Co-Written By Vanadium Oxide

Beta'd By PraetorFable


"Was my victory even worth it, after all the blood's been shed?

When I close my eyes, all I hear is all the screaming filled with dread."

-Sam Luff, World End


Chapter XXIII

December 23

Seven Months A.B.M

He took in the sights in front of him as he stepped off the last step, for the first time laying eyes on what had been under construction for months.

"So this is it, huh?" Thalia let out a low whistle from beside him, stepping down to the floor with a hop "The largest arsenal of magical items compiled in immortal history. Not quite as flashy as I thought it'd be, but impressive nonetheless."

Percy had to agree. Instead of a large table of enchanted items and gleaming weapons, it was a long, long hallway filled with vault doors made of Celestial Bronze. All of them were now shut, the transfer of items having been completed from the floors above to the one secure location here.

"It's certainly our magnum opus." Sasha said from his other side, nodding. She was comfortable here, Percy noticed. At ease. Confident.

"How do they open?" Thalia asked, walking over to peer at one closer and reaching out to investigate the door. "There's no handle or keypad or anything."

"I wouldn't touch that." Sadie interrupted from further down the hall. "The items in that vault specifically are mostly just dangerous for mortals or weak legacies, but it's protected all the same. The enchantments won't put a scratch on you, but it won't be a pleasant experience either."

Thalia quickly retracted her hand. "Yeah, got it. No touchie touchie."

"To answer your question they're coded to magical signatures. It's a bit hard to explain, but think of it like your soul's fingerprint. We'll be able to add you all to these in a moment but for now, you won't be able to open these vaults with anything short of the magical equivalent of a nuke. There's one on the entrance to the vault as well, it's the door right outside the elevator down."

Thalia let out a low whistle and Lacey (who had just stepped down the stairs behind them) looked at the doors cautiously. "That's some next level security."

"Who can open these?" Nico asked, observing a vault of his own. It was marked 003A, and the rest were similarly numbered down the hall.

"Right now, some of the people that helped us build these. We'll be going through the accesses today, but in this section of the vault most of the people in the arcane department will be able to grab things from this area, and we're planning on adding some others as well. Important members of government, the royal guard, Lacey here, and of course you, Thalia, and Percy. The items in this area are powerful by mortal standards and a bit nifty, but mostly they're harmless. At least, by our standards."

Nico nodded that he understood. "And the less harmless ones?"

Sasha stepped forward with a cheshire grin. "Right this way."

She led them down the hall and stopped in front of one of the vault doors several down. This one was labelled 000B unlike all of the others in the hall which were designated with the letter A. Sasha pressed her palm to the door and it opened, rising into the ceiling and out of view with a soft but deep rumble.

"This section will be granted to you three, Lacey, myself and Sasha, and some of the most trusted members of our department. Anyone that you really trust can be added here as well, but I'd recommend keeping that number a bit low. Class A is safe, or at least mostly safe. Anything you could do with class A to cause harm could just as well be caused by an abuse of power on a wide scale or a mid-tier demigod. Class B is dangerous. The more violent items in here range from being able to destroy a city block to most of New York State. The less violent items can cause a good bit of trouble in the wrong hands, too. Limited clairvoyance, invisibility, make a pretty much invincible barrier — at least by mortal standards — you name it. If someone who has access to an A-level vault abuses their power the worst result could have just as easily been caused by a bit of planning and cunning. Mostly it's just for research. If someone that has access to a B level vault abuses their power the result could be the equivalent of giving them access to a small nuclear arsenal, or giving them a power to control everyone around them. Nothing which could threaten you long term, but these are best kept on a need to use basis all the same."

Percy nodded to show he understood, glancing at the doors around them but mostly keeping his eyes forward. Unlike the A section, this hallway had a visible end a few dozen vaults away. Percy's eyes stayed locked on the large metal door at the end of the hallway marked 000C.

Noticing where he was looking, Sasha moved on to the end of the hallway, bidding the others to follow.

"This is where I'd really start to worry about touching things, so keep your hands to yourself and get a bit of distance. In the A section if you try to access the vault without authorization it'll apply lethal force to whoever's trying to open it, a good example is spontaneous combustion. The backlash is custom built to be randomized, so you can't just wear a fire-resistant suit and have a good chance at surviving. Unfortunately it isn't foolproof, some fire resistant demigods would probably survive if they got lucky with the combustion option, a relatively powerful normal demigod might be able to ward off the effects well enough because they're applied magically, and gods would just shrug it off. Point is, there's more than a few people who would survive an attempt, and if they can survive the attempt they can brute force it. Gods probably could, but demigods that aren't you three shouldn't be powerful enough to. We don't want to take the chance either way with anything more powerful, which is why class B is a bit more dangerous."

"I set this one up." Sadie said, puffing her chest out a bit. "It ended up using more Egyptian magic than Greek, but there's a little Greek in there too just to make sure it's thorough. Basically if you try and open the B vaults, it'll reduce whatever's trying to get in to its most basic form. For mortals, this means you get a quick end and a lot of atoms scattering in the wind. For the gods, this would be something more similar to what happened to Kronos. Or at least, that's the idea. In practice it wouldn't do much more than stun them pretty harshly. I like to think I'm pretty good at my craft and Sasha helped a bit, but we don't have the firepower to take on a god head on in that way. You three would be injured and slowed down, but most likely without any real permanent damage other than the scarring of the experience. So we had to come up with something a bit more clever for section C."

Sasha nodded. "This was an amalgamation of a lot of things we found from pantheons all over the world. To be honest, setting up the failsafe for vault C took longer than A and B combined, plus their physical construction time."

