A/N: Okay, so here's the fifth chapter of this story. I feel like such an asshole, I keep putting off working on my other stories to take care of this one, and it's really starting to pile up. I keep getting reviews telling me to hurry the fuck up, and I try, but it's just really hard because of all the bullcrap that I'm dealing with.
Anyway, I've decided to skip ahead a few years in time to get the ball rolling on something a reviewer gave me an idea for (waves at Mandomness). He probably didn't mean for it to happen, but happen it did. So in this chapter, we are introduced to Marcus 'Marky-Mark' Jackson, second son of Sally Jackson and Poseidon. Amphitrite is not pleased. This li'l guy will become the main antagonist of the story, along with big, bad (everyone say it with me, now) CHAAAAAOOOOS!
But I'm getting ahead of myself now. Gotta get everything set up first...Enjoy!
Ah, and before I forget, Fallen Angel Sephiroth and Mandomness receive free cyber high-fives for correctly answering the question of what creature Nico had for a mount: In my mind, it's obvious that the son of the Lord of Death would naturally ride on a thestral, one of the greatest omens of death, from the Harry Potter series. I loves thestrals.
Disclaimer: Yeah, so that plan I told you about didn't go over so well. Turns out Rick Riordan has some really good security guards, and I realized that I don't know how to use an AK-47 very well. Long story short, I don't own the rights to Percy Jackson and the Olympians...or Heroes of Olympus.
Yet...MWAHAHAHA!
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Chapter 5: My Brother From the Same Mother
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PERCY
Dodge left, push kick, dodge right, palm thrust, bob and weave, shin kick!
"Ouch!" a feminine voice grunts in pain.
Such are my thoughts as I battle against my greatest opponent to date. Well, it's more of a fun spar for me...to Artemis, I think she might actually be trying to kill me.
All around us, the Hunt and the Cavalry are fighting with blunted swords and arrows with boxing gloves on the tips. They'll leave bruises, but that's about it.
You're probably wondering how this happened, so I'll back-track just a bit, for your sake.
See, it's been close to fifteen years since the formation of the Riders, and so far, things have been really fun. Ever since that day, we've been living the good life, partying all over the world and generally having an awesome time.
Our home base is my ship, La Suprema Marejada, you know; the one that I stole from Blackbeard. Yeah. Using my super-cool godly powers, I was able to enchant it even further than Ares had done when he'd given it to his son, so it's basically a seafaring fortress for me and my bros. We've picked up a few new faces, a couple of them mortal, so now our numbers have grown to fifteen, not including yours truly.
But every once in awhile, we cross paths with the Hunters of Artemis, and battles such as these ensue. At first, it was just Artemis living up to her threat of attacking us as enemies, and there were a few injuries that could have been life-threatening, had we not had Apollo and Asclepius on-hand to help out. As time progressed, it became more of a training exercise to keep each other sharp for when real battles took place.
Regardless, my boys seem to enjoy it, and the Hunters get to blow off some steam, too, so it's pretty much a win-win situation in my eyes.
"Focus!" Artemis snaps, and I barely manage to duck under a swipe from her archer's daggers. "You'll get your head cut off if you don't pay more attention."
"You wouldn't do that to me, would ya, Arty?" I ask, whirling around a downward slash and nudging her in the ribs before darting away to avoid the savage thrust she sends toward my chest.
"I would do much, much worse if I got my hands on you," she retorts, and I grin wickedly, causing her to blanch.
"You just want an excuse to touch my sexy body," I say, and she flushes angrily, aiming a kick to my nether regions. I simply flash away and seal Seafoam into its mechanical pencil form.
"Wanna call it a day and head to camp?" I ask, and Artemis falls warily out of her crouch to look around. Most of the Hunters and Riders look exhausted; it's probably because we've been fighting for about three hours.
"I suppose," Artemis concedes. "I count this as a victory for the Hunt."
"What?" I gripe, following after her as she goes to look for Thalia. "It's clearly a stalemate, just like every other fight."
She doesn't deign to comment, and we find Thalia and Nico pounding away at each other while Nico's thestral mount wanders around aimlessly behind them.
"Enough, you two," Artemis proclaims, and Nico sighs in relief, his Stygian Iron blade hanging loosely in his grip.
"Whatsamatter, di Angelo? Worn out?" Thalia teases, setting Aegis back into her bracelet.
"Yes," Nico admits unabashedly. "I didn't expect to be fighting like this when I signed up for the Cavalry, Percy."
