Persephone's Might: Pt. Final
Didn't expect this one, did ya?
Switching gears here for a chapter or two because I have seen how I want this arc to end and I've seen it for a long time now.
For those confused where I've been, I've been working on a Piper-centric fic that's about the missing three months between the end of Maze and the end of Tower, because since Riordan will never write it, I'll do it myself.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or any other crossovers
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Complete silence reigned in the throne room as the gods and demigods beheld a sight unprecedented: the dark god Tartarus in the flesh, tearing the earth asunder as he battled the Percy Jackson of another reality.
The Percy of this reality was frozen through to his core, his own experience with the god flashing across his mind. When Tartarus had manifested, he had dropped his sword in sheer terror as he felt the power of the Primordial…who wasn't even trying to be scary. He had been primping over his physical form and hadn't even cared to turn his attention to Percy.
And now his worst nightmare was up here on earth, in the form of a monolithic dragon, fighting himself from an alternate reality.
Perhaps the worst part, though, was how Percy was perfectly fine with sitting here in the throne room and not going out there to fight.
"Well, I am insulted," Chaos suddenly grumbled. "He never fought me this hard."
"Perhaps," Erebus suggested, "that was because he knew he never stood a chance and saw no point in putting forth this much effort against you."
"What makes him thinks he stands a chance against Shin'en-fucking-Yūrei?"
"He's a demigod?"
"He's, like, seven-eighths god, though. His blood's orange, tinging on gold."
"Still not a full god."
"And yet he can kick divine ass like taking candy from a baby."
"To be fair, the Olympians aren't much of a measuring stick."
Chaos nodded sagely. "That is true."
The gods weren't particularly thrilled to be insulted to their faces, but none of them, not even the brash Zeus, dared to say anything against Erebus by himself, let alone Chaos, the creator of everything and most powerful being any of them had ever encountered, save for two.
"My brother, however," Erebus continued, "speaks for himself."
"He certainly does make his old man proud."
Erebus just raised a brow with a flat expression.
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Cataclysmic was a good way to describe the battle between Shin'en and Tartarus. Their draconian battle forms split the land asunder almost down to the mantle. The weather came undone. As Shin'en led the Primordial to the East, they began to level the Ozark Plateau, obliterating towering structures of rock left and right as they blasted each other with chakra and divine energy, and just sheer physical strength.
There really wasn't any strategy in play for either of them, beyond hitting the other until they yielded, which, after duking it out in the bowels in of the earth for so long, didn't seem to be a soon-occurring occurrence.
Seem.
Shin'en knew otherwise.
The Akatsuki member took a second to survey the landscape, and saw that if the battle continued at its current pace, then the planet would be in danger of coming apart, and Chaos specifically said don't destroy the planet. Shin'en needed to change this up and put and end to it. Problem was how.
Tartarus had broken the mold for the Primordials, in that they were weakened when their essence was disconnected from their domains. Ouranos and Gaea being the only examples, but it was still the same. Tartarus, however, in this form, hadn't disconnected from his domain—he had brought his domain with him.
The god had folded the landscape that was his body, absorbing everything that scurried across his form from the lowliest of monsters, and the Titans, to the very essences of his own children the Giants. So, Shin'en, like Leviathan, wasn't fighting just Tartarus, but a juiced-up Tartarus riding high on the additional power of so many other divine beings.
Because Tartarus had brought his domain and essence together, he couldn't be disconnected like Ouranos and Gaea had been from the sky and earth…at least, not as easily. The flip side, however, was that every blow to Tartarus in his current form actually hurt and dealt damage.
It was just that Tartarus was hysterically durable, could heal himself, and had a massive pool of power.
It was like fighting a boss with a billion health, 1000-percent resistance to all damage types, and a regeneration buff of a million health per second. But all bosses had a weakness. All Shin'en had to do was separate Tartarus's essence from his body, and he'd be vulnerable to the point he could be neutralized like his siblings.
Just how to do that, though…
Tartarus swiped his claw through one of the thirteen heads of Shin'en's Susano'o-encased water dragon, and broke right through the chakra construct. Shin'en winced, not in pain, but from the fact that he was also starting to wear out. As vast as his chakra reserves were, they did have a limit.
Shin'en had about quarter of a tank to go.
It had been years since he'd gotten this low on chakra.
Shin'en redirected his focus to the Primordial. Three of the twelve remaining heads came around and released Gale Style chakra blasts, and Tartarus blocked with one of his four wings. A fourth head came from above and clamped around the god's neck, while a fifth came from below to do the same, and the heads pulled and pushed to lift Tartarus's front end up, exposing his front, but the god viciously tossed his head, breaking out of the chokehold. The other seven of Shin'en's dragon heads released the chakra he had been channeling through them at the same time Tartarus released his own blast of divine energy.
