Chapter 1

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I was no longer in a cramped cabin with a bunch of teenagers. The bed was considerably larger and far more comfortable than it had any right being. The second thing I noticed is that the myst here was incredibly thick. For some that term is likely confusing, but it’s what I have always called the ambient magic that permeates the world around us. I rolled myself out of bed and found my trunk sitting right at the end of the bed. Reaching in I grabbed one of my orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirts and began to explore the room that I found myself in.

After wandering around the large room for about an hour, I navigated myself to the door. It was at this point that I notice a somewhat familiar voice speaking to another I had never heard before. The Masculine voice was one that I recognized all too well, Lord Hades. The unknown voice seemed to be one that could only be described as one that should belong to a mother. I personally haven't been able to enjoy the voice of a mother, but it sounded a lot like moms on tv.

I walked down the halls of what could only be described as a palace, toward the voices and at the same time subconsciously wrapping myself in myst to mask my presence. It wasn’t invisibility per say. However, it did make me more difficult to notice. Your average person would find it difficult to look at me, their eyes being directed to look at something else. A more powerful being would be able to notice that there was a disturbance, but for your average person. It was basically just invisibility. I passed a few guards on my way, what really drew my eye was the fact that they appeared to be anthropomorphic horses. Being a demigod, things like this happened all the time. But what really drew my eye was the fact that they seemed to be completely identical to one another.

For now, I just ignored it, my goal already set in my mind. I moved through the hallway until I found the room that contained Lord Hades as well as the other voice. Squeezing into the room, to avoid drawing attention. What I found was a fascinating sight. Lord Hades, master of the Underworld, god of the dead; stood here and was requesting a favor from this being.

“Now please tell me, Lord Hades, Why have you deposited this young man in my home without my knowledge?” stated the White mare.

Hades responded, the look on his face very evident that he was unhappy with having to give respect to this mare. I liked her already. “As I had said Princess Celestia, The young man in question had earned a boon from the gods of Olympus. We offered him a place among us as a fellow god. He turned the offer down and instead requested that he be placed in a realm where our influence, or more specifically the influence of the Olympians is nonexistent. He apparently has a great distaste for us. I voted that we simply blast him for his insult; however, I was outvoted. The boy’s mother made it a point to tell us that we would look rather evil if we reneged on the offer of a boon.”

“I see. So the boy chooses to leave all that he knew behind for a chance at a new beginning. But that still doesn’t answer my question as to why you choose here of all worlds that your realm is connected to?” She looked down at the lord of death with a gaze that would make anyone feel like a child.

“It was decided that your realm was the most peaceful. The child had relented that he was tired of fighting for his life. Apparently, he wanted an early retirement. I can’t pretend to understand mortals. I don’t really even understand my own children. Let alone Hecate's children. She has been a good friend for a long time, but she is still a mystery to most of us. She is a goddess, but at the same time, she did side with the Titans in the last conflict. Persephone, Demeter, and I are really the only ones that she talks to regularly and even we don’t know everything about her.”

It was at this point that I started to ignore the conversation; I didn’t much care to learn anything about the gods. While I may be a child of one, I will never consider her to be my mother. I instead decided to look at the giant white mare that commanded such respect from the lord of the dead. She easily stood at seven feet tall, if you didn’t count her horn which rose another two feet higher still. Her rose-colored eyes seemed to trap my gaze. It looked like she had noticed me, that easily could have been my imagination though. Her hair flowed through the air in an ethereal cloud. To say that she was beautiful would not do her justice. She was gorgeous. But in my history things that were that attractive tend to be equally dangerous. I had read the stories about Lady Aphrodite’s jealousy toward other women’s beauty. Wars had been started because of it.

It appeared that their conversation had come to an end when Lord Hades seemingly melted into darkness and his presence left the room, I had turned to go when I heard a slight cough behind me. “You know it is terribly rude to eavesdrop.” The tone wasn’t accusatory; it had been stated as a matter of fact. Realizing that I had been found out, I dropped my glamor and turned around bowing respectfully.

“I apologize, your highness. My curiosity got the better of me. We have not been formally introduced, my name is Mágos Schmidt, although if you prefer, I do respond to Mag.” At this point, I was sweating. I was sure that I had offended her in some way with my eavesdropping. If she had been any of the Olympian goddesses, I would already have been turned to dust.

