Back in the Labyrinth
I return with my current most popular story! Fresh from the Fifth Life and still at Masyaf Castle, Percy has to digest Peter/Priscilla's memories and also prevent the destruction of Camp Half-Blood.
I also can't help but appreciate just how long it's really been since I updated this story. The Author's Note at the end of last chapter spoke of the Piper fic I wanted to do, and now here we are. The Piper fic having been started September 2022, and finished May 2023.
Unfortunately, that's also when FFN decided to change how they do email notifications, so I don't think as many people know about the Piper fic as there would be if emails still worked properly.
Friendly reminder to make sure you have your email opt-in turned on.
And also to check out my novel! I can't get the Kindle link to work, so PM for details! Or just look up "tamen liber" on Kindle, and my story should be the first hit. The cover depicts the sun going down behind some mountains, with a tree hanging over a distant lake.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or AC
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Inspired by historical events and an over-active imagination, this work of fiction was designed, developed, and produced by a single-cultural team of one religious faith and belief, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
To Thalia's credit, after being punched hard enough in the face that she was blasted through one of Altair's huge bookshelves, she was able to pick herself out of the wooden wreckage without issue, with only a small trickle of blood running from her nose. She got to her feet and looked for her reincarnate sibling, finding him (her? She didn't know yet) leaning against one of the standing bookshelves, a hand to his/her head.
Thalia ran to Percy. "Hey, I'm here. What can I do?"
"Just give me…a minute," Percy breathed. "Processing…36 years of memories…gotta let them…synch up. Full synch. 100%."
"Uh…" Thalia didn't know what to say to that.
As for what was going on in Percy's head:
The familial abuse from Peter's father and siblings didn't get him as much as you might've thought, as he'd been through plenty of abuse as Cheyenne when she was being pressed into the Assassins. His marriage to Ned didn't bother him too much as that basically boiled down to being straight but with extra steps. If anything, having a third happy and stable marriage was quite comforting. Hopefully he could make it a fourth…or fifth, if he also got married in his sixth past life.
No, what was truly driving Percy up the wall was twenty years of being Priscilla.
Recall, if you will, all the way back to Ch. 28, the chapter that had a humongous warning from Satan about the remaining content of said chapter that people either ignored or didn't take heed to, because six fucking years later I still have people bitching/moaning/whining/complaining about it. Back in that chapter, Nero attempted to make Percy his next Sporus, who was a boy that Nero took a liking to, had castrated, and made into his wife back when he was still human, only Nero used modern techniques to make Percy far more feminine. Part of the mind-breaking process was that Nero used hypnotic techniques to make Percy refer to himself by a new name:
Priscilla.
Percy was not okay with that.
And yes, this exact situation was thought of six years ago.
Thalia gently touched his shoulder. "Prisc-"
Percy's head snapped up. "If you ever call me by that name again, I'll make sure your body is never found."
Thalia backed away with her hands up. "Sorry, sorry. Um, but why? You wanted me and our brother to call you that for twenty years."
"That was then. This is now."
"…why do I feel like there's more to it than that?"
"Because there is," Percy said stiffly.
Thalia swallowed, really thinking about her next words and if now was the time to say them. She decided it was. "Percy…I don't know how you feel about me after remembering what you did, but…I'm your big sister. I know I don't have a right to say that after everything I did back then, but-"
Percy threw his arms around her neck and hugged her close. It helped that Thalia was about an inch taller than he was.
At first she was shocked, and then she just accepted it and hugged him back. "I've missed you so much," she whispered in his ear.
"I've missed you, too."
Just like that, they were siblings again.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Percy stared at Altair's skeleton. "Wow."
Thalia scratched her cheek. "It kind of lessens the gravity of this moment knowing that he's back as Desmond."
"Little bit, yeah. I'm just impressed that he's still holding together 750 years later."
"His cloak's in really great shape, all things considered."
"Yeah."
Percy looked up to the Apple of Eden in the wall, still softly glowing. Ezio had been here five centuries ago, but decided to leave the Apple behind.
From over his right shoulder, Percy pulled the Sword of Destiny, the amalgamation of the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, the Spear of Leonidas, and the Sword of Baron von Wolff, all put together by the insane false god Chaos. The sword took the form of what was commonly referred to as "Altair's Sword," being the one-handed straight sword with a pommel in the vague shape of an eagle, a cross guard patterned after outstretched wings, and a sharp blade barely two inches wide and thirty inches long.
The day this sword was made for him was also the day he promised Kassandra that he would destroy it after he had destroyed all the other Pieces of Eden.
Percy looked back at the Apple, at the Sword, at Altair's bones, then back at the Apple. He went to it, Thalia following him with a raised brow. Standing before the glowing Piece of Eden, Percy drew back the Sword of Destiny, and stabbed it through the abominable chunk of Precursor technology.
The blade pierced as easily as a lightsaber would a bowl of ice cream. There was no grand explosion or epic event. Instead, the Apple just sparked on impact and fizzed out, the metal disintegrating into nothing.
