Chapter VI

The Seventeenth of May

Eleven Days After the Battle of Manhattan

As Percy was sparring with Nico on a floor of the Empire State Building that they had refitted to be a small training area, he reflected on how much his situation had changed in the last several days.

It was a week since he had given his speech, and Percy was on an all time high. He and Nico had been sparring for just over an hour now, going at it with all their prowess and years of experience in full use. Normally, a 15 minute bout would be enough to tire a mortal out at the speed they crossed blades, 30 minutes for the average demigod.

And yet, an hour in, Percy was feeling fine. He hadn't dropped a sweat and knew it was the same for Nico. This had been the case the last several days. With every passing day, they could feel their power growing ever stronger; bits of belief instilling into their soul's power which hadn't been seen since ancient Greece.

His speech had leaked to outside Manhattan, of course, as he knew it would. It was impossible to completely shut down communication in a modern city like New York. Between satellites and radio towers, communication to the outside world would always happen one way or another.

Of course, he knew his speech was far less effective on those beyond the borders of Manhattan. Those that had not witnessed the invasion firsthand from the surrounding boroughs were less convinced, and the non-english speakers who heard his announcement through agnostic translations were less convinced still. But seeds of doubt had been planted, and people hesitated to write Percy off as some crazy zealot.

Capping Riptide, Percy stepped backward and decided to call it for the day. They both had work to get done. Percy's main responsibility at this point would be planning the invasion of Long Island, and making sure their forces were as up to par as they could be, while Nico dealt with potential insurrection or assassination attempts.

Percy had given him the all clear to begin establishing a secret police network over Manhattan which answered to him. How Nico had any idea how to do any of this, Percy had no idea, but they were ruling a small country now, after all. He figured this was a learning experience for everyone.

As Percy made his way to the elevator and pressed the button for the 87th floor to get to the war room, his thoughts once again wandered back to how powerful he might be now. He was truly itching to train with his newly found strength and test his control, but finding the opportunity was something which had eluded him.

Maybe he should put his foot down and find a time to train before the next battle. It would go a long way in saving a lot of lives if Percy could control his powers better, the only question was where to practice. Would it be better to do it in the sea, surrounded by his element, where he could do things which were astronomical in the amount of power it required, or somewhere in the Empire State Building, where he would have to exercise extensive amounts of control over water?

A question for another time, he thought, as the elevator arrived at the 87th floor with a ding. Walking out with purpose a far different site greeted him than the one that would have a week ago. The entire floor bustled with activity, far more than the pseudo busyness that had greeted him once when he would visit Annabeth's floor. An entire nation's developing army was being organized in this one room. Secretaries and newly promoted officers ran about in a flurry, the lack of digitization for most of their work only making their jobs harder.

When Percy stepped out of the elevator only a couple disinterested eyes bothered to glance at who had arrived at their floor. Those eyes quickly did a double take, stood up, and saluted at attention.

This of course, caught the interest of others nearby, who had similar reactions. Before Percy had made it so much as a yard out of the elevator, everyone in sight was standing at attention.

Used to this by now, Percy barely paid them any mind before saluting back on his way to the table Clarisse and a few other officers were already standing around. They all immediately dropped their salutes, still standing at attention until they were completely out of his sight.

Percy didn't respond with the cold arrogance that many dictators (Which, let's face it, is what he is at this point.) do when in a situation like he was. Percy didn't think himself above them, or deserving of their unconditional respect or loyalty. It was simply that doing anything else would make him appear weak, and appearing weak was the one thing he could not afford at this stage.

Taking his place at the head of the table they had designated as their planning table, Percy nodded before sitting down, the rest of the officers also taking their seats.

Percy looked out over the map of Long Island which had dominated the majority of his time for the last few days.

About half the officers around the table were children of Ares and Athena, and about half of them were particularly promising mortals which had signed up for their officer corps.

Malcom was there as a liaison to Annabeth and de-facto leader of the two other children of Athena around the table, while Clarisse acted as the de facto leader of the other two children of Ares.

It was factionalism at its finest. At least the mortals had yet to form factions in the war room. It was something Percy wanted to break up, but ultimately there was no easy way to. If he got rid of qualified individuals, it would potentially make a plan go worse. If he kept them, then sure they would cause some arguments, but ultimately Percy had executive authority. It didn't matter if Clarisse or Malcom were having a catfight, because a decision would be made either way.

