Not sure if any of you guys noticed, but after the last chapter, my story was exactly 19,000 words. I was typing up the authors note and noticed how close I was to having the right amount of words to make that happen, so I typed a little extra at the end of the note to make the story exactly 19,000 words.
Anyways, this here is the seventh chapter. I hope you enjoy it; it should have some action in it.
Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the associated books.
Athena POV
Once the image that had just appeared before us all cleared, I immediately started taking in as much as I could. There were two hooded figures; one appeared to be male while the other was female. The male give a quick nod and started turning, but before he did, I noticed he had sea green eyes. The female seemed to take the nod as a sign and turned as well. The two then began running across the side of a mountain. They appeared to be running towards an entrance in the side of the mountain where people and monsters were working. I was trying to take in more information, but the others in the throne room had exploded with questions and comments. I don't think anyone could make sense of what was being said. I looked over at my father and could tell he was getting even more annoyed than I was.
"EVERYONE SHUT UP!" Zeus bellowed. Instantly the throne room quieted. He continued in a quieter but still angry voice, "Whatever this message is, we should watch it and then ask questions. That man appears to fit the description of the mysterious guy who ahs been saving demigods, but this is the first I have ever heard of the woman he is with here. Lets watch and see what we can learn."
I thanked my father and went back to analyzing everything I could about what we were seeing. The male ran in the lead towards the cave while the female pulled a bow off her back and drew an arrow. The girl began shooting any monster that noticed them before the monster could raise the alarm. The people that were there though weren't very smart and started cheering and screaming as soon as the monsters started falling dead and disintegrating. This got the rest of the monsters attention. From what I had just seen, the girl seemed to be a terrific shot with her bow and extremely experienced with firing on the run.
Once the monsters started noticing the two figures, they gathered together and charged them. The boy drew a sword seemingly out of nowhere. I figured it must have been enchanted or something. The girl then draped the bow back onto her back and drew two hunting knives. She appeared to fight like one of Artemis's huntresses, which just made me even more curios as to whom she was.
The boy reached the group of lastrygonians and hellhounds first. Plunging into the mass headfirst, I figured he would end up dead in seconds. Instead, he wielded the sword with amazing poise, grace, and skill and dispatched monsters everywhere around him. I was hoping one of the monsters would knock his hood off so we could get a better idea of whom the guy was. He was obviously excellently trained and powerful. His endurance was incredible as well. He was showing no sign of weariness even after going at it nonstop for almost ten minutes.
The girl had joined in the fight with the monsters not long after the boy had, and she too was extremely skilled. She seemed to move like a wild animal through the mass of monsters and didn't seem to get hit by anything. These two fighters amazed me. They had to be demigods, but no one knew who they were which confused me. If they weren't demigods, then who were they? And regardless of what they are, how had we never seen these two before? We knew the guy existed, but no one had seen him before, and the girl was a total mystery. How could two people of such immense power have avoided our detection for such a long time?
I was brought out of my thoughts as the two entered the mineshaft. The boy was in front still with his sword out, while the girl had gone back to her bow. Every time a monster appeared, she would shoot it before it could raise the alarm. The two clearly knew what they were doing. I wondered if they had scouted this place out already and if so, why they hadn't done this the first time they came through. I was also trying to figure out what was so significant about this place that they decided to reveal themselves to us gods. They had seemed perfectly happy with us knowing nothing about them until now. Why choose now to reveal themselves? Why here? What was going on? I needed more answers, which meant I would have to keep watching and hoping that the answers would become clear.
After several minutes, the tunnel opened into a massive cavern. It was well lit and it appeared that the humans were being forced to do some mining while the monsters watched them work and punished anyone who happened to slack off. The two hooded figures stopped at the entrance of the cavern, probably to let us all see what was going on. I figured this had to be planned out. They wanted us to see what was going and they had already scouted this place. They were well prepared for this.
