Bag of Depravity
patreon
In Pursuit of Power: Chapter 23
🕑 Added 2024-11-07 05:00:11 +0000 UTCA/N: I've come down with a minor cold that's slowing me down this week. I wanted this chapter up yesterday, so that I could move on to the next Dark Days update, but I'm not moving at quite my normal pace. Hopefully it passes quickly.
Chapter 23
Feeling Sparks
“That’s charmspeak she’s using!” Piper whispered.
Thalia didn’t need anyone to tell her that, so she decided to believe it was for Aubrey’s benefit. The mortal’s head was right above Thalia’s, whose head was just above Piper’s in turn, as all three peeked through a narrow crack in the door Percy had passed into.
The two Telekhines ran off the moment they could. Cowardly little demons, but Thalia supposed she didn’t expect anything more from them. As soon as they were gone she had prodded open the door to Pompona’s room, leaving a sliver just wide enough to see through. The other two joined her soon after.
“But that’s terrible!” Piper whispered. “Percy didn’t even know what that was an hour ago. He won’t be able to handle it!”
“You're worrying too much,” Thalia told her.
“But—”
“Look,” Thalia said, cutting her off, “you don’t know him the way I do. Percy faced the foulest monsters to ever crawl out of Tartarus, and he did it without knowing what half of them were. He doesn't have to know what charmpseak is to get through this. He’ll just find a way. Because that’s what he always does.”
Like staring certain death in the eyes and coming out the other side of it as a god. Like waking up one day, after three impossibly long years, and immediately starting a war. Like downing the ruler of the West within months, accumulating allies at a pace that shouldn’t have been possible. That was who Percy Jackson was. A boy who got things done.
Except, he wasn’t a boy anymore. Thalia swallowed. She watched Percy drop onto the bed, his muscles bulging. Ever since losing her connection to Artemis, Thalia noticed things like this again. She didn’t mean to spot how chiseled Percy had become, or the way his sea-green eyes sparkled with newfound power, or how rugged his jaw happened to be. Things just kept ending up that way.
Pompona kicked her legs over his shoulders. The girls saw her lips moving, and a moment later, Percy was attacking her with his mouth.
“Jeez,” Piper said. “He’s really going for it.”
Thalia watched his head press into the goddess’s delicate muff. Through the haze of pollen filling the room, she saw his whole body straining to help his tongue do its work. Pompona must be feeling so good.
Hold on. Where had that thought come from? They were here to help him subdue the goddess once her guard was down. They weren't supposed to be enjoying the view!
She would have slapped herself to clear her head, but she didn’t want to startle the others, so she forced herself to calm down slowly and naturally. Just as she felt she’d finally managed it, something changed.
Percy slammed his whole fist into the goddess.
A vine had appeared in the place of his chain, tethering him to Pompona’s fist, but it certainly didn’t feel like he was the one being controlled. His movements were brutal. They were fierce. Thalia watched Pompona writhe, then listened to her plead.
“Told you that you didn’t have to worry,” Thalia said.
Despite her best efforts, her voice sounded strained. She felt Piper looking up at her.
“I can see that,” Piper said. “Happy to be proven wrong.”
There was a long moment where the daughter of Aphrodite continued looking at her. Thalia pretended not to notice, and was grateful when that heavy gaze slid onto Aubrey instead.
Percy’s whole arm pumped. His entire hand was actually inside of the goddess? How would that even feel? Intense, probably, in a good way, considering Thalia was watching Pompona stiffen under orgasm after orgasm, all while begging him to stop.
“Wow…” Aubrey muttered.
Thalia didn’t have to ask what was amazing her. Because she felt the same way.
Percy finally dragged his glistening forearm free of the goddess. He flicked it once, shaking off excess juices. Then he rolled Pompona over, refusing to break momentum for even one second. He grabbed and molded Pompona into the perfect position to obediently take his cock— and what a cock that was.
