Chapter Text
My eyes were closed as I floated along the canoe lake, ignoring the voices of nymphs and fish as I willed myself to drift along the water. It was always nice to have time here, especially after my experiences with the rivers of the Underworld and... that place.
The water was cold, but it wasn’t painful or trying to drag me into a deeper slump. There was heat, but it was the warmth of the sun. I was home, back at Camp Half-Blood.
“Seaweed Brain, you really should pay more attention to what you’re about to float into.” Annabeth’s voice, I really like hearing that.
Why could I hear her voice out here in the lake?
A soft smack of wood hit my head…no wait, I hit the wood.
Opening my eyes, I could see her. Gray eyes upturned, princess curls framing her face as she leaned over a canoe with a smile brighter and warmer than anything Apollo’s chariot could ever produce. Wise girl.
“I don’t know Annie, I think I drifted right where I was meant to go.” I willed myself to be turned in the water and sat up on top of it, crossing my legs.
“Oh? Is that so Jackson…?” She pretended to stop smiling, a not so real glare on her face and that warmth still in her voice.
“I’d say so.” I didn’t have much else to say, how could I? She was here, on the water and framed by the sunlight.
She stood up on the canoe, and stepped onto the water with me. Where I was, she would be. The water carried her the same way it carried me and she sat across from me. Nothing between us besides air.
“You’re drooling.” I wasn't but I checked anyway, pretending to wipe it with a finger and jab at her face with it.
She giggled and a snort came out as my finger pressed into her nose. Her pretend glare long gone and what I could only explain as the most perfect smile Athena could ever sculpt gracing her face. We were both here. The water carried us. The sun beat on our skin. I could see her scars, my own as well.
We were here though, not there.
Life could be simple again, and I could start focusing on the future again…college in New Rome with Annabeth. I could take Mrs. O’Leary on walks, see Jason more frequently, take trips with Grover around the world over breaks, being so close to Tyson and Ella that my little brother would be sick of me.
I could go home to mom, whenever I wanted.
I could mess around with Paul and I would finally be here for once this time without any ancient Great Prophecies over my neck.
Present with my world…eating mom’s cookies.
Annie nipped at my finger and I was brought back to the now.
“You gonna take this finger off my nose or…oh now you’re really drooling.” She kept laughing, and that sound was all I needed. She fell onto the water laughing, and rolled about…
I started tickling her, what else was I meant to do?
The laughing was followed with kicking and giggling…the sun was setting over Camp Half-Blood and the two of us.
Panting and with narrowed eyes, Annabeth sat up in front of me and she grabbed my hands, pulling me up, grumbling about my antics.
“Lets go back to shore Percy. I have to go to Olympus tomorrow morning to keep looking over the repairs.” She squeezed my hands as I let her haul me up, I knew a stupid smile was spread over my face as I looked down on her. That was something new, and nice after that very…very long nap. I was the taller one now.
“I’ll send you back in the canoe, I wanna lay on the lake floor for a bit..okay?” Looking me in the eyes, she patted my face and grabbed my face. She pulled me down into a quick kiss.
“Just don’t be too late to the fire tonight, I want to sing with you and you know…sleeping isn’t so easy anymore.” The water carried her and the canoe back to the docks, and I waved her off.
“I love you!” I screamed before I dropped myself into the cold water.
I knew she would yell it back, the image of her moving away blurred as I let myself sink and closed my eyes.
Fish and naiads swarmed around me, and I waved them off. They were nice…but I wanted to be alone. Needed to be. I needed to feel the water around me. I could hear my heart pound as I went lower. Blurry memories of the muskeg and of Polybote’s poison suffocating me…
A moment passed, and then another…I was still breathing. The water wouldn’t drown me. I would not drown..
Then the water was gone.
I was falling, and as I opened my eyes I found myself within a swarm of bright glowing threads.
“...Damn it!” I was screaming, I don’t regret screaming. I was falling through…whatever in Hades’ name I was falling through!
I’d learned a long time ago that Zeus did not like when I was somewhere up high, and considering how long I’d been falling…I had to be really high. My breathing got quicker. Damn. I didn’t know when I was going to stop falling, I felt like a thousand pricks were poking the back of my neck. I couldn’t breathe.
The threads around me became less dense, I could see more.
The last thing I saw before I met Hypnos’ realm was…three other people, each falling in the same general direction of me before my vision went black.
Everything was cold.
No, that's just my back, I pushed myself up from whatever cold ground I was on and reached for Riptide in my pocket- there was already a sword in my hand. I didn’t pay much attention to it as I tensed and brandished it, there were people surrounding me and…three other people who were barely conscious on the floor next to me.
“Where am I! Don’t test me, I know how to use this thing!” I held the nearest person at sword point, now noticing that the sword wasn’t the sharpest looking, it had a neat blue jewel in the center of its hilt though…
“Oh! Lord Hero, please hear our request before attacking us!” The weird, priestly looking man at the other end of the blade stammered.
Hero.
No. Not again. This could not be happening again.
My blade hand dropped limply to my side, my grip tightening on the sword as I kept my guard up. Backing up I looked to the groaning people next to me, all three of them seemed of some sort of asian, though one had bright blonde hair and another was dirty blonde, the third of them had dark hair. The blonde seemed the most fit out of them all…and he had a similarly designed spear to the sword in my hand in his own hands, a red gem on the spear tip…
The other two also had weapons, well the dirty blonde who looked a lot like a young kid had a bow with a yellow gem and the brunette had a shield with a green gem.
