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Vanguard
Scene 9
Kickoff
"So this is your place?"
"Our place."
"Either way, kind of unimpressed."
"How?"
The building in question was a tower of glass rising up into the Los Angeles skyline. A gleaming obelisk of the metropolis. A monument to modern architecture. To the girl, it was familiar shape in a new form. To the man, it was a comforting landmark.
"I was expecting more fire and the screams of the damned."
The black-haired man frowned, "Language."
The girl by his side rolled her eyes, "For the king of hell, you're surprisingly soft."
"Well now I know you're just being mean."
"Baby"
He snorted, before reaching out with a hand and ruffling his daughter's hair.
"Hey!" she cried indignantly.
"You're so much like your mother it's scary," He chuckles.
She pauses. "...really?"
"Yep," He smiles sadly, "She always had that same kind of fire. Probably what drew me to her. I seem to like that in women."
He shook his head, as if forcing the thoughts from his mind.
"Is your brother still asleep?"
The girl just gave him a raised brow, "You do realize this is Nico we're talking about, right?"
"So we'll see him again in a few hours."
"Yep."
"And until then he's dead to the world."
"Uh-huh,"
"Perfect!" Her father clapped his hands. "I'll send some people out to get him."
"You can't just carry him yourself?" She questioned.
"But then I can't gesture." He pointedly did not whine.
She just stared up at him.
He stared back.
"...you're a terrible father."
"In my defense, I've had terrible role models."
Moments later the two walked inside the building. A glistening marble floor greeted them, with columns rising up from the ground and filling the voluminous room. It was big, empty, and imposing.
As if to add to the impression of it's size, there was only one lone receptionist at the dark wooden desk made of simple curving lines. In the floor were obsidian tiles of arcing, swirling, and swooping waves. All combined to give the image of a black sea in a white void.
"Hello, Mr. Hades." the attendant smiled. She had clean pale skin, dark brown eyes, dirty blonde hair, and wore a grey suit with a white shirt underneath. The picture of office attire.
But what really drew Bianca's eye was the black tattoo of a beast's fearsome head peeking out from her collar, winding around the back of her neck.
"Hello Wanda." Her father smiled back, walking up to the desk.
"This is my daughter, Bianca," He gestured to the girl, blushing under the attention, "And my son, Nico, is still in the car sleeping."
"I see." Wanda smiled, not even phased for a moment, "Well I'm glad to see your trip worked out for you. I'll have security bring him to your floor."
"Thanks Wanda," Hades smiled, "I guess now I'll know what it's like to deal with the kids at home."
Wanda just laughed at the remark, a hidden interaction between the two that Bianca didn't fully understand yet.
Bianca couldn't help but be surprised by all the differences she was seeing inside. Sure, it had been over half a century, but things had changed so much in that time. In a way, her father was a rock, a stable point she could latch on to. Something familiar and comfortable.
Not that he needed to know that.
Hades pushed off of the desk, walking up to a pair of chrome elevator doors set in the ebony wood walls of the building, a simple golden outline around it, broken only at the top to allow for the image of a solitary golden eye.
Bianca stared at it for a moment, swearing that it stared back, before her father pulled her into the elevator.
"W-was that eye…?" She questioned.
"That's just Bob." He waved her off, looking at the panel of buttons on the side of the tiny room.
Then he pulled a key of black glass from his pocket, a silver wire acting as a skeleton inside it, tracing the shape of the whole piece. He pushed it into the chrome panel, the metal parting like water to let the key in.
With a twist and a click, the elevator shuddered for a moment, the lights flashing red for an instant, before everything settled back to normal.
"Home." Hades commanded.
And suddenly the elevator plummeted.
"So what was that?"
"What was what?"
"Philip."
Philip glanced at the woman sitting in the passenger seat beside him, "What?"
"Those...things?" She added, "The ones you killed?"
"I'd hoped you'd have had a better idea about that." He muttered.
"Excuse me?" She arched an eyebrow.
"You didn't so much as twitch when they appeared. You're obviously either familiar with their type, or you've seen so many strange things in that vein that you've become numb to such oddities." He explained.
"And I'd assume you're in the latter category?"
"Correct."
