Eventually, it was time for our train to stop in Saint Louis where our ride ended.
Annabeth, just like she had wanted in canon, practically forced us to visit the St. Louis Arch.
Excitement and tension flooded my body. I couldn't wait for my first and last meeting with Echida, or atleast her first and last time meeting me.
What would happen?
Will the other gods notice?
How will they react?
What will happen with the Chimera, the original one?
Questions like this echoed in my mind as we walked towards the Arch. Then I saw her, wearing a pink blouse, for some reason ripped jeans and sneakers. For someone like her those looked entirely wrong. Like you decided to dress an old mummy in hot pants, crocks and a gold chain necklace.
Then I realized something, I couldn't possibly allow her to die during our fight since the Olymp would be watching. She would have to die later, when no one was there to see it. Hmmmm. Oh, I know what I'll do.
The three of us soon reached the elevators that would bring us up. The elevator was packed and I knew she was here, in disguise with the Chimera hiding as a small poodle.
The hair on my neck began to stand up, rise as if lightning was about to strike.
My chest tightend from the tension.
My nightmare, the first one echeod in my skull and I once again felt her saw through my stomach, I felt my blood run out and my consciousness fading.
I knew all of this was merely a memory or a form of PTSD but it didn't matter to me. My fight or flight response was kicking in at full force but, considering we were in an enclosed space, there was no way to escape.
My awareness of her rose, from the smallest hidden crack in her hastily created mortal form to the fakeness of her breath, I felt it all.
The elevator opened and i allowed everyone to leave it, allowed Annabeth to look and take in the sight but then, once Grover had picked up on a monsters scent, I pushed them into a waiting elevator, not caring if there was still space or not, closed the door and let them escape.
"So you realized and even abandoned your friends to the enemies waiting downstairs. Did you really think anything you just did would change the outcome? Pesky little mortal."
The husky and familiar voice of Echidna came from the middle of the platform. The mortals, those few that had still been around lay slaughtered and bleeding around her.
Reality seemed to crack for a moment and then I noticed the slight difference in scent. While I saw, knew there were bodies, bleeding and broken, my nose told me that there was no scent of blood and then they were gone.
We were alone, there hadn't been any mortals left here and the only ones still here or witnessing this were Echidna, the Chimera, the gods of Olymp and me.
I slowly, careful as to avoid setting her off, pulled out my sword, the one I had made as a cover or replacement, materialized the set of armor I had created in camp and got into a fighting stance.
Echidna talked, most likely about the exact same thing she had spoken during canon, but all I heard was her voice and laughter as she ripped and tore me apart on that altar in the middle of tartarus.
The Chimera began to let its disguise fall, barks slowly turning into growls before finally cresendoing into a roar. One that would have shattered anyone's eardrums but unfortunately I was still wearing the headphones I had gotten and upgraded.
I fixated on it, my gaze filled with the authority I had began gathering since my first nightmare, and authority over monsters, none-humans, undead and Chimeras, both artificial and natural. The Chimera wavered and it's bloodlust waned as I continued to stare it down, not blinking or even moving a single muscle.
Then I took a step forward, closer to it and at first it didn't move, didn't actually react as it was still trying to figure out if I was an actual threat to it.
Then I let a bloodthirsty grin, a reflection of what I felt towards Echidna, show on my face.
Fangs, black and dripping with venom broke through my human disguise, my horns, now black with golden threads running through them flickered in for only a second and then finally, The rivers Child reflected in the Chimeras eyes, even if I hadn't actually allowed it to materialis.
It backed away, slowly pressing against its mother, trying to get behind her, something she dismissed unaware of the danger she was in.
I let my grin fade, slowly beginning to exert my titles effect, Father of Monsters, towards the Chimera, interwaving my scent, one that identified me as another Chimera, forming a faint feeling of trust and non threat with the original.
It noticed the change immediately and the title soon took full effect. Within just a few seconds after I had let my grin fade, the Chimera exploded in a wave of Shadows, dispersing and joining everyone in my home dimension, even as I had no access to it.
Echidna stood there, at first unaware of what had just happend.
Then slowly it began to dawn on her that one of her earliest creations had betrayed her, left her for someone else.
Her face began to mirror her thoughts and then her anger surfaced. Tearing through her form like a torrent.
I advanced, even as she was still figuring out who had done it, who had taken her precious from her.
The sword I had previously had been discarded already, having returned to me but I knew I would not draw it on her. I couldn't risk giving her an injury that would somehow be traced back to me.
My fist connected to her jaw in a perfect right hook.
That started her for a second, but didn't manage to wake her up.
But what followed it did.
I had jumped up and kicked her teeth in, making atleast three of them fly out and cracking her jaw.
This made me realize that my legs were a lot stronger than they had been before.
Echidna was now fully back and she was pissed. She was convinced it was me that had taken the Chimera, even as she had no prove and she made it known as loud as she possibly could.
