I just noticed we hit 500 reviews two chapters ago. Great job guys! Over halfway to the big One Triple-0!
Now we just need to get Green-Eyed Ghoul on the five hundred train, and everything will be fine and dandy.
This will be a darker chapter, involving a fight scene that'll display the physical strength difference between a demigod and a human in a brutal fashion.
Let's just say that Percy isn't happy this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or AC
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It was painfully obvious to Percy that this was not, in fact, a humane zoo transport. The animals were borderline anorexic, their food bowls were wrong, and the three men in the front seat were all glowing a terrible red.
Percy was silent, and the air around him was cold and frigid. He wanted to be alone, and he made that obvious by putting his back to the rest of them. He was using the bronze light of Riptide to provide illumination for his Bible reading.
When they heard his stomach growling, everyone suddenly remembered something, a couple somethings, actually. One, Percy hadn't slept since yesterday, as he had covered the entire night shift by himself, and two, he also hadn't been able to fill his stomach. Combined with the stress of the...previous episode, and his fatigue and hunger, it was no wonder that Percy had curled in on himself.
No one was stupid enough to ask if he was okay, because he was clearly not okay. And no one knew how to approach him, and get him to talk about it. Everyone was of the same mind that simply asking 'do you want to talk about it,' would be met with a steely and icy 'no.'
Kira the husky puppy wriggled out of Lou's arms, and scampered over to Percy.
Annabeth, Lou, Grover, and Beckendorf watched with baited breath as the puppy attempted to do something. She nudged Percy's side, and was promptly ignored. She raised up and placed her paws on him for support, and began panting, her little tail wagging excitedly; she was ignored still. Letting out a frustrated and despondent whine, Kira squirmed under Percy's arm, and tried to invade his field of vision.
The puppy squeaked when the sword was dropped and she was grabbed and thrown over the shoulder, where she was caught by a panicked Lou Ellen, who rounded on the Assassin, angry at him for the mistreatment of her dog.
"Hey! I get that you're stressed right now, but that doesn't mean you can take it out on my puppy!"
Percy looked at her over his shoulder. Only a single, frigid eye was visible, as the light from Riptide came from the ground. "My mouth was raped," he said in a dead voice. "Ares tried to give me a hickey, biting through my skin. And you turned me into a girl. Shut. Up."
Effectively cowed but no less upset, Lou settled back against the side of the truck next to Annabeth.
"Percy," Beckendorf tried, quietly yet firmly. "You need to rest. You've been up since before this time yesterday, and you haven't eaten at all."
"I'm. Fine."
"No. You're not. You're snappish, irritated, tired, hungry, and probably traumatized. If you're not going take a nap, then you at least need to talk about it. It's not good to keep that stuff bottled up like that."
"I am fine."
Lou's frustration boiled over. "Alright mister! Og ot peels!"
She put more power into his spell than she had in any other before it. Partly because she was frustrated with Percy's assault on her puppy, but mostly because she needed to make sure it worked. The blast hit him square in the back, and he immediately slumped over.
Annabeth looked at Lou. "While needed, that was a little extreme."
"Yeah, Lou." Beckendorf frowned. "That was cold."
"Oh, shut up. You both agree with me anyway."
A three-way bicker began between the blacksmith, blonde, and witch, but the satyr said something that shut all of them up.
"What'd you say, Grover?" Annabeth asked.
"He was terrified," Grover whispered.
He was pale, his knees to his chest, held there by his arms, his eyes were haunted, and he looked to be shivering. In the near-darkness of the truck, it was hard to tell if he was moving or not.
"I'm a satyr, and we can read emotions better than anyone. When Ares assaulted Percy...he was terrified. He was helpless, unable to move or make a sound, unable to do anything as Ares violated him."
Grover's eyes swiveled about to meet everyone's gazes.
"Can you imagine feeling that powerless? Feeling someone have absolute, total control over you? Percy is proud, very proud, and really, really strong, too. Having all that stripped away from him...wouldn't all of you be terrified of something like that happening to you?"
Grover looked at Lou Ellen and Annabeth. "Tell me: as girls, not demigods, or daughters of Hecate and Athena, but as girls...what's your biggest fear?"
The demigoddesses shared a lasting look, before looking back at Grover.
"Being raped," they said in tandem.
The satyr nodded his head. "You think that was any different for Percy? You turned him into a girl, emotionally, mentally, and physically, it was only that his personality remained that things weren't any more awkward and strange than what they already were, but still….
