The titan's energy ran dry and he collapsed to his hands again, the sky falling and landing on his back. His eyes closed, and he'd inevitably be crushed at any moment, but then they opened and he lifted the sky back onto his shoulders with a renewed vigor. His face was so contorted with pain and concentration that he didn't even notice Percy was standing before him.
"Atlas!" Percy said.
The titan's eyes focused. The sky slipped just slightly and he had to adjust his hand to keep hold of it. "Demigod," he spat.
"We need to talk."
"I'm rather pre. . . occupied at the. . . moment." He was fighting to keep his eyes open.
"Where is Kronos's scythe?"
"The. . . scythe. . ." The process repeated. He fell forward, catching himself with both hands. The sky fell onto his back and he fell asleep, then he woke up moments later and lifted it back into his palms.
His newly energized eyes showed confusion for a split second, and then hatred. "Demigod!"
"Where is the scythe?" Percy demanded.
"In Tartarus. Jump in and search for. . . it."
"Liar."
"And why should I. . . answer you. . . truthfully?"
"We can make an arrangement."
Atlas didn't hear him as, at that moment, the process looped again. Once he'd woken up and regained his grip, Percy repeated his response.
"There's only one thing you can offer me," Atlas said.
"I know what you want," said Percy. "It's off the table."
"Respite. One minute. . . ten seconds of respite. . . Grant me this and. . . I'll tell you. . . what you want."
"Right. The instant I take the sky from you, you'll just run off, or fall asleep indefinitely without your burden to wake you."
"Sleep. . ." Atlas said wistfully.
"There's got to be something else you want," said Percy.
Atlas fell asleep and woke up again, making Percy repeat himself.
"Not a single thing," said the titan.
Percy paced back and forth for a minute, thinking hard. The titan went through his cycle several more times before he came up with an idea. He stopped and faced Atlas, then waited for him to snap awake again before he spoke, choosing his words very carefully. "What if I could lift your condition permanently?"
"Impossible," Atlas replied. "Who would hold the sky in my. . . stead?"
"No one. I need to know where the scythe is. If I can get it, you won't be in this situation anymore."
"How?"
"I don't know for sure how it works, only that it will. After I get the scythe, you won't have to go through this anymore," Percy said vaguely.
"Why should. . . I. . . believe you?"
"Because I'm speaking the truth."
Atlas went through his loop again. Once awake, he snarled, "Why should I believe you?"
"I swear I've spoken honestly."
"On the Styx."
Percy pretended to hesitate. "I swear on the Styx."
The sound of lightning striking through the clouds sounded directly above them, so loud it was deafening.
Atlas smiled between his grimaces. "We have a deal."
"Wait. I need something else from you."
"What is it?" Atlas said impatiently.
"Zoë."
"Who?"
"Zoë, your daughter."
"I have a. . . lot of daughters."
"Zoë, the Hesperide."
"Oh. . . that one."
"I want her freed. You'll remove the dragon and grant her liberty. You won't bother her ever again."
"Fine, fine."
"I need you to swear it on the Styx. Include the scythe and free her immediately. Be precise."
Atlas took a deep breath, opened his mouth, then fell asleep. After recovering from the process again, he spoke. "I swear on the river Styx Zoë will be freed immediately and permanently, and I'll give you the true location of Kronos's scythe. There. Are we done now?"
There was another clap of thunder.
"Yes. Now, where is the scythe?"
"The Mare Nostrum."
"I can't search an entire sea."
"You'd search ten thousand years. . . and still fail if. . . you tried."
"Where exactly is it?"
"Give me. . . a minute."
Percy waited. Not long later, Atlas fell again and then lifted himself back up. He then said, "Aes eht ekahs llahs elttab ruo. Sutepai, uoy egnellahc i. Repeat those words near the center. . . and the way will reveal itself."
"What language is that? I've never heard it before."
"It's unimportant."
"What do you mean, 'the way will reveal itself'?"
