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Ch. 2

Waking up after having one's body raked over hot coals was less a gradual progression and more an abrupt and massively jarring shift from absolute silence to every signal and alarm raising hell simultaneously and shrieking proof of one's existence. If there was anyone who would have been very familiar with this process, it probably should have been Percy—seeing as he blew up a volcano, slammed into Calypso's island like a living HEAT shell, blew up a massive cruise liner, and willingly took a dip in the river Styx. This time, it was a little different. As his mind was dragged from the depths of his slumber, Percy drifted amongst a warmth that grew increasingly concerning until the first pangs of searing agony rolled through his limbs, shattering along his bones and under his skin. The shock alone snapped him fully into consciousness, which of course meant that pain magnified exponentially.

Under normal circumstances, white is probably expected to be an attribute of an object. White is a color, a visual descriptor, or a label. Unfortunately, white was the only term Percy could think of to describe his experience; not that his mind was in any condition to really do much thinking at all. Everything was just white. Bleached. Searing. Screaming. Every inch of tissue, sinew, muscle, and bone just hurt. Burning didn't quite capture it. Neither did searing. Had he thought of searing yet? Were there too many times that someone could think of searing while on fire? He... well, he really just felt like dying. Not the oh-you-should-be-dead kind of feeling but more the will-you-get-it-over-with-and-put-me-out-of-my-misery.

It took an agonizing amount of time for the intensity to diminish and stop overwhelming his senses, just enough for his mind to actually process what was happening. When it finally did, he really wished it hadn't. Every single molecule in his body was vibrating. He could feel Styx's curse struggling to maintain his frail mortal shell and keep it from exploding and his cells from vacating at light speed before shooting off into the night sky never to be seen again. Every inch of skin was less pins and needles and more metal spikes getting hammered through his limbs. His body was ablaze. His brain flung itself against his skull, creating a migraine so intense he repeatedly tip-toed the edge of consciousness. His blood was molten steel. His bones were scalding brands. It was a miracle his lungs hadn't run dry screaming. Or maybe they had. Maybe his lips had melted shut. He didn't possess the strength to part them. It really did feel like he was roasting over a giant grill because he could feel varying degrees of heat and pressure just under his knees and across his shoulder blades. His left arm was also numb, crushed against his side and something hard and smooth, maybe metal. His right arm dangled, swinging freely. Swinging... His body was bouncing. Now that he thought about it, maybe his brain wasn't smacking against his frontal skull bone. Maybe someone was carrying him and his brain was just sloshing around in his brain case. Could a brain slosh? He felt sloshed. Could a son of Poseidon get sloshed? A lot of people had said his father could breathe beer like seawater.

Without warning, his body touched ice. Liquid ice. Liquid nitrogen. Something really fucking cold. Below zero kelvin because even the Arctic couldn't be this miserable. Percy remembered a time he actually lasted in a normal school long enough to participate in a chemistry lab. He made the mistake of placing a heated beaker under running water to cool it. Like that shattered glass, his mind fell into a million little pieces. In shock, he passed out and sank into the depths.

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He awoke in an abyss of murky liquid completely void of light. His senses said he was sitting in saltwater but then he wasn't quite sure. All of his pain had vanished. Being dead could do that. Then again, maybe his body hadn't broken upon touching the water and there had been enough left for him to heal. If he truly were in the Fields of Elysium, he wasn't sure it would have looked quite this dark. He was still sore. He knew that was going to be a recurring thought in the coming days because even within his element in a state of constant recovery, his muscles felt like they were getting crushed through a meat-grinder. Kneeling, he dragged his hand along the floor to see what kind of sand was there only for the ground to bite at his fingers. His skin didn't break but it felt as though smooth and wicked sharp hooks tried to nick his palm. The texture reminded him of obsidian. What was more interesting was the fact that he didn't sense any volcanic vents nearby, which would have easily explained the phenomenon.

