Lol, I know, I'm not even done with one and I already want to start another. BUt, this wont be like the others, I'll update when I can and when I want to update, which is less than I'm doing for Ageless Diversity. If, by any chance, you read that fanfic, the expect the next chapter by the end of next week, you can quote me on that, bcs I am working on it. I'm trying really hard.
This, this is smth that I have started like, before I started Ageless Diversity or somewhere quickly after, so, the first chapters are going to be of...a crappy quality. I've gone back and fixed what I could, but here it is.
It might not make any sense whatsoever at the beginning, and look crappy or whatever, only thing I ask is to read on and think about it from there. This is connected to the Giant War, it's connected and...read on to know more:
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X-X-Part 1-Prologue-X-X
...
When she woke up, the first thing she felt was the sense as if someone was hammering down on her brain. She felt something soft under her and she knew she was on a bed, chattering was going on around her which did not help her headache.
She scowled deeply as she sat up, bringing a hand at the spike of her headache.
"Oh, no, no, no," a woman's voice said as she came over, wearing what one would say was a nurse's outfit.
The teenager's eyes focused on the woman coming towards her and the surroundings, she was stoic to realize she recognized neither.
Where did she end up?
"You've had quite the concussion," the woman said. "It's better if you stay laying low." She helped the girl lay back on the bed.
"Who are you?" her voice was raspy and hollow as it came out.
The woman grabbed a towel and dumped it into a bucket of water. "I'm Martha Cowell," she introduced herself. She plucked the soaked towel from the bucket, strained it, and then placed it on top of the girl's head.
"Where am I?" her voice was more confused, and there was panic in it.
Martha nodded to herself. "They said you wouldn't know," she said. "I wonder why–"
"Who's they?" the girl asked as she pushed the fresh towel away and sat back up defiantly. She searched her sides only to find her dagger missing. "Where am I?" she asked, panic starting to grip her.
"Panem," Martha said at last. "District six."
The teenager was now standing. "Where is that? America? Europe?"
But the nurse only seemed confused at those names. "Panem is what's left."
"No," the girl said. "That's not true, I come from San Francisco."
"San Francisco? What are you talking about?"
The girl saw a knife –a butter knife– sitting on a plate a few paces away from her, she eyed it hungrily. "Where am I?"
"District six," Martha said, staring to get panicky herself. "Transportation."
"And who's 'they'?"
"Peacekeepers! The Capitol!"
That did not help her. "What the Hades are peacekeepers? And which capital, of which country?"
When the nurse didn't respond the girl pushed past her, and when she felt a hand grab her arm she grabbed the butter knife and held it threateningly in front of her. "Stay away."
"You're not supposed to go out."
But she didn't listen to that. She yanked her arm free of her grasp and made a run for it. She passed beds with sick and wounded people, nurses tending to them but she didn't stop. Instead she kept running towards what she hoped was the exit.
She then saw two big glass doors and she didn't hesitate to barge through them and into the streets.
The rain hit her first, then she saw her surroundings. People dressed in different shades of grey were walking the streets, others had stopped to look at her. Armed men dressed in white armour marched in twos here and there. The buildings looked old and non-developed, like one of the less economically developed countries in the East. The worst part, she didn't recognise any of it.
Her heart rate began to quicken and her breathing hitched ten fold, she frantically started looking around herself, picking up more than just a few stares.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to recall what had happened. But she couldn't remember anything apart from this blinding light, they were sent colliding into nothing– 'they'?
It was then she noticed for the first time that she was alone. She was never alone. Her eyes snapped open and she looked around herself, looking for him. He wasn't there. She barged back through the doors of the hospital, her eyes scanning every corner of the room in front of her, and the one after that, until she was back in the room where she had woken up.
She spotted Martha and in one quick motion she had the nurse pinned against the wall at knife point. "Where is he?" she yelled at her face.
The other nurses in the room had stopped and where now looking at the girl with weary eyes and clear fear in their expressions.
"I don't–"
"Tell me what you've done to him!" she yelled again, the knife starting to scrape her neck, the girl was tempted to try to stab her, see if this butter knife would be able to kill.