Sadie huffed. "Too many sleepless nights we've spent on this thing. It's kind of bodged, but using the cumulative knowledge of a lot of different and powerful rituals and spells from across the world we managed to put something together I think we're both pretty proud of. We even had the elder Cyclopes help us with a bit of it, not that they knew what they were working on."

Sasha took over again. "This one is complicated. The others were a bit nuanced to make but could be simplified, this one… not so much, mostly because it works in several parts. The simplest I can describe it… well, it acts as a receptacle, taking whatever power you try to throw at it and using it as a catalyst for the defensive spells. Where the first two vaults are technically possible to brute force by shoving enough divine energy into it, throwing your entire weight into this one has the opposite effect."

"And what exactly does it use all that energy for?" Thalia asked, looking at the door cautiously and making sure to keep a decent distance.

"A nasty combination of spells, a few dozen in all. One to try and take more divine energy from you against your will to keep fueling it, one to break your essence down like the B Vault's defense, one to erase your memory, another to break your will to fight, another to burn away your soul — can you tell we took some inspiration from the rivers of the underworld? — and quite a few other nasty tricks like forcing the consciousness of hundreds of damned souls into your mind for all eternity. Basically it hits you from a dozen different directions, and the power it's able to use depends on the power of who's trying to access it. It's possible to survive if you don't try and brute force it initially and have a particularly strong willpower, but it's far from pleasant all the same and you'll never be the same again. It won't be a fun time. Even the most powerful gods should never be able to form a consciousness again if they aren't careful with this one."

Having said that, Sasha rested her hand on the door as if it was the safest thing in the world, causing it to open in the same manner as the others.

"On top of that as far as we can tell it shouldn't actually be possible to force your way in here, regardless of how much power you have. We're hardly all knowing so it's possible there's a way to force your way in with time, but if there is then Sadie and I certainly can't think of it."

The group stepped into the hallway, turning their heads to look at the numbered vaults around them and finding that they looked the exact same as those before. But while the vaults were the same, the room had a noticeable difference.

The A vaults had been longer than the naked eye could see and had multiple branched paths, large enough to contain literally millions of magical artifacts from everything as mundane as a real good luck charm to some scissors that were enchanted to never be dull, or some relatively weak magic weapons which wouldn't be the end of the world if they fell into a mortal's hands. The B vaults were the length of a football field, ready to contain anything that might be realistically dangerous to a lot of people. It looked like it could hold thousands comfortably, any found items that would prove truly dangerous to people beyond what any one mortal or normal demigod would normally be capable of on their own.

Vault C was miniscule in comparison. The hallway was about as large as a suburban house in the US, each of the four vault doors on the two walls half its length, and another vault at the end of the short hallway. If it was this small… What was it holding?

"This vault is for me, Sasha, and you three only. While obviously you can tell me to add whoever you want to be allowed in here… I seriously recommend against it." Sadie deadpanned. "This vault should only be accessed if we need to strike back against the gods. There are some serious weapons in here taken from across the pantheons. Famous symbols of power and objects which gods have used for thousands of years are arrayed in each of the vaults. So many of them were lost when Carter…" her voice caught, and she paused to cough into her elbow. Percy took a step closer, but before he could get within arm's reach she resumed speaking. "When Rama destroyed the first Nome. But there are still a lot of mythical objects we were able to recover. Weapons that have the ability to either deal a serious blow to the gods, or kill them entirely. Permanently."

Percy sucked in a breath, and he could hear Thalia react similarly beside him. Lacey for her part had gone a pale white. "Is something like that even possible? To not just kill a god, but force them to die?" he asked.

Sadie nodded slowly. "It is. The world's a big place, and nothing has shown me that more than having this treasure trove of information and items to explore. We're two teenage girls." Sadie gestured between her and Sasha, "I'm completely mortal, and between us in a few months we've been able to make spells which would render gods defenseless, all because every single mythology across earth has their strengths. They each have unique deities, items, spells, you name it, to do different things well.

"Just look at the Greco-Roman pantheon. You have the master bolt, your father's trident, the elder Cyclopes, and half a dozen other items or spells which can bend the world to their will on an incredible level, and some items, people, or spells can even bend the laws of the universe itself, and that's just your pantheon. Sure you can't break the laws of physics in every way, there aren't an infinite amount of universe-defying items which exist, but there's enough to pull off some crazy stuff in the right circumstances. Throw every one of the other dozens of major pantheons in the world into the mix, and suddenly you have a multitool which lets you do anything with enough time and the right information. If your pantheon has half a dozen items that you know of that are powerful enough to contend with the gods," she gestured to Nico's sword. "Then imagine how many there are in all the other pantheons." she finished, stepping back and pressing her hand against one of the doors. It slid open the same as all the others, but Percy felt it was almost ominous in its opening.

Inside was a treasure trove of unique items, varied as they were impressive. Spears, cloaks, helmets, cloths, maces, the room was filled to the brim with mostly shining and metallic artifacts. All of them were either resting inside of fancy glass cases on the wall or in a glass case in the middle. All in all, there had to be something like a hundred items in this one vault alone. Some of them he could guess what he was looking at, but for most…?

