Welcome everyone to chapter 11!

Percy gets to have his turn trying to explain his demigod-type world to clueless others and does a surprisingly okay job! Also: Murtagh Muttered. Try saying it out loud 5 times fast! (It's fun XD Bet you can't)

I just had a random thought: Riptide always reappears in Percy's pocket. What if his pants didn't have pockets? Where'd it go?

I hope you enjoy and let's get right into this!


When Percy and Eragon opened their eyes, they were met with chaos.

All around the edges of the forest, monsters were attacking and Percy's stomach dropped when he realized that he recognized the monsters.

"Oh that's not good." He muttered.

Though the elves had drawn weapons, only a select few were doing any damage. Most of the weapons passed through the hellhounds and dracaena as if they weren't there. The warriors would have been overrun long ago had the dragons not been there; the large beasts were slaying hordes of beasts all on their own, their claws slicing, jaws snapping, and flames flooding across the ground.

Percy stood from where he sat no longer tied and uncapped Riptide

"That is a hellhound," He told the two Riders, pointing to one of the massive dogs before charging into the battle. Eragon frowned, turning to Murtagh.

"Didn't you disarm him?" He remembered.

"Yes. How did he get his sword back?" Murtagh wondered. Eragon shook his head.

"...We will ask him later."

Swords in hand, the half-brothers charged into battle.

== Ω Ω Ω ==

Percy briefly surveyed the scene in front of him.

The battle had been raging for who-knows-how-long. There were packs of hellhounds everywhere, each ganging up on a small and desperate group of fighters. Dracaena were present as well, engaging the elves in equally matched combat. The elves couldn't hurt the monsters but they thankfully were fast enough to avoid the monsters' attacks.

"Percy! We can't keep going forever!" Eragon called to the half-blood from several feet away as he slashed through two monsters at once. "These monsters keep coming and only a few of our weapons can harm them!"

At that moment the elves broke, retreating one by one into the forest and the main hall.

'We have to fall back!' Saphira told them, blow-torching a griffin out of the sky.

"All of you, run! Leave them to me!" Percy shouted.

"We're not going to leave you with these creatures!" Eragon argued.

"Trust me: you'll want to." The son of Poseidon warned, sea-green eyes darkening.

"What's happening?!" Arya exclaimed as the wind began to pick up.

"Let's go!" Murtagh called and Thorn flew towards the great hall, burning monsters with his fire.

Eragon and Saphira hurried after the two, followed by Arya and Fírnen. Taking a glance over his shoulder, Eragon actually stumbled when he took in the scene behind him.

(A/N: these are technically called Tornadic Waterspouts but I'm gonna call it a whirlwind so no one gets confused)

A whirling column of air and water was beginning to form around Percy. Monsters shot themselves at the half-blood, throwing spears and weapons, but it all was deflected by the forming whirlwind.

Saphira's tail wrapped around Eragon's waist and pulled him into the air before dropping him onto her back. He shook himself from his shock but frowned as he felt the air getting significantly drier.

When the group entered the main hall, they heard a loud roaring sound from outside. But it didn't sound like the monsters sot he riders looked out but were stunned to silence at what he saw: Percy was controlling a massive amount of water that spun around him in a large whirlwind and lashed out at any monster stupid enough to come close. He stood in the eye of the giant ring with a concentrated focus of determination on his face. His arms waved as he controlled the water, occasionally whipping out a hand to lash out with a tendril of water.

"How is he-?! He is not even using the ancient language!" Arya exclaimed in shock. "Or if he is, he is using it mentally which in a situation like that would be extremely dangerous! And where did he get the water from?"

It didn't take long for the monsters to retreat as they quickly got tired of getting soaked, stabbed, and whipped.

The elves who had taken shelter in the hall slowly came out of hiding as the last monster disappeared into the woods. Walking closer, Eragon saw that Percy was lying on his back spread-eagle on the wet ground. His breathing was heavy but he had a proud smirk on his face.

"How did you do that?" Eragon asked him in amazement after walking over to the demigod.

"Just a nice little talent of mine." Percy chuckled modestly, his eyes closed.

"Hardly 'little.'" Murtagh muttered. "Where did you get the water from? The largest source close by here is a stream in the forest several miles away."

