I've kind of been writing a bit more, and so possibly this fanfic will have weekly updates. I'm testing this out, and it isn't guaranteed, but we'll see.
Naruto has his first ever meeting with a goddess like this:
He's just gotten in Sally's car, parked a bit from the Camp Jupiter tunnel. Naruto is half focused on chomping on his ramen, and half focused on rummaging for the map in the back of the car. The map that he, Clarisse and Jason used on the way here.
With a little grunt of satisfaction, he pulls it from under the backseat, and turns back around.
Then, there she is. Just sitting there, looking out of the windshield with her head lazily dropped onto her hand. They meet eyes. She has no pupils. She has no iris. She has nothing in her eyes except white.
While Naruto's mind halts, his body lurches for a weapon. First, he throws the map at her face to obscure her vision. When she can't see, he spins out his kunai and goes for her neck.
His hand suddenly stops.
The goddess' fingers are freakishly hot as they wrap around his wrist like her blood is boiling. Her grip allows no movement. Naruto's fingers slowly start turning blue.
The map slides off her face. She is not impressed.
"I've heard of your stupidity, but I didn't know you were brain-dead." Her voice is rough, like she's stuck in a voice crack.
Naruto's stupor is broken, and he glares. "Didn't ask," he says, "And, what else was I supposed to do with an invader? Stop and smell the roses?" He scoffs. "If you were a monster, that hesitation would have gotten me killed."
Naruto tears his hand away. The goddess lets him. He doesn't attack after because if she was hostile, she would have attacked back already.
"That's not what I'm talking about," The goddess tells him, raising an eyebrow at him. "I'm talking about your plan to go to Alaska. Or, the lack of it."
Oh.
"Uh- what? I have a plan," he says. "I'm going to drive there? It's not rocket science."
The goddess rolls her eyes. "Have you forgotten that you don't have a shred of control over the mist? If anyone was to stop you, you wouldn't be able to snap your fingers and cause the problem to disappear."
Naruto opens his mouth to interject.
"Perhaps you could have flown if you, the centurion, and the girl hadn't blown your money on food."
"I can travel by boat," Naruto injects.
The goddess leans close to him. Her head is cocked un-humanly. "That's too slow though. You were there as the child of Mercury—"
Who the hell is Mercury?
"— said that he'd be back already if he was on the quest. Using your admittedly small brain, you can figure that the demigods are held up. Why else would a demigod be held up if not for the fact they are in perilous danger? If—"
"You've made your point," Naruto says, "Don't you have better things to do than to point out the flaws in a lowly mortal's plans? Like, I dunno, seeing your kids?"
The goddess retreats suddenly, like she's been burned. When she looks back at him, she looks…nervous. She licks her lips like a regular human being that feels stuff like anxiety.
"Sorry," she says. Naruto is stunned into silence. "That was a bit intense. I was simply trying to make my offer seem enticing by contrasting it with yours."
Naruto perks up. "Offer?"
Bellona's blank eye gets a glint. Excitement? "I'll help you, mortal. I'll help you by shortening the time it would take to reach Alaska, and therefore complete your quest."
Naruto forces himself to remain wary despite how his mind itches to agree. "In exchange for?"
The goddess looks at him intensely. "The safety of the children you mentioned before."
Naruto blinks. "You're gonna have to be more specific. I don't even know who you are, let alone your children."
"Oh," the goddess says, like this is just something you forget. "I am Bellona of the Romans. I am considered their representative."
Naruto tilts his head. It's called Camp Jupiter, though. "Not Ze–Jupiter?"
"I never said I was their most important," Bellona says, shrugging.
"But, like, it's in the name. How are you their rep— " Naruto shakes his head. "Whatever. What are your domains? Maybe I know you from your Greek equivalent."
He says this expecting this to be Athena, but that is a very wrong assumption.
Bellona looks doubtful. "You know of Enyo?" She asks.
"Who?"
"Exactly," she says, not a bit scornful. "I'm not so important on that side. But on this side, I'm their war goddess."
Naruto frowns. He didn't really get along with the one war god he'd met. "You don't feel like war," he says. She doesn't feel Roman either. She's way more lax than Jason.