"What's changed since yesterday?" Percy asked those around the table. The mortals were on his right as he looked down the long rectangular table, while the demigods were on the left, with Clarisse closest to him.

The mortal closest to him on the right, newly christened Lieutenant Colonel Darlton, took a moment to take in the appearance of Nico, who stood just behind him. It wasn't often that Nico was at these meetings, but evidently he didn't have more pressing matters at the moment — a sign that things were calming down, if anything.

Clearing his throat, Darlton spoke up "Sir, we have decided conclusively that Brooklyn must be the location for our initial push. Our predictions, while uncertain due to the… unique nature of our forces, are mostly conclusive that taking Long Island will take a not insignificant amount of time, and should the United States forces find a way to block off the east river for transportation, we would be utterly stranded.

"The best course of action would be to seize from the Brooklyn Navy Yard all the way to the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in our initial assault, so as to greatly reduce the enemy's capability for marine warfare on Long Island as we push forward, to help prevent any naval assaults in the difficult weather. Furthermore if-"

"That will not be necessary. I'm surprised one of my cousins did not inform you," Percy made a gesture to his left, " — but their naval forces will not be an issue. The threat of naval invasion or support is irrelevant while I lead our forces."

An officer next to Darlton spoke up before he had a chance to respond "Yes, sir, we were made aware of your… Affinity with water. However, after asking our more divine companions of your capabilities, it was decided that should they send a carrier group, you would not be able to sink any one ship before the fleet itself was combat prepared, causing us a significant amount of losses. As Lieutenant Colonel Darlton was saying —"

Percy interrupted one of his officers for the second time that day. "Then perhaps —" he sent a sharp glance at his left, "— my cousins are misinformed. A carrier group will be a distraction and nothing more. If the United States Navy decided to mobilize their entire armada I doubt a single warship could get into firing range before they were sunk."

Percy's powers weren't the only thing that grew. His senses also had grown since their debut. Truth be told, if Percy concentrated, he could tell the moment a destroyer left port in California. His subordinates didn't need to know that yet, but what they did need to know was that nothing mortal in the sea could challenge them so long as Percy was there.

After a breath, Darlton took back command of the situation. "Very well. Besides those, there are no other areas of tactical or strategic importance until we reach the JFK airport. I would recommend that we attempt to take control of everything west of Broadway and Pennsylvania Avenue. It would make a very clear border, and would also allow us to march straight out from the Williamsburg bridge."

Percy thought for a second. It was more than all of Brooklyn. It would be ambitious. "Do we have enough people for that? What are we working with?" he asked.

"Currently..." Malcom spoke up, the first one from Percy's left to do so today "We have twelve thousand cyclopes, thirteen thousand active duty personnel which we have recruited to be outfit with the estimated thirteen thousand guns we've seized, about eighty thousand reserves to be deployed once we have access to more weapons and ammunition, a civilian police force of about eight thousand who do not have firearms, and three hundred men in the vanguard, which are all being led by various demigods and outfitted with celestial bronze armor and weapons. We have enough to fit just over one thousand people into the vanguard, however for obvious reasons we are being rather selective with our personnel."

Most of that Percy knew previously, but it was certainly better to hear it all at once.

"I suggest we assault navally, it would work best on the strengths of our current forces. Attacking from the sea would open us to being cut off, but it is a risk which might pay off." Alex, the child of Ares next to Clarisse, argued.

Percy took a deep breath and steeled himself for the hours of planning that were to come.


Percy sat across from Nico in the training room. Their spar for the day had just finished; it had gone a bit longer than usual today, about an hour and fifteen minutes, but slowly Percy was beginning to think there wasn't much of a point to the sparring anymore.

They both knew that Percy was a better swordsman. That had been an objective truth that hadn't changed since they first met. But when they went on for over an hour without breaking a sweat, with neither one making a mistake, it was no longer becoming a question of skill, but predicting the others moves, which they could now do effortlessly.

Predicting Nico's moves in the field would likely not help anything, so Percy was trying out something new: meditation. Of course, Percy couldn't keep his mind empty or his body still for more than a couple seconds, so calling it meditating was a bit inaccurate, but the principle remained the same.

