Hungary, 1956
Distant explosions echoed like rumbling thunder. They painted the darkened horizon a pastel orange, turning night into a twisted parody of day. Gunfire chattered throughout Budapest, and the roaring of armored fighting vehicles drowned out any other sound.
Within this horrific urban conflict, another was hidden, fought in the shadows, in the alleyways and in abandoned buildings. This was the realm of monsters and gods, supernatural beings waging their wars alongside and inside those of the mortal world.
A house shuddered and shook with each explosive shockwave, dust and debris falling from the roof. Inside of a living area, furniture had been hastily overturned and swept aside, cots and stretchers haphazardly laying on the floor.
This was a makeshift field hospital.
A girl, barely 13 years old, was standing between a pair of cots, a large snake curled around her shoulders. She was hunched over a man, her hands splayed on his bloody chest. Bones cracked and flesh shifted as what had been a mortal wound knitted itself together.
A Hungarian man named Luca watched his daughter work with awe and adoration. His daughter was blessed with this ability, and she had chosen to help. Much to his shame, it was her idea to set this hospital up for wounded resistance fighters, not his.
A particularly loud explosion caused him to tear his head away from watching his daughter and glare back out the window he was taking cover beside. Hastily made makeshift sandbags lined each opening and entry point. His hands went white around his rifle's forestock as he aimed an ancient looking rifle out into the street.
For now, it was quiet. This station was far behind the established lines that the revolutionaries had made.
Throughout all this chaos, a radio had been barking updates intermittently throughout a sea of static. They were becoming less and less frequent.
Luca's grip, if it were possible, tightened further around the rifle. It was evident that the lines were breaking under the force of Soviet armour. He gazed back at his daughter.
He wasn't a fool. People would come for her, for her abilities. A part of him hated himself for falling for the goddess that had birthed her. Another part of him loved her even more for it.
Something crashed outside. Shadows moved unnaturally outside the window, and Luca's eyes narrowed. A figure blurred in the faint light. Glowing eyes and fanged teeth glinted ominously.
Screaming for his daughter to get to safety, the man opened fire, all the while cursing himself for his naivety.
If goddesses were real, how could he have not thought that monsters also walked the earth?
A brilliant fireball illuminated an intersection. The remnants of what had once been a BTR-152 APC rolled on for a few brief moments, before slamming into a storefront and going quiet.
Percy Jackson stood up from where he'd been kneeling, staring down at his handiwork. He unshouldered a Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, tossing the empty tube aside.
Gunfire assaulted his position, the Soviet mechanized infantry that had been accompanying the APC opening fire. Several bullets hit him, flattening against his invulnerable skin and clattering to the rooftop.
The demigod growled, leaping down from his position. He slammed into the asphalt with a thunderous crash, the thick material fracturing in his wake.
The soldiers staggered backwards, shocked and unbelieving, but it was far too late. Percy Jackson was already among them. Divine strength and his experience in China and Korea had taught him well.
He raised an invulnerable arm, letting bullets deflect off of his forearm, and slammed the other into the neck of a solder. He went down, gasping for air that wouldn't come even as Percy stepped over his writhing form.
He snatched up the soldier's rifle as he went, slamming the stock of it into the one that had shot at him. The rest of the soldiers shouted at him. He didn't understand the language, but he understood rage and fear well enough. It was all he knew.
The rest of the fight was short and brutal.
He stood there for a bit, alone, with only the dead and a burning vehicle to accompany him.
He heard more gunfire. He tilted his head for a moment. He could differentiate firearms just by their sounds, these days. That did not sound like a AK type assault rifle. Then he heard a scream, young and high pitched.
He stiffened. It was not a mission essential objective, but something, buried deep within the rage and the fear, bit at him. He couldn't fully understand it, but he acted upon it anyway.
Divine machinery and strength allowed him to leap the few dozen fleet back onto the rooftop. He set off running.
In a matter of seconds he'd crossed half a mile.
He skidded to a stop, gravel and roof shingles grinding to dust underneath his augmented strength. He peered over the roof, scowling at what he saw. Slavic demons. It appeared as though the enemy had finally stopped using proxies.
Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out an RPG-2. At this point in history, it was the latest in Soviet technology, the first of its kind.
He fired the rocket propelled grenade directly into a cluster of the goat demons, before tossing the tube aside and leaping into the explosion. Concussive force and heat buffeted him, but unlike the demons below him, he was made of far sterner stuff than to be swayed by it. He stormed out of the explosion, surveying the house that the demons had broken into.
