Chapter Text
≺ ⋞ November 17th, 1999 ⋟ ≻
Poseidon looked down, Godly vision far beyond anything a human was capable of crossing miles upon miles of his brother's realm through the swirling and chaotic atmosphere above New York City. That was potentially his fault, too many emotions swirled around in his consciousness, his Domain of storms picking up on his agitation. Immaterial eyes pierced through clouds, wood, and concrete alike as a spear through flesh, and fell upon a sleeping woman from the heights of Olympus. All his Shells, his myriad bodies, scattered across both the mortal and immortal planes turned as one to look in shock.
The one on Olympus looked down from his throne. The one in Atlantis looked up from his kingdom beneath the waves. The ones tearing apart monsters of the depths, the horrors of the deepest trenches none but he could destroy, stopped his rampage, pausing the strikes of his trident among gnashing teeth, tearing currents, and spreading clouds of blood with a simple gesture, his Godly power forcing the ocean around him to perfect stillness, his prey trapped in water that would not let them move. The ones standing atop the waters of the Atlantic, the Pacific, keeping the waves calm for the mortals, holding back the endless, indifferent destruction of his realm, looked to the coasts, toward New York. The one speaking to his son, his heir, paused their conversation to turn, and Triton swallowed hard. In fear of what could tear all his father's Shells from their work. The one in bed with the sleeping woman looked down at her form with eyes of swirling green and blue, orbs devoid of white or pupil, glowing in the warm darkness of their sanctuary, gaze filled with love, and pain, and fear.
The one speaking to three old women turned away from their amorphous forms to gaze in awe, in horror, in anticipation, of what he had done.
Poseidon had never before felt what mortals, what Aphrodite and the Erotes called love. Not in a true sense. Lust, certainly, he had been consumed by it in his younger years, and the results of his recklessness, of his crimes, still haunted him to the present. Desire, possessiveness, admiration, interest, and other emotions of passing similarity to love were constants in his existence.
But never love.
Not truly, in the way the mortals, the humans, understood it. Or at least how the best of them truly understood it. He was not sure even Aphrodite could lay claim to a true understanding of her domain, of all its depth and breadth. He was the same, of course, the oceans were his, but they were not his creation, he knew them deeply, intimately, but not in whole.
Now, he felt love, and it terrified him. Horror filled his many bodies, ichor running cold as he realized what he had done.
The woman was pregnant, and he was to blame. Despite his oath, his centuries of indifference, and the grindingly slow change of the years that had transformed him from an unforgivable fool into a slightly better, albeit possessive king, he had made a mistake, a terrible, wonderful mistake. It would grow into a boy, and nothing could stop it. The Moirai had decreed, and so it would be. Poseidon's Shells all took deep breaths, steadying his nerves across web of his consciousness. His son, his first Demigod child in years, and the first ever to be born of love more than anything else.
Poseidon did not begrudge his brother for breaking the oath. How old was the girl now? Four, perhaps five? He hoped she would survive, but he knew she would not. Even if Hades did not enforce the oath, Zeus would never let the child, his own child, reach eighteen. Perhaps the Hunters, perhaps some other way, but in all likelihood, he would kill her.
Poseidon would not allow his son to share that fate. Olympus be damned, Sally Jackson was his, his lover in the most profound sense of the word, his first understanding of that dreaded, wonderful concept. She was everything Poseidon dreamed of being. Wild, reckless, kind, and thoughtful. She was all the best parts of the seas, teeming with life and bursting with wondrous facets in a million colors. Loyal, loving, and forgiving. But she held a special place in her heart, a place no one could take that was wholly hers. Sally Jackson would never be beholden to anyone. They might think her defeated, cowed, but she would fight tooth and nail for those she called hers and for her own freedom.
Styx would make her appearance the day the boy was born, and for the following decade, Poseidon would pay his penance. A year of starvation and thirst, banned from Olympus and incapable of consuming Ambrosia or Nectar. For the following nine years, he would be anathema from Olympus. The others would talk, of course, but it happened often enough that none would question, though they might guess. He would have to devise an excuse, an old oath forgotten, broken unintentionally. Something to disguise the truth, for he would not see his son dead. His son would live, and if he died before his time, as was likely, it would be with honor, the blood of his enemies strewn about him, not taken in the cradle by cowards.
"It is him," One of the Moirai said, and the gaze of Poseidon's Shell speaking to them snapped back to the old women.
"What?" he asked, anxious. Chaos preserve him, he was anxious. It was such a mortal thing to feel, and yet here it was, dragged from divinity by love.
"Your son… He has many paths he might follow, they unfold before us now…" Clotho began.
"We know not what path he might take…" Lachesis confided.
"If he survives, however…" Atropos mused.
"The Herald," The three intoned, and Poseidon felt the world around him ripple with magic, deep and old. The Moirai were silent momentarily, seeming to confer wordlessly with one another.
