The Ghoul

Intros continue, this time with the Ghoul

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"Dimensional activity detected. Dimension DI-4. Kraken incoming."

The teleporter whirred to life, lighting up, and out of the light came the normalest one so far, in that he wasn't wearing some military uniform-looking outfit, didn't have a spine-like tail coming out just above his butt, and wasn't wearing the shiny armor and expensive clothing that a great king would wear. Instead, he was wearing something that piqued the interest of the Romans, also their confusion, and in some cases, their ire.

Roman-issue combat cleats, blue jeans, Imperial Gold greaves, the purple camp shirt, but it was cut away about the lower abdomen, making something like a low-cut crop top, and the armor he wore, the lorica segmentata, made from Imperial Gold, was cut the same way, with several plates missing headed down to the waist, mutilating the armor in the same crop top way that the shirt was. In place of the plumed helmet, he instead had a black mask on his face.

The mask was contoured so that the eyes looked to be narrow and focused, but there was no mouth. Instead, around the mouth and chin the mask was cut in a way that it looked like a bunch of little tentacles, and then from the ears going up to the crown, the appendages looked like the branches of a coral reef. The eyeholes were deep enough that his actual eyes couldn't be seen, just pools of black.

The dominant questions were who was this guy, why was he wearing Roman armor, and why was he wearing it like that, with the majority of his midsection exposed.

As per the machine, his name was Kraken, and so therefore Kraken panned his head over the crowd, looking at everyone, trying to assess the situation, just like Asteria had done. That action alone was a big key for the observant many as to who Kraken was: a trained killer, a predator taking in his surroundings, counting potential threats, making plans, locating exits. And considering his height, he was only a child.

Well, teenager, probably fourteen or fifteen, but to the majority of the room that was a child.

Kraken's panning paused when he got to the Roman section of the audience, and the subtle body language said he was seeing familiar faces and wondering why they were here and how they got here. He panned a bit further, and then went rigid when he saw Sally.

Sally cringed when she saw that, dread settling over her as she was left in the dark about what her relationship between this version of her son and her was like. She apparently had next to no relationship with Shin'en, since he had been kidnapped at birth and Asteria had made no mention of her during her brief statement about his life, and she'd been murdered minutes after Asteria had been born, and during the Leviathan's video, there had been no mention made of her, and the man himself hadn't so much as looked at her since he got here—not a glance, not a nod, and certainly no great big hug. That told Sally all she needed to know about what she was to this powerful creature that was her son from another dimension.

Just what was the relationship between her and Kraken to where he'd gone rigid at seeing her?

Kraken looked away and went walking up the steps of the stage to where the other four were at.

"Um, what's going on?"

Many were taken aback at the voice. Though it was muffled by the mask, it was very clearly young, juvenile, laced with innocence and confusion, and earnest. This new guy, this Fourth Master, seemed no different than a lost child asking a stranger in the grocery store where his mommy was. However, Asteria had looked just like any other college girl, and it turned out she was a world-ending super predator. The wise among the audience reserved their judgement until they had seen more, while the foolish immediately wrote off Kraken as some dumb kid.

"War," Shin'en said simply.

"I'm already in the middle of a war…"

"And now you're within the ranks of this war."

"But—what about everyone else?"

"They'll be fine, I promise you that."

"Where even are we?"

"The extradimensional super fortress known as Hotel Valhalla, serving as our base of operations and safe haven for the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Norse, and all of their significant others."

"…o~kay~…who are we fighting?"

"Everyone. All of the bad guys have teamed up, and now we have to beat them."

"Okay, then let's get started."

"We're already underway. Before we can begin in earnest, however, we need three more."

Kraken's eye flitted from Wheels, to Leviathan, to Asteria, then back to Shin'en. "Three more…of us?"

"Yep."

"Oh. What…what do you want me to do?"

"That depends on which one am I talking to."

"I'm Percy."

Shin'en nodded. "You have free reign of the hotel to explore and engage its activities, and you have your own suite for rest and relaxation. What I strongly recommend you do not do, is socialize. You will be drowned in questions."

"What about…what about food?"

"Don't worry, food will be provided."

The question and answered were spoken easily enough, but anyone with a halfway decent brain figured that when Kraken, or Percy, or whatever his name was, spoke about food, he wasn't talking about steak, pork chops, drumsticks, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, pizza, and ice cream….

