Reincarnation in a Nutshell
Plot Bunny
The Life and Times of Proteus Jackson
I died.
It sucked.
A lot.
Then again, being splattered across the bridge of your own starship when you are forced out of high velocity hypertravel will do that to you.
Fucking aliens. We didn't know they had hyper window dissipation technology.
It was supposed to be theoretical.
Not that it mattered to me anymore. I was no longer alive. The darkness I was encased in lasted for an uncountable amount of time. I had no visual cues, not even physical ones, to calibrate my mental clock to.
Death, if this was indeed death, fucking sucked. It was boring. Mind-numbingly so.
Thankfully I had my mindscape to keep me occupied. I did research on things I never had to the time to when I was alive. Investigated those mysteries of the universe and Life itself that just get pushed to the back of your mind when you have other shit to do.
But still the timelessness, the boredom, continued. Until one moment, after a particularly strong, yet failed, assault on my mental shields, suddenly my sensors had something to measure time with again.
I had a heartbeat.
I also felt warm, cozy and safe. My mind was fully aware of where I was only ten seconds after the heartbeat began.
A womb.
I was a fetus. Shit.
I'll spare you the agony of retelling my time as a bun in the oven. Even now I don't like to remember much of it. Being fully aware of how little of your body actually exists, and how much you look exactly like an alien reptile, is not pleasant.
I developed. Was born. Met my new mom in this life. Learned her name. Met my brother, and found out his name. I was a little worried at that point, but both my mom and brother had a name that could theoretically be from anywhere.
Then I met my new dad. I learned his name via whisper.
And I promptly almost shit myself.
I was born to Sally Jackson, the twin brother of Percy Jackson.
Yep.
We were both sons of Poseidon.
My new life became instantly more complicated than I could have ever dreamed. I'd somehow been reborn into a classical, fictional universe. And as if that wasn't enough?
We also had a sister. Rhea Jackson. Our triplet. She was a couple of minutes later than both us boys. Explained why it was so cramped in there, though.
The worst part, though? The absolute worst?
Sally Jackson named me Proteus.
After the shape-shifting seal herder.
Seriously.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
-LB-
I'd identified the power of the Sea immediately, along with the hardwiring for Greek and the ADHD and Dyslexia that came with it.
I shut those two ailments down hard. Simple neuronal control and isolating the godly parts of myself in their own system accomplished this. Sadly I could not do the same for Percy and Rhea, my siblings. They were not mentally developed enough to have a mind, much less a mindscape.
One day, I promised myself.
I didn't see Poseidon again until Percy, Rhea and I's first birthday. He knocked on the door to the apartment. Sally, mom, left me with my two siblings so she could answer the door. From basically the second I was born I had near total control over every aspect of my being. That was, after all, the result of hundreds of years of mental training and discipline. Not to mention that my mindscape was essentially a control panel for my entire physical being. It was due to this that she thought me responsible enough to care for my siblings while she was out of the room.
Anyways, Poseidon came in to see us. He picked up Percy and Rhea first, given they squealed at the comforting presence of his aura of power. I was also comforted, but again, total mental control helped with many things.
The time came for he and I to meet, officially, face to face, instead of face to… whatever weird thing newborns had. I knew gods could read minds, after all, I had already milked that ability out of my divine core. I was curious as to what my new dad would sense.
The moment he picked me up, he almost dropped me again. "Poseidon!" Sally shrieked, grabbing me from his arms.
The Lord of the Sea stood stock still, staring at me in confusion. I grinned and waved a baby hand at him. He had scanned my mind almost absentmindedly, but hit a shield so strong it tossed him back into his own mind with a vengeance.
"What's wrong?" Sally asked. She clearly knew that look well.
Poseidon tilted his head to the side, looking so much like a lost, confused puppy that I chuckled. No, I did not let out a baby giggle. That would be embarrassing.
"Something is odd about him," Poseidon finally said.
Sally hugged me protectively. "What do you mean?" she asked, a dangerous flatness to her tone.
