AN: Welcome back everyone!

I'm glad everyone enjoyed the last chapter! I really tried my best to capture the overwhelming nature of D4C when it was first revealed while still holding back some elements so that we can continue to see how it can be used. I've rewritten this chapter a few times so hopefully it's quite satisfactory. I really hope you guys like it :)!

Right, enough talk.

Let's begin!

Disclaimer: I, Beowulf, do not own PJO or JJBA. I only own this plot, my OC, and the disappointing truth that I do not possess D4C. If I did, I'd be jumping around universes like a bunny on crack.

~Chapter 12~

Cyrus just stared at where Ernesto had been as he let his Stand disappear, grabbing the Nemean cloak off the ground and refastening it to his coat. "Later. Come on, we should get going."

Only to get a slap across the face.

Glaring at the one who slapped him, he simply received a blue-eyed glare back.

"Answers Cyrus. Now." Thalia's voice could have frozen the oceans with the icy anger in it.

Cyrus narrowed his eyes as he rubbed his cheek. "And I said, later."

Her anger exploded. "No! Answers Cyrus! Who were those guys in that Iris Message? Why are there so many of these weird Stand Users after us suddenly? What's with your power and how there were two of that creepy guy? You were never this cold and vicious before you left us Cyrus! Tell me what happened after you died!" She snarled as the wind around her began to pick up.

"We have to get going! We don't know what else the General will send after us!" Cyrus argued.

Thalia's eyes sparked. "I don't care!" She screamed, the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance. Percy and Grover looked at each other, thinking the exact same thing.

"That can't be good."

Cyrus grimaced a little, eyeing the storm brewing. "I'm not explaining anything Thalia. It can wait til' after we get moving, sound fair?"

"No! It's always 'I'll explain later' with you! Well I want those answers now, and we aren't leaving until you explain!" She said with an almost childish stubbornness.

Cyrus winced a little. "Yikes...looks like her time in that tree really didn't help with emotional maturity. I don't blame her but this is the worst time for this stuff."

Zoe and Phoebe scowled at that, with the former of the two stepping forward. "That will not happen! Lady Artemis has to be rescued before the Winter Solstice."

"Stay out of this Zoe! This is between me and him!" The daughter of Zeus snapped at her, her blue eyes promising pain via electrocution if anyone stood in her way.

Cyrus bit his lip. He really really hated keeping secrets like this. Times like this just reminded him of Valentine and how he'd kept secrets even from his subordinates. He respected many things about the former user of D4C but that was not one of the things he was pleased with. (1)

But he had no choice. He wouldn't hurt his friends with the things he had learned and done.

He steeled his nerve as he clenched his jaw at Thalia. "What I do and do not tell you is my choice, Thalia Grace."

That certainly did not help the situation.

"U-uh Thalia, please calm down a little?" Grover tried to poke his way into the conversation, his eyes focused a bit more on the storm clouds moving in.

"You say something Goat boy?" She reared on the satyr, who paled as he now found himself in the raging demigoddess's path.

Suddenly, Cyrus noticed that behind them were a group of six people approaching. His eyes narrowed.

Looking a little closer...those weren't people. They were skeleton warriors, dressed in military uniforms and wielding guns.

He grimaced. "Wonderful."

They couldn't stick around, so the only conclusion he came to was one thing.

Run.

As Thalia prepared to lay into the poor satyr, he quickly came up behind her and popped her in the back of the neck with a finger. Her eyes rolled up into her head as she fell unconscious and limp. Cyrus sighed as he held her in his arms before nodding to his fellow quest members. "We have to go. Now."

They didn't argue with that one.

Miraculously, they managed to give the skeletons the slip, with Percy hacking at them and D4C blocking bullets as they defended their retreat to the subway station.

Cyrus clenched his jaw as he held the unconscious daughter of Zeus. In retrospect, it was a bad idea to knock her out, but she did say they wouldn't leave until he gave answers...and that wasn't an option so...

"Fuck it, looks like I'll have to do that move."

"I'll be right back!" He set Thalia down gently, before using D4C's warping power to disappear for a moment. Phoebe scowled as the boy vanished.

