Currently writing this instead of studying or doing actual coursework (or working on ACA like I should as it's been a while since I last updated that story) but I had the idea so I decided to at least start writing something so I may have somewhat of a posting schedule and actually finished stories that more people can read. Hope you guys like this, I've thought about this concept for a while so yeah. This is the first chapter of Time Will Tell, I wouldn't expect an update very soon, but I may surprise myself and find some motivation. Pairing(s) will be decided later on, and it's probably gonna be left up to you guys. Hope you enjoy, remember to follow and favorite and check out some of my other stories too. I get bored with working on one thing for a prolonged period of time sometimes and will pick up on some of my other stories in an attempt to avoid writer's block. Anyway, I own nothing and all rights go to Rick Riordan. Let's get on with the story!
Percy wasn't surprised that he was dying. Was he pissed? Yeah, he decided he was pretty mad, for a multitude of reasons. Was he sad? To an extent yes. He had worked hard to reach where he is, and now all hope is lost. But he was not surprised. Some lowly teenage demigod facing the King of the Titans and the titan with what may be one of the most powerful domains really didn't have a chance in the long run- no matter how phenomenal of a demigod he was.
After several minutes of fighting the Titan King, Luke's body had been burnt up by the divine presence within it, and with the loss of Kronos's mortal coil, he had continually grown stronger. Percy would wager that most of the gods would struggle to keep up as well as he had till this point, of course, the curse of Achilles had carried him this far, and he no longer had that crutch to rely on. The last hope he did have was to stall for as long as possible and hope that the combined might of the council could once again prevail against Kronos.
But his time was running shorter by the moment. His grandfather had begun pushing even harder, and time in the room had become non-Euclidian, and no longer made sense. For all he could tell only a handful of seconds have passed, or a few hours, he could no longer tell. Each moment furthered the fatigue that continually weighed down Perseus was entirely vexed by Kronos; In the end, there was nothing short of a miracle that would save him now.
"Growing tired Grandson?" The mad titan mocked as Backbiter slammed down onto Riptide shaking Percy's weak arms. Both hands gripped the sword as the dark-haired man pushed onto his descendant. "You could make this easy for yourself and give in now, I will give you the luxury of a quick and somewhat painless death"
Percy didn't respond as he angled Riptide to shrug off the blade. Taking a wild swing as he stepped back he put distance between the dueling pair, Percy began slowly circling the Titan while he caught his breath.
"It's admirable that you have lasted this long Grandson, but there is little you can do, you will lose, just look at yourself." Kronos gestured at Percy's arms, crisscrossed in cuts, the curse of Achilles failing him after Annabeth had confessed her love to Luke before the titan king burnt up his mortal host. Percy looked over at the slumped form of Annabeth in the corner. Not only had Luke's death broken her, but the Titan king had put her out of commission with a swift backhand soon after, still her chest rose with labored breaths. As he looked at his arms he could almost see his mortality coming as his blood seeped to the floor. Wisps of white were oozing from his wounds, especially the deep gouge in his stomach. Despite this, Percy still stood straight, sword outstretched placing himself firmly between Annabeth and the thrones, and Kronos. Ready for the conflict to continue. The titan wasted no time in swinging sharply at the young demigod's face, only to be deflected, but not without thinly cutting Percy's cheek.
"I know that I can't beat you, you don't have to tell me that Kronos. It isn't about winning or losing, all that matters is me, taking you on. Right here; right now." Percy said as he wiped the blood from his cheek. As he gave his short speech, the hearth behind him had begun to swell, sensing the small amount of hope that his speech alone gave the pantheon.
"Each moment I grow stronger Perseus, it was slow before, but it has begun to speed up, you may have already realized. Let me give you a short history lesson Grandson, you probably don't know much about the first Titanomachy, but it lasted centuries, and my loss came due to my mother's interference, but her favor is fickle, and the gods lost it soon after my defeat. I hold her favor now and have taken precautions to ensure that I will hold it. Even if you succeed in your futile intent to hold me off for your precious gods to arrive, by the time they get here one of two things will happen. Typhon will have dealt with the gods, proving to be too strong, or I will have reached full power, and none of these children can stand to my power. I was not chosen to be the Titan King purely because I was the one to kill our father, but because I was the fittest for the job." As he spoke, he spun Backbiter in his hand. The blade turned from a hand-and-a-half sword into the infamous scythe that was his symbol of power. "It was a valiant attempt, but you lost as soon as the weakling I inhabited had died, now it is time to finish this exercise in futility." At the end of his speech, he struck out precisely with the scythe, forcing Percy back closer to the thrones. If Percy could have said they had been on somewhat equal footing and that his struggle had been something of a fight he no longer could. He was on a full defensive at this point.
The only sound in the throne room remained to be the sounds of battle outside and the clanging of metal. Every second, Percy could feel defeat creeping closer and closer. He could feel the heat of the hearth on his back, at this point, Percy had realized that he was the last line of defense. If Percy didn't do something now, the second Titanomachy will commence and the world as a whole will be in for a rough couple of centuries.
While he may have had a small reputation of being somewhat of a gullible idiot archetype hero, Percy was anything but dumb. Was he the sharpest minded in the world? No, and Percy would never claim this title, but he was far from stupid. The increasingly dangerous game of cat-and-mouse the two were playing had to end at some point; the thought of reinforcements had abandoned Percy, so he had to come up with something on the fly.