Poseidon clearly heard it too. He gulped. It tickled my funny bone that the almighty Sea God was scared of little old mortal mom. "He… Sally, he has mental defenses the likes of which I haven't observed in millennia," he explained.
I grinned and opened a mental thought channel to them both. Poseidon's defenses were admittedly formidable, but I wasn't trying to crack through them. Just… sit on top of them. That would be because the Fates, or whoever decided to reincarnate me, were incapable of breaching my mind so as to wipe the slate clean, I thought.
Sally yelped in surprise. Poseidon's eyes shot wide open and he hesitantly took a step back. "Who are you?" he growled.
Proteus Jackson, I grinned at him.
Despite her confusion and panic, you could hear the beginnings of a decidedly female coo in my mom's chest. Well, if you were pressed against it like I was.
The less said about how much I had to snuggle in her voluptuous mounds as a baby, both to eat and to rest, the better.
The Lord of the Sea growled at me. "Who were you, then?" he demanded.
Not an enemy, I stated. I couldn't very well tell him I was previously the captain of a starship light years more advanced than anything on this Earth from over half a millennium in the future, now could I?
On reflection of that time of my life, it would have been massively entertaining. Too bad.
"That does not answer my question, Proteus," he shot back.
I shrugged my little baby shoulders. It's not important anymore. I'm Proteus. You and Sally are my dad and mom now. So what if I'm already mentally developed? I asked. With a frown I smacked my little stomach with my little hands. I still have to grow up for it to be any use. Or for it to show.
"Proteus," my mom said gently. I turned my wide baby eyes to look up at her beautiful, confused face and tilted my head. "How are you talking in our heads?" I was very glad she hadn't rejected me. Despite my older mind and emotions, there was a new set of them from this body. I needed her as my mom.
"I'm interested in that as well," Poseidon remarked.
I shrugged my shoulders and grinned at my mom. Simple. When one has control over their body and mind like I do, and a new system is introduced… like the power of the Sea, I began explaining, grinning more widely when Poseidon sucked in a tense breath, one can take that system and feed it back into itself. Usually it's not quite this effective, but I have the advantage of being both a baby, giving my body pliability, and being half freaking god. I have more power to start with than most mortals do, so the initial feedback cycle was massive. I simply let the energy build up continually. With this I've gained a lot of power in a very short amount of time. It allowed me to start grabbing godly power, of the standard kind like mind projection and reading, plus others, and integrate them into my being. I locked my gaze on the literally shaking with terror dad in the room. You'd be surprised how many abilities are just floating at the surface of a demigod's raw power, waiting to be utilized.
My dad's face drained of the illusion of blood it presented. "Are you a god?" he asked with a whisper.
Sally gasped and glared at me. I smiled sheepishly, managing to rub the back of my head with embarrassment. No? Not yet. I suppose that eventually I might be capable of converting my blood to ichor, but… I don't really want to try anything like that with the body of a baby, I told them.
Poseidon let out a relieved breath. "I am glad you have not inherited my impulsiveness, Proteus."
I let out a cute baby snort. Sally cooed a bit and tightened her grip on me. Trust me, Percy took all of that and more. I doubt either myself or Rhea will have any impulsive thoughts at all given how ridiculous he is.
Sally nodded at Poseidon's questioning eyebrow. "He does seem to be rather… careless, Poseidon," she admitted.
I brought my hands up to my face to drag them down it in mock pain. You have no idea. Remember that I'm the one who's in his room with him all day. I swear dad, I don't know if you meant to make the quintessential demigod, but Percy is it.
Poseidon sighed. "That probably means he will be the heroic one. He'll lead a life of danger." He looked to my mom and took one of her hands gently. "Sally, please reconsider my offer."
She shook her head with an exasperated expression. "Poseidon, you know I won't. I… I can't accept your offer, you know this," she refuted him. "You're a god, I'm a mortal. I can't go with you-"
Unlike how the books undoubtedly went, there was another, much more logical being present. Mom, I interrupted her.
The near hysterics she was in cut off abruptly. "Yes, Proteus?"