"You have downtime until I call you," Shin'en said, dismissing Percy to go and do his own thing.

So, naturally, after basically being told not to go and socialize with anyone here, Percy went right up to canon-Percy, C-Percy, who also happened to be sitting with Sally, Annabeth, Thalia, all four of them having made it back from Asteria's room during Leviathan's intro, and were surrounded by the rest of the majority, though the only one's Ghoul-Percy, G-Percy, cared about were Frank, Hazel, and Reyna.

"Kids," Shin'en muttered.

"Yep," Leviathan grinned, "be glad you don't have any."

Asteria balked, splaying her hands in a what the fuck is wrong with you kind of way, while Wheels palmed his face, and Leviathan instantly drew back.

"I am so sorry. I did not mean that."

Shin'en just silently stared at his brother, gaze icy, withering, unamused, and delivering the silent warning of extreme pain unless words and actions were very carefully considered.

This whole exchange actually went unnoticed for the most part, everyone focused on what was going down between G-Percy and the others. For the most part; Apollo and Poseidon had seen it, and the two gods shared another of their many looks. Poseidon was concerned because he saw his son up there, and Apollo was concerned because he saw a person that was hurting and needed help.

Even Wheels had said that Shin'en was mentally ill, and by his very own admission, he had nine separate personalities in him and PTSD from whatever black operations he'd been doing.

They needed to know everything that had happened, so they could help.

Back with the Ghoul, everyone around was tense as the masked teen sniffed the air. It was kind of leading everyone to wonder if they stunk and needed to bathe.

"Oh," G-Percy finally said, sounding disappointed. "You're not Mom. You just look like her. You don't smell like her though."

"Uh, sorry?" Sally said with an unsure smile.

"It's not your fault you're not Mom, so there's nothing to be sorry about."

"You can tell that by smelling her?" Thalia was the first to ask.

"I can tell a lot about all of you by your smell." He pointed at Thalia. "You need to poop; I can smell the fumes leaking out of your butt."

Thalia turned red.

G-Percy pointed at Leo. "Mechanic."

Then at Calypso. "You like gardening."

Then at Piper and Shel, who weren't touching or sending any messages they were together. "Lesbians—your scents are all over each other, with a strong tinge of bedroom."

The two blushed as everyone looked at them, some surprised, some suggestive.

"O-Okay," Piper said, "we get the point. Sharp nose, got it."

"My sharp nose picks up all of your scents overlapping, so I know all of you are close and have been for a long time. But there's a scent that's missing that should be here." The Ghoul looked at Frank, Hazel, and Reyna.

"Where's Jason?"

The concern in his voice rattled them all, no more so than Percy. Their reactions were not lost on the Ghoul.

"Is he one of the bad guys now?" he asked.

"No," Reyna shook her head. "He's…dead."

"Dead? How is he-" The Ghoul broke mid-sentence, going still. Then, a pair of green lights flashed in the eyes of his mask, and he whirled on Percy. "You smell guilty."

Everyone was taken aback at the voice once more, for those three words were not spoken in the high-pitched, barely pubescent voice of "Percy," as he'd identified himself to Shin'en. They were deep, angry, menacing, the words of a vengeful young man.

The computer beeped. "Ghoul status change detected. Kraken personality active."

"Kraken personality-urk!" Percy said as ADHD overcame him, but was silenced when Kraken's hand clamped around his throat and hauled him out of his seat.

With a fully extended arm, Kraken held Percy aloft, his feet dangling from the stairs of the stands. At this blatant show of hostility, weapons were grabbed by Percy's friend, but a low, guttural, warning growl from Asteria that echoed throughout the whole Feast Hall had them rapidly, yet reluctantly, standing down.

"Why do you smell guilty about Jason's death?" Kraken demanded in a hard voice. "What did you do?"

"Easy over there," Shin'en called with a sardonic smile. "Don't crush his throat just yet."

Kraken leaned his head to the other side of Percy, glowering at Shin'en from the eyeholes of his mask like you shut up over there. He looked back at Percy. "Well?"

Percy was stuck having flashbacks of Lance, though this time Lance was apparently one of the Seven Masters, the previous three having shown tremendous amounts of power, setting the pattern that this guy could probably demolish a city if he wanted to. And he was angry, threatening to crush his throat. The main problem with that was that the answer to Kraken's question was actually going to get his throat crushed.

