AN: There's a tone shift in this chapter. See if you can spot it.
I put some additional rough language in there. I think its important for the tone of the fic, but if y'all think it's gratuitous let me know. I did rate this fic M for a reason...

I've been working on this one for a while, but ya know, school. I've been writing (almost) every day as I promised, but it's getting a little harder to write the further I get in. What would really help would be audience reviews. I would love to hear your feedback, good and bad. Please o please o please review so I can try and incorporate your ideas.

All rights to Supreme Leader Rick. Long live the Supreme Leader.

Previously...

I couldn't take it anymore. Life felt empty without my mother. I released my restraint on the hurricane, and it exploded from my body. I screamed as torrents of water leveled the building almost instantly and I shot into the sky. My last thought as I went unconscious is that I never wanted to feel this excruciating pain again.

Three years later...

I was strolling along minding my own business when I heard a large roar behind me. I turned around and lo and behold it was the Chimera.
"What do you want?" I deadpanned. The Chimera hoisted up its chest and flicked its snake tail. Like that was supposed to be impressive. I wasn't really in the mood to kill the Chimera, but it didn't look like it was going to give me a choice. Not wanting to expend the extra effort, I snapped my fingers, and the Chimera was blasted with dark energy and crumbled into dust.
I know, I know, I sound overpowered, and the least I could give the audience is a dramatic backstory of how I strove for power in order to pay the due to the dead. If you were expecting that, then great job. You can shove your gold star right up your ass.
Revenge is for drama queens. I've learned not to grow attachments because the things you value the most in the world are the things the world wants to take away, and when it's you versus the world, the world always wins. Even with the power I've attained, I can't stop death. No one can. Now, once I get off my soapbox, I can tell all you drama geeks all the juicy details about how I got to be overpowered.
I don't like overdoing the narration, and if I keep breaking the fourth wall I'm not sure I'll be able to put it back together, so I'll keep this short. Basically, I got bored hunting monsters on the surface world because they got too easy. So I went down to Hades to find something fun to wrestle with. As I made my way through the EZ death line I saw a wispy figure floating by Cerberus. Meanwhile, Cerberus looked pretty pissed that I hadn't played with him in so long, so I tossed him a big rubber ball and chased after the wispy figure. Once I got near Tartarus, he became a physical form. He said his name was Coeus, the Titan of Knowledge. All I really cared about was "Titan". I killed him, he faded, and I got all of the knowledge in the universe. Cool.
I used the knowledge I gained from Coeus to create all sorts of cool shit. I got so powerful that I could go into Tartarus without much of an issue, and get back easily too. I used my abilities to travel to the bottom of the pit where Chaos existed. I figured out how I could harness the power of Chaos to armor, clothing, and weapons to make them extremely powerful. I can create and destroy as easily as Chaos can. There hasn't been a single monster I've challenged that can pose any sort of threat. Believe me, I've looked. The last year or so, I've roamed all over, trying to find anyone who can match my strength and intellect, but with no luck.
Back to the real world. While I knew what to expect from my "fight" with the Chimera, it also kinda left me hanging. I was kinda hoping that it'd be fun to dissolve it instantly after it gave me so much trouble back on the St. Louis arch. Instead, I didn't feel anything. I haven't felt anything ever since I killed Coeus. All the rush of adrenaline from killing monsters was gone now. How can I have any excitement if I know exactly how the battle's going to end?
It almost frustrated me how easy the fight was. Not the way it ended, but what it meant. Killing the Chimera with a snap of the fingers meant that there was no point in killing him. The Chimera couldn't have harmed me. I didn't care if it hurt anyone else because there's no one else in this universe that I cared about. Caring for people is like taking fine china on a roller coaster. Eventually, something's going to break. My thoughts briefly went to Annabeth, who was my one hold-out. I don't know if I can handle it when she dies, but I also don't know if I can handle not being with her.
I may not have the curse of Achilles anymore, but Annabeth is still my mortal point. If there was anything that could keep me in a normal life in society, it was her. She was my everything, and I loved her with all my heart. But when I look back on her, it's terrifying how much power she held over me. I couldn't witness her die, so I can't watch her clock tick down. Losing her would destroy me all over again, and it's only a matter of time before it would happen. Demigods die every day. Anyone of them could be hers. Once you get there, it doesn't take all the knowledge in the universe to know what happens when you play with fire.
