It was just a lonely country road west of New York City. At one time it had a gas station, a telephone pole, and a payphone with its own private box. Now the gas station was a hollow shell. The telephone pole was cracked in half, laying at an awkward angle. But the payphone was still there.
Kicking the corner of the box to get mud off his shoes, a boy stepped inside. There was mold in the top corners, and the buttons on the phone had all rusted. He popped a quarter in and dialed a number. The phone sent out the call.
"Yes!" The boy pumped his fist. "Finally!"
And he jammed the to his ear, holding it there with his shoulder as he leaned out of the box to look at the sky.
"There's nobody on the other end of this call," he said. "I know that, but I'm going talk anyway, because I've got to vent. Do you know how many phones I had to try to find a working one? Way too many, that's the answer. But now, my voice is being scattered to the wind for every monster to notice. Thanks for that, Lamia. You were trying to get demigods killed, but right now that curse on technology is really damn helpful."
The boy paused. He knelt, stretching the phone's chord. Laying a hand on the ground, he shut his eyes, feeling for a difference.
"Any moment now, you slow, dumb, uncooperative idiots… There!"
He felt it in his fingers, just barely. The ground had begun to tremble.
"How long will it take?" he spoke into the phone. "Five more minutes? Ten? I can feel that they're on their way. They really aren't the brightest. Not that I'm mad about that, though. It's useful."
He shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand, looking out. On the horizon was the Big Apple, or at least its skeleton. Only half of the highest skyscrapers still stood, and he was sure that if he was to walk its streets, there would hardly be a thing left to recognize. That was how it had been across this entire state. He glanced around the area surrounding the phone box again, looking at dirt without even grass growing, the stumps of what used to be a forest sprawling in all directions. There wasn't a single bit of green. On the horizon, a rising column of dust had become visible.
"It's been nice talking to you, but I think that's good enough."
The boy placed the phone back on its hook. He strolled outside and stretched. The ground was shaking enough now that he could feel it through his shoes. The first ones appeared on the horizon. Large, scaly things bigger than cars, let alone a person.
The stampede lacked any kind of organization. Serpentine monsters battered into each other, running impossibly fast on four legs, hundreds of heads hissing and drooling acidic spit. They could smell the boy now, and they were impossibly hungry.
As they approached, the boy looked around himself. "Got to do this fast," he muttered. "What's the best way…"
His eyes fell on the downed power lines. They'd lost their spark long ago, but hardly needed them for that. He gripped the dark rubber and tore it off the pole it was connected to, until he was holding a long stretch of loose wires in his hand. He turned to the monsters.
He recognized them. He'd fought one before, but it didn't look anything like this. There were… twelve? Fifteen? It was difficult to tell, because each body came with an incredible number of long, hissing heads. A hydra had been one of the most challenging monsters he ever had to fight at one time in his life.
Just for a moment, the boy placed himself in the shoes of a mortal, imagining he had been making a desperate call while alone, scared, and helpless, only to be descended on by beasts this nasty. There would be nothing he could do. His heart twisted with angry sparks.
But although he was alone, he was not helpless, and he was far from scared.
"Someone put a lot of work into you," he told the hydras. "I'm going to ruin all of it now."
The first of the heads reached out to bite him. Each was desperate to be the first to get a taste. The boy swiped his right arm.
The dark wires became a visible arc. They almost appeared like one solid object they moved so fast, slashing like a sword that was dozens of feet in length.
In one great puff tall enough to be seen for miles, every single Hydra exploded in a column of dust. The boy looked down at the power line that had done it, slicing their bodies in half rather than allowing a single head to regenerate.
"Pretty good!" he said.
And he turned, his legs growing in size and changing color, propelling him into the air with a leap that covered miles.
As he flew, Percy couldn't help but look back, across the barren wasteland that had been his home state, and across the water toward Manhattan.
In the end, he looked away quickly. He could only get so angry before he made a mistake, so it was better to ignore it. Just for now.
"Hyperion," he muttered. "I'm coming for you, you big bright asshole."
When he hit the ground, he jumped again, quickly putting distance between himself and the scene of his 'fight'.
O-O-O
"Did it work?"
