Son of Kaos (PJO Chaos Gacha)

[Apollo_Man]

Finally, a Chaos Gacha fic with no Familiars being rolled in!

 

[Bakkughan]

Chapter 6​

---

The silence lasted barely a heartbeat.

Then one of the Empousai shrieked, her beautiful features twisting into naked fury as Cercyon's golden dust drifted between the trees.

"Forward! Hold him!"

The remaining skeletons obeyed without hesitation, throwing themselves at me simply because they had been ordered to, battered bronze shields raised as they charged through the settling dust. The hellhounds followed not far behind, though moving more in a cautious circle rather than a mindless rush like the animated skeletons.

One of the Empousai let out a shrill hiss and sprang forwards as well, spear poised to run me through.

"Don't be a fool," her sister snapped, catching her by the wrist before she had taken more than two steps. "Make him squander his strength on the dead."

A slow, confident smile spread across her face.

"We shall bleed him from afar."

One clawed hand came up in an imperious command.

"Toxotai! Nock!"

My stomach sank as I saw five skeletons in lighter armour step from the surrounding treeline, unslinging massive bows from their backs.

Then my attention was drawn away from the archers as the first melee units of the skeletal army reached me, their movements sluggish (thanks to Speed Cola) and mechanical, but nonetheless deadly and unrelenting. They weren't trying to win or even trying to survive. They weren't the threat after all; they were just the distraction.

They simply had one job, to keep me exactly where I was.

I drove my fist through the first skeleton's shield and breastplate in one fluid motion, Speed Cola enhancing my momentum. Ancient bronze folded inwards before the rest of it followed, exploding into a shower of splintered bone that hadn't even finished hitting the ground before another skeleton stepped over the remains.

Combo was still roaring through my arms from the fight with Cercyon. Arms, shields and ribcages ceased to be as I punched straight through whatever unlucky undead happened to be standing in front of me. Unfortunately, no matter how quickly I tore the skeletons apart, they just kept coming, like ancient versions of Terminators, just without the Austrian accent.

Even with my enhanced dexterity, I was still unable to take advantage of any gap that briefly fell in the line of ancient bronze shields as inevitably one of the Hellhounds would dart in to take a swipe at me, forcing me to either dodge or counterattack.

By the time the massive beasts had moved out of range (and those unlucky few who didn't had been turned into monster dust), the gap in the skeleton's line would've been closed already, buying precious seconds for their archers.

"Damn it."

I smashed another skeleton aside, ducked beneath a rusted spear and drove an uppercut through the jaw of its owner, scattering vertebrae high into the canopy. Another immediately filled the gap, shield first, more interested in slowing me down than killing me.

Three skeletons still stood between me and the archers.

The toxotai drew in perfect unison, ancient bowstrings creaking as black-fletched arrows settled on my chest. I couldn't force myself through the remainder of the monsters in time. I was too late.

The lead Empousa saw it too and her fanged smile widened.

"Lo-."

The command never came.

Something punched through her forehead with a wet crack, carrying enough force to snap her head backwards before erupting from the back of her skull in a spray of black blood. For the briefest instant she simply stood there, blinking in stunned confusion, one claw drifting uncertainly towards the neat hole that had appeared between her eyes.

Then her body dissolved into brilliant golden dust.

The skeleton archers remained frozen with their bowstrings fully drawn, waiting for a command that never came. Empty eye sockets remained fixed on the cloud of golden dust where their commander had been standing only moments before, waiting with the patient stupidity of puppets whose strings had suddenly gone slack.

The remaining Empousa stared in disbelief.

"What—"

A second arrow hissed out of the trees.

She barely managed to twist aside before it buried itself deep in the trunk behind her with enough force to bury half the shaft in solid oak.

"Campers!" someone bellowed.

The forest erupted.

Figures burst through the undergrowth from three different directions at once, though my heart sank when I saw just how few of them there were. There couldn't have been more than two dozen of them, and most looked barely old enough to be trusted with a driver's licence, let alone a battlefield. Some wore mismatched armour over orange shirts, others carried battered shields that looked older than they were. One boy couldn't have been older than eleven, gripping a celestial bronze spear with both hands so tightly I wondered if his knuckles were going to come off with it.

'These are… fucking hell, they're just kids…' I watched, stunned.

At their head thundered a horse that wasn't a horse.

The great white stallion burst through the trees with impossible speed, hooves tearing furrows through the earth as the upper body of a broad-shouldered man rose above it, bow already in hand. Another arrow flew before I'd fully registered what I was looking at, taking one of the bewildered Hellhounds clean through the ribs.

The massive beast barely had any time to let out a surprised whine before it exploded in golden monster dust.

"Drive them back!" the (literal) horseman roared.

The hesitation in the younglings vanished as without warning Camp Half-Blood hit the monsters like a wave breaking against rock.

The remaining toxotai never loosed a single arrow. Half a dozen campers crashed into them before they could recover from losing their commander, bronze blades hacking through ancient bones while another volley from Chiron shattered two more archers where they stood.

The Hellhounds reacted faster.

They sprang for the newcomers with snarling determination, only to be met by a wall of celestial bronze instead of frightened prey. One monstrous hound disappeared beneath three campers working together with practiced efficiency, while another found itself skewered through the shoulder by a spear before an axe buried itself in its skull.

For all their youth, they fought like a well-trained machine, always making sure to watch each other's backs and shore up another's weaknesses. The remaining monsters of Hades' hit squad quickly learned the difference between harassing one lone exhausted demigod and a trying to fight a small army of them.

"ETHAN!"

I knew that voice.

Luke came tearing through the melee with his sword already slick with monster dust, Thalia scarcely a pace behind him. Relief flashed across both their faces for the briefest instant before it was swallowed by something considerably angrier.

"You absolute idiot!" Thalia shouted.

"Gee guys, nice-"

A Hellhound lunged into my path. I punched through it without even looking, its remains scattering across the forest floor as [Combo] soared higher than ever before, energy visibly humming around my [Adamantine Fists].

"-to see you guys made it to safety." I finish with a tired grin.

Luke looked like he wanted to throttle me.

Instead he drove his sword through the chest of a skeleton trying to flank me, kicked the collapsing bones aside and snapped, "You charged Hades' hit squad alone!"

"In my defence, it's more like they charged me while I was alone…" I tried.

"That doesn't make it any better!"

Another hellhound bounded towards us.

It never reached the ground.

Thalia's spear punched clean through its throat halfway through the leap, the force spinning the beast sideways. It hit the earth awkwardly, struggling to regain its footing for all of half a second before I stepped in and drove my fist through its skull. Golden dust erupted around us as [Combo] ticked higher yet again.

One by one, the remaining monsters disappeared beneath a storm of celestial bronze (and adamantine knuckles). The last Empousa realised it a heartbeat too late. Her eyes darted across the battlefield, taking in the collapsing skeletons, the fallen hellhounds and Chiron already drawing another arrow.

She turned to run. Thalia beat her to it.

Her spear drilled through the air, not to kill but to herd. It buried itself in the trunk directly ahead of the fleeing Empousa with a crack of splintering wood, forcing the monster to veer sharply sideways.

Straight towards me.

She recognised the mistake immediately.

"No—!"

My fist was already moving.

[Combo] had climbed to absurd heights during the fighting. The moment [Adamantine Fist] connected with her sternum, the built up energy discharged in one violent pulse.

The Empousa didn't even have time to scream. One moment she was staring at me in naked disbelief, and the next there was scarcely anything left to destroy. She simply… ceased to exist, erased in a blooming cloud of golden dust that drifted between the trees.

Silence settled over the clearing once more as my fists slowly unclenched, [Combo] slowly ebbing away as my mental counter reached zero. However, with both it and the adrenaline rush finally ebbing away, my mind was left to fully process the (staggering) amount of wounds I accumulated during the fight. Every impact I'd ignored over the last hour arrived all at once with enthusiastic interest.

My knees hit the ground before I had any say in the matter.

"Whoa!"

Someone caught me before I could topple the rest of the way over. Luke's grip found my shoulder while Thalia steadied my other side, though judging by the way she was glaring at me she hadn't entirely decided whether to help me up or throttle me.

"You absolute moron," she said, her voice shaking just enough to betray how frightened she'd been. "What the hell were you thinking?"

I blinked at her. Even with me sunk to my knees, our eyes were almost on the same height.

'Gods, they are all so… small…'

"I was thinking..." I frowned, trying to remember. "...honestly? I don't think I my plan got much further than 'punch the next thing.'"

"That is not a plan."

"It has been surprisingly effective so far."

Neither of them smiled. The words hung awkwardly in the air as I waited for one of them to roll their eyes or tell me to shut up, but the moment stretched on just a little too long. It was only then that I noticed Thalia's hands. They rested on my shoulders to keep me upright, though there was a faint tremor running through them that had nothing to do with exhaustion. Luke didn't look much better. His sword still hung loosely in one hand, its blade coated in drying monster dust, his gaze quietly roaming over the cuts and bruises I'd accumulated over the course of the fight with an intensity that made me increasingly uncomfortable.

'They aren't angry… they're just scared.'

"...You came back."

The words slipped out before I'd really thought about them.

Luke barked a humourless laugh.

"What did you think was gonna happen?"

I frowned.

"I threw you half a mile."

"Yes."

"...Towards safety."

"Yes."

"...That was generally where I expected you to stay." I frowned at them, annoyed that they had ignored the genius of my plan.

Thalia just stared at me as though I'd just confessed to licking electrical sockets for entertainment.

"You don't get to decide to stay behind and fight an army by yourself!" she growled as she jabbed a finger into my chest hard enough that I actually felt it.

"Better me than you guys." I said with a sincerity that even took me by surprise.

Her mouth opened and closed a few times as besides us Luke sneakily tried to rub at his eyes without letting us see (and failing miserably at that).

"You—"

Whatever she'd been about to say disappeared somewhere behind a frustrated noise that sounded suspiciously close to a growl.

Luke finally managed to find the words.

"We actually did make it to Camp."

I blinked.

"...You made it?"

"Of course we made it!" Thalia snapped. "You threw us over the damned hill!"

"Right."

"And then we immediately turned back around." Luke continued simply.

That caught me off guard.

"You... what?"

Luke gestured vaguely behind him towards the campers still moving through the clearing, checking one another for injuries and gathering discarded weapons while the large centaur trotted calmly between them, murmuring encouragements.

"We got everyone we could convince on short notice."

My eyes slowly swept across the clearing.

There really weren't many.

Twenty, maybe twenty-five campers altogether, and most of them looked younger than Luke. One girl couldn't have been older than nine, despite the hardness in her face (and the fact she was methodically cleaning a sword the length of her arm) making her look more mature than she should've been. Another boy was sitting on a fallen log while an older camper wrapped a bandage around his forearm, trying very hard to look tougher than his watering eyes suggested.

Children.

Armor-clad, weapon-wielding demigods… and yet as I kneeled there in the forest clearing, all I saw was a group of scared, injured children fresh off a battlefield against actual monsters. None of it sat right with me.

"...Why?"

Luke just stared at me.

"What do you mean, why?"

"You were safe." I repeated, a little more strongly now.

"So we were supposed to… to just let you die?" he responded, anger creeping into his voice.

"I… I was buying time-" I tried, but the words sounded hollow, even to me, and the fearful youth in front of me wasn't having any of it.

"Not at the cost of your life, you… idiot!"

The words came out much louder than he'd intended.

Several nearby campers glanced our way before politely pretending they hadn't heard.

Luke took a slow breath through his nose, visibly regretting his words already.

"I… I'm sorry, it's just…" he trailed off in frustrated silence, before going ramrod straight, his eyes shooting open wide as I moved forwards to engulf him in a strong hug.

"I know kiddo. I know. And I'm sorry for scaring you like that." I said as gently as I could while ignoring how my body protested at the movement.

It took a few seconds before Luke relaxed somewhat, returning the hug with a sudden fierce strength, his voice thick with emotion.

"Just… don't leave us behind again… please."

"I… I'll try." Was the best I could offer the distraught little demigod as I pulled back, hands firmly on his shoulders.

"Please, tell me what happened?" I asked as I half-turned to face Thalia as well, who seemed seconds away from throwing herself into tearful hug as well.

"A question I would like to learn the answer to as well, if you wouldn't mind." A strong, rich voice called out through the clearing.

The campers instinctively stepped aside as the horseman approached, the great white stallion's flanks still flecked with sweat from the ride. Up close he somehow managed to appear even larger than he had bursting through the trees, the lower half of his body every bit the powerful warhorse while the man above the waist carried himself with the easy confidence of someone who had seen kingdoms rise and crumble often enough that neither particularly impressed him anymore.

"Young Luke and Thalia arrived quite… unexpectedly in Camp. We had heard the sounds of battle coming from afar, but by the tales these two told me, the entire Underworld had opened up, its dark army now lurking at our doorstep, only held at bay by a sole protector." The centaur said with some mild amusement before his features darkened as he took in the dust-coloured clearing, his gaze lingering on the deep crater that Cercyon's body had formed.

"I had not thought their exaggerated tale would prove to be so close to the truth." He finished in a soft voice for such a huge horseman.

"Well, I for one am grateful you chose to listen to them nonetheless." I said with a relieved sigh and the centaur let out a small smile at that.

"And I for the sacrifice you were willing to make for the sake of these children, although it gladdens me it didn't need to come to that. On behalf of Camp Half-Blood, I, Chiron, trainer of Heroes, offer you my thanks."

"Not that it was easy to convince you." Thalia said somewhat angrily as she crossed her arms in front of her, drawing a raised eyebrow from me as Chiron let out a sigh.

"Trust me, Thalia, daughter of Zeus. It was not a decision I made lightly, no matter the plight of your friend here. For centuries I have trained heroes rather than fought their battles for them. There are boundaries that exist for good reason, even in times such as these."

His gaze drifted towards the dissipating remains of Hades' strike force, his eyes gaining a hard glint.

"The Lord of the Dead, however, chose to overstep those boundaries himself," he huffed.

"An organised ambush. Ancient kings recalled from the Underworld to do battle under his banner. Empousai employing the undead under direct command." Chiron shook his head once. "Such open interference affords me rather greater latitude than I would ordinarily possess."

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"That..."

He looked briefly towards Thalia.

"...and Miss Grace here proved remarkably persuasive."

"I told him we'd come anyway," Thalia admitted without shame.

Luke coughed.

"We may have implied he wouldn't be able to stop us."

"Implied? You did no such thing." Chiron said with a stern frown that saw Thalia and Luke tense up before the enormous horseman chuckled.

"You threatened to do so quite… explicitly."

For the first time since the fighting ended, a few nearby campers let out nervous laughs.

Even Thalia looked faintly embarrassed.

