"Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad."
- Euripides
The Fool
?? July 2010, Edge of Creation, Tartarus
"YOU WILL FEED THE ETERNAL DARKNESS" Akhlys crowed. "You shall perish in the arms of Night!"
...
Percy was having a bad...whatever this entire fustercluck of a cheesy horror flick boiled down to, as evident by the emaciated ghoul currently dancing on his grave.
He was dimly aware of Annabeth shouting, conveniently a good distance away from the edge of the poison basin. Tossing random strips of drakon jerky at the goddess while he choked on liquid poison.
Jerky.
At a goddess.
Jerky.
He tched in frustration. This was an unfunny adult sitcom in real time.
Akhlys hadn't remained idle during his pessimistic interlude, the white-green poison had kept on pooling around him. Little streams trickling from every manner of toxic flora imaginable, getting wider and wider with him smack dab in the centre of the venomous lake.
Lake, he thought. Streams. Water.
It was probably just his brain getting fried from poison fumes, but he croaked out a laugh. Poison was liquid. If it moved like water, it must be partially water.
He remembered some science lecture about the human body being mostly water. He remembered extracting water from Jason's lungs back in Rome...If he could control that, then why not other liquids?
It was a crazy idea. Poseidon was a god of the sea, not of liquid everywhere.
And even then, say he could bullshit his way through this. Actually take control of a goddess' domain from said goddess...then what? Go back to winging it in Hell?
Did he really want that?
If suffering was living, then he might as well have been living the fast life since birth.
Even the 'death prophecy' that had hung over his head not even a year ago, hadn't seemed this bleak.
What was the point?
Why not just fade away here...lost forever in the thigh high mists of the Abyss?
Should he?
.
.
.
It was surprising it'd even taken this long to contemplate his own mortality - Hades this whole trip was one big 'surprise' with no blue birthday cake – but a trip down memory lane, didn't seem too bad in comparison to dying alone at the edge of the universe right?
Lets see now, what did he know?
For starters he was weak, an absolute speck in the grand scheme of things if he was being blunt, Tartarus and his - frankly embarrassing - bout with Chrysaor had more than humbled him.
Impulsively arrogant too, and it'd taken getting played by the monster getting off on his death to realize it.
Oh and he was dying.
'Can't forget about that juicy little tidbit.' He thought morbidly.
His exit wasn't looking the least bit pretty...not even a little.
He was dying an arguably worse death than all the other heroes of legend and their mothers before him.
On the edge of Creation no less.
He was dying to a ghoulish joker for having the temerity to breathe semi-hopefully.
The very thought of it infuriated him to no end, oh how it absolutely tore at him. He was sixteen for the gods' sake, had he ever done anything to deserve any of this?
Was it him dunking Bobofit in that fountain? He was sorry!
Breaking Clarisse's spear on that CTF match? She was trying to kill him!
Dressing down the gods for being the same absolute tools they'd embodied for thousands of years at this point?
'What do I have to do,' He thought weakly, his eyes gazing forlornly at the endless blood-red fog of the abyss, 'How much more of this before I can finally, finally get a break?'
"Gods of Olympus, if you're that bent out of shape get up and do something about it already."
...
That wasn't his self-conscious voice.
His inner voice was probably a bit more belittling, and a hell of a lot more masculine.
He looked around him, well as much as he could anyway, the death lake hadn't been sedate during his inner monologue.
He could barely twitch without getting a splash of-ooh belladonna, but even then, aside from Akhlys. Aside from Annabeth still chucking party favours from her seemingly endless supply of drakon meat.
Aside from the primordial soup of creation that seemed to churn in sadistic ecstasy about a yard from him, he couldn't make heads or tails of where that oddly abrasive voice could have come from.
'I've lost it,' He lamented mentally, 'All these years and I've finally lost my godsdamned mind.'
"Di immortales Percy, get off your ass and dust this bitch already"
Okay, he definitely wasn't imagining the voice this time. He looked around harder this time partly to satiate his curiosity and partly to tear this asshole a new one for literally leaving him to die in a bed of poison, while his girlfriend hurled foodstuffs.
His girlfriend.
Annabeth.
What the hell was he doing.
How dare he sit back and take this-this parody of a tragedy, while his girlfriend fought for her life...ish.
And his friends on the Argo II. They were probably going through hell right now trying to meet them on the other side.
He'd all but demanded Nico lead them to the other side of the doors. He didn't get to sit here whining like a petulant manchild (= read Zeus) , waxing poetic in a bed of poison.
"Come on." The voice thundered.
He rose to a knee.
His friends back at Camp half blood. They were already in a war from two fronts after the backhanded slap they'd given to the Romans, if he and the rest of the seven couldn't find a way to fix things or at least pacify them enough to prevent further bloodshed...
He didn't even want to imagine, there were children as young as the age of 5 back at camp.
It didn't matter to him at the moment, how he was going to do it he just knew that he had to do it. If he died so be it, he'd go down kicking and screaming all the while.
He glared at the lake that had already started to lap at his soles and focused. He concentrated so hard that something inside him cracked—as if a crystal ball had shattered in his stomach.
Warmth flowed through him. The poison tide stopped.
The fumes blew away from him — back toward the goddess. The lake of poison rolled toward her in tiny waves and rivulets.
"You dare?!"
FSSSHHHHH
He let out a bloodcurdling scream as the roused poison beat back his control and tore at his pants, converses and flesh like a school of emboldened piranhas.
Akhlys cackled all the while from the sidelines.
"What will you do boy," The emaciated bitch taunted "WHAT WILL YOU DO!"
He maintained his focus, it was all he could do to keep standing at this point, the sheer power poured into those four words alone nearly folding him in half.
"I am Misery and Poisons, child," She continued imperiously "I was the being who spawned the evils that plague the polluted cesspit you call a home. Every. Single. One. Every sin, every curse, I dance with Despair and dine with Torment every hour of the day." The sadistic goddess seemed to preen like a peacock with every screeched atrocity, with a disturbing smile haunting her disgusting features, "The pain you and the rest of the hairless apes you call kin suffer, give me succor. Such was the authority bestowed upon me by Creation."
"I am Akhlys child, Daughter of the Night and her Darkness, the Primordial of Misery."
An overwhelming dark-purple wave of energyakin to pure despair flowed outward from the Primordial as she finished her proclamation. Rampaging freely through the deluge in front of him and the surrounding area dispassionately.
