A/N: Hey guys! This is probably the first and last time I have enough time to develop some sort of fanfiction in the near future, so don't expect much from updates or revisions unless I'm getting absolutely flamed. This fanfiction is aimed to represent a few of my personal favorite pantheons and fictional factions of Earth. This fanfiction also is an attempt to properly capture the arrogance and true power of literal Gods, and not the indecisive and thumb-twiddling children they are. Percy, our boy, will possess incredible amounts of knowledge and strength, and he will be very OOC, and eventually I wish for him to develop a personality similar to Fang Yuan from Reverend Insanity, but as a slow degradation of ethics and morals, but still honorable (which is contradictory, I know). It will drop him in, and his actions will immediately move the plotline into an AU situation, but will still follow all the quests until the end of Blood of Olympus. If something is crazy cliche, or a massive plot hole, make sure you cook me in the reviews as hard as you guys can! Hope you enjoy this prologue, which is no way near the type of AU I'm envisioning for the story, just a background. ;)
(Title art by Ching Yeh: False god, Excalibur)
Word Count: 3059
As the oceans boiled, the very heavens clawing to get back up, and the skies afire, the greatest sentinel of Olympus stood fast, guarding the long destroyed gate which was formerly part of the empire state building. Now crumbling with the lack of care, Lord-Commander Perseus Jackson of the Council of Olympic sentinels could only watch, forced to witness the slow erosion of the world he grew up with.
Percy was tired, really fucking tired. When was the last time he had left this post? Many millennia probably. His suit's subroutines had already long lost its efficacy, and he could feel the hephaestus-blessed servos screech every time he shifted slightly. Recently feeling entrapped in the rusting prison of his own design, he could only slump slightly in the confines of his suit, hoping for a brief rest.
"Regen-ex at 0.000114% and decreasing. Restock is strongly recommended. At current standby mode expenditures, expected critical depletion within 72 hours." With a simple mental command, he shooed away the daily suit report, zoning out into the rising sun. Thankfully, it seemed he was about to be freed from his post for the last time, and soon departing to the blessed land of Hades, as a soul wrought by countless wars and treacheries. With a sigh, he issued a silent command, unlocking the hydraulics and servos of his suit for perhaps the last time, he brushed the rust buildup around his knees and began walking for a patrol of the fallen continent of Olympus Primaris.
He vividly remembered the creation of nearly every Oylmpus since his birth, from the beautiful marbles of Olympus Secundus, to the ascension of the Olympus Mons of Mars. As the gods migrated to higher territories among the stars, The remnants of the First Council of Olympic Sentinels decided to guard the cradle of the gods awaiting their eventual return. Their efforts were in vain, as the Gods decided that the boundless, uncharted, and fertile new planets were far more desirable than an irradiated wasteland, and had left aeons ago in pursuit of more power.
He clenched his fist around his spear at that. The aggravating silent smirks of the gods as they prepared their newest cadre of demigods for interstellar travel was something that plagued Percy nearly every day. The Gods, of course, had thought nothing of their actions, spurred on by innovation and excitement, were in too big of a rush forwards to observe the devastation behind them. He remembered the day that his half-sibling Rammael Marccusson stepped foot upon the planet of Cyrax of the Sirius system, and the triumphant laughter emanating from his father upon his azure throne. He had never seen such joy and genuine pride from every major Oylimpian before, and before he had time to quash it, seeded a small abyss of jealousy and hatred. It was nothing against Rammie, simply just an unfortunate combination of events. Percy knew that if it wasn't his brother, one of his cousins would have assumed the mantle anyways.
This jealousy had run deep, expedited as he was forced to watch and listen to the accomplishments brought by his kin, while being bound to his station. The Gods had begun to pay less attention to them, perhaps already bored of their "archaic" demigod children after a few decades, instead gravitating towards whatever seemed new and interesting. When the first atmospheres had been seeded, and the capitals established, the Gods took it as their first opportunity to finally dig up their roots and be free of the bounds of the Earth Mother. Their departure had been swift and silent, only a brief party on Olympus Primaris the day before they ascended to the bridge of The Spear of Zeus and their future dominions. Percy, only having caught wind of the plan on the eve of next morning, had only managed to catch Lord Hermes, as he was performing the last pre-flight checkups.
