Circe
A special shoutout to TheFire44, Moneybiniart, and anyone else who went and read Alleviate. I hope you thought it was a good story, too.
As for this story, it continues! I'm thinking we'll get to the end of this arc and then call it for a while. It'll be RSD and AC:T to the finish, and then back to the Chaos War.
As for whether Voidwalker Percy will feature in the Chaos War, it's certainly possible. Haven't really given it that much thought yet.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or Dishonored
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Annabeth expected to hop into the water and then go shooting through it, kind of like being dragged behind a ski boat after having lost your balance. She didn't expect it to hurt, per se, since she was with Percy, and she figured his water powers would prevent any pain. Instead of either of these things, Annabeth was treated to the supremely uncomfortable feeling of being turned into bubbles.
Or at least, that was the best way she could describe the sensation, being turned into bubbles.
Her body tingled the way her lip and mouth did when coming into contact with an ice cold, carbonated, bubbly coke. A specific part of her body tingled in a way that Annabeth certainly did not like when she was "reassembled," for lack of a better word, in the surf of Camp Half-Blood. She really hoped Percy put her back together correctly. His comment did not help her confidence.
"Wow. That actually worked. Never tried that with another person before, and never that far."
Annabeth stood on rubbery legs, legs that gave out on her, leading her to land flat on her butt in the wet sand, coating her rear in the tan granules while also getting her shorts and underwear completely drenched in seawater. She tried again, succeeding this time, but before she could say anything…
"You have a sandy butt," Percy stated academically.
"Thank you, Mr. Holmes."
"No, my name's Perseus Breanna Copperspoon. But you can call me Percy."
Annabeth's eye twitched, but she kept her cool. He didn't grow up in this world, which meant that he had no knowledge of its pop culture, meaning that all references would be totally lost to him….Meaning all pop culture references would be totally lost to him. Annabeth internally grinned, her anger at the fact that she apparently could've just died melting away as many devious plans formed in her mind to take advantage of this cretin's ignorance.
"Okay, Percy. Come on. We need to get to Mr. D and Chiron before they let out the Xenos."
"The what?"
"They're these monsters that lay eggs in your body through your mouth, and when the eggs hatch, the hatchlings burst out of your chest. Very painful. Very messy."
"Good to know. Thanks."
"You're welcome. Let's go!"
Annabeth went sprinting across camp, her wet bottoms drying in the summer sun. She was really hoping no one saw her, especially her butt, because it would be hard to convince people that A) she did not have an accident, and B) she and Percy had not been doing anything together on the beach. So, of course, that meant that half the camp saw her sprinting with the new guy from the beach area.
It didn't help that Percy was decked out in his full assassin gear, with black overcoat, black muscle shirt underneath tucked into black pants which were in turn tucked into black boots. His mask was at his side, and Annabeth could see his utility belt, his mortal tonfa swords still holstered at his thighs. He'd gotten dressed mid-water travel.
Must've been nice being able to do that, get fully dressed just by hopping into some water.
Annabeth didn't have to run as far as she thought they'd have to. This time of day, she figured Dionysus and Chiron to be at the Big House, but instead they were in the middle of the cabin area…wait. No. Hold on. They weren't. Mr. D was, but there was someone with him that was decidedly not Chiron.
Chiron didn't wear orange prison jumpsuits, and he certainly didn't bark orders at any camper who passed by.
"I thought Chiron was a centaur," Percy said, confused. "Is he in disguise or something?"
"That is not Chiron," Annabeth growled.
Chiron's absence and the situation at hand was leading Annabeth to form some very disconcerting conclusions.
She marched up to this person, ignoring Mr. D who was idly sipping at his customary can of Diet Coke as he sat in a lawn chair.
"Who're you?" Annabeth demanded. "Where's Chiron?"
"A daughter of Athena," the man sniffed. "Devoid of manners like the rest of your…siblings. Can't really call yourself siblings if you pop out of Athena's head instead where babies are supposed to pop out of, can you?"
Annabeth bristled, and Percy's impatience was beginning to mount.
"My dear, I am Tantalus, Chiron's replacement forever."
"Replacement!?"
Tantalus stuck a finger in his ear. "Yes, little banshee, replacement. Can't have an assistant director who goes around poisoning the tree of the sky god, can we?"
Annabeth balked. "Chiron would never-!"
"Oh, I agree," Dionysus said tersely. "However, it was under Chiron's watch that the Thalia's Pine was poisoned, and so he's been chosen as the fall guy."
"But that's not fair!"
"What's not fair," Tantalus cut in, "is that I am now free of the Underworld, and I still cannot eat anything!"
He leveled a withering glare at the ground, and that's when Annabeth noted the double cheeseburger bouncing around his feet. That was almost a consolation.
"This has been a truly riveting conversation," Percy said, "but we really need to get going. There's a quest that we need to get started on."
"A quest?" Tantalus sniffed. "A quest for whatever for?"
"The Golden Fleece," Annabeth answered. "It has the magic we need to heal Thalia's Pine and power the borders back up."
By now, the majority of camp had gathered in a big, loose circle around the speakers. Hearing about the Golden Fleece and its restorative powers was getting them hyped up for some action, and hopefully some relief from Tantalus. The man hadn't even been here a full three days and anyone that interacted with him for three seconds was ready to be rid of him forever.
The new boy in black was also drawing some attention.
"Nonsense," Tantalus dismissed. "The borders are just fine. Besides, we have so many fine half-bloods here; the camp will be safe."
"Seven kids have already died!" someone shouted from the crowd.
It was the spark to ignite a wildfire of comments and criticism, and Dionysus let Tantalus burn alive and alone.
"Alright! Alright!" the cursed man finally shouted, broken under the pressure. "I shall consider a quest-ah!"
