Lining Up the Pieces

Well, it has been too long, but fret not, because I'm here to stay…which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it, because I'm here to finish this story.

How it ends shouldn't be too hard to figure out, just think of Aliens do to keep the Hive alive, and then blow that to epic proportions with Asteria. I have hinted multiple times in previous chapters that at the onset of puberty, Asteria would be changing drastically, and things were going to get bloody.

It is now time for that. It is time for Annabeth, Amelia, and Ariel to truly become the blood daughters of the Fallen Star. It is time for Cain and Asteria to figure out their roles in the relationship. It is time for the daughter of Poseidon to PMS.

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or AVP

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That last month at camp had gone by swiftly, as had the whole past half a year. Indeed, six months have passed since Asteria flew through the Sea Monsters, six months since Asteria became a mother to a trio of little girls, six months since Annabeth was turned into a four-year-old with the mind of a four-month-old.

Gods, was that a roller coaster of events.

Firstly, the amount of diapers Asteria had to change. Annabeth might have looked four, but she had all the mental function of a baby, and therefore required the necessary items for a baby. However, there was a learning curve present in children of Athena, and Annabeth was even a cut above her siblings. Through her telepathy, and a generous amount of help from Bethany and Bertha, Annabeth's much older half-sisters, Asteria was able to progress her youngest through years and years of learning in just months.

Currently, Annabeth, with the body of a four-and-a-half-year-old (the child made sure to remind everyone that she was four and a half), had the mind of a ten-year-old. She could instantly do simple math in her head, and she could do more complex math by writing her finger through the air to set up the problem. She knew generous amounts of history and geography, biology and chemistry, and anatomy and physiology. She was a very smart young girl, but she still had her rough edges.

Well, not necessarily rough…but…quirkiness.

Especially in one area.

Asteria, in her fourteen years of life, had potty trained three girls. The first was Angel, and Asteria had done that from over a hundred meters away, using her mind. Angel had been the easiest, because she was eager to learn and didn't like having her poop smushed against her butt by the training pants the School had provided. Amelia had been the second, and Asteria had her potty trained in under two weeks, day and night time; it had taken only one package of pull-ups, and a bit of psychology. Back then, when she had had to babysit the Hunt's resident baby, the very first diaper that Asteria had to change had been the only one she was going to change, and so she motivated Amelia using operant conditioning. Now, the third child Annabeth had potty trained was obvious: Annabeth.

The problem with Annabeth was that, unlike her adoptive sister and spiritual sister…she had wanted absolutely nothing to do with the toilet.

Being a telepath made Asteria the only mother in the world that could instantly identify any al kinds of problems that her children had, and Annabeth's problem hadn't been that she was afraid of the toilet, or was too lazy to go to the toilet, or didn't want to ask to go to the toilet, or liked using her training pants as her toilet, or was afraid that if she was potty trained, she would lose something…it was that she enjoyed the attention she got whenever she had her pants changed.

Back when Asteria had been training Amelia, she had yet to embrace her full maternal role and was simply training the child so that she wouldn't have to go through the inconvenience of diaper changes. It had been purely for the benefit of herself, which was why it had been so easy to suddenly ignore Amelia after she had accident, and borderline emotionally scar the child into being fully potty trained.

When it came to Annabeth, though, Asteria did not even try to hide her love for her youngest daughter, and that was why she couldn't just turn on a dime and give the four-year-old the cold shoulder and emotionally shatter her…and so attention was given, and Annabeth had stayed away from the potty.

In her childish mind, it was simple: keep going in her pants, keep getting Mommy's attention.

Of course, things got worse because Amelia and Ariel did not comprehend why their sister wasn't potty training successfully. They couldn't have comprehended the details of Annabeth's psyche if they had tried, and simply thought that their sister was just having some kind of problem. So, like the responsible big sisters that they were, they sought to help Annabeth in their own unique (read: exceedingly irritating) way.

From the time Amelia and Ariel hatched their plan, every time they had to use the bathroom, they went where they were standing, thereby having 'an accident' until Asteria got fed up with having to change underwear and pants and put both of them back in pull-ups to avoid having so many clothes to wash. Of course, Asteria knew from the very beginning what those two were up to, and she used it to her advantage.

She diverted attention away from Annabeth and split it evenly between her daughters, and then she let Annabeth's intelligence combine with her drive for attention take over. She was a smart girl, motivated, and ambitious in a way. When her sisters were suddenly in the same boat as her, she sought a way out, and the way she found was conveniently the route to the toilet.

And it had nothing to do with some mental nudging from Asteria.

Annabeth was potty trained within the span of 24 hours, having always known what the signals her body was giving were, just not acting on them. Upon actually acting on them, and receiving the higher praise and affection from Asteria by doing so, Annabeth finally moved past her pants. Amelia and Ariel quickly did the same, and that was how Asteria briefly had three little girls all in pull-ups.

Then the next great harrowing experience was that Annabeth hadn't liked how panties felt on her, and wanted to go back to pull-ups. Asteria allowed it, but only after making it very clear that the pull-ups were only for wearing, and not for using. It was a phase that lasted only for three weeks until Annabeth's mental age increased, and she determined (in a great display of independence and maturity) that pull-ups were for "bratty little girls" and that she, a "big girl of the higher mental institutions" had no place wearing such childish undergarments.

