Six years after the prologue
Lieutenant Ben knew a few things about crazies in the allies of New York but the two most important things he knew were that that they came out of nowhere and to never under any circumstances look at them. The scars across his chest from the nails of a dying crack addict made sure he would never make that mistake again. Unfortunately for Lieutenant Ben that lesson slipped his mind the one time he needed it most.
Just as daylight broke over New York and Apollo brought his sports car over the horizon the air in a dirty alley in the Bronx cracked with a sharp crack loud enough to wake up Lieutenant Ben in his cardboard box at the mouth of the alley. He stirred awake and glanced down the alley to where he thought an alley cat had pushed a glass bottle out of a dumpster. Instead he found a travel worn teenager climbing out a schism in the air while carrying out a one sided conversation. The site was enough to make Lieutenant Ben's head spin. After holding his head in his hands while the laundry-machine-esque view of the world settled down he looked back down the alley.
The teenager was oblivious to his surroundings; whatever he was imaging was enough to keep him from trying to walk out of the pile of trash around his legs. From his jeans, boots, and jacket Ben guessed he was from a decent upbringing. "But that doesn't explain what's he doing here," thought Ben as he tried to get a better look. Two subtle hints told Ben all he needed to make a half decent guess.
The teenager had no outside signs of being involved in anything on the wrong side of the law. The color of his jacket was one unused by any gangs in New York City and although his black hair was cut short it was a very conservative and neutral cut that no one bothered with today since it only served to help someone not stand out. However, Ben noticed that he held himself like someone who would get his way, either by civil methods or not so civil; Ben saw enough guys like him on both sides in Vietnam to tell the difference. The second clue was more subtle and wasn't based on anything logical. Even though the kid looked like he was in his late teens he radiated a sense of power and command enough to make Ben reconsider talking to him.
Ben considered pretending he never woke up but he was drawn back to the strange teen when he started speaking a normal language instead of the guttural mess he was using. "What the hell do you mean by Boston, Rotterdam, Munich, Long Island? You're making less sense than normal and that's saying something," the teenager seemed to respond to someone who, judging from his tone, he didn't really like. "Why couldn't tell me to just go and meet Portgas and Hans I'd have been able to find my way around from there? Yes, we're in such a rush because all other missions were really relaxed." The sarcasm in that last sentence was almost palpable. "Wait. They're coming too? Damn. How big is this mission?" The teenager dropped the attitude and listened carefully to the sounds of the city waking up.
In the same manner as how he came into the alley a small bottle of black mist and a sunglasses case appeared in front of him. He plucked them out of the air, listened then said, "How would that work? You're either a pure-son or a half-son. This'll make me a what? Son-and-a-half?" There was a pause. "Fine. And what do you mean by 'the sunglasses will help'? ... I really should stop expecting straight answers from you dad." A ripple passed through the air in the alley and Ben felt a harsh, chaotic presence disappear and he found himself able to breathe easily.
The teenager looked at the bottle, sizing it up then opened it. The mist rushed out like a feral animal and rushed at his face. He jumped back with a yell of surprise, crashing into the brick wall behind him as the mist burrowed into his eyes. His hands flew up to his eyes instinctively but the mist disappeared quickly. Ben got up from his place on the concrete floor, he was too used to helping others out, even at his own expense, to be able to let anyone go through any pain without helping them out in some way.
"Hey kid. Are you alright?" asked Ben as he crossed over to the collapsed teenager in a heap of garbage. Without waiting for answer Ben grasped a surprisingly powerful arm and pulled the kid to his feet.
"Yeah I'm fine," the teenager said as he opened his eyes. A golden glow from the teenager's eyes lit up the alley brighter than Times Square on New Year's Eve. By getting involved with the strange kid who came out of nowhere Ben got himself killed. The godly light coming from the kid's eyes was more than enough to burn up the old vet. It reduced him to a small pile of ash and teeth on the teenager's boots.
"That might come in useful sometime," Marcus commented idly as he kicked the remains off his boots. He stooped down and picked up the solid black case he dropped when he jumped back. Sitting inside the case was a large pair of sunglasses. What was remarkable about these sunglasses was that they were made a material so black that they're color seemed to be not black but more like an absence of color.
When the sunglasses were placed on Marcus' nose the glow from his eyes disappeared behind the black lens of the sunglasses. A tap at the pocket of his jeans confirmed the presence of Marcus' weapon, now just a small hilt of a sword. "Boston, Rotterdam, Munich, Long Island," Marcus said to himself as he walked out of the alley and into the crowd of commuters. "How to do so?"
