#dndv

Thalia laughed. “That’s what I said!”  

Sally just smiled at them both. “Thank you, Phoebe. You Hunters are pretty spectacular yourselves. Now, I’m sure Thalia must be getting tired of carrying all that dead weight around, so if you wouldn’t mind leading us to your camp, dear, I’m sure we’d both appreciate it.” 

Thalia snickered at the ‘dead weight’ comment, but she had to admit Sally wasn’t wrong. She wasn’t particularly tired just yet, but she could feel her shoulder growing sore and she was starting to lose feeling in her left arm. 

Phoebe snorted as she turned, gesturing for them to follow her. “Of course, Ms. Jackson. It’s this way, not too far.” 

They walked in a comfortable silence, though Thalia could tell Phoebe still had questions. Thalia did too, to be honest, but she didn’t mind waiting a little longer to get her answers. 

When they stepped out of the tree line and into the clearing Phoebe and the others had made camp in, the Hunters all perked up and called out greetings to Sally. Sally, of course, greeted each girl by name in turn as they made their way to the center of the camp. 

The other girls gathered curiously as they went and a few of the wolves wormed their way up to Thalia’s side to nose at the body. Sally, completely unperturbed by the massive, mostly wild creatures, reached down to scratch between the ears of the one that had decided to sneak up and sniff at the rug she carried. 

Thalia shooed the wolves back and unceremoniously dropped the body to the ground with a hearty thump. 

“Damn, Lieutenant, what is that?” 

Thalia grinned. “Dead body,” she said nonchalantly, holding back laughter at the startled exclamations along the lines of ‘what the fuck’. “Sally killed him.” Again, a deadpan delivery, and again, the Hunters broke out in fervent cries, though this time more along the lines of ‘holy shit, Ms. Sally’. “She wants our help disposing of it,” Thalia called out over the girls’ chattering. “So, let's start setting up the pyre, ladies! We’ve got some work to do.” 

“I'll tell you all the story once we get the fire burning, girls,” Sally chimed in, and Thalia snorted as the Hunters immediately jumped into action. 

By evening, the blanket-wrapped body and bloody rug were burning merrily atop a carefully constructed Greek funeral pyre and all thirty-some Hunters were gathered in a loose circle around it. Someone (and Thalia suspected it had been Callista, that girl loved s’mores almost a concerning amount) had even passed out marshmallows and whittled wooden skewers (though she had no idea where the chocolate and graham crackers came from). 

There were gasps and cries as Sally told them about her past, the sister she’d lost and John’s visit afterward, about the nephews she’d thought gone. It was silent as she told them how she learned Percy was missing, and her decision to call her nephew Sam, who she’d learned was still alive four years ago but had been too afraid to reach out to. There was cursing when she told them what she’d learned of Sam and Dean’s childhoods, John’s abuse and neglect, the scars she’d seen on Dean’s skin put there by human hands. 

Shouts of indignance and rage filled the air as Sally told them how John had come to her home that morning and attacked her and Paul, followed by whooping and hollering as she told them how she’d fought back, refused to let him cow her, and there were cheers when she told them she felt no remorse for slitting that man’s throat, only that his death, and it being at her hands, would bring Sam and Dean so much pain. 

Thalia’s chest felt hollow when Sally was done, her heart aching with sympathetic grief. She’d never held much if any love for Beryl Grace, especially not after what she’d done to Jason, she’d left that woman behind and never looked back when she was ten. But . . . would she have stayed had Jason not been stolen away? Would she have put up with her mother’s abuse, shielding and raising her brother while Beryl slowly drank herself to death and screamed at them whenever she wasn’t ignoring their existence? Or would she have taken Jason and run? Would she still have met Luke, met Annabeth, had she brought Jason with her? 

She thought back to how she’d felt when she’d learned Beryl had died in a car crash while she was a tree, the incongruent mixture of grief and disdain. (Good riddance, she’d thought, she brought it upon herself, no doubt she was plastered behind the wheel. But a small, stubborn part of her soul had still cried at the loss of her momma, who used to sing her to sleep and kiss her boo-boos better, who used to hold her close and tell her stories with a flashlight as they hid beneath the covers, the momma who used to love her.) 

There was a gentle hand on her shoulder. Thalia shook herself free of her thoughts and looked up to find Sally watching her with a soft smile and concern in her eyes. 

“Are you alright, Thalia?” 

She nodded and reached up to squeeze Sally’s hand. “They’ll forgive you,” she said. “I don’t think I ever loved my mom as much as it seems like Dean and Sam love their dad, but there was still a part of me that grieved when I learned she was dead. They’ll need time to grieve, too, and will probably be angry with you for a while, but I have no doubt that the three of you will be able to move past it, Sally. John attacked you and Paul.  He  started the fight, you were just defending yourself.” 

Sally smiled gently, tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, dear. Those boys deserve the truth, they’ve been lied to enough, and they have every right to be angry with me, to hate me, even, but that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of losing them because of this, you know?” she sighed. “I’ll call them tomorrow to let them know what happened. For now, it’s rather late, and I for one, would prefer a good night’s sleep before making that call. Would you mind if I stayed with you girls tonight?” 

“Of course not, Sally. You’re always welcome.” Thalia stood and pulled Sally into a hug. “You can stay in my tent.” 

“Thank you, Thalia. I’ll call Paul and let him know I’ll be home in the morning.” 

Thalia watched Sally as she left the circle of firelight and rowdy Hunters to call her husband, the hollow feeling in her chest returning. 

“She’s been through so much,” Phoebe said, suddenly standing beside her lieutenant. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a stronger woman.” 

Thalia nodded and shot her a sad smile. “I want to be just like her when I grow up,” she joked, and Phoebe laughed before they both sobered once more. “Her nephews are going to be mad, and they have every right to be.” Thalia crossed her arms and stared down at her boots. “But I hope they understand and forgive her quickly. With Percy still missing . . .” Thalia trailed off. 

“Everyone has their breaking point,” Phoebe said softly, laying her hand on Thalia’s shoulder. “You’re worried this might be hers.” 

Thalia nodded, squeezing her eyes shut to fight back her building tears. “We have to find him, Phoebe,” she said, voice breaking. 

“We will. We will, Lieutenant,” Phoebe said firmly. “And from the way she talked about them, I’m sure her nephews will understand. Even if things are strained for a while, I doubt they’ll abandon her or the search for Percy. I have faith that they will make it through this, we all will, Thalia.” 

Thalia gave her second a watery smile as she wiped at her eyes. “You’re right, Phoebe, of course you are. What would I do without you?” she pulled the other girl in for a hug as they laughed. 

Soon enough, Sally came back, and Phoebe bade them both good night before ducking into her tent as Thalia ushered Sally toward hers. 

Thalia had a feeling that neither of them would be getting much sleep that night. 

— 

Come morning, Thalia walked with Sally back to her car after the woman had said goodbye to the Hunters, who were all sad to see her go so soon. 

As she watched the Prius disappear down the road, Thalia sent out a silent prayer to any gods that were listening. 

Please, let everything work out okay at least this once. And wherever he is, please, keep Percy safe.  

~ ~ ~ 

Sally let herself into the apartment a little after nine and found Paul making breakfast. He glanced over when he heard the door open and smiled at her before turning back to the stove to flip a pancake. 

“How’d it go?” he asked over his shoulder, and Sally sighed, sitting down at their kitchen table and resting her chin in her palm. 

“It’s taken care of, and the girls were quite enthusiastic over the story,” she snorted, then sighed again. “I haven’t called them yet. I’ll do that here soon, though later in the day, I think. This isn’t something one should have to hear first thing in the morning.” she shook her head. “How is your head doing, darling?” 

Paul set a plate with two blue, buttered pancakes down in front of her, a handful of blueberries scattered across the top. Her favorite. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes as Paul leaned down to kiss her crown. 

“All better,” he said, smiling softly as he pulled away. “Is there anything I can do to help?” 

Sally shook her head, nudging a blueberry across her plate despondently. “Just . . . be there,” she whispered. 

Paul took an involuntary step back, eyes flicking to the knife block on the counter to gauge the distance in case he needed to grab a weapon. Sally, however, didn’t even flinch, just steadied herself, crossed her arms, and stared the guy down. (Gods, Paul loved that woman. She was so badass.) 

“John,” she said coldly, and realization crashed over Paul in an instant. John. Sam and Dean’s asshole father. Paul inched closer to the knife block; he had a feeling this wasn’t going to end peacefully. 

John Winchester cut a truly intimidating figure, well-honed strength evident in the harsh lines of his body, violence barely contained in his tightly curled fists and rage burning in his dark eyes. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he growled, voice low and menacing. “Trying to turn my own sons against me? You have no right !” his voice rose steadily until he was yelling in Sally’s face, spittle flying. Paul grimaced in disgust and carefully wrapped his hand around the handle of the chef’s knife to pull it from the block. 

Sally (bless that woman) merely raised an eyebrow and reached up to casually wipe away some saliva that had landed on her cheek. “Your sons?” she said with a derisive scoff. “Please. You didn’t raise those boys, Dean raised himself and Sam. You neglected those boys, and you abused Dean.” Sally’s tone was sharp and cruel, unfazed in the face of a man nearly twice her size. “Mary may have been your wife, but she was my sister!” She stepped forward and jabbed a finger into John’s chest. “I have every fucking right,” she hissed. 

John’s face twisted into an enraged snarl as he grabbed Sally’s wrist and wrenched it away from his chest. He twisted her arm and shoved her into the wall, his other forearm pressing against her throat. “I raised my boys right! I made them strong and self-sufficient! And I never did anything to Dean that he didn’t deserve. I taught him obedience—” 

Paul’s vision went red. How fucking dare he—  

But before Paul had managed to do more than yank the knife free and lunge around the table, Sally had pulled some ninja, Black Widow, bullshit move and was now on John’s shoulders, choking him out with her thighs. 

(Holy shit. Paul couldn’t help but wonder if Sally would do that to him if he asked really nicely . . .) 

“I don’t know how Mary ever loved you,” Sally hissed, pulling a silver blade from . . . somewhere? Where was she hiding that? (Holy fuck, Paul was so lucky.) “She would hate you for what you’ve done, for raising her boys to be hunters. She didn’t want that life for them. Oh yeah,” she said, smiling ruefully when John’s attempts to pry her legs from around his throat froze momentarily. “Mary and I came from a long line of hunters, we were raised not so different from how you raised Sam and Dean. But it’s a shitty way to live, and you’ve condemned her children to the life she married you to get free of. She would fucking hate you, John.” 

John roared and finally managed to yank Sally off his shoulders, throwing her to the ground. She wheezed, the wind temporarily knocked from her lungs, as her knife skittered across the floor and out of reach. “You don’t know anything,” he snarled, lunging after Sally as she scrambled back to her feet. 

Paul threw himself forward, planting himself between them, and brandished his chef’s knife in John’s face. “Back off, John,” Paul said sternly, sounding much steadier than he felt, thank the gods. “You may not have done right by them, but Dean and Sam love you. They’re upset right now, and understandably so, but give them space and some time for everyone to cool off and they’ll reach out to you when they’re ready to talk about it. With time, I’m sure the three of you can work this out and move past it.” 

John glared at him. “You stay out of this,” he said harshly, unperturbed by the knife in his face, and shoved Paul aside. The knife clattered out of his hand and Paul landed on his ass with an oof, his head cracking against the floor and making his vision go a little fuzzy. Well, shit. 

John took a heavy swing at Sally, who was back on her feet now, and Paul watched through vaguely blurry vision as she ducked under his fist and then managed to land a roundhouse kick to his head, sending him staggering into the wall. 

“I don’t want to fight you, John,” Sally said, voice cold. “But I’m not going to stand here and let you attack me and my husband in my home. So you can either calm down and walk out my front door under your own power, or I will put you down, drag you out, and leave your ass on the street. It’s up to you.” 

Now, Paul was a little fuzzy on what exactly happened next, to be honest, because it all happened rather fast (and he might have a mild concussion), but he’s pretty sure it went something like this: John, further enraged by Sally telling him to get the fuck out of her house and subsequent insinuation that she was fully capable of beating his ass, said something truly heinous to her (that Paul is actually very glad he can’t particularly remember aside from the fact that it pissed him off) and drew what looked like a fucking machete (???) from where it was hidden somewhere under his coat. Then there was a lot of flashing metal and shouting, a few small spurts of blood that had Paul’s heart in his throat, and then John was on his knees, gagging as he clutched desperately at his neck. 

Sally stood in front of him with the machete in hand, blood dripping off the blade, her face contorted in a mixture of mild horror and disgust. John continued to choke, punctuated by the occasional gurgle, before his hands dropped from his slit throat and he fell forward onto his face in a grotesque, growing puddle of his own blood. 

“Well,” Sally said blithely, one hand on her cocked hip. “That complicates some things.” 

Paul must have made some vague noise, because Sally turned to him, face full of concern. She dropped the knife and hurried over to his side, checking him over as she helped him sit up. 

“Are you okay?” she asked gently, and Paul had to take a moment to just marvel at this gorgeous, badass woman in front of him. 

How the hell did I get this lucky, he thought, and Sally giggled. Oh. He must have said that out loud. Whoops. 

“I’m okay,” he said. “Maybe a little bruised, but I’m fine. What about you? Are you hurt? Did he get you with that knife?” Paul asked, suddenly remembering the small splatters of blood from throughout the fight, and he grabbed her shoulders, scanning her for signs of injury. He couldn’t tell if any of the blood was hers or if it was all John’s. 

Sally smiled softly at him and gently reached up to grab his hands, settling them in her lap as she gave them a comforting squeeze. “I’m fine,” she said. “Maybe a little bruised,” she said lightly, parroting his words from earlier, “But I’m fine.” 

Paul let out a breath and slumped back against the wall. His gaze drifted to the body in their entryway, the blood still pooling and no doubt staining their rug beyond saving. Paul wondered idly if they’d be able to clean the wood beneath or if they’d have to replace it and hope nobody asked too many questions. (Somewhere, he thought he should probably be more freaked out and upset that there was a dead body in his hallway and that he’d just watched his wife brutally murder a man, but whatever. It’d probably hit him later, right now he was a little more preoccupied with what they were gonna do about it.) 

Sally must have noticed his shifted attention and looked over her shoulder with a sigh. 

“I’m not upset that he’s dead, and I’m not sorry for killing him,” she said bluntly. “He was a fucking bastard, a shitty ass father, and I never liked him anyway, to be honest; I don’t think he treated Mary all that well.” she sighed again. “But you’re right, Sam and Dean do still love him. I don’t know if they’ll ever forgive me for this, but I have to tell them, they deserve to know that he’s dead, and they deserve to know the truth about how it happened,” she sniffled. “I don’t want to lose them again, not when I just got them back, not with Percy gone, too, but I can’t lie to them . . .” she dropped her head to stare at their hands, still intwined in her lap, before looking back up at him with teary eyes. “Lie to me and tell me it’ll all be okay.” 

Paul pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin as she began to sob into his shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay,” he said softly. “It’s all gonna be alright.” 

— 

After Sally had calmed down some, the two of them just sat there for a little longer, taking comfort in each other’s arms. Eventually, they stood and Sally fetched an old blanket from the closet. Together, they rolled John’s body onto the blanket and moved it out of the way so they could mop up the blood. 

