AN: shoutout to Greed and Maroon go read their PJOxATLA fics. More commentary at the bottom.
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Perseus Jackson stared at the glossy marble floors of the throne room of Olympus. Harsh flickers of the braziers and torches reflected back at him through the polished floors.
His breathing was labored and erratic. His heart remained racing as the adrenaline slowly dwindled from his blood. Yet, the burning hatred that rushed through his heart and soul refused to boil away.
"I finally have a reason that not even your father can refute," thundered the King of the Greeks with a rumbling laugh.
Percy ignored Zeus in favor of staring at the golden ichor creeping towards his shoes. He had finally done it. Percy had finally crossed the line, and he didn't even care anymore at this point. The sorrow and grief he felt not even an hour ago was nothing compared to the lava that ran through him now.
"I can strike you down right now, and no one will deem it unjustified."
Percy looked at the cold, lifeless eyes that stared back at him. They looked so much like Annabeth's these last few months. Like mother, like daughter….
"After years of waiting and wanting, you've walked straight here and sentenced yourself to death. For what? What mortal desire of yours drove you to Olympus? Revenge? Hate? Your love? Your human flaws have led you to your execution. I didn't even have to intervene."
Percy looked away from the decapitated head of Athena and glared at Zeus upon his throne.
"She deserved it for being a shit mother like most gods," Percy bit back.
"Tools, the lot of you. A hammer doesn't need a parent to work."
Percy scoffed and readjusted his grip on his blade, "But it needs a hand to guide it. You would know that if you actually ever cared about us."
"Perhaps, but that is what Chiron is for. The Trainer of Heroes truly does the gods' works churning out heroes."
The scowl on Percy's face deepened, "You are so lucky there are worse options for the throne. Or else, I think I would add your head to your daughters. But, make no mistake, just because I allow you to live, you are a horrible king."
Zeus let out a rippling laugh, "Perhaps you should fashion yourself the king? Is that what you want?" The humor faded from his eyes, his jaw hardened, and his eyes glowed as he spoke, "Enact your rage and take the crown. Do it." A roar of thunder crackled in the distance. "Try and take the crown from my head."
"Your crown is too large from the size of your ego even to fit me as a belt."
"I cannot wait to strike you down."
Percy rolled his eyes, "Yet, you sit there, waiting. If you wanted to, you would've done it by now."
"You mistake idle hands for inaction. I am merely relishing the moment," Zeus corrected with a smirk. "This moment cost me a daughter for some centuries, but to kill my brother's most prized son of the ages… That is an immortal moment to cherish for eternity."
Percy shrugged as he forced himself to his feet. Riptide kissed the ground, and ichor dripped from the edge onto the marble.
"My father will avenge me." Percy shrugged dismissively. After everything that had happened since he first learned of the Greek world, he was fine dying here. Then, he could at least reunite with Annabeth in the afterlife. "Kill me, and he will sink the clouds and shake your temples to ash and dust."
"You think Poseidon will wage such a war?"
"You said it yourself." Percy shrugged. "I'm his favorite son. And I've already prayed to him. I've prayed for his wrath and unending anger to drown you. So, blast away."
Zeus frowned, unsettled by Percy's sudden carelessness, "You seek the world's end at your death?"
"I don't have much left." Percy shrugged. "You gods sure love to take. So, if I am being honest with you, Zeus, I'm debating if I just add your head to the floor. Maybe I do run the gambit of hoping the next who takes the crown is better than you. Because you sure left the bar low. I mean, seriously, you blamed a kid who knew nothing of this mythical world. You accused me of stealing your sacred weapon of power. How do you let that happen in the first place? How do you get robbed by a teenager and have no idea how to find your symbol of power?"
Zeus only frowned as he sat in silence, unbridled hate in his eyes.
"I am really starting to question your worth here. There has to be someone better. At least Hera had the balls to start a plan against the Giants while you locked down Olympus and hid."