“Oh please, you need not bow. I get rather tired of it, and please raise your head.”

Her response was not one that I had expected or prepared for. “As you command your Highness.” I brought myself up to my full height. I didn’t think of myself as short, but I was nowhere close to her height. Her eyes trapped me in her gaze.

“If you would be so kind Mag, please just call me Celestia. After a few thousand years of being referred to as nothing more than a title, it is truly a breath of fresh air to have somepony informally refer to me.” With this said she gave me the warmest smile I have ever seen. I felt as if the sun itself were praising me gifting me with its warmth.

“O-Of course Celestia. I again apologize for eavesdropping. I was just confused. This was not where I fell asleep last night.”

Celestia rose from her throne and walked down to me “I understand completely, it is only natural that you would be a bit concerned that you woke to find yourself in a different land, although if you would excuse the question, I was under the impression that you had requested to be brought here?” She waved us forward to indicate that she was asking me to follow her on a walk.

I followed along with her and smirked at her question “to be completely honest with you; I didn’t expect that they would do it. I was half expecting to fall asleep and either find myself trapped in an endless dream by Lord Hypnos, that or to never wake up again.”

I continued to walk no noticing that Celestia has stopped. After walking a few feet, I saw that she was missing and looked back, upon spotting her standing behind me I asked: “Is something the matter?”

She shook her head and responded “You truly believe that the gods of Olympus would do something like that to you? From what Lord Hades said you truly distinguished yourself in a great battle. You had earned a place with them.”

I dropped my eyes from her and responded in a flat tone “Why would I ever choose to join them. All they do is sit on their thrones causing problems. Oh sure occasionally they drop down to the mortal world and have a fling with a human. Then they disappear, never to be heard from again. Thanks but I would rather not be someone like that. If I ever end up having kids, I’m not going to leave them as bastards. And you can sure as hell bet that I’m going to be a part of their lives.”

Celestia was shocked by his response. “Do you truly hate them so? From what lord Hades said your mother.”

I cut her off before she could finish that sentence “I hate to be the one to correct you there Celestia. But I don’t have a mother, and I don’t really remember my father. Hecate may have given birth to me, but she has never been my mother. I will always see her as the one that broke my father. As far as I know, all I am to her is at most a tool, and at the minimum a receipt for a short fling.” I continued down the hall fully expecting her to come after me, so it was no surprise when I heard her walking up behind me.

“That is heartbreaking to hear that you think of her in such a way.”

I realized that she was likely going to need more context, so I asked “to have you fully see my side, please tell me. What would you consider a mother to be?” she had managed to reach me in just a few steps.

Her right hand rose to pinch at her lower lip for a few moments before she responded “Well for me, a mother is the one that raised you, they nurture you and give you unconditional love. A mother would teach her children morals. In short, a mother is one that you can always count on.”

I had her trapped now. “Well then, what would you call someone that has never met her child, one that has never had even the shortest in-person interaction with them? Not even for a second. Because that is what I have, Hecate isn’t my mother, she was my incubator. Once I left her womb, she stopped having anything to do with me. I didn’t even know that she was the one that gave birth to me until I was ten, and she had only claimed me after I had taught myself how to manipulate the myst. I figure that it was at that point that she saw me as a potential tool. After all, that’s all we half-bloods are to them, nothing but useful tools.”

Celestia seemed like she was going to press the subject. However, she gracefully dropped it. “So you requested that you be brought somewhere that they do not influence so that you might live the remainder of your life in peace then?”

At this, I smiled “That would be the short of it, yes. I’m tired, Celestia. I’ve been fighting monsters since I was eight. Now that I have hit twenty, I’m... I just... I just want to live a quiet life, maybe even just study magic. It defiantly seems like there is a lot of magic here compared to my world. It feels almost like I could swim through it.” Chuckling to myself I said in a muted tone “I bet with this much I could even stand toe to toe with Percy.”

Celestia cocked her head to the side in confusion “What do you mean by ‘it feels almost like you could swim through it?’”

Looking back at her, I couldn’t help but expose a bit of confusion “the ambient magic in the air, there is a ton of it here. Actually, it feels like it is leaking from you. At least some of it is.” I hoped that my lackluster clarification would get through to her.