A sharp gasp went through the whole assembly, and Dionysus even spat out his coke, when the new boy literally vanished from where he stood and appeared behind Tantalus, tonfa swords in hand, the short ends leveled at the man's throat and side, ready to sever the arteries and slip through the ribs and into the heart with but a twitch of the muscles.
"It was less of a request for permission and more of a statement of our intentions," Percy said in Tantalus's ear. "I don't really care for the formalities; I was just going along with them to avoid a hassle, but this has become one too. I'm gonna go try out this Oracle thing now, and I'm going to cut your head off if you get in my way. Slowly exhale if you understand."
Exhale instead of nod because if Tantalus moved his head, he was going to get stabbed. Tantalus slowly exhaled, the fear of Hades back in his eyes.
"Good. Annabeth! Where's the Oracle?"
"Th-The Big House…" she pointed to the Big House.
"Thanks."
Percy stopped poking Tantalus with his sword. He spun on the ball of his foot, the tails of his coat swishing, and twirled his tonfas as he had gotten into the habit of doing. He rubbed his thumb over the top of them and they turned back into rings. The campers all moved out of his way as he set a brisk pace towards the Big House.
That exchange served as a great reminder to Annabeth that Percy didn't actually care about camp. He was focused on saving his new siblings, and to that end, Annabeth felt a seed of worry and doubt bloom within her. If it became necessary that the Fleece had to be kept with Tea and Bell, would Percy give it up for the camp?
Annabeth was leaning towards a very hard no on that one.
As for Tantalus, despite having just been threatened by a teleporting young man and almost having his vital organs pierced and nodding in understanding of a death threat, felt a spike of pride go driving through him. He was a king! Was now currently a king—the king of Camp Half-Blood! How dare this servant speak to him like this!
Tantalus's blood pressure rose, his face turning red as he whipped around with a brandished finger.
"Who do you think-!"
SCHWING
It happened so fast that even all these individuals with their superhuman reflexes barely saw it. There had been a swirl of black and a thin flash of light, some people swearing they had seen Percy twitch and flicker like a poorly edited video, and Tantalus's head popped free from his neck with a splash of blood. The head went rolling and the body hit the ground with a thud, crimson fluid pouring and pumping out of the new holes.
Percy hadn't broken stride it seemed.
There were a few seconds of shock, even Mr. D just sitting there with wide eyes, and then someone cheered. Then the whole camp was cheering, and Annabeth figured that was as close to permission as they were going to get without Dionysus actually saying something.
Dionysus sipped his coke. He didn't know this new kid, though he had his strong suspicions, but he liked him already.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Percy did not walk across the grounds to the Big House. Instead, he used Foresight, sent his spirit all the way out to the Big House, looked around until he found what he thought was the Oracle up in the attic—the shriveled mummy woman—set a Displacement marker, cancelled Foresight, and then initiated Displacement. Probably scared a whole lot of people, but that wasn't Percy's concern at the moment.
The "asking permission" thing went over about as well as he expected it to, and he didn't have any high hopes for the Oracular prophecy. He was just playing by the rules because he viewed them more as guidelines than actual rules. He didn't know where he was or who he was dealing with for the most part, and so he wasn't going to jump too far in unless he knew he could swim in whatever water he was jumping into. Caution and all that.
Percy stared at the mummy woman, trying to figure out how to make it work. He tapped it with his foot, poked it with his finger, and almost sliced its head off with his sword.
"How do you work!?" Percy cried, annoyed.
The Oracle came to life, eyes glowing green, glowing green mist pouring out of its mouth.
"Oh. Voice command."
Approach, seeker, and ask.
Percy blinked. "Where, exactly, in the…ah, Sea of Monsters, I think she said…is the Golden Fleece?"
P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney
"…huh?"
I don't care at this point. Prophecies don't work with this guy.
"…huh?"
Look, just get down to the Sea of Monsters, and everything will work itself out.
The green mist was slurped back into the Oracle's mouth, her eyes went out, and she apparently went back to sleep.
"Um, okay…thanks."
Percy didn't know what to make of this, but he did feel like even more of his time had just been wasted.
This was the last time he bothered with permission and Oracles, dammit!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Percy once again used Foresight and Displacement, his go-to combo, to look at the bottom floors of the Big House and around the general perimeter. He found Dionysus and Annabeth both waiting below in the living room and no external threats, and so he Displaced right there before the two. Annabeth jumped and screamed, popping to her feet with her knife drawn, while Dionysus looked intrigued.
"Don't do that!" Annabeth shouted, panting.
Percy stared at her. "You don't do that. I usually kill whoever points a knife in my face."
Considering everything she'd already seen, Annabeth exercised some wisdom and hastily put her knife away. "What'd the Oracle say?"
"Just get down to the Sea of Monsters and everything will work itself out," Percy quoted.
He received two stares.
"That's it?" Annabeth asked, bewildered.
"Yep. Is she usually more talkative?"
"Yes," Dionysus answered. "And more cryptic. And vaguer. And ominous. And a lot more…rhymey…"
"Rhymey?" Percy repeated flatly.
"Yeah. Usually, Oracular prophecies have a rhyme-scheme to them," Annabeth answered. "For example, the Lightning Thief prophecy went:
You shall go west and face the god who has turned
You shall find what was stolen and see it safely returned
You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend
And fail to save what matters most in the end
"That was what me, Tea, Bell, and Grover had to work with during our quest."
"Neat," Percy said. "Sounds like we're going to have less of a headache this time around."
Annabeth bit the inside of her cheek, a panic rising within her at the lack of a somewhat obscure directional prophecy. No inherent place to go, no indication of a threat, no warning about a situation or circumstance, just…go to this place. Granted, it wasn't like there were that many gaps. The Sea of Monsters was directly to the South, there was going to be Scylla and Charybdis, probably a lot of other monsters, and Polyphemus himself, along with his sheep.