"That was the same Apple of Eden that Al Mualim used to control me," Percy explained, recalling his first life as Faris Ibn-La'Ahad. "Altaïr ended up killing me because of it."
Thalia nodded. "I bet that felt good."
"Yes."
"What do we do now? We went from somewhere in the Labyrinth to Altaïr's Masyaf library. We don't even know how to get back into the Labyrinth, and even if we do, we have no way of navigating it without Robert."
The wall that Percy just pierced dropped into the ground, revealing a passage that went down a long way with several branching halls, all illuminated by electric lights.
Thalia blinked. "Well, then."
"After you, sister."
With one last look at the library and at the great Altaïr's bones, the majesty of this place lost to her given everything she now knew, Thalia entered the Labyrinth. Percy followed without a second look back. After all, what was there in decaying wood, cobwebs, and a pile of bones covered in a threadbare robe?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Sorry," Percy said a few minutes into their aimless walk through the corridors. "For punching you. All those memories hit at once, and Peter's anger won out first."
"It's okay. I deserved that."
She really did, honestly.
A few more paces, and Thalia couldn't stand the tension. "Are you going to tell me what's really bothering you?"
"I'd rather not."
"That's not good enough," Thalia crossed her arms.
"Too bad." Percy walked on.
Thalia grabbed his arm, and he retaliated. They exchanged a rapid segment of grabs, breaks, punches, and parries that eventually ended up with Thalia pinned to the wall with both her shoulders being a few pounds of pressure shy from being dislocated.
Then she generated enough voltage to knock Percy to the opposite wall, rushed him, and pinned his arms while getting close enough that he couldn't maneuver his legs, but not so close that he could viably use his head.
"This isn't compromising at all," Percy said, trying to keep the growl out of his voice.
"You are going to tell me what's bothering you right now, young man," Thalia said firmly, trying to use her bestest and most authoritative big sister voice.
"Has it not crossed your mind that I'll tell you when I'm ready to tell you?"
"Has it not crossed your mind that keeping it bottled up is unhealthy?"
"Like having the combined memories of five other people crammed in my head is healthy?"
"Percy! What. Happened?"
Thalia was pushing it, she knew she was pushing it, and she didn't care. In her mind, she was being a good big sister by utilizing some tough love, because she thought this was a tough love kind of situation. Percy was clearly hiding something, something big, and it was eating at him following remembering his life as Peter/Priscilla, and it was tied specifically to his former name.
Thalia firmly believed that there was no better time than the present to get this conversation out in the open so she could start doing her job of being a good, responsible big sister.
She stared down her nose at Percy, her electric blue eyes about to start sparking with electricity her gaze was so intense, and Percy glared back. However, his eyes were vacant, like he was glaring at something through Thalia's head.
"Percy," Thalia said gently. "You can talk to me. I want to be a better sister this time, and to do that, I need to know what's bothering you so I can help."
The way Percy glared at her, she honestly thought she was about to be in for the fight of her life. Just before she cranked up her voltage, though, the fight melted from Percy's face and he looked down at the ground.
"A few years ago…I…had an encounter with Nero…"
Thalia's brow furrowed. "As in the emperor, or…?"
"The emperor, from 2000 years ago. He somehow managed to cheat death by turning himself into a false god."
"I…see…" Thalia didn't see that at all right now, but that was irrelevant.
"And he kidnapped me…and drugged me…a lot…and he did a lot of…other things to me…" Percy swallowed. Hard.
A cannonball seemed to form in Thalia's stomach. "Other…things?"
Percy nodded slightly. "He wanted to make me his wife…his modern-day Sporus…and part of that process was that he tried to make me think of myself with a different name…"
Thalia's arms dropped to her sides, her face pale as milk. "Oh."
"…yeah…"
Thalia was at a complete loss as to what she should do. Never did she expect that to be what was mentally torturing her brother.
"And what I got out of that was the blessing of God, and a demon."
"What."
"His name is Amon."
"What."
"He gets stronger every time I commit sin."
"What."
"Which is ironic, because all I need to do is ask forgiveness for my sins from God, and they're forgiven. Like, infinite-use debuff."
Thalia was too at a loss for words and actions. Her brother had been raped. He was a rape victim. A few years ago he had said, and he wasn't even fifteen yet himself, since his birthday in this life was August 18, and it was only July. Maybe he was rounding up? If so, a few years ago would've put him at twelve.
Twelve.
Thalia felt sick.
She threw herself forward and pulled Percy so tight to her that if she could've physically merged with him, she would've. Her hands kept jumping from his head to his back, unsure where the best place to hold him was, but she eventually settled with one arm around the small of his back, and her other hand on the back of his head, pushing it into the crook of her neck as she tried really hard not to soak his hair with her tears.
Percy's arms slowly came around Thalia's waist to hug her back.
Thalia's heart was thumping hard in her chest. Despair, hate, rage, fury—so many. A little voice told her it was irrational, that she was a fucking tree at the time, but she felt responsible. She'd failed as a big sister back when they were the Frye siblings, and she'd already failed as a big sister in this life.
Twice, actually.
