COLD OPEN
As a half-blood, it has become typical for you to expect a difficult life. Whether it's the fact that monsters might literally come running out of your closet, hungry for your god-infused blood, or the long, long months spent at camp wherein you could probably expect a lot of very tiring weapons training classes. Difficult as it is, it was usually manageable, helped along by camaraderie between you and your fellow campers. Well, most of the time.
However, that did not prepare you for what had just happened.
Perhaps you were walking down a path alone at night. Perhaps you were on your way to somewhere, perhaps to meet someone. Perhaps you were with your friends at a restaurant and, for one split second, they looked away from you. Perhaps you were secure at home, relaxing. Regardless, no one was able to see you at the time.
And at that time, whatever view you had was replaced.
Before you was a dark purple void with nothing but floating, blasted pieces of what looked to be city streets, one of which you were standing on. Yet, strangely, the city streets seem like they are all different. On one, you can see some Japanese writing, though you may not recognize it as such. On another, you can tell that it is sideways from a canal, as if it was from Venice.
Your surprise at your current situation is, unfortunately, taken advantage of.
Swift as the wind in the night, some unknowable force had suddenly seized you. A strange, snakelike arm grasped its way around you, while a dreadful, awful smell reached your nostrils.
The smell was some sort of paralyzing toxin, constricting your movements, stiffening your muscles until you could no longer even feel them. Any struggle that you might have put up has been neatly squashed.
A snakelike, chilling voice whispers in your ear.
"We have plans for you, demigod. Oh, do we have plans for you."
You are knocked out cold, collapsing in the harsh grip of the creature holding you.
When you come to, you feel as though you are in flight, yet nothing is propelling you or carrying you. You appear to be above some sort of city. It's massive, easily the size of the island of Manhattan. Visions suddenly blast at you, striking you with a great vigor, causing your head to ache terribly.
"A glimpse," said the snakelike voice, now invading your head, with a smug sound. "Of what is to come for you."
You could see a group of what appeared to be fellow half-bloods, in full armor, close to your age. There were four in all and each was carrying their weapons. They looked to be inside a building, which you speculated was probably in the city below, engaged in combat with a swarm of giant scorpions.
The one in lead shouted out, "To the left! Another group just entered!" He swung his celestial bronze sword, slicing the stinger tail off of a scorpion before stabbing it between its chitinous armor with the tip of his blade.
"Got it!" shouted another, a girl heaving a spear, and approaching the group to the left. "Come get some, you overgrown freaks!"
She lifted her spear up, while at the same time blocking with her shield like the Spartans of the old times. She stabbed a scorpion between the eyes, before skewering another's tail. "Take that! And that! And-"
The tip of a stinger tail pierced her neck, causing a disgusting gurgling sound to come from her throat, right before a gush of blood escaped as the offending scorpion withdrew its deadly appendage. The girl's now limp body fell to the ground, a huge bloody hole where her throat used to be.
"No!" shouted another, prompting him to dive into the group of scorpions that had killed the girl. "You monsters! I'm going to kill you!" He lifted his broadsword, sweeping it across the group of scorpions. Waves of blood splashed around, covering him in the red liquid. He started laughing maniacally. "You shouldn't have done that! You shouldn't have done that!" He hefts his sword, squashing the scorpions even after he's killed them.
He is so distracted with his madness that he failed to see a massive scorpion approach him from behind. Grabbing him by the torso with one of its pincers, it swiftly cut him into two pieces, the upper and lower bodies sent flying away with massive gushes of blood splattering everywhere.
The fourth one, using a sword and a shield, looked like he wanted to charge the scorpions that killed his comrades, but the leader stopped him. He placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head quickly, before returning to battling.
"This is a lost cause," the leader said, as he blew away another scorpion with his sword.
The other managed to bash a scorpion away with his shield, covering his defensive weapon with an icky, green color. "We're getting slaughtered," the other added.
"That seems to be the point," the leader said, continuing to battle. "These things aren't supposed to be here, not from what it said on the map."
"Damn it!" the other shouted, smashing a scorpion to pieces with his shield. "I knew I should've told her not to take it!" His eyes quickly darted to the body of the girl with the spear.
"Save it," the leader said in reply, skewering a scorpion between the eyes with his sword. "We're going to need to-" The giant scorpion struck again, this time impaling the leader with his massive stinger tail. The remaining survivor's eyes widened in shock.
"G-get out of h-here!" The leader managed to choke out. He pulled several bombs out of his pocket, which you recognized as Greek fire. "Find someplace safe!" He inched himself along the stinger tail, before throwing the Greek fire down, covering the giant scorpion and himself in flames. The scorpion's shrieks pierced the survivor's ears, and he screamed in frustration.
He ran, jumping over stinger tails and giant chitinous armored shells, before reaching a broken window. Looking down, it was a sheer drop, easily several stories high. Behind him, an army of giant scorpions bearing down on his location.
"No choice," he muttered to himself. "Gods help me." He jumped out of the window, though the vision ends there and you can't tell if he survived.
Your head aches further as the vision ends, causing you to grasp your temples.
"What's that?" the smug, snake voice says in your head. "Not enough for you? Let's see, how about someone more famous?" It laughs, but it is a bitter laugh, as if it was finding irony in calling someone "famous."
Another vision strikes you, this time of a harbor, but still within the same city, you reckon. You spot someone in navy blue leather armor, running across the harbor. His black hair and green eyes, along with his distinctive sword makes him unmistakable. It's Percy Jackson.