"The armor of Achilles," Sadie gestured to a set of Greek armor hanging on the wall, and then continued down the wall naming off ancient artifacts. "The Lance of Longinus, Durandal, Crocea Mors, Gae Bolg, The Book of Thoth," Percy and Sadie shared a quick look "the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, Fragarach, Sharur, the Shield of Lancelot — the list goes on. Every one of these items is either so powerful that we're too afraid to test it, or has such a powerful enchantment that it breaks the rules of the universe in some way. The Shield of Lancelot for instance just revitalizes you, and stops you from feeling fatigue. It doesn't sound too powerful, but as far as we can tell there isn't a limit. The enchantment just draws from some sort of unknown limitless power; it's absolute. Most of these items are more practical, though." Making her way back towards the start of the display, she pointed out a spear which Percy recalled she'd called 'the Lance of Longinus'. It didn't look special, just a bit like one of the spears he'd seen people use in New Rome, just steel instead of gold.

"This is the Lance of Longinus, the lance which stabbed Jesus on the cross. It can pierce anything. Anything. We tried everything we could think of. It ripped through celestial bronze like it wasn't there and put a coke can sized hole in the side of a battleship with just a thrust. It's rumored to also be able to kill anything, but… well, we didn't think to test it too thoroughly. And considering its legend is that it stabbed Jesus when he was already dead, I wouldn't count on it."

Percy crossed his arms and stared at the spear with a new appreciation. Now that she mentioned it, the tip of that spear did look sharp.

"This is Fragarach." she moved on to one of the swords she'd pointed at. "It's useful as a lie detector, but its main gimmick is that wounds dealt by Fragarach don't heal. Ever. Mortal, demigod, god, it doesn't matter, you just can't heal the wound. You can bandage it, keep some of the blood in, hell I'm sure you could keep all of the blood in. But it'll never heal." she nodded at the case and stepped back. "I'm sure you could think about how those two might be useful if push comes to shove. There's some more useful things as well, some items that can potentially force gods to fade, or be forced to obey you. I'll finish your tour of this part of the vault later, but for now we have one more section to cover."

Percy frowned, slightly confused. "Is it hidden or something? There wasn't another vault outside."

He took a couple steps back to look out to the hall and sure enough there were only the other four vaults, all marked with C labels.

"No, it's not hidden." Sasha answered for her, following him out and prompting the others to step out as well. "It's protected. The safety measures are so… thorough that we didn't want to risk anyone accidentally touching it, so we put another C-class door in front of it, just as a kind of extra failsafe."

Despite how apparently dangerous the thing behind it was she stepped up to the door at the end of the hallway and rested her hand on it, causing it to open and reveal the much more narrow hall beyond it, though she did back up a few steps afterwards. Half a dozen feet behind it through the relatively small hallway was another door. It looked just like the others, but Percy couldn't shake the feeling that this one was different. Very, very different.

000D

"This," Sasha said, "Is your vault. The original intent was for it to just store Primordial artifacts and anything else we found which we thought might be of similar power, but we've only found a couple we think might be primordial so far so the vault was hardly full. Even if it's not all that dangerous, we figured you might want to have an ultimately secure place to put… stuff. Either way, the space is there. You are the only one with access to the vault, which was… tricky to work out."

Sadie started muttering to herself a couple feet to Sasha's left, kicking the ground and letting loose more than a few curse words. "Yeah, we couldn't touch the thing or apply any force past a certain point, but we had to run a lot of rituals on it, carve inscriptions onto it, enchantments, the whole nine yards. It was dangerous work but mostly it was tedious because we had to be so careful that a day of work took a week and twenty people." Sadie let out a particularly harsh string of curses as if not meaning to remind herself of the experience, making Percy wince and Thalia glance over with a raised eyebrow. If Percy didn't know better he'd say she looked impressed.

Nevermind, he didn't know better. She was definitely impressed.

"Yeah, Sadie mainly worked on organizing this one while I focused on building the rest of the vault, but I still had to help with some of the more powerful Greek magic. It wasn't fun. Luckily we started working on it first, so it didn't delay the finish date of the vault by too much."

"What does it do?" Percy asked, staring at the door in a little wonder, though he had no idea why. It didn't look different, Hades, it didn't even feel different to his divine senses. But it was different… somehow.

"I'm not sure I can describe it because I'm not sure that language can actually describe anything taking place. Really I'm not sure I really comprehend it myself, I just know how magic works, and by extension how the laws of the universe interact. What I set up here… it doesn't work. I set it up so that when someone that isn't you attempts to enter, it triggers a reaction on the person trying to open it. That reaction involves a ritual which includes a lot of potent stuff, like I had no idea if I'd even survive attempting to collect it level potent. For example one of the main catalysts was the waters of Chaos in the Duat. Luckily I managed to find a process of extracting it, but I didn't find a way of making sure I didn't fracture space-time when collecting some of Ma'at."

"You what?" Percy snapped. He couldn't decide whether staring at the door in awe was now more or less appealing than staring at Sadie in shock.

"I got a bit of Ma'at. I didn't technically have a way to extract it safely but I know what I'm doing. So long as the piece was small enough and never fell into the wrong hands it should never cause any sort of effects on the balance of life and death. And I don't think there was ever any risk to me personally. Either way those are two of the ingredients. Some primordial energy extract — as much as I could get from the two items in there without risking an unfortunate reaction, at least. It took a lot of researching very primal and primordial forces across mythologies, but the result of gathering those ingredients…" Sadie paused for a moment, turning to look at the door with an almost hungry look. It was a look he'd never seen on her before, but it was one he'd seen on other people. When they were staring at their life's desire, the very pinnacle of what they wanted to do here on earth, and they had it. He'd seen the same look in Sasha's eyes when they'd gotten the first shipment of magical artifacts and texts, and looking back he'd seen it a couple times in the last few minutes, as well.

