20 A Journeyman Finding Happiness 2

After closing my eyes for the final time, I found myself in a space between worlds. The same world I was in before, and similarly to last time, there was a portal that I assumed led to my afterlife, but as I went in, the same feeling of being squeezed into a tube appeared again, and the vortex enveloped me.

As the feeling dissipated, I found myself crawling out of a pile of bodies as I saw two creatures that by no means resembled any Pokemon I had seen before, and as I scoured my memory, I remembered what they were.

"Cyclopses, which could mean many things, but for now, I need to get out of here." As I think of this, I notice a small bronze sword in a nearby pile, and as I stretch out my arm to grab the hilt of it, the pile of bodies I was in shuffled enough to make a dropping sound. This altered the Cyclopses as they went to investigate, and I played dead.

Before I even realized it, I had already instinctually used my own Aura to hide my life signature, and as I slowed my breathing, the one who came to investigate soon looked away as he said, "Where does the noise come from if no one is there?"

"Who cares you idiot! Just get the rest of da meat for eatin!" His partner then growls in frustration but then goes over into another room. I then reopened my eyes and looked at my surroundings and saw that I was in some kind of motor factory that was abandoned. 

But seeing that they were distracted, I grabbed the sword and, using my Aura I, empowered my legs and cut the legs off of one of the cyclopses and then cut off its head before it even realized that I chopped off its legs.

Its partner, noticing the silence in the other room, came back, and as he did not see him, he yelled out, "Brotha! Where are you? The demigods will go bad in a while!"

As he looked around, he saw the yellow sand that was his brother and came over and used the railings as a means to gain height. I used my Aura to empower my sword and arms as I spun in the air and lobbed his head off. As he also returned to the dust, I sat down as the tiredness of using Aura in a new body caught up to me.

Seeing the two bodies and how they died confirmed one thing: I was in the world of Percy Jackson. As I combed through the body's memories, I remembered the current date and my name, Logan Hansen, which had been the same as my previous life, which was nice, but how could this have happened? I thought reincarnation was a one-time deal. No use crying over what I can't even think to understand.

 Looking at my memories, I saw that this body had been on the run after his after-dies, defending him from a monster, and for the past couple of weeks, he had been trying to get to New York based on a note from an unknown sender. 

The unknown sender must have been my Divine parent, and seeing that I had a father, it must have been one of the female Olympians, which does limit the choices, or I could be the son of a minor goddess, so that is a possibility.

But regardless, I needed to get moving, so gathering any supplies I could find in a bag on one of the bodies, I had a sword, dagger, a change of clothes, and some water but no food. 

Yet as I stepped outside, I felt a calling like something whispering in my ear, and as I laid my hand on the grass, I let my Aura and instinct guide me as I spawned a small fruit from the ground in the form of an old reliable an oran berry,

Looking at it, I smiled, remembering the good times, and wondered how my old friends were doing. In the event that I died before my Pokemon did, they were to go to my friends in the Pokemon Rangers, but I hope they were doing well.

"Alright, enough reminiscing. I need to get to Camp Half-Blood. And whoever is out there watching me, thanks." I felt the grass almost touch my legs lovingly as I nodded and began my trek. 

Thankfully, all I did was hop on a couple of trains and things to Aura. I was able to stick to the services similarly to what you would see from Chakra Naruto, and since there were no cameras on the new trains, I simply rode them all the way to New York City. I did have to hop off before I got to the station as there were too many truancy officers around looking for wayward kids.

Considering this body was only 13 years old, I am prime time child time. My dirty clothes were not helping much with my appearance, but thankfully, I had a handy power on my side thanks to my young age.

The power of cuteness, so as I walked over to an alley and placed a hat I had on the ground with a small note that said I was homeless, the dollars came in soon enough. After a day of waiting, I had enough money to get a cab to get to Long Island, but I needed to get to the end of it, and with monsters nipping at my heels, I needed to use every scrounge of Aura I could gather.

And from hellhounds to harpies, I saw them all, and while I had to get inventive, sometimes they were not too much trouble. In fact, in this life and my previous one, I noticed that my body was much stronger than a normal human, and I thanked whoever gave me that bottle form before. 

In fact, during my time in the Pokemon Rangers, they said that my development of Aura, as well as how I use it, developed much faster than even a master aura user.

So, I assume whatever I drank gave me some type of enhanced learning ability and development buff, which is definitely coming in handy as I have not slept for two days now. Thanks to Aura, I could stay awake longer, but my eyes felt heavier than a damn regirock. 

Oh man, remembering those rocks, those guys always love to self-destruct all of the time. And because they were sentient rocks, they could just reform. Gotta love those merry suicide bombers.

They were like the ultimate suicide bombers, which, while funny the first time, got annoying every time they came around a corner and exploded everywhere. 

But post-traumatic stressful memories aside, after three days of travel, I could see the strawberry fields and feel the nymphs around the camp go on guard as a small group of monsters ran after me like a child predator after watching an anime with a lot of young girls in it.

As I saw the gate, I was soon cut off by a minotaur and slammed into a tree nearby. My body begged for me to stop, but I would not die like this, so grabbing Aura from the nearby nonsentient plants, I charged up an aura sphere, which was green instead of blue now, and launched it into him, which sent him flying after blowing a hole through his chest.

And using the surprise from the monsters, I crossed the threshold into the camp, and as I saw some people approach, I said, "Can someone catch me? I am about to go down." I then pass out as I wonder why the ground feels better than a normal bed.

