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Somnium Semper Remotum( Percy Jackson/ DxD self insert with Avalon, Excalibur, Rhongomyniad and the blank essence): Chapter 2: In which I give a monster the parental discipline he never could have
🕑 Added 2025-07-11 22:12:12 +0000 UTCThe world dissolved. One moment, the Minotaur’s fist, a shaggy, stinking battering ram, was filling my vision, the stench of wet fur and rancid breath thick in my nostrils, the roar vibrating in my teeth. The next… silence.
It wasn’t just the absence of sound. It was the absence of everything. The pounding rain, the howl of the wind, the desperate thudding of my own terrified heart against my ribs – gone. Replaced by a profound, resonant quiet that hummed in my bones. My vision didn't fade to black; it bloomed.
Colors erupted. Not the bruised purples and greys of the storm, but impossible, luminous hues that saturated my senses. I was standing, impossibly, on a gentle slope carpeted in flowers that shouldn't exist. Silver-blue lotuses glowed with inner moonlight. Roses shimmered with iridescence, shifting through the spectrum like oil on water. Blossoms I couldn't name pulsed with soft radiance, their petals delicate flames of violet and gold. The air itself seemed thick with light, a soft, golden haze that emanated from nowhere and everywhere, bathing everything in perpetual, gentle twilight. It was warm, like the first perfect day of spring, yet carried the crisp scent of autumn frost and the sweetness of summer honeysuckle all at once.
Paradise.
The word formed in my mind, unbidden, inadequate yet undeniably true. Before me, meadows of luminous grass, taller than my waist, rippled like liquid gold under a breeze I couldn’t feel but could see moving through them. Ancient trees, their bark smooth and pearlescent white, soared upwards, their branches heavy with leaves like shards of emerald glass. Sunlight fractured through them, scattering rainbows that danced across the impossible flora. Crystal-clear streams wound through valleys below, their waters so pure they held constellations within their depths, stars glittering coldly against the warm, golden haze of the day-night sky. There was no sun. No moon. Just this ethereal, diffuse radiance that cast long, deep shadows that seemed to shift and sway independently of any light source. At the horizon, the land dissolved into a haze of glittering dust, merging seamlessly with the star-strewn sky.
I took a step, the soft ground yielding beneath my worn sneakers. Waist-high grass, glowing like spun gold, parted silently. Petals drifted on air currents I couldn't perceive – cherry blossoms mingling with crisp autumn leaves, winter-frosted ferns brushing against vibrant summer blooms. It was a collision of seasons, impossibly beautiful and utterly disorienting. Distant waterfalls plunged silently into mist-shrouded lakes, their surfaces mirroring aurora-like veils of color that pulsed in the sky. Structures rose organically from the landscape: towering spires of smooth, moonstone-like crystal; crumbling stone arches, ancient and ivy-covered, hinting at forgotten histories; bridges woven from pure light arcing gracefully over the starry streams.
The silence was profound, broken only by the faintest, ghostly chiming of unseen bells, a sound that seemed to come from the air itself or perhaps from deep within my own skull. Time felt… suspended. A dewdrop clung to the tip of a glowing violet petal near my face, perfectly spherical, utterly motionless. The breeze carried complex scents – honey, ozone, petrichor, aged stone – yet didn’t stir a single blade of the golden grass. It was stillness incarnate, a breath held for eternity.
My gaze swept across this impossible Eden, drinking in its surreal beauty, trying to anchor myself in the sheer sensory overload. And then, inevitably, it lifted, drawn upwards. And there, piercing the twilight sky, impossibly tall, impossibly distant, was a tower. It wasn't just tall; it was dominant. A monolith of smooth, dark stone or perhaps obsidian, stark against the soft golden haze, stretching upwards until its peak vanished into the shimmering dust where sky met earth. It looked less built and more grown, a fundamental pillar of this reality. It radiated a sense of ancient, watchful power, a silent sentinel overlooking the paradise below. Its presence was both awe-inspiring and subtly unnerving. I could not help but feel sad looking at it as if I was the end of a sad tragedy.