"Forget the universe, as far as I'm concerned the fabric of reality itself disagrees with what I've created here. It shouldn't ever happen. Forget shouldn't, it can't. Even can't is too weak of a word. It just… isn't. The exact reaction is very hard to put into words, as I said before I can barely understand what'll actually happen myself. Dimensions, including time, will just… fold in on each other over one exact spot in spacetime. They'll cease to exist and infinitely expand at the same time, it's just so hard to actually think of the concept because my brain — our brains, even — just weren't designed for that level of thought. I'm really not even sure a god could understand what I'm talking about, but I know I certainly don't. It's the equivalent of the fabric of reality going insane, or having a multiple personality disorder.

"What I can tell you is that nothing that tries to access this vault that isn't you will be a problem anymore. I can't even tell you if they'd die because it's possible that they're just suspended in that same moment in time and space, which would make them stop existing for us after that point, but for them it'd just be eternity. Or maybe they just stop having the capacity to exist in dimensions, and it'll erase them from reality. But it wouldn't just erase them from our reality in front of us, it'd erase them from everything at every point in time. They'd have never existed, and we'd never know about it. It's just… the point is we don't know, but the one thing we do know is that you're the only person that can open that door. I've learned a few interesting things from making it as well, which we can talk about after you've had a look inside."

Percy glanced at it nervously. He wasn't much one for getting skittish recently but after hearing that description, he wasn't too eager to test his luck. He didn't know what sort of hell that'd be, trapped in one moment for the rest of eternity.

"Is it… is it safe to open?"

Sadie nodded confidently. "We made sure everything was in place. Just press your palm against it and channel a bit of your… soul? Channel your soul into it. It shouldn't be too hard, everyone else we taught has been able to get it in the first few tries."

Stepping towards the door slowly, Percy pressed his palm to the cold metal surface of the vault and felt a jolt run up his arm like an electric shock straight to the core of his very being. With just the very palm of his hand he retracted his mortal form, allowing the chaotic energy that was him in his truest state to come forth. He didn't know why he did it, it just felt… right.

The door lit up in front of him.

White energy — looking disturbingly similar to his own energy — flowed like liquid from the left side of the door, seeping towards the center in strange, rigid patterns which hadn't been there a moment earlier, glowing like the sun. From the right came an ooze as black as night, with a glow that darkened everything around it and seemed to draw in even his own energy. It too flowed in unseen patterns, but the black energy flowed like a river with curves and turns as opposed to the white energy's corners and edges. Where they met in the middle, Percy expected pandemonium, or at least a greyish goo. Instead what he got was… purple?

The two liquids met in the center and had a reaction wherever they touched. Not a physical or chemical one, but a magical one. Divine explosions of immense energy sprung forth wherever the two substances came together, completely blinding Percy's divine senses. If he hadn't had the area up under guard from the gods, he had no doubt the consciousness of most of Olympus would be focusing on this point underground.

But at each individual point where the energies met (and it was always in the exact center of the door, despite both liquids flowing in wildly different patterns) after the divine reaction was over they formed a new, purple energy. If one considered the white energy as a solid, organized army marching towards the center of the door and the black energy a disorganized mob of bandits charging for the middle, the purple energy was a chaotic mass of both groups thrown together and told they had to work together. It wasn't quite fighting itself, but it certainly looked like it wanted to, moving chaotically in unpredictable and sometimes physically impossible motions, even in its very limited area. Sometimes it seemed to echo the stillness of the white energy, in other places it matched the writhing of the black, but it was mostly something else entirely. And for a fraction of a moment, a single picosecond, Percy felt the… energy's attention turn to him.

But that moment ended as soon as it started. The energy faded from sight, seeping into the door.

There was a sound of wind rushing past his ears; the sound of the air in the vault being let out. Slowly, the massive door opened, the same way as all the others.

At any other time Percy figured he might be awed at the inside of the vault. It truly looked more like a trophy room than anything else, glass cases with velvet cushions of varying sizes ready to hold objects. He could even spot a few with various enchantments flickering over them, more likely than anything else to keep something in which might be resistant to the idea. It was larger than the others as well, though that was likely because there was only one of them and they probably really didn't want to have to redo the process. But Percy stood there reeling for a few moments, just trying to catch up to whatever had taken place in front of him.

"What the Hades was that?" he muttered under his breath, glancing up at where the door had opened into the stone wall.

Thalia and Nico drew closer to him, the two in the room who had good enough senses to have heard him apparently. Or maybe they could sense his shock faintly through the bond they had, but either way they went to stand next to him.

"You alright? What was what?" Thalia drew up next to him on his left, whispering.

Percy mentally shook himself from his reverie. "You didn't see that?" he whispered quietly, "The… energy?"

"We didn't see anything." Nico confirmed softly, joining Percy in staring up at the door. The younger boy glared at the thing, as if he could scare answers out of it.

"Didn't feel anything either." Thalia confirmed.

That… that was strange. Shaking his head, Percy started to move into the room and observe it. He'd figure that out later.

At the end of the room in two different cases sat two items, the ones he'd been told about. First on the left an old staff stood straight in its long glass container. Unlike most staffs which had a small decoration on their end or remained thin the entire way, at the top of this golden metal staff there was a round disk about a foot in diameter with a small fin sticking out in the middle. He recognized the thing, even if it hadn't jumped to his mind when they'd said it. This was a sundial, the first ever instrument used to quantify time. That alone unnerved him more than he'd care to admit.

The item sitting next to it was so small that Percy had to walk further into the room in order to see it resting on its cushion. It was a small, platinum ring with no visible decorations. But peering closer, Percy could see a reflection in the shiny material of the ring. The only problem was… they weren't outside, so why was the reflection showing a blue sky and white clouds?

