Arthur:
1 year 6 months later
"Should we, I dunno, help him?" Percy asked with mild concern as we overlooked the ongoing fight from atop a cliff, "That looked like a nasty right hook he took to the temple."
"Nah." I said, "That'll just teach him to block or avoid headshots in the future."
"That's kinda harsh don't you think?"
"Experience is the best teacher."
The sound of cracking bone echoed throughout the area and I saw Nico get rocketed back into a couple of trees.
With a sigh, I stood up and summoned Tsurugi. With a slight pulse of magic, I gave the command for the sword to transform into a war ax and used its elemental channeling to cover it in lightning, "At least his durability has gone through the roof. Over a year ago I cracked his nose with a light jab."
Percy leaned back onto a rock and made a shooing motion, "Shut up and go save him already jackass."
With a leap assisted by my strength and a burst of Aerokinesis I launched myself from the top of the cliff and towards the small horde of monsters, we had sent Nico to try and clear. A dozen or so had already been dispatched, the corpses either slowly turning into golden dust or piles of said dust were strewn about the area.
Like I said, not bad progress for someone who wasn't a freak of nature like Percy or just straight up cheating like I was.
The ground where all the monsters stood was coming up fast and I sent a fairly large amount of lightning into the blade of my ax. Poor bastards never even saw it coming.
The lightning-infused blade made contact with the ground and a massive blast of energy and large strands of sapphire lightning shot out from the epicenter. Everything that had been in my remote vicinity was suddenly reduced to scorched earth and slightly molten rock.
Turning Tsurugi back into a sword I dismissed the divine weapon back into my inventory, "By the gods, I love the weapon transformation ability this came with."
Sure it was only other bladed weapons it could change into, but that still left me with a lot of variety.
!
Skill leveled up!
Wrath of Thor, Lvl (30): Channeling your power into one of your many weapons, you impact the ground at maximum velocity and unleash a mighty wave of lightning on impact.
- Costs 200 MP to charge / 15000 DMG per strike
- Can be powered up by inputting more MP
- Let there be thunder and lightning!
If you couldn't tell by its high level, this particular attack had become a favorite of mine. Causing massive blasts of kinetic force combined with huge bolts of lightning was just way too fun to not use.
If it wasn't complete and utter suicide to even consider, I'd love to see what that attack could do when combined with Mjolnir.
Walking over to where the Son of Hades had been launched, I casually picked up the oak tree trunk that had fallen on top of him and tossed it a couple dozen feet away. The last year of training had done some very nice things to my strength level.
"You alright Nico?" I asked.
The younger boy let out a groan, "Better now. You know how much it hurts to have a tree on you?"
A recent memory of Percy using his earth manipulation to drop half a cliff on me sparked in my mind.
"Believe it or not, yes actually."
No one had been privy to that little spar or any other of our fights nowadays. Percy and I's fights had gotten way too destructive to be held in the camp arena or around anyone not near our power levels anymore.
Hell the last time we did we almost brought the arena down on top of ourselves.
Chiron was still salty over that and I really didn't want to risk his wrath should a stray bolt of lightning or light hit a random camper and fry them from the inside out. As such there were now a couple of forests and mountains in Canada and the Rockies that looked like they had experienced earthquakes, tsunamis, and thunderstorms all at once if the aftermath was anything to go by.
"Well, then you know it damn hurts." He groaned, "Plus I think they shattered a part of my skull."
Glancing at his head, I did see there was a nasty little bruise forming near his temple. Fishing a piece of ambrosia out of my inventory I bent down and hauled him to his feet and handed him it.
"Eat some ambrosia and you'll be fine," I advised, "You did pretty good today, those were some pretty strong giants and cyclops. Your powers have come a long way."
Nico was quite an interesting case. He was a powerful Demigod with a lot of potential to grow even stronger. More than even Thalia and his sister Bianca, though not enough to put him on Percy's level.
But Nico's real strength was the absolutely ridiculous amount of powers he had.
