Enemy Gambit
Right, here's what's going to happen:
You're going to read this chapter, and then it's going to be a long time before there's another chapter to this story, because after this chapter, this story is going on hiatus for three reasons: A) I'm doing the mentioned Dishonored crossover because it's nagging at me to do it, B) I'm going to finish RSD, and C) I'm going to finish AC:T. Reasons B and C are for the sake of continuity in this story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or any other work of fiction herein
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In the Pit
"This is getting out of hand!" Nyx hissed to her siblings, Tartarus, Akhlys, and the mounting spirit of Gaea. "Now there are five of them!"
In a private meeting place upon Tartarus's expansive body was where the Primordials were gathered to discuss the situation. Loki was gearing up for Ragnarök, Apophis was gathering forces in the Duat, both getting ready for a grand strike, everyone fueled by the belief of the mortals thanks to the Triumvirate, and yet, at every minor turn so far, they'd been thwarted by these new Percy Jacksons.
Shin'en had laid waste to the Emperors and many Giants; Asteria had destroyed Lycaon, his pack, and effectively raped Khione and Lupa; Leviathan had single-handed defeated five Titans, two of which had merged to boost their power, and Leviathan had still gone out of his way and destroyed the whole of Othrys with a single punch; Kraken easily killed Echidna, taking pieces of her body for a meal later, and had just an easy time in killing the group of eurynomoi, some of the most formidable monsters alive; and now this Tobi…unkillable, with powers over blood, bones, and pain, and he apparently turned into a girl when doused with cold water, and the only tactical advantage that seemed to bring was that she became extremely aroused.
The threat these five posed alone had been enough to halt all operations, and there were supposed to be two more coming, according to the Seven Masters prophecy.
Nyx turned her bright white eyes on the other being in this meeting place. "I don't know why Father sent you when all you're going to do is stand around and-grk!"
Out of the heavy, full-body cloak the person wore, a hand shot out and clamped around Nyx's neck, a hand that was covered by a golden gauntlet adorned with six sparkling gemstones.
"I mean," Nyx choked, "whenever you're ready!"
Out of the shadows of the hood came a low, annoyed, menacing growl.
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Annabeth was rubbing Percy's back, both of them pale as a jug of milk as they sat together in Percy's suite. Joining them was everyone, basically. The rest of the Seven plus the standard significant others, Magnus and Alex, Carter and Sadie with Zia and Walt, Paul, Poseidon, Apollo, and even Artemis and Hades. Hylla was there as well, since that's where her sister was, and she needed her sister right now.
Hylla was reeling hard from Otrera. The mangled corpse of the woman, missing organs and the majority of her body, her eyes moving and her mouth speaking. "Help me," she'd begged. Hylla had no love for the woman that had tried to usurp her and kill her twice, directly threatening the life of her sister in the process, but she certainly did not have enough hatred in her for Otrera to have left her to that fate.
A Halloween decoration, is what Tobi had said he'd turn Otrera into, and that was certainly what he—she?—had done. Bloody bones, intact head, terrified eyes looking right into Hylla's soul, pleading and begging for her help…her help. The enemy, the woman that had killed her—her help. Hylla was rattled.
Percy far more so, however.
To everyone gathered, what they knew of the Multiverse was that it was a fun little theory. Answers to all of the what ifs they'd ever asked or envisioned, but nothing more than fun fantasy, a passing dream, like someone going over all the things they'd do if they won the lottery. Now, though, the Multiverse was not a passing fantasy, but very, very real, and it was showing them the answers to questions they'd never wanted to ask.
What would happen if Sally was murdered right after Percy was born, and Percy was taken into captivity to be turned into a lab rat, eventually spliced with alien DNA and turned into a monster?
What would happen if Kronos had flung Percy through time and space into another world—another timeline—and in that timeline, he'd been tortured and experimented, also turned into a monster?
What would happen if Sally herself was some non-human lifeform with superpowers, and gave birth to Percy who in turn was a non-human lifeform? More non-human than what Percy already was, being half god and half man.
And then…what would happen if Sally's life was ruined by an evil god and she became a violent addict and alcoholic, beating her immortal son Percy to death with every object imaginable?
Percy couldn't handle that last one. He'd been cracking and breaking since Shin'en first walked in, and he was first exposed to how he could seriously not be himself. Then there was Wheels, then Asteria came, then Leviathan, then Kraken, and now Tobi. Percy couldn't handle it. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing someone else staring back at you.
These people could not be him.
But they were him.
That could not have been Sally in that video on Tobi's life.
But it was her.
That was what had Percy rattled to his core, that his sweet, kind, loving mother who worried herself to death over his sake could be so violent, brutal, and evil. Sally could not be evil—it was impossible. Sally Blofis dint have an evil blood cell anywhere in her body. If there was, the universe would've collapsed in on itself.