"I…I was-"

BRRRRNG

BRRRRNG

BRRRRNG

Percy was saved by the bell.

Wheels spun around and started hitting buttons. "Got a new assignment from Chaos! Kraken, you're up!"

Kraken dropped Percy. "We're not done," he growled as he stepped over his older counterpart.

He briskly crossed the distance between where he was in the stands and the computer, the other three all taking up places around Wheels.

"What, exactly, is going on?" Kraken asked tersely.

"Someone made a mess and we have to clean it up in accordance to the will of Chaos, the supreme deity of everything, behind the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," Shin'en answered. "And you are the next in line to get to show how valuable you are to the team."

Kraken scoffed. "Then why don't we just march on wherever the enemy is and wipe them out?"

"I like this kid," Leviathan grinned.

Kraken glowered at him under his mask. "I am not a kid."

Asteria's eyes sparkled. 'I told you he isn't a kid. He's a baby.'

"I'm not that either!"

"Focus," Shin'en cut in. "Focus—focus. Good. Echidna's trying to bolster the strength of the monsters even more so than what Tartarus is already doing. Chaos wants you to stop her, or at least give it your all and die trying."

"Echidna? The anteater goddess? What a waste of time."

Wheels hit the button and the teleporter hummed to life.

Kraken stepped to it and vanished in the bright light.

'He's so cute,' Asteria mused.

"Yeah, kind of reminds of you when you were that age," Leviathan nudged Shin'en, who gave him a flat, dubious look.

"When I was his age, I was a member of an international terrorist group comprised of people powerful enough to bring down entire countries."

"Yep. Brooding, edgy, overly serious, and eternally grumpy."

"Shut up."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kraken materialized outside of an abandoned waterpark, one that he recognized with a jolt as the same one that Ares had sent him, Touka, and Annabeth to when they were on their quest for the Master Bolt.

Waterland.

The sign was even more butchered than last time, now reading as "WAD." The padlock was still on the front gate, and barbed wire lined the fence, but none of that meant anything to Kraken. He just hopped clean over the fence, rising twenty feet without effort to sail cleanly over the barbed wire, and he landed without a stumble or a grunt, or even a bend of the knees. He could smell Echidna's stink, and so he wasted no time in going there.

Ironically, the goddess of monsters was down in the middle of the bowl of the Thrill Ride O' Love, chanting in a language Kraken didn't recognize, but it sounded ancient. Probably some old Titan language, as she was the daughter of Phorcys and Keto, the two deities faced in the Atlanta aquarium during the Mark of Athena.

Echidna herself was not in her human disguise as a fat woman in a denim dress, but her true, monstrous form, with an upper body like that of a woman, covered in greenish scales, a mouth lined with razor-like teeth, eyes like a snake's, glowing, literal snakes for hair, like her sisters the Gorgons, and from the waist down was the thick trunk of a serpent, covered in the same greenish scales, ending in a barb and lined with spikes along the top. In that respect, she looked like a lamia.

There was a belt around the part where humanoid became serpentine, with dual swords and pouches, and before her on the ground was a bunch of powder arranged in an arcane symbol. Being a native of Japan, and somewhat limited on the cultures of others, Kraken wondered if this is counted as a black sabbath.

Whatever the case, he took another deep sniff of the air, smelling for any potential threats beyond Echidna, and after another look at the cupid statues, all dilapidated, rusty, and falling apart, he determined that it was just him and the monster, and so he struck.

Kraken pushed from the ground hard enough that the concrete cracked. He rocketed forward through the air, hand splayed to take Echidna's head, but the monster jerked towards him and out of the way, so he flipped and landed in a roll from the momentum, accomplishing the backup objective of disrupting the powder pattern.

"No!" Echidna howled. "Do you have any idea how long I've been working on that!?"

"No," Kraken answered flatly.

He didn't see any reason to hold back and keep things in reserve, except for maybe his kakuja, since the situation wasn't that dire just yet, and he had no intention of letting it get that dire. Kraken popped his knuckle by pulling his finger back with his thumb. Black and green mist began spreading from the exposed small of his back, and there was a crackling sound as an organic mass bubbled and erupted, six long, slender, whip-like tentacles, black with pulsing veins of green, spread out behind him.

