Arthur:
My world spun in agony as I was slammed through another wall for the 5th time today and found myself inside a salon. The revolver that had been in my hands went flying away as my hand lost its grip.
You know, sometimes I wondered if I was just chosen by whatever ROB sent me here to just be an entertaining punching bag. It honestly wouldn't even surprise me.
The only thing that saved me from that giant war ax that came rushing towards my head soon after was a quick light shield I snapped into existence to deflect it away.
The sudden redirection of his attack threw my one-eyed opponent off balance, which gave me time to use my air manipulation to summon my revolver to my hand from the far side of the room where it had been thrown.
The gun's hammer slammed forward and the Cyclops fell apart into dust.
Not a second later one of his brothers launched its foot into the side of my head.
My vision flashed white and I found myself crashing through the 6th wall of today, this time coming to a stop as a display cabinet full of jewelry caught my momentum. I was half sure that the only thing that kept me lucid at this point was the searing hot pain that was now coming from my throat.
One hand came up to pull a large glass shard that was now lodged into my throat and causing blood to gush out like a waterfall, the other aimed my revolver as my regeneration finished restoring my vision and fired 2 more shots.
The Cyclops and the snake bitch behind him, a Lamia maybe, were dusted before I could fully get the shard out.
"Fuaark." I gurgled out incoherently and finally pulled the shard out fully.
Even as my throat stitched itself back together it was still pretty hard to get a damn breath in.
"That's got to be most of them right?" I muttered to myself.
I had already killed monsters on this ship by the dozens. Snake bitches, Cyclops, Harpies, Hellhounds, and a smorgasbord of other beasts that wanted to cook my hide.
The sounds of rushing footsteps, roars, and voices coming towards me disproved me not a second later and a glance at my HP told me I didn't want the smoke that they were bringing.
Pushing myself up I began hauling ass down the hallway away from the approaching monsters.
Ole great-grandpa wasn't kidding about wanting my ass brought to him.
Sliding around a corner I came face to face with a female demigod who looked like she had just gotten out of bed in a rush.
"Sto-"
The words barely left her mouth before my fist crashed into her skull. She would wake up with a hell of a concussion later considering I felt bone give and break at impact.
Deciding we could use some information on what Luke has been up to, I reached down and threw the unconscious Demigod over my shoulders as I raced up the stairs at the opposite end of the hallway.
A prisoner could be quite useful after all.
Reaching the top I was hit with the fresh smell of the ocean and an empty deck.
Now I just had to find Percy and hope he had busted the others out of their prison.
"Pardon my french, but you look like shit Arthur." A voice chuckled from above me.
A groan escaped me as I turned around.
There on a deck above the main one was Luke and his personal vanguard of freaks.
Without hesitation, I dropped the unconscious girl to the ground and sent a round straight towards his skull.
Only for the bullet to slow to a crawl as it reached him.
For a second I thought Lightning Enhancement had activated by accident until I realized everything else was still moving at normal speed.
Fucking Kronos.
"You'll find that my lord can do a great number of things, even as weak as he currently is." Luke said snidely and simply slapped the bullet away.
Yeah, like apparently using his time power without needing to be in Luke's body.
This wasn't a great situation. My health was pretty damn low and my mana wasn't all that great either.
Glancing down at my prisoner, I decided to change her role to that of a hostage.
Snarling I began building up lightning into my arms, "Your sugar daddy can't keep you safe forever Luke."
"You underestimate the power of the King of Titans." He shot back, "And it would seem the rumors of Zeus blessing you are true then. You truly are just another servant to those tyrants."
Pot, meet kettle jackass.
"Oh but my dumb blonde friend, I know your pimps little secret." I tutted as my lightning began screeching from the amount that was building along my arms, "He needs his precious believers to build up power to stitch himself back together."
Satisfied with the amount of power built up I pointed an arm at Luke.
"One day I'll find out how you know things you shouldn't Arthur.." The Son of Hermes frowned as he raised an eyebrow at me, "You also know he'll just slow your lightning enough for me to get out of the way right?"
'True." I admitted as I lowered my other arm towards the girl beside me, "But is he strong enough right now to stop two blasts simultaneously?"
I was really hoping the answer was no for our sake.
Luke's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "You don't have the balls."
"I'd tell you to ask Ethan if I do or don't, but he's currently chilling downstairs with a giant hole in his chest." I shot back, "So what's it going to be Luke? If I char this bitch while Kronos saves you it will weaken him even more so he won't be able to do it again. Then I just put a hole in your skull. Or we could be more civilized about this."
C'mon, buy the bluff jackass.
