I do not own Destiny or Percy Jackson, I only own my OCs.
"Hello Readers, R.O.W. here bringing you the intro for the next chapter of "Heralds Of The Traveler". Just want to say that Me, Slim and Rogue all appreciate you guys for taking your time out of your day to read our stories and listening to your opinions on the stories as well as answering any questions. Anywho before we get to the story lets answer some reviews.
guest- To be honest Artemis Doesn't like men and even though her hunter attacked first, she believes that Orion is a possible threat. This combined with her personal dislike of males gives her the idea that she is justified to be angry even though Orion didn't attack first.
RustyLion and Khoashex- Thanks we appreciate it that you guys are enjoying the story. We apologize if updates take awhile and hope you understand that sometimes we might not be able to get to things. We do hope you enjoy this latest chapter in the meantime till the next chapter.
And that's all the latest Reviews, Now onto the latest chapter of "Heralds Of The Traveler", we do hope you enjoy.
The sun had set over the City That Nevers Sleeps, people still walked the streets and cars still crowded the roads. However, there was one street that was devoid of any human life as the mist was keeping any from wandering in. The king and queen of Olympus walked down the street, the latter having her arm around the former's arm. After the shouting match they had Zeus asked his wife out on a date as a way to make up.
Zeus was planning on taking Hera to a restaurant that he had found a few months ago. Said restaurant had Greek food that he found to be satisfying, even if they were missing a few key ingredients. There was also the small fact that the manager was very attractive, but that didn't matter right now. Luckily for him he had yet to make any moves on her so his wife would be none the wiser.
"It is a lovely night." Hera said looking up at the sky and the lights on the buildings around them. "The mortals have come a long way since the glory days of Greece."
"I still prefer the days in Greece." Zeus added. "The mortals still prayed and feared us, now they think we are mere legends. We could smite over a dozen mortals and no one would care, now they are protecting the children and worrying about each other's feelings. They are not what they used to be."
"There is nothing wrong with protecting the weak husband." Hera replied evenly, after all protecting one's offspring was a part of being a parent. "For the children are the adults of tomorrow, but I do miss the worship of the mortals."
As the couple turned the street corner and the mist instantly went to work causing all the mortals on the street to get out of the way. All but one, a man who was standing at a shop window watching the televisions set to the history channel. Hera noticed that this man was not affected by the mist and seemed to have a warm presence about him, like that of a campfire. He also had an eye patch over his left eye, a war veteran perhaps but he looks so young.
As they passed the mortal the two saws that the mortal was watching a program about ancient Greece. The man on the screen was talking about them, putting a slight smile to the gods' faces. However, it quickly fell when the man spoke.
"Seams like a bunch of children on a high with power to me." The man said to himself.
The two gods did not take the comment well, Hera was the only one who was able to show some semblance of control. Zeus, on the other hand, did not. Letting go of his wife's hand and marching over to the mortal who dare call him a child. Hera tried to go after her husband, but by the time she was about to call out to him Zeus had grabbed the mortal's shoulder, spun him around and punched him in the gut. The force behind the punch sent the mortal into the window behind him and into the brick wall, which collapsed and buried him in ruble.
"Zeus!" Hera yelled at her husband. "We were supposed to be going on a date, not smiting a mortal!"
Zeus fixed his posture and turned back to his wife. "He had it coming."
Zeus began to walk back to his wife but stopped when something deathly hot warped around his neck. Before he knew it he was pulled back with unnatural strength, his feet left the floor as he was pulled back. He was only able to catch a quick glance at the person holding the chain around his neck before being punched in the gut. The power behind the punch caused the god to vomit before he was sent flying into the air.
Zeus was flung out of the city and into the forest on the outskirts of the city where he landed with an earthshaking crash, leaving Hera alone with whatever hit her husband. Hera slowly turned around to see a… male humanoid creature standing in the store, its left eye glowing red and a burning chain warped around his right arm. The goddess slowly backed up as the creature began to move forward into the light.
Just as it stepped into the light Hera noticed that he was now in full body black armor. His helmet looking something akin to a robotic helmet. The armored creature stopped Infront of the goddess easily towering over her.
"Run." He ordered in a monstrous voice.
And she did, forgetting who she was Hera turned and ran as fast as her legs would carry her. She dare not look back. With the goddess fleeing the armored creature turned and walked into an alleyway before, completely unaware of the being it had just unintentional released and what was now following it.
