32 Suffering
Riordanverse
Fear, it is an integral part of a demigod's life. Regardless of their parentage, a demigod will eventually come to know fear, and should they survive a few years they will come to know it intimately.
Alex has always believed that to feel fear is good. To feel fear means that one still lives, to feel fear means that one has not been numbed and their situation can be salvaged, more importantly however, fear can be conquered.
And yet, as he races through the dark, haunting forest, sweat trickling down his face, breathing labored, and feeling afraid like never before; Alex wishes that he were fearless. He wishes that he could not feel fear, or better yet conquer this fear.
Lightning flashes in the overcast sky and thunder rumbles above, causing Alex to stumble and trip and almost fall.
The King of Gods rages in the heavens yet Alex cannot bring himself to care, for he has worse things to fear.
Not far behind him, hidden somewhere in the shadows of the massive forest, the howl of a pack of wolves almost cripples him with fear while an unkindness of ravens caw in the air above.
"Leave me alone!" screams Alex as he trips over a tree's roots.
"And why would we do that?" whispers the she-devil's sultry voice in his ear.
Alex swats the air by his ears only to hit nothing. His shirt catches on a branch, and he screams as he slips from it.
The she-devils laugh resounds through the forest, seemingly coming from everywhere yet nowhere at once.
"Please, what do you want?" begs the demigod.
For they came in the night with no warning, slaughtering his entire squad in the span of seconds. Fourteen well trained demigods, hardened warriors all, slaughtered with no ability to fight back. Alex did not even see what their attackers looked like, all he could think of was how to escape.
"Information." says the she-devil in his ears.
"I can't, The General would kill me!" Alex screams into the forest.
"And I will flay the skin from your flesh before slowly opening your ribcage, all the while you live. I will make sure that you never lose consciousness, and you will feel every moment of agony in full. And when you beg for death I will heal you, all to do it over and over and over again." snarls the voice. "So choose now godling death to The General or torture by my hands for my patience grows quite thin."
"Ok! Ok! Ok!" Alex says as he falls to the ground.
"Wise choice." says the voice as the ravens above circle around him before coalescing into a single form.
With the palest skin Alex has ever seen, hair as white as snow, and a voluptuous figure, she must be the most beautiful woman alive. And yet Alex feels no arousal, only fear.
Her glowing orange eyes regard him as far below her, and her black lips sneer at him.
"What is your name, boy?" she asks him as she slowly crouches before him.
"A-Alex" he stutters.
"Good, tell me, Alex, where is the monster army's headquarters?" she asks while caressing his face, her long, sharp, black fingernails digging into his cheek.
"Mount Othrys." he answers.
Before Alex can realize his mistake, the woman's nails dig into his flesh and slowly peel the skin from his cheek.
"Do not play games with me, godling, for my patience is thin." she snarls.
"Mount Tamalpais, it's at Mount Tamalpais!" Alex quickly says, causing her to stop.
"Now. How many does the army number?" she asks as she licks his blood from her fingers.
"I-I don't know. I swear, they don't tell us these things." Alex stammers.
"Of course not, they don't much care for you half-bloods. Almost as if you lot are nothing but a temporary asset before becoming food." she scoffs mockingly, and Alex can feel his face heat up in shame, rage, and a slew of other emotions; the first time he has felt anything other than fear this night.
"Tell me Alex, what operational secrets are you privy to?" the she-devil asks with a smile.
"T-t-the demigods that were sent on the quest are going to be ambushed soon. That's where we were going. We were going to meet other demigod groups and a squad of monsters to ambush them." Alex says.
The mention of a demigod quest seems to intrigue the woman, and for a brief moment Alex feels hope at surviving this encounter.
"A demigod quest? For what?" she asks, causing Alex to pale.
"I-I don't know. All I know is that something was stolen again and this time Zeus is even more pissed off than before. There's rumors that the entire Olympian council is hunting for whatever was stolen and the demigods from the camp teamed up with the Hunters to send a quest party to find it. We were going to ambush them at the junkyard of the gods in Gila Claw, Arizona. That's all I know, I swear!" Alex exclaims.
"Good boy." the woman says softly, increasing the hope that Alex feels.
With a twist of her wrist however, Alex's neck snaps and he dies without even knowing, with his eyes full of hope.
"Mount Tamalpais." whispers Evelynn to herself as she brings Alex's neck to her lips while unsheathing her fangs.
"It is a suicide mission Evelynn." says Reina as she and the rest of the Wild Hunt emerges from the shadows while Reina and her werewolves shift from their wolf forms to their human forms.
"What do you suggest then?" asks Evelynn as she discards of the drained corpse.
"We find Perseus and ask him to bring the Lord Commander's family over. With their dragons we may stand a chance." says Reina.
"Is that wise?" asks another werewolf before Evelynn can reply. "This world may have The Mist but there's only so much it can hide according to the Lord Commander."
"Perhaps we are going about this in the wrong direction." says one of the Fey. "We are The Wild Hunt, nature is our home, and the darkness our cloaks. We need not launch a frontal assault." he suggests.