"Miss Chase," a deep and snake like voice said from behind her, one which was unfamiliar but yet sounded dangerous to her.
She knew what she had to do next. As she turned she grabbed Martha's shoulder and in one quick move the girl was looking were her back had been pointed at moments before, Martha in a chokehold-grip in front of her.
"Who are you?" she asked the unknown man as she pressed the tip of the knife at Martha's neck.
The elderly man chuckled softly. Two white guards stood by his side, their guns aimed and trained on her. "I'm President Snow," he greeted her. "And I'm sure we've got lots to talk about."
"That depends on wether I'm the one asking the questions," she said, her eyes piercing, but yet the older man didn't waver.
"I'm afraid that's not the case," he responded with a grin.
She gave him her own smirk. "Well then we've got nothing to talk about."
The bullet travelled faster than the sound was heard, then the girl was holding nothing but a dead woman in her arms as her bullet wound bled. Her eyes widened in shock as she set the woman who had tried to help her down on the ground. She merely noticed the horrified shrieks and faces of the nurses and patients in the room, but most of her concern was on the man in front of her.
"You just killed her," she said obviously. "In cold blood. What did she do to you?"
"We've got a lot to talk about," President Snow repeated. Then he spoke over his shoulder of one of the Peacekeepers. "Clear the area, and wait outside of this room."
The two Peacekeepers soon led everyone out of the room and the teenage girl was left alone with the snake.
President Snow was slow and took his time to sit down on of the chairs, motioning for her to sit in the one in front of him, and then taking out a folded piece of paper from inside his coat and handing it to her.
She unfolded it carefully, afraid of what it might be in a way, even though she knew a piece of paper wasn't going to outright harm her in any way, but the contents might.
Her eyes stayed set on the image on it for a minimum of twenty seconds before she responded to it, by blinking. It displayed a drawing, or more like a symbol, the one of the Earth Mother. A lady with her arms raised and folded up on herself, two crescent moons on either side of the waist. A spiral in the space between her hips.
She folded the paper and handed it back to the President. "You're working with her," she stated, and it wasn't a question.
"You could say that," Snow agreed, not even trying to deny the fact. "She's unhappy–"
"I couldn't care less!"
"–with both of you."
Her eyes returned piercing. "Where is he?"
"District five," he said immediately. "Far from here, you won't be able to reach him."
"What is this place?" she opted into asking.
He chuckled, but there was no humour to it, only disgust. "Panem. A capitol and twelve districts."
"You had that woman killed, why?"
"You were threatening her to get to me," he said easily. "I had to show you that there is no such thing that you can do, her death is on you."
"No," she said. "It's not, you had her killed. I didn't kill her–"
"Enough, of this, childish feelings," he dismissed. "Now here's what you need to know..."
He told her about the founding of the system, about the dark days, and how the Hunger Games were founded at last, she didn't ask questions, not until the very end.
"You expect me to play in these games?" she asked him.
And there it was again, that chuckle that seemed to satisfy him whereas it only made her uncomfortable. "Oh, no, I simply expect you to play when your name is reaped during the reaping."
"And what if we're not reaped in the next two years? What if we turn nineteen and we've still not...suffered from those games? Will you let us go back to our normal life."
"When the time comes you'll see," he said. "And be sure to know that the world you knew before is long gone. Mother Earth's influence has spread in that country of yours."
She didn't waver. "Doesn't mean it'll last. Because with us, or without, she'll go back to sleep."
"That's your opinion," Snow said as stood up. "But I'm running late now. It's been a pleasure, Annabeth Chase."
She couldn't say the same for herself. She watched from the window as he got inside his private jet with a weird symbol on the side, which she presumed was the Capitol's emblem, and then fly away in the West.
As soon as the small jet was out of sight and very far away she got to work. She found a small bag with a cross in a cupboard at the end of the room and she knew it would suffice. She raised the cupboard for medicines which she knew she'd need if she were to live on her own for a while, like paracetamol and other painkillers along with disinfectants and whatnot.