Carefully reaching over and opening the display, Percy picked up the ring, turned around and tossed it to Thalia.

She fumbled with it slightly but caught it, looking at the thing with as much wonder as he imagined he'd looked at Zeus' bolt the first time he'd held it.

"That as much confirms it as anything. That's a sky deity's ring if I've ever seen one. Now I only know one primordial of the sky, but…"

"It's his." Thalia agreed. "Ouranos'. It's too similar to the aura around Mount Tamalpais."

Percy clapped his hands to get her attention and gestured for her to toss it to him. She did so almost reluctantly, but tossed it all the same. Percy repeated the process he'd undertaken with his crown and the end of Nico's blade. With a soft grunt the ring was hidden from the eyes of the gods, and he tossed it back to Thalia. She seemed to be able to feel the power when she was touching it at least, if the satisfied way she slid it on her finger was any indication.

"Thank you, you two." Percy shot a quick grin at where Sadie and Sasha were standing near the entrance. "That's another boon, a powerful one. Between Nico's symbol of power being crafted with Erebus' sword and Thalia's symbol of power combined with Ouranos' ring, and me with Hydros' crown, us three might stand a very good chance of actually standing up to the gods now… Should it come to that."

Lacey tightened her fists from where she was standing at the back of the group, something Percy didn't fail to notice from the shifting of water in her body. She still had some reservations about that, it seemed. That was his fault he supposed, they'd kept her out of the loop for so long before letting her into his inner circle a few months ago. It couldn't really be helped, he had to make sure she was trustworthy, but the results had been her jumping feet first into a lot of not-so-pleasant subjects they'd been dealing with for months. He'd have to talk to her afterwards to try and catch her up.

They both nodded back in acknowledgement, and Percy smiled. He was glad things had worked out with them, even if they were a bit awkward to start. He thought back to his thoughts at New Rome earlier, then his breakup with Sasha and then the past few weeks he'd spent with Sadie. A small sense of guilt rushed over him. They'd started sleeping together some time ago, him and Sadie. It felt refreshingly normal, not rushing things like he had with Sasha. But now, despite this weird limbo state the three of them were in, seeing both Sadie and Sasha working together for his sake, he felt crappy for ruining his relationship with Sasha and comparing Sadie to Annabeth.

His mind was a mess today. It seemed every other moment, he was being pulled back into this guilty conscience and regretful self loathing. Resolving to put his issues into the back of his mind once more, Percy turned to the remaining item. The staff, despite putting Percy's hair on edge due to its connection with time, looked pretty normal. It was plain gold without any real decorations aside from the sundial at its tip.

Percy had no affinity for time but he could still feel the power coming from the thing. Not in the way he could from Hydros' crown, but more like the tip of Nico's sword, or the ring he'd just given to Thalia.

Yep, this was a primordial's, alright. But despite all that, it was mostly useless to him considering his lack of ability to manipulate time. That was alright, he supposed. Even if it were to just sit here for all eternity, at least the gods wouldn't have it then. He already knew the gods could at least freeze time for mortals, he didn't care to find out if the staff could be used to up the power a bit to affect demigods. Or more.

"Thank you both." Percy shot a glance back at Sasha and Sadie again, nodding his thanks. "This is seriously useful. Invaluable, really. Worth every penny and more. This could save millions — billions — of lives if we have to put some of these weapons to use against the gods. The only thing I'm worried about is if the gods find out about this before the new year, when I'm not here to shield it from their senses."

Sasha stood up a bit straighter when he said that and preened a bit. "Oh, we warded it. The entire thing should be as impressionable to divine senses as if you were here. It's the same way we stop them from just… materializing inside one of the rooms. It's fully secured, and the only way to get in or out is through the doors. We even thought about messing around with pocket dimensions for a bit just to make it extra impossible, but…"

"We're not quite there yet," Sadie finished for her. "I can say I've certainly learned a lot in the last few months and although Sasha is a downright prodigy, we didn't want to set off any red flags by asking Sasha's mother to teach her. Pocket dimensions aren't something we could learn from all the mostly-mortal texts and tomes we've gone over. At the end of the day putting it in another dimension was overkill anyway, the wards should be more than enough to stop any god from sensing anything in here."

"I'll take it." Percy said with a shrug. "Let's get out of this vault and you can show me around C and some of the more useful parts of B. We can take today and tomorrow to decide what we want to keep on us, and then arm up for the first on Christmas. Hopefully we don't have to use anything, but…"

Sadie took the lead and nodded, gesturing out the door. "We understand. I'm glad to show you around, I think you'd be interested in some of the items that might help get some gods out of the fight early."

While the rest of the group moved on to the next section, unnoticed this time, Lacey just stood there, a full sense of dread encompassing her.

She loosened her fists, holding herself from collapsing on the spot.

She'd spent her life serving Rome in the name of the gods, and she's been serving Perseus… had it been a year already? Not quite, but it felt like much longer. He'd been selected by the gods, an apostle who symbolized the Olympians' will on the world. When she heard she'd been recommended to serve him, it had been more than an honor. Each and every day, she treated him with respect, subservience and awe with every fiber of her being. He'd been chosen by the gods to rule. He'd been chosen because he was worthy. Because he was loyal.

And now?

The very man who she had served without question, the single person who's loyalty she'd sworn to besides the gods themselves, was arming himself to revolt against them. She'd heard of their plans before, but it wasn't… she'd never thought it'd happen here. Now.