"Perhaps if we numbered in the hundreds, no, just a mere hundred would be enough. Unfortunately we do not even number a dozen without Lord Aemon." Evelynn remarks.
With their training, one hundred would indeed be enough for a simple rescue operation. Unfortunately, they do not even number half of that.
Before any of the other members can make another suggestion, a presence makes itself known to them.
"Ghost." says Reina in awe as the direwolf emerges from the darkness, the young huntress of Artemis sitting on his back and tightly clinging to his fur.
Above them, Huginn's caw can be heard.
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Mount Othrys, Mount Tamalpais
Pain and shackles, two "old friends" that he can do without. They have been his constant companions since his tenth nameday, or rather a few moons prior to his tenth nameday. On his sixth and tenth nameday, when he had finally escaped the shackles of slavery, he had vowed to never be shackled again. And yet here he is, chained, powerless, missing an eye, and forced to hold the sky.
"You are a resilient one." says his tormentor from his sitting position before Aemon where he has been sitting and observing him for the better part of an hour. What he hopes to gain from studying him Aemon knows not, nor can he bring himself to care for his troubles are more pressing than the cruel Titan's thoughts.
"A lesser man, a lesser being, would be begging for freedom by now." Koios remarks.
Since Ghost and Huginn had successfully rescued the poor girl, Koios has seen fit to take out his frustrations on Aemon.
His left eye had been the first casualty before the Titan had divested him of his armor and daggers and made use of his very own weapons to scar his back in a familiar pattern.
Even now he feels the burning pain of the torn flesh on his back, the blood seeping from the wounds to form a puddle at his feet.
Aemon had tried to escaped the pain by warging into Ghost or Huginn, let his body endure this torture while his mind seeks refuge with his friends. Unfortunately however, whenever he would try the Titan would plunge one of his cold gauntleted fingers into his empty eye socket, returning him back to his body with the cold and extreme pain.
Worse yet, the Titan seems fascinated by Aemon's resistance to freezing and burning temperatures. Going as far to see if he is as resistant to Greek Fire as other flames.
Just the thought of the pain causes Aemon's charred and scarred right hand to ache.
"Do–do you not fear that I will let go of this burden and kill us all?" Aemon asks, his voice ragged and hoarse from screaming and its volume barely above a whisper.
"Perhaps if you could move." Koios mocks as he points to the floor where Aemon's shackles are pulled taunt by metal pegs on the ground.
"While you were, understandably, delirious from the pain of losing an eye, I was ensuring that you could never move from this position much less relinquish." says Koios as Aemon attempts to move.
True to the Titan's words, Aemon finds that he cannot move more than an inch from where he kneels
"Besides, even if you could move, this curse cannot simply be relinquished. Else Atlas would have done so long ago." Koios adds.
With a grunt Aemon tries to shift his weight, hoping to at least to relieve the burden even by a mere fraction.
"This cannot continue. At this rate you will become his plaything for eternity." says the Other.
"The Wild Hunt will come for me." Aemon replies.
"Aye, and they shall die by the Titan's sword." the Other responds.
"No. Evelynn has cunning to match mine own and a ruthless streak that shames Tywin Lannister himself. She will learn all there is to learn of the enemy before coming. Meanwhile Reina will stop her from committing any rash actions." Aemon says even as his body briefly trembles from the pain.
"Let us hope that when they do come that they also bring the keys to your shackles for with them you shall not be escaping anywhere." the Other says.
"Escape?" sneers Aemon. "Once I am free there will be no escape, not before I blind Koios and shackle him to the very same place he has shackled me."
"Unfortunately until such a time comes you shall be at his mercy." the Other remarks as Koios stands with a malicious grin on his face and Aemon's dagger in his hands.
"No." Aemon refuses. "There was nothing I could do when he took my eye, and I was too delirious to retaliate when he burned my hand and marred my back with my own daggers. But no more, I am lucid now and these chains can only do so much when restricting my powers." Aemon says as he grins at Koios.
"I wonder, are you a masochist perhaps? For why else would you smile at the promise of more pain?" asks Koios.
Rather than respond Aemon merely glares at Titan before a monumental pressure erupts from him and envelops the mountaintop.
With a grunt Koios stumbles, barely stopping himself from falling, before finding himself unable to move any closer to Aemon.
"Elfling! Is this your doing?" screams Koios as the Titan tries and fails to approach Aemon.
With a raspy laugh full of relief, Aemon regards the immobile Titan before him.
"It worked." he says to himself as relief fills him. He was not sure that it would work for Conqueror's Haki is an ambiguous power from a foreign that has not even been properly explained in its world as far as he knows. With his magic made impossible to access due to the chains, his Conqueror's Haki was his only remaining hope.
In his brief moment of inattention his Conqueror's Haki stumbles and Koios takes a step forward.
With frown Aemon refocuses and unleashes it all, not caring whether the environment or any living being beyond Koios is affected.
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Author's Note: What do you guys think about the chapter and the story so far? I also have a patreon if you guys want to support at patreon.com/servantambrosius
