Athena's POV

"Yue...that's who you're talking about, isn't it?" I speak to the shadowed figure.

His wavering form looks away as if unable to face us anymore, "You won't make it there in time, I apologise."

His words leave a distaste in my mouth as I look deep within myself for some kind of answer. Looking around to find the chasm within the land opening wider as he grabs his own shard from the ground. "She's in the Underworld isn't she!? Can't we just jump down there!?" I scream, looking for senseless hope.

"What you see is just a perception, the Underworld is far bigger than what you've explored. Just because you can see the view you're gazing upon, does not mean you're actually staring at that spot. You'd risk being sent into an entirely new zone within it." He explains while extending his hand towards Jackson.

Their eyes connect, "The Singularities have no particular form or tie to any species, but even they need to sacrifice something in order to change..." He continues, "But this shard, the objectification of humanity...even if it's brief or minor seconds. If you can give it to her...she'll remain what she is, Human."

His answers only cause more questions to rise as Jackson takes his turn, "How is it that she was defeated in the first place?"

The Shade points towards Percy, "Ask someone who was there" he simply states.

"I-" Percy stutters. "He won't answer".

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I've been trying to ask him that, only to receive silence as I looked through the countless lives he's lived through, and it's not there. There's absolutely no memory of what happened in their time." Percy explains, leaving us with not much to work with.

The ground cracks as if responding to our conversation, "I promised someone I'd fulfil my role here and I've done exactly that." He looks towards the burnt down pack house, staring onward and tracing the floor with an unfathomable expression. "I was the first Human, but as you can see." He lifts his claw shaped fingers towards us, "We have differences. Leave it to a god to design something inferior to itself." He jokingly states. "Hemsa screamed in her last moments, didn't she?"

I look back at him, filled with nothing more than the painful images of flames surrounding me. "How did you know?" I ask.

He gives a half-hearted shrug, "It's only natural to break under the weight of an expectation, it's what we become after it. That's what matters. Now be on your way." He throws his hand, turning away and delicately walking through the train, back towards the toppled building.

Jackson reaches his hand out to him, "Bu-"

But I stop him, looking down and shaking my head in denial. "We're leaving." I state, shifting back into my wolf and glancing back at Percy who appears frozen in his own body. 'Percy?' I shoot through his mind hoping for a response as his daze is wiped away.

"O-oh, coming" He quickly shifts as well, waiting for Jackson to climb onto him as we run back to the place we call home.

-

Chris' POV

Volcanic ash falls around me, darker and darker the environment grows until nothing more than a set of eyes stare, just barely within my range of sight. A fluent but silent whisper, "Run". And so my legs do exactly that.

Blindly, I navigate myself, dragging my scarred body further away hoping to put some distance between me and the deep growls emanating behind me. "You've got the body of a jackal, the blood of gods, the will of a wolf...but the mind of a human. What. Are. 𝘠𝘰𝘶?" He sounds out, stopping me in my tracks.

Placing a hand on my chest, I feel the piled thick fur as a reminder of what I am now. The brief moment of reflection gifting me a searing pain through my back as my own blood splashes in front of me. I'm not given time to recuperate as the shock causes me to blink, reopening my eyes into an entirely new environment. A forest.

He chants again, "The body of a jackal, the blood of the gods, the will of a wolf. The mind of a human. What. Are. 𝘠𝘰𝘶?" He asks.

I spin, taking a glimpse of the sight behind me as his figure continues growing, his gleaming eyes traced by the dark as afterimages of his erratic pouncing darts from one tree to another. The sword still within my grasp shakes a little as my breathing increases. Faster...I need to go faster. Grabbing it within my teeth, I prance along the ground like an animal. Each tree he bounces off of, falling down and shaking the land.

Looking towards the ground I notice my claws digging into the fresh dirt, flicking it back up only to pierce it again as a sacrifice to gain more distance on the person chasing me. I don't know what caused it, but again...I stopped, standing back to my feet and taking a simple glance at my own dirt covered paw. "What. Are. 𝘠𝘰𝘶?" He whispers just by my ear, tearing through my flesh once again with a large shove that throws me through the trees, rolling into a lake with a reflective moon.