"It'll be obvious. Enough. . . questions. I told you. . . what you. . . wanted. Go."
Percy had Atlas repeat the phrase a few more times in between his falling asleep/waking up loop before he had it committed to memory. Then, as soon as he was sure he had all that could be gotten from Atlas, he turned and left, leaving the titan to his misery. Percy set off down the mountain, rather pleased with himself. He'd managed to get everything he wanted from the titan while making him believe he wouldn't have to hold the sky anymore. Perhaps it was only because of how tired Atlas was that he'd been so susceptible to the trick, but he was still proud of himself nonetheless.
He made it about a third of the way down the mountain when he spotted a dark shadow in the sky, flying with massive wings at an incredible speed away from Mount Othrys without turning back.
Even flying way above the water, Percy felt entirely within his element. The sea breeze brushed against his skin, making it tingle pleasantly. He felt all the water down beneath him and could just imagine using it to his own ends. Most helpfully, he somehow flawlessly knew his bearings intuitively. He was able to nudge Blackjack in the right direction and have him fly directly toward the exact center of the Mare Nostrum with full confidence.
As they flew, he thought about Zoë, conflicted. That kiss had meant nothing to him, as his love for Reyna burned more potent than ever, but he couldn't help feeling a sense of sadness knowing that the two of them would never again meet. He'd gone back to the cave as soon as he'd finished descending the mountain, but it seemed as if she'd been made aware of her freedom before on her own, as he'd found her prison empty. He was both relieved and disappointed by that. On one hand, he avoided an awkward encounter, and on the other, he didn't get to see her again. He'd taken a liking to her and would have really liked another friend, considering how few he now had left. There was Reyna, who was way more than a friend, Leo, and maybe Annabeth if he could make amends with her. Caius had proven himself trustworthy, and Lars Caldus had him to thank for his life. Unfortunately, he'd probably severed all ties to legion friends when he deserted. In actuality, all he really had left to lose was Reyna, and he'd brave the depths of Tartarus to make sure that never happened.
"This is it," Percy eventually said.
Blackjack stopped flying immediately, proceeding to hover midair. "I'll circle down."
"No need." Percy moved his right leg over so that he was sitting on the pegasus sideways.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Blackjack asked with a panicked voice.
"Don't worry about it. Just wait for me to breach the surface. I'll try to be quick." With that, he jumped.
Strictly speaking, he'd never done anything like this before. He knew, of course, that from a certain height, water was worse at breaking your fall than stone. The farthest distance he'd ever fallen into a body of water from was one that anyone would have survived, not just children of Poseidon. But he was confident that no matter what he did, the sea wouldn't kill him. It was part of him; he practically had saltwater running in his veins. Even still, as he fell at an exhilarating speed, a small amount of fear began to well up in him. Had he just killed himself? Had he just doomed the entire Greek pantheon for nothing and left Reyna to mourn for both Jason and himself? What a cruel sense of irony that would be.
Thankfully, that momentary panic proved unfounded. When Percy hit the water feet first, he was pleased to find that every bone in his body hadn't been shattered. On the contrary, he felt great. He was in the middle of the sea, all by himself. This was his domain, which made him feel utterly relaxed. The water was freezing, but that didn't bother him in the slightest. He was comfortable. It was too bad there was little chance of it persisting all that long.
His head broke the surface and he said, slowly enough to make sure he got it right, "Aes eht ekahs llahs elttab ruo. Sutepai, uoy egnellahc i."
Instantly, a glowing ball appeared beneath the water. He dove down and kicked toward it, able to see and breathe as comfortably as ever. The ball of light moved in a line toward the ocean floor going west, proceeding at a gentle slope. Percy swam after it.