After a few seconds had passed, the girl nudged the boy with her elbow and he walked from the shadows into the cavern. He yelled something no one could understand and all the monsters and people turned to look at him. He had his sword out and drew all the attention to himself. The monsters ran at him, and while they focused on him, I could see monsters falling left and right to well-placed arrows. The girl seemed to have a never-ending supply of them. The monsters in the cavern consisted of lastrygonians and hellhounds like before, but there were also dracaena mixed in now.
By this time, the monsters had reached the man in the middle and he was once again slicing and dicing with his sword. His movements were so fluid and connected it seemed impossible. He appeared to be dancing with his sword and his movements were always a few steps ahead of the charging monsters. The strategy was rather good. He had enchanted the monsters with his movements, which gave him an advantage in fighting them, while they were too busy watching him and fighting him to notice their numbers being thinned out by the archer. After maybe five minutes, the monsters were just ashes on the ground.
As the two continued to trek further into the cave, the girl turned and yelled at the prisoners, "Leave now. This cave won't exist for much longer and if you aren't out of here when it is destroyed, well, you probably won't like the results." She then turned back to the front and continued the charge. A few minutes later they arrived at a massive metal door. They stopped.
The boy turned to the girl and said, "This is the prison you told me about right? When we enter, I will distract her while you free the prisoners and get them out of here. Take care of the little monsters as well. Once you finish, if I'm still engaged, please help out." The girl nodded her approval and the two backed away from the door.
I was curious to see how they would get through the door. It looked rather impenetrable. Suddenly, the ground started to shake around the door, the walls shook as well, I could hear the sounds of metal snapping and giving way, and the door fell over into the room it concealed. It appeared as if one of the two had created a small but powerful earthquake just around the door. I glanced at Poseidon since that would be one of his powers and he had apparently come to the same conclusion because he appeared thoughtful and a little confused.
I looked back to the screen to see the boy walked into the room, once more drawing the attention to himself. As powerful as he seemed to be, I was a little worried; I mean the guy had to have a limit to endurance and so far he had done nothing except fight monsters nonstop and possibly be responsible for a mini earthquake. Seeing as I couldn't interfere at all though, I pushed the thought out of my and and continued watching. As soon as he walked in, the girl followed in the shadows and seemed to walk towards what appeared to be a wall of cages.
Luckily, the screen only showed the cages for a brief second because what was in them was pretty gruesome. Hades seemed mildly impressed by what was shown. The people in the cages all appeared to be broken in mind and body. Maybe of them had broken limbs and bruised bodies. Dried blood was caked to the skin and in some cases fresh blood flowed to cover the old blood. Many of the people were tied down in painful and unnatural positions that made me cringe. Thankfully, after a few seconds, the screen went back to focusing on the man while the woman did whatever she was going to do to free the prisoners.
The first thing I noticed about who was facing the man was that it was a woman. She appeared to be ancient and part dragon. I gasped as I realized who it was. "Kampê!"
The throne seemed to darken a little at the mention of the jailor of the titans. No wonder the prisoners had looked so broken, with Kampê as a jailor, they were lucky to be alive. What was she doing alive though? She couldn't have reformed already; after all she had just been defeated not even ten years ago. But it was obviously her, something was going on. Something big. Maybe this is what they were trying to show us. Kampê was alive again and therefore maybe other powerful monsters were out that we should be on guard for. I also wondered how the man planned on fighting her alone. She was one of the most powerful and ancient monsters in existence.
Kampê drew her twin poison scimitars and snarled at the man. She began talking in the ancient language so I wasn't sure if the man understood her or not, but I did. She said, "You dare to interfere with my plans? This operation runs deeper than you can imagine. I don't know who you are or how you found out about this going on up here in Alaska, but you shall die here and our plans shall resume. Your true enemy is darker and more powerful than you could even believe."
A few things worried me about that speech. One, she said they were in Alaska. That was no a good thing. It also explained why us gods had no knowledge that this was happening. The other thing that bothered me was talk of the true enemy. We had recently defeated the titans, Typhon, and put Gaea back to sleep. I couldn't think of what other super powerful dangerous enemies we might have. Before I could ponder much more about that, the man drew his sword once more, but this time, he had one in each hand.
