Note, I'm skipping a lot of flavor text and background info, I figure if you're reading a fan fiction about a book, then chances are you've read the book and know, at least in part, that information.
I own none of the characters, not even the OCs I made as they are part of the PJaO or Mercy Thompson books and anyone is free to duplicate them for their own stories. Writing a story using characters from published books, I certainly can't complain if someone likes my idea enough to run it in a different direction, but please, no slash.
Rick Riordan and Patricia Briggs own all characters.
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I finally found everyone's last names except for Felix. Anyone know it?
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Yep, more filler people. Sorry about this, but I've been having trouble getting this done, and I realized that it's been more than a month since I last posted. My muse has been screaming Battletech, Dexter and BSG lately, but I've already posted one partial story and don't want to make it a habit. Once a month lately when it used to be once every three days.
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Going to a Dance
Percy
Oh, but does my head hurt. That things screams where horrible, and much more than just sound. It was a magic wave that had at its core, a mind warping effect. Luckily, I don't think it actually caused me to loss control of my powers (and hopefully the same for everyone else), or at the very least, caused all the other budding young personalities within me to scream right along with me.
I knew that Nico was lying when he said it'd be easy. He isn't anywhere near as good at lying as some people think he is. But despite that, I actually thought we wouldn't have that much difficulty. After everything we've been through, if it wasn't easy, it shouldn't have been impossible. Despite that, if it wasn't for Mss. Hauptman, we would all have died.
Nico's plan died an ignoble death when he underestimated Mr. Hauptman's strength by a wide margin. Either that or his cane has other powers he doesn't know about, likely now that I think about it with Terry having made it. In any case, when Mr. Hauptman struck the floor, he did so with enough force to generate a rather significant earthquake. Luckily for me, my dad is known as the 'Earthshaker' as one of his nicknames and titles, thus, I cannot be directly affected by an earthquake. Not even falling debris will hit me, though I can become trapped inside something if enough falls around me or lands in front of doors.
So here I was thinking I'm good when suddenly the things start to scream 'OUR' bloody minds off, not theirs, ours. For several seconds, I was connected to every single thing that falls under 'MY' domain that was in the process of dying or being destroyed, which evidently does include, as Rachel put it, "water, war and the world." Yep, that means I was connected to everyone who was dying, in the entire fricking world. And with multiple overlaps for people and things that fit in more than one aspect. So those Somali pirates that were being killed by the Russian navy right at that moment had this weird triple echo affect in my head(of the water, warriors, and of the world). I felt everything's pain and suffering, even inanimate objects, the spirits of those things that were being destroyed.
All in triplicate (or nine times for those pirates and their boat), at least until Mike's solar flare drove two of them off. That was a major relief. It's strange to think that being forced to deal with the pain and suffering of everyone in the world only once as something that is comparatively nice. I also noticed that Nico was less affected than the rest of us, except Mss. Hauptman, I wonder why. I assume it's part of his power, but does that mean that he's simply resistant to any power of the undead, or does that mean he always feels like that all the time and has simply gotten used to it? Or maybe he was only connected to undead things that were being destroyed just then.
But Mss. Hauptman seemed completely unaffected by it, and could evidently understand what it was screaming because she started to talk to it. When she made the blood (puss?) oath, I was surprised to say the least. It seemed to be about something that happened in the past, so I'm not sure it's our problem, but then again, it'll probably become our problem in a major way if we don't fix it now.
Mr. Adelbertsmiter and his son Tad are something of a surprise. I'm used to the way monsters can disguise themselves with mist, and really, I knew they were something called Fae, but I'd honestly started to think of them as somewhat like half-bloods. Now, that illusion is broken and they look just like any other monster. I have to keep telling myself that not all monsters are bad; some are even helpful, like Tyson and the other cyclops that work for dad or Uncle Zeus, or the Satyrs and nymphs. Yeah, just because they looked like monsters doesn't mean they are.
Still, as they are lying there, their human seeming returning, I decide to start paying more attention to the Fae from now on. Mss. Hauptman's comment about him being as good as Beauclaire in hand to hand makes that seem a little more important suddenly.
But it's getting late and Annabeth and me have someplace to be.
"Well, I think we've handled the rest of the department, but I'd be careful when dealing with the police for the next couple of days. Everyone's just received a harsh lesson in how powerless we really are when dealing with the supernatural." Detective Montenegro says as he walks back in the room. Looking at Nico, "Are they gone for good?"
Nico looks at him unhappily; "Yes and no. They allowed themselves to separate from their bodies and go back to the land of the dead. But they left themselves an opening that could be used by them, with difficulty, to return. So, as long as Mss. Hauptman stays true to her vow, and they are given no other reason, they should stay away. It hurts them to come here after all. Still, just in case, you might want to fill this hole with cement and rebar. Maybe have Annabeth or Terry design something to keep them from coming back this way. If I'd have known how powerful they were, I would have told you to just flood the entire level with cement."
At that Tony just shakes his head so I decide to now is as good a time as ever; 'Excuse me, Detective, my wife and me need to get somewhere, it's kind of important, so do you mind if we get going?"