"Aw, don't complain, Nico, old buddy," I shoot back, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and shaking him a bit. "There are children in Africa who are starving right now."
"No there aren't," Nico interjects, looking at me with a wry smile. "You turned the Sahara desert into a gigantic wheat field. There isn't a starving person in the world now because of you."
"Oh, yeah...I did do that, huh?"
"You should have Mnemosyne check your brain," Artemis suggests. "The Fates know that you've got enough holes in it."
"You're just jealous of my awesomeness," I wave off her insult flippantly. "Hey, where's Leo?"
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LEO
"Hey, Leo?"
"Mmh?"
"You ever wonder why hemmorhoids aren't called asteroids?"
I snort in amusement. "I thought I was the one with the jokes, Pipes." She simply laughs.
She and I are laying down in the forest, hanging out as usual whenever the Hunt meets up with the Cavalry. We head to a place far enough away from the battle so that we're not harrassed, and then just sit around and talk about nothing much in particular. I swear, I think I've had the weirdest conversations in my life with Piper.
Piper finally sits up and checks her watch. "So, you think they're about done?" I glance down at her watch, too, tilting my head to get a proper look. The fact that I can see her cleavage better from this angle has nothing to do with it...
"They've been at it for about three hours, I think they're probably wrapping things up."
Standing up, I offer her a hand and haul her up. Festus, seeing that we're ready to leave, spins his drillbit teeth in anticipation of flying after awhile of non-movement. The minute we're secure, he makes a vertical leap about twelve feet into the air before taking flight.
By the time we make it to the sight of the battle, everyone's just about ready to leave. Percy spots us and waves us down.
"What do you two get up to when you abscond from our little sparring matches?" he asks when Festus lands. "Is there a good make-out spot anywhere around here?"
I feel my face heat up in embarrassment, and when I glance toward Piper, she's just as red as I am. Before we can answer, however, Artemis chimes in.
"Foolish idiot," she mutters, placing an arm around Piper and leading her to where the rest of the Hunt is gathered. "My Piper would never be caught 'making out' with one of your Riders."
As they walk away, I can't help but feel a little saddened by her statement, but Percy just punches me lightly on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Champ. You'll get her eventually."
I don't get the chance to stammer out a denial, because Percy jumps up onto Mrs. O'Leary and hollers out, "Mount up, Riders! We're headed back to Camp!"
Percy uses his godly powers to transport us to the borders of Camp Half-Blood just as Artemis does the same for the Hunters, and we start to head in when there's a ferocious bellow and a screech of terror that has all of us, Cavalry and Hunt alike, heading toward the sound.
Festus and I get there first and catch a bird's-eye (or is it dragon's-eye?) view of a strange, entirely one-sided fight.
One the one hand, there's a little kid, maybe twelve or thirteen, with dark hair and sea-green eyes that reminds me sharply of Percy. Then, there's the Minotaur and the several dozen hellhounds he brought as his plus-fifty.
I'll give the kid some credit. He sure can dodge with the best of 'em, lunging forward and performing an action-roll underneath the charge of five of the hellhounds, grabbing up a stick and cracking across the snout of a sixth, but he's soon overwhelmed, and Festus and I drop in on things.
Literally.
It's funny, and a little awesome (if I do say so myself) that despite the fact that Festus can fly as easily as a bird, he is most definitely not light. At all. The guesstimation amongst the Hephaestus cabin is that he's close to ten tons, give or take a few kilos; we don't really have any scales that can properly weigh the dragon.
So when Festus makes his surprise landing, several unfortunate hellhounds are crushed into tiny little sparkles of golden dust simply from the sheer weight of him, and my favorite automaton ratchets up his kill count by another few puppies with a fanning tongue of flames.
Then the rest of the Cavalry shows up, and the battle is joined in earnest. Mrs. O'Leary, sans Percy, is tearing into her miniscule (by comparison, anyway) brethren with impunity, and more of the poor monsters are taken out by silvery arrows, courtesy of the Hunters.
In the midst of the fighting, I see that Percy's managed to get to the small demigod, and is in the process of telling off the Minotaur.
"How many times have I killed you, big guy?" he asks, and continues without waiting for an answer that'll never come. "Seriously, just give it up before I snap off your other horn and use it as a back-up bong."
The Minotaur roars and charges, throwing his head down for maximum head-butt power. Percy simply steps lightly to the side, grabbing the creature's left horn, and brings it to the ground. Without missing a beat, he pulls out Anaklusmos and drives it home, right between the Minotaur's shoulder blades. He gives a great screech of agony before dusting the forest floor with his glimmering remains.