It put things into a very morbid perspective, however.
Yeah, they couldn't say their lives were all sunshine and rainbows, but none of them even approached the severity of the typhoon that was Tobi's life—and they hadn't even seen it all! The poor child had flung Otrera into the monitor and destroyed it, cutting the video off, leaving everyone in the dark about the rest of his life after he was taken to Camp Half-Blood following Maine. There were still dozens of questions revolving around the bits of his life that had been shown.
Human nature demands validation, that we be recognized and attention given to us, whatever kind of attention that may be. It was seen in small children when a new baby came along, and suddenly Mom and Dad were spending their every waking moment with the baby instead of the older sibling, leading to a whole slew of psychological issues. Attention was suddenly taken away, and the child didn't like that.
The same principle could be applied to almost everyone in Percy's suite, perhaps Alex more than anyone. Being kicked out of her own home by her own father for her gender nonconformity, left to grow up on the streets by herself, running into other kids with similar stories to hers, abandoned by parents for sexual or gender issues, had left Alex to elevate these problems above all others, being a personal subject of them. So, when Shin'en came along and told her to suck it the fuck up because the suffering she experienced was trivial compared to others, of course Alex was angry.
Who wouldn't be angry at being told that they had no right to feel at least a little bit sorry for themselves based on how they were treated by others, compared to how someone else was treated?
And then Tobi.
Being kicked out of the house suddenly didn't seem so bad anymore compared to being castrated and forced crossdress for the sake of an insane woman's broken fantasy after being viciously beaten with hammers, crowbars, baseball bats, shoes, etc., being sliced up with knives and beer bottles, and force-fed poisons and toxins. Not to mention being left to stew in your own dirty diapers because your parent didn't want to clean you up.
Everyone in Percy's suite could safely say that their mortal parent had enough care in them to at least change their diapers and teach them how to use the toilet. That seemed so silly in retrospect, to now consider diaper changes and potty training to have been a privilege. Those two things were just something a parent did, at least for the sake of their nose, hands, and bank account. None of the humans in the suite could even fathom a parent not potty training their child—except for maybe out of laziness, but certainly not because they hated their child so much that watching them suffer in their own waste brought them joy.
Though that was mostly because all of them had grown up in tolerant to happy households. The worst of the whole group were Thalia and the Ramirez sisters roughly tied for first, Annabeth and Hazel roughly tied for second, and after that, there was a parent or two in there somewhere that happily raised their child. However, even Frederick, as much as he neglected his daughter, made sure she was clean and taught her basic hygiene, and Beryl and Julian, as broken and crazy as they were, still made sure of the same for their children. Hazel's mother just used her to make money and scare people, but she did love her daughter.
It was a culture shock to them, that a parent could really be that cruel to their child.
Even the four present gods were perturbed at the cruelty of Tobi's mother, which was really saying something in Hades' case, being the god of the Underworld and therefore overseer of the Fields of Punishment, which were chockfull of abusive parents. Then again, when your child couldn't die no matter what damage you inflicted, that opened the door to a whole lot of things that other parents couldn't walk through out of fear of being charged with murder.
Nico shifted against Will's shoulder. "That…could've been any of us…" he said quietly.
It might as well have been a gunshot with how quiet it was in Percy's suite as everyone tried to cope with what they'd just seen.
Nico had all eyes on him now. "The Multiverse, based on how it works, Tobi's life…it could've been any of us."
"It is any of you," the deep voice of the Leviathan cut through the room from the door, making all flinch and grab weapons at his sudden appearance.
Nico shrank into Will and Hades stood up.
"You are not welcome here."
"Sit down before you get hurt, Hades. Or were you not paying attention to how I demolished five Titans at once, all of them powered up by the humans?"
Hades lost confidence, but he remained standing. Swallowing, he said, "I will not have you bullying my son."
"I think daughter is a more apt word, but I'm not here to trade barbs over the weaklings. I'm here to make sure all of you have it ingrained in your heads by this point that any whining or complaining about how hard you've had it, or how hard anyone has ever had it, will no longer be tolerated."
Those mix-matched eyes glowed faintly.
Artemis did not at all like that silver eye that looked so much like her own.
"Shin'en considers himself to be a teacher. I can't argue that given his results in the past, nor do I disagree with his methods, but I am annoyed with who he decides to teach and why he teaches them. Personally, I'd rather leave you all to die. Humans barely constitute a snack for when I'm that bored, Asteria sees all of you as equally worthless, or as breeding stock, and Kraken has been taught that humans are food due to his physiology, nevermind his other, far more pressing concerns than you.
"Still, Shin'en sees something in this room that I don't, and out of my friendship with him, I strongly advise all of you to pay to attention to him and what he has to say, and do not ever think of him as entitled. He's suffered even more than Tobi, and I will not tolerate any disrespect from weak wretches like all of you. Am. I. Clear?"
