The Beginnings of an Olympian

25 | Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

"I'm going to travel in my river. Use your powers to sense which water is mine and focus on the flow. It'll go towards the heart where Tartarus will meet us. Good luck on your journey. I can only guide you. You must survive it on your own."

I nodded and thanked her before saying my farewells and following the flow of the Styx.

Man, I wish I'd brought some music to pass the time.

1st Person | Percy's POV
1022 words

Now I know I should be terrified about being back in Tartarus, not wishing for some entertainment, but I felt sorta comfortable down here. Not that I liked the smell of toxic air or the feeling of impending doom, but the darkness didn't scare me. I felt oddly at peace. No, not peace. I was balanced. Like sure there's a whole lot of bad down here, but there is just as much good in the world. Thankfully, no monsters attacked. Not that I couldn't have taken them, but I didn't want to tire myself before facing Tartarus in case things went south. I was in hell after all.

It felt like days before I reached the heart of Tartarus. When I arrived, he was waiting in his physical form.

"Ah. Perseus. I heard you were going around asking for allies. A temporary truce."

"I am. Since you know why I'm here we can make this quick. Will you help us in the upcoming invasion?"

Tartarus got an evil gleam in his vortex of a face. If he could smile, it would certainly be creepy. "Sure. You can have all monsters at your disposal too. If..."

"If what, Tartarus?" I said a little bored, but truthfully I was nervous. I didn't know what he'd ask. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know the price of his aid.

"If you stay here willingly and train under me."

I replied warily, "And why would you want to train me? What constitutes training? Torture?"

He laughed maniacally. "No, boy. I swear to Lady Styx—hello dear—that my intentions to train you are true in that I wish you to succeed. Besides Hades, you are the only Olympian who has an appreciation for the dark. Even still, you shy away from its power. If you agree to stay and be trained by me, I will show you how to harness and control your inner darkness."

I thought about that a bit. Before my journey here, I would have immediately said no. I didn't want to succumb to my dark side. But after my long meditation, I realized that it would be better to understand the darkness within that way I could control it. If I kept repressing it, I might unleash it accidentally and that was the farthest thing from what I wanted. So I made up my mind.

"Ok. I will stay and train with you if you promise to honor a temporary truce until after the invasion is over and order is restored and provide the aid you said you would."

"I agree to the truce, but as a primordial who is more of a place than a being, I cannot give you aid in the way you might have wanted. If you complete my training, however, you will be able to command any forces from my domain. Even the goddess Nyx will help. Although, she still wants a place on some tours or brochures. I honestly have no idea what that means."

I didn't trust myself to speak. I couldn't help wondering how I could ever command an army of monsters. So I just nodded and that was that. I felt Lady Styx dissipate and soon she was gone. It was just me and Tartarus.

"Well then, Perseus-"

"Percy. Just call me Percy."

"Well then, Perseus, you're first going to learn how to control that original power of yours."

I gave a confused look to which he ignored and disappeared. Soon I felt myself getting pulled towards the left. It was like gravity shifted in that direction. I was sure Tartarus was guiding me, so I reluctantly drifted towards the pull. I paled a bit when I saw who I was meeting. Akhlys, Protogenos of Misery and Poison and Keeper of the Death Mist. Yeah, I was not going to like it.

"Lady Akhlys," I said, trying to keep the disdain from my voice.

"Lord Perseus," she responded, not bothering to keep the disdain from her voice.

"Call me Percy. It seems that Tartarus wants you to teach me, presumably about poisons."

"It would seem so, Perseus."

She was giving me a hateful glare but started teaching me nonetheless. She introduced me to her garden of poisonous flowers. Fun fact! I'm immune to poisons since it's within my domain! Ok not totally immune, but I can detect poison before it would ever enter my system and I can control it, so even if I were to inject or inhale it, I could easily expel it from my body. And if I was unconscious, my body's immune system would happily do it for me. But while I won't die from any poison, it is still possible for me to feel and experience their effects. What was not so fun was how we learned of these powers. It pretty much consisted of Akhlys giving me various poisons in various ways and me making sure I wouldn't die. She helped me take control over the potency and toxicity of different poisons and how to cure them. Ironically, she told me the ways poison could be used to heal or help others. This all took what felt like 2 months. I wasn't sure how much time had actually passed because time is weird in Tartarus.

In all that time, Akhlys still hated me, but I did gain some respect for her. It took a lot of precision to craft and control poisons. It's a shame she's a miserable, ugly, old hag. We might have gotten along. Not long after she announced there was nothing else she could teach me herself, I felt the gravitational pull of Tartarus again.

When the pull finally stopped, I was confused, to say the least. It was just an empty field or a vast horizon of nothingness. But then I felt an essence flowing towards me underground. Actually, I felt five essences. Only a few feet away, five geysers broke the surface (skin?) and figures emerged. It was Cocytus, god of lamentation; Phlegethon, god of fire; Lethe, goddess of forgetfulness and oblivion; Acheron, god of pain; and Styx, goddess of hatred.