Welcome to Olympus Has Fallen, an AU fanfic of Heroes of Olympus featuring edge-of-your-seat action, a thrilling yet faithful twist on Rick Riordan's beloved characters, and, of course, Percabeth. Lots and lots of Percabeth. This fanfic is rated M for profanity, moderate violence, mild to moderate sexual content, and other mature themes.
Disclaimer: I do not own PJO/HoO or any affiliated characters, nor am I making any profits from this fanfiction.
Chapter 1- Percy
Percy was having a really, really bad day.
Actually, he didn't remember what a normal bad day should have been like; in fact, he didn't remember much at all. What he did know was that whatever his actual daily routine had been before the big blackout, it didn't go as follows:
One- nearly dying in a fight against two old supermarket ladies who turned out to be highly trained assassins.
Two- stumbling half-dead upon what looked to be one of those hidden government bases in the movies, only to be immediately overrun by a dozen or so uniformed agents.
Three- incapacitating half of the aforementioned agents (though he had no idea how he accomplished that) before being brutally knocked out.
Four- waking up with the muzzle of a nine-millimeter handgun inches away from his face.
You have got to be fucking kidding.
Percy groaned as the blurriness slowly faded from his vision, allowing him to take in the scene. He was chained to the wall by cuffs on his ankles and wrists in a medium-sized room plated with grey metal, lit by a series of fluorescent lights dotting the ceiling. A solitary table with all sorts of odd implements sat in the nearest corner, across from the door at the far corner. Tiny holes dotted every wall, which translated to soundproofing- though he had no idea how he knew that. There were four people, all wearing the same black-and-purple military uniform, standing in a loose half-circle around him, and despite the headache pounding into his brain, his mind instantly kicked into hyperdrive, urging him to get as much information out of his surroundings as possible before answering any questions. This, he knew, was an interrogation.
The first one, standing to his left, was a silver-blond man roughly his age- twenty-two, he recalled- standing about five-ten, two inches shorter than himself. He was slender and toned; Percy would have judged him as fairly attractive if not for the odd sneer-scowl combination etched into his hard, angular facial features.
The second man made Percy's eyes nearly pop out of his head. He was Asian, slightly taller than Percy at around six-one- but could have easily outweighed him by a good sixty pounds. Though some of that weight might have been fat, the vast majority of it was pure muscle, which put Percy on alert. He recognized that physique as belonging to one of the agents who had restrained him when he had entered the building. But what really shocked Percy was what he looked like from the neck up; the man's youthful features wouldn't have been out of place on a fifteen-year-old Chinese-American schoolboy. For some odd reason, despite the fact that this bear of a human could have easily snapped his neck with one hand, Percy felt completely unthreatened. Perhaps it had something to do with the almost-apologetic look on the man's face, as if he were saying, Sorry for holding you down while my friends beat the shit out of you.
Right next to the burly Asian guy was a slim African-American girl. She was short, roughly five-three or five-four, with curly cinnamon-brown hair and the most unusual eyes he had ever seen, two ominous gold orbs that sent a shiver up his spine. She was beautiful, but Percy didn't feel attracted to her in the least bit. For one thing, she looked incredibly young- eighteen or nineteen at the oldest, even younger than the baby-faced Asian guy. He would have actually guessed fifteen, but he figured that she had to be older than that to be here. More importantly though, there was something unsettling about her, a melancholy that marred her elegant features. She had the eyes of a killer (don't ask how he knew) with none of the killing intent, as if she were somewhere between cold-blooded murderer and tortured victim.
The last person, though, was definitely the one he needed to pay attention to, and not only for the fact that she was the one aiming the gun at his head. She was in her early twenties and on the tall side, an inch or two shorter than the silver-haired man, with dark hair and tan olive skin; if he had to guess, he would have pegged her as having Hispanic blood. Her looks provided a stark contrast to the other girl's; instead of a soft, somber loveliness, this woman possessed what could only be described as a harsh beauty; her classical high cheekbones and piercing dark eyes reminded him of another girl that he knew but couldn't name; despite the fact that the mysterious grey-eyed blonde that plagued the back of his mind looked nothing like the woman in front of him, the same determination was written over both their faces. Percy was a natural when it came to reading body language, and everything about the dark-eyed girl- her confident posture, her calm, unwavering gaze- indicated that she was the leader of this bizarre group.
