All rights belong to Rick Riordan

Chapter 50

Double Trouble

(Diana)

Now when most people say that they talk to themselves occasionally, they are generally referring to a debate only in their head or rarely aloud, currently however, I was in conversation with a physical manifestation of my own alternate personality while we both stood on either side of my/our boyfriend, who was currently unconscious as a result of a brain overload after we had both simultaneously kissed him and the poor idiot had collapsed in shock.

'Well that worked out far more effective than I could possibly have thought.' Artemis said looking from the collapsed Titan to me with an amused smile.

'I knew it would confuse him but I didn't think he would actually collapse from the shock.' I told her/myself, god this was confusing. It had been so long since I had actually separated myself I had forgotten how annoying it could get, I almost wished it could be one or the other again, were it not for the amount of energy required to separate us.

'Well he is a Kelp Head after all; did you have to fall for the world's biggest idiot?' She asked me.

'First of all "we" fell for him; I was simply the first one to act on it. You liked him after he rescued you from Atlas and when he hurried to help you after the incident. I just became more attached after he came back.' I defended.

'I was more than happy on my own with the hunters, sure I accepted his help but then you are the one who caught one sight of his body and practically fell for him and dragged me along for the ride. I knew I should have remained younger as a Roman but instead it was more stern and warlike, so I went with the trend and did as they asked and instead this happens.'

'Oh yeah, because you went out of your way to sabotage it and may I point out it was you who went to Aphrodite not me.'

'Well really, what could I do when every time the I was alone you took control apart from during the last few weeks when you tried to avoid him and by then you had ingrained into me your lust for him.'

'Took control, first of all I generally had a reason to be me either cause it was night or Reyna or Suzie. Remember it was me who always guided the chariot across the sky, 1600 years that was the amount of time I spent piloting this without reprieve. The only reason I got a break at all was because you allowed us to be too weak to stay separate.' I defended harshly.

'How dare you say that, what was I supposed to do about it? After all I was fighting a battle against the Giants and Gaia while a Roman set about their murder. It was night wasn't it! So how come you didn't see it then? So stop blaming me for that! We know who was to blame.'

'Apollo.' We said simultaneously.

'Exactly as for our esteemed boyfriend on the floor what should we do about him? We can't leave him there forever. His wings take up half the chariot, we were lucky he did not take our heads off when he turned around. He gains the ability to hide them but he still walks around with the things, does he know how awkward they make trying to hold him and that not even going into what he did to Oceanus.' Artemis said with a cruel smile, I wish we had been conscious to see what happened but it must have been funny to see the look on the Titan Lords face when he got his arms cut off unexpectedly.

'Yeah they are annoying but I still wish I had some, just so that I could fly.'

'Yeah dad and his inability to have godly kids who actually share his abilities.'

'Yet all of Fathers demigods with the exception of Thalia can do it and that is more of a case of she does not want to rather than cannot.'

'So much wasted potential, if we could fly I could catch Hermes the next time he steals stuff from our camp and wring his little neck! Although back to Percy's wings there is no way I would have gold wings, Apollo would have a field day and besides seriously why do Percy and Uncle Lelantos have ten wings what is wrong with two like all the others. Sure it looks different but it is still a little extreme don't you think as well?'

'Agreed, Silver would be much more suitable for us.' I simply said but of course that gave me an idea that Artemis realized quicker.

'Orthrytic Silver, just as good as Percy's Imperial Gold or Lelantos's Celestial Bronze ones.'

'A few problems though: First we would need to find a way of getting wings and though we are technically half-Titan it wouldn't work for us to go beat up our own Uncle and take a domain. Second Orthrytic Silver is extremely rare and finally if we did we would have Percy plucking feathers every two seconds until he had enough for a weapon.' I told her.

'Yeah he would become rather annoying; maybe if we got him a weapon first it would negate that problem.'

'So, what we send him down to Tartarus and kill Oceanus again or piss of the other Titans and take one of the others weapons.'

'Maybe…'

'If you are thinking of telling Thalia to let him have the sword you and I both know that would never happen, you would stand more chance of father telling us he approves of Percy and us than her giving that blade up. For the moment he will have to do without a complete set, it is not as if he actually needs it.' She explained and I had to admit I had a point.

'Anyway we got off track there, so what should we do about him? How do we know he will not just wake up see the pair of us and freak out again?'

'I don't know, it was your idea to do this in the first place so you could… I don't know go on a date with him or something…. you didn't give me much choice in the matter you just acted and the next thing I knew we are both here.'

'You are back to blaming me again, I didn't tell you to kiss him though.'

