Chapter Two: Hot Chocolate
Somewhere far away
Pain rocked his very core. He could feel thousands of pieces of flesh - of him - scattered, yet slowly tugging at each other. Every moment of every second, he could feel the fiber of his being torn apart but still existing. Emotions twisted around his broken mind: anger, hate, rage being the most dominant, but a streak of will centering them all.
The feelings dulled. He had endured this suffering for an eternity and had not broken, nor would he now. His resolve would not fade. He would have his revenge, and it was nearing.
Once, his pieces remain distorted across the landscape of Tartarus, a place that even he had come to fear. The land of seemingly endless fire was not one he wished to return to. And - Kronos knew - he would never have to.
The last few years had been crucial in setting up his rise. Manipulating the Castellan boy to steal his Zeus' lightning bolt was simple, yet unbelievably important. The child had nothing but hate for the Olympians, so he used that emotion, twisting and disfiguring it until he had crafted a perfect pawn for his opening. The Olympians prepared for war between the Big Three, turning a blind eye on all else under their noses. Gods began to take sides, readying their domains and armies for an all-out war that would alter the landscape of the planet from one filled with life to a barren landscape consumed by a fire impossible to extinguish. Demigods remain unprotected and defenseless as their once fortified camp borders had come crashing down through poison. His monsters would find them a wonderful feast, Kronos mused.
War was coming and as he remained confined in the golden sarcophagus, Kronos dreamed of the day he would topple the thrones of those who cast him, the most powerful titan who had once slain the sky, to the pit and sentenced him to millennia of torture. He imagined his hands wrapped around Zeus' throat as his son begged for mercy but received none. For some, dreams were doomed to be just that - dreams - but for him, no - it would be something far greater. It was his destiny.
The pieces had been set, and the die had been cast. Freeing Atlas would be the next plan to be mobilized, and he needed to keep Thalia Grace, the child of the prophecy, under his watch until she turned 16, ready to destroy the once-indomitable will of the Olympians. No loose ends could be permitted this time and Kronos would ensure that his vision for a new Golden Age would be untouched.
There would be no other way.
Even farther away
The unknown was endless.
Wisps of darkness and light interleaved within each other, in a spaceless void. It was not matter nor energy, but something else altogether.
It contained everything, yet nothing all at once. It was beautiful and despicable to the eyes of the beholder.
It was true chaos.
No gods dared enter this domain, for they knew that once they took in one sight, they would vanish, forever erased from all worlds. Pulled in by forces that should not exist, yet did, dominating all others.
When immortals faded, this was their resting place - forever disconnected from reality and hidden within the endless darkness, providing flickers of light and reminding the void of their existence.
But that was all they did: flicker. Until one light stirred.
The bottomless pit deep within the pit, hidden away in the depths of Tartarus, shook as it had never before. Like it shouldn't.
And the flicker of light grew in the dark, still, empty skies of the void.
Mount Othrys
A salty taste met Artemis' tongue as she opened her eyes, only to see dark spots scattered across her vision. Lingering in a dizzy, trance-like state, Artemis took seconds to gather her consciousness until she immediately switched to her huntress instincts and scanned her surroundings.
Unfortunately, they weren't very pleasant.
She was somehow stuck.
Stuck would be an understatement - she was being crushed by the weight of something she could not feel, see, or comprehend. Surrounding her was an open-air gothic castle of sorts - one that she expected to see many hundreds of years ago in Athens or Rome, not in America. Grim thoughts and emotions seemed to swell throughout the air, covered by an artificial grayness that swirled in the shape of a vortex among the dark clouds above. This was no Olympus - this was something far, far eviler, and she happened to be trapped right at its peak.
Artemis gritted her teeth as she could feel her back throb against the weight that collapsed onto her - if Apollo did this as a prank, she swore to the primordials that he would be losing his immortality very quickly.
