Welcome to A Mortal's Might, a rewrite of A Choice, a Gift, My Path...

I will be reusing some of the original story, before it went wrong but only for this and some of next chapter. So if it looks familiar... that's why. I am changing it though, to fit this version of Aaron and make him less perfect and op and less obnoxious.

Also did you know the Mist doesn't cover Satyr limbs? That is why they wear caps and fake feet... so even someone not clearsighted can see them?

"The Beach is insane!" Aaron shuddered as a wave of cold air slammed into him. The place was miserable, cold and nasty and windy as all get out. How they, Percy and Sally, loved it so much he had no idea.

He trailed behind Percy and Sally while they fed blue cornchips to the seagulls, trying to ignore the awkwardness of his intrusion. It was clear this time together was a rare thing, and one that cherished. Sally didn't let him stay too far behind though, feeding him handfuls of blue jelly beans ( he adored jellybeans so he didn't mind) and encouraged him to share stories along side them. He didn't share a lot, they were still strangers to him after all, but he managed to share enough to make them comfortable. Mainly stories of the people he met on the streets, like Mark and Lily a married couple who had looked after him before he moved closer to where he found his father. Sally shared stories of the books she wanted to write and Percy told him about Yancy's academy and his friend Grover, both of them trying to make him feel comfortable.

They ended their night by the making a comfortable fire, in which Sally showed impressive skills in actually setting the fire without so much as a match, easing some of the discomfort and making the beach perfect. Finally, in the light of the campfire, he was able to enjoy the beach and see it's simple beauty. He still didn't get why just being near the damned place made them both look so utterly happy but he could see why they liked it on some level.

Then he listened as she told Percy about his father, and he could not wonder how miserable the man must have been the leave his pregnant lover alone... how foolish she had to have been at that age to get with someone who clearly was unavailable.

'Getting pregnant with no means to support your child, with no money, career, job or any kind of support... maybe that's why she got with my father?' I mean, I plan on using him so I have a place to sleep, eat and live... why wouldn't she do the same? He tried not to judge her for this, for placing her son around someone like Gabe intentionally but... it was kind of hard. Of course it was an easier thing to judge her previous lover, Percy's father. 'Seems cruel, having a child when you can barely take care of yourself... and his father, leaving while she was pregnant... what a dick.'

After a while of stories and fun, Percy opened his mouth and said something that made Sally flinch. "Are you going to send me away again?" Percy's words sounded cold but Aaron could feel the pain in them. "To another boarding school?"

Tears welled in Sally's eyes but before she could speak words spilled past his lips. "Would you rather stay at home with my Father? I just met the man and I already want nothing to do with him."

Thankfully that made them both laugh for a long moment before Sally sighed.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy, sad and sweet. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?"

Sally's eyes welled with tears, she squeezed Percy's hand tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away." She stopped for a moment, before offering a warm smile to Aaron. "And you as well... I … Gabe doesn't like anyone disturbing his peace. I can see if you can join Percy's school. I am sure we can manage."

"Because I'm not normal." Percy's words made no sense to Aaron, he had nothing to reference it for.

"You seem normal to me." Aaron said, hoping to offer some comfort to the clearly wounded family. "Better then my father or most of the other idiots I met on the street. Really, normal is relative."

"He's right, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

Her eyes, the words that passed her lips... they sent a shiver through his blood. Cold and terrified as he was confused. " Safe from what... is... is my father hurting you?" The words were like venom, spilling from his lips with pain and dread.

Percy just seemed confused for a moment, but in that moment he missed the terrified yes in Sally's eyes. He turned to his mother, who had managed to school her face enough where he suspected little... visibly anyway.

"No, nothing like that." She smiled, and he saw through it. So fake and false, she was lying about Gabe.

If there was one thing he could do well, that he excelled at, it was reading people. A vital skill on the streets, one that you had to pick up in order to survive... and frankly Sally was a piss poor liar.

"Safe from what, then?" Percy demanded, his tone equal parts suspicion, equal parts pain.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," The women said, avoiding the question. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it." Her eyes watered but this time it was clear that it was a weapon, a tool to sway her son to her desires... be that to keep him free of Gabe's abuse or something very different.

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp." Her words were solid, unyielding as if she could not see the obsurdadity of them. "I'm sorry, Percy," she said.. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."

She turned toward the fire, her eyes filled with a confusingly vast pain... and in that moment Aaron knew three things.

Sally was holding back tremendous pain, he just couldn't figure out what. Be it from Gabe's abuse or something far worse.

Percy was tied, unknowingly, to something powerful and dangerous enough to warrant his mom all but banishing him from her life throughout the year and possibly. forever. Maybe Mob ties? It would explain a lot about his dad and the danger he was apparently in...Sally didn't seem the type but people could surprise you, another lesson from the streets.

