Energy Unbound
Chapter ?
Children of Progress
The streets of New York were quite busy, even at this time of morning. Ari was strolling down a side avenue gazing listlessly at the mortal world around her. To anyone else she just looked like a young woman with her hands in the pockets of her jeans, out in the early morning to catch some air.
If only they knew.
Of course, the small child that bumped into her, muttering a 'Sorry' and dashing away with her wallet didn't know who she was. Nor did they know that Ari was aware of the theft, and grinned as she watched the kid run away. How could they? The knowledge of the mythical world was considered just that.
A myth.
With little more than a glance around her, she turned invisible, intangible, and followed her thief.
As she flew alongside the child, she scanned him for anything amiss. Was he just a petty thief? Or did he steal for another purpose? Things were never are simple as they first appeared.
Most gods would have simply wiped him from existence when they realized they were stolen from. Hell, Ari's previous self would have vaporized Terra for the offense. But she was neither of those, anymore; she was essentially a human, with compassion, and the ability to be amazed by the real world. Despite her awesome power, she strove to keep that part of herself, lest she become jaded when mythical things were routine again.
What she found in the scan of the kid's body made her seethe with anger. His arms and chest were bruised, many times, and the muscles were weak, signaling a long period of continued injury. He was malnourished, almost severely so. His feet and hands were callused, indicating hard, manual labor. And the way he was running, almost like scared prey, made her heart hurt.
It was when Ari reviewed his mind that she almost lost containment of her true form. This boy, this poor kid, was little more than a slave. He was frantic to return to his 'house' because of his sister, who was held hostage by two men. They would do nothing to her if he worked for them, stealing, building, and sewing in a sweatshop. If his memories were any indication, there were at least a dozen other boys and girls with similar situations in that house.
Ari was having none of that.
So when the boy got to the house, rapped a code on the door, and was allowed inside, she floated in after him. She sent a burst of energy throughout the house, finding the sweatshop and a small room where several girls were chained to the walls. Her eyes watered up, and she started to cry, her power reacting to her extreme emotions. The house began to heat up.
"What've you got for us, boy?" a gruff voice demanded, bellowing out across the building.
The men, Ari thought, and moved into the side room. Her grief was replaced by anger, as the creators of the suffering all around her came into view.
The two men, both overweight mobsters, were leafing through her wallet, and had already thrown her ID card down onto the fold up table they were seated at. The boy stood near, but not too near, visibly shaking. Fear radiated off of him like a tsunami.
"Quite a looker," one of the men said, looking at her ID.
Ari had enough. She moved between the boy and the table, instantly becoming visible again. "I'd say thank you, but scum like you deserve nothing," she spoke, her tone flat with anger.
The boy jumped backwards, his heart rate skyrocketing. The two men stood up, drawing handguns and aiming them at her. Fatso 1, as she decided to call the first speaker, was the one to say it.
"Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?" he demanded, accentuating his statement with slight waves of his gun.
She glanced at the weapons, smirking. "Who I am is of no consequence. Just deliver a message to my grand uncle when you see him, okay?"
The two men looked at each other, exchanging glances that said she was crazy. "Haha, yeah sure lady. What's the message?" they joked.
"These two are to be punished in the Boiling Pits," Ari supplied, holding up a hand towards them.
They were snickering now. "Sure thing, okey dokey, we'll tell him. Who we sending the message to, doll?" Fatso 2 chuckled.
Ari smirked, letting her eyes return to their true state. Flares of light erupted, and the men immediately became fearful. "Hades," she growled, and released a blast of energy that erased them from the mortal world, their bodies turned to ash.
Ari was alerted to a whimper behind her. She turned, lowering her hand, and found the boy huddled into the wall trying to escape her notice. She immediately turned her scowl into a kind smile. She kneeled down so she was at his height.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. The bad men can't hurt you anymore," she said, reaching out a hand. He whimpered again, and she stopped, sighing.
"I won't hurt you," she said, trying to sound supportive.
He said something, almost too quiet for her to catch. But she did. "You hurt them."
Her sad smile returned. "They hurt you," she said.
He shook his head. "No they didn't," he said, but it sounded rehearsed.
Ari sighed again. "We both know that is a lie, Jim," she said, using his name to prove a point.
His eyes widened. "How do you know my name?"
She said nothing, using telepathy to deliver her point further. How do you think I know it? she asked.
He jumped slightly, looking at her in confusion. "Did you just talk in my head?"
She smiled, nodding. Yes.
He pressed his tiny body into the wall more. "What are you?"
Ari frowned, deeply hurt by all this boy, and the others here, had endured. She wasn't sure what to tell him. "Even if I told you the truth, you wouldn't believe me," she finally said.
"Why not?"
"Mortals never do," she shrugged, getting up from her knee. She walked away from him, moving to the large room where the sweatshop was.
Of course, he followed her, at a distance.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm rescuing you. All of you," she replied, vaporizing the metal door with a touch.
Her eyes were met with fifteen children gazing at her in shock. "What the hell?" one boy cried out.
Ari realized then that she'd left her eyes as light flares. She closed them, cloaking her true form, then opened them back up. Her eyes were once again visible. "Sorry. That better?"
"Who are you?" One of the boys, the oldest, asked.
"I'm the one who just saved you," she said, moving to the side of the doorway and holding an arm out.
The boy looked to the door, saw Jim outside, then turned back to her. "We can't leave."
Ari was confused. "I took care of your captors. You're free," she insisted.
His eyes grew wide. "You didn't kill them, did you?"