I whacked her lightly on the arm holding me up and sent her a glare. Stop being an idiot, please.
She was taken aback. "Proteus!" she scolded me.
I ignored her and turned to the chuckling Poseidon. Dad, what exactly is this 'offer'?
He got a deer in the headlights look at how I caught him laughing at my actions, but eventually coughed into his hand. "I love your mother, your siblings, and even you, despite your real age," at this he glared half heartedly for a moment, "more than I've ever loved anyone before. I don't really know why, but… Sally, completes me. Nobody else has ever done that. I want to be part of your lives, I want to do my part to take care of you, financially if nothing else. I'm a god, and yet… Your mom, Percy, Rhea, and you are my whole world," he said. The outpouring of love and devotion was so thick it almost made me lose what little control I had over my baby stomach and puke.
Mom lapped it up.
"Poseidon," she gasped, holding her free hand to her heart. She was crying out a flood of tears, so much that I was getting drenched.
Dad I sure hope my water breathing abilities work in a sea of tears! I yelled at him.
Sally choked with laughter and hurriedly wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry Proteus," she whimpered.
I gently pat her chest with my small first to reassure her. It's okay, mom, but only if you accept Dad's help. I was twisting the knife of her affection for me, yes, but it was for her and I and my siblings' own good.
Poseidon sent me a knowing look. I just grinned at him out of the side of my mouth as my mom considered it.
She finally sighed in defeat and nodded. "Alright Poseidon," she said, "Proteus has convinced me." Abruptly her tears dried up and an aura of power escaped her being for a moment. I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been literally encased in her arms at that moment. It was highly unlikely my dad did. "I won't accept charity though," she seethed.
My mortal mom somehow generated an aura of power. I wasn't sure how given she had the energy density of a lead brick. Maybe I'd been wrong, sensed a reflection of my own power off her soul. My mind came up with hundreds of reasons, all not remotely close to the answer I instinctively knew to be true and would inevitably discover later on.
But why would one of them be hiding as a mortal? Moreover what did this mean for my siblings and I?
Poseidon gulped but pulled her and I into a deep hug anyways. "They're my kids too, Sally," he breathed in her ear. Her breath caught in her throat and I could feel her nipples begin to get hard, pressing into my side. "I'll support you and them any way you let me."
I let out a baby groan when her nipples became rock hard. If you two are gonna make me a new brother or sister, would you please not do it with me IN YOUR ARMS?! I bellowed in their minds.
Both their eyes grew wide and they scooted back from each other so fast I giggled. My body still liked being jostled around and carried. "We're not-" Sally began.
"We weren't-" Poseidon tried.
I huffed. Save it for a baby you can actually fool, I told them.
Needless to say, later that night I was covering my innocent siblings' virgin ears. I don't think it prevented all the noise our parents were making from reaching them, though.
Gods I hoped Rhea or Percy weren't also reincarnated like me.
-LB-
Time flew on. My siblings and I grew. Our mom eventually got pregnant again, though not for a lack of trying. I suppose they were trying to get their kicks in before my siblings could understand what they were doing. My mom had twin girls this time. I was five at the moment of their birth and very much capable of helping out my mom around the house. Something neither she or my dad knew was that I had successfully replicated and integrated literally every godly ability Poseidon had in his essence into myself for conscious control. Teleporting, or as the gods called it 'flashing', telekinesis, mist control, telepathy, shape shifting (only to complete my namesake) and even reality manipulation. The last one was actually the only one I couldn't pull off with my demigod energy core; it took too much raw power.
I'd solved that by the time I was six.
The reality I'd come from was incredibly advanced. It was definitely a different reality, evident due to some pretty glaring historical differences between what I'd studied in my first life and what this new world had. We'd had a third world war in the eighties, this world had an era of electronic music and headbanging. My original 21st century Earth was united; here there were still nation states. None of that really mattered to me though. What did matter is that the technology from my universe worked here just fine.
