

Who knew his constant head trauma could be so therapeutic for the scarred and deranged.

"Let's see what's down there, shall we?"

Y*C*O*Y*W

They sank so deep that Jason couldn't see anything except Percy swimming next to him in the dim light of their gold and bronze blades.

Every so often the green searchlight shot upward. Percy swam straight towards it. Jason's ventus crackled and roared, straining to escape. The smell of ozone made him lightheaded, but he kept his shell of air intact.

At last, the darkness lessened below them. Soft white luminous patches, like schools of jellyfish, floated before Jason's eyes.

As he approached the seafloor, he realized the patches were glowing fields of algae surrounding the ruins of a palace. Silt swirled through empty courtyards with abalone floors. Barnacle-covered Greek columns marched into the gloom. In the center of the complex rose a citadel larger than Grand Central Station, its walls encrusted with pearls, its domed golden roof cracked open like an egg.

"Atlantis?" Jason asked.

"That's a myth," Percy said.

"Uh...don't we deal in myths?"

"No, I mean it's a made-up myth. Not, like, an actual true myth."

"So this is why Annabeth is the brains of the operation, then?"

"..."

Bad Jason! Absolutely stupid Jason!

They floated through the broken dome and down into shadows.

"This place seems familiar." Percy's voice became edgy. "Almost like I've been here –"

The green spotlight flashed directly below them, blinding Jason.

He dropped like a stone, touching down on the smooth marble floor. When his vision cleared, he saw that they weren't alone.

Standing before them was a twenty-foot-tall woman in a flowing green dress, cinched at the waist with a belt of abalone shells. Her skin was as luminous-white as the fields of algae. Her hair swayed and glowed like jellyfish tendrils.

Her face was beautiful but unearthly – her eyes too bright, her features too delicate, her smile too cold, as if she'd been studying human smiles and hadn't quite mastered the art.

Her hands rested on a disc of polished green metal about six feet in diameter, sitting on a bronze tripod. It reminded Jason of a steel drum he'd once seen a street performer play at the Embarcadero in San Francisco.

The woman turned the metal disc like a steering wheel. A shaft of green light shot upward, churning the water, shaking the walls of the old palace. Shards from the domed ceiling broke and tumbled down in slow motion.

"You're making the storm," Jason said.

"Indeed I am." The woman's voice was melodic – yet it had a strange resonance, as if it extended past the human range of hearing. Pressure built between Jason's eyes. His sinuses felt like they might explode.

"Okay, I'll bite," Percy said. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

The woman turned towards him. "Why, I am your sister, Perseus Jackson. And I wanted to meet you before you die."

...

Hmmm.

Jason saw two options here: Fight or Talk.

Usually, when faced with a creepy twenty-foot-tall lady with jellyfish hair, he would've gone with fight.

But since she called Percy brother – that made him hesitate.

"Percy, do you know this … individual?"

Percy shook his head. "Doesn't look like my mom, so I'm gonna guess we're related on the godly side. You a daughter of Poseidon, Miss…uh...?"

The pale lady raked her fingernails against the metal disc, making a screeching sound like a tortured whale.

"No one knows me," She sighed. "Why would I assume my own brother would recognize me? I am Kymopoleia!'

Percy and Jason exchanged looks.

"So…" Percy said. "Kym. We're going to call you Kym. And you'd be a, hmm, Nereid, then? Minor Goddess?"

"Minor?!"

"By which," Jason said quickly, "he means under the drinking age! Because obviously you're so young and beautiful."

Percy flashed him a look: Nice save.

The goddess turned her full attention to Jason. She pointed her index finger and traced his outline in the water. Jason could feel his captured air spirit rippling around him, as if it were being tickled.

"Jason Grace," said the goddess. "Son of Jupiter."

"Yeah. I'm a friend of Percy's."

Kym's eyes narrowed. "So it's true…these times make for strange friends and unexpected enemies. The Romans never worshiped me. To them, I was a nameless fear–a sign of Neptune's greatest wrath. They never worshiped Kymopoleia, the goddess of violent sea storms!"

She spun her disc. Another beam of green light flashed upward, churning the water and making the ruins rumble.

He wondered why...

"Yeahhh," Percy said. "The Romans aren't too big on navies. They had, like, one rowboat. Which I sank. Speaking of violent storms, you're doing a first-rate job upstairs."

"Thank you," said Kym.

"Thing is, our ship is caught in it, and it's kind of being ripped apart. I'm sure you didn't mean to –"

"Oh, yes, I did."

"You did." Percy grimaced. "Well…that sucks. I don't suppose you'd cut it out, then, if we asked nicely?"

"No," the goddess agreed. "Even now, the ship is close to sinking. I'm rather amazed it's held together this long. Excellent workmanship."

Sparks flew from Jason's arms into the tornado. He thought about Piper and the rest of the crew frantically trying to keep the ship in one piece. By coming down here, he and Percy had left the others defenseless. They had to act soon.

Besides, Jason's air was getting stale. He wasn't sure if it was possible to use up a ventus by inhaling it, but, if he was going to have to fight, he'd better take on Kym before he ran out of oxygen.

The thing was…fighting a goddess on her home court wouldn't be easy.

Even if they managed to take her down, there was no guarantee the storm would stop.

"So…Kym," he said, "what could we do to make you change your mind and let our ship go?"

Kym gave him that creepy alien smile. "Son of Jupiter, do you know where you are?"

Jason was tempted to answer underwater. "You mean these ruins. An ancient palace?"

"Indeed," Kym said. "The original palace of my father, Poseidon."

Percy snapped his fingers, which sounded like a muffled explosion. "That's why I recognized it. Dad's new crib in the Atlantic is kind of like this."

"I wouldn't know," Kym said. "I am never invited to see my parents. I can only wander the ruins of their old domains. They find my presence…disruptive."

She spun her wheel again. The entire back wall of the building collapsed, sending a cloud of silt and algae through the chamber. Fortunately the ventus acted like a fan, blowing the debris out of Jason's face.

"Disruptive?" Jason said. "You?"

"You haven't seen your folks in that long?" Percy asked softly.

"My father does not welcome me in his court," Kym said. "He restricts my powers. This storm above? I haven't had this much fun in ages, yet it is only a small taste of what I can do!"

"A little goes a long way," Percy responded with a hint of melancholy.

Kym returned her focus back to her younger brother at that.

"Don't pretend to understand me brother," The goddess growled, "What should the Sun know of the struggles of the worms it beats down upon?"

What the hell did that even mean?

"Our father married me off," Kym said, "without my permission mind you. He gave me away like a trophy to Briares, a Hundred-Handed One, as a reward for supporting the gods in the war with Kronos eons ago."

"Wait a mi-" But Kym was on a roll now.

"Demanded of me to be a breeding mare for that devolved chimera for the rest of time!"

She fixed a gnarled finger Percy's way, completely ignoring Jason, which was probably for the best; his venti-clone was fighting for its life at the moment.

"You released him from Alcatraz a while back, you and General Tyson. Oh, don't look so surprised, brother. Did you believe our father would hesitate to boast of his favorite pet of the decade? Every cod fish from the Atlantic to the Pacific knew about your battle with Polybotes by brunch."

Kym was quaking now, the water around her fizzling and bubbling as her temper was pushed to a rolling boil. Her shield-drum beat and boomed like artillery fire, sending tangible pulses of seismic energy outwards to the already decrepit palace.

When it seemed the irate goddess was about to erupt, she stilled. Her enraged countenance shifted to something more placid.

What was it with these sea-types and their borderline bipolar disorder?!

"Small blessings at least," the Mistress of Violent Storms chuckled darkly. "Dear old Kampe saw to it that his spirit had been crushed enough that he'd never have the balls to challenge me."

"It's been...heavenly." Kym seemed to be reeling in pure, unmitigated ecstasy at her final proclamation. The goddess's eyes were clouded and swirling. A gentle sigh of content sent bubbles shooting through the bioluminescent brine at a snail's pace.

Jason felt like he was going to be sick, for someone to rejoice in another person's torment like this, the act - or acts - that had to have fueled this manner of unfiltered hatred. To the point it still festered after thousands of years...

"He raped you," Percy said softly.

There was no hesitation, no argument, no maybes. No excuses. It was a pure, indelible statement.

"For what it's worth," He continued, "I can't even begin to tell you how-"

"I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO ACT LIKE YOU UNDERSTOOD ME, YOU HALFBREED BASTARD!" Kymopoleia roared.

Her luminescent hair swayed madly around her form, as she banged her fist on her shield-drum again.

Jason's venti-clone seemed like it was trying to spontaneously combust itself in the vain hope of escaping the raging deity. He found it hard to blame it. Kym's fury was clear to see; there was no denying it. The sheer titanic wrath she seemed to exude from her pinky tip...what her very presence was doing to the already destroyed palace was all the excuse Romans needed to never board a sea vessel, forget Neptune.

But her pain, gods, the pain on her face was the only natural expression he'd seen from her throughout their entire exchange.

"I do understand you, Kym, not entirely, but more than you'd know."

Jason was sure he'd live to be 60 and still never be able to set his neck straight, given how fast he'd whipped it in his friend's direction.

The goddess had shown no mercy to his brother-in-arms during her verbal onslaught, he counted at least 7 lacerations on his arms, legs and torso. And these were just the visible wounds he could identify, his friend likely had internal injuries as evident by his labored breathing.

Kymopoleia had been able to do this to the Son of Poseidon in his own element. Granted it was possible Percy had allowed her to ravage him in some twisted sense of atonement, still...he figured the reason his venti-clone hadn't completely quit on him was because the goddess was too busy handing her younger brother his ass on a platter to bother with him.

Back to Percy, though. His face was stormy, almost as angry as Kymopoleia's, but underneath the fury, underneath all the forced machismo and lunacy...was a deep set melancholy.

Weakness and shame poured forth from the boy who'd been forced to become a man much too early, as he mourned his lost innocence with his half sister.

Speak of the devil, the goddess had shrunk to a more 'modest' height of 2 meters as opposed to her previous 6. She waded through the deep ocean with all the grace of an accomplished ballerina.

The children of the Sea stood parallel to each other, eye to eye, gazing at each other for what felt like a quiet eternity.

Jason felt like an outsider.

"Speak plain, little brother," Kym said.

"..." Percy's shoulders slumped just a fraction of a degree as he gathered his wits about him. "I never wanted to be a Half-Blood, Kym."

"Is this a bad time? I'm quite sure this is a bad time." A deep voice sniggered.

Above them, a dark shape appeared at the edge of the broken roof – a figure even taller than Kymopoleia.

The giant floated down. Clouds of dark viscous fluid–poison, perhaps–curled from his blue skin. His green breastplate was fashioned to resemble a cluster of open hungry mouths. In his hands were the weapons of a retiarius – a trident and a weighted net.

Jason had never met this particular giant, but he'd heard stories. "Polybotes," he said, "The anti-Poseidon."

The giant shook his dreadlocks. A dozen serpents swam free – each one lime green with a frilled crown around its head. Basilisks.

"Indeed, son of Rome," the giant said. "But, if you'll excuse me, my immediate business is with Perseus Jackson. I tracked him across Tartarus. Now, here in his father's ruins, I mean to crush him once and for all."

Y*C*O*Y*W

Translations for Greek Words in Ch 0 and Ch 1:

- μένα ουσία - My Essence

- βηλὸς θεσπέσiος - Heavenly Threshold

-Ζαγρεύς Μακάριος - Zagreus the Blessed

- Ἐννοσίγαιος - Earth-shaker

-βαρύκτυπο - Loud-thundering

-ποντομέδων - Lord of the Seas

- Ἄναξ - The King

-Ποσειδῶν - Poseidon

- Περσεύς επιμένως - Perseus Epimenos

- Ελευθερωτής - Liberator

Chapter 3: Destiny's Gambit

"If Fate means for you to lose, give the bastard a good fight anyhow."

- William McFee

Destiny's Gambit

TW: Mentions of Abuse and SA below

29 July 2010, Aegean Sea, Naxos, Greece

56 Hours Till G-Day

PERCY HAD ALREADY DECIDED HIS SISTER WAS BAT-SHIT CRAZY.

He didn't doubt that in the slightest, but he'd be damned if she couldn't barter with the best of them.

It had been over 5 hours since Jason's and his encounter with his estranged half-sister. More than 5 hours since the subsequent arrival - and abrupt departure - of one of his deadliest enemies.

The Bane of his fa- of Poseidon.

He wasn't comfortable calling the god, Father, with what he knew right now.

Was it a fair bit of virtue signaling? Without a doubt. He hadn't even known Kymopoleia existed till today.

Percy wasn't stupid—no matter how much he strove to prove the contrary. He could maybe contextualize the fact that Poseidon had pawned off his own full-blooded daughter to Briares as a product of the times, but what he wouldn't do was sit back and pretend the very act didn't disgust him to his core.

Due in part, to no small degree, that it appeared the barnacle-ridden euphemism didn't even care enough about her to dissolve the marriage till now.

Putting aside his own...experiences, his personal upbringing from his mother all but demanded he throttles the god the next time he saw him.

Back to Polybotes, though. The very thought of the Gigante should have disgusted him to his core, yet he found himself fighting to hold back his amusement as he thought back to how the Elder Giant had met his gruesome end.

Till the day he croaked, he doubted he would ever be witness to such a blatant manner of highway robbery.

Kym had demanded everything - and more - on the Styx from the over-eager son of Jupiter for her aid in slaying the Giant, from great grand temples right on Capitoline Hill to merchandizable action figures.

Luckily - for him at least - Percy had been a tad bit busy trying to force-feed the Giant its own poison to entrap himself in such a bargain, but credit where it was due, the deal had cured Jason of his sword poisoning...somehow.

Speaking of the self-proclaimed Pontifex XLS, Percy was surprised by how little a fuss he'd made about...that. Granted, he hadn't revealed much before Polybotes made his presence known.

Still, it was nice, he supposed, he had. He tried to corner him and make him unload. I'd been content to let Percy maintain his space while the avenue of conversation was open to him should he require it.

There had been no pity in his stormy blue eyes, not even a patronizing "Are you okay?" Jason only gave Percy a firm squeeze on his shoulder after his sister's exit and a resolute nod as they ascended to their friends.

And that was all he needed, truly. He didn't want to be treated like some particularly fragile piece of china, locked up and paraded in a silly glass cabinet for 'protection.' He didn't want to be coddled or given importance over others because of his issues.

He didn't need to be seen as weak. He didn't want to. The very thought had his guts itching to retch.

He was Percy fucking Jackson; he'd clawed his way out of Tartarus, gargling on the blood of his enemies. His fear could only ever be as deep as he allowed it to be, what She'd done to him didn't phase him even a little bit, and he'd more than prove it to everyone and everything the very second he got back to kicking ass and taking names.

He just needed time. He was sure of it. He could get over this with more time. He had to hold onto that lifeline.

But if he couldn't?

If dealing with...that ever became too much for him to bear?

We're staying together. You're never getting away from me. Never again.

An oath to keep with a final breath.

He had his out.

...

'Woof, that was fucking morbid.' He thought belatedly.

He turned his attention back to the present. The Argo II had made some decent progress in the hours past. It had taken about an hour and a half to get the ship stable again after the beating his sister's storm had dealt it, and an extra two before they finally continued sailing(= read limping) over the Mediterranean again.

The crew had agreed to continue traveling over water—the ship was much too damaged to even entertain the thought of flight at the moment—given that they'd secured Kymopoleia's blessing for the duration of the trip.

Why they hadn't petitioned for some kind of blessing from one of the Olympians before this quest began? Percy wasn't quite sure. It seemed the gods were holding out on them.

'As usual.' He thought cynically.

They were a ways off the coast of Mykonos now, the sharp summer trade winds aiding the ship's mobility immensely. Jason and Frank had volunteered to scout ashore for supplies once they reached the port in the morning, while Percy and Leo kept watch in the crow's nest for the night.

Well, Percy kept watch in the crow's nest while the pint-sized Latino lamented over his busted magnum opus. He'd been miffed when the younger demigod brushed off his help fixing the boat earlier, but he respected the younger boy's need for space. Cause that's what friends do for each other. Support each other at their lowest.

And if the son of Hephaestus slipped on an inconspicuous puddle of engine oil in the dimly lit maintenance room about...mmm, 45 paces to his left and a floor below him? Percy would be right there to patch him up and brew him a nice hot cup of cocoa. Cause that's what friends do for each other. Support each other at their lowest.

He inhaled the crisp, humid Aegean air while fussing over his weapon.

Anaklusmos. Riptide. His ride or die.

The blade had neither chipped nor charred from any of the abuse he'd visited upon it, what with the battle-frenzied lunatics he often found himself up against.

A standard issue celestial bronze xiphos with an ethereal glow on paper, yet so much more.

Riptide was more than beautiful.

Calling her - yes, he'd given his blade a gender - just a sword or tool was a disgusting descriptor. Riptide was inspiring yet terrifying, powerful and merciful, stained by blood yet pure as a newborn...she had remained his constant companion through all his years as a demigod, more so than Grover.

Even Annabeth hadn't had his back as much as she had lately.

'...May eternity remain kind to you, Zoe Nightshade.' Percy prayed quietly.

A surge of nostalgic warmth flowed through his nerve endings as the constellation of the Huntress twinkled softly in the star-lit night sky. The world he occupied was all manner of magical, and it remained keen to remind him of that fact with every passing day.

He adjusted his hold on her worn leather grip as he gave a cursory inspection of his newly acquired whetstone—a block of smoothed silver about the length and breadth of a 90s-era brick phone.

Smack dab in the center was an engraved box of jellyfish.

The symbol of Kymopoleia.

It was a gift from his sister in place of an apology for trying - and failing - to capture and kill them for the Earth Mother.

A whetstone.

"It's a Kymopoleia original. The entirety of the Greek world will be at each other's throats to get one once it stocks the shelves; of this, I have no doubt." The madwoman had promised with all the unapologetic audacity he'd come to expect from all immortals by now.

Percy could no longer hold back the shudders that wracked his body; he threw his head back and openly laughed to the heavens for all he was worth, tears prickling at the edges of his vision with every second he spent in joyous stitches.

'It's all so bizarre,' He thought fondly, his soft green eyes half-lidded.

He continued like that for a few more blissful moments before finally reining himself in, taking a toolkit of time to gaze at the majestic canvas over him.

He decided what humanity had done to nature as a whole was unforgivable.

You really had to be there to see it. Like the clouds had been pushed apart by some otherworldly force—which was likely the case here—the stars made themselves known to him with the sheer zeal of a New York street vendor.

Percy wasn't going hippie by any stretch of the imagination. No, sir, he'd still take his cheeseburgers with extra chili and jalapenos.

But gods.

In this quaint patch of ocean, untouched by pollution, he could gape in speechless awe at the ethereal beauty of creation. The boundless, violet dome above him was blanketed with the pulsing hopes and dreams of billions before him.

Every last one of the twinkling luminaries told a tale as old as time.

A sudden surge of euphoria allowed him to dream again.

No, not the metaphysical kidnapping the three Watery Tarts insisted on forcing upon his sleep every time there was a quest to be had.

This was a proper, innocent, childlike dream.

This feeling pushed him to fantasize without a care in the world, begged him to whisper dreams he'd long since buried in the furthest depths of his subconsciousness.

He felt a calling - more akin to a higher purpose - to reach beyond the 'paltry' dregs of human civilization. To go beyond the lands of gods, mortals, monsters, and anything else that wished to stifle him. To explore without constraint and forgo his problems.

To live free.

He sheathed his sword in anticipation; he could see it now all too clearly.

A ship not too dissimilar from the one he found himself musing upon, Hades he'd settle for a moldy dingy if it came down to it. Draped in all manner of memorabilia from his travels. His vessel would persevere through the lamest squalls to the most thunderous typhoons.

Waves the size of skyscrapers would fall short against his celestial bronze figurehead. Adversaries with forces numbering in the thousands would swoon in terror at the sight of his Jolly Roger.

He couldn't do this without a crew, though, not at all. By his side was his Wise Girl, her breath-taking face set in her usual shit-eating grin. Their conflicts were long behind them.

Grover was with them, too, besting his opponents with the ear-killers he called reed pipes. It had started with the three of them, so it was only right that it ended with them.

He'd ask the rest of the seven if they wanted to accompany him. The individual talent and raw willpower they'd all shone on this single quest was more than enough for his seal of approval.

Manning the crow's nest was Sally Jackson—La Madre Grande. She'd been hesitant at first to go on such a voyage, but she caved at the mention of novel inspiration.

His friends from Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter could make the occasional cameo or two, he thought; the more, the merrier.

He saw them all together in a great round table. Trading laughs and stories, singing shanties across a fire, chucking grapes and hams, living in contentment far away from the whims of the gods.

Like a proper family.

It almost brought a tear to his eye; it was an excellent dream.

...

Yet it ended all too soon, as he felt a soft rapping on the sturdy white pine of his perch. He'd been content to ignore the trespasser for some time now, hoping they'd take the hint, but alas, he could only be so lucky.

He let out a sigh of discontent as he felt the body moving toward the starboard rail; it seemed he wouldn't be able to avoid this confrontation.

A slight poke in his gut brought one of the many coils of hanging rope to his side in an instant. His moment of respite passed indefinitely as his chucks thumped down against the main deck, a soft wind ruffling his shaggy, unkempt hair as he marched toward the culprit with forced ease.

He relaxed by their side, comforted by the gentle lapping of the waves on the barnacle-encrusted hull. He ought to give that a look sometime before the final battle.

His visitor was dressed in her regular attire. An atrocious bright orange Camp Half-Blood tee, tucked into a snug pair of jean shorts with an empty knife holster strapped to her left thigh. Why she still kept the holster after she'd lost the blade somewhere in bumfuck Tartarus, he had no clue, but it wouldn't be the first time the daughter of Athena's familial affection for Luke Castellan had puzzled him before.

'I'm a lot taller than her now, huh...how about that?' He remarked to himself.

He finally broke the silence when it seemed his companion was having difficulty uttering her words.

"The stars sure are beautiful tonight," He said, "aren't they Annabeth?"

Y*C*O*Y*W

His girlfriend remained quiet for a few beats, her brilliant eyes tracing every open nook and cranny of his figure.

She spoke - praise the gods...nah, keep them far away from him - when she noticed her staring had become visibly uncomfortable.

"You look about as good as I feel."

His girlfriend, folks. Ever the voice of brutal honesty. He welcomed it. They were going through a rough patch right now - a statement he'd never so much as considered the possibility of before - no use acting like everything was all hunky dory.

"Nice to see you too, babe," He started, "How bad are they?"

Judging by how she clammed up on herself, he took solace in that he didn't need to specify what they were.

"The nightmares are...tamer now. I haven't had to heave my guts out since Sparta. Piper's been—" Annabeth stopped abruptly, her face adopting a sheepish impression.

"..."

His answering smile was wistful. He raised his hand to comfort her but thought better of it. Annabeth was skittish right now; the erratic pounding of her heart he could feel with his powers only confirmed his worries.

Any sudden movements, no matter how well-meaning, would backfire utterly.

"It's okay. I'm serious. It is," he added at her skeptical glance. You were in a bad place and needed support from someone you could trust. And I...well, I couldn't be that person for you then. It's fine. There's no judgment here." Percy ended casually.

And he meant it, too, while his patience with the Cherokee bombshell was rapidly thinning due to her blatant evasions. He appreciated the wonders the daughter of Aphrodite's much-needed company had done for his girlfriend.

Her skin had regained its usual golden Californian tan, and her arms and thighs were firm and defined again.

Her soft blonde curls, smelling faintly of lemon shampoo, bobbed and danced in the warm Aegean air. She carried herself better, too, now (the fact she was even talking to him was proof enough). Her back was straighter, her jaw set, and her eyes hard.

To the untrained eye, it might have looked like not much had changed for her psyche, but Percy knew better. She was a thousand times better now than back in the Pit.

Percy thumbed his left palm, tracing a jagged scar that went from end to end as he recalled the crazed fit she'd had once they were free from Her.

"Annabeth...Annabeth, please wake up. We need to move. Now," Percy breathed out.

Exhaustion colored his tone as he funneled Phlegethon liquid to his cohort's chapped lips.

Bob the Titan stood quietly to the side, measured anger pouring out of the kind Titan in waves. His formerly innocent face was twisted in fury and muted pity. His grip on his spear was bone-white as he surveyed their immediate surroundings, with Small Bob as his loyal shadow.

"She told me she'd drop us off here with Bob, but She never elaborated on where here is." He continued seemingly to no one.

"Annie. Wise girl, please. Please. I can't do this without you. I'm too..."

He let out a choked sigh. His skin felt like a moist nesting ground for marching fire ants. Everything about his senses felt loopy like he'd just come off a nasty acid trip from raw fentanyl.

Percy felt dirty.

His body and soul felt tainted in a way he didn't want to describe. The more he tried to scrub away the metaphysical stains, the harder the slimy feeling overtook him. Whenever he dared to close his eyes or allow any darkness to overtake him, he swore he could hear her haunting laugh right next to his ears.

Percy wanted to go home.

He wanted to get out of this stupid Pit, preferably within the next 10 seconds. He wanted to wash his hands clean of this accursed quest, purchase a retirement home, maybe somewhere in Cabo, far away from the gods and their asinine bullshit for himself and Annabeth, and never so much as smell a monster again, precisely in that order.

Percy didn't care how twisted it appeared to use his abilities on his lover in such a way; he had to get away from here. The chances of Her returning to him for more were far too high, considering how close they were to her abode. With all the dangers they experienced every 10 feet they took in this hellscape, expecting any one of their weary party to carry Annabeth would be tantamount to suicide.

He had to do this.

Annabeth wasn't giving him much of a choice here.

It wasn't his fault.

"Wake up, Annabeth." He poured out, putting a great deal of power into those 3 simple words.

Annabeth shot up like she'd been supercharged with a double shot of espresso, her eyes wild and frantic, searching for anything familiar in their forced habitat's red, hazy mist.

There was a hint of recognition once her eyes landed on Percy - he dared to hope again - that was all the warning he got before she whipped out her ivory blade and slashed diagonally in a wild effort to decapitate him.

Years of battle instincts saved his life as he leaned just out of reach. The bone sword missing his left eye by a hair.

What the Styx?!

"Annabeth! Calm down. It's just me," Percy implored. It's just me. I'm not going to hurt you. I'd never hurt you. You're safe."

Well, as safe as could be, but still.

He raised his arms slowly in surrender, hoping to appear as non-threatening as possible.

Bob had turned around now at the noise. Small Bob was already tearing towards them, clear-cut retribution splayed across his feline features.

"No, wait! She's not her-"

She took another wild swipe at him in his moment of distraction, nearly cleaving his hand in two before Bob bullrushed her. His enormous bulk was enough to corral her while Small Bob hissed with venom from Percy's side.

"Calm yourself, friend Annabeth," the silver Titan ordered. You are among allies here!"

"Monster!" The daughter of Athena shrieked, "He's a fucking monster!"

She continued trying to wrestle away from the Titan, her legs kicking wildly at the fog, but Bob didn't so much as flinch. His gaze was mournful as he took in Percy's shattered visage; the son of Poseidon didn't even seem to notice his own blood pooling at his feet.

"Wise girl..." He murmured.

"Don't you fucking call me that!" She screeched.

Percy recoiled in horror. His eyes dulled in anguish, yet Annabeth continued to push on.

"Stay away from me, Percy Jackson," she warned lowly. "You stay far the hell away from me."

Her words may as well have been physical blows, with the way Percy nearly buckled underneath them. He wanted to defend his actions, to protest his innocence.

"I didn't have a choice!" He wanted to say.

"I did it for you!" He needed to shout.

He couldn't speak, taking her odious insults to the chin with a stony face.

He still couldn't say a word even after they'd passed through the doors.

Y*C*O*Y*W

He was brought out of his memories by his lover's short peals of laughter, a soft tinkling note that managed to sound both endearing and condescending.

He arched a brow in confusion, which only made her laugh harder.

"What's so funny?" He asked, his mood souring even further.

Annabeth took a few scant breaths to stifle her giggles, her hand covering the lower half of her face in a cartoonish, haughty expression.

"You, Seaweed Brain," She answered finally, "Or your thought process, if you want me to get technical."

"Huh?"

The daughter of Athena let out a long-suffering sigh as she prepared for a verbal sparring.

"It just happened, Percy. Stay with me now. Earlier, you said you 'couldn't' be that person for me...I think we both know that's not true."

"In what regard?" He deadpanned, a frown marring his face.

"..."

Annabeth looked at him like he'd personally defiled a modern marvel of architecture.

"Oh gods, we're really doing this song and dance routine tonight, aren't we? " she answered finally. "Shame, the stars looked really good, too."

"Get to the point, Annabeth." Percy clipped. His arms folded across his bony chest as he adjusted his back on the railing.

"Oh, I'm getting there, trust me," she responded with equal fervor, her dazzling eyes getting stormier by the second as she stubbornly clenched her jaw.

He should have stopped her then and there, acquiesced to whatever inane conjectures she'd come up with. Percy knew that look like the back of his hand. By the gods, she still got caught up in cow dung from the last goddess she'd spoken to with that look.

Yet, for some reason, he didn't back down an inch from the coming argument. To be honest, this conversation couldn't have come sooner. The frustration of weeks and weeks of radio silence from his paramour, coupled with his own unattended problems, nearly brought his more destructive heritage into the fold.

"Tartarus. Edge of Creation. Akhlys." She bit out acidly, "Don't tell me you couldn't be the person I needed; it implies you didn't have a choice."

"I wasn't sure death by melting a neighbor's distance from the end of the universe was much of a choice," Percy scoffed with an annoyed eye roll.

"Bull. Shit. Jackson."

She emphasized each word with a poke to his chest, her face coloring angrily as she worked up her nerves.

"You had her dead to rights already; there was no reason to go that far."

Percy had to murmur a quick prayer to a higher power for patience, of all the things she could have said...

"She was a Primordial, Annabeth," he said slowly, unsure how this was still a talking point. "She'd already shown she would go nuclear on us for giggles. Whaddya mean 'no reason'?"

He knew he should have ended things then and there; nothing good ever came through for his body whenever he got annoyed enough for his New York tongue to come out.

"I mean, you could have handled things differently there. You had all the power in that fight; you could have struck a deal or something."

She'd begun pacing around the deck now, lost in her own world, her hands flapping wildly in the wind as she emphasized her points. She turned her attention back to him.

"You saw how quickly she ran away from you once she had the chance, didn't you?" She questioned innocently.

Too innocent.

Percy sighed in annoyance.

Why did she keep doing this? Could she try for one fucking second to understand where he was coming from?

She was the smart one.

The one he could trust to somehow find a way to pull his ass out of the fire when things got shaky.

And yet..he couldn't help but whisper:

"It's a miracle you could see anything with how far you were from the action."

...

Annabeth froze for all of 2 seconds before she went nuclear.

She cocked her fist back and socked him square in the eye.

...Fuck, okay, that was fair, he deserved that. He'd gone a bit too far there.

He took a second or several to steady himself, his vision already dimming from where she'd punched him, and tried to reach out to Annabeth to apologize.

She smacked his arm away like the limb had groped a gorgon while he wasn't looking. She wasn't quite finished, it seemed.

"Fuck. You. Percy Jackson. Fuck you and everything you've made yourself into. You think I don't—that I haven't been asking myself all this time what I could have done differently in that fight?!" Annabeth screamed in his face, "That I haven't run myself ragged playing all the scenes in my head praying for one. Single. Alternative? Are you stupid? How dare you?!"

She was crying now, sobbing more like her right hand fisted into her tee right above her heart as her knees wobbled unsteadily. Every single layer of practiced ease she'd crafted over the past few weeks was falling apart with every cuss word. Percy had practically broken his girlfriend apart with one sentence.

How could he?

"I'm sorry-"

She raised her hand in a stopping motion, ending his coming apology as he held back an instinctual flinch.

"Don't! Just shut up. This was a bad idea from the very start. What was I thinking? Everything you've done since we stepped into Tartarus. Lying to Bob. Manipulating him into killing his own brother. Akhlys. You boiled those harpies alive with their own blood just last week, Percy! Why? What was the reason?" Annabeth counted his sins like a tally card on a scoresheet, taking self-righteous satisfaction from every one of his flinches.

"You've turned yourself into a selfish monster not even Sally would want to remember anymore. And it's all. Your. Fault."

Never let it be said the children of the Wisdom Goddess couldn't strike where it hurt, especially with words. Annabeth had all but stabbed him with a serrated knife and then twisted with that last barb.

"Not the gods. Not the fates. Not even Gabe."

One syllable.

Just one syllable was all it took for him to snap; his earlier feelings of remorse crumpled and thrown into an empty trash compactor. The fire in his core raged as repressed memories pushed themselves to the forefront of his mind, phantasms of abuse howling at his soul with the intensity of a damned maelstrom. The feeling of betrayal audibly masticated on his psyche like a starving cannibal.

Percy had told her about that in confidence.

That she'd bring him up for the sole purpose of hurting him...

A fractured memory of an obese humanoid walrus in a smelly, greasy wife-beater and musty forest-green cargo shorts pulsed with a red hue in his head. The fat man loomed over him balefully with a bloodied bottle in his catcher's mitt of a hand.

'And your dreams? They're just fucking dreams! Y'hear me, ya little shitstain? SAY IT!'

7-year-old Percy had his tiny hands fisted on his bleeding skull as he sobbed on the bloody shag carpet. Even as an infant, his inborn demigod instincts had been able to warn him of the dangers of leaving such an awful wound to chance; between hate-filled tears, he managed to eke out a feeble response to the animal before him.

'My dreams are just dreams.'

'AGAIN! LOUDER!'

'MY DREAMS ARE JUST DREAMS OKAY?!'

Gabriel Ugliano.

"I WAS DYING, ANNABETH! " he bellowed, his hand slamming onto the enchanted oak railing, cratering it in the center and descending further, sending forth a colossal pulse of divine energy to the tranquil ocean.

A violent eruption of water roughly 80 meters and climbing towered over them a moderate distance from the Argo II, yet still managed to douse the deck and its occupants with a hefty shower of salt water and sea life, the after-flood rocking the ship.

Nature itself bent the knee to the irate son of Poseidon as thunder rumbled like an air raid above them. The beautiful star-ridden sky became polluted with storm clouds the color of gunmetal, with lightning streaking through them unimpeded, creating the vindictive impression of a spider's web.

'No puedo más, NO PUEDO MÁS!' Leo yelled from the engine room. "Puedes pendejos dejar de lastimar a mi amiga?! POR FAVOR!"

Percy's eyes were glowing again. His enraged green eyes were incandescent against the gloom, like a blazing searchlight in the dead of night, lighting up the choppy, inky-black sea with acid green in a way not even the stars could hope to achieve at the moment.

Time chugged on at a snail's pace for Annabeth as the daughter of Athena actually feared her boyfriend would hurt her...

All too soon, however, Percy's grief won out, the unwelcome emotion replacing white-hot anger with hard-learned despondency. Why she'd even thought his rage at her would amount to anything close to hurting her pained him; he'd never willingly bring harm to her.

He could never.

No amount of unattended trauma would ever be able to justify living with himself if he ever laid an unwanted hand on a girl he'd sacrificed so much for, especially not for a dead man.

Percy dug his arm out of the shattered wood none too gently, grimacing at the wet tears he heard as his flesh shredded itself from the action.

He slumped to the ground, his head between his thighs, as he willed an orb of seawater to treat both his mutilated hand and his black eye. Taking extra care to summon a gentle wave to sweep back the displaced fish before they suffocate.

"I was dying." He resumed quietly, his expression haunted, "In body and soul. There wouldn't be an afterlife for me, not in Tartarus. It'd be like I'd never even existed."

He turned to the daughter of Athena, her own visage conflicted.

"And you know what's 'funny'?" he asked, a disbelieving chuckle on the tip of his tongue. "For a second there, I was okay with it; I'd actually accepted dying there alone."

Annabeth sat down by him, taking his mostly healed arm to her own, helping him pick out the more difficult splinters the water had been unable to clear. Her hand looked so tiny compared to his—an almost perfect antithesis to the scars and callouses marring his own.

So delicate and pure.

"...What changed?" She inquired timidly. Ever the daughter of the Knowledge Seeker. "What made you want to keep fighting? What pushed you to do what you did."

"You, dummy." He answered simply.

"Don't try to put that on-"

"I'd have had to leave you alone again," he rushed to clarify. I'd be abandoning my mom, the crew, Camp Half-Blood, the world, everybody. Everything and everyone I knew and loved would've been lost to me."

Percy licked at his lips unconsciously, his newfound clarity at the scope of it all enough to make him puke, "...and it might not mean too much to you. But it meant everything to me then. It's the only thing keeping me going now."

His girlfriend studied him intensely as he concluded his soliloquy, biting her lip in frustration as she let him see her vulnerability.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she rested her head on his shoulder, her grip on his hand tight, as she softly rubbed the scar on his palm.

They had fallen into a cordial silence, content with each other's warmth as they shifted and swayed to the boat's now gentle rocking.

...

"Percy?" She asked softly.

He hummed in answer, too mentally drained to respond more verbally.

"What did she do to you once I lost consciousness?"

He froze, not at the question but at the sheer memory of the Primordial.

"No."

"Percy, I'm the last person to be telling you this," She said, "But please, don't shut me out."

That was fucking rich.

Points for honesty, he supposed, but he wasn't budging.

"Stop it. I'm not talking about this."

"Jason was the one who suggested I give you a shot. He didn't tell me anything; calm down, but he looked worried, Percy." She added quickly upon seeing Percy's turbulent expression.

Any goodwill he'd felt for the Son of Jupiter earlier went to waste. He should've finished the job and fed his corpse to the sharks while the storm kept everyone occupied.

"Annabeth, I can't." He stressed.

She got off his shoulder and looked him right in the eyes.

"You can't, or you won't?"

"What the fuck does it matter?!" He demanded desperately.

"Percy, I saw what you did to Akhlys..."

"I know you did; you don't have to keep reminding me, " he moaned, burying his head in his hands.

"No, Percy, I saw what you did to Akhlys."

That caught him off-guard. His head snapped towards his girlfriend's grim face in shock. The poor girl could only offer an understanding nod.

"She brought me back just in time to see the end of it...but even that was more than enough." She pushed. "I was terrified and so, so confused, and it made me act stupid. I should've tried to reach out. Should've gotten your side of the story."

"Annabeth, don't-"

"But I was so angry and hurt! I thought," she stammered unsteadily, "...I thought you'd gone back to finish the job when you thought I wasn't looking."

"Annabeth-"

"And it made me act like such a bitch to you; it made me selfish because for all my problems, at least I had someone looking out for me. But you?" She laughed self-deprecatingly, "You've been dealing with all of this alone from the start, haven't you? From the-"

"Stop it, Annabeth! Please just-just stop it already." He ended lamely, the tears running down his cheeks already puddling in front of him as quiet sobs wracked his body.

Annabeth wasted no time in consoling him, cradling his head in her bosom as he cried his heart out. Murmuring sweet nothings into his hair as he struggled to get his shit together.

He hated this. He hated this conversation.

Hated Annabeth for making him feel like this.

Felt disgusted with himself for being so weak.

Cursed at Gaea in his heart, at Athena, the Fates, at every single immortal prick responsible for this stupid fucking quest, for making him have to go down into Tartarus in the first place.

And he hated hated hated hated hated Her for what she'd done to him. For fucking him up so utterly.

He looked upwards desperately, hoping to draw comfort or a reprieve from the stars again.

No such luck; what he saw had him wishing for the burden of the sky again.

Holy Hera, drowning in muskeg again was preferable to this.

He was struggling for air, the mouthfuls he gulped disappearing by the second. Annabeth detached herself from his immediate space as soon as she noticed his vigorous breaths, fearing he was having an anxiety attack and hoping to grant him respite. She turned her upwards violently when the shallow breaths showed no sign of stopping and audibly choked on her saliva.

As if summoned by immortal spite, She stood there.

Billowing clouds of black extended from her back, floating outward like wings. A miasmic fog floated across her almost nude form as it clung to her like the barest hint of primal wear. Even her flowing hair helped hide her skin. Across her body, the same stars that dotted her cheekbones splattered her torso. He could even make out the form of the Huntress, aiming her bow at the Goddess' heart.

She gave him a smug, tinkling white smile, and he knew instinctively She could taste his fear.

Tartarus' sweaty armpits, it looked like She couldn't quite get enough of his panic.

Percy should have done something, anything at all, to try to defend himself, yet he sat his ass down firmly on that deck, paralyzed with fear as the Night cackled like a wicked witch of the west to herself.

He scrunched his eyes tight as memories of the Mansion of Horrors reacted to their proprietor, trying their level best to leave him a sniveling mess on the floor.

He felt a soft tugging on his shirt from his girlfriend. His girlfriend. He couldn't leave her alone to deal with this monster; it wouldn't even be a contest.

He rose to his feet and opened his eyes, glaring fiercely upwards to where the goddess once was, a violent churning in his gut as he prepared for what would most certainly be his final battle, but she was gone just as fast as she came. Not even a hint of the fog she emanated lingered in her absence.

...

Huh.

Well, that was anticlimactic-

SMACK.

His head twisted violently to the side, and Percy was all but certain it was going to leave a very red cheek.

He rolled with the strike as he plunged his hand into his pocket, bent the entire Aegean to his will, and then turned back to his assailant. Riptide and the barely restrained fury of the sea, ready to skewer and crush, but faltered at the sight of an unamused Annabeth Chase.

Her arms were folded across her chest as her foot tapped against the floor, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised in question at the towering conglomeration a literal hair's breadth away from her form.

"ANNABETH!" he shouted angrily, not quite ready to release his hold on his domain yet.

"What?" She said in answer, her hands on her hips as she returned his glare with equal ferocity.

He gestured comically to the rapidly forming hand-shaped bruise on his cheek, then looked at her like she was crazy, gesturing for her to speak.

"You were tempting fate." She said simply.

"WHAT! " he exclaimed in indignation. His eyes narrowed in confusion as his arms drooped limply to his sides, the sea receding slightly.

She marched towards him determinedly - utterly unimpeded by the water still surrounding her - and poked him in the chest aggressively.

"Don't get snippy with me, Jackson, I've been with you for 5 years. I know your at least it can't any worse look like the back of my hand." She finished with a poor mimic of his voice.

"I was-" He stopped suddenly once her eyes drifted to her hand, likely in prep for another round of disciplining.

He slumped fully now and sheathed his sword, his earlier adrenaline deteriorating as he relinquished his hold on the water.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" He questioned, "To loosen me up."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Seaweed Brain, " she said absently, though her self-satisfied smirk was evidence enough to the contrary.

Idly, he noticed they were close enough to each other now for their noses to touch, likely a conscious effort by his Wise Girl if the way her eyes were shining were any indication.

He enveloped her in a gentle hug, sighing contently as the scent of her shampoo massaged his fraying nerves. His heart skipped a beat at her noticeable flinch and nearly flatlined when it looked like she wouldn't reciprocate the hug. Her soft chuckles soothed him, though. It seemed teasing was the order of the hour now.

"You dick," He grumbled, "You're too good for me."

She remained silent for a few beats, instead choosing to cling to him like a life preserver on a sinking boat.

"No, Percy, I'm really not."

He felt a jolt of pain as her hand drifted down to his previous Achilles spot, almost like she was guarding it, and guided them back to the railing.

The pair meandered in silence before Percy finally huffed a puff of air in exasperation.

"You still want to know, don't you?" He asked.

"..."

She kept quiet as she nodded minutely, her curiosity overriding her self-preservation.

He glanced upwards again at nothing but the desolate sky, its previous brilliance dulled. He didn't for a second take that to mean she was gone, though.

Just because he couldn't see her didn't mean She couldn't see him.

"We made a deal," Percy said, "Akhlys' life for yours."

Annabeth narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Figures she wouldn't buy such a feeble response.

But that wasn't what he was trying to hide.

"There's more to that, I know there is." She pleaded.

"..."

"Percy..."

"She needed a sacrifice for something," he said carefully, "She'd have preferred me, but Akhlys was enough of a substitute."

Another round of contemplative silence.

"Wasn't-wasn't Akhlys her daughter? Why would she..."

"I'm not going to pretend to understand her thought process," He shook his head in disgust, "And I don't really want to, but the Night is from a different time. It's not so hard to believe that She wouldn't have much of a tolerance for 'weaklings.'"

"But she protected Hypnos from Zeus in the stories!" She cried desperately, still trying to make sense of it all.

He empathized with her

wholly; he still questioned the point of it all and had been there for it.

"I think She was more okay with it?" He pondered, "Yeah, more okay with it because Akhlys lost to a demigod. Hypnos had the defense in that he'd been running from Zeus of all gods."

"Either way, it doesn't matter much to me." He shrugged.

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?!" Annabeth wailed at the casual dismissal.

He turned to her, gazing solemnly down at her enchanting stormy irises. He cupped a hand to her left cheek, preening at how she leaned to his touch without thought.

"It doesn't matter to me because I don't regret it." He said as he brought his other hand to her right cheek, "Not one bit. You're here; you're here right now as strong and beautiful and as freaking amazing as you've always been."

Annabeth held onto his wrists like they were the only things keeping her from melting on the spot, her cheeks as crimson as one of Apollo's cows.

"You're such a sap, you dork." She murmured softly, "What are we going to do Percy?"

She released his arms and rested her head on his chest while he wrapped his arms around her, reveling in her warmth.

We.

He noticed fondly that she'd said We; there might still be some hope here.

"We still have no idea how to beat Gaea of all gods; now we have another Primordial after our necks." She laughed depressingly, "Two, if Tartarus himself wants a piece of the action."

"Plus Titans and Gods and monsters, and it's too much, Percy! We've done too much. We've seen too much. I can't-I don't," Annabeth looked up to him with wide, panicked eyes, "I don't want to die, Percy."

Annabeth's voice broke at the end, her body shaking weakly as his chest dampened from warm, wet tears. However, he took it all in silence, content to let her be while he worked out a response.

What could he even say? He'd thought as much during his encounter with Akhlys, and it had only become more apparent as the days passed.

Demigods normally weren't expected to live long anyway because of their scent. Heroes, in general, were all but fated to die terrible deaths once Fate decided their purpose was fulfilled. He'd thought - prayed - that with the death of Kronos, things would change for the better. That he and his loved ones could finally move on with their lives, and yet...

"I don't know." He said finally, "I really don't know."

Annabeth looked downcast at his response, her brilliant eyes dulling as she lost her last bit of hope for a better tomorrow.

For a happy ending for both of them.

He took a fair pause as he gathered his wits.

"But I also didn't know how we were going to get Zeus' bolt; I didn't know how we were going to cross the Sea of Monsters or the Labyrinth," he continued resolutely, his hold on his lover firm. I didn't know how we were going to beat Kronos."

Annabeth was looking at him now, her red-rimmed eyes latching onto his words like scripture.

"I didn't know how we were going to kill an 'unkillable' Giant," Percy chuckled, "And I sure as Hades had no idea how we were ever going to get of Tartarus."

"But we pulled through." He finished, "Time and again, we always managed. Whether by the skin of our teeth or otherwise, we mostly made it out with our dignity."

Annabeth was smiling now, a weak, somber smile but a smile all the same.

"I'd like to believe we'd be able to pull off a miracle here, can't you?"

"Percy-" She started.

"It won't be easy, I know - gods of Olympus, I know - but I also know I can do just about anything when I have you with me."

He brushed aside her golden bangs to kiss her creased forehead delicately.

It was simple and chaste, and it had him itching for more, yet he cuffed that annoying urge with a barbed leash. He'd made his point.

"I love you, Annabeth Chase," he whispered, his voice laden with fanatical affection, "Every single facet of you."

Annabeth never responded.

Y*C*O*Y*W

1 August 2010, Long Island Sound, New York, United States of America

15 Minutes Since Gaia's Resurrection

"FROM YOUR RIGHT SEAWEED BRAIN!" HIS GIRLFRIEND WARNED.

Percy rolled to the side as a blackened, imperial gold warhammer swam through the air right where his head would have been and slammed into the ground, his face and arms scratched and stained by the debris and mud from the impact. He endured all the same, rolling to his feet and slashing right where his would-be killer's elbows would be.

He was awarded for his efforts with a shriek of pain as the monster - a wild horned centaur - stared horrified at its freshly relieved forearms.

Percy wasted no time dispatching the party pony from hell, Riptide little more than a blur as she tore through the flesh, sinew, and cartilage of the enemy's unarmored front and hind hocks with surgical precision. He ended the monster's misery in a second when the poor bastard looked like it was going into shock instead of dust.

It seemed his merciful deed had given him some good karma in the form of a moment's respite. He took that time to survey the battlefield rather than dig out the aching wedgie that had been hampering him for over an hour now.

He despised armor with a passion.

All in all, the battle was going pretty well in their favor. Given the odds, his allies were handling themselves far better than any force on Earth could boast of. For every demigod, Roman and Greek, or nature spirit they had in fighting shape, they were outnumbered 10:1 by a literal roulette wheel of mythological horrors.

Yet, his people soldiered on with the manic tenacity of a Jehovah's Witness - clubbing smaller foes with their fists if they had to - Gaia be damned before they lost their loved ones here.

Percy released a low, appreciative whistle as he watched Annabeth ride a massive cyclops to a mass gathering of bogeymen.

Her Drakon bone sword lodged in its shoulder as an anchor, and her clawed hand on the monster's lone eye served as a disgusting steering wheel. At the same time, the cyclops pulverized any soul unfortunate enough to remain nearby it in its agony-fueled rampage.

And that was humane compared to where Clarisse had shoved her spear in that Cyno-doggo whatever monster.

KABOOM

Percy nearly buckled as a titanic expulsion of energy roared above him from the heavens. He turned his sights to the sky; the weather-altering explosion turned the still-dark sky golden. Idly, he noticed a blazing comet streaking upwards mere inches past the explosion's radius.

What the heck was that about?

'Shit, the team!' He thought frantically.

The sheer force of the explosion was enough to put most of the ongoing battles on pause, if not outright knock combatants over like bowling pins, and that was from thousands of meters above ground level.

How on Earth would they survive so close to the explosion?

He searched through the skyline and the blast radius like a man possessed for any indication of his friends to no avail, yet as he started to fear the worst, three vaguely humanoid shapes expelled themselves from the thinning explosion. He heard cheering behind him from his friends as they celebrated the victory of not one but two great prophecies in the space of a single year.

Maniacs.

A tired smile broke out on his face. His good mood only skyrocketed as more and more monsters dropped their weapons in despair as it dawned on them that not even a Primordial was enough to cull the Demigods of Olympus.

His smile melted when he noticed the Roman war eagles had only plucked out two bodies from the sky, avoiding the third like it had the plague.

He figured it could be Jason, though. The son of Jupiter might have lost all love from anything resembling Roman for his hand in their unintentional Act of War, but Piper and Leo were undeniably Greek.

And Jason wasn't 10 feet tall.

His blood chilled.

'Fucking Fates.' He thought miserably.

"Keep her off the ground!" Percy screamed at the eagles hopelessly, his friends looking at him like he was crazy, "Don't let her touch the-"

An earth-rending boom sent tremors across the state as Gaia's fiery body collided with itself right outside the Camp's border with the force of an atomic bomb.

The world was lit up with white for several seconds as the shockwaves from the explosion tore through trees and Earth with all the open disrespect only a New York cab driver could offer a traffic light. Already, monsters were quickly regaining their wits, deducing that the day might not truly be lost.

That their malevolent mistress could still offer them salvation.

...

He counted 5 dead demigods in a matter of mere seconds - caught unawares as they were - and while his blood boiled at the very thought of it, he didn't falter in his advance.

Percy tore through the valley at inhuman speeds with his sword in hand, clearing entire boulders in single leaps and crushing brainless monsters underfoot.

Annabeth, Clarisse, Frank, and Hazel remained hot on his heels, righteous fury splayed on their faces. They were intent on ending this madness before more innocent blood was spilled.

By the time their hastily formed team reached the crater's edge, Gaia had already started to rise again, and the unstable Earth at their feet nearly flung them into the steep trench.

Gaia looked, for lack of a better term of phrase, like freshly spent satyr dung with hints of Styrofoam residue.

Her earth-brown hair clung like soggy ramen noodles to her scalp in hirsute patches. One of her emerald green orbs and her right hand had been permanently burned away. Her creamy skin was now a morbid mix of blackened and peeling patches, to the bone in some places, and melted opaque glass.

And her grass blade dress...listen, he was about as willing to fight the goddess in her Granny nappies as much as the average guy was willing to go for a colonoscopy, but even he could admit that the poor piece of apparel had suffered enough.

The 'dress' looked more like a poor man's parody of kirigami art than anything resembling wearable clothing. Percy didn't doubt the sight of it would give most denizens of the Aphrodite cabin a collective stroke. Even Balenciaga wouldn't want to be caught dead promoting such an atrocity.

Yet, he doubted even a divine meteor shower to her noggin could wipe off the unhinged grin on her face.

"Ha ha." The goddess started moderately, "Ha ha ha."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" She continued uncontrollably, "I LIVE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Percy and his friends could only watch on in morbid fascination as Mother Earth - A GOD - was pushed further into hysterical madness in front of them. The weight of her barely avoided death, leaving her in a frenzied state of shell shock.

She threw her head back, slamming gusts of wind into them from where she stood and screaming into the heavens.

"EH?! HOW DOES THAT STRIKE YOU, HUSBAND?!" she shrieked, the power in her voice fluctuating like cable TV in a thunderstorm, "WHAT OF YOU, MOTHER? DOES MY SURVIVAL PLEASE YOU? DOES IT EAT AT YOU SISTER?! YOUR PAWN OF THE DECADE THREW HIS LIFE AWAY FOR NOTHING! HOW MANY MORE SHALL YOU CAST TO THE WOLVES BEFORE YOUR ANIMOSITY IS SATED?!"

Gaea began to pant in exertion at that, her head bowing as her manic high started to dim.

"Such a senseless, utterly pointless waste of life, Leo Valdez. I almost pity you," she murmured to no one in particular.

"But don't worry," her voice turned frosty as she faced them, her lone green eye shining with malice, "I'll be sending the rest of your accursed family to you soon enough."

His friends tightened their holds on their weapons, their stances shifting in unease, but Percy remained stationary - lost in his own world, he was. His body shuddered with angry tremors of grief for another dead demigod.

Leo was dead.

Leo was 15 years old.

He'd been in this business for a little over half a year.

As far as any thinking observer was concerned, a newborn child in this lifestyle.

He'd been smart, funny, lonely, brave.

Braver than anyone that squishy had any right to be.

"Prissy?" Clarisse asked concernedly as she noticed his inaction.

Percy wasn't sure why this particular death had irked him so. He had burned plenty of shrouds already.

He didn't even know Leo all that well; their conversations on the Argo II had always been scant and to the point.

But he knew of Leo's dreams...and for a guy so utterly devoid of hope for the future like Percy, the very thought was simply earth-shattering to him.

Leo was the only person on that boat who believed in his plans for the future. Sure, Jason had noble aspirations for respecting all the gods, but even the son of Jupiter would admit he was only half interested in it.

It wasn't even close to the raw passion and effort the fallen son of Hephaestus had put into seeing through his ambitions. He'd had the audacity to hope for a better tomorrow for himself and his loved ones, even with the bleakness of a demigod fate towering behind him.

No, in spite of it.

Percy and the rest of the seven had long since pushed any hopes of living long, fulfilling lives to the backs of their minds. It had been...easier, in a way, for them to ignore whatever twisted futures the Fates had in store for them and focus everything on the now...

And yet Percy couldn't remember a moment when the gutsy son of Hephaestus hadn't tempted the Hags with how much fun he would have surrounded by his children and Calypso in their little Auto Shop.

How the scrawny Latino's eyes would shine like miniature suns when giving the crew another play-by-play on how he'd propose to the Mistress of Ogygia.

Leo had the balls to dream and died alone because of it.

"My dreams are just dreams."

Leo had died alone for nothing.

"MY DREAMS ARE JUST DREAMS!"

It didn't make a lick of sense how Gaea was even alive.

' "To storm or fire, the world must fall," right? RIGHT?!' Percy was spiraling, his head a disorganized mess as he tried to contextualize how in Hades the goddess had managed to survive, 'SHE WAS WEAKER IN THE SKY; THAT EXPLOSION HAD TO BE ENOUGH.'

And yet the half-dead deity in front of him only looked like she still had more in the tank to expend.

Only half finished off.

Only half finished. The story here was only half finished.

Percy recalled fragments of a conversation he'd shared with Her.

One of the only points in that slot machine of a game he'd played against her for all his shitty luck, where she'd actually given him an answer to his questions, however vague.

"I don't care for the way the story is headed. I see before me an opportunity to tip the status quo a bit to my will, and I am more than inclined to take it," the unholy Consort of Darkness crooned. "Well...you were supposed to take it."

The Embodiment of Night poked his head teasingly at that.

"But you're not quite ready for it yet, are you, my little Ελευθερωτής?" she cooed with faux tenderness. "You're only half finished. Your authority not yet claimed. But don't worry, I will take care of you."

He'd said before, hadn't he? Just because he couldn't see her didn't mean She couldn't see him.

The ascending comet.

The Night Sky.

'...Fuck.'

Percy didn't notice when his body started moving.

He didn't hear his friends pleading for him not to be stupid.

He didn't notice the mist screens of the Olympians, watching and awaiting the final confrontation in eagerness.

He didn't notice the Earth rumbling as entire hillsides crumbled in the face of his divine fury.

He didn't notice his form flaring with unbridled malevolent energy, blanketing the charred crater in a deep sea green.

He didn't notice the rain pouring in sheets or the roiling dark storm clouds that gathered above him menacingly, lightning streaking through the cumulonimbus clouds and striking the land around them unabated.

He didn't even notice the foreboding death knell that rang around the clearing in finality.

All he could see was the taunting, sadistic smirk on the drenched, beat-up face of yet another Primordial deity who had stolen something from him.

"Are you familiar with Murphy's Law child? I'd abide by the term if I were you. Nothing will ever be the same again."

Percy's path had been forcibly revised without his say-so. And now his altered destiny was laid out for him in greeting. There was no going back now.

An oath to keep with a final breath.

He crouched for a split second and leaped into the air with godlike force, the ground shattering apart in a web-like design below him. At the zenith of his leap, the sky seemed to touch down upon the Earth for the first time in eons, wreathing his weapon in lightning and fury.

The tempestuous winds held his elevated body theatrically in the air, unbothered by the laws of Physics, for several slow-going seconds...before he tore his weapon and all the gathered energy downwards with authority.

The Earth Mother reared back her arm in greeting to his challenge, coating her still functioning fist in emerald green eldritch energy as the Earth reached upwards to her thighs to steady her. Her smile twisted in sick glee at the thought of putting down one of her many wayward family members once and for all.

"Come, boy. ENTERTAIN ME!"

Outside observers would swear up and down that their weapons never even touched each other.

Yet the divine power expelled from that single clash sang like a sacred hymn for the birth of a new Age.

Y*C*O*Y*W

It was a clash straight out of the tales of legend.

An epic that would have even Homer sweatdropping in anticipation.

The battleground was becoming a spectacle of wartime desolation, with tremors and twisters destabilizing the battered landscape. And in the middle of this? Perseus MXXXXXXX Jackson fought relentlessly, trading earth-splitting blows with a Primordial over 10 feet tall.

"GRAAAAHHH!" Percy bellowed savagely, all caution and strategy thrown into the turbulent winds as he brought down Riptide on Gaea's fist with enough strength to crater boulders.

As their individual means of destruction clashed repeatedly, shockwaves of power melded with the charged air and shook the soil beneath their feet, spinning it in endless electromagnetic spirals.

The wind howled in tempestuous fury as dark cumulus clouds blotted out the sun above them and skin-shearing mud-nadoes enveloped the fighters. Vibrant green auras struggled for dominance between them, drowning the clearing in pure divine authority.

Percy glided through the rain-soaked terrain with determined vigor. His years of battle instincts, his stint in Tartarus, the Athena Parthenos' power, his own inborn powers, and the sacrifice of one Leo Valdez were the only reasons he was even putting up a pitiable challenge to the severely weakened Primordial.

Yes, you read that right, true believers.

A pitiable challenge.

Percy was losing.

Handily at that.

For all the destruction it unleashed and the apocalyptic awe it inspired from an outsider's perspective, for all the advantages Percy had gotten going into the battle, our boy was still 100% mortal. He tired, struck impulsively, and lacked the battle experience to put down an all-powerful opponent who took him seriously.

And Gaea was that opponent and more; the crippled immortal hadn't so much as uttered a word - never mind a taunt - at any point during their battle, her near stroke with death disillusioning the goddess of the need for byplay.

She was a Primordial Goddess.

She'd fought and prevailed in wars against sanity-blasting adversaries that would leave the impertinent savages of her wretched lineage in lifelong straitjackets. Yet, she could only claim to be alive by sheer luck.

The very thought had her frothing at the mouth in indignation; she would rather die than bear the humiliation of losing to the petulant little toddler before her.

Percy couldn't even hope to use her awkward height to his advantage. Gaea moved through the mud with the ease and grace of a ballerina. Her bare-handed strikes were calculated, patient, and refined to an unrealistic extreme.

There were no wasted movements. No over-the-top displays were needed to validate her superiority; each strike was laid onto him with the intent to cripple and stagger. She knew she was better than him; the goddess knew Percy was nothing more than an angry bug to her, yet she never erred from her strategy.

To wear him out or psych him out.

This wasn't a battle of equals or an impulsive need to assert her dominance for Gaea; she was far above that.

This was pest control.

Their exchange barely lasted 2 minutes before Percy slipped.

Gaea blocked a heavy over-hand strike to her skull with terrifying ease as she spat a globule of golden ichor to his face. Percy instinctively tried to blink the offending substance away.

That proved to be his downfall.

He screeched in agony as pure Primordial lifeblood threatened to tear him apart, leaving his opponent with a clear opening in his defense.

And exploit it she did.

A devastating fist to his solar plexus had his ribs doing a three count for his insides and folded him in half, nearly breaking through his chest and out of his back. Time slowed to a crawl as Percy's body was content to stay buried in the goddess' fist...yet it resumed with a harsh lesson as he heaved a bucket of bile from his belly before rocketing away at speeds that'd leave the Roadrunner feeling inadequate, finally crashing a foot deep into a healthy layer of sediment.

Gaea wasted no time gloating. Instead, leaping into the air in blatant mockery of his earlier showboating, fully intent on smashing him into a bloody smear. Percy didn't even get to see his life flash before his eyes before the goddess was upon him, her fist glowing in that same acrid energy as earlier, mere inches from him.

FROOOOOM

A trumpet?

Gaea was bulldozed to the side by a convenient elephant.

As if summoned from the ether, his friends crowded his half-buried form protectively as Frank the Elephant mushed for his life against Gaea, Young Hazel on his back trying to skewer the goddess with her spatha amidst the confusion. Annabeth wasted no time on commentary as she drizzled a cold rejuvenating liquid over his aching eyes, his breaths coming out in tight puffs, he lapped at some of the liquid that dribbled down to his chapped lips. It tasted of liquid chocolate chip cookies.

Nectar of the Gods.

"Thanks." He grunted out when thinking stopped hurting.

Annabeth paid him no mind. Her attention was on the Daughter of Ares before them. Clarisse was draped in her blood-red armor. He noticed an aspis on her left forearm, her grip bone-white on the shaft of her crackling electric spear.

Her back was turned to them, and a crimson aura encapsulated her form as the rain sizzled against it.

"Clarisse?" the daughter of Athena called out. In answer, she received only a boorish grunt: "Smash."

The slayer of the Lydian Drakon let out a booming war cry as she charged down the gravel path and lingering fog without fear. The blood-red plume of her Corinthian helmet billowed in the tempest as she sought to add another legend to her name.

"You can be such an idiot sometimes, you know that." She remarked idly, her stormy-grey eyes managing to look exasperated yet in disbelief, "I'm not even going to ask if there was a thought in your head when you chose to OUTMATCH A PRIMORDIAL!"

She slapped her hand over her head in annoyance as she stood over him and readied her sword, offering a hand to his still immobile form. He took it firmly at the elbow and crawled out of the hardened soil as a stray bolt of lightning struck the ground a few feet from where the fighting was heaviest.

The boom of thunder was killer to their sensitive eardrums, but the Heroes of Olympus gave no visible response to it.

"Can you beat her?" Annabeth questioned nonchalantly, her eyes scanning the terrain for hidden advantages before deciding better.

An advantage on the Earth against the Earth?

Was she baked?

"Not while she still has home-field advantage." He commented tiredly.

The lovers watched in muted fascination as Clarisse arced over them from the fight before crashing into the gravel in an unceremonious heap. The warrioress wasted no time scrambling to her feet, her discarded helmet giving them an eyeful of her bloodstained scowl. She ran stationary for seconds on the muddy ground, kicking up dirt and debris before rocketing back into the melee with barbaric glee.

"Definitely not." He continued unhindered, "Jason and Leo's plan should have worked, all the better if we'd all been together to finish her off." Percy sighed.

"But I can't lift her into the air by myself and finish her off alone, and the gods aren't too keen on helping," That's right, he called bullshit on the contrived Ancient Laws bit they'd pulled at the Acropolis, "We're on our own here."

Annabeth chewed on her thumbnail in frustration, a vein throbbing on her soaked forehead as she racked her brain for a solution before settling into grim acceptance.

"What about the ocean?" She asked finally, "Could you kill her if she was in the ocean?"

He arched a brow in skepticism. He didn't doubt that the goddess would be killable in the deep. If they were following the same rock-paper-scissors-like odds the Primordials were victim to, then it was possible Pontus' realm would be just as lethal to Gaea as Ouranos'.

No, his problem was a lot more grounded than that.

"How the Hades do we get her into the water?"

"You let me worry about that," the daughter of Wisdom answered ominously. "Can you do it or not?"

He wanted to ask her more about her 'plan' but faltered at her determined glare. He nodded grimly in answer.

"Good." She answered, "Stay here, I'll make sure you get your opening."

He still had no idea what this 'opening' was supposed to be, but this was Annabeth. Her plans had plans. If she was keeping her cards this close to her chest, it meant the situation was really that dire. It was no use heaving more pressure on her shoulders.

His girlfriend twisted towards the battle, about to charge when he grabbed hold of her silver bracer. She eyed him quizzically.

"Annabeth, don't do anything stupid, okay?" He begged. "Promise you'll come back to me."

Her cold gaze softened considerably. She grabbed him by his bloodstained collar and gifted him with a passionate kiss that had his brain buffering as she poured all her love and desperation into it.

It felt like a goodbye.

It ended all too soon, though, as she parted from him, a long trail of saliva following in her wake as her breaths came out in short pants, her eyes hazy and unfocused.

BOOM

The heroes returned to reality just in time to see Frank the Gorilla get sent soaring out of the crater, a trail of smoke following behind him from his chest.

"Don't worry, Seaweed Brain," She responded to his silent plea, her eyes never leaving Franks receding form, "I don't plan on dying today. You go get Frank; we'll need him for this."

Annabeth's heart skipped a beat.

She handed him a baggie of Ambrosia and dashed away.

"You still haven't told me what any of this—and she's already gone." He ended as his girlfriend ran into the still-raging storm, lightning lighting the path ahead for her.

He grumbled fiercely as he jogged for his mighty morphing pal, glancing back to the skirmish momentarily.

An oath to keep with a final breath.

The line continued to beat him over the head all the while.

Y*C*O*Y*W

 

Chapter 4: Walk A Mile In My Shoes

"Never let a man believe he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul. The evil effect on himself is certain."

- Robert Southey

Walk A Mile In My Shoes (I Bet You, You Can't)

1 August 2010, Long Island Sound, New York, United States of America

1 Hour since Gaia's Resurrection

FINDING FRANK HAD BEEN EASY.

Percy only had to listen for the whimpering.

The Son of Mars had returned to his normal build of muscle and manliness sometime during his brutal ejection. His imperial gold cuirass was dented and steaming, a fist-shaped indentation glowing white-hot right above where his liver would be.

What the Hades had the crazy bitch hit him with?

Percy did his best to gently extricate his friend from his goddess-imposed torture when it seemed simply breathing proved to be a mountainous task for the Warspawn. He handed him a block of ambrosia to nibble on once he was done while he massaged his own bruised chest in sympathy.

"Believe me, buddy, I know the feeling." His joke seemed to fall flat if Frank's irritated glare was anything to go by, "Can I trust you to stand without heaving your breakfast?"

"Huff...huff...let me at the bitch." The Praetor of New Rome rasped out as he shook his meaty fist at the air, a crimson-red aura swirling about him as he slowly morphed into a great scaly grey Arthurian-era dragon, complete with wicked sharp bat-like wings.

"Alright then, we better head on back bef-" an eardrum-shattering scream cut off Percy.

He gave you two guesses where it came from, and the first one didn't count.

"Get us over there!" He demanded.

Draco-Frank took to the air with Percy on his back immediately, clearing through the treeline forcefully as they blasted back toward the battle in an instant.

His heart dropped at the sight before him.

The unconscious bodies of Clarisse and Hazel lay strewn in the muck with grievous injuries, their weapons lost somewhere in the bog. Clarisse's lower legs had vanished completely underneath a great stone boulder, while Hazel looked like she'd be eating through a straw for the rest of her life if they didn't get her to a medic quickly.

And Annabeth?

Annabeth was held aloft by her neck with her legs kicking wildly in the air as Gaia squeezed her windpipe for all it was worth, primal rage written all over the goddess's countenance. A broken bone-white blade stuck out of Gaia's collarbone, the grievous wound spurting steaming ichor freely.

Annabeth's Drakon Bone Sword.

At least that explained the scream.

Percy wasted no time vaulting from his perch.

Tumbling through open air untethered, this high off the ground and at the mercy of Zeus, usually should have had Percy leaking Hershey syrup. Yet, his phobia took a backseat as he crashed onto the goddess' skull feet first with a mighty crack just as his girlfriend's face had started to purple.

Her face...

Percy caught her limp form before she could hit the ground and sprinted away from that hellhole faster than you could say potty sludge.

Draco-Frank roared in fury behind him before basting the goddess in an endless stream of flames filling the darkened skies with acrid smoke, but Percy was more concerned with saving his injured girlfriend than getting his ass kicked by Gaea again.

Her lip was split with a bloody gash, likely to leave a nasty scar; her right arm was bent at an odd angle, and he could feel a broken rib or three right below her lungs with his powers.

Those were the tame injuries.

A bone-white piece of shrapnel was lodged about half an inch deep into her left eye, permanently rendering it useless; the same shrapnel littered parts of her chest and arms.

Just a little deeper.

Just a scant few micrometers, and Annabeth would have been gone to him forever, the sharp point of her weapon piercing through her brain.

Styx. She could still die if her blood loss were any indication.

He wasn't a doctor; he'd never even attended the voluntary first aid classes back at camp. He didn't want to do something and risk hurting her further, yet the alternative...he tapped into powers he hadn't found a need to use in such a manner since his journey through Tartarus and manipulated Annabeth's blood to clot her wounds.

He felt a weak thumping on his chest. Percy's gaze drifted upwards from his best friend's broken body to her face, her lone eye glinting with that same fierce pride he'd come to adore.

'Go,' she seemed to say, 'Finish it. Don't let it all be for nothing.'

"I can't just leave you. Please don't make me leave you." He whispered weakly, his hand moving with a mind of its own to tuck her ichor-soaked golden hair behind her ear, "Just a little more, just a few more seconds, okay?"

"Her...her wound...she'll heal it...If we waste...if we waste any more time."

"We'll find a way!" he shouted desperately, his focus returning to stabilizing her. We'll find another way! We always do! You stupid, stupid girl, why would you do something so reckless?! We could have figured something out! Together!"

Percy was weeping now.

His hold on Annabeth tightened in fear that she'd be lost to him forever if he left her to chance. Losing her to the Hunters was preferable to the anguish he felt here. For years and years, he'd feared that their forced-upon heritage would one day take her away from him, and he'd be none the wiser. He'd tempered his expectations as best as possible and looked at a future in New Rome only semi-hopefully.

Percy had thought he'd be ready for it when her death came - it was a given for demigods - but seeing the moment come to pass, living with the reality that his paling girlfriend merely teetered on the edge of a sheer drop...it was killing him from the inside out.

Annabeth raised her hand slowly to his cheek and wiped away stray tears.

"It was the only way."

"It wasn't! Don't you dare tell me that!" Percy argued vehemently, his rage bubbling at the excuse.

"I'm sorry. For everything. I'm so sorry, Percy."

"Stop it. I forgive you, okay? I'll always forgive you. I'll always be there for you. Just shut up and let me help you, Annabeth. Please."

The daughter of Athena shook her head in the negative as much as her injuries could allow, a lone tear streaking from her single orb to her lips as she sniffled, "...we'll...we'll laugh about this someday...but you need to...you need to make sure we get to see that day...you need to go Percy."

Percy didn't want to go; that was the last thing he wanted to do.

But he knew.

He knew in his bones that the only reason Gaea hadn't made the planet a divine concentration camp yet was that the Parthenos' magic had stopped her healing any longer.

Annabeth would never forgive him if he let the world burn on her account. No one would.

Not even his mother.

"Go Percy...go do what you do best." Annabeth smiled now, a smile so hopeful it hurt something inside him.

He didn't deserve that sort of adoration.

"Go save the world, Hero."

Her eye rolled back into her head as her body stilled.

...

She would survive.

The gentle pitter-patter of her heartbeat was enough to give him hope. She was just asleep. He knew that. She would live. His treatment had to have ensured that.

He had to believe that.

Yet, his core burned all the same.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to deduce the Daughter of Athena's ploy here. She'd worked with prior knowledge of his abilities to create a path for him to put down the goddess. She'd even offered herself up as a martyr to manipulate his emotions, making sure he was just angry enough to fight through what needed to be done.

And for the coup de grâce?

She'd used his love for her to guilt him into ensuring he had to make sure Gaia died.

Yet, even with this knowledge-or because of his rational thinking was still overtaken by an all-encompassing fury.

None of this should have ever happened. Annabeth should never have been hurt in the first place, and her possible death should never have been a plausible factor in this war. Gaia and this war should have both come to a decisive end with that explosion; his family's lifeblood wasn't made to stain the lands of their home.

How many had fallen? How many landmarks and memories had this war tainted for all of them?

None of this would have happened if the Primordial before him had never been born, and now?

Now, Percy would make her wish she'd never been born; enough was enough.

He'd been more than capable of putting together the motivation to go through with what had to be done on the short stroll from where he'd left his lover to the crater where Draco-Frank was still battling the Earth Mother. The son of Mars was flagging now, unable to do much more than scratch the goddess alone as he was.

The scant lacerations on the Primordial's body were more than enough.

Percy wasted no time.

From his elevated position overlooking the combatants, he fixed his forlorn gaze on the messy wound the daughter of Athena had inflicted.

No. Not the wound, the ichor.

Gaia's ichor.

He recalled the last time he'd attempted something of this magnitude. The irrepressible ecstasy he'd felt as his powers flowed as a stalwart partner through him rather than an uncontrollable tool to be feared.

"Within you lies the inborn potential to mold reality itself to your choosing." She had said, "You need only grasp it."

He exhaled in finality. Only grim determination made itself at home within the Hero of Olympus now.

He clawed a hand at the goddess and flexed his divinity, a blinding sea-green aura flaring to life around him as his gut unraveled within him. The earth groaned in discontent as his uncontrolled authority flattened the soil around him in a hundred-meter radius.

An intangible cord, invisible to the naked eye, ghosted the sterile wasteland the fighters had called a battleground. Splitting apart into ravenous hooks as they latched onto the homicidal goddess' gaping vitality and dug.

The blowback from the technique was immediately enough to topple him, something inside his core deforming and screaming in torment the longer he held on. His internal organs wailed in agony as what may as well have been Stygian waters flooded his nerves.

The sheer concentrated radiation in Gaea's ichor had his brain rebooting lest it spontaneously combust from hemorrhaging.

Akhlys was a mildly annoying drizzle of rain compared to the raging monsoon that was the Elder Primordial's lifeblood.

It was too much.

No one being should have this much concentrated power.

And she wasn't even close to full strength; what the Hades?!

Unpleasant didn't even begin to measure up to the soul-shredding throes he was suffering. But it was only pain.

And Perseus MXXXXXXX Jackson was no stranger to pain.

Slowly, mind-numbingly slowly, his hold on the Primordial's lifeblood became absolute—a shame. The same could also be said for the pain.

The disfigured goddess froze in horror as she lost autonomy over her limbs. Frank the dragon also froze, but his stunned countenance was more so due to the unbidden awe in his draconic features at Percy's powers.

It was a good thing, too. Holding onto the goddess' ichor was like balancing the sky and keeping a firm grasp on Zeus' fidelity. No matter how minuscule, any foreign interference would have the already unstable house of cards crashing down on him—hard. He was tasting yellow, and black spots were dancing at the edge of his vision. He had to end this.

Now.

"GAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

His voice had to have been magnified by some otherworldly power, as his screams of pain and anger seemed to boom from all around him, echoing as far out as Montauk.

He lifted the panicking Protogenos' profuse proportions off the ground. He heaved her outwards to the Sound with the experienced form of an Olympic discus thrower, his body paddleballing behind her from their metaphysical bindings.

Percy's body smacked onto the goddess's rotund backside with the force of a speeding cruise missile, his concentration nearly slipping. He slowly climbed onto his foe's shoulder blades and held onto the remnants of Annabeth's sword for dear life, unbothered by the sharp pain of its razor-sharp edge as they sailed over the ongoing battle at Camp and past the beach.

The glinting aquamarine blue of the Sound appeared closer and closer as the Son of Poseidon braced for impact on his ignoble steed.

3...

2...

Y*C*O*Y*W

COLD.

That was his first sensation.

A bone-chilling cold, as the previously inviting brackish water body enveloped the demigod in its frigid embrace, content in leaving him an expired frozen husk at the bottom of the lake bed.

Weird.

His divine heritage had always kept such phenomena far away from him in the water.

His second sensation was an eye-boggling throbbing from his sternum as Gaia, free from his control, chose to pummel Percy into a demigod Purée for all the trouble he'd caused her, each connecting haymaker creating sonic booms in the murky depths with her enraged visage all but screaming bloody murder. His water-enhanced regeneration served as a boon and a hindrance as it only encouraged the goddess to cave his chest in harder and faster, but Percy had the home advantage while they remained in the water.

Percy's turf.

He wouldn't lose here to an outsider.

His heart beat like a drum as he focused his powers together with his fury, a rhythm reminiscent of a Samba dance bombarding the bloody brine in rapture.

Through being a human punching bag, he gathered the water above him in an icy replica of his own raised fists. He smashed downwards onto his enemy's cranium, the force of the strike sending her flying and leaving frenzied bubbles in her wake. Percy lunged after her shrinking form - his pain ignored - as pure adrenaline straight from his heart had him seeing red, the strength of his hits unknowingly multiplying a hundredfold.

All the power and influence the goddess had back on land seemed to dissipate the further her essence was cut off from it in his element. Sensational, Percy needed her as far away from her domain as possible. There would be no second chances.

He had to kill this God.

He continued to unleash earth-rending barrage after earth-rending barrage upon Gaia's disfigured form, ranging from battering her body at Mach 7 to ripping entire limbs off of her with his own bare hands; nothing was out of line for Percy as far as he was concerned.

He didn't even notice when Gaia stopped resisting.

Years later, mortal scientists and observers would recoil in horror as their satellites reported a long, thin streak dyeing the sea from Long Island Sound to the South Atlantic Ocean, pure golden, but that day wasn't today.

Percy stopped when even the ocean and his adrenaline had decided the goddess had had enough. He gazed upon his work and nearly retched at the sight.

There was so much gold.

All around him and on him.

He estimated they were about 3000m below surface level, a ways away from the Atlantic continental shelf, yet Gaia's radioactive ichor lit up the pitch-black depths like a desert. The substance seemed to empower the deep, unwilling to be forgotten by the world.

Much like its owner.

Gaia was still alive, though for how long was questionable. It seemed his divine heritage wasn't only a hindrance for him; the goddess's immortal makeup was the only thing preserving her lifeforce, whether she wanted it to or not.

Her body looked like it had been pushed through a meat grinder before getting sorted through a malfunctioning shredder. She was a mess.

Entire swathes of skin and limbs had been ripped off her body, her face was crushed to a pulp with her lone ichor-shot eyeball hanging limply from its socket, and her guts floated in the void as a devastating laceration extended upwards from her navel to her chest cavity.

Oh gods, was that her hea-

Percy couldn't hold it anymore. He let out a violent expulsion of bile and fluids that boomeranged back to his face...and that was still less disgusting than the sight in front of him.

'What have I done?' He thought disjointedly, his hands clawing at his scalp frantically. 'What the hell have I done?'

This was barbaric.

Mortal lawyers would throw the book and the gavel at him if he tried to appeal for the motion of self-defense.

He'd lost control. He'd gotten in over his head and gone too far. Di immortales, boiling those harpies alive, actually appeared to be the more humane action here; Percy had just torn a goddess apart.

"...ther,"

He turned his haunted gaze slowly toward the broken goddess before him.

She couldn't still be capable of thought, could she?!

He zoomed to her side instantly, his vitriol for the goddess forgotten as he sought to make her departure as swift and painless as possible, if only to abate his guilty conscience. The significance of the goddess speaking now when she'd been all but mute earlier wasn't lost on him. Gaea knew there was no saving her, not with the powers at play here.

This was a death wail.

He craned his neck towards where he thought her voice box would be, brutalized as her face was.

"Mo...ther...p...please...the pain...end the pain...I...I beg...of you." His victim bit out, her giant body shivering from the cold waters and the torment he'd dished out.

"I'm sorry," The son of Poseidon begged timidly, "I'm so sorry."

Nobody deserved to suffer like this. To hurt so badly, they'd have to beg their parent to put them out of their misery.

The goddess hadn't even bothered to place a curse on him for the Arai. She'd used what may as well have been her final words to beg for death.

Gods.

He couldn't save her; she was much too far gone ever to be more than a grotesque invalid for the rest of eternity. While some would debate that such a gruesome fate was more than deserved for the Earth Mother, Percy was his own person. His thoughts, actions, and their consequences were for him alone to bear.

Steeling his resolve, he uncapped his pen and readied his sword against the goddess' heart. Hoping that a single strike from the divine metal to her still-beating core, with her so far removed from her element, would be enough to give her a painless death.

But, the very instant his Bronze so much as scraped the ichor pumping organ, a thick, sturdy substance reminiscent of tree roots shot forwards from her core and ensnared Percy from the tip of his sword to his neck.

Percy shook with anger. Enraged that he'd allowed himself to get played by the Primordial, her pain-filled wails clued him onto the theory that this may not have been a voluntary course of action.

He shook even harder when the substance continued to crawl over him. Forcing its way into his body, uncaring of his disposition to the action, through every orifice he possessed until finally resting at the base of his brain stem and deep in his heart.

He let out a haunting scream of agony, sending palpable shockwaves outwards to the sea for miles on end as his brain was bombarded with what felt like billions of years' worth of memories, sensations, and emotions as everything about Gaia jammed itself into his very soul with the force of a speeding bullet train.