And that was how Annabeth's pull-up phase came and went, much to Asteria's joy.

Finally, all three girls were in panties…no more diapers, no more pull-ups…it had actually brought a tear to her eye.

But not everything was good.

In her tent, Asteria was wide awake, her daughters all piled on top of her. It was probably three in the morning, giving the girls another handful of hours to sleep. It was going to be torture for Asteria, because moving would cause them to wake, and no self-respecting mother wanted to prematurely wake their children without due cause.

The reason for Asteria's state of wakefulness was due to the dream she just woke from, the same dream she had been having for many nights now. The dream was of her, with her eyes completely blacked out, her claws, jaws, and tail painted red, standing before three cocoons bound to a wall. Around her was an army of dome-headed creatures—her Hive. The cocoons would ripple and tremble, and then they were violently split open by the occupants. From there, the next thing Asteria saw was the world, all of the green, blue, and brown replaced with black, like the entire world had been overrun.

Then the dream would end with a monstrous pain, and she would wake up with her ovular area stinging and aching.

Asteria was no fool. She knew what was coming—her first period. Puberty. Maturation. The time to start a Hive. However, where most girls thought of their first period, they thought of bleeding, cramps, mood swings, and the craving of chocolate. Asteria knew damned well that her first period—and everyone thereafter—was not going to be like that at all.

Instead, it was going to be like when she woke for her second life.

New structures, new abilities, new instincts. She was going to go through her own set of changes, and she didn't know if that was a good thing.

Those three cocoons, that army of Warriors and Drones, the black-covered Earth…Amelia, Ariel, and Annabeth? Hundreds upon hundreds of humans used as breeding stock—killed? The entire planet—her Hive?

While Asteria didn't know, she strongly suspected those were the right answers. The question was how. She could see how she might get away with her daughters, dragging them to a secluded area and cocooning them, most likely for metamorphosis, like she went through, but killing investing so many humans? Harvesting the whole world?

It wasn't going to be possible. Her father, her uncles, her aunts, and her cousins would stop her long before the death toll could reach a dozen, and that was to say nothing of the other pantheons of gods out there.

Yes, Asteria knew of the existence of the other gods. Artemis had let slip a little tidbit she didn't mean to when she and Asteria were having some bonding time. Apparently, the Egyptians had bound their gods to the Duat, and had little locations called Nomes all over the world, the Norse had access points to Yggdrasil and the other Nine Worlds set up all over the globe, and the Shinto had apparently created their own dimensional plane at the onset of the Titans' reign. The Aztecs were rumored to be around Houston, and the others, like the Canaanites, Mesopotamians, and Celts, were said to be on other continents.

Contact with those gods was rare and hadn't happened in millennia, so just where other pantheons were at was a mystery to all.

Anyway, the point being made is that if Asteria's period involved a planet-wide infestation, there was a multitude of gods there to stop her and prevent her from seemingly wiping out humanity.

Unless she did something so cataclysmic that she somehow wiped out all opposition…or something so deus ex machina happened, it was almost going to be painful to read. The bottom line was that Asteria knew her limits, and fighting whole mythologies was beyond her. Maybe.

Last Asteria checked, the gods still drew power from prayer, and with so many people nowadays not praying to them, much of their previous power was gone. Then again, perhaps there were other places out there like Camp Half-Blood, camps that were dedicated to the gods of the world. Asteria knew there was New Rome and Hotel Valhalla, and since the Egyptians primarily wished to contain their gods, they didn't pray to them, but they were still a living symbol of the Egyptian pantheon's continued existence.

Maybe the Aztecs had a magically hidden temple somewhere in Houston, or maybe it was sitting on top of a building to avoid the potential of flood waters. Who knew for sure?

But Asteria knew that if there was something like that out there, which there probably was, all things considered, then that dream of her seemingly conquering the world and turning it into a Hive was going to have some hurdles to overcome.

Or she was going to take over the world, and then have to battle pockets of resistance to ensure the survival of the Hive.

Asteria couldn't help the low hiss that escaped her when her head started to throb in pain from all the thinking and borderline worrying she was doing.

Ugh, puberty sucked.

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Lucy couldn't decide on whether to be excited or apprehensive. Excited because, after so long, her Blood Goddess would be returning full force in less than three weeks, and was going to go on a killing spree so violent, the population of the world was at risk, and apprehensive because there were so many gods out there that would oppose her Blood Goddess, and there were only so many divinities a half-goddess could handle by her lonesome.

Of course, Lucy was going to help as much as she could, calling in old favors, calling up friends, pulling some strings, and throwing down herself. Still, there was so much even she could handle. Sure, she could've taken on a full-powered Golden Age Titan, and the gods of today were so pitifully weak compared to their heyday selves, but they were still gods, and there were hundreds of them.

They wouldn't take Asteria's hostile takeover of the world laying down.

The conflict to come both made Lucy's panties wet, and her blood curl at the strong possibility of defeat. She hated defeat.