"Would you like to expand on that?"
"No."
Athena huffed, realizing that she wasn't going to get much more at this angle. At least, not by being blunt.
Mostly, however, she was annoyed that he'd gotten one over on her. He was right, she'd been too careless, too arrogant. She assumed that he wouldn't notice her subtle tells. And now he suspected she wasn't simply a mild-mannered college professor.
Still, when in doubt, deflect.
"How did you even kill them, anyway?" She asked.
Philip spared her strange glance, "You were there, watching with rapt attention."
"Yes, but, I mean what did you use? Monsters have a historical precedent for being difficult to kill."
"In my experience, most things die when you shoot them."
You little shit!
Athena strangled a roar of frustration. If she was honest with herself, it was probably why she liked Philip so much. There was no fun associating with someone who just fell over themselves to answer to your every whim.
Well, no fun if you did it too much.
The fact that he was so obtuse, so hard to get, yet at the same time polite and accommodating made him fall right in the sweet spot. Difficult enough to be an enticing challenge, a tantalizing puzzle, but open enough to not make her want to rip him limb from limb, or even simply leave.
But for all that she loved the game, she would be the first to admit it was frustrating attempting to deal with the brick wall that was Phillip Zavala.
So instead of screaming at him, instead of punching him, clawing his face, or cursing his family for generations, she stopped, and took a breath.
Calm down, Athena. Calm down. This is how you make mistakes.
"Okay," Athena muttered, "Fine, you don't know, that's fine."
In her attempts to regain her own composure she didn't notice Philip sending her a cautious look.
"So…" Athena began anew, switching to a new line of inquiry. "What are you going to do with the child?"
"Well, first we're taking her to my house-"
"Why your house and not some hospital?" Athena interjected.
Philip kept on without missing a beat, "Frankly, I don't trust them. Those things wore human skin, blending in. I've seen several others of their ilk around from time to time. I have little guarantee that the hospital would be a safe place for her. They could blend in with the staff, patients, or visitors, only to strike as soon as she is left alone."
"My house, however, is private property. If anyone's there, then they already don't belong. It's also a defensible location with my own personal armory. If they try to strike en mass I can cut them down with sufficient firepower from a place of security."
Athena blinked.
"You have an armory?"
"You don't?"
"...point."
Normally, she would have laughed at the prospect of a mere mortal holding back a group of any real monsters.
But that was before she saw a man take down three of the more dangerous variety using a knife and two handguns with not even a scratch to show for it.
"What do you know about the girl?' He asked, tearing Athena from her thoughts.
"What?" She questioned, her mind screeching to a halt.
"You recognized her. Or at the very least you reacted when she said her name." Philip supplied, "Obviously you know something about her."
How perceptive is this man? Athena all but exclaimed.
"I may have weapons and skills to face this threat, but Intel is one of the most valuable resources in any battle, and it is one area I am sorely lacking. Anything you could provide would be appreciated." He explained with that same stony expression, "As they say, 'knowing is half the battle'"
Athena shot him a look, "...G.I. Joe? Really?"
"I find it to be very entertaining propaganda and memetic insemination, instilling strong messages in the youth."
...How is it that I'm the one that actually sounds like a Hades-damned human being, She frowned.
Still...
She mulled it over in her head, considering what to explain and what she knew about him.
He had prowess to kill monsters. In fact, he could make such an act look easy, even trivial. His strength, speed, and reactions were all well above what she considered the average for a trained human soldier.
Then there was the fact he could see through the Mist, an incredibly rare gift. Combined with the gun that could kill a monster as easy as any man, and it was a worrying idea.
Even worse, he wasn't taking it seriously Athena frowned internally. She could tell. It was subtle, but she could see the little hints that he was holding back.
No, not holding back she realized, what he did was something else.
He started at baseline human, and escalated slightly when it didn't work. By the end, he simply discarded with formalities and ended them with clinical precision.
But what does this mean?
Nothing he did was technically inhuman. At least not blatantly so. His strength and speed were unusual, significantly so, but Athena had lived long enough to meet humans that seemed to be born with unnatural levels of skill, ability, or strength without having delved into the supernatural.