Every conversation, kill, and moment of thought. The origins of the planet, as he knew it, played out before his eyes like a sci-fi movie in fast-forward.

Too much. Too much. Too much. Too much. Too much. Too much. TOO MUCH!

Percy's body stilled as the strain got the better of him. His brain blue-screened as his thoughts petered out from him like water in a loose straw basket.

Y*C*O*Y*W

? August 2010, Gaia's Mindscape

? Hours Since Gaia's Destruction

IT STARTED WITH A BANG.

Percy saw the goddess, Gaia, as she was spat out from the Primordial soup of Creation. Like she was some toy, a whiny child had long since grown bored with.

Already a full-grown adult, the godling looked around confused as she tried to make sense of her dark, empty reality before steeling her resolve and wandering further into the unknown.

He saw Gaia make her way about her own body for what must have been thousands of years in solitude. He felt her need for approval as she tended to her birthright with care and love. The blossoming goddess had hoped that if she could achieve perfection or something close to it, she could get just a second of Chaos' company.

That she could be just a little less alone.

Percy watched as Gaia's mother finally appeared to her firstborn daughter in a random snowy clearing. He couldn't help but think the place looked vaguely familiar, like he'd been there before, and the last trip wasn't anything special to write home about.

It had been years—tens of thousands, he estimated—since Gaia had felt her mother's presence on her. Still, her excitement remained palpable, sending shudders over her form as she struggled to stand upright under the Creator's scrutinizing gaze.

The haughty goddess was so nervous she couldn't even bring herself to look past her mother's perfect neckline for fear of somehow disappointing Chaos with any show of weakness.

Chaos. The First Protogenos.

The Creator.

What may as well have been the capital letter G God for him...

If he was being blunt, the Creator was perfection made manifest. Like the being made perfection look so basic that it circled back to looking artificial.

Athena herself would have had a conniption trying to find a minuscule chink in the Deity's faultless flesh sack. From the tips of her elegant, polished, dainty toes to her sculpted Junoesque physique, from her carmine, manicured fingernails to her faultless, timeless facial features.

Perfect.

Her cherry red lips, her void-woven gossamer dress that swirled with galaxies, her almond-shaped eyes that housed literal quasars, and even how she crossed her arms behind her back were perfect. Her stance was fixed at a flawless 90-degree angle as she dispassionately gazed upon her child's work.

She seemed more like Night than the Gaea he'd watched grow up. Detached and unbearably hard to please. Or had Night incorporated her mother's general demeanor into herself?

Huh? Food for thought.

Chaos didn't bother saying a word to her estranged daughter, instead tossing a weighty bare butt naked individual to her child's feet and dusting her hands-free of it in relief like she couldn't hope to be done with this interaction sooner.

It infuriated him how...indifferent the goddess was acting after meeting her daughter after so long, but this had already happened, he couldn't hope to do a thing here.

'And it's CHAOS.' Percy thought belatedly.

With the subject in question's moral obligation over and done with, she turned away to leave, probably for another fifty thousand years again, when she froze. Percy's hopes blossomed, thinking the all-powerful deadbeat before him had gotten an epiphany.

One that pushed her to give her touch-starved toddler a bone-crushing hug, or a reluctant keep up the good work, or a freaking head pat at least. Those hopes ate concrete, however, when the faultless forefather flawlessly swerved her daughter and leered at his position with avidity.

Percy was caught flatfooted here. He unironically looked behind him in the hopes he'd find an odd species of dodo bird, but was met with nothing but – he kid you not - a stray snow-covered tumbleweed billowing aimlessly in the wind.

He looked back to see the Goddess beaming at him like a kid in a candy store; it was a smile that did things to him he wasn't quite sure he was comfortable with. On one hand, she was a self-serving asshole; on the other, she was freaking CHAOS. His more rational side won over, though, as he fixed his face with an unamused glare, half tempted to flip the omnipotent douche the bird.

He didn't, though.

Even he wasn't that crazy. If the Goddess could see him, he didn't doubt she could touch him, and if there was one thing he'd learned in his years in the business, immortals were notoriously petty to even the tamest show of disrespect. Entire generations of families had been left dead and forgotten in the dirt in the wake of a god's anger for lesser slights.

It was still very tempting. For all the fanatic awe her outward perfection inspired, you'd think the deity would have a basic grasp of parenting and what it entailed.

Sadly, it seemed Sally Jackson remained the only Goddess capable of such all-around perfection, woe.

Satisfied with her ogling, Chaos turned her attention back to her downcast daughter. The Earth goddess was visibly disappointed that she'd somehow failed her mother. She gently ruffled her earth-brown hair in a motion that could pass as affectionate.

"I have heard your pleas, Daughter," the First Protogenos declared. He noticed that her voice was layered and echoing, yet each word was unequivocally clear: "And I sympathize with your sorrow; do not mistake my silence for apathy."

Yeah, Percy called bullshit on all of that, but it more than pacified Gaea if her smile of adoration was of any indication.

"This fine specimen before us," Chaos gestured towards the lump she'd dumped like an annoying sack of potatoes earlier, "Is Ouranos."

"Ur Anus?" The godling mispronounced timidly, her brows raised in innocent skepticism.

Chaos withheld an amused twitch as she continued, while Percy remained in gobsmacked awe as he bore witness to the first-ever dirty joke.

"No child, Ouranos."

The tail-end of that sentence surged with power as if the Creator was imprinting the name unto reality itself rather than her daughter. A dramatic click rang throughout the frozen lands, sealing the name for eternity as the aforementioned being's eyelids shot open like he'd been pumped full of pure heroin.

The godling sat ramrod straight and gazed around his surroundings in unbidden confusion.

Though a bit of skeptical confusion was expected with a deadbeat like Chaos in your corner.

The god rose to his feet, and Percy immediately wished the dude had just stayed down. Did he mention the guy was bare-butt naked? Madre de Dios...

Ouranos was a handsome being.

He was a perfect antithesis of his soon-to-be partner. Where Gaia's build was more womanly and curvaceous, the Skyfather was rugged and buff, with a pale barrel chest already marred with teal chest hairs to contrast with Gaia's smooth caramel skin and wavy earth-brown locks. His impressive form was topped with biceps the size of bowling balls. The Primordial was shaven, showing off his strong angular jawline, his narrow Grecian schnoz, and shimmering cupid bow lips.

His azure orbs glittered and cracked with untapped power, and his long cadet blue hair billowed epically in the wind in cloud-like puffs. His entire presence screamed, "I'm Him," as he fisted his barbell-sized knuckles and took on a gallant stance.

Percy half-expected an American bald eagle to come swooping down on Ouranos' shoulders, cawing to the tune of What I've Done. The dude somehow managed to make standing with his schlong out look dignified. He was that impressive.

Surprisingly, the first person the newborn turned to wasn't his Progenitor (getting tossed aside like a soggy handrag would do that to you). No, his attention was focused on the equally stupefied form of Gaia. The goddess' gaze hadn't wavered for a second since the god's eyes had opened; it looked like she wanted to reach out to him but feared she'd hurt her new companion or worse.

That he'd find her disappointing.

Chaos, ever the incestuous wing woman, took this moment to chime in unperturbed.

"He is a First-born, Daughter, just like you, " the goddess said without emotion as if she'd replayed this same movie scene thousands of times on her VHS, and it had long since lost appeal.

"The Primordial Embodiment of Sky, and all that it entails." She declared in that voice again as a familiar blue firmament manifested itself above them.

The newly formed heavens boomed in agreement, rushing downwards with vigor to greet their estranged half. It didn't seem to register or matter to them that the action would level their current plane, the all-blue forged on with the loyal excitement of a neglected golden retriever.

Clouds freed themselves from Ouranos' torso and hair to push back the ever-closing sky from crushing them while Ouranos cradled a terrified Earth Mother in his sculpted chest.

"Worry not, fair one; the skies will never harm you," Protogenos rumbled, "not while I breathe."

Percy wasn't paying attention to the budding lover's conversation, though, all too awestruck at the casual display of power the new god had just shown them.

The clouds had acted as a funnel for the sky, confirming the bulk of its essence into a single, ever-spinning point, yet right where the speeding tip was meant to touch down on the ground, it was met with a distortion in space. The closer the tip got to the anomaly, the quicker its speed and momentum divided itself without ever actually touching the distortion.

Oh gods, Annabeth would be frothing at the mouth just to get a glimpse of this. The sheer control required to perform such a feat with such precision - the sky had missed the earth's surface by a literal hair's breadth– was unfathomable. This guy had been conscious for a minute and was already this overpowered?

Primordials were bullshit.

Percy was brought back from his musings all too soon by Chaos' amused voice.

"Excellent work, child. Excellent indeed." Chaos tinkled in satisfaction. "As I said before, daughter, I have heard your pleas for companionship. I have felt your sorrow from my absence, and while I will not personally give you my amity, I will not leave you to suffer alone."

Did this lousy nut even hear herself?

"Ouranos here is to be your eternal confidant, your partner, your other half till death do you part." Chaos was getting worked up now, her barely restrained energy carpet-bombing the land around them, "You will move together. Share secrets and ambitions together. You will bless this plane with your bloodline's authority. You will suffer yet grow all the stronger from it."

She moved closer with each statement to her children and firmly grasped their quivering cheeks.

"You will entertain me." She demanded, her perfect face twisted in sadistic lunacy. "Live, my children; from this day onward, you are wed."

Y*C*O*Y*W

?, The Endless Nothing, [-REDACTED-], The Nexus Of All Realms

Time Is An Illusion

Gaia was happy.

The goddess hadn't quite received the outward love she expected from her distant parents, but the little she had received and learned was enough to tide her over.

The Primordial knew now that her mother had been watching her all this time, whether in pride or disappointment, was secondary to her.

Chaos had acknowledged her existence; there could be no greater honor to the Earth Mother. The Creator was proud enough of her that she'd deigned to touch her, and her parent had seen fit to gift her with a companion—a companion who, while not the most emotionally available, still thought she was good enough to be with.

Her mother loved her Gaia in her own way. Of that, she was certain.

...

What a load of submissive Minotaur dung.

'But 50 thousand years of forced solitude would do that to you,' Percy assumed.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Percy wasn't supposed to feel this way. Gaia had slaughtered thousands and daydreamed to the deaths of billions. The Primordial had brought harm to his friends and family and probably killed a few herself. She'd spawned and enabled the prick who'd killed most of his friends just last summer, who'd terrorized him and his nightmares for most of his adolescence.

She was a terrible person. There wasn't a doubt in his mind about that.

So why? Could someone tell him why in the gods' names he pitied her.

Why couldn't he condone going forward with her memories, knowing what was in store for her?

Why did his heart ache every second the deity heaped praises and gifts towards the manipulative snake-oil peddler she called mother?

Why his feet itched to dropkick the snot out of Ouranos anytime the abusive asshole dared to manhandle the goddess?

Percy felt like a traitor to everything he knew. The blood from the demigods Gaia's forces hadn't even dried out yet, and here he was sympathizing with the person who'd personally demanded their slaughter.

Caring for her like he would a member of his own family.

'I didn't need to know about any of this,' The godkiller lamented, 'Why couldn't you just let me hate you. Killing you was so much easier to deal with when I could just hate you.'

Black and White.

Evil and Good.

Aggression and Retaliation.

That was how it'd always played with him and his enemies.

Sure, with the opposing demigods in the Battle of Manhattan, there had been a vibrant splash of grey in his convictions; it came with the territory when you cried yourself to sleep after butchering wayward children all for the sin of wanting a modicum of love and respect from their parents.

But his immortal foes? Ares, Atlas, Hyperion, Kronos, Polybotes, Akhlys, Tartarus, Night?! Living with himself was so much easier when he believed they were only trying to break him and his loved ones for the thrills.

And it'd been more of the same in his crusade against Gaea.

But could he say that to a being who'd been forced to handle a role she had no business being anywhere near alone as a newborn?.

A being who'd been forced to fight reality-shattering wars for eons against her own siblings for the selfish ambitions of her tool of a husband. The companion who betrayed her in the end then told her to get over it.

Could he still claim that defense as he felt the goddess' festering rage at what had been hundred's of thousands of years of personal insults, as mankind literally took a shit on the goddess' body - the only truly worthwhile thing she'd ever gotten from her mother - then told her and anyone who had a problem with it to deal with it over and over and over again.

Could he still call Gaia out-of-touch with reality for wanting her own pound of flesh from the gods as he watched them spit on their oaths and promises in high-definition Blu-ray to a being so far beyond them it was laughable?

As they sentenced most - if not all - of her children to the Pit of Damnation for some sort of momentary vindication. Children she'd risked life and limb to protect, time and time again, from their own father?

Could he still pull the victim card or any sort of moral high ground on a goddess abusing her powers on people who could never hope to strike back after what he had done to her the very second he held the figurative whip?

He didn't want to think about it. He couldn't think about it.

Leaping into that kind of rabbit hole would no doubt destroy him. If he started wondering what could have been with every single god who wanted him dead, if he started second guessing drawing his blade on every monster threat he faced...

He sighed. For all his attempts to humanize the Goddess, she made it clear she wasn't like him, nor did she seem to want to be like him.

The aged primordial had done and suffered too much to ever consider showing even the slightest hint of weakness to anything or anyone. The 'Primordial War' - for all the scant bits and pieces he'd been able to gleam before getting pushed back forcefully - had more than taken its fair share of her compassion and innocence.

She was a lot like him in that sense.

Maybe that was why he resonated with the goddess so strongly.

It was a sentiment that racked yet warmed his heart to an unwelcome degree.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." A shaky voice pleaded.

Percy's shaky voice.

The Godkiller choked back tears as the last of the goddess' memories he'd been allowed to see faded from view entirely and placed his astral avatar on the violet ethereal pathway of an ever-expanding universe. Stars and galaxies so close yet so far away he imagined he could pocket them for safe-keeping. So bright and inviting he knew he could get lost in them forever if he let his guard down.

Luckily, the sound of Gaia begging for her mother's mercy again, like so many eons ago, was enough of a mood kill to temper himself. The desperate emotion in her fading voice was a haunting malady bound to follow him for the rest of his days. Percy refuted his earlier statement that the goddess did not bother to curse him.

This mental anguish could only be thought into existence by a scorned immortal.

"Not a curse, Ελευθερωτής, but a much-needed perspective." A voice he hadn't heard in what felt like millions of years now intoned in his head. It was layered and rich. Echoing, yet each word was unequivocally clear.

Chaos.

"Figures it'd be you who'd pull something like this," Percy commented idly, "Can I ask why?"

"You retain the privilege to such an inquiry, yes." The First One answered amicably.

...

Percy's right eye twitched. This smug bitch.

"Why did you need to do this to me, Chaos?" He asked when the Creator remained mute, far too drained for snark.

"As I said, child, Perspective."

He took back his earlier sentiment. Percy was biting down hard on his knuckles, trying to hold back a sarcastic retort that would no doubt have him vaporized.

"Your kind, the mortals, have a saying that I am quite fond of," Chaos continued, uncaring of his mental dilemma. It reads: if you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. And finally, if you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb to defeat in every battle."

Percy was pretty sure he'd heard Frank raving about that one a few weeks back. It was something the son of Mars picked up from a book, he recalled.

The Drawing of War, or something?

He pushed the discovery aside. "That's pretty philosophical and all," Percy mused, "But what does that have to do with me?"

"..."

"Chaos...you still with me in there?" He asked as he tapped his forehead for confirmation.

"Yes...yes, I am still with you; I often fail to comprehend how painfully dim-witted you can be on occasion."

The fuck?

"The point, child," She continued slowly. Like she was speaking to a particularly dull Neanderthal. It infuriated Percy. "Is that none of these statements particularly apply to you at the moment, whereas before you believed you knew yourself but not the enemy. Now you know and understand your enemy far better than most could ever hope to hold the privilege to – you have borne witness to her birth and her death – yet you know next to nothing about yourself and how to proceed with the realization."

"You fought tooth and nail for the dreams of yours and of your fallen friends, did you not? What will you do now with the knowledge that for all my wayward daughter's perceived evils, for all the hurt she has caused you? That she - your enemy - had her own dreams she hoped to bring to fruition. That the all-powerful Mother Earth was also just a sad, broken child who only ever wanted a family to love and to love her." The Creator concluded.

Percy took a momentary silence to gather his thoughts. Chaos' monologue was familiar, even if it came from the wrong messenger.

Had he not found himself pondering the question earlier?

...

"...I don't regret it," The Hero of Olympus decided, "killing Gaia, I mean. I won't regret it, it's not right. She'd have killed me and everyone I loved a thousand times over if given the choice."

He licked his dry lips and squared his shoulders, as he prepared for the but of his speech. "But, I've also realized that the battle isn't always won with the death of a perceived enemy. I see now that empathy and understanding from both parties can be all the foundation needed to save thousands."

And he believed that, too.

While he wasn't naive enough to think every problem could be solved with 'Peace, Love n Vibes' or any that of bong-puffing hookah your average beatnik nonconformist regurgitated, his fight and overall fever dream with Gaia had been more than enough to show he couldn't continue to live and fight in narrow-minded ignorance anymore.

That simply waving a sword and slaying the next big bad wasn't fixing or changing anything long-term. It had taught him that a bigger fish was always lurking beyond, waiting behind the scenes to reveal itself.

More importantly, there should always be more than one way to handle a conflict or problem.

"Don't tell me you couldn't be the person I needed. It implies you didn't have a choice."

'Oh, Annabeth,' Percy lamented internally.

The Hero of Olympus didn't know whether his girlfriend was just that much of a wordsmith or if she was getting her quotes from an off-screen playbook, but her words made their impact on him all the same.

There couldn't be such a thing as I had no choice for the Son of Poseidon now. He swore to himself now and for as long as he lived that he would always choose to be better.

Whatever that entailed remained to be seen.

A foreboding bell rang and echoed around him per his promise. Sealing it till the end of time or the event of his death. And for once...Percy wasn't sure which would come first.

"That is a difficult standard you have chosen to abide by, child." Chaos' voice boomed from his mind. "You will regret your choice."

Her voice wasn't mocking or even phrased as a warning. It was simply the truth from an aged, objective standpoint.

And yet, Percy didn't feel even the slightest bit repentant about it. He was a child of one of the Big Three, and suffering and mischief had been his ever-faithful colleagues since birth. He was a Hero of Olympus, and from now till the end of his days and even further beyond that, he and his descendants were marked for death.

And above all?

He was the son of Sally Jackson. He would always endure.

"I know," Percy remarked, "But it's mine to make."

"..."

"Big C?"

The One Above All contented herself with pondering on this new normal, much to the consternation of her impatient interlocutor.

"Interesting," the Goddess intoned, and Percy could almost see the smile. That alone was enough for Percy to start searching for any escape points in the star-lit expanse around him. "Yes, very interesting. I had doubts about this incarnation of you—muddied as you were—yet you may bear the fire of the Well-Counseled One even more so than your predecessors."

What was that about incarnation again?

"I fear I have withheld your essence here for too long. Awaken proudly, Godkiller."

"Wait a minute! What doubts? Iterations? You're not making any sense!" The budding Adjudicator protested.

"All shall be clear in due time, I will see you soon Περσεύς επιμένως."

Περσεύς επιμένως – Perseus Epimenos.

'Perseus the Enduring?' He translated automatically.

Was that because of his promise or...

No. Night had said the same thing, too. Along with some other complicated drivel that he still couldn't make heads or tails ofe didn't get much time to speculate as he felt his soul begin to unravel rapidly from his navel. His audience with the Creator concluded.

His last coherent thought - as the goddess literally flushed him down the universe like he was a stubborn skidmark on the toilet bowl - was that he should have bit the bullet and given the self-absorbed perfectionist the finger when he'd had the chance.

Y*C*O*Y*W

? August 2010, Camp Half Blood Infirmary, Long Island Sound, U.S.A

? Days Since Gaia's Passing

PERCY AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF WAILS.

He'd almost likened them to ambulance sirens from the volume alone, but the pitch...the discordant tempo. The sheer vulnerability in the cries disabused him of the notion.

No machine could ever hope to mimic human fragility so soundly; no mortal instrument could ever hope to capture the innocent weakness of a wounded child.

The realization got him to his feet instantly, a stinging pain in his right wrist's vein ignored. He'd witnessed enough guiltless suffering for a lifetime ever to stand by as someone hurt, let alone an innocent kid.

However, he promptly fell face down on the floor the second he moved to actualize his will. His ass tooted up skywards for anyone present to ridicule. He tried again to rise...yet faltered as history repeated itself.

What the Hades?

He readjusted his body against his abandoned medical cot and tried to take stock of his surroundings. The outside world was put on pause as his brows furrowed in confusion.

His...room was spacious. Percy spied a coffered teak wood ceiling not too dissimilar in design from that opera theater Annabeth had forced him to attend during their evening in Paris.

A Celestial Bronze menorah of an IV stand was strewn about his ruffled cot. Its bags were half-filled with all manner of liquids and chemicals as they leaked their contents onto the white silk sheet.

No heart-rate monitors or those fancy EKG thingies, though...he could either be in the Camp infirmary or an advanced monster hideout, but why would monsters want to keep him, of all people, alive for so long?

Beside the cot was a dresser full of well wishes, thank you letters, and hypoallergenic flowers of all species. Pure white linen sheets were at the furthest edges of his enclosure, likely put together to ward off any unwelcome visitors.

Percy turned his attention to the hardwood floor beneath him and noticed it was chilly against his bloody palm, yet he felt numb on his bare bottom.

Was he...

He couldn't be paralyzed, could he?

The son of Poseidon tried to recall any point in his battle where Gaia had landed any crippling blows to his spine, yet he came back blank.

His bout with Gaea had been more one-sided than Ali vs. Liston, and even then, the ocean should have repaired any of those injuries quickly.

What was it Chaos had said? She'd kept him there for too long?

Yes, it was more likely he'd been unconscious so long his legs had fallen asleep!

"Momma! You gotta help us! Jaden's stopped breathing!" A meek voice bawled.

That was all the motivation the Hero of Olympus needed to get moving.

Percy grit his teeth as he got on his belly and crawled toward the grieving child with all he had. Any thoughts that it could be an evil cyclops playing at his heartstrings pushed to the very back of his priorities as he pulled himself forward with his cold bleeding hands.

He didn't even know what he would do when he got there; Percy just felt he had to be there for that kid.

"I don't care if he's balls deep in Aphrodite! Get Solace in here! NOW!" a low, familiar voice growled. Rachel? With me, I think I heard something back there."

He heard a steady shuffling in his direction as the voice got closer.

Hold up, had they said, Rachel?!

Sure enough, his redheaded what-if's sarcastic voice sounded clearly through the hubbub.

"Are you sure he's not just crying in his sleep again?" the Oracle of Delphi asked tiredly.

"Does it matter? Don't tell me you're giving up on him, too." The voice replied, frustrated, "Every single one of them left him behind."

The partition sheets concealing him were pushed aside fiercely, revealing a sprawled-out Percy Jackson clad in an open-in-the-back hospital gown, his pale ass out to the whole infirmary. A deer-in-headlights look affixed on his face as he gazed at the gobsmacked expressions of his visitors.

The "legendary" Godkiller studied his mysterious visitor from his cringe-inducing position.

A pair of ratty black high-top Chucks lay covered in an even rattier pair of dark ripped jeans. A deep-black chain that seemed to suck the light and life from anything near it remained anchored on his left hip, an empty leather scabbard on his right.

Before the child had donned an oversized beaten aviator's jacket, the teen in front of him had parted with it in favor of a (you guessed it) all-black tee with a pale crowned skull in its center. The boy's pale olive skin shivered in the chilly room.

His build was fuller than when Percy last saw him, his arms and chest packed with lean, taut muscles. His form rippled subtly with an aura of dark power, and his onyx-black eyes were a conduit for such power. His flabbergasted expression shifted to something more apoplectic, and his midnight-black hair rose slightly.

"Methinks your style could benefit from a splash of color, Neeks?" The son of Poseidon joked nervously.

However, his attempts to lighten the mood crashed and burned as the tension in the room skyrocketed. Rachel's expression was torn between exhausted relief and deadpan annoyance as her acid-green eyes flitted between the two powerhouses before her.

"Let me get this straight," The son of Hades growled lowly as shadows extended out of nowhere to shield his eyes from the light of day, "You zoink out for weeks in Tar-in there, then come out a fucking Vietnam vet."

Percy's heart clenched in grief for the boy at the stutter. That clenching turned to frenzied drumming as Nico prowled towards him with all the lethality of a goth panther.

"You ditch us in the middle of a war to go head to head with a Primordial," Nico continued, "Then come back from that even worse than the sack of shit the Pit spat out."

The King of Ghosts had gotten to him, lifting Percy with a hand as he fisted his collar. His silver skull ring was near freezing as it dug into Percy's skin.

"And the first thing - the first thing – your pale bleeding ass bothers to tell me in an infirmary full of dying kids is a fashion joke?!"

Nico couldn't help but laugh.

A sad, hysterical laugh from the back of his throat that Percy shared nervously, as he feared further aggravating the manic child holding him within striking distance, said wild child's laughs growing frantic as he noticed Percy's addition. The Son of Hades turned his laughs towards a visibly spooked Rachel Elizabeth Dare as he pointed at his captive in a Get a load of this clown gesture.

"WERE YOU DROPPED AS A CHILD JACKSON!" The Prince of the Underworld enunciated every word with a brain-rattling shake as he desperately tried to jostle the stupidity afflicting his friend with a vengeance.

A blonde-haired boy in doctor's scrubs rushed in at the noise and visibly stumbled at the sight before him before rushing at the frothing son of Hades and restraining him in a full nelson. Will Solace dragged Nico away from the disoriented Son of Poseidon, his wrathful captive screaming all the while?

Percy took the chance to rest against his cot while his legs slowly regained feeling. His now dry hand soothing his thumping heart.

That kid was terrifying.

"LEMME GO, SOLACE, HE'S AWAKE! I'LL PUT THAT KELP-HEADED MORON IN ANOTHER COMA WHILE I HAVE THE CHANCE! JACKSON, I SWEAR I'L-"

That was as far as he got before Will gagged him. Yet the damage was already done. Patients around the infirmary shot up in alarm as word of the Bane of Gaea's status made rounds.

"Percy's AWAKE?!" He heard.

"I knew he'd make it!" A small voice squealed.

Percy had even heard some muffled prayers in thanks to the gods for his recovery. He heard the rapid thumping of footsteps approaching him and belatedly realized he was still dressed in an open hospital gown.

Rachel, ever the prophetic genius, had divined that an eyeful of his crotch to children wouldn't do wonders for his dignity and rushed to shut the blinds.

"Give him a minute, guys. He's been out of it for a while," she reasoned. "It won't help to crowd him so soon."

A collective 'awww man' sounded out in the infirmary, but Percy was too relieved to give it much thought. He still couldn't do too well in crowds.

Weak.

"Thanks, Red. I mean it." Percy voiced gratefully.

"Don't sweat it," She waved away easily, " 'sides I was hoping I could get my own crack at you first."

The son of Poseidon grumbled in resignation because what the heck. He'd rather have stayed in limbo if it meant he wouldn't get hit every 5 seconds. He braced his chin for impact.

"Alright...make it quick." Percy bit out, as he shut his eyes tight.

He heard her soft footsteps as she advanced slowly. His heartbeat quickened as she got closer, while his demigod instincts screamed, "Danger! Danger!" before finally...

The Oracle of Delphi crashed into him with a bone-crushing hug, the acrylic-scented biohazard she called hair choking him as she buried her head in his neck.

"Thank the gods," She choked, "Thank the Gods! I was worried, Percy. I was so worried. When Poseidon came out with you from the surf-"

Rachel stumbled over her words messily as her body shook with muffled sobs. Percy held onto his old friend tightly, rubbing soothing circles on her back. The boy hadn't given any thought to how much time could have passed in the outside world during his lesson or how much his perceived coma could have hurt his friends.

He felt like an ass.

You are an ass.

"You were practically dead, Percy; your body was pale and so, so cold." She continued, unaware of his mental guilt, "Covered in blood and ichor and-"

The grief-stricken girl looked up at him, her green bloodshot eyes haunted as her lips quivered, "Your heart stopped beating, Percy. Multiple times. There were talks of euthanizing you. Today."

"WHAT! Why was that even a debate?" He demanded, hurt flooding his tone as revulsion marred his features.

"BECAUSE EVERY MOMENT YOU WEREN'T DEAD, YOU WERE IN AGONY, YOU IDIOT!" Soft-spoken Rachel screamed as she pushed off of him. "YOU WERE CRYING EVERY MINUTE, HURLING BLOOD, CUTTING YOURSELF."

Rachel was picking up steam now, weeks of frustration pouring out of her as she pulled at her hair agitatedly.

"YOU HAD 2 SEIZURES TODAY JUST BEFORE BREAKFAST! 2! WE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ANYMORE! MOST OF THE SEVEN HAD TO LEAVE BECAUSE WATCHING YOU KILL YOURSELF WAS KILLING THEM!"

His red-haired friend held herself tightly at her sides as an unhinged, hazy look entered her eyes, and her breaths came out in long, desperate gasps. She was having a panic attack...

Percy slowly stood to his feet, his legs shaking uncomfortably as he struggled to maintain his balance. He took one unsteady step towards his unfocused friend; one became two, then three, until he made his way to Rachel. The Bane of Gaea slowly but firmly pried a frail arm from her side and entwined it gently with his own, a subtle act of comfort to the panic-stricken girl before him but a meaningful one all the same.

The minutes blurred as Percy remained with Rachel, but he didn't notice the two of them drifted to the floor until Rachel's breathing stabilized.

"...Thanks." She murmured finally.

"I'm sorry," Percy riposted, "Not for not wanting to die, but for causing you all so much pain."

Rachel leaned into his shoulder vulnerably, her heart pounding as she collected herself.

"I-I know it wasn't your fault. I know I don't have the right to tear your head off for not being okay with biting it, but," She stifled a sob, "I care, you know. I love you, you know that. You're important to me, gods you're practically the second coming to this whole camp. We need you—all of us. I can't summon storms or control fire. I can't swing a sword or aim a bow worth a damn. All I've got are prophecies and a hairbrush." Rachel finished self-deprecatingly. Her shoulders slouched, and her bright red hair seemed to leech itself of the color with every barb.

Rachel was mortal.

And it stunned Percy to realize he'd never given much of a thought to it before...not because he didn't care about her or anything like that, but because the woman was so much of a softspoken badass he'd subconsciously likened her to a force of nature of his Mother's caliber.

The girl had taken a helicopter to a warzone just to tell him he wasn't destined to die, stolen his pegasus, and taken on a century-old curse from a member of the Big Three in a 1-v-1 because she felt like it, who the Hades did you know had the chutzpah to pull off that brand of Jackson-patented craziness?

How could she act like she wasn't the baddest ginger to walk this side of the East Coast?

"Hey now, Kronos can personally attest to that hairbrush being labeled a WMD." Percy intoned fondly, his frail hand brushing her frizzy, red mane.

As she dabbed at her eyes, Rachel slugged him in the shoulder weakly for his efforts, but he could see the corners of her lips twitching slightly.

He'd lightened the mood somewhat, thank Sally.

"Can it, Fish Breath? I'm on a roll here." She continued in faux-arrogance, her nostrils flaring haughtily.

"By your command, Your Gingerness."

"...Thank you," Rachel accepted benevolently, though her acid-green eyes looked to be housing glimmering stars as she beamed fondly. "Now, where was I? Ooh, right! So yeah, all I've got are ominous prophecies and a pretty cool hairbrush. I'm just a plain old mortal; I don't think a lot of people around here would lose too much sleep if I and my shitty visions up and bit the curb."

"But, it's different with you. You're Percy freaking Jackson; you make or break Camp Half-Blood whether you like it or not.

"Hey now, don-" Percy started before getting steamrolled by the redhead.

"Don't you hey now me, Jackson. It's the truth; you're the only one too dumb to see it. Listen, actually, listen to the world around you."

He took her words when it seemed the girl wouldn't take no for an answer. And found he couldn't hear anything too out of the ordinary.

There was the gentle creaking of floorboards.

The steady billowing from several air conditioners in the building.

And a hopeful humming from multiple people in the infirmary.

Nothing stood out to the Son of Poseidon, and he said as much to his freckle-faced companion.

"Dork," Rachel muttered as she shook her head fondly, "We're in an infirmary after one of the worst battles this camp has ever fended off, and there's not a single cry or plea for help to be heard like before."

That was... 100% factual. He didn't know if it spoke positively or negatively of his thought process that he'd assumed someone had just placed a spell on his room to prevent sound from getting in or out. But, if it wasn't...

"That's what the mention of your name does to this place. It doesn't matter how hopeless everything seems; it barely even matters if the fates themselves tell them they're going to die within the hour. As long as you're there? As long as they hear the name Percy Jackson, they can keep fighting. They can keep believing."

Rachel paused to catch her breath after her resounding monologue. Her smile grew as her words impacted the stunned Hero of Olympus.

'Took you long enough.' She thought.

Percy got his voice again after a few contemplative beats of silence.

"I don't think I'm worthy of that." He said, "No, I'm not worthy of that sort of...devotion."

Not even close to worthy.

"But - and yes, there is a but - I appreciate it all the same."

And privately...he'd live to be worthy of that fanatical worship. Not for his ego, though – get real – but for his people. His Family.

Right now, though?

"How bad was it, Rach?" He asked, already dreading the answer. His hopes plummeted even further at the Oracle's despondent grimace.

"...Bad, Perce. It was so bad; it'd have been worse if you hadn't done whatever you did with Gaea." Rachel's eyes became foggy, weeks of trauma taking hold of her for a moment before the girl shook her head, "Speaking of, what did you do to her?"

A violation.

A blight upon the laws of Creation itself.

"Nothing much, really," Percy replied, none too bothered.

"Really?" She questioned skeptically, "It was enough to turn the soil surrounding Camp golden, not to mention that crater. I think the earthquakes stopped entirely about an hour before you woke up. Chiron talked about half of Alaska getting swallowed into the sea about a week ago. What happened down there, Percy?"

That was so not what he needed to hear right now. He hadn't expected Gaia's death to bring that kind of devastation; more guilt took hold of him.

"How many, Rachel?" The Bane of Gaia deflected, much to Rachel's displeasure. The young woman opened her mouth to reprimand him, but was cut off by a new voice behind them.

The little bastard had been hiding in the shadows the whole time.

"32 Demigods dead, 94 severely wounded." The grim voice of Nico di Angelo stated, "And that's from Camp Half-Blood alone. The Romans' losses were in the hundreds, last we saw them."

Percy stilled completely, the outside world muted to him as his mind was thrown into a frenzy of frantic thoughts. Faces, voices, names, innocent kids lost to the Elysian Fields for a war they'd never even been given much of a choice to fight.

"What? He asked for it, didn't he?" He defended nervously as he was laid victim to Rachel's venomous glare.

"How..." He croaked, desperately trying to make sense of it all, "The legion's a freaking war machine. They were more than skilled, Styx, they fucking stormed Othrys! How the Hades did they go down so badly?"

It must have troubled the young man before him, too, as he gave no visible reaction to his father being used as a cuss word other than an awkward grimace.

"Octavian, il fottuto imbecille," Nico said darkly. "He placed the legion in a sea of monsters at the start of the fighting. Reyna tried her best to keep the casualties to a minimum, but..."

The son of Hades slumped to the ground, his head fixed on the ceiling, and his exhaustion got the best of him.

"She could only do so much...they didn't take their losses too well." Nico finished quietly.

Rachel's muttered 'understatement' was casually ignored.

"What about the mortals?"

"What about the mortals?" Nico answered with a raised brow, genuinely baffled at the question.

"Rachel said half of Alaska was swallowed, di Angelo. Are we doing anything to help? The Gods? Are they doing anything?" Percy demanded.

...

"Well?!"

Nico and Rachel at least had the decency to look sheepish, and while Percy didn't take any delight in guilt-tripping his friends, he still felt he had to push on with the question. Normal mortals were like sticks to a redwood compared to Demigods alone, never mind a Primordial like Gaea. It was a comparison that would get you laughed out of the campfire.

Acts of terrorism were a hell of a lot more different than entire landmasses getting swallowed; they needed help, and they needed it yesterday. To Hades with that hands-off nonsense.

"...sand," Nico mumbled.

"What?"

"Roughly 11 thousand dead in Alaska, a hundred thousand more displaced. The gods have been radio silent." Nico announced loudly, "All gods. The last one anyone saw was your Father, and that was just to drop you off. And well, there's Lupa, but-"

Nico shook his head violently in a firm 'no' at the thought.

"Half our number were either wounded or dead from the last battle. We couldn't afford to send out relief teams, and—" Nico tried to rationalize, but Percy had stopped listening. A thousand-yard stare dominated his features as guilt squeezed at his heart.

'Had killing Gaia like that really caused all this?' Percy thought mournfully, 'Should I have tried something else? Could I?'

"It was the only way." He recalled Annabeth saying.

Annabeth.

Holy Hera, he'd forgotten about Annabeth. What kind of boyfriend was he?

Had they found her body in time? Had anyone even found her at all?

"...rcy? PERCY! Get a grip, dude! Look, I'm sorry we di-"

"ANNABETH!" Percy roared, his guilt forgotten as he clung to Nico's arms, "Where is she! Is she okay!"

Nico's face darkened at the name but softened at Percy's panicked rambling.

"Calm down, dude, she's okay, but she's not here with us." He finished lamely.

"What the heck does that even mean." The son of Poseidon urged, "Don't screw with me di Angelo. I'm not a little kid anymore; I can take it. Tell me what happened. Where the hell is my girlfriend."

"I very much doubt that, but she's not here."

"Nico..."

"I'm doing this to help you, you idiot!"

"AND I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!" Percy roared, "JU-just tell me where she is, Nico. Please."

Nico looked like telling him anything relating to Annabeth was the last thing he wanted to do. His onyx eyes were shifty and skittish like his battle instincts were banging drum solos on his eardrums while screaming RUN.

Rachel was the one who chose to step up when it looked like Nico was about to knee him in the nuts and book it; consequences be damned. Her expression was turbulent as her manicured nails bit into her palms agitatedly, yet she directed him to his loaded cot side dresser all the same.

The Redheaded Oracle handed Percy an inconspicuous grey envelope she retrieved from the first drawer, with the initials A.C written in messy cursive on the seal flap. Percy didn't waste a second in tearing the envelope apart, proper etiquette taking a backseat as he rushed to read its contents.

The first three words were enough to make him wish he'd taken his time opening the letter—at least then, his emotional whiplash would have been more subdued. The pitying looks he received from Rachel and Nico did nothing to improve his mood.

Written in bold, deep blue ink (his favorite shade of the color, mind you) was a depressing: Dear Seaweed Brain.

...

By the third paragraph, the tone of the message had not improved; in anything, it got worse.

It got so much worse.

Y*C*O*Y*W

 

Chapter 5: Birthday Wishes And Famine

"If what they say is nothing is forever, then what makes love the exception?"

- Andre "Andre 3000" Benjamin

Birthday Wishes And Famine

? August 2010, Poseidon Cabin, Camp Half Blood, Long Island Sound, USA

Half an Hour Since Percy's Revival

IT DIDN'T MAKE A LICK OF SENSE.

How could she do this to him?

Yes, Percy could concede the point that they weren't doing too well.

Yes, he understood the need for space when a relationship was getting too stifling.

But to abandon someone you claimed to love on what may have been their deathbed.

Someone who'd turned down godhood for you. Who'd suffered for you?

Who'd jumped down into Hell for you?

With a fucking letter?

Percy needed answers.

He needed answers fast before he did something stupid.

Which was why he found himself in his cabin, along with Nico and Rachel, with his ass out to the whole world in a bloody hospital gown.

"At least put on a pair of briefs, Percy." Nico bemoaned, "It's a wonder you didn't flash half the camp on the way here."

That...was an excellent point, Percy conceded. The son of Poseidon had tuned out the trek from the infirmary to Cabin 3, far too infuriated to stop and make conversation; as such, he knew next to nothing about what had happened to the camp during his coma.

Yet, all of that was secondary to him at the moment.

He wasn't emotionally stable right now, and it would only get worse if he didn't get a proper explanation from his now...ex-girlfriend.

But yes, a shower and a proper set of clothes would do wonders for his anxiety.

"You're...right, Annabeth isn't going to want to listen to me dressed like an idiot."

Nico opened his mouth to say something that would have likely had him ejected from the Poseidon cabin, but seemed to think better of it as he shook his head in annoyance and leaned against a wall.

Rachel spoke up from her perch on his messy bed. While Nico had been adamant about stopping Percy from trying to contact Annabeth, the Oracle of Delphi had elected to remain silent.

The redhead was content gazing in mesmerized wonder at the suspended bronze hippocampi his brother, Tyson, had crafted a few years back. "Do what you have to do, Percy. We're with you."

"With the fishes more like," Percy muttered.

He withheld a sigh as he trudged to his indoor shower. His bathroom had the same sophisticated abalone shell decor as the main room. However, it was still as chaotic as he'd left it since his kidnapping, albeit with the addition of a moldy toothbrush and dried-out expired toothpaste.

Yuck.

Percy bent down to the cubby storage by the sink to retrieve one of Tyson's spares(love you, baby bro) and screamed like a schoolgirl at his image in the mirror, all thoughts regarding Annabeth forgotten.

Percy's body was still underweight; his sleep-deprived, purple eye bags had dimmed some from his coma-from looking like he'd lost seven rounds in a boxing ring to just 5 5-allowing him to look at his deep sea-green eyes better. The son of Poseidon was still dressed in an ugly vomit-teal hospital gown.

That wasn't what surprised him, no.

It was his hair.

His once unkempt midnight mop of hair had faded to the color of ash. A wild mane of platinum locks reached down to his shoulders, with fading black tips at the ends like an albatross' wings. A tiny neon-green snap hair clip held the bangs on his forehead back from his eyes.

Percy gripped his blanched locks tightly as if to rip them off at the seams. His pupils dilated, and his breathing got shallow as his heart tried and failed to extricate itself from his chest cavity; he shook with terror the longer the blight refused to leave his scalp in his reflection.

Was it an over-exaggeration? Absolutely.

It was hair.

It would raise some eyebrows here and there, but who cared about the opinions of random mortals?

No, Percy's crisis came with a much darker context.

He recalled a story his mother had told him way back when he'd first considered killing Gabe, the Christian story of the First Murder. It followed the paths of two siblings, Cain and Abel, the sons of the First Man and Woman, trying to live their lives for their God after their parents had been banished from the Garden of Eden by burning offerings for His favor.

Abel, a shepherd, offered God the best cuts of meat from the firstborn of his flock and received God's respect. Cain, a crop farmer, offered only select parts of his harvest and received only apathy from God. Cain was angered by the perceived slight and murdered his younger sibling in a fit of unfair jealousy.

God wasted no time punishing the murderer, casting the man away from his family and cursing him for never receiving the fruits of his labor till the day he died.

Now you may be asking yourself: What the hell was Sally thinking, telling this to a 12-year-old victim of child abuse?

And to that, Percy would kindly tell you to go fuck yourself.

No one dissed his Mother.

However, Percy's current issue was the final part of the lesson. After getting a frankly fitting punishment for his sin, Cain received a mark on his flesh that stayed with him till his death. The Mark of God served as a testament to the people of Cain's crime and warned away those who wished to walk with or harm him, lest they incur the Wrath of God.

Percy didn't believe for a second that his murder of Gaea, the arrival of her Mother, and the subsequent bleaching of his hair were all a coincidence.

He'd had to have been marked; he could see no other explanation now.

His sin had been laid bare for all the world to see.

Was that why Annabeth had left him? Would everybody else leave him once word got out that Chaos, of all gods, had placed a hit on him?

How long did he have before the Camp chased him away? Would mortals understand the mark's significance, too? Would they also cast him away from civilization? What about monsters? Would even monsters want nothing to do with the ground he walked on? What about-

Would even his mother abandon him, too?

All these thoughts compounded on his fraying conscience and left Percy a sniveling mess on the pearlescent floor. He started to rock back and forth, clutching his head between his hands as a crazed look entered his eyes, a pitiful whine sounding right from the back of his throat.

"...RCY! HEY PERCY! LOOK AT ME!"

Percy was driven out of his fit by Nico's rapid jostling, concern splayed all over the Son of Hades' face as he fussed over his friend.

"...Ni..co?" Percy asked brokenly, his red-rimmed eyes too unfocused to see him properly.

"What happened here, Percy? Talk to me."

The softness in his tone jarred him out of his blues as he realized how pathetic he had to have looked for Nico, of all people, to be the picture of emotional stability.

He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't cry. He'd made a promise to be better. He couldn't afford to break here. She would make him suffer for such weakness the second she got the chance.

She is a Primordial, you arrogant brat. If she wanted you, she'd have you...again.

He returned to his feet and dusted off his gown, pointedly ignoring his reflection in the mirror.

He needed to take things one at a time. First, he had to get Annabeth back.

Everything would make sense again once he had her with him.

"I'm fine. Just surprised is all, my...hair and everything." Percy finally responded to Nico's question with a half-shrug.

"Yeah, and the Pit is family-friendly. Don't lie to me, Jackson. Whatever happened here was enough for me to want to leave you in a straitjacket," Nico riposted as he gestured to the turned-over bathroom. "A notion I'm still considering, mind you."

"It's nothing," he said in faux exasperation, rolling his eyes for effect. "It's nothing. Or it will be nothing as soon as I sort this whole Annabeth business out. Now, if you mind?"

Percy gestured towards the open bathroom door, the dismissal clear. He spied Rachel pretending not to listen, yet her bone-white grip on his blue sheets contrasted with her nonchalant persona.

Nico glared at him hard, intent on badgering the son of Poseidon for more before finally scoffing in disappointment and taking his leave, slamming the wooden door behind him and muttering something about stubborn fish-kissers.

Percy would be fine. He just needed Annabeth.

He recited those words like a mantra as the faucet of his shower burst to life over him.

The son of Poseidon noticed the water droplets did not soothe or heal him like they had always done, but he chalked it up to his weary nerves.

Y*C*O*Y*W

The Hero of Olympus stepped out of the bathroom in his classic garb.

An orange CHB tee, a light pair of loose blue jeans, and a ratty pair of forest-green Chucks. He fingered his clay beads as he pushed aside his ashen bangs.

'Gotta cut this down soon, maybe some hair dye too.'

Why? It's fitting for a barbaric monster such as yourself

"Use this," Rachel said as she tossed him a small blue ring of material.

It was a hair tie.

A blue hair tie, but still. A hair tie.

"I'd rather go into addictive depression than ever get a man bun." He responded bluntly, his deadpan expression deteriorating as the urge to vomit grew.

"Percy, you look like you got kicked out from under a bridge, even after the shower. Stop being a baby and put on the fucking hair tie!" The redhead snapped as she reached for a hairbrush on his dresser.

Percy put on the hair tie.

He went to the saltwater fountain stashed at the back of his cabin, the already heated water forming a warm mist in the air. He opened the nearest window, let the summery sunlight form a rainbow in the fog, and then fished a few drachmae out of the bottom.

"Iris, O Goddess of the Rainbow," He said, "accept my offering."

He tossed the coin into the mist, locking in his call as it disappeared.

"Show me Annabeth Chase at her place in San Francisco."

The mist shimmered, and the image of the daughter of Athena's blonde curls appeared. Her back was turned to them as she continued to pack for what looked to be a long trip. Her room was disorganized and scattered with clothes, books, maps, architectural plans, and several versions of Celestial Bronze weapons. Percy wished her luck getting through TSA.

"Annabeth!"

His ex gave no reaction to his yell other than a tiny flinch and a low exhale as she twisted to face her voyeur. She had a thin white scar from the top-right side of her lips to her chin and a steel-grey cotton eyepatch over her left eye, yet Percy thought she'd never looked more beautiful.

His hormonal infatuation grew when her glossy caramel lips shifted into a duck pout.

"Pervert," She grumbled, and gods, what he wouldn't give to hear that teasing lilt again, "How've ya been, Seaweed Brain."

And like that, the magic faded as spite overcame the hurt son of Poseidon.

"Oh, life's been a bed of freaking roses! Did you know there were talks of killing me in my sleep today?" Percy smiled with faux glee, "Of course, you didn't, you weren't with me."

Annabeth didn't so much as twitch at the venom in his voice, instead bobbing her head in sage-like understanding as if his likely death was just another marked checkbox in a bingo card. Percy groaned as the odds of there being a "Percy Jackson Bingo Book" rose in his head.

He beat back the thought as he brought out the stupid letter his ex had left for him and shook it at the mist screen, "Why would you do this?"

"...It's complicated."

"Then un-complicate it. Tell me something. Anything at all that could walk me through this." Annabeth took a deep breath when she noticed the desperation in his voice.

"It happened about a week after Poseidon brought you back from the sea; Athena came up to me with an offer. Do you remember any of the talks we ever had about Ms. Zaha Hadid?"

"Zaha...Hadid? Uh, no...not really, she a demigod?"

He heard Nico and Rachel facepalming in the background at his ignorance, and Percy was very tempted to flip the nosy traitors the bird. He was dealing with a lot today, okay?

Annabeth didn't seem to take much offense with it; she looked like she'd been hoping for his wilful ignorance to come into play.

"A demigod? No, Ms. Hadid's a 100% human. She's an Iraqi-British architect. The best female architect in the world might have been the greatest architect of her time if the field weren't such a sausage fest." Annabeth chuckled ruefully.

"Okay-okay, she sounds like a badass. Why do you have to leave?"

"Like I said, Athena came up to me with an offer. Probably her parody of an apology for disowning and sending me on that quest under Rome, I didn't care."

Annabeth shrugged her shoulders in a What? It's the truth gesture as thunder rumbled over her house.

Were those schmucks listening to this?

"She told me she'd crossed paths with Ms. Hadid in the 70s in London. Apparently, Athena was one of her lecturers at the Architect's Association for a few years. You know how it goes: a drink here, a favor or 2, and she could extort Ms. Hadid into mentoring me for a bit. She moves regularly between Baghdad and London, so I can't make any promises I'll ever be in the States for a few years."

The story was coming together all too clearly for Percy, who fought to steady himself.

This Zaha Hadid woman was a literal godsend to any young aspiring female architect, even more so for someone as ambitious as Annabeth.

Percy could already see the conversation between Athena and Annabeth play out. He doubted the Wisdom goddess had even gotten the sentence out before Annabeth had said yes with a shining star in her lone eye, an uplifted clenched fist, and steam puffing out of her nostrils.

For the gods ' sake, this had been her dream since they were 12; architecture was already difficult to enter as a woman without spreading your legs, let alone dominating it as Annabeth intended.

The sheer wealth of knowledge, ideas, experience, and connections a prodigy like her would absorb from a week of working with the architectural Titan would be enough to set her up for generations.

This was the opportunity of a lifetime. Percy would have cracked open the blue Cokes and celebrated with them if it were anyone else.

But it was Annabeth.

Annabeth wasn't just anyone to him. They'd had each other's backs for years. Fought and bled for each other. Taken blades for each other.

Loved each other.

Annabeth was as much his missing half as he was to her.

...

Which was why he didn't for a second believe Annabeth was willingly leaving him.

He wasn't arrogant enough to think she'd ever spend her whole life waiting on him, but a week into his coma? C'mon.

No, something else had to be at play here. There had to be another reason she was trying to keep him at arm's length.

Why she never seemed to look at him directly, even from the safety of her own home. Why she moved like she was drowning in a tub of molasses. Why did her excited smile at the prospect of a lifetime look so artificial?

Why was her first reaction to seeing him alive not relief or surprise but a playful indifference?

"...Annabeth," Percy started slowly, "What aren't you telling me?"

The daughter of Athena's response was a far too casual eyebrow raise. It was a practiced one.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, why are you acting like this? " he gestured at her wildly, as if that was enough to explain the problem. What stopped you from going at the end of the summer? Or staying at camp for a few more days? You're still in San Francisco even after all this time; you wouldn't have missed a thing."

Annabeth's expression was genuine confusion this time as she digested his words before brightening in answer as she struggled not to chuckle.

"I get it." She tittered fondly, "You have no idea what today is, do you? Well, I can't say I don't feel a little full of myself that I was the first thing on your mind the second you woke up."

"What are you talking about?" Percy asked, prepping himself for pain.

"Well, let's just say I didn't think your heart would take it so soon after a coma if I broke up with you on your birthday."

"...Eh?"

"Mmhmm, so much for that idea, huh? According to the Eastern Daylight Time standard, it was officially the 18th of August, 13 hours, 12 minutes, and 26 seconds ago." She rattled off mechanically with that same robotic smile on her face. Happy Birthday, Seaweed Brain!"

Percy probably should have been more upset at Annabeth taking the piss as she was. Still, that annoyance was directed to the now visibly uncomfortable forms of Nico and Rachel at his dirty look as his hands found purchase on his hips.

"What the Hades, you guys? First the hair, now my birthday? Did you assholes tell me anything?!"

"We had more important things to worry about you ass! You know, like your euthanization?!" Nico rushed to answer as Rachel's gaze returned to the fish ponies.

"You can just tell me you forgot, dude. It's fine, it just hurts. Right here." Percy finished his sentence with a dramatic tapping where his heart would be, his face a perfect mask of dejection.

"You have a problem with your hair, Percy? How come? I'd kill for white hair."

That stopped Percy's antics dead, his eyes widening momentarily as he mulled over Annabeth's words internally.

Did she know?

It shouldn't have been possible; he didn't think Chaos made a habit of breaking bread with mortals or demigods.

She barely made eons for her children.

But, the Creator did seem to crave entertainment...no.

God gained nothing from interfering with his love life.

Percy doubted teenage angst was enough of a cure-all for immortal boredom, yet hadn't he questioned the purpose of his hair's bleaching earlier...

He pushed his thoughts aside as he tried to answer Annabeth's question casually.

"I don't think my mom'll be all too stoked that I'm going rebel so early."

"Oh, definitely," the daughter of Athena giggled, as she put her hands on her cheeks and took on a horrified expression, "My boy, Oh Paul, my baby boy! It's frosted tips today, and nose rings tomorrow!"

"Sally, so sounds like that!" Rachel exclaimed through snickers, and even Nico failed to hold back a smirk, "Oh, lighten up ya mama's boy, it's true."

"Go back to counting the fish, Red. I know what you're doing, Annabeth. Stop dodging the question. What happened while I was gone?"

Annabeth let out a disappointed sigh at his insistence. It only served to make Percy more determined to get answers. The last time she'd been this difficult, he'd found out she still had feelings—well, more of a brotherly fondness, but he may have been a tad biased—for Luke Castellan.

It had hurt then, but it eventually brought them so much closer.

"You remember how I acted toward you on the Argo II, right? Before everything went to hell?"

"I remember you feeling cornered. Like you had no one you could trust, is that what this is about? Annabeth. Babe, I told you it didn't matter to"

"It should!" Annabeth yelled, her lone grey eye flashing in anger...before dulling in self-hatred, "It really should, Percy. You jumped into Tartarus to be with me for a mistake I made. You suffered in that hellscape even worse than I did; I was just too selfish to see it. The river Cocytus, the Arai's curses, Gorgon's blood poisoning, Akhlys' poisoning, and whatever that bitch did to you."

Annabeth paused to calm herself as her experiences got the best of her. It was a look Percy had gotten all too familiar with: on the veterans of the Battle of Manhattan, on children fighting in a divine war.

It sickened him.

"And I treated you like a monster. Spent weeks avoiding you like the plague, like you weren't also hurting. Like you weren't pretending to be strong for all of us on that godforsaken quest." Annabeth continued quietly, her head in her hand as her body shook softly, "Di immortales, you still tried to get me out of there safely against Tartarus himself. You dropped Riptide. You were terrified, yet you were willing to die for me...and I actually considered it."

...

By all the elder Gods...

"I-it's okay, I'm okay with it; I love you, Annabeth. More than anything, my life even more so. I'm more than happy to give it away if it means you get to keep on living. Please, Annabeth, please just come back to me." He begged, a manic, desperate look entering his eyes.

Percy didn't like the way Annabeth looked at him. He didn't even like the way he sounded—like an obsessive, broken child scared of abandonment.

The exact same way he'd been looking at Gaea during her 50,000 years of solitude.

His annoyance reached a simmering peak when Nico and Rachel came over to him to console him.

Why were they acting like he didn't have a chance? Like, he couldn't make her listen?

Like he was a victim?

"No. It's not okay, Percy, not even a little. You're a person, not some weapon the people you love get to use and leave to rust when a fight ends. Not some monster parents tell their kids about at night to make them behave. I was the monster. I hated those powers. I hated what they did to you and how much they terrified me, yet I pushed you into using them when the going got tough. I manipulated you, knowing what would happen afterward, and you nearly died for it."

The shame in her voice was almost palpable. Annabeth had her fist scrunched around her shirt as tears ran down her face in unending rivulets.

Percy watched, shock plastered as his heart urged him to console her somehow.

But what the Hades could you say about that?

It wasn't like her guilt was misplaced; everything she'd accused herself of rang true to a degree.

Despite that, he loved her all the same. Percy already knew Athena's daughter had issues; it was like asking if water was wet. The girl was prideful, cold, paranoid, prickly, and annoyingly insufferable at the best of times, along with a whole naughty list of unattended mental issues. Yet, he'd never set that as a standard for her character.

Annabeth was strong.

She was confident, intelligent, loving, and respectful to those who reciprocated it...and his rock above all.

Everything he did was tied to her in some way, shape, or form.

Percy loved her - he probably always would - to the point of self-destruction, and he'd long since accepted that.

His love for her gave him strength in the most dire situations and suffused life into him in his most hopeful and quiet pastimes. It made him want to push harder for her, regardless of how unhealthy the obsession was, the further Annabeth tried to keep him away.

Her feeble resistance did wonders for his confidence; Percy believed she might not be as ready to leave him as she claimed.

"I don't care. Stop trying to make me look like some herded cattle." Percy said, "You may have been a motivation for what I did, but in the end, I'm the one who did it. It was my choice, nobody else's, I alone carry the blame for my thoughts, actions, and their consequences. And I choose to keep loving you all the same, I don't care if it makes me look stupid or thirsty or obsessive."

He freed himself from Nico and Rachel's grasp and advanced to the mist screen. The childhood lovers were close now, and the mist image was so vivid that Percy could almost imagine his outstretched hand on the screen touching Annabeth's from thousands of kilometers away.

"I love you, Annabeth, every single facet of you. Don't leave me."

Percy took pride in the fact that whatever Annabeth had been expecting hadn't been that. Her mouth gaped like a fish as her tears subsided, her hold on her shirt softening as her body shuddered in trepidation.

However, a mournful frown overtook her surprise as she shook her head negatively.

"I can't."

"You can't, or you won't." Percy threw back.

"Alright, you mouthy smartass, I can't!" She snapped in frustration, "You don't get it, Percy! You're a guy who could do so much more, who could be so much more. Even she had to have seen it. You're smart, courageous, you've got a good sense of humor, you're good-looking...you could do better. You deserve better than someone who insists on calling you stupid with love, than someone who takes it out on you when other girls find you attractive, someone who hits you anytime something annoys them."

"And you're saying you can't be that person for me? That you aren't already the best I could be with? Get outta here! You're making excuses, Annabeth. You act like you aren't worthy of me when, in reality, you're too good for me."

Annabeth remained silent, chewing over his words and visibly fighting herself before her head slumped downwards and cold acceptance claimed her form.

No.

"No, Percy, I'm not." She said finally, "And I can't be with you anymore."

"Annabeth..."

"Goodbye, Percy. Say hello to the stars, for Bob and I, from our spot."

"Annabeth, please!"

That was the last word she heard from him for years before she swiped her mist screen away. Effectively cutting the call - and him - off.

He had failed.

Percy had failed.

He hadn't been enough for her. He couldn't be trusted anymore. He was too weak, too petulant, too selfish, and impulsive. He had too much unresolved shit for Annabeth to want to deal with anymore.

Percy was too dirty.

'That's right,' Percy thought, 'I'm a faulty product – damaged goods – who'd ever want to love something like me?'

Enough...this is pathetic enough.

The Poseidon cabin felt washed out, the clearing mists taking the last bit of life away from the building.

A dull thud rang out as its lone resident fell to his knees in anguish. His friends ignored him as his saline tears melded perfectly with the saltwater spring before him.

Y*C*O*Y*W

18 August 2010, Camp Half Blood, Long Island Sound, New York, USA

5 Hours Since Percy's Revival

THE SCENERY WAS JUST ADDED INSULT TO INJURY.

It really was.

After his chat with his now-ex, Percy needed some time to himself, so he ditched Nico and Rachel for a bit.

'A bit' progressed into 5 hours as the Son of Poseidon took in the state of his home away from home. What he saw and felt, more importantly, didn't do his foul mood any wonders. Quite the opposite, in fact.

At first glance, Camp Half-Blood was more or less the same as it'd always been since Percy had stumbled down that hill with Grover's furry behind so many years ago, albeit with some minor additions here and there.

Hidden by a far-reaching forest, the Camp lay snugly in the middle of a forest of trees whose boughs curved over the contained area. A modern marvel of Greek engineering and architecture, Doric-style columns in groups of four or more reached up high into the sky, their great marble slab roofs brushing just a little past the tree canopies.

He spied a couple of Apollo kids no older than 8 - fucking Apollo man, keep it in your chiton, there were about 10 of the poor bastards - showing off macaroni art in the open-air Arts and Crafts building to their older siblings, and a concernedly buff Hephaestus boy lugging a wheelbarrow of coal to the smoking Forge.

What were the nymphs feeding these kids? The boy couldn't be older than 10!

A winding, paved concrete road snaked through the Camp from the central guidepost and connected all main points of interest.

A path to the raised stone theater platform facing the amphitheater branched to Ernő Rubik's Roman Empire.

The Volcanic Climbing Wall. An ever-shifting monolith with busted-in indents, swords, and daggers for handholds, with the addition of an ominous skeleton flailing uselessly in the wind at the very top. Lava poured forth in a deluge from cracks near the top, cascading down the sides of the rock.

...

This was a kids summer Camp, mind you.

Another path moved to the ring of columns shielding the sand-pit arena, and a wide, washed path traversed up the land to a gigantic pine tree perched upon the cliff side of a hill.

Thalia's pine tree.

The legendary tree loomed over the camp like a Christmas star. The shining golden fleece and the dragon wrapped around it remained an afterthought, unable to diminish the great pines' splendor.

Years ago, before the distant daughter of Zeus had even been resurrected, he and Annabeth had decided to compete in climbing to the very top of the pine. It'd been Hades for their frail 12-year-old bodies, but the climb had been worth it.

Looking upon their little paradise from over 200 feet in the air, the vast sea of green stretching on for miles, the low tide of the Sound nibbling away at the white sandy beach...and his personal favorite memory, the view of Mr. D getting smacked like a redheaded stepchild by a stray divine bolt of lightning after pushing his luck with wine one time too many.

It had instilled a sense of belief in something greater than themselves.

To protect their tiny little Garden of Eden.

Styx, 90% of the reason he'd even stuck by the gods this long was because of that climb.

All of this was theirs.

Every glimmering creek, every marble building, even the veritable poop mound they'd dubbed Zeus' Fist had carved its own tiny niche in their hearts. Camp Half-Blood was their birthright and legacy.

It was their Home.

However, the two of them had only stayed in the moment for about 5 minutes before the night-patrol harpies, and Chiron came down hard on their prepubescent bottoms.

...

He was getting off track here.

And he really needed to stop thinking about Annabeth for a while.

That was why he moved past the imposing gold and ivory statue of her mother with nary a glance, the slightest smidge of pity, all the acknowledgment he had for it. He gave that pity to the poor bastard who'd been forced to drag it to the center of the Camp.

He swore he could feel the statue's eyes following him with the same piercing glare of its flesh-sack counterpart.

Percy had unconsciously drifted to another circle of columns shrouding the large eating area, their collective mass half-shading many tables. Several dozen dyed tablecloths of distinct colors and godly iconography dotted the Mess hall.

The mouthwatering aroma of lemon-dabbed Greek ribs cooking on a grill and roasted potatoes spiced just right as the cooking nymphs worked tirelessly for dinner gave Percy something delicious to look forward to tonight.

From there, Percy's frontal view was obstructed by a literal town's worth of buildings.

'The kids have been busy these past few months.' He thought neutrally.

The oldest structures squatted in the valley's heart, their age and importance denoted by the grand manner of their construction and taller rooflines. The cabins were arranged in an elongated U formation, similar to their patron's thrones up on Olympus, with dozens of smaller cabins bringing up the rear.

Far smaller.

"For fuck's sake."

The betrayals write themselves.

The cabins, as usual, were an unnecessary statement piece; now, if he could actually tell off the blithering imbeciles responsible for them without getting blasted to Cincinnati, or worse...Jersey.

He repressed a shudder; a boy could dream.

They were an over-extravagant waste of resources, from Ares' war barracks to Zeus' grand temple to himself, serving as an unneeded message to other gods rather than a home to their children.

Seriously, you're telling him Queen 'Snake in your Crib' Hera needed a 2-story Greek Revival, topped high and low with lotus flowers, peacock ornaments, and what he'd just realized were several imperial golden bull horns in a Camp for 'Demigod Bast-sorry Children,' but Hermes and Apollos' godly daycare centers couldn't do with an expansion?

Or a better building budget for the nigh-microscopic cabins for the minor gods?

He ignored the gods and their piling baggage and ventured, without purpose, into the more peaceful Camp Woods. The long, dark shadows cast from the tree canopies added to the ethereal atmosphere, simultaneously sheltering the rich undergrowth.

Something in his core hummed animatedly as Percy inhaled the crisp, resinous scent of the surrounding fir trees. He'd vehemently deny that he'd done a little princess-like twirl through the needle-covered path as a flight of birds twittered past him merrily - that dryad was seeing things - but there was something magical about the woodland during twilight.

The rich, verdant undertone of the leaves and bushes stood in stark contrast to the washed, industrialized marble of the Camp. Nature here had no rigid order or structure; the green parapets sprouted and flourished where they wished freely.

Above him, he could hear more than see dryads and other nature spirits, leaping fervently from branch to branch in a feat of agility the Hunters of Artemis themselves would be hard-pressed to match.

Percy could almost pretend they were playing a fun little game rather than practicing how to evade the more 'persistent' deities.

They're like fucking animals, the lot of them.

...

If you could bring yourself to ignore that dark 'little tidbit' of Greco-Roman godly culture...you'd agree the Camp was more or less the same unsullied paradise it'd always been at first glance.

At first glance.

Y*C*O*Y*W

Percy finally arrived at his destination. The darkening forested area gave way to flattened and uprooted trees, and the Camp's protective barrier thinned around his form. His footfalls halted as he stood atop a jagged cliff overlooking a barren, devastated trench.

Earth's Lament.

That was the name the campers had ultimately given the war-torn battleground.

It was...accurate.

Back at Meriwether College Prep, Percy and his classmates had been given the 'pleasure' of watching a nuclear bomb documentary for Chemistry.

Don't ask. Those teachers were nuts.

Yet, this wasteland made the Nevada test site look formally acceptable in comparison.

Gaea's collision and subsequent death had taken out all life, plants, and animals alike, for literal miles on end, leaving only a wide, deep stretch of cursed, poisonous-yellow glass and craters. A dark grey cloud hung ominously over the badlands, striking acid-green lightning bolts at the uneven plain and anything foolish enough to descend upon the grave site.

The fresh summer air had regressed to a moist acidic tang not too dissimilar from Tartarus' sulphuric atmosphere, and the malicious green fog blanketing the crater had to have been corrosive if the decaying carrion and bones were any indication.

Percy sat right at the crater's edge, his knees drawn up to his chest as he wrapped his arms around his shins. He ignored his reddening skin as he busied himself with his thoughts: If he lost a few more years of life or developed a genetic mutation later down the line, that was Future-Percy's problem.

He had caused this.

His homicide had brought this blight to his home. Not Gaea.

The avid curse had spread further through the Camp's borders to the strawberry fields. Apparently, satyrs, nature spirits, the Demeter cabin, and even Pollux of all demigods had been trying for weeks to save the poisonous-yellow crops till they could barely stand.

Their main source of income may as well have been lost to them for good, yet he was the one who'd been living it up in an air-conditioned suite for weeks.

Yet, Percy was the Camp's hero. The campers had called Gaea every single cursed name under the sun for their suffering when the goddess in question had been too preoccupied with begging to die.

What a fucking joke.

Percy had all but salted their lands, yet he gave them hope. He was the Camp's inspiration. The one who gave them purpose.

Their 'Golden Standard'.

"You shall come to regret your choice." Chaos had promised.

...

Percy laughed without humor; barely a day had passed, and his personal promise was already biting him in the ass.

How the Hades did he fix this?

If even Annabeth hadn't devised a solution before bowing out, what shot did he have?

What was he good for if there wasn't an enemy for him to run Riptide through? He didn't know Jack about cleansing curses.

Why hadn't the gods done a thing in all this time?

His father had made the trip to drag his sorry ass out of the bottom of the Atlantic, yet he couldn't take a second to wipe this curse away?

And the Camp's central hearth, Hestia of all goddesses, had tucked her tail and run the first chance she had. He wasn't stupid; he could tell the difference between the goddess hiding herself from the public and when she wasn't there.

"I am here because when all else fails, when all the other mighty gods have gone off to war, I am all that's left. Home. Hearth. I am the last Olympian."

Those were her own words, so where the Hades was she? Did the squishy mortals not qualify as family to the goddess of family?

Come to think of it, why hadn't she done a thing when the demigods had fought for their lives and died on the streets of Manhattan for her family?

I thought that little excursion would have opened your mind further than your simple-minded box. Color me disappointed

'Like I give a shit!' Percy growled at the insult, 'Chiron's likely to close the Camp down at this rate. The only way things could get any worse is if- wait a minute, do the Fates take these types of thoughts as a personal challenge?'

Like houseflies to fresh excrement

...

'Am I talking to myself?'

What do you think, brat?

Percy wondered if this joker was the same voice that had helped him in Tartarus so long ago, but the voice's mental pitch was heaps stronger and much more scathing. It sounded a lot like-

He was interrupted before he could grill his new mental roommate for answers.

The air behind him shifted, the back of his neck stung, and his breath condensed into frigid mists as he felt the dead chill of his own shadow being used as a travel hub.

Nico.

"Thought I'd find you here."

The son of Hades chose to stay as far away from the trench as possible, a look of disgust painted on his features as he pointed a clawed hand outwards from his chest.

"..."

"We brought it up with Chiron."

Percy raised a brow in question as he finally looked at the relaxed form of the son of Hades, his call for Percy's attention obvious with his half statements.

"A relief team to help with Alaska. Rachel and I brought it up with the old horse."

"Oh?" Percy hated how scratchy his voice sounded there, how defeated it came across. "How'd that work out for you?"

"As good as could be, I guess. We've spent the better part of 4 hours trying to walk him through it. He seemed a bit confused that we actually gave a damn about the mortals, but he's got a 'plan' in motion."

Nico tossed him an oversized, weighty coin.

It was a medallion.

A glowing silver medallion with an engraved motif of a pale full moon looming over a majestic silver-colored stag with massive golden tree roots for horns.

It was the seal of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, Moon, and Maidens.

"We're in luck; the Hunters of Artemis themselves have decided to 'grace' us with an audience; whether or not they agree to move forward with it is anyone's guess, but they'll be here in a few days so we can work out a deal. I'll warn you now, it's already been decided that they're taking more than 70% of the spoils we get from the trip."

Percy grimaced. He didn't need to be Athena to tell you how that conversation would go with the campers.

"Chiron couldn't work out a deal with anyone else?" He groaned a headache with a big red HUNTER V CAMPER DRAMA stamped on it forming inside of him.

"Who can we ask? You and I know the Camp's never been known for its deep pockets; how valuable do you think strawberries are? We've always had to rely on each other for our problems. And it's worked for the most part."

"I get that, believe me, I do, but-"

"But nothing, Percy, we had a little over 250 campers at the start of this summer, and it dropped down to less than half of that in just one battle. A third of that half's too busy healing the wounded, healing the valley, or just burning shrouds for our family while the gods do fuck else. And the rest of us aren't even above 10 years old."

Percy didn't even get a word in before Nico steamrolled over him again.

"Chris, Clarisse, Connor, Travis, Annabeth, and the rest of the Seven are all but retired, not to mention how hard it's going to be to get volunteers for such a lost cause - don't look at me like that, Jackson, you know I'm right – it's too much, we need all the help we can get. You know this."

Nico took a second to catch his breath, as his shoulders sagged from invisible weights. Percy hadn't noticed how utterly done with it all the boy looked, how devoid of life his eyes looked.

"And if all it takes are a couple of shiny toys to make sure I don't ever have to host funeral rites for another 6-year-old ever again...then you better believe I'm more than willing to take that loss."

Percy gnawed at his lips in agitation at Nico's tongue-lashing as his mind raced for any other alternative.

Don't get him wrong, Percy had his fair share of respect and appreciation for the Hunters...Huntresses?

They were girls, weren't they? Like that was their whole M.O.

The whole forswear the company of men, and embrace the Sisterhood deal? Wait, was the term sisterhood a girl thing in general or a nun thing? As a matter of fact, had Artemis ever recruited nuns, how bizarre would that have been? Warrior nuns handing out the Holy Ghost in barbed projectiles and scripture passages alongside a Pagan deity. Would-

Concentrate child

Right, the Hunters.

They were undeniable badasses, no doubt. The best-organized fighting force in what he knew of the mythological world, with their centuries of experience alone. But they were – and he was putting it in the best way he could – very difficult to work with.

And he wasn't just talking about their...justified wariness of any and all beings with a functioning phallus. The number of lives they'd lost in the Titan war because a hunter refused to listen to a 'watch out' from anyone not in their circle still enraged him to this day.

Their bullheadedness didn't only come from their disdain for males; they'd snubbed their noses plenty at Annabeth after word got out she'd rejected them for him – funny that, eh? - It was an arrogance born from decades of prevailing over so many towering foes, that the words of what they saw as children simply couldn't register with them.

It didn't help that they still chose to show off their immaturity over the stupidest things.

"Seriously, Phoebe, you've been alive longer than my mom's grandmother's grandmother; I'd be shocked if you couldn't beat a couple of inexperienced teenagers at Capture The Flag."

Those were Connor Stoll's famous last words before the redheaded gorilla pretzled him for his cheek, and for that alone, the son of Hermes still didn't feel the least bit apologetic about that centaur blood – where the Hades did the guy snag that from? – prank.

The taste of copper slathered itself over his tongue as he was pulled out of his thoughts prematurely, his chewed-through lip sending pinpricks of pain through him as Nico snapped his fingers right in front of his face for attention.

He hadn't missed anything important, had he? Lupa had warned him se-

"What about the Romans? We could ask them for help." Percy tried, yet his hopes hit a brick wall immediately at Nico's downcast expression.

"No. We can't."

"Why not? Organized expeditions like these are the legion's bread and butter. They could build a support Camp around the entirety of Alaska's borders from scratch in two months; why wouldn't we-"

"As of the 10th of August 2010, the denizens of New Rome and Camp Jupiter have formally cut any and all ties with their Greek counterparts. Failure to comply will result in a year of hard labor and incarceration."

"...You're joking, I hope?" Percy all but challenged the son of Hades, his ocean eyes probing the boy's onyx orbs in hopes of any sign of deceit as he clenched his cocked fist in prep for the gotcha sucker.

"I'm about as serious as an obituary here, Fishbreath. They want nothing to do with us for the foreseeable future."

...

CRACK

Percy sealed his eyes shut and took long, deep breaths to ease the pain. His jaw clenched so hard it chipped a molar. The son of Poseidon shook with barely restrained anger while his fingers bit deeply into his palms at the wanton stupidity that seemed eager to implant itself into his life.

He counted to 37 before finally opening his eyes again and voiced a question he'd been asking himself all day.

"Why would they do that?"

Nico looked about as chipper as a McDonald's cashier at the situation, but Percy swore he could see a hint of understanding in his onyx-black eyes.

"...It's not like it came out of nowhere, Percy. We were already in open warfare with them for weeks before the final battle."

"You're defending them?! You and Reyna traveled halfway across the world to get that stupid fucking statue to the Camp for peace!"

A clap of thunder rang out above the wasteland right on cue. Oh, wait, the art model for the 'stupid fucking statue' could give a reaction to that but couldn't be bothered to ask Apollo to give her wounded brain babies a checkup?

Typical.

"Listen, man, I get where you're coming from, but you need to get your head out of your ass and stop acting like a brat."

"I'M THE BRAT HERE?!"

"Yes, you're acting like a spoiled toddler. Throwing a tantrum because the other kids told you they didn't want to play house with you anymore. Bringing back the Parthenos had always been more of a peace offering to the Greeks than the Romans. And that's ignoring the fact that there's no living legionnaire in New Rome that could possibly have sacked Old Athens in the first place. We provoked war, not them."

"I know that," Percy replied weakly, his resolve crumbling as the context revealed itself to him with Nico's second tongue-lashing.

"Really? I don't think you do; if you did, you certainly didn't care. If you did, you wouldn't have bothered suggesting we try to recruit their slaughtered forces for what might as well be nothing. Did any of you on that boat ever stop to think about how your 'act of war' would translate after the battle? People died, Percy, and not just soldiers either."

Nico licked his dry lips absently as he raised a hand to count, "Innocent kids, retired legionnaires going off to college, the elderly, nature spirits, the list goes on. Did you expect the families of the dead to forget about all that and come sing Kumbaya with us around a fire?"

"We have proof that that was Gaea's fault; I can make an oath on the Styx. C'mon, take us to Cisco."

Percy made to take Nico's hand in his before the son of Hades smacked it away with a brutality that seemed extremely unnecessary in his humble opinion – hurtful, too. His grim visage took on a scandalized expression as the tips of his ears pinked.

"Ok, three things here. First, you're crazy if you think I'm going to shadow travel us all the way to the Bay of all places just to get chased out with torches and pitchforks. Second, Oaths on the Styx don't work that way. She's not some omniscient lie detector; she can't verify the events' validity before the swearing. There's a reason it's practically taboo to swear those sorts of oaths unless you're an Immortal."

"You're gonna have to give me more to work with here, buddy."

Nico rolled his eyes and sat on a mottled patch of discolored grass. He patted the space on his far right, inviting a lengthy conversation. Percy obliged.

"Think of it this way," Nico started, "Imagine you're an accountant-"

"Yeahhh, not happening. Numbers give me the equivalent of seasickness; how about a-"

"I SAID WE'RE ACCOUNTANTS TODAY!"

The son of Hades – definitely Hades, no other god's kid could look this homicidal right off the bat – exploded in fury as his shaggy hair flared about him in the twilight like a halo.

"Um...sure dude, would you like your tax forms mailed or stored...sir?" Percy replied nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing repeatedly as Nico pinched his nose bridge in annoyance.

"That isn't how-you know what, I don't even care. Let's say you're an accountant, the best record keeper in the world, and you maintain the records of thous-no hundreds of thousands of purchases, sales, statements, and deals for even more clients. You've built your rep and connections enough for years as the go-to guy for any and all things accounting, enough dirty laundry to put entire countries in the cleaners for years."

"To tear down anyone stupid enough to even look at you funny. And it's given you a very big head and a ton of enemies. People would think someone with that sort of pull would be some all-knowing boogeyman, right? That a guy like you has all the facts and evidence for any situation right at your fingertips?"

Percy nodded in answer. With a network like that, it'd be hard to believe they didn't know everything.

"But that's the problem; for all your influence, you're just an accountant. You can't see everything, and you're not aware of every single event or deal taking place on the planet. You can't be everywhere at once, and even if you can be, you're likely to not even want to. Even someone like you has their limits and restrictions. You're prone to accidents or capable of missing the bigger picture."

"So imagine some random schmuck comes barging right into your house with a crowd of witnesses, swearing up and down that you have records validating some obscure offshore account in Sao Paulo or something that you lost a few years back."

Percy's lips thinned as he worked out Nico's angle.

"Mind you, you're a famous accountant. You're THE accountant; you've forged your pride in platinum for years and maintained your rep as a being that should never be crossed. That can't afford to be seen as weak or incompetent. Oh, maybe if this guy had chosen to be stupid privately, maybe if he hadn't invaded the privacy of your own home, maybe, maybe, maybe."

Nico twirled a hand nonchalantly through the air and rolled his eyes at the maybe's. Percy realized belatedly that the boy had never really taken kindly to excuses of any sort. It was fitting, considering his lineage, death, and the ensuing judgment of the soul had no room for such a thing as pity.

"It doesn't matter to you; in your paranoid head, this jackass brought a blight to your image – and you care about something as stupid as that because you're a crazy, arrogant asshole – and showed to an audience that you're not as all-knowing as they thought you were."

"You could probably find the document if you looked for it. Probably lost it somewhere in your condo in Cabo or something, but you don't have that time with all those witnesses around you. Witnesses who would kill for any sort of drama for digital hugs. Very loud, squishy witnesses that you'd rather not leave to chance or waste millions buying off while searching for answers. What do you do?"

Percy's head dipped in resignation. Leave it to godly pride to shoot his eureka moment in the foot.

"If Styx doesn't have the specifics of an oath laid down before the events have transpired, she kills the oath maker and all bystanders rather than deal with the blow to her reputation. Probably their families, too."

It wasn't phrased as a question, yet Nico answered it like one all the same.

"Dead men tell no tales."

Y*C*O*Y*W

18 August 2010, Earth's Lament, Long Island Sound, New York, USA

6 Hours Since Percy's Revival

FUCK.

Percy wanted to dispute Nico's claims so bad, even though he knew that the son of Hades would have more insight into the subjects of his father's realm than he did.

Yet he found that he couldn't.

And not because it would make him look stupid, but because it made too much sense.

To him, at least.

He'd always wondered why Chiron had never suggested meeting with Zeus and swore that he'd never stolen the stupid Bolt in the first place, but taking Nico's information as fact...

It was likely he'd have sworn the oath, gotten himself killed by Styx, and started an all-out war with Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades once word got out that he'd never actually stolen the damn thing.

'Damn it.'

"What was the third thing?" Percy questioned softly, his enthusiasm dulled.

"Hm?"

"You said there were three things I needed to know before we could ever go back to Camp Jupiter," he continued as he counted his fingers accordingly. The first was time and energy wasting, the second was the Oathkeeper being petty to the point of insanity, and the third..."

Nico grimaced – an expression that was becoming annoyingly familiar on the young teen's face as the hours passed – as he formed his answer.

"The Romans were pretty angry with you after that shitshow you guys pulled back in New Rome, Percy; you shouldn't let them get a hold of you for a while."

Percy withheld a sigh; he didn't intend on getting too comfortable with the expression, but c'mon!

"Any particular reason they singled me out specifically?" He asked instead.

"Don't be so dramatic. You got off easy, all things considered. I won't say they aren't acting a bit petty, but they're not 100% out of line."

"...Is it because I ditched them after the bombings?"

Nico only nodded in approval, his features stoic while tension settled itself lazily across Percy's jaw as more and more of his previous mistakes came to take their pound of flesh from him.

Because the kid was right.

He really hadn't given his actions much thought; Hades, he hadn't even considered that people had died in New Rome. The Twelfth Legion had raised him themselves on their shields and dubbed him Praetor.

A stranger-no, an outsider – they'd known about for only a week.