But the tower, for all its majesty, wasn't what truly snagged my attention. It was… a call.
Not a sound. Not a voice. A… pull. A vibration deep in the marrow of my bones, a resonance in the hollow space behind my sternum. It was faint at first, like the memory of a forgotten melody, but it grew steadily stronger, more insistent. It wasn't painful, but it was undeniable, a silent siren song humming beneath the skin of the world, threading through the golden light and the ghostly chimes. It felt… personal. Intimate. As if this entire impossible realm, with its drifting petals and silent waterfalls, was merely the backdrop, the stage setting, and this call was the cue meant solely for me.
Logic screamed. You just got punched into oblivion by a Minotaur! This is a dying dream! A hallucination! Brain firing its last synapses in a psychedelic farewell! But the call resonated deeper than logic. It bypassed the frantic hamster wheel of my terrified thoughts and spoke directly to something primal, something yearning. It pulled at me, not with force, but with a gravity I couldn’t resist. It felt like… homecoming. And direction.
I started walking. My sneakers made no sound on the yielding, flower-strewn ground. I moved through meadows of liquid gold light, past trees whose glass leaves scattered prismatic rainbows across my path, alongside streams reflecting galaxies. The landscape flowed around me, impossibly beautiful, impossibly serene. Yet the call was my compass, unwavering, drawing me onward. It led me away from the rolling hills, towards one of the vast, mist-shrouded lakes I’d seen from afar. The air grew cooler, damper, smelling of deep water and ancient stone. The silent auroras pulsed more strongly over the lake’s surface.
And there, in the middle of the immense, mirror-still lake, lay my destination.
It was… wrong. Not ugly, not out of place in the sense of being jarringly modern or industrial. It was alien to the gentle, organic flow of this paradise. An intrusion of stark, undeniable purpose.
A small island of perfectly flat, dark stone, perhaps ten feet across, hovered impossibly above the water’s surface. Not floating on the water, but suspended several feet above it. Connecting it to the shore where I stood was a path of similar dark stones, each one a rough-hewn slab, hovering independently like stepping stones across the void, leading straight to the central platform. They didn't ripple the water; they simply were, defying the lake beneath them. The effect was less a bridge and more a sequence of anchors in space, holding the island aloft.
On that central platform rested something that made my breath catch. My first, illogical thought: A grave.
But it wasn't. Not really. There was no mound, no headstone with an inscription. Instead, thrust deep into the dark stone of the platform, were two objects. And calling them weapons felt… blasphemous. An insult to their sheer, breathtaking artistry. They radiated an aura of such profound craftsmanship, such impossible dedication and genius, that the idea of Da Vinci or Michelangelo forging them seemed laughable, like comparing a child’s finger painting to the Sistine Chapel. These were relics of another order of existence.
A sword, sheathed, and a spear. Stabbed down into the stone platform with finality, their shafts and hilts angled slightly towards each other, as if marking a sacred spot, commemorating a fallen titan, or perhaps sealing something away.
The sword was a masterpiece of golden elegance. Its long blade, maybe ninety centimeters, rested in a scabbard that was a work of art in itself – vibrant gold and deep cobalt enamel adorned with intricate, swirling floral patterns that seemed to shift subtly in the twilight glow. The hilt… the hilt was breathtaking. The cross-guard wasn’t just functional metal; it was sculpted into the shape of spread wings, like a bird caught mid-soar, crafted from pure gold and embedded with deep-blue gemstones that pulsed with a soft inner light. The grip was wrapped in supple cobalt leather, leading to a teardrop-shaped pommel jewel that seemed to hold a miniature galaxy within its depths. Even sheathed, I could feel its potential, its dormant power humming against the silence. It emitted a faint, crystalline blue aura that shimmered like heat haze.
The spear was its dark counterpart, radiating a sense of brutal, predatory grace. Its shaft was a fathomless black, like polished obsidian or solidified void, absorbing the surrounding light. It stretched a formidable twelve feet, ending in a spearhead that was pure, terrifying artistry. It wasn't a simple point; it was shaped like a vicious dragon's fang, edged with jagged, crimson crystalline protrusions that looked like they could rend reality itself. Beneath the surface of the black shaft, glowing red veins pulsed with a slow, rhythmic light, like lava flowing beneath volcanic rock, all converging with ominous intensity at that deadly crimson tip. It looked less like a weapon and more like a captured fragment of primordial fury.