One stranger stopped for directions Marcus was northbound for Boston. Slowly Marcus began getting used to his new powers. As far as he could figure out his new powers were focused on sight since his vision would often switch to a golden wireframe of his surroundings with various valuables in pockets and pockets.
This new ability put a smile on Marcus' lips. A wish to see if he could remember an old skill and a pocket that was worryingly empty was enough motivation for Marcus to break out his knowledge of pickpocketing. Without breaking his pace Marcus let his vision shift to the odd wireframe he could do accidently. The only way a stranger could tell something changed had was a faint golden glow from behind the stylish sunglasses and a sharp intake of breath.
From behind his sunglasses Marcus' world turned into a black canvas populated by golden wires forming the outline of the different people, buildings, cars, and benches on the street. As soon as he got used to walking around and not tripping over his own feet in this mode Marcus found his target, a thick wallet in the back pocket of a man listening to his headphones. Marcus switched back to his normal vision and locked the man in his sights. The regret of not having two others to help with this job disappeared quickly as the distance between him and his mark closed quickly.
A practiced bump into the man and a false yet enthusiastic apology set up the play. As the man struggled to make sense of the overeager boy in his late teens apologizing to him Marcus made sure his back pocket became a bit lighter. With the precision of a practiced surgeon Marcus slipped the wallet into his own pocket and slipped back into the crowd. As he left the man behind the familiar thrill of a successful pick-up reminded Marcus of the cobbled streets and soot filled air of London.
Only when he was a fair distance away from the man did Marcus open the wallet. The crisp and not quite so crisp dollar bills were what Marcus cared about. The wallet was of no use to Marcus so it was tossed aside into an alleyway. By the time Marcus left the heavily congested sidewalk there were enough wallets in alleys to fill several shops and upwards of $3000 dollars in cash were hidden in Marcus' pockets.
A quick stop in a drug store on a corner left Marcus with a cheap backpack filled with various things he learned to depend on after centuries of travelling on missions for his godly father. He cracked open a can of soda and drained it as he walked with one hand and with the other he opened up an old map. After trying unsuccessfully to keep the paper blanket from flying around he sat down, annoyed that he had to stop.
The can made a satisfying crunch when Marcus crumpled it up with one hand. The scale for distances and how fast they could be closed worried him. According to the cartographer who put the map was a 3 day hike. Marcus quickly ran through his options, he could go for a 3 day walk, which wasn't the most glamorous of options since he already had a long enough trip ahead, or he could try to hitchhike, which didn't seem likely since he was in the middle of the city, or he could hope for a miracle.
After considering his option Marcus decided to walk to Boston and hope for a miracle. Marcus stuffed the map roughly into his bag and put it on his shoulders. Walking long distances wasn't a problem for Marcus so he started out on his trip. Fortunately for him the miracle he hoped for showed up in the formed of a dying Crown Victoria.
Marcus was beside the highway out of New York City when a dying patchwork Crown Victoria pulled up at a gas station in front of him. Out of curiosity and to break the monotony of the trip Marcus walked up to the car. In the driver's seat he found a worn out, unshaven shell of a man. The tapping on the glass of the driver's seat snapped awake. He found Marcus motioning for him to open the window. He looked at him suspiciously before running down the window. "What?"
"How much do you want for this?" asked Marcus.
"What?" the man answered, thinking he misheard.
"I need a car to get around and you look like you want to get rid of it." Marcus said.
The man looked up at Marcus, trying to read him. It was true that he wanted to sell Patch, but no one wanted to buy a twenty something year old car on its last legs. The last time he put it up on craigslist no one had responded. "Two grand," the man said, trying to push his limits.
"One grand and you have a deal," Marcus answered.
The man considered it for a moment, "Done." He got out of the car to stand beside Marcus who was peeling out several hundred dollar bills from his roll of cash. "How old are you kid?" asked the man as he took the money from Marcus.
"Old enough," Marcus held out a hundred dollar bill. The man looked at him suspiciously but desperation for money won out. He took the money and Marcus got in the car. The man gave Marcus one last glance then walked towards the gas station. The car sputtered and coughed as it stirred itself to life. Marcus drove the car onto the main road and merged with the light traffic.
A short three hour put Marcus on the outskirts of the Boston. He left the car on the side of the road with the keys in since he wasn't going to need it for the next leg of his journey. Hoisting his bag on his back Marcus headed towards the docks. From the instructions he received Marcus guessed that he would need to take a boat to Rotterdam. With the smell of the sea and directions from a few locals Marcus found the large docks made for the shipping of large cargo from other countries.
