A Voyage Toward The Stars

Disclaimer: I do not own Campione or Percy Jackson

Chapter 1

Percy dived behind a large column as a massive blast of, paradoxically, darkly glowing water, so much like the River Styx that it scared the living shit out of him just seeing it coming his way, roared past where he had been just before, destroying everything in its path. Earth was rent, massive trees were tossed about like twigs and walls were shattered and seemingly melted, as if touched by a powerful acid, the bricks and mortar and wood nothing in comparison to the hunger of the water that could consume all in its path.

"Thou canst not evade my judgement forever, boy!" The dulcet voice and echoing tones of Percy's adversary split the air as the teenager tried to take time to get his breath back.

Not for the first time, he mentally cursed the seeming fate of all Half-bloods to find themselves up to their armpits in trouble, without even trying. Something that seemingly went double for him.

Sometimes he thought the world was out to get him.

His half-blood senses then blared a warning in his head, making him instinctively duck.

It was just as well he did as, not a fragment of a second later, the marble column he hid behind was cut through, like a knife through hot butter, by a long white blade, just missing parting his black hair, from the other side.

Then there were times he knew that the world had it out for him.

Without thought, he spun on his heels from his crouched position, Riptide extended as he focused tightly on the sensation in his gut, a pulling from his core, as he summoned the abilities he inherited from his divine father, forcing that power he had summoned into the renowned blade, making it glow a pale green, the shade of the sea and ocean, of his father's domain.

With a sound like a thunderous crash, his weapon struck the pillar, briefly making a large crater in the side of the marble architecture as the air seemed to shiver and quake, before the massively increased force behind the strike from his weapon, enhanced by both his Stygian Curse and the power of his father to shake the earth that ran in his veins, launched the top part of the column in the direction of the wielder of the white sword that had cut apart.

Thank Olympus for Earthshaker powers!

The marvel of Grecian engineering was shattered as Percy's completely unfazed opponent simply lashed out with the glowing sword once more, the motion smooth and easy but incredibly fast, the blade becoming a fan of steel, making the flying masonry become little more than pebbles and dust.

Dammit!

Percy didn't have time to think much else as his foe was on him in the blink of an eye, glowing sword swinging and eyes bright with a bloodlust that outstripped anything he had seen in those of a monster or even in Ares' nuclear orbs.

Fuck my life!

Then the clash of blades and the chiming metallic song of war began to once more be heard in the confines of Camp Half-Blood as divine bronze met divine power turned steel.

Blade met blade in an endless clash of wills and power as ancient as the human race, and possibly even older.

Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, was unarguably one of the most powerful fighters in the Camp, if not the most powerful. His formidable power over his father's domain further backed up by his almost prodigal skill with the sword and a curse that rendered him almost invulnerable to physical harm while also boosting his physical attributes like strength and speed to frankly ridiculous levels made him a force to reckoned with and had enabled him to defeat foes that had eons more experience in battle and an immense amount of raw power that made his own not insignificant reserves of power look like chump change.

Gods had fallen to him. Monsters, ancient and powerful beyond reckoning, had been slain by him. Even Titans, the predecessors of his father's generation of deities, many of them with minds as twisted and warped as the days were long, had met their end at the blade of his sword.

With these facts in mind, one would expect him to be able to challenge just about anything.

And right now, he was feeling first hand what a speed bag felt like when a boxer started training on it.

His foe was fast. Even with his battle reflexes granted to him by his ADHD, he could barely make out the blows that came down on him like rain drops in a hurricane, let alone manage to defend himself adequately. The glowing sword seemed to dance, becoming alive, as it struck out, becoming gleaming white lines in his vision as they struck at his limbs and torso, crashing against his armour skinned form. The blows failed to penetrate his skin or even cut him, but he could feel the muscles and organs beneath his skin ripple and shudder at the force placed behind every strike.

He was thanking all the gods of Olympus that he had chosen to bathe in the Styx, that his mother had understood why he had made the decision and had given her blessing. Without it, he would have been little more than a bloody Percy Pancake on the ground after the first time he had exchanged blows with his nigh snarling adversary.

His momentary inattention at thanking Olympus cost him as his enemy landed a smashing blow in his gut, trying to disembowel him with a horizontal slash. Instead, his breath whooshed out of him, his throat gagging as the precious air in his lungs was forced out, even as his body bowed over the glowing blade, his body otherwise frozen still in sudden shock, before he was launched through the air, though low to the ground, like a tennis ball struck by the racquet of Roger Federer.

The ground shot past beneath him as Percy valiantly tried to keep the darkness at the edge of his vision from encroaching and take his consciousness as he fought the massive roaring pain in his gullet. To black out now would only give his foe an even larger opportunity to take his life.

His flight was cut short as his body dropped a few inches out of the air, letting his dragging heels clip the grass and then send him tumbling and rolling across the ground before being brought to an abrupt halt as his back smashed hard into a wall of stone, his contact with the stony surface thumping and cracking through the air as the structure behind him gave way slightly to his momentum and the steely skin gifted to him by his curse.

The impenetrability of his skin didn't stop his insides feeling like they went ten rounds with Mike Tyson though, nor did it stop Percy from hanging his tired head forwards from his imprinting in the wall behind and hack heavily.

Crimson flecks stained the ground below him as he did so.

His eyes swam in his head as he stared in the direction he had flown from, his vision bleary from the rattling of his brain inside his hardened skull, taking in the slowly approaching figure with an edge of fear, no terror, finally making a place in his heart and mind.

Long red hair, the colour of spilled blood, streaked with strands of glowing white and inky black flowed like water from the crown of a picture of twisted and hateful beauty. Smooth white skin, perfect and unblemished, was formed into sharp facial features, like a bird of prey, and eyes of acidly glowing green glared at him, with a depth of rage and hatred Percy had never encountered even in the most vicious of monsters.

She, and hadn't he been surprised at the gender of his foe at the beginning of the battle, had a tall form, taller than he, which, while slender, was a perfectly sculpted blend between heart stopping beauty and the fierce muscular power of a lioness. This was no vapid beauty. This was a warrior queen, an Amazon, from straight out of legend. She was power and might. She was beauty and sexuality.

She was queen of all she surveyed as she prowled lithely forward, unhurriedly, toward him, her deadly sword glowing white as she approached him, her helpless prey.

She was perfect. Inhumanly so. Ungodly so.

And she had made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing more than to rend him, limb from bloody limb, and through the pieces to the dogs.

All of this just because, in the woman's own words, of his own name and the curse he had on his skin.

Crazy didn't even begin to describe this woman.

Percy risked a glance around him, daring to take his eyes off of his foe for more than a split second.

He grunted in annoyance and trepidation as he saw the massive walls of dark shadow still surrounding the area the two of them were in, cutting them both off from the outside world.

It had been one of the first things that the women stalking toward him had done when she had appeared in Camp, throwing away all the others around him like they were pieces of trash without even lifting a finger and then, somehow, separating she and him from the others. Even Mr D, who had a shocked look on his face when his purple eyes had seen the woman, disbelieving and, dare Percy think it, shit scared. Like she was a nightmare come suddenly and unexpectedly to life.

Percy could personally agree with that assessment.

With a groan, he managed to wrench his sore and tired body out of the crater it had formed in the dark stone behind him, stumbling slightly as he tried to stay on his own two feet. In his hands, he still grasped his ever faithful Riptide, the celestial bronze blade that had been with him from the beginning of his adventures and trials as a demigod, and impaled the point of it in the dirt to give him something to lean on and support his form as he watched the entity slowly approach, his white knuckled grip tight in an attempt to hide the shaking, from both fear and exhaustion, they would otherwise exhibit.

He saw brief flickers of white light crackle across the shadowy dome that encompassed the area, a sign that those not trapped by the woman were trying to break through the barrier. Percy didn't bother trying to feel any hope. It had been clear from the start that this woman could outmatch a God or Titan, maybe even Kronos the Titan King himself. Their efforts would no doubt be futile.

As if to affirm his thoughts, the flickers of white light were quickly consumed by the roiling mass of darkness and shadow that the barrier was made up of. A sight he had seen quite a few times earlier and had given him brief hope before.

Experience is a good teacher, but it is rarely a kind one.

His situation definitely wasn't looking very good.

Rich laughter, derisive and mocking, filled the air from the throat of his approaching foe, a smirk of malicious delight and condescension on her beautiful face as she did so. The sound grated on his nerves, making him grip Riptide's hilt tightly enough that he almost thought that his Stygian strength could have moulded it like a child would play dough.

The two of them couldn't be more different in appearance. She was pristine and unsullied, not a speck of dirt on her white dress, a chiton if Percy recalled correctly from Annabeth's constant lectures, nor did a bruise or cut blemish that pale skin. She carried herself calmly, almost insolently, like there was nothing that could possibly touch her in all the wide world. Her hand gripping the glowing white sword, that looked strangely like something between a meat cleaver and a large feather, also spoke volumes about how she intended to keep things that way.

In contrast, a Percy knew he must look a sight. Had one of Cabin Ten seen him as he was now, they would have either fainted dead away or would called on their kin and collectively bull rush him to give him an immediate make over.

Dirt and mud almost completely smeared his slightly tanned skin, a consequence of being thrown around like a rag doll by the woman's inhuman strength, and bruising was beginning to form on various parts of his body, the flesh beneath his skin not so invulnerable to harm as the outer layer was. His bright orange Camp shirt, once almost brand new, was now mere rags, scraps of cloth held together on his body by mere whims and a handful of threads, with massive tears and rends all over it from sword cuts, exposing a large amount of his bare torso. He was also slightly stooped, his frame weary and tired, compared to the woman full of hale and vigour.

It was clear to all who could see exactly who had the advantage in this battle.

"Is this thy true worth?" The woman said mockingly as she approached, her bare feet hardly even disturbing a single blade of grass, like she was walking on the air itself, "Even with the blessing thou bear?" Her laughter was filled with scorn, her green eyes darkening in disgust and her beautiful features twisting and distorting as the hilarity was abruptly cut off, "how pitiful."

Percy just glared at the woman, if she could even be called that, and said nothing. Breath was a precious resource and he needed everything he had to possibly survive this.

If he even could survive this.

Annabeth had managed, with great difficulty, to teach him to know when to curb his tongue.

The woman raised a perfect eyebrow at his silence, "Thou dost not respond?" She enquired rhetorically. A sly and malicious smirk crossed her beautiful face, making Percy's insides squirm with slight terror. Nothing good could come of that expression.

A blink of his eyes and his foe suddenly practically breathing in his face, her acid orbs staring into his own sea green at mere inches away, her movements so fast as to be invisible to his eyes.

"Then I will help thee."

Before Percy could respond or move away, a massive force sank into his gut, hard and round, forcing him double over further for a moment, feeling like his innards were being crushed, before the force of the blow sent him flying.

The wall didn't survive a second strike of his body.

Blinding pain filled his mind and choked cries filled his throat as Percy blew through the stone walls of the cabin he had struck, brief glimpses of dark polished stone and a tall bronze statue, one with eyes that seemed to be filled with the power of thunder and lightning, crossed his swimming vision before he struck another stone wall, and crashed through it with just as much ease as tearing apart rice paper, throwing him back outside beneath the veiled sun and the dirt and grass.

His momentum and flight had been slowed by his successive crashings, so he only soared briefly out of the dark stone cabin before hitting the green grass and rolling swiftly down the sloping hill on which it was situated.

He came to a stop at the base of the small hill, face down in the soft emerald grass and the fertile soil, panting heavily as his guts screamed at him like they were going through a sausage mill. He coughed violently and wetly, bile and, scarily, thick crimson blood seeping into the ground in front of his open mouth, threatening to choke and drown him where he lay helplessly.

Every breath felt like his lungs were being shredded, a possible indication that his ribs now nothing more than ivory shrapnel beneath his skin, small white knives that treated his vulnerable organs like a fish that was abut to be filleted.

He could barely move. He could barely breathe. He could barely think about anything else but the agonising pain he was in.

However, his primal instincts, those feelings that had seen him through the trials associated with his divine heritage, screamed at him to move, to rise up. To fight to the end. Even if he now lacked a weapon.

Weakly trembling, his tanned arms pushed valiantly against the ground, trying to raise his face from the pool of his own making. One inch. Two inches. Three and then five. He slowly rose, still coughing heavily and his head still spinning, even as crimson gore flowed down his toned chest and over his ragged orange shirt.

