Chapter Five
Assault On Olympus
"Is that the moon? What the hell has happened here?" Percy asked, looking around frantically for any clues as to what they were going through.
There was literally nothing but ash and debris of a civilization that once stood tall.
"That can't be the moon... I mean, not unless Artemis took a celestial bullet to the brain. That thing is just so... Dull." Perseus shrugged after not being able to find the words to describe the almost faded moon so far away.
Instead of being a usually bright visage of the sun's reflection, it was instead nothing more than a decaying husk of it's former self.
"Artemis, I can't feel her energy anywhere around here. There's something faint but other than that I can only feel an eerie evil... And it fuckin' reeks." Perseus casually sniffed at the air as if he'd used his nose before his natural sense of power.
"Is it Demons? The whole Earth can't look like this, surely?" Percy was just so stunned by everything before him, how could it have gotten to this state in the space of a single day?
"Nope, no Demons. Don't know what the rest of this rock looks like but there's really not a lot of life left on it. Let's go towards that fading power a couple of miles to the East, maybe we can get some answers as to just what the shit is happening." Perseus answered, marching forwards but keeping his eyes open the entire time.
He knew about the dangers that Hell stowed away but this, all of it, was an entirely new playing field, there was no way of telling what they could face from here on out.
It took them a few hours of just straight marching. They found what must have been an old city but now all of the buildings were ruined as if personally touched by father time.
Everything was so badly destroyed that there wasn't even any way to see whether or not that city was once a place that they knew.
"I don't get how this could have happened in the time we were in Hell." Percy whispered, feeling especially devastated by the surrounding carnage.
Perseus could offer no response, he was feeling just as down by their surroundings but didn't know how to voice it.
He couldn't exactly turn around and admit sorrow for the world he'd slowly come to love, not after finally reaching his goals of becoming a Demon so powerful that he was revered as one of the seven great devils.
The Seven Deadly Sins. He knew that the next time he went to Hell he was going to have to smooth out the relation between himself and the others.
"Hey, isn't that... The empire state building? Looks like there's a battle going on over there." Perseus casually pointed at what looked somewhat like the old building that stood tall in the sky.
The base of Olympus, or at least it had once been that, now it was a lot more... Ingrained with the ashes of the world.
"I'm struggling to believe that this is Manhattan but we have no better place to be than Olympus, let's get over there now." Percy told the Demon who nodded in agreement.
They both immediately upped the pressure and pushed forwards at an incredible rate. They needed to assess the situation first though.
The scene before them was... Not a good one.
In the streets below Olympus, there were two girls, one looked a lot like Thalia but she was older, around their age if not a bit more, then there was another girl that neither of them recognized, they were both wearing tattered and torn versions of the uniform that Artemis' hunters wore but there was no sign of any Gods or Goddesses anywhere near them.
Neither Percy nor Perseus could sense anything from Olympus, it was like the place was closed off to them permanently.
The two hunters were fighting a fierce battle against a man with molten fiery skin who was eagerly dashing around the street avoiding the arrow fire from numerous other hunters that were all lining the streets while Thalia and the other girl were bravely trying to engage this man in swordplay.
"What makes you think that you could ever beat the Titans without the Gods?" he boomed maliciously.
The evil sensation that Perseus had felt, it belonged to the man in front of them. It had to be Kronos, there was no other that fit the profile. Had he forwarded time and brought the world to it's knees?
"Imma kill it." Perseus muttered casually before striding forwards into visibility.
"It's no use Thalia, nothing we do is having any effect against him, he's too strong!" The other girl yelled.
There was something wrong with the hunters, they were all physically aged.
Where was Artemis?
Percy decided to become one with the Demon, he was strong enough to obliterate nearly all of Hell's denizens but he was weaker in the mortal world and this was Kronos, it would only be beneficial to become one being.
Percy hadn't realized it before but with all of the recent changes they had physically changed to reflect upon that.
As a complete being, Perseus had changed. His crimson skin was such a light shade that it almost didn't look like it was there. His horn, both old and new, were both quite a lot larger and stuck out of his hair completely.
The weirdest thing was that the eyes seemed to be rapidly changing between blood red and emerald green, it was like each individual segment within his iris were actively chasing each other around, constantly switching between the two colors.
"We need the Gods!" the younger girl shouted, desperately trying to get Thalia to retreat before Kronos decided to kill them off for good.
Just as Thalia was about to give the order for the hunters to retreat as Kronos was finally upon her and her second in command, she felt hot ichor splash all across her face. It had come from Kronos who looked just as confused as the rest of them.
Sticking out of Kronos' chest was a pale crimson hand that had been thrust through his entire body. Before the Titan could do anything more than bellow in pain, his entire body was set on fire and he burned into nothing more than a pile of ash to reveal Perseus standing there stoically, looking rather bored with everything.
"P-Perseus!?" Thalia gasped, almost fainting from the sight before her.
So it was Thalia, how had she aged? Perseus thought that Artemis' blessing stopped her from aging completely, that was weird.
"Hey sexy." the Demon winked at Thalia who not only blushed but began stuttering.
"But h-how are you-" Thalia's head was starting to hurt. After everything that had happened he showed up now, when she needed him the most.
"So I go to Hell for a day, finally finish what I started with Satan and when I come home everything is dead, Thalia, what the fuck?" he asked with a strong gaze fixed on her.
Her confusion was not ending anytime soon as she continued to gape like a fish.
"Perseus! It's been ten years!" she shouted. Slowly the other hunters that had all been hiding around the street were coming out with their bows drawn, obviously not all of them recognized him.
Casually Percy appeared out of water.
"It's Poseidon!" Someone shouted from the background after seeing the similarities between Percy and Poseidon, that and the fact that he was casually twirling his trident around in his hands, a sure icon that he was from the sea, and no Demigod had ever been able to use water moisture as a way of travelling.
"No, I'm..." he began as he looked around the faces of the hunters, he only recognized half of them and they were all physically older than when he'd seen them yesterday.
"I'm Percy Jackson." he told them. The whole place went dead silent save for the rustle of the wind behind them.
"It's really you." the other girl standing next to Thalia almost whimpered, a silent tear ran down her face. The man that acquired her master's heart.
Percy walked straight up to her, his frame towering over hers with great intimidation before he actually bent down to look at her face at eye level.
It looked adorable from the outside. Her facial structure was familiar but she'd become a young woman now, how had all of this happened?
"Jolene?" he queried the girl who was just staring at him in wonder.
With everything that had been going on he'd lost focus almost entirely but now there were things that were presenting themselves in his mind, such as a certain silver Goddess that he'd grown rather fond of.
His face turned to stone as he looked back at Thalia.
"Where is Artemis?" he asked her in a dangerous tone.
