Percy Jackson : Rewind Time

Falling.

It was a recurring problem for me. I fell from the Arch, the World tree, into Tartarus and a whole lot of other places I couldn't immediately recall. Yeah, falling from places should be something I had grown used to.

I did not.

The aircurrents around me violently roared and tried to pull my body in different directions. I had trouble finding out where the sky exactly was and the thin air up this high didn't really help matters.

The Hulk was a green speck far underneath me so at least that was one problem less. According to the guy himself he wouldn't die from anything so I assumed he would just land fine.

Far above me I saw the ship was still tilting over to the right. A tiny spark that could be Tony was flying around the engine. No help from him either.

I managed to spread my limbs which stopped me from flailing around and gave me a view of the ground below me.

'I think I've told you this before, but remember to drop through your knees after landing, that will minimize the impact.' Chaos said, not sounding bothered at all.

I would have rolled my eyes, wasn't it for the fact they were very hard to keep open. I looked for anything to save me, an ocean or big lake to crash in. That would be nice.

I saw nothing. Only city blocks stretching out for miles. Not even trees to catch my fall.

Damn, this wasn't looking good. Why couldn't I just fly like Tony or Thor.

Wait, that's it!

I closed my eyes, trying to find some inner calmth, even though I felt like screaming. My train of thought was like this; this world has Asgardians, just like my world had. So, it wouldn't be too far stretched to assume Asgard existed as well, right?

The Mythical tree that connected the Nine Worlds had saved me before.

I desperately reached out for anything to grasp for.

Before, Medusa had helped me focus, now I had to do it on my own. Well, assuming there was even an Yggrdasil.

Desperate to escape I tried to reach out for anything resembling Yggdrasil. There wasn't a clear destination, just somewhere on Earth instead of somewhere on earth, 1000 meters up in the sky.

My powers managed to latch onto something. It was unlike before. This time Demter's power didn't even activate. It was all Chaos'.

What came next was liquid sensory overload.

Colors and space exploded around me and in my face. Warping my vision and snagging up my entire being.

In a split second I managed to glimpse the true nature of Yggdrasil. It wasn't at all a tree like it should be. Instead I saw a trail of space and time that connected several places in this universe, each infinitely far from each other, together. All connected by this extradimensional constellation.

Before I could grasped what I was truly viewing it kicked me out.

"Ugh." I gasped for some real air and gladly sucked in some oxygen. I opened my eyes and noticed I was lying face down on a hard cold floor. Face down, my body feeling like I just got a beating by the Hulk and then crashed down on earth.

While I was still acclimating to having solid ground I heard footsteps echoing around me.

I got up on my feet and looked around, confused, disoriented and I might have puke a little bi.

"Please refrain from puking on the floor." A voice next to me said.

A dirty looking bucket was kicked in front me and before I could process anything, my stomach made the decision for me, and I threw up.

"Oooh, thanks," I let out a sigh of relief and stood up straight.

Finally feeling well enough to think I looked around.

I was inside what looked like a mansion. Big circular archways decorated the doors while old looking objects were displayed all over the room.

The room was lit by a window with circular patterns that showed a clear blue sky above us.

A person, most likely the bucket bringer, stood to my left. A few feet away, hands behind her back and carefully watching me.

She was bald, that's the first thing that struck me as odd. Next was the yellow cloak she wore. Third was the weird pendant she wore.

"Sorry for the mess." I tried to smile confidently while I was wondering how long it would take before the police would show up. Then I reca;;ed the Mist didn't exist here and that people could see me. Also, people were used to demigods dropping onto your floor, hopefully.

The woman was intensely staring at me, not with fear but with something else.

She still didn't say anything. It was kind of unnerving.

"So," I tried to break the ice. "You know, I am a superhero. If you send the bill for th-" I looked around for any property damage I caused, only to find the room to be in perfect condition.

"You won't have to worry about collateral damage." The woman finally spoke. "However, if you would clear up a few things I would appreciate it."

Okay, her smile was definitely a knowing one.