I glanced at Prometheus, bent forward over a table inside of a faded canvas tent. The Titan was dressed for war, a sign that he recognized our rebellion was well and truly underway. In his camo fatigues, Prometheus looked like he could've appeared in one of my old high school textbooks, fighting for South American Liberation.
"Kind of," I said. "The phone attracted them just as fast as you said it would. The problem is, it took me nine hours to find one that worked. If I go back to that same one, they'll get suspicious."
Prometheus frowned, nodding. "We'll need to alter the strategy going forward. Good work."
The tent had the table he was standing over, a bed in the corner, and a few wooden chairs scattered around. Prometheus called it the Planning Room. I thought that was a bit too official for a simple tent we scrounged out of a destroyed home Depot south of Memphis.
Sighing, I walked to one of the seats and dropped into it, looking around the room.
"So… Are you going to explain what the plan is this time around? Because I've been running around vaporizing monsters for four days now, and I'm not saying it isn't satisfying, but I don't see any reason to keep me in the dark."
Prometheus continued staring at his map of the state. "You're thinning their numbers."
"Getting rid of Hyperion's monsters." I nodded. "I understand that. These Hydras that are running around? They aren't natural. There's too many of them, and they've all got way too many heads, even if that's their gimmick. But before, you wanted to destroy Menoetius quickly, before anyone noticed. Why is Hyperion different?"
"It's not different at all." Prometheus looked at me. "If you could fight with Hyperion tomorrow, I would go with that plan in a heartbeat."
"Then it's hard to reach him. Why?"
Prometheus smiled a nastily-nice smile. "Because you turned him into a coward."
I fought Hyperion in the war. He hadn't been in his true form yet, like the rest of the titans, but he'd still been a scary opponent. I battled him on top of a lake, with Grover and other nature spirits fighting at my back. In the end Hyperion had been buried inside of a tree, trapped so that not even he could free himself.
"Hyperion and Krios both lost during the war," Kronos said. "Hyperion to you, and Krios to our friend Jason. But where Krios sought revenge immediately, Hyperion was frightened to. He didn't simply lose, he was entombed, only freed when his full power returned. Such a thing isn't easily forgotten."
The tent flap opened. Jason stood in the entrance, holding it up for Frank to step through pushing a wheelchair.
"Welcome!" Prometheus said. "Jason! Frank! Reyna. My girl, have you thought about my suggestion?"
The latin girl looked expressionlessly at him. She didn't look any warmer than she had beside the pool when we first met, cynical and stern. "I've made my decision," she said.
"And?"
"I'll do it."
Prometheus clapped. "Excellent! You won't regret it."
"I'm certain that I won't," Reyna said. "After all, if it goes wrong, I'll die before having time for that."
From the looks on Jason and Frank's faces, they didn't know what this was about either. But if there was one thing Prometheus could be counted on to do, it was talk.
"Hyperion is terrified of losing again," explained the Titan. "His solution has been to never be at risk. He had every single plant in his domain torn out, to get rid of any nature spirits. All mortals he could find, he slaughtered. Percy has seen them already, but he put special attention into training the most potent monsters he could, breeding Hydras and personally stripping them of heads, until they reached a new level of lethality. It's through these forces that he acts. Other than visits to Mt. Othrys to report to his brother, I'm not sure he has left his palace in years."
"And where does Reyna come into this?" I asked.
"Because I'm weak and vulnerable," Reyna said.
"Because you look weak," Prometheus corrected her gently, turning to me and the other two. "That's part of the solution, though, not the problem. We must reach Hyperion. To attack his stronghold would be suicide; Titans would arrive before we reached him. So, we need him to willingly come to us."
I glanced at Reyna, trying to figure out how she was the solution to all of this. I hated Hyperion just as much as the next guy, but I couldn't really imagine him coming out of hiding just to swoop down on the first unattended cripple he saw.
"At first, my plan was to have Percy attract his forces and wipe them out in a succession of small-scale fights, forcing Hyperion's hand. But that will take too long."
"So I wasted my time," I said.
"Not at all. The work you've done will help my next plan just as much." Prometheus paused, picking his next words carefully. "My uncle is… emotional. It's his fear after one loss that made him act this way. But, by the opposite side of the same coin, failure rankles him. When angered sufficiently, he will throw all caution to the wind. Despite all of Hyperion's work, he has not been able to dominate this region completely."