Jason was hopefully not dead, but Thalia hadn't been able to find him after their mother, Beryl, had taken him and left him somewhere in the woods…as a two-year-old. Jason wasn't even potty trained yet, still wearing diapers because Thalia had no idea how to teach a little boy how to use the potty, and their drug-and-alcohol-addicted mother certainly wasn't mentally capable of doing that, much less change diapers.
Yes, Thalia did change her little brother's diapers.
What was the alternative? Let him sit in his poop until he contracted a disease?
Thalia did what she could for Jason, and it wasn't enough. He was taken from her, and she had no idea if he was alive or not. Unable to find him, she had taken to the streets for so many years until she found Luke, then she found Annabeth, and then she got herself turned into a tree where she remembered her previous life as Evie Frye, another failure of a big sister, and while that was happening, her other little brother was getting ass-raped and groomed to be the bride of one of the sickest, most twisted, depraved, disgusting, sexually insane sacks of amphibian shit to have ever lived, that somehow cheated death and became a god.
How the fuck did that even happen?
Thalia growled. "Where is Nero?"
"Dead. I—er, Amon killed him. Tore him to pieces."
"What about his soul? Did he even have one of those?"
"That was destroyed too."
"The only problem I have about that is that I didn't get to do it myself."
Thalia felt Percy smile, and she felt a little better.
"I'm loving you more already." He squeezed her, and she pulled back. "Let's get going. We aren't going to find them just by standing here."
Thalia touched his arm again. "Percy—are…you don't need to put up a front."
"I'm not," Percy said, and he gently removed Thalia's hand from his arm, slipping his hand into hers. "I've had time to heal and talk to others about it. It was just remembering Peter, and how he took the name Priscilla, and everything he did to his body to make himself look so womanly…it brought back a lot of bad memories of a really bad time. Old wounds."
Thalia nodded. "I'm always available if you ever need to talk."
"Thank you. You're doing a great job of being a better big sister."
Thalia's heart swelled in her chest hearing that.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A few more steps down the dimly lit corridor, and Thalia felt Percy slip his hand into hers. It was covered in a tough glove, but it was already more than what Evie had allowed Peter to ever do. Thalia happily accepted the familial gesture.
However, while happy at this great progress, she was still embittered by her old self's failures. Thalia was struggling to recall what Peter's hands had felt like. She remembered them being small, but that was only because she had seen them. How soft were they? Did they have callouses? Scars? What about Peter's nails, did her take care of them?
Thalia could answer exactly none of those questions, because Evie had known none of those answers.
Thalia was also struck by the sheer contrast between Peter and Percy. Poor Peter had been stricken with asthma and what Thalia suspected had been a low-spectrum form of autism, maybe Asperger's. He also had something genetic (Klinefelter syndrome) that affected his physical growth, leaving him short and small. Percy was the complete opposite of Peter, already standing a head taller than he ever did, and Percy was built. Thalia could just look at him and see the muscle on his body, and the grip on her hand, while gentle in a brotherly sense, was still firm.
She could feel the strength in that hand.
There was also the way Percy walked.
Peter, after growing up physically and emotionally abused, had often walked with his head down, his steps short and small. He always moved on-guard and on-edge, like a kicked puppy that had grown up a little bit and didn't trust anyone. Demure, you could say. But Percy walked upright. His back was straight, his sharp jaw pointed forward, and his gait was strong.
He exuded confidence and authority, and it was a great irony to Thalia that her transgender little sister that had become the loyal and faithful wife of a transgender man, was also the reincarnation of Faris Ibn-La'Ahad, one of the youngest Master Assassins ever; Virgil Cavaliere da Roma, one of the greatest Mentors in the whole history of the Brotherhood, if not the greatest; Captain Jake Swallow, whose exploits during the American Revolution earned him the epithet of Grandfather of America, and was one of the most revered men in American history; and also Cheyenne Nightshade née Cormac, the granddaughter of Shay Cormac, wife of Zoë Nightshade, and so far the current youngest Assassin to ever be given the rank of Master.
Four of the greatest Assassins to have ever lived, all culminating in Peter-then-Priscilla Wynert.
Sure, Priscilla had been a good Assassin, but she was nowhere as good as her previous lives.
And now here she was, her legacy made manifest in Percy Jackson, an almost-fifteen-year-old boy that was not only reorganizing the Assassin Brotherhood to counteract the Templar stranglehold on the world, but was also the son of Poseidon, who had some world-ending prophecy on his shoulders that he had to bear while fighting against the rising Titans who wanted to overthrow the Olympians and establish the new world order.
Oof.
But now Thalia was here, and she understood it, so too were a great number of other amazing Assassins:
Altaïr, Ezio, and Edward Kenway were all reborn together in Desmond Miles.
Mary Read had returned as Bianca di Angelo.
The children of Virgil, Giovanni and the twins Christina and Maria, were all back as Nico di Angelo and twins Hylla and Reyna Ramirez.
Evie Frye, herself, was also back, and while Evie had been a horrible big sister, she had been a damn good Assassin.