Both Percy and Nico sat on the ground in the wide open area they used for sparring, directly across from each other, with their eyes closed. They were trying to better harness their new found power. Percy especially was working on controlling incredibly small bodies of water. But first, he had to hide them from the gods. Stretching his senses out, Percy did as Zeus had instructed him to what felt like so long ago.

He focused in on the most miniscule of energy flowing around him, and kept focusing, until, like before, he could sense even the tiniest of entities. It was markedly easier than the first time, both in how quick he managed it and how much it exerted him. He figured this was a combination of having done it before and his new great increase in power.

Then, with a sudden yank, he cut himself off from the energy that connected him to the outside world. No longer could he feel every atom which made up the air, but he could still feel to a very intense degree every bit of moisture in the room. Feeling Nico's blood made him uneasy, but feeling his own made him nearly freak out. It was an incredibly surreal feeling. Like being able to numb a part of your body and rub it with your hand. He knew it was him, but it felt disconnected in a way.

Percy had no idea what Nico was doing, but figured this would also help him with controlling his power. There had to be something he could meditate on to help him improve his control over shadows, or the dead, or… something.

Refocusing on his own efforts, Percy reached out to a random part of the room. He could feel every molecule of water shifting through the air, before he condensed it to form a miniature trident. Pulling more water from the vast room they were in, he made the trident bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until it was the size of a regular trident.

After guiding it to his hand and feeling it for a moment — if just to confirm that it was real — he attempted to dispel it back into the atmosphere.

Prior to the invasion of Manhattan this likely would have knocked him unconscious. Now, he wasn't even sweating. That didn't mean it was easy, however.

After about thirty seconds, he managed to dispel the trident into the room at large.

He tried again. This time, he was able to form the trident that much quicker, and then dispel it just a little bit quicker as well.

Having an idea, Percy opened his eyes. Nico was across from him, intensely concentrating, and there was actually a bead of sweat making its way down his forehead. Percy didn't want to know what he was doing to require so much power.

Taking his necklace off, Percy willed it to become the full sized crown he had seen when Zeus gave it to him. Immediately the power almost floored him. It seemed that becoming more powerful had only revealed more of the crown's power to Percy, not made it seem less powerful in comparison.

Percy tentatively put the crown on, and felt a rush of power. The power was even more than what had occurred when he made his speech. The power this object held… was incredible, simply put. Was this the power a primordial simply exuded?

Percy could feel with razor sharp accuracy an almost omniscient view of the world. He could feel everything from Nico's beating heart, to the coffee that a secretary was drinking three floors above him, to the water surrounding Manhattan, as far inland as the water inside a grain of wheat in Kansas, and the blood pumping through the veins of a frog in Chongqing. Willing the trident to form, it instantly appeared in his hand, before he dispersed it and it returned to the room at large instantaneously.

Percy nervously took off the crown. That power. It was... Addicting. He wasn't sure he could handle that kind of power. It was the power of a primordial — no, a glimpse at it — and Percy was absolutely terrified.

But the crown would remain useless if he couldn't use it in view of the gods, he would have to completely hide the area he was using his powers in. Any feat which required the crown would not be in a small area.

Having an idea, Percy concentrated on the crown, feeling the energy around it, just slightly opening up his sensitivity to the world around him. Just like pulling a plug, Percy disconnected the connection that he felt to the crown, and almost instantly blacked out from the pain and exhaustion that hit him.

Though his thoughts were barely coherent, Percy could just barely make out Nico rushing to his side as his world went black.


Percy awoke in the bed he had been using for the last week. After several days of living on a cot in the Empire State Building, he had found himself a proper bed brought to his floor, in one of the rooms that wasn't being used.

He was not entirely surprised to see Nico standing in the corner. It seemed Nico had been watching over him since… whatever had happened, however long ago it was.

"What happened?" Percy asked, sitting up and rubbing his head. It was still throbbing, and the parched itch in his throat only made it worse.

"You reached a bit past your limits." Nico told him, solemnly. The son of Hades gave a pointed look upwards. "Mind cutting us off?"

Percy nodded, and after a moment of concentration, their room was hidden from the eyes of the gods.