'Water', he thought deliriously, pain and bloodless robbing him of the majority of his cognitive functions, leaving only the primal instincts and drives inherent in all of humanity. Ones that were generally ignored in the face of the illogical beliefs of modern society and atrophied from disuse.

On his knees, crawling and desperate, he followed his instincts, pulling himself across the grass to where his unconscious mind told him that salvation lay.

The woman who was more than a woman smirked in delight as she saw the form of the pitiful worm fly through the dark stone walls of a temple to the one who had cursed her so long ago. Or at least, a temple made to a alternate form of her tormentor.

Long had she dwelled within the Immortal Realm, her essence torn and twisted over the centuries by the ever changing thoughts and beliefs of the mud crawling worms that once worshipped her.

She had had many names and forms over the centuries, her legend passed down by the feeble tongues and minds of the worms.

Once heralded as spirit of Harmony and Order in the land of deserts, she had known few equals. It was through her grace that the land's petty lords, who were believed to be gods made flesh by the ignorant and unwashed, sanctified their rule and anointing them, backed further by the great Sun that was her father.

Then he cult had moved north, leaving behind the sands and the great river, crossing the sea to a more rugged place. One that already had gods of their own and these great beings were not willing to abide a foreign interloper.

But she had been strong, strong enough to weather their blows and not die.

Instead her very nature, her core, had been split asunder, becoming different aspects of her, yet retaining much of her nature. Through the workings of gods and the feeble minds of men, one did become three.

One cleaved herself to water, the font from which all life sprang, and assumed the element's ever changing quality into her own body. The power of the sea and the ferocity of life became her strength, strength that she could gift onto others, making them warriors, making them Steel.

The other two aspects were taken by the Thunder King of these new lands as consorts. A prophecy made by a power Earth Goddess ended that, causing the paranoid King to devour one her aspects, one that gave good counsel.

She smiled to herself briefly as eyed the tumbled ruin of the former temple to her tormentor and hated former paramour. It felt good to impart just a fraction of the pain she had went through to this cantankerous fool. Even if it was only an alternate.

The final part of herself also suffered under the Sky Lord's attentions, her power chained to his and increasing his own Authority even as she carried out his divine will, meeting out punishment and reward according the perceived righteousness of the King.

It was a mockery of what she had been, but she had no choice but to follow the fool's decrees. For a King's word was Law.

Eventually the Sky King's interest in her waned and her myth and story was carried by the legion to the shores of Albion, her aspects clicking together to become whole once more. Here she became a mentor and teacher in the shadows, a warrior without peer who's students were of the same class. She had even given her spear to the Son of Light.

She met her old student, who was her son in a form long ago, again when she had met Him. The Strongest Steel. The Bane of Godslayers. The sheer majesty of the man had taken her breath away. In him, She saw a chance to gain her veangeance against the Father of Gods and Men.

It was through her workings that his sword of Divine Salvation was created, through her blessing that he became a King rather than a wanderer, anointing him with her very waters, and had become one who gave him counsel and advice in those trying times.

The red haired witch had not like how close she had been to the Strongest Steel, but she had cared not for the Earth Goddess, Gwenhwyfar's burning glares. Powerful as the Earth Goddess was, it had paled in comparison to her own, making the goddess less than a threat to her.

Her face twisted in a snarl of hatred and rage as her eyes glowed a brilliant acid green, like they wanted to burn away everything in from of her eyes.

Her disdain and dismissal of the possible threat the goddess posed had cost her dearly.

Consorting with the ever amorous King of the Skies, the goddess had managed to arrange her 'death' throwing her back into the Realm, injured and weakened, robbed of her custodianship over the greatest weapon available to her King and her Authority over Storms also torn from her by the Sky King's wicked sickle and taken as his own.

She grasped the flesh just over her heart as, by recalling her circumstances, she felt the hollows, the dull pulsing emptiness, that had once contained so much of her Authority.

While robbed of a large slice of her Authority, she still retained tenuous links to the stolen power, enough for her to see, even in her injured and recovering state, what the bitch and the Lightning bastard was doing with her power.

The bastard, lazy as he was, slept. Unseen and unnoticed. He had marvelled at his new powers, gained unwillingly from her, for a time before growing bored and going into slumber in the mortal realm. He would not awaken until someone dared to find and enter his place of slumber. A perilous task considering its isolated position in the world.

The bitch though...that was a different matter.

She couldn't help but grin with glee when see saw that the red haired goddess's actions resulted in her losing the vast majority of her divinity, becoming an Ancestor. She would be easy pickings when she managed to recover from her wounds...if it wasn't for that damned knight.

She had scowled heavily at that one joining her betrayer. Someone she had granted her blessing too, rivalling her other student, with whom the knight had a rivalry, who was her own anointed son.

She had fumed within her home in the Realm, stewing and brooding in her own anger. She wanted to do nothing more than break out of the Domain and rend the bitch and her knight limb from limb. But she knew she had to wait. Her injuries were not yet healed and required time to mend. To go before the witch herself when injured would not have been much a worry, even as weaken as she was, Guinevere would not have stood a chance against her might and majesty. With the knight at her side though, with power of her blasphemous creation and the ability to call upon the sword which she had crafted...

She narrowed her eyes at the last thought, glaring into the air, seeing a memory of the gloating form of that despicable earth witch and the Thunderer. Her grip on her white glowing sword tightened, her unblemished knuckles being white.

The sword she held erupted into a plume of white flame, burning and seething like a living thing, wanting nothing more than to devour all in it's path and wake. With an angered yell, she slashed the air before her.

With a roar, a flash heat and light, as if the sun itself had suddenly appeared on earth, the black temple to the Thunderer was consumed in her anger and hatred. In but a moment, the ticking of a second, the hill on which she stood was bereft of a building, only the charred ground on which it stood indicating its previous existence. Not even the stone survived her wrath, becoming ash in the hot wind that blew around her.

She looked at her slightly dimmed blade with annoyance. The sword she had now paled in comparison to the one she had gifted the Strongest Steel, Lord Artus, when she had joined his court, but it was still a reasonably powerful blade. It stilled burned her deeply though that the sword she had laboured so long to create had been stolen from her when it, and its master, should have been returned to her to safeguard and protect when the Cycle was complete.

Jealous witch was what the Queen of Camelot was.

She snarled deeply. Facing the damned bitch in those circumstances, the odds were very much against her. Only at the peak of her current state could possibly have a chance against her.

Something that would take a very long time to come to pass.

She had then, reluctantly, forced herself to dwell in her little pocket of existence in the Domain, plotting and scheming, coming up ways with which to use her now limited Authorities, to better offset the loss of two of her strongest trump cards. And all the while, she had kept a watchful eye on the bitch and her workings.

Then, out of nowhere, something strange had happened.

Within the Domain, a sudden emptiness, a great tunnel, had appeared, drawing everything that was close to it into it's gaping abyssal maw, like a great black beast devouring everything within reach. She had briefly seen several of contemporaries, those of Steel, Earth, Sun and more, devoured swiftly by the darkness before they could even have a chance of fighting back, torn from their seats of power.

Then she too had been had been devoured.

She remembered little of the what happened in that tunnel of darkness, save for the feeling of disaster and madness, of creatures, big and small, with fangs and claws, tearing at her body, her Divinity, her mind, an eternity of pain that lasted she truly knew not how long, before she was spat out into the realm of mortals, upon a beach of white sand and calm seas, even as the tunnel, a portal she had eventually realised, had slammed shut as fast as it had opened.

Only it was not the realm of mortals she was familiar with.

She had tried to reach the Netherworld at first, in a vain attempt to return closer to her own abode.

That had been a mistake.

The Netherworld, from her own experiences, was generally a empty infinite white space, completely devoid of anything, until one had bent a portion of that infinite space to their will, shaping it to their needs, like some of the gods that descended upon the mortal realm that had been wounded by either their compatriots or one of Pandora's get but not killed, fleeing into the realm to heal and recover and had made an abode in that empty land.

This world's equivalent, however, was vastly different.

Dark and boiling and churning. An ocean of darkness and an abyss of chaos was what she had appeared in. A chaos that was ever hungry and endlessly devouring. Her skin had burned and her clothes had almost melted away in the brief fraction of a second it had taken her understand her perilous situation and exit the primordial sea as quickly as she had entered.

She shivered to herself on the small hilltop. By instinct, she knew that if she had stayed, it would not be a simple matter of dying and reviving for her. No, her very existence was in peril in this churning waters of darkness. The very memory of her would vanish from this world, her legend forgotten.

A true death for an Immortal.

It was a horrifying thought for an existence who had been around for longer than most. To end. To be destroyed utterly and never reform.

She didn't attempt to enter that realm again, nor did she attempt to return to her Domain, knowing that it was impossible for her to do so when clad in her rage and anger, having descended, even unwillingly and unwittingly, as a Heretic God. The only way she could possibly return to her realm was if she was killed, a option that she didn't particularly like, knowing that it would bring about the existence of another of Pandora's bastards and bitches.

Even then it wasn't a guarantee.

Whatever force had drawn her and her compatriots, who she had yet to see or sense, had done so across the planes of reality, going beyond the boundaries of the world she was linked to. She wasn't sure how it had happened, but the truth had stared her in the face.

This was not the world she knew.

It was a world that could be, feasibly, beyond the reach of Pandora and her accursed rite. It was also a world that did not contain the objects of her vengeance. That angered her more than anything else.

All of her preparations, all of her delicate plans, had been turned to ash because of a single event, one that had never happened before. Her vengeance had been robbed of her, her betrayers would keep her stolen power without suffering the bitter fruits that she would have ensured that they would reap for their ignorant folly.

It galled her.

The sea before her had become alive, lashing and rolling as it responded to her seething temper for any number of days that she stood there, letting her temper soar and her voice rage.

Eventually, she had managed to calm herself, albeit with great effort, to think at least semi-clearly. She had been robbed of her vengeance, her chance to regain to her stolen power lost, but she still had a chance to carve out a future in this realm, to make her name once more hailed as great.

But this world was strange to her. The workings of this cosmos alien and different. She would need allies or servants, people who were familiar with mystical realm upon this plane. How it worked and who governed it. She would also need to identify who else had arrived on this planet, what other deities had been forced to descend upon this alien world and what their plans were.

It had taken surprisingly little time for her to complete her first objective. In doing so she had also learned of the travesty of existence that was the green eyed boy she had been facing, one that was no doubt lying collapsed, choking and dying on his own bile and blood.

A captured nymph, a curious nereid that had entered the small cove where she had let her temper rage, had been her source. She had been quick to seize a hold of the nature spirit, her strong hand grasping the spirit of the water with a grip of iron, holding her above the ocean's surface. Struggle though the girl might, her strength had held firm, a slight squeeze making the young nymph painfully aware that she held the girl's life literally in her hands.

The use of her Authority to obtain her answers had probably been overkill.

And so she had learned. Of the Heart of the West and the Gods that followed it. Of the monsters, Divine Beasts, that roamed the world freely, albeit weaker than those back in her home world. Of the Mist that cloaked the actions of the supernatural from the eyes of those who were not of it. Of Half-bloods, the offspring of mortal and divine, that were birthed into this world and the Camp, provided by the gods and housing the great trainer Chiron himself, that was their safe haven.

Most importantly, however, she learned of the War, a second Titanomachy, that had been fought not even a year ago. Of the vaunted Hero of Olympus, of Perseus Jackson, the Son of Poseidon. Someone said to a be a warrior without equal, the second coming of Achilles, down to even braving the dark waters of the Styx and it's curse, amongst the various spirits.

Her mind had burned with that information, her hands tightening on the nymph's neck before it finally gave way with a sickening snap, the young spirit's head hung loosely, her eyes clouding over with blindness of death, before her form lost cohesion, turning back into the water she was born of, sliding through the goddess' fingers.

She had ignored that however, the fate of a weak nymph meant nothing to her, her mind filled with rage and anger and hate once more. How dare the feeble child of that lame donkey bear her blessing! How dare the child survive to take on the role of her most precious of children!

When she had heard this news, she had desired nothing more at that moment than to have that boy's blood to coat her skin and his skull to be her wine chalice. None would take the place of her loyal child whilst she roamed this world! None were worthy enough and never will be!

