Persephone's Might: Pt. 4
Welcome back, welcome back!
I am keeping an eye on the calendar, and I do see that we're getting way too close to it being a year since I touched Sea Devil. Be on the lookout for that in due time.
Honestly, I really need to finish that story.
But the muse sings to me about this one!
And the Elden Ring crossover.
And the Shin'en/RWBY crossover.
So much to do, so little time.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or any other media herein
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A menagerie of emotions had gone through the Throne Room during all of what had just transpired.
Persephone just teleporting right inside of New Rome, completely bypassing Terminus, and then wiping out hundreds of monsters like she was Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy. Going out to the Field of Mars, turning it into the Field of Mustafar then back to solid rock after killing three more Giants along with Atlas.
Calypso had some mixed feelings about that one. On one hand, that was her father. On the other hand, he was evil. And that brutality, though….it made Calypso shudder.
Persephone turning into an airplane and shooting off into the air had Zeus popping a blood vessel, but a look from Chaos had him rapidly calming down.
Of course, Kronos coming back to life had some people standing up.
"We need to help her!" Annabeth insisted. "Kronos is too much!"
"Nah," Chaos lazily waved his hand, not even turning around to look at her. "Just sit down and enjoy the show."
What a show it was.
It was never explained how she made those copies of herself, those illusions, but the grand show of the elements as she battered Kronos on all sides was something to behold. Then there was the intelligence she displayed, figuring out that Kronos was barely being held together by his scythe, that he had been so scattered that he needed the powerful essence of Ouranos to reconstitute himself.
And then Persephone killed him, but not before he delivered his chilling warning.
I will return. Things have already been set in motion.
Ominous and dreadful, and also heartbreaking, especially to those particular demigods who didn't want to fight anymore. Those ones who just wanted to retire and having nothing to do with the demigod life based on the notions that they've "done enough" and they "deserve a break." Considering that warning, considering the fact that all the Titans and Giants had come back, it was a stark and painful reminder about the immortality of the enemy, and their own finite lifespans.
It seemed like the whole rest of their lives they were going to be damned to fight monsters and save the world, and they just didn't want to do that. They wanted to live their own lives, be able to make their own decisions, not fight all of their lives and then die.
Ironically enough, not even death meant reprieve, because they could just be brought back to life through some means. Or they could be attacked in the Underworld. After all, the main entrance to Tartarus was down there.
Considering Kronos's warning, and everything currently going on, if Tartarus sent an invasion force, the Underworld was right next door to the pit. It would be the first place attacked.
"None of you are paying very close attention, are you?" Chaos asked, breaking into a lot of thought processes. "Oh, don't give me those looks. I'm a supreme deity. I know everything going on inside those adorable heads of yours."
"What do you mean?" Percy asked, referring to the rhetorical question.
Chaos jabbed a finger at the viewing bubble showing Persephone. "She's putting on a show for a reason. She's putting out more power than she needs to. She is trying to teach you."
"Teach me?" Percy blinked.
"Yes, teach. By example. Everything she has so far done, you can do. Right now, she is blasting a hole so deep in the psyches of these monsters that they will hesitate in ever leaving Tartarus again, in fear of running into her. She is acting as a deterrent, and showing you that you can be the same. And not just you, but all of you."
Chaos waved his hand in a vague manner at the main demigods there on the front row.
"Your full potential is locked by yourselves. You all carry a mental block in your heads that prevents you from expanding and honing your powers to the max. You willingly hold yourselves back. And you do this because you don't want the lives you have. You don't want to be demigods. You don't want to have powers. But Persephone is showing what the opposite looks like. She embraced who she was and trained hard. Look at the payoff. Nine Giants all by herself, five Titans, and over 14,000 monsters, all back-to-back without rest, and she's only just now getting worn out. That's just her. Imagine if you, Nico, Hazel, Thalia, Leo, and Frank, the top powerhouses currently alive, put as much effort into your training as Persephone did. You'd be as terrifying to those monsters as she is, and they'd never dare to try anything as long as you lived, and maybe not even after given how fickle death really is in this world."
Chaos shrugged.
"Oh, well, I suppose. You all have free will, and if you choose not to live as heroes, protecting the weak and the innocent, using your powers for the greater good of humanity, then that's your right. You've earned it, after all."
Chaos directed his attention back to the viewing bubble, where Persephone was on the move again.