The gun was suspicious, but it did resemble a Mauser C96. A gun made in a time when human industry met magic and the supernatural. The idea that someone from the time managed to construct a gun to fight monsters wasn't unreasonable.
If the gun were that old, it would certainly explain the subtle level of reverence he held towards it.
In one way, it comforted Athena to think that the gun he used to kill them was special and unique.
In another, it scared her. Given all this time, was it really so impossible that the adaptive and industrious humans hadn't applied it to others?
That thought, the idea that humans had a reliable, easy to make and easy to use weapon that could actually harm their side of the divide scared Athena more than she knew, more than she let herself know.
So much so, she cut off that line of reasoning and threw it into the darkest depths of her mind.
Mortals armed with ancient guns She scoffed, As if such a thing could ever threaten us.
"Carol!" Philip barked, ripping her from her mind once more.
"Hmm?" She answered with a smile
"The girl?" Philip questioned again.
"Ah...right."
Internally, Athena scowled.
You just couldn't keep it in your pants, could you Zeus?
Sure, they'd dissolved the Pact that had made the girl's existence forbidden, but she doubted Hera would be so forgiving.
And technically speaking, Thalia was the only one that was of forbidden birth. The children of Hades were born before the pact and Poseidon hadn't actually courted his woman in bed yet.
It wouldn't surprise her if Hera tried to use such a technicality to have Thalia, and Thalia alone, executed.
In fact, her presence here proved it. She'd left her mother for unknown reasons, but if Athena had to guess, Hera drove her mad, leaving her home unsafe. After that, she likely nudged things just enough to have the monsters on the west coast catch her scent.
It probably would have worked, too, if not at that alley then likely on some other darker day.
Even if it didn't, the circumstances around this would have likely drove her into the arms of Artemis and her hare-Huntresses!
Artemis and her huntresses.
That's what I meant.
Athena waited for a beat, on the lookout for a sign the goddess in question had noticed. Eventually, though, she relaxed.
Still, the question remains, what to do now? Would she be safe at camp? Would Philip even let her go? She considered
I doubt that Philip would accept me just saying, "Oh, I need to take her home" or something.
I suppose I could spin a story about her being my niece. Technically she's more or less my half-sister, but I sincerely doubt that would fly with him. Plus, such a close association feels unsightly. Athena almost shivered. Zeus, however, likely wouldn't accept me not telling him about her.
She frowned, probably, anyway. It's entirely possible, knowing the man, that he's found another woman already and is working on giving the poor girl siblings.
But most importantly, what do I tell the man with the gun?
"Well?"
Athena kneaded her forehead as her mind spun through her options, well aware of the fact she didn't have all the time in the world. Even with the divine cognition that came with being the Goddess of Wisdom, she was not the Master of Bullshit that Apollo was.
"She's...special," Athena admitted.
"Thalia? How?" He pressed.
"She is…" Athena pursed her lips, parsing through the litany of options and lies. "She has magic in her blood. Something monsters like the ones you killed hunger for. She's very powerful, and very rare."
None of that was a lie, but it was only a small part of the truth. He'd likely assume her to be a mage's child or something.
"Ah," Philip nodded, accepting it easily, "Like you."
Athena jerked in her chair, "Wait, what?"
Philp quirks a brow, "Did you think I wouldn't notice?"
You noticing should have been impossible, She thought with wide eyes, Unless…
Philip snorts, "You're subtle, but I've still noticed you occasionally conjuring things up, as if from thin air, or putting them away just as easily."
"I seem to remember you do something very similar." Athena glared.
"Cayde tells me of this wondrous technology know as pockets." Philip said with a straight face. "You don't usually seem to have many, however."
Athena pursed her lips, skeptical, but acknowledging he did have a point. He almost always wore some form of attire that came with no less than 6 pockets. It's not like he ever pulled something out that couldn't have been reasonably held covertly with proper placement and preparation.
It was suspicious, but not blatantly impossible.
"Then there's that humming in my mind when you glare at me." He offered.
Athena blinked, "You've noticed that?"
"It's very annoying." He grumbled.
"And you didn't say anything because?"
"I couldn't be sure it was you. It's not as if assuming that the woman glaring at me is the cause for the humming in my mind is logical." He shrugged.