Echidna paused, then let out a shrill howl. Kraken attacked with his kagune, sending the tendrils out at a fast speed, but the goddess proved nimble and managed to slither out of the bowl before she could take any damage. Kraken didn't give her a chance, going after her. He vaulted the bowl and brought his kagune around him to defend against the sword that Echidna swung at him in the hopes of getting a cheap shot in.

Kraken made to wrap his tendrils around the extended wrists in order to break them, but Echidna pulled back. Kraken attacked bouncing and jumping all over the place, not unlike Yoda during his duel with Dooku, slicing, slashing, and jabbing with kagune from all angles. Echidna was agile in this form, whipping and tossing around, swinging her swords and maneuvering her lower half about, avoiding getting stabbed and cut.

A stalemate was reached for an intense handful of seconds, before a series of absolutely revolting scents suddenly slammed up inside of Kraken's nose. So horrid and sudden, that it actually managed to break his rhythm. Echidna lunged at this half-second window, and the sound of crunching metal rang throughout the waterpark as Echidna thrusted with so much force that her swords went all the way through Kraken's legionnaire armor.

"Got you! You new Percy Jacksons aren't all that after all."

Kraken's hand slammed around either side of Echidna's head, making her cry out as he held her skull. "No, I got you."

He squeezed, and Echidna's snake hair went nuts, each little serpent biting at Kraken's hands, and every single one of their little fangs shattered against his skin, like it was made of steel and their teeth out of toothpicks. Echidna did not die by having her head crushed in, however. No, before Kraken put that much of his back into it, his kagune came around, each tentacle impaling Echidna's torso from behind, going through and then hooking around. Kraken violently ripped his kagune wide, tearing Echidna apart in a blast of golden blood and entrails.

He dropped her head, which was still attached to her shoulder, which were still attached to her arms, but everything below her collar bones was gone, pulled apart to be left in a sloppy mess on the ground.

That revolting smell got stronger, and out of the shadows of the waterpark slinked the sources of the smell. Tall, gangly, humanoid, blue-black skin, milky eyes, claws, huge incisors filling and forcing their mouths apart, bald heads, and their groins covered by diaper-esque loincloths made of thick bunches of feathers. Kraken didn't know what these monsters were, but readers of the Trials of Apollo would recognize them as eurynomoi.

It should be noted that there was no blood leaking from Kraken's torso, and his breathing was just fine, despite having been ran through just seconds ago by Echidna's swords.

"YOU SMELL DIFFERENT THAN A HALF-BLOOD," one of the eurynomoi shouted in a gravely, guttural voice, perfect for a Swedish death metal band. "BUT NO MATTER. WE WILL KILL YOU AND CHEW YOU DOWN TO THE BONE!"

"What, exactly, are you?"

"WE ARE THE EURYNOMOI! CORPSE-EATERS! GHOULS!"

Kraken twitched at that last part. "You are not Ghouls."

The six tentacles of his kagune went taught across his back and came over his shoulders, three each, and the tentacles wrapped all the way down his arms and coalesced fast his fists into a couple of spears.

"I'm a Ghoul."

He made a bring-it-on gesture, and the eight monsters screeched in unison, a terrible sounds that would have even the staunchest of marines pissing their pants if they were alone and heard it at night.

Now, eurynomoi were dangerous monsters to fight. Their claws and teeth were imbued with poison, a magical kind that if not treated in a timely enough manner, would leave the infected as a vrykolaka, a zombie, and if the monster gets hold of a corpse and chews away all the meat until there is literally nothing but bone, the skeleton reanimates as a Skeleton Warrior, one that will serve Hades. In addition to this horrible magic, eurynomoi are incredibly strong, able to rip the roof off a car, and incredibly durable, able to withstand an arrow shot from point-blank range by Apollo.

Kraken jumped right in the middle of the pack, driving his covered hands right through the chests of two. He flung them to his left at the other three, knocking them down, and whirled around, arm slicing through the midsection of one of the monsters, other arm shooting forward to impale a fourth, and he ran with it, impaling the other behind it, killing five of the dangerous creatures in less than four seconds.

He slung the two corpse-eaters from his arm, and didn't give the other three a chance to regroup. They'd gotten up from being buried under their two brethren, and that was all they got to do. Kraken literally came down on the front and center one, driving his kagune-covered arms through the face and chest and into the concrete. He yanked his arms up and out and thrust them forward, his kagune shooting from his arms to impale the last two eurynomoi.