Most Demigods only got partial amounts of their parent's domains.
Heapgteus kids for example were the best forgers and smelters in the land, yet none of them could use his pyrokinesis on any sort of grand scale. Just like how the Appollo kids couldn't use light as I could.
If they did get access to everything in the rare cases, they were usually better in one aspect than the other.
Thalia used lightning heavily in her fighting style, but when it came to air manipulation or storm creation she was severely lacking. Those latter two abilities just didn't click as well as lightning did for her. The same thing with Bianca, she seemed to be partial to Hellfire and some shadow manipulation. Meanwhile, it was harder for her to make headway into Hade's other domains.
Percy and I kinda fell into that category as well. Percy was noticeably better with water, ice, and storms than with earth. He was just powerful enough to brute force his way with the element in most cases. With myself, as revealed when the system had updated and rebooted when I tried to use Zeus's powers as a legacy, those few minutes without the system had made it feel incredibly draining and difficult to do so.
But Nico... he had access to everything in his father's domain and seemed to be able to use them all equally.
Hellfire, shadows, some form of hell ice, earth, necromancy, thermokinesis, and that ability to project death and fear that Hades was famous for.
I'd said it before: even though I loved my mother and liked being her son, Nico made me kinda pissed that the option of being a child of Hades was locked behind the random roll. With all those powers and the seemingly inherent buff all the Big Three Children got I probably wouldn't even need The Colt to kick Krono's ass.
I would've been so cracked that it's not even funny.
"Still not as good as you and Percy." Nico mumbled as he ate the godly food, "You literally just vaporized them all with a single strike."
"Yet still better than almost everyone else at camp." I countered, "There are only three Demigods in the entire Geek Pantheon right now that can handle an entire horde of monsters by themselves. Thalia, Percy, and I. So stop worrying about it, you'll get there one day."
We met up with Thalia and Annabeth in a small town in North Carolina. While Percy and I had taken Nico on another training trip, the girls had been following a lead Annabeth had found on something that might be able to track down the Princess Andromeda. Which after our first encounter had gotten some sort of magic to conceal its location from even Poseidon and Iris.
So still somewhat in line with what happened in canon.
Percy, Thalia, and Nico had gone off to grab some food. Meanwhile, Annabeth and I sat alone together in our motel room, a map of the world displayed over the table we had in the small kitchenette.
"They're going to dock right here in Northern Europe. From what I was told, they'll be picking up more troops and supplies there before they ferry them back to a port in Louisiana to drop them off." Annabeth explained while pointing to various spots on a world map she had marked up, "Hitting them while they're in Europe would be our best window."
I nodded as I traced over the part of Europe that Kronos was heading to, "Stop them before they're able to bring more troops over here, makes enough sense I suppose."
A frown made its way onto my face. If Luke and Kronos were heading to Greece or literally anywhere else in North or South America then their actions would make sense. Those were all areas where the Greek/Roman Pantheon held domain in. While the other pantheons conducted some business and held some footholds here, the entirety of the Western Hemisphere and our ancient homelands were under our influence pretty solidly.
It was one of the reasons that in the Percy Jackson universe, the Greek/Roman Gods seemed to be on an equal if not more powerful footing than the Norse, Christians, and Hindus. It seemed that being tied directly to the might of Western Civilization had given the Olympians quite the power buff compared to most other universes.
"So why would old great gramps go somewhere outside our influence to get troops from. There wouldn't be a high amount of Greek monsters for him to recruit from in Northern Europe." I muttered, "He's still recovering. There's no way he'd risk pissing off other pantheons by going into their territory and making a bid for their resources and supernatural entities before he came back to full power. Unless..."
I looked up at Annabeth who gave me a tired smile, "You reached the same conclusion as me."
Of course, she already figured out what was going on.
"They're getting help from other Pantheons." I hissed with anger, and for the first time in a while, a bit of fear.
This was the worst-case scenario I wanted to avoid. It was already bad enough when I considered what could happen if the Biblical faction kicked off another Great War while we were in the middle of our own civil war. Getting caught in a crossfire was a bad but probably survivable scenario.
