Annabeth stared at the man sitting beside the campfire, his form silhouetted against the dancing orange flames. It had been three days since he had literally cratered into their lives, and the atmosphere at Camp Half-Blood hadn't been this suffocating since Thalia's tree was poisoned.
There was just a feeling around him that put her on edge, and she had been around some of the greatest monsters in the Greek pantheon, yet something inside just felt repulsed and afraid of the man, something that even standing in front of Medusa, the hydra, Charybdis, or even the titan general Atlas, she did not feel.
And then there was the reaction he had on Mr. D. when the god had appeared and looked ready to kill the man, she had honestly been surprised.
In all her years at camp, Annabeth had never seen Mr. D look so close to his true, terrifying form, look like an actual god. Everyone knew he was an Olympian, but after years of seeing him in tiger-patterned shirts complaining about Diet Coke, it was easy to forget he was a major power.
That day in the Big House, the lazy camp director had vanished. In his place was a Being of madness and vine, rolling with a divine pressure that felt like standing at the epicenter of a hurricane.
And yet, the man hadn't flinched. He had stood his ground with a cold, jagged smile and was even taunting the god to a fight. He was crazier than even Percy Annabeth had concluded.
Annabeth narrowed her grey eyes, her hand subconsciously checking the bronze knife at her belt. Harry. That was the name he'd given Chiron. He sat cross-legged now, eyes closed in a state of deep meditation. He hadn't moved for hours, his breathing so slow it was almost non-existent. He looked like a statue just sitting there.
Chiron had barely managed to stop the fight that day, literally begging Mr. D to focus on the threat of Typhon rather than an "unknown mortal." The wine god had eventually relented, but the look he gave Harry before flashing away had promised a reckoning.
It was hard to imagine a mortal who could stare down a god like that, even Percy didn't look so brave as he had when he battled Ares. No, this hadn't been a god in his human form, no, this had been a god ready to unleash his true form, and the power had stunned them all.
Yet this mortal, and she had been surprised at that when someone pointed out the color of his blood, reminding them that when they had brought him in, he was bleeding red, yet this mortal had not even been shaken at all.
Chiron had warned Harry about the dangers of challenging the lords of Olympus. The man had merely snorted. "Don't worry about me, horse-man," he'd said. Then, without asking permission or even waiting for a response, he'd announced he was staying until he recovered from his injuries. not even bothering to listen to an answer, just acting as if he was above them.
Chrion had told them to leave him be, saying he'd keep an eye on him and that they should just focus on the coming war, and that he had a feeling that as long as the man was not bothered, he'd not pay attention to them.
Surprisingly, he had kept to himself since then. Just this endless meditation by the fire close to the edge of camp. Annabeth knew every camper was watching him and not just her. Demigod ADHD made a mystery like Harry irresistible. It was only a matter of time before someone broke the silence.
Naturally, that someone was the one with the worst case of ADHD, Percy Jackson.
Annabeth watched as Percy approached, his hands in his pockets, looking like he was just going for a casual stroll, but she knew that his hands were holding on to Riptide just in case.
Normally, she'd stop him from poking the sleeping Hydra, but her own curiosity was a gnawing hunger.
"Hey," Percy said, stopping a few feet from the man.
Harry opened his eyes slowly. He had been spending these past few days trying to get a chance to leave this world, but that damn outer bastard was just waiting for him, and it started to annoy him after the first day.
He was even ready to just open the rift and try to dodge the thing before jumping into the rift and fleeing, but there were two things that could go wrong there.
First was that if he opened the rift and that thing got into this world, he knew that the world would be gone, and he was not ready to have a few billion people's deaths on his hands simply because he was impatient. Second was that even if he decided to sacrifice this world and try to just leave the thing to destroy the world, as he used that chance to leave, he didn't think it would just leave him be just like that, no, it would follow him, and he wasn't going to make it to his world before he was caught.
An idea came to him on the second day, and while he never tried it, he had spent the remainder of his time doing just that.
See, all the world he went to, he eventually anchored them right. well what he used to anchor them was his Weaver authority, using his strings to tie the world to his own OG world but now he was not on a world with a string connected to his but the string around his world was still there and it was its string and he could still manipulate it and so he decided to do what he never even thought of doing.
He sat down as he focused on the strings around his world and slowly, and he meant very, very slowly, pulled the strings closer to him and with them his worlds too. He really didn't know the full consequences of what he was doing, but he was using the strings to observe the worlds as he pulled them, making sure that they were in no trouble, and lucky what he was pulling was the space of the worlds around them and not just the worlds. If that had been the case, he would have killed everyone on the worlds. So he took a chance, and it was working, but still slow, but it was working and that was enough for now.