Before attacking, he responded to Kampê's speech. "You are right. I have no clue how powerful the true enemy is or who that enemy is. What I do know is that it is my duty to protect this planet and you are threating the world's safety. I assure you, if greater evils arise, I will do everything in my power to stomp it out." After delivering his speech and before I could think about what he had said, he charged Kampê.
His twin swords whirled as he blocked each one of Kampê's strikes. She couldn't seem to overpower him and her poison wasn't dripping onto him, it was almost like the poison was being repelled from him. However, as strong as the man was, and as good as his technique was, he couldn't seem to hit Kampê either. The two adversaries were giving it everything they had with their swords, but neither would give an inch. Kampê's massive size should have given the man a slight advantage, but every time he tried to duck into her, an animal head would jump out from her midsection and snap at him, forcing him to retreat. The two fought for five minutes, and then ten minutes, and still they fought. I knew that the man was only waiting for his partner to finish her task so she could aid in the defeat of this monster, but I wasn't sure how much longer he could last. He was finally showing signs of tiring.
He stopped fighting as aggressively, instead opting to play more of a defensive game. Kampê noticed this and began pushing him harder and harder. She backed him towards a wall and then tried to work him over into a corner. She was looking incredibly pleased with herself and was about to swing at the exhausted man when he just disappeared in a flash of light. An instant later he appeared right behind her and drove his double swords into her back. At the same instant, an arrow went through her skull. It flew with so much power that it passed clean through her skull and imbedded itself in the wall right behind where the man had been standing a moment earlier.
All of us gods watched in shock as Kampê slowly disintegrated. The demigods appeared to be as stunned as we were, especially my daughter who had fought Kampê once before. The man appeared a little bit winded but otherwise alright. The woman was perched on top of a cage about 45 feet in the air. As we watched, she climbed down and walked over to the man.
She grinned at him and chuckled a little, "Have a little trouble with the big bad Kampê? You looked like you were getting a little worn down there so I decided to jump in."
He glared at her a little bit before responding, "I was doing fine, thank you very much. I was just testing out my sword skills a little and since this isn't really an ideal location for my other powers, I decided to see how I could do against an ancient giant sword fighting dragon woman. I think I did alright, but once I noticed you were done, I decided to let you join the fight and worked her away from you to make sure she didn't see you. My plan worked perfectly. Anyways, we have more important things to do than bicker about my little fight with Kampê, the gods need to see the true threat that this place offered. There shouldn't be as many monsters since this was where the brunt of the work was done, but stay on guard."
That worried me. I had assumed, or at least hoped, that Kampê was the reason they were showing us this place, but from what he had just said, there is a bigger threat. I wondered if maybe a titan was actually running this place or something. I wasn't sure what it was, but whatever it was, it appeared to worry the man a lot more than facing Kampê one-on-one had.
I watched as the two trekked out of the mineshaft and back into daylight again and wondered where they were going. Once they started following the lay of tracks for mine carts, I assumed they were going to the refinery or wherever the mine carts were taken. Then I had a really bad thought and tried my hardest to push it out of my mind because there was no way it could be possible.
The two hooded figures walked in silence along the path until they reached another cave. That seemed a little odd; they were carting whatever they mined from one cave to another. Once they entered the cave, I noticed a few differences. First of all, this one was lit a lot worse than the first one. Second, this one seemed a lot earthier. Fewer rocks and more dirt. I was really starting to get worried now. Eventually, they stopped before a large room. It was circular with a domed ceiling and was lit with torches around the walls. In the center of the room was a massive pit. I began to feel really really bad about what was going on here.