The call wasn't just coming from the island anymore. It was emanating from them. The sword’s soft blue hum and the spear’s deep crimson pulse weren't just visual; they were the physical manifestation of that silent song vibrating in my bones. They were calling me. Specifically, undeniably me.
The path of dark stones beckoned. The lake, reflecting the auroras and the impossible sky, lay still and deep below. Hesitation warred with that irresistible pull. This felt… momentous. Like standing on the precipice. Taking that first step onto the hovering stones felt like stepping off the edge of the known world.
Yet, I did it. My foot found the first stone. Solid. Unyielding. Cold. The second stone. The third. Each step took me further from the shore, further into the silence above the star-reflecting water. The air grew stiller, heavier, charged with an anticipation that prickled my skin. The call grew louder, a silent crescendo building in my chest, resonating with the hum of the sword and the thrum of the spear.
I reached the central platform. The dark stone felt ancient and cold beneath my feet. The two artifacts stood before me, plunged deep into the rock. Up close, their presence was overwhelming. The golden sword radiated noble power, ancient wisdom, a promise of protection and light. The black spear thrummed with raw, untamed energy, an unraveling, a seal, a duty, divinity, a hunger for battle, a capacity for devastating force. Together, they felt… balanced. Opposing forces held in perfect, dynamic tension.
The world held its breath. The drifting petals seemed to hang motionless. The ghostly chimes fell silent. Even the pulsing lights within the weapons seemed to pause. This was it. The prelude. The threshold. I stood before the impossible choice, feeling the weight of centuries, perhaps millennia, pressing down on this single point in time.
My rational mind, the part that remembered the Minotaur’s fist and the totaled car and the sheer absurdity of my existence, screamed in protest. This is insane! You don’t know where you are! You don’t know what these things are! They’re weapons, Allen! Beautiful, sure, but designed to kill! You read enough story to know how easily it could be a bad Macguffin. This could be a trap! A curse! Pulling them out could unleash something terrible! You could be signing your own death warrant in a much more permanent way if you were not already or even worse.
The arguments were solid. Logical. Undeniably true. My hand hovered near the golden wing-shaped guard, near the dark, void-like shaft. Fear, cold and sharp, prickled down my spine. This wasn't just picking up a cool stick. This felt like… claiming. Like accepting a mantle I couldn’t possibly understand.
But then, something broke through the fear. A wave of emotion so profound it stole my breath. It wasn't coming from me. It was radiating from the weapons themselves.
Loneliness. A deep, aching, centuries-old loneliness. Abandonment. A sense of profound loss and purposelessness. They were magnificent, powerful beyond measure, yet utterly… adrift. Cast aside. Forgotten. Tools without a hand to wield them, a heart to guide them.
Just like me.
The thought hit me stronger than the force of the Minotaur’s fist probably had. The hollow ache that had lived in my chest since Grandpa’s funeral, the feeling of being untethered, adrift in a world that didn't make sense anymore… it echoed perfectly in the silent song emanating from these impossible artifacts. They weren't just weapons. They were… kin. Souls bound in metal and crystal, sharing the same feeling in a way.
I remembered Grandpa’s voice, rough but warm, echoing across years: "Allen, boy, listen close. Life’ll knock you down, sure as sunrise. People’ll leave, things’ll break. But you remember this: it’s never wrong to help others. Never wrong to reach out a hand, even when yours feels empty. Especially then."
A harsh, humorless laugh escaped me, startlingly loud in the profound silence. "What am I even doing?" I muttered, the sound swallowed instantly by the thick, golden air. Talking to sentient weapons in a hallucinatory paradise while my actual body was probably being pulped by a mythological monster. Classic fucking Luck. Probably just my brain’s final, spectacular acid trip before the lights went out for good.
