This chapter contains spoilers for Night Broken, the 8th book in the Mercy Thompson series. If you like the series, but haven't read it yet, don't read this story, go buy the book. My writing can't compare to Patricia Briggs or Rick Riordan's.

Note, I'm skipping a lot of flavor text and background info, I figure if you're reading a fan fiction about a book, then chances are you've read the book and know, at least in part, that information.

Also, I own none of the characters, not even the OC I made as she is part of the PJaO books and anyone is free to duplicate her for their own stories. Writing a story using characters from published books, I certainly can't complain if someone likes my idea enough to run it in a different direction, but please, no slash.

00088888000

I also found the story I got the idea for the Shadow Travel mistake from; s/9380435/1/Shadow-Worlds by Musafreen.

A really good story, to bad he's pretty much dropped it. I figure since we're all playing around with other people's ideas anyway, as long as I didn't copy exactly, it wouldn't be a big deal. But still, check his story out; it's well worth the read. Maybe we can convince him to restart it?

00088888000

I tried to make it appear on my page, but I couldn't, so I made it the cover photo for the story. It's a picture of the gun I based Terry's on. It's a real weapon that fires real shells, shotgun in the case of the gun in the picture. Terry's has more decoration, including an engraving of the Drakkon she killed on the handle (made of Drakkon Ivory) and Greek lettering spelling out "End of Infinity" along the barrel. It's also a lot more powerful, but then, most of the weapons used by demi-gods are.

00088888000

A Break

Unknown

The bodies are lying all around her, and she is covered in their gore.

She shifts from the half wolf form she didn't even know she could go to an hour ago with a smile on her face and laughter in her belly. The change is so much simpler and quicker with less pain then before. Maybe it's because she's finally thrown off the yoke of male dominion. Yes, that must be it. It was always the men. They always have to make things difficult. To dominate and control, to upset the natural order of women being in charge. But no more, these men are dead, and no man shall ever order her around again.

She walks, naked, with blades of surgical steel sliding back into her fingers, over to one of the corpses, picking up its severed head; "Hello my alpha, my ruler, how are you this fine morning? Not well you say; why is that? Have I managed to burst free of your control? Are you really so unable to imagine a woman living free? All I wanted was to be able to be a lone wolf. To choose where I would live from week to week and hunt my own prey from the herds around us. But no, you had to be a male, to whine and moan like the weak pathetic things you are. 'We can't hunt the humans, they would destroy us.' Peht. A pox on all humans. They are cowards and even their women are weak."

Tossing the head to the side, she glances at the other two female werewolves. They are standing, naked and humbled before her. They once lorded it over her, based, not on their own merits, but on who their mates were. But still, they are women, and are vastly more worthy then their former mates ever were. She looks at them; their pack bonds are tied to her now, tighter than any of the bonds that once held them. She's become better at understanding webs and patterns now that she's free. She tightens the web of energy that binds them even tighter, they are crying for their mates. That will not do at all, no it won't. As the binding tightens, the women relax, seeing the rightness of her cause and accepting her as their alpha.

Everything is so much better since her dream of the robot spider, yes. NO! No that was just a dream. She did this; this was her victory, not some dream.

She glances over at the last woman here. She is incased in a cocoon of metal and plastic wiring. Like the web her dream spider would make. This woman had claimed to be her friend. It claimed to want to help her, to help her overcome her hatred of men and her desire to simply kill people. It was no woman really. At least the other two would argue with their mates, and even if they weren't serious, they'd laughingly threaten to kill them. But this thing in the web, no, it would never do that. It loved the old alpha, wanted to please him in any way. It kept trying to get her to relax and give in, to be the alphas slave. As a female, it was more worthy then a male, but it wasn't a woman. No, all it was good for was to serve as an incubator for her eggs.

Turning to the other two; "Place the sack within the van. The old alpha managed to get a danger sign to the alpha of alphas, the Marrock, before he severed the connection. We must leave before they send an army of men to do what a single woman could, but an army they will send. We must leave."