There was a terrific explosion comparable only to that of the 1815 Mount Tambora explosion. Blowing off 13,000 feet of peak, the volcano erupted with 800 megatons of TNT. Comparably, Fat Man, the bigger of the two atomic bombs, exploded with only 21 kilotons. The difference between the two explosions is only a factor of a mere 38,095.
Trees and mountains sublimated, going from a solid state straight to gas. The temperature skyrocketed, reaching into the thousands of degrees Fahrenheit. The sound of the explosion was heard over 2000 miles away in every direction from the Ozark Plateau in Arkansas, and the rumbling registered on scales ever further. There was no massive cloud of ash and dust, because the force and heat had destroyed the very matter.
Not even Shin'en and Tartarus escaped such a blast right in their faces.
The Susano'o splintered and the water evaporated, with Shin'en actually getting burned from the heat. Likewise, the physical form Tartarus took suffered its own serious burns, some going right down to the muscle. They both used their respective teleportation methods to get away from ground zero, Shin'en going to the Gulf, Tartarus going elsewhere to regenerate.
"Percy!"
"Oh, right," Shin'en said despondently. "You're down here too."
"What on earth happened to you!?" Persephone cried, having shot through the ocean as soon as she felt her little brother drop in a few miles away.
"I blew up Malaysia."
"You what?"
"Johnny Test reference."
"Oh, you saw that too?"
"I saw it when you saw it."
"You mean when we were linked in our dreams?"
"Yeah."
"That's so cool."
"Not really. I once tuned in just in time to watch you piss your pants because some bullies wouldn't let you use the bathroom, and then you beat up all the bullies and got kicked out of the daycare."
Persephone blushed. "O-Oh. Yeah. I remember that day. Those were my favorite undies, too."
"Quite unfortunate."
"Yeah—hey! Quit dodging the question by changing the subject!"
Shin'en smirked. "Works every time."
Persephone crossed her arms in the depths with a pointed look. "Well, not this time. You tell me what happened right now, mister."
"Tartarus and I blew each other up with a few hundred megatons."
Persephone's eyes bugged out. "A few hundred megatons?"
Shin'en looked at his sister. "You actually know what a megaton is?"
"I didn't tune out every lecture I was ever in."
"Annabeth had to help you with your homework."
Persephone blushed. "Annabeth helped me with my homework," she confessed.
Shin'en nodded. "Figured. Welp, I think we've spent enough time down here. Time to go finish Tartarus."
"Go finish Tartarus?" Persephone balked. "You mean blasting him in the face with, like, a few thousand times the force of Nagasaki wasn't enough to put him down? It was enough to put Gaea down!"
"Gaea was 20,000 feet in the air. A few miles from her domain. Tartarus folded himself up and brought himself to the surface. We're fighting the package deal of the domain and the personification of the domain."
"So…all we need to do is separate his essence from his body and pulverize his essence?"
"Yeah."
"Cool. Sounds easy enough. How do we do that?"
"You mean how do we separate someone's soul from their physical self?"
"Yeah."
"You mean that thing we do whenever we dream?"
Persephone grinned. "Got'cha."
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Tartarus growled to himself somewhere in the continental United States. That explosion had actually hurt. He hadn't felt anything like that in several thousand years, not since he was a new god learning how to use his powers as he trained with his father and siblings.
You might say that Tartarus was out of shape, really.
Didn't matter though. He was still one of the most powerful gods in the universe. A few more minutes and he'd be ready to rumble again. Not that he wasn't ready to go right now, it was just that he'd be even more ready with a little bit of rest. He really needed see about reconnecting with his father and siblings, get some training in, because there was no excuse for him, the mighty Tartarus, to be pushed to this extent by a lowly demigod, no matter who it was or where he came from.
Oh, well.
Tartarus didn't feel Shin'en's essence anywhere nearby, but wasn't stupid enough to think he had been destroyed in the explosion. Damn brat probably teleported away just like he did, so he could tend to his own wounds. No doubt more severe than what Tartarus had sustained. The currently humanoid Primordial figured it was safe enough to lean back against the cave wall and let his energies return, easing his consciousness down into a state comparable to sleep.
Which is why he suddenly snapped awake just as the image of a blazing nine-point star flashed across his mind.
What was he doing!? He was Tartarus! He didn't sleep!
Well, for the most part. He'd technically been slumbering for thousands of years, vaguely keeping up with current events, and only really "woke up" when Percy and Annabeth managed to successfully navigate their way across his physical form, but that wasn't the point.
"The Mist?" Tartarus seethed. "You dare use the Mist against me? Me? Idiot dust mite, I was ancient long before the Mist ever existed!"