Even Arno Dorian was back, and while his biggest claim to fame is being the man directly responsible for the current state of the Templar-Assassin war since he had annihilated the French Brotherhood, he was still remembered as possessing great skill and talent.
There was also Lou Ellen, the witch daughter of the goddess Hecate, who was Percy's girlfriend, and an official member of the Assassin Brotherhood.
Not to mention all the other demigods, who while not part of the Brotherhood, would probably not be unopposed to joining if they were given the opportunity.
All these Assassins back from the dead when the centuries' long war was arguably at its worst moment. It was both a powerful and inspiring thought, and also a scary one.
"Hey, Percy?" Thalia asked.
"Hm?"
"All these Assassins are back. Do you think that maybe some of the Templars have returned? The Borgias, Haytham, Shay, Starrick?"
"I have thought about that," Percy said evenly.
"And?"
"I've also thought about whether they've returned in the bodies of demigods like we have."
Thalia went pale. "Oh, no. But that would be our luck, wouldn't it? We think we finally have an edge on the Templars, and bam. They have that same edge, and we're just back at square one."
"Wrong," Percy said. "We Assassins have always had an edge of the Templars, and that edge has only gotten sharper. Even if our old enemies have returned with demigod bodies, we still have something they do not have, nor will they ever have."
Thalia stared at him. "Which is…?"
Percy pulled his Bible from its holster at his hip.
Thalia suddenly felt uncomfortable at the sight of the holy book. "How can you believe in that after everything we know? The Precursors, the Olympians…"
Percy smiled. "Based on everything we know, we have less of an excuse to not believe. If Zeus is sitting up there on Olympus, why can't God be in Heaven?"
Thalia shifted. "But the Precursors…the Isu…those are where the myths of gods come from. The humans they created, after the Cataclysm, remembered them as gods…"
"But yet the false gods are real, aren't they? Your father Zeus, my father Poseidon. Not Isu beings."
"Then how does it fit? The Precursors being revered as gods, the gods actually being real and not Precursor beings?"
"Chaos."
"Yes, it's very chaotic, I know, but how does it fit together?"
Percy grinned. "No. I mean Chaos as in the father of the Primordials."
"Huh?"
And then Percy explained to his reincarnate big sister the events back from Ch. 57, when he and Lou Ellen made it to Thera and encountered Kassandra, and then his conversation with the mad god Chaos, who revealed that the whole Isu-Olympian conundrum was actually just him playing around with everyone's minds.
By Chaos's power, the Isu believed they were the creators, and the Primordials also believe they were the creators. Nothing but lies told by Chaos for the sake of his amusement.
Percy left out the part where this was all supposedly an elaborate plan made by God centered around himself, as he was supposedly the Final Prophet, which didn't make a lick of sense because Jesus was supposed to be the true last prophet. It was already overwhelming enough with Chaos; Thalia didn't need that on her plate.
"You're joking," Thalia said in a voice that was somewhere between disbelieving and hopeful for the contrary.
Percy just stared at her.
"You're not joking," Thalia amended. "So, that's it, then? This whole thing that could have reality-breaking implications, is actually just the cosmic joke of some crazy deity?"
"Apparently so, yes," Percy answered. "Incredibly underwhelming, isn't it?"
"Among other things," Thalia frowned.
"Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it right now. Let's keep going. We're bound to run into either Luke and his army, or Lou and Robert."
"Or some unspeakable horror."
"Nonsense. The unspeakable horror is already upon us."
"What? Where!?" Thalia took a stance with her spear out, looking around, ready to fight. She narrowed her eyes when she heard snickering. "What are you on about, then?"
"When I said unspeakable horror, I was referring to your breath."
Thalia pouted. "I do not have bad breath!"
"Smells like manure on a hot day."
"It does not!"
"Well, if that's not your breath, then it must be the fumes wafting out from your butt. You did wipe, didn't you?"
Thalia's eyebrow twitched. "Are you sure you aren't just getting a whiff of your own atmosphere, brother? Did you wipe?"
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"Water powers. No need to wipe. Perfect clean every time."
"I can't tell if you're joking or not."
Percy just grinned.
Thalia noted how it was the exact same way that Peter would grin whenever he was being cheeky.
"Come on," Percy said, and he started walking back down the hall.
Thalia followed, a little smile on her face as she appreciated the budding relationship with her little brother.
It wasn't long until they heard something akin to a roaring crowd at a stadium.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Alright, this was supposed to a lot longer and out a lot sooner, but I had near-catastrophic computer issues, and felt this was a good enough place to stop.
I kept getting messages from my computer that the battery capacity was getting lower and lower, which weren't errors because my battery eventually got low enough that taking my computer off the charger was instant death. So I ordered a new battery and took it to the local tech guys because I don't have the equipment or the knowledge necessary to change a computer battery.
Then the new battery broke the motherboard.
There was evidently something wrong with one of the chips on the motherboard, which was part of why the computer died instantly off the charger. When the new, 100% battery was put in, there was some kind of overload that fried the chip, and my computer wouldn't come on at all. Another trip to the shop, this time for prolonged surgery.
