One shot Series Collection

Chthonic (Part 1)

[Female Oc X Percy Jackson(Lightning Theif)]

[Chapter One] (12/27/24)

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Percy was having a rough summer. His normal summer should've been filled with him working summer jobs. Selling magazine subscriptions and walking dogs.

This summer wasn't normal.

Percy lost his mother to the Minotaur. Found out his absentee father was alive and a god. Also found out he, himself, was a demigod and a forbidden one at that.

And, currently, he was on a quest to clear his name, get his mother back from Hades, and stop a potential World War III.

Saving his mother wasn't part of the task. But it was Percy's personal goal to get his mother back.

He had made it across the country with a girl who initially hated his guts because of a rivalry between their parents, and his best friend that was part goat. It was an odd trio, but a trio nonetheless.

Now, after traveling overland for five days, they made it to the Underworld. They made it past Charon, who loved Italian suits, and Cerberus, who loved red rubber balls.

They passed Elysium, the Field of Asphodel, the Fields of Punishment, and the Isles of the Blest.

And after a giant de-tour of keeping Grover from being dragged into a bottomless pit. Tartarus.

Percy didn't want to go in there. He wanted to go to the Isles of the Blest after he died. He didn't wish his best friend to go into Tartarus. It became more unnerving as they trekked on.

The Kindly Ones circled the parapets, high in the gloom. Letting out horrifying screeches as they did so.

The outer walls of the fortress glittered black, and the two-story-tall bronze gates stood wide open.

Engraved on the gate walls were scenes of death.

Scenes of atomic bombs exploding over a city, an image of a trench filled with soldiers wearing gas masks. A drawing of a line of African famine victims, holding out empty bowls, waiting and begging for food.

Despite the modern scenes of death. They seemed to have been etched in the bronze thousands of years before. Percy wondered if he was looking at a prophecy that had come true.

They continued on. Inside the courtyard was the strangest garden Percy had ever seen.

Percy lived in an apartment his whole life. So, therefore, he'd never had a garden before. But even he knew the garden in front of him was strange.

There were multicolored mushrooms, poisonous shrubs, and weird luminous plants that grew without sunlight.

Precious jewels made up for the lack of flowers, piles of rubies as big as a fist, clumps of raw diamonds.

Standing here and there like frozen party guests were Medusa's garden statues-petrified children, satyrs, and centaurs—all smiling grotesquely.

In the center of the garden was an orchard of pomegranate trees, their orange blooms neon bright in the dark.

"The garden of Persephone," Annabeth said. "Keep walking."

"Get down!" Grover whispered.

The three ducked down immediately, but Annabeth and Percy were confused.

"What's wrong?" Percy asked quietly.

"Can't you see her?" Grover asked.

Percy looked at the garden again. Then he saw a clump of shadows moving, a silhouette. They weren't the only ones in the garden.