"Where did he go off to now?"

"I don't know but I hope he gets back soon!" Grover replied in a minor panic as he chucked random items at the skeletal warriors.

Wham! A light-blue fist slammed into one of their foes' skulls, knocking it clean off its shoulders. Emerging from the wall next to them, Cyrus unleashed D4C's brutal strength as it struck hard and fast, breaking bones and crushing them into splintered fragments.

To his surprise, the skeleton that had lost its head (literally) simply reattached it, while the others slowly regenerated, ready to keep fighting.

"Don't just stand around!" The group looked away from Cyrus fighting the skeletons to see...Cyrus, holding Thalia in his hands.

"Wait how did you-?" "No time to explain this shit! I can hold them off long enough to get to the train." Cyrus barked out, cutting off Percy's confusion by jerking his head towards the last train of the night, which was soon to depart.

"But what about yo-him-whatever?" Phoebe asked as she glanced back at the Cyrus trying to take down all the skeletons. "Don't worry about him! Come on!"

The Cyrus holding Thalia in his arms ran onto the train, followed by the others after a moment of hesitation.

Meanwhile, the Cyrus who was left behind dealing with the skeletons grinned as he noticed a tin can near one of his enemies' feet. He reached inside his pocket, pulling out the same tin can. Tossing it at the skeletons, he smirked as the two cans shot towards each other, meeting halfway and ripping apart into Menger Sponges. (2)

He quickly pulled the coat over himself by his lapels, disappearing in a warp of energy.

The skeletons stared at the strange occurrence with the tin cans, chattering to themselves.

As the tin cans suddenly shined with a bright light, the chattering turned frantic.

Boom.

The two merged cans exploded with the force of a grenade, blasting them into ashes.

However, a bony hand slowly reconstructed itself out of the piles of ash, clenching into a fist.

Reemerging out of a nearby seat on the train, Cyrus cracked his neck as he approached his counterpart, who had just set Thalia down. The daughter of Zeus was slowly coming to, but still quite out of it.

"You got this handled?" The Cyrus that had set Thalia down asked the other.

The Cyrus that just arrived nodded. "You can leave now."

Nodding back, the Cyrus that had carried Thalia stepped between one of the poles and the walls of the train, disappearing in an instant.

The User of D4C rubbed his temples and sighed. What a day...

He sat down as the train pulled out of the station. Only to realize that everyone was now looking at him, silently asking for an explanation.

Cyrus sighed again. "Alright, I'm guessing you guys want to know about what the hell I managed to pull off against Ernesto and against those Skeletons yeah?"

"No sh-" "Yes, please do." Grover cut Thalia off, who glared at the satyr.

"I told you the truth when it came to D4C's ability. But I didn't tell you the whole truth."

Percy snorted. "That was obvious..." Thankfully while they'd been running, the group had managed to fill him in on the whole 'this is how Stands work according to what Cyrus told us' thing.

He didn't understand all of it, but he would pretend he did.

...Hey, if that thought process had gotten him through life so far, he wasn't gonna change it up.

Giving the son of Poseidon a glare and wincing a little at the now clearer glare from Thalia, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sure you guys heard what I was telling Ernesto?"

Phoebe's eyebrows flew up. "Yeah actually...you mentioned something about your power involving..." she hesitated for a moment. "other universes?"

Cyrus nodded slowly. "Correct. Basically, you know how I can warp around by putting myself in between two objects?"

They all nodded as Cyrus ran a hand through his hair. "That is...a part of my power."

"What do you guys know about the 'Multiverse Theory'?" Cyrus asked, raising a few eyebrows.

"You mean that thing like 'for every choice we've made there's a different universe where a different choice happened' right?" Percy suggested.

Everyone looked at him for a moment, making his face turn red with embarrassment. "Uh...Annabeth mentioned a few things like that. Something about a few books she read."

"Well color me impressed Sharkbait. At least Annie managed to get something stuck inside that head of yours." Cyrus smirked at him, making the boy scowl.

Why did everyone insist on thinking he was an idiot?

Cyrus continued. "So at least one of you is familiar with it. As Percy said, that is the Multiverse Theory. Most people think it's just that, a theory. But as you could see earlier, it's much more than just a theory."