"There are holdouts?" Jason asked, standing beside Frank with his arms crossed. "Like us at the Wolfhouse?"
"More than that," said Prometheus. "Survivors were forced to band together if they wanted to survive here. Something must be protecting them, as well, for them to have lived this long. Whatever the case, the very thought of them drives Hyperion mad."
My mind raced. If it wasn't Hyperion that Reyna was supposed to catch the attention of…
"You want to attract the resistance with Reyna," I said. "Because she looks weak. That way, they'll be more likely to approach us."
"Cripples naturally elicit sympathy," Prometheus said. "A lone man wielding great power is frightening, and may be seen as a trap. However, if he travels with a girl who cannot walk, even protecting her, his approachability will skyrocket."
"And after they get these people's attention?" Frank asked. "What happens then?"
"We win them over." Prometheus leaned forward, the tilt of his head shading his eyes. "Whatever it takes."
When none of us answered, he filled the silence himself.
"Once Hyperion falls, we will no longer have surprise on our side. Any allies, great or trivial, must be brought to our banner. After this…"
"It will be war," I said.
O-O-O
"By the gods!" Calypso howled. "Percy. Percy!"
She clung to my shoulders like I was a life raft at sea. Her body was pinned beneath mine while I thrusted forward repeatedly. A small strand of her hair was stuck to my lip, leftover after my mouth explored her body. Her breasts shook underneath me. Her features were twisted up in pleasure, and I knew mine looked exactly the same.
I heard groaning behind us. Annie and Grace lay across each other, Grace using her friend's bust as a pillow. Both the girls were leaking trails of my cum from between their legs. Off of the bed, pressed into the corner, was Thalia. The daughter of Zeus was completely passed-out, leaking even more profusely than the mortals. Calypso had outlasted the other three by over an hour, something that was quickly becoming the norm.
With mortals in the room we couldn't safely use our true forms, but that was fine. Calypso was more than beautiful enough this way.
She squeezed with her arms, staring into my eyes.
"I love you!" she moaned. "I would happily stay here for a hundred years– no, a thousand!"
I was going to struggle to keep going for ten more minutes, let alone ten centuries, but I didn't open my mouth and ruin the mood. I dipped my head, kissing her fiercely.
I don't know if I lasted through those ten minutes, because I lost myself in the sensation of her lips. We kissed and kissed, neither of us needing air, until her taste became my world. Our tongues still locked together, I came for what was at least the tenth time that night, flooding Calypso with a load twice the size of what the other girls got.
"No fair," someone said as I rolled off the Titaness.
Annie was looking up, Grace still sprawled across her chest.
"Why does Calypso always get the most?" complained the blond.
"Because she fucks him for hours," Grace muttered. "After our legs have given out and we end up like this. Even Thalia couldn't keep up."
The short-haired beauty groaned in the corner.
"I'm trying to be jealous," Annie complained. "I wasn't looking for a good answer."
As if they decided on it telepathically, Annie and Grace both rose at the same time, crawling across the bed to me. The duo cleaned my crotch with their tongues, lapping off juices that once belonged to both them and the others. I stroked their heads as they worked, relishing the way they shifted into my touch.
"How do you feel?" Calypso asked suddenly.
She was laying on her back, looking dazed but more than conscious enough to speak.
"Dessicated," I said.
She laughed. "I don't mean your crotch. I mean… has there been progress?"
I cast my attention inward, toward the core of power that I was continuously unraveling. Scenes like this one were a nightly occurrence at this point as we worked tirelessly to satisfy me. And, step by step, it was working. I could feel it.
"We're on the right track," I said.
"Hyperion is not like Menoetius," she warned. "He is a true ruler, not a simple puppet. He will not fall easily."
Although their intentions were good, Annie and Grace's cleaning had only served to make my softening member stiffen. I gently pushed them off so that Annie landed atop Grace, quickly facing both of them away from me.
"We'll just need to prepare thoroughly then, won't we?"
Calypso laughed as I plunged back into the mortals, our flesh clapping once more as their moans filled the room.
This would just have to be enough. I couldn't accept any less.