"...Right."

Before anyone could say another word, a familiar shimmer of golden light gathered in the air directly in front of me.

I closed my eyes.

"...Of course now you show up."

The parchment slowly unfurled between us in a small twirl, as if it was trying to look around, checking out the battlefield. Seeing no more monsters, but a small audience of demigods (and one centaur) instead, it finished unfurling with a flourish as it rose higher in the air.

The amount of text that it displayed was the longest I'd ever seen on it so far.

[KILL CONFIRMED: CERCYON, KING OF ELEUSIS]

[Combat Achievement Recognized]
[Named Villain Defeated]
[King of Eleusis Slain]
[Victory Achieved Through Unarmed Combat]
[Additional Recognition Recorded]
[Reward: Silver Item Drachma ×1]

[Combat Achievement Recognized]
[First Empousa Slain]
[Reward: Bronze Item Drachma ×1]

[Combat Achievement Recognized]
[Tenth Hellhound Slain]
[Reward: Silver Ability Drachma ×1]

[Survival Achievement Recognized]
[Survived Hades' Strike Force]
[Reward: Golden Trait Drachma ×1]

[Fate Achievement Recognized]
[Monumentally Altered Fate]
[Reward: Platinum Skill Drachma ×1]

[Rewards Dispensing]

In a clinking shower of coin, bronze, silver, gold and even a platinum drachma fell from the sky into my open hands, forming a small pile.

Nobody spoke.

Which, considering the amount of shouting that had filled the forest over the last several minutes, was honestly a little unsettling.

My gaze drifted across the clearing.

Campers stood rooted to the spot, weapons hanging forgotten at their sides. One younger boy had somehow managed to leave his mouth hanging open. A girl beside him slowly lowered the axe she'd still been clutching even after the last monster had dissolved, her eyes never leaving the handful of impossible coins resting in my palms.

Luke looked almost as though he'd forgotten how blinking worked.

Thalia glanced from the drachma to me, then back again as though I'd casually grown a second head while she'd been busy killing monsters.

Chiron was harder to read.

The old centaur had recovered from his initial surprise almost immediately, his expression settling into the careful composure of a teacher trying very hard not to jump to conclusions. Unfortunately, the way his eyes remained fixed upon the platinum coin nestled amongst the others rather undermined the effort.

"...Curious," he murmured simply, showing nothing of his true thoughts.

Apparently centuries of experience came with one hell of a poker face. Unfortunately, the System had apparently decided that simply dropping an assortment of magical pocket change into my hands wasn't nearly enough excitement for one afternoon.

The parchment remained suspended in the air before me, waiting for me to offer up the drachma for my rewards.

Around me, every pair of eyes slowly shifted from the coins to the floating parchment. Even those campers who couldn't read the ancient Greek script clearly recognised that whatever was happening had not finished happening yet.

I stared back at the scroll for several long seconds, before looking down at myself.

My coat was shredded, I hurt in places I hadn't previously known possessed nerves and my arms felt as though someone had replaced the bones with overcooked spaghetti.

I let out a long, tired breath.

"...You know what? I think I'm gonna let Future Ethan deal with this," I sighed as the parchment continued hovering patiently.

"He's a clever guy, I'm sure he'll sort all this out, no problem."

I nodded once, satisfied we'd reached an understanding.

Then I stopped resisting.

Consciousness had been politely asking to leave for the better part of the last ten minutes. I'd kept putting it off because there had always been one more monster to punch, one more skeleton to flatten or one more problem that needed solving.

For the first time since the roadblock, none of those things were true anymore.

So I gave my exhausted brain permission to clock out.

The last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me was Luke lunging forwards with a startled curse as the pile of drachma slipped from my suddenly limp fingers.

//

The first thing I noticed was the complete absence of pain.

That was... surprising. And mildly concerning.

I cracked one eye open cautiously, half-expecting to discover I'd finally managed to punch myself into the Underworld after all. Instead I was greeted by a whitewashed ceiling supported by thick oak beams, morning sunlight spilling lazily through an open window somewhere off to my right. A cool sea breeze drifted through the room carrying the faint scent of salt, freshly cut grass and something medicinal my [Novice Medicine Skill] couldn't quite place.

"...Huh."

Either I was still alive or the afterlife was considerably more… rustic, than usually advertised.

Experimentally, I flexed my fingers.

Barely even sore anymore and thanks to [Novice Medicine] I knew that too would rapidly fade.

'Whatever it is they've given me… it's some damned good stuff! …dang, I hope it's not addictive?' I briefly worried.

I pushed myself upright a little more carefully. My muscles still complained, a dull ache running through most of my body, but compared to yesterday it barely registered.

The soft rustle of paper drew my attention to the chair beside the bed and I tried not to smile (and of course failed miserably) as I saw that Annabeth had apparently appointed herself my guard.

She'd fallen asleep curled awkwardly in the wooden chair, a book thick enough to qualify as blunt force trauma resting open across her lap. One hand still held the edge of a page she'd evidently never managed to turn before exhaustion won out.

The movement of the bedsheets must have been enough to wake her. Grey eyes snapped open and immediately fixed on me. For a heartbeat she simply stared, as though making absolutely certain I wasn't another dream.

"Oh, you're awake! Don't go anywhere, I'll got get Chiron and Mr. D." she said with an accusing finger and a surprisingly effective glare for a girl so little.

I raised my bandaged arms in surrender, shrugging and immediately wincing at the motion.

"Trust me, I'll hardly be running off in this condition." I said as I gestured vaguely down at my body.

Annabeth's stormy grey gaze kept boring into mine, before she lifted two fingers at her eyes before stabbing them at me.

"Stay. Here." She repeated, before she slipped out of the chair and hurriedly padded out of the room.

"… what kinda name is 'Mr. D' anyways… sounds like a porn name." I muttered, before my eyes narrowed in determination.

I had just survived fighting off a literal undead army to protect these kids, I could deal with a pervert.

With Annabeth gone and me still bedridden, I looked around the room properly for the first time.

Calling it a hospital wing felt generous. It looked more like a large dormitory that had accidentally acquired a medicine cabinet somewhere along the way and decided it might as well keep it. Several neatly made beds occupied the room, separated by polished wooden bedside tables and enough open space to move comfortably between them. Sunlight streamed through broad windows overlooking rolling green hills with what looked like strawberry fields sprawling across them, while shelves along one wall held neatly labelled jars of herbs, bandages and enough bottles to make a snake-oil seller jealous.

A wooden clothes rack stood near the foot of my bed.

Father Garcia's trench coat hung from it, freshly cleaned and somehow repaired. The long tears left by claws and rusted bronze blades had vanished almost completely, leaving only the faintest signs they'd ever existed. Beside it hung my One-Star Uniform in equally immaculate condition.

"I'm guessing one of the Greek gods is unusually adroit with a knitting needle." I mused aloud as I took in my 'battle armour'.

My attention drifted to the bedside table. To my surprise the little blue Cleaning Stone sat on its pristine surface. I had completely forgotten I had left it in the cupholder of the old Chevy the kids and I had… liberated from the cyclops. The battered flathead screwdriver next to it indicated someone had gone through the trouble of actually retracing our steps and had somehow managed to get the truck towards Camp.

Or its contents at least.

'Hmm, actually, some of these kids are likely from Hephaestus, maybe they'd like a project to tinker on?' I mused, already imagining the Chevy rebuilt and repurposed until it wouldn't look out of a place in a Mad Max movie.

Putting the fantasies of monster-murder machines out of my mind (for now) I took in the rest of the objects. I was surprised to find a now full-bottle of Speed Cola on the bedside table as well. I'm fairly sure I had dropped it when I hurried to catch up with the kids. Either someone had gone through the trouble of retrieving the bottle along with the truck, or that restock timer meant a new bottle automatically got added to my possession regardless.

However, the real eyecatcher wasn't the pale blue stone or the glowy green liquid, but the small stack of faintly shimmering mystical coins arrayed in a neat pile. On top of it, the platinum coin shimmered with a kind of… weight that was palpable.

A knock sounded against the open doorway, pulling me from my musings on the mystical coins and what potential they represented.

I looked up to find Annabeth returning, Chiron ducking slightly beneath the lintel as he entered beside her. Bringing up the rear was a broad, middle-aged man in a loud Hawaiian shirt whose expression suggested he considered being awake before noon a personal insult.

"Hello Ethan Creed. It is good to see that you are awake. Yesterday was quite an ordeal, I'm not sure how much you remember of that night? We met following the battle, my name is Chiron, Tr-"

"Trainer of Heroes. Yeah I remember. Your entrance was… memorable." I answered with a small grin, and the ancient centaur let out a self-conscious chuckle at that.

"Ah yes, it had been some while since I had engaged directly in a battle like that, I'm afraid I got a little carried away." Chiron said as he ran a hand through his thick beard.

"Where are Thalia and Luke?" I asked, trying to glance past the centaur's massive form.

"They are both doing well, I can assure you. Luke is quite busy getting to know all his half-siblings from the Hermes cabin. Last I heard, he's been regaling them with stories of his exploits. As for Thalia, I am afraid the Zeus cabin offers her rather little company. Ever since the Pact of the Big Three, it has remained... sparsely populated."

The middle-aged man snorted at the centaur's words.

"Sparsely? It's empty."

Chiron inclined his head in concession.

"Quite."

"So where is she?"

"At the arena."

I blinked.

"… you guys have an arena?"

"I am told," Chiron continued with remarkable composure, "that she challenged one of the children from the Ares cabin shortly after breakfast."

"...I'm guessing that didn't go well."

"For the child of Ares, no. His siblings are taking turns now, seeking to fulfil the challenge in his stead."

"None of them have won yet." Annabeth piped up proudly, placing tiny little fists on her waist with a grin.

The light-hearted mood was somewhat broken when the middle-aged man at the centaur's side rolled his eyes.

"Oh come on, enough reminiscing already. Let's just get on with it…" the man scoffed and to my surprise the far larger horse-man shrunk away from the unassuming man.

"Of course, my apologies. Ethan, it is my… privilege, to introduce to you the director of this camp, Mr D.-"

"The porn star!"

"…"

The silence that followed my sudden outburst could not have been louder, as demigod, centaur and camp director just… stared at me.

"Excuse you?" the man fumed.

"C'mon, a name like Mr. D? Either you're a porn star or a stripper and no offence, but you ain't got the build for the latter."

Next to the camp director, Chiron had gone completely ashen for some reason, while next to him Annabeth let her head fall into her hands.

"… please, do continue. It'll make it more amusing later." The middle-aged man pressed in a low voice, eyes fixed unblinkingly on me.

"Look, I don't know how you got this position, but I don't much care. You won't be influencing these young children with your wicked pervert ways if I've got anything to say about it!" I stated firmly, crossing my arms as I sat up in the bed.

For a moment, this 'Mr. D' and I just stared at one another, while Chiron looked like he wished the ground would just open up and take him straight to Hades already. Slowly, the middle-aged man looked up at the despondent centaur, a slightly manic look in his unblinking eyes.

"Please. Please tell me I can smite him now. It's been ages since I've made someone turn their own skin into underwear."

"Mr. D, please, I beg you to reconsider. He… he currently carries much favour with your father, Lord Zeus, for saving your half-sister Thalia from a most horrible fate…" Chiron pleaded with a small tremor in his voice.

"Dang… that's true." Mr. D muttered, before shrugging, his face suddenly losing all of his previous anger.

Somehow, that was scarier than his staring from before.

"Oh well, I'll just curse him instead then."

"Mr. D, please-"

"Oh, relax, it'll just be a little one. An tiny eenie meenie little curse, nothing like the proper ones from back in the day. Why, he might even get to keep all his teeth with this one." The man said idly, before fixing me with a stare that appeared to have a purplish shine to it.

"Ethan Creed, I, Lord of the Vine, Master of Madness, do hereby curse you for your affronts against Olympos. Let it be… extremely inconvenient in some way for you that makes it at least mildly amusing to me."

Before I could react, the man lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. Something rippled outwards from him on a direct course with my bed… before to everyone's shock, something else rippled out from me in response. Whatever the man (or god, I was beginning to understand) had tried to do to me was instead entangled by a massive wave of… nothingness spreading outwards from me. It was less subtle than the void that appeared whenever I offered up a drachma, or the golden sparks that heralded the scrolls arrival, more a… sensation, rather than a true physical thing, yet more real, utterly undeniable somehow, like a deeper truth of the universe itself had just made its presence known.

Both Mr. D and Chiron stared in abject confusion as the shimmering… something that hovered in between us, looking completely baffled, something that I suspected was pretty rare indeed.

The shimmering nothingness shrunk down, before tightening into a central point of infinite smallness like the core of a black hole that felt heavy somehow. Then it resolved in a sudden shower of golden sparks that saw all of us flinch back. To my utter surprise, the scroll hovered proudly besides my bed.

[Survival Feat Recognized!]

[Survived the Ire of a Mercurial Olympian: DIONYSUS]

[Reward: Golden Trait Drachma]

'Oh… ohhh noo… oh, I am properly fucked…'

However, in yet another twist, the golden lettering was swiftly replaced by ominous red lettering that carved itself angrily across the scroll's surface.

[WARNING!]

[Curse Condition Recognized]

[Curse Drachma Dispensed]

[Offer Curse Drachma to Receive Status Effect]

[Failure to Offer the Curse Drachma May Result in Grievous Consequences!]

Then, back to encouraging gold again:

[Resolving the Status Effect Will Grant Corresponding Rewards!]

The golden drachma that fell on top of the pile on my bedside table was familiar by now. The crude iron coin that dropped down immediately after it definitely wasn't. It's surface was blackened and it was even smoking slightly, as if it had been pulled directly from the world's dirtiest, most haunted forge.

For a moment, not a single one of us dared say anything at all.

"Did… did that fucking piece of paper just… eat my fucking curse?"

"Mr. D, please, language." Chiron mumbled weakly as both stared wide-eyed from the parchment to the coins and back.

"What the- a piece of the actual Void just appeared and ate my fucking curse! Mine! You know how good I am at curses? I'm the fucking best at curses, no matter what the Queen keeps saying, and this fucking piece of paper just ate it up, and spat it back out like a demented slotmachine!" Mr. D (or Dionysus himself, apparently) ranted, before his manic eyes switched from the cursed iron coin to me.

"… offer it." He said with a sudden, eerie calm in his voice.

"I… I don't really think that's the best idea right now, Mr. Dionysus, sir-" I tried to backpedal as the god moved slowly closer to my bed, his voice intent.

"Now you listen here, little demigod. You offer up that coin to the Void, or I'll hurl so many curses at your pathetic ass, it'll take days to dig you out of the mountain of iron that thing will bury you under." Mr. D insisted with a worrying gleam in his eye.

