Chapter V:

Yelena gave Percy a comforting nudge as they conjoined back at the Quinjet,

"Alright so do you get it now? Why we need the gauntlet and everything?"

"I mean yeah, kinda." Percy confirmed. "Would've been nice to have told me before we walked in there."

A seed of guilt constricted her chest. "I'm sorry about that. Everything's just been moving so fast and… I don't know. I've never worked with anybody before really, I'm so used to doing everything by myself."

Percy flashed her an accepting smile. "Stop talking, Belova, I don't want you shedding tears over me."

Every shred of culpability left Yelena as she offered him a long-suffering look. "Every moment I spend with you, I'm reminded how much I don't want to."

"Oh quit lying to yourself," Percy ribbed as they entered the ship. "You love us."

Yelena turned to the flerken, Moby, still in cat form. "Sure, whatever."

Moby hissed back.

Sticking her tongue out appropriately, Yelena responded, "You know Moby, I liked you better before we knew that you could understand us."

In retaliation the flerken regurgitated another hairball, which seemed only fitting.

"Really?" Percy questioned. "I think having a shape-shifting pet is pretty fucking sweet if you ask me."

"He's not your pet." Yelena argued, "You do realize Moby had to have been that giant monster trying to kill us when we were grabbing the Power Stone, right?"

Percy shrugged indifferently, "I don't hold it against him, maybe he was just hungry."

Moby's newly-minted third eye winked at Yelena, causing her to dramatically exhale.

"Whatever Captain Jackson, you and your little furry friend here said you had a plan to get us something magical." Yelena crossed her arms pointedly. "Let's see it."

Not for the first time, Percy grinned and rubbed his hands.

"Okay Moby, time to work your magic so we can find some… er, magic." He stage-whispered to the flerken.

Yelena's eyes narrowed. "You act like I can't hear you."

"Do you think she can hear us?" Percy continued to whisper, eyeing her with no small amount of suspicion.

Moby, expectedly, started to hack again, back curling into a wicked arc with paws stretched outwards

"Great, another hairball." Yelena sighed. "What did I tell y—"

A brilliant array of indescribable colors danced before Yelena's vision, gushing out from Moby's open jaw. Appropriately, she felt her senses melt into divine insignificance as gravity ceased to exist, her world becoming nothing more than nothing. However unfortunately, the last thing to grace her vision was Percy, before everything inevitably went dark.

-Ω-

As they fell through Time and Space, Percy made a mental note to add professional dimension traveler to the bottom of his driver's license.

Landing thankfully feet-first in their new reality, they immediately came face-to-face with an old man and his cat. The old man immediately shit himself out of surprise (Percy hardly blamed him), while the cat took one look at Moby (who was somehow no longer a cat anymore) and bolted.

"Run Mrs. Norris, run!" The old man cried while limping away from their trio as fast as he could, following his cat down the hall and away.

"What on earth…" Yelena muttered as together they took in their new surroundings, leaving the old man and his cat to be.

"Better not to question anything, I suppose." Percy surmised as he too gave a spin around the place.

They were in what felt like the dungeon level of a medieval castle, which definitely gave off the correct magical vibe, with flaming torches being the only sources of light in the corridor. At the closest end to them stood a door already ajar, prompting the flerken to waddle towards it.

Moby, now having become a baby alligator, much to the chagrin of Yelena and joy of Percy, turned his head to check if they were following.

Percy flashed an encouraging two thumbs up, "Lead the way, Moby."

Yelena looked like she wanted to argue. Then she shook her head, by now acquainted with the utter nonsense that was himself and his flerken companion.

Slipping past the creaking door, low, rumbling growls met their ears, prompting the further annihilation of Percy's expectations. Lying before them in the room was a living, breathing carbon copy of Cerberus, three dog heads and all. In the corner stood a harp, magically playing a lullaby that seemed to be keeping the six-eyed beast asleep for the time being.

"Are we trying to get ourselves killed?" Yelena violently whispered, eyes gouged wide-open at the sight.

"Possibly." Percy quietly agreed, the inner linings of his lovesac tightening in anticipation.

Moby looked back at them, using one of his stubby legs to point towards an open trapdoor conveniently placed right in front of the middle dog's head. The message was clear: they were going through that.

Yelena's battle batons, which Percy forgot existed, reappeared in her hands, as he too drew Riptide from his jean pocket. Silently, they watched as Moby edged towards the trapdoor, the alligator not taking so much as a second look before disappearing from sight.

"This is unreal." Yelena whispered.

"Yelena, I'm afraid this is very much real."

"Shut up."

Together, they inched their ways forward, the dogs' noses twitching scarily as they approached. Looking down the trapdoor, they were met with nothing but black. There was no sign of the bottom. Then suddenly, two lamplike eyes sliced through the darkness looking back at them. Moby.

"You want to go first?" Percy offered.

In the few seconds of silence before Yelena's response, the dogs growled and twitched, but did not wake.

"No, you go." She responded anxiously.

Blindly believing that Moby would never lead them astray, Percy lowered himself through the hole until he was hanging on by his fingertips. Making a mockery of it all, he looked up at Yelena and said,

"See ya sunshine."

Percy smartly let go. Cold, damp air rushed past him as he fell down, down, down—flump. With a funny, muffled sort of thump he landed on something soft and crunchy. He sat up and felt around, his eyes not used to the gloom. It felt as though he was sitting on some sort of plant.