Zoe's eyes widened. "Art thou saying that thy Stand allows thee access to these alternate worlds?!"

"'Allowing multiple universes to exist in the same location'...that's what you said!" Grover's gaze lit up in realization.

Cyrus nodded with a small smile. "D4C is the lynchpin, the one that pins every reality together at one location...my location. Every single version of me in every universe is aware of D4C's existence."

Phoebe looked at him in confusion. "But how does that help you? I mean, if your Stand's power does that, and you can travel between universes with that weird 'between two objects thing-'"

The Stand User tilted his head a little as he tried to explain, before perking up a little at hearing the train stop. "Get up, we need to do a little train hopping so whoever's after us can't keep up."

Three trains and about four and a half hours later, the six quest members reached their impromptu stop at a more...dilapidated train station next to a freight yard. Cyrus was leading the way, with his companions trailing behind him. The two children of the Big Three shivered from the cold while the cloaks on Cyrus's and the Hunters' shoulders (and in the case of Grover, his furry legs) shielded them.

Thalia's teeth chattered as she grumbled to herself. "Alright Bamf-Boy, continue with explaining your weird-as-Hades powers."

Cyrus gave her a small glare, "I'll get to th...do you guys hear meowing?" He asked suddenly.

"Don't change the subj-" "Mew!"

The daughter of Zeus cut herself off as she looked down and her heart immediately softened. Pawing at her boots was an adorable little kitten with orange fur, trailed by four others.

"Awe..." She murmured as everyone stopped for a moment to look. Cyrus tilted his head before his eyes widened, recognizing the little cats. It seemed the little kittens did too, as they turned their attentions to him, moving towards him and rubbing against him gently while mewing and shivering.

Grover leaned down to look at them, his eyes widening as he noticed the large canine teeth jutting out of their jaws. "Cy, are those...?"

"Sabretooth tiger cubs? Yeah...I found them about to be disposed of via Cyclops dinner." The girls bristled angrily at that, livid at the thought of such adorable things being put down.

The Stand User crouched down, petting each of them and getting purrs of approval even through the poor things' shivering. He pulled off his cloak for a moment, wrapping it around the five cubs tenderly.

Seeing Cyrus treat the animals with such kindness made Thalia's heart warm, before she frowned and tried to stomp it out. As the little cats mewed at the boy, Grover turned his gaze to Cyrus himself. "Well...it looks like you might be stuck with them. Because it seems like they've imprinted on you. You're their dad now?"

Cyrus's eyes widened before he rubbed his temples again. "Gimme a break...then again, maybe this isn't so bad..." He finished, smiling down at the cats.

"Well what do we do? We can't take them with us." Phoebe said, even as she felt a pang of guilt at the statement. Those little cubs had no business being so cute!

"...Grover, you still can do that Satyr Sanctuary blessing right?" The satyr jerked up a little at being addressed, before nodding.

"Uh, yeah? Why do you ask?"

"Do you think you can put that blessing on these little ones so that they can find their way to camp?" Cyrus asked. Grover nodded, eager to help the animals...even if they were extinct apex predators.

"Sure!" The satyr kneeled down next to the kittens, whispering a blessing to them before getting up and nodding to Cyrus.

The Stand User nodded, before pulling the cloak off of the cats and nudging them with his hands. "Go on little ones. I'll see you at camp!"

A chorus of mews came in reply before they scampered off.

Zoe watched them go, a ghost of a smile on her face before she turned back to Cyrus. "Thou were going to explain your powers yes?"

Cyrus grimaced, but nodded. "Right, where was I?"

"Something about every alternate version of yourself being aware of your Stand's existence or whatever." Thalia chimed in, grumbling a little.

"Right, right. So, because every alternate version of me knows about D4C and I can travel to said universes, there's this...other trick I can do because of my Stand's nature." Cyrus spoke hesitantly.

"My D4C can basically...how do I put this...transfer itself to other versions of me. Transferring like that gives that other me the same memories that the original me had, D4C itself, and basically makes that version of me the real one." He finished quickly, scratching at the back of his head.