"When Ares said that he only wanted a kiss? Yeah, he meant that for about two seconds before his primal side took over. You all saw what happened, with the tongue, and the groping, and the bite. Ares was going to do that all over Percy's body, before ripping her pants away and...taking her right in front of us. And Percy knew that, too."
Suddenly, the full gravity of what transpired settled on the shoulders of the demigods.
"All of us, unable to move, Percy, also unable to move, all of us at the mercy of a rapist god...if that man in the robe hadn't shown up…" Grover trailed.
"Who was that, anyway?" Annabeth asked quietly, pale as a sheet.
"We all know who that was," Beckendorf said. "Just goes to show that where the Greek gods are real, other pantheons and mythologies are real, too. They're just out there, doing their own thing."
"I think calling one of the biggest religions on the planet a pantheon or a mythology is a bit of an insult," Lou said in a weakly upbeat tone, trying to crack something of a joke.
Her intentions were felt and received with positive reactions, as small smiles were abound. Kira yapped quietly, wagging her tail.
"Yeah...so, when you want to give Percy crap about his sour attitude, remember what he just went through, and what he might have gone through, on top of him running off of zero hours of sleep and an empty stomach," Grover said.
Silence fell over the truck, broken by the occasional sound from an animal or the rattling of the trailer. The satyr eventually decided to lean over and take a nap, and the blacksmith decided to follow suite. They were both steadily breathing within a minute, leaving Lou Ellen and Annabeth as the only ones still awake. Kira had also decided to catch some Z's, and the Husky puppy was snoring in the witch's lap.
What an adorable little fluffball.
"It smells like poop in here," Annabeth commented offhandedly, her ADHD-ridden mind prompting some kind of response to the stimuli of boredom. Then she realized what she said and snapped her gaze to Lou. "You didn't…?"
The witch snorted. "If I had done that, I would have already changed. Besides, we are surrounded by animals, and animals poop too."
"Right," Annabeth's face was a little flushed in embarrassment at her lack of spacial awareness. "Sorry."
"Eh, don't be. I am wearing a diaper after all, it's only right to question a fecal-related smell when you're next to me."
"Were you...were you telling the truth about that? That you just wear them on long trips to avoid a filthy bathroom?"
"...partly," Lou said cautiously.
"Partly?"
The daughter of Hecate sighed. She looked at Annabeth, dead in the eye. "You like Percy, don't you? Like, as in like like him?"
Annabeth's face shifted as she weighed her answer, then it set, and she said, "Yes. I like like him."
"Well, as rivals in the war of love," Lou cracked a grin at how cheesy that sounded, as did Annabeth, "I think it's only fair that we know each other.
"My name is Lou Ellen, and I'm the most powerful child of Hecate in over a thousand years, even stronger than my sister, Celyn, in the Hunters of Artemis. Because of my extreme affinity for magic, my mother had to take something from, as the Ancient Laws supposedly bind her to the Principle of Equal Exchange. Now, what Mom could have taken from me could have been a lot worse, what she did take from me sucks to no end."
"What did she take?"
"My nocturnal urinary control."
Annabeth blinked. "Nocturnal urinary...you're a bedwetter. You wear diapers at night so you don't wet the bed."
"Bingo. Like I said, Mom could have taken something much worse, like my eyes, or my ears, or a couple of chromosomes, or some limbs or a few bones, but still. Life-long bedwetter. That sucks. Anyway, because of my extreme magical affinity, I also get visions about people. Visions about their past, what they're doing now, and sometimes even their future."
Annabeth caught on instantly. "So, you've seen my life."
"Yeah. Frederick Chase, Randolph Chase, Natalie Chase, Magnus Chase, a step mother, idiot step brothers, ran away at seven, spider attacks in the night, a cyclops, Luke and Thalia, being chased, the Furies, and a pine tree. When it comes to the important stuff, I know it."
"Oh."
"Hey, don't be offended, I can't control it, nor can I help what I see. Blame my mom, because I got this from her."
"...fair enough. You know about me, but what about you?"
"My dad didn't exactly know how to raise me, beyond basic childcare, and he did put me in diapers for any road trips we went on, either because we were going to see far away family, were moving, or were going on vacation somewhere, because roadside bathrooms and public bathrooms period are nasty, filthy, and invite unsavory individuals.