"Then why do you not try to kill me?" Zeus leaned forward on his throne. "Just as I am cherishing this moment, you remain idle. Raise your blade. Dare to strike me down, Perseus."
Percy flexed his hand around the pommel of Riptide, "I will. Just give me a moment to cherish this immortal moment that the world will remember for eternity." He tightened his grip against the leather. "The day Zeus fell to a mortal man just as Athena fell."
Zeus smiled, a sinister glare as the wind spun the golden drapes hanging from the room's columns. The manifestation of the sky and thunder materialized in Zeus' hand. The Master Bolt crackled; discharges of electricity sought the ground, leaving blackened marks upon the marble.
"You think you can even amount to be a challenge to a king?"
Percy raised Riptide, "Well, I'm feeling pretty French right now, and I don't have a guillotine." He stared down the length of the blade. The head of Zeus glared at him from the other side. "Lucky for you, I've always been good at improvising."
Zeus stepped from his throne, the master bolt stretching into a spear as tall as the twenty-foot wielder.
Percy analyzed his surroundings. Thrones stood to every side but his back, where the hearth was merely embers. Far in the back behind Zeus' throne, Bessie, of all things, stared at him from inside a miniature aquarium.
"Your anger will betray your skill with the blade," Zeus chided as he stepped closer. "Your hunger for revenge will kill you. Your love has doomed you."
I can do this, Percy thought. Just another fight. Just another day.
Percy closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and felt the sea coalesce around him.
I can do this.
A crackle of electricity forced his eyes open.
Zeus stood in a fighting stance, his electrical spear running the length of his wingspan as he readied his attack. However, the king was halted by the arrival of the one god who could oppose him.
"Touch my son, and the stones of Olympus will be used as steppingstones for reconstructing my palace beneath the sea."
Percy glanced to his side where Poseidon stood. The aquamarine armor glistened in the firelight of the throne room. The bottom end of his golden trident cracked the marble floor.
"He killed Athena. Such a slight against us by a mortal cannot stand, Poseidon. If this were any other child, you wouldn't have blinked," Zeus prattled, tilting the lightning spear forward. "The boy has signed his death. Stand aside."
"He is my son, Zeus. What father would I be if I let you kill him?"
"He killed my daughter!" Zeus roared. A wind thrashed through the hall, and the fires that lit the room almost flickered out. The small fire in the central hearth was reduced to cinders and ash.
"You never cared for Athena," Poseidon countered. "You'll miss her advice and bootlicking that she gave you more than the rotten manipulator she was." Poseidon twirled his trident in place, and the bottom dug deeper into the marble. Small spouts of water began to geyser up from the cracks. "Perhaps, if she really means that much to you, you can tell her all about it as you two reform in Tartarus."
"I go low, you go high?" Percy asked his father.
"First to draw blood wins?" Poseidon responded to his son. Percy nodded.
"How about all of you stop!" a new voice, a woman, shouted.
The king, the father, and the mortal turned to the worried voice. Their weapons fell to their sides as their bloodlust turned to hesitation.
Brown hair defied gravity as it floated into the air like flames. Frustration burned in the wooden brown eyes of Hestia. The once childlike goddess stood taller than her younger brothers, glowing like a burning building.
"We have already lost two of our family. Must we lose everything?" she demanded. "Must we tear ourselves apart and the world in the process?"
Percy and his father lowered their weapons in full.
"He killed one of us!" Zeus stomped forward. The trident was once more raised, but in front of Percy, this time as protection. "The boy must pay!"
"He is a hero who saved us from the Titans, the Giants, and even ourselves." Hestia bit back. "He lives."
"Blood for blood." The king pointed down at Percy.
"Blood for blood," the father repeated, his trident pointed itself to its target.
"We must find another way," Hestia interjected, standing between the two brothers. "I will not stand to see another of our saviors die today."
Zeus frowned, "I will not stand to see this boy walk unpunished."
"Then we must compromise." Hestia looked to both parties. "There is a way for us to walk away from this. All of us."