"Civilized?" He asked with the barest hint of trepidation in his voice, "Why even try and negotiate when you can just kill me and the girl? You'd get what you want and it would be a bigger blow against Kronos."
"Because then I wouldn't have enough energy to deal with the hoard of monsters on the boat." I lied.
I didn't even have that energy right now.
"Alright, then what do you propose?"
"You and Kronos give all of us safe passage off this boat, and we go on our merry way. We'll just have our death battle another day."
Luke's eyes narrowed, "And how will I know that you'll keep your word?"
"Same way I'll know you'll keep yours." I said, "Oath on the Styx."
Guinevere:
"If you're not going to tell me where he is then take me to him!" A young woman demanded with a frown.
"I can't do that Michelle." Guinevere explained with irritation, "Besides the fact that's breaking multiple summoner and contract laws, I can't just make him force me to summon me at will. He has to be the one to initiate it."
Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that Arthur had paid her in honest to Satan Celestial Bronze, Guinevere would have been irritated at all the trouble the contract had caused her so far.
She had almost shit herself delivering a letter to Cadius Winchester personally and now she had to deal with the rest of the Winchesters and their individual posse's.
Word had spread fast in the school that she had been contracted by the youngest Winchester male, who up till that point, had been thought dead or missing along with his father.
The boy's friend group had immediately annoyed her with questions as much as any group of 12 and 13-year-olds could. After that Angel and Fallen Winchesters had questioned her repeatedly as well.
"Well then if you can't tell me that, can you tell me how he is?" The blonde angel pleaded with teary blue eyes.
The Raum girl sighed.
"He looked completely healthy for the most part. Though I wasn't really paying attention considering he had me in a Devil's Trap and was pointing arrows made of light at me most of the time."
"Er, arrows made of light?" Michelle asked in surprise.
"Uh yeah, he summoned them to make a point that he wasn't mortal. Honestly Michelle I didn't know the little squirt was also of Angel descent. With those glowing silver eyes and the whole light shtick he looks even more like one of you damned bird brains than you do."
Michelle frowned, "Arthur doesn't have glowing silver eyes and he never displayed any elemental affinity for magic at all. Was there anything else about his appearance?"
The teenage Angel did not like where this was going at all. As far as she knew Arthur was an incredibly late bloomer when it came to magic. It was one of the reasons he had been bullied so much until he made friends that protected him.
Guinevere shrugged, "Never met him while he was here at school, so I have no idea. Other than his eyes, he had strawberry blonde hair that was almost reddish and he's pretty tall and tanned for a 13-year-old. Do any of those things stand out?"
"Yeah, all of them do." Michelle muttered.
The last time she saw Arthur he was a little shorter than average, almost pale, and his hair was a lighter shade of brown. What could have possibly happened to him that changed his entire appearance?
"I need to inform everyone of this. Thank you for your time Gwen!" The Angelic Winchester said as she hurriedly made her way down the hall.
Arthur:
As we made our way onto the lifeboat we had taken I sent one last glare at Luke.
"Remember our deal chuckle fuck. So help me God if you try anything funny I'll melt a hole in the side of the ship with a lightning bolt and have Percy flood it with water faster than you can last in a woman." I threatened.
I heard Percy desperately try to hold in his snickers from behind me just as I heard Annabeth also smack him.
If you couldn't tell, I really didn't like the Son of Hermes that much.
Luke threw a glare back at me in response, "Tough talk kid. At least I've actually been with a woman."
I rolled my eyes, "I know it's 2007 and all Luke, but you can't identify your right hand as a woman no matter how much you love it."
The glare deepened, "Just get the fuck off of my ship already Winchester."
"Glady." I said and stepped into the boat with the other 4 Demigods while hitting the lever to lower us down.
A scant few minutes later we were being propelled away from the cruise ship via Percy's hydrokinesis at record speeds.
"Those powers of yours let you know where the coordinates for the island are right?"
Percy nodded in confirmation, "We're set to arrive in a couple of hours provided we don't run into trouble."
"Will we?" I asked.
"Shouldn't." He shrugged, "I can sense where sea monsters are lurking and any landmasses that aren't the Island we need to go are. I'll steer us clear if we get anywhere close."
Pushing Percy to improve his powers faster than he ever had in canon was easily the best decision I had made since being reborn.
There were many things I could do and achieve on my own. But having an incredibly strong ally who had main character plot armor was a godsend. Didn't hurt that he was a pretty cool guy as well.
"So we're just going to let Luke get away?" Michael said for the first time since we rescued him not even a couple of minutes ago, "We had the perfect chance to take Luke down."
