Chapter 100

A/N: We made it boys! Chapter 100, It's been 100 Chapter and still no Percy! This calls for a celebration! 🍾🥂🎉🎊. 

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[Third Person's PoV] 

Thalia looked at Baba Yaga with a bit of apprehension before turning to Lucian. "She isn't going to turn on us, is she? I mean, you did gouge out her eyeballs from their sockets."

Baba Yaga let out a small laugh, causing her chest to wiggle slightly. "There are no hard feelings. What he did was indeed the correct choice. If I were in his shoes, I would have done the same."

[Image]

Lucian turned towards Thalia and gave her a thumbs up. "See, everything is okay."

"She isn't going to become hungry for children again?"

Thalia's question caused Lucian to look at Baba Yaga a bit weirdly. "So, why were you eating children?"

"That's due to human influence and their beliefs. A child once went missing in the forest, and their village, when searching for them, found my hut. When I came out to inquire what was going on and try to help, they saw my grotesque appearance and immediately assumed I ate them. 

Since then, the word spread rather quickly that I ate children. The word kept spreading and no one doubted it to the point that it became a 'known fact' and a part of my etymology. It became a part of me; I became someone who ate children for pleasure."

"I see…" Lucian nodded.

Thalia turned towards Lucian. "You believe her? What if she's lying?"

Lucian shot down Thalia's suspicion. "No, what she says sounds about right. For two reasons," he said, holding up two fingers.

"First, my shadows are physically incapable of lying to me, so she can't be lying. Another possibility is that she's just stating what she believes to be true. Second, Hecate has confirmed to me that such a thing can happen."

"Your magic teacher?" Thalia asked, to which Lucian nodded.

"She has told me to be careful of the titles I get on my journey, that human faith and beliefs are powerful things. Which seems to have occurred to Baba Yaga."

"Fine, I'll drop my suspicion, but I'll still keep my eye on her if I were you," Thalia said as she narrowed her eyes towards Baba Yaga.

Just then, Asura appeared, carrying two stacks of books in two hands and a mortar full of bottled potions in another.

Lucian looked at the stack of books and then at Asura in confusion. "Where did you even get those books from?"

With his free hand, Asura pointed towards the shadow hut with chicken feet.

"Ah, these belong to you?" Lucian said, looking at Baba Yaga.

She shook her head. "Not anymore. These now belong to you, since you're now my master. So all that is mine is now all yours," she said seductively, lifting up his chin with one of her fingers.

"I really don't like you," Thalia said, narrowing her eyes even further.

After Baba Yaga was done with her teasing, Lucian looked around to see if he had missed anything.

He then noticed that he could turn the skeleton Baba Yaga barely managed to summon, which Thalia quickly disposed of, into shadows.

"Arise…" Lucian muttered, keeping his fear of skeletons in check.

Around thirty dark red skeletons arose from the ground.

Surprisingly, Lucian started to become dizzy, causing him to stagger back a bit. Thalia quickly caught him and anxiously asked what was wrong.

Lucian chuckled shyly, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. "I overdid it with my magic. I'm running a bit empty here. My battle with Baba Yaga, resurrecting her, and then the skeletons took more out of me than I expected, especially resurrecting her."

Baba Yaga reached over to the mortar of potions and pulled out a blue glowing potion. She handed it to Lucian. "Here, this should help."

As he downed it, he almost spat it out but ultimately drank the whole thing. "Oh my God, what is wrong with you witches and nasty-tasting potions?" he whined, sticking his tongue out in disgust and holding his throat. "Would it kill you to add some flavor?" he continued to complain.

After his magic recuperated, Lucian extended his hand, which gained a dark red hue. All of his skeleton shadows then turned into shadowy wisps that flew into his open palm. The wisps started to run in circles around his hand before they blended into one another.

Lucian's other hand gained a similar hue and started moving in a circle on top of the black ball that was forming. He then clasped the top hand with the bottom one, enclosing the black ball in the middle, and softly closed his eyes. His hands moved and wiggled slightly as he maintained a look of deep concentration.

After a while, he released a tired breath and opened his hand. In his hand was a small skeletal action figure with horns and dark red fire for eyes. He then threw the action figure into his shadow. Thalia was confused by his actions until she saw something that shocked her.

From behind Lucian, a giant dark red skeletal figure began to form. Lucian was in the middle of the ribcage, while two giant bone-like arms appeared out. A giant skull with two large devil-like horns looked down at Thalia. Dark red flames blazed in its eye sockets, giving the skull a sense of life.

Thalia let out a scream as she jumped back in fright and pulled out her shield and spear. "WHAT IS THAT THING??" she asked, pointing at it with her spear.

Lucian's excitement overshadowed his fear as he laughed madly, "HAHAHAHAHA, IT WORKED!"

"What did?" Thalia asked, looking at the thing with apprehension.

"My beautiful creation… I would have given you your original name, but I don't think the god would be very happy," Lucian muttered sadly while putting a hand on the ribcage that surrounded him.

Seeing that it wasn't dangerous, Thalia lowered her weapons. "Why did you decide to give it devil horns? That just makes it creepier."

"That's the point, it's for the intimidation factor."

Lucian then made the figure disappear back into his shadow, letting out a sigh. He dusted off his hands. "Now then, for the thing I actually came to do."

Lucian pulled out a bag of Drachmas, knelt down towards the ground, and placed his hand on the grass, closing his eyes. After a while, the ground below his hand started to shake and then cracked open. A few seconds later, gems of various colors appeared.

He put the gems in the leather bag and pulled the string from its side to close it, but it only closed partially, some of the gems and coins sticking out. He then held the bag in one hand while two of his fingers in the other hand gained a dark red coloring. He slowly wrote words in ancient Greek before digging at the ground and burying the bag in the hole he created, then closed it.

He dusted his hands once again and nodded. "That should do it…"

Lucian then turned towards Baba Yaga. "Does the chicken-feet hut over there have rooms to sleep in?"

Baba Yaga smiled and nodded. "Come, I'll show you what the inside looks like," she said, leading him and Thalia inside the shadowy hut.

'I now have a portable house… that's nice,' Lucian happily thought as he gingerly skipped his way inside.

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A/N: So i need help creating a good name for 3 things, leave your suggestions below please: 

[Baba Yaga] 

[The Hut: Chicken feet thing] 

[The Susanno, skeleton thing]