I couldn't create near most of the techs I was intimately familiar with due to the fact they required materials either not yet invented, discovered, or that didn't exist on either Earth. I had to travel far back in my memory to my primary school years, a time when we learned of Humanity's first step into the stars. About low-factor warp vessels, nanite reconstruction systems, and magnetically accelerated weaponry. Nothing on my native hyperdrives, energy-matter conversion stream creation machines, or phased particle beam cannons. Still, they would and did serve my purposes until I could establish a more advanced technology base.
These nanites were the key to enabling use of purely godly abilities without converting my blood to ichor. Their primary purpose when invented was to reorganize matter into different things, a primitive version of the matter stream technology I was used to. In this instance they had a massive advantage over matter stream tech; nanites were physical objects, and thus, could act as capacitors.
I basically made my own version of ichor with them. It cooperated with my normal blood, coexisting peacefully inside my body. After the injection procedure and enough days to reach full saturation, every one of my normal cells was bonded to at least eight nanites. They were as much a part of my body as my organic cells were. I just had a lot more control over them.
This lead to a shocking discovery when Poseidon flashed into our apartment one day. Usually he arrived outside the door, but it was a hard week for him, and as such his targeting was just a bit wrong. His entire godly being burst into existence less than a foot in front of my face.
I had no time to close my eyes.
The raw power of a god's true form bombarded my mortal soul. It was like bathing in a supernova. If I hadn't gone through the nanite injection procedure mere days earlier I would have been dead. My soul and my body wiped away by solar wind so much stronger than Sol's. Instead of what I imagine the Fates would very much like to see occur, my nanites absorbed all of the energy into themselves. I found out a hundredth the way through that process that the nanites had maxed out their capacitors. Being that I'd forgotten to turn off their adaptation protocols, the damn things used primitive actual matter streams to multiply a billion times. To be fair, this forgetfulness saved my life. I left the adaptation protocols on after that. I was much more machine than man then, but the raw power my body possessed would make Zeus cry for his mommy, and my sister wouldn't have helped him.
-LB-
Oh yeah. Remember that hope I had that my sister wouldn't be reincarnated?
She was.
Our mother named her aptly, for she was the new life of Rhea, mother of the Olympian gods.
She didn't know this yet, of course. I found out due to my telepathy. I could see past the mental blockage keeping her old memories from her new self. This brought a whole new level of moral conflict to me. She was happy like she was. My little sister was carefree, loving, and wouldn't hurt a fly even if it bit her. I resolved, eventually, that unless she asked, I wouldn't say squat. I sensed the memories would unlock on their own at some point anyways.
Percy, thankfully, was normal. He was, well, Percy Jackson. Hot tempered, untameable, rebel, and fiercely loyal to his family and friends. I unfortunately fell under that umbrella as his little brother.
Oh yes. Percy was the oldest. 'Little Proteus' was younger than him by literally thirty seconds, but I was still his 'lil bro'.
Oh how that smarted. I had a kid centuries younger than me calling me his younger.
Ah well.
The twin girls, us triplet's younger siblings, were named by Poseidon. Althea and Ceto Jackson. Technically, and I was literally the only one besides my dad who knew,Ceto was named by Neptune, as she was conceived by him. Yeah, her twin was Greek, but she was Roman. How the hell that worked? No clue.
Althea was kind, not like Rhea in the motherly way, but more like a good friend who'd always be there to help you up when you got shot down. Ceto was her near polar opposite. Not cruel, but certainly with a sadistic streak, she pranked the ever living shit out of the entire household. She was commandeering and almost self-important. A true Roman. The only person she lessened the pranks and commanding on was me, and that was because I could give her back just as good as I got. I had after all been a captain of thousands. My lil sis had nothing on that experience.
All of us children embodied a state the Sea could take. Percy was (no surprise) the untameable wild, the stormy adventure upon which sailors would set forth. Rhea was the life-giving aspect of water, she nurtured damn near everything. I swear, she had more pets in a year than the rest of us had in our whole childhoods. Althea and Ceto were the supportive and helpful, or mischievous and destructive states.
I was the one to watch out for, though.