Ari was nervous now. "Yes…?"
"Oh no. This is bad," the boy said, running back to his workstation. "Jerry! Louise! Round up the group, we gotta bounce!" The two kids he called on, a boy and a girl near his age, nodded. Louise began to go to the other young children, while Jerry moved into the hall to get Jim. Another boy raced out, his footsteps receding to the room with the chained girls.
Ari blinked in surprise and utter confusion. "Why is killing those two scum a bad thing?" she asked.
The oldest boy, clearly their leader, turned and glared at her. "You wouldn't understand," he scoffed, turning back to his packing.
"Try me."
He sighed, turning back to her. "All of us here, on or before our birthday, usually our tenth, began to be attacked by… something. Whatever it was, it killed a lot of our families. Most of our friends. It never stopped, more kept coming. We found each other, and protected the group, finding more of us. Something about us is different. Some of the things could speak, said it was our smell. Those two guys? They seemed to block it. We were safe here, up until you came in here, trying to save us," he explained. "Whatever you are," he added, returning to his packing.
Ari's eyes were wide as dinner plates. There was no way this meeting was chance. She would be having a chat with Rachel and Ananke later. "Do any of you have… abilities, that can't be explained?" she asked carefully.
The boy froze, turning his head back to her slowly. "How do you know that?" he whispered.
"Before your tenth birthday, you said?" she clarified.
He nodded.
Ari smiled, amazed at what she'd found. "While that's a little early, it makes sense if you're kids of the older generation," she mused.
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
She sat on the floor, patting the space in front of her. "Come. You are safe in my presence."
His eyebrows rose. "You're like them? But you seem nice."
She laughed at that. "I am nice. The monsters of the world aren't suicidal, that's all. They will avoid me like a plague."
His mouth dropped open. "You know about them?"
She nodded. "Like I said, you are safe. If what I'm guessing is correct, then it's good I found you, and not someone else. The others of my kind can be… volatile."
He glared at her suspiciously, but did sit. "Your kind?" he asked.
Ari smiled. "What do you know of Greek mythology?"
The boy was surprised at the perceived change of subject. "Uh… not a lot. Just that there were gods and goddesses, that lived on some kind of mountain?"
"Yes," she nodded, "Mount Olympus. What about their interaction with humans? Mortals, as they were called?"
He racked his brain, tapping his chin. "Uh… didn't they like… have kids with them?"
Ari nodded. "What about the kids? Were they normal?"
He scrunched up his eyebrows, focusing. "I don't think so. They had their parent's powers, right?"
Ari smirked, staring at him pointedly.
"What?"
"Think about what you just said in the context of yourself and your friends," she told him.
She swore she could hear the rusted gears of his mind begin to spin again. A moment later, his eyes widened in disbelief.
"No way," he said.
Ari just grinned.
He scrambled up, away from her. "You're crazy," he told her.
She tilted her head. "It's the only thing that makes sense and you know it."
"But it's impossible!" he declared, shaking his head.
Ari's eyebrows rose. "Are you saying that I'm impossible as well?" she questioned.
The gears turned again, and realization hit him hard. "You… you're…" he stammered.
She nodded, smiling broadly. "I am."
He scowled. "Prove it."
Ari just smirked and levitated three feet off the floor.
He crossed his arms. "Some of us can do that."
She sighed. "Fine." Reaching into her power, she materialized a hologram projector. She couldn't show them her actual true form, but an image of it? Thank you, Annabeth.
Suffice it to say, two seconds later a woman made entirely of silver metal was hovering off the floor, and the rest of the kids dropped everything in surprise.
The leader gulped. "So which one are you?"
She shook her head. "I'm not in the myths. I like to keep to the sidelines," she said.
He blinked several times. "You expect me to bow or something?"
Ari tilted her head to the side, confused. "Why would I expect that?"
"You're a…" he paused, clearly not believing the word was about to come out of his mouth, "goddess."
"Ah," Ari realized. "No. I'm fully aware of my own power, I don't need people revering me."
Louise spoke up. "So what now?"
Ari smiled, turning off the holoprojector. "Now I bring you to safety."
"Why would you do that?" the leader asked.
Ari scoffed. "Maybe it's because I'm a nice person?" she asked sarcastically.
"If what you say is true, and we're all... demigods," he began, "then our parents have ignored us. You're one of them. I'm not buying it."
"You're not demigods," Ari corrected, "or at least anyone who got attacked before their twelfth birthday isn't. Demigods don't emerge until then except in some really strange cases. And I've already said I'm not like the others of my kind."
Jerry joined in. "If we're not 'demigods', what are we?"
Ari shrugged. "I honestly don't know. You're half something, and it's gotta be powerful. Maybe demititans?" she ventured. "It would be a lot easier if I knew what you can do. Could help me nail down your parent."
The leader, who's name Ari still didn't know, stood rooted to the spot. "Demi… titans… as in the Titans that got beaten?"
"The very same," she confirmed.
"You're telling us that one of our parents were a Titan, from Greek mythology?" Jerry asked, summing it up.
Ari held up a hand, tilting it to the side slightly. "Probably. I'm not entirely sure. Again, what powers you have are the most indicative of who your parent is. The only surefire ways are for the parent to claim you, or for my technology to get a deep scan of your energy."
"Claim? Scan? Energy? What?" Louise asked.
Ari sighed. "All right, to sum it up; my kind are not physical beings. We're made entirely of energy. Thus, you are half human, half energy," she explained.
Every person in that room besides Ari who was old enough to understand her stared. "What?!" the leader hissed.