"Ah, so our goddess awakens," rumbled a deep, scratchy voice in front of her. At first, Artemis couldn't make out the figure, but as it neared, she observed the man. The nearly 20-foot-tall being was dressed in a dark tuxedo, clearly fitted on his tall, muscular form. Adorning the sides of his wrists were luxurious blood-red rubies that seemed a little too ethereal to be fully natural. His legs were painfully long for his body, but instead of being thin and frail, they were like tree trunks, stout and powerful. As Artemis looked up at the face of the bald man, she could make out a slight, cruel smirk painted across his tanned, roughly shaven face.
This was no man, this was an immortal - an immensely powerful one at that, given the strong aura that slammed against Artemis' own, spreading the crushing feeling across her entire body. She struggled against the pressure but managed to push herself to sputter out a few words.
"Who are you?" Artemis groaned.
The immortal took off his sunglasses, revealing his eyes beneath, swirling with a violent, insane red color.
"Your new warden, my lady."
Atlas let back a slow, gravelly laugh as he mocked the crumbled goddess that lay wrapped in chains before him, barely holding the sky that he was once doomed to stand under until the end of time.
Outskirts of Camp Half-Blood
God, she was so tired. It's the feeling like when you wake up from a really long nap but still want to keep going on, letting the peacefulness and comfort wash over you.
So, the first thing she did when she picked herself off the ground - and she wondered exactly why she was on the ground in the first place - was take a big, long yawn. After wiping off the layers of soil and mud that seemed to entirely cover her torn-up jeans, she scanned the surrounding area.
Trees, forest, soil - seemed about right, she thought. Exactly why she was here, she had no clue until she turned around and came face to face with a magnificent tree.
She was in awe. It was magical and breath-taking all at once. She could see the golden threads deeply weaved within the bark of this enormous creature, and the majestic leaves that filled its long, royal branches. It seemed to elongate upwards for miles and covered the entire forest around her in a protective shade. She went to touch it but as soon as she made contact with the trunk, her hand sizzled and she immediately cradled her hand against her chest, wincing in pain. She stared at her hand and saw trickles of blood running down her palm, covered in a slight purplish haze.
Since when were her hands so big? She stared at the rest of her body like she was living inside a foreign object and collapsed to the ground, utterly confused by what was happening. Hair drooped near the middle of her back when it had once just barely fit into a ponytail. Her nails were messily climbing along top of each other as if they hadn't been cut in years. Moving suddenly felt awkward as she forgot how to use her suddenly elongated legs.
She definitely wasn't supposed to be this old; she had just celebrated her 13th birthday a few weeks ago!
Then, a drop of blood fell to the ground.
Three hellhounds lurched their heads upwards, smelling new, fresh prey to enjoy teething on. They immediately jumped and galloped towards the source of the luscious scent, coming face to face with a young girl who looked not a day over 15.
The girl looked back at them - fear marring her once-confused features - as she scrambled to her feet, trying to flee from the vicious monsters that stared her down. But her instincts weren't enough to compensate for her still clumsy and almost-drunken movements, as the midnight black creature pounced on her form. Pinned down to the ground, she tried to wiggle free of her current entrapment, and static began building up along her arms.
At first, tiny shocks formed, testing the waters as if a young seal curiously checking out the land above. As the maw of the hellhound neared her face, emitting an awful, rotten smell and letting out long strings of drool - gross - the sparks began crackling louder, picking up static in the air. Shocks violently pushed against each other, making the other even more potent. Thousands of volts coursed through her body, lighting her nerve endings on fire, as the girl screamed. Her body conducted the electricity through it - her hands pointing at the lower fur of the hellhound as she exchanged her gift.
Unfortunately, her recipient wasn't much too happy. The hellhound screamed louder than it had ever before and struggled as its entire body flopped helplessly against the oncoming storm. Before long, the matted fur of the hellhound began crumbling into black dust as the two other hellhounds stared fearfully in the background. They turned their own eyes onto the glowing form of the girl in front of them, ready to undergo their trials by electricity.
Well, they would have until a large crooked arrow sped through the air and inserted itself into the hide of each hellhound.
