Warning: The following scenes may be to graphic for younger audiences.

Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Chappie Mark VIII

"Sally, your workplace called today. They need you to cover a night shift as soon as you got back," Gabe said, not wanting to deal with his lousy wife for more than required of a hard-working, completely honest man.

"But what about Percy?" Her little creator of messes would be back any second now for dinner.

"Doan worry 'bout it, I'll make sure he gets fed."

"O-ok then. Tell Percy—"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it." Not even a few minutes later, an All-American Sally left for the nearest subway station, "Hey buds! I'mma have to call tonight's game short for... housekeeping."

"Fine, but you still owe us," Eddie said, tossing his personal chip bowl into the sink.

All three lackies left the room, all three scowling at their lost winnings. The only people left in this apartment were a fat male and a malnourished child. For the twerp to get his food, he must first earn his keep. Gabe looked over to the stacks of metal cookware sitting in and by the kitchen sink, getting ideas for the twerp's first exercise.

He hobbled his way over to the drying racks, finding a few appliances to be of mediocre standard. As the best appliance store manager in town, Gabe would not accept this, but that's what the twerp was for.

Laughter was heard from down the hall, growing with each thump systematically equivalent to running. Percy burst into the room with closed eyes, carelessly running about the living quarters for no apparent reason at all. Years of living here had ingrained the layout in his mind, allowing him to run anywhere he pleased without the need for relying on sight alone.

Of course, Percy didn't see the living hall-blocker. Or expected it.

Or heard 'it.'

Once Percy bounced on the floor, he opened his eyes to find his stepdad waiting for something. Perhaps he wanted him to help while his mother was cooking. Yes, that must be it!

"Alright, Twerp, grab that bucket full of old utensils," Gabe ordered.

I don't like where this is going.

Shut up, I'm narrating, not you.

But my little Perseus can't even hear him? That poor excuse of a father didn't even bother to learn sign!

Duh.

Percy understood some of those words due to the characteristic shape the lips made when pronouncing certain sounds—practice with his mom in the mirror does that, and the faint scratches from his hearing aid. He picked up the bucket and waited for his parent's orders.

Gabe kicked the bucket of cheap China out of Percy's hands, "Wrong bucket, idiot!"

Percy might not have been able to understand him but knew Gabe wouldn't like a floor littered with ceramic shards. With minimal cleaning tools available, he began picking them up by hand, knowing his fingers won't look pretty for his mistake.

It was times like these that he wished he didn't have such disabilities. Sure, he didn't have to listen to endless insults at school because he was the different one, but it was a permanent mute for anything and everything important or useless.

Percy chose between two remaining tubs after the shards were placed in the trash, hoping he picked the right one. He let out a held breath he didn't know he was holding when Gabe told him to come with him.

Water is essential when cleaning anything due to its ability to dilute and mix about 50% of all possible substances. Unfortunately, water shouldn't go anywhere remotely close to exposed iron, like the untreated extra-cheap kitchen knives Gabe bought at a clearance sale. It was a set, so this naturally appealed to the cost-cutting man.

"Get in the tub!" Gabe ordered, pointing to the bathtub in case his slave didn't get the message.

Young Percy in all his innocence thought he would be washing the dishes the fun way. Bathtub plus dishes plus bathroom plus water? It's an equation that made absolute sense in Percy's mind.

While Percy was trying but failing to neatly put the tools in place, the land walrus took the sharpest knife out of the bunch, glad the twerp couldn't hear him sneaking upon him. To test how much he could get away with, he drove the knife into Percy's shoulder while holding it so he wouldn't notice the movement of his body that wasn't his.

A deep chuckle escaped from his mouth at the sight of blood flowing faster than water from his first wound. It was a thin knife producing a thin wound, but the knife stopped halfway when it struck something solid. Steak knives would prove too dull to be used effectively as a bone saw, but they could still create large, serrated lines that won't heal as evenly.

He left the knife in Percy's shoulder, opting for the next weapon of choice with a foreign name because it should sound cool. For example, the seax-shaped slicer Kiritsuke sounds cool and looks better than its name suggests. Knives of this design are a combination of a meat cleaver's strength and bone-chopping reliability with the lightness of a classic chef's knife.

A budget knife, if you will.

Unfortunately, a Kiritsuke is not a cleaver. If anything, it's more of a straight-edge blade many other designs could fulfill. While it may have the best of both worlds, it loses out on full chopping ability while remaining more expensive than a classic knife. If Gabe read carefully, it was also made in China by a company well known to have knives that failed standard quality control tests for shatter resistance and edge retention.

Of course, none of these matters when the knife's purpose isn't directly aimed to cut meat in the least number of swings possible, after all, it wouldn't do well if the twerp lost an appendage or two. Sally would never make a seven-layer dip if she found out, and a severed limb is only slightly harder to hide than a missing ear or toe.

Not that Gabe would guarantee he would try to hide those.