"I guess you tried cutting off the crown from the divine world." Nico pointed at the crown which Percy hadn't noticed now laying on his nightstand. "Rather, I guess you did. That is now undetectable, at least to me. Before I could feel a bit of energy radiating off of it, but now it's just a crown."

"Oh, yeah." Percy shook his head "I forgot to tell you, I'm a bit too used to you knowing everything I know at this point. This crown," he picked it up with one hand, and true to Nico's statement he couldn't feel anything from it, "— is crazy powerful. I assume you can't feel it because you aren't connected to the sea or water, but the power that comes off this crown..."

Percy paused, collecting his scattered thoughts, before looking into Nico's eyes. "I don't know whether it enraptures me or terrifies me. Probably both. When I put it on, I can feel everything. It's more powerful than anything I've ever even heard of. The master bolt, my father's trident, everything. And the scariest part is that it's like it's not even trying. At least the big three's symbols of power are designed to be powerful weapons, but this thing just exists." Percy turned his gaze from Nico to the crown.

A look of realization came across Nico's face. "So when you cut it off... despite how much power you've gained recently, it just knocked you out cold."

Percy nodded. "Pretty much, yeah. That being said," Percy tapped the crown on one of its points, turning it back into the necklace form which Percy had worn for the last couple weeks. "I'm far more free to use it now that the gods can't detect its power."

As Percy stretched and got up, Nico came over to try and help him, before being swatted away by Percy.

"So, how long have I been out?"

Nico cleared his throat. "Yeah, about that. It's been just under two days. I've informed Annabeth and your command staff that you're currently working on a project that requires your direct attention."

Percy stilled. "Was it really necessary to lie to Annabeth?"

Nico shrugged in reply. "As far as I knew, you wanted that crown thing to be a secret from everyone, Annabeth included."

Percy frowned. "You're right, but still, it doesn't sit well with me. Anything else to tell me?"

"I haven't exactly been keeping up with your command staff or Annabeth. There was the largest insurrection we've had yet in upper Manhattan, but still nothing I couldn't handle personally."

Percy's face darkened, knowing what such a large insurrection would mean for those that had attempted it.

"How many?"

"One thousand, eight hundred and fifty two."

Percy bit his tongue. That was rough.

"On the bright side, it seems like everything has died down since then. Most of the more organized resistance groups joined that one insurrection." Nico pointed out.

Convincing himself that was good news, Percy nodded and started moving towards the door. He had some catching up to do.


His command staff was not super pleased he had up and disappeared on them for two days, especially the demigod officers. The mortals seemed slightly disgruntled, however seemed to respect him enough to assume he was taking care of some important demigod business. If anything, the demigods in the war room were causing the mortal officers to be less content.

They could always assume it was demigod business, until demigods they worked with complained about it all the same. Keeping them in line was manageable but a chore, especially since those like Clarisse saw him as their equal and peer. It almost wasn't worth the trouble keeping them around.

Annabeth was more difficult to deal with initially, but after realizing she'd just have to trust that he knew what he was doing, had calmed down.

Now Percy was in his office signing documents. In reality it was nothing more than red tape, but some things simply needed his signature.

The promotion of higher ranking officers, the approval of some contract with a local manufacturer to create something for the government (as limited as those were) or the assignment of an officer to a high ranking billet.

Long story short, there was lots for Percy to catch up on. Some of it, he authorized Annabeth to take care of in the future. On the military side of things, there wasn't so much delegation. Percy wasn't a control freak, not when it involved him doing paperwork, but there was nobody that he could truly trust to run the military. Clarisse or any of her siblings were out the window, same with Malcom and his, and there weren't any mortals yet in his service which he trusted enough to give autonomy to any major degree.

Lieutenant Colonel Darlton showed the beginnings of being a competent officer, but Percy had just met him. It would require far more than some early promise for Percy to trust someone with the military.

His C-Staff also had a designated day for the invasion of Brooklyn, which would be on May 24th, before hopefully rapidly pushing into the rest of Long Island before the end of May while they were disorganized.

After all of Long Island was theirs, their free space to conduct operations and construction would rapidly grow. After all, there was very little free space in Manhattan. With the incredibly dense population on the island, Percy and Annabeth had found that they were often squeezing in positions for offices and government bureaus, displacing people as they did so.