"RUN ANNABE-" He'd barely been able to get the words out before Akhlys' authority crashed onto him with the force of a speeding locomotive.
Y*C*O*Y*W
Hope was a lie.
Everything about him was bull - he was a phony, always had been - and he should have let that snake finish him in his cot while it'd had the chance.
"Why am I still fighting?" He asked himself for what felt like the hundredth time in a matter of minutes. All the death and devastation he'd doled out.
All the shrouds he'd buried.
It was all so pointless.
His existence was pointless, completely and utterly pointless.
And it was all so empty.
There was no hope, no faith, no divine retribution.
No pain. No phobia. No emotion.
Nothing.
There was only the Goddess.
...
"She's misery Percy, she'll tear your mind apart at the seams if you let her. Remember who you are." The voice cried out urgently.
A fraud?
The voice let out a long-suffering sigh.
"Okay dumbass, remember what and who you fight for."
He mentally shrugged.
"Your freedom?" And he could feel more than see that the voice had its head buried in its hands.
"Freedom is an abstract concept, the truth is right in front of me" He mentally supplied.
"Your friends."
"With time, they too shall follow the way"
"OH FOR THE LOVE OF..." The voice took a deep breath.
"Fine then Sally, what about your mother. What about Sally, are you also interested in bringing her into the faith?" The voice asked peevishly.
Percy already had a retort ready for the faithless one, but that name promptly killed any wind in his sails.
Warm blue eyes and a dazzling pearl-white smile flashed through his peripheral.
Sally.
The name alone filled him with an indescribable sense of warmth.
He could picture her so clearly...Her back was turned to him showing of her warm, chocolate brown hair splattered with tufts of grey.
She was only 36, she worked too hard.
She turned around to face him. She was dressed in a sleeveless ash blazer over a rolled up baby blue dress shirt, showing off her tanned well defined arms. And her face, gods her face, it shouldn't have been possible for a woman who had gone through and put up with as much as she had, to still look at a schmuck like him with such love and care. Her warm blue eyes were twinkling at him with pure maternal affection.
She was holding a cupcake - his blue cupcake with a quaint little candle on top of it - like it was the last blessed drop from the Holy Grail.
He didn't need to be there to hear the I love you.
He hadn't seen her in close to a year at this point, hadn't heard her voice or even given her a hug in months and he was content to die here?!
But the godde-
That was all it took, his gut bubbled in broiling fury like a witches concoction from a cauldron. Whatever haze, hex or voodoo the almighty clown before him had placed upon him was smacked away with the divine will of a fuming God.
He let out a defiant roar and pushed at the pervading malefactor with every ounce of his being, he couldn't die here.
He wouldn't die here.
The poison around him tripled and surged past the top of his thighs, a blasphemous maelstrom swirling violently with him at the center, as the Warden of Evil continued to boast of her authority.
He'd started to feel emboldened now, his ties to his friends and family an unshakable anchor against his opponents domain.
"You tell em Aquaman."
At that moment, Percy was certain he wouldn't die today, not until he got to deck the ever loving piss out of the moron who insisted on sideline commentary.
Akhlys wasn't quite done yet though, some time during his incessant howling her appearance had shifted. From a withered old druggie to something more fitting of her title as a divine entity.
Her features had gotten sharper - borderline beautiful to be perfectly candid - her tattered dress which had hung listlessly over her emaciated corpse of a body earlier, had been stretched to its limits as it tried its very best to hide her(pardon the pun) godly curves, her wild mane of hair still retained most of it's general unkempt madness, but looked less like she'd been ripping it out at the seams and more so like she'd gotten it stylishly ruffled from a particularly pleasant stroll through a field of dandelions.
Well, maybe more a field of crying babies, but still. She looked good. Really good. It was a shame such divine features seemed more interested in feeding on his corpse or whatever else crazy Tartarean hussies did with expired demigod bodies.
"I am a Primordial Goddess, you dull creature," She continued undeterred, "Do you truly think this will end any other way? A premature whelp, who hasn't even learned to so much as breathe yet, can ever be capable of beating ME?!"
She didn't even give Percy a chance for a quip, the very notion seemed to offend her.
"I WILL BREAK YOU BOY" The Mistress of Misery raged.
A stinging pain stabbed at him from every direction the more he pushed for supremacy, his brain felt like it'd been dumped unceremoniously in a sea of pit scorpions and every time he hacked out a cough it came out bloody. In between moments of lucidity he thought he could see a sort of shell casing extending outward from her - no not quite outward, it was collapsing inward.
Like it was trying to contain an imminent explosion, but failing rapidly.
Uh-oh.
He gathered everything he had and more to stop this psycho, he didn't even bother questioning how he'd somehow managed to contain a Primordial's divine form.
He just knew that it was the only thing keeping he and his girlfriend from becoming particularly unattractive scorch marks on the glass-like gravel.
"How? How in the name of the gods are you doing this?!" Akhlys finished pathetically.
She charged at him. A sad, desperate dash if he was being honest, but a charge none the less.
"You can't do it, I won't stand for it!" She proclaimed madly "It's not possible, demigods should not have this power they can not have this power."
That was almost enough to break him, not the...frankly narcissistic ranting. No, it was the power, the sheer authority in the tail end of the sentence that staggered him.
"Don't listen to her, you're fighting her, have been this entire time. You've have her contained. FIGHT PERSEUS!"
He held onto those words like they were his lifeline, his strength and confidence multiplying tenfold.
Gathering anything and everything he had at the moment, he continued to push on towards the monster in front of him.
Akhlys shrieked. "What is this?"
"Poison," Percy said. "That's your specialty, right?"
"THIS IS NO MERE POISON YOU FOOL," The apoplectic goddess screeched, "What you're doing-"
She paused midway to hack out her lungs for a concernedly long amount of time.
"It goes beyond mere usurpation! This is...this can only be...but it shouldn't be possible you bleed red, you are no God, you aren't even Awakened! It isn't possible!" Akhlys continued hysterically.
He bared his teeth, his anger growing hotter in his gut. As the flood of venom rolled toward the goddess, the fumes began to make her cough.
Her eyes watered even more.
'Oh, good,' Percy thought. 'More water.'
Percy imagined her nose and throat filling with her own tears.