"… right."

Seeing as it was no use arguing with a literal Olympian god (who I had just pissed off within five minutes of meeting no less) I reached out with some trepidation towards the iron drachma. It was unsettlingly hot to the touch and I winced a bit.

"Ethan…" Annabeth whispered with wide eyes and I made sure to flash her a grin filled with a confidence I didn't really feel.

"It'll be alright Annabeth. Whatever comes out of this coin, look at the stack I still got sitting right here, see? Something in there should allow me to deal with the curse, no worries!" I grinned and the little girl gave me a shaky nod in return.

"C'mon, get on with it, offer it up already." Dionysus muttered impatiently, eyes not leaving the infernal coin.

"Fine, fine, hold your horses. …uhm, no offence, Chiron?" I glanced at the centaur, who just shook his head.

"Mr. Creed, I think it is best to offer up the curse coin. As you yourself said, should the others prove to be beneficial, you may get through this unscathed. …relatively speaking at least. As Mr. D said, the curse he originally intended to unleash was of a somewhat milder variety. It was one of a mildly variety, right?" Chiron shot the camp director a stern look, but the god merely waved it off with a 'so-so' gesture.

"Eh, tomato, potato."

"That's not how the saying goes." Annabeth corrected him surprisingly fiercely, not that the Olympian seemed to particularly mind, or even notice for that matter.

Unable to put it off any longer with the God of Wine (almost literally) breathing down my neck, I sighed, placed the infernal drachma on my thumb and flicked it up in the air. Like with my previous offerings, it was swallowed mid-air by an unfolding starry void and like before an enormous wave of sensation briefly brushed against me.

Recognition.

Disapproval.

Retribution.

'… alright, that's new… and worrying…' I sweated a bit.

To everyone's continued surprise, an almost holographic symbol appeared above my head, a schematic wheel of all things, before it began madly rotating with dizzying speed. It went on for several seconds before steadily slowing down, until it came to rest on a ominously glowing number that meant absolutely nothing to everyone present. The explanation however was quickly scrawled on the floating parchment in that same aggressive red lettering as before.

[Illiterate]

|Severity: Minor (5)|

|You have lost the ability to read all of the languages you already knew beforehand. Time to learn again.|

|Resolve: Learn the languages which you forgot how to read.|

"… you have to be fucking kidding me." I blinked despondently at the parchment as Annabeth came up to me, patting my hand with a grief stricken look as if I was a dead man walking.

Well, I might as well be to a child of Athena come to think of it.

"Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. So you truly are a child of Kaos, there is no denying it now. I hadn't thought it possible." Chiron muttered as his human half leaned forward to give the parchment a closer look.

Dionysus was looking at the floating scroll with an intent gaze as well, though with a much different expression.

"Well, it wasn't what I originally had in mind, but damn… Immediate and unavoidable retribution doled out whenever one of the kids is being a little shit, eh?" he mused aloud, stroking his chin in thought.

Then between one blink and the next, Dionysus had suddenly crossed over to the other side of the bed without anyone even seeing him move, leaning uncomfortably close to the parchment to the point the scroll nearly folded backwards on itself as it leaned away from the mad god.

"Say, you're not for hire are you? I could make it worth your while, there's this casket of Romanee Conti 1945, a fantastic year… well, for wine at least, not so much the rest of the world, but still-"

"Lord Dionysus, you are not going to try and bribe a piece of the primordial progenitor of the void with wine of all things! It goes against every part of your punishment, not to mention common sense itself!" Chiron thundered and it was the first time I'd seen him properly push back against the god.

Perhaps more surprising was that Dionysus actually seemed to listen, deflating somewhat as he moved away from the scroll (which seemed to unfurl with a bit of relief) as he summoned a Diet Coke out of nowhere with a scowl on his face.

"Don't remind me… ughhh, fine.'

"Apologies, Mr. Creed. Would you please offer up the remainder of the drachma? I must profess, never in all my immortal life have I heard of a child of Kaos before, save perhaps the most ancient of primordial beings and they are hardly similar to yourself. The process with which you call the Void into being is nothing short of fascinating." Chiron asked politely, his teacher voice slipping out.

Mulishly I went over the description of my curse again (thanks a lot, drunkard gods everywhere) before sighing and nodding.

"I'm not sure what the effects of the higher ranked rewards will be, so let's work our way upward."

I picked up the bronze drachma first and tossed the coin gently upwards.

It never came back down.

Darkness unfolded around it like ink spreading through water, swallowing the bronze drachma before collapsing into a perfect circle of absolute nothingness suspended a few feet above my outstretched hand. It wasn't merely black. Black was still a colour. This was simply... absence. A hole in reality that somehow occupied space without belonging to it.

The room grew noticeably quieter.

I hadn't realised until that moment how much background noise there had been since I woke up. Birds outside the windows stopped singing. The breeze that had been drifting lazily through the open shutters simply... ceased. Even the floorboards beneath us stopped their occasional creaking.

Recognition brushed gently against my thoughts.

Acceptance.

Transaction.

Above my head a symbol ignited.

Two perfectly balanced scales materialised in pale silver light, suspended beneath the Roman numeral XX. The image lingered for barely a second before dissolving into drifting motes that spiralled down towards the void.

Something emerged.

It wasn't thrown or dropped so much as... presented.

A single black tarot card drifted silently from the darkness, rotating lazily as though carried by a breeze that existed nowhere else in the room. It settled neatly into my waiting hand before the void folded in on itself, leaving behind nothing but ordinary air.

The parchment shimmered.

[XX - Judgement]
|Common Item|
Tarot Card - Allows you to compel someone to tell what they think is the truth without being able to intend to trick you.

120 Hour Cooldown.

"Wait, how am I able to read that? I've literally just been cursed with being illiterate?" I frowned at the scroll, but Dionysus just shrugged.

"The text is Ancient Greek, something that you're hard-wired to understand on a genetic level, and is written on a piece of magical parchment tied intrinsically to your divine heritage. Looks like that's enough to override the curse. You'll probably have to relearn standard English though, and considering how pretty much every demigod has some form of dyslexia…" the god shrugged again, clearly unbothered and uncaring.

"Gee thanks…" I answered sarcastically, before looking down at my new reward.

I turned the card over between my fingers. The back of the card had a swirling black starry pattern similar to the Void whenever it appeared to swallow up the drachma. The face showed an angel blowing a trumpet as people rose from their graves below.

Annabeth took an involuntary half-step forwards.

"May I...?"

I handed it over without hesitation.

She accepted it almost reverently, turning it over several times before frowning.

"I can feel magic from it."

Chiron nodded slowly.

"As can I."

Mr. D merely grunted.

"It smells old."

I wasn't entirely sure whether that was a compliment.

"Well, since I'm not currently interrogating anyone, I'll move on to the silver ones."

The first silver Trait drachma felt noticeably heavier than the bronze ones. I tossed it upwards and once again the coin vanished before it could begin to fall. Recognition brushed across my thoughts once more as the void returned, followed by the now familiar feeling of something weighing what had been offered before deciding it acceptable.

A new symbol flared into existence above my head in the form of an eye.

Not a human eye, but the stylised silhouette of a hawk's, its pupil narrowing to an impossibly fine point before the entire image dissolved.

Nothing emerged from the void and I frowned.

Which is when the world lurched.

Every individual fibre of the blanket covering my legs snapped into impossible focus. The grain of the bedside table. The tiny scratches running across Mr. D's empty Diet Coke can. I could even distinguish individual strands of Chiron's tail where it disappeared beyond the doorway.

Instinctively my gaze wandered towards the window.

The camp expanded.

The strawberry fields rushed towards me without moving an inch. Beyond them, the forest. The beach. Whitecaps rolling across Long Island Sound. A gull banking hundreds of feet above the water. A fishing boat so distant it should have been little more than a speck.

Instead I could almost read the name painted across its stern.

"...Whoa."

The effect vanished the moment I looked back into the room and blinked several times.

"That," I decided, "is going to take some practice."

The parchment updated.

[Hawk Eyes]

|Uncommon Ability|

You have very powerful eyes that can see even hundreds of kilometres away with accuracy.

Annabeth stared at me.

"What?"

"You... your eyes."

"What about them?"

"They changed."

I rubbed one experimentally.

"I didn't feel anything."

"The colours became brighter," Chiron observed quietly. "For a brief moment they seemed almost... impossible."

That didn't sound reassuring. Still, the reward was undeniably powerful and I grabbed the silver Item drachma next, flicking it upwards as it was immediately swallowed by an emerging spiral of nothing.

This time the symbol overhead took the form of a small house with a key set across its doorway before something heavy dropped neatly into my lap.

A ring of old brass keys. Bound to it by faded twine was a folded deed sealed with dark red wax.

"… it had better not be just these keys from a silver reward." I said warily as we all glanced towards the parchment as it updated itself again.

[Hideout Realtor]

|Uncommon Item|

Hunter x Hunter - Create a secret hideout in a location of your choosing, the hideout will be stocked with the essentials and the only way to access it will be through the door you have created.

"The fuck is a Hunter-Hunter?" Dionysus asked with narrowed eyes, ignoring Chiron's near automatic 'language'.

"Dunno, but this thing can be stupid powerful. As soon as I find a good spot to put a safehouse down at least." I muse aloud as I carefully placed the keys besides the Cleaning Stone and the Speed Cola.

I rolled the first gold drachma across my knuckles for a moment before flicking it towards the waiting darkness. The symbol that blossomed above my head was unlike the ones before it. Branches unfurled in radiant green and gold, spreading into the unmistakable silhouette of a great tree whose roots reached just as far down as its crown reached upwards. Leaves shimmered across its boughs before dissolving into countless flecks of emerald light that drifted lazily through the room.

None of them reached the floor as they simply faded into the air around us.

For a brief instant the infirmary seemed... fresher. The medicinal smell lingering in the room gave way to the scent of rain on warm earth, while the potted herbs lining the windowsill visibly straightened towards the morning sun. Even the breeze slipping through the open shutters felt softer than before.

Chiron's ears twitched.

It was the first genuinely involuntary movement I'd seen from him since I'd started dispensing the rewards.

The parchment unfurled.

[Nature's Embrace]

|Elite Trait|

Well, you can officially call Mother Nature mommy so that's nice. Nature itself favours you, trees bend down branches to offer you fresh and healthy fruits, animals and nature-aligned beings favour you and are more affectionate towards you, you know how to manoeuvre around a forest, and wild animals will help you. You also recover energy faster the closer you are to nature.

Nobody spoke.

Chiron's gaze had drifted from the parchment to the herbs by the window, lingering there for several thoughtful seconds before returning to me. Whatever conclusion he reached, he elected to keep it to himself.

Mr. D, on the other hand, slowly looked at the ivy growing outside the room (it had grown almost a full foot) before letting out a quiet, almost irritated grunt.

"... oh, the satyrs are just going to love you. You just became the closest thing to a child of Pan they've seen in the past three centuries."

His tone was odd though, less grumpy and almost… wistful? Not that I was going to try and poke holes in his gruff-guy persona. One curse was more than plenty, thank you. Instead, I reached for the second golden drachma, the small stack of coins slinking fast as I tossed it into the waiting void.

Again, nothing physical emerged.

Instead I felt the change happen somewhere beneath conscious thought.

There was no rush of strength, no warmth spreading through my limbs or surge of divine energy demanding to be acknowledged. It was subtler than that. Countless tiny adjustments settled into place throughout my body with quiet certainty, so seamless that I struggled to tell where one ended and the next began. My breathing found a steadier rhythm. My posture shifted by perhaps a fraction of an inch. Even the way my hand naturally rested against the blanket felt... correct.

Less power, more… efficiency.

Above me, two intersecting lines of brilliant gold drew themselves through the air. More lines followed, each meeting the others at perfect angles until they formed an intricate geometric pattern that somehow suggested movement despite remaining completely still. Every line existed precisely where it ought to. None were wasted.

The image lingered only a heartbeat before fading as the parchment shimmered once more.

[Effective Activity]
|Epic Trait|

Your movements, attacks and actions are always effective, landing where they need to land and dealing what they need to deal. Every swing connects, every dodge works, every manoeuvre pays off. Some beings can still resist and it may not work on targets well above your level.

"Damn, that would've come in handy during my wrestling match with Cercyon." I said with a low whistle.

[Adamantine Fists] made every punch hit harder (and [Combo] then took that and multiplied it) but it didn't actually do anything to make me better at punching itself. With this Trait however, every punch I threw would land to deliver maximum damage delivered through unbreakable knuckles.

Dionysus read the parchment once. Then he read it again.

"...I don't like the wording of that."

Coming from the god who'd cursed me after I had accidentally called him a porn star, it carried rather more weight than I'd have expected.

Chiron nodded slowly.

"Nor do I."

"It's only an Epic reward," I tried to point out.

Mr. D looked at me with the weary disappointment of a teacher watching a student miss the obvious.

"Exactly."

"Ethan, while their appearance may have certain similarities to a demigod being Claimed by their divine parent, it would seem that these… 'blessings' function in a fundamentally different aspect as to what we're used to. As if… it is taking bits and pieces of reality and moulding them to suit you…"

Following Chiron's thoughtful words, all of our eyes were drawn to the sole platinum coin still remaining on the bedside table, the implication hanging unsaid in the air.

I swallowed, before picking it up with a shrug, trying to ignore how the drachma didn't quite seem to fit in the palm of my hand despite its small size.

"Well, makes sense right, if reality was created by my dad. Mom? Progenitor. Guess that gives me some mild reality-warping powers too." I mused aloud, before with some trepidation I offered up the final coin to the Void.

The platinum drachma left my fingers.

The familiar feeling of recognition brushed against my thoughts once more, but where the previous offerings had been acknowledged almost absent-mindedly, this one lingered. It was as though the Void itself had paused for the briefest instant before accepting what had been offered.

The darkness that bloomed above my hand looked much the same as before.

It wasn't.

I couldn't have explained why, but the difference settled somewhere deep in my bones. The earlier offerings had felt like reaching through a doorway.

This felt like the doorway had noticed me… and was reaching back.

Chiron's breath caught.

"...Mr. Creed..."

I didn't answer. I wasn't entirely convinced I remembered how as above me, the final symbol appeared.

Unlike the others, it wasn't immediately recognisable.

Thin silver lines swept through the air in rapid succession, tracing dozens of possible trajectories before gradually settling into the outline of a single eye. The remaining lines faded one by one until only the correct path remained.

The symbol dissolved and all eyes drifted back to the parchment. It remained blank just long enough for me to wonder whether something had gone wrong before fresh golden ink finally began writing itself across the page.

