After the first one was written, feedback on led to refining ideas based on arguments and criticisms possessed. Among these elements are characterization, themes explored, and other such things.
The following was written with those feedbacks in mind, shorter but designed to enhance characterization of the _. Enjoy
The _ Wars Draft 2: The Dogged, the Anti-Hunter
When he had begun their quest to ensure the world would not have a fixed expiration date, there were many things that he would have to sacrifice to make the better world.
He gave up being openly called his name. He was fine with it (his name wasn't Larry, but it was no big to give up), but they existed in a world where names had power and so had to take a pseudonym.
It was why he took to calling himself The Mighty: the other was because he was fond of the reference.
He, a Son of the Thunder God Thor, and a fan of more forms of entertainment than many would assume him to be.
He also knew to do it, they would make a few enemies, and probably kill someone who did not need to die.
Not a monster who was never human. Not a soldier who gave up part of their humanity. But a true innocent, or perhaps a hero, merely fighting for the wrong cause.
He had seen these heroes, battling against evil in a city he was visiting at the time, trapped by magic in time and sleep. Those were true warriors, true heroes. A status made pinnacle by a specific warrior whose skin was impervious and who commanded the waters.
Not like the ones in the west. Not even the commander who flew through the skies was close to them.
The ones in New York inspired him: he learned what he was and what was real in the world. He learned he possessed great strength, and could electrocute snake women with a single punch.
He also learned from someone the heroes did not see that there was even more to the world, and that two myths were true.
He had seen a Valkyrie that night, taking two demigods from the evil side, and knew that just as there was truth to the stories of Titans, so was the story of Giants.
The story of the end of everything.
He was shortly met by others who would help ensure that such a story would become fiction.
However, he had to admit he felt like they had made a mistake recently, in a new member they had recruited to save the world.
The very same one whose came in the woods he was walking in, said camp's fire drawing him in through the bushes and into the clearing where the trouble stood.
They stared at each other silently, frowns on both of their faces.
The similarities between them only extended to being male and having white skin: while he was as muscular and tall as his title of The Mighty suggested, the other was thinner, more built to run and strike quickly than hit with the power of a mountain.
Against his long head of red hair fiery as fire was a short dark mop of hair, blue eyes like glacier water staring into black eyes that burned.
"I wasn't expecting company." The newest member of their group who had taken up the title The Dogged, mumbled.
"I go where I please. Our operations are on hold while The Incorrigible deals with some loose threads, sort of speak." He meant literal threads, but it sounded better when he said it like that.
At least to him.
"If you here to offer your help, I don't need it. I am all my crusade of justice needs." The Dogged declared in a tone that sounded just...
It was the tone someone used when they said 'I am X, welcome to pain.'
"I'd sooner tell you to take your crusade and go kill something that would generate more chaos than a Hunter."
The Dogged stared at him, eyes dark.
"You are well aware I am not in this for saving the world. Doing that is a side benefit. No, this is for protecting people. Protecting families. For revenge."
He really wanted to roll his eyes at the way he said the last part.
"Revenge... the most worthless of causes." He quipped back.
"The Hunters destroyed my family. They seduced my sister." The Dogged growled, almost like the first three letters of his title.
"She was eleven last I checked, you should watch your phrasing." Why was he sounding reasonable today?
No seriously, he was not the smart person of their organization. His job was to hit things. He was the one they were going to throw at Gods, not flyting them away.
The Dogged stood up and began pacing around the fire. A dark aura hung around his body, much like a mirror of what would happen to a Hunter similarly angered.
This similarity was probably something unnoticed.
"You know what they did, you all saw my memories. They approached her at her weakest, after our ass of a father yelled at her and told her that there were no dreams for her. No college, no career, nothing. They offered her sweet words and honey about making her feel better and taking her away from her horrible life, even while I was taking the blunt of our father's anger..."
"And the way you talk about them, the Hunters must be drug dealers." He was sure that Artemis had better things to do than push hemp.
"They are of the same mold."
...Why did the hire this guy?
"Okay...clearly you want to go and kill every Hunter of Artemis, who I am sure you think are responsible for killing Kennedy, launching 9/11, creating the Comics Code Authority, and cancelling Firefly among who knows what else. As much as I think you are barking up the wrong tree and that I half expect you to call the Hunters 'Death, and Crime, and the Rage of the Beast' next, I'm overruled on this one and killing Hunters will add fuel to the Chaos Circuit so it actually would do something...do you really think you can kill them all? I mean sure, that Demititan is dead, but a Daughter of Zeus is a Daughter of Zeus. If Hera hasn't killed her yet, she's hardly an easy kill."
The Dogged glared at the darkness at the mention of said Demititan.
"The Titan may have taken that creature out for me, but they are all guilty. They will be stopped. The only hunter left will be the Goddess, and I will ensure she pays in godly flesh."
The only good thing in that sentence was the tone was clearly of 'I will shoot her eye out' and not something more disturbing. Sure, that would fuel the chaos circuit...but that would be evil.