Poseidon felt his immortal hearts begin to race. The Herald. Chaos preserve him.
"What must I do?" Poseidon asked, and the Moirai turned on him, shifting faces stilled only by eyes like voids, like stars, nothing, and everything. Eyes that saw the birth of universes and their deaths, chosen by the Protogenoi of fate themself.
"Will his mother raise him well?" Clotho asked.
Poseidon was taken aback by the question but answered truthfully. "Yes, yes she will,"
"Then perhaps the world and the Gods will live to see the next century," Atropos declared, as if such a declaration regarding the fate of existence were not horrifying. Then they vanished into nothing, flashing a glimpse of everything: endless branching time, worlds born and lost, a trillion trillions of immortal lives, and the exponential number of mortals who called upon them or did not.
Poseidon waited for a moment before dissolving the Shell that had been speaking to them and returned his attention back to the woman.
His son would. Not. Be. Powerless. The unborn child was already beyond the true control of the Fates. His blood, the blood of the Children of Time, would see to that. But Poseidon was not his paranoid brother, Zeus or his reclusive brother, Hades. He was the God of the Seas, and the oceans knew their own, held their own, and were loyal to nothing but their own.
Poseidon realized centuries ago that he was not fit for the rule of the Gods. Zeus, for all his paranoia and bravado masking a brittle, bloated ego and a lust for control, was the best of them for it. He made the hard decisions. He would kill his daughter if it seemed she would turn from them. Hades was vengeful and preferred solitude. He was more even-handed than Zeus, a low bar, but his personality was not one suited to ruling other deities.
Poseidon, however, feared he was the worst of them. He would sacrifice anything, safety, sanity, his crown even, for those he called his. He was unfit to rule the Gods because he understood what lay in his depths. He understood why so many of his children became the monsters they were. He was the Father of Monsters, a title only shared by the Storm Giant, Typhon. Now, he needed to create one intentionally. He needed his son to become more than a mortal, more than a Demigod. More than the prophecy. The fears that sparked the pact had stemmed from the Children growing beyond what had seemed possible. Now he needed a son who would break those walls, those chains, and hope, to Chaos and Ananke, that he was making the right decision.
If his son was to be The Herald, The Omen of what was to come, then he must be what the Gods feared the most, what Poseidon had locked away from himself. So Poseidon began his work, piecing his son together as the embryo formed. Poseidon was the Earthshaker, the Stormbringer, the Lord of Atlantis, Horses, Sailing, and the Oceans themselves. He was the Sea God, and so his son would hold all of these things. What had once been an accident, the creeping rise in strength of the Children, now became intentional as Poseidon formed The Herald as best he could, then delved deeper, mortal understanding of the world, granting new facets to old powers. Demigods found new pieces of their parents to draw strength from, but his son would not have to look.
He moved the earth using shifting tectonics, friction, groundwater, and weathering. He filled his unborn son with that power: the ability to destroy the earth in its diverse forms and shake the foundations of all.
He drew on storms, his understanding of air pressure, the water cycle, the formation of clouds, and the grinding of particulate ice to form charges that blossomed into arcing lightning. He gave the gift of violent wind, driving rain, and water and air and knew that such a gift was only the beginning.
He impressed his authority upon his son. Lord of Atlantis, The Herald, would be a Prince. He would speak to all the races beneath the waves, and all would call him Lord. His creations upon land and in the air would follow him as well. Horses and even Pegasi would heed his command. Ships would respond to his will; all vessels made for the waters were his, and thus it would be.
Then Poseidon shared the oceans, the sea, with The Herald. Water, the elixir of life, would be his to command, his to bend to his will. The oceans would heed his call, the currents would carry him, and no water would drown him.
Finally, he shared the depths of himself—the darkness that lay deep beneath the surface. He shared his love and hate, rage and need, and gave him what Poseidon himself could not possess—what the mortals now knew, what the Gods, tied to their domains, could not learn.
He gave his unborn son true power. Power over all that flowed. Water, wine, poison, blood. Poseidon knew his son would be a monster and that he was creating something none of them could control, and he reveled in it.
Poseidon smiled as he peered through Sally's flesh and watched his son grow faster than any human child should. If you wish my son to be The Herald, He mused Portent of a new age. Then, I will make him something unique among his kind. He will be the zenith of all Demigods, an immortal with no Divinity. He will need no title. His blood will run red, and he will make Gods kneel in fear and awe. If the Age is to Turn, then I will make its Omen a guardian like no other. Give him power like no other. And his mother. My love. Will raise him as a good man. Righteous. Kind. Free.
Sally stirred next to him, blue eyes opening to reflect the glow of his. She smiled at him, and Poseidon felt his heart rush in response.
"You're pregnant," Poseidon said. He hadn't meant to. He had meant to wait and break the news slowly, but it had slipped out.