Osiris had been in the city's main library for a while now, for a guardian any ways. In truth, he had been reading the contents of each and every book of value he could find within the past five days. He avoided the staff during afterhours by teleporting to another area of the library whenever one got close. He also had to kill a few monsters that were drawn to his light power. He had dealt with them in a flick of his hand as these monsters were far weaker than what he had to deal with in the Infinite Forest.
"Excuse me?"
Being a guardian, he was capable of reading someone once and committing it to memory perfectly. He also had his ghost going through some of the less important books as she became bored with all the history books Osiris was reading. He was planning on making an archive of important information in a secret location in case they failed in preventing The Collapse from happening, at least now all the knowledge of pre-golden age history would not be lost.
"Excuse me?"
After he was done here, he would be being scouting out the three locations he found, then he would start building his organization. It would be easy to convince the people on his list seeing as most of them were working a low-income job. Some would be harder as they were materialists and would need to be convinced of the world they could not see yet, but as the saying goes, 'seeing is believing' and Osiris was more than capable of making them see.
"Excuse me!"
Against his wishes, Sagira had used his light to make him appear younger again. He had let his body take on an older look as he did not care how he appeared to other people, as long as his body was strong he was fine with it. He had grown used to his older appearance and did not want to change it, but that did not stop Sagira who claimed "he needed to meet people".
'Osiris, I know you're in your zone, so you probably haven't noticed, but there is this woman that has been trying to get your attention for the past ten minutes." Sagira said into her guardian's mind.
'I do not have time for her Sagira I still have-'
'Did I mention she is giving off a lot of energy similar to those monsters you have been killing.' Sagira cut in. 'Its also getting stronger so I think you might want to talk to her before she starts attacking. If these readings are right then she is no pushover, she might be strong enough to kill you more than once.'
That gave the warlock pause, how did he not notice this? He noticed the monsters as soon as they entered the building. How did this woman escape his senses and Sagira's sensor? If this woman was as powerful as Sagira claimed to be then he needed to kill her before she could strike or speak with her and attempt to get her to leave willingly.
Osiris closed the books he was reading with his and turned to face the woman who had been trying to get his attention. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, her skin was clear of blemishes, and she was well portioned. Her eyes were a stormy gray and her brown hair was long and full of life. To any man, a beautiful woman no doubt.
But that was not the only thing.
This woman was well built, reminding the warlock of a female titan. Her arms had plenty of muscle on them and her posture was that of a warrior's. Strong, ready to burst into motion at any moment. However, what caught the warlock's attention was her eyes. They were very old and very intelligent eyes, similar to his own.
He was beginning to believe his ghost's claims about this woman. He told Sagira to have his armor and weapons ready on standby.
"What do you want?" Osiris asked his mouth moving into a frown, while slowly raising his light level.
Athena was on the verge of losing her patience, this mortal had been ignoring her for the past ten minutes. The only reason the mortal wasn't some animal at the moment was because she knew how focused one could get while in the mood of absorbing knowledge. After the revelation that fade was no more, the goddess of wisdom needed some time to think about what this meant for her and her children. However, that all came to a stop when she felt the presence of a very smart being lurking around her.
After walking around the city for a short time she finally found the location of the presence she felt. A smile came to her face when she found the being was in the library, the same smile then disappeared once she noticed all the golden dust on the ground. Whatever was in there was both strong enough to not have to worry about the monster coming after it. When she entered, she found that the being was teleporting around the library and the mortals were none the wiser of its movement, but Athena was no mortal.
She was able to track down presence and found a mortal with some level of power lying within him. He was a handsome man in his early thirties. His hair was short black hair and gray eyes similar to her own. Then there were the clothes he was wearing. A vestment was not something people were wearing anymore outside of religious buildings.
She attempted to get his attention, but he ignored her and continued walking through the library teleporting to other places of the library when needed. Bring her to the present, he had closed the book he had been reading and turned to face her. He quickly started to scan her form taking in every detail of her body and committing it to memory. However, unlike most men who looked at her, she was not getting a perverted looking stare from him. No, this stare was one of threat assessment.
It was then he spoke, Athena also noticed that the power she was detecting was getting stronger. "What do you want?"
"I have been trying to get your attention for the past ten minutes." Athena said while calming herself as not to smite the mortal on the spot.
