31 Chapter 30: Dimensional Exceptions

A/N

As promised, enjoy.

Yeah, I know it's short. Length will start getting longer next chapter onwards.

Shoutout to Yoshi and Fox for helping and e-luckarcher, Murph, Meister and Maruf for the beta and proof reading

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Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or any of its characters.

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Chapter 30: Dimensional Exceptions

Percy took a deep breath to collect his thoughts, he needed to be mindful about what he would reveal to the goddess. He had no intention of lying to her, but he didn't want to tell her the full extent of his powers either, which lead him to tell her enough to keep it believable and to avoid any unnecessary confrontations with the Fates. He'd rather have the moon goddess after his life than the very beings who could screw up his life from its very essence. No, thank you.

"Well?" Artemis questioned, cutting him out of his inner debate.

"I first found out about this ability near the time I got claimed by my dad. This ability basically lets me create an alternate dimension of the world but with only me present. There, I can unleash my powers and train as much as I want, without any consequences in the real world," Percy said. He then stopped to look at the goddess in case she had any questions.

Said goddess stayed quiet as she assessed the information Percy provided. The ability to create an alternate dimension required an extremely high aptitude of the laws of space and as such, limited to only divine beings like them. Moreover, due to its complexity and intricacy, their knowledge of spatial laws was highly limited and very few deities could consciously manipulate space to a certain degree. So, to create an entire alternate reality far surpassed the abilities of all gods and goddesses in existence. As far as she was concerned, not even the Titans were capable of such feats save for a select few like Kronos since space and time were somewhat related. Teleportation didn't count as this was something that they learned subconsciously like new-born fish learned to swim.

Further, there was no specific god related to said element thus, a demigod possessing this ability was out of the question. Hence, Percy's claim of getting this ability from the Fates was the only plausible explanation. However, she still needed to see for herself.

She then looked at him and said, "Show me this world."

Percy blanched at this since his worst fears were coming to realisation. There was no issue for him to show the alternate world but the occupants were another matter altogether. Just before he said anything, an idea popped up in his mind. He hoped that it would work else, there would be a lot of explaining to do which he wasn't looking forward to.

"Sure, just give me a minute to focus. I'm still learning how to do this," Percy said. He knew it was a lie but this was very much needed at the moment.

Thankfully, the goddess understood and nodded at him.

The son of Poseidon then closed his eyes and dived into his consciousness, more specifically, his bonds. He looked around quickly until he found his bond with Alecto and connected to it, hoping to speak to the Kindly One quickly.

'Alecto,' Percy called inside his mind, praying that it worked. To his relief, it did.

'Percy?' the Fury asked, she was quite confused as to how he was able to speak to her in her mind.

'I don't have much time but long story short, Artemis will be visiting the dimension soon where we train. All of you quickly hide so that she doesn't find out.'

'Don't worry, the area inside your ring is separate from the dimension so she won't know,' Alecto replied quickly. She could hear the urgency in his voice and thus, decided to question him about the situation later.

'Great, thanks' Percy said gratefully, and the connection died just as soon as it had popped up.

Satisfied, the demigod then opened his eyes and muttered a single word, "Dimension Create."

Artemis watched in fascination as the world started losing its colours slowly. The sound of nature that she allowed to enter her tent drained as an eerie calm settled around her.

The demigod then stood up and opened the entrance of her tent, showing her the outside world or rather, lack thereof.

The moon goddess slowly got up and walked outside. To her great surprise, the surroundings were the same as she remembered but there wasn't anyone else. She tried to use her normal sense, but she couldn't read anyone's signature except for Perseus'. Confused, she tried using her divine sense and was immediately assaulted with a feedback of everything in the area just as before.

"This is incredible," Artemis said as she kept looking around in fascination, "Are you sure that the damage here doesn't reflect in the real world?"

"From what I've tried, no, it doesn't show up anywhere. However, I can't talk about a goddess. Maybe try hitting a tree or something with your divine power to check?" Percy suggested.

The goddess nodded and summoned her weapons. She quickly nocked an arrow, put a miniscule amount of her lunar energy at its tip and let it fly. The tree that she aimed at was immediately engulfed in a silvery explosion and wiped from existence. Since Artemis had used a bit of her divine strength, it would be easy for her to identify whether Perseus' theory worked or not.

"Return us to the normal world," she commanded.

