Welcome to Lord of Alaska! Sorry if this fanfic has mistakes. I will try to revise and edit as much as possible. Disclaimer: The characters and places that you know belong to Rick Riordan, everything else is mine.
Hey, sorry for the late update. I had some family business to solve, but I hope to get back on a tighter schedule. (I won't say what the schedule will be because I'm worried I might jinx it.) Thank you so much for all the followers, favorites, and reviews!
"Only you survived my trial," Æther said. "Which means only you must hear my message and retrieve your younger brother."
"Show me where he is," Perseus said, his voice cracking. Maybe the task of getting Poseidon out of here would distract him from the fact that Hades and Zeus had abandoned them.
Their triangular caps falling to the ground, the eight-foot obsidian pyramids opened slowly from the top with a soft whirr. "Poseidon is in one of those hollow pyramids," the primordial said.
He looked at Æther with suspicion, but the primordial waved his hand to say go on. He slowly walked across the white floor and peered into the closest pyramid. Nothing there: only white square tiling. He walked to the pyramid to his left and saw nothing. Continuing this pattern and looking down the pyramids, he saw nothing inside them.
Only one pyramid was left—the one closest to Æther. He swallowed down a gulp and walked up to the pyramid. He could feel Æther's strong energy pushing around him from all sides, wanting to push light into his body and transform all his being into infinite light, to destroy and remake all of what made him into light. He had to resist, strongly resist, the temptation to let the energy wash over him and destroy his being. How did primordials have this much power? It didn't even seem like Æther was trying, yet the force was so strong.
Regardless, freeing Poseidon was the priority. He looked down at the pyramid. There was Poseidon.
But he wasn't moving.
Why wasn't he trying to leave the pyramid? Get out! Perseus wanted to scream. It was so easy to leave. Get out of the pyramid and come join your brother, he wanted to say. Maybe Poseidon wasn't leaving the pyramid because it was better than his siblings, so he decided––that was ridiculous. Perseus chided himself for thinking this horrendous thought. Hestia had told him many times to stop thinking of himself first.
No, he could see the true reason Poseidon couldn't move. The white tiling on the floor was tinged yellow, and he could see light refract and reflect weirdly, making the skin on Poseidon's face and arms look wrinkled. There was a liquid keeping his brother trapped in the pyramid, unable to move.
He could feel his blood boiling. He knew exactly whose fault it was. He raised his head to look at Æther and spat out, "What have you done to my brother? Release him now!"
"Don't think that your time here is easy. I brought you here so you would release Poseidon."
Perseus growled. His brother was frozen, and Æther didn't even care. No, the primordial had imprisoned his brother in a liquid prison. Oh, he would regret that.
Perseus leapt forward, fists raised, ready to punch the primordial's infuriating calm face and make him bleed.
Mid-jump, he bounced off of an invisible wall. He pushed through again, but the wall pushed him back. Like Kronos' stomach, a treacherous part of his mind said. This time, the blisters on his arms stung with pain. They were burning again. Fuck. He stepped back, shaking his arms violently to make the blisters sting less.
He looked up to see Æther with his insufferable smirk. "A single god will never best one of us," the primordial said. "Uranus needed five titans to destroy him, and he was already weak from his lust for power."
"Asshole."
"Regardless of your thoughts of me, your task is to release Poseidon."
Perseus seethed. He was going to free his brother and get away from the hall and its cruel primordial. He turned around and quickly pushed his right hand into the pyramid containing Poseidon. The yellow liquid parted easily to his hand, almost too easily. Was this the task? Digging his brother out of divine sludge? He pushed his hand deeper, grabbing Poseidon's arm.
He pulled his arm up. His hand didn't move.
He tried again. The cold liquid in the pyramid kept his hand in place. He pulled violently, almost ripping Poseidon's arm off, but his hand just could not move. He jerked his arm, but that only succeeded in his wrist sinking into the clay-like liquid. It was cold.
He put his left hand near the liquid to pull his arm out.
Wait! his mind screamed. He stopped his hand just a hair's breadth from the liquid. Thank Chaos. He carefully moved his hand away. He let out a sigh of relief. That was close. If his left hand had entered the liquid, it only would have gotten sucked in and frozen like his right hand.
He needed to think of a plan. Poseidon was stuck frozen in the liquid, he was alone and away from his brothers, and a sadistic primordial was testing his fate. All the while, the titans were waging war with him and his siblings, and the world was destroying himself. What to do?