For there was one state of the Sea left out. It was this which my new demigod personality and my old mind united to form.
I was calm most of the time, a deep thinker, and experimented to my heart's content with whatever struck my fancy. But I put Percy's loyalty and Ceto's sadism to shame if you dared to harm someone whom I considered family. This included my friends. Many bullies at the various schools my siblings and I attended learned the hard way not to mess with a Jackson or else the second son would find them and hurt them.
Badly.
I was the calm before the storm. The flat surface before a hurricane. The withdrawing tide before a tsunami. And if you managed to provoke me, I was all those and more combined.
I was the raging heart of the Ocean, and I had power surpassing the gods themselves at my fingertips.
That's why Sally never had to marry Gabe. It's why Poseidon was scared enough of me to introduce us to Amphitrite and Triton. My state of being was recognized by both of them, gaining instant respect. Apparently I was much more like my father than I thought. We all became a family under my direction, unlike the enmity that Poseidon's wife and heir felt with literally all other children of my father. Sally and Amphitrite became inseparable. She learned to love my dad again, just as she had in the beginning and as my mom always did. Triton doted on us younger siblings, even I, like an older brother should. And I say even I because I was a royal pain in the ass to him at the best of times. Poseidon had two women who loved him more than life itself, and the heir's bitter outlook on his existence was blown to smithereens. Eventually Poseidon got married in a mortal church as Paul Olympia to Sally Jackson.
Yeah, he had two wives, both hot as hell and which loved the ever living shit out of him. Amphitrite became a second mom to us. Sally became similar to Triton.
And despite not wishing to, I knew for a fact they both shared the master bedroom with my dad. And each other.
Teaches me to walk in on them in the middle of the night, I guess. Though I wonder if it was possible for Sally and Amphitrite to conceive a child together? She was a goddess, and I'd confirmed that Sally wasn't exactly mortal either. Just what she was I was still unclear on, but in theory, they should have been capable of it.
They sure as hell were trying hard to do so when I walked in that night.
My temperament and power were also ultimately why we never had to worry about monster attacks. I registered as a god or a titan to their noses, while I was downplaying my energy output. Somehow the actual gods couldn't sense this; shows what an advantage instinctual existence can be.
But eventually good things must come to an end. Well, if you had the Fates directing the path of time, anyways.
The first one came when I was nine. The scent of so much power, four demigods of one of the Big Three, was too much for a certain bull faced son of an animal lover to resist even with a godlike being, me, present. He probably thought I was beholden to those pesky Ancient Laws. It would be the last monster attack just as it was the first.
-LB-
Against the warnings of the Fates, he attacked our home. Broke down our front door and bellowed out in rage while pounding his chest with one hand and ramming the butt of his gigantic war axe into our rug.
I didn't even have to lift a finger.
My nanites had long since become an airborne weapon I carried with me, and which surrounded me, at all times. Invisibly, of course, and they routed around physical entities in order to prevent detection.
They tore him apart, molecule by molecule, in a second flat. I absentmindedly lifted the giant axe and the two horns left behind as spoils into my room, closing the door on my nanite thread's way out.
I had to reveal several truths that day to my very much present family. The deities in the room were incredibly disturbed when I commanded the maelstrom of nanites circling me in the air to drop their invisibility cloaks.
"Proteus," Poseidon growled, glaring at the billions of dark specks of dust billowing around me, "what is this?"
I raised an eyebrow over my book and grinned at him. "Now now dad, do you really want to blow this particular secret at this moment in time?" I gestured to every sibling except Triton. They were watching me curiously, my sisters with badly hidden interest and Percy barely focusing. He was focused, though. I hadn't done revelations often with my siblings but they knew when one was about to happen.
The godly power drained out of his voice. "Uh," he stammered, looking at the rest of the Jackson family, "no, not really, no."
I shrugged and returned to my book. Percy wasn't having it though.
"Explain, dad," he demanded, his tone dangerously tense, "why exactly the freaking Minotaur actually exists, and clearly decided to attack us?"