They worked in silence. Paul rolled up the long, narrow rug to be disposed of and Sally got to work on the floor underneath it. Paul was amazed at how thoroughly she managed to clean the wood; he could hardly tell that it had been bloodstained just minutes before. Paul collected the kitchen knife, Sally’s silver dagger, and the still blood-covered machete. He dropped the kitchen knife in the sink to be washed later (doing the dishes was pretty low on their list of priorities at the moment), set Sally’s dagger on the table for her to grab and resheath when she was done, and then stared at the machete. What the hell was he supposed to do with a fucking machete? 

After a moment, he shrugged to himself and went to rinse the blood off it in the sink, then very carefully dried it off and set it beside the dagger on the table so Sally could decide what to do with it later. 

Finally, they’d cleaned up everything else and Sally and Paul were left standing side by side, staring down at the dead body wrapped in a ratty old blanket in their living room. 

Paul broke the silence. 

“So . . . what are we going to do about him, exactly?” he asked apprehensively. 

Sally sighed and crossed her arms. “Last time I killed somebody, there wasn’t all this mess to take care of. I just sold his petrified corpse to a museum and called it a day.” 

Paul turned to his wife with an awed expression and hearts in his eyes. “Sally Jackson-Blofis, have I ever told you how much I love you?” he said, semi-dreamily. 

Sally laughed and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You have, but I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.” 

“I love you so much. You are the most amazing, caring, badass woman I have ever met. I wake up every morning and thank all the powers that be that I was lucky enough to catch your eye.” 

Sally looked up at him with a soft smile for a moment before her eyes widened almost comically and she snapped her fingers. “Oh! I know! I’ll Iris Message Thalia! I think she and the Hunters should be nearby.” 

Paul watched, rather confused, as Sally spun on her heel and dashed into the kitchen. 

Sally turned on the kitchen sink and grabbed a prism off the windowsill. She carefully angled the prism until a rainbow appeared in the mist from the faucet, then she plucked a gold coin from a small pile tucked behind the utensil crock. 

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, closing her fist around the coin and holding it to her chest. “Oh, Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, please accept this offering and show me Thalia Grace with the Hunters of Artemis.” She tossed the coin into the rainbow and it disappeared. 

Now, Paul knew what an Iris Message was, of course, he’d sort of seen one before, but he’d never watched someone make a call, just the random misty rainbow that his eyes skipped over until he heard a voice and saw someone else looking at and talking to it. Trying to focus on an Iris Message usually left him with a headache, though, so he usually ignored them once he realized that’s what was going on. 

Now, however, he was curious, and squinted determinedly at the little rainbow wavering in the air. He was going to see this one, headache or no. 

Then, he blinked, and there was a face in the rainbow, which still startled him, despite knowing it was coming. The girl had jet black hair and eyes that reminded him of concentrated lightning, a silver circlet glittering on her forehead. She looked tired and stressed, with slumped shoulders and dark circles under her eyes. In the background, he could see a couple other young girls wrestling playfully with each other and—was that a wolf? 

“Hey, Sally,” Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus and Lieutenant of Artemis, said with a weary smile. “Do you have news on Percy?” 

“Hello, Thalia, dear, and no, unfortunately.” Sally greeted her with an equally tired smile. “But three new demigods were brought to Camp, one with amnesia and the other two with false memories of him having been with them for months. They received a quest and Annabeth believes that the boy with no memory might know something about Percy if and when he regains his memories. I’m calling because I have a favor to ask.” 

“Anything, Sally, you know that.” Thalia’s brow furrowed. Paul reached up to massage his temples, forcing himself to focus on the magic call despite the pain blooming in his head. 

“Well, I can tell you more about it later, but this is rather time-sensitive, so if you wouldn’t mind saving any questions until after this is taken care of, I would appreciate it. I just killed my nephews’ shitty, abusive father and was hoping you and the other Hunters would be willing to help me get rid of the body,” Sally said bluntly. 

Thalia blinked. She blinked again. She opened her mouth and then closed it. She stared at Sally silently for a long moment, then she barked out a laugh and doubled over. 

“Holy fuck,” she gasped, fighting to get herself under control again. “Yeah, yeah, of course, Sally. Fuck. Have I ever told you that you’re the coolest fucking person ever?” 

She wiped tears of mirth from her eyes as she straightened and turned to call over her shoulder. “Hey! Pack it up, people, we’re moving!” She looked back at Sally. “The others will get set up somewhere near Camp and I’ll come to you. It looks like you’re in your apartment, right? I’ll help you get the body out of the building without drawing too much attention, then we’ll drive out and meet up with the rest of the Hunters. We’ll have a bonfire and you can tell us all about it.” 

Sally grinned. “Thank you, Thalia. We’ll see you soon.” 

Sally waved away the message with a heavy sigh as Thalia started barking orders and slumped against the counter. 

Paul was immediately slammed with the mother of all headaches; pressure built behind his eyes as they started to burn. He blinked a few times and tried to push through the pain to go to Sally’s side, only to stumble and barely manage to catch himself on the table with a grunt. 

Sally whirled around and hurried to his side, settling a hand between his shoulder blades comfortingly. “Are you alright, dear?” she asked. 

Paul took a moment to breathe through the pain and very carefully nodded his head. “I’m fine, Sally, just forced myself to focus on the Message and now I’ve got a headache,” he said slowly. He could practically hear her rolling her eyes at him. 

“You silly, stubborn man,” she said lightly. “Now come on, let’s get you lying down and I’ll bring you some water and a couple aspirin.” 

She helped him stumble to their bedroom and kissed his forehead soothingly after she bundled him under the covers. She fussed with the pillows behind him for a moment before disappearing into the master bath. She returned with a glass of water, a damp washcloth, and the pills for him to take. 

He drank dutifully and then pulled Sally down for a kiss. “I love you,” he mumbled against her lips. He felt her smile and his own lips twitched upwards in response. “Now shoo,” he said, squinting his eyes open and waving her toward the door. “I’ll be fine, and I know you want to take care of a few more things before Thalia gets here.” 

Paul savored the soft smile she gave him as she leaned down to kiss his forehead one more time before laying the cool washcloth across his brow. 

“I love you, too,” she said, and then she was gone, and Paul closed his eyes, letting himself fully settle into the bed in hopes that he’d be able to drift off and sleep away the worst of his headache. 

~ ~ ~ 

Thalia bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. (The elevator was too slow, and she needed to feel like she was doing something, else her mind would get the better of her and her thoughts would start to spiral down pathways she’d rather not explore.) When she’d seen Sally in that Iris Message, she had let herself dare to hope that Percy had been found. She and the Hunters had been scouring the country for any sign of him and the longer they went without finding anything, the more Thalia began to fear that they’d never find him, that she’d never see him again. 

She couldn’t lose Percy; she couldn’t lose her brother. Not again. Not like this. Every time she closed her eyes recently, she saw Beryl sneering at her, telling her that her little brother was gone, dragging her from the park kicking and screaming. She saw little Jason, with his shaggy blonde hair and big blue eyes, imagined him sitting alone somewhere in the woods, cold and scared and crying in the dark, calling for her, begging her to find him and bring him home, only she never came. 

She knew, logically, that Jason had been a helpless toddler when he ‘went missing’, and Percy was sixteen and more than capable of taking care of himself. Percy had literally fought a war and survived a prophecy that everyone thought was going to kill him; she knew that he could handle himself, knew that he was one of the most powerful demigods alive and one of the strongest people she’d ever met. 

But her heart, it seemed, just could not get the memo. Sometimes, in her dreams, she saw Percy in Jason’s place, so much smaller than he’d ever seemed to her and more terrified than she’d ever seen him. He would reach for her, his frame thin and gaunt in a way that was painfully familiar, his little hands shaking, his bright eyes filled with tears and her name on the tip of his tongue. Then, a huge beast would reach out of the shadows and steal Percy away, Percy’s screams and the monster’s cruel, booming laughter echoing in her ears when she jolted awake. 

Annabeth was falling apart, working herself to the bone and pushing her body to the limit trying to find something, anything to tell her where Percy might be, that he was still out there somewhere. Thalia couldn’t do anything but watch as her best friend slowly killed herself, could only whisper empty assurances when Annabeth called her crying in the middle of the night. 

Thalia wanted to scream and rage at the world, wanted to break down Olympus’s doors and force the gods to fix this shit. She wanted to find the Fates and rip them apart. How dare they, how fucking dare they let this happen, orchestrate this clusterfuck, do nothing but sit there and fucking watch. Percy and Annabeth had already been through so much, sacrificed so much, for the gods and the Fates and the whole gods damned world, they had more than earned their happy ending, deserved so much better than the shit hands life and destiny had dealt them. 

(Sometimes, Thalia thought back to the Great Prophecy she had left for Percy to shoulder. Olympus to preserve or raze. Sometimes she wished she’d taken on the prophecy herself, when the fury overwhelmed her better judgement and she wanted nothing more than to burn that damn place to the ground. Sometimes she thought about tearing the throne room apart and using the gods’ seats of power as kindling. Sometimes her power built and built and built within her, crackled and groaned just beneath the surface, fighting to claw its way free of the confines of her flesh, until she barely felt human anymore, until she became the savage incoming storm, the pressure that made your ears pop, the winds that tore trees from their roots, the clouds that blacked out the sun and the rain that threatened to flood. Until she was the roar of thunder that deafened you and the crack of lightning that blinded you.) 

(Sometimes, that scared her.) 

She shook her head, trying to clear it. It did nothing to think about all that now, Sally needed her help. (To get rid of the body of a man she’d killed because he was an abusive shitstain to her family apparently and just when Thalia had thought that woman couldn’t get any cooler. She hoped she could be even half as badass as Sally Jackson someday.) She had to focus on the here and now, stop letting her mind drag her back into the past. There was nothing she could do about the ‘then’, but she could do something in the ‘now’. 

She blinked and realized she was standing in front of Sally’s door, painted a soft cerulean blue. (It used to be baby-shit-brown, but one day Percy dragged Thalia to the building’s super, and she’d used the Mist to convince him to let Percy and Sally paint their door. They’d then dragged Thalia to the store with them to help them pick out a color and roped her into painting it with them, too.) (That had been a fun day. She and Percy had written curse words in both English and Ancient Greek all over the door in sharpie before covering it up with the fresh paint. Sally had even added a few, as well as some strange symbols Thalia didn’t recognize. She still had no idea what those had been, but Sally had seemed to relax when she was done, so Thalia just shrugged and let it be.) 

She knocked. A moment later, Sally opened the door and pulled her into a hug. 

“Thank you for coming, sweetheart. How have you been holding up?” Sally asked as she guided Thalia inside. 

“Of course, Sally, you know I, and the rest of the Hunters, love you and we’re more than happy to help anytime,” Thalia said. “And, y’know, I’ve been hanging in there, doing everything I can to try and find Percy.” Her gaze dropped from Sally’s to the floor. “I miss him. I’m-I’m so scared that we’ll never find him,” she said softly, almost afraid that saying the words out loud would make them come true. 

Sally made a quiet noise of distress and tugged Thalia into another hug, holding her tight. Thalia buried her face in Sally’s shoulder and held on tight, soaking in the comfort and trying to regain control of her breathing before she started crying. 

“I’m scared too,” Sally murmured. “But we can’t give up hope. Percy is strong and he’ll find his way back to us, we just need to have faith in that, have faith in him.” 

Thalia nodded and took a deep, shaky breath. Sally was right. They couldn’t lose hope. She knew that Percy was still out there somewhere, no doubt fighting like hell to get back to them, and they would fight just as hard to find him. If Thalia believed in nothing else, she believed in Percy. She had faith that his love and loyalty to them would bring him home. 

After a moment, she pulled back and forced a smile onto her face, though she knew it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “So,” she said. “There’s a body to get rid of?” 

Sally nodded grimly and glanced over her shoulder into the living room, where Thalia spotted a body-sized bundle of old blanket on the floor with suspicious red stains next to a rolled-up, blood-soaked rug. 

Thalia let out a low whistle and studied the large, no doubt heavy, lump. “Is Paul around?” she asked. “We may need his help carrying that thing.” 

Sally shook her head. “He’s resting. Stubborn man fought to focus on our IM and gave himself a migraine.” 

“Yeah, that’d do it.” Thalia rolled her eyes fondly. She didn’t know Paul as well as she knew Sally, but she knew the man was good for her and Percy, had believed them from the moment they told him about the Greek world and had since done his best to learn about it and see what he could manage through the Mist. Thalia knew that with practice and time, some non-clear-sighted mortals could learn to see through the Mist when they knew to look for it, but it did generally lead to headaches and bouts of dizziness and weakness. 

She walked over and dropped down, trying experimentally to lift the body. Definitely unwieldy and heavy, but not as heavy as she’d thought. If not for needing to manipulate the Mist to keep Sally from getting the police called on her, Thalia probably could have managed to carry it on her own. 

As it was, she hefted the blanket-wrapped corpse over her shoulder and, with a grunt and some effort, stood from her crouch. She staggered back a step before adjusting to the new weight, widening her stance and compensating for the added weight on her left by leaning to the right. 

Sally started and hurried over, her hands fluttering anxiously about. Thalia grinned at her. 

“Okay, I’ll need at least one hand to work the Mist, but if you hold him steady for me when that happens, I can manage like this until we get to the car.” 

“Of course. Now, the stairs will take longer, but the elevator will mean a higher chance of running into people.” Sally gave her a questioning look as she bent to grab the rug and tuck it under her arm, clearly leaving the decision up to Thalia. 

She nodded and gestured for Sally to get the door. “Let’s take the stairs. I can only convince the Mist to do so much, so we should probably avoid being seen as much as possible just to be safe.” 

Sally checked to make sure the hall was clear before ushering Thalia out. Carefully, with Sally keeping watch for any potential ‘witnesses’, they made their way down to the parking garage without incident. They ran into their first (and thankfully only) obstacle as Sally popped the trunk of Paul’s Prius and Thalia unceremoniously heaved the body off her shoulder and dropped it in the trunk. 

Behind them, someone gasped, followed by a thud. Thalia whirled around to find a little old lady getting groceries out of her car. She’d dropped the bag of fresh veggies she’d been unloading and stared at them with wide, horrified eyes, one wrinkled hand pressed to her chest. 

“Oh, Mrs. Thatcher! Let me help you with those,” Sally said like nothing was wrong and hurried over to start gathering the vegetables that had rolled away. Thalia tried her best to smile innocently as she shifted to try and block the old woman’s view into the trunk. 

“Sally, dear,” Mrs. Thatcher said, voice weak and trembling. “Who is that-that delinquent? Are you safe? Do you need me to call the police?” The lady had to be going slightly senile or something, because she clearly meant to whisper so Thalia wouldn’t hear her and instead, she damn near shouted. 

Thalia frowned. Fucking rude. Sure, she had just dumped a suspiciously body-shaped bundle in the trunk of Sally’s car, but there’s no way she looked like a danger to Sally—oh . Wait. Mrs. Thatcher had to be at least ninety and, with the cross necklace and modest dress she wore, probably an old-school conservative Christian. And here Thalia was with her whole ‘fuck society’ punk aesthetic including multiple facial piercings and copious other pieces of jewelry. The old hag probably thought she was an evil satanist or gang member or something. She rolled her eyes. 