[Martial Foresight]
|Elite Skill|

Kengan Ashura - Foresight is a technique developed by highly skilled martial artists. It allows the user to predict an opponent's movements through rapid analysis, experience and instinct, creating opportunities to dodge, intercept and counterattack.

Your Foresight is rudimentary.

Only battle can refine it.

The feeling of a Skill was different in subtle way of how a Trait or Ability manifested. [Adamantine Fists] and now [Hawk Eyes] were simply… there. They required barely any thought to become active, running more on pure instinct, like curling your toes or wiggling your ears. [Martial Foresight] though… I could almost feel it sitting somewhere in the back of my mind. Not raw knowledge exactly. More like the first page of a very thick book I'd somehow already opened.

Chiron glanced from the description back to my bedridden form, eyes wide and I could almost hear the gears running in his head, the Trainer of Heroes in him coming to the fore.

"Mr. Creed… I think it's safe to say that you might become the most terrifying hand-to-hand combatant we have ever seen in… millennia, at the least. I've seen nothing like it since the days of the Argonauts themselves. Between Foresight and Effective Activity, you'll be hard to hit while almost never missing yourself, especially under the effects of that speed potion. Each counter attack made all the more devastating by your Adamantine Fists and as the battle goes on, Combo will make each punch land ever harder than the one before." Chiron trailed off before shaking his head with a slightly disbelieving laugh.

"I can think of no demigod alive, and scant few monsters, that could beat you in a straight up fist fight, especially once you hone that Skill of yours." He said almost eager, as if he couldn't wait to get me started on spars and drills.

"Also, you can pretty much go everywhere!" Annabeth piped up suddenly, and we all blinked down at her.

"You can see people in trouble from miles away! Monsters can't smell you because of the perfume thing, and now the woods actually help you get around. And even if something does find you, you have the safe house!" she said excitedly, before her features dimmed somewhat.

"There's so many demigods that you could find and save, like you did with us… make sure that nobody gets trapped in evil lairs, like that cyclops' house…" she said with a small voice, for the first time truly sounding her age and with a pang I realized that the traumatic experience in the haunted mansion had left a deeper impact on the girl than I had suspected.

Shaken from his training plans, Chiron placed a comforting hand on Annabeth's shoulder, though Dionysus hardly seemed to notice, much less care about the distraught little girl as he rolled his eyes with a dismissive scoff.

Which made me rethink Chiron's words.

"Greatest hand-to-hand combatant alive, huh?" I said, a dangerous edge creeping into my voice that saw the centaur hurriedly straighten and the mad god raise a challenging eyebrow at me.

"Should you refine your skill set, then yes-" Chiron attempted to defuse.

"Well, it did say that's only possible in battle, right?" I interrupted, an almost hungry grin on my face now.

Somewhat worryingly, the Mad God of Wine was matching it.

"Well yes, but let's be reasonable about this please, Mr. Creed… Mr. D?" the centaur tried, bless his heart. Hearts?

Not that I or Dionysus was still listening to him at this point. I was hardly going to let it slide that this guy essentially forced me to relearn my ABC's after all, god or no. The Mad God meanwhile mostly just seemed to delight in the option to beat the snot out of a demigod without repercussion.

Which is how I spent my first day at Camp Half-Blood breaking the God of Wine's nose.

 

[Heavenly Mark]

Oh hahahah that's hilarious sucker punch the god of madness. Peak madness right there.

 

[Bakkughan]

Chapter 7​

​

---

Getting into an (un)official brawl with the Mad God of the Vine, as it turned out, required a short walk to the arena.

Chiron spent most of it making increasingly diplomatic (and desperate) attempts to persuade the two of us that settling disagreements through organised fistfights was perhaps not the finest example to set for the rest of the camp. Dionysus ignored him with the sort of practised ease that suggested this wasn't the first lecture he'd tuned out, while I quietly suspected the centaur had trained enough lost causes in his long past to give up on one now. Annabeth trailed silently behind us, though I could feel her stare bore into my back.

Camp Half-Blood looked rather different when I wasn't bleeding all over it or being threatened by a wine god with impulse-control issues. The infirmary sat in the Big House near the heart of the camp, close enough to the other buildings that I could hear faint voices drifting from the cabins and smell woodsmoke from somewhere near the central green. The place had the strange, lived-in messiness of a summer camp that had been invaded by Ancient Greece and somehow decided to make it work. Orange shirts moved between cabins like sparks against the grass. A pair of children carried spear racks past a fountain. Somewhere to my left, someone was shouting at a pegasus with the weary frustration of a man trying to negotiate with an opinionated bicycle.

The cabins themselves were impossible to miss. Even from a distance, they were too varied to have been built by anybody following one coherent plan, unless that plan had been drawn up by a committee of gods who had all agreed to ignore each other. One cabin gleamed like polished marble beneath the sun. Another looked austere and grey, as if it had been designed by someone who considered comfort a moral failing. A third was covered in creeping vines and somehow smelled faintly of strawberries and fermenting grapes, which explained why Dionysus did not so much glance at it as acknowledge it with the vague resentment one might reserve for an unpaid bill.

We were still several hundred feet away when the roar reached us.

It wasn't like the roar of a battle (something I had unfortunately become rather more familiar with than I would've liked this past week), rather it was the high-pitched excitement of... children enthusiastically watching somebody else get battered, I'm guessing.

The sound rolled across the camp in waves, punctuated every few seconds by a particularly loud cheer or groan that suggested fortunes in the arena were changing rapidly. Somewhere ahead of us, bronze clanged against bronze hard enough to make the noise carry across the hills, followed immediately by the heavy thump of a body hitting sand and several dozen voices losing their collective minds.

Dionysus sighed.

"I leave them alone for five minutes..."

"Technically," Chiron said in a careful tone, "Thalia has been placed under supervision."

"By whom?"

Chiron did not immediately answer.

I glanced sideways at him, seeing the old centaur's mouth tighten.

"Luke Castellan. The new Son of Hermes that... dropped into camp alongside the Daughter of Zeus. He volunteered for the position… and since he was the only one, well…" The trainer of heroes reluctantly admitted.

Dionysus stopped walking just long enough to shoot Chiron a withering glare from the corner of his eye.

"That is not supervision. That is an accomplice."

Even though (or perhaps, because) I had known Luke for all of two days, I couldn't argue against the dour camp director's accusation. Luke was the type of kid who, if there was an underground fight he wasn't supposed to be watching, wouldn't settle for just cheering at the sidelines; he'd somehow be selling tickets to everyone else who wasn't supposed to be there either.

'And Grover… well he's a sweet kid, or well, satyr, I suppose, but he'd never be able to talk either Luke or Thalia down and with Annabeth here trailing behind me, that basically leaves those two teenaged demigods to their own devices…'

I found myself picking up the pace as our little group began to close in on the arena, several campers spotting us as we hurriedly passed.

More accurately, they spotted Dionysus.

The effect was immediate and almost impressive. Conversations faltered. A boy carrying a bundle of javelins nearly walked into a tree. Two girls whispering together on the porch of one cabin straightened so fast they almost smacked their heads together. It took most of them a moment longer to notice me walking beside him in my freshly repaired black coat and One-Star Uniform, which honestly suited me just fine. There were worse things than being the second most concerning person in a group, especially when the first was an Olympian god who had recently threatened to turn my anatomy into a fashion statement.

Unfortunately, word travelled faster than common sense.

By the time we had crossed the green, whispers had started following us. Yesterday's battle had apparently already gone through the camp rumour mill, which meant the version most of them had heard probably involved me wrestling a hundred skeletons, punching Hades in the jaw, and saving Chiron from a dragon for good measure. A few stared with open curiosity. Others looked at the coat, then at my face, then immediately looked away when they realised I'd noticed. One small boy clutched a wooden practice sword to his chest and watched me pass with the grim awe normally reserved for natural disasters and older cousins who owned motorcycles.

"Lovely," I muttered.

Chiron's ears flicked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing. Just realising I may have accidentally become local gossip."

Dionysus snorted. "Puh-lease. You called me a porn star in front of witnesses and then made a piece of primordial stationery eat my curse. 'Gossip' was inevitable... and with what we've seen this morning, you can count yourself lucky it is merely being spread amongst ignorant teenagers for now."

He glanced back at me over his shoulder, a look in those dangerous eyes that I couldn't place, his voice going low as the god lost all of his previous whimsical indifference.

"You think this is bad? Wait 'till the 'gossip' starts spreading on Mount Olympos."

That was fair, unfortunately.

The closer we drew to the arena, the more the camp seemed to bend towards it. Campers were drifting in from every direction now, some abandoning half-finished chores with the guilty speed of children who knew they were doing something they shouldn't, but had decided the punishment would be worth the risk. The roar grew louder with every step. Beneath it I could pick out sharper details: a girl's harsh voice barking something furious, Luke laughing, the scrape of boots against sand, and another ugly impact followed by the kind of collective "oof" that made my ribs ache in sympathy despite having healed faster than modern medicine should have allowed.

Chiron increased his pace. Or... gallop, I guess?

"I had hoped they would've tired themselves out by now," he said, sounding very much like a teacher who had once again underestimated the stamina of children when violence had an audience.

"That was optimistic of you," I said.

"Hope is an important quality in a trainer of heroes." He rebuffed with practiced ease.

"How's that working out for you?"

He gave me a sideways look.

"Intermittently."

By the time we reached the wooden fence surrounding the arena, the gathered crowd was already three or four campers deep. Kids perched on the rails or craned over each other's shoulders (and in some of the more light-footed cases, climbed onto said shoulders) for a better view. Whatever had started before we'd arrived had clearly become the afternoon's entertainment. The arena itself was larger than I'd expected, an oval ring of packed sand enclosed by timber fencing and tiers of rough seating that looked as if generations of bored demigods had carved initials, rude drawings and questionable poetry into every available surface. Weapon racks lined the far side beneath a shaded awning, their contents ranging from sensible training spears to axes that seemed unnecessarily committed to the concept of overkill.

Getting through the crowd proved less difficult than expected.

The first camper I tapped on the shoulder turned, opened his mouth to complain, then saw Dionysus behind me and went pale enough that he could've walked straight into Hades without anyone batting an eye at the newcomer. He scrambled aside, accidentally stepping on someone's foot, which caused another camper to turn, which caused another pale face, which caused the gap to widen in rippling silence. It was not quite the effect I ever imagined having on a crowd, but as social tools went, travelling with a mildly offended god had its uses.

Then I saw the centre of the arena.

Thalia Grace stood in the sand with her spear held low in one hand, her shield raised at a lazy angle and a grin on her face. She looked smaller out there than she had in the forest, surrounded by older and broader children wearing the red-plumed regalia of the Ares cabin, but there was nothing small about the way she moved. The boy in front of her was at least a head taller and built like someone had started feeding him protein shakes in the cradle. He swung a practice sword with both hands, trying to force her back through sheer weight and reach.

Thalia stepped inside his swing, shield clipping his wrist hard enough to ruin his grip before the butt of her spear drove into his stomach. The air left him in one miserable rush. Before he could fold properly, she hooked one foot behind his ankle, shoved with her shield and planted him flat on his back.

The arena erupted.

"Get up!" a tall and broad-shouldered girl with a vicious sneer yelled from the opposite side of the ring, her face red with fury beneath a wild tangle of stringy brown hair, contrasting vividly against the magnificent purple bruise blossoming around one shut eye. "Get up, you absolute embarrassment! She isn't even breathing hard!"

The boy wheezed something from the sand that would've probably been a cutting comeback if he had any air left in his lungs to say it with.

Luke was making rounds along the ring, taking bets and bribes (from cold hard cash to candy and even promises to do chores) from the surrounding children with fast hands and a charming grin, trying very hard to look neutral and failing rather secularly at that, considering his mouth kept twitching every time an Ares camper hit the ground. Grover hovered a little behind him, clutching his beanie with both hands and wincing every time someone collided with the sand, which by then was often enough that his face had settled into a permanent expression of pained concern.

"You got another sibling you want to send to the chopping block, Clarisse? Looks like I broke this one." Thalia called out with a smirk as she twirled her spear before planting it firmly in the mulled sands.

"Again!" Clarisse snapped.

Another Ares camper stepped forwards, rolling his shoulders like he was the chosen one (out of a dozen or so of his siblings it looked like) to finally teach the new girl a lesson.

Thalia tilted her head with a grin that was about as innocent as a criminal in supermax wearing a forehead tattoo that said "I did it".

"Are you sure?" she called out mockingly.

He snarled and charged.

The fight lasted perhaps six seconds, most of which he spent travelling towards defeat with impressive commitment. Thalia caught his first swing on her shield, let the force turn her half a step instead of resisting it, and drove the haft of her spear across the side of his knee, making his leg buckle. She hooked the shield under his arm, twisted, and dumped him into the sand beside the first boy with brutal efficiency that looked out of place on any twelve year old.

The cheering somehow grew even louder, but beside me, both Chiron and Dionysus watched the scene play out with heavy expressions.

"Barely a foot in our world and already stronger than the best trained children of War itself... that's the Blood of the Elder Gods for you... what a mess..." the God of Wine muttered bitterly, even shooting me an accusing look for... some reason.

Though something about the phrase 'Elder Gods' tugged at my memories, all I could do was mouth 'the fuck did I do... y'know, this time?', before our attention was drawn back to the fight, as Clarisse opened her mouth, failed to produce anything more coherent than a strangled growl, then tried again.

"Stop running at her one at a time!" she shouted finally finding the words. "Use your heads!"

From the sand, the newly fallen camper groaned.

Thalia looked over at her with a challenging grin. "Hey, that's actually great advice! Those heads of yours must be harder than any weapon you guys can come up with anyways."

That caused a mix of cheers and boos to ring out from the crowd depending on who they were rooting for (and betting on), with Luke loudly hyping up the crowd. Standing a little removed from the betting going on around the son of Hermes, it was Grover who noticed me first. His eyes widened, then flicked to Chiron, then to Dionysus, and his entire expression collapsed into the sort of dread usually reserved for seeing a lit match drift towards a fireworks factory.

"Ethan?"

Luke turned at Grover's whisper, and the relief that crossed his face lasted only until he saw who stood beside me. "Oh."

Not long after, someone else noticed and the cheering died in ripples.

It began near the fence where we stood, one camper going silent, then the next, then three more behind them as the realisation passed through the crowd. It spread across the arena like spilled ink. Voices faltered as a few children climbed hurriedly down from places they were definitely not supposed to be sitting. Even Clarisse stopped mid-rant, her eyes narrowing as she looked past Thalia towards the gate.