Percy knew things wouldn't calm down, at least not for a while. He just hoped it was sooner rather than later. Percy wasn't a lazy person, but he figured that he had experienced more than enough war for a lifetime, and yearned for the day he could take a break from the constant work without fearing his new nation would implode on itself.

Just as he set down the pen he had been holding for the last few hours and began shaking the cramps out of his hand, he sensed someone on the elevator arrive at his floor.

There was a knock on the door to his office moments later.

"Come in," he called, watching as the door opened and a daughter of Hermes walked in. Before the door closed, he got a glimpse of the two guards in celestial bronze armor standing outside his door.

They were two demigods whose names he couldn't currently remember, but they were both hand picked by Nico to serve as his protection when Nico wasn't around. Though they both knew Percy didn't really need it, Nico insisted the extra security be present incase Percy needed something, or was suddenly in a situation where he was unable to defend himself, like two days ago.

Turning his focus to who had just entered his office (Jeanna, was it?) he saw a small stack of papers in her hand. Setting them down on his desk, she spoke.

"A message from New Rome, your highness," she said, before bowing slightly and walking to a corner of the room, where she stood. She would remain until Percy dismissed her or gave her a message to send back to New Rome, he assumed.

Looking down at the papers in front of him, Percy sighed as he realized they were written in English.

Reading through the papers, Percy was thoroughly unsurprised. It seemed Jason had been pressed back into service for New Rome by the gods as consul of New Rome.

They had taken a far more tactical approach to seizing their surrounding areas, and Percy was honestly a bit impressed. The Romans had contacted former demigods which were now in government. Most of the few legacies and demigods which had taken up government positions were in low level bureaucracy jobs. But it would help with the transition once they struck nonetheless.

But what was the most shocking was the governor on the list. Once they had secured California, expanding to Oregon would be nigh instant.

Most of the pages were status updates on when New Rome would make their move, and how to coordinate it with the Greeks in New York. Writing back, Percy wrote general instructions for them to follow in San Francisco. He trusted Jason to handle their side for the most part, but some things would need to be the same between their two sections for when they eventually connected. New Rome would have a much easier time of setting up a government in their surrounding area. It was less densely populated, and they already had a civilian government set up, whereas Percy and Annabeth had had to create one from scratch.

Signing his name at the bottom of his letter back, and putting an impromptu imperial stamp (which was just a fancy insignia some executive had had in their office which happened to contain a trident) on the bottom right, Percy beckoned to the girl who had delivered the papers.

Handing her his response, he took a moment to stretch as she hurried off. Picking up his pen once again, he resumed the arduous job of paperwork.

It wasn't half an hour later before Percy sensed someone else arriving on his floor and there was another knock at his door. One of his guards peaked their head in.

"Your highness, a Sasha Deveraux is here. She doesn't have authorization to be here, but insists she see you."

Percy raised an eyebrow. If he recalled correctly, she was a daughter of some minor goddess. Maybe… Eris? Either way he had heard her name before, so she was definitely a demigod.

"Let her in, I'll see her," he decided.

The door swung open and a girl one or two years his junior walked in timidly, bearing the least confident body language Percy had seen in a while. He could tell by the way she was slightly drawn in on herself and her gaze tended to drop downward that she was uncomfortable. She had black hair and purple eyes, and Percy got the inkling he wasn't far off with his guess of her being a daughter of Eris.

As the door closed behind her with a click, and Percy looked at her expectantly. She only seemed to shrink in on herself even more.

She gave a bow lower than any demigod he knew had ever bowed to him. She really wasn't very familiar with him, it seemed.

"Your highness," she greeted. He was surprised that her voice didn't come out as a squeak with how nervous she appeared to be. There was the slightest bit of shaking in her voice, but overall she managed to hold it together.

Percy sat patiently, waiting for her to gather herself and say what she wanted to say.

"I'm the last daughter of Hecate that my mother has claimed at camp sir — ah — I mean your highness. I wanted to ask permission to go to camp and get the texts we keep in my cabin on magic. I was never granted access as one of the newer campers, but now…"

Damn, he was close with Eris. She and Hecate could be sisters, if the godly family tree wasn't so fucked up. He shot her a sympathetic glance. He hadn't quite realized that she was the last daughter of Hecate. That meant that Lou Ellen… Percy refocused on the girl in front of him.