By the time she was done raiding the cupboard the nurses started coming back inside helping their respective patients, they cast her some glances but none paid good attention to her, so she was able to slip out of the room with no problems.
She shouldered the bag and walked confidently through the hospital corridors, she stopped in front of the doors leading outside only to contemplate wether what she was wearing would suffice her days in the wild to come. Jeans, an orange t-shirt and a waterproof jacket. Heck yeah.
Annabeth confidently walked through the streets of District six until she reached the market. Here she would buy all the rest of the supplies she'd need. Luckily she quickly found the place and entered the small kitchen utensil shop, she wasn't half way in when she realised she didn't have any money, but maybe she could trade some of the extra medicines she had stolen for what she needed to buy.
She immediately walked over to the knifes section and was disappointed when she saw that the best they had were meat cleavers. They'd have to do, she guessed. Better those than nothing.
She picked two up and walked over to the shop owner and showed them to him. "I'll trade morphing and disinfectants for these two," she said, showing that she meant it.
"Show," the vender said.
Her eyes didn't leave his as she brought the medicine-full bag in front of her and showed him various vials of both morphing and alcohol.
He nodded his head as he read the writings on the sides of the products. "They're all yours."
Annabeth grabbed the two meant cleavers, stuffed them in the bag, zipped it shut and left the shop without saying another word.
Now, all she had to do was figure out where the hell District five was, find him, and get the hell out. Sounded easy like that, but to be sure, she wasn't sure wether she'd be able to make it out of District six.
But she had to try, didn't she?
She owed it to him, she owed him everything, and if this was in any way a fraction of the payback, then she wouldn't hesitate. It wasn't only because she owed him, but because she was already starting to feel his missing presence by her side, she was starting to miss it, and it was starting to hurt. They couldn't be separated, not again, she'd be damned before she let anything like what happened before happen again.
After what seemed like hours she reached a fenced gate that overlooked the wild, President Snow had told her that there were miles of wild between each district, making so the twelve fractions were as divided as they could be with no means of communication.
She knew she was going west, and she knew that as well as she knew it was the same direction as the Capitol. Did she care? No. Because it was a start and as they had talked she had gotten an idea of how the whole of Panem was set out, where the Districts were and she was rarely sure this was the right way. And if she was wrong she was damned.
The barb wired fence emitted a consistent hum that signalled electricity running through it, but Annabeth had already thought about that. She opened the bag and brought out the rubber gloves that nurses and medics use that she had found back at the hospital and put them on both her hand and the handle of her cleaver.
With one defying stroke she slashed at the barbed wire and she wasn't surprised when a signal went off near by. She didn't have the time to pack everything back in the bag. Quickly she made her way through the hole she had made as she saw Peacekeepers staring to run towards her. She grinned as they started to fire bullets but none coming even relatively close of her.
She sprinted towards the woods with gunfires raining behind her until she was inside too deep for them to even see her. But even then, she kept on running because her life might as well be depending on it.
-.-.-
It was days later that she got into big, big trouble.
She'd managed to hunt a few roosters, find water sources as she progressed in her quest and pick berries which were not poisonous even though she hadn't been fully sure about that. All in all she thought she was doing fairly well, considering she was on her own, in a place which was totally unfamiliar, possibly haunted by 'Capitol' people and she didn't know what else.
But she'd been stupid to not see a little fact, to not notice it, to not feel it.
A tracker in her right forearm.
She'd realised once she had tried resting her head on her arm, she had felt this bump and this little tingling sensation beneath her skin. After observing it she'd come to the conclusion that it was indeed a tracker, what else could it have been.
It wasn't long before they arrived. Loud jet engines set in a clearing that was pretty close to her, armed men in white came out and started searching in all directions, she had run, but she was outnumbered and they knew where she was going. No time to try to pry it out of her arm.
She'd fought against them, even killed one, but they had guns, she had cleaver knifes. She was shot in the shoulder and then in the leg. Hands grabbed her own and cuffs were slid on. She was half carried half led back to the jet where a very impatient and angry President was waiting for her. They'd locked her in a room with him after they took the two bullets out and applied pressure to the wounds.