It got very cold in Percy's suite, the air becoming thick and oppressive.
"Cr-Crystal," Annabeth managed to gasp.
Leviathan's eyes darted to her, softened ever so slightly, and then he eased up on the pressure.
"We shall see."
He turned and left, once again leaving the assembly with more questions than anything, only this time coupled with the feeling of being relieved that their lives didn't feel to be in immediate danger.
Artemis took her own leave, desiring more information on her late lieutenant and what she had to do with Tobi.
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"Where we going?" Tobi mumbled around his pacifier, still being carried like the small child he mentally was by the species-destroying demigod.
"We are going to see Sally," Shin'en answered, making Tobi perk up.
"You're going to let me slice off her skin and dunk her fucking ass in lemon juice and salt?"
"No."
"…you're going to let me pull out her eyes and teeth and dump all her teeth into her fucking eye sockets?"
"No."
"Then what the fuck?"
Shin'en stopped and moved his eyes, keeping his forward while holding Tobi's gaze.
"We are fighting a war, Tobi, and I need you focused on doing what I tell you, when I tell you to do it, not entertaining all the ways you're going to torture the woman that's not really your mother."
Tobi opened his mouth to launch into a profane rant, but Shin'en put that pacifier to use, pushing it into place while applying a locking Seal to keep Tobi's lips together. Tobi glowered deeply at this, ready to go ballistic and send the whole hotel crashing into the void, but Shin'en put him down and took a knee before him, looking hard into his purple eyes with dark emerald ones.
"This Sally has done nothing to you, Tobi. The Sally that did, you made her pay for her sins a thousand times over. The reason I'm taking you to this Sally is for the sake of closure. For the sake of our operations, at the very least, I cannot have you trying to kill her because of your personal feelings."
Tobi circumvented the Seal on his pacifier by using his bone powers on his teeth, changing their structure to turn them into little swords that sliced his lips off. Shin'en's face remained schooled at the wet splat that resounded from Tobi's body parts hitting the floor, and at the disturbing sight of the boy's face missing the front of his mouth. A little red glow later, and Tobi had regenerated.
"How come I can't go tear this Sally's asshole apart with a hydrochloric enema, but you can hate this Nero?" the son of Jashin demanded.
In a great testament to his self-control, Shin'en did not hurl Tobi through every wall of Hotel Valhalla and personally fling him into Ginnungagap. Instead, he remained totally calm and composed, and delivered his answer clearly and concisely.
"That is because even in this world, Nero is a murdering, sexual predator whose vileness knows no bounds, and so he is deserving of every ounce of pain that I will inflict on him. However, the Sally of this world is a kind and tender woman who cried her eyes out when I told her what her other self did to you. She is pain because as far as her mind goes, we are her children just as much as this world's Percy, and it tears her up inside knowing how much you hate her. She is undeserving of your projected feelings, and I am going to show you that, so your focus is no longer on trying to maim her."
Tobi glared at his feet. "Bullshit," he mumbled.
He didn't want to let go of his feelings for Sally.
'Tobi,' came a mental call.
He looked up and scowled. "Fucking bitch," he hissed.
"Be nice to your Aunty 'Steria," Shin'en chided.
"Aunty my ass! She's just us with a pussy!"
Asteria's lips quirked upward as she approached, tail idly waving around behind her, forcing Kraken to walk slightly in front to avoid getting smacked by the deadly limb.
'I think I need to clean that filthy mouth of yours with acid again.'
"Try it and I'll invert your ribcage."
'Don't act like you didn't enjoy it the first time, Little Masochist.'
Tobi's face reddened. "That's not the fucking point!"
'I know. Come along, Tobi. I want to introduce you to my Mom.'
"Why the fuck is he here?" Tobi pointed his scalpel at Kraken.
The Ghoul looked at Asteria from behind the eyeholes of his mask, wondering that himself.
'I brought him so he can meet his brother.'
"I already have one of those. Can't really say I want another."
"Yeah, fuck you too."
'Boys, be nice,' Asteria chided them.
Kraken crossed his arms over his armor, not liking Tobi one bit. The boy was profane, rude, absolutely crazy, and had a personal vendetta against Sally for reasons that almost made sense. He was just like the Investigators who wanted to see to the extermination of all Ghouls based on one traumatic experience, and their inability to let go of those feelings created tons of devastation and death. It was totally contrary to Kraken's self-undertaken mission of trying to find a peace between Ghouls and humans before one side destroyed the other.
It was kind of ironic, really, why Kraken already didn't like Tobi.
The two glared at each other, the Ghoul knowing about Tobi's rather scary powers, Tobi not knowing Kraken's but wholly confident that he could take the armored teenager.