A simple look around only strengthened that suspicion; the blond man's shifty eyes seemed to flit between Percy and the tall girl, as if he wanted to do something horrible to him but had to wait for her permission. The other two- the big guy and the short girl- were standing close to each other, but both of them were looking toward the older girl with attentive anticipation.
Finally, the leader spoke, in an even voice:
"Who are you, and who do you work for?"
Fuck if I know, Percy thought before holding his tongue. He decided on a (slightly) tamer response.
"I'd like to know who exactly I have the pleasure of doing business with," he replied with the cheekiest smirk he could muster. His retort could very well earn him a beating- or worse- but Percy was simply too angry and too tired to care at this point.
"You're in no position to be making requests, you little-" the sneering blond man began before his superior cut him off.
"Silence, Octavian. His question isn't unreasonable; in fact, I'd ask the same if I were him. Besides, if he is working for Gaea, he won't be leaving here alive anyways."
Gaea? The name rang a bell, but just like everything else in his clustered, foggy mind, it was just out of reach, like he was tiptoeing to pluck an apple just a fraction of an inch too high to grasp.
"There's a lot of intel to sort through today, so why don't you get going? The three of us will be more than enough to get what we need from our guest," the tall girl coolly stated, her voice clearly implying a command and not a request. The blond- Octavian- looked like he was ready to argue, but after a tense silence he grunted and opened a well-concealed door before walking out of the room.
"My name is Reyna, and my associates here are Frank and Hazel. You seem fairly intelligent, so I'm assuming that you've already figured this out: we work for the government. That's all I can tell you for now, at least until you've answered a few of our questions. Let's start with something simple: your name," she finished.
"Percy," he replied immediately. Easy enough.
"Full name."
"Um…"Shit. "I- I don't know."
Percy's jaw tensed as Reyna thrust her gun dangerously close to his temple.
"You don't know your own name?" she growled. "You better come up with a better excuse than that or else we're going to have to clean your brains off that wall over there."
She pointed out the trajectory of his hypothetical brain-matter splash on the far wall, and Percy noticed that her subordinates weren't thrilled by the idea either. The big guy- Frank- visibly cringed, and even the small girl- Hazel- was looking down at her uniform shoes intently. Think harder, he urged himself. First thing that comes to mind…
"Jackson. That's my last name, I think. I'm Percy Jackson," he finally blurted. Yeah, that sounds right.
"You think?" Reyna scoffed.
That was the last straw. Fuck it all, Percy thought. He had kept the truth cooped up for the entire day, enduring the quizzical or even judgmental stares of passerby on the streets as he had unknowingly wandered toward the hidden base, mumbling his own first name just to make sure it was his. Add the beautiful mystery blonde, this whole damn interrogation, and the throbbing pain in his head, and he just couldn't keep it in any more. He didn't care if they shot him, threw him in the crazy bin for life, or even tortured him under suspicion of enemy espionage.
"I don't remember anything, okay? I woke up this morning and everything- everything about my life just went out the window, don't ask me how," he half-screamed.
A flicker of something- pity?- flashed across Reyna's face for just a split second before she returned to her steely disposition. Percy closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable bullet or, even worse, a command to Hazel and Frank to throw him in one of those government waterboarding cells.
For what seemed like forever, the room was deathly silent. Then Reyna spoke:
"What do you two think?"
Percy opened his eyes, slowly meeting Frank's gaze, then Hazel's.
"I for one don't think he's given us any reason to not trust him," Hazel stated with a light shrug. "When I woke from my, erm, accident, something similar happened to me. Though I never forgot my own name," she added.
"Well, I trust Hazel's judgment, so I'll second that," Frank said with a nod at Percy.