Sally’s smile turned forced, the corners of her eyes tight. “That won’t be necessary, Mary Anne,” Sally said, voice sharp and deceptively sweet. “This is my niece. She’s helping me get rid of some old rugs since Paul is feeling under the weather.” 

Thalia forced a smile back onto her face, then snapped her fingers. “Yep, just helping my Aunt Sally move some old rugs, that’s all,” she said, reaching out with her senses to coerce the Mist to reframe the woman’s memory and change her sight. “The grocery bag was heavier than you thought and just slipped out of your hand. Sally and I helped you pick up the spill and then we all went our merry ways.” 

Mary Anne’s eyes glazed over as she nodded slowly. In a daze, the woman took her recollected bag of groceries from Sally and walked mechanically to the elevator. Thalia and Sally watched silently as she waited for the car and then disappeared inside. 

Thalia let out a breath of relief and crossed her arms. That was close. And rude. What the fuck, lady. Thalia did not feel bad about basically mind-controlling her. A hand rested on her bicep and Thalia felt a pang of fear shoot through her. Sally had never seen her, or anyone else as far as she knew, manipulate the Mist like that, manipulate a whole-ass person like that. Realistically, Thalia knew that Sally had literally asked her to do that, but knowing in theory what it would entail and actually seeing it in action were two different things. What if Sally was mad at her? Oh gods, what if Sally was disappointed in her? Oh gods, oh fuck, is this what having an actual mom felt like? Oh gods, Thalia didn’t want Sally to be upset with her, she might die. 

“Are you alright, dear?” Sally asked, and Thalia’s spiraling thoughts came to a screeching halt. 

“What?” she said eloquently. Sally snorted. 

“Mary Anne Thatcher is a batty old bitch, and what she said was entirely uncalled for,” she said sternly and shook her head. “She is terribly superficial, not to mention racist. Every time she sees me and Percy together, she makes some remark about how it was so kind of me to adopt a kid like him.” she rolled her eyes. “And really, he’s just tan. Although, Poseidon did always take on a Pacific Islander-esque form when we were together, so there could be a bit of influence in his complexion there, I suppose,” she mused, then shrugged and smiled at Thalia. “Honestly, that woman is lucky I don’t want violence in or around my home if it can be helped, otherwise I wouldn’t give a damn if she was a hundred and two, I’d still kick her ass.” 

Holy shit, Sally was so fucking cool. 

“Sally,” Thalia said seriously. “You are my favorite person ever.” 

Sally laughed and pulled Thalia in for a hug. “You’re one of my favorite people, too, Thalia.” 

— 

They didn’t talk much on the drive to Long Island; Thalia got the feeling that Sally didn’t want to tell the story more than once tonight. Instead, they spent most of it singing along to the radio blasting punk rock, classic rock, and nineties alt. By the time they neared Camp, they were both red-faced and laughing at each other’s made-up lyrics and nonsense noises in place of lines they didn’t know or couldn’t understand. 

(Thalia had been half convinced that Sally would have to pull over from how hard she’d been laughing in response to Thalia confidently yell-singing nonsense when Loser by Beck had come on.) 

Finally, Sally pulled off the road onto a little, winding trail that Thalia hadn’t even known was there when they were maybe a half mile from Camp. It led to a little gravel square and a small, overgrown patch of land that probably used to be a campsite. 

Sally parked and turned to Thalia with a smile. “Well then, shall we go find the rest of the Hunters?” 

“Mary?” Sally said, alarmed and suddenly wide awake. “Mary, what’s wrong? What happened?” 

“You have to look after them, Sally,” Mary pleaded. “Please, promise me you’ll look after my boys, you have to promise me.” 

“Of course I’ll look after them, Mare, I promise. I’d do anything for those boys, you know that. You’re scaring me. What’s going on? Are you okay?” Sally said, trying to remember how to breathe around the growing fear. 

“I made a deal, years ago, and it was stupid, I know it was stupid, but I didn’t have a choice, I had to save him, you have to understand, I didn’t have a choice,” Mary sobbed, and told Sally about a deal she’d made with a man with yellow eyes to save John’s life. 

There was a lot of crying that night, and two months later, when Mary died in a supposed house fire. 

~ ~ ~ 

John disappeared with the boys before Sally could get down to Kansas. She tried calling him, but he never answered the phone. She tried tracking him, but he was always one step ahead of her. She couldn’t find him or any sign of either of her nephews, even though the report said only Mary died in the fire. 

Then, nearly a year after Mary’s death, John appeared at the doorstep of Sally’s shitty apartment, Dean and Sam nowhere to be seen. 

“John!” Sally cried, staring up at the worn face of her sister’s husband. She hadn’t seen him in over a year, not since before the fire. 

“Sally.” His voice was gruff and his eyes cold. He was tense, setting Sally’s old hunter instincts on edge. He entered slowly, cautiously, when Sally stepped to the side to let him in, stopping only a few feet inside the door. “Stop tracking me,” he growled. “In fact, it’d be best if you forgot all about me.” 

“What? John, what the fuck are you talking about? Where are Sam and Dean?” Sally crossed her arms and glared right back at him. 

“I’m hunting down the bastard that killed my wife. That fire wasn’t because of some bullshit gas leak, there was something else going on that night. A gas leak wouldn’t have Mary held suspended on the ceiling with her stomach slashed open.” 

Sally’s eyes widened and horror threatened to choke the breath from her lungs. God, she’d known that Mary’s death was because of her deal, but she hadn’t known that she’d died like that. Still, her sister had wanted her to look after her boys and Sally knew the path John was on was a dark one. She had to try and divert him. 

“John, I don’t think—” 

“I KNOW WHAT I FUCKING SAW, SALLY!” John suddenly roared, slamming his fist into the wall. Sally jumped. “I know what I fucking saw, dammit, and what I saw was my wife bleeding and burning on the ceiling in Sammy’s nursery. And if you think that I’m just gonna stand here and let you tell me that I’m crazy, then you’re gonna be sorely disappointed.” 

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Sally tried, holding out her hands placatingly. “Just tell me where the boys are, John. Please. Let me take care of them for you.” 

“Goodbye, Sally. Stop fucking looking.” John turned and stormed out of her apartment, slamming the door as he went. 

Sally ran after him, but he had managed to disappear already. She fell to her knees, and she cried. 

~ ~ ~ 

Despite John telling her not to, Sally tried to keep tabs on him, she really did, but anywhere she managed to track him to, he was already long gone, leaving no trace and no hint that he’d had two little boys with him. She tried to hold on to her hope, but as more and more time passed, Sally couldn’t help but fear that her nephews were dead. She had failed them. 

Sally mourned her nephews deeply, cursed her brother-in-law savagely, and prayed desperately that Mary could forgive her for breaking her promise.  

Eventually, she tried to move on with her life. She met a handsome stranger and fell in love, somehow, even though she knew that he was a god, and she had been taught that all gods are cruel, capricious monsters that needed to be put down, but Poseidon was nothing like that, she learned, nothing like she’d been raised to believe. Then, it wasn’t long before she had a little blessing of her own. 

~ ~ ~ 

Sally used what she knew from growing up a hunter to try and keep Percy safe and far away from the mythological world for as long as she could.  

She married Gabe for his disgustingly human scent, made sure to keep silver, salt, and iron around at all times, kept a go bag ready for both her and Percy so they could run if ever they needed to.  

Percy turned twelve. He was finally, inevitably, dragged into the demigod world and Sally had always known this day was coming but that didn't make the actual moment any easier. She had already lost her sister and her nephews, Sally didn’t think she would be able to survive losing her son, too.  

Then, Percy was thirteen, Gabe was dead, and their lives were getting better. And then one day, Sally got an alert from a search algorithm she had long given up on that a Samuel Winchester had just been enrolled at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.  

(She wanted to reach out, but she had never told Percy about her sister or nephews, and she had to wonder if Sam even knew she existed. She doubted John would have talked about her and Dean had probably been too young to remember her. She resolved that she wouldn’t contact him, contented herself with just knowing that he was alive after all these years, but she would keep an eye on him and how he was doing.) 

~ ~ ~ 

Percy was sixteen years old and he’d never had the luxury of teenage rebellion. Sally watched as her baby grew and carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. She watched as he fought to hold it together for her, not to show her how heavily the Great Prophecy sat in his mind, but she saw. She knew the prophecy, what it said, what it meant. They had both known that he was going to die, and Sally knew he was afraid, but she also saw that he’d accepted it, saw the strong, capable leader and hero her little boy had become, and she knew that prophecy or not, he would give his life to protect those he cared for and end the war. 

(“Mom, when did you learn how to fire a shotgun?” “About ten seconds ago,” she lied. She felt bad lying to her son, but his life was dangerous enough with just the Greek world to worry about, he didn’t need to worry about everything else that was out there. From what she knew, the Greeks were pretty strict about not mixing pantheons, so she hoped that he would never run into any other kind of monster.) 

Then, miraculously, he’d survived. Percy had survived the Great Prophecy, defeated Kronos, turned down immortality to instead tell the gods to pay their damn child support, and then convinced them to light up the Empire State building blue just so she would know that he was alive. 

Her baby, her brave little Perseus was sixteen and traumatized but healing. And he had her, Annabeth, Grover, Paul, and all his other friends from Camp to help him. 

Later that night, when Percy had returned to Camp to help where he could as they tried to put themselves back together, when Paul had kissed her good night and crashed after the excitement of fighting off monsters he couldn’t properly see, when it was just her, sitting alone at the kitchen table, still wired with adrenaline and the euphoric high of knowing her son was alive and safe, Sally pulled out her computer and checked in on Sam. 

Sam, for his part, was twenty-two and about to graduate from Stanford as Valedictorian with plans to continue into law school. There were pictures of him online, posted to Stanford’s website and their digital yearbook, and Sally drank in the sight of him. He had Mary’s smile and John’s nose and she couldn’t be prouder of him, even if he didn’t even know that she existed. 

Sally had her baby boy, safe and by her side as he healed from fighting a war too young; she had Paul, a wonderful, loving husband that took care of her and Percy; she knew that Sam was alive and doing well, free from whatever hell John must have raised him and Dean in. 

And while she may wish that she knew if Dean was still alive out there, well. She would take what she could get and be happy with what she had, especially after spending so long thinking she would never have it, or be allowed to keep it. 

Yeah, life was finally looking up.  

Jason staggered his way toward the center mast, praying that he wouldn’t get knocked off his feet before he got there. Leo saw him and shouted, probably telling him to get back in bed or something, but it was impossible to hear over the storm. He just waved. 

Thankfully, he managed to reach the mast without being sent overboard by the violent rocking of the ship. Percy opened his eyes and grinned at him as soon as he got close, almost like he had somehow known that Jason was there. It was a little creepy, but Jason couldn’t care less. 

Percy was the only one who didn’t start treating him like fragile glass after his injury. Percy treated him just as he always had, seemingly trusting him to know his own limits, and Jason was beyond thankful for it. It made him feel less like he was on death row. 

Jason smiled back at the son of Poseidon and then made a frantic grab for the mast when the ship gave a sudden, particularly violent lurch. Though, to his surprise, Jason found himself rooted to the spot, unable to move. The ship lurched again but Jason remained right where he was. He tried to take a step only to find it impossible to move his leg. 

His limbs felt leaden, and he realized he couldn’t move at all. It wasn’t just his legs that had locked up, but his arms and head too. Jason panicked. What the fuck was happening to him? 

But then, just as suddenly as it had happened, it was over; the ship rocked again and Jason stumbled forward, no longer frozen in place. He latched onto the center mast, panting as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. 

He glanced at Percy and found the other demigod watching him with concern, though there was something else in his expression that Jason couldn’t quite figure out. (He shrugged that off, though. Ever since he and Annabeth had come back from the Pit, it wasn’t unusual to find Percy with an unreadable expression on his face and some strange emotion swirling behind his far away gaze. It was always disconcerting to see his usually grinning face wear such a tumultuous expression when he thought no one was looking. Jason didn’t know if anyone else had noticed, but he’d been allowed little else to do besides watching his friends. Shit, if Jason hadn’t been injured and practically put on bedrest by his girlfriend and best friend, he doubted that he would have noticed anything going on with Percy either.) 

Jason waved off Percy’s concern with a thumbs up and a shaky grin. Percy seemed to take that to mean that he was fine and started gesturing. 

“—THING . . . UNDER . . . STOP IT!” he shouted, though half his words were lost to the wind as he pointed over the side of the boat. 

Jason cocked an eyebrow at him and gestured vaguely at his ears. I can’t hear you, he mouthed. 

Percy huffed and rolled his eyes. He pointed first to himself then to Jason, and then over the side of the ship again. He mimed diving into the water and pointed at the two of them again. 

Jason tried to convey ‘You want me to go with you? Are you sure?’ and ‘I can’t breathe underwater, dude’ with his expression. 

Percy rolled his eyes again and pointed at the storm clouds roiling above them, then took a running leap and dived overboard. 

Jason looked up to see Piper and Annabeth giving him matching ‘Are you crazy?’ looks, to which he just smiled and shrugged. He turned his attention to the storm and his eyes widened as he sensed angry venti swirling around up there. How the fuck had Percy known they were up there before he did? 

Whatever, that would be a question for another time. Right now, he needed to find a way to follow Percy. 

Jason stretched out his arm and imagined his will as a rope of wind, flinging it into the swirling mob of venti. He sought out the nastiest ventus he could find and snared it with his wind rope, tugging it down to form a cocoon around him as he jumped into the water. 

Immediately, he was surrounded by an eerie silence, his own breathing nearly deafening in comparison. It sent a shiver down his spine, but he forced himself to focus on the task at hand. 

He scanned the water around him through the filter of his personal cyclone. (Which, thankfully, allowed him to breathe. The air smelled strongly of ozone and the ventus was definitely not happy with the arrangement, but at least it was breathable air and Jason was strong enough to force the wind spirit to remain in place.) There was something about the ocean that had always set Jason on edge, more than the Roman’s hatred of it and his father’s rivalry with Neptune. 

It was similar enough to the sky, Jason supposed, in that they both stretched as far as the eye could see. But the sky had nothing to hide. Even full of clouds, nothing could remain obscured in the sky for long. The ocean, however, Jason shuddered. There was so much they didn’t know about it, more than just mythological beings and creatures evaded the notice of everyone who sought to know the oceans. So much was still unknown and unexplored, and the light only reached so little. 

Anything could be lurking in the depths of the oceans. Anything could be waiting just out of sight, hidden by the cloying darkness of deeper waters. 

In the sky, Jason felt secure, always aware of everything around him, cocooned in a blanket of wind and air. But underwater, Jason felt horribly exposed. His senses couldn’t expand into the area around him like they could in the sky, and he couldn’t sense let alone see all of his blind spots at all times. He was just out in the open, unprotected and unprepared; he would have no clue if something snuck up behind him, no time to react if something came hurtling out of the dark to attack him. 

Thalassophobia, Jason thought he’d heard it called before: the fear of large bodies of open water; although ‘fear’ didn’t feel like the right word, didn’t quite cover the absolute terror that gnawed on his bones. 

And here, floating in the middle of nowhere in the open ocean in his little personal tornado of lassoed air, a violent storm raging on the surface above him and who knows what waiting who knows how far below him. 