But before I knew it, this was the start of a life of endless combat, hours of training developing my abilities, and learning of my heritage. Turns out I was the son of Demeter, and when I met her upon a visit to Olympus, her form looked reminiscent of her Danmachi form, and I will never refuse free hugs.

And while Demeter was a hugger, the other gods were mixed as my looks got Aphrodite's attention, which I refused politely, and she mysteriously backed off as if knowing something I did not.

Athena and Ares admired my spirit and thanked me for helping their children. As for Ares, I taught them new moves and Aura; for Athena, I helped her kids in their studies. Hermes loved me thanks to my berries making his business boom, while Dionysus tolerated me after I made some drinks he actually liked.

I never met Zeus or Hera long enough to get a read on them, and the twins were a mystery as well. Surprisingly enough, Hephaestus was pretty chill as long as you did not take his stuff, and I even got some custom armor and a sword from him thanks to my efforts and for saving Charles Beckendorf.

I knew Demeter could never stay, nor could she show outright favoritism, but I think she liked me, especially when I showed her all the types of plants I created using her life manipulation abilities. And I could feel her patting me on the back when I cooked for her and sent them into the fire.

But even with all this good, I knew I was lucky as with my Aura, I could survive a lot more than a normal demigod could. Luckily, I learned how I could awaken the Aura in others, and I even taught a class on how to use it. Soon enough, the art of Aura became a staple in demigod combat. 

No one would ever truly rise to my level, but it was enough to give them all a fighting chance, and soon enough, when those demigods would have kids of Their Own, they would be born with the ability to use Aura naturally and what a much higher survival counts.

Another issue when I arrived was that Luke had already betrayed the camp a couple of months ago. I have to admit meeting Percy Jackson was definitely an experience as he almost managed to drown me in the lake near the camp. You see when he was deep in thought, I thought to introduce myself, and as I tapped him on the shoulder, he reacted violently, to say the least.

Since he was heavily connected to water, he managed to grab me with the nearby water source and pull me In as a form of self-defense, and while they let go, as soon as I hit the water, it did manage to drag me down quite far. 

And when I got back up, I simply gave him a stink eye but held nothing against him. Although I always would tell people when he tried to drown me just to make sure they knew what they were getting into.

Even I admit I can be petty like that. And then came the dark times, the war with the Titans, and the battle against the armies of Gaia. 

The primordial of the Earth actually reached out to me once for me to join our cause. She promised a world without monsters and a world where demigods wouldn't need to fear them, but I knew her wordplay as all she decided was the Earth cleared of all life other than her children, and demigods were not among them.

Luke was too far gone to save, but I managed to lessen the damage as best I could. I did manage to make some changes to the timeline as I was able to save Charles from dying on that mission to destroy Luke's yacht. When the Seven Demigods arrived at Camp Jupiter, I was able to keep Leo from blowing the camp into the kingdom due to possession by a malevolent spirit.

And with Camp Jupiter on our side, the battle against the monsters led to far fewer casualties, but there were still enough. I would know as I was one of them.

 I was eighteen years old at the time, and I helped lead the charge against the monsters amassing outside the gates. As I ran into battle, I fought hard as arrows pierced my armor, and swords stabbed my guts, but I still kept going. 

All the fear I held was pushed back as I carved a swath through the monsters, using aura blasts, poisonous plants, and waves of Earth against their armies, but the injuries still mounted.

Through the use of my Aura, I was able to heal a majority of the injuries, but soon enough, Jason and Piper arrived, and with the help of Leo and Festus, the metal dragon Gaia was put to sleep. Still, in her final minutes, she shot off a sharp rock that pierced my chest.

I could feel the life fading from my aura and from my body, but as the dawn was coming and hope seemed high, I left the battle to let them celebrate their victory. Ambrosia nor Nectar could heal this much damage but was satisfied.

But there was one person who noticed as Demeter was at my side and holding me in my final moments, and all I could ask was one question.

"Did we win?" The question is met with a smile and tears.

"Yes, you did; you can rest now, my son. Mommy will always be proud of you, and I know Hades will have a place in Elysium for you, or I will invade the Underworld myself." I laughed at her tone as she laughed as well, but as that laughter turned to tears, I held her close.

But before I died, I let her know of the immortal Roman Emperors that funded this campaign, and as I asked if she could let the gods know, she nodded and said, "You know most on their deathbed would wish to live longer, but you just want to help them. You are so selfish."

"I know and let them know that I was honored to live through this story of ours. I love you. I have a couple more meals left for you back at the cabin. They're in a compartment near my bed."

As the sun seemed to set in the sky, all I could muster was, "The sun is getting real low." Demeter would then hold me close as I faded from consciousness, and my second life ended in a bittersweet victory.

Sadly, I couldn't keep that promise to meet her in the Underworld, and that's why I don't usually make promises. However, I hope my plans go through soon enough. The monsters will always come back, so I wanted to put a stopgap on them. 

Thanks to Daedalus and Hades, I put plans into place to greatly lessen the number of monsters that return from Tartarus. As to the usage of Aura, we could create a pseudo reverse side for the monsters to have to go through before they arrive on Earth.

Now, monsters that would return in days to months will take centuries to decades. It wasn't a complete fix, but it should be enough to stem the tide.

I had nowhere near the power to do this, but thankfully, saving Bianca during that Quest to California definitely allowed some good favors from The Lord of the Dead. He was actually a pretty chill guy, and Persephone really loved meeting family. 

So, as my eyes closed, I failed to notice yet again that the equipment that I was wearing had repaired itself and gone into my form, too, which Demeter did not seem to notice.

It was only after the battle had ended that anyone found my body, and Hades gained a headache as no one was able to find my soul.