Akhlys gagged. "I—" The tide of venom reached her feet, sizzling like droplets on a hot iron. She wailed and stumbled back.
Percy felt invigorated, he could barely stop his facial muscles from splitting into what was sure to be a completely unhinged grin.
He felt powerful as he brought this insignificant waste of an individual right where she belonged, firmly and submissively beneath him.
He felt vindicated as the poison of Akhlys herself deferred to him as its rightful master, turning on its mistress with the ferocity of a starving bloodhound.
He felt...he felt...he felt like a-
"Percy!" Annabeth called.
She'd retreated to the edge of the cliff, even though the poison wasn't after her.
'Gee, thanks babe nice to know you've always got my back.'
Minor consolation though, at least he knew now the drakon jerky from hell had a stop cap. It was only slightly less than infinite.
She sounded terrified though, and it took Percy a moment to realize she was terrified of him.
That threw him for a loop, no not even that. He genuinely wasn't sure if the rapidly forming aneurysm was from the strain of fighting Akhlys' control, or from the sheer ridiculousness.
Had she taken a cat nap while Akhlys had decked him five ways through Sunday?
He was doing this for her, wasn't he?
"Stop..." she pleaded, her voice unbearably hoarse.
The sheer pain in her voice hurt something in him, yet angered him in a way he couldn't quite put into words. It didn't help that the voice from before had chosen to remain silent for some time now.
He returned his attention to the goddess in front of him, somehow she'd had to have been the cause of this. She'd reverted back to her previously emaciated form some time during his, admittedly, invasive torture. Honestly, she looked even worse than before if that was even possible, whether to garner some sort of sympathy from him or because he was destroying her so utterly that she literally couldn't scrounge up the power to maintain an attractive visage, he didn't know.
He wasn't particularly sure he cared.
"Percy! Please yo-," Annabeth had a bloody coughing fit.
His attention never strayed from Akhlys. He didn't want to stop. He wanted to choke this goddess, this rabid dog who'd tried to snatch from his loved ones. Who wouldn't so much as bothered to have shed a mournful tear for them were their roles reversed. He wanted to watch her drown in her own poison. He wanted to see just how much misery Misery could take.
"Percy, please…" Annabeth's face was still pale and corpse-like, but her eyes were the same as always. The anguish in them stilled Percy's anger somewhat.
He turned to the pathetic wastrel of a goddess in front of him, willing the poison to recede and creating a small path of retreat along the edge of the cliff.
"Leave!" he bellowed.
For an emaciated ghoul, Akhlys could run pretty fast when she wanted to. She scrambled along the path, fell on her face, and got up again, wailing as she sped into the dark.
As soon as she was gone, the pools of poison evaporated. The plants withering to dust and blowing away to the blood-red ether.
Annabeth stumbled toward him. She looked like a corpse wreathed in smoke, but she felt solid enough when she gripped his arms.
"Percy, please don't ever…" Her voice broke in a sob. "Some things aren't meant to be controlled. Please."
He looked long and hard at his cohort, the girl he'd practically given an arm and a leg to be with.
The death mist and her actual appearance visibly fought for supremacy right before his eyes, trying to persuade him, to convince him, to shackle him to a certain route.
A path he just couldn't accede to.
He refused.
"No." He finally responded after what felt like an eternity.
Annabeth - the unblemished Annabeth - visibly rebooted in front of him. A myriad of emotions dancing through her shell-shocked face. Shock at first, followed quickly by hurt then finally taking rest at all-consuming anger.
"What do you mean 'no'?!" Her eyes shining with unshod tears yet strengthened by righteous indignation.
"I mean No, Annabeth," He said, "I'm not going to not defend myself if there ever comes a time when somebody tries to kill me for sport!"
She got up right in his face and grabbed him by by his collar, under normal circumstances he'd have puckered right up for a wet smooch.
Now? Well now he wasn't sure whether to shield his face or his crotch, Hurricane Chase was that unpredictable.
"Defend yourself?!" She cried out hysterically, her blond curls bouncing haphazardly.
"Is that what you think you were doing? Percy, you had that woman on her hands and knees begging you for mercy," She continued "You were choking her with her tears!"
"AND SHE'D HAVE DONE WORSE TO THE BOTH OF US IF I HADN'T!" He bellowed out, physically and mentally done with her strong-arming.
Annabeth backed away from him as quickly and as non-confrontational as possible.
It hurt, it hurt a hell of a lot more than he was willing to show. Unfortunately, he wasn't even close to finished.
Why couldn't she understand? Did she realize the series of out of body experiences he'd just went through, just to be able to spend just another second with her? He'd nosedived willingly into hell for her!
Didn't she love him? Wasn't she supposed to care about him? TO CHERISH HIM?!
"Where exactly do you get off making me out to be some bad guy, like I'm the problem?" His voice cracked, "Like I'm some monster who enjoys killing kids for kicks. What the Hades were you doing while I was gargling on poison by my lonesome!"
He was fuming now, damn near frothing at the mouth at the sheer audacity.
If Annabeth had looked spooked before, she looked downright horrified now, her hand was clasped firmly on her drakon bone sword. Her knuckles unmistakably white on the leather wrapped pommel.
How she'd even managed that with the death mist physically hindering her should have baffled him, yet that confusion took a backseat as a damning realization made itself known to him.
There weren't any bloodthirsty goddesses to use it on this time.
She wanted to-
That was enough to knock the fight right out of him. To see his Annabeth, the literal love of his - very limited - life actually consider putting him down like some rabid dog.
To see her visibly fight to keep herself from showing weakness to him. To see the unhinged vitriol coming from his corpse-like visage through her irises. Her eyes, those beautifully intimidating stormy grey orbs, ordinarily rife with wisdom and affection for him...
They hadn't stopped crying for a while now.
He hadn't wanted this. He'd never wanted to live in a world where his loved ones would ever look at him the same way his mother had always looked at...at him.
"My dreams are just dreams..."
His eyes sealed shut at the memory.
'No, not now.' He swore, he wouldn't give it power over him now.
That nightmare was long behind him. Long dead and buried with its perpetrator.
His whole body tingled with power, but the anger was subsiding. The broken glass inside him was beginning to smooth at the edges.
"We have to get away from this cliff," He said finally, "If Akhlys brought us here as some kind of sacrifice…"
It was shameless ducking and they both knew it, but they were much to mentally drained to care.