Long story short, my computer appears to be fixed.
While that was happening, I started playing some more Hades, as in the videogame, and set a new record for myself with the Eris aspect of the Adamant Rail, that being thirteen minutes and thirty-five seconds, 13:35. Only eight minutes longer than the current world record.
I was also able to get my hands on a copy of the Nico book, and I have since read it all the way through as of 07/10/2023.
Just like I gave my reviews of the ToA books, I shall give my review of the Sun and the Star. If you don't want to read it, that is more than fine, just be on the lookout for another chapter of the Promised Year. Featuring a new crossover plotline.
Anyway, review:
The most common thought I had while reading this book was, 'What the hell am I reading?'
The book follows the plotline everyone already knew about, Nico and Will going back into Tartarus in order to investigate the mysterious voice Nico kept hearing, which he suspected was Bob the Titan, which actually turned out to be Bob the Titan. Right off the bat we're already stumbling, because going back to Tartarus is a stupid plot in the first place.
Rick went through great lengths to describe how horrible and awful Tartarus is, with Nico being completely traumatized, and Percabeth apparently being less traumatized, but no less horrified. Tartarus is set up to be this place that no one ever survives, which makes it so meaningful and powerful that Nico made it through by himself, and that Percabeth made it through. It drastically lowers the effect Tartarus is supposed to have when the characters are just like, "Yeah, let's go back."
The fact that Bob is alive also cheapens his sacrifice at the end of House of Hades. (On a quick side note, has anyone else noticed that trend in modern media, where no one ever seems to stay dead anymore? Somehow Palpatine returned, Letty returned and so did Han, and literally everyone in the Marvel universe came back from the dead. Yes, I realize this stance is hypocritical coming from me after I brought Jason back as an einherjar in my Piper story, but that's because his death was stupidly written in the first place, and my way actually gave him and Piper the closure they needed that we may never get in canon, and allowed Piper to fully move on from in and fully commit herself to a relationship with Shel. More on them soon, because they did feature.)
Despite Bob being alive, Damasen is not, however. I feel this makes no sense from a literary perspective, because why should Bob be alive but not Damasen? Why is Bob alive, but not Damasen? The god Tartarus, perhaps, because when he first manifested, he did so after blinking Krios and Hyperion away, absorbing them into himself. It was presumed for years that he did the same to Bob and Damasen, and then maybe he spat Bob back out but kept the latter.
It is possible that's what happened, because here we get to the villain of the story: Nyx, goddess of night, and this time she brought brochures! No, that's not a joke, Nyx actually has Tartarus travel brochures because of her encounter with Percabeth. As for her motivations, she has been torturing Bob the Titan because she doesn't like that he changed.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Nyx's evil grand plan was that she didn't like how Iapetus became Bob and then stayed as Bob, and so she was going to torture him until he stayed as Iapetus, because she doesn't like change. This was also her motivation for luring Nico back to Tartarus, and specifically back to her, because in what is perhaps the only good part of the book we have a flashback that actually explains how Nico's first time in Tartarus played out, and while underwhelming based on how terrified he was, he has an encounter with Nyx. The goddess insists that he is a being of the darkness, and so she is offended when Nico attempts to make a life for himself out of the dark and in the light with Will.
That's it. Nyx's whole deal in the book is that she wants Bob to stay as Iapetus, and that she wants Nico to basically keep being an emo edgelord.
Obviously she fails, Nico and Will rescue Bob, and then they make it out of Tartarus. Oh, and Small Bob returns. Just fuck Damasen, I guess.
While the overall plot itself is stupid and dumb, all the other things within are stupider and dumber.
Do you like yaoi fanfiction? If so, then boy do I have the perfect story for you!
And that's not even me badmouthing the book—that's actually the general sentiment of the fandom. I still browse through the subreddit every now and then, and I have seen many posts saying how the Nico book reads like a fanfiction, and not even a good one at that. Boy, does it, which is ironically appropriate, because that's literally what this book is.
Rick brought in extra help for this one, Mark Oshiro, meaning he didn't have total control over everything, and it shows. The book is the officially licensed, recognized, and canonical Solangelo fanfiction.
So many things are just weird and wrong.
First things that come to mind are a couple of glaring continuity errors. The first one is that when Nico first meets Nyx, she is berating Hypnos for standing with the Titans during the war, and putting Manhattan to sleep for them. Uh, no. That was Morpheus who did that. The second is Bianca; at the end of the book, Nico has a dream with Maria, his mother, Bianca, and Hades, who is suddenly weird, nervous, and awkward, and arranged this dream for Nico's benefit. The reason that Bianca is able to be here is because she, like Maria, is in Elysium.
Also no.
Nico reveals in the Son of Neptune that Bianca was in Elysium for the duration of the Titan War but then she chose to be reborn. Rebirth, as in Isles of the Blest. Meaning that she can't be in Elysium for Hades to pull her spirit into a dream for Nico, because nothing of the spirit of Bianca remains, because she's now an entirely new person somewhere else, presumably a one-ish-year-old baby, maybe two years. It's not specified just when after the Titan War she chooses rebirth, only that in Nico's testimony she did choose.