Instead of heading into the harbor Marcus walked out onto a pier. Sometime during his travels Marcus developed a sixth sense that buzzed when deities were near. As he approached the end of the pier that sense started to act up inside his head. At the end of the pier Marcus stood beside an old bearded fisherman in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. "Mind if I sit here?" he asked the deity.
"Go ahead," the fisherman said as he watched his bob out in the sea. Marcus sat on the edge of the pier with his legs dangling off the side. The two sat in silence, looking out to a calm sea under a dark orange sky until the old man broke it. "You didn't have to ask to have a seat."
"Etiquette dictates that you should ask permission to enter the presence of a god," Marcus replied evenly.
The fisherman chuckled. "That must be a new form of compliment. What makes you think that?"
"Look here," Marcus said. The fisherman looked down, amused. In an instant he changed his expression from mild amusement to shock. Looking into Marcus' face Poseidon saw two orbs of pure godly energy burning where eyes should be. In an instant Poseidon changed into his war form, shifting into a tall, muscular, broad shouldered warrior in Greek armor accented with sea green eyes armed with a shining bronze trident.
"What are you?" demanded the sea god, pointing his trident at the being in front of him. Marcus stared back at him calmly, giving the weapon only a cursory glance.
"What does this remind you of?" Marcus asked, raising his sunglasses into Poseidon's field of vision. Poseidon, disconcerted by the calmness of the teenager in front of him, looked at the sunglasses. They reminded him of something he had saw once; something important. Try as he might he couldn't remember what it was that it was; it felt like trying to remember an old dream of which only fragments remain. "Go all the way back," Marcus said, "back to when Zeus led you against Kronos." Marcus' words jogged Poseidon's memory and he found the scrap he was looking for.
He had seen this absence of light once before. Leading him and his brothers against their father it was a memory that almost faded with time. The exact identity the person he saw it with was beyond him, but he knew enough. The Olympian uprising against their father could not have happened without the leadership of this person. "We haven't met before but the one you remember is weaker than me." Marcus got up from the pier to stand beside a shell shocked Poseidon.
"What do you want from me?" the sea god asked, letting his weapon and armor fade away.
"Safe passage across the Atlantic. And your silence," Marcus answered.
"You have my word of honor on both of those. If you wish I could get you to where you want now. You wouldn't have to take a ship."
"No thanks. I prefer to figure things out for myself," Marcus said with a shake of his head, "Although I appreciate the offer." Marcus stood up, dusting off the back of his jeans. The thought of saying something in farewell crossed his mind but Marcus couldn't think of a polite thing to say to a god trying to remember a probably bad memory from the time when he was a child. Under the rapidly darkening sky Marcus left the sea god behind at the end of the end of the pier.
To his right was the now brightly illuminated shipyard, caged behind a tall chicken wire fence topped with barbed wire and a an armed checkpoint. Marcus stood in the guards blind spot and stole a glance in both directions. The only people out on the street were fishermen chatting amongst themselves with their backs to Marcus, heading home after a long day on the pier. Marcus took a few steps back from the fence and tightened the straps on his back.
With one last glance up and down the street Marcus ran towards the fence. He kicked off the sidewalk, hard, and jumped straight up into the air, over the fence with several inches of night air between the soles of his boots and the tips of the barbed wire. He immediately hurtled down to the ground, tucking into a roll to end up at a standstill several meters away from the fence. Without losing a moment Marcus dashed into the shadows of the maze created by thousands of shipping containers.
A breath Marcus didn't know he was holding was released with a smile. "I missed this," Marcus thought to himself. He walked down the corridor of steel until he found a break in the towers. A simple leap put Marcus on top of the first level of containers. Another put him on the second. A third put him on top of the containers and gave him an unrestricted view of the flood lit shipping yards with its massive metal beasts of burden waiting in their pens for their cargo.
Amazingly no one saw Marcus standing where he shouldn't be. If they did they didn't do anything to show that they noticed him. A tall office like building stood at one end of the shipyard near the entrance. Marcus guessed that that would be where the managers would be and that reasonably they would have the schedules and routes of each of the ships. He headed off towards it, crossing the wide gaps between stacks of containers with ease.
Unfortunately for Marcus the containers stopped a good twenty meters away from the side of the building and on the concrete ground beneath him was streaming with men in hard hats with clipboards in their hands. Fortunately there was an open window on the top floor just across from Marcus. Marcus eyeballed the distance between him and the open window and decided he could make it.