But the loneliness… that felt real. As real as my own. And Grandpa’s words echoed, cutting through the cynicism, the fear, the rationalizations.
"Yeah, I know, Gramps," I whispered, my voice rough. "Probably crazy. Definitely not smart. But…" I looked at the sword, its blue etchings pulsing softly, at the spear, its crimson veins glowing like embers. "They feel alive. They feel… alone. Just like I was. Just like I am."
The call surged, a wave of desperate hope mingled with that ancient sorrow.
"And like my grandfather liked to say," I said, louder now, conviction hardening my voice even as my heart hammered against my ribs, "it’s never wrong to help others,” even if it was the last thing I would probably ever do.
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, bracing myself. Then, moving with a certainty I didn't know I possessed, I reached out. My right hand closed firmly around the cobalt leather grip of the golden sword. My left hand grasped the cold, impossibly dark shaft of the spear.
The contact was electric. Not painful, but profound. A jolt of pure recognition surged through me, from my fingertips to the core of my being. It wasn't just me touching them; it was them touching me, acknowledging something fundamental.
And then, faint as a sigh, carried on a breeze that didn't stir a single petal, a whisper brushed against my mind, clear and cold as starlight:
"There is no coming back if you pull them from the stone."
A warning? Something else? It didn't matter. The decision was made. Grandpa’s words were the anchor. The shared loneliness was the bridge.
I tightened my grip. "Noted," I breathed.
And pulled.
The resistance wasn't physical, not really. It was… metaphysical. Like pulling against the fabric of the world itself. The dark stone didn't crumble; it relinquished them. With a soundless release, a sigh of ages, the sword slid free of its scabbard, and the spear lifted from its stony socket.
In that instant, something monumental clicked deep within my chest. Not a bone cracking, not a muscle tearing. A lock, ancient and complex, sliding open. A door swinging wide on hinges that hadn't moved in millennia. A connection snapped into place, vast and undeniable.
The sword felt… right in my right hand. Perfectly balanced, the grip molding to my palm as if it had always been there. The weight was negligible, yet I could feel the immense power thrumming along its golden length, the blue etchings blazing with sudden, vibrant light. The spear in my left… it felt like an extension of my own will. The cold shaft warmed instantly to my touch, the dark void seeming to drink in my presence. The crimson veins pulsed brighter, faster, hungry and eager. They weren't just comfortable; they were part of me. As familiar and necessary as my own arms. Instincts flooded me – stances, grips, movements – not learned, but remembered.
As I held them aloft, crossed before me in the golden twilight, the spear shifted. The impossibly long, void-black shaft shimmered, condensing, flowing like liquid shadow until it was roughly the same length as the sword – a more manageable, yet no less lethal, short spear. The crimson dragon-fang tip seemed to burn brighter.
Above me, the golden light of the eternal twilight coalesced, intensified, focusing into a single, blinding point of pure radiance. It wasn't the sun; it was a manifestation of pure power, a spotlight from heaven itself. It flared, impossibly bright, searing through my closed eyelids, washing the entire realm of flowers in incandescent white.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the glare.
The roar slammed back into existence. The stench of wet monster fur and ozone. The icy lash of rain against my skin. The bone-jarring vibration of the Minotaur’s bellow inches from my face.
I snapped my eyes open.
The Minotaur’s fist was frozen. Not metaphorically. Literally suspended in the air, mere inches from crushing my nose. Raindrops hung around us like a million glittering diamonds, motionless in mid-air. A spray of mud from the monster’s earlier charge was arrested in a perfect arc. The howling wind was a silent pressure against my skin, the sound itself seemingly paused. Time hadn't stopped; I had accelerated beyond its flow.