Annabeth made no notable moves to add towards unfucking their situation, instead choosing to stare at him with her usual probing glare. Ordinarily he could ignore it in favor of admiring how hot it made her look, but even he wasn't stupid enough to miss the palpable disappointment in her gaze.
Percy tried to think. He was getting used to moving with the Death Mist around him. He felt more solid, more like himself. But his mind still felt stuffed with cotton.
"She said something about feeding us to the night," he continued. "What was that about?"
Still no response.
"Annabeth, I need you to work wi-"
The temperature dropped. The abyss before them seemed to exhale.
Percy grabbed Annabeth and backed away from the edge as a presence emerged from the void—a form so vast and shadowy, he felt like he understood the concept of dark for the first time.
"I imagine," said the darkness, in a feminine voice as soft as coffin lining, "that she meant Night, with a capital N. After all, I am the only one."
Y*C*O*Y*W
ANNABETH HAD NEVER BEEN SCARED OF THE DARK.
But normally the dark wasn't forty feet tall. It didn't have black wings, a whip made out of stars, and a shadowy chariot pulled by vampire horses.
Nyx was almost too much to take in. Looming over the chasm, she was a churning figure of ash and smoke, as big as the Athena Parthenos statue, but very much alive. Her dress was void black, mixed with the colors of a space nebula, as if galaxies were being born in her bodice. Her face was hard to see, covered in that light-consuming veil she wore. When her wings beat, waves of darkness rolled over the cliffs, making Annabeth feel heavy and sleepy, her eyesight dim.
The goddess' chariot was made of the same material as Nico di Angelo's sword—Stygian iron—and pulled by two massive horses, all black except for their pointed silver fangs. The beasts' legs floated in the abyss, turning from solid to smoke as they moved.
The horses snarled and bared their fangs at Annabeth. The goddess lashed her whip—a thin streak of stars like diamond barbs—and the horses reared back.
"No, Shade," the goddess said. "Down, Shadow. These little prizes are not for you."
She turned her attention to Percy...to her boyfriend. His hand hadn't strayed from his pocket throughout the whole confrontation.
But she doubted even he'd be crazy enough to actually pull out a weapon on Nyx of all Gods, then again she'd never thought she'd see the day her lovable goof of a boyfriend would ever torture someone.
Percy eyed the horses as they nickered. He was still shrouded in Death Mist, so he looked like an out-of-focus corpse — which still broke Annabeth's heart every time she saw him. It also must not have been very good camouflage, since Nyx could obviously see them.
Annabeth couldn't read the expression on Percy's ghoulish face very well. Apparently he didn't like whatever the horses were saying.
"Uh, so you won't let them eat us?" he asked the goddess. "Cause they really want to eat us."
Nyx's wings blazed. "Of course not, Perseus. I would not let my horses eat you, any more than I would let Akhlys kill you. Such fine prizes, I will deal with myself!"
Annabeth didn't feel particularly witty or courageous, but her instincts told her to take the initiative, or this would be a very short conversation.
"Oh, don't kill yourself!" she cried. "We're not that scary."
The goddess lowered her whip. "What? No, I didn't mean-"
"Well, I'd hope not!" Annabeth looked at Percy and forced a laugh. "We wouldn't want to scare her, would we?"
"Ha, ha," Percy said weakly. "No, we wouldn't."
.
.
.
Nyx stared at them. Probing and invasive was the standard as far as the goddess was concerned. And then she let out a little chuckle that made Annabeth's spirits drop and her terror skyrocket.
"That," Nyx said through chuckles. "was adorable. Daughter of Athena, I was beyond ancient when you still needed your father to wipe your bottom. I was beyond ancient long before your mother was even a thought in Zeus's head. I am old, you tiny child. I am Night. I know everything that happens within my domain. Everything."
The way that Nyx said that, everything, the way her veiled eyes seemed to brighten and her smile got wider, made Annabeth feel extremely self-conscious, and even dirty.
Taking Nyx's claim literally, that she knew every single thing that happened during the night the world over, every action of every creature, every thought, every idea, made Annabeth feel like her privacy was being invaded.
No, it had been invaded.
Nyx did, in fact, know everything that Annabeth had ever done during the night from the moment she had been born, to this very moment right here and now.
Annabeth felt like jumping into Chaos just to spare herself the embarrassment and humiliation of Nyx being completely informed of all of her nighttime activities.
"I know both of you in ways no one else does. Not even yourselves," Nyx said. "Did you really think you could fool me with some clever words?"
Annabeth couldn't get her mouth to work. Now that she'd lost her angle on the Primordial goddess, she felt like she was going to need to her father to come wipe her bottom sometime within the next ten seconds.
"Now then," Nyx continued. She raised her starry whip, done with words, seemingly ready to utterly destroy the demigods.
"Sleep girl, I very much doubt I can receive any more morbid amusement from you."
...
Huh?
The overwhelming pressure that was trying to merge her with the gravel mere seconds ago, promptly disappeared from her shoulders as reality took a nosedive right in front of her eyes.
"But you Perseus Jackson," She let out that disturbing little chuckle again as her massive appendage of a hand drifted closer and closer to her understandably terrified boyfriend.
The veil of darkness on her face, began to steadily unravel itself right before her eyes. But, she only caught a glimpse of her manic, pale gold orbs before her own eyes rolled backed into their sockets.
"Oh, we are going to have so much fun together. My dear Ελευθερωτής." The goddess chortled.
Y*C*O*Y*W
29 July 2010, Somewhere over the Aegean Sea, Greece
JASON FELT LIKE SHIT.
He hadn't been out of bed in a day and a half, ever since the girls got back from Sparta and he'd unexpectedly collapsed.
And yes, he'd delegated most of the blame to his Imperial Gold poisoning.
He woke up in what had lately become his quarters - "lucky cot number 7" as his friends had christened it - in the sickbay.
He wasn't stupid he'd heard the sarcastic comments his fellow questers had made when they thought he wasn't listening(= read conscious), that he'd spent the entirety of the quest staring at the oak wood ceiling of their ship.
That he knew the exact thread count of all the sheets in the med-bay at this point.
Which was stupid...he'd only been here for half of the quest.
As for the thread count, they could all bite him, he blamed that knowledge on his ADHD. It was lonely in the sickbay.
He sighed and tried his best to move without disturbing his wound. After an embarrassingly long six minutes of nothing, he decided to focus on more pressing matters than his scorned pride.