Tartarus clapped his hands together, and the shockwave was so powerful that his obliterated the whole cave system, collapsing several thousands tons of rock. Now the dark god was pissed off.
"Looking for me?"
Hovering in midair, Tartarus turned to see Shin'en standing on a platform of water.
"I was," Tartarus answered, and then he attacked.
Staying in his humanoid form, eight feet tall and built like a wrestler, the Primordial flew through the air at Shin'en, who just moved backward on his water platform. Growling, Tartarus decided it was best to teleport, and found that Shin'en did the same thing.
"Wow," Shin'en said. "All those beings you absorbed, all those monsters, Titans, even your own children, all that power, and all those abilities, and you've got no idea how to use them. You lack imagination."
A blood vessel popped along Tartarus's temple. "I'll show you imagination!"
He started glowing, his form ramping up, and then a flash of light that burst from crown to crotch.
"What…?" Tartarus asked. And then he howled when a blade burst through his chest, causing jagged, glowing lines to start spreading from the protrusion. "What trickery is this…!?"
The Primordial looked at Shin'en, and saw his eyes glowing a faint red.
Tartarus's own eyes widened. "Wh-When did you-?"
"From the beginning and then on," Shin'en answered. "Even you can't be making so much eye contact with me without it becoming detrimental."
The fury of the Primordial reached reactor meltdown levels, and he proceeded to go nuclear, figuring he would simply reconstitute and be able to try again another day.
Shin'en's eyes widened as Tartarus reached the luminosity of a star, and he canceled the essence projection. He had pulled the ol' switcheroo on the Primordial, in that when the bad guys of the books would pull a demigod's dreams off course in their sleep, he had used his Mist-based genjutsu to lull Tartarus into a brief slumber after so much monumental struggle, and then pulled his consciousness into a dream, therefore separating his essence and his body while Persephone struck at the physical self, and Shin'en dealt with the spiritual Tartarus.
Only for it to backfire as Tartarus decided to self-destruct.
Shin'en released the god's spirit, but it was too late. From his spot in the ocean, he cried out through his telepathic link with his sister, 'GET OUT OF THERE!'
Persephone tried. Her body was dissolving into water particles as she yanked Riptide out of Tartarus's glowing chest, but he erupted before she could get away.
She screamed in pure agony as she was effectively blasted by the true form of a Primordial, and the mental backlash knocked Shin'en out.
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When consciousness returned to him, his head throbbed, and his senses automatically expanded to take in his surroundings. The throne room, everyone was present, he was wearing clothes, and there was someone very important missing.
Shin'en's eyes popped open and he rose to his feet, bringing all murmuring to a stop. He ignored literally everything and focused solely on Chaos, who was grinning.
"Where is she?" Shin'en asked in a very calm, cold, and clear manner.
"Now, where would the fun be in just telling you?"
"Chaos," Shin'en growled.
"Oh, don't snarl at me, kiddo. You're not even back to half of your full strength yet, and even at full strength, you're still hardly any more menacing than a rabid squirrel. To me, anyway."
Erebus's stare was piercing. "You already know."
The ground at Shin'en's feet frosted over and a few stray arcs of electricity lashed at the ceiling. "Where. Is. Nero."
"Don't know," Chaos shrugged. "But his tower respawned there in downtown. Leontocephaline's there too. Might have to carve through some people to get to him though."
Another growl emanated from Shin'en, this one lower, louder, and definitely not human.
"Hey, man. The more time you waste up here, the more time Nero has to spend alone with that lovely sister of yours."
Shin'en's face contorted into one of unbridled rage, and the creepiest thing happened: huge, black, feathery wings burst from his back, the wings of Satori, acquired years ago back when he his body was damaged and he was seeking ways to bolster himself. With a single flap, Shin'en shot from the ground and smashed right through the ceiling of the throne room, showering the area under him with rubble, and he tore through the air.
"…that' always so cool," Chaos commented off-handedly. "Those big, black wings coming out. Like a fallen angel or something."
"Uh…" someone spoke up.
Chaos and Erebus turned around to see Percy had bravely raised his hand.
"What was that?"
"What was what?" Chaos asked. "I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific."
"All of…that…"
"Oh, that was Shin'en fighting my little boy, Tartarus, to a standstill, and then pulling his essence out of his body in the same way you kids get stuck in dreams, only for it to backfire spectacularly. In all the commotion, Nero swooped in and kidnapped Persephone, I brought Shin'en here, and now Nero is somewhere unknown, but Shin'en is going to find out where she is by most likely brutally torturing the Leontocephaline. Oh, and those wings were from a demon he defeated and absorbed into his body, dominating and destroying the evil spirit so that only the power remains."
About the only thought almost anyone could manage after that speech was summed up by Piper, "Oh."
