I.
Enter Eric
Eric did NOT get paid enough for this crap.
Sure, he had always been the guy they sent to clean up messes—terrorists, insurgents, nature spirits messing with mining operations, the usual inconveniences. But this? This was on a whole new level of screwed. The Modern Defense Department had fucked up so catastrophically that they had to scramble an impromptu black operation to a foreign, backwater pantheon with little notice.
To theGreek pantheon, no less.
Eric had never paid much attention to Greek mythology. He was a Modern, after all—his world ran on physics and rationalism, not godly soap operas. So when his commanding officer fumbled through theGreek Myths for Dummiesbriefing ten minutes before deployment, he had suspected he might be out of his depth.
Still, he thought he could handle it.
He couldn't.
BANG!
The empousa squirming beneath his boot convulsed once before its head exploded like a balloon. The gunshot echoed through the dense forest, sending nearby birds scattering. Between exhausted breaths, Eric wiped the sweat and blood off his brow and reloaded his HK416 assault rifle.
He hadseverelyunderestimated the Greek plane and its shenanigans.
It wasn't just the nightmarish monsters lurking around every corner. It was the sheerwrongnessof the place. The way the air pressed against his skin, thick with unseen currents of power. The way the ground feltaware, as if the dirt, the trees, even the clouds were watching him... Something old, primal, and hostile.
And then there was the magic.
Hehatedthe magic.
It clung to him like dense, damp smog, worming into his skin, seeping into his gear. His rifle jammed more often. The electronics barely worked. The whole plane was unnatural—irrational, unpredictable as hell.
He pinched the bridge of his nose.Stupid dimension. Stupid monsters. Stupid Defense Department.
His communicator crackled to life.
"Agent Pershing! Pershing! Do you copy?"
His superior's voice came through, riddled with interference.
"Yeah, I'm still here," he replied while bandaging a gash on his leg—courtesy of a particularly pissed-off hellhound. "Any progress over there?"
The response wasnotencouraging.
"Everything's fucked, Pershing! We're scrambling to send UAVs and more hardware, but nothing works! That magical hellhole keeps frying everything! Our technicians are rushing a workaround, but we won't be able to send reinforcements anytime soon—we're in the dark! The Intelligence Department is in SHAMBLES right now!"
Eric grimaced. He could hear rustling and loud yells through the comms. Headquarters was probably in pandemonium—officers yelling, the frantic clatter of keyboards, the thud of something being thrown across the room...
The crisis wasthatbad.
"Damn it…" He glanced at the assorted pile of dead monsters behind him. "Well, I've made some progress, but I, uh, had a little run-in with the local wildlife."
"Do you still have a lead on the enemy?"his commander demanded.
Eric stopped and pulled a rugged electronic device from his backpack. After wiping the blood off the screen—his, the monster's, it didn't matter—he turned it on. The device displayed a circular grid, and a single dot that beeped intermittently.
"Yeah," Eric said through the headset. "Heartbeat sensor's picking up a signal. It's faint, but the reading checks out. It's them."
"Oh, thank Sophia!"the commander groaned in relief."Find the target and stand by for further instructions. I'm redirecting the other agents to your position. We need to eliminate the threat and pull out ASAP! The local deities won't take kindly to an illegal cross-pantheon intervention."
"Copy that."
Eric pushed forward through the underbrush, his rifle steady despite the fatigue gnawing at his limbs. His combat exoskeleton compensated for the injuries, servos whirring softly as he stalked through the shadows.
As he walked, the damn sensor flickered and glitched—as it had since he'd arrived. Magic screwed with tech, and his injuries weren't helping. He was running on borrowed time.
But Eric was a professional.
And if anything, professionals had standards.Find the threat, neutralize it, and get the hell out.Then, when the world-ending crisis his pantheon faced was over, maybe cash in his vacation days.
Fate, however, had other plans.
The screen glitched.
The dot he'd been tracking for a day and a half vanished.
"Oh, come on," Eric hissed, giving the device a good smack.
Instead, when the device rebooted—twelve or so more dots materialized on the screen.
They were spread in a perfect circle around him.
Eric froze. His breath hitched.
Slowly, deliberately, he crouched and set the heartbeat sensor aside. He pressed the bolt release on the rifle with a satisfyingclick, his blood-streaked hands tightening around the polymer grip.
"Command! We've got a situation over here!" He smashed the push-to-talk button with urgent desperation. "The locals have spotted me! Requesting immediate—"
Loud static. No response.
"Great… Just my luck…"
Comms jammed. No reinforcements. No backup. Nothing.
Just him.
A glint somewhere in the bushes—
THUNK!
A sledgehammer of pain slammed into his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs. He stumbled back, eyes wide. His fingers brushed the bronze-tipped arrow lodged in his chest plate.
The ceramic ballistic plates had stopped it.
The ceramic plates had stopped it.
Without them, he'd be dead.
"Oh, crap…"
More arrows. A hail of them. Spears, too. They rained down on the spot he'd been standing a second ago, kicking up dirt and splinters as he dived behind a rotting tree trunk.
