Everything is Permitted
And here it is. The final chapter. Beginning March 3rd, 2017, over half a million words, over 2400 Favs and Follows, and over one million Views. Yes, this story, here at the end, finally reached a million Views. The only one to have done, with the OG Backup Plan having only reached 841,000.
Will there be a sequel to this story taking place in the Giant War? Very possible, yes. I've already thought of several scenes, like Percy reuniting with Reyna in New Rome, meeting Hazel, the reincarnation of Aveline from AC: Liberation, and Frank, who may or may not be the reincarnation of Shao Jun, and then the big team-up of all the Assassin Demigods.
Granted, any Giant War sequel is fully dependent on Gaea actually trying to wake up, as opposed to looking at Percy and going, "Nah."
Of course, if we're talking about sequels, there's still the sequels to Son of Jashin and Green-Eyed Ghoul on the table.
And the Chaos War. This story finishes all the requirements needed to begin. Voidwalker and Dragon Princess aren't needed for Chaos War, but that doesn't mean I can't include them anachronistically, in the sense that I'm picking them up after their stories have ended, which more or less means spoilers.
Then there's my new job and everything that it will entail, and the "Percy Jackson but it's Darker and Edgier" novel I've started working on. Or rather, the novella prequel about the main antagonist's "descent into madness" as it were.
Though this story has finally reached its end, there's still so much to do.
Maybe, hopefully, I'll get to it all.
Disclaimer: I don't PJO or AC
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Inspired by historical events and an over-active imagination, this work of fiction was designed, developed, and produced by a single-cultural team of one religious faith and belief, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Faris and Vergil ran to the left, and Jake and Percy ran to the right. Konrad, Cheyenne, and Peter hung back, and they fired their guns. Kronos ignored the bullets, his Curse of Achilles in Luke's body rendering him completely immune to the small projectiles. They might as well have been marshmallows for the amount of damage they inflicted upon the Titan King.
Instead, Kronos was focused solely on Percy, the only one actually alive right now.
Indeed, the other Six were not real, as in Percy had somehow pulled them out of his body and gave them all a brief return to life. In truth, they were amalgamations of thought and energy, Percy's memories of his past lives made manifest through the power of the Sword of Destiny, not at all unlike how Rodrigo Borgia had made duplicates of himself when he fought Ezio using the Staff of Eden.
As such, Kronos only cared about Percy himself, a fact that was perfectly demonstrated when Faris got within striking distance and took his shot. Kronos just stood there and let the sword bounce off his neck.
"Okay, what is that?" Percy demanded. "My Hidden Blade broke against your neck back on the ship, and now this."
"Achilles Curse, son," Kronos smirked.
Percy's eyes narrowed. "That means you have a weak spot."
"You will not live long enough to find it."
"We'll see about that."
Percy attacked, and Kronos was not so arrogant as to think that the Sword of Destiny, forged by Chaos Himself, couldn't harm him, Achilles Curse or not. Eyes glowing gold, Kronos did his Dio thing, causing a sickly gold aura to erupt from him, blanketing the whole throne room in a time-Delaying field. Other than the color saturation of the setting changing, the only indication that anything abnormal was happening was that the flames of Hestia's hearth were barely moving.
That was the only thing.
As established, the Sword of Destiny had a number of abilities that affected time in some fashion, and so Percy was completely unaffected by the time aura. Kronos raised the shaft of his scythe, blocking Percy's sword, though the impact was so great that the stone floor cracked at their feet, and Kronos hissed as he felt his arms sting.
Percy pressed the assault, putting his Titan grandfather on the defensive. The shockwaves of their blows continued to ruin the throne room floor, but it was clear there was a stalemate. Kronos was no slouch in a fight, and he was holding his own against Percy, blocking every attack, seeing through every feint, and keeping impeccable footwork.
It appeared that in terms of just hacking at each other, they were equals.
Percy called upon one the Sword's abilities in the second he was drawing it backwards for another attack. His body was covered in a gold aura, increasing his physical prowess, and his next swing, when it connected, staggered Kronos, sending him stumbling away. In an unflattering display of grace, the Titan ended up stepping on his cape, tripping himself.
However, he was not so ungraceful that he was unable to slam the butt of his scythe into the ground, halting his downward momentum, catching himself. Looking up, Kronos saw that the Assassin Gank Squad was sprinting at him, but he had just enough of a window to summon his Titanic power and release a mighty roar.