Several minutes passed before he and the ball of light arrived at what could almost be mistaken for a massive bird's nest. But it was made from coral and stone instead of sticks and leaves and could fit a hundred thousand eggs with room still to spare. It looked old and abandoned, and he hoped it stayed that way. He didn't want to face whatever monster had called this nest its home. The ball dove toward the middle of it, where there was a crevice just big enough to squeeze through. The ball disappeared through it, forcing Percy to follow after. The instant his head was beneath the crack, he began falling. The water no longer kept him afloat, and he dropped, thankfully a short distance, to the bottom of some sort of chamber.
He was dry, and looking up he could see a small hole in the roof from which he'd come. The water stopped there unnaturally, simply floating rather than filling the room. The ceiling was held high by four pillars, with two more reduced to rubble. There were cracks all over the marble walls from which hung torn tapestries and empty picture frames. He could see several torches and braziers across the chamber, but none of them were lit. At the end of the room stood a massive, half-broken throne made from dried coral, slightly offset from being centered as if another chair should stand beside it. A handful of rubble piles littered the room, and there were cracks and missing chunks spread over the walls, ceiling, and floor. Almost as plentiful as the rubble, though, were bones. Decomposed corpses littered the ground as well as their discarded weapons. Three dozen warriors — likely demigods — had to have died in here. Percy tried not to think about what might make him join them and instead continued cautiously examining his surroundings with his sword at the ready. He decided he was standing inside a ruined palace. For a brief moment of panic, he wondered if it was his father's, but then his eyes found something that proved otherwise.
The ball of light had been floating above something perfectly so that he didn't notice it. For several seconds he'd thought he stood alone in a throne room from a bygone age, then saw that there were two others in there with him. To his right, a pair of men with similar builds to Atlas lay on the floor, each with a hand on a long, leather-wrapped pole, at the end of which was a large, dark blade in the shape of a crescent moon. They looked to have been fighting over it before suddenly both falling unconscious, neither willing to let go during their forced slumber.
One man bore a resemblance to Neptune, but only in his attire and hair. His face looked a lot more rough, with skin set into a permanent scowl even in his sleep and had a lack of wrinkles that somehow made his great age more obvious. Even with his eyes closed, it felt like he was looking at him in contempt, dreaming up some cruel fate for him for invading his territory. The other man's sleeping face was a lot less sinister, the glowing ball hovering directly over it. It took on a similar shape as the other's but looked almost peaceful and innocent, yet Percy could still imagine the cruelty he'd be happy to inflict should he awake. He did not recognize him and couldn't place his name, but knew for a certainty that the other was Oceanus.
The air around the scythe pulsed with an invisible, powerful energy that seemed to be trying to pull him in. He felt a sense of dread settle over him while staring at it. The scythe was evil incarnate. It was terrible, and he was afraid of it, growing more so by the second. His job was to retrieve it, but he had a primal instinct within himself telling him not to go near it. He didn't know why, but he suspected that even touching the handle would either kill him or drive him insane.
He looked around helplessly at the long-dead demigods who'd been given the same quest he was now on. When they'd come here, the titans would have been awake. Had they killed them outright, or pretended to allow them to take the scythe just for them to fall upon attempting to do so? He had a significant advantage on all of them by coming here while the titans were forced to sleep like the gods, but it seemed he was still destined to fail.
Percy put as much distance as he could between himself and the objective while he thought. He'd discovered a solid section of floor that didn't have any skeletons on it and sat down. For several minutes Percy pondered helplessly before becoming aware of his hunger. This wasn't exactly the time to eat, but it wasn't like he had much else to do while he thought. His hand hovered over the satchel Vesta had given him before moving onto his own. He rummaged around for some jerky, deciding to save the good kind for another time. He didn't get a chance to eat it though, as his hand nudged against something hard. He picked it up and looked at it for less than a second before suddenly standing up in his excitement. In his hand, he held a small black box.
Back in Neapoli, he'd been compelled by Vesta to ask Leo if he could take this item from his workshop. He'd never given it another thought since. He'd stuffed it into his satchel and forgot about its existence until this very moment.