She smiles vacantly. "You've fought before. Do you charge with just simple rage?"
He considers it. "No. I charge with purpose."
The goddess pats him on his chest, right on top of his heart. "That. That feeling of desire, of wanting to win— that's me. So, no, I'm not just a merging of Minerva and Mars, I'm that purpose fueling you forward."
Naruto has let this bragging session go on for too long. "And what would that goddess want me to do in exchange for her kindness?"
The sarcasm is lost on her. The goddess raises a finger. "I want you to travel to the Sea Of Monsters." She raises a second one. "I want you to travel to Circe's island specifically. In a few days, the island will be laid to ruin, and the servants upon that island will be turned into slaves for this group of pirates." She raises a third. "I want you to go there and save my two daughters from that terrible fate."
Naruto does consider it. For like a second.
"Even if you were to shorten my quest, I'd need to reach the glacier, save the questers, come back to this camp, drop off Percy's allies, then take him back to our camp. Days are too short of a time to do all that.
Bellona nods along, considers with pursed lips, then when she's done faking, she says, "Well that would be a good point if I didn't do this."
"Didn't do what?"
The goddess snaps and there is another pop.
Naruto is suddenly standing. Suddenly, on top of a sheen of ice. Suddenly, in a large, orange coat.
Nausea settles in his stomach then completely disappears. The car is gone. Everything that was around is gone. He's been teleported.
"What the hell?" Naruto asks, shivering. He fiddles with the zipper of the new orange jacket and brings it up. The goddess snaps again, and he has gloves and a beanie. "Where am I? Where'd you take my car?"
"The car is back outside Sally Jackson's apartment, the keys in the seat and a note on her dining table." Bellona says. "We are at the Hubbard Glacier. The questers are stuck right there."
She points at the horizon. Due to a snowy mist, Naruto can't see anything.
"Woah!" Naruto whispers, mystified. "This is what you meant?! You should have told me that, I wouldn't have asked any more questions."
(He wonders, considering the gods are just knockoffs of the titans, why the titans didn't just teleport Naruto into a volcano or something. It would probably kill him. At least— it would do a better job at it then Bob.
If it's honor and integrity, then they are fools.)
"Can you do this with every location I mentioned before?." He asks Bellona.
A smirk is all the answer he needs.
"Then yeah, I'll help you. It's not like I have a reason to say no anymore."
Percy is in reach now. Sally Jackson will have her son, and Naruto can rest easy knowing his friend is safe. Maybe he, Sally, Percy and maybe even Annabeth for her knowledge, can just sit and chat about the sharingan thing.
She smiles at him. "I like you, mortal. You're genuine."
Naruto tries to not feel any pride or embarrassment from that. "Have a name. It's Naruto."
She points again where the trapped demigods are. "Hurry," she says, and her arms briefly go translucent. Her entire body shimmers like a reflection.
Naruto frowns and goes closer "You good?" When her legs go translucent, Naruto goes to steady her in case she falls, but his hands slip right through her shoulders.
The goddess tsks. "I'm fine," she says, as her body completely disappears for a second. "I am merely not supposed to be here so far away from Olympus. This place, you see, is called the land beyond the gods. My influence grows weaker and weaker and my physical form will vanish soon, but I shall guide you from your head."
Naruto stops. He doesn't like the sound of that. Bellona mistakes his silence for uncertainty.
"Are you feeling doubt, now? It's too late–"
Naruto waves his hand. "I already agreed, didn't I? I'm not one to break my promises."
As he turns to the location and the vanishing goddess steps to his side, he inspects her. The goddess trying so hard to help her kids and he wonders.
The gods aren't good parents (good people either) and that's why they are demigods defecting to Kronos.
Even the ones who aren't, there is no love. Naruto feels the bitterness permeating the Hermes cabin despite how they say they hate Luke for his betrayal. It's why he prefers sleeping in the Big House most of the time.
Naruto sees it sometimes in Percy too. He looks a lot like Sasuke during those times. A rage more thick than honey, and basically pouring out of him.
Naruto had kept himself pretty blank to the situation. This isn't his world. These aren't his problems. He has no connection with the titans or gods of this world.
