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The ground beneath Poseidon’s throne rumbled and cracked, then seamlessly mended itself moments later, the same way it had done countless times over the past few months.
“My son deserves better than this,” Poseidon bit out, glaring at Zeus. “It’s been months of him fighting off monster after monster, traveling alone. Your son got sent to Camp Halfbood immediately and with newly brainwashed friends!”
“That was Hera’s doing,” Zeus said for the thousandth time, shoving the blame onto his absent wife. “She will answer for all of her interference when she returns.”
“When she returns,” Poseidon mocked, “If you would let us leave it then perhaps we could find her.”
“No,” Zeus said, stern voice accompanied by the growl of thunder.
Exasperated and losing patience, Poseidon gestured at the image that shimmered above the flames in the great brazier of the throne room. The image of his only mortal son, Percy, was depicted. He was running from the gorgon sisters again, looked like he would have been torn to shreds if not for the Curse of Achilles again, and had a look on his face that promised another reckless idea again. Poseidon was done with watching this and didn’t want to see his favorite son put through more turmoil.
Though, unlike Zeus, Poseidon was well aware that this Great Prophecy could not be stopped simply because they hid themselves away aimlessly.
“Wow, look at him go.” Apollo let out an impressed whistle. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen anyone use a shield like that.”
Indeed, Poseidon glanced at the flames to see that Percy had jumped on the shield and was hurtling at full speed towards oncoming traffic.
“Brother, if I do not intervene—” Poseidon cut himself off as he noticed another influence guide his son away from the oncoming cars. The who behind it was revealed when the hag-like form of Juno appeared at the side of the road, demanding that Percy carry her to the Roman Camp of all things. His heart ached that Percy did not take the easiest option, the one that would see him safe in Poseidon’s kingdom.
“Oh, look, Brother,” Poseidon said blithely. “I did not need to interfere because your wife currently is.” In these moments Hera was always Zeus’ wife and not Poseidon’s sister.
Zeus merely sulked on his throne and glowered at the image in the flames. Poseidon smiled thinly at the hit but watched warily as Percy finally entered the Roman Camp. Most of the gods except for himself and Athena switched to their Roman personas now that they were observing New Rome.
Mercury, whose face had shifted to be slightly more stern and angular than his Greek persona, was the only one amongst them who bothered to look concerned as Percy lost his Curse of Achilles.
Sure maybe it would save him a tragic death in the long run, but his son needed it right now. Poseidon would strangle Hera when he saw her again for this. The only reason he lost his Curse was so that the Romans would be less suspicious of him, the cowardly, pretentious lot that they were.
“Now that is some good killing,” Mars said as he picked at his nails with an Imperial Gold dagger and watched Percy blend the Gorgon sisters into oblivion with the Little Tiber. “You can say a lot of things about that guy, but he gets shit done.”
“Like beating you,” Athena said slyly, never one to miss poking at this particular sore spot. Mars shifted briefly back to Ares to snarl at her but retreated back to his Roman self. Probably because the hit to his ego was less severe there, Poseidon thought amused.
“Son of Neptune?” Mercury spat out scowling, “Son of Neptune?”
Poseidon was equally as unhappy about this claiming for different reasons, but he also didn’t particularly appreciate why Mercury cared.
“It’s only right,” Poseidon countered, despite his own ire at Hera’s audacity. She knew how this would anger him.
“What’s right is that as my legacy, he is claimed as such in the Roman camp!” Mercury sent an irate look back at Jupiter who, despite being just as angry at Juno/Hera as the rest of them, wouldn’t let them interfere in her plans.
“Yours?” Poseidon gripped the arms of his throne tightly. “Hah! You think some relation a few generations back is enough to exceed my claim?”
“It is when he’s in the Roman camp,” Mercury shot back. “And when Neptune wouldn’t recognize the boy if he stood right in front of him.”
Poseidon resisted the urge to change to his cantankerous, miserable Roman self at the mention of Neptune. No, Neptune wouldn’t help anything right now.
“Bah! Who cares who he’s claimed by?” Mars waved a dismissive hand in the air, knife still clutched in his grasp. “He’ll do what needs to be done regardless.”
“Oh, so you don’t mind me claiming that son of yours who so desperately wants to be mine?” Apollo, the least changed of them from his Greek self, taunted Mars and grinned at him from his throne.