Yelena followed right away, landing sprawled next to Percy.

"What the hell's this stuff?' Were her beautiful first words.

"Dunno, think it's some sort of plant thing."

If it was a plant, it was fried and dead, blackened to beyond a crisp, yet still surprisingly spongy in most areas. The question still remained though, where was Moby?

Conveniently, a sharp barking noise from below answered for him, drawing their attention to an even more convenient human-sized hole in the plant canvas.

"I didn't know alligators barked."

"I'll add that to the list," remarked Yelena in his own voice.

"I don't sound like that."

"I don't sound like that." Again Yelena imitated.

"I love Percy Jackson."

"..."

"That's what I thought." Percy said smugly, before dropping through the second hole.

Meeting Moby in yet another corridor, this one gray unlike the previous mellow yellow, they were presented with only one way forward.

Percy let out a low whistle. "Why does this place have so many doors and corridors?"

Yelena's facial features scrunched accordingly, "I just hope Moby has a plan on getting us back out of here, once we find whatever it is we're looking for. God knows where the quinjet is right now."

The alligator barked once in response. Percy looked forward to the day that Moby responded with actual words.

Moving along, all they could hear apart from their footsteps was the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. Ahead of Moby, the passageway sloped downward, the ceiling tightening as they became single file.

"You hear that?" Yelena whispered.

Percy stopped to listen.

He could hear nothing but his own stomach growling,

"No?"

Yelena pouted, "There's like a rustling or clinking noise."

Alligator Moby barked.

"Well, Moby agrees with you." Percy translated.

Yelena's face went deadpan. "Please don't try to convince me that you can understand him."

"Hey Moby, bark if I was right."

Moby barked again.

Percy spread his hands out in victory. "What can I say? I'm just that awesome."

Eventually they reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. Proving Yelena right was a flock of birds just below the ceiling, fluttering and tumbling all around. On the opposite side of the chamber was, you guessed it, another already opened door.

"All these open doors in all these weird ass rooms," Percy muttered. "Why do I get the feeling that we're following somebody?"

"You're probably… not wrong." Yelena agreed.

Surprisingly, the birds left them alone as they crossed over. Perhaps whoever came before them had already fed them. Or maybe they were not birds at all.

The next chamber was so dark they could not see anything at all. But as they stepped into it, light suddenly flooded the room to reveal an astonishing sight. They were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard, filled with pieces which were all taller than they were, carved from what looked like black and white stone. And past the pieces on the other side, yet another door.

Passing through that one uninhibited, through a room filled with weird potions which contained, surprise, another damn door, the trio finally arrived in a chamber far bigger than the rest. And waiting for them there was a sight like no other.

There stood the presumable door opening perpetrator, a boy who could not have been older than eleven or twelve, holding a glowing stone in his hands. Another person, a grown man, was lying face first on the ground beside him, passed out completely.

The boy's head whipped at the sound of their approach, "Ron! Hermione! I did it! I—I…"

Percy took in the strangely dressed middle schooler with an open jaw. What stood out the most was the wickedly cool lightning scar on his forehead, sitting right above his glasses.

"Who are you?" The boy quivered in a British accent, hilariously drawing what looked like a twig from his overly pretentious black robe.

"Hey listen kid, we're just as confused as you are." Percy tried for an explanation, "We're uh, we're looking for something magical and…"

"What have you done to Ron and Hermione? Stay back!" The boy cried, raising his twig and yelling, "Petrificus totalus!"

From the twig came a burst of light, headed straight for the space between Percy's eyes. However before it could even reach halfway, Moby's maw extended impossibly wide, swallowing up the light like a vacuum cleaner.

At that moment, Percy and Yelena arrived at the same conclusion. Moby burped in agreement.

"I think we found our magic item." Percy concluded.

Yelena's eyes zeroed in on the thing the kid was holding in his hands,

"And I think we may have found another Infinity Stone in the process." She said incredulously.

"The Mind Stone," Percy muttered suddenly, recognizing its yellowish tint.

"What? You mean the Sorcerer's Stone?" The boy stumbled two steps back. "No! I won't let you have it."

"Listen, we don't want to hurt you." Yelena raised her voice an octave, as if she was trying to be the boy's mom. "But we really need those two things you got."

"No!" The boy cried again, raising his magical tree stick at her. "You can't!"

Begrudgingly, Percy cracked his knuckles and uncapped his ballpoint pen.

"Hey listen kid, just know that this is nothing personal. We're just trying to save the universe."


Author's Note:

Yup, that's right, our dear protagonists mugged Harry Potter. Hope you enjoyed! Thank you to those that left feedback on the previous chapter, made my day :)

Also, I started a Percy and Jane Foster story if you're interested!

Also again, I'm currently planning another story, and I'm trying to test the waters to see if people are interested in the premise. It's called Ex Machina. Summary: Falling alone into the Pit, Percy finds himself resorting to darker methods, crossing uncrossable lines, all in order to survive. Or, on the run, Sylvie finds herself in an apocalypse like no other, in a hell filled with monsters, with seemingly no way out but forward. PJO/Loki AU.

So yeah, basically it's a Percy Tartarus journey, but with a Loki twist. Been wanting to write a story about Sylvie for forever, and since she grew up in apocalypses, I figured that this would be almost perfect. Let me know your thoughts :)