So there she sat, her hands cuffed in front of her on a desk, President Snow sitting on the other side.
"I should have expected this," he said. "Really, Gaea had warned me. 'They won't yield easily'."
Annabeth didn't respond to that.
"I'd kill you, to make an example," he continued. "But Gaea has clearly said, don't kill them, unless they're in the games, then let them watch each other die." He shifted in his seat and leaned in over the table. "Do you know, that now, because of your little...adventure, your boyfriend will be paying harshly for it."
This got her to speak. "No!" she said. "It was me, not him. He had nothing to do with it."
"I know," he said, leaning back in his chair. "But he will be paying so that I can keep you in check. The chances that he'll be in the next games–" He made a motion with his hand. "–increased ten fold. He'll be lucky to not be picked."
"No, please," she said. "Don't."
"Then swear to me, that you won't try another one of these stunts again," he told her. "And then, your boyfriend will have the same chance of being in the games as anyone else in his district."
She was glaring at him. "I swear I won't try something like this again." When he didn't waver she sighed before adding, "on the River Styx."
He stood up, a smile gracing his lips. "That's good enough. You'll be brought back to District Six and please, try to not burn it to the ground."
-.-.-
So she was brought back to District six, and when she did she had everyone stare at her. She shrugged it off and ended up sitting by the pond, looking East, opposite to where she had been going before.
Her eyes set on the water as it reminded her of him, of her Seaweed Brain which she was already missing really much. She pulled her legs close to her chest and set her head on her knees, hugging her legs wither arms, her eyes watching the cripples in the water as the wind blew on it.
It could have been days before someone joined her, sitting down next to her, not her offering any sign of wanting to communicate, and she wasn't about to change that.
They sat there, watching the water like she had been for the previous days, for hours and hours, until the person next to her cracked.
"So what's your name?" he asked, she was sure it was a him.
She turned to look at him, a young teenager, younger than herself, dressed in fine clothes, with blonde hair much like hers, and blue eyes. Altogether he reminded her of a dear friend of hers, Jason Grace, just without the scar on his lip.
"Annabeth," she said slowly.
"No surname?" he asked and when she didn't give any he smiled. "Well, I'm Jacob Lewis. But my friends call me Jake." His hand stretched out towards hers in greeting.
It took her a moment to understand she was meant to shake it. When she did his smile widened. "So, in case you were wondering," he started as he kept hold of her hand and pulled her to her feet albeit with her reluctance. "You've been here for two days, and even I know that's not healthy, so how about you come over to my house, grab some food and then we can help you find a place to sleep."
"I want to stay here," she said numbly.
He chuckled. "Yeah, no. You're going to get sick if you stay here much longer. Believe me, you don't want to get sick, not in the Districts."
She knew he was right, it's be very unlucky of one got sick in the Districts. "I don't belong here," she said.
Again, he chuckled, but it was more to mask his uneasiness than anything else really. "Well, the first step in belonging, is letting others know your name."
"Annabeth Chase," she told him. "That's my full name."
"It's a very nice name," he said to her. "Unusual and nice... So how about the food I was offering you."
She shook her head. "I don't want to be of annoyance for your parents."
"Oh no, don't worry," he told her. "They were the ones to tell me to get you. My father's the mayor of the District. Trust me, we've got more then we need."
She looked at him with hollow eyes. "I can't accept that," she said. "I need to pick myself up on my own, get my own food."
"But you don't have a home, a house–"
"I do, actually." Her voice was so low, so...broken. "In San Francisco. My father he's probably–" her knees buckled from beneath her as she thought about her father and how worried they could be, her thoughts then brought her to the fact that Gaea was winning, and by the time she would manage to get out of this Panem, they could be dead, gone. "My family, they're going to die if we don't help them."
"What are you talking about?" Jake asked her as he crouched down next to her.
"She's going to kill them all." She wasn't looking at him and he had no idea what she was talking about. "They're all going to die."
He waved a hand in front of her eyes. "No ones going to die!" he told her. "Why do you think that?"