He ripped the arrow out and shouldered the rifle, breathing in and out slowly to assess the situation. He risked a peek.
Teenagers. His age, maybe younger. Orange shirts. Gleaming bronze armor. Weapons glowing with celestial bronze.
A hunting party.
Greek demigods.
Nope.No, no, no.
Eric ran a hand down his face. He'd been warned. This was quite literally the worst possible scenario made reality.
"I'm screwed… I'm completely screwed…" he muttered.
The orange-shirted kids were clearly not in the mood to talk.
He could tell by their postures—the way they stalked closer, swords drawn, shields raised.
The manual had told him to avoid the magical teenagers at all costs. But he was surrounded, so that was out of the question.
Eric would have to fight his way out of this one.
With a resigned sigh, he pulled out a combat stimulant and swore to himself that if he survived this, he was definitely taking a vacation.
His rifle snapped up—textbook C-clamp grip. He chose a target, aimed center mass, and squeezed the trigger with a bit too much force.
RATATATATA!
The demigods reacted instantly.
"There he is! Everyone take cover!" one of them yelled, diving for cover.
"Dear gods! He has a gun! Is that even allowed?!" another shrieked.
"Just shut up and flank him!"
Eric blinked.
The kid he had just shot at had disappeared in a blur, moving withinhumanspeed and kicking up a cloud of dust and leaves.
Okay. That was weird.
Eric snapped to a different target. Pulled the trigger.
Click.
Gun jammed. An inexplicable failure to eject. The magic was messing with the internal mechanismagain.
"Oh, for fuck's—"
No time to clear it.
The demigods were already on him.
A rustle behind him—flanking maneuver.
Eric barely turned in time to dodge a celestial bronze shortsword slashing past his throat.
The demigod hacked and slashed at him in a flurry of rapid strikes. The blade bounced off Eric's armor plates but cut deep where the Kevlar didn't protect him. Eric dodged as best as he could, backtracking under the vicious attack. He was no swordsman, so in a fit of desperation, he blocked a brutal downward swing by using his rifle as a parrying stick.
Metal screeched. Sparks flew.
The demigod watched in horror as their celestial bronze sword smashed through the aluminum handguard of the scary gun-thing—
And then crashed into the barrel.
The steel bit into the celestial bronze. The swordchipped.
"What in Hades—"
Eric wasted no time.
With the speed of a competition shooter, his sidearm came out of the holster and aimed at the demigod's midsection.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The demigod's armor dented inward, pierced.
He staggered, coughing blood and clutching his gut—but he didn't go down.
Eric did a double take.These people could withstand bullets? Please.
He yanked the stuck sword off his rifle and knocked the demigod out with a brutal swing of the stock. The poor kid went sprawling.
But Eric didn't even have time to plan his next move. A second demigod rushed in.
Big guy. Ridiculous Spartan helmet. Spear.
The spear bounced off Eric's shoulder plate, knocking him back. His pistol clattered to the ground, and then the Spartan kid tackled him. They hit the dirt, rolling, thrashing, fists and elbows flying in all directions.
Raw, ugly combat.
Eric felt the overwhelming pressure. This kid wasinhumanlystrong—so strong that even Eric's exoskeleton was barely holding it together. The hydraulics groaned and hissed against the crushing force.
"Gods, whatisthis guy?!" the Spartan kid yelled, trying to pin him down.
"Get off me, asshole!" Eric snarled.
He wasnotgetting out of the demigod's death grip. That much was clear.
So Eric slammed his head into his opponent's nose.
The demigodstaggered.
Eric seized the opportunity. His hand darted down, grabbing the combat knife strapped to his leg—
And drove it straight into the Spartan kid's side.
The demigod howled in pain, momentarily incapacitated.
Eric shoved him off with casual disdain.
He cleared the rifle's malfunction and smashed the forward assist.
"Work, damn you."
By now, Eric was feeling more than a littlepanicked.The exhaustion and blood loss from earlier were setting in. His odds of survival were dropping by the second.
He didn't havetimefor this crap. He had a mission, and his people were counting on him. Hehadto GTFO and finish the damn mission.
A third attacker lunged. An axe-wielding girl came from his blind spot, swinging in a wide arc.
Eric raised his arm instinctively, and the blade crashed into his exoskeleton's reinforced forearm frame.
A loud, gratingpingreverberated as metal met metal.
Eric nearly crumpled like tin foil from the sheer force of the strike, but the exoskeleton held strong.
The girl reacted quickly.
She sent a powerful kick his way—
It sent him flying.
He hit the ground several feet back with athud.
"Stupid kids, ignoring the laws of physics…" Eric gritted his teeth.
Before the axe girl could press the attack, still on the ground, he leveled the rifle at her.
BANG!
The bullet tore through her leg.
She cried out,crashing into the dirt headfirst.
Eric got up, ignoring the burning-hot pain from his injuries, and smacked the girl in the head with the rifle stock for good measure.
He was about to bolt andrun for his life,but then he saw them.