Almost anyone.
Meg raised her hand. "What does he have against Nero?"
"You have no idea what your stepdad-"
"He was never my stepfather," Meg asserted.
"Hm, cool. Interrupt me again and I'll turn you into a worm and use you as live bait. As I was saying, you have no idea what your stepdad used to do back when he was human, do you?"
"He was an evil person," Meg answered.
Chaos snorted. "He was a pedophilic furry. One of his favorite things to do back in the day was put on this animal outfit and terrorize the kidnapped children of political rivals or slaves by barking at them, biting them, and raping them. And he's since had two thousand years to…explore. And he's got the powers of a god now, too. And he's got a fetching specimen like Persephone all to himself now. You know, she isn't eighteen yet, so she is lawfully a minor."
And the biggest feeling of dread settled over everyone in the throne room.
Well, mostly everyone.
There were a number of sick fucks present, after all.
"Think Shin'en's going to make it in time?" Chaos asked Erebus.
"Considering what is at stake, yes."
Chaos grinned. "I do love being me. Only supposed to be a happy little year-long jaunt, but then I just had to swoop in and spice things up. Great, isn't it?"
"I suppose," Erebus said.
Chaos hit a button on his remote and tuned the viewing bubble back to Shin'en, just in time to see him smash right through the tower's side, sending glass flying in every forward direction.
What a sight he made, too.
The black cloak that hid his lower face. His blazing scarlet eyes. His big wings spread behind him. The light of the fading sun reflecting off the other Manhattan high-rises, framing him. And of course, the eldritch aura of pure malice.
In the throne room, only two recognized that aura. Percy and Annabeth watched and were reminded of that time in the pit when they encountered Akhlys, and Percy had snapped. He had accessed forbidden powers, taking control of the goddess's fluids to suffocate her. It had been the most terrifying moment so far in their lives, matched only by right now, as they bore witness to Shin'en on his crusade for Persephone.
Meanwhile, those who were part of last year's "invasion force" of Nero's tower didn't know what to think. Apollo, Meg, Nico, Will, Austin, Kayla, Rachel, Luguselwa, and Chiron—they remembered storming the tower last year, the people that defended it, and the Leontocephaline himself.
According to the myths, the Leontocephaline was a being created by the Persian god Mithras to serve as the guardian of the stars, making sure they moved accordingly and the phases of the zodiac were maintained, while also being the guardian of Mithras's scepter of immortality. In the book, the Leontocephaline was employed by Nero to guard his scared axe, his fasces, which was the symbol of his divine power like Zeus had his Master Bolt and Poseidon his trident. The way that the invasion force "defeated" the guardian was by Luguselwa going before him, and offering to trade her immortality for the fasces.
The Leontocephaline agreed because Lu was only immortal because of Nero, and so she was effectively trading her Nero-given immortality for Nero's fasces-given immortality, like trading a dollar for another dollar, and the Leontocephaline found this to be amusing.
Basically, Nero only lost in the final battle because his hired help was only in it for the laughs.
Things were different this time.
No one could say for certain just how powerful the Leontocephaline was, but they had all just watched Shin'en fight Tartarus himself.
What wasn't different this time was all the humans present. Just like last year, Nero's tower was teeming with human scum, and it appeared that Shin'en had just crashed some kind of meeting. Before anyone could think anything about it, all the humans in the conference room were suddenly yanked into the air, and then flung out the windows. They screamed all the way down, and then there was more screaming when the bodies hit the floor.
Chaos turned his head 180-degrees. "There's a lot of water in the human body," he happily informed.
As what Chaos was alluding to clicked at varying speeds within everyone's mind, they all got uncomfortable.
Back to Shin'en, he wasted no time in probing the tower, obviously not finding Nero, but he did find the Leontocephaline. The chamber was airtight, no vents, seems, or anything, meaning Shin'en couldn't just water-travel inside, but there was nothing stopping him from just water-traveling to the door and kicking it in.
Shin'en eyed the monster. Admittedly, it was a very imposing creature. Seven feet tall with the tanned body of a muscular man, patches of golden fur along the shins and forearms, a thick bush covering the crotch, and the chest was completely covered. The head of a lion was attached to the shoulders, with a beautiful golden mane that spread halfway down his back, piercing yellow eyes, and black ears atop his head. Curling around the frame of the Leontocephaline was a green serpent, starting at the ankles, winding all the way up to the neck, though there was no visible tail or head to the serpent. Sprouting from the monster's back were a pair glowing white wings, perfect for the classical depiction of an angel.
If Shin'en were in the mood to be honest, he'd say the Leontocephaline would fit right in with Leviathan's Awakened Being army.
"I'm going to ask you only once, and then I get mad," Shin'en said with a deceptive amount of calm in his voice. "Where is Nero?"