Nodding, Percy responded, "Sure, go ahead. Just bring everything back here. If you need anything, let me know. We have plenty of spare floors if you need a large space to keep them, and as the last daughter of Hecate, you will be a very valuable asset in the times to come. If you require any resources, just ask. In fact..." He reached into a drawer on his desk, taking out a slip of paper. He wrote a short message, signed, and stamped it.

Handing it to her, he elaborated "This will get you anywhere you need to go in Manhattan, and direct access to me and anyone else you may need to talk to. Go to the 47th floor and talk to Annabeth, she'll arrange for your transportation to camp and back."

Blushing, she ducked her head and took the paper. "Thank y-you, your highness."

Honestly her shy attitude, while at first a bit endearing, was quickly starting to turn annoying, he'd have to fix that. "And keep your chin up, you'll be working for me now, right? I can't have one of my people blushing up a storm everywhere they go, can I?" He sent her his signature lopsided grin. "Now go, you have a lot of work to do it seems."

Nodding quickly, she issued another bow before turning and leaving the room, her stride ever so slightly more confident than previously.


Percy was having one of his weekly meetings with Annabeth the next day, where they caught up both professionally and personally.

They were just finishing up the discussion of logistics when they invaded Brooklyn and then subsequently the rest of Long Island, and food distribution afterwards.

"Oh, and there's another thing," Annabeth seemed to remember. "We need an official flag, name, insignia, all of it. Branding, basically. You kinda worked yourself into a corner with the whole 'help me build this new empire' thing. I told you I should have written your speech." She sent him a small glare.

Percy rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, I was kinda going for shock value on that."

"Well, you certainly achieved that. The only problem now is that we have to be an empire, and you the emperor. I'm not even going to think about getting permission from the gods to name yourself emperor. You were put in charge of Olympus's forces so you could conquer the mortal world and expand worship for the gods, not… whatever this is."

She seemed genuinely stressed over the repercussions from the gods.

"Hey." He reached a hand over his desk to grasp hers. "I already talked to Zeus," the instant he said his name he could feel a presence enter the room. Annabeth didn't feel it, and Percy only did because of what Zeus had taught him previously about feeling his connection to the divine world. Percy was constantly connected at least a little bit. He theorized that extreme use of that trick was how the gods projected their presences, but he hadn't had enough time to quite get that down yet.

Refocusing on the conversation, he resumed his sentence. "He's fine with us taking over down here. He cares that we get as many mortals to worship the gods as possible. You could say we basically have a blank check as far as what we do down here."

Of course, Percy had spoken to Zeus about no such thing, but it had always been the sort of understanding they had. Percy was calling the bluff now. If Zeus' opinion on the mortal world was as Percy thought, then Zeus would do nothing, and let him be. If Percy was wrong, then he assumed he would be getting a summons to Olympus soon.

Annabeth seemed relieved at that.

"You should have told me." She sent him a look as she squeezed his hand. "Well then, my point still stands. You put yourself into a corner with the empire thing. You'll have the title of emperor. Which means we'll have to go for an incredibly authoritarian society, not even the theocracy I was hoping we could work out."

Percy stopped his eyebrow from raising at that. Her vision for a theocracy certainly hadn't been something he had been let in on.

"But now we'll need to work on PR. I'll draft up some flags, insignias, et cetera. We'll need to point you in a royal light, — Hades, we'll need a crown, a throne."

Annabeth continued to fret about the various details for another thirty seconds before Percy cut her off with a chaste kiss on the lips.

He grabbed her hand "We'll work it out. This is hardly the hardest thing we've ever had to do. I'm sure we'll be fine," he reassured her.

Sighing, she nodded, finally taking a deep breath. "You're right, it's just… too much. I didn't expect running a new government to be easy but…" she bit her lip.

Thinking back, Percy realized they hadn't shared any proper alone time since the invasion. The stress was piling up on both of them, he knew.

Percy leaned in to kiss her. They needed to take a break, just to be with each other for one night. Damn the empire he was building, he would always find room for his Wise Girl.