Percy blinked, and if anyone looked, they could see his brain come melting out of his ears. "Uh...what?"

Thalia's eyes widened as the metaphorical penny in the air dropped. "That's how you survived those fights!" She shouted as things began to click together. All those times he'd been wounded or hurt when they'd been traveling in the older days, he'd never gone for any Nectar or Ambrosia. He'd just miraculously heal! It even explained how he survived Hellrider's fire breath and Oyecomova's explosions!

"Whenever you get wounded or whatever, you just hop universes then transfer D4C to that version of you so you can come back perfectly fine!" Thalia added, voicing her realization. It was no wonder why her uncle would get annoyed with that!

Everyone gaped in awe. What an incredible ability...

"And thou can bring other versions of thyself to aid thee in battle. Extraordinary, "Zoe admitted, before tilting her head in question. "But what about what happened with that foul Stand User from earlier? There were two of him."

"Yeah, couldn't he have just teamed up with his other version? Could we do the same?" Cyrus's eyes widened as he shook his head frantically as that last bit left Percy's mouth.

"No! Absolutely not!" Cyrus snapped out, making everyone back away at his seriousness.

Thalia, noticing how on edge he was, this time opted for the more gentle approach. "Well why not Cy?"

Suddenly she recalled something he had said during the battle, "'No person can exist as two of the same person in the same world, save for me.'" She mused out loud.

The Stand User nodded gravely. "Nothing except for me can exist as the same thing in the same world. One thing must go back, otherwise if they get close...well, I'm sure you saw what happened to that enemy."

Everyone shivered at that. The visual of the man's body ripping up into weird squares was jarring.

"So...is that it?" Percy asked.

Cyrus scratched at the back of his head somewhat nervously. "More or less...there's a lot of things I have to test out with D4C. I probably haven't even scratched the surface of D4C's powers...but that's something to talk about later." He finished, removing the chance for any other questions.

Percy didn't really like that deflection. His eyes narrowed a little.

He could respect the demigod, that was for sure. He was strong, powerful, and extremely clever. He had a knack for leadership as well, and when he wasn't ribbing on Percy, he was pretty fun.

But at the same time, Cyrus was extremely secretive, kind of a jerk (at least to him), and honestly really scary. Like what was that whole thing with the creepy explosives dude? That demeanor the Stand User had when he took that guy down was...terrifying to say the least.

Needless to say, Percy still didn't fully trust him. He reminded him of Luke with his secretiveness...

Thalia frowned at that. How many secrets did he have? She shivered as she wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the chill now that she didn't have the conversation to distract herself from it all.

Cyrus apparently noticed, frowning a little as he took off his cloak and wrapped it around her. She blushed faintly at that and his warm smile as he did so, turning away with huff.

"I'm still annoyed with him. It's not fair he does stuff like this when I'm pissed with him for not telling me the truth!"

Chuckling a little to himself while bundling up in his coat a bit, Cyrus looked around at the rest of the group, noticing that the others were also in states of chills from the cold. "Hmmm, a little heat would do us some good..." He muttered to himself before noticing a little warmth and light off to his left.

Beckoning them over, he realized that it was a little trashcan fire, with a homeless man sitting down and tending to it. A hood obscured his face, but he gave them a smile as they approached.

"Come 'round guys," He said in a croaky voice, gesturing with a withered hand, "plenty of room for ya kiddos near th' fire."

Not willing to complain, Grover and Percy sat next to each other on the homeless man's right, rubbing their hands together for warmth.

"Oh thank Gods! My hooves are freezing!"

Percy gave him a glare of 'dude he's right there' followed by correcting him. "Your feet are freezing."

Cyrus sat on the man's left, followed by Thalia, Zoe and Phoebe.

Phoebe shivered a little as she pulled her cloak around her a bit more. "Well now what? We're stuck in Gods know where and no real clues to Lady Artemis's location aside from just 'west'!"

Zoe grumbled in commiseration with her fellow Hunter. "At this rate, we will not reach our destination."

The homeless man seemed to take an interest in that, leaning forward to ask. "And where would tha' be?"

Cyrus looked at the homeless man curiously for a moment. He seemed familiar...