The resulting shockwave blasted away Percy and the Six, giving Kronos the time he needed to get his footing back under him. However, before round two could begin in earnest, the Titan suddenly doubled over, clutching at his chest with a pained groan.
Percy and the Six stood at th ready, wary of a surprise, but Kronos only glared murder at the Western wall of the throne room, seeming to almost be glaring through it and something far away.
"Krios, you damned fool," the Titan growled so low the loose rubble of the floor nearly vibrated.
Percy's brows furrowed, wondering what the Titan of the South had to do with anything right now, and why Kronos was looking to the West when mentioning him. And then Percy remembered what was in the West. Mt. Othrys, the Titan stronghold. It must have been rebuilt after he demolished it after Zoë's death while embracing Amon's demonic power. Krios must've been placed in charge, and he must've been defeated in some manner, but how…?
And then Percy remembered Camp Jupiter was just a little ways South of Mt. Tamalpais, and concluded that his cousin/brother Jason/Jacob, along with his daughters Christian/Hylla and Maria/Reyna, must have defeated Krios. Though why that would've affected Kronos all the way over here….Oh.
Mt. Othrys was the Titan Mt. Olympus. Kronos had a throne of his own like his children. His throne must've been destroyed following the defeat of Krios.
"You've lost," Percy said. "The Romans in the West have defeated Krios, destroyed your throne, and taken your mountain."
"You haven't bested me yet, boy," Kronos sneered. "Besides, I have one more card in play. Behold!"
With a flourish of his scythe, the flames of the hearth roared up and became a window across space. Hestia did not look too pleased to have her flames commandeered.
The window showed a gigantic storm monster battling the majority of the Olympian gods.
"The storm giant!" Kronos bellowed. "The mighty Typhon! I released him from his confines under Mt. Saint Helens, and he's been marching unimpeded across the continent for days. Soon, he will be here, and even if you've somehow managed to defeat me, Typhon will lay waste to this city, and pull this mountain from the sky!"
Percy slightly tilted his head. "Doubt it. Or weren't you paying attention when God basically sneezed your army away?"
Then that little serpent from earlier slithered back into view after it had slithered away out of sight under Kronos's cape. It attempted to whisper something into the Titan's ear, but Cheyenne shot the reptile with pinpoint accuracy, blasting its little head into a fine, red mist.
Kronos flinched. "No!"
Percy and his past lives attacked.
Jake got there first, trading blows with his cutlasses before he ducked out. Vergil picked up right where Jake left off, further putting Kronos off balance with his furious assault. Peter was able to sneak in there and put his revolver right next to Kronos's ear, fired, making Kronos howl in pain as his eardrum nearly ruptured. For his trouble, the Titan king got absolutely clobbered by Konrad's brass knuckles. The blow straight to his lower jaw snapped his head to the opposite direction, and if it weren't for the Achilles Curse granting him tons of physical damage negation, Konrad would've actually killed him. Faris got his second chance, and he used it by lowering his shoulder and sliding to his knees, slamming into Kronos's legs, flipping him over. Kronos landed in a mess of armor and twisted cape, and Cheyenne was able to run in and snag his scythe without breaking stride.
"Here!" Hestia shouted.
Cheyenne tossed the weapon to the goddess, and she tossed it into her flames. Magic overcame magic, and the deadly scythe was incinerated.
Kronos untangled himself and got to his feet, only to come face to face with his grandson. Percy rammed the Sword of Destiny straight into Kronos's heart, eliciting the sound of creaking metal as the blade bit right through the Titan's breastplate.
The effect was immediate.
Kronos's eyes began glowing brilliantly, light began to emit from the wound in his chest, and he began to howl. A deep baritone sound from the bottom of his chest that crescendo'd in an ear-splitting roar.
Cheyenne grabbed Percy and yanked him away, his firm grip on the Sword of Destiny allowing him to tear it out of Kronos's chest. Cheyenne took Percy to the ground, covering him with her body, and the others all dogpiled to keep him safe, with Vergil standing in front with his fully armored body.
Kronos reached critical mass and exploded.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Other than the craters and stone splinters that littered the throne room floor due to the shockwaves of the connecting blows, the throne room remained in impeccable condition.
In something of a show of embarrassing irony, surrounding the Assassins was a sphere of golden energy, generated by the Sword, that kept them safe from the explosion, thereby rendering the protective gesture of the Assassins null, void, moot, pointless, but still really cool. A grand example of how sometimes it really was the thought the counted.