He clearly remembered desperately running to the massive ship, easily dwarfing the length of Olympus Secundus, which itself possessed a diameter of a hundred nautical miles, and finding the Patron God of Travelers conversing with the fuelling crew. He had remembered how he desperately shouted across the ominously empty field, and how Hermes' salt-and-pepper hair flicked wildly around, tracing the source of the noise, and a subsequent dim in the aura he exuded. "Ah Lord-Commander Perseus, what has befallen you, for you to stray from your post?" dismissing his caduceus-clipboard, he smiled amicably, as if genuinely confused by his presence. "Y-" Percy gasped, fighting for air. "Easy hero, slow down and tell me slowly" Hermes had reached out and grabbed him by his arm. "You should not exert yourself too hard, my child, running continents worth of road is tiring even for some built for it" Hermes flashed a smile at that.
"You, are you about to leave us? Are you about to leave Earth forever?" Percy cried. "You can't do this to us! We have bled, cried, and lost for this land! We have sacrificed everything for you! Our very lives were offered to you! And you still desire more?!" He was on the verge of a breakdown. The looming fear of being abandoned now rearing its ugly head.
When the words reached the Messenger God's ears, his eyes hardened. "Listen here my boy, we were the ones that created you, we were the ones to fight for a place for YOU, made it so that YOU had the abilities mortals would deem godlike. YOU have no right to demand anything from us boy, for we have suffered longer than you shall ever live. Do not try to bring up what we had requested of you, as it was our right as your fathers and mothers. Do not attempt to berate us for our lack of care, for we were given none. Do not assume you understand our desires, for we have yearned for this for millenia. Understand?"
His blessed Caudecus transformed, now taking the appearance of a walking cane, "We must leave for new frontiers, new lands, and new people to influence and guide. We have gotten tired of walking the same roads, seeing the same sights, and fighting the same problems over and over again. We, as gods, were never meant to be shackled by the place we reside in, instead accompanying the desires and the path of mankind. We cannot stay, for we risk losing control over countless mortals, and subsequently, our domains."
Percy had collapsed by then, sinking into a prone upon the reinforced concrete. He looked up, the sun glaring into his eyes, "At least-" he stopped, throat feeling unexpectedly parched. "Could you at least promise the eventual return of the Council?"
"I am not privy of Father's plans for our return to the loving embrace of our lovely great grandmother, but I can guarantee you that we shall return, I swear it upon my name, Hermes Clepsiphron"
Having gained a lifeline, and accepting that he could do nothing else, Percy remembered repositioning himself into a sitting position to bid his father, and the rest of his Divine family, a farewell. Seeing this, Hermes could only nod, depriving their greatest hero of the legends this request would simply be too cruel. With a flash and the scattering of a few small feathers, The Swift One had disappeared.
He recalled the takeoff, with the Spear of Zeus firing every booster and engine it had, deafening and nearly blinding him. The grand engines larger than old-NYC's central park glowed a harsh blue, as they spat melting heat and howling clouds of smoke towards him. He had felt the blood from his ruptured eardrums flowing down the side of his neck, and remembered how one of his eyes had been blinded by the overwhelming light. In mere moments, it was gone, its immense form leaving an immaterial imprint where it previously occupied. When the Regen-ex, a combination of saltwater, nectar, crushed ambrosia, and fragments of the Lord of Atlantis' blood finally knit his mangled body together, he could barely make out the Spear's gargantuan shape in the atmosphere, surrounded by divine energies, with the last memory of the fated ship was of Aeolus withdrawing the very clouds from the atmosphere.
