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Hope you guys enjoy the chapter!
The Demon Rites
The room was dimly lit, but in the centre of the room was an enormous sword driven deep into a set of stone. Slowly, Percy walked up to the sword.
"Hold me..." That voice! It was the same one that had guided Percy through the Trials of the Ninth so far! Was it... This sword?
Unsure, Percy wrapped both of his nimble hands around the hilt of the sword and pulled up...
The sword didn't budge. Not at all. Again, Percy wrapped both hands around the hilt of the sword and pulled, but nothing happened. It was as if the wretched blade was laughing at him.
"Why?" He managed out, before stepping down from the rock.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The beast outside was still active, pounding on the gigantic doors of the Citadel.
Shallow footsteps could be heard from behind Percy. Clapping sounded, and Percy turned around. There, in all his glory, stood Leo, one of the many candidates that Percy had thought to of been killed. "So, Percy, how does it feel to not be chosen for that crappy sword?" Was his sarcastic comment.
Percy rolled his eyes. "And you are?" He questioned the hyperactive Latino. He could've sworn that this kid had an endless supply of drugs.
"Yeppo, Perse-o!" Leo commented hopping up onto the stone and wrapping both hands around the hilt of the sword, and pulling. But once again, the sword was unmoving.
The legacy of Poseidon snorted. "And still you try."
In case you were wondering; yes, Leo was still yanking at the sword unconditionally. The beast outside pounded on the doors once more, and splinters flew everywhere once more. Voices were heard from up ahead. Percy looked down the other end of the citadel, where a narrow tunnel led out of the broken structure.
Leo hopped down from the stone, and inspected Percy quickly. "Ah, so the mighty hero has lost his tooth pick? Pretty shitty if you ask me."
"Shut it." Percy raised his clenched fists slightly, preparing for a fight. It would be out-right painful, but it would be worth beating up the pyromaniac.
"Ooooooh, Percy's getting feisty. I wonder if you can now lift the sword, or you'll actually learn your place down here." Leo grinned. He was revelling in the thought of a fight with the slightly younger twelve-year-old.
"Piss off Leo." Percy growled, and around thirty or forty candidates began making their way into the citadel. "So I see the entire hunting party made it?"
"How are you alive?" A girl asked quickly, levelling her own make-ship sword at Percy's neck, even though she was around ten or twenty feet away.
"That thing outside trying to break the door down." Percy pointed behind him, where a skeletal fist broke through the dark coloured doors, whipping around aimlessly.
A few of the candidates began to back up and make their way towards the small cave system, and the skeleton seemed to leave, and walk away as it clattered its skeletal teeth in an angry manner. Percy sighed with relief as the beast was finally retreating.
"I thought everyone here died...?" Percy asked quickly, looking around at the other candidates.
"We were thrown into some dark cell before dropping down into here. Pretty rough, but we heard talk of everyone else being killed by Lucifer." Leo spoke haughtily, as if avoiding something.
"Partly true. I thought everyone had -" BOOM!
The enormous skeleton came charging into the room, the doors seeming to shatter as if weakened glass, and charged straight through the boulder holding the stone.
Percy was beyond shocked when he saw the sword clatter to the ground behind the skeleton as it ran into the opposite wall. Dust filled the dimly lit air, and Percy dived across the citadel, wrapping his left hand around the hilt of the sword. He managed to pick to dark weapon up with ease, and finally got a good look at it.
The hilt of the sword was strange, curvy but somehow fit perfectly into Percy's hands. The butt of the sword widened into some strange shape with small, serrated blades sticking up in a ball-like structure. The blade of the sword was dark, almost black in colour. The metal was icily cold, possibly due to being stuck in the Ninth Circle for an unknown amount of time. The actual blade was parted in the middle, small scaffolding made out of the same metal as the sword connecting the two separate blades until they met to form a devilish curved tip. The blade itself was curved, the outer side of the sword was smooth while the other side was jagged, like teeth. This ended with a deadly hook coming up and ending the blade with a sharp lip, while the smooth side seemed to have a large chunk removed from the blade. On the inside of this empty space were a row of serrated teeth, ending with a lip overlapping the end of the smoothened blade. A secondary , one-sided blade was connected to the top of this lip and stretched down in two convex edges, down to the hilt of the blade as some sort of hand-guard. Some of the sword seemed blunt from the stone, but the rest of it was deadly sharp.