"Anyway, I was at public school, and a rogue manticore attacked me, being attracted to my scent. I freaked out, and my magic freaked out, and I killed the manticore, and blew up half my school. I try not to remember the people I may or may not have killed. After that, Dad decided it was time try that summer camp thing he heard about in a letter he received about a week before the attack, and that's how I got to Camp Half-Blood.
"So, to recap, I have extreme amounts of magical power, I see visions of people's lives, my dad put me in diapers to avoid bathrooms, I'm a permanent bedwetter, I killed a manticore when I was nine, I blew up half my school, potentially killing a few dozen kids, and then I was basically ostracized by everyone when I arrived at Camp Half-Blood."
"And now the two of us are competing for the attention of a Christian demigod son of Poseidon."
"Yep, may the best girl win."
"Yeah…"
Silence returned, but Lou looked at the blonde. "Annabeth, I've already told you what I see in Percy, and how I feel about him, and why I feel that way, but what about you?"
Yes, the daughter of Athena recalled their argument on the train, after Percy's gender transformation, and Lou's innermost feelings for the boy were revealed. Honestly, Annabeth didn't know why she felt what she did for Percy.
"I don't know, really. I mean, yes, he is cute-handsome, I suppose-and his body is well-maintained, and well-sculpted, and he's smart, really smart. Yesterday, when we were leaving and you ran up to us with that newspaper, Percy had been discussing with me and Beck about we, as in demigods, were not the same gender as our biological parents, since our godly parents don't pass on DNA."
"...I'm a little lost."
"Okay, so you know how gods don't have DNA, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, if that's the case, then the only genetic material in us comes from our mortal parents, right? Like, if your godly parent is a god, and your mortal parent is a woman, then the only genetic material you have comes from your mother, which should you make you a girl, right?"
"Well, when you put it that way…"
"Yeah, but here comes the kicker: Percy's only genetic material comes from his mom, meaning he should only have an XX chromosome, but he's a boy."
Lou's face fixed itself in the way of one who just now got the whole point of something. "So, basically, since my genetic material is only coming from my dad, I should be a boy."
"Exactly. Percy's theory is that our gender is determined by the thoughts of our divine parents during intercourse. Like Hermes wants a son, so that's what the child is born as, or Hephaestus wants a daughter, and that's what his next child is born as. The biggest support for Percy's theory is me and my siblings, since we come directly from our mother's head."
"Huh. That is smart."
"Yeah...what were we talking about again?"
"What you saw in Percy. You said he was hot and smart, and then launched into the Gender Determination Theory."
"Oh, right...yeah. He's calm, has a level head on his shoulders, can handle himself in just about any situation, and he has that...charisma. That air around him that just makes you want to follow and be with him. And his unwavering devotion to the faith, even when surrounded by pagans and false gods, it's...it's...there's something powerful about."
"Yeah," Lou said distantly. "I know what you mean."
"You know, now that I say all that, and compare it to how you feel about him...I realize that I don't stand a chance. You've got me beat, Lou Ellen."
The witch closed her eyes and smiled sardonically as she recalled a brutal truth. "No, you're wrong."
"Huh?"
"We both don't stand a chance. Remember what I said about being able to see a person's past?"
"Yeah…you've seen Percy's, haven't you? What, does he have a girlfriend from before he entered the mythological world?" Annabeth sounded just a little despondent.
"Something like that...look, it's not really my place to say, but...since I know you'll just hound me relentlessly until I give you something to work with...I trust you know about reincarnation?"
"Of course,. That's how you get into the Isles of the Blest." Suddenly it dawned on Annabeth. "Percy's a reincarnate soul, isn't he?"
"Yes." Though it was much more complicated than that, Lou felt she had already said too much as it is, and keeping things simple was an endeavor she would gladly partake in at this point. "I've seen some of his past life and…"
"He met someone, didn't he? Someone who's still alive today. A god, or a goddess, and if he sees them again, then it's probable that he'll want to be with them instead of one of us."
"More or less. But replace those deities with the lieutenant of a deity, and you'll get Percy's past love."
Annabeth put a hand to her chin, and looked at her feet, deep in thought. "The lieutenant of a deity...lieutenant of a deity...but," she was starting to piece it together, "the only deity I can think of that would have need of something like a lieutenant is Artemis, and that's because she has a Hunt, and her Hunt has a lieutenant, and her lieutenant is-no."
The daughter of Athena looked like she had just been shot.