I couldn't resist the chance to see how Poseidon would handle this. He initially looked to Sally for aid, but she and I exchanged a coded look instead. She nodded agreement to my unsaid request and just sat back with crossed arms, her grin matching mine. "You're on your own with this one, Poseidon," she declared.
Percy had watched the exchange intensely. He'd never quite been able to decode our mom and I's unique communication method. The second mom said our dad's real name instead of the one he'd picked for the mortal world, ironically enough Paul, my brother locked his gaze on our dad like a missile. "Dad? Why did she call you Poseidon?"
Our dad glanced momentarily to the Martini slipping Amphitrite and his eldest son, Triton. Our biggest bro grinned back at him and hugged our two youngest sisters more tightly. Amphitrite scoffed and took another sip of her drink. "Good luck on this one, husband. It will surely be entertaining."
Percy's eyebrows rose. Amphitrite had just revealed the true nature of their relationship to everyone not in the know. "Wait, if Amphe is our dad's wife, then what is our mom to you?" He growled this, glaring at Poseidon.
Our dad gulped from the raw terror the waves of power flowing off Percy instigated in him. I'd been giving all my siblings, Triton included, power boosts over the years. Clandestinely, of course. Triton was a major god now, not that he noticed, and my siblings and I were a hair's breadth shy of proper immortal existence. "Sally is also my wife," dad eventually managed to stammer out.
Percy looked shocked to hell. "You're both married to him?" he asked Amphitrite and our mom.
"Yes," came the Sea Queen's regal response, as always.
"Yes Percy," our mom smiled at him kindly.
Percy muttered 'polygamy' under his breath as he collapsed back into our couch. His mind was whirling a mile a minute. I snorted and grinned. "Well, we are Greek," I slyly exposed.
Before my brother could complete his thoughts, our sister Rhea gasped. My eyes shot open with alarm and I had to drop my book. It was delayed after hearing our dad's real name, but it seemed her memories were unlocking far earlier than they should have been. "Stupefy!" I cried out, sending a stunning spell from my hand into our oldest sister's body.
She slumped down unconscious into the couch Percy, she and I rested on. My remaining conscious siblings dropped their jaws.
"Proteus? What the hell was that?" Ceto demanded.
Party's over, dad, I told Poseidon.
He glared back at me and almost growled. Why did you expose the mythical world? We might have been able to convince your siblings that nothing was wrong, he scolded me. His eyebrow abruptly raised slightly and his glare morphed to a smirk. Wait, was that a spell from Harry Potter?
"Yes dad, it was a spell," I answered him out loud. This had the side effect of informing my siblings something wasn't normal.
As if the billowing nanite winds hadn't done that already. As for why I did that, I told our dad silently, there is more to Rhea than you know. I had to prevent a violent awakening.
Poseidon's eyes widened. Is she reincarnated, like you?
Reincarnated, yes, I answered, like me? No.
"Lil bro," Percy unknowingly interrupted, gently putting a hand on my arm, "a spell? Are you a… a wizard, like that Toileter guy?"
Althea and Ceto abruptly giggled at Percy's continual lack of naming skills. "His name is Harry Potter, for reference," I corrected him with a withering glare, "and no. Our existence?" I motioned to everyone in the room, "is a lot bigger than that."
Contrary to popular belief, my brother wasn't dumb. "Okay, you obviously know about what's really going on. Why don't you sum it up for me?" he asked.
I grinned at our dad before agreeing to Percy's request with a nod. "Okay. Simple, high level explanation," I began. "Our dad, 'Paul' isn't actually named Paul. His name is Poseidon. Yes. The Poseidon. The gods are real. Most myths... are real." Percy's eyebrows had almost hit orbit, and I wasn't remotely done yet. I pointed to our oldest brother and his mom quickly. "Amphe, our second mom, is actually Amphitrite, Queen of the Sea, a Greek goddess. Trion is actually Triton, Greek god of…" I trailed off at this, raising an eyebrow at him and smirking. "What the hell are you the god of, again?"