The Leontocephaline grabbed the serpent entwining his body and tore it away. In his hand, the serpent burned away and revealed a golden scepter about four feet long, topped with the symbol of the Faravahar. The monster brandished the scepter, and not in a "here, have this," kind of way.
Shin'en got mad.
His Susano'o roared to life around him, and the Leontocephaline tore through the backwall with a flap of his wings, just barely avoiding the huge chakra arrow that went tearing through the newly made hole, and a number of skyscrapers down the line before finally losing enough momentum that it exploded against the final building. And every previously struck building collapsed from the point of impact.
Shin'en just killed thousands of people and caused billions in property damage to get to his big sister.
Dispelling the Susano'o, Shin'en deployed his wings and flapped. A sonic boom denoted the breaking of the sound barrier, and he shot out of Nero's tower after the Leontocephaline. Mithras's creation had some good speed and a better head start, but Shin'en caught up to him within seconds, slamming into the monster from behind.
Curiously enough, the Leontocephaline had been gaining altitude, getting into an airspace above Olympus, most likely trying to get closer to the stars. Whatever the case, Shin'en grabbed the monster's wings and tore them right out of his back. The Leontocephaline howled in pain, actual red blood pouring from the wounds, and he went howling towards the mountain of the gods when Shin'en kicked him.
Then it came to pass, in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with Chaos, that the Leontocephaline ended up smashing through another section of the throne room ceiling to smack down before the assembled gods and demigods.
Shin'en darkened the whole as he descended, bringing with him the horrifying visage of an angel banished from heaven with his dark wings spread wide around him. He lightly touched upon the ground, wings receding into his back, somehow leaving his cloak completely undamaged.
Mithras's scepter had gotten lost during that brief exchange, leaving the Leontocephaline without an apparent weapon.
With all the pride of a lion, the monster growled menacingly at the approaching Shin'en.
The temperature started to plummet, breath steaming in the air. Hestia's fire started to dim, prompting the child-like goddess to launch into a panic as she desperately started stoking it. Frost crept across the ground, and the fountains in the throne room started to froth less and less and the water started to grow cold and still, chunks of ice starting to form.
Nico was back there with a death grip on Will's hand, seeing himself in Shin'en, seeing what he would've become without the love and support of his friends. Likewise, Percy was about to splinter the bones in Annabeth's hand, because he was seeing what he would've become if she hadn't been there to pull him back from the brink during the encounter with Akhlys.
Water flowed to Shin'en's hand and solidified into an ugly, serrated carving knife. "I'm going to start carving chunks out of you the longer you don't tell me what I want to know."
"Return my wings, and we have terms," said the Leontocephaline. His voice was deep and powerful as you might expect of a talking lion.
Shin'en paused, thought about it, then said, "Very well."
He then performed a veritable miracle, commanding the water from the fountains to come over and touch the protruding bones from where he'd ripped off the wings in the first place. With the water, Shin'en regrew muscle, bones, tendons, feathers, and everything else needed for the Leontocephaline's wings. In less than a minute, a new pair of beautiful, glowing white appendages were in place.
The monster stood up and flexed a few times, then looked at Shin'en. "Basilica di San Pietro."
Shin'en was on the move.
"'Sup, dude?" Chaos said to the Leontocephaline, who excused himself from the rest of the story by dissolving in a shimmer of golden sparkles. "Huh. Okay, then. Let's see what's going on with Persephone and Nero to up the stakes, shall we?"
Chaos clicked the button on his remote to change the viewing bubble, and what was shown caused sharp gasps to be drawn from almost everyone present.
"Oh," Chaos blinked. "That's compromising."
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When Persephone awoke, the first thing she noted was how cold it was. She quickly realized that was because she was completely naked, her arms and legs spread and locked in place by golden shackles. The first thing she tried was water-traveling herself out of here, but found that she couldn't do that. She couldn't even feel out any of the water in the surrounding area.
Her powers were being blocked.
Persephone looked around, and from the burning torches saw she was in a very beautiful and ornate venue with a high ceiling, but any majesty she might've felt was lost in the face of the fact that her muffin was on full display for anyone to see. Luckily, there wasn't anyone around, save for one man.
Man being a very loosely used term in this context.
Persephone craned her head to look towards her feet, and she saw at the pulpit was an overweight man, just as naked as she was but far less groomed down under, much to her disgust, on his knees with his hands raised over his head.
"Nero," Persephone ground out.
The last emperor grinned at her, and then began to chant in some language. "Roan veldai shukuku, nebreften! Zarzas, zarzas, nerzas!"
Persephone narrowed her eyes, unfamiliar with the language, but she recognized a chant when she heard one.
