Shin'en's Youngest Nephew
I'm going to be speeding things along here, because there's no point in dragging this story out with two weeks of filler, and honestly no way to even do that with Shin'en around. Enough groundwork has been set, I believe.
I don't know if this will be the penultimate chapter, but things are definitely in the final stages.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or RWBY
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In the streets of Atlas was a young boy that looked eight years old. His hair was either black with blonde streaks or blonde with black streaks, slightly curly and definitely messy. His left eye was an unnaturally bright silver, and his right eye was a dark, stormcloud grey. He was dressed as if from Medieval Europe, and as nobility at that. Black trousers tucked into black boots with buckles made of gold; a purple silk shirt underneath a black leather jerkin secured with more gold, with golden embroidery throughout the garment. A black belt complete with another golden buckle went around the boy's waist, and secured to that belt was a large dagger in an ornate scabbard.
"This is definitely not the Empire…" the boy said to himself. "But it certainly can become part of it!"
He went up to the first person he saw, actually an off-duty officer in the Atlesian military with a couple of friends.
"Excuse me, sir!"
"Sir? My pronouns are she and her!"
"Oh, you're one of those people….Got it. You're mentally ill."
"Hey! Who do you think-"
There was a flash of light and then a spray of blood as heads were removed from their shoulders in a motion that was too fast to follow. Before the bodies hit the floor, the homicidal young man was already accosting the next person.
"Excuse me, ma'am!"
"Yes—ahhhhhh!"
She saw the corpses and ran. Her scream alerted the rest of the general public to the commotion, and they all screamed and ran too.
"Ugh, it's just some dead bodies," the boy rolled his eyes. "Hardly anything to fuss over."
The sound of approaching sirens rang between the buildings as emergency vehicles quickly arrived on the scene. The thing was, these emergency vehicles were all Manta-class aircraft.
The boy's mismatched eyes lit up. "Incredible~! Mama told me about things like that. She also told me about cities like this…did I end up in her old world with all those abnormal folk? Eww."
He saw the side door open up on one of the aircraft, and jumped right up into the passenger bay, scaring the hell out of the soldiers.
"Hey! Who's the leader of this place? I desire a conversation with him about being annexed into my Dad's Empire."
"Who the hell are you!?" one of the soldiers demanded, his gun in the boy's face.
"Oh! My apologies, sir! My name is Aristotle Jackson. My Mom wanted to name me that, but everyone calls me Ari."
He pronounced it like "awr-ee."
"Now if you would kindly point me in the right direction to your highest-ranking leader," Ari continued.
"Not gonna happen!"
"Have it your way, then."
The brave soldier went flying through the closed bay door on the opposite side of the Manta, as did the other two soldiers.
Ari got up to the cockpit and wrapped his small hand around the throat of the pilot, making her choke as she tried to swallow out of fear.
"Take me to your leader," Ari growled, his mismatched eyes momentarily turning the same color: a ferocious, blazing gold with horizontal slits for pupils.
The pilot squeaked and almost pissed herself as she pushed the joystick in the direction of Atlas Academy. She'd rather catch hell from General Ironwood than continue dealing with whatever freak this was supposed to be. Of course, that didn't mean she didn't hit the general alert button on her joystick to send the message that she was coming compromised and there needed to be a response team ready and waiting.
It was a short flight from the area in Mantle where Ari had mysteriously dropped into and Atlas Academy. The pilot calmly flew into the hanger bay that flagged her in, landed, and as soon as Ari hopped off when the bay door opened, the trap was sprung.
A machine overhead that ran on gravity dust activated, firing a concentrated beam of gravity right on top of Ari's head, catching him in a tube of energy teen feet wide. Soldiers poured in from adjacent doors, and descending from above were the Ace Ops themselves.
"Fascinating device," Ari said, seemingly rooted in place as he looked up at the gravity ray. "How does it work?"
Clover, decked out in specialized gear that nullified the gravity ray's effect on him, said as he walked into the ray with cuffs, "That's none of your concern right now."
"Hm. True, I suppose. But there's definitely a concern for you right now."
And with that ominous warning, Clover did something incredibly intelligent: he jumped far away.
As did the other Ace-Ops.
Just in time, too, because Ari's fingers suddenly extended as if made of rubber, fast as speeding bullets, and all ten digits pierced the gravity machine, destroying it in a shower of sparks and little arcs of electricity.
