The Apprentice of Thanatos

Chapter 24: Ultimate Enemy Part 4

{

Happy (late) one year anniversary of this story! We were really trying to get this chapter done and posted in time for the anniversary, but that didn't happen and it got way too long so we cut it in half.

This arc is almost done. There should only be two parts left after this.

We do not own Danny Phantom or Percy Jackson, only this story and our original characters.

}

Dan POV:

     Dan took a deep breath as he finally left Samantha's house. Gods, that had been miserable. Sam and Tucker were far more irritating than he remembered. It had taken an amount of patience he didn't know he possessed to grit his teeth and bare it—to smile and laugh at their stupid jokes and participate in their pointless games.

      They had questioned him a few more times about his younger self's strange transformation, and Dan had found it increasingly difficult to deflect their inquiries, since he knew no more about it than they did. He was fairly certain they were beginning to grow suspicious of him, but that didn't matter. As long as they showed up at the Nasty Burger when it was time...

     That reminded him; there was someone he needed to talk to.

     Dan took a sharp turn as he walked down the street, slipping into one of the dark alleyways. He kept his pace as he strolled straight into the shadows at the end of the alleyway, and emerged in a thicket of trees. He had shadow-traveled deep into the woods surrounding Lake Eerie—he didn't want to risk any interruptions.

     A quick scan of the surrounding area revealed that there were no mortals in the vicinity, nor were there any monsters; Dan had likely scared them off with his aura. And that was just fine by him. He didn't need an audience for what he was about to do.

     Dan shed his human guise and took off flying over the surface of the lake, towards the rocky cliffs on the far shore. He came to a stop about twenty feet away, still hovering over the water as he raised his arms above his head and began to chant. It wasn't English or Greek—it wasn't any language spoken by mortals, for that matter. A human probably couldn't even recreate the sounds. The nature around Dan—which was already unnaturally quiet—grew deathly silent, as if all the creatures around him somehow knew that the spoken language was one of ancient magic. One of danger.

     And they knew to be afraid.

     When Dan stopped chanting, nothing happened... at first. The wind had died and the leaves in the trees had grown still. There was no more rustling in the grass or forest undergrowth. Even the ripples on the water had dispersed, leaving the lake a perfect mirror.

     Dan waited patiently. He hadn't contacted Gaea in this way in quite some time, but he was confident that she would answer.

     She was the one who had taught him the chant, after all.

     A faint rumble—so quiet that Dan barely caught it—began to reverberate from the earth all around him. The air was suddenly filled with caws and loud twittering as swarms of birds took to the sky, flying far away from Dan and the lake as the rumble grew stronger. The cliffside began to shake right before Dan's eyes, and he watched as the solid stone shifted as if it were made of melted butter, layers of rock and dirt pouring over themselves to form a face in the crag.

     After a few moments, a feminine face formed from the minerals. Closed eyelids and relaxed lips were carved from the stone, looking almost human in appearance except for their texture and size; her nose alone was at least twice the size of Dan's entire body. The earth goddess was deep in slumber, but Dan knew that he had her attention.