I continued through the forest, hoping I'd stumble along a Titan or something. Normally, purely existing was enough for the Fates to try and throw half a dozen pissed off Titans at me. Not sure why anything would change now. In retrospect, what I'd stumbled across was even worse.
It was four teenagers in tents in the woods. That sounds like an easier fight than a Titan, but four kids in the woods who happen to be a couple miles away from a Chimera was a bad sign. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw swords and orange t-shirts laying around on the ground. It had to be demigods from Camp Half-Blood.
As I got closer to their camp, I saw they had set up a fire ring and three of them were huddled around it. I guess I hadn't noticed that it was winter in New York, but I haven't felt temperature since I harnessed the Chaos energy. They immediately shot up out of a cannon and pointed their swords at me.
"Who are you?" a guy with blonde hair and blue eyes shouted. He was either a member of the perfect Aryan race or an Apollo kid. Either way, not a great first impression.
I rolled my eyes at his stupidity before brushing his sword aside with my hand, telling him "Easy, dude. I don't feel like killing you."
That didn't seem to do much to comfort him, but it's been a while since I've talked to someone from Camp Half-Blood, so I probably wasn't taking the right approach. I restated "I just mean, that if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. I don't want to kill you, so you have nothing to worry about."
"Hey, dipshits! Put your swords down. That's Percy Jackson."
A big, burly figure emerged from the tent. The figure was shredded, with biceps as big as the other demigods' thighs. It was the same biceps that tried to dunk me in a toilet when I was twelve.
"Clarisse, nice to see you again. Is what I would say if I wanted to lie to you." I jested.
"Ha, Ha, Sea shit. Where the fuck have you been?" she scolded.
Sea shit. That was a new one. "Aw, has Camp been helpless without me? I'm touched." I mocked.
Clarisse just harrumphed in response. "Actually, we couldn't be better. This is the first quest that's been set out since you left. We're hunting the Chimera, it was supposed to be somewhere around here."
Suddenly, killing the Chimera was worth coming out here. I laughed at her as I said "Well good luck finding it. It's dead."
This made Clarisse scowl. She yelled "What do you mean, dead? Did you kill it?"
"Yep," I said, popping the p.
Clarisse snarled "No way! I was destined to kill it! That damn Oracle lied! I'm about to go back to Camp and tie her pigtails to a tree, and then I'm gonna shove her paintbrushes in her –"
"Well, I best be going now, hate to be late for my anything-other-than-hanging-out-with-dumb ass-demigods event. Bye bye, take care now!" I interrupted.
As I started to walk away, I heard Clarisse shout "Jackson! Get your ass back here!"
I knew she was just going to chase me and look for me until she found me, so I turned around.
I shouted back "What do you want, Clarisse?"
She responded, "I want to know how you killed the Chimera all by yourself."
I inwardly groaned. Not wanting to have to explain my whole backstory again, I just told her "Riptide, duh." After all the cool gear I'd gotten, I didn't have any use for Riptide anymore, so I just threw it to Chaos to be dissolved. At first, I thought I might've felt some sort of irrational attachment to it, but I didn't care when I got rid of it, and I haven't cared about losing it since. I hoped to all the gods that Clarisse didn't call my bluff.
Luckily for me, she didn't. "Why don't you come back to camp? Everyone's really missed you." she asked in a way that was too shy for the meathead 'roid rager standing in front of me.
"Ha! And go see a bunch of people that wanna cry over me and build a shrine to me? No thanks. Life's too short." I snorted derisively.
In all my years as a demigod, I'd never seen Clarisse look the way she did now. She looked like she'd just touched a hot stove. She recoiled at the thought of me not coming back.
"Are you kidding me? Do you actually want me to come back? That's pathetic, even for you. Gods, you look like a beaten puppy. I didn't realize that demigods were so soft nowadays. I can't come back if even Clarisse is gonna whimper like an animal." At that point, Clarisse got angry. She wound up and tossed her sword at me, and it sailed like a dart straight towards my head.
Of course, as the sword touched my forehead, it incinerated into ash. "Nice throw. Were you really gonna kill me?" I wondered.
Clarisse's face turned from

pure rage to shell-shocked horror. She blinked several times, apparently not believing what she saw. "You... you didn't... move..." she stuttered out with wide eyes.
"Careful, Crissy, you'll catch flies." I joked. Immediately her wide open jaw clamped shut.
"Alright, Jackson. I don't know how you disintegrated my sword, but I've bought enough time for the other demigods to send out an Iris message. The gods are coming to pick you up, and you're gonna spill to them."
I simply rolled my eyes at her. "Really, are you calling in backup? Where's the monster that dunked my head into a toilet when I was twelve?" I said, annoyed at the trouble she was gonna put me through.
"Sorry, Prissy. I've grown up. The world's moved on. Looks like you haven't." she lectured. Immediately, twelve flashes surrounded me, and before I knew it, I was in celestial bronze handcuffs. Before I could flip the bird to everyone around me, I was flashed to Olympus.