With nothing but dark, gloomy water surrounding him, Jason was terrified. 

But then, he spotted Percy. 

The son of Poseidon hung suspended in the dark water, illuminated only by the soft bronze glow of his sword. His long, inky black hair seemed to leach the light out of the water surrounding him as it floated around his head like a dark halo, dancing in some imperceptible current. His outline flickered, his form broken in places and replaced by dark, writhing masses of tentacles and stark, bony protrusions. He looked both unimaginably large, as ancient as the oceans themselves and just as monstrous, and like his skin was stretched too thin over bones that were too long with edges too sharp to be wholly human. He was dark and all-encompassing, filling the water with an inescapable presence, yet he was also pale and haunting, skin near translucent as it gave off an eerie glow. 

His body was threatening to rip apart at the seams, unable to contain the esoteric power lurking just beneath the surface. An arcane aura leaked from his ruptured mortal form, permeating the ocean around him and filling Jason’s mind with static. 

The eldritch creature playing at mortality turned its head to look at him and Jason realized that he had never felt true terror until that moment. Its face was that of nightmares; it had no lips, just thin, bloody ribbons of flesh stretched too far across a dark, gaping maw filled with rows and rows of razor-sharp serrated teeth. Its eyes were unsettlingly vivid, as though the saturation of the creature’s eyes had been dialed up to eleven, swirling blue-green voids that lacked sclera and pupils. Within those effervescent eyes, Jason swore he could see all the world’s oceans at once; raging storms and roaring waves, plunging trenches and abyssal depths dark enough to drive one mad. 

Its very presence emanated a dissonant, distorted screeching that Jason could feel vibrating through his bones, filling the surrounding water with static. Jason thought his eardrums might burst with the intensity of the high-pitched ringing and feared his insides might liquify from the infra- and ultrasonic frequencies he could feel quivering through his flesh and bones. 

Jason felt his mind begin to fracture as he stared at the being before him, pressure built behind his eyes and limbs seemed to have turned to jelly. He knew he needed to look away before his mortal body exploded or something, but he was powerless to make himself move, trapped in the vortex of its aura. He felt drawn to the creature, unable to bring himself to avert his gaze. He had no control over his body, locked in place by the deity’s whirlpool eyes. 

A scream built in his throat, but he had no breath with which to voice it. He teetered on the brink of madness, but he had nothing to grasp at to pull himself away from the edge. Something in the back of his mind screamed at him, but he couldn’t hear it over the static filling his head. He wanted to claw at his ears until it stopped and left him in blissful silence, he wanted to scratch out his eyes to relieve the pressure that had made a home behind them, he wanted to tear himself open to assure himself that the pounding in his chest was that of his still-beating heart and not some vestigial part of the monster looming before him. He needed to fill the yawning, cavernous void that had taken up residence in the place where his lungs should have been. 

His blood moved sluggishly through his veins where they burned beneath his skin. He was coming apart, his atoms threatening to fly apart, on the verge of disintegrating. He was nothing more than a tiny pest to this primordial of the seas, barely worth the effort it took this eldritch horror to kill him. His being was infinitesimal in comparison to this primeval monster, little more than a speck of dust floating through its waters. This was all the waters of the earth given form, and it was enraged at their treatment. And in that moment, he knew. 

He was going to die. 

Then, everything snapped back into place and Jason gasped. 

Air, sweet, ozone-scented air, filled his lungs and Jason could have cried. He clutched his chest and heaved frantic breaths into his aching lungs. He looked up and saw Percy hovering in front of him with a worried expression on his now normal-looking face. Jason’s heart pounded in his chest as he searched Percy’s face for any trace of the Lovecraftian nightmare that had been clawing its way out of his skin just moments before. 

“Jason, hey, are you alright, dude? You with me?” Percy said, though Jason had no idea how he could hear him so clearly under the water. He nodded slowly and ignored Percy’s puzzled look. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, man. Sorry, just not a fan of the open ocean I guess,” Jason said and tried to laugh it off. 

Percy’s eyes narrowed, his gaze intense and searching, boring into Jason’s soul as though he could pluck the truth from Jason’s psyche if he stared long enough. Thankfully, though, before Jason could buckle under the strength of Percy’s gaze, a beam of bright green light split the darkness in front of them like a spotlight before it disappeared, coming from the depths of the chasm Percy had been hovering over the edge of. 

Percy snapped his head around to stare over his shoulder with narrowed eyes. “I was waiting for you before going to check it out, but I’d bet that whatever is causing this storm, is also the source of that light,” he said, glancing back at Jason. “Come on, let’s go.” 

As they sank deeper and deeper into the chasm and fell further and further away from the sun, Jason couldn’t shake the horrifying vision from his mind or the sense of unease in his stomach. It grew darker and darker until the only light came from Percy’s sword. 

Though, if Jason looked too long at his friend, he could swear that Percy began to glow too; an eerie, pale blue light seemed to emanate from strange markings on his skin, as though he was bioluminescent or something. A handful of his scars shed golden light into the water as his eyes illuminated the way ahead of them like headlights. It was fucking creepy, Jason thought, if kinda fascinating. (He wondered if Percy knew that he glowed, if Annabeth knew. He wondered if Percy only became bioluminescent underwater, or if he would light up in a dark room, too. Despite his curiosity, though, Jason couldn’t bring himself to say anything to the other demigod, the image of the savage creature tenuously caged beneath his skin still too fresh on Jason’s mind.) 

Eventually, the water began to lighten around them, and Jason saw the glowing ruins of a palace or something appear out of the dark haze before them. As they drifted toward the remains of a partially collapsed dome, Jason stared around the ruins with wide-eyed amazement. 

“What do you think this place was?” Jason asked reverently, yearning to reach out and run his fingers along the crumbling structures but unwilling to risk breaching his ventus cocoon just yet to do so. “Atlantis?” 

Percy snorted and waved a hand dismissively. “Nah, Atlantis is just a myth.” 

Jason squinted at his friend. “Uh, don’t we literally deal with myths like, everyday? Aren’t we technically a myth ourselves?” 

Percy rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “You know what I mean, dude. Atlantis is a made-up myth, not, like, an actually true myth. Plus, Plato never intended anyone to believe in Atlantis, it was only ever meant to be a parable, to serve as an allegory to the hubris of nations and a cautionary tale warning against its dangers.” He shrugged. “All that flew over a lot of people’s heads though, and the original purpose of the Lost City of Atlantis was overshadowed by a bunch of idiots and their desire to find a place that was never real.” 

Jason gave Percy an incredulous, wide-eyed stare. 

“What?” Percy asked, defensive. “My mom is a published author, my stepdad is an English Lit teacher, and I’m dating Annabeth who loves ancient Greek philosophers and playwrights. I pick up a thing a two.” 

Jason often forgot that Percy was a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for, and he was pretty sure that was something Percy did on purpose. It was something he’d noticed about the son of Poseidon before, but he played the part of ‘dorky fool’ so well that it was nearly impossible not to fall for the act. Though he was never sure if it was an act that Percy himself actually believed or not. 

But rather than bring that up right then, Jason just shrugged and held his hands up in surrender. “Fair enough, Jackson,” he laughed. “But if not Atlantis, then what was it?” 

“I don’t know,” Percy said, face scrunched up in concentration. “But it feels familiar, like I’ve been here before or something . . .” he trailed off, leaning in to study some markings carved into the domed roof in front of them. 

“Maybe you have,” Jason said playfully. “Maybe you saw it in one of your weird-ass dreams; I’ve been told that they’re a lot more intense and prophetic than the average demigod’s.” 

“Oh, shut up, Grace,” Percy snarked back. “My dreams suck ass, but they’re not anything special. Besides, I always remember my dreams. This is something else.” He reached up to ghost his fingers over one of the markings. 

Then, that brilliant green spotlight flashed directly beneath them, blinding Jason for a moment. 

He dropped like a stone until his feet hit what felt like solid marble. When he finally managed to blink the spots from his eyes, he realized that they’d found the source of the storm. 

An ethereal woman in a flowing green dress cinched at her waist with a belt of abalone shells hovered before them. She had to have been close to twenty feet tall, though she shrank to something closer to ten at their startled entrance. Her skin was a soft, luminous white, mirroring the fields of algae covering the underwater ruins. Her hair fell across her shoulders in gossamer strands reminiscent of jellyfish tentacles, some swaying as though caught in a gentle current. Her face was as haunting as it was beautiful; her eyes too bright, her features too delicate, and her smile too cold, as though she’d studied human behavior but hadn’t quite managed to master replicating it. 

Before her stood a tall, marble pedestal, atop which rested a large, mirrored disk. Her long, slender fingers danced along its edge before she sent it spinning, and the green light cut through the water again. The water churned, shaking the palace ruins. Shards of stone from the domed ceiling broke off and slowly sank down to settle on the marble floor. 

“You’re causing the storm,” Jason said, careful to keep the accusation from his voice. 

The woman laughed, a sharp, violent sound like the crashing of waves. “That I am,” she said. Her voice was melodious, though it had a strange resonance, one that reminded him of the horrible ringing sound the creature clawing its way free of Percy’s form had emanated, like it extended beyond the range humans had the ability to process. That same, static pressure built up behind Jason’s eyes and his sinuses threatened to explode. 

Percy, both thankfully and annoyingly, appeared unaffected. He just tilted his head and squinted at her. “I’ll bite,” he said, and Jason saw a flash of that dark, gaping maw full of razor-sharp fangs. “Who are you and what the fuck do you want?” 

A manic glee sparked in the woman’s eyes and her smile sharpened, sending an involuntary shiver down Jason’s spine. “Why, I am your sister, Percy Jackson. And I wanted the chance to meet you before you die.” 

Percy tilted his head and squinted at the goddess. Jason tried to resist the urge to reach up and massage his sinuses which still felt like they were about to explode. 

Percy hummed and crossed his arms. “Y’know, I’m not super well-versed in mythology involving Dad, so I’m not sure who all my godly siblings are, but . . .” he gave the goddess a long, considering look before he nodded. “I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say you’re Kymopoleia, goddess of violent sea storms if I remember correctly?” 

The goddess’s eyes widened slightly in shock. “Most have never heard of me, little brother. I am surprised, yet none-the-less pleased that you do know me.” 

Percy shrugged. “At some point after I accidentally blew up Mount St. Helens—” 

Jason choked on air and started coughing. “After you what?” he asked incredulously, but Percy and Kymopoleia ignored him and continued on as though he hadn’t said anything. 

“—I’m pretty sure I heard Dad mutter something under his breath like, ‘I pray you never meet Kymopoleia,’ and I got curious, so I looked into the name.” He shrugged again. “Oh, and I’m just gonna call you Kym. Kymopoleia is a bit of a struggle and also it takes too long.” 

Jason watched the interaction carefully. Percy spoke so casually to the goddess it kind of freaked Jason out. But he’d heard enough stories to know that it was common practice for the son of Poseidon to be so irreverent. 

For her part, Kym appeared amused rather than angry at least. 

“I’ll consider it an honor to get a Perseus Jackson nickname before you die,” she said with another spin of her disk. 

“I don’t suppose catching our ship in your massive storm was an accident, was it?” Percy asked with a resigned sigh. 

“No, no it was not,” she said. 

“And there’s no chance that you’ll cut it out if we ask nicely?” 

“Not a one. Though I am rather impressed that your ship has held together this long; excellent workmanship.” 

Sparks flew along Jason’s arms and into his ventus tornado. He thought about Piper and Leo, Annabeth and Frank and Hazel up there frantically fighting to survive the storm. He and Percy had left them defenseless up there. They had to end this and they had to end it soon. 

“My Lady,” Jason broke in before Percy could say anything to potentially aggravate the goddess, “Is there anything we can do to get you to change your mind and let us get on our way?” 

Kym turned her faintly glowing eyes to him and tilted her head. “Son of Jupiter,” she said dryly. “Do you know where we are? What this place once was?” 

“Uh,” he said, glancing at the crumbling structure around them. “These ruins? Uh, maybe it was a palace at some point?” 

Percy snapped his fingers. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “Dad’s new place in the Atlantic looks pretty similar to this. Last I was over there, it was almost done.” 

Jason gave Percy an incredulous look. He’d actually been to his father’s domain? To his palace? What the fuck was with this guy and the gods? 

Kym made a frustrated noise and crossed her arms. “I wouldn’t know,” she huffed. “I’m not allowed in our father’s court. He finds my presence disruptive,” she hissed, and gave her storm-disk a harsh spin. 

“I can’t imagine why.” Jason gave her a skeptical look as the ruins shook and more pieces fell slowly through the water around them. 

“I know!” she threw her hands up in exasperation. “I am an absolute delight to be around! I’m certainly better company than my total bore of a brother Triton,” she pouted and crossed her arms again. 

“Ugh, definitely!” Percy agreed. “I’ve met Triton and honestly, he’s such a pain in the ass!” 

Kym smiled. “Finally!” she said. “Someone who sees sense! He is such a πομπώδης μαλάκας!” 

Whatever that last thing meant, Jason had no idea as the Ancient Greek didn’t come to him, but he could only assume it was some kind of insult because Percy laughed. 

“Exactly! He never shuts up! He’s all ‘I am Father’s heir’ and ‘Father only likes you because you’re useful’ and it’s just like, ‘look, you absolute douche-nozzle, you’re both immortal! You’re not gonna inherit shit, ass-wipe,’ I mean, honestly!” Percy said, presumably mimicking Triton with comically furrowed brows and a fierce scowl, his chest puffed up and chin raised to look down his nose at an imaginary person. 

Kym burst into giggles (which reminded Jason of the clicks and whistles of dolphins). “Oh my—He sounds just like that!” she said, doubling over and clutching her stomach as she laughed. “Oh, that is just perfect,” she snickered. “I can see why Father hoped we might never meet, Perseus. You and I would have gotten along splendidly.” 

“Just Percy, please,” Percy said with a playful bow. “Only my enemies call me Perseus and I’d really prefer if I didn’t have to fight you.” 

Kym let out a dramatic sigh. “I don’t want to fight you either, little brother,” she said. “Unfortunately, Gaea really wants your blood, and she’s made me a wonderful offer that I just couldn’t refuse.” she shrugged and flashed a shark-like smile. “Gaea will allow me to wreak whatever havoc I please once she has risen so long as I help her and her children destroy the gods.” 

Jason tensed as the water around them seemed to shudder, he saw Percy do the same. He pulled his gold coin from his pocket and flipped it to summon his sword. 

“Now, I believe there’s someone here who is just dying to see you again, Percy. I do hope you can forgive me.” Kym gave them a faux-apologetic look. 

“PERSEUS JACKSON!” a thunderous voice boomed, sending ripples through the water and making the ruins tremble. 

Percy’s face twisted into a dark, angry scowl. 

“Do you know who that is?” Jason asked, tightening his grip on his sword. 

“Polybotes,” Percy snarled. “The anti-Poseidon. I’ve already killed him once; I guess he really wants a rematch.” 

Just then, the Giant rounded a corner ahead of them and Jason barely stopped a disgusted noise from escaping him. He’d thought the other Giants he’d met had been ugly, but Polybotes might just take the cake. 