A group of a dozen teenagers wearing orange shirts rushed to the scene, holding a mix of bows, swords, knives, and the occasional spear. The two hellhounds tried to shadow travel despite the arrows that assaulted them until a girl with honey-blonde hair stabbed them both with a vicious-looking dagger. Then, she turned her body around to meet the eyes of the fallen girl who still had smoke emanating from her thin form.
Sharp gray eyes met an electric blue as her once stony countenance shifted into one of shock.
"Thalia?"
Percy knew the world was messed up, but even after three years of searching and trying to understand, he had absolutely nothing to show for it - zilch, nada, nothing.
A minotaur, that's what it was called.
A creature infamous in Greek myths with the head of a bull and the body of a human. It was responsible for the murder of his mother and seemed ready to slice him in two - until something stopped it. The problem is, he didn't know what it was, or, more importantly, how in the gods it managed to stop a murderous several hundred-pound bull infamous in ancient history for absolutely brutalizing its unlucky victims. He doubted even a lucky gunshot could pierce through that monstrously thick hide, especially not as it accelerated towards him, ax in hand, ready to make its death count one more for the day.
Well, Percy knew something at least: monsters were real, and in all likelihood, there was probably at least some fact to the ancient legends. The minotaur being one of them naturally, but he'd seen other creatures in New York too - most of which gave him nightmares for weeks.
Jumping from roof to roof, being chased by flesh-eating birds that seemed to only want to chase him, wasn't what he had in mind as a kid dreaming of doing parkour. In broad daylight too - could people be that dumb that they didn't notice prehistoric dinosaur birds circling in the sky? Percy had heard of insects being attracted to certain blood types, but this was taking it too far.
His relatively recent encounter with the pretty girl wasn't fun either.
Okay, maybe not a girl. But a vampire with furry donkey legs that kicked like metal sounded a little too crazy for him to tell others about. Especially when it kept asking Percy to kiss her, and grew so enraged when Percy refused repeatedly - stranger danger, of course - that she immediately grew foot-long fangs that really didn't make him want to kiss her any extra. His legs ached remembering how much he'd had to run to get that one off his trail.
But practice makes perfect. Percy had really improved his cardio by avoiding a whole assortment of other creepy crawlers like snake women, wolves that talked, and at one point, even ran into a massive talking squirrel - but that was a story for another day. Many of them would lick their lips as they talked up his "scent" that apparently attracted monsters like a shining beacon in the night sky. Some had even called him a filthy half-blood, but Percy could honestly say that it did hurt a little having monsters talking down his blood. He swore he didn't smell either; yes, he didn't shower much given his current living arrangements, but he couldn't smell that bad … could he?
So yes, monsters were real - Percy had gathered that much. But where they came from and why they enjoyed preying on him were still two very important mysteries for Percy to solve if he didn't want to end up in a monster's belly. Unless they magically appeared from the center of the Earth at the most inopportune times, Percy didn't have any solid leads.
Except for one thing.
A mysterious camp. The snake women he had been lucky enough to come across a few weeks ago, amidst their hisses and clamoring for mortal blood, had excitedly muttered that "the camp borders had fallen." Normally Percy wouldn't make such a big deal about monster gossip, but the she-snakes weren't the first to use the word. Months earlier, during their friendly chase, the female vampire had shouted something similar about running back to this camp. Naturally, he was a little confused since it was the winter and he really didn't think he could afford to pay for any kind of summer camp, given his current living situation.
So Percy's grand lead was a camp. Completely useless if you asked anyone else that didn't think he was off the rails, but at the very least, he figured it was somewhere nearby. New York was big, but he figured he could start searching. As an unemployed 14-year-old who didn't go to school, it would be interesting to do something useful for once. Maybe even fun. It would be his own little adventure.
Percy turned himself towards the wall and his sea-green eyes darkened a shade as he held eye contact with the minotaur horn. Okay, not fun. But maybe he'd get a chance to learn more about why his mother was killed and understand exactly what kind of perverted world he was in. That, Percy inwardly mused, would be motivation enough.