Behind him, a lot of demigods felt very bad.
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Before her heavy breathing had fully evened back out, Persephone got back to her feet and did a little shimmy. The big sweat she had worked up made her undies all soaked, and they were riding up inside her butt and her muffin, giving her a very uncomfortable rear and frontal wedgie. However, tomboy as she may have been, she did have some ladylike decorum, and didn't simply reach up into her shorts to pick at her underwear.
Besides, she didn't know who was watching, and so she wasn't giving any more of a show than her shimmy.
She'd only done that because of how bad her wedgie was in the first place.
Persephone's little shimmy maneuver didn't help much, so she just teleported out to the Pacific Ocean and dropped into the water. Instantly, she felt energized and rejuvenated, but she had enough experience with saltwater and exhaustion to know that it was superficial. Dipping into the ocean like she was, with what else she was going to do, and how drained she was, was essentially like chugging a Red Bull mixed with Monster and 5-Hour Energy to give her the boost she needed to finish the rest of her six-hour shift, after she'd already worked for fifteen hours.
What she needed was actual rest, not a pick-me-up.
But she didn't have that luxury right now. There was still work to be done.
Persephone initiated her water travel, only it was leagues better here in the ocean than in the air. It was harder in the air because of how sparse the water was, but here in the Pacific, where all the ocean was connected, it was so much easier. Given how easy it was for Persephone to do it in the air, however, you can imagine how effortless it was to get from the Pacific to Long Island Sound.
Or would've been, had she not smacked into something like a wall outside of the Sound.
"Excuse me, but what the heck?" Persephone demanded.
That's when "the heck" conveniently revealed themselves. Phorcys, Keto, and Oceanus, three deities of the sea older than her father, yet weaker than him.
During the Titan War, all three had teamed up to take on Poseidon and his army in Atlantis, and the Olympian held them at bay. After the war ended, Phorcys and Keto were sentenced to Atlanta for their participation in the war, which is why they opened their deep-sea exhibit in the aquarium. Oceanus retreated to the deeper waters.
During the Giant War, Phorcys and Keto proved to be…underwhelming, all things considered. Both are recorded as being the children of Gaea and Pontus, the primordial god of the sea, meaning they are Titans by any stretch of the definition. And yet, despite being Titans, Keto was knocked out by a kick from Coach Hedge.
A satyr.
A satyr with a gun fetish took out a Titan with one kick to the back of her head.
And then Phorcys, despite being a god of the sea, had his control over his domain usurped by canon Percy. He and Frank got trapped in one of the aquariums, and where Phorcys battled Percy off-screen for control over the water, Percy won out in the end and broke the tank with a tidal wave.
So…
Oceanus: coward
Keto: weak
Phorcys: also weak
Them being in their home territory of the sea also didn't help them, because canon Percy fought Nereus, another sea god, in the sea back during the Titan's Curse. He tricked the god into jumping off a pier, and they both went into the water. Nereus had gotten stronger, but Percy had gotten even stronger than he did, and he successfully wrangled the old sea god.
Persephone, being even stronger than her canon counterpart, especially more so than he was at fourteen, had no trouble with these three gods, even in their home territory. Sticking true to her guns, Persephone made short work of them, getting Keto first, then Oceanus, and Phorcys died last.
Didn't even take a minute.
With them dead, the invisible water barrier or whatever was dropped, and Persephone into the Sound. Camp Half-Blood was occupied by the remaining Giants, Thoon, Mimas, and Clytius, and about another 6,000 monsters, bringing the total amount of monsters brought forth in this resurgent army to roughly 20,000.
Persephone didn't even leave the water. She just sent a tsunami at her home away from home, showing her extreme control over the water by leaving the whole property dry and untouched, while she grabbed every monster and the Giants, and yanked them into the Sound. The monsters were crushed, and Persephone donned her Karas armor to slice up the Giants.
Just like that. Not even 30 minutes yet, and Persephone had a list of kills greater than any demigod that had ever lived.
Kronos.
Hyperion.
Oceanus.
Atlas.
Krios.
Koios.
Porphyrion.
Polybotes.
Alcyoneus.
Orion.
Otis.
Ephialtes.
Enceladus.
Mimas.
Periboia.
Hippolytus.
Thoon.
Clytius.
Keto.
Phorcys.
Over 20,000 monsters of all sizes and shapes.
And she wasn't done yet.