So he was never going to join Kronos. But he could understand why some do it. Kronos pretends like he cares, the gods don't even bother.
Well that's what he thought. After this, though. It's… different. Confusing, really.
"You care for your kids," Naruto states, bluntly.
Bellona sees right through him. "We all do," she says, "We're all just not very good at showing it."
Then she vanishes completely.
Naruto sees what's keeping the demigods before he actually sees them. Like, a lot earlier.
Bellona mentally points to the horizon, occasionally correcting him as he veers slightly to the side. As he gets closer, he notices their guard in the distance. A giant of a man. Or perhaps just a giant.
The skin on his arm has precious diamonds etched into it. It's so covered by gold and diamond that it looks like a cast over the skin. The impressive feat about that is that every bit of precious stone is the size of Naruto's palms. For a being that's over forty feet tall, it must have taken him millenia to organize those into his flesh.
The giant's sharp fingers made of sapphire, brush off specs of dirt from an emerald, then slot it into his skin. The giant hums tremors into existence.
Naruto ignores the being.
"Lighten up your steps," Bellona whispers at the back of his head, like if she speaks too loud in his brain, the giant will notice.
"He's too far away to hear me." And he refuses to acknowledge her hisses after.
Naruto comes to the general location she points. He finds a little clearing. Bellona points to a hole in the ice. Inside, the demigods are trapped behind ice bars.
Naruto isn't focusing on that. He's focused on what's just outside of the bars, jeering at the demigods.
It's a litter of pale, smoky beings that go more and more translucent the lower down the body one looks, till they turn into wisps below their waists. Ghosts.
One calls, "You thought you were better than us, huh?" to the trapped demigods. "Well, you're not!" Another shouts.
Naruto doesn't know particularly why— perhaps Bellona is influencing him directly, perhaps there is too much purpose running in his veins, or maybe just because he met the prince and princess of ghosts— but Naruto doesn't freeze.
Heh. Nice.
A not-scared Naruto goes back to surveying the area. There is a squad of demigods— maybe three— slumped around their little prison. Naruto can't quite make out features with the snow and mist.
Naruto pauses to wonder why Percy isn't busting out of the ice bars. The guy can control water, so reasonably he should be able to do something to ice.
It's not like it matters, though.
Naruto readies his kunai.
"No," Bellona warns, "Fighting might draw his attention."
"Relax, lady. I'm a ninja."
Naruto has an idea. A brilliant one that would put any made by a child of Athena to shame. He shuffles around, further away from the demigods, and pulls his backpack around.
Then he grabs a few spray cans. Sorry Mount Rushmore. You'll have to wait, he thinks.
Naruto remembers how his Rasengan used to pop the inside of the empty balloon during his training with Jiraiya. The philosophy was something about… compression. Naruto needed to compress the chakra to get it to fit.
So for this to work, he should do the opposite then, slightly expand the chakra outward.
It's surprisingly hard to unlearn how to be good at the Rasengan, but Naruto gets it at the fifth try.
He doesn't put enough chakra that it'll pop in his hands but enough that one little tap will do the trick. He makes a clone and they do that with every can.
Then Naruto backs away to above the demigods, sharing a grin with his clone.
Three.
Two.
"What are you doing? What's the pl—"
The clone throws his half down and Naruto releases his bunch.
Naruto loosely knows about the dangers of puncturing pressurized cans, but he's not a nerd so his knowledge isn't in-depth or anything.
That's why when a pop so loud it feels like a firework was sent out in his head, rings through the area, it catches him slightly off guard.
The ghosts are sent for a manic trip. One of the spray cans starts spinning out in the air, letting out the sunrise orange color in it. Other spray cans bounce along the ice with a mind of their own, releasing their own bright colors such as a hot pink and vomit green.
If any fear remained of these ghosts, it's gone after the cheeto-covered specters start running around screaming. Instead of cowering, he cackles, the sound being deafened by the chaos, and launches himself down.
Bellona doesn't like his plan, though. "You fool!" she roars. He takes back anything about her being chill. "He surely knows that you are here now! If my daughters suffer because of your utter incompetence—!"