Okay, first, he needed to calm his mind. Deep breaths. Remember what Demeter said. Focus on the color green and animals who live in forests that were getting destroyed by this war—
Fuck. This was not working. This clear liquid-quicksand-sludge he was going to call quicksludge would suck his left hand if he put it in. He needed to stop the quicksludge from entrapping everything it touched. He had powers, didn't he? He had the power over ice and snow, but he never really trained them. Most battles were fought by sword or by godly energy, not by specific powers. Fuck. Why didn't he train his powers?
He had to try the obvious first. He pushed magic out of his buried hand in little sparks of ice, but the quicksludge only got colder. He tried again, pushing more ice from his arm, but the quicksludge didn't budge. He moved his left arm close and pushed ice out from both arms, this time coupled with snow and anything cold. With a grunt, he called forth everything cold in the world to erupt from his hands and unfreeze the quicksludge.
Crack! He looked down at the floor, seeing clear ice surrounding his feet. He snuck a quick glance at Æther, who was still staring at him intently. Returning to focus on the pyramid, he tried to wiggle his fingers in his buried right hand. The quicksludge was still firm as hardened clay, only now a little blue due to the cold.
A memory rose of Demeter, Hestia, and him trying to escape from Kronos' stomach with the new power of teleportation. They had failed. It was like that now: no matter how much he tried to free his arm, the quicksludge didn't let him go.
Nothing was working. Why couldn't the quicksludge just un-solidify itself? It could go damn itself and its stupid yellow color to Tartarus!
Wait, that didn't make sense. He couldn't damn the quicksludge to Tartarus because they were in Tartarus! Well, in Æther, whatever the hell it meant. Funny. He let out a chuckle, collapsing against the pyramid. Where even was he? How did he end up here? He went here with his brothers with the intent to release and ally themselves with the Cyclopes and Hekatonkheires, and now he was alone trying to free Poseidon and failing. How the Fates drew their strings.
He shook his hair out of his eyes. He didn't have to play along with the Fates. He could leave. He could return to Mount Olympus and stay hidden with Hestia until the war ended. He could leave this mess of a world behind.
"What are you doing, young god?" Æther asked. The primordial had gotten closer to him.
"What if I don't free Poseidon?" he replied. "What if I don't play along with your fantasy? What would you do to me, huh? What if I don't fight?"
"For starters, your arm is still in the pyramid's liquid–"
"Not a liquid," he whispered. The quicksludge was actually a solid in liquid's sheep clothing.
"–so you won't be able to leave until you free your arm. And Poseidon will be stuck here if you leave. And you will be damning the gods to lose the war if you leave. Do you not have a sense of family?"
"My family can go fuck themselves! My brothers left me!"
"What about Poseidon?"
Perseus' heart tugged. He frowned. Æther was right. He had to free Poseidon. But how? All his methods weren't doing anything. Every time he pushed cold into the quicksludge, it remained as firm and cold as ever. He doubted godly energy would beat primordial energy.
A thought appeared. What if he––no, it wouldn't work. Ridiculous.
Wait. The idea had merit, the irrational part of his brain said. He had thought cold would have made the quicksludge more firm and less gluey so his right hand could easily slide out, but that clearly didn't work. Removing the cold would truly free his hand. What if he sucked the cold out of the quicksludge instead of adding cold? Cold temperatures only made objects more firm, so less cold would reduce the quicksludge's ability to permanently stick and glue to his hand.
With extra energy, he closed his eyes and gathered up all the cold in the quicksludge, pulling it towards his right hand. He shivered, feeling the cold giving him waves of energy through his veins. He felt satiated, new, rejuvenated, high, exhilarated. He liked it. He continued pulling the cold from the quicksludge into his hand. The energy increased as did the quicksludge's temperature. It was unfreezing––he could wiggle his fingers! Moments later, he pulled his right hand out of the quicksludge, holding onto Poseidon's arm tightly. Poseidon was heavy, but it was nothing godly strength couldn't fix. He continued pulling and absorbing cold and pulling, until a loud Pop!
Poseidon tumbled out of the pyramid, groaning and slowly opening his eyes. Thank Chaos. Perseus laughed in relief, let his chest rise and fall, and hugged Poseidon close. He breathed in the faintest smell of salt on his younger brother's hair. This was real. Poseidon was free. They were free.