Reyna blinked before turning back to Percy. "Very well then. My associates don't sense that you're lying, and this"- she motioned to a silver-and-gold instrument on the table that Percy figured was some form of lie detection machine- "hasn't informed me to the contrary…yet. So tell me exactly what you do remember."
Percy swallowed, but he began. "I woke up at around noon-four or five hours ago on a bench in a park pretty far from here, maybe six to eight miles away. Nothing rang a bell, so I went east for about two or three miles until I ran into a supermarket outside the city. I asked somebody where exactly I was, but all they said was Berkeley, which sounds familiar, but I swear I've never been here exactly. That's when they attacked. And by they I mean those two crazy old ninja ladies that looked like tacky employees until one of them pulled a gun on me and I had to run-"
"Hold on," Reyna shouted, breaking his rant. "You're telling me there were two assassins waiting in a supermarket? And they were old women with concealed handguns?"
Percy grimaced; skepticism was written all over Reyna's pretty-but-terrifying countenance.
"He can vouch for me," Percy grunted with a nod toward Frank.
"Well, I did see two figures wearing running off in the distance. They did look like they were wearing a lot of random colors, but other than that, I couldn't make out anything. If they did have weapons, they definitely concealed them before coming into view," Frank said with a shrug.
Reyna didn't look entirely convinced, but she returned her gaze to Percy and nodded, signaling him to continue.
"I managed to run until I got here, and you know the story from there," he finished, looking up at his interrogator. Please believe me. Pretty please?
"So let me get this straight. Not only did you avoid getting shot by two Gaea assassins, you managed to escape them at close range, run a good fifth of a marathon, and then knock out a half-dozen of my men to top it off?"
Shit, that sounds even less plausible than I imagined it would, Percy mentally groaned, but all he could do was nod.
"I think my initial suspicions may have been correct," Reyna muttered, turning toward Frank and Hazel, who both nodded, seeming to be on the same page as their superior. "Never listen to Octavian, that paranoid bastard," she added, and Percy couldn't help but feel the urge to smile, though he managed to keep a straight face.
Reyna pulled out a small, round device from her pocket, bringing it up to her mouth. "Get me full background on Percy Jackson. Start with the CIA database, and search for A and B class agents."
CIA? Percy thought, an alarming chill creeping up his spine. They couldn't possibly think…
"Alright, I'm going to free you from the cuffs. Just in case you're planning some movie hero escape, don't even think about it. There are enough armed men in this building to kill you before you manage to take a single step outside this room. Besides, if you're not a criminal, you have nothing to fear from us."
Percy felt like a bobblehead, nodding for what seemed like the millionth time today.
Reyna tossed a ring of keys to Hazel, who deftly caught it before walking over to Percy. He breathed a sigh of relief when the last cuff sprang free and immediately fell to his ass, too exhausted to stand any longer.
"We're going to show you a collection of pictures and you're going to tell us if any of them look familiar to you. If you can give a name, any sort of identifier, do so immediately. Any information you give us might help us figure out who you are. If you value your memories, your past life, I would recommend you be as truthful as possible."
Frank grabbed a photo book sitting on the table, tossing it to Reyna, who then flipped open the cover to reveal the first page, a colored photo of a man Percy instantly recognized. He was roughly sixty, with a neatly trimmed greying-black beard and electric blue eyes.
"Everyone knows who this is," Percy mumbled. "That's Zachariah Evanston, the President of the United States."
"Have you ever heard the name Zeus?"
Suddenly, Percy felt as if he had been struck by a lightning bolt. It was as if one of the apples in his proverbial memory tree had dropped right into his waiting hands, and he had fallen over attempting to catch it.
"That- that's his other name, but I can't remember for my life how I know that," he replied, struggling to get the words out of his dry, tight throat. "I think I know him from something other than his TV speeches."
"Keep going," she said, flipping the page.
Next was a photo of a beautiful woman of about forty with cherry-red lips and lush blonde hair, all tidied up in a business suit.
"She looks familiar, but I can't put a name to her face," Percy stated truthfully.