Nodding to herself, Persephone teleported to Indianapolis, where she felt the second smallest contingent of monsters, and one powerful person. Not at all on the scale of the Giants and the Titans, but more like an exceptionally minor god. Must've been one of these emperors she'd heard about.
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Persephone teleported right inside the building known as the Waystation. She'd never heard of it, didn't know it existed, didn't even know she was in it. She raised a brow at what she saw.
"These are new."
The headless foot soldiers that had their faces on their chests, the blemmyae, all stopped what they were doing to behold Persephone.
"Oh, a guest!"
"Lovely!"
"Welcome!"
"We don't get many guests."
"Leonard, go get the fine China, please."
Persephone's brow went even higher as these monsters she's never see before displayed way too much kindness. She'd been alive too long to believe this meant anything good, and instead focused her senses on where the only person with a head was at. He was coming down the hall.
"What is going on out here!?" he bellowed when he threw the doors off their hinges upon entry.
A tall man, looking like he was in his 30s, with bushy brown hair, a matching beard, dazzling blue eyes, great teeth, wearing only a kilt of white silk with purple embroidery of olive branches, held in place by a golden belt. His skin was a healthy tan, and his relative state of undress left his big muscles on clear display.
Persephone gained a little blush as she looked at those rippling pectorals and chiseled abs.
She was gay for Annabeth, but funnily enough, she only looked at Annabeth's body in a sexual and romantic way. No other girl attracted Persephone's attention like Annabeth, but boys did. Persephone could look at a boy and think he was hot, but no other girl made her think that way besides Annabeth.
Annabeth decided that was because Persephone technically wasn't gay, as she had been crushing on Annabeth back when she was still Andrew, a boy. Annabeth liked to say that Persephone wasn't bisexual, straight, or a lesbian, but that she was just Annabeth-sexual.
Case in point, Persephone thought this guy was really good-looking. Which meant he was the enemy she was here to kill, meaning it didn't matter how handsome and sexy he was; he was dead meat.
"Ah, my lord," one of the monsters said, "we have a guest. This is—oh, pardon my rudeness, miss, but I haven't asked your name yet. May I have your-"
"Persephone Jackson, Champion of Chaos," the emperor growled.
The atmosphere in the building changed.
"Which one of the emperors are you?" Persephone asked in a low voice.
"I am Commodus, the New Hercules."
'Not the one that killed Jason, then,' Persephone thought to herself. "The new Hercules? I met Old Hercules—you're not much of an improvement."
Up on Olympus, there was a big round of OHHHH! that went up amongst the spectators, the loudest perhaps being Emmie, Jo, and Leo.
Commodus growled. "We'll see what you have to say about that after I've broken your body."
"No, we won't."
Persephone wasted no more words on him. She teleported right into his face, and her fist collided directly with the underside of his jaw. There was a loud boom from the point of impact, and Commodus went flying away, spinning head over heels like a tire through the sky of the city. Persephone didn't spare a glance behind her as made several ice arrows, and had them race through the building, wiping out the headless monsters herein.
Commodus barely smacked into the ground before Persephone was already on top him. She'd punched him so hard he'd gone from the Waystation to the side of Lucas Oil Stadium, where the Indianapolis Colts played football. Persephone grabbed him by the throat, lifted him, and reared her fist all the way back. It came forward so fast Commodus didn't see it move, but he definitely felt it.
He felt every impact as he went flying through the insides of the stadium, coming through a section of the stands to go tumbling through air, right down the middle of the goalposts. Commodus smacked into the turf and went tearing down the middle of the field, sending the black shrapnel flying everywhere before friction brought him to a halt on the 50-yard line.
He got to his feet and popped his nose back into place, then rubbed his jaw. Other than that, he was completely fine, if not a little pissed off.
Persephone appeared before him, and he punched at her, only to miss. Growling, he punched again and again, adding some crosses and uppercuts in there as well. Commodus looked like a boxer as he punched at Persephone, and she dodged every single fist he threw at her as they went across the whole field at a breakneck pace.
The significant thing about that, however, was that Commodus's punches were clocking in at a few hundred miles an hour. The power of a god, even if minor, and Persephone was easily dodging through them all.
Then Commodus suddenly had his nose busted by something he didn't even see. He stumbled back, working his face in circles to assuage the pain. He glared murder at Persephone, his anger with her outweighing his confusion as to why her eyes were shut tight.