Behind Percy was a group of three minotaurs, rushing at him with the speed and tenacity of an entire herd of bulls.
Percy stopped in his tracks as he looked back, raising his sword in defense. The first minotaur reached him, attempting to strike him with its horns. It failed as Percy jumped up, and landed on its back, before firmly planting his sword into its neck. A little too firmly, it seemed, as he struggled to remove it.
He failed and had to roll off the back of the recently deceased minotaur, lest he be pierced in the back by two angry minotaurs. He grunted as he rolled, before swerving around to face the two monsters.
"You know," he quipped. "I liked it better when there was only one of you guys."
The other two charged him, blindly following their rage-filled instincts. Percy did something that some would call stupid, charging the also-charging minotaurs and letting out a battle cry of his own. At the last second he crouched and slid under, between the legs of one of the minotaurs. They quickly became confused, unable to stop the momentum of their charge.
Percy took advantage of this, jumping onto the back of one of the minotaurs. "Hey, bull-breath!" he quipped again, before grasping one horn and pulling, hard. The minotaur screamed, before Percy was able to wrench the horn free. "Here's a taste of your own medicine!" He plunged the horn into the brainpan of the minotaur, instantly killing it.
"Yeah, how about tha-" Percy was interrupted as the other minotaur charged him, managing to slice through a portion of his leg, causing blood to start trickling down his thigh. Percy screamed in protest, but managed to painfully scramble away.
Looking around for any sort of weapon, he spotted a chain connected to an anchor. He started heaving slightly, before rushing to the chain, obviously in pain. He quickly unclasped the chain from the anchor. "Come get it, Toro," Percy taunted.
The bull-man hybrid rushed him, but Percy was ready. He threw the chain in the air and dodged the minotaur. Grabbing the chain again, he wrapped it around the minotaur's neck, and pulled, hard. The minotaur, forgetting about Percy entirely, was focusing all his strength on trying to pull away the chain.
"Just die already!" Percy shouted, before he pulled with all his might. A sickening crack filled the night air, as the Minotaur slumped forward, its neck bones smashed.
Percy fell backwards, looking very obviously tired and with a wound that might lead to his demise. Sweat covered his brow, and he managed a short groan before collapsing, getting knocked unconscious from the blood loss.
Once again, the vision ends before you can tell if Percy had died or not, but the quickly growing twisting in your stomach isn't helping you think of the brighter side. The voice had told you that these visions would show the things to come. What did that mean?
Eventually, your flying grinds to a halt as you suddenly find yourself in a section of the large city. You find yourself in full battle gear, which encompasses your requisite armor and weapons. Next to you is your backpack, which you find is full of your possessions, along with supplies, including water and food, as well as medicine.
The voice materializes again, laughing with ever-increasing smugness in the back of your ear drums.
"This is the ultimate test of your prowess, demigod," retorted the voice. "There is something hidden in this city. Find it and I will let you live. It will be obvious enough, believe me. For now, you will try to survive. And I do mean, try. It will not be easy. In fact, I don't expect you to live longer than a few days!"
The voice bellowed with laughter, causing your head to start aching again.
"Demigod, welcome to the City of Lost Dreams. Good luck. You'll need it!"
Suddenly, the voice disappears, leaving you alone with just your possessions and this looming, dark city.
A/N: Well, let's just get this show on the road. Don't expect too many detailed author's notes, because I'm trying to go for at least a semi-serious fic here. Anyway, I should probably explain how this works. There are going to be a lot of people dying in this fic, so if you get upset because your character dies, well remember that your character is not the main character. (Now, that doesn't mean that your character WILL die, but at least rest assured that if they DO, then it will be for a good reason, and the plot and characters will be affected by some significant degree.)
Who is the main character? Well, I'll give you a hint. It's not anybody's OC and certainly not mine. So, yes, it's someone from the books.
Without further ado, here's the OC form. Fill it out, but please keep within my parameters. I'm trying to keep things realistic here.
OC FORM
Name: (Please, nothing ridiculous.)
Nickname: (Optional, but there you go. Also, nothing ridiculous.)
Gender: (Pretty self-explanatory.)
Camp: (Jupiter or Half-Blood)
Godly Parent: (No Big Three. No Artemis or Hera. Please.)
Age: (12-18)
Race:
Height:
Weight:
Build: (Scrawny? Athletic?)
Eye Color: (Nothing unrealistic, please.)
Hair Color: (Also, nothing unrealistic. And you can't justify it as "dyed" unless it makes sense within your character's history.)
Hair Style:
Hometown:
Family: (Any siblings? Who's the mortal parent?)
Personality: (Constantly angry? Really hyper? Super emo? Describe. Also, nothing too unrealistic, please.)
Background: (What's their story? Now, this is extremely important. You must be incredibly detailed here. I assume you love books if you read Percy Jackson, so try to craft a decent backstory for your character.)
Weapon(s): (No guns. No transforming weapons. No stygian iron. ONLY Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold. PLEASE. Other than that, any weapon goes.)
Usual Clothes: (What do they usually wear? What kind of armor do they have? Nothing ridiculous either, please, and also remember that they are Roman and Greek warriors, not heavily armored knights.)
Likes:
Dislikes:
Favorite Song:
Favorite Movie:
Favorite Book:
Permission to use in M-Rated Content: (By M-Rated Content, I mean sexual acts. I'll just be straight up about that.)
Anything else you wanted to tell me:
And with that, I'll remain until I get enough submissions for Chapter 1.
Adieu, my friends.