Swim. Smell. Percy jumped at the sheer volume of the voice that spoke. It was an odd sensation for him to jump and feel his body go nowhere as the water pressed down on him. Swim. Smell. Smell something. Something here. His head snapped to the right as he peered into the darkness. A part of him felt like Annabeth would smack him across the head for such a pointless effort but he felt he could be forgiven for being more than a little freaked out. Something close. Come closer. Look. Food. Look here. A small glowing ball appeared in front of him, about the size of a marble. So dark was the ocean floor that the dim light was enough to illuminate the creature's face. It bore a resemblance to an angler fish, although he wasn't sure if it was the same species since this thing looked about as big as a pumpkin. Not a small one but one that might have made a child of Demeter insecure. The fact that its teeth took up 80% of its face may not have been a need for concern but he still felt a little uneasy.

Hi.

The fish froze, swiveling its head back and forth and making its esca swing side to side. Food talked. Strange food.

Percy leaned forward and flicked the dangling orb. Incidentally, the fish flipped backwards a couple times.

Food strong. The light dimmed out of existence as the fish's jaws parted. Not food. Danger. Threat.

I'm not an enemy, nor am I food. I'm also not here to hurt you.After a moment, he rolled eyes and sighed bubbles. Look, I just wanna chat for a bit. Could you come back? The water in front of him thinned slightly. Good. Now, can you turn your light thingy back on?

…

Um... Lure again?The glowing orb reappeared.

Hurt me?

No.

Eat you?

Preferably not.

I'm leaving. The fish swam off abruptly, quenching its light in seconds and leaving Percy to drift alone.

Good chat. With that, he pushed off the bottom and willed the currents into a vertical spiral with him at the center. With the torrent swirling out of his way and leaving a path for him to pick up speed, he felt the water whip through his hair and flap against his shirt. His top speed far eclipsed the fastest torpedo that had ever been developed by the Hephaestus cabin and those put modern military torpedoes to shame. And yet, seconds turned into minutes.

Two minutes.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

A full twenty minutes passed before a tiny white amorphous blob came into view, probably the moon. Even then, it took several more minutes before he finally broke the surface and literally climbed onto the shore, stomping his way up the beach and away from the underwater cliff concealed by the white water smashing into his legs. At the edge of the beach sat a lush forest like something out of a stranded-on-an-island-survival film, only here the trees were pines and oaks instead of palms. Rather than venture inside, he turned and tried to see if he could recognize anything about this place. He didn't, which ruled out Calypso. Sure, she'd said no man ever found Ogygia twice but then he had a knack for breaking records. Still, there wasn't anything about this place that looked familiar.

"You're awake." This time, Percy jumped so hard that he smacked his head against a low-hanging branch. Wincing and rubbing his head, he turned and looked up into a pair of piercing silver eyes. The girl dropped down from the bough where she'd been crouching and rose to be almost as tall as him, which was rather surprising as he was pretty sure he was just under six feet. She looked about as old as he was, around fifteen to sixteen. "That's rather fortunate. I was prepared to wait multiple days for you to recover, but it seems I was needlessly concerned. Being the son of the sea must carry quite a substantial boon if you are back to full strength after a mere ten hours."

Her auburn mane was tied half-up half-down with a single braid tucked against the nape of her neck. Her plain gray tunic seemed dull in contrast even though it sparkled under the moonlight. Percy wracked his brain for any myths even remotely similar to Calypso's. The only one that came even close was Circe, and considering how his encounter with her ended, he wasn't exactly stoked about his chances.

"Hey, uh... Just throwing this out there, but you wouldn't happen to be related to a certain daughter of a titan? One who supported her father during the Titan War and is now stranded on a tropical paradise with no means of leaving?" The girl blinked at him slowly. He felt a bead of sweat roll down his cheek.

"Perseus, how and in what world would that have any bearing on our current situation?" His eyes widened as her brows drew down. "Ah, so that's it. I'm glad you have your priorities in order. We've just come from a battle for the fate of Olympus—where the last thing I get to see is that flaming bastard choking the life out of my lieutenant before blowing himself up—and the first thought on your mind is a nice time with a pretty girl on an abandoned island."

"No! I didn't– Wait, hang on who– Your lieutenant?" He stared at the girl for a hard second, his mind struggling to make sense of things. "...Lady Artemis?"