Thalia noticed last, mostly because she had been busy helping her latest opponent back to his wobbly feet (and even wobblier knees). She turned with her spear still in hand, cheeks flushed from exertion, a streak of sand across one knee and the bright, fierce satisfaction of someone who had discovered an entire cabin full of people willing to be… 'educational'. Her eyes landed on me first, sharpening with relief so quick she tried to bury it under a scowl.

Then she saw Dionysus and the scowl became much more complicated.

Chiron stepped forwards, clearing his throat.

"Mr. D, perhaps before we proceed, we might establish certain boundaries—"

Dionysus lifted one hand and the centaur stopped talking so fast, the 'click' of his teeth was audible over the now silent sands.

The god of wine leaned against the fence as if the entire camp had gathered merely to inconvenience his afternoon. His Hawaiian shirt was bright enough to commit several crimes against taste itself, his Diet Coke had reappeared in one hand, and the look he gave the arena suggested he was deciding whether the spectacle amused him enough to delay whatever punishment he had been considering.

His gaze drifted across the fallen Ares campers, at Clarisse who stood angrily at their head, at Thalia who remained standing proudly in the centre of the arena.

"Out." he stated simply.

He didn't shout; a man like him didn't need to.

The two Ares boys still sitting in the sand scrambled to their feet, clearly eager to get out of there. Thalia stayed where she was for half a heartbeat longer, stubbornness written clearly across her face, before Luke caught her eye and gave the smallest shake of his head. She huffed, spun her spear once and walked towards the edge of the ring, glaring at the god who was technically her half-brother the entire way.

Dionysus ignored her completely as his attention shifted to me.

The silence changed. It thickened, turning from the stunned quiet of children caught doing something forbidden into the expectant stillness of an audience that had no idea what was about to happen, but knew with absolute certainty that it was going to be worth watching.

The god pointed lazily towards the churned up sands.

"You're up."

For one long moment, I looked at him, then at the arena, then at Chiron, whose expression suggested he was already composing a deeply apologetic letter to my next of kin... should he find someone he could actually deliver said letter to rather than just yeet it into the literal Void itself, that is.

Despite my misgivings (which were only mounting as I made my way over towards the centre of the arena) there was also an undeniable excitement bubbling up within me, like a skydiver about to make the leap.

After all the blessings I had received this morning (and the one curse...) I was undeniably the strongest I had ever been. Considering my rise in power had seen me go from struggling against a single hellhound to besting a legendary undead bandit king in a brutal wrestling match practically overnight, I couldn't help but ask myself a dangerous question.

'Just how strong am I now... Just how strong will I be tomorrow?'

Only one way to find out.

The churned sand shifted beneath my boots as I crossed the arena, every footstep somehow louder than the last. The crowd had gone so quiet that I could hear the breeze tugging lazily at the banners overhead, along with the distant crash of waves against the shore beyond the camp. Hundreds of eyes followed me across the ring, every single one expecting to watch me get flattened.

Honestly, so did I.

Dionysus ambled into the centre opposite me with all the urgency of a man deciding where to have his next nap, still holding his Diet Coke. He took one last sip, frowned at the empty can as though it had personally disappointed him, then flicked it over his shoulder. It vanished before it hit the ground.

"No weapons," I demanded, trying to mask my nerves, though annoyingly that same restriction meant I wouldn't pull out my [Speed Cola] either.

Dionysus looked genuinely offended.

"Obviously not."

"Thought I'd make sure."

A ripple of nervous laughter passed through the crowd before dying almost immediately. Chiron stepped forwards until he stood just outside the ring.

"This is a spar," he announced, fixing both of us with a look that carried far more authority than his polite voice usually suggested. "Victory will be determined by concession, incapacity..." His gaze lingered on Dionysus. "...or leaving the arena."

The god shrugged.

"Fine."

Then he looked at me, his expression bored, but that worrying, almost purplish gleam had returned to his eyes.

"Whenever you're ready, Mr. Crow."

"It's Creed."

"I don't even remotely care," he shrugged.

He adopted no stance, raised no guard, and simply remained standing there with his hands resting in the pockets of his wine-purple shorts that contrasted loudly against his gaudy Hawaiian shirt.

Somehow, this just made him even more unsettling.

"C'mon Ethan, kick his ass!" Thalia shouted from the sidelines and a scattering of cautious cheers went up from the crowd as Luke moved to stand next to her, shooting me an encouraging nod.

Nice to see he wasn't about to take any bets on my match as he had done with Thalia's (or perhaps there simply weren't any suckers to bet against an Olympian in a duel). Grover looked mortified as Thalia cheered, but nonetheless showed me a thumbs-up… half-hidden behind his beanie, but still, I appreciated the gesture nonetheless. Annabeth didn't cheer, but she took her spot alongside Luke, stormy grey eyes fixed intently on Dionysus and I, her little hands balled into tiny fists.

I took a slow breath, settling into a boxing stance (or my closest approximation of one anyways). [Martial Foresight] stirred somewhere at the edge of my thoughts, quiet but attentive like an honour student perking up when class is in session, while [Effective Activity] seemed to nudge my weight a fraction lower over my feet. Tiny adjustments and yet everything felt more... economical.

The opening signal never came; one moment Dionysus stood there with that same lazy, almost bored posture, and the next he was simply gone, as though the space he'd occupied had decided it no longer needed him. Instinct screamed at me as [Martial Foresight] flashed a prediction across my mind almost before I even understood what I was seeing. A fist. Left side. High.

I moved out of the way- smack! -… as the punch still clipped my jaw.

The impact launched me several yards across the arena before I hit the sand hard enough to plough a shallow trench through it.

"...Ow."

A sympathetic murmur rolled through the spectators as I pushed myself upright, rubbing my jaw. Despite the dull pain radiating outwards throughout my poor skull, I was more confused than angered.

"I saw that coming." I muttered, as if trying to convince myself.

"I know," Dionysus replied simply.

He hadn't moved from where he'd ended up, tilting his head at me.

"Didn't help much, did it?"

Despite the glib tone, he wasn't mocking me, not really. He was simply stating a fact. [Martial Foresight] had shown me exactly what he intended, but Dionysus had simply reached the destination before I could finish acting on the information.

Knowing the train was coming didn't actually make me faster than a speeding bullet.

"Again." I said grimly.

It was as Chiron had said; these blessings of mine could make me the most dangerous hand-to-hand combatant in modern mythology, but only if I was willing to work my butt off (which in this case, meant being willing to have it kicked as well).

This time I advanced first, as quickly as I could while not falling into a desperate charge. [Effective Activity] was already running in the background, making sure to keep my weight balanced and my guard tight, as I watched the god for any hint of movement.

His shoulders shifted just slightly, and in that instant [Martial Foresight] lit up.

Low kick to force down my guard. Backfist to batter through it. Place right elbow into created opening for maximum damage.

I reacted before conscious thought caught up, slipping outside the kick and ducking beneath the backfist exactly as the Skill insisted I should. [Effective Activity] carried my feet into the smallest possible movement to the point I barely seemed to dodge at all. Had I faced Cercyon as I was now, then the ancient King wouldn't have stood a chance.

"Ha-! OOF! Ughhh…" I trailed off as a resounding smack rang out throughout the arena, the breath leaving my lungs in a pained whimper.

The elbow had still crashed into my ribs... from the left side.

'That... that wasn't in the script... How...?'

As I looked up at the god of wine, the answer was clear: Dionysus had read my dodges and simply changed his rhythm halfway through the exchange.

I staggered backwards, coughing.

"That's not… fuckin' fair…" I managed to gasp, air returning to my bruised lungs.

"It isn't. But… this one was … better," the bored-looking Olympian observed, almost reluctantly.

"That didn't feel better."

"It wasn't meant to be."

The next exchange lasted longer.

I slipped two punches, blocked another, and managed to weave beneath a hook that would probably have folded a truck in half. Spurred on by my instincts and my blessings, I unleashed a straightforward punch, [Adamantine Fist] crashing into his shoulder.

It felt like punching polished granite as unseen, [Combo] ticked upwards.

Dionysus glanced at the point of impact.

"...Cute."

His palm landed against my chest.

It wasn't even any great dramatic strike or skill, just a simple shove that sent the world accelerating away from me as I bounced once, then twice, before finally digging my heels into the sand hard enough to stop.

'At least I didn't fall on my ass this time… yay progress…'

I gritted my teeth and rushed in again.

The exchanges became shorter, cleaner. Each time [Martial Foresight] recognised another fragment of Dionysus' habits a heartbeat sooner. [Effective Activity] shaved unnecessary movement from every dodge until I found myself wasting less energy with every pass. He still hit me far more often than I hit him, but the impossible gap separating us no longer felt completely unknowable.

Occasionally my fist brushed his arm, his ribs, his shoulder. It was just glancing contact, barely more than a brush, but it was enough to keep the rhythm going as [Combo] continued to build, steadily and quietly in the background, until Dionysus finally seemed to take notice.

"So that's your trick."

I blinked.

"...What trick?"

"Something about you, one of those blessings… it's making every hit a little heavier than the last."

He smiled lazily.

"Clever, if a bit simple. But insufficient. A hundred times a zero is still a zero." He continued, the smile still on his face, but a cold stare now in his eyes that made me sweat more than the entire fight had so far.

'He thinks he figured it out. Good, let him keep thinking that.'

Because he hadn't. [Combo] multiplied the force of my punches, sure, building quietly with every strike I landed. But there was nothing in the Skill that required me to hit at full power with every strike…

I started holding back. Only a little at first, just enough that each successive blow landed with roughly the same weight as the last, letting the growing multiplier disappear beneath my own restraint.

From the outside, nothing changed. To Dionysus, the fight had plateaued.

On my end however, I could feel the pressure building. Every restrained punch banked more of [Combo]'s potential for later, even as he continued dismantling me.

A knee caught my stomach, a forearm split my guard, and one casual cuff around the side of the head left my ears ringing.

The crowd gasped every time I managed to stay standing as Thalia and Luke loudly (and Grover under his breath) kept cheering me on. I remained on my feet longer and longer now as the exchanges continued, my Skill slowly but surely growing with me as I began understanding the Olympian in front of me with every flurry of blows.

The god noticed too.

"Hm."

His expression sharpened for the first time.

"You learn fast." he murmured reluctantly, almost suspiciously.

"I'm just trying to make a good impression." I managed between panting breaths.

"Don't bother. I'm not easily impressed."

Another exchange followed, then another, the rhythm building until the arena seemed to dissolve into a continuous flow of motion. Sand shifted beneath our feet, footwork adjusting in tight, efficient patterns, predictions flashing through my mind and being corrected in real time, blows landing or glancing away, each hit and near miss blending into the next without pause.

[Combo] climbed quietly in the background like a clock nobody else could hear.

Then, in the midst of it all, something shifted. A mistake, the first one he had made since this beatdown began. It was just the tiniest of openings, there for only a breath of a second as Dionysus committed his weight just a fraction further than necessary as he stepped inside my guard, fully expecting me to react the same way I had during the previous dozen exchanges.

[Martial Foresight] surged through my thoughts, not with the usual scatter of branching possibilities but with a sudden, startling clarity. Everything narrowed down into a single, precise line of action, a fleeting opening that existed for barely a heartbeat before it threatened to vanish again.

[Effective Activity] already had me moving before I could consciously think about it. Instead of retreating, I stepped into his attack as every ounce of restraint vanished.

Instinct fuelled as much by primordial blessings as sheer raw adrenaline, [Adamantine Fist], [One-Star Uniform], everything [Effective Activity] had quietly refined, and the full accumulated weight of [Combo] crashed together behind one punch.

My fist connected squarely with Dionysus' nose, the impact cracking across the arena like a cannon shot as a pressure wave of air radiated out like a shockwave, even throwing back the sands underneath our feet until a perfect circle of barren earth remained.

For the first time all afternoon, the Olympian was halted in his tracks.

Silence swallowed the camp.

Even though this hit was far more powerful than the one that had sent Cercyon back to the underworld in a shower of monster dust, Dionysus remained standing exactly where he was, frozen in position, my knuckles still firmly planted against his face. His head had barely even moved. For a brief moment, he locked eyes with me over the top of my fist, before he took a measured half step back. Slowly, he reached up and touched the flattened ruins of what used to be the bridge of his nose.

His fingertips came away streaked with shimmering golden blood.

For a long uncertain moment, he just stared at it, then slowly lifted his gaze to meet mine. For one impossible second I found myself wondering whether I had actually done it. Had I actually bested an Olympian-?

The Mad God of the Vine let out a bellowing laugh. Not the mocking chuckle he'd used all morning, an actual, genuine laugh, coming from deep within his belly.

That was almost scarier than when he had tried to curse me this morning.

"Good hit."

The words seemed to ripple through the arena with more force than even my megaton-punch, the reaction spreading in a slow, stunned wave as every camper stared in disbelief. Clarisse stood frozen, as though she'd forgotten how breathing worked, and even Chiron's usually composed expression slipped, his eyes widening ever so slightly.

"Did... Did Mr. D really just... give a demigod a compliment?" the centaur asked, stunned.

Before I could process any of it, Dionysus vanished as something caught the back of my jacket. Looking around in a startled panic, I found myself suddenly dangling several feet above the ground. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the God of Wine standing behind me with that same terrifying grin on his face as he held me aloft like a kitten.

"...Oh."

"Yes, oh."

The god's arm (and thus me with it) began to spin, like an hammer thrower at the Olympics warming up for the shot of his career.

"Wait—!"

The world became sky.

I sailed over the arena fence, over three rows of spectators who collectively threw themselves flat, and continued travelling with alarming enthusiasm towards the glittering water beyond the camp.

There was just enough time to think that Long Island Sound looked surprisingly nice this time of year, before I hit the water with enough force to convince every fish in the vicinity that Zeus himself had taken up competitive diving.

The splash rose higher than the arena wall as cold water swallowed me whole.

For a few blissful seconds there was nothing except bubbles and muffled silence until every bruise I'd accumulated over the last five minutes started to hurt at once. My ribs throbbed, my jaw ached, and my shoulders complained loudly enough that I briefly considered staying underwater just out of spite.

Unfortunately, lungs remained terribly old-fashioned about wanting oxygen, so despite my better judgement, I kicked upwards. The moment my head broke the surface, I drew in a long breath and floated on my back for a second, blinking seawater from my eyes.

"...Worth it."

Golden sparks drifted into existence above me.

"Oh, for—"

The familiar scroll unfurled with its usual theatrical flourish, hovering several feet overhead, bobbing over the water's surface as if perfectly buoyant. Fresh lettering spread across its pristine parchment.

[Survival Achievement Recognised]

[Survived a Spar Against an OLYMPIAN]

A second line appeared beneath it.