He collapsed onto his creaky mattress, filled with temporary resolve. Then the dreams started.
Flashback - Three Years Ago
Right after he had woken up, Percy found himself lying on the wet sand that covered Montauk Beach, completely healed with no trace of the broken ribs or cuts that he remembered having just hours ago. He had tried to look for his mother back on the road, but all that was left was a desolate landscape that looked more like a bomb had exploded next to it. He felt like he should've remembered if that happened.
In the end, all 11-year-old Percy was left with was himself - and nightmares too, if they counted.
He hitched a ride to a police station nearby, where he recited everything he could remember. Part of him still hoped it was part of a dream. Maybe his mom had already gone home and was frantically searching for him. Maybe everything would be okay.
It never did though. A missing person report was filed, but it was a report left unopened - no one would ever take a kid spouting off stories about monsters seriously. Percy was sent back to Manhattan after a few days at the station, which he stubbornly refused to leave as he hoped that a phone would ring and someone - anyone - would tell him that they found his mother. Smelly Gabe would greet him at the door, a manic glint in his eye as he invited Percy back home, with one less person than had left. But it didn't feel like home; it never would ever again. All he felt was a sense of emptiness.
And pain.
Gabe became more unhinged with his new freedoms and fewer restraints, and Percy would be the only victim. Scars littered his now bare body, an outcome of the new "game" Gabe loved playing. Percy became thinner as the meals he was allowed to eat waned, and he became quieter as he realized there was nothing for him to say. Before, people only called him a freak, but now he knew he was one. He wouldn't go to school - Gabe wouldn't let him risk showing his scars to the rest of the world. So, he stayed stuck in his flat, a prisoner in what used to be his home.
One day, Percy just ran. He didn't know where, but he just ran.
But he was too scared. Too scared of an entirely unknown world with no one there by his side. He was weak. He hated Gabe, but there was some sort of comfort in just knowing. Knowing where he would sleep at night, even with his bruises drawing blood in patches across his frail skeleton. Knowing where he would be able to sneak in a meal of expired bread scavenged from the trash. Knowing that he, the freak who did nothing to stop his mother's murder, was being rightfully punished.
So he ran back home.
It would be a cycle for Percy, with each new iteration being harsher and more severe than the previous.
He endured and weathered the horrors, determined that this was apt retribution for the murder that he had caused what seemed ages ago. But deep within Percy lay anger, and as he grew witness to greater injustices over months, the anger shifted like a roaring wave crashing against the sands. The waves grew restless and furious, unwilling to calm for even a second. Percy had held the rage back, winning the mental battle and preventing himself from slipping and drowning.
Then Gabe slapped him across his cheeks along the side of the small apartment terrace, leaving a blood-red mark that would forever remind him of his past.
The lock shattered.
With inhuman strength, Percy pushed himself off the ground and rammed his thin frame into his far heavier stepfather. Instead of being stopped in his tracks, he launched Gabe across the secured railings until his frame disappeared from his vision entirely.
Percy ran to the side, peering over the metallic border down at the bustling streets below.
Gabe was eerily quiet as he struggled to hold on to the window pane a floor below, sweat covering his once angry features. Now, the only emotion his eyes held was fear as they stared back up at Percy's sea green bulbs, silently pleading with him to pull him back up.
Percy instinctually reached his hand out to Gabe, stretching to try and reach the last family he had alive.
Yet, as Percy felt the sudden stinging against his left cheek, he stared into Gabe's eyes and remembered. He remembered everything bad in his life - the beatings, the abuse, the hate - and how it centered around the man that was dangling below him.
Gabe reached his hand out, but within a second, there was no hand left to meet his own.
Percy turned back with a resigned look on his face as he stared down at his worn-out shoes and closed the terrace door behind him.
He swore he never heard the slight crunch of bone falling against concrete and the car alarms furiously screaming underneath him.