"The Gods have been enslaved, Olympus is now closed off, it's their cage of sorts, we haven't been able to break through it. Percy we're in the middle of another Titonamacy." Her words slowly sunk in.
Percy's gaze fell upon the empire state building that still rose rather proudly above them despite the wear and tear that it had received over the past decade.
Ten years surely wouldn't do this much damage but when all of the Gods had been locked up, who was left to run the world? Who was left to make sure that everything continued in it's natural order?
"Well, that explains why the moon looks like it's in so much pain." he whispered sadly.
It was probably now known by everyone the infatuation that Percy and Artemis had and moreover people were probably starting to guess the bond between Thalia and Perseus from the way he'd greeted her.
"That doesn't explain how it's been ten years? We were in Hell for a single day. Literally yesterday we stepped through that fire and stole this hunter's rabbit." Perseus pointed at Jolene with an expertly hidden grin plastered underneath his facade of cool emotion.
Jolene scowled at the Demon and merely stood with her arms folded, there was not a whole lot that she could do about it ten years down the line.
"Well, well, well. You boys certainly do get yourselves in all kinds of trouble don't you." A sweet yet dangerous voice reached their ears.
Percy instinctively shot a stream of water out at high speed. It smashed through some of the buildings behind them but it seemed that he'd missed.
"Shit, missed again." Percy muttered before he saw the woman who had tried to shroud herself in darkness when they were in what was now Perseus' tower.
"You knew it was me this time. Rude." The woman with shiny black hair and a venomously seductive voice appeared beside them.
"What do you want, Death?" he asked her quickly, not caring much for an omnipotent immortal that was getting involved with things far below someone like.
She was clearly just bored with organizing the constant flow of life and death.
"To give you two knuckleheads a bit of insight. In Hell, time moves slower so the day you spent in Hell wasn't a day in the mortal realm, it was a decade. So to everyone here, it's been about ten years since their beloved Demon-God had gone to Hell." Death never once shifted from her rock like posture.
She was obviously inhuman and Percy was still left wondering exactly how much she followed the sheer concept of 'Death' was she exempt from everything that they all faced as mortals and immortals alike?
"But I've been in Hell loads before." Perseus pointed out, a lot less content with the idea of sleeping with Death now that he was standing side by side with Thalia. Percy knew that for a fact, he could feel Perseus' emotions and vice versa.
"Yes but you had a constant link to the mortal word; Percy. This time, Percy went with you, there was no physical anchor this side of Hell so you moved with the flow of time in Hell." She decided that she'd done all she wanted to and waved at them from behind her shoulder before fading from view entirely.
"Well that answers that. How are we going to break the chains around Olympus?" Perseus looked up, this was no small task they were faced with.
"We'll figure something out, come on, Thalia get your hunters, we regroup and make camp... Inside one of these old buildings I guess, not like there's any forests around here." Percy muttered before casting one last gaze at the top of that tower.
"Artemis." he mumbled quietly. To those around him, it was nothing more than a whisper but to a God, it was a powerful shout that was echoing around the heavens.
He hoped that his voice would reach her, it would give her hope. "I'm coming for you."
It wasn't long before they'd all relocated to some ruins only a few blocks away.
The blocks now consisting of the dead husks that had once been buildings.
"What exactly did you do in Hell?" Thalia queried, looking between Percy and Perseus suspiciously.
She wasn't even certain of what they were capable of doing in Hell let alone what they managed to succeed in doing down there. She knew better than to expect a straight answer off the bat from Perseus though, so his response was hardly surprising.
"I sang a duet of O Fortuna with the Demon Queen." he told her in a deadpan.
She heard some of the younger hunters all whisper among themselves over whether or not this guy was genuinely being serious.
"Girls, you must all remember Perseus right? If you don't or you've never met him, he's an idiot- '' she began to explain to the Hunt before said person decided to interrupt.
"See gonna have to stop you right there; I am in fact an aspect of Percy. He is an unbound God and I am-was a Demon Prince." he explained, eagerly watching all of their faces drop.
They were in the midst of an actual Demon straight from Hell, and a Demon Prince no less.
"What happened to your title of Prince?" Atalanta asked from behind them. She was the first one on watch duty, spending most of her time looking out of one of the windows.
They were in what had once been an apartment building in the city below Olympus. Everything all around them had been turned into ruins and now nothing remained in the same condition as it once had.
"Did I ever mention the teeny tiny fact that I may or may not have killed Satan some time ago?" he almost whispered sheepishly.
Everyone except Percy just stared at him, obviously waiting for the punchline because how could anyone have enough strength and power to kill such a legendary and fabled name such as Satan?
"Well, I did, but he was one of the seven most powerful Devil's one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and the throne requires a soul constantly. That was my unfinished business in Hell." He turned his gaze towards Atalanta to see if she understood what he was getting at as he would rather not have to spell it out to all of them.
News would spread fast soon enough seeing as it was pretty much him and Percy going to be facing off against a number of Titans.
"So what has that got to do with-" Atalanta began, completely lost in this discussion.
"We fought our way through Satan's tower and killed a Dragon-" Percy began but was quickly interrupted by Perseus who no doubt wanted to add his own spin to the story.
"A real dragon." Perseus nodded thoughtfully. Thalia could already tell that he'd gone back to being an idiot.
"-we killed Crowley-" Percy continued, seemingly unfazed by Perseus which was hardly surprising, they spent every waking second with one another.
"The real Crowley-" Perseus' hands sprawled across the air as if he was unveiling a ridiculously snazzy title card.
"-we almost got in a fight with Death-" Percy sighed, realizing that Perseus' flair for the dramatic wasn't going to end any time soon.
"The Primordial older than Chaos." Perseus actually sounded troubled when he mentioned this.
It was true that he'd voiced his thoughts about trying to sleep with Death when they were in Hell but he greatly decided against that now that he'd come back to the mortal world and seen Thalia in such a state of dire, not to mention that she was older and way more attractive now.
"Then Perseus ripped off Satan's horn, tore out his spine which he turned into a sword and claimed the throne as his own." Percy added, not being interrupted for once.
"So... What has that got to do with-" Atalanta mirrored her initial statement but this time Perseus decided to finally break it down for all of them.
"I am no longer a Prince of Hell because I took Satan's throne of Ire. I am the Deadly Sin of Wrath." he sighed before standing up, once again gathering all eyes on him. He had no more intentions of idly talking with the hunters.
"I'm bored of this world already and seeing as we need a way to free Olympus, I say that we release ourselves from those sily restrictions that you've placed upon us." Perseus spoke as if there was no one else in the room but Percy who was left looking a bit sheepish.
"You have what?" Thalia asked, eyes once again darting from the Demon to the God.
