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Ch. 2

Everything burned. All of it - his skin, arms, legs… even his hair - roared in one continuous blaze. Mallets smashed away at his head, pounding each inch of surface on his skull. In the past, he'd endured headaches where some ethereal midget drove a never-ending spike into his temple for hours. He'd survived an exploding boat by leaping into water at a height where any normal person would have shattered their bones. Hades, a group of dog-seal hybrids tossed his *ss into a volcano, which he then caused to erupt, launching his body thousands of miles away where he struck Calypso's Island with the speed and force of a celestial bronze HEAT shell. This… This agony - it felt worse than anything he'd suffered prior. No, it felt worse than everything he'd suffered prior; all of it combined could not match the sheer amount of shit he'd endured at that moment, if he even perceived its entirety. Percy found it miraculous his lungs hadn't run dry screaming. Maybe they had or maybe his lips had melted shut. He didn't possess enough strength to part them.

Gradually, the pain faded enough for him to distinguish the various degrees of limb strain. Two strips of skin, one under his knees and the other just below his shoulder blades, felt cooler than the rest of his body. His side crushed an already numb left arm against some other smooth surface while his right arm dangled freely, swinging back and forth. His arm swung… and when he took a moment to considered it, his weight bounced slightly to a rhythmic pattern. Is… Is someone carrying me?

If so, the person performing such a service let go without warning. The arms previously supporting his frame abruptly sloped, rolling him roughly over some ledge - he didn't meet any ground after the first few seconds of freefall. Tumbling through the air, Percy's limbs betrayed his mind and spun like propellers on both ends of his spine. Ah, f*ck! My… legs!

Heated glass plunged into ice water can potentially shatter into millions of shards.

Now, what about a demigod burned to the point of near vaporization and then dropped from a cliff into thrashing waves? Well, that body hits the surface with enough force to snap every muscle and bone, which he thankfully did not experience upon instantly blacked out.

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Percy awoke into an abyss of murky liquid completely void of light. Lacking any of the pain before his fall, the demigod would have panicked, assuming that he'd died and gone to the underworld. That said, he could feel the surrounding salt and water which helped calm his thoughts. Also, he'd visited the underworld three times and his surroundings did not resemble that place at all.

While his muscles still felt sore, such a minor problem did not place him in any immediate danger. He knelt slowly and dragged his hand along the floor, expecting sand. Instead, the ground poked back at his fingers, smooth edges and sudden hooks randomly nicking his palm; the texture closely resembled obsidian. He pulled his arm back, gazing at the cuts, at least he assumed they were since the water hadn't brightened. The skin knit itself back together. Odd. I don't sense any volcanic vents nearby.

Swim. Smell. Swim. Smell. Smelling. Something here. His head snapped right and Percy briefly looked for the speaker. He then rolled his eyes at the pointlessness of such action. Something close. Closer. Food. Lure. Food now. A small ball of light appeared in front of him, about the size of a marble. Food. Luring. The fish's head came into view, dimly lit but vividly bright considering how long he stood in darkness. It looked similar to an angler fish that roamed the far reaches of his father's kingdom, with teeth that took up 80% of its face and pearl-white eyes.

Hi. The fish stopped swimming and the marble began swinging left and right.

Food talked. Strange food. Percy reached forward and flicked the esca dangling in front of him. The gesture sent the fish spinning backwards by a foot.

You wanna stop that?

Food talked again. Food very strong. The esca dimmed out of existence as the jaws parted. Not food. Danger. Enemy.

Poseidon's son rolled his eyes again. I'm not here to hurt you. Come back here so we can talk. After a pause, the water in front of him thinned slightly. Good. Can you turn your light thingy back on again?

Um… lure again? The esca came back into view.

Eat you?

No.

Hurt me?

No.

I'm leaving. The fish swam off abruptly, abandoning him in the deep ocean.

Good talk. Percy crouched and pushed off, willing the currents into a vertical spiral with him at its eye. However, even with his power, seconds dragged into minutes before a tiny white bulb came into view, probably the moon. Even after that, it still took a considerable amount of time for him to break the surface, literally climb onto the shore, and finally stomp his way up the beach. Despite the fact that the distance between the drop and plant life was only 20 feet, the ocean struck his calves harder than usual and the resultant white water concealed the natural phenomenon.

Sat at the water's edge, a woman hunched over her crossed legs, auburn mane tickling her knees. The waves lapped at her sandals, caking her toes in wet sand, though she didn't react to it. Her shoulders rose and fell steadily, body listing to the side slightly before she snorted and then unconsciously tilted back. As he came closer, Percy heard a sound similar to fall leaves rustling in a cool, gentle breeze - strange but undoubtedly snoring. She'd clearly fallen asleep waiting for something, most likely him. And now I feel like a d*ck for not rushing.