Annabeth swallowed. "Yeah. Sounds like it. Uh, I'll go get my stuff ready. Oh! And we need to pick a third member. Quests need three people."
Percy pointed his fingers to the ceiling. "No," he said with a smile. "I only somewhat know who you are. I'm not bringing some other person I definitely do not know. Besides, you said we needed permission—not really—and a prophecy from the Oracle—which we technically didn't get—so I'm seeing a pattern about things you say we need to do, that we don't actually need to do."
Annabeth shifted.
"Your last quest was accomplished with four people," Dionysus casually reminded her.
Annabeth's face turned red. "I'll just go get my things ready."
She went to leave, but not before the god of madness threw one last comment out.
"Don't forget the tampons this time!"
Annabeth wen sprinting out the door.
Percy blinked. "This time?"
Dionysus giggled around his coke can.
"What are tampons?"
Dionysus spewed coke out of his nose with a raucous laugh.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I think we should get a boat," Percy said when Annabeth returned with a grey backpack. "Easier for you since you can't handle water like I can."
"Uh, thanks."
"Where's the nearest port? Or do you have boats here?"
"Fresh out of boats," Dionysus said. "Unless you want to take one of the canoes out to sea."
"Nah. Annabeth's sea legs aren't good enough for a canoe."
Annabeth knew it was the truth, knew that it wasn't meant as an insult, but she still felt insulted. Her cheeks were dusted red in anger. "Thanks, dude."
"Dude?"
"Montauk is South of us," Annabeth said. "We can find a port there and take a boat. I'll meet you at the beach so we can water travel."
She got up and left.
Percy looked at Dionysus. "Did I say something?"
"Yes."
"What'd I say?"
"Something," Dionysus shrugged, examining a wine magazine.
"You're annoyingly impersonal."
"Yes…yes, I am."
"I'm going to leave you now."
"Bye-bye."
"Bye."
Percy did not actually get up and leave. Instead, he used his Swap power. He had dropped a marked nail on the beach earlier while Annabeth was struggling to stand and unwet her pants, and so Dionysus was left blinking in confusion when Percy vanished and in his place was your standard box nail. The wine god stared at the nail, wondering if there was some kind of cosmic imagery or symbolism or foreshadowing at work, and after drawing a blank, he just shrugged and went back to his magazine.
Poor kid probably wouldn't be living for any more than a week.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Procuring a boat for sail was not hard. Annabeth just snapped her fingers in front of some guy's face and he happily gave his keys over. It wasn't the most flattering ship in the harbor, but not the worst. It was an older fishing boat kept in good enough condition, known as the Orca.
"What was that thing you did?" Percy asked Annabeth once they were out into the open ocean, heading South. "The thing where you snapped your fingers."
"That was the Mist," she answered. She opened her mouth again to explain what the Mist was, but Percy beat her too it.
"Oh~! Yeah, I know what the Mist is. Magical barrier that twists perceptions to keep the monsters and the gods hidden."
"…more or less," Annabeth conceded.
"What are tampons?"
The blonde went rigid. "What?" she asked, looking up at Percy to examine his face, searching for any kind of trickery or facetiousness. She found no such things. Percy was being totally earnest, genuinely curious, and was completely lost about feminine hygiene.
Percy blinked, head slightly cocked to the side. "Tampons. Dionysus mentioned them, but didn't tell me what they were."
Annabeth saw a golden opportunity.
"Tampons are a magic booster that can only be used by girls once every month. When a girl uses a tampon, she becomes nearly unstoppable. Strength, speed, stamina—tampons are so powerful, that we're not allowed to use them during CTF games at camp, or else the boys would get super hurt. Even Mr. D won't mess with a girl when uses a tampon."
"How come Tea didn't use a tampon when she went up against Ares?" Percy asked, remembering the story as Bell had told him.
"…Tea had already used her tampon for the month," Annabeth answered carefully.
"Darn. If tampons are as good as you, then Tea should've wrecked Ares."
"Mm-hm, tampons are awesome."
"And they can only be used by girls? Once a month?"
"Yep."
And then Percy made Annabeth's day.
"I wish I were a girl, that way I could use a tampon."
The blonde turned around so her ear-to-ear grin wouldn't be seen, and she had to fight to keep her maniacal laughter down inside her lungs. However, the tables were turned on her barely a second later.
"That way I could totally kick Zeus's butt and make him make Tea and Bell better again."
Annabeth turned back around, the mirth gone from her, replaced with trepidation, caution, and surprise. "Percy…you didn't even spend a full two hours with them. Why are you willing to go so far for them?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Percy returned, sounding honestly confused. "They're my brother and sister. I've never had a brother or a sister before, and I want to find out what's it like. Wouldn't you go that far for your brothers and sisters? I saw a lot of kids that looked like you—grey eyes and blonde hair."
Annabeth became pensive.
"Percy…ah…um…it's…it's kind of complicated. Gods don't have DNA like mortals do, that's why they can commit incest and not end up with defective children…for the most part. Because there's no DNA, we can all date each other, cabin to cabin, because while we're all technically cousins, we're also not. But inter-cabin dating is off-limits. Kids in the same cabin do kind of…we do kind of see each other as siblings, since we have the same godly parent, but…"
She trailed off, unable to put the intricacies of demigod familial relationships into words.
"You think too much," Percy said simply. "You're in the same cabin. You have the same mom. You're brothers and sisters. Besides, whatever you just said didn't answer my question: wouldn't you go that far for your brothers and sisters?"