"If you hadn't noticed I was busy, there is a lot for me to do and little time to do it." The man countered crossing his arms.
That struck her as odd, what could he be so hell bent on doing? This man was starting to become interesting. Such a thing may have saved his life.
"Oh, and what is so important that would cause you to ignore a beautiful woman?" She asked smiling a little bit, after ignoring her so much she felt it far to tease him slightly.
"I doubt you have an interest on the subject. Most beautiful women tend to be put off by it." He said before turning and walking away, reopening his book to begin reading again.
'Not so fast.' Athena thought knowing the tactic this man was using to get rid of her. She walked after the man making sure to keep pace with him, if he believed her to be mortal then he would not risk teleporting while he was in her direct line of sight.
The goddess soon caught up with him. "And what makes you assume that I am like most women? I would have you know that I am expert on Mythology and History."
This caused the man to stop and close his book again.
Athena inwardly smiled; this mortal had no idea who he was dealing with. There were so many ways she could get him to talk, so many tricks she could employ to get him to talk. One way or another this mortal was going to tell her why he was so fixated on learning so much.
He turned to her. "The world will be coming to an end as we know it very soon, and knowledge must be preserved before it its lost forever-"
Oh, he's trying to come off as crazy how cute. She knew full well that this man was sane, it didn't take her being a goddess to know that. He was not one of those mortals who tried to trick people into giving them money. No he was much different.
"Even now the Darkness approaches."
That gave her pause. She remembered Apollo's ramblings; she was sure he mentioned something about the darkness. Did this man have something to do with the fates? But that was impossible, he did not have nearly enough power to defy them. Unless he was hiding it somehow.
"And what is this Darkness? Why are you so worried about it?" She needed to know more.
He was about to respond when his phone began to ring.
'Saved by the bell.' She thought.
He took the phone out robe and flicked it open. "Osiris."
That was an odd name to have. Not many were named after gods, even less so ones from Egypt. Then the mortal did something that sent her into another loop. He switched his language. Normally this would not be a problem for her seeing as she could understand any language on Earth. However, this language was new. She had never heard of such a language, it almost sounds like a mixture of multiple different languages already spoken on Earth.
He went back and forth with the other person on the phone for a few minutes before he closed it and turned to her.
"I need to go." He said before he quickly started to move.
Athena quickly went after him, but he turned the corner and teleported away. Athena but back a curse. He was not going to lose her so easily.
Orion removed his combat knife from his most recent kill, a female humanoid monster that had the leg of a goat while the other leg was made from metal. It tried to seduce him and get him to come into a more hidden area. He played along until she tried to suck his blood out, after that it became a short fight before the monster found a knife in its head.
She wasn't very strong and not very fast. Orion had his knife in her jugular before she even registered his movement. In a second flat she was on the ground and dead in the next. Not his fastest kill but still it was a sloppy kill, in all fairness he could have ended her life in a millisecond.
After the meeting with the two guardians, Orion went on a walk into the forest. He wanted to enjoy the wild lands of this time as he only knew the wild lands of a decimated earth. Seeing skeletons and ruins of towns and villages were common. It was nice to see a more peaceful world, but as if the darkness itself was watching monsters soon began to come after him.
The hunter flicked the blood off his knife just in time to see the monster turn to golden dust, something he found all the monster doing if he did not kill it with his light. He had no idea why these things were turning to dust when he killed them, but he was beginning to think it was some kind of recall. Like whenever the minions saw their leader died, they would all turn tail and teleport away.
He looked back to all the other piles of golden dust that used to be a monster. As of now he had to killed at least twenty different types of monsters, all of them claiming him to be a demigod. A statement that was not entirely unfounded, depending on if you believed the Traveler was a god or not. For the few that did believe the Traveler to be a god did call the guardians its demigod, while the rest of humanity were the adopted children. In all honesty, he really didn't pay attention to them whenever he came across those people.
At the end of the day it didn't matter if he was a demigod or not, he was a hunter the eyes and ears of the Traveler. As long as there was breath in his lungs and light in his body, he would make sure humanity survived no matter what. Even if he had to spend the next six-hundred years hunting down these monsters just to make humanity safe from them he would.
Orion slipped his knife back into its sheath then continued on his little walk but stopped when he felt the presence of something like the monsters creeping up on him. Spinning around, the hunter took a trapping grenade from his belt and threw it at the presence. The sound of a female pitched cry of surprise went off soon after the grenade activated. The hunter rushed over to the sound, drawing his hand cannon as he went, whatever this thing was, it was about to die. As he rounded a rather large tree Orion found the source of the voice his hand cannon leveled with her head.