A violent yank tore them apart like Echidna.

Kraken flicked his kagune hard, more for effect than anything else, splattering the blood off his tentacles. The RC cells receded into Kraken's kakuhou, the origin organ in the small of his back for his kagune. He looked over to the corpse of Echidna, finding it a little strange she hadn't turned to golden dust to reform in Tartarus, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He pulled a plastic baggie from the back pocket of his jeans, went to the gold-splattered corpse, and filled the baggie with the bits of meat-covered ribs, as they were generally some of the tastiest parts. Kraken sealed the baggie and stuffed it back into his jeans. Shin'en said that food would be covered, but Kraken felt it best to cover it a little bit by himself, just to make sure.

'Aww, quit being so mistrustful!' a female voice went off in Kraken's head.

'Shut up, Persia,' Kraken mentally responded, pronouncing the name as Per-SEE-uh.

The same golden light appeared as the teleporter, and so Kraken figured that was his invitation to go back to Hotel Valhalla and join the others. He clenched a fist, ready to face the typical music of hatred and scorn that masked fear and terror over what he was. Kraken walked into the light.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He expected stares, whispers, pointed fingers, totally in the dark about what the others had done and so when he walked back through the teleporter and was not on the receiving end of such things, he was a bit shocked. Granted, the reason everyone was not looking at him was because the one with the pink and green color scheme was arguing with Shin'en about a sandwich.

"…and 40% of all the 1.6 million homeless kids in America are LGBT because they were kicked out by their parents! And in 2006, a study was done that concluded that 62% of LGBT kids across eight cities had attempted suicide at least once, compared to 29% of non-LGBT, and back in 2004, interviews conducted in the urban Midwest found that lesbian girls were more likely to suffer from PTSD, suicidal thoughts, street victimization, and mental health problems! And in 2013, FBI hate crimes account that 20.8% of them were directed at LGBT people, with 61% of those crimes targeted at gay men, and-"

"Statistics?" Shin'en interrupted with a bored tone. "You're trying to get us to care about a minority group of people…by quoting statistics? Statistics about homelessness, suicide, and hate crimes? Alex, you disappoint me. Not just because of our earlier conversation about those with power failing to use it for the betterment of mankind, but because your entire argument is essentially care about these people because of these numbers, and I can't help but think that based on that argument, we should all be caring a whole lot more about other people.

"For example, the 60% of homeless youth that aren't LGBT. Based on your argument of caring about a group based on how many there are, we should all be investing more resources into those majority 60, should we not? As for mistreatment at the hands of parents, I have no doubt that everyone in here has a story far more gruesome than they were kicked out based on their sexual orientation. For example, have you ever heard the story of Natalie Finn?"

The way Shin'en said the name, so heavily and icily, made Alex shift.

"No…"

"No, I wouldn't have expected you too. Has anyone in here heard the story of Nicole Finn? Anyone at all?"

A shaky hand actually rose. "I-I have."

Shin'en gestured for this person to stand, and they did. A girl, mid-teens, nondescript after that, obviously a mortal sibling to a half-blood of the Greekomans. She looked uncomfortable to be put on the spot like this, with so many thousands of eyes on her.

"Uh, Natalie Finn was adopted by Nicole and Joseph Finn, and was, uh…starved to death by them. Um, according to witnesses, Natalie and her other adopted siblings would come to school dirty and smelly, and, uh, would ask for stuff, like food, m-money, clothes…and, um, the dad, Joseph, he admitted that he boarded up a window because Natalie and her siblings would sneak out to go beg at a grocery store. Nicole and Joseph g-got d-divorced, and the kids stayed with Nicole, but she, ah…she-she locked them to their room and pulled them out of school. She didn't let Natalie and her siblings…she didn't let them eat or go to the bathroom. W-When the police finally went to the house after so many calls from people who'd seen the Finn kids begging, th-they found Natalie—her room didn't have any beds or furniture or carpet, just dirty, smelly, blankets—they found Natalie passed out and shivering in a pool of her pee and poop, her bones poking out of her skin almost. She…she died in the hospital of emaciation, and her siblings, Jaden and Mikayla, recovered but…um, yeah. Nicole starved her three kids to death, and based on the reports of bruises, beat them too."