'What and miss the look on his face as he tried to comprehend the pair of us, hades no. If he wants to date us he is not getting it easy especially now he likes to keep calling us the Little Mermaid. Phoebe Artemis was bad enough, then Arty occasionally now he has that monstrosity and we have no reply but the worst bit is we can't even do nothing with the damn thing but look like an idiot, how come he gets instant mastery while we end up face first? It was not as if we asked Pontus for the domain even if it is the entire reason we are both here.' She said angrily.

'I know but what can we do about it now, besides if he can make improvements in his archery then we should be fine on learning to swim.'

'Were we watching the same guy with a bow because he is still awful and he is still stationary shooting so that doesn't mean much for us. Now come on and help me wake up Mr. Sleepy Head so you can both leave me alone to have some time with my own thoughts only for once.' She said bending down and grabbing one of his arms as I did the same to the other and we lifted him so his back was pretty much against the side of the chariot.

'Do you want to see my favorite new ability?' Artemis said and I turned towards her confused as I didn't know much about our new powers yet and was surprised when a ball of water appeared in her hand.

'Since when did we know how to do that?' I asked in confusion, it is really hard to have a conversation with yourself when you both have the majority of the others memories but I knew nothing about this.

'I didn't but it seemed pretty obvious that we would be able to summon and control water, so I simply thought about creating some and Ta-da. Now watch as the fun part begins.' She said mischievously before throwing the ball of water at Percy's face where it lost cohesion and pretty much soaked him! I saw him wet for the first time obviously his state of dryness was relative to him actually wanting to be dry.

Unlike in the common conception that people wake up when doused in water, he remained exactly as he was but because of his nature it still had the same effect on him but simply took longer, as instead he drew strength from the water before he slowly opened his eyes and looked at me confused. Though I also noticed, that when he awoke all off the water immediately disappeared.

'Diana why have I got double vision, did I bang my head or something?' He asked confused before raising a hand to the back of his head as if to look for a bump, I had been about to reply when my alter ego did before me.

'No Seaweed Brain you didn't bang your head and no you have not got double vision there actually is two of me or us or whatever, now get up already,' Artemis demanded and I couldn't help but think that I could be a bit of a bitch occasionally. You really do get a better insight into yourself when you get to watch yourself.

'Wait what? Why are there now two of you so now you are both Artemis and Diana?' He asked correctly pointing at the corresponding aspect.

'Correct! Now to answer your question the other me thought it would be a great idea to separate us so the pair of you could go who knows where for the rest of the evening while I did her job for her.'

'How is that even possible for you to be in two places at the same time?'

'It is pretty simple actually, after we moved to Rome and gained separate aspects some of us were different in domains between the two for example, Athena and Minerva as an extreme example or me no longer having to hunt as Diana or at least not for long but I was still required to do other jobs, while both civilizations existed and it called for us to be in two places at once, so we learned to separate ourselves to be in more than one place at a time but it requires a lot of energy which until recently I no longer had, so I was forced to do everything and was Artemis during the Day and Diana at night.' I explained and saw he understood a little.

'Like Dionysius and party time?' He asked.

'Yeah sort of like that, though that was more of a case of him being Bacchus when he fought Typhon because his Greek side would have been about as useful as a damp paper bag, at least Bacchus has a weapon other than his bad breath. So when Typhon knocked him out Dionysius was still able to talk to you.'

'As thrilling a conversation as it was, it was not as if I had more important things on my mind at the time. Just so that he could tell me to look out for his son something I would have done anyway. So Artemis you don't mind if Diana and I go off on our own for the evening?'

'Did I have a choice in the matter? No go off and do what you want but one thing, do not do anything I wouldn't do.' She said looking at me specifically when she said it.

'Don't worry I have no plans of losing our maidenhood.' I told her in complete deadpan although I noticed Percy turn red from the implication.

'You better not because that will be one hades of a surprise for me in the morning and I will know who to blame. I can imagine it now, me running to father and telling him that I managed to lose my Chastity because my own split personality made us start dating a Titan son of Neptune. Oh how happy he will be! If we ever get that far in this relationship it will be as one, got it that includes you to!' She said kicking his leg just to get the point across to the extremely embarrassed man on the floor.

'Err yeah sure, no sleeping with you / without you simple enough.' He said hurriedly.

'Good now the pair of you get out of here and leave me in peace, it has been ages since I didn't have this annoying voice in my head , I plan on spending some time in silence rather than having the same annoying voice instead standing in front of me talking to me.' Artemis said dismissively turning away and looking towards the front of the chariot closing the matter rather abruptly.

I just got told to go away by myself, most people can't claim that.