"Her? She fell in love with a boy?"
"Let's just say that Percy wasn't always a boy, but yeah. While the odds of them meeting again are slim, if they do meet, however…"
"Her of all people, though," Annabeth breathed. "Wow…"
"Yeah…"
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Much earlier
Zoё Nightshade was not happy, and Artemis could feel it in the atmosphere.
"You didn't tell me she reincarnated," the Huntress said lowly, darkly.
"No, I did not."
A snarl crossed Zoё's beautiful face, but she quickly schooled herself. Artemis let out a silent breath.
"Why. Not."
"Because, while Perseus may have her face, he is not her."
"He? The one on the television looked remarkably female."
"A case of accidental magic. The gender swapping spell was aimed for another. Perseus was on the unfortunate receiving end."
"That does not change the fact, that he has her eyes, her hair, her skin, and you didn't tell me."
"And what would you have done, lieutenant?" Artemis asked evenly.
Zoё shot to her feet, her feeling betrayal and rage becoming her. "What do thee think thou would have done!? Thou would have gone to her!"
"Yes," Artemis snapped. "That would have been a remarkable conversation. 'Hello, my name is Zoё Nightshade. I knew you very well in a previous life, during the French Revolution. Want to pick back up where we left off, where you died in my arms!? Brilliant way to restart a relationship!"
Zoё's face fell as that scenario played out in her mind, and how it ended in crushing emotional defeat.
Artemis was on a role. "Zoё, just because Perseus has her face, does not mean they are the same. You of all people know about genetics, and how complete strangers can look alike, even more so when they're separated by centuries. Besides, she was a staunch atheist, vocal in her hate of religion, and Perseus is a devote Christian. Their sharing of face is more likely coincidence than anything."
Artemis watched as Zoё's face showed she was thinking of something to say, something of a rebuttal, but nothing came. Then, the daughter of Atlas' face set, and she looked her goddess in the eye.
"If I were to perish, and you saw someone with my face centuries later, would you stand idle without at least making sure there was no connection?"
The Moon Goddess' face squared. "No," she said.
"No," Zoё echoed. "And neither will I."
"Then...then be prepared to be both rejected, and disappointed, my lieutenant. I ask that you do not seek him out. He will come to you, that I know for a fact."
Zoё nodded stiffly. "Very well, as you command."
The Huntress brushed past the goddess at a brisk pace. Before she exited the tent, she paused. Silver eyes watched her closely.
"Do you remember...what I was prepared to do for her?"
Zoё reached down under her silver top, pulling out a shining silver chain. On this chain was a golden band, a thin one, and just big enough to fit comfortably around the ring finger of a young woman no older than her teens.
"I remember."
"She had already been deflowered," Zoё said wistfully, a tear gathering in her eye as the memories returned, "so she couldn't join the Hunt, but she didn't want to be immortal in the first place, and so I was prepared...I was going to give her this...and we were going to...to…" Zoё sniffed and wiped her eyes.
"I loved her, and I'm not giving up on the chance that Perseus and she are the same."
She disappeared out of the tent.
Artemis' gaze lingered there for a time, before her silver eyes traveled to a box in the back corner of her tent. She walked there and kneeled before it, and opened it. Inside were four guns of an early design, and a metal disk engraved with strange runes, a golden band surrounding the hole in the center.
The first gun was a rifle silent as a blow dart, with an attachment under the barrel that could launch explosives or compressed poisons. The second gun was an eight-barreled flintlock, plated with gold; it was a beautiful piece of hardware haled as the 'epitome of pistol-making in 18th-century France.' The last pistols in the box were even more beautiful, if only for their simple design. They were twin flintlocks, with cherry mahogany grips, and black barrels that were polished enough to shine in the light.
Once, these were the pistols of a man called Shay Patrick Cormac.
Once, these were the pistols of his granddaughter…
Cheyenne Cormac.
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Though he may have been sleeping, he was not at rest. His state of mind, his emotional instability, and his fatigued body all combined in a form of brain activity that played darkness across his subconscious mind. In short, Percy was having a nightmare.
It was not a demigod nightmare, revolving around pits and monsters and evil gods and deities, but a nightmare of memory, memories of the cold rage of Faris, of the cold rage of Vergil; their lowest points, when they gave up on humanity and didn't care anymore, when all they wanted was to kill everything that breathed in some bloody crusade of ridding the world of the disease that were humans.