The Assassins disentangled one by one, until they were all standing around Percy.
"Hi, guys!" he said excitedly, for but a brief moment actually acting like a sixteen-year-old kid.
Peter gave him an equally excited hug, Cheyenne came up to ruffle his hair and kiss his forehead, Jake gave him a big bear hug, lifting him off the ground and squeezing him so hard his back popped in several places, Faris gave him a gentler brother hug, and Vergil had to smack Konrad upside the head to make him give Percy an awkward handshake. Vergil capped it off with a firm, congratulatory handshake.
Then, one by one, with one last meaningful look, they vanished in golden blinks of light, leaving Percy almost alone. He sheathed his sword with a fond smile, and then there was a small tug on his sleeve.
The child-like goddess Hestia offered him a platter of cookies, all of them sporting blue chocolate chips. "Your mom told me you like blue chocolate chips, so I made you these. She says happy birthday!"
Tears welled up in Percy's eyes.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It would only be a few minutes longer before Lou Ellen busted down the throne room doors practically all by herself, the demigods of Camp Half-Blood and the Titan army close in tow. They found Percy sitting on his butt next to his aunt, sharing cookies.
"Did we win?" Clarisse asked.
"Technically speaking, yes," Percy answered.
"Technically speaking?"
"Yeah. We didn't really do much. So, to more directly answer your question, no. We didn't win. God did."
"Oh," Clarisse blinked. Then she shrugged. "Good enough for me."
Lou went up to Percy. "Prometheus went into hiding. He wants to meet with you after this blows over. Er, God struck down Typhon. Big blast of light from on high. The Olympians are on their way."
Percy's mirthful mood evaporated as he went straight into Mentor mode. "I see." He set the platter of cookies down and hugged his aunt. "Thank you for your wonderful gift, Aunt Hestia."
Hestia hugged him back. "Of course! Don't you worry about my family. I've got your back."
"Thank you, Aunt Hestia."
True enough, the Olympians did arrive in force. Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Hephaestus, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Dionysus, all armored, battered, and bruised from their battle with Typhon.
"What is this!?" Zeus thundered at the sight of all these demigods in his throne room, Master Bolt in hand.
"This," Percy called out, "would be the assembly of all your grandchildren and other extended family. We are here to discuss terms of surrender."
Zeus blinked, the sheer absurdity of this newfound situation rendering him blank for a few seconds before he regained his bearings. "The terms are unconditional. All gods and demigods that threw their lot in with the Titans are traitors to Olympus, and are hereby banished to Tartarus! The gods and demigods that remained loyal will be lavishly rewarded!"
"I did not mean their surrender," Percy said, "I meant yours. We are here today to discuss your surrender, Uncle. Or have you forgotten the prophecy? Today is my sixteenth birthday. We have breached midnight. The choice lies with me. Olympus to preserve or raze."
Staring Zeus in his extremely unhappy blue eyes, Percy gestured to the humongous thrones.
"Take a seat. We have much to discuss."
And so the Olympians took to their thrones in cautious shuffles, ignoring the judgmental stares their children were sending at them with varying levels of success. Perhaps pathetically, now that the fighting was over, Demeter finally arrived, soon followed by Poseidon. Only the throne of Ares remained vacant because he'd been deleted some years ago by God Himself on the Santa Monica Beach.
"And what would your terms be?" Zeus asked with slight sarcastic shake of his head.
"Execution," Percy answered in a grave tone.
The tension ramped up in an instant.
"Excuse me!?" Zeus shouted, grabbing his Master Bolt.
Poseidon's grip on his trident increased. "Brother-"
"Silence!" Zeus trained his anger back to Percy, who stood tall but not alone in front of the demigods. "What did you say?"
"Execution," Percy repeated. "For thousands of years, you gods have terrorized mankind. Raping, murdering, destroying—your petty squabbles have resulted in untold consequences for this world. It would be one thing if all you did was just sit up here on Olympus and only observe, but you don't. What's worse is that where you have no problem fucking shit up, you have zero accountability. Having a chainsaw fight in a nuclear reactor, causing a meltdown, killing the American nuclear program and setting this whole hemisphere down the path of decades more of oil and coal."
Hephaestus had the decency to look sheepish as he shrank in his throne
Percy continued, "You screw humanity over, but you do nothing to repair the damage you've caused, nor do you anything barely resembling helping or aiding the people you've hurt. Not even your own children, and the people you made them with."