Two huge continuity errors right there.
What can be considered a third continuity error is how OOC Nico is. The entire book he's suddenly nervous and apprehensive about his sexuality, which is something not present in Trials. Apollo even remarks in Tower how much Nico has grown and matured, and how he's accepted himself as a young gay man. Apollo must've been completely wrong about Nico, because he's a nervous wreck about his orientation again, and only accepts himself (again) at the end of the book after Tartarus.
Will's character also leaves much to be desired, because he spends the first two-thirds of the book bitching about the Underworld, and Nico keeps getting offended by it. For Will: shut up, just please shut up. For Nico: dude, it's the Underworld, the only nice places are Elysium, the Isles, and Persephone's garden. Everywhere else (the majority of the whole place) is supposed to be grim, foreboding, depressing, and horrible. Not at all somewhere anyone wants to live or consider to be a good place.
Will gets even less useful when they actually make it to Tartarus, because a little bit of actual thought makes it into the book. Will is the son of Apollo. You know, the sun, as in light. There is no sun in Tartarus, and no light, and actually has an adverse effect on Will's health, leaving him weak and sickly. However, that's where the thought ends, because if Will is getting drained by not having any natural sunlight in Tartarus, how did Percy not get similarly drained by not having any sea?
I suppose the short answer is that Percy is just built different.
If you think all of that is stupid, I regret to inform you that it only gets worse.
When you think of Nico, do you think he'd be the kind of guy to stand up in front of the entirety of Camp Half-Blood in the middle of lunch and then make the public announcement to everyone there that he's gay? If you think he wouldn't, you're wrong, because that's exactly what happens. Throughout the book there are recollection segments where Nico and Will talk about how they interacted more following the Giant War, and that Nico eventually caught Will giving him goo-goo eyes from across the infirmary, and so he decided to ask Will on a picnic lunch. He got the nature spirits involved, and Juniper thought that a first date between a couple of boys translated to decorating the entire dining pavilion and putting Nico and Will at the head table.
Nico initially panicked, but then decided to "own the moment," and stood up in front of the whole camp to make it known to everyone trying to eat that he likes boys. In true Riordanverse fantasy, everyone there is very happy for Nico and not annoyed at all by having their lunch interrupted.
"Dude, I didn't need to know that you like sucking dicks. Literally no one here asked, and almost no one here cares. Now shut up and sit down."
An ironically perfect representation of the alphabet people, actually. Here we have about two hundred or so teenagers just trying to have lunch together while they train in combat to not get eaten by bloodthirsty monsters, and some boy just has to stand up, bring everything to a halt, and tell every single one of them that he wants another boy to fuck him in the ass.
Not a person alive needed or wanted to know about that.
However, Nico's display of "bravery" Inspires a few other campers to come out, those being Paolo Montez, that side character from Hidden Oracle who was never seen again after that book, Malcolm Pace, Annabeth's brother that barely has anything beyond cameo appearances, and Jake Mason, whom I had to look up as I was writing this and looking through the book because I forgot who that even was. He's Leo's brother, as it turns out.
Three gay boys, but no gay girls. Unless you count Piper, but even she doesn't count because she never "came out." She just got segued into being gay because…narrative reasons? The world may never know why Rick thought it was a good idea to have Piper dump Jason and then get a girlfriend.
Anyway, the question of why gay teenagers feel the need to inform everyone around them of their sexual orientation like that's somehow important remains unanswered.
Riding on this strange, sexual bandwagon are a few new characters, the first being Epiales, the demon of nightmares and child of Nyx, the second being Hiss-Majesty the troglodyte, and the third is Menoetes, a minotaur knock-off that serves as Hades's ranch hand, because Hades has his own ranch because why not? Epiales identifies as "they/them," and prescribes to the idea that there only being two genders is archaic, which is ironic to me that a demon would push that ideology. The troglodyte never explicitly states if they're male or female, but the only pronouns ever used for them by any of the characters, even other trogs, is they/them, so the trogs are apparently a very progressive society despite being underground frog people that eat shoelaces and collect hats. Menoetes is in a gay relationship with Geryon.
For a book that is supposed to go out to all the "Nicos, Wills, Pipers, and everyone in between," there is a severe lack of lesbians in this book.
Moving on from the worst cast of characters in any book I've ever read so far, let's get to the most bullshit fight with a primordial god ever put to print.
However, before that, some perspective: the primordials are supposed to be the most broken, busted, OP deities in the Riordanverse, because they are the very forces of the universe personified, the firstborn children of Chaos. They can hardly be fought, and only in specific circumstances. Even then, it's going to be the fight of your life.
When the Titans wanted to overthrow Ouranos, they had to first lure him down from the sky, and then four of them had to hold him down so Kronos could chop him up.
