Shin'en, High School God
This little mini arc will be two chapters, and I'll be performing something of a social experiment with this one, and it revolves around bashing.
I'll let you figure out what I'm getting at, but I'm sure you could figure it out beforehand.
Anyway, Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or Naruto
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Shin'en didn't understand the education system of New York. From the system he was coming from, in which the curriculum of the Shinobi Academy was designed to introduce basic concepts in Year One, and build off of all those concepts from Year Two up to Year Six, working on throwing technique with kunai and shuriken, anatomy, knowledge of geography and flora, how to move chakra through your body, etc., all things critically necessary to the life of a shinobi, the New York system made no sense, especially this "high school" version.
The state of New York required incoming freshmen to pick an endorsement, like Nursing, STEM, Art, Business, or something else from a list of other things, all of which was just nothing more than a major…for high school.
Shin'en didn't think that was a bad concept, in fact, he thought it was great. High school was the age in which students started to grow up, becoming of age to have sex, get driver's licenses, get jobs, vote to have an impact on their country, enlist in the military, and it was the perfect staging area to begin developing a career with rudimentary information regarding your field.
Just why it was required to have all this additional, pointless information was beyond the Dragon Ghost of the Abyss.
It was required of students to have 24 credits to graduate, four in English, three in Social Studies, four in Math, four in Science, two PE, two Foreign Language, one Arts, and then four random electives, designed to give the students a sense of freedom and relief from the workload brought on by the "core" classes.
Of course, the "Project Graduation" process began all the way back in middle school, in the eighth grade, where students could get a jump on this process by engaging in Algebra and a selection of languages.
That was how Asteria and Annabeth had done things.
Now, in their senior year at Goode High School, they only had their last English class, which was Latin with Mr. Brunner, two electives, which they chose to be Astronomy and Office Aid, then there was lunch, then their final class, the final step in their chosen STEM endorsement, Practicum in STEM, a double-block period, and then that was it.
Asteria and Annabeth had double early release.
Which meant Shin'en also had double early release, as his high school schedule completely mirrored his charges'.
Shin'en was also not a religious person, as he came from the unfortunate dimension in which every myth was inherently true, and Annabeth had been trying to get him to attend her Sunday School for the past two months, to no avail, but holy damn could he fall to his knees and start singing the praises when it came to the STEM class, for one simple reason:
No. Canon. Characters.
Oh, gods above, Latin and Astronomy were plagued with canon characters. It was the Greeks and Romans in the former, and the…rest…in the latter, and they could not, to save their lives shut up, because for whatever reason, despite this being a dimension where the pantheons didn't exist beyond storybooks, everyone still had dyslexia and ADHD.
Though, that wasn't the real cause for Shin'en's ire. If the above had been the whole case, then he could've managed just fine. No, the real reason as to why all the canon people absolutely sucked, was because they were a tightly nit group centered around one person:
Alex Fierro.
The typical Greeks, consisting of Leo and Calypso, Nico and Will, the Stolls, Clarisse and Chris, Grover and Juniper, and the typical Romans, consisting of Reyna and (surprisingly) Octavian, Frank and Hazel, Dakota and Gwen, and the mixed couple consisting of Piper and Jason, were all buddies with the Egyptians, consisting merely of Carter and Zia and Sadie and Walt, and the Norse, consisting only of Samirah and Amir, Mallory, Halfborn, TJ, Magnus, and of course, Alex.
There was also the side-clique of discount Hunters of Artemis and Amazons, but they kept to themselves and out of the way.
No, if Alex hadn't been here, this whole high school experience would've been just fine, but since he/she was here, and he/she was bringing along every canon aspect (besides the divine stuff, of course) of themselves, and he/she was just great friends with all the above mentioned peoples, that meant that all the above mentioned peoples had entirely bought in to Alex's LGBT views, and there hadn't been a single fucking day one in which Shin'en, Annabeth, and Asteria weren't subject to some gender drivel.
Sitting in the office for third period, Shin'en was massaging his temples. "I nuked a whole fucking planet because of people like Alex—why on this God forsaken rock am I being forced to interact with it directly?"
He muttered that so lowly and quietly that the only things Asteria and Annabeth heard were just faint noises.
"Wat?" the telepath asked.
Shin'en looked at her. "I asked why we keep holding our tongues every time Alex says something."
"Because we are lions," Annabeth said sagely. "And lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep."
"If anything, Fierro is a hyena, not a sheep."
"Puh, a rapid hyena that needs to be put down," Asteria said.
Annabeth sighed.
She, personally, made great efforts to put anything Alex and his/her friends said out of her mind, because she knew that if she dwelt on them for too long, she'd end up with the same mood as Asteria and Shin'en.
Was it because they all shared the same baseline conservative views which naturally conflicted with the liberalism that was brought forth by Alex?
Maybe.
Asteria was an outspoken conservative, but she wasn't allowed to say anything due to the Director, her evil step mother, being an outspoken liberal, and anything said in contrast to the trillionaire would result in Annabeth dying.
Janssen's words.
Annabeth tried to maintain the sovereign and superior position of not letting idiocy dictate her actions, and she really tried not to think like that either, because Asteria and Shin'en were both far too powerful to be so easily manipulated by the likes of Fierro's verbal shenanigans, and thinking that Fierro controlled them was tantamount to treason.
"What are you three talking about?" the office secretary, a kindly middle-aged woman by the name of Stacy Tarrant asked.
She was a bit of a ditz, but she was very sweet, and very good at her job.
"Alex Fierro," Asteria said.
"Oh."
Yes, Goode's resident LGBT president was a well-known figure, very loud, very quick to say something. The state of New York was a largely LGBT-friendly place, but there were always exceptions to the rule, and there were those here in Goode that didn't at all agree with anything Alex said, but by social law, they weren't allowed to say anything.