Suspended in the air by void energy Orion saw the creature who had been stalking him. she had a humanoid appearance but pointed elf-like ears and green skin which kept the hunter from lowering his gun. It didn't look hostile, but the hunter had years of experience that told him otherwise.
She was trying to get out of the void trap, but with the trap suspending her in the air there was nothing she could do to get out. She didn't have anything to throw on her so she could not destroy the grenade, and even if she could reach one of the branches around her, she would need a lot of pure physical strength to pull herself out.
As the creature stuck in his trap Orion opted to get a little information out of the creature. He slowly approached it his gun raised just in case this thing had a trick up her… well she didn't have sleeves it was more of a leafy sleeveless shirt and shorts.
"So, what kind of fucked up amalgamation of animals do you turn into?" Orion asked as he got near the creature. "You're the first green monster I have run into, you some kind of killer plant?"
"I am not a monster!" She cried out still trying to get out of the void trap. "I am a Dryad, a tree spirit!"
"A tree spirit you say, so then where is your tree?" Orion ask not buying the Dryad's. "I would imagine you would rather stay near your tree, why come out now?"
"I saw all the monster coming after you, so I thought you were a demigod. I wanted to help you get to Camp Half-Blood so you wouldn't have to fight all the time just to stay alive."
The guardian took pause at that she was saying. Orion remembered finding an old cache from the pre-Golden Age not long after he became a guardian. The mast majority of the data told of beings of great power who ruled over certain aspects of nature, such as the ocean, sky, or earth. He really didn't hold onto the data for long as there were more important things to worry about then some long gone gods. Was it possible that this dryad was referring to the same gods in the data vault?
If this was true, then what would cause some problems if what data said about these gods were true. For one, these gods were spiteful and wouldn't think twice about wiping out a whole city just because it made their godly balls tingle. Furthermore, if these gods had mini versions of themselves running around then they had an advantage in numbers that they sorely lacked. Even if he and his guardian brothers were able to match these gods blow for blow then they could just as easily sic their children on them.
'What do you think Dewi?' Orion asked his ghost partner.
'I have been using the internet to skim through information about these gods, and I must say the large majority of gods in a lot of different pantheons are a bunch of assholes. If these beings do exist, then we might have more than just the darkness to deal with.'
'So, we play it all sneaky like until we can gather enough numbers to stand up to these things?'
'Or play them against each other, by eliminating key gods and goddess I can bet all my light that these things will start in-fighting. I can start composing a list of possible assassination targets when we build our numbers.'
'But first we need to know which set of gods we're dealing with here.' Orion said thinking about just what they would need to take these guys on in ways that would matter. 'I would rather not start killing targets and getting these guys to come together just to get rid of us.'
"Hey tree ghost-"
"Dryad!"
"What gods were you referring to just now?"
The dryad gave the guardian a confused look, like the answer to his question was common knowledge.
"The Greek gods, who else?"
Getting a set of commands from the caster, the void tap deactivated causing the dryad to fall to the ground. She let out a squeak of pain as she hit the ground roughly as she was getting up she was stopped when she found the barrel of a gun pressed up against her forehead.
"I think this goes without saying but I would rather you not tell anyone about me." Orion said seriously. "I would rather not spend a good day hunting down a loose end if you catch my drift. And let me be clear, tI will only take me a day to find you again."
With the threat made, Orion holstered his hand cannon and turned to leave. Frightened by the death threat the dryad was only able to ask one question as the man walked away.
"What are you?"
"Call me hunter." Orion answered as he kept walking away from the dryad.
The guardians phone started to go of moments after he left the area. Slim was calling for a meeting. The guardian sighed it was one thing after another in this world, at least back in his time period he had some time to walk around before running into something else that wanted to kill him or a mission for him to complete.
'Oh, that smarts.' I hissed in my head as I found a sturdy looking bench to sit down at. I was able to make it to a housing part of the city. Queens if I wasn't mistaken.
That guy who punched me out of nowhere really did a number on my body. The pain was still there even after the sun had come up and I was able to get out of the area where I was attacked. I mean I'm used to a random punch from another titan here and there but seriously we never tried to punch each other through buildings.