Asteria looked at Shin'en with a grin, showing her translucent teeth, and while he didn't smile back, his eyes did twinkle slightly at the interaction between the kids, as they were.
"Let's go, Tobi. It's time we ended this," the First Master said.
Now, did Shin'en want Tobi to cast aside all feelings of hatred and loathing for Sally Jackson in general? Absolutely not. If the Sally that beat him ever showed back up, then Shin'en would happily let Tobi do whatever he wanted to the woman—hell, he'd even offer tips and advice on how to make things really hurt—but not this Sally. Like he'd said, this Sally did not deserve Tobi's feelings, and also like he said, he wasn't going to tolerate Tobi being distracted on faulty causes.
After a verbally silent trip, Asteria and Shin'en trading mental barbs and quips like siblings, Kraken and Tobi making faces and gestures at each other like brats, they made it to Sally's door to find Artemis there as well.
"Hello," the goddess greeted, looking at Shin'en, "I would like to speak with you more about Tobi and his connection with Zoë. I noticed her name came up before Tobi destroyed the screen and ended the video."
Shin'en stared down his nose at the goddess taking the form of a pint-sized prepubescent girl of eleven or twelve.
"If Tobi wants to tell you about his world's version of Zoë, then he can."
"She's my Mommy!" was Tobi's helpful answer, all smiles and genuine happiness.
After those three words finished reverberating through the air, a mechanized, hollow voice said from somewhere, " has stopped working."
Shin'en nodded, deeming this situation acceptable as he was rather annoyed that his business was so casually interrupted by the goddess who thought he'd drop everything he was doing just because she asked him to. He knocked on the door and everyone waited for Sally to come answer it.
Tobi's burst of happiness was instantly replaced by a scowl, already going through scenarios of how much blood could he draw and how much pain could he inflict before Shin'en stopped him. A tap on his shoulder made his head jerk around. Asteria was grinning down at him.
'You won't even get within a foot of her before we break all of your vertebrae.'
Shin'en reached over and ruffled Tobi's hair, making him huff in annoyance at this treatment and the truth of that statement.
Kraken still didn't like Tobi and didn't really want to be here, much rather preferring to get this whole "war" thing over with so he could get back to the important things he was doing before he got yanked across time and space to fix someone else's problems.
There was the sound of a clicking lock and the door opened, revealing a red-eyed Sally Jackson, eyes darting between the four of them, confused and a little bit scared.
"We're here to sort things out," Shin'en said. "Don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't bite."
"Fuck you," Tobi bit out.
"Be nice, kiddo." To Sally, Shin'en asked, "May we enter?"
"Y-Yes, of course, yes. Come in. Enter—uh, y-yes…sorry…"
So the four entered, Sally closing the door behind them all.
'I smell cookies,' Asteria noted.
"Ah, yes! I put some in the oven, and they should be done by now," Sally said, hurrying over to the kitchen area of her suite, which was a perfect rendition of her Manhattan apartment.
Sally put on her oven mitt and took the tray of cookies out. The cookies were blue with darker blue chocolate chips. Asteria was inches behind Sally, mouth open with saliva profusely dripping over her bottom lip as was customary of her species.
"They need to cool first, sweetie," Sally smiled.
'No they don't,' Asteria insisted, then proved by swiping a gooey cookie from the tray and gobbling the entire pastry whole, which was impressive when you knew that the cookies were about seven inches in diameter…these were some big cookies. 'See? Told you.'
"You have crumbs on your chin," Shin'en pointed out.
Asteria's tongue lashed out of her mouth and over her chin. The crumbs were gone.
"Better," Shin'en nodded. "May I access your refrigerator?"
Sally had a knowing grin on her face. "Check the freezer."
Shin'en did, finding a tall cup of chocolate milk had already been prepared, the liquid nice and cold from its time in the freezer.
"Were you expecting someone, or did you just decide to make cookies and milk?" Kraken asked.
Sally adopted a sheepish expression. "I, well…I bake whenever I…well…"
Stress relief.
Kraken nodded. "Got it."
Yeah, with a mom that couldn't eat any human food and had raised him to do the same based on biological demand, Ghoul-Sally did not bake pastries as a stress reliving pastime, and so Kraken had been confused as to what was going on, but now he understood.
The living room area had a coffee table set before the entertainment center, just a modest-sized flatscreen on a stand with speakers and the necessary boxes on the lower tiers of the stand. There was a comfy couch on the other side of the coffee table, which was occupied by Shin'en and Asteria, Tobi wedged between them, and on either side of the couch was a recliner with its own little end table and lamp. Kraken sat on Asteria's side, Sally on Shin'en's.
