Chapter Text
Percy had a lot of respect for tradition.
Well, most of the time. If the tradition was something archaic and horrible, like ignoring all your demigod offspring which eventually led to an uprising that nearly ended the world, then he’d happily light the pyre for that tradition.
But Bad Movie Saturday? Morning coffee run? Blue pancakes? Highly sacred.
But on this particular night, Bad Movie Saturday was in jeopardy, and Percy was not amused.
He, his mom, Annabeth, and Paul would order pizza, crowd around the TV in the Jackson-Blofis apartment, find the worst-looking films they possibly could, and settle in for a night of bad acting, cheesy one-liners, and cheap special effects.
It was tradition.
“I know it’s tradition, honey,” Sally said, in the middle of buttoning up her coat. “But this is a work function—Paul can’t skip it. And I told him I’d go with him to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep in the middle of anyone’s speech. Again.”
“Yeah.” From his spot on the couch, Percy glanced over his shoulder to look at her. “I know. It’s okay.”
He knew it was mildly unreasonable (and childish ) to be annoyed over something like this. He wasn’t really mad. There would be plenty of other Saturdays.
Ever since Gaia’s defeat, Percy had been cherishing the days spent with his family—well, more than he usually did. He still made time for Camp Half-Blood, but with Sally pregnant and no world-ending prophecies on the horizon, he wanted to take advantage of his well-earned respite.
So maybe he was a little grumpy about Bad Movie Saturday being cancelled, but when you face the actual end of the world twice, you stop sweating the small stuff.
“You know I wouldn’t—”
“It’s okay, Mom,” he repeated with a laugh, getting up and approaching her as she headed for the door. “I’m still gonna call Annabeth, maybe see if Jason and Piper or Nico and Will are around.” It would be nice to see Hazel and Frank too, but they were on the other side of the country at Camp Jupiter.
“Okay. If you do, give them my love,” Sally replied with a smile. Then it turned coy. “You and Annabeth have a good time without us. Be responsible—”
“Mom!” Percy immediately flung toward the door and opened it, his ears red. “Paul’s waiting for you!”
She laughed, and pulled him in to kiss his cheek, before stepping through the doorway. “Love you. See you later.”
“I love you too. Have fun.”
After she left, Percy was left to his own devices. It was only five’o’clock—still early enough to plan something with his friends.
He walked into his bedroom, where there was a tiny fountain—some knick-knack Paul had gotten him last year—on his windowsill. Percy waved a hand, commanding the water. It began to float up, like the inside of a lava lamp, then dispersed into a fine mist.
The sun was setting, but there was enough light shining through the window to hit the mist and refract into a rainbow. As soon as it did, Percy fished out a drachma and flipped it through the colors.
“O Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering.”
The drachma vanished, payment accepted.
“Connect me to Annabeth Chase.”
The rainbow shimmered, materializing into the view of a room Percy recognized as the Athena cabin. On a workbench (one of a few) in the corner, sat his girlfriend.
Actually, she was slumped over the workbench’s face, using her various rolls of parchment, notebooks, and a very big architecture textbook as bedding. Her blond hair was thrown all around the desk, like a web of golden seaweed, and she was snoring. It must have been decently loud, because it came through the Iris Message just fine.
She was the most beautiful person Percy had ever seen.
He snorted, unable to help a little burst of laughter, and Annabeth immediately shot awake, blinking blearily. Her gaze focused on Percy, who instantly regretted making a sound.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You’re fine,” she replied, voice thick with sleep. There were bags under her eyes. She frowned, then glanced at her watch. “Oh, gods! It’s five! I’m sorry, I’ll be right over—”
He waved away her words. “Don’t worry, Annabeth. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate.”
She was still heading the remodeling of Olympus. Even after all this time, a decent portion of the gods’ realm still bore evidence of Kronos’ rampage. Annabeth took the project extremely seriously, even to the point of ignoring food and sleep. Sometimes Percy had to drag her away from her work.
“Besides,” he added, as she scrambled to put away her papers. “Movie night’s off. My mom had to go to a work thing with Paul.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding genuinely disappointed. “I had this really awful one picked out, too. It was about giant sentient eggplants. They had faces and everything.”
His lips twitched. “Well, maybe we can still watch it? Not like you’re barred from the apartment or anything.”
“Definitely. It’ll take me a little bit to get there, though. Rush hour traffic.”
“What about Nico and Will? I was thinking of inviting them too. You three can shadow travel over.”
“They already have plans,” another voice said, unseen. Percy recognized it as another veteran Athena camper, Malcolm. “According to Will’s sister, he was stressing out about some kind of late-night date they have.”
