Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or any characters mentioned in this story. All rights go to Rick Riordan. This is all purely made up and written for entertainment.
Welcome to Hell
Tartarus. The very definition of Hell. The place where monsters go when they die to reform. A dungeon of torment and suffering, filled with the wicked creatures of the planet. The Prison for the most foul and evil beings in the world. The prison for traitors, rapists, murderers, and the enemies of the gods. The prison of the Titans. The prison of the Giants.
The prison of the once Hero of Olympus. The prison of the being formerly known as Perseus Jackson.
For one hundred years, Percy has been rotting away in this hellhole. The poisonous air scorches his lungs, burns his skin, and stings his eyes. The ground made of jagged rocks and broken glass tears his flesh on his feet as he traverses the endless plains of the dreary landscape. Rivers of magma flow through the black and barren landscape where no life grows. The very place was malevolent, worming its way into his mind and beginning to eat away at the walls of his sanity. He has seen horrors in this place that make the Fields of Punishment seem like a day at the beach.
Scores of monsters reside within the pit with him. Many have tried to kill him, but he had to always flee, for he knew the consequences should he kill one of them. What would happen to him if he were forced to kill any monster he crossed paths with.
He was immortal. It is his curse that the oh so mighty, benevolent Olympians has bestowed upon him before his was cast into this gods forsaken pit. To suffer forever in Hell, unable to die, unable to embrace the sweet darkness of death, to escape the unending agony he is made to endure.
Why was the son of Poseidon, the retriever of Zeus's Master Bolt, Retriever of the Golden Fleece, Saver of Artemis, Bearer of the Sky, Survivor of the Battle of the Labyrinth, Slayer of Monsters, Bane of Kronos, Destroyer of Giants, Bane of Gaea, Hero of Olympus twice over, doing down here in Tartarus? What did he do to have all his friends and family turn their back on him, scorn him, hate and despise him? What did he do to have the gods vote for his eternal damnation in the Pit of Tartarus? Very simple answer really.
Nothing.
He did nothing to deserve this punishment. He was set up, betrayed, made to look like a traitor to his own kind, to his friends, his family, and the love of his life. Made to look like he was a servant to Gaea, someone willing to sell out the place he called home for five years.
After the war, after the Olympian council saw him send Gaea back into her slumber, he thought life would be better; that peace would reign and he would get to spend the rest years of his life with his beautiful girlfriend.
It was not to be. A short time after the war, after the gifts were given out and he was offered to be a god again, but turned it down to return the thrones of Hades and Hestia to the Council, he got a new brother. A new son of Poseidon named Eric Summers, a cocky, arrogant bastard that was hell-bent on making Percy's life miserable and to turn his friends and family against him.
Percy didn't understand why the camp flocked to the weak demigod, didn't understand why he began to lose his close friends one by one to Eric, didn't understand why his father preferred a son who didn't even do a tenth of what he did, the glory and honor he brought him, and he DEFINITELY didn't understand why his girlfriend abandoned and cheated on him with the arrogant jackass.
Percy was so angry when he found out that destroyed half the woods in his rage and collapsed half the cabins with a massive earthquake. He was then summoned to Olympus for an emergency council meeting that concerned him.
As soon as he in the throne room has was attacked and subdued in celestial bronze chains and was chained in the middle of the throne room. He was shocked and angry at the treatment and froze as he looked into the faces of the assembled gods on the council. A few were looking at the events in shock and anger at how the Hero of Olympus was being treated, mainly Hestia, Hades, and surprisingly Artemis. The rest looked at him with malice and disgust in their eyes. But something was off, it looked like their eyes were slightly glazed with a tinge of black around the edges but he was torn from those thoughts when Zeus stood up.
Zeus stood up and accused him of being a traitor to Olympus and a spy for Gaea. He thundered that he was too powerful and therefore should be punished and sentenced to Tartarus for eternal damnation. Percy shouted and defended that he would never betray Olympus, why would he when he saved it twice now? He begged and pleaded with the few gods that were his friends of the council and turned to his father but all he saw was a steely hatred directed at him with the slight glaze to their eyes.
