Ragnarok Prologue
Everyone woke up at the same time, from the same nightmare: their world ending.
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Sadie was flying in her kite form through smoke and flames, the world burning around her as she searched the burning city for her brother.
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Jason was riding Tempest and fighting with the winds, trying to control a firestorm from breaking out and destroying his friends.
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Zia was burning, her role as the sun taken up once more as she rode Ra's chariot...the god inside her head and with her until the end...
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Annabeth was evacuating mundane children from a burning elementary school building that was seconds away from crumbling on top of them and burying them all in debree.
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Samirah was facing off against her dad aboard a ship of white ebony, as the god gestured for her to look at the city and all the world burning ashore.
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Carter was in his large falcon avatar, battling against several equally large giants...the combat magician heavily outnumbered even with Horus' battle cry ringing in his mind.
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Piper was screaming, screaming with all her might at the flames, convincing them to die down and putter out...her dad choking on the smoke where she can't reach him and he needs her, needs her...but the flames were too strong.
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Walt and Anubis were overwhelmed at the amount of dead pooring into each of the underworlds...as they fought alongside a skinny black-haired kid and an army of skeletons and undead mummies.
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Percy was fighting against a jet black figure cloaked in flames who was burning the world...worlds?...the son of Poseidon bending the ocean around him to envelope the cosmic black sun before him, but the black figure simply parted the wave by raising a golden sword in hand—and the water simply broke apart on contact...
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And above them all a single young man with blond hair and grey eyes glowed with the light of summer, riding an eight legged flying horse to meet a wolf in the sky.
Will gasped awake. Fear gripped him heavily with icy claws, stuck to him like the clammy sweat down the back of his neck.
He could still see the nightmare behind his eyes...endless rows of dying innocent mortals in a makeshift tent, with limbs missing, skin burnt, and all of them in various states of shock.
He had been doing his best to help them with his healing magic, his only worry that he'd soon run out of energy.
That was until the tent had caught fire and the sky turned red.
Beside him, sitting up with a look of grim sorrow and death, his boyfriend Nico turned to him. Will could tell that he wasn't the only one who had a nightmare. It scared the son of Apollo even more the fact that Nico wasn't going into his assertive 'I'm no hero, but I'm gonna fix this' mode.
Nico wasn't saying a word.
Will gulped and tried to slow the pace of his racing heart, keep it from trying to climb up his throat and escape while it still could. He never got big dreams before. Never went on quests, or did anything of granduer.
Now he was getting this dream of the whole world ending.
"Tell me that was just a dream, and things will be all right?" Will asked Nico, not even caring if his voice wavered like a scared kid.
A pained expression was not what Will was hoping to get from his boyfriend. "You know I don't lie Will."
The Egyptian symbol on his hand was burning the moment he woke up. Percy jumped out of bed, cursed his luck for being pulled out of college with Annabeth, and got out his new blue smart phone his fiance bought him on his birthday. His lovely fiance who rolled out of bed immediately to get dressed and meet with the priator, kissing him on the cheek before leaving with a swish of her blond ponytail and serious attitude in her step.
Gods he loved her.
He pulled up the number from his list of contacts and tapped the button on the touch screen.
The line picked up on the first ring.
"We need to talk." The familiar voice was clearly shaken, but held firm over the phone.
"It's past that I think." Percy replied. "You need to come to camp, Carter. I think this will require Operation Clash of Clans."
"I still think we should have named it Operation Age of Mythology."
"Dude, who even plays PC games anymore?" Percy retorted. "Annabeth and I are in California, it'll take several hours for us to reach New York. We'll meet you at camp sometime this evening."
"How will we know where it is?"
"Long Island Beach, look for the strawberry fields." Percy hung up and got out a couple of drachma. It was time to contact camp. Who knows what crazy prophecy this dream was for.
"We just saved the world! Why is it always getting itself in danger when we're not supervising it twenty-four seven?" Sadie stormed her way into the nome's dining room, headless of the penguins in the fireplace-and, unfortunately, the ice-slicked floor beneath her feet.
Her combat boots slipped on the surface and she would have fell flat on her rottund bottom if it weren't for Walt catching her at the waist.
"Thanks." Sadie said.
Her idiot brother Carter rubbed at his temples, trying to release tension of a headache of some sort. "I contacted Percy."