Last and not at all least, Sally was being abused by Gabe... and that meant his father's life was now forfeit. By his hands or another, it didn't matter. Gabe was going to die... and that meant that Aaron had to find a new place to live. Three months of planning, searching and dedicating himself to finding a new home away from his mother and the streets wasted... but it would be worth it. No one should be abused...

No one.

"""

BOOOM!

"The fu-" The curse word almost slipped from Aaron's lips as he sat ramrod straight, looking with a terror in his eye at the door. A storm was raging outside, massive and potent in a way you could just feel against your skin even while inside the cabin. It was terrifying, feeling the entire building sway as another roll of thunder crashed against the world.

Sally, across the room, sat up with a serious look in her eyes. "Hurricane."

"There are never Hurricanes this time of year." Aaron knew it was stupid to say, proof otherwise existing behind the cabin walls.

A desperate voice someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. The sound somehow managed to pierce through the torrent of rain and wind and thunder, a signal of desperation. Maybe it was someone searching for safety, maybe someone was trying to warn them or get them to evacuate?

Sally, nightgown and all sprang out of bed and threw herself at the door. In a moment it was open, showing a strange looking kid with a Rastafarian hat and a terror in his eyes. With his image came an odd reek, metallic and oddly familiar.

"Searching all night," he gasped, as if his words made sense." "What were you thinking?" His words were strange, but they echoed in a weird way, dragging his eyes and narrowing his focus. All he could see was his top, the rest was blurry.

'Must be from sleep.' He yawned, trying to focus, but for some reason he just couldn't. Like a photo out of focus, the air around the other guy was distorted... Like heat rising off of pavement.

"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain, looking at her son with perfect understanding as if she knew more then they all did. It was giving some credit to his Mob theory, maybe the kid was an informant sent to watch Percy and Sally? "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

Percy seemed unable to speak, his poor stepbrother blinded by the situation but not unknowing of the boy in the doorway. But that didn't matter to Aaron, no matter how cruel that sounded, he was starting to panic.

'What's wrong with my eyes, why can't I focus them.' His breathe pushed as panic set in, but no one else seemed to notice as he rubbed his eyes and slapped his face, terrified of the prospect of going blind after finally getting off the damned streets.

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" The boy yelled, perfect Greek on his lips. The sound of immigrants he knew on the streets and restaurants that actually fed the poor and homeless with feta and caper filled deliciousness. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

With steel, Sally barked out an order that almost got Aaron to obey her, even if he was as confused as Percy seemed to be. His hands stilled and his attention turned to Sally, and with that his vision cleared up... " Tell me now!"

His panic did not.

Old ladies at the fruit stand, a Mrs. Dodds and something about claws echoed out in the rain. The words meant nothing to him but to Sally they seemed to be a death sentence. She grabbed her purse, tossed both of them rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. All of you!"

They ran out, with Aaron making sure Sally was following behind. In the back of his mind he realized, absently, that his eyes almost seemed to be avoiding the other boy now instead of just pushing him out of focus, an actual pain sparked every time he turned back to him, but somehow he managed to look... desire overcoming fear and panic. He had to have answers...

'Look... look... look!'

It wasn't a voice, but a feeling... like he needed to know something. It was an instinct he was too familiar with, it had saved him on the street. He obeyed it every time without fail... and what he saw confused and horrified him.

It couldn't have been real... but it was.

There was no feet, but cloven hooves underneath a full fur covered hindquarters.

"A Satyr… that's why you speak Greek!" He knew it was stupid to say the moment he got in the front seat, turning to look at the startled goat boy. "How... what... how is this possible!"

"You can see my... wait, who are you?" His words just bordered at threatening and afraid.

It was almost admirable. "Gabe's son, Aaron Mathews, now answer me. How the hell are you real?" He wanted to cringe, recognizing his father in his own voice.

Sally, who suddenly pulled the car back, screamed at them. "Boys!"

And then they drove away, a hundred miles an hour into the dark. Leaving questions and all other things behind in the cabin as they ran from what he now saw... a powerful shape in the dark, stomping towards them with booming steps. That didn't matter to Aaron though as something in his brain snapped, like metal or led had been wrapped around his brain but was finally melting away, giving freedom to what was once bound.

His eyes focused considerably and it felt like the world had been dull and colorless before but was suddenly bright and beautiful, even in the storm.

Turning around, he looked at the Satyr and saw him fully, without an ounce of blurriness.

"What is going on?"

Chapter end, tell me what you think in the reviews.

This was beyond fun to rewrite and boy did it change, a lot of this chapter is different.

Love, your Ninja Overlord,

Mika.