Celestia switched the side her head was leaning to; I could barely hold my laugh in at the reaction. You expect to see that kind of response on a dog. Not a goddess “I’m not sure what you mean. You just said that you wanted to learn more magic. What does this world having more ambient magic have anything to do with your ability to use it?”

Trying to understand what she was saying, I clarified “Just as a question, do you use mana to cast magic here?” Gods I hope that term was the right one. Celestia nodded, and I continued “Okay, I just wanted to verify something. To answer you, yes I can use magic. Humans don’t have magic naturally though.” the look of confusion on her face spoke volumes “Now I imagine that I have tripped you with that statement. Humans do not produce mana. We are still capable of using magic, at the very least demigods can. Children of Hectate have a greater and more natural ability, but any demigod can learn how given time to do so.”

“For us to be able to use magic we have to manipulate the myst, or as you would call it, raw magic; the magic of the world around us, unfiltered and wild. That raw ambient magic is very dense here. My half-brother, Alabaster used to always outclass me with magic. He didn’t need as much to get stuff done. But I knew that I had a greater knowledge of magic than he did. I just had to use more to make it do stuff for me. But here, here I think I could trounce him in a spar, if for no other reason than the fact that I feel like I have more flexibility in my use.”
She smiled again “Well then I would be interested to see what you are capable of, please feel free to explore the archives, I will let the guards know that you have free access. There are a few areas that I am afraid you will not be able to go into, however. Those areas are off limits for a reason.”

The seriousness in her tone answered my question for me, but I still wanted to clarify “I am assuming that you are talking about areas that will likely have what is considered to be dark magic, stuff like Necromancy?”

Her eyes seemed to spark “you are correct, now I have to ask. You would not happen to be a practitioner of that foul branch of magic would you?”

I knew that lying to a goddess was a quick way to end my existence “I will be completely honest with you. Yes, I do practice Necromancy; I am under the impression that the Necromancy here is very different from the Necromancy back in my world. My version of Necromancy isn’t used to control the dead. It is true that there are a few people that can do that, from my understanding, the current number of mortals from my world that are capable of controlling the dead is a total of one. That one mortal goes by the name of Nico di Angelo. And the only reason that he can do so lies with the fact that he is Lord Hades’ son. I know of a few exceptions to that, but they don't really bear mentioning this point.”

She was still a bit nervous, so I continued “The few times that I have done it myself, were mainly to verify that I could do it, to teach Nico, and one time to get an answer to a question on a test.” I smirked.

Her face was one of shock “You mean to tell me that you summoned the spirit of the dead, to ask them for help with a question on a test?”

My smirk never left my face “Well yea. I was taking some dumb math test and couldn’t remember the stupid formula, funny enough I remembered the name of the mathematician that came up with it, so when I took a short bathroom break I summoned him in the bathroom. Funny story but he just wanted to talk for a few minutes, had to make the excuse that I had diarrhea for why I was gone so long. Kind of a roundabout way to answer your question but there you have it. My version of Necromancy is one that lets me speak to the souls of the dead if they want to talk. If they don’t want to talk, then they don’t show up. If you would like I could do a demonstration for you.”

She looked like she was going to ask me to do just that; however, she relented that it wouldn’t be necessary. As we walked through her place, she gave me information on Equestria and the various peoples that lived here. At one point we passed a window that looked down on the training grounds.

“Hey, Celestia, would it be possible for me to use your training grounds? I know that I said I want to live a life of peace, but after spending twelve years training for sixteen hours a day five days a week. You build a habit.”

She looked astonished at my comment “How did you train that much? And what were you training in?”

I responded “well as for how, I just did, and to what. It depended on the day. I have a total time of around 50k hours’ give or take a few hundred hours, worth of training at this point. I have mastered four types of weapon and magic at this point. At least if you follow the proverb that it takes ten thousand hours to master a skill. To date, I have mastered the Staff, Bow, Sword, and Kusarigama. Other than that my remaining time was spent learning magic. I just need something to do to keep me busy.”

I caught a gleam in her eye “I think that could be arranged, in fact. Let us go down to the training grounds now and have a demonstration.”

I muttered to myself “good job dumb ass. Now you have to play show and tell.” I had thought that I had been quiet in my mutterings; however, she had heard it.

“now-now, show and tell has always been my favorite part of teaching.”

It took us nearly an hour to make it down to the training field, damn this place is enormous. Once we got there, I was introduced to the captain of her guard.