So big. So wide. The thought of it all cramming inside a woman was almost as incredible as seeing his whole fist do the same. To Thalia’s eyes it seemed to shine in the strange light of the room, glowing and demanding attention. Aubrey whimpered.
“You guys…” Whatever Piper wanted to say to them, she didn’t finish the thought. Percy peeled apart Pompona’s cheeks and plunged into her ass.
Thalia pressed her thighs together as she watched all that cock disappear in an instant. Within a handful of thrusts Pompona was mewling. She sprayed juices against the bed under them, and seconds later Thalia sensed something else.
“Get down!”
She grabbed Aubrey by the shirt and ducked down with Piper as Pompona started to glow. Her true form emerged, but nothing else happening in that room changed. Sitting against the wall of vines, the girls were left with just the noises.
Somehow, that felt more intense to Thalia this way. Her whole body felt stiff. It sounded as if a Laistrygonian were clapping next to them, but it was just Percy’s hips crashing into Pompona’s. Periodically, an even louder slap would sound as Percy struck the goddess’s backside. Her squeals were as audible as ever, but they had changed slightly in pitch, as if something were around her throat making it difficult for them to escape.
Someone touched Thalia’s side.
She flinched. Her whole body felt sensitive right now, as if it were loaded with too many volts even for her. But delicate fingers squeezed her above the hip, and another set drifted down to rest on top of her thigh.
“You’re aroused,” Piper said.
Thalia forced a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
She gulped. Piper still looked like herself, but… different. She was always pretty, sure, but she never really reminded Thalia of the Aphrodite campers she used to know. Until now. Piper’s kaleidoscope eyes seemed to be shifting colors faster than ever, and there was an indescribable sensuality to her that Thalia couldn’t place.
“But it’s true,” Piper said. “Your body is begging for attention. So is hers.”
Thalia looked for Aubrey, and found her halfway across the room. The woman had put extra distance between her and the goddess’s true form, crawling away to sit against the fence surrounding one patch of dying tomatoes.
“She is scared,” Piper said sadly. “Her body wants one thing, but her mind denies it. I think that someone hurt her badly. But you? There’s nothing in your way. I know what you want.”
Piper’s fingers grabbed Thalia’s thigh, squeezing her through her pants. Thalia bit her lip and nearly came on the spot.
“Be honest!” Piper urged her. “Let him make you his.”
“No!” Thalia said.
The stupid girl didn’t know what she was asking. That was the one thing Thalia couldn’t do. Piper hadn’t lived her life. She hadn’t seen the things that Thalia had seen!
First it was Annabeth, her little sister in everything but blood. She and Percy were inseparable. They did everything together. So was it any surprise when she fell for him?
Oh, yeah, Thalia had noticed. Annabeth’s jealousy toward that mortal girl. The way she snuck glances at Percy. She was willing to sacrifice herself for him. They may not have confessed properly, but that didn’t change the fact that it was love the two of them shared.
Then Annabeth was lost. The world fell in an instant, and Percy survived, but he wouldn’t wake up. That was when they crash-landed on Ogygia.
Thalia had been broken back then, as much as the unconscious Percy just in different ways. Her legs had been snapped for one. Her connection to her goddess had been torn away from her, and even after all the wandering she’d done since she never discovered Artemis’s fat. Thalia somehow survived the most perilous situation of her entire life, and doing so left her with nothing.
She hadn’t been convinced she wanted to go on living; wasn’t sure she had anything to do it for. It had not been a good time for her. That was when the book showed up.
Calypso had been taking care of them, keeping Percy comfortable and slowly healing Thalia’s legs, but Thalia hadn’t given the Titaness much to work with. She was reticent and gloomy, barely doing enough to explain the situation. Most of the time she was left alone in her own room inside the cave, which was when the book appeared.
It was empty at first, but one thing about blank space is that it begs to be filled. Soon, Thalia was scribbling down everything she had to say but couldn’t make come out of her mouth. Her story, her dreams, her hopes and fears and insignificant thoughts. And the book wrote back.