Even underwater, the guy managed to look greasy and oily, like he had never heard of a shower before. He was absolutely massive, towering close to thirty feet or more in height if Jason had to guess. Like all Giants, he had scaled reptilian legs. His hair hung like shriveled up seaweed around his face. His skin was a murky blue, like the color of poluted water. His eyes were sharp and cruel as a hungry smirk spread across his harsh, mottled face. When he shook his head, basilisks fell from his hair and began circling in the water, hissing and letting out little bursts of flame. 

“I hunted you through Tartarus, son of Poseidon, and you managed to escape me then, but there will be no escape for you now!” Polybotes laughed cruelly. 

Percy snorted and raised his sword. “I killed you before with only a river to lend me strength; what makes you think you stand a chance against me here in mY dOmAIn?” Percy snarled, lips curled up in an equally cruel grin. His voice reverberated through the water the same way that eerie ringing that emanated from that creature hiding beneath his skin had. It shuddered through Jason’s bones and the pressure that had finally begun to fade from his sinuses returned with a vengeance. 

Polybotes barked out a laugh. “HA! Whether you are stronger here or not, little demigod, you cannot kill me without the aid of a god. And there are no gods here willing to aid you, sea scum.” 

Percy’s grin turned sharp and deadly as his form seemed to ripple, the monstrous horror lurking within his flesh straining at the seams to get free. “WHaT maKeS YOu tHiNk I NEeD a gOd?” 

He lunged. 

A few of the basilisks hurled themselves at him, but Percy turned them to dust with one sweep of his sword. Polybotes swung his trident through the water and left an arc of some thick, oily looking substance in its wake. 

Percy barreled right through it without slowing down and the smug look on the Giant’s face turned to shock then indignance before settling on rage. 

“I will torture you under the sea! Each day the water will heal you, and each day you will suffer worse than the last! I will bring you to the brink of death and beyond the edge of mortal agony until you beg for me to kill you, until I have reduced you to nothing more than a quivering mass of flesh desperate to die.” Polybotes snarled. “But you will only know the relief of death when your blood is drained from your wretched body to awaken the Earth Mother. You will die with the knowledge that your last act has brought about the violent end of everyone you love.” 

By then, Percy was on top of the Giant, fighting like a man possessed. He growled low in his throat and swung his sword in a vicious arc, leaving a deep gash on the Giant’s leg when he was too slow to block the attack. 

Polybotes howled and swung his trident. It slammed into Percy’s chest and sent him hurtling through the water to crash through a wall. He recovered quickly enough and shot towards the Giant, spearing through the water faster than Jason could track. Sword met trident and when their weapons clashed it sent a shockwave through the water. 

Jason gripped his own sword tightly and prepared to jump into the fight to help his friend, but before he could do so, the remaining basilisks zeroed in on him. The poisonous, fire-breathing snakes circled around him, hissing and snapping at him. Anytime one of them got too close, Jason managed to cut off its head. But the serpents grew bolder, swimming closer and closer to him. They stopped attacking one at a time and tried to rush him. 

Jason closed his eyes, sent up a prayer that he wouldn’t fry Percy, himself, or Kym, and lifted his sword toward the sky. He called down brilliant arcs of lightning and let out a breath of relief as they struck the dozen basilisks swarming around him. The snakes went belly up in the water before crumbling to dust. 

Percy and Polybotes continued their death match. Percy seemed to be doing just fine, ruthlessly attacking the Giant, slicing and stabbing relentlessly; but Jason could see the smoke curling off his skin as it blistered and sizzled. Whatever substance had spread from the Giant’s trident, some sort of poison or acid if Jason had to guess, was affecting his friend. And despite Percy’s, frankly unnerving, claim, Jason knew he’d need a god to kill Polybotes and there was only one available to them at the moment. 

Jason turned to Kymopoleia. She was watching Percy and Polybotes fight with a fascinated look on her face, totally enraptured by the carnage her half-brother gleefully unleashed on Poseidon’s Bane. 

“Kym,” he said, “What if I make you a better offer than Gaea did?” 

The goddess hardly acknowledged him, merely letting out a noncommittal hum. 

“She promised that you could cause raging storms to your heart’s content, but Gaea and the Giants are going to kill every mortal and demigod, wipe them off the face of the earth. What good is it to finally be able to ravage coastlines and annihilate shorelines when there’s no one left to cower and tremble in fear of you?” he cajoled her. 

“I do like cowering,” she said absently, not tearing her eyes from where Percy had dropped his sword and begun to cave the Giant’s face in with his fists. Jason winced at the sharp, resounding crack of Percy breaking Polybotes’ nose. 

“Yes! If Gaea and the Giants win, no one will be left for you to terrorize! If you help us, I-I'll make sure you are worshiped! I’ll build you a temple at each camp and-and I’ll do the same for all the gods and goddesses pushed aside by the Olympians,” he said frantically, watching Polybotes slam Percy to the ground with one massive hand wrapped around his torso, no doubt crushing his ribs. He winced when Percy let out a strangled cry of pain and turned desperately back to Kymopoleia to try and gauge her emotions on his offer. 

“Polybotes, does Gaea have a counteroffer?” she called to the Giant, face impassive. 

Polybotes turned his head to give her an incredulous look. “Counteroffer?” he sputtered indignantly. “Mother Earth does not need to make a counteroffer to the inane ramblings of a puny half-blood! She is offering you unfettered control of the seas! You will be allowed to let your storms rage to your heart’s content!” he said, affronted. 

“Yes, but will there be demigods or mortals or really anyone left to cower in the face of my storms or worship me in hopes of appeasing my wrath? Will I get my own action figure?” Kym said evenly, raising an eyebrow and looking down to inspect her nails which Jason only just noticed were colored a pale, florescent pink. 

“Well, no, bu—” Polybotes started, only to cut himself off with a cry of pain when Percy managed to free himself from the Giant’s grip by maneuvering his pen out of his pocket and uncapping it so that the blade of his sword sprung out and impaled itself right through Polybotes’ palm. The Giant snatched his hand back to cradle against his chest and Percy lunged after him with a feral snarl. 

Percy moved so quickly, Jason was barely able to piece together what happened. The son of Poseidon reached out and it was like the water solidified into an extension of his will, yanking his sword from Polybotes’ hand and meeting it halfway. He wrapped his hand around the hilt and shot straight for the Giant’s face. He plunged the bronze blade down and buried it to the hilt in one of Polybotes’ acid green eyes. 

The Giant howled in pain and Percy yanked his sword free, quickly backing away as Polybotes reached up to clap his hands over his bleeding eye. 

“You will pay for that, half-blood sum!” he roared. 

Golden ichor wept from his numerous wounds, seeping steadily between his fingers from his damaged eye and the hole in his palm. It saturated the water, hovering in shimmering globules. The Giant stared Percy down with his one good eye, pure hatred simmering behind his gaze. 

“Please,” Jason pleaded with Kym. “Only a god and a demigod working together can kill a Giant. Please, help Percy finish him off before it’s too late!” 

Kymopoleia merely shook her head, lips spreading in a feral grin as that spark of manic glee glinted in her eyes again. She cackled, a sound like cracking stone being split apart by an enormous earthquake, and it sent a shiver down Jason’s spine. 

“I do believe my little brother would beg to differ, Jason Grace,” she said, tone carrying a hint of that unhinged, feral excitement he could see spread across her features. 

Jason whipped his head around to stare in horrified fascination as all the ichor in the water began to flow in one direction, condensing into one quivering golden orb. Ichor seemed to flow from Polybotes’ wounds faster than it should have, like it was being pulled from his veins in thick rivers of divine blood, drawn towards the glittering ball. Polybotes sank through the water, hitting the sandy floor with a dull thud as his knees gave out on him. His hands fell from his face, as though he no longer had the strength to hold them there. Jason could see as the color leeched from him, seeping away with the ichor as it fled his body. Polybotes seemed unable to move, frozen in place where he knelt. 

The temperature of the water dropped several degrees and Jason shivered. 

“Wh-what is this?” Polybotes bellowed, feigning outrage, but the undercurrent of fear in his voice gave away how scared he truly was. He stared at Percy, one good eye wide and afraid. 

Jason turned to his friend. At first, he thought it was just a reflection of all the ichor in the water. But then, Jason came to the terrifying realization; it wasn’t a mere reflection. Percy’s eyes glowed a vivid gold, the same color as the ichor he was draining from the Giant’s veins. 

His face was dark, his features standing out sharp and cruel as he appeared to loom over Polybotes. That monstrous, ancient nightmare slipped through the seams of Percy’s flesh, leeching away all light until all that was left was the eerie glow of Percy’s golden eyes. 

His teeth flashed in the dark, long and curved, reminding Jason of the Cheshire cat’s grin. Jason swore that he could see things moving in the dark; massive, undulating limbs and sharp, ghoulish protrusions. Bones that snapped and cracked as they moved, gnashing teeth and glowing eyes where they didn’t belong. 

“YOu sAy tHat yOu FOLlowEd mE THrouGh tARtArUs, aNd yEt YoU HAvE nO iDeA WHaT i lEaRNeD tO DO dOwN THerE, whAT I wAS fORcED tO PIcK uP IN oRdER tO sUrvIVe?” Percy barked out a cruel laugh as his voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, sending tremors through the ocean floor. It was so deep, Jason could feel it vibrating through his bones and hollowing out his chest. Yet it was also so high, it sent his ears ringing and made his head feel like it was about to explode. 

Jason recalled the time he had been too slow to close his eyes and had, for just a moment, witnessed Juno’s true form. That had felt like he was on fire, like his skin was about to slough off his bones as his eyes melted out of his skull. It had felt like his cells were imploding and withering away into ash. 

But this— 

This felt like drowning on dry land; it was like he was being ripped apart from the inside out, his lungs had disappeared and the hollowness that had forced itself into the space where his heart should have beat was slowly filling with water. His mind was being pulled into a black hole, fraying at the edges and threatening to tear apart at the center. His eyes were being pushed from their sockets to make room for steadily mounting pressure building in his skull. He could feel water bubbling up his throat, choking him, forcing its way out between his lips and flooding into every empty space it could find. Water began to leak from his nose where it had filled his sinuses, began to stream from his empty eye sockets and gush from his busted eardrums. His mouth fell open in a silent scream, his voice lost to the torrent of water that eroded blood and bone until all that remained was a flimsy shell of decayed and rotting flesh. 

He swore he could hear a roaring, but that made no sense as he had to have gone deaf with the water pouring from his ears. Pressure built and built and built past the point of unbearable. 

There was a primal, agonized roar followed by an ear-splitting pop. And then: blissful silence. 

Calm swept over him like a warm breeze, and he felt like he was being wrapped in a silky blanket. He sighed and let himself sag into the gentle hands wrapping the blanket around him. He soaked in the quiet, peaceful moment languidly. After a moment, he slowly opened his eyes and immediately flailed around. 

Jason let out a rather undignified squawk and scrambled to pull away from Kymopoleia, who was looking down at him with an amused expression. The silky blanket he thought he’d been wrapped in was actually a gauzy, membranous shawl the goddess had pulled from her own shoulders and the gentle hands had been hers as well. He noticed with a start that his ventus shield had disappeared and slapped a hand over his mouth and nose as he instinctively gasped. 

Only when he heard Kym chuckle did he finally realize that he was, in fact, breathing and not drowning due to a bubble of air surrounding his head and neck like a diving helmet. 

He glanced to the side and saw Percy watching him with a worried frown, wringing his hands together. Jason returned his wide-eyed stare to the goddess and continued to gape for a moment. 

Eventually, Jason shook his head in an attempt to clear it and gulped, biting his lip as his gaze flit between Percy and Kym, both watching him quietly, one with concern and the other with bemusement. 

“Uh,” he said eloquently. “What, um, what happened?” 

Percy ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but before he could say anything, Kym spoke up. 

“Nothing you need to worry about, Pontifex. Polybotes is dead. And I have decided to accept your offer.” Kym looked down at him smugly and for a moment, Jason was confused. 

Offer? What offer? And—had she called him Pontifex? What was that abou— 

Oh. Right. He had offered to build shrines to all the minor deities and make sure they were all worshiped. (And—was he remembering right?—I also promised Kym an action figure, I think? What the fuck, Jason thought.) 

“Oh, uh, awesome. Thank you,” he said somewhat falteringly. 

“I expect a truly magnificent action figure, Jason Grace,” she said. “One of those articulated ones and it had better reflect my stunning beauty. I’d be happy to visit and model for reference.” Kym’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and Jason fought the urge to fidget. 

“O-of course,” he stuttered, and honestly, what the hell are you supposed to say to that? Cut him some slack, it’s a weird ass situation he has found himself in. 

“Wonderful,” Kym said, and turned to Percy, making Jason look at his friend too. 

Percy was wringing his hands nervously and biting his lip, gaze flitting around like he couldn’t bring himself to look at them. Jason frowned. He was about to ask Percy what was wrong when Kym spoke up again. 

“It was wonderful to meet you, little brother. I look forward to getting to know you better if you survive this war. I believe we could have much fun together.” She reached out and ruffled Percy’s hair with a laugh when he swatted her hand away. 

Percy gave Kym a small smile in return but still didn’t quite meet her eyes. He turned to Jason, expression tensing a little. 

“We should probably get back,” he said, gesturing vaguely upward. “Now that the storm’s stopped, before everyone starts worrying about us too much. If we’re not back soon, Annabeth will probably jump overboard to come looking for me.” he shrugged. He was still avoiding Jason’s gaze, and it looked like his skin was still smoking in places. 

Before Jason could say anything about that, Percy said, “Come on,” and shot toward the surface. 

He turned his startled gaze to Kymopoleia, wanting to ask her for more answers. She must have seen it in his eyes because she gave him a melancholic smile. 

“Percy is far more powerful than he likes to let on, Pontifex,” she said, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. “He has more power than a demigod should, and I believe that he is finding it harder and harder to control. Both he and Polybotes mentioned him having walked through Tartarus. I imagine something happened down there to push him over the edge.” She glanced upward, tracking Percy’s receding form through the water for a moment before continuing. “My brother is an impossibly good person, Jason Grace.” she fixed him with an eerie, unwavering stare, her overly bright eyes flashing. “But there is something damaged in him, something that broke down in that Pit. He has crossed a line that he cannot come back from even if he wanted to. I’ve heard that his fatal flaw is loyalty, so you have no need to fear him, nor do any of your friends. But remain wary, son of Jupiter, else you get caught in the crossfire of his rage.” 

With that final, ominous warning, Kymopoleia disappeared in a whirl of bubbles and froth, leaving Jason to slowly begin the long swim back to the surface. When he finally reached the opening of the trench, he found Percy waiting for him, floating peacefully in the water. 

Jason swam up beside him and waited quietly for what Percy would say. 

After a moment, Percy twisted his head to face him. “Sorry for leaving you behind like that,” he said. “I forgot you didn’t have your personal tornado to help you keep up,” he joked half-heartedly and gave Jason a weak smile. 

“It’s alright,” Jason said, smiling back. “I wanted to say goodbye to Kym first, and you seemed like you really needed to get out of there.” 

Percy sighed. “Yeah, I did.” he crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders, drawing in on himself slightly. “Speaking of Kym, what’s the deal with the action figure she mentioned? And why did she call you a car?” 