[Combat Achievement Recognised]

[Wounding of DIONYSUS through Unarmed Strike]

[Additional Recognition Recorded]

[Reward: Silver Skill Drachma ×1]

A silver drachma dropped neatly from the air.

"Oh shit." I lunged for it, windmilling my arms as I splashed awkwardly through the water. I barely caught the coin before it hit the surface and disappeared beneath the waves.

"...You know, if I'd missed that, we'd both have looked very silly." I glared up at the magical connection between me and my primordial heritage.

The scroll offered no opinion, simply hovering above the lapping waves. I kept floating there for another moment, the water gently lifting and lowering me while the aches throughout my body settled into a dull, almost satisfying soreness.

I'd lost decisively. Spectacularly, even. And yet the thought refused to sting as much as it probably should have.

'I forced an Olympian to bleed.'

Granted, the same Olympian had immediately responded by throwing me halfway across Long Island Sound like an unusually mouthy javelin, but details were important only up to a point.

The silver drachma rolled across my fingers.

"...Oh, what the hell." I said with a small grin as I flicked it upwards.

The coin never reached the top of its arc.

Darkness unfolded around it in a perfect circle, the familiar Void accepting the offering with that same strange sense of quiet recognition. A symbol flared briefly above the water, a stylised fish surrounded by branching currents, before dissolving into shimmering light that drifted across the waves.

The parchment updated.

[Marine Biology Mastery]

|Uncommon Skill|

You are a master of marine biology, possessing complete expertise over ocean lifeforms. You can identify species at a glance, predict their behaviour, and understand ecosystems most researchers spend lifetimes studying.

I stared at it for a long moment, before slowly and deliberately looking around as I took in my current surroundings, dogpaddling all the while. I glanced back up at the parchment.

"Ok, now I know you're definitely messing with me. A god launches me into the sea so he can win on a technicality, and your reward is making me better at... recognizing fish."

The parchment remained infuriatingly dignified as it bobbed above the waves.

"Right. Fine." I sighed.

Turning towards the distant shoreline, I started swimming.

The water was surprisingly clear this close to camp. Sunlight filtered through ribbons of Zostera marina swaying lazily beneath the surface, sending a small school of juvenile Brevoortia tyrannus scattering around my legs as I passed.

I blinked for a moment, staring at the small Atlantic Menhaden as the school of fish reformed and continued on its way. I shook my head and kept swimming, weaving around a drifting Aurelia aurita as it pulsed serenely on the current, not bothered in the least by the jellyfish's proximity. The small jellyfish were harmless… unless you're an exceptionally tiny plankton of course. A few more strokes carried me through the shallows before something in the back of my mind finally caught up.

"Brevoortia tyrannus?" I frowned and stopped dead in the water.

I cautiously glanced around this new biome I was suddenly proficient in. A striped fish darted out from the eelgrass and vanished beneath a patch of floating seaweed.

Morone saxatilis. Juvenile, likely feeding on silversides this time of year…

I stared after it.

"...I can't believe there are people who have willingly gone into crippling debt for this knowledge."

The thought lingered for a second, before I sighed and resumed swimming, quietly hoping my internal monologue would stop volunteering scientific names before it decided to classify the seaweed too.

Every patch of algae, shell, fish and crab now arrived accompanied by an effortless catalogue of names, behaviours and ecological relationships, as though an extremely enthusiastic wildlife narrator was living somewhere behind my eyes.

By the time I reached shallower water I'd involuntarily identified six fish species, three kinds of weeds, a horseshoe crab and what appeared to be a perfectly healthy colony of blue mussels.

I stopped on the wet sand and looked back over the water, hands on my hips as I blew wet hair from my eyes.

"...I have been truly dunked on… literally."

---

Back on shore, Dionysus dusted his hands together.

"Out of bounds." He explained simply as he glanced towards the stunned Chiron.

A pair of sunglasses materialized on his face as a new can of Diet Coke suddenly appeared in one hand.

"I win."

Without another glance towards the lake, he wandered away through the utterly speechless crowd, humming contentedly to himself as though beating the stuffing out of a recently arrived demigod had merely been a pleasant way to pass the afternoon. To him, it probably was.

 

[Wonderbread16]

Thank you for the chapter, that was a great fight, I could follow it along well

 

[Zeldomnyo]

Maybe it's just me but honestly I would have made that a gold. Managing to wound an Olympian in a bare knuckle brawl is impressive as hell. And I think he even gained a little bit of his respect out of that.

 

[Mechaman69]

I wonder how powerful Percy would be in this universe compared to canon? He was early on able to fight Ares who would likely be as powerful if not more so than Dionysus even if both are limited by the Mortal bodies they took on. By the looks of things you're making God's actually be powerful here which is cool, keeps the characters from easily soloing gods too early. But that likely means Percy would be really powerful considering he can match if not beat Ares who was aiming to kill him. Can't wait to see that.

 

[ShadowSaiyan666]

Small Continuity issue. In Chapter Six, while talking about how great Ethan will be as an unarmed combatant, Chiron says this:

Each counter attack made all the more devastating by your Adamantine Fists and as the battle goes on, Combo will make each punch land ever harder than the one before.

Click to shrink...

Then, during the fight with Dionysus in Chapter 7, he says he figured out the "trick":

it's making every hit a little heavier than the last.

Click to shrink...

So...did Ethan explain his past rolls to them, or did he not? Because even if he only explained it to Chiron, Dionysus was there when Chiron mentioned Combo in Chapter 6, so there shouldn't be a need to "figure out his trick".

 

[Bakkughan]

Small Continuity issue. In Chapter Six, while talking about how great Ethan will be as an unarmed combatant, Chiron says this:

Then, during the fight with Dionysus in Chapter 7, he says he figured out the "trick":

So...did Ethan explain his past rolls to them, or did he not? Because even if he only explained it to Chiron, Dionysus was there when Chiron mentioned Combo in Chapter 6, so there shouldn't be a need to "figure out his trick".

Click to shrink...

So good catch on the continuity error. The snag is not actually in the fight, the problem is that Chiron shouldn't know what Combo is. Combo wasn't with the rolls Ethan got after waking up in Camp Half-Blood, so this is the first time that Dionysus sees it in action. So that part works and stays, but maybe I'll have to edit Chiron's confusion.

Or I can fudge everything a bit and say that Thalia and Luke gave Chiron a super-brief rundown as they rushed to save Ethan, but didn't tell Dionysus. So Chiron puts things together in the hospital and Dionysus figures out the ability more in-person during the fight

 

[ShadowSaiyan666]

So good catch on the continuity error. The snag is not actually in the fight, the problem is that Chiron shouldn't know what Combo is. Combo wasn't with the rolls Ethan got after waking up in Camp Half-Blood, so this is the first time that Dionysus sees it in action. So that part works and stays, but maybe I'll have to edit Chiron's confusion.

Or I can fudge everything a bit and say that Thalia and Luke gave Chiron a super-brief rundown as they rushed to save Ethan, but didn't tell Dionysus. So Chiron puts things together in the hospital and Dionysus figures out the ability more in-person during the fight

Click to shrink...

I did figure the issue was more with Chiron knowing than with Dionysus not knowing. But I could've been wrong, so left it open-ended as to which part of it was wrong.

 

[Bakkughan]

Chapter 8​

---

By the time I finally reached the beach, Camp Half-Blood had already started drifting back towards something resembling normality. Or, well, a demigod's idea of normal, at least.

Swords clashed in the distance while the forge rang with steady, rhythmic hammer blows, and somewhere further up the hill someone was loudly accusing another camper of stealing their shield-polish.

Business as usual.

My new [Hawk Eyes] easily picked out Luke already waiting near the shoreline with Annabeth and Thalia, Grover likely off on some satyr-business. The three of them had evidently been watching the water for a while, because the moment I dragged myself out of Long Island Sound, dripping wet and smelling faintly of salt, Luke let out an exasperated breath.

"Well, you sure took your time." he said with a grin.

"You do realize I had to swim all the way back here, right?"

"Really? I never would've guessed. Explains the seaweed wig at least." the son of Hermes pointed at the top of my head with an amused glint in his eye.

"I considered walking on top of it, but alas... need a different divine parent for that." I responded with a shrug, pulling off the various strands of Ulva lactuca that still stubbornly clung to my soaked clothes.

Thalia snorted and Luke shook his head before reaching up to pat my arm, though he quickly reconsidered as he looked from his palm to my slick trenchcoat with a mildly disgusted look.

"Glad to see you haven't lost all your senses after getting into a punching match with an Olympian. Please, do us all a favour and let us know before you plan on pulling another stunt like that, alright?"

"Thanks kid, I appreciate the concern-"

"How else am I supposed to set up the match-fixing? Give a guy a little warning next time huh?"

"… and there it is." I sighed as I lightly shoved the grinning son of Hermes.

"No jokes, it's good to see you're alright Ethan. When Mr. D just grabbed you like that we got real worried." Annabeth piped up and both Luke and Thalia nodded.

"Yeah, I'll give you that much at least, that was one hell of a match. For real though, let us know next time you plan on doing something insane, ok? If we can't talk you out of it, we can at least have your back. In the meantime, I've got to run."

"You've got somewhere to be?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, still settling in at Hermes Cabin." Luke explained as his expression shifted from amusement to mild resignation.

"You've seen how many people are crammed in there? Don't get me wrong, I didn't think I would love having siblings as much as I do... but sometimes, it feels less like a cabin and more like somebody tried solving a housing crisis with nothing but bunk beds."

"That bad huh? Those cabins looked pretty big though when I walked past 'em this morning?"

"The unclaimed kids stay with us," Luke explained. "Along with the claimed children of the minor gods."

"...That sounds crowded."

"It is."

He sighed.

"The younger ones still don't know where anything is, the older ones keep arguing over bunks and one of the claimed kids from Iris keeps trying to reorganise everybody's stuff by colour."

"You know it's not your responsibility to fix the entire Cabin's issues, right? You've only arrived this week yourself." I cautioned with a small frown.

"I know, it's just... it feels nice. To feel needed, I mean. Being able to help them." Luke said with surprising maturity.

He rubbed the back of his neck before offering us all a crooked smile.

"I'll catch you later."

With that, he headed up the hill towards Cabin Eleven, already calling out greetings before he'd even reached the porch as we watched him disappear into the organised chaos. For some reason, the part of my memory that was nothing but shifting fog, a gaping hole in my mind, watched the kid go and felt… sad.

"How come Hermes' cabin is the only one that gets filled with... y'know, non-Hermes kids?" I asked.

"Chiron explained this yesterday when he gave us a tour. You were still knocked out." Annabeth stated.

"Hermes is the patron of travellers, merchants, thieves and people who generally don't have anywhere better to be. When the cabins for the Twelve Olympians were built, every kid that wasn't theirs, or wasn't claimed by them had nowhere to stay. So Hermes declared his Cabin open to them too. Nice guy, Luke's dad, it's just… not so nice for Luke and his siblings is all." Thalia continued with a shrug.

Giving sanctuary to the children nobody else had made room for... It was one of the more decent things I'd seen a god do so far (though considering my interactions with the Olympians mostly consisted of surviving Hades' hit squad and breaking Dionysus' nose, that wasn't saying much). On the other hand, it also highlighted just how unfair the rest of the arrangement was.

"Kids don't get claimed?" I asked and I could feel heat creeping into my voice.

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"It just means... they come here, are definitely a demigod there's just... no sigil, like you get when you offer your drachmas. There's just nothing. They don't receive gifts, messages, nothing. Sometimes they have enough power to sort of make an educated guess, but without the god's direct approval, that's still no guarantee."

"Why would a god do that? That's... that's literally abandonment!" I said angrily.

Thalia shrugged, but the frustration was plain to see on her freckled face.

"They say that getting a god's approval must be earned. Just being born isn't exactly an achievement in itself after all."

'Judging by what the scroll said when I just woke up, Kaos would beg to differ...'

"In most cases, unclaimed kids either throw themselves at a Quest hoping their godly parent finally notices them, or they get themselves killed trying. Some just... stop. If they make it to eighteen, they bail and go live like normal mortals. After that, monsters stop caring as much, your scent fades, and whatever powers you had kinda fade out too. It's not exactly a happy ending, but beats getting eaten alive by monsters at least. It's why there's no old campers. Well, except for you now, I guess."

"What, going on Quests for... approval? All to 'catch their eye'? As if gods don't fucking know how many kids they fucking got running around all the time? This is... this is indefensible, no child should earn their parents' basic fucking acknowledgment!"

I would hardly call Kaos an active parent considering he (it?) is a primordial void predating existence itself, but I could definitely feel our connection whenever I summoned its power through the offered drachma. His very essence ran through my veins and the same was true for regular demigods I reckoned. The idea that a god would claim they 'forgot' their kid, a literal physical part of themselves, until they were noteworthy enough was an excuse so weak it would've been laughable if it wasn't destroying children's lives.

Every child they'd ever sired existed within an awareness so vast it bordered on omnipresence. The gods might not know what their children had eaten for breakfast or whether they'd scraped a knee climbing a tree, but they always knew they existed.

Every single one.

This went beyond mere negligence and into the realm of outright maliciousness.

Just like when I had first heard Thalia's backstory back in the metro, an almost visceral reaction of stubborn frustration ran through me on a disturbingly deep level and once again I wondered if this was my divine half influencing me somehow. Was this why Kaos had awoken me on that park bench, to somehow deal with this... injustice? Throw in some Chaos to tip the scales of the status quo? My biggest reward so far was a platinum for saving Thalia's life and thus altering Fate itself after all...

There was a beat of silence on the beach as I allowed my anger to cool off to a simmer, before glancing back at the cabins arrayed at the centre of the camp.

"How come the minor gods didn't get cabins of their own though? Just getting those out of Hermes Cabin would lift some of the pressure of Luke and the others."

Annabeth shrugged.

"They don't have enough children."

"They don't need individual cabins then. Just build one for all of them, kinda like the Big House." I gestured vaguely towards the camp.

"No can do. Dad would feel threatened." Thalia said with a dismissive snort and a roll of her electric blue eyes.

"Why?"

The two girls exchanged a look.

"...You really don't know much about Greek history, do you?" Annabeth asked.

"I woke up less than a week ago."

"...Fair enough."

She sat down on a driftwood log, drawing a branching line through the sand with the heel of her shoe.

"Alright. Way back at the beginning, from Nothing there came the starry sky, Ouranos." Annabeth began in a story-telling voice as if reciting something from memory, before she paused and glanced at me.

"Technically... that makes him your half-brother."

"...Wait, what?" I blinked as I glanced upwards at the sunny skies above.

She shrugged, like she was pointing out something obvious.

"Primordial family trees are messy."

I rubbed my face as I couldn't help but agree.