Especially not a child of the water kneed donkey who bore the name of the Thunder Bastard's most honoured son! Just the mere thought of it inflamed her mind beyond reason!

On bright wings, she had immediately set off to find this Perseus Jackson, water nymph's knowledge showing her the most likely place for the boy to be. Camp Half-Blood.

It had not taken her long to find this mere boy, her sense of justice guiding her to the child who had sullied the name of her son. Hovering overhead, invisible to the eyes of even this world's ever amorous Thunderer, despite being in the heart of his domain, she had quickly spotted the mongrel.

Average was the best way that she could have described him. Neither tall and broad, like her shining son, nor was he well muscled or had the bright shine of intelligence in his sea green eyes. There was nothing that stood out about him, nothing exceptional that would inspire those around or fill them with awe as her son had once done, save the fact that the blessing she had once given of son of Steel laid heavy on him, even if she couldn't quite see the weak point that she knew was there.

She hated him on sight.

With an ear splitting cry, she was amongst the assembled Campers, her cry furious and damning. Many of these feeble mutts held their ears in pain at her cry. Weaklings.

Her firm grasp latched onto the shoulder of the boy, tearing him from his seat at the long table he sat at, and throwing him far and away from there. The next moment, she ensured that none of these paltry fools, mortal or immortal, could possibly interfere, unleashing a shockwave of her unfathomable power, knocking even the old drunk she had once had the displeasure of housing from his seat, making them unable to come to their comrades aid for that moment.

Then she had summoned her shadows.

A massive wall of darkness had risen up, reaching for the very sky before extending like a wall in different directions, cutting the boy, her prey, off from any outside help or aid. The wall of darkness separating the inside of it from the outside. The gap thinner than paper, yet as wide as the gap between the earth and the moon.

She was the only one who could walk the plane of Shadow. Who could step beyond the veil to enter her claimed demesne. So long as she lived anyway.

She had no fear that any of the paltry weaklings at her back could possibly enter her domain.

She had then entered the large strip of land, containing the precious Cabins of the vaunted and debauched Olympians the boy so served. She thought it fitting that this boy, the one who had the temerity to hold the position that had previously been held by her beloved son, who die in front of the eyes of his gods.

Then she had gone to work, approaching the then rising boy as he warily eyed her and the surrounding walls of her summoned shadowy fortress with malice in her eye and a sword in her grip.

She sighed heavily atop the small mount where the previously the temple of the Thunderer had once stood. The fight had been disappointing and pathetic, proof of her thoughts that the boy was not worthy of the title he held or her blessing that he still bore.

His swings were weak, his guard was open and his speed was laughable. He was unable to read her movements and was barely able to block her half-hearted blows, often staggering under their pitiful power or even being forced to take a knee or being blown off of his feet entirely. He should have been able to put up more of a fight than he had, especially with the blessing that he bore on his skin.

What a weakling! He was truly not worthy of her son's legacy!

She sneered to herself as she strode firmly down the green hill, towards where she could sense the fading light of the boy's soul. She had played with her prey long enough, it was time for her to put the pathetic ocean worm out of it's misery.

She rose a defined eyebrow as the otherside of the small hill came into view. Her sharp eyes easily spotted the pool of scarlet gore, her mouth twitched in devilish smile of wicked delight. It seemed her strikes had done more damage than she had initially thought.

However, much to her surprise, the victim of her anger was not there beside the puddle of blood and bile.

Instead, a small trail of red went across the emerald grass, trailing away from the cabins of the Olympians and toward a set of buildings behind them whose purpose was unknown to her, and both of the doors of these two separate buildings were wide open. She could faintly smell the scent of water coming from both of them and glimpsed white tiles through the open portals.

She sneered at the one of the open doors, a blood trail going through the open portal and identifying the location of her prey. So the worm was attempting to go to ground and cower from her rage? How pitiful.

She walked across the grassy expanse that stood between her and the building, her feather-like sword burning brightly. She would enjoy this greatly.

"Haaaaa!" Roared the angry God as he smote his mighty weapon, burning brightly with his power, against the wall of darkness that stood against him.

The three points of the weapon, one that had seen to the deaths of men, monsters, Titans and Giants alike in it's time, connected with the shadowy obstacle with a thunderous impact that made the air and earth quiver and shake, the might of one of the strongest gods of Olympus behind that powerful blow.

The earth at the base of the shadowy obstacle ruptured and tore, the air shattered like glass, tossing the few mortals still in the area away like leaves in a howling gale. It was a blow that could have leveled mountains, or even an entire range.

And yet, to the absolute disbelieving rage of the oceanic deity, the wall did not shift even an inch, nor a single centimetre of its surface show a crack, as if the power he had thrown at it was nothing to be concerned about. Weak and pitiful.

But that setback, just like the other times he had struck that damnable wall, did not deter him and wound up for another blow, his mighty trident glowing like an incandescent green star, ready to strike the mightiest blow the Lord of the Seas had attempted.

All to save his beloved son.

Before he could hurl his power at the dark barrier, a voice snapped out, patient but hard, gentle but unyielding, breaking him out of his unthinking (and desperate) fury.

"Enough, Poseidon!" Snapped the voice of his eldest sister, one that he loved dearly, perhaps more than he truly should, as he froze mid-strike, his great trident still burning brightly and ready to deliver its deadly payload of power.

Few were the times he had heard his eldest sibling speak in such a manner. But when she did, even vain and paranoid Zeus listened. Such was the power of the Goddess of the Hearth

"Stop wasting your energy!" She continued sharply, her childlike form staring up at his gigantic enlarged form that he had taken to try and put more power and strength in his blows, her burning coal eyes were flaring with her own temper that was held tightly in check. Perseus, his son, had touched her pacifistic heart in that unique way of his, a way that had averted disaster and had brought redemption to the damned and made friends of those who would have otherwise been enemies, gaining him a great ally in her. "Your strikes are doing nothing to help! Settle down and, for Mother Rhea's sake, return to your more normal form! Your giving me neck pain from staring up at you!"

Poseidon wanted to object, only for her burning eyes to narrow, making him hide a flinch and quickly do as she bade, a golden glow encompassing him as he shrunk, his essence taking on more normal mortal form. His massive bare torso, rippling with muscle, once more hidden beneath his favoured hawaiian shirt and his powerful legs, that had at one point been consumed by a mobile water spout, were once more clad in his signature khaki shorts and leather sandals.

Where once a gargantuan warrior God full of wrath had been, there now stood someone who could have been mistaken for a beach comber or a fisherman, those who relied on the bounty of the sea for their living.

The bronze trident, shining bright and fierce, still in his firm grasp however showed that the form he bore at that moment was only skin deep. His desire to fight and destroy the blackness before him was still there for all to see in that weapon's very existence.

"That's better," Hestia said shortly, her normally warm and gentle face set in lines that were harsh and severe, the coals of her eyes showing the fires of her temper fathering than her typical inviting warmth.

Poseidon felt a small chill down his spine even as he banked his own rage. He had never seen his sister like this before. And to be honest, he wasn't sure that he wanted to ever again.

But his contemplations on his sister's mannerisms could come later. His sea green eyes burned with like Greek Fire as he glared at the imposing barrier of shadows and darkness that barred his path to his own son.

"How is this possible?" He rumbled lowly, like an angry bull about to charge as he glared his hatred at the obstacle before him. So focused was he, he almost completely ignored the gathering of the rest of Council around him and his eldest sister, their own expressions angered in some way or another, for whatever reason.

This whole debacle had started not even an hour past. The lord of the seas and oceans had been in his palace at the time, ruminating on the strange tidings the waves he ruled had brought to his attention over the past week.

Throughout the wide seas, he had felt various disturbances, and not weak ones either. Powerful forces, some that approached his own power, or even exceeded it, had entered his domain, but they slipped away from his awareness before he could possibly get a closer 'look' at them, their presence simply vanishing as if they hadn't ever been there, leaving only the vaguest traces of their power in the area he had previously sensed them in.

It had disturbed greatly, both in how powerful these unknown forces were and their number of them that he had sensed, more than he could count on both hands. He would admit that this worried him. As a son of Kronos and Ruler of the Oceans, there were few who could match his power and fewer still who could exceed it, and he knew all of these being's presences by feel.

Yet he recognised none of these that had entered his domain, if only briefly. Some of the were eerily similar to some he knew, but there was bent to them that made him discard the thought that it was truly them.

Worse, Demeter, Hermes and the Archer Twins, those on the Council with which he had good relations, along with myriad of the unseated deities, had also reported similar disturbances. Flashes of unknown and overwhelming divine power in their domains that faded away just as quickly as they appeared.

It was a mystery and Poseidon was not a fan of such things, preferring to know what he was dealing with when the situation came down to it. He left the unknown to Owl Head.

Poseidon was willing to be good Drachma that the other Council members had also encountered similar things, not that they would be willing to tell him, especially not his brothers.

The entire situation had him on edge, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. A tension was filling the world, as if it was holding its breath in fear and anticipation.

Then he had felt it.

Not an hour before, while seated on his throne beneath the waves, he had felt a veritable explosion of Divine power, like one of the mortal's nuclear bombs going off in his head, scrambling his wits for a time it was so powerful.

Even in his dazed state, he was just able to trace the divine power back to it's source, the location of the explosion, just before another explosion, though smaller, went through his mind. This one was far deeper though, on a level far more personal.

It came from the link with his mortal and beloved son. Perseus.

His child that was at Camp Half-Blood. The Camp that was at the heart of the explosion of divine power and wrath.

His eyes had widened briefly as he put the pieces of the puzzle together before they were then filled the fires of anger and fear. His trident appeared his hand, summoned from across the floor of his throne room in Atlantis, before he burst into golden light, taking his true Divine form and then teleporting himself across the ether to the location of his son, racing to his aid.

Damn the Laws and Rules, he would not let his favoured child die before he was old and grey. He deserved that much and more for all the struggles he had faced in the service of Olympus.

He retook his human form at the Camp just in time to see a feminine figure, clad in red with scarlet hair, reeking of power that was both alien and Divine, step through the wall of darkness that was now raised in a section of the Camp.

And he knew, that beyond that wall, was his son.

He didn't think, reacting only on the paternal instinct to protect his progeny, and had leapt forward, his trident glowing brilliantly with his power and had smote the barrier, willing it to shatter and break before his might and power.

The air shook with the force that his trident made when it contacted with the seeming ethereal and shady barrier, a thunderous crash that could have rivalled his youngest brother's Master Bolt erupting from it, blasting away anything that was close to the point of contact. Children and satyrs went tumbling, thrown back by the shockwave, even Dionysus and Chiron were knocked backward by the power of the strike before swiftly recovering.

Yet, to his utter disbelief and shock, the barrier had not yielded. Unblemished and dark as a still lake at night, obscuring the sight of his son and preventing him from going to his aid. Even as, through the bond he had with all of his children, mortal, immortal or monster, he felt his son in pain, a burning lash across his mind and essence.

It had blinded him. The pain. The rage. He had roared like an angered beast, summoning more of his more, making himself more real, gathering more of his power in this one spot, shedding his casual form, the easy going mariner, for one more fitting of a more archaic time, taking on the form of a raging Poseidon, the sight of which had not be seen in an age but still evoked fear amongst those who had crossed him, no matter how much time had passed.

He focused on only one thing, heedless of the pleas from the centaur he called brother to stop, lest he injure the mortal children around him with the sheer amount of Divine power that he had summoned to himself in his rage.

Destroy. The. Barrier.

Save. His. Son.

For an hour he had laboured, striking mightily and unceasingly at the shadowy barrier, the rest of the Council appearing sometime during his raging and adding their power to his own for their own reasons.

During that time, Lightning had flashed, thunder had pealed, bright golden and burnished silver arrows had flown, tendrils of darkness similar to the barrier had writhed and lashed, various weapons of great power had struck and flashes of light and power had made contact. All of them with the dark barrier in hopes of bringing it down.

And all of it was futile. The wall of roiling obsidian mist, thick and dark, remained unbroken and unperturbed, either somehow absorbing the mighty blows that struck it or making them bounce off or be deflected.

His siblings and relations had halted their actions after a time, but he had continued on, crashing in vain against the dark barrier, until Hestia had finally been able to penetrate his thoughts and halt his futile and, in retrospect, foolish actions.