Jason snorted. “Not Pontiac, Pontifex. The Romans used to have someone called the Pontifex Maximus, a high priest who took care of the gods’ temples, made sure they were all recognized and worshiped, given proper offerings and things like that. While you were fighting Polybotes I made Kym an offer, to try and convince her to stop the storm and help you kill him. I promised to make sure temples were built for all the gods deemed ‘less important’ than the Olympians. The action figure idea just kinda happened? I don’t really know where it came from. I was kinda frantic, just saying whatever came to mind that I thought might sway her.” he shrugged. “You were holding your own just fine, but you looked to be in rough shape, too. Whatever that stuff Polybotes created that you swam through was, your skin was sizzling. You’re still smoking a little, too, by the way.” 

Percy glanced down at his arms, tilting his head at the new, quickly forming burn-like scars there. “Yeah, it was some kind of acid, I think. It hurt like a bitch, and definitely didn’t help my lungs any.” he shrugged and uncrossed his arms. “But I’ll be fine. The water’s already taken care of the worst of it; a little nectar or ambrosia and I’ll be all healed with a few more scars to add to the collection.” 

Percy rolled his shoulders and straightened, glancing up where Jason could see the shadow of the Argo II floating in the water above them. “Now come on,” Percy said. “I think Piper and Annabeth are getting ready to jump overboard.” 

Jason laughed, letting the topic change slide. If Percy didn’t want to talk about what had really happened with Polybotes, Jason wouldn’t force it. He just hoped Percy knew that he could come to him. Their fathers may have a rivalry to end all rivalries, but he didn’t want that for him and Percy. 

This time, as they rose through the water, Percy propelled Jason up alongside him. As soon as their heads broke the surface, Jason saw Annabeth getting ready to swing herself over the railing and drop into the water with Piper barely half a step behind her. 

“Percy!” Annabeth called when she spotted them, proceeding to dive off the ship. Jason raised his arms to shield his face as she hit the water with a truly impressive splash. Percy just laughed and swept her into his arms, lifting her half out of the water and spinning around. Annabeth laughed in delight as Percy threw himself backwards and they sank just under the surface. 

Jason wasn’t worried, though, having learned about Percy’s little air bubble trick, and instead began to paddle his way towards the rope ladder Piper had tossed over the side of the ship. 

When he finally swung up and over the railing, planting his feet on the blessedly solid deck of the Argo II, Piper threw herself at him, muttering angrily in Tsalagi, no doubt cursing at him for acting like an idiot. Jason just smiled and hugged her close, pressing his lips to her dark hair when she buried her face in his chest. 

After a moment, she pulled away and wiped angrily at the tears in her eyes, glaring at him. 

“What is wrong with you?” she cried, smacking his shoulder. “You can’t do that to me! You can’t just-just jump overboard in the middle of a massive storm like that! Especially not when you’re severely injured—!” she gestured at his stomach, frustration and fear coloring her tone. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you, Pipes,” he said, interrupting her gently. “But Percy needed my help, and I’m fine, I promise. No further harm done. See?” He lifted his shirt, stepped back, and spun around, letting her look him over for any sign of hurt. Honestly, he felt fine; great even! Hell, he felt better than he had since Michael Varus had run him through. 

When he finished his little one-eighty, he noticed Piper staring at his stomach with wide eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, glancing down to try and figure out what she was seeing. 

His bandages had come loose in the water, sagging a little to reveal the upper edge of his wound, only . . . only there was nothing but smooth, tan skin where there should have been torn and reddened flesh. His mouth dropped open and he carefully tugged the bandages away, letting them fall to the deck of the ship after the soggy material tore. 

Both he and Piper stared in wide-eyed shock at his unblemished abdomen for a moment. Piper reached out to ghost her fingers along the spot where the wound had been, her feather-light touch sending a shiver down Jason’s spine. 

“You’re healed,” she whispered, voice filled with awe. “How are you—what happened down there?” she asked, laying her hand flat against his stomach for a moment before looking up at him with those dark, earnest eyes he loved to get lost in. 

“A lot,” he said. “Though I don’t remember much of what happened towards the end.” 

Piper nodded slowly and grabbed his hand, starting to pull him across the deck towards the stairs. 

“Fill me in once we’re downstairs,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m getting you to eat something.” 

Jason laughed brightly and allowed his girlfriend to tug him towards the galley, more than happy to let her fuss over him. 

Percy soaked in the way Annabeth’s hair glittered in the morning sun, her blonde made gold and her streak of gray turned silver, as her curls just barely brushed her shoulders when they swayed in the gentle breeze. She had started to regain her natural tan and freckles dusted her cheeks. Some of the weight she’d lost in the Pit had returned, but she was still painfully thin. Her gray eyes met his and she stared at him just like she always had, picking him apart with her mind and gazing into his soul. Her lips, no longer cracked and bleeding from dehydration, were full and pink again as they quirked up in a small smile.  

Annabeth let her eyes rove across Percy’s face, committing every detail to memory. His inky raven hair stood in stark contrast to the still too pale color of his skin and his streak of gray made nearly white in comparison. There were new scars scattered across his face, little white lines among jagged red ones still trying to heal. His eyes were as bright and vivid as ever, watching her as they always did, filled with a depth of warmth and love that always left her breathless. He smiled softly down at her, and she loved the way one just-too-pointy tooth poked over his bottom lip. She reached up with one hand to cradle his jaw and he leaned into her touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.  

She resettled her hands on his waist as he reached up to cup her face. His hands were rough with calloses built from years of sword work, but his touch was gentle on her skin. He leaned down and kissed her brow, letting his lips linger there for a moment before pulling away.  

He took a half-step back and reached one hand over the railing and an orb of water floated up to his palm. He looked at it and tilted his head, and the water began to shape itself in his hand until a miniature guinea pig hovered there. He squinted his eyes and it turned to ice. He broke out into a wide grin. He grabbed one of Annabeth’s hands and placed the little ice figure in it.  

“Here,” he said softly. “Now, even though I’m in the city, I’ll still be right here with you.”  

Annabeth gave him her patented ‘Percy, what the fuck are you talking about’ look, but he just smiled, waiting for her to get it. She squinted at the ice guinea pig, assessing it, before her eyes widened in realization and she laughed. She’d almost forgotten. The little ice figure looked exactly like Percy had when he’d been turned into a guinea pig by Circe when they were thirteen, right down to the indignant expression on his little rodent face and the spikey mess of his fur. 

“It won’t melt. Well, I’m pretty sure it won’t melt, anyway.” He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “But, y’know, I thought it might help.” he ducked his head as his cheeks flushed.  

“Thank you, Seaweed Brain. I love it,” she laughed, and leaned in to kiss him. “Here,” she said, carefully setting down guinea-Percy and reaching up to unclasp her camp necklace to put around Percy’s neck instead. She smiled, settling the beads, her father’s college ring, and the coral pendant Percy had given her against his breast. The leather cord of her necklace was longer than his own, so they layered easily enough. “Now, even though I’m on the boat, I’ll still be right there with you as you take on Nike.” She patted his chest and her grin sharpened. “And remember, we need her. Don’t get carried away, okay?”  

Percy gave her a shark-like grin. “Of course, Wise Girl. We’ll bring her back alive. Can’t promise that she’ll be in one piece, though.”  

“Uh,” someone said, and Percy and Annabeth both turned their heads to see Leo staring at them with wide eyes. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said quickly, holding his hands up in surrender. “I heard nothing about you guys casually talking about potentially maiming or killing a goddess. Nope. Wait, is that a guinea pig ice sculpture? Where did that come from?”  

Percy and Annabeth both just laughed. 

A few minutes later, the others arrived on deck ready to go.  

Percy and Annabeth shared one last kiss before Percy disappeared into the city with Leo.  

Leo, who’d held a healthy dose of fear for Percy since the whole eidolon-possession-firing-on-Camp-Jupiter thing, was not ashamed to admit that that ‘fear’ had morphed into full-blown terror now. Like, Percy had always been a little scary. He was insanely powerful, even for a demigod kid of the Big Three, and he was scary good with a sword. At a glance, Percy looked like the type of kid that would have beat the shit out of Leo behind the school. He was tall and made of pure muscle with weird scars covering almost every inch of exposed skin. His eyes were unnervingly bright, his gaze intense in a way that made Leo feel like he was staring into his soul. He had the meanest rbf Leo had ever seen, and it somehow paled in comparison to the nightmare that Percy’s face became when he was actually angry.  

After spending some time with the guy, though, Leo had been able to relax around him. Percy was super down-to-earth for someone who’s supposedly done some rather insane stuff, and he was funny. He was laid back and always willing to help out. He was smarter than he let on, too, Leo had noticed. He was more than handy to have in a fight and honestly, he was weirdly easy to talk to.  

That is, until they got him and Annabeth back from the Pit. Something had changed in both of them down there, which was understandable. But . . . it was terrifying. Leo could feel that something was different about Percy, about his powers. His instincts screamed at him that Percy was dangerous, like a wild animal or a cornered beast. When Percy entered a room, Leo’s senses went on high alert, he was hyper aware of everything going on around him, desperate to keep Percy in a good mood. It was stressful.  

Part of Leo felt bad for being so afraid of Percy now. Percy and Annabeth needed support from their friends and Percy had never been anything but kind and friendly to Leo since they sorted out the eidolon thing. But he couldn’t help it.  

So, now, going into the city with Percy, alone, Leo was barely able to stop himself from freaking out. Especially after hearing Percy and Annabeth on the ship, joking about not getting carried away and making sure to bring a goddess back in one piece. Like, what the fuck. Leo had never questioned whether Percy could take on a god and come out on top, he’d just also known that Percy never would. Now, however, Leo had the feeling that it was less a matter of ‘would’ and more a matter of ‘when.’  

Anyway, they’re wandering around Olympia, trying to find Nike, and Leo is just, so nervous. So nervous. Percy is just strolling along, hands in his pockets, chill as can be, and Leo is fighting hard not to run away screaming. Leo knows that Percy knows that he’s acting weird, and he knows that Percy knows he knows that he knows, and etc. But Percy is just too nice to bring it up, so Leo doesn’t bring it up either and they continue wandering around awkwardly while neither of them acknowledges the weird tension between them.  

It’s a stressful time.  

After wandering for a while, Leo and Percy sat down on a bridge that spanned some river or other and dangled their feet over the edge while they waited for Frank and Hazel to meet up with them. 

Leo really wished they would hurry up.  

Look, he’d already mentioned how nervous Percy made him, but he figured it bears repeating because at that moment? It was just downright eerie. Percy stared intently at the river below them, his eyes a perfect mirror of the rippling water. Before the Fall, Percy had been a lot like Leo, always moving and trying to fill the silence. Since he and Annabeth had come back, though, it was different. Percy was quiet, he didn’t talk as much anymore and moved silently. He would sit, eerily still, so still that Leo could swear that he didn’t blink or even breathe, and always with this glazed sort of look in his eyes, like his mind had left the building or something. Despite that, though, Leo was under no illusions that Percy was still hyperaware of his surroundings.  

Leo wanted to say something, anything, to break the awkward, tense silence between them. But what the Hades do you talk about with a guy who just clawed his way out of Hell and had no doubt faced unspeakable horrors? It’s not like he could go, ‘hey, did you catch the new episode of Dr Who? Oh wait, sorry, you were fighting for your life through the Pit of Eternal Damnation.’ I mean, come on. Talk about insensitive.  

Leo was just gearing up to say something stupid, probably like ‘nice weather we’re having today’ or something equally as idiotic, when Percy spoke up first.  

“You met her, didn’t you? Calypso.”  

Leo whipped his head around to stare at Percy with wide eyes so fast, he probably gave himself whiplash. “H-how did you—” he sputtered.  

Percy shrugged, still staring at the river. “Someone mentioned that you’d gotten blasted off the ship and disappeared for a few days only to come back looking healthier than ever in clothes that were suddenly fireproof.” He shrugged again, and finally turned his piercing gaze from the river to meet Leo’s eyes. “It wasn’t hard to figure out.” He shook his head and sighed, looking back at the water. “I guess that means the gods broke another of their promises.”  

Leo wanted to be mad at Percy for promising to find a way to break her out and then not following through, but Percy’s comment gave him pause.  

“What do you mean?” he asked.  

“I’m sure you’ve heard stories about the Titan War and the Battle of Manhattan,” Percy started. “Most of them were probably exaggerated, especially if they were about me. But one thing you might have heard that wasn’t exaggerated, was that after Luke sacrificed himself to kill Kronos and the war was won, the gods offered me a reward. They offered me immortality. And I turned them down.”  

Leo’s eyes widened. He’d heard about that, sure, but he’d just assumed it was the other kids pulling his leg; like some sort of hazing ritual or something, trying to convince the new kid of something ridiculous so they could all laugh at him when he believed them.  

“Instead, I told the Olympian Council to be better parents.” Percy scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Fat lot of good that did. I told them to claim their kids and make sure they made it to camp by age thirteen. There were four months between the end of the war and Hera’s bullshit, and I get my memory back and find that two sixteen-year-old demigods had not been led to camp or claimed until after I’d gone missing.” Percy let out a low snarl and Leo shuddered. “That’s strike one.” he scowled down at the river that seemed to be reacting to his anger as it foamed and bubbled. “How many other demigods are out there, that should have been led to camp and claimed but haven’t been? If Aphrodite and Hephestus, two gods on the Olympian Council, and powerful ones at that, have already failed to do so, how many children of minor gods have slipped through the cracks too?”  

The sky darkened above them, and Leo felt the air grow cold and damp, surrounded by the feeling you got right before a big, coastal storm rolled in. The river below them swirled, and a quick glance towards what Leo could see of the beach from where they sat showed that the sea was affected, too. Waves crashed into the shore with large white caps and the boats in the marina rocked dangerously on the suddenly choppy water.  

Percy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and the water calmed as the sky cleared, returning them to the bright, sunny day they’d been having before.  

Percy continued like he hadn’t just almost caused a tropical storm.  

“I also made them promise to free Calypso from her island.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I should have known better than to trust that they’d do it. I had four months to check that they had followed through on their promises, and I didn’t.” He shook his head and let out a derisive scoff. “I can’t exactly blame her for being angry, but I’m not going to forgive her for what she did, either.” Percy clenched his fists and took a few more deep breaths. “Strike two.” Percy lifted his gaze to the sky and glared. “Honestly, I’m not fighting for them. The gods can go get fucked for all I care. The only reason that I’m fighting this war is to protect my friends and family. At the moment, the gods are the lesser of two evils. Compared to Gaea and her Giants, the gods are almost harmless. But one of these days, they’re going to stop being the lesser of two evils, and I’m going to stop protecting them by way of protecting those I care about.”  

Leo held his breath, his heart thundering in his chest. He was a little amazed that Percy hadn’t been hit by lightning or otherwise smote {smitted?) for talking like that. Percy finally looked up from the roiling river and locked his gaze on Leo, his eyes full of steely promise and Leo heard nothing but the truth in his next words.  

“They have one more chance to get their shit together before I stop playing nice. They’ve already hurt my family enough. One more mistake, and they won’t live to hurt them again.”  

Leo gulped. 

Thankfully, he was saved from having to respond by the arrival of Frank and Hazel.  

When they shared that they hadn’t had any luck finding the goddess either, Leo sighed.  

