Book 2: Oaths and Victories.

Chapter 4: Stopping a fall.

Every time I sit down to write this, I have to spend a few minutes to process the fact that the battle against Gaia, by cannon chronology, happens on fucking 2011. The amount of restrain my dudes, it is off the charts.

As the representation of misery, it only makes sense that Akhlys would appear different for every person unlucky enough to meet her. To Percy, she looks like something out of a nightmare, to Nico she's an invisible presence right over his shoulder, and for Annabeth...

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One day, in the distant future, he would surely tell the story about how he almost got thrown off his own ship by a goddess he bested, as like a lesson or something. That is, if he manages to climb back up without alerting the deities fighting on board that he didn't actually fall all the way.

From this day forward, though, he'll never again scoff at Hollywood for making a character manage to save themselves from a fall last minute, as he's just now become living proof. Though, on the other hand, those people don't exactly have godly instincts running in their veins the way demigods do, so maybe he can.

Point is, he's currently, by sheer force of will and his aching fingers, hanging off the side of the Argo II by a rope. A rope he'd been unable to untie so he had cut just short enough that it wouldn't catch on anything, and let hang off the railing after taking the Athena Parthenos on board.

He's never been more glad for his own procrastinating nature before right this fucking second, that he can assure!

Getting himself to a position where he can actually start climbing takes some doing, especially because he's not precisely the most athletic dude out there, and he's worried he'll rip the railing apart if he pulls too strongly. But climb he does, just in time to watch Khione try and freeze Piper, only for her to turn the tides by awakening Festus with some charmspeak, driving the other dudes away, and then reducing the goddess to snow.

From his place, hanging now from the railing, he lets out a loud whistle at this, catching Piper's attention.

"Nice work Pipes, help me up?" he asks.

Piper lets out a sharp laugh, as she strides towards him and pulls him the rest of the way, asking how he avoided certain doom and laughing again when he repeats the bit about movies and his laziness saving his ass.

"Only you Leo" she sighs.

He grins back at her, winking.

"Only me"

She rolls her eyes and then turns him towards the frozen-over ship area, so he steps away from her touch and concentrates on melting the ice without harming anyone who's been frozen under. They'll all need some serious post-hypothermia care, he's sure.

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It's a strangely calm feeling, a moment where the mind goes completely silent. Processing.

It is also, a sharp and thin feeling, like your heart's been turned to razor wire, ready to snap and shatter into deadly shrapnel.

The goddess doesn't smile, her features ever sorrowful, ever wretched, but it feels as though she does. As though she takes great glee in her own effect.

Cruel.

But she should've never expected anything else out of misery.

Percy is a lot worse off, she realizes quickly, reckless with anger and fear, an expression in his face she'd only seen a glimpse of during the previous war. Akhlys takes full advantage.

If any battle she'd ever faced could be called 'harrowing' it'd be this one. Even without the poison, her mere pretenses leaves them weakened, and in turn makes Percy desperate.

That's all it is, the ire with which he turns Akhlys' poison against her, it's just a mask, one that will harm Percy sooner than it'll damage the goddess. So, she stops it.

Saying that she isn't scared would be a bold-faced lie. It's a terrifying thing.

But it's also Percy, and she would not let Tartarus rip him apart.