"Calling that a 'tree' is a bit generous. Too few limbs. A 'shrub' would be more accurate." Thalia interjected, clearly enjoying herself at my expense as Annabeth ignored her and continued.

"Ouranos ruled everything until his son Kronos cut him down and took over."

"Gramps cut down a real important part of him too." Thalia said with a snort.

When Annabeth and I glanced her way, she grinned sharply and made a 'snip-snip' motion that saw me clench my legs in sympathy.

"Damn... condolences brother." I said to… the actual fucking sky.

'What even is my life…?'

"Then Kronos started eating his own children because he was terrified one of them would overthrow him the same way." Annabeth boldly moved on, choosing to ignore the daughter of Zeus.

"Which, in hindsight, wasn't an unreasonable concern." Thalia shrugged.

"It wasn't." Annabeth nodded. "Because Zeus did overthrow him."

"Dad didn't stick to just cutting off a part either. Kronos got chopped into a million pieces and thrown into Tartarus, which is like the Underworld's haunted basement."

"And now Zeus is king." I concluded.

"Exactly." Annabeth nodded.

She tossed a pebble into the surf.

"The thing is..." She hesitated, searching for the right words. "Olympus wasn't... inherited. It was taken."

I stayed quiet.

"They've spent thousands of years fighting Titans, Giants, monsters..." She shrugged. "Even each other sometimes. That's just... what gods do."

"Dad trusts about three people." Thalia folded her arms.

"And one of them's himself," she added dryly.

Annabeth didn't disagree.

"Think about it. Zeus has lots of enemies, right?" she continued. "So what if he lets all their children stay here together? And they could just make more."

"More what?"

"Children." Annabeth looked at me like intentionally churning out babies was obvious somehow. "If a god wanted more people on their side, they could keep having demigods and sending them here. One or two doesn't matter, but what if there are twenty? Or fifty? Then one of their parents gets angry at Zeus and suddenly they already have an army inside camp."

"An army of children?"

Annabeth frowned at me.

"They wouldn't stay children forever." the small girl said grimly.

I let out a slow breath.

"...That's actually a pretty sensible way of stopping someone from literally breeding their own army I guess." I reluctantly conceded.

"Beats Gramps' idea of straight up eating kids at least." Thalia shrugged.

Annabeth nodded once.

"It's easier to have everyone take shelter in Hermes Cabin."

I scratched the back of my neck.

"...Still bullshit."

Thalia barked out a laugh and Annabeth's lips twitched.

"I had a feeling you'd say that."

"It can be strategically sound and still be morally bankrupt." I defended myself.

"...Those two things show up a lot in Greek mythology," Annabeth replied, before she glanced up at me with narrowed eyes.

"Speaking of bullshit..."

It took me a moment to catch her meaning before I remembered the other piece of divine bullshit hanging over my head.

"You mean my Curse?"

Thalia blinked.

"Excuse me. The what?"

Annabeth looked at me.

"You didn't tell her?"

"I've been a little busy getting thrown into the Atlantic if you hadn't noticed."

"Long Island Sound, actually." she corrected automatically with a roll of her eyes, before turning back to Thalia.

"The Scroll cursed Ethan."

"What?! I thought it was supposed to help you!? Give you gifts from your divine parent?" Thalia exclaimed, looking around as if she could catch the piece of parchment in the act.

"It is and it does. This curse was courtesy of our new Camp Director, the scroll just... interfered. Translated, almost." I tried to calm her down.

Thalia's expression tightened.

"Damn, from what I've heard my half-brother is crazy good with curses. How bad is it?"

"... I can't read."

Silence.

"You..." Thalia stared.

"I can't read."

"...At all?"

I shook my head.

"The alphabet currently looks like angry squiggles trying to strangle each other. Only exception is the scroll itself, the rest is a lost cause at this point."

She bit her lip as a snort escaped her.

"... oh no, that's.... that's h-horrible... I'm so sa-hahaHAHAHA!"

Within seconds she was doubled over, laughing so hard she had to brace herself against a driftwood log.

"Oh, gods..." she wheezed. "First day at camp... You get cursed... And it turns you into an analphabetic."

She dissolved into laughter again as Annabeth and I waited patiently. Eventually she managed to straighten up, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't sound sorry."

"I'm a little sorry."

"There are worse curses," Annabeth admitted. "A lot worse."

"I know." I said with a sigh.

Myths were filled with unfortunates doomed to an eternity of pushing boulders uphill both ways or having their liver torn out on the daily, so in the grand scheme of Greek curses, temporary illiteracy barely cracked the top hundred.

"It'll be fine," Annabeth said. "I was going to help him relearn anyway."

"You?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

I didn't doubt her smarts, not after her role in the fight against the cyclops, but it did sting somewhat to get reading lessons from someone fifteen years younger than me.

"And some others at the Athena cabin." Annabeth admitted.

Something flickered across Thalia's face, gone almost as soon as it appeared, but not before I caught it. It was the uncomfortable realization that Luke and Annabeth now had siblings, an entire cabin filled with others like them, while she stood alone. Her gaze drifted up toward Cabin One, standing the apex of the horseshoe the cabins formed.

"I'm guessing that invitation doesn't extend to me." the daughter of Zeus said somewhat morosely.

"I could ask," Annabeth offered but Thalia shook her head.

"Thanks, that's sweet, but I don't think my half-sister would appreciate me trespassing on her digs, even if it was to check in on my favourite niece." she said with a comforting smile towards Annabeth.

"...Probably not." the little girl conceded.

There was an awkward pause. The demigods of Camp Half-Blood were obviously all somehow related to each other, all of them distant cousins, nephews and nieces generations removed. But for Thalia it was different. To about half of the cabins here, she wasn't just another cousin, but their aunt, a sibling to their divine parent.

A step up on the family tree and that created... distance.

'And that's not even getting into my own gynaecological shrubbery...'

Thalia took one last look towards Cabin One before squaring her shoulders.

"Actually..." She grinned. "I've got an entire cabin to myself. I'm hanging a hammock somewhere completely impractical and putting up posters on everything that's vertical, the worse the better. Nobody's gonna complain anyways and if Zeus doesn't like it..." She tipped her head back to look at the sky. "...he can come down here and complain in person."

There was a faint rumbling in the sky, but it was far off, distant. More acknowledgment than threat.

'I've never heard thunder that sounded… distracted? What's going on over there?'

"You go do that," I said, nodding. "If you need a wall knocked down, give me a shout."

"Will do." Thalia said with a challenging grin and with that she turned and strode towards the Zeus cabin with renewed purpose.

Annabeth watched her go for a moment before looking back at me.

"So. Ready to relearn the alphabet?"

I sighed.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"You should." Annabeth said as she started walking and I fell into step beside her.

Behind us, somewhere up on the hill, I heard Thalia loudly announce to an empty cabin that the Decorating Time had officially begun. It sounded more like a battle cry.

The trip from the beach to the collection of cabins further down the central field was a fairly short one, though it was marked by gawking demigods that watched us go from a healthy distance. The Athena cabin was understated, built from grey stone with clean, practical lines and no unnecessary flourishes, save for decorative owls spread throughout. It looked solid and purposeful, like it had been designed to be used rather than admired.

Annabeth caught me looking.

"What?"

"...It's a nice cabin. Very... austere." I tried diplomatically.

"I know." the girl said with a grin.

"You sound very proud of something you moved in just two days ago."

She shrugged.

"It's home now."

She pushed open the door, and the smell hit me first, a mix of old paper, ink, and fresh wood. It felt less like a cabin and more like the sort of library where even whispering felt like a crime.

Several heads turned.

A handful of Athena campers looked up from books, maps and an elaborate board game spread across one of the tables, 'Campaign for North Afrika' stamped boldly (almost threateningly) on the box.

"Annabeth?" One of the older boys blinked.

"I need help."

Every pair of eyes immediately shifted to me.

"...With him?" another camper asked.

Annabeth nodded once.

"Ethan got cursed this morning. Now he can barely read properly."

"… uhm, Annabeth? We're demigods. All of us got dyslexia, nobody can read 'properly'.

"Sure, but the Curse completely made him forget how to read. He doesn't even know the alphabet anymore."

There was a beat of silence before every Athena kid in the room slowly closed whatever they were reading. For some reason, a very familiar feeling settled in my stomach, like when I had volunteered for a punching match with an ornery Olympian this morning. Those kids looked far too... hungry all of a sudden.

"H-hey now kids... let's be reasonable about this, shall we? ... guys?"

Three hours later, I'd developed a personal hatred for the Ancient Greeks. Twenty-four letters was simply too many letters for any language to reasonably need, and I was beginning to suspect they'd done it specifically to fuck with me.

"...This," Annabeth said for what had to be the fiftieth time that afternoon, tapping the page with enough force to leave a dent in it, "is A."

I nodded.

"Good."

She moved her finger to the next symbol.

"And this?"

"...Also A?"

Her eye twitched.

"No."

"... Are you sure-"

"Ethan."

My jaw clicked shut as I frowned at the page. They were just... squiggles.

Not even interesting squiggles. Just tiny black marks sitting there with all the personality of dead ants.

I knew they were supposed to mean something. I could practically feel my brain trying to make the connection, like reaching for a word that sat stubbornly on the tip of your tongue. Every now and then I'd think I'd caught hold of it before a veil was forcibly drawn over it, like someone throwing shut the drapes to keep out nosey neighbours.

Overall, the process could be described like trying to nail jelly to a tree.

Across from me, one of the Athena kids quietly slid another stack of flash cards onto the growing pile. There were more flash cards than I'd ever seen in one place.

Someone had colour-coded them.

Someone else had made little drawings.

One particularly optimistic soul had written encouraging comments on the back.

You've got this!

I did not, in fact, have this.

"Alright." Annabeth inhaled slowly through her nose. "We're changing tactics."

"We had tactics?"

"We've had three."

"...Oh."

She snatched the cards back, arranged three of them in front of me, then pointed decisively.

"Which one's A?"

I stared.

The one on the left looked vaguely annoyed.

The middle one seemed smug.

The one on the right had an unsettling air of superiority.

"...The angry one."

"There isn't an angry one!"

One of her siblings quietly buried his face in his hands. Another looked thoughtfully at the cards.

"...I can sort of see what he means."

'Bless your heart little one, you've just been promoted to my favourite great-great-grandnephew!' I thought with tears in my eyes, but my tutor was having none of it as Annabeth whipped around.

"You are not helping." she bit out.

"I'm just saying the middle one does look a little pleased with itself."

"The middle one is just a Q!"

"Exactly. It looks like it thinks it's better than the others."

"Well, it is most often used by the French..." another demigod piped up as she rubbed her chin, getting considering hums from her siblings.

"Ha! Tough talk, you know it would be nowhere without U always there to support it!" another challenged.

"Don't you dare ignore the humble A! It's always been there for Q as well, backing up U! It's a lingua trifecta!"

"Oh puh-lease, it's playing second fiddle and you know it!"

"QuAlifications! QuArantine!"

The first demigod drew herself up taller, a challenging gleam in her eye as she unleashed her ultimate weapon.

"Queue!"

The discussion somehow continued for another ten minutes. By the end of it, there were over half a dozen Athena campers involved.

Somebody produced a chalkboard.

Somebody else suggested starting with phonetics.

One camper disappeared into the cabin and returned carrying three different books, a length of string, and what looked suspiciously like a compass used for naval navigation.

I still couldn't read.

Somewhere around then, the 'lesson' turned into a competition to see who could finally get the alphabet through my skull, physically if need be in the case of some of the more… enthusiastic kids.

It went about as well as expected.

Eventually, the sun began dipping towards the trees and the lesson dissolved into complete surrender. Books lay scattered across the grass as flash cards drifted lazily in the breeze and the chalkboard had been left abandoned halfway through writing what I assumed was a revolutionary new teaching method.

It ended with three question marks and what was either a raincloud or a lava pit.

I was lying flat on my back staring up at the sky while Annabeth was sprawled beside me, breathing hard enough you'd think we'd just finished wrestling a hydra. Around us, the rest of Athena Cabin looked less like the smartest children in America and more like the aftermath of a failed military campaign.

For a long moment, nobody spoke.

Then Annabeth turned her head a fraction.

"So..." she panted. "...you get it now?"

I let the silence stretch out for a moment, closing one eye as I considered it with all the seriousness the question deserved, until a slow, satisfied smirk finally spread across my face.

"...Not a fucking thing."

One camper groaned into the grass. Another quietly rolled onto his side and stared at the sky with the hollow expression of someone reconsidering every life choice that had led them to this exact moment.

Annabeth let out one long, defeated sigh.

"I hate your curse."

"Join the club."

She snorted despite herself.

"You know we're doing this again tomorrow, right? We'll get it then."

"You sound pretty confident for someone who just roped her entire cabin in wasting a whole day on trying to reinvent teaching a twenty year old their ABC's." I raised an eyebrow.

"Today was not a complete loss: I've eliminated six teaching methods so far."

"Only six?"

She pointed a finger at me without opening her eyes.

"I have dozens left."

I considered arguing, before I looked at the sea of abandoned flash cards surrounding us.

"...Gods help me."

"They won't," Annabeth muttered. "They're dyslexic too."

A conch shell sounded across camp before I could ask whether dyslexia counted as divine solidarity or incompetence.

Around us, the dead and dying of Athena Cabin stirred.

"Dinner," one of them croaked.

Another camper lifted her face out of the grass.

"Food..."

The word passed through the assembled children like a call to arms. Within seconds, the same group that had spent the afternoon attempting to breach my curse with flash cards and increasingly deranged applications of geometry had gathered their books, rescued their stationery from the lawn and begun limping towards the dining pavilion.

I pushed myself upright with a groan. My body had recovered remarkably well from being hurled into Long Island Sound (the lingering effects of being pumped full of ambrosia if my [Novice Medicine Skill] was right), but three hours of sitting hunched over an alphabet book had apparently targeted muscles even Dionysus hadn't managed to injure.

Annabeth got to her feet beside me, brushing grass from her clothes.

"Let's go get something to eat. You'll like it: the goblets are enchanted, so they never run out and are activated on voice command to fill with whatever drink you like. Just remember: no alcohol."

I groaned mournfully.

"You realize I'm the adult here, right?"

"So is Mr. D, but the ban is Camp-wide I'm afraid." Annabeth said with a smile before she turned to follow her siblings, with me trudging along behind her.

The dining pavilion stood on a hill that overlooked the sea, surrounded by white columns, its sides left open to the evening air. Long tables covered in white cloth filled the interior, each marked with the symbol of one of the Olympians, while braziers burned between them despite the warmth.

The campers filed in with a level of order I hadn't expected from people who spent most of their afternoons hitting one another with swords. There was still plenty of shoving, shouting and attempted theft of bread rolls, but everyone knew where they were going.