In a quick motion, Percy swiped Riptide up hard into the scythe, while little had happened, the blade had caught the underside and held it firmly. With his other hand, Percy moved some of the water from the aquarium that once held Bessie. The water proved to be a brief respite for him, healing what it could before Percy blasted Kronos in the face with it. As the titan stumbled back slightly Percy leaped back, basically pressing himself against the flames of the hearth, his paternity protecting him from the burning heat that the bright fire had put off. Within the brief few seconds, he had bought himself the Titan King had recovered and had begun to swing his deadly blade down, whistling as it went. Before the scythe could hit him, Percy flung Riptide as hard as he could, and the blade found its home lodged firmly in his grandfather's hip. Weaponless, all Percy could do to prevent his immediate death by the scythe was to lift his left arm over his head.
Kronos let out a grunt as his blade severed through Percy's arm, and the sharp pain of Riptide had begun to burn in his side. Somewhat preoccupied with the blade in his hip, he was rendered surprised when his weapon was wrenched from his hand and thrown into the heart behind the dying demigod in front of him. Even with one hand missing, the demigod proved to be a nuisance for the titan. Percy had let little more than a sharp groan escape his lips, his fortitude reinforced by the adrenaline boost that numbed the pain.
"All you managed to do was prolong your death and lose your weapon." Kronos had pulled the blade from his hip and turned it on its owner. The sword glowed an unearthly golden color as he lifted it, stained with the golden ichor that flowed through his veins. "This won't be coming back to you as it normally does, and I plan to make this hurt."
Percy didn't scream when his hand was cut off at the forearm, but he did when his own blade was put into his stomach, glowing with a bright energy that Percy had never seen before.
"I will burn your soul out of you, the fields of punishment would be kinder than where what's left of you will end up going." Kronos poured his own power into the blade as he pushed deep into Percy. The glowing coming from his stomach grew, as the white energy coming from his wounds poured out even faster. Kronos's moment of victory would be surprisingly short-lived though. While the Titans turned the blade against its owner, Percy reached behind him, he grabbed the white-hot blade of Kronos's scythe. "Even only lasting a minute and twenty-seven seconds against me in my true form is astounding grandson, especially for a mortal. Any last words before I finish this?"
Percy mumbled something, hot blood dribbling from his lips creating a gurgling sound.
"Care to repeat yourself, I couldn't quite catch that over the sound of your impending death," the titan of time said as he leaned closer to the dying son of Poseidon.
"For Olympus" Those would be the last words the demigod vocalized, as he pulled himself closer to his grandfather, further impaling himself on Riptide cementing his death, but getting close enough to shove the white-hot blade of the scythe up into the underside of Kronos's head, piercing straight into the titans skull, as far as to reach his brain. Both of the combatants fell to the ground, their lives dually fading.
"It wasn't what I wanted to happen, but at least I saved them," the dying demigod thought, as he looked at the prone form of Annabeth through the flames of the hearth that his head now laid in. "they'll be safe now. It was worth it." His introspection had been interrupted as hot tears landed on his face, but not tears of his own.
"Rest now, hero, you have earned it, you deserve the peace that will come to you soon," Hestia said, the demigod's head now resting in her lap. "You saved the Hearth Perseus, and with it our family, and for that, we are forever in your debt." The tears running down her face had steadily picked up as she watched the demigod in her lap struggle to breathe. The damage that had been done to his body was more than even Apollo could remedy. Her tears were stopped by Percy's right hand coming up and slowly brushing away the wet glittering diamonds the teardrops had made on her cheek.
No words came from the demigod, but the firm shake of his head conveyed his message. Hestia nodded, gently holding his hand as he began to slip away.
This was the scene the gods returned to, ready for a fight where there was none. The last thing Percy saw before his eyes slid shut was the watery smile his father gave him, filled with pride.
[THIS IS A LINE BREAK]
Percy had expected a lot of things from the afterlife in the underworld. After all, he had been there a number of times in his short tenure as the child of the prophecy. Of everything Percy had expected, the warm and soft feeling that enveloped him was not one of them. Furthermore, he was lying supine, something that should not have been possible for a spirit arriving at DOA studios. The reality of his situation was fully realized when he heard an alarm going off, and his eyes snapped open once again. It took only a few moments before Percy had realized where he currently lay. His hands hurriedly ripped the sheets off of his body, before he looked down and realized he still had both hands, but they looked smaller and less rugged. The room around him resembled his dorm room from Yancy, complete with his lazily hidden contraband sweets under the bed. Rushing to find a mirror, Percy looked into it, only to see his twelve-year-old self staring back at him.
"What the fuck is going on."
WELL, THAT WAS EVENTFUL. I have started working on the next chapter, but I do try to keep them long (if not make them longer as I go). As a newly recent 18 year old with no free time my update schedule will be extreemly random. If you guys are coming from A Champion Arises I want you to Know I haven't given up on it or anything, just a small amount of writers block in multiple parts of the next chapter. I also have a slightly niche story coming soon to a different community with not nearly enough stories, and most of you guys probably won't like it, but if you like my writing you might check it out when it does drop. I'm kind of doing this thing for myself as an outlet in a way anyway so I write what I feel like sometimes. I'm something of a depressed dude sometimes and writing helps. In other words, Hey it's your author and welcome to my therapy session. I digress. Thanks for reading and favoriting/following See you guys in the next one. I really do appreciate the nice comments on my last story guys.