"How were you able to dodge all of that!?"
"You're big and slow," Persephone answered flatly, eyes closed for some reason. "I could deflect bullets when I was fourteen, and I've only gotten faster and more precise. In my world, at camp, we have a class called Bullet Hell. We literally get shot at by pistols, snipers, assault rifles, shotguns, machine guns, miniguns—if it shoots bullets, we use it. I'm one of two campers with a perfect score, meaning I've never been shot. I'm used to the tiny little beads that you can't see coming at me with a muzzle velocity up there in Mach speeds. Compared to that, you're big and slow."
Commodus felt a drop of sweat go down his temple. "You're just a demigod. There's no way you're that fast."
"But I am. I also punched you halfway across the city, and then punched you through the stadium. It's amazing what a demigod can do if they actually apply themselves."
The emperor swallowed heavily. He tried to boost his confidence based on what he'd already seen, as he'd been watching Persephone just like everyone else had. "You can't keep this up for much longer. You're on your last legs, at the limit of your power. You go much further, and you'll burn up!"
"I wouldn't count on that strategy if I were you. You won't take that much effort."
Commodus growled. "Why are your eyes closed like that, anyway?"
"Mantis shrimp."
"What?"
That was the last coherent word Commodus got to utter during his final moments alive. Persephone was right in front of him once more, and she delivered a beatdown straight out of the Arkham videogames, only she was leagues faster than anything the Batman could ever dream of achieving. And leagues harder as well.
Her arms became indistinct blurs as she wailed all over Commodus, splintering every bone in his torso and cranium, rupturing every organ, splitting every square inch of skin. Air whipped and burned around them, disturbed and heated from the friction created by Persephone's highspeed punches.
The reason Persephone was able to punch so fast and deliver so much punishment was already stated: the mantis shrimp.
Up on Olympus
"What…in…the…world…?" Percy asked blankly.
Chaos grinned and hit a button on his remote, and suddenly the English dub narrator from Hunter X Hunter started to narrate things as Persephone demolished the god-emperor without effort.
"In the animal kingdom, the mantis shrimp is known as having the fastest punch in the world, able to punch prey at speeds comparable to that of a .22 caliber bullet. That is to say, at speeds upwards of 700 feet per second. Being the daughter of the sea god, Persephone has developed the power to mimic the abilities of sea creatures, including the punching speed of the mantis shrimp. Mimic. Not copy exactly. In reality, Persephone is punching at over 1200 feet per second. She is punching faster than sound.
"However, this incredible power is not without its drawbacks. In mimicking a sea creature to take on its beneficial traits, she also takes on its debilitating traits as well. One day, Persephone took on the bite power of the Great White Shark and easily bit straight through a Celestial bronze shield, but for the rest of the day, her teeth rapidly fell out of her mouth, though they were replaced just as fast. While studying for a test, she called upon the intelligence of the octopus to help boost her brain power. However, the next time she broke wind, she also broke ink. In mimicking the mantis shrimp's incredible punching power, Persephone has also taken on its incredible eyesight, able to see in colors that the human mind cannot even comprehend. The reason she keeps her eyes shut right now, is that if she were to open them, she would surely go into shock."
Percy sat there, numb with shock. Wind and lightning, able to pull vapor from the air and turn it to ice, teleport through water like Nico through shadows, turn solid rock into lava, bullet-time reflexes, superhuman strength even greater than his own, and now this power. Sea creature mimicry. All things that he could theoretically do if he trained and worked on developing these powers himself.
Percy didn't know what to think anymore.
Back with Persephone
Commodus's skin and muscle started peeling away, creating a golden mist in the air as his ichor was brought to a boil by the heat in the air generated from the speed of Persephone's fists. The stadium was rattling to its foundations from the impact tremors. The rapid booming sounds were heard outside the building. The turf on the field was jumping and bouncing all over the place.
It was actually a testament to Commodus's durability that he had remained as intact as he was for the two seconds that Persephone had been punching him at Mach speeds. But he was starting to come apart now, and Persephone ended him.
