A/N: Hello, Readers! Welcome to my first story on Fanfiction! Now, before many of you leave due to that last sentence, know that I've heard nothing but good things about it, and I have reason to believe that most of you will enjoy it. This story is OC dominated, with the original series' characters making appearances and affecting the story on a minor scale from the outside. Many people choose only to read stories about the characters we all know and love, and I understand why. Uncle Rick has my utmost respect, and I'm eagerly awaiting Blood of Olympus. Still, I think my own characters have some merit, and readers should judge them before simply dismissing the story. I update weekly every Sunday, so readers without accounts can have some idea of when to check again.
The plot is set twenty years after the events of HoO. Below is a prologue I've recently added to introduce the plot a little bit better and provide some of the lore that many readers may not know. I really hope you all enjoy it, both new readers and veterans. I'm writing this story because I think it'll improve myself as an aspiring writer, and my love for the world and series Uncle Rick has crafted so wonderfully has yielded many original ideas from the chaos that is my mind.
Disclaimer: Legal stuff, guys. We should all do it, even if it's on a fun little site like Fanfiction. I claim no ownership over the characters and premise set about by Rick Riordan, who (as previously stated) I have nothing but utter respect for as a writer and person. I would, however, like to ask all readers to respect me and my ideas by refraining from taking anything more than inspiration from them. I know you good people would never think of doing something so heinously vile, but I've been witness to it in the past. Respect, people.
Prologue
The division of an ancient pantheon, the deaths of millions of mortals and demigods, and over two millennia of hatred and war, came about through the single action of one goddess: Eris, the goddess of Discord and Strife.
It all started at a party (as most divine catastrophes concerning the Olympians do, oddly enough). A wedding party, to be exact, between the mortal king Peleus and the ocean spirit Thetis. Every diety, even the dark Hades and the violent Ares, were to be invited, on the condition that Eris, as the goddess of strife, would be forbidden to enter and by doing so ultimately ruin the wedding. Such an assumption was more than likely correct, but as it turns out, it was terribly unwise to anger the goddess in such a way. Chaos has a tendency to erupt where it is least welcome, after all.
Eris was as clever as she was vengeful. Because she was unable to enter the party itself, she devised a method that would prey on the Olympians' greatest weakness: pride. She took a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides, inscribed the words "For the Fairest" into the side of it, and flung it over the walls of the party and straight into the midst of three Olympian goddesses: Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite.
Anyone remotely familiar with the mindset of the Greco-Roman gods can guess the calamity that ensued. The three goddesses immediately began fighting over who the Apple was designated for, and the quarrel became so heated that Zeus, the king of the Olympians, had to intervene. He decided, to avoid infighting between the gods, that a mere mortal should be the judge in determining the "fairest."
The mortal decided was Paris, the then-exiled prince of Troy. A prophesy claiming that Paris would be the downfall of his glorious city forced his father to cast him aside, in a desperate attempt to outwit fate. Such efforts never work, and this instance was no exception; Paris was seen from above by Zeus, tending fields as a shepherd. The three goddesses each descended to the young prince to convince him that they were the fairest.
Despite popular belief, Athena had tried to play fair and avoid bribery. The same couldn't be said for Hera and Aphrodite. Hera promised that, if she was picked, Paris would be destined to conquer Greece and the entire continents of Europe and Asia. But Aphrodite, seeing the loneliness and isolation of the prince, offered him the heart of the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris foolishly picked this gift and Aphrodite, earning the eternal ire of both Athena and Hera.
This woman, as it turns out, was Helen of Sparta. The fact that she was already married to the King Menelaus did little to stop Paris and the victorious Aphrodite. Paris brazenly broke the rules of hospitality by visiting Menelaus and then secretly stealing Helen away in the middle of the night. Enraged, Menelaus called together the leaders of the other Greek cities and declared war on Troy.
Thus began a decade of brutal, senseless violence referred to as the Trojan War. The gods drew battle lines and fought amongst the heroes on both sides, breaking the law against direct, unprovoked conflict passed to the gods by Themis, the Titan of Law and Order. In the end, after many great heroes died in the conflict, Troy was utterly destroyed by Greek deception. Helen was returned to Sparta, and the entire populace and royal family of Troy were put to the sword.