"Blood for blood," Zeus reiterated, drumming his spear butt into the ground. The throne room shook under the following crash of thunder.
"My son has taken the blood Athena owed him. The debt you demand has already been paid," Poseidon tried to settle.
"He dies!" Zeus shouted, and thunder roared once more, echoing in the endless sky shaking the world.
"No more blood!" Hestia roared. The hearth that was once embers exploded in a blaze taller than the gods. "There is always a compromise! We must! We are family. Do you all forget that?"
"No, I do not, sister. Perhaps you have a solution then?" Poseidon added. "What compromise do you suggest that spares my son and Olympus?"
Hestia frowned. Her thoughts swirled and twirled, ever-changing as she tried to find a rational option for both parties to agree. Zeus would need something that greatly benefitted him and saw Percy gone, and Poseidon would need his son spared.
How could Percy disappear and live? How could she save her nephew and not damn him?
"What of the voice, Zeus?" Hestia whispered, uncertain. She spared him half a glance to see his reaction.
The very reaction that had Zeus leveling his bolt to her now, a stricken fear in his eye—a primordial fear.
"How do you know of the voice?" He shouted. "How do you know?"
As her powers dissipated, Hestia raised her arms, placating, "I am the Hearth in the center of this room. Even when you thought yourself alone on your throne, I was here. I have heard your whispers and thoughts you share in the silence of the hall."
"You spy on me, sister?" Zeus cocked his head to the side, hurt dripping from his words. "You spy against me?"
"Never! I seek only to know that of my family, of my little brother. A little brother that I know is stuck at a crossroads that he is afraid to choose."
Zeus faltered. His eyes were cast to the ground, unfocused, as he began to think.
Percy glanced to his father, who was just as confused as he was.
"That is your solution, then? Your compromise?" Zeus spoke to the marble, the Master Bolt lowering.
"Yes," she whispered, the words almost inaudible.
"What are you talking about?" Poseidon finally asked. "What are these voices and crossroads you speak of? What does it have to do with my son?"
Zeus ignored his brother as he fell back onto his throne. His empty hand came to his chin as he submerged himself in thought.
Hestia turned to Poseidon, "As King of the Pantheon, ruler of the gods, there are responsibilities beyond mortals and immortals. Creation is not a singular thing, but it is rather a vast multitude of everything."
"That makes no sense," Percy chipped in.
"What we perceive as reality is not the only one, my son. What Hestia says is that Zeus can access other realities or at least hear them. They speak to him and are forcing him to choose."
The Father and Son turned to the King. Upon his throne, he stared off into the distance, his eyes blank as he cocked his ears to different noises, to different voices.
"So, Zeus is hearing people in his head?" Percy asked. "That makes him medically insane then. All the more reason to dethrone him."
"You misunderstand, Perseus," Hestia spoke. "It is not the person that hears all of Creation but the King. If your father claimed the throne and the power bestowed upon the crown, he too would hear everything."
"How do you know so much, sister?" Zeus finally spoke. "I've never spoken of that aloud."
"I still speak to our mother, who was the queen to the last King of our Creation. Her guidance has helped me help you many times."
Zeus frowned, "I see." He turned to Perseus. "If you are to live, you shall be exiled from our reality. You'll travel across the Folds of Creation and speak to the voice that calls for help. You will be the 'greatest warrior' she begs for. You'll free me from her pleas, and I will free you of your crime here today. That is my deal."
"I'm not sending my son to another existence," Poseidon disagreed, turning to his sister.
"And I'm not going either."
Zeus shrugged, "Then I and your father will end this existence over your corpse, your friend's corpses, and your mother's. Stay and sign the death warrant of humankind and all that call this planet home."
"Perseus, this will be the only way," Hestia tried. "This is more than just your life on the line."
"I refuse to accept this," Percy tried. "I am not leaving this world to live in another!"
