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A Ginormous Sea Snake
Perseus POV
The first thing I and my wife saw was a sea-green wall, well it wasn't a wall but rather a gigantic tail that slapped the two deities with absurd force through the water. We 'flew' backward with the water eventually managing to slow us down to not such impossible speeds. Now that my vision finally wasn't impaired by a ginormous tail I could get a sense of what was happening. My brother looked to be livid at the giant sea snake trashing his new home, he also each time he saw debris from his house float past him gain a lamenting gaze.
The huge sea snake noticed the reinforcements and immediately swam away at unbelievable speeds to the west. Poseidon didn't like this and began to immediately chase the monster but I stopped the hothead with an arm holding him back from chasing after the monster who would probably lead him into an ambush or something like that. "What are you doing?" Poseidon managed to ground out looking like a mad bull by his rapidly breathing nose which looked like it had smoke rising out of it.
"Brother, we cannot be so stupid as to follow the monster into unknown waters! It's just the epitome of stupidity. We can all sense it so we can just wait for it to get into a more favorable position, we will get it for this!" I played to my brother's apparent fondness for his new house with a sweeping hand over the surrounding area of floating walls and other debris. Poseidon reluctantly nodded and swam away grumbling while looking sadly at his destroyed house.
Aphrodite came up to my side looking around with no apparent reaction to the destruction. "Did you know that I lived the first millennia of my life down here? Well not here but in the sea." She suddenly said with apathy, I raised an eyebrow at that. "Ohh yes, I was born from the sea foam of my father's testicles hitting the sea after they were cut off by your father many millennia ago" I didn't react to the... unique birth of my wife and focused upon the information that my father had either killed or just castrated her father.
"Two questions, first how did you know how you were born if you weren't born already? And your father wouldn't happen to be Ouranos, would it?" Aphrodite looked a little guilty at the last question/statement "Well some sea nymphs found me right after I was born and they helped me, they were more specifically the Nereids the daughters of Nereus the old man of the sea. And yes my father is Ouranos" Aphrodite hung her head like this was a great sin and I thought it was quite inconsiderate considering my unfortunate parentage.
"Ouranos? You think Ouranos is a bad father?" Aphrodite's eyes widened at his interpretation and quickly replied "No no, I didn't mean it like that! It's just that... well at least you can see and interact with your father, while I have a nonexistent parent and no mother" My wife finished quite sadly and I felt it tug at my few heartstrings. I pulled her into a hug which was purely reassuring her that I was understanding her also very complicated parentage.
"It would seem that both of our parentages are quite messed up" I eventually said to make some humor out of our shared predicaments. Aphrodite didn't seem to mind the bad attempt to lighten their shared situation and chuckled a little. "How come that you remember what happened right after your birth? Because while you could have been told about it, I feel like you were there personally, am I right?" This question had been bugging me since she informed me of her birth. "Yes you are correct, I was born like Athena fully grown for some reason. The fates truly work in strange ways" Aphrodite finished sounding like she was talking to herself at the end.
"I have found that just going with the flow when regarding anything even remotely connected to the fates, is the best course of action. You should try it" I eventually said. The love goddess chuckled a little more at her husband's nonchalant attitude towards some of the most powerful beings in the whole universe. "I will try" Aphrodite eventually answered. She was about to continue before she was interrupted by her brother-in-law/nephew who shouted out suddenly "Where did it go?".
I looked quite confused at my brother before actually remembering why I and my wife were even here for. "What do you mean? I can—" I suddenly noticed the absence of a giant sea snake from my godly senses. I was completely baffled by the lack of giant monsters in my area. "Where could it have gone?" Aphrodite said after a few moments looking between the two siblings. "Well it could have died, that would make the most sense considering how its presence was suddenly snuffed out from our senses" I tried after yet another couple of moments.
"No, we would have felt its essence travel back to Tartarus besides what could have killed it without us sensing it?" Poseidon said for once logically I thought in my mind, my brother is maturing. He's nearly at Hades's level of maturity, or me around my children if my wife is correct. "Well, what do you think happened then?" I asked him, which he didn't have an answer for because he looked just as puzzled as I felt right now.