Annabeth's mouth set into a thin line as she thought of all her cabinmates, the younger and the older, the weirder and the tamer…and someone else, the one whom she was instructed to hate and revere as a traitor, and now had personal motivation to do so since he poisoned Thalia. He was more of a brother than anyone else to Annabeth, even her mortal half-brothers and godly half-brothers. If he had been cursed by the gods to slowly grow sicker and sicker until he finally died, would she be willing to cross Zeus himself?
"Yes," Annabeth answered. "I'd go that far for my brothers and sisters."
"Okay, then," Percy said in a tone that closed any argument and debate about his motivations. To emphasize that, he switched subjects. "How far are we from the Sea of Monsters?"
Annabeth had to think about it, drew a blank, and she went rummaging through the drawers and cabinets until she found a map of the Atlantic coasts. She unfurled it and beckoned Percy to stand next to her.
"We're here," she pointed to the sliver of land that was the tip of Long Island, "and the closest entry to the Bermuda Triangle is here," she pointed to the blip of land known as Bermuda, "and given the scale of the map…" she started walking her fingers across the surface until she crossed the distance between Montauk and Bermuda, and then proudly declared, "we are a little over 700 miles away from the Sea of Monsters!"
Percy stared at her. "700 miles?"
"Yep. And given this boat's top speed is-"
"What's a mile?" Percy interrupted.
Annabeth had to pause. She had to remind herself that this boy was literally out of this world. "Do you know what a kilometer is?"
"Yes."
How do you know what a kilometer is but not a mile!? Annabeth internally raged. "Okay, 700 miles is about…uh, is somewhere between 1100 and 1200 kilometers, and since this boat's top speed is 35 knots-"
"It'll take us over eighteen hours to get to Bermuda from here."
Annabeth was once again thrown for another loop. He didn't know what miles were, but knew what kilometers were, and knew how to convert knots to km/hr, and then divide that into 1200 off the top of his head.
"Uh, yeah. Looks like we'll be sailing for a while." Annabeth suddenly blanched. "Oh, gods, the toilet in this thing probably hasn't been cleaned since it first set sail."
ADHD, ladies and gentlemen.
Percy, however, was not concerned about toilets. Some of the sigils on his skeleton dealt with his metabolism, and so he could go longer without eating on less food than others. Part of what made him such a difficult potty-trainer was lack of reps, shall we say. No, what occupied Percy's mind was the fact that there was no guarantee of his siblings' survival until sixteen.
From what he'd been told, the curse would just naturally progress until sixteen. If they made it, then they were the Child of Prophecy as determined by the Fates, which they weren't, obviously. However, if they died beforehand, then they weren't the Child and Olympus had one less threat to worry about. Percy was determined to prevent them dying from Zeus's pettiness, and time was a factor to him.
If Percy could avoid it simply because of how much of a hassle it would be, he would. It being the storming of the Underworld to retrieve the souls of his siblings.
As such, concluding that it was going to take eighteen hours, an entire day and then some—and even that wasn't entirely accurate since this boat would not handle full speed for that length of time—made Percy mad. He felt the stress, the constraint, the urgency, and having literally never dealt with this kind of stress before in his life, having a relatively easy-going childhood as he trained to be a magical assassin, he had no experience in dealing with it.
So, instead of using some kind of healthy coping mechanism to deal with what suddenly felt like the weight of the world, Percy determined he had no time for caution, no time for questions of what if, and no time to second guess things.
Calling upon levels of power he didn't even know he had, Percy drove the Orca below the waves, fully submerging the boat below the tip of its mainmast. Just like how he'd water-traveled to the shores of CHB with nothing more than a map reference and an application of will, taking Annabeth with him, Percy did the same with the whole boat and everything on/in it.
Everything was going good until it felt like he rammed into a wall, and the boat went popping out of the water, breaching the surface like a shark underneath a seal. As soon as air hit him, Percy's whole body chilled and ached, like he was a normal person that had just climbed an iceberg with a person attached to his back. He'd never tried to use that much power before, especially not in that kind of way, teleporting a whole fishing boat 1200 kilometers in an instant through the sea.
Shakily, Percy reached to his main pouch and pulled out one of his vials of preserved seawater, popped the cork, and poured the liquid upon his head. He felt much better, but only better in the sense that a person that was out of shape felt better three days after their first full-body workout.
Annabeth groaned. "Thanks for the warning,"
"D-Don't mention it."
Annabeth's eyes widened. "Percy!" She ran to his side and helped him get steady. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"Never teleported a boat…through the sea like that before…really draining. Why did it feel like I rammed into a rock?"
Annabeth looked up and saw through the cabin. She paled.
"Annabeth. What is it?"
"We're gonna need a bigger boat," she said lamely.
Percy looked out of the cabin himself and saw the origin of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place." He concluded that he must've hit some kind of magical barrier that forced them into this position, this position being sailing right between a whirlpool with huge rocks spreading out seemingly forever on the other side, meaning going around the whirlpool would be impossible due to how close the rocks were, and the other side had even more rocks, though the one directly across from the whirlpool, close enough that a baseball could be thrown between them, was big and hollow and an occupant.
"Scylla and Charybdis," Percy recalled from the book Poseidon had left Sally. "A nymph cursed by Circe because of Glaucus, and the other is technically my sister."
Annabeth stared at him. "Come again with that last one."
Percy looked at her. "Charybdis is the daughter of Poseidon and Gaea, which is really weird since Gaea is Dad's grandma. She used to be a giant, back when Dad and Zeus were really going at it, and would command the waves after Dad made storms. She drowned villages, forests, and fields. She claimed so much land for Dad that Zeus turned her into what she is now. That."