Sally didn't know what had caused this change of pace, being told that she was to stay away from Tobi at all costs, to literally having him right before her, staring at her while munching on his cookies and sipping his milk—out of a sippy cup that Sally was certain had not been in the cupboard before—but she wasn't complaining. If this was where she had the chance to break through to Tobi and show him how she was not like that evil thing he grew up with, and show him how much she loved him, and not have him trying to torture her to death, then she was all for it.
"Would you like a cookie, Kraken?" Sally offered.
"I can't eat those."
Sally remembered Kraken's intro video, the part where it went over a Ghoul's diet. They didn't need carbs, lipids, proteins, or calories; they needed those special RC cells. Anything that didn't have enough of those was poison to a Ghoul. Sally's brow furrowed in thought. How could she infuse enough RC cells into her cookies so Kraken could have some?
"Are you trying to shit yourself?" Tobi accused when he saw Sally's expression.
Sally blinked. "Huh? Oh, no. I was trying to think of how to get pack enough RC cells in my cookies so your brother could eat them."
Kraken shifted at the honest kindness, shocked.
"He's not my fucking brother!" Tobi insisted.
Sally decided not to push that in case he really got mad. Even though Asteria and Shin'en were right there, Sally didn't feel like pushing her luck. Besides, she wasn't trying to push anything. This was her chance to turn Tobi around and show him the kind of love he never received.
Asteria gently placed her clawed hand on Tobi's knee, looking down at him with a firm expression, telling him to calm down.
Tobi settled a bit. He still wanted to slice up Sally's torso and pull her organs out one by one, but these cookies were really good.
"So," Sally started, using ol' reliable to get the conversation started. But it never got going.
Asteria suddenly went rigid as a board, head locking in the direction of the Feast Hall, her eyes seemingly looking through the walls right at Wheels. Shin'en felt Wheels' pulse exponentially increase, adrenaline surging through his bloodstream, Leviathan rushing over as he too instantly picked up on Wheels' sudden panic. All of that happened in half a second, and in the next half-second, Wheels was on the magic radio.
"Emergency! Get down here, Shin'en!"
The First Master was already gone, though, having initiated a water travel before Wheels had finished saying "emergency."
"Asteria, what's happening?" Sally asked urgently.
'It's bad,' was the telepath's heavy answer.
She initiated her own water travel, dispersing her body into molecules and shooting herself across time and space.
"That's not fair," Kraken huffed, and then he went shooting down the halls as fast as he could manage.
That left Sally alone with Tobi. She turned around to see him staring at her.
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"Get down here, Shin'en!" Wheels shouted.
"What the fuck is happening?" Shin'en demanded, not five feet from the paraplegic.
Wheels yelped. "Goddammit, man! Don't do that!"
Shin'en's eyes narrowed very dangerously.
"Uh, yeah—the computer picked up dimensional activity."
The central monitor had been fixed, everyone was running back into the Feast Hall to see the action, and Wheels hit a button, playing the message.
"Dimensional activity detected. Universe DI-2.1.1. Asteria and Annabeth Jackson. Location: Las Angeles. Current event: street race."
Asteria arrived just barely after Shin'en, and her pupils were dilated at hearing that.
Up in the audience, a lot of people were thrown for a loop at the "Jackson" part, thinking married lesbians, but there were a whole lot of loops thrown when the computer brought up minor profiles of the two, showing headshots of Asteria, as a human girl, and Annabeth, also human, with some data like height, weight, age, and gender. Annabeth's gender was showing as female, while this alternate Asteria was showing as male.
Alex's interest was piqued to say the least.
"Sitrep," Shin'en said in a way that had a lot of people suddenly sitting up straight in their seats at the sheer command in his voice.
"They literally just popped in. Right into their cars, right in the middle of a street race. It hasn't started, but it's going to."
"Patch me into their cars."
Wheels' fingers flew as he hit some buttons, and audio right out of the couple's cars came in through speakers.
"What the hell is going on!?" Annabeth cried.
"I don't fucking know!" Asteria responded. "We put Percy to bed, got in our bed, went to sleep and now-"
"Listen to me," Shin'en cut Asteria off, voice level and serious.
"Shin'en…" Asteria andAnnabeth breathed in unison.
"I'll explain everything later. Right now, focus on driving, not wrecking, and not dying. I'm on my way to you now."
Shin'en hit a button and silenced the comms before anything else could be said. The teleporter activated, Shin'en took one step towards it, and the computer dinged.
"Message from Chaos!" Wheels said. "Uh, he says you have to be in your car, and uh, you can't use any Cloning Jutsu."
Shin'en nodded once and disappeared into the light of the teleporter.
Wheels hit some buttons on the keyboard and brought up the magical cameras that showed four cars on a street, hundreds of cheering people on either side. Wheels blinked. "The street race from Fast Four? Seriously?"
