Chapter Three: Fateless

In the darkness of the incomporeal void, three old women peered into the material world, looking at the young eighteen-year-old Jack in shock and horror. The three of them looked positively ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

"Impossible!" the first one exclaimed, "He…He should not exist!"

"Preposterous!" the second one yelled, "He cannot exist!"

"And yet he does..." the third one all but growled. "He is outside of our design!"

The man known as Jack Sakai was a paradoxical existence. He existed, yet he didn't. A being that had no place in the confines of Fate. Someone that they could not bind to their design. Within the intricate and elaborate entanglement that was the strings of Fate, not one was for him. In fact, his mere existence began unraveling and altering Fate. The fact that they had not known he had existed up until this point was alarming on its own, but the fact that he had come in contact with the linchpin of their next few greatest events, Perseus Jackson, nearly struck them with terror.

"He is an invader!" the second one yelled, "He must be disposed of!"

"But as someone without a fate, we cannot touch him," the third pointed out.

"We must adjust our design," the first announced, "We may not be able to stop this fool directly, but have we ever been so boorish as to dirty our hands?"

"Yes, sister..." the third's smile stretched unnaturally wide, "There are more than enough pieces on this board to do away with this interloper."

The second glared at Jack as he made his way back into Camp Half-Blood. "No one defies Fate."

[-]

Jack hummed to himself as he approached the Big House. "I think someone's talking shit, and they've yet to be hit."

"I trust that unfortunate individual isn't me?" asked Chiron as he greeted Jack.

"Of course not, Chiron." Jack gave a small laugh. "Sorry about ghosting you guys for the rest of the day after my meeting with the gods, I had some…issues to work through."

"From what Mr. D told me, I assumed as much," he said worriedly, "I take it you didn't find that gods' company to your liking?"

Jack shook his head. "Chiron, the only gods I care about are either in the Underworld or outside of this pantheon. Well, maybe Hestia too, but that's because she has legit done nothing wrong."

Chiron eyed the sky. "You're quite vocal about your opinions are you?"

"Zeus is a dick and Hera's a bitch," Jack said dryly, "Whaddya want from me?"

Thunder boomed loudly.

"I would like you to stop disrespecting the gods so that we do not give the campers heart attacks every time one to tries to smite you." Chiron said just as dryly.

Jack blinked then shrugged. "Fair enough, I'll try to keep my opinions to myself."

Chiron nodded, satisfied, he was surprised at how reasonable the rather blunt and aggressive man was, considering how little he seemed to care.

"Did anything happen while I was gone?" Jack asked as they made their way to the porch where Mr. D was sitting, a can of Diet Coke in hand.

"Oh, nothing major, just that Mr. Johnson blew up the bathrooms in a rather violent display of his powers."

Jack gave Mr. D an odd look. "Who's Johnson?"

Chiron sighed. "He means Jackson."

"Oh..." Jack's eyes widened. "Oh! Oh god, is he alright!?"

"Percy is fine, Jack." Chiron assured "Not a scratch on him."

Jack let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank god. So, where is he?"

"He's in the Poseidon Cabin with his mother," Chiron explained, "I assume you are here to resume your duties as his bodyguard?"

He nodded. "And to check for suspects."

Chiron shook his head. "You truly believe that someone here at camp would steal something as important as a symbol of a god's power?"

"They were given the perfect opportunity," Jack pointed out, much to Chiron's displeasure, "And the timeline of events matches up far too well. Don't worry, I'm a lot better at detective work than I look."

Chiron raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me for saying this, but you don't seem like the subtle type."

Jack smirked. "And that's exactly what throws everyone off. I'll catch you later, Chiron."

As the young man walked deeper into the camp, he drew quite a bit of attention to himself. Though Jack tried to keep a low profile, his suit made him stick out like a sore thumb. As such Annabeth spotted him easily and quickly ran up to him.

"Jack!" She called out. "What happened? You and Mr. D disappeared in a flash and you were gone the whole day."

"Had a meet and greet with the major Olympians," He explained nonchalantly, "I didn't die of a stroke due to having to listen to them at the least."

Annabeth blinked. "You really don't like the gods, do you?"

"I hate almost all of them on principle, " He answered dryly as he kept his stride towards the Poseidon cabin.

"But why do you hate them so much?"

"If you have to ask that, then you're not very bright for a child of Athena." Jack rolled his eyes, making Annabeth bristle in anger. "Tell me, what was the reason Hercules went on his Twelve Labors?"

