Note: this is a sequel to Remnants of Olympus. I highly recommend you read that to get a bit of backstory on this fic, especially considering this chapter will make little sense without it.
Annabeth
"Hey, Percy, I've been thinking."
"Oh, here we go again." I slapped him playfully. "Sorry," he muttered.
"Anyway, we haven't really travelled anywhere except for world-saving quests and stuff, and we have four goddess friends who'd probably love to see more of Earth," I told him.
"That's a very good point. I hadn't thought of that," he said thoughtfully, staring at the sunset over Long Island Sound. "Are you saying we should invite Team RWBY on a trip around the world?"
"Yeah."
"Sounds great. Best part is, it'll be free!"
"Is getting free stuff all you care about?" I asked, sighing.
"Nah. I don't care for a free trip through Tartarus," he replied. "One problem. I don't know how to get in touch with them."
He brought up a good point; it had been a few weeks since Yang and Cardin had appeared during dinner, and no one had heard anything from Remnant since. Fortunately, everything was all quiet on Earth too. Since the defeat of the Gigantes and Gaea, it seemed the world would be safe for a few more millennia. It was still summer, however, which meant there was still time for some supernatural trouble to start brewing. At least, if the last few years were anything to go by, there was. I hoped it wouldn't. I wanted one summer to enjoy with my friends and boyfriend, without gods or Titans or giants trying to screw things up. Was that really too much to ask?
"Well, we could try an Iris-message," I suggested. "Or you can say something bad about Yang again," I added, remembering what had happened when he'd questioned Yang's bravery.
"I'd never be that dumb," Percy said. Suddenly, his lips took on a blue tint and he started shivering. Odd, I thought. It's not cold. I gripped the hilt of my dagger, thinking something bad could be coming.
"I don't know, Percy," a familiar voice said behind me. "You can be pretty dumb."
"Why d-d-do all you guys' arriv-vals g-g-go badly for me?" Percy asked through chattering teeth. Turning around, I saw Weiss looking as regal as ever. I took my hand off my dagger.
"Nice to see you, Weiss," I said. "But I'd really appreciate it if you could please not freeze my boyfriend to death."
"Fine. So why did you want to contact us?" she asked.
"How did you know we did?"
"It's hard to explain. We sort of sense when people here are talking about us, then we can just tune in if we feel like it. All I heard was the idiot saying he's not that dumb."
"I said that because I'm not!" Percy protested. "Anyway, we wanted to talk to you guys because we figured you might want to see more of our world."
"It does seem interesting. But we have eternity to explore it," Weiss pointed out.
"Yeah, but we could show you the most interesting parts," I said.
"The last two times we went somewhere with you guys, there were murderous giants trying to kill us," Weiss deadpanned.
"True…" Percy conceded. "But this time there won't be any giants, because they're all dead. We beat the Titans last summer, so no worries. And there most likely won't be any monsters, what with you guys being goddesses and all."
"You're trying really hard to convince me, aren't you?" Weiss said. "I think you just want a free trip."
"What? No!" Percy insisted, looking at me for help.
"He does," I said. "I'd appreciate a free trip, but spending time with my friends and seeing the world is my primary motivation."
"You do realise you don't need to convince me, right? We were actually talking about exploring not long ago."
"Great!" Percy said. "When do we leave?" Before anyone could answer, the smell of roses filled my nostrils. Percy looked around, confused.
"It would seem," Weiss said, unperturbed, "that my fearless leader is here to answer that for you."
"Anytime!" Ruby's excited voice said behind me. I smiled as I turned around to greet her, not even surprised that even as a goddess, she was still as excitable as ever.
"Nice to see you," I said, before the goddess of cookies tackled me with a hug.
"Hey, Ruby," Percy greeted her, frowning. "How've you been?"
"Great! You?"
"Fine, except the time your sister burned my dinner and all I got to eat was one piece of sushi."
"You look deprived," I told him, getting to my feet. "Anyway, how come you two can appear silently, but there was a loud noise when Yang showed up?"
"She's rather… dramatic," Weiss explained. "She might have been taking some lessons from Zeus."