The demons were slow to react. Slower than him, anyway. Even as they were turning around, finally registering a threat, he had killed three of their kind. His foot came down with the full force of a demigod automaton, slamming into the chest of a demon that he'd knocked down. Ribs cracked like dry kindling, and the demon dissolved into brimstone and shadow.
He reached into a pocket on his jacket, retrieving a FN FAL. The demons finally rallied and charged him, but by then it was far too late. Percy opened fire, the heavy battle rifle bucking against his shoulder. Each shot was unerringly precise, highly modified NATO 7.62x51mm rounds punching through the demons skulls.
Again, quiet reigned. Percy kept the rifle up, walking forward, past dissolving masses of shadow and brimstone, and into the house.
The door and much of the front window was gone, the entire living area had been exposed to the street. Percy stepped carefully, his FAL's muzzle up and his torso swiveling like a turret. Each footstep echoed with the sound of crunching glass and splinters.
He surveyed the area. This had been a field hospital. He frowned. To his knowledge, none of the Olympian QRF units he'd been assigned to had set up one in this area. He was about to turn back, turn away from the scene, when his eyes came to rest on a man crumpled in the corner, his form almost entirely hidden behind an overturned cot.
He was leaning against a wall, an ancient mosin-nagant rifle laid out across his lap. His hands were still splayed across it. Percy crossed the room, taking a knee beside the body. He couldn't see any identifying Olympian marks or badges on the man, his weapon, or the clothes.
He reached out a hand, and pressed firmly onto the side of the man's neck. Nothing. Percy sighed. He wasn't sure what the sinking feeling he felt was, or why he did it, but he reached out a hand anyway and closed the man's eyes.
Or tried to anyway. The man's hand shot out, and grabbed onto Percy's wrist with astonishing strength, for a man with a foot into the grave.
"Please… my daughter." The man struggled, but managed to gaze up at him. "Anna."
Perch opened his mouth to reply, but the man had used the last of his strength. Percy stood up, surveying the room again, this time with greater urgency.
Again, it wasn't a mission critical objective. Ares had told him to eliminate enemy combatants. This wasn't a search and rescue. But Percy found that, deep down, he didn't really care.
Percy stood up, surveying the room once more, with greater urgency. He spotted stairs in the corner of the domicile, and ascended them, his rifle still up.
Soft sobbing came from a small room to the left, and Percy carefully entered the room.
"No! Go away! You hurt my father!" A small girl cried. A snake rested across her shoulders, as large as his torso, and it hissed at him.
Oh.
This girl…
Percy understood.
He kneeled down in front of the girl. He didn't know what to say, or how to reassure her. He couldn't even empathize with her pain. He had no father or mother, and he'd never had the opportunity to want one.
So he just stayed there wordlessly, waiting. The girl kept quietly sobbing.
The sound pulled at him, and Percy wished he could make it stop. He didn't know how. He kept kneeling in front of the girl.
He wasn't sure how much time passed. He could hear explosions echoing in the distance, and Ares in the back of his mind, roaring at him, telling him to get back into the fight.
He ignored it.
Eventually, she looked up at him. Percy silently extended a hand.
She gripped it like a lifeline, holding it close to her chest. Percy picked up the 13 year old girl, bundling her up against his shoulder.
Movement occurred downstairs. Glass crunched. He could hear snarling, as more demons and monsters came, flocking to the girl's power.
Percy drew a pistol, still holding the girl in his other hand.
"I'm sorry." A soft voice breathed, raspy and hoarse from tears. "They're going to get you too."
"No." Percy softly said. He flicked the safety off of the pistol. "They won't."
Percy began to walk down the stairs. The declaration was both to the girl in his arms, and to Ares. Athena's implanted knowledge came to him then, and he recalled an old work of literature, about a man that refused to bow.
Percy murmured to himself, as he prepared to defend this girl, to, for the first time in his life, fight for something he chose to.
"I thank whatever gods may be."
His pistol raised, and the girl covered her ears.
"For my unconquerable soul."
Just a quick chapter for now, sorry for the short length. Thanks for the reviews guys.
I apologize for any glaring historical inaccuracies or similar. I do understand that this is fanfiction, but still, I feel like when talking about historical events I should maintain at least some level of integrity. Speaking of, I realize that this is a sensitive historical event, and my fic has been referencing many more, such as the Korean war. In the future, I might do more flashback chapters like this, and well, if it's offensive or if you feel I'm just butchering history, please let me know and I'll avoid doing so. I studied geology and geography in university, nothing even close to history, so you, the reader, are likely far more qualified than I am.