Her eyes focused on him. "You know better than I do that the Hunger Games kill twenty three children every year. So don't lie." Her voice dropped. "They're going to kill him," she said as if she'd just realised something. She looked at him. "Snow's going to kill him because of me."
"What? He's gonna kill who?"
"Percy...Jackson."
Jake made a face. "Who?"
Her eyes seemed to clear, the colour in her face to drain. "Perseus Jackson, a hero."
And before she could give a reply she was succumbed into darkness.
-.-.-
She was nuts, Jake gave her that. He didn't waste his time dwelling on that, instead, he slipped one arm under her knees, and one behind her back and using his strength he picked her up and started to walk back home.
When he got there he was welcomed by his mother's preoccupied questions of what had happened and why she was unconscious. He told he what they said to each other as he set her on one of the beds and checked her forehead for a fever. He wasn't surprised to feel her warmer than she should be.
"She's sick, isn't she?" his mother asked him.
He nodded and the two family members started working on helping the demigoddess heal and cool up.
-.-.-
When Annabeth came to again she was laying in a much more comfortable bed than she had been the first time. Yet her surroundings weren't familiar and neither was the smell of whatever the perfume was.
She mildly remembered the boy she had met by the pond, and his offer and she came to the quick conclusion that she must have blacked out and that she was in his home. In the mayor's home to be more specific.
The door of the room opened and Jake's head peered through, he smiled at seeing her open eyes and he pushed the door open, revealing a tray of food which he was holding.
"I've brought you some food."
"I told you I didn't want it," she said, sitting up. "And I didn't want to come here."
He set the tray of food on the drawer. "You fainted. I wasn't going to leave you on the banks of a pond like that." She clenched her jaw and looked forward, too stubborn to thank him. He chuckled. "I'm just going to imagine you saying 'thank you', since I bet you won't be," he said sarcastically.
She glared at him for a moment, before her heart hurt at how that resembled how Percy used to act. "Thank you," she said. "I'd probably be dying."
He tilted his head to the side. "More than I was hoping for. Well you're welcome, and you're welcome to stay here for as long as you need. But I'd rest if I were you, you're sick."
She smiled at him and nodded her head. "Yeah, that'd probably be a good thing to do."
"I'll see you tomorrow." And with one last smile Jacob left the room.
-.-
He didn't straight out open his eyes when he regained his consciousness, he first worked on understanding why his head was throbbing like someone had hit him with a hammer and it felt like it had been opened.
He remembered the face of his enemies, of the monster that he'd spent so much time with. He remembered a huge trident colliding with his stomach, being sent flying back against something black – like a vortex – and then nothing.
His right arm flexed and it was only confirmed that it hadn't been a dream, it made a metallic buzzing sound, arms weren't meant to do that, not real flesh arms any ways. He heard the people around him talk and warn each other that he was waking.
He didn't recognise the voices, it wasn't anyone from camp, that he knew, it wasn't monster-like or even sounding harsh and threatening towards him. So where was he? A hospital? No, the mortals would hate him for being a demigod, they wouldn't be as nice as they were. So where was he?
With much effort he managed to pry his eyes open, and as he did he was immediately reminded of what his right eye had been subject to. Everything was blurry through it and from his point of view it looked like a white line passed right through it.
There was something wet on his forehead and the only thing that passed through his head was, 'stranger danger'.
He pushed the hand away and abruptly sat up with his legs hanging off the sides of the bed. He unplugged the IV's from his left forearm and frantically looked around the room. There was a curtain separating him from something else, three nurses stood in the corner of his part of the room, looking at him wearily.
His eyes set on the one that was in the middle. "What is this place?" he asked. The nurse seemed too terrified to respond, so he asked again, this time harsher. "Where am I?"
"District five," she responded with hesitation.
He scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. "District five? I mean, where in the world? Which country, which continent?"
That seemed to confuse the nurse. "Panem is all that's left."