"And it is now?"
"You just admitted it."
Athena scowled at the man, angry at him getting one over her, again. It was made all the worse by the fact that he didn't even seem to consider it a victory. There was no pride, no joy, at his win. He simply acted as if it was a preordained fact of reality.
Fuck you too, Philip
"Anyways, I figured you had something to do with the girl. You recognized her, you have something strange about you, and everything surrounding the girl was strange as well."
"It could have been a coincidence."
"Could have. But I have a feeling it wasn't."
Athena huffed. Still…
At least he gave me an opening
"I'm her aunt."
"And you didn't think to open with that?"
"I didn't think you would have believed me," Athena admitted, "I thought you would have seen it as all too convenient. I was going to wait until Thalia could tell you herself."
Though it is certainly more believable than divine half-sister.
"Hmm," Philip hummed noncommittally.
"I'm surprised you aren't more worried about the humming in your mind, to be honest," She confessed.
"I've had worse," He shrugged it off.
Athena blinked.
"Worse?!"
"Thalia"
At her name, the girl jerked up, only to find herself in a strange location.
All around her, white marble, glittering gold, and obsidian black.
It resembled the inside of some kind of ancient temple. The interior was composed of smooth, clean, and sharp geometric lines. It was aesthetically pleasing, if not entirely comforting.
"Thalia" the voice repeated, now booming in intensity.
The girl spun around and found herself nearly blinded by the brilliance of the figure before her. The light burned just long enough to sear it's impression in her mind before fading down to a manageable intensity.
Blinking back the spots in her vision, Thalia looked ahead to see a woman wear regal white and gold robes, with stormy grey eyes and ebony black hair.
Behind the woman was a massive stature, vaguely resembling the woman but in Grecian armor and with spear and shield in hand. At the base of it was a massive burning pit, but rather than seem intimidating, it held more of a warm air. Like a comforting fireplace keeping the cold out.
"Uh…" The girl inarticulately said.
I'm dreaming she thought, I have to be
"Well," The woman smirked, "You aren't wrong"
"Do you know who you are?"
"I...uh...what?" The young girl stumbled, completely taken off guard.
The woman chuckled, a sound that seemed to shake the very temple around them. "You are Thalia Grace, are you not?"
"...yes?" The girl responds
"Also known as the daughter of Zeus." She smiled.
The girl swallows. An unsettling feeling of certain dread crawling down her back like a cold stream of water in her spine.
"A-and you are?' she stutters.
The woman just grins. A grin that, despite its levity and brightness, caries far too many teeth. "I, child, am Athena."
"But...you shall call me Aunt Carol."
"...you can't just keep her here…"
"...temporary place to hunker down…"
"...need an actual plan…"
"...Why we're here in the first place…"
Thalia slowly began to rouse to wakefulness. The remnants of the dream still fresh in her mind.
"...you realize she's awake now?"
She groaned, massaging the back of her aching head as her mind swam through the sea of memories, trying to track where she was.
"...Thalia?"
Her head jerked up at the sound of her name, making her come face to face with a woman looking back at her with long brown trusses and all too familiar grey eyes. Her lips pursed with concern, brows furrowed as she bent down over her.
But it was when she saw that golden glint in her eye that Thalia remembered.
"...A-Aunt Carol?"
The woman smiled, that same golden glint glistening with approval. The smile held a subtle edge, one of hidden gleeful approval, and of powerful intent.
Thalia swallowed nervously, Not a dream, then.
"Yes, dear! It's your Aunt Carol." For a moment, the woman's eyes glanced back towards at the large black man standing behind her.
A man who sparked a memory in her mind.
"You!" She lurched up.
The man just arched a brow in silent confusion.
"Y-you're the one who...who…" Thalia trailed off, her mind spinning back to panic and terror of running for her life earlier today. Of being hunted like an animal for the past week. Of nearly being caught. Of nearly being-
"Thalia?" Carol interrupted in a concerned tone, "Dear?"
"I-I'm okay." She stuttered, straining to bury the fear beneath her.
But even her best effort left her a trembling child before giants.
"Are you okay?" The man said in a deep rumbling voice.