But now, standing in a vault specifically created to hold weapons against the gods… she couldn't ignore it anymore. The two forces she'd ever been loyal to, the two she'd devoted her entire life and effort to were now at odds. She'd never thought it possible, but now that she had no choice but to acknowledge it was happening….

What did she do now?


Percy enjoyed the view of the vast city and its skyline set against the evening sun. The Imperial City was expanding, too, more skyscrapers than he'd ever known possible were popping up all over the skyline from Brooklyn to Queens. The side effects of an Empire he supposed. Despite the intense autonomy he'd given to the viceroys over their territories, this was now the capital of planet Earth, with all of the power that included. And maybe more importantly this was his home, too, where he spent his time, and where his administration operated from.

"Percy, are you listening?"

He looked away from the window, pinching the bridge of his nose and massaging his eyes. "Yeah, sorry. It's just getting a bit late. Woke up a bit early this morning."

"Trouble sleeping?" Jessica asked.

Percy responded in a 'so-so' motion, raising his hand level and wobbling it a bit. "A little bit. Woke up, didn't really bother trying to sleep again though. Just kinda got up and went about my day."

"Nightmares?" Jessica asked, a bit of genuine concern coloring her voice. That was a refreshing bit of mortality.

"Nah," Percy dismissed with a wave of his hand and a yawn. "After Annabeth and I got out of the pit Hestia offered to speak with Morpheus for us. We declined, wanting to be as normal as possible. It sucked, but we got through it together. A while after she died and I killed millions of people in a temper tantrum I took her up on the offer. Found it was harder than I'd prefer to conquer a nation without any sleep. Haven't had a dream since, good or bad."

Jessica sighed exasperatedly across from him, writing something down on her notepad.

Percy let out a hearty chuckle when he saw that. "Yeah I know, I'm hardly your easiest patient to deal with. I hope Sadie warned you how much of a mess I was before you accepted, or I'd feel bad."

She just rolled her eyes. "This is like an art for me. The worse the starting point, the more satisfying it is where we end up. But I did want to bring up something else, before we end for today." At Percy's gesture, she continued. "At the start of our session today, when you went over what you'd been up to recently, I noticed… you're going back to see a lot of people. Catch up. You're feeling nostalgic."

Percy thought about it for a moment, and nodded. "I guess? Wanted to see some old friends and family. Must be the holiday season that has me in the mood."

Jessica's lips thinned. "It's not. You're saying goodbye. Normally that'd be an indication you're about to commit suicide, but I've seen it in some other cases too, like with soldiers about to be sent on a deployment. Percy, why do you think you're going to die soon?"

Percy froze, his muscles tensing and coiling up until he was pretty sure he'd leap out of his chair at the sound of a knock.

"My guess is that it's whatever's happening at the end of the year. You think — or maybe know — that you won't be around to see them after that. Ever. So why is that?"

Percy manually forced himself to relax, slowly.

"I-" Percy coughed into his elbow. "I… Yeah, there's a good chance. I still can't tell you, I really wish I could, but… on the first, either I win or I lose. You'll know which." He forced himself to meet her eyes. "If I lose, there will be a lot of people that want you. You know more about me than any mortal, more of my deepest thoughts and inner motivations than anyone could hope to guess at. People will kill to get you, I need you to understand that. Right now I can protect you. If I lose, I can't do that. When's our next session scheduled for?" Percy asked, grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen from her desk.

"Uh, the third. But you know-"

"Here." Percy shoved the paper at her. "Go there, as soon as you can get your things packed. Wait until after the new year no matter what, and you'll know. Trust me you'll know if I win or lose. You know me better than almost anyone, so if you know I've lost… don't trust what they say. What anyone has to say. Do you understand me?"

Nodding quickly, Jess took the paper and glanced at it quickly. "But Percy, there's an answer to this that doesn't involve you risking your life. There always is. You clearly trust me enough to tell me this, but I can't help you find that answer if you don't tell me what's happening. What you're going to win or lose, who you're winning or losing against. There's a way without risking your life Percy, you just need to find it."

"No." Percy shook his head, resigned. "Thank you for your words, but this time, there's no avoiding what's to come... When the stakes are this high, sometimes it's inevitable for things to get violent. I wish I could tell you, I really do, but even if I tell you, it'll only get you into trouble."

Jessica saw an expression in Percy's eyes he hadn't seen since she'd known him; Fear.

"Go, hide, and you'll know whether you need to keep hiding after the new year. None of my people will be looking for you, it'll just be mortals who had no idea who you are in the first place. So don't worry about anything more than changing your name and forging some documents."

Percy stood up, looking down at Jessica with no small amount of regret in his eyes. "I'm sorry, you didn't deserve to get involved with me, but you are now. I'll make sure that enough is transferred to your account to keep you more than well off."

Jess nodded slowly, standing herself. "I'll make sure not to talk. You can trust me with that. Nobody will hear a whisper of anything that's been said between us."

Percy barked out a short laugh.

"Oh, this is all for your protection, so you don't attract any unwanted attention. Do what you want, tell who you want. What do I care if you spill all my secrets? I'll be dead."


December 24

Seven Months A.B.M

The next afternoon Percy was in his office with Maria, their brief meeting for the week going over the senate and the actions of different viceroys. The particularly contentious one was that multiple viceroys had begun fielding their own defense forces, essentially private armies for their territories. To Percy, however, that was fine. If they wanted to make an army to fight against their rebellions instead of relying on the imperial army that was fine by him. It's not like any mortal army would have much success attempting to rebel. Besides, he had bigger things on his mind at the moment.

"It's fine." He vocalized his thoughts, after giving face of some thorough thought. "All the better if they want to be self-dependent."