However, that vision she had seen, the one of him…the same him that had battled Ares alongside her Blood Goddess, the same him that was so powerful…if that vision held true, then that same him would be coming, only he was now leagues more powerful than what he had been. Lucy doubted that, even at her full strength, she could match him.

Still, Shin'en had his own Blood Goddess lying sealed within him, and that Blood Goddess, Sachiko, was much cuter than Asteria.

Maybe Lucy could try bringing Sachiko out for a date, and depopulate a small country?

…

Nah. She had her plate full already.

Besides, Sachiko was Lucy's other self's Blood Goddess.

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While the Fates were never particularly positive, they were never particularly negative. In light of coming events, they were feeling very negative.

"And there's not a way to avoid this?" Clotho asked.

"Not without killing Asteria," Atropos answered.

"Which would be detrimental to Continuity," Lachesis threw in.

"Ah, Continuity. Such a bane to everything, and yet such a boon."

"Indeed. In an example of Continuity, the Great Depression cannot end unless the Holocaust happens, and World War Two cannot end without the dropping of the bombs."

"As far as this dimension's Continuity runs, Asteria cannot be killed. The altercation lies in that her destiny breeds tremendous conflict about the gods. None of them will stand idly by and let Asteria harvest the planet, not even the Olympians will sit back and let Poseidon's child run rampant, and if they stopped her in the coming days, they would have to stop her again and again, until Death managed to claim her."

"And even then, Death's hold is not absolute. It has happened before, and it will happen again, and Asteria is a terrific force, one very capable of escaping Death's hold. When that happens, the conflict will rage again."

"So it seems there is no choice but to wipe the board, leaving only the Queen and her King and their children left, a Hive to lay in wait for the time in which they are needed."

"Indeed. Though removing the gods from this world would not be a travesty. If anything, it would benefit if the world."

"Aye. With her divine lineage so strong within her, her offspring would not be incapable of harvesting the gods, and her offspring themselves will be so powerful. As they will be the children of Asteria, who is the child of Poseidon, they will be legacies."

"And with the science that has made their existence possible, the enhanced bodies and heightened intelligence, they will be even more so powerful. A race of Xenomorphs born from a godchild…they will be problem enough as they are. We do not need any born directly from a god."

"Aye, we do not. But, how do we deal with them? We have concluded to wipe them away, but how? Do we lock them, fade them, move them? What of their offspring? Demigods, magicians, einherjar? They will not be so easily coerced into not fighting, and fighting will only make them accessible for harvest, and we have already concluded that Xenomorphs born from Asteria and humans will strong enough, but Xenomorphs born from Asteria and other entities of divine lineage? That could very well spell disaster on a dimensional scale."

Clotho smiled, a garish sight. "Come now, sisters. We know this debate to be pointless. The young planeswalker has already foreseen our chosen decision."

"Yes, but the last time I checked, he just concluded an episode in a world mirroring this one very closely. Bringing him here…might destable his psyche even further. He became tightly attached to those two, on an emotional level. Seeing Asteria might bring error to his judgement."

"His judgement will be based entirely around protecting Asteria, whether she wants it or not. Any error that might be made, will be an error regarding an event that brings harm to Asteria, something he will not allow to come to pass."

"Indeed, but they did part ways on mostly unfriendly terms. Where he might be conflicted about seeing her again, she might be hostile."

"But a look into his mind, seeing how he has changed, and what has happened to him, will dull her senses of hostility. She may very well give him a hug."

Lachesis sighed. "What delicate material we deal with, sisters. The very fabric of space and time, dimensions, the same person, copied a googol over, with drastic differences and not so much. Still, as powerful as we are, we are only as powerful as the Writer wants us to be, and we are subject to His whims at all times. To Continuity, sisters."

"To Continuity."

"To Continuity."

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In the cell he had been patiently waiting in for months on end, alone, with no one but himself, Cain's eyes opened steadily. His pupiless irises flashed brightly, and he rose to his feet. The mandibles outside his face vibrated as a click rose from his throat. In three powerful steps, he crossed the distance between him and the window that had nothing behind it, and shattered it with a single punch.

Now free of whatever sad excuse for a prison this was, Cain set off.

It was almost time.

Asteria. Would she be his mate? His newest trophy? His Queen? His executioner?

Their next meeting would decide once and for all.

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Like the Sea of Monsters arc, the Titan's Curse arc is going to be much different. This was a filler chapter, yes, and the next one is going to be Maine, and a set of events that will kick-start everything else.

As far as the coming Hive goes, ask yourselves: when do they Xenomorphs stop expanding the Hive? My answer: as long as there are lifeforms to harvest, the Hive will never stop expanding. If the Hive runs out of things to breed, it will go dormant and lie in wait for new material to come along, just like the LV-426 Hive. However, in Asteria's case, her potential Hive spreads across at least two continents, and conventional Queens aren't half god.

Essentially, Asteria, when in the process of building her Hive, isn't going to stop at a single town or city. She's going to keep harvesting until she can't find anything else to harvest, and like it's already been established: none of the gods, and none of their earthly institutions are going to take that lying down. And I'm not about to kill Asteria.

Hence, otherworldly help.

Potentially.

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