And I left you last time with some real cliff hanger, huh? Well, You're lucky, today end with one as well!
Skià was struggling.
« Well, well, well… If it isn't everybody's favorite shadow! », mocked the lord of Time. He then turned the son of Tartarus, and noticed what he was taking. "And you are here to take what? Pandora's box? No… It can't be that. Can it?"
Skià was stuck in time, his soul being the only part of his being still active.
"Answer when I ask! What are you here for?"
His head returned to a normal time, thankfully.
"You're back from the pit."
It didn't seem to be the answer expected by Time, because the entire tapestry stopped moving. Skià was good at reading people's emotion (except shadows', for some reason…), and it looked a bit like Kronos was not the happiest person in this room. Too bad.
"Of course, I am! Did you really think that anybody could block me? My sister might have stuck most of my power, I am empowered by every instant I give to this universe."
Skià cocked his head.
"Dude. Your sister? Do you mean Rhea or Ananke? Because they're the sisters of both of your components, and they both ''betrayed you ''. If you could untie my hands with your time, I have some quoting marks to make with them to show you how sarcastic I am."
The tapestry blew.
"Anyway, what if I want to steal the box from you?"
That seemed to calm down the lord of Time.
"So, you are stealing it?"
"Didn't say that. But you didn't seem to believe I would have stolen it. Of course, it would have been a great plan, once I felt you coming, to take the most random object around to annoy you and go, but the fact that you didn't get caught… amuses me. Intrigues me."
"Would? You said would."
Skià cursed at his mistake mentally, but kept on a straight face.
"What? Imagine all the possibilities… You're the god of Time, are you? You must know about possibilities, split timelines and stuff. I must cover the back of my alternative version trying to steal this one. If one of us have a different discourse, you would have known who it was. But now, you don't."
"There is no such thing as alternate timeline"
"How do I know that? You could be lying! You're a bad little boy, after all!"
Few had seen the lord of Time so infuriated. He took a scythe.
"You know, this is not my scythe. Well, I do own it, but it is not my symbol of power. Because of you, it's still stuck in this volcano. Too bad. It won't absorb your soul. Oh, don't worry, It won't kill you either. It's a scepter of pain."
He then hit Skià with it.
Nothing.
Some awkward seconds.
"It's usually working.", admitted the lord of Time, taken aback. He then summoned a monster.
John is a cyclops.
He is a big monster with one eye.
He likes barbecue, subaquatic football, and freedom.
He doesn't like demigods (except in his meal), nor gods.
He was currently a guard of Orthys' castle. A proud monster, in a dark armor indeed.
He was proud, because his work was a daily reward. He was standing next to monsters far more powerful than him every day, and to be honest, he was a complete fan of them.
He loved to see powerful monsters, but Tartarus! He hated to see those titans. To him, monsters were one race, that needed to unite. If so, then they could finally go out of this pit so many of them had to call home, and go back to the surface, to live peaceful lives. He himself expected to become a mortal farmer after the Titans victory.
He hated to see those Titans, and when Chronos summoned him, he knew something was wrong.
A fellow monster was here, wrapped in Time, stuck, with Kronos. Kronos had a scythe. Without a word, he slashed it at him.
John's eyes widened. Then the blade touched a hair on his forearm.
John stopped reacting.
In fact, John ceased to exist immediately. He became something else.
A prey.
A prey in harm's way.
The pain in itself was not unbearable.
It was… everything else.
Describing those… feelings with anything else than pain was wrong. It wasn't physical pain. And it wasn't mental pain.
It was like dying. A lot of nothingness drowns you, tear you apart, and split your essence in so many pieces that it would became a puzzle.
"See?" asked Kronos pointing at the cyclops rolling on the floor, shivering, crying, and definitively not in control of his body (nothing sane in control of its body would make those angles with their limbs). "It works. So why… is it not working on you."
He had said the last part as a child, pouting over his broken toy. Pressing it again and again over Skià's body, on his nose, in his eye, on his torso, over his heart…
Nothing worked.
"Pain's an old friend", quoted Skià in a whisper.
"What did you say?", asked the Titan lord.
"I said, old man, that pain's an old friend of mine. I trained alongside them, and now I know how to play hide and seek with them. Seems like pain stopped playing hunter. Well…"
The shadow engulfed his body still frozen in time, as he allowed power to flow in for once.
"IT'S MY TURN, NOW"
Arms of nothingness grabbed the primordial still weakened, and his eyes were forced open.
"I THINK I FOUND PAIN. LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO EACH OTHER. PAIN, TIME. TIME? PAIN."