"I wanted to appear in a cookie shower," Ruby grumbled. "Yang told me to hold off on the theatrics until she gets here."
"When are those two coming, anyway?" Weiss asked.
"I hope Yang didn't hear you say that," Percy said. "She'll arrive with a dirty joke I don't dare make."
"Well, Percy," another voice said. "She told me to tell you all you won't miss her arrival. She also said there's absolutely no reason to cover your ears, so you should definitely cover your ears." By now, the sun had set completely, and the newly-arrived goddess of stealth was practically invisible.
"Blake, can you please do a better job of making your girlfriend more civilised?" Weiss groaned, as the dark sky was suddenly lit up. When I heard a sonic boom, I looked up to see what appeared to be a fireball streaking towards the beach. Percy and I clapped our hands to our ears seconds before it landed. The ground shook beneath us, almost knocking us off our feet.
"That was freaking awesome!"
As the fire died down, Yang stood in the middle of a fifteen-foot circle of glass where the sand particles had fused together, looking extremely pleased with herself. She looked the same as ever, except she was glowing slightly. I assumed it was just excess heat.
"Honey, we weren't given divinity to scare the mortals," Blake told her gently, walking towards her. In the glow of Yang's body, I could see her clearly enough to see her frown and stare intently in the direction of the cabins. "Someone's coming," she said warily. Soon enough, I heard footsteps approaching the beach.
"What…" someone said, panting. "In Hades… is going on over here?" More fire suddenly flared up, throwing enough light on the new arrival for me to see his face.
"No, Leo. Hades is being dreary underground. I'm one of the fun goddesses. Pay attention," Yang said matter-of-factly.
"Dammit, could you at least warn me before setting the beach on fire? I'm immune, but still," Leo replied, smiling. "You scared the shit out of me."
After taking a long sniff, Blake frowned. "You shouldn't lie to goddesses, Leo," she told him sternly.
"I'm exaggerating...?" he said doubtfully.
"I know, I'm messing with you. You should know by now that Weiss is the one you're supposed to take seriously."
"Hey!" Weiss protested. "I can make jokes!"
"Nooooo, you can't" Yang told her. "Anyway, Leo, what's up?"
"Not much," he replied. "Came to see what the explosion was."
"That was me!" Yang sounded far too proud of herself.
"So what brings you four here?"
"We're going to travel the world," Ruby told him. "Percy and Annabeth are coming too. Wanna join us?"
"Nah, I'm good, thanks. Got too many projects to work on."
"Hey, guys? Should we bring JNPR too?" I asked.
"Good idea," Yang replied. She waved her hand, opening a small hole in reality. Through it, I could see a darkened dorm room. Putting her face directly to the hole, Yang suddenly bellowed, "GUYS! LET'S GO ON AN ADVENTURE!"
"Gah! What the fuck?!" Jaune's voice asked from the other side of the portal. "Dammit, Yang!" Ruby and Percy snickered at his reaction, while Weiss and Blake stared at Yang in exasperation. Nora's face suddenly appeared in the portal, looking extremely excited.
"Adventure?" she asked. "With stuff to smash?"
"Maybe not too much smashing," Weiss told her. "But yes, adventure."
"Awesome! Guys, let's go!" She stepped back, and made what appeared to be an attempt at a running jump through the portal. She only got her head through, with her shoulders and everything below them stuck on Remnant. Yang and Ruby just about fell over laughing, leaving a disembodied head glaring at them. "Help?" Nora asked. "Someone? Anyone?"
Weiss shook her head and waved her hand, widening the portal. Nora stumbled and almost faceplanted from Remnant to Earth, but managed to save it. When she regained her balance, she looked around excitedly. The rest of her team followed, traversing worlds far more carefully than she had.
"Welcome back to Earth, guys," Percy greeted.
"Hello again!" Pyrrha replied cheerfully.
"Yang, could you please never do that again?" Jaune asked.
"Oh, come on!" Yang protested. "It was hilarious."
"It was pretty funny," Percy said. "Anyway, when do you guys want to leave?"
"Where are we going?" Pyrrha asked.