Sally's eyes narrowed, and her lips became thoughtful. "Okay," She said after a minute of blissful, terrible silence.
"I am not supposed to have children. I have broken an oath." He confided, and Sally nodded, blue eyes rising to meet his once again. No fear, no hesitation, just… was that love? Was that what it looked like?
"I have no right to ask this of you," he said, careful with his words. He had been reckless enough for a thousand years so far. He would not push his luck. But will you raise the child? He will be hunted by creatures, monsters from my world. He will not be safe; he will be in danger, and you will be in danger, but I must ask."
He paused, looking at her, expression unreadable. He continued, "I would offer to take you to Atlantis once more, for you to live free and safe beneath the waves, that I might construct you a palace where the child might be raised, but-"
Sally cut him off. "-But I wouldn't accept. And I won't." She said in that beautiful, musical voice of hers. "I make my own life, Poseidon,"
"What of the child? If you will not come I cannot raise him. Such are the Ancient Laws, laws I cannot break so blatantly."
Sally was silent, and Poseidon let her sit on the question. No sound filled the room except the slight shifting of sheets as they lay in bed together.
"I'll raise him… He's going to be important, isn't he," Sally replied softly, a declaration more than a question.
"Yes, and I fear his fate will be tragic. As so many Demigods' are," Poseidon replied solemnly, "Their lives burn bright and quick. His life will be one of peril and blood, of that I am certain. That being said, if he's anything like you, and takes hold the blessings I have given him, then I have hope,"
"Hope?" Sally asked.
Poseidon reached over and put a hand on her cheek, "That he might usher in a new Age. A better one." He said softly, placing a soft kiss on Sally's forehead.
Poseidon wrapped her up in his arms and felt her fingers press against his back. "My-" he began but cut off, "Your son will become something beyond divinity. If he survives, I am certain he will. Please, my love, raise him well. Raise him good. For he will need to be a better man than I." Poseidon confided and felt his heart race in anticipation, in terror.
He recalled the lines, etched into his memory like a brand, like a scar. The words that had spurred the pact. The words that informed his broken oath.
A Half-Blood, blood of the Sons of Time
Shall reach eighteen through war and strife
An Omen for all, that the end is nigh
Olympus to fall, or Olympus to rise?
Poseidon had either saved Olympus, or doomed it by his actions, and time would only tell which. But he would have it no other way. The sea does not like to be restrained, the sea takes care of its own.
≺ ⋞ January 11th, 2013 ⋟ ≻
Percy was pissed. He grit his teeth while Grover laughed off the snide comments, stealthily plucking the sandwich pieces out of his hair and stuffing them in his mouth. The doctors told Percy it was a lack of impulse control or something like that, and maybe that helped some people, having a rational explanation for what they were feeling, but for Percy, it only made him feel justified. No, he couldn’t just suck it up when someone was bullying his best- scratch that- only friend. He had no impulse control. He wanted to punch their lights out.
Percy started to stand up in his seat, his eyes darting toward Nancy and her cronies—a gaggle of a half-dozen boys and girls with a frankly startling sadistic streak for middle schoolers. Then again, this was Yancy Academy, “frankly startling” barely scratched the surface. Nancy was a ginger kleptomaniac with a blotchy, acne-covered expression that radiated pure malice. Jonas was a big guy behind Nancy, snickering while his meaty hands dove into a bag of chips. He looked like a powerlifter who hadn’t gotten the memo that you were supposed to be bulky with muscle instead of fat. That being said, he was at Yancy for beating some kid up so bad that he was in the hospital for a month; morbidly impressive. Across the aisle from Nancy was Nora, a tall girl famous for knowing everyone’s dirty laundry. She had gotten kicked out of several schools for blackmailing classmates and even a teacher, though Percy was skeptical of the last claim. There were others, kids that drifted in and out of Nancy’s little circle, but the three of them were the worst offenders.
Grover yelped and grabbed Percy’s sleeve, jerking him back into his seat. “Don’t,” Grover hissed, “You, you're on probation, remember.” He stumbled over his words, one of the traits that made him a good target for Nancy Bobofit and her minions. Grover had explained it was a symptom of his anxiety disorder, and it always flared up when he was nervous, and then Grover would start chewing his water bottle or pencil. Seemingly any inanimate object that wasn’t food.
Apparently, Grover hadn’t pulled Percy back down fast enough because Nancy spat at him next, “That’s right, Jackson, stay in your seat. Last time you tried to defend your p-p-precious p-p-princess Underwood, you got laid out and put on probation. Just sit there and take it with your boyfriend,” Nancy mocked, her voice dripping with sarcasm and venom.
Percy’s face immediately went red, and his fists curled, but he refused to look at Nancy or acknowledge the comment. He wasn’t embarrassed by her calling Grover and him boyfriends. He had spent the entire semester picking fights with Nancy and her goons to keep Grover and some other kids out of their crosshairs, and it had been working. He was angry that he couldn’t do a thing about her insults.