They'd entrusted their home and everything they stood for on his shoulders, yet Percy hadn't looked back once during their departure.

He tried his best not to imagine the heartbroken expression on poor little Julia's face as she heard her idol had abandoned them all at the drop of a hat.

If she were still alive...

"That and Poseidon came to help you while the gods left them to die. But that opinion was mostly a minority call. Hopefully, they'll move past it soon."

"You said I got off easy, how's that?"

"Well, Leo's 'dead' for one, Annabeth lost an eye, and Piper's...huh, actually, I don't think anything too crazy happened to her." Nico counted as he scratched at his chin absently.

"That's the Greek side of the Seven, then there's the Roman punishments too. Hazel and Frank were demoted to legionnaires again for one–yes, we managed to patch her up well before the Legion left, keep your top on – and Jason got a damnatio memoriae."

Percy staggered backward like he'd taken a shot to the chest. The news was delivered far too casually for all the weight attached to it.

Damnatio Memoriae.

He'd only ever heard the phrase used once from Lupa – something about a crazy son of Orcus or something – and the palpable scorn attached to it'd had even amnesiac Percy sneering in disgust.

Condemnation of Memory.

The most humiliating form of punishment for any true son of Rome. As far as the goddess was concerned, your very identity as a person was thrown to the gutters, your birth-given name treated as taboo, and your honor and contributions to the Legion as a whole revoked entirely.

Most recipients often choose to commit suicide rather than deal with the humiliation.

'Gods, Jason.'

BA-THUMP

Too far.

BA-THUMP

The fools had gone too far.

BA-THUMP

"Who gave them the balls?" Percy growled lowly. His vision faded to a blood-red hue, and his drumming heartbeat boomed through the clearing.

The accursed land before him seemed to wail in haunted agony as if it could feel phantom pains from Gaea's ghastly end.

Stop it; your anger serves no purpose here. What's done is done.

'Like hell, it doesn't, who do they think they are?'

I wouldn't know, but you are frightening the one who does.

Percy swiveled his feral gaze back to Nico as the chalice of power inside him threatened to overflow.

His frustration was at an all-time high; the news of what had befallen his estranged friend gave him the sudden urge to make for the Bay Area and drown that council of imbeciles with their own lifeblood.

And yet...

He sighed mentally.

What was it with Percy going 0 for 10 on rebuttals today?

The voice was right. A mere glimpse of the son of Hades' wide-eyed, terrified countenance was enough to extinguish his flames. The boy's arms were wrapped around himself defensively while he shook wildly like a leaf from hyperventilation. The shadows around them reacted to their Prince's terror as the air hissed and cracked with the foreboding omen of death.

Yet all Percy could register was the boy before him.

He looked so tiny now, not too dissimilar from the little snot-nosed brat Percy'd told his sister, the light of his life, had died under his watch. No longer carrying the weary, intimidating presence of a seasoned war general, he'd been showcasing earlier, but looking for all the world like he was struggling not to cry.

"...I'm sorry." Percy apologized sincerely, his head falling as his platinum bangs untangled themselves from his bun to cast shadows over his eyes.

Nico gave him no reaction but a terse nod as he took calming breaths while his tiny fingers were busy twirling his skull ring. Percy decided to leave him to it; he knew all too well about compartmentalizing one's fears.

Your methods have proven to be profoundly useless; all the same

'The balls on this freeloader, I already gave you your flowers. Don't make me put you on timeout.'

Your mother should have swallowed you, live and die with your cheek

He let out a breathy exhale to expel the last vestiges of his anger as he turned to their surroundings; it seemed the sun had dipped a while ago to give a pass to the night.

Artemis's great silver chariot streaked above them, with Selene's legacy in hot pursuit. Shining between rifts of ragged drifting clouds, the woodland behind them seemed almost magical, illuminated by dozens of little fireflies.

The glowing sheen created a contrasting gold-black chiaroscuro with their dark world; the audible energetic buzzing of the campers so far away from them performed like a bedtime lullaby to his ears, as if these tiny little glimmers of light had electrified the summer night.

A conch horn sounded through the valley clearly, cutting through his peace and rallying the denizens of Camp Half-Blood for dinner.

Yet, Percy found he had long since lost his appetite for food.

His headspace was a veritable mindfuck of jumbled thoughts and unfinished ideas.

His murder and enlightenment of Gaea, the bulky case file aptly titled Annabeth now, Alaska, the oncoming confrontation with the Hunters, the mounting problems with both of the Camp's, Jason's sentence, his oath, the freaking tea party inside his head, Tartarus and the not even fully compartmentalized bullshit he still had to deal with from Her.

He was likely still missing a few more story beats.

Too much shit was happening concurrently for his ADHD-addled mind to keep up with, and it was leaking out in the form of anger to his loved ones – again.

Sooner or later, something would give, and he didn't fancy his odds. All it had to take now was one tiny, minuscule nudge to send Percy tumbling over the edge of the Abyss.

And yes, he was fully aware how needlessly dramatic it sounded.

It rang true all the same.

What would emerge, though

'Hm?' He thought inwardly to the voice with a raised eyebrow.

From the abyss, what would emerge? Would you come out all the stronger...or would it allow all to bear witness to what you have always been?

'...And what exactly is that?'

The voice tittered amusedly in his head. All the divine power its owner had suffused it with had previously been lost completely.

Come now, weak, little destroyer. Must we play these games?

His mental roommate faded from his subconscious before he had the chance to offer a riposte, full-on laughing at him all the while.

Percy kicked at the lifeless dirt before him in hopelessness, his annoyance at an all-time high with his jaw clenched tight as the edges of his eyes watered. He sucked it up, though; boys don't cry and all that jazz.

He'd bite his tongue off before he ever showed that weakness here, encapsulated in Her domain as he was.

"Percy..." A measured voice mumbled softly from his right.

Styx. He'd almost forgotten the little guy was still here.

"Nico...you okay, buddy?" He tried for a reassuring smile, yet it came out as a weak grimace.

"I'm about as fine as I can hope to be," the son of Hades replied firmly, smoothing out the edges of his tee nonchalantly. "You?"

"I'll be alright."

Nico nodded as grim understanding washed over him with his rushed answer.

"I know that, believe me. You always find some way to pull through, but that's not what I asked you. Are you okay now?"

"I'm fi-"

Percy's answer got a flat tire as he forced himself to mull over the question carefully. For as long as he could remember, he'd never once bothered with such a trivial thing as his issues.

He and the very notion of concern for his well-being had been steeped in a middling Cold War since he could get his mother a glass of water without falling on his face.

In many ways, Percy regarded it as one of his better qualities; after all, he'd gotten a better lot than the average demigod: his mother, his powers, his friends, a father who cared for him in his own way, and he'd had a pretty hot, loving girlfriend.

Did he have the right to be selfish and put his issues ahead of others?

Ha-ha, you're not even joking, by Chaos. It's a psychiatrist's candy land here, this little madhouse.

Nico took his hesitation and subsequent silence as confirmation of his forming hypothesis, slamming a fist into his open palm for effect.

Percy had no idea where this was going, but he was willing to do anything to alleviate just a little of their problems. Nico was a pretty smart guy, all things considered. He could come up with something good, right?

"You gotta leave the Camp."

Percy recalled, with mind-numbing clarity, that the son of Hades had never gone to school a day in his life.

Never mind attending a Chem class.

"Are you nuts?" He asked, his mouth slack-jawed in mortification, "We still have campers on life support, no idea what we're gonna do about the strawberry fields, the Romans, the Alaska operation, Nagasaki 2 literally right behind us."

Percy didn't glance at the trench; simply waving a hand in its general direction proved his point.

"And you want me to abandon you guys? Again?!"

"...Yes."

...

Percy massaged his wrist tenderly as the urge to smack the son of Hades into the crater and organize a tropical-themed funeral for him with some Party Ponies stole over him with a fanatical prayer.

He turned to leave, utterly done with Nico's nonsense, "Whatever this is, I'm not dealing with it. I can't leave the Camp behind like this; I have a resp-"

"I had a crush on you." Nico blurted out.

Huh. Fool him once.

It seemed he was dealing with this tonight.

"You–"

"Yeah," Nico said. "For a while, I was-yeah, but I'm over it now, so..."

"You…so you mean –"

"Right."

"Wait," Percy said. "So you mean –"

"Right," Nico said again. "But it's cool. We're cool. I see now…you're cute, but you're not my type."

"I'm not your type…Wait. So –"

Nico rolled his eyes exaggeratedly at Percy's brain fog, his twitching lips gleaming softly in the moonlight.

"Yes, Jackson, I'm into dudes – a category you just happened to fall into – not a big deal."

Not a big–wait, was that why, and that time too, and...oh Gods, this freaking kid.

"Look, I uh, I appreciate it, but-"

The son of Hades let out a pig-like snort, "Dude, no, you don't. Look, you don't have to spare my feelings or anything; I meant what I said. We're cool. I've been over you for some time now."

"...Okie-dokie? No, that's stupid," Percy said as he smacked his forehead, "Look, not to be insensitive here, but I hope you don't mind if I box this...conversation in my goodwill bin? N-n-n-not that I have an issue with you being gay or anything, just...oh, someone, just please kill me already."

Nico chuckled from his chest as he patted his tongue-tied puppy love fondly on the shoulder.

"Believe it or not, I felt the exact same way when my dad called me out on it, too."

"Hades knows!" Percy screeched in horror.

Well, if he didn't before, he surely does now, you imbecile. A little warning next time?

Percy ignored the bitchy voice as he chewed at his fingernails, trembling at the inky-black shadows he had just noticed were vibrating at an animated pace.

Was Hades...laughing at him?

The image of the Lord of the Dead in his dreary robes, pointing and laughing at his dorkiness while creeping on them from a crystal ball – shadow ball? – was enough to get him back on track. He ignored his flushed cheeks and pressed on with the more important question.

"Why tell me this?"

Nico's amusement dimmed as his hold on Percy's shoulder slackened before falling limply to his side.

"Because I get it, Percy." When it didn't seem like Percy had gotten it, Nico continued, "Bottling up your emotions, the feelings of inadequacy, every little thing you see reminding you of him. Or, in your case, her."

"Nico..."

Percy wanted so badly to tell the boy how mistaken he was. His need to save the Camp didn't stem from Annabeth dumping him or some ridiculous need to win back her approval, but to properly explain the root cause of his problems...

To put to words the guilt and shame that seemed to want to claw its way out of his chest cavity, like that one movie with the black alien things.

The name of the movie eluded him for some reason; it was right at the tip of his tongue, too. He remembered the name had something to do with aliens, and yet-

Your wandering inner monologue is ruining the tone of the conversation

"You've got too many ghosts in the Camp for you to keep your head on straight; you just came fresh off a coma and a back-to-back emotional rollercoaster. You need a break. Don't you dare try to call the coma a break; I'll kick you in the crotch."

"Fine," Percy huffed, "Maybe I'm not as well off as I thought, but you can't just tell me to up and ditch you guys."

"You're not going to. Just a few days of proper rest and surroundings that don't have you looking like you're about to cry. A conversation with your mom, Percy; it's been over half a year."

Dazzling bright blue eyes and an even warmer smile, the smell of cookies left to cool by the windowsill pirouetted through his peripheral vision.

...

'Mom.' He croaked mentally.

Sensing that he was getting through his thick skull, Nico continued to push.

"Just some time to get your shit together and heal; the Hunters are still in Wyoming. You can return here by Sunday, just before the counselor meeting. Is that okay?"

"You'll all be fine, right? I won't come back and find the camper's bodies piled to the sky, right? Right?!" Percy questioned hysterically.

"Relax, Bilbo. You realize we held out on our own for more than two weeks without you, right? Get out of here, and give Sally my lo-tell her I said hi." Nico corrected bashfully.

Percy snorted at the softie's need to maintain his ridiculous bad-boy persona. He'd gifted the little nerd an entire mythomagic set when his mom celebrated Nico's 14th birthday at their place a few months back. As he'd shoveled blue birthday cake and lemonade, his bulging cheeks ensured he never outlived the munchkin allegations.

"I don't have money for a cab, though."

Nico rolled his eyes as he let out a high-pitched New York cab whistle.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for an uncomfortably long 10 seconds, and Percy was ready to never let the son of Hades hear the end of it.

'I mean, can you believe it? A hellhound ignoring the summons of a'

A wall of darkness slammed into him as a booming WOOF blared out through the clearing.

Percy found his ass at the mercy of a towering all-black St. Bernard as Mrs. O'Leary pinned him to the ground with a paw – her glowing red eyes glinting with enthusiasm – and Nico snickered mischievously from the shadows.

Coward.

"N-now, Mrs. O'Leary, I know we haven't seen each other for a-AACKPOOTOEYY." Percy's pleas were cut off as her oversized Brillo Pad of a tongue slobbered all over his face with gusto.

It took a few minutes for Mrs. O'Leary to calm down and get off him. By then, Percy was pretty much drenched in dog drool, yet he glomped onto his dog.

Her thick, groomed fur, smelling of cedar embers and spiced hot cocoa, reminded him of the...pleasant moment this exact same trio had spent with Hestia just a year ago. The thought made him nostalgic and angry at the same time.

"How're ya doing, girl?" His voice was soft as he nuzzled her fondly.

Her answering bark had an edge as if the hell-born doggo was telling him apologies were not accepted.

"Give me a break, girl; we didn't have the time or room to get you and Ty on the Argo II." Percy whined, "And I sure as Hades wasn't going to let you get hurt in the Pit."

"WOOF!"

"Yes, I know you ain't scared of no Primordial, but it's my job to keep you safe."

"WOOF!"

"Alright, alright," he conceded magnanimously. I'll get you six of the best Drakon bones I can find the first chance I get. I'll even toss in two extra if you get me back home fast."

"WOOF! WOOF!"

The Hellhound reared herself in euphoria as her shaggy chops watered at the thought of the venomous bonne bouche. Her excited tail-wagging kicked up dust clouds and sent literal tailwinds around them.

Nico watched the byplay in amusement, doing his best to smother a childlike grin as his onyx eyes twinkled with the stars. Percy relinquished his hold on his dawg and made his way to his old friend, a hand extended towards him in a see you later gesture.

The Ghost King took one look at the appendage and smacked it away in disgust before sweeping him off his feet with a crushing hug, his face hidden in Percy's bony chest. Percy hesitated momentarily, his eyes bugging out at the show of affection, before he hugged his little brother figure just as fiercely.

They stayed that way for some time, holding onto each other like their lives depended on it, but relieved themselves too soon.

"You be safe out there, Jackson." He warned with little tears at the edges of his vision.

Percy grinned cheekily and flicked his nose upwards with faux-arrogance.

"Aren't I always?"

"If by always, you mean never?" Nico riposted with a disbelieving laugh, "I'm serious here, Perce. I'd hoped it was because you were half-dead when you came back...but even Grover agreed there was something weird going on with you."

That got his attention. Hippocrates himself could tell him he had something terminal, and he'd laugh in his face if Grover told him he'd be good. Their empathy link didn't play.

"In what regard?"

"Honestly? I've seen ghosts with more life force than you – close your mouth, I'm not joking here - whatever you did down there, Percy, it changed something about you fundamentally, and I'm not just talking about your hair...Percy, you're not supposed to be alive."

Percy's mouth snapped shut as he digested the information. He thought back to the soul-shredding agony he'd undergone when he overpowered Gaea's control of her body, the feeling of his guts and nerve endings forcefully rearranging themselves as his heart and vocal cords threatened to burst.

Yet, he felt fine all the same.

A bit of stiffness in his joints and a subtle lack of something, but that could all be accounted to his coma.

"AAAWOOOOOO!"

He was jolted out of his soliloquy by Mrs. O'Leary's impatient howling. It seemed her glee was beginning to dim with the tension in the air, and she yearned to leave the dreary wasteland behind them.

"Just look out for yourself, okay? And try not to overdo it. We'll see each other in a few days." The son of Hades finished as he reached out to pat the Hellhound in comfort.

"Happy Birthday, Seaweed Brain. Be seeing ya."

The shadows of the forest seemed to cling onto the son of Hades as he made his way back to the Camp, a pale hand waving idly through the air in goodbye before Nico was swallowed entirely by the darkness.

Drama King.

Percy stood alone in the clearing with a thoughtful demeanor, the moon rays on him a comforting blanket from the influence of the star-spangled Night. But, not even the Lunar Enchantress could ever hope to beat back the Night's divine authority.

Not on her best day.

"The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must. Remember that the next time you ever dare to question me, miserable wretch." She had warned.

Mrs. O'Leary gave a low whine as she sensed her master's despondency. She nuzzled into him and flambered him with gentle licks.

"Yeah, yeah, ya big softie. I'll be fine." Percy chuckled as he climbed onto her broad back and patted the top of her head, "C'mon, girl."

He stared at the ghastly-looking deadland again, the eerie green fog giving it a haunted aura rivaling the wailing banks of the River Styx. He shifted his sights back to the direction of the Camp, his Home, the muted melody of the demigods as they hummed and sang their campfire songs, reaching him even here.

He whispered a promise in his heart, 'I'm not running. I'll be back, I swear it. I love you.'

Percy could picture a young, scrawny 12-year-old brat with jet-black hair and sea-green eyes singing alongside a beautiful blonde girl before an ever-changing campfire, trying his best not to blush as red as a tomato at the girl's close proximity and his no doubt funky breath.

Percy smiled to no one in particular.

"Take me home."

Y*C*O*Y*W

 

Chapter 6: Don't Meet Your Heroes

"In all chaos, there is a cosmos; in all disorder, there is a secret order. Every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche."

- Carl Jung

Don't Meet Your Heroes (Unless Your Hero's Sally Jackson, She's Cool)

18 August 2010, Central Park, Manhattan, New York, USA

Just A Minute After Percy's Departure.

SHADOW TRAVEL WAS, AS USUAL, AS AWESOME AS IT WAS TERRIFYING.

The cold shivers up his spine, the sharp winds ruffling his hair as the pair of them tore through the shadow realm at unbelievable speeds, and the inhuman voices howling like weeping willow trees through the path in hot pursuit of them—all of that had Percy's voice box in indecision about whether to whoop in euphoria or scream for his life.

Percy's grip on Mrs. O'Leary's bronze dog collar was bone-white as they emerged from the inky-black shadow of a fallen great maple tree's stump.

The son of Poseidon glanced at what could only be the desecrated grave of Hyperion – the spilled ichor still glowing through the gloom with an eerie golden tint – before glaring at the night sky with unbidden ferocity. The stars barely showed themselves at all, what with all the light pollution, but Percy didn't give a damn about that right now.

Why had the Hags chosen this particular landmark for them to come through?

He clicked his tongue in annoyance at the cryptic message the three warty crones had decided to leave for his perusal, the convenience a little too on the nose for a coincidence. Percy had no blooming thrill for whatever mundane endeavor they had planned for him.

He was on vacation.

He slid off his hellhound's back easily, his light footsteps echoing with soft crunches in the silent, empty clearing, and took stock of their surroundings. Visibility was near zero, and he could barely make out his hand even with the scant glimmers of light from the looming moon above him, yet Percy took comfort in Mrs. O'Leary's self-assured confidence.

The dump truck-sized hellhound hadn't so much as twitched since they arrived. Either the park was free of monsters, or the existing population was so far beneath her that she felt no need to get serious.

The hellhound yawned as her earlier elation dimmed to a middling level.

Percy would have loved to release her to chase squirrels or whatever apartment-sized canines did in their free time, but he still couldn't see shit.

"Sorry, girl. Would you mind indulging in my bipedal company a little bit longer?" he crooned gently, scratching her favorite spot behind her ears.

Mrs. O'Leary whined as she turned to putty before his miracle workers.

'Damn, I'm good...I could probably look into a career in Masseusing. Masseusery? Masseusals?'

The word you're looking for is a Masseur, a man who provides massages professionally; it does not function as a verb. And get over yourself. You tickled a dog behind her ears.

'I liked you better when you were quiet and menacing, ya big nerd.'

I could have your tongue for that, you halfbreed mongrel

'Uh-huh, with what arms?'

Percy ignored the voice's expletives and petulant foot stomping in his mindscape as he and his dog broke through a thorny, dense patch of foliage. They stumbled on the edge of a gathering of college-age mortals in various states of undress around a campfire as the scent of marijuana and aged vodka wafted through the air.

It was an orgy that would have found pleasant company in one of Mr. D's more...enthusiastic sermons. Two girls, a brunette and a blonde, were going at it with gusto on a guy with close-cropped brown hair while some poor schmuck tried his best to look like he wasn't jacking off to the view next to their central campfire.

The sound of pleasured moans rang in the clearing like sirens while a broad-shouldered black guy plowed the racial stigma out of a petite blonde girl without abandon, a hand tipped high in the air as he chugged on a half-filled bottle of Smirnoff.

Percy's gaze was locked onto a tanned, muscular bull of a man with wheat-gold hair and gloomy-day blue eyes, holding a preroll of weed in one hand and a fistful of bright red hair in the other.

Why did Percy choose to focus on this particular joker?

He only took a passing interest in the way the young man's eyes were half-lidded and crossed as he received what had to be the best fellatio of his life, judging by the slurping and gawking of the topless redhead below him.

Color him impressed, was it that good?

Headman regained his faculties at the sound of his stumbling, though. His back straightened at the sight of the amused orange-clothed boy before him and, more importantly, the towering black, red-eyed hound with a bronze collar right next to him.

It took about a second or two for the headman's pupils to dilate as he gaped at Percy in open horror. That proved a colossal mistake for the guy; he'd all but made it clear to Percy that he had something to hide.

Lupa would have had the fool's head on a platter for such a miscalculation; he'd shown weakness to what should only be a high school runaway to him for little to no reason.

And even better, he'd given Percy ammunition for quips.

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." Percy started with a dangerous grin.

A disgusting wet slurp served as a comedic topper as the headman's partner chose that moment to release her mortified quarry from her throat with an audible pop.

The redhead wiped her lips with her forearm – her back still turned to Percy – as she tilted her head (heh-heh) in confusion.

"Thad?"

Was his name Thad? Percy almost felt bad for the chump. How little did your parents have to love you to name you the lesser of Chad?

Is there a point to all this, brat?

'It's illegal to camp out in Central Park. And more importantly. Litter. I know my rights.'

...carry on then.

"What's with you? I'm doing it just the way you taught me t-EEEEK!" The girl turned in Percy's direction, giving him a generous view of her super-sized knockers as Percy wiggled his fingers in greeting.

The redhead's scream was enough to jostle the others out of their fun, though it seemed black Samson would need a minute or two if his OOHH SHHIEETT of delight were any indication. The apostles of Aphrodite - sans the fellow basking in the afterglow - all scrambled for any sort of covering available while headma-Thad bit at his nails like a chipmunk with a horde of nuts from the floor, his eyes shifting from side to side in terror.

"Wh-who the fuck are you." The redhead demanded, a hand reaching for an empty bottle while the other covered her mighty mammaries, her beady blue eyes narrowed at him in fury.

The girl's face was dotted with bright orange freckles like somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos. Thank Sally, her lower half was clothed with a pair of form-fitting black leggings and brown hiking boots.

The rest of her party had formed a ring around him while he focused on her. The two girls from the threesome fanned his sides, with Crew-cut Brown and the Cuck blocking his back.

He maybe should have been a bit more worried, but bitch, please. If a group of barely standing mortals could pull off what thousands of monsters, at this point, had been trying and failing to accomplish for over half a decade, he definitely had it coming.

Percy looked past the nuisances—their weaknesses already downloaded—and raised a brow at Thad. He was only caught getting a bit of head, so why was he still gaping at him like he'd been trapped in a Drakon den? Percy wanted to assume the guy was probably a clear-sighted mortal and could see Mrs. O'Leary for what she truly was, but his gaze hadn't moved from Percy and the other mortals for the longest while now.

That was...suspicious.

It didn't help that the guy felt divine in some muted way.

Thad had that same magnetic presence that seemed to cling to all denizens of the mythological world, and he had godly good looks to match it. The very air seemed to buzz with energy around him, and his distinctively colored eyes sparked and cracked with untapped power.

Percy slipped his right hand to his pocket in experimentation, alarm bells ringing in his head as Thad shook like a kite in a tempest. He eyed Mrs. O'Leary in question, yet the hellhound gave no response to his query other than the apathetic grooming of her front paw.

"Well?!" Freckles McGee screeched at his silence.

Not a palpable threat, it seemed. He loosened his stance but kept half an eye on Thad in case he tried anything smart and answered the redhead.

"Relax, Carrot Patch," He said easily, "I'm not here for any trouble. I got lost back there once it got dark, and I'm looking for the exit."

"Ca-ca-ca-CARROT PATCH?!"

"Yeah, and the Giants have a shot at the championship this year, get real jackass."

Percy ignored the ginger and turned his attention to the direction of the second voice, closing his eyes in amusement at his luck. It was the Cuckold who'd chosen to mock him.

There was a God.

There was a God, and she was smiling down conspiratorially at him.

"You care so much about the Giants, why don't you go rub one out for the competition. The Giants'll never lose a quarter with your luck with scoring far away from them."

What is happening

The inhabitants of the clearing gaped at Percy's audacity in muted shock before the Cuck lunged at him in mouth-frothing fury. Crew Cut Brown held him back in a full nelson, a...vicious grin on his face as he winked at Percy in amusement while the rest of the orgy shifted uneasily as they digested the smart mouths words if the loser really wasn't a creeper...

"The fuck?" Black Samson eloquently inquired– his climax completed – as he approached their little Mexican standoff, his chest bared and his spent schlong unleashed to the frigid forest.

"Craig, hold him down! We need to check this weirdo for a camera." Craig's blonde motorcycle squealed as she latched onto the boy's impressive biceps.

But Percy's musings were cut off when the girl's words registered with him. A camera? Him? For them?

He'd seen better orgies in his wet dreams to ever bother getting even a flip phone for a glimpse of this random Ashley Taylor's bruised-to-Tartarus cooch.

"Don't do it, Craig; there are less foolish ways to lose your life. No mere mortal can ever hope to hold a candle to Perseus Jackson of all people." Thad spoke up tiredly, his countenance droopy as his voice echoed with a touch of the Western European accent Percy had noticed most denizens of the Ancient Greek world had come to favor.

That confirmed his suspicions, at least. He knew who and what Percy was. This Thad fellow was probably an unknown minor god. Nah his presence was too weak, and he'd given up far too easily.

No deity worth their salt would ever submit to a mortal without a fight, and even with a fight, they were more likely to go nuclear on their opponent rather than live to handle the humiliation.

How Percy had managed to live so long with the threat of Ares breathing down his neck so hard remained an ever-elusive mystery.

Craig seemed to find Thad's lack of faith disturbing, if his raised hackles were any warning, though.

The young man charged at Percy like a bull, his right shoulder poised to cream his smaller stature into paste. Percy didn't even bat an eye at the mortal; he didn't need to exert himself.

Craig had no strategy or practiced form. Not even a backup plan. The Minotaur, of all monsters had shown more critical thinking than Craig with that same tactic. A breezy sidestep and a well-placed side fist to the mortal's right temple had Craig lapping up the soil at Percy's feet, his eyes rolling all the way back in his skull.

He doubted the mortals even saw him move.

"NOO! CRAIG! AAARGGHHH-oohhh." That was the Cuck's strangled moan as his emboldened charge met an abrupt end from Percy's scuffed Chuck Taylors.

Percy raised an unamused brow at Crew Cut Brown in challenge, the sound of the Cuck's waning moans and the sight of Craig's swaying upraised derriere warning enough for the man. Brown Hair backed up from the standoff with his arms raised in a you got it, big dawg gesture, his hands wrapped around his girls with ease as they cackled like Disney witches at Percy's victims.

Craig's partner shook him to wake up, while the redhead's bottle slipped from her fingers to the soil with a dull thump. A haunted look entered her eyes.

"No...no freaking way." She mumbled.

Satisfied with the favorable turn of events, Percy flitted his glare to Thad's resigned form as he drew his bronze ballpoint pen. He didn't unsheathe it, though. Compared to Tweedledee and Tweedledum beneath him, the man had been downright pleasant all the time Percy had known him, but the boogeyman look he was giving Percy was starting to creep him out.

"Who are you. And don't lie, I don't care for liars." He asked calmly, his stormy-sea eyes clearing and his voice taking a smoother tone as he took the softer approach.

Percy took a knee at eye level within swinging distance of the man as a show of trust, though the effectiveness of the gesture remained up in the air. Mrs. O'Leary's bulk posted up like a shaggy bodyguard behind him.

Thad clammed up on himself like the question had physically burned him. He looked to his redhead partner for salvation, but the girl's eyes remained on the back of Percy's head. Her half-nakedness was forgotten as she looked for all the world like she'd seen a ghost of her past.

An apt description, all things considered. This encounter is far too convenient, even with the powers at play here.

'What does that mean?'

I thought you preferred me quiet? Figure it out yourself, brat

Catty little potty-sludge guzzler.

He ignored the fallen goddess and returned his focus to Thad.

"Tits-for-tats over there isn't going to be able to save you, buddy. Answer me, while I'm still asking nicely."

Thad gulped at the change in his tone as the tension doubled around the clearing. The campfire behind them crackled and sputtered as the atmosphere buckled from a foreboding weight. The gentle rustling of the leaves in the wind transformed into a cacophony of haunting whispers all around them, a symphony of warning that Percy was done playing games.

"Autolycus," Thad confessed in resignation, his hands balling into defensive fists when Percy's acid-green orbs seemed to glow in the firelight.

Strengthened by his truth, Thad stood tall now, his eyes brimming with confidence even as his half-worn knickers slid down from his knees with the action. His jaw was set in defiance, his chin raised upwards, and Percy thought he could hear epic orchestral music from...somewhere as a gloomy day blue aura seemed to envelop Thad's form with his declaration.

He looked like a legendary 'Hero of Old,' with the firelight melding with his aura and creating a messy brushwork of divinity. The unintentional nudity only further emphasized the Ancient Greek aesthetic.

"My name is Autolycus, Father of Polymede and Anticlea, Protector of Mount Parnassus, Thief and Trickster Extraordinaire, the blessed son of the Messenger of the Gods and Chione, daughter of Daedalion!"

...

"Who?"

Who?

The orchestra screeched to a jarring halt at Percy and his spiritual partner's voiced in-sync question. Both drew a thick black blank at the name, much to the consternation of the aforementioned Thad.

"What?" Th-Autolycus questioned comically, his hand raised in weak defiance as the other massaged his smote pride. Percy found it hard to blame the poor guy; the second-hand embarrassment alone was enough for both of them.

He'd given out his résumé with such captivating panache, too.

"You do not know me?"

Percy gave him a sheepish shrug in response. "I don't know what to tell you, buddy," he tried to convey.

"Bu-bu-but I'm-"

"No. No. Oh God. Someone wake me up. Someone wake me the fuck up, this has to be a fucking nightmare." The redhead chimed in rudely, her face redder than her hair and her arms wrapped around her body as she seemed to beg the ground to swallow her whole, "For the love of God, please don't let this be that Jackson."

Percy tilted his head in confusion at the girl, her unexpected familiarity with him catching him off guard. He tried to place her face to a name but couldn't remember for his life fraternizing with any other redhead mortals long enough for him to leave such a lasting impression.

Other than Rachel Elizabeth Dare, at least.

But this girl looked at Percy like he was a recurring presence in her nightmares.

When you had it, you had it.

'Huh. Well, there was that freckle-faced klepto back in'

Percy jolted in alarm as his eyes zeroed in on the redhead's face, her proximity to the campfire, and the girl's undoing as he got a clearer view of her face.

Long, straight chili-red hair curtaining a pretty-ish pale face.

A crooked nose cresting over braces-clad teeth.

And full raised cheekbones dotted end to end with ridiculous bright-orange freckles.

As if somebody had spray-painted liquid Cheetos all over her face.

"No fucking way," Percy cried, astonished, surprising himself with the involuntary expletive even as his lips split into a predatory pearly-white smirk, "Bobofit?"

The half-naked girl's pale skin paled even further, her body aging like milk under a hot Florida sun at his famed troublemaker grin.

'I take back every bad thing I've ever said about you, Hags. Keep cooking.'

"YANCY ACADEMY NANCY BOBOFIT?!"

Y*C*O*Y*W

Eventually, the novelty of the encounter wore off on Percy, and a disgusting realization made itself known to him. He turned a frosty – no, glacial – glare towards Autolycus even as he directed a gruff Get the fuck out to the mortals, the steel in his tone brooking no argument as the girls and boys scampered out of their illegal camp like frenzied rabbits, the unconscious bodies of Craig and the Cuck dragged along the loamy terrain all the way.

Crew Cut Brown took a second to blow Autolycus a mocking kiss, and Nancy gave their standoff one last worried look before trailing behind the group at a sedate pace.

The fact that the poor girl was worried for the guy pissed Percy right the fuck off.

"One reason. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't gut you right here, right now, you sick freak." Percy ground out, his trapezius taut and his deltoids hunched as he prowled to Autolycus' now alert form, retribution carved on his features.

"I don't understand; I've confessed to you already. What more do you need of me?" Autolycus pleaded, quivering like a lamb. The predator gave no resistance as Percy wrapped a hand around his beefy throat.

"Wrong answer."

"I barely understand the question! Please stop - hack - you're - cough – hurting me."

'Yeah, that's the idea. Percy thought darkly.

How incredibly disappointing; I never quite took you for someone so pathetic. A two-bit thug who lords his power over those you perceive as weaker than you whenever your feeble view of right and wrong is brought to question.

'Don't tell me you think I should give this shit a stand?'

I'm telling you, I know the sisters preordained this encounter for a reason. Killing him now does nothing for us; for all you know, he has lain with that mortal girl over a thousand times. Possibly a hundred more young girls if he had the zeal for it.

'Is that supposed to help his case or something? And what's with this 'us' business?'

The voice let out a long-suffering sigh, taking a couple of seconds to compose her thoughts in a way that called Percy a blithering idiot without outright calling him an idiot.

How about this for a defense, then. In death, he becomes no more than a footnote, a self-righteous pat on the back if you're being generous, but sparing him after dominating him earns his gratitude.

His begrudging partner's voice became more sinister as she pushed her red button.

And, more importantly... his fealty.

Percy wanted to ignore the voice; his morals screamed for him to ram Riptide through the man's exposed testicles and leave him to rot on the soil, environmental pollution be damned, but – and oh, how that but hurt something in his very soul – if his...partner was right. If the Fates dropped him an unwitting cornucopia of good fortune.

A way to save his Camp from the mess that he'd created...

But, it could also be a test of his character. How would he react to a moral dilemma when tempted with shortcuts? He'd sworn to live better just a scant few hours ago, yet here he was considering letting a pedophile walk free so long as he could help him.

What kind of Hero justified that?

Most Heroes of Old wouldn't even bat an eye at such a transaction! Huff...why don't you properly hear the man out before you make a permanent decision? I care little for your family, but how all this plays out could be all the difference between life and death for them.

Percy would have disregarded the rationalization if Autolycus's lack of substantial resistance hadn't given him pause. The lost son of Hermes' face had started to turn purple now; bulging veins protruded around his skull, and his hands clawed at Percy's flexed wrist.

His eyes were what stole Percy's breath away, though. The gloomy day blue colors had washed out to a dull grey, and their whites could aptly be called the reds, given all the bloodshot. Percy's contrition resulted from that familiar hopeless acceptance his victim's eyes seemed to convey.

Autolycus' body shifted from his view to the ghostly image of a bleeding husk of a woman surrounded by a field of gold and organs.

"Mother...end the pain...I beg of you."

Percy recoiled from Autolycus quickly. The offending hand was pulled onto his chest as he struggled for breath. A thick bead of sweat rolled from his brow to his chin before dropping to the ground with an audible PLOP.

Sentimental fool, you've stepped down from the position of power with your weakness!

Yet, even with her badgering, Percy still felt a violently stifled morsel of begrudging respect through their shared mind link.

The pervading silence that swamped the air as Percy and Thad sized each other up was...disconcerting, to say the least. The fire beside them crackled for a second or several before sputtering out as a sudden harsh wind overtook the shelter; Mrs. O'Leary let out a confused whine at Percy's sudden hesitation and nudged him in question before turning a blood-red glare at Autolycus.

The image of his dog decking the shell-shocked pedophile like a redheaded stepchild was enough to get Percy moving. He brought the oversized hellhound to heel and sent her on her way, just in case she still had mauling on her mind. He figured Autolycus owed him enough with that to at least give him directions out of the park once this was over.

...

"Why didn't you fight back?" Percy asked quietly, the silence going on too long for his hyperactive brain to deem comfortable; he took a seat a meter and a half away from his would-be kill and fiddled with his jeans.

"..."

"You're a demigod, aren't you? One from the old days, as little sense as that makes," he continued at Auto's silence. I never really put much thought into it, but wasn't it always a fight-to-the-last-breath kind of deal back in your day? Or did the Spartans get all the cajones?"

Autolycus' gaze sharpened at the last barb, his chiseled jaw tightening with indignation.

"...Why didn't you kill me?" Auto traded, his voice hoarse and his hand massaging his bruised throat, "I'd have thought, with a reputation in blood such as yours, that you'd be above trivial things such as guilt and trauma. Maybe all of our culture's collective balls shriveled away that night on Thermopylae."

Pfft

'What the-whose side are you on, lady?'

The options are both equally disappointing, I'm afraid

'Holy Hera, you're impossible.'

Oh, the vindictive hypocrisy

The voice faded to the background of his mindscape with her last remark before he could offer a riposte, an action the obstinate smartass seemed to take far too frequently for his liking.

He turned that pent-up aggression to Autolycus.

"Careful there, Auto; the jury's still out on whether you leave this park alive tonight."

Auto chuckled at him, shaking his head at Percy like he was an annoying blend of disappointment he'd rather not sample.

"You can't kill me, Perseus, for whatever asinine reason you may have, you simply don't have the guts to murder me without the moral backing of 'self-defense,'" Autolycus dared to air quote that 'self-defense,' bunny ears and all, "And I won't give you that reason. No matter how much you try to tempt me."

Percy couldn't do much more than claw at his jeans in frustration because, dammit, the bastard had a point.

The sins and the consequences of his last homicide were still too fresh for him to murder someone else in cold blood, let alone someone who wouldn't bother to fight back. His annoyance only continued to rise with how Autolycus had managed to see through him so clearly; why would Autolycus bother to engage in a dick-measuring contest when he could just do nothing and be all the better for it?

For the first time in his life, Percy felt he understood what a Catch-22 meant.

The experience sucked. About half a star above his last math exam, if he was being generous.

"You're pathetic, you know that? Sitting there acting all high and mighty with your junk out, even after what you did."

"What did I do, you upjumped barbarian? You never bothered to expand on my sins before putting me to the sword. I was minding my business; what could I have done to vex you?"

"Nancy's 16, you freak!" Percy roared, his eyes roiling in fury as his clawed hands balled into fists on his pants, "Your 'business' was conning and assaulting a child, and you think I'm the crazy one?!"

...

Auto couldn't hold back his gleeful laugh at Percy's proclamation. It came out from his belly hale and hearty, with a few pig-like snorts added for good measure. The son of Hermes paused for a beat to stare at Percy before erupting in another coughing fit of chuckles.

Percy unsheathed Riptide and planted it right below the joker's Adam's Apple, his face mere inches away from Autolycus' as his acid-green eyes glared right at the bastard's soul, guilty conscience be damned before he was ever made a fool of by someone like this.

"One more. Just one more giggle out of you, and I swear on my mother, I'll have you using your blood as lube." Percy warned Riptide was already breaking through the skin of Auto's throat.

If Autolycus's crossed eyes on the length of his blade were any indication, the tone of his message struck true. Percy withdrew Riptide from Autolycus' throat and rested her on his lap in warning, her eerie bronze glow bouncing off his face and giving him a malevolent look in the gloom.

"Ahem, my ah-apologies, Perseus, that was uncalled for on my part," Autolycus conceded.

He paused, a brow raised in question, perhaps hoping Percy would also offer a half-hearted apology.

'Ha! Not on your life, pal.'

"I realize how it may seem to you, but rest assured, my relationship with the girl is one with all parties' consent. I am personally of the belief that there can be no faster way for a man to forsake his honor than attaining women or a lover in general through underhanded tactics or forcefully."

"You know, a progressive spiel like that would sound much more noble if you weren't batting a thousand and above in the age department and dating a kid." Percy scoffed, unimpressed, as he blew at his unclipped nails.

"A thousand and what? No! I barely escaped the fields of Asphodel no more than a year ago when the doors of Death ceased functioning properly."

That was...illuminating.

And another loose end he hadn't bothered giving much thought to returning to haunt him. Percy had assumed only monsters and select mortals chosen by Gaea had escaped to the land of the living.

Hazel was a special case; anyone who dared to dispute that claim would have to face off against more than Frank and Nico to defend such an opinion.

But, back to the matter at hand, though, if even the aimless souls of the fields of Asphodel could find the sense to map a way out of the Underworld.

Why wouldn't the more self-aware and tortured souls of those in the fields of Punishment have even more motivation to seek absolution? He shelved that one for later, though, choosing to focus on the here and now.

"Oh? And how old were you at the time of your death?"

"Hmmm, a little over 50 by modern estimates. I was cooked alive in a pot of boiling oil after attempting to steal an artifact from the king of Ephyra." Auto stated nonchalantly, his hand waving in the air, calm as a breeze like that, wasn't one of the most horrific things Percy had ever heard.

Those Ancient Greeks were crazy.

"Okay...th-thats pretty heavy, I'm not even going to lie. But it's still not an excuse to keep doing what you're doing with Nancy; the relationship is too weird. She's young enough to be your daughter. Doesn't that bother you?"

Autolycus ambled over to him like a child on Christmas, an excited air following the youthful-looking revenant as the spirit of a moral debate—or a debate in general—entered the conversation. The man may have been a modern weirdo, but he was an Ancient Greek through and through.

"Should it bother me? Perseus, I come from a time where it wouldn't have been uncommon for women her age and younger to have birthed entire households from arranged marriages."

"It was barbaric then, and it's only become worse with the benefit of hindsight! You brought up arranged marriages; what? Are you trying to tell me you actually love Nancy?"

"Of course, I care for the girl!" Autolycus cried, self-righteous indignation coloring his tone.

"That's not what I asked you! Do you love Nancy?" Percy growled, "Name even one of her hobbies, I dare you."

"She enjoys...that hardly matters, child; debates aren't meant to go this way!"

The fact that the man still thought this was a debate struck a chord within Percy. This wasn't some officiated discussion where they'd both pull out opposing thoughts in a formal manner, a sanctioned conversation where his inborn cunning as a son of Hermes would give him a leg up over him.

This was personal.

"What exactly do you admire about her besides her body? What does simply hearing her name do to you?"

"I-"

"How often do you think to check up on her? How far would you be willing to go for her?"

"I don't-"

"What do her parents think of when they see you? Have you ever met her parents?"

"Let me fini-"

"Would you be willing to die for her?"

"Love isn't at all defined by dramatic actions such as those! I have met with couples in my younger travels that function and love just as well, maybe even more so, than those who share that fanatical obsession just by simply being with each other!"

You'd have thought Autolycus' spine had been injected with steel the way he asserted himself. Gone was the meek, paranoid man who let himself be walked over by a child, and in his place was the 6'6 "tower of muscle with the authoritative gaze of a lion.

Muscleblaze would have made a killing using this guy as an ad model.

Before cutting him off from their brand, once word of his sexual preferences made headway. Then again...it was genuinely hard to tell the difference between the man and your average 18-year-old. Maybe he-

No.

He was disgusting, plain and simple.

"Alright, I'll give you that. You don't need to prove your love to someone with something like that. But. You. Don't. Love Nancy."

"You barely saw 10 seconds of an interaction between the girl and me. How in God's name could you ever be the judge of that? What gives you the right to sit there and judge me?!" Autolycus roared in disbelief, his breaths coming in gasps and a fat pink vein throbbing on his forehead.

"...Because you haven't once referred to her as anything other than 'the girl' in all the time I've known you. I doubt you even remembered her name before I said it."

Autolycus looked like he'd just returned from an audience with the Oracle after Percy's rebuttal.

The man out of time shivered uncontrollably, and he couldn't quite seem to get enough air into himself. His eyes grew misty with unshed tears while his lips quivered, and the little strength he'd managed to scrounge together seemed to leak out of him with his dignity.

But Percy wasn't done yet. There was blood in the water, and he wanted to feast.

"You think you're some 'righteous male' or something? Don't make me laugh. You're a phony with a higher-than-necessary opinion of yourself. I see right through you, Auto; you don't look for equals or anything resembling a partner in a relationship; you want someone submissive and easy to control."

Percy took slow, measured steps towards Autolycus, Riptide trailing behind him with an excited hum like Zoe herself was personally spectating the justice he was about to dish out on this man.

No, this wasn't a man; he was barely even human to him.

"Someone who looks up to you when you can't do the same for yourself. Someone you can exert your will over with your 'progressive idealism.' An unsullied lamb you can parade around like a trophy."

Autolycus backed up with each step Percy took in his direction, his impressive stature wilting with every layer the Godkiller peeled off.

"What you want isn't love, son of Chione. Above all else, you desire someone who can't and will never leave you. Whose every thought and need is tied to and dictated by you. What you want isn't love, son of Hermes."

Percy towered over the giant with menace, his hands clawed onto Autolycus' bare chest in a death grip.

The moon's light seemed to bounce off his ashen locks, shadowing his face, yet his glowing irises ate through the obscuring darkness with a disturbing phosphor-green hue.

Autolycus couldn't hold his gaze.

"What you want is a pet."

Y*C*O*Y*W

18 August 2010, Central Park, Manhattan, New York, USA

Half An Hour Since Percy's Departure

DONE WITH THE FOREPLAY

And sufficiently aggravated enough to put down the man before him without any loss of sleep, Percy rested Riptide on Autolycus' thick, stupid neck. He didn't quite hate the fellow enough to make him die slowly; a quick decapitation would more than serve his ends.

Remember our discussion, boy.

'I don't give a damn about our discussion! I'll find something else; he's died once. I'm just returning him right where he belongs. Who knows, maybe Hades'll send me a gift basket.'

He still chooses not to defend himself even now. Does that not strike you as odd

'Tough luck.'

You are nothing but a hypocrite, Perseus! Projecting your unresolved trauma onto that Bobofit girl needlessly. 'An unsullied lamb you can parade around like a trophy.' Could you be any more obvious? Who gave you the authority of Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

'Am I wrong for that?! Am I, Gaia?! You know what She did to me. You saw it firsthand. What's wrong with me venting that anger on someone who deserves it?'

Pathetic weakness such as this is beneath you, Perseus. Do you believe ending this one worm will cleanse you or this world of its stains? How many heads will roll before your ego is satisfied? After this, Autolycus, will you participate in the ethnic cleansing of those who follow the Islamic faith? They allow their daughter's hand in marriage from the tender age of 12. Do you also intend on serving them a 'quick decapitation'

'That's genocide, you psycho, I'm not that kind of person!'

You could have fooled me. I've looked through your experiences. Do you know what else I've seen? Months upon months have you wasted in your vain attempts at unnecessary absolution, butchering enemies like a rabid dog to hide your hurt, to the point that your friends want nothing to do with you.

That...that one hurt. That one hurt a lot. Percy had no difficulty in remembering how even little Hazel had looked at him like he was a terrifying monster, even after he'd just taken a javelin for her.

It had been a wake-up call for how alone he was on that quest. How much his journey through Tartarus had violated him.

'...Why do you even care so much?' he murmured, his strength and bluster waning to a depressing degree. You hate mortals. It's just this one guy, Gaea; it doesn't matter.'

Gaea let out a grim laugh at his naivete.

My husband also said the same thing to me before we went to war against my siblings and the others. From there, it only spiraled into an endless series of just-one-mores and useless excuses for myself: 'It's just Ouranos,' 'It's just Kronos,' 'It's just Zeus,' 'It's just the gods,' 'It's just the whole of humanity,' 'It's just Perseus Jackson.'

The fallen goddess bit out the words like they physically harmed her, every single target of her frustration akin to an impaling spike through her body.

Gaia let out a depressed sigh.

And, well...you're more than aware of how the last one turned out.

'So you're saying I should do nothing?! I should dip my head in the sand and act like this doesn't bother me?'

I'm saying that I hold a good deal of respect for you, Perseus Jackson.

Percy's derisive snort was automatic, organic even, 'Could have fooled me.'

My enmity for you notwithstanding, you are a good hero. And an even better mortal when you choose not to act like a fool, marginally better than the other hairless apes you call kin.

'I'm blushing. Truly.'

Percy was not blushing, but Gaia continued as if he hadn't spoken.

And I have seen this exact scenario play out with lesser mongrels disastrously, never mind a force of Destruction such as yourself. I'm saying if you kill this man as you are now, if you kill him with malice and traumatized indecision so deeply entrenched in your heart as it is, you will never recover from it.

The way Gaea finished her omen, the inexorable finality she suffused into her tone like she'd already seen his Fate play out in its entirety before him, had Percy's thoughts shifting to another Primordial.

Her sister, Ananke.

He'd often wondered if the goddess had ever ushered out her grim divinations from some other higher power like the demigods had done with the Oracle since time immemorial.

It was a stupid thought - of course, he was aware - why would Fate herself need a symbol of power or anyone else to focus herself effectively?

It would be embarrassing.

But more importantly, if age and wisdom were all it took to prophesy a person's destiny. If the Primordial of Fate had simply been present and aware of her reality for so long, the life paths and choices of billions of mortals and immortals were that easy to predict and manipulate with just a few obscure words...

What really gave Ananke such an infamous reputation and power if other long-living immortals could have a hand in the domain of Fate, provided they were at all willing to pay attention?

...

And I care for myself far too much to serve as yet another voice trapped in the head of whomever my accursed Sister manipulates to put you down.

Good, he was a little worried for a second there.

For an immortal to ever be so dangerous, it would mean they'd have to pay attention to something other than their reflections.

Percy returned his attention to the world of the living, unsure where to go from here and...tired. He noticed he was very tired now, and he wanted this to be over and done with so he could go home, but he had a 240-lb problem on his hands and few ideas on how to solve it.

Killing him now without him even attempting to fight would leave a bad taste in his mouth, but leaving him alive would still allow him to continue his depravity unheeded.

And Percy didn't care to waste his life stalking this guy.

'An oath on the Styx?' Gaea advised.

Could that work?

It would follow the set terms with no theoretical blow-back to him and his loved ones and keep the man supervised, but the fact still remained that the action would mostly be performative pandering to himself; Gaea hadn't been joking about the underage marriage that some of the Islamic faith practiced.

And that was merely scratching the surface of all of the shit happening in this world.

Would he go around the world demanding oaths on the Styx from every mortal who did something he didn't appreciate?

Would the oaths even work, considering most mortals didn't believe in the Greek pantheon?

Should he try either way?

One problem at a time, Perseus. It is not your responsibility to resolve all the world's issues for the mortals; you ask yourself the wrong questions.

'And what are the right ones?' Percy let out in challenge at the apathetic deity.

How about why an able-bodied demigod would allow himself to be pushed around by a boy barely reaching his chest? I don't doubt that you are a formidable warrior in your own right, but your kind are known exclusively for their survival instincts and laughably short lives in that order. Why should a son of the Fleet-footed Trickster be any different?

A good point. Again.

What was up with this dude?

Percy looked back at Autolycus and saw that the man had started to cry during his conversation with Gaia.

No...even crying looked more dignified than what the revenant was doing; Autolycus was full-on blubbering with buckets of mucus pouring forth in heaves from his nostrils.

The guy's hair was tangled with the stuff. Ew.

This was a Hero of Old?

No, this was a Hero period?

How the Hades had he even made it to 50? If this guy were an example of the shining standard, the monsters should have had a field day with the demigods of his time.

Percy released his hold on his bleeding chest, making sure to wipe his hands clean with Thad's body – Percy decided the demigod was stuck with that name until he proved otherwise – and leaned against a thick oak tree, waiting for him to get his shit together.

Percy waited a fat minute, too, shaking his head.

"...thank you," Thad mumbled through wet sniffles. Credit where it was due, though. He wasn't bothering to hide his shame or act like he hadn't sobbed his guts out to a teenager.

"If you really wanna thank me, you can explain why you still chose not to fight."

Thad stiffened and turned a sheepish expression Percy's way as he applied pressure to his grievous wounds; Percy should probably clip his nails some.

"I told you before, Perseus you ca-"

"I won't kill you, you said as much earlier." He conceded with an amicable nod, "But as luck would have it, I've always been a pretty good improviser."

Percy latched onto Thad's hair with the speed of a cobra and pulled at the golden locks, decreasing his intensity once Thad's bloodshot orbs leveled with his.

"And I don't need to kill you to get what I want. I can do so much worse."

"..."

It was only half a lie, to be honest.

Yes, Percy could very well beat the answers he wanted out of Thad or boil him alive with his blood till he talked, but Percy would never bring that sort of torture down upon a mortal. Demigod or not.

That's what the monsters were for.

Thad didn't need to know that, though, and Percy was pretty sure he'd horrified the man enough to be a regular fixture in his nightmares for years to come.

"What'll it be, Thad?"

Thad's forehead was sleek with sweat, even on the chilly night. His heart ba-dump bumped clear as a whistle in the dead clearing, and his pupil dilated as Percy glared at his disturbing reflection in his prey's irises.

"Do me a solid and choose the fun way, will ya?" Percy asked with an unhinged grin. His head tilted in a manner that looked both simple and unnerving with those wild, stormy orbs.

...

"You...are a terrifying, unique individual, young Perseus. I'd like for you to know that." Tha-Autolycus voiced with unexpected authority in his baritone voice, his already beefy left arm animorphing right before Percy's eyes to the hairy, muscle-corded railguns of an adult gorilla.

"Geh!"

That was Percy's startled cry as he was sent flying away from the son of Hermes, his hand covered with a decent fistful of golden hair.

He rag-dolled in the air for a fat second before crashing onto a soft patch of soil with nary a sound, yet simply breathing was a full-body workout for the disoriented son of Poseidon, the strike to his chest, the fall on his back and his sulfur-ridden lungs compounding on his efforts to inhale like imperial gold barbell weights.

And it could have been worse if that were even possible.

With how close Percy had been to Autolycus, the demigod could just as easily have punched through Percy's skull.

"Annoyingly persistent too, most people would have given up altogether with the crying fit. Do you despise me that much, or were you bored?" Autolycus continued in that same deep, overpowering voice as before.

Percy's breath hitched as he gaped in awe at Autolycus's still nude form. The man had been physically impressive enough already, what with his NBA draft-worthy height and a muscle build your average gym bro could only ever pray for, yet his overall spiritual presence seemed to have quadrupled in the span of a second.

A shell of pure power emanated from the son of Hermes; fissures appeared from the ground, gloomy-day blue light flowing through the cracks like searchlights, creating spider-web designs around Autolycus' feet and spreading outwards. That same harsh wind from earlier returned to send the clearing and trees into a frenzy of haunting wails; a holographic ram avatar loomed over Autolycus and brayed at Percy's form in challenge, its massive horns curved around the revenant like a protective blanket.

Percy bared his teeth in indignant fury. He kip-uped to his feet and planted his legs shoulder-width apart, his left foot facing forward, his calves tensing for a charge. Unsheathing Riptide in a fluid motion, he brought the blade closer to his chest in an inside right stance as his mind formulated a quick plan of attack.

An explosive leap followed by a charge for the bastard's heart. A feint to his right thigh. And an upward slash from his torso to his neck for the finish.

His heart drummed in that same Samba rhythm as before, as a battle-crazed grin stole over his features. This was so what he needed today.

A reason.

Autolycus wouldn't even see him coming; the exchange would take 2 seconds.

"Peace, Perseus, I am not your enemy." Autolycus pleaded softly, the power in his voice disappearing as fast as it came, but an approving smile plastered on his face all the same. "Less sane men would have fled in terror at that power, but you...you don't even hesitate. Does your warrior's mentality stem from your experiences or your heritage? I wonder..."

Autolycus shook his head in amusement, "The heart of a fucking lion if I ever saw one."

The man folded his arms as he gave Percy an appreciative once-over, "Allow me to re-introduce myself, child. I am Autolycus, Beloved among the Children of Hermes and son of the virgin Chione. Protector of Mount Parnassus, Thief, and Trickster Extraordinaire. A Designated operative of the Greek branch of the Order. And the Specialist Intel Gatherer of Division 8."

What on Earth was this clown waffling about?

Operative?

Intel Gatherer?

Greek Branch?

He wasn't making any sense, and it still didn't explain the crazy light show he'd somehow managed to pull off.

The man was a closet exhibitionist; he didn't get to look cool.

"I, and my compatriots, are sworn under oath never to attack the denizens of Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter until they come of age or depart from their respective camps."

Percy didn't like that come-of-age part of that sentence, not even a little. But, just as he opened his mouth to berate the nut before him, he closed it with a ringing clack at the rest of Thad's proclamation.

"And to never even approach Perseus MXXXXXXX Jackson, son of the 3rd seat holder on the Olympian Council and Lady SXXXXX Jackson-Blofis, lest we face immediate excommunication and possible termination from the members of my organization. The Order of the Penumbran Spades."

Y*C*O*Y*W

THE PENUMBRAN SPADES.

Unseen Ghosts. Abyss Walkers. Cold-blooded Killers. Warmongers. War-enders. Nomads. Scavengers. Survivors.

You could label this Secret Society of Killers with any of those titles and never fully express what the Spades stood for.

How one would expect an individual as morally bankrupt as a mercenary to stand for anything worthwhile, notwithstanding.

The most straightforward description of the Order would have to be Monster Hunters for Hire, with the occasional mortal head thrown in here and there.

They are a gathering of demigods, yes, but the organization as a whole is populated with legacies, Enlightened mortals, and magicians from all walks of life working hand in hand for profit, their own twisted sense of duty, or sheer desperation.

Among more daring circles, the Order's influence is rumored to predate the Era of Antiquity, going back to the days of Rome's conquest of the known world. Its inception resulted from a broken oath, a cardinal sin, a world-ending war, and a tenuous peace.

An immortal legacy borne, as all things worth greatness, from the ashes of conquest.

Their existence is a closely guarded secret among only established peers and clients, and an accurate account of their origins is known only to a handful of influential deities. To earn their notice is to live in paranoia, your head on a swivel, because you know there is no escaping them. To earn their ire, however?

Challenging the gods themselves would be seen as the more clear-headed approach by most observers.

The fate of Ixion would be preferable to the mental and physical devastation the order's operatives would rain down upon the poor fool.

It would start small, with simple surveillance, but a distinct feeling in the back of your mind that you were being watched would evolve into 'nightmares' that ghosts in hoods were watching you in your sleep.

Your livelihood, relationships, bank accounts, identification and passports, and anything and everything that brought meaning to your life would be revoked manually or with a despicable application of the mist.

And then the bodies would start to pile.

...

Patient and methodical, brutal, and efficient. Specialists with all skills spread across the planet, with the knowledge of esoteric arts, lost to time, and the resources gathered from thousands upon thousands of years of wealth.

This band of death bringers is, by far and large, the best-organized living fighting force this planet has and will ever see.

"-We have the influence, we have the connections, we have the power, we-"

"Spearhead orgies with underage mortals whenever the opportunity arises."

"-Spearhead orgies with-WHAT?!" Autolycus squawked in horror at the insinuation, his eyes wide as saucers, head on a swivel as he feared for his young acquaintance's ensured health at the near-blasphemy, "Have you been listening to a word I've said about these people, boy?"

To Autolycus' eternal distress, Percy only shrugged indifferently at the veiled warning.

Inwardly, however, he was in awe, his attention locked on the hefty 40-page employment contract and job overview Autolycus had decided to show him, now clothed, thankfully.

Amendments, loyalty oaths, loyalty programs, NDAs, workers' rights, updated reforms, stock shares, 401ks, pay stubs, etc.- everything a modern-day adult demigod would need for job security in a life as dangerous as this, all written in Ancient Greek with Celestial Bronze ink.

A Demigod Fortune 500.

They were more than a merry band of cutthroats; they were a far-reaching business!

Autolycus had somehow managed to overshadow a mythological juggernaut of a business with his boogeyman spiel. How the Hades was that even possible.

Even labeling the Spades a 'business' seemed insulting - these guys were that influential, with specialists working as far behind the scenes as the frigid depths of Antarctica, mining resources, and researching climate change.

Their bread and butter relied on homicides, no doubt about that, but the sheer implications attached to the knowledge that a structured community of wizened demigods existed with enough agency to have maintained something as game-changing as this seemed too good to be true.

No, it was too good to be true, and Percy was staring right at the metaphorical penguin in Texas in front of him with palpable skepticism.

"How, by my mother's cookies, did you, of all people, get recruited?" He asked seriously.

The question was rude to the extreme, and he did regret it, but it was a prudent one all the same. He was no Annabeth—Hades. He wasn't even that clever of a person—he'd admit that without shame—but the numbers refused to add up here.

Autolycus had his fair share of raw power, no doubt.

The partial shapeshifting alone would be enough to get him looks of awe from the younger campers, never mind the divine light show. Still, with little to no renown, he doubted strength alone could be enough to get a recruitment pitch from a shadow organization less than a year back on Earth.

From what he'd deduced, the Spades were the best-kept secret since Fight Club. It wouldn't be much of a secret if they offered jobs to every blue-eyed bitty who tickled their fancy.

And if they did?

Then, they weren't as impressive as their handbook and stories made them out to be.

A chain is only ever as strong as its weakest link. It wouldn't matter much how exceptional or scary their rep was if a cavalcade of idiots ran their strategic council.

Autolycus – bless him or fuck him, pick your poison – merely chuckled to himself in amusement, none too bothered with his cheek, as he took a seat on the gravel.

"I cannot say your complete ignorance of my identity does not chafe at my pride as a warrior to no small degree, but I have often noticed even my allies have raised skeptical eyebrows at my station. Perseus, what do you know of my Father?"

"About as much as I do mine?"

Autolycus scratched his chin sheepishly, "Right, wrong question; I meant to ask what do you know of the God, Hermes Maiados Huios? Of his tales, his victories and losses, his Names?"

Percy shrugged.

He hadn't been joking before; he didn't know jack about the gods or their thought processes other than the occasional obscure story with a wacky punchline, Ares getting the dogshit beaten out of him by those idiot Giants Percy had personally taken care of with Jason back in Rome, Ares getting stabbed by Diomedes – the GOAT – in the Trojan War and running away like a little bitch, Ares getting trapped with his little G.I Joe crotch huggers on display after getting caught hitting the sack with his brother's wife, Ares getting-

Huh. It's strange how his mythological know-how clicked best whenever Ares got the shaft.

Anyway, the point was that Percy had never made much effort to learn about their 'all-powerful overlords' or the mythological world in general. He'd always had Annabeth around to set him straight whenever a new god-made mistake wanted his derriere on a hotplate or Riptide to cut through the semantics of the fire-breathing, poison-spewing, terror-inducing problem.

And hey, he'd made it this far, hadn't he?

"Nothing? Truly? Di Immortales, what is the old horse teaching you lambs?"

"...Not sure, honestly, we're mostly just making it up as we go along. The Athena cabin does their best with tutoring, but the 'library' – yuck – we have back at Camp isn't worth the case study."

They kept their best weapons in a rickety old shed. The fact that they had a building that could be quantified as a library was a Christmas miracle in itself.

"And that does not bother you all in the least? That the last remaining legacy of Ancient Greece, blessed with irrefutable proof of our Gods' existence mind you, knows nothing of our shared heritage? Our entire culture has been bastardized by those proverb-spewing evangelicals for millennia now, and you're content with that; how does the Hero of Olympus not care at all about Olympus?" Autolycus demanded, his expression clouded in anger while his fists and arms grew webbed with veins; the air felt heavy with that...power from before.

Percy didn't bat an eye. "How do the 'gods' of Olympus act no better than spoiled children? You're aware that the King accused me of stealing his own Master Bolt when I was no older than 12 years old, right? Olympus and her issues have already demanded and taken enough from me in the 5 years I've known about her; forgive me for wanting to preserve the minimal piece of sanity I still have in my brain."

"You see the world with the eyes of a child Perseus, and it's all the more obvious with how often you react with your emotions. Have you never considered there to be more behind the scenes than your safe little bubble? That the Gods have discussions and schemes beyond making your short life miserable?"

That gave Percy some pause because, yes. He'd never once bothered to take to that train of thought, but the gods were thousands of years old.

Could it be that Zeus accusing him of theft, sending a bolt of lightning down on their bus an hour into their quest, siccing Echidna and the Chimera on him, and blatantly disregarding information on an impending war for years on end was some sort of convoluted game of 4D chess to his checkers?

'Psshhh, get a load of this guy.'

"Yeah, I can't really see the logic there, buddy, but maybe I'm biased."

Autolycus stared at him with something akin to pity before shaking his head slowly. It annoyed Percy that the man was adamant about defending the self-serving deadbeats, but he was tired and wanted to go home.

"Why did you ask?" Percy tried instead, out of genuine curiosity, mind you, but primarily to speed things up a little.

"...Hermes Phêlêtês, Hermes the Thief, one of my Father's most famous aspects and the most common of Names he blesses my many brothers and sisters with."

"You got in from pickpocketing?"

"In a manner of speaking, it was no mere boast when I declared myself the 'Beloved among the Children of Hermes.' Even among my brethren, I inherited a much higher proficiency in using my Father's domains."

Autolycus reached a hand into the air behind him with a mischievous grin, like one of those cheap mortal magicians Lou Ellen often whined about in counselor meetings; he brought Percy's pen-sword out from behind him in a ta-da gesture.

The ridiculousness of it all, coupled with Percy's shock at being disarmed by a guy sitting on the dirt, was the only reason Autolycus retained the mental faculties to wiggle his bushy eyebrows so smugly.

"Most importantly, Thievery." Autolycus continued, tossing Riptide back to a shell-shocked Percy before he could go DEFCON 1...again.

"...Don't do that shit again. Please."

Autolycus would have had to be blind, deaf, and stupid to miss the unsaid 'or I'll tear you apart.'

"Duly noted, Perseus," Autolycus gushed merrily, "Back to the matter at hand, though, I am unsure as to the reason why my Lord Father decided to bless me so, whether it was out of love or out of shame for the circumstances of my birth..."

The revenant's voice took on a somber note, and his already gloomy eyes dulled further in the scant glimmers of light. Percy felt he should have tried to offer the weirdo some comfort for something that still bothered him to this day, but Autolycus brightened up before he could act on it.

"It matters little; I am thankful all the same. But you never asked me about that, did you? No, you wanted to know how I got employed. I will not explain the specifics of my ability, and I ask that you do not demand it of me or my past. I have immense respect for your accomplishments, but we are not allies, not yet, at least. I ask that you do not jeopardize this tenuous peace."

Percy had no problem with that, to be honest; he was more taken by the fact that Auto was handing him most of the power and blame in the conversation while also maintaining the avenue for negotiations on even terms for himself.

He wasn't arrogant enough to believe Auto couldn't beat him or that he was at all scared of him anymore; the son of Hermes' abilities and apparent knowledge of Percy's abilities and the world itself had disabused him of the notion.

And yet, once again, the man out of time had thrown away his pride to ensure they both left this clearing alive, with the hope of a possible friendship, too. Auto was a creep, yes. And you were 1000% justified in despising him, but Percy doubted even Annabeth would have been able to play him with that sort of smooth cunning.

If Hermes was even half as smooth-talking as his son, it only spoke volumes for Zeus's cunning and power that his son hadn't already conned him off his throne.

You have no idea how close you are.

'...Wait, what?'

"About half a year ago," Auto interrupted his thoughts, "I was accosted by a high-class operative of the Order, an Inquisitor to be exact, on the charges of an unauthorized jailbreak. The Spades had already been having a veritable bitch of a time culling escaped souls before the stirrings of the Earth Mother; I imagine they'd had it up to here by the time I'd made my own appearance."

Autolycus rubbed at his neck as Percy sat right in front of him.

"Our encounter couldn't have been more inconvenient; I stumbled into Inquisitor Giles right in the middle of his coffee break in a dead-end bar he often enjoys frequenting. I barely had a second to so much as glance at him before he had his weapons at my throat and murder in his eyes."

"Wait, what are Inquisitors, and who orders coffee in a bar?! That's like...the one place you shouldn't go to for a cup of joe." Percy spat back-to-back, his ADHD glossing over the fact that this Giles guy had put death on the table as his go-to.

Because demigods.

"I understand your confusion, but I'm afraid I cannot answer your questions until I make my offer. My respect for Master Giles' privacy notwithstanding, the Order would have my head by midnight if I spilled such secrets to an outsider so brazenly."

Well, at least that explained the penalties for breaking the NDA. It was a filling serving of death with mild torture as an appetizer, c'est magnifique.

He gave Auto the okay to continue with a go-on gesture.

"Anyways, I was skilled enough to push him to the point he had to reveal his trump card and then-"

"The divine light show? Your power helps you steal other demigods' powers, too? That's bullshit!"

'Wha-how bloody dare you, you manipulated my ichor, you bastard! Who are you to complain of unfairness?!' Gaia screeched in his ear, her intangible fists banging on the sides of his skull.

Percy wasn't proud to admit that he'd hog-tied and gagged the irate goddess with metaphysical bindings, but he wouldn't deny it got the job done for him.

Autolycus sighed in resignation, "Do you have any appreciation for the arcane arts? Yes, the 'divine light show.' Again, I will not go into the specifics of my blessings, but I could theoretically steal anything I lay my eyes upon, even metaphysical concepts within reason. It is a very taxing ability with an even smaller window for success, and the only reason I still draw breath is a result of Master Giles' leniency."

"You fell asleep mid-battle after nearly burning yourself alive from overusing your powers, didn't you." Percy deadpanned.

"...Yes. But,' Autolycus quickly added at Percy's facepalming, 'It worked wonders for my near future. If I had continued to resist harder, it would have only ensured me a quicker trip back to the Fields, or I would have been living the rest of my short life on Earth in constant paranoia from the Spades."

Percy waved his hand with a smirk, "Yeah, yeah, ya dingus. You went poo-poo in your undies and couldn't do much more than take a power nap in your own feces right in your playpen; I'd be surprised if this Giles guy didn't give you a sippy cup after changing your diaper."

The analogy was mostly played off as a joke, but the best jokes always echoed with a bit of the truth within them to keep them relevant upon further inspection and hindsight. Just take a look at Kanye.

"...You have a very punchable face, Perseus. Are you aware of that?"

"I've been told once or twice."

"Delightful," Auto drawled with a sigh, "...As I was saying, that chance encounter with Master Giles may have saved my life. I was exhausted, hungry, poor, and...desperately alone; adjusting to life so far removed from my own time has not been easy. Even worse, with the knowledge that everyone I have ever known and loved has been dead for millennia at this point...I miss my family, Perseus. Terribly so. And every second I spend separated from them is a torment not even the Kindly Ones have ever deigned to broach with the worst of their prisoners."

That wiped the smirk off Percy's face quickly. The raw emotion the man out of time had suffused into his words gave Percy emotional whiplash. This guy...this guy wasn't lying.

Percy had been around the sons of Hermes since he was 12. He'd been tricked and betrayed by dozens of them over the years, so much so that he'd had to teach himself how to discern their lies and cons from the truth. And while his system wasn't even close to perfect, he'd been able to gather quite a few tells and signals to not fall for the occasional 'I saw Annabeth frenching that new Apollo kid by the canoe lake' pranks anymore.

Autolycus was a son of Hermes before the Trojan War, and for the most part, Percy could say that the sons of Hermes of today really needed to step up their game in terms of cunning and lies; they had the exact same tells.

And yet, the man hadn't so much as twitched oddly once in their heart-to-heart...Percy really didn't want to, but he couldn't not pity the old pedophile in his moment of weakness. It wasn't in his nature to be so heartless, especially when Autolycus' woes resonated so strongly with him.

He'd spent months after the Second Titanomachy, scared out of his mind that the gods would choose not to respect his wishes and force godhood upon him against his will. He'd woken up in cold sweats from nightmares that he'd awakened to a world where all of his loved ones had long since shriveled to dust while he remained an eternal sophomore.

Percy didn't waste a moment this time. He crouched down to Autolycus' level and hugged the poor guy with more compassion than the revenant was worth. The I Got You buddy left unsaid but felt all the same.

Autolycus flinched in alarm at the action...which, going off of Percy's previous conduct, wasn't all too out of the ordinary a reaction, but Auto returned the gesture once he sensed Percy meant him no harm. The two of them were content to hold onto each other in support while the world passed them by; the awkwardness attached to their circumstances was ignored.

Auto let go of him, sniffing, "Thank you. You are a kind young man, Perseus. I realize I am not exactly held in your highest regard but know that you have my respect as a warrior and a man with a heart. Not many can embrace people they perceive as their enemy with the warmth of an old friend, none I have seen in my limited lifetime."

Percy huffed at the cheesiness, his lips twitching upwards with amusement.

"Don't sweat it, Auto, believe me...I get it. Can you finish your story?"

"My story? Oh! Yes, where was I...so yes, I was at the end of my rope with all of it; the only reason I never pursued the avenue of suicide was the result of my own pride and the fact I would never again get the opportunity to meet my family in the Elysian Fields."

Percy nodded in understanding as the lessons he'd bothered to follow from Annabeth about Greece and her ancient customs flashed like a jolt in his mind. The circumstances surrounding it didn't matter, to spit on the gift of the gods – the gift of Life – there could be no greater act of rebellion to them, whether or not the gods actually gave a damn about said life notwithstanding.

To forsake your life was to forsake your eternity; your soul would be fast-tracked to the Fields of Punishment with a quickness unseen since the trial of Tantalus.

"Master Giles gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. My experience and talents were deemed too useful of an asset for me to be thrown into the underworld; he convinced our superiors to offer me a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak," Autolycus declared with fanatical pride, his blue eyes moist with emotion, "A home, money and a method to flip it into generational wealth, the opportunity to live and move forward with a purpose and most importantly...the avenue to die in a way that satisfied the set stipulations of The Judges. He introduced me to the Spades, and I haven't looked back even once."

Autolycus turned his back to Percy in a show of trust, nodding his head in satisfaction at Percy's lack of action even as the son of Hermes rummaged through his backpack. The man held a tiny box in his meaty hands, almost in reverence, and Percy had an inkling of what was going on.

"The Spades are objectively a morally flawed organization. The things I've done...there isn't a doubt in my mind that we'd be labeled pure evil by the average mortal at first glance," Autolycus murmured before straightening with that steel from before, "But, just as light can never exist without darkness, even the most evil of acts can never be committed without the hope of a righteous conclusion. Idealism cannot stand alone without conviction."

Auto looked right into Percy's eyes at the end of his speech, daring him to dispute his claims even as he brushed his scarred knuckles against the black and red colored box. Percy could spy the ghostly silhouette of a two-faced being looming over Autolycus and tossing a set of engraved keys from one hand to the other.

The words Choose. Choose. a slow mocking ballad to his ears as the god of Doorways, Choices, and Beginnings pushed him to accept a deal from the devil.

No.

Gaia herself had stopped straining with her bindings and gone silent in his head to let him make a decision.

Percy was alone here; he couldn't blame anyone but himself for whatever path he chose tonight.

"I see it in your eyes, Perseus. The hopelessness, the desire, and the desperation for a solution to your problems. The guilt. You had a hand in the curse that afflicts the Greek Camp, did you not?"

Percy's heartbeat quickened, "How did you-"

"Make no mistake, I do not intend to blackmail you to acceptance; to survive in this line of work requires the strongest of wills, and I...I admire you enough to want to see you die old and satisfied, surrounded by your loved ones."

Percy didn't doubt that, as ironic as it seemed, Autolycus had been truthful to Percy since he revealed himself as a mercenary. For all his faults, Percy couldn't find it in himself to call the man anything other than honorable and tactical, taking Percy's insults and aggression like a playful slap to the chest, treating him like an equal and someone worthy of respect rather than talking down to him, protecting the identity and privacy of his comrades while also not quite alienating Percy.

And the hardest pill to swallow was showing a modicum of remorse once he realized how wrong his relationship with Nancy was. He didn't quite believe that the 'crying fit' was faked.

Not entirely, at least.

"So I ask you, Perseus MXXXXXXX Jackson," Autolycus continued, taking Percy's silence as assent, "Son of Poseidon and Lady SXXXXX Jackson, Bane of the Divine, Hero of Olympus. Godkiller. Not as Autolycus, but as an Ambassador of Division 8. As a warrior bestowed with authority from the Greek Charter of the Order."

Auto opened the box, chilling black mists pouring down from the exit in a fashion none too dissimilar from the demonic wraiths that had freed themselves from Pandora's Pithos so many eons ago - how the fuck did he know that? - and revealed a Stygian Iron brooch inlaid with blood.

It was designed in the likeness of a simple Spade encircled by a blood-red cross connected around its circumference.

"Will you join the Penumbran Spades?"

Y*C*O*Y*W

Chapter 7: Will You Still Love Me

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."

- Alicia Walker

Will You Still Love Me (When I Shine From Words But Not From Actions )

18 August 2010, Central Park, Manhattan, New York, USA

An Hour And A Half Since Percy's Departure

"WHERE WERE YOU GUYS DURING THE WARS?"

The question was voiced quietly, yet you'd have thought it to be amplified by a background subwoofer with how hard it echoed over the empty woods.

Nature held her breath as she bit at her non-existent nails at the deadlock the two demigods had trapped themselves into. The winds had shut their intangible windows tight and left the clearing alone to its sentence; the moon had long since clouded over and showed no signs of lighting the way forward any time soon, with the stars seen in only scant glimpses through tree breaks.

The shadows of the woods rippled and warped upon each other, creating the illusion of sinister maws, the jaws of death inching ever closer to the two occupants with foreboding doom.

Percy recalled a lecture his...ex had given him a few months before the Second Titanomachy had begun in earnest, about a short little anecdote of a mortal king named Dionysius I of Syracuse – not to be confused with his favorite headache mind you – and one of his...more trusted than most courtiers, Damocles.

The story resulted from Damocles acting like a kiss-ass if you can imagine it. With the young man behaving none too dissimilar from a court jester and boasting to the King about the King's wealth and power, the King offered to switch places with Damocles for one day so that Damocles could taste that fortune firsthand. Damocles – the sucker – eagerly accepted the King's proposal, taking a load off on the King's throne amid embroidered rugs, fragrant perfumes, and all manner of beautiful attendants.

But it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows in Dionysius' court. The King had made many enemies during his reign – like poison in your wine and pillow strangulation in your sleep, on the same night kind of enemies – he arranged that a sword would hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail to evoke the sense of what it is like to be King: though having much fortune, always having to watch in anxiety against dangers that might try to overtake him.

Damocles finally begged the King for permission to get off the dam throne because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that while he had everything he could ever want at his feet, it could not affect what was above his crown.

The moral of the story? To some people, it served as a warning to walk a mile in another's shoes before jumping to conclusions about their lot in life, and for a while, that was the takeaway Percy had been content with following.

Now though?

He likened the lesson to a different test of character: how long it could take for people to learn to quit while they were ahead.

He imagined the sword of Damocles to be the swinging pendulum of a grandfather clock oscillating to and fro, ticking all the while. Waiting – pleading – for its coming victim to fail the test, for them to venture too far into the rabbit hole before the gleaming blade would come tearing down upon the head of poor 'Damocles' with the manic fury of a Kindly One, the faint whistling of the blade as it sliced through the air its twisted equivalent of uproarious laughter.

These were the thoughts that swam through Percy's mind as he anticipated Autolycus' response. The son of Hermes' face looked to be carved from marble for how lifeless it appeared, his hold on the little black box like iron. Not an iota of shame or regret crossed his face at the question. To his credit, the man out of time didn't look a wee bit happy or elated at the circumstances of the question.

Autolycus was aloof. Austere even.

The man looked like he'd long since realized he had no sensible excuse for his sins, nor did he wish to insult Percy's intelligence by pretending otherwise.

It reminded Percy of his first meeting with his estranged father, how apathetic and neutral the god had appeared to the 12-year-old boy he'd abandoned as a baby, at the child who had literally gone through Hell and back to do him a solid.

The resemblance disgusted him.

"I was not alive for the Second Titanomachy you and your kin braved last summer, young Perseus." Autolycus started softly.

His voice was resolute - sharp even - and Percy hadn't missed the fact that he referred to the demigods as 'His kin,' a point in the son of Hermes' favor he supposed Percy wouldn't have been able to stop himself from beating the revenant within an inch of his life had he dared to ingratiate himself to his family.

Percy let out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding, "And the Second Gigantomachy? You told me you were picked up by the Spades half a year ago. It's August, and you were settled in by March. Months before I was even a thought to Lupa, so where the fuck were you guys."

"..."

"WELL?!"

"We were...paid handsomely to not interfere at all in the final confrontation or the battles leading up to it." Autolycus finished lamely, his robotic customer service rep voice only irritating Percy further.

The son of Poseidon clenched and unclenched his left fist slowly, his unclipped nails digging and reopening the deep scar on his palm as his teeth gnashed against each other like rusted grinding gears.

Autolycus did nothing to quell his anger other than make himself look punchable, his beefy arms folded behind his back and his abdominal muscles taut in preparation for an assault. It seemed he expected – no wanted – Percy to hurt him, the minuscule twitch of his right eye a full-blown plea for the son of Poseidon to have his way with him and absolve him of his sins.

Percy flat-out refused the request. If the man wanted forgiveness, he could seek religion.

"Who?" He asked instead, his anger stilled somewhat with Auto's subtle admission of guilt. "Who paid you to screw us over?"

"I...cannot divulge that information to an outsider."

Percy growled at Autolycus, his right eye twitching something fierce as he fisted the man's collar, "Like hell you can't, you cheap sellout. The bodies from the Camps alone are in the hundreds and climbing. Never mind Alaska! Children Autolycus! Innocent children with their whole lives ahead of them gone! In the span of a single fucking battle, we lost enough demigods to fill Hades' yearly quota for a decade."

With the final riposte, Percy pushed the man to the ground; the tiny box and its accursed contents lost somewhere in a nearby bundle of thicket.

The son of Poseidon's sanity was subsisting on righteous, head-banging fury as he paced about the clearing in anger, a stray rabbit turned into roadkill in the middle of his power walk.

"And the 'professionals'. The 'best of the best'. The Adults!" Percy's eyes flashed dangerously at that last one as the air crackled with static around the clearing; Autolycus kept his head down, "Are leaving the kids to fight the wars of the fucking gods by themselves?! How many lives could even one of you idiots have saved? Are your balls leashed so tight by your masters that you can't even muster the guilt to help me seek justice for your own blood?!"

Percy's throat was raw, his breaths were coming out in gasp after shallow fucking gasp as his legs struggled to hold up his weight. His vision was clouded in white, his arms shaking far too hard to muster the poise to clear his ruffled, ashen locks away from his face.

But he wasn't done. Not even close.

"We fight. Day in and day out. We fight, bleed, and die, then do it all over again. We do it to get even a passing glance from our parents. From the 'Gods'. All-powerful beings older than the concept of mankind itself. Beings with complete mastery over nature, life, and death, Di immortales, we're told they can exist simultaneously in hundreds of places. We're beat over the head over and over again about how perfect they are."