When Tartarus made his first physical appearance in what is apparently the first time ever in his immortal life, he did so by blowing up a couple of Titans and eating their essences. He then manifested a presence so terrifying that it made the great Percy Jackson drop his sword in fear. Now, Percy and Annabeth didn't actually fight Tartarus, Bob, Damasen, and Small Bob did, and Tartarus, despite this being his first time with a body, quickly gained the upper hand against two divine foes with thousands of years of combat experience, and a sabretooth tiger monster that was no slouch either.
When Jason, Piper, and Leo fought Gaea, Jason's POV states that he carried her body so far up that if he got any higher, he'd pass out from the lack of oxygen. After a Google search, that altitude is about 15,000 feet, or 2.84 miles. If you want to say that the demigods have stronger lungs because they're the children of gods, then they were a solid three miles high. Then, even after taking Gaea three miles high, it still took everything the trio had just to put her to sleep for a few scant seconds. Jason and Piper almost killed themselves using their powers to the extent that they did, and Leo actually died but came back to life.
As it so happens, there is a lot of contention in the fandom about the Gaea fight. Many claim it was too short and anticlimactic, and that it throws the power scale off because there should be no way that Piper's charmspeak would have any effect on Gaea. Piper's just a demigod, and Gaea is a primordial. Even three miles high, where Gaea should be much weaker, she should still be immune to a mere demigod's charmspeak.
Now, then, if the Gaea fight ruffles your feathers, then you should have a conniption over the Nyx fight.
Yes, the Nyx fight. As in, Nico, Will, and Bob join forces and fight Nyx. And not out in the daytime like she followed them out of Tartarus, but in Tartarus…on the doorsteps of her Mansion of Night…which is made of bugs, as it turns out…her home territory…in the dark…yeah. A couple of demigods and a Titan fought a primordial goddess in her own domain, and won.
Will manifested a cheap version of Pokemon's Solar Beam attack because that's how demigod powers work, and his light beam was able to injure Nyx, burning a section of her wing, which I find makes only the loosest amount of sense. Nico and Bob are somehow able to deal physical damage to Nyx, despite being a mere demigod and an amnesiac Titan, which makes even less sense because you would think Nyx of all beings would be able to make herself incorporeal with more efficiency than Obito. Even her official artwork depicts her as smokey and shadowy.
Granted, these three did have some unexpected help in the form of Nemesis, Hypnos, and the previously mentioned Epiales. Nyx brought her children to the fight because reasons, and they decided to turn on her because she's a mean mom. So the three of them working together manage to subdue Nyx long enough for the others to escape, because Nyx apparently can't just blink and send all three unruly brats to timeout.
Then, when Nyx goes after Nico, Will, and Bob, she is somehow stopped by the River Acheron, the river of pain. The reason this happens is because "pain is the river we must navigate to get to where we want to be…Nyx refuses to accept that, so the river…rejected her."
Yes, I'll take Bullshit for 500, Alex.
Does being a Primordial mean nothing anymore? When everyone was panicking over Gaea waking up, and how that would be the doom of everyone, including the gods, was that just overhype? How could a being like Nyx viably be affected in any form by a river?
I don't know if anyone remembers this, but once upon a time Hera convinced Hypnos to put Zeus to sleep so she could go after Heracles for sacking Troy. When Zeus woke up and found out what Hypnos and Hera did, he went after Hypnos, only stopping because he was hiding with his mother Nyx. The way the myth goes, is that Zeus found Hypnos with Nyx, he promptly turned around, not wanting to get into it with the Primordial of Night.
I am now convinced that the truth of this myth isn't that Zeus respected and borderline feared Nyx's power to the point he wasn't going to fight her over Hypnos, but because he knew Nyx was an absolute joke and didn't want to laugh himself out of his rage as he went after Hera.
Seriously.
Nyx gets duped by Annabeth and Percy, with her immortal exclamation being, "It's too dark, I can't see! Someone give me light! Gah—I can't believe I said that!" And then in the Nico book, she loses a fight to a demigod, gets restrained by her three minor god children, and then is ultimately defeated by the River Acheron because of some extremely loose logic.
Yeah, the river burns her like acid and she basically melts into a shadow to either reform or recover.
Before that happens, though, Nyx has babies with Nico! That, too, is not a joke. The babies are actually a bunch of little demons that represent Nico's negative emotions and bad memories, and Nyx created them in that weird way the deities can make babies, as a way of getting him to accept his dark nature. Nico decides to call his new litter of demon babies his Cocoa Puffs, because the proper term for the children of Nyx is "cacodemon."
It was almost a cool concept until the little turds somehow listened to Nico's commands instead of Nyx's.
On one hand, a fifteen-year-old demigod child of Hades.
On the other hand, a being as old as the very concept of night and darkness itself, that is supposed to be the upper echelon of the divine with very few equals, with power unimaginable.
Again, this story reads like a yaoi fanfiction, and not even a good one.
If there's one positive thing to come out of this, it's that now I have some more ammo to go into Chaos War. Nyx had a bone to pick with Percabeth, and now she has an even bigger bone to pick with Nico and Will.