"She used to be one of Hollywood's most prolific actresses, but nowadays Amy Delacroix is known as the president pro tempore of the U.S. senate. We call her-"
"Aphrodite," Percy mumbled in a horrified voice. Reyna nodded, her expression at this point horribly grim, but she flipped the page again, revealing a man with salt-pepper hair and mischievous light-blue eyes, dressed in in a suit with a twin-snake pin.
"This is Henry Montague, the White House's Director of Communications."
"Hermes," he instantly replied.
Flip. A middle-aged woman with golden-blonde hair and a warm smile. "Dorene Thomas, Secretary of Agriculture."
"Demeter."
Flip. A slightly pudgy man, roughly forty, with curly black hair and a tacky Hawaiian shirt. "Derek Sutton, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration."
"Dionysus. Ugh." A wave of nausea struck Percy; this man was a little too familiar, and he felt a sudden desire to punch the picture of the smug bastard.
Flip. A woman, roughly fifty, with slightly greying black hair and piercing grey eyes. "Adelaide Nantes, Attorney General."
"Athena," Percy responded, though he felt especially wary about her. "Her eyes remind me of a girl I think I know."
Reyna shot him a perplexed glare but apparently didn't think too much of it.
Flip. A hillbilly-esque middle-aged man with coarse brown hair in a commercial, holding a hammer and smiling. "Harry Steiner, former CEO of Forge Industries and the new Secretary of State."
"Hephaesus. Wait, a former business magnate is Secretary of State? Doesn't that scream corruption-"
Glare.
Flip. An even more hillbilly-esque man with a crew cut and red-tinted sunglasses. "Armond Butte, General of the Army."
"Ares."
Percy didn't see exactly where this was heading, other than a frightening level of shock at his recognition of all these government officials. He didn't remember the details, but he knew that wherever he had obtained his education, he was far from the top of the class. So why did he remember all this, now of all times? Still, Reyna did have a gun, and as far as interrogations went, this one hadn't been all that bad so far.
Flip. A silver-haired woman of about fifty-five wearing an elegant white dress. "Harriet Evanston, First Lady of the United States."
"Hera. Wait, I feel like I've seen her recently, but I can't remember anything. Shit," he cursed.
If Reyna cared, she didn't make any indication, seemingly caught up in thought. Before long, she snapped out of it.
Flip, two pictures side-by-side. Twins by the looks of it, an auburn-haired woman and a sand-blond man with almost identical facial features. "Archer and Andon Soltis, an odd brother-sister team. Archer's the leader of a certain national SWAT team, and Andon's the current Secretary of Energy."
"Artemis and Apollo. That SWAT team, I've run into them before. They- they're called the Hunters."
Reyna sighed. "Yes, and the fact that you know that organization's name at all is a very, very bad sign. There's just one more picture, and if my suspicions are correct, this one will prove…interesting."
She tossed Percy the album, and his heart nearly stopped when he flipped to the last page.
The photo showed a uniformed man with black hair, a scruffy shadow of a beard, and bluish-green eyes. His smile threatened to bring hot, angry tears to Percy's eyes, and Reyna seemed to notice.
"I take it you don't need any help remembering who this is?"
A giant, unpleasant chunk of his past slammed into Percy's consciousness. No wonder Zeus looked so familiar.
"Peter Evanston, the first Admiral of the Navy in almost two hundred years. He's called Poseidon, and…"
Reyna nodded, gently urging him to continue. It took him every ounce of effort to continue.
"And he's my father."
"Fuck."
It was the first time he had heard the otherwise calm Reyna curse; she had stopped the interrogation then and there, apparently deciding that he wasn't an enemy after all.
A tall, curly-haired man named Dakota had shown Percy around his temporary quarters. He had taken a much-needed shower and grabbed a snack bar from the vending machine (which just dispensed snacks without requiring money, strangely enough).
Percy looked around the room he had been assigned- nothing fancy, but comfortable enough with its oddly Roman-esque décor. He wondered how exactly he knew that.
"Annabeth," he yawned as he plopped down onto the bed before freezing.
Wait, WHAT? Who the hell is Annabeth?