Annabeth looked at the whirlpool again, this time seeing the jagged, serrated teeth rising out of the swirling water, surrounding a fleshy hole in the epicenter. She looked squeamish at the idea of being eaten and digested alive in the stomach of a huge sea monster. Looking at Scylla, with her six draconian heads and hateful eyes, Annabeth didn't think that was a better option, especially because this fishing boat had no weapons that could be effectively used against the dragon-like beast.
Annabeth looked at Percy to him with his eyes closed. At first she panicked, thinking he'd passed out, but a closer look revealed that to not be the case. He was focusing on something. Annabeth hoped he was trying to make a tidal wave that would carry them over the monsters and safely into the most dangerous and deadly body of water on the planet, but when his eyes opened and he looked miffed, Annabeth figured that was not the case.
"What a bitch," Percy lamented. "You tell a monster you're her brother and she says Siblings are the tastiest. OM-NOM-NOM-NOM!"
Annabeth's mouth fell open.
Percy steered towards Scylla, prompting a squawk from the blonde. "What are you doing!?"
"Uh, what does it look like?"
"That you're heading for Scylla!"
"Yeah, because the rest of Charybdis is underwater, but I can see where Scylla's at."
Annabeth stared at Percy.
"I'm going to kill Scylla," he clarified, saying it like it was something simple, like I'm gonna go get the mail.
"Are you insane!?"
"Maybe. I suppose it depends on your definition of insane. While we're on the topic, do you have a better idea?"
Well…no. Annabeth did not have a better idea.
"Take the wheel and keep us going straight through the strait. Don't go left or right. Just keep us going in a line."
Figuring that was the most useful she was going to be in this situation, Annabeth nodded and took Percy's place at the wheel.
Percy, still feeling exhausted and weak after his most recent stunt, popped two more vials of seawater to go along with the one that was still in effect. That was three down, seven to go. The effects of the seawater were instant, the boost in power and bodily strength being immense with the triple dose.
Staring Scylla down, Percy raised his right hand, his Marked hand, and felt the power of the Void surging through him through the Mark, his magic ready and boosted. Scylla was being stupid, the majority of her body having stepped of her cave, giving Percy one very clear shot at the beast. The Mark glowed brightly with power, and Percy released the biggest, brightest, and loudest Lightning Blast in his life.
Lightning Blast at its lowest setting would sound with a light ting and render someone unconscious. Its lethal setting, for one person, also had that same sound and would turn the target into a pile of ash. For a group of people to be vaporized, the sound was deep BZZZT. This most recent Lightning Blast set a whole new scale.
It was like an actual bolt of lightning from the clouds of a thunderstorm. Big, jagged, uneven, blinding, and an accompanied with an instant clap of thunder that broke the windows of the Orca. That was totally unexpected, and Annabeth was left screaming as glass pelted her from all sides, some shards cutting, some shards lodging. Scylla was completely vaporized by the overpowered Lightning Blast, as well as the majority of the rock she lived in. Percy, for the first time since he'd received his powers, actually felt a significant drain on them.
He estimated that Lightning Blast had just drained about fifteen percent of his total mana reserves.
Since that power was based solely on his mana and not his divinity, Percy felt no more or less drained than what he already was, and still coursing through on his triple dose of seawater, he ran back into the cabin and took the wheel since Annabeth had collapsed and was staring at her bleeding arms with terrified tears in her eyes that she was going to die of blood loss. Not an unfounded fear considering where she'd been cut and how much blood was streaming down her arms to drip off and splatter upon her legs.
Percy turned the wheel to get the ship going straight again, and immediately determined a problem. The steering was out. He did a second look, and determined the engine was also out…along with all the electrical systems. His Lightning Blast had fried the boat, leaving it to drift into the whirlpool of the eager and hungry Charybdis.
Percy abandoned the helm and willingly jumped overboard.
Above the water, Charybdis was a huge mouth with a whole lot of teeth. Below the surface, she was a huge slug-looking thing, her body attached to the seafloor via dozens of chunky legs along her trunk, implying she could actually move around if she wanted to. The scariest part to Charybdis, however, down here in the water, were her eyes.
Big, huge, lidless, human eyes. Four of them on each quadrant of her tube-like form, and just as green as Percy's and the Gates siblings. They were mad eyes, crazed eyes, devoid of any kindness. Only hunger and desire were in those eyes. Even so, Percy delivered one last message to his other cursed sister.
You either let us pass, or I am going to kill you.
The eye on this side of the body focused on Percy, seeing him as a speck in the vast ocean.
I will eat you now.
And then Charybdis moved. Like a lunging snake, she drew away from surface and launched her huge mouth at Percy. His hand glowed as he pointed it at the toothy abyss barreling at him.
From Annabeth's perspective as she sat trembling in the cabin, cold and alone with more blood pooled around her than in her from all her cuts, the water suddenly exploded as if an atom bomb had been detonated. Her body was rocked like never before, the Orca was destroyed, smashed to pieces by the shockwave, and she knew only the embrace of sleep.
She hoped it was sleep, anyway.
She still had so much to live for.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When consciousness returned to Percy, he did not snap awake and go shooting upright. Instead, he laid there, listening for any immediate sounds, feeling what was immediately on him. Felt like silk pajamas, and he was in a bed. The temperature was pleasant, and he could smell vanilla, like a candle, mixed with the salty air of the sea. Distantly, he could hear the whooshing of the surf and the sparse cries of a few gulls.
If he didn't know better, Percy would've thought himself to be back in Karnaca. He'd even go so far to say he was back home in Karnaca, the feel of where he was almost exactly like his bedroom.
After a few minutes of nothing happening, Percy activated Foresight, stopping time and turning into a disembodied spirit that went flying all over this place. He was in some kind of resort that apparently only housed women, witches on top of that considering some of them were in the midst of making potions and were cutting up animals for purposes that were definitely not for your every day lunch, and were busy making symbols on their floors and walls and ceilings.