Drawing her fist all the back, she shot it forward like a bullet out of a railgun. Commodus exploded, his bones being reduced to powder, his skin, muscles, organs, and divine blood vaporizing into a mist that was dispersed by the shockwave of the final impact. Every tiny bit of turf was thrown up into the stands by the shockwave, and the stands themselves rattled tremendously, some of the screws getting ripped out by the vibrations. Above, the glass dome exploded outwards in all directions. Behind Commodus, the transcendental force of Persephone's final blow ripped the goalpost out of the ground and blasted it into the bottom of the bleachers, the area of which cracked and buckled into a pile of rubble.
Steam rose from Persephone's fists and arms, her knuckles a faint shade of red.
She inhaled, held it for a few seconds, then slowly exhaled.
She hadn't been wrong, though. Despite how brutal and epic that was, and how much power it seemed to take to pull off, it had been easy. Commodus hadn't really required that much effort. He hadn't even required the mantis shrimp; Persephone had just been making a point.
There was only one place left to go, and that was Tahlequah.
Persephone teleported there just as some of the glass came raining down in the football field.
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Persephone teleported right into the enemy camp. They'd set up outside one of Piper's farmhouse on their land, the present emperor barking orders to whatever lackies he had with him, another group of monsters Persephone didn't recognize. They were furry with really big ears that flopped all over the place. They also had seven fingers as opposed to five. Curiously enough, the emperor was sitting atop a white stallion.
"Hey!" Persephone shouted, bringing everything to a halt.
The monsters all shifted nervously in place, all of them clearly aware of who she was and what she had done. The horse more so than anyone else.
"Kid, it's her…"
"I can see that, Incitatus, thank you." The emperor flashed a dazzling smile. "Welcome, Persephone, Champion of Chaos. I am Caligula-"
Persephone's whole body shifted. Her crossed arms dropped to her sides, her eyes widened, her mouth parted slightly, and she went completely rigid. She stared at Caligula, uncomprehendingly, like he was speaking in an alien language.
Then things started changing.
There was a faint rumble in the ground. The air pressure shot up exponentially, along with the humidity. The smell of rain became heavy, and dark clouds began gathering overhead. A cold wind began to blow, its passage through the trees making it turn into a low, ominous whistle.
Persephone's disbelieving expression steadily morphed into one of utter loathing and contempt, and then she hung her head, shut her eyes, placed her left hand on her hip, and used her right hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. "I am going to ring Piper's neck when I get back up there," she said.
"Sorry, what?" Caligula asked.
Persephone slowly looked at him, and the cold fury in her eyes made the emperor sweat. "Jason killed the Titan Krios in single combat, after fighting his way up Mt. Othrys, and then he still had enough power left in him to overcome whatever defenses Kronos's black throne had, and he toppled it. Then he went toe-to-toe with the Giants, the guys that are supposed to be powerful enough to kill the gods, beating them, and would've killed them himself if it weren't for that stupid rule about gods and demigods having to work together. And then there's your scrawny ass who isn't even as powerful as a Titan. The only way I can possibly fathom that Jason would ever be killed by you, is that Piper breaking up with seriously fucked up his head to where he couldn't focus properly in battle. In short, Jason never should've lost to you, and the reason he did is because of Piper. She got him killed."
On Olympus
"Holy shit, she fucking killed her, dude!" Chaos exclaimed to his son Erebus, who just sighed.
"It would appear so."
Persephone might as well have just killed Piper, because the girl was sitting in her chair, slightly slumped forward, her eyes completely hollow as Persephone's words hit her like a freight train. Chaos wasn't helping, either.
Leo reached over and squeezed his surrogate sister's shoulder, but he got no response. Piper was lost in her own head, old feelings of guilt having exploded back to the surface. She hadn't really gotten Jason killed, had she? There had been that prophesy from the Oracle, one of them was going to die if they fought Caligula.
It was the prophecy.
The prophecy had killed Jason.
But Persephone had brought up staggeringly huge points. Jason had killed a Titan, and would've killed Giants if not for their magical protection. Who was Caligula compared to such beings? After all, it was repeatedly stated that his power was equal only to that of a minor god. What was a minor god compared to the Titans? What was a minor god compared to the Olympian-killing Giants?
Oh, gods, Piper really did get Jason killed, didn't she? She should've been the one to have died that night.
Erroneous as her thought process may have been, that's how Piper saw it. She hung her head in her hands and sobbed.
Back with Persephone
"That's certainly one way to look at it," Caligula mused.
"That's the only way to look at it," Persephone insisted in a heavy tone. "And now I'm going to kill you."
