Marked Ones
Weren't expecting this one, were you?
Well, neither was I.
But it's been rolling in my head for a while now and I need to get it out to clear the clutter.
Hope you enjoyed my April Fool's joke of 2022. Consider it a punishment for two Reviews for the latest chapter of Promised Year. 8k+, and only two Reviews. Ouch.
Also, it seems it's still not common knowledge that I finished and published my novel. Remember: it's basically the Xenophobic arc of Backup Plan, the last arc of the original story, extrapolated and adapted for original use. The link is on my profile, and the story is $4.99. Go check it out!
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or Voidwalker
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"It's cold," Percy whined in the backseat of Wendy's minivan as she traversed the roads of Maine at dusk.
"Yes, Percy. This is the far North. And it's winter," the woman answered.
To Percy's left sat Thalia. She crossed her arms and smirked at him. "What's the matter, beach boy? Can't handle the snow?"
"I hate snow. Give me sand. And sun. It's not even five and the sun's already gone!"
"Scared of the dark?" Thalia teased.
"I am the dark," Percy huffed. "All I'm saying is that being this far up is weird and unnatural. Mankind is not supposed to live in a place that has this much snow and the sun goes away too early."
"It's a good thing you never went to Tyvia, then."
"Uh-huh."
Wendy blinked. "I take it that's one of the islands from the empire?"
"The northernmost one," the Voidwalkers answered at the same time.
They glowered at each other from the corner of their eyes.
Wendy smiled tersely. Those two had been picking on each other since they stared driving earlier today. The reason it was just them was because Grover said one of these two demigods he found had the Outsider's Mark on her hand, and so the only logical course of action was to only have Thalia and Percy heading up to Maine since they could deal with a Voidwalker if something happened. No need to risk the lives of any other half-bloods in the potential crossfire of the magic-wielding demigods.
As such, Annabeth was enjoying her Christmas Break in Manhattan with Tea and Bell, while Wendy had spent the past eight hours driving Percy and Thalia up to Maine. They didn't want to risk a flight, even if Thalia was there, and public transportation was notoriously unreliable. Not to mention dangerous.
And neither of them had a driver's license, much less a car, and they weren't about to let Thalia hotwire and steal a vehicle. A) she was the empress, and such petty theft was beneath her, and B) they weren't about that life anymore. Their days of running around on the streets and stealing things were done and behind them.
Mostly.
It wasn't like Thalia and Annabeth were perfect angels at their all-girls school.
Just for the sake of conversation, Wendy asked, "Other than cold and snowy, what's Tyvia like?"
"Cold and snowy," Thalia answered, making Percy snicker. "No, really. The only season is winter up there, but the people have adapted accordingly. Their art is ornate and complex, they export a special metal ore that is very strong, and is the only metal the Overseers use for their swords, and they're especially well-known for their food and wines. The citizens are a bit xenophobic, though. They don't care much for the other Isles, but they won't outright turn outsiders away. Mostly."
"Sounds like a lovely place," Wendy noted.
"Not really. The ruling body of Tyvia are the High Judges, three old men that control the country. Under them are the Presidium, a council of sixteen people, eleven men and five women, but they're mostly figure heads. Those sixteen are voted in democratically, but there's only one political party. As for how the judges are elected, that's private Tyvian information that not even the empress was allowed to know. Anyway, the social situation wasn't too bad from what I remember, but there's always a struggle, especially for resources, especially in a frozen tundra of a country. Tyvian law prohibits citizens from ever acting against their fellows, a broad term the High Judges came up with. Really, what they use it for is to quell any insurrections or rebellions against them.
"They have a secret police called the Operators, a bunch of nameless, faceless individuals that either willingly gave their identities away, or were somehow forced into service. They're masters of stealth and infiltration, and their job was to capture any dissidents in the dead of night. The prison system in Tyvia is interesting. They have labor camps for the more minor offenses, and real prisons for true criminals or whoever the High Judges consider to be real criminals. All of the camps and prisons are located in the general center of the country, where the terrain is the worst, and here's the thing: most of them don't have walls, and all the prisoners are allowed to leave at any time they wish."
Wendy stared at Thalia from the rearview. "Um…what?"
Percy answered. "It's a frozen wasteland in Tyvia. If the prisoners escape, they've got dozens of miles of ice and snow to get through before the reach any kind of civilization. Not to mention the animals."
"Oh, my."
Thalia nodded. "When I died, in the hundreds of years Tyvia had been practicing this method of law enforcement, there's not a single recording of any prisoner having survived. You're free to leave anytime you want, but your odds of surviving are zero."
Wendy was honestly conflicted as to whether that was fair or barbaric.
"I could've survived," Percy said firmly.