Some of them were even practicing less than promiscuous activities.
Percy found Annabeth getting a spa treatment of all things, a bunch of out of place guinea pigs, and his equipment was left on the table next to the bed he was on.
Percy didn't detect any overwhelming kind of threat here, which was why he was entirely on edge. His experience with witches was that they played by no rules other than their own, and then they broke their own rules. Kindness was limited to whatever they wanted and whatever they were willing to do to get it. There was always an ulterior motive with witches, some underlying thing they wanted to whatever they said they wanted to your face.
Considering the presence of no other males besides himself, and some guinea pigs, Percy concluded that whoever the head of this coven was, she did not like boys and would most likely do one of three things: turn him into a girl, turn him into a guinea pig, or turn him into a corpse.
Though option three would undoubtedly follow the denials of options one and two.
Percy wondered if he should just burn this place to the ground with everyone in it like he did with the Grand Guard, the Overseers, and the Grand Palace, but then he remembered what happened in lieu of those massacres, how the Empire had come down to Serkonos and made leaving Karnaca that much more difficult. Besides, his destruction of Scylla and Charybdis, along with his murder of Tantalus, had garnered attention of sparky nature.
Probably, anyway.
It was best to keep things a bit closer to his chest.
Then again…
Showing that he had the power and skill to bring down this whole coven would send the message that he was a player, someone to not be taken lightly or messed with.
Then again then again…
These witches hadn't done anything bad to him yet. If anything, they'd been nothing but good so far, somehow rescuing him and Annabeth from the Sea of Monsters, then tending to the blonde, healing her, now pampering her, and they'd taken him, undressed him and redressed him, and put him in this really comfy bed in this really nice room. On top of that, he felt back to full strength, the magical exhaustion following his mini breakdown now completely gone.
Percy looked back through the hallways outside his room and saw a girl about his age approaching, a trainee if he had to guess, but he wouldn't bet on it. You never knew with witches. Still in the spiritual form of Foresight, Percy set a Displacement marker outside the door and then returned to his body.
Time resumed and he sat up, finding that he didn't like white pajamas. They needed to be blue or black. The door opened to reveal the girl. She was cute, of the same ethnicity as Dr. B seeing as they both had the olive skin and dark hair and eyes. The girl wore the uniform of the place, and had her hair tied in a braid that went over her right shoulder.
"Oh, you're awake!" she said.
"No, I'm Percy."
She smiled slightly, and the effort she put into keeping her eyes steady gave her thoughts away.
"I'll go tell Ms. C.C. you're up. She wants to speak with you."
"I'm feeling fine by the way. Whatever you guys did, I feel back to full power. Like I could take on a hundred Scyllas and win."
"That's…great!"
She turned to leave with haste, and smacked into Percy because he Displaced while she was turning around. She fell to her butt inside the room and Percy shut the door behind him, cattiness gone and replaced with total seriousness. She looked up at him, scowling. She popped to her feet, clearly a fighter, and took a stance, ready to throw down instead of call for help.
Percy totally disregarded the hostile display because he could vaporize her with a motion of his hand.
"I know this is a witch's coven and I know all of you are witches. I don't want to slaughter the lot of you, but I will if you get in my way. What I need is Annabeth—unless she wants to stay here, I guess—and directions to Polyphemus's Island. I'm on a quest for the Golden Fleece, not the destruction of this place."
"Slaughter the lot of us? Big talk for a little boy."
"We are literally the same age."
"Yeah? Well I'm fourteen!"
"…so am I," Percy deadpanned. He didn't know if he'd actually lived fourteen full years, but he supposed it really didn't matter right now. "And I literally blew up those sea monsters back there. Do you really want to fight me…kid?"
"I'm not a kid! I'm Reyna!"
"All of that just to get your name. Where are the manners nowadays?"
Reyna growled at him.
"Do you really wanna fight me that badly? All I want to do is leave and find the Golden Fleece."
"It's a principle thing," Reyna insisted. "Boys and men aren't allowed here, and if they end up here, they don't leave. As what they were, anyway."
Percy's eyes narrowed, and Reyna realized she probably said something very wrong. "A little insight to who I am: I'm a killer, Reyna. I'm a trained, professional, army-slayer. I have stormed the stronghold of a duke, laid waste to all his guards, and turned him into a stain on the floor. I've done the same with a church of zealots, and the imperial palace, killing an empress in her own saferoom. Witches or not, I will do the same here. Unless you want to be the catalyst for getting your sisters butchered, I strongly suggest you either get out of my way, or convince your grand witch to let me and Annabeth leave."
Reyna looked stricken by Percy's words. He was telling the truth, she could feel it, and she was caught between what she viewed as cowardice, bowing to Percy's threats, and the smart thing to do, which was bowing to Percy's requests. Yeah, she knew like everyone else that this boy had somehow destroyed both Scylla and Charybdis, and that took a lot of power. Circe claimed he was a new son of Poseidon, one more in touch with his powers over storms, which meant he was a major player.
The actual plan was to persuade him, one way or the other, into joining the coven and giving Circe a massively powerful piece on the mythological board. With this boy either as he was or as a sorceress, he could guarantee the coven's spot in the world as it was, or in even higher places. Everyone was board with that plan, since where they might've been mostly hidden and protected, that wouldn't stop any Olympian from coming down and laying waste to the lot of them.
Circe's witches more or less lived under a hammer, and they were trying to either escape it, protect themselves from it, or break it entirely. This boy could break it as the potential Child of Prophecy, and could even carry the coven into a golden age as the dominant power of the cosmos…potentially.
None of that was going to happen if Percy decided here and now to wipe out the coven because he was a mission and wasn't taking too kindly to being interrupted and threatened.