There was also the small fact that a past faculty member had put his foot down and told Alex that she could not, in fact, impose verbal restrictions on students to keep them from saying anything but positive things about the transgender community, and that faculty member had quickly been fired after Alex went all the way up the schoolboard and to multiple news outlets, in tears.
"What did…he, or…she…say today?"
Asteria rested her cheek on her fist. "He said today that he was going to push for, at the next student council meeting, a 'trans day of recognition,' in that the student body will be made to crossdress in order to gain experience as to what it's like for the trans community to feel trapped and unable to be who they feel they are inside."
"Alex also the laid down the fallacy that anyone who opposes this idea is transphobic and is going to be suspended for bullying," Annabeth picked up.
"Yes, it's quite ironic how it continues to spew nonsense about equality while continuously putting the LGBT in places of superiority," Shin'en said.
Of course, the unspoken irony to this whole thing was the fact that Asteria was transgender, having been made that way for the sick amusement of Janssen, and so one might've thought she would've been all over Alex's idea, even being great friends with Alex, but those that knew Aster, particularly Annabeth and Shin'en, knew that such a thing would only happen when the sun froze over.
"Oh…" Ms. Tarrant said, trailing off. "I don't think even Alex could get something like that going."
"You're forgetting that Alex has already got it where no one is allowed to say negative things about the LGBT, and students can violate dress code as long as its LGBT-related, and students who identify as LGBT are allowed to leave class if they ever feel like they're being 'attacked.'"
Asteria said all that with a very dry, very flat voice.
"In the world of today, the face of tyranny hides behind a rainbow flag," Shin'en said.
"Oh no," Asteria said with mock-concern, "they're not tyrants, they're just oppressed peoples who are finally standing up and speaking out…all while discrediting, attacking, and slapping rude and hateful labels on anyone who questions them or critiques them."
"You guys," Annabeth said, somewhat pleadingly, "can you stop giving them so much attention, and instead focus on real issues in the world, like pollution and corruption? All they are is just a bunch of whiny kids whose parents didn't raise them right."
"You agree with everything we're saying," Asteria said.
"Well, yeah, I do, but I also don't worry about them."
"And why's that?" the telepath said with a snide little grin. "Think that God will smite those little sinners down?"
"No, God loves them as much as he loves you and me."
"But he'll send them all down to burn in Hell for all eternity if they don't accept Jesus as their lord and savior and repent for their sins."
"Yes, that's how that works," Annabeth said simply.
"Yeah, you can donate millions to charity, fund relief efforts to places devastated by weather and war, provide clean water, food, and education to African children, find homes for homeless veterans, and all these other good things, but if you don't believe in Jesus, you go to Hell."
Annabeth frowned at Asteria's atheistic nature, a nature that stemmed from once being a believer with a religious father, to what it was now thanks to Janssen and everything she did. In Asteria's mind, and nothing Annabeth had done had convinced her otherwise, God had forsaken her, and she felt very bitter about that, but she hid it behind a mask of snarkyness.
However, where Annabeth might have been willing to agree to disagree, Shin'en didn't tolerate Asteria's religious stance on the same principle the liberal stance irked him so much.
The temperature in the office dropped a few degrees as Shin'en leaned over into Asteria's view, eyes hard and cold.
"Do not ever, ever, argue a point with your emotional drivel again, Asteria Janssen. You continuously find fault with the liberals for their constant use of emotional argument, and I will not tolerate such brazen hypocrisy from the likes of you. Am I clear?"
Asteria swallowed, then pulled out her laptop and plugged in her earphones, heading to YouTube.
Knowing that was as close to a "yes" that he was going to get from the enormously prideful telepath, Shin'en dropped the matter and retrieved his own laptop.
"Aren't conversations funny?" Annabeth said aloud. "We went from lamenting Fierro's stupidity to dredging on Christianity."
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Shin'en didn't necessarily like people, as he was rather antisocial, but he could say he enjoyed the presence of the STEM kids, especially the two young men from Texas, Hunter and Gabe.
"So, what'd that fuckin' nutjob say today?" Hunter asked as soon as the Trio walked in through the engineering lab's door.
"Oh, nothing much, just that he's going to get the schoolboard to allow a day in which the whole student body will have to crossdress so they understand how trans people feel," Asteria answered.
Hunter barked a short, high-pitched squawk of a laugh. "Bitch, if I wanted to know how trans people feel, I'd sign myself into a mental hospital."
Gabe raised a brow. "Do you think I'd look good in girl's clothes?"
He was a rather homely fellow.
"To be fair, you don't look that great in men's clothes."
"Oh, fuck you."
"No, that'd be gay. We oppose that in our religion." Hunter looked back at Asteria. "What's the punishment for not going along with Hitler?"
Hitler was the underground term used by those who didn't care for Alex, and equated his/her rule of the school to the Nazi regime, which, if you looked at it, wasn't that far off, as anyone that opposed Alex's views ended up in a lot of trouble. You didn't even have to directly oppose them; a few outspoken conservative students that hadn't even said a word to Alex had already been expelled on the grounds of "presenting a clear and dangerous fascist threat" to the student body.
"Oh, suspension," Asteria said with a smile, "for bullying."
"Fuckin' perfect, man. Free days off from school just for saying Hitler has a mental disorder? I'll be right back."
Hunter actually got up from his chair, but Annabeth spoke up.
"Oh, no you don't. Get your butt back in that chair."
"Yes, Mom."
"That's right son," Asteria said in a mock old man voice, "listen to your mother."
"You know, if you two weren't my bosses at work, I'd probably have thrown a chair at the both of you by now."
"Yep, and that's a one-way ticket to being fired," Asteria said matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, that's why I haven't done it."
The small talk continued back and forth until class started, and the teacher, a strongman-built fellow that stood a little under six feet with a full beard and kind, blue-green eyes, stood before the small class of ten students.