Nero continued, "Agun dem, dortem wieden lar!"
"What are you doing?" Persephone demanded. "Are you trying to summon something?"
The emperor grinned even wider. "Rott gar! Satani!"
The effect of Nero's spell was immediate.
Persephone felt a great rumbling in the earth, the temperature climbing inside this place she was in. She craned her backwards, her vision inverting, and she saw at the opposite end of the long corridor a blazing stream of fire in the shape of a snake erupt out of the ground and tear right through the high roof. The tail eventually cleared the floor and went with the rest of the body, but not before Persephone the place shake with an explosion outside, and she heard multitudes of people screaming.
Outside, the fiery serpent unleashed hell upon the Roman night, tearing down the streets, burning people to ash and setting the city ablaze.
Persephone's eyes widened as she heard the symphony of destruction. "Did you just…summon the devil?"
Nero stood and started approaching her. "Something like that, yes. That's only a portion of what he allowed me to use, but it will get the job done."
"What job?" Persephone started struggling against her shackles, but she couldn't even budge.
"Why, the destruction of all that is," Nero said with a disturbing smile. He stood over Persephone and lowered himself, planting his knees on either side of her hips with hands on either side of her head.
Persephone turned away to keep her lips as far from him as she could. "Do you really think I'll just let you use me for your disgusting magic?"
Nero smirked. "I will soon merge with this gift, and I will send this cursed city crashing down to hell, and you, my young demigod, you will make my power strong."
Persephone bared her teeth. "Making a deal with the devil, huh? Pretty sure that's only going to end with you spending an eternity in pain."
Nero's smirk grew into a deranged smile. "How marvelous you are," he said reverently. "I'm going to violate every part of your being. I will consume your body and soul, leaving you in ruin."
Persephone didn't even acknowledge that. "Percy, I know you're out there. Please stop waiting to make some dramatic entrance and kill this bastard already."
"Your brother has long since been destroyed," Nero said confidently. "Now it's time for you to know your death." And then he leaned down and bit Persephone on the neck hard enough to break skin and taste her blood. "I want you to scream. I can taste your sweet blood rushing through your body!"
Persephone's eyes widened. "PERCY!"
Her scream echoed through the whole basilica, reverberating through every chamber and hallway. Outside, the blazing serpent continued its unstoppable path of destruction, bringing calamity to Rome.
Persephone arched her back and cringed as she felt her blood being pulled through her body and out of the incision in her neck. Nero opened his mouth and slurped up the stream. Then he tossed his hands up and roared as an aura of power erupted around him.
That's when Percy smashed right through the basilica and punched Nero in the face, sending the disgusting god through the opposite end of the giant church.
"About damn time," Persephone huffed. "Did you bring me any undies? It's cold."
Percy didn't say anything. He just tore the shackles binding his sister, and draped his cloak around her. In taking his cloak off, he exposed the numerous scars that decorated his body from when he was thirteen and overloaded his chakra network, causing his coils to rupture.
"Percy?" Persephone asked, buttoning the cloak as far down as it would go. "Are you okay?"
"No."
Then he looked at her, and Persephone immediately held her finger up, "I don't know what you're thinking right now, mister, but-"
Shin'en grabbed his sister's finger and forced her to water-travel across the globe to the women's clothing section of a department store that was closed for the day.
Persephone blinked a few times, getting her bearings amongst the panty racks. Then her face contorted, and she screamed. "Percy Jackson! You butthole!"
Back across the planet, Shin'en showed just how not okay he really was right now. His pupils shifted, going from black dots to black omegas. His hair stood straight up. His form glowed with chakra, and there was a great explosion of power from him that completely obliterated the beautiful basilica of St. Peter. The modern building was almost 400 years old, and it was completely gone within 400 nanoseconds.
The shockwave continued and leveled everything within a mile. A hurricane swirled to life just off the coast and instantly tore into the mainland, buffeting the holy city with winds climbing above 175mph, and sheets of rain so hard and heavy that it was almost impossible to see.
Shin'en didn't stop there, though. As completely broken as Demigod Mode was, he added onto it. Calling upon the Dark Chakra of the Zero-Tails, Shin'en further flooded his system. With that chakra racing through his body, he was able to open all of his Inner Gates, even the Eighth Gate of Death, without dying.
There was something else Shin'en could've done, but for the sake of his sister and what this year was supposed to be, he refrained. But only just barely.
The unholy fire battled against the rain, steaming yet burning all the same.
Nero tried to attack. He had accepted the power of the fiery serpent and underwent his own transformation into some hideous, humanoid thing—a proper beast, really—but it was a short fight. Nero just didn't have anything that could match the sheer, unbridled fury Shin'en harbored for him, for what he had done, for what he had been about to do.