Reyna swallowed, feeling like she was in a worse position than when she and her sister had entered the Sea of Monsters themselves, stowed away on an outbound ship from Puerto Rico following the ultimate destruction of their insane father. She honestly did not know what to do.
Percy made the choice for her. He took one step towards his gear, and Reyna reacted, pushing forward to attack. Her legs were swept out from under her, and though she moved her arms and twisted her body to spring off her hands, the side of her head was grabbed mid-fall and then she was weightless as Percy flipped her. Reyna's head cracked hard against the floor, her body doing a one-eighty with help from Percy's hand, and she was out.
Percy wasted no time in getting properly dressed. Pants, boots, belt, overcoat despite the heat, magic rings, wristbow, voltaic gun, and finally his gasmask. Rather odd that the witches had left all his stuff in the same room with him, along with all his utilities, but if he had to guess, they weren't really expecting him to turn against them. They were expecting to snare him in whatever spell they had in mind and use him for whatever purpose they had planned.
In light of this little happening, Percy decided he needed to get Annabeth. She was in danger now, in the position to be used against him for the sake of his compliance. He could've just left her here, obviously, since she really wasn't a friend or something like that, just a girl he knew, but she was best friends with Tea and Bell, and that was enough for Percy.
He did the kind thing and picked Reyna up and set her on the bed, even pulling the covers over her. He supposed she was cute—he didn't really like girls that way yet—and he hoped he met her again one day, if only to see how good of a witch she was.
With Reyna comfortably placed, Percy wasted no time in executing his Foresight/Displacement combo, appearing in the spa room that Annabeth was being attended in, along with about two dozen other witches in various states of dress receiving varying states of treatment. His presence did not go unnoticed, and the implications behind his presence did not go unthought of. The worst was immediately assumed.
On top of the fact that there was a boy in the women's room.
The spa instantly turned into a slaughterhouse as Percy demonstrated the same kind of lethality he'd used in Karnaca. Using Displacement like it was Blink, Percy was on the other side of the room, behind a host of witches. Before they even knew what had happened, Percy used the max of his Domino links, twelve, lopped off one woman's head and took out eleven more due to the power of Domino. Before the first head even fell from the neck, Percy had moved, tonfas twirling fast.
He might as well have been a living blender for all the cuts he delivered and limbs he severed.
He killed three more witches in the span of time it took for the second hand to tick once, before he Displaced to the other side of the room. Once again, Domino was employed, linking seven witches, only this time Percy shot the closest one to him in the back of her head with his wristbow, and the bolt had so much power to it that it took the witch's head messily from her neck and got it stuck in the wall. The heads of the other six witches went flying off their bodies.
Decapitation was the fastest, most reliable way to ensure someone actually died, as Percy had been taught by Sally.
Five witches remained, and so little time had passed that they were all still running for where he had first appeared. Percy was fast. Because they were all clumped close enough, Percy fired off a round of Thorns. A black pool erupted around his Mark hand, and a dozen of the amorphous projectiles, sharp and quick, went flying out like a round of buckshot, each one finding a new home in some part of the witches.
In less than four seconds, Percy had appeared in the midst of a witch's spa and killed 27 of them. Annabeth was left sitting in her chair, a white robe clothing her body, her feet soaking in warm water, her fingernails only halfway painted, her hair wrapped up in a towel, eyes wide and mouth all the way open.
"Get dressed," Percy said, voice distorted by his gasmask. "We're in a witch's coven and they want me specifically and will use you to get me."
"Witch's coven?" Annabeth breathed. "C.C.'s Spa and Resort…Circe!"
"…yes. Now get moving."
"Uh, all my clothes are in another room."
"Where?"
Annabeth gave him the location from her memory, and from her perspective, Percy literally vanished from where he stood, there was a count of four, and then he was back. Stacked in his hand were her denim shorts, orange t-shirt, grey hipster panties with a cartoon owl on the front, her shoes with her socks rolled up and sticking out the hole of one of the shoes, her bra, and finally her belt with her sheathed dagger.
Annabeth flushed at the fact that Percy had her underwear in his position.
Percy handed her clothes over. She had yet to get up from her comfy spa chair.
"Get dressed. We need to leave."
"Here?" Annabeth squeaked. Surrounding her was a rapidly expanding pool of blood and a floor littered with fresh corpses that hadn't started stinking yet, but that was soon to change.
"Yes," Percy said seriously.
"Surrounded by dead people with you here? Watching?"
Percy's posture shifted, making Annabeth swallow hard.
"Uh, at least turn your back…"
Percy did at least that, and as fast she could with wet feet and hair, trying not to step in blood, Annabeth pulled her panties up, then her shorts, then her bra, then shirt, then it was a battle with her socks, and her shoes just made her feet feel all icky since they were wet with spa water. Despite the circumstances, Annabeth got fully dressed in less than three minutes.
"Ready," she said.
"They have a harbor below and a lot of boats. We'll use one of them to get out of here."
"And Polyphemus's Island?"
"At this point, we'll have to wing it. Getting out of here is priority."
Annabeth nodded.
Percy took off and she followed. The door was broken through without a moment of hesitation on Percy's part. His stride didn't even break. Annabeth found herself pushing to keep up with him. She was already running faster than any human would ever be able to manage thanks to her demigod body, but Percy was outstripping her without trying. Being a boy didn't help, but Annabeth comforted herself by thinking that she wasn't that inferior; Percy had extra magic powers and a magic skeleton helping him along.
As it turned out, the spa Annabeth was in was on the opposite side of the resort from the harbor, and so they had to run through the whole building. Luckily, they only ran into one person. She stepped around a corner at just the right time, and where Percy summersaulted over her, Annabeth bowled right into her, sending them both tumbling.
Annabeth blinked at the young woman under her, shocked, and the woman blinked back, also shocked.