Annabeth smirked. “Aw, young love. Remember when you were like that, Percy?”
“Nope. No idea what you’re talking about.”
There was a round of laughter from the Athena cabin. It sounded like even more campers were there, offscreen. Was the whole cabin watching them?
“Alright, well, what about Jason and Piper? Grover?”
“He’s off in the deep South somewhere,” Annabeth replied, shaking her head. “As for Jason and Piper, they’re not even here. Piper took Jason to introduce him to her dad.”
“I thought they already met?”
“Well, yeah, but this is more of a proper ‘threaten the boyfriend with a shovel’ introduction, I think.”
Percy blinked. Why was he the last to know everything? “Huh. Good for them. Well, maybe not for Jason. Alright, it’s just you and me then.”
“How disappointing for you.”
“Totally. I was really looking forward to Piper doing my hair again.”
She laughed, looking more awake than before. “I’ll see you soon, Seaweed Brain.”
“Later, Wise Girl. Love you.”
He waved a hand through the mist, ending the call. Then he clapped his hands together excitedly. Movie night was back on! Now they just needed pizza to finish salvaging it.
Sal’s was the only place nearby that Percy trusted for pizza, for two very good reasons. One, Sal was a grandson of Demeter, so the establishment was always guaranteed to be free of monsters. Two, no one knew how to do a thick crust like Sal.
He dialed from the apartment’s landline, ordering the usual. The wait wasn’t bad—thirty minutes. It was a fifteen-minute walk from the apartment.
He tidied up the living room while he waited, and tended to Calypso’s flowers growing outside the fire escape. Lately that had become a somber task—whenever he thought of her, he now thought of Leo. In a way, Percy supposed he treated the flowers like a memorial for the son of Hephaestus. It just felt right.
Afterward, he threw on a hoodie, locked up the apartment, and left.
The sun had set even further, bathing the sky in shades of purple and orange. It was more dark than light out now, and the further Percy walked the more he noticed car headlights and street lights flipping on. The days were getting shorter and colder—winter hadn’t yet arrived, but it was beginning to make its presence known. Percy tucked his head in as a chill wind brushed past. He was looking forward to warming his hands on the pizza boxes.
Sal’s was just a straight shot down the sidewalk from the apartment. It wasn’t a complex route at all, just a long walk. But there were less people outside than Percy expected so he found himself reaching his destination more quickly. The little shop was nestled on a street corner, just under an apartment that also belonged to the proprietor.
When Percy pushed the door open, its bell jingled. A broad-shouldered man wearing an apron waved at him from behind the counter.
“Hey, Percy. Movie night?”
“Always, Sal,” he replied, already pulling cash out of his wallet. He knew how much it cost—they rarely deviated from their usual order.
He handed it over, and Sal rang up the transaction on his register.
“So how’s camp? Everything holding together?”
“Knock on wood, yeah.” Percy accepted the change and receipt. “How about here? Any trouble?”
“Nah.” Sal jerked his head to the right. Percy followed the direction with his eyes, and noticed a raggedly-looking man curled up in a booth at the far end of the restaurant. He was asleep, and there was an empty plate on the table in front of him. “Thought there might have been a cyclops or somethin’ hanging around, but it was just a bum looking for someplace to crash.”
Percy smiled. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a good person, Sal?”
His brow furrowed. “No. Why, d’you hear something?”
They both chuckled a little. Sal pulled two pizza boxes off the top of the oven behind him, and handed them over.
“Say hi to your folks for me.”
“Will do.” Percy set down a few bills for a tip, then grabbed the boxes—gods, that warmth felt so good—and headed for home.
About halfway through the walk back, he noticed something was off.
Sometimes the Mist alerted him to a monster’s presence in ways other than sight—the hair on his arms standing up, a chill down his spine, a quickened pulse. The warning signs weren’t always visual.
Someone was following him.
When he reached the next block, Percy made a show of looking both ways before crossing the street, and took that opportunity to glance behind him.
The homeless man was several yards away. Far enough away that most people wouldn’t assume he was following them, but Percy wasn’t most people. He couldn’t see his face behind the bundled clothes and scarf he wore.
It wasn’t impossible for Sal to make a mistake—he was a legacy, so his perception through the Mist wasn’t as strong a demigod’s or someone with Clear Sight. His godly lineage usually wasn’t enough to even attract a monster—what brought them was the demigods who used his pizza shop as a safe haven on their way to Camp Half-Blood.
Percy, on the other hand...he was a child of the Big Three. To monsters, he might as well be wearing neon lights with a big sign that said, “EAT ME!”