Something had drastically changed among the crew on the Argo II.
Listen, okay he wasn't going to pretend all members of the crew were some sort of happy-go-lucky family, that solved all their issues with the power of friendship and worked in sync together like letters with math or something.
But their team—and yes he'd felt he could confidently call what they had had before Tartarus a team—spirit was in the pits...ironic choice of words all things considered.
And honestly?
He couldn't even pretend he hadn't seen it coming, Coach Hedge of all people had gotten at least an inkling of what was going on right before he bounced with the Parthenos crew.
As soon as Percy and Annabeth were free from the hellscape and could be trusted to walk freely on their own, it was like they couldn't get away from each other faster.
You'd think fighting through hell's hell itself with nothing but love and a dream would be enough to cement a relationship forever right?
Wrong. Dead wrong. Annabeth couldn't even bring herself to look anywhere close to Percy's direction, often taking the seat farthest away from him during any sort of gathering. And he wasn't a 100% certain, but he'd thought he'd heard Leo grumbling something fierce about having to install Celestial Bronze locks for her cabin.
That was half a month ago, and the Daughter of Athena had shown no signs of improvement.
The only person that could even hope to approach her, never mind consoling her, without getting flipped over their ass was Piper. The daughter of Aphrodite had always had a soft spot in Annabeth's heart and that bond had only grown stronger since their quest in Sparta.
Short of her boyfriend he didn't think anyone back at camp had garnered the kind of relationship they'd built, in the scant months they'd spent together before their voyage.
He was getting off track here.
Anyway, it'd been...obvious? Yes, painfully obvious the way even his girlfriend had also started to distance herself from Percy, choosing different watch shifts whenever it seemed like she'd get paired with him, forfeiting sparring matches before they ever got too serious, and on the rare occasion Percy ever actively sought her out to ask for Annabeth's well-being answering as curt and efficiently as possible before booking it with all the subtlety of a hand grenade.
Jason would have applauded her pussy-footing, if he wasn't all but certain she'd club him with a shiny red brick when no one was looking.
And Percy - scarred damnable Percy - wasn't even the least bit innocent in all this. He'd heard campers drone on and on and on about the "legendary" son of Poseidon for the entirety of his stay at Camp Half Blood.
And they were right for the most part, don't get him wrong. But pre-Tartarus and post-Tartarus Percy couldn't be more different than night and day.
He wasn't fucking joking.
His previously sun-kissed skin was still fighting against Pluto for the title of Corpse Lord even after weeks on the open-air ship. His stylishly messy hair had become less endearing and more unhinged. Regularly greasy and matted, hanging over his pale face in dirty clumps.
He hadn't been sleeping either, or if he was it wasn't at nighttime as far as Jason was concerned. He had deep purple shadows underneath his eyes, that looked swollen, as if he'd been punched in both of them. Repeatedly.
His famous lopsided grin had remained absent for what felt like months at this point, replaced firmly by an animal-like scowl.
Jason wouldn't act like he and Percy had been close before his fall - they'd literally tried to kill each other - but you couldn't call yourself a decent human being if you felt nothing for what seemed like such a broken individual.
It didn't help that Percy was being so uncharacteristically stubborn about sharing, he steadfastly refused to talk about his experience, acting like he had something to prove to someone. Choosing instead to lash out at the rest of the crew whenever he felt "cornered", venting out his more violent frustrations on any monster foolish enough to try attacking them with the fury of a thundering typhoon.
And he was freakishly good at it too, Percy had already been amongst the best of their generation even before his voyage through the Pit, but it barely compared to the feral beast Tartarus had molded exclusively for the average monsters pleasure. He'd traded practiced skill for feral brutality, a style that perfectly suited the man who'd literally crawled out of hell.
Harpies and most aerial threats had long since gotten the message and stopped trying to lay siege onto them from the air.
Jason had seen firsthand what Percy had done to that particular flock. He didn't blame them.
He huffed in frustration, it ate at him that he couldn't do anything to offer the Son of Poseidon any sort of comfort.
Percy was a good dude, kind and selfless, powerful, an inspiration to Demigods as a whole both young and old.
He didn't deserve to feel like a caged animal among his own friends.
He didn't deserve to be looked at like he'd killed someone and fed on its corpse by his own girlfriend.
Right?
He groaned in discomfort, months of inadequacy, self-loathing and his own grievous injuries were compounding on him to give even his headache a headache.
He closed his eyes to get a modicum of rest.
.
.
.
KRAAAKOOOOOM
And opened them in urgency as his ears were assaulted by loudest clap of thunder he'd heard since the siege of Othrys.
What the fuck.
He rose from his deathbed - fighting through pain that had him smelling white - so he could drown with the rest of the crew.
And promptly fell face down on the hardwood floor.
He'd been so busy feeling sorry for himself he hadn't noticed the cataclysmic storm the Argo II was currently privy to.
The ship was tilting so violently he had to climb the floor to get out of the sickbay. The hull creaked. The engine groaned like a dying water buffalo.
Cutting through the roar of the wind, the goddess Nike screamed from the stables: "YOU CAN DO BETTER, STORM! GIVE ME A HUNDRED AND TEN PERCENT!"
How the hell had he not noticed any of this?!
Jason climbed the stairs to the middle deck. His legs shook. His head spun. The ship pitched to port, knocking him against the opposite wall.
Hazel stumbled out of her cabin, hugging her stomach.
"I hate the ocean!" When she saw him, her eyes widened. "What are you doing out of bed?"
"I'm going up there!" he insisted. "I can help!"
Hazel looked like she wanted to argue. Then the ship tilted to starboard and she staggered towards the bathroom, her hand over her mouth.
Jason fought his way to the stairs. His muscles rebelled at the effort. His gut felt like Michael Varus was standing behind him, repeatedly stabbing him and yelling, Die like a Roman! Die like a Roman!
Jason forced down the pain. He was tired of people taking care of him, whispering how worried they were. He was tired of dreaming about being a shish kebab. He'd spent enough time nursing the wound in his gut(fucking lie). Either it would kill him or it wouldn't(he'd rather it didn't). He wasn't going to wait around for the wound to decide. He had to help his friends.