Disorientation washed over me, followed instantly by a surge of pure, unadulterated vitality. I felt… incredible. Like I’d just woken from the deepest, most restorative sleep of my life, infused with pure energy. Every sense was dialed up to eleven. The world wasn’t just visible; it was hyper-real. I could see the individual water droplets suspended in the air, count the coarse hairs on the Minotaur’s frozen knuckles, perceive the minute shifts in the grey storm clouds on the horizon as if watching slow-motion footage. My body felt lighter, stronger, faster – not just physically, but fundamentally better. Muscles hummed with effortless power, joints moved with fluid grace I’d never possessed. My mind was crystal clear, thoughts flowing with razor-sharp precision. It was like I’d been living my entire life underwater, struggling against the current, and had suddenly broken the surface into clear, oxygen-rich air. I hadn’t even realized how blind, how deaf, how muffled I’d been until now.
And my hands… they weren’t empty. The solid, familiar weight of the golden sword was in my right hand, its blade free of the scabbard now, glowing faintly with that inner blue radiance. The shortened black spear, thrumming with contained violence, was firm in my left. They felt alive, humming with eager energy. They thrummed against my palms, not with vibration, but with intent. A focused, predatory anticipation directed solely at the frozen monstrosity before me.
They want him gone.
The realization was instantaneous, instinctive. These weren't just tools; they were partners, extensions of my own newfound will, and they recognized the Minotaur as an affront, a stain on existence that needed erasing.
Time wasn't stopped. I was moving through it like a shark through gelatin. The raindrops weren't obstacles; they were stationary points I could navigate around effortlessly. The world was caught in a single, frozen frame, and I possessed the terrifying freedom to move within it.
I looked at the Minotaur’s face, frozen in a rictus of rage and primal hunger, saliva glistening on its yellowed tusks. Up close, it was even uglier, a grotesque mockery of life. A wave of revulsion, amplified by the eager hum of the weapons in my hands, washed over me.
“You,” I stated, my voice sounding unnaturally clear and calm in the suspended silence, cutting through the frozen roar, “are truly one ugly motherfucker.”
I didn’t think. I didn't plan a fancy maneuver. Pure instinct, channeled through the sword and spear, took over. I simply swung. Not at the fist, not at the body. I aimed the tip of the glowing golden blade and the burning crimson spearhead towards the space the Minotaur occupied.
I expected resistance. I expected the blade to bite into thick hide, the spear to punch through muscle and bone. I expected a roar of pain, a spray of whatever that monster had at the place of blood.
I did not expect annihilation.
The moment the energies focused at the tips of the sword and spear intersected the Minotaur’s form, reality buckled.
It wasn't an explosion. It was… deletion.
Imagine the loudest sound possible – not a bang, but a tear. A shriek of tortured spacetime, a billion panes of glass shattering simultaneously into subatomic dust, compressed into an instant. It was a sound that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly in the soul, a physical pain of pure wrongness being unmade.
Visually, it was terrifyingly clean. Where the Minotaur stood, reality simply… ceased. One moment, a hulking, hairy, horned nightmare. The next, an expanding sphere of absolute nothingness. Not blackness. Not emptiness. The utter absence of space, time, matter, and energy. A perfect, terrifying void.
The effect propagated with horrifying speed and silence after that initial shriek. The void-sphere expanded, swallowing the frozen raindrops, the suspended mud, the very air around the Minotaur. It consumed the kinetic energy of the frozen punch, the sound waves of the roar, the light reflecting off its hide. It erased it all from existence, not destroying it, but unwriting it. The boundary of the sphere wasn't sharp; it was a violent ripple of distorted light and warped perception, like heat haze magnified a thousandfold, crackling with phantom energies – the visible shockwave of causality being forcibly rewritten.
Within the sphere, for a microsecond, i could swear that I might have glimpsed the roiling chaos of pure quantum foam, the raw potential of the universe before matter coalesced, a terrifying glimpse into the foundation of everything.