"Erm, how do I explain this? Well, when I figured out how to use my power as an unbound God, I decided that it was best to place some restrictions on my power, or, well, our power. So everything that I can do right now is about a fifth of my maximum." he answered her slowly, making sure that all of his words had a chance to sink in.
"So you really do have the power of a God?" An older looking hunter asked. She looked familiar but Percy couldn't place her face.
"I had the power of a God when I was the guardian of the Hunt." he answered, not bothering to give her his gaze as he was busy sheepishly looking at the fire in the center of the room.
"If I release us from our restriction then what will you do?" he asked wearily. He wasn't entirely sure of what Perseus was capable of at full power, not now that he was the Sin of Wrath.
"If you can protect the building below Olympus and all of the hunters..." He paused as if thinking it over silently. Behind them, all of the hunters were listening eagerly.
Could these two men really be the salvation that they had all been waiting for? For Thalia, this was the day that she'd been waiting for after a decade of fighting against the Titans who had been toying with them for fun.
"I will rain down fiery destruction and flood the city with hellfire, reducing it all to ash." he grinned.
"How do you know that you'll even be strong enough to fight against the Titans?" the hunter that Percy hadn't initially recognized had spoken up again. It was the attitude that clued him in, there was no doubt in his mind that this was Phoebe.
Without uttering a single word, Perseus placed his palm flat against the wall. His arm moved at the speed of light before the entire wall exploded outwards in a cloud of debris, dust and a fair amount of now molten rock.
"I shoved my hand through Kronos' body and spread hellfire through him from head to toe. I killed a Titan before he even had the chance to scream and on top of that, when we're anywhere other than Hell, Percy is a lot more powerful than I am." Perseus answered her casually.
His hand subconsciously touched the horn he'd claimed from Satan. It had re-sized itself to fit Perseus' broken horn but it was still new and as such he felt the need to reassure himself that it was still there.
"Enough. I'll release our restriction when the time comes, until then, do you want to go on a hunt?" Percy asked the question though it was only actually aimed at the Demon.
Together they were going to hunt for Titans to either kill or question. They still needed to get into Olympus.
As if she'd read his mind, Thalia began to speak, "If you're thinking of capturing a Titan then you'd be wasting time. We know how to get into Olympus but from there, that's where we're at a loss. Things are obviously not the same as when you left us." The daughter of Zeus was sighing, she'd need to tell them sooner or later.
"Look, when Olympus was locked down, all of the Olympians immediately made their last defense which was to seal off both Demigod camps entirely. Nothing can get in and nothing can get out until the Gods will it. Us Hunters are now the only thing anywhere near this side of the planet." Her words lingered in the air like a foul poison, it was painful to Percy who had been none the wiser that all of his friends had been trapped in their camps for over a decade.
"Perseus, we're going to walk into Olympus and we're going to kill anyone that get's in our way. I made a promise to Artemis that I would never let any harm come to her. I'm not going to be very happy if that promise has been broken." Percy's tone was a dangerous one that not even the Deadly Sin of Wrath wasn't about to challenge, in fact, he was behind his God one hundred percent.
"Couldn't agree more, though, I just wanna ruin some shit. I am Wrath after all, I can't keep myself cooped up in this dingy building much longer." Perseus began to chuckle with a low menacing tone as flames started to eagerly lick at the air around his arms. Two tiny flames became alight from the tips of his horns.
There were several flashed on the ground beneath the building they were in, which they could now see perfectly because of Perseus' act of destroying half of the building.
"So it's true, there really is another contender on the battlefield. Hopefully you can provide me with more entertainment than those silly hunters that can't even stand a single hit." A Titan in silver armor laughed maniacally as he summoned a spear.
These Titans as opposed to Kronos, were full sized and almost reached the floor that they were hiding in.
"Shit, it's Pallas!" Jolene cursed before brandishing her bow. Just as she was about to give the order to fire, Percy gently placed his hand on her bow.
After seeing Jolene's questioning glance, he decided to take charge of the Hunt completely.
"Girls, sit back, you've earned a rest, let Perseus and I deal with this." he announced loudly.
"Perseus?" Pallas whispered. Surely he couldn't have heard that name. He didn't recognize either of the men so who could they be referring to.
As if he'd been struck by a pillar of flame, he was brought out of his thoughts by a red streak slamming against the ground by his feet. When he looked down he saw what he could only describe as a Demon.
"I'm Perseus!" The Demon boomed before standing with his arms crossed.
"But, you look nothing like Per-" Pallas argued back before a stream of water gently splashed in his face. Looking back at the building with all of the hunters he saw the other man standing there, with a trident in his hands.
"Hey, I'm Percy. Percy Jackson." he announced. That was it.
That was it!
"Percy fuckin' Jackson." Pallas announced as he spat on the floor.
"Jackson has returned!" he boomed. His voice had been so loud that the building had vibrated.
Almost instantly there were a number of other flashes as numerous Titans all joined their location.
"Oh, I'm famous? That's cute." Percy laughed in Pallas' face and his attempt to announce Percy's return.
"Him? What about me!?" Perseus shouted from the ground but was promptly ignored.
"We've got a lot of catching up to do Jackson, a lot of us couldn't believe that Kronos was killed by these hunters but now that you're here we know the truth. Was he felled by that shiny trident of yours?" the Titan of War asked with a grin on his face.
The heat below them was starting to actually become noticeable and the hunters all saw that Perseus' was literally a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.
"No, I didn't." Percy answered him short before putting up a barrier of water, obviously knowing what was about to happen.
"Oh, hiding from me already Jackson? I believed you to be someone at least brave enough to engage in a fight against a Titan, or do you only fight when their backs are turned?" Pallas' face turned to one of hatred.
There was no time for a response as Perseus had finally exploded from below them.
"Don't fucking ignore me!" he bellowed. The entire city shook at it's foundations from the building rage that Perseus had unleashed.
Their entire street had been engulfed in fire that smashed roughly against the barrier of water that Percy had put up. When the smoke had cleared, there were no other Titans in sight, most had probably seen Perseus' impending wrath and decided to let the full sized Pallas handle it.
Pallas himself was now lying inside a building on the opposite side of the street. Percy had absolutely no doubts that the Gods up on Olympus had heard both Pallas and Perseus' roars but there was no argument that the Sin of Wrath had been much louder.
"You won't change anything, Demon." Pallas spat. He had a thing for spitting it seemed. He was struggling to even get a grasp on the building enough to pull himself out.
Half of his body seemed to be trying to flake away into gold dust as the wind gently chipped away at his exposed shin. More dust was falling out of the holes in his armor.
So from just an outburst from being ignored, Perseus had not only cleared the entire street but also half killed off Pallas.