He slides across the ice after finding it slippery to walk on. "Take a chill pill," he says as he skates towards the bars, "I've got this all under control."
True to her word, the giant looks in their direction, pausing in putting another piece of gold into his shoulder. But he's distracted when the piece slips down his fingers and falls down into the ice.
"See?" He tells the goddess. She goes silent. There's no way that's good for him
As Naruto is running, he comes upon a golden eagle that is stuck into the ice. Naruto passes it without a single falter in his step.
Then, he reaches the questers. Unfortunately the multicolored spray cans got on them too, making them basically unrecognizable. The only thing he can see is gender. One is a girl and the other two are dudes.
Classic line-up. He gets kind of wistful for a second.
Naruto snaps out of that. "I'll get you out of here," he says. Then he does the first thing that comes to mind. Punching the bars.
If it was as it looks, the ice would shatter. If it had metal in it, it would bend and Naruto's fingers would split. But, the bars do neither. They remain standing, and the loud crack that rings out originates from Naruto's fingers breaking.
Utterly surprised, he makes a noise between a curse and shock.
"These are god-made," Bellona says finally. Naruto is in slight disbelief that she's giving information instead of, well, smiting him. "The work of Khione, no doubt. Blasted defect."
Naruto's fingers click as they heal, and he tries to think. Another ingenious plan brewing, he puts his hand through the gap. "One person grab my hand, then the others grab each other tight," he says. "That should work right?"
He gets blinks from the questers.
One speaks, the girl and definitely not Percy, says, "Who are you? Are you from the legion?"
"Not exactly," he says. He looks back, and the ghosts are still in a panic. Naruto turns back, and the three questers have shrunk back. He's about to say something like 'Percy, what the fuck?' when he remembers.
He remembers that Jason had lost his memories. It was very possible Percy had too, and as such, would have no reason to trust him. Or basically, Naruto would have to convince him too.
"C'mon. I want to help. In fact, I know you— one of you." Naruto should have lied. None of them even take a step forward. "I swear I'm a good guy."
"That's what they all say," Another guy says. He's also not Percy. His voice is too gravely; too deep. Percy didn't hit puberty like that.
"I'm an ally. I know Jason Grace." No bite, only a shred less apprehension. "I even met… fuck, um, Caesar?"
"Caesar died hundreds of years ago," The last guy says.
"Well, smart ass. I'm a god. So I'm immo—"
Then it hits him. That's not Percy's voice either. Percy's voice doesn't slur like that. The guy's voice sounds drunk, and Percy hates alcohol (Something about a step-dad or something)
"None of you are Percy?"
"Percy? Percy Jackson?" The girl asks. "Um, no?"
Naruto's legs feel like jelly. Was Percy… taken? Perhaps by the giant?
But the questers would be more than three if Percy was here. Questers are like teams in Konoha, they are always three.
Then Percy isn't on this quest. Percy was never on this quest.
The girl on border was telling the truth and Naruto had been too bullheaded to listen. He should have listened. He really should have fucking listened.
The feeling that slams into his chest isn't just simple disappointment; it's worse. It's soul-wrenching, but also maddening, like Naruto wants to tear out Hera's gullet maddening.
Naruto tries not to think about it and focus on the next steps, but— twice now, he's tried and he's hoped. Naruto promised a troubled mother that he would come back with her son, and he's failed her twice with his stupidity. It's like a goose chase, and Naruto is failing at every turn.
Uzumaki, Bellona warns. Too wrapped in his thoughts, he doesn't hear her.
Then, where is Percy? Where the fuck is his friend? If not here…
He's on a quest, the Frank guy had said that.
Then again, how could Naruto know that's true?
Panic settles in his chest. He will not go back to Sally empty-handed. He will not do this 'breaking promises' shit again.
Uzumaki, Bellona warns again, but this time her voice is so loud, his thoughts are drowned out.
What?! Naruto is mad, irritable and he doesn't need this when he's trying to think.
Before she can say anything, every warning flashes in his head. He turns and catches a glimpse of pale-white skin and blue-icy eyes, before his entire body is frozen solid.
Naruto gets to see the moment when understanding dawns on the questers, followed quickly by regret as their only hope turns into solidified water.
