Disclaimer: Percy Jackson belongs to Rick Riordan, as well as any other element of any other work, creation that appears, credits to whom it corresponds.
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"Characters speaking"
"Characters thinking"
This is about another way for Percy to travel between universes, there will be two chapters.
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The echo of his footsteps was the only thing that accompanied him on his journey through the old, cavernous and dark tunnel.
But Percy Jackson, the demigod son of Neptune, now twenty-five years old, stopped dead in his tracks as he checked the time on his very simple phone that had almost run out of battery, plus it was damaged and barely worked just to tell the time, although helping him to know that he had been wandering for three days and some hours through that equally dark and treacherous place, attentive to any creature that might emerge from the shadows, as well as to the environment itself, which seemed to have a will of its own.
The air was thick with ancient dust, a faint metallic scent, like dried blood and forgotten magic, while a latent energy coursed through the walls, making him feel as if every stone could move at will, as if the place itself breathed… and in a way it did.
"Great…" the Roman muttered in a low voice "Almost four days without seeing the light of day and no signs of this ending… Thanks, Torrington" he finished growling with his last words said with anger.
After all, he had the right to do so, because the dark-haired, green-blue-eyed demigod was in the mythical and feared Labyrinth of Daedalus, but he hadn't gotten there of his own free will, on the contrary, he was dragged there by fate or his bad luck... and because of an ambush planned by a traitorous greek.
But how did that happen?
Well, it all started when the son of Neptune was returning home after his work day, only to end up being attacked by a trio of dracaneas and two empusai, but when he had almost finished them off was when Alabaster C. Torrington appeared, a demigod and son of the Greek side of Trivia who had fought on the side of the Titans.
Percy only knew him from the things the members of Camp Half-Blood had told him about what the fight against the Titans was like for them, but he never imagined that he would run into one of the few demigods who remained loyal to the Titans or at least to what they wanted, to destroy Olympus, because they were few and had fled or hidden. Besides, with the Titans having been defeated, the monsters the traitorous demigods had worked with would probably kill them as well, just like any other half-blood they came across.
Jackson also hadn't imagined Torrington would be so crazy or desperate as to attempt something so foolish. Alabaster had attacked him while he was distracted with the last dracaena, throwing a small glass bottle at him that shattered and released the breath of Somnus, the god of sleep, or Hypnos if you wanted to get technical with the Greek side of things.
The last thing Percy remembered was a ringing in his ears and a wave of irresistible drowsiness, then only darkness... and when he woke up, he was tied up to be used as a ritual sacrifice inside some old warehouse, though he surprised the Greek by waking up at all.
"You shouldn't have been able to wake up, Jackson... but it doesn't matter, it just proves that you're a great choice to restore Kronos. Thank you for your sacrifice, son of Neptune" Jackson remembers that's what the son of Hecate told him, at first with surprise and then with mockery.
"Sacrifice, huh?" Percy also remembers saying that to him before growling the following at him "You're going to need more than cheap spells to sacrifice me, you damn bastard"
Percy Jackson had never considered himself an expert in magic, nor in rituals, spells or incantations; that sort of thing was more the style of Greek demigods, or of the children of gods with magical inclinations. Because for the Romans, the use of magic and other powers had always been a thorny issue, because among the cultural differences that separated the two mythologies or sides of the Greco-Roman pantheon, the view on inherited powers was one of the most marked.
Because today, within the Legion and especially within New Rome, the open use of divine gifts was frowned upon because many of today's Romans descended from such diluted bloodlines that their abilities had almost completely disappeared or manifested themselves so weakly that they were barely useful. And as a result, a certain resentment had developed towards those who still retained these abilities or demigods who demonstrated having these gifts... or the legacies did not want others to use them because they did not want to lose the supposed power they believed they had.
Envy, some called it; wounded pride, others called it… and Percy's personal opinion was that most Romans had become fucking assholes.