"Good afternoon everybody. It's my pleasure to announce the start of the NYSAIS annual canned food drive!"
There were a few overenthusiastic cheers from a few teens being funny, Hunter included.
"What that means is that all of you will be going out and around the city to collect canned goods for those that can't provide for themselves during the coming holidays, and to add an incentive to actually do that, I've come up with this idea…"
The teacher then proceeded to lay the requirements for a tier of rewards, such as a pizza party in place of class, a field trip, a trip to a fancy restaurant during school, etc., and to get on board with all of that, you only needed to bring ten cans of stuff, and those that brought in the most canned goods would get a special reward. What, exactly, was not specified.
"Now, to make it fair to the other students, you cannot go out and buy any canned goods," the teacher said with an extremely pointed look at Asteria, "but you can buy things with money someone gives you."
"So," one student started, "do we just, like, go to peoples' doors and knock and say we're from such and such school doing a canned food drive, give us stuff?"
"Absolutely not," the teacher said. "What you're going to do is, go up to someone's door, knock, and when they answer, politely introduce yourself, tell them which school you go to, tell them that you're collecting canned goods for those less fortunate this holiday season, and they're probably going to give you their whole pantry because teens these days have reputations for being rude and disrespectful, and when they see how nice you guys are, they'll be so much more inclined to give."
"Y'all can hope, anyway," Hunter said. "This is the North, after all. Down there in Texas, we're glad to help each other out; up here, y'all have competitions to see who can honk their taxi horn the loudest, freakin' Yanks."
Overall, the canned food drive had to be one of the greatest highlights to Shin'en's high school experience.
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Writing every exact instance of such an event would get tedious and be boring, but there were still some highlights.
Shin'en, Asteria, and Annabeth formed their own group, and Hunter, Gabe, and one of their friends, Kiran, formed their own group, and it was a nightly competition between the two groups to see who could collect more cans. In a place like New York, with its towering apartment complexes and innumerous suburban homes, there was ample ground to cover.
Some people gave a can or two, some people came out with a whole box of cans, and some people went way over the hill and not only brought a healthy crop of cans, but also brought jugs of juice, boxes of hamburger helper, and other things.
There were also sticks in the mud as well.
One late night, with the sun barely over the horizon, Asteria had knocked on a man's door and she had barely gotten her greeting cadence out of her mouth before the door was slammed shut in her face, which royally pissed the telepath off to high heaven.
Shin'en calmed his technical sister down by effortlessly, silently, and cleanly breaking into that particular home and cleaning out the man's entire kitchen of everything he had along with snagging every stray buck around the house, including the landlines, cellphone, and wallet, as well slashing three of the tires on the man's truck.
Annabeth just shook her head while Asteria pumped a victory fist.
Of course, that was what Shin'en did to a person that upset Asteria. What he did to the people that pissed him off was slightly worse.
He went up to a person's door, knocked, and went through the little cadence that had been practiced. Shin'en said with a smile, "Good evening, my name is Percy Jackson and I go to Johnson High School. My friends and I are conducting a canned food drive for those less fortunate this holiday season, do you have anything you might be willing to spare?"
The couple was an older couple, both of them fat and where normal people might not have smelled their stench, Shin'en certainly did. The reason for the change in names was because 'Shin'en Yūrei' sounded fake, and should there be any altercation, the Trio didn't want any more drama than what there already was in the form of angry strangers complaining about them to the high school, not that Asteria or Shin'en cared, but Annabeth did, and so for her sake the former two were on their best behavior.
Ahem.
"I don't know, honey…" the wife said, and Shin'en picked up sarcasm. "Do we have anything we might be willing to spare?"
"Hm, no." And the husband went nuts. "Do you see that sign, young man!? That sign says no loiterers, and if you don't get off my property, I will shoot you!"
Really, that was nothing but hot air meant to scare people away, as the fat old man would never do that, but it usually had the desired effect of scaring whoever it was knocking at his door away.
However, this was Shin'en, and at being threatened in such a manner, his face went completely blank, and the old people stiffened as their natural instincts triggered when they felt the change in the atmosphere.
"You will shoot me?" the Dragon Ghost of the Abyss asked hollowly. "I'm curious as to how you'll manage that….without hands."
Slowly, the old man brought his arms to his face to see what was up, and with their attention focused on that, Shin'en promptly put a pair of shuriken into their brains, and the momentum carried them halfway across their living rooms. Shin'en calmly entered and helped himself.
He also used a couple of organ incendiary tags to get red of the blood and the bodies.
He was also kind enough to lock the door on his way out.
"So, how was that house?" Asteria asked at seeing the large box that jingled with tin hitting against other tin.
"They were kind people, surprisingly. But I do suppose grandparents are inherently kind."
There was a little wooden plank underneath the no loiterers sign that told anyone who wanted to look that Nana and Poppa lived here.
"Wouldn't know," Asteria said. "All of my grandparents are dead."
"Same," Annabeth chimed.
Shin'en chose not to mention how he had an extensive tree of "great" relatives.
Towards the end of the nights, Shin'en, Asteria, and Annabeth would meet Gabe, Hunter, and Kiran at the closest fast food place to the two parties, and trade stories over a greasy meal.
"I just think it's funny, man," Hunter said. "You know, here all of us are, takin' time out our evenin' to go up and down the street, knockin' on doors and askin' people for cans, and for what, really? The benefit of homeless people? Naw, I'm here for a free day outta class for pizza, cookies, ice cream, and cokes."
Annabeth shrugged. "The reason might be bad, but what you're doing is a great thing."
"Yeah, I know, but I feel real twisted on the inside knowing my heart ain't where it should be."
"Your heart is underneath your ribcage," Shin'en said flatly. "It's right where it needs to be."
"…you know, man, we really need to work on your sense of literation. No shit my heart's underneath my ribcage, dipshit, if it weren't, I wouldn't be here."