"And get ourselves killed by the unknown amount of monsters and troops he has onboard." I said sarcastically as I leaned back to relax, "Yeah no thanks. I took out dozens earlier when I was making a distraction for Percy and their numbers didn't even thin remotely."
Until I was way more powerful and I could use high-level powers without draining my MP massively, stealth would be the way to go. Had I gone in guns blazing in the vampire town without Percy my ass would have been done for.
"Speaking of you and Percy." Annabeth interjected, "Where in the Hades where the both of you? Tauntuls almost gave himself a stroke with how mad he was when he couldn't find you two and Lord Hermes said he was originally going to ask you both to do this quest."
I shot a look at Percy and he just shrugged.
"We were up north by the Canadian border clearing a town that was overrun by Vampires." Percy explained as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Annabeth just blinked in confusion.
Silena huffed in irritation, "If you don't want to tell us what you guys were doing you could just say so."
"That wasn't a joke, Silena." I said, "The Archangel Uriel contacted me about a Vampire Lord whose nest had taken over a human town."
I could practically hear the grinding of gears in their minds as Michael and Silena just stared at me. It was funny until a blonde missile shot towards me and I found myself staring into a pair of sharp grey eyes that were practically trying to bore inside of my head.
"All the details, now." Annabeth demanded.
In hindsight, I probably should have known better than to say that in front of any of Athena's kids. Much less Annabeth.
Hours later and I was woken from my catnap by a kick to the side.
Grunting I opened my eyes to the blue sky as the sun began to set and a pair of green eyes looking down at me.
"Time to get up, sunshine." Percy said, "Where here and Annabeth's already coming up with plans on how to rescue Grover and get the fleece."
Nodding I got my ass up and followed Percy onto the beach from our boat.
I let out a whistle at the Island. It looked like something out of a picture-perfect Caribbean paradise. Crisp white beaches, tropical trees, and rolling fields of green pastures. It was a damn shame that when we took the fleece that it probably wouldn't stay that way.
My eyes also caught the movement of sheep farther inland. It wouldn't have been anything noteworthy had these guys not been the size of bulls though. The amount of mutton you could probably get off those bastards was mouthwatering to think about.
Past all that though on the higher elevation of the island was a grand oak tree with a certain golden decoration hanging on one of its branches.
"You see it as well?" Percy asked.
"Yep. It's right there for the taking."
Catching up to the others we walked into trying to devise a plan of action.
Micheal shook his head, "No way in Hades Annabeth, it's way too dangerous."
"I'll be invisible!" The Daughter of Athena argued.
"And what if those sheep can smell you? You saw what they did to that deer! We don't know what else on this island could possibly be guarding it either." Micheal pointed out.
"Mike's right Anne, it's far too dangerous to be out there all by yourself, we'd be too far away to help you if something happened." Silena agreed, "We should rescue Grover and defeat the cyclops first, then we figure out how to get the fleece."
The Daughter of Aphrodite would have had a point normally. But not in this case.
"She won't have to be alone." I interjected as Percy and I walked up.
Michael snorted, "Oh yeah Arthur? What, you got an invisible Yankees cap?"
"Nah." I said, "But I do have photokinesis."
"You can bend light around yourself to go invisible can't you?" Annabeth stated without missing a beat.
Shooting her a smirk I willed the light around me to do its thing and disappeared from sight for a few seconds before letting it go.
"You have too many damn abilities," Michael said dryly.
I just shrugged, "Magic is a wonderful thing. But now that we have that out of the way, how about Annabeth and I try the stealth approach to get the fleece. If something somehow senses us then I should have more than enough firepower between my guns and lightning to take it down."
"And while you two are doing that the rest of us can go and rescue Grover." Percy nodded, "I'll try and take down that blind cyclops while we're at it as well."
"Polyphemus." Annabeth supplied the name.
"Well if we're all in agreement, let's get going. The sooner we heal the tree the better."
"Right." Percy said and pointed to the west of the island, "I can feel some sort of seismic activity that way. As if something big is repeatedly stomping, it's probably that big cyclops."
The Son of Poseidon began his trek forward to go save Grover with the other two Demigods in the party quickly following behind him.
Annabeth and I shared a look.
"Did he say he could feel the seismic activity of that Cyclops footsteps?" Annabeth asked.
"Apparently." I replied with a shake of my head.
Didn't know that Percy could now pull a Toph with his geokinesis. At this rate, he really was going to have more powers than me.
"Well then, shall we go get that fleece?"
Annabeth nodded and like the others, we began our journey towards the giant oak tree.
All in all, besides the man-eating sheep that were ahead of us, it was actually a rather peaceful walk.