Immediately, he was mentally assaulted by an old image of an excited girl by his side. They were standing in a museum, him behind her as she showed him a Roman fresco, before she turned and smirked.
No. No way, Mystery Blonde? Her name's Annabeth? Is she my-…
Percy's train of thought was rudely interrupted by a knock on his door.
It was Dakota again, slurping from a water bottle filled with red liquid. Wine? No, Kool-Aid? Weird.
"Reyna wants to talk to you," he casually stated, though Percy knew full well that there was nothing casual at all about the order he had just been given.
He reluctantly got up and followed Dakota down the hall.
When Percy finally arrived at the designated room, he immediately knew something was up.
Reyna was waiting inside, sitting at a mahogany desk and looking out the window. She wasn't dressed in her uniform; instead, she wore a simple purple t-shirt exactly like the one Dakota had included in his fresh change of clothes, which strangely put him on edge.
What is this, Twins Day?
"Please sit," she declared while turning in her swivel chair to face him, her expression calm but serious.
He took the identical chair in front of the desk, noticing the thick metal door automatically closing behind him. Now that he was inside the room, he had to admit that it looked quite nice, with a Roman touch not unlike the decorations in his quarters.
"I figure that it's only fair that I answer your questions, seeing as how I was a bit, er, hasty asking mine. Forgive me, but I was quite angry and confused when you first appeared on our doorstep. Well, I'm still quite confused, but I've had some time to cool down," she stated with a wry smirk that Percy figured was as close to a smile as he'd seen from the composed girl.
"First of all, who are you?"
"I'm Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano."
"No, I mean- er, wait. Why do those two- Hazel and Frank- call you by your first name? I mean, I'm no expert on this, but you're obviously their boss, right?"
She actually did smile, which made Percy's eyebrows nearly touch the roof.
"My surname's a mouthful, and people butcher it anyways. I prefer to go by just Reyna, even to my subordinates."
"Subordinates? So you do work for the government," Percy replied.
"Yes, but that's complicated. I'm assuming you're wondering about those pictures I showed you, right?"
He silently nodded.
"The we'll start there. Do you mind if I call you Percy?"
"Not at all, Reyna," he shot back with a smirk, earning a dry eyebrow-pushup from the apparently humorless woman in front of him.
"Anyways, Percy- does the name Olympus ring a bell?"
He felt his eyes widen as the familiar chill of recognition ran up his back.
"Yes, but I-"
"You don't remember exactly."
"You know the drill."
"Those twelve very influential people I showed you- including the man you claim is your father- comprise a secret U.S. council."
"Olympus," Percy whispered. Suddenly, he felt the urge to drink a gallon of water to quench his dry throat.
"Yes. They control a surprising amount of government policy between them, and they directly deal with every covert organization in the country, including this one. Before I explain what I do, I need you to know what we're up against."
"Wait, hold on. We?"
"Percy, you'll have to trust me on this. If my guess is right, you're a government official as well, possibly even one outranking me."
His heart clenched. He couldn't accept that answer; no, a big part of him wanted to reassure himself that he was an ordinary person with a happy life and a Mystery Blonde girlfriend named Annabeth.
An ordinary person who can disable six armed agents, avoid trained assassins, and recall what looked to be codenames of government officials. Right. Fuck.
"Right, I'll continue then," Reyna hesitantly stated, seemingly sensing Percy's distress. "Two weeks ago, these twelve- arguably the twelve most influential people in the country- simply disappeared. To put this in perspective, those names you remembered, the Greek gods? Those are only half of their codename system; the other half is Roman. Only the highest-ranking government officials know both sets of codenames, let alone one or the other. If it puts your mind at ease, at least we can rule out you being one of the Secretaries," she says with a dry chuckle.
Percy didn't laugh.
"Anyways, one week later- last week, that is- we received an encrypted transmission from an unknown sender somewhere in southern Europe. They claimed that they had the Olympus Council in their possession, naming each one by legal name and both codenames, and finishing with a statement that they would act again soon. Those two assassins you ran into? We suspect that they're part of the same organization that sent the message."