He discreetly summoned D4C behind him as a minor test, having it hover just over his shoulder. Cyrus smirked a little as the homeless man turned a little towards him, with his enhanced senses feeling a touch of divinity.

"I see...well, I won't turn down help." He thought to himself, dismissing his Stand.

"We're looking for a way west. A quick one. I don't suppose you'd know one?"

The others looked at him curiously while the man gave a wild giggle. "Well, you could always follow the Sun!" He said, pointing to an advert nearby.

"Sunwest Line huh?" Cyrus arched an eyebrow in amusement as he turned back to the homeless man. "What's your name? I don't recall getting it earlier."

"Ah, everyone just calls me Fred." The man replied with a grin. Cyrus smirked, "Well guys, guess we've found a ride. Go ahead, I'll catch up!"

Giving him strange looks, his friends did as he asked, leaving him alone with 'Fred'. The Stand User gave a lopsided grin as he turned, calling over his shoulder. "Your incognito needs some work it seems! Just like your sharpshooting!"

"Right let's see...ah here we are. Sunwest Line." Cyrus chuckled as they walked into the station. Completely unfazed, he continued on, walking right onto the train.

Everyone winced as the lights suddenly came on, only to gape in disbelief.

Apparently, Sunwest Line's train was a freight containing a number of extremely high end cars.

"Ah, subtlety truly is not in your repertoire old friend. Then again, I love me a good set of wheels."

While Percy and Grover ran for the blue Maserati Spyder, Zoe and Phoebe grabbed a silver Ford Mustang. Chuckling to himself, Cyrus paused for a moment, doing a minor count up in his head before paling when he reached a conclusion.

That left him and Thalia to find seats.

He turned to see the girl in question staring at him with a smirk on her lips. "Erm...do you want to pick?"

She shook her head. "You pick, I'm just going to tag along." Her voice was sickly sweet, promising him that not so nice things were up ahead.

Cyrus's shoulders slumped a little. "Wonderful..." He muttered to himself as he chose, surprisingly, the same model that they had managed to steal off of Giuseppe. He quite liked it...maybe he could cash in a favor from Hermes and get it to camp. The Hephaestus cabin would have a field day with it no doubt.

Thankfully, the doors were open, so Cyrus didn't have to warp in with D4C. He opted to sit in the backseat, considering he'd be able to lay down and rest up a bit. Thalia however, also went for the backseat. They sat next to each other, with Thalia staring at him while Cyrus refused to look her in the eye.

Awkward.

"...So..."

Whack!

Cyrus felt his cheek burn as he turned to face Thalia, who was looking...well, angry would be the biggest understatement of the year.

"Thals I-"

This time she opted for punching him in the arm.

"You stupid, stupid idiot!"

The Stand User frowned as her punches began to lose strength.

"Do you have...any idea how watching you fight those two felt?!"

"What is she talking about? She has to mean fighting Giuseppe and Ernesto right? What was wrong with..." It hit him suddenly.

A single tear fell from her eye as the punches stopped. He looked at her closer and his heart dropped like a stone.

Thalia Grace held back a sob as she glared at him with a few angry tears welling in her eyes.. "I-I had to watch you d...again. I had to see it again, and again!"

Cyrus swallowed and looked down. It had been seven years...he'd gotten more or less used to having D4C to essentially replace himself in order to deal with...mortality issues over the years.

He forgot how painful it must've been for others to watch.

Reaching forward, he took her into his arms, hugging gently. He could feel his shirt getting wet with a few tears that slipped out.

She gripped onto his cloak tightly, burying her face in his shoulder. "You scared me..."

Cyrus felt like he'd been shot, except being shot had hurt less.

"I did?" He whispered, with a calmness that betrayed his thoughts.

"I saw you burning, then I saw you explode like five times! Then how you were acting...W-why can't you just trust me and tell me what happened when you were gone..." He bit his lip at her words, feeling more and more guilt weighing him down as she spoke.

"I-I..." He hesitated. So much had happened since he had left them after he resurrected himself with D4C. His little adventures across the world, dealing with various Gods and Goddesses...his time in Italy and...what he had done...and how he'd left to protect her. He couldn't just tell her everything. But maybe...