Annabeth blinked, her anger distracted by his question. "It was when Hera..." her eyes widened, "Oh no..."

"And how does she react to the demigod children of Zeus?"

She felt her blood run cold. "Oh no..."

"Put the pieces together sweetie, you can do it." He said in a patronizing voice.

"You have a huge grudge against Hera, don't you?"

His knuckles audibly popped as he held his katana in a death grip. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"Hey, Wise girl!" Yelled a rather husky voice. "This the other newbie that caused so much commotion yesterday?"

"Gods help me, not again Clarisse..." Annabeth muttered under her breath. "Are you this much of a glutton for punishment?"

Clarisse was a tall, muscular girl with pale brown hair that-

WHACK!

Dropped like a sack of bricks as Jack continued his stride as if nothing had happened. The three other children of Ares that followed her stood there stunned as did Annabeth. She barely saw the movement with her own eyes. Jack had twirled his sheathed blade and hit Clarisse over the head with it, knocking her out. Jack had just knocked out one of the toughest and meanest demigods in Camp Half-Blood like it was an afterthought.

Annabeth shook herself out of her stupor as she rushed to catch up with Jack. "What in Hades was that!?"

"In my experience, a blunt object and a swift strike to the head works wonders against people I don't want to deal with. Now, onto my question: What the hell kind of insult is 'wise girl?'"

Annabeth sighed. "People use it a lot to describe children of Athena."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Could've gone with 'brainiac', or maybe 'knowitall', 'braggart', 'smarty-pants'... but they went with 'wise girl.'"

Annabeth hung her head. "Please stop..."

Jack snickered, finally finding some enjoyment in her exasperation. "I'm just saying."

"Ugh." She shook her head. "So… God is real, like Heaven, Hell, and all of that?"

Jack nodded. "Yes, the correct names are Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno. All of them have their own layers."

Just before they reached the cabin, Annabeth asked, "What are angels like?"

Jack suddenly stopped, his face turning pale. He looked ahead with a blank stare for a few seconds before coming back to. He shivered. "Biblically accurate," was his answer, before entering the cabin. "Hey, Percy, guess who's back?"

The Poseidon cabin was big, blue, and rather spartan save for the six bunk beds. At least the windows gave a nice view of the lake. Percy was sitting on the closest bed to the door and Sally sat next to him watching as he manipulated a small ball of water.

Percy blinked, startled out of what looked like intense concentration. "Eh, Jack?" The ball of water fell to the ground, splashing everywhere. "Shoot!"

"Hydrokinesis," Jack mused as he stood before Percy, Annabeth leaning on the door frame watching, "That'll be an interesting ability to work with."

Percy shrugged, getting over the surprise of Jack's sudden visit. "I guess, but it's nowhere near as impressive as what you pulled off yesterday."

Jack leaned against the wall. "That's because I've had years to master my abilities. Research into mortal sciences works wonders when trying to figure out the logical extremes of your powers. The hard part is finding decent textbooks on the subject."

Percy's face dropped the moment Jack mentioned 'textbooks.' "I'm not sure my dyslexia would cooperate nicely with those."

Sally gave her son an amused look before rubbing his shoulder.

"Impressive," Annabeth commented, "That must've been quite difficult considering all demigods have dyslexia."

"Oh, I don't have dyslexia." Jack commented.

The room grew silent as Percy, Annabeth, and even Sally stared at him. "What?"

"You'd be surprised how nice Odin can be if you do him a few favors," Jack smiled smugly as their reaction, "As a god of knowledge and wisdom, amongst other things, and his obsession with the acquisition of knowledge, he finds it quite pitiful when other seeking the same thing aren't able to do so. As such, after earning his favor, he cured me of my dyslexia by giving me a blessing."

Percy sighed. "That would make school so much easier."

Jack rubbed the back of his head. "It made being homeschooled by Persephone a whole lot easier."

Annabeth just stared at him. "What?"

"And it'll sure make college a lot easier if I decide to go."

Sally gave him a look. "If?"

Jack nearly took a step back at the stare of parental judgement. "I've kind of got a full-time job with what I do as a Contractor. I'm filthy stinking rich, and considering some of the blessings other mythologies have given me, I could potentially live for centuries. College is optional for me."

Annabeth kept staring at him. "What?"

Percy shrugged. "At this point, I am numb to nearly everything that comes out of his mouth."

"Alright, alright, enough about me," Jack turned to Percy, "My friend, I've waited a long time to meet someone with your kind of powers."

Percy blinked. "The water thing? Uh, it's… not really all that impressive."

