August 18th would go down as one of the most celebrated and well-known dates in the world. Or at least, in the world of myths and monsters.
It all starts in a time not before years were known to be counted, in the lower regions of Ancient Greece near Tripoles. A young woman runs from certain death, in the shape of a hound from hell, cradling a young child in her arms. She dashed into a neighboring forest, hoping to hide from the beast, to no avail. As soon as she passed a tree's shadow, the creature leapt from the darkness and struck her down with a death blow, teeth tearing into her neck and crushing her esophagus.
The child fell from her arms and onto the floor of the wood, rolling against the rough terrain. It cried out, in pain and fear, only to be silenced as the hellhound moved on to the younger snack. Its screams were quelled as the monster feasted, thus signifying a change in the air that would ripple through time. The death of two innocents, mother and son, would affect the flow of time and fate around that specific date for millennia. The next profound date, however, would be many, many years later.
xXxXx
In 1993, on August 18th, a child is born into the world with startling green eyes and a small, thin tuft of black hair. His mother, face red and eyes full of tears, held the babe to her chest. She couldn't take her eyes off of him if she tried, so enraptured by his innocent beauty.
Away from prying eyes, just outside the room, a man stood at the ready, just in case someone needed him. He was obviously the father, but something about him gave off a much more powerful aura. His black hair was swept back in neat curls, his beard well-kept and short haired, he looked like an Wall Street mogul in his sharp suit and tie, not a father to a newborn whose mother only looked in to be in her early twenties.
With prompting from the mother, he entered the room and took his first look at his son. Green eyes locked, and the man let out a suffering sigh of bittersweet joy. "Sally… he's gorgeous." He said quietly, in awe of the baby before him. "His name is Perseus." She stated, looking up at her lover. "I know that's the name of your brother's son, but I thought, because he had such a happy ending in the legends, maybe our son would inherit that same luck."
She had downcast eyes, but her lover merely smiled at the wishful thinking. "He'll have all the luck he needs in your arms, my love." He kissed her head, before sitting at her side while they watched their son, Perseus Jackson, sleep.
xXxXx
The joy didn't last forever, however, and four years later Sally was wishing for a better place, outside of her arms, that her son could inhabit. Living in lower Manhattan was expensive to say the least, and even if she dreamed of a reality where she could live with just her wonderful son, she had to have the financial help of another. Enter Gabe Ugliano, a heavyset man with a scraggly beard and an odor that didn't go away no matter when he showered. At first, Sally wanted nothing to do with the regular at her job in the candy shop, however she soon gave in to his advances and moved in with him in his studio apartment in Queens. There, she could still commute to her job in only twenty-two minutes, not to mention the bookstore that was around the block and the sweet sound of street musicians that wandered into the apartment through their open window.
Percy, as he was nicknamed, loved growing up in such a vibrant and diverse community. He would dance to the music on the street, talk with the people walking by on their way to work, and spend his afternoons running after the other children on the block. Of course, when it came to the actual apartment, both Sally and Percy felt the farthest from home. The place was covered in empty or partially filled beer bottles and bits of food trash, general garbage littering the various hot spots of the apartment. Gabe held a managerial position at a local food mart, setting his own schedule so he was home whenever Sally was at work and vice versa for the majority of the week.
In the times when Percy was out of school, the hours alone with his stepfather, were the worst times in his life. Most days he could escape outside to the wonderful community he lived around, but sometimes when Gabe had had a little too much to drink or was a little low on money from a previous poker game, he would keep Percy inside to be his personal entertainment. Mostly this included being a waiter, cook, and punching bag for the man, never to the face or arms to hide the bruises.
Percy hated Gabe, hated him with all his heart, but he would never voice this to his mother. She had married Gabe a year ago, officially making him part of the family. If there was one thing Percy wanted most in the world, it was his mother's happiness. If she wanted to be with this vile man, he wouldn't take away from her happiness.
Today, however, was going to be a different day, because it happened to be his fifth birthday. The start of the school year would be next week, which meant less time at home, and today would start the happy transition, because his mom had taken an earlier shift at her work so she could spend all night with him. Currently, Percy was sitting outside his apartment building's stoop, just listening to the sweet, jazzy sound of the man on the corner with his saxophone, watching the bustle of the city around him. He perked up when a figure moved around the corner of his apartment building, her brown hair blowing in the gentle breeze.
"Mom!" He shouted excitedly, racing to her. She laughed when he collided into her midsection, tiny arms grappling her in a death grip. "Hello to you too, birthday boy." He giggled when she picked him up, twirling him around until he was a giggling mess. She set him down, ruffled his hair, and returned to walking into the building. "Just give me a minute to change and we'll be heading out to Montauk." She called back as she entered, leaving him on the steps.
Percy was almost vibrating with excitement, eager to be heading out to the beach. Every year since he was two, they would go out Montauk, at a little shack by the ocean, and stay for a day. It was his favorite place in the world, the only place he felt really at home. After a while, Percy was anxious to leave, feeling only a tiny bit antsy outside his apartment building doors. Feeling a little nervous, he stepped inside and headed up the side stairs to his third-floor apartment. Already, he could hear shouting from his own apartment, and the sound had him stopping in his tracks.
Though the walls were thin, they did muffle in conversation to a point where only few words could be heard. "Son… age… be there… car!" Screamed the shrill voice of his mother when she got truly angry. A deeper, even more angry voice countered. "My… damned if… his… privileged… too much already!" Percy slowly approached the door as the shouting continued, carefully cracking it open to see. The scene before him was shocking.