Zeus then called for the vote and he lost. 11-3 in favor of him being eternally tortured in the Pit with Hades, Hestia, and Artemis voting to keep him out of the Pit and were demanding and shouting to present more evidence on what he was accused of. Hades and Hestia owned the young demigod for bringing them respect and making them no longer outcasts to their family and Artemis felt that she had to defend the young hero who saved her from the sky and befriended her late lieutenant.
But his and their pleas were fallen on deaf ears as Zeus waved off their arguments. Zeus then lifted his Master Bolt and shot it at Percy stilled wrapped in chains in the middle of the throne room. The bolt struck him directly in the chest and he screamed in pain as he felt the blood evaporate in his body only to be replaced with the golden ichor of immortals and millions of volts of electricity convulsed through his system. He was made immortal to suffer for eternity.
Then with a final look filled with pain, hurt, and betrayal in his eyes, as tears of anger and pain streamed down his face, a dark black hole that radiated evil appeared underneath him and he fell into Tartarus.
He fell for what seemed like hours until he finally landed with a painful crash into the side of a tall black mountain. The mountain was over 1,000 feet tall and it just screamed evil torture chamber. Jagged black rocks jutted from the side of the mount where some unlucky monsters that strayed to close were impaled on. Blood red mist clouds circled the mountain in a slow, swirling motion, sometimes raining a dark green black substance, most likely acid that bubbled and hissed when it hit the mountain. The writhing forms of monsters and mortals alike were impaled on ten-foot long pikes placed all around the base of the mountain left out in the acid rain with blood pooling at the base of the pikes.
Percy felt like every bone in his body was smashed and reduced to powder. Every part of him was screaming in pain. Then just as he was about to black out from the pain, he saw a huge shadow cover him as he fell into blissful darkness.
He was awoken to a sharp slap to the side of his face. Being back in the realm of consciousness Percy realized that he was strapped to the wall with black Stygian iron chains in a spread eagle form. The chains radiated an aura so cold that it burned his wrists and ankles. He could feel his hands and feel began go numb but not quite enough to where it took the pain away.
Dark chuckling caused him to raise his head to the source of the voice and his eyes widened in horror as he saw the last person he thought he would ever see again.
The being before that stood before him was a very tall and broad man. He stood at eight feet in height, with a broad, muscled chest and arms. His face was gorgeous; filled with sharp angles that defined his face and attracted all who looked upon him. His hair was as black as midnight and his eyes glowed a mesmerizing golden color. I guess I now know where the Big Three get their looks, Percy thought to himself.
The only thing that took away from his beauty was that fact that thousands of scars adorned his face and skin. It was as if he was thrown into a wood chipper and was sliced into a million pieces. No, not a wood chipper, a Scythe.
Kronos, The Titan Lord of Time, stood before him in his true physical form.
"Hello grandson. Nice of you to drop by for a visit and hang out" Kronos said with dark humor in his voice as a malicious glint began to form in his cold golden eyes.
"B…bu…but how?" Percy stuttered out, "I thought your consciousness was scattered to the world! You weren't suppose to even HAVE a consciousness for at least a thousand years!"
Kronos chuckled again as if the idea amused him.
"Oh no, dear grandson, that was not the case. I didn't become the Titan King for not coming up with a contingency plan. True that sliver of consciousness that inhabited the son of Hermes body was scattered to the four corners of the earth but that not all of it. His form was like a, gateway you could say. Enough for me to control him but not all of me possessed him." He was smiling widely, almost insanely at the genius of his plan. And it was, it was pure evil genius.
"But enough about me, it seemed as if the Olympians," here he sneered "has decided to gift me with a special present, the one who defeated me and made me lose most of my power. Oh yes Perseus, even though only a fraction of my consciousness was scattered, it was enough to cause a backlash and weaken my power and me once again. But I don't need that much power to do what I plan on doing to you."
His smile became maniacal and full of malice while all traces of humor left his eyes becoming a hard golden color. He brought out his scythe and the pain began.
For years, Kronos tortured Percy, slicing every part of his flesh again and again with his soul-reaping scythe. The pain from the scythe made Percy's life, memories, essence, and soul feel like it was slowly draining away and caused him to go to the brink of insanity. But always at the last second, Kronos would stop; he didn't want to give the son of Poseidon any relief he would find in Insanity's embrace. He tortured the son of Poseidon in many other ways from piercing his flesh with swords and arrowheads, to burning him with white-hot lashes across his back. He found out about Percy's phobia of drowning in the muskeg and capitalized on that by at the end of everyday, he would fill tank full of the water mud and earth and plunged Percy's head into the tank holding it under while he thrashed trying to breathe. Only when he passed out would Kronos pull him from the tank.