Jonas was slow, and Nancy couldn’t throw a punch, so despite nearly all of Nancy’s people having a size advantage when compared to him, Percy had gained something of a reputation. So people left him and Grover alone. That’s how Percy had always been: picking fights where others wouldn’t. Most of the kids Percy kept out of the crosshairs never gave him more than a smile of thanks; they were too scared to step back into the limelight, but that had never bothered Percy. He had been at six schools in six years and gotten kicked out every single one. Percy was used to not having friends, and he understood their fear. Percy's own had just faded over the years.
Grover was the odd one out like that, which gave Percy a genuine respect for him. Grover was always the easiest target in the room. A stuttering, half-crippled kid in a room full of delinquents was bound to be mocked. It seemed strange that Grover would end up at Yancy, but whenever Percy asked what he had done to get sent to the delinquent boarding school, Grover refused to answer. He would just get a sad look in his eyes and say, "I’d rather not talk about it," or something similar. So Percy had let it go.
The reputation Percy had garnered, and the uneasy peace between himself and Nancy’s clique had all gone to hell a week ago when Arron, one of Nancy’s goons, had lured Percy into view of a security camera. The camera saw Percy running after, hitting, and following Arron out of frame. Aaron had run toward the woods outside of Yancy, where the rest of Nancy and her goons ambushed him. Then, by some unholy miracle, they got Mrs. Dodds, their Pre-Algebra teacher, to side with the gang of assholes in the disciplinary hearing. Percy had been overwhelmed by the video evidence, eyewitness testimony, and Mrs. Dodds’s endorsement.
“I’m going to kill her,” Percy growled under his breath, still blushing furiously.
Grover gave him a sympathetic look and dodged another chunk of the peanut butter sandwich, “It’s fine man,” He stuffed it into his mouth and gave Percy a small smile, “I like peanut butter,”
≺ ⋞ ♆ ⋟ ≻
Percy really tried to keep his mind on the museum tour, but it kept wandering. A feeling, like something was brushing the back of his neck, kept nagging at him, and that was without the ADHD to consider. Mr. Brunner, their Latin teacher, led the tour in his motorized wheelchair, stopping at various Greek and Roman artifacts to speak about their history. Honestly, Percy was pretty interested. Maybe it was another lingering fixation like skateboarding a few years back or his mom’s grunge records the year before. Still, he found he could actually focus on Mr. Brunner’s words, a rarity considering his grades.
Unfortunately, as Mr. Brunner gave an eloquent explanation for the stele, a thirteen-foot tall stone column with a sphinx sitting atop it, Nancy and her cronies were snickering about the naked statues across the hallway.
Percy hissed, “Shut up, Nancy,” trying to get her and her clique to stop laughing so he could listen, but they brushed him off. Mrs. Dodds, the leather-jacket-wearing, old Georgian complete with a southern drawl and passive-aggressiveness veneered over with sweet words, gave him a pointed stare Percy had come to call the “evil eye.”
Why the hell Mrs. Dodds liked Nancy so much, Percy couldn’t tell, nepotism, maybe, the old hag certianly seemed like she could be related to the bitch queen, Nancy, or maybe his asshole teacher saw something of herself in the acne riddled sneer of the twelve year old kelpto. Nancy never paid attention in Mrs. Dodd’s class yet consistently scored well. Percy had tried to cheat off of her once, testing his theory, and found that for the same answers (more or less), Mrs. Dodds had given Nancy a B+ and Percy a D-, regardless of the “why” Mrs. Dodds seemed to have a personal vendetta against Percy for whatever reason.
Percy had commented once to Grover that he thought Mrs. Dodds wasn’t human, that she must be an alien or demon, and Grover had laughed nervously and agreed, though Grover’s response still seemed to nag at Percy for some reason. Things like that happened a lot to Percy, as though he was assembling a puzzle, except most of the pieces were missing, and he just had to guess at the complete picture.
Percy went back to his attempts at actually learning something. Mr. Brunner, an old man with dark skin, grey hair, a beard, and a tweed jacket, was explaining that the stele was a grave marker for a girl close to their age. Mr. Brunner continued to talk with his hands, animated gestures taking in the carvings, but Nancy and her friends were commenting on the dick size of the naked statue, and Percy snapped, louder than he meant to, “Will you shut the hell up,”
There was assorted snickering and giggles from the assembled sixth graders, and Mr. Brunner stopped talking, waiting a moment before the laughing died down to say. “A comment, Mr. Jackson?”
Percy felt himself blush as red as he had on the bus, but this time with embarrassment rather than anger. “No sir,” Percy mumbled and looked down.
Mr. Brunner hmm-ed to himself, his eyes flicking toward Nancy before asking, “Would you mind explaining what we are seeing here, Mr. Jackson,” He powered his wheelchair closer to the stele, pointing at a carving.