"Well, what if something or rather someone is hiding it from us?" Aphrodite asked looking at both of her current companions with an inquisitive facial expression. I was about to reject it outright, because of the thought that someone or something could hide such a big monster from the Olympians' senses. But when I thought it through it rapidly became the more and more probable explanation. "That would make sense," i and my brother said at the same time having the same thought process.
"So how will we find it again then?" Aphrodite logically asked again. Poseidon lit up with excitement. "Well, I may be new to the whole sea deity thing, but I do know one who has been here for quite some time and she would probably know how we could find out" Aphrodite looked quite excited when he mentioned that this acquaintance was a female and agreed immediately, mean the while I thought about for a bit before eventually agreeing to the plan.
Still Perseus POV
Monster hunting was not as fun as it was made out to be, or it wasn't yet at least I thought while being bored out of my mind. The last five hours had been a flourish of greetings with what I imagined was nearly the whole population of the Mediterranean Sea. We had been meeting dusty old sea deities from the time of Pontus and Thalassa to giggling sea nymphs who had just been birthed(they were the most tiring of the bunch because of their inability to focus upon the questions we asked them).
With my brother and our guide making googly eyes at each other the whole trip making it quite uncomfortable for me at least because Aphrodite didn't mind it at all thinking it was cute, and with her domains, I could understand why. Amphitrite was after what I'd have heard a quite no-nonsense girl with an ice princess attitude the size of the southernmost continent, this would have been something I could have respected her for if she hadn't been infatuated with my brother and him her. So we were left with very absent directions from our guide which didn't help us.
We were now nearly finished with the door duty with only a few left on our metaphorical list. The nereids were quite different from the rest of their fellow sea nymphs/gods, which made sense if you knew about their father Nereus the old man of the sea. We were met with the unofficial leader of the sisters Tethis.
She was a beautiful woman like most female deities with literally flowing chestnut hair and ocean blue eyes. She reminded me of what I would have imagined the 'ice princess' Amphitrite with Tethis eyes not showing her guests' single emotion or opinion. We sat there for some time which didn't bother the two love birds at my side still managing to make googly eyes at each other and then trying to play it off that they weren't staring at the other one.
Like, in the name of Chaos! How can they be so infatuated with each other while remaining so oblivious to each other's feelings? I shook my head in disbelief before rolling my eyes at their situation. Tethis noticed my feelings for the love birds and seemed to both agree with my sentiment and find humor in my reaction based on her both knowing and laughing eyes. I took a breath before beginning "We want to know if either you saw a giant sea snake around here or if you know where we could find one?"
Tethis while remaining emotionless to everyone, not looking into her now quite expressive eyes, glinting with humor and playfulness. "I don't know if you learned this when you were young, but I at least was raised to believe that it was rude to demand things from strangers, we could at least get to know each other's names before demanding things don't you think?" I looked at her with disbelief before deciding to just play her game. "Well this is my brother Poseidon and his girlfriend Amphitrite, this is my wife Aphrodite and I'm Perseus" This time it was Tethis who looked at him with disbelief.
"You're the Olympians? The ones rebelling against the king?" Tethis whispered the last part while looking around nervously. I was watching her closely for any kind of signs that she was a loyalist. "I-I support you, but I don't know if I can do anything direct—" Thesis said to her Olympian guests, well Perseus and Aphrodite at least. "No no, nothing of the sort, I was serious when I said that I wanted help with tracking down a big sea snake" I quickly explained to the nervous deity. Tethis let a breath of relief escape her lips looking very relieved.
"Well I can't help you, but my father Nereus is much more... knowledgeable than me at these kinds of questions. The best thing I could help you with would be to lead you to him" Tethis looked a little guilty that she couldn't help them more. "That will work fine, this is the first lead in our search after about a hundred different deities all over the Mediterranean," I said relieved that we finally were on what I felt was the right track.
Everyone in the group with Amphitrite and Poseidon reluctantly following along flashed a couple of miles west still in the Aegean Sea. They arrived at a plateau on the edge of the deep sea, if you looked in the opposite direction of the deep sea drop you could see a slope leading up to the surface. They could suddenly see a black figure coming closer and closer to them, first only starting as a small black dot but eventually becoming apparent that it is not a black-skinned man but rather a very dirty old man who was swimming to them though he was slowing down and looking nervously at all of the present company.