"And so he picks me up at last. Only may I be held after the stone be destroyed, for I am the Sword of Enoch, the crafted by the unregistered son of Lucifer, Enoch. I was forged with an unlikely alloy of bone from Lucifer, Adamant, and Unholy Silver, smelted in a furnace of Hellfire and cooled in the blood of innocent children." A deep voice entered Percy's head as he does a few practice swings with the sword, scaring him slightly.
"Creepy much..." Percy muttered, a deafening crack filling the air as the skeleton pulled itself from the wall. It looked worse than before, especially since all of the bone across the face was now cracked and broken, along with a few ribs, exposing the blackened heart to the icy air.
"Now, FIGHT! END THE REIGN OF HELL, AND BURN THEM ALL!" The voice came back roaring, causing Percy to drop to his knees. The power he felt coursing though his veins was immense. It was almost beautiful. It made him want to do unspeakable things, make all of his desires come true.
His eyes darkened as he stood, Percy's sea green eyes going completely black once again, and raw power rolled off of him. A sickening squelch was heard as the skeleton lumbered over to Percy. Without a doubt he had just crushed another candidate.
Unconsciously, Percy stood back up and had raised his sword. The skeleton ran, and Percy growled. It wasn't normal, even for him. It was too animalistic, evil, to be coming from the Legacy of the Sea God. Leo stood, and eyed Percy. Energy rolled off of the twelve-year-old in enormous amounts, causing the Hispanic boy to take a few steps back.
The skeleton let out a cackle through its broken teeth, and Percy vanished into the dust and debris floating through the air. No candidate could see what had happened, but all they heard was a loud crash of numerous bones hitting the floor and scattering, followed by the soft thud of Percy hitting the floor. When he emerged from the dust, it was obvious what had happened: Percy had jumped into the skeleton's ribcage and cut the heart out with the sword, the darkened heart of the skeleton in Percy's right hand.
"I think we need to go..." A few candidates suggested, all walking back into the tunnel, followed up by Percy. The Legacy's eyes slowly grew lighter until they returned to their normal state of a darker shade of sea green. He dropped the heart onto the ground, hearing the sicking squelch made as the black heart from the beast impacted onto the floor. He placed his hand on the outside of the left ventricle before smashing his foot down, a sickening crunch filling the air as the membrane was snapped and torn apart. Black blood squirted high, splattering all of Percy's right leg, his lower left leg, a few droplets of blood reaching his face.
Percy continued on walking, and held the sword in both of his hands, getting an even closer look at the craftsmanship of the wickedly sharp sword. Small pulses of dull silver energy seemed to reach through the sword, giving it a small glow. Unsure of how to conceal the sword, Percy just kept a hold of it in his left hand.
A deep groan escaped from the tunnel behind them, and Percy turned to look. At what was once dimly lit, there was now complete darkness behind them. Strange... Small amounts of debris hit Percy's arm, and his eyes widened. "RUN! THE TUNNEL'S COLLAPSING!"
That got everyone running, including Percy. Something was pushing him forward, like that he actually had a reason to continue on and finish the fight the sword had spoke of to him. Hell's bloody campaign of the Demon Rites will end by Percy's hand, and nobody else will be harmed by those beasts. They should all be condemned to the deepest, darkest Circle of Hell – the Ninth, what is almost to be the burial ground of Perseus Jackson.
Well, too bad the burial ground part wasn't going to come around... Right?
More and more small pieces of rock began slapping against Percy's back, trying to make him slow down. A small light could be seen at the end of the tunnel. The light began to grow, but the collapsing cave was now nipping at Percy's heels like a Jack-Russel would. Not that Percy knew what one of the small, rat-like dogs were.
Closer...
Closer...
Closer...
Just a little bit more...
The Demon Rites
Annabeth Chase, Charles Beckendorf, and Selina Beauguard were successful with their quest. Even though it proved to be impossibly difficult. Hephaestus had granted his son three small pearls as a gift from Poseidon from years before, telling Charles to be careful and use them at the first sight of trouble.
Beckendorf handed both Selina and Annabeth a pearl each, and they finished their cross country quest in peace (which was incredibly strange, since battles usually occur on every demigod quest).