The Tank, as Percy called it, and the Scythe became his most hated punishments.
On the last day of what was around the 75th year, Kronos entered carrying a small black knife with red trimming around the blade. Percy lay in a heap on the floor in a pool of dried blood. It's a spot he hasn't left in five years.
"How are you doing today, grandson? Don't get up." He laughed a laugh full of mirth as if he made the best joke in the world. Percy didn't even stir.
"Now, unfortunately, today is our last day together." Kronos said in a saddened tone, as if it pained him to let his best punching bag go. It probably did.
Percy's head slowly lifted from the floor his once vibrant sea-green eyes, now a dull green, showing shock, surprise, and maybe just a sliver of hope.
"Oh no no no, don't think you're leaving this place, that the Olympians are coming down here to release you from your fate." Kronos chided.
The hope in Percy's eyes died but it came back when he realized that he would finally be free of Kronos.
"At least I'll finally be free of you!" Percy rasped out, his voice still raw from all the screaming.
"Yes, yes you will be but I have a very special gift to give you today." Kronos said in a sickly sweet tone, holding up the weird looking knife that began to glow a dark black as he stalked towards the fallen demigod.
Percy tried to scramble away from the approaching titan but he was still so weak. Kronos then grabbed his arm, stretched out Percy's hand palm facing down and with a malicious smirk, drove the dagger through the back of his hand.
Percy let of a scream of pure agony as the glowing knife plunged into his hand. It felt let his hand was injected with pure lava and it was traveling though his veins with each pulse of his heart. Funny thing was, the knife and his heart were pulsing in rhythm with each other as if…they were connected.
The pain abruptly ended as Kronos pulled the knife from his hand and Percy collapsed to the ground dry heaving as the after effects of whatever the Hades just happened to him caught up with him. He looked at the back of his hand, expecting to see a gaping hole in the back of it, and imagine his surprise when he doesn't see a gaping wound but a black tattoo of an inverted reptile eye. A monster's eye.
"Were not done just yet, Perseus, we still have the other hand to do" Kronos cackled madly.
After going through the process once again, Percy had a matching black tattoo on his other hand and he could feel that something was pulsing through his body, waiting to break free.
"This knife, was a very special gift I was given to by my mother, Gaea, did you know that? She and her brothers, Tartarus and Ouranos imbued their power into it with a sliver of power from their father, Chaos." Kronos explained as the pain from the knife continued to pulse through Percy's body.
"It has a very special curse to it, one that I could only give once, one that I didn't find worthy of anyone until you came along. This curse that the knife passed along to you that you now carry inside your body is the Curse of the Monsters. You are no longer fully demigod, with this curse, whatever monster you kill, you shall become. You are a monster now Perseus Jackson. The very thing you hunt, the very thing you despise, is now what you are!" Kronos ended his rant with hysterical laughter that filled the cavern that continued until Percy passed out in shock and horror at what he was now.
He woke up in the middle of the barren black landscape alone with no shirt and in tattered bloodstained pants. The atmosphere of Tartarus was still painful and still trying to kill him, but it was like the edge was taken off. Guess the stupid curse and sessions with Kronos were good for something.
He picked himself up from the ground, looked around, and set off in a random direction, looking for a place that he could a least live in comfortably, as comfortable one could be in Tartarus, and a place he could call home in this gods forsaken place.
This brings him to where he is now, Percy walking through the wasteland of Tartarus for over a year, trying to look for a safe place away from monsters to try and keep his curse dormant. He's had some close calls with some roaming groups of hellhounds, Empousai, and Cyclopes, but he was able to avoid them, even swiping some much needed supplies. Hermes would be proud.