"Daughter, why have you called for me? And who are these... people, they aren't here for you know what, right?" He finished a little nervously. Tethis looked like she was in a little predicament "Well they just want some information father" She tried a little nervously. Nereus's features hardened and he answered in a clipped voice already backing away "You know that I'm not allowed to give knowledge away without them managing to catch me, there aren't any ways around it" Tethis gulped a little at her father's voice before answering "Well yes I know that, but can't you maybe just let them catch you?" Tethis tried still quite anxious about the whole situation.
Nereus didn't seem to let that affect him and I was about to run at him to catch him while he wasn't ready, but Tethis stopped me at the last second "Father I want to help these people very badly, can't you make an exception for me?" Nereus looked quite pained suddenly at his predicament. "It's illegal" Nereus tried weakly not even convincing himself let alone the assembled deities.
"What if we do try to catch you the proper way then, can't we try nonetheless?" Tethis and her father both looked quite shocked at my proposition which shifted into disbelief before settling onto two identical pitying looks. "Well we could do it, but then you would be here for a long time which I gather wouldn't be the best deal for you," Nereus said awkwardly. I was a little insulted at his lack of faith in my current party's ability to catch him and unfortunately took it as a challenge. "Very well, we will have a... game where if we catch you then we gain the information we need, and if-if we give up on the chase you win and don't have to tell us anything," I said confidently.
Nereus looked to be trying to send a message to me with his eyes while his shrug suggested that he didn't see any problems with it. I nodded and Nereus suddenly shape-shifted into a seal and swam away at truly monstrous speeds. I watched in disbelief at what I thought was a very underhanded trick. Damn, this is the second time today that I've been left in the dust by a sea creature. But this time I decided that I wouldn't let it escape and immediately flashed to where I had last seen Nereus which was right over the edge of the deep sea where we had our meeting not two minutes ago. My companions spread out over the edge looking down into the dark blue waters.
I cursed very angrily at the second sea creature managing to yet again lose me, I was also regretting my challenge to the old man. I decided to shake myself from these dark thoughts and tried to think about how I could fix this problem. This... wasn't easy because well I didn't have any good ideas, I looked around at the others and they too had thoughtful looks before looking at me for answers. This wasn't going to work so I called for a recess.
Everyone went their different ways and I went to my son Hephaestus because I had an idea that could work... maybe.
When I arrived at his palace at Olympus which was a smithy with lots of different workbenches and other... stuff. I 'knocked on his door and after a few minutes, he answered the door. He let me in with awkwardness apparent snapping his fingers right before we stepped into his common area which was also filled with various workbenches that housed an extensive assortment of weaponry laid out all over the place. "So what are you here for" My son's deep and gruff voice eventually said while impossibly remaining nervous.
I raised an eyebrow at my crippled son "I mean there's nothing wrong with you just visiting of course—" Hephaestus was quite introverted and the only ones he opened up to were my daughter Persephone and one a few occasions Prokopios. "I need your expertise for a troubling situation I'm currently in," I said and I noticed how the answer made Hephaestus breathe a sigh of relief, as I already said he wasn't very comfortable with continued contact with other people unless they had something that they wanted help with.
"So what do you need help with?" Hephaestus said in a no-nonsense voice or his 'business voice' as his sister had called it. Persephone had been quite absent from my life or at least in contrast with a year ago which I could have understood if she hadn't been using all that time with her mother instead of me which hurt a little that my only daughter wasn't talking to me anymore, I had to fix that problem too but not now unfortunately because I had other things to solve right now.
"I need a net that could catch a deity" It was a simple sentence in theory with only eleven words, but it made Hephaestus breathe in deeply before asking incredulously "What? You know that imprisoning other deities is a big no-no, it was you who taught me that for Chaos's sake!" Hephaestus got quite worked up by his father's apparent hypocrisy.
"Well yes I do know that, but I don't have a choice and besides I'm only going to use it to catch a sea deity, nobody could care less about them so long as they don't rebel"
Hephaestus thought this over and agreed with his father's assessment about the other deities' actual care for the sea deities in general. "Alright let me rephrase it then, who are you trying to catch?"