Tried as he had to move quietly, his shoes still slung water randomly and footfalls crashed into the surf with all the subtlety of a 50-foot storm tearing across half a continent. The woman awoke from the ample racket, hand-tossing her hair behind a single braid. Percy coughed into his hand.

"Um, uh… Miss? Thank you for carrying me to the-" Their eyes met and he abruptly cut off. Silver eyes. A quick once-over of the beach behind her revealed a discarded set of bronze greaves and breastplate adorned in silver embroidery. "Lady Artemis?" The goddess turned her gaze upwards towards the moon and slowly rose to her feet. He took the time to soak in her appearance - her new form varied so greatly from that of the average hunter. At twice her original height, she stood a full inch taller than him, her new age having brought several new changes to her body and face that would have sown jealousy throughout Aphrodite's cabin. The tunic had grown with her, thankfully, and she sported long hair that touched her back with a single braided loop around her upper neck. Without warning, she sucker-shot him in the stomach and tossed him *ss-first back into shallow water. And that's what I get for staring.

"Ten hours." Artemis spoke in so cold a tone she could have frozen the incoming tide. "That is how long I have had to sit here and wait for your arrival. I am fully aware that Styx gifted you her curse and protection, and that as Poseidon's spawn, the seas should have rapidly accelerated your healing. What reason have you for wasting my time like this? Were you busy polishing your hair and clothes? Or perhaps you played sharks and minnows in a coral reef? Obviously, you felt so captivated frolicking along the shoreline-"

"I woke up just under an hour ago."

"Pardon?"

"I. Woke. Up-"

She waved off-handedly. "I heard you. Explain!"

"The ground stops about 10 feet out." She followed as he parted the water in front of him, enough so that the drop became visible. "I ended up sinking the entire way down to the ocean floor. Think I felt some obsidian down there. Also saw an Angler fish." They reached the edge and Artemis knelt, brushing her fingers along the oceanic ridge. Her hand returned, covered in several small shards of volcanic glass. She quickly dipped her hand into the water, cleansing them of the substance, and stood up while shake-drying her hands.

"Alright."

"... Alright? You believe everything I just said?"

She turned, prompting him to follow her gaze upwards. "I have already come to accept many disturbing things about this place." His jaw hit the sand at the neo moon: it seemed as though a smaller, denser, object had punctured the satellite, demolishing a good third of the pale orb. Parts of the moon had broken off into visible chunks and floated close to the fracture point.

"The fu-?"

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"So, not your moon?"

"No. Not my chariot, not our world, not our universe."

"How sure are you?" Percy's heart skipped a beat the instant the words left his lips and judging by the dirty look the goddess shot back at him, he'd phrased the question poorly.

"Quite." He barely ducked the branch she pulled back to smack him. "I roamed the Earth for millenia with my hunters, tracking game and eliminating our foes. I have thoroughly explored each and every woodland on our planet, and yet…" She reached out and grasped a dangling leaf, "I recognize nothing of this place."

"Okay, but another world? Why not time travel then, if we're considering parallel dimensions?"

"As a child, I listened to my mother's stories of Kronos's rule and she kept one thing consistent: He reigned a world covered with a golden sky, aptly inspiring the term for his 'Golden Age'." She looked back to him and paused, her eyes narrowing as she dragged back another limb. "Something 'clever'?"

"So, the Silver Age…" *WHACK*

"Don't be stupid. Moving on, I'd be able to sense something from Olympus, destroyed or not, so a world neither in future nor past must exist in the present. Despite being quite different from our home, this place shares many similar aspects: trees, water, sky, land, sealife, wildlife, that we breathe oxygen, etc. Thus, I find it far more likely that we now stand in a parallel world."

The demigod looked about their surroundings, straining his ears. "It's rather quiet for a place full of wildlife."

"Under normal circumstances, I'd have placed the blame solely on your monstrous trodding." She stopped suddenly, impeding both of their progress forward, and drew out one arrow from a quiver marked with a frost symbol. "However, they actually fled quite some time ago. I'm surprised you noticed at all."

"What? Why - what scared them off?"

The Olympian huntress drew back her bowstring. "Most likely that which follows us now." He followed the arrow line into a brush overcast by a redwood shadow. Two red beacons shone between the leaves, glaring murderous intent. "It would appear that monsters are a threat to us in this world as well."

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I will not be reading reviews. If you have a comment you would like me to read, please contact me directly using PM and I can respond to you privately.