Leviathan and Asteria shared a look. Those two, Asteria and Annabeth Jackson from DI-2.1.1, they knew their story, knew what they meant to Shin'en, and the fact that they were here, during this kind of war, had very big implications.
As for Percy and Annabeth in the Feast Hall stands, they were both looking at each other in shock, everyone around them looking at them in total bewilderment. They were still trying to process Tobi—hell, they were still trying to process Shin'en and everyone else—and now this was dumped on them. Asteria was essentially a genderbent Percy, but this new Asteria was apparently a totally transgender Percy, who married totally female Annabeth, and based on their dialogue, had a child of some relation that was named Percy.
Now they were both in cars, very beautiful cars at that, Amelia in a black 1967 Mustang GT with a supercharger and white racing stripes, Annabeth in a 1992 Mazda RX-7 painted storm-cloud grey. They only reason any non-car enthusiast knew that was because the computer was kind enough to provide this information, along with the vitals of the couple, just like it provided all the information on the Masters during their opening battles.
Percy and Annabeth were not car people. Percy didn't even like driving, still haunted by what happened to Paul's Prius the few times he did drive it. Pegasi hoof dents on the hood, and ramming it into a tree when he was driving Apollo-as-Lester to CHB. Annabeth had her own vehicular horror stories.
But these two, despite apparently having gone to bed only to be pulled across dimensions and plopped into a driver's seat, looked as calm and collected as one could look in that scenario. Nervous and apprehensive about their circumstances and the surrounding questions, yet focused on the prerogative given by Shin'en: focus on the race.
That was another thing. As much as Percabeth were not car people, they certainly were not street racers. Seeing them as such brought forth another round of what was basically culture shock. Paul was with Estelle in his suite, and Frederick was with his wife and their twin boys in his suite, but if they were watching, they would've been totally bewildered and floored to see their children up on that screen, behind the wheels of a couple of supercars.
On a side note, the Hunters and Amazons were mildly excited at seeing Annabeth Chase, a girl that both parties desired amongst their ranks, looking so determined and focused as she had one hand on the wheel and the other on the stick. Their feelings were mixed on how to view this alternate Asteria. A face and figure like that was definitely female, but the computer was showing her as a male, and the camera wasn't focused on Amelia's pants to where anyone could see her crotch to try and discern the outline of a penis. If the computer was glitching, then alright! If the computer wasn't glitching and was displaying accurate information, well…
It got just a bit more complicated in the eyes of the feminist groups.
But that was a conversation for never.
The race was starting, and everyone was dying to watch and figure out just what was happening.
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Those who followed Backup Plan remember the final arc of the story, Xenophobic, so named purely because it's an offshoot of Xenomorphic. Those who followed Xenomorphic remember its final arc, when Asteria ascended to the level of planeswalker, and she and Shin'en visited an alternate Xenophobic dimension to set free the Asteria and Annabeth of that world. While the original two are gone forever, the present two are from the latter dimension, 2.1.1, with 2.1 being the first Xenophobic, 2 being the original Xenomorphic. A little bit extra info on these particular Asteria and Annabeth: they are the same ones featured at the end of Chapter 10 of Backup Plan: Armageddon, the non-canon happy ending.
They might not have been the original couple that Shin'en spent a senior year of high school with and grew attached to them the same way he had Yūrei or his orphan siblings, but they were a close enough substitute that he was beyond furious with this development and would be having words with Chaos about this.
Until such a time, Asteria and Annabeth were left to fend for themselves. Now that they knew Shin'en was somehow involved, they were a great deal more comfortable and confident that things were going to be okay. Like he said, they focused on the situation they were in, behind the wheels of their old cars from their teenage days, illegally modified to go fast, racing once more like they used to do.
It would've been a whole lot more exciting if they didn't have a son currently sleeping soundly back at their house.
Crazy what parenthood did to a person.
Asteria looked over at her wife, and Annabeth looked back, both of them speaking with their eyes to be careful, that they loved each other, and they needed to get back home to their son, their little Percy.
Focus on the race is what Shin'en said. Attached to their dashboards was a GPS that hadn't been there years ago, a computerized map of the city they were in with the route to the finish line highlighted. Cutting through the city streets, this was not a closed race, meaning traffic and a whole lot of stupid people. Shin'en wasn't here yet, so until he arrived, it was on them to not die.
Asteria and Annabeth looked over at the other two cars, two guys behind the wheels, both sweating and focused in on driving. They were revving their engines, filling the air with high-pitched whines. Asteria shrugged and revved her own, engine, drowning out almost every other sound with the hard roar of American muscle. The two guys looked at her, and Annabeth shook her head.
The GPS gave a countdown, and when the feminine voice said GO, Asteria floored it. Her front end rose from the ground a few feet as she shot forward, taking the lead, Annabeth right behind her. The first turn came fast and the four racers went drifting around, miraculously hitting nothing and not getting hit themselves as they entered public streets Gears were shifted coming out of the turn, Asteria rocketing forward, Annabeth gaining, doing her best to stay on her husband's tail while the other two battled for a close third place.