He acted quickly, slipping into the next alleyway he passed. Setting the pizza boxes down on the ground beside him, Percy eased into a crouch, pulled out his pen, and waited.
He didn’t need to wait long to spring his trap. As soon as the monster’s tattered green jacket appeared in his vision, Percy seized him by its front and slammed him into the opposite alley wall. His thumb pressed on the cap of Riptide, about the push it off—
“Hey! Hey! What do you want from me?”
The panic in the monster’s voice made him hesitate. Percy took another look, eyes narrowing, and…
Nothing. He just looked like a human. A terrified human, but still.
He let go of the man, who crumpled to the ground, and stepped back.
“Oh, gods.”
Sal wasn’t the only one who could make a mistake. Demigods—especially ones who managed to live longer—had trouble adjusting to life outside camp for a few reasons, but one of them was an inability to distinguish what was a threat and what wasn’t. Annabeth said it was the same thing as soldiers returning from overseas with PTSD, and Percy wasn’t sure how he felt about that label, but the behavior matched. He’d never really had problems with it—for all the crap that he’d been through, he was incredibly grounded.
Except ever since Tartarus, things were a little different. Nightmares were a little more intense, and he found himself jumping at shadows more often than was normal. Annabeth was the same way too. They leaned on each other for support when one of them was having particularly bad days. According to Will, Nico exhibited similar behavior.
Even disregarding Tartarus, pretty much every demigod had baggage of some kind. But never before had Percy attacked a mortal because of his.
Rachel Elizabeth Dare didn’t count. That was an accident.
Logically, he knew Riptide wouldn’t have hurt the man. Celestial Bronze would have passed right through him, and unless he had Clear Sight the Mist would have shown Percy swinging a pen at him, not a sword.
But still, as he realized what he’d done, he felt an overwhelming amount of shame flood through him.
“I’m so sorry,” he apologized, torn between stepping back even further or helping the man pick himself up. “I...I didn’t...I thought you were someone else...”
The man gave him a look like he didn’t buy that, which Percy accepted was fair.
“Um...” Scrambling for a way to rectify the situation, Percy turned around and picked up the pizza boxes. “Do...do you want a slice? Apology pizza. Ever heard of that?”
The man eyed the pizza with interest, and his gaze flicked back to Percy’s face. Then, two things happened.
One, the homeless man’s eyes widened very quickly.
Two, goosebumps exploded up Percy’s arms as adrenaline flooded his veins.
He didn’t even get a chance to turn all the way around before something exploded against the back of his head. Everything went black, and he was lost to the void.
When Percy awoke, to say he felt like shit was an understatement. His head pounded something fierce, and he felt like he’d sparred ten rounds with Tyson. He was lying prone on cold, hard stone, and groaned quietly at the discomfort. As more information flooded his senses, he became aware of a few things.
One, his wrists were very tightly tied together behind his back, and it was killing his shoulders. The bonds felt like plastic, and they dug into his skin. Zip-ties?
Two, there was a metal ring around his throat—not tight enough to cut off his air supply, but most definitely uncomfortable. There was also a slight weight just in front of his Adam’s apple, and upon turning his head experimentally he confirmed that there was indeed a chain attached to it.
Three, he had similar clasps around his ankles, which were also individually chained.
He got up onto his knees, looking around.
The room was dark. Percy’s eyesight was better than most—adapted for deep-sea environments—but in a complete absence of illumination, he was totally blind. He couldn’t even make out shadows. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with dry, stale air—and that confirmed his theory.
Unless there was magic in play—if so, someone went to a lot of trouble to trick him—he was definitely indoors. This kind of darkness couldn’t be achieved under an open sky. Four walls, a roof, no windows. No easy way out.
He decided to test his bonds. It was difficult, but not impossible, to stand up—the collar resisted his pull, though not strongly. However, there was absolutely no slack from the chains around his ankles—they went taut after a few steps forward and refused to give.
Percy backpedaled to roughly where he’d started and kicked one leg, listening to the chain jostle and scrape against the ground. The sound continued for several feet, meaning their fastening well out of arm’s reach. When he attempted to follow the chains and pinpoint where exactly they were bolted into the ground, the one attached to his collar went taut and yanked him forward.
He sighed, mulling over the new information. So, his movement was limited to that of about a two-foot radius. It wasn’t much to work with.
Suddenly a loud groan cut through the room, followed by an echoing thud. Percy had just enough time to think that it sounded like a gigantic lock, before the wall in front of him swung inward. Light burst in, making him recoil and shield his eyes. After waiting a moment to let them properly adjust, he cautiously lowered his hands.