"We." Perseus pointed at Percy up in the building, "Are going to change everything. You don't even know who it is you've decided to fuck with. I personally hold a deep respect for the Gods and especially each and every one of these hunters." Perseus' speech had begun as a low guttural growl.
"Uh oh." Percy chuckled as he reinforced the barrier he'd put up. Some of the other hunters backed away slightly but just so that they could still see the immensely one sided fight below them.
"And you and your kind have been toying with them, killing them off one by one of the last ten years!" Perseus' voice had risen with intensity alongside the flames that now engulfed his entire body and was starting to burn the ground and building around him.
"So do you know what that makes me!?"
Pallas tried his best to atomize Perseus who didn't move a single inch from the attack.
"That makes me angry!" Once again there was an explosion yet this one was more contained than the last. Pallas turned to nothing but a pile of ash with a few remainder of gold dust spread around.
"Nice going hot head, didn't even take off the restrictions yet. I think we've convinced the hunters that we can literally walk through the front doors. You ready to take back what's ours?"
"This world is so ruined that I'm more content with my throne in Hell." Perseus chuckled before he effortlessly leaped up to the floor they were all camped out on.
"You're really going to go through with this?" Thalia asked them, hope gleaming in her eyes.
Perseus laughed a little bit, having finally found a worthy warm-up. "Don't worry honey, we'll be back in time for tea." he told her before gently booping her on the nose.
"We'll need some new clothes, these are kind of tattered beyond combat functionality. But other than that, we're good to storm Olympus." Perseus looked towards Percy who nodded before adopting a deep in thought expression.
Light engulfed the two of them and once it faded, they saw that Percy really was a God. He was still learning to use his powers but he had at least some basic hold over them.
Both boys were now wearing new hunting boots and trousers complete with a black cloak that covered most of their bodies.
"I'm liking this look. Once these are no longer of use I'm going to summon my armor, I reckon Asmody will probably be done making it by now." Perseus grinned.
"You've already ordered for armor to be made?" Percy looked somewhat fearful at whatever Perseus could have ordered to be made in Hell.
"Yeah, well, it takes a long time for armour to be made for a Sin but seeing as we're both here, I'm hoping that time in Hell is doing the same thing as it did here. If I'm lucky then it means I'll have some armour to summon when I need it." Perseus explained, sounding more hopeful than realistic in his statement.
Without any more benign discussion between them, both of them jumped from the side of the building, quite happy to walk into the lair of the Titans where all of the Gods were being held captives.
They both knew that for most people it would be considered quite a suicidal thing to do, but one of them was a God unbound by ancient laws and the other was the Deadly Sin of Wrath.
This was going to be a massacre where they would drown their enemies in their own ichor.
"You started out with a sword, what do you prefer, the reach of a sword or the reach of a trident?" Perseus' voice echoed throughout the vastly destroyed lobby to what had once been the empire state building.
Six hundred floors above them, the Gods and Goddesses of Olympus were being chained up against their will and more than likely being tortured for the sheer amusement of their captors.
They still didn't actually know who was in charge, sure a good guess would have been Kronos but Perseus had already incinerated him.
Pallas would never have been the head of the movement, more like an extreme bodyguard but he too was now stuck in a cycle of reforming because of Perseus' outburst.
"A trident has better reach but I can get much better speed with Anaklusmos." Percy answered him with a shrug. The breeze that ran through the entire base of the building made both of their cloaks to billow lazily in the slight caress of the wind.
"Ah dude, you even named it. Mine's just... Satan's spine. Oh well, I'm not that bothered about it." Perseus chuckled slightly. His lust for warfare was very soon going to overtake him when the real fighting began but that was alright, it was going to be needed for the sheer number of enemies that they were sure to face once inside Olympus.
A few minutes before they had found their way to their destination, Percy had released them from their self set restrictions, not that Perseus seemed to be aware of that, but they could both now fight at one hundred percent of their power, which from the beginning of their shared journey had only expanded in almost unfathomable proportions.
"Shall we take the Percy express elevator instead of climbing six hundred flights of heavily degraded stairs?" Percy asked, extending his hand towards his demonic counterpart.
His only response was a maniacal smile. Oh yes, both of them knew for a fact that once they were there, things would be chaotic, especially with the entrance that Percy was planning on making.
With a flash of light and a small sea-breeze hanging faintly in the air, the two of them were gone, both completely oblivious to the fact that they had been followed by Thalia and Jolene.
They weren't particularly trying to be stealthy but there was no way that either of them were willing to let the Demon-God walk into Hell and back without some form of reinforcement.
Hell and back was a pretty hollow statement for those two though as they'd actually been in Hell dominating the place for the last decade.
For those in the mortal world it had been ten years at least, Thalia was still struggling to grasp the fact that for them it had been only a day.
When the boys reappeared back in a solid form, they found themselves standing inside the immensely damaged lift that had once been used to take people to and from Olympus.
Just beyond them would be the city they had once known, forever changed for the worse after being reformed to be a prison.
They could feel hundreds of immortal presences all milling about or staying stationary and that was just in the pavilion of the city.
Maybe this wouldn't be as easy as either of them thought it would but if they could free some of the Gods then even if they failed there would still be a chance.
Perseus casually knocked on the elevator doors. He received a questioning glance from Percy but offered only a shrug in response.
Was Percy really expecting Perseus to actually know what he was doing? Nobody knew what he was doing, least of all himself.
"Who's there?" a gruff voice asked from the other side, it sounded uneasy, almost like it was expecting Percy but at the same time that it would be a rational thing for an ally to knock on the doors of Olympus.
"Pizza guy!" Perseus' voice echoed out of the elevator's walls and thundered around Olympus. A few of the God's that were chained up and caged in the pavilion all looked up at that very voice.
Apollo's beaten and bloodied body slowly shifted inside his suspended golden cage so that he was able to focus on the battered golden doors which held the source of the voice.
Had he even heard that right? A pizza guy?
Artemis slowly looked up from where her whole body was chained to the floor of an identical elevated cage. She'd been tortured humiliatingly over the past decade, she was especially brutalized because of her kill count among the Titans during all of their past wars.
"What's pizza?" The Titan clad from head to toe in dull metal armour asked, looking around to the other Titans for confirmation.
"Tut, tut, tut. Wise man say; forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza!" The voice barely managed to keep a laugh suppressed behind those doors.
"Is that from the ninja turtles?" Another quiet voice asked, this one was also behind the doors.
"Someone is playing you for fools!" A minor Titaness with fiery red hair scolded the two by the elevator who were clearly not picked for their positions due to their intelligence. This woman seemed to be quite powerful though.
"Yeah." the first voice responded with a huge laugh before the elevator's doors had been blown free from their previous resting place. One of them narrowly missed hitting Artemis' cage.