"Anywhere. Everywhere. Wherever these two think is interesting enough for our attention," Blake explained, gesturing at Percy and I.
"With four goddesses as travelling companions, we won't lack for comforts," Ren said, in one of his rare utterances of speech.
"So we should just let Chiron know, then we can be off," I said. "He's probably in the Big House."
"Well, I'm off to the bunker," Leo announced. "Good to see you all. Have fun, and don't do anything stupid without me." He walked off in the direction of the forest, almost certainly returning to Bunker Nine. The ten of us who remained traipsed off towards the Big House to talk to Chiron. Most of the campers were in their cabins or at the forge at that point, so we didn't run into anybody on the way.
We found the centaur in his office, looking not at all surprised to see Team RWBY. He was looking over some papers when we arrived, frowning at them.
"Chiron?" I asked, entering slowly.
"Hm?" he replied, not looking up.
"The Hunters, Percy and I are going on a trip. I don't know how long we'll be. You cool with that?"
"Yes, fine. Go ahead," Chiron said distantly. He sounded distracted, like he wasn't listening to me at all.
"Is everything okay?" I asked.
"You can go, but..." He paused, clearly not knowing what to say.
"Did something happen?" Percy asked.
"I've been getting reports of... strange things. Events apparently related to gods, yet Zeus and the other Olympians claim to know nothing. I'm sure it's all fine, but be careful."
"Always," I promised. "Bye." We all left the centaur to his reports and headed back outside.
"So, where should we start?" Yang asked when the ten of us were standing on the porch.
"Somewhere in America, probably," Percy said. Both Hunter teams looked at him blankly, and I vaguely remembered that nobody had told them anything about Earth's geography last time they'd been here.
"If you guys don't mind, I wanna head to Boston," I said. "I want to see my cousin, and there's plenty of stuff for you guys to do there too."
"All right. Let's go!" Ruby exclaimed. "This is gonna be the best trip ever!" Another portal appeared in front of her, through which I could see an alleyway, apparently next to a fairly busy street. We all stepped through, and the calm tranquility of Camp Half-Blood was suddenly replaced with the cacophony of city life. We were in the alley I'd seen, and we scared the living daylights out of a homeless man when we appeared.
"This is definitely Boston," Percy said. "How'd you aim so well if you've never even heard of the city?"
"It's kind of like an instinct," Blake said. "If we hear the name of a place on Earth, we can teleport there or make a portal, but there's no way any of us could place this city on a map. We couldn't even place this country. Or the continent."
"That's still pretty cool," I said. "Anyway, let's go." We exited the alley and turned onto the street, heading off in a random direction. We soon found ourselves downtown, though the city was most definitely considerably smaller than New York. Yang stopped suddenly, staring down the street.
"That doesn't seem right," she said. When I looked at her, she was wearing a serious expression for the first time since she'd arrived on Earth. I followed her gaze, and my blood ran cold when I saw a figure much larger than the mortals, who were milling about obliviously, enjoying Boston's nightlife.
"I thought you said there were no more giants," Weiss said, glaring at Percy.
"They should all be dead," I told her. "At least, as dead as immortals can get. They might be back in a few millennia or so."
"Not important right now," Yang said, cracking her knuckles. "I'm gonna go see who that is and what he wants." She quickened her pace, making a beeline for the giant. The rest of us followed to keep up.
When Yang got close, the evening took a turn for the worse. Fire suddenly spread out from around the giant, melting the sidewalk and incinerating any mortals unlucky enough to be close by. When the flames died down, I saw that the giant was wearing leather armour and a belt loaded with weapons. His skin was the colour of obsidian, and he wielded a sword big enough to be used as a plough. He stood around ten feet tall, and Yang grew to match his height.
"And just who in Hades are you supposed to be?" she asked loudly, cocking Ember Celica, which had matched her increase in size.
"I am an eldjotnar," the giant replied. From where I was standing, around twenty feet away, I could feel the heat emanating from his body. His voice had a booming quality to it, seeming to reverberate in my skull. "I serve Lord Surt to release the Wolf and begin Ragnarok."