Ä̸̡̧͍̟͚̼̣̝̜̺͍̫͉̣͔̻̦͖̬̟̜̰͙̗̠̣̭̯͈̰̣̭̩͋͆́̀̅̃̌͑̄͒́̒̾̈́̀͑͛͂́̂͐̀́̽̂̑͒̇͒̂͘͜͜͝ͅk̴͉͋͗̄͊͊̒̓͗̕͝ã̷̡̡̯͈̖͍̮̝̼͖̩͈̘̩̱̥̝̱̼̻̞̦̣̞̓̔͑̓͋̏̆̽̒̈́͐́̌͒̍̃̒͊̾̂͐̄͐̃̂̀͆͌̽̋͂̕͜͝͝͠͝s̸̢̧̯̬͔̦͕̜̺͕̯̣̮̫̗͖̿̓̀̌̑̓͒͐͌̎̔͆̓̈́͝͝ͅĥ̵̡̢̛͔̫̼̪͓̮͚̮̬͖̠̱̖͛̊͂̓͋̓́̅̾̉̓͋̍́̋̅͗͂͒̄́̑̀̐̈̈̎͑̏͗̓̈́̀̆̇͊̚̚͘̕̕͘͜͝͠͠ą̷̡̡̧̢̧̧̛͖̟̳̹̘̱̼̝̱̙̼̫̦̥͉̰͚̩̫̠̪̤͈̰̙͎̲̤͔͔̫̥̬̫̠̮̱͕͔͉̰̱̯͑̓̀͗̍̋͊̓̓̽͋̎̂̑̆͛̂͆̓̄̾̂̑̿̾͒͂̋̓̅͑͆͘̚̕̕̚͜͜͝ͅ ̴̢̛̖͔̤̙̗̄͊̄̒̀̇̍͋̈́͌̂̂̒̈̑̄͑̊̑̏̏̄̄̀͗̏̓́͒̍͒̐̉̂̃̾̆͊̔́̚̕̕͜͜͠͝
Then, even that vanished, replaced by pure, featureless void.
As the sphere reached its maximum expansion, perhaps ten feet across, it didn't collapse. It imploded. With a sound like the universe inhaling sharply, the void sucked inwards upon itself. The distorted light at its edges flared violently, then snapped inwards, vanishing with a final, thunderous POP! that shook the ground beneath my feet, a pressure wave blasting outwards even in the resumed flow of time.
Where the Minotaur had been, there was… nothing. Not even scorch marks on the ground. Just wet grass, undisturbed. The raindrops that had been caught in the sphere were gone. The air felt thin, cold, empty in that spot, as if a vital piece of the atmosphere had been permanently excised. A faint smell of ozone and something acrid, like ionized stone, hung in the suddenly unfrozen air.
The rain resumed its fall. The wind howled. The sound of the storm crashed back in, but now underscored by a profound, echoing silence where the Minotaur’s presence had been. Erased. Not killed. Unmade.
I stood there, breathing hard, the golden sword and black spear humming softly in my hands, radiating satisfaction like purring cats. The sheer, terrifying scale of what I’d just done, what they’d just done through me, threatened to short-circuit my newly enhanced brain. I stared at the empty space where a mythological monster had been, then down at the impossibly beautiful instruments of its deletion in my hands.
What… the actual… fuck?
The thought was still forming, a chaotic whirlwind of shock, awe, and dawning horror, when another sound cut through the downpour and the fading echo of the void-implosion.
Footsteps. Multiple. Running towards me from the direction of the giant pine tree and the camp buildings.
Relief warred instantly with a fresh wave of panic. People! Help! Maybe they saw… maybe they could explain… maybe they had a really big towel…
I turned, slowly, the rain plastering my hair to my forehead, the sword and spear still held loosely at my sides, their glow dimming but still perceptible. My mind was already scrambling for an explanation, any explanation, that didn’t involve pulling sentient super-weapons from a grave in an acid-trip paradise. Uh, hey folks, funny story, saw a rabbit hole, fell down, found Excalibur and Gungnir’s edgy cousin, poofed your Minotaur…
The words died before they reached my lips. My brain stuttered to a halt, rebooted, and then blue-screened completely.
They emerged from the rain and mist near the base of the giant pine. A dozen figures, maybe more. Most of them… were kids. Teenagers, some looking barely into their teens, others maybe fifteen or sixteen. They were drenched, wide-eyed, clutching weapons that looked like they belonged in a museum exhibit on Ancient Greece: bronze swords, leaf-bladed spears, round shields painted with intricate designs. They wore identical bright orange T-shirts, the color jarringly cheerful against the grim storm and the weapons they carried. And printed on the chest of each shirt, in bold, unmistakable letters, was the phrase: CAMP HALF-BLOOD.