"Correct. You'd be dead."
"I keep asking this," Hunter said to Asteria and Annabeth, "but where did this guy come from?"
"Pluto," the telepath answered. "The furthest object in our solar system from the Sun."
"Yeah, that makes sense."
However, the absolute highlight of the canned food drive was the day it ended, the Friday before everyone got out for Thanksgiving Break, in which Asteria had the class gather outside the building by the student parking lot, which had a generous amount of sidewalk schoolside intended for the use of emergency vehicles to get as close as possible.
"Asteria," the teacher asked calmly, "why did you want us out here?"
"Oh, just keep listening. They should be here any second now."
It should be noted that Hunter, Gabe, and Kiran had managed to collect over three thousand cans over the course of the past month and a half, as opposed to Shin'en, Asteria, and Annabeth's total of just under the former's.
As to what Asteria was referring, Shin'en could already hear it, and he shook his head, making the telepath smile like a loon as she figured out that he figured it out.
About five seconds later, the song was able to be heard and it had the class cracking up in disbelief. The teacher was pinching the bridge of his nose as his shoulders shook in laughter.
Annabeth was palming her face. "You know our janitor's Vietnamese, right?"
"Oh, I know," Asteria said insanely.
Right after she said it, said janitor went running out the school to the parking lot, screaming in his native language as he dove under some cars with his head protectively held under his hands.
Above, the helicopters hovered as the soldiers rappelled down with a massive crate of canned goods, the speakers attached to the flying machines playing their song loud and proud.
"IT AIN'T ME
IT AIN'T ME
I AIN'T NO FORTUNATE SON!"
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Of course, before the Thanksgiving Break, there was Homecoming.
Asteria and Annabeth went solely because Annabeth wanted to be able to truthfully say that she attended her senior Ho-co, and Shin'en went because A) he was asked to by the former two, and B) it was still unknown whatever purpose he was in this dimension for, so for all he knew making sure Homecoming went off without a hitch was that purpose.
They kept their plan to attend a secret from Sally and Marian, the Director, because they knew that Sally would want a slew of pictures, and the last thing any of them wanted was to be anywhere near those two lunatics for any more than two seconds. So, the Trio just up and left.
Asteria was clad in a dress only the superrich could afford, and she hated the entire thing because she was, and always would be, a he, and men didn't wear fancy, beautiful dresses designed specifically for flaunting the female figure. Asteria also hated the dress because it worked perfectly for her altered body, having been tailormade for her dimensions, courtesy of Janssen to the clothing company, as a sick joke.
But it was all for Annabeth's sake this night, and Percy would move the world for his beloved.
Annabeth herself was wearing a dress nearly as beautiful and opulent as her boyfriend, and Shin'en was wearing his usual outfit, which still made him look absolutely regal and dignified, like some great lord attending a ball.
At the dance itself, held at Goode, the three of them chose to occupy one of the many tables outside the cafeteria, the venue for the dance room. They were more content to people watch than to dance.
"How many of them do you think would die if we three a grenade right in the middle of them?"
"Depending on the grenade's yield, and if there's any shrapnel inside, I'd say all of them. They are rather tightly packed."
Annabeth pinched her nose at the conversation between her boyfriend and her boyfriend's lookalike. "You two are going to be the death of me, I swear."
"Oh, lighten up, kiddo," Asteria teased. "We're only having some fun."
"And speaking of fun…!" a voice called from a short distance, and none other than Alex Fierro himself, dragging Magnus along, stopped by. "Why aren't you two in there dancing with the rest?"
Alex was apparently feeling like boy this night, because "he" was wearing an otherwise hideous lime green and pink suit. He also had on a sincere smile, and Asteria, to her endless consternation, knew he was truly being sincere and genuine, and she hated that because it was hard to feel justified about wanting to tell someone off when they actually being nice.
However, where social politics might've governed the actions of many, Shin'en was a rare exception. He could tell Annabeth and Asteria wanted nothing more than to tell Alex to take a long walk off a short pier, but because Alex had come over being genuinely nice and friendly, doing so would paint them as the bad guys.
He didn't care because he had the power to blow up planets, and people that powerful cared not for the opinions of people that…well…couldn't do that.
Much less people that couldn't bench press two hundred pounds.
"Because, Fierro," Shin'en said crisply, "they don't want to, and your presence here is ruining the atmosphere we were enjoying, so please take yourself and Magnus away so we can get back to enjoying our night together. Thank you."
All three of them could tell Alex wanted to say something about being told off, but Magnus was ever the pacifist.
"Come on, Alex. They want to spend their Homecoming out here, that's their choice. It's our job to respect their choice and leave them alone."
Alex found himself unable to do anything but nod and lead Magnus away at her own philosophy being put in front of his face like that.
When those two were inside and well out of earshot, Asteria asked with a snide voice, "Who do you think takes it? Magnus or Alex?"
Annabeth answered. "I think they switch."
"Considering Fierro is a biological female, I believe there must be a toy involved in there somewhere."
"Oh, there is," Asteria snorted. "I was reading their minds and Magnus is looking forward to some extracurricular activities tonight…"
"Bitch," Shin'en summarized.
For the next thirty minutes, they engaged in idle chatting about what they saw, said a cordial hello to anyone that greeted them, and then a slow melody was heard from the inside.
Asteria could tell that Annabeth wanted to dance, but they had forever refrained from doing anything public with each other do to their desire to avoid being labeled as lesbians and on the receiving end of some form of criticism. That was more for Annabeth's sake, the good Christian girl, than for Asteria's, who had lesbian mothers.
"Come on," Asteria finally said. "Everyone thinks we're gay anyway."
"I don't want to bother anyone…" was Annabeth's excuse.
Truth be told, she was nervous, her heart racing and everything.