Percy did a mental cheer because, at complete random, Mr. Brunner had picked the one carving he could explain. “That’s Kronos, right?” Percy half-stated, half-asked, “Eating his kids,”
Mr. Brunner rolled his hand, gesturing for more, “And he did this because?”
Percy racked his brain and came up with a half-baked answer, “Kronos was the king God-”
“God?” Mr. Brunner questioned.
“Titan,” Percy corrected himself, the story coming back in pieces from the beginning of the semester, “And… he was eating his kids, the Gods, because he didn’t trust them. But after eating their first five kids, his wife…” Percy trailed off, but he couldn’t remember her name. “She fed Kronos a rock in baby clothes instead of baby Zeus.”
“That Titaness would be Reha, Titaness of Fertility, Motherhood, and the Mountain Wilds, but please, Mr. Jackson, continue,”
Percy recalled the rest of the story as best he could, “Zeus grew up and tricked his father into barfing up his siblings-” There was giggling and mock gagging from a few students, “-with some really gross wine, then the six of them led a rebellion against Kronos in a big Gods verses Titans war, and the Gods won in the end. I think that’s right,”
Mr. Brunner nodded as Nancy whispered, “Like this will ever come up in real life. Oh, ‘why did Kronos eat his kids?’ on a job application,”
Mr. Brunner’s head swiveled toward Nancy, “Yes, to paraphrase Ms. Bobofit’s untimely question, why is this important, Mr. Jackson?”
Nancy went bright red, and Percy took some satisfaction in that. Grover murmured, “Busted,” as the class snickered at Nancy’s slip-up. One of Nancy’s cronies tried to kick at Grover’s crutches, but Percy jammed his foot in the way. Yet another reason why Grover got picked on constantly. He had a muscular disease in his legs and had to walk on crutches almost all the time, so some of their classmates had taken to calling him “cripple” and other unoriginal names. He had doctors’ notes excusing him from PE for all time, though Percy was always surprised at how fast Grover could move when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.
Mr. Brunner’s eyes returned to Percy, looking for an answer. Percy thought about it. Mr. Brunner was the best teacher he had ever had. It felt wrong to disappoint him, which was strange, considering Percy had never felt that way toward other teachers. But he shook his head, “I’m not sure, sir,”
Mr. Brunner nodded, but Percy could tell he was disappointed, “Well, half credit then. Here is what I will say on the subject.” He turned his wheelchair and looked at the stele , “Stories are powerful things, as are beliefs. The Ancient Greeks believed in these stories as much as any modern-day religious person believes in their religion. Whatever you believe about God or Gods, these stories shape society. We still make references to Icarus’s folly and Herculean strength. The days of the week in English still reference the Norse gods: Tyr’s Day, Woden’s Day, Thor’s Day, and so on. Rome is still the cultural benchmark for Western empires, and scientists use Latin when naming wildlife and chemicals. And one can find Egyptian obelisks prominently displayed as our national monuments and pyramids on our money, these cultural imprints, all have some root in their myths and stories.”
Mr. Brunner turned back to the class with a playful smile, “Tell me, how many of you would like to be superheroes? Spiderman? Superman? Batman?” There were smiles, and hands shot up from most of the class, Percy included. Who wouldn’t want cool abilities like that? Mr. Brunner clapped his hands, “And thus, the power of stories, modern-day myths that inspire another generation. So you see, in understanding the stories of the Ancient Greeks, we understand that the past is not so far away, for they had their own supermen to dream of.”
Mr. Brunner waved his hand, “But I digress. Zeus did indeed feed his father a mixture of mustard and wine that forced him to disgorge his five other children, who- being immortal- had grown up, undigested in the Titan’s stomach. The Gods then defeated their father in a mythological war known as the Titanomachy that rocked the foundations of the world, though not as clearly black and white as one between Gods and Titans, take Prometheus, for instance, a Titan who sided with the Gods. Regardless, upon defeating the Kronos's Titans the Gods dismembered their father with his own scythe- the very scythe Kronos and his brothers used when killing their own father- then cast Kronos’s remains into the depths of Tartarus, the deepest part of the Underworld.” There was a moment of silence, then Mr. Brunner grinned, “On that morbid note, have a wonderful lunch. Mrs. Dodds, if you will.”
Mrs. Dodds nodded and began leading the class back outside for lunch. Before Percy and Grover could follow, Mr. Brunner called, “Mr. Jackson, a moment,” Percy gestured for Grover to go on and then turned to talk to Mr. Brunner. Mr. Brunner was giving Percy the look. That intense, almost sad stare that seemed to take in everything about him. How he looked, how he felt, and gave sympathy back. Honestly, it made Percy depressed; he felt like such a disappointment. “You must learn to answer that question,” Mr. Brunner said, almost talking to himself.
Percy was confused, “About the Titans?”