While Persephone was busy trying to find clothes that fit, the gods and demigods on Olympus got to watch live and in 4k Ultra-HD as Shin'en literally beat Nero to death with his bear hands. Each blow struck like a meteor and caused fissures with every impact, while deepening and widening existing fissures.
Nero's skull eventually couldn't take it anymore, and collapsed into a pile of bloody paste, and when Shin'en's fist next struck the earth, it finally buckled and gave way all around. Shin'en and Nero's body were left on a stone spire, surrounded by billowing flames.
When Shin'en looked down, he saw something in the fire: the silhouette of a dragon with seven heads and ten horns.
All seven of those heads raised up, and out of the flame came the glittering red body of the dragon, his fourteen eyes locked onto Shin'en's glowing form. Nero's head started to reconstitute, and shortly enough, his eyes were fluttering open to see the dragon.
He squeaked, and that was the last sound he ever made while alive.
Shin'en unceremoniously grabbed him and threw him to the dragon, who opened his maw and snapped the emperor up whole.
"Want to fight me too?" Shin'en asked the dragon.
"I have no need to fight you. I will have your soul in due time."
"Don't bet on it."
The dragon lowered himself back into the flames, and the ground sealed up. The fires across Rome were instantly extinguished, and the raging winds and battering rain came to a stop. Shin'en exhaled, pulling back his chakra.
That's when Persephone, clad in whatever she found in the store, popped back up, Riptide in hand. "Alright, let's kick his-! Oh."
She dropped Riptide and hastily shrugged out of the cloak, handing it back to her brother so he could cover his body back up.
"I'll find the one I gave you," Shin'en promised.
"Cool. And you're a butt."
"Was I supposed to let you fight naked so everyone could get free shots of your muffin?"
"Well, no…but you should've waited for me so we could've fought Nero together!"
"…um, why?"
"Because I wanted to kick him in the nuts for leaving me naked! You have deprived me of that chance!"
"Wow. You successfully used the word deprived in a sentence. Annabeth will be so proud."
"Won't she? And don't change the subject!" Persephone put her hands on her hips.
"Did he do anything to you?" Shin'en asked, no longer joking.
The sudden shift caught Persephone off-guard. "Huh?"
"He had you lying naked for an undetermined amount of time. Did he do anything to you? Do you have any aches, pains, or soreness in your rect—in your butt or your muffin?"
Shin'en stopped himself from saying "rectum" because he figured his sister either didn't know what that was, or would find the word uncomfortable in the same way she found vagina to be uncomfortable.
The color drained from Persephone's face as she realized what her brother was asking. Maybe her head really was full of kelp, because the possibility of Nero having raped her when she was unconscious never occurred to her until Percy brought it up just now. She shifted a little bit. "I don't…nothing hurts. I need to poop, though."
Shin'en just nodded.
Persephone could tell something else was bothering him, but she could also tell that it was something he would never open up about, and so she didn't push it. "Is that it, then? Are we done? We took down Tartarus, Kronos, the Titans, Giants, and the emperors."
"Yeah. We're done."
Persephone looked around on the blackened remains of huge swaths of Rome. "Is there anything we can do?"
"Nothing besides pitching in a few billion dollars to help with cleanup and repairs."
"Don't you have billions of dollars?"
"No."
"Okay. What about people trapped in the rubble or something?"
"There isn't anyone trapped in the rubble. Use your own senses."
Persephone did that, and sure enough, there wasn't anyone trapped in any rubble. Anyone that had gotten caught in the blaze had been cremated. "So…this is what Nero is capable of?"
"No. This is what the devil is capable of."
"I…see…"
Persephone took another look at the destruction the fiery serpent had wrought. She got a look in her eye.
"No," Shin'en immediately said.
"Huh? No what?"
"We are not going to dive into hell so we can fight Satan."
"I mean, we'd be doing the world a real big favor, though."
"Yes, but after Tartarus, I don't feel like fighting a major force of evil in his home territory."
"Then we lure the devil out of hell and fight him up here," Persephone determined.
"To be clear, are we talking about the devil of this world, or our own?"
"Both," Persephone decided. "Both is good."
"Alright, Tulio."
"You bet it's alright, Miguel."
"Still not gonna do it though."
"Yes, we are."
"No, we're not."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes!"
"No!"
"I'm your big sister, and I said so."
"You are twelve minutes older than me-"
"Exactly. I have seniority, so that-"
"Seniority? More like stupidity. Twelve minutes older, twelve years dumber."
"Hey!"
"Is for horses!"
The banter between the twins stopped when they heard Chaos laughing, and they realized they were in the throne room, having no idea when Chaos teleported them here. They stared at the laughing supreme deity.
"You two are a riot! Please, continue."
