Persephone's New Year's Resolution

I almost forgot to give you guys my birthday present!

Surprise!

It's my birthday today!

10/24/2021

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or Naruto

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Persephone was awoken when her girlfriend started tickling her ear. With an annoyed groan, she batted Annabeth's hand away and tried to go back to sleep, only for her ear to once again be tickled. Without opening her eyes, because if she opened her eyes she'd remain awake and she didn't want to do that since it was New Year's Day and she was on her two-week Christmas break of the holiday season following the end of the Giant War and she intended to sleep until she wanted to get up, Persephone said, "Annabeth, if you don't stop playing with my ear, I'm going to fart on you and kick you off my bed."

Her words stirred Annabeth awake. "Muh?" the blonde moaned confusedly. "Wha you tah-kin 'bow?"

"Quit playing possum. And quit playing with my ear."

"Both of my hands are around your stomach, and you just woke me up."

Persephone went stiller than what she already was. "…if you're not messing with my ear, then who is?"

Since neither Paul nor Sally ever woke the girls up by touching their body parts, they both grabbed their weapons from under the pillows and sprang out of bed to attack whatever it was that was in the room with them. A pair of hands clamped around their throats and pinned them back down before they even finished springing forward.

"Not bad, but too slow."

Persephone's breath left her in a sharp gasp. She lifted Riptide, the sword's glow providing plenty of light in the dark. "P-Percy?"

"Hey, Seph. Happy New Year."

Persephone squealed and tackled her little brother to the floor of her room. Then she paused. "I swear if you're actually some god disguised as my brother, I'm going to crush every fiber of your being before making hurting you so bad you skip Tartarus and instead go straight to wherever it is faded deities go."

"It smells like sweaty crotch and butthole in here," Shin'en said. "When was last time you changed your undies?"

And that's what did it for Persephone. Only a handful of people knew she insisted on referring to her underwear as her "undies," as opposed to anything else like skivvies or panties, just like how she refused to ever refer to her genitals as anything besides her "muffin," and insisted on never using or hearing the word "vagina" because it sounded so totally gross and weird. Percy was one of the people that knew about Seph's preferences.

Persephone squealed a second time and buried her face in the crook of her brother's neck, squeezing him as tight as she could given that she was straddling him.

From outside the bedroom door, the sound of rapid footsteps was heard, the sound of the hallway flicking on, its light shining in the space under the door, and then said door was thrown open by Paul wielding a baseball bat, the pregnant Sally holding a frying pan behind him. They saw Annabeth sitting up in the bed, still shellshocked, and Persephone was missing.

"Hera took her again!?" Sally shrieked at the very top of her lungs.

Persephone's head popped up from the other side of the bed. "Nope. I'll kill her if she tries that again."

"Then why are you in here screaming…?" Paul asked. "We're not, uh, interrupting something, are we?"

"Only if you count a sibling reunion to be 'something,' Paul."

This time, Sally's breath hitched in her throat at that voice. She dared not hope until her daughter stood up, her hand holding someone else's, helping that person stand up. Tears erupted in Sally's eyes.

"Baby…"

"Happy New Year," Shin'en said. "What's for breakfast? I'm hungry."

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The five of them were soon gathered at the coffee table in the living room, enjoying bowls of cereal. Persephone could barely sit still she was bubbling with so much excitement.

"I was able to clear my schedule," Shin'en said with the same sideways smile that his sister did. "Now I've got a year of vacation on my hands, and I figured I'd spend it here. Something about a promise I think I made."

"You think you made?" Seph said indignantly. "Um, Winter Solstice? 2007? We were fourteen? Then, if I recall correctly, on our sixteenth birthday, I brought that promise up again."

"Nah. You're imagining things."

"I am not!"

"Pretty sure you are."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Children," Sally cut in, trying hard not to grin so wide her face split as she watched her kids bicker like they'd been together their whole lives. "Be nice to each other."

Seph glowered at her smirking brother, hating how he could play their mom like that.

"So, Percy," Annabeth said, speaking up for the first since her girlfriend had tackled her little brother. "What's…you got any plans?"

Shin'en shrugged. "Go back to high school, redo my senior year, enjoy summer vacation, go to college or something. Have a bunch of adventures along the way."

A sullen mood settled over the living room as Shin'en said "redo high school." As this was taking place after the Giant War in the Backup Plan continuity, that meant that the events of the first and second stories had transpired, so the trip through Shin'en's memory lane post-Titan War had happened. When he said "redo," the other four in the room remembered the memories of Asteria, the other Annabeth, Hunter, and Gabe from Xenophobic, and how that whole story had played out.