At that thought, Percy's expression darkened as he flashed back to the betrayal. He cursed Hermes, cursed his father, cursed all of the Olympian Council that betrayed him and sentenced him to this hellhole. He felt hollow, filled with hurt and pain caused at the hands of those he thought were his family.. He realized why loyalty was a Fatal Flaw; not because it could bring the downfall of the entire world, but when the ones he loves turns their backs on him and betrays him, the pain of his heart shattering again and again was almost to much to bear, leaving him full of pain, hurt, anger, bitterness, and hatred.
He was so wrapped up in his brooding that he didn't notice the threat until it was too late.
From out of one of the many black outcroppings that dotted the landscape, came the form of a massive Hellhound. It was about the size of a F-250 Ford Truck; not as big as Mrs. O'Leary's dump truck size, but pretty close. It fur was matted and grimy covered in dust and blood. It lips were pulled back into a ferocious snarl, showing off gleaming sharp canine teeth that could rip hip to shreds in seconds. Its red eyes were filled with an animalistic hunger as it zeroed in on him, looking at him like he was a delicious prime rib.
Corded muscles throughout its legs and back tensed as the massive hound prepared to pounce and devour him. He had no place to run, no place to run, and no option but to defend himself.
Percy slowly inched his hand toward his pocket where the one thing that he drew comfort from in his old life rested. Riptide, his trusty pen/sword, was still with him through all the horrors he faced down here. Unfortunately, it was taken from him during his torture sessions with Kronos in that cursed mountain, but as soon as he was out of there, it reappeared in his pocket once more.
The hellhound grew tired of waiting and launched itself at the tasty morsel in front of it. Percy dived out of the way as the massive shape sailed past his body, brushing close enough to feel the coarse fur on his arm. Back on his feet in an instant, Percy uncapped Riptide as it grew into its three-foot long glory of a deadly glowing celestial bronze blade.
The beast turned whipped around and charged once more, but Percy was ready this time. Ducking under the deadly swipe, he sliced his sword upwards in a deadly arc, catching the monster off guard as it tore through its chest, leaving a long slash wound. The hellhound let out a yelp of pain rising up on its hind legs. Rolling under its belly, Percy came up in a crouch position and jumped straight up and buried Riptide in its chest up to the hilt.
The monster let out one last cry of pain before it dissolved into golden dust. However, the dust did not disperse like it usually would do in the case of a normal monster death. Instead, Percy felt a stinging pain in the back of his hand as he saw the tattoos begin to glow an intense black light. The monster dust began to swirl around in a tight funnel before splitting of into three streams; one stream dispersed and two streams flowed straight into the glowing symbols on Percy's hands.
As soon as the dust was absorbed, Percy felt a tremendous pain rack his body. It felt like his insides were being boiled, his muscles tearing, his bones breaking, his very body being twisted and ripped apart.
Through the pain, he watched in horrified fascination as his body began to shift and change. Course black fur began to grow and ripple across his skin, coating his body in a matter of seconds. He saw his hands crack and split into huge paws with three-inch sharp claws springing out of his fingernails. He pitched forward onto the ground as his joints in his limbs reversed as they became more canine in shape. Bulging muscles grew in his lower legs and traveled up his into his back, forcing it to hunch and grow in size. He felt as if his face was being pulled off as he saw a giant snout grow from the front of his head as large razor sharp teeth burst forth from his gums. His hearing and eyesight sharpened, his sense of smell went from nearly nonexistent to overwhelming; he could smell things miles away, sweat and blood filled his nostrils, the smell of fear and despair assaulted his nasal cavities. He continued to grow in size until he stood at the size of a large truck.
Hellhound Percy whimpered in pain as animal instincts slammed into his mind as he saw images and memories of the hellhound whose essence he just absorbed. He tried to fight it off, but the raw instincts of a animalistic monster was too much for his human mind and he was pushed back to the back of his own brain as the monster in him took over.
Letting out a drawn out howl, Percy in his new monster form took of into the distance. The hunt was on for prey. He would hunt, he would kill, he would eat. He will survive. He will have his revenge.
The transformation was complete. The curse had finally taken affect. Percy Jackson was now a massive hellhound, a monster, and just the first of many monsters he would become.
So what do you guys think? How were the descriptions? Do you like the idea? Any suggestions on how he should get revenge on the gods? I wanted to install a back-story for Percy on why he was down in Tartarus. There maybe be some flashbacks in the following chapters and a lot of surprises to come.