It was one of two, and whatever Thalia wrote, Calypo’s could read and write back. Conversation by conversation, Calypso broke down the walls Thalia hadn’t meant to build up. She reminded Thalia that she was still alive, and for as long as that was true, giving up was such a waste. To her own shock, Thalia agreed with her. It was Calypso that drew her out, making her her again.
And Thalia saw it, over and over again and every day. Calypso nursed Percy with the exact same look Annaeth would give him when he wasn’t looking. The Titaness loved Percy, well and truly, just as much as anyone before her.
So Thalia would not jump on him now, after he woke up and returned to being himself. She didn’t love him that way. And she refused to spit on all that Calypso had done by stepping between her and him.
A woman screamed.
Thalia was jarred back to the moment. Pompona had been making plenty of noise before, sure, but not like this. There was no pleasure in this scream, just a type of terror Thalia never associated with gods. It was too dangerous to look, so they sat there against the vine wall, the old atmosphere utterly destroyed.
Things became quiet. They gave it five minutes, just to be safe. Then, Thalia rose and crept to the door, pushing it open.
Percy was alone, sitting on the bed with a look Thalia hadn’t seen before. Pompona was nowhere in sight. The room’s great garden of plants had become a dried-out mess of brown.
“Help me tear this stuff out,” he said. “There’s bodies to bury.”
O-O-O
Thalia felt sick.
She didn’t consider herself to have a weak stomach, but even for her, Pompona’s room pushed her limits. Percy was half-wrong. There weren’t bodies among the plants. Not whole ones anyway. But what was certain was that every slave who entered these quarters and never made it back, was still inside, in one form or another.
They did their best to collect the remains properly. Aubrey seemed to take it the worst. But she still saw it out to the end.
“We should bury them outside the mountain,” she said. “Anywhere but the place they were trapped.”
“You’re sure that would matter to them?” Piper asked.
Aubrey didn’t look toward her. It was a moment before she answered.
“I know that I would want that,” she said finally. “You know, if I were in their shoes.”
The four of them made makeshift caskets out of the leftover vines in the room. Thalia buried them all herself, carrying the remains up through a volcanic vent to get outside quickly. It wasn't easy digging in the desert’s dry ground, but she was glad of the work. It helped her forget the feelings she’d had earlier, and how intense Percy had looked…
By the time she returned, Calypso and Prometheus had arrived.
All of Percy’s followers were there. Prometheus immediately took Alastor aside to ‘discuss’ the nature of his agreement with Percy. Knowing the Titan, that was code for probing the Telekhine for weaknesses he could use to extort extra from him.
Most of Percy’s followers worked with the slaves. These people had been living in horrible conditions. They were dirty, some were injured, and all of them had an awful sunken look. The only thing they were getting plenty of was food. It seemed even Telekhines (or whoever was higher up the chain of command) at least understood that properly fed workers, meant more work getting done. Thalia considered that a very small mercy.
There were entire families, with slaves as young as eight or as old as sixty. Most were in between though, and there were noticeably more women than men. Thalia didn’t comment on that out loud. She knew exactly where the missing men had ended up.
Despite the condition they were in, the slaves were in high spirits. Word had already spread of Percy’s deal with Alastor, as well as of Pompona’s fate. They brought out extra helpings of their simple food, mostly meat and grains with very few veggies, and they even found a small supply of alcohol. It was giving Thalia a clear sense of deja vu.
She stood beside Piper inside a huge carved cave lit by torches and odd glowing crystals. The entire space was left with an obvious orange tint. In the middle of the great room, six tables had been set up in a hexagon, leaving space in the middle where Percy was currently being pulled around. A dozen or more slaves moved back and forth around him in formation, while he stumbled and tried to keep up. Thalia could hear them laughing. She was pretty sure it was Southern line dancing, and the only thing the natives enjoyed more than showing it off was having a stranger like Percy trying and failing to keep up.
