Prytaneum
Rekindled
"Percy," Aiz said, closer than I remembered and looking far more worried. She must have moved to catch me before she saw my teammates doing it already. "Are you…you're…"
"Aiz," I rasped out. I thought about smiling and then proceeded to think better of it, wanting to spare her the sight. "Bete. Glad you came. Yeah, I'm…yeah."
"Here," She said, holding something out to him that Lili was quick to take. A potion of some kind, maybe, but in a really fancy looking bottle. It looked expensive. "Take this."
Normally, I'd have declined, telling her to save stuff like that for someone who needed it because I had other ways of healing myself—but this wasn't normally. Welf reached out to take it from her hands and brought it to my lips, at which point I did my best to drink without making a fool out of myself. Easier said than done when I had to fight to make my lips and tongue cooperate—and especially because it was bitter. So much show that I would have grimaced the entire while if I'd been able to make expressions that easily.
The moment I swallowed, however, I started to feel a bit better. Energy came to me in a rush, helping to alleviate the exhaustion I'd been feeling. The living parts of my burnt husk of a body seemed to swell and expand in a surge, pushing out against everything else in a way that made my skin feel bloated and tight. I felt like the layers of dead tissue my body was replacing were constricting me, binding me tightly from every direction, and that it was only a matter of time before something gave way and tore.
…Actually, that was probably exactly the case.
"I owe you one," I said, my voice a lot more steady. "I'll pay you back, I promise. What was that, anyway?"
"An elixir, Mr. Percy," Lili murmured at the same time Aiz shook her head.
"Unnecessary," She said slowly, looking over her shoulder as she did. "I already owed you for the trouble we caused and…we came here to help you in the first place. Just hold on; Riveria will be here, soon."
It took me a moment to realize what she meant.
"Oh, right," I said. "She has healing magic, doesn't she? As I thought, that must come in handy. I won't turn down any help at this point, but…I'll probably be fine even if she doesn't. I already feel a lot better—and I have my own healing magic."
Aiz looked at me skeptically, looking over my burnt form, while Bete sneered at me.
"Just shut up and wait, idiot," He said with a snort. "You look like shit."
"Maybe," I admitted, scowling right back. "But by tomorrow, I'll be myself again. You however, will always—"
I cut myself off and sighed.
"No, I'm sorry," I said, annoyed with myself. "I'm tired and pissed off right now, but I shouldn't take it out on you—you and Aiz came to help me. Thank you, Bete. I mean it."
"Tch," Bete replied, looking away. "We're only here because this wasn't a problem we could just let be—and because that woman of yours went so far to get us involved."
I stared at him for a long moment, having no idea what he was talking about.
"…Who?" I asked.
"Riveria's friend," Aiz said, giving Bete a look. "Eina. She came to the Loki Familia and asked us to help you."
Welf whistled quietly.
"Whoa," He said under his breath. "That's…brave of her. Something like that could cost her her job."
That last part was probably directed at me, Welf likely figuring I wouldn't know otherwise. Nice of him.
"Eina," I whispered, sighing and shaking my head before looking up. "She's my advisor and my friend. I owe her a lot. I hope she…she's not going to…is she?"
Bete grunted and looked around with a pissed off look on his face, eying the destruction on the street.
"The circumstances are a bit special," He said, gruffly but not unkindly. "With a stolen magic sword involved, I doubt anyone would blame her for cutting through the red tape and just begging for help—especially not with what actually happened. She might keep her job, depending on what gets said."
So keep my mouth shut, I thought. Got it.
I closed my eyes and took several deep breathes, taking a moment to rest as Bete had sort of recommended. My body felt more and more uncomfortable by the second, but the pain was finally starting to lessen from agonizing to 'really, really painful.' It didn't change on the outside, though; instead, something shifting and quivering oddly underneath my skin, the dead flesh pulsing as if filled with maggots. It looked gross and felt worse and I didn't blame anyone for not looking at me too closely. I still couldn't feel the rain on my skin, either, though I could feel it and, through it, the vague displacements that I could more or less make out as people if I focused.
The Loki Familia wasn't the only group to have started to arrive, I noticed—or, if it was, it had arrived en masse, because I could feel people along the street, moving through the ruined houses to collect and tend to the wounded. Aiz and Bete stayed close by instead of moving to help, however, which made me think they might have been expecting trouble or at least waiting for something.