Instinctively I tried to take a step away from her, only to notice that my own movement was sluggish. It felt like I was moving through syrup.

The sudden glow of her weird amulet made me suspect this was no ordinary mortal.

Maybe the cloak should have tipped me off. Or the lack of panic and surprise, or her weird amulet.

I blamed Yggdrasil.

"Look," I tried, "I really don't have the time to talk. I need to check up on my friends, see if they're all okay."

"I assure you, that can wait." The woman didn't budge.

Deciding I really shouldn't be hanging out with strangers while Loki might be causing havoc, I let out a high pitched scream.

It took the woman by surprise, that's for sure. She was thrown against the wall by the force of the scream, causing her grip on me to loosen.

Without waiting I bolted out of the room, not wanting to know this universe was starting to feel so similar to my own. I couldn't walk a mile without bumping into a God or monster trying to stop me.

I charged through one of the doors, turned a corner and entered an empty hallway. There were several other exhibits in this room but I didn't pay much attention.

Just when I reached the midway points the woman stepped into the hallway.

The strange thing was that she didn't come from the direction I just came, but from the direction I was heading in. She didn't seem to be in a hurry, making me panic a little more. I skidded to a halt and turned around, only to find out the way I came from was completely walled off by solid wood.

"Oh no!" Memories of the Labyrinth came back.

I turned around and saw that the woman was closer to me this time. Wait, not that wasn' t true. In front of my eyes the hallway became shorter. The Hades!

'You know, non-euclidean space isn't that hard to create.' Chaos shared her thoughts.

'How to escape this?' I cried out as the hallway had shortened again.

'Window to your left.'

I quickly turned to my left and saw there was a window all of a sudden.

I enlarged the Shield of Winter and hurled myself towards the window, pressing all my weight into it.

The glass shattered and I was met with a bright sky, filled with a familiar looking skyline.

Outside at last.

Just in time I shot out a webline and managed to launch myself towards the roof of the building.

Only when I stood safely upon the tilted roof, I allowed myself to relax a little.

The landscape was familiar immediately, I was home. New York City.

Except something was completely different.

The sky, it looked...fractured?

It was hard to describe what exactly felt off but the moment I stepped outside I knew something was off.

It was completely silent.

There were cars moving, people walking around on the streets, going on about their daily life but they were doing it all soundlessly. Like they were just background noise.

It felt wrong.

"Wh, but how?" I muttered out loud.

"This is the mirror dimension, that's how." The woman appeared again. Seemingly appearing in the corner of my view. "It's a second layer of reality, invisible to normal people but mirroring it."

Again she looked completely calm. "Unless you know how to escape, I could trap you here forever."

"I don't like being trapped." I warned her. "Now, could you kindly let me go. I have urgent business."

"No," she said, not even considering giving me a good reason.

I waited for her to explain herself but she just kept silent. Considering I tried peaceful methods of negotiating, I decided now it was time to be a bit more 'direct'.

I threw the Shield of Winter in one fluid motion towards her, hoping that knocking out would hopefully free me; only that didn't happen. I watched in astonishment as the Shield remained frozen in the air.

Well, I mean it was already frozen, but now it had stopped moving as well. It just floated.

The woman's pendant was glowing again. I paid it a bit more attention. It was an eye-shaped frame, looking slightly Egyptian, with some green marble held at the center. Said marble was glowing bright green.

I left.

Somehow that thing had stopped my shield and I suspected it had also restrained my movement earlier.

With a big leap I jumped off the building and aimed at a tree to catch my landing.

When I landed on the pavement, I noticed how none of the people acknowledged my presence.

Must be another quirk of this "mirror dimension" thing.

Having spotted the Hudson river not that far away I decided to head into that direction, hoping to find some place where I could focus on traveling by Yggdrasil again.

I looked at the yellow cloaked stranger and saw her leaping down the building as well. She didn't break her legs for some reason. To make it even weirder, she slapped the pavement with her hand.

Like she had super strength as well the street rippled outwards; like a pebble thrown into a pond the brickwork of the pavement and asphalt started going up and down, spreading like waves in a circle.