"Are you a demigod?" Percy asked, blunt as a sledgehammer, bringing him back to the present.
The entire camp area went deathly quiet. Every ear in the area turned toward them.
Harry tilted his head, a playful spark dancing in his eyes. "A demigod, hmm…" He wasn't a son of a god in the way these kids were, but as a Campione, a god-slayer born from the ritual of Epimetheus and Pandora, the title was technically the closest thing this world had for him.
He perked up, a mischievous idea taking root.
He turned to Percy and smiled. "I am. Why do you ask?"
Percy scratched the back of his head, looking relieved and confused at the same time. "Well, we know you're not mortal, not really. But Chiron was acting like you weren't a demigod either. So I was curious. Who's the parent?"
Harry knew exactly what the boy wanted. He leaned back. "Pandora."
Percy blinked. "…What? Like, the box lady?"
"My mother," Harry said casually, his voice carrying clearly to the eavesdropping campers, "is Pandora."
"That's impossible." Annabeth stepped out from where she had been watching from, her voice sharp. "Pandora isn't a goddess. She was the first mortal woman, created by Hephaestus on Zeus's orders to punish humanity. She was married to Epimetheus."
Harry gave her a slow, mocking smirk. "And yet, here I am. A demigod son of Pandora."
Annabeth scowled. "It's not possible. Pandora was a 'gift', the beautiful evil cast upon humanity for the punishment of Prometheus. She died of her own sorrows after releasing the world's evils. She was NOT A GODDESS," she said, emphasizing at the end.
"I agree."
The voice was smooth and deep. It came from the hillside just outside the camp's magical barrier. Every demigod turned instantly. Standing there outside the barrier was a ten-meter-tall giant with blue skin and icy grey hair. He carries a white flag.
"A Hyperborean," Thalia Grace said, emerging from the trees with her shield, Aegis, "Visitors."
"Visitors?" Percy gripped the pen in his pocket that was Riptide.
Thalia nodded grimly toward the barrier. "Apparently, a Titan wants to speak with you, Percy. Under a flag of truce. He says he has a message from Kronos."
The group moved cautiously toward the hill. Three human-sized figures stood beside the blue giant. There was an empousa in a skimpy outfit, a demigod in Armour, and a man in a crisp, expensive-looking tuxedo.
The man in the tux stepped forward as the campers reached the boundary. "Percy Jackson," he said, his voice like silk. "It is a great honor."
But his eyes weren't on Percy. They were locked onto Harry, who had followed at the back of the group with an amused expression. The Titan's eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring as if catching a scent he hadn't smelled in an age.
"And who… are you?" the Titan asked, his voice losing its smooth edge.
Harry let out a short, bark-like laugh. He clasped his hands behind his back and stepped forward. "Oh, what a coincidence. To mention a child of Pandora, only to have her brother-in-law walk into the room. Hello 'unlce' " Harry said mockingly and amused.
The Titan, Prometheus, stiffened. The air around him grew cold, the casual elegance of his tuxedo suddenly shuttered, blinking in and out as an armour appeared around him before he breathed out as the tux reappeared.
He studied Harry with intensity, as if trying to peel back everything and see what was beneath.
"You have her essence," Prometheus muttered, his voice dropping to a low rumble that made the ground vibrate beneath the campers' boots, disdain filling his voice. "I could recognize that woman's essence anywhere. The so called gift given to that foolish brother of mine."
He scoffed, "I warned the fool about accepting any gift from that bastard Zeus."
The demigods looked at Harry in shock, their weapons lowering slightly as the Titan's confirmation sank in. Annabeth felt her breath hitch, her mind was a whirlwind of contradictions. If a Titan, a being who was present at the dawn of man, recognized this man as kin to Pandora, then it was true, but how was that possible?
"Yet," Prometheus continued, his eyes burning with a dark, suspicious light that seemed to see through the very stars, "I know for a fact that Pandora died long ago, she had a normal mortal daughter before she passed, and you are neither daughter nor are you a normal mortal."
His power suddenly pressed down on the hill.
"So I will ask once more," Prometheus demanded, his voice echoing like thunder over the Long Island Sound. "Who are you, and why do you carry the essence of the woman who broke the world? Are you perhaps a ghost of the past, or a harbinger of the end like that cursed mother of yours?"
Harry didn't budge. Instead, his smirk widened, revealing teeth that seemed just a bit too sharp in the twilight. He tilted his head, his eyes flashing an emerald light.
"Harbinger of the end? I like that, sounds catchy," Harry mused, his voice slicing through the tension with effortless ease as he stared down the titan. "So why are you here anyway?"
Harry asked, not answering the titan.
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