"You have committed crimes against Olympus and her people. What say you in your defense?"

I was cackling as the Olympians stared at me. We were in the throne room of Olympus, which honestly didn't seem as big as it was when I first came here, or even when I faced Kronos. I guess I've seen bigger and better things since then.
Poseidon sighed, rubbing his temples. He said slowly "Perseus, if anyone committed a crime, it was you. The only reason we put you in chains is that you looked powerful and on edge. Please just tell us where you were."
I laughed, and responded "Aw c'mon, Thunder Thighs, you didn't like that Skyrim reference? Apollo and Hermes were cracking up."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two in question struggling to keep a straight face. Apollo was on the verge of tears. Hermes was completely flushed.
Zeus shouted "Enough!" in his overdramatic way, "I will not make this throne room the jester's court. Tell me, why did you leave?"
I shrugged and said, "Felt like it."
Apparently, Zeus wasn't satisfied with that answer. He slammed his master bolt against the ground, and thunder cracked overhead. Hera turned to the steaming god to comfort him, saying "Sweetie, calm down. He's not going to tell us when you get angry."
Artemis, looking concerned for her father, turned to Apollo and asked: "What's got Father all riled up?"
Hermes muttered under his breath "Let me guess. Somebody stole his sweet roll."
Apollo lost it. He rolled out of his throne howling with laughter. The other gods except Zeus burst into giggles seeing Apollo try not to cry tears of laughter. I was having a fun time getting the gods riled up.
Poseidon, finding a straight face, slammed his trident on the ground while yelling "Silence!" Once all the gods were quiet, he calmly asked me "Percy. Please tell us what happened in the last three years. We're just worried is all."
I knew that they weren't going to stop asking as long as I didn't tell them. "Fine, but only because it's more convenient for me to tell you than to avoid it. Listen up, because I'm only going to say this once."
I started to tell the gods what was happening, but as I moved my arms to begin, I accidentally snapped the celestial bronze cuffs. "Oops," I said bashfully, while the gods looked at me in shock.
"Just so you know, they didn't do anything. I was just letting you have the appearance of safety."
With that, I began. I started with how my mother died, and I was blasted off into the sky. I told them how I woke up and wandered around before I got bored and went to the Underworld. I left out the key details, like how I killed Coeus and using the Chaos energy. I just told them that I got super strong in Tartarus by training. When I finished the story, the gods had a look of shock and sympathy. Poseidon, on the other hand, looked angry.
"So Tartarus killed Sally?" he said with a stern expression and a deathly calm, "We can't take that lightly. Tartarus is planning something. We need to strike back."
Aphrodite raised her hand slightly and asked, "But how? Tartarus is a pit. Wouldn't that be like trying to kill Gaea?"
The gods don't give Aphrodite enough credit. She made a really good point, I think. I don't really know because I'd lost interest.
"Perhaps Tartarus can't be killed, but his physical manifestation might. If he can't have a physical form in the real world, perhaps it takes a lot of energy for him to create. If we can wear him down, he'll lose all of his strength, and won't be able to come back for another few million years." Athena pondered. She didn't seem too sure about wearing Tartarus down, and a quiet unease passed through the gods.
"Whoever goes down to face Tartarus must be the best demigods available, and as many as possible. Zeus added,"Tartarus' form will not be a pushover. It will take the best of the best to take him down."
At this point, I was so bored, I was bored of being bored. I chimed in "Wait a second. How do you even know he's planning something? Are you really gonna risk demigods on a whim?"
Poseidon shot up at this and shouted, "He killed her! If that isn't a declaration of war, then what is? If he killed the one I love, then I'm going to do whatever it takes to get revenge!"
Poseidon's shouts reverberated through the throne room. "Yeesh," I said, a little surprised by his temper tantrum, "Someone needs to ease up on the Adderall."
Before he could reply, a large boom echoed from the Hudson River. A huge whoomph of water burst out of the river. Large, purple hands smashed the edge of the river bank as a humongous figure rose out of the river.
"Shit, who let the door to Tartarus open?" I asked, looking pointedly at Poseidon. I gave him a "wink wink" and "nudge nudge", which he didn't seem too pleased about. I turned to watch as the figure made its way towards Olympus.
Zeus grimaced and stroked his bristly chin before grimly stating, "It seems he was planning something after all. Prepare for the defense of Olympus. It may be our last."

AN: Please review! Let me know what you think. I'd really appreciate some more audience feedback.