"I do not know," his elder brother murmured, a scowl on his pale face, while shadows from his frightening helm cast over his visage. "But I very much want to know." His dark eyes flicked to the Olympian King, his visage stormy and angered as his domain high above, "No being, monster or God, is able to create a barrier as powerful as this, one that is strong enough to fend off the entirety of the Council. Save one."

"And he lies in the depths of Tartarus even now," Zeus refuted, "Typhon languishes in the deepest pit of your domain, brother. It can not be him."

"I agree," the diminutive silver Huntress agreed, stepping up beside her sire, frowning at the dark wall in front of her that had shrugged off the some of her most powerful arrows. "The very nature of that child of Gaea was chaotic and thunderous like the storms that followed him and acted as his heralds. The nature of this barrier, however..." Artemis trailed off, looking at the barrier as it were something mildly disgusting.

"Is far more dark," Apollo said, finishing for his twin. His general sunny disposition and ever present smile was absent now, his eyes glowing white hot, like the sun, behind his sunglasses as he glared and scowled at the wall of darkness. "It feels of darkness and death, of shadows and hatred and fear, much Uncle H, but it lacks sense of earth and stone that goes with it. Instead," he looked at Poseidon, "it feels more...aquatic in nature."

Poseidon nodded tersely in agreement. He had, in fact, noticed that earlier.

While the barrier was of shadow and darkness, the power behind it, the origin and creator of the barrier, carried a heavy alignment to water, to the ocean. His domain.

This made him more fearful for his favoured son.

Many of his child's accomplishments came about because of his unorthodox thinking, his exceptional swordsmanship, his soft heart and, at times, his slight mastery over the element of water. In facing whoever this woman was, one of his son's trump cards had in turned been trumped.

Despite his experiences and relative power, whoever he was facing was ancient and powerful, who no doubt had a mastery of the ocean that made his son's look pathetic. Enough mastery to perhaps turn the very element his son sometimes relied on, that often healed him, against him. Maybe even using it to kill him.

All the more reason for Poseidon to want to shatter this damnable barrier.

"Well," his swift nephew said, looking worried even as he clenched his sparking caduceus, "that isn't good."

Poseidon managed to, barely, halt himself from frying his young nephew for his obvious and unhelpful comment.

Mainly because the flash of pain that ran through his body, making him double hunch over briefly, with a suppressed grunt of agony.

Tartarus! It felt someone had just shattered his ribcage for a moment!

He snarled deeply as realised the cause of it. His son's pain was echoed in the bond he had with him. His son was hurt! Possibly even dying if the strength of the pain, even diluted through the bond, was enough to make him show it.

He rose up, to continue to strike at this damnable barrier. His son was in danger! He would not stop until he was at his child's side!

A slim hand, fine but strong, on his bicep held him back.

"It's no use," his rival said softly, her normal disdain for him and his progeny absent from her intelligent eyes, "we have thrown all of our power against this barrier...and failed to even shift it. Striking it even more would be a waste of time."

"And I should just let my son suffer by giving up!" He growled at her, fierce as the untamed sea and harsh as the hurricane winds.

"No," she said sharply, looking at him with her steely grey eyes, "we simply come at the problem from another angle." She took her eyes off of him and looked around at the assembled Council. "Our powers combined cannot break the barrier, nor are any of us, even Hades, able to walk through it without bringing harm to ourselves," her grey eyes flicked tightly wrapped left hand of the Lady of Doves. Even with all the bandages, stains of golden ichor could still clearly be seen leaking through the gauze that traveled halfway to her elbow.

Aphrodite had been the first to test the barrier's defence from a more benign attempt to penetrate it. She ended having her extended arm almost rent apart, like she had put it through a wood chipper, making it look like thousands upon thousands of tiny blades had slashed her skin. We're it not for her domain of Beauty and Apollo's aid, it would have more than likely scarred over horribly, something that she would not have been able to abide.

Hades was the better off of the two having, upon seeing that his shadows had done nothing but possibly strengthen the already impassable barrier, then attempted to gain entrance to the field behind it, becoming shadow and vapour as he shot forth.

His human form was then thrown backward and out of the shadows the moment his own had come into contact with the barrier, sending him tumbling backward, ending in an inelegant sprawl on his ass. Any other time, it would have been quite humorous and something that would have been held over his head for decades, if not centuries, to come.

"What are ya suggesting then?" The God of War growled at his big headed sister, a scowl on his scarred face. It honestly looked like he didn't want to be here and his attacks against the barrier were only just a hair above half-hearted, at best.

There was no love lost between Poseidon's mortal son and Ares.

"We can break it from the inside," Athena stated, pointing her spear at the dark barrier. "It is clearly linked to the life of the caster, in some form or another. We simply need to take her out.

"And we have the instrument with which to do so already in there."

It didn't take long for Poseidon to connect the dots, and when he did...

"Are you insane, Athena?!" Roared Poseidon, his hawaiian shirt vanishing, shredded to pieces as his power erupted from him as he glared at his rival and niece, ignoring the mental chatter that erupted between the rest of the Council, his rivals mental voice loudest amongst them all but drowned out by his fury as he yelled, "Do you have any idea what you are suggesting-!?"

"I am completely aware of what my suggestion entails, Poseidon!" Athena snapped back, her grey eyes in a steely glare, "Your spawn bears the Curse of Achilles, remember! His body will be able to handle the strain. The son of Hermes proved that when he hosted Grandfather's, a Titan's, essence in his own body, mind and soul."

Hermes flinched at the reminder of his son's actions and eventual fate. The boy's life had not been easy nor kind.

"I am fully aware of that!" The Lord of Seas snarled back at the intelligent Athena, "But, right now, he is grievously wounded! Almost fatally! If he is put in more strain by having to handle a direct influx of massive amounts of Divine energy that is not his..."

"Let him decide."

Poseidon snapped out of his tirade to stare in shock at his eldest sister as she looked at all of them.

"The fact of the matter is, brother," his sister spoke softly, but hard and unyielding, "that whoever has thrown up this shield has shown themselves to be beyond formidable in strength and power, able to fend off our combined might. When it drops, I have no doubt that Olympus will be in for the fight of their lives, enough to make even the original fight with our forebears or even the battle with sons of Gaea that came after, look like a water balloon fight. In there," she indicated at the barrier, "at least the collateral damage could be contained and we have a chance to strike at this unknown foe before she can strike at us directly." Her glowing eyes softened as she gently, but firmly, looked into his sea green, "Trust in your son as you did once before. He is strong, stronger than you know, and he will not fail you. And he will come back alive and well.

"You just have to ask. A father to his son."

Poseidon growled deeply before yanking his eyes away from his sister's to stare around at the rest of the Council, "And you would all consent to do this?"

Surprisingly, his youngest sister was the one to answer from her position next to his youngest brother.

"As much as we all dislike the thought of having to do this," Hera said, glancing in particular at her war-mongering son and her flushed and disgruntled husband, while also flicking over to silent and dark form of the Lord of the Underworld, "Athena makes a strong argument that we are unable to refute." Her dark brown eyes looked into her brother's sea green, resolved and hardened.

"We all consent to this."

Poseidon cursed silently. He was hoping that, true to form, the Council's pride would prevent them from agreeing to this...madness.

What a time for his brothers to turn over a new leaf!

"Do what you have to," he grunted sourly, his face brooding and dark, "I'll contact my son."

Without another word, ignoring the rest of his relations, he closed his eyes and reached out along the bond he had with all of his offspring to talk to his son.

On the tiled floor of the boy's bathroom, Percy coughed violently and heavily, slumping on his back as his life giving liquid spewed heavily from his throat, welling over his dirty cheeks and falling to the floor, dying the previously sparkling white floor a dark crimson, bordering on black, hue.

His breaths were agonising and his muscles were weak. His arms were barely able to drag him to this place. The wound to his insides drained him of the strength he so needed to survive.

But hope was in sight.

He could faintly feel the surge of water through the pipes with his senses, even through the blinding pain that filled his body. The liquid surged and churned through the metal funnels, almost begging for him to call it to him.

But he was too weak, his power too drained. The Curse of Achilles claimed its due with the onset of exhaustion hovering over his shoulder. But there was still a chance for him to regain at least a modicum of his strength. His blurry vision, swimming and twirling, locked on to the dangling chain of one of the shower stalls. A simple tug and strength giving water would cascade onto him.

It was only a handful of metres away.

It may have well been hundreds of miles in his sorry state.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't try.

He weakly stretched out his right arm, letting it slump to the tiles with an echoing slap in front of him, before making a weak clawing motion, his nails trying to find a small groove that could let him lever himself forward.

They caught, if only briefly, letting him pull himself forward, sliding slightly on his back. A few inches, maybe even half a foot, was gained.

It wasn't enough.

The back of his mind, the place where his primal instincts of fight and flight dwelled, began to roar and surge, almost panicking. Percy, even in his dazed and dying state, could easily understand why.

The presence of his foe, malicious and gleeful, was approaching his position, slowly and idly, as if she were taking a slow walk through a park. Even with her idle movements, he knew she would reach him well before he was able to make it to the chain and the water that it held back.

His heart pounding and his chest clenching tight, making him cough wetly and bloodily, his left arm floppingly reached out, grasping nothing but slippery tile, but still managed to drag him another few desperate inches.

His wavering vision tried to guess the remaining distance, his mind beginning to fall further into despair. He didn't have a hope in Tartarus of making it in time.

"Shit!" He cursed, hacking like a man about to die, flecks of deep red blood brought forth from past his lips, the razors that remained of his ribs cutting deeper. He could feel himself on the edge of drowning, unable to breathe, on his own blood.

'What a way for a child of Poseidon to go!' He thought dazedly, feeling somewhat light headed, like his head was floating away like it was a balloon.

'Perseus!'

A voice abruptly thundered in his head, making him want to groan. Who was it? What were they saying?

'Perseus!'

The voice came again, the boy's mind focusing on it somehow, drawing strength from its presence. It seemed so familiar, like he had heard it before...

'Perseus, answer me!'

The voice boomed urgently, frantically, in his mind once more, bringing with it the feeling of the roaring tides, the crashing waves, the bottomless deep and the howl of the hurricane in a fury. His head shook with the force behind it. But it also allowed him to recognise the voice, that of his own...

"Father," he said faintly, the words more thought than spoken.

Poseidon silently breathed in quiet relief. His son was still alive, still coherent. Even if only just.

"It is me Perseus," he sent to his suffering son, gently sending him a bit of his own power over the link, just enough to ease his son's discomfort and pain for a time, enough to talk to him. He desperately wanted to use more, to flood the link with his power and heal his favoured son, but he knew that that would alert this bitch that had dared to lay a finger on him. If she had any sense, she would kill his child the moment she sensed something wrong. He had no choice but let his son suffer if he wanted to possibly live.

Damn her!

'It hurts,' his child sent, quietly, almost silently, his mental voice almost fading as the child thought. Poseidon felt his heart break a little, the sting of salt entering his closed eyes. He sounded so weak, so fragile. So young.

Poseidon found it hard to think of a person he hated more than the bitch hiding behind the dome of shadows.

'She's so strong,' his child continued mentally whispering, his voice fading in and out like a badly tuned radio. The Lord of the Seas risked sending a bit more power over the connection, bolstering his son just a bit more as he listened.

'So fast. So skilled. I couldn't even dirty the hem of her dress!' His son's mental voice surged with that final thought, fear and terror and hopelessness filling it like a glass of water.

'I don't have a chance to defeat her on my own.' Percy continued, sounding weak. Defeated.

Damn that scarlet whore!

'Perseus,' Poseidon sent seriously, knowing that he was running out of time. 'Listen to me. None of the Council, let alone any of the campers, are able to get through the barrier, not without destroying or otherwise killing themselves.'

The link was quiet for a moment. Poseidon could almost feel the embers of hope within his son's heart die completely. All hope, lost.

'None of you?' The question was almost silent along the bond.

'None,' he answered his mortal child.

The silence between them stretched, a second becoming an eternity on the mental plane.

It was broken by snorting laughter. The last laugh of a man on gallows.

'So I die alone,' the voice of his son reached him, morbid and dreary, but somehow light and sharp and determined. The laughter returned, bitter, making Poseidon mentally wince. No child of his should have that laugh, especially not Percy. 'Guess Mum named me wrong.'