"Percy, what's wrong?" Poseidon asked.
His brother's voice was such a relief. Perseus thought that he would stay forever frozen in the quicksludge and never speak again. But Poseidon was freed. He could talk again.
"You can let me go, you know," his younger brother said. "I'm well and it looks like you're well. I can hear you crying, though."
Perseus stepped away from the hug and wiped away the tears he hadn't even noticed from his face. He looked at Poseidon's face. Those green eyes were still the same shade as the first day Poseidon fell into Kronos' stomach and the same shade as when they entered Mount Olympus for the first time.
Poseidon was here. He was here. They were reunited. Perseus let out a breath. He was free. They were free.
"It's nothing, Poseidon," he said. "I just needed to make sure you escaped from the pyramid."
"What pyramid?"
Perseus tilted his head. Why did he forget? "The one that you were stuck in. I had to free you."
"I… don't know what you are talking about, Percy," said Poseidon, who seemed like he truly didn't know about the pyramid.
Perseus took a deep breath, feeling the full force of fury and rage hit between his ribs. He took another breath. Be Calm. Calm rage, more like it. He turned around to Æther, who had remained silent. "What the fuck have you done to my brother?"
The primordial snapped his fingers. Perseus whirled around, seeing his brother paralyzed. Just like he was in the pyramid. No. He shook Poseidon's shoulders. Wake up, he wanted to scream. Open your eyes! The nightmare was restarting. Not again.
"Relax, young god," said Æther from behind. "I've only made it so he won't remember this conversation."
"Why do you kee–" said Perseus, his voice cracking, "keep doing this? Please stop with your games."
The primordial ignored him. "It was not hard to lure your brother away. Little disorienting tricks of light and shifting walls can make one lost in Tartarus. Soon, he was separated, with no other path than one to my domain. I made myself invisible, and I watched him try to find a way to his brothers. He loves you, if you didn't know. He was calling 'Perseus' the whole time, hoping that you would find him."
He glared at Æther, not speaking. The primordial would not see his reaction, no matter how satisfying it made him feel that Poseidon would always choose him.
"Your brother got too desperate and started peeking into the pyramids to find a tunnel," Æther continued. "I only needed to send a gentle shove for him to fall into one of them."
"But why do this? Why does a primordial care about my world? Why kidnap Poseidon? And why wipe his memories?"
"The memory wiping is because I need to talk to only you. I made you free Poseidon to see if you were worthy of my message. And you are worthy. You had to suffer through my blast of light. You are determined. To free him, you had to bring energy into you instead of projecting it. That shows that you can contain and clean up. Many deities do not know how to do so––they only know how to expel and destroy. And those deities are unworthy. Unworthy deities cannot self-improve or juggle emotions. Look at Kronos."
"So you're saying that you needed to see if I was emotionally mature enough?"
"Yes. We need someone who can take in and push out. Reflect and express. Someone who can win the war and help your world heal. No more instability. The world needs less chaos."
"Who's this 'we'?" Was he about to get into something way too big for a god? He only wanted to live on Gaia, not anything else.
"My brethren, of course. Primordials, if you wish. We've decided that I should deliver to you our message." Æther paused. "If you gods win the war, you must find substitutes for each of the primordial domains. Or else Gaia and the rest of us sink into chaos."
"Aren't all of the primordial domains represented by the primordials? Or by the titans? Why do us gods have to do anything?"
"The titans have the same domains as us, so there is no need for us to exist in a physical form in the physical world. Many of us have receded into the void. With this war that has plunged the Earth into red skies, there is no day or night. My dearest Hemera chose to recede because of this. I deeply want to join her. But if I leave while leaving the world burning, I will never live in peace. I need you to promise to find substitutes for the domains," the primordial finished saying with a serious face.
"But titans already have your domains. We aren't trying to exterminate all of them. We just want to depose Kronos and the other leaders. The other titans can keep their domains."
"That is not how this works. Once a new generation seizes power from the old, the new generation must fill up the domains. Otherwise, it's an incomplete transition. If the new seize power, the old cannot still hold the reins of that power. The new needs to replace everything.
"Only two titans were necessary to replace Hemera and me, but they played safe and assigned our domains to Hyperion, Theia, Helios, and Eos. They made a mistake by not assigning a titan the domain of the sky, so they had to share it between four of them. Otherwise, chaos would have resulted. The world is a delicate balance that each ruling power needs to maintain."