Before continuing into this room and showing us what was in the pit, the man spoke to us. He didn't turn to face us, but as he spoke I felt as if he was staring right at me. He said, "The true threat of what we found here is something that you might have a hard time believing, I know I had a hard time accepting it, in fact, I still want to believe it isn't true. Unfortunately, I don't think that we should deny that this is happening. As you know, Kampê was one of the most powerful monsters that worked for the titans. She is ancient and very powerful. The fact that she is planning would lead one to believe that she is trying to help the titans to rise again. For all we know, she might be doing that. But at this location, that was not her goal. Her goal was what is in this pit. The true terror. When people mine, what are they usually looking for?" He asked us.
I don't know if he wanted us to answer, or if he was just giving us time to think about that, but a few seconds later he continued. "People mine for precious metals and jewels. Riches of the Earth. What I discovered is that the riches of the Earth were being mined and thrown into this pit here. Do any of you know what that might possibly mean?"
I believe that every single god knew what that would mean as well as some of the demigods. All the ones that had figured out what that might mean had grown pale. The man started walking towards the pit with his companion following right behind him. He leaned over the pit and we saw what was within. There was a giant body slowly forming and it appeared to made of solid gold.
No one made a sound. We had just defeated the giants and put Gaea to sleep a few years ago, it was way to early for them to be possibly rising again. What was going on here? I wanted to scream in frustration. None of this made any sense. Why was Alcyoneus being revived? Why was Kampê, A loyal monster of the titans helping revive him? How could they be reviving so quickly? I was going crazy, none of this made the least bit of sense.
The man looked up from the pit and spoke again, "I have no clue what is going on. We found this place today and we saw what was going on, we decided this threat was something that the gods needed to know about, because the two of us wont be able to stop all of the evil in the world alone. We will help in our way and do our best to take care of the problem ourselves, but you need to know what is happening because we can't take care of all this alone. Also, what Kampê said about not knowing who the true mastermind behind this is, that worries me. It's too early for it to be Gaea again but Kampê seemed to believe that it was something just as powerful, if not more so. I will not sit around and speculate here. For now, I must destroy the partially reformed body of the giant."
With that, he turned walked to the entrance to the room, faced the pit and raised his hands. Immediately, cracks began forming in the cavern ceiling and walls. Dust began trickling down and rocks started falling and dissolving into dust. It was as if he was killing the earth itself. Then I saw the water that was amassing above the pit. He had just drained water from rocks to the point that they crumbled to dust. That was insane. He then directed the water into the pit and I could only assume what the water was doing to the giant. Probably tearing the partially formed body to shreds and then dragging the pieces of it way into the ground and far apart.
After a few minutes, he lowered his hands and then walked out of the cave alongside his partner. Once they were back outside and into the forest, they walked about 100 meters down the path that had led them here and stopped. They turned to face the cave and again the man raised his hands. This time, a massive earthquake struck the mountain. This earthquake was the size of the ones Poseidon created when he was his angriest. At least magnitude ten. Maybe even stronger. They really crazy thing was that the earthquake was being contained solely to the mountainside and the cave within it. The level of power and control that would take is astounding. I don't even think Poseidon could do such a controlled but powerful quake. It was terrifying.
After a minute or so, the man seemed satisfied with his work and stopped the quake. He didn't even seem to be drained very much from using so much power. I wasn't sure who the man and his partner were, but after what they had shown us, I was truly hoping that they were indeed on our side.
He finally turned towards so we could see his face, but it was concealed by the hood he was wearing the shadows of the forest. All we could really see were His sea green eyes. They looked to be filled with power and peace, love and pain, care and understanding. After a few seconds he spoke, "Olympians, I had not been planning on revealing myself to you, at least not at this point in time. Now that you have seen me though, I will tell you a little bit about me. I am a Guardian of the Earth. I care nothing for the rulers as long as they are not a threat to the wellbeing of the planet. I fight to save those you cannot due to the ancient laws and the fact that some problems will slip through your fingers. Do know that you shall never find me if I do not want to be found. I would recommend that you do not try to search for me because you would merely be wasting your time. Now that we have taken care of this little problem in Alaska, I will allow my partner to talk to you and then we shall cut this connection and leave. You can say whatever you want, but we can't hear you so don't expect any of your questions to be answered."