Their expressions were a kaleidoscope of shock, disbelief, dawning awe, and, unmistakeably, fear. They stared at me, at the weapons in my hands, at the conspicuously empty space where the Minotaur had just ceased to exist. The fear wasn't just of the situation; it was directed at me.
My mental reboot hit a critical snag. Camp Half-Blood. Greek weapons. Kids fighting monsters. Giant pine tree. Minotaur. The pieces, absurd and terrifying, clanged together in my head like falling anvils. It wasn't just mythology intruding on reality. It was… specific, very specific to a book I had read a lot in the past.
Before the horrifying conclusion could fully solidify, the group parted. The kids moved aside with instinctive respect, making way for the figure striding purposefully towards the front.
He was tall. Imposingly so. And he wasn't walking.
He was cantering.
From the waist up, he looked like a man in his late forties, maybe early fifties, with kind, intelligent eyes and a neatly trimmed beard, wearing the same bright orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt stretched over a broad chest. From the waist down… he was a powerful white stallion. His coat gleamed even in the dull storm light, his hooves striking the muddy ground with solid, deliberate thuds that vibrated through the puddles. A centaur.
He stopped at the head of the group of stunned demigods, his intelligent eyes, ancient and knowing, fixed intently on me. On the golden sword. On the black spear. On the empty space behind me. His expression was unreadable, a mask of calm assessment that held depths of worry and profound, weary understanding.
My cigarette, miraculously still somehow clenched between my lips despite the dimensional shift and the reality-erasing swing, felt suddenly absurd. I took a slow, deliberate drag, the acrid smoke a grounding anchor in the surreality. The taste was familiar, mundane, a stark contrast to the impossible weapons in my hands and the mythological creature standing before me.
The final, horrifying piece clicked into place. The woman and the two boys in the car. The Minotaur. The camp. The weapons. The centaur. The orange shirts.
Percy Jackson.
Not just any mythological world. That world. The world where the Greek gods were real, petty, and played with human lives like toys on a cosmic chessboard. Where "good vs. evil" was often just "bad vs. slightly less bad, but still ultimately awful." Where kids got drafted into divine wars before they could shave.
The rain drummed on my shoulders. The centaur – Chiron, it had to be Chiron – watched me, waiting. The kids behind him shifted nervously, their weapons still raised, their eyes wide with a mixture of terror and burgeoning hero-worship aimed at the guy who’d just made a Minotaur stop existing.
I exhaled a long, slow stream of smoke into the stormy air, watching it curl and vanish in the downpour. The golden sword hummed comfortingly in my right hand. The black spear pulsed with restrained power in my left.
Poland. Grandpa’s had a dark joke about cosmic unfairness that I had always put him in trouble with grandma. Still, i could remember it perfectly. It echoed in my mind. "Why does everything always happen to Poland?"
A grim, humorless smile touched my lips. I wasn't in Kansas anymore. I wasn't even in my own damn dimension anymore.
Truly, I thought, the weight of the weapons, the gaze of the centaur, the absurdity of the orange shirts pressing down on me, “Because fuck Poland.”
Maybe there was something true about the wisdoms of the Elderly and all of that. Truly, you were right Grandpa. Fuck Poland.
Comments
LothWolf
There are some links and videos I posted to help understand the weapons that the MC has
Sky_Arceus_77
Honestly, I just read both chapters and even though I know nothing of Fate nor DxD I loved this, let's see how everything develops from now on.
LothWolf
videos about Nasuverse Excalibur, Rhongmyniad and the scabbard Avalon , Excalibur video https://youtu.be/EgW2iGzD15U?si=4iW2osH1pqqf97s8 , Rhongmyniad video https://youtu.be/JmLkceD1ZRQ?si=JODITFz7D847wbIw , a video about Scabbard Avalon https://youtu.be/-gx4AE2FOkw?si=piZcN-1UAuF3dCay