Cyrus grimaced a little. He really sucked when it came to girls crying.

He held her at arms length, pulling away a little as she kept looking down.

D4C, as if sensing its master's distress, appeared next to him, floating by his side. It leaned down, and gently began wiping Thalia's tears. She flinched a little, looking up to stare into the Stand's pinkish eyes.

Despite the usual apathetic gaze that the humanoid possessed, it looked to Thalia like D4C actually had a decent bit of emotion to it. It had seemed so angry and vicious when it had brutalized Giuseppe, and cold rage was on its face when it easily disposed of Ernesto.

"Well duh, it's his soul. It makes sense that it'll show his emotions." A stray thought in her mind brought up. But that wasn't the point. This time its eyes were showing a different series of emotions.

Sadness, pain, nervousness, guilt, guilt, guilt.

She looked back at Cyrus, who sighed and refused to meet her gaze for a moment. He seemed to be wrestling with himself for a moment, before sighing and looking her in the eyes.

"I'm sorry Thals...I'll answer your questions, but within reason. If I don't answer something, it's for a reason. And I promise that it is a good reason, so please don't push me on those ones. Okay?"

The daughter of Zeus took a moment to compose herself.

She sniffled a little before clearing her throat. "You never answered how exactly you lived through your death and why you look seventeen."

Cyrus stared at her for a moment, his eyes teasing a little. "Of all the things you ask first, you ask that one about my age? Careful Thals~" He smirked, making her glare.

"Answers Cy."

He waved her off a little. "I'm teasing I'm teasing." His expression turned solemn. "Back then I was still getting used to using D4C's powers. I'd only really used warping and occasionally swapping out with others to deal with the bigger wounds that I took. But I'd never taken a..."

"A killing blow."

Cyrus nodded slowly, before running a hand through his hair. "The way my Stand works is by aligning worlds so that the locations that I am in match up. So if I'm in New York, but another version of me is in California, the universes align in a way that I can hop in between...and the same thing works with time."

The daughter of Zeus listened with rapt attention as he continued. "Space aligns for me...time doesn't. So when I got...you know, I managed to do a last second swap. But it was my first time doing something like that, so I ended with a version of me that wasn't my age at the time. It was a universe where I was a ten year old. But there wasn't any time so I just switched with him. From there I just kind of...aged up normally." (3)

"I...I guess that makes sense." She murmured, before looking at him curiously. "Wait, how many times have you swapped yourself out, from you...dying?"

Cyrus looked up at the ceiling, his silence giving his answer.

She looked down for a moment, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by everything. "Why didn't you tell m-us? That you were alive?"

The greenish-pink eyes turned sad again. "I...I can't answer that one Thals."

Her eyes hardened as she looked back up at him.

"Can't or won't?"

"...I can explain a part of it when we group back up with the others."

"Why can't you explain everything?"

"..."

Thalia scowled, before he stopped her with a hand. "Remember what I said. I can't explain it right now Thals, please."

She wasn't happy with it, but she nodded.

"Anything else?" The young Stand User asked.

She thought for a moment, trying to reorganize her thoughts before she blurted out. "So, you can bring other versions of yourself to this world, right?"

The user of D4C tilted his head in confusion. "Yeah?"

"Are they all exactly like you?"

"Uh...not exactly?"

Thalia arched an eyebrow as the caramel-toned boy fumbled with his words, stomping mercilessly down on that little part of her that found that endearing.

"A lot of them are incredibly similar to this me, yeah. But there are an infinite number of universes, each with their own changes." He explained, waving his hands as he tried to illustrate it for her. "And in a few, I can be pretty different."

"Different how?"

He chuckled a little, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, in some universes, I'm taller, shorter, darker-toned...some have more drastic changes, like being a satyr like Grover, or like before when I was ten years old instead of the age I was supposed to be or even something like me being a different gender. I don't really go near those ones very much."

Thalia blinked at that and Cyrus could have have sworn she was a tinge of red. "Huh...and you can bring versions of yourself over."