"Will's got one hand on Nico's ass as we speak, right in the middle of everyone, and Magnus and Alex are about to start sucking on each other's tongues. No one's going to say anything to us if we decide to dance. Besides, in today's world, saying anything negative about an openly gay couple is tantamount to terrorism."
Annabeth couldn't argue there, and so she joined Asteria for a dance.
Shin'en went inside with them, and occupied one of the chairs along the edge of the dancefloor, effectively becoming a wallflower. All the other couples on the dancefloor moved awkwardly, not knowing how to waltz appropriately, as they had never been taught, but it was not so for Asteria, who was basically the stepdaughter of royalty.
Her movements with Annabeth were perfect, graceful, coordinated. It was like watching a well-rehearsed ballet performance.
Their actions eventually drew the attention of the whole congregation because of how much they stood out, not only as the infamous Asteria and Annabeth, but their choreography as well. When the song ended, and Asteria finished by dipping Annabeth down, the Homecoming crowd erupted into cheers.
A faster song played on the sound system, and Asteria and Annabeth made their way back over to Shin'en amidst the moving crowd, not inclined to join the fervent teens in jerking their bodies around.
And that's when the evening fell apart.
Since the beginning of the dance, one young man, the class degenerate, and been busying himself with feeling up the girls in the crowd and moving away to not get caught. He had been grabbing butts, making girls think their boyfriends were being frisky, and he had been quickly running is finger between their cheeks, performing the Credit Card maneuver.
Again, he was doing this in heavy foot traffic, and there were so many people about that no one was able to connect it to him because he moved away so fast. Shin'en had admittedly lost track of the boy when he became focused on the dance, but he zeroed right back in on him…when his finger was already in motion behind Annabeth's rear.
The blonde gasped sharply, and the boy behind her made a balking sound at feeling his finger not go smoothly sliding into a pair of panties, but right into the padding of what he thought was a diaper.
Shin'en's hand clamped around the boy's throat before anything else could happen, and he squeezed with so much force that the vertebrae instantly splintered and the esophagus instantly collapsed.
Annabeth's face was red in humiliation, and Asteria's was red in absolute fury.
Shin'en set the body in a chair and the Trio were heading out an otherwise locked side door, Shin'en undoing the lock with his chakra, and after a short trip to the parking lot and into the car, Asteria was peeling away, driving angry at what had happened to her beloved.
It was one thing to be treated in such a way, it was entirely another to be treated in such a way and have your closely guarded personal secret so rudely discovered and then almost blurted out for over two hundred teenagers to hear.
Annabeth sniffled quietly to herself, hating herself for having the psychological issues that she did, the decision that she made to wear a Goodnite tonight, and the fact that her much-looked forward to Homecoming had been ruined by the run-of-the-mill pervert.
Shin'en was also angry, angry at himself for not doing a better job, and for not being faster.
All the while, Ryuk hovered alone in the night sky, his red eyes glowing as he savored the entertainment.
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During the Thanksgiving Break, Asteria decided it was the perfect opportunity to teach Shin'en how to drive.
He raised a brow at her declaration in the morning. "I know how to drive."
"No, you know the concept of how to drive. You know turning the wheel turns the car, the gas makes it go, the break makes it stop, and how to work the blinker." Asteria's eyes narrowed. "I swear if I ever see you change lanes or turn without your blinker, I will take that sword of yours and cut off your hands."
"Scary," Shin'en said flatly.
Over the months, he had noticed how Asteria was not only a speed demon on the highway, rarely dropping below eighty-five, but how her greatest pet peeve on the roadway was people not using their blinkers…right behind people going slower than the speed limit in the passing lane.
Women scorned hath no fury like an Asteria behind someone going sixty in the passing lane.
"What I'm going to do is teach you how to drive," the telepath said with a crazed smile.
Over the course of the break, Shin'en learned how to drive from one of the best drivers on the planet, and that was no joke.
With all the money Asteria had, she gladly organized extracurricular classes for herself and Annabeth to take part in during the break periods of the year, and for a whole summer, Thanksgiving Break, and Christmas Break, she and Annabeth took expert driving courses under the tutelage of professional racers and stunt drivers, coming out to be some of the world's finest.
And Shin'en could call himself one of the best as well, having absorbed everything Asteria could teach him like a sponge.
He also discovered that he preferred motorcycles to actual cars, because with a motorcycle he could flying down the shoulder and completely bypass any traffic. Which was against New York law, but someone like Shin'en had no care for the law, in any form or fashion.
However, despite the excitement of driving on a closed course at over a hundred miles an hour, racing against two other cars going just as fast, the memory Shin'en's soul fragment went to was the Sunday night before the break ended, in which he, Annabeth, and Asteria were playing Super Smash Bros. Melee on the telepath's GameCube, on what was probably the world's largest home television.
The thing was absolutely massive, belonging in a stadium instead of someone's room. Granted, Asteria's bedroom had more floor space than some houses, so that left a lot of area to be occupied, which is why she had this massive entertainment center with a television bigger than some trucks, equipped with surround sound, 4k resolution, DVD, CD, Blu-ray, Netflix, and everything else under the sun.
Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, the works.
The reason as to why this memory happened to have a soul fragment was because of the fact that it was hot this evening, and Shin'en had forgone his cloak, exposing his lithe frame and numerous scars, Asteria was wearing a skirt and very loose t-shirt, and Annabeth…yeah, she was the attention-grabber.
Like Asteria, her upper half was covered only by a shirt, while her lower half…was occupied solely by her Goodnite.
The three teens were embroiled in a vicious battle royale, with Shin'en kicking the other two's asses with his superior reflexes. He was rather fond of Captain Falcon, being able to time the titular Falcon Punch just right to deal maximum damage and send someone flying off the screen.
Whenever it came to this particular game, Asteria took a recliner and propped her legs up, Annabeth sat on a large footrest, leaning forward, and Shin'en took another recliner, content to sit as he was. Also whenever it came to Smash Bros., the real competition was between Annabeth and Asteria to see who could kill the other fastest, so they could claim second place.