'YOU WILL NOT DIE!'

Laying on the floor of the boy's bathroom, his eyes unseeingly looking up and the wooden roof, Percy's head shook like a rattle at the tremendous roar of his father.

'You will not die here, Percy!' His father's voice roared, 'I will not allow it!'

'Its not like there is much you can do about it!' Percy flung back, finding a degree of strength to fling back at his father's comment. 'I'm in here and you are out there!'

'That is true,' his Divine parent agreed, 'but you are still my son. There is a bond between us. Deep and strong, more than just the blood and ichor in our respective veins.

'It is a bond that can turned into a weapon.'

Percy tried to puzzle out the meaning of his father's statement, but came up empty. It didn't make any sense!

He heard his father seemingly sigh. 'All gods have links, bonds, to their mortal offspring. Something lets us know that they even exist and can allow us to watch over them from a distance. We can feel their emotions, suffer their pains and experience their joys as if we were them, even if we cannot physically join or interfere.

'However, the bond isn't just one way. Our children can also feel us, at some level, knowing our moods and other such things. Nor is the bond just for emotions and thoughts. It can be used for other things. More potent things.'

Percy blinked at the information he received. Perhaps this bond his father spoke of was why he felt odd when the weather began to storm, feeling jittery and out of sorts and short tempered, like on the lead up to his first quest when his uncle and father were at odds.

However he failed to see how this could possibly help him when he was bleeding and dying and weak.

He voiced as much. Mentally speaking.

His father's sigh came again before he responded, sounding like his teeth were being pulled as he did so. 'The bond can also be used a channel, a conduit, through which a parent could either aid or empower their children, bolstering their gifts to levels they could not otherwise achieve. It is not done lightly, as it treads the thin line of possibly breaking the Ancient Laws, nor is it without consequence.'

Percy huffed and gurgled slightly, 'There is no such thing as a free lunch.' He snarked, quoting the old Greek adage her had first heard from Annabeth.

'Exactly,' his father agreed sternly, 'before anything else, you are mortal, even if you do have Divine blood running through your veins. Your body is fragile, has limits, compared any immortal being, whether God or monster or other. If enough Divine power is put into your body, exceeding what your body can hold...it would have the same effect as if you saw a God's true form or consumed too much nectar or ambrosia. The power will literally burn you up from the inside out!'

Percy frowned as he wracked his woozy brain. That sounded similar to something else. It was almost like...

His eyes widened a degree. A single word passed his lips.

"Luke."

Poseidon signed to himself. His son was smarter than others believed at times. He just wasn't the studious type like his paramour, being someone who better learned by doing as well as trial and error. Every experience his son went through, he came out that bit stronger, that bit wiser.

'Yes,' he agreed with his grievously injured son, 'the son of Hermes is a good example. He was ill at the beginning of his hosting of my father's spirit and it was only after he bathed in the Styx that gained a modicum of health. The Curse fortified his mortal form and allowed him to bear that terrible burden, at least to a point.

"Having bathed in the Styx, you too stand a decent chance at being able to weather the strain the power will place on your body."

Poseidon felt the light of hope, even so dim as it was, bloom in his child's heart anew. And hated himself for having to squash it.

'So you can just give me enough juice to take the red woman out?' His son asked, though he sounded slightly off, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. A spark of pride went through the Lord of Oceans. Percy was learning to look between the lines.

'Were it under other circumstances? Yes, I could and would,' Poseidon replied to his son, 'But due to the sheer power of the adversary that you have been facing, a much more dangerous plan has been devised.'

Poseidon drew a breath as he steeled himself to drop the bombshell on his son's head.

'The foe you are facing is powerful beyond measure, beyond even my own power. Me just giving you a boost just wouldn't be enough. With the consent of the entirety of the Council, it is not just my power that will be channeled into you.

'It will be all of us.'

Percy felt his mind freeze at the last statement of his father, his eyes sightlessly gazing at the frozen motes of dust above him, his conversation with his father taking place at speeds that exceeded normal speech. Even then, his primal mind could still feel the approach of the predator clad in red, steadily moving towards the organism even if it seemed to be a pace slower than a crawl.

What his father had just said was enough to knock his mind off kilter, making it swim more than it already was. To have the literal power of the gods surging through their veins! Many would give an arm and both legs for the opportunity to do this!

And in their ignorance and lust for power, their doom would sealed.

Percy was not a complete idiot, unlike some would claim, he could connect the dots and come to the right conclusion. If just one god's strength channeled into a body was enough to kill someone...then having the entirety of the Council's strength channeled into their body would utterly destroy them. Mind and body and, most likely, soul.

Even the Curse of Achilles would not be able to stand against the almighty force of all the Olympians. Not for long.

He cursed the Fates for this entire situation. He was faced with the choice of either death by another's hand or death by his own willingness to protect. Either way, he would be greeting his scarier uncle very soon as he became another hero that had died in the service of Olympus.

However, he still held a glimmer of hope, brought about by his father's roar previously.

'YOU WILL NOT DIE!' That is what his father had said. And he did not doubt for a moment that he meant it.

'What are my chances?' He asked his divine parent, not specifying what he meant. He didn't need to. His father knew his thoughts just as they appeared in his mind.

'If you can defeat this scarlet bitch within a minute of receiving the power...you may be able to survive.' Poseidon's voice was hard and rough as he answered the unasked question. 'Go over that...and even your animus would be destroyed by the power.'

There was silence between both father and son as Percy thought for moment. In the end, there was no real question what he would do, even when his father had described the gruesome end that may await him. Grey eyes and blonde hair appeared in his eyes for a moment, remembering what was most precious to him. Something that would be in danger if he failed here.

For Olympus.

For the Camp.

For his friends.

For his father.

For Annabeth.

There could be only one answer.

'Do it.'

The scarlet dressed woman let her bare foot slap loudly upon the ramp that lead up to the doorway of the building, the sound seeming loud in the otherwise silent air, the dome she had created removing many such things that could interfere in this little part of the world she had claimed as hers, for a time.

She could hear the harsh wheezing breaths of her prey, smell the acrid scent of his blood and fear and pain. Like a fine wine, she savoured it, almost moaning in ecstasy.

With his death, she would strike a blow against the mirror of one of her tormentors from ages past, a sweet revenge, and also rid the world of a false pretender to her son's title.

She smiled in anticipation, her footsteps resounding loudly as she made her way up the gore covered ramp. Her prey was weak and bleeding heavily. It was time to go for the kill.

Reaching the portal, she turned to see the final sight of her prey.

He was on his back, surrounded by a pool of blood on the white tiled floor, the scarlet liquid coating his lips and staining his grimacing teeth. His sea green eyes, so similar to her own, seemed to glare at her harshly, despite his obvious weakness, and the gasping short breaths coming his mouth as his chest hitched.

She kept her sword, bright and blazing, dangling at her side, knowing that it's use was limited without her knowing of the boy's vulnerable spot. That was fine with her.

Crushing this bug beneath her heel would much more satisfying anyway.

She stepped silently into the room, glancing curiously at the decor out of the corner of her eyes while never letting her gaze drift from the glaring sea green below her.

White porcelain and metal seemed to be the order of the day. Empty sinks of the former attached to the latter that ran down into the earth. She could the power of water flowing through the metal pipes. She twitched a devilish smile.

So the boy had tried to reach for the power of his sire, only to find himself to be too weak to do so. Oh her day had just gotten better!

"Thy father and youngest uncle once courted me, long ago," she spoke to the worm beneath her, stepping in the pool of blood without a second thought. There would be more beneath her foot soon enough, a little more would not do her harm.

"At least, so the legends doth speak," she sneered at the very mention of legends and the mortals who created them. It was because of them that her existence was so burdened and she had desired to break free of that cycle in the first place.

"In truth," she continued, "they merely wanted to gain the power that I held sovereign over, to strip me of my essence and add it to their own. Binding me to them was merely a bonus in their covetous eyes."

She sneered and snarled as she glared at the spawn of Poseidon. "I was merely a prize, one to be taken at their leisure. Stronger than I, in some ways, I was at their mercy. Mercy they did not have!"

Her bare foot rose and stomped hard on the boy's chest, making his eyes bulge and a gout of scarlet liquid vomit from his mouth like a fountain, a second gush followed as she ground her heel into his shattered ribs, her refined senses feeling the shattered bones shred the organs beneath her. But it did not kill him. Not yet.

She wouldn't let him die until she had sated her anger on his body.

She ignored his desperate coughing and wheezing, filled with half-heard yells of pain and agony, that would otherwise be sweet ambrosia to her ears.

"Time past and, eventually, I was able to slip free of their combined yoke, free from their covetous grasp." She smiled a malicious grin down at the wheezing and futilely struggling child, leaning forward a bit as her head dipped closer to his gore covered own, adding a little more weight and pressure to her grinding heel, making the boy suppress a wet scream of agony.

"And now, through mere happenstance, a child of the sea that has dared to take the Blessing I once gave my son has fallen into my grasp." Her smile widened as she stepped off of her prey's chest, making him desperately try to draw in breath, breath that her power would not let enter his lungs. She enjoyed the gaspings he made for a moment, delighting in his torment, before lifting up her bloodied foot. It was time to end this.

"Know that thy demise came from Thetis, child of the sea." She stated and then brought her foot down, aiming to crush the chest, heart and lungs of this pitiful child.

She wasn't expecting the eruption of pure power, a brilliant green, from the little worm that tossed her away, sending flying through the doorway and out onto the green grass dozens of yards away, having been sent soaring and tumbling over the cabins to land directly in the middle of them, surrounded by the homes of the Olympians' mortal children.

Nor did she expect to sense rising power emanating from each of the cabins. Power that seemed to moving toward the position of the broken and bloody form of the child of Poseidon.

Athena focused on her task, forcing more of her power to manifest itself into her cabin that generally housed her claimed children and then, carefully, directed it into the mortal form of her rival's spawn.

When she had come up with the plan to defeat this foe, she knew it would difficult to implement. The personalities of the Council, and the sea spawn's often antagonistic relationship with many of them, were only part of the problem.

The other part was for the Council, barring Poseidon, to actually be able to channel their power into their 'Champion'.

Poseidon had it easy. There was a bond already in place that could be used at any time, a direct conduit that surpassed the limits of time and space. Not to mention that his power was already compatible with Perseus, due to their relationship being that of father and son.

The others had a more difficult time.

They did not have a direct link like Poseidon, nor were they able to be physically present to channel their power into young Perseus due to the barrier. That meant that they needed a work around, and fast.

Thankfully, as always, Athena had a plan.

Their Cabins.

These buildings that housed their Claimed children were more than just stone and mortar and wood. Infused with their power from the beginning of their construction, they became part of their Domain. A temple and part of their territory.

And Gods were able to manifest in, or send their power to, and influence any part of their Domain.

While the barrier prevented them from passing through or bypassing it in such a manner, something that should not have been possible and would be something that she would look into at a later date, Athena found that she could still direct her power to her cabin, and further influence that in rather limited ways.

So long as their cabins stood, as long as the sea spawn's body held out, they all stood a chance.

In her mind's eye, she saw as her power surged toward the sea spawn and couldn't help but wince heavily when she saw the state he was in. His body was beyond damaged, even as he was climbing to his feet as his father's power surged within him, bolstering him and no doubt trying to heal him as best it could.

It was an effort that she knew would be futile. The combined power of the Olympians surging through the boy's body would hamper the efforts of the boy's sire, almost tearing the body apart faster than Poseidon's lent strength could heal it.

The best it could do was buy the child a bit more time.

But even as damaged as the boy was, he cut an imposing figure.

His eyes glowed a bright green, spotlights that stood out from his face. No longer were they eyes, but orbs of emerald light that lacked any connection to eyes save for their shape. His muscles tensed and bulged, coiling and uncoiling like a powerful serpent beneath his muddied skin, nerves twitching wildly as the body enter a higher state of power, eager to fight.

With a swing of Anaklusmos, a blade of ancient power, the front wall of the boy's bathroom was blown outward, the sword not even touching it. A rippling distortion of the air tearing it apart and the echoing roar of thunder followed the idle destruction.

"He's paying for that," growled her drunken brother as he too watched his, very temporary, soon to be Champion's actions. There was sense of surprise, even disbelief, in her purple eyed sibling's voice however, having not expected the boy to be able to do such a thing.