Shin'en's mood instantly shifted. "Are we done here, or is there some other contrived errand you want us to run?"
"Well, now that you ask…"
Shin'en growled.
"Kidding, kidding. Jeez, kid, it's a joke, not a dick. Don't take it like Nico."
Nico shrank in his seat, but there wasn't anything he could do against the lord of creation. Same for Hades. The god of the underworld bristled at the jab to his son, but wisely remained seated because he knew Chaos would beat his ass like a redheaded stepchild.
"Then send us back. We have other things to do that don't involve this place," Shin'en said.
"Aww, no parting words for all the young people behind you?" Chaos asked.
"No."
"I do," Persephone piped up, making her brother sigh.
"Please make it fast. Do remember that we're on the cusp of the Imperial War back home, and I know you'd hate to miss it."
Persephone zeroed in on Percy, and was soon towering over him as he tried to disappear into his chair. "You saw everything I did, didn't you?"
"Y-yeah…"
"Except for the Karas armor, you can do all of that too if you train hard and well enough. If you don't want to do your job and protect the world, at least get stronger so you can protect your friends. I could kick your ass seven ways to Sunday right now if I wanted, and I'm not even back to full strength yet."
Percy just nodded.
Persephone's eyes slid over to Piper. "You'd better treat that girl better than you did Jason, or I'll come back to tear your ovaries out through your asshole with my mind."
Like Percy, Piper only nodded her head, not able to form words she was so scared.
Then Persephone looked over the whole crowd of demigods. "All of you have powers, and you all have a responsibility to use them to make the world a better place. If you don't, then whatever your world ends up becoming because you refused to take any kind of action is your fault."
With that, she turned and stood next to her brother with a pointed look on her face. "Say something, I don't know, inspiring."
Shin'en arched a brow and turned to address the crowd. "You all saw Nero summon Satan, who is the devil. You all saw me throw Nero right into Satan's mouth, which is synonymous with throwing him into hell. So, you all have firsthand proof that the devil is real, hell is real, and therefore God, heaven, and the angels are real. Therefore, repent for your sins or face eternal damnation."
Chaos clapped. "Very inspiring. Anyway, we're done here."
The next thing the twins knew, they were standing in a pristine white hallway with doors lining the walls as far as they could see and beyond. Chaos was there with them, leaning on the wall next to the closest door.
"What is this place?" Persephone asked.
"The Dimensional Hall," Shin'en answered. "One of the ways to access the Multiverse."
"All these doors lead to different dimensions?"
"Yep," Chaos chirped. "This is the one you two just saved." He tapped the door.
Then the almighty being swiped his finger over the door, bringing a pop-up menu to life. Chaos scrolled the menu to the bottom, where there was a bright red button that said "Delete." Chaos clicked the button, clicked "Yes" on the confirmation menu, and Persephone watched in utter disbelief and horror as the door to the dimension she'd just come out of just…vanished. Its visage faded away, leaving only unblemished wall.
"Wha…what…did you just…delete that whole dimension?" Persephone stuttered.
"Yep," Chaos chirped again. "All eight billion or so people, including Percy Jackson and his friends, and all those gods, too. All of them gone without a trace, as if they'd never existed."
Persephone's face turned red with rage. "You just killed all those people?"
"Yeah."
Persephone punched, and she suddenly struck a tree. The trunk exploded in a shower of splinters, and Chaos's disembodied laughter echoed through the forest.
The daughter of Poseidon growled fiercely as she plucked the splinters out of her skin. "That bastard. Everything we just went through, and he just…deletes that whole place? Kills everyone in that dimension? I just—ugh!"
"I know," Shin'en said stoically. "That's why I hate him. He could've fixed all of that himself, but instead elected to drag us over there and grow through all of that, just to erase everything in the end. Wasted effort."
"…maybe not entirely wasted," Persephone murmured after she plucked the last shred of wood from her knuckle. "Now I know about the Imperial War, the emperors, and Piper and Jason. I know how strong I've gotten. I know what I can do, what my limits are. I think I'm almost ready."
"Almost ready? For what?"
Persephone looked at her little brother, her eyes filled with resolve harder than steel. "To start saving the world without breaking it."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Whew. That was actually more of a beating than I thought it was going to be.
Started losing motivation there with the Tartarus and Nero fights, which is why they were so short and so…meh? Unfulfilling? I don't know, but they just didn't feel as passionate as some of my other fights.
Anyway, I have no idea what arc comes next after this one, or even when the next chapter of this, or anything, will be out.
I'm thinking of some Christmas presents for you guys, but I strongly doubt any of them will actually be out by Christmas.
As such, if I do not see you guys again before then, Merry Christmas!
Fav, Follow, and Review please! Your Christmas presents to me can be Reviews!