The rest of the demigod hunting part; ten or so angry, overpowered teens sprinting at him with weapons raised, yelling totally unnecessary war cries.
He was not getting away.
"Oh, for crying out loud…" He groaned.
The truth was, Eric's vision was starting to blur. He wasslowing down.Too much blood loss. Too many hits.
The demigods weren't.They weren't slowing at all.
They were relentless.
So Eric did what any soldier would do in his situation. He improvised.
He reached down andseized the poor girl he'd just shot in the leg.
He pulled her up and pressed the barrel of his rifle against her head, using her as a rather flimsy human shield.
The remaining demigods stopped in their tracks,boots scraping the dirt beneath them.
"Okay," he said between ragged breaths. "Let's all calm down for a second… Let's be rational about this…"
He pressed the gun harder against her. She whimpered in terror.
The demigods gritted their teeth, but one of them—the leader, obviously—ordered them to stand down.
She took a step forward.
A girl with stormy gray eyes. Eric exhaled sharply, sizing her up. The leader.
Smart. Deadly. Definitely not the type to mess around.
"Let her go. Now."Annabeth Chase demanded.
Eric sighed.
Shit.
"Listen, I uh… Any chance we can talk this over?" His German accent slipped through, thick from exhaustion.
Annabeth's eyes narrowed. " No way inHades. You nearly killed two of my campers. You're lucky I haven't ordered them to finish you off."
Eric sighed. "It was self self-defense, sweetheart. You started it!"
"You waltzed into our camp armed. That's an act of war."
Yeah, that tracked. Eric recalled what the commander had said. Illegal cross-pantheon intervention. Black operation.The optics weren't looking good, but he wasn't about to admit it. He preferred living, thank you very much.
Eric played dumb. "Act of war? Lady, I have no idea what you're talking about. I was just passing by, and then you jumped me all of a sudden! Real charming."
The others tightened their grips on their weapons.
Eric glanced at his own blood-soaked hands. His breath was shallow. Wounds weeping. He could barely walk anymore. He was not winning this.
He could see the writing on the wall: they were definitely going to kill him. They wereitchingto do so. He needed to figure out how to surrender. And fast.
So he released the girl from his grip, who staggered to the ground with a pained yelp.
The demigods relaxed ever so slightly. Annabeth raised an eyebrow.He's giving up his only leverage so quickly?
"Listen, let's make a deal." He said carefully. "I'll surrender peacefully, play nice, and cooperate with you. In exchange, you get me a medic, and you know, don't kill me. How's that sound?"
Annabeth studied him. Sizing him up. Calculating.
A second too long, and Eric could tell—she was debating whether it was worth executing him on the spot.
He had one last gamble.
Eric sighed. Then, without looking, he tossed his pistol at her feet.
Thud.
Annabeth glanced down at it as if it had just spoken mandarin to her.
To signal his surrender, he even ejected the magazine from the rifle, although he still held it with the other hand as insurance.
"There. That counts for something, doesn't it?"
The demigods tensed.
Annabeth didn't flinch. Didn't break eye contact.
"We could kill you anyway. We should." she said, her tone deadly calm.
He slowly reinserted the magazine. Released the bolt. Click-clack!
The demigods flinched. Annabeth didn't.
"Do you really think you can win?" she asked, a small smirk forming on her lips. "You're bleeding out. And you're alone."
"Maybe," Eric muttered, giving a lopsided grin. "But I always wanted to go down in a blaze of glory. And I can guarantee I'm taking at least one of you down with me.Your move."
A heavy silence.
Annabeth's expression darkened. Eric pressed on.
"And by the looks of it, I'm not the only one that needs a medic, huh? Stalling makes it worse for both of us," he gestured towards the injured campers on the ground around him, still groaning from the bullet wounds.
Annabeth's eye twitched. Eric stared her down, blood dripping onto the dirt. He kept his finger near the trigger.
"Who are you and why are you here?" she demanded.
"Okay, let's not get hasty,ja? Guarantee my safety, and I'll tell you everything you want to know. For now, I'll just say I'm not from here. Not from your pantheon. I'm newer."
That caught her attention.
"So, do we have a deal? Please take it before I make this painful for all of us," he said.
This was it. His final gambit.
Annabeth squinted. She studied him with the precision of a strategist.
Eric stood his ground, bleeding, battered, and barely able to stay upright. The camouflage raincoat and tactical vest marked him as military, but the sleek exoskeleton bracing his frame was something else—high-tech, advanced, and utterly foreign to their world. His movements had been fluid and brutal, his strikes calculated to incapacitate or kill. He fought with the efficiency of a soldier, but there was more to him than training.
He was dangerous. Even now, wounded and outnumbered, there was no fear in his eyes. Only grim determination and that unnerving, almost bored smirk.
But he had information, and Annabeth hated not getting answers.
"Take him to the Big House," she ordered.
"Annabeth-"
"Now."
Two demigods stepped forward, shackles in hand. Eric grimaced as they roughly seized his arms.
This didn't look good at all. He had no time to waste, and now, the locals had taken him prisoner. So much for being a professional.