Percy took his time looking around every throne, meeting each god's gaze until they looked away until he finally settled back on Zeus.
"For your crimes on this earth, I am well within my rights to call upon the Lord and ask him to destroy each and every one of you, but then I would be depriving your children of their parents, and I'd be depriving you of your last chance at redemption. Over 4500 years of sins has finally caught up with each and every one of you, and you will be held accountable.
"You will claim all your demigod children as but a start. You will personally apologize for neglecting them and leaving them to suffer in the ways they did, and you will do the same for the mortals you had your flings with, and then abandoned. You will personally make sure your demigod children safely make it to Camp Half-Blood, so that they receive the proper and necessary training for combating monsters and facing life in general-"
"Uh…" Lou Ellen hesitantly spoke up from the crowd, bringing all eyes to her.
"Yes?" Percy asked.
Lou Ellen cleared her throat and stood up. "The whole 'monsters are attracted to a demigod's scent' thing was actually started by my sister, Lamia, because she and Zeus had kids, and Hera went and killed the kids and turned Lamia into a monster in retaliation, and Lamia cast the curse that gave demigods a scent that monsters are attracted to…in retaliation to Hera's retaliation. So, uh, just need to undo the curse and monsters should stop being able to smell demigods. Doesn't mean they won't still fight, kill, and eat demigods, but now they won't be able to track them. At least, track them so easily."
There was grumbling and muttering amongst the assembled demigods as they all appreciated that the whole reason they were hunted by monsters in the first place was because of—once again—Zeus not keeping his dick tucked in.
Percy nodded. "Thank you, Ms. Blackstone. You may return to your seat."
Lou Ellen gave two thumbs-up and sat back down, her heart hammering hard in her chest after putting herself out there.
Percy turned back to Zeus, eyes darting between him and Hera a few times before he spoke again. "The curse will certainly be undone. I don't know why it hasn't been undone in the thousands of years since Lamia cast it, but it will be undone today. No exceptions. Further, you will follow in Poseidon's footsteps, in that you will start taking responsibility for your domains. Poseidon will be cleaning the oceans, Zeus, you will clean the airs, Dionysus and Demeter will oversee agriculture, Artemis will see to wildlife and environmental conservation, and so on and so forth."
"Anything else?" Zeus asked tersely.
"You will wave your hands and repair all the damage Typhon caused, and Hades will release all the souls that perished in his rampage. Beyond that, I think that's the gist of it. Amnesty for the gods and demigods that supported Kronos; you will be better parents to your children, and better leaders of this establishment, and better overseers of your domains."
And that's when a voice sounded from Hestia's flames. "Negligence in these new matters is most unwise."
Stepping out of the fire was a being that looked like a man. Dressed head to toe in shining armor, an intricate helmet covering his whole head and face, magnificent wings of purest white folded down, with a shield on his right arm, a sword sheathed at his right hip, and the Word of God buckled at his left.
"Michael," Percy identified, his eyes widening at the fact that the angel of the Lord was here.
Michael nodded to Percy. "Man of God." He came to stand next to the demigod, not behind him or in front of him, but right next to him. The angel addressed the Olympians, who were all squirming in their thrones. "Behold, for this man has found favor with the Lord. He has been appointed judge over this house, and given great power to carry out the Lord's will. Behold, for the Day of the Lord is approaching, and no one in this room will escape judgement. Repent now of your sins, accept the Blood of Christ, lest you pay for your sins with your own blood."
The message delivered, Michael spread his wings, and light filled the throne room. When the light cleared, the angel was gone.
"So," Percy chirped, "does anyone object to my terms?"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Following the episode in the throne room, Percy had a lot of kids coming up to him to give thanks, with most of them asking what they had to do in order to be saved. After all, they had all just witnessed the archangel Michael come walking out of the fire, and most of them had born witness to the judgement of God when He destroyed the Titan army.
No rest for the weary, however, not that Percy was even remotely tired, but it was that he still had pressing business to attend to.
Percy was riding down the elevator with Lou Ellen, the young couple hand in hand, Lou resting her head upon Percy's shoulder, Percy resting his head upon hers.
"Do you think they'll repent?" she asked.
"Time will tell. What matters is that they've been given the chance to be better."
"I guess."
"Do you not think they'll repent?"