"That's impossible," he whispered, then he shook his head and stood up, regretting it when he saw the floor spin around. He held his head in his hand as the effects stopped. He walked to them, all of them flinched at him coming closer but he ignored it. "There was a girl, she was with me. Where is she?"
The nurse shook her head slowly. "There was no one else, you were brought here alone."
The world seemed to spin further, and he took a few step towards what he presumed was the exit of the room he was in. He saw the passerby people giving him odd looks but in the moment he didn't care.
He broke into a run after his feet almost tripped on each other, he broke on a swaying run. He reached the doors and when he pushed the open he was met by a blinding sun, his arms covered his eyes from it as he looked around himself and how unfamiliar everything seemed to be. The people, the buildings, the air itself.
His pace returned as he started running where his gut told him to run, where his gut seemed to sense a form of water, his element.
"Where?" he kept on muttering to himself.
He reached the banks of what looked to be like the sea and he fell on his knees. "Where is she?" he yelled at it as he threw sand at it. "Where is she?" he yelled again, his hand going in his pocket where he felt the familiar pen, wrapping around it and uncapping it as it came out. He stabbed the earth with it. "You bitch! Where did you send her? You fucking bitch!" he fell back on the sand.
The waves had started to churn and rise as his emotions had. He let a tear fall. "Where the hell am I?" he whispered to himself, although he was asking the sea. "I need to know–"
He stopped mid sentence as a symbol caught his eyes, they widened rapidly and in no time he was on his feet with his sword in his hand. "This is all you," he muttered to himself as he walked towards it and fully recognised it as the one of the Earth Mother.
Then he saw it painted on a tree and he reached that point to then spot another one, it was leading him somewhere, and wether it was where she was or something else, this was a sign that he wasn't going crazy, but that, instead, something crazy had happened to him.
He followed the symbol until it reached a house, it was painted on the window sill, beneath it a piece of paper was sticking out of it. He ignored the weird stares he got from the by passers and walked to the porch of the house and grabbed the paper.
'Have fun', it said, and then there was the symbol again, telling him exactly from who it was.
He knocked on the door a few times before someone decided it was time to open it. The boy was met with a teenager, much of his same age, standing a little shorter than him, with brown eyes and dark brown hair cut neatly.
Percy looked around himself once before glaring at the boy in front of him. With no warning he grabbed him by the throat with his metallic arm and pushed him back inside the house. "What the hell is this?" he asked him, showing him the piece of paper he had found on the window sill.
The boy grasped and clawed at Percy's metallic arm, but the demigod had locked it in place and he was feeling none of the scratching.
"Answer me!" he hissed at the boy.
Someone joined them, Percy was aware of that by the noise of the footsteps and the shagged breathing. "Let him go, Perseus."
The demigod turned to look over his shoulder, but he didn't recognise the person standing there, looking like an older version of the boy he was choking. But then, how did he know his name?
"How do you know my name?"
The man took out another piece of paper and read it out loud to him. "...you will be soon joined by a threatening and dangerous young man by the name of Perseus Jackson..."
Percy let go of the boy's throat, making him crumple to the ground and he turned to the man fully. "Who sent you that? And where the hell am I?" he demanded.
The man started to walk towards his son, checking if he was okay. "The President sent me this. And you're in District five." He helped his son up and told him to leave them alone for a moment. "That was my son you just strangled," he said. "And I'm going to ask you not to do it again, since you're going to be staying for a while."
"What?" Percy asked. "No I'm not."
"Yes you are," the man said as he handed him the letter. "Orders from the President himself. And I'm not about to disobey them."
Percy scanned through the letter even with his dyslexia, he managed to pick up the important bits. "Screw the President," he said. "It's not like he's going to kill you."
The man chuckled with no humour. "That's exactly what he's going to do," he said as he grabbed the letter back. "And it looks like you need some filling in, I'm sure they've done something to you." He gestured to his arm and his eye.
Percy thought about making a run for it, trying to find a way out, but the kind and caring part of him blocked those thoughts out of his mind. If he left, he'd be dooming these people to die because he wasn't here.
So he decided to follow the man through the corridors and into the kitchen.