"It's Nereus, I need some information from him" Hephaestus snorted before his head whipped up to his father's serious face "Y-you're not serious... right? Nereus cannot be caught easily on any day. Well, he's at least not aware that you want to catch— seriously? Alright but he's still on... lan— I shouldn't be surprised" Hephaestus shook his head and looked around helplessly. "Well I could build a net that could hold him, but it wouldn't help you if you don't already have him within arms reach"
"My best advice would be to ask an oracle or something because then you would at least know if it was possible at all" Hephaestus eventually said sounding quite defeated. I lit up at his suggestion and managed to just shout out a goodbye before flashing out. I arrived at a series of identical mansions at the lowest level of Olympus where I went to the third one and 'knocked' on its front door.
The door was almost immediately opened by the deity I was looking for. "What do you need?" Phoebe said without prompting. I was a little set out by her guess but ignored it and said formally "I need help from your Oracle or at least a prophecy". Phoebe had a deadpan look before answering dully "Well I don't have any prophecies for you and neither does my Oracle, but if I can ask you what your question is, then maybe I can give you some advice?" I shrugged and answered while still standing outside with her standing in the middle of the doorway blocking it completely "I need to catch Nereus" Phoebe like everyone I have told became incredulous and asked, "So what information do you need?"
"I need to know where I can find a big sea snake that attacked and then trashed my brother's new palace" Phoebe looked at me like I was stupid.
"Alright firstly, why do you insist to fight against this monster anyway" I answered chivalrously "Because it's a menace to my brother's domain which needs to be eliminated, and it would secure the oceanfront of the war-making Poseidon able to help us personally in the war" Phoebe nodded her head at this argument making me smile to myself in satisfaction
And then she asked me slowly "And why are you so insistent on getting that information from him?" I stopped, why was I insisting that I needed the information from the hardest source? "Ehh, I-I... don't know?" Phoebe slapped her forehead at his stupidity "What about asking the previous King of the seas for example?" I drew up short yet again and just dropped my head in acknowledgment of her argument.
"I think that I should go now," I said simply and Phoebe was agreed with me. "Yes, I think that would probably be smart, but before you go the last tip mention to him that it's a child of Keto and Phorcys they're usually theirs anyway so it wouldn't be a stretch to think that"
This was the last thing I heard before arriving at yet another palace though this one was much more extravagant and more distinctly underwater. I was met with those half shark-half merman guards that Oceanus had at the negotiations a couple of months ago. They silently lead me to an opulent throne room with Oceanus and Tethys seated in two thrones decorated with crabs and other crustaceans, Oceanus even had his iconic crab claw helmet/crown plopped onto his head(which I guessed he forgot or something last time they met).
"Have you come with more demands Olympian?" Oceanus's voice boomed through the throne room. "No, I have actually come asking for some assistance with a problem that I'm in" My uncle and aunt looked quite incredulous at my revelation, and Tethys eventually said with incredulity "And why would we help you with something that doesn't bother us? Besides we don't even know what your problem is" I decided to just throw out a... calculated carrot for my metaphorical stick "Well I believed perhaps wrongly that you weren't very friendly with Keto, Phorcys and their brood"
The two sea deities stiffened "You have our attention" Tethys eventually said. "Well I believe that this particular sea monster is a child of Keto and Phorcys you see—" I was interrupted by my uncle's voice "Where in. Anything to put those disgusting monster parents down a peg is something we support" I grinned mentally at hitting the jackpot on my first try.
"Well I need help to find it, can you help me?"
One hour later
This process was quite easy for experienced old sea deities because they managed to get onto its trail within the hour that they had been... recruited. This was the reason why six deities were currently lined on either side of an underwater cave entrance.
There was a certain tension and anticipation in the water? Air? Something like that. I decided to not think about it and focused upon my fellow... questers to kill this monster, Poseidon had eyes with steely anticipation there was also a certain hardness hidden in them that made me believe that his late palace had something of a sentimental value to my brother, which didn't make sense because he had had it for a month but I wasn't about to pry.
Aphrodite meanwhile was quite emotionless except for a little nervous look at me which I couldn't decrypt so I decided to ignore it(very healthy right). The new monarchs of the southern seas looked gleeful because they had felt the presence of Keto and Phorcys so there wasn't much to comment about them. And then there was Amphitrite who looked the most nervous out of the group glancing repeatedly at both my brother and her parents. And then finally I felt weirdly nervous about the coming fight I didn't know why because I knew that I wasn't scared of it but I still felt scared of something and I didn't know what which unnerved me nearly as much as the fight itself. I steeled myself for the fight and paid attention to the mental orders I was given.