In this particular round, Asteria blasted Annabeth right off and pumped a fist in victory. "Yeah! Take that, bitch!"
Shin'en's lips quirked up ever so slightly as he rushed and Falcon Punched Asteria's Samus right off the edge of Brinstar.
"Yeah," Annabeth said coldly, "take that, bitch."
Annabeth, like her canon self, had a rather large sense of pride, which, admittedly, was foiled by her psychological fixation around Goodnites, and so being defeated and having it rubbed in her face was one of her triggers.
Driven to win this round, after Shin'en picked the Ice Mountain stage, Annabeth unceremoniously found a new position splayed out over Asteria's legs with her face by the telepath's feet and her own feet over Asteria's arms. Shin'en's counterpart found her eyes glued to the diapered ass not even two feet away from her eyes.
"It's times like these when I might just reconsider my religious views," Asteria said distantly.
"That's until she farts and it goes right up your nose," Shin'en commented.
Annabeth turned her head to fix Asteria with a coy smirk, which prompted as response.
"If you fart in my face, young lady, you will go over my knee and count how many spanking you get."
"Ooh, feeling kinky tonight, Mommy?"
"Maybe."
Asteria grabbed a handful of ass, and slipped her thumb past the leak guards to rim her girlfriend.
"Stop that," Annabeth said sternly.
"Baby girls don't tell their mommies what to do."
"These two are fucking disgusting," Ryuk said to Shin'en.
The demigod nodded in agreement.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In February, Shin'en got bored with the daily proceedings and decided to mess with Alex just for his own personal amusement. Nothing serious by any means, just the standard things you say to any fragile little snowflake to set them off, like there are only two genders, quoting Ben Shapiro or simply saying the Jew's name, or simply reciting basic anatomical facts.
Alex ended up storming out of the classroom in angry tears, Magnus and Samirah right on her heels to provide comfort.
Asteria had to bury her face to keep people from seeing her laugh, and Annabeth raised her book ever so slightly so her smile couldn't be seen. Alex's friends in the classroom, Sadie, Carter, Walt, Zia, Amir, Mallory, Halfborn and TJ all got up to get on Shin'en's case, but he put them all back in their seats by eeking out the barest trace of killer intent.
Less than one present had been enough to send the Signers, the chosen ones of the godlike Crimson Dragon of the Yu-Gi-Oh! World, into a near-catatonic state.
These people, just regular teenage mortals, without even the benefit of pseudo divinity? Forget it, they weren't about to handle any of the shit Shin'en could dish out.
After Alex left, it wasn't even five minutes later before the intercom went off, with the office secretary requesting Shin'en's presence in the principal's office.
"You're gonna get it now," the spitfire that was Mallory sneered.
"I'm sure," was the dry response.
Shin'en made his way down to the offices, noting with an internal eyeroll how Alex was in one of the counselor's rooms with Sam and Magnus, lamenting about how hard it was to be trans and fluid in the big evil world.
The Abyss entered the office of the little mortal principal, a small woman called Courtney Peck, affectionally referred to as Ms. Pecker by the student body. On her desk were several knickknacks and a computer, and about the walls were bookshelves and posters with the cheap sayings you usually see in classrooms. One wall had large windows, allowing for a generous amount of natural sun to be let in.
In front of the desk were two comfortable chairs.
"Have a seat," Ms. Peck said sternly.
Shin'en remained completely impassive in the face of allowing himself to be ordered about by someone so low on his radar as the principal of a high school. He sat down and was then seemingly forgotten by the woman as she continued to type away at her keyboard.
After a counted six minutes and eighteen seconds passed, Shin'en was beginning to feel his patience wear thin. Like all demigods, he did have ADHD as well, only he had learned to exploit it to its full combative prowess, but even he could only handle so much before he started to become restless.
Compared to most demigods who weren't able to sit still for more than a few seconds, six minutes was borderline godlike.
At eight minutes, Shin'en was officially annoyed, being reminded of all the times he had spent at Yorkshires, the grocery store he technically worked at with Annabeth and Asteria. The pretentiousness of adults in the face of teenagers was an ever vexing thing.
"Are we going to have a conversation, or are you going to continue wasting my time?"
Peck looked at him affronted with his disrespect. "Excuse you, mister. I will get to you when I'm done here."
"Really?" Shin'en asked with false surprise. "I apologize for adding to your already cramped itinerary. Here, let me help lighten the load."
He was all onboard with cordiality coming into this office, but after sitting there for almost ten straight minutes, being ignored even after he was specifically summoned, he was pissed off.
Pecker flinched with a squawk when Shin'en casually rammed his staff through her computer monitor. To make a bigger mess, he flicked his wrist and sent the monitor hurtling across the room where it smashed against the wall and completely broke apart, tearing several cables out of their sockets during its flight.
It was a good thing this office was heavily soundproofed, designed that way because this was the principal's office, in which screaming parents were expected, because the sound of that little machine smashing against the wall would've had so many people rushing inside, which would've really cramped Shin'en's day.
Ryuk would've been overjoyed, but he was already enjoying himself in the face of Shin'en completely ruining Pecker's perception of the situation.
"Now that that's out of the way, we can get to our conversation. So, you called me down here, away from my friends, in a class with a teacher's whose presence I admittedly enjoy—Clarkson is rather intelligent and he has yet to not answer any of my questions regarding the Bible and the science he teaches—only to be placed in a chair for ten minutes while you ignored me. Now…what do want, Ms. Peck?"
The woman was in shock at the blatant display of force. Granted, if you were the otherwise unchallenged highest authority in an institution and one of the people under you unceremoniously hurled your computer monitor into a wall, wouldn't you be a little at a loss for words too?