Okay. This isn’t weird at all. I took note of all the people in the room…several nun and priest-like individuals, others that looked more like a stereotypical cultist from a game…
“Lord Sword Hero…please, take a breath. I promise we mean you no harm.” An old man said, and as I turned to him I saw a…crown on his head?
He continued speaking as I looked at him, “I am King Aultcray the Thirty-Second of Melromarc, I swear to you that I will explain where you are and what has happened as soon as your fellow Heroes awake.”
He looked solemn, as he looked at the…three on the ground who were slowly getting up and rubbing their vision. His eyes seemed to narrow on the shield dude, the same way Zeus would look at me when I entered the Olympian Throne room.
“Alright…if you swear…” Was all I got out before the other three started fully coming to.
They didn’t have nearly as intense a reaction as me…instead focusing on the weapons in their hands and seemingly attached to the shield guy’s arm. Were these guys really…Heroes? They didn’t seem to have any experience with handling weapons, their hands all seemed soft besides the spear guy-
The King interrupted my thoughts as he clapped his hands together with a startling loud slapping sound.
“Now, Lord Holy Heroes…please follow me to the throne room…” He turned on his foot sharply, as if having his back to us was the correct position for him to be in and walked out, the church looking people huddling us together and guiding us out of the dark chamber into a bright corridor.
Annabeth would say this place was beautiful…from what she’d shown me this place seemed to be similar to Germany’s architectural style…damn it. Annabeth was alone right now. I had to Iris Message her as soon as possible…that I was in Germany?
The horde of church folk continued to rush the group of us, I suppose that's what we were to them- their group of Holy Heroes to a throne room. It was strange, there didn’t seem to be any modern lighting as we passed through and that sent all sorts of signals off in my brain that I was not in a very good place to be because why are they lighting oil lanterns when electricity exists?
As we reached what I assumed to be the throne room, the three other Heroes looked around in awe…and I stared at the King. My arms fell into a crossed position under my chest as I leveled my gaze on him.
“You swore to tell us what’s going on, so tell us.” I tried putting as much authority into it as I could, putting what I’d practiced on the field during the Titan and Giant wars alongside what Lupa had taught me to use.
The room seemed to grow still at that, King Aultcray even stared for a moment before he focused.
“Right, I apologize Lord Sword Hero….” He took a sharp breath before he continued.
“We have summoned you to help save our world, from a monstrous phenomena called the Waves of Calamity.” A cold feeling settled on me, the dread that had come up earlier coming down on me in full.
“You now wield the Four Legendary Weapons, each capable of becoming weapons capable of defending this world with unrivaled strength. Of course, you as their wielders will grow alongside them as you venture through our lands and slay monsters to level up.” What did he mean Level Up? Like we were in a video game?
“If you need proof of this…well focus on the corner of your vision, to the top left…you should be able to focus on your Status Magic, or merely focus on the idea of Status.” I could see in my periphery as the three others quickly caught onto what he was saying…and the two blondes seemed to get excited?
I followed what he said, and focused on the top left of my vision, where a small circle seemed to appear and rest. As I stared at it, it expanded into a…screen overlapping my vision and remaining slightly transparent.
—-
[ Status Magic : Perseus Jackson ]
Age: 17
Lvl: 1
Class: Sword Hero
Species: Demigod ( Poseidon )
Equipment: Jeans, Camp Half-Blood Shirt, Bead Necklace, Vans Fall 2010, Watch Shield, Anaklusmos…etc
Abilities: Divine Blood ( Passive )
Skills: None
Magic: Hydrokinesis, Atmokinesis( Locked ), Geokinesis( Locked ), Hemokinesis ( Locked ), Toxikinesis ( Locked )
—-
[ Stats ]
HP: 60/10 ( +50 )
MP: 250/100 ( +150 )
SP: 250/100 ( +150 )
Atk: 5 ( +10 )
Dex: 3 ( +10 )
Con: 2 ( +10 )
Spd: 5 ( +10 )
Def: 1 ( +10 )
Div: 10 ( +5 )
—-
This had to be a joke. This world really had video game logic applied to it? This was horrible. I don’t know much about games, demigods and technology don’t mix after all…but Leo has shown me how numbers determine nearly everything when it comes to RPGs back when we were on Argo…
An obivously fake laugh broke my train of thought.
“I see you’ve discovered the wonders of the Status Magic our world is governed by…it is both quite the boon and quite the curse. Now…allow me to tell you what you will face….” This damn King and interrupting my thinking…
He kept speaking, something about facing waves of monsters, an Hourglass, finding parties to journey with tomorrow….it didn’t really matter. I was not paying attention, not to him at least. For the first time since I arrived here, I really let it sink in. He’d said our world as if I weren’t on Earth anymore…would I even be able to Iris Message Annabeth? My Mom…?
Everything was a blur from then on, I couldn’t think about anything except for the fact that it happened again. I had to be a Hero again. I was separated from the people I loved again. I had told Annabeth that I would be with her soon…
The Fates were cruel, but I couldn’t even know if they had any say here, they didn’t have a say in Egypt or even Brooklyn for the most part…but another world?