In short order, the rest of the hellhounds are rounded up and destroyed, sent back to reform in Tartarus until next time, and we finally get back into the camp's borders.
"So, where're you from, kid?" Percy asks the young boy who looks remarkably like him.
"Manhattan," the kid replies in a tone of voice I can only describe as arrogant. "And my name's Mark, not kid."
"Alright, then, Mark," Percy plows on, either not noticing or not caring about the insolent timbre in Mark's speech. "I'm Percy, I run this joint. Those guys back there are my Cavalry. This beautiful creature to the side is Artemis, and the girls are her Hunters. Do you know much about our world?"
"Yeah, I know that I'm a demigod, and that I could've taken on that ugly Minotaur thing without your help," he sneered.
Percy seems to finally recognize the disdain in Mark's voice. "Did I do something to you in a past life or something, Mark? 'Cause I don't think that's really a nice tone you've got there."
"I don't care what you think," Mark spits out through clenched teeth. "My dad told me about how much of a disappointment you are to him."
"...eh?"
Before anyone can do anything further, a flash of deep blue light erupts before us, and none other than Poseidon himself appears to us. I can't tell because I'm a fair distance away from him, but the god of the sea's eyes look a little glazed. Maybe he's smoking some of Percy's weed?
"Perseus," he rumbles, his face becoming a little confused for a moment before shifting to something similar to grudging tolerance. I recognize it because that's the expression most of the foster families I stayed with briefly wore whenever I was around.
There's a short gasp from behind me, and I see Piper staring above Mark's head, and I see a little blue-green trident floating above the little guy's head.
"May I present to you Marcus Jackson, my son, and your brother."
Percy stands there for a moment before apparently deciding that it would be best to faint and swoons just close enough for Artemis to catch him. This was obviously pure reflex on Artemis' part, because as soon as she catches him, she withdraws her hands quickly, as if stung, allowing Percy to hit the ground with a dull thud.
Can you believe that the little bastard has the audacity to pipe up at that moment? He looks up at Poseidon, who's looking rather confused again, and asks, "Are you sure that he's my brother, Father?"
Judging by the murderous looks from the Cavalry, and also from a couple of the Hunters, I'm not the only one who wants to pop that little douchebag in the mouth.
[THIS IS ALSO A PAGE BREAK]
PERCY
I come to on the porch of the Big House, watching as Dionysus and Chiron play their weekly game of pinocchle with the ghosts of various kings and rulers. Groaning, I find that I'm in a very cushy chair, and that there is a new player in the usual lineup.
"Artemis? I didn't know you played pinocchle," I mumble as I sit up, conjuring a glass of glacier water from the choicest ice floes in Norway. Those Norwegian glaciers sure have some good water.
"It is startlingly easy to pick up," the goddess states as she sets down a winning hand, and there are sighs of defeat and moans of lamentation from the other players.
"I must say, Lady Artemis," Chiron says good-naturedly as Dionysus takes a deep swig from his box o' wine, "you are an excellent adversary. I've forgotten what it's like to play a decent game."
Artemis smiles at Chiron. "Thank you, old friend." Then she turns to me, and her smile melts into a slight frown. "So, if we reintroduce you to your brother, will you faint like a swooning maiden once more?"
"I hope not," I answer truthfully as the memories of the last hour or so come floating to the forefront of my mind. "Did you see Poseidon's eyes?"
With a trouble expression and a short nod, Artemis answers, "There is powerful magic at work here, that much is obvious. I would leave to seek out Hecate, but I am loathe to leave my Hunters here under your care."
"Most of your Hunters used to be my friends before I was deified," I retort, rolling my eyes. "It's not like I'll intentionally cause them harm, or let my campers or the Cavalry to attack them underhandedly. I have some honor, Arty."
Her jaw muscles tense, and I can vaguely hear her grinding her teeth as she contemplates it. "Very well," she says finally. "I will inform Thalia and the rest that they will be staying here for an indefinite amount of time. I will hold up my part of the bargain, and you will hold up yours."
Nodding, I give her a real smile. "Thank you for doing this, Artemis."
Her eyes widen minutely in surprise, followed by a severe narrowing. "I do this for the Olympian Council, not for your sake, Perseus Jackson."
And with that, she takes her leave, flashing away in her silvery cloak of power. Sighing, I lean back in the deliciously comfortable chair. "This troubles me, Chiron," I murmur softly. "I don't know who or what would want to screw with Poseidon's mind, or how Mark fits into all this, but it can't bode well for us."