His voice was scratchy, tears flowed down his cheeks like mini-streams, "And yet with all that power, with all that knowledge and wisdom right at their fingertips, we're all but told outright that we shouldn't expect to live past 16. That our parents, beings who can flip entire cities on their axes, can't be trusted to protect us. That they need laws forced upon them so they don't fuck everything up!"

Thunder boomed overhead at Percy's sacrilege, the clouds twisting erroneously as lightning streaked unimpeded through them like a frantic ballroom blitz; rain battered the land around them in malice as the massive bust of a bearded man molded itself from the sky.

The scowling visage of the King of Olympus looked ready to drown the entire East Coast in a shower of lightning, with Percy's current position a tantalizing spot for ground zero.

The son of Poseidon didn't even blink.

"The Underworld. The Sea of Monsters. The Sky and Atlas. The Labyrinth. The Curse of Achilles." Percy ground out for no reason, "Alaska. The Mediterranean Sea. Tartarus. Everything I've suffered. Everything I've fought for. Everything I've killed for to protect my loved ones. Every death I've tormented myself with, that I've endured to never see another kid with a glassy-eyed stare again...are you telling me they only ever mattered as much as what the next guy was willing to offer you to keep your hands tied?"

Percy shook his head in disbelief, his haunted eyes staring right into Autolycus' soul – his choked voice was audible even within the downpour, "That's wrong." His mouth could barely move properly. His brain felt like it'd been injected with Novocain, "That's monstrous on so many fucking levels."

...

Mists had started to coalesce around them following the intensity of the unexpected cloudburst, thick forest-fire-like smoke fields plummeting visibility further downwards. At the same time, the flashes of lightning that'd been overbearing before now appeared measured. In fact, some would say the bolts and heavy rain were...mournful.

"Your words cut deep, young Perseus," Autolycus murmured, his voice thick with emotion barely audible in the howling winds. "Deeper than any blade."

Percy didn't know how to react to that. Was it supposed to...pacify him or something? Were Autolycus' feelings of guilt supposed to make up for the uncountable number of indirect massacres the Spades had all but sponsored for his family with their love for their own fat pockets?

Was the man insane?

What could Percy do with the revenant's feelings?

Where was that guilt when the bastard traded his people's lives for a few sacks of gold?

How dare he?! How dare he-

Calm down.

Percy had to calm himself right the fuck down before he went home with this bastard's blood on his hands tonight. He closed his weary eyes and took slow, measured breaths as his body shivered from the rain and the bone-biting cold of his drenched clothes. Not even questioning how that was possible.

"Autolycus...I'm going to ask you one last time. Not as a friend. Not even as an acquaintance. But as a demigod, I'm asking you as a man. Who the fuck screwed us over?"

The words and the question pained Autolycus; it was difficult not to see it. The revenant looked like he was struggling not to cry and spill every single one of his secrets in a vain bid for forgiveness. He was shivering so hard that Percy couldn't be sure if it was from the cold or a seizure, and yet...

"I swore an Oath, Perseus. By my heritage and beliefs, I am honor-bound to follow my directive. By my gratitude and my loyalty? I am shackled by them. I beg you, Perseus. Please understand this and take my offer."

The sad part of it all...Percy really did understand him.

He grasped Autolycus' plight to a T. Hades, he'd lived it only a few months ago with the Romans and even in his early days as a Greek demigod.

Were you familiar with the term 'snitches get stitches'?

Take away the preschool playground consequences from it and hold it under the lens of a person with next to nothing to their name; you still wouldn't be able to fathom how alone Autolycus was, displaced so far out of his own time.

Percy could argue that even Gaea hadn't been this isolated in all the years she'd meandered about the planet. She'd had the 'gift' of ignorance to shield her from the horrors of her own reality. She'd never even gotten an inkling as to what having a family was supposed to feel like.

That was ignoring her immortal constitution and how fast the centuries seemed to blur for them, but Autolycus was human.

Autolycus knew how to love and what it felt like to be loved.

Everything he'd ever hoped to endear himself to wasn't just taken away from him; it was locked away in a pleasant alabaster box while the jailer laughed at him as they waved the keys in his face. The man might as well have been in a nightmare he could never hope to wake up from, given how out-of-touch everything should have seemed to him.

Percy called bullshit on what he'd said earlier, he didn't doubt for a second Autolycus would go through with suicide if Percy actually pushed him to betray what may as well be his second and last family. He'd seen how the revenant's eyes lit up as he spoke of 'Inquisitor Giles' and the rest of his squad and the pride he carried himself with at the mere thought of them.

Autolycus had already ingratiated himself to his new home; who was Percy to come rolling through his cabbage patch? To try to gaslight a man who was barely holding himself together at this point for a group of people who probably wouldn't spit on him if he were on fire, but Percy had his own family to think about.

His own Home. His own morals and beliefs he needed to protect.

Joining the Spades would give him some of the answers he needed, but how far would he have to throw away the morals that defined him for those answers?

How many murders and atrocities would he commit to protect the ones that he loved?

Percy didn't want to think about it.

Because the answer was far too simple.

The spades would be a last resort he wouldn't bother to give the time of day, but Percy was going to find whoever made those payments against his family.

Fortunately, the Spades weren't the only players in the game, Percy still had the Hunters on speed dial.

They would meet on Sunday, settle the plans for the expedition to Alaska, and devise a plan to figure out what the Hell was going on.

He would find the fools responsible for all of this, and they would wish they had never dared.

"Goodbye, Auto. I hope your devotion is all worth it in the end...I really do."

"Perseus wai-"

But Percy wasn't listening anymore. He was running, the thick mists parting for him before enveloping him while Autolycus pleaded for him to wait.

The forgotten spade brooch beeped with a dull red tint in the rough undergrowth.

Y*C*O*Y*W

PERCY SHOT THROUGH THE NEEDLE-LIKE RAIN AND WINDS LIKE A 50-CAL BULLET.

Leaping through a dense bush thicket right out of Central Park, his heartbeat drumming loudly in his skull.

Images flashed in his mind's eye as he tore through the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan without a care. His generation of demigods was time-locked at the tender age of 12 and 14 around a massive ping-pong table, raising toasts and screaming "Cheers!" at the top of their squeaky lungs as they celebrated their first meeting as Cabin Counselors with shots of diluted nectar.

Annabeth had an arm around his scrawny neck, and her eyes closed in elation while 14-year-old Silena Beauregard struggled not to coo beside a stoic Charles Beckendorf. As the daughter of Athena opened her stormy-grey eyes to the world, the mirage around her rippled to reveal an older girl with honey-blonde hair dyed red and a lone grey orb staring at the sky, insects lapping at the fresh blood from her vacant eyehole, and her bloodstained cheeks.

Silena's pursed lips melted to the image of a disfigured girl with haunted blue eyes, and Beckendorf's stoic expression shifted to an alarmed RUN as the burly son of Hephaestus flipped the switch on his watch and-

A raw, anguished howl tore itself from Percy's throat at the horrific images, but the nightmares weren't close to finished.

The next image to fade was that of Lee Fletcher. The fair-haired son of Apollo had taken his nectar down the wrong pipe, and it was up to Castor to help him out.

Or was it Pollux?

Percy was ashamed to say he'd never been able to tell the two brothers apart.

Or cared about them until the son of Dionysus died.

No matter though, the vision fixed itself for his leisure with Lee Fletcher's upper and lower halves forcibly extricated from his spine, his guts flailing in the air as two Laistrygonian giants clubbed each over the head like whack-a-moles with the young man's body.

Pollux wept over his brother's mutilated corpse without abandon, a wild hellhound had managed to eat half of Castor's face off before Pollux finally managed to spear it through its skull with his thyrsus.

He stumbled and nearly wretched into a pool-wide puddle at the memory, his mind's eye drifting over the stationary forms of Katie Gardner, Connor, and Travis Stoll. All huddled together in a group hug as Travis pumped up a pitcher he'd managed to fill to the brim with nectar while Katie – her eyes wide as dinner plates – struggled in vain to drag the mug from the dexterous son of Hermes.

Percy feared the worst as their mirages rippled at the edges, but he was spared from the horror as the lights faded to black while multicolored stars bounced up and about like fireworks in his immediate periphery.

Then came the bone-twisting pain.

"Holy Christ in a fucking manger, kid, are you okay?!" A thick New York accent cursed callously, a door slamming shut as the owner's fancy shoes clicked and clacked to him, "What the hell were ya thinking running around the streets inna freaking monsoon like this?"

Percy couldn't do more than blink in the voice's direction. All he could see was black and yellow...was he hit by a...bee with a New York accent?

"Ya like jazz?" He remarked without thought, his reeling brain defaulting to quips while waiting for the world to stop spinning.

No wait! Percy had been stung by the bee. This bee wasn't an ally; he was the enemy.

"You, my friend, are about to be lunch for my iguana Ignacio."

"...Someone get this kid an ambulance."

"Nooo," Percy slurred, "Have you seen how much those guys charge a checkup?! If the venom doesn't kill me, the hospital bill 'a make me wish I'd died. Back off, Barry!"

Percy pushed off of Barry the Bee and scuttled his way across the fog-heavy city like a drunkard. Years of muscle memory and battle instincts were his saving grace as he pranced around cars and the busy city, closer to what he'd instinctively known to be safety.

He collapsed onto a tall signpost, the heavy rain starting to ease up around him enough for the luminescent glow of the signpost to shine down upon him like a heavenly spotlight; the words of his perch may as well have been painted in blue ink for all the lethargic joy it filled him with.

E 105 St

And if he was a betting man...

He took slow steps now, partly because the ground was slippery, with his footsteps squeaking like oversized clown shoes, and partly because of his illogical trepidation.

Percy hadn't seen his mother in what felt like ages, and he wasn't stupid.

He knew the boy who'd pretended not to flush in embarrassment as his mother gave him a kiss on the cheek goodbye for the summer, and the person he'd become at the end of the war couldn't be more different. The things he'd done...

He shook his head as he surveyed the cavalcade of rickety old brownstones while his hands palmed his pockets for the keys to his building, cursing like a sailor when his search came up blank.

He trudged his way to the intercom panel and rang the buzzer.

A few moments later, the familiar garbled voice of a woman answered, "Yes?"

This was a bad idea.

This was a stupid idea; he should leave while he still could. He'd already lost Annabeth, he wouldn't be able to take it if his mother up and left him too.

'You are already here, brat. Man. Up. The least you could do is give the poor woman peace of mind.' Gaea drawled.

'Who let you out of your bonds?!'

"Hello?" His mother called out again.

"Uhhh, hi?" Percy cringed at the terrible starter. "I left my keys in Tar-in Alaska. Can you let me in, Mom?"

Static.

"It's Percy, Percy Jackson? The kid you carried for 9 months, then force-fed greens and veggies for 17 more years, that Percy Jackson? Can ya let me in, Ma? Please? I'm freezing."

Even more static.

"...What was your name again?"

Percy's brow twitched in annoyance at the question, "Percy. Jackson. Mom. I gave you a 'take-a-load-off' coupon for Mother's Day when I was 8...and nearly burnt the house down trying to fry some eggs for your breakfast in bed."

His mother let out a muffled snort before her voice took on a more teasing lilt. Percy could almost imagine the little cookie-baking menace twirling the phone cord around her index finger innocently.

"I'm afraid this household doesn't have any children named Percy Jackson-Mom in its registry. Maybe you should try the other building over on 86th."

"...Mom. You're not funny. Open the door. Please." Percy bemoaned, yet he couldn't beat back the traitorous twitch of his lips nor the strangled laugh that seemed to bubble with the word 'please.'

"Last chance. What's your name, stranger? I wouldn't want to call the cops on you with all this rain."

You want to know the funny thing?

He didn't doubt for a second that the elder Jackson would go along with the bit just to mess with him. Percy's friends had always sworn he'd inherited his balls and cheek from his father, but they couldn't have been more wrong. Only a Jackson could ever hope to out-bluff a Jackson.

"...seus...dith...Jackson." Percy murmured in resignation, already dreading the response.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" And Percy could all but see the bright, smug smile on her face too clearly from all the way down here.

"Perseus. Meredith. Jackson. Mom. Ya happy?"

"I'm afraid this house-"

"Mom, c'mon!" He cried even as he fought to not join in on her mischievous cackle.

The front door buzzed—finally—and he slammed it open. Powerwalking up the stairs to their floor with giddy anticipation, he rounded the corner to find her standing there, her arms crossed over her chest and a blinding, pearly, megawatt smile waiting.

Long, straight hair the color of fresh chestnuts curtained her face, with a little ponytail stopping just below her ears. Mixed with the brown were long individual streaks of grey that made her look old yet rebellious. There were new wrinkles on her forehead, with darkening bags under her eyes from all that writing into the early hours of the day, and yet...

She'd always told him he'd gotten his looks from his father - Hades, everyone told him he got his looks from his old man - but gazing upon her now, he couldn't help but feel he was looking at a mirror. The upturned nose, the same aristocratic cheekbones, they even shared that same right dimple that paired just right whenever he raised a smug eyebrow.

His mom was dressed in a sleeveless, festive tie-dyed sundress with flower-patterned frills at the edges and a pair of beaten leather Birkenstocks.

She'd always been the most breathtaking woman he'd ever laid his eyes upon – bar freaking none, looking at you, Aphrodite – and she had the godly baby daddy to prove it. Still, her sapphire-blue eyes only seemed to hammer the point home further with how much genuine affection they always managed to convey without a word.

"What's your name stranger?" She asked once again, the softness in her tone invigorating him like an IV shot of nectar and endorphin.

Percy tore his way towards her, taking the steps four at a time before crashing onto her with a freight train-like bear hug; she smelt of cinnamon and fresh cookies.

Some things never changed.

"Perseus Meredith Jackson. Sally Jackson's kid."

Sally let out an audible sigh of content at the name and title, little tears welling up at the edge of her vision.

'Sally Jackson's kid.'

Not some stupid divine title. Not the Hero of Olympus. Not even the son of Poseidon.

Her boy had called himself her kid. Her son. Sally's baby boy.

Sally's voice was rough and choked as she clutched at her son's soaked T-shirt, "The finest lass in all the land."

Y*C*O*Y*W

18 August 2010, Jackson Residence, Manhattan, New York, USA

2 Hours and 15 Minutes Since Percy's Departure From Camp

YOU EVER HEARD THE SAYING 'ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER'?

Yeah, well, take that, double it, and multiply it by 1000, and you still wouldn't measure up to the childlike elation Percy felt as he scampered around Casa de Jackson like an excited puppy in the first break of snow.

The love and loyalty he held for Camp Half-Blood would always outmatch his feelings for his mom's apartment – the wars he'd fought and the sacrifices he'd made to protect it had long since ensured that – but he wouldn't deny that the quaint tiny home away from Home wasn't grudgingly winning him over second by second.

And he supposed the company he had wasn't too bad.

What?

Don't act like it was at all surprising.

He was a mama's boy, sue him. You wouldn't get anything.

The ethereal scent of moon lace carpeted the air around them, giving the tiny home a sort of magical, hidden mystique. The muted drumming of the rain on the rickety old living room window melded perfectly with the soft jazz his mother had put on her phonograph for background music. It reminded Percy of a 1950s family sitcom about those jaded family men coming back from a hard day of work to their wives and kids.

At the far right of the living room, near the window, was his mother's old leather recliner. The side table held a thrifted antique lamp and a thick open book while the oven timer in the kitchen ticked away, the chocolatey smell of fresh pastries growing stronger as the seconds passed.

He hoped they were blue, he really needed the pick-me-up after the day he'd had.

His mom rounded the corner from the kitchen with a coy smile, her hands around two mugs of hot cocoa.

"Don't you look just adorable with your Flounder pajama bottoms, I almost forgive you for tracking water over the shag." She gushed teasingly.

Percy glanced down at himself with no small amount of shame at his impulsive choice of dress.

Why did he still have these pants?

His head had been slightly foggy since he came home, and he could only hope for the car – truck? It sure as Hades felt like a truck – accident from earlier hadn't given him a permanent concussion; he cringed as he remembered his conduct toward the guy who'd rammed him.

The dude must have thought he was a serial junkie or something. Luckily – for Percy at least – Barry the Bee hadn't broken anything too important with his ride; there was a bit of purpling on his chest, but it'd clear.

His mom had taken one look at his disheveled state and punted him to the showers with nary a glance to his hair, taking it in stride as another contrived layer of demigod bullshit...which annoyed the hell out of him as much as it relieved him.

Though, that annoyance was pointed at himself for his own paranoiac ridiculousness.

Like his mother would ever abandon him over a hair change, he had been so stupid.

"I'd be doing you a favor getting rid of it; the less said about those stains, the better." Percy snarked with an overdramatic shudder, his lips twitching upwards at his mother's belting laugh, "Don't spill my cocoa now Ma."

His mom took a lengthy sip of her own cocoa while keeping his just of reach, smiling through her cup at his childish pout, "You're washing those out yourself, by the way; what were you thinking leaving Mrs O'Leary in the living room alone on meatloaf night?"

"She was domesticated by Daedalus of all demigods; how was I supposed to know the old bat wouldn't bother with potty training?"

"Excuses, excuses." His mother drawled as she sat on the family couch and twirled her '#1 Mama' mug in the air absently, "You have a date, young man. 12pm sharp with my cleaning supplies on Saturday. Don't be late."

Saturday...he glanced at the clock. It was a quarter to 10 now on Wednesday, so that meant two days from now.

Percy couldn't say he had any plans for the day, but he was a rebellious teenager at heart and a New Yorker by birth. He'd rather get food poisoning from a questionable hotdog vendor out on the Big Apple than spend a whole day cleaning out year-old dog dookie stains from an old carpet on his 'vacation.'

"...You're not gonna make me do it alone, are you?" Percy pleaded, murmuring a subdued 'thanks' as she handed him his hot beverage, "C'mon, Mom, you saw the size of 1 pile. Mrs O'Leary dropped 6. Forever won't be enough time to get all that out alone."

"Serves you right for those horse stables, I say," she sniffed, "I try anything and everything to get you to take your gym socks off your dresser, but you'll clean a hundred tons of horse manure for some random monster? This can only be an act of God."

Percy's expression was plagued with all the incredulity one could expect from such bullshit, "Mom, that was 3 years ago!"

"And?"

"...I'm taking away your mug."

"Try it, punk, " the elder Jackson bared her teeth in a challenging grin. "I'll burn your cookies in front of you."

This...this monster. Had she no shame?

Was nothing sacred anymore?

Percy's lips tilted downwards as he silently conceded defeat, his desperation overwhelming his pride as the hero knew when he'd met his match. There was dealing with your average drakon tearing through 5th Avenue and the more world-ending threats.

A nuclear war pitted against the U.S. and Russia and a world utterly devoid of Sally Jackson's baking, to name a few.

"Don't take away my cookies, mom. I'll be good, I promise."

"You'd better be, you little rascal," His mom cooed as she pinched his cheek playfully.

"Now..."

His mother's tone sharpened as she placed her mug on the coffee table; it was a modern contemporary they'd all pitched in to buy, Paul swore up, and down it gave their little hub an 'élégance sophistiquée as he put it. Percy hadn't given a shit, but seeing Paul happy made his mother happy, so he rolled with it.

Speaking of his mother...

The normally sweet, soft-spoken lady who'd never once uttered a bad word about anybody – not even Gabe – had all but evaporated now, banished temporarily to the furthest reaches of her subconscious as Percy was treated to a glimpse of the woman who'd been more than capable of handling a temperamental force of nature like Poseidon for months on end.

Percy wasn't looking at his 'Mom' anymore; he was looking at Sorcha Jackson.

The woman who'd pulled herself up from nothing after her parents and last living relative had been lost to her before she'd even turned 20.

The lioness who'd turned down the affections of a god to live her life by her own terms, who'd taken years of the bullshit that came with raising a demigod and an ADHD poster child like Percy to the chin without even a word of complaint.

Percy was looking at a feral Mama Bear now. One who instinctively knew her young one had been injured – that the cub had been scratched at all was already an unforgivable sin in and of itself – would stop at nothing to see that the slight was repaid in full or die trying.

His mother looked dangerous.

"Spill. Paul's out for a teacher's conference in Boulder until next month, so we have loads of time to catch up until your date." Sally cupped his cheek gently yet firmly, her brows knitting as a venomous scowl marred her otherwise perfect features. "Tell me who hurt my baby."

...

"...What makes you think anyone could hurt me anymore than I couldn't handle?"

"Percy?!" Sally growled, more than a little hurt her son would lie to her so brazenly.

"I mean, geez, mom. I've got like two wars under my belt now; give me some credit here. I'm not weak. Do you really think I can't take a little bit of pain? C'mon, you raised me better than that." Percy boasted, his head straying away even as his mother's hold grew harder.

"..."

"I'm a big boy now, I made my first waterspout the same day I got my first pube. Po-Dad said I already became a man once I turned 15 and that was 2 whole years ago, which means I'm twice a man now. I'm the manly man's manly man." Percy pushed off the couch and away from his mother's judging eyes as he rambled out feats unsteadily.

"I can form tidal waves and maelstroms if I try hard enough, blow up dormant volcanoes and generate category 5 hurricanes with the right push, tear the armies of monsters and demigods apart without breaking a sweat. I'm the son of Poseidon!"

A clap of thunder rang out dramatically in affirmation of his declaration like the heavens were screaming YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT YOU ARE!

Percy wished the clown would shut up.

"I'm the Hero of Olympus, the Praetor of the Twelfth Legion with the tattoos to prove it! I've kicked the asses of immortals and thousands of monsters time and time again, I'm not afraid of anything! Not my dreams, not the dark, not even fucking drowning! Nothing! I'm strong! I know it!" He screamed more to himself than anybody else.

Percy was gasping for air, erratic hiccups divesting themselves from his throat as horrific regressed memories ate through whatever mental wards he'd placed them behind. His body shivered even with the thermostat up, while his teeth nearly took off his tongue a few times from how hard they were chattering. His useless gushing tears were only desecrating the messy shag carpet further and giving him more work for Saturday.

He hated the stupid emotional reflex, hated how pathetic it made him look.

He hadn't cried for years at this point, yet the past few months had seen him with all the emotional stability of a pregnant woman.

What he wouldn't give to just stop feeling.

To stop hurting whenever he dared to reminisce on the simpler times.

He was tired.

He was so tired of all the heartache and disappointment.

The loss of Annabeth. The soulless disappointments that were the gods and the Spades. The Cold War, both of the Camps were putting themselves through. His own guilty hand in whatever was going on with him and Gaia. His trip through Tartarus.

Her.

Every single problem in the Greek world thought they had free reign to toss him around like a dog in a fighter's circle. To toy with him.

Each of the selfish little nuisances took lofty portions out of his soul like an oven-roasted turkey on Thanksgiving, making his mother—the woman he'd do anything to protect—look at him with sad and anguished eyes.

Eyes so full of pity.

He fell down to his knees in finality, his shaking hands coming up to cover his malnourished form, "I'm strong. I know it."

Even to him, it sounded like a bald-faced lie. A spiel spun by the most pathetic, most unconvincing con artist to ever touch down upon the planet.

His mom took it as a call to action, however, pulling him into her chest like she used to when the nights were full of terrors he couldn't yet hope to face. She hummed a melodic tune into his ashen-white locks as she traced imaginary swimming dolphins on his spine.

"...Don't hold back, baby. I've got you." She murmured, her eyes scrunched tight, "I've got you, and I'm never leaving you."

He hoped she was serious about that promise because his hold on her firm arms was no different than that of welded iron.

Percy sobbed like he'd never sobbed before on the ground as months of repressed trauma latched on to the holy crucifix that was Sally Jackson like moths to a roaring flame. Nightmares, scars, weariness, insecurities, guilt, the whole PTSD premium package was put on hold with his mother's maternal affection as a stopgap.

Time blurred for him until he felt like he could look at a dark corner of the room without reaching for his pen-sword.

Naturally, that much mental strain, coupled with his overall physical fatigue and injuries, left our young hero tired, a fact that his mother noticed and said as such.

"I can't, Mom. I can't. Please don't make me go there." Percy begged with a desperate shake of his head. Visions of monsters, visions of Her already ringing alarm bells in his head, "I don't wanna go there anymore, Mom, I can't go there alone. It's the same dream. It's always the same dream!"

His mother responded by holding him tighter in comfort as she rocked the pair back and forth. Her lips were quivering, and her sapphire-blue orbs were watery at the edges, yet her features were set into a determined glare.

It wasn't anything close to easy to watch her son – her pride and joy – self-destruct right before her eyes, and it only made her even more determined to find the person responsible for his anguish and give them a piece of her mind.

How she desperately wanted to know what her baby had been put through, but there was a time and place for that.

And her Percy – her son– looked like he needed a nap a month ago.

"Sshhh, it's okay. It's okay, Percy. You're safe here. You're safe." She had to repeat when his wails grew more frantic.

Poseidon would have hell to pay once she got her hands on him; what on Earth had they done to her boy?

The hair was enough of a shock to her once she'd gotten a proper look at him, but she'd just about cried when she saw just how dead his eyes had looked the moment he rounded those stairs.

How the mere mention of sleep could turn the young man who'd been willing to murder their abuser for her own sake at the ripe young age of 12...to a 5-year-old toddler scared to put the lights off for bed was beyond her, but she couldn't bear to watch him destroy himself like this.

"I will never allow any harm to befall you, Percy Jackson. I swear it. What you're going through? I can't even begin to imagine it. I don't understand it at all." Sally confessed with a distraught shake of her head, "But I know in my soul that you'll overcome it. You always do. Your stubbornness is one of the many things about you I'm so proud you inherited from your father and me."

Percy shook his head in the negative from underneath Sally, "It wasn't from Poseidon. I never got any of my best qualities from Poseidon."

Sally let out a wet laugh at the little shit's cheek, "Then I'll gladly take full responsibility for it," She conceded magnanimously, "But you need to rest Percy. You can't not go to sleep for the rest of your life; it's not right."

"...I'm scared, mom. Terrified. I don't know if I'm strong enough to come back from there. To go through that again."

Sally placed both of her hands on his cheeks firmly, bringing her traumatized son face to face with her. Sapphire-blue melded with moss-green for a tumultuous eternity before Sally rested her forehead on Percy's.

"...Listen and listen well, Perseus Meredith Jackson. You are the strongest, kindest person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, there is nothing you can't do. Believe that. And if you can't believe in yourself for now, then believe in the me that believes in you." Sally preached fanatically, palpable pride lighting up her eyes like quasars, "You will pull through this; you'll look back on this night and laugh surrounded by your friends and family not too long from now. I can bet my life on it."

His mother disentangled them from each other, and Percy wasn't ashamed to say the absence of her warmth hurt something inside of him. She held him by his shoulders at arms' length and studied him better, her azure orbs scanning every nook and cranny of his form before closing her eyes with a resolute nod.

"Go to sleep Percy, I won't leave you."

"...I love you mom."

Percy dared to hope again, to put himself out there once more for someone he loved to leave him hanging once again.

Memories of Annabeth not even deigning to offer his affections with a physical reaction hung over his mother with the imagery of a black wailing banshee, the ephemeral wraith clinging to his mother with Annabeth's patented self-satisfied smirk on its intangible features. Percy closed his eyes in acceptance as he waited for his mother to brush him off.

Sally didn't even hesitate.

"And I love you, Percy."

There was a confident power in her voice that Percy could never hope to replicate. It was five simple words, yet only his mother could utter such a sentence so strongly that it could be deemed an irrefutable fact of the Universe. Percy's bloodshot eyes nearly bugged out of his skull when she still didn't laugh at him or play off the words like a joke.

She was serious.

She still saw him as her son.

Perseus Meredith Jackson freely allowed Morpheus's warm, deceptive embrace to swaddle him for the first time in months.

He fell asleep with a contented smile in his mother's arms, the battle-forged scowl and feral edges of his face smoothing out to reveal an innocent, childlike appearance.

Y*C*O*Y*W

18th August 2010, The Welcome Mat, The Dreamlands, The Nexus Of All Realities

A Second Into Percy's Dreams

EVEN BEFORE THE SHITSHOW WITH THE PALE WOMAN, PERCY HAD ALWAYS HATED HIS DREAMS.

They'd always felt so weird and out of his control.

For one, most of them were muddied by a thick, black backdrop that layered the outermost edges of the vision like an old-timey movie. He was never allowed to wander in his dreams, either. His mind always pigeonholed him into following what seemed like a set order of events, rendering his choice in the matter null and void.

There was no stability or coherence until after the events of the dream made themselves relevant to whatever quest he was on. Percy likened his dreams to being marooned on a tiny sandy island, like the ones in those wacky children's cartoons with the shark fins and stuff, surrounded by a wide expanse of sea with no visible end to it.

But, there were never any sharks in his episodes just the choppy blue seas, and he couldn't even control that. There were no coconut trees to lean on or even a wide blue sky patterned with flower clouds to leer at. It was always a great empty white blank for him...there was never anyone around to hear him scream.

But lately, his dreams had chosen to take a more sadistic conscience, as if that were even possible. Time-locking his soul mere moments into his conversation with Her, before wiping his consciousness and memories of the scene entirely and dialing his sensibilities up to 11 so he could 'pleasure' himself with relieving every single slight and violation the goddess had visited upon him, over, and over, and over again.

Every biting insult. Every agonizing sensation. Every spike of terror. Every second, he felt like-

Percy felt a firm tug on the center of his scalp as his body seized up on itself.

No!

It was too soon.

It was happening too soon. It always took a minute for him to gather up the courage to kill himself and wake up before the powers of the dreamworld took hold of him.

The clouds of whitish mists around him had already started to coalesce in the form of the pale woman with the manic moon-yellow eyes, her ice-cold fingers already wrapping around his torso.

Percy couldn't move.

Percy couldn't breathe.

It was going to happen again.

Somebody help him! Save him, or better yet kill him.

Kill him so he could be free of this never-ending nightmare! Please! Anyone! He didn't want to-

Y*C*O*Y*W

???, July 2010, Edge of Creation, Tartarus

Mere Moments After Annabeth Passed Out

"OH, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE SO MUCH FUN TOGETHER."

The Primordial lifted him in the air with the ease you'd expect from a toddler picking up a plastic toy, her nimble fingers snaking around Percy's torso and bringing him closer to her pale golden eyes.

"My dear, dear, Ελευθερωτής." The goddess chortled darkly.

An unhinged smile overtook half of her face as the sides of her mouth stretched to her cheekbones. Her expression and overall presence reeked of avidity as she scanned every inch of his body, outside and inside, without a hint of shame.

Nyx leered at him like he was a collector's edition action figure, a 1 of 1 if you would.

Her manic breaths blew his hair into an even worse tangled mess than was normally tolerated. Her black wings blazed in delight and sent earth-rending shudders to the ground with every beat. The Goddess looked for all the world like she was trying and failing to stifle a girlish squeal as she squeezed Percy's body like a fleshy stress ball.

"...At last," She whispered, quiet as a desolate graveyard, the firmness of her hold not lessening one bit, "At long last, I have you in my clutches, Ελευθερωτής!"

The goddess could no longer withhold her excitement. She cackled like a madwoman as she danced around the Edge of Creation, none too different from kids around a campfire. She pumped Percy up and down in the sulfur-ridden Tartarean air like a gleaming golden trophy uncaring of his own personal disposition to the act.

"Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. MINE! YOU'RE MINE NOW, Περσεύς επιμένως!" She roared in his face, her golden eyes tearing through the gloom, with her frenzied breaths sounding out like artillery fire, "Eons of lurking and plotting in the shadows, of manipulating and tipping the scales every which way...and yet you waltz right to my doorstep of your own volition...sigh...it's almost anticlimactic."

Percy had to admit he couldn't see a feasible way out of this, the odds had never been so stacked towards his undoing. He tuned out the goddess' demented raving as he assessed his dilemma in order: He was tired – drained – from the power he'd expelled in overpowering Akhlys, hungry and in desperate need of some Phlegethon fire right about now, and Annabeth was passed out somewhere in the middle of the thigh-mists below him.

...or dead.

The monolith-sized goddess hadn't bothered to prance around the cliff's edge with care; it was possible-

No .

Percy put a firm stop to that nonsense in no time. She wasn't dead. He wouldn't give the thought a sliver of power here.

Annabeth was alive.

She was alive, and she wouldn't die anywhere near this stupid pit; he'd make sure of it. They'd make it out of this quest alive like they always did, kick Gaea's muddy hide to the curb, and retire to a nice, quiet life in New Rome where they'd both die old after living long, fulfilling lives in love.

Yes, that seemed like a pretty good bucket list to work towards.

However, he had to find a way to outmaneuver the forty-foot-tall problem currently squeezing him like an empty tube of toothpaste. Stupid Akhlys and his accursed lack of foresight, that poison could have done wonders for his situation if he'd bothered to save even a cup of it. He took a skeptical glance at the giant Primordial before him.

Maybe not.

He sighed. When in doubt, fake it till you make it.

"Um, Lady Ny-"

That was as far as he got before the Primordial slammed him to the ground like a buzzing housefly against a rolled-up newspaper, wet tears sounding out with a sickening squelch as his back got shredded apart from the glass-like gravel. Percy let out a pain-filled howl as his fingers dug ridges into Nyx's hand to ground himself in his throes, the goddess' golden eyes mere inches from his face the very second he opened his own orbs fully.

The instantaneous switch from excited schoolgirl to heartless dictator damn near gave Percy a heart attack from the whiplash; the intensity of her gaze was dialed up to eleven and a half as she gave Percy entry into the boundless void that was her soul, in her eyes he could see the end of star clusters and the birth of galaxies, to the rise and fall of kingdoms across time and space.

Through this gateway to the meaning and worth of life, Percy could actually begin to fathom how stupid both he and Annabeth had to have looked for, even daring to think they could ever have been able to outsmart a Primordial, how utterly out of his depth he was here.

"Did I give you permission to speak, child," Nyx warned lowly, voicing out the word 'child' like it was the most insulting thing she could ever think to call him, "I'd have thought my earlier chastising would have been a sufficient enough wake-up call for you...but alas the pungent odor of your hubris chooses to abide by you like a pestiferous affliction."

Nyx closed her eyes and shook her head at him like he was a particularly disappointing child.

"Let me put it in a way you can understand, boy, because I shall not repeat myself. You are nothing to me, Perseus Jackson. Your loved ones are nothing to me. Your words mean nothing to me. Your victories amount to nothing to me. The only worth of your continued existence to Me relies solely on you being a mere placeholder for a legacy far greater than you deserve."

The words were succinct and to the point, uttered no louder than an empty whisper, yet despicably cutting. The emotional blows were delivered with the obvious intent to make him feel as insignificant as possible. This theory was only given more credence with the obvious power difference present between the two of them. Percy could feel his body crumpling in on itself with every verbal lash the Primordial unleashed upon him.

"Within you lies the inborn potential to mold reality to your choosing," Nyx said with palpable disgust as if she could scarcely believe it. "You need only grasp it, yet you allow your mortal tethers and weaknesses to waste your gifts away at every turn."

A chain of shadows flowed from the billowy folds of her void black dress like an animated serpent, snaking around her arm and latching itself to Percy's throat with an audible click. The sadist allowed Percy a moment for his eyes to trail the length of the slackened chain before releasing her hold on his body; his heart rate spiked as the chain tightened in seconds with his hands clawing at his throat frantically as his head purpled from suffocation.

He counted up to 10 seconds before Nyx dumped him on the ground like a sack of potatoes, but Percy was far too busy thanking his lucky stars to take any sort of offense to it.

"The single most powerful mortal child of Poseidon to ever touch down upon that cesspit of a planet. Blessed with the innate Divine Authority of every single one of your father's Names and more, yet only on the cusp of adulthood, you're only just now beginning to scratch the surface of what you should already be capable of?!"

The goddess moved behind him and pulled at the chain harshly, dragging his mutilated spine over the rough crag without mercy, "Alexander the Great. Hannibal Barca. Fionn Mac Cumhaill. Miyamoto Musashi?! Your predecessors would have had the lands of that over-bloated rock eating from the palms of their hands by now with even half of your abilities; what exactly is the matter with you?!"

Nyx held him by the chain over the edge of the Abyss, shaking his body as she tried to understand why Percy was such a 'disappointment.'

"Where is your ambition for power? Your cunning? Your passion for battle? Your tenacity in the face of the most insurmountable of odds? HOW IS YOUR AUTHORITY SO PALTRY! WHERE IS THE WOULD-BE CONQUEROR DESTINED TO FREE US FROM THIS ACCURSED CYCLE!" The Embodiment of Night shrieked at him with the sweltering fury of a thousand suns. "I HAVE NO FURTHER NEED FOR PERCY JACKSON; WHERE IS PERSEUS EPIMENOS?!"

Dangled over the Primordial soup of Creation like a bloodied hanging lamp, Percy couldn't do more than flail about in frenzied terror, he couldn't even scream out loud with this stupid dog collar crushing his larynx so hard.

Percy remembered a similar fate doled out to one of the gods in the aftermath of the Olympian Rebellion, a punishment reserved solely for his least favorite goddess, Hera.

In retaliation for her hand in the coup, Zeus dangled the shameless nephew-napper over the Abyss of Chaos for what could have been days or eons Percy didn't know, and the stories they were told never bothered to clarify. Every day, Zeus would come on down to stop and smell the roses before taunting Hera relentlessly until she was rescued by her discarded son, Hephaestus.

Bit of a weird tangent to go off on there, but when the alternative was running his mind ragged with acknowledging how utterly fucked he was here, he welcomed the distraction with open arms. Hera – for all her many, many problems – wasn't some two-bit D-lister; she'd fought tooth and nail in the decade-long war to conquer the world.

She wasn't weak in any sense of the word - even Annabeth could acknowledge that - yet the stories made it clear that a mere childish splash from the Primordial vortex would've been enough to completely erase the Olympian goddess from existence.

Words couldn't even begin to describe how mind-boggling such a gap in raw power had to be. Percy was a mere 2 feet away from that cosmic horror.

Things went from Bad to FUBAR when the hollow void took a preparatory inhale.

Percy's body felt like it was getting stretched on a torture rack; his spine popped in several places before rearranging itself piece by piece, and his feet were pulled down by an impossible gravity towards the mind of a malevolent galaxy. He was coming apart at the seams, his molecules wailing in agony as his legs liquefied right before his eyes and flowed into the swirling whirlpool.

An ocean of carmine eldritch power engulfed reality in totality before-

"MGAH FAHF MGEHYE'LLOIG FHALGOF'N. H' KADISHTU SOTH," A thunderous voice boomed from all around Tartarus, banishing the blood-red mist and stilling the Primordial whirlpool for a moment; the force behind the voice was enough to send Nyx and Percy flying away from the edge like billiard balls, "AHAZATH CAHF."

If Percy didn't spend the rest of his life in a straitjacket after this trip, he'd have to ask the Fates if the hags were losing their touch. The ancient language the voice had spoken with had no place for mortal ears to find solace. It ate away at Percy's mental faculties like an avid tumor, the mere action of thinking more than enough to have him keel over and heave his very essence out.

Percy was crying tears of his own blood, bashing his skull against the gravel repeatedly in the vain hope of wrenching the forbidden language away from his spirit. Yet, his only true wish was for that blood-curdling agonized scream to shut up for just one second so he could put more focus on killing himself.

Every picosecond was torture and shell-shocked confusion for the demented son of Poseidon, jumbled memories not of his own recollection coming to the forefront of his mind's eye with every brutal collision.

SMASH

Opening weary eyes to the image of a tanned gruff 'man' with eldritch eyes devoid of sclera or pupils, and reminiscent of aquamarine-blue seas cresting and crashing over a herd of multi-colored stallions, racing over a natural craggy reef.

SMASH

Gazing from upon a raised dais at a grand gathering of fancy-dressed millions, jam-packed in a spacious plaza yet zeroing in on an amusing boy with sun-kissed skin and warm amaranth eyes in a honeycomb pattern.

The kid had beautiful eyes.

SMASH

Dancing through wind-sprung ears of summer wheat around a beautiful woman with unshorn violet hair the shade of a field of crocus flowers, the unseen wind tousling their hair and the sea of summer grass every which way.

SMASH

Trailing behind a tall, stately woman with luscious locks the color of polished ebony curtaining a golden shield, grafted onto it was the iconography of a hideous shrieking monster with coiled snakes for hair. The shield was strapped to her back, and a blood-soaked spear was held tightly in her white-knuckled fist.

SMASH

A bird's eye view of the world's end as he knew it. Oceans of lava and sickly yellow poison finding abode in the cities of mortals, the sun blotted out by cumulus clouds the color of charcoal and balls of ash slamming down upon the land like hailstones. Percy felt like he could reach his scaly, spike-ridden hand up and touch the clouds, his body was that massive.

SMASH

A vision of a quaint little room lit by a hanging lamp, Percy struggled against a well-built, young man with snow-white hair and...pearly white teeth right where his eyes should've been [It's right here.]. Percy's hands and body were old, wrinkled, and frail; against such a strong youth, it wasn't much of a contest. Spots of black dots crept from the edges of his dim vision before...

SMASH

A woman with chestnut brown hair and eyes the color of bloodshot sapphires hunched over on her knees, crying her heart raw, with tanned, malnourished arms wrapped around her body. One hand held a thin silver necklace, and dangling from it was a silver pendant engraved with a purple spade. On the other was a container of cyanide.

SMASH

A disgusting, obese man breathing weakly and sprawled over at the bottom of a flight of stairs, his pig-like eyes struggling to stay open with his neck bent at an awkward angle. Before Percy's eyes were a pair of scrawny, tanned arms, ripe with fresh scabbed wounds, frozen in an outward pushing position.

"What are...what are these memories...why do I have them?"

Just as Percy was about to deliver the final smash that would give him the sweet release of death...She stopped him.

Nyx stopped him.

Di Immortales, the goddess, had saved him. Her power repaired his shattered mind and knit all of his most brutal wounds in an instant. The goddess' chosen form seemed to switch back and forth endlessly from a beautiful, pale-skinned woman around his height to an enormous mass of barbed black tentacles.

The beast's body was split all over with countless slime-dripping maws chock full of razor-sharp, poisonous yellow shark teeth. Percy couldn't even offer the eldritch monstrosity a customary shriek of terror; his voice could only come out in low, tiny whimpers.

"...It would seem-" The goddess cut herself off, her avatar collapsing on itself to her classic form and the power in her voice fading, "Mother herself sees that not all is lost with you."

Nyx tipped his shaking head to her, cutting pale golden orbs as gently as a stinging gale wind.

"And I would be remiss to let such a bountiful...opportunity pass me by; your soul is a minuscule price I am more than willing to pay. I will have Him back!"

This was all too much for Percy to handle at this point. What was even going on at this point? What opportunity was Nyx talking about?

She'd called that voice 'Mother', if Percy had his myths straight that had to have been Chaos. What would Chaos, of all gods, want with a kid like him?

Why did Nyx want to sacrifice his soul?!

"...Why are you doing this?" Percy pleaded weakly. "What have we ever done to you?"

"Did I not order you not to speak child," Nyx questioned quietly, the Primordial raised a hand as if to smack his head off his shoulders...only to change her mind at the last second and ruffle his hair with a modicum of care, "I would like to discipline you, but you have tasted of the Tongue of the Old Times and lived to speak of its power. I am bound by the Laws of Creation to treat you with the respect befitting an Enlightened one."

Nyx let out a heavy sigh strong enough to turn industrial windmills as she studied the blood-red clouds of Tartarus in boredom.

"...I do not care for how the story is headed, Perseus Jackson."

The goddess turned back to him at that, her voice sharp and determined as she folded her hands below her chest.

"I see before me an opportunity to tip the status quo to my will, and I am more than inclined to take it," the unholy Consort of Darkness crooned. "Well...you were supposed to take it."

The Embodiment of Night poked his head teasingly at that.

"But you're not quite ready for it yet, are you, my little Ελευθερωτής?" She cooed with faux tenderness, "You're only half finished."

"Your authority not yet claimed. But don't worry, I will take care of you."

The goddess stood up at that and turned away from Percy, her lithe hands folding behind her back and her size expanding with every step till she stood at her traditional height of forty feet. An animated tendril of shadows snaked away from the folds of her star-lit dress with a mind of its own to the converging blood-red mists and instantly returned to the goddess' side with an unconscious ragdoll of a body.

A body with a ratty, bloodied Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and mussed-up pale-blonde hair.

Annabeth.

Percy got off his ass and whipped out Riptide in a heartbeat, uncaring of the sizzling spokes of pain that stabbed into his thighs with the motion. He'd take whatever humiliation, whatever torture this bat-shit crazy deity chose to unleash upon him, but if Nyx dared to harm even a hair on his girlfriend's head...

He charged headfirst to the Primordial, fully prepared to be vaporized...only to find himself hogtied head to toe by a very unamused Nyx, his still visible sea-green orbs seething with hatred all the same.

"...This goes beyond asinine bravery or mere foolishness; you realize that, right?" She asked in genuine disbelief, "This can only be labeled as attempted suicide. I don't think you realize just how vast the gap in power between us is; you are-"

"Nothing to you, yeah, I got the message. I'd have preferred it through fax."

"You dare?!" The Goddess shrieked, her features twisting into that tentacle-ridden eldritch abomination from before.

"You better believe it, you fucking hag!" Percy roared, his teeth tearing through pure shadow to reveal a feral scowl.

He had no idea where these balls were coming from. He'd been all but complacent when the goddess had dealt with him before, taking all her mental and physical abuse like a soulless black company worker. And yet, bound as he was with these constricting bindings squeezing him by the second, entirely at her mercy as before an overwhelming mountain of might that could send Zeus of all gods running for the hills, Percy didn't buckle.

Nyx had all the power here as far as he was concerned, but with her firm hold on his greatest strength and weakness, Percy didn't care. Calling him suicidal couldn't scratch the surface of his desperation here; he'd throw himself into the Sea of Creation itself before he ever stood by and watched this immortal monster hurt his girlfriend.

"I don't care who you are, I could care less how little you think of me, you stupid bitch!" He continued undeterred, his rage only doubling the more the goddess tried to silence him, unfiltered power bubbling from deep within his gut, ready to burst with his sea-green eyes shooting through the hazy gloom like tiny little quasars, "If you harm a hair on her head, I promise you. I PROMISE YOU, NYX, ON THE STYX. ON THE VOICE OF CREATION ITSELF. I'LL RIP YOU APART AND FEED YOU YOUR GODDAMN ENTRAILS!"

...

The air between them was tense, and the two beings were similar to pressurized powder kegs, about ready to explode. All of Tartarus had gone silent with his oath, the haunting wails of regenerating and dying monsters substituted with Percy's heaving breaths. His eyes were glowing with eldritch energy, twisted with a hefty dose of mania.

Nyx only let out that same disturbing chuckle again in response.

Her giant body began to shake with barely repressed tremors before the dark goddess doubled over and laughed with unmitigated ecstasy. The intensity of the Primordials' cackles increased in volume until Percy's eardrums felt like they were swan-dancing in a radioactive microwave.

"...It appears," Nyx started, a pearly white smile stretching to her star-smattered cheekbones, as a hand reached over to wipe off a stray tear, "This pup still has a pair of canines attached to him...interesting."

What was that saying about fortune favors the bold?

Yeah, burn that proverb.

Burn that proverb and arrest the schmuck who'd thought to put it in writing.

"Ahhh, C'est dommage." He thought helplessly.

"Rest assured, child, I will not 'harm a hair on her head' as you requested. Not when her continued existence serves as a boon to my efforts. Not when your Voice has already begun to manifest. An oath on the 'Voice of Creation'? Do you know of the words you speak of brat? Or are they His words through you? Fascinating..." The goddess remarked, right before Percy's bonds constricted upon him so tightly his eyes bulged; Nyx brought him to her face instantly, "...but if you ever speak to me like that again. If you ever dare to address me like one of the Olympian imbeciles, you foolishly believe you can walk over..."

Reality screeched like a blonde in a slasher flick right as every single one of the slimy tentacle eyes of Shub-Niggurath opened and glared right at the ant before her with malice. Her maws widened with spittle as if to swallow Percy whole before-

"Destiny or no. Erebus or no!" The sound of the wails reached an orchestral crescendo at the mention of her dead husband, "Chaos herself won't be able to stop me from destroying you and the useless amoebas you call kin in body and soul!"

"..."

"Am I clear?"

"...Crystal."

The tentacle eyes continued to study him for several slow seconds before the goddess nodded slowly, reverting to a less terror-inducing state and releasing Percy from his bonds.

"Excellent, attend me child. I'll have Philotes brew us a spot of...what exactly do you fancy, boy?"

What the fuck was he listening to?

This walnut had kidnapped him, insulted and assaulted him - multiple times - threatened him and his loved ones...and now she was offering him a hot beverage for his troubles all in the span of half an hour?

Percy needed a capable adult. Stat.

But Nyx'd had enough of his pussyfooting if her annoyed growl was any indication, "...Hurry along now, will you."

"Uh, no? You want me to follow you into your house? No. You've never heard of stranger danger?" He said with a cautionary step back.

The goddess chuckled before gesturing to Annabeth's limp body, "If I truly wanted you dead boy, we wouldn't be talking. You'd be dead. You know this. I have your lover in one hand and the power over your life in the other, I do not need your consent. Follow me like a good little boy while I still choose to be cordial before I make you."

Never let it be said that the Primordial of Night couldn't wheel and deal with the best of them, but he still didn't trust the goddess as far as he could throw her.

"A deal. I want a deal right here, right now, on the Styx that you won't-" Percy was cut off abruptly by an explosion of brain-blasting power, a tidal wave of black primordial energy sealing his jaw shut and pushing his eyes to the back of his skull as a black chain held his limp body aloft.

The son of Poseidon heard one last sentence that managed to set the tone for the rest of his stay in Tartarus before his astral soul was pushed out of the past back to the present.

"...The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must. Remember that the next time you ever dare to question me, you miserable wretch." She warned with malice.

The words were hard to stomach, but the truth seldom was. To be truly 'strong' was freedom in its purest form: freedom of responsibility, freedom of morals, and freedom from consequence.

It was a philosophy he'd had to adapt to survive in this world; after all, how could the weak expect the strong to kowtow to their asinine views of justice?

Percy had come to understand that this life was cruel, twisted, and evil, and the people in it—gods, mortals, monsters, and what have you—seemed to all be dancing to the sick tune of a twisted, shadowed puppeteer.

It had no room for the faint of heart; only the strong would survive. The weak were sacrificed to the wolves whenever the opportunity arose. The weak had no right to dreams or possessions because they couldn't be bothered to fight for their claim.

The weak were seen as toys to be used and discarded once the strong had gotten their fill.

Percy wasn't weak.

Percy couldn't be weak.

Percy couldn't be seen or thought of as weak by anyone because even one of his enemies could poke their way through the fragile facade he struggled to maintain. They'd laugh at the pathetic, broken boy Tartarus had chewed up and spit out...

And then She'd come back for him, the shadowed corridor she prowled through echoing with her trademark haunting little chortle all the while.

But this was a new one for him. His dreams always took him to his fight with Akhlys and the rest before kicking him out.

Why had-

His train of thought was interrupted by a voice as smooth as coffin lining.

"Look at you traipsing about memory lane, child. You see something you like?"

Y*C*O*Y*W

Chapter 8: My One-Night Stand Leaves Me A Bad Review

"Hate is a bottomless cup. I will pour and pour."

– Euripides

My One-Night Stand Leaves Me A Bad Review

18 August 2010, The Mansion of Night, Tartarus

An Hour Into Percy's Dreams

THE SOURCE OF HIS NIGHTMARES WAS SIPPING ON A CALMING CHAMOMILE BREW.

Staring at Percy's quivering astral form blankly over the rim of her Stygian glass china, her obnoxious slurps of the steaming hot leaf juice only added insult to injury. The goddess had lost a couple of inches from the last he'd seen of her, and she towered over him at about seven and a half feet tall now, as opposed to her previous 40.

The goddess had guided his soul(= read dragged kicking and screaming) to her abode in the Mansion of Night after she'd hijacked his dream, something Percy didn't even know was possible.

She'd trapped him in her kosher living room, a scaled-down-to-size old Victorian complete with fabric-patterned walls, tufted furniture, antique rugs, and an ever-swirling, violet fire-lit chandelier crafted in the motif of the...Lyra constellation?

She'd brewed a cup for Percy, too, if you could believe it: a steaming cuppa of Royal Milk tea with a swirling chain of interlocked hearts for latte art. He applauded that he'd maintained good table manners by not tossing the hot beverage at the goddess's stupid face.

Back to the Primordial, though.

She was dressed head to toe in black. Not much of a shift in the status quo for her, if he was being honest, but Percy was drawing attention more to the nature of her attire than to the form, if that made sense.

The goddess's former dress had been more...regal. Dignified. The nature of her former clothing had been tailored and fashioned from the star-ridden infinity of space to give off the illusion of unattainable beauty and self-assurance.

Every twinkling star and spiraling galaxy had been engraved onto her robes to show off her boundless power and limitless knowledge of the arcane. Each tightened knot and stitch of her form-fitting bodycon dress was customized to proclaim and enhance her divine femininity.

It had been an exquisite piece of apparel designed and fit for a queen—nay, a Goddess. It was a dress the Primordial of Night had donned to present the picture of a calm and collected omnipotent being with the foreknowledge of the beginning and the end of the known universe.

That once-confident deity was missing in action at the moment. Her divine robes had been traded for a heavily layered black dress concealing her figure and a shimmering black headdress – what was it called again? A fascinator? – draped over her head and face.

The goddess looked dressed for a rainy funeral rather than tormenting Percy today.

Percy had heard of this manner of dress in passing from the Aphrodite cabin during the aftermath of the Second Titan War. It was popular among women in the 18th Century, a dress made for the mourning of a lost spouse.

A Widow's Weed.

What Percy did next couldn't have been blamed on his ADHD alone. No, this was that Jackson-patented craziness he'd been talking about earlier through and through.

He looked the towering sex offender right in the eye, his heart threatening to burst out of his throat from how hard it was drumming, and asked the Primordial of Night: "Who died?"

...

SMACK

That, dear readers, was the sound of Gaia slapping her forehead and wiping it down her face, expressing her hopelessness at his impulsive stupidity.

The son of Poseidon didn't get to rib the fallen goddess before Nyx had him in a firm chokehold four feet off the ground. Her hat was discarded, revealing her ethereal beauty to the elements.

Beautiful features looking very much like they'd like nothing more than to bash his skull in and use his brain matter for a slushie.

"You... You," The Primordial didn't quite hiss, but she didn't seem far from it, "You. Fucking. Bastard. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, WHAT YOU'VE COST ME?! HOW MUCH YOUR FOOLISH ACTIONS HAVE LAIN WASTE TO EONS OF MACHINATIONS?!"

Percy's heart beat at a mile a minute, the longer the goddess held onto him, his knees playing a swift vivace medley from how fast they knocked into each other. An hour ago, he'd been dead on his feet from exhaustion, barely able to keep his eyes open, but now?

His mother and the Olympian gods would have to bind him to a flat surface with Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold, then pump his veins full with enough god-grade anesthesia to give an elephant heartburn before he ever felt the need to vocalize a yawn again.

Wishful thinking if he were being honest, he'd screwed the pooch here. Forget seeing his mother; Percy doubted he was going to be able to see the sun again at this rate; the goddess was PISSED.

And yet?

Percy couldn't hold back this sadistic excitement bubbling up inside him.

Months upon months of driving himself stark-raving mad with terror at the mere hint of darkness, of running his body ragged with a lack of food because everything he forced himself to eat tasted of Tartarus's rotten, acidic sulfur. The long, sleepless nights he'd spent on the deck of the Argo II, venting out his frustrations on any monster stupid enough to cross him.

He didn't give a damn how much Iris bitched about the death of her sisters disrupting her feng shui; the taunts he'd received from those fucking harpies had more than justified their deaths.

That he hadn't ripped their spines from their necks was a mercy in and of itself.

What he was trying to get across, though, was that his life had been trash heap after trash heap, and the root cause he could place all of that blame on was right before him.

The source of his nightmares was holding Percy right here by the throat bitching to him about how he'd fucked up her life.

All was right in the universe; this was sensational.

This was the fans' euphoria when Luke turned Darth Vader to the Light.

No, this must have been what the French felt like with that 'Vive la révolution' bit.

This was justice.

Percy felt like he'd just made a breakthrough in the ever-expanding field of demigod insolence. He'd always known he was the best there is when it came to pissing off immortals – it came to him like a gut instinct – but damn, the way Nyx was looking at him now you'd think he killed her kids in front of her.

Oh, wait. That's precisely what he'd done.

Nyx's anger wasn't coming from his question exactly. Undoubtedly, it had been a factor, but it wasn't the reason for it. Percy had somehow managed to drive an Elder Primordial to mouth-frothing, head-banging rage by accident.

Who else did you know was doing it like Big PJ?

Not even the threat of his 'body and soul' getting devoured by the raging goddess was enough to wipe off the big fat smile on his face, or maybe his drunken felicity was a result of the asphyxiation...meh semantics were bullshit.

Percy was feeling good. His confidence was at an almost unnatural high. Excuse his lack of self-preservation for wanting to rub some acid in the wound.

"My 'glorious' Lady Nyx," He managed to get out through raspy chuckles, finally able to gather the courage to call Her by 'her' name, "I gotta ask ya here, how exactly could a no-good nothing like me affect someone as...as 'all-encompassing' as yourself." He questioned sweetly, lapping up every pulsing, golden vein that appeared on Nyx's stupid pale forehead, "I mean, last I recalled I was nothing to you, my words meant nothing to you, my victories meant- your hands are tightening harder against my throat... ack...you're really... cough...giving it your... wheeze...all aren't ya?"

"Impertinent, conceited, insignificant CUR! STOP TALKING!" The Primordial roared, but it came out as more of a quivering whine.

At this point, Percy's head was more purple–purpler? – than a Boozy Lavender, and his vision was blurred by a darkening red field. He had a feeling–just an inkling of a thought, mind you-that he might have bitten off more than he could chew here, that the goddess might jump the gun and kill him at this rate.

He had the makings of a 'plan', but the odds of it backfiring on him were about 10 to 1 against his favor here...how much of that mattered when his choices here were between death by slow strangulation or death by slower strangulation was beyond him.

Killing him wouldn't do much more than wake him up faster, none the worse for wear. Why not have some fun while he could?

He gestured for Nyx to come closer, his malicious grin only growing when he noticed she'd actually drifted closer to his face.

"...rder."

"What? "

"Do it...harder."

The goddess didn't waste a second in flinging Percy away from her like he was a disgusting sewer rat. His body slammed into a nearby china cabinet with enough force to take away the air from his metaphysical lungs. He didn't get a moment to congratulate himself for the ingenuity of his 'plan' before the goddess came down on him with the fury of a woman scorned, stamping on his solar plexus over and over again enough times to leave a 6-foot-deep crater in the obsidian flooring.

"THAT WAS YOUR PLAN?!" Gaea screeched in his head. Which was...something he guessed?

Percy had forgotten she was even here.

"Are you satisfied?! Is this what you wanted? Was the temptation to gloat truly that unbearable?" Nyx screeched at his broken form, stamping on his face with her black boots when he tried reaching up to hold her foot back, " I WOULD HAVE HAD HIM BACK! YOU'VE RUINED EVERYTHING FOR ME! EVERYTHING!"

The goddess fell to her knees in anguish at the last word, tears of gold streaming down her cheeks and sizzling like water on a hot iron whenever they splashed upon the rubble and detritus.

"Akhlys, my child, forgive me." She begged quietly, her voice no higher than a meek whisper. " Erebus, my- I failed you. I failed you. "

Percy found it hard to care for the madwoman's plight, let alone pity her. Where was this guilt when she'd pitted him against her daughter in a duel to the death? When she'd pushed him to go so far past his limits, he'd almost burnt himself alive.

Where was this humanity when this monster had raped him?

No, he felt nothing at all for Nyx's wailing.

Nothing at all but a cold indifference.

Let the withered hag choke on the consequences of her actions for the rest of her life, and see if he cared.

His mind was deadset on more pressing matters: His mangled body.

No joke, Percy would've spent the rest of his short life as a disfigured cripple if he'd gotten this much damage as anything but an astral projection, and even then, he didn't doubt this much mangling to his dream avatar wouldn't leave him with a fair bit of brain damage.

The obsidian and the goddess above him were caked in his lifeblood, and he could feel his chest cavity touching down on his spine and his ribs taking refuge in his lungs with each choked breath. His internal organs were pushed so far up to his neck that he imagined he'd be able to cough up his liver.

Percy was in agonizing pain...but he would live. He'd be more than capable of recovering when he woke up. He'd gotten one over on his tormentor, and now all that was left for him to find a way to get out of this dream with what little remained of his dignity.

With no particular destination in mind, Percy continued crawling away from his captor, the goddess's subdued wails already an afterthought.

But Nyx wouldn't be Nyx if she weren't the most difficult, sore loser he'd ever had the displeasure of meeting.

"War, it is then. There is nothing left for me to lose." The goddess croaked, the devastated acceptance in her tone able to stop Percy in his tracks before her words registered.

"Wait...what?"

He turned his head back to the goddess in urgency, his horror only intensifying upon finding her clad in black plate and mail with silver and gold accents, the piece and the flowing violet cape cloaking her dotted with stars and the iconography of the eldritch horrors of the night. On the center of her breastplate were the animated images of two distinct colored wolves hunting down the Sun and the Moon, chasing and chasing but never quite reaching the celestial bodies...but they were very close.

Far too close for comfort.

The goddess's face was bare, her pale aristocratic features and golden moon orbs devoid of any positive emotion toward Percy as she sniffed at his mutilated form in distaste. In one hand, she held an open-faced helmet bearing the symbol of the House of Night and her chariot's barbed whip. On the other was a Stygian Iron longsword with sparking ancient runes along its length.

Her armor was awesome, if a bit overkill, but that was irrelevant to him. "What do you mean 'War it is then'? What kind of war are you talking about here? Nerf wars? Mud wars? Legal wars? Does your evil book club have War of the Worlds for this week's reading or something? Tell me, what War Nyx?!"

This...this oxymoron of an eloquent basket-case looked him right in the eyes as she walked past him, her gait slow and measured as her armored footfalls echoed like crashing boulders in the empty, ruined living room.

"Hey! I'm talking to you! What war?!" Percy screamed, dragging himself through the gravel like a mangy dog. "Why is that your go-to? Can't we all settle our differences over rainbows and weed or something? NYX! Stop rig-"

He managed to grab a hold of her polished iron boots, only to get sent soaring from a kick that damn near knocked out his jaw for his efforts. His body felt weightless, flying in the air for several seconds before the goddess slammed his back to a wall with a palm on his crushed chest, the screeching sound of stone giving way to metal as Nyx stabbed her blade right next to his ears, nearly deafening him.

"Did..." he started weakly, stalling for a few beats to catch his breath. "Did that make you feel better? You're welcome. Now tell me what I want to know!"

The goddess glared at him briefly before her perfect purple lips parted. He dared to hope for an answer...

Percy needed to learn to stop getting suckered by this chick.

Nyx cocked back her sharpened gauntlet-clad fist and pounded him right on the face; his vision clouded with pain and blood as her vicious strike tore his nose apart. She pulled back her fist nice and slow, a sadistic smirk sullying her face as she watched his blood trail with it.

She leveled another punch to his face as he tried to fight her off, this one taking out his teeth and cratering the wall behind him in a spider-web fracture. Another punch to his reeling skull split his left eye in two. One more shattered his shaky jaw, the blow nearly popping his skull like a ripe pimple, and the final one sent him flying a dozen yards through the wall.

He rolled along the obsidian flooring for several seconds before stopping in the center of an ancient study, the faint crackling of a violet-colored hearth echoing through the chamber from the fireplace. Percy couldn't do much more than groan in pain at the moment, so excuse him if he wasn't quite feeling like giving an artistic summary of the room, but his eyes - or eye as it were - were able to catch a glimpse of a towering portrait of what looked to be a...child?

A child cradling a corpse.

With the positioning of the portrait over the caged fireplace, it almost looked like the kid was sacrificing the body to the violet flames.

He didn't get much time to speculate on the identity of the painting model before the sound of Nyx's metallic footsteps echoed behind him, her signature haunting chortle announcing her arrival like a Hollywood red carpet.

"By Chaos, you have no idea how satisfying that was for me. I almost don't want to hang your mother and that wretched Owl-spawn by their entrails anymore," She pondered, "Hmm...no, I want to. I really want to, especially the girl. Most definitely the girl. It comes as no surprise that my failure of a sister would fail to kill off such a weakling. "

Percy could feel Gaia's anger at the insult getting curb-stomped by a devastating amount of fear. He realized how utterly silent the goddess had been since they'd encountered Nyx.

Although why the Earth Mother was more terrified of the Night than Percy was remained anyone's guess.

"Wuhduhyuh... wuhduhyuh..." Percy mumbled through sheer willpower, his ravaged mouth barely holding onto his teeth at this point.

The goddess loomed over him with a sadistic smirk.

"Hm? What was that, child? My apologies, I hardly doubt you can manage to articulate words, what with your...everything so devastated. " She joked as she gestured a bloodied hand at his misfortune, "I'd heal you, but I'm quite sure I'd murder you if I had to force myself to listen to another minute of your incessant prattle."

Nyx grabbed hold of his leg and pulled him over to the fireside chairs, his broken body draping over the crimson antique piece like a discarded jacket.

She clapped her armored hands together as she sat on the adjacent recliner, "So, we'll do it like this. I shall speak. You shall listen and not speak a word. And if your obedience pleases me, I might do you a favor and fix you. Are my terms agreeable? Go 'murrr' once if that is acceptable. "

"...G...guh... fugguhsuf."

"I'll take it." Nyx conceded, "Now, where shall we begin...ah yes, War. I cannot claim not to understand where your trepidation stems from, child. When a Primordial worth their salt truly threatens something as serious as total warfare, not the half-baked reunion gathering my disgracefully departed sister organized for you Neanderthals upstairs, it must not be taken in jest."

The Primordial of Night continued with an understanding nod, unaware of the growing conniption Gaea was experiencing inside his head at her glossed-over barb.

"And yet I fully intend on assembling the armies of my court to the surface and educating you hairless apes in a one-sided slaughter the likes of which you have never seen. The demigod forces of Olympus are soundly decimated. The Penumbran Spades can likely be handled for the right price; the House of Life shall bend or break if they dare overstep. The dimwitted imbeciles overseeing the Triumvirate are barely a nuisance worth pondering upon."

Nyx ticked off her fingers absently as if all those accrued enemies were little more than squeaking chihuahuas in her eyes. Come to think of it, thinking of Zeus as a lightning-patterned chihuahua did do wonders for his mood.

What was that saying?

'Laughter was the best medicine'?

Yeah, a yipping chihuahua named Zeus squeaking to no end about his lightning-shaped chew toy gone missing; that was a thought to get the dopamine rushing.

He could do with a Tylenol or 40 for his everything, though.

"The residents of Mount Meru and the Celestial Bureaucracy would not dare to step an inch outside of their safe little bubble. Thrice-damned Ouranos made sure of that...the Monkey, too, to be honest,"

Percy noticed that the goddess's voice seemed to take on a more appreciative tone when this 'Monkey' was mentioned. What was that about?

"...And Wodanaz is leashed far too tightly by his schemes and agendas with the rest of those fools to take up arms against me willingly. The most pressing concern lies in the forces of Takamagahara; theirs is a delicate state of affairs with Izanagi's fluctuating lot thrown into play." She admitted with great reluctance.

Whoever these takama-whatta blokes were, Percy needed them on speed dial expeditiously. Anyone dangerous enough to give Nyx of all gods pause was someone he wanted in his corner. Naturally, Nyx had to shit all over his pedestal before he could so much as place his participation award on it.

"But they would never take up arms with Olympus. Not after the fate of the Kotoamatsukami and Kagutsuchi. You can thank Ouranos and your father for that. An empty promise to not encroach upon their territories will only have them wishing me the best in my vendetta." She let out a dark chuckle. "They'll use the surviving stragglers for target practice. So yes, brat, this is the most opportune moment for me to strike. The odds are overwhelmingly in my favor, and the fires of my wrath have never been more stoked to burn that bloated rock to ashes!"

This was what he feared.

This was Nyx at her most terrifying. Her omnipotence was an afterthought as far as Percy was concerned, and that didn't scare him much. Her entitlement to all of existence in its entirety was what kept him up at night.

Percy knew of narcissism; his friends had encountered the origin of the word on their adventure. It was a mental health condition in which its victims suffered from an over-inflated sense of their importance. And while most people deemed the condition pretty harmless, all things considered, Percy found himself hoping they never had the 'honor' of ever encountering a loud and proud narcissist like Nyx.

He wagered the Primordial of Night could out-narcissist Narcissus himself.

Nyx was an asshole, no doubt, but she was an all-powerful asshole. In her eyes, everything and everyone belonged to her, dancing on and on forever for her pleasure. Words couldn't justify how terrifying such a mindset could be in the hands of such an omnipotent being.

There were no laws she'd ever willingly accede to, no lines she wouldn't cross at a moment's notice if the feeling pleased her. In her own words, such was the right of the mighty. As far as she was concerned, nobody beneath her should ever have the audacity to breathe within her presence unless she gave them assent.

"And that's exactly what I'm going to do; after all, who can stop me?"

Who indeed.

Percy wasn't stupid.

He, more than anyone, knew he didn't quite have the power to match the Primordial on equal terms. He probably never would. It had taken a prophecy set in stone thousands of years before his inception and a series of perfectly crafted bullshit for him only just to pull off a win against a weakened Gaia and her gathered army.

And even then, putting aside the fact Percy had almost died trying to kill the goddess, the cost had been far too high for his family to bear.

But...maybe they cou-

Gaia stopped that tomfoolery with a metaphorical snap of her fingers. In a second, an array of visions and introspective thoughts slammed into his head like an aerial barrage, and Percy saw what a war with a battle-tested Primordial would truly look like.

Di immortales, a war against Nyx would be...gods, it would be apocalyptic.

It was clear to Percy then and there that Gaia, for all her anger and megalomania, did love their planet. The Earth was her body and, more importantly, her one true gift from her mother. The fallen goddess would never bring any lasting harm to it. Her goal was to wash away the pesky infractions and rebuild, not solely destroy.

It was the complete opposite for Nyx.

The goddess had some unexplainable beef with her dead sister that he wasn't quite willing to approach with a ten-foot pole, not that Gaia cared to share that information.

Nyx wanted to violate the Earth utterly.

Nyx wanted to take away and destroy everything worth loving on the planet.

Nyx would be more than willing to cull the most law-abiding, righteous mortals that could give the planet any sort of meaning to it and fill it to the brim with the most disgusting, the most evil, and worthless banes to society, the Fields of Punishment themselves would reject.

For kicks.

Nyx hated her sister.

She wouldn't hesitate to cross any lines or violate any silly Ancient Laws so long as she could get her due.

The 'war' she was describing wouldn't be a war; it wouldn't be a series of one-on-one battles out in the middle of nowhere where innocent casualties could be kept to a controlled minimum. It would be a divine desolation on par with the Christian stories of the Rapture itself.

The mortals 'indomitable will' and fighting skills would be akin to bugs on a windshield when the very air was fire, poison, and never-ending darkness.

From the gate, Nyx, Tartarus, and every single dark god in her court would ascend out of the pit with the full divine force of their True Forms, announcing their arrival with biblical plagues, hellfire, brimstone, cinder, fallen stars, and the destruction of the very sun and moon itself...as a start.

In the wake of a dark world, the warriors of her court rampaged through the lands unchecked atop fire-breathing mounts of shadow and metal, dyeing earthen plains of emerald and gold red with the blood of any soul unfortunate enough to sample a taste of their Stygian Iron.

The Gates of Hades would burst forth in rancor from the sudden influx of souls, their master long since bedridden from the utter evisceration of his realm, sparking the powder keg for a never-ending age of fracture and cruelty.

Law and Order long since tossed to the wayside.

It would be a battle for survival, with every man and woman fighting for themselves alone, oceans of blood dotted with the bodies of trampled children caught in the way of fleeing mortals.

In response, the gods of Olympus - and...the others? - would meet the unavoidable challenge head-on with lightning, thunder, and divine fury. Zeus himself, followed by the remaining hosts of the heavens, would take to the fields with all the divine might he could muster, countries – perhaps entire continents – would fall to the waves in the wake of their first clash before everything fully went to shit.

Long-forgotten creatures of the depths would wake from their eternal slumber to get a piece of the action, and old wards offworld would break entirely, releasing their malevolent prisoners to the fray for blood-soaked vengeance.

At that point, it wouldn't matter who was more powerful than who. Who would win wouldn't be a cause for debate because everyone would lose.

The vision ended instantly; barely a second had passed in the dream world for him, but Percy would be glad if he could return to the boy he was but a second ago. This was all too much.

"She can't do that, can she? Chaos would have to step in at some point, right? RIGHT?!"

"..."

"ANSWER ME, GAIA!"

Nothing.

The fallen Primordial did nothing to reassure him.

Percy would have roared at the absurdity of it all if his body wasn't so fucked up.

This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be happening!

'War it is then' What the fuck was she talking about?!

Ares himself would feel appalled at the very thought of the comparison. The demigods had just gotten back from a war, and their reward was to be sent to a slaughterhouse?!

Nyx continued, uncaring of his mental disposition, "Short of Chaos, I am the single most powerful entity in this fractured plane of existence. Ananke is broken. Pontus and Thalassa slumber eternally. Aether, Hemera, and Tartarus belong to me...and the rest of the Adjudicators travel in the Great Beyond. By the time word of my actions reaches them, it will be far too late."

Nyx climbed out of her seat and prowled to Percy, disgust clouding her features as she leveled an unnecessary backhand to his face.

"You would have been among them, those Adjudicators. A worthless weakling like yourself would have achieved an apotheosis to elevate you to the highest cadre of Divine Entities the realms have ever seen!"

Nyx pushed his head further into his seat and sent the aged furniture toppling with his body as she stormed about the room in a rage, spouting more and more non-intelligible babble for Percy to do...something with.

He wasn't sure why the goddess seemed to think he should understand any of what she was saying.

"My mark had already been placed upon you, triumphing over Akhlys, and her subsequent death had served as the perfect offering! In a few short months, your divine authority would have been ripe enough to finally make headway with your destiny and move forward with my ambitions!"

Nyx lifted him by his throat again and roared in his face, "Everything was set in place; how could you have ruined my plans so thoroughly?!"

"Perseus, do something! Fight, kill yourself, do something!" Gaia chimed in unhelpfully.

"Do what? I'm missing a jaw and an eye, you hag, don't talk to me."

Nyx poised her clawed gauntlets right above Percy's heart and stabbed right through him, pain and relief flowing through his body as her divine power repaired every single wound on his body she'd inflicted. Most of her healing was focused on his hanging jaw, the phantom pains of the loss turning into actual pain as Percy howled in agony.

Nyx gave him another bitch-slap as she shook him for an answer, "Use your words while you yet draw breath, bastard. What did you-"

The goddess's words were cut short as she staggered away from him like she'd been shot, her golden orbs frozen and her mouth hanging in muted horror.

She was trembling.

Nyx was trembling in fear or something else; Percy didn't know or care.

His body was mostly healed now. He had to get the heck out of Dodge. Fast.

He turned on his heel to run through the hole he'd been punched through, but found his arm trapped in a vice-like grip. He looked upwards to Nyx's horrified golden eyes.

The goddess gripped Percy's scalp and squeezed. Her voice was as hard as iron as she muttered, "...Gaia?"

"RUN, PERSEUS!"

Nyx winced in discomfort at the volume, her hand coming to massage her temples, "I can...I can hear your thoughts now. Why did I never question the absence? No. Why is my dead sister's Animus trapped inside of your body, Perseus?!"

Percy thought the Primordial wasn't just talking about ghosts or Assassin's Creed when she said the word Animus as if it had a deeper meaning he couldn't yet see. But his introspection passed when the goddess started to cackle in triumph, her golden eyes blown into wide, manic saucers as her midnight locks grew disheveled and deranged.

"...He still lives." Nyx muttered with awe, "The Fragment continues to live inside you! My plans may-No! This doesn't make any sense! How did...who would dare to-"

The goddess fazed her hand through Percy's bound chest and searched through his soul, her hand coming to a stop right on a shining crystal ball patterned with spider-web fractures right where his navel would be.

Nyx merely tapped on the ball before she was sent flying, her breastplate and mail split in two, and her arm was sliced off at the base of her elbow.

It was still a better lot than the torment both Percy and Gaia received.

Their collective souls warped upon each other along a sinusoidal curve before getting sliced in twos. Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? and realigning in the span of a picosecond. Percy's soul was burning him alive from the inside out, the pair's bloodcurdling screams reaching a morbid crescendo as Percy's brain and pulsing heart protruded from his flesh, the vital organs fighting to remove themselves from his body.

The ground surrounding Percy just didn't exist anymore. A shell of pure ocean-green energy laced with gold engulfed his body and stretched outwards of the study without care. As quickly as the shell appeared, it faded to reveal a room devastated to its foundations, burning with acid-green flames, and a lone obsidian pillar holding up a screaming boy.

Percy was practically catatonic when Nyx came around again, his muttered whimpers of Mater...Mater filling the ruins as Nyx regenerated her lost limb with a scowl. She leaped up to Percy's pillar and laid a hand on his shoulder, the air crackling with dark, eldritch energy as she murmured a lost incantation into the aether and reversed the damage to his mind, body, and mansion.

"...Message received. Your soul is off-limits, it seems." Nyx stood up and dusted her hands clean of the blood, letting out a long-suffering sigh as she said: "You live to suffer another day, Gaia. And make no mistake, that is the only feasible path this fate presents to you. A thousand curses upon you, Mother. You steered clear of our affairs all these eons, why now?"

She paced about the restored floor, mumbling about something or the other as Percy shook and trembled on the floor, his eyes blown wide in terror even as his arms came to wrap around his body.

What on Earth had he seen?

"That battle...I do not know what transpired underneath the waves, but the sheer layers of old magic attached to the spell...could it be...but that shouldn't be possible, Zeus would have made sure to..." She trailed off unsteadily before calling out to Percy, "Oi! Brat! Look at me!"

Percy didn't budge. His mind was far too swamped with the images he saw and the pain his soul had wrought upon him to care about the Primordial's needs—a fact Nyx really didn't appreciate. The goddess pounced on him like a pack of wolves, his head fitting in her massive hands like a glove. She tilted his face to her shining eyes and looked.

Immediately, misty wards and mental barriers were pushed to the side as the goddess tore through every memory of his battle with Gaia. The weird tree roots that had connected their souls upon Gaia's death, the power he'd expended in manipulating her ichor, Annabeth's pleas for him to leave her, and his poor showing against Gaia in their first bout before coming to a stop at the crux of the problem.

The ascending comet.

Percy thought back to the oddity. How strange it had appeared to him that the ascending comet had missed the goddess. How it had looked, for a tenth of a second, like the fireball had been nudged to the side.

He'd assumed it to be Nyx's whims given that it had happened in her domain, but if it wasn't...if it was...

His hypothesis was cut short when the memory collapsed on itself. Nyx's astral projection was ejected from his body with a ringing boom by a bright burst of golden energy. The action occurred in an hour of a second, yet the gleaming holographic image of the massive blood-red spindle of golden thread may as well have been burned into Percy's retinas.

"So that's what it was..." She voiced with strangled puffs, beads of sweat dribbling off her forehead in exertion, "Chaos, Poseidon, even the Owl-spawn had a hand to play in it...that is to be expected, I suppose." Nyx rose to her feet, sparks flying from her teeth as she gnashed them together, "Mother throwing Gaia to the wolves has long since become a welcome constant, I'm more than aware. But you, sister...how dare you betray me...ANANKE?!"

Y*C*O*Y*W

18 August 2010, The Crypt, The Citadel of the Old Ones, Light years Beyond The Milky Way Galaxy

PRIMORDIAL'S WERE BULLSHIT.

Percy had said it before, and at this rate, it looked like he'd say it until the day he died.

Nyx snapped her fingers, and it was as if reality had collapsed in on itself. Gone was the ancient study. In an instant, the two of them had teleported farther than any mortal had ever gone in the history of mankind.

Percy wasn't the brightest tool in the shed, and it might have been the vertigo screwing with him, but he was pretty sure Tartarus didn't have a chewed off blood moon...or a dead black hole next to it for that matter.

Nyx had dropped them off at the entrance of a vast, endless cavern criss-crossed high and low with weighty, Stygian Iron anchor chains and warding talismans glowing purple with eldritch energy.

The chains converged at the cavern's center, the taut links burning white-hot as they wrapped around a roaring column of ghost-white flames. Starting from the ground up and going further beyond the cavern's roof. The flames seemed to act as the sole core of the planet, with phantom wails howling out in the negative the closer the mismatched party tried to get to it.

Nyx gripped Percy by the hand and dragged him to the edge of the flame pillar, uncaring of the phantom warnings. A sphere of holographic runes arced around her wrist as she murmured a strange incantation to herself.

"What is this place, Nyx..."

The goddess ignored him. Shocker.

She placed a clawed hand on the flames and ripped the towering conflagration away like one would a bride's veil, the inferno fizzled out to reveal a mutilated corpse of an armored giant bound by it's hands and torso. The visible parts of its body were covered in third-degree burns and scorch marks, a massive laceration on its chest revealing a beating heart still pumping with golden ichor.

"Erebus and Chronos..." Gaia murmured with a hint of horror, "Nyx, you didn't..."

"Shut up."

Nyx went to work, clawing out the pumping heart from the corpse's chest and dousing her hands with its ichor. Her hands became frenetic blurs as she inscribed ancient glyphs around the scorched earth.

"I never intended to use them this way...to desecrate their memories, but I was desperate! I still am to this day." She confessed with regret, before gritting her teeth in anger, "Perseus was never meant to fight you, Gaia! The ignorant fool expended so much energy prematurely, Chaos of all beings had to step in to prevent him from killing himself! Don't you see it?! Ananke has gone too far in her meddling; long since tarnished the esteem of her station. I cannot allow her any more leeway to wreck my plans."

"And if those plans are better off never seeing the light of day?! This is blasphemy, sister! A violation upon the-"

An explosion of malevolent power cut off the fallen goddess, a swirling torrent of violet flames lighting up the glyphs like falling dominoes.

With the addition of the flames, Percy could see the structure of the symbol all too clearly. The glyphs were arranged together in the pattern of a wavy pentagram with an eye in the center and a pillar of flame where the pupil should've been.

"Ananke believes herself infallible, untouchable in her gilded cage," Nyx voiced the word 'untouchable' with so much contrariety Percy felt he understood the meaning of the word contrary, "She forgets just who I am. What I had to overcome to thrive in the Dawn Wars."

Nyx placed a clawed hand right above her face and stabbed, a grunt of pain sounding out as she ripped out her eyeball from its socket and offered it to the flames. A foreboding bell tolled loud and true all around them in acceptance of the offering.

"An eye for an eye. I share with you the misfortune of the Promised Day, Ananke Adrasteia. The aspect of Inevitability. Let our ends forever be shared and engraved in the ethos of the cosmos now and evermore." The Primordial of Night declared, spiderweb fractures forming in the air and all around the cavern as something integral to the universe was forcibly altered by the curse.