He strolled to the very end of the container and turned back to face the window. Marcus took a moment to shake life back into his legs. One last deep breath and Marcus broke into a sprint. Marcus found himself at the opposite end of the container which prompted him to push off the metal edge. Like a cannonball Marcus sailed through the air above the sight of the workers below. Marcus tucked himself into a ball and passed through the window cleanly.
Unfortunately Marcus miscalculated and continued rolling into the room. Marcus' head smashed against a vending machine at the end of the room with a heavy smack, leaving a large in it. "What the hell?" asked a man sitting at a table with a half-eaten sandwich in his hand.
"I had, uh," Marcus said as he stood up, hand pressed against the side of the head. He feigned a stumble to the table where the man was sitting. The man reached out instinctively to break Marcus' fall. Unfortunately for the man he played right into Marcus' trap. Marcus shot his hand to the man's head, grabbed a fistful of blonde hair then viciously smashed the man's head into the table with a sharp crack of breaking bones. The man slumped down and off the table, drawing a trail of blood where his nose was.
From the corridor outside came the sound of silence and for that Marcus was glad. He quickly walked out of the room and, seeing a dead-end to his left, took a right down the hallway. The corridor opened up to a large open plan hall filled with desks topped with ridiculous amounts of papers and computers. The large world map crisscrossed with lines across the various oceans drew Marcus' attention. When he walked over to stand in front of it Marcus noticed a large chart on a whiteboard beside it. One of the columns were marked had "Destination" printed neatly at its top and, much to Marcus' relief, two rows had Rotterdam marked there. One of the ships left early in the morning of the next day while the second left at 5 past.
A clock above the map rang out. Marcus glanced up to find it announcing the arrival of the hour. The decision of which ship to stow away on was decided. Marcus checked the row of the ship leaving in five minutes for which dock it would leave from. "It just had to be the furthest dock from here," Marcus said as he crossed the room to a pair of double that looked like they would lead out to the stairwell.
Just as Marcus was about to open the door he heard voices coming up the stairs. Marcus judged that the voice belonged to two people. He waited with his hand on the doorknob until one of them was just behind the door. Marcus shoved the door open in the person's face, smashing him against the wall; the second person, a short bald man, missed the door's smash. Marcus stepped forward and knocked the man out cold with a single jab to the job broke teeth and sent him toppling down the stairs.
The racket caused some voices to be raised from a few flights down. Marcus ignored them and took the stairs up to the roof. The locked door yielded against the shoulder that a running Marcus threw into it.
Marcus stepped out into the night air. His target, a large generic cargo ship, was at the opposite end of the port. As the crow flies Marcus could have crossed the enormous distance to his goal at a dead sprint with enough time to spare. But since between him and his goal was a several story drop, a ridiculous amount of dock workers, and a stupidly complicated maze of shipping containers he would have to find another way.
Shouting from the stair-well and the sound of footsteps urged Marcus to get moving. Marcus took off at a run and leapt the distance between the roof of the building and onto the containers where he was just minutes earlier. Landing was less graceful than he hoped for, pulling him down to his hands and knees with a loud clang. He didn't wait to see if anyone heard him, choosing instead to start running.
From the searchlight that swung onto him and the siren that started shrieking Marcus guessed that someone saw him. In a perverted sense of the word Marcus was glad for the attention. It meant that he didn't have to worry about staying hidden. With a grin Marcus kicked himself into fourth gear; sprinting out towards the sea with heavy footfalls. The searchlight had a difficult time keeping up with the accelerating figure that leapt great distance as if it were stepping over cracks in the sidewalk. In only a few short moments Marcus outran the glare of the searchlight and swung towards the left towards the large machines shaped like an upside-U that straddled the parking spaces of the ships.
When he was close enough to the leg of the machine by his standards, which were impossibly far by any normal human's standards, Marcus jumped up off the containers, flying upwards. At the top of the arc of his jump Marcus slammed into the tall yellow leg. The stainless steel bent in his hands when Marcus grabbed on and then groaned in pain when Marcus flung himself upwards again and again. Eventually he reached the dizzying top bar of the machine, standing on a ledge barely wide enough for one foot.
Without a second thought to the idea of toppling off and into water, which from his height would feel like solid concrete, Marcus took off at a full sprint along the bar. For a moment the scene reminded Marcus of his lessons of free running along the sides of skyscrapers in a whitewashed city. Marcus snapped back to reality, vaulting over a chunk of metal that appeared in his way. The cool wind whipped around him, the metal underneath rang out at his footsteps and the drop at the end of the machine ran closer.