And this was only with his father's power. How strong could he be when backed by the entire Council?

"Blast!" He heard her father swear abruptly, "I can't get a connection!"

Athena almost lost her focus, but managed to retain her wits. There was only one reason that a connection could not be created. Her Father was going to have a fit when this was all over. Athena could feel the migraine his forthcoming tantrum would induce even now.

"Do it now!" Poseidon called out, his voice strained as he kept his own power from overwhelming his son.

That was what they had all been waiting for.

In unison, the power of the Olympian Council, minus their King, but including both Hestia and Hades, was, for the first and last time, infused into the form of a single mortal.

Making him their Champion.

Percy was almost literally on fire.

The power surging through his veins was enormous. Not even the combat boost of fighting in the water could compare to what he was experiencing now. He felt like he could go ten rounds with Atlas, win, and then use the sky he held as a beach ball, tossing and catching it with absolute ease! A simple swing of his arm and an application of his inherited Earthshaker abilities had shattered the wall into splinters!

And the surge that came after that only made him feel even stronger!

In the back of his mind, he began to finally comprehend the sheer power that a God had at their fingertips. Was he absolutely insane for ever challenging these powerful beings!? He was nothing but a gnat before their power!

He shunted those thoughts aside and focused on the task at hand.

The bitch, Thetis if he could recall correctly, was going down.

With surge of his muscles, he was sprinting towards his foe, moving fast than even the nymphs who trained him, the world seeming to stand still as he moved.

Within a moment, he was in front of a faintly surprised, and standing, form of Thetis.

He didn't waste his breath taunting, he didn't have time.

His sword swung out, coated in an emerald flame, for his foe, only to be met by the sword of his adversary. He saw her green eyes, fires compared to his spotlights, widen slightly as, for the first, he managed to make her step back, the force of his blow stronger than her own.

He pressed his advantage, the hours of training and inborn instincts merging with his empowered state. Now she was the one retreating, slowly and grudgingly. She was the one taking blows, albeit just long cuts and scratches mainly.

However, her skill and strength was nothing to scoff at, even as he was now.

While he was winning now, it was only by a margin and he was on a time limit. And time was running out.

He needed to end it now!

Gambling, he parried a blow of her sword wide, across her body and, against all advice he had ever been given by his instructors, rotated on his feet, exposing his back and weak point for however brief a time to his foe, as he seemed to roll up her over extended arm to be close to be beside her instead of facing her front on.

Gripping both hands on his sword, he brought it down in an over head chop that could have cleft her in twain, from crown to feet.

Unfortunately for him, she managed hop away from the cleaving strike, his blade missing by a hair, even as her face regained its sneer as he missed.

That was fine. He wasn't aiming to hit her with his blade anyway.

The sneer was replaced by agony as a distortion of air struck her torso, a thunderous boom filling the area as it hit. She was sent flying, as was her blood, by the strike he had managed with his sword infused with his Earthshaker powers. A hair raising scream of pain erupted from his foe's mouth as she involuntarily flew.

A clean hit and decent damage. Finally!

But he knew it wasn't over. He could have just laughed her off as a mere monster if it was.

With this in mind, he chased after her.

Thetis screamed as she flew back. Agony and anger and rage and sheer disbelief mixing together to create a cacophony of noise almost capable of inducing madness.

She had been struck. The boy had delivered a telling blow. One that would have been mortal and fatal had she not been what she was. Cut from shoulder to hip, bones bare to the world and gouts of the life giving fluid of blood bursting forth from the wound.

How dare he!

How dare he mar he form! How dare he to injure her! Justice will be done!

Thetis landed on her back harshly, making her weeping would flare in agony, but she ignored that as she rolled swiftly to her feet. She could feel the presence of the boy already on her, the boy having chased her down, no doubt seeking to end this fight quickly and in his favour.

She would not allow this, not even with the blessing of multiple Gods on his form!

White fire met green light in a clash once more, her sword halting his from inflicting another and deeper wound on her gore covered chest. The strength behind forced her to take a knee, but that was only because he had used two hands and her only one.

With how close he was, his strength bearing down as if he was trying to crush her, it gave her the perfect opportunity to strike back. The condition for using this particular Authority had already been fulfilled with his powerful blow.

A flex of her will and burst of her power and the Authority activated, spoken words unnecessary for her to use it.

The strength of the boy trying to crush her let up as his own chest seemed to burst outward in a spray of blood, like a blow was inflicted on him by an invisible sword, creating a wound that was identical to her own one inflicted by him on his body. He staggered backward, the emerald halo of light around him and his blade dimming in shock.

She surged upward, knocking the weakened worm back. She had the upper hand once more.

"No!" Roared Poseidon as he felt the wound inflicted on his son.

"Fuck!" Swore Hermes, his teeth clenched, agreed with completely by Apollo.

The Council all knew that this was beyond bad. Percy's body hadn't been in the best of shapes when they had first channeled their raw divine power into him. Channeling that raw power had only made it worse. With this new wound, the time limit that Perseus had that gave him a chance to survive the infusion of so much divine energy was now defunct.

Perseus would die here, that was given, it would just a matter of how.

The speedster had to hand it to the kid, even as broken and bleeding as he had been, he still fought like a lion, and had been on the very edge on winning when the bitch had pulled her trick. Hermes wasn't even sure what it was, but he knew it had been powerful. It would have had to have been to be able to get past the Curse of Achilles.

The only clue he had was the brief feeling of Vengeance/Justice/Punishment before the wound appeared. If he were a betting man- and he was- he would putting his money some form of magic, though it was not one the wielder of the Golden Wand knew of.

He felt his uncle desperately send a little more of his power into his dying son, hoping to stave off death for a few more moments, or even heal him as much as he could. Hermes responded by devoting more of his power to Cabin Eleven and then channeling it into the kid.

Percy had honoured his wayward son, even after all he had done. He would honour the kid now and give him that chance to strike a final blow of defiance.

It was the least he could do.

Percy knew when everything once more went to shit for him. Situation Normal, as far as he was concerned.

His body now felt like it was on fire and had, ironically, been filleted like a fish. He was also beginning to lose feeling in his extremities, becoming numb. Whether it was through blood loss from the new wound, sheer exhaustion or the power of the Gods that he held was burning away his nerves, he didn't know and didn't truly care at that point in time.

All he knew was that he was utterly screwed.

The tables had turned once more and he didn't have any more tricks or wildcards left to play. It was only by a fluke of choice from the residents of Olympus that he was even still standing right now.

He doubted it would be for long though.

Thetis surged at him with her white firebrand of weapon, a sword like a burning feather, slower than she had been before, the wound she had obviously taking a toll, but still fast and powerful.

All he could do, as off balance as he was, was react. To defend.

Green met White again and again, the former defending and the latter attacking. Thetis' onslaught was merciless and ongoing, never stopping and always advancing. His defence was, in turn, unrelenting and sturdy, even as he retreated and gave ground. But time was the goddess' side, not his.

He cudgelled his beleaguered mind for an answer, for a solution. Now more than ever he wished that Annabeth was at his side. She was the one for making plans, not him. He was more of a 'fly by the seat of his pants' type of guy, making it up as he went along or on the spot.

He wasn't sure that that would cut it here.

Thetis' vicious grin of victory and bloody delight confirmed that.

He was being pushed back to the very centre of the cabin's managed to realise, even over the clash of weapons he could hear the roar of the hearth flame, Hestia's domain, behind him. He would be cornered then, his back to flame that could, despite the goddess' gentle nature, consume anything, offering it to the gods.

His glowing eyes widened slightly as an idea hit him. That single moment of distraction, however, made his formerly impenetrable wall of defence falter, a chink in his armour.

Thetis was quick to take advantage.

A surge of strength from her body had her cleaver like blade knock his own down, before she swiftly followed up, not with her blade, but with her blood stained foot.

Perseus knew nothing but agony as her foot thundered into his abdomen, more of his blood spewing forth, and catapulted him backward, his numb and shocked fingers losing their grip on his blade as his body was briefly stunned.

The arc of his flight was short and shallow, more of a hard push backward. He was high enough, however, for his feet to leave the ground, though he barely recognised that as he fought not to black out, the agony of the strike becoming his entire world.

The backs of his heels clipped the edge of one of the marble benches that surrounded the roaring campfire, turning his soaring form into a wild and uncontrolled tumble. His pain increased ten fold as he landed awkwardly on his back, feeling like someone had taken an iron bar to the length of his spine. Repeatedly.

His breath was driven out of him again, a fount of crimson fluid, mixed with a few white specks that he blearily thought looked like bone fragments, escaping his torn open chest and his gasping mouth.

He hacked where he lay on his back, swirls of darkness at the edge of his vision, even as his limbs felt like they were made of lead, heavy and almost unmoving. Through the pain in his torso, as if a spool of barbed wire was shoved into his chest cavity and made to spin, he faintly noticed the complete lack of feeling in his hands, not even feeling that blistering heat of the campfire that it was on the verge of entering, something that was spreading up his arm, even as he watched his immobile hand begin to broil and char. His feet and legs were also suffering a similar fate, minus the burning flesh.

He knew what it meant. He had passed the safe zone. His chance at living through this fight had vanished. The fuse for his soul's utter destruction had been lit.

Beneath his scarred and bloodied form, his soul was burning away. His time truly was running out.

Thetis moved cautiously, but confidently, towards the weakly writhing worm, that was now wiggling towards the campfire as if the heart of it contained aid, she had managed gain the advantage over, a smirk on her lips as she ignored the pain in her abdomen.

With a snort of a contempt, she kicked the bronze blade that he had used away into the distance as she walked. Confident she may be, but she wasn't willing to chance that the foolish child still had a trick up his otherwise non-existent sleeve.

Her smirk grew as she saw that the aura of might he had previously had had practically vanished, only the faintest wisps of emerald power in his groggy eyes. He was at the end of his rope and very vulnerable.

Perfect.

"Thy end draws near, mortal child," she spoke, kicking aside one of the large and heavy marble benches around the fire, sending it flying away like it was merely a pebble, clearing her path to the groaning and hacking boy, ignoring the sudden flare of the flame as it seemed to threaten her, daring her to come within it's reach.

She merely ignored the palfrey theatrics of the foolish and weak goddess. It was all bark and no bite, like the bitch she was.

The boy groaned deeper, as if in pain, fixing a single dimly glowing eye on her, "Don't.." He managed to wheeze, "you ever...shut up?" He managed to gasp out, a bloody smile crossing his lips. "It's...getting...annoying...to hear...you...repeat yourself."

Thetis' face turned dark as she watched the boy slump back again, no doubt having used what little of his energy he had left to speak those words. How dare he!

Her foot lashed out, striking him in the side. She was going to let the little worm have at least a degree of dignity, however much he did not deserve it, and let him die with his face to the sky, looking up at his killer, allowing him a chance for his last act of bravery, facing his death with eyes wide open.

Now though, with that final insult, her patience with the fool had ended. No dignity would be given to him! He would meet his end with his face in the dirt! Something that would be all to easy.

She had finally managed to find the boy's weak spot. Right in the small of his back.

He would die like the mongrel dog he was with her sword in his back!

Her kick was powerful enough to make to roll over numerous times, just as she had planned.

What she hadn't planned, was to receive a face full of burning hot coals.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't have phased her. No mortal flame burned hot enough to even singe her dress.

However, this campfire was far from ordinary.

She screeched as the coals burnt her face, blinding her, and agony filled her mind.

Percy felt like he had taken the place of Atlas once more.

Sort of.

His limbs were numb, feeling verging completely gone and any attempt to move them was slower than a snail to respond.

He couldn't help but be grateful for what as he saw the state of his right hand.

Blistered and charred, some of his flesh had melted off, exposing dry bone to the open air. His fingers, at least the two and the thumb that remained, were frozen in a claw like manner, a bird's foot about to grasp onto its perch. Without the numbness of his soul's ongoing destruction, it would have been St. Helens and the Telekhines all over again.

He swallowed heavily, tasting his own coppery blood, at the sight, trying to withhold his nausea.

It was irony at it's best that what was killing him even now was letting him live, letting him be able to fight, just for a few moments more.

It seemed even the Curse of Achilles had limits and was not immune to the hearth's flame.