We finally counted to three before rushing in recklessly(because we're not trained professionals and while we have combat experience that doesn't mean that we know what one should do while breaching a building, unfortunately). We were greeted with the gigantic sea snake and two human-looking deities who were quietly talking to each other, Oceanus and Tethys both growled categorizing the couple as Phorcys and Keto. The two monster parents immediately rose to their feet with their inhuman reflexes.
Meanwhile, the sea snake snapped forward at the attacking deities, with the group's reflexes this attack was, unfortunately(for the monster at least) ineffective. Oceanus and his wife went directly to Keto and Phorcys not caring as much about the sea monster itself. While everyone else except Amphitrite went against the sea monster.
I swam at the monster's right side with my wife mirroring me on the left side of the snake. Poseidon meanwhile in his vendetta against the monster went head-on with religious fervor. While my brother was shouting personal insults at the monster that infuriated it, I tried to flank it from the side that would have worked if I hadn't forgotten my opponent's long and very strong tail. The tail had not forgotten about me sending me at a cave wall at ludicrous speeds.
I saw Aphrodite was also a victim of the rude snake's tail and she had also hit the wall on her side which was unfortunately much closer than my side of the sea snake which was currently trying to relieve itself of my brother who was wrestling with the gigantic snake. I decided to take the premise a step further and I changed into my godly height of twenty feet before bull-rushing the huge snake.
The sea snake which had been hard to observe before because I had either spent most of my time in its presence under it or the air after its tail had whipped me away, was a good twenty-five foot long from snout to the tip of its tail with green-black scales glinting beautifully in the water, it had long spiraling black horns. There wasn't anything else about its appearance except its beady black snake-like eyes looking everywhere at once or it looked like that at least by its impossible situational awareness managing to fight both Aphrodite and Poseidon at the same time while observing me curiously.
I arrived at its center and immediately began to try chocking it in the middle which wasn't too effective but the sea snake couldn't at least hit me with its tail while I was grappling it. The problem was that it could hypothetically reach me with its head which wasn't as hypothetical as I wanted it to be, meaning that it tried to snap at my jugular which I wasn't having any of. When it was within arm's reach I released its body and grabbed its jaws instead who immediately tried to close, but it was too little too late and I managed to hold its jaws apart.
Aphrodite and Poseidon saw the opening I had created(A/N I'm horrible and I'm sorry, but I couldn't help myself). And they exploited it with dozens of conjured swords and other weapons, every one of them was made by the blessed metal that Hephaestus had found one day in the actual Mount Olympus called Celestial Bronze. They were a very effective way of dealing with these kinds of monsters based on the slowly dissipating cloud of golden dust in the place of the bothersome creature.
Keto and Phorcys weren't the most militant deities and fled once they noticed the lack of giant sea snakes in the immediate vicinity. Everyone was quite satisfied at their successful mission except Oceanus and Tethys who were cursing to the heavens with quite creative insults from what I had previously heard.
So other than the elder Titans the party was quite relieved and happy about the aftermath and I felt a strong feeling of relief from the non-wounded state of his side, especially the continued wellbeing of one deity.
End of Chapter
I'm sorry if Perseus being the God of Nature is a very vague domain but I wanted to leave a little room for myself to explore the domain through the story, and it makes sense that a newly birthed God doesn't already know all the rules and powers of his domains. I hope that was a satisfying explanation for those who wondered.
The longest chapter yet by quite a large margin and it will in all honesty probably be the longest for a long time, but we will see what the future holds. Inform me if the longer chapters work better or if my original chapter-length format was best:)
For those who want more rapid updates then you will be disappointed because my updates will probably be very inconsistent so I apologize and the only update 'schedule' I can give you is that I will most of the time-release a new chapter at a maximum of five days after the previous one was published with three days now being more common for me.
I have an end of term maths assignment this week so don't expect an update until maybe the 16th of May, or 19th, sorry for you who wants a higher rate of uploads but I, unfortunately, have a life that I have to pay attention to too:(
Next: A Thunderous Giant
Thank you for reading