When the dust had cleared she almost couldn't believe what she was seeing. Two, just two people had confidently walked out of the broken lift, cloaks covering both of their faces, each with an impressive height yet one with leaner muscles showing from the visible forearms.
"Enough, you jokers can burn in Hell!" the Titaness snarled before unleashing a barrage of fire that quickly made it's way towards them.
"No thank you." the one on the left answered quickly before turning into nothing but a salty sea breeze that moved around the pavilion with grace before he reformed.
The horizontal pillar of sheer fire that had been thrown from the staff wielded by the Titaness had stayed true to its course and hit the other warrior head on, burning away his cloak.
When the fire had gone there were the remnants of a flash dying down from around the warrior's body.
"Gonna have to pass, see, I've been to Hell, in fact I live there. Hi, name's Perseus, Sin of Wrath." he announced before slicing his blade through the air to accentuate his point.
Jagged black plates of metal covered him from the waste down but leaving his upper body bare except for a similarly styled section of plates that covered his left shoulder and then a single gauntlet on his right arm that connected with the band of metal that had once belonged to Satan.
His chest had a few symbols that looked like they were etched into the skin, they gave off an almost malevolent feeling.
Artemis recognized this man, he was someone that had come to mean quite a lot to her before he had simply walked out on everything about their world ten years ago.
His horns were different, both definitely bigger and now one was black with bloodied streaks running down it. Wait!
If he was here.
"P-Perseus!?" the Titaness flinched upon hearing that name and quickly stepped back.
"And we can't forget about the one who has surpassed all of these silly Gods now, can we?" Perseus asked sarcastically before pointing to the side.
The Titaness quickly sent her gaze towards Percy but all she got in response was a jetstream of water that had hit her with so much sheer force and velocity that not only the Titaness but also Percy's cloak had been completely and utterly annihilated.
With the water no longer restricting the view of the many Gods and Goddesses all being held prisoner in the pavilion, they could all see who had come to storm Olympus.
Standing tall and proud was the one man that had caused Artemis to truly want him. Slowly twirling a beautiful silver trident in his hands stood none other than Percy Jackson. He had finally returned to them, he'd returned to her after ten years of her constantly hoping that somehow he had escaped the onslaught of the Titans wherever he was.
Ten years of fearing for the only person that she had been able to love and he showed up in their darkest hour.
"Percy?" Artemis' broken voice ushered his name out as nothing more than an almost hopeless whisper. Upon hearing her name, Percy's gaze fell upon the travesty that was Artemis' living condition. His eyes held the wrath of a furious tempest that was just waiting to be unleashed.
Further behind him, Perseus began to adopt a dull red glow that seemed to oppose the bright emerald green that was flowing around Percy's body.
"Woah, you guys really fucked up. Like, I'm the Sin of wrath, but you got him so riled up that even I'm impressed by the sheer rage running through his blood." Perseus announced before slamming his fist into the face of another Titan that was getting a bit too close to him.
The heavily armoured menace stuttered on his footing for a moment before the armour clanged loudly against the marble floor, the body no longer holding any semblance of life.
Percy lightly tapped the cage surrounding Artemis. The metal eroded in front of her very eyes in a matter of seconds which caused her to plummet to the ground only to be caught in his arms.
"I'm so sorry." he whispered to which she slapped him.
"Ow." he muttered quietly.
"That was for leaving." she announced before grabbing him and kissing him deeply, either oblivious or totally uncaring as to who was watching her kiss a man.
"Oh." Percy muttered, that one was much more pleasurable than being slapped.
"And that was for coming back." she smiled before almost fainting further into his chest. He was still holding her but he could tell that her energy was failing her, she desperately needed to rest to gain any measure of strength back.
"If you two are done with the cliché kissing scene over there, can you fucking help me?" Perseus' gruff voice was almost drowned out by a blast of heat that he had sent out from the point of his sword that ended up scorching the stairs to the throne room.
That was likely where the eldest Gods were being held.
"Fine, free Apollo and I'll keep the Titans at bay." Percy commanded, effectively orchestrating a tap out system that both of them could happily abide by.
"Fine, but he's not getting a snog from me." Perseus mumbled irritably before cutting Apollo's chains loose. A thump and a groan was what let Percy know that Apollo was free.
He didn't even attempt to figure out a good response for the sometimes moronic demon.
"Artemis, can you keep the pavilion clear and get the rest of the Gods free if myself and Perseus fight our way to the throne room?" Percy asked, looking upon her with worried eyes. There was a new trick up his sleeve that he'd been waiting to test out and now was as good a time as any.
"It's been ten years..." Artemis found the floor somewhat of a worthy site when she could no longer look at the one she'd fallen for. She felt his hand softly caress her shoulder, what was he doing?
No, it wasn't him, it was his hand but that feeling of his hands moving over her body was the sensation of free flowing water, moving over all of her cuts, bruises and any other marks of torture and war that had befallen her.
It had taken mere seconds at most before her body only felt an overall sensation of general soreness.
Before she would allow him a response, she pulled him in once again for another kiss.
"Fine, I admit it, I'm jealous, now would ya quit it? We've actually got shit to do." Perseus impatiently told the two.
"I can hold this place until you return, after all, my girls have finally caught up." Artemis told the boys before nodding towards the still smoking lift entrance where hunters were piling in with bows drawn.
The assault started now.
"Hey!" a rough voice caught Perseus' attention.
"Heard you were jealous, this should help." He had literally only figured out that it was Thalia a mere seconds before she was upon him, mirroring the actions of her Goddess and the son of Poseidon.
She found purchase at the back of Perseus' hair where she kept him in place. She almost squealed in shock delight when she felt his impossibly strong arms on her sides while he pushed to further the kiss.
Thalia was the one to break it off, he did have things to do and this was the first time either of them had actually directly acknowledged whatever it was between them.
"Unexpected but not unwelcome." Perseus told her with a smirk before letting go and returning his focus to the task at hand.
"So, we just gonna knock or...?" Perseus asked with a slightly tilted head. It was a genuine question but somehow he wasn't sure that his 'pizza' joke would work a second time.
"Fuck no. We're going to blow it down completely." Percy answered with a laugh before starting the march towards the throne room.
When the two of them laid siege on it, they were in for the fight of their life. Their true opponent was someone that neither one expected but someone that they both should have been aware of, especially with Death being so insistent about not getting caught between the time flows of Hell.
After all, why would Tartarus be so different?
It was always said that when the Devil came knocking on your door, that Hell would soon follow. That statement was never going to be more accurate when it was Perseus 'knocking' on the doors to Olympus in the form of an overwhelmingly large mass of super concentrated wrath.
However.
That statement was also in question because of who sat on the other side of those doors. Behind the doors to the throne room of Olympus was no longer the thrones that sat beneath the backsides of the Gods but rather held someone of far higher malevolence.