"Ms. Peck," Shin'en said louder, clearer. "Focus in please, we're on the clock."
"Y-Yes, right, on the clock…" The woman's brain seemingly did a hard reboot, as it appeared she completely forgot about her broken computer, and reverted back to whatever mindset she had when she had requested his presence almost a quarter-hour ago.
"Do you know what this school's tolerance of bullying is, Mr. Yūrei?"
"Zero. A faulty standing, for adversity builds character and develops the mental strength necessary to carry through life. Your coddling of the student body weakens and pampers them."
Peck ignored that entire spiel, writing Shin'en off as just another teen who thought he knew better. "Yes, zero tolerance. What you said to Alex is unacceptable."
"Stating facts is unacceptable?" Shin'en rose a brow.
The principal sighed, suddenly seeming like a sympathetic person. "No, stating facts is not unacceptable. It's who you were stating those facts to. You know Alex is an avid member of the LGBT, and what her life was like before came to New York—" Peck caught herself.
It was a widely known fact that she often said things she wasn't supposed to about some of the student body.
But Shin'en was unphased and not ignorant. "Oh, I know much about Alex Fierro's past. A mother that abandoned her, a father and siblings that didn't support her gender identity, and only a grandfather that loved her for who she is, and taught her about pottery. Then her grandfather passed and she went to the streets for a few months, evading law enforcement until she was adopted by the Fadlan family. Absolutely none of that is grounds for any kind of special privilege, treatment, or preference."
He had spent two weeks raising a pair of twins, one of which was systematically raped by a full-grown man, the other relentlessly beaten for whatever reason, both of whom were starved and locked away in their bedroom with only each other and their filth as company, while their own mother just sat there watched, too high and drunk to notice or care.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," Peck said, "but that doesn't change the fact that Alex came running down here in tears about what you said to her, and considering her background and this school's stance on those who identify as LGBT, you will still be punished. The rest of this week and the next in ISS."
In School Suspension; you got placed in a windowless, undecorated, boring room in the depths of the school and were made to handwrite the school's abridged rulebook, roughly three thousand words, and then you were given whatever assignments your teachers made for you to do. Lunch was brought to you, but it was the school-issued, crappy lunch for the poor kids, and if you had time privileges, such as late arrival or early release, those were revoked during your sentence, meaning you had to be at the school for opening, and you had to stay until dismissal.
More tedious and infuriating than actually punishing, but Shin'en was hardly phased.
Gatou was rather creative with his punishments.
"Is that so…?" the Abyss said slowly. "Well, Ms. Pecker," he reached out and crushed a stapler to pieces in his hand, making the woman flinch, "in order to carry that sentence out," he proceeded to grab a textbook and tear it half clean down the middle like it was a single sheet of paper, "you'll first have to acquire the necessary force," he grabbed a reward twice the size of a baseball, made of glass, with what the award was fore inscribed in the face, and shattered it with barely any effort, "to make me comply to your authority," then he grabbed the lip of the desk and lifted the entire thing off the ground like it was a baseball bat, smiling merrily, "which might prove to be very difficult."
Shin'en let the desk slam back to the ground, and he rose gracefully from his seat. "Good day, Ms. Pecker. I trust you and I will never speak again."
He left the principal's office, and Ms. Peck's brain did yet another hard reboot, and it also pushed all the recently lived memories down very deep, so as to protect Peck from the trauma she just endured.
True to Shin'en's word, he and the principal never spoke again, and Alex and his entourage were very upset that he was seemingly unpunished for all the "mean" things he had said.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
About two weeks later, in the final days of February, at the mansion, in Asteria's room, Shin'en walked in to find the lovers not committing to any sexual acts, as he had done several times before just to mess with them both, but to find Asteria behaving like a child on the morning of Christmas.
"It's here!" she cheered.
Shin'en raised a brow. "What's here?"
He saw the large Amazon Prime shipping box on the carpet, its contents—consisting of three plastic toy guitars, a toy drum set, and a microphone—all over the floor, unwrapped and set up as if a band was about to play.
Annabeth threw a little green Xbox game case at Shin'en, and he caught it and examined the front. It was a rock guitar sitting against a brick wall with a single source of lighting coming from the top right, out of frame, creating the image that this guitar was some legendary item just waiting for you to pick it up and play it.
"Gods of Rock: Legends of the 80s," Shin'en read aloud. "Featuring the greatest hits of ACDC, Queen, Def Leppard, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Guns N' Roses, Journey, and many more….So it's Guitar Hero only with better music?"
"It's Guitar Hero with only the greatest music ever," Asteria said with stars in her eyes. "I commissioned this baby myself, and now I get a percentage of all the proceeds."
Shin'en wasn't surprised by any means, and merely asked, "Are we going to start playing, or were we saving that for a later day?"
"We're starting right now. Annabeth's got her pull-up off and everything."
Yes, in previous times in which the Trio decided to play a rock game with the special controllers, they got really into it, working up a sweat—or at least, Annabeth and Asteria did—and since Annabeth's typical underwear was a garment designed specifically to absorb moisture, and her body started producing a lot of moisture as she got into the game, it created the bad combination of a clammy Goodnite that she usually had to peel from her body after the fact.
Much better to put on some panties for a jam session with her boyfriend and best friend.
That night, they jammed, and they jammed hard, nearly shaking the stars right out of the sky.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Things went downhill fast at the coming of May, when Shin'en was having a particularly bad day after having several nightmares of Yūrei, Yugito, Persephone, and the orphans, and Alex just had to make a snide comment, still feeling very vindictive after what happened in February, which was enough to set Shin'en off, and he proceeded to roast the ever-loving shit out of the genderfluid teenager, completely and utterly destroying her psyche, confidence, security, and identity with nothing but cold, deep, clear words.