Utterly, utterly evil.
"Yes, now how do you plan on killing someone else who can shoot lightning? You've hardly asked to practice on me." The Dogged grinned as the dark aura around him, a sinister power that heralded the fact he now was an equal to a Hunter in skills and power bar aging, exploded out around him.
He took a step back in shock at what was going on. It was as if he had taken what he had, his own hunting power, and increased so much it was as if he had gone from Hunter, to a power beyond Hunter.
A 'Super Hunter', if he was to make the reference. All that was missing was spiky hair changing color.
"How are you...oh Gods what the hell did you do!"
The Dogged grinned back at him.
"All of us were given more power by consuming evil hearts given form by the Ring of Andvari."
Yes, that was the case. He himself stuck said ring on the finger of a true evil person: guilty of so many crimes that no one would miss him when he turned into a dragon.
Or when he killed said dragon and consumed his heart to gain more power.
They had all done that: the Dogged had killed his father that way.
It was a death that he agreed with, the man had earned it. Not back when he was just the kind of person who thought girls shouldn't go to college or get careers, if just because that wasn't evil, but in the aftermath of his daughter going off to be a hunter/running away he slid into true abuse.
The day The Dogged lost his sister was the first day he was struck. The last day was when the Ring of Andvari was put on the father's finger.
"The Daughter of Zeus was in charge when my sister died, I knew I would need more to kill her. So I took steps to alleviate the difference between Demigod and Mortal: I ate a second heart."
The dark glow of the Super Hunter darkened the night as he had to ask.
"Who did you harvest?"
"The only thing worse than a parent who strikes their child, is the one who lets it happen as she watches." The Dogged simply said as the darkness took a solid form in his left hand as a bow made of smoking shadows.
"I finished it before you arrived. My hunt is now ready to begin."
The Duality was waiting for him, playing a card game with The Multitude.
That was a bad idea: the Multitude cheated at card games, yet you could never tell when she was being dodgy.
And what was before she was enhanced by a Dragon Heart beyond the typical abilities of a Daughter of Loki.
Duality, wisely, placed his cards on the table face down as he turned to face him. The Multitude had a faux good-natured pout on her face for the move.
"So you've been to see him." Duality stated simply.
"Why did we recruit that nutjob?" Mighty was blunt.
The Duality did not answer, and so he continued.
"That...thing, is completely delusional. He's not just a few arrows short of a quiver, he's completely nuts. He ate his parents's hearts!"
"Can't say they didn't deserve it." Multitude shrugged.
"The father maybe, but the mother was too far. He's a freakin' psychopath!"
"I'd call him more of a sociopath myself. His behavior is a result of childhood trauma and was not something he was born with." The Duality simple stated.
"Any sort of 'path' is too much 'path'! We're trying to save the world, and he just wants to kill Hunters!"
"And to do so he'll fall to someone's hand, somewhere. In the meantime, we can see how the Olympians react. The chaos he'll generate will also give The Incorrigible time to work, as well as see just how powerful the Greeks are."
"I can tell you everything you need." The Mighty reminded him.
"Perhaps, but multiple sources is always for the best. In the meanwhile...I would like to play the long game. A gambit if you will." The Duality pulled out of his pocket a clay lump, which he waved a hand over. It morphed a bit, forming into the form of the Huntress Lietenant Thalia Grace.
"I could do that with realistic dimensions." The Multitude quipped in a Jersey accent.
"Figurines are less likely to exaggerate the bust size." The Duality quipped as a Mythomagic figurine floated out to join the Thalia figure.
"Lupa." The Mighty identified as the Duality nodded.
"We don't need The Dogged to stay around, what we need is for him to put the right people in the right place. The Chaos Circuit would be well fed by a Civil War, and the brewing crisis in the Olympian's sphere will be a wonderful place to test the death of fate. We can work to both with the Dogged, Thalia, and Lupa."
"More specifically, Lupa's house. Here's how we see it...Thalia kills the Dogged at the Wolf House. Thalia burns the Wolf House down. Demigod Civil War. You can even team up with your idol when it happens, it will serve us well." The Multitude noted.
"You're missing a few steps." The Mighty liked the idea of him and Percy Jackson teaming up to destroy the Soldiers of New Rome, but the plan had a few holes.
Holes large enough for Jorgumundur and Typhon to waltz through doing the horizontal tango.
"We have a few ideas to incite Thalia to arson, and they will be implemented in time. Be it by rage or madness or misdirection, she will burn the proving ground of the Romans. She will begin a conflict that will generate the greatest spring of chaos possible, in which we will draw in as much as possible into it. The Per Ankh, the Nine Realms, all will be a part of it. Meanwhile we will render the Prophecy of Seven dead, then Ragnarok. Then the very concept of a fixed fate." The Duality declared as he used the Thalia clay figurine to knock over Lupa's.
"The Dogged is the spark that will start the fire to save the world."