"Well yeah, you saw two of me with that whole 'escape from the skeletons' thing remember?" Thalia shook her head, as if ridding herself of some thoughts and yawning a little. (4)

Cyrus sighed, noting the time on the dashboard of the car. "It's late, we should get some slee-"

A stomp on his foot interrupted him, making him bite his lip in an attempt not to yell. He glared. "What was that for?!"

"For making me think you were dead against that idiot road-hog we fought on the way to D.C." She said before stomping again.

"OW!" "And that, was for scaring me in that fight against that creepy explosion guy." She finished, before turning to crawl into the shotgun seat.

Cyrus could feel his face reddening as her rear was shaken in his face involuntarily, before forcing himself to look away. "Uh...night night?"

"Shut it Cy."

The boy sighed, before laying down along the length of the back seat. It took a bit, but eventually he fell into the blissful arms of Morpheus.

Demigod dreams were always odd.

Usually they were some form of prophetic or in most of demigod terms 'crappy.'

Cyrus didn't have that issue surprisingly. His dreams tended to be quite calm and natural, with no visions or the like.

But, imagine his surprise when he found himself standing in a familiar area. It was a very nice penthouse in Rome, Italy, overlooking the Tiber River. He was standing by one of the windows viewing the Rome skyline, and he could spot various locations, including a certain spot which led underneath the ancient city. Where he had sent a certain spider straight to Hell itself.

It was a penthouse, specifically his penthouse, that was both ornate and simple, with the necessities of life but also having a few beautiful paintings and pictures adorning the walls. He was currently standing in the study room, with a bookshelf covering one wall, and a desk in the middle of the room, a large gilded chair that could be considered a throne of sorts, and three chairs on the opposite side of the desk.

He turned to see a figure seated in one of said chairs, the silhouette of a Crown of Thorns giving away who it was.

"I believe we must speak." The Saint spoke, making Cyrus scratch at the back of his head nervously.

"Very well then." Cyrus replied as he took his seat upon the throne-like chair.

AN: I'll be honest with ya.

I'm a little iffy on how this chapter turned out, but now that I look back with it, I'm decently satisfied, so I hope you guys are as well.

Not very much of a fighty chapter considering how much happened in the last two chapters, and a bit more of an explanatory thing. Hopefully I did a good job with how Cyrus tried to explain his powers (to avoid getting butchered by his quest members) and how everyone seemed to react to said explanations.

Of course, our protagonist still has so very many secrets to keep, and he'll be able to hold onto a lot...for now.

And of course, I hope I handled the more wholesome/romantic aspect between Cyrus and Thalia well. That one honestly took a little to draft out, ngl.

Notes:

(1) Lets be honest. Valentine was a guy with noble intentions for sure. But he definitely was a massive dick about it all. He sacrificed people left and right, deeming them as 'necessary casualties' in his quest to attain the Saint's Corpse. And among those were keeping information from his subordinates, no matter what. Cyrus respects Valentine's (at least partial) nobility, but not his methods in their entirety.

(2) Two things of the same thing cannot exist in the same world and if they collide, they explode. Why not use this as a weapon in the form of a bomb?

(3) Okay, so big-ish note time. D4C's ability is described explicitly as having multiple universes coexist in the same place and/or the same time according to the wiki, but in the source material itself, it only ever mentions the same location. However, space and time can be different between universes. So how then does D4C make for the same location to always happen? I interpret this as D4C literally forcing worlds to coexist in the same location, like a pin holding multiple papers together on a bulletin board.

Suppose for example, a word on a paper also exists on another paper, but in different physical locations on said paper. D4C works as a pin, aligning these two locations and pinning them together. This is what Cyrus means by D4C being the lynchpin.

The same goes for Time. Time can run differently between universes. Now that Cyrus is older and more experienced with D4C, he's figured out how to avoid it, but in his time with the other three Half-Bloods, he was not as experienced and ended up hopping to a non-optimal universe.

(4) Haha, pervy thoughts.

Alright, that does it for the notes! A bit long, but hopefully informative.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed making/struggling with it.

Remember to leave solid reviews if you would be so kind. The criticism and feedback sustain my mind.

Cheers!

Beowulf