He must have looked funny because Mr. Brunner laughed softly, the smile lines around his eyes crinkling, “No,” he replied, “About application. What you learn from me is vital, Percy. For you more than most.”
Percy’s mind spun. What was Mr. Brunner talking about? Percy opened his mouth to reply, but Mr. Brunner continued, though for some reason he seemed hesitant, “You’ve always had trouble in school, from what I’ve heard,” He gave Percy a conspiratorial smile, “Getting into fights, insulting teachers and students, poor grades, those sorts of things, right?”
Percy blushed, now with a mix of the anger from the bus and embarrassment from minutes before. Why was Mr. Brunner laying into him like this?
Mr. Brunner noticed Percy’s red face and backpedaled, “I don’t mean to criticize you, Percy. You’ve have your problems,” He shrugged, “So does everyone else, on some level or another, Percy, and part of life, part of truly living is in confronting our own weaknesses and mistakes. For instance I have an unfortunate meddling disposition. But back to you, I can tell you’re genuinely interested in my class and trying your best.” Mr. Bruner put a hand on Percy’s shoulder, “I want you to focus on that feeling. You’ve found something special to you, and when you learn to harness that sort of focus, you can move forward.”
Percy only half understood what Mr. Brunner was saying, but it seemed like good advice. He had heard similar things from doctors and teachers before, but the way Mr. Brunner said it seemed to sit better with him. Some part of Percy wanted to hate Mr. Brunner for pushing him so hard. The guy always seemed to want perfection from Percy, who had never made above a C- in his life, had ADHD, dyslexia, and had been to six schools in as many years. The greater part, however, just didn’t want to disappoint the old man. He was the only teacher Percy had ever met who seemed to care enough to do more than help him fit into a box.
It was fun on tournament days when Mr. Brunner put on Roman armor and pointed at the board with a sword, a gladius, maybe? He would challenge teams from the class to run to the board to answer questions about every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, their mothers, and which gods they worshiped, it was immediate, it made Percy's mind kick into overdrive instead of always looking for something that wasn't there, distracting him. Sometimes, Percy just wanted to ignore Latin class; it drained him so much to focus like that, but he just couldn’t let Mr. Brunner be disappointed in him. Percy mumbled something about trying harder but really was just trying to fight back the tears. He was doing his best. Yeah, he knew he could learn and get things done, but unless the consequences were in his face, like those tournament days, he couldn’t focus, which made studying a non-starter most of the time.
Mr. Brunner patted him on the shoulder and gestured to Percy's clipboard, “How is the worksheet going?”
Percy looked down, but the words seemed to scramble as he looked. He had barely gotten through the first question with a poorly written answer when Mr. Brunner had called on him. “Crap, I lost my pen,” Percy mumbled and looked around.
Mr. Brunner nodded and exchanged the clipboard for a ballpoint pen with Percy, though, for some odd reason, Percy could sense fear in Mr. Brunner's voice, “Keep this for today. Use it if you need it. The pen is a mighty instrument.” Percy laughed at the comment, but upon retrospect, as he walked back toward the museum entrance, he was sure Mr. Brunner had been deadly serious. Percy took another look at the ballpoint pen. Honestly, it looked like a regular pen, albeit a nice one. It was made of bronze and engraved with small patterns on the cap and end of the pen, with what felt more like glass where the clear plastic should have been. However, the weight didn’t make sense for something made of metal and glass.
Tucking it into his pocket, Percy stepped outside and spotted Grover sitting on the edge of a fountain about a hundred feet away. Heading toward the bus in the parking garage, Percy looked around. The sky was dark and stormy overhead, but there was no rain. The weather had been freakish for whatever reason since just before Christmas, airline accidents in freak storms, container ships going down in the Atlantic, some people had been calling it the longest hurricane season, with tropical storms still coming out of the Atlantic at the present, early January. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchable crackers. Nancy Bobofit was pickpocketing some lady’s purse, and her cronies were trying to light the shrubbery around the museum entrance on fire with a lighter. Mrs. Dodds seemed to notice none of it, of course, gazing out over the square from atop the steps of the museum with her arms folded. She gave him the evil eye when she saw Percy before returning to her predatory scanning.
Percy retrieved his lunchbox from the bus and approached Grover, “Detention?” He asked as he took another bite of his sandwich.