"I believe you are right, Percy," Chiron agrees, his voice somber.
Dionysus, who had dozed off after his second wine-box, snorted in his sleep and grumbled, "Curse you Pinky! I will have my revenge upon you!"
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LEO
I swear, I'm going to kill that little bastard!
First, he insulted Percy when he fell into unconsciousness (he insulted a god, for crying out loud!), then he tried to hit on half the Hunters of Artemis, and when that failed, proceeded to try to flirt with the rest of the Hunt and the girls in the camp...including Piper!
I am incandescent with rage! This should tell you a lot about how angry I am, because I swear to you that I had to actually look up the proper word to describe my fury in a dictionary. And Leo Valdez just doesn't go looking shit up in dictionaries! Exclamation point!
Okay, calm down, Valdez. Your shirt's on fire. Oh, crap.
In Bunker Nine, there were dozens of redundancy plans and fail-safes put into place during the war for those just-in-case moments, and one of those just happens to be a fire hose-strength sprinkler system. Guess who just set that system off with his burning cotton shirt?
Luckily, the sprinkler system also has a fail-safe, and whenever it goes off, big glass domes shoot up all around the work benches and tables and things, so none of the works in progress get wet. Only I do.
Grumbling under my breath, I slosh my way over to the drainage system button and flush out the remaining water from the bunker before setting about drying my shorts and looking for a new shirt.
I just can't see how Mark and Percy can be related. At all. There's just too much difference in demeanor and countenance. I mean, sure, they look alike, having the same parents and all, but Percy's just so laid-back and nice to everyone, whereas Mark is...not so much.
And you know what? When I asked him if he wanted to toke it up to maybe loosen that stick that's so obviously shoved too far up his ass, do you know what he told me?
"Marijuana is a dangerous drug that kills a hundred thousand people a day."
I almost attacked him right then and there. Seriously, if he just didn't want to smoke, I'd be fine with that. Straight-edge is nothing to be ashamed of; it's actually very commendable. But don't go shoving your self-righteous hippalektryon-crap in my face. One hundred thousand people a day? The human population would be halved within a couple of years if that were true.
Nobody dies from overconsumption of marijuana. Sure, if you wer to smoke your body weight in hash oil, you'd overdose, but not even the Queen of England has that much dough to spend on weed. Seriously!
I'm just not so sure about Mark. There are many things that I'm not sure about, to be honest. Clovis' dad seems to be getting a kick out of sending me exceptionally confusing dreams, and Mnemosyne appears to be helping him out. I've come to this conclusion because I think I'm finally getting back my memories of the time before Hera decided to screw with everyone's mind and pull the Ol' Switcheroo with Jason and Percy. And, like I said, they're exceptionally confusing.
I knew even before these dreams started coming to me that Piper and I had been friends during that period, but I just never really wondered how close we'd been, what with the fact that she'd been in a 'relationship' with Jason at the time, and afterwards, when Piper joined up with the Hunt and I ended up in the Cavalry, I just never really had the time, nor the desire, to learn about it.
But the god of sleep and dreams and the personification of memory apparently took it upon themselves to properly educate me.
I wonder if Beauty Queen is having the same dreams. Hell, the nickname 'Beauty Queen' was actually a work in progress for a few months, going through several retarded versions including, but not limited to, 'Veggie Queen,' 'Miss Native America,' and (I thought this one was pretty cool) 'Kaleidoscope Queen.' And then, the first time I called her Beauty Queen...
...well, I don't wanna get into that, just in case things aren't as they seem. Anyway, all this thinking about weird dreams and asshole deities has drained my anger at Mark, so at least something good came out of it.
As I pull on a new orange t-shirt, I hear the hidden entrance door slide open, and I see Piper walk in.
"Hey, Beauty Queen," I say in greeting, shaking the stray droplets of water from my hair.
"You okay, Valdez?" she asks, concern glinting in her dark violet eyes. "You left in a bit of a huff." She grins, and my lips lift upwards in answer; I'd actually left in a full-blown raging hissy fit, calling people names and setting several bushes on fire as I left.
"I'm good now," I answer, settling down on a bench. Piper ambles over and plops down next to me. "That kid just rubs me the wrong way, y'know?"
"Yeah, I figured as much," she says, nudging me in the ribs. "Seriously, though, nobody else seemed to get as pissed off as you did back there." She gives me a sidelong glance as she pushes a strand of her uneven hair behind her ear. "Any particular...trigger?"