'Ok then Artemis we will see you in the morning I guess.' Percy said rising to his feet with a frown as he looked from me to her as to say what was her issue and if I knew him wondering if it was his fault…

'Come on then Percy, Clearly I need some time alone.' I told him giving my alter ego a look of annoyance before grabbing his hand and taking us away from there with no clear destination in mind, anywhere was better than being with a seemingly annoyed parallel me.

(Percy)

Well after everything that had happened I didn't think else could shock me but to suddenly find myself with both aspects of my girlfriend one of who seemed to have a stick up their ass and I didn't know why or if it was somehow my fault.

Just to add to my confusion I had absolutely no idea where the hell I was now after Diana had taken us out of there. What was strange was that wherever we were now it seemed to be completely night time while it should have been only about 9pm on the East Coast in early August, nowhere near this dark unless I had been unconscious for a lot longer than I thought I had been.

However as I looked around I realized that my natural sense of time was saying it was more or less only 9.25pm but I had the annoying feeling I was wrong, which meant my location was very wrong, which only became more reinforced as I looked around a semi-arid countryside, before finally looking at Diana hoping she would elaborate.

'1,743.' She said cryptically as I noticed her looking at a seemingly pile of rubble to our left.

'1,743 what?' I asked in total confusion trying to get a better look in the darkness. I noted the irony of being Lord of Light but being unable to see in the dark and short of pulling a weapon out, there was very little around as the sky was overcast.

'Years since I was last here, that small pile of marble is all that remains of my greatest temple. One of the ancient wonders of the world and all that remains now are a few fallen stones.' She said morosely as if talking to herself more than me and I noticed the somber expression she had as she looked at it.

'Nothing lasts forever Diana.' I said before realizing what sort of being I was talking too and was now.

'Everything we cared about for so long was eventually discarded, just like we were by the mortals as soon as the next best thing came along, so that they could throw their prayers at it because they thought it would save them. Sure we may not admittedly have always been the most generous of gods but we did care for them. After they threw us away what happened to Rome? It ended up like that Temple destroyed by a group they thought they were better than. So when you say nothing lasts forever you are almost right, the only thing that remains true is us, everything else is fleeting. Even my immortal hunters come and go like the passage of the seasons, the only one I ever believed to never leave my side died in my arms on a gods forsaken mountain.' She said tearfully and I didn't know what to do, we were meant to be enjoying the night and instead we seemed to have gone up bad memory lane because of a pile of rubble. Also I didn't like my palace being located on a god's forsaken mountain; gods were just generally not wanted there.

Well if the rubble was what was causing this problem, maybe I could use it to fix it as well I thought with a sly smile. However for what I had planned I needed to cover Diana's face so I pulled her face into my shoulder in the guise of comforting her. Don't get me wrong I wanted to comfort her but dealing with upset goddesses is not one of my strong points admittedly or at least not the mood itself but I could possible come up with a fix.

Just to make certain I folded my wings around us creating a golden cocoon, which had the downside of hiding everything around us to me as well but it was not like I needed to see to do what I was planning.

I began to focus on the area around us and concentrating on the passage of time that had flowed over it as I had before. However, the more I did so the more I realized this may have been a mistake, sure I had fixed the big house in this manner and various other smaller things but nothing on this scale and certainly of this magnitude. I felt my strength rapidly leaving me but nevertheless I kept at it hoping the payoff would make up for it.

I could have possibly stopped at 268AD which was when Diana had hinted she had last been here if my math was anything to go by but I also knew a little about the place now that I knew where I was and had learned a little of the history and knew that was the third temple built here and had been in a waxing period of interest and belief.

While I wanted her to remember the grandeur of what had been. So instead I persisted at my own expense to what would have been the day before the greatest conqueror the world had ever known was born before falling to my knees as they no longer held the strength to support me.

(Diana)

I had been so engrossed in Percy's shoulder and my own painful nostalgia; I had been completely unaware of what he was doing around me. The only difference I had detected was that I was now surrounded by light and had caught a glimmer of metal out of a corner of my eye before I closed them, recognizing the source as a familiar set of wings and I felt moderately comforted by the gesture not knowing any ulterior motive behind it.

I was knocked out of my obliviousness when I suddenly felt him fall forward as he fell onto me and due to his own much larger mass we both ended up on the floor in a tangle of limbs.

Eventually though I was able to leverage myself against the marble beneath me and push my way through the canopy over me, only thinking it strange that I had been on a smooth stone surface just as my head broke through and my jaw dropped as I looked about something I had never thought to see again.

Sure we had fancy ornate temples and the like on Olympus but they always felt hollow, after all they were built by beings that could create something of this size in a day without trying. Whereas on earth the humans had worked tirelessly for years to create our many temples that covered the region, which was one of the bitter things about this temple after all.