Poseidon ignored the fight breaking out near him and turned his attention back to the image of his son, who was now being escorted to Neptune’s pitiful excuse for a shrine. Confronted with the indignity so blatantly, Poseidon had to fight to keep Neptune from coming into the foreground. As if in testament to his anger, Mars and Apollo stopped their fighting to watch him uneasily. Even without taking on his Roman persona, Poseidon felt a rage so deep that a new underwater trench opened up in the Atlantic.
“Filthy, disrespectful Romans,” Athena spat out, one of the only times the two of them were in agreement.
Mars opened his mouth like he would say something, then shut it, bowing to the common sense that he only possessed as his Roman self.
Poseidon’s rage was broken by Percy’s gesture. His favorite son offered up the last of his food to the altar, the meaning behind it worth more than the gold piled up in Jupiter’s obnoxious temple.
“If he had been claimed as mine properly, then that would’ve been my bagel,” Mercury whined.
Poseidon scowled. This was going to be a long few days.
Poseidon was still beaming with pride at Percy’s performance in the Senate when Venus interrupted his thoughts.
“Oh, look!” Venus said, pointing at the image in the flames. “He’s such a handsome little heartbreaker. He got propositioned by the most powerful girl in New Rome on his second day!”
Most of the gods, except for Mars who was still sitting in the corner silent from Zeus’ tirade upon his return from the Roman Camp, looked almost as impressed at this as they did during Percy’s performance during War Games. The goddesses, except for Aphrodite, looked universally unimpressed, though Diana at least looked approving at Percy’s loyalty to that daughter of Athena.
“I’m still uncertain why we’ve moved on from that atrocious excuse for a prophecy!” Apollo cried out, arms thrown into the air indignantly.
“Because no one cares except for you Apollo,” Mercury said around his grin, in high spirits as well because of Percy’s display in Senate, which he accredited to his own skill with diplomacy. Poseidon preferred to credit Sally (who definitely did not get it from the Roman god).
Poseidon let their bickering fade to the background as he frowned again at the image of his son. As proud as he was of Percy, he couldn’t help but worry about him on this quest. He had no memories and would inevitably cross paths with Polybotes. Poseidon only hoped that Zeus would see to reason and let Poseidon help his son defeat the giant. Either that or be annoyed into compliance. After all, Zeus didn’t like those giants any more than the rest of them did.
Poseidon could only thank the wind gods that Percy’s scent was swallowed by the sea, and he was able to escape Polybotes’ notice. However, his relief for Percy’s safety didn’t last long
“I have a different wager.” Poseidon had rarely heard such ominous words in his life.
“You don’t think?” Apollo said, sitting up straight from his slouched position on his throne. Then gasped. “No?!”
Poseidon looked on despairingly as Percy bet his life on Phineas, his other son, choosing the wrong vial of gorgon’s blood. His son apparently hadn’t lost his reckless streak even having no memories.
“This must be rough on you Poseidon,” Vulcan said gruffly, attempting to engage in his once-a-decade attempt to understand living beings. “To know at least one of your sons will die.”
“No,” Poseidon said bluntly, not taking his eyes off of Percy as they discussed the terms. “I could care less if Phineas dies.”
Venus laughed meanly at Vulcan’s failure to empathize with Poseidon, while Diana looked disgusted at either Poseidon’s callousness or at Phineas’ threats to the Harpy that this wager was about.
“Well,” Mercury said weakly, “At least it’s a 50/50 chance? Shall I fetch Fortuna?”
Then the thought came to them, focused as they all were on Percy.
Okay, Gaea. I’m calling your bluff. You say I’m a valuable pawn. You say you’ve got plans for me, and you’re going to spare me until I make it north. Who’s more valuable to you—me, or this old man? Because one of us is about to die.
Silence fell over the throne room at the audacity of Percy. It was an increasingly familiar state.
“Alright, so it’s not so 50/50,” Mercury said into the silence
“What is that fool thinking?” Ceres said incredulously.
“Not so foolish at all,” Athena said, coming to Percy’s defense, albeit reluctantly by the look on her face. “Gaea has shown a pointed interest in the boy, and Phineas is merely a bonus to her cause, not a necessity. It could work.”
“It better work,” Poseidon growled, tired of the amount of danger his favorite son had been in on this quest and it had only been less than two days.
He watched with bated breath as Phineas picked up the jar that had trembled. Gaea had made her choice.
That choice was apparently Percy to Poseidon’s relief, and he allowed himself to slouch into his throne as he watched dispassionately as his other son disintegrated in pain.
“While undoubtedly good for Poseidon,” Athena said into the now chattering throne room. “That choice is a concerning one.”