The century after that was arguably the worst nightmare for any of the remaining mortals and beings still terrestrially bound. When the remaining divine entities across the globe learned of the Greek's disappearance, they too, got off the quickly godforsaken planet as soon as possible. Somehow, he recalled, the Japanese had evacuated their pantheon the quickest, with Amaterasu at the bow, with her flagship The Royal Blade of Retribution, had quickly suppressed the local Divine population and disappeared from low Earth orbit a few days later, presumably to head towards the already-colonized Proxima Centauri. After that, it was a joint cooperation between the rest of the asian and african mythologies to scrounge up the remains of the resources left on earth to propel themselves spaceward. The final group were the stragglers, with the remaining south american pantheons and fringe europeans uncovering vast, hidden stores across the globe, made due haste, choosing to follow the same path forged by The Royal Blade. Their parting gift to humanity was to glass half the hemisphere with their Morrigan-pattern dreadnoughts.
Percy, accompanied by the remnants of the Council of Olympic Sentinels, were spread thin protecting the ruins of their respective homes. The Gods, in their haste to leave, abandoned millions to their fate, and without the assistance of divine protection and faith, the unspeakable horrors of tartarus, alongside beasts from veritable millions of accursed realms were released upon the poor, unlucky, and fallen remnants of humanity. With the rest of the Sentinels distracted protecting Secundus and Tertius, housing the remnants of the survivors who were lucky enough, Percy had taken it upon himself to defend Olympus Primaris alone. He had fought desperately, fighting back both old enemies and new, all who wished to assume the mantle and authority of the old seat of the gods. Titans, Giants, and countless creatures from pantheons long gone had swarmed him, laughter of ravenous gods surrounding him, goading him into giving up. In those moments, consumed by bloodlust, he had laughed back.
Percy blinked, surprised, cursing himself for his distractedness, quickly did a check of his surroundings, and came to a realization he had made his way into the original throne room of the Gods, where he had first handed Zeus' Lightning bolt back to its disgruntled owner. Looking around, he could still see the imprints of the thrones. The remnants of divine energy, which had used to swirl around the room as an invisible fog, was nearly entirely gone, and only was detectable through his finely tuned senses as a faint whisper of a time long gone.
Not wishing to spend any longer wallowing in sadness and despair, he began descending the helical marble path of Oylmpus. He observed each crumbling building, remembering the owners of each one. Zeus, with his grand palace, larger than some cities, which Percy never bothered to explore anyways. Hera, her peacocks gone, a crater still smoking millenia later. Poseidon, destroyed by Typhoon in his eternal rage four centuries after The Great Abandonment. Demeter, empty, salted fields, as far as the eye could see. Aphrodite, with colors so faded it could pass as greyscale.
Athena's, notably destroyed by a joint attack by a flight of dragons a few weeks after The Abandonment. It was a shame really, she had the most comprehensive library that he would have liked to read in the millenia afterwards. The rest of the former palaces were in a similar state of disrepair, a landscape marred with rubble and rusted skeletons. Despite the barren world, a few surviving demigods still gave offerings from around the world. Occasionally, Percy would see offerings appear on the altars of the Gods even though they had forsook them a long time ago. Liberating a few crumbling MREs from Ares' altar, he continued his way back down the winding path.
Suddenly, he spied a wisp of white smoke amidst the red sky coming from Lady Hestia's courtyard. "Would it be some monsters making camp? Or some refugees?" he wondered. Unsheathing his legendary xiphos with his right and lifting the banner of Olympus with his left, he sprinted towards the dwelling of the guardian of eternal flame.
Skirting towards a stop near the front gates, the gaps between the hand-wrought celestial gates allowed Percy to peer into the courtyard relatively undetected. With a start, Percy realized there was an eerily familiar form crouched beside a strange, pitch black fire. Jumping the fence, he cleared the gates and slowly walked up to the crouched form.
"Milady Hestia? Is that you? Have you truly returned?" he asked the hooded form, back still facing him.
"Hmm?" A pair of eyes, infinitely vast, filled with stars, turned around.
He realized he was staring into those eyes, and he saw despair.
Waking up to his infernal exosuit blaring warnings into his ear, he jumped up, wildly slashing the air around him. A hand, infinitely cold, froze him in place. Sensing something behind him, he heard the voice.
"Shall we conduct this meeting somewhere else, perhaps?"
He realized he couldn't identify who it was. The being seemed to speak with multiple voices, many female, and an equal amount male. Before he could even react, his world was consumed entirely by the black fire.