The severing of the connection to the Marrock was both good and bad for her. It would have given him more information on her, but there was a chance she could have used the connection to bind all the werewolves to her. The males had prevented her from ever being able to understand the pack bonds, but she had no doubt she would have done better than them, after all, there is no way that something as powerful and elegant as the pack bonds was created by anything other than a woman.

But that wasn't to be. She would move her new pack to a place owned by some contacts of hers. Human women who understood the proper order of nature. From there, what? What was her final goal? She would need to deal with the other werewolves of course, but she didn't know where the Marrock actually lived. That was information only the alpha and his second would know. She knew that he would present no real difficulty, after all, he was just a male, but tracking him down would be a pain. But even that really wasn't an end goal. That was just a diversion.

A thought occurred to her, she would awaken Gaia, Mother Earth, the true god of all creation. Gaia would give her the power to wipe men off the face of the Earth. No men, a perfect society.

Something in her stirred, tried to get her to consider other plans, that she didn't know enough about Gaia, that it required males to breed, to try and connect with more dream spiders. That was ridicules. The dream spider wasn't real, and the idea she didn't understand Mother Earth, that was absurd. Every true woman understood Mother Earth, and there was magic and science that could overcome the need for sperm in breeding. Sex was to important and beautiful to be shared with a male anyway.

No, she would figure out a way to reach out to Gaia, to show her that not all women had abandoned their duties to protect her from the males of the world. She would awaken Gaia and destroy society.

In the background, she could feel the computer as it started to run web searches on Gaia, trying to figure out what Gaia was, and what the probable outcome would be. She didn't understand why that would be, she already knew, but something prodded her to not worry about it, and really, why should she? She was practically a god herself now; she had nothing to worry about.

Percy

For some reason, everyone is starting to panic. I'm not really sure why, but evidently, the lady in the car is afraid of dogs, and really powerful. This day sucks!

I shout for Ms. O'Leary to run away, but she just kind of looks at me. Evidently, Riverwind catches the gist of what's going on, and proceeds to 'attack' Ms. O'Leary. He jumps up and down, kicking and threatening her in a way that is absolutely hilarious. It truly reminds me of a kitten attacking a Great Dane, only I'm pretty sure both are aware it's a joke.

Ms. O'Leary figures out what's going on, and with much whining and tail tucked, runs away. Anyone who's listening can hear laughter in her whines as she does. I've never really been able to figure out how intelligent she really is. Every time I start to think of her as just a smart animal, she does something that makes me think she's as smart as us. When I start to think that, she does something most dogs aren't dumb enough to do. I'm starting to think she just likes screwing with people.

Riverwind is ecstatic over his success, and is putting on a display, which would be a lot more impressive if his wings had adult feathers instead of down. On him, it reminds me of a 5 year old strutting after winning a T-ball game. In any case, he starts prancing over to the cars. I can just barely hear the children shouting, but the important thing is the other car has stopped shaking and the scary lady has calmed down and is watching Riverwind's display with amusement on her face.

I start to walk over with Annabeth at my side. Thankfully, Rachel holds back Nico and Terry. If she was scared of Ms. O'Leary, she'd be petrified of Nico. I notice that the only two from the house that comes over with us is the daughter, Jesse, and the lady who saved us, all the really buff, threatening people stay behind. We walk over to Riverwind and I start to calm him, the kids have, by this point exited the car and are petting him. I'm trying to listen to the ladies, but it's hard with Riverwind's chatter, but has, as a base, the idea that the guy who brought scary lady here is a stupid moron who isn't capable of stopping to think.

At this point, Annabeth notices that someone has driven a van over to the house and suggests that since the horse loving lady (monster) mentioned something about stables, that someone stick Riverwind into the van and bring him there. After thinking about it, the horse loving lady, named Honey, agrees. After a little negotiation, it's decided that one man, named Kyle (a normal human who's dating a male werewolf), will drive the van with the 2 kids and their mother along with Jesse with honey in the back, away from scary lady. Evidently, Kyle is a divorce attorney, and him and Warren are protecting them from her soon to be ex. It's decided that scary lady is more than enough to protect them and Jesse.