Somehow he made it above deck. What he saw there made him almost as nauseous as Hazel. A wave the size of a skyscraper crashed over the forward deck, washing the front crossbows and half the port railing out to sea. The sails were ripped to shreds. Lightning flashed all around, hitting the sea like spotlights.
Horizontal rain blasted Jason's face. The clouds were so dark he honestly couldn't tell if it was day or night. The crew was doing what they could...which wasn't much.
Leo had lashed himself to the console with a bungee cord harness. That might have seemed like a good idea when he rigged it up, but every time a wave hit he was washed away, then smacked back into his control board like a human paddleball.
Piper and Annabeth were trying to save the rigging. Since Sparta they'd become quite a team – able to work together without even talking, which was just as well, since they couldn't have heard each other over the storm.
Frank – at least Jason assumed it was Frank – had turned into a gorilla. He was swinging upside down off the starboard rail, fighting gravity and nature as he used his massive strength and his flexible feet to hang on while he untangled some broken oars.
Apparently the crew was trying to get the ship airborne, but, even if they managed to take off, Jason wasn't sure the sky would be any safer.
Another apocalyptic clap of thunder.
Definitely not any safer.
Even Festus the figurehead was trying to help. He spewed fire at the rain, though that didn't seem to discourage the storm.
Only Percy was having any luck. He stood by the center mast, his hands extended like he was on a tightrope. Every time the ship tilted, he pushed in the opposite direction and the hull stabilized. He summoned giant fists of water from the ocean to slam into the larger waves before they could reach the deck, so it looked like the ocean was hitting itself repeatedly in the face.
With the storm as bad as it was, Jason realized the ship would've already capsized or been smashed to bits if Percy wasn't on the job.
Jason staggered towards the mast. Leo yelled something – probably Go downstairs! – but Jason only waved back. He made it to Percy's side and grabbed his shoulder roughly.
He had about 2 seconds to question whether or not he'd been possessed by another eidolon - so foolish he'd been - before Percy brought him ass to deck with the floor.
Percy wrapped his deceptively strong fingers around his throat and squeezed for all he was worth, and none too gently either.
Jason probably could and should have tried to to fight him off, but the rage, the sheer malevolent fury in the Son of Poseidon's gaze - were his irises glowing?! - almost had him praying Percy would only make it quick.
Not his proudest moment.
It took a second – one too long in his 'biased' opinion – for Percy to release his hold on him.
Percy didn't bother trying to help him up, simply choosing to give him his own time to gather his bearings, instead he returned his attention to the still raging storm. Which Jason appreciated, he hadn't realized how much he was taking oxygen - and living - for granted until then.
He rose fully when he was fairly certain he wouldn't need a fresh change of bandages(and underwear), and turned his attention to his would-be assailant. Had the guy been studying him the whole time?
Percy could normally stay dry if he concentrated, but obviously he had bigger things to worry about right now.
His dark hair was plastered to his face. His clothes were soaked and ripped.
He shouted something in Jason's ear, but Jason could only make out a few words: "THING…DOWN…STOP IT!"
Percy pointed over the side.
"Something is causing the storm?" Jason asked.
Percy tilted his head and cupped his ear in answer. The universal sign for whaddja say sonny?!
He made a gesture with his hand like diving overboard. Then he tapped Jason on the chest.
"You want me to go?" Jason felt kind of honored. Everybody else had been treating him like a glass vase, but Percy…well, he seemed to figure that if Jason was on deck he was ready for action.
And maybe he'd felt a little guilty about nearly choking him to death.
He'd take it.
"You son of a bitch I'm in!" Jason shouted. "But I can't breathe underwater!"
Percy shrugged. Sorry, can't hear you.
Then Percy ran to the starboard rail, pushed another massive wave away from the ship and jumped overboard.
Jason glanced at Piper and Annabeth. They both clung to the rigging, staring at him in shock.
Piper's expression said, Are you out of your mind?
He gave her an okay sign, partly to assure her that he would be fine (which he wasn't sure about), partly to agree that he was in fact crazy (which he was sure about).
He staggered to the railing and looked up at the storm.
Winds raged. Clouds churned. Jason sensed an entire army of venti swirling above him, too angry and agitated to take physical form, but hungry for destruction.
Pussies.
He raised his arm and summoned a lasso of wind. Jason had learned long ago that the best way to control a crowd of bullies was to pick the meanest, biggest kid and force him into submission. Then the others would fall in line.
(DOR Disclaimer here: Jason is canonically a 16 year old 6'1 or 3 mass of muscle. Coupled with his demigod genetics, his Roman and Greek training and your average high school bully isn't so much as chipping one of his nails.
He'd uttered this hogwash back in what must have been 2010 for him. Gangbangers have long since evolved, we're in the age of the Glock now ladies and gents. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, YOU WILL BE JUMPED AT BEST.)
He lashed out with his wind rope, searching for strongest, most ornery ventus in the storm.
He lassoed a nasty patch of storm cloud and pulled it in. "You're serving me today."
Howling in protest, the ventus encircled him. The storm above the ship seemed to lessen just a bit, as if the other venti were thinking, Oh, crud. That guy means business.
Jason levitated off the deck, encased in his own miniature tornado. Spinning like a corkscrew, he plunged into the water.
Jason assumed things would be calmer underwater.
Not so much.
Of course, that could've been due to his mode of travel. Riding a cyclone to the bottom of the ocean definitely gave him some unexpected turbulence. He dropped and swerved with no apparent logic, his ears popping, his stomach pressed against his ribs.
Finally he drifted to a stop next to Percy, who stood on a ledge jutting over a deeper abyss.
"Sorry about back up there," Percy said.
Jason could hear him perfectly, though he wasn't sure how. "What's going on?"
It had all the subtlety of a brick that evasion, thankfully Percy didn't seem too keen on rehashing their little moment.
In his ventus air cocoon, his own voice sounded like he was talking through a vacuum cleaner.
Percy pointed into the void. "Wait for it."
Three seconds later, a shaft of green light swept through the darkness like a spotlight, then disappeared.
"Something's down there," Percy said, "stirring up this storm."
He turned and sized up Jason's tornado. "Nice outfit. Can you hold it together if we go deeper?"
"I have no idea how I'm doing this," Jason said.
He couldn't be sure with all the darkness surrounding them, but he thought he saw Percy's lips twitch upwards for a second there.
"Okay," Percy shook his head amusedly, "Just try to be careful with underwater rubble, 'kay Grace?"