“Well,” he said, standing up and brushing off his pants. “I guess we just start wandering around together and let trouble find us. It’s always worked before.”  

Percy, too, got to his feet and stretched before shrugging. “Might as well. Come on, let’s go see the sights.”  

The four of them meandered through Olympia, visiting ancient ruin after ancient ruin, each pile of rubble as impressive as the last. Which is to say, not very. Frank had a tourist map/guide thing that he used to lead them around and point out ‘interesting’ stuff.

They looked around for hours, but still nothing. Leo, for one, was ready to call it a day and get back to the ship. He could tell that being away from Annabeth for so long was really taking its toll on Percy, too, though he hid it well. He figured it wouldn’t take much provocation for Percy to snap and he wanted to avoid that at pretty much all costs.  

He was just about to suggest they head back to the ship and pick up the search again tomorrow, when something Frank said made him stop.  

They were at the ruins of an old temple of Zeus, and Leo thought he recognized it from somewhere.  

“Hey, Percy,” he said, turning to the son of Poseidon. “That Nike statue we saw in the museum, the one in a bunch of pieces,” he gestured at the temple ruins. “Didn’t it use to stand here?”  

Percy tilted his head and studied the ruins. “Yeah, it used to be inside before the temple started crumbling and the locals moved it to the museum to try and prevent further damage to it.”  

“That makes this as good a place for her to be hanging out as any, right?” Leo asked, feeling his energy return a little at the prospect of maybe, finally finding the goddess they’d spent most of the day searching for.  

Frank and Hazel traded glances and shrugged.  

“I don’t see why not,” Hazel said.  

“Alright, but if she is here, how do we draw her out? Promote Adidas shoes?” Percy said, crossing his arms and scanning around them consideringly.  

Hazel gave him a confused look, and Frank cracked a smile. Leo snorted.  

“Yeah, I bet that’s totally against her sponsorship deal,” he said, faux serious. “Those are not the official shoes of the Olympics! You will now die!” he shouted in a terrible falsetto. Percy laughed and Leo grinned. It had been too long since he’d seen Percy joke around and smile like that.  

Then, a thundering voice said from behind them, “YOU WILL NOW DIE!”  

Hazel squeaked and a horde of precious stones popped up around her, Frank yelped and poofed into a bulldog, and Leo’s pretty sure he let out a rather girly scream and jumped about a foot in the air.  

Percy, however, had Riptide in his hand and was swinging his sword with a nasty snarl on his face before the rest of them had even reacted.  

Leo watched in morbid fascination as Percy swung his sword in a glowing bronze blur at who had to be Nike. The goddess flapped her massive golden wings and jumped into the air, hovering just out of reach of Percy’s sword. Percy growled low in his throat and dropped into a crouch as Nike glared down at him.  

“How dare you try to attack me, you insolent child!” the goddess cried. 

Leo bit back the urge to make a snarky comment in defense of his friend, figuring it would only land them in more trouble, but it seemed that Hazel had no such compunctions. 

“Hey! You’re the one who went and snuck up on a traumatized demigod teen who just escaped the Pit,” she said sternly, one hand on her hip and the other pointed accusingly at Nike’s face. “Don’t you go blaming him for reacting violently to something like that. He just spent who knows how long in a place where letting someone get the drop on you was a death sentence. If I’ve learned one thing about this time, it’s that we do not victim blame.” 

Gods, Leo loved that girl. (Not like that, his heart lay solely on Ogygia, but, you know, Hazel was just fucking awesome.) 

Nike sputtered indignantly as Hazel walked forward to carefully place a hand on Percy’s shoulder. 

Percy blinked and lowered his sword, slowly standing from his crouch. He looked down at Hazel and gave her a soft, thankful smile before returning his gaze to the goddess. 

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. I guess,” Percy said with a shrug, but Leo noticed that he didn’t sound very apologetic. He hadn’t put Riptide away, either. 

Nike huffed, seemingly not keen on accepting an apology from or giving an apology to a demigod, but settled her feet back on the ground regardless. She was pretty, in her white sleeveless dress with her dark brown hair piled in braids atop her head beneath a laurel crown. 

But those wings. What Leo had first taken to be golden-yellow feathers looked like they were actually made of gold. They glimmered and shone as they reflected the sun. They were near impossible to look at with how bright they were. He could feel the air around them heating up. He squinted and shielded his eyes when Nike shifted her wings slightly, redirecting a sunbeam directly into his face. 

“Could you fold the flappers, lady? You’re giving me a sunburn,” he said. He also couldn’t imagine the intense heat was helping Percy’s headspace much and he’d really rather they not send the poor, terrifying guy into a flashback or whatever. 

Leo heard the goddess huff and lowered his arm when he felt the heat lessen only to find her staring at him with dark eyes, a crazy glint lighting them up from within. He repressed a shiver. Man, this lady was intense. 

She shifted her gaze to Hazel and Frank and her form flickered. She groaned and clutched her head. It looked like she was splitting in two. On the right side, she didn’t change, with her glittering white dress and laurel crown atop a head of dark braids, her golden wings folded behind her. On the left, she had changed; her dress was purple beneath her armor and her wings were a snowy white. On her head rested a tall, plumed helmet from under which peaked auburn hair. 

“I am Nike!” the one on the right shouted. 

“I am Victoria!” the one on the left cried. 

“Woah, Nelly,” Leo said. “That’s trippy.” 

“Shut up,” both sides of the goddess growled at him. He held his hands up in surrender. 

“This is impossible!” Nike said. 

“You are giving me such a headache!” Victoria said. 

“There must be a winner!” They cried in unison. 

Nike’s eyes locked on Leo and Percy as Victoria’s locked on Frank and Hazel. 

“You must kill the Roman traitors!” Nike demanded. 

“The graecus scum must die!” Victoria roared. 

Leo felt the anger rising with him and clenched his fists even as he fought against Nike’s influence. He saw Percy’s face twitch, but the son of Poseidon otherwise remained calm. He risked a glance over at Frank and Hazel and saw that they weren’t doing much better than him. 

Frank had a nasty glower on his face and his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. Hazel had closed her eyes and was taking deep breaths, her grip on her sword tightening. Gods, they were probably thinking about how easy it would be to take him out and the only reason they hadn’t tried already was because they knew they stood no chance against Percy. He should show them just how easy he’d be to defeat. 

He felt fire wreathe his hands and shook his head. Stop that, he chided himself. They are your friends, not your enemies. You may have had your rough patches in the past, but you guys are over that now. They trust you and you trust them. 

Percy snarled beside him, and Leo jumped, temporarily knocked out of whatever trance or some shit Nike had put him in that made him want to kill his friends. 

“No,” Percy snapped, and the sharpness of his voice cut through the tension in the air like a knife. “There will be no killing each other. We are friends and we trust each other. Now, enough with your fucking mind games, because I have had it with gods trying to get me to kill my friends.” 

A different pressure surrounded them, a smothering intensity that built up and up until Leo almost found it hard to breathe. The air turned cold, the temperature dropping until Leo could see his breath in front of him. He shivered. 

The goddesses glared down at them, but Percy just glowered right back, his eyes darkened and his lips pulled back in a snarl. His teeth glinted in the dwindling light as clouds began to cover the sun. Even though they were miles from the shore, Leo swore he could hear the roaring of the tide, the crash of waves as they slammed against a rocky cliff. 

And just for a second, Leo could have sworn he saw his friend change; Percy’s mouth filled with rows and rows of elongated teeth that morphed into sharp, serrated fangs. His eyes became swirling pits in which Leo could see the horrors of the ocean depths and all the monstrous creatures that dwelled so far from the light. His hair was an inky black that seemed to swallow up all the light as it floated eerily around his head, the streak of gray hanging limp and lifeless in his face. The scars that littered Percy’s body seemed to glow with a dark, golden light and his skin turned almost translucent, flickering and insubstantial where it looked to be stretched far too thin over his hauntingly skeletal frame. 

Then Leo blinked, and it was gone. Percy was his regular (if absurdly attractive) looking self, no eldritch-horror-creature-features here, no siree. 

Leo glanced to the side and saw that Frank and Hazel looked as shocked and lowkey horrified as he felt, so at least he wasn’t losing his mind and seeing things. Nike and Victoria, it seemed, had also been taken aback by the momentary shift in Percy’s appearance. Their mouths dropped open in simultaneous shock and their eyes near bugged out of their heads. 

Their forms flickered again, so it was less like they were splitting in half and more like two separate images overlaid atop each other (like those 3D movies with the red and blue layered over each other so when you put on those cheap glasses the pictures pop off the screen, Leo thought). She leaned forward, so she could scrutinize Percy up close. 

“You are more powerful than you should be, little half-blood,” she said, and her voice had taken on the same distorted, layered quality as her appearance. It made Leo’s head pound. “What are you hiding beneath that veil of Mist, little hero?” 

Leo wiped a hand across his top lip, and it came back bloody. He shared nervous looks with Hazel and Frank, who both had matching nosebleeds. They needed to end this. Quick. 

“NOthInG YOu wANt tO FiNd oUt ABoUt,” Percy growled in response, and his voice had gained a layered quality too. It was at the same time so deep that Leo could feel it reverberating through his bones and so high that it made Leo’s ears ring. He had a sneaking suspicion that Percy was broadcasting his voice at both ultra- and sub- sonic levels that were beyond the human body’s ability to register. He glanced back at Frank and Hazel and saw blood beginning to trickle from their ears. He was sure that if he checked, his ears would be bleeding too. 

As Percy and the split goddess continued to glare each other down, the air continued to thicken and grow heavy with power. It was cloying, sticking to Leo’s skin and making his hair stand on end like the air was charged with static electricity. It was also suffocating, making it hard to breathe as the air in his lungs grew heavy and leaden. He tried to speak, but his throat closed up, choking on the power-soaked air. He let out a strangled gasp and staggered to his knees, two soft thumps telling him that Hazel and Frank had done the same.  

Percy appeared unaffected, locked in his staring contest with the goddess and paying no mind to what was going on behind him. They had to find a way to get Percy’s attention and stop this before it went any further sideways for the rest of them or any mortals unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire.  

Frank managed to grunt and pound his fist into the pavement. (At least, Leo thought he did. It was hard to hear properly over the ringing in his ears.) Thankfully, that noise was enough.  

Percy’s head whipped to the side, his eyes widening when he saw the state his friends were in, and just like that, the power he’d been exuding snapped back into place within him. Leo sucked in a desperate breath as the air grew lighter again. His ears stopped ringing and he could hear Frank and Hazel panting beside him.  

Percy ran over to them, kneeling at Leo’s side as he muttered curses under his breath. His hands fluttered around helplessly, unsure how to help as his gaze flicked between Leo, Hazel, and Frank worriedly. He spared the goddess one more look, a glare that said, ‘try anything, and I’ll kill you,’ as that oppressive aura slipped out for a moment to surround them, before he drew it back in and turned all his attention onto his friends.  

“Shit, fuck, fuckity fuck, gods I’m so sorry guys, are you alright? Shit.” Percy babbled, tearing a strip from the bottom of his shirt and dabbing at the blood dribbling down Leo’s chin and the sides of his face before moving on to give Frank and Hazel the same treatment. His brows were creased in concern and he gnawed on his lip anxiously. “Gods, I’m so sorry,” he repeated.  

Hazel reached out and laid a shaking hand on his arm, making him stop. She gave him a weak smile.  

“It’s okay, Percy. We’re alright. A little nectar or ambrosia and we’ll be good as new. No harm done,” she said softly. When Percy still looked skeptical and guilty, she tutted at him and tugged him in for a hug. “Really,” she insisted, though her words were muffled from where she had buried her face in Percy’s chest. “We’re okay.” 

Percy closed his eyes and buried his nose in Hazel’s curly hair, breathing deeply to try and calm himself down. If Leo didn’t know that they were both dating someone else and were ridiculously devoted to their respective partners, he’d have thought they were dating. As it was, he figured it was more of a sibling relationship that the two of them shared. 

(He had to admit, he was a little jealous. He’d had plenty of foster siblings over the years, but none of them had ever tried all that hard to make him feel welcome or be his friend. Sometimes he wished that he’d had an older sibling growing up, someone who’d take him under their wing and teach him how to make the best of the foster system, to be there for him and show him that he wasn’t alone. After meeting Percy and spending some time with the guy, seeing him interact with the others and all the stories he’d heard about the son of Poseidon at Camp, well. In his private moments when he was alone and his insecurities were getting the better of him, he let himself imagine that Percy was that someone, let himself fantasize about Percy being there as he grew up and acting like his older brother. They were always nice dreams.) 

Nike/Victoria looked on silently, watching them carefully. Her form had stopped glitching, and had instead settled on, Leo squinted, a sort of combination of the two? She looked mostly like how she had when they first met her, as Nike, but Leo could see some bleed over from Victoria in the handful of white feathers mixed in with the gold of her wings and the purple accents on her glimmering white dress. The goddess still wore the breastplate she boasted in her Roman form, and her hair was the same auburn color he’d noticed peeking out from beneath her helmet though it was now done up in the elaborate pile of braids with a laurel crown like her Greek form had it. 

The crazy light in her eyes had faded away and been replaced by something curious instead. She tilted her head at them and watched as Percy slowly pulled back and helped Hazel to her feet, then walked over to help Frank up and then Leo as well. 

“Interesting,” the goddess hummed, and they all turned to look at her. “Why did you come to find us, little demigods?” she asked, and though the question was directed at all of them, Leo had the feeling that she was really only talking to Percy. 

“The Earth Mother is waking,” Percy said, calmly stepping forward. “Her children, the Giants, are rising to help her. We are working to unite our two camps to fight against her. There are seven of us, a mix of Greek and Roman demigods, that have set out to try and put a stop to the Giants’ plans to raise her in Athens. Juno herself appeared and told us to come find you. Well, technically, she said subdue you, but at the moment you don’t seem to need any subduing. When we first found you, sure, but you appear to have calmed down.” Percy gestured vaguely and raised an eyebrow before continuing. “Anyway, I figure we need you, or at least your blessing while in a more sound state of mind to get on with our quest and hopefully, y’know, achieve victory and all that.” He shrugged. 

The goddess hummed, considering, before nodding once to herself. “Alright. Take me to the rest of your group.” 

What? Leo thought. 

“What?” Percy asked. 

The goddess gave him an indulgent smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’ve impressed me, little heroes. I’d like to meet the others on this quest with you.” 

Percy glanced over his shoulder to share a bewildered look with the others. Leo shrugged helplessly in response. “Uh, okay. This way, I guess,” Percy said, and they began the walk back to the docks on the other side of the city, Nike/Victoria trailing along behind them. 

“Hey, what should we call you, by the way?” Leo asked, glancing back at the goddess. “You don’t seem like you’re fully Greek or fully Roman at the moment, and I don’t wanna upset whatever balance we’ve managed to achieve here by calling you the wrong name or something,” he elaborated when she merely raised an eyebrow at him. 

She tilted her head, thoughtful. “I suppose you may use either my Greek or Roman name. I don’t believe it would ‘upset the balance,’ as you called it.” she shrugged. “Either name fits just as well as the other, and I haven’t a third name you could use instead.” 

“Okay, cool,” Leo said awkwardly. And hey, cut him some slack, what else was he supposed to say to that? 