Maria opened her mouth to respond when a knock came at the door.

"Come in," he called, and a moment later the door clicked open.

"Sorry, am I interrupting something? I can wait, I just came to get you for the thing today. We were able to set up all the permissions and everything earlier today." Sasha stood at the door, looking a bit awkward for having walked in on their meeting.

'The thing' probably meant the second day of touring the vaults, then. They'd managed to get through all of the C vaults the day before, and there were some pretty interesting items there. Items which might turn a hopeless struggle into a mostly bloodless victory, with a little luck. Enough to give them a good morale boost, at least. But today they'd be looking through the B section. He had no doubt that nothing in there was quite as potent as the contents of vault C, but there could be a couple useful items nonetheless.

"Don't worry about it," he waved his hand dismissively. "We'll only be a few minutes and I don't mind you listening in. Grab a seat." he offered, motioning to one of the couches touching the wall of his office to the right.

Slowly and with a respectful nod to Maria, Sasha took him up on the offer and sat down, doing her best to occupy herself by looking over the room.

"Your Majesty, this is a… dangerous precedent to set." Maria resumed, picking up the conversation again, "The territories might use the leverage to disobey Imperial mandates, or deny the military access to their land."

"The moment they do, they'll be a problem." Percy nodded. "And we'll deal with it then. In fact, it'll be dealt with more than quickly. We'll probably need an example to be made of. Until then, I will not make an issue of it."

Maria still didn't look like she was sold, but knowing Percy had already made up his mind, she just nodded and wrote it down, continuing on to the next subject. Or she intended to, at least. Before she could open her mouth a flash appeared behind her, causing her to nearly jump out of her seat. Ordinarily Percy would have waited to see who it was and what they wanted before reacting harshly, but he didn't need the flash to subside to be able to tell that it wasn't a god visiting him, it was three.

Percy leapt out of his seat and looked cautiously at where he could now see the three gods which had come to pay him a visit. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. The big three.

Nico, attentive as always, was there with Thalia a moment later. Thalia looked a bit confused for a moment but to her credit she picked up on the situation rather quickly, shifting her posture towards her father and uncles like he and Nico. They hadn't drawn their weapons, they weren't quite hostile, just… cautious. Out of the corner of his eye Percy noticed Sasha had done likewise, leaping off the couch and inching towards Percy and the others slowly. Her hands were tense and by the awkward movements she was making with her fingers he assumed she was preparing something, but he knew she didn't have nearly enough firepower to back them up against the gods if it came to it. The act was comforting nonetheless, knowing she had their back regardless of how symbolic that was.

"You're early," was Percy's greeting, doing his best to not look quite as nervous as he felt.

"We felt it prudent to get this over with early." Zeus replied, his voice his usual baritone of seriousness.

"There's no reason to be cruel brother." Poseidon scolded Zeus, though it didn't look quite as lighthearted as Percy was used to seeing from his father. His reprimand over, Poseidon turned back to look at them. At Percy. "We know, Percy, about your contingency plans."

Percy's blood turned to ice, and he could swear that his heart didn't beat for several seconds. They knew. They knew. They couldn't know. How did they know?!

"I understand the want to keep the mortals alive, I even expected it to some extent. I had just hoped your loyalty to Olympus would keep you from doing anything this rash." Poseidon seemed to age a couple decades in front of Percy's eyes, and for what it was worth he looked truly regretful that they were here, now, speaking to each other in this way. It wasn't worth much.

Zeus decided to speak when his brother had stopped. "We know, and we know that you won't be willing to let what's necessary happen. The earth isn't loyal enough to us, Perseus. Every mortal which does not worship Olympus and the gods thoroughly is a threat; a plague on this earth. Even if we have to start over, it'll be better than leaving any remnant of defiance in the human race, to preserve the rule of Olympus for all time. You refused to do what was necessary, so I am forced to. North America will be a fitting starting point for the new world, the people here are loyal, at least. Everywhere else…"

An invisible suckerpunch tore the breath from Percy's throat. North America? That's all that would survive? Less than half a billion people, less than a third of the people Percy had killed to try to ensure the rest lived past this moment? It was lower than his lowest possible expectation. Impossibly few would survive.

"How did you…" Percy's throat was dry, and his voice caught when he started speaking. Pausing for a moment, he swallowed and asked again. "How did you find out?"

"The girl." It was Hades who answered on Percy's right, standing near the corner of the room. Where Zeus had his bolt in hand and Poseidon was holding his Trident, Hades didn't even have his hand on his pommel. "The secretary one. You leaked something about it to her, so she went to Zeus to tell him your plans." his voice came out lackadaisically, as if he couldn't believe he'd actually been talked into coming up here to help them deal with this. Percy had a hard time believing it, too.

But what he'd said…

Lacey.

He… didn't want to believe Hades. Didn't want to take his word for it, to think so poorly of someone he trusted so much on a treacherous god's word alone. But that didn't stop his mind from wandering, putting together clues. The look in Lacey's eyes every time they'd brought up fighting back against the gods, the anger she'd shown in the vault just yesterday, the reverence she showed the gods even when Percy was speaking less than pleasantly about them.

His mind thought back to when he'd met Lacey, the very first meeting they'd had, when he'd asked Reyna about her. The first and only significant thing he'd been told about her.

"She's like Octavian in that she's fanatically devoted to Rome. The only thing above Rome is the gods. That being said, the gods themselves placed you above Rome in a way, didn't they? So I guess you were the higher authority, in her mind. Don't expect her to place her loyalty to you above that of the gods, they're who she values above all."