And to make matters worse a fly was flying around my head ever since. It wasn't landing on me looking for food it was just flying in circles around my head as if it just found the mother of all weapons. I tried to swat it away for a while now. But it always seemed to dodge my hand, or it just flew away from my reach just to come back when I got tired of swinging my hands around. So, I just ignored it as it flew around my head.
I leaned back in the bench my face twisting as the pain shot through my torso.
'Hey Slim Osiris and Orion are on there way. Orion said he needs to lose some woman before he comes here.' Sid reported. 'Orion should be here first.'
'Great, can you get rid of this pain while you're at it.'
'Yeah, I have been working on that.'
'Then why in the Travelers name does it still hurt like a bitch!'
'Well I have my theories on that. You see you not hurting from the force of the hit, seems like he did some electrical burn damage to you. That's what your feeling right now, damage like this would have vaporized a normal human and killed a lesser guardian." Sid said appearing beside me half-way through his explanation.
"So, this guy wasn't human is what you're saying." I asked in which my ghost nodded.
"That woman that was with him wasn't human either, I was able to pick up a spike in energy when you hit that guy across the city."
"Should have hit him harder." I commended.
"The point is that these two will be wanting to know more about us, so-"
"We need to move our base of operations." Orion said walking out of an alleyway. "And I would have to agree with your ghost Slim. This place is too hot I had to kill another few dozen monsters on my way over here. These Traveler damn things are all over the place, I can't take a dump without having to put a round in something's head."
"I do not need the image in my head thank you." I quickly added trying to banished that image. "Also, you got here fast."
"I was driving over the river at full speed on my sparrow, of course I got here fast." Orion replied taking a seat next to me. "So that fucked you up, you look like you got hit by Orix."
I rolled my eyes. "Some asshole who I sent flying out of the city, courtesy of my fist."
"Then we best be moving fast." Osiris said transmitting in. "And we better do it now."
"Damn everyone is just popping up now." I said humorously. "Is Shaxx here? Bet he is looking for more rings to have us fight in."
"No, he is not," Osiris said dead serious. "I had to go by the Empire State Building just to lose what thing was following me, and I made a discovery."
"That your bad with Women?" Orion jumped in.
"Speak for yourself, my guardian can be quite the smooth talker." Sagira countered appearing by here guardian.
"That is not important right now!" Osiris called angrily. "While I was there I found an entire mountain city hovering above the skyscraper."
I raised an eyebrow at that, last time I checked there wasn't a mountain with buildings on it hovering over the Empire State. I mean I think I would have seen that. Seeing our doubts on his claims Osiris nodded to his ghost. She turned towards the Empire State and started to project a circle of light energy. As soon as the "window" of light energy fully formed the peak of a mountain with older styled buildings on it started to take shape.
"What the." I felt my words die in my mouth as I looked at the mountain peak hovering over the Empire State Building.
"Now you see," Osiris began looking at the mountain peak. "There is a very thick energy hiding the mountain from the naked eye, however if we concentrate our light then we are able to roll back the shadows hiding that place."
I stood up, forgetting the pain in my torso. I looked at the mountain hovering over the city, in a way It kinda reminded me of the Traveler back home. But I had a feeling that this mountain was not housing a benevolent being or beings. Something about that mountain did not sit right with me.
However, my thoughts turned murderous when the house proximity sensors went off. Looks like the monsters didn't get the message.
Oliva was looking out the living room window. Mhyrixis said that she would be safe in this house, but… even now a bunch of monsters were coming for her. She was starting to get scared again and the others were not here to help her.
"Be claim child." The dark halberd spoke. "They will not get far."
That's when the area around the house began to burn.
"Man things are really starting to shape up. Zeus and Hera's first encounter with Slim didn't end so well for the two and will be on the lookout for the 'mortal who dare strike a god'. Meanwhile Athena is now interested in Osiris who is trying to preserve pre-golden era knowledge in case they can't prevent the collapse from happening so expect things to get interesting. As for Orion he now is starting to suspect that the Greek gods could potentially be real and a threat so he is starting to prepare for them. How will things go down? Will Slim and friends be able to prevent the collapse? Will they end up butting heads with the Greek Gods? Find out next time in the next chapter of "Heralds Of The Travelers".
Special thanks to my Crew: ZoDiAcKiLlEr315 and Rouge-eL
God Bless and be sure to give our lovable dragon belly rubs for all his hard work!