The light was artificial, and it revealed all the room’s secrets to him. Percy saw, with some degree of pride, that he had been correct about his measurements and the dimensions—he was in an indoor room with no windows, and his shackles were positioned several feet behind him, well out of reach. The chain attached to his neck fed into the ground, where it disappeared for a few feet before emerging from another hole in the floor and going straight up. It fed into a simple-looking pulley system attached to the ceiling, returning to dangle like the cord of an old-fashioned lamp, just to the right of the newly-created doorway.
What stood in the doorway, however, quickly grabbed Percy’s attention.
His first thought was that it looked like a tar pit that had come to life. The monster’s entire body was black and viscous, somewhere between solid and liquid. It was humanoid in size and shape, but much skinnier. Its fingers were longer than a person’s, and ended in clawed tips. The monster’s eyes were pale white, devoid of a pupil or iris.
His second thought was after the initial shock, this monster wasn’t nearly as outlandish as other beings from Greek Mythology—assuming it was Greek. Sure, its appearance was unsettling, but it hardly had the same effect as a horde of snake women, or a chimera, or a flying pig.
So, he told it as much. “Man, you look like a comic book reject.”
The creature smiled—and Percy immediately wished it hadn’t.
Once, at age five, he’d gotten laid up in bed with a particularly nasty cold. It had been one of the rare occasions where Percy got command of the TV over Gabe. He watched cartoons, as most young children do, but took extra pleasure in them because Gabe hated them. For an entire week, the Jackson-Ugliano household was animation central. He would turn on Pokémon, or Spongebob Squarepants, or even Dora the Explorer, just out of spite. He also watched and rewatched all the Disney classics, save for one—the 1951 Alice in Wonderland. The movie itself was pretty tame, but at such a young age the Chesire Cat had unnerved him. Looking back, Percy couldn’t even call it a fear—he’d just been creeped out by the music and the image of the cat’s too-wide smile.
When this monster smiled, it made the Chesire Cat look completely harmless. The corners of its mouth stretched up, way up, and its lips parted to reveal a mass of thin, needle-like teeth.
Percy quashed the instinctive urge to recoil. Instead, he met the creature’s gaze unflinchingly. “Ew.”
Its smile relaxed. Its alien face was hard to read, but it almost looked like it had settled into casual amusement. “I’ve been looking forward to this, Perseus Jackson.”
A chill ran down Percy’s spine. Its voice was high, cold, and sounded like nails on a chalkboard. “Yeah, you and a billion other monsters. Except I don’t actually know who you are, so...”
It cocked its head, like a puzzled puppy. “Do you usually get on a first-name basis with monsters?”
“Believe me, I try not to. And yet...” Percy shrugged as comfortably as his bound arms would allow. He made a show of looking around the room. “First time one of them put me in a place like this, though. Very serial killer-esque. You watch a lot of Criminal Minds?”
Evidently the monster didn’t know how to answer that, because the question was ignored. It simply stared at him, its face an indecipherable mask.
Percy sighed, and decided to keep talking. “Well, I definitely didn’t kill you—”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
He blinked, then raised an eyebrow. “I think I would have remembered killing Venom’s wimpier little brother. Get it? Like I said, comic book reject.”
A shrill little chuckle escaped from the monster. It stepped forward, and Percy immediately took one step back.
“Anyways,” Percy continued, a little louder. His gaze locked on the open door behind the creature. The only thing beyond was the blank, featureless wall of a hallway. That meant this room was in a larger building, not standalone. “If I didn’t kill you, then what’s your beef with me? Don’t tell me you go to all this trouble for every demigod?”
He received another hiss of laughter. “Clever. Mother told me you were more than you appeared. I suppose you’d have to be, to have survived so much and earned her ire.”
“Mother?” Percy latched onto the clue. Mythology was never his strong suit—Annabeth’s extensive knowledge usually had him spoiled in that department. Still, a guessing game was likely better than whatever plans the creature had for him. “Gaia?”
That earned him a derisive snort.
“Uh...Echidna?” Wasn’t she the mother of all monsters?
The monster tsked, crossing its arms. “No, Jackson. Think older.”
Percy wracked his brain for another contender. There were probably several female Titans that wanted his head on a plate, but he didn’t know any of their names. Besides, none of the Titans were older than Gaia. So who did that leave?
Only one name came to him, it made his blood freeze. Shit. “Nyx?”