So much had been invested here by myself and the mortals and it had all been burned down in a single night because my esteemed father wanted me to oversee the birth of my would-be adopted brother, who would eventually conquer the known world with a lot of luck and help from half my siblings.

As for the infamous Pyromaniac, he never lived past the rise of the sun as Zoe had hunted the fool down before he could escape. The former Hesperide had thrown him into the collapsing structure as a pyre of his own making.

I was distracted from my awed looking around when I noticed movement to my side as wings slowly folded over one another before finally Percy became fully revealed and sitting up with visible hardship. Clearly that had not been part of his plan but I was not surprised it could not have been easy to do this but I was thankful he had.

'Did it work then?' He said wearily and I noticed a small smile on his face as he looked at me.

'I would kiss you right now, if it was not for the fact I don't feel like defiling my own temple when I just got the place back.' I managed to say jokingly before reaching down and pulling him to his feet which was possible as he had caused his wings to fade away before pulling him into a tight embrace.

'Thank you.' I whispered into his ear.

'What can I say I am the guy who makes the impossible possible, though I don't think I could do that again. I feel like I could sleep for a week.'

'Well then you better hope Athena doesn't find out about this then or you will be giving the Parthenon the once over.' I said jokingly only to watch the look of horror across his face as he considered it and the effort required.

'I am ok thanks I don't just do this for every girl, you know. Only you and well your slightly annoyed other self. What was the matter with Artemis anyway, did I do something wrong?' He said going from joking to concerned and I realized that my other self-had probably worried him with her tactlessness.

'No if anything she is more annoyed with me, it was me who had the initial feelings for you and because we were both essentially one I embedded my feelings for you on her. She may be acting cold at the moment but that is because she still doesn't know what to do. Even when we were Artemis before as one, I was still imprinting on her to like you much like she wanted to keep us away.' I told him hoping that it would help him understand some of the annoying facts about having twin aspects.

'So what you are saying is only half of you loves me?' He said almost sounding hurt.

'No what I mean to say is that yes, she/I may appear to be giving you the hard shoulder at the moment but she really does care for you just like I do, she just has difficulty showing it when we are separate. As for her rudeness on the chariot before we left that was definitely my fault I suspect.'

'Why what did you do to her?' He asked me his face just in front of mine as our eyes locked and I had to force myself to not kiss him.'

'I took you away from her, she was jealous of me.' I said seriously only for him to suddenly break out into a goofy grin.

'So she was jealous of herself? God I seriously hope I don't have a separate aspect. I have a hard enough time as it is without being able to annoy myself literally.' He said keeping the grin.

'Maybe if you did it might be more serious and more intelligent.'

'What like you are supposed to be, I thought Romans were meant to be more warlike and serious but with you I was like you got mixed up, you are the friendlier one.'

'1600 years stuck in a chariot leaves you open for new ideas, besides it was my older self who made the oath, it was just part of me when I became a separate aspect and I didn't have much choice over it.'

'I am just glad that you didn't kill me for admitting it this morning or yesterday or whatever time it is here in Turkey. I thought I was doomed to spend eternity chasing the impossible. At the moment though I don't think I could I chase a one legged empousai.' He said and I noticed that his legs were still uncertain and seemed to be shaking.

'Well the good news is you won't have to do either, so why don't you sit down and get some of your strength back. You don't need to act tough for me after all; I have seen you in every form of unconscious state known. Most of them in the last 24 hours alone, so sit down' I commanded, instead he seemed to slowly walk over to the base of one of the marble pillars before slowly sliding down it until he sat with his back to its base looking at me as I shook my head and walked towards him before doing the same to his side.

'Hey Diana.' He said tiredly.

'Yes Percy.'

'Happy first date.' He whispered before kissing me on the cheek at the same time as every light in the place went dark at once.

I was tempted to hit him for that but I couldn't bring myself to it after all he had done for me. Instead I simply let him rest and put my head on his shoulder as we let the night pass in blessed ignorance. The only concern that crossed my mind was how mortals were going to explain a 2000 year old ruin turning up overnight in perfect condition.

But as it was at this specific time and date, I just did not care.

AN. well that is one way of losing your own sanity as you try and write a schizophrenic character having a literal conversation with herself and trying not to sound like fucking Gollum except in this case Percy seems to be the precious.

anyway hope you all enjoyed it but i wont be having the pair in the same scene to often as that is just damn right confusing to write and read and as for possible double Percy definitely not, their would be too much idiocracy in one place. i took a bit of liberty with what happened to Herostratus the Arsonist but who really cares no one fucks with Artemis especially not when Zoe was nearby.

look at the bright side the longest day in history has finally ended (thank the gods)

As always read and review.