Some other nitpicks I have is that the book is 462 pages long but Nico and Will don't officially reach Tartarus until page 294, almost like Rick and Mark looked at each other and realized how much of a stretch this idiocy was in the first place, and had to pack in a ton of filler. Also, despite being Tartarus for the second time, and his connection to Percy and Annabeth, Tartarus himself conveniently makes no appearance before Nico, not even to help Nyx when she is in distress.
Granted, I will say that all the plot armor was grossly maxed out with the Nyx fight in the first place, and so Tartarus joining the fight would've completely suspended the suspension of disbelief.
Moving on, Nico, Will, and Bob make it out of Tartarus, with Nico learning the importance of accepting who he is and letting go of the past, and he keeps his demon children. He also eventually sends an Iris Message to Piper so they can talk about Jason and genitals.
Writing that Piper fic really did screw up my perception of her, the Nico book proves that, because what we got of Piper in the book had me sighing the whole time.
Canonically, Piper is still in grief over Jason. She almost cries when Nico points out that they haven't spoken since Jason died. Also, Shel is canonically a Native American, presumably Cherokee, as Piper says that Shel is a "Native like me," so there goes my angle that Shel is from Texas.
Oh, well.
Nico and Piper also discuss how she's still processing her sexuality, and how her dad is also processing her sexuality, which I find to be an amusing, unintentional nod to how absurd that whole plotline that started in Maze really is, in that Piper was completely straight throughout the whole of Heroes of Olympus, and then in 2018, four years after Blood came out, she suddenly isn't. Piper brings up how she doesn't know if she's bisexual, pansexual, or in the event that she never loves another man, if she's just a lesbian, and Nico informs her that she doesn't have to live with anyone else's label, including the labels she gives herself, saying that she "can be bi or pan or a lesbian or queer, and tomorrow you may have a better sense of who you are, or tomorrow you can be a big ole queer mess and figure it out fifty years from now."
To which Piper laughs and imitates her dad. "'Piper, dear, how should I describe your relationship?' 'Well, Father, I am a big ole queer mess.'"
And then Shel informs Piper that they need to get going because they have a hiking trip planned for the day, and because it's still summer—the end of summer, as the book takes place two months after Tower of Nero—they need to hit the trails before it gets too hot. It should be noted that Shel didn't freak out over the Iris Message, implying that Piper has told her the truth about the Greek gods and her identity as the daughter of Aphrodite.
The mysteries surrounding Piper and Shel's relationship continue to pervade as more questions are asked, ones that will probably never be answered.
As for the exchange about identity between Piper and Nico, how about mentally unstable? I miss the days when Percy Jackson wasn't about teenagers struggling to figure out what they wanted to do about their genitals and what genitals they wanted to play with, and was actually about the gripping stories of young heroes standing up to fight against evil, and the questions they asked themselves of what was really right and what was really wrong.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians really was the peak of the Riordanverse, and it was all downhill from there with a sharper decline in 2013 with House of Hades, and then a steep nosedive with everything from Magnus Chase onward.
You know, it's kind of scary. One of the big social issues of our time in the middle of 2023 is the pushing of acceptance for the alphabet people, and anyone who won't accept them in any facet is a bigot and needs to be cancelled. A big stink a while back, "leave the little children alone," "leave the kids alone," really highlighted how downright weird it is that an organized movement has to be told to quit coming after kids and telling them to permanently modify their bodies with surgeries and chemicals.
Well…
The official age group/rating for every Riordanverse book is 10+.
But anyway.
In summary:
The Sun and the Star sucks. The plot is stupid and the villain's motivations make no sense. Will spends the majority of the time complaining about the Underworld and having to be carried along by Nico, and Nico is OOC. The sacrifice of Bob and Damasen is totally undermined by Bob simply being alive again, and begs the question of why not Damasen, where is he, what's happening to him, and why is the same not happening to Bob. The big fight with Nyx breaks the power scale and is completely unbelievable, and the whole tone of the book is derailed by every other page having something about gay people.
The whole book is less of serious novel with a gripping plot, and more of a soapbox to push the acceptance of gay teens, because what underage, fictional, teenagers do with their genitals is somehow important when weighed up against everything else going on.
The future of the Riordanverse is uncertain. We have the promise of the upcoming Chalice of the Gods book, but that storyline is all about how Percy had to earn three letters of recommendation from gods in order to get into New Rome University, something that is a blatant retcon because nothing was ever said in Heroes or Trials about having to get rec letters to get into NRU, and so far that I know, nothing has been said about Annabeth having to rec letters of her own, but the big question remains as to how does anyone get into NRU if they have to get three rec letters from gods, because it's not like gods are just milling around, waiting to hand out rec letters to demigods trying to get into college. But we all know Percy gets into college anyway, so this potential trilogy is pointless.
Besides, if Percy needs three rec letters, he can just ask Poseidon, Amphitrite, and Triton, because it's revealed in one of those side books that following the Titan War, he's on good terms with all three.
Oh, well, at least we still have fanfiction to turn to.
Be on the lookout for another chapter of Promised Year!
Before that, though, please Fav, Follow, and Review!