"You will not live on this one if you stay," Hestia reasoned. "There is nothing to gain if you stay. Yet, out there, you can live a new life on the other side of the Fold. You can find lasting love, whereas here, you have lost it. Out there, you can live free of Zeus and the monsters. You can be the person you want to be free of everything you hate here."
Percy frowned. In his heart, he knew the choice was already made. It was just a matter of how long till his brain and tongue gave in. After all, he knew he would make a horrible king if he took the crown for himself.
He turned to his father.
"What about you, dad?"
Poseidon's eyes swirled, revealing his uncertainty as he let his hand rest on his son's shoulder, "Whatever you choose, I will commit everything to you."
Percy's frown grew. His father gave nothing he wanted to hear.
Finally, he turned to the King, who stared back at him. The hatred that usually occluded the blue eyes of the god was gone, and instead, a hawk's eye swallowed him in intensity.
"Might as well ask your thoughts, too."
"Take the out lest you wish for desolation."
Percy sighed at Zeus, "So, what does it all entail? Where am I being sent?"
The King shrugged, "I hear only the plea for an 'unmatched warrior.' I suppose you'll have to do."
"So, then that's it?" Percy sighed and turned to his father and aunt. "I'm being deported from existence."
"Not from existence," Hestia assured. "You'll still be you, just not… here."
"How does that even work?" Percy asked her.
"I will bend Creation and dispose of you," Zeus smirked, victory dawning upon him. "You'll never return."
"How do we know this voice is safe for Percy?" Poseidon asked as he held firm to his son. "That they will not smite my son?"
"We don't," Zeus answered honestly. "They could reject them, but the voice has grown weak in recent passings. They are limited in time, I imagine. They'll accept him out of desperation. You can only hope that they have good intentions."
"I'm really about to get sent to do some bidding of another pantheon of gods, aren't I?"
Nobody answered.
Accepting reality, Poseidon shrunk to his son's height and hugged him, "I'm sorry, my son. This was never the life I wanted for you."
"It's not your fault, dad. It is her's." Percy looked at the corpse of Athena. His father pulled away from the hug to look as well. "Why hasn't she turned to dust yet?"
"You haven't claimed the trophy from slaying an immortal," Hestia frowned like a disapproving mother. "May I suggest taking a bracelet or amulet? They should be charmed with spells or protection. It could serve you well wherever you go."
Percy walked closer to the giant corpse. His father and aunt were in tow as everyone stared at the gold-stained body.
Percy hesitated, his eyes drifting across the golden bracelets, "I take something from her, and she fades away?"
"Yes," Hestia confirmed.
Percy stared at Athena for almost a full minute before he smirked, "Then I won't touch a thing. Let her body rot." He turned away from the dead and met Zeus' glare that had returned.
Hestia frowned while Poseidon's hand came to rest on his son's shoulder.
"Will I be able to say goodbye to my mother and friends before I go?"
Zeus stared, unmoving, a deadpan expression across his face.
"Is that a no?" Percy asked.
"It is a no," Zeus confirmed.
"Right. Didn't expect kindness anyways," Percy sighed.
"I will carry on your love to your mother, son. I will speak to her about what has happened. I will speak to Annabeth's family as well."
"Don't tell her family what she became towards the end, ya? They don't need to know how bad it was."
Poseidon nodded, "Of course."
Percy turned to Hestia and Zeus, "So, how do we do this? Do I close my eyes and click my heels three times? I fall off a cliff into another chasm? Some divine creation being comes and whisks me away on silver wings?"
Hestia turned to her youngest brother, the same question in her eyes.
The King sat forward. The Master Bolt condensed itself from the spear it was into a ball no bigger than a candy.
"Consume it. The raw power will tear you from this reality, and from there, Creation and the whispers will guide you to where you need to be."
Percy raised his eyebrow at the electric candy. The very thing that started his journey into monsters and myths would be the thing to end it.
It would also be what sent him on his new path.
Eighteen years old, kicked out of every school he ever went to, and now being kicked out of his own reality for avenging his girlfriend. 'Twas the life of a demigod.