As the two weaved through traffic, shifting as needed, they noticed signs around them. Political adds and posters touting loyalty to President Caligula and Vice President Commodus, and to believe in the gospel of Pontifex Nero.
Asteria grabbed the mic to her CB radio and called Alice. "What the hell is this?"
"Don't know. Drive."
"10/4 on driving."
Asteria dropped the radio instead of putting back in its holster because there was another turn. She whipped the wheel and whipped it back when her back end swung out, feet working her pedals, hand working the gearshift, and she made it out of the drift without damage, same with Alice. The third guy just barely made it, but the fourth swung out too wide and a Tahoe slammed into his driver door at 60mph.
Blood gushed out of the newly made hole in the car.
"Oh, shit…" Asteria muttered under her breath, thoughts of her son flying through her mind.
With her telepathy, she knew Annabeth was thinking the same. She also knew that like her, their mutual anticipation of Shin'en just increased.
The three racers rocketed down the roads, weaving in and out of the lines, breaking, accelerating, ignoring the panicked honks of other drivers. It wasn't too long before sirens wailed and flashing lights appeared in the rearview mirrors. Several sets of lights at that.
Annabeth grabbed her radio. "Do we pull over and hope for the best?"
"What exactly is the best case in this scenario?"
"Jesus comes back and we don't have to worry about anything anymore." Annabeth supplied.
"Besides that."
"Shin'en gets us before we're hauled off to jail?"
"Do you wanna take the chance these cops won't just shoot us?"
"Nope."
"Neither do I."
As it turned out, it was really good that they didn't take a chance with the cops, because the third guy got shot. The police vehicles, the big, solid black Tahoes with the huge grills, were doubled up with officers, and those second cops were packing some big guns. They leaned out of the windows and opened fire on the third racer, peppering the cabin and making red go splattering across the interior. With no driver, the car spun out and went flying through the railing of the bridge they were on, probably killing someone else below.
More cops came up from behind, and the couple could see the flashing lights of more coming down the adjacent streets.
Amelia grabbed her radio. "NOS! Now!" she cried.
Annabeth didn't need any further prompting. She popped her center console and twisted the two nobs within, a light hiss accompanying each opening turn. The computerized voice chimed, "Nitrous online."
Asteria hit her red button and Annabeth hit her own red buttons. Their cars shuddered and they were pressed backwards into their seats as the boost kicked in. Jets of flame spurted out of their tailpipes as they shot away from the chasing police, the needles on all their dials climbing as they accelerated past 150, then 160, then 170, 180, 190, and even past 200mph. They were lucky to have hit a straightaway, or else they would've died.
The lost the chasing cop cars, but then two bright lights came on above. Helicopters, and they had no problem keeping up with the in-nitro cars. The snipers did have a spot of trouble.
"Shit, shit!" Amelia cursed when a bullet tore through her roof, narrowly missing her head.
Annabeth had a similar problem, though her bullet came nowhere near her, instead going through the passenger side of the roof to her car.
Their nitrous systems shut down, conveniently just in time for other police cars, coming from elsewhere in the city, to come roaring from the side streets to intercept…by way of t-boning the married couple. They narrowly escaped getting hit, but now they had eight Tahoes behind them and a lot of open street.
"Where the fuck is Shin'en!?" Asteria cried to herself when she saw the guns started poking out of the windows behind her.
"Speak of the devil…" an unhappy, menacing voice intoned on the radio.
A new car came tearing down a street, drifting around the corner to sideswipe the outermost police car in the front row with impossible force. The police car was pushed hard to the side, slamming into his buddy next to him, and the third in line after that. All three Tahoes went careening out of control, and the second row of three behind them got caught, creating a huge mess of metal as the six Tahoes wrecked.
The other two had enough time to swerve hard left and not get stuck in the wreck, and behind them were all the others that had been chasing before the nitro boost. They had caught up. Didn't matter though.
Relief flooded through Asteria and Annabeth at the side of the solid black 1966 Chevy Impala, the kind of black that didn't reflect any light.
Shin'en stuck his hand out the window. It glowed before a number of curving lasers went shooting out. Two flew up and struck the helicopter's fuel tanks, making them explode, and the rest of the lasers went tearing at the cops, striking their own fuel tanks to light the night up with the explosions of no less than fifteen police cars.
"I missed you so much," Asteria pleasantly chimed on the radio.
"Focus," Shin'en responded on his own mic. "This isn't a game."
"I figured that when the cops decided to shoot at us instead of asking us to pull over."