The sound of thunder and rain greeted Percy as he woke up from the endless sequence of nightmares that plagued him. His stomach grumbled, begging him to be filled with something other than barely edible scraps.
Percy sighed. Well, it wouldn't hurt to go get more food, though the gray skies outside weren't the most inviting. Perhaps a bakery would be kind enough to give him leftovers from the day. Percy pushed himself off his bed and crawled through the broken window, carefully avoiding the shard which repeatedly reminded him of its existence on his way out.
Before long, Percy was back walking through the streets of New York at night, keeping an eye out for any morsels of food tossed aside by richer folk. He saw a few half-eaten slices of pizza and managed to even come across a slightly browning cabbage - what a score - as he walked near the Museum District. Eager to finish his food run quickly, Percy unsuspectingly scoured from dumpster to dumpster, rummaging for goodies inside. After adding a few more rare delights, he tied a knot around his slightly torn paper bag, ready to find a place to eat before he began the trek back to his lair.
As Percy turned the corner, leaving behind the museum's trash bins, he noticed a very strange sight: the doors to the museum were propped open. Percy wasn't the smartest nut out there, but he did know that having the doors left open to the Smithsonian, which hosted one of the world's premier collections of American Indian history, was not a good idea.
The smart thing would have been to ignore it entirely.
Percy didn't often do the smart thing.
He carefully tiptoed up the staircase of the grand museum, still convinced this was some elaborate way to get him arrested - a trap for criminals would be rather effective, Percy mused. Surprised, but still on edge after the alarms didn't go off, Percy walked through the doors, immediately faced with an empty sight. No one was there.
Something felt off, but he couldn't pinpoint what.
His intelligent streak continued as he walked further past the guest reception and made his way into one of the exhibits. Percy inwardly groaned as the sound of his wet shoes filled the silence, squeaking against the floor as they refused to give him any semblance of stealth. For some weird genetic reason, he couldn't get wet, but apparently, his shoes weren't part of the exception. As Percy looked around at the rare, expensive items displayed across the rooms, a darker voice that lurked deep within his head wondered how much money he could make by stealing all the priceless artifacts. Fortunately, his better side quickly shut down all thoughts of crime; he didn't need anyone else to run from. Monsters would be just fine for now.
Minutes passed as Percy made his way through various exhibits, silently reminiscing on the times that he had visited the museum with Grover back in middle school.
Grover - it had been such a while since he had spoken with his once best friend, and who knows where he had ended up now. Hopefully, Percy prayed, Grover had made some new friends and wasn't being picked on for his handicap ruthlessly. He wondered if he'd ever see his odd friend ever again.
All pleasant thoughts immediately halted to a complete stop as the hairs on Percy's neck immediately stiffened and all his instincts screamed for him to run. He scanned the room and could see nothing out of the ordinary, but as he approached the next room, there was a deep foreboding presence that he could feel getting closer. And then, the whispers came.
"...dess …. …. sky, .. chains ..."
" General … … army … attack …."
" …. manticore …. … … twins .."
Now, Percy was never the best at puzzles, so this was naturally a sequence of words that meant absolutely nothing to him. Wasn't a manticore some kind of pasta? Wait no, that was manicotti. And how in the world was the sky being chained? These people seemed dangerous - either in a completely insane way or in an incredibly dangerous way. Given his wonderful luck, it was probably both.
Percy inwardly cringed as he took a backward step that squeaked a little extra and the whispers suddenly ceased, instead replaced with furious growls that didn't sound much like a human at all.
Ah, crap.
Percy immediately began to sprint towards the entrance, not passing a second glance at the loud grunts and metallic clanging that emanated from the neighboring room.
Then, the sirens began blaring, making a stupid situation even worse. Trying to ignore the loud echoes of the alarm, he made his way to the front door, ready to take his bag of scraps back to the abandoned building, where he should have gone in the first place. Fortune wasn't on his side tonight, unfortunately, as Percy came face-to-face with half a dozen skeletons, each holding an assault rifle in one hand and a long metallic spear in the other.