Triton stuck out his tongue at me. "Mature!" Althea said, causing our two awake sisters to burst into giggles again. He did answer with a short "Tides and Waves," though.
"Right well, Triton is our big bro by several millennia. Minor god of, uh, Tides and Waves. We," and with this I indicated Percy, Rhea, Althea, Ceto, and myself in turn, "are demigods. Half mortal, half god. Or goddess, I guess," I corrected myself, indicating our sisters.
Percy blinked once.
Twice.
Three times.
His face abruptly broke out in a teasing grin. "Okay lil bro, you got me." He turned to look at the rest of the family and raised both hands. "You all got me. Good prank. Ceto did you help with this?" he asked, indicating the maelstrom of nanite dust.
My face grew dark and my tone gained a warning deadness to it. "This is not a joke, Percy."
"Hahaha, of course it is," Percy denied, rapidly looking between all our serious faces desperately. Well, almost all of us were serious. Triton and our little sisters were engaged in a spontaneous tickle fight. "Guys? This has to be a joke."
I grinned and held up a hand. Using my connection to the Sea, I summoned our dad's Trident into my hand. This wasn't the first time I'd done so, and thus the rush of power as the Sea accepted me did not occur this time.
It scared the shit out of our dad and Percy though.
My brother's eyes were wider than they have ever been. "Is that…?" he barely whispered.
"THAT'S MY TRIDENT!" Poseidon exploded. He glowed slightly and summoned his battle armor onto his form, standing up with a growl. "HOW DID YOU SUMMON IT?!"
Percy witnessed our dad's freakout disbelievingly. "Okay. That's it. I'm high. I have to be high," he murmured.
I stood up as well, staring down our dad. "Dad, cool it. The Sea is still yours. I haven't usurped you. I'm just… cheating. A little."
Poseidon crossed his arms. "EXPLAIN."
"Simple. The Sea is a domain and is thus accessible to anyone with the right… password, I guess you could say," I began explaining, absently twirling the Trident around in my hand. "Now, children of you don't have enough of your essence, your very being, to register as the same entity to the domain. That's why you're the ultimate authority of the Sea."
Poseidon's eyebrows raised. He lost his godly tone as his curiosity rose. "Are… are you using science to figure out how the mythical world works, Proteus?" Despite himself, he was impressed.
I grinned at our dad, almost a smirk. "Yup. Because of what you see above me, these specks of dust," I gestured to the nanite winds that were still bellowing about, "I can do a lot of scientific study on things mortals wouldn't be capable of even believing, much less comprehending." With this my grin grew a little sadistic and our dad stepped back slightly. Oh yes, I'd trained him well. "Such as decrypting, decoding, and copying your essence signature so I can command the Sea with your authority as well."
Poseidon actually gulped with fear. "Could you do that to… anyone? Anything?"
I shrugged and absently waved a whirlpool of nanites around my free hand. "Probably. Give me enough time and I could command any god's domain at their authority level. Probably much more efficiently too, given my unique… abilities." I was being vague on purpose. It always irritated me that people in stories played the pronoun game, but in this new life I discovered why they did.
It was fun.
My mom was finally becoming concerned now. Probably worried that I would discover her secret. Not just worried about that, genuinely scared for my well being, but it must have been there. "Proteus?" she gently asked, "What abilities?"
I smirked at her and prepared to utilize my own method of transportation. My body burst into molecules, evaporating into the air around me.
Sally screamed. Poseidon roared.
Percy jumped off the couch and bolted into another room. This was clearly too much for him.
My two younger sisters and Triton just rolled their eyes. They'd seen me do this before. Their freakout had been legendary.
After a couple of seconds, I used my nanites to assemble a carbon copy of my body on the other side of the room. It looked like the process was going in reverse, a human preteen materializing from strands of molecules in the air. A second later my new body was finished and I opened my eyes, grinning.
Mom was livid. "PROTEUS JACKSON, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"
I indicated the nanite winds around me with a hand. I suddenly remembered that I still had Dad's Trident in my hand, and had disassembled and reassembled it. That wasn't supposed to be possible, even for me. That must explain why Poseidon, Amphitrite, and even Triton were looking at me as if they'd seen a ghost.