The emperor smirked. "In that case, I'll tell you the same thing I told Jason when I skewered him: it's not a game. Pandai! Attack!"
They all dropped dead on the spot, their hearts exploding inside their chests. They turned to dust and blew away in the rising wind.
"Oh," Caligula said flatly.
The next thing he knew, he and Incitatus were blasted away by a wall of invisible force—a gust of hurricane-force wind clocking in at over 160mph. A testament to the durability of the emperor and his horse was that they didn't even have a bruise after that blow, and Caligula even managed to stay gripped to his steed. Incitatus even managed to land on his hooves, though he stumbled a bit from all the momentum.
Persephone had blasted them a mile away from civilization, purely so she didn't bring any harm or destruction to the city and the people that lived there. Including Piper's home.
The daughter of Poseidon crashed down a distance away, kicking up a cloud of dust around her. She came stalking out of it, a terrible sight to behold. Her black cloak with the red clouds and interior swishing around her, the sleeves rolled up revealed her muscular arms, her denim shorts revealing her muscular legs, the high collar of her cloak hiding the lower half of her face, leaving her faintly glowing, angry eyes totally visible. Her black hair with its random cowlicks bounced slightly.
Topping it all off was the tornado descending behind her to touch the ground as her righteous anger over Jason's unjust death called forth the very forces of nature itself.
Caligula and Incitatus swallowed heavily as they came to grips with the fact that they were not fighting the average demigod, but a goddess in the making.
"Shall we run for our lives?" Incitatus suggested flippantly.
"I prefer to call it a tactical disengagement in the name of regrouping and coming up with a better strategy. Run!"
Only Incitatus reared and kicked his legs, an agonized whinny escaping him. Caligula held on tightly.
"What are you doing!?"
"It's her!" Incitatus wailed as he pitched and tossed. "I'm a horse! Poseidon's the father of horses! She's the daughter of Poseidon, meaning she has authority over horses like she does marine life! Were so damned lucky that Percy Jackson himself wasn't there last year when we fought Jason, because we would've been so massively screwed! Not only could he have incapacitated me, but he also could've used all of the ocean we were surrounded by to kill us all and prevent us from ever invading New Rome and almost killing all the Romans in the first place!"
"What!?" Caligula yelped.
Incitatus bucked hard, throwing his master off. Caligula watched blankly as his horse went charging at Persephone, only for her to hit him so hard across the side of his face that his head snapped to the side, his neck instantly broken, and he went flying away from the force of the punch. The dust he turned into was scattered in the raging winds.
Caligula got to his feet and summoned the same spear he killed Jason with a year ago, brandishing it before him.
Persephone advanced at her own pace, her eyes never leaving the emperor.
He crouched and charged, shooting off the ground. Persephone swiped her arm and knocked him aside with a gust of wind. Caligula landed, and shot at her again, only to get blasted by a lightning bolt from above. Undeterred, if a little sore, he made a third attempt, and a fourth, and a fifth, all the way up to a twelfth frontal assault, getting ragdolled by wind and lightning on every attempt.
After that twelfth try, his clothes were in tatters, and he was smoking.
And his rage was overwhelming.
Trying a different tactic, Caligula just started uprooting huge chunks of ground like a brute, and he threw them at Persephone. They all stopped in mid-air and were gently set aside by nothing more than her will. Persephone's next footfall unleashed a tremor so great that Caligula lost his balance and fell, but he quickly got to his feet. He was forced backwards when they ground around him started glowing, and lava burst upwards.
Caligula went jumping from place to place, the ground heating up and becoming molten all over the place. The winds howled and screamed, tornadoes forming across the landscape. The heaviest rain in Oklahoma's history descended from the heavens in a punishing downpour of slanted drops so tightly compact that visibility dropped almost to zero. Lightning pounded the land, splitting trees and starting fires that were put out by the deluge.
Caligula felt like he was being struck on all sides by thousands of golf balls the rain was so intense. Between the water pouring in his face, the intensity of the rain, and the blotted-out sky, the only way Caligula was able to see anything was when a lightning bolt split the sky, which was actually quite often. However, he couldn't see Persephone.
Then she was right in his face.
Caligula flinched back and nailed right in his nose, sending him stumbling as ichor was rapidly washed down his face. Persephone was gone, until she was suddenly next to him, punching him across the jaw so hard his head snapped to the side and he became dizzy due to where he got punched on his jaw. Didn't last long, though.