“Indeed,” Zeus agreed, brows furrowed under those caterpillars he called eyebrows.
Poseidon scoffed at them, though internally he also worried over what Gaea would have in store for his son.
The moment his son crossed the border of Alaska, Poseidon jolted up in his chair. There, riding in a chariot attached to Arion, was Percy, who was miraculously holding the golden eagle of the Legion.
“He did it,” Mercury said giddily as he stared at the Legion’s eagle. “My legacy, retrieving the eagle!”
“They did it,” Mars said, snorting. “Including my son, who I claimed, unlike your legacy who is masquerading as a son of Neptune.”
“Ah, yes,” Apollo cut in. “With my honorary son.”
“Like Chaos he is!”
“Children, please,” Diana intervened. “Let’s just rejoice that the eagle is back in the hands of the legion.”
“Not yet,” Zeus noted, though he too looked pleased at the prize clutched in Percy’s hand. “They still have to make it there.”
“They will!” Ceres said with great pride. “That’s my son carrying them!”
“Ours,” Poseidon muttered.
Ceres’ face twisted in disgust. “Don’t remind me.”
But her declaration proved right as the group arrived at New Rome in time to turn the tide with their hoard of imperial gold weapons and the Legion’s eagle. Poseidon suddenly felt a lot less grateful that Thanatos was free as he saw his son enter the fray.
“Twelfth Legion Fulminata!” Percy cried, and they watched and thousands of tendrils of lightning arched out from the eagle and decimated all the monsters within a hundred-foot radius of Percy.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Mars crowed, “I can feel the morale boost from here!”
Poseidon’s good mood took a downturn as Percy handed off the eagle to a son of Bacchus, whose father glanced up from downing his Diet Pepsi to look quietly pleased, and took a stand in front of Polybotes.
“Jupiter,” Poseidon said, urgency lacing his voice. “Let me help him.”
“No,” Jupiter denied without pause.
“What about me?” Mercury perked up. Poseidon growled at him. He would not stand to let that impertinent whelp help his son when Poseidon himself could not.
“No.”
“Zeus,” Poseidon said pettily, knowing that it would cause his brother to fight down his Greek self. “Let me help him. We need to kill the giants.”
Jupiter snorted. “We can defeat them ourselves.”
“But we aren’t,” Poseidon countered, looking at his brother intently.
“We don’t need them,” Jupiter said, sparks flying off of his eyebrows. “Especially that ingrate Jackson who thought he could tell me what to do.”
“It’s not about us needing them,” Poseidon said, despite disagreeing with the words that left his mouth. “It’s about them needing us.”
At that moment, Polybotes laughed and threatened Percy. “I will take you prisoner, Percy Jackson. I will torture you under the sea. Every day the water will heal you, and every day I will bring you closer to death.”
Poseidon saw red and some poor coastline city just became devastated by a roaring tsunami.
“JUPITER!”
“Fine, fine,” Jupiter acquiesced, likely knowing that Poseidon would help even without his permission after that threat to his favorite son.
“Uhmm, guys,” Apollo said pointing at the image shimmering in the flames. “I don’t think Poseidon’s help is needed after all.”
Percy charged at Polybotes and knocked him to the ground, piercing the giant’s chest with his blade. They watched in disbelief as Percy then lifted up Terminus’ broken-off head, and taunted the giant that lay prone before him.
“I’d like you to meet my friend Terminus. He’s a god!”
Percy then smashed Terminus' head on Polybotes’ nose, and the giant dissolved into a pile of seaweed, reptile skin, and poisonous ooze.
His son looked at the remains of the giant in disgust, then casually wiped his sword on the grass as if he had just completed the easiest task in the world.
Even as Percy was lifted up onto the Romans’ shield and declared praetor, Poseidon sat slack-jawed on his throne. The rest of the room wasn’t any better until the silence was broken by Bacchus' braying laugh.
“Looks like he didn’t need your help after all!” Bacchus chortled. “My friend Terminus! Good one!”
Poseidon mechanically observed Percy as a purple cape was thrown over his shoulders. His son. His wild, reckless son, had defeated a giant alone without any active help from a god when the last to do so had needed three demigods and Zeus’ direct intervention.
He couldn’t be more proud if he tried. Though Poseidon still sulked that he couldn’t be the one to help Percy vanquish Polybotes.
“Humph,” Jupiter said. “All that drama for nothing. The boy didn’t even need you.”
“Shut up,” Poseidon said wearily, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Zeus would never let him interfere again after this.