The doors blew clean off of their hinges, sparks of red light danced around inside the clouds of dust that had been kicked up.
The two warriors that were lost in time had fought their way through the ranks of Titans that had been brave enough to actually try and stop the super-colliders of force.
When the smoke had cleared and their vision was once again able to convey the scene before them, they were both immediately on edge, this wasn't going to be anywhere near as simple as they had once thought.
Titans? Not a problem, they had vast numbers but in comparison to Percy and Perseus they were just ants, but this?
This was no longer a Titonamacy. This had been a full scale invasion the whole time but Kronos hadn't been the one behind it.
In the only two remaining thrones which were larger than those they'd replaced, sat a man in an impeccable suit who almost looked similar to Perseus because of the horns but in his deep pitt-like eyes sat two flaming orbs that never seemed to lose intensity. Sat beside the man who personified the Greek Hell was none other than the Earth mother.
"Gaea and Tartarus, ain't that just fuckin' peachy?" Perseus groaned quietly from where they were still confidently walking forwards.
Tartarus looked as though he'd been bored this whole time and he'd finally seen some way to get a certain degree of entertainment and Gaea just looked surprised.
"Hi, name's Percy." The son of Poseidon told them casually. He stopped and looked around with his hands on his hips before letting out a heavy sigh. Upon the walls were six cages, each one holding an elder God within them.
His voice seemed to bring them all out of their focus-less state and just stare at him as though they were all looking at a ghost.
"Percy?" Poseidon ushered, a single tear brimming across his eye before rolling down his cheek. Was his son really there? Had he returned after ten years of presuming his missing or worse?
"I'm here too guys." Perseus waved casually. He'd already realized that they probably hadn't even remembered him.
"I spend one day in Hell with Perseus and boom, Death tells me that the world has moved on without me, annoying at best, but then I return and you assholes have caused a Titan uprising and hurt my friends, my family and most of all, you've caged up a certain Goddess that I've come to care about quite a lot. Bad move on your part." Percy tutted before summoning his trident and trying out something that he was still waiting to see if he actually could pull it off.
His body glowed a vibrant emerald green before he grew to the size of a God, his trident following his growth.
"Dat's badass." Perseus muttered in awe. He had no idea that Percy could do that! Although, he was a God, he should have realized that sooner or later he'd have picked up the same tricks that the other Gods could do.
"You should do it too." Percy told him without taking his eyes off of the Primordial attackers.
"I would if I could but I'm a Demon not a God. I can do something else though... No, it's way too dangerous." Perseus wrote off his thoughts. Percy was actually shocked, there was something he was capable of doing that was too dangerous even for him.
"You may not have noticed but our situation calls for anything that would help." Percy scowled at him briefly. This was no time to be finding a sense of safety.
"Yes, but, my version of what you've done will turn me into my predecessor." Perseus shrugged, the option was there, he was leaving it down to Percy to decide whether he did it or not.
A quick nod from Percy was the go ahead. Perseus had the green light to turn himself into Satan. Was that what the horn was for? The reason that Perseus had to take something from Satan and add it to himself was so that he could achieve such a transformation?
"I will take the Hellspawn on myself, it seems only fitting." Tartarus bellowed with a grin, he more than likely would enjoy this greatly, even if he was defeated by Perseus. He seemed more than simply bored with his situation.
"Fair." Perseus shrugged before channeling every inch of power he held. It was incredible to witness and felt even greater to be beside.
When the whole of Olympus had finished trembling it was like someone entirely different had appeared in Perseus' place but his face was the same, it was still more or less Perseus just with everything that Satan had, added onto himself.
He stood with an even leaner frame than before. His skin was a far brighter tint of crimson now and yet the single greatest change was the fact that his two horns not only now looked identical to the far larger ones of Satan, but there were two more sitting comfortably underneath the more prominent ones. It was like a crown made from his own horns. The perfect fusion of Satan and Perseus.
"This should be good." Tartarus announced before resizing to be the same as Perseus who hadn't changed in stature compared to Percy.
The Demon just continued to casually regard Tartarus as nothing more than an interesting object, there was no danger coming from the Primordial, not to either of them.
As Tartarus continued to pick up speed and charge towards Perseus, the Demon lifted his foot before slamming it into the ground. All of the vines and winding branches that were expanding from Gaea had suddenly caught flame and burnt to nothing but ash.
Tartarus who was almost upon Perseus was hit head on by a massively concentrated jet of water that had erupted from Percy's trident.
The God struggled to remain standing and the damage was evident as there were multiple patches of exposed skin that were now freely flaking away into the wind that was billowing around the two warriors.
Multitudes of Gods and immortal hunters flooded into the throne room to see the harrowing sight before them. Percy was the size of a God and Perseus was made from the reality of nightmares with his red skin and narrow horizontal slots for eyes that seemed so casual yet unimaginably dangerous.
"Friend of yours?" Thalia nodded towards Tartarus when she found herself suddenly standing next to the four horned Demon.
"That's actually Tartarus himself. Oh, I have an idea. Oh Asmody!" Perseus' voice caught everyone off guard when he basically began to sing. There was a faint rumble that only he seemed to understand but it was good enough for him apparently.
"I'm calling it in right now, I want Tartarus to have a play-date." And just like that, his words had opened up a vacuous portal right behind the man of the underworld before a single muscular arm erupted from within and ripped Tartarus from their reality.
"Well then." Percy announced, bringing everyone's attention back after they'd witnessed Tartarus' screaming avatar being ripped from their reality and forced into a place he had no power over.
"Sorry to anyone that doesn't want to get wet." Was all Percy told them before slamming his trident into the ground. The entire throne room was almost instantly submerged with the oceans from his trident.
Water was erupting from every place it could, washing out of the throne room and rolling in waves around the entire city of Olympus.
Any God or Goddess that was still in a cage would be rejuvenated and the cage broken. All six of the elder Gods were released from their ceiling prisons.
A few seconds later and everything had calmed down. Everyone was released and Gaea was left struggling to move on the floor by her throne.
"Do you feel like we cheated by lowering our perceptible power?" Perseus asked Percy quietly so that no one else would hear but what he forgot was that the hunter's senses had only ever gotten sharper with the need for survival arising almost constantly.
"You did what?" Thalia asked with a glare, pretty sick of the things that these two overpowered morons kept pulling.
"We compressed our power so much that even if those two could sense it, they would think that they were strong enough to defeat us." Percy explained with a sheepish grin.
They had bluffed two Primordials into thinking that they were still the strongest when in reality the power had always been in the boy's court.
"I don't even have enough strength to hound either of you for doing something that stupid. I'm still-I can't believe that you've finally come back." Thalia's emotional strength had run its course and now that it was finally all over, she was breaking down, no longer able to hold it all together.