Yeah, yeah, I know. I realized it was stupid the second I said it. Det. Montenegro looks at me; "Oh, you need to leave, well isn't that just fine. We've just been invaded by the land of the dead, suffered a minor earthquake, been linked to everyone in the city who was suffering, and oh yeah, just been witness to a major supernatural event, namely your use of powers. So tell me Mr. Perseus Jackson, where are you supposed to be that is so damn important that you think you should just be allowed to leave?!"
"First of all detective, it was a seven point two, that's not a minor earthquake. As said earthquake has quite probably trapped people and caused significant damage around the area, you probably have more important things to worry about than us. Second, we are here as a favor to you personally and to the police department as a whole, simply because Mss. Hauptman vouched for you. We did not need to come; we did not need to aid you in dealing with this. Your attitude right now is making it hard to envision aiding you a second time. Third; where we need to be; the new goddess of the Columbia is holding a Ball for her ascension, so she can take the vows of loyalty from her new subordinate minor deities. We've been invited. Due to the politics involved, should we fail to attend, she will likely face a rebellion and for the next several weeks, anyone who gets near the water will be caught in the cross fire, or the river may simply dry up and fade away leaving the dessert to reclaim the soon to be deserted city! So yes Detective Montenegro, we do need to leave!"
He looks over at Mercy; "Don't look at me Tony; you're the one who's always complaining about not knowing what's going on behind the scenes with the supernatural. Don't get upset when you actually find out. And yes, he is telling the truth. Though the rebellion thing is just a chance, not a sure thing."
Detective Montenegro just sighs; "Fine, but I'll need Mr. Hauptman and Ambassador Adelbertsmiter to stay."
I notice Mr. Hauptman snarl at the cop's tone of command, and evidently so does he. Luckily, Mercy does as well and jumps in. "Tony, you know better than that. You can't take that type of tone with really dominant werewolves. YOU KNOW BETTER! Plus, you're not the only one who was affected by the attack. Everyone else except Nico and myself where affected worse than you and Willis, and neither of us can be said to have remained unaffected. You're upset, believe me, I got that. But you're pushing buttons that right now, none of us can afford."
"Listen, the last two days have been incredibly long and trying for us." Mr. Hauptman say's, eyes a brilliant yellow color; "Everyone in the pack is on the verge of snapping. Much more so than the police, we need to get our bearings, and quickly. Like you, I was connected to people other than my pack. I was connected to every werewolf on the planet. Having had some time to sift through those sensations, I have several things that I need to deal with within the world of werewolves. Things that if, or more likely when, they spill out to the general population, I will tell you about. Assuming that I feel like I can still trust you. But until then, I need to deal with them. And yes, Mercy is right, I'm upset. There are forces at work, directly affecting my family, my pack, and myself that I have little to no control of. My temper is more than a little frayed right now. So why don't we both pretend that you didn't just utter those words and go do what we need to in order to maintain peace between our respective peoples? OK!" He's pissed.
Detective Montenegro glares at me for a second and them seems to just cave. "Fine, you're right, I wasn't thinking straight. I'm sorry for my attitude. I'm just … Anyway; I guess I need to take a step back and regain my balance. And you're right; the department does need to focus on the civilians hurt by this. But we DO need to talk about it later. Cantrip is going to want to know what happened."
"Do they know we are here?" Annabeth asks; "If they don't, I don't see any particular reason to inform them. We are quite capable of disguising ourselves as we walk out the door, or more to the point, I'm capable of disguising us."
We go on like that for a few more minutes until we decide to have Annabeth use the Mist to make us look like a young Hispanic family that happened to be in the police station bailing someone out when the earthquake hit. Siebold Adelbertsmiter and his son Tad decide to stay and help the police. I guess they want to earn points with the local cops. For the same reason, Mr. Hauptman tells Tony that he's going to call a few of the publicly outed werewolves to come help with things. Someone who has the same scent ability as a dog, but can talk to you and tell you exactly what he smells is kind of handy for rescues. But first he calls Dr. Cornick to let him know everyone is fine and that he might want to concentrate on helping the humans.
As we're leaving, I look around the parking lot. There are several news crews in around, and the damage doesn't seem to be as extensive as it should. Annabeth sees my look and explains that everything in this area is built to handle earthquakes. So as long as the ground doesn't split or drop out under them, most of the structures should be fine, though there will be damage, and quite a bit of it.
We drive back to the Hauptman house in silence. We're all more than a little stressed right now, especially Mr. Hauptman, and none of us want to light the match in the powder keg the car has become. When we get there, Mr. Hauptman is besieged by people who want to know what happened, Rachel takes Annabeth and me upstairs where she's laid out clothes for us, surprisingly, Christy has helped with it. I might seem petty, but maybe it's all she's actually good for. In a couple of minutes, the two of us are ready for a ball (we hope) and off we go.
As we're leaving, I laugh when I hear Christy asking Rachel who's going to be driving us to this ball. Dealing with the men from Hauptman Security isn't so funny. As we're diving under, several of them dive in to rescue us. I guess they thought we were going to be taking a boat and fell in or something. Instead, I end up rescuing one of them.
I allow him the ability to breath water after he flounders, and explain to him that it's ok, I know what I'm doing and it's magic. About that time, a catfish swims up and offers to escort us to the ball. I help the guard out of the water where I see Ben giving a quick explanation to the other guards.