Other pantheons actively targeting us was Defcon 1.
"So what are we looking at here? Northern Europe would probably mean the Norse right?"
Annabeth furrowed her eyebrows in thought, "More than likely. There are other smaller religions and pagan gods that operate in those areas, but the Norse are the largest and the only ones with the power to actually help Kronos."
"So then what's the over-under on Odin even being aware this is going on?" I asked.
I knew next to nothing about the Magnus Chase series and how the Norse were in it, but I did remember a decent amount about DxD. If memory served right then Odin in that was somewhat chill and a giant pervert. Hopefully, he was the same here. Dealing with a war-mongering and paranoid God of War Odin would be an absolute pain in my ass.
Annabeth gave me a troubled frown, "Don't know much about Odin, but there is someone from that pantheon that would love to stir shit up and cause trouble for Odin..."
"Fucking Loki," I muttered.
If memory served he was a power-hungry and arrogant asshole in DxD.
This was way above my pay grade at this point and Kronos needed to die before the Pantheon Wars kicked off.
Standing up from the table I quickly summoned Tsrugi to my hand and gave Annabeth a nod, "You've outdone yourself again Annabeth. Don't let anyone ever tell you that you're not the most amazing Daughter of Athena that's ever lived."
I thought I spied the beginnings of a blush on Annabeth's cheeks, but if I did she fought it off quicker than I could tell, "Where are you going?"
"I need to talk to my good ole grandpa. This is getting bigger than any of us can handle." I said while flicking my sword through the empty space in front of me to create a portal, "Tell the others I'll be back in a bit."
I turned to step through the portal, but a hand caught my wrist before I could.
"Your hold your horses right now buster. If you think for one minute that I'm letting you have all the fun by traveling to Olympus and getting to discuss war strategy and geopolitical intra-pantheon politics with the gods all by yourself then you're wrong." Annabeth huffed out with a look that warned me that I wasn't getting anywhere by arguing back.
I almost let out a laugh. Of course, she'd find war planning and politics like than fun.
"All right, fine. But you might wanna change, while I certainly don't mind, Zeus and your mother might not find it very professional to meet them in a sports bra and workout shorts." I warned as I let my eyes noticeably run her up and down.
Much like Thalia when she was 15, the three of us were almost down with our accelerated puberty. For Percy and I that meant we had leveled out at a little taller than 6 feet. All that was left was for muscle to finally fill out our lean frames now that we were no longer growing faster than we could build it.
I was so close to never being called thin again.
"You're a terrible flirt." Annabeth snorted as she went to grab a new change of clothes.
Annabeth meanwhile got the same treatment as Thalia. That being it looked like someone took a Greek Princess and combined them with the body of an Amazonian.
I'd say being a Greek Demigod was absolutely unfair, but I just enjoyed it too damn much.
"I still can't believe the fact that you can just travel here whenever you feel like it." Annabeth muttered as we made our way through the Greek-styled city at the base of the mountain, "Most of us have to wait just for the chance to get to go on the field trip they hold during the Winter Solstice."
"Well, it helps when you have a sword that lets you split dimensions open so you can travel." I shrugged, "Makes getting here a lot less of a hassle."
"I'm sure you being Zeus's favorite grandchild also doesn't hurt." Annabeth theorized, "Otherwise you wouldn't be able to just portal here. Olympus has inbuilt defenses and wards to stop that kinda stuff. If you didn't have permission, you probably would've come out of that portal extra crispy."
Huh, that I didn't know.
"Well, that's good information to know." I muttered, "Also I think you're being a little generous to say I'm Zeus's favorite grandkid."
Annabeth hit me with one of her patented are you kidding me stares.
"Arthur, getting over the fact that Artemis is by far his favorite child. You do realize that Zeus just doesn't give anyone carte blanche over his domains. Most of his children have a limit on how many lightning bolts they can call down a day." She said dryly, "You meanwhile can call a massive dragon made of lightning down at will and can generate not even just localized storms around yourself, but entire atmospheric storms."