She tossed the still-beating heart into the eldritch flames and chanted, "The heart of Chronos, the One Favored Above All. I disbar you from the Authority of Order, Ananke Tecmor. The aspect of Purpose and Ordinance. Let the realms remain plagued by rancor and bedlam till the Promised Day."

Another set of reality-shattering fractures closed in on them, followed by a blood-curdling wail that sounded all across space and time. It was a cry of pain and sorrow.

It was the grief of a lover.

The grief of Ananke.

The air pulsed with a surge of energy, the cracks in reality already breaking apart to reveal the pitch-black void on the other side. Thousands of massive, gnarled hands the color of bone gripped onto the breaks and threatened to pull apart the fabric by force before Nyx got the chance.

"The wards are already failing, eh? Time to finish this."

Nyx grabbed Percy by his hand, her bloodied face the picture of resignation as she sliced a gash in the center of his palm right on the scar Annabeth had given him. He struggled against the goddess's ironclad hold for a few seconds before she backhanded him with a huff.

"I must say, I underestimated that girl severely." She grumbled with menace, her voice as rough as sandpaper, unbothered by his lifeblood leaking into the flames, "Had she shown even an inkling of the cunning she and your father had applied in placing that seal upon you during our encounter, I never would've allowed her to leave that Pit alive. Even now she remains clouded from my vision, how infuriating!"

That threw Percy for a loop, his messy wound forgotten as dozens of questions threatened to burst from him the longer the goddess continued to gripe about his ex.

At the forefront: "What do you mean 'she remains clouded from my vision'?". Alas, the goddess chose not to dignify that question with a response.

"The blood of the Aggrieved. I bring down the Curse of Volatility upon you, Ananke Anacaea. The aspect of Inexorability. Let the path of Perseus Meredith Jackson...let the destiny of the Final Shepherd, continue to tarry on in phantasmal limbo from now till the end of times!"

A cataclysmic roar sounded out from around them at the final curse, before a dramatic click snapped everything back into place. Nyx shielded Percy with her body as a final explosion of power demolished the last of the remaining wards and sent the lost planet into a sea of all-devouring azure-blue flames.

The mutilated corpse of Erebus burned to ashes right before them.

The world twisted and bent around them for an instant before the pair stumbled into the familiar ancient study, as if the excursion they had just made had never happened.

It was over, yet it had only just begun.

Even now, in the darkest recesses of his mind, Percy could feel something threatening to burst all around them. Someone—a lot of someones—wasn't happy with the events that had just transpired, and ether or not there would be a reckoning wasn't in question.

It was when.

"Rest assured, war will not grace the Bones of Gaia from now on...at least not by my hands." The Primordial let out a dark, foreboding chuckle, her half-lidded eyes clouded with exhaustion and a hint of satisfaction. "But you, boy?"

She turned that accursed golden orb his way one more time, and Percy had never wanted to be an inanimate object so badly in his life, at least then he could expect the goddess to throw him out once he'd outlived his usefulness.

Nyx's teary-eyed look was one you could only expect from an enemy you had taken everything from.

It was a look of utter hatred.

Malevolent hatred that could never hope to be sated or amended with time or apologies.

A desperate hatred birthed from a monster with nothing left to lose.

Deep violet flames the size of bonfires erupted from around the study, entrapping them.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, Percy couldn't ignore the vivid images the flames painted and erased second by second.

Images of...him.

Versions of Percy so genuine yet so...different, he was lost for words.

"Perseus Meredith Jackson." The goddess intoned his name like it was magical, like it had a hidden power she couldn't wait to eviscerate. She turned a hand to caress an image, "The Liberating Conqueror."

This Percy looked about his age. His white hair was cut short and mixed in with thick streaks of black, his mouth bloody, and his eyes blazing. He wore a maroon leather jacket and a firm-looking set of body armor, a weighty pair of gauntlets, a utility belt, and combat boots. His arm was raised in triumph, Riptide's Celestial Bronze edge caked in ichor and blood as he roared a challenge at a crowd of warriors, giants, wolves, and monsters.

"The Enduring Warrior. "

False-Percy #2 had his back to them, his body covered in bloody bandages, even as he stood in the middle of a screaming blizzard, with the few open spots dotted with strange markings and tattoos. His hair was platinum, with pure-blue highlights at the tips. His fists were tightened on the shaft of an intricate holy spear, as he looked to be praying over a sea of graves, stray teardrops sent flying to the wind.

"The Protector of the Innocent."

This version of him was...weird. Very weird and so unlike him. For one, he had his black hair again, and he was older than he was, physically in his late twenties if Percy's guess was worth anything. But that's where the weirdness came from. This Percy looked 20-something, but the weight and lifelessness in his eyes made him feel so much older.

He was dressed in exquisite black and silver armor and robes with royal blue accents, with a raven on his shoulder. His upright posture betrayed an assured confidence that the original Percy didn't quite have as he smiled at the masses. Flanking his sides were powerful-looking men and women dressed in thick robes and medieval armor, a powerful-looking man dressed in a wife-beater, cowboy chaps, and boots, and a beautiful, fiery-haired woman with a wild look to her.

The heroes and civilians all looked at weird-Percy with smiles of adoration and fanatical awe, yet the guy couldn't do more than stare at them like they were worth less than nothing to him.

The arrogance was so foreign to him, so not who he was, that he almost couldn't process the fact that this guy was supposed to be the good guy.

That this was supposed to be the 'Protector of the Innocent'.

"The Arbiter of Creation's Will."

Percy #4 was more or less the same as Weird-Percy, right down to the aged eyes, eternal 20-something, and confident-douchey demeanor, but with a much more exotic color palette and tanned, almost chocolate skin. This Percy was styled exclusively in black and gold, the only deviation from his angelic get-up being a set of worn, black arm sleeves.

Why the guy bothered with the battle-beaten clothing was beyond Percy.

Angel-Percy looked calm and at peace with himself as his amused golden eyes roved over an eclectic bunch of individuals. One of them was a walking, talking human-sized monkey with a cool-looking set of gold, lamellar armor, and a thick staff topped with solid gold at the ends.

Right next to the monkey lounged a smug blonde warrior in golden plate armor topped with a Celtic knot sigil and a glowing golden spear. The last of the group was a massive mountain of muscle with fiery red hair and soft hazel eyes. Even sitting, he still towered over the group by a few feet.

Just as the mountain man let out a belting laugh at something the talking monkey had said, Angel-Percy looked right at Percy from beyond the veil with a hint of surprise, his lips parted for a bit before he gave Percy a soft, somber smile as if to say: It's hard. I get it, but hang in there. It'll all work out someday.

How the guy managed to convey all that with a single gesture was all the evidence Percy needed to decide he kinda liked this guy.

At the very least, a hundred times more than the douche from before. Whereas Weird-Percy had gotten power and gone full on Mr. D, with the whole nine yards of bitterness and douchebaggery, this guy had gotten all that - and probably more - and yet he could still live and enjoy the simple times with genuine fondness among friends.

He could still be human.

The thought put a faint smile on Percy's face at least until Nyx wiped away the image.

"And the Destroyer of Destroyers."

False-Percy #5 was terrifying.

Weird-Percy and Angel-Percy looked alien to him, but Slasher-Percy would keep him up at night.

He was a malevolent-looking entity, covered head-to-toe in blood, ichor, and poison, none too dissimilar from the monsters that plagued the darkest depths of Tartarus. From his head protruded wicked-sharp bull horns, with pieces of flesh still gushing blood hooked onto them.

His eyes shone like mismatched suns in the dark-gray abyss he found himself in, one orb acid green and the other a deep red with an abyssal-black sclera. Slasher-Percy wrapped his hand around the hilt of a massive curved, single-edged cleaver, hollowed out in the middle, bigger and wider than his body. The entirety of the blade was shrouded in blazing flames, the color of deep violet, with runes and kanji etched onto the length of the blade.

He was thousands of feet above the ground, looking down on the world from on high, his glowing eyes were locked onto...

Jason?

No, not just Jason, he saw Athena and Ares, too. Hermes and Artemis and...everyone. All of Olympus was looking at him with more than a little bit of fear, their grips on their weapons tightening as Slasher-Percy started to laugh uncontrollably. Above him were massive violet fireballs the size of citadels arranged in a swirling, concentric circle, the miniature suns poised to plunge the lands below him to an eternity of never-ending flames.

Slasher-Percy let out a booming roar before tearing down his cleaver in finality, the suns taking up the call and striking down upon the land with the speed of rockets. Percy could have sworn he heard Jason's cry of agony from here.

He backed away from the vision on instinct till his back touched the cold black wall, his rushing heartbeat sending pulses through the stone. His terror was already at critical overload before the Primordial decided that the concept of Light served no further purpose to her.

Visibility plummeted to zero, then proceeded to file for bankruptcy in a matter of seconds. The darkness melded with the gravity so naturally that Percy couldn't be sure any parts below his eyeballs were still connected to his body.

"Co-control yourself, Perseus. She wouldn't kill you, not now. She wouldn't dare." Gaea promised, though how much weight he could assign to it was negligible with that stutter.

"Tell me why I don't believe you!"

"~ I. Can. Hear. You ~"

Nyx's form had shifted during his short conversation with the voice in his head, her avatar tearing apart from the inside out with a bone-chilling squelch.

Gone was the 7-foot-tall goddess clad in light-devouring armor, in was a towering mass of void-black tentacles and gaping maws. The eldritch monstrosity covered the distance between them and then some, her titanic bulk engulfing him in black before her mucus-like body fluids pushed him upwards to her uppermost maw.

"Colluding with my dearest sister right before me? Was I not enough Primordial for you, Perseus?" She cooed, "I'm hurt, mortally wounded even. "

Percy's eyes were blown back in terror, his voice no louder than a peep as his hands palmed the onyx wall for any weapon he could use to defend himself.

"No cheeky comeback? Excellent! Now, this may come as a shock to you, but I'm only just realizing today is your 17th birthday, Perseus. How could you not tell me? I truly believed we had something special between us. What with you giving me your first so easily after all. "

Percy's eyes lit up in anger at that last sentence, his fingers itching to squash this crawling sludge of bacteria under a petri dish.

Nyx howled with laughter, "Even at the prospect of utter annihilation, your hurt feelings and naive sensibilities grant you the mental fortitude to think to challenge me? It was sex, brat. Get over it already! By Chaos, if you had as much of a spine outwards as you do in your thoughts, maybe I wouldn't have forgotten about the experience so quickly."

"SHUT UP!"

The goddess slammed Percy into the obsidian like a buzzing fly for his efforts, his tilting vision swimming with black and yellow dots, with all the constant head trauma.

"Hmm, no. I don't think I will." Nyx drawled. "Now, where was I? Ahh, yes. Your birthday present. I hope you don't mind, but I doubt I can acquire a hallmark card that perfectly encapsulates the feelings you stir up inside me with every wretched inhale you take. Seriously, I advise you get that checked."

"I'll take...your advice into consideration, as for the gift? Just get me a card that says 'To my favorite dream-killer, You took away my husband and daughter when you were barely even trying' and I'd call us even."

"Are you mad?! STOP ANTAGONIZING HER!"

"No, no, Gaia. Let him continue, it will only make his present so much more satisfying to deliver."

"Perseus...Perseus, if our ensured existence pleases you, you shall remain quiet, or I promise you. I PROMISE YOU! I'll feed you your bloody tongue."

And that was what pushed Percy over the edge: that godly audacity.

After all Nyx had done to him and put him through, after all the beatings and insults he'd had to endure from the goddess for little to no reason, Nyx was still portrayed as the aggrieved party in this mess. That Percy was supposed to sit there and put up with more of her nonsense like an obedient little dog.

"...You have a lot to learn, don't you, Gaia? You're an unwelcome visitor in this house. Why don't you sit back and stay quiet? This is my life, not yours!"

"Perseus, I forbid you to-"

But Percy wasn't listening.

"Do your worst to me, Nyx, I'm nothing special. Just another lucky demigod in a long line of heroes that'll continue to win over you mustache-twirling cliches long after I'm dead and buried. We beat Kronos. We won against the Earth herself. Kill me at your own risk, I dare you to think you'll get away with it," Percy laughed in her face, making sure to add in a pig-like snort for good measure, "We'll get a new hero destined to send you to your dearly departed husband before breakfast."

He was bluffing.

Percy was lying out of his ass so hard even Hermes would be scandalized at such bullshit.

He didn't know what he was doing anymore, not really. Didn't know whether he wanted Nyx to get angry or cry again.

He just felt he had to get one over on the goddess. He had to have the last laugh in this encounter or he'd always live under the goddess's thumb.

"...You are a bigger fool than I ever thought feasible if you truly believe yourself to be the average demigod, if you believe yourself so replaceable."

The goddess eased up much of her hold on him, her tentacles keeping him aloft by the back of his collar. She brought him level to the gaping abyss of her maw, the endless black giving him vertigo the longer he was forced to stew in silence.

"Did you believe I declared those Titles in jest? What sort of fool is willing to risk tearing apart the fabric of the universe to unbind the fate of one useless mortal? Do you think me some worthless street whore willing to open her legs for any mouth-breathing neanderthal who so happens to stumble upon my territory?"

"Well, if the boot fi-"

The Primordial released him from her hold as she reverted back to her base state, a head in her hand as she had to count to 10 to ensure she didn't just step on the ignorant nuisance and be done with it all.

"Make no mistake, Perseus. Short of my husband and you, as unfortunate as that is for both of us," She added with a disgusted shudder, "Besides you, nobody has, or will ever share my bed. The conception of our child is already well underway and a foregone conclusion; the odds of it achieving untainted immortality along with its own respectable slew of conceptual domains are at 85%. Can you grasp the implications of such news?"

He wanted to tell her he'd rather never have to experience the implications in the first place, yet he found himself as...not quite mesmerized as the goddess, but intrigued all the same.

"Honestly, it is miraculous that your gods have managed to keep you hidden for so long. The powers of this world will be tripping over themselves for your seed or your allegiance much sooner than you think. I haven't borne witness to divinity so concentrated since the days of the Tang monk. Your gods have tried time and time again to perfect the interbreeding between us Primordials, yet it always results in failure. The bumbling baboon your father and Gaia created comes to mind."

Antaeus.

Percy hadn't thought about the giant in a long time, but if the guy was meant to be a fun little inbred experiment for his old man and the goddess in his head (ew) then it's no wonder he'd turned out so fucked up.

"You are a claimant to the Gilded Throne, boy. The Final Shepherd," Nyx continued, "Your inborn Authority as a demigod child of Poseidon, your mother's renounced bloodline acting as a physical adapter through you, and the Boon promised to you as an incarnation of the Blessed One? The possibilities are infinite. Your potential for greatness is as limitless as you so choose to allow it."

"Are you talking about godhood?"

Nyx let out an amused chuckle. "Mere 'godhood' this short-minded imbecile says...enlighten him, Gaia. Even you must have an inkling to the powers at play here by now."

"What's she talking about, Gaia?"

"I thought you wanted me to-"

"TELL HIM!" Nyx roared, a 150% done with the childish headaches, bickering before her.

"...The godhood the Olympians can impart upon you is a possible path for you to walk, but if the paths are not truly set in stone for you, then...it is a possibility that-that..."

"That what?"

"Godhood. What she is trying and failing to tell you is that Godhood is a possible future for you. True Godhood." Nyx finished with an eyeroll, "What is promised to you is an ascension as an Absolute Being, not the half-assed nature-manipulating nonsense your father's compatriots have been trying to foist upon you. I foretell a seat by the right-hand of Chaos herself in your future."

...

The silence following that proclamation was loud; it was all Percy could do to keep himself standing.

A seat by the side of Chaos.

This was...this was huge.

Percy didn't need to be a genius to realize how groundbreaking this information was; Chaos may as well have been a Jane Doe for how little was known of her—it? Everyone else still believed the Being to be a mindless soup of energy, just pumping out Primordials.

Hades, most people seemed dead set on the idea that she was a dude. He knew he'd thought so till he'd seen her.

Yet, here he was getting told he could be well on his way to working as the Hand of God itself?

It wasn't possible.

It didn't make any sense why he'd been chosen of all people, and it made even less sense why Nyx would choose to make a mortal enemy of him if he were ever supposed to end up that powerful.

"You remain silent. Good, it means you're thinking."

"You're lying. You have to be! It's not-" the Primordial's shrill cackle cut off Percy.

"I can be called many things, boy. The Ephemeral Miracle of Creation. The Source of Sweet Repose. The Veil of the Dark Sky and more boy, so much more than you could ever hope to fathom." Nyx's voice grew husky as the high of her power got to her head.

It was weird.

"But, I have never borne proprietorship to the title of Deceiver." She continued nonchalantly, "The very act disgusts me, to utter a lie is to admit one's inept weakness. I fear nothing. Least of all the consequences of my actions. No, Perseus, I am not lying to you. You realize this; you just choose to be difficult. A complication I fully intend to rectify."

"What do you mean by that..."

The goddess turned back to him at the question, a blinding smile on her star-lit gnashers.

"3 months. That is all the time I will give you. If you haven't gotten your act together by then to my satisfaction, I will shift my plans onto our child and discard you. You will get 3 months and 3 trials in which my brood shall hunt you down tirelessly until either your lifeblood slakes their whetted appetites or you manage to prevail over them."

Okay, yeah. Fuck no.

He wasn't going to put up with being a show pony for the goddess's sadistic whims any longer.

"And if I say no? If I decide death to be the better option than being pushed around by you forever, then what? I'm the Hero of Olympus. As crappy as the job is in general, the all-expenses paid trip to Elysium more than makes up for it's mortality rate."

Nyx laughed in his face, "Always with the jokes, aren't you, brat? Very well, I know you won't defy me because for every opponent you fail to dispatch to my liking is a strike on the life of your beloved. Your eternity upon death may be set in stone..." The goddess drifted to his side instantly, smoking black tendrils encapsulating his form from the neck down as she whispered into his ear: "But, can the same be said for your insignificant, mortal mother?"

"...My mom's a saint. Elysium would be lucky to have a Goddess of her caliber in its fields."

"Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.~" The goddess sang softly, " Her status as Poseidon's thousandth mistress may grant her more autonomy than most, who knows. However...how quick you are to forget, Death itself accedes fealty to me first and foremost, it would be pitifully easy to convince him to grant me first pickings of the crop should I require it. The brat hasn't offered me a Mother's Day present for quite some time now, come to think of it."

Percy hated this goddess so fucking much it had to have been a cardinal sin.

His mother!

This monster was using his mother's soul as a prize for a Mother's Day gift?!

"You're pure evil!" Percy bellowed.

"You experience, yet you do not learn." Nyx sighed with palpable disappointment, "Good and Evil. Right and Wrong. The Righteous and Sinful. Those fancy terms carry their own lofty morality-questioning definitions, yet the weight of their application could only ever find credence in the heart of the beholder."

The goddess twirled a finger in the air idly, reality bending to her will with every swish before the room around them evaporated to reveal the beauty of the universe. The view was magnificent—an endless polychrome of ever-swirling blue, red, and purple miasma cradling a nigh-endless system of planets, asteroid belts, and shining constellations.

And at the center of it all?

At the very top of a flight of star-spattered stairs towered the Stygian Iron throne of Nyx, the occupant's mass big enough to tower over even the Burj Khalifa as she stared at the wonder of creation with an apathetic frown, her hand a cushion for her cheek while the other idled itself with twirling an entire constellation.

"I am a God, you dull creature. The same way you feel nothing for the butchered cattle you and your kin feast upon, for the monsters you continue to send down to Tartarus with nary a thought, or the insects you crush underfoot whenever the callous feeling so pleases you is the same sentiment I've shared for all of Creation since time immemorial."

The goddess tossed the constellation to the void as she fashioned an entire planet out of nothing, the terrified screams of billions of minuscule lifeforms reaching him from all the way down there.

"I am not evil, Perseus. Cunning? Yes. Spiteful? Most definitely, but not evil. To be truly evil is to acknowledge my adversaries as more than the dust my robes kick up as I tread over their corpses. To be truly evil is to admit that the concerns of lesser beings affect me enough to consider a retaliatory action to them. I am not evil Perseus."

"I am Strong." The Night punctuated her final statement by crushing the planet to dust, "Do you understand that?"

Percy ignored the question in favor of glaring at the goddess. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of beating him to a pulp again.

"Not quite yet, eh? No matter, in time you will. Awaken, Perseus Epimenos, I am no longer interested in your presence."

No.

No, she didn't get to do that. She didn't get to terrorize him to this extent, then dismiss him like a common servant.

She didn't deserve to get away with this.

"...I'll get even. I swear it, on the Voice of Creation. Somehow, someway, I'll make you pay in blood and more for everything you've done to me and my family."

Nyx's answering grin was lethal. Her lone golden eye blazed like a divine lighthouse as she cackled at his audacity in amusement.

"That's the spirit, 'Godkiller'. Live with pride. Fight with zeal and authority evermore. Continue to endure everlasting for my pleasure."

The void began to tunnel underneath Percy, narrowing to a pinprick, creating a one-way shaft to Percy's unconscious body. Percy's astral projection liquefied from his legs and continued to melt upwards, yet he managed one last hate-filled glare at the monster laughing at his misery.

"NYX!"

"~Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you~" The goddess' nebulous voice continued to echo through the tunnel with him as he fell through, even as the world went black all around him, he could still hear the mocking final verse. "~Happy Birthday, my dear, dear Perseus. Happy Birthday to you.~"

Percy woke in a cold sweat from his mother's embrace to a roar that shook the world.

Y*C*O * Y*W

Chapter 9: Sonny the Poodle 2

Sonny The Poodle 2 (Electric Boogalo)

19 August 2010, East River, Manhattan, New York, USA

Half An Hour Since Percy's Talk With Nyx.

PERCY COULDN'T HELP BUT FEEL DISAPPOINTED.

And more than a little annoyed, to be honest.

He was sure that first roar had shaved off a few years of his lifespan, yet he'd managed to push through that terror, coupled with his shellshock from his talk with Nyx, to meet the challenge head-on.

A quick I love you to his delirious mother and a much-needed wardrobe change had found him tearing through the flooded, lamp-lit streets of the Upper East Side, with a grip on his ballpoint pen firm enough to ground marble to dust.

Jostling easy-going pedestrians, running traffic lights, and all in all being an absolute metropolitan nuisance, Percy didn't think he'd ever been cussed out as badly by the average road rager in his life as today, yet he could live with the insults so long as he could live to see the next sunrise.

The sounds of window-shattering roars and the tremors from earth-cratering strides had had his mind racing even faster than his drumming heartbeat. Whatever was hunting him had to be massive; add that to the patronage of a cold-blooded douchebag like Nyx, likely ancient and powerful too.

He didn't doubt that he'd have to pull out all the stops and more if he wanted to walk out of this battle with all his insides inside, so he'd made his stand by the East River. The closest body of water he could find on such short notice.

Putting aside the coming confrontation, the city's usual hum was muted, replaced by the steady drumming of stray water droplets from rusted roofing sheets against the concrete. Shadows stretched long and dark around him from storied buildings, further deepening the sense of isolation in the air. The city seemed to have sagged under the weight of the earlier freak storm, its energy drained, leaving only the wailing sounds of the frigid winds echoing through the empty streets.

New York was as empty and bereft of activity as he could hope for it to be at this hour, and he had it on good authority that whatever active cameras caught sight of his abilities would be scrambled by the mist.

Percy was as ready for this battle as he would ever be.

However, His disappointment and annoyance came from his opponent's unexplainable tardiness. He'd made Camp here fifteen minutes ago, Riptide's gleaming bronze resting primly on his shoulder as he leaned on a rickety old balustrade with his back to the choppy waters.

His enemy was still bumbling its way through the streets of Manhattan searching for him; the faint tremors were all the proof he needed for the fact, but by all means, something so powerful and so close should have sniffed him out before he'd even made it home in the first place. Either the creature was a closet sadist, reveling in Percy's terror-filled anticipation, or the overgrown buffoon was woefully incompetent; there was no in-between.

He idled himself with a bit of stargazing as his fingers drummed incomprehensible out-of-tune beats on the metal.

However, he allowed his inward thoughts to wander untethered. His discussion with Nyx left his head more flummoxed by all the exposition she'd dumped on him so casually.

In an hour or several, he'd somehow averted a genocide and had his view of the world swept out from right under his feet; he'd been pushed right to the brink of brain death and witnessed the utter evisceration of a Primordial's domain.

And for the cherry on top?

He'd gone and gotten himself blackmailed by a self-righteous sociopath like an absolute punk.

Percy's fingers created hollow indents in the steel as he gnashed his teeth in annoyance. His annoyance only continued to stew as memories and sensations replayed themselves frame by frame in his head, the sound of Nyx's mocking laughter playing out in his mind's eye like nails on a chalkboard.

How could he have been so stupid?

He'd already allowed the goddess to capitalize on his weakness for his loved ones before, yet he was repeating history with the same goddess again!

Percy's solace lies in the fact that the goddess hated his guts enough not even to want to consider taking him again. Besides, she'd already gotten most of what she wanted from him.

His child.

Taking the goddess's words about never lying as fact...Percy had a kid on the way.

Him.

A kid.

The very thought made him feel sick to his stomach. Percy didn't care how callous or heartless it made him seem; he couldn't muster up the nerve to feel anything resembling positive for the little tyke, not with the context behind its conception.

He wasn't quite cruel enough to wish for the poor brat to be stillborn – even he could understand the concept of placing the blame upon the offender – but he really wouldn't lose any sleep if he never saw the kid a day in his life.

"The powers of this world will be tripping over themselves for your seed or allegiance much sooner than you think."

Percy let out a savage growl at the thought.

He dared the fools to try. They'd have to settle for his cold, dead corpse before he ever allowed himself to go through with that aga-

A flash of orange light from his far right was all the warning Percy got before the riverbank erupted in flesh-peeling steam and flames.

...

He'd survived the blast, his natural reflexes and years of battle experience his only saving grace as he busied himself with fanning out the stray flames on his t-shirt.

"Stupid monster and their stupid flame breath, this LZ was vintage!"

In times like this, Percy wished he'd petitioned Chiron for demigod-grade thermal vision goggles. Visibility should be a priority, given how much night-time fighting the demigods often found themselves in. His enemy prowled around him through the fog, its claws scraping deep troughs through the asphalt with every earthshaking step.

Percy had to get out of this smokescreen.

He was too out in the open here for his enemy to work with, but any wrong move this caged in would see him ripped to shreds.

He grinned in delight as he had an epiphany: He didn't need to move much anymore to flood entire cities.

The son of Poseidon focused on all the water around him. He ordered the river to froth and crest, to rage and to bring down havoc upon his enemies. He felt the familiar tugging sensation in his gut from whenever he commanded liquids, his smile growing unhinged with anticipation for-

That sensation became a soul-splitting agony when the water refused to obey him.

A wave of pain reverberated through him with his heart as the epicenter; his gut felt like it'd been dumped in a mosh pit of radioactive Pit scorpions and been told to dance for its life.

His legs lost balance, and his hands flew to his throat as he heaved his guts out; Riptide tossed somewhere far behind him, and to his horror, he was greeted with a deluge of writhing black maggots and corrosive brownish-yellow acid.

His vision became clouded with red, yet he could feel the ground rupturing all around him with every passing second of his bloodcurdling screams.

Sensing an opening, his enemy wasted no time capitalizing on Percy's weakness, its massive bulk bulldozing him head-on with the force of a charging school bus. Percy sailed end over end for yards before smashing through the window of a dilapidated building in an unceremonious heap on his side. A stab of pain pulled him out of his funk long enough for him to see his blood-soaked rib protruding out of his sternum.

Putting aside all the glass latching onto his body like a swarm of intoxicated mosquitoes.

His body was lit up with the stuff like an ornamented Christmas tree, with a stray shard lodged a foot deep into his collarbone and a deep, open wound in his throat. Already he could feel his back soaked from a pool of his blood, but that was pushed to the back of his mind because what the fuck?!

What was up with the water?!

Even pitted against divine beings such as Polybotes or Akhlys or the spirit of the East River itself, he'd never gotten such a visceral objection from a water body in his life, but here he was getting his soul split in two from trying to form a single tidal wave?

Was there something on the horoscope out for his neck today?!

Percy blacked out, and for a second and he swore he could see the waters of the River Styx splashing on the riverbank right before him. He was teetering on the edge of death from blood loss.

The how and why of the East River's apparent betrayal could be pondered later. He had to find a way to salvage the remaining blood he still had in his body. In the back of his mind, he heard Gaia's muted cries of distress. He pushed back a bloody cough as his mind raced for answers before coming to a stop on a single conclusion.

He might still be able to use that technique, but what if-

NO.

The 'buts' of the circumstances didn't matter; he had to try either way. Percy was looking at the lamest death in the history of Greek tragedies; he hadn't even seen the enemy yet. He couldn't let things end so easily without even getting to know what had killed him.

And even then, when the odds were between him dying from the failure of the technique or dying from blood loss, what did he have to lose in trying?

He let out a croaked exhale, closed his eyes, and focused on himself. Percy thought back to his trials in Tartarus. He drew power from his feelings of inadequacy in the fight against the Arai, his feelings of hopelessness against the journey, and the subsequent battles that followed.

His insatiable rage at the endless hordes of immortals and monsters that believed themselves qualified to control him.

It took a second longer than he'd liked, but he soon found his astral self swimming in the depths of his soul, the massive, sea-green avatar of his pure essence bound head to toe in chains, a horrifying welcome to him.

Percy felt his blood boil in indignation at the sight of the weighty chain locked to his neck with six different links. The very thought that whatever fool had done this to him had felt it prudent enough to leash him like a rabid dog had him frothing at the mouth, but there was nothing for it at the moment. He wasn't getting that off any time soon.

And besides, that wasn't the ability he needed for now.

He swam around his body as he searched for a particular power before stopping at the small of his avatar's back, this spot having the weakest set of bonds, all but confirming his suspicions.

He reached out a hand to the chain and tugged on it fiercely, his strength waning with every second, the black at the edges of his vision crept closer. The chain held fast, divine power pushing back against him at every step, but Percy couldn't take no for an answer.

Not for this.

He'd lost enough already. He'd suffered enough already; he would not lose the power he'd earned over his own body.

His vision glitched before the hooded face of a beautiful red-haired woman with eyes the color of sapphires engulfed his sight; in her hands was a weighty blood-red spear with thorns and Celtic runes adorning the shaft.

He'd...Percy had seen her before; he just didn't know where or when.

"Ye'll find yer way to me again someday, won't ye, lad?" The woman's voice was firm and uncompromising, drowned with the lilting brogue of a strong Scottish drawl, "Yer mammy won't hear a peep of it, but I know. I know deep in my bones yer of the Blood. Poseidon and Sorcha be damned Meredith, yer my kin too. Live free."

Percy roared, and it was as if a bomb had gone off inside him. His astral projection lit up with a burning blood-red hue as he gripped the stifling chains and rent.

However, destroying the shackles wasn't enough, with the metaphysical bonds already reforming around his soul and barring him entry. However, he didn't waste a second; he latched onto the little that he could and devoured. Swallowing as his life depended on it, he sucked in the spilled and gushing blood back to his body in a matter of seconds.

His soul was smacked back into consciousness in an instant as his eyes shot open with a desperate inhale; he shot to a sitting position even as his wounds continued to congeal with the glass shards inside of him. They hurt like hell, but Percy couldn't remove them without losing control from the pain.

"-RSEUS! PERSEUS! Oh, thank the fates. Thank the fucking fates! Do you have any idea-"

Percy ignored Gaia's rambling as he took a cautious inhale and tried to think of a plausible solution. A dip in a river or the ocean would have dealt with the wounds in seconds...but relying on the water had gotten him into this state, to begin with; he didn't believe for a second it would do him the common decency to fix him.

"Stand at attention, brat! You brought this upon yourself. Take this battle seriously!" Gaea roared like a grizzled drill sergeant.

Her advice wasn't one without merit, though she could take a couple of lessons in her presentation. He'd made his bed. Now, he had to-

"...Oh fuck I'm in danger."

The first thing Percy saw was the imposing silhouette of a towering monster with devil horns and a writhing tail from the smoke. Its body was easily as wide as a one-way street and tall as a house. Three sets of glowing blood-red eyes glared at his form like Percy was a juicy-looking rat.

The beast let out a fiery growl before a beefy paw grafted in glowing fracture-like patterns shot out from the fog and shattered the pavement. Its sharp, serrated claws kicked up sparks as they scraped over the asphalt.

A hairy maroon, blood-caked mane broke through the fog, attached to a bulging body of corded muscles underneath a glimmering coat the color of gold with streaks of ash.

Another step brought out its body fully, a high-pitched bleat announcing the monster's goat's head. The clopping of its taut back hooves drew Percy's attention to the poison-spewing diamondback hissing right out of its shaggy behind.

The beast had probably ditched its rhinestone dog collar somewhere in Tartarus, but Percy would recognize the foam-dripping chops of Sonny the Poodle even in his fondest daydreams.

Nyx had sicced the fucking Chimera of all monsters on him.

Which was—why?! Just why?!

This went beyond simple pettiness; this was stupid! How the Hades was he supposed to pull off a win as injured as he was here, with most of his powers on the fritz?

That was the question, wasn't it?

He wasn't.

Even if Percy beat this monster today, he'd get another by next month and another.

Then another, and another until he wasn't quick enough anymore, until the enemy was too strong for him.

Till he stopped getting lucky...till he stopped getting lucky.

Percy hacked out a strangled laugh; the answer was so simple.

He wasn't supposed to be able to beat this monster...it didn't mean he couldn't.

He shouldn't have been able to beat the Minotaur at 12, he hadn't been expected to hold up the Sky or triumph over Kronos, and it shouldn't have been at all possible for him to escape Tartarus, let alone kill Gaea...yet he'd managed to pull it off all the same.

Percy was an awful tester and an even worse gambler if that were possible...but more than his life was on the line here. Nyx had brought his Mother into this, and wasn't that a horrifying thought? He'd never even considered that such threats could be used against him until now.

It didn't matter.

It didn't matter.

Percy arose slowly, the simple action jostling his severe wounds even further. His trembling hands fumbled for his pen, a silent prayer going out to whatever higher power had thought to teach the mangy beast before him common fighting decency.

He stepped out of the run-down building and gave the beast his most charming, blood-stained smile, "Sonny! Buddy! How've you been, man? How's the wife? The kids? The Anteater?"

The Chimera prowled towards him with casual, borderline arrogant ease. The only visible reaction to his taunts was a low rumbling from its lion's throat, sending shockwaves to the ruined pavement.

And the monster laughing at him was only the second-to-last thing Percy had been expecting from it.

"...Your false bravado would be a tad bit believable if you weren't half dead and bleeding before me."

"Holy shit, you talk?!"

The Chimera's voice echoed from its lion's head with a deep, croaky pitch. It sounded more like the crazed raving of a scavenger like Gollum than that of its other, more noble contemporaries, like Aslan or Mufasa.

"Did you think I communicated with growls, bleats, and hisses, brat? Come now, that makes for terrible conversation even among Cyclopes."

Okay. Okay. It was kind of freaky to hear the beast talk in complete sentences. He wasn't even going to lie, but the Chimera had been alive for what had to be thousands of years at this point. It wasn't too out of the possibility that it could learn to put thoughts into words. Percy had talked to dumber Neanderthals with a decent hold on English.

Besides, this worked well in his favor here; half of his arsenal relied on his wit and snark. The Chimera would fall for Percy's taunts better if it could understand what Percy was insulting it with.

This could work well for Percy.

He hoped.

"Ya know, you're pretty smug for a walking taxidermy piece. You couldn't finish the job when I was 12 and starving. Times have changed, buddy, and your five minutes of fame are up. Get out of my sight and go back to whatever hole you've been hiding in."

The Chimera guffawed like a hyena, "And dismiss me of the honor of vanquishing the famed 'Hero of Olympus'? Inconceivable! Even from here, the sheer aroma of your blood is...exquisite." The monster stood on its hind legs, its paws clasped in a pious pose, and roared to the night, "Glory be to the Dark Mother for this opportunity! Breakfast, Glory, and closure all wrapped in one simple task!"

"Simple?!" Percy gasped in mock offense, "Sonny, I'll have you know I'm at least a 'Smite now; ask questions never.' in Zeus' nightmares."

The Chimera slammed back down on the ground mere inches from Percy's face, a disturbing look of sadistic mania coloring all three sets of its eyes as it took a generous inhale of Percy's blood.

It almost made the monster look...human.

No, the look was human. Percy had seen that vicious smirk somewhere before, but...where?

"Boy, the best you could do to the most incompetent of hellhounds as you are now is to kill them with laughter, and I'm not just talking about your injuries. Your shattered divinity...it only speaks to your credit as a warrior. That you can even draw breath as it is, lesser halflings would have combusted upon themselves for daring to flex their patron's domain with such a violated Core. Do you have any sense in your head, boy?! You almost cost me a meal!"

A violated Core? Was that the reaction he'd gotten from the river? "...how on Earth do you know that?"

'And who else knew?' was the unasked question. The Chimera seemed to gather the subtext if its full-blown human grin was any indication.

"How did I know? Boy, any monster worth their reputation could gather such information at a glance if they so much as tried to, your scent is practically nonexistent...it's the sheer disbelief at such a fall from grace would leave them stricken with inaction."

The Chimera was positively salivating at the sight of Percy now, its desperate pants creating warm, smelly mists in the air, "I know I was surprised when I caught wind of it. I truly believed I'd lost my chance back in those woods, but the presence that accursed spawn of the Messenger...the risk far outweighed the reward."

"What the Hades are you talking about? When did you meet me? What messenger spawn? I haven't seen you in years. Do you think I wouldn't recognize your ugly mug a mile away?"

"Touchy-touchy Perseus. There is no need for insults; you have seen me. Earlier in the evening, in fact. You just didn't see me."

Right before Percy's eyes, each of the Chimera's monstrous heads shifted to more human faces, starting with the goat and snake's heads. The two took on the faces of two college-age girls, a brunette and a blonde. The last head morphed into the familiar face of a handsome young man with close-cropped brown hair and a vicious smirk.

"...Crew Cut Brown," Percy murmured, horror marring his voice and face.

The monster had been so close.

Gods, the monster had been behind him at some point.

How had he not noticed? How had it fooled Mrs O'Leary? How many kids had died from such a trick? How many monsters had this same trick in their pockets?

"... How?" was all he could ask; his mind was too frayed to answer more than that.

The Chimera reverted to its original form in an instant. Its jagged lion's teeth were bared for murder, and its snake and goat heads were hissing and bleating with laughter.

"Trade secret, boy. I couldn't afford to blow my cover with 'Autolycus' so close to me; accursed bastard had been hunting me for weeks at that point. Your arrival couldn't have been more fortuitous; I have no doubt he would have tried to kill me tonight. When the Mistress called for your head, I knew for certain that our encounter could only be destined, but I am not without gratitude. A debt is owed Perseus, I live free once more because of you. Surrender now, and I swear on my honor to make your demise quick and painless."

...

Percy opened his mouth slowly to respond, the disgusting straggler's crimson orbs already lighting up in anticipation before-

"ARRRGGGHHHH!"

The monster roared as its paws flailed about for its lacerated eye. A torrent of orange flames shot out of its mouth to baste Percy, but he was already 100 meters away from the beast as it thrashed about. The visible steam trail chuffing from his glowing, bloodied body and his blood-soaked sword was the only indication he'd been at all close to the monster.

The wounded beast gnashed its teeth in a fury at the boy, the lion head's lone eye fueled with enough pure vitriol to slice through cement.

Sonny hadn't even seen him. It'd underestimated the boy, but how could you blame it?

The boy was half-dead, yet the Chimera hadn't even been able to perceive him drawing his sword. How on Earth was it possible for the child to move so fast?!

"You can't even put that promise on the Styx, can you? You want a fight? Be my guest, but listen and listen well, you fucking vulture, because I'm not going to repeat myself."

Percy pointed Riptide's bloodied blade forward as he spat at the monster, his eyes blazing with Greek fire, "I don't care how strong you are. I could give a damn about how fast you are. I dealt with Kronos; I destroyed the Earth Mother. I can see the future, you don't live to see the next sunrise."

He adjusted his grip on Riptide, a confident ease flooding his stance as he entered more familiar territory. It was an act—an obvious one, if he was being honest. The Chimera was one of the few monsters Percy had never been able to beat.

The son of Poseidon hadn't even laid a scratch on its hide, as inexperienced as he'd been when a different god had first sicced the fleabag on him, but Percy was different now. He was older, stronger, and more experienced in combat; it would be different this time.

It had to be.

Injuries or not, powers or not, he would kill this monster if it were the last thing he ever did.

The last thing he ever did.

Percy let out a rueful chuckle; how many demigods had he heard repeat that sentence to themselves?

Was this all they could ever hope to amount to? To keep staring down the barrel of a gun till they couldn't hope to finesse their way out of the never-ending standoff?

Was this the fate Ananke had seen as just to force upon his family?

That couldn't be right, could it?

No, there had to be another way for them. There had to be a path they weren't seeing that wasn't to bend the knee and hide in the camps forever or die.

And if not...maybe Nyx was right. Maybe Fate was a concept the world didn't have much of a need for anymore.

Percy allowed his blood to flow freely within his body and out of it – open wounds and all – without a sound, every ounce of concentration put into pumping and vibrating the lactic acid in his body at a mile a minute as he prepared for one last suicide charge.

His trump card.

Manipulating his blood and the other liquids inside his body. He had no idea where the power had originated from, but it sure as shit didn't come from Poseidon.

It required him to vibrate and heat the adrenaline and lactic acid hormones inside him at a frequency fast enough to speed up his blood flow, providing enough oxygen and nutrients to support his body moving at a speed just above subsonic.

He'd have never considered using it if he hadn't been pushed to the end of his rope in that battle with Akhlys.

Hades, how much of his proficiency with his powers had come from his bout with the long-dead Primordial?

"You are a walking abomination, Perseus." The goddess had croaked out, "A Harbinger of chaos. Mother would be better off killing now rather than later. Your own blood? You would use your own blood as a means to an end...you might as well never leave this den of horrors."

...

The words 'Thank you, Akhlys.' were words he'd never be caught dead saying, but he couldn't deny the fruits of their battle hadn't saved his hide more than a few times.

The move wasn't without its drawbacks, though.

Handy as it was, using his body in an unnatural way left his bones as mushy as Play-Doh. With its ever-changing time limit, he often had no idea whether he'd wake up in a warm, fluffy bed after he collapsed or before the Judges of the Underworld after he took a catnap in the middle of a battle.

Yet, the fear and the possibility of death were inconsequential to him at the moment; his end was looking right in the eye with a slobbering set of jaws. Nyx had told him verbatim she wanted 'entertainment' from him...it was only appropriate he responded to such open disrespect the only way he knew he'd ever known how to.

He gave the beast a come-hither gesture as his eyes grew half-lidded: "Come get some, Sonny. I'll be sending you down home to your mommy and Mistress with something to remember me by."

The Chimera roared in fury, its voice booming at a disorienting pitch loud enough to shatter windows entire city blocks away.

Percy met the challenge head-on, the ground cracking and shattering underneath him with every thunderous stride at the monster. The Chimera didn't disappoint. Its speed was more than a match for Percy's as it tore past the landscape and closed the gap between them in seconds.

The beast leaped high into the air at the very last second to baste him with a torrent of flames, but Percy had been damn near praying for it to employ the tactic. He slid across the slick, wet asphalt like a base runner, Riptide arcing over him by instinct and slicing a satisfying gash on the monster's front foreleg.

A roar of anger was all the son of Poseidon received for the wound, but it might as well have been a rallying cry for him. Percy didn't waste even a second to give the monster a chance to regain his bearings; with the monster's frontal mobility and half its sight all but crippled, he switched his focus to putting an end to the most annoying part of the monster:

The snake head.

Unfortunately, his enemy had been expecting the play. The instant he pivoted on his heel, Percy was greeted by the fleshy, pink maw of the serpent head and a spray of acid-green poison. His enhanced speed served as a boon to his reflexes; however, as he twisted, his body rolled along the wet, slimy scales of the serpent while simultaneously shifting his hold on Riptide to an icepick grip.

A slash wouldn't do much more than annoy the beast at this angle, but a stab from the Celestial Bronze on the monster's colossal rump?

That could work.

The monster's high-pitched scream as he plunged Riptide to the hilt was like music to Percy's ears. The dexterous boy leaped into the air, planting both feet on opposite sides of the sword hilt with a sadistic smile before roughly tearing Riptide out of the Chimera's hide. The savage motion dragged out a considerable length of the monster's intestines.

Percy stumbled on the monster's back before leveling a weighty jab to the goat's head for kicks. He brought his blade up for an overhead chop on the snake's head before a brain-blasting, hypersonic goat bleat right next to his ears threw his senses into a panicked frenzy.

"AGGRAVATING WORM!" The beast roared with a breath of flames, slamming its paws to the pavement, bucking Percy off, and then dropkicking him in the chest with its goat hocks.

With the way that attack shattered it, Percy's ribcage may as well have been transfigured into a 1-to-1 copy of a jumbled jigsaw puzzle. His body swam through the air like a Curry free throw before his spine arced over the bracket of a stray light post. He fell to the sidewalk from 6 meters on his punctured side; Riptide was lost somewhere in the chaos.

Percy hacked out a strangled cough as the blowback from his technique electrocuted him, his breaths coming out in short, desperate pants at the sight of his blood mixed in with tiny pieces of bone.

That wasn't good.

He tried to rise to his feet, but they'd long since tapped out on him from the overuse of his blood manipulation; his vision was relaying images to his brain in triplicate now. He was finished.

Gaia chose this 'opportune' moment to give her two cents: "Stand and fight, Perseus! What sort of warrior bows his head before their enemy? GET UP!"

"Are you nuts, lady? You think I'm sucking face with the gravel because I love the taste of cement?!"

"For once in your wretched life, listen to me! This is not the time for your snark and jokes, boy! Don't you get it? If you do not fight, we. Will. Die!"

The sheer desperation in the goddess' voice had his brain buffering, memories of her spiteful cheek from earlier clashing with the terror that seemed to echo through their mindlink.

What would happen to Gaia if he died here?

Would she go with him to the Elysian fields? Or would her mind become trapped in the same catatonic state as her long-dead husband?

Percy didn't know and was ashamed to say he didn't care much. He was at the end of his rope; there wasn't much he could do now. Nyx had only threatened his mother's life on the threat of his choosing not to follow her orders, which he'd technically done, right?

"...I'm sorry, Gaea, I can't. I'm too...Nyx was wrong. There's no grand destiny for me. It ends here."

"Perseus! Perseus, listen to me; I am begging. I am begging you, you must live. Please, I-"

Gaia's request and sniffles were cut short by a mangled paw slamming down on the gravel right next to his face, shards of gravel and dust pelting him like sharp little raindrops, yet Percy couldn't do much more than groan in weak protest.

He was done.

Percy had failed his test. He didn't have the strength to go further anymore.

The Chimera's snake head lifted Percy by the collar of his shirt to its mangled face, "Defeating you is an honor I will not soon forget, Great Hero. Die with pride; you have earned your rest."

Its mouth widened to a comical degree before its bowel glowed with a blinding orange light as the beast prepared to charbroil Percy alive. Percy didn't bother fighting back, simply closing his eyes and awaiting the end.

He'd done his best with what he had, he'd-

No.

No, he hadn't.

From the start, he'd treated this battle like a silly game. He'd allowed his mind to wander like an idiot when he'd known an enemy was hunting for him. He'd let the enemy get into his head and beat him at his own game.

He'd been arrogant.

Somewhere along the way, he'd let himself fall for his own hype.

Was it after what Nyx had done to him or before that? He didn't know, but at some point, it had become easier for him to fall back on his exaggerated achievements rather than deal with the reality of how much of a failure he was.

He'd lost his innocence. He'd lost the love of his life. And with the loss of his powers, he'd lost most of his identity as a son of Poseidon.

His feats and victories amounted to nothing now that the Penumbran Spades exist. He was about to lose his life like all the other fabled heroes before him.

The heat of the Chimera's fire burned hotter, going all the way to 240°F and whirring like a jet engine before lift off mere inches from his face, yet Percy couldn't do more than grit his teeth at the implications.

He'd failed his mother.

Sally Jackson.

The woman who had birthed him.

The mother who raised and nurtured him to the best of her abilities.

The Goddess who had continued to love him despite the pathetic monster he'd allowed himself to become.

Percy had failed her so utterly at every turn it was almost tragic, yet she'd loved him and called him her son with all the genuine pride her frail heart could muster.

For the longest time now, it had been just the two of them against the world, a boy with no one to turn to but his mother and a woman with nothing to hold claim to but her son. How would she take his death? Would she ever be able to move on from it with time?

He knew he wouldn't.

Percy should never have been born. If all he was good for was to bring pain to the loved ones, Percy would have rather never been born.

A stray tear trailed down from Percy's cheek involuntarily; he didn't want to die.

He didn't want to die now and leave things so unfinished; he wanted to live and make sure the campers – his family - were prepared for the times to come. He wanted to live as a man free of his trauma and problems around a campfire, surrounded by his loved ones.

He wanted to see his mother and give her a good strong hug, to go through one more round of Uno and Monopoly against her and Paul on game night, he wanted to go to Montauk with her again and roast a couple of smores by the seaside, he wanted to bake a set of blue cookies and a blue birthday cake with her for her coming birthday, he wanted...he wanted-

Percy wanted to tell his mother how much he loved her one last time.

The Chimeras' flames engulfed Percy's torso first. Whatever remaining resistance to flames he'd inherited as a son of Poseidon quickly lost the fight as the monster upped the heat threefold.

Percy couldn't even muster the will to scream at the surging pain; his mind was much too clouded with self-loathing.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry."

The heat became far too overwhelming for his divine protection to withstand; the nerve endings in his arms constricted on themselves like snail shells, and if his chest hadn't already been so brutalized, maybe the scent of medium rare wagyu wafting through his nostrils would have horrified him.

His throat and tongue felt drier than he'd ever thought possible; his vision was torn between the mortal world around him and the empty eyeholes of Charon the Ferryman, the aged immortal's skeletal hand already poised in anticipation for a drach-

"OI! FLEABAG! GET YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF MY KID!"

Percy had just about given up the ghost when the ringing bang of buckshot silenced the empty street like a judge's gavel. The Chimera let go of its hold on Percy as an external force sent its massive body flying.

The son of Poseidon's emaciated husk collided roughly with the pavement, but Percy couldn't feel much of anything to protest.

His soul felt like it was hanging onto his body by a thread...but it would be a cold day in hell before Percy Jackson chose not to reach out for his mother when she was so close to him.

Percy could see her face so clearly. His mother was still dressed in her tie-dyed sundress and beaten leather Birkenstocks. Her hair had been pulled back to a messy bun, showing off her worry lines and bloodshot eyes. Her hands were bone-white on the shaft and pommel of a double-barreled shotgun, with its business end still smoking with a bronze hue.

His 'helpless' old mom had gotten her hands on Celestial Bronze ammo. The choked little snort he let out may as well have been an uproarious guffaw; he was so proud.

Sally tossed the valuable weapon to the side like a soggy handrag in favor of cradling her dying son.

She looked horrified.

Her bloodshot eyes were pouring out tears in unending buckets, and her ragged breaths came out in uncomfortable hiccups; she reached a shaky hand to brush out a few stray strands of hair from his face to place a kiss on his forehead while her other hand circled his form protectively.

"My boy...my baby boy. Per-" His mother couldn't finish the sentence before she devolved into a round of uncontrollable sobs; her hold on him grew tighter even as the shards of glass tore into her own body.

Percy wanted to hug her back, try to reassure her that he'd somehow pull through this, and make a silly joke just to hear her tinkling laugh once more.

They'd been bantering over cocoa just a few hours ago; where had the time gone?

He wanted to do so much more cool stuff with his mother on his 'vacation,' but he no longer had that option.

...

So he told her something he would always manage to scrounge up the will for.

"I...I love you, Mom...I love you...And I'm so proud to be your kid."

That was it.

Although his presentation was hoarse and sloppy, he had fulfilled what he deemed most important, and that was more than enough for him.

Percy Jackson's last memory would be of cherishing his mother; he could die in peace.

So, of course, the furry buzzkill wouldn't be content to let him take his closing bow with a smile on his face, the useless monster already at the zenith of a leap that was certain to crush his mother and his corpse into mush, vengeance written across its apoplectic features with it's brutalized goat head hanging onto its body by a floppy sinew.

Percy hadn't planned it.

He swore up and down that he never intended for it to happen that way; he'd only tried to shield his mother.

He couldn't explain it.

Percy's body should have been paralyzed; he was sure of that, but the thought of his mother losing her life before she even got the time to mourn him made his blood boil. To bear with the knowledge that she hadn't even gotten a day to herself before Nyx could nab her grubby mitts on her soul had his body moving on its own.

Time seemed to slow before his eyes as his charred left hand swept at the air right where the Chimera's lion's head had slotted itself into, a ghostly childlike hand trailing right behind his. His mother's body was frozen mid-turn to the monster behind them as the capillaries on his seared limb glowed with a boiling pink hue, and the air around it seemed to vibrate and spark with shock waves and electricity.

Percy's hand smashed itself a foot into the monster's face before time resumed its flow with a deafening clap of thunder.

There wasn't a cloud in the night sky as far as the eye could see.

The Chimera rocketed away from Jackson's immediate airspace with the speed of a ballistic missile, its massive body punching holes through entire buildings further than Percy's vision could allow him to see and go beyond the Upper East Side's district limits. Percy counted to 10 before the sound of a colossal explosion shook the city of Manhattan to its foundations.

The blast's shock waves and tremors could be felt from his location. He didn't want to imagine what had happened in the immediate area.

Percy nodded in acceptance even as he took in the state of his destroyed arm. His bones were sticking out of his flesh in about four different places, and he could see his veins snagged on the edges of a few stray fractures, but he didn't care.

His mother was safe for now.

He'd pay whatever price, suffer any humiliation-physical or mental-a thousand times over for the people he loved if it ever came down to it.

That was just who he was.

And so it was recorded:

On the 19th of August 2010, at around 2:46 am Perseus Meredith Jackson, survived by his mother Mrs. Sally Jackson-Blofis, and his stepfather, Mr. Paul Blofis away at a conference at the time of the incident, met his untimely end on the bed of the Lenox Hill Hospital as a result of cardiac arrest following a series of devastating injuries, believed to have been caused by the explosion that struck terror over the streets of East Harlem.

The city's thoughts and prayers go out to the Jackson family. The young man turned 17 just the day before.

He was only a boy.

Y*C*O*Y*W

Chapter 10: Who Is Without Sin

"Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering."

- Theodore Roosevelt

Who Is Without Sin

2 5 August 2010, Thalia's Pine Tree, Long Island Sound, New York, USA

7 Days And 9 Hours Since Percy's Death.

THALIA HATED RAINSTORMS.

Her father would probably smack her upside the head with a bolt for such a blasphemous thought, but she couldn't help it. For as long as she could remember, she'd always hated the sight and the aftermath of rain.

It got her clothes all weird and icky. It messed up her hair dye and mascara.

It reminded her of the days she'd spent in the cold on the run from monsters with Annabeth and Luke when they couldn't afford to put up a fire.

It reminded Thalia of her mother.

Of Beryl fucking Grace. Serial alcoholic, liar, and child abuser.

The rain always spoke of all the lies her mother used to tell her, and she continued to tell Jason before the addled crone gave him away to the literal wolves.

"Never be afraid of thunder, Thalia; it's only your father telling you he loves you." She'd say in the few moments she wasn't wasted out of her mind on cheap booze.

Her mother was an asshole.

She was a monster. An entitled bully. And, more importantly, a liar.

Every word that came out of the woman's fucking mouth was a lie and a disaster waiting to happen, with the rain often being the most ill omen.

Which was why when that sudden freak storm damn near flooded the entirety of the East Coast on the 18th, she'd had the Hunters rushing to Camp Half-Blood on the double, traveling and killing monsters so fast they'd lost track of a couple of hunting wolves somewhere back in Nebraska.

And wouldn't you know it? She'd fucking called it.

Thalia glared at the hollow, rain-battered shell of Camp Half-Blood from a branch on her pine, scowling as she watched the curse of Gaia continue eating at what had been her home despite the little time she'd spent there.

The strawberry fields had long since become a dreary, gray smudge in a sea of poisonous yellow grass; the glimmering canoe lake continued to lose more and more of its magical luster as the days went by, with the nymphs and naiads taking refuge in the Demeter and Dionysus cabins for a slower but less painful death, rather than deal with the pollution to their source of life.

Campers continued to suffer on hospital beds from injuries and infections even the oldest Hunters couldn't make heads or tails about, and that had been before the curse started going 'fuck it' and snuffing out the breaths from those far too weak to live on.

And like it wasn't bad enough, Thalia couldn't even assign the focus of the Hunters on healing or foraging for food with the Camp's wards fracturing in multiple areas around the perimeter, sometimes going out entirely at odd hours of the day as early as 3 am.

The threat of a stray monster creeping into the Camp when they weren't aware had never been higher, and by Jove were the slimy little fuckers trying.

Their subsequent defeats in both the Titan and Giant wars had the bastards frothing at the mouth for a taste of retribution; everything from packs of hellhounds to wild, horned centaurs had met their ends to Thalia's spear or the weapons of campers and hunters, yet they didn't seem to get the message.

The worst of it, however, went to the dryads of the forest.

The nature spirits had long since gone catatonic in their trees, as the curse seemed to leech more energy from them and Thalia's pine tree to keep itself going.

If not for the Golden Fleece...Thalia didn't even want to imagine it.

She'd been told to expect the worst by Chiron and Nico, but this?

This wasn't a curse, it was a plague with a scavenging fucking conscience.

Camp Half-Blood had never been weaker.

Their best warriors were either missing or retired. The Romans and the gods were all acting like idiots; their funds and supplies continued to plummet by the hour, and their primary source of protection was on the fritz.

Oh, but wait! There was so much more!

Over on the horizon, right above the wasteland of Earth's Lament, Thalia could make out the sleeping face of a matronly woman with her eyes scrunched tight in the acid-green clouds. Gaia – or a portion of the bitch – was still alive and kicking somewhere out there, using the life force of the Camp as a battery for herself with no definite end to her hunger.

The smell of ozone grew suffocating, and the air around her grew charged as she tried to take in a few deep breaths; it was all she could do not to set the Camp's forests on fire with lightning. The very thought of the fallen goddess was enough to get her blood boiling in fury.

It wasn't enough her inbred son had massacred the Hunters and Amazons, the blood of the Roman and Greek demigods on her hands hadn't been enough to satisfy her vengeance, but the stupid hag couldn't do them all a favor and just fuck off?

Thalia sighed as she spied one of her hunters cresting the hill. Iphigenia's silver hunting jacket shimmered in the rain like a retro CD as she waved for her, "Lieutenant! Your presence is requested."

"Fuck off, Iphi. I'm in no mood for their bullshit today."

Her response was rude as all get out. Still, Thalia's sisters had been around her and all her crass mannerisms long enough to know how to filter and expand on her thoughts and feelings better than she ever could, Iphi being the most adept at it on account of her maturity and twisted history with her father, Agamemnon.

The aged huntress raised a questioning golden brow and let Thalia stew in the silence for a bit before the daughter of Zeus let out a growl and dropped down from her perch; drawing her hood up, she and her sister made for the Big House in a huff, a migraine forming as she dreaded the expected influx of childish insults and finger-pointing from the head counselors of the Camp.

"When I put you and Phoebe in charge, I was hoping I wouldn't have to stop myself from strangling those idiots half an hour later." Thalia continued, her scowl deepening for a bit as she passed the gold and ivory statue of the Athena Parthenos.

Iphi let out an amused snort, "You mean you were hoping Phoebe would do the strangling for you?" The huntress shook her head at Thalia's muttered 'That too.' "They are young, inexperienced, and scared, Thalia; their whole world is falling apart. You can't expect them to act rationally with all that is happening."

"They're supposed to be in charge of this Camp, Iphi!" Thalia cried as she stopped on the deck of the Big House, "They've all fought in the wars. They all knew what they signed up for when they took their seats at the table. No one forced them into this! They don't get to-"

Her rant was cut short by a body flying past them from the Big House faster than a speeding bullet, the jarring crash of the shattered screen door ignored as both Thalia and Iphigenia stared wide-eyed at the dazed body of Butch Walker, the head counselor of the Iris Cabin. They turned back to the point of ejection to see Phoebe's fuming glower, her blue eyes blazing in fury even as she fought off the combined weight of the five head counselors trying to pin her down.

That was all the motivation Thalia needed, the sight of her sworn sister fighting for her life like an animal while Nico twiddled his thumbs and tried the pacifist approach for these idiots, igniting the den of powder kegs in her head as her eyes crackled with sparks. She lost her cool, and a jagged streak of lightning split apart the overcast skies in the wake of her fury; her eyes narrowed to slits, and her teeth clenched so hard she felt like they would shatter as the deafening boom of thunder shook the world.

The daughter of Zeus prowled into the rec room with all the calculated ferocity of a lioness, "Iphi...get that idiot an ice pack." Iphigenia thumped her chest in salute with a devoted Lieutenant! "As for the rest of you? You can get your hands off my sister now with your dignity or later in a body bag."

"Thali-"

"I wasn't asking Nico. Call off your dogs. Now."

The son of Hades let out a tired sigh even as he glared at the others to get their collective shits together. One by one, Sherman Yang, Malcolm Pace, Will Solace, Nyssa Barrera, and Paolo Montes all climbed off the huntress, each of them shooting Thalia and Phoebe a dirty look as they gathered to their seats on the ping-pong table.

From the ping-pong table and Cheez Whiz to the stuffed leopard's head, the old room was just like Thalia remembered, save for a few minor changes. Over a dozen comfy chairs ringed the table, all occupied save two, with an extra addition for their resident Oracle of Delphi.

Thalia had never spoken much to Rachel Elizabeth Dare and never really cared to. From what she'd understood of Annabeth's rants, the girl had been trying to steal her best friend's crush for a while. That alone had killed any motivation she might've had to associate with her, but from what little she'd heard about her overall attitude?

The redhead was pretty chill, gutsy for sure, with a nice easy-going smile, and enough playful sarcasm to hang up there with the best of them.

All in all, the girl was someone Thalia would like to get to know better if she had the time, which is why her near-catatonic demeanor shocked her. Rachel looked like someone had ripped out her heart from her chest, and the poor girl didn't quite know how to ask for help. Her vibrant red hair was matted and oily, and she looked like she hadn't slept in days.

It seemed the only one in the know about what had happened to her was Nico di Angelo, if his stormy expression was anything to go by; too bad the little shit didn't feel like sharing.

Thalia ordered Phoebe to the Artemis seat as she marched around the table. "Chiron's holed up in the infirmary helping the others, so I can't place the blame on you squarely for your lack of wisdom." She made her stand at the head of the table as she glared at the rest of them. But I'd hoped you'd have more sense than to attack a Hunter of Artemis and expect a different sort of outcome."

Nico massaged his temples as her words kicked off another round of bickering. Cries of 'She started it!', 'Emo Cinderella' and some more childish babble filled the air before Thalia lost her patience again. She slammed her fist onto the ping-pong table hard enough to create fractures in the linoleum flooring as a lightning bolt struck the weathervane on the roof.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" She screamed as she looked around the room, her eyes coming to a stop on the one person who didn't make her feel like pulling out her teeth. She let out an exhale as she said: "...Solace?"

"...We were hoping one of you guys could get Lady Artemis to help us with the healing. Or!" Will rushed to clarify at Thalia's scowl, "...or, she could convince my dad to heal the younger ones."

"Speak true, boy. You asked me for my Lady's aid, and I told you the Ancient Laws wouldn't allow it. You continued to persist to the point I had to call in for Thalia to be the voice of reason!" Phoebe spat as she gestured at Thalia like she could hardly believe it, "And like that wasn't enough, and I assure you, it was, that disrespectful fool dared to call my Lady's honor into question?!"

"Yeah...that'll do it." Thalia thought with a grimace.

The Hunters of Artemis were as loyal as they come to the goddess - and Artemis returned that loyalty and love with interest for her daughters - but for hunters like Phoebe? Celyn? Iphigenia? Zoe?! The fact Phoebe hadn't done more than KO Butch was a mercy and a half in and of itself.

Forget death; Phoebe would've made him suffer had the situation been less dire.

But, even then, Drew Tanaka was the last person Thalia ever expected to speak out in defense of anyone but herself.

"We didn't bring your lady's 'honor' into question, you fucking gorilla!" The daughter of Aphrodite cried out with venom as she shot to her feet, her eyes brimming with angry tears, "We asked you why the gods were sitting back watching while their children were dying! Lacy! Mitchell! Alea! Rose just turned seven last month! My brothers and sisters are dropping like flies in that infirmary, yet they do nothing! WHY!"

Drew directed that question to the roof of the building and beyond, injecting so much charmspeak into her voice that Thalia half considered climbing up the slopes of Mount Olympus and bashing her father's skull on his throne for answers.

"Why do I have to listen to my dying siblings beg to see their mother one last time? Why do I have to waste the little food we still have on sacrifices to you people when I know you won't even eat it? WHY?! WHY WERE WE BORN TO DIE!"

The final question may as well have been demanded by a higher power for all the attention it commanded. It'd always been a question in the backs of their minds long before the wars had taken so much from them; the 'why' of it all probably hadn't even originated from their generation, but it couldn't have been put to voice at a more crucial time than this.

They had all given and suffered more than enough. Fought in wars with loaded odds, even the luckiest gambler would never dare to bluff, and yet it still wasn't enough for the gods? The Fates? Thalia didn't know or care much anymore.

Two wars, hundreds of corpses, thousands of betrayals and broken oaths, and who knows how many more secrets and lies the gods kept to their chests—nothing was changing. The gods continued to win their battles and reign supreme without losses to their own, with the blood of demigods as their currency.

Thalia clicked her tongue in anger as her hands bit into her hands hard enough to draw blood. Her eyes roved over the tired faces of the Camp counselors, and she was reminded of why she had left for the hunters in the first place.

These were kids.

The oldest person in this Camp, barring Chiron, was 17 years old, and that average had been lower at the time she'd been a camper. The prophecy had expected her to rally children in a war against Titans - beings that could still give the gods a run for their money if it came down to it – and win.

She hadn't been able to handle it.

More so when she'd been told she was expected to die at the end of it all, which was why she hadn't thought twice once the offer of the Hunt came knocking. Yet, in some cruel twist of fate, she was again a year later, expected to wrangle the dying Camp all by herself while her sisters continued to fuel the fire.

Phoebe sighed, "...I feel your grief, daughter of Aphrodite, but you are young and, more importantly, ignorant of the ways of this world. You do not get to question the Gods."

"Fuck you."

"You are so quick to blame the ones who cannot offer aid to you, yet you absolve the ones honor-bound to protect you?!" Phoebe demanded with disbelief, "Where is Annabeth Chase? Piper Mclean? My sister, Clarisse La Rue? Where the fuck is Percy Jackson?!"

The room grew silent at the name, and Thalia had to stop herself from smacking Phoebe; the finger-pointing was enough of a headache for the campers, but Phoebe was a thousand years too late to indulge in this nonsense.

Rachel Dare began to devolve into muted sobs as the rest of the room shifted uncomfortably, the longer the question was allowed to simmer.

Percy Jackson was missing.

Those were four simple words, yet they had all the impending doom of a coming meteor. According to Nico, the son of Poseidon had gone back to New York for some much-needed R'n'R after all the shit he'd been through.

Understandable.

Not the smartest course of action, but still, understandable.

From what Thalia had gotten, he'd been expected to return from his 'vacation' on Sunday, just in time to finalize the details for their expedition to Alaska. That had been 3 days ago, and the lack of contact from him or his mother hadn't inspired the most confidence in Thalia.

"That's the smartest thing you've said since you came here, sis."

Thalia rolled her eyes in annoyance at Sherman Yang's gruff voice; already, she could see Damien White nodding in agreement with the clown's bullshit.

She didn't know much about the two other than Yang, who had been serving as Clarisse's replacement in her absence, and the son of Nemesis, who had his unexplained vendetta against her missing friend.

"Sherman..." Nico started as he pinched his brows, "We've been over this. Multiple times. Percy needed some time to himself after all he'd been through. We couldn't force him to-"

"Miss me with that bullshit, di Angelo. I'm done listening. When he ditched us to fight off Gaia alone, I didn't complain. How could I? Who else could we have expected to put her down? You, Solace?" Will Solace glared at the son of Ares in answer, "How about you, Lou? Was anyone willing to step up and finish the job in the Hecate cabin?"

Lou Ellen's onyx orbs narrowed to slits, but she kept silent even as her arms sparked and sizzled with Greek fire; Yang continued unperturbed. "So when he went into that coma when we ran our supplies dry trying to make sure he didn't kill himself in his sleep, I didn't question it. He and the '7' had saved the world; I couldn't talk."

"It would've been better for all of us if it stayed that way." Katie Gardner whispered weakly, her hands massaging her graying scalp to stave off the coming headache.

"I'm going to let that one slide because you're putting in the work, but Jackson? He knew we were on our last legs here. He knew we had no one to turn to with the Romans and the gods AWOL. He knew how fucked things were, and he still left us behind to fix this!"

Nico slammed his hands on the table in a rage, and Thalia could swear she saw a silhouette of the Grim Reaper standing behind the kid; his dark onyx eyes stared a hole into the souls of everyone in the room as he let out a frosty exhale.

"For the last time," He started calmly, "I told you all it was my idea for him to leave. He'd gotten his memories wiped by Hera. He'd gone through Tartarus for the girl who left him. He damn near killed himself fighting Gaia for the rest of us! DON'T YOU DARE BLAME HIM FOR ANY OF THIS!"

The air in the room grew heavy with tension, and Thalia found it hard to breathe the longer she stared into Nico's eyes. Nico was a quiet kid. Unless you were Percy Jackson, it took a lot for him to raise his voice.

And when he did?

You'd have to be suicidal to cross him. For a second, Thalia thought they could get back on track with this meeting and move things along.

It was too bad, then, that Damien White may as well have patented the term ignorant stupidity in the dictionary.

"Jackson isn't a baby, di Angelo. Or maybe he is, I don't know. What sort of man runs home to his mommy when their girlfriend ditches them?"

Nico launched himself at the smug son of Nemesis, only to be held back by Sherman and Will. It was too bad they didn't account for Thalia losing her patience. Thalia cleared the ping pong table in a single acrobatic bound, catching the son of Nemesis' jaw with a flying knee.

She straddled the boy as she pummeled his face in, "You're a pathetic fucking vulture, you useless sack of shit. Both of you! And I'm done pretending otherwise. You never had the balls to say any of this to his face when he was still here."

The others scrambled to their feet to drag Thalia away from the boy, but she managed to get one last kick in as she continued to berate him, "He turned down godhood to make sure all of you traitors could come back here alive after everything you did, and you think you have the right to talk down to him?!"

Damien's eyes screamed bloody murder as he wiped the blood off his nose and mouth, "He's not the fucking messiah, Grace! He doesn't shit roses. His looks don't make the sun shine any brighter, and his life isn't any more important than the rest of us!"

"You have no idea what he's going through!" Nico screamed at the boy.

"I don't give a damn what he's going through! We're counting the seconds till the Camp wards break fully; we're trying and failing to heal the wounded every hour of the day, but we're here. All of us, traitors and heroes, we're all here fighting for our lives to keep our home safe while he's doing fuck else! Do you know how many 'minor' demigods have talked about abandoning this dump altogether?"

"Damien-"

"No, Lou! I need him to know," Damien shoved Nico back a step. "Do you? Huh? Do you! How long I've had to sleep with a knife under my pillow because my siblings want to kill me for stopping them from leaving? Do you even care? Answer me, di Angelo!"

Damien collapsed to his knees as he punched at the flooring halfheartedly, his eyes scrunched tight to stave off tears. "You call me a loser for talking about him when he's not here. Well how the fuck can I when he's never even around!"

Sherman wrapped an arm around the boy. "...Percy's a good guy. He's a hero. He's our friend. A guy I'm honored to call a brother-in-arms, but he's human. He can make bad calls just like the rest of us. We shouldn't have to put our lives on hold for him whenever he has a bad day."

The room grew silent at Sherman's words, with even Percy's most loyal supporters unable to meet Thalia in the eyes. Rachel continued to sob, and Nico was damn near frothing at the mouth with rage, visibly fighting himself from saying something he'd be unable to take back.

Thalia let out a defeated sigh at the bleakness of it all. As the daughter of Zeus and the Lieutenant of the Hunt, she was practically the head authority figure for the Greek demigods so long as Chiron was unavailable, and she hated it.

She didn't want to deal with any of this drama. She couldn't stand these fools talking about her missing friend so disrespectfully, but to deny the logic in their words would only make her look biased and emotional.

It would be her outright placing all of their lives on the shaft of a scale of importance, and if she were anything but the leader, she'd make that decision in a heartbeat. But life could only be so fair...

"What do you want us to do then?" Thalia asked instead.

"We can't do anything with this curse eating us out of house, Grace. We can't even relocate without abandoning the injured. We can't-"

Sherman was cut off as a sudden tremor shook the entirety of Long Island Sound to the bedrock. A pulse of divine energy overwhelmed the Camp for a moment before the Earth let out an audible sigh of relief, as if the land had gotten a moment of peace.

"What the fuck was that?"

"CHILDREN OF GREECE, LEND ME YOUR EARS!"

Y*C*O*Y*W

? ? ?, The Endless Nothing, [-REDACTED-], The Nexus of All Realms

Time Is An Illusion

ETERNITY WAS MORE COLORFUL THAN PERCY HAD BEEN EXPECTING.

Enclosed in an endless expanse of ever-shifting shades of azure and carmine, the laws of time, physics, and gravity weren't much of a binding factor as far as this little pocket dimension was concerned, with Percy's astral form getting worked for everything it had trying to hold in his erratic molecules in their little container.

Percy's body had no balance or freedom of movement in the void. It simply twisted and turned every which way as his molecules pinged and ricocheted inside it with no set rhythm.

To be honest, the feeling wasn't all that bad. Percy could barely even feel it. Like a kite on a clear, sunny day, the son of Poseidon drifted through the endless nothing, the stifling sensations of pain, anxiety, and expectations absent from his soul as he enjoyed the simple tranquility of just existing.

Of his consciousness living on as a mere harmonious constituent of the universe.

Of just being.

Was this Nirvana?

"An interesting perspective, all things considered, but not quite right." A familiar sarcastic drawl chimed in from right below him.

A hand clasped onto Percy's ankle and held fast, a tendril of energy snaking its way up his body and grounding his wild essence instantly. Percy felt like he had autonomy over his limbs once more as his feet found purchase on a stray asteroid; he turned to thank his savior, only for his cheeks to puff up as he struggled to keep from laughing.

Before him, in all her 4-foot glory, stood a 6-year-old Gaia. Her long, earth-brown locks trailed down and curtained her pint-sized body in a leaf-green robe.

Gaia huffed in annoyance as she raised her hand to massage her temples. "Believe me, this appearance wasn't an intended choice."

Percy feigned a coughing fit to hide a snort at the sound of her squeaky voice, but Gaia could only be so gullible.

Turning her head toward him, slower than a glacial drift. Her emerald-green orbs were sharp enough to tear through steel, "I can strangle you now. I have the limbs and the means to make you regret your cheek once and-."

But Percy wasn't listening to her anymore; the infinity of the universe was no different from a mundane day by the Sound for Percy as he filled the endless nothing with his belting laugh. Gaea couldn't do more than seethe and growl when the object of her frustration couldn't be bothered to take her seriously.

"Stop laughing!" She screamed at him, but Percy's laughs only grew louder, "Stop it, Perseus, I'm warning you-"

Percy's laughs increased tempo, and stray little tears snaked down his cheek. "I'm sorry, it's just—" Percy couldn't finish his sentence at the sight of her puffed-up cheeks.

"STOP IT!" The fallen goddess screamed at him once more, stopping Percy's chuckles at the desperation in her voice.

Gaia balled in on herself as she continued to cry, her long hair covering her thin body, leaving Percy alone to float about like an asshole. He didn't know what to do to comfort Gaia other than pretend he couldn't see her crying, so he kept quiet, the faint booms of explosions echoing from somewhere in the void and Gaia's sniffles his unwanted company.

"I was a perfect being. A constituent of the very fabric of reality itself, with power and authority over every single landmass in this universe. Moons? Planetoids? Planets? Entire asteroid belts? My omnipotence may as well have been fire to a caveman like you. It should have been enough to triumph over Ananke's machinations."

Gaea turned a fractured expression to Percy, and it was all she could do not to burst into tears again.

"Nyx derides and bludgeons you every time you meet, but I'm the one who loses to you? I'm the one whose vendetta falls short of the nonsense surrounding you? Where is the fairness in that?"

And like that, Gaia threw away all sympathy Percy might have been able to feel for the goddess with that infuriating entitlement, "Oh, cry me a river, you sad sack of shit. You expect me to feel bad for you not getting the chance to 86 every mortal on the planet?"

"How can you even say that to me, knowing what little you've seen?" Gaia challenged, smacking her chest as she screeched at him. "Knowing what I've gone through and lost. My thoughts and regrets. My desires?! Look around us, Perseus! We're on the edge of life and death! I did not ask for-"

"Shut the hell up!" Percy roared at the soulless monster before him, words failing him the longer he was forced to bear the sight of her.

Percy felt like smacking himself; how could he have been so stupid?

He'd tried for the goddess.

He'd tried so hard to understand her, to keep an open mind with her plight, and try to rationalize her twisted actions as the misguided reactions of a traumatized child to perceived slights, but enough was enough.

Gaia had heard and seen those children dying in that infirmary. Felt and experienced everything Percy had since he'd woken up in that cot. His guilt, rage, sorrow, pain, insecurities, and so much more—this monster had gotten front-row seats to all of it, yet she dared to complain about unfairness.

To act like she'd gotten the worst end of the deal.

"That's because I have gotten the worst of it!" She roared out of nowhere, her mind link revealing his thoughts, "Put yourself in my shoes for one godforsaken second! I have nothing! My Name, my power, my children! All of it may as well be lost to me forever, yet I am to be imprisoned in the mind of the unworthy fool who ended me! A selfish brat who throws his will to live away at the drop of a hat, who can't even be bothered to listen to me!"

Gaia rose to her feet and latched onto his scowling face. Her forest-green eyes bloodshot with grief but no less furious, she poked him in the chest roughly. "I warned you! I advised you time and time again, against my better judgment, to keep an open mind with all of the events surrounding you. The Olympians. Your friends. Autolycus."

The fallen goddess punctuated the name with a shove, the reminder only adding more salt to the wound, "I warned you time and time again not to antagonize my sister! Not to pit the Chimera in a battle of words so injured, yet you ignored me at every turn!"

Percy tried to speak, but she cut him off with a choked voice, "I begged you...I begged you, Perseus. To stand and fight for us, to live for us, and you looked me dead in the eyes and lied to me. You swore to me you couldn't fight anymore, that you were through with all, yet you didn't hesitate the second your mother showed herself!"

"...That was...that was different. You can't expect me to-" He was cut off once again by Gaia's rueful chuckle.

"You think I don't know that? That I don't understand the love and loyalty you hold for your mother? You said earlier that I'd felt and experienced everything you had, didn't you? You have no idea how accurate that conjecture is." She promised with a dangerous tone, her eyes narrowing to slits as she glared at him, "Every memory, every sensation, every thought, battle, triumph, loss, like, dislike, strength, weakness, fear. Everything. My knowledge of you is so total I could be your worst enemy or greatest ally should the need call for it."

Putting aside the outright creepiness attached to that sentiment, Percy wondered, "Then why? You know everything that makes me tick, motivates me, and what I look for in a person, so why?! Why are you so...so-"

"Heartless? Cruel? Selfish? Cold? Alien?" Gaia supplied for him with a raised brow, sighing at his vigorous nodding, "Because I know myself, and I know you, Perseus. We couldn't be more different, yet similar in the worst ways if we tried. You said you tried to understand me? To 'sympathize' with my plight because you believed me to be a traumatized child? You'd think differently if you truly knew how far my sins stretched. The years you managed to glimpse my memories are a drop in the billions of lifetimes I've existed in this reality. You can't understand me."

The childlike goddess left his space at the last sentence, her arms wrapping around her body as she balled in on herself. She was crying again. Tears streamed down her cheeks as her body racked itself with shudders.

"So that's it then? You tell me I can't understand you, but you won't even bother trying? You're just going to stay here miserable forever?"

Gaia devolved into tearful, subdued giggles as she eyed him, "Forever, you say? Wouldn't that be a comfort? No, Perseus, I'm afraid I don't get that sort of relief. Did you not feel the reaction to our souls once Nyx tried to split us apart? Unless you can awaken Za...No. Our souls are bound till death do us part," She let out a disgusted grimace at the undertone that Percy found himself sharing, "Should you meet your end, natural or otherwise, I will cease to exist. Forever."

Percy's throat tightened as a tight little ball of guilt settled itself in the base of his gut. He'd wondered once what would happen to the goddess in the event of his death, that maybe Chaos would pull some strings and help her out in some shape or form, but if Gaia was right and her soul really would fade away...

Gaia continued at his silence, "So, to answer your question, Perseus. No. I won't bother with you anymore. You and my Mother have made it abundantly clear how little you value my opinion and my life. I won't get in your way. I won't try to inconvenience you, but I refuse to embarrass myself further trying to endear myself to you. Continue to live or die in a gutter somewhere. I don't care anymore."

"You're lying. I might not have all your memories, but I can feel your emotions like you can mine. You're scared. Scared of dying. Scared of being alone."

"...I don't want your pity, Perseus...but it has been eons since I've been placed in such a position of weakness. Not since my marriage with Ouranos."

Gaia paused at the name, her emerald orbs swirling with barely concealed terror, the longer the name was allowed to stew. "I am terrified, Perseus. So terrified at the prospect of death. You have the comfort of the Fields of Asphodel or Elysium. The gods and the other Primordials have the relief of Tartarus or the fate of Ouranos, but for me? The worthless shell of a dead Primordial? Where would I go? What realm would take me? What worth does my existence hold to anyone now?"

...

"Percy."

Gaia perked up, unsure whether to scowl or swing. Of course, she'd choose to be difficult for this. "What?"

"You heard me; don't act deaf now. Call me Percy."

Gaia still didn't seem to get it, her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, which was adorable with her 6-year-old appearance, "Why is that-"

"It's what my friends call me, Gaia. I've never really liked the name Perseus much; it always sounded so...pretentious. Just call me Percy from now on."

"...no. Look, Perseus-"

"-Percy"

"Perseus. I know what you're trying to do, and I appreciate it, but-"

"If you appreciate it, call me Percy."

"I cannot."

"Why not? You just said you wanted me to care about you half a minute ago. I'm handing you an-a..what do you call that phrase again? The one with the branch? Athena conned a couple of scrubs with it back in the day."

"An olive branch?" Gaia voiced with genuine disbelief, her hands pulling at her hair, "By the Void, listen to me! I told you I wanted you to take my help because you recognized its importance, not because you pitied me."