Percy was embarrassed to say that at first, he considered the possibility that it might have been Halloween and he had completely forgotten. Those possibilities were shattered when those very-alive skeletons glared daggers straight at him and paired it with equally menacing spears pointed straight at his chest. He tried to run back towards the exhibits but was joined by a friendly pair of 12-foot tall creatures covered in heavy bronze armor, each wielding a spiked mace that he didn't want to be on the wrong end of.
With the front and rear completely covered by creatures straight out of a young boy's imagination, Percy inched back hesitantly towards the massive fountain that cascaded between the two floors of the Smithsonian.
Quite frankly, he had no idea what to do here. There was only one option here: death. Now, he could choose his death of choice: being shot by evil skeletons or being repeatedly pounded to the ground by a giant creature. But other than that, he had nothing.
Water.
Percy turned his head around quickly, looking for the source of the old voice that had just spoken. He didn't want to have even more monsters hanging around.
Use it.
This time the voice wasn't coming from around him, but instead, deep within his mind - a foreign force that reverberated through his head. As the skeletons raised their rifles and aimed at him, Percy jumped into the fountain to avoid the incoming barrage of bullets that would have torn through his thin complexion.
Push.
With his eyes bulging wide, Percy attempted to push the water, hoping that maybe this foreign voice was anything other than him turning insane.
His attempt was laughable. Nothing happened, other than a few specks of water being splashed upwards like a toddler having a water fight with himself in a kiddy pool. Even the skeletons stopped their assault to look at each other in skeletal glee, confused at the pathetic spectacle before them before pushing forward in their assault. Wow, even skeletons thought he was stupid.
Again.
His second attempt didn't work any better, and Percy felt incredibly foolish playing in the water before his imminent death. If he was going to die, at least he should have died fighting.
Assert your will.
Will - that was a word that meant something to him.
For his entire life, no one had cared about him. Paid him a second glance. Offered him a second of their time. They would push him down at the subway station, uncaring of the bruises they left behind as they stepped over his wrists in a hurry. They would whisper about how awful he smelled as he passed them in the streets, clothed in worn jeans and a tattered, oversized shirt. They would jeer at him in school, reminding him how he would never fit in.
Memories of injustices swiveled through Percy's mind - every insult, every slap, every sneer.
To everyone else, he was street trash, a freak, and nobody.
But he knew he wasn't.
Because he, Perseus Jackson, was somebody and he would do something in the world. Even if nobody cared, he did. He didn't need others to survive and never would - all he needed was himself.
And his will was greater than anything else.
Percy focused on the water in front of him and let himself truly feel everything around him - each drop of water among the hundreds of gallons that surrounded him. He could feel the cool sensation that spread across his fingertips and swept across his palms. Trapped in his miniature time bubble, Percy observed the ripples vibrating across the surface of the pool, and how he stood at the epicenter.
No - he didn't just embrace the physical feeling of the water along his hands. Percy closed his eyes, trying to find the source of his will - which instinctively knew would be the key to how he'd push the water.
Then he found it. Right below his chest, between his lungs, he could feel a magnetic field of sorts, begging for the water to come closer. He concentrated on the point, letting its influence spread across the rest of his body until it covered him entirely. Instead of feeling the surrounding water, he felt an extension of himself. Percy tensed his core as shivers passed through his body, and then let his eyes open.
The pool erupted as three streams of spiraling high-pressure water jutted out from the fountain and arced towards the stunned skeletons, reducing them to a pile of mashed-up bones. The unlucky demons that remained were let out of their stupor and immediately charged at Percy, ready to launch their spears at him. But even they were enveloped by the still levitating torrents which angrily crashed against their frames, sending them back to the hell they came from.
Percy turned his attention to the two giant creatures which nervously looked at each other before lumbering towards the human before them, all smugness gone from their faces. Percy jumped out of the pool, barely dodging the strike of the first giant's mace off adrenaline alone. He rolled across the floor, using his agility as an advantage against his far slower foes. Then Percy balled his fists, letting the pressure spread upwards from his lower chest through his arms in a U-like shape.