"I love adventures," Annabeth offered.

"So do I," Persephone said. "Particularly the ones that don't have anything to do with high school."

Seriously, Persephone hated school. The teachers, the principals, the other students—all a bunch of assholes. Persephone had no academic aspirations whatsoever. Her desired career had nothing to do with school, college or otherwise. What she wanted to do with her life was become a fulltime instructor at Camp Half-Blood, move in to Cabin Three and live as a teacher, training new generations of heroes, helping the troubled demigods that came there as best she could.

Kind of ironic, how she hated school yet wanted to be a teacher.

Of demigods, but still.

Since she was eighteen now, she was legally able to drop out of high school and go and do just that, except Sally really wanted to see her daughter do what she couldn't, and actually graduate high school, and Annabeth wanted them both to go to college in New Rome together. Essentially, Persephone was being pressured into doing something she didn't want to do, and where she'd typically give someone the finger for doing that, it was her mother and girlfriend in this case, and she just couldn't disappoint them.

So Persephone was forcing herself to complete high school, only it was even harder and worse than before. Due to Hera's machinations and the Giant War, Persephone had officially skipped the entirety of her junior year of high school. Because she was enrolled at Goode, and she skipped a whole year, the school had expelled her. Nothing Paul could do for her. The only high school that would accept Persephone was Alternative High School.

A holding pen for general delinquents. Every day was a struggle for Persephone to not rupture the entire plumbing system and flood the school. Maybe drown some of the people she really hated because they had singled her out as their preferred bullying target. Persephone's only solace in that school was Annabeth.

Annabeth's situation hadn't forced her to skip her junior year, so she was on top of her studies and was a credited senior, unlike Persephone who was having to double down on her schoolwork and do junior classes and senior classes.

If it wasn't for Annabeth, Persephone could very well be in jail for murder thanks to the way the Mist worked.

But now Percy was here.

"Oh, I don't have any serious intention of limiting my time here to alternative school," Shin'en said with a dangerous little smile. "It wouldn't be a very good year if the only thing I did was terrorize teenagers."

"We're going to play hooky?" Persephone asked with stars in her eyes.

Shin'en smirked. A puff of smoke next to him appeared and cleared to reveal a clone of himself. Then, in another puff that cleared, a perfect clone of Persephone was revealed.

"Shadow Clone in tandem with Transformation," Shin'en said.

"Oh, my," Sally said.

"Oh, yeah," Seph grinned.

"Oh, no," Annabeth moaned.

Seph looked at her girlfriend. "What are you moaning about? Now we can skip school without skipping school!"

"I mean, yeah, but…yeah. So, any specific plans?" Annabeth asked Shin'en.

"Adapt as needed," he answered.

"By any chance," Paul hazarded, "do you know of any…incoming…immediate…threats?"

"Let's see…this 2011…nah. Nothing too immediate."

"Not even anything mythological?" Paul asked with clear hope for his stepdaughter.

"Oh, there's something coming, but I don't have any intention of participating in that. Would rob someone of some very deep and meaningful emotional character development."

"Um, I think I've had plenty of emotional character development," Persephone said.

"Not talking about you."

"Then who?"

"Apollo."

"The god?"

"Yep. He'll be here in 25 days."

"Ugh, as much as I love being a hero and fighting monsters and saving the day, I really don't like it when it's because of some god."

"Oh, he won't be a god this time."

Annabeth lurched in her seat. "He won't be a god? He'll be mortal or something?"

"Mortal," Shin'en confirmed.

"Gods can be made mortal?" Persephone breathed.

"Mm-hm. Zeus can somehow do that. He's doing it to Apollo because he blames him for the Giant War. Octavian was Apollo descendant."

"Oh," Persephone said. "That doesn't make any sense at all."

"When has Zeus ever made sense?"

Everyone laughed at that.

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"So, how are things?" Persephone asked. "You know, over there? And how's Naruko?"

The twins and Annabeth were in Seph's room.

"They're rolling along," Shin'en answered. "Still part of the Akatsuki, obviously."

He was wearing his Akatsuki outfit, being the black cloak with the high collar, the blue pants and sandals with the white legwarmers, and he had his ring on his right ring finger. The silver band with the red stone that was inscribed with the kanji for "lord."

"We're going through some intensive training as we prepare for our final mission. Naruko came and found us, and decided to join us."

"What's the final mission?" Annabeth asked, trying to keep her tone neutral. "Genocide?"