-.-.-
They sat down at the table, a mug of tea in their hands.
"My name is Michael Peterson, you can call me Mike, my son, the one you were choking before, he's Joseph," the man introduced himself. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions–"
"Where am I?" Percy asked.
Mike took a sip from his tea. "I've told you, in District five."
"Yeah, but where is that exactly?" Percy said. "Is it in America? Canada? Heck is it even on Earth?"
The older man chuckled. "You could say this is in the north of America."
Percy nodded, that was something. "What is this place? I mean, District?"
Michale smiled, although it was forced, anyone could see that. "Panem," he said with no apparent feeling. "A Capitol that rules over twelve Districts."
"And let me guess, you live in poverty whilst the Capitol is super rich?" Michael's nod was enough. "But why?"
"There was a rebellion, seventy two years ago, and a whole District –thirteen– was wiped out from existence."
Percy hated wars, he could say that himself, having been on the front lines multiple times. "And what happened after that?"
"To make sure that the Districts wouldn't think of another uprising," Michael said. "The Capitol came up with the idea of the Hunger Games."
The demigod frowned. "People starve?"
Michael chuckled. "No, well they do, but that's not the point. The fact is that in the rebellion, for every Capitol's death, there was at least two of the rebels. They wanted that to stick in our brains and in order to do that, the Hunger Games consist of twenty four children, from the ages between twelve and nineteen, murdering each other until only one victor remains."
Percy's face contorted in disgust. "Kids killing each other?"
The man nodded gravely. "One girl and one boy from each District, sent into an arena to fight to the death."
"And how are they chosen?"
"A reaping in late June, each boy and girl has to put their name in. Then this someone from the Capitol comes in and picks up two names, one from the boys and one from the girls. There can be volunteers, but usually it's the one that's chosen."
The demigod wasn't liking this. "And what happens to the 'victor'?"
"Showered in fame and money, and forever to be the Capitol's puppet. But to become one, you'd need to kill twenty three other tributes. How old are you?"
Percy thought about it, how old was he actually? He thought of the long years he'd spent in Tartarus, but how they'd only been a few weeks on the surface. Did they count as actual years to him, or didn't they? He looked the same age as he did before so–
"I'm seventeen," he said, deciding to go by actual age.
Michael looked at him weirdly. "Took you a long time to figure out," he said. "But that means that you'll be in it twice, unless your birthday is before June."
The demigod shook his head. "It's in August."
Michale stood up and put his mug in the sink. "I heard people saying there was someone on the beach, screaming his lungs out with a sword... I'm guessing that was you?"
Percy nodded. "Yeah."
"Is something wrong?"
"Except from the fact that I don't belong here, I'll probably be subject to those games you just talked about and that I'm as good as prisoner?" he asked the man.
"Yeah, except from that," he replied.
The demigod nodded again. "I woke up here, you know. And, I've never been here, never heard of this, nothing. But, before I blacked out, I was with someone, and she was hit with the same force I was. But she's not here."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Does she mean a lot to you?"
Percy stared the man in the eyes and let him see just how much he was breaking with her missing presence. "She-she means everything to me. And I don't know whether I can go on without her. I know I snapped when she wasn't there for more than a month, so–"
"Maybe you'll find her," Michael said. "Don't lose hope."
-.-.-
He knocked on the door softly, aware that this could go in a hundred different directions.
"Come in," a voice said and Percy opened the door slowly.
Joseph was sitting on a chair overlooking a desk, Textbook and notebooks sprawled over it. His eyes quickly widened and went back to normal as he saw the teenager that had strangled him before. His hand reached to massage his neck with instinct.
"I just, wanted to say that I'm sorry," Percy said slowly. "For choking you, I mean."
Joseph nodded his head. "Ah, its– fine," he found himself saying, although it was anything but fine.
"Really?"
No. "Yeah," Jospeh said. "So, um, what's your name?"
"Percy Jackson– well, my actual name is Perseus, but I kinda hate it so I go by Percy," he introduced himself, stretching his hand out. "And your father told me, your Jospeh, right?"