"I'm just gonna pretend that makes sense," Yang told him. I was on the same page; I'd never heard of any of the terms he'd mentioned. Ragnarok sounded vaguely familiar, though... One of my uncles was obsessed with Norse mythology, I might've heard the word from him when I was very young.
Before anything else happened, I heard a sound like a thunderclap and a new figure dropped from the sky, landing between Yang and the giant. He wore a leather jerkin, with dark iron gauntlets on the end of very muscular arms. His red hair reached his shoulders, and his armour was a chain mail vest. In one hand he held a hammer.
"Back to Muspelheim with you," he growled, whacking the giant in the head with the hammer. The eldjotnar was launched into the air like a baseball, and actually seemed to vanish into thin air. "Fucking giants," the new arrival muttered, turning around. He came face-to-face with a very angry, very confused Yang.
"Wanna explain to me why you just stole my thunder?" she demanded.
"I was protecting you," the redhead replied stoically. "Those big pricks are always invading Midgard from Jotunheim or Muspelheim. Most of the time you don't notice, cause you're all a bunch of dumbasses."
"If I hear one more fake word, I'm gonna start throwing punches."
"Wait a minute... No one from Midgard is that tall. You're definitely not Asgardian. What the Helheim are you?" the redhead asked.
"I warned you," came Yang's reply, followed swiftly by a vicious right hook augmented by a shotgun blast. The redhead went flying across the street, crashing through a building. The poor man stood up shakily.
"Nice arm you got there," he said, walking back across the street towards Yang. "But I'm a child of Odin. You can't beat me." Odin? I thought. That's impossible. The redhead swung his hammer at Yang's head with full force. She raised her arm to block the blow, but she was too late. The hammer slammed into the side of her head, impacting with a rather sickening crunch. Yang's now slightly-deformed head was wrenched to the side, but she remained in place. "How did you...?" the redhead asked, dumbfounded. "I hit you with Mjolnir..."
Yang's head snapped back into place as it returned to its normal shape, now adorned with a smile and burning crimson eyes. She threw another punch, but this time the redhead blocked it with his hammer. When it connected with Yang's fist, a shockwave went out, knocking the rest of the Hunters, Percy and I off our feet, as well as shattering all the glass on the street and cracking the pavement.
"Who is this guy?" Jaune groaned. Before I could answer, I saw Nora already on her feet, charging the redhead as Magnhild unfolded in her hands.
"Yang, get down!" she yelled. Yang ducked while Nora jumped over her, bringing Magnhild down on the other hammer-wielder, increasing the force by discharging a blast. The weird guy buckled, and Nora stared down at him, smiling maniacally.
"You. I like you," he said weirdly. "But I still have to- wait a minute..."
"Explain who you are and what you're doing here," Yang demanded.
"You seem... no, you can't be," the redhead told Nora, completely ignoring Yang. "Are you... one of my daughters?"
"Do as my friend says," Nora replied. "Or we'll break your legs!"
"Fine," the man said, getting unsteadily to his feet. He dropped his hammer as he continued, "I am Thor, son of Odin, heir to the throne of Asgard and god of lightning. I protect Midgard from the fire giants of Muspelheim and frost giants of Jotunheim. And unless I'm very much mistaken, this young lady..." He paused and gestured at Nora. "Is my daughter."
A/N: Hi. Back with the sequel. Bear in mind I have almost no idea where this is going other than having all of Riordan's myth series involved. Haven't written anything except smut in a while, so hopefully this wasn't too bad.
Quick notes on chronology:
PJO/HOO: obviously post-Remnants of Olympus (my previous crossover), so post-Titan and Giant Wars.
Kane Chronicles: Everything concerning Apophis has been sorted, and won't really have much bearing here.
RWBY Volume 3 and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: They won't factor into the story at all, other than including characters and abilities introduced therein. I started writing this before Volume 3 aired and obviously waaaaaaaay before Magnus Chase ends, so it's simply easier to ignore those events rather than keep changing this story to fit canon.
The PJO/KC crossover short stories haven't happened.
Anyway, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed, follow or favourite and leave a review.