The other members I recognized of Loki's Familia appeared shortly after, though I was deliberately trying not to count the seconds. What I will say though, is that by the time they got here, I couldn't take it anymore, and the not-hidden-enough looks of horror and disgust I was getting weren't helping. Shifting to taking my weight off of Welf, I managed to stand on my own power again, and this time I was mostly steady.
"Aiz, is this…?" One of the Amazon's asked. I honestly couldn't remember which one she was right now, but Riveria nodded beside her, lips tight.
"Yes," She said. "Set him down, both of you; he shouldn't be on his feet to begin with. Aiz, do you have—you gave it to him? Good. I'll do what I can."
"Sorry, but can you hold that thought," I said honestly, feeling bad for this already—but I really needed to take care of this and if I didn't do it now, I was literally going to tear something. "This is bothering the hell out of me. Anyone who's squeamish might want to look away."
I got a number of startled and confused looks which quickly turned to expressions of revulsion as I reached a hand up to my chest and sinking my fingers into my dead skin. And then…
Um. Well. I sort of started to peel my skin off. I'd say it wasn't as bad as it sounded, but frankly, the sound of it was pretty horrific. Not as bad as it looked though, because wow—it was one of the most disgusting things I'd ever seen, outside the Fields of Punishment. I didn't really want to think too much about the details involved, but I'd literally been cooked and you could tell from the…stuff I pulled off.
But I couldn't help it. The dead skin was in the way—it wasn't alive anymore, so it wasn't healing as such, but the stuff beneath it was, and the whole experience was like wearing a shirt that was getting tighter and tighter by the moment. Except most shirts didn't have steel and cloth and minotaur horns and who knows what else literally melted into them and left to cool and harden again, constricting their ribs and worse. Frankly, I didn't want to think too much about what must have happened to my insides while I was being cooked, but my outsides at least needed to go. And if not now, then I was literally going to start tearing at the seams mid-conversation.
A few excruciating minutes later, I was standing naked in the rain, my skin red and raw and covered in an assortment of fluids that weren't water. Some of it was blood. The rest…well, you know the juices you get when you cook meat? Yeah.
When the rain actually touched my wounded skin, though, I began to feel a lot better and started to heal more quickly, helped along by a number of healing spells on Riveria's part. Given a few hours and a long bath, I might actually feel like myself again.
"Are you done?" Welf asked, making a tight face and looking more than a little green in the gills even though he was pointedly looking away from me, along with everyone else. No one had thrown up, though, which was nice. There were enough things on the ground I was trying to ignore. "Please tell me you're done now."
I looked myself over, hands cupped over my groin to…actually, I honestly wasn't sure why I was bothering. Literally everyone here had just seen more of me than they had probably ever wanted to. Heaving a sigh, I just gave up, cracking my neck and rolling by shoulder. Maybe it was the new everything, but I felt weird.
"Mr. Percy," Lili said, offering me her brown cloak—which, to me, looked more like a towel. Even so, I accepted it gratefully and bound it around my waist.
"Thanks, Lili," I said, happy to have some decency, pointless as it was now. "I'll, uh…actually, how about I just buy you a new cloak when this is over?"
Lili nodded quickly. I smiled at her before wincing at the flash of pain that went through my mouth, rolling my jaw and probing my teeth with my tongue.
"Motherfucker," I swore, lifting a hand to my mouth. "He melted my teeth together, too."
"Shit," Welf said, squinting at my mouth. "Do you need—"
I shook my head quickly, cutting him off.
"Nah, I think I'm growing them back," I said, trying not to wince at another flash of pain. I'd never regrown my teeth before, but feeling them now…it would be just my luck if they were like shark or alligator teeth. "I just need to remove the old ones. I think they're stuck."
"Oh gods," Welf said, wincing again and turning away again.
I nodded at him and glanced around, not looking forward to it much myself but wondering who'd be comfortable with the task.
"Hey Bete," I said. "Punch me in the face until my teeth fall out."
The werewolf blinked at me mildly before looking around inquisitively, as if asking for permission. A couple looked away, but the rest just side.
"Can I really?" He asked, more towards Aiz and Riveria than me.
"Do you want me to make it easier for you?" I asked. "Because I can do that, if it'll help. Bete, you're an arrogant, loud-mouthed jackass who's a complete—"
A second later, I was on the ground, hand clasped over my mouth. My head was spinning and it actually took me a moment to figure out how I'd gotten there and why. Without removing my hand, I spat several things into it.