He then stepped back out of the picture and his partner came forward. Once again we could not see the face, we could just her deep brown eyes, which seemed to be filled with knowledge and wisdom, pain and happiness, understanding and purpose. She didn't have as much to say as her partner, "I am the other Guardian of the Earth. What you saw today was how powerful we are as well as some of our more basic powers. There is much more that we can do. We will do our best to protect this world and those who inhabit it. Do not search for us for we cannot be found."
After she finished talking, the connection was severed and the screen disappeared leaving a room full of astonished and bewildered gods and demigods.
Poseidon POV
That man was powerful. He had my powers and wielded them with more control than I could. The girl had also said that those were only the basics of their powers we had seen. If that was really true, I feared the man might be even more powerful than I was. The idea sounded preposterous and yet we had seen what he was capable of and heard that he is actually capable of doing even more.
He also had my eyes. He had to be a son of mine, but my children couldn't teleport or hide from the gods the way this man had and claimed he could. I wasn't sure what to think about who he was. He reminded me so much of Percy, but it couldn't be him, could it? And if it was him, how had he gotten so much stronger and gained his new powers? What was going on here?
Artemis POV
The girl's eyes reminded me of Zoë. Her skill with the bow and hunting knives reminded me of my hunters. She had more skill with the weapons than my best hunters though; she could rival my own skill with the bow and knives. The grace with which she had moved was exactly the way I trained my hunters to move. Her ability to take down monsters non-stop was incredible. She had also shown quite a bit of stamina. It isn't easy fighting a horde of monsters nonstop, but she had done it with the ease of an experienced veteran. She clearly knew combat inside and out.
It was scary, the idea that the titans and giants might be working together and rising. It really freaked me out. There was no way that the demigods we had could stand up to both of those armies at the same time, but if those two Guardians as they called themselves helped us, we might have a chance to do it. They had both seemed to be as powerful as a god, if not more so. It was hard to believe that they were stronger than they had shown us, but after seeing how easily they had accomplished their task, I believed that they were as strong as they claimed to be.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the girl's eyes out of my head. Or the boys either, they both seemed familiar. The eyes reminded me of Zoë and Percy. The man could easily have been another son of Poseidon so I didn't have too much trouble dismissing the idea that he might be Percy, but the girls eyes, I had only met one other person with eyes like that and she had died trying to save me. There was no way that she could be Zoë though, which just left me more confused. I tried to focus on my father again because he was trying to get everyone's attention again now that the message had cleared. I guess we had quite a bit to discuss now.
He cleared his throat and spoke, "Well, that was quite the show and we learned quite a bit. I'm sure we all have things we would like to discuss and questions we would like answered, but I think we should wait until tomorrow to discuss this. That should allow us to settle down a little and think more rationally. This meeting is adjourned until noon tomorrow." With that, he flashed out.
That would be seven chapters done. In all honesty, I'm not sure how long this story will end up being; chances are it will be long though.
I know a lot of you guys appreciate daily updates, but I'm not sure how long I will be able to do that for. The farther I get into the story, the longer that chapters seem to be getting and that means it takes longer to write.
I must say I really enjoy writing this story. As much fun as it is to read these stories, writing them is incredibly fun. When I would read stories, I was constantly thinking about how I would do things differently, but as an author, I can finally dictate the story to go the way I want it to. It's a really cool experience.
Several of you have expressed your enjoyment of the originality of the story. That was one of the things I tried for with this, I knew I would have to give into some of the clichéd parts of chaos stories, but I have tried my best to make my story different so that it can provide a new story for people to enjoy. I am really glad that so many people to like my story.
If there is anything you want me to different or if you have recommendations for the plot or different POV's let me know in a review or PM and I will do my best to accommodate your wishes.
Thank you all for reading, and good day.