It was very quiet in the Feast Hall right now.

The girl sat down, the arm of her mother immediately going around her shoulders.

"Natalie Finn died of cardiac arrest," Shin'en said, bringing Alex's eyes from her shoes up to his eyes, "right there on the floor in front of her little brother and sister. Nicole apparently did CPR for fifteen minutes before her other adopted son, Nathan, finally called 911. Mikayla reports that there were times she drank out of the toilet she was so thirsty, and the last meal she gave her sister, too weak to sit up, feed herself, or move, clocking in at a staggering 81 pounds compared to the average 125 for a girl her age, was a peanut butter smoothie…out of a ketchup bottle."

Shin'en stared silently at Alex for a long time.

"Man," he said casually, "I bet poor Natali wished that she was just kicked out. I mean, can you imagine living in the foster care system, living life knowing your mother and father abandoned you, not ever knowing why, just wishing for a family to adopt you and love you so you too can feel what it's like to have parents, and then when that finally happens, a smiling man and woman come along and take you home with them, your spirits soaring, heart swelling, tears brimming, then they lock you up in a dark room and start starving you, eventually coming along to rape you, beat you, then pass you around the neighborhood, telling you if you're a good little child you'll finally get to eat."

Shin'en had been descending the stairs during his monologue, voice low and heavy, until he was standing before Alex, who had come down the stairs herself and was occupying the marble floor before the stage. The way he recounted this analogy left many wondering if this was coming from personal experience.

Which it was.

"The sad part is that stories like this are a dime a dozen. Kids being raped and abused by their parents, biological or adopted, chained up in the basement, deprived of basic sanitation and care. I bet they'd happily trade places with any of those kicked-out LGBT kids. You know how hard it is to live on the streets, but do you know how hard a full-grown man's penis feels in your prepubescent vagina, or colon? Do you know what it feels like to have baseball bat come down on you, over and over again, then leave you to writhe and twitch with your bruises and broken bones, all on an empty stomach, your own filth caked across your body? Well? Do you?"

Alex barely managed a meek little whisper. "No…"

"No," Shin'en nodded, "you don't. But there are those that do. I want you to remember that. I want you to remember that there are those who have suffered far worse fates than living with the consequences of their lifestyle choices, and if they can suck it up and move on with their lives, so can you. So can everyone."

Alex's fists clenched and her jaw tightened. "So, what?" she managed to find just a little bit of a bite. "The suffering of others is invalidated because someone suffered more?"

"Yes."

Alex was taken aback at the cold, absolute answer.

"I don't know if you haven't been paying attention or not, but Asteria and Leviathan went through a whole lot more than you did, and Wheels was born with both of his eyes and legs fully functional, and you don't see them complaining about their circumstances. For that matter, I don't see anyone else in here complaining about their lot in life, just you. Hell, Alex, you're even complaining on behalf of others, which is just really pathetic."

Shin'en stared her down, silent and cold as the depths of the ocean, and she struggled to come up with a counterargument.

"Kraken!" Shin'en suddenly barked. "You hail from Tokyo and have come to currently reside in New Rome. Tell me, what is your opinion on the LGBT and their treatment at the hands of the general public?"

Alex looked at Kraken.

Kraken stared back at her, having not moved from his position in front of the teleporter. He reached up and grabbed his mask, making everyone lean forward in their seats. He took it off, causing a wave of sharp gasps. It wasn't that his face was horribly, scarred, disfigured, or mutilated. In fact, he looked just like Percy Jackson did when he was fourteen, making those who knew him feel like they were looking back in time.

No, what caused the gasps was Kraken's eyes.

Pulsing green veins traveled from the skin around his eyes through sclera as black as pitch to an equally green iris. They were not human eyes, and there wasn't an ounce of pity or sympathy in those eyes as they stared at Alex Fierro.

"It isn't legal for the FBI to drag any LGBT person out into the middle of the street and butcher them in front of everyone, then harvest their organs so that they can make weapons out of them to kill more LGBT people."

Alex stepped backwards, horrified.

That's when Wheels hit the button to play Kraken's intro.