Sadie froze, and it had nothing to do with the ice on the floor. She was immensly grateful when Walt's hold tightened in a comforting gesture. "You think...the different er, myths should assemble?"
"Like the Avengers?" Felix the eleven-year-old ice magician asked, petting a baby penguin. "And what are we talking about now?"
"Yes." Carter said, looking his sister straight in the eye.
"I suppose I should request time off from school then."
"Really guys. Clue a kid in here."
Walt muttered, "World ending, we have to save it, basically your typical Tuesday."
"Oh. Okay then."
Jason had been looking forward to the last day of construction for the temple he'd been overseeing for the minor god Eris, goddess of chaos.
He should have known a bit of chaos would ensue somehow, but he wasn't expecting to be pulled into sleep while still hovering fifteen feet in the air.
Lucky, he learned later, Percy's cyclopse brother caught him when he fell.
The nightmare that invaded his waking hours burned into his retnas when he finally woke to a worried cyclopse and harpy. The two had offered to help him with the construction of the temples so that Tyson can stay with his girlfriend before returning to work for his father Poseidon underwater.
"Son of lightning fall from sky." The red-haired harpy said. "Are boy's wings broken? Need fixing? Tyson good at fixing things."
"No, I'm okay." Jason replied to the strange inquisition. "Just...had a dream, that's all."
"What kind of dream?" Tyson asked, his one eyebrow raised in interest. "Sounds important if it didn't wait for you to sleep before showing you what it did."
Jason flinched. It was more of a nightmare. He could still feel the heat of the flames. "There was...lots of fire."
"Fire not good. Fire bad. Giants bad. ...The triggers shall be released,
Unleashed be the Fenris beast." The harpy said wizely.
"Wait, that sounds like a prophecy. Do you know what's going on?" Jason implored.
"Though together heroes of myth will flock," the harpy said sadly, "it will not stop the Ragnerok."
One day earlier:
Winter was coming, and a sense of thrill had gripped the hunters of Artemis as they started the great hunt for the white stag with golden antlers.
Thalia sent her silver wolf to scout ahead, and drew her silver bow from where it rested on her back. The hunters had split up in the spirit of competition and being the leutenant of Artemis, Thalia was determined to find the stag first.
The trees rustled in one direction close by, and her wolf howled the signal for prey. Thalia chased after the swaying foliage and burst out of the trees into a flowing brook.
She looked up and nearly deflated in her disappointment. It was only a hydra.
Oh well. The heads were still worth something. She drew a handfull of arrows and fell her prey without much fuss. Using the silver hunter's knife she took her trophy and stuffed in in her magic bag of furs where it vanished into her inventory.
Thalia paused and jumped into her hunting stance when the shuffling of leaves hit her ears.
She stalked closer to it and jumped through the trees into a clearing.
It was the warmth of the clearing and the tell-tale signs of summer that stopped her in her tracks. Winter had been left behind to make way for a field of flowers and butterflies. Sun gleamed with warm golden rays into the clearing, filling the clearing with the scent of crushed pine and pollen.
What garnered her full attention however, was the large animal standing just ten feet away. In the center of the clearing a golden boar the size of a small horse regarded her with interest.
"Your help is needed in the time to come." The boar said.
Thalia had seen many types of prey and wilderness in her years of service to lady Artemis. It goes to say that a talking boar wasn't surprising to her at all.
"What is coming?" Thalia questioned the talking boar.
"The end is coming." The boar told the huntress. "All demigods and other influencial parties will be shown a vision of their part to play in the war."
"Why are you telling me this?" Thalia asked. "I'm a huntress of Artemis. We are seperate from the matters of the material world."
"That needs to change." The boar huffed. "All parties must come together, only if the strength of all heroes come together can the world live on past the end. Us gods may meet our end, but you humans may yet be strong enough to save your world."
"The end of gods? Who are you? What do you mean?" Thalia demanded.
"Who I am is no consequence to you." The boar scratched the grassy turf with its hoof. "Tell Artemis that it is in her best interest to return to camp. There you will meet my son, and all will be explained."
The wild boar or god turned to retreat into the summer foliage, and Thalia ran after, questions filling her mind to the brim.
"Wait, your son? Can you at least give me a name?!"
The boar left, but the sun rested against her skin and the summer forest seemed to hum its answer.
Magnus Chase.