"Yeah, well we are back, and we're not going away agai-" Before Perseus could finish his sentence there were over half a dozen long sharp branches protruding from his chest. Behind him, Gaea was on her knees with her arm extended.
"I know about you sins, I know the trick to killing sins. Seven hearts all pierced at once is the trick, am I right, Demon?" Gaea's ichor stained body was shaking, she'd used everything she had in one last ditch attempt to take at least one of them down.
"This isn't the last you've seen of us." Gaea told them before she exploded from the inside out from the combined force of a lightning bolt, a trident and a pitchfork. The three brothers had found their weapons once again and ended the final threat.
"Maybe I shouldn't have spoken so soon, I mean,shit-She actually got all seven hearts." Perseus announced in sheer surprise as his gaze was firmly fixed on the seven spiked branches stuck through his entire body.
"Yeah, you're not wrong, this hurts way more than it looks." Percy agreed when he fell to a knee, using his trident as support. The horn part of the trident that had appeared when Perseus had become the sin of Wrath was cracking more and more with each passing second.
"No... No, you can't do this to us!" Thalia demanded. A flash of silver caught their attention before Artemis was beside them all, taking in the scene.
She was about to bound forwards and reach out to hold Percy but before she got close, there was another flash of bright flames before a wave of heat emerged in the throne room. This being was someone that Percy recognized, he'd watched the fight in Satan's throne room from above.
"Sammael, this isn't a great time for a social call." Perseus coughed blood when he laughed at his own terribly timed joke.
"Make no mistakes Wrath, I do not like you one bit but you are indeed worthy of the title and I cannot have you die on us after only a day and a half. I will give you one of my hearts, you will heal the rest on your own." Sammael announced before snapping his fingers. The branch stuck through Perseus' body dissolved and the wounds started to slowly heal themselves.
Sammael himself went as soon as he could. He had no business with Gods, he just came to save a fellow Sin from falling before their time.
"Hello darkness my old friend." Percy muttered softly. Perseus chuckled at his words before they both fell flat against the marble floor of the throne room, extreme exhaustion had overcome them both.
'Only the strong survive.' The words echoed through the mind of a young man who had been through a lot in his lifetime yet it wasn't his mind that the words had originally been spoken to.
Percy heard the numb echoes of a Demon's voice being directly spoken into his counterpart. They were two sides of the same coin so it made sense that even on such a deep level the two of them were directly connected.
Perseus had awoken long before Percy had and realized that he was in for a world of trouble that he really didn't need to involve Olympus with, especially not Thalia or any of the other girls. The sin of Wrath had returned to Hell and was patiently waiting atop his throne of fire for the day that Sammael came.
He had something that belonged to his fellow sin and Sammael was no doubt going to want it back but Perseus wasn't sure whether or not his other hearts had properly recovered. It didn't matter, Sammael was more understanding than the other Sins, as was evident by him even showing himself among dozens of Gods and transferring an entire heart.
Percy looked around, things were dull and there was a constant numbing sensation that throbbed at the side of his head. Could Gods even get headaches? That hardly seemed fair but then nothing about his world was fair.
He'd been gone for no longer than a single day and all he'd been left to return to was absolute ruin and the person he'd fallen in love with captured and tortured for a decade. His fury ran deep in his veins yet it was something that he had to get a hold on, they had won after all, hadn't they?
Tartarus had been ripped from reality and taken to Hell, the real Hell, and Gaea had been obliterated by the three elder Gods, what more could there have been?
Before Percy could do anything at all, his whole world turned upside down, literally, the walls crumbled and he started falling through nothing but a black void, he couldn't even feel Perseus' presence inside his mind any more, not even as a dormant being, whatever this was, it was strictly to do with him.
He finally came to a stop after another few seconds of nothing but a cold abyss. He looked down to find himself clad in leather boots and trousers that were similar to the ones that he'd given himself and Perseus when they'd stormed Olympus yet there was something off about them.
They seemed thicker and the lining looked like it was constantly dissolving in the wind. In fact, all of his clothes left a soft trail of golden dust behind them when he moved.
"The fateless one." he heard a shrill voice call out to him in disgust. When he found the origin of the voice his heart sunk. He had been brutally summoned by the three fates. They each glared at him in immense displeasure, like he'd desecrated their ancient laws, which, you know... He had.
"The only part of your life that's ever been directly bound in fate is us summoning you." One of them spat unhappily. He either really screwed them over or they were just having a catastrophically bad day.
"Look, I have no idea what's going on or why it looks like my body is dying so if you could shed some light then that would be peachy." he told them with a glare of his own, he totally didn't have the time to do this right now.
He had a lot of catching up to do with Artemis and he actually wanted to do that, not to mention that who knows how much of the world needed to be rebuilt because of those Primordial jackoffs.
"It's not an easy thing to understand, young one. Firstly because of your more than unique heritage from both sides of your aspects you were an unbound God but now that you've achieved what none could and broke the chains of Olympus, you've directly crossed the one who had set Tartarus and Gaea on their paths and somehow, somehow, you have mastered a domain." The fates were speaking as one, a unison of voices yet they were all represented through the smallest, the one who stood in the middle, he couldn't remember who they all were though. Maybe it was Clotho?
"That sounds highly unlikely but I doubt you'd summon me directly just to lie to me, so what exactly have I done?" Percy shrugged, not really caring what they decided to do as all of this was more than likely just them scolding him for being reckless, or perhaps a warning?
"You have disrupted the time stream set in place by thousands of years by none other than Chronos himself." Clotho nodded solemnly.
"I've already killed him." Percy exasperated. Whatever Kronos had planned, the Demon-God had incinerated him from the inside out.
"No, you killed Kronos, with a K, we're talking about the Primordial. Father time himself." Atropos, was it Atropos? Percy couldn't possibly care less about what their names were at this point.
"OK, so what exactly did I do when I foiled Time's plans?" Percy could only sigh, this was so far beyond his care that it was unreal.
He'd destroyed two Primordials recently, he could stretch for a third, although, Chronos would be a far sight stronger than Tartarus and Gaea, his body was the stream of time itself and that seemed like something that couldn't even be fought against unless you had a hand of power in the damn thing itself.
"You mastered fate itself." Lacheisis told him with a straight face.
"Excuse me?" he backed up slightly.
"You heard me!" she shrieked, not wanting to have to repeat herself. She hated actually having to interact with most people as it was.
"She means that you have become a God above and beyond any semblance of fate. You are the only one who can choose the path that you walk." Clotho pushed in, noticing that Percy was really struggling to keep up.