They arrived at Los Angeles bay, where Annabeth had received a haunting dream that her moral father, Fredrick Chase, had been kidnapped and was being held by an unknown assailant. What her quest-mates did not know was that the price she had to pay for her father – the Bolt of Zeus. Not that she was sure how she was In possession of Luke. All she had on her other than her clothing was a small rucksack given to her by Luke, who made her promise to be careful as she left camp. It was surprising to say the least, especially after Luke's violent outburst the day before the quest.
There was a dark haired woman standing on the sandy beach, a man next to her on his knees, tendrils of smoke circling around him to restrict his movement.
The woman's dark hair was fairly long, reaching just below her shoulders, and her facial features resembling that of a Greek statue: pale, breathtakingly beautiful and ageless. She was dressed in a sleeveless white gown covered in ornate silver designs, shapes that possibly were runes or alchemy symbols. Around her was a shimmering dark green aura, contrasting to her pale skin and clothing.
"Demigods. How nice of you to join us. Do you have the bolt, Daughter of Athena?" The woman asked, eyeing the man next to her. The man himself was partially handsome and middle-aged, also looking a lot like Annabeth, sharing his daughter's sandy coloured hair and athletic figure, but had a pair of intense brown eyes.
"Dad!" Annabeth cried out, and ran over to the bound man.
"Dad?" Selina was taken a bit back by Annabeth's reaction to seeing the man bound by Hecate. While Charles shared Selina's concern for the fact that Annabeth's father was being held at ransom, his mind playing over and over the price for Annabeth's father. Bolt... No it couldn't be Zeus' bolt... Could it? Could Annabeth be the thief?
No, Beckendorf shook the thought away. Although he wasn't particularly fond of Annabeth due to her stuck-up personality, she wasn't a thief. She was incredibly ignorant, which had almost gotten them into a fight with a group of cyclops, which had been avoided by Selina simply charm-speaking some mortals that the cyclops were in fact kidnappers and were after them.
Annabeth had dropped her bag down and run over to her father, only to get sent back by a blast of green light. Beckendorf had picked up her bag, and peered in. A small rip had appeared around the seams inside of the bag, and a soft blue glow was emitted through this tear. It couldn't be... He ripped open the tear, revealing the bolt in all of it's glory. Selina gasped as she saw Charles holding it, and Annabeth looked up, her eyes widening in surprise.
"Charlie..." Selina said meekly, but the dark-skinned of Hephaestus shook his head.
"No, she didn't. It was very well concealed, the work of a Son of Hermes." That statement caused Annabeth's eyes to water and look down, as if she knew something.
"Goodie. Now, hand me the bolt, and Annie's father survives." The woman wiggled her finger at Beckendorf, and her form shimmered to that of a dark skinned woman, with dark, greasy hair as if she had been sweating endlessly.
"Charles! Give me the bolt, son!" The woman spoke, and Charles' bottom lip quivered. In fear, joy or sadness, he didn't know. But it wasn't her. She was dead.
None noticed, but Annabeth had crawled over to the sea. The bolt flew from Beckendorf's hands to Hecate, who then cackled. She had won!
Annabeth lunged into the waves, fully submerged in the water. Risky, she knew, but it was the only idea she had at the present moment.
Seconds later, she is thrown from the water as a man emerges from the sea. He was tall, little over six feet. His hair was raven black and unruly, and a pair of mesmerising sea green eyes that glared at Annabeth.
"A child of Athena daring to trespass into the Court of Poseidon?" He asked, walking from the water. Seconds later, Hecate turned to face the man and her eyes widened, stepping back.
"Hecate! Put my father's trident down – Now!" The man roared, a trident forming in his right hand a weighted net in his left.
"Ah, Triton! Come to save the day, sent to do daddy's work? We're fighting a war that cannot be won! Join us, and we will live forever, be respected by the world!" Hecate tried to convince the Son of Poseidon, but he simply scowled at the goddess of Witchcraft.
"I will never abandon the Court of Poseidon for any rag-tag group led by the schizophrenic, three-faced goddess." Triton snarled, levelling his golden trident at the goddess' chest.
"Schizophrenic? Me? Oh, please, the voices are kind!" Hecate sneered, hurling the bolt of Zeus at Triton.
The sea god raised a wall of water and aimed his trident high into the air, bellowing out "OLYMPIANS! I HAVE FOUND YOUR TRAITOR!"
One by one, numerous flashes appeared around the five beings. Poseidon was first, followed by the Twin Archers, then Zeus, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares and then Athena, who was followed up by Hades himself. All of the Big Three gathered was extremely rare, especially in the mortal plains.