Liquified reality dashed towards me, the ground no longer obeyed the laws of physics and I doubted I would be left unscathed if I got hit by the ground this way.

I managed to jump just in time. A wave of bricks and asphalt passed underneath me, but more and bigger waves of asphalt were headed towards me.

It was pretty disorienting to look at. For some reason all the cars and humans were left unharmed, in fact, they didn't even notice the waves at all!

Another wave came rippling towards me and even though the situation was just plain absurd, I drew the connection between actual waves and this weird distorted reality brick wave.

I could work with waves, maybe bricks weren't that different.

While bracing myself I unsheathed Riptide and tried to anticipate when the next wave would hit.

I ran towards the woman just as a wave was close and instead of dodging it I used it as a ramp to propel myself higher. I almost fell but by miracle I managed to maintain my balance.

More waves came but instead of taking the time to drop I used each and every wave at a leaping board, timing every jump with utmost precision.

"Didn't know bending bricks is a power." I grunted as I parkoured over the final wave and came down upon the source of all this madness, sword in hand and ready to strike.

The woman wasn't caught by surprise and simply stepped to the side, dodging my obvious sword.

Bingo.

With my freehand I ignited a fireball and hurled it towards her.

She barely managed to dodge that one and from her expression I could read that she didn't see that coming.

I landed on my feet and prepared to take her in close quarters but to my dismay the woman leaped away from me, again using some supernatural powers.

The streets stopped going up and down. At least that was something positive.

Which meant something worse was about to occur.

The woman landed on the other end of the street, unbothered by cars passing next to her. She moved her hands, as if preparing a spell.

Around me the world suddenly began to shift. Buildings stretched out like dripping paint, copying themselves in some places and at other places they were bending in impossible angels. The bricks underneath my feet were rearranging themselves, splitting off into separate small islands of brickwork, separated by a gaping void of blue sky underneath me.

As if that was not freaking weird enough, the world literally started to turn. The skyline started curling up in wards and folded around itself. Certain parts of the world split into copies that were upside down, while other parts of the city suddenly moved to the side. A skyscraper was suddenly positioned to my left while the Huston river hung suspended in the air.

It was like seeing the world through a Kaleidoscope. Reality was just straight up broken.

So did gravity.

I was no longer standing on the ground, instead I found myself on the bottom of the weird islands, the open blue sky underneath me.

Feeling slightly confused, I managed to grab another sky-island during my fall before I fell too far.

I almost dislodged my shoulder but I managed to hold on. A quick peek down showed a single traffic lane underneath me.

I pulled myself up and saw I was standing on the side of an apartment complex.

The cloaked woman was watching me from a few islands away. Not at all bothered by the lack of comprehensible reality. She waved her hand again.

The sides of a big office building tore itself free and floated towards the woman, forming stepping stones for her to cross over.

"As I was about to say," the woman resumed talking as if nothing had happened. "This is the mirror dimension, those who are practised in the mystical arts can bend it to their will. Personally, I find it very useful to track, observe and if necessary contain extra dimensional threads."

"You're a magician!" I cried out, accusingly. As usual my brain focused on the important stuff.

I met Sadie and Carter and a few other magicians, none of them could do what this person was doing.

"I prefer the word sorcerer." She replied.

'I thought this world didn't have magic.' I told Chaos.

'Never said it didn't.' Chaos feigned innocence.

"I am the Sorcerer Supreme. Protector of this realm, you may call me the Ancient One."

She waited for me to introduce myself. Considering I had literally nowhere to go I humored her.

"My name is Percy Jackson. What in Hades' name do you want from me?"I tried to study my surroundings but it was just a headache to look at. The same buildings were at different points around me in the sky.

"Like I just said, I protect this realm from extra dimensional threats. And at the moment, you are a threat."

I frowned, how did she know? "Look, I know things might be a bit confusing but you can just call Nick Fury or Coulson the-"

"You are from another universe." The Ancient One insisted. "I don't know how but you somehow wormed your way into this cluster."

Cluster?

"I want to know what you are and why you are here."