"Y-yeah…" Thalia muttered, her own fire suppressed by the sheer presence of the man.
But...it's not a bad one. It's not like a pressure trying to snuff me out. It's not like… Thalia bit her lip, It's not like my father's.
"What happened to your mother, dear?" Carol asked, the impression of genuine care and worry playing across her face.
But with every word, Thalia could see that glimmer of smugness, of victory in her eyes.
And it scared her. She was leagues out of her depth, and she only knew enough to know that she didn't have a prayer of a chance of playing the game. All she could do was stick to the nearest player and pray for protection.
"S-she finally snapped." Thalia muttered, the dark memory of the day everything came to a head. "After Jason disappeared, she was never the same, and then one day she just...she just snapped."
Carol's warm hand rested on her own, but there was a coldness to it. Despite the heat of her hand, it's meaningfulness was robbed by the fact that Thalia knew it was just orchestrated, that it was just Athena playing a role to a perfect T.
But...the worst part?
The worst part was how much she let herself believe for a moment that it was real.
The worst part was how much Thalia needed another human's presence.
The worst part was the fact that Thalia knew it was all a lie, that it was all an act, just a fabrication and manipulation.
But it didn't matter.
"Take your time, dear." Carol whispered.
Thalia knew it was a trick, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter because it was still exactly what she needed right now. It was exactly the words she needed to hear, the touch she needed to feel. And despite it all, Thalia couldn't help but ever so slightly give in.
Just an inch, just a sliver.
But it was more than Athena needed.
"O-ne day she just came at me." Thalia mumbled, trying to hold back the tears at her eyes. "She just...she just picked up a knife and decided I needed to die."
"S-she said I w-was a mistake. T-that I should have been the one they took, n-not J-Jason." Tears crawled down her cheeks, "A-and I ran and ran, b-but everywhere I-I turned t-there where these m-monsters a-a-and..."
Thalia trailed off as her throat choked up.
A soft hand met her shoulder, pulling her into a warm and comforting hug. Thalia tried to resist it, she tried not to feel it, but she couldn't help but feel safe.
And she hated herself for it.
"You're safe now." Carol's voice whispered in her ear.
"For I have plans for you, dear." Athena's voice whispered in her head.
"She's right," The man's voice rumbled as he looked out the window, a gun held firmly in his hands. "You're safe here."
"B-but what if they come?!" Thalia cringed, the memories of the twisted nightmares chasing after her, the feeling of knowing that any stranger could twist into a horrid monster at any moment.
"Then they'll die." He stated simply, as if it was a fact of reality, much like rain falling from the clouds or the sun rising each day.
But it still brought a measure of comfort to her tired soul.
"However…" he began, turning back to them. "I suggest the two of you stay here for the next...two days."
Carol arched a brow skeptically, "Two days? Really?"
He nodded, "If they're truly simple beasts, they'll charge the house, and die."
"But," He stepped forward, pulling a wooden chair from the table and plopping down before her. "If they're smart…"
He folded his hands between his legs, leaning forward ever so slightly towards the girl, "If they have even a trace of decent tactics, they'll wait until you leave, until you've left the absolute safety of this house."
"H-how is that a g-good thing?"
"Because," He leaned back, "They'll have to monitor the house closely to know when you leave. Over two days it wouldn't be too difficult to pick up on anyone stalking the house. If you stayed longer, it'd be even easier."
"At that point," He said, stretching back to pull a bottle of some kind of red wine off the table, "I'd either just kill them on the spot..."
He paused, taking a sip of wine straight from the bottle.
"..Or I'd have a friend track them down to their base and kill them all there."
Something about the casual way that the man said it, all while drinking the blood-colored beverage both disturbed and enthralled Thalia. It was the presence he had, the subtle charisma in his movements. Her father was forceful, aggressive, and arrogant.
Zeus demanded your attention. This man commanded your respect.
"There is, however, the possibility that they're too dim to even know you're here. In which case, there's little to no problem."
"How likely is that?" Carol asked.
"You'd know better than me." The man gave her a pointed look.
"Oh, but Philip, I'm but a simple professor. I'm sure I have no idea what you mean." Carol feigned ignorance with a grin.