"When you put it like that…." it was a fair assessment. But how much of that was Zeus being generous and how much of that was the system I wasn't quite sure about.
"Plus what we are doing right now. No one just walks into Olympus and expects to be given a meeting with the Olympians, much less the king. Even minor and foreign gods don't get that kinda privilege."
"To be fair, we do have important information and I'm not going to ask for one. I'm going to have my mom do it."
Annabeth scoffed, "Momma's boy."
I didn't quite have a response for that. For I did have a far closer relationship with my Immortal parent than just about anyone else.
We eventually made our way up the mountain and into a throne room I hadn't been in for years. The chamber of the Olympian Council.
It was just as massive and impressive as I remembered.
"I'll never get over the beauty of this place." Annabeth sighed wistfully as her eyes drank in the architecture around us, "So how do you plan on getting your mother here? You're going to use an Iris message?"
"Nah, don't have any Drachmas," I answered over my shoulder as I made my way to my mother's throne.
All the Olympian thrones had a different design and aesthetic going on, each being unique to its owner. While personally, I was a fan of Posideon's chair the most, a throne being modeled after a deep-sea fishing chair was just too funny not to love, after all, my mother's chair was a thing of beauty.
A silver throne dotted with twinkling constellations, a wolf pelt cushion and back, and a holographic moon hovering above its headrest. Mom had style, I'd give her that.
"Arthur Winchester you better not do what I think you're about to do." Annabeth warned in alarm.
What, sit on the throne-like Percy did? Absolutely not. Didn't feel like smoking from the sheer power and getting blasted. All I needed was a touch instead.
My hand touched the silver metal and I felt power like I never had before. Suddenly I could comprehend why they said Artemis and Apollo were the strongest of Zeus's children. It put what I had seen and felt from Uriel, an Archangel, to utter shame.
This was the power of a goddess with a celestial body as her domain.
With the power, I felt a cold presence that seemed rather angry present itself soon after.
"Hey mom, it's Arthur. Can we talk? It's kinda important."
The presence seemed to do a 180 after that and the anger I felt initially was replaced with a sudden warmth and happiness. Not a second later as I felt a pair of arms wrap around my chest and pull me into a hug from behind.
"My little hunter!" Artemis cooed while hugging me with enough force to make my ribs groan in protest, "Look how much you've grown! You're taller than me even in my adult form now. I miss when I could sit you on my lap and cuddle you. It's a shame that I can't alter you like every other mortal."
I rolled my eyes at her antics, "That's a good thing. If you had your way I'd be a child forever. Plus you'd probably turn me into a girl just to see what I'd look like."
Breaking out of the hug I saw a faux pout form on her face, "C'mon just once! I know you can be altered if you allow it. I'll turn you back immediately."
"No," I said dryly.
My mother sighed, "A shame. I just wanted to see how cute you would be as my daughter."
I raised an eyebrow, "I'm literally almost a male clone of you in terms of looks. If you turned me into a female I'd just look like an actual clone of you. Just look in a mirror if you want to know that badly."
"Spoilsport." She sighed before casting a glance over at Annabeth, "Oh? Is this why you wanted to talk to me? You could've used a less extreme method of contacting me if you just wanted to introduce your girlfriend to me, son. Though I will admit she is quite cute and has the bearings of a fighter. Hmmm yes, I approve of you, young Daughter of Athena."
"Mom!" I groaned at her antics.
Thankfully I wasn't the only one embarrassed if the full blush on Annabeth's cheeks was anything to go by.
"She's not my gi- you know what, never mind. We need to talk to Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and Hades as fast as possible."
My mother's teasing expression fell from her face, "Whatever could you have such a serious request for Arthur?"
"Kronos is getting help from other Pantheons."
My mother's eyes where almost always glowing with a brilliant silver light dimmed to the color of normal silver.
"By Tartarus…"
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