Chapter Text
Chapter 1: A little theft hasn't hurt anyone!
Perseus crouched in front of the damnable black box; his ear pressed to its matte shining door. His fingers hovered over a white silver knob, covered with a hand shaped body of water turning it to the left and right causing sounds of minute clicking to pierce the air.
He warded the cramped room from releasing sounds to the outside by using the sigil of the thrice cursed hand, he needed to thank Phineas for keeping it warm for him.
The knob clicked as he turned it right and right again and it released a silent hissing noise as the door steamed, opening it slightly, Perseus willed the water hand to grab the outskirts of the door and pulled it open shuffling back slightly as he did so and inside the safe on a red cushion was the diadem of Thrace.
Or specifically the diadem of Thrax, the demigod king of Thrace and a son of Ares.
It was a circular rope of iron with downwards protruding bands of the metal on the back and forefront of the crown, on the front protrusion a motif of a golden winged pegasus was detailed with inlaid gold.
Perseus rested his tongue at the roof of his mouth and concentrated on a small well of magic, his gut pulling taught just slightly as he pulled on his reserve, just enough to not be detected by the guard rotations on the outside and clicked his tongue. It seemed the crown was laid with very nasty anti-theft curses.
Perseus flexed his right hand, and a silver ring on his middle finger slithered to his palm before warping and twisting into a small leather pouch with bundled cords on the top. He opened the pouch of endless voids and reached in, rummaging around before pulling out a small twisted brown branch with three flecked silver leaves on the tip.
He then rubbed the leaves on the diadem and with each curse the leaves fell, blackened and scorched and when they touched the red cushion they burnt through it slightly. He only had one branch of renewal and it cost a pretty penny to get his questionably worthy hands on them, but the diadem was worth it.
It was enchanted so that the wearer would be faster and stronger, but the main boon was that it allowed you to control the spirit and corpses of those you killed in battle as long as you wore the diadem. And boy oh boy did people want this diadem. It was currently under possession of Bellona, the roman goddess of maddening warfare entrusted to the amazons for safe keeping, and Perseus wanted it, nay, he demanded it.
The final leaf fell off and with that Perseus checked again if any curses lingered on the iron crown, all was clear.
He rummaged through the pouch again and a golden pen with glowing purple ink inside it was pulled out, it was a pen of reverent ownership, it allowed the user to prescribe into artefacts their nature and definition to be used only by the claimant and to be intrinsically tied to them, and all one had to do was bind their name and blood to the item via the ink. Which was easier said than done, the Lord of Olympus jealously guards these pens with passion, never allowing the elder Cyclopses to make more than two every half a millennium. The ink was made via mixing the phlegethon and the Styx and tempering the boiling rivers by using the blood of the claimant.
The pen only had two uses left, he bought it off an elder cyclops, nearly lost all his savings with this one purchase.
Perseus grabbed the diadem and got to work searing the purple ink, painstakingly writing his name, the pen heated up, burning his hand, but the boy grunted, and his grip tightened slightly, the smell of bubbling flesh wafted his nose, but he pushed on. He finished the signature, popped the pen bag into the bag and rolled his left sleeve up slightly removing a miniature vial that was tied to his wrist with a piece of string and popped the rubber cork off and allowed the golden water to float into his mouth as he swallowed, his tongue assaulted by the taste of chocolate chip syrup milkshake with blue flavored coloring, before returning the empty vial to the pouch of endless void.
He allowed himself to guffaw and mimicked a crowning as he raised the diadem to his head and set it upon himself, and he laughed, how could he not, he travelled to Seattle to the heart of the Amazon base, learnt their rotation guards, infiltrated in one of the most protected vaults bar the ones in the Underworld, Olympus and Atlantis and he stole the coveted diadem of Thrax and banded it to his being all in one month.
He laughed again his hands glowing slightly as it touched the diadem on his head," Cold and cold and cold again, may you rest when the light is shorn and the darkness complete, until then the service is due and you return to the one that claims thy metal and magic, return to my will when I will and may you be rewarded with due servitude." His voice thundered with power and magic and terrible might, wincing slightly, the amazons would have definitely felt that, but he did not care enough at the moment, he bonded his charge, no one can separate them as they are.
Well unless he was dead, but that was a minor detail.
Clamors and shouts could be heard outside the room, he did not have much time until they could pinpoint the magical outburst to him, he snapped his fingers on his left hand and the pouch sucked in the dead twisted branch, before folding and folding and folding again into a silver ring with a brown gem in the middle on his right hand. Perseus turned and hobbled to the door, touching it with the body of water that hovered near his person in the shape of a hand, and he twisted the handle slowly jamming the keyhole with some liquid too. He creeped out slowly, the guards at either side still asleep from the spell he cast.
He scurried down the corridor and opened the window on the left, and twisted some rope that was thrown up the window into a patterned knot around his waist and he jumped. As he was jumping though a shocked girl was standing on the other side of the corridor watching him float up before being yanked down, he laughed.
Three small stone cherubs were griping the ropes at the floor pulling him down, he was wrapped with an enchanted rope that gave one the effect of anti-gravity, it was relatively cheap compared to other godly gear one could swindle and barter in the black market but undoubtedly useful.
He untied himself as he was close the floor, falling with a thud and a groan before he pushed himself up and rolled to the side as an arrow embedded itself to where he was lying, "That's not nice." He called up to the girl on the windowsill, was that Kellie, or Kassandra or something? He had seen her before in another amazon storehouse when he stole the compass of never never," Ah Kerlinda! So wonderful to see you!" He shouted and the girl notched another arrow and let it loose with a guttural cry.
"It's Kenzie!" She seethed," Remember it Jackson as I skin you alive and offer your corpse to Olympus!"
"Now, now" Percy called up running away and turning his head with a smirk, he saw how her eyes narrowed even further," It seems like you need some work on your manners." he called up," That isn't how you greet an old friend!"
"Is that?" She whispered as realization seemed to set into her black, brown flecked eyes, Kyacinth was really pretty now that Perseus thought about it, or whatever her name was," The diadem of Thrace!" She screamed," I will kill you, Jackson! I will murder you! Rip you apart and feed you to the hounds for the insult you throw against my patron!"
Perseus threw his head back and laughed, oh how beautiful her shrieks of rage were, he could feel the guards zone into him, he felt a rise in magical pressure, it seemed that they activated the alarm against him. He needed to reach Mrs. O'Leary before they could even smell him much less see his exalted form.
The three little stone cherubs flew behind him as he continued on his mad dash through the tarmac maze of the industrial plant, Kaycie's screams and shouts of intruder acting as a symphony of his escape.
Mrs. O-Leary was couched in the shadow of the far building just opposite a mortal café, he neared the junction and brought his fingers to his lips and whistled.
Without a sound or further delay Mrs. O Leary bounded up from the shadow of the building her black smoked fur writhing in the nonexistent wind as she barked happily, her long red tongue wagging out her razor teeth," We can get to licking later my girl!" He called, as he dodged the wagging appendage and scrambled up her body," We have an escaping to do!" He cried, he clutched the reigns attached to Mrs. O'Leary's pink collar and yanked it up and to the side and with a sharp kick to her left flank the hellhound the size of a garbage truck started to bound straight to the building wall and dived into the shadows.