Shin'en fired off another volley of lasers, using Gale Style: Laser Circus. The beams of deadly chakra raced through the night in seemingly random directions, but the subsequent explosions proved that Shin'en was not just wasting chakra. If Asteria or Annabeth cared about so much death happening around them, neither showed it.
Shin'en pressed the gas and got in front. "Follow me."
"10/4 on that," Asteria said.
"Copy," Annabeth chimed.
Shin'en led them into a parking garage, breaking the metal barricade arm right off across his windshield without so much as a tiny scratch to the glass. He went up three levels and parked in the middle, managing to occupy five spaces. Asteria pulled up right next to him, while Annabeth to the time to whip behind them to put her car proper between the lines.
"What?" huffed the blonde at the stares of the two pseudo siblings.
"Oh, nothing," Asteria said airily.
"Just because you two don't want to park properly, doesn't mean I won't."
"Only you could be in a life-or-death situation without answers or explanations as to how we got here and still be worried about parking correctly."
"Well, if we die, that's one less sin to answer for."
"I doubt incorrect parking given the circumstances counts as a sin."
"Maybe not, but to anyone who comes up here, they'll be thinking Wow, look at these two assholes who don't know how to park, but look at this car. Now this person knows how to park."
"Congratulations. I'll be sure to get you the really expensive cookies to go with your sippy cup of milk tomorrow after I change your diaper."
Annabeth's eyebrow twitched. "And I'll be sure to buy the extra tight thongs so there's no worries about anyone seeing your bulge when you next have to tuck."
"I suppose," Shin'en broke in, the corners of his mouth tugging up ever so slightly, "that now is a bad time to tell you that there are some magic cameras on us right now picking up live video and audio."
They both stared at him and eventually said in unison, "Come again?"
A portal of light appeared as the teleporter activated.
The mirth vanished from Shin'en and the shift in his demeanor caused Annabeth and Asteria to shift as well, also getting serious.
"Let's go."
And go they all went to the safety of Hotel Valhalla.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"What did this accomplish?" Nyx demanded of the cloaked figure, her and her siblings still in their private meeting place in Tartarus, having watched the whole thing. "A pair of mortals that aren't even demigods and some dead mortal policemen do not help us win this war."
"No," agreed the cloaked figure, voice mechanically altered to sound similar to Cyborg's voice when he was hooked into the Source Wall in Apokolips War, "but it confirms my hypothesis and opens the doors to many opportunities."
"What hypothesis?"
"The only Master out of the Seven that Chaos has brought to this dimension is Shin'en."
Shock rippled through the Primordials.
"If it has not been Chaos bringing in the Masters, then who?" Akhlys asked.
"Being a planeswalker is a pathway to many abilities," the cloaked one answered. "I am a planeswalker, and so is Shin'en."
"Shin'en is the one pulling the other Masters across the dimensions," Gaea realized with a breath.
"Correct. Just as Shin'en has brought in the Masters, I have brought in these two, this other Asteria and Annabeth."
"But what has this accomplished?" Nyx was still confused.
"What this has accomplished is confirming I, like Shin'en, can bring in anyone from across the Multiverse to suit our mutual interests."
A little note suddenly poofed into existence. Nyx grabbed it and read what it said.
"'So long as I allow it. Mr. C.'"
The cloaked figure sighed. "Your father grows increasingly annoying."
The Primordials nodded in agreement.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The three did not appear in the middle of the Feast Hall. Shin'en wasn't going to put them through that kind of attention. Instead, the teleporter dropped them right off in his own suite.
"Quaint," Asteria said.
"It's a nice place," Annabeth agreed. "Where are we?"
Shin'en's eye glowed a bright red, and as Asteria and Annabeth looked into the light, they became cursed with knowledge. They both staggered to the couch and leaned on each other, lightheaded, dizzy, and depressed.
"Oh, man," Asteria gasped. "Oh, man."
"Yeah," Shin'en agreed. "I need to check on something real fast. I'll be right back."
He left them to sort it all out while he went to check on Tobi.
He opened the door the Sally's suite and found the woman sleeping soundly on her couch, her arm and leg dangling off the side. Sprawled on top of her was Tobi, sound asleep as well, drooling on Sally's chest as he used her breasts as a pillow.
Shin'en nodded.
If Tobi could get passed trying to kill this kind and loving version of Sally, then everything just might be okay after all.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
And that's that.
Not gonna lie, this was something of a guilty pleasure chapter, bringing in the Xenophobic characters for a street race right out Fast and Furious, Shin'en coming in to save them from some particularly deadly policemen of the new world order created by the Triumvirate. One might even consider this a filler chapter, but it does come with some major plot development if you were paying attention.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, this story goes on hiatus now for the reasons stated in the above AN. If you did not read that, then go back up and read it.
I'll see you in the new story, and then I'll see you back here after I finish RSD and AC:T.
Fav, Follow, and Review please!