“My name is Shining Armor. And you are?” The Stallion stuck his hand out for me, thinking that it must be some test I clasped my hand in his and gave him a good squeeze. Fun fact, apparently I am a lot stronger than I look. After Celestia fixed the cracked bone in his hand, I gave him a much gentler handshake.

“Sorry about that, guess I don’t know my strength here. I know I wouldn’t have been able to do that back home.” I could tell that he was still a bit miffed at me for the whole thing though.

His smile didn’t have any forgiveness in it. “My apologies for the question but, if I may. Why are you on the training field today Princess?”

Celestia beamed at him “Well dear Mag here wanted to take the opportunity to spar with somepony. He apparently has a good amount of skill, and I had figured that the captain of my guard would be able to test him.”

And there it was the hidden agenda. Damn, I knew that this was coming. That is what I get for bragging about skill. Looking back over to Shining I asked “would you consider yourself a master in anything? I don’t want humility; I want an answer.”

He didn’t look happy with my question “I am the best spearpony in the guard.” His statement oozed confidence. To be honest, he almost sounded like one of Ares' kids.

I shrugged “Okay, one thing first let me test something.” I shook the bronze bracelet off my left hand, in a moment it had expanded into a Celestial bronze kusarigama. In place of the traditional chain, a thin wire held the scythe and weight together. Not giving them a movement to react; I quickly brought the blade across his hand.

“WHAT THE BUCK ARE YOU….” His complaint died on his lips when he noticed that he didn’t have an injury.

“Oh good, looks like I can use my normal weapons without you getting hurt.” I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Celestia with a somewhat annoyed look.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t conduct tests like that in the future.” She took the scythe from my hand, placing the edge of the blade over her thumb, I quickly noted that it did, in fact, cut her. As soon as I saw the drop of golden Icor any doubt that had been in the back of my mind regarding her divinity vanished. She handed the blade back to me. “if you would please begin the demonstration.”

I felt a cold bead of sweat drip down the back of my neck “O-of c-course your highness.” I realized my mistake right away “I-I m-mean Celestia.”

She must have noticed the fear in my voice and bent down to my ear “I would ask that you try not to be afraid of me. Fear is not a form of rule that I enjoy. I much prefer to use love and happiness.”

I was still terrified out of my mind, but I managed to hide it, at least from Shining “I guess you heard her. Let’s get this going then” we took our places at the opposite ends of the ring, apparently seeing the captain spar was a bit of a spectacle, seeing as all other matches had ended so that they could watch ours. I took a neutral stance and began to speak “so how do you want to do this? Do we go until the opponent says stop and admits defeat, or do you want to do a point system?”

Shining looked at me and smirked, “let’s go until the other can’t go anymore or admits defeat.” I sighed.

“If that is the way that you want it, just remember. My blade may not cut you, but the handle is made of ironwood, and the weight is Stygian Iron. Both materials can and will cause a good amount of damage.”

Shining scoffed “If you can hit me with that weird toy, then maybe we can talk.” Of course, he was going to be a bit cocky. You don’t get to be the captain of the guard for a goddess without some skills on your side.

My stance widened, I dropped the weight and held onto the wire as I began to spin the weight around. The familiar weight of the weapon in my hands felt comfortable. Even now after having it with me for as long as I have, it was still just a perfect as the day I had received it. I had to give it to them, Hephaestus’ kids knew what they were doing when it comes to weapons. It had taken a bit of convincing to get them to agree to use Stygian Iron for the counterweight, but fuck. It was a gift from Nico for the magic lessons.

Shining didn’t seem very impressed. He charged in, and now I have to say, dude has some skill. If it hadn’t been a training spear, I likely could have been killed with the speed of his strike. As it was, I still ended up with a nasty bruise and torn shirt. “Very nice, you are indeed a master. If you allowed it, I would like to change the weapon that I am using.”

He smiled at me “Whatever you want. It won’t change the outcome of this fight.” He was brimming with confidence. And true, had I never been in a real fight, he likely would have won. But unfortunately he exposed that he hadn’t really been in a life or death situation before, and because of this he only stuck with the approved strike pattern. Every strike was telegraphed, I did end up taking a few hits. However, he took quite a few more than I did. At the end I had him pinned to the floor with my staff against his throat. “Submit, I would prefer to shake your hand again. Although if you would prefer, I can knock you out and get that handshake after you wake up in the medical wing.”