With startling speed, the monster pulled down the chain dangling beside the doorway. Percy had a split second to remember where that chain led, before the lead attached to the collar around his neck yanked him to the floor. He fell to his knees, unable to rise as the chain locked in place like a seat belt.
The monster stepped closer to him, and knelt down so that they were eye level. With one hand, it reached out and cupped his chin, tilting his head up slightly so that Percy was forced to bare his throat.
“Oh,” it hissed, with breath which smelled like rotting meat. “Not quite that old.”
Who the hell else was there? Percy shouted at himself. He couldn’t speak—the creature’s powerful fingers were gripping his jaw shut, and he was too busy trying to get as much air in through his nostrils as possible. It was much harder to breathe in this position.
“I am Lysimar,” the monster continued, a dangerous growl rising in its voice. “Son of Akhlys, the Queen of Misery. A phaemorph. My kind have not ventured out of Tartarus in eons, Jackson. We feed on suffering, but humans have learned how to torment each other all by themselves. We don’t need to risk our necks coming to this fetid swamp of a world—instead, we just wait for them in the Underworld. Instead, the food comes to us. So imagine my surprise, when Mother commanded me to go to the surface. All for some Olympian mongrel. All for you.”
He let go, and Percy fell backward—only to be yanked back into a kneeling position by the chain. He coughed into the ground and heaved deep breaths, trying to get more precious oxygen.
Akhlys. Akhlys. He hadn’t thought of the primordial goddess in ages—not since leaving Tartarus. He didn’t like to think about that moment, when he had been at his lowest and his darkest. He’d overpowered her, turned her own poison against her, and left her a sniveling heap at his feet. Of course she would hold a grudge against him. Enough to send one of her kids after him.
“You humiliated her,” Lysimar said, after another moment of listening to Percy’s rasping. “There’s a price to be paid for that.”
“So—so you’re—” He gave another great, chest-rattling cough, and said in a clearer voice. “You’re gonna kill me? I’d like to see you try.”
“Oh, no,” Lysimar cooed, and Percy did not like that sickly-sweet tone. “No, little mongrel! Why would I kill you? That would send you straight to Elysium, where you would know peace and happiness forever. No, my instructions were very, very specific.”
“Then what?” Percy managed to keep the rising fear out of his voice. If Lysimar was going to take him back to Tartarus...he didn’t think he could survive that place a second time. Not without Annabeth.
“Do you know what the most powerful force in the universe is, Jackson?”
Percy was about to respond reflexively with “your mom” but held his tongue at the last moment. Instead, he replied, “A Cyclops after eating Taco Bell. Really bad combination.”
Lysimar seized him again, this time digging his fingers into his shoulder. Percy let out a shout as pain flashed across his collarbone, and blood began to well up under his chest. Those claws had pierced the skin. They hadn’t gone deep, but it still hurt.
“Is that your final answer?”
“You bet,” Percy shot back defiantly. He leveled his best Wolf Stare at his captor. Lysimar paused, scrutinizing him with pale eyes, and for a moment Percy thought he’d turned the tables.
But then Lysimar released his shoulder, and stood up. “I expected you to say something like love. Love is certainly destructive, but not the most powerful. Hope is.” His eyes narrowed down at Percy in a disdainful stare. “Hope keeps a person alive when everything else is gone. It is a wish—for a second chance, for a better day, for a reason to keep going. It allows people to do great and terrible things. With it, people will venture into the unknown with nothing but the shield of their faith. The wisest gods know to fear a mortal who wields hope as their weapon.”
Percy expected him to attack again, but instead Lysimar simply turned and strode for the doorway. Before closing the door, he smiled that horrifically toothy smile again.
“So that is what I’m going to take away from you.”
Then he slammed the door, plunging Percy into darkness. He heard the sound of the lock turning, bolting the exit shut, and then...silence.
“Shit,” he cursed softly, to himself.
Lysimar hadn’t released the lock on his chains—he was still stuck on his knees. Percy shifted his legs, trying in vain to find a more comfortable position. Then he felt a familiar shape between his thigh and jeans, and his eyes widened.
Lysimar had attacked him before he’d managed to uncap his weapon. Either he hadn’t bothered to search Percy, or he didn’t know that Riptide always returned to his pocket. Either way, there was no mistaking the pen shoved in the front of his jeans. He couldn’t believe he hadn't thought of it already.
In the dark, Percy grinned. It was a start—his hands were still bound behind his back, so he couldn’t draw it, but at least he had his weapon.
Lysimar had been right about one thing. Hope was powerful. It reinvigorated him, spurred him to forge onward. He’d been in situations much worse than this!
He was going to get out of here.
He was going to get free.