The sun was truly starting to set now and the blue sky was now beginning to be mixed with red as the star dipped below the horizon. With the gentle breeze, smell of the ocean, and those perfect white beaches…
Well had the both of us been a couple years older and not on a time imperative quest I'd probably be asking Annabeth to share a bottle with me on the shoreline.
After all, there were far worse fates in life than relaxing on a beach with a cute blonde and a bottle of champagne.
"We should go invisible now." She said and pulled out her Yankees cap to put on, "All we need is to get past them and we should be home free."
"Should, being the keyword."
"Well, that's where you come in Superboy."
I raised an eyebrow, "Superboy?"
"Superman's earliest comic appearances were marked by the fact he was constantly getting new powers for no reason at all until years later when they finally settled on his base set that we all know today." Annabeth explained with a smirk tugging on her lips, "I'm sure you can figure out what I'm implying."
"But why not Superman then?" I asked.
"Because you're still just a boy."
Ouch.
"Pretty sure I'm a couple months older than Percy and you." I shot back.
"Still doesn't make me wrong." Annabeth replied and threw on her cap to go invisible, "Now let's get going."
Note to self, don't argue with a child of Athena.
Rolling my eyes I activated my invisibility and immediately noticed a little bit of a problem. Neither of us would be able to keep track of the other if we couldn't see each other.
As if reading my mind, Annabeth voiced her concerns as well.
"If we get separated we'll just meet at the base of the tree."
Maybe not. I remembered that my description of invisibility came with a warning that some beings could see different forms of radiation such as body heat, magic, or just straight up able to smell you.
And unless you were able to mask those things as well, your invisibility was worthless against higher beings.
Thankfully I was technically one of those beings.
I pulsed magic into my eyes and my magic sight activated. Right in front of me stood an outline of a girl with a greyish magical aura. If I focused hard enough I could see bits of gold flowing in patterns that must have been her circulatory system.
That was Ichor if I remembered right.
I'd never seen it like that in Percy, but then again I wasn't really able to look at his aura with much detail anyway. Percy's aura was so damn bright from the amount he had that it was hard to look at him with my sight at first glance.
"No need. My eyes can see the outline of your aura just fine. Lead the way and I'll follow, but do try and hurry up. Going invisible is pretty taxing, I can only hold it for a couple of minutes."
A year ago I could only hold it for around a minute and double that if I had Abyss Watcher out. Now I could hold it around 10 minutes without the sword with how much I had leveled the skill and increased my mana reserves. Not as long as I would like, but far better than what it was.
"You continue to prove my point." Was the only response I got as Annabeth's form went forward and broke into a light jog.
I took off after her and we made our way through the meadow that the sheep were milling around in. If the sheep had any clue that we even existed they didn't show it. They just continued to lazily move about the place with no care in the world.
By the time we were completely through and walking up the hill towards the giant oak that held the fleece, I had cut my invisibility.
"Um, Arthur?"
"Anything truly dangerous would have come for us by now. Invisibility or not." I answered the unanswered question, "No reason to drain my power if we do run into something anyway."
Whatever bit of my meta-knowledge that still applied to this AU at this point told me that nothing really guarded the fleece. They had just straight up grabbed it in the book if my memories were correct.
As we crested the top of the hill I was hit by a wave of power that seemed to emit from the tree in front of me. My eyes narrowed in on the fleece which was overflowing itself and its surroundings with pure golden energy.
"Well, that went far better than expected." I said as I used my wind manipulation to pull the fleece of the tree.
It flew towards my hands and I stumbled a bit from the unexpected weight. This thing easily must've been 80+ pounds.
!
Due to the Golden Fleece now being held in your possession, healing increased by 10x!
My eyes almost bugged out of my head at the notification.
Much like how my mana regenerated by twice my wisdom per minute, my health regeneration seemed to be my vitality multiplied by 2 as well. That combined with Gamer's Body and now the effects of this, I'd practically be Wolverine in terms of healing.
I might have to borrow this from Camp every once and a while if I ever need to prepare for battles with powerful enemies.
"Well if that's it then, we should go see if the others have rescue-"
Whatever Annabeth was going to say was cut off as the whole island seemed to tremor and buckle on itself. If once focused hard enough, inhuman screams of pain could be heard from the direction that Percy and the others went.
"What in Hades is that?" Annabeth muttered from my side.
"Well, if I had to guess. Percy is probably gutting Polyphemus like a fish right about now."
About damn time too. The faster we got done with this quest and saved the camp, the faster I could investigate finding the other parts for The Colt and rescuing Hades kids before the quest deadline.
There was a certain blonde-haired bastard that was going to be my first test target once I got it, preferably while he had Kronos possessing him.
It would kill two birds with one stone should I be so lucky.
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