He tried to get up, only to fall back, his legs unfeeling and he didn't think would support his weight, let alone enable him to walk.

"Curse thee!" His opponent screeched as she staggered around drunkenly her pain removing her coordination, blind and burnt. "Curse thee, worm!"

But then, perhaps he didn't need to.

His unburnt hand sluggishly reached into his short's pocket, grabbing for something he knew would already be there, even as he used his blackened claw-like and mutilated hand to shift his leaden leg just so...

"I will find thee!" Thetis wailed in sheer rage as she still stumbled around, the hiss of hot coals on skin still heard clearly by the son of Poseidon. He guessed even Hestia, gentle and pacifistic as she was, could still inflict damage when she needed to. "And when I do, even Fire Thief's punishment will seem comparable to Para-aaaaaah!"

Her rant was cut off as she tripped over his shifted leg and fell to the ground, managing to twist slightly so she landed on her back with and oomph!

Right next to him.

Percy, as quickly as he could, took advantage of the results of his childish ploy and put the second, and last, part of his end game into action.

He snarled heavily in agony as he was forced to grab his left knee, his arm forced to cross his torso, compacting it and making his chest bloom with another wave of blood, and, with the entirety of his remaining strength, dragged it over his right limb and then onto the form of Thetis, letting his body roll with it.

Not a moment later, he was straddling the form of his blinded foe.

In hindsight, it was probably not his best plan. The Goddess had proven to have strength beyond nearly anything he had ever encountered. With his leaden and sluggish form, it would have been easy for her to be able to push him off.

However, she had stopped writhing in pain for a moment when he had managed to straddle her, as if completely shocked at his actions.

He didn't let that chance go to waste.

His good, in comparison, left hand pulled the pen form of Anaklusmos from his pocket, almost dropping it as his numb fingers fumbled it, a wave of weakness suddenly overtaking him. He manfully managed to keep a hold of it and clicked the top of it. Transforming the pen into the true form of the ancient Celestial Bronze blade, the point of it slightly buried in the soil next to Thetis' head, almost holding him up.

Percy panted heavily. All of his arms were numb, no feeling at all and trying to lift them would be like trying to throw Olympus across the Atlantic. He didn't have the strength to swing his blade, or even hold himself as upright as he was much longer. Or even keep his eyes open.

But then he didn't need to.

He could faintly hear the beckoning sound of water, relaxing him, making him sleepy, peaceful, as he fell sideways, his hand grasp on the hilt as firm as it could be and his dead weight behind it.

He welcomed the darkness and end of the pain he had held back, even as he regretted that he could not have lived the life he wanted with Annabeth.

The last thing that his mind saw before his end, was a flash of blond hair and grey eyes.

The last thing that his eyes saw before his end, was a flash of bronze, a spray of red and the shattering of the darkened sky.

'I'm sorry.' Was his last thought, directed to everyone and no-one.

Then Oblivion called.

Poseidon was the first one through when then the barrier fell, shattering like dark glass and then fading into a light mist before burning off like fog before the light of the sun.

"Perseus!" He thundered, his eyes wild as he looked for his son. He had lost the connection with his child before the end of his engagement, unable to keep supplying his son with power without outright killing him.

The bond he had with his son had also closed, due to it requiring the strength of both parties to exist. If one was weakened enough, the bond would go dormant until such time as the weakened party recovered their strength enough for the bond to reawaken.

Poseidon was feeling that dormancy, that absence, most keenly now.

"The Hearth!" his oldest sister called even as she vanished in a plume of flame, transporting herself to the destination.

Poseidon did the same, a whirl of water marking his passage, even as the rest of the Olympian Council and Hades teleported in their own various ways.

And the Campers sprinted along behind, Annabeth and Chiron at the forefront of the charge.

Annabeth's heart was in her mouth as she sprinted for the Campfire.

This day, no, the entire week, had been completely crazy. All starting with the consequences of a badly struck ball through a window...

She shook herself as she kept running, her breaths coming hard. It wasn't the time to think about that. Her Seaweed Brain's life was more important.

She cursed herself for being useless, again, when the goddess had first appeared, knocking them all way like they were flys before throwing her boyfriend away from them and then cutting them both off from the Camp as she did as she willed with the son of Poseidon.

And there had been nothing that she could do about it. Helpless. Powerless.

She would have been the first to try and break the shadowy barrier, had not Poseidon descended like the Wrathful God that the stories had once portrayed him as, drawing on so much of his power that she had been forced to avert her eyes, lest they be turned to ash in their sockets from seeing him so close to his True Divine Form.

She had felt despair as she saw the barrier had not even gained a blemish from the powerful attack. A despair that had grown when the other Olympians had arrived and had also thrown their might against the barrier, only to accomplish nothing.

She had been close enough to the towering forms of her Divine relatives to hear the plan that her Mother had concocted near the end. A plan that filled her with dread and sorrow with a small amount of hope.

It was madness, her studies after the Titanomachy into similar situations that Luke had been in, though few and far between, made that known to her.

It was a risky plan, and would have far reaching consequences for Perseus, successful or not, but it was still a plan that had a chance of working, of making sure that her boyfriend could win and return to her. Changed maybe, and perhaps a step slower, but still return.

Then everything started going to Hades.

Zeus had been unable to make a connection through the barrier, resulting in a weakening of Percy. Zeus was not just King of the Gods due to the luck of the draw. His own power slightly edged out his brothers.

Then she had heard the cursing as the Council stopped radiating their power so much, an indication that something else had gone wrong, preventing them from channeling as much energy into her boyfriend.

The final nail in the coffin had been when Percy's father had bellowed his denial, even as the green aura he had been emitting buttered out like a spent candle. The connection to Percy, lost.

Dread had risen up in her mind.

Despite being smaller and far more human, she managed to beat her centaur mentor to the Campfire.

The sight that awaited made her skid to a stop, her face paling, even as her mind screamed denials.

A group of somber looking gods looked down at the sight that had made her shake where she stood.

Percy's form, ragged and dirtied, lay across the cooling corpse of the goddess, her death evidenced by her detached head laid sideways in a pool of blood. The bloodied form of Riptide laid diagonally across the woman's main body's neck showing the instrument of her demise.

However, the woman's death was of least concern to Annabeth. It was the very still form of her recent paramour and always friend that held her watering grey eyes.

His eyes were closed and facial features slack, but not drooling like he sometimes did when he was asleep, and his skin pale with the lack of life.

With just a look, she knew that the worst had come to pass.

Percy was dead.

She was frozen where she stood. Unable to move as shock and grief overwhelmed her, making her tremble and sway like a leaf in the wind, her eyesight blurring as tears welled up and her throat choked with unreleased sobs.

She ignored the stream of people around her, deaf to their own cries of dismay and grief.

Percy was dead.

"He fought until the very end," she vaguely heard her mother speak quietly but carrying to all present, respect for once in her voice as she spoke of Percy rather than disdain, "even if the end meant his destruction. A true Hero."

"It is cold comfort," a tearful and grim form of Poseidon said bitterly to his rival, but his watering eyes lacked the disdain he usually had for Annabeth's mother. Petty rivalries were laid aside at this moment of sorrow and grief. "But I thank you for it."

Annabeth stumbled forward through the crowd in a daze, movements returning to her limbs as her heart ached. They parted for her respectfully, head bowed. Even the gods.

She slumped to her knees as she reached the cooling form of her boyfriend, a trembling hand extended to touch his blood covered face, but hesitating at the last moment. As if she knew that touching it would make this nightmare a reality.

Before she could regain her courage and fortitude, something began to happen.

Annabeth fell back with a cry, mirrored by many who had also gathered around her in grief at their fallen hero, her arms shooting up to shield her eyes as the divine corpse beneath her boyfriend began to glow a bright gold.

"What the Styx?!" Cried her uncle, also covering his elfin face. A sentiment that was shared by herself and the majority of others.

Through the small gap between her shielding arms, she saw the dead body of,the goddess slowly begin to disappear, dissipating into glowing motes of golden sand, dissolving from her decapitated neck down like a sand castle before the waves.

It was like a combination of a God taking their true Divine Form and the death of a monster all wrapped in one eventful package, something that Annabeth had never encountered before.

Was this what it was like for a God to die on the battlefield? Pan, the former Lord of the Wild, had not Faded, a God's true death, like this.

Annabeth suspected it wasn't. Call it a feeling, but she thought she was witnessing something different. Something unique.

Something completely and utterly new to the world she had born into.

The light had died down slightly, enough for Annabeth to stop shielding her face, as the form of the woman that Percy had killed, much to Annabeth's paradoxical vicious satisfaction and grief, had now completely dissolved, her physical form lost. Even her blood had transmuted into the glowing motes of gold.

That hovered like a small golden mist or cloud over her boyfriend's still form.

Annabeth knew then that, whatever had happened, this scene wasn't over yet.

It had barely begun.

The motes of golden sand dance over the cool form of Percy, a swirling cloud that hovered. Then it began to spin.

The golden specks went around and around in an ever tightening circle above the dead son of Poseidon, coiling and twisting, their consistency becoming thicker with every rotation.

From faded mist to golden clouds. And then on into glowing water and then, finally, becoming thick sand in truth, though it it still moved like a storm in a teacup.

Then the sand began to descend.

From the middle of the basketball sized hovering pane of golden power, a small tendril began to move downward, like a tornado reaching for the ground, creating a funnel from which more of the power began to descend.

Descend upon the form of her boyfriend.

That jolted many out of their wonderment at the spectacle that they were beholding. Poseidon most of all.

He lashed out with his trident in a massive sweep, his face furious. Annabeth had no doubt that even he didn't know what was happening and reacted instinctively. Attempting to drive away something that he saw as a threat. Unwilling to let this power, that came from his son's assailant, to desecrate his son's body in any manner.

A sudden breeze rushed past her face, followed by a streak white and red, confusing her already grief addled and dazed mind. What was that?

Clang!

A sound of weapon meeting weapon resounded through the area as Poseidon's mighty Trident was halted mid-swing was halted by a sword, the suddenly appearing wielder of said blade easily holding back the Divine weapon and the powerful deity who had swung it with ease.

"It would perhaps be best if your were to put up your arms before you do something that you and many others will regret, Lord Poseidon." The sword's owner said softly, almost in a monotone as he, and he was definitely a he if the build behind the semi-loose clothing he wore was any indication, looked up into the glowing green eyes of the Lord of the Oceans from beneath his hooded face.

He also seemed to completely ignore the weapons of the other gods pointed at him, their children also not far behind.

Annabeth, however, managed to remained focused mainly on the cooling body of her boyfriend. And thus was witness to a miracle.

The golden motes of energy, bright and glorious, had finally made contact with her paramour in the brief moment of distraction caused by the stranger that had appeared seemingly out of thin air. Barely perceptible, and only seen by her because she was looking carefully at her friend's body, she saw golden glow, like the sand, spread across his skin, as if the sand had been a pebble that was thrown in the centre of a still lake, the ripples carrying golden glow to every part of the body.

In that moment, she thought she saw Percy's eyelids flicker, as if the eyes were moving beneath them.

In that moment, she thought she heard the slightest exhale of breath from his empty lungs and saw the dust near his mouth stir.

In that moment, she thought that his flesh, dirtied with the stains of battle and pale with death, beneath that golden infusion, slowly begin to brighten, taking on the hues of life and laughter.

She ignored the stranger and the words he was speaking, focusing on the miracle before her as hope surged in heart.

Poseidon's eyes narrowed at the stranger that had, seemingly effortlessly, halted the stroke of his weapon, proving that the stranger was more than he just appeared. It was no simple matter to challenge a god's strength, after all.

The majority of his physical features were nigh impossible to make out beneath the ground brushingly long and voluminous white cloak that he wore, the shape of his body hidden from view and the hood raised as to only expose the small slash of the lower part of his face, pale but healthy and neutral in expression, the face of mannequin.

The sword in the grasp of his well muscled, but not bulging, arm, however, was as unique as the rest of the boy was blank as a sheet of paper.

On the surface it seemed to be of simple make. A rounded pommel and black leather wrapped hilt lay below a simple straight crossguard. Above it was the double-edged blade, roughly a meter long, that was wider where it met the crossguard than the tip, which tapered into a point.

Poseidon was familiar with the make of the sword. He had seen many like it worn by the ta barred Templar Knights during the Crusades.