"In an alternate reality, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during WWII caused a mass mutation in the cell structures of the human populace, creating a second circulatory network, a new type of blood cell, and a new organ. These cells are called RC cells, short for Red Child, based on their shape like a curled fetus, and this new organ is called a kakuhou, a storage tank for these RC cells that can puncture through the skin and become a personalized weapon called a kagune, also known as a liquid muscle for its malleability and strength. However, the number of RC cells per human was not equal, and some humans had thousands more than others, causing them to develop a kakuhou, while others did not. These highly mutated humans became known as Ghouls, characterized by their inability to eat human foods such as fruit and vegetables, and livestock, their incredibly tough skin able to withstand conventional bullets and blades, their heightened senses and superhuman physical prowess, and their gruesome diet.

"Unable to eat human food which bears carbs, lipids, and proteins, Ghouls are only able to find sustenance in substances with a high enough concentration of RC cells, and there are only three things than contain a high enough count: themselves, other Ghouls, and most viably, human beings. The problems with that are obvious. The social issues with the Ghouls are certainly mountainous. Should they be eradicated entirely for the threat they pose? Should they be allowed to live normally, but tagged for identification? Should they rise up and take control of the human world as a naturally superior species? Should they just be left alone to live their life? The different views and opinions to these questions and more have made Japan, especially Tokyo, a messed up world.

"A world in which Sally Jackson was born into, both of her parents being Ghouls, making her one as well. She lived a happy childhood until the CCG, the Commission of Counter Ghoul, the organization created by the Japanese government in order to combat and manage the Ghoul species using weapons known as Quinques, specialized weapons made from a special steel alloy and the kagune of dead Ghouls, broke into her home one day and slaughtered both of her parents before her very eyes. This is instilled in the young Sally the dangerous viewpoint that humans were untrustworthy, deceitful, and the enemy of all Ghouls. She grew up fending for herself, learning the streets, learning how to hunt, how to fight, how to kill, eventually acquiring a level of skill and power that landed her on the CCG's rating list, going from C to B to A to S to SS to SSS, as the SS-class Ghoul codenamed Death Angel, for her wing-like kagune, white cloak, and white, serene-looking mask. The mask is a tradition amongst Ghouls, as many try to lead a normal life, but in the pursuit of food, they hide their identity, while others where a mask to strike fear into others, something Sally did well.

"Before things became ordered, Tokyo was split into different wards, with gangs of Ghouls vying for control over those wards in vicious turf battles, and Sally and the rest of her Death Angels found themselves regularly pitted against the rival gangs known as the Devil Apes and the Black Dobers. On the day that was set to be the final battle between the gangs, winner take all, the CCG attacked, and it was only through the efforts of one lone Ghoul that as many survived that day as they did. In thanks, Sally and the leaders of the other gangs, Enji Koma and Kaya Irimi, allowed themselves to be taken in by this Ghoul and introduced to a new life of peace and coexistence running a quaint coffee shop known as Anteiku.

"It wasn't long until Sally found herself on of Tokyo's beaches, and a kind man with a trident happened to notice her. Nine months later, and Percy Jackson, half god and half Ghoul, the only one of his kind, was born. He grew up with as happy a life as one could have when it was twice-fold illegal to be his species, a Ghoul and a son of Poseidon. A hellhound attack when he was four prompted Sally to start teaching her son how to fight and how to be a Ghoul, i.e., how to hunt humans and recognize them as food in order to stave off the mental trauma of killing and eating a person, something some Ghouls were unable to cope with, leading them to suicide. Growing up in Anteiku left Percy with an extensive family in his Uncles Enji and Yomo, Aunt Kaya, Grandpa Yoshimura, and adopted big brother and bigger sister, Ayato and Touka.

"Years passed, Percy training and growing more powerful, eventually being given the codename 'Kraken' by the CCG due to his mask and kagune, the Ghouls living as normal humans except for their diets, though luckily, a Ghoul's metabolism is slow, only requiring no more than a full cut of meat every five to seven weeks for most Ghouls, ironically saving Ghoul parents a fortune in diapers and pull-ups. However, Luke was a thing in this alternate world, and the Master Bolt was still stolen, and after months of quarreling, war on the horizon, Poseidon pulled his trump card and sent Artemis and her Hunters to fetch Percy from Tokyo.