"I should have known the snow was too extreme. Khione, herself, is here."
Wow. Thanks for telling that to him before he was popsicle.
Khione tilts her head as she looks at him. "A mortal?" She asks, "Why would a puny mo— Oh!" She claps. "You're the mortal? The troublesome one?"
If he had a nickel for every time someone called him troublesome, he would be stinking rich.
Khione turns away from him. Her mouth is open to shout to the giant at the distance.
Naruto breathes in. Out.
Stupid goddess, don't you know? Never turn your back to your opponent.
Naruto lets an entire river's worth of chakra pour out of him and the ice shatters. Khione turns around in alarm but it's too late. Her ice covered hand swipes for his face. Her form is staggeringly horrible, even worse than his. Naruto grabs her by the elbow, turns their positions so that her hand is pinned on her back and she's in front of the bars.
Naruto spares no mercy as he bangs her head on the ice bars. Her durability is somehow worse than her form. She crumples, her head split and ichor flowing. She's as dead as a goddess can be. He doesn't grimace, instead a satisfaction pulses through him, anger satiated.
Arrogant goddess, don't you know? If you play ranged, don't ever come close to a combat expert.
All the noise finally catches the giant's attention. "What is going on over there?" The giant shouts. His voice is rich and smooth, like liquid gold.
With no response, he starts making his way towards them.
With the speed the giant is approaching, Naruto is swimming in time. He makes his way back to the questers.
Bellona doesn't agree. Hurry! If he reaches—"
Irately, he responds. "Then I'll kick his ass."
"You cannot beat this." He makes a disagreeing face, "To defeat this giant, he needs to be outside his territory. If you think you can drag him to Canada, then defeat him in the five minutes you have left before my presence is gone and I cannot teleport you. Be my guest."
For a second, he thinks defiantly, You don't think I can? Watch this shit.
But semblances of a common sense flows into his brain and— okay, fine. Whatever. He'll do what the demanding goddess wants.
With no way he can see to break the bars, he reaches his fingers through the gaps. "All of you grab my hand." They rush to do so. "Now, Bellona. Teleport us!"
"Bellona?" One of the questers asks in confusion.
.
.
.
Nothing happens.
Naruto blinks. The questers blink back at him.
"Bellona?" He, too, asks.
I can't do it, Bellona tells him, sounding as shocked as he feels. I can't… teleport you.
"Me?" Naruto asks. "Like me specifically?"
Yeah, Bellona confirms. Something is stopping me.
Suddenly the giant feels too close. Naruto feels like punching the air. "New plan," he tells the questers. "Step back."
He tries a Rasengan on the bars. Nada.
Khione made this? Really?
"Try the eagle," The girl suggests. Naruto turns to the golden eagle staff stabbed in the ice. Naruto goes for the eagle, plucks it out with surprising ease, and returns.
When he swings it, the eagle hums and literal lightning rains down on it. Then he hits the bars and they shatter like, well, ice.
"Woah," Naruto says.
The giant walking leisurely in the distance, suddenly starts sprinting after seeing the lightning. For a being that is over forty feet tall, he's quite fast.
The girl once again pipes up. "Our boat is that way!" She says.
Then they start running for the water. The giant sees them pretty early into their sprint. He roars, plucking out the shiny materials that make his skin. Then he launches them with deadly accuracy.
Naruto has to stop a couple of times to kick away a few diamonds that get too close. Except for one time when he's too slow, and the one that comes to the rescue is the girl.
She jumps in front of the gold, and the moment it makes contact with her fingers, it repels back to the giant. She doesn't hit it back, it just… reverses momentum. It hits the giant between the eyes, and he falls onto his ass.
They reach the sea in record time.
Right next to where the glacier ends there is an old boat smaller in length than Naruto's height. It has old moss stuck to its sides, and flimsy board on the bottom that looks minutes from snapping off.
And he thought Camp Jupiter was a more organized camp.
The girl stops there. "Get in the boat!" She says.
Naruto stops them with a raised hand. "It's not big enough for four," he tells them. "I'll take it alone."