"So what happens when we win the war? All the titans lose their power? They fade away?"
"Most do. Such is the cycle of life. I also do not know if you gods will win the war. Even our deity of fate Ananke does not know. The titans will be overthrown, but it may not be due to the gods. It might take multiple millenia."
"But in the case that we do win, we need new gods and goddesses for these domains," Perseus summed up.
"Yes. Do you understand? Will you swear to find or create replacement gods if you win?"
He took a deep breath. This was big. His mind was about to explode from all this new information. Zeus never told him about this. This was so fucking confusing. Titans and primordials and gods and domains and replacements and everything. So many dots and lines swimming through his head. The order of the Earth was so fragile. Why did the world work like this? Couldn't things be simpler?
He took another breath and steeled his mind. He had to do what was right, not what he wanted. "I understand," he said slowly. "If the gods win, I swear to make sure that all primordial domains will be part of at least one god's domain, and that no primordial domain be lost to history. I swear that we will find or create enough gods to replace the titans."
"And thus you swear to maintain the balance of the universe," said Æther, smiling. Smoke rose from his hand, drawing a circle with a dot in the center. Perseus tracked the smoke rising to the hall's ceiling and dissipating. It was probably the way for primordials to swear oaths.
"What now?" he asked.
"Now, you leave, and I leave," Æther replied, snapping his fingers. The light in the hall dimmed. All the black pyramid tops closed over the pyramids with a loud click! Perseus flinched.
"Brother, what's wrong?" a timid voice asked. Perseus looked over his shoulder to see Poseidon, unfrozen and awoken.
Perseus let out a breath. They were safe and together again. He smiled and shook his head. "This day was a busy day. Too many twists and turns. Let us return to our brothers and fulfill our mission so we can return to Olympus."
"If you say so," Poseidon replied. He frowned and embraced Perseus tightly, black hair tickling his neck. "Don't worry about the war. We will prevail. It's written in the stars."
"I believe you," Perseus lied. The stars were not true. They only had a chance at winning if they got the Cyclopes and the Hekatonkheires to fight against the titans, which would only happen if they were freed from the bloodthirsty Campe.
"No you don't," said Poseidon, smirking. "But once we win, you'll think about how stupid you were for thinking that we might not have won."
His brother saw straight through him. Perseus chuckled and said, "There's a reason you're my favorite: you make me laugh."
"On that note, I think it is time for you two to leave," Æther replied from behind, much closer than before.
Perseus stayed silent. He didn't like the primordial for deceiving him and imprisoning Poseidon, but it had been for a noble cause. It was for the safety of the world. He could respect that. Maybe respect was all that was needed.
"This is an impressive hall you've built. I hope one day I will see it again and see you again. You were a good host," said Poseidon, nodding at Æther.
The primordial winked at Perseus. That bastard. Not only did he kidnap and imprison Poseidon, he made his brother think that this was a good experience! And when did he get so warm to people he didn't know? Poseidon was not afraid of the hall or of Æther. Did the quicksludge change his personality?
Perseus felt an elbow on his side. Poseidon side-eyed him, tilting his head towards Æther. Right. "I cannot say what my younger brother said, so I will just say that our meeting has been insightful. May you find peace in the future," he finished saying, bowing his head.
He took Poseidon's hand and turned them around. A rectangular hole in the gold-lined white walls revealed dark magenta ground and mountains. Tartarus was beyond the hole. His brothers were there. He took a breath, steeling himself for what came next. He walked on the marble white floor, Poseidon with him, until they reached the threshold. He put his right foot on the rocky magenta soil, then his left foot.
Air swished behind him. Perseus looked over his shoulder, seeing only a magenta wall made of rock. Æther's golden-white hall was gone, along with the primordial. He didn't know how he felt about that. Some part of him missed it, but the only path forward was in Tartarus.
He knew what he had to do. He had to move on, reunite with his brothers, free the Cyclopes and the Hekatonkheires, and leave Tartarus to return to Olympus with the rest of his family.
Here is my thirteenth chapter of Lord of Alaska!
UV Rays are dangerous, as you can see with Æther, and it can be easily prevented with sunscreen. Skin ages less quickly and the risk of cancer decreases. Friendly PSA to put sunscreen on!
If you noticed any mistakes with how Aster/Perseus can use his powers while not being detected as an undercover god, could you ignore it? Brain farts happen a lot of the time.
Have a great day and let's all Mystify!