"Gaea," Percy breathed.
"So they call themselves. We believe that they are indeed for the kidnapping of the members of the Olympus Council, and possibly indirectly responsible for the disappearance of our other leader, a man named Jason Grace. He disappeared exactly two days ago going to a secret meeting."
She turned around a portrait on her desk, revealing a blond man- handsome, tall, with electric blue eyes and a scar on the corner of his lip. He looked oddly familiar despite the fact that Percy was convinced he had never known a Jason Grace in his life. He wanted to ask if this man was her boyfriend, but quickly dismissed that idea; though Reyna didn't have a gun to his face any more, he had to admit that she still scared the shit out of him.
"And you believe my appearance here had something to do with it?" Percy asked, his curiosity finally besting his self-preservation.
"That meeting place? It was in the middle of Willard Park, the very location where you allegedly woke up at noon."
Percy's heartbeat sped up. He felt like he was on the verge of an epiphany but simply couldn't reach far enough into his addled brain. Finally he shook his head, deciding to continue.
"I've already told you all I know. Now I want to know something you've been avoiding telling me this entire time: what the hell is this?" he gritted, gesturing to the entire room.
"I'm assuming you don't mean my sense of style," Reyna replied with her now-trademark dry smile. "You won't believe me."
"Try me."
"You're sitting in the office of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Percy nearly fell out of his chair. "The fucking FBI? That organization was dissolved long before either of us had been born," he spat with conviction, though he had no idea how exactly he knew that.
"Not exactly. Back in 2037 the FBI was officially disbanded- and for good reason, too- but Olympus secretly moved to keep a small branch underground for- well, let's say selfish purposes. You said Peter Evanston was your father, right? You should be able to figure it out."
"Wait. You're telling me- you're telling me the FBI is where the members of Olympus send illegitimate children to hide their existence from the world?"
"Bingo. As far as the outside world is concerned, people like you and I don't exist. The question, though, is how you've managed to acquire your set of skills without ever having been in this organization. I originally thought you were CIA; your fighting style and proficiency reminded me of those of an S-class agent, but there's only fifteen of them in the world, all known."
"Hold on-"
"My mother," she interrupted, still rambling- can she read minds?- "was Isabella Arellano, an associate of Olympus who went by Bellona. She's dead."
A realization struck Percy. "So that's why you don't like going by your last name."
Reyna bristled. "It's part of the reason. Spanish naming customs are pretty stupid, if you ask me. Anyways, back to you. I told Octavian to search for a Percy Jackson in various government databases with no results whatsoever. Afterwards, though, a thought came to me: since you apparently struggled to remember your own name, I realized that your legal name may not have been Percy at all. I need you to think hard; did you ever go by any other name?"
She slid a small touchpad computer from her side of the desk to his, and he swallowed as he stared at the screen.
In the middle sat a giant search bar.
He typed in "Percy Jackson."
Two seconds, zero results.
He began typing his name again, but stopped after "P."
What else could his name be?
Wait.
"You said the other director of this organization-" he paused, before continuing hesitantly- "was named Jason, right? Who were his parents?"
Reyna's eyes widened. "Oh gods, his father was Jupiter, or Zeus to you. That makes you two cousins in a weird way, doesn't it?"
Percy cringed at the thought of the blond pretty-boy on the desk being related to him, but he continued.
"That's not what I was getting at. Zeus named his son Jason; that's the name of an ancient demigod hero, isn't it?"
"The son of the actual god Zeus," she replied.
"What if his younger brother followed suit?"
Reyna's eyes slowly widened. "You don't think-"
Percy grabbed the tablet, and with shaking hands, typed in, letter by agonizing letter:
PERSEUS JACKSON.
Reyna silently grabbed the device, pressing the enter button once.
Two seconds.
Then the tablet dropped straight from Reyna's hands onto the table.
Percy picked it up, and on the screen:
PERSEUS JACKSON, CIA. DIVISION: UNKNOWN
CLASS (D, C, B, A, S): S
And finally, three letters:
C H B