"Hylla?"
"Annabeth?"
"So sorry about this!"
Annabeth rolled to the side and popped to her feet in a run. Hylla looked up and saw the black-clad boy in the mask, and her blood chilled.
"What did you do to my sister!?" She screamed as got to her own feet in the blink of an eye. "Where's Reyna!?"
"On my bed sleeping. Bye."
Percy resumed his sprint, and Hylla did two things: she hit a button on her little magic radio and went sprinting in the opposite direction to where Percy had been housed to investigate Reyna's whereabouts personally. The button she hit alerted every witch on the resort that Percy was awake and on the move with Annabeth.
Back with the running demigods, Percy rounded a corner that led to a dead-end hall with a window. He thrust his wrist and fired a bolt at the window, shattering it, then he went flying through it in a dive, Annabeth following without even thinking. When she saw where she was heading, she screamed.
Only because of Percy did she survive plunging into six feet of pool water. With a feeling like being fired out of a cannon, Annabeth was taken out of the pool by Percy's will over the water.
"Thanks," she gasped for breath.
"Yep," Percy chirped. Then he was running again.
Though it was literally for their lives, Annabeth couldn't help but feel annoyed with all this running. Besides, there were so many good ships sitting right here—what was Percy looking for exactly?
Apparently, he was more of a child than he seemed, because he went right for the pirate ship. Annabeth was a bit awed by the fact that it was the Queen Anne's Revenge, the pirate Blackbeard's ship, but before she could step foot on the plank to the legendary vessel, she was yanked off her feet by an invisible force. Her scream alerted Percy.
He turned and looked, seeing a woman in a black dress, black hair braided with gold, and eyes that were a starker green than his own, like mint leaves. She looked angry and superior, her hand outstretched as she used her own magic to drag Annabeth to her threw the air. She caught Annabeth by the neck and held her aloft with zero effort.
"Unless you want me to-" Circe started, but the words died in her throat.
Because she died.
One attosecond, Annabeth was in her hand, and in the next three attoseconds, Percy was in Circe's hand and Annabeth was standing where Percy had been on the ship. Percy spun in the witch's grip and slashed with his tonfa, removing Circe's head. Her freed cranium and body turned to golden dust that was blown away by the ocean breeze.
Percy joined Annabeth with an application of Displacement and the pirate ship was freed from her anchors, going backwards through Percy's will over the water. Back on the resort, dozens of witches were streaming outside, armed and angry.
"Uh, Percy?" Annabeth pointed.
He held up three fingers, then lowered one to make two, then there was on finger, then he made a fist. A dozen staggered explosions erupted across the resort, blowing out massive chunks of structure and setting what was left ablaze. Annabeth's jaw dropped.
The Queen Anne's Revenge cleared the harbor and was turned towards the open sea. Her sails unfurled and a strong wind caught them, making them billow and go taught, the ship lurching forward as she picked up speed.
"Explain, from the top, please," Annabeth said, endlessly confused and hating it.
"I had Doppelgangers running around and setting up explosives."
"And that thing where you and I switched places?"
"Swap. One my powers. I can swap places with an object of my choosing."
Annabeth blinked. "Okay….Do you know who you just killed?"
"Circe?"
"Yes, Circe!"
"You make that sound important."
"It is important! That was huge! Percy, Circe is the daughter of Helios, the Titan of the Sun, and Hecate, the goddess of magic. She'd a goddess in her own right, and you killed her in a second flat."
"Huh. Stupid goddess," Percy shrugged.
Annabeth's jaw managed to sink even lower. Did this kid not realize what he'd done, what kind of accomplishment this was? Slaying a powerful magic goddess like Circe, destroying her island stronghold, and laying waste to her coven? Not to mention how he'd destroyed Scylla with a single attack, and apparently did the same to Charybdis if Annabeth recalled correctly—it was kind of fuzzy, since she'd been in shock over the fact the was riddled with glass and bleeding everywhere.
Ironically, Annabeth didn't understand half of it. Yes, it was undeniably legendary what Percy had accomplished today in his killings, but it was even more so considering all the magical powers he'd used. Summoning twelve Doppelgangers, spamming Domino to link a dozen and then over half a dozen witches, and abusing Displacement—to put it into perspective, Emily Kaldwin could only summon two Doppelgangers at a time, and could only link a maximum of four people with Domino, and doing either drained her mana reserves and she needed to refuel.
Percy had done all of the above in mere minutes and was nowhere near empty. He wasn't even down the three-quarters.
If Annabeth had known this, she might've very well needed new shorts and panties from peeing herself out of the fear of Percy turning against her and setting his sights on CHB.
"Y-Yeah," Annabeth said shakily, trying not to be disturbed by the fact that Percy disregarded his victory over a powerful magic goddess as equal to stealing candy from a baby. "Do we have a heading?"
"Actually, yes."
"Where?"
"This way."
Annabeth internally groaned.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
So, when it comes to Dishonored, all main targets/bosses are as killable as the NPC guards and street thugs. You can shoot them, throw a grenade in their face, set up proximity traps, use your powers on them, or simply sneak behind them and stab them in the throat like it's Assassin's Creed. Circe's death was done with respect to that game mechanic, and respect to the fact that Celestial Bronze can kill gods as well as monsters and half-bloods.
Not sure what the pairing to this story will be, or if there will be one, but I do suppose the seeds for Percabeth and Pereyna have been planted. Of course, Percy having a girlfriend would be awkward in some respect, because Sally the Magic Heart will know everything about them due to being connected to the Void, which knows all and sees all.
Also, if anyone can come up with good enough plot armor for Luke so that he isn't totally wrecked by Percy's Void powers, feel free to share, because my idea is—
Whoops. Spoilers.
Fav, Follow, and review please!