All save for one Trojan prince and his group of followers. Prince Aeneas was spared by the gods, who had by that time understood with utter horror the slaughter that was brought about by their hands. He and his followers sailed away from the fallen city, but would gain vengeance in the future. Aeneas sailed to Italy, and became king of the people who would eventually rise into the Roman Republic centuries later. Rome would go on to conquer the entirety of Greece, and the hatred between Greek and Roman would simmer and flare for over two thousand years, throughout the expanse of Western Civilization.
The gods moved in secret throughout the ages, manifesting in the country or region that most embodied the ideals of Ancient Greece and Rome, but the enmity between the two cultures that originally worshiped them caused their aspects to be split into distinct Roman and Greek. Wherever and whenever the children of these two aspects met, violence and terrible pain erupted into civil wars for the present center of the Western Civilization. The most brutal of these conflicts -embodied in the mortal world as the American Civil War- was so great that the Olympians vowed to separate the two groups permanently and live on as half-gods, only showing the aspect that was suited for each of the factions.
So it was to be until twenty years ago, when the threat of a reawakening Gaea forced Hera/Juno to set a desperate plan into motion: to unite the two aspects and demigods, then, with their combined power, stop Gaea and her Gigantes. Seven heroes were brought together to carry out the plan: Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Jason Grace, Leo Valdez, Hazel Levesque, Piper McLean, and Frank Zheng. After fighting in a climactic struggle, overcoming dozens of obstacles together, and pushing through great losses, the heroes were able to lull Gaea back to sleep and bring the two aspects of Greek and Roman to a tenuous peace.
Together, led by the seven heroes, Greeks and Romans began to work together to make life better for all demigods and mortals alike. They stood together to drive monsters and evil spirits away wherever they arose, protecting demigods and mortals who had been plagued by such creatures for eons. Some even came together to form a separate place that could be home to both Greeks and Romans: Delphi Academy. The Olympians rejoiced, knowing that the division was beginning to close in this age of relative peace now referred to as the "Halcyon Days."
Things were never perfect; centuries of bitter resentment couldn't just dissipate immediately, and signs of tension can still be seen after twenty years. But by all accounts, the scars left by a single golden Apple were well on the way to healing, to the point where the gods began to discuss merging their two aspects into one for the first time in over two millennia.
How, then, did an unseen foe rise to drag the new Greco-Roman prosperity into the coming dark days so easily?
A/N: Hope you all enjoyed my narrative and style of writing! The rest of the story is going to be from the 3rd person perspective of various characters, which will change at my discretion and will be marked by a page break. It deviates from Uncle Rick's magic formula, but I'm hoping it will add flexibility to the story.
New Readers can proceed if desired, but older readers can keep reading below the paragraph break to see a log of the changes that have occurred during my recent two-week hiatus. As of writing, I've only completed editing of Chapters One and Two, because life is unfair and a combination of Christmas Pageantry, school finals, and my new part-time job (yay!) has left me very little time to do what I actually enjoy, which is writing. I promise that these changes won't be utterly drastic, unless I specifically warn of it. This will also hopefully be the last time something like this will happen; I know how frustrating it might be if an older reader has to read back over the past ten chapters (plus the new prologue).
-More descriptive intros for each character (James, Will, Sophie, Tyler, and Marty at this point). I've gotten a couple of well-intentioned remarks saying that it was difficult and somewhat frustrating to be presented characters without giving them an immediate baseline for appearance and disposition.
-Tyler doesn't make his personal appearance until Chapter Two (though he is mentioned in passing, similar to Steven). Another well-intentioned review said that it was somewhat difficult to keep track of the burst of new characters in the original Chapter One. Two suggested characters and four presented characters seem like a better formula than one suggested and five presented. Conversation between Sophie and Will has been altered to accommodate Tyler's absence.
-Marty has been given, in my opinion, a bit more depth to his character. Especially in Chapter Two, in which his past reflection is much more detailed and reveals more of his character. Perhaps it was unintentional laziness on my part, but now I think he possesses more personality and relatability.
-Tyler is seen to have a bit more bitterness towards the Olympians in Chapter Two. His backstory is hinted at, and this change is intended to show more of his mindset to build up on in the future chapters.
-I've recently heard back from a past reviewer about a certain OC that, as it turns out, I love so much I might just replace a certain character with it. I'll need confirmation later, but I think you'll really like him if we agree to use him. I'll keep you all in the loop!
Chapter Eleven will be coming soon. Hopefully in time for Christmas day, but I don't make promises I'm not sure I can keep. So I guess just keep checking if you aren't following yet, and stay tuned. Later!