"Last time now," Ari declared in a loud voice. "Take me to your leader or I'll either find him myself after spilling a large pond's worth of blood, or I'll reduce this whole city to ashes and rubble!"
Clover appreciated that everyone was now caught in a very precarious situation. "What are your intentions with our leader?"
"I want to open negotiations for this land to be annexed into my Dad's Empire," Ari said simply.
"I…uh…who is your dad, exactly?"
"Perseus Jackson, the Great Leviathan. You've never heard of him?"
"Can't say I have, no."
"Oh….Well, now you have. So, your leader?"
"Yes, but before that, I have one question."
"Go on."
Clover almost didn't want to ask because he was afraid of the answer, but he had to know. He was looking at Ari's face and he could swear he had seen it somewhere. Or, to put it more accurately, two somewheres.
"Do you know of a person called Shin'en Yūrei?"
Ari brightened. "Of course! He's my uncle!"
Clover almost broke down into tears.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
General Ironwood desperately wished he could summon Shin'en as easily as he could summon any of his soldiers, because listening to the god-man's nephew go on and on about the Empire, the benefits of the Empire, the might of the Empire, etc. about the Empire, was really starting to drive the general up the wall.
Just where was Shin'en, anyway? He had boasted about being able to sense water down to the molecule on a planet-wide scale, which was how he knew about Salem's movements and those of the criminal underworld in Atlas and Mantle. Surely he knew his own nephew was here and causing mass panic. Since Ironwood had no reason to doubt Shin'en's claim, he could only conclude that Shin'en either was so busy that he couldn't come get his nephew, or this was his idea of a joke, letting his extended family bring about calamity and mayhem.
"Do you agree to these terms?" Ari asked.
Ironwood blinked, his thoughts coming back to the ground. "I need some to think about this."
He really hoped that the Ace-Ops were paying attention, so that he wouldn't have to bring up the security footage from his office and suffer through the whole conversation again. Granted, if it came to that, he could set the playback speed faster and hopefully get through the ordeal without spacing again.
Ari nodded as if it were common of foreign dignitaries to require time to think things over about annexation. "Of course, General. Though I do expect an answer by this time tomorrow."
Admittedly, Ironwood was impressed with the boy's manners. He knew how to stand up straight with his hands behind his back, making eye contact at all times, keeping his voice calm and level, and respected titles and positions, having always referred to Ironwood as General or sir. Clearly, his parents had successfully taught him discipline, and also bestowed upon him a thesaurus, because Ari knew how to use his words.
If Ari wasn't been being 100% serious and completely unironic about negotiating Atlas into his enigmatic father's empire, Ironwood would've been impressed enough to give the boy a personal letter of recommendation into the Academy when he became of age. As it was, the General was both deeply annoyed and only slightly less grieved about this.
Shin'en was one thing. His creepy niece that had the genocidal mother was another thing. And his creepy nephew with the world-conquering father was another thing entirely.
James really missed the simple days when it was just Grimm and Salem he had to worry about. And maybe the odd political rival.
Ari shifted on the balls of his feet. "Do you know where my uncle is?"
"Right behind you."
Ari whipped around, his face lighting up like a rocket. "Uncle Shin'en!"
The boy moved so fast he seemed to teleport from in front of Ironwood's desk to Shin'en's arms.
"What are you doing up here, Ari?" Shin'en asked, smiling.
"I don't know. I laid down for a nap, and then I woke up in this place. Is this Mom's old world?"
"No, this is not your mother's old world. This is actually mine."
"I thought you blew this whole planet up in an episode of righteous fury?"
"Close. I set the whole planet on fire in an episode of righteous fury, and also punched a man so hard he traveled from Earth to the Moon in a few seconds, and then hit the Moon so hard he splintered the whole celestial body."
Ironwood and the Ace-Ops gulped.
Ari had stars in his eyes. "That story's always so cool."
"Indeed. Your cousin Annabeth is here, by the way."
Ari's nose wrinkled. "She is? Ugh, that's so weird. My mom, my cousin, same person, different world—yuck."
Shin'en chuckled. "Yes, things do get very interesting and complicated in our line of work, don't they?"
Ari nodded sagely. "They do, they do."
"Oh, well. Let's go. I imagine your parents will be here relatively soon since you're here, along with your Aunt Asteria and your Uncle Cain since Annabeth is here as well."