Lou shrugged. "Maybe I'm mean, but no. They've had over 4500 years to be better people, and nothing that's happened in that time has galvanized them to be better. I think that by now, they're too set in their ways, and you'll have to be back up here to beat their asses."
Percy chuckled. "Hopefully not."
The elevator dinged, and they stepped out into a bustling foyer. A few seconds later, and they stepped out onto an even busier Manhattan street. It wasn't even daytime yet, not even three o'clock in the morning, yet Morpheus's spell had already worn off, and the people of the city were already awake and on the move.
"They have no idea," Lou Ellen said with a sideways, almost sardonic, smile.
"That's a good thing," Percy stated.
"I know, but…I guess it's just that I would like for them to know and understand that all their lives were on the line a few hours ago, and all of them were saved and given a little bit more time to live, and then they used that time to better themselves—and no, I'm not being a hypocrite by saying that I think the Olympians wont repent but these people might. The Olympians have had millennia, these people only a few decades. Big time disparity there."
Percy smiled. "Ah, to be so young and full of optimism."
"Don't say stuff like that," Lou Ellen bemoaned. "It's already weird enough thinking about how you're six people crammed into one, with three of those having been married."
"True, but just appreciate this fact: I am very, shall we say, experienced."
Lou Ellen went so red that steam began curling from her ears. She let out an undignified squeak when she tried to say something, and then cleared her throat. "U-Um…g-good…good to…erm…good to know, hehe…"
They walked a few blocks down the street, heading to where Prometheus said he would be waiting. On the way, Lou Ellen had a very sober, very serious question to ask.
"What do you think of us? I mean, who are you are, versus who I am. Six people, three of them married, one of them an American hero, one of them the cornerstone of the Christian faith, and the last one…er, a rather underwhelming sociopath. You're an experienced adult in every definition of the phrase—six times over, in fact—and I'm literally only sixteen years old. Isn't that…I don't know…a little weird to you?"
"If you're asking if I feel like a pedophile because I've lived to be an adult six times already, a married adult three of those times, and now I'm courting a teenage girl, the answer is no. I don't feel weird at all, really. In fact, I feel quite grateful that in this absolute brain-melting life I was given, that God has given me a lifelong companion to love, and loves me back."
Lou Ellen stopped. "You love me?"
"You sound surprised."
"N-No…it's just…I don't think I've ever heard you say that about me."
Percy hummed. "I guess I still have some things of my own to work on. Having been happily married three times, I suppose it's become one of those things where I felt like I didn't have to say that. That being said…"
Percy pulled Lou Ellen into his embrace, and kissed her full on the mouth. She practically turned into a puddle of goo in his arms, before she regained her sense and kissed him back, getting her arms around his neck.
Percy broke the kiss and looked at her with a beaming smile. "I love you, Lou Ellen Blackstone."
Feeling like the happiest, luckiest girl in the world, Lou Ellen said, "I love you too, Percy Jackson."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
And the name of this chapter is a callback to Ch. 29, "Nothing is True…"
I think that's all that is needed for this story. The Titans defeated, the Assassins rallying against the Templars slowly but surely, Percy having lived and made peace with his past lives, and reaffirmed his and Lou Ellen's love for each other, thus officially making this story one of the rarest kinds in the fandom. At least to my knowledge, anyway.
What would you call this ship? Percellen?
That being said, the stage is set for a sequel. Fleshing out Prometheus's ideas for a better America, and exploring how they compare and contrast with Jake Swallow and Percy's Assassin ideology. Certainly a big team up of all the Assassins to take on the Templars one last time.
Maybe there will be a sequel. Just so we can see that happen.
In the meantime, there's still so much more to be done.
Perhaps it's poetic, in a way. This story, running for over seven years, since I was a junior in high school, has now finally come to a close right before I start my new job with my engineering degree almost three months after I graduated college. Like the end of one era, and the beginning of another, because most of the stories on deck would be "Phase Two," as it were, with a sequel to this, a sequel to Green-Eyed Ghoul, a sequel to Son of Jashin, the Chaos War, Dragon Princess, and of course, those many, many stories I teased all the way back in Ch. 70 of Backup Plan.
So much to be done.
What a ride it's been. What a ride it will be.
I want to thank everyone that's been here since the beginning, however many that may be, whoever y'all are, and I want to thank anyone that jumped in somewhere along the way and stuck it out till the end today.
Now, one last time, everybody!
Please Fav, Follow, and Review!