"I'm not pitying you. I'm trying to-"

"Yes, you are!" Gaia exploded, weeks of frustration pouring forth from her, "That's all you've been doing regarding me since the moment you learned of my past. Projecting your trauma onto me and infantilizing me like some broken child, even my current appearance is a result of your subconscious whims!"

"...look, I get it. I get it," He had to repeat when the goddess opened her mouth to scold him again, "That stigma for pity. The inferiority attached to it, and if I were in your shoes, I'd probably want to kick me in the crotch, too. I do pity you, Gaia. But that pity's only a facet of what I think of you. I respect you as a fighter. I hold envy for you as someone born with so much raw power. I feel anger at you for everything you've done to my friends, and so many more negative feelings for you I can't quite put into words."

"Wow, what a man you are, Perseus. You sure know what to say to a woman to get the juices flowing. A modern-day Casanova. The next Heartbreak Kid." The goddess riposted with a tone as dry as sandpaper.

"First off: ew. Second off: EWWW! Dude, shut up and let me finish. Please."

"It's like you don't even hear the innuendos."

What was wrong with this woman?

"Oh my gods, Gaia! I'm trying to tell you I see you as a person! As someone more nuanced and layered than your outward actions would have most believe. We're stuck with each other for the long haul, and I'd rather we didn't spend the rest of our days wishing the other was gone. I'm saying I want us to be partners."

'Maybe even friends.'

Percy whispered the last bit to himself, but he'd already guessed by now that his thoughts may as well have been an open book to the voice in his head. Gaia, however, was shifty. Her face was pinched like she was fighting a war in her mind against her pride and self-preservation.

Her head dropped in resignation, "I can't, Perseus."

"Dude, I'm this close to giving up on you? What part of we're stuck-"

"I KNOW!" She screamed suddenly, smacking his hand away from her as it came to rest on her shoulder, "I know. I know I'm being difficult. I know this outrage is illogical. I understand that I should be above this! I should take this chance with what little remains of my dignity, but I can't, okay?!"

Gaia struggled to breathe the longer she stared at Percy. Her eyes looked fractured and desperate, like a caged animal on the verge of lashing out. A panic attack.

Did gods even get panic attacks?

"Gaia...why not?" Percy asked the fallen goddess gently.

"Because it is exactly what She expects of me."

"Who? Tell me her name."

"My m-Her. Chaos."

Another dull boom rang out from the distance, and Percy could feel the surrounding temperature rise to a rolling boil on the tops of their heads. As quickly as the experience occurred, it disappeared, almost like God had merely given them a passing glance and decided These losers aren't even worth the spontaneous combustion.

Gaia seemed to realize that, too, if her disappointed moan was any indication.

"I tried, you know? I did my best with all I had at my disposal, time and time again. I offered sacrifices, prayers, praises, everything. I modeled myself after her persona and carried myself with the grace and dignity befitting a child of the Creator. Followed her every whim and plunged the realms into anarchy at her behest...I betrayed the people who loved me the most, Perseus. I cut them down by the thousands at the drop of a hat. Nothing was too far for me where her love was concerned."

The fallen goddess let out a rueful snort, "By all the Elder Gods, I didn't much question it when she ordered my eternal slumber."

"...What?"

"What troubles you? Did you truly believe those foolish bedtime stories? That the failure of my Gigante children was somehow enough to weaken me enough for the Olympians to prevail over me?" Gaia let out a disbelieving chuckle; her eyes half-lidded in a drunken stupor as she said: "History is decided by those who survive Perseus; remember that. You saw what Nyx would have wrought on our world, right? Why would I have been capable of any less if I truly wished for it?"

Percy didn't bother trying to deny it. Primordial's, as he'd said before, were cartoon-level types of bullshit and busted; the fact Gaia and Tartarus hadn't all but swallowed them whole the very second they'd arrived was a blessing in disguise he'd never dared to question.

"I did everything Chaos had ever asked of me, and yet...even on the brink of death. Even at what should have been my final breath, did she come for me? Did my mother come to my side to grant my end felicity? No, she came for you. She came to save the boy who'd killed me. To shackle me to your soul and bend me to your will in a cruel lesson on enlightenment."

Gaia shook her head negatively as if she had a hard time believing that.

"No, that's giving her too much credit. She probably just wanted to save you. Even after all these millennia, all I ever was to her was a means to an end. A poor source of entertainment, she could yet use as a stepping stone for her ambitions. It took me a long time, but I can finally say I know where I fall on her list of priorities." The goddess finished quietly, her hands wrapping around her shins as she tried not to cry.

"...Chaos is an asshole." He had to stifle a chuckle at Gaia's scandalized expression; he couldn't afford to make light of the situation here. "Gaia, I can't say I understand what you're feeling 100%, but I can tell you this. You don't get to choose your family, but you sure as shit get to choose how they're allowed to treat you. While I don't endorse it, I think it's admirable not to want your decisions to be dictated by someone so toxic to you."

He sat opposite the fallen goddess as he placed his hands on her bony shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eyes.

"Look, I still haven't forgiven you for all the shit you've pulled. In some ways, I probably never will, but for better or worse, we're in this together...and I suppose even monsters need someone on their corner they can call family. Who better than a monster who killed his stepfather, eh?"

Gaia's eyes widened by a fraction before turning away, but Percy could swear her emerald orbs glistened with tears. Her shoulders shuddered with each scant breath as the faint explosions grew more urgent around the Nexus.

"...The Nexus is fading away." The fallen goddess noted, "We will die or live, I don't know. But our saviors have held on for this long. We may yet live to see another day."

Percy made to get up and stretch but found his hand stopped by a weak force. He looked down to see Gaia, her face turned away from him in embarrassment. "Can you...Can you stay by me just a little longer? I'm scared of the dark."

His heart melted at the request.

The innocence of her appearance, coupled with the memories he'd glimpsed of her wandering about Creation in darkness, and the fear and anxiety that coursed through their mind link at the very thought of Nyx pushing him to sling an arm over her tiny frame and bring her in close for a hug.

Gaia stiffened at the touch before slowly resting her head on his shoulder. Her squeaky voice hummed a tune to a song his mother used to sing for him when he was younger.

The pair sat together and watched as the stars dimmed out cluster by cluster. The azure and carmine that made up the void melded to form a deep violet before it faded to black. The endless black continued to close in on itself all around them until the only remaining source of light was the two of them, their collective auras merging to form a dazzling holy blue before that, too, was snuffed out of existence.

"It doesn't hurt, not even a little." He thought to himself. Percy couldn't help but think...was death supposed to be this peaceful? "Not bad. Not bad at all."

Y*C*O*Y*W

28 August 2010, ?, ? , New York, USA

10 Days Since Percy's 'Death.'

IT TURNED OUT DYING DIDN'T SUCK , SURVIVING DID.

"God? If you're listening, do me a favor and put me out of my misery..." Percy prayed, groaning.

How he could be in this much pain didn't make any sense; he hadn't even felt anything when the Chimera had roasted him alive. He felt like his body had been steamrolled flat before the operator switched to reverse to get the uneven kinks out, then decided to go forward one last time for the fun of it.

His entire body was gift-wrapped in bandages, ointment, and plaster, with enough needles and wires attached to his wrists to give Bane vertigo.

And it had been worse 3 days ago if you could believe it.

Percy had woken up right in the middle of a surgical operation to a blazing operating light. Submerged in a tub of unicorn draught and nectar, with his chest split open and held fast by sets of clips as half a dozen KKK cosplayers surrounded his broken body and tried to piece together his shattered ribcage.

He wasn't proud to say he hadn't done much more than scream and thrash about as his anesthesia mask grew clogged from his foaming.

Percy's torment-

"Saviors."

"You, shut up!"

Gaia did nothing more than giggle at his bitching as she pantomimed snow angels in his mind's eye. Of the two of them, the fallen goddess had been the only one who'd maintained a relatively upbeat attitude despite their predicament. She'd be lying if she said the absence of pain didn't contribute to her delight.

"I don't understand how you can be so pessimistic on such a glorious day. We survived, Perseus. Mortals have had festivals for lesser feats."

"...Gaia, I can't go half-mast without pulling out a nerve. If this is me winning? I'd have settled for second place."

"Meh."

"Why I oughta-"

"Oh good, you're awake."

Percy ignored Gaia as he turned back to the outside world. That voice...Percy recognized that thick New York accent. Like the speaker held a touch of concern in him, but he was trying really hard not to laugh at Percy. He tilted his neck as far as he could to the familiar newcomer's face as he called out:

"Barry?"

Lo and behold, there stood Percy's first ever hit 'n' run, 'Barry the Bee,' in all his flummoxed glory with a bouquet of fresh...begonias?

What was that about?

'Barry' looked young...ish, somewhere in his early thirties if Percy had to guess, and pretty tall too. He was dressed in an unbuttoned, ash-grey three-piece, shined, tan dress shoes topped with a pair of riding gloves, holding onto a fancy wolf cane.

His slicked-back silver hair was so pale it appeared violet under the lights. Thin, golden rods were pinned to his ears, and a pair of tinted sunglasses covered his eyes, but whenever he tilted his head to the side, Percy could see his eyelids were sealed shut, almost like the man was blind.

He looked like a manipulative lawyer stuck in the high of his frat boy days.

'Barry' raised a silver brow at him, "Why do you keep calling me that?" He came to Percy's side to drop his flowers on the bedside table even as he dragged a folding chair and an apple to his bed's footboard, "Never mind that, how're you feeling, kiddo?"

"Like I could go for ten with Iron Mike, how do you think I feel?"

"That bad, huh?" Barry clicked his tongue with a sigh as he crossed his legs. He took his time to get comfortable in his seat as he carved apple slices for them. "Want one?"

Percy kept his silence, eyes latching onto every movement and subtle mannerism the stranger showed him with laser focus. From the rhythmic tapping of his dress shoes on the rubber floor to every twist and curve of the man's nimble fingers as he played with the paring knife, the movements were familiar to Percy—he just didn't know why.

"I know you."

"I should fucking hope so. Do you know how hard it was to time an 'accident' in that freak storm? My Rover's been at the shop for weeks at this point."

That wasn't what Percy had been talking about, but his rationale was overtaken by the fact that: "You hit me with a Rover on purpose?!"

"Yeah, and you botched a 3-month operation for me and my boys with your self-righteous meddling. That 'accident' allowed me to keep proper tabs on your dumb ass, it's the only reason we got to you in time. I'd say we're even, but I'd be lying."

Percy's brows scrunched at the man's words, his mind drawing up a blank on how he could have pulled that off in the time since. At least until 'Barry' pinned a familiar brooch on the lapel of his jacket.

"Of course." Percy said through gritted teeth, "You're a fucking Spade."

"I like how you manage to voice the word 'Spade' like it's only marginally better than pond scum."

"That you think you're any better than pond scum to me is refreshing, but that's neither here nor there." Percy mocked him with a chuckle, "You said you got to me right on time, didn't you? Where's my mom?"

"Right to the point, eh?" Barry asked with a sardonic grin. At Percy's glare, he continued, "She's holed up somewhere safe. With enough divine and mortal security to make the White House look like a gated playpen."

Percy shot up from his cot in a rage, "What gives you the-ARRGGHH!", his voice lost all its bark as the sudden movement sent his wounded body into a never-ending loop of soul-shredding throes, his left arm felt like it'd been wrung and soaked in Styx water.

'Barry' didn't do much more than chew on his apple slices as he waited for Percy to calm down.

"Easy, kid. Look, it wasn't an easy decision. Even after the Spitfire knocked the Texas out of Nathan. But the risks attached to keeping her here with the Night of all Elder gods on her tail didn't leave us with many options."

Percy froze.

All levity in the conversation was gone as his heart rate spiked. All of a sudden douchey, Harvard bachelor 'Barry' didn't look so arrogant and unassuming anymore. If anything...Percy felt the same foreboding terror he used to feel around Luke Castellan and even Kronos, like he could watch Percy die right in front of him now and not so much as twitch.

"You...how do you know about N-"

Percy was cut off as 'Barry' surged towards him in an instant, a cold, calloused hand latching onto Percy's face with a smack as he hissed, "If you value your tongue, you'll keep that name out of your mouth anywhere near us! But yes, I do know her. She's my grandmother."

Percy's eyes darted around the room even as his good arm leveled halfhearted jabs on 'Barry's' chest, but the man only scoffed as he let go of Percy and plopped down on his seat.

"They told me you were slow, not stupid, kid. If I wanted you dead why would I bother dragging your sorry ass over here to save you? If I gave a damn about the Night's plans for you. Why would I outright tell you she's my grandmother?!"

"You're a mercenary. Manipulation and lies should only be the 2nd bullet point of your job description."

"Dammit, kid, I'm one of the only schmucks in this stupid game on your side! I risked my neck enough already to get you an extension on your next test, cut me some slack here!"

That was news to Percy. With all the shit that had gone down back there—and his second coma in just about as many days—he hadn't really put much thought into the timeline of Nyx's tests. It was the 28th of August now. Nyx had told him his test would come on a month-to-month basis, so his next test would've been on the 18th of September, and he'd have been wholly unprepared.

His body was still so fucked up he'd still be unprepared, so Percy wasn't feeling all too grateful to the schmuck.

"So what? You got me an extended warranty on my life. Big whoop. Why help me?"

"Don't be stupid, kid. You know why."

Of course, it was all for a recruitment pitch. Why would he expect anything different?

"Buddy, I'm a paralyzed mummy, I couldn't join your little cult if I wanted to."

"That'd be an issue if you weren't treated in a top-of-the-line Spade facility. The worst of your injuries was your left arm, and even then, our guys are so good we won't have to amputate it. For now."

"I've lost my powers."

"Oh woe, so you're an 'average' demigod now? Look at this."

'Barry' pulled out a fancy tablet from his shadow and fiddled with it briefly before shoving a video to his face. It was a play-by-play of his battle with the Chimera, from when Percy left his house to the minutes he'd spent waiting for the monster by the East River.

It was creepy.

"Are you giving me a post-game interview on the fight that nearly killed me?"

"The fact that you think there was anything 'near' about your death is adorable. You died, kid. Your heart flat-lined multiple times in the last few days, yet you kept coming back. Which is cause for concern, because even we don't know how the Hades you pulled that off."

"Maybe you're not as good as you think," Percy muttered peevishly.

"Cute."

The video continued to play for a few minutes longer than Percy had thought the fight even had. He saw his scorched corpse held in his mother's arms, dying with a smile even as the Chimera leapt at them.

In an instant, video-Percy's eyes lit up with sea-green flames, and his hand came flying to strike. The shock waves from the blast fractured the camera lens before the drone took a nose-dive as the destructive winds battered it from all sides.

'Barry' paused the frame on the camera's fracture: "This was a god-grade military drone designed from the schematics of Hephaestus himself. We had it scouting you from hundreds of feet in the air, and the camera went out before the drone. Do you know what that means?"

"You should probably be taking Hephaestus to godly court for a faulty patent?"

'Barry' snorted in a nice try gesture as he showed him a picture of what could only be the aftermath of a napalm bombing.

Buildings, entire streets, and light posts lay in ruins around a deep, ringed crater, with mortal vehicles and metal barricades covering the perimeter as police officers pushed back bystanders. At the same time, forensic investigators and K-9s searched for clues to understand what Percy had done.

"Is this...is this where the Chimera ended up?"

"No. This is where it achieved liftoff...you don't wanna know what happened to where it landed."

Percy shut his eyes as his head dropped onto his padded pillow. " Why are you telling me this?"

"This is what you managed half-dead, covered head to toe in glass, without your powers from your father. Now, I'll advise against ever using that power without the proper training if you'd like to keep that hand, but-"

"Get to the point, Barry!"

'Barry' stared at him for a moment, nodding his head. He said, "Okay. Okay. You want a point? You're a walking, talking waste of blessings most people would sell their souls for ten times over, and it's made you lazy."

"Lazy?" Percy's voice was no louder than a whisper, yet his frosty tone would have been enough to freeze entire seas.

'Barry' raised an unimpressed brow, "Yes you little shit. Lazy. Spoiled. Coddled if you would. You had power over the Earth, Sky, and Sea. You could generate hurricanes and typhoons, blow up dormant volcanoes, and destroy entire bridges in a single strike. And that's not even touching on the nigh-biblical shit you managed to pull at the Acropolis against the Giants. Put simply, you had godlike power and you wasted it."

"Are you insane?! Demigods burn themselves alive, pushing too hard!"

"Percy, you are not the average demigod. I don't know why I have to be the one to tell you this. From the moment you stepped foot into this world, you've been fighting enemies with tens of thousands of years of experience over you, and you've still managed to keep up somehow. You drew first blood against a god of war at 12. You engineered a victory against Hyperion and Kronos in the space of a few hours. Do I even need to talk about Gaia?!"

Percy couldn't believe the nonsense he was listening to right now, "You think I want this?! That I wanted these stupid 'blessings' in the first place? That I'm some sick fuck who revels the 'thrill of destruction' or 'bathing in the blood of his enemies'? I hate these powers. I hate how they terrify the people that matter to me the most the fucking second I tap into them! I never wanted this life! No one should want this life!"

"I never wanted to watch my friends die in front of me, never wanted to see the day my mother would cry her guts out over my fucking corpse! I never wanted to be a hero!" Percy's stitches were straining against his wounds with all of his movements, and his heart monitor had been substituted for a siren, but he looked the Spade dead in the eye as he roared, "I never wanted to be a half-blood!"

'Barry' wiped at his face in annoyance, "Kid, I get it. Believe me, I do. This...this life we've been given isn't much better than a freaking curse, and everyday it's looking like we're just one wrong day away from the gods wiping the slate clean and starting over again." 'Barry' let out a shuddering sigh as he stared a hole into the ceiling, "To live is to suffer, kid, if everything you ever hear from my mouth turns out to be a lie, then I swear on the Styx that's the truth."

Thunder rumbled far up in the sky with the words, sealing the oath for the rest of time or until Styx decided to go homicidal for the thrill of it.

Percy didn't get this guy, didn't understand how a guy could keep going with such a pessimistic attitude. "Then why? Why do anything? Why wake up to go to school or your dead-end job? Why keep living?"

"Because I was born into this world. Because this life belongs to me, and I owe it to myself to keep fighting. I didn't get to choose how I was born, the Fates aren't going to give me much of a choice in choosing how I live or get to die." 'Barry' paused with a dark chuckle, his head tilting to the ceiling for a moment before he sighed, "But, I can keep fighting as long as I still draw breath, as long as I still have strength in my body, as long as I'm still me. Come hell or high water, I will keep fighting."

"...I don't want to be a mercenary. I'm just a kid. I have my whole life to look forward to.. I don't want to get used to killing people. I don't want to stop being human."

"Well, that's too bad, all things considered. Sorry kid, not to be an asshole here, but have you met you? Your father might as well be the most powerful Greek god alive so long as he's on the ground or sea, and with all the shit surrounding your mother's half of the family? It's not a stretch to say you might have been bred for war and battle."

"Why do you want me to join your group so badly. It was weird with Autolycus, but at least he didn't hit me with a freaking Rover."

"Are you ever going to get over that?" Barry pulled at his hair as he gathered his thoughts. "I like Autolycus. He's powerful, sharp, loyal, kind of old-fashioned, but he's fun to be around."

"He groomed my friend."

'Barry' snorted at the excuse, "You and Bobofit couldn't even be classified as frenemies if we tried, cut it out. Autolycus was on a mission to kill the Chimera. It may come as a shock to you, but not all of us have the power to blow apart a city block with a punch, and those that do aren't all too willing to fill out the paperwork for the collateral damage." The man finished with a mutter.

"I disagree with his methods, but he had to blend in with that group long enough for the Chimera to let down its guard. Get angry with him all you want, but I want you to know he was among the only people willing to foot your hospital bill."

"How bad is it?"

'Barry' pulled out a clipboard and a pen from the shadows as he pantomimed ticking off a checklist.

"Oh, nothing too crazy, our boys only pieced together your ribcage, sutured and treated about 67 stab wounds all over your body, managed to bring your charred corpse back to a healthy pink, and bring you back from the dead - you're welcome by the way. So, we're talking upwards of at least a $100 minus taxes."

Percy's throat tightened at the absurdity of it all because, of course, a hospital bill would have him wishing for death. 'Barry' continued in a sardonic tone as he placed a briefcase on his lap, "Uh-huh. Here, this is yours."

"Where are you pulling these things from? What is this?"

"Your cut. You didn't think Autolycus was hunting the Chimera for sport, did you? The bounty on its head alone was about $30 million. Maria managed to sell its venom sac and goat's horn for $500,000 each. We didn't find a buyer for the lion's mane, but the boys are cooking something special for you, you'll love it."

"About as much as I love talking to you," Percy muttered.

"Look, kid, I'm not trying to blackmail you or anything. You have enough money in that case to live out your life on some faraway beach house in Thailand or something. Your scent is so weak that only the oldest and strongest of monsters actively searching for you will ever really be an issue, and barring your mother, the Spades, and di Angelo, the whole world thinks you're dead."

"What?!"

'Barry' tossed him a rolled-up newspaper from the 19th of August. The aftermath of a colossal explosion in East Harlem was on the front page, with EMTs and firefighters still trying to douse the flames. On the side column was a dated picture of his wanted poster from when he was 12 and a tiny blurb for his obituary.

"It took some doing, and a fuckton of misting, but we managed to erase your records from the U.S registry. Your name might as well be synonymous with 'John Doe' to the mortal world. This is up to you, kid, you can bow out now and disappear."

Percy's eyes were unamused. "Or?" he prompted, guessing the man's sales pitch.

'Barry' smiled like a car dealer, slimy and dangerous. "You're a fighter, Jackson, but you're a big fish in a small pond. The old horse tries, but he's just one guy micro-managing a camp of prepubescents and hormonal teenagers. His methods are archaic and just as tired as he is. Chase, La Rue, Lt. Grace, and di Angelo are exceptions, but you kid?"

Once he pulled out a bulky case file from the shadows, Percy really had to wonder how long this dude had been planning this visit. One by one, 'Barry' showed him clear-cut pictures of his various escapades around America, from his duel on the beach with Ares to him and his friends maneuvering around the Nemean Lion in the Smithsonian.

"You leave Camp for the school year, you only ever practice on straw dummies during summers, you fight opponents so far below your skill level it actually regresses you, and yet you thrive on the battlefield."

'Barry' pulled out one final picture, a blurry shot of him taking on an army of 200 monsters alone on the Williamsburg Bridge.

No.

Percy was blurry, and the monsters were captured pretty well. Percy had been moving so fast during that battle that not even Hephaestus-grade tech could pin him down.

'Barry' continued, "We've been watching. All of us. And we like what we see-"

"Gross."

"I will pull your plug."

Percy withheld a smirk when he realized the old Spade was only half-joking. Already, he could spy a vein throbbing on the older man's forehead in annoyance.

"You're a well of untapped potential, even without your father's powers; your blood manipulation acts as a multiplier and an adapter for your physical abilities. Your instincts are battle-tested and approved by the Wolf Mother herself, but with us? Under my personal tutelage, with our skillsets so similar? The amount of battle experience you could hone to a knife's edge against so many equals and superiors would elevate you to the rank of Inquisitor before you even turn 20."

"Why are you doing all this? What's in it for you? I don't even know your name, yet you're already planning my future?"

"You have people other than Autolycus interested in your survival, kid. There's a reason we're placed under oath to never even approach you, one that I won't share because it's not my place." 'Barry' quickly shut him down as Percy rushed to ask who. "As for my personal stake in you? Call it a vested whim. I've seen your type before: the young, naive, and hopeful trying to maintain their 'humanity' in a world so devoid of it. I've been in your shoes before, and I'm hoping to save you from it before the fate that normally follows those types catches you."

"Broken and depressed?" Percy joked.

"Dead and forgotten."

The Spade looked him in the eyes at the riposte, a quiet desperation in his demeanor as he all but begged Percy to take his offer...like he was genuinely trying to save Percy from a terrible fate. Percy didn't know how to respond to that.

"Join the Spades, Percy Jackson. Join me, and I can help you fight against these trials the Night is trying to break you with. Join me and we can change the status quo together, forever in favor of our people."

...

Percy stared long and hard at the ceiling as he mulled over the words. In the back of his mind, he imagined seeing a rusty old sword held back by a thin string oscillating to and fro over him. His eyes grew hazy and unfocused as he ignored the outside world and talked with the voice in his head.

"You've been quiet, Gaia. What do you think?"

The goddess appeared to him instantly, her childish face a masterful mix of aged wisdom and smug satisfaction at the fact that he'd come to her instead of the other way around.

"I think you're being difficult for no concrete reason; you've long since chosen your path."

Percy snorted, "That obvious, huh? What if I'm going about this the wrong way...what if doing this is just playing into Night's hand?"

Gaia's smugness disappeared as she cupped a hand on his cheek in a gesture that could pass as affectionate. Her voice was soft as she whispered, "The Horned Monster from before? He still weighs on you?"

Percy didn't react in any way, but his silence was enough of an answer.

"...Nyx will never admit it, but mortals, monsters, even the gods and Primordials themselves, we are all the same in some way, Perseus, every last one of us. Glory? Freedom? Love? Family? We are all slaves to something or the other. We all have to spend our lives drunk on something to keep moving forward; otherwise, what is the point of it all? You're a slave to your loved ones, Perseus. Yours was never promised a life of comfort."

"The question isn't whether or not this is the right choice." The fallen goddess's form dissolved into acid-green mist and dissipated around him, before reforming with her arms around his shoulders and her lips by his ear, "The question is, are you willing to bet the lives of the ones you hold dear on the off chance it's not?"

...

Percy returned his attention to the Spade, his resolve stronger than ever as he looked the man in the eye and asked, "If I join you, can you swear I'll find a way to clear out Gaia's curse from the Camp?"

'Barry' didn't hesitate: "Absolutely. I can't promise it'll happen today, tomorrow, or even by next month, but I can promise you it'll be long gone before the end of this year."

The sword of Damocles lost its rust as it snapped free of its string, a faint whistling sound accompanying it as it came tearing down upon Percy's head.

Percy didn't flinch; he extended a bandaged hand to the devil in a three-piece, "Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon."

"Not Meredith?"

"Perseus Meredith Jackson is Sally Jackson's son. I'll join your group and be your guy, I'll do what I have to to help the Camp even if I have to pay for their food and supplies from my own pocket, but I won't ever attach my mother's name to this. I won't."

"...Far be it from me to tell other people how to compartmentalize their issues," 'Barry' conceded with a shrug. "But, you'd do well to learn your mother isn't as detached from this life of ours as you'd like to believe."

'Barry' took Percy's hand at the elbow in a firm hold before the boy could protest, as he looked Percy in the eye with an excited grin.

"Avery Giles, son of Thanatos. Inquisitor Supreme of the Greek Charter of the Order. Welcome to the Penumbran Spades, my friend. Her master hates my fucking guts."

Y*C*O*Y*W

 

Chapter 11: Enter, Pressured By A Bruised Ego

Fuck off PETA, this one's not for you.

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."

– Maya Angelou

Enter, Pressured By A Bruised Ego (A Lesson On Humility)

2 October 2010, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington, USA

1 month and 15 Days Since Percy's 'Death.'

NIGHT WAS WATCHING.

She was always watching in some way or another, but this was one of the few times you could say she was watching.

You could tell with the ominous chill in the late autumn air or see it in the shadows that shifted and warped upon each other on the oak trees and hillocks.

Or in that subtle sinking feeling on your neck telling you not to look backward.

And if that wasn't enough?

The enlightened eye would need only look upwards to the faint star-traced constellation in the bare cloudless sky, of the winged woman swirling a dainty star-studded chalice in muted anticipation for the coming brawl.

Nyx's all-seeing gaze bore down on the top of Percy's snowy-white scalp with a laser-like focus, her energy blanketing the forested glade like a death shroud and directing the rest of her challenge his way.

He exhaled, his breath thick and misty in the chill, and sang, "~ She'll only come out at night, the lean and hungry type. Nothing is new. I've seen her here before ~"

The son of Poseidon wasn't all too bothered by it if he was being honest. Not even the sight of the goddess so close yet so far paralyzed him as much as it once had. A boast he could attribute to the ruthless basket case he called 'Teacher'.

Getting kicked off the top of a mountain with nothing but a sled and your tightie whities would do wonders for coming to terms with your mortality.

He pocketed a half-finished bar of Cadbury – his 3rd? 4th? 50th bar? He'd lost track. – As he stretched and rested his back on the trunk of his perch, the small creaks of his spine getting lost in the score of cricket chirps and shuffling leaves as he uncapped Riptide along with Kymopoleia's whetstone and began to sharpen her.

"~ Watching and waiting. Ooh, she's sitting with you, but her eyes are on the door ~" He continued, his mind filling out the melody even as his enemy's footfalls sounded out in the distance...and the other clown got brave.

Percy placed the whetstone in his pack, satisfied with Riptide's sharpness, and shifted his position to the center of the branch.

His gaze drifted down to what had been his 'home' for the past few weeks or so. An insignificant cropping of foliage and boulders he'd spilled blood, sweat, and tears onto for the past month of training he'd endured...an irrational ache formed in his chest at the sight of the burnt-out campfire.

Avery had already packed up and left a few days ago, justifying his exit with Percy needing to finish this test alone.

Asshole.

The bastard could've at least left the marshmallows.

"~ So many have paid to see. What you think you're getting for free. The woman is wild. A she-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar ~"

A faint rustle on the tree leaves behind him got dulled by a mighty roar a few yards out. The frantic wing beats of roused birds and scampering of other local wildlife followed the disturbance almost immediately, the animals baser instincts warning even the most stubborn creatures that some shit was about to go down.

Percy yawned.

His hands fussed over an appropriate set of loops and knots for a weighty cord of blood-soaked rope even as his senses remained spread around the edges of his little enclave, a pesky little trick he'd cooked up in the past month for traps and surveillance, but more on that later.

"~ Money's the matter. If you're in it for love, you ain't gonna get too far ~"

A low growl.

So hushed that Percy would have lost it to the winds had he not been anticipating it.

She was getting impatient.

The scent of blood and his apparent vulnerability were all too tempting for her to ignore any longer.

Percy held back a smile.

Hook, line, and sinker.

"~Oh-oh, here she comes. Watch out, boy, she'll chew you up. Oh-oh, here she comes. She's a maaaan-eat-"

The beast leaped at Percy's exposed back, its claws and fangs poised for his dainty neck—the force of the sudden leap shattering the tree branch and kicking out a spatter of shrapnel. Percy leaned backward on the branch and fell 20 meters off the ground as if practicing.

The boy righted his body in the air parallel to the ground and latched onto the tail of the beast with both his hands, stifling a chuckle at the way its body clenched on itself with the act as he windmilled both of them in the air till he was on top.

Percy planted his feet on the lioness's neck as the ground got closer, a chilling snap following and sounding out through the forest. An ethereal ray of silver light shone down upon the broken corpse of the lioness like a beacon, confirming the kill, a trail of blood already leaking out of the side of the beast's mouth.

"It's almost cathartic..." Gaia whispered in his head, her voice holding just a touch of pity.

Percy hummed in approval. He'd spent the better part of six hours now waiting for the shameless camper to make a move at this point, yet the exchange had taken six seconds.

Well, it would've been dumb to expect any different.

Percy didn't have much of a scent anymore. Monsters, animals, nature spirits—even satyrs—had trouble tracking him now unless his blood was out or they were given special intel on his exact location from someone who had it out for him—Hi Nyx!

The only reason this 'poor, unfortunate soul' had gotten so close to him in the first place was because he'd been bored out of his mind. He'd come across the rest of the beast pack a while ago on the 28th of September – the actual day of his test – a pride of 8 lionesses and an alpha.

Percy had spent the past six days picking the group apart, deciding to finish things up tonight, when the New Moon plummeted clarity down the most.

The creature was intelligent. If a bit arrogant. It'd probably got uppity with the arrival of so much of its pride and decided to get first dibs on the pie.

Percy snorted, "...fat lot of good that did her."

His senses pinged just before a furious roar boomed through the clearing like a jet engine. The rest of the corpse's entourage had arrived.

Percy half-turned to the source, a dangerous grin splitting his face as he eyed his opponents, his fists tightening at the sight of the Nemean Lion and four of its mates glaring down at him from on high.

Y*C*O*Y*W

It was bigger than he remembered.

The beast a more majestic-looking specimen now, surrounded by its mates and bolstered by the blessing of Nyx, compared to the furry clown that'd choked on space food and silver arrows against him and his friends years ago.

The lion was the size of a semi-truck and about half as wide. Its gold fur and silver claws gleamed dully in the dim light, and its amber eyes were hard enough to cut diamonds as they glared at the corpse Percy was still standing on.

"Are you with me?" Percy asked quietly.

"Do you even need to ask, Perseus?"

He smiled as he shifted into a crouched stance, his mind already whipped into action and his hand drifting to his pocket as the head lion barked an order to the remaining lionesses.

Something cruel and menacing like 'Save me his throat.' Or worse, like, 'Dump his sorry corpse in Jersey.'

The lionesses took up the call, their back muscles stretched taut as they scaled down the hill and raced through the rough terrain. The Nemean Lion stayed back in favor of studying Percy's tactics...

It would regret that.

Two lionesses came for his front, one leaping high and the other going low, while the remaining two split the formation in opposite directions and aimed for his unprotected flanks.

It happened in a second.

Percy tossed an object right down the gullet of the lioness coming for his face and ducked below it, a smile splitting his features as the beast gagged and began to foam at the mouth, a ways away from him.

His fist came down like a hammer on the head of the one aiming for his groin, immobilizing it for a bit, as he kicked the corpse beneath him and bowled over the other two in one fluid move.

His senses rang in his head like a school bell. He'd missed one.

A lioness had managed to leap over the corpse and had its claws and jaws bared to tear a chunk off of him. He couldn't defend himself and keep the lioness trapped below him...alone, that was.

"Brace yourself. The right side of your back. We're using the density of Chromium." Gaia warned calmly.

"You're the best, Loli Grandma."

"Stop calling me that!"

Every-dam-time.

Percy winced at the feeling of most of the blood in his body converging on one singular point, but the euphoria he received at the ear-splitting screech of his enemy's jaws shattering on his body more than made up the deficit.

Hardening was one of the more advanced tricks he'd been able to manage with his blood manipulation in the time past.

In the tenth of a second, and with an even smaller window of success, he had the power to gather and harden the blood in his body momentarily. The smaller the area, the higher the accuracy scale.

It was worse than a chest wax to perform it on just that tiny piece of his body, and more than a little risky to juggle in the heat of a battle, but that was where the voice in his head came into play.

With Gaia's nigh omniscience on the properties and materials of all things about the earth serving as their measure for hardening density, and her battle instincts and sound judgment to boot?

The two of them had concocted an attack and defense strategy centered around the ability, so long as he was willing to give her autonomy over his body.

Two battle geniuses working in perfect sync with each other, it was the ultimate tag team.

While blood manipulation may not have been as flashy or impressive as summoning flash floods and storms or walking on water, you'd have to be stupid to deny how versatile the total control of your body's limits and functions was.

And according to Avery...Percy had only begun to scratch the surface of his mysterious powers.

The thought both excited and terrified the son of Poseidon.

Percy grabbed onto the head of the dazed lioness below him as it began to stir, and with inhuman strength, pulled apart its lower jaw till it rested level with its navel. The beast could do nothing but flap its tongue and murr at the sight of its brutalized body before its eyes rolled back into its skull for the last time.

Percy glared at his enemies, the iron in his eyes and the blood clinging to his front enough to have the rest of the beasts paw at the ground in uncertainty. A human-like plea for help left their snouts as they prayed to the Nemean Lion.

And well, could you blame them?

Three lionesses lay dead before the son of Poseidon: The corpse with the neck he'd smashed on his way down, one he'd poisoned, and the one he'd just divided.

There were two more lionesses, but only one remained in fighting condition. Not like that wasn't saying much. He wanted to end this before the head honcho got antsy and decided to step in, but these two didn't look too keen on engaging in hostilities alone.

Gaia coughed to get his attention, "We still have the traps. Take 50 paces to the left and leap when I say so."

Percy uncapped Riptide and rested her sharpened edge on his left palm, right on his scar. A muted feeling of melancholy overtook him for an instant. "Nah, screw it."

He slid the blade over his palm and brought his fist to bear, a mote of focus the cost as his blood slaked through the cracks and down to the ground.

He could practically taste the change in the air. Whereas before, the lionesses' eyes had only held worry and hesitation, they'd now become clouded with an insatiable hunger and a need to see the man before them dead.

Even Walmart Simba up top twitched and itched to sashimi Percy then and there.

They scrambled over each other to get a hit, their eyes so drawn and desperate on his wounded hand, they didn't notice Riptide's dull tint blurring through the gloom.

No. Percy didn't allow them to notice. Such was the power of the Mist.

Percy had never understood it well under Chiron, and Thalia would never let him hear the end of it if he ever came to her for pointers on anything, period. But Gaia could be a competent teacher if she put her mind to it.

"I'm saying it with love! I'M SAYING IT WITH LOVE!" He squealed like a schoolgirl as the tyrant hardened his nut sack to the density of Iron.

Y*C*O*Y*W

14 September 2010, Percy's Mindscape, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington, USA

2 Weeks And 5 Days Ago

"Influence, Confidence, and Divine Authority, most importantly. To manipulate the Mist is to part the metaphysical veil, warding off the realm of the Divine." His partner lectured, "Mortals – even Demigods – should never hold the right to such a privilege."

Percy sighed, "It's just me here, Waterworks. You don't need to keep that imperialist stick up your ass with me."

His head got smacked from side to side as Gaia let her displeasure be felt, "You, without a doubt, are the worst—the most infuriating brat I've ever had the displeasure of being inside of! I mean-I've taken over the bodies of animals and pregnant women. But you-you're something else, Jackson. I mean that wholeheartedly."

Percy laughed at her antics, tears welling at the edges of his vision at the sight of a prepubescent Mother Earth pouting. A gentle feeling of relief washed over him from his core...she'd mellowed some.

"Love you too, Gigi."

Gaia didn't push the matter further, whether in agreement with his affection or acknowledgment that her begrudging partner was a lost cause, he wasn't sure.

"Moving on...while the average mortal or demigod shouldn't have the authority to tickle the mist...it doesn't mean they can't attain the right."

"What does that mean?"

Gaia knuckled her eyebrows in annoyance, and for once, Percy didn't think that feeling stemmed from him, "That circles back to the concept of Divine Authority and the skeletons attached to that closet."

Gaia sighed, "It is regrettable, but I cannot disclose as much as I'd like to. Putting aside the sheer danger attached to such knowledge, your body cannot handle leveraging its use right now. I'm sorry."

To her credit, Gaia did sound sorry.

It hadn't been quick, and nowhere near easy, but their dynamic had changed substantially in the weeks past, all the more when their connection had grown to the point they could meet together like this in his dreams to talk and strategize.

They weren't best friends per se, but they'd gotten past the I butchered you and your children phase of their relationship.

They had each other's backs. That was enough for now.

"Let's work towards that, then?" He said, "We'll start with the Mist, then move upwards as fast as possible."

Gaia chuckled, "That's the spirit, brat. Simply put, Divine Authority is the boon of Creation to all living beings regardless of species. Primordials, Gods, Demigods, Monsters, Animals with Mortals dead last on the scale of importance to the known universe."

"It's a pity for the mortals, though..."

"Irrelevant."

Ice cold Gaia, damn.

Gaia rubbed her palms and exhaled, pushing her hands in an open sesame gesture. She patterned and weaved a massive, grand tapestry of ever-shifting mosaics, rippling and pulsing like capillary waves.

It looked so simple in practice, yet even that was enough to topple Gaia, thick beads of sweat caking her forehead as she huffed and puffed. Percy had to hold her as she started to fall, but even the threat of a face-plant couldn't wipe off her satisfied smile.

"Imagine this tapestry as reality," she croaked, "Intricately woven from the threads of abstract and conceptual laws, which Gods and their ilk, with their divine power, can deftly manipulate. In essence, this manipulation is the application of their boon."

"So when we manipulate the Mist, we're only nudging the set threads our way, not outright controlling it."

"Exactly. The Carrot and the Stick. It's the most basic application of the system, yet more often than not, the trickiest to grasp. It requires the user to encourage the target with the promise of a reward – peace of mind or something else -the Carrot, while simultaneously ensuring they retain the undesired consequences for non-compliance. The Stick. Mortals and animals are the easiest to persuade, with Chaos and Primordials a suicidal venture not worth testing."

She tapped his chest as she continued, "You are the son of Poseidon, Perseus, and even that barely scratches the surface of the depth of your inborn Authority. You've continued to bolster your natural pool time after time with feats and names of power as the years have gone by."

"Then how did Thalia manage to learn it so early?"

"Names hold power, Perseus. The more infamy attached to a title, the greater the power to draw from. Thalia's name already carried substantial weight with her heritage as the daughter of the King, but remind me...what is the story attached to that Pine Tree of hers back at Camp?"

As he mulled over the question, Percy thought back to his climb with Annabeth, the view from the treetop as they looked upon their utopia.

A pride in something greater than themselves.

"A final stand." He answered, "The epitome of a true hero, fighting to her last breath and even further to ensure the people she loved the most got the lives she'd always dreamed of."

Gaia hummed in approval, "Can you imagine the love? The power attached to the retelling of a tale so noble? That tree is chock-full of divine energy, not unlike that of the Yggdrasil. In a few thousand years, provided nothing untoward happens in the short term, its roots may have the power to latch onto whole realms."

"And Thalia was inside it."

"And Thalia was the origin of it."

Gaia got up on shaky feet and started pacing the mindscape as she murmured. "Ordinarily, it should've taken only a word to bend the minds of mortals, perhaps even gods, given the right conditions. You'd already started the process in Tartarus, but we no longer have that luxury. You are not the divinity of before."

Percy's face grew stormy at the reminder, and his mindscape shared in his suffering. Rage bubbled inside of him at the memory of his spirit bound head to toe like a sick criminal.

Bound and tamed like a wild animal.

Just as his intrusive thoughts started to leak, Gaia touched his shoulder, grounding him to a halt with a vicious smile.

"You've been hollowed. Violated. Shackled." Gaia voiced the word with a venomous loathing he found himself sharing, "But not all is lost. As Fate would have it, you have power and an iron will even the gods of Olympus have no control over...and you've long since proven yourself to be more than just your father's mimic."

The words shouldn't have meant much to him, but Percy latched onto them like scripture. Rising to stand beside his partner, he saw visions of warriors and civilizations, gods, and entire worlds bowing at his feet from the aether.

"The gods think you dealt with, the world ignores your perceived death, and continues unbothered. The Giles boy believes you ignorant and naive, a charity case he hopes to manipulate with false platitudes. Let them go about their foolish venture. The Spades will teach you how to thrive, Perseus. I will teach you how to conquer."

His partner extended a hand towards him, and Percy took it with a full-blown smile—an unspoken pact sealing itself from now evermore.

"And on my honor as Gaia, on my name as Polyvoteira, by the time I'm done with you? Nyx, Ananke, and even thrice-damned Chaos will be compelled to bend the knee when your mere presence imbalances the stability of the cosmos. I swear to you, Perseus!"

Y*C*O*Y*W

"AND THEN THERE WAS ONE..."

His voice was mocking and cold as he turned to the Nemean Lion, laced with all the pompous audacity you could place on a lawyer who'd managed to fleece a mom 'n' pop shop for all they had and then some.

Avery was a smug lawyer with enough shady cases to give Michael Cohen the sniffles. Don't ask.

Percy shook off the distraction and penned Riptide in his pocket. He'd rather not test the limits of his baby girl on the lion's hide, especially when the fuming lion looked about ready to blow a gasket.

The lion let its fury sing as it shook the clearing with a mighty roar, the shockwaves sending the corpses of its pride flying.

"Gaia."

"The Nemean Lion. A creation of the faded Titan of the Sun, Helios, as a gift for his sister, Selene. The beast was sent from its abode on the moon at the behest of Hera to challenge Heracles, her bastard stepson."

The beast coated its fur with ghost-white flames and launched itself into the air. The force of its leap flattened the hillock he'd perched on to dust as it came slamming down to the earth with the force of a meteor. A wide-sweeping ring of fire scorched up a decent chunk of the land and pushed to eat at the trees and grass.

The Nemean Lion prowled about the clearing, wreathed in flames, brimming with golden energy, far too paranoid to think it could have killed Percy.

"Makes sense." Percy piped up from a far-off tree branch, a layer of boiled blood chuffing from his pores, "Any weaknesses? Apart from its mouth and eyes."

"I highly doubt it, unless..." She shook her head negatively, "The Antithesis of Civilization, its only viable weaknesses are inside of it. The beast scoffs in the face of weaponry and modern warfare. It can be overwhelmed by numbers or overpowering it like Heracles did."

The lion sniffed at the air for him, a throaty growl sounding out as it zeroed in on Percy's blood. Percy stared it down from his perch unfazed, waiting for it – daring it – to make a move towards him, but the beast surprised him.

Standing on its hind legs, the lion sucked enough air into its lungs to make its stomach bulge...

Then held it.

Percy's instincts pimp-smacked him, and it was as if his body couldn't move any faster.

A cold wind rushed against his face as his quadriceps continued to push and pump with a mind of their own. Entire trees shook or buckled under his weight as he leaped from branch to branch with near-godly agility, his sole objective to get just a minuscule inch out of the beast's range.

Percy might as well have stayed on his branch. His efforts were futile.

Time seemed to slow as Percy glanced behind him, the lion's thick tail cracked at the air like a starter's pistol, and the beast released its full payload with a sky-piercing ROAR.

"TUNGSTEN!"

Time snapped back into focus, and all Percy knew was pain.

A divine surge of air pressure ravaged the serene forest to its foundations and caught up to Percy in the time it took to blink.

His body tore right through tree trunks like a buzzsaw, bouncing and tumbling end over end on the rough terrain for what seemed like an eternity before he stopped on a sturdy boulder, the rock shuddering under the impact but standing firm.

Percy's vision swam with tilting shades of red and yellow before he gave up all pretenses and heaved his guts out. His head was a mess of cuckoo birds and comical hammers, but he was pretty sure puke wasn't supposed to look or smell like blood.

He couldn't find it in him to complain, though. The broken shells of hundreds of woodland creatures and trees were a humbling reminder.

Percy was lucky to be alive.

Gaia's quick thinking was the only reason that attack hadn't liquefied him then and there.

As it was, she'd made her play at the precise moment his body's heart rate spiked, and the lion's blast picked up speed, hardening everything from the top of his scalp to the tips of his toes at a go. And even then, the blast and subsequent tumble had shredded most of his back.

It'd been a deadly gamble, and if Percy's thoughts weren't so loopy, he'd probably be screaming his throat raw by now at the feeling of his nerve endings getting spit-roasted.

But it was only pain.

Already, he could feel the blood from the wound congealing as Gaia put everything into damage control.

If anything, he was more bummed that hardening was off the table as far as the battle was concerned. Any more and his heart would burst from the strain.

He tried to get to his feet but thought better of it as a flurry of black crept up from the edges of his vision; his eyes roved over the devastated forest with a grimace. A third of the woodland looked like someone had taken a mile-long scoop from an ice cream tub.

Percy gave his clothes and body a once-over, sighing in relief at finding his pants and knick-knacks intact.

A half-decent strategy already forming in his head, he brought out a testing tube from his pockets, a transparent cylinder no wider than his middle finger, and scooped up as much of his blood as the instrument could carry before corking it.

Satisfied, he spat out a globule of blood and spit onto his hands and stood up. He could hear the lion charging his way, a good hundred yards away by his estimate.

Percy closed his eyes and tilted his head, a relieved shudder warming his core as the base of his neck popped.

"Perseus..." Gaia whispered, her voice quiet yet carrying a broiling torrent of fury underneath it.

Ah. Yes, he could feel it all too clearly.

His partner's rage at the needless destruction of her realm. Her worries and concern for Percy after his near-death stroke. The blow to her pride at being pushed to such desperate measures by a beast so beneath her...

He hummed for her to go on as his hands fiddled with his hiking boots.

"That power." She said, "That power from our bout with the Chimera, we could eviscerate that beast with a single strike here and now. End the coming battle before it even begins."

It was a test, a poorly disguised one at that.

The easy way out.

Gaia wasn't interested in just their survival anymore; she was livid.

When she told him they could end the fight with a simple punch, she wasn't advising him to do that. She was putting into perspective just how beneath them this arrogant creature was, how foolish it was to think it would leave this forest alive.

The fallen goddess wanted to make this beast suffer for daring to desecrate this piece of nature for little to no reason. She wanted Percy to make sure the Nemean Lion knew only agony and terror before he snuffed its sorry life out of it.

Gaia wanted vengeance.

"Yeah, we could..." He mused, letting the admission trail on as he tightened a bunny knot.

His torso and arms were littered with devastating cuts and bruises, his stomach was twisted in knots, and he had a few fractured ribs, and his knees wouldn't stop knocking against each other from exhaustion.

Yet he'd never felt so alive.

The pounding of his heart in his ears, the tangy taste of copper in his mouth, the vibrations on the earth as the beast thundered its way towards him.

That subtle charge in the air he couldn't stop from electrifying him told him even Nyx was getting excited at the coming melee.

Avery had created a monster.

Or maybe Percy had always been this fucked up.

On the brink of death - right at the edge of the abyss - Percy felt a private synergy with the world around him that he hadn't been able to replicate since his stroll through the Endless Nothing. An addictive high that sex and LSD couldn't compare to.

Gaia felt it too, if her shiver of ecstasy was any indication. Percy laughed; the pair of them were two twisted peas in a pod, it seemed.

His body lit up with a bright pink hue as he bared his teeth in challenge, "But that's how losers think."

The lion slid into view a few meters away from him, its head twisting and turning every which way as it looked around at what it wrought in shock, visibly spooked that Percy had somehow managed to survive the blast.

The shock didn't last, and the unimaginative hack was already gearing up to repeat its trump card. Still, Percy wasn't worried; the problem-solving skills he'd nurtured in his training with Avery were already making up their weight in gold.

See, the air bazooka was a new one – and something he doubted 14-year-old Percy would have been able to handle – but it wasn't completely busted.

Its greatest strength relied on time and distance. With enough space and prep time, the move probably had enough oomph to blow a hole through a mountain.

Its weakness, however, was more subtle.

It needed total concentration to generate its more powerful gusts. The longer it was allowed to cook, the greater the bang, but for whatever asinine reason, it could only charge its nuke while standing on its hind legs.

The most unstable position.

It was ridiculous. Really.

Then again, the infamy of its impenetrable hide would discourage anyone from trying to get close enough to imbalance it, so who really was the sucker?

If it'd been fighting anyone other than Percy or a god, it'd be unstoppable.

Shame.

The Nemean Lion tried to let out another explosive roar in his direction, but Percy was already moving, his body a blur as he sped his way to the beast's right flank and shoulder-checked its thigh off balance.

Its tail curved to clothesline him, but Percy dropped to his knees and slid out of its reach, shifting to a crouch and grabbing a flimsy hold of it while tensing his calves. As expected, the beast whipped its tail up to slam Percy into marinara sauce, only for him to let go of it at the last second. Percy flipped in the air and landed right on the base of the beast's neck.

The wild beast didn't give Percy a second to decompress, never mind get comfortable, before hunching in on itself and giving Percy's groin and thighs the worst bucking bull ride since the Minotaur.

Between grunts and groans, he grabbed a fistful of mane and wrenched its head closer to him, jamming his clawed fingers through the side and bottom of its eye socket, and giving himself some leverage on its skull.

The effects were instantaneous. The lion reared on itself once again, and its tortured wail played like a divine choir to his uncultured ears, a magnificent encore of drowned cat hisses and pspspsps, but Percy wasn't close to finished.

Releasing his hold on the beast's mane and fishing out the test beaker from earlier, the boy tossed the concoction down the lion's gullet before vaulting off the top of his enemy's head. The force of his leap was enough to throw the shaky beast even more off-kilter, sending it rolling along the gravel while it heaped curses at him in Cat.

The beast's tumble kicked up a spatter of dust clouds and shrouded its form from Percy, but he didn't bother pursuing too close. Caged animals and all that.

A good thing, too, as a massive paw swept towards him as he started to circle the beast. In a move that'd bring Neo to tears, Percy leaned back just low enough for the paw to pass by the tip of his nose by a hair. He handspringed backward with his free hand and kept his muscles tensed in a crouch just in case, but the Nemean Lion wasn't taking any chances with him anymore.

Color him impressed, the creature was evolving.

If it hadn't been before, Percy was confident this lick was personal now.

The fuming beast wasn't cocky enough to leave itself defenseless by gearing up a roar with Percy so close to it, but it also wasn't suicidal enough to charge at him unprepared. Instead, the beast contented itself with circling Percy, studying him for any slip-ups or a minuscule window of opportunity with its teeth bared and murder in its eyes.

Sorry, it's eye.

Tilting his head to the side, Percy's voice was choked as he struggled not to laugh, "Looking for this?"

True to form, in Percy's extended palm was the lion's bloody, slimy right eye: optic nerve and all.

'Was' being the operative term.

Percy pushed the muscle right in front of the beast's snout and crushed it to a pulp without effort, a spray of blood and mush coating both of their faces.

And in Percy's case, his teeth, yet even that couldn't cow his sadistic glee.

If the lion had been pissed before, it went ape-shit at Percy's actions. Gone was subtlety and strategy; in its place was an unbridled fury given breath with an endless surge of air cannons firing at the speed of LMGs.

Percy pulled off a hopscotch shuffle, his feet kicking up sparks on the gravel before he leaped around the battlefield and explosions faster than the lion could follow, whooping like a looney wabbit until the beast couldn't differentiate between Percy's taunts and its labored breaths.

Eventually, the lion ran out of steam, and the carpet bombing ended, with the beast struggling to hold up its weight. It felt a nudge, just a ghost of a butterfly kiss, on its flank, and the poor bastard had to struggle not to let out a tortured whine.

"Didja get him?" Percy stage-whispered in its ear.

Quick as a whip, the lion's tail wrapped itself around Percy's throat and brought him to its open mouth. A pale wisp of energy lit up the cavernous maw as the exhausted beast readied another blast to send the boy and its tail to hell.

The threat of this white-haired twink unleashed upon the world was enough motivation to go through with the sacrifice; it was doing the Lord's work as far as it was concerned.

Just as its energy peaked, the beast held in a blast sure to send him to Oz...Percy grinned. The lion only had a moment for its lone eye to widen in terror before the green-eyed gremlin snapped its fingers and-

Nothing.

Nothing happened as far as outside observers were concerned.

The beast's cannon came out in a weak puff of air, because what the Styx?

All that gravitas, all that effort and time wasted, all the mates it had lost in this endeavor, and now, only now, on the brink of death, did the white-haired menace struggle to perform?!

An indescribable feeling of rage bubbled at the base of the beast's stomach. Enough games!

The beast unhooked its jaw and let it trail downwards, determined to swallow Percy whole and-

The lion's eye bugged. Thick red capillaries webbing the orb all over, and bits of green fizz flowing from its tear ducts.

Percy, long forgotten, the monster gagged like a cat with a hairball stuck in its throat and tried to claw out its stomach, before giving up altogether and staggering away from Percy as if he'd caught the plague.

The white-haired demon in question didn't look the least bit gruntled. Standing up and dusting off his palms, he asked, "What's the matter, Nemy? Scared?"

The 'King of Beasts' brayed weakly, a wave of weariness and corruption seeping into its bones and soul, the longer it was forced to stew. Seconds felt like hours, the Earth went flat, and gravity went the way of the Hippie, yet the Nemean Lion couldn't do more than choke on its oxygen.

Percy ignored the dying beast and turned an annoyed frown upwards, his high coming down with a moody hangover as the battle ended. Nyx's star-patterned form tipped her chalice in acknowledgment of his victory before the divine constellation popped out of existence.

Like she'd never even been there.

"Theobromine," Percy said, his eyes still on the sky as he uncapped Riptide.

The lion's breaths grew frantic at the sight of the Celestial Bronze. With its survival instincts overriding its logical rationale, the beast didn't realize that no matter how this played out, it wasn't walking out of this forest alive.

Percy couldn't help but snicker at the sight. It didn't seem to matter what race or species, the fear of death was universal regardless of standing.

"Theobromine," Percy repeated, plucking out a rag and wiping invisible stains off his blade, "Or chocolate if you want the dummy definition. Well, calling it just chocolate is kind of underselling it."

He fished a crushed cellophane wrap, straightening it out before tossing it the beast's way.

It was a flashy purple and pink Cadbury delight with a red-haired goddess of Love feigning a bite of the dark chocolate.

Its banner read, "Aphy's Amour," in stylish cursive, but the font was unable to overshadow the bold black "CAUTION! GOD GRADE GOODY. CONSUME AT YOUR OWN RISK." at the bottom.

The Nemean Lion wailed and pawed at the ground as the realization made headway. Its fur lost its golden sheen and faded to coffee brown.

Ironic.

Percy planted Riptide into the ground and strolled to the dying beast, "See, I hate Chemistry - probably more than Math to be honest- but even the thickest chucklehead'll sober right up when your teacher tries to make you feed a dog chocolate."

Meriwether. College. Prep.

Don't ask.

"Humans have a higher tolerance to chocolates, or so I'm told, demigods even more so. But even that blend of cacao nearly gave me a heart attack the first time I tried it." Percy continued, "It was a shaky hypothesis at best, and not one with an abundance of test subjects."

Percy crouched to a knee before the great beast, his hand carding the lion's mane almost affectionately, "That's where you clowns came in and...well, what did we learn?"

The lioness from earlier.

She'd swallowed a half-eaten bar and died near-instantly, not a sound following in her wake.

"Your little pal back then confirmed my suspicions, but even then, I couldn't be 100% sure a little food poisoning would work on a big, strong monster like you, could I?" Percy squished and toyed with the giant furball's cheeks playfully, his voice light and teasing before all pretenses dropped. "That's what my blood was for."

The lion's breath hitched, its bloodshot pupil dilating in terror the longer Percy caressed it.

"I'm not gonna bore you with all the details, or spill all my secrets, but think of my body–my blood–as a witch's cauldron. A great, big ever-boiling crock pot constantly taking in all sorts of ingredients."

"See, it doesn't matter how much I dilute it. Doesn't matter how much is taken. It doesn't even matter what's added. The broth is always tasty. Always potent. Divine curses, Chimera poisoning, infections, Pit scorpion venom, Gorgon's blood."

Percy's eyes flashed with unhinged malice at the last ingredient, his scarred hand tightening on the beast's snout as it hacked out a torrent of steaming black blood onto the space between them.

The lion's eye scrunched in disbelief, What the fuck is wrong with you? It seemed to say.

The monster looked at the child before it and shook its head slowly. The unassuming, frail little child before him couldn't be the same boy who'd fluked his way upwards against it all those years ago.

He couldn't be.

This was, this was a-

"Mon...ster."

Percy's eyes narrowed to slits, a nerve throbbing on his forehead at the hypocrisy before he shook his head with a scoff, "And you're a disappointment."

When he'd first stumbled on their little hunting party...words couldn't even describe how furious he'd been.

All that training. The traps and strategies he, Gaia, and Avery had spent weeks planning into the early hours of the day.

All of that had been pissed on as Nyx thought it wise to send in an enemy Percy had already beaten, an arrogant buffoon far too absorbed in its hype to be taken seriously.

The vindictive thought of hanging the dying beast from a tree with his lasso and not even bothering with its pelt still ate at his heart, but he decided against it. That was his pride talking.

Incompetent as it'd been with it, its hide was still priceless. He would be stupid not to put it to good use.

As the furry clown gave up the ghost and crumbled into black ash, Percy didn't let its terrified eye stray. He would be the last thing the beast ever saw.

He fished the pelt out of the dust mound and sighed.

It was an oversized coffee brown duster, complete with snow-white fur lining.

Not bad per se, but so not his style.

A flash of silver blinked in his peripheral vision before Percy casually tilted his head to the side. A dull thunk sounded out as a bodkin arrow dug into a tree trunk behind him.

Percy clicked his tongue. The irritating manchild was still here. He traced the path and elevation of the blade and groaned. This was gonna be a slog.

He turned his attention back to the duster. If he was hoofing it for two clicks, he was damn well going to look good doing it.

"Remember, Perseus: Confidence. Inborn talent is a boon, but if you can't believe in yourself, how can you hope to rein in the Veil of Creation?"

Confidence eh?

Percy closed his eyes, his hold on the pelt tightening as he visualized what he wanted this artifact to symbolize.

He thought of his mother, of her tears and her face covered in his blood as she cradled his broken body. Of his friends at Camp Half-Blood. Of the campfire spots that would forever remain empty because of his mistakes.

His heart pulsed in his chest as he remembered his oath with Chaos to be better, with Gaia and Avery to be greater, and with Nyx to be her end.

His blood boiled inside of him as he thought of his enemies - both monsters and gods – of their unseen laughs and jeers as they mocked him for his failings and weaknesses, as they downgraded him to just another snack to quench their sick appetites.

Another pawn to toy with.

A ripple reverberated around the battered clearing. The Mist opened her heart to Percy like a lover in waiting, urging him to choose his path, and Percy knew what he wanted this pelt to symbolize.

For his friends. His loved ones. His Family.

It would be a prayer, a hope, a stalwart symbol they could always rely on to lend a helping hand or be there for them when nobody else would.

And for his enemies?

It would be a promise. A warning. A declaration of war if push came to shove.

He would be the last thing they ever saw, a necessary evil they'd learn not to piss off.

He would teach them fear. He would make them hurt.

As his arms slipped through the arm holes and he fluffed up the fur-lined leather jacket, the symbol on his back waved and rippled in the wind.

A battle-beaten lion's head short of an eye, with a thick, long chain leashed around its neck.

Percy's blazing green eyes shot through the breaks in his platinum locks like heat-seekers, ruthless and ready to get this show on the road.

His voice was low and rough as he voiced the final oath, "I'll destroy them."

Y*C*O*Y*W

2 October 2010, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington, USA

2:32 AM EST

"DO I KNOW HOW TO PICK EM, OR WHAT?"

Avery Giles' smug New York drawl was always a sorrow to behold, but for once, even Maria found it hard to discredit his boast.

It shouldn't have been as impressive as he made it out to be.

For all its infamy, the Nemean Lion wasn't much of a fight. It had only been a class B threat, far below more powerful disaster-class monsters and enemies like Drakons, Hydras, and rogue gods.

"And traitors..." She whispered in the back of her mind, a shock of pale-white hair flooding her memories, "Dangerous traitors like him."

She shook her mind clear as she gave the white-haired annoyance a response.

"Percy Jackson..." She murmured, the name worming an unwelcome niche into her cerebral cortex, the longer her mind replayed the fight. "He's...talented."

Avery snorted, "Talented? Try genius, Hernandez. The Nemean Lion had the numbers advantage, the blessings of 3 gods, eons of battle experience, its hide, -"

"Yes, I'm more than aware of how the battle played out, Avery."

"Then give the kid his flowers, why don't you? Even old Tooth-Eyes wouldn't have done any better. Chocolate, Maria. He brought the bastard down with chocolate!" Avery waved his hands wildly, his expression screaming, 'Why didn't we think of that?!'

Put like that, it was hard for her to find an argument against it. What Jackson had just done might as well have revolutionized Hellhound hunting for the rest of time. It had always been a possible tactic in the back of their minds, but even the most grizzled Spades never quite felt comfortable using dogs as test subjects.

Even fewer had the balls to gorge themselves on enough chocolate to put down an elephant and still test that theory in the middle of a fight to the death.

"I'm not trying to belittle the boy, Avery," She said for what felt like the thousandth time already, "But as wise as she is, the Mistress overestimates our sector's tolerance for disrespect. We'd have a mutiny on our heads come morning if we gave the boy the title of Captain so callously."

They'd danced around the subject since Jackson first agreed to join them. The entire council had been up in arms and ready to toss their 'gallant' Inquisitor in a burlap sack and down a river when he'd first proposed the idea, with Maria at the front of the mob, a sack already in hand.

That was until the obstinate manchild had delivered that letter.

A blood-red envelope sealed and approved with a thorn-riddled spade.

The effect had been instantaneous, and to her eternal regret, Avery Giles had lived to see another day. It was a rare–no, a mythical-occurrence, but all high-ranking members of the Spades knew the mark of the Blood Maiden by heart.

Their Head Chancellor had personally endorsed this madness.

No, if Avery was to be believed...their Mistress had ordered it.

Maria massaged her temples to stave off the coming headache. Autolycus had been bad enough, but they'd been able to calm the masses at his unprecedented rise with the title of 'Ambassador'. A thankless position with more work and travel attached to it than was deemed workplace healthy for most to contend with, yet the lovable old coot had only taken the veiled slight in stride and continued to work with pride.

And even then, his abilities and influence as the last legitimate Patriarch of both the houses of Odysseus and Jason were enough to put to rest further discussion. But it was so much more different – and all the more dangerous – for Percy Jackson.

There were reasons Chiron – and even the Greek gods – were so dead set against any of their demigods getting snatched up by the Spades, and it wasn't just the fact that half the time you couldn't trust your comrades not to stab you in the back. The children of the gods—the Romans—believed themselves superior to mortals. Thought themselves so 'honored' by the Heavens, they had no idea what occurred behind the scenes or how much life-changing information the gods were purposely withholding from them.

How 'expendable' they were in the eyes of the Veiled Realms.

Ignorance was bliss, and their gods would prefer their cannon fodder remained just that. Blissful.

Maria sighed, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. She took a long drag of the roll and exhaled. Hard. "I need to get the fuck out of this pantheon."

"Those'll kill ya." Avery had to chime.

"Fuck off. You're ignoring the issue, as usual. Our Charter prides itself on merit. You work to earn your keep, that's the code. How do you think the recruits working their asses off will react to getting told they're dogshit compared to the 'great' Percy Jackson?"

"Anyone with a problem can bring their own dead Titans to the mix."

Maria's fist slammed into a nearby tree, felling it in a single blow. She glared hard at the son of Death's smug face, "The day you ever utter such foolishness before our men is the day I fucking kill you! Get it through your thick skull! He's not ready!"

"You're right."

Huh?

"What? Give me some credit, Hernandez. You think I don't know the snakes we roll with?" The bastard chuckled like a fool, "They'd eat the kid up for breakfast."

"The-then why-"

"Percy's a kid. Immature, reckless, and far too emotional, he's a skilled fighter, but that's where he starts and ends. Put him in a cage with a monster and he'll have it eating out of his palm, but he'd sooner flip those old fossils the bird than put up with their bullshit."

Maria collapsed to the ground, an overdose of relief all but fossilizing her kneecaps. She took a second to compose herself as she worked out her...eugh... colleagues' angle.

Jackson was too skilled and accomplished to start up as a ranker, but far too reckless and unstable for the Elders' liking. Their Mistress favored the boy and wanted him as close to her as possible, but with the threat of the Night on Jackson, they couldn't risk Lady Sorcha's safety so easily...

"The Internship program. Our most promising operatives are monitored and trained personally by the Captains at all times. You want him taken on as an apprentice?"

Avery nodded, half-impressed, "Not me. Old Scati herself."

"Yes...yes, that makes a lot more sense."

It wasn't the most complicated of plans, but it worked well enough. Jackson didn't care about the Spades, and the Elders would sooner die than let him get that sort of influence so easily. But they knew the Blood Maiden would never be denied her whims.

One way or the other, she would always end up on top.

They couldn't outright support their Mistress' will without bringing down a rebellion on their heads from the Elders, but they could delay it. Compromise with both sides while mentoring the boy until he was ready, because let's be honest, that was the best they could hope for.

The Head Chancellor of the Spades herself had shown blatant favoritism towards him with that generous signing bonus, assigned their charter's Inquisitor Supreme to put everything down and train him for a month, and called for the immediate promotion of an untested recruit...

Maria had to admit even she felt a little miffed at the circumstances, and that was after all the context she'd gotten.

"The other applicants won't be happy. Torrington won't be happy." Maria said with a sigh, already dreading that conversation, "But life 'n' lemons. So you're taking him on as your apprentice?"

"What are you nuts? You're taking him."

...

"Eh?"

Maria didn't get the opportunity to rip the smirk off the cocky bastard's face before they were interrupted by a rude ahem. Smooth as silk, her saber left its sheath and blurred to the interloper's neck on instinct, alarm flooding her features as her thoughts caught up to her actions...

They were waiting for-

That alarm turned to horror as her blade ground to a dead halt with a jarring screech on Riptide. Maria stared at the deadlock, gobsmacked, her sword straining to move the Celestial Bronze blade an inch before her gaze shifted to an amused Percy Jackson.

"Nice sword." He praised unbothered, as if older women trying to take his head off were an everyday occurrence.

Maria broke the deadlock as she glared at an equally amused Avery. What sort of monster had he molded that even she couldn't sense the boy? Her webs hadn't so much as twitched in the time he'd taken to get up here.

If she had any doubts before, they were more than tempered now. Jackson was the real deal.

He was the Mistress' legacy, without a doubt.

"You made it, kid! Percy. Maria. Maria. Percy. Be good, kid. You're stuck with each other now. Okay, byyyyeeee!"

"Son of a-" Avery didn't hear the rest of her cuss before he dove into the shadows and ran. He ran like the crafty coward he'd always been.

Maria's fingers itched to eviscerate the ground the bastard had been standing on until a stifled chuckle drew her away from her wrath. She turned to Percy and balked. The elements were dark, and vision was a chore and a half without the moon, yet the boy glowed.

As he smiled and laughed her way, Percy looked...he looked like an-

"Believe me, I know the feeling." He managed through chuckles, capping Riptide and extending a hand her way, "Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon. Nice to meet you, Ms...?"

It was an olive branch. A fresh introduction for a master and student without any preconceived expectations...

The Captain smiled, her hand grasping his firmly at the elbow, "Maria Hernandez, Daughter of Athena. Well met, Jackson."

Y*C*O*Y*W

2 October 2010, Sorcha's 'Playroom', Realm of Dun Scaith, Isle of Skye, Scotland

9:47 AM GMT

An Hour And 15 Minutes Since Percy's Victory.

"THERE YOU ARE," MAY MUTTERED SOFTLY.

Her lips curled as she took in the despicable room's state, but her lady was the only sight that mattered to her at the moment. She hiked up her dress and picked her way through the paint buckets and soiled canvases to her lady's side, her golden brows scrunching together as she took in the finished portrait, dreading the omen.

"Here I am," was the quiet response. The princess was much too preoccupied – May lied to herself—to give her a more candid response.

May took in her lady's disheveled state, from her paint-spattered pajamas to her deep, bruised eye bags. She still wasn't sleeping. Her hand reached up to caress her ward's messy brown locks, but thought better of it, deciding her little spitfire wouldn't take too kindly to the act.

"It doesn't bother me, you know?" She chirped to May's surprise, quite sure she hadn't heard her right.

She turned to face May, her warm blue eyes – older...so much older and far more weary than she remembered – filled with that same childlike mischief she'd missed for so long. Tilting her shoulder in a manner that looked innocent, yet so teasing, her Lady invited her to do her worst.

May shook her head with a snort. With a twitch of her authority, she fashioned a brush out of thin air and began to comb and disentangle, "And here I hoped you'd matured in your old age."

The little shit headbutted her bosom for the rib. Hard. She tilted her head to face her with a pout, "I'm in my 30s, you old hag."

May giggled, "You could have fooled me with those wrinkles. And what's this?" She pulled out a stringy, gray lock to the woman's periphery and tutted in faux-disapproval, "A little more and we might have to start calling you-"

"Don't you do it, May!" Her angel warned, her eyes narrowing to dangerous slits.

May scrunched the woman's cheeks and tilted her head to face hers. She whispered: "Gran-mummy."

Her ward covered her ears and shook her head from side to side like a squealing toddler, warming May to her core as she recalled much simpler times. Before the-

May shook off the memory in favor of cradling her little spitfire in her bosom, unbothered by the fact that her ward was not the same babe she'd caught nibbling on her mother's spear.

"We've received word from the overgrown manchild," she whispered into her hair, "He passed the second ordeal."

Her Light only smiled at the news, unsurprised, "Of course he did. He's my kid."

May sighed for the second time in just as many minutes, "I see your humility hasn't improved much either, Lady Sorcha."

She knew she'd misspoke as soon as the name left her mouth, with her little dragonfly's shoulders clamming up on herself and her fists clenching to her sides. She shrugged off May's hold and got to her feet, her lip curling at the sight of her.

"I'm-" May rushed to apologize, but Sally cut her off with a look.

"Was there anything else you thought prudent to share, Lady Medb?"

May withheld a flinch at the ice and formality in her tone, like she was just another bad day for her to get over with. Memories best left dead and buried threatened to catch her unawares, but...

"The Inquisitors have gathered. All of them. We hope to discuss the young Master's progress and what comes after-"

"I'll tell you what comes after!" Sally growled in her face, "I get out of this shithole! You take off the mindwipe you put on my husband, and all of you bastards can go right back to staying the hell away from us!"

May's jaw trembled involuntarily, her eyes closing as she nodded her acceptance. "The others would still like to see you, Sor-Sally." She took a pause when it looked like the lass would sock her. Again. "She would like to see you. It's been close to a month now since you arrived."

"She managed just fine for twenty years, May. I don't see the need to break the streak."

Sally shouldered her way past her towards the exit, but hesitated as May cried: "A stórin!"

Sally half-turned to her voice, her face a myriad of emotions as she took in her sister-figure's devastated expression, "Please...A stórin."

"...I'll be there in 10." She conceded with a sigh, giving the room one last once-over. She whispered, "What a mess."

May took a second to gather herself, her eyes growing hazy with tears the longer she stayed in this accursed room. Every blood-spattered portrait, the scraped etchings on the wall, the shattered talismans and sealing wards, May took in every atrocity with a stone-cold frown, her eyes hardening as she stared at the latest addition to the house of horrors.

A disturbing portrait of a pitch-black world devoid of light, save a golden, cat-like eye high in the sky that seemed to follow her wherever she moved. Monsters of all shapes and sizes streamed out of the shadows by the thousands, their furs and hides soaked as they lapped at a communal pool of blood.

Armies of men and the Veiled Realms fighting against eldritch monstrosities the size of castles. The banners of the Spades flew high in a sea of bodies and blood, with a blood-red spear cleaving its way through the hellscape.

At the center of it all...

A bloody, battle-beaten boy with snow-white hair and blazing sea-green eyes hobbled his way to a secluded 'church', its perimeter outlined by a score of decapitated heads.

"What a mess indeed."

Y*C*O*Y*W

Chapter 12: I'd Do Anything For You

"For my mother, who carries skies in her eyes. And wears her grace, like flowers in her hair."

- Words attributed to [-REDACTED- ], authenticity unconfirmed.

I'd Do Anything For You (In The Dark)

2 October 2010, Glais na Sithichean, Realm of Dun Scaith, Isle of Skye, Scotland

9:57 AM GMT

An Hour and 25 Minutes Since Percy's Victory.

"BEAUTIFUL."

One word.

That was always the one word Sally could voice when she looked upon the Glade of the Faeries, yet her mentality hadn't changed even after 20 years from home.

The Glade had been the gathering place of the Inquisitors for more than twenty-five hundred years, ever since the ascension of the Hound of Chulainn and the fury of Rome. It was a gift, a binding tribute between the tribes of the Irish Fae and the Scottish Seelie to the Blood Maiden for her continued patronage and protection.

Magnificent and tranquil, the Glade was nestled at the center of a coven of steep basalt cliffs in lush greenery as flowing waterfalls poured into the purest cerulean waters Sally had ever seen, the tranquil pool dotted with bouquets of precious gems and lotus flowers as far as the eye could see.

The Glade's entrance was a towering central arch of rubies and roses, connected by a long, broad bridge of evergreen pastures. As Sally stepped off the lakefront to the water, she felt the change. A rush of divine energy flushed through her skin, muscles, and bones and down to her soul.

The difference was immediate, and Sally's brain felt buzzed like she'd just downed a triple shot of espresso; she could feel her dimming Sight tunnel and amplify upon itself tenfold. At the edges of her subconscious, the Nemain tried and failed to burrow her way further into her head and feed her even more nightmares, but she shook off the compulsion.

Her latest vision had been more than enough.

Steeling herself, she walked over the magical sea with a grace and strength she'd always carried, her head held high even as the ravenous wolves studied every inch of her disheveled frame. She didn't buckle, looking each of them in the eye as she took one of the many empty marble thrones at the foot of the Roundtable.

She'd stumbled upon the rest of the Inquisitors outside on recess, gathering their thoughts, their residual energies still pouring in heaves from their vacant thrones. Considering the Chancellor hadn't flung them out of the realm, kicking and screaming, it must have been a productive meeting.

Sally's blue eyes locked onto the matching set at the head of the table, and her lips curled downward. Luscious blood-red locks parted down the middle and flowed down to her bare shoulders, curtaining rosy-pale skin the color of double late tulips.

She was dressed for spring, her lean, muscled build in a simple white tank top, capris denim jeans, and leather Birkenstocks. Her fabled spear was absent, her posture lax and carefree as she lounged upon her throne, yet Sally wasn't fooled for a second.

The casual look was a farce, and greater fools had died in scores for thinking Scathach Dun Scaith so defenseless.

To Scathach's immediate right sat her second-in-command, Queen Medb of Connacht, the longest-living Inquisitor, barring Grandpa Jiji, and Scathach's oldest confidant. She'd been a resident of Dun Scaith for the past...Sally didn't even know how long.

She wasn't even sure Scathach remembered.

Opposite Medb lounged...trouble. A fat load of it in the roguish, dapper guise of one Avery Giles, Inquisitor Supreme of the Greek Charter of the Order.

Sally didn't hate the man, far from it.

Avery, Maria, and Nathan were among the few people in this shadow cult she truly respected, but there was a lot of ancient history between them that she'd rather keep far removed from her for as long as she lived.

Speaking of ancient history, Scathach's azure orbs hadn't strayed from Sally since she'd arrived, her clawed fingers tightening on her wine goblet for a fraction of a second as she took in the rumpled state of her daughter.

It was creepy as all get out.

Blowing at her nails and feigning indifference, Sally asked, "Don't you know it's rude to stare, Lady Scathach?"

Medb's exasperated groan was all the warning she received before the temperature skyrocketed, the air carrying the weights of boulders on her shoulders, and the tranquil waters pulsing and fizzing like a spiked coke as the Chancellor let her mood be felt.

It continued for ten seconds, fifteen, thirty, and a minute before the prehistoric drama queen shook her head with a satisfied humph.

"Stubborn as a mule, this lass." She whispered, "Eh, Medb?"

Avery didn't waste a second to mutter his two cents, "View must be heavenly from that glasshouse of yours, Granny."

"What was that, Avery?"

Medb jumped in before Scathach could get into it with the stylish manchild, "Thank you for your audience, Lady Sally," she praised, shooting a reproachful look Scathach's way. "Avery, if you would?"

Avery nodded sharply, ignoring the hole Scathach was glaring into the side of his head as he placed a bulky briefcase on the table and split its contents into three neat piles, ending with the smallest.

Percy's file.

That got her attention, and Sally struggled not to leap off her seat and throttle the son of Thanatos for answers.

"There's not much to say about him other than that you should be proud, Granny. Kid's almost as crazy as you." Avery chuckled despite the scathing glare pointed his way. "Night's keeping her hand to herself, but she's content for now. The final test should be sometime this month, and then that's it. You have my word."

Sally let out a breath she hadn't even known she was holding, her eyes watery with unshed tears. Even with what she'd heard from Avery's first report, she couldn't comprehend it.

Her Percy had pissed off Nyx of all beings, and the Primordial had him by the balls with her head on the line.

Needless to say, Sally had been beyond livid. All the more when the Spades had bundled her up and warped her off to Dun Scaith without even granting her one last look at him.

She looked down at her shaking palms and almost sobbed. She could still feel Percy's blood all over her; still see his charred corpse every time she closed her eyes.

"I love you, Mom, and I'm so proud to be your kid."

"How is he?" She pleaded, her voice raw, uncaring of who she had cut across.

Avery scratched at his jaw as he mulled the question, "He's...cagey. Quiet but not timid. He hides a lot of shit, and it's clear he doesn't trust us, but he's...amicable, I guess? You raised a good kid, Sal; he's just going through it."

Sally's lips quivered into a wet smile from his words. It wasn't what she'd wanted to hear, but she gave her old friend a nod of gratitude, all the same.

"And the other matter, Avery?" Medb asked tightly, a little miffed at Sally's interruption, "How much have you recovered on that front?"

"I've pulled in every contact I have for it, no dice. The Titan of Sin is still AWOL."

Sally had no idea what the heck he was talking about, but the news must have been dire if Scathach's and Medb's frowns were any indication.

"The little shit killed the Chimera before we could get enough info, but Autolycus, and his... 'associate' managed to get something out of it while undercover."

He pulled out a dull, grainy picture of what looked to be a shady business transaction between some back alley thugs. With the standard white van, the scuffed little package, and the money-changing hands one would expect from some cheesy drug-dealing sitcom, Sally almost rolled her eyes at the son of Thanatos' theatrics.

At least until she saw the brand on the side of the van, of the weeping child with long white hair, their hands clasped in pious prayer.

"No. No. He can't be...he's still..."

"He's still alive and kicking, old Tooth-Eyes." Avery finished brusquely, the statement ringing like a gong as his bearing turned the most serious she'd ever seen.

Sally's face lost its natural tan and went green, fighting the urge to hurl the longer she stared at the symbol.

She heard a haunting laugh, felt the ghost of his touch noogie her hair, and caught a flash of pale-white hair and pearly-white teeth. Great bleeding fuck, she could still remember his voice.

Light and charismatic, with an undercurrent of chaotic mystery to it.

"You're just a little pixie, aren't you, Little Sorcha?"

The air became suffocating as Scathach's divine authority strained and writhed around the Glade like a coiled snake itching to strike. Her nails dug a whole meter into the stone table as she fought to rein in her temper.

"Tell me you've found him." The Blood Maiden demanded, her voice harsher than a tundra.

It said something that even Medb was concerned about what would happen to Avery should his answer be unsatisfactory, but the son of Thanatos was nothing if not quick with his mouth.

"Like I said, Percy killed the Chimera before we could get the info we needed, but!" He screamed as Scathach rose, "But we have a lead; that's more than we've managed since you failed to finish him off. We'll take care of it, Scati, I promise. On the Trails of the Hound himself."

The second the oath was uttered, reality inverted, and the world turned monochrome. An overflowing presence of power that eclipsed that of Scathach herself seemed to study their group for an instant just before disappearing without even a word.

If not for the magic protecting the Glade, Sally was sure the Outer Entity's mere presence would have immolated her insides and then some, but as it were, Scathach only let out an annoyed huff.

"See that you do, " she demanded uncompromisingly, pointing two fingers toward Percy and his files and dragging them to her with a beckoning gesture. "And the Pigs? What did you gather about them?"

"I looked into it like you said, Granny, you called it. Rome's been compromised."

"The Triumvirate?" Medb questioned, her golden eyes alarmed.

"They're a problem, but no," Avery licked his lips as he read the report, "With the Athena Parthenos acting as a buffer, the Greek gods have managed to assimilate the entirety of their Roman aspects into themselves completely, and they don't plan on letting go this time. After this generation, it's gonna be next to impossible for any more demigods – Major or Minor - to come through from Rome for a long time."