In fairness they had summoned him as soon as he lifted his already heavy eyes. They had to wait because on the other side of his mind his Demon was preparing for a grilling from another Demon and his mind was subconsciously putting up defenses that the Fates couldn't get through so they instead had to block Perseus from the mind temporarily.
"That sounds immensely dangerous." Percy breathed in and awaiting their take on things. It must have been dangerous or again, they wouldn't have pulled him from his somewhat comfortable bed.
"Oh yes, if you thought that your life up until now held pressure you were wrong." Clotho started to grin. These fates were malicious bastards down to their very core.
"So that's what this gold stuff is about?" He pointed at the wisps that were casually flowing from his body.
"Yes, what with you being the God of Fate. You control the paths that others hold and yet you yourself don't have one." Percy raised an eyebrow, that had literally nothing to do with what he had asked. It was almost like they were trying to throw him off of it.
"So, to answer pretty much the only question I've actually been asking... What is this stuff?" He pushed on once again.
"The fabric of reality." Lacheisis told him with that same deadpan look as before.
"What!?" He backed up quickly, suddenly feeling like his body was enclosed in a ticking time bomb that would erase him from existence.
"She's joking. The easiest way for us to describe it to you would be that it's the strands of fate. They cling to their master, you could probably turn that into quite a nasty weapon if you so chose." Atropos told him with a soft smile. She was easily the nicest fate, not at all assholey like her sisters were being.
"Huh... Badass." Percy muttered when he weaved the golden strands around his hand with immense grace and elegance.
They lengthened at his will and even detached from his body where he was just sending them in random patterns before the Fates interrupted him again.
"Indeed, now you know that in saving Olympus you've thrust yourself into the midst of yet another war that hinders on you and your Demon, you'll either make or break the universe with how you use your power so please... Do be careful Percy Jackson." Clotho told him with a final smile before waving her hand at him.
His body was once again thrust into a different location yet this time it wasn't the bed he'd once been in, he erupted into the central pavilion of Olympus out of a vibrant gold rift in the air.
Just opposite him, he saw a blood red and demonic looking rift of the same pattern. Perseus was spat out of it in a much less elegant manner, as was evident when his face smashed against the marble floor.
All around them were exhausted Gods and Goddesses all tirelessly working to rebuild the damage suffered from the Titans in the past decade.
"Well that was trippy as fuck. Where am I? Percy, oh hey, what's going on?" Perseus asked, rubbing the side of his head where he'd slammed against the floor. Numerous hunters started to giggle at them from where they were sitting.
"Umm, I don't know how to say this, but-" Percy began before Perseus got impatient.
"Out with it." he muttered loudly whilst clicking his back and neck loudly. It sounded painful but the Demon's expression showed only immense pleasure from it. He probably got off from pain anyway.
"I'm the God of Fate." His voice was louder than he'd expected and upon his words the whole world seemed to go dead silent before a lightning bolt hit the ground aggressively right where he was standing. Out of it, Zeus emerged.
"You would need the-" Before Zeus could even pass another word, the Fates themselves all flashed in right next to Percy.
Zeus adopted a frown when he saw their presence, they really could have helped Olympus a decade ago. Numerous other flashes all erupted around them when the Gods had been attracted to what was happening.
"Listen up because this is only going to happen once." Clotho announced angrily.
"Perseus Jackson is the only God to ever receive a domain like this. In terms of rank it is above major domains and far above minor domains. The level of mastery that he has puts him on terms with the Primordials. Percy Jackson is the God of Fate!" Their words echoed when they each left in a sickly green rift like the one that Percy had left.
"Well..." Zeus began in utter shock and confusion.
"We'll hold some sort of celebration when we can, there's simply too much to do right now I'm afraid." he nodded weakly at the younger Gods around him before leaving in a flash of lighting.
"Percy?" Artemis' voice caught his attention immediately.
"Oh for fuck sake, not again. I'm out yo, I've got a throne to sit on in Hell. Percy, I know what's coming, you'd best tell these idiots as soon as possible, I'll be there when I'm needed." Perseus gave a weak salute from the top of his horns before falling backwards towards the ground which melted around his body before sealing itself up again.
"We don't have much time and there's a lot to catch up on." Artemis told him sternly. She wanted so badly to take him in her hands and just kiss his face all day but there was something else on her mind, something that the Titans had been taunting her with for so many years. Tartarus and Gaea were not the last in line.
"Time is something that we really do not have a lot of. Tartarus and Gaea were not the ones behind all of this, they were just pawns in a game played by a madman. And I intend to take him down." Percy grinned.
Without even realizing it, dozens of golden strands of what looked like floating sand and sparkles from diamond started to float around his body. Even time couldn't destroy the fateless.
"The path I walk is my own and every decision I make is one unbound by the laws surrounding our world so I hope you understand what it means when I say that the path in front of me is one that I want to walk with you." he told her, his usually sea green eyes had been replaced by a gold that was so powerful that it made Apollo's usually cheery eyes look like broken yellow crayons.
"Percy." Artemis whispered under her breath when she felt his hands placed softly on her face.
Before Percy could move in to kiss her in front of everyone in the pavilion, she had jumped into him and secured what was rightfully hers.
Behind them on the wall where the hunters were sitting, Thalia was scowling with her arms folded. She was jealous that Artemis had been the one to take Percy but honestly, it wasn't really Percy that she was after anymore.
Before she could make any further comments about the two, the ground below them seemed to open with fire before Perseus emerged, lazily sitting on what looked like a stone hammock. Totally uncomfortable for most but this was Perseus of all people.
"So, while those two are busy playing tonsil tennis in front of the other Gods, you wanna see what Hell looks like from the tower of a Demon Lord?" he asked with a fiery grin that matched the passion in his eyes. Thalia seemed to mirror it before jumping off and taking his hand.
"See you when father Time comes down to punish us for ruining everything." Perseus waved casually at Percy before he and Thalia both fell through the floor leaving most people stunned at what had happened.
"Percy, what does he mean by father Time?" Artemis asked when she'd finally let him go.
Percy was being watched by everyone that still remained in the pavilion. He took a step back before making his announcement for them all to hear.
"Tartarus and Gaea were not the ones in charge of ruining the world that I've come to love." he told them, hearing hushed whispers follow his words.
"The Primordial God of Time, Chronos, was the one who truly orchestrated all of this and sooner or later he'll be coming to find me, so let's see what happens when Time meets Fate. I promise you all this, I left once, I'm not leaving again. The Demon-God stands with Olympus!" His words filled everyone with hope and more than that, Artemis was being filled with emotions that she'd previously never felt for anyone before, sure she'd felt this very same thing for Percy before he'd left for Hell but it wasn't the same.
She knew in her heart that no matter what happened, no matter who came to overthrow them next, her place was right there by his side.
She was well and truly in love with Percy Jackson.