Carelessly—and without any proper technique—Gabe brought the cheap thing down with one hand aiming for the area between where he thought the Acromioclavicular joint and Clavicle were...and missed completely, lopping off a half-inch deep section of skin on the port side of the unaware child's upper Humerus. Nothing changed for a few seconds, but then the life-saving oil of life came rushing in vain to close the hole and stop the bleeding.

On the bright side, Gabe would no longer have to guess where any random bones were. Bones are bones, regardless of type and importance. That simple distance wouldn't stop Gabe from having family bonding time.

The faux cleaver struck hard into Percy; the force imparted greater than the balanced forces keeping him still (he moved from the impact), exerting a force sideways to his right while pivoting about an axle also known as the center of gravity. If you did not take Physics...well too bad, I'm not telling.

The knife struck my poor, sweet baby over!

Gabe muscled the lodge hunk of metal from its resting place in Percy's shoulder, covering the twerp's eyes so he wouldn't catch on to what was happening, at least not yet. What's the fun if you can't watch the victim squirm under your gaze?

Turns out the blade wasn't as sharp as he thought it was, only providing a surface scratch where a hammer would've shattered it. No worries, Gabe still had a knife albeit a rolled edge, but a hefty chunk of metal, nonetheless. It's simple really, keep chopping the desired spot repeatedly until it chops through or takes out enough chunks to allow for manual breakage of the rest.

Unfortunately—again—the knife shattered in the middle on the third chop. A few fragments wormed their way into his mugged face, but not as many compared to the ones that fell towards Percy, including the large triangular tip that broke off from the initial breakdown.

For such a bargain, Gabe had expected that. By sheer coincidence, the company that supplied his Bargain Mart's appliance was the same company that produced the knives. To be fair, they were the cheapest option, and money is time.

Damn it, the boy was squirming now. What could he use to keep his boy from running? The only plausible restraint available was his belt.

Screw pants, they were getting wet anyway.

Gabe stuffed a freshly washed rag down his mouth, the gag nearly popping out from the influx of nerves known as a gag reflex. Percy's legs wouldn't be of much use in the confines of the tub, but his arms were closer to an armory of impromptu weapons, so that was tied up more than snugly to keep him from trying anything funny. After sitting him up for the procedure, Gabe biffed him back onto his side so he can get the best possible weapon this household owned.

They thought they were sooo sneaky. A shiny knife in better condition than what Gabe brought home was too easy to find no matter where they hid it, after all, expensive things were right up his alley when he wasn't saving up for something.

Or, you know, wasting his savings on Poker.

In 20 seconds flat, a silver Bowie-wielding man marched back into the room evident by the hard thumps on the wooden floors only a blind person could pick up. Or anyone used to feeling massive thumps of energy pass through them in situations such as cars who've had major sound system modifications.

Now, this knife was of celebratory quality. No one Gabe knew could produce such amazing replicas of history with the durability of a leaf spring. Sharper than anything Gabe could get his hands on, he turned the twisting child with his hand under his chin so the only thing Percy could focus on was brown eyes filled with glee.

Annisi watched as a thick arm drove his blade into the nape of his neck. He knew he wouldn't feel it, but now that he knew the cause between his involuntary motions, he was scared to see how much blood had mixed in the water he was cleaning with. No wonder the bubbles were pink.

A deep reverberating chuckle passed through Annisi's small frame, scaring the child outright if he wasn't already in that state. Internally, he was glad he had gone to the bathroom before—

Everything in his right eye went dark. The spotlight of a pupil in the miniature observatory made for an excellent target to strike due to its fluorescent properties. With such an inviting target, Gabe could not afford to miss out on this.

The natural darkness helped to conceal the radial slits Gabe made by shallow stabs. While not deep enough to cause discomfort behind the eye, surely something had been messed up to the point of distortion.

Eh, 'tis but a scratch for what Gabe planned. The average household contained enough things with potential life-ending properties. Ending the boy's life was definitely up there on his to-do list, but he could settle for making the twerp's life hell for all the trouble he caused him.

Artemis was not having a good day. She had two dreams, both of which didn't make sense. One was of a young girl obscured by a disgusting male doing male things to her in a bathroom while the other one was of a French girl dressed in blue and red whom she had never met before performing first aid on her in the middle large battle.

Such as were the consistency of dreams, but they did have meaning. The latter didn't make sense of what might—no—will happen in the future, but the goddess of young maidens could help but wonder about the young girl in the first segment of her dreams.

East 104th and 1st, Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City.

An address popped into the eternal maiden's mind, no doubt about the maiden's current whereabouts. It was near the mortal entrance to Olympus too, so that's a big plus. The question nagging the second-youngest-in-appearance goddess' mind was why that specific address seemed familiar. It couldn't be one of her safehouses—ah, her dear old friend Sally lived in the same flat!

It wouldn't hurt to see how her favorite mortal was doing, considering it's only been a few centuries since Artemis had a decent conversation. She always did look up towards that mortal...