There was a fire in his eyes that spoke of danger, but then it melted into one that spoke of respect he raised his hands to the sides of his head and stated “I submit, you are excellent. Not happy about that trip move though, cheap shot.” Bending down I grabbed his hand to help him up. Slapping him on the shoulder, I responded.

“In a real fight there are no cheap shots, you either live to fight again, or you die.” He had a haunted expression at that comment.

“Is it really that bad where you came from? The guard here is mostly a police force. Equestria hasn’t seen a war in almost a thousand years.” I blanched at this new information.

“You have had complete peace for nearly a millennium?!” I was in shock. Never in the history of my world has this been obtained. Shining nodded his head in affirmation. I had had my doubts about how real this place was before now. All my life, I had been fighting. I fought the nuns in that orphanage, insisting that I wasn’t cursed or crazy, I fought with the monsters and even Titans. But here they had managed to have peace. I turned to Celestia “This is true. You really have managed to keep the peace for so long.” My voice shook.

She placed her hands on both of my shoulders and looked into my eyes “Yes Mag, I have worked very hard to build relationships with the other leaders of this world. In many cases, I have played nanny for most of them. I helped to raise them and instill a want of peace. As I told you, I far prefer the method of Love and happiness to that of fear and power. Do not think that this is a sign of weakness, if anything or anyone tried to hurt my little ponies I would bring the wrath of the sun and moon down upon them. But diplomacy has worked for most of my life at this point. As much as you seem to hate the gods, they did keep their word. They have given you peace.”

I had been rocked to my core, a thought brought itself to me, and once it was there, I couldn’t dislodge it. I knew what I wanted to do “I want to serve.” Looking up, I locked my gaze with her’s “please let me serve you. This place needs to stay this way. I have been fighting for myself for as long as I can remember. But here, I feel like….I don’t even really know. But there is one thing that I understand. I want to work to keep this place as it is. Will you let me help to keep this place as it is?”

She had a look of shock “I thought that you just wanted to retire? To live a peaceful life away from the fighting.”

I nodded “that is true, but if I can be a part of this.” I spread my hands as if to encompass everything around me “I want to keep this place just as wonderful as I have found it to be. And if I find some way to make it better, then, by all means, I will work to do so.”

The words spoken were lead in the air; I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. But I knew that I was honest in what I had spoken. This beautiful place had managed to prove that I was right. If the gods had worked to have a more significant presence in the world if they had shown themselves and acted as guides to the world, who knows what could have been accomplished. Celestia had done just that. Her acts of kindness and selflessness have shown that gods could be trusted to guide the world, not with an iron fist, but with gentle words.

“I have to admit Mag; I had not thought that you would offer that.” She looked over to Shining. “Captain” he snapped to attention,

“Highness”

“See to it that you test him thoroughly, I think I have an assignment in mind for him. I need to make sure that he will be ready for it.” She looked back down at me “You have many skills that I have seen so far, and likely many more that I have yet to see. Do you swear that you will all that you can to protect my little ponies?”

“I swear it on the river Styx. I will serve to the best of my ability, I will work to further your goals, and I swear that I will do as you ask within reason. Again I swear it on the River Styx. To truly show my dedication I will swear a third time, and by doing so bind myself to my oath, I Mágos Schmidt, son of Hecate, son of Klaus Schmidt so swear on the river Styx to serve you.” The air seemed to shiver as the words fell from my mouth. There was no going back now.

“I believe you Mag. While Shining may not understand what you have just done. I do. It humbles me to know that you feel so strongly about this. Tomorrow as I raise the sun, your duties shall begin. Report to the training fields to be tested so that we might know what duties will best utilize your strengths.”

She walked away, leaving me there with Shining. The silence between us was deafening until Shining spoke: “I don’t really understand, what happens if you break an oath on the River Styx?”

I shivered “if you break an oath made on the River Styx, well there are worse things than death. Even gods will honor an oath made. To triple your oath is to bind your very essence to it. Were I to break my oath, well my death would be the easiest part.”

Author's Notes:

Been rereading the Percy Jackson series. Thought it would be fun to try a new story. please give me some feedback. if people are interested I will likely continue the story.

thanks for your support.