My blood dyes the lake crimson, finally given a chance to regather my thoughts, I stand up. Tensing my back up at the sudden monstrous breathing around me. But I turn to face left, right, up and behind me. Only to see nothing but myself within the reflection of the water when looking down...it's me breathing, that's what I sound like?

"The body of a jackal, the blood of the gods, the will of a wolf. The mind of a human. What. Are. 𝘠𝘰𝘶!?" He asks again. Not yet in view but coming from the tree lining.

'The same intense growl from before sounds out...that was me, wasn't it?' I think to myself.

'You know who you're choosing, right?' Anubis asks from within me.

'Me, right?' A voice I haven't heard for quite some time...Hara.

'Of course me, right?' A blank faced human faces me, the same build as my old body...me.

They all speak in unison, "It's an obvious choice, isn't it. You're picking me, right?'

My head hurts, my body aches and my flesh is tingling from rejection. "I DON'T KNOW!" I scream through them all, chipping at their figures like a rusted sword.

His voice appears from just in front of me, a foot away with not even a ripple to his step onto the water. "You don't know which one, do you?"

"I don't want to."

"Greed, Power, Status. Which one do you want?" He hums through his stomach.

To Run, to Fight or to Heal? Which do you want?" He hums again.

The sword shakes violently within my hand, forcing me to let go of it as it slices me in retaliation. But nonetheless I find myself grabbing it again. Tensing my hold despite its unyielding desire to get out of my grasp.

"Why hold it? Let go" He demands.

"I don't want to." I hold the sword, protecting it from him almost.

"You'd hold onto the sins of the past that aren't even your own. You'd make a choice that isn't even affecting others? You have to chose, just as I did. Choose for yourself, Christopher." He states.

"I don't want to." I grip the sword harder as the weight only increases.

He exhales a deep gust, an icy chill that coats my fur that causes me to look up at him, for the first time ever I lock my gaze with this man's eyes. "I'm not going to lose myself like you did". The lake of crimson water gradually dissolves into the night sky around me. Heat, a rising boil encases my feet and legs as lava forms around us. "I'm not going to make the same mistake you did." He quickly reaches for me as if knowing my next move, but I step back ever so slightly. Grasping the sword and placing both hands along the blade, diving my hands into the lava where my fur, flesh and muscle continue burning away.

I can feel it...bending around me, around my claws. I thought I'd silently endure it, silently keep it all bottled up just on the edge ready to burst just for what? To pretend to be strong? Protecting an image? "Well I won't", and so I scream, letting it out. The weight of what's been given to me these past years, the sudden change in my life those many years ago, killing my own mother...I let it all out in this one scream.

His large form steps back as I take my hands out of the lava, "Just because you've shaped your sins in the shape of this sword, the responsibilities that your path seemingly forced you down. Something you can discard with ease, something you can throw against others and hide from display. That doesn't mean they're not yours to bare." I lift my paws, coated in the unyielding and yet ethereal grace of what was once his sword. A shining black that's fused with my flesh and encased my claws, "I'll show off what's wrong with me, I'll choose what I want when the time comes. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 do not get to make me choose." He steps back again, still locking his eyes onto me.

I take a step forward this time, turning the burning lake back into a solemn blue. No words are spoken as we look at each other, again I step forward. His heterochromatic eyes, arched down so he can match my gaze. "You may be a memory, but you were once real. And I apologise nobody was there for you, but that doesn't mean you weren't alone." I extend my hand out to his dangled arm, one filled with claws and scars but the texture, soft and warm. "You were scared thinking nobody saw it...saw you, but I do." I gradually drop his arm, letting go of it and turning away at him. "Goodbye, Oracion."

But a force drags me back into his arms, "I killed my wife in this lake...a turning point I couldn't ever make up. But it looks like you did, thank you. Goodbye, Christopher." Even just for a second, the image of his Lycan form releases as an arm wraps around my waist in his steed. Audibly puffing into a cloud, flowing back into the metal encasing around my paws.

The small peace that I felt during this moment, ruptured by the howl of a hellbeast. Cerberus. The new place I found to be my home that's given me more than I can acknowledge. I believe it's time to give back to it.