The younger boy, Joseph, nodded. "Yeah. So... that's a strong arm you've got," he pointed out, aiming his pencil at Percy's right arm.
The demigods looked at it and sighed. "Yes," he agreed. "Pretty strong, and again I apologize for using it to choke you."
"Do you like water?" Joseph asked, curiously changing the subject of the conversation.
Percy frowned. "Yeah, I do. Why?"
Jospeh stood up. "Then come," he said as he walked out of his room. "District five has got a lot of water."
Percy grinned at him as they made their way out.
-.-.-
They stood on the beach overlooking at the sea, Jospeh was looking at the beauty of it, whilst Percy was looking at it with a grimace, remembering his father, something that didn't go unnoticed by the mortal teenager.
"What's wrong?"
The demigod took a deep breath. "It reminds me of someone," he said.
"Of who?"
"My father," he deadpanned.
Jospeh risked it. "What happened to him?"
"I'm not fully sure," he admitted. "Something bad. He was...taken, by bad people–" the ground trembled a little after that and Percy glared at it. "Fuck you."
"You're talking to the ground?" Jospeh noted.
In District Five it was no surprise if the ground trembled, with all the power surging through it and the taken from it.
Percy nodded at him. "I've got good reasons to," he said. "But their not something I should worry about now. So what can you tell me of the games?"
"The games? Like, what? I thought my father filled you in."
"He told me what they are, and what happens in them. But how do people win?"
Joseph scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "They kill the other tributes."
Percy rolled his eyes. "No, really? I didn't know that." The two boys chucked with each other. "But seriously, how did they win the previous years?"
"It depends really," Jospeh said, giving a serious answer for a change. "Every year the arena is different. So for example, there's this girl that won because she was the bet swimmer out of all the other tributes. The others drowned, whereas she didn't. Or, this other guy, he used the force field to redirect a knife towards the one that threw it... It's always different. It can be a forest, a beach, a jungle. And then there's all these crazy things the game makers add to make it more 'interesting' and challenging."
"Those people are sick," Percy said, a strange wave of nausea washing over him. "Putting kids into an arena for entertainment."
Joseph nodded in agreement. "I agree," he said. "But for me it's only two years left, and let's hope I get lucky and don't get picked."
Percy smiled sheepishly. "Ah, knowing my luck, I'm sure I'll be picked the first time..."
"It's a lot of people here in District Five," Jospeh said, trying to reassure him. "The chances you get picked are as low as they can be."
"Still," Percy said, looking at the horizon. "You have no idea how many times I thought things couldn't get worse and they did. I know my chances..."
.
I know there are similarities between this and Ageless Diversity.
I am not fully sure, but I'm enjoying writing the later stages of it. This is not going to be really friendly wise. It will include angst, in later chapters, it might include sexual contents, it will possibly go off towards bits and pieces of insanity, and well, death and blackmail and that crazy shit.
So, if you think you could get triggered, or you dont want to read it, or you do but not those bits, I will put - *WARNING* at the top of the chapter. I'm trying something new here, which is more realistic rather than simply sugar coating it all.
I'm not even sure there will be serious stuff, bcs it wont be written, onyl mentioned but, hey, everyone deserves a warning. A 'know what you're reading'.
.
Preview of chapter 1:
"You BASTARD!" she said and then stabbed her knife into his neck.
The two children of the sky god looked at their cousin. "They're not here," Nico said. "I can't feel them any wear close here."
"So we came here for nothing?" Jason asked.
Thalia let out a yell of rage and a lightning bolt emitted from her spear, which she aimed at the wall, making it crumble down like it was made of legos.
"We have to get out of here," Nico said.
"Where did they go?"
"I don't know, Thals. But we sure as hell won't ever know if we stay here any longer. The other Giants will know something is wrong in no time. They'll be coming." He extended his hand out for both siblings to take. Jason grabbed his immediately, whereas Thalia did with reluctance.
.
Sit tight, I'm actually really hyped about this. I've been working on it for so long and contemplating whether to put it for ages.
I hope you enjoyed and stay tuned.
Hunter