She lashed out, trying to tear through my face with her clawed hand.
I ducked below, switched from my feet to my hand and delivered an axe kick right in her face.
She stumbled back, disoriented from the force, more teeth flying around, this time with visible ichor. She landed on her back, in the middle of the platform.
I followed this with a punch towards her midsection, downwards. One that carried more power than before and here I began to notice what my evolution and the different bleed overs had done, hidden as these changes had been.
My legs had grown more powerful from the stint as a humanoid bunny, my core body had improved from the first nightmare and my arms had broken past human levels by now, because of my dream as Father Spider. My movements were much more fluid by now, carrying more power and fines, something I had gotten from my stint as The Pale One, and my senses, something similar to the original spider sense had somehow mixed with my powers of fate and future sight, making me even more capable of success in what I wished to do.
Echidna broke through the floor, tumbling towards the ground below where her body shattered into fine golden dust, one that gathered together and disappeared within the blink of an eye.
I hadn't killed her, not really, but now I had new and divine ingredients for my experiments, having collected and added her teeth and ichor to my inventory already.
I myself was falling as well, but I was cought in a spiral of water that soon dragged me into the river below.
I didn't black out, just waited for the nereide that would soon come. I didn't have to wait for long since one came pretty quickly.
She looked suspiciously like my mother, which kind of proved to me that my mother wasn't as much of a human as she had thought.
The spirit soon asked me to got to Santa Monica, were we would meet again to talk about the quest we were on and because my father had asked me to come. I wasn't amused but I knew I had to go. Not because my father wouldn't forgive me, but because we would gain the pearls there, the ones that would help us leave the Underworld. Also, it was a chance to actually meet my stepmother. I wouldn't say no to that.
As I left the river, as dry as a bone left out in the desert sun, I approached Grover and Annabeth, who had left the Arch further behind but were still nervously looking at it.
Grover spotted me first.
"Percy, what happend. One second we're looking through the windows up there and the next you push us into the elevators."
Annabeth showed her agreement on Grover worriedness by nodding her head along but remaining quiet otherwise. I explained, acting exhausted and anxious.
" So, I kind of felt like something was wrong when we got up there and then I noticed that lady with her poodle. Something was off about her and the way she was staring at us so I pushed you in there. Turned out my paranoia was right and justified since she was a monster sent to kill us."
"But what about the poodle? It looked so nice, please tell me it was just a dog and isn't dead, Percy. Please don't." Annabeth pleaded with me, probably since she hadn't actually seen and interacted with any pet dog since she entered camp and this being her first time having petted and played with one since she entered camp. I had to disappoint her.
" Sorry Annabeth, but it was a monster, too. Though I didn't kill either of them."
I had to swallow down my silent "Not yet atleast" since I knew Grover had good enough hearing that he would have been able to hear it.
I told them of our next destination being Santa Monica, what we or I had to do there and why we had to go.
Then we snuck away, hiding from the media vultures that were currently reporting and interviewing people about a child-murderer that had been spotted at the Arch, attempting to comit suicide after blowing a hole in it.
Well, that is one way to become famous.
We headed towards a parking lot where Annabeth intended to call Chiron to inform him of our current progress and what had happend up until now.
Unbeknownst to everyone but me, there was a tattoo of a raven, one with a metallic beak and feathers, missing from my skin. One that had held my familiar Onyx, still unknown to anyone bot my people.
A poison, one that had never been seen before and one I had only recently created had gone "missing" from my inventory as well.
Off, far in the distance, beneath of this realm, inside of tartarus, the wings of a raven, my raven, flapped. Leaving behind a cackling goddess that would soon turn mad, madder than a hatter. One whose skin began to crack, violet glyphs burning themselves into her bones, blood turning black and sludge like.
Noone would know for quite some time, not even the primordial himself would know what was happening but he would soon find out. But only when it would be to later even for him to do something, not that he would.
And I, during all of this, was the only one that knew what had happend. The only one that knew what to poison did.
Laughter of Corruption:
This is a poison, made by an up and coming Poison Master, is capable of killing any mortal almost immediately. It is highly effective against both spirits and the divine, this includes Immortals as well.
The victim will begin to laugh, almost delirious. It will be unable to stop, slowly being driven into insanity by hallucinations and visions of death. Their body begins to dissolve itself, turning into a miasma of corrupted energy. Energy that will attach itself to the should and mind of the victim as soon as there is no body left behind, where it will begin to crack, break and corrupt them, adding them to the miasma once there is no personality or mind left. At the end of this, the being will evaporate entirely, no amount of resurrection or healing magic being able to return them. The energy will be added and introduced to the originator, Percy Jackson, where it will be used to increase stats and evolve skills and soul bound items.
The afflicteds Status and titles will be added to the Originator, Percy Jackson, upon the complete and utter death of the entity known as Echidna.
I couldn't wait for the notification of Echidna death.