Zeus extended his hand and the bolt.
If someone were to ask him now if he regretted his actions to behead the puppet queen, he would remain firm in his choice. Yet, if you asked him what he thought about consuming the raw power that was the Master Bolt, he would make his reservations known.
Percy stared at the offered hand of the king.
Yet, at the end of the day, no matter how willing he was to die or to say it, his friends deserved better than death. The world deserved better than the wrath of the gods. His mother deserved a better son…
Percy took the candy.
:P LINE BREAK d:
It wasn't pitch black, the place he found himself in. It wasn't any color, actually. Instead, it was void of everything. There was simply nothing. He couldn't even feel his own body.
It was simply nothing.
This was Creation.
Creation was nothing.
And there Percy sat, in the nothing. His consciousness floating in the void of realities.
It was too quiet.
His ADHD mind needed something to stimulate him, and he had no toes to tap or fingers to drum in this state of existence.
Thankfully, a voice in the abyss spoke, pulling his mind and soul to its call like a siren.
"I need the greatest warrior…" It sounded like a feminine voice. "…restore balance… save my existence."
While Percy couldn't see whoever was speaking, he tried to move towards them. In the absence of a body, he couldn't tell if he was actually moving towards the tired voice, but he looked around nonetheless, looking for a change in scenery. Or rather, he imagined he was looking to different areas of the darkness as nothing about his settings changed.
It was all just empty.
"Help us."
This had to be the voice Zeus spoke of, right?
Percy closed his figurative eyes as he concentrated his willpower to listen to the voice.
"…the best of your people…" they spoke again, and Percy willed himself towards it. That was what he was supposed to do, right?
"… I am trapped, frozen…. Host me…. Save us."
From the void, a chromatic light began to shine and take shape. It resembled a narrow pathway winding back and forth as its edges fell into the abyss of Creation. His own yellow brick road of sorts.
Percy found his actual feet touching down upon the walkway. A brilliant white light pulsed from where his now-existing body made contact. In the far reaches of nothing, stars and galaxies began to form. The chromatic pathway stretched before him, winding into a dull white form.
The form was massive and reminded him of a dying lightbulb. The light that should be shining from it seemed to be muted as if the glow had faded or yet to be turned on to full brightness. However, the outline of it did look humanoid.
Percy stepped forward. One foot in front of another, each step pulsed a ripple like water across the bridge's surface.
Onwards, he stepped towards the shape. Slowly, the mass began resembling a giant figure, and not just any figure. It formed into him. It was a replica of him, a giant low-light replica of him….
His doppelgänger hovered over this existence; its arms bent out before it as a pearly white sphere was presented forth like an offering.
Percy was transfixed by… by himself. His giant glowing self even had the same unruly hair and hoodie that he was wearing.
He continued to step closer until he was just below himself. It was then he realized his doppelgänger was watching him. Its eyes were pools of light, just dimly glowing.
It was haunting.
It was beautiful.
"Someone finally came," the feminine voice spoke from the pearl.
Percy turned to it and watched as the shining sphere became translucent.
Inside, a white and blue kite-looking being waited. The main body, or what Percy considered a body, was a bright white. The rest of the being, what looked like fanciful art designs or tattoos, was blue, including a blue outline to the kite-being's shape.
"Hello, Warrior. My name is Raava."
AN: leave a comment, follow, and favorite. Really helps me write faster.
New story time! This will be fun I promise. Hopefully you stick around to see things through as I mesh Percy into ATLA (with some ideas and suck pulled from LoK to enrich what we do have.)
Go check out Greed720's and Maroon's fics. We all collaborated on a day of uploads just for you guys. I'll have another day of collabs like this soon after I leave the hospital with another fic of mine.
FFN notification email system is super buggy, so I'd love it if you joined the discord and come and chat. Vote on some polls as well to dictate story updates and the likes. Links at the top of the chapter and in the bio.
That's about it.
-Manke