Philip just gave her a strange look, before letting out a snort.
"Either way…" He eventually said, "I'd know better the longer you stayed here. Two days is a minimum. Preferably, I'd go with a week."
"My my, staying a week at a 'friend's' house. What will my colleges say?" Carol teased.
"Safety first," Philip responded with a face chiseled from stone.
Carol actually stopped, her eyes glazing over for a moment at the comment.
"I...what?"
Thalia thought it was an odd, but reasonable worry. Safety was always important, right?
"What's wrong with saftey first?" Thalia asked with all the innocence of a 9-year-old girl, looking at her 'Aunt' with perplexed eyes.
"Er, I, nothing, nothing." Carol replied, trying to fight down her flush.
Philip's face didn't so much as twitch, but his eyes danced with a silent laughter.
But in the depths of Athena's mind, she vowed revenge.
A/n:
First off, I'd like to thank Trav for Beta-ing this.
Second, I'd like to curse Trav for Beta-ing this.
Was supposed to come out on Halloween, but no, has to come out on the goddamn 4th
Ugh
Anyways, this chapter.
I'm finally back so you can be happy about that. I was sorely tempted to just wait until the end of the year to update, just because I said I'd update in a year, but the muse, and Destiny 2, hit me hard enough to get back into it.
Speaking of, I would look back at the previous chapter. I made a revision to the fight scene. Namely, Zavala uses the Strum in a more mundane appearance to kill all the monsters.
The Strum is basically what I wanted him to use in the first place, a semi-auto handgun that hits like a handcannon, and lo and behold, D2 delivers.
In any case, not much happens in this chapter.
I actually wanted to go a bit further with Hades and Bianca, because not much happened, but it wasn't really coming to me despite having it all mapped out in my head, so I decided to just post the chapter now, rather than wait for a week for my muse to come back.
However, all in all, I'm going to admit I'm taking some liberties with numerous people in the PJO sphere. Hades and Persephone are going to have my own interpretation because A: I can't be bothered to remember canon's, and B: I saw a collection of short comics about it that tickled my fancy.
Athena's going to be a bit more of a schemer. Not necessarily to rule the world, but certainly for her own goals. Case in point, Thalia as seen in this chapter.
Speaking of Thalia, Zeus. He's going to be a bit more of an asshole.
Probably.
I mean, he was already the king of assholes, I'm not sure I can get worse than classic Zeus. Either way, I'm not really going for Flanderization hate-boner Zeus, more so "I need him to fill the role of X, and he does so splendidly".
So yeah.
Also, I feel like Zavala would totally understand all kinds of innuendo. He might not use it himself, but considering he seems to be a very "in the trenches" kind of guy, I'm pretty sure he's heard the worst of the worst. This is kiddy pool shit, at the moment. Keeping a straight face at implied condoms isn't even a challenge to him.
Anyways, I'm going to try and get the next chapter up sometime this month. Maybe. I'm also tossing the old chapter playlist out the window, I'll post a chapter when I feel I have a sufficient chapter, not when I've ticked every last box so I can cram everything into 16 chapters.
That's good news for you, means more updates.
It also means that the very much major turning point should be happening...sometime in the next...3 chapters? I'm guessing that's how long it'll take me to wrap things up here.
Also, if anyone's curious, I've decided Percy's 99% likely to be a boy. For two reasons, 1: There is almost no real reason to turn him into a girl other than "LOL Boobs", which isn't exactly cutting the mustard. 2: I have enough strong female characters showing up as is. I'm not exactly sure what the female equivalent of a sausage fest is, but I'm betting it's called a taco party. Maybe an estrogen fest.
I like taco party more.
Anyway, that's enough out of me. I'm tired, so I'm heading the fuck to sleep.
As a final note, I've been considering 1, well, 2 other short little Destiny crossovers involving other worlds and the Iron Lords. The one I've really thought about is a Familiar Of Zero one where she summons Lord Felwinter moments before his death. Lord Felwinter, of course, being the badass Exo Warlock and master Voidwalker who either shotgun'd or magic slapped people in the face so hard they stopped existing.
Good ol' Lord Felwinter.