He found himself kneeling before an empty throne, upon a walkway suspended above an endless abyss. With a quiet roar, a figure materialized upon the throne.
"I've missed this" The being mused. He registered that the figure was talking. He could feel a shift in its posture, still in his kneeling position, and felt the indescribable entity shift its gaze onto him.
"Ah, Autokrætor Rex Perseus Jackson, one of the greatest descendants from the humani. For what reason dost thou not accompany my own great-grandsons in their journeys? Surely a mortal like thee was qualified enough, hmm? I can recall thy strain upon my existence even before your conception, a tapestry surpassing the legends of most gods."
Percy froze. With his frazzled mind, he quietly thanked The Eternal Hunter Princess and her ancient dialects when they were on their subjugation of Lord Atlas in the very beginning of his journeys. Quickly deciphering the interesting mix of archaic and modern dialects-
"Oh. Fuck." he stopped.
"Great-grandsons?" he whispered, desperately wishing he heard wrong, involuntarily raising his head, he gazed upon the silhouette.
"Of course, Baselius Jackson, my great-grandchildren would have been wise to incorporate your presence as an arbiter and justiciar. They certainly needed it, for the council shattered merely centuries after…" She paused, and Percy felt what seemed like a freezing breeze throughout his body. "Ah here it is, what you would call The Great Cleansing". Apparently choosing to adopt a more feminine figure, her tone shifted to match her new form, the other voices fading away for now.
Acutely aware of his solitary presence with the literal Creator of the entire universe he existed in, he broke out in a cold sweat.
Not daring to look again, he slammed his forehead back to the walkway. "What is it that you desire, Milady Khaos? I shall be your instrument, for whatever is it that you desire."
The Last Creator looked on with a pitying glance, "Allow me to regale you in a story, Rex Graecus, one told to only my closest of Creations."
With her signature dull roar, she transformed into flowing dark robes, a pair of comically out-of-place reading glasses, marble slab in hand. With a subtle darkening of the already dim abyss, she began.
"Long before the even suggestions of your race squirmed amidst primordial ooze, a war there was between entities you would think gods."
"I know of the Great Cleansing and the Divinities that play it," snarled Percy, surprising even himself with the unexpected surge of hatred. "My most sincere apologies, Milady, but I am not their pawn. I want nothing of playing host to a weapon they control."
Chaos waved the objection aside.
"Different gods, these were, existences forever bound to the realms that had wrought their own divinity from. On one side, gods of energy and star. On the other, the ceaseless and unending encroachment of the sentient void. Powers they unleashed, such even that they with their mantles of omnipotence and wisdom comprehended not. Fire we all yoked, never believing it would burn us."
Determined not to get himself smote from existence for his curiosity, Percy tilted his head. Within his chest, though, his heart paced. Such power was precisely what he needed desperately.
"Long and longer raged our conflict. Heavy was its price. One after one we toppled and cast aside. Our lesser creations crawled in the aftermath. Blinded. Desperate. They saw not the power of their vanished masters' devices, but only the terror of what such beings had wrought. That which they could not break apart or unmake. They made the prudent choice of sealing everything they previously of our creation in the most secure vault-tombs and ossuaries in the nexus of their most defended fortresses, some of which are still objects of curiosity aeons after their internment."
"And you protect where these vaults lie? Keep them sealed?" asked Percy.
"Hidden lies the Vaults, from even my infinite sight," lamented Chaos. "But fashion I the keys, as limited as the opening."
"So why tell me this, milady?" questioned Percy, nervously gesturing at himself atop the dais. "What do you want of me? And what has that tale got to do with my current 'situation'?"
"The plane of chaos has become too lethargic, as of late. Aeons of repeating movements can cause wear on even a soul of my caliber."
She seemed to shift her feet, approaching closer, from event horizons of infinity in which she emerged, she closed the seemingly insurmountable gap with barely a noise. She reached down, a hand grasped his chin, forcing him to look up into her eyes.
"This is why, my child, you possess the mettle and the might, in parallel, to interest me in your little odysseys of yours. Perhaps we can make a deal hmm? I know of your talents, after all."