"Hecate!" Hades shouted, "What did we do? We were allies, you and my wife were friends!"
"And these people approached me with an offer to keep all of my children safe! Give them the respect they deserve, along with me!" Hecate argued.
"They were always welcome in my domain with any of my children when I decide to sire one! You know this!" Hades bit back.
"SILENCE!" Artemis yelled, firing an arrow at Hecate. The goddess of witchcraft was instantly in capitated, the arrow hitting her neck and exploded in a insane bolt of electricity, paralysing the goddess for a short period.
The Big Three each picked up their respectful Symbols of Power, and gave each other a nod of respect.
Hades left soon afterwards, promising to visit Olympus in given time. Triton was rewarded with respect – the only the thing the Son of Poseidon really wanted. Most gods left until only Poseidon, Artemis, Zeus, Hephaestus and Athena remained. Annabeth hugged Fredrick, who smiled at Athena. She smiled back, but he knew she didn't return his feelings towards her.
"Demigods, you have done well. As a reward, you leave with your lives. I wish you all the best in your quest." Zeus announced, before flashing away as well.
"Hephaestus." Poseidon spoke, handing the god a small sack. "Consider it a gift from me for your son aiding in getting my trident back. And children," all three demigods turned to the sea god, "Thank you all. Now, I must leave. And Athena, your daughter is welcome in the sea at any time. If any of you need solitude, call the sea and it will answer. Farewell." And with that, the humble sea god took his leave, simply walking into the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
"Well done, my daughter." Annabeth smiled at Athena's compliment, before both her and Hephaestus flashed away, leaving just Artemis.
"Can we help you, milady?" Selina asked.
"Yes, thank you." The goddess spoke quickly, the twelve-year-old goddess bending down and picking up the paralysed goddess. " I wish you all a safe journey home. Use those pearls, they way they weren't completely pointless." And with that, Artemis flashed away with Hecate.
"Annabeth..." Fredrick said, and the father and daughter shared a hug.
"Uh, you guys go back to camp. I think I'll stay here for the rest of summer, if that's alright with you Dad." Annabeth said meekly, causing Selina to smile.
"Sure. We'll inform camp as well, we can't have him get away with this." Beckendorf said, and both he and Selina threw their peals onto the ground, were they then stomped on them. They both were enveloped in a sea green bubble and began to float high into the air until they were blown away with the wind, hopefully back to Camp. At least they would get a beautiful birds-eye view of America.
Fredrick turned to Annabeth and stuck his hand out towards her. "Let's go home." He said to her.
Annabeth looked up and smiled. She was glad with her decision, It was a wise choice – the wisest of all choices she was to make.
The Demon Rites
Right, okay. So, I could end the chapter here on a nice note... But I'm heartless and have more planned for this chapter. So yeah, READ ON AND ENJOY!
The Demon Rites
Luke cursed violently as he saw Selina and Beckendorf return. They were supposed to die. Hecate was just as useless as Luke had first thought. Too arrogant and had too much anger pent up inside of her.
Back to the important matters at hand, he needed to bail. Like, now. Otherwise, this entire mission would have been all for nothing.
Running back to his cabin, the Son of Hermes seized a duffle bag and threw in what of his clothes he could find, along with some other essentials. Checking his sword was on him, Luke slung the duffle bag over his shoulder and hastily left his cabin, and upon seeing three Apollo campers walking towards him along with Chiron, he panicked. He had been found out. He was going to be sent to the gods and killed. No!
"Hey, Luke-" One of the campers placed a hand on Luke while the other two loaded an arrow into their bows, but kept them trained to the ground. Chiron was a small way back, sorrow filling his warm, brown eyes. The camper was cut off mid-sentence, however, due to Luke drawing his sword and slicing off the poor boy's right arm off at the elbow. His pained screams filled the air as he dropped to the ground, blood spewing out from the dismembered limb.
"What the... FUCK?!" One of the Apollo campers squealed, dropping the arrow and throwing up. The other camper fired an arrow at Luke, who dodged it and brought his sword down on the spewing kid's neck, decapitating him. It made Luke sick doing this, but it needed to be done.
The first kill was the worst. The truest words Luke ever heard. Breaking the last camper's bow, Luke held him hostage with his sword at the boy's throat.