"Did I get 'em all?" Bete asked, coming up behind me and grabbing me by the scruff of my neck. "I felt like I got 'em all."
"Bete!" Riveria snapped, sounding well and truly angry. "What do you think you're doing!? You saw the condition he was in a few minutes ago!"
"That was a few minutes ago," Bete said, pulling me upright. "And he literally asked for it. Besides, I held back a lot. What do you talk me for, you old hag?"
"You sure your punches aren't just wussy?" I asked, hand still over my bleeding mouth. "I still have most of my teeth. See?"
The words were altered by the sudden gaps that had appeared, but I managed to speak clearly enough to be understood as I showed him I was telling the truth. Frankly, he really must have been holding back a lot.
"Hmph," Bete said with a snort, moving a hand to hold my head and neck steady. "Hold still—this is going to hurt."
It did. So did the feeling of new teeth pushing their way slowly out of my gums. Frankly, it was like compressing the time it had taken to lose my baby teeth down into about two or three minutes, with all the pain involved. And when it was done…it was probably an odd thing to complain about and I really was glad I wouldn't need to wear dentures at sixteen or something, but my teeth felt weird. As in, completely different. And you know how if you had a sore spot in your mouth or if something was wrong with your teeth, your tongue would poke at it constantly? Mine was doing that, but with everything.
Although…with all the monsters and gods and stuff I'd met, I'd never thought to ask if there was actually a tooth fairy—and if they serviced this area. Probably not, but it was something to think about.
I waited with a hand over my mouth, giving myself a moment to catch my breath before speaking.
"Okay," I said, finally feeling more or less whole. "Now that that's over with, now seems like a good time for us all to address the long term issues here."
"My thoughts exactly," Riveria said, still frowning at Bete, who seemed unashamed. "Finn, what do you make of this?"
The leader of the Loki Familia, who'd been wandering slowly around the area taking stock of what happened, tilted his head at Riveria's voice and quickly jogged over.
"The blast clearly came from inside," He replied. "And it's certainly of the extent one would expect from one of Crozzo's magic swords. Given the injuries Percy sustained, it seems equally clear that he was on the receiving end. Bete and Aiz saw more, I assume?"
"We arrived just before the fight ended," Aiz murmured.
"Good," He said, considering that. "I know that you must be extremely tired, but given the breadth of this matter, it would probably be best to act fast—the Guild will no doubt be arrive soon and there's still a lot to be done. Are you up for a bit more, Percy, or do you need to rest?"
I sighed but nodded.
"I'm fine," I said. "I'd rather just get this over with, anyway. But I was actually thinking of something else."
"Oh?" Finn asked, furrowing his eyebrows. "What did you have in mind?"
"Uh," I said, licking my lips. "Well, um…I just wanted to say—in case, you know, anyone happened to ask—that I knew all along that this would work. I was like a hundred percent sure I could stop Crozzo's magic sword and survive."
"What?" Welf asked, giving me a confused look before blinking when I shot him one right back. "Oh, right. Yeah. And we, uh—"
"We had it all planned out," I assured. "Which is true! We talked about it beforehand."
"How long beforehand," Lili wondered, frowning up at me. Without her coat, she looked small and cold in the rain, making me feel bad.
"Long enough," I said. "Look, the details aren't important."
"Hm," Finn said, smiling at me with one eye closed. "Unconvincing."
I clicked my tongue but smiled back.
"Okay," I admitted, looking around. "Okay, fine. Not gonna lie. I almost fucked that up. But if you look back, I think the record will show that, in the end, I didn't."
"You literally died," Lili said, undercutting me again. "That thing about surviving Crozzo's magic sword? That didn't happen."
"I got better," I claimed defensively. "And like I just said, the details aren't important."
"I'm certain you will both have time to explain the depths of your plan to your goddesses when the time comes," Finn cut in, still seeming amused. "After all, a meeting of the gods will no doubt be called over this matter. For the time being, however, perhaps we should focus on the here and now?"
I sighed, shoulders falling, but I nodded even as I made a mental list of everyone who was going to yell at me about this.
"Soma?" I guessed, looking towards the wrecked house.
"Soma," Finn agreed. "It would be best to speak to him now, I think."
"Yeah," I said. "I have a couple things I want to say to him anyway."