Jack scoffed. "'Not impressive' he says…" he shook his head. "Percy, you have control of water, one of the most flexible and malleable elements known to man. Able to take on all three states of matter: Solid, liquid, and gas." The young man almost looked like he was getting excited. "You do yourself a disservice, Percy, cause you have one of the most varied and diverse abilities you could've possibly ended up with."

Percy looked at his hands, unconvinced. "I… you sure?"

Jack's eyebrows scrunched together in thought, very aware of how Annabeth and Sally were silently observing. "Alright, how about this… Do you know how ice is formed, Percy?"

"Water… uh, gets cold at a certain temperature then freezes, right?"

Jack smiled. "A bit more complicated than that. It all has to do with the movement of molecules."

"What?"

Annabeth sighed. "A group of atoms bonded together, representing the smallest fundamental unit of a chemical compound that can take part in a chemical reaction."

Jack nodded. "Yes. These molecules make up what water is as the chemical known as H2O, but back on track, it's how the cold turns water into ice that we need to focus on. Water turns into ice because the cold slows down the movements of the molecules to a crawl before they're barely even moving and compresses into each other, but water is a special little snowflake and expands when frozen, but we're getting off-topic." He waved his arm, and a large bottle of water appeared out of thin-air in his hand. "Now, give it a shot."

Percy's eyebrows shot up. "You want me to turn that into ice with my powers?"

He nodded. "At the very least give it a try."

Percy sighed. "Alright… so stop the water and then expand it?"

"Yup!" Jack set the bottle of water down on a nearby table.

"Alright then…" The boy shrugged then raised his hand towards the water bottle, his eyebrows scrunched together as he concentrated.

The three observing the water bottle watched as the contents stilled completely, and then… it felt like the very air around then had stopped as well, almost like a thick, but invisible, fog.

"And… expand!" Precy closed his hand into a fist.

The effect was immediate. The bottle was flash-frozen, and so was part of the table. The temperature of the room they were in dropped drastically to the point where they could see their breaths due to the cold.

Annabeth bagan rubbing her arms in effort to warm herself up. "Geez, think you overdid it, much!?"

Sally let out a dry laugh. "Kind of wish I had a jacket with me now."

Percy didn't hear any of what they said, he only focused on the water bottle and the frozen table. "Wow…"

Jack did I fist pump. "I called it!"

"What?"

"Don't worry about it. Let's get out of the cold."

"Already on it!" Annabeth was practically out the door the moment the words left his mouth.

Percy gave a wry smile. "Guess I don't leave a good impression."

Sally gave a small chuckle as she rubbed her son's shoulder. "Come on, let's go, it's freezing."

"Yeah, sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it, Percy," Jack said as he opened up a few windows, "The cabin will heat back up to normal in a few hours. Now, let's go."

[-]

Sally let out a sigh of relief as the warm breeze outside blew past her. "That's much better. Can't stand the cold."

Percy had gone off to find Chiron to continue his lessons and basic training for the day, leaving both Jack and Sally alone.

"So," she turned to Jack, giving him a stern look, "What are you hoping to gain by teaching my son these things?"

She was suspicious of Jack. He'd saved her life, her son's life, and even Grover's life, but working for Hades was a huge red flag for her. The whole Contractor thing, him becoming her son's bodyguard, and even training him to use his powers more effectively… this was all sounding way too good to be true.

"Just making sure another kid doesn't have to go through what I had to," he said somberly. "I know how rough it is being a demigod, it's arguably worse for the people that associate with them. My mother was one of the unlucky ones, you know how it is, child of…" he gave the dark clouds surrounding the camp a look of disdain, "The king up there. His hook-ups don't really last long for obvious Hera-related reasons."

Sally felt a pang of guilt at bringing up what were probably very painful memories. "I'm… sorry to hear that."

Jack waved her off. "You've got nothing to be sorry about. I'm just glad I was able to get you guys in time before the worst happened. And if Percy can get a good handle on his powers, then you'll all be just fine on your own."

"Something about the whole ice thing?"

Jack nodded. "A bit. Celestial Bronze, while effective, isn't an unlimited resource, and Percy honestly doesn't even need it to defend himself. Anything imbued with divine energy is good enough to cause some serious damage to supernatural creatures. Now with some proper training and imagination, Percy can make weapons out of ice, even out of seemingly thin air if his control can be precise enough to draw from the water vapor in the air around us. He'd never be without a weapon."