Immediately, as if she was waking up from her sleep, the world opened up before her and she found herself back in her seat inside her tent. Artemis then spread her senses once more to find any signature and to her great surprise, there wasn't any. She even peeked outside to look at the same tree that she obliterated, only to see that it was still standing tall, not showing any signs of being engulfed in lunar energy.

Artemis then returned to her seat and said, "It doesn't show my energy signature so your theory of things not being affected in the real world stands true. Further, it looks like we will return to our original positions regardless of how far you venture in the alternate domain."

Percy nodded his head, agreeing with her.

"Create it again."

Percy did as she asked and repeated the same procedure as before.

As soon as the alternate dimension was created, Artemis got up from her seat and walked towards him, her silver eyes turning a darker shade with each step until she was a foot away from him.

"Listen well Perseus, you must not tell anyone about this ability of yours. Do you realise how dangerous it is? The ability to manipulate space is a huge task in itself but to maintain the space while blocking a deities' normal senses and even their attacks from reaching the real world is unbelievable. Do you know the repercussions that would arise if anyone found out about this? Everyone would be after you for the number of advantages this represents. Speaking of which, does anyone know about this? Don't you dare lie to me on this, Perseus," Artemis asked in a serious tone.

The demigod briefly contemplated whether to tell her about Hestia. He quickly closed his eyes and sent a silent prayer to Hestia, asking for her permission.

'Hestia, is it okay if I tell Artemis that you know about the Dimension Create? Long story short, she found out about it.'

'Sure Percy. She already knows you're my champion so it's not an issue. But, we're going to have a chat about this later,' the goddess replied immediately.

Percy stifled his shock upon hearing that piece of information. However, that would have to wait.

He then opened his eyes and said, "Hestia knows about this, that's it."

"Oh, and what about your father?"

"No, he doesn't."

"Why not?"

"How will I speak to him if he's never there to begin with?" Percy asked rhetorically.

That shut Artemis up as her eyes turned soft. Of course, what was she even expecting at this point? That's how it always was - find, fuck and forget (the 3F's) – the mantra that almost all gods and goddesses followed.

"Fair enough, I can understand Hestia since she's your patron and one of the only sensible deities out there unlike some," she snarled the last part. "But be sure not to reveal this to anyone and better be more aware of your surroundings. You're lucky that it was me who found out about this and not someone else."

"I'm aware of it, Lady Artemis. I'm sorry for my slip up."

"It's in the past. Forget about it. But now that I've seen this place and what it can do, I am so not letting you off scot free, Perseus," Artemis said as her eyes gained a calculating edge to them and her lips curled into a mischievous grin, sending a shiver down Percy's spine.

Prey spotted.

"Uh but you just said that I should be lucky that it was you who found out," he squeaked out.

"Of course, I won't be telling anyone about this plus I'm bound to this oath after all. However, I'm not going to let an opportunity like this slip by now, can I?"

Chasing the prey.

Percy shivered at that and asked, "What can I do for you, Lady Artemis?"

Prey caught.

The goddess grinned in response, "You see, our jobs are stressful to say the least," Artemis started. Percy didn't like this. Not at all.

"Moreover, we cannot let loose anywhere because if we display our powers anywhere, the mortals would end up dying and thus, we have a lot of pent up stress and anger. Now, I have found a convenient spot where I can vent out my frustration without killing people. You see where this is going?"

The demigod nodded.

"Smart. Don't worry, I'll contact you whenever I want to come over, be good okay?" the goddess grinned.

"Yes, Lady Artemis," Percy said. As if he had a choice.

"Good. I won't question you further now. Since aunt Hestia is in the loop, I can trust her judgement in you not misusing your powers. Let's go back now."

In the next moment, the world shattered once again and they were back in the tent.

"You may leave now, just make sure not to repeat the same mistake again," Artemis said as she waved her hand.

"Thank you, Lady Artemis," Percy said as he scrambled out of her tent.

As soon as the demigod was out, Artemis couldn't help but break into a huge grin. The unexpected turn of events had changed her day from bad to good. It had been thousands of years before she could let loose properly, occasionally shooting Apollo when he was being an ass did help her but it was rather short lived. But now, there won't be any limitations whatsoever, she could vent as much as she wanted and no one got hurt, two birds with one stone.