To this day, Percy remembered what the ghost of an old centurion of the Fifth Cohort had warned him about during the first weeks of his time in the Legion, of whom Percy was almost certain that he must be the son of a water deity "It doesn't suit you to stand out too much... Here, what counts is steel and discipline... not your powers, son of Neptune"
That mentality among the Romans had put him in more trouble from the beginning, the distrust towards divine gifts only worsened with the distrust of the children of Neptune, which, along with the pressure to conform to a rigid structure, had begun to weigh on him over the following years. And over time, Jackson had come to understand that, although he respected many things about the Roman way, he simply didn't fit in there.
That was one of the many reasons he left the Legion... but also because of that deep-rooted prejudice among Roman descendants of the gods, the Greek who had captured him had underestimated him. Alabaster had assumed that Percy was like most Romans, lacking magical practice or any divine gifts he might have, unable to awaken the dormant powers of his divine heritage.
"Rookie mistake" Percy thought aloud, with a bitter smile as he remembered the last moments of Hecate's son's life, as he made his way through the labyrinth "I'm not a typical Roman... never was"
Because even though the son of Neptune was not a magician or an expert in sorcery, he had learned to listen to the call of the power in his blood, to shape the water as an extension of himself, to feel the currents as if they were part of his being since he was in the legion when he was out of sight of the other Romans and could practice.
He didn't need ancient Latin words, symbols carved in stone, or anything else to wield power; his approach was more instinctive, more visceral... and sometimes more dangerous.
So in an almost desperate act, Jackson manipulated the moisture in the air, condensing it into a thin blade of ice that, with lethal precision, he projected directly into the neck of the traitorous son of Hecate, before he could plunge the sword of Saturn into him.
The little ice blade did its work and Alabaster let out a scream choked with his own blood before collapsing heavily, and the sword falling from his hands with a metallic sound that somehow almost echoed like thunder inside the warehouse. But Percy didn't come out unscathed, because the cursed blade grazed the skin of one of his arms too close in the fall, leaving a red line almost like a scratch that burned his skin, as if the metal carried an ancient poison or something similar.
"That was close," Jackson recalls muttering through his teeth as he clenched his jaw to endure the pain.
But despite the Greek's death, Jackson had no time to grieve or complain about the pain or take a small breath, because although the son of Hecate had fallen, the ritual was already underway, and without Alabaster to control it while the magic circle was fueled by the sword of the king of the titans that stuck right in the area of the ritual and the Greek's own blood, it began to destabilize.
Percy struggled against the remaining bonds before using the water in the air to cut them, but he barely managed to free himself when a blast of raw, savage energy shook the entire place. The walls creaked as if alive, and the floor cracked beneath his feet, opening into multiple fissures that stretched for more than two dozen meters in all directions.
The uncontrolled power of the ritual flung him across the warehouse, and though he tried to get up, it was too late. The magical wave reached him and enveloped him in a scorching mix of fire and arcane energy.
The son of Neptune only survived thanks to the last years of training he had had with the Greeks at their camp near New York, the city where he himself was born and where he moved after leaving the legion and New Rome; and especially by training with his half-sister Andromeda, because thanks to them he was able to develop a greater resistance to both physical and magical effects as a side effect of using his powers more and more, so his body held out... barely.
But he could do nothing to escape. The ground opened beneath his feet like a living trap, and he was swallowed by the darkness, falling uncontrollably, crashing against stones and dead roots, until everything went black. And the last image he had was of the ritual circle collapsing… before the floor closed itself over.
"Really?..." Jackson had managed to whisper, with bitter irony, as he was lost again in the blackness of unconsciousness. "Of course there was a part of the Labyrinth just underground..."
When Percy woke up, the pain hit him with the same force as the magical blast that had thrown him there, because he had injuries on his torso, legs, arms and face, as well as a persistent ringing in his ears.
However, the first thing he did, almost instinctively, was to close his eyes to concentrate, to be able to use the air that, despite being a little dry, contained enough humidity to work with, so with effort, the son of Neptune gathered every particle of water around him and channeled it into his wounds, purifying them and speeding up his healing process, as he had learned over the years.
It wasn't a perfect technique, but it was effective enough to allow him to remain standing, and fortunately, he hadn't been attacked while unconscious, though that alone was a miracle in the Labyrinth.
Furthermore, the second thing that surprised him was finding his half-smashed and charred cell phone still in the pocket of his burned and tattered pants, which could hardly be called pants from then on. The screen was cracked, the keyboard and battery were bent, but... it still powered on, but it only served to display the time, but at that moment, that was more than he expected.
"Three days…almost four…" but now Jackson was complaining again while checking the device for the umpteenth time "Great… three days trapped in a cursed maze…nothing out of the ordinary"
Because from the moment he healed his wounds in that dangerous and underground place, Percy hadn't stopped walking, nor had he missed the opportunity to curse his own luck, the lack of signal, the oppressive silence of the place... and especially, his own arrogance.
"Why didn't I at least take a couple of magic classes when I had the chance?" he grumbled, talking to himself as he walked. "But no, of course, 'I just need my sword and water'... Idiot..." because in the situation he was in, Percy had no doubt that some magical knowledge would be more helpful in finding a way out than his own set of skills or the sword of Saturn that had also fallen into the labyrinth (Note 1).
He knew that his resistance to magic had improved over the years, especially in the past 7 years, growing stronger with the constant use of his powers, but that had in no way taught him a miserable spell that would be useful to him. And in a place like Daedalus's Labyrinth, a lack of magical knowledge was practically a death sentence, and the little he could remember Andromeda and her girlfriend telling him about their journey through the labyrinth wasn't much help.
Not to mention that during those three days, which were going to become four, the son of Neptune had survived thirteen encounters with monsters, these being empusai, dracaenae, three ants the size of a person, giant spiders and a couple of things that he couldn't even identify.
Some fights were quick, others he barely survived, because he was exhausted, both physically and mentally, so hungry he could eat a whole cow in one sitting, but he couldn't stop and could only keep walking.
Until, after hours of advancing through irregular tunnels and twisting passages, he found himself facing something that completely shattered the archaic aesthetic of the place. Huge metal doors, half-open, appeared at the end of a cavernous tunnel, and they were embedded in a rock wall, but their design was completely different from anything he had seen before.
"What the fuck...?" he muttered, approaching cautiously with his spatha made of orichalcum and Stygian iron ready in his hand to defend himself. (Note 2)
The doors had plain panels, no ancient inscriptions or magical symbols to be seen, instead various but faint lights flickered at their sides. It was as if someone had decided to put the door to a laboratory or a secret, modern base in the middle of the ruins of the Labyrinth and for Percy how absurd that was, it only meant trouble.
"And now what have I gotten myself into...?" the son of Neptune muttered as he cautiously entered, ready to fight again to survive despite the tiredness, exhaustion, and hunger he was feeling.
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Note 1: Kronos' sword is supposed to be able to create a portal, but it was only seen in the first book using that ability and since this Percy is Roman, he didn't see that happen and was never told that detail.
In the next part I will put where Percy has this sword
Note 2: The spatha was a bladed weapon of Central European Celtic origin, during the Second Iron Age, which later came to be used by the Roman army from the 1st century BC, first applied to cavalry and then, from the 2nd century AD, to Roman infantry as well. It finally became established from the 4th century AD as a bladed weapon, its use lasting until the Middle Ages.
Considering Percy's connection to horses, as they are the sacred animal of Poseidon/Neptune being the father of horses, it seems to me that it makes sense that a Roman version would have a spatha because it was used for Roman cavalry. Although in other "What if PJ?" I have put him with a gladius when I make Percy a roman demigod.
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