"Who else did you… No, don't answer." The hand she held up to stop him came around and settled on the bridge of her nose. "The conclusion you drew was not an illogical one and I am not in a form with which you are familiar. I simply was not expecting it. Come. We have much to discuss and much we should do before sunrise."

"Right. If Kronos notices that we're missing, he could launch his attack ahead of schedule. We need to-"

"Returning to our people," she snapped, with a tone so sharp he felt it almost cut him, "will be an infinitely more challenging task than you assume. There are a great number of troubling things about this place, made all the more disturbing the more one considers them." She directed his gaze up towards the night sky, illuminated by a moon. A very shattered moon. Strangely, it looked almost two-dimensional, like a broken dinner plate with the shards and tiny fragments still hovering in emptiness so that cumulatively, it still bore the general shape of a circle. It was almost as though a smaller, denser object had punctured the orbiting satellite and fractured a good third of the celestial body, except that gravity hadn't pulled the broken pieces back into the larger mass.

Percy felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand ramrod straight. His body started shivering like a leaf, he let out a string of unintelligible wheezes and gasps. Then, he found the words he was looking for.

"What the fuck?!"

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"So, not your moon?"

"No. It may well be a moon but I hold no command over it and cannot call it down to us. Were it my chariot, I would still sense its severed connection but I feel no great loss indicating such. That was the first hint as to the truth of our current circumstances." She let go of the branch she pushed out of the way and Percy had to duck as it swung back.

"Right... It's just that you keep saying you know exactly what's going on but you keep pointing out things that you don't recognize."

"It is precisely because of what I do not recognize that I can be so sure of our predicament. I have roamed the Earth for several thousand millennia. I have explored thoroughly every woodland and forest, every valley and mountain, every cave and prairie. There is not a single creature I have not seen, a single plant I would not recognize on our world. Of course, the depths belong to your father but the wild is my domain, and I am deeply knowledgeable of every secret it holds. Yet, I look upon this place and there is not a single familiar thing in sight. The mountains are misshapen, the flora appear like pale imitations of the ones in our world...," she paused as a massive panther slunk out of the undergrowth. Its fangs extended far below its jaw like a sabertooth tiger and its back was lined with rough sectioned plates like an armadillo. It strolled by, not paying them any attention, and sniffed at a particular tree. Then, to their utter disbelief, it sank its teeth into the trunk and casually ripped out a massive chunk of bark and fiber. It lazily chewed on the wood like beef jerky before sauntering away into the darkness. The ruined mess of the tree groaned before toppling over. "...and then there's that."

"That's... I don't suppose that's normal?"

"Perseus, if the literal Goddess of the Wild says she does not recognize a wild beast, that's a good indication you should stop talking."

"Right, but still; parallel universes? Hang on a second," he called, reaching out to grab her shoulder. When she swayed away and glared, he backed off with his hands up. "Look. I'm just saying if we're really putting that on the table, then why not time travel? We could be in the distant future, or maybe the distant past. That thing could be a distant ancestor or descendant of something that's… normal. You don't get to say that thing is strange and then look at something that has the head of a lion, a goat, and a snake, and not bat an eye."

Her glare intensified and for a brief moment, he felt the air around them go cold. Then she looked up to the night sky and her expression softened. "Let me put it this way. My position as the Goddess of the Moon is more than a title. It is a mantle bestowed upon me, one I can bestow upon another if the need ever arises. From the very moment I inherited my position from Selene, the moon became a part of my dominion. You may think of it sort of like the reins you might take from a horse. So long as you hold these magic reins, this horse will forever belong to you. Henceforth until the end of time, so long as I hold the mantle of the Goddess of the Moon, that moon falls under my dominion. The station of the moon would not matter in this context. We could be a million years in the past or future and the moon would still be mine to command. The same goes for my brother with the sun."

"And if this moon isn't responding, then either you aren't holding the right reins or this isn't the right moon," Percy finished, running a hand through his hair and deflating. "Right, okay then. Parallel universe. So how do we get back?"

"I've not the faintest idea," she replied softly, turning around and walking away.