"Look, I am just a demigod. I got here by the Tesseract and at the moment I am trying to help the people of this universe, nothing wrong with that, right?"

Her skeptical gaze didn't change.

"You claim to be a regular demigod, yet I notice a lot of unusual things about you." The Ancient One looked me straight in the eyes. "Reality and time seem to bend around you, covering your entire existence. You are covered with the stench of entropy, not to mention the parasite you carry-"

'Don't let her touch you!' Chaos yelled.

Without warning the sorcerer was in front of me, her palm almost touching my forehead.

I dove to the side, off the island and into the void of sky below me.

At that moment I wasn't sure if I was flying down or falling up, not that it really mattered.

I passed several cars, lampposts and even a freaking single suspended traffic lane as I fell down. This time however, I had a plan.

Using my powers I reached out for something. A tugging sensation in my stomach exploded into a roar.

The river below and above me exploded violently and water shot towards me, covering me entirely and stopping my fall. From all sides, copies of the river started doing the same thing, sending tendrils of water my way to join the large mass of water I had swirling around me.

I felt refreshed, all my tiredness from before faded away and my power increased.

Guess the mirror world did have some advantages. The Hudson River had been so distant and far away, but thanks to the magic of the Ancient One, it had not only been brought closer, but also copied as well. She literally brought me my own element.

Tendrils from all rivers slithered towards the storm I had wielded around me. I wasn't sure how much water it was but it was definitely the first way I managed to gather this much water in such a weird way.

With one thought I shot all of it towards the Ancient One. A tidal wave of water crashed down on the small island and I followed suit, riding the wave through this mirror dimension.

Glowing circles, similar to shields, appeared around the woman's fists as she braced herself against the torrent of water rushing over her.

She did a decent job of resisting it, courtesy of those magical shields of her. I jumped out of the stream and slashed straight through her glowing shields.

I forced the water to disperse around us, making it impossible for her to jump away this time.

A glowing whip-like structure appeared between her hands but as she constructed them she was struck from behind. The Ancient One dropped to the ground while the Shield of Winter finally reached my arm and reattached itself.

I pointed the tip of my sword at her.

"You lose."

She let out a sigh. "Fine, go ahead and kill me. Finish what you came for. Take the eye."

"Uh what?" I said, a little bit caught unaware by the recent turn of events. "How about no?"

The Ancient One gave me a confused look.

"Look, all I want is to help people, right now the Avengers need me. I have no clue who you are or whatever your eye is. Just let me go and we can both part ways." I smiled kindly.

The Ancient One smiled back.

"Excellent, Percy Jackson, very good." A voice from above me.

My head flicked up where I saw the Ancient One sitting on a small island overhead. Wait, how?

I looked down and saw the Ancient One I was holding at sword point suddenly vanish into thin air.

My eyes went up again.

"You passed." She concluded, she made a circular motion with her hand.

Behind me a circular flaming portal appeared. Through it I could see the toilet stalls of the Helicarrier.

"Uh what?"

The woman ignored my question. "Your presence here is disrupting the flow of events that is about to unfold. I do not know if it's for the better or worse. For now I'll just observe and wait."

"Again, what?"

"Your friends will need you, now go." She pointed to the portal.

The world around me shattered, like a mirror it fractured and then broke.

I blinked and when I opened my eyes I heard a car honking, the sound of people musing about their day.

I turned around and saw that I was standing on real ground. The mass of water I had gathered had dissipated. The skyline looked normal again.

Everything was back to normal, well there was a flaming portal standing in the middle of the pavement which caused some confused murmurs. But no longer was the sky folding around itself.

I let out a sigh of relief and headed towards the portal. I shot one quick glance back and saw a big Victorian looking house. Decorated by a circular window in the roof.

I read the address before heading into the portal.

177A Bleecker Street

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Probably no one would see this but I just want to let you know.

As of right now I have 0 patreon for this fanfic.

so I'm going to drop it ... it's been a long journey and I'm sorry for everyone, I'm going to start a new fanfic next month, I hope it's more entertaining ... than this.