The children of Ares gathered at the table marked by a boar's head. Apollo's crowded beneath a golden sun. Aphrodite's table filled with campers who somehow looked freshly clean despite having spent the same day outdoors as everyone else.

Athena's children peeled away from Annabeth one after another, already arguing over which of their failed methods had shown the most promise.

Hermes' table was by far the busiest. Luke sat among his newly discovered siblings, surrounded by campers whose parents either hadn't claimed them or didn't possess enough influence to earn their own piece of furniture. Children of minor gods sat shoulder to shoulder with the unclaimed, squeezing along the benches wherever they could find space.

By stark contrast, the Artemis, Hera and Poseidon table were completely empty. Hades didn't even have one (though thanks to the Oath, he didn't really need one either).

And then there was Zeus' table.

It had enough room for a dozen people, perhaps more, but only one plate had been set upon it. Thalia occupied the centre of the bench with her shoulders straight and chin raised, attacking a piece of bread like it had personally insulted her.

Nobody sat near her. In a camp full of her relatives, fellow demigods and raucous satyrs, Thalia Grace sat truly alone.

Campers glanced over occasionally, though their eyes never lingered. Some looked curious. Others wary. A few seemed openly resentful, which made sense when half the pavilion had apparently spent years waiting for the smallest acknowledgment from their divine parent while Zeus' newly arrived daughter had received a private cabin and an entire table just to herself.

Thalia seemed determined to pretend she hadn't noticed.

She was doing a poor job.

"Where do I sit?" I asked.

Annabeth, who had been heading towards Athena's table, stopped.

"I don't know. There isn't a table for Kaos. I don't think anyone thought we'd ever need one."

"Considering my siblings are the literal earth and sky, I can see how that would make for a difficult seating arrangement." I responded dryly.

"You could probably sit with Luke at the Hermes table," she said. "That's where everyone without a cabin goes."

I looked towards Cabin Eleven's table. There were already enough bodies crammed around it to qualify as a fire hazard.

My gaze drifted back to Thalia, who still sat alone. More than anything, she looked… lonely.

The Camp had gone to extraordinary lengths to arrange every child according to their parentage. It was efficient, traditional and apparently important enough that nobody had questioned leaving a twelve-year-old girl by herself in the middle of a crowded pavilion.

I picked up a plate and goblet from a nearby serving table.

"Ethan," Annabeth warned quietly.

"What?"

"You're supposed to sit at your parent's table."

"I'll be sure to use the Kaos one the moment somebody builds it."

Before she could object, I crossed the pavilion and dropped onto the bench opposite Thalia.

Almost immediately, the whole area fell completely silent, not even the clattering of cutlery on plate ringing out as the assembled demigods, satyrs and nymphs sucked in a collective breath. Thalia froze halfway through tearing off another piece of bread, her eyes wide as her face blanched in shock.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, half-choking on her food.

"Having dinner." I responded glibly, before peering down into my cup, clearing my throat.

"Non-alcoholic beer. Uhm, please?" I hesitated, and it almost seemed as if the cup had to think it through before glorious golden liquid finally began filling my cup.

'Be strong, Ethan... no tears, not now...'

Half a dozen tables away, seated beside nervous looking nymphs and satyrs, Dionysus suddenly jumped up, shouting "Genius! Utterly genius! How did I not think of that?!"

He raised up his own cup to the sky with a manic gleam in his eye and a grin on his bearded face.

"Non-alcoholic Cabernet Sauvignon, now!" he declared grandly.

For half a second, nothing happened before...

"Ahw..."

... the cup straight up melted in his hands. Looking more grief-stricken than a widow at a funeral, Dionysus slowly sank back down in his seat again, not even appearing to notice as some of the braver satyrs hesitantly petted his shoulders.

Thalia's mouth twitched before she glanced around the pavilion. People were still staring at us. Worryingly, some of them glanced cautiously from us to the sky above.

"You know this is Zeus' table, right?" Thalia said warningly.

"Hard to miss. There's an eagle carved into everything."

"You're not supposed to sit here."

"Neither are you, judging by the amount of company you're allowed to have here."

Thalia's expression tightened.

I picked up my cup and took a cautious sip.

'Not as good as the real thing of course, but hey, compared to how it backfired for Dionysus, you won't hear me complaining.'

"Besides," I said, waving a hand dismissively. "If one of the gods has a problem with me making sure a twelve-year-old isn't eating by herself, they know where to find me. We'll have another match in the arena."

Thalia looked at me for a long moment.

"...You're impossible."

"I've been called worse."

"By whom?"

"Dionysus, mostly, before he threw me out of said arena."

Thalia stared at me for several seconds before laughter escaped her, abrupt and unwilling. The tension in her shoulders loosened.

"You are going to get struck by lightning."

"Probably. At least I'll die fed."

A plate landed beside mine.

Annabeth climbed onto the bench with the careful dignity of someone breaking the rules entirely on principle. Thalia blinked at her.

"You too?"

Annabeth folded her arms.

"Ethan still can't read. He needs supervision."

"I feel like I keep having to repeat this, but the two of you are aware that I'm the only adult in the room, right? Dionysus doesn't count, he's still crying over his melted cup."

Annabeth pointed her fork at both of us.

"This discussion is over."

The pavilion's whispering intensified.

At Athena's table, several of Annabeth's siblings watched her with expressions ranging from surprised concern to reluctant approval. One of them raised his cup towards her. Annabeth pretended not to notice, though she sat a little straighter.

Across the pavilion, Luke had gone very still.

He glanced between us and the overcrowded Hermes table before lowering his eyes to his plate with a conflicted expression on his face. One of his brothers said something to him. After a long moment, Luke replied quietly, stood and made his way over.

He sat beside Thalia without asking, before glancing around.

"Hey, this seat taken?" he asked rhetorically with a lopsided smirk and Thalia smiled down at her food.

Grover took considerably longer to join us.

He stood near the satyrs' section clutching a plate loaded mostly with salad, staring at us as though we were inviting him to picnic inside an active volcano. His gaze moved from Thalia to the eagle carved into the table, then climbed nervously towards the sky.

The poor satyr was obviously torn, so I decided to help him out as I raised a hand.

"Grover!"

The satyr flinched so hard that several leaves flew off his plate. Every head in the pavilion turned towards him and he gave me a betrayed look.

"C'mere. Saved you a seat." I said with a grin.

His eyes widened as he shook his head quickly, but I simply patted the empty space beside me. Grover looked to Chiron for rescue. The centaur stood near the head of the pavilion, watching the developing situation with an expression of profound exhaustion. After a moment, he gave the smallest possible nod.

Grover swallowed, and with the slow and deliberate steps of a man approaching his own execution, he crossed the pavilion and lowered himself beside me.

"I want it known," he whispered, "that I think this is a terrible idea."

"Your objection has been noted and recorded." I reassured him.

"By who?"

"Somebody else, I suppose. Not me, I still can't write."

Annabeth groaned.

For a few minutes, things almost became normal.

Food travelled around the table. Luke complained that someone in the Hermes cabin had started stealing everyone's socks. Annabeth suggested assigning everyone their own sock drawer, only to be reminded that Hermes cabin barely had enough drawers for clothes to begin with. Thalia outlined a plan to rig lightning rods along Cabin One's roof so she could "borrow" storms on demand and Luke immediately began brainstorming on how to market it as a light(ning) show to the rest of the Camp.

Grover remained tense enough to crack walnuts between his shoulders, but gradually began eating.

The stares continued as it appeared immediate divine retribution was off the table for now, so I ignored them.

There were traditions worth respecting. There were traditions worth questioning. Then there were traditions that existed purely because everyone was too frightened of the people who'd invented them to admit they were stupid.

I reached for another bread roll and every brazier in the pavilion erupted.

Flames roared upwards in pillars of white and gold, blasting heat across the tables. Plates rattled against the tabletops. Campers cried out and scrambled away as thunder cracked directly overhead hard enough to shake dust loose from the columns surrounding the pavilion.

Grover made a noise somewhere between a bleat and a prayer before disappearing beneath the table.

"I knew it! I knew it! My deepest apologies oh great Lord Zeus, I was peer-pressured!"

Annabeth gripped the edge of the table, grey eyes wide as the clear evening sky vanished beneath a wall of black storm clouds. Thalia shot to her feet as beside her, Luke's hand moved towards his sword.

'Spoke too soon, I guess.'

I'd challenged a god, insulted several others and ignored a sacred seating arrangement within my first day at camp.

Apparently somebody had finally decided to send me the bill.

The central fire twisted in upon itself, the flames gathering into something almost resembling a face. It possessed no stable features, only the suggestion of eyes and a mouth formed from burning light.

When it spoke, the sound came from every brazier at once.

"ETHAN CREED".

The force of my name pressed against the pavilion. Every camper shrunk back in their seat as I slowly lowered the bread roll.

"Present."

The fire surged and thunder rolled across the valley in answer.

"YOU ARE SUMMONED BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF OLYMPOS."

My stomach sank.

'Perhaps Thalia was right about the lightning.'

Behind the head table, Chiron bowed his head. Even Dionysus had set aside his goblet, the usual boredom stripped from his face.

"Listen, I get that you've done things a certain way a long time now, but I just think every demigod has the unalienable right to sit with their friends at dinner, alright."

"For a moment, the flames flickered, almost uncertain.

"... WHAT?"

"Just to be clear, this is about the seating arrangement, right?"

"SEATING ARRANG- ARE YOU TESTING ME, CHILD? WE HAVE GRAVER MATTERS TO ATTEND TO. THE MOIRAI HAVE LAID A CHARGE AGAINST YOU."

Conversation died around us. Campers who had merely looked frightened went deathly pale. Annabeth drew in a sharp breath beside me. Thalia's expression hardened, while Luke looked towards me as though hoping I might explain why the literal Fates had filed a complaint about me.

I had nothing. Sure, the scroll had rewarded me with a platinum coin for upsetting their plans, but it didn't tell me what those plans actually were save for that they apparently relied on Thalia not reaching Camp alive and that was something I would oppose no matter who's strategy it was.

Again that indignation welled up from deep within me as I slowly rose to my full height, facing down the flames with steel in my gaze.

"Am I allowed to know what I'm accused of?"

The flames snapped violently.

"YOU WILL HEAR THE CHARGE BEFORE THE COUNCIL."

"So that's a no."

Mr. D closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. The burning face turned towards him for a fraction of a second before returning its attention to me.

"UNDER OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, YOU WOULD BE BROUGHT BEFORE OLYMPOS IMMEDIATELY."

"I'm guessing I'm a special case?" I shot back and the flames flickered in frustration.

They were silent for a moment, as if debating with themselves, before they spoke again.

"... DIONYSUS HAS REPORTED THAT KAOS ITSELF INTERVENED WHEN DIVINE POWER WAS LAST DIRECTED UPON YOU. UNTIL THE NATURE OF THAT INTERFERENCE IS UNDERSTOOD, THE COUNCIL WILL NOT RISK TOUCHING YOU DIRECTLY." It admitted reluctantly.

That was probably wise.

Kaos had translated a god's curse into something survivable, then rewarded me for enduring it. There was no guarantee the next attempt at divine transportation wouldn't deposit me inside a wall, another dimension or somebody's digestive tract.

"YOU WILL PRESENT YOURSELF AT THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING WITHOUT DELAY." the flames continued with authority.

The mouth in the fire widened.

"GET YOUR ASS TO OLYMPOS, ETHAN CREED. NOW."

The flames collapsed.

The storm vanished with them, darkness peeling away from the sky as abruptly as it had appeared. The braziers returned to their normal size. For several seconds, the only sound in the pavilion was Grover breathing hard beneath the table.

I stared at the fire for a long moment. My entire conscious existence had been spent travelling away from New York.

I'd fought through Central Park, escaped monsters in the subway, survived a haunted house, and driven through half of Long Island in a stolen truck, all in pursuit of the distant promise that once we reached Camp Half-Blood, we'd finally be safe.

Now, mere days after arriving, Olympus wanted me to turn around and go straight back.

'There's probably a moral in there somewhere. ... I hate morals.'

Whispers spread through the pavilion as everyone tried to decide whether staring at me was worth the risk. Chiron remained motionless, his expression troubled, while Dionysus watched me with an unreadable look that was somehow worse than his usual contempt.

Luke leaned closer.

"...What did you do?"

"Trust me, I'd love to know."

The stares of the assembled demigods washed over me before my attention settled on the Hephaestus table. Several soot-stained campers were already watching me with intense interest and an idea began to bloom in my mind.

"Hey," I called. "You guys retrieved my truck, right?"

One of the older campers nodded cautiously.

"Yeah?"

I grinned as I clasped my hands.

"How do you guys feel about being my pit crew for a bit?"

---

AN: So, as promised, here are the chapters of the past three weeks. As I am back from my holidays, new chapters should return to weekly updates.

IMPORTANT: I've recently discovered that I forgot to include Ethan's rewards for beating the Curse in future chapters. It will be his first Advantage roll, meaning a choice between two things. I've decided to make a poll with the options over on my Patreon. From now until Friday (28 August) Patrons can vote on which roll they prefer. Since this is a Curse reward, I'm restraining myself from rerolling or discarding useless or non-narrative compliant results.

 

[Bakkughan]

Maybe it's just me but honestly I would have made that a gold.

Click to shrink...

I flip-flopped on this for a long time. In fact, I heavily leaned towards gold as well before ultimately deciding against it for a few reasons. Yes, breaking an Olympian's nose in a straight up brawl is hella impressive to show how much stronger he is compared to his fight against Cercyon, but in-universe, this was a spar, not a true battle, one that Ethan lost after all. On a more meta-level, I'm hesitant to give him too powerful rolls too soon. Silver felt right, though the resulting ability did turn out a bit more... lackluster than I had imagined.

Part of that is probably my own bias from reading too many Gacha fics myself. Those usually go up to gold with the rare platinum, but rarely higher. Meanwhile, the Chaos Gacha website (and the expanded version of Benw8888) go up to Divine, four levels higher than even platinum, so maybe I shouldn't see Golden rolls as all that powerful.

The problem is that at these ranks, some of the roll are objectively useless, while others can be leveraged to be stupidly powerful within the right context. Meanwhile higher rolls have the potential to highjack or even completely break the narrative. I posed the question over on my discord as well, but the concensus there seemed to be that the rolls had been ok so far.

 

[Chaosfox13]

gynaecological

Click to shrink...

genealogical, unless you're doing a comedy bit that flew over my head.

 

[Bakkughan]

genealogical, unless you're doing a comedy bit that flew over my head.

Click to shrink...

I thought that looked wrong when autocorrect changed it....