The rest of the trek back to the Argo II was made in relative, awkward silence. 

When they reached the boat, Nike nodded approvingly, and Leo tried not to beam too brightly, proud that his ship met the approval of a goddess. 

Annabeth must have been waiting anxiously for them because she came flying down the ramp as soon as they were close enough and threw herself at Percy. He relaxed as soon as he had her in his arms, practically collapsing into her just as much as she had collapsed into him. They clung tightly to each other, muttering softly. 

They stayed like that for a while, completely oblivious to the world around them until Nike cleared her throat. 

Annabeth pulled back just far enough to look over Percy’s shoulder and glare at whoever had interrupted them. Leo, even though the glare wasn’t directed at him, flinched back. Nike just raised an eyebrow, resettling her wings behind her. Annabeth didn’t relent in the face of the goddess and instead just narrowed her eyes further. 

“Nike? Or Victoria?” she asked, her stormy gray eyes raking over the goddess’ form, no doubt picking her apart and cataloging everything about the goddess. 

The goddess merely smirked. “Either name works, daughter of Athena. I am neither one nor the other at the moment but am rather a mixture of both. You have your,” she swept her hand out in a vague gesture at Frank, Hazel, Leo, and Percy, “friends to thank for that.” 

Annabeth ignored her and turned a questioning look to Percy, silently asking him to tell her what had happened. Percy leaned in and whispered something in her ear before kissing her cheek as he pulled away. Annabeth’s face betrayed nothing about what Percy might have told her. She just nodded and turned on her heel, grabbing Percy’s hand and tugging him back up the ramp and onto the ship. 

Leo, Frank, and Hazel had no choice but to follow, and Nike, it seemed, deigned to join them. 

Percy and Annabeth waited for them on the deck before leading everyone down to the galley where Piper and Jason were talking softly as Piper tried to get Jason to eat something. 

“Look who I found,” Annabeth said as they walked into the room. “And they brought a new friend back with them.” 

Piper barely spared the goddess a glance before turning her gaze onto her friends, looking them over for any injuries. Everyone looked to be as healthy as they’d been before they left aside from some dried blood crusted around Leo, Hazel, and Frank’s ears and noses. She’d have to ask about that later. 

“My lady,” Jason said from beside her, though he made no move to get up and bow. If he had, she’d have wacked him upside the head for being stupid and forced him back into his seat. 

The goddess merely hummed and swept forward to pull a chair out from the table. She sat down, looking every bit as elegant and poised as a goddess should, and crossed her legs. She looked down her perfect, aquiline nose at them with curious eyes. 

“The deep bond of friendship and comradery between the four of you who found me was strong enough to heal my mind and bring my two aspects together, even if only momentarily, and for that I owe you my thanks,” the goddess spoke, and to Piper’s surprise she dipped her head at Percy where he’d found his own seat beside Annabeth. “And as my thanks, I shall tell you this: one of you four,” she locked eyes with Percy, Hazel, Frank, and Leo in turn, “Is fated to die fighting Gaea. There will be no victory for you without death.” 

The goddess’ eyes were sharp and cold as she swept her gaze across them all, her face a neutral mask as she no doubt gauged their reactions. 

Piper’s heart sank. She heard a couple of the others draw in sharp breaths and saw Percy stiffen, tightening his hold on Annabeth where she sat practically in his lap. 

“There has to be another way,” Hazel said shakily, tugging nervously on a lock of hair until Frank reached over to take her hand in his and squeeze it reassuringly. 

Nike/Victoria or whoever she was regarded Hazel consideringly. “I suppose Hecate taught you that, little witch,” she said, and sighed. “One of you will die. One of you must die if you are to succeed.” 

Piper opened her mouth to protest but the goddess held up a hand to silence her. 

“There is, however, a chance that perhaps the one who dies may be brought back. The physician’s cure. It is a powerful and dangerous potion, near impossible to obtain. Much stands in your way: the poison of Pylos, the chained god’s heartbeat in Sparta, the curse of Delos. Overcome the trials, and maybe you could cheat death.” The goddess stood and spread her large, glimmering wings behind her as far as she could in the galley of the Argo II. “I leave you with this: call on me when the time has come for your last stand, and I will come.” 

She disappeared with a rustle of feathers like falling leaves and a flash of gold. 

That was when Piper’s mind made the connection: To storm or fire the world must fall. They’d been operating under the assumption that ‘fire’ was referring to Leo, and that ‘storm’ meant Jason, son of Jupiter, the Lord of the Skies. But Jason hadn’t been one of the four to find Nike. She turned her gaze to where Percy now held Annabeth fully in his lap, his head tucked into the crook of her neck as she brushed her fingers through his hair. Piper locked eyes with the daughter of Athena and suddenly knew that she had realized it, too. 

She and Annabeth had made the same connection, something they had overlooked before, something that had been practically staring them in the face. There was someone else on this ship the prophecy could have meant, someone else who had been there to find the goddess of victory, someone else who might be fated die. Piper couldn’t believe that they hadn’t remembered it sooner. 

Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, lord of the seas. The Earth Shaker. 

Hercules just threw his head back and laughed. “I thought Athena’s spawn were supposed to be smart,” he said, leering at them. “Even with the sea brat, you can’t hope to ‘make’ me do anything. Maybe if you ask very, very nicely, I’ll send you two on a quest and consider letting you and your ship pass if you succeed.”  

Annabeth sighed. She thought he’d say something like that. She looked at Percy and he met her gaze with a shark-like grin. Oh, this was going to be good.  

Before Hercules could ask what was going on, Percy was on him.  

It was sad, almost, how Hercules didn’t put up much of a fight.  

Percy took them both to the ground, slamming his fists into Hercules’ not-so-smug face. Hercules threw him off with an angry roar and stood, stumbling, before Percy was on him again. Hercules threw a punch, but Percy ducked under his arm and buried a fist in his sternum.  

Hercules doubled over, gasping, as his breath left him in a whoosh. Percy brought his knee up in a swift jab that broke the god’s nose with a resounding crack. Hercules howled and stumbled back, finally drawing his sword as he glared at the son of Poseidon.  

“You’re going to regret that, you little brat,” he hissed.  

Percy met his eyes with a feral grin as he uncapped Riptide, twirling his blade once, twice, at his side before brandishing it in front of him. Hercules’ eyes widened as recognition dawned. Percy’s grin grew sharper.  

“Recognize it?” he taunted. “I’ll bet you do. I met her, you know. Zoë. I know what you did to her. Just before she died, she gave me her blessing to wield this sword, told me she was honored that I carried it.” Percy let out a low, menacing growl from the back of his throat that made even Annabeth’s hair stand on end. “And now, with this sword, Zoë will fight alongside me as I finally give her the revenge she deserved.” 

Now, Hercules may have been good with a sword back when he was a demigod, but his time as a god had either dulled his skill or revealed that their standards for ‘good with a sword’ used to be very loose.  

Hercules never stood a chance. Really, he hadn’t had much of one when it was just a fist fight, but as soon as he drew his sword, it was over.  

It was clear to Annabeth that Percy was just playing with him, drawing out the fight to appease his own whims. Hercules, however, didn’t seem to realize this. Not that Annabeth could blame him for that, per say; he didn’t know Percy at all, let alone as well as she did. Also, he was never exactly portrayed to be the sharpest sword in the armory. So.  

Still, Annabeth stood back and watched with a fond smile as her boyfriend goaded and tricked one of history’s greatest demigods into thinking he was winning their little fight. Now, she always found Percy attractive, but watching him fight never failed to make her go a little weak in the knees. Every movement was smooth and sure, his sword acting as an extension of him. His attacks graceful as they were deadly. He somehow managed to turn a bloody fight into a dance, each flawless move looked choreographed rather than spur of the moment. It was mesmerizing.  

Percy twisted and turned, weaving in and around Hercules as he lured the god further down the beach, closer to the water. Percy swung his sword in a slow-moving, clumsy arc, easily parried and leaving an obvious opening for Hercules to attack his wide-open right side. Hercules took the bait, a triumphant grin spread across his face as he lunged forward. Annabeth almost laughed as he fell right into Percy’s trap.  

Percy sidestepped Hercules’ rather uncoordinated swing, moving faster than he’d let on he was capable of up to that point, and brought his blade down in a swift, brutal strike.  

Hercules’ sword hit the wet sand with a dull thud, his hand still wrapped around the hilt.  

Hercules roared, dropping to his knees and cradling his weeping wrist to his chest. Golden ichor soaked into the sand and dripped off the edge of Percy’s sword as he brought the tip up under Hercules’ chin. The god glared up at him, lightning crackling just behind his eyes as thunder boomed despite the cloudless sky. Percy’s sharp, feral grin spread unnervingly wide as he leaned in close, meeting the god’s eyes unwaveringly.

“Pray that I never see you again,” Percy whispered, voice as deep and dark as any trench yawning along the ocean floor. The ruthless, savage rage of the storms of the open sea, relentless and unforgiving in their violence, swirled in his eyes. “Gods can’t die, but they can still feel pain.”  

The waves crashed, roaring up the beach to slam against Percy’s back. He stood in the surf, unmoving against the water’s unrelenting force. The silence stretched as the two stared each other down. Annabeth waited patiently, curious as to what Hercules would do next.  

“Now,” Percy said, the smile dropping from his lips. “I’m going to put my sword away, and you are going to let my friends and I pass through into the Mediterranean. Okay?” Percy raised an eyebrow.  

Hercules said nothing, but he dropped his gaze to the sand.  

“Good.” Percy grinned and nodded once, pulling out the pen cap, touching it the tip of his sword, and then returning Riptide to his pocket.  

Annabeth walked over and wrapped her arms around her boyfriend’s waist from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder and kissing his cheek. “I love you, Seaweed Brain,” she said, lips still pressed against his skin. He hummed and leaned into her slightly, bringing a hand up to gently run his fingers through her hair.  

“I love you, too, Wise Girl,” he muttered, and turned his head to capture her lips with his own in a soft kiss.  

“Mm, good,” she hummed, pulling back to smile at him with hooded eyes. “Because you are never getting rid of me.”  

He laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”  

“Now, take us back to the ship, would you?” she asked, nuzzling into the crook of his neck.  

Percy twisted in her hold until they were facing each other, then slipped his arms around her waist as she moved to clasp her hands behind his neck. He smiled, and fell backwards into the water as Annabeth laughed.  

Moments later, a spout of water deposited them safely back on the deck of the Argo II. The others, who’d been lounging around the deck while they waited, all jumped when they appeared. Leo, who’d been in the splash zone, squawked indignantly when he got soaked during their entrance.  

“Oops, sorry,” Percy grinned mischievously, not sounding very sorry at all, and dried Leo off with a flick of his wrist.  

“What happened?” Hazel asked curiously. “Is he going to let us through?”  

“Yeah, it looked like something was going down over there.” Piper hopped down from where she had been sitting on a crate and walked over.  

Percy shrugged. “Eh, nothing to worry about. He didn’t want to let us through at first, but we came to an understanding.”  

Frank whistled. “Nice. How’d you manage that?” he asked.  

Jason squinted suspiciously at them for a moment before his eyes widened almost comically. “Dude, is that—is that ichor?” he asked incredulously and pointed.  

Percy glanced down at his left hand, then stretched out the bottom of his shirt to inspect it before dropping his gaze to his pants leg. “Huh. Yeah.” he said and shrugged again.  

“H-how did you get ichor on you? And why?” Leo asked nervously, taking a step back.  

Once more, Percy just shrugged and waved a hand dismissively. “He's a dick. Broke his nose, that’s how it got on my knee. I also cut off his hand and I guess it splattered. It’s not a big deal, it’ll wash off.” 

“YOU CUT OFF HIS HAND?” Jason screeched, all the color draining from his face and looking about to faint.  

“Whoa, dude, do you need to sit down?” Percy asked, startled, and stepped forward, reaching out to steady Jason as he wobbled.  

Hazel and Piper leaned in to get a closer look at the golden ichor splashed along his sword hand and shirt.  

Frank wheezed like all the breath had been stolen from his lungs. “Percy, why the hell did you cut off his hand?” he said.  

Percy gave him a confused look. “Because he’s a dick,” he said slowly.  

“So you cut off his hand?” Leo cried.  

“I mean, yeah? He deserved it. Honestly, he deserves worse if you ask me,” Percy said nonchalantly, and jumped when Leo let out a shriek and started muttering in rapid-fire Spanish. Jason squeaked and dropped to the deck, burying his face in his hands. Percy shot Annabeth a bewildered look.  

At that, Annabeth finally lost it. She started laughing, which just confused Percy more and made the others look at her like she was crazy. She waved them off, clutching her stomach as she doubled over.  

“Percy,” she gasped as she tried to get herself back under control. “Most demigods aren’t gonna choose to go toe-to-toe with a god just because they were being rude.” She rolled her eyes fondly at his baffled expression. “And they’re definitely not going to chop off their hand! Also, babe, most people think Hercules is like, the golden standard of heroes, the greatest demigod to ever live.” She shook her head as she laughed again. “You’re kinda the weird one here, Perce. I mean, one of your favorite hobbies is mouthing off to random gods, including the entire Olympian council. Shit, you’ve had beef with Ares since we were twelve, Seaweed Brain. That’s not normal demigod behavior.”  

“Hey, the Ares shit is not my fault. He started it! He’s the immortal god of war, why the fuck did he decide to pick a fight with a twelve-year-old?” Percy huffed, crossing his arms. “He started it, and it’s not my fault that I finished it.  If he didn’t want to get his shit rocked by a twiggy pre-teen, he shouldn't have picked a fight with one!”  

Annabeth snorted. “I guess you have a point, but mine still stands. You’re the outlier, Percy. Not many demigods would turn down immortality to instead tell the gods to be better parents.”  

The others’ heads whipped back and forth between Percy and Annabeth like they were watching a tennis match, all with gob smacked expressions on their faces.  

“Okay, I’m pretty sure anyone would have done the same thing in my position,” Percy protested.  

Annabeth shook her head. “History literally says otherwise. Also, back to the point, may I remind you that your thing against Hack-ules is personal? These guys are going off the impression that you and I went over there, Hercules was being a typical arrogant, egotistical god, and you just decided to cut off his hand.” Annabeth raised an eyebrow as Percy’s eyes widened in realization and his mouth formed a little ‘o.’  

He turned to their friends and held his hands out placatingly. “Okay, so I definitely see why you guys were a little freaked out, now, but I promise my actions were justified. Annabeth is right, my beef with Dick-ules comes from some, uh, rather traumatic personal history that I kinda don’t wanna get into right now?” he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly and dropped his eyes to the deck. “If you want to know, just ask Annabeth, I guess. She knows the story. I’m just gonna, uh, yeah.” He gestured vaguely and turned to head below decks, then paused and faced them again. “Oh, and we should be good to sail through the Pillars, now. If we want to get moving,” he said quickly, and spun back around to disappear down the stairs.  

Everyone watched him go then turned to stare at Annabeth with wide eyes. Annabeth laughed and shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m not doing this right now. Right now, I’m going to go kiss my boyfriend stupid because watching him beat the shit out of a god was really fucking hot.” She spun on her heel to follow Percy, waving over her shoulder.  

She bounced down the stairs to the sound of Piper’s uproarious laughter and everyone else’s startled sputtering.