Percy opened the lid and approached the dangerous weapon, a sickening feeling in his stomach becoming more prominent the nearer he got to it. He considered how to get it inside the box for a while, trying a few different things. Percy held the box out toward it, hoping the scythe would just get sucked in, but nothing happened. He tried throwing the box at it, but it bounced off harmlessly. Finally, he had to try the riskiest option. He walked right up next to the blade and very carefully put the tip of it inside the box. Impossibly, it never hit the back of it. He pushed the box all the way along the blade, and it disappeared inside it. Even the parts that were wider than the opening somehow slid inside without a fuss. He then maneuvered it around to get the handle and that was consumed too, after he'd wrenched the two titans' hands off of it. Soon enough, the box snapped closed, and the scythe was gone. Percy placed it into his satchel and was pleased to find that its magic wasn't at all affecting him.
Now that he had the scythe, he realized he didn't have a way of leaving this place. He tried to flood the room by focusing on the hole in the ceiling, but although he felt the water obeying him, it was stopped from going any lower by some kind of invisible force. He looked to the wall opposite the throne and noticed there was a door there obscured by piles of rubble. Unfortunately, after spending a considerable amount of time clearing away the debris, he found the door impossible to open. There were no other exits, which meant he was trapped.
Percy glanced at the glowing ball, still floating above the nameless titan's head. "A little help?"
The ball did not react.
He gauged the height of the ceiling. It stood three times taller than him, which would make it impossible to jump up to the hole. The throne might have been big enough to give him the boost he needed, but it was too far away. He attempted to move it only to find that it either weighed too much or was fixed to the floor. Either way, that idea was out of the question. With a bit of struggle, though, he was able to push a decently large piece of collapsed pillar directly beneath it, but it still wasn't tall enough. So he then spent a sizable portion of an hour piling up rocks around it from across the room before he was confident he'd built it tall enough. He was sore, as a lot of the marble proved very heavy, but the pain would lessen if he could just get to the water.
It was difficult to climb to the top of the pile without too much sliding down, but he managed it. He stood at the peak of his makeshift mountain and extended his hand up; the ceiling was still not within reach. He'd have to jump, but all he needed was for his fingers to make contact with the water. He found the steadiest foothold he could, bent his knees, trained his eyes on his target, and launched himself into the air with his hand outstretched. His longest finger came close, but sadly remained dry. He fell back down and slipped on the stone heap he'd built. His feet slid out from beneath him, and he rolled all the way down until his back collided painfully with one of the still-standing pillars, many chunks of stone coming down with him.
For a minute, he laid there, groaning in pain and regretting the decisions he'd made that had brought him here. He was bruised and battered and might have even broken something. He was more convinced of that when he finally tried to sit up, just to be met with a searing pain shooting throughout his body that crippled his movement. He laid still, then let out an ironic chuckle. This was his toughest challenge. It wasn't facing Luke, Marcus, or an entire homestead of murderous demigods, or even the countless monsters he'd slain in his lifetime. No, a mound of rocks had dealt him a severe blow in record time, which objectively made it his strongest enemy.
Carefully, he dug his hand inside Vesta's satchel and pulled out a cube of ambrosia. If there was ever a time to use one, it was now. He popped it into his mouth and began chewing something so indescribably delicious he couldn't have possibly put it into words. Saying it was an amalgamation of every taste he'd ever enjoyed that blended together in a way so as to enhance every individual flavor without ruining any of them didn't even begin to do it justice, although it was about as close as you could get. Eating the cube itself brought about more pleasure than the relief from the intense pain that had begun to rapidly fade away. It was safe to say that ambrosia had earned its title of "food of the gods".