Sally's throat went dry as she locked eyes with Medb. Pure dread filled them, and they fought not to look Scathach's way.

Assimilation.

By the gods, what a shitshow.

A cruel fate for the victim culture and what should have been labeled a Cardinal Sin before the eyes of the Veiled Realms.

All factions had partaken in the act in some way or another. For all its flaws, it was a bloodless way to acquire power and territory, and foster long-lasting ties through the worship of a pantheon's followers rather than all-out war.

Take the Buddhists' passive syncretization of the Shinto Pantheon into Shinbutsu-shūgō, for example. Or the overall amalgamation of the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh factions into the unified Celtic Pantheon.

It was harmless and beneficial for both sides when done with respect. When done peacefully.

Rome...Rome didn't do peace.

Where Rome went, Wrath and Destruction followed as instruments of War, determined to sing out. Sally had no idea what had stoked such malevolent carnage in their hearts, and if the Badb knew, she wasn't keen on sharing.

The Etruscans, the Balkans, Germanic tribes, Greece, Anatolia, Iberia, Carthage, and so much more had been pillaged, discarded, or destroyed until Danu herself and the surviving gods had decided enough was enough.

A revolt had ensued, and the Roman pantheon had been beset from all sides until nothing was left of their divine power. Degraded to lesser aspects of the very Greeks they despised, with their mortal followers and descendants forced to take on the consequences of their gods' actions.

Now Fate had come to finish the job with an even harsher lesson...

The air grew tense the longer the implications were allowed to stew before Scathach broke the mood with a wry chuckle. "So the Pigs are finally getting their dues, eh? Pure poetry."

"Even for you, that's low, Scati!" Avery roared, scandalized. "They've suffered enough with the Toll, but always had order and structure to compensate for their weaknesses. We're not talking salvageable casualties here; this is the end of their culture!"

"Let them eat cake."

"Granny..."

Sally had never seen Avery so speechless for as long as she'd known him. He'd always known the woman to be cold and detached, but it seemed he'd been ignorant of why she was who and what the gods feared she was.

Didn't understand just how far the Blood Maiden could go to get what she wanted.

"Lady Scathach..." Sally murmured, her voice hitched, and her head bowed low in submission. Her pride chafed, but the alternative was unacceptable.

Scathach sighed, "Organize a liaison. With Lupa or anyone worth half a damn in that camp of knobs, let's see if we can't work something out. Support or otherwise. That's all I'm willing to concede."

A collective sigh of relief sounded out from the table, and Sally allowed herself to sag into her seat. It wasn't a complete victory, and the wording of the concession still left much to be desired, but it could've been worse.

It could've been so much worse.

Y*C*O*Y*W

"WHAT IF I HADN'T BEEN HERE?"

The question hadn't been planned, and Sally wasn't 100% sure she'd said it aloud, but she felt it was important to ask. All the more considering it was just the two of them now, Avery and Medb having already left to join the other Inquisitors in the central fortress.

She forced herself to face Scathach, but the woman listened with only half an ear, her eyelids shut in bliss, as she twirled her chalice absently.

"Speak plain, Sorcha."

Sally's right eye twitched at the name, but she knew better than to fly off the handle with Scathach of all people. Medb would coddle and apologize for all her previous wrongs, but that was Medb. She'd always been most in touch with her feelings and failings regarding the three of them, even before Sally had run away.

Scathach did not care for such petulance. She dealt only with facts and absolutes, and bringing such feelings before her would make manipulating you that much easier.

She breathed and reiterated, "If I hadn't been here, would you have bothered with the Romans?"

"No."

The answer was short and to the point, with no justifications or reasoning other than what she felt was the right course of action.

And the funniest thing?

Sally couldn't outright disagree with the sentiment. She, more than most of the Inquisitors even, knew the depth of Rome's atrocities and how much they had cost the ginger before her.

But these weren't the Romans of then. Those barbarians had long since died off and faded away many eons ago; the Coven of Crows had ensured it. Holding such a grudge against ignorant children was no better than putting them to the sword for something they could do.

Then again, Scathach wasn't doing anything outwardly malicious. She wasn't going out of her way to seek retribution from the weakened Romans or hinder them in any way other than not risking her legacy to protect them, was she?

Plausible deniability. It was justified, and Sally hated it.

She didn't even want to be here anymore. Suddenly, the cold comfort of solitude in her 'playroom' seemed preferable to dealing with the woman before her. Bowing her head once more and rising to her feet, she took her leave without a word or look backward.

"But you were here, weren't you?"

Sally's foot stopped halfway off the lake as the words smacked into her. She whipped her head to the warrior woman, her eyes blown wide, to find Scathach looking at her, a tiny smile playing on the edges of her lips.

The 30-something looking hag got up to her feet and stretched, gentle creaks echoing from her spine, "I prefer not to broadcast it, but I am old, Sorcha. Far too old and set in my ways to always make the most compassionate decisions instead of the wisest."

Scathach rounded the table and walked towards her, cupping her daughter's sallow cheek as she crooned, "Who's to say I won't make much crueler decisions without a kinder head to advise me?"

The invitation was clear, but Sally's rejection was quicker.

"I'm sorry, Lady Scathach, but I don't plan on staying here any longer than I have to."

If the words hurt Scathach in any way, Sally would never know as the tiny smile never left her angelic face; if anything, the Spade Queen seemed more amused by the rejection if her chuckle was any indication.

"'Lady Scathach'..." She toyed with the name briefly before shaking her head negatively, "Once upon a time, you called me Mother, Sorcha."

An unwanted stream of memories flooded her with the power suffused into that single word. A young girl and her redheaded mother glided down a trail alongside a herd of Kelpies, the young girl hiding atop a cupboard in wait for her mother to pass the archway so she could leap onto her shoulders.

Of Sally snuggling up to Scathach as the woman regaled her once again with her favorite bedtime story, of the Golden-haired Hound and the Brown-haired Princess...

Sally shook off the memories with a sad frown, "Once upon a time, you were worth calling Mother."

Y*C*O*Y*W

6 October 2010, Maria's Penthouse, Soho, Manhattan, New York, USA

3:25 AM EST

4 Days Since Percy's Victory.

MARIA GOT OUT OF BED IN A MOOD AFTER THE THIRD THUNDERCLAP.

Deciding sleep was off the table, she headed to the bathroom to wash her face off and withheld an eye twitch at the grey-eyed horror glaring at her from the mirror.

Coarse midnight-black hair battered and noogied from bedhead, coupled with her dry, coffee-brown skin, made her look less like a dignified daughter of Athena and more like an Etsy Yara Flor.

Bad enough, the sudden freak storm hadn't stopped for the past 3 fucking days; now it was messing with her godly good looks, too?!

Flipping off the ceiling and massaging her temples, she grabbed her robe and palmed her way downstairs to the kitchen for a pick-me-up. With any luck, that much nectar and caffeine so early in the morning would stop her heart before the day ahead did.

A guitar's riff nuzzled at her eardrums just as she sipped her brew. Gentle and light, the sounds complemented her apartment's acoustics as they swam from the veranda before the culprit's lyrics got to her.

"~I feel so extraordinary; something's got a hold on me. Got this feeling I'm in motion, a sudden sense of liberty~"

Without much thought, Maria drifted to the origin, mug in hand, none too concerned at the possibility of a trap. In her mind, Maria likened the phenomenon to Odysseus' stint with the Sirens. The sound of the rain grew harsher the closer she got to the singer, but his pitch didn't get any dimmer.

"~I used to think that the day would never come. I see delight in the shade of the morning sun~"

The voice was intoxicating, rich, and soft in a manner not too dissimilar from Charmspeak. Every hitch for breath, the reverberations on the bass from a plucked chord, even the delayed scratches from a pressured note, it couldn't help but draw her in closer and closer to the source until she found herself staring at the back of a mop of snow-white hair.

"~The morning sun is the drug that brings me here. To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear...~" Percy's head drooped down with a sigh at the final lyric before ending the song with an angelic hum that weakened her knees.

He turned to Maria at the sound, his green eyes clouded and lost before a sheepish smile formed on his face as he took in the state of his roomie, "Sorry, Ms. H., did I wake you up?"

"You sing like a Siren." She said flatly, her ADHD overtaking her thoughts.

To his credit, Percy's expression wasn't as awkward as it should have been at the 'compliment'; he simply murmured a skeptical 'Uh...thanks?' as his fingers continued to fiddle with the guitar's tuning pegs.

Maria's copper cheeks took on a healthy tint of pink at the awkwardness. She hated dealing with people. She'd paid over $3 million for this penthouse to avoid dealing with problems like this. It didn't even make sense; she owned that stupid guitar.

A priceless collectible, signed and gift-wrapped by the Kurt Cobain himself at his last performance back in the 90s.

She couldn't play the damn thing worth shit, but still!

When he'd arrived, Percy had taken one look at the instrument, turned his nose up at the delicate glass casing, and the next thing she knew, the little bastard had been strumming riffs and chords around her house with all the innocent audacity of a snot-nosed brat.

It was infuriating!

'Adorable as all Hades,' the traitorous part of her heart whispered.

Deciding she'd made enough of a fool of herself, Maria dusted herself off the floor and coughed into her fist, "No, Percy, I think the storm started and finished that job for you. And for the last time, call me Maria, will you? Ms. H makes me feel old."

"Whatever you say, Ms. H."

Maria weighed the long and short-term benefits of strangling the cheeky little shit as she leaned on a beam and grumbled into her coffee. Her grey eyes were lost in the pouring rain as she drew in her robe at the cold.

"What's got you up so early?" She asked halfheartedly, mainly to make small talk, but arching a brow at how he froze up on himself.

"Just...demigod dreams."

Maria nodded sagely, "Yeah, those are brutal." She fished a coin from her pocket and flashed it his way, "Drachma for your thoughts?"

Percy's face scrunched like the query had physically burned him, "One clam? Do I look a basic bitch?"

"How about I toss in a Scooby snack?"

"Mmmm...tempting, but no. It's nothing, Ms. H. My dreams are just dreams." Percy finished quietly, with a soft smile as he traced a jagged scar on his left palm, his feet kicking over the ledge.

He looked so cute doing that with his white hair and soft, delicate features; you almost wouldn't believe this was the same kid who'd mauled a Primordial with his bare hands...

She sat close to him, her eyes forward as she sipped her coffee. "Why not share then? Don't tell me you don't trust me."

"Would you?"

Maria choked on her brew at the quickness, her free hand coming to knead her gut as she devolved into giggles, "Ouch...but fair. Very fair. Answer me this, though, will it come back to bite the Spades in the ass?"

The twinkle in Percy's eyes died out with the question, and Maria couldn't help but feel the least bit guilty, but she thought it was essential to draw the line here and now on what their relationship was.

Percy was a good kid.

He was funny and endearing, able to switch between friendly and polite with her when the need called for it, and, all in all, a pretty peaceful roommate, considering the past three days they'd spent together. Even if the little bastard had a stomach and appetite, that could put Charybdis to shame.

But Lady Scathach be damned, he wasn't near charismatic or unique enough for her to put what she'd known and followed her whole life on the line for him. Never mind her life.

They were colleagues. Teacher and student. Fond acquaintances at best, but nothing close to friends. Not yet. And it was best to make that clear, the only way she knew how.

Blunt Athena-like(read: bitch-like) honesty.

Percy's jaw clenched, but his answer was firm, "No. It won't, I promise."

She took his word for it with a nod, not enough of a hypocrite to bother with excuses for herself. She downed the last of her coffee and shook the mug over her head for any leftovers.

Satisfied and more than a little buzzed, she got down to the brass tacks, "Heads up, we're taking a trip to Long Island."

The guitar's strings snapped with a jarring TWANG as the son of Poseidon turned skittish with dread. His expression was the most concerned she'd ever seen as he shook her for answers.

"What? Why?!"

Maria arched a stupefied brow at the absurdity, shaking him off with a baffled scoff, "Jesus, kid, tell me how you really feel. There's a Primordial Curse sucking the soul out of that Camp, remember? I need to scope out the area to get a feel for what I'm dealing with if we're ever gonna find a cure."

"Well, yeah, but...I didn't think you guys gave a damn about the Camps?"

The observation wasn't untrue per se, just the truth from an ignorant perspective. Despite the recent events, the Penumbran Spades were still a business second and a secret society most important.

A powerful one at that.

And not just the strength of numbers or individuals. The oldest Spades had the knowledge and history of the Charred Texts at their beck and call. Nigh-divine influence with a loaded reputation to match it. Countless millennia worth of blackmail and secrets spread out among operatives across the globe.

Blackmail and secrets that spanned across entire Pantheons.

The Olympianomachy. Kagutsuchi's Forge. Baldur's Gate. The Ascensions of the Bull, the Monkey, and the Hound.

The Cataclysms.

And that wasn't even touching on the Coven of Crows...

The gods couldn't risk those secrets getting out. To do so would spark an inter-Pantheonic conflict that would make the Second Titanomachy and Gigantomachy look like a cafeteria food fight.

Demigods, Magicians, Einherji, Samurai, Excorcists, even Taoists. Every bloody faction latching onto this planet would throw themselves into a pointless rebellion like lambs to the slaughter for their perceived 'justice.'

Lady Scathach was cruel–cold at the best of times – but even she wasn't heartless enough to pull that plug.

Revealing themselves willy-nilly to any faction for any little conflict would raise too many unwanted questions. Jackson's initial tantrum with Autolycus had more than proven it. Cold as it sounded, it was for the greater good to put up a neutral front and take the hush money that came with it.

It was wrong. Cruel. Borderline evil, but the world couldn't withstand another Cataclysm, fractured as it was, without an Earth Mother.

But Percy didn't need to hear that, not from Maria.

"We've received the go-ahead from top brass to offer aid to Camp Half-Blood and Jupiter in any way we can." She answered brusquely, "I informed the old centaur a few days ago, but got no response. I'm tired of waiting and more than peeved enough to make this pent-up aggression some other schmucks problem."

"But the Oath? Autolycus told me you were sworn under threat of death not to interfere in the affairs of the Camps?!"

Ah. Yes, this one would be a lot more delicate to maneuver.

"Percy, we never swear those oaths on any binding vow; we only keep them out of respect for Lady Scathach. Putting aside Styx's petty spite, the Boss isn't so one-dimensional to make the people so loyal to her throw their lives away so callously when accidents on the field can happen."

"Then why now? Accidents can happen, but this is diving headfirst into a semi-truck. You've backed off on worse, so why break the rules now?"

"Damn you, Avery..."

Gods, she didn't get paid anywhere near enough for this; her annoyance only grew at the knowledge that the infuriating manchild should have explained all this to the kid before handing him off to her in the first place.

"Because of you, Percy." Maria confessed with a sigh, "It's hard to say, but you have more value to the Spades loyal to us than not."

Percy scoffed, "You mean indebted to you. Bound to your beck and call for whatever fucked up bullshit you try to rope me into."

"No, Percy. Maybe to Lady Scathach. But not to Avery, and not to me. I could never ask that from a kid like you. You asked me earlier if I'd ever trust myself if I were in your shoes? You shouldn't, not in a million years. It doesn't mean you can't."

The older woman tilted his stubborn chin gently, stormy grey communing with sea green for what felt like a nascent eternity as she tried to get a read on him before she broke off the deadlock with a sigh. Maria got to her feet and kept her eyes glued to the wailing skies, unable to look him in the eye.

"The Spades are far from perfect, Percy." She continued quietly, her confidence dulled, "But one thing you'll learn if you're willing to look for it is that there's no such thing as absolute good or evil in this game. Only individuals, the sums of their choices, the gods, and motherfucking consequences."

Percy remained silent as the words settled into him, her guitar forgotten, and his head forward as he lost himself in his thoughts as usual. Maria still wasn't sure if the words had gotten through to him, but she'd sleep better knowing she'd tried for today.

She watched the boy from the corner of her vision, marveling at his constitution. Despite the biting cold, Percy was dressed barefoot in a simple black tank top and loose jogging shorts, with a gentle layer of steam wafting from his pores.

It was in one of Avery's reports on his training with the kid.

Percy's use of blood manipulation was crude and barbaric, even worse with all the limitations placed on him. Unlike the Blood Maiden, who could consistently generate and manipulate vast quantities of her blood and the blood of others, Percy could only use his blood as a sort of performance booster.

From the records of Lady Scathach's abilities, they'd gathered that her powers functioned as a limitless adapter first and a tool second. A never-ending workout.

Percy could only improve with it by putting himself through a literal trial by fire.

His technique could make him move faster, hit harder, and come back better after every challenge, all he wanted, but he'd only ever be a liability if he passed out on the field after he reached a variable time limit.

That's where this exercise came in. He would continuously boil or cool his blood to an internal temperature of 37 °C regardless of the weather. Going too low would flash freeze his muscles indefinitely, and shifting too high could damage his inner workings irreparably.

It was a dangerous test of will and endurance, a feat of precise control that toed the line of reckless stupidity, and only Avery's twisted mind could have come up with such a shortcut, but it had more than paid its weight in gold with the boy.

The Nemean Lion could be more than attest if they could drag its sorry ass out of its coping den in Tartarus.

Percy may never be as powerful as before – and the gods would prefer it that way – but that didn't mean he couldn't still dominate the Veiled Realms off sheer skill and grit alone.

And if they were lucky...

The promise of Creation to the weak.

A defiant challenge to Reality for acknowledgment of one's existence.

The pinnacle of Mortality.

Yes...with enough work(read: dumb luck), Percy might be among the few worthy enough to manifest that technique.

His own Ballad.

She ruffled the brat's hair just because, snickering at his petulant c'mon dude, "Get something to eat and pack up your duffel, kiddo. We ride within the hour."

Y*C*O*Y*W

6 October 2010, The Outer Forests , Camp-Half Blood, Long Island Sound, New York, USA

7:06 AM EST

"COULD YOU RELAX ALREADY?" MARIA GROANED WITH AN EYEROLL.

Percy jolted in alarm at the scolding, his hands tightening on his duffel for a beat before sighing, "Sorry, it's just nerves, I guess. It's been more than a month since I...since I-"

Abandoned them, the son of Poseidon struggled to confess, gnawing at his rosy lips as his eyes became clouded and lost in his head...something Maria noticed he tended to do more often than not in the days they'd spent together.

Still, though, she thought he was being a little hard on himself, and it circled back to what she'd said about truths from ignorant perspectives. For better or worse, leaving Percy's status as 'unknown' for so long had helped him more than the kid would admit.

Putting aside how injured he'd been following the fight with the Chimera and the threat of Nyx breathing down his neck, the time away with nothing clouding his mind but surviving the days ahead, Avery's company had helped set his head on straight.

She looked at the young man beside her and compared him to the corpse she'd helped airlift just a month ago. She took in his confident, albeit measured stride, his firm, angled jaw, and just how gallant he looked as he waded through the rain like some prodigal son.

Or like that one scene at the end of The Lion King, with Simba's roar and those orchestral ah-ah-aahs in the background.

And his eyes...placid sea-green orbs glittering like emeralds. Weary, but carrying a raw steel to it, she'd forgotten how much she missed seeing on an old friend. On a fierce set, the brilliant shade of sapphires.

Maria gripped her ward's shoulder in support and offered a firm nod, "That was then, and this is now. You've returned to them more determined than ever to fix this mess. If that isn't heroic, I don't know what is."

"I'm not that kind of hero, Ms. H..."

"Well, now, that's a matter of opinion, don't you think, Percy Jackson?" An amused voice intoned from the shadows.

As if they'd done it hundreds of times, the two stood back to back against each other, their respective weapons drawn. Maria felt a wild surge of something primal in the air as she and Percy circled each other, waiting as if they were being observed as valuable pawns on a chessboard rather than people.

She stifled a disgusted grimace, the sensation reminding her too much of Athena, "I take it you're the reason the old horse has been 'predisposed'?" She snarked, her drawl drier than the Sahara, "Show yourself! NOW!"

The command cracked in the air like a whip, and already Maria could feel the stranger's displeasure power-washing the clearing like cascades at being ordered around like a common servant.

The chutzpah on this clown...it could only be a god.

While she was confident she and Percy together could handle any of the usual troublemaker gods, sh-

"Oh, fuck."

Corpse-pale toes and silver studded sandals stepped out of a wild bushel of foliage, and Maria ate and swallowed those words down her throat like she'd never wanted anything more.

Long platinum-blond hair, the color of the first snow breaks, was praised by a thorny crown of pink begonias. She wore a sleeveless light blue dress patterned with snowflakes, shrouded in a dark cape of dragon hide. Slung over her shoulder, the goddess held a massive cornucopia of fruits and rich vegetables, and in her right hand was an eight-foot scythe of wood, adamantine, and gold.

"Demeter..."

Maria hadn't spoken the name. She couldn't have.

Putting aside the informal naming scheme, she was too busy trying to push down that lemon she'd swallowed earlier to think properly. She turned a wide-eyed stare to her suicidal ward, having to manually hot-wire her fried brain cells as the fool stumbled forward as if entranced, towards the force of destruction rather than away.

"Percy, don't be-" She was cut off as the Dread Queen sealed her lips with a mere hand raise, beckoning the son of Poseidon to her with an encouraging nod.

With each step the boy took, the pouring rain seemed to buffer and peter out around their tiny little microcosm, fresh shoots of purple begonias breaking out from his trails with the sweet scent of citrus and jasmine.

Footsteps and cries sounded from afar, and the combined energies of all the Greek demigods pouring into one location slammed into her enhanced senses like a freight train. Yet, Maria couldn't take her eyes away from the scene before her.

Standing seven feet tall, the 40-something-looking goddess dwarfed her young protege's 5'10 by a hefty margin. The two were worlds apart in power and Divine Authority, yet even as the boy's sea-green orbs locked onto the Dread Queen's empty eye holes...Maria couldn't help but liken the pair of them to equals.

Master Chiron and a wild young girl with fierce blue eyes were the first to break through the shrubbery, their bows locked and loaded with a veritable sheaf of arrows. Following them were a few more battle-hardened warriors, half-dressed and kitted in armor and weapons, all stopping as they gaped, gobsmacked at a living legend.

"It's him." Someone piped up.

Another swore, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me. I thought he..."

The rest of the sideline commentary ended abruptly as Lady Demeter did away with her scythe to caress the weary hero's cheek in an uncommon show of affection, uncommon, turning to inconceivable as Percy leaned into the touch like a man starved.

"Tell me every terrible thing you've done, Eubo," Lady Demeter pleaded, quiet but firm. "And let me love you anyways."

Y*C*O*Y*W

25 August 2010, Thalia's Pine Tree, Long Island Sound, New York, USA

11:36 AM EST

1 Month and 12 Days Ago.

"CHILDREN OF GREECE, LEND ME YOUR EARS!"

The call should have ruptured her eardrums, but Thalia still fought against a sea of bodies just as eager to obey the command. The Camp counselors crashed out of the Big House in an unceremonious heap, their limbs twisted in a poor imitation of a Picasso.

Thalia rubbed at her aching head to get the fire ants off before her jaw dropped at the sight before her. Standing at the top of the hill, her hand nuzzling and scratching at Peleus' chin, was an armored woman seven feet tall with an even taller scythe.

A useless sight for even sorer eyes, Demeter, Olympian 'goddess' of Agriculture.

Thalia's head dropped into her hands with a broken groan. "Fuck me sideways on a spinning carousel, when will it end?"

Bad enough they were up shits creek as it were with the Camp; why were they stuck entertaining the most useless immortal of Olympus, barring Aphrodite and Dionysus?

The goddess paced about the pine with her arms folded behind her back, uncaring of Thalia's thoughts. Her posture was straight and alert like that of a seasoned general: "Demigods. Heroes. Children."

She paused the final label, looking each one of them in the eye as she allowed that fact to seep into their minds.

"A grave sin has been imposed upon you. You have suffered. Blood and tears have long since dried out your beloved sanctuary. You have begged and prayed to no avail." The goddess growled at the thought, her eyes flashing with a blinding, forest-green glow, "No longer. To Hades with the Laws. On my authority as Demeter Panakhaia, I say NO MORE!"

Thunder and lightning vitalized the skies like a Chinese fireworks show, and her father's displeasure was evident at Demeter's perceived crimes, but the goddess remained unimpressed and unimpeded.

Still, though, Thalia couldn't help but press doubt on the altruism of the goddess's generosity.

Call her cynical, but the time she'd spent following Artemis and the goddess, ditching them to face Orion on their own once Zeus had her on his naughty list, had burnt all vestiges of 'faith' in her spirit.

And it was fucking Demeter of all goddesses. No, thank you.

"That's all well and good, uh, Lady Demeter," She started, hiding a snort behind a coughing fit, "But we wouldn't want to impose."

"Thalia..." Chiron warned lowly, his eyes flitting between the goddess and the huntress in fear. He appeared to be sending her a message with his eyes, but Thalia was too far gone to care.

"Our friend is missing. Percy Jackson? I'm sure you remember him; he kind of saved the gods and Western Civilization's collective asses twice in a row?" Thalia's confidence grew as the rest of the campers voiced their support in cheers and whoops, "So if you could just point him our way anytime soon, that'd be great."

To her credit, the goddess didn't vaporize Thalia on the spot for her blatant disrespect, taking a shuddered breath instead as she gathered herself.

"Perseus has chosen to walk his own path. A road clouded and unclear to even the Three Sisters. Whether or not his journey will coincide with the whims of this Camp is undecided as of now."

Thalia felt the world get swept up from underneath her, a vision of a black-haired boy with a smile that could light up the world, shriveling to dust. She didn't even notice when her jaw dropped, never mind when she fell to her knees.

"No way..." A voice in the crowd cried.

"He ditched us?!"

"I fucking called it!"

"It has to be a mistake! He couldn't!"

"That bastard!"

The masses became a macabre mix of sobs, insults, and loaded accusations against her friend. Order and hard-fought unity fell apart as the goddesses' words chipped away at the reputation of their Golden Standard. Thalia's eyes rested on the rest of the counselors, shocked to find Sherman and Damian devastated at the news.

"THAT'S NOT TRUE!" Nico screamed desperately as he, Chiron, and Will Solace fought to stave off the growing mob, "I'm sure he has a reasonable explanation. Give him the benefit of the doubt here. It's Percy."

But that wasn't what the crowd wanted to hear. They were tired, starving, and hopeless—and had been for a while. The past month of waiting and praying their hero would swoop in and save the day again had more than taken its toll on their empathy.

They were hurt and hoping to relieve that pain with a juicy scapegoat.

Unconsciously, Thalia's hands drifted to her clay bead necklace, palming the three beads. It was a gift from the friend who'd abandoned her. A mark of kinship he'd given to her after the Titan war over cheeseburgers.

"Stuff it, Thunder Thighs! I don't give a damn about Hunter protocol; we had you first. You came all the way from fucking Idaho to save our asses, I don't wanna hear it. You're one of us. You're Family."

A stray tear dropped onto the bead with the golden fleece, quivering her lips and choking her throat as she loosened the knot on the back of her neck.

Enough.

Thalia was just about done with all of this. Of the sleepless nights defending this shithole, of the hours spent reining in a bunch of opinionated idiots for pointless meetings.

Of protecting a memory, she wasn't sure mattered to anyone else but herself.

Annabeth was gone. Clarisse too. Her brother was missing or dead; she had no clue. The hunters were in shambles from Orion's massacre. All of that she could manage; she could take it all to the chin without a word of complaint, but him?

She turned back to her 'family,' all already up in arms and rioting for Hades knew what this time against the other counselors. Already, blood had been drawn, with Paolo Montes, the Hebe cabin counselor, suffering from a stab wound on his shoulder.

Thalia shook her head sadly and turned back to her sisters-in-arms. A grim nod passed between her, Iphigenia, and Phoebe. If even He believed this camp lost, why should they bother?

They would leave tonight under the cover of darkness and the embrace of Artemis.

Yes, it was for the best. Thalia had to believe that. These idiots wouldn't last long without Percy to help, so why try? They were worth less than-

"WILL YOU FOOLS BE SILENT!" Demeter roared with the reverb of a thunderclap, accentuating her command with a devastating explosion of divine energy that sent the demigods to their knees.

"Lady Demeter, you must under-"

"Keep your mouth shut before I lose my patience with you, too, Chiron." The goddess cut off the rebuke like a mother disciplining an infuriating child, "It's no wonder the slack always falls onto that boy when you're too busy coddling these spineless cowards for them to take their lives into their own hands!"

If Chiron took any offense to her insults, he likely didn't have the death wish to refute them, not when the goddess before them looked ready to face them all to a wall with paper dunce hats.

"Time after time, I've had to watch you all force the burden of guilt; the role of Leader onto a child, with more than enough to juggle on his plate."

That wasn't fair. It wasn't anywhere close to fair.

So why did it echo so true in her heart?

"Ótan énas stratigós miláei, stékeste prosochí!" The goddess of Agriculture commanded with a verve that could halt the movements of the cosmos. Even the most stubborn of them stood at attention with a simultaneous stamp on the ground, not even registering it.

Who the hell did this hag think she was?! Where did she get off ordering them around like she was anything more than a second-rate Hera? Where was the nut that read the ingredients of a box of cereal? Where was-

"Are you all the Children of Perseus? Or are you HEROES?! Are you the inheritors of Greece and all it's legacy stands for?!"

The rebuff sucker punched Thalia - damn near floored the Aphrodite cabin if she were being honest - as she was forced to put to context just how pathetic she looked.

Standing here with her tail between her legs, waiting for Percy of all dorks to sweep her off her feet, how far had she fallen?

"The Council thinks you lot no better than attention-starved house pets. Roman? Greek? There is no distinction. To them, you are loyal dogs, waiting for their betters to return with their tongues out and tails wagging." Demeter confessed without emotion, uncaring of the divine smiting that bounced off her scythe.

Thalia turned a murderous scowl to her father's domain at his arbitrary confession. And the old bastard wondered why he'd never gotten a Father's Day card from her.

"Let me guess..." she groused with a skeptical drawl, her arms folded over her chest. "You disagree," she said.

"Yes, they are wrong..."

Thalia rolled her eyes at the answer, turning her head away as she deduced the goddess' recruitment pitch in a heartbeat. Memories of Kronos's countless manipulation tactics came to mind.

Next, she'd tell them that they were born to be rulers of the coming 'Golden Age' or whatever.

"Because you fools are cockroaches."

...

You could hear a pin drop following the silence at the statement. The jaws of over a hundred demigods, hunters, and nature spirits hung ajar as they gaped at the indifferent goddess, the picture of slapstick comedy.

Demeter sneered, "How could you ever be anything less? You are dealt an even harsher hand than the average mortals you believe yourselves superior to, forced by Fate, the gods, to live little more than fatalistic lives. Lives that are destined only for tragedy."

Thalia's fists tightened with a mind of their own as she shook with rage, her eyes growing hazy with tears the longer the being before them continued to point out truths she'd long since acknowledged.

She knew this.

She'd always known this. How could she not realize it with all that she'd experienced? But the Camp's morale didn't need this nonsense. She couldn't handle it being thrown in her face anymore than it already had been.

She already knew they were all bred to die-

"And yet do you weaklings falter? Do you insects buckle or yield to despair when faced with the cruelties of your existence?"

Demeter slammed her scythe on the ground in fury, the barren plains bursting with scattered shoots of wheat, poppies, violet begonias, and...holy basil? "No! Your kind scream out in defiance! You people continue to push forward to the welcoming embrace of Death with the ironclad hope that your surviving comrades will continue to carry on their legacy for them!"

"You Warriors battle relentlessly until your bodies lie lost forever in oceans of the blood of your enemies, or you have their throats in your battle-worn jaws! Every one of you survives or dies as Heroes! Your Family prevails over their adversaries and continues to endure and thrive without fail!"

Thunder, lightning, and fucking hurricanes battered the world around them like party favors. Stark-dark clouds smashed together and raged as Thalia's father looked on the verge of a mutinous conniption, the longer his sister undermined his will.

And maybe that was what sold Thalia. Maybe looking upon a Goddess with the strength of will to defy everything she'd ever followed, fighting for innocent children, allowed the jaded huntress to open her heart and believe again.

She couldn't put it into words; you just had to be there.

As Demeter's words gave Thalia and the rest of the Camp the hope to keep standing, so too did their invigorated hearts give their home the power to stand firm against the Earth itself.

"I am Strong!" Demeter roared unbowed, her arms spread wide in blatant challenge of nature's fury, "Powerful beyond what I am worth, but I cannot remove what Gaia has wrought upon you. I will not remove it because I believe the men and women before me, the Heroes I see before me, do not need 'Gods' or 'Messiahs' to be the deciders of their Destinies!"

"DÓXA STIN METRIDA!" Demeter slammed her scythe on the hillock one last time, a wave of energy nourishing them and dyeing the cursed lands and plants golden, "Shout it to the Heavens!" She cried fanatically, a rallying beacon, "ARE YOU CHILDREN? OR ARE YOU HEROES?!"

"DÓXA STO LAÓ TIS!"Thalia screamed at the top of her lungs, a power in her voice she'd never known herself to possess before, but the abnormality did nothing to curb the big, fat smile on her face.

A smile of challenge she shared with the Goddess before her.

"DÓXA STIN METRIDA!"

Nico di Angelo took up the chant with her with a resolute thump to his chest. "DÓXA STO LAÓ TIS!"

"DÓXA STIN METRIDA!" Demeter called again, and the counselors followed, with Chiron and Argus as an encore. Then, the hunters and the nymphs. The campers. The satyrs. The half-dead dryads.

Even Peleus the Dragon roared a mighty torrent of flames to the heavens in support of the war cry.

"DÓXA STIN METRIDA! DÓXA STO LAÓ TIS!"

"DÓXA STIN METRIDA! DÓXA STO LAÓ TIS!"

"DÓXA STIN METRIDA! DÓXA STO LAÓ TIS!"

Y*C*O*Y*W

6 October 2010, Earth's Lament, Camp Half Blood, New York, USA

11:24 AM EST

4 Days and 7 Hours Since Percy's Victory

"THAT'S ONE HELL OF A STORY." MS. MARIA MUSED.

Thalia snorted at the abysmal understatement, much too amused to take offense. The daughter of Zeus shadowed the older demigoddess as she paced about the mile-long hellhole unbothered by the radiation.

She couldn't make heads or tails on how the Hades the woman had pulled it off, but in the hours past since her and Percy's arrival, she'd been able to quarantine about half of the crater with a length of glowing silk thread and warding talismans.

"I'm sure you've got more than a few to match it, like where you managed to snag these threads, Ms. M?"

"Stop fishing, Thalia." Maria countered easily, not even turning her way as she continued to knit her web.

The lieutenant of the Hunt struggled not to stamp her foot like a petulant child at the woman's evasions, their back-and-forth going on like this for the past four hours.

She could understand the older demigoddess' dodginess, but dammit, she was worried for that stupid Kelp Head.

A month and a half.

He'd been AWOL for a month and a half, doing who knows what, who knew where with people she knew nothing about. Shady individuals covered head-to-toe in gear and weaponry that somehow made the Camp's weapon shed look even more inadequate.

Shady individuals with the power to override Primordial curses.

And that wasn't even touching on what the Hades was going on between Percy and Demeter.

It was maddening. All the more when she hadn't even been aware that there were adult demigods who weren't retired Roman legionnaires or Huntresses.

Too much was happening right under her nose, and it made her sick to her stomach. Thalia didn't care for tact anymore. She saddled up to the older woman and spun face-to-face with her, a feral scowl darkening her features.

"Look, okay, I know I'm not-"

"What exactly did you say Lady Demeter did here?"

Thalia almost knocked the raincoat off the older demigoddess at the rude interruption, but she fumbled to answer the question, the longer the words stayed in her head.

Almost like she was being commanded to answer rather than compelled. The daughter of Zeus didn't even realize the question hadn't been asked in English.

"Uh...not much, if I'm being honest. She gave us food, healed the worst of the sick, and offered some of her subjects to help with watch duty, but all in all, she's kept to herself and left us to run everything ourselves. Why do you ask?"

Maria shook off Thalia's hand with a resigned sigh as she knuckled her forehead, weighing how much she could share with her before she whispered: "There's a seed here...the makings of a Claim."

"What the heck does that mean?"

The older demigoddess rolled her eyes, "The Mistress of the Hunt should have started her following by then...do you Hunters have any records or crumbs of Greece before the fall of Troy? Of the 'Silver Age'?"

Thalia shook her head in the negative at the question, unsure why it was even necessary, but Maria only nodded like her ignorance was in itself irrefutable proof of her own innate superiority.

The daughter of Zeus had forgotten how much she hated that expression on Annabeth.

"I figured as much." Maria continued, "Even we don't have half the details surrounding the Dread Queen, there's always been bits and pieces scattered across history, though—the Eleusinian Mysteries for one."

Hang on, did she just call her the Dread Queen?

"Alleged witness accounts of her wrath following Kore's kidnapping. A couple of godly children here and there, Kore from Zeus and Despoina from Poseidon, to name a few. There was also-"

"Is there a point to all this?" Thalia couldn't help but growl, unfazed by the woman's withering glare.

Maria scoffed, "That's the problem with you scrubs. You say you want answers, but don't have the patience to read between the lines when it's right in front of your faces!"

Thalia stumbled backward at the acid in the older woman's voice, her instincts screaming DANGER! The longer Maria glared at her, "Blistering barnacles, Thalia! Neither your Father, the Sea, or the Underworld had the balls to try challenging her once she had the entire Greek world hostage, yet the stories swear she was raped by the two of them. What changed?!"

"...what are you thinking?" Thalia whispered meekly.

"I'm thinking...that we might be right in the middle of the biggest smear campaign in history. It can't be a coincidence that Demeter's making her move now, and the King, who's erased entire cultures for lesser slights, can't do more than thunder and rumble."

Maria's eyes slid over to the top of the hill, Thalia's following with it, and waved at the two figures looking down upon them with a forced smile, "And it all comes down to our buddy 'Eubo' there."

Lady Demeter's forest green eyes seemed to spark and sizzle as she glared a hole through Maria's head. Her rosy lips set in a placid frown even as she placed a motherly peck on Percy's forehead. The goddess continued to stare at them as the son of Poseidon slid down the slope and regrouped with them before vanishing in a gentle breeze of leaves.

Spooky.

"Hey, you alright?"

Thalia looked down at Maria's question, shocked to find Percy standing in front of them. How the Hades had he gotten to them so fast?

Percy nodded stiffly, his eyes glazed over and panicked. "I need-I need...can we just get out of here, Maria?"

"What? Why would you-"

"Of course we can, kiddo. Go wait in the car, I'll be right behind you."

Thunder boomed overhead as Thalia's temper flared, her frustration at getting treated like an annoying piece of furniture causing her to lash out.

"Like hell you are!" She gripped the son of Poseidon by the lapels of his jacket—baffled by how warm his chest felt in the freezing cold—and forced him to look her in the eyes. His eyes—his once beautiful sea-green eyes—were dull and lifeless.

And guilty. Oh, so guilty.

"Percy. Percy. This whole thing is nuts. You can't leave now, I just got you back. We need-"

"Thalia, please!" Percy snapped, "Please. Just let me go. You guys don't need me here."

What was—why would he say that?

Why would he ever think they didn't need him? That she didn't want him to be here? It didn't make any sense at all.

Thalia's hold on her friend slackened before falling limply to her sides as the son of Poseidon drifted away. His gait was slow, mournful almost, and his head was bowed low in shame.

He didn't even glance back in her direction...

"What the fuck?" she murmured, hurt coloring her tone. "What's his problem?!"

"I...don't know."

Her wet eyes sizzled with sparks as she fisted the dodgy woman's soaked blouse in a rage, the urge to wipe the superior look in her eyes overwhelming, "Yeah, try again, Foil Hat. You talked all that smack earlier; don't play dumb with me now. What happened to him this past month? Where was he? What are you to him?"

The older demigoddess seized up at the insinuation, her shoulders hunched tight and her face stony as her stance widened and her fingers gnarled into claws for a pregnant second.

The challenge was clear, Say that again.

Any other time, Thalia would have snorted at such a threat before pummelling and flipping off the smartass' mangled corpse, but the daughter of Zeus found herself...hesitant?

No, that wasn't the word. The word was terrified. Paralyzed with fear.

Scared shitless.

Thalia had stared down Furies, Titans, Gods, and a furious Percy Jackson in the middle of an icy river, but even all that paled in comparison to the dead stare Maria's cold grey eyes bored into her soul.

Like the woman would break her in half here and now and toss her corpse into a trash heap without losing any sleep.

Above the woman's head, Thalia thought she could see the apparition of a boa constrictor coiled around her form. Its pale-golden eyes were wide open, tangible enough for her breath to fog on them.

"Are you-are you even human?" Thalia found herself stuttering, her chest tight as she looked into the eyes of a killer.

Maria's hand latched onto her hair with the speed of a cobra, and Thalia realized just how tall the woman was as she looked down on her with those piercing grey eyes.

It was like staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun. Thalia felt like she could blink and never wake up again.

"Word of the wise, Lieutenant?" she mocked. "Learn to quit while you're ahead. For all its flaws, ignorance truly is bliss."

Y*C*O*Y*W

6 October 2010, Ravenscrag, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

4:38 PM MST

4 Days and 13 Hours Since Percy's Victory

"REMIND ME AGAIN, WHY WE'RE THIS CLOSE TO THE CREEPY CASTLE, BOBOFIT?"

Nancy Bobofit withheld the urge to deck the blithering snot bucket then and there at his incessant badgering.

"I don't remember asking you to follow me, Sammy." She remarked instead, her sharp brown eyes trained on the massive double doors of the mansion as she shivered down to her tippy-toes at the biting cold.

Nestled in the hidden depths of a frozen jungle, nobody could claim to have stumbled here by accident. The dreary mansion – damn near a castle – towered over a hanging cliff's edge, the icy waters down below having gnawed away at the rock face for so long it resembled a raven's beak, just waiting to collapse and take the manse's contents to the sea.

The property was endless, with rusted, wrought iron fences capped with Celestial Bronze railheads ringing the snowy winterland as far as the eye could see. Nancy could spy no guards, gardening attendants, or life from the property, yet she couldn't help that sinking feeling in her neck that she was being watched.

It creeped the heebie-laba-jeebies out of her.

All the more, the longer her eyes stayed glued to the ominous brand on the double doors.

Of the weeping child with flowing snow-white hair, their hands clasped in pious prayer.

She reached out to touch it, the emblem all too mesmerizing to ignore, before she recoiled as the shrill caw of a raven of all things startled her out of her musings. Her lack of focus made her miss the shadow crossing the window on the uppermost floor.

She stumbled backwards into a chest as sturdy as a brick wall and almost screamed, firm, freezing hands grabbing onto her shoulder and turning her face to face with the rest of her friends.

Sammy Cacciotore, BMSU's resident football mascot and overall sleazeball.

Ashley Taylor, her best friend. She'd stuck with her through the good old days in Yancy Academy when the world was much smaller and Percy Jackson was so much easier to swirly.

Finally, the man holding onto her in support was Craig Shilo, the star quarterback of BMSU's football team and Ashley's boyfriend.

"Like we were going to let you come all the way to Canada by yourself for Thad Castle of all schmucks?" Craig groaned with an exasperated eyeroll, "C'mon girl, we're better than that."

Nancy was brought back to the real world at the pseudonym, her flushed cheeks growing redder than her hair as she recalled the roguish face of her estranged friend? Klepto-in-crime? Boyfriend?!

She'd met Autolycus a year ago during the aftermath of what she now understood was the Battle of Manhattan. The 'mortals' had been left to muck about like headless chickens as the Greek demigods fought against the army of the Titans and turned the entire city into a Best Buys on Black Friday.

Nancy herself had almost had her face eaten off by a donkey-legged vampire before she was saved at the last second by Autolycus.

Her knight in shining armor.

He'd explained what he could to her about the mythological world from his memories and tried his best to comfort and protect her as she felt the world was falling apart all around her. He'd stayed with her until she went off to college to get the lay of the land, as he'd put it, but Nancy knew he'd enjoyed her company just as much as she did his.

"Jesus Christ, girl, you've got it bad for him, haven't you?" Ashley cooed, her long eyelashes twinkling with mirth.

She did. She really did.

They bonded over their shared kleptomania and love for the finer arts of thievery; those scant few weeks he'd spent nursing her back to health, pickpocketing with her, and making her feel acknowledged were some of the best days of her life.

She didn't care about the age gap; she was sure she could manage whatever nightmares from hell tried to break them apart. They were meant to be together. No one, not even her friends or parents, had ever made her feel so seen.

They were soulmates; she was sure of it.

She'd bumped into him again while on campus, the dashing son of Hermes on a recon mission for some demigod secret society or whatnot; she hadn't cared. She'd been so happy to see him again, jumping at the opportunity to help him and offering herself and her friends decoys to mask his scent while he stalked a monster disguised as a reserve QB.

They hadn't had the time or need to define what exactly their relationship was, before Percy fucking Jackson stumbled his way into her life with his stupid white hair, and demigod kung-fu, messing up everything as usual.

Treating her like some victim, and acting like he gave a damn about her.

The last time she'd seen her hero, he'd shown up in front of her dorm, on his knees like some common slave apologizing to her for his 'crime.' He'd told her he couldn't afford to see her anymore, that his staying with her would only bring more harm to her than good.

Treated her like some dumb kid who had no idea what she was trying to get into.

Her hold on her frozen compass grew stiff as she bared her teeth in challenge; she'd show him. She'd show them all. Once she got the coordinates for this dump, she'd show Autolycus that she could more than go toe-to-toe with his world.

That he didn't need to abandon her.

She'd kick Jackson in the crotch if he ever had the balls to turn his nose in again where it wasn't needed, and then...and then...

Nancy couldn't hold back her girlish squeal as her mind wandered, almost missing the decisive tick of her compass calibrating.

45.5059N, 73.5821W.

A triumphant smile broke out on her face, her hands fumbling through her backpack for her phone as she tried to take a picture of the manse for reference. Autolycus was gonna freak once he got this.

"One second, you guys, and then we'll-" Her voice caught in her throat as she looked back at her friends.

Their headless corpses, to be specific.

Their eyes were blown wide, and their bleeding skulls frozen mid-scream in horror as their bodies dropped to the floor like stringless puppets.

Shock.

That was all the girl could register as she slowly backed away from the pool of blood leaking through the snow, her breaths coming out in rapid, hysterical puffs as she started to hyperventilate.

She was on the floor. Why was she on the floor?

She couldn't tell why their...their...why this bothered her so much; she'd seen her fair share of dead bodies on the streets of Manhattan, been held at gunpoint multiple times from thefts gone wrong.

Nancy was tough; she knew she was. So why? Why did the strength in her knees fail her? Why did she struggle to hold in her lunch at the sight of Sammy's corpse, a no-good creep she'd caught looking up her skirt multiple times.

Why could she feel tears gathering at the edges of her vision for people she wasn't sure she cared about?

"Ah, Denial. The first stage of Grief to overcome, yet often the tipping point for the weak-willed majority."

Nancy's head snapped to the origin of the intruding voice, her eyes blown wide in terror as her heart beat like a drum in her ears.

The man was tall, absurdly so. He reached a staggering seven feet and climbed as he loomed over her like an amused barn owl.

He was dressed for a Sunday service, wearing a white suit, tie, white slacks, an overcoat, shined black and white dress shoes, and a groomed shock of ghost-white hair to top off the ensemble. His 'eyes' were covered with a pair of tinted tea shades, and Nancy was sure no good could come from a smile so wide.

"Hello." He chirped merrily, like he'd just passed her on a simple stroll through Central Park, wiggling his bloodied fingers her way for effect.

"Habadmaha anamaha..." Nancy struggled to respond. Her tongue felt like it had welcomed a nest of fire ants while she wasn't looking, and her knees knocked like a ballroom blitz.

For his part, the Proprietor of the Mansion only tilted his head, amused at the gibberish, "Don't tell me I've broken you already, Bobofit? The Service hasn't even started yet."

Nancy started to back away at the ominous promise, her hands and feet shuffling against the snow as her traitorous legs still refused to stand up for her. The Proprietor wasn't too keen on letting her go; however, his hand latched onto her ankle with a grip hard enough to crush diamonds.

She screamed like a banshee, calling out to anyone she could for help as the massive doors opened and the endless, shadowed corridor looked to swallow her whole.

"AUTOLYCUS!" She cried desperately, clawing at the ground as the devil in white dragged her into hell, "AUTOLYCUS HELP ME!"

The Proprietor tut-tutted in faux disappointment, his gait slow and relaxed as he handled her 'fight' like a mewling kitten, "I want you to know that this is all your fault, Nancy. The deaths of your friends, what's about to happen to you, all of it is your fault."

Tears poured out of her eyes in rivulets, her muffled pleas lost to the winds as the monster continued to mock her.

"I gave you a chance in Central Park. I gave you an out when you crossed the border to Canada. I even planned on letting you go until that accursed raven forced my hand...but you never listened."

The doors started to shut as her screams peaked, that accursed brand clouding her vision as her captor's monologue picked up steam.

"You wanted to be a hero. You thought you could stick your nose into business you had no place in and come out unscathed. You believed you could ruin me and that there would be no consequences."

The raven from before cawed one last time, and all Nancy knew was agony, her body battered and assaulted from all sides as the air started to box her in.

"Well, here I am, you deviant bitch."

Her captor came close to her face with a lit torch, the sudden light blinding her for a few seconds till she regained her sight.

And what a disturbing sight it was.

The Proprietor occupied her field of view, his face mere inches from hers as he glared into her soul. But it shouldn't have been possible, for where his eyes should have been...

Were pearly-white teeth.

"The motherfucking consequence."

Y*C*O*Y*W

Foreign words used in this Chapter:

Glais na Sithichean – Glade of the Faeries

Demeter – Earth Mother

Panakhaia – Of All The Achaeans ( Greeks )

Ótan énas stratigós miláei, stékeste prosochí! – When a General speaks, you stand at attention!

Dóxa stin metrida! – Glory to the Motherland!

D ó xa sto la ó tis ! – Glory to her People!

Chapter 13: The Heart of Man

"Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer."

- Javik, Mass Effect.

The Heart of Man ( As Black, Selfish, And Flawed As Can Be )

26 October 2010, Mess Hall, HQ of the Greco-American Spades, Adirondack Mountains, New York, USA

12:15 AM EST

NEPOTISM WAS A PAIN IN THE TUCHAS.

Give it some time, and Percy was sure he'd be using that phrase more often than 'Primordials were bullshit.'

The wilful son of Poseidon groaned into his rigatoni pasta as yet another mob of full-fledged idiots passed by him, whispering and pointing like gossiping schoolgirls at a new fad, or whatever. They'd been at it since Percy had first arrived in Central two weeks ago, and there was only so much he could tolerate of the same tired taunts.

"That's him? I could break the twink in half," a grizzled Spade boasted.

'Sure you could, Chuck. Sure, you could.'

"He's the brat I got snubbed over for apprentice? C'mon!"

'Liam, you weren't even in the top 50. There are cameras in the Gulag. I know what you did with Lori's jockstrap.'

"I don't know what I was expecting, to be honest? Maybe a bit less scrawny?" Another Spade mused, "It's a miracle the world's still standing with a kid like him at the wheel. Probably got lucky..."

A dry scoff shot through the air like a whistle, silencing the mess hall as steel-shod footsteps echoed through the room like horse clops. "Privileged, more like. Everything he thinks he is, is because of the corpses he tossed to the wolves to shine."

Percy froze at the barb, his hand clenching into a tight-knuckled fist around his spork and a gruesome challenge revving in his eyes for the annoying crybaby to repeat that.

This particular jackass was tall, towering over Percy's seated 5'10 with a respectable 6'3. Still, he'd have stiff competition against Leo Valdez and that homicidal nutjob Octavian for the title of 'the Scrawniest.' He wore combat boots, teal cargo pants, other useless accessories, mystical doo-daa's, and a black Metallica t-shirt underneath a brown overcoat.

Percy smiled, "And how would you know that, TNT? Far as I'm concerned, you only existed after the war."

Raging sea-green clashed with smug amber-yellow in a fierce contest of will and illusory sparks. Percy's lips curled into a disgusted scowl the longer he was forced to tolerate Alabaster C. Torrington's continued existence. Percy didn't think any Spade–or living being, honestly – could infuriate him any more than the spiteful son of Hecate did just by breathing. He was an annoying, sore loser with a chip on his anorexic shoulder so massive, he'd self-actualized it.

According to Maria's records on the current apprentices, the lanky clown had 'earned' his place with the Spades off of some valuable intel on the whereabouts of the serpent-witch Queen of Libya, Lamia.

The Greco-Roman demigods had her to thank for their monster-attracting scents. The records claimed that the monster had some ancient beef with Hera, eons in the making, stemming from the Goddess of Marriage making her eat it in more ways than one after a night—or several—of unauthorized 'wrestling matches' with Zeus.

Why that beef had been redirected to the 'demigod bastards' Hera couldn't care less about? Percy hadn't a clue. Entitled monsters were nuts. Female entitled monsters were a headache, not even worth pondering.

There were plans for something big within the coming year to remove her millennia-long curse and finally give demigods the dream of a 'normal life.' Real heroic stuff, too, all things considered, but Percy wasn't holding his breath.

"-and another thing, you tweed-faced meathead! HEY! ARE YOU IGNORING ME?!" Alabaster screeched in his face, shocked - appalled even - that Percy hadn't been paying attention to his self-righteous bitching.

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing, buddy. I'm happy for you, or sorry that happened. Now, if you mind...?"

The son of Hecate's palms slammed on either side of Percy's lunch tray, the action sending his mug of blue Cherry Coke spilling just shy of his pants while the acne-ridden culprit snarled mere inches from his face.

Percy huffed as he dabbed at the soiled table with a napkin, not even offering the jackass a glance, "And I thought Mr. Thunder up top loved his entrances; what crawled and died up your ass, Torrington?"

Strange. The expected rumble of thunder from the King of Olympus didn't follow like it always had whenever Percy pushed his luck with his 'dear uncle.' What was that about?

"Is this all just a game to you?!" Alabaster demanded, bundling his fist around Percy's tank top and giving the son of Poseidon a full facial of his pearly, crooked teeth.

"Brussel sprouts for lunch? You going through a mid-life crisis or something, ACT?"

Alabaster scoffed, "You're not even worth it, Jackson. You don't care about this. You don't care about anything."

Percy's temper brimmed for a moment before he reined it in. Alabaster was a shit with a big, fat mouth, but mopping the floor with his face wasn't on his to-do list for today; Percy's mind was set on more pressing matters at the moment.

His third, and final, trial from Nyx, to be specific. If his calendar was accurate, Percy could expect the all-powerful to give him his final 'present' either today or tomorrow. Percy was ecstatic, but Alabaster couldn't quit while he was ahead.

"Credit where it's due, though. Luke was a slimy snake, but he only pulled so many 'volunteers' to the cause because Kronos used him like a sock puppet, but you?" Alabaster sized him up with a coy smirk, "You somehow managed to con the suckers in both Camps to fight and die for a cause you don't even believe in. That takes talent."

Percy saw red. He didn't register his body moving, let alone flipping Torrington over his ass in a judo move that'd bring Annabeth to tears, Riptide poised on the quivering bump of the bastard's throat. His blood was roaring, phantasms and nightmares mocking him inside his head, begging him to drag another soul to Hell.

The shame from his 'talk' with Demeter continued to cackle and tap-dance on his shoulders like tiny-winged demons and angels. 'You are not him, after all,' the goddess had said, the sheer disappointment in her voice a slap to his face. 'Not in the way that matters.'

He shut his eyes tight at the memory, the quiet of the cafeteria an afterthought as he gulped in breaths. Percy's head snapped as rough, calloused fingers dug into his shoulder fiercely, his body was tackled to the side, and Riptide's razor-sharp edge was stopped mid-swing by what felt like a brick wall.

He heard a frantic shuffling behind him as Alabaster scrambled to his feet. An odious incantation on his lips came to a dead halt at the scraping SHING of a blade leaving its scabbard. Percy looked up to the business end of an enchanted Cattleman Revolver and gulped, his eyes trailing past the barrel to the calloused hand gripping the weapon and further beyond.

The man was a mountain of muscle, grizzled and chiseled in a way only a western desperado could be, with a worn gunslinger hat and a woven alpaca poncho. His hair and stubble were a dirty blonde, a silver toothpick on his snarling lips, and his day-blue eyes squinted and pinched like he'd spent too long looking down the sights of a gun.

He was Nathan Bell, son of Apollo, third Captain of the Greek Trinity, and self-proclaimed Pride of Texas.

Oh, and Alabaster's Mentor.

'Fuck.'

"So you're stupid, but not that stupid, huh?" Nathan's amused voice was almost as grizzled as he was. Rough, with a strong Texan drawl, "Yeah, I can work with that."

Percy gritted his teeth at the condescending tone. That inexplicable grip of rage drowned his thoughts in red again as he fought to shrug off the Captain's thick boot from his shoulder.

'Who does he think he is, looking down on me like that?' Percy growled internally, 'Where does he get off pointing that peashooter at me like I'm some rabid-'

BANG!

The warning shot was enough to kill all the wind in Percy's sails, his wide-eyed stare drifting down to the smoking hole in the ground right by his left ear.

"Maria, put your dog on a leash before I do it for ya." A haunting click echoed through the mess hall as Nathan loaded another shot, "The hard way."

"I could say the same to you, Bell."

Percy tilted his head in the direction of his Mentor's venomous bite, his eyebrows shooting to his hairline at the sight of the bulky, mechanical crossbow trained on Nathan's head and her saber, Rakuyo's, sharpened edge poised on the side of Alabaster's neck.

"Seriously?" She spat, her face the angriest Percy had ever seen. "A compulsion spell on one of our own? Do you have a death wish, Torrington?!"

Alabaster's throat bobbed in a wide-eyed panic as Maria's blade started to sear at his neck before Nathan raised his hands in surrender, Maria's point more than made.

"Alright, alright, I got the message. Torrington, wrap it up and flirt like normal from now on, okay?" Alabaster's beady eyes turned mutinous for a second before the teenager bowed his head with a huff at Nathan's reprimanding glare.

"...m'sorry," the cockroach mumbled timidly.

"There. That about settles it. Am I right, or am I right?" Nathan drawled, his grizzled smile sickly sweet.

"If you think for a second that-"

"Maria. You know we've got bigger fish to fry; it's why we came here to wrangle these idiots. Boys will be boys. Let it go for now. While I'm still asking."

Maria met the veiled threat with a scowl, her form near feral as she stared down the son of Apollo with a glare cold enough to flash freeze glaciers. They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, the rest of the cafeteria too busy darting back and forth at the standoff to breathe before-

"After the meeting, he's mine. I decide the punishment. Understand, Bell?" Maria compromised (read: threatened), her voice brooking no argument.

Nathan conceded the demand with a sharp nod, ignoring Alabaster's betrayed cry as he turned away from them and dragged the son of Hecate kicking and screaming through the exit.

Maria stared at their shrinking forms for a minute or two before following, Percy having to jog to catch up with her power walk, leveling one last glare at the rest of the Spades.

He hadn't been sure what to expect when he'd first come through here, but he'd hoped a league of professional adults would've gotten over something so nonsensical by now. It was Camp Half-Blood and the Claiming all over again.

"You alright, Ms. H?" he asked.

Maria chose not to answer him momentarily as she reined in her temper. Her glossy, dark hair covered her eyes, and her fingers clenched and unclenched as she took steadying breaths, not to sock him into next week.

"Are you?" she whispered finally.

"What does that-"

"Don't!" Maria snapped, burying her fist in the wall mere inches from his face before she continued calmly, "Bullshit me, Jackson. Torrington's a powerful little weasel, but even he can only put so much power into a compulsion spell without an incantation. You were ready to kill him off the bat from a minor nudge, so either you're that much weaker than we thought you were, or you've got some shit you need to work through. Which is it?!"

Percy, for his part, was too busy gaping at the massive crater next to his face to answer her questions. What the Hades was she lacing in her Jambalaya?!

"Well?!"

"It's nothing!" Percy shouted back.

Maria pushed off the wall with a frustrated groan, her hands coming up to ruffle her hair as she rassum-frassumed to herself about stubborn fish-kissers before she stalled with a calming sigh, her shaking hands coming up to cup the sides of Percy's face.

"Look. I know you find it hard to trust me, but I do worry, you know? You're getting into dumb fights. You don't sing anymore. You sleep even less. You just train all day and look out to the sky like you're hoping it'll strike you down for looking at it funny, and it's been that way since you left that damn Camp! You're killing yourself, and it's...it's..."

The older woman faltered, her hold on him slackening as her stormy-grey eyes took on a haunted expression. Maria looked tired. Drained even. Her hands shook with terror, as if Percy would fade into mist if she ever let him go.

"I can't fail her," she whispered, broken, "I can't fail Sally again. I don't want you to end up with another statistic, Percy. Talk to me. Let me help you."

Percy felt like an ass. Then he felt stupid for feeling like an ass. He appreciated the older woman—really, he did, but to tell her something like this?

It wouldn't end well...

"I'll be fine, Maria." Percy tried instead, "I will get over this. I swear it on the River Styx."

The boom of thunder was a belated nail in the coffin and of itself. Percy didn't need to be an empath to understand how much he'd let his Mentor down with that one, but the alternative was...

"Why does that make me even more worried?" she shook her head resignedly, a tired, fond smile stretching her face as she ruffled his hair. "You're lucky you're so cute, you little hobgoblin."

Percy tried not to smile, "Bitch, I'm adorable."

Y*C*O*Y*W

26 October 2010, Central Agora, HQ of the Greco-American Spades, Adirondack Mountains, New York, USA

1:24 PM EST

SPADE MEETINGS WERE FAR TOO ADULT FOR PERCY'S TASTES.

They were formal and decisive. Far more ordered and quiet than any meetings Percy had ever attended back at Camp or the Senate in New Rome. The seats were arranged like a modern House of Commons, a tiered semicircle split down the middle that stretched as far back as eleven rows, filled to the ends with the descendants of ancient Greek heroes, scholars, and politicians.

Representatives as old as fossils seated with their wards and heirs on opposing parties of For and Against based on a motion brought up by the two Captains, Maria Hernandez and Nathan Bell, and the head Inquisitor, Avery Giles. Said trio lounging upon comfortable seats of leather and marble around a spacious half-circle mahogany desk, their respective apprentices posted behind them like guard dogs.

Apprentices were just that. Apprentices. The selection process and responsibilities attached to the role were a hefty mountain of paperwork Percy couldn't be asked to skim through, but he had a barebones idea of the job.

The long and short of it was that the best and brightest operatives were assigned to a specific Captain that best matched their strengths and nurtured until all the current Captains and at least half of the set council of Elders had decided the apprentice was worthy of a seat at the table.

The current three apprentices were Autolycus for Avery Giles, Alabaster for Nathan Bell, and Percy for Maria Hernandez.

They were expected to make their mentors look good, train harder than everyone else, keep to the Penumbran Code, bounce off ideas for the growth of the Spades, and study tactics, history, and tons of other super-spy shit like you wouldn't believe for what could be years until they were deemed worthy.

Well, Percy was supposed to.

If either Alabaster or Autolycus were pulling the same 25/8's slaving in the sweatshop for their mentors like Percy was, their bodies didn't show it. The son of Poseidon leveled a glare so cold at the back of his mentor's head that the self-absorbed brainiac shivered under the intensity.

As it were, Maria only half-turned toward him with a wry smirk and flipped him off under the table.

The lazy hag had been up in heaven for the past two weeks delegating most of her shit to him while she shucked on oysters and olives in their penthouse. Percy stifled a tired yawn while Autolycus tried not to snicker beside him as the board went through another round of rapid-fire bills and motions.

Delegates to Morpheus, Janus, and the foreign moon god Khonshu for a steady revival of the Meso-American pantheons?

Seconded, thirded, and approved.

The yearly audited revision of the Standard Monster Migration Laws between the 10 Great Sects?

Seconded, thirded, and approved.

An expansion of the Greco-American Spade Charter to the northernmost territories of America?

Seconded, thirded, and approved.

A foreign exchange program between the rising prospects of the Greek Charter and the magicians of Brooklyn House in preparation for the upcoming Red Coliseum Games?

Seconded, thirded, and approved.

A new blacks-ops unit comprised of the best and brightest operatives?

Seconded, thirded, and approved.

A tax cut for the upper Houses of Odysseus, Perseus, Diomedes, and Orpheus following the coming Haloa?

Vetoed.

Indoctrinating more clear-sighted mortals into Crusader teams for expeditions through the Labyrinth?

TBD.

Propositioning the Titan-goddess Hecate for a new Undercity within the Labyrinth to bolster peace talks with the more civilized monsters?

TBD.

It went on like that for an hour, with Avery pulling up a request and bringing it up for a vote or outright rejecting the more ridiculous calls.

It was quick. It was efficient. It was boring as all Hades.

Percy had never been a fan of politics-or brown-nosing and paperwork in general-but listening to an Elder from the House of Meleager drone on and on about improving upon an unsatisfactory bill motion only to get shut down by a hoist amendment could only get so old.

Even worse, considering this was them rushing the meeting.

"Thank you, Councilman Atticus. Now, if there are no further motions?" Avery asked smoothly, taking a sip of his cold coffee — why? Just ice it at that point. Weirdo. — as he waited, "Then let's move on to today's most pressing matter on the board."

The son of Thanatos reached into his suit pocket and placed a Celestial Bronze holo disk at the center of the forum. A series of holographic documents, mugshots, and intel swam through the air as he spoke to the crowd.

"As most of you are already aware, we received marching orders from Lady Scathach herself to hasten the search for the Titan of Sin more than two weeks ago, yet our search proved fruitless so far. Our...' aide' disappeared without a trace a while ago with their friends and family none the wiser."

This was news to Percy...and to most of the room's occupants if their confused murmurs were any indication. However, he noticed Autolycus didn't seem as caught unawares by it as the rest of them, with the son of Hermes' stoic composure breaking into a feral scowl for a moment as he glared a hole in the back of Avery's head.

Trouble in paradise?

"It's taken far too long, but we've finally gotten a lead." Avery rose from his seat and circled the table, swiping a hand across the hologram like a roulette wheel until he stopped on a file. "We've traced our contact's steps as best as we could to this little gated community in Toledo, Spain, a municipality called Castile-La Mancha."

The room momentarily paused to discuss the information, but Percy was on one. He signaled for Avery's attention, mentally flipping off the old fossils glaring at him. Had they expected him to shut up and look pretty the whole meeting?

"Uh, Ave'? Correct my Greek, but I didn't think we had any Titans of Sin?"

Avery nodded silently, "You'd be right on that one, Kid. We try not to draw on his name in any way. He's sharp, and we'd rather not have him scurry off. But even then, with the shit he's pulled, he could more qualify for the mantle..."

The hologram flickered as Avery's voice trailed off, warping and curving upon itself to the intricate bust of a man with a shiny ponytail, a punch-worthy smirk, playful eyes hidden by tea shades, and the entirety of his face littered with-

"Seriously?" Percy scoffed, "You've been busting your balls looking for this clown?"

Percy couldn't believe his eyes. Here he was fighting sleep on his feet, and the world-class A-team was shivering in their britches for Prometheus of all slimeballs.

"Captain Hernandez, would you educate your mentee on discipline and decorum?" A snobby-looking woman in the stands sneered his way, the word 'mentee' voiced like she had a few choice alternatives for it, "This hall is a place of dignity and respect, not a juvenile hurly-burly like the-"

"You've made your point, councilwoman Dione." Maria cut in, her fingers pinched on her nose-bridge while Avery and Nathan fought off twin smirks, "Percy, what do you know about this Titan—and don't just call him a snake. Please?"

Percy gave the Dione lady an unimpressed glance as he racked his brain for what he could remember from Annabeth's lectures, Maria's records, and anecdotes. Prometheus wasn't a topic he'd spent nights talking to the moon on, but he knew enough about the guy to give out the basics.

"He was Kronos' old advisor, with Influence in Forethought and Counsel, and a couple of others he either gave up after the first Titan war or lost after the King of Olympus punished him for giving 'Fire' to Man. The stories say the King did it to teach mankind a lesson on humility, but I don't believe it went that way at all..."

You could hear a pin drop as the final sentence flew from his lips. All eyes were trained on Percy, the condescending looks shifting to calculative stares as they rethought their previous assessments of him.

Even Avery was looking at him like he'd never seen him before.

"And how, pray tell, did you draw that conjecture?" Councilwoman Dione asked, her snobbish bite more encouraging than mocking this time.

"I've broken bread with the 'Titan of Sin,'" Percy shrugged, "And for all his snark, he wasn't so annoying that I'd let a bird gobble up his liver for more than a thousand years for a lesson, but maybe that's just me. The King's a tyrant, but he's not stupid, ya know? You don't go that far to humble a guy for something as simple as 'arming the cockroaches' when we've got rocket ships and nukes swimming through the sky by the thousands. If I had to guess-"

"Good boy." Maria cut over him with a thin smile, shooting the Councilwoman a frosty glare in return, "Very good, but you're missing one important detail?"

Percy tried not to frown at the interruption, unsure of what he'd said to disappoint her until he saw just how pale the council members had gone...and the faint odor of ozone and petrichor. Percy kept his fat mouth shut, chilled to the bones, a cold sweat trailing down his chin as he rethought his next words lest the wrath of Olympus wipe their hideout off the map.

"The Titan was – or is? – a Creator deity." Percy decided, "The Greeks favored myth for the Creation of Man."

"Exactly, Kid." Avery took over quickly, his expression grave, "The Celts had the Dagda, the Shinto had Izanagi and Izanami, the Sumerians had Enki, and the Taoists had Nu Wa as their Creator patrons, but I couldn't tell you what nut-job decided it was a good idea to trust that sort of power in that sick bastard's hands."

"Hang on, boss." Alabaster called for approval, "If what you're saying is true, and only the Titan of Sin should be able to 'create' humans for the Greeks, then how the Hades does Athena pull it off with her...brain...babies?"

"Smooth delivery, dickhead." Percy sniped.

"That's what I said to your-"

"Auto!" Avery cut in before either of them could get into it. "Why don't you handle this one instead, buddy?"

The son of Hermes grew sheepish at the disguised demand, sharing an awkward glance with Maria before clearing his throat at her encouraging nod.

"There are evidenced tales of a cult to the Titan hidden in the lowest catacombs of Athens that claim a... 'connection' between the Lady of Wisdom and our missing Titan. While I do not believe the Goddess of Wisdom so desperate for knowledge that she'd debase herself like so. I can see no other way she could have pried such secrets had they not been more than professionally involved."

Percy struggled to push back his rigatoni at the implications, but he was nothing if not flexible, "Okay, that's an image I could have lived the rest of my life without picturing, but what does that-"

"Keep up, Jackson." Nathan drawled, adjusting his feet on the table and flicking his drooping hat upward, "The Chimera, remember? You had a hellhound right beside you, unable to so much as sniff the damn thing three feet away from you. You think the dumb mutt came up with that trick on its own?"

"No...no. That's not-" he stopped himself from saying 'possible' because how couldn't it be? How long had he been in this line of work to realize that next to nothing was impossible regarding the divine? "Why didn't the Titan go through with it during the Battle of Manhattan, then?!"

Avery sagged with a sigh, his fingers tapping the wooden desk hard enough to leave an indent.

"That's what we're trying to find out, Kid. If you ask me, this whole thing stinks to high heaven. Kronos and Zeus kept the weasel restricted to as little as possible when he first made, then remade us, and look how that turned out. To completely remake the genetic code of a monster and still let it keep its original form? That's unprecedented levels of bullshit. Can you imagine what he or anyone with his knowledge could create with a vendetta?"

"...bad?"

"An army of Made Men and Monsters completely mindless and loyal to the single most spiteful fuck in the cosmos. I'm talking super-soldiers with the raw strength and intellect to make Captain America look like the Pillsbury Doughboy in comparison. Sleeper agent monsters spread all over the planet with no logical or magical way to tell the difference between them and the most mortal of mortals. Are you seeing the picture I'm painting here?"

Percy swallowed. Hard. "Bad."

"Cataclysmic. We've wasted enough time as it is. We're doing this hard and fast. Nathan, you're heading this mission. Autolycus? You're his second."

"Sir!"

"Maria? You're staying back with me. That freak storm's finally broke, and I've got this sinking feeling that the 'Prodigal Son' has returned to the Pigs."

Maria's eyes widened by a fraction before she sent Avery a grim nod, mouthing a brisk later at Percy's questioning eye.

Ah. So he was never finding out until the answer was right before him? Bummer.

Avery turned to Alabaster and Percy with an exasperated grimace, "Torrington? Kid? Get your shits together and focus! This isn't a rope-a-dope, we've got too much riding on this to screw things up now. You're taking a train to Toledo in an hour. Grab your gear. Stat."

Percy blinked owlishly. Once, twice, and three times before his brain registered what he was listening to.

"Woah, woah, woah, time-out, Ave'. I can't do this right now; I've got bigger-"

"I WASN'T ASKING!"

The roar was sudden, and it alarmed Percy that he'd never once heard the son of Thanatos raise his voice at any of them before. The room grew tense, and from the corner of his eye, Percy saw Maria's hold on her sword tighten as her eyes darted uneasily between him and Avery.

Even Nathan looked worried.

Avery glared at Percy, his eyes shining with an eerie red malice behind his tinted sunglasses. "Did you forget we're in this mess because you just had to meddle? I could give a damn what you can and can't do; people have died for this lead. Find the Titan of Sin, get all you can on his contacts and connections, and end this. Permanently."

Y*C*O*Y*W

2 7 October 2010, Convento de Santa Clara la Real , Outskirts of Castile-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain

3:45 AM CET

THE 'MISSION' HADN'T BEEN WORTH THE TRAIN TICKETS.

Their team had touched down on Toledo a couple of hours before dusk, more than enough time for Autolycus and Alabaster to gather intel from the local pubs and monster-hunters on a giant 'Man' shacking up with a strange group of nuns that had gathered in the old, abandoned church at the furthest reaches of the municipality half a year ago.

The Convento de Santa Clara la Real. An old convent turned orphanage of the Poor Clares sisterhood from as far back as the 14th century.

The Sisterhood would be rolling in their graves now if they saw how their home had been violated.

Percy huffed as he slid Riptide across the throat of a straining resident of Spain's monstrous ecosystem. A witch-vampire subspecies that the locals had titled a 'Bruxas.'

They were fast, these monsters. Leagues faster than the regular empousai Percy was used to, but bullets and the Mist were faster.

Their team had caught them off-guard right in the aftermath of their gory dinner, the coven's mouths caked in the blood of missing children, old men, and women, while their head matron had been breastfeeding a white-haired little boy.

The ensuing battle had been quick and brutal, and Percy couldn't count the number of times he'd almost gotten his face chewed off in the space of ten minutes. They'd won, but the boy had run off somewhere.

Still, Percy figured a stray brat was the least of their problems when Prometheus was nowhere to be found.

Penning Riptide and dusting the monster ashes from his gloves, he surveyed the turned-over convent and his coworkers with a shrewd frown. Autolycus had gotten a nasty injury on his side while providing cover for Alabaster, the son of Hecate, far too busy carving hieroglyphs in the air to save his scrawny butt.

Loser.

Auto's wound was deep, but Alabaster could be a useful field medic when his head wasn't so far up his ass.

"Tis'...but a...scratch!" The son of Hermes yelped as Alabaster tightened the knot of a tourniquet.

"Stop talking, you idiot." Alabaster growled, his sallow cheeks flushed in embarrassment, "And...thanks, Auto."

Percy patted Autolycus' shoulder with a warm smile and flipped Alabaster the bird as he sidled up to Nathan to study their last captive, the 'Head Matron' of the convent. A tall, ghastly pale-looking woman staked by her bony arms and legs to the convent's central cross with Celestial Bronze nails.

The Bruxas had referred to this monster as La Llorona. The Crying Woman.

A decrepit, vengeful phantom from Mexican folklore with billowing black hair and empty eye holes that poured out pools of viscous-black liquid. The stories were varied, as all myths were, but it was a general consensus that she was a legend stretching as far back as the first Great Flood that'd wiped out the Golden Age of Man.

However, why she'd migrated from Mexico to Spain was anyone's guess. Hades' sweaty gym socks knew why Nathan thought this monster could be their needed game-changer.

They were out of options; Prometheus was a no-show, and he was only getting further away the more time they wasted. Percy figured if anyone could give them the information they needed on the Titan, it could probably be one of the few people who'd first seen the world go to hell.

"What've we got, sir?" Percy asked, cringing inwardly at the formal title, but Nathan already had a problem with him; it was better to be safe than sorry.

...gods, he'd been spending too much time with Maria.

Nathan barely glanced at him, his folded hands stiffening as he whistled sharply, "Alabaster, get your ass over here. See if you can't use your Jedi mind tricks on this bimbo."

The son of Hecate rolled his eyes at the wording of his abilities as he shouldered his way past Percy. His hands lit up in a ghostly-white mist, and his yellow eyes were milky with cataracts as he placed his palms on La Llorona's temples.

"You're sure about this, boss?" Alabaster asked halfheartedly.

"Positive. If Prometheus had ever been here, he's long gone. And I don't think he went willingly. Avery called it. This whole thing reeks, and it doesn't help that it's so close to Samhain Eve either." Nathan ran a hand through his hair with a weary sigh, "I'm hoping—I'm praying I'm wrong, but I can't think of any other way to slice it. Do it."

The monster shivered awake, her voice hoarse and accented as she rasped, "If you think...your feeble magicks...can ever break me, hemitheos, then-"

"Hemitheos? Styx, you are old...but you're already dead, La Llorona." Alabaster clipped, his voice fluid and layered in triplicate, "I am the son of Hecate, the Triple Goddess, the Titaness of Magic and the Path. Resistance is pointless! Anoroll Al, eciov ruoy deen t'nod I. Traeh ruoy em wohs. Noitazilivic tsriF eht fo yrots eht em llet ti tel."

Percy didn't get a second to register the bullshit the son of Hecate was spouting before a ring of power pulsed from the center of the hall, a second passing before it closed back on them in a storm of Mist, with holographic runes floating in the air. La Llorona's shrill howls filled the church as Alabaster tore her mind apart.

Nathan turned to him and flicked his head to the side, "Git. Alabaster's gonna take a while to find the information we need. Head on out and look for clues or something."

"With fucking pleasure," Percy stormed out of the hall with a scoff, the monster's screams a white noise as his frustration with the abrasive Captain reached an all-time high the longer the oversized cyst sought to emphasize how much of an ass he was. Maria and Avery had been a challenge to get used to, but Bell was a different breed of asshole only a mother could love.

Percy couldn't understand what the Hades his problem with him was.

He rounded a corner and climbed up the stairs to scout the upper floor, taking deep breaths to compose himself before his hand shot out faster than he could think. His anger was a lethal weapon as he punched the wooden door to a dorm room clean off its hinges, the aged hardwood shattering on impact on the far wall.

'Oh, crap.'

Percy slid down the wall and ran his hands down his face with a heavy sigh; he was going nuts.

Dealing with his issues and the Spades was a powder keg just waiting to blow. It wasn't the poorly hidden disdain, or the boring meetings, or Alabaster's taunts, or whatever else that made him want to pull his hair out every other Tuesday.

Percy was alone.

The average Spades were too scared of the 'Grandmother', Percy barely remembered meeting to cross him to his face, or too arrogant in their self-righteousness to bother hanging out with him.

Avery and Auto were too busy trying to wrangle over a thousand operatives, run a multi-continental crime gig, and a growing Christmas list of objectives and responsibilities to keep bending over backward for him.

Nathan couldn't stand him, and Percy would rather get pincushioned than ever open up to Alabaster, of all people.

Maria tried—gods, she'd tried—but he was too scared she'd see him for the piece of shit he was if he told her what was bothering him.

Anyone would.

His mom was missing, his dad was a no-show, talking to Demeter terrified him, and he didn't have the guts to call up anyone in the Camp after what he'd done.

He still had one last person, though.

An old 'friend' he'd been avoiding for a while now for...reasons. Yeah, he'd stick with that.

He reached out to his Partner, nudging into her space inside him just to feel a hint of something, but found himself smacking headfirst into a metaphysical barrier.

The back of his head thumped against the wall, his eyes fixed in a dead stare on the stone ceiling as he struggled not to laugh at the absurdity. Where did she get off giving him the silent treatment after the shit she'd pulled?

"Drama Queen," he sighed, dipping his head down to find himself face-to-face with his reflection.

...

Hang on. What?

Percy sprang to his feet and grabbed the doppelganger, pinning him down with a hand as he scrambled through his backpack for a flashlight. The lookalike started to writhe and struggle beneath him, but Percy was having none of it.

"Would you hold still already?" he growled, unable to hold his growing panic the longer he held onto the boy.

The boy.

This was the boy. The one who'd run off earlier when they'd stormed the place, Percy hadn't gotten the chance to get a good look at him before, but now...now it was like looking at an aged-down mirror.

The boy looked about 10 years old, with snow-white hair and soft, angelic features like his; the only difference between Percy and the kid besides the apparent age difference was the boy's violet eyes.

A dazzling shade of lilac, the color of twilight shadows cast upon a moonlit cove.

"What the fuck?" Percy rasped.

Could it be? It couldn't be, right? Right?

The time.

Percy needed to check the time. The month. The cycle of the moon, anything.

This couldn't be the kid. This couldn't be hi-Nyx's kid. It was fucking October!

"What the fuck?!" He yelled a second time, unsure whether to be furious or terrified.

The boy stopped struggling beneath him, his face taking on a familiar expression as he whispered, "Pater?"

Pater? Pat-?

Percy scrambled away from the boy like he had the plague, "No. No. No. No. No. No! Absolutely not!"

The boy crawled towards him, his little head tilted and his snow-white locks dangling to the side innocently, "Patéra? Eísai o patéras mou?"

"Stay back!"

It was as if English and personal space were foreign concepts to the boy because he didn't know when to quit. He continued to crawl towards Percy one palm at a time like a newborn, rattling off questions in archaic dialect after archaic dialect, his frustration mounting the more confused Percy looked until he and Percy sat nose-to-nose, and he whispered:

"Frn ah nafl mglw'naph..."

'...ahor mgep sya'h ah'legeth.'

The words were weak, whispered from deep within Percy, with not even a thousandth of the power he'd heard on his trip through Tartarus, yet Percy picked up the rest of that disgusting speech pattern on instinct like it were a practiced prayer.

It was the dead language of Primordials and Titans, the Tongue of Old.

Visions streamed through his brain, trying and failing to get into his head, as Percy almost bit his tongue off, holding back a guttural scream.

'Please,' he gasped, clutching his hair as if to tear it from his scalp, 'Please, not now!'

"...ng llll or'azath syha'hnahh n'ghftephai n'gha ahornah ah'mglw'nafh."

He groaned in pain at the force of the words, his mind tearing itself apart the longer it was forced to bear it, 'Stop it, Gaia! Please!'

"It's not me!" his Partner was quick to rebuff, her voice rushed and frantic with worry, "I don't-the boy triggered it! I can't do any-"

"FRN AH NAFL MGLW'NAPH AHOR MGEP SYHA'H AH'LEGETH, NG LLLL OR'AZATH SYHA'HNAHH N'GHFLEPHAI N'GHA AHORNAH AH'MGLW'NAPH! EPGOKA MGEPHAIAGL NG NAFL'FHTAGN UH'EOG!"