"Some things happened, all culminating in Percy turning Luke into a bloody smear in the woods when the son of Hermes tried recruiting the Ghoul to the Titans, something Kronos took revenge on later. Mustering what power he had, he set a curse on Sally, making her sick. With Ghoul predation ramping up in the ward Percy called home, the ward he looked out for as the Ghoul vigilante Kraken, kind of like Batman, more CCG Investigators were dispatched to find and kill this ravenous Ghoul, codenamed Binge Eater. Kraken got involved, and through the manipulations of the Titan King, ended inadvertently getting Sally killed by the CCG, leading to a dark episode in Kraken's life as a member of the Ghoul extremist group known as Aogiri Tree, the largest, strongest, deadliest group of Ghouls in the world.

"Kraken did some great, yet terrible things, under the banner of Aogiri Tree, like losing his virginity at thirteen to the leader of the group, slaughtering the entire staff of a CCG HQ building, and spearheading the defense of said building against the ensuing onslaught, killing dozens more of the anti-Ghoul organization. Accompanying the CCG attack force were the Ghouls of Anteiku, and when they managed to convince Kraken of the truth, the psychological weight of everything that he'd done, all because of a lie, crashed down on him so hard and heavy that his psyche split in three to cope: Kraken, Percy, and Persia, the last one a girl brought on through the childhood memories of Touka finding it to be fun to dress Percy in her old clothes.

"Most ironically, when Poseidon saw what was happening to his son, he and Zeus agreed that something needed to be done, and with California being much closer to Japan than New York, Neptune, Jupiter, and Juno commissioned the Romans to get Kraken and bring him to the camp as an intervention and set him straight. However, this undertaking was effectively rendered null and void when the truth was revealed to Kraken. Still, finding Tokyo to be far too hot, it was decided that Persia, since Kraken and Percy were out of it at the moment, would take Touka and Ken Kaneki with her to Camp Jupiter and integrate in the legion. Tagging along was Eto, the leader of Aogiri Tree and the girlfriend of the Ghouls who came to see each other as a set of triplets, with Kraken as the oldest, Persia as the middle, and Percy as the youngest.

"Of course, things got really interesting when Sally fought her way out of the Underworld, going through Thanatos himself to get free of afterlife, and made her way to New Rome. Even more interesting is how Salacia taught the triplets how to replicate the powers of sea creatures, including that of the gender-changing ability of the clownfish, so Persia could enjoy a female body, and the cloning power of sea sponges, so each triplet got to have their own body. Some things happened, and now the Ghoul triplets are here, ready to kick ass and take names."

Wheels turned to face Kraken. "So? How was it?"

"Way too personal," Kraken huffed.

He took his place on the stage with the others, Shin'en having returned during the video.

"Thanks," Kraken muttered.

"You're welcome," Shin'en said under his breath.

In truth, that whole thing with Alex was nothing more than distraction for Kraken's sake, so that he would come back and be stared at like a freak. Wheels had made a comment about something, Shin'en responded with a snide remark, all rehearsed, and it had triggered Alex as predictably as poetry. Coupled with taking the heat off Kraken, it also set up the foil.

Sally was just in a state of shock at how much of a badass she was in another life.

"Right, that means Tobi's next?" Wheels asked.

"Yep," Shin'en answered shortly.

"Oh, boy. How long do you think we have?"

"I'd estimate-"

"Dimensional activity detected. Dimension DI-5. Psychopath incoming."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

And that's this chapter. Sorry it took this long and it's only this short, but things happened. A fair heads up, I'm going to be swamped with Linear Algebra for the next three or so weeks. It's supposed to be at most a 16-week course, but they also offer it for an 8-week condensed period, and I signed up for the even more condensed "May-mester" version consisting of four chapters with their corresponding subsections all due in the beginning of June, in which I'll have to turn right around and do Differential Equations in about the same period of time.

Busy, busy, busy, busy.

So, unfortunately, it looks like you're all going to be hanging off the cliff of Tobi's arrival. And for those confused over who Tobi is and why I'm calling him that, Tobi is the Percy Jackson from my Son of Jashin story, but the only alias comes from the bit where I crossed that story with Young Justice and Percy took the name Tobi, in direct reference to Tobi from Naruto.

And I have read every Review so far to this story, and if you have too then you know where Alex's statistics come from. To that person, for the sake of more scenes like that, I put the ball in your court if you want to raise a counter.

I have also read every Review so far to Good News, and I thank you all for your invaluable inputs.

Now, if you would all be so kind…Fav, Follow, and Review please!