Caligula shook his head and just swung his spear, swinging it and spinning it in a rather awesome display of skill and strength, generating enough of a barrier around himself that the rain stopped pelting him. It was the same idea behind spinning a sword so fast it deflected bullets.
And then Persephone just grabbed the high-speed death stick and stopped it without so much as a wince. There was a shockwave from the sudden stopping of the spear, the rain getting blasted away before quickly falling right back down.
Persephone's hand sparked with lightning, and Caligula was blasted backwards, subject to electrocution via the tendrils of lightning coming from Persephone. Caligula shrieked as he was ruthlessly shocked. He tried to bring his hands up in front of him, but that did nothing to hold off the lightning.
Persephone, standing there with her hand outstretched, arcs of lightning flying from her and into Caligula, created an image perfect for Star Wars: a vengeful Sith Lord destroying the target of her fury by using her rage to fuel her connection with the Dark Side of the Force.
And when this exact thought popped into Persephone's head, she instantly cut off the lightning. She had slipped, something Percy needed her to not do.
The rain stopped and the tornadoes receded back into the storm clouds. The lightning stopped flashing as well, and the thunder faded away. Persephone took a deep breath and calmed back down.
But she wasn't done. She had one more thing to do.
Caligula somehow managed to stagger to his feet, burnt, crispy, and his hair was burning. "This…is…impossible…!" he hissed through ragged breaths. "You can't do all these things! You're just…you're just…one of Poseidon's brats! There's no way you can travel through water like that, or control wind and lightning like you're some bastard child of Zeus! You can't control lava! You—this—this must be some kind of trick! It has to be!"
Caligula's voice broke with his mind.
Persephone just raised her hand above her, her fist clenched with one finger pointed to the black sky. Wind began swirling above her fingertip, all of the energy gathering in a single point, getting compressed and condensed. Caligula watched with wide eyes as a little ball of energy started to form as all that matter heated up in a single location. Persephone pulled more and more wind into the growing sphere of light.
She stared down her nose at the emperor that killed her cousin.
"My father is the Stormbringer, and I can't control wind and lightning? Who decided that?"
The plasma ball Persephone was making kept getting bigger.
"My father is the Earthshaker, and I can't control the earth, even as lava? Who decided that?"
Caligula started stepping backwards, his eyes wide as plates as the collection of plasma grew even larger.
"My father is the god of the sea, and I can't travel through water or mimic marine life? Who decided that?"
Persephone's plasma ball was now bigger than Piper's modest farmhouse. Her eyes widened slightly, not in shock or terror or panic, but to convey her authority over all things in her father's domain.
"I am Persephone Jackson, daughter of Poseidon, and I will be the who decides. Now die!"
Persephone brought her arm down, finger pointed right at the terrified emperor, and down came the plasma bomb. Caligula turned and ran, but he only made it one step before the plasma slammed into him at terminal velocity. He barely had time to scream in utter agony at the heat before all that energy released in a mighty explosion.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Persephone had teleported away before detonation, far enough away that she wasn't in any danger, but close enough to see the fruits of her labor. She'd never done that before today, only having seen that wind-into-plasma thing in a YouTube clip of an anime she'd watched last week.
That was honestly where the ideas for a lot of her powers came from, various medias. She's seen a few clips of the wizard Gray from Fairy Tail, and clips of Toshiro and Halibel from Bleach, and turning to darker anime, Esdeath from Akame ga Kill and Gilgamesh from the Fate series. Not to mention The Last Airbender and its stupid sequel (stupid to Persephone, anyway; she really didn't like Korra that much). The waterbenders, along with the aforementioned characters, were huge Inspirations in Persephone's training. Also the earthbenders, metalbenders, and the lavabenders. And the airbenders and lightningbenders.
Really, when it came to ideas on elemental manipulation, cartoons and comics were a great place to look.
Persephone worked on every single aspect. She mastered her powers over water, but not just refinement, being able to call on such a minute source as vapor, but also on volume, able to hold back tsunamis. She worked on her earth powers, learning to manipulate rock, melting rock into lava and cooling it back down, and also the tiny bits of ore left in metals. She mastered storms, extrapolating her hurricane technique to bend wind and lightning to her will. And she worked on marine mimicry.
The entire time, when it came to each ability, she always had the guiding mindset of "who said I can't do that?" and she just now put it into words.