"I didn't like the way he was talking to you," I mumble stroppily, and it might've been a trick of the light, or my eyes playing jokes on me, but I'll swear to anyone that I caught the quickest triumphant grin that flitted across her face when I said this.
"Didn't peg you for the jealous type, Valdez," she says off-handedly.
My face sours, but I don't comment.
"Oh, come on, I'm just messing around, Leo," she cajoles me with a smile.
"Have you been having any weird dreams lately?" Damn it! I didn't mean to say that out loud. Traitorous mouth and vocal cords and lungs...
"Um, that sure wasn't out of nowhere," Piper remarks with a raised eyebrow and a strange, almost reluctant expression on her face. "I had one last night where I stopped a bank robbery by shooting the robber, only to get arrested for murder, but I don't think that's what you're talking about."
"No, it's nothing, I guess," I say, slumping down. I must be messed up in the brain. Deciding to change the subject, I reach under the table closest to us and into a drawer. "Wanna see something cool?"
"Define 'cool,'" Piper responds warily. I pull out a pair of devices that look suspiciously like... "Are these smart phones?"
"Nope, even better," I proclaim with a grin. "These puppies are demigod-friendly communication devices with a wide array of applications which can be downloaded for free, depending on the demigod owner's preferences."
As Piper takes the gadget and flips it around, checking out the sleek shape and design, I continue telling her about the features. "This bad boy'll get a signal anywhere on, above, or below Earth, but don't hold me to that in the Underworld, I haven't tried it there, yet...it's undetectable by monsters, it automatically hacks into wireless databases so that you can download music, apps, books, you know, general awesome crap like that. And it's got a 6.5 megapixel camera on the front and back with an insane zoom and a great flash."
"What's it called?" Piper finally asks.
"The Leo Valdez is a Badass, version fifteen, or LVBA-15 for short," I say proudly. "I've been waiting for the Hunt to get here to finally put the first two online."
"Version 15," Piper says slowly. "What happened to the other fourteen?"
"Uh, blew up, blew up," I say, ticking them off on my fingers, "sucked into a rip in the space-time continuum, caught fire, the next nine blew up, and I dropped the last one in the toilet when I was looking at fanfiction..."
The last one catches her off-guard. "The toilet, Valdez?"
"Well, sometimes it takes awhile..."
"Nevermind, I'm sorry I asked," Piper mutters. "So you're sure this won't blow up in my face?"
"Nope," I assure her confidently. "The LVBA-14 is the one that I got all the kinks worked out of, and the 15 is just the 14 but with ultra-waterproofing up to twenty-thousand leagues and an infinite power source." I grin at her. "So, you ready to try it, or what?"
Piper gives the device a dubious glance, and I almost think that she's going to refuse. Then, she looks up at me with that million-drachma smile of hers. "Sure. I trust you, Leo. Let's test these babies out."
We head outside, and all the while, my chest is filled with some strange and wonderful emotion that warms me up the way even my fire can't achieve. The fact that Piper trusts me enough to try out a potentially dangerous invention, of which several of its prototypes have spontaneously exploded, does something that only my mother's love has done.
It makes me truly happy.
A/N: Yeah, yeah, soppy, I know. I don't give a fuck. I'm a sucker for romance, even if I can't find a decent girlfriend to save my freakin' life. I live vicariously through fanfiction, and if you don't like it, well...well, I can't do anything about that. So we find ourselves at an impasse.
Anyway, we finally meet Marcus Jackson in this chapter! Is he a prick, or what? I'm going to have an exceedingly fun time writing him, because I get to dust off my inner douchebag, which I haven't used in an awfully long time. I know many of you will hate me for introducing the little fella, but he is an integral part of a plotline that I'm currently coming up with as I go along. Think about that.
As for Poseidon's obvious confusion, well...if you've read Pertemis, then you'll probably know where this is going in the short-term. In the long-term, however...hohoho! You have no idea. I'm a-cookin' a-somethin' up that'll knock a-you socks off (that was an Italian accent, if you didn't get it)!
Also, and I cannot say this for sure, but I might be able to incorporate some OFC (original fictional characters, in case you didn't know) demigods into the Cavalry and the Hunt, so if you have any ideas, send them to me in either a PM or a review, and I will see what I can do. Remember, I said I might be able to fit them into my story, so I'm not promising anything. And even if I do, they'll probably only be minor characters and bit parts. Then again, who's to say for certain, right?
Alas, this rambly author's note is coming to a close, so thank you for all your support, and please review. Your reviews...they sustain me!