"Shut up, Jackson."
Percy was definitely grinning now.
Who knew his constant head trauma could be so therapeutic for the scarred and deranged.
"Let's see what's down there, shall we?"
Y*C*O*Y*W
They sank so deep that Jason couldn't see anything except Percy swimming next to him in the dim light of their gold and bronze blades.
Every so often the green searchlight shot upward. Percy swam straight towards it. Jason's ventus crackled and roared, straining to escape. The smell of ozone made him lightheaded, but he kept his shell of air intact.
At last, the darkness lessened below them. Soft white luminous patches, like schools of jellyfish, floated before Jason's eyes.
As he approached the seafloor, he realized the patches were glowing fields of algae surrounding the ruins of a palace. Silt swirled through empty courtyards with abalone floors. Barnacle-covered Greek columns marched into the gloom. In the center of the complex rose a citadel larger than Grand Central Station, its walls encrusted with pearls, its domed golden roof cracked open like an egg.
"Atlantis?" Jason asked.
"That's a myth," Percy said.
"Uh...don't we deal in myths?"
"No, I mean it's a made-up myth. Not, like, an actual true myth."
"So this is why Annabeth is the brains of the operation, then?"
"..."
Bad Jason! Absolutely stupid Jason!
They floated through the broken dome and down into shadows.
"This place seems familiar." Percy's voice became edgy. "Almost like I've been here –"
The green spotlight flashed directly below them, blinding Jason.
He dropped like a stone, touching down on the smooth marble floor. When his vision cleared, he saw that they weren't alone.
Standing before them was a twenty-foot-tall woman in a flowing green dress, cinched at the waist with a belt of abalone shells. Her skin was as luminous-white as the fields of algae. Her hair swayed and glowed like jellyfish tendrils.
Her face was beautiful but unearthly – her eyes too bright, her features too delicate, her smile too cold, as if she'd been studying human smiles and hadn't quite mastered the art.
Her hands rested on a disc of polished green metal about six feet in diameter, sitting on a bronze tripod. It reminded Jason of a steel drum he'd once seen a street performer play at the Embarcadero in San Francisco.
The woman turned the metal disc like a steering wheel. A shaft of green light shot upward, churning the water, shaking the walls of the old palace. Shards from the domed ceiling broke and tumbled down in slow motion.
"You're making the storm," Jason said.
"Indeed I am." The woman's voice was melodic – yet it had a strange resonance, as if it extended past the human range of hearing. Pressure built between Jason's eyes. His sinuses felt like they might explode.
"Okay, I'll bite," Percy said. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
The woman turned towards him. "Why, I am your sister, Perseus Jackson. And I wanted to meet you before you die."
.
.
.
Hmmm.
Jason saw two options here: Fight or Talk.
Usually, when faced with a creepy twenty-foot-tall lady with jellyfish hair, he would've gone with fight.
But since she called Percy brother – that made him hesitate.
"Percy, do you know this … individual?"
Percy shook his head. "Doesn't look like my mom, so I'm gonna guess we're related on the godly side. You a daughter of Poseidon, Miss…uh...?"
The pale lady raked her fingernails against the metal disc, making a screeching sound like a tortured whale.
"No one knows me," She sighed. "Why would I assume my own brother would recognize me? I am Kymopoleia!'
Percy and Jason exchanged looks.
"So…" Percy said. "Kym. We're going to call you Kym. And you'd be a, hmm, Nereid, then? Minor Goddess?"
"Minor?!"
"By which," Jason said quickly, "he means under the drinking age! Because obviously you're so young and beautiful."
Percy flashed him a look: Nice save.
The goddess turned her full attention to Jason. She pointed her index finger and traced his outline in the water. Jason could feel his captured air spirit rippling around him, as if it were being tickled.
"Jason Grace," said the goddess. "Son of Jupiter."
"Yeah. I'm a friend of Percy's."
Kym's eyes narrowed. "So it's true…these times make for strange friends and unexpected enemies. The Romans never worshiped me. To them, I was a nameless fear–a sign of Neptune's greatest wrath. They never worshiped Kymopoleia, the goddess of violent sea storms!"
She spun her disc. Another beam of green light flashed upward, churning the water and making the ruins rumble.
He wondered why...
"Yeahhh," Percy said. "The Romans aren't too big on navies. They had, like, one rowboat. Which I sank. Speaking of violent storms, you're doing a first-rate job upstairs."
"Thank you," said Kym.
"Thing is, our ship is caught in it, and it's kind of being ripped apart. I'm sure you didn't mean to –"
"Oh, yes, I did."
"You did." Percy grimaced. "Well…that sucks. I don't suppose you'd cut it out, then, if we asked nicely?"
"No," the goddess agreed. "Even now, the ship is close to sinking. I'm rather amazed it's held together this long. Excellent workmanship."
Sparks flew from Jason's arms into the tornado. He thought about Piper and the rest of the crew frantically trying to keep the ship in one piece. By coming down here, he and Percy had left the others defenseless. They had to act soon.
Besides, Jason's air was getting stale. He wasn't sure if it was possible to use up a ventus by inhaling it, but, if he was going to have to fight, he'd better take on Kym before he ran out of oxygen.
The thing was…fighting a goddess on her home court wouldn't be easy.
Even if they managed to take her down, there was no guarantee the storm would stop.
"So…Kym," he said, "what could we do to make you change your mind and let our ship go?"
Kym gave him that creepy alien smile. "Son of Jupiter, do you know where you are?"
Jason was tempted to answer underwater. "You mean these ruins. An ancient palace?"
"Indeed," Kym said. "The original palace of my father, Poseidon."
Percy snapped his fingers, which sounded like a muffled explosion. "That's why I recognized it. Dad's new crib in the Atlantic is kind of like this."
"I wouldn't know," Kym said. "I am never invited to see my parents. I can only wander the ruins of their old domains. They find my presence…disruptive."
She spun her wheel again. The entire back wall of the building collapsed, sending a cloud of silt and algae through the chamber. Fortunately the ventus acted like a fan, blowing the debris out of Jason's face.
"Disruptive?" Jason said. "You?"
"You haven't seen your folks in that long?" Percy asked softly.
"My father does not welcome me in his court," Kym said. "He restricts my powers. This storm above? I haven't had this much fun in ages, yet it is only a small taste of what I can do!"