A scoff. "What are we supposed to do then? Die?" The slur guy asks. This is the first time any of the guys have talked for a while
Naruto turns slowly. The cloud covers the sun, enshrouding the area in a sheen of darkness.
"To be perfectly honest, I was going to give you that barter. You give me what I want, or you die." The questers shrink back. The slur guy holds the eagle tight to his chest. "But I'm not going to do that. I'm not that desperate."
"What did you want so bad?" The deep voice guy asks.
"The location of Perseus Jackson. He likes to go by Percy." Naruto watches them look at each other with apprehension. "I'm not going to trap you here if you refuse, or something similarly petty; I'm not even going to threaten it. But I'd like you to tell me with full honesty and no vagueness. You're free to lie, and I wouldn't know. The choice is yours."
The questers look at each other. The guy with a deep voice asks, "He allows you to call him Percy?"
His mask of cool authority fades. His eyebrows pinch together in confusion "...Yes?" Naruto says, trying to shake off the noticeable 'the hell does that mean?' in his gaze. It's hard because that took the wind out his sails completely.
Hesitation. Come on.
"I don't think—"
Then the slur guy sighs. "Hazel, we owe him our lives. If this is how he cashes in, then we shouldn't object."
Naruto nods for him to go on. Anticipation rises from his toes.
"You've heard of the Bermuda triangle right?" The guy asks. "That's where the sea of monsters is located nowadays. Specifically, I think he's going for Polyphemus' island. Something about dreams with a blonde girl and a… faun, I think?"
"That's a lot of info, Dakota," The deep voice guy says, but doesn't object further.
Naruto doesn't believe in fate, but even he has to say that's quite the coincidence.
"Bermuda triangle," he mutters, so he can remember it later.
The giant moans in the distance. Naruto sees with the corner of his vision that the giant landed on one of the ice sculptures, and some sharp parts had poked into his skin.
Naruto turns to the questers. "You should leave now," He tells them, then smiles softly, letting his poker face completely vanish. "Thanks," he tells them, "Honestly, you've done me a huge favor."
Naruto gets on the boat.
The slur guy, Dakota apparently but Naruto prefers slur guy, scoffs. "You're not gonna make it in that though. Unless you want to take a month to get there.
Naruto senses no bite in his tone, so asks him what he means by that. The demigod charts for him approximately where the Bermuda triangle is.
And it's very far from where they are now.
Welp. Shit.
Before disappointment can come in again, Bellona's voice permeates in his head. "Get in the boat," she tells him, "You forget you have a goddess on your side."
Problem solved, apparently. That was surprisingly easy.
He could get used to having a goddess help him.
"Don't."
"Don't worry about it," he says as he gets snug in the boat. The giant starts getting up in the distance. He picks out another stone, this one seems to be ruby.
"We weren't," Dakota replies.
Naruto watches as a sheen of golden energy covers the boat for a second. When it vanishes, there isn't a lot of difference. The moss is gone, and perhaps the wood is of better quality, but it's not, like, bigger.
Naruto hums in satisfaction, and is about to leave, when Hazel calls to him. All the questers start glowing. The giant throws the ruby but Naruto knows it won't reach before they are gone.
"If we find that you killed—" She starts, but Naruto interrupts her.
"I won't. Don't worry."
"We still need a name. Just so we can find you easier and exact our revenge."
He snorts. Maybe the Romans ain't so bad. "Naruto," he says.
She smiles. "I thought so." Naruto tilts his head, confused. Then she says the words he was probably expecting the least. "Nico says hi."
Then they vanish, and his boat moves without him touching the paddle. He just revs off like he's in a supercar.
In thirty seconds flat, the glacier and the giant on it look like the specs of dirt the giant was brushing off his emeralds.
In that time, Naruto only stares at the spot Hazel was.
"Huh?"
I was looking over this story the other day with my laptop. The weird thing wasn't that I was reading my own work but how plainly unattractive my line-spacing looks on my laptop. On my phone it looks perfectly fine but on the laptop it looks like constant one-liners.
I tried to strike a balance here, and last chapter cause I edited that after making this chapter. You'll have to tell me how it looks. Is it too blocky on mobile? One-liner looking on a laptop? Was I doomed from the start? Is this stupid? (yes)