His brain froze and rebooted. "What? But you-"

"I do not have all the answers, Perseus!" She spun with her eyes ablaze and he hopped back, fully expecting her to snap her fingers and turn him into a weird animal. She stood in place, her body shaking. "Despite how it may appear, I am just as out of my element as you are. Is that not clear? I do not feel a connection with the moon!" She held out her bow, clenching the grip with white knuckles "There is nothing! I feel nothing from my throne, from my chariot, from Olympus… The only thing I still have that I can even draw power from is my bow and each time I have to fire it, I feel the last vestiges of my power slipping away! The only thing I can be certain of is the fact that we will be of no use to your friends if we die here. My main priority is leaving this place before—"

Her head snapped to the side, directing him to follow her gaze. In the brush, a pair of glowing red orbs stared back. Several more joined it before the first moved into the light, pushing forward a lupine snout with gnashing serrated teeth.

"...Before they came back," she growled, stepping beside him and thrusting something into his hands. He looked down at the hilt and sheared edge of Riptide, cut down to less than a third of the remaining blade. "Stay alert because Gods above if you falter against these things, I will not be dragging your carcass back to the beach."

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So, I actually forgot to put the primary disclaimer for the whole story when I uploaded the redrafted 1st chapter a couple weeks ago. It doesn't really change all that much for the story but it's meant to provide some insight and context as to how the events occurred as they did for the battle of Manhattan. Honestly, I don't expect readers to really lose anything by not reading it so if you ever feel bored out of your mind, the content is something to contemplate (in a very last resort kinda way).

Relatively minor changes in this chapter. I'm surprised that no one called me out on this but I completely neglected to address the fact that Percy and Artemis got yanked out of a literal battle for the fate of the world. I forgot to actually put in Percy being concerned for his friends, especially given his fatal flaw. I know I haven't really rectified that yet but I need a couple things to happen first, which means I gotta add more stuff to the redraft of the next chapter.

If any of you are confused about why Artemis is so calm (at least up until Percy pushes the wrong buttons), remember that 10 hours have passed since Hyperion offed himself and sent them through. She's had 10 hours (or presumably a good chunk of that time) to come to terms with her situation and she understands that the battle for Manhattan is most likely over if Kronos even chose to follow through in the first place. I'll be addressing that more thoroughly in the redraft of the next chapter. The main purpose of this chapter is meant to build upon her character a bit and establish why they realize so easily that they jumped universes. I'm aware that Riodan wrote her to be mostly unflappable but I feel her current circumstances are enough to shake her confidence just a tiny bit, hence the breaks in her mask of calm. For anyone that's wondering why she looks fifteen turning sixteen instead of her usual twelve, I have my answer and I'll be sharing it in the redraft of the next chapter. It's not exactly a complicated idea so I'm sure plenty of you will already be able to guess why before I update.

For those wondering about Sabertooth Pantherdillo, that's more of a reference back to a sort of trend that was happening with RWBY fanfiction when I first started writing this story. Years and years ago, I remember seeing a bunch of hybrid animals getting featured in a lot of RWBY fanfiction and I remember double-checking certain wikis to verify if those hybrid animals did exist in the RWBY-verse. If that memory is correct, then that's another instance of the brilliant and wonderful "writers" Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross being 110% original with their craft, no I've never heard of Avatar: the Last Airbender, what are you crazy? Anyways, I can't actually remember any of the hybrid animals that were used at the time and when I tried googling to find any examples, all the wikis just kept directing me to faunus and the God of Animals (yet another instance of the brilliant and wonderful "writers" Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross being 110% original with their craft, no I've never heard of Avatar: the Last Airbender or Princess Mononoke, what are you crazy?) and thus: Sabertooth Pantherdillo. I'm also totally not planning on leaving this thread untrimmed just in case I am wrong, in which case I can make it an early sign of Artemis's semblance going haywire. For anyone that thinks that Percy and Artemis shouldn't get semblances because semblances are the remnants of the magic of the Brother of Darkness, et et et. Shush. We don't talk about the Post-Monty. Ever.

I don't know when I'll get to updating the next chapter. Hopefully soon. Don't hold your breath.