Okay, so he was definitely visualizing different cartoons and superhero movies right now. Sue him, Percy wasn't the most creative thinker when it came to fighting monsters and near-death experiences, and luckily, he'd watched enough fight scenes as a kid that he seemed to have a good idea of what to do in his first real battle.
An eight-year-old Percy would be screaming in glee at this moment. Him right now? Not so much. Though he did suppose this would make for a fun movie scene.
Percy's face held a stony resolve, concentrating as the three streams formed into a single aquatic lance, slamming into the first giant and piercing it through the middle of its abdomen. As it fell, its body crumbled into a cloud of brownish dust that looked a lot like a hot cocoa mix. The chocolate dust mixed in with his aptly named water of doom, turning into a concoction that he had no intention to slurp down.
Unfortunately for the final giant, the lance went spiraling right towards its mouth, entering and exiting the appendage within a second, leaving behind a gaping hole. The giant screamed silently in pain, only to fall to its knees and explode in a column of more chocolate dust.
Well, that wasn't so bad.
Percy immediately scanned his surroundings, half-expecting a skeleton to surprise him from the back and scream "surprise!" But there was nothing but piles of bones, muddy water, and of course, him. Percy felt a throbbing sensation around his head as his body begged him to keep fighting and killing more monsters, and the water which circled him seemed to bark greedily in anticipation of its next target.
And then, everything fell to the ground. The water flopped against the cold floor of the Smithsonian with a smack, and Percy felt his knees give out as his body struggled to hold itself together. His breathing fluttered back and forth at inhuman levels and his vision started to blur - adrenaline all gone. The faint golden glow that surrounded him during the fight faded away, replaced by a slight greenish tint that bordered his limbs - something only the keenest of observers would notice.
To make things even worse, a group of five teenagers rushed in through the door with perfect timing, completely flabbergasted at the scene in front of them. Their gazes concurred on the boy struggling to keep his head from falling in front of them, surrounded by bones and a murky brown puddle of water that smelled awfully like rotten eggs.
The last thing Percy could make out before his body gave out was a pair of brilliant brown eyes that stared calculatingly right through his soul.
Stories higher, a tall being fitted in an exquisite tuxedo witnessed the scene beneath him. Staring, watching, observing.
So this is the power of a demigod of the Big Three, he silently mused. Unrealized at that too. He bared his sharp teeth in a cold, upwards smile.
He would enjoy breaking this one.
Then, his smile fell as he examined the five new humans that had just entered. He stifled a laugh at the pathetic satyr and noticed a pair of stormy gray eyes - a daughter of Athena perhaps. Joining them were two others: a girl with a bow draped across her back, and another tall girl with copper-colored skin dressed in a parka that seemed far out of mortal style.
He squinted his eyes as he examined the regal expression that seemed permanently imprinted on her cold, emotionless face. He knew that face.
It was his face.
Atlas frowned as he considered the form of his traitorous daughter beneath him, his enormous self-control crushing all thoughts of immediately beheading the one he had sired many years ago.
Her end would come soon, he knew. There would be a little family reunion not too long from now.
Finally, Atlas turned to the group's final member, but this one he was intimately familiar with. His lips curved back into a smirk. How he couldn't wait for that reunion to come.
Atlas disappeared in a silent pop, leaving behind only the trail of dust from the folds of his coat.
AN!
This took a painfully long time to write compared to how much I had initially expected - but, I think it turned out pretty alright. We're starting to set up the world a little more, and as we dive into a few of the future chapters, I definitely do think that I'll incorporate a variety of settings & scenes to push forward different narratives in parallel. Some of them might be familiar, but hopefully, you'll come to expect the unexpected!
Thanks to all who've reviewed the first chapter and I'd love for y'all to review, favorite, and follow! It definitely keeps me motivated and I'd love to connect with this community!