Marcus played chicken with the several story drop. When the toe of his boot was suspended in the air above the ground and the heel of his boot struggled to stay on the bar Marcus pushed off. With surprising grace Marcus glided through the night air, seemingly suspended by strings in the clouds. Instead of trying to land on a metal bar that was barely as wide as his foot Marcus flipped himself in the air and somersaulted along the bar, arms tucked up against his chest like an Olympian athlete.
Marcus recovered from the athletic feat without slowing down. His forward momentum conserved, Marcus crossed the second machine faster than the first. The third was put behind him just as fast. Despite his rocketing along the Rotterdam bound ship blasted its horn and started drifting out to sea while Marcus was in the air between the third and fourth machine and halfway to his goal. Marcus wasn't worried, the further out the ship was the better his chances of not getting kicked off were.
The fourth and fifth passed with the same speed and with no deviation from his established method. The sixth one was where Marcus did something different. Marcus slowed down his pace only slightly. From his pocket Marcus pulled out a hilt of a sword that was longer too large to hide inside his fist. At a thought from a Marcus a large steel hook made of a black material bled out of the hilt. Marcus place put the hook through the bars of the machine at the center as he vaulted over it. From the hilt of his sword a long chain made of the same material emerged, stretched taut as Marcus ran away from the hook, letting more of the chain run out of the hilt.
When he neared the edge of the machine Marcus jumped sideways, away from where the ship was. A second thought from Marcus caused the blade to stop letting out more of the chain. The chain pulled Marcus in a circle and yet a third thought caused it to shrink back in the hilt. The shrinking of the chain pulled Marcus in a circle around the hook, flinging him around faster and faster as it shrunk.
When Marcus completed half a circle and was about to turn back around in the same direction he was running he willed the chain to disappear. It obeyed instantly and Marcus was flung out to sea by his own momentum. Marcus flew through the air, headed towards the ship. By a stroke of luck that he didn't expect Marcus managed to land in the middle of several stacks of containers, denting the ones he smashed against.
He toppled fell to the steel floor of the ship with a loud clang. Rubbing his head Marcus climbed to his feet, the sound of deck hands approaching the source of the noise he heard. Marcus' plan was not as well defined from this point onwards which was a bit worrisome. Marcus headed away from the approaching footsteps of the deckhands towards the back of the ship.
Fortunately for Marcus the ship was the stern was abandoned. A quick search showed a small stairway leading down to the engines. Marcus followed the stairs down, the sound of the engines growing louder. Several floors down the stairs opened out onto a landing. The red light of the ship's interior revealed a door marked "Engine Supervisors" and a hatch on the floor marked "To Engines". Marcus ignored the door and opened the hatch. He dropped down into the bowels of the ship, closing the ship behind him.
The drone of the engines was ridiculously loud but beggars can't be choosers. Marcus picked a patch of steel on the floor and dropped his pack. He settled done into what would be his home for however long the trip would be.
When Marcus entered the world from the rift in the air he created a ripple in the subtle layer of the universe that holds it together. He caused another one when he absorbed the contents of the bottle. On Mount Olympus Zeus' throne trembled and its owner noticed. He sent out birds to keep an eye on the source of the disturbance. When they told their master what they saw his face turned white.
Unlike his older brother Zeus knew where he saw that same absence of light that made up Marcus' sunglasses. The significance of that absence of light was a secret that Zeus kept very close to his chest, going far enough to hide the memory from the minds of Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia. Without the Forgotten One, as the others came to call this lapse in their memory, the first generation of Olympians could not have overthrown their father without the Forgotten One.
The news put Zeus into shock for the time it took Marcus to reach Boston. He came to a final decision after much deliberation. He could not have such power in his world. That power must not exist. A small sparrow that followed Marcus through Boston told Zeus that Marcus was on a ship headed out to see. Zeus was able to threaten and get someone on the port to tell him where the ship was going.
Across the ocean in Rotterdam a group of anarchists were gathered underneath a bridge for their weekly get together. Most of them were there due to the rebellious phase they were going through, but their leader, a small bearded man with wild eyes in their sockets, was an anarchist fanatic. He normally didn't care for rich strangers but when a large blue eyed man donated more money than all the members of the group would see in several lifetimes he paid attention. In addition to the money the man donated several crates of weapons and explosives. When asked why he ignored that and said that more would be donated within three weeks they would have enough weapons and soldiers to take down the European Union as long as one particular man died. The anarchists' greed was enough for them to agree to these terms.
Zeus said that he'd be back with what he promised and left. The bullets were all lined with celestial bronze to make sure that Marcus would not get up after he was hit by them. At least Zeus hoped that would be enough to get rid of that particular threat.