"Annabeth," Seph hissed.

"That's the backup plan," Shin'en said. "Plan A is we gather the Tailed Beasts to make a superweapon, and then use that weapon to bounce a super genjutsu off our moon that'll ensnare the whole planet. Then we'll use a fancy tree jutsu so that'll keep everyone alive indefinitely. Essentially, we're going to put everyone in a medically induced coma. And the genjutsu lets them live whatever their fantasy is. World peace in a dream."

Annabeth opened her mouth to argue that, but Persephone beat her to it.

"What about you and Naruko and the Akatsuki and Naruko's family?"

"The Akatsuki will enter the dream as well because they want to. Naruko's family…we'll say they're a lost cause. Naruko and I, after Project Tsuki no Me—the name of the mission—is complete, we'll be coming back here. Permanently."

Persephone gasped in total delight.

Annabeth frowned. "Seph? Can we talk for a second? In private?"

"No. You can say whatever you have to say right now," she answered.

"Okay." Annabeth looked at Shin'en, but before she could say anything, he cut her off.

"Yes, we realize it's a copout. No, we don't care. Yes, it's something that actually works in regards to world peace. Yes, I realize there are better ways to do it, but this is the way that involves the least amount of blood. We're actually trying not to commit to genocide, and keep the body count as low as possible. Do you honestly have any objections to a version of world peace that doesn't involve a mountain of bodies or an ocean of blackmail, or would be destroyed in a couple of generations?"

"Alright, fine. Good luck."

"Thanks."

"So, what do we want to do?" Persephone asked. "We've got nothing planned, like, for the whole rest of the break. Just lay around and try not to have a crisis when school starts again."

"Sounds good to me. A little down time before I unleash hell upon the New York educational system sounds fun. Wouldn't happen to have any…Power Pants lying around, would you?"

Persephone snickered at Annabeth, who flushed and looked away.

"I still can't believe I actually did that."

"Gave you the confidence you needed, though, didn't it?"

"Yeah. Thanks. Hey, Seph?"

"No," she said immediately.

"You don't even know what I was going to say," Annabeth protested.

"You were going to suggest I wear some Power Pants to boost my confidence in school. No thanks. It's not a confidence problem so much as a motivation problem. Besides, no offense to, like, incontinent people and bedwetters, but diapers don't give me confidence."

Annabeth coughed into her fist. "Well, they're actually pull-ups, so…"

"Alright, that's enough of that," Shin'en said.

"Then why'd you bring it up?" Annabeth muttered under her breath.

Well, the answer was that Shin'en couldn't look at Annabeth without thinking about the Annabeth from the Xenophobic arc at the end of Backup Plan, the one he'd spent nine months with as a seniors in high school, the one who had the really bad period that caused her to almost bleed to death on some occasions. And also the psychological issues, the coping mechanism of which manifested in wearing Goodnites as a security blanket to deal with the abandonment issues created by her father and stepmother.

This was written three years ago. Sue me.

Also, cope with the fact that Backup Plan was completed three years ago.

Persephone totally missed it, but Annabeth didn't.

Shin'en was just as traumatized as ever. That's why he brought it up.

"Hey, what's your New Year's Resolution?" Persephone asked her little brother.

"Don't know. Haven't thought of one."

Seph turned to Annabeth. "What's yours?"

"Make straight A's."

"That's boring. Mine is to be a better big sister."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Shin'en asked with a raised brow.

"Don't know yet. I'll figure it out, though."

"Well, over the course of this next year, I look forward to helping you figure it out."

Persephone didn't bother keeping her happy tears in.

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Hope you enjoyed my birthday present from me to you.

I read the replies to the Chaos War AN, and for anyone wondering, the big AN I was looking for is on Ch. 64 of AC:T. I forgot it was that long ago. So, if anyone ever asks what I think about the current state of PJO, or what my opinion of the series is, now I know where to point them.

Thank you, dedicated fans who remember more about my stories than I do, apparently. You guys are awesome!

Now, as for this story, what kind of plot there will be…not really. This is just going to be a fun thing for me to do. Tons of crossovers as I come up with one-shots and stuff. Crossovers like 39 Clues, Virals, Maximum Ride, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Inheritance Cycle (Eragon), Narnia, Last Airbender, various horror films like Jeepers Creepers, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Hellraiser, etc. Basically, whatever I feel like throwing in here will be thrown in here.

So, no real plot to this. Just me having fun.

Next chapter is Shin'en storming Alt High, and he won't be as nice as Voidwalker in middle school.