However, despite this, there was one important fact that she ended up stumbling across, which she could've never dreamt of. The son of Poseidon was blessed by The Fates, not just any deity but the Fates themselves. This just ended up adding to his mysteriousness. Not exactly helping her get close to knowing about him and his character. He was becoming stronger at a crazy rate and following this trend, he could perhaps reach, if not surpass, the strength of a minor god while not being bound by the Ancient Laws. This, in itself, presented him to be one of the biggest threats to Olympus, right after the Prophecy. Oh right, how could she forget about that?

So to get her facts straight, the prophecy was going to pass in the next four years with the son of Poseidon at its core. Further, said demigod was blessed by the freaking Fates, was the first ever Champion of Hestia, possibly the strongest son of Poseidon ever and trained by Athena – the goddess of war – herself with all the chances to defunct to the enemies. Even though Artemis trusted Hestia, a small part of her brain kept nagging her about this since she had learnt to keep all avenues open, regardless of how ridiculous they might be.

After some thought, the goddess finally decided that she'd have to keep a closer eye on the demigod during the quest to gauge his persona. She would not leave anything to chance. The stakes were too high considering how important of a figure he currently was or might become in the future.

All in all, it was a good day.

It was the opposite of it for a certain green-eyed demigod. He had somehow been able to defuse the situation between him and Artemis but it shouldn't have ever come to the point where he had to reveal that he was blessed by the Fates. Due to this, he had ended up worrying and upsetting Hestia.

Percy sighed as he carefully manoeuvred through their camp, avoiding both Zoë and Grover, he had more pressing matters to attend to after all.

He soon reached a clearing where he prayed to Hestia. Immediately, he could hear her voice in his mind.

'Percy, is everything alright? Did Artemis do anything to you? If so, tell me…' Hestia started, only to be interrupted by her champion.

'I'm fine Hestia, nothing happened,' Percy said quickly to stop her from worrying so much.

'Then what did you mean when you said Artemis found out about your dimension creation ability?'

Percy then launched into the whole story where he started with Medusa's death, all the way to the conversation with Artemis.

Hestia, on her part, didn't interrupt him, occasionally asking questions when needed.

'You were lucky that it was Artemis, of all gods and goddesses,' Hestia said by the end of it. 'She is one of the more level headed deities who doesn't take advantage of such things. Moreover, her wanting to go to the other dimension to vent is more for her sake than anything since her domain is also demanding and bound to drive any mortal insane with the amount of inputs she receives on a daily basis.'

'Yeah, I'm glad things got sorted out though. I didn't want anything to happen during the quest,' Percy replied.

'Yes, now take care and be more mindful of your surroundings from here on out, okay?'

'I will, Hestia.'

'Good, here's a new tent to replace the other one. I'll see you soon,' the hearth goddess said as the connection between the two was cut. At the same time, a small tent appeared in a flash in front of him.

The demigod gathered it and went back to the camp, intent on getting a good night's sleep. It had been a long day, unaware of a certain huntress' eyes on the boy.

Ever since her mistress' outburst, Zoë had kept an eye on the demigod from the moment he left her tent. Thousands of years of hunting had taught her how to conceal her aura and presence, making her virtually invisible for her target. Thus, even a strong demigod like him wouldn't be able to detect her as much as he tried.

She had followed him through the woods the previous night, wanting to see his intentions but nothing came of off it except a tent to replace the one that Artemis had destroyed. Right now also, he was walking calmly behind them, not showing any signs of deceit or guilt that one would exhibit if they were caught. Clearly, there was something much more to it than met the eye otherwise, why would her lady let him go without any repercussions? Artemis' outburst was also uncharacteristic of her unless something major happened. Hence, Zoë was stuck with more blanks than she started with.

Finally, the huntress gave up on trying to get answers immediately and instead, opted to keep an eye on the demigod for the duration of the quest. Only time would tell whether he'd be raised to the heights of greatness or fall to the depth of purgatory.

Thus, with each to their thought, the four continued with their journey, occasionally encountering monsters and building up their team work until they soon reached Virginia.

As soon as they were outside its borders, Artemis turned to the other three and spoke in a serious tone, "We are now entering the enemy stronghold, make sure to follow whatever I say and under no circumstances should any of you leave my side, especially you, Percy. We do not know who we will face, the odds are severely stacked against us so keep your eyes and ears open, especially you, Satyr, since you can sniff out monsters."

Everyone nodded as they stepped into the old dominion.

The quest had begun.

...

~Somewhere~

"So they decided to enter after all," a figure stated. "Let's give them a proper welcome."