"Family reunion!" Ari crowed.
"It appears so, yes."
"Wait—hang on, now," Ironwood stood up, his voice just barely cracking. Shin'en and Ari looked at him. "Just how many people are supposed to showing up from your, er, family?"
"As of right now," Shin'en said, "I have no idea. At least four more, possibly their other children, which would total nine. Asteria and Cain have three other kids, two daughters and a hermaphroditic son, and this one has two big sisters."
"Blegh," Ari stuck his tongue out of his mouth.
"Be nice," Shin'en scolded.
Ironwood and company were still on the "hermaphroditic son" part.
The General cleared his throat. "What can we expect of them?"
"I will keep them in line," Shin'en said. "If I had to guess, based on the way things like this have usually gone, they'll arrive en mass at the climax just in time for the grand finale. When the dust settles, they'll be gone."
Clover stepped forward. "How are your niece and nephew even here?"
"Some very high caliber of deity is dropping them in," Shin'en said with so much certainty that it was clear he had encountered this exact situation before, family members just randomly dropping in on him while he was in the middle of something.
"Can we expect any of your own children?"
"It is possible, yes, though that is a very extensive roster of individuals. Most of my children are adopted, and their powers range from completely harmless, to being able to warp the fabric of space and time."
Not a single person in the room was thrilled to hear that.
"If there is nothing else," Shin'en said, "I'll be taking my leave. There is still work to do, and twelve days before Salem arrives."
"What about the people Ari killed?" Ironwood asked. "More of my soldiers."
"Already handled," Shin'en said dismissively.
"And what does that mean?" the general demanded.
Ari giggled. "It means he brought them back to life."
And with a smile on his face, Shin'en vanished in a swirl of water, leaving many gobsmacked expressions in his wake.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"His…nephew?" Yang asked. "That's what he said?"
"That's what he said," Ruby confirmed.
Team RWBY was with Jaune, Nora, and Ren in the former's Atlas barracks following Blake, Ren, and Ruby's minor therapy sessions with Shin'en, and his abrupt departure after claiming that his nephew was somehow here.
"From his brother's side?" Weiss asked.
Ruby nodded.
Everyone proceeded to look at Annabeth, who had decided to occupy a corner of the ceiling because she was bored. She was perched in an upside-down crouch with her arms thankfully positioned in such a way that her privates were hidden from view.
'Ari,' she thought to all of them in a group telepathy channel. 'He's the youngest of my aunt and uncle, with two older sisters. They're triplets.'
Jaune winced, knowing the pain of big sisters.
"How is he here, though?" Blake asked. "How are you even here? Aren't both from, like, higher planes of existence or something like that?"
'Something like that,' Annabeth confirmed, but didn't elaborate.
It was clear that she knew something important, but considered it to be so monumentally perception-shattering that she thought it best to not share. No one else in the room was certain if they were offended by this, okay with this, or scared of just what Annabeth was keeping from them.
"What's he like?" Weiss asked.
'He's like a boy,' Annabeth thought with such derision and condescension that it made the girls smile and the boys pout. 'Loud, rambunctious, obnoxious, bullheaded, and smelly. But he's also strong. Incredibly strong, especially when he takes his other form.'
"Other form?" Jaune asked.
'Recall how I appeared much different when we first met?'
Yes, everyone remembered the monstrous form Annabeth was in when they first met her at the bottom of the Dust mine.
'He can do a similar thing.'
No one was comforted by this revelation.
"Just how powerful are you and your cousin?" Ren asked.
'Us? We could easily kill everyone on this planet. You three have only seen me destroy measly humans. You have yet to see me fight at full strength. Pray you don't ever have to, because if you do, you will either most likely die in the resulting destruction, or you will be my intended target, in which case you will definitely die.'
"Hey," Yang protested. "We're not weak."
'Certainly not by your accepted standards,' Annabeth thought to them in an even mental tone, somehow both congratulating them and recognizing their strength, and demeaning them at the same time, 'but you have seen what I can fully do. I can fight all seven of you at once, and still win.'
The purely objective manner in which this apparent little girl made this claim was very off-putting. It was still hard to think of Annabeth as a 109-year-old being that was the daughter of a goddess. If Shin'en's measure was anything to go by, then that meant that Annabeth was indeed a very powerful entity.
But just how powerful?