Alex once again went running out of the classroom in tears, and not yet done, Shin'en turned his attentions to the Egyptians and the Norse, and picked every one of them apart as well. They all quickly joined Alex in leaving the classroom in various states of emotional distress.
As it was revealed the next morning, Alex Fierro had committed suicide by shooting herself in the face, which did nothing to Shin'en or Asteria besides make them shrug. Annabeth however, was highly displeased with them both.
The Director, however, saw opportunity to merely put her stepdaughter on the spot for nothing but a little bit of entertainment, threatening the lives of not only Sally, but also of all the kids that Annabeth went to Sunday School with, along with the whole church in general.
So, for Annabeth's sake, Asteria agreed to host an interview with the major news outlets of the country, coming out to the world as transgender, which about as much of an effect as you imagine.
The real highlight to that exposed story was that the next day at school, during the lunch period, Alex's friends whipped up a mob.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Asteria, Annabeth, and Shin'en were at an outside table enjoying the clear weather, when the telepath went rigid and the shinobi turned a dark gaze to the cafeteria area. Annabeth didn't get to ask what was up, because the doors inside burst open as over three hundred angry teens came storming out.
"Oh, this'll be fun," Shin'en muttered. "What're they here for?"
"Revenge for Alex," Asteria shrugged.
"Oh, this is going to be lots of fun."
Magnus was heading the mob, and Shin'en rose from his chair and stood before them, drawn up to his full 5'10.
"You're going to pay for what you said to Alex," Magnus said, and he pointed to Asteria, "and he's going to pay too, for lying this whole time. He could've helped Alex, but instead he just chose to sit back and let her suffer like the rest of the transgender community does."
"Bold words," Shin'en commended. "But have you ever given any thought to the fact that maybe the transgender community would be just fine if they…didn't…tell people they were trans? For example, all of you were just fine with Asteria up until this point, and the only thing that changed was a little bit of knowledge."
Shin'en put a finger to his temple and smiled, recreating the Thinking Black Guy meme.
"People can't persecute you for being trans, if they don't know you're trans."
As it was often said: the truth hurts.
And the truth hurt Magnus so bad that he yelled and rushed forward, only to get close-lined so hard he did a complete 520-degree spin midair and landed on his face.
"Well, who's next?"
Some ran at Shin'en and others looked for Asteria and Annabeth, but they had slipped away during the previous confrontation and were already peeling out of the parking lot, leaving the shinobi to tangle with roughly 300 able-bodied teens. Now, his body was still in its damaged state, with the screwed up chakra network, and the heart/lung problems.
However, the amount of effort required for someone as powerful as him, even in this weakened state, was roughly equivalent to the amount of effort required to hit a button on a TV remote to change the channel.
Shin'en might've felt really bad about beating all these kids up if they were actually related to Asteria and Annabeth.
As was usual of Mortal AUs, Percy, Thalia, Jason, Nico, Hazel, and Bianca were typically cousins, usually because their dads were all crime bosses or some other overused bullshit. Not so in this dimension. Thalia and Jason were half-siblings, sharing the same mother; Nico and Bianca were full siblings, with Hazel being their step via a different mother, and Percy in this dimension was Asteria, so…yeah.
No cousins.
Not even Magnus and Annabeth were cousins in the world of Xenophobic, which was really an interesting thing because that fact was more canonical than the children of the Big Three being cousins, seeing as gods didn't have DNA which, for all intents and purposes, meant that the Big Three kids weren't cousins, but that didn't stop them from seeing each as such.
On a side note, that logic meant that Percy is canonically related to Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler, but Uncle Rick conveniently leaves that out even though he said himself that Hitler was the son of Pluto and Stalin of Hades.
But anyway.
Shin'en kicked 300 different kinds of ass and didn't even break a sweat. He wasn't even breathing differently.
He shouldered his staff and idly wondered why none of the campus security guards had come out here, and then figured they had probably watched and weren't about to get involved. Shin'en looked around the courtyard at all the moaning and crying teens, all with various injuries. None of them were dead, and none of them were going to die of blood loss or clots, but they probably wouldn't be able to use that arm or leg again.
"Oh well," Shin'en said aloud, and the began heading towards the parking lot, figuring that he had done enough at Goode for one day. "There's probably going to be a lot of parents mad at me…oh well."
He met Asteria and Annabeth at their sacred spot on the cliff with the oak tree.
"You didn't kill them all, did you?" Asteria asked.
"No, but they might wish I had when they're in the ICU."
"You're going to be in a lot of trouble," Annabeth surmised. "You might've gotten away with a lot of things, but this is way too much to sweep under the rug."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Shin'en said, looking out over the sea. "Janssen's got too much face to hold onto to let it be marred by a nonlethal school massacre. She'll keep things quiet."
"Well, that sounds good to me. Beer?"
"Sure."
Asteria reached into the mini cooler by her side, something she always kept in her car and always stocked with ice and beverage, and she pulled out a beer…a Frostie Root Beer that is.
Shin'en took the cold glass bottle, twisted the cap off, and took a long swig of the cold soda.
Asteria gave one to Annabeth, took for herself, and they both opened at roughly the same time.
"To the dead," the telepath said.
Annabeth and Shin'en raised their Root Beers. "And to the next man to die."
They drank together, the two non-shinobi having no idea the significance of such a toast, but they knew it was important.
Besides, it sounded cool.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Well, that was certainly a very long one. Sorry about that, but I was drawing on memories of senior year and the words just went floating from my head to my fingers to the keyboard.
Ironically enough, this was the chapter I enjoyed writing the most out of all of Blood War, probably because, like I said, I was drawing on memories of high school.
I'll let you guys figure out which ones were fabricated and which were real.
As this chapter focused mostly on the high school setting, the next chapter will be mostly focused on the grocery store, Yorkshires. So, if you thought Shin'en whipping the principal's ass was fun, wait until you see him with rude customers.
Fav, Follow, and Review please!