Percy howled at the words, the protections Avery had built into his mind torn to shreds as the shattered fragments of memories and voices turned his vision red with blood.

He sat upon a rocky hillock, looking upon the majesty of a roaring waterfall with a piece of parchment, a calligraphy brush, and an inkpot right before him.

"A precipitous slope, a narrow river width, a fast and violent flow." He recited serenely, "Due to the terrain and the external influence, the state of the water is perfectly decided. And yet, water obeys only itself. Water is only water. Thoroughly water. Absolutely free."

The waterfall disappeared from view, and Percy found himself on a squeaky wooden bed. The mattress's fabric was coarse, an old, uncomfortable material, and the odor of barn animals was a thing of horror to his nostrils, yet Percy only had his thoughts trained on the woman before his eyes.

Naked as the day she was born, her awe-inducing body was a portrait of divine femininity that outshone even her Lady, Aine's, brilliance.

'Sadhbh.' A voice filled in for him in the back of his mind. Putting a name to the angel.

No...h is Partner .

"I, too, have suffered since that night," Percy mused, "Cold, hunger, fear, and the pain of lying beside you, night after night, unable to touch you. Yet I have never been so happy, and I would change none of it but for this last night."

Once more, the visions changed, and Percy witnessed the aftermath of a disaster. The scent of blood, ash, and brimstone had always been an unwelcome war-mate even as he looked upon the destruction he'd wrought.

Once green pastures had been turned into oceans of flame and black, charred wastelands. Children were separated from their mothers into sorting pens, caged like animals for slaughter in packs. Corpses of unarmored men and faultless soldiers were scattered in an outward arc by his feet like war trophies, all while Percy looked on with what could only be called cold satisfaction.

"I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans." He said, not a hint of lie on his dry lips, "I am contending for honor and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valor. I am endeavoring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune and my valor."

Percy blinked, and the change in scenery almost gave him vertigo. Either that or the damage the dozens of empty casks of wine scattered around him were taking their toll on his liver.

Percy raised an overflowing chalice to the gods, his voice as addled and slurred as his mind, as he began to cackle to himself, "Who does not desire such a victory by which we shall join places in our Kingdom, so far divided by nature, and for which we shall set up trophies in another conquered world?"

Finally, Percy saw a boy, no older than 16. His hair was as black as coal, and his glowing eyes were formed of molten magma. The boy was dressed in a simple loincloth, his thin chest riddled with scars and burn marks. At the center of his back were three characters:

火

災害

In the boy's scrawny, dusty hands was a great forge hammer of the purest obsidian metal Percy had ever seen. He brought down the mighty hammer upon an anvil with god-like strength, and with each contact, Percy could feel a volcano erupt somewhere over yonder. Percy reached over to grab his shoulder, but the boy smacked his hand away.

Hunched over the anvil, his frustration at an all-time high, he spat, "Why? Why are you doing this to us?"

"It is my purpose." Percy spoke, his voice dull and tepid, "You, more than anyone else, should understand it. I was born to—"

"—THE BOY, PERSEUS!" Gaia roared, alarm bells ringing like sirens in his head as his instincts screamed for him to move.

The memories broke, and Percy lunged to the side with the boy's tiny frame buried to his chest, just as the bang of a gun sparked the room into a frenzy. The stray bullet ricocheted off the stone floor to the roof and the side wall and buried itself deep in Percy's thigh.

Percy ground his teeth at the pain, the Imperial Gold bullet like acid to his nerves, but Riptide sprang to life in a wild arc of bronze as he swung at the attacker...

Only to falter as he stared up the barrel of an enchanted Cattleman Revolver, its business end trained on the center of Percy's forehead.

"We've gotta stop meeting like this, Jackson." Nathan Bell droned through his silver toothpick, lowering his gun to the mystery boy.

Alabaster and Autolycus stood by the Captain in support, their faces stoic but grim. Autolycus even began to murmur ancient Greek prayers in advance for the boy.

"Whatever you're thinking, you can forget about it. I won't let you."

"Oh?" Nathan taunted, inching towards him slowly as Percy shuffled the shell-shocked boy behind him with Riptide's tip poised at the Captain's chest. "Do tell."

The air crackled with tension, and Percy looked crazier by the second. Autolycus skulked towards him slowly, his arms raised like he was corralling a wild animal, his eyes deep with worry.

"Please understand, Perseus. This is not an easy decision for all of us. The boy-"

"I don't have to understand shit, Auto! He's just a kid. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not letting you hurt him."

"That 'kid' was with the monsters, Jackson. Hecate's torches, we saw him getting breastfed by La Llorona," Alabaster grunted, "I don't like it either, but the others are going to want to see him."

"No." Nathan rebuffed, his eyes dull, "They're gonna torture and experiment on him for everything he's worth. Sort him in the rank and file, and use him as a weapon until he breaks, I reckon. This is worse than we thought; the 'Titan' has already started making Made Men. Of course, it's in his image. That fucking brand!"

Percy's gaze dropped to the boy's terrified eyes for an instant, a mote of doubt seeping into his bones before he quashed it in the same breath, "Then that's even more reason why we can't let the Spades get their hands on—"

Nathan barked with laughter, "We? This is your party, Jackson; I forgot to RSVP. Still, a nepo-baby like yourself? You could probably keep the Elders off the kid's back if you planned on raising him-"

"NO!" Percy screeched, horrified, not even sparing the boy a glance; that was the last thing he ever wanted to be saddled with. Not even the disappointed glower the Captain gave him was enough to make him ashamed.

"...let me get this straight. You came in here...destroyed the only family this kid's ever known, debated upon his life—right in front of him, and your big 'plan' is to let him run around the countryside a few days away from winter?"

The son of Apollo didn't need to call Percy a jackass for the message to be heard loud and clear. Percy knew he was being cruel. He knew he was being unreasonable, but goddammit! Child of Nyx or not, he couldn't adopt this kid. Not with the way rumors spread like wildfire in the mythological world.

How long would it take a dedicated monster to look deeper into the story and find out he'd been raped with a kid on the way? He couldn't chance it, not when he'd just started to fix himself. But to pawn off a child to the Spades?

"He's just a kid, Captain." Percy tried weakly, "An innocent kid with no idea what's happening. You can't tell me even considering this doesn't make you feel sick to your stomach, can you?"

Nathan raised his hands in surrender, an easy smile on his face while his hat hid the truth in his eyes, "You're right, Jackson. You're so right."

"Pater?"

The sudden bang of the gun would have surprised Percy had he not been expecting it; as it were, the Captain had angled the gun to ricochet off the roof to the floor this time. Riptide lashed out in a flash, shearing the bullet in two on its second pass as Percy moved to shield the boy.

Only to freeze at the sight of a bleeding corpse, the side of the mystery boy's head leaking blood and grey matter on the stone floor.

"Pa...ter..."

Percy stared at the boy for a moment and then slowly turned toward the Captain, a budding pain and fury in his eyes he'd never thought himself capable of. The pungent smell of gun smoke from a second gun mocked the son of Poseidon the longer he stood there fuming.

Nathan holstered his weapons with a flourish as he finished: "But ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves."

Y*C*O*Y*W

2 7 October 2010, Convento de Santa Clara la Real , Toledo, Spain

5 : 1 5 AM CET

THE FUCKERS HAD BOUND HIM TO THE BLOODY CROSS.

La Llorona's golden ashes caked Percy's body with bullet wounds spurting blood through his gut, thigh, and collarbone, with a knot the size of Kansas on his right temple. Still, nothing could wipe off the smug smile on his face at the beautiful laceration stretching over Nathan's left eye.

It was more shallow than he'd wanted, and to his regret, the bastard might still be able to save the eye, but the scar would remain, which was enough for Percy.

The group had gathered around a quick campfire on either side of Percy and continued to snack on s'mores, uncaring of the little black bodybag by Nathan's side.

Percy wanted to hurl.

"Control your breathing," Nathan called to him through mouthfuls of marshmallow.

"...huh?"

Autolycus and Alabaster looked up from their snacks as Nathan strode over to crouch before Percy, "I shot you with Imperial Gold hollow points at point-blank range. It should have gone through you, but you're your grandmother's kid. The bullets are lodged in real deep, and it's poisoning you. Nectar and ambrosia would only heal around your wounds. So if you don't want to die, control your breathing and let your blood erode the bullets instead."

A vein popped on Percy's forehead as he spat a length of corrosive blood in the Captain's direction, shooting an icy glare at his 'colleagues' as he strained against his bindings.

Nathan only shrugged, "Fine bleed out on the damn cross; that'll show me."

"I think it will, Bell. I really wanna see how that mission briefing will go when you tell your boss you shot me!"

"You'd still be dead."

It said enough of his mood that Percy visibly weighed the pros and cons of the decision before begrudgingly adhering to the warning.

"Auto, you're the least likely person whose fingers this little packrat would bite off. Cut him loose already."

Autolycus didn't look certain of the deduction, but he did as he was told, cutting off the bonds around Percy's arms and torso with a sheepish grin before backing away from the danger zone to the comfort of their campfire.

Percy massaged his wrists with a wary glare at the aloof Captain, "If you're expecting a thank you, I've got a property in Guantanamo Bay I think you'd die for."

Nathan shook his head, laughing disbelievingly. "You know why you piss me off, kid?"

"Because I'm still young and beautiful?"

"That mouth doesn't help your case, but no. Frankly, you're too much of a spoiled brat for me to take seriously. You like to have your cake and eat it. To hell with the background extras."

"Oh? Pray tell, Freud. Tell me exactly what's wrong with me?"

The son of Apollo finished the last of his smore and dusted off the crumbs, his tone dry as he counted off his fingers: "For one: You're a class-act pariah. You wanted the gods to improve but never checked that they'd kept their empty promises."

Percy's eye twitched at the lash. A stab of guilt blindsided him as he tried not to make eye contact with Alabaster. For all he hated the guy, it hadn't taken Percy long to learn about the petty nonsense the Gods had pulled regarding the Cursed Son of Hecate. Percy had demanded an amnesty for every traitor, god, and demigod in the Titan War on the Styx, but the Olympians had still singled out Alabaster for whatever reason.

Maybe Percy should have known they wouldn't respect their promises. Maybe he should've done more, but he'd been—

"Case #2: You want to be seen as more than your heritage, yet you expect the world to stop turning for you whenever you're having a crisis. And Case #3:" He continued, gesturing to the mystery boy's bodybag, "You want to be this 'pious martyr' for your beliefs and morals, yet you're in bed with a band of killers and mercenaries, and you don't even see anything wrong with that, do you? You're so self-absorbed in your own hypocrisy that you'd rather throw the world into hell before the people around you see you for the gutless coward you really are. An impulsive asshole hiding under the guise of an innocent lamb."

Percy stayed silent as the Captain continued to lay hit after hit against him, his confidence in himself waning as even Autolycus struggled to meet his eyes, let alone speak up for him.

"The goddess of Wisdom got you wrong; your fatal flaw isn't loyalty to a fault; it's your impulsiveness. Your only saving grace is that you're so coddled by the world around you that the consequences of your actions never come to bite you in the ass as it should!"

"Thanks for the psych eval, Cap." Percy spat, "But for all my faults, I'm not the psycho who murdered a kid in cold blood."

Even to Percy, the rebuff sounded hollow. A fact the Captain picked up as he loaded up the coup de grâce.

"That's your thing, isn't it? The jokes and snark? Your coping mechanism. Maybe Avery and Maria are willing to coddle you, Jackson, but trust me, I could give a hot shit who your grandmother is. As far as I'm concerned, you're an embarrassment to everything Sally stands for."

"Captain!" Autolycus roared in disbelief.

Even the others thought that was a blow too low. Autolycus and Alabaster held the two of them away from each other to stop their argument, but Nathan was on a roll.

"You push away the people who try to care about you at every turn to project this pathetic, broken hero image you've got going on, yet you act like the world's out to get you!"

Discard the past and move forward, Epimenos.

"Shut up..."

"It took you losing everything that made you 'you' to realize, 'Oh damn, I should probably start taking this demigod business seriously!'"

Discard the past and move forward, Epimenos.

"Shut up."

"In your selfish vendetta to protect your own shaky conscience, you'd have put that kid through hell. Molded a wild monster that would've only been good for perpetuating a meaningless cycle of hatred until a bigger monster devoured him."

Discard the past and move forward, Epimenos.

"And how would you know that, Captain?!" Percy bellowed, "How many more kids have you slaughtered in cold blood for the 'greater good?' HOW DO YOU KNOW?!"

The unexpected power in Percy's voice doubled the air pressure in the main hall, sending the others to their knees. That moment of weakness was all Percy needed. He surged forward and crippled Nathan's calf with one swift kick, grabbing him by his collar before flipping him ass over head, and slamming his back to the concrete with the force of a grenade. Riptide blurred to life in Percy's right hand, and he poised its ravenous edge just over the Captain's neck.

"Don't act like you know me!" Percy snarled, his voice layered and imposing, as if speaking through an endless tunnel, "You've never had to look in a mirror and want to both weep over the pathetic reflection and rip him to shreds for the sheer weakness. You've never been driven so mad by nightmares that you master how to kill yourself in the Hell you call sleep! YOU DO NOT. GET. TO LECTURE. ME!"

Discard the past and move forward, Epimenos!

The world seemed to disappear at the edges of Percy and Nathan's circle. The son of Apollo's face was the picture of stoicism, while Percy felt like he was struggling not to rip the man's head off.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Five shots riddled his torso full of holes before Percy stopped the barrage with an elbow to the man's nose. He scurried off the Captain, a hand on his leaking guts, with Riptide brought to bear.

Nathan gathered himself, a sharp CRACK cringing the air as he realigned his broken nose, "Put your toothpick down, you idiot. Trust me, you don't want any of this."

Percy grinned through blood-stained teeth, "Funny, I was thinking the exact same-"

They all felt it: that pulse of energy, the buzzing hum in the air—that haunting warning of DANGER.

A tenth of a second passed. More than enough time to throw the world into hell.

"Em tcetorp llahs Htap eht!" Alabaster roared suddenly, a segment of air warping all around them in a translucent barrier before a gut-wrenching CAW shattered all the convent windows instantly, ravaging Alabaster's spell within a blizzard of glass.

The son of Hecate strained to keep up the spell, his throat long since raw from his screaming as the glass storm continued to rage until it stopped right when Alabaster looked about ready to collapse. The group locked eyes, and that second was more than enough for them to put aside their grievances to do one thing:

Survive.

"GET OUT OF HERE!" Nathan roared, grabbing Alabaster as they all jumped through the broken windows, just in time for the Convent to explode in a cloudburst of orange and green flames.

Discard the past and move forward, Epimenos!

Percy covered his eyes with an arm as the blistering heat grew searing. It hurt to breathe. The lights of an artificial sun strained his retinas before the flames burning the church dissipated with a nauseating BLIP. And then, he saw It.

The Beast was massive.

Standing over 50 meters high, its long, flaming neck dipped down low, and glowing, yellow eyes dilated like a cat's, the Beast zeroed in on Percy from over 50 yards with a shrill hiss. It was a majestic bird made of flesh and flames, its feathers and three frilled tails a dazzling chaos of blood-orange and spring green.

"No..." Percy whispered, horror shearing his mind to bits, "No way."

Stories had dubbed it a multi-cultural hoax with no clear origins, a spiritual allegory for the concepts of Renewal and Hope.

Percy called Hogwash. Nothing was metaphorical about the malice in this creature's eyes, nor any hope to be found before the terror of Nyx's final challenge.

Rising from the ashes of its own infernal flames, the Beast deified itself with an apocalyptic roar to the Heavens so primal it reawakened the breath of the planet itself. And over a billion light years away, the Primordial Chaos looked toward the birth of a new Era with a manic cackle as a booming voice announced:

"The Phoenix..."

Y*C*O*Y*W

---

"...Mortals pray for peace without pain, and that is why kingdoms fall. Zagreus understood that above all else. The worthless shall find no solace within me. They will burn within the forge of adversity. Then, and only then, shall the Strong sever the Weak."

- [-REDACTED-]

---

Foreign words and/or gibberish bullshit used in this Chapter:

Tuchas - Ass.

Anoroll Al, eciov ruoy deen t'nod I. Traeh ruoy em wohs. Noitazilivic tsriF eht fo yrots eht em llet ti tel! - I don't need your voice, La Llorona. Show me your heart. Let it tell me the Story of the First Civilization!

Patéra? Eísai o patéras mou? – Father? Are you my Father?

Frn ah nafl mglw'nafh ahor mgep syha'h ah'legeth, ng llll or'azath syha'hnahh n'ghftephai n'gha ahornah ah'mglw'nafh. - That which is not yet dead may earn eternal life, and with strange eons, even Death may die.

Epgoka mgephaiagl ng nafl'fhtagn, uh'eog - Discard the past and move forward, Enduring.

Em tcetorp llahs Htap eht! - The Path shall protect me!

Chapter 14: Red Sky Bleeds Out

"Begin our singing with the Heliconian Muses,

Who possess Mount Helicon, high and holy,

Under the cover of Darkness, Sunlight moves, awakening

And near its violet-stained spring on petal-soft feet ,

Dance circling the altar of the Great-Hunter."

- Hymn to Zagreus Makapios First of His Name, Father of Monsters, Voice of Men and Gods, Olympian God of [-REDACTED-], authenticity unconfirmed.

Red Sky Bleeds Out (Dark Night Rises)

27 October 2010, Outskirts of Castile-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain

6:00 AM CET

"THE PHOENIX."

For the first time in months, Percy found himself far too tongue-tied to offer a sarcastic retort; the situation was that grim. Hades, he wasn't even sure which of them had pointed out the obvious.

"I'll kill him slowly," Nathan seethed quietly, his hold on his twin pistols bone-white, "If we get out of this alive, I'm going to strangle Avery slowly. Very. Slowly."

The Phoenix seemed to take personal offense to the delusion that they had a snowball's chance in Hades of survival. Its blazing wings lit the dark world with fire as it surged toward them in fury.

"Scatter!"

That was Alabaster C. Torrington's idea. Second-coming of Daedalus. Truly.

The group splintered off just as the beast crashed upon the ground, boulders the size of houses flying from the impact and nearly flattening Percy. Drill chants of hup-two hup-two hup-two rang like sirens in Percy's head as he limped for his life with the Phoenix hot on his heels.

The monster continued to chase after Percy with a shrill screech, its footprints leaving a fiery haze in the sands as it closed in on his hobbling form; just before the Beast could swallow him, a tiny, blinking projectile of what looked to be pure light arced overhead and right into its mouth.

A perfect three, nothing but net.

The Phoenix choked, gagging on the pill for a moment before its throat bulged and popped with a white-hot explosion of ichor, flame, and viscera.

Photon Bombs.

'Holy crap,' Percy had only caught whispers of rumors about the weapon but—

"Su kaolc"

The air buckled, a metaphysical pressure overpowering reality for a tenth of a second and making 'thinking' a chore and a half before Percy got snagged by his collar and slammed to a wall of dirt.

"Keep your head down, you idiot!" Alabaster hissed in Percy's ear, eyes frantic, "Why the Hades do we have a Ph-a giant bird monster chasing us?!" The son of Hecate rephrased carefully.

Percy couldn't answer; his legs wouldn't stop shaking. He couldn't afford to close his eyes to blink because he was sure he'd black out from exhaustion. Something was wrong with him.

There was no reason for him to feel this weak.

Discard the past and move forward, Epimenos!

...on second thought.

"It's...not after...you guys...wants...me."

Alabaster rolled his eyes with an annoyed hiss, "Oh, will you get over yourself already, Jackson?! You are not the main-"

"It's a present from Jackson's stalker." Nathan interrupted harshly, a brow raised in challenge at Percy's exhausted scowl.

Auto and Alabaster stared gobsmacked for an uncomfortable amount of time before the son of Hecate broke the silence in pure Alabaster-like tact: "Gods, I knew Chase was crazy about you, but I didn't know she was crazy, period."

"I'm not even gonna ask how you know about her, but no. It's not from Annabeth."

Autolycus, ever the occasional voice of reason, tried to get them back on track: "Past flings or no, it matters little. The Mist is powerful, but it can only do so much to deter such a monster. What is the plan, Captain? Will we run or fight?"

That...was a good question. Percy didn't need to think too hard on how much of a problem a 160-foot Kaiju stomping around the block would be for Toledo's local Zen. It was a miracle, in and of itself, that the municipality had such a dry climate to begin with. The only things that could catch fire on the dusty plains were cacti and wildlife.

But still, running wasn't an option here. This was a challenge from Nyx, and more than that, it was a challenge from the Phoenix itself. The beast would chase him to the ends of the Earth till Percy either died or managed to kill it.

No matter how many lives the beast took to get to him. That possibility was unacceptable to Percy.

Percy rose to his feet and mentally prepared himself. He was battling a fire-type Pokemon to the death in a desert with a bronze toothpick and a tummy full of holes; grim didn't cover this shitshow by an eighth.

"We aren't doing anything."Percy snarled, a fierce expression that seemed to dominate his face more often now, "This is my battle. Get lost."

The group looked at him like he was insane, and Percy found he couldn't quite disagree with the sentiment.

"Are you quite mad, Perseus?" Autolycus asked, "This is a P-h-o-e-n-i-x! This is the P-h-o-e-n-i-x!"

"I'll take my chances."

Nathan grabbed Percy by the scruff of his collar and jerked him to his fierce scowl, "Don't be an idiot, you idiot! You think you're some hero sacrificing yourself to save us, but you're just pulling the same-"

Percy sucker punched the son of Apollo so hard he flew three feet off the ground. A vindictive sense of pride blossomed within him as he watched the Captain retch bile and saliva at his feet.

"You think I'm doing this to protect you?" Percy's disbelieving smile melted into a sneer as he pointed at the blood on his torso, "You shot me. Right here, before we almost killed each other. I'm not doing you a favor in wishing you the day you deserve. I just fancy my chances with the enemy in front of me than the 'comrades' behind me."

"Jackson, wait!"

No.

Percy exploded into motion so fast he shattered the sound barrier, Riptide's bronze glow trailing behind him like a neon haze as he lunged at the crippled monster head-on. The heat of the beast's immediate vicinity was like swan-diving into the Phlegethon, but he couldn't afford to call chicken when he could end this on one decisive go.

Riptide flashed, her edge sailing for the Phoenix's healing neck before the beast smacked Percy away with what felt like a solar flare of dry heat.

Percy growled, smacking budding wildfires from his jacket as he switched gears and ran a circuit around the beast's flank, cursing Nyx and the gods. If he had a week, he wouldn't have run out of reasons for how useful his demigod powers would've been for this challenge, but he could only be so lucky.

The Phoenix had already healed itself.

"Gaia!" he called desperately, "Gaia, get over yourself! I need your help here. I need you!"

"I'm trying to think!" Gaia screeched hysterically, their mindlink a frazzled mess of emotions, "Curse that Nyx! FUCKING CON ARTIST! Of all the monsters to send, it had to be His chil—CHROMIUM!"

Percy didn't question his partner's crazed rambling before the Phoenix bitch-smacked him to the sky with a flaming tail whip. His breath was left somewhere in the upper atmosphere as he tumbled through the open air and right into the monster's open beak.

Faster than thought, Riptide arced upwards with a mind of her own as Percy dug her into the roof of the Phoenix's massive maw and held on for dear life.

He glanced down its throat, and his pulse quickened; the bright orange glow lighting up the slimy cavern with a looming horror. Percy dropped down from the palate and scrambled his way up and over the bird's slick tongue, leaving a golden smear in his wake as Riptide carved a length of tongue before he lunged for freedom just as the beast released its fiery payload.

And...look, you ever seen those cheesy action flicks where the main character ends the fight by slow-walking to the camera from an explosion, all cool-looking? Yeah? Percy dared those clowns to turn around and share the third-degree burns on their bums with the class.

His vision became muddled in a panoramic haze, and his body was caked in sweat. A little longer, and he'd collapse from heatstroke, yet he couldn't hope to cool his body without blacking out from the strain. Percy shucked off his Nemean Lion jacket instead; its absence would be missed, but he wasn't exactly swimming in options right now.

This was a stacked battle with little to no odds of survival if he ever saw one. He wasn't even sure a hero had ever killed the Phoenix. He had nothing to go on but trial and error.

Discard the past and move forward, Epimenos!

Of course, how the Hades could he forget?! He had voices in his head now!

The Phoenix screeched again, spitting out a length of its tongue with a cascade of ichor as it fixed its beady little eyes on Percy in a narrow glare.

The message didn't need to be said to be heard; Percy had just made this personal.

The Phoenix flapped its wings in his direction with a violent tailwind, dozens upon dozens of spiked flame feathers streaking towards him like homing missiles as the monster took to the skies.

As for Percy?

He turned and ran without a moment's hesitation. None too soon, either, as the ground behind him ceased to exist, a cannonade of divine explosions lighting the dark world golden.

Percy leaped over the edge of a sheer cliff drop without a plan, just before the shockwaves of the explosion could bury 'n' broil him, and jammed Riptide to her hilt through the solid cliff face. The action dislocated his shoulder, and a shower of sparks pelted him as he slid down the crag with Riptide glowing white-hot from the sudden friction.

His momentum died out just before he could go splat at the bottom. He dared the Fates with a relieved exhale and shimmied his blade off the stone, dropping to the rough ground like a feather and half-limped, half-crawled to the shadow of a heart continued to beat like a drum in his chest as he struggled to control his breathing, and the voices in his head refused to shut up!

Discard the past and move forward, Epimenos!

Percy squeezed at his temple with his good arm as he beat back a frustrated scream; he hated feeling helpless. He wouldn't even be struggling this much if that asshole Nathan hadn't crippled him in the first place.

If he died here, he was so going to haunt that goddamn c—

He didn't get time to fantasize on tarring and feathering the son of Apollo before the fighter's bell signaled for round two. The Phoenix hovered high above him in the clouds, enshrouded in a golden aura of its own divine power. Percy became mesmerized as he saw what the majestic Beast had been up to this whole time.

It was beautiful. Truly, breathtakingly beautiful.

The Phoenix's wings were widespread, and its tail feathers were trilled in splendor. Behind it, as if dragged from the Aether, the rosy-fingered dawn crawled. Its shimmering rays lambasted the Beast in divine power as an array of bowl-shaped triangles and concentric circles warped themselves to the blazing iconography of a flower.

A Lotus Flower.

An endless pattern rose over the horizon and covered the continent, its many tips lit up at the ends with divine energy.

Riptide slipped from Percy's grasp and clattered against the earth as he began to laugh hopelessly; his eyes lidded in a drunken stupor. Nyx was insane, but this was just overkill. This wasn't a challenge. It wasn't even a death sentence. This was an eldritch horror in the guise of a biblical calamity.

And it was so fucking beautiful.

"It's so over. Isn't it, Gaia?"

He could feel his partner's grief swamping over his body as she held onto him tightly. Even she had given up. "If it's any consolation, Perseus. It was...an experience knowing you. Insolence and all."

Percy chuckled without mirth, "I bet you say that to all the boys, don't you?"

"Only the impertinent ones who make me work for it."

His answering laugh had a bit more joy than before, but he was still a dead man walking. He looked up towards the Phoenix again, an oddly nostalgic feeling resonating inside him the longer he stared at it. There was a familiarity in the Beast's wild eyes that he didn't quite understand, but he didn't get the opportunity to question it before the Phoenix crowed the rising sun and-

BOOM!

A golden comet shot up the sky and batted the monster out of orbit, the stench of charred flesh and ichor filling Percy's nostrils from ground level as an explosive boom sang as far out as China. The Lotus Flower construct cracked and crumbled as the Phoenix plummeted to the ground, but Percy was stuck in awe as he traced the beam to its origins.

The source of the blast stood upon a lone hill. His dancing, dirty-blonde hair was dyed golden to its roots and rose untethered against gravity. His steaming, cupped hands were thrust outwards to the sky as his mentee continued to pump life energy to him from behind.

He spoke, and it was as if an orchestral choir had followed his booming voice, "You're not the only one who rises with the sun, you fair-feathered fuck."

He was the son of Apollo, the self-proclaimed Pride of Texas, and the third captain of the Greco-American Spades.

Nathan Bell had joined the fight.

Y*C*O*Y*W

27 October 2010, The Craggy Outskirts of Castile-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain

8:30 AM CET

"GRAB OUR IDIOT, AUTOLYCUS!"

Percy blinked once before he was snagged from the neck of his tank top and tossed over the back of a large golden wolf. The displaced hound sped over the rough terrain as the Phoenix's collision with the earth caused a thermobaric explosion of dust and heat.

Between seconds, Autolycus's form morphed to an array of different land animals as the blast wave caught up to them. A horse was too slow, a cheetah too weak, and an ostrich too flammable, before he settled on an agile pronghorn antelope and bounded across the burning plains until the explosion could go no further.

The adrenaline rush ran out, and their duo collapsed on the dirt in a tangle of limbs and horns, ending with Percy trapped underneath the entirety of the son of Hermes' bulk. Autolycus' stamina died, and he reverted to human form. Percy's skin was redder than a lobster's shell, and it hurt to twitch, but he was alive.

Barely, but alive nonetheless.

"Thank you, Auto." He said sincerely, patting the healthy side of beef on the back for a beat until the son of Hermes punched his lights out.

"What were you thinking?! You almost got yourself killed!"

Percy's eyes shot to the son of Hermes bulk before his neck did. Anger and frustration surged through his veins as he struggled not to knee the man in the crotch. What the Hades was he talking about?

Whose fault was it that he'd ended up this worse off in the first place?!

"Are you fucking—"

"Shut up!" Auto roared, flecks of spittle and tears flying as he shook Percy by his collar, "Is your head so far up your ass that you don't realize there are people your absence will hurt when you throw your life away so needlessly?!"

Percy was shocked; he couldn't respond no matter how hard he tried. Unsure of when or how he'd managed to create such a bond with a man he'd debated on killing the first time he'd met him, he turned to Nathan and Alabaster, both downcast, and took in that they were both still here.

They came back to save him.

"You push away the people who try to care about you at every turn to project this pathetic, broken hero image you've got going on, yet act like the world's out to get you!"

He'd written off the Spades a while ago...but maybe he hadn't been as alone as he'd thought.

Nathan huffed, "That's enough, Auto. We've got bigger problems—" but Autolycus wasn't listening, the son of Hermes sprang upwards with a jaw-breaking uppercut, catching the Captain right in the kisser and dazing him.

Autolycus bundled up the Captain's ragged poncho and yanked him to eye level, "You're as much to blame as he is, Captain! Don't you dare pretend otherwise!"

"...You're right. But still, I'm asking you to hold off until after we make it out of this."

Autolycus held the Captain's gaze in a frosty deadlock before shoving him off with a disgusted scoff, leaving him and Percy to sort out their feud as he joined Alabaster in keeping tabs on the wounded Phoenix.

Percy pursed his lips as he took in the Captain's appearance. His fluttering poncho and thick, leather boots. That ridiculous silver toothpick on the side of his chapped lips and the scar over his left eye, Percy had personally handed him...

"You came back." Percy conceded.

"I never left, Jackson. I never leave a man behind."

Percy shook his head with a wry chuckle, struggling to his feet with a grimace as his wounds and scrapes continued to dye his clothes scarlet, "Somehow I doubt that, but I can't really complain now, can I?"

"There are easier ways to say thank you, Jackson." Alabaster mocked from behind them.

"It's a good thing I wasn't trying to, Gandalf!"

"Oh, get over yourself, Ariel. We said we were sorry already."

"That's the one thing you didn't say!"

The son of Hecate could only offer a hasty middle finger before Percy brained him with a stray stone. The technique on that throw...woof, the Percy from his Little League days would have been so proud.

He turned back to the Captain, unsure what to say, asking, "So...you're an anime nerd?"

"What?" You'd think Percy had offered the man a pecan ice-cream sundae; Nathan looked so disgusted.

"You know...the golden hair? Kamehameha? Dragonball?"

"..."

"..."

"There is a 150-foot god-beast ripping this desert a new one, trying to kill you, and you're more worried about Goku?"

"I never mentioned Goku."

"..."

"So?"

"...my bookie saves tickets for me every year whenever there's a panel at Jump Festa..."

"And?"

Nathan looked ready to curb-stomp him then and there, pavement or not, but the son of Truth managed to grit out a low: "I have a mint edition collection of all the volumes of Z signed by Toriyama himself."

Percy folded his arms and arched a brow, clearly unsatisfied. And maybe he was enjoying this. Just a smidge. "And?"

"For the gods' sake, I unironically enjoyed GT! Happy?!"

"There it is, I knew you had to be subhuman."

Alabaster coughed for attention, his face pinched as he looked at his Mentor like he'd never seen him before. "This is cute, really it is, but we're all going to die unless we come up with a plan to kill this thing!"

They turned back to the Phoenixes' smoking crater. Even as wounded as it was, the Beast had maintained its passive, blazing barrier to stop them from getting close. After everything Percy had gone through to fail at putting a scratch on it...

"I can't beat it."

Alabaster rolled his eyes. "Yes, Jackson, we have eyes. We have seeing eyes."

"Go choke on a Mythomagic deck, Torrington."

"Better that than watching you devolve into such a pussy, Pussy! Where did all that smack you were talking earlier go, Mr. 'I fancy my chances with the enemy in front of me, than the 'comrades' behind me.'"

Percy grew beet-red, cursing himself in his head. Alabaster was supposed to be a limping loser; why did he have to make such good points? Percy was a second away from launching himself at the mage before Nathan held him down.

"Enough already, you two!" The Captain commanded, his temper flaring, "Alabaster, shut up. Your little grudge with this idiot got old real fast. He and his friends killed your siblings—big deal. You were working for a psychopathic tyrant trying to destroy the world. Get over yourself, or you'll be joining them!"

The silence was loud. Alabaster stared at his mentor for an awkward eternity, raw hurt covering his face.

"You're being unfair to the kid, and you know it," Nathan said, his tone tired, yet gentle as he tried to placate the boy, "Both of us are. It was War. No sane man wishes for the outcome, and even fewer are prepared for the aftermath, but they're long gone. Holding onto that hurt will never bring you peace, and with how things are going..."

SSSSKKKKKKRRRRRAAAAHHHHHHHH !

Nathan looked over the horizon as a wave of heat washed over them. "Soon we'll all have nothing to hold on to."

Their group turned back to the furious beast, dread chilling them to the bones. The Phoenix continued to scream at the top of its lungs, ordering Percy to come out and fight. A tornado of fire covered the ground around its feet.

"I can't run," Percy said. "It'll destroy everything in its path to get to me, and I won't allow that."

Nathan nodded at him in support, "But..."

"...but I can't get close enough to it with that furnace stopping me from getting close. Captain, can you-"

Nathan raised a hand and killed that train of thought, "I can only manage three of those blasts a day – emphasis on day – and even then, I can't risk hitting it with a kill shot otherwise the Night won't count it. This is your cross to carry, kid."

"Gee, thanks."

Nathan spat out his silver toothpick, twirling the object in his finger for a beat before it grew longer and heavier in his hand. In half a second, Nathan held a shimmering silver, gold, and black repeating shotgun with a leather-wrapped stock and customized engravings all over the shaft and chamber.

"Think, Jackson," he said, slinging the bulky weapon over his shoulder, "Think clearly and tell me what's stopping you from getting close to this monster?"

"..."

"..."

"You mean, besides the Chernobyl microwave?"

Nathan rolled his eyes. "It's your instincts. As much as you try to tell yourself otherwise, you'll always have that sense of self-preservation kicking in at the last second to get you up out of dodge."

"You're telling me to dive headfirst into a nuclear generator? Just like that?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying." Nathan nodded, a finger raised to the sky and a manic smile, "How much do you know about death rays and AGMs?"

"...gods, what is it with you and firearms and explosives?"

"Don't make me smack you, boy," Nathan warned, "Avery told me about your 'Hardening' ability. Terrible name by the way, but useful. Imagine falling from as high as the sky as a meteor of the heaviest metal you could think of. You'd blast right through the bastard's barrier and poof!" He cried, flaring his hands for effect, "Mushroom clouds."

"Are you insane?!"

Surprisingly, it wasn't Percy that objected to Nathan's proposed suicide mission; it was Autolycus. Percy looked intrigued by the idea, his brain rattling off at a mile a minute as he tried to improve on the Captain's proposed suicide mission.

"You're right, Auto. It is insane. Unpolished and suicidal," he decided, "But it's just about crazy enough to work."

"...do I need to punch you again, Perseus?" Autolycus asked seriously.

"If you're fine with losing that arm, go for it."

"You cannot be serious! What did I just say?!"

"Look around us, Auto. Do you have any better ideas on how we can win here?"

"Anything else! Any other strategy would be a feasible alternative! Do you realize what you're saying? You could die, Perseus!"

"...yeah. I could," Percy whispered, "But even then, I owe it to myself to try."

Autolycus shook his head in disbelief as he backed away. His fists clenched. The son of Hermes was struggling not to just knock Percy out and leave the damn Phoenix behind to destroy everything, but the man relented. His limbs and jaw elongated, a sheen of pure-white hair peppered his arms and body, and a massive set of wings sprouted from his back.

Autolycus had transformed into a great white Pegasus.

Hop aboard, the man-horse whinnied, his eyes shut like he were an exasperated older brother... no, more of an overbearing nanny, to be honest.

Nathan whistled, a sharp New York taxi call that nearly ruptured Percy's eardrums, but it got the job done. The sun seemed to flare for a second before a...construct of flames appeared to branch from it and gallop towards them in half a minute.

It was a flaming horse. A great Dutch Warmblood about seven feet tall, chock-full of corded, flaming muscle.

"Ho, Kairos. Easy, easy." Nathan cried, chuckling as the flaming stallion started to nuzzle the side of his face, "What?" He demanded at Percy's offended look, "You didn't think your daddy was the sole authority on horses, did you, Jackson?"

"Uh, yeah? Kinda."

"Well, that's just spoiled, don't you think?" Nathan saddled up on Kairos, lifting Alabaster like he were a pillow. "We'll draw its attention. Give you and Autolycus enough time to get in position and end this whole thing in one fell swoop. If you hadn't guessed already, Avery sent me along with you to help because he had a bad feeling about this 'test.'"

Nathan spat the word test like it were a slur. It was concerning. "I only wish I'd asked for more than Coachella tickets as a reward."

Percy froze, "Hold up. You're risking your life to help me for Coachella tickets?!"

"Not much of a fair trade, huh?" Nathan smirked.

No...not even a little.

No sane person would dare to do all this for someone they 'hated' for anything less than immortality, so why?

Nathan hated him...didn't he?

"Captain, hold on a sec!" Percy called, gnawing at his lower lip indecisively. "Look, there's a chance that this could backfire in all the worst ways. I can't be 100% sure if I'll keep my end of the deal."

"Not really selling yourself with that pessimistic attitude."

"What I'm trying to say," Percy ground out, "Is that for all the bullets and insults you clobbered my dignity with...you weren't just being an asshole, I see that now. You were right about me, at least a little. More than that, you were the only one with the balls to come out and say it."

"Uh, excuse me? I've been—OWWW!" Alabaster's snark took Nathan's backfist to his nose prematurely, and his cries were ignored as the Captain asked, "Is there a point to this, Jackson?"

"You piss me off." Percy confessed, "I've never wanted to kill someone as badly as I do you, but I can't deny I respect you enough not to want your blood on my conscience. If I fail here, I need to know you didn't go down with the ship. That I didn't send us all to hell, if this goes bad...promise me you won't look back."

"Nah." Nathan shrugged casually, "Where do you get off telling me what to do, kid? And that stupid attitude? What kind of idiot draws up plans of victory with the expectation of dying?"

"I—uhh. What?!"

"Man up, Jackson. What was it Alabaster said? 'Everything he thinks he is, is because of the bodies he tossed to the wolves to shine.' You didn't appreciate that, did you?"

Percy didn't need to answer; the dirty look he shot Alabaster's way would've had mud-soaked pigs feeling inadequate.

Nathan only huffed as he demanded, "Then prove him wrong. Prove us all wrong. I'm not leaving you here till I'm satisfied. And I won't be satisfied until you show me the Hero of Heroes. Show the world Percy Jackson one more time."

His piece said, the son of Apollo spurred his flaming steed onward for the Phoenix, armed to the teeth with incendiary rounds in his guns and acidic taunts on his lips.

"Idiots."

Despite that, Percy couldn't help the giddy tingle in his spine or the brief smile that crossed his face.

Auto took to the air with a mighty clap of his wings, flying through the clouds faster than a speeding bullet as Alabaster and Nathan continued to play keep away with the Phoenix. The skies rumbled as Percy crossed his uncle's fine line between itching my trigger finger and divine smiting, but the King of Olympus didn't hinder them in any other way.

Even more confirmation that something serious was happening on Olympus, but that was future-Percy's problem.

What a loser, that guy...

No sooner had they soared than the Phoenix realized their band of misfits was pulling a fast one. It ignored Nathan and Alabaster, clapping its great wings with the force of an explosion as it flew after them. It caught up in moments, its shadow holding them under siege before it blazed past them with another loud crack of its wings. The Phoenix drifted about a hundred yards out in mid-air and barrel-rolled to them with its mouth wide open, itching to swallow them whole.

"Auto, you better catch me!"

Not waiting for a response, Percy jumped off of Pega-lycus, the suddenness of his leap jostling his friend away from the Phoenixes open maw just in time for Auto to pull off a barrel roll away from the dogfight while Percy cooked himself alive running over the bird's flaming neck, a shock of blood surging through his burning legs before he bellowed:

"COPPER!"

He kicked off the Phoenix's back right where the ridge of its wings converged, barely nudging the Phoenix off-kilter as he flailed through open air for a second, two, and then—

BOOM !

"Got you!"

Pega-lycus nabbed him by the back of his collar with his horse teeth and swung him to his back, while the Phoenix took a nose-dive mere inches away from them; a look of raw hatred in its eyes, its left wing sheared clean off, and a trail of smoke and ichor following in its wake.

Percy looked down below, sharing a grim nod with Nathan as the man saluted him good luck. The son of Apollo had used his second blast in a row; if they had any shot of winning, Percy had to end this with the final blast. He spurred Pega-lycus onward, the duo flying so high above the upper atmosphere that frost gathered over their bodies and the air thinned to a blade's edge.

In moments, Percy saw the world from beyond the heavens, frozen in awe at the sight before his eyes. They weren't far enough to see the planet fully, but even then...

"Pictures don't do you justice, Gaia."

"Mankind has done so much damage to the surface," The Earth Mother mused, her voice swamped in melancholy, "You almost wouldn't recognize the shattered husk of now to the 'me' of back then."

"C'mon. You don't look a day over 50,000."

Gaia groaned, "It's little wonder how it took you so long to end up with that Owl-spawn! By Chaos, you are tactless."

"I am. Still, it's better to be tactless than heartless, don't you think?"

The parting shot hurt the goddess, and Percy was glad for it. She knew what she'd done.

"...Perseus, I-"

"Save it, Gaia."

He stood on Auto the Pegasus' back, his hands spread out on either side of him like he were on a balance beam, Riptide clutched in his right hand as a perfect extension of his arm, as he mentally prepared himself. This was a pop quiz he'd couldn't afford to screw up. Which was why he turned to his favorite subject:

Physics.

He wished he were joking.

The amount of shit he got up to constantly in his demigodding career had all but demanded he had a more 'intimate' relationship with the field than was reasonable. Hades, he was already classified as a walking, talking crash-test dummy; pin a hazard target to his chest and he'd be set.

Anyway, he remembered enough from his classes to bullshit his way through the formula for maximum velocity and Newton's Laws of Motion. He had more than adequate distance for acceleration, and the object area and drag coefficient hocus pocus was good enough with the Phoenix's massive bulk.

Everything was more or less in place; all Percy needed was mass.

For all his strength, he'd still crumple like a soda can from the air pressure alone before he ever got close to the Phoenix if he didn't harden his entire body with the densest, heaviest, most durable material he could think of for maximum impact.

A lightbulb went up over his head: Kronos. Kronos' Scythe. Adaman—

"No. It won't work." Gaia cut in, much to Percy's annoyance.

"I wish you could've told me that before I hiked myself two thousand miles above ground level, you lousy hag!"

"Do not take that tone with me! I never said the Sun-spawn's suicide plan wouldn't work, I only meant your choice of mineral was inadequate!"

"It worked plenty for your son when he butchered my friends with it!"

"...I'm sorry."

"What?" Percy said, so blindsided that he said the word out loud.

"I'm sorry, Perseus. All I seem to do nowadays is think of how much my existence has hurt you; it smacks me in the face every time you get hurt, but I will never be able to atone if I fail you here. I know what I have done to you, but what will you do now?

"You're apologizing, you're not supposed to sound so smug..." Percy said, his quivering lips fighting back a smile, "Gods, I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"

The fallen goddess beamed, "Probably. When I made Kronos his weapon, I wasn't blind to his avarice and cruelty. Early on, I sensed handing a budding tyrant the power to put an end to a true Elder God would be...unwise."

"Uh-huh."

"You're not getting another apology!" Gaia snapped, "The Adamantine Scythe was more a test of conviction than a boon. A fact Kronos recognized early on and adapted to when the moment called for it. Adamantine has nothing special to its name beyond its unnatural durability; Kronos bested Ouranos because he was Kronos."

"That's great and all, Gaia. But I kinda need that 'unnatural durability' if I don't want to die doing this, ya know?"

"I know my sister, Perseus. And unless you're willing to put everything on the line, Nyx will never be satisfied. If you want to end this, I can give you what you need, but the choice must be yours. I'll only ask this once: Can you trust me with your life?"

...

Percy kicked off Pega-lycus' back without a word, nose-diving to the Earth below as his and Gaia's essence melded over each other, twisting and forming into a symbiotic helix as their souls' resonance reached true synergy.

"Vibranium," they spoke as one, and Percy dropped like a comet; the frost caking his body vaporizing as he blazed through the upper atmosphere clad in a coat of skin-shearing heat. Only then did the true risks of Gaia's plan start to destroy his body from the inside out.

You see, Percy's blood abilities had only ever borrowed from a single metal property. Hardness. He'd always bypassed conductivity, malleability, and ductility to focus on defense, and defense alone. And for the longest time, Percy had been content with allowing Gaia only that much leeway.

This was different.

His newfound synergy with his Partner had gone above and beyond and transmogrified his blood into pure, unrefined vibranium. A metal infamous for its ability to absorb and redistribute kinetic energy in vibrations at a rapid pace and, well...

"AAARRRGGHHHH!"

Percy's body bounced across the heavens at irregular intervals, screaming all the way; only keeping a hold on Riptide's burning grip through sheer muscle memory. His senses had sharpened to an almost unnatural degree to psychoanalyze every nanosecond of agony he was experiencing in real time. His muscles tore. His nerves blazed.

He couldn't do this.

It was too much. His heart would go into shock before getting within a mile of the Phoenix. Why was he doing this to himself? What was the—A flash of light seared his vision, and then immolated his body whole before the almighty clap of thunder rang through the Heavens.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Lightning bolts continued to baste Percy's enhanced body repeatedly, flatlining and jumpstarting his heart ad nauseam for every slight and jeer Percy had ever dealt to the King of the Gods until the almighty crybaby was satisfied.

Percy would have preferred that the manchild didn't need sixteen bloody bolts to get over himself!

"Now, we're even."

'Like Hades we are, you asshole! GODS!"

But even as he continued to curse Mr. Thunder, Percy felt electrified. Terrible choice of words, sue him, but there was no other way to describe it. Every smidge of doubt, anxiety, and cowardice was left behind him as he shot through the air. He could feel the biting winds propelling him at a right angle, clearing a straight-cut path to the Phoenix.

Zeus himself had ordered the heavens to fight for Percy. The End was near.

"Don't you dare fail, Sea-spawn..." Zeus demanded, the gravity of his voice fleeting like the clouds he commanded.

Percy took a breath and cleared his head. He curled himself into a ball to contain the kinetic energy and electric charge, and cannonballed through the cloudless skies for miles with Riptides point poking out from his back like a Sonic spin attack on crack.

BOOM !

Nathan's cannon roared a final time, and that was when Percy struck. His body snapped open like a taut band. His density, velocity, and the concepts of gravity and kinetic energy worked in tandem as Riptide feasted, cleaving the monster down the middle from its skull to its blazing tail feathers instantly as Toledo erupted in a titanic explosion of fire, lightning, and primeval force.

---

It hurt. Everything hurt so bad.

But the results...the results were more than worth it.

From the bottom of a smoking crater, as deep as it was wide, Percy looked down upon the monster's brutalized corpse, numb to it all, drenched to his knees in a pool of steaming ichor and lava, his body marred all over in third-degree burns.

The Phoenix was barely alive - Percy could hear its faint heartbeat and dying crows - but he was far too drained to feel anything but...tired from it all.

He couldn't understand any of what was going on anymore. He couldn't figure out anything about Nyx's angle.

The Chimera had been a challenge in its own right, but most of its difficulty had come from Percy's ignorance of the loss of his powers. And even then, he'd still been able to eke out the crumbs of a dub solo while Nemean Lion and its pack? They'd been easy pickings for him, even with the lion's air cannon thrown into play.

But the Phoenix?

As he waded through the ichor pool to the monster's head without thought, Percy took a knee and ran his hand on the beast's neck while brooding. He looked the monster in its weak, ichor-shot eye, confused at the ache in his chest, he felt at having helped mutilate such a magnificent (homicidal) god-beast.

The Phoenix was in a weight class of its own as the single most powerful monster he'd ever had the displeasure of fighting...and he still wouldn't have been able to beat it if the others hadn't been here. Not even close. He ran his hand through what little remained of his hair and tried to add up the numbers, but it was like letters and math all over again.

This was artificial difficulty if Percy had ever seen it, and it made no sense. What did Nyx stand to gain from raping him? What purpose did killing these monsters serve other than seeing him squirm?

Perfect Humans? The Clone-Doppelganger-Kid Nathan had killed earlier? Prometheus?

Percy could manage all of that—'Compartmentalize' had become scripture to him by now—but the visions, Nyx, and the Percy variants from hell, the weird blood powers, Demeter, the Spades, and how they tied to his Mom.

The voices.

Could he even call himself Percy Jackson anymore?

The Phoenix let out a final agonized screech before it gave up the ghost, so aggressive and offended Percy half-imagined the bird facepalming itself with an 'Oh, c'mon!' with its last breath. He didn't get to question it, though, the crumbling of stone at the crater's edges drawing his attention.

"He's still breathing, Captain!" Alabaster called from above, his tone more relieved than derisive as he reached a hand down to help him up, "For how long is anyone's guess, though."

"Let's keep it that way until we hand him over to Maria, Torrington!"

Percy rolled his eyes at the clowns as he took up the offered hand, giving one last wary look to the Phoenix corpse before he turned away. A motion he was quick to regret as he got crushed in a bear hug so hard his eyes bulged out of his skull.

"PERSEUS!" Autolycus wailed, his fierce hold tightening until Percy could hear more than feel the creaks in his spine.

"Auto-can't-breathe!"

The mountain man released Percy with a sheepish smile, a firm hand on his shoulder to keep the son of Poseidon from collapsing outright. Percy took a minute or two for the world to stop spinning before he dropped to his butt on the gravel, taking a second to admire the rosy sky and the fact that he was still alive.

And free.

Nothing else quite compared to that revelation.

Somehow, someway, he'd managed to survive Nyx's birthday treasure hunt from Tartarus with all his limbs attached and only a serious case of mental trauma and third-degree burns to boot.

Was it Christmas already?

He snickered softly before that became its own warm, uncontrollable laughter as he started to make snow angels in the dirt.

Alabaster, ever the party pooper, chose to rain on his parade. His steel-toe boots nudged him in the ribs as he stage-whispered to Nathan, "You think Ms. Hernandez will notice we broke him?"

"Honestly? He was already fucking crazy before we got our hands on him. I mean, c'mon."

Percy shot the Captain a dirty look as he hunched himself over on his elbows. He didn't know what to do with this guy. Seriously, it was like acting the abrasive jackass came second nature to him or something.

"Captain," Autolycus groaned into his palm, "Can you, for one bloody second, just not be so—you."

"What? We can't rib on the kid a little because he was a badass? He already comes from a long line of arrogant powerhouses. Can't keep him up on a platinum pedestal, or it's over for all of us."Nathan reached down to offer Percy a hand, though, a genuine smile on his face, "But, even I'm not that much of a hardass. Ya' did good, kid. Real good."

Percy looked at the hand with a scowl, half-tempted to spit on it. For all their team-up had accomplished, he couldn't act like everything said and done between them could disappear. No matter how true it was.

They held a terse conversation with their eyes: 'I'm not going back.' Percy said, 'I'm done.'

'I know.' Nathan responded, yet his hand remained open in waiting. An invitation for them both to move forward and do better...

Percy rolled his eyes and took the man's arm, smiling internally at Autolycus' enthusiastic whoop while Alabaster humphed to the side.

Nathan grinned brightly, "It's as they say, then, all's well that ends—"

SSSSKKKKKKRRRRRAAAAHHHHHHHH!

An explosion of divine power followed the unholy scream, jettisoning their group across the map and lighting the desert plains on fire. Percy latched onto a stray boulder by sheer luck, anchoring his flailing body down in the face of the burning winds as he saw a figment of his worst nightmares reconstruct itself piece by piece within a Ballad of Fire.

The Phoenix had returned.

Stronger and somehow more iridescent than before, burning with all the vibrant colors of a supernumerary rainbow.

'Beautiful...' Percy thought before the demon bird made him eat his words in the same breath.

As fast as thought, the Phoenix struck. Smacking Nathan to a crag wall in a blur of flames and dust, the smoke cleared to reveal the bloodied Captain.

He wasn't breathing.

"No!" Autolycus bellowed, a coat of fur enveloping his skin as he charged the monster head-on as a massive grizzly bear.

Percy and Alabaster raced for Nathan, horror plastered over their faces as they took in the Captain's wounded state. His left half was seared through with third-degree burns, his right shoulder was bent at an awkward angle, and his rib cage looked like it'd been caved in.

The man would have been dead already if he hadn't been a son of Apollo.

"It should've come back as a baby," Alabaster whispered, shellshocked, his eyes trained on his unmoving mentor, "It should've come back as a baby after a thousand years! That's how the stories go, so what the hell!"

"Torrington?"

Behind them, Autolycus screamed in agony as the reborn Phoenix clobbered him, trapping the man in its flaming beak before setting him ablaze for good measure.

"It's all wrong. It's all wrong! IT'S ALL WRONG! Dnim ym ginsol! Dnim ym ginsol pu dedne dna daeh ym edisni hcum oot deniamer I!"

"TORRINGTON!" Percy bellowed, grabbing the boy by his shoulders and smacking him across the face twice for good measure. Any other time, Percy would have relished in beating the snot out of the boy, but his blood chilled once he saw the look on his face.

Alabaster was terrified.

Hades, all of them were terrified, but Alabaster hadn't asked for this. Nathan and Auto hadn't asked for this. Squaring off against giant, fuck-you, eldritch calamities wasn't written anywhere in their job descriptions, yet they'd risked their lives to save Percy's hide. He turned back to Nathan, recalling another one of the abrasive Captain's critiques:

"You want to be seen as more than your heritage, yet you expect the world to stop turning for you whenever you're having a crisis!"

Percy exhaled, his thoughts fuzzy and clouded, but his nerves felt like they'd been injected with pure steel, "Grab the Captain, Torrington. Take Auto, and get as far away from here as possible."

"What?!"

Percy didn't look his way, far too busy scavenging off the Captain's half-dead corpse for anything useful. Offering thanks to whatever omnipotent schmuck had kept the man's bandolier of photon bombs intact. They were about seventeen rounds, more than enough for what he was cooking.

"Relax. I don't plan on losing to this sweat—not now, not ever." Percy swore, wrapping the bandolier around his left forearm and reloading the Captain's shotgun.

There was an engraving of a name along the stock in Celestial Bronze cursive: ROSALINA B.

He clipped the gun to his belt and turned back to Alabaster with a crooked smile, "Whether or not I survive is a little dicey, though. If I don't...Then I guess Christmas came early for you, huh?"

"This isn't the time for—"

Percy ran himself through with Riptide, biting on his lower lip so hard he chewed through it. A shower of blood, he didn't even realize his body still held, sprayed from his guts to the ground and began to pool. Percy dropped to his knees, holding his hand over his supping life force and coating the photon bombs and shotgun bullets in hardened shells of blood.

He clotted the wound before he could really bite it, and even then, he was that close to threading the needle's eye. Percy looked up and swore loudly, annoyed that Alabaster still stood there gawking while Nathan lost more time.

"Do you want to have his head on your conscience just to get the last word on me?! Go already! I've got this!"

Alabaster was speechless. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't even have to look into Percy's eyes to realize just how terrified he was of going into this fight again; maybe it was something else, but the son of Poseidon had earned Alabaster's respect and more today.

"Don't die on us, Jackson. I'm serious!" He warned, taking a card from his belt and murmuring an incantation. Nathan shrank and collapsed in seconds, turning into a mystical golden mist before dissipating into the card. He nodded at Percy one last time and ran.

"Gods, I thought he'd never leave." Percy closed his eyes and took a breath. His blood boiled inside him. His heart pulsed so fast it ached and then stilled.

Zero hour.

'I'm already dead,' he reassured himself, ' Let's make it count, eh, Gaia?'

"Your 'plan,' Perseus...the precision required for it...I won't be able to protect you."

'...are you with me?'

"Don't. Don't make me answer that, Perseus. Do what you will."

'...it was fun, Gaia.'

Percy charged low and fast; his steps were like butterfly wingbeats, silent with hard-pressed agility as he scaled the incline of a looming hillock in seconds; the Phoenix none the wiser. He didn't stop pushing, leaping over the edge, and flipping over the Phoenix's head in a perfect arc as he unloaded four quick shots to the side of the beast's head.

As expected, the god-beast's heat barrier detonated the rounds before they could get close enough to hit, but Percy was already two steps ahead. While the bullets may have detonated, the blood he'd added to them continued to dance around the beast, lashing at the edges of its barrier like vipers before a single bolt broke through and struck home in its chest.

"Round three, Foghorn." Percy mocked, a blood-toothed smile stretching over his face at the Phoenix's shocked expression.

He swept his arm like a whip, the blood-soaked bombs along his forearm flying through the air in opposing directions as Percy used them as parkour platforms, jumping from bomb to bomb and riddling the beast with holes.

Gold and Molybdenum. Copper and Cobalt. Nickel and Niobium. Tantalum and Rhenium. Platinum and Tungsten. All were metals infamous for their properties of Ductility and Heat resistance. Percy had done away with protecting himself so that Gaia could focus on mixing and matching blood cocktails over and over to find the perfect blend to overpower the Phoenix's barrier, while Percy played the Devil's Tango with it.

'Make it count. MAKE IT COUNT!' He chanted over and over in his head as he destroyed himself. Percy's skin was hanging off his bones, yet he didn't stop smiling.

In this one-sided battle, Percy felt he'd taken his Fate head-on with his own two hands. He'd fought with all he had with a half-melted shotgun, proved himself a thousand times over. And now, he was about to die, taking down one of the most powerful ancient monsters in history. He was content. Not bad for an honest day's work.

Not bad at all.

A single, telegraphed misstep damned him; the Phoenix snagged Percy's left leg in its beak and slammed him to the ground, trapping him in between its chicken feet.

"Okay, okay, geez! I'm down to my last joke, either way..." Percy laughed, his free arm warring against his self-preservation to point a finger gun at the beast's unimpressed scowl. "But this'll kill ya."

The first explosion was like music to Percy's ears; the chain reaction followed behind it like an orchestral choir as a cannonade of blasts created a second sun around him. The Phoenix squawked in alarm, grabbing Percy and preparing to fly away.

"No, you don't!" Percy roared, clenching his fist and detonating the blood he'd already buried in the beast's body.

The Phoenix coughed up ichor, the brilliance of its flames dimming to a cursed orange before it gave up altogether and allowed the rest of the bombs to do their worst. The world became a white void around Percy, the heat so unbearable he imagined his body atomizing to nothingness.

But Percy didn't care. He'd won.

---

Or so he'd thought.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me..." Percy croaked in disbelief.

Once he'd closed his eyes, he'd expected it to be a permanent fixture. He hadn't expected to wake up with the Phoenix's wing draped over him.

The Phoenix had protected him...but that tidbit was overtaken by the fact that the bastard had survived!

Rising to weak, immolated feet, Percy staggered to his enemy at a snail's pace and dropped to his knees right before its eye. "3 railguns." He whispered, straining to hold his temper, "A lightning-charged meteor. Poison and an artificial sun! When is it enough for you?! WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE TO BRING YOU DOWN?!"

The Phoenix only stared at the quivering human, a myriad of thoughts swimming through its head of the broken boy, before its eyes sagged with dark disappointment.

"Suicide...You planned...to die alongside me with that attack..." The Phoenix screeched weakly, its eyes oozing ichor as it hurled a flood of guts, "Your conviction...is strong, Percy Jackson...but I cannot hope to fail here...not while you remain so weak..."

The Phoenix rose to shaky feet, its eyes trained on something over the horizon. Percy followed its movements, and his heart dropped. Alabaster. Over a hundred yards out, the son of Hecate hobbled over the beaten path with Autolycus' charred body in tow.

Alabaster turned, and their eyes met. They were a terrified shade of dark yellow, so dark that they appeared amber in the morning light.

"You need motivation..."

Percy's head shot to the beast, alarmed, and straining to move, "No, wait! Please!"

"Do not beg! Never! Beg! Vulnerability will only make you that much easier for Them to devour! Draw upon the power within you and DESTROY!"

The Phoenix didn't hesitate; it swept its wing wide, a shower of flaming blades chasing after Alabaster in slow motion to Percy's eyes. A shot of undeserved anxiety had his heart beating faster than a vibraslap. His legs crumpled, his vision glitched; a lucid dream dyeing the world a violet so thick that he couldn't tell what was real, and what was not.

Percy saw the blacksmith boy again.

His hair black as coal, and his eyes formed of molten magma.

Move forward.

In his scrawny, dusty hand was a great, big forge hammer. Its obsidian metal was as pure as he'd ever seen.

The boy brought down the mighty hammer upon an anvil with god-like strength, and with every tremor, Percy felt a volcano erupt somewhere.

Over and over again, the boy beat his mighty hammer upon his anvil to no avail; the weapon he forged was far too stubborn to form how he wanted it to.

The hammer arced overhead again before Percy grabbed the shaft to stop it. The godling twisted to him in rage, his hands charred black and his molten eyes brimming with tears of pure golden ichor.

Move forward.

"Why!" he cried, his voice tight with anguish, "Why can't I finish it?"

Percy shook his head as he reached out to wipe the boy's tears, "It is not yet time, my friend."

The godling broke down into gut-wrenching sobs, dropping to his knees and holding onto Percy by his robes.

"I can save you, Zagreus! Let me save you!"

Zagreus watched his old friend wail for what felt like an eternity before he knelt to wrap the god in a tight embrace, his eyes trained on the unfinished weapon as his friend clung to him as if terrified he'd disappear should he let go.

"You already have, my friend." Zagreus whispered fondly, "You. Mother. Themis. Deucalion. Marturia. All of you dear fools on the Council. All of you have already saved me."

Move forward!

The magma in the boy's eye pits cleared, twin ichor-shot dark yellow gems, the color of amber. In the boy's gleaming eyes, Percy saw himself young and beautiful, with hair the color of snow and a genuine smile as pure and energizing as the rising sun.

"Thank you, Kagutsuchi. Thank you all for loving me."

DISCARD THE PAST AND —

The sickening tune of torn flesh haunted the air, blood dribbling off Alabaster's face and body in heaves as he gasped for breath. The son of Hecate opened his eyes slowly, his heartbeat a volcanic pulse as he beat back tears at the gruesome sight before him...

Of Percy Jackson standing over him protectively; a dozen flame spikes lanced through his body, and a haunted look of utter confusion on his face.

"Why?" Alabaster whimpered in disbelief, more blood pouring over him as he struggled to understand it, "WHY, JACKSON?!"

Percy coughed up blood at the question, the strength in his legs failing him as he crumpled to his knees. Alabaster caught him before he collided with the ground, chants and spells flying out of his lips rapidly as he fought an uphill battle to save him.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?! I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR HELP!"

But Percy couldn't hear him. His eyes were glassy and half-lidded with exhaustion. He heard Gaia's wails, raw and vulnerable. Enough grief within her to quiver mountains as she wept and pleaded without end. He felt the voices in his head continue to egg him on, uncaring of his wounds. He heard the Phoenix crowing to the sky in a morbid mix of grief and triumph for what felt like hours on end.

And he couldn't be asked to care.

He'd done enough. He'd fought enough. Why shouldn't he rest? Why shouldn't he close his eyes one last time and forget about this nightmare and its Christmas stocking of bullshit?

All he'd ever wanted...all he'd ever wanted was...

The feathers began to pulse and thrum with energy, the ends lighting up with a blinding gold hue like they were about to—

"...get away..." Percy gasped, "Get away...Torring...ton...the...the feathers are-"

"WOULD YOU SHUT UP!" Alabaster screamed, his face bright red with exertion, "JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME WORK HERE, OKAY?!"

"Perseus!" Gaia wailed, "Keep your eyes open, Perseus! Fight! Fight!"

DISCARD THE PAST AND MOVE FORWARD, EPIMENOS!

Nobody was listening.

Here he was, a literal hairsbreadth away from death, and nobody was acknowledging a word he'd said. Again. Once again, Percy was expected to shut up and let others decide how his life went.

'Are you still whining, boy?'

Percy heard that voice again in his heart of hearts, and his blood chilled—that voice, that nagging voice, that had jump-started this entire fiasco back in Tartarus.

He blinked, and his eyes opened to an inverted mirror within a fractured galaxy.

Percy saw himself. Or what he'd been before maniacal Primordials and bloodthirsty Spades. Forest-green Chuck Taylors and ratty, old jeans. A worn, orange Camp Half-Blood tee and a clay bead necklace. Sun-kissed skin and windswept, jet-black hair; his hands in his pockets as he slouched casually.

The eyes killed the image; they were a blinding violet, vibrant, beautiful amethyst gems, yet sickening in all the worst ways. Ancient and eldritch, soulless and cold, this monster could've watched the world burn, and that sight still wouldn't wipe off that airy grin.

The imposter smirked, 'Take a picture, boy. It'll last longer.'

Percy wanted to curse him. He wanted to wipe that smug look off his stupid face. He hated this creature—this Monster. Percy wanted to erase every bond that bound them together with his bare hands, but he could do nothing but watch.

His body, broken even in his subconscious shelter, was bound and trussed like a turkey by flesh-like cords of sinew. The irony that Percy was even more of a prisoner in his mind than he was in real life wasn't lost on him, not in the slightest.

'Two sides of the same dam coin, and yet in all lifetimes, forever fated to be divided...' The Monster continued, aware and uncaring of Percy's inner monologue, 'We are dying, boy. Creation is moving onward without us, and we can do nothing but watch. Does that not irk you?'

Percy grinned, his thoughts emboldened by pure spite: 'Good. If it means I get to see you dead. Good.'

A look other than smug apathy showed itself on the Monster's face: A sliver of shock before he wiped the emotion from his face with practiced ease. The Monster circled Percy, his arms clasped behind his back as the shattered galaxy around them reshaped itself into lies of his choosing.

The first Lie was a girl with honey-blonde hair and a single stormy-gray eye.

"Go save the world, Hero."

Percy scrunched his eyes shut at the image, unwilling to be played by his emotions until the Monster pried his eyes open, 'Hadn't we sworn, Perseus? Hadn't we sworn that we would make them learn? That we would teach them fear? Teach them hurt?!'

The second Lie was another girl with fiery red hair interspersed with oils, acrylics, and mesmerizing acid-green eyes.

"It doesn't matter how hopeless it seems. As long as they hear the name Percy Jackson—"

'Stop it! Stop it now!' Percy demanded, overpowering the Monster for a moment before it bashed his skull against an invisible wall.

'We'd sworn to be better!'

The Lies appeared more urgently, the ephemeral ghosts latching onto Percy's broken body in droves.

"Show the world Percy Jackson one more time."

'To anyone and anything that dared to question our way of living.' The monster spat.

"You are nothing like Hercules. I am honored that you carry this sword."

'We swore, Perseus! We swore!'

The final Lie was Percy's breaking point. Of course, it had to be her. The girl had long, earth-brown hair that glistened with an ethereal luster, smooth, caramel skin bordering the edge of hot cocoa, and wide eyes a brilliant shade of emerald gems.

"Can you stay with me?" Gaia asked, unable to meet his eyes. "I'm scared of the dark."

The Monster held them together by their foreheads, a bastardized form of synergy connecting them with a promise:

"WE SWORE TO DESTROY THEM!"

Percy roared, his fury amplified by the weight of a thousand wasted lifetimes. His body rose from his torso as if pulled by puppet strings, as whips of green and purple lightning danced across his broken form, eviscerating the Earth to her core. His untamed powers slowly fracturing the fabric of the Universe with anticipation as the words begged to be uttered.

"FM'LATGH N'GHFT'DRN!"

Time froze, and reality became a black-and-white mindfuck.

The morning sun sank. The sudden surge of heat boiled the oceans and broiled the continent whole. The pitch-black sky cracked and fractured like a broken TV. The howling screams of the Prisoners On The Other Side slaked through the cracks and dyed the dim canvas blood-red.

Conceptual laws lost reason as the space surrounding Percy became a quivering, hyper-compressed vacuum... and the Phoenix, for all its might and divine power, was sliced and diced into a billion little pieces in a fraction of a second.

The beast let out one final sky-cleaving caw, a glowing teardrop streaking down its beak as its essence scattered and coalesced inside Percy's broken body. Through the fine line between lucidity and flux, Percy heard the beast's final words, a hungry pulse rumbling deep from within his core before he blacked out.

"Good enough. The work is done. I greet your return, Father...I greet your return, Zagreus!

Y*C*O*Y*W

28 October 2010, Ravenscrag, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

11:37 AM EST

THE HALLS REEKED OF SWEAT, DEPRAVITY, AND LUST.

Gasps and grunts of pleasure remained an incurable malady to his ears as humans and monsters continued to give in to their baser instincts in the grandest, unholiest of lust-fuelled orgies. Fucking themselves silly by the thousands.

He didn't join, of course. Never indulge in your own product and all that. Still, even if it were not the case, he would never have chosen to debase himself in such a way willingly.

This 'Iron Age' of man...that they'd even been allowed to muck about for as long as they had, was a miracle in and of itself. The progressive destruction of the planet. The sheer arrogance to delude themselves to be Free men and women.

They were, ironically, a bold-faced insult and a triumph to his Master's dream. Little wonder how Gaia had lost her damn mind with them.

Still, they served their uses in the grand scheme of things, and the cult following he'd managed to gather had been more than easy enough to placate with promises of food, shelter, and sex, most of all. He shared a questioning glance with his head Empousa, a sultry smirk following her answering nod as she patted her belly in affirmation.

Better late than never, I suppose.

He rose from his throne, his hands behind his back, looking at the masses from a hanging balcony with a neutral frown. "My brothers and sisters..." He started softly, the silky pitch in his voice able to send the most pious of saints astray.

The orgy stopped immediately, every head in the room turning his way before they bowed to him in deference.

"HAIL, CORINTHIAN!"

The Corinthian smiled thinly, a demure sigh escaping him as he raised a calming hand their way. "Please," he tried. I am only a humble servant, unworthy of such praise."

"NAY, CORINTHIAN! YOU ARE AN APOSTLE, SENT FROM ABOVE TO USHER IN THE NEW AGE OF MAN!" The crowd bellowed.

The irony...

"The Buddhist Dharma preaches of the Eightfold Path. Of the set harmony and order that governs individual conduct. Man and Beast. Monster and God. Each bears a distinct root from birth: Superior and Inferior. None should disturb what's decided, yet a choice in the said decision has never been afforded to the 'Inferior,' has it?"

The crowd responded as expected, with jeers and affronted curses to the 'False Idols.' The Corinthian only smiled.

"That is why you are all here, children! Look around you at your lovers and partners. Feel the primal energy writhing deep within your beings and tell me: What do you see!"

"WE SEE FREEDOM, CORINTHIAN!"

"Then don't cling to reason, my friends! Let hesitation not be the thief of fulfillment! Throw away all sense of morality and continue to embrace passion with open arms, my brothers and sisters!"

"YES, CORINTHIAN!"

"Man's Desire is the Law that rules the Cosmos; nothing more, nothing less!"

"PRAISE HIM! PRAISE THE GREAT HUNTER, AND PRAISE HIS APOSTLE! PRAISE THE CORINTHIAN!"

The Corinthian strolled through the corridor with a pep in his step until he reached the entrance of his private chambers. He rapped on the thick mahogany firmly. There were five taps, a pause, and two before the door creaked. The Apostle barely managed three steps before three precious white-haired missiles tackled him.

Spitting images of Lord Zagreus—and Percy, too, if the rumors were to be believed. They were Alpha, Beta, and Phi. Simple names given to be replaced once their real father got hold of them, but familiar enough to provide them with individuality.

Once, they would have been a quartet. Phi would've bounced through this room in another lifetime, scrambling over his brothers to receive his affection...

"You're back, Father!" Theta squealed, his lilac eyes twinkling with mirth.

The Corinthian immediately frowned at the title, gently cuffed the children's heads, and admonished, "What did I tell you about that title, young ones?"

"Don't." They recited together, triplet pouts marring each of their perfect faces, but the Corinthian remained unshaken.

"Don't. I am not worthy of it."

The children's faces turned mutinous at his words, and for an instant, the Corinthian feared he would have to raise his voice at his little ones, but he was saved by the timely intervention of his 'guests.'

Lady Themis' little pet project. Her handmaidens, the three Horae.

Three hooded beings of varying heights in flowing cloak-like robes hid any distinctive features of gender or race. Crow masks covered their faces with tinted lenses to cover their eyes, and thin gloves were on their hands.

They had their backs turned to him, all three huddled at the back of the room, admiring a curious painting he'd 'acquired' long ago.

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

"Viceroy." The tallest of the group acknowledged him with a stiff nod. Her voice was modulated with a sharp metallic tint from the enchantments on their mask, yet it still managed to carry a rough, curt undercurrent.

The Corinthian couldn't help but smile, grabbing the warrior's colossal palm in an enthusiastic handshake and marveling at the rough calluses on their gloved palms.

"Pleasant days and longer nights to you, my eternal friend. I've been expecting your arrival for quite some time now. Was the Service to your liking?"

One of the Horae, admiring the painting, shivered involuntarily, turning halfway to answer, "It was definitely...something. That kind of scene's more my mother's style, though."

"Eirene..." The last Horae warned lowly, not turning from the painting.

This one was the leader of the bunch.

Even if the Corinthian hadn't known who or what she was beforehand, he'd have still guessed it. She was a perfect median between the taller one's military bluntness and Eirene's quirky exuberance. She carried a striking magnetism that seemed to draw all eyes in the room to her.

He smiled, "Oh, don't be so guarded, dear Astraea. I know all about you, Lady Eunomia, and Lady Eirene here. Just like I know what you're really doing here."

That drew their attention.

Astraea's distracted gaze shifted from the mural to the Corinthian as the others formed a circle around him. The head Horae twitched, and the room shuddered, a layered blanket of Authority swamping the air and cratering the marble flooring beneath them.

"Such murderous intent. I can see why old Themis is so taken with you." He praised, genuinely impressed, "Still, I ask you to think of the children before you try anything foolish here. Rest assured, I plan to take your secret to the grave."

"How... taciturn of you," the lead Horae amended carefully, gears turning in her head as she tried to guess his angle. "But for someone so 'loyal' to the cause, I can't understand why you'd be so tolerant of the deviant path..."

The 'question' was less a loaded threat and more a promise of mutually assured destruction should he overstep, and the Corinthian had to acknowledge the balls, at the very least.

"Well, I suppose it helps that nothing you three achieve with the Coven will alter the plans in motion in any capacity."

Astraea snorted, "Every defense has a weakness, every plan a flaw. I make it my business to capitalize on said flaws every step of the way. This plan? It's a puzzle waiting to be assembled, and you're just another piece at my fingertips, Corinthian."

The Corinthian could only laugh at the boast, streaks of blood trailing from his teeth eyes in place of tears, before he cleared all traces of amusement and grabbed the Horae's wrist in a vice-like grip, a malevolent aura pressing the girl from all sides.

"I've memorized and mastered every last facet of my role in this story long before you were ever a thought to your accursed mother, child, spent every waking moment pushing the pieces of the board every which way for this moment. You delude yourself into being a game-master, but you aren't even a player yet. My devotion is sound. My faith pure. Can you boast even a mote of such conviction, little mouse?"

"That, and more."

Not a moment's hesitation. Inspiring but unfortunate.

"Such bravado...one might even liken it to Hubris?"

Eirene scoffed, rolling her eyes behind her visor, "And one might liken your 'conviction' to a puffed-up suicide note. Keep your wisdom. You will be silent and tell no one of what you know."

The Corinthian was beginning to revise his earlier opinion on these three. This far into the game, they still believed something as paltry as mere Charmspeak could compel him, of all people.

"Slap yourself ten times for that disrespect, girl."

"ENOUGH!" Astraea roared, the power in her voice dulling his command and giving Eirene a moment of doubt, "We can debate philosophy and fanaticism on another day; that's not what we're here for. Prometheus' Matrix and the whereabouts of the Morrigan's host. The Coven of Crows demands it. Give us what we need, and we'll be out of your hair. Or else."

The implication was a call to action for the others, with Eunomia summoning a blood-tinged spear and Eirene a pair of curved short-swords from thin air in moments. Astraea stared at him, weaponless still, her hand stretched in waiting.

"Very well then." The Corinthian conceded, tossing the Horae a roll of parchment and a plain, orange cylinder. Astraea studied the contents of the parchment, committing the information to memory before burning it to cinders.

Even more confirmation of the intellect behind the madness.

"Head out." Astraea motioned to the others, more than a little satisfied.

"Wait, Astraea. I ask that you stay behind for the coming show. Who knows? Maybe you'll learn a thing or two about how the game is really played."

The Horae stared at him long and hard, her mask making it impossible to gauge her intentions, before she asked again, "Why are you keeping our secret?"

"I already told you, dear. You can't stop what's already in motion. You could have stayed in your quaint little paradise and made as much of an impact."

"And yet, you won't risk revealing us to the Raven? Your words aren't matching your actions, 'dear.'"

"You are battling the impossible, child," the Corinthian pressed, "Fate herself can attest."

No, that wasn't an exaggeration. The shriveled state that the Night had left Ananke in retribution...yeesh. But it seemed his answer had fallen short of Astraea's expectations.

"Progress is impossible without change; those who cannot adapt to the impossible should never hope to overcome it; you'd do well to remember that. Everything about you should disgust me, Corinthian. Your experiments. Your methods. Yours and His obsession. Everything. Yet all I feel for you is pity. For all your age and wisdom, you're even more of a wandering child than these kids."

Her piece said the Horae sauntered out of the room quietly, the darkness in the corridor clinging to her frame for an instant before she disappeared completely.

Alpha nudged him, "The sun hasn't come up in over a day now...before you got here, one of the masked ones mentioned something when she thought we weren't listening...he's coming soon, isn't he? Our...Pater?"

The Corinthian made a mental note to grill those hooded clowns on what sorts of 'things' they'd said in the vicinity of his wards later on and, above all, never to underestimate these children. For how innocent and inconsequential they appeared, they retained a keen attentiveness few could boast.

It wouldn't do to be careless with vital information around them. Not yet, at least.

Still, he answered them as carefully as he could manage, "Yes, I imagine he will be on his way very soon if he intends to fix this conundrum we find ourselves in, hm?"

"..."

"You are...displeased, I take it?" He asked carefully, unsure how to broach the subject.

There were many reasons he'd crafted a fine line between the children and himself. For one, it wasn't his place to raise them, but above all, he didn't deserve such joy. He was much too flawed.

Leaving Theta at the Convent as a martyr had more than proved it.

Beta spoke up, "Will he...will he hate us?"

The Corinthian's black heart quivered against his will, and his serene facade cracked for a moment before he gathered his boys, "How could he not love you, children? You are Perfect."

"How can we be perfect if we are scared, Elder Brother?" Theta whimpered.

"You are children, my boys. It's okay to be afraid. We are, all of us, afraid of the enormity of the possible. To fear is to understand the weight of our mortality and still push through that doubt to triumph. That is what makes us Human, and above all, True."

'Take our resident son of Poseidon, for instance...'

The Corinthian glanced upwards through the open ceiling. A vindictive smile crossed his face as he basked in the afterglow of Armageddon. In his wildest dreams, he never would have anticipated Perseus awakening so early, let alone with such a devastating opener.

The sky was a fractured, pitch-black void devoid of light, save a golden, cat-like eye high in the sky that seemed to follow his every movement. Anyone with even a mote of understanding of the Path could feel it if they cared to: the wrath, the sheer chaotic imbalance reigning supreme over the Veiled Realms.

The Hordes.

Nyx had overplayed her part...or perhaps the mad goddess had sought this outcome from the beginning; who cared? No one could deny it now.

'Zagreus had returned.'

And with him back, they could finally begin.

'That One-Eyed lecher's probably lollygagging in his sorcerer's nightgown by now.'

The Corinthian released his wards as he moved to the looming canvas on the back wall, Astraea had been so taken by, and tried not to laugh. His hand traced phantom symbols over the Guardians as he murmured a prayer. He hadn't been joking when he'd said there was no feasible way they could alter Percy's path this late in the game; it'd been set in stone for far too long.

The omen of the portrait more than proved it, and yet...

"Progress is impossible without change; those who cannot adapt to the impossible should never hope to overcome it."

'What truth does that eye of yours see, girl. I wonder...'

Curious, but it mattered little.

The Corinthian slid his palm over a hitch on the side of the portrait and pulled out a weapon. It was a primitive tool—a sharpened, single-edged, silver spearhead attached to a worn leather grip, with dim Celtic runes adorning the flat—but it would more than get the job done.

"You're scared." He said to Nothing, yet he spoke to Everything, "All of you cowards are. I don't need seeing eyes to know in my soul that you're terrified of how the karma's been sown."

The Corinthian reached out to touch the painting but faltered, not believing himself worthy to even kiss the dirt his Master had once stood on, let alone trace the curves of the Shepherd's pure, rosy lips.

His head bowed low, he declared, "Take it as an Ode, if you will, to every last one of you lesser gods. There are no leashes on us by now..."The Corinthian turned away from the painting, a sharp click of his tongue sealing the door shut behind him. He took off his tea shades; there was no need to hide any longer.

"The Era of Decline is here."

Y*C*O*Y*W

---

"To you, who blooms so pure yet scatters to the winds like transient flowers. Welcome...and goodbye."

- [-REDACTED-]

---

Su Koalc – Cloak us.

Dnim ym ginsol! Dnim ym ginsol pu dedne dna daeh ym edisni hcum oot deniamer I! – Losing my mind! I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind!

FM'LATGH N'GHFT'DRN – Return to Zero, or Unravel the Weave, take your pick.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Part 1: Carnage and Depravity.