She had warned him. It seemed like so long ago now, but he could remember it like it was yesterday now that he had a reason to. There hadn't been before.

Percy didn't know which was stronger, the urge to cry or the urge to scream in rage. Divided loyalties or not she had betrayed him. There were no two ways about it. She had stabbed him in the back as much as anyone ever had, and it hurt.

"Maria." Percy said, trying his best to keep his voice from quivering, whether from rage or sorrow he wasn't sure. "It would be best if you left."

"No," Zeus interrupted. "Stay, mortal."

"Maria." Percy's voice turned to stone, but he kept his eyes on Zeus. "Leave."

Caught in-between a rock and a hard place, Maria only knew what he was capable of. Slowly she made her way to the exit, raising her hands to the gods to show she didn't pose a threat, reaching out slowly to open the door.

She was dead before she touched the handle.

Zeus raised his hand and casually let a bolt fly at the woman. She didn't have a chance to scream before a pile of ash lay where Maria Sharpe had been moments before.

The noise attracted the attention of the royal guard outside and they swung open the door, storming into the room. Zeus raised his hand again and two more bolts leapt from his fingers, one meeting the neck of the front guard and reducing him to a pile of ash and an empty shell of red hot armor next to Maria. The other took the blast on his celestial bronze chestplate, preserving his body but instantly killing him with the shock all the same.

That was it. The leap from defensive to hostile. Percy yanked the chain on his neck and formed his armor around him, slapping his wrist and deploying his shield. Shortly after he pulled out Riptide, staring at the three across from them in a haze. She was gone. Just gone, along with two of those who had devoted their remaining days to his protection. Any miniscule hope for a peaceful resolution had just flown out the window.

The haze of pain, sorrow, and rage melted away. Right now, right here, with Zeus in front of him… there was only Rage. Hate. Nico and Thalia echoed him, drawing their own weapons and donning their own armor against their parents. Father against child, generation against generation. They weren't as prepared as they could be but they were powerful all the same, with more powerful symbols of power and the vast power that came from their primordial items. If it would just be the six of them, Percy knew… there was a dwindlingly small chance that any of their parents walked from the fight intact. He felt himself looking forward to that outcome.

"I never wanted it to come to this, Percy. Realize what is logical." Poseidon pleaded. "We won't kill any of you, that I can guarantee. We'll keep you on Olympus until you're able to be reasoned with again, but we'll never kill you."

"Good luck with that." Percy snarled, raising his sword higher and tensing, ready to lunge and tear at the one that had given him life until only one of them were left. Billions of people relied on him not doing anything else.

Poseidon sighed, "I never wanted to be forced to take your birthright from you, but you leave me no choice." He lifted his hand toward Percy, and for a moment nothing happened. Zeus followed the motion towards Thalia, but Hades remained mostly motionless, taking his hand from his cloak and raising it at a truly glacial pace.

It was only a few moments before Percy realized what they were doing. Had done. One moment Percy could feel everything normally. The water in the clouds above and in the rivers below, and in all the piping in the building and even in every body here. And the next moment… he couldn't.

It was like being blind, and Percy panicked, looking around as if he could find a solution lying around. This… had to be an illusion. Mentally he reached out to Zeus, willing the blood in his body to expand rapidly and pop him like a balloon.

Nothing happened.

Thalia was a bit better at articulating what she was experiencing than he was, it turned out.

"You son of a bitch! If you think suppressing our powers will stop me from shoving my spear up your ass, you're sorely mistaken!" Thalia yelled at her father, but Percy could tell her voice was unsteady. She was as shaken as he was. Percy mentally cursed, going through a mental list of contingency plans. Maybe if they could just get out of this room it would remove the effects, or if they could stall long enough, it couldn't be permanent. Or maybe it relied on distance from them. If they could just…

But while Percy and Thalia were reeling from the loss of their powers, Nico was just realizing what had happened. Rapidly his eyes flickered to his own father's hand, which was just now levelling out towards him.

"Hades, now!" Zeus noticed what Nico had. Hades had been careless, slow, nonchalant about stripping Nico of his powers. Nico didn't know how they could do it, but he did know he had precious seconds before he was rendered just as incapable as his cousins.

Moving quickly Nico reached out to his right and yanked Sasha towards him, dashing to his left at the same time. He heard bone crack and the beginning of a scream but paid it no mind. He didn't have more time to focus on anything other than getting Percy out of here.

He dived to tackle Percy and reached his arms out past him to try to grab Thalia. A touch, just a touch is all he needed.

A small part of Nico's brain registered out of the corner of his eye that Zeus had begun to glow a bright white, illuminating the room and transitioning to his true form.

There! He could feel Thalia, just the tip of his fingertip against her arm, but it was enough. Pushing himself as hard as he could Nico bid the shadows to carry them somewhere safe, somewhere the gods wouldn't find them.

The shadows were the speed of light, but so was Zeus' true form. He took the form completely, letting all of his power flow into the world around them and demolish anything that dared to exist in the area. At his power a year ago Zeus would have killed them by revealing his true form. At his power now, Nico knew the result would be the same.

Faintly, Nico saw Thalia moving her hand to cover her eyes so she wouldn't see her father's true form at the zenith of his power, but Nico knew it was too late for her. Because out of the corner of his own eyes, he also saw Zeus take his true form in all of its horrible glory, and knew it was too late for him as well. And in that instant before they slipped into the comforting darkness of the shadow dimension, Nico's consciousness slipped into a void more empty than the shadows. And knew no more.


The end of book one; Proditione.

Vanadium AN: Proditione: (noun) Treason, Betrayal