She claimed she could kill everyone on the planet, and boasted she could defeat the seven of them working together, an honest feat given that none of them were slouches, their teamwork was top-notch, and Ruby was packing the elemental power of a Maiden. Was Annabeth just cocky and overconfident? It was a comforting, if flawed, thought.
But the way she looked at them with her creepy eyes, that black sclera, those venomous green irises, the vertically slit pupils—like a predator that had already worked out how to kill its prey, and was in no hurry to do so.
It triggered a primal instinct in all the Hunters and Huntresses present.
Ren tried to change the subject. "Who would win in a fight? You or…Ari, was it?"
'Oh, definitely me,' Annabeth said, and there it was. The clear difference between her stating cold facts, and her being confident. There appeared in her eyes a certain glint, and the corners of her mouth quirked up just enough to show her sharpened, translucent incisors. 'I am much more intelligent than he is. Superior strategy would be his undoing.'
The Huntsmen shared looks, unsure of what to make of that.
Annabeth then stiffened, her eyes going for the door, upon which there was a polite knock.
"Er, open!" Ruby called.
The door slid open and in came Shin'en, an oddly dressed boy in his arm.
Annabeth hissed at the mere sight of him, and the boy stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry at her.
'Very mature.'
"Says the girl slobbering down her face like a baby."
Annabeth wiped her face of the excess saliva that her mouth produced, and then dropped to the floor. Which removed her arms from her front, once again exposing the small slit of her vagina. Many eyes were averted with accompanying groans.
"Nudist," Ari said, dropping from Shin'en's arm.
'Pungent child.'
"Arrogant brat."
'Daddy's boy.'
"Mama's girl."
'Ugly.'
"Egregiously hideous."
'Blight on all of existence.'
"Curse upon her family name."
Annabeth's eyebrow twitched.
"Ahem," Shin'en cleared his throat. "Behave, children, or you're both going over my knee followed by your noses being placed in the corner. Now quit pretended to hate each other."
The young cousins pouted.
"We were having fun," Ari protested.
"Indeed," Shin'en said, unimpressed.
'Killjoy,' Annabeth pouted.
"That'll be enough banter. Now come along. There is work to be done."
Ari's eyes brightened. "Are we going to bring righteous judgement upon the wicked?"
"A lot of it, yes."
"Yay~!"
Annabeth made a show of digging one of her clawed fingers in her ear. 'Contain your enthusiasm.'
"As if you aren't excited."
'Hardly. Killing weak mortals is no sport.'
"We will not be hunting mortals this time," Shin'en said. "Our prey is much larger, and more powerful. We will be hunting Grimm."
Annabeth looked excited.
"How do we hunt figurative language?" Ari asked with a wrinkled nose.
"The Creatures of Grimm," Shin'en clarified. "Similar to Awakened Beings, in a sense."
"Oh~. Okay."
"What's an Awakened Being?" Ruby asked.
Ari turned to her with a smile.
Before he could speak, Shin'en spoke. "It would take too long to explain right now. Everyone here is invited, should you so choose, but we are leaving now."
As in right at that very moment because Shin'en walked out the door, Ari and Annabeth chasing after him, racing to get to his side. Considering it was Grimm this time and not people, the seven Huntsmen were scrambling to catch up.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Well, maybe the penultimate chapter. Like I said, I'm not going to drag this out with filler, but I don't want to rush the ending.
'Asteria and Perseus arrived with their respective armies, easily defeated Salem's Grimm, and Shin'en easily destroyed Salem. Then they all left Remnant to Ruby and her friends. The end.'
I mean, that's the short version, but that doesn't mean there won't be meat.
Speaking of meat, sorry this chapter is so short. I realized it's been two weeks since the last update.
Sorry. Been playing Dishonored again since I got to buy and download the Definitive Edition off the Xbox store, which included the Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches DLC, things I didn't get to play eleven years ago. Now I get to play the remastered editions of Arkham Asylum and City!
Then I'll eventually get around to playing my Christmas games, those being AC: Mirage and Jedi Survivor. With Hogwarts Legacy on my to-buy list.
Moving on, I have seen the Disney+ show all the way through, and…yeah. My full review will be coming to my Ao3 page, Essays and Other Drabbles, so be on the lookout for that if you're interested in my personal thoughts and opinions on PJO media.
In the meantime, I'm sorry updates have been sporadic and with small chapters! Been playing videogames, ya know?
Please Fav, Follow, and Review!