"Uh, I sort of made it: the largest source in a forest like this is actually water vapor. There's water in the air." Percy told them, gesturing all around them with a lopsided smile. "What do you think clouds are made of? Just evaporated water clumped together to form fluffy white things in the sky. So I just gathered a whole bunch of the vapor together and, voila! Water!"

'Who was controlling those creatures?' Thorn asked mentally, landing beside his Rider.

"We were told that an evil primordial god wanted to take control of our worlds," Eragon explained.

"So basically my average Tuesday," Percy joked as he sat up, remaining on the soggy ground though both he and his clothes refused to get wet.

"A god?" Arya repeated, somewhat skeptical.

"One of a bunch, actually," The half-blood affirmed. "But they're different from any gods you have here if you have any."

Arya looked at him oddly then turned back to Eragon.

"Did you manage to speak with Amira?" She wondered. Eragon gave a relieved smile

"Yes, I did. She is fine. She told me what had happened after she disappeared. She is in the land Percy is from." He told her, hiding a grin when he saw Murtagh rub his jaw.

"Specifically, she's on Earth." The demigod interjected as he held up a finger, still sitting on the ground. "More specifically, she's in New York. Even more specifically, she's at Camp Half-Blood. And it's safe there."

"Thank goodness, I was so worried." The elf-queen sighed in relief, a hand on her chest.

"She'll be fine," Percy assured her, standing with a small groan. "Camp Half-Blood is surrounded by protective barriers that keep any and everything bad out. There are a bunch of other people like me there too; it's sorta like a training camp for warriors where we learn to fight and control our powers so we can stay alive in the regular world. I don't really know very much about Amira but even if something happened, one thing I've learned is that she's strong, physically and I guess magically too, so I'm pretty sure she can take care of herself."

"She can," Murtagh assured. He rubbed his jaw again. "And you weren't wrong about her being strong."

"I'm willing to guess there's a story for that?" Percy grinned. Murtagh winced.

"It's not a good one." He confessed sadly. "She has every right to hate me."

"You didn't have a choice," Eragon told his (half)brother as he placed a hand on his shoulder. Murtagh just shook his head.

"About what?" Percy wondered.

"Nothing," Eragon waved away, avoiding the topic. "It is in the past."

"Okay. So, what are we supposed to do now?"

"We should follow the creatures and find out where they came from," Arya suggested but Murtagh disagreed.

"We don't know how intelligent those monsters are. We could walk straight into an ambush." He pointed out.

"They're usually not very smart," Percy argued, leaning back and stretching his arms behind him, causing his back to pop. "My experience with them shows that they can't really do much more than attack or run."

"Be that as it may, whoever's leading them may be slightly smarter."

"Most of the time there isn't anyone controlling them. They sort of just attack anyone who can see them and consider a threat."

"What do you mean, 'anyone who can see them'? Are you saying that not everyone can see those creatures?" Eragon clarified. Percy nodded his head from side to side.

"Eh sort of. There's this thing called The Mist and it makes it so normal mortals can't see any monsters or magical creatures. So someone like me would see a huge hellhound while a regular human might see a big dog."

"Explain what you mean by 'someone like you' and 'regular human'?" Arya frowned.

Percy ran a hand through his dark hair and let out a slow breath.

"How do I explain this…" He muttered. He usually left the explaining to Annabeth but cleared his throat none-the-less. "Okay. So where I come from, Earth, there are gods. Actual living gods. And sometimes those gods have kids with mortal humans and when those kids are born, they're half-god and half-mortal so we're called demigods or half-bloods. Like me: I'm a son of Poseidon, the god of earthquakes and the ocean. That's how I did that water trick a few minutes ago. But since we're half-god we can see monsters and other things from mythology while The Mist hides all the magic-y stuff from non-godly humans because their minds wouldn't be able to handle it. Capiche'?"

When he finished, the three Rider's eyes were wide.

"How do you expect us to believe that?" Arya asked after a minute. Percy shrugged.

"I don't actually, I'm just telling you how it is. It's up to you whether or not to believe me." He then clapped his hands together. "So! Let's go find some monsters, shall we?"

== Earth ==

"So to summarize, we need to borrow the Syllabine books from the Romans and get a prophecy to stop Tartarus, who's already taken over the Underworld, from taking over both this world and the world Amira supposedly comes from?"

Graver answered in the affirmative to Annabeth's question.

"Is Tartarus not a place? How can it be a 'he' or come to take control of a world?" Amira questioned. Despite already missing him, she felt a lot happier after talking with Eragon.