"Heh, well," I began with a sheepish smile. I walked over to dad and laid the Trident in his frozen hand. He looked like he wanted to jump away in fright. Maybe I'd overdone my presentation.
"These specks of dust," I started to explain again, "are nanites. Molecular machines. For those stuck in the Greek era, think of them like my dear cousin Hephy's automatons, just incredibly small."
Literally everyone except me dropped their jaws in surprise. Actually… that's not entirely true. Percy was in his room shaking and trembling, muttering something about never doing drugs ever again.
"Proteus, I don't care how small Hephaestus' automatons could get, they wouldn't allow you to teleport," Poseidon declared.
I shrugged. I had my nanites assemble two other bodies around the room, one with purple hair and another with blond hair, just for kicks. Sally, Amphitrite and my dad yelped. Triton was actively spinning his head round to take in the impossibility of three of his brother existing. My sisters just broke down with laughter.
"I didn't teleport, dad," my blond haired body stated.
Poseidon whirled around to glare at me. "Who are you? My son is behind me!"
My purple haired body was next. "Not quite. Technically, I'm above your heads," I told them. All three bodies gestured to the nanite winds near the high ceiling of our apartment. I increased the speed and count of the nanites that had decloaked, morphing into something resembling a darkened metal hurricane.
"What do you mean, Proteus?" Sally asked.
Amphitrite was the one who figured it out. "Oh my. You've moved beyond a body, haven't you?" she asked me, staring at the eye of the hurricane with wonder. "Yet you are not a god. How is this possible?"
I broke up all three bodies into nanites and organic molecules, causing them to join my 'true form'. Simple, I broadcast to their minds. These nanites are me, now. They have been since Dad flashed in right in front of me, giving me no time to close my eyes or turn around.
Both my moms snapped their heads to Poseidon and gained angry glares. "You did WHAT?!" Sally screamed.
Poseidon gulped. Even Triton was glaring at him. "But… Proteus, you said you were fine. You lived," he said. He was almost pleading with me to save him from his wives. "I thought you had time to avoid exposure."
Not quite dad. I would have been dead if I hadn't taken the initial saturation injection of these nanites shortly before that incident. As it was, you did almost fry my soul. My nanites absorbed the energy, maxed out, replicated like crazy, and took the rest of your energy that had hit me. I haven't been human since that day.
Poseidon actually teared up a little. "I'm sorry, Proteus. I'm so sorry."
The body I'd silently assembled behind him was what I spoke through next. "Ah, don't be, dad. I'm so much more than I could have ever been due to that accident. And hey, I can still be human by assembling a human body, so no harm done, right?"
Not gonna lie, I did that on purpose. My dad leaped out of his skin, almost. "Damn it, Proteus, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
I grinned at him and scoffed. "We are both immortal, dad. Both so far beyond normal existence. Neither one of us could possibly suffer heart failure."
The room was deadly silent for a good ten seconds. "Immortal?" Althea and Ceto asked in unison. They had twin-speak down to an art form.
Our dad was pale as a sheet. "Yes, well," I said, adjourning to my original position besides our mom on the couch, "machines don't really age, now do they? Technically they experience wear and tear. They can even be destroyed, so it's not like I'm immortal like a god is. The nature of nanotechnology, however, makes me functionally immortal. As long as there is matter around me, I can't die," I explained.
Sally's eyes grew sorrowful and she sent another death glare at dad. "So you're a machine now, Proteus?" she asked sadly.
I shrugged. "More or less. I'm much like a god that way. Their true forms are essentially supernovae. Mine is a maelstrom of really small machines. If you're asking if I still feel human emotions or if I still have a soul, the answer is quite obviously yes. I don't really know how that's the case, mind you," I admitted sheepishly, "but I do feel and if I were to somehow actually die, Uncle Hades would have something to collect."
Mom let out a relieved breath. "Good. That's… good, Proteus," she smiled at me.
