Chapter 112 - Shadow Play

Unknown POV:

"A fated encounter by design, something I've long since woven into reality. The Beast, The Storm and The Serpent. I didn't shape them this way, they took those upon themselves. Out of the Shades there was one in particular who stood out to me, it wasn't when I moulded the Banshees. It wasn't when I instructed the Spirits. It was when I tried to shape the very ideal of a Human. Out of the three children, only one turned into an actualized beast, an incarnation of power. And yet...those two who desired the forms of Humans. One who wandered the land and wrote himself into history, while the other seized the opportunity...rewriting the laws I declared and sought only more."

"I've seen this play out before...in a time way before this. And I can say for certain, they've already lost. These children that live under the calmed sun, they did well against the King of his era. But how do they fare against the Queen of the past? Call it sympathy or handicap of sorts...but I'm doing this out of nothing more than sheer curiosity."

"They don't know the heat of the fire that made you, it's time to wake up. My eldest son." I whisper into the ear of the slumbering container. Perhaps this will add an unexpected anomaly into the fray.

-

Percy's POV

A sudden pulse of a heartbeat, a beat so harsh it forces me to clench my chest. 'Shift' he demands. Forcing me to cough up blood onto the fresh white sheets, 'Shift'. He continues to pound into my head. My wolf's claws digging through my human ones, forcing their way to the surface. 'Run!' he yells through my mind. Sending an untamed strength through my legs, my eyes perceiving a new world as I glance outside a window to see ominous clouds shrouding the window. "Percy!" Fenrir screams through me as I release a small groan in response.

'Let me take over!' he yells.

"Not...this time." I drag myself to the window, knowing I can't let someone else see me like this. I attempt to walk, noticing my lower half has already transformed, leaving my top half in a half broken state. I throw my human hands in front of myself, one by one digging the wolf claws into the carpeting to get closer to the window.

'You insolent human, listen to me!' He insults me.

"No!" I scream back, silencing his voice at the back of my head.

'Percy...shift' Crest voices.

"What do we gain by listening to him!?" I argue back.

'I can feel his desperation, he knows what's happening. Through all those endless memories you received from him...I know you can feel it too.' He whimpers, hitting a soft spot inside me.

'SHIFT!' Fenrir screams back through, forcing my teeth to fall out and replace with canines. My chest expands, breaking my rips and sculpting them back into a wolf. I look back at my reflection in the glass briefly, the full transformation this time but nothing more than the grey wolf I'm familiar with. 'Jump' He advises, gaining a run up before I burst through the glass pane and onto the lower level outside.

"Percy!?" I hear Adam's voice call from the front of the pack house as if knowing my absence already.

Diving to the floor I land the impact along my paws, quaking the ground and leaving marks of my weight behind. My eyes revealing the crack within the ground emanating a hazy white substance into the sky, avoiding it at all costs I head into the underworld.

I don't get too far in before noticing the back of Nimue, facing ahead and stepping forward ever so slowly. "Why are you here now?" I question her.

"I..." She begins to speak. "I-"

Jackson's voice interrupts her, "PERCY!" he screams in the distance as a darkened object follows him along.

"What's wrong!?" I panic, running past Nimue and heading towards Jackson. He slightly falls against my large figure, using me as something to lean on briefly.

"It's not Aegis!" He yells, looking over me and towards Nimue. "She turned Arthur to stone Nimue!" He shouts at her but she looks down, her hair dropped down and covering her gaze from us.

A feminine voice emits from the dark blade, "Something irreversible. Nothing I can't handle, right, Nimue?" She floats above us and towards her. "This is all for the greater good, remember, Nimue?" She circles her before pausing in front.

"I...I'm sorry Percy...Jackson." She holds out her hand, claiming the sword that freely slides into her grip.

"You knew!?" I growl out through my teeth.

She rubs her arm holding the blade, "I-Yasmine...I didn't want anyone to get hurt." She stares at me with tear-filled eyes as my heart pulses a bit.

"What about Yasmine...?" I question her.

"Sh-"

"It was you...wasn't it?" A bloodshot eyed Alex appears from the shadow of the portal, sided by Athena and Adam. "It was you who lured her there, wasn't it? She had no reason to be there. You know what happened, you had to of been there." He spits with a passive hostility, clearly at the edge of his shift.

"What happened to Yasmine!?" I yell out to them.

Nimue looks back towards me, "She's dead."

Visions of Thomas...his body cut down and hushing his last breath to me. The life of someone I considered a brother, taken by my own hands. The haze releases from my mouth, wrapping around my body once again.

'Percy calm down!' Fenrir shouts.

"You're the one who made me kill him. What do you mean calm down?" I dig my claws into the earth of the Underworld, spiking blood through my skin.

"Percy..." Athena calls out to me with nothing left to follow.

I look up briefly at their dazed faces, "You're all looking at me like I'm the monster. I've not forgotten what this thing inside me has done. But by my will...I'll prove you right."

𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘱, 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘱, 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘱

"Well isn't that scary?" The sword sounds out.

"Please...don't make this any worse than it is." Nimue begs to the sword.

The sword shakes a little bit, tearing off the sleeves from Nimue's clothing as black lines serpentine their way across her limbs. "You need to understand something my dear sweet Nimue, you don't tell me what to do."