"Tartarus is both," Annabeth clarified. "Tartarus the person is the embodiment of Tartarus the place and that embodiment is the problem."

"I feel it is safe to guess that this is a bad thing?" Amira assumed after clearing her throat.

"Very bad. Lord of the Pit, one of the most powerful primordial gods ever, almost destroyer of the world, and a generally evil guy." Grover agreed.

"Just making sure..." The Rider looked a bit less confident now.

"I've never actually tried but do you think we can add people to an IM call? You know, kinda like a video chat?" Annabeth asked, still communicating to Grover through the Iris Message.

'What is a video?' Amira wondered curiously to herself. Grover shrugged.

"I dunno. Are you planning on calling Frank?"

"No, he's here at Camp Half-Blood with Hazel. Reyna's over at Camp Jupiter though so she'll have access to the Syllabine books."

"So how would we do this? Do you have another drachma?" When the daughter of Athena nodded and pulled out a coin, Grover chanted, "Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow. Please accept this offering and show us both Reyna, the uh… Leader of New Rome?"

There was a long moment with no response but then the connection was made and the three saw Reyna overlooking the teardown of one of the War Game forts.

"Reyna? We have a problem," Annabeth announced, catching the praetor's attention.

"Annabeth? What do you mean? What's wrong?" The Roman asked in greeting, turning around.

"Tartarus is coming for the upper world. Hades has already been given the boot. The gods sent Percy to a different world to help the people there and we got one of them in exchange." The daughter of Athena explained simply.

"Wait, what hold on a sec. Tartarus is what?" Reyna stuttered, shaking her head.

"He's coming for the mortal world. We need a quest but I guess Apollo's not available so we need Syllabine books."

Reyna looked thoughtful as she mulled over her friend's words.

"Ella and Rachel have already begun re-writing the books but they're nowhere near being completed," She told her. "We could always end up not having them written down yet or they might have been burned. Still, I guess it's worth a shot. We'll go over what we have."

"Should they head over to New Rome?" Grover asked, catching the Preator's attention.

"Oh, hello Grover. And that's probably a good idea. You may have to enter the underworld to face Tartarus and according to Nico, that's here in L.A. Are you planning to bring the rest of The Seven with you?"

"And Nico. But even if Hazel helped he's still too weak to shadow travel us all, especially to Camp Jupiter. Percy's gone again so plus the one we got in exchange for him, it'll be the eight of us. Looks like a road trip with Festus is in order." Annabeth announced.

"I doubt he'd be able to carry that many people." Reyna pointed out.

"Yeah, he's big but you all together would be pretty heavy. You'll have to bring more than just him." Grover agreed. Annabeth's hand went to her pursed lips as she thought.

"Well, let's see... Arion and Mrs. O'Leary could take a few passengers each and Blackjack can carry me. Maybe Leo can give Festus some jet engines or something. Don't worry about it, we'll figure it out."

Throughout the exchange, Amira had only been half-listening. She had sat on the cement and leaned against the fountain as she thought over everything that had happened.

She was beyond happy to have talked with Eragon again but she still wasn't totally sure what was happening. She knew that in order to return to Alagaesia and get Percy back to Earth, she had to help. However, Annabeth and Percy and Grover all seemed a bit unsure about Tartarus. As they all spoke, Amira realized that she might not make it home because if she failed to stop Tartarus. If they failed then her world could be destroyed as well as Earth. And when she was talking to Eragon and Percy, they had to leave in a hurry and it caused her to wonder if not everything was alright in Alagaesia.

Her mind thought back to what Percy had told her the night before on the beach. She remembered the glassy look he had in his eyes when he described seeing the physical form of Tartarus, how his voice shook as when he told her what the place was like. If Tartarus was really as evil and powerful as they all made him seem…

Next to her, Annabeth cut the connection to her call and nudged her with her foot.

"C'mon. We have somewhere we need to go." She told the Alagaesian.

Amira stood. She had heard the conversation Annabeth had with Grover and Reyna but was still unfamiliar with Earth's geography.

"Where are we going?"

"It's time you met a few certain someones, someones who can take us cross-country."


And that concludes the tenth chapter of A Strange and Different Land!

Thank you all for reading and I hope you chose to continue the story. Please feel free to leave a review. Criticism, advice, compliments or corrections are welcome.

Have a good one and I'll see you later!