But not without cost, however.
She was drained enough as it already was, and her dip in the Pacific had only been a booster, not a full recuperation. Her latest stunt, pulling the wind together and compressing it all into that huge plasma bomb, had taken almost everything she had left out of her, and now she was feeling hot again.
She wobbled and fell over like last time, but someone caught her.
"I told you to stick to the guns and not overdo it," Percy huffed in annoyance.
Seph grinned at her little brother. "You're not the boss of me. I can do what I want to. Besides, that was awesome, and you know it."
"I can make much bigger explosions."
"Because you cheat with your chakra."
"Using a natural advantage to achieve better results is not cheating. It's efficient."
"Cheating."
"Efficiency."
"Cheating!"
"Efficiency!"
"Cheating!" Persephone coughed and wheezed. "Owww…"
"That's what you get for showing off," Percy said pointedly.
"Wasn't showing off. Was making a point."
"To whom? That our idiot counterpart up there?"
"More or less."
"What point are you trying to make? That you're better than he is?"
"Nope."
"Then what?"
"Not telling," Persephone grinned.
Percy rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Thanks to your little nuke just now, you're no good to me."
"Excuse you, mister."
"I mean that seriously. As you are, you can't help me fight-"
In the distance a mountain range seemingly fell into a sinkhole, and a huge dragon, big as the mountains came roaring out of the dust cloud. The dragon was blacker than the ace of spades and could comfortably fit on top of a college campus. He had two sets of wings, the first and largest set placed at his shoulders above his arms, and the second set above his hind legs. His tail ended in a huge club adorned with spikes, and his neck boasted a head with six red eyes, three on either side, and a huge maw of sharp teeth.
"Is that Tartarus?" Persephone asked.
"Yep," Percy answered shortly. "Was starting to get too crowded down there in the pit, so I brought him up here for the sake of breathing room. I was hoping you'd have been smarter and not wasted your energy so you could help me, but your brain is made of seaweed. I should've remembered."
"You're a butt."
"No, I'm the one who has to continue fighting a Primordial god all by myself because my big sister is retarded."
"Oh, hush up. Just keep him busy for like, five minutes. The Gulf isn't that far from here."
"You need actual rest. You've almost hit your limit twice within an hour. You can't keep going like this."
"I've got enough left in me. Just keep him busy. I'll be right back as soon as I can."
Persephone teleported away through the water to the Gulf of Mexico to supercharge herself again, leaving Shin'en to fight Tartarus by himself once more.
All six of those red eyes were glaring at Shin'en. Tartarus was not happy.
"Try this one on for size, big boy," Shin'en muttered under his breath.
Pulling the water from the storm his sister had conjured, he created a veritable mountain of dihydrogen monoxide, and with an application of will, he shaped all of that water into a dragon of his own. With an amorphous, blobby base of a body, and thirteen huge necks ending in draconian heads with glowing red eyes, Shin'en recreated his terrifying Thirteen-Headed Dragon Jutsu without chakra.
What he did use his chakra for was to encase the whole water construct in the dark emerald armor of the Perfect Susano'o in the same way Sasuke could armor Naruto's Kurama avatar in his own Perfect Susano'o.
"Alright, Tartarus. Round two."
The dragon-formed Primordial roared so loud the clouds split, and the impacts of his huge feet were felt in places dozens of miles away. He charged across the land at Shin'en, and Shin'en directed his water dragon across the terrain as well.
The two beings met, causing heaven and earth to tremble.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
So, if you didn't know, I really hate the Trials of Apollo. The logic Riordan uses to explain the actions of the former Heroes of Olympus, especially Percy and Piper, is fucking atrocious and not true to the character established across nine books for Percy, and four books for Piper. I can't resist taking digs at them whenever I can.
Anyway, Persephone is Escanor. But with plasma instead of miniature suns. I've been looking forward to having her drop those lines for a long time now.
Big CGI battle coming up next chapter! Don't bother comparing it to the fight between Leviathan and his version of Tartarus.
Anyone seeing the Elden Ring nods I put in this chapter and the last chapter? Kronos's appearance was based on Radagon, and Tartarus's dragon form is based on Gransax! :D
Look them up if you don't know who they are.
Next chapter ends the Might arc with the twins fighting Tartarus.
…and don't think for an instant I've forgotten about Nero.
Fav, Follow, and Review please!
More than two this time, damn.