Son of Odin (Old)

Chapter 73

Emotions

Percy flipped and let his feet land softly against the hard jagged bloodied rocks that littered the grounds of Tartarus. He wasn't excited to be back in this literal hell hole, especially after spending two long years of silence stuck in this decrepit pit with literally one ally who wasn't in a much better situation than he himself had been in.

Selene gracefully floated the last few feet before she touched down against the ground, taking in the sights. This was the first time that she'd personally seen Tartarus in all of it's infamous glory. The stench in the air was foul, the ground felt like shattered glass underneath her feet and there was an abundance of mutilated bodies in sight. Bodies that she had no doubts had all belonged to demi-gods who had unjustly been sent to Tartarus.

Ten's body slammed into the ground at an incredible speed, shaking the grounds all around them. There was such an impact that a cloud of dust and dirt had been thrown up all around his point of entry. Once it had cleared, Percy couldn't help but laugh at the sorry state that his champion had found himself in. He'd hit the ground so hard that his body had created a large crater around him. Most other people would have been shredded into nothing more than bloody ribbons from that. It just went to show that Percy had picked a solid champion, one who had been fist fighting against Death not that long ago.

"Ah, go on without me, I'm probably going to die of laughter!" Percy cackled to himself, clutching his own ribs as the laughter continued to send shakes throughout the skeletal frame in his body. He found such a huge sense of amusement in seeing his idiot champion doing idiot things. "Ah man. This must be what Artemis feels like on a daily basis." He muttered, wiping a joyous tear away from his eye as Tenacious climbed out of his self made crater with a groggy look on his face. Indestructible or not, it was still quite a disorientating feeling slamming your body into Tartarus at a hundred miles a second.

"Dating you, yes, more than likely." Selene agreed before she strutted forwards, eager to leave this terrible place as soon as they could, after all, Tartarus was still in control and blocking immortals from flashing out which meant that even Gods and most primordials would have to exit through the doors of death just like everyone else. Tartarus was still strong enough to do this despite Percy taking him down quite a few rungs on the ego ladder at the battle for New Rome where he'd fought off three primordials and had been sent here in the first place.

Percy was no longer listening to either of them however as he'd been busy discovering more and more of his powers as the newly reformed Prince of the Universe. Aside from gaining an incredibly awesome title that was reminiscent of the old Highlander films he'd once seen. Though, he didn't quite mind getting the chance to fight against the Horsemen again, this time possibly quoting the famous 'there can be only one!' speech.

"Percy!" Selene shouted, getting his attention to wander back from his self amusing mind and into their current situation. "Weren't you listening to a word I just said?" She asked him incredulously. How could someone with that much power have such a short attention span!?

"Nah, I was listening to Ozzy Osbourne inside my mind. He's got some serious truth in his lyrics you know. I wonder if he's a clear sighted mortal. He seems like the kind of guy that's seen some serious shit during his life." Percy rambled, much to the incredible annoyance of Selene who didn't even want to be there in the first palce.

"Right?" Ten grinned in agreement. He'd been a huge fan of the mortals music for quite some time anyway, so to see his patron do the same was frankly 'awesome' as he would have phrased it.

"You're both idiots, I can't see why Artemis is dating you," She said, pointing at Percy, "And I can't believe I've slept with you." She pointed at Ten, which made both men laugh, though for different reasons.

"You loved it." Ten remarked with a smirk.

"It was one time." Selene stomped her foot immaturely.

"Yeah, one time, consecutively, for twelve years." Ten's smirk and Selene's silence only served to further prove his point.

"Guys, your CLEARLY still ongoing love affair is NONE of my interest, you'd do well to remember just how little I give a shit about that sort of thing when I've willingly jumped into Tartarus alongside you to free a pair of Titans, now lets go before they fade from age because you two can't keep your urge to increase the sexual tension between you." Percy ranted before stalking on towards where he knew a prison like building was located. He wore a mischievious grin on his face as he walked away, knowing that his little 'speech' was just going to egg them both on towards each other. He knew exactly how these things worked.

It did serve to spark a thought in his head though, it was just a small thought about Artemis, a small but very specific thought. It wasn't about how much undying love he had for her, it was more along the lines of how long it had been since he'd been in her arms trying to recover. A matter of days at most, yet here he was, in Tartarus with some of the most powerful people in the universe watching his back, and he was somewhat emotionally lost because SHE wasn't.

That was it, he nailed down what it was that he was thinking about.

He missed her, he missed HIS silver Goddess, the one who both loved and hated him the most in the entire cosmos. The one who he had just realized the gravity of his emotions for her. He couldn't live without her. He momentarily send Chaos a small thanks, a basic prayer in which the primordial of creation was greatly appreciated for her efforts in stopping Armageddon from destroying the soon to be Queen of Asgard. HIS Queen. With that fresh in his mind, he continued his march towards what could only have been the one known as Helios.

Gods how much he wanted to just leave Tartarus then and there and find Artemis. The things that he planned to do as soon as he saw her...