“Nah, not from Brunner,” Percy said as he sat down next to Grover and unzipped the lunchbox, “I just wish he’d lay off me sometimes-” Percy huffed with laughter and tossed his clipboard into Grover’s lap, “I’m not exactly a genius, and he knows it,”
Grover looked down at the worksheet with Percy’s single answer and some notes from Mr. Brunner written in the margins for a few questions. Grover looked down at the worksheet for a moment, and Percy was sure he’d answer with some profound statement about how Mr. Brunner was just trying to help him, about how Percy wasn't as dumb as he thought he was, and that Grover believed in him, like he was always saying, but he just muttered, “Ah, shit.” Which was far more language than Grover ever used, “I, eh, forgot we had a worksheet,”
He and Percy laughed and began working on the half-dozen written response questions together. Well, Grover worked, and Percy focused on trying to fight through his dyslexia and write down the answers. He tried to help but only got about half of the answers right, and when Grover kept correcting him, he stopped trying and kept listening, focused on making the stubborn letters on the page make sense. At some point, Mr. Brunner rolled down the wheelchair ramp and parked his wheelchair on the other side of the square, with a red umbrella sticking up from behind him and a paperback novel in his hand, while he ate their Latin teacher, making him look like a portable cafe.
Percy looked up from the worksheet at the cars flowing on Fifth Avenue and felt a pang of homesickness. He could just hop in a cab and be at his mom’s apartment in a few minutes. She’d welcome him in, hug him, ask him how he was, and pry into his school life. She’d cook him a wonderful meal but then send him back to Yancy and remind him to try harder. Percy always wanted to retort that he had been through six schools in six years, and he was on track to get kicked out of Yancy, but he knew he couldn’t take the look of worry she would give him, she worked far too hard for him to keep fucking things up like this, which made him feel sick.
Just as Percy was coming out of his bittersweet homesick reminiscence, he noticed Nancy Bobofit had come over and dumped a bunch of junk in Percy and Grover’s lap. It took Percy a moment to realize what it was: an assortment of objects from breath mints to a small camera to a wallet. Then, a horrible realization crept over Percy. Nancy had dumped the stolen goods from the woman she had been pickpocketing in their laps. Grover gave Percy a shocked look. Nancy was trying to get both of them in trouble for stealing, which would get not just Percy but Grover kicked out of school.
“Oops,” Nancy said mockingly, turned, and opened her mouth as if to rat them out. Percy didn’t remember what happened next. He knew he stood, ran up, and got in front of Nancy as her goons closed in to protect her. Percy knew he was angry. He was livid. Probation be damned, Percy wasn’t going to let this acne-riddled, freckled menace worm her way out of being punished again. He wouldn’t let Grover get kicked out of school like this. Percy’s last memory was of his foot darting outward toward a startled Nancy’s gut and something glittering like water rushing forward from behind Nancy as his vision tunneled and he felt a tugging sensation in his gut like someone had thrown a net over his stomach and was yanking down, a wooziness filling his body.
When Percy’s vision cleared a moment later, Nancy wasn’t where he had left her, and neither were her goons. Jonas was laid out on his back to Percy’s right. Nancy and Nora were in the fountain alongside half of the stolen property, and the other three of Nancy’s goons were in various states of groaning disarray, covered in water. “What the…” Percy mumbled as Grover looked at him with a mix of surprise and dawning horror.
“Percy pushed us!” Nancy accused with a pointing finger, and Percy felt that unease like a brush across the back of his neck again. He felt his body come alive as Mrs. Dodds's wrinkled hand clapped onto his shoulder.
“Now honey-” She drawled as she gave Percy the evil eye again. But there was something else, a triumphant fire as if Mrs. Dodds had been waiting for Percy to do… whatever he had done.
“I know, another month erasing workbooks,” Percy mumbled, which wasn’t the right thing to say, it seemed. Mrs. Dodds scowled more deeply. Moving forward, she helped Nancy out of the fountain and promised her that she’d get Nancy a new shirt from the gift shop. As she finished comforting Nancy, she turned back on Percy, and he saw Grover’s face go slack with horror as if he had just noticed something.
“You-” She pointed at Percy, “Follow me.”
Grover jumped up as fast as he could on crutches and said, “Wa-wait, I, um, pushed Nancy, it wasn't, it's not-” Mrs. Dodds stopped him.
“I think not Mr. Underwood. Mr. Jackson, lets go,”
“But-”
Mrs. Dodds gave Grover a look that made him sit back down, and Percy sighed, “It’s fine, man, thanks for trying,” He whispered with a smile.
“Jackson.” Mrs. Dodds barked, and Percy saw Nancy smirk triumphantly. Percy gave her his deluxe I’ll-kill-you-later stare, and it seemed to work, which was odd considering that since his probation, Nancy and her goons had ignored the look, but now she actually looked scared as Percy turned back toward Mrs. Dodds only to find her atop the steps to the museum, gesturing for him to follow. How the hell had she gotten there so fast? As Percy walked toward the museum, he looked back to see a frantic Grover moving as quickly as his crutches would allow across the square toward Mr. Brunner, who was still reading his book.