Jackson stands in front of me, throwing his arm to the side. "Akrasia! What is this all even for!? To bring back one person who brought nothing but torment?"

She forms an eye, tilting herself from facing Jackson to instead facing me. "Did you bring what I asked of you?" She asks Nimue.

"Y-yes" She takes two objects from the bag laying off her arm.

"You all aren't aware of what happened to the mirror after Fenrir was trapped in it, do you?" She asks. Receiving silence back as a response. "Well of course I already knew the answer to that...but did you know it was none other than Nimue who brought out the Shades? The prisoners within that very reality?" She explains.

"I didn't mean-" Nimue tries speaking.

But the sword covers her lips, "You were just curious, I know. But look where that got you." She slices the back of Nimue's clothes, showing off a grotesque marking of...ink. Merging itself with her skin, staring back at us with a singular eye. "From the moment she exposed herself to something as primordial as that? She let The Hollow in when she second locked eyes with it, she just couldn't help herself." It flows out of her left hand, floating dead still in front of her. "From the moment Athena took Thomas' soul and tried rewriting nature without the power of a god. You've all done it to yourselves and you never even realised...now reap what you sow."

She lets loose a little ring from the gentle breeze passing her, "I failed the first time because I didn't understand what truth I was dealing with. Then that's when I discovered my error...the failed god, was nothing more than a child looking for a mother-" She aims herself towards Nimue.

Jackson interrupts her, "Wait a second...back in the palace...you said you affected my memories." He looks more intently at the blade. "The Kindreds I knew of never had any sort of gift such as that..."

My body instinctively steps forward as Fenrir briefly takes over, "That's because she's not Akrasia either." His stomach bellows with hatred, snarling at the blade.

"And here I was saving the reveal, you just had to go and ruin it. Didn't you...brother? And here I was thinking I was smart for never once even responding to Akrasia" The lips along the sword smile sinisterly, wrapping a haze around itself before pulsating into a shower of blood. Revealing human flesh dawned within armour. She wipes her violet tinted hair away of the blood, flicking away what drips of it remain.

"I suppose you're going to ask how...?" She curls her hair back with a smile along her face.

Fenrir speaks once again, "I felt it when I entered Percy, I abandoned my very nature as a wolf. Sacrificed it for the price of life...a life I no longer seek to entertain. This wasn't a reincarnation."

"C'mon now you're a Singularity! You can choose any form, any body and use anything you want in this world, they're ours after all! So what if you've lost your fur little Wolfie." She holds her silent blade, grabbing it within her left hand and swinging it carelessly.

She drops it back into the air as it begins following her, "Akrasia was my blade indeed, but the poor soul lived her time. I rewrote the law of the Kindred engraved within that blade, killing her and swallowing her whole. You...and Oracion. Both thought I was...-nonetheless I waited. Waited for my time to come...and here it is." She grabs Nimue's arm, pressing her to her own chest in a comforting manner.

Her exaggerated figure, leading Nimue through a waltz, "And now it's all coming to fruition...I could cry" She sniffles a little bit. "But I won't." She laughs. Pausing her painfully slow dance with Nimue's shocked expression "Oh you brought Hemsa?" She looks over at Alex.

"What!?" he yells at her.

"You'd think with that enhanced hearing you'd be the slightest bit useful, huh Alexander?" She snaps her fingers, "Confine". Dropping Nimue onto the floor in a crumpled doll like state. The rock of the Underworld lashes around their ankles abruptly, shackling them to the ground.

Fenrir pounces at her, "YOU WILL-"

She spins on her heel, placing her open palm in front of her mouth, "Flow" letting out a heavy breath and forcing a current of wind from her mouth that crushes me against Jackson's open arms. The path my body flew over, dug up and torn as the Underworld desperately tries to repair itself.

She kneels down a little bit to grab something out of Alex's pocket as Adam begins punching his own shackles, ignoring his own blood splashing against them for his desire to protect his family. "I believe thi-" Athena wraps her hair around the woman's hand.

She stands there, admiring a bit. "I always did love your gift-" The sword cuts through the strands, promptly releasing her from Athena's grip. "But if you do that again I could just as easily crush your bones." She hisses out, walking away with a stride and opening her palm to reveal the iridescent shard.

"Hemsa was a truly interesting one...I need a few steps, conditions if you will? In order to whisper to the spirits. But Hemsa? A Banshee who was so Intune with something incomprehensible to her whole race...what was Mother thinking?" She facepalms a bit with a laugh. "Much how like Fenrir has control over you all, that undeniable blood connection through the spirits. Hemsa whispered to the very soul of a person, so what good would that do for within Yasmine? Commanding a soul who's already sold her soul to Anubis."

"Say...you two" She begins walking back towards me and Jackson as I struggle to find my footing off of him, grabbing him by his clothes with my teeth and lifting him back up. "How about a game of cat and mouse? It's a pity Oracion isn't around this time, truly it is. But we have you here! Fenrir!" She cheers while lifting what I presume to be Hemsa's shard.

From her other hand she extends towards Jackson and Fenrir, reopening a chasm of light from inside their chest, pulling out and releasing orbs of light into the environment. "I'll release you all from the bound I once placed upon you, do feel free to chant the name of the one who won. Your Queen of Camelot...your third singularity. Your soon to be god. Morgan Le Fay, The Serpent."