"Don't move closer Chiron. Even you know you won't shoot me without hitting this camper. Admit it, old man. Olympus will fall and my new master will rise. Now let me go, or Brad here dies." The Son of Hermes inched closer to the woods.
"Where did I go wrong with you, Lucas?" The ancient Centaur asked, standing from his wheelchair to reveal his lower body being that of a snow white stallion, "You were a hero destined for great things! We can help! Please!"
"You all did this to me. Poisonous words with false promise, that's all you feed us! Olympus will pay for their mistakes with their lives!" Luke roared before making the quickest decision of his life: he dragged the sword across Brad's throat, and blood flowed out like a waterfall as the Son of Hermes turned tail and ran as fast as his legs could manage.
He soon crossed the borders, where he was met by a dark figure.
"Come quick, Lucas. We have much to do." The figure spoke haughtily, his voice conniving, as if he knew what had just transpired.
Campers breached the treeline, and both Luke and the dark figure escaped in a torrent of black smoke which crackled with harsh, crimson flames and purple lightning.
Luke Castellan was now an enemy to Camp Half-Blood and Olympus, and officially branded as a Traitor.
The Demon Rites
The short journey back to Hell was unpleasant. Alas, they were now back in the same building where they were dropped down into the Ninth Circle. Dead bodies were everywhere – every last candidate's remains were in the room with those who survived, along with Leviathan, Astaroth and Azazel of the First Hierarchy.
"Candidates!" Azazel spoke, a deep grumble ricocheted off of the walls. "All of you entered the Ninth, but only one succeeded! Perseus, Disciple of Astaroth! Hereby, you are a chosen Champion of Hell! You shall go forth and claim victory for us!"
"Yesssssssssssssss, he ssssssshall." Leviathan slithered, a forked tongue licking the demon's parched lips.
Percy nodded in understanding and held his sword tightly.
"Good." The voice in the sword spoke to Percy. "Phase One is officially completed. Now, to gain the trust and respect of the Demons..." The voice lingered in Percy's mind for a few more seconds before leaving. Percy smiled.
Hell was going to crumble.
The Demon Rites
And Chapter 8 is complete! Jeez, that didn't take as long as expected to write. Anyway, so I have closed off the first arc to this story now.
I'm sorry about the lack of input into The Lightning Thief, but I hope you guy's got the gist of how everything went down through the brief description I had along with the actual book. Some changes, like Beckendorf getting the pearls from Hephaestus. I really liked using Triton, however, since I feel that he is both under-powered and used in both the books and a lot of Fan Fiction.
Anyway, I'm sorry about the lack of Artemis in this chapter. But that will be made up for in the future.
13 days? Jeez, I'm out doing myself here!
Anyway, I decided to write this out and bail on Xbox for now, but Dark Souls 3 is out (or at least almost out), and I intend to buy it and sweat it out! :D And if you live in Britain, these last two days have been the strangest things ever. There was a bright yellow ball in the air and the sky was BLUE!
THE WORLD IS ENDING!
Okay, okay. I'm being stupid at the moment. As for the next chapter: I am completely clueless. It's going to have some length to it, maybe in-between this and last chapter in length. I hope to get one finished and uploaded before my exams start, but if not, it will not be until the middle of June, because of exams and all. I DO hope to reach 100 reviews though before next chapter (c'mon, it's not much to ask for).
Oh, and also, for anyone interested, I kind of need a beta. Just because I'm usually bad at combing through my work, often overlooking a few mistakes here and there. If not, just point out any errors you notice (English (U.K) spelling) - it's all helpful!
AND!
Wait... No, that's about it, really.
Hold on! I have a new story idea! (Pertemis (most likely), yeah) Still thinking about it, but do you guys want me to try something other than Pertemis? Maybe another crack at Percy/Bianca? Or I continue on my One-Shot "No Love" into a small story. These are all things running off of the top of my head. Christ, must be all that fresh air I'm suffering from... -_-
Lastly, REVIEW! PLEASE! It makes writing the next chapter so much more enjoyable that I know a lot of people enjoy it!
Until next time!
~ The Prince of Souls
P.S: Give Phoebus Artemis' "Phoebe Artemis, Vampire Huntress" a try. It is one bad-ass story that I love. And it is very... graphic in some manners, especially towards the end. Just a little warning if you do read it (But it IS T-Rated guys, don't worry). Thanks!