Sally sighed. "And now that he knows just what he is, monsters will be drawn to him more strongly than ever before. A skill like that would be invaluable."

"Exactly," Jack and Sally made their way to the mess hall, "And lord knows he might target you… again."

Sally raised an eyebrow. "You mean your father?"

Jack shivered in disgust. "Ugh. Yes… him. I've met him for only ten minutes and I can already tell he's not going to admit he's wrong." Thunder boomed in the distance, startling a few of the campers walking by. "He's more stubborn than a mule and still probably thinks your son stole his toy, despite the logic bomb I dropped on him yesterday. So, I have something to ask you that I'm pretty sure you're going to reject immediately."

"...And what are you going to ask me?"

"Can you stay in the Underworld-"

"What!?"

"For your own protection!"

"That's even more ridiculous!"

"Listen, you'll be in Hades's palace with Persephone, one of the most secure locations in the entire Greek pantheon and-" Jack cut himself off, and gave Sally a level stare. "...Please tell me you aren't basing your view of the Underworld on the Disney Hercules movie."

"I…" Sally paused, she blushed slightly in embarrassment. "Maybe a little."

"Sally, I know Hades has a reputation, but it's completely blown out of proportion."

"You admitted to him trying to get you to assassinate my son." She reminded him. That was still fresh on her mind and a huge sore spot for her right now. Above her colored opinions of Hades and the Underworld through classic Disney magic, Hades was still someone that wanted to harm her son.

"Okay, yeah, I have no excuses for that. But hear me out-"

"There's nothing to 'hear out!'"

"Sally, if you stay here there's a very good chance of," Jack shot a glare at the dark clouds in the distance, "Him kidnapping you and trying to use you as a bargaining chip or… 'motivation' for Percy to get his Master Bolt back. It is not safe for you here."

Sally's words died in her mouth.

"You will be protected not only by the Lord of the Underworld, but by Persephone, Cerberus, several other gods, and my two subordinates, Nico and Bianca. It would take a world-ending event to break through all of that. I need you to be in the Underworld for all this to go as smoothly as possible. If not for your own safety, think of your son's."

It was a dick thing to say, bringing up Percy like that. She knew it, he knew it, but it was a point no one could refute.

Sally sighed. "Can… Can I have some time to think about this?"

Jack gave a small smile. "I'd never give you anything less."

"Thank you." Sally took a deep breath before walking off, heading to the lake.

Jack let out a deep sigh, his shoulders slumping as he sat down on one of the tables of the mess hall. He didn't know which god owned it, but he didn't care all the same.

"The struggles of being reincarnated into what should've been a fictional universe at its finest…" He mumbled under his breath.

Jack was an existence outside of the context of this universe and knew that better than most. Especially since he recognized the world he was born into as Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus, and most recently before his untimely death, Trials of Apollo. Plus, there was the Norse and Egyptian nonsense with Magnus Chase, and Kane Chronicles.

There was just one problem…

He had never actually read the books. He'd only figured out what universe he was in through several subpar fanfictions, wiki diving, and that shitty movie adaptation which even the author had condemned. Everything he was doing, he knew he was completely fucking up whatever preistablished timeline this world had… and did so maliciously cause Fate was an actual thing here and it could fuck itself!

When he first found out that this world was an urban fantasy setting where all mythologies existed at once, he thought he was in Highschool DxD… then he remembered that this world's version of Hades wasn't a comically evil little shit, and thus, his dreams of JoJo posing with a sentai loving demon lord were destroyed.

'Harem building? Sexy girls? Fuck that noise! LET ME JOJO POSE WITH SATAN DAMMIT!'

"So, you're the new guy. Jack, right?" A voice called out, dragging him away from his internal sulking.

Jack blinked as he looked at the young man before him. He was around nineteen, and had that typical 'cool-dude' air around him. Tall, muscular, short-cropped blonde, sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. There was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eyes to his jaw, like an old knife wound.

'Welp, culprit found!' Jack smiled, but it wasn't for the reasons the young man suspected. 'Did gramps put him up to this or is he trying something 'cause I'm close to Percy?'

Jack stood up from his seat and offered his hand."Yeah, Jack Sakai, nice to meet you."

The person that had set all of this nonsense in motion with their actions. The person unwittingly responsible for Percy's normal life being ripped away from him (probably for the best), and the person who basically railroaded Olympus into civil war…

The young man took Jack's hand, giving him a firm handshake. "Luke Castellan."

'Things are about to get very interesting…' Jack smirked.

Chapter End

Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, you lovely degenerates!