A few minutes later, all agony had subsided, and he felt fresh and ready to try again. After replacing the rocks that had fallen back onto the pile where they belonged, Percy climbed back to the top and set himself into position. He took a deep breath, practiced what he was about to do in his head, and then failed another time. Percy was a lot luckier in the second fall, not hitting a pillar and merely sliding down to the bottom with only a few scrapes and bruises to show for it. He looked around the room, but he'd already gathered every last bit of debris and literally couldn't build the tiny mountain any higher. He could try and make some more rocks, but the toughest thing he had was his sword, which would sooner break than produce enough stone to make a difference. Plus, he didn't want to test his luck. Destroying one more pillar or the right section of the wall could be enough to bring the entire ceiling down, which would only save him from starving to death by killing him quickly. Unfortunately, he had to just keep trying with what he had until he got it right.
It was on attempt number four that he finally succeeded and conquered his foe. The third had gone slightly better than the first two, but still wasn't enough. He'd tried throwing a small rock through the hole afterward, hoping it'd come back wet, but that experiment hadn't worked. Its momentum carried it up through the water a ways before gently floating back down, dropping into his hand completely dry. His hope had been to bring enough water down little by little to give him the edge he needed, but he wound up tossing the stone aside disappointedly. So instead, he steeled himself for the next attempt. Once more, he took a deep breath, made sure he had a good foothold, and then leaped toward the ceiling with his hand outstretched. His fingers broke the surface of the water, which instantly bent to his whim and yanked him upward. He shot up and away from the ruined palace and the monster's nest, finally free.
From there, getting back to Blackjack was trivial. Underwater, his eyesight was as sharp as a hawk's, so he'd only needed to make it halfway to the surface before being able to spot a small dot circling in the sky. Percy willed the sea to make him rise as quickly as he possibly could. When he reached the surface, he didn't stop ascending. His momentum carried him way above sea level, bringing him rapidly closer to Blackjack. He soon began to slow and stopped rising right when his pegasus swooped down to catch him. He landed on his back flawlessly, ready to go.
"You are completely insane!" Blackjack told him with a hint of admiration in his voice.
Percy was grinning like a madman. "Gods, I love the sea."
"You're insane, Boss," Blackjack said again.
"Noted. I got the scythe. Let's get back to Olympus."
Blackjack sighed. "On it, Boss."
When they ascended through the clouds, and the city of the gods came into view, Percy saw a different sight than he was expecting. While the decrepit, slowly dying city he'd departed from was still there, it was mostly unrecognizable due to the Roman gods having set up camp. The buildings had all been left alone, probably because they likely housed sleeping Greek gods, but numerous tents had been set up wherever there was available ground. They were silken, laced, and embroidered with golden thread to help identify their owners. The elegance of even the smallest tent — which was about two thirds the size of the Curia Hostilia — far exceeded the standards that an emperor might demand. After Blackjack had landed and Percy dismounted, he began walking by the tents and was able to see the interior of one. Somehow it looked even more luxurious on the inside, outfitted with fancy furniture, rugs, candles, tapestries, and anything else you could ever want to furnish a home. That one tent looked more homely than any house he'd ever been in, although he could safely say he'd rather sleep on the ground with Reyna than alone in there. Fancy tents were nice and all, but there was no home without her.
As Percy casually journeyed between the tents toward Zeus's palace, more of the gods who'd been milling about stopped what they were doing to watch him. He didn't turn around, but he suspected a fair amount were even following a distance behind him. Percy tried not to think about it, though, opting to keep his eyes forward. He didn't recognize any of the gods he walked by but did spot one tent that had Bellona's symbol on it. The goddess herself was nowhere to be seen and the entrance was closed, so it could be presumed she was inside, possibly even with Reyna, but he didn't stop to check. Percy continued on and reached the palace without seeing a single Olympian or their tent. Once he entered, he found out why.
A table had been set up near the middle of the throne room a few paces away from where Hestia lay sleeping. Jupiter was at the head of it with the other eleven Olympians seated as well plus Pluto and Vesta. A handful of other minor gods were standing behind them, including a massive wolf with deep red fur, watching quietly in the corner. The Fates and Reyna were both missing. When Percy walked in, the gods were arguing animatedly, so enthralled by the discussion that they didn't even notice him. Finally, Vesta did and pointed him out to Jupiter, who immediately called for silence.