As they're leaving, the lady from the kitchen tells them to swing by her garage and tell someone named Tad to open without her.

Yay, crisis averted.

Mercy

Yay, Crisis is averted.

Sometimes I wish I had the powers of a werewolf (ok, all the time), I just don't want the disadvantages. But the stamina thing would be good right now, as I've now had five different times today were I've nearly had a heart attack. This day really sucks.

We all walk back to the patio as Adam is sending most of the wolves back to their homes. They're not really going to do as much good against these kids as they'd normally be in a fight, and their presence seems to be actively making the situation worse. As we sit, Adam introduces us formally. Present is Adam and myself, Daryl and Auriele, Warren, Sam, Tony, his partner Detective Molly Ringwall (she asks for no comments on her name), Ben (his continued presence caused a stir amongst the wolves of higher rank then him, but he's the only one who speaks Greek), as well as Paul and Mary Jo as soon as they come up from the basement.

The kids don't seem to like the presence of police, but they do seem intrigued by werewolves living openly amongst humans.

We also discover; all the kids except Rachel have ADHD, and Dyslexia. Oh joy, supernatural powerhouses with the attention span of a mayfly and a learning disability. Fate is such a wonderful being.

"My name is Perseus Jackson, please call me Percy." He still smells of the SEA the way he did before, but the smell of violence has receded. He's also in a much improved mood now that Adam has sent most of the pack home.

Next, invisible hat girl introduces herself; "I'm Annabeth Chase Jackson, wife of Percy for just over 3 weeks." When she first started the bit about being his wife, she was hesitant, like she wasn't sure she was telling the truth or not, but became positive by the end. They didn't look old enough to be married, but that doesn't mean much amongst supernaturals. Her magic smelled of owls, battle, cloth and weaving, carbon paper, electricity, storms and the open air.

Tiny Terror pipes up; "I thought that was just an excuse to throw a party. I didn't know it was real."

"Chiron is the only authority that matters for us in this regard, we're of age in our tradition, and my mother sent Percy an owl with some seaweed as a peace offering, and his dad sent me a pendent with a trident carried by an owl, so they accept it. We were planning on a more official ceremony for our other parents later, but that looks like it's never going to happen now."

I notice that Tony and Molly doesn't seem to thrilled with the whole 'only authority that matters' comment, but Tony at least seems to let it lie.

"Anyway, my name is Terry Yutu, nice to meet'cha." I about choke coughing. It dawns on me that I just made the same mistake that so many people make about me, I thought she was Hispanic. Her magic smells of grease and metal, sweat and the forge, but also of perfume and flowers with a dose of something I can't quite identify until I realize, it's power, undefined magic. Like a witch, only more powerful.

"I'm sorry" I say, "but I didn't realize you were a native at first. I really like your name. Coyote out hunting has a nice ring to it."

She manages to give me a dirty look. "My tribe is America and Olympus, the natives that you speak of would not accept me or my father for what we were. They were to racist to accept a half breed like my father, I rather doubt they'll accept a quarter breed like myself. They chose to ignore us; I have no problem ignoring them." I notice that the rest of the kids are looking at her in wonder, maybe they didn't know she was an Indian either. I also know how she feels.

"I'm Nico di Angelo." Nico said with no fanfare and little emotion. He was the scariest, his magic smelled of death, pure and simple. Except it wasn't, not really. In addition to death, he smelled of soil, rock, darkness, wealth, and oddly, of flowers and spring. I also got a better look at his suit. Adam has taught me the value of a good suit. Though Nico didn't seem to be that comfortable in it, he had a REALLY nice suit. If it wasn't for all the death symbolism, I'd have been more impressed then scared. Then again, maybe that was the point.

"I've already introduced myself, but for the new people, I'm Rachel Dare. And considering what happened last time, I'll forgo the offer of a hand shake. And yay; today is my 16th birthday."