Faris experienced this cold feeling when he was sixteen. He had been in Damascus, when a small girl had come running through the city seeking aid. She was bleeding and beaten. Everyone ignored her, even the Assassins, but not Faris. He listened, and he followed. As it turned out, the girl's father had gone mad, killing his wife and other children, before raping his infant son. The girl had escaped but had been attacked by bandits on her run to Damascus.
Faris has been dubious if the girl's story, but upon reaching her house...his rage had been cold and burning like dry ice. The damaged father knocked Faris unconscious in a surprise attack, and then proceeded to strangle his daughter to death. When Faris woke up, he found himself loosely bound, in a state of undress. The father giggled and mumbled nonsense as he sharpened a knife and proceeded to gut the corpse of his son. Faris broke his bindings, and when he was assaulted, he took the knife from the father and slit the man's throat.
The Assassin then watched with dead eyes as the man bled to death...then he set everything on fire.
Percy watched all of that happen again in vivid detail, before he saw Virgil's cold wrath.
It was early in the man's career, fresh from Lupa's training, when he was still full of revenge, drunk on it, even. See, it had not been the Followers of Romulus that had killed Virgil's girlfriend, but members of the Cento Occhi. Before they actually killed her, Vergil learned that they shaved off the skin on her feet, and made her walk on burning coals, fashioned a metal mask, and put it on her face while it was still glowing, and then cut the skin between her anus and vagina, creating one long slit into her body. Then they raped her.
When Vergil had found those particular men...it hadn't been pretty what he had done to them.
Percy watched these events play out in detail, reliving this horror, and feeling again that lost hope in humanity. It was just as well, perhaps, because he was awoken by the loud sound of a door being thrown open, and a disgusting crying out.
"Hey! There's some kids back here!"
"What?"
"Yeah, there's one there!"
Percy rose to his feet, his Bible left open on page six hundred and sixty-six. His eyes were cold and dead, the same way Faris and Virgil's had been. He wasn't thinking clearly, his mind addled by the nightmare and his previous experience with Ares. All he knew right now was death, the desire to wipe the scum of this earth in its entirety. And there were three examples right in front of him.
"So, you think you can just hop in our ride and get a free lift to where we're going, punk?"
Percy didn't say a word to the muscular man as he hopped down from the back of the truck. He was about a head and a half shorter than the thug.
"What? Cat got your tongue—ahh!"
He got too close, and Percy gripped his head, and then slammed his skull into the back of the truck, splitting it open like a grape. The other one freaked out, reaching for a gun, but Percy was faster. He was in front of the man, and swiped his legs out from underneath him. Then he brought his heel down on the thug's face, and caved his skull in with a wet crunch.
The third one, this one having come from the driver's seat, arrived to the scene after hearing the commotion, and was equal parts horrified and confused. His buddies were dead, the door was up, and no one was to be found.
The last man saw a shadow fall on him, and reacted fast enough to dive to the side. He scrambled to his feet, and made haste for the cab, where the shotgun was at. He made it, grabbed the weapon, spun around, and was terribly shocked when it was from his hands and snapped in half like a stick.
A fist buried into his gut, plowing through his abs and sending him to his knees with a wheezing, bloody cough. He looked up and saw...a kid.
Percy backhanded the man's skull, his knuckles shattering bone with great ease, and didn't feel a thing when the man's head impacted the side of the cab, and sent red shooting in all directions.
That had been easy. That level strength was beyond even the likes of Virgil and Faris, men whose bodies and achieved supreme performance levels after years of running and climbing and fighting, equipped with weapons and wearing armor. This was because Percy was a demigod born of the strongest lineage, and had levels of physical strength beyond mortal.
He could've done worse, but he had enough morality left to keep it short and quick.
"Percy?" Lou said, shocked.
"Let's go, before someone comes along. Grover, free the animals and do what you can for them. The rest of you: move, or be left behind."
Percy didn't wait for anyone to follow, and simply set off for the West. The others were quick to fall in step after Grover worked his nature magic.
All of them were scared beyond measure at Percy's brutality.
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And that concludes another chapter. Annabeth and Lou have bonded, Percy's not happy, Zoё's not happy, the name of the Fourth Life has been revealed, along with some personality traits, a couple of dark instances in the lives of Faris and Vergil, and a display of how much damage Percy can dish out with demigod strength.
What's in-store for our protagonists next chapter?
Not a clue, but be sure to Fav, Follow, and Review please!