It was a simple sword and yet, for all it's unadorned and pristine simplicity, below that simple surface Poseidon sensed a wealth of power, of strength and might. Patient and indomitable, a guardian at the gate. Poseidon knew that this boy would not be the one to strike the first blow, but he would be the last.

Considering that he could sense that the seemingly simple sword was, somehow, at least a peer in power to his own Trident, Poseidon thought that the boy had reason for his patience and confidence.

"And who are you to say this?" Poseidon said harshly at this boy that had the temerity to stop him. A quick glance at the rest of his family around conveyed the Lord of the Ocean's message to keep out of this and let him handle this.

In other circumstances, he probably would have been ignored by his younger brother and his wise daughter, at the very least. However, the very recent death, and worse, of his son gave him a great deal of leeway.

"One who knows what is happening to the boy," the stranger responded in kind, indicating Poseidon's fallen son's form with a tilt of the head, even as the stranger kept his sword locked with Poseidon's Celestial Bronze Trident.

Poseidon, and everyone else, divine and mortal, followed the tilt of the hooded head, but the Lord of the Seas still kept a wary eye on this intruder as he did so, ready to fight him should he prove to be more aggressive than he had shown thus far.

All semblance of wariness, however, fled from him at the shocking sight that greeted him. Something that mirrored by several grunts, gasps and various expletives of surprise and shock from the various members of his extended family.

The ball of golden power had, in the brief interval that his attention had been drawn away from his dead son, seemingly melded in some way with his son's body, making it now glow a soft, but radiant gold.

But that wasn't the shocking part. It was what the unknown power was doing that made him almost lose his grip on his Symbol of Power.

Before his very eyes, his the mangled hand of his son slowly repair itself, char and ashes falling off of it as new healthy flesh took it's place, almost crawling over the exposed bone. His son's pale flesh, a symbol of his demise, also took on a more healthy colour, the colour of life.

Poseidon also noticed the slow and laborious rise and fall of his son's back, like he was actually breathing.

Hope warred with grief-twisted rage within him. Impossibly, it seemed that his son was somehow returning to life, something that he knew was not possible. Even if his mortal flesh was restored, it would not have been anymore than a breathing corpse. His son's soul had been burnt out and destroyed by the power that he had been flooded with, something that would twist the God's soul for some time to come, knowing that he had been a contributor to his son's ultimate and final demise.

His mind and part of his heart, the part that was of darkest depths of the sea and the destructive and deadly force of earthquakes, screamed at him that this was a farce, that what he was seeing was false. That this man had stopped him from preventing his son's body being desecrated for reasons unknown. That he should strike down this hooded figure with everything he could bring to bear, right now!

Yet a larger portion of his heart, the hopeful and the gentle, told him to listen to the man, that his son's life and soul may just be salvageable.

His soul was in turmoil, struggling to decide whether to strike out or hold off. A decision that could cost him dearly if he made the wrong one.

His decision was made for him when he felt a familiar disturbance in his mind, like a key slotting into place in a lock and turning...

Letting the familiar feel of his son's emotions, confused and weary and pained, enter his mind once more as a bond that been severed renewed itself by methods unknown.

Poseidon staggered, almost falling to knee as one of his large and work weathered hands lifted up to clasp to his head, trying to stem the rushing tide of the emotions that hit him from the reformed bond, as if they were water roaring through a broken dam. Even then, his mind was filled with just as much wonderment, his rage and anger flowing away like sand before the tide.

How was this possible? How was this possible!?

All he could do was question what he was feeling. He knew that this wasn't a fake any longer, he could read his son's heart even now, feeling the the familiarity of it and know that it truly was his son rather than the stranger's attempt at a sick jest.

"How-?" He managed to gasp out, still in shock, towards the stranger, who had by this time sheathed his weapon at his hip, taking the almost limp grip Poseidon had on his Trident as an indication of his lack of desire to fight.

The stranger seemed to smile at them all from behind his hooded white cloak, even the rest of the Council, many of whom looked to be struck dumb as they too felt the life and soul of Perseus Jackson return to his rapidly healing body, despite the impossibility of it all. Hades himself seemed to be the most shocked, his jaw hanging somewhere near his collarbone and his black eyes almost bulging out of his pale face.

"Achieving the impossible."

A body floated in the ether, protected from roiling sea of darkness interspersed by flickers of rainbows, like oil, around him by a barrier of white light, creating a bubble that even the chaos could not penetrate or devour into itself.

The figure's eyes were closed and seemed to almost sleeping, despite the rage of the chaos around him.

And beside that body, another figure knelt. A female. Smiling at the youth softly.

Maternally.

"Going against reason and logic."

By anyone's imagination, she was a beautiful sight to behold. Long purple hair, going to her waist, was pulled into two long ponytails. Her slim figure was dressed in a strapless white dress. Her youthful face, perhaps in her mid-teens by appearance, was filled with affection as she looked at the young man lying in front of her.

She giggled slightly, sounding like silver bells or chimes, as she saw the slightest trace of drool going down the young man's cheek, tilting her head slightly, briefing allowing her ring adorned pointy ears to be exposed.

"You are so cute!" She silently squealed at the insensate form of the boy.

"Fighting against the very laws of nature."

She sighed slightly, her face losing it's humour and becoming more serious, more pensive. She gently reached out and began to stroke the reposing boy's hair and forehead, more in an attempt to comfort herself rather than the peacefully sleeping boy.

"This should not have happened," she muttered quietly, "your world and my own are so very different, so very far apart, that their respective paths should not have crossed."

She was quiet for a moment, stroking the boy's head as she contemplated the seriousness of this entire scenario.

It was not one that anyone, mortal or Divine, could have predicted. Then again, considering the cause of this debacle originated from the dark-haired boy's home world, it should not be surprising that none on her world could have foreseen it.

As powerful as foresight could be, it was also limited in a sense. Even true seers are blind to anything that was not of their own world.

She moaned softly in distress, feeling a headache coming on. That old fogey of an immortal was going to be insufferable about the possible disruption of history and time because of this incident.

But even his reach could not surmount the Great River of the Multi-verse, so there was nothing he could do.

For her, however, it was a different matter. Especially considering the events that had caused this.

"Unconstrained."

She smiled again as she looked at the drooling lump of sleeping teenage male. This youth had met the requirements for her ritual, for the most part. Had he killed Thetis in the purple girl's own world, he would have, sadly, not qualified to become one of her children due to the Divine blood in his veins.

However, he had killed Thetis in his own world. Granted he was aided by other Gods, but that was only after his foolish acceptance to accept it, even knowing the consequences of doing so. So she supposed that allowed him to qualify there, if she bent the rules a little.

Besides, this new world needed one of her children. More than just Thetis had entered the boy's home world, and she was not the strongest to have been into it.

And the locals Gods, who were much different in form and nature than either Heretics or True Lords, were unable to face one directly. They would need someone who could, and would, face the maddened Heretics.

And that meant that they needed one of her children.

Even if it meant that one of their Weaver's precious prophecies was shattered like a pane of glass hit by a baseball bat, and their strings attached to their instrument severed.

"Uncontrolled." he chuckled to them all before looking down at the glowing form of the healing son of Poseidon, who's repaired hand was clenched tight by a tearful, yet happy, child of Athena.

No doubt they would be put out by that, but she didn't care. Unlike before, her soon-to-be new son would be able to perceive their manipulations and actually be able to do something about them.

And if he could stand against the Weavers, who made even their Gods dance to their tune, then he would be able to stand against his more Divine relatives if they react somewhat hastily to the news and information that she had tasked one of her more favoured children, and still the youngest in mortal ages, to bring them. Once he was trained up a bit, of course.

She was thankful that her youngest child had an Authority that enabled him to reach where his newest brother was, something that would not have been possible if the events of before had not happened the way they did. Her newest child would need a mentor and, if need be, a protector and ally until he was able to get his feet under him.

She stroked her new son's face one more time, her eyes drinking in his form. This would possibly be the only time she could see this particular son. This was not her world and she could not stay indefinitely and returning to this place would be perilous in the extreme.

But just because she was absent, it didn't mean that she could not watch over her foolish son in some manner.

She glanced sideways, looking outside of the bubble of power she was forced create to shield herself and her new son from the chaos of the still forming realm. In the churning dark 'waters' closer to the bubble, she could see the black waves shape themselves into a familiar form briefly before dissipating. Only for the form to return sometime later, holding itself together just a fraction longer and become a little lighter than the roiling dark mass behind it, a small blemish of colour being introduced to it by a close by oily rainbow.

Yes. Her son be watched over by her. In some form or another.

The world her son belonged to would be in for a time of chaos and change soon enough.

And her son, willingly or not, would be the one to spearhead the charge.

"This is what means to be a fool!"

She shook herself. But she was digressing. Now was not the time to do so. She had a much more important thing to do.

To welcome her new reckless son into the family.

Within the bubble of power, even more erupted, making even the mass of chaos and potential around it recoil and waver, like water being pushed back by the howling wind.

All of it coming a seeming purple-haired child.

"By my right as the All Giving Pandora, I claim this child as my own!" Her voice thundered, heard clearly across the very infinity of the Sea of Chaos. "Through the act of slaying a God, I name him my son! To all of creation, I say 'Beware!'. For now my children walk this realm! For now I bestow upon my foolish child, who lies shrouded in darkness and the bearing the destiny of becoming the Light of Hope in the Darkness, the Navigator in the Sea of Chaos that will surround him, the title of Devil King, Rakshasa Raja..."

"This is what it means to be a..."

"Campione!/Campione!"

Thus it was then that our world began to change. For better or worse, with the birth of a Campione in our world, the rules that had been in place amongst the Divine for millennia were destroyed utterly and new ones began to take their place.

And as the rules changed, so too did the plans of the enemy on the horizon.

-Excerpt from 'A New Dawn: The Chronicles of the First Campione, Perseus Jackson'

Author's Notes

Hi folks! First up, I want to say thank you for all of your support and patience with my work. To many, I seem to make up new stories and drop them after a few chapters.

This is not true.

I introduce new stories because of inspiration I receive and am unable to think of anything else at the time due to the thought blocking my creative ideas for my other stories. I will eventually complete all of my stories, rest assured of that.

This particular story was brought about due to my noticing the almost complete lack of Campione and Percy Jackson crossovers, much to my surprise. I know Engineer4Ever (who is a great author by the way. His Reading series for Sun's Heir Death's Guardian is of particular note. His other stories like his various HP/PJATO stories are also excellent.) has an idea in the works for the universes, consisting of Thalia somehow arriving in Campioneverse and facing her strongest half brother in San Francisco, but that is about all.

This story, however, is going to be a lot different.

The main character is, of course, the dense Seaweed Brain we all know and love (except for Ares of course. sore loser if there ever was one. What a dick!) and takes place in the interval between the end of the Last Olympian and before the start of Heroes of Olympus.

Through a certain event, which I will not mention here lest I spoil the story, a momentary portal between PJ and Campione worlds was opened and Deities from the Domain of Immortality and the Netherworld, along with others on the mortal plane of the world of Campione (one character of which will become the Antagonist of this story) found themselves thrown in PJ world.

This event also triggers a metaphysical transformation in PJverse. Metaphysical mechanics begin to change and Ancient Laws become torn and shredded as this collision of these two forces make the world in it's entirety try to adapt. All the while, the Prophecy of Seven has been nigh shattered like a mirror, even as Mother Earth and her progeny begin to make their move.

The world has never been more in need of a Champion.

Luckily, they now have one. Or at least a Campione.

In the words of Leonidas, 'We're in for a wild night!'

P.S. It should be noted that I consider Heretic a Gods to be more powerful than PJ Gods. My theory is that HGs are formed from human thought and belief but their power separate from that, evidenced by Campione canon that a HG's power was derived from their force of will rather than an outside source like an environment or culture, while PJGs formed Man but drew power from their belief and their forms were in turn changed by that belief. However, having drawn power from human belief they were limited by it and are thus also weakened by lack of Faith in modern society, much like Pan, Helios and Selene who Faded due to lack of Faith and Purpose.

In short, PJs are dependent on Man, while HGs are only shaped by Man.

That is my belief but you are all free to form your own opinions. Either way, HGs beat PJs for the most part, unless a HG is weak willed.

Like that is going to happen.

Hoping you enjoy the fic,

Kujikiri21