Kronos felt the pain crawling in his soul, and he understood why Atlas was begging to go back under the sky.
But Chronos was a primordial.
So, no, thank you. He wouldn't go crawling in pain.
He left, for a second.
Or some millennia.
His very essence scattered. He then reformed.
"Such lowly little tricks won't work… on… me…"
Skià was gone. And so were the main trophies and treasures in the room. Chronos sighed. The kid was clever. Too bad he had such a weakness. Chronos refrained to squeal; he loved mind games so much!
Skià officially hated shadow traveling.
It was so tiering. Especially with one man and a half worth of treasures and goodies, he felt drained. Not empty, having inactivated his shields on mount Tam meant he was barely holding together from the sheer power (he had to use basically every spell he knew to keep the energy flow bearable, and to don't explode with it).
A wave of shadow washed the Queen Anne's Revenge, and objects became to fall.
"Well, well, well" said a voice. "If it isn't everybody's favorite shadow."
"PJ? I hate you. It's not funny."
"Well, it seems like you brought more than needed. So. Where's the box?"
"In the safest place we know of. I still don't know why it could help with our situation though?"
Annabeth came in with a set of armor.
"It might be a metaphor? Like in the Fate's plan of things, Hope is the only thing able to keep you in two pieces?"
Skià chuckled at the attempt of the joke, and with a high five, Percy was back.
"More like one piece, now."
"So.", said Annabeth trying to get back on tracks. "Any idea of why I was able to control the Labyrinth? I mean, before owning it officially…"
Percy made the boat stir in direction of the nearest entrance, and it soon jumped forward, at speed a wind-based ship should never achieve.
"My guess is as good as any… Maybe you've gained the domain of architecture? 'Would be coherent."
Annabeth nodded. If this was true, then her power wasn't limited to moving little objects with her mind, but she could become far more powerful.
She saw that the boat was for now moving on a river, and she tried to close her eyes.
The buildings around her made a network. She could feel not only the roads, but every stair, every block, every window. Waves of power were going through the state, and it took her some time to notice it was hers. Her power. She smiled.
"Well, I guess your guess was guessed pretty accurately. So, I just gained a domain like that?"
"Can't know for sure. It could be anything. Maybe you always had it, maybe there's a god or a primordial of architecture you pleased, maybe you filled a vacant place in the domain's rule. Can't know for sure.", he then mumbled about having to ask.
Annabeth just sat on the cannon, a move she only entrusted to make while on this ship.
"So, I'm the odd one, now?"
Grover came out of the cabin with a bright smile, and a light wood armor.
"I'm pretty sure we all are the odds one."
The ship then stopped suddenly, and the water didn't make anything as making a slight wave. Cordage made a bridge to the pier, and soon they were back on earth. Percy turned around, to see Calypso wave them bye.
"Don't forget to use Pindare!", shouted Percy.
Then Annabeth paused, put her hand on a wall, only to see it shake. The bricks that made it began to push inside of the building in a triangular shape, and soon, they spread, opening an entrance to the Labyrinth.
"I had no idea you could do that…", said Grover.
"So, it doesn't work only inside the maze, huh? Good to know.", said Percy.
Annabeth turned around and smiled.
"What are you waiting for? We have a battle to win."
Nico then fell out of a shadow.
"Ouch!"
"And here's the Ghost king. Care to save our 6?", chuckled the son of Tartarus.
Nico deadpanned.
"I… have no idea what you're meaning."
"Nothing", interrupted Annabeth. "Good to see you, by the way, Nico. Let's fight."
They entered the endless maze.
The wall closed behind them. They were now shut from the world.
"Okay, so I don't want to look like an idiot or something, but how are we going to find Time's army?", asked Nico.
Percy smiled knowingly.
"What's their realm?"
"What?", answered a dumbfounded Nico.
"It's Tartarus. My spells are locating them easily."
"You're using spells? How do you do that?"
"Oh. It's easy. Every use of your powers requires a spell, and…"
He froze.
"Percy? Are you alright?", began to worry Annabeth.
"Found 'em all. It's quite an army. Labyrinth, if you were so kind to…"
Percy didn't finish, as a new corridor opened on their left.
"And it's one hundred meters ahead."
They left the corridor nearly as soon as they entered it.
AND End! I know this chapter is short, but I intend to make a big battle in the next one, the first big battle really. I might have made myself some place in my schedule by reporting the update with this chapter by a few weeks (one if I'm exact, so don't worry, everything's alright!