His every misstep was laughed at, both by the dancers and by the watching crowd, but it was always followed by gentle instructions on how to do that part properly. It was all in good fun.
“He’s feeling it too, you know,” Piper said suddenly.
“What, the dance?”
“Arousal.”
Thalia nearly spat out the water she was sipping from.
“Why are you so hung up on this?” she asked.
Piper looked mildly at her. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean.” Thalia groaned, trying to put it into the right words. “It’s like, most of the time, you’re kind of a tomboy. And I get that you were always a daughter of Venus, but you never seemed like you’d be so… so obsessed with this stuff? Just let it go. It’s fine.”
“If you say so,” Piper said.
“What is she saying?”
Thalia jumped. Calypso appeared next to them as if materializing out of mist. Thalia wouldn’t be shocked if she could really do that. Either way, it scared the Hades out of her.
“Oh, just how—”
“How I really like this party!” Thalia cut Piper off. “Boy, it’s a lot of fun!”
She hurled her water glass back draining it like a shot, before lowering the cup and forcing a grin. Calypso and Piper watched her. When she was done, Calypso turned to Piper.
“What was she really saying?”
“Not to talk about how badly she wants Percy to fuck her.”
Calypso blinked. Thalia groaned, hanging her head. Now she wished the water really had been alcoholic.
“Ah, there’s Jason!” Piper smiled impishly. “Bye guys. Catch you later.”
She darted away, leaving Thalia and Calypso standing alone.
“We should probably be hitting the road soon, shouldn’t we?” Thalia said quickly.
“We have a few hours before that will be a problem. But, Thalia—”
“Look at that, I think they brought out some more food! I’m really hungry, so I think I’ll just…”
Thalia tried to dart past. Calypso’s arms wrapped around her before she could.
Thalia felt well and truly trapped. Was the Titaness always this strong? She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Calypso lift anything before, but right now those frail-looking arms were as solid as iron bars. Calypso leaned in, whispering something in her ear.
Thalia’s eyes widened.
O-O-O
Life has a way of humbling you, I’ve come to realize. Just when I felt like I was getting a handle on my godly powers, something else comes in to remind me just how pathetic I truly am. Enter: line dancing.
The freed slaves kept it up for over an hour before I managed to slip away. I think they were extra excited because I was so bad. And look, I’m glad something cheered them up, but making a fool of myself for that long would wear down anybody’s patience.
As soon as I got away I left the party behind. I slipped away down a string of tunnels to the room Alastor loaned me. I think it was Morpheus’s room before, because the biggest object in the whole room was an absolutely lavish bed. But seeing as the god wouldn’t be waking up for a very long time, that made it free game.
After being woken in the middle of the night, everything from chasing Aubrey to destroying Pompona had happened in a matter of hours. It was technically morning. I didn’t necessarily need sleep, immortal like I was, but I could definitely use a bit of rest.
I could still feel it, deep down. My body longed for release after getting so worked up with Pompona. Even after everything, the urge was still there. I lay down on the bed and started to unbutton my pants.
Just as they popped open there was a knock at my door. I redid my button and rose, doing my best to keep from sighing.
“Yes?” I said, opening the door.
Thalia stood on the other side.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
Part of me wanted to say no. But I saw the way one arm reached across her body, rubbing the opposite elbow. She wasn’t making eye contact. If it were anyone else I would’ve said they were nervous, but this was Thalia. She was always confident. For better, or often, for worse.
Because I needed to know what had her this way, I stepped aside.
She walked to the bed and sat without looking back. Since the bed was the only piece of furniture in the entire room, I walked over and sat on it too, about a foot away.
She scooted closer. My eyebrows rose.
“We… need to talk,” she said.
All of a sudden, I had the strangest feeling that wasn’t all we would be doing. That stubborn part of my brain, the one that had been feeling frustrated all morning, started cheering like a child.
I scooted closer right back, making Thalia’s eyes widen.
“Hit me with it,” I said. “What’s bothering you?”
With that, she began to talk.