Percy turned away and continued inside, following Mrs. Dodds. He assumed they were headed to the gift shop to buy Nancy a new shirt, but apparently, that wasn’t the plan as Mrs. Dodds continued to lead Percy deeper into the museum. Percy kept feeling that odd brushing on the back of his neck as if his body was telling him to pay attention. His muscles felt wound up as if he was ready to move at a moment's notice, but he couldn’t understand why. For some reason, there were fewer and fewer people as they moved deeper into the museum until they arrived back in the Greek and Roman section. Mrs. Dodds turned, and the look in her eyes was a sadistic joy that reminded Percy of Gabe, his stepfather. He swallowed hard, not scared, but definitely nervous. She’s a teacher. She’s not going to hurt me , Percy thought.
“You’ve been giving us problems honey,” Mrs. Dodds growled as she adjusted the cuffs on her leather jacket.
“I-I’ll do better, ma’am,” Percy stammered, but Mrs. Dodds sneered.
“Did you really think you could get away with it?” Mrs. Dodds asked mockingly, and Percy had a moment of confused terror. The theft Nancy had tried to pin on him? Nancy hadn’t said anything about that to Mrs. Dodds. The illegal candy stash and few packs of cigarettes Percy had been selling for cash? No way anyone had ratted on him; he knew his customers. “We are not fools, Perseus Jackson. It was only a matter of time before we found you. Confess, and you will suffer less pain. Percy felt fear clawing at his gut, the sensation on the back of his neck growing. Suffer less pain ?
“Ma’am, I don’t-”
Mrs. Dodds tutted impatiently, “Times up,”
Then she began to change. Mrs. Dodds’s eyes started to glow like coals, growing into hot pits of flame. Her skin stretched and split, she grew a leathery, thick hide that made her human skin break and flake away, disintegrating into black smoke as it fell from her body. That hide began to mesh with her leather jacket as it unfurled into a pair of bat wings behind her, the edges torn and stuck with holes. Her long, red-painted nails became cruel, four inch talons encrusted with dried blood. Her mouth widened, unhinging like a snake, and growing larger until two rows of sharp, pointed teeth were barred at Percy. Her form became gaunt and hunched, despite blossoming in size so she stood nearly three meters tall, a whip appearing in her hand, woven with small, black, metal blades that seemed to trail black fumes, mixing the smoke from strange, blood red flames.
Percy felt his knees start to give out as the gruesome monster that used to be Mrs. Dodds screeched at him before launching herself forward and lashing out with the whip. “Die honey!” She screamed as her southern drawl faded into a guttural snarl. That brushing on the back of Percy’s neck was gone now, replaced with a feeling like a hundred needles poking the back of his neck as if to say: Danger. Here. Now. Percy did the only thing that made sense at the moment. He dodged. Throwing himself to the right, he tucked into a role and came up on his knees, sliding slightly on the polished floors. Run. Get help. Percy thought on instinct, so he turned and sprinted for the far exit on the other side of the section.
Percy ran like hell. Ducking between exhibits as the monstrous cries of Mrs. Dodds hounded him from behind. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Percy’s mind screamed as he rounded another statue and made a mad dash for the exit. With a guttural roar that was far too deep and warbled for Mrs. Dodds to make- more like some of the strange, droning cries of dinosaurs Percy had listen to on YouTube once- there was a shudder from the earth, and black iron bars broke through the floor, sealing off the exit, the same metal as the blades in her whip, all fuming with that black smoke, though in this larger form Percy caught sight of traces of soft baby blue marbles in the metal, and- were those colors moving?
Percy’s contemplation was cut short as his mind remined him that his exit was blocked, and fear turned to stark terror as Mrs. Dodds renewed her attack Percy throwing himself out of the way of the blows. The whip came down in wide, arcing slashes that left burning fissures wherever it hit, tearing the marble floor apart. A part of Percy knew he should have been dead. He had crossed the room way too quickly, and the fact he had dodged all these strikes from the whip shouldn’t have been possible. It was like he was moving faster and with more strength than any twelve-year-old or- adult, for that matter- should have. Only a handful of seconds had passed since the fight began, even with the sprint across the room, about half the length of a football field.
Suddenly, Percy felt his hand being pulled toward his pocket. The pocket where Mr. Brunner’s pen was. “ use it if you need it. The pen is a mighty instrument, ” He had said.
“Oh fuck,” Percy moaned as he followed his instincts and pulled out the pen, uncapping it. For a painful instant, nothing happened, then the pen began to expand. The shaft thickened into a leatherbound grip, a crosspiece forming just above Percy’s hand, and a two-foot and a-half-foot, glowing bronze blade sprouting from the newly formed crosspiece. The entire expansion seemed to follow some nested pattern that vanished as soon as the pieces were in place, so it looked as if the sword was completely normal, which felt like an odd way to describe a sword that had just erupted from a pen.
However, Percy didn’t have much time to admire the sword- or contemplate how the fuck a sword had just sprung from a pen, becoming as heavy as the bronze would suggest. Wouldn't that violate the thermo-dino-whatever laws? Something, something, conservation of matter? -As Mrs. Dodds closed the distance between them. Her face widened in shock at the sword’s appearