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The ground was hard underneath me as I stayed pressed against the rock shielding me. Grass tickled my hands, the rocky ground beneath rough and digging into my legs. A line of ants was crawling over the rock just in front of me, carrying a dead beetle. I didn’t dare move, I barely dared to breathe.
Fire was flickering from the trees, light dancing and twining and twisting, making monsters out of branches and filling the air with a slowly consuming flame. The mortals stalking the forest ignored the fire, despite its growing danger, in favor of hunting for me.
My breathing was strained, and I breathed slow, chest rising faintly and lowering in increments. My arm was bleeding sluggishly, blood staining my sleeve and the grass red. I’d been in a battle, before the mortals appeared. The empousai had been a hard fight, as normal. They were dangerous beings, and for all that their voices could no longer trap me, they could make me falter, stumble, hesitate at a crucial moment. Her fingers had danced with flames and her too sharp claws had just missed my chest, instead carving open my arm.
I’d won the battle, but I wasn’t sure I’d won the war. I was injured and now I was being hunted by mortals.
They’d come out of the woods, just as I’d been capping my blade. Their words had been chaotic, shouts of demons, monsters, the devil, Satan- shouts of saving the world, ending the danger, the antichrist- Their guns pointed at me made their intent clear even as their words baffled me.
The only thing that saved me was the fire, crackling and popping as it burned the forest, a tree had collapsed under the strain, crashing down with a boom-crack that had sent their bullets wide. I’d taken their momentary panic and distraction to bolt.
The ocean was near, I could sense it even if I couldn’t sense it. I could see the nearby stream too, just out of reach. I had a chance, but not enough of one.
I assumed, now that I had a moment to breathe (no matter how strained that breathing was) that they thought me responsible for the fire, though I’d killed the woman (which I had but-). Did they think me some kind of- demon? I didn’t understand, I was just a mortal (a half-God mortal but a mortal all the same).
I didn’t want to hurt them, they were mortals. They may have been shooting at me but- they were mortal. Khiron had made it very clear I was not allowed to kill mortals. It wasn’t right-
“Is it alone?” whispered a voice, one of the hunters. It was closer than I liked, echoing through the crackling trees.
I eyed the stream, sensed the ocean hidden by fire and branches and smoke. If only they would leave for just a few moments-
“It’s pretending to be human, it probably has people here.”
I sent a prayer to my Father, to any God who would listen.
“Or other demons.”
Please I just wanted to get away, just let them leave.
“It could be the antichrist! We need to remove everyone connected to it-“
A rustle in the trees interrupted my silent prayer, a flash of color and- BANG.
The gun firing made me flinch, and I froze immediately after. Was that at me? Was that at something else? Was that-
“Just a bird, damn it. Where did it go.”
“Can it change shape?” Asked one, voice lowering. “It could have been the bird. It’s a demon after all.”
There was a long pause, perhaps they were examining the bird.
“We need to find out who it is, what did the other demon call it? Percival?
“Perseus, I think.”
“Jackson too, Perseus Jackson.”
I swallowed.
“We need to find it and find out anyone connected. If it’s a demon or the antichrist or- or whatever, we need to protect the world. We can’t let any consorts of this- this monster survive.”
“They could be possessed-“
“But it’s better safe than sorry… do you really think that bird is it?”
“I mean… maybe? It has the same black feathers as its hair…”
“I think that’s a… a black-billed Magpie. You can see cause of the coloring- and look at the greenish-black tail… but those aren’t native to New York.”
“Well then it’s probably the demon. The idiotic creature probably didn’t look up the native wildlife.”
Relief filled me, and I sent a silent prayer of thanks to whatever God had interfered to save my life.
“Now we just need to find the rest of the group.”
“Well it was pretending to be pretty young, so it probably has fake parents. Or it took over someone with parents. We need to get rid of any of them, just to be safe.”
My blood ran cold.
“Hey you still have those contacts in law enforcement, right? Think he can find the people connected to that demon?”
No.
“Yeah, they can probably find it and those around it using the name and description we got.”
Absolutely not.
“Good, then let’s head out, this fire is getting dangerous.”
I was not going to allow them to harm my mom.
“Let’s get moving-“
Something snapped. Something cracked. Glass in my core shattered, jagged and angry and blurring. The shattered pieces of me from Tartarus, the pieces that never quite fit back the same. They’d never fit back at all, shattered and ground to dust. Cold burned in me, the mists of Tartaros in my lungs.
The world spiraled as I stood, blood loss making it blurry, or perhaps the mists in my lungs and eyes. I could see them, they could see me. Or maybe they couldn’t, I wasn’t sure I was entirely there.
“Fuck he’s-“
They could see me, they were facing me, their eyes bright and liquidy- filled with water and blood and and and- I didn’t want them looking at me, I didn’t want them looking, they were going to- they were planning to-
Ice in my lungs, mists in my breath, their screams echoed in my ears.
A gun raised, pointing wildly, and I wanted it D o w n.
The arm froze, shaking, shuddering, then still. It lowered, jerk by jerk, screams curling through the air until my annoyance silenced them. Their mouths moved silently, horror twisting their mouths and cheeks and I hated it they needed to stay still they were going to- going to-
My mom’s face flashed in my mind and my worries were swallowed.
They were going to kill her.
They would not live to.
The men tried to step back, tried to stumble back, I could feel it. They wanted to escape, they wanted freedom, they wanted safety. I would not grant it. I would grant them nothing but what they would give my mom, my sister, my friends. Their feet were rooted to the ground, their veins and skin and bone rejecting their orders, hearing my desires, hearing my decrees, hearing what I wanted before I could even think to voice it.
I watched them crumble, blood and water seeping from their skin. Silent screams poured from their mouths but could not escape as they desired.
Their skin withered, their eyes were empty sockets, their mouths shrank. Slowly, piece by piece, they crumbled. Crumbled and crumbled until all that remained was dust. From dust whence they came, to dust they returned.
Like the monsters I slew daily, they were dust. I was safe from them.
I swayed, my own blood seeping from my arm. My injury draining me.
My chest cracked with my movement, breath freezing in my lungs. Mists clung to me, clung to my hands and skin. Tartaros reached for me, reached for the one who had escaped once before. I swayed into it, swayed into the darkness and pain and fire that burned, because at least it didn’t freeze me, at least I could breathe even if it was poison-
“Where did you learn that?”
The voice cut through the mist, cut through the ice, warmed me from the center of my chest to the tips of my fingers and toes. I turned, gaze clearing as it landed on the power in front of me.
“Well?”
I blinked, mind carefully rolling the words over. Where did I… learn it?
“Learn?”
He stepped forward, the ocean tides draping over me. I breathed in the salty air and relaxed further. A hand landed on my arm and I blinked. Perhaps I was not as clear headed as I thought.
“How much blood did you lose?”
Blood loss. Right. That made you- made you wonky and stuff, didn’t it? It probably did. I was pretty sure that was right.
“Perseus?”
“Sorry,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure why, but he seemed annoyed. Or wait, maybe just… worried? Or frustrated? I wasn’t-
I blinked. My arm was okay, not throbbing or weak or seeping red. It was just an arm. I frowned at it. I was pretty sure it had been red and bloody and red and red and red but now it was just-
“Perseus, are you listening to me?”
I looked up, looked at the God before me. “Totally,” I assured.
He pursed his lips, eyes narrowing.
I swayed towards him, towards the ocean in his veins, the ocean in his skin, the tide and waves in his hair and bones. His hand steadied me, and I basked in the power there.
It soothed something jagged and broken in me.
“Perseus,” he murmured. “Where did you learn that?”
“Didn’t,” I mumbled, breathed, rippled in currents so close.
“Perseus you’re not in the ocean, you’re on land, stay on land.”
What was that supposed to mean? I was a child of the ocean, I was meant to be in the tides and currents and depths. I was meant to drown in undrowning form. Where else was I supposed to be but the ocean with all it’s wrath and rage and love and all-consuming being?
“Perseus, are you listening?” hands on my shoulders held me in place, held me firm and steady and together. “Perseus, are you looking at me?”
I looked at him, of course I did. I looked at the ocean in his eyes, the pearls in his pupils, the crashing waves that made up his hair. I looked at the divinity in front of me and-
“Perseus.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Hello,” he responded. “Are you listening to me?”
“Totally,” I assured him, listening to the beat of his voice, the crashing of waves, the bubbles curling through the water.
“Perseus, focus on me. Where did you learn that?”
“I didn’t,” I said, repeated, explained. Was that not clear? I learned nothing. I simply- I simply did. What I did I did, I learned nothing before, it happened and I went with it.
“You must have done it before.”
I didn’t do that before, not that. I did, “I did the poison,” but not that. That was itself, not the poison.
“What poison?”
What poison? The Poison, Poison itself, agony and misery and poison. It was in my hand, in my grasp, it was in my veins even now. I wondered if I could turn water to poison, turn poison to water. I wondered and wondered and reached for the stream curiously. It was my stream after all, it was there and so was I-
Hands held me in place, kept me from the stream.
“Perseus Jackson, listen to me.”
I stared at him, stared at lights in the depths, moon bright waters, shining pearls, growing coral. I stared at flickering fish and dancing minnow. I stared at the ocean.
“Perseus, I need you to pull yourself together. You are not this, you are Perseus Jackson.”
“Why?” I asked. Why was I Perseus Jackson? I could be more. I knew I could, I could feel it in the broken parts of me. The potential, the existence, the desire. It could be so much more. I could be the demon they spoke of, the monster in the deep, the destroyer-
His brows furrowed like the breaking waves. “You’re Perseus Jackson,” he repeated as if that meant anything. “You are mortal, and favored, or do you forget your origin? Your mother?”
My mother. My mother was- was- the sea- the ocean- it which would cradle me-
“Sally Jackson?” the God before me spoke. A name I knew, a name I loved. “And what of your sister? Estelle? Or your love, Annabeth?”
Each name was a physical blow, or perhaps the weave of a net. My broken shards, my shattered being, my ground glass, wound together. It was not the shape it was before, it was loose and broken-
“Perseus,” said the God, his voice rippling through me. “Pull yourself together.”
I breathed in, I took a deep breath touched with ocean breeze and my brother’s concern and made a new shape. It was not what it was, but it was still me.
“Are you listening to me now?”
I blinked at Triton, blinked at him with blurry eyes and shaky breaths.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hello,” he murmured. “Feeling steadier?”
I leaned forward, and he let me lean on him, wrapped his arms around me and held me together even as the pieces and shattered shards and dust pieced together and wound together and melded into a new shape, a new form. I was changed, but I was me.
“’m okay,” I mumbled. “I’m together.”
“Let’s keep you that way,” Triton murmured. “I would hate to lose you now.”
I nestled against my brother, still knowing and seeing more than the form he took and breathed. I was okay now. I was changed, but I was okay.