Gabe held his mother by her throat, face blotched red in fury as he screamed in rage. His mother looked almost purple in the face, tears leaking down her cheeks and dropping to the floor. In a final shout of anger, he slammed her head into the bar counter that connected to their kitchen. Her body fell limp to the floor, blood spewing from her head at a rate that was more than frightening. Percy cried out, rushing to his mother's side without care for the still angry man above her. He turned her head to him, shaking her slightly in hopes that she'd awaken from whatever sleep she was in. Her eyes were glassy, the once shining blue now dull and lifeless. Despair gripped Percy's soul, filling him dread and depression.
"Get out of the way, kid. I gotta move her somewhere else." Gabe grumbled, only slightly anxious. Percy's head snapped to him, eyes filling with the cold fury of the sea. The pipes in the apartment began shaking, water fuming and writhing at the rage coming from the boy. He stood shakily; hands squeezed into fists that shook with his anger. Suddenly, water flung from the kitchen sink behind him, flowing in the air around him like a living being, a tentacle of sink water that would defend the child who wielded it.
Gabe backed up in horror, eyes wide and filled with fear. "What the hell!" He shouted, back pressed to the open window. Percy glared at the man, and with a single thought of what he wanted, what he had wanted for years now, the water surged forward and slammed into the man, launching him through the window and into the open air. Twisting in the air, Gabe fell the three stories down and onto the steps below, unfortunately headfirst. With a sickening crack his neck snapped at the angle of the step it landed on, blood coughing from his mouth as he slowly choked on the blood pooling into his throat and pouring down into his lungs.
It took until police actually arrived for him to finally die, right as the first cruiser hopped the curb adjacent to the body. The beat cops from the neighborhood had already taped off the area, waiting for an ambulance to appear. They didn't move the body, even when alive in fear of causing the neck to fully snap and lead to his death. A slow death is all that followed, and to the boy who sat with the police, it was well earned.
Soon enough, a black car pulled up at the scene, two detectives stepping out. A woman with long brown hair pulled into a messy bun and another woman with blond hair cut short, each wearing prominent badges on there person. The brunette had on suit pants held up by suspenders and a light blue dress shirt with an open collar button and rolled up sleeves, her badge hanging on a chain around her neck. The blond wore a brown pantsuit with a white shirt, her badge clipped to her hip. They approached the crime scene, surveying the area carefully until their eyes landed on the kid sitting in a police cruiser on the street.
"Kid saw everything?" The brunette asked, most likely to the beat cop that had first arrived. "Yeah, says the body here is his stepfather who murdered the mom, in the apartment up there." He pointed to the broken open window above. She took a mental note to check out the apartment once she was done talking to the kid, before nodding and proceeding.
She approached the child with her partner by her side, simply watching. "Hey kid, Im sure you're pretty shaken up about this whole situation, but we just wanna ask you a couple of questions." She spoke evenly. He looked up and she paused, staring into his green eyes. His sea green eyes, which she had seen a hundred times before on the face of her uncle and her various cousins. She looked up at her partner, who seemed to be recognizing the same feature that she had.
"I understand the man who fell was your stepfather?" She asked, trying to keep up a calm façade. He nodded, eyes turning down to the road. With one look to the cops around them, she crouched down and whispered to him. "Do you know who your birth father is?" Percy snapped his head up, meeting her eyes with his wide ones. "No, my mom said he was lost at sea before I was born. Do you know him?" The pure hope in his voice, shaky with the broken spirit he now held, made the blond's heart ache and the brunette grin slightly. "Well, I may have an idea. Why don't you come down to the station with us, and we can get this whole situation sorted out and maybe find you a place to stay." The hope left his face, the depression settling back in as he nodded solemnly.
He stood with the brunette detective, following her to the black car she had arrived in with her partner. "Eunomia, if he truly is a demigod, especially of your uncle, he can't stay in an orphanage, or even a foster home. It's amazing he lasted this long at a home in Queens." The brunette, Eunomia, sighed as she shut the door on the boy, locking eyes with her companion. "Poine, the boy just lost his mother, the only family he had. We can't force him out onto the street or hell, even bringing him to that ridiculous camp could be dangerous because of his father."
"I know." Poine said, biting her lip while the other detective walked around to her side of the car. "I never said we'd force him to go somewhere else, but maybe he could stay with… someone who can take care of him and still protect him from the mythological world. Maybe a pair of gods?" She pushed, eyeing Eunomia. To her credit, she almost couldn't hold back the flurry of Greek swears that would've broke past her lips. "Po! You really want to adopt a demigod? We're already on thin ice with the council!"
Despite her outburst, Eunomia could see the appeal of raising the young half-blood. As they got seated, Poine kept staring pointedly at her partner, piercing blue eyes looking into her soul. With a heavy sigh, and one final look at the lonely, broken child in her back seat, Eunomia took a swig of her hip flask. "Fuck it then. Always wanted a kid anyway." She muttered, pulling up the street that would lead to the police station.
After a small batch of questioning, and a good deal of mist control to keep the mortal officers convinced that the kid wasn't even close to at fault for the crimes committed, the two detectives would bring Percy to their small two-bedroom on the outskirts of Downtown Flushing, officially starting the new adventure that was the life of a hero.