The Roman king of the gods stared at him pointedly. "You've returned," he said.
"And swiftly," Juno added with an impressed tone.
"I have." Percy drew out the black box and tossed it toward Jupiter, who caught it deftly.
The king opened the box and peeked inside for only a second before closing it and setting it down on the table. He stood, and the rest of the gods copied his movement. A tense silence followed where no one moved and Jupiter's eyes never left Percy.
He heard footsteps behind him but didn't dare look away. Gods walked past him to stand with their peers, Bellona among them. They took their places and switched between staring at Percy and Jupiter. He began to waver under all of their gazes, but stood his ground. He felt someone's hand slip into his, and he squeezed it gratefully, knowing it was Reyna's. Perhaps she could sense his nervousness, as a warm energy spread through him from where their skin touched, calming his nerves. One goddess, so beautiful that she could only be Aphrodite's equivalent — he couldn't recall her name — smiled slightly at them with sparkling eyes. Finally, Jupiter sighed.
"So be it," he said in a resigned tone.
Suddenly, a flash of light filled the room. The table and chairs vanished, and the Three Moirai took their place in the middle of the gods. They stood in a circle with their backs facing each other so that together they could see the entire room. Their hands were clasped and missing their thread and tools, so Percy could only tell them apart by remembering the color of their robes. All three opened their mouths and spoke as one.
"Jupiter," they said. "The offerings have been exchanged. Do you invoke the ancient law of unity?"
Jupiter took a deep breath and said, "I do."
"Romans," they continued. "Do you allow him to speak for you?"
In response, they got a fair amount of yeses, "we do"s, and nods, which made a majority. No one spoke in opposition, but a handful chose to remain silent.
"Then we can begin," said the Fates.
A/N: Here it is, the chapter you've all been asking for. Percy vs. rocks. Perhaps we can get Dwayne Johnson to cameo for the movie.
In all seriousness, this story is coming to a close. Here's the current roadmap as I have it planned (subject to change):
Chapter 40: Resolution and "final" chapter. (I might need an extra week to write this one. It'll remain to be seen. I'll let you know Saturday if the chapter won't be ready by Sunday.)
Chapter 41: Epilogue. Will be the last chapter from Percy's perspective.
Chapter 42: Reyna's chapter (will go through her backstory in more depth and then events occurring post-prophecy, which'll basically be second epilogue. Might be split into two parts, like Jason's).
Chapter 43+: Bonus character chapters. Chapter 43 (or 44 if Reyna gets two chapters) will be a particularly interesting one that you won't want to miss, but I'll leave its P.O.V. character and plot a surprise. I intend on doing a Daedalus chapter, too, that I might even slap before chapter 1 as a prologue, because it would fit well there. I might give Alabaster a chapter and redemption arc, if I can come up with one. I won't rush it. There's one more surprise character I could give a chapter to too, but like Alabaster, I'd need to think up a story for them first. This character will appear in the first bonus chapter too.
Also, I finally bought Grammarly premium, since it had a huge discount just recently. So I made great use of that in editing this chapter, and I hope you can notice the increase in quality. I'll be utilizing it — either after writing the epilogue or Reyna's chapter(s) — to go back and revise/polish all the previous chapters, which'll probably take a couple of weeks. I think I'll even completely rewrite Chapter 1, which I'm not entirely happy with.
So there you have it. That's where the future of Adapting to the Fall stands. You know everything I have planned. We still have a handful more chapters to get through before I slap a "complete" on this story, but the overarching plot is coming to a close next chapter. It's been a long journey and we're nearing the final stop, and I'm thankful for how many of you are still here to see it through to the end.
P.S. Left a couple of things vague (implied, is more accurate since all the information is there, just not explicit) in this chapter, including the identity of a certain titan. I'm curious as to how many of you will figure them out.