"A little goes a long way," Percy responded with a hint of melancholy.
Kym returned her focus back to her younger brother at that.
"Don't pretend to understand me brother," The goddess growled, "What should the Sun know of the struggles of the worms it beats down upon?"
What the hell did that even mean?
"Our father married me off," Kym said, "without my permission mind you. He gave me away like a trophy to Briares, a Hundred-Handed One, as a reward for supporting the gods in the war with Kronos eons ago."
"Wait a mi-" But Kym was on a roll now.
"Demanded of me to be a breeding mare for th-that devolved chimera for the rest of time!"
She fixed a gnarled finger Percy's way completely ignoring Jason now which was probably for the best, his venti-clone was fighting for its life at the moment.
"You released him from Alcatraz a while back, you and General Tyson. Oh don't look so surprised brother did you believe our father would hesitate to boast of his favorite pet of the decade? Every cod fish from the Atlantic to the Pacific knew about your battle with Polybotes by brunch."
Kym was visibly quaking now, the surrounding water around her fizzling and bubbling as her temper was pushed to a rolling boil. Her shield-drum beating erratically, sending tangible pulses of seismic energy outwards to the already decrepit palace.
Right when it seemed the irate goddess was about to erupt, she stilled. Her previously enraged countenance shifted to something more placid.
What was it with these sea-types and their borderline bipolar disorder?!
"Small blessings at least," The Mistress of Violent Storms chuckled darkly, "Dear old Kampe, saw to it that his spirit had been sufficiently crushed enough that he'd never have the balls to ever think of challenging me."
"Its been...heavenly." Kym seemed to be reeling in pure unmitigated ecstasy at her final proclamation, the goddess' eyes were clouded and swirling, a gentle sigh of content sent bubbles shooting through the bioluminescent brine at a snail's pace.
Jason felt like he was going to be sick, for someone to actually rejoice in another persons torment like this, the act - or acts - that had to have fueled this manner of unfiltered hatred. To the point it still festered after thousands of years by now...
"He raped you." Percy said softly.
There was no hesitation, no argument, no maybes. No excuses. It was a pure indelible statement.
"For what its worth," He continued, "I can't even begin to tell you how-"
"I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO ACT LIKE YOU UNDERSTOOD ME YOU HALFBREED BASTARD" Kymopoleia roared.
Her luminescent hair swayed madly around her form, as she banged her fist on her shield-drum again.
Jason's venti-clone seemed like it was trying to spontaneously combust itself in the vain of hope of escaping the raging deity. He found it hard to blame it. Kym's fury was clear to see, there was no denying it, the sheer titanic wrath she seemed to exude from her pinky tip...what her very presence was doing to the already destroyed palace was all the excuse Romans needed to never board a sea vessel, forget Neptune.
But her pain, gods the pain on her face was the only truly natural expression he'd seen from her throughout their entire exchange.
"I do understand you Kym, not entirely but more than you'd know."
Jason was sure he'd live till 60 and still never be able to set his neck straight from how fast he'd whipped it to his friends direction.
The goddess had shown no mercy to his brother-in-arms during her verbal onslaught, he counted at least 7 lacerations on his arms, legs and torso. And these were just the visible wounds he could identify, his friend likely had internal injuries as evident by his labored breathing.
Kymopoleia had been been able to do this to the Son of Poseidon in his own element. Granted it was possible Percy had allowed her to ravage him in some twisted sense of atonement, still...he figured the reason his venti-clone hadn't completely quit on him was because the goddess was too busy handing her younger brother his ass on a platter to bother with him.
Back to Percy though. His face was stormy, almost as angry as Kymopoleia's, but underneath the fury, underneath all the forced machismo and lunacy...was a deep set melancholy.
Weakness and shame poured forth from the boy who'd been forced to become a Man much too early, as he mourned his lost innocence with his half sister.
Speaking of the devil, The goddess had shrunk down to a more 'modest' height of 2 meters as opposed to her previous 6. She waded through the deep ocean with all the grace of an accomplished ballerina.
The children of the sea stood parallel to each other, face to chest, gazing at each other sombrely for what felt like an eternity. He felt like an outsider.
"Speak plainly, brother" Kym said
"..."
Percy's shoulders slumped just a fraction of a degree as he gathered his wits about him.
"I never wanted to be a Half-Blood, Kym" He said finally.
"Is this a bad time? I'm quite sure this is a bad time." A deep voice sniggered.
Above them, at the edge of the broken roof, a dark shape appeared – a figure even taller than Kymopoleia.
The giant floated down. Clouds of dark viscous fluid–poison, perhaps–curled from his blue skin. His green breastplate was fashioned to resemble a cluster of open hungry mouths. In his hands were the weapons of a retiarius – a trident and a weighted net.
Jason had never met this particular giant, but he'd heard stories. "Polybotes," he said, "The anti-Poseidon."
The giant shook his dreadlocks. A dozen serpents swam free – each one lime green with a frilled crown around its head. Basilisks.
"Indeed, son of Rome," the giant said. "But, if you'll excuse me, my immediate business is with Perseus Jackson. I tracked him all the way across Tartarus. Now, here in his father's ruins, I mean to crush him once and for all."
Y*C*O*Y*W
Translations for Greek Words in Ch 0 and Ch 1:
- μένα ουσία: My Essence
- βηλὸς θεσπέσiος: Heavenly Threshold
-Ζαγρεύς Μακάριος: Zagreus the Blessed
-Ἐννοσίγαιος: Earth-shaker
-βαρύκτυπο: Loud-thundering
-ποντομέδων: Lord of the Seas
-Ἄναξ: The King
-Ποσειδῶν: Poseidon
-Περσεύς επιμένως: To be announced
-Ελευθερωτής: Liberator
Reviews:
- GrayValkyrie: Aww thanks dude/dudette. Honestly I was on the fence with cutting the whole thing out for a while. Even to me it felt like an unneeded tangent, but I think I'll keep it for now. As a fond memory of my first review for this story.
- ImHellaUgly: Dammit, I was hoping to keep the parallels ambiguous till at least Ch 15, but I suppose the childlike appearance and softspoken charisma were a bit on the nose. While similar I don't plan on making Zag an exact 1 to 1 of Miquella, but yes he does seem like a creepy little fucker doesn't he? Also, while I'm at it how many tries did it take you for Radhan? No forget that, how'd you fare against Bayle?