Thalia pushed on his shoulder. "That's because you're a Voidwalker and a son of Poseidon. Not a fair measure."
"Still could've survived."
Thalia rolled her eyes. "Impossible child."
"Crabby old lady."
"Petulant brat."
"Senile hag."
"Thumb sucker."
"Dementia patient."
"Immature."
"You smell."
"Goodness, gracious me," Wendy cut in dryly. "When's the wedding?"
"Are you kidding? He still wets his bed."
"She's so old she can't even hold it anymore, much less get her wrinkly old butt to the bathroom without someone holding her up."
"Sounds like you after I break your spine in seven different places."
"Fat chance, grandma. I won that fight."
"With a cheap shot."
"Still won. The dead can't argue about whether it was a cheap shot, because, you know, they're dead."
"My ghost will come back and haunt you."
"I'll go get Hades. He can take you down to the Underworld where all the other dead people go."
"He'll have to catch me first."
"Since he's the god of the dead, that will be very easy."
"Doubt it. I slipped through the whole of Karnaca without anyone seeing me."
"Yeah, that's not hard to do."
"You couldn't do it."
"That's because I didn't want to."
"True. You wanted to-"
"Hey, look at that, kiddos," Wendy broke in. "We're here."
"I am not a kiddo," Thalia stated flatly.
"I've been wondering about that this entire car ride," Wendy said with fatigue clear in her voice.
Thalia sniffed.
Alright, fine. Sometimes her new body, this teenage form that was ridden with ADHD, got the better of her empress mind, and this trip was one of those times. Percy made it hard to concentrate on who she was as Emily Kaldwin.
"Not a very good grandma," Percy nodded his head.
Thalia growled ferally at him for that one, making him blink, and then blush as he realized what he'd said.
"Sorry, I, uh…didn't mean it like that."
"Of course not."
Thalia got out of the car and slammed the door. Luckily, not hard enough to break anything, though she could very well tump the vehicle over if she wanted.
"What was that about?" Wendy demanded of her adopted son.
"Nothing," he said quickly before he got out, too. Percy hadn't told Wendy about his last days in the Empire, how he'd butchered so many people, and he intended to keep it that way.
Wendy stared after the demigods as they entered the castle-esque boarding school that was Westover Hall. Then she drove away for the long ride back home, since Grover had promised a means of returning to Manhattan.
But not a means to get up here. Unhelpful satyr.
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"This is a school?" Percy asked with a scrunched nose. "Looks like a castle."
The Voidwalkers had entered and were walking through the arched halls to where they heard music.
"That's because it is a castle. Westover Hall. Built by Lord Westover from England. Crazy man, wanted his own kingdom, so he had this castle built up here on the edge of a cliff, that way he could shoot cannons at any sea attacks, and have the forest to dissuade any land attacks. According to the legend, he was also a devout hebephile."
"He was devoted to Hebe? Heracles's wife?"
"No. In modern psychology, a hebephile is an individual that is sexually attracted to children entering puberty, so kids typically between eleven and fourteen. Pedophiles want children ten and under, and the step above hebephiles, ephebophiles, want kids fifteen to nineteen."
"Uh, doesn't that make every teenager in a relationship with a teenager an ephebophile?"
"Yes."
"Okay. If this Westover guy lived in the Empire when you were empress, would you have killed him or arrested him for the due process stuff?"
"I would've crushed his balls one at a time with a hammer, poured salty lemon water on the open wounds, cut off his hands and feet, cauterized those wounds, then left him in the woods for the animals to eat."
Percy asked unironically, actually being serious, "If you were gonna go that far, why not just harvest his bones and use them Runes and Charms?"
"Because I'm not a witch. I don't desecrate corpses."
"Um, okay."
They walked a bit further down and then rounded a corner, running smack into faculty, an older, grouchy woman and an uptight man.
"Who are you two?" the woman barked. "You are not in uniform for the dance, nor are you in the school uni-"
Thalia snapped her fingers and Percy felt a small breeze through the area. "We are students here. We have special permission to be dressed this way. You will both move along now and forget you saw us."
The woman's eyes glazed over. "You are students here. You have permission to be dressed that way. We will move along and forget we saw you."
She and the man she was with started walking down the hall.
Percy slowly waved his hand. "These are not the droids you're looking for."
Thalia poked his tummy. "Move along, Master Jedi."
"Was that the Mist?"
"Yes. Annabeth's been teaching me how to manipulate it."
"Can you show me how?"
"Eventually. We're busy right now."
"Well, yeah, I know that. Later, when we're not busy."
"Sure."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
The two continued down the hall till they got to the main gym, where all the festivities were taking place. They didn't have to find Grover, since he was standing at the entrance doors, biting his nails. He saw them and relief flooded his face.
"Thalia, Percy! Thank the gods! I've-"
Percy activated Foresight and his spirit left his body as time stopped. He flew through the doors and into the gym, tilting his astral head at all the teens frozen in various positions. Over in one corner, a group of girls had cornered some poor guy and were dolling him up, putting ribbons in his hair and painting his face with their makeup. In another corner, a group of boys were dragging some poor girl away, her eyes wide and panicked, a hand over her mouth while other hands held her arms.
Percy doubted they were going to redo her makeup for her, so he floated over and linked the boys with Domino and summoned a Doppelganger. Now, due to the time-stopping nature of Foresight, when summoning a Doppelganger, the process actually stopped as well. There was the burst of mist that signified their entry into the world, and then even that stopped short of completion.
Didn't matter, though.
Percy turned his attention back to the crowd. It actually wasn't that hard to find the Voidwalker girl, since Foresight's vision highlighted people, their cones of vision, objects of interest, and even those that bore the Outsider's Mark. In Percy's Foresight vision, he saw the girl sitting up in the corner of the bleachers with her little brother, a silvery black cloud surrounding her.
She was looking right at Percy's astral form.
He gave her a happy wave.
She gave a hesitant wave back.
Percy canceled his power and returned to his body, which made time resume, meaning Grover resumed whatever he was saying before Percy separated himself.
"-been here for weeks! And-"
"You poor thing," Percy said with a haunted expression. "Up here in this awful weather. How have you survived?"
Grover blinked. "Huh?"
Thalia smirked. "He has an aversion to cold and snow."
"It's horrible! All crunchy and smushy, and the sun goes down way too early! I wanna go back to the beach."
Thalia patted his head. "There, there."
Percy swatted her hand. "Stop that." Then his head jerked to where the Voidwalker was at inside. Thalia's smirk dropped from her face in an instant. "Monster's making his move."
"What monster?"
Grover wheezed. "I knew there was a monster here!"
"That military guy from earlier, with the old lady."
Thalia crossed her arms. "You're only just now telling me about this?"
"Yep."
"I'm going to strangle you."
"That's kinky, especially for an old lady."
"Percy."
Percy vanished where he stood, no doubt having used Foresight sometime during that little exchange to place a marker elsewhere.
"That boy," Thalia growled.
"I think he's perfect for you," Grover offered.
"Perfect for driving me up the wall. Let's go. We need to find him before blows this castle off the cliff."
"He can do that?"
"I don't actually want to find out."
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Thorn was sweating bullets. He'd tried to make off with Bianca and her brother Nico, and where he'd gotten them out of the noisy gym and into the cold Maine night to lead them to the rendezvous point, the girl had shown him what he'd feared: that tattoo on the back of her hand wasn't for show.
Thorn was almost totally transformed, with his pants missing, exposing his lion body, while his torso remained partially human, his hands sporting claws. Fangs were in his mouth, and his large scorpion tail waved behind him. Opposite him in the snow was Bianca, an obsidian sword in her hand that had appeared in a burst of blackish silvery fire.
He'd fired a volley of spikes at them, only for her to knock every single one out of the air with expert precision, no movements wild or wasted. She had training, good training. What certainly wasn't helping was her energetic sibling, who was literally bouncing in place and fawning over his sister as she "did the thing."
Thorn had no idea what to do in this situation. He was outmatched, he knew that. He needed backup and had already sent a prayer, the default emergency communication method, to the General, but there was no telling how that was going to play out. Hopefully, the fact that all four children of the Big Three were currently present would be enough of an incentive for the General to send some quality aid instead of leaving Thorn to die and be sentenced to reform in Tartarus.
Thorn pondered his next move, and then he heard a sound behind him.
"Hello, there."
"General Kenobi," Thorn blurted before he could stop himself. The Hades had that come from? The manticore turned and felt his face go slack.
Great, it was Jack-
SHLING
Thorn howled as his arms and legs were severed from the rest of him. From the ground, as he writhed, he looked up and saw that Bianca's sword was missing. She'd flung it and chopped his limbs off.
"Good throw," Percy nodded.
Bianca blushed a little. "I was actually aiming for his head."
"Oh, then bad throw."
"Yeah."
Percy stomped on Thorn's tail, crushing the barbed point, making the monster howl even more.
"Will you shut up! It's hard to interrogate you when you're screaming so loud," Percy huffed.
"Va te faire fourte!" Thorn screamed in French.
"Bless you?" Percy said, unsure of that was a sneeze or not.
"That was French," Bianca supplied.
"I like McDonalds."
Bianca stared at Percy. "You are a very strange individual."
"I'm a witch!" was his proud declaration. "And also my mom is my heart. She's connected to the Void, and tells me things about people. And places. And things."
"That's…nice."
"It really is, Bianca. You should get yourself a talking Heart that's connected to the Void."
"Uh…"
They heard panicked yelling in the distance coming from the school. The Voidwalkers looked and saw Thalia come shooting out of the door, Grover over her shoulder, using a Void tendril to propel herself across the ground at a great speed. She crashed down into the snow next to the other two soon enough and set the trembling satyr down.
"Please don't ever do that again," Grover pleaded.
Thalia ignored him in favor of looking at Bianca. "I am so sorry for whatever trouble he's caused you."
Percy stuck his tongue out at the empress.
Bianca shook her head. "No…trouble. He's just weird. I think he may be retarded."
"His mom's a witch and raised him wild."
"I am standing right here, you know."
"Brigmore, by any chance?"
"Yes."
"So you're both from the Isles."
"Technically. Percy was born and raised there. I was born and raised here, but a thing happened and I ended up living another life in the Empire. Then I died and was returned here. Percy just ended up here after some stuff."
"I am standing right here."
"Interesting. I'm something of a combo, then. I was born and raised in the empire, then I died and now I live this new life."
"Interesting indeed. Who were you in the Empires?"
"Beatrici Attano."
Thalia flinched so hard a stray lightning bolt went shooting her to the nearest tree, blowing it up. Percy balked so hard he stepped off Thorn's tail, and the manticore gave it one last shot. A Blood Briar erupted through his midsection, splitting him in half.
"Thank you, Percy," Thalia nodded, then she looked at Bianca. "You're Corvo's sister?"
"I…was," Bianca said hesitantly.
"I was Emily Kaldwin-"
"Empress Jessamine's daughter!?"
"Yes! And Corvo is…was…my father. Him and Jessamine were my parents. You…you're my aunt."
"And you know my little brother's life. We have lots to talk about."
Thalia nodded. "That we do."
"You two don't even know each other's names," Percy pointed out.
"I'm Thalia. This brat is Percy, and this fine young man is Grover."
"I'm Bianca. Nico, come here and say hi."
Nico came over, having kept his distance as he had been previously instructed by his sister. "Hello! Can any of you play Mythomagic?"
There was three-fold response of "no."
Nico pouted. "Aw, man."
That's when the new sound filtered into their ears. A rapid chop-chop-chop that was rapidly getting louder and closer.
"Is that a helicopter?" Percy asked eagerly. He'd never seen one up close before, only overhead on the odd occasion. He wanted to fly one.
"Sounds like it," Thalia agreed.
"I don't think it's friendly," Bianca said. Her Mark started glowing, as did Thalia's.
"Well of course, it won't be friendly," Percy explained. "It's a machine. It's not inherently friendly or mean."
Bianca looked at Thalia.
"He's a little confused, but he's got the spirit," said the daughter of Zeus.
"He's got something, and I don't think it's just spirit."
"I am standing right here!"
The helicopter came roaring up from the sea. A Blackhawk with wings sporting multiple missile pods and a searchlight hovered over the demigods. Two seconds passed before Percy raised his Marked hand, and the girls did the same with no questions or hesitation.
Percy used Void Razor in its grenade form.
Thalia used Windblast, propelling Percy's technique at terminal velocity.
Bianca used Fireblast, just adding overkill.
The three magic attacks struck home and the helicopter erupted in flames and shrapnel. Thalia used another dose of Windblast to form a kinetic wall around them that knocked away even the heaviest piece that flew at them.
Percy pouted. "I wanted to fly it."
Thalia patted his head. "Maybe one day, kiddo."
"I am not a kiddo."
"Um, guys?" Nico tugged on Bianca's jacket. "We have, um, company…"
The Voidwalkers and Grover looked behind them and saw a dozen girls in a silver parkas standing at the tree line, all of them with gobsmacked expressions, save for one. She looked twelve, with auburn hair and silver eyes, eyes that were darting between Bianca, Thalia, and Percy. She had a very eager and hopeful smile on her face.
"Hello, children. I am Artemis, and these are my Hunters."
Percy waved. "Hi~!"
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That's all for this one!
Go read Alleviate by Forfun100. Turns out she's not dead after all.
My April Fool's joke will be down soon enough, so sorry time travelers if you missed it! However, that actually is the basic plot of the story. Shin'en goes back home, finds the 3,000 years have passed as Susano'o told him all the way back in the beginning of Backup Plan, and he decides to help the world in his own unique way.
Go check out my novel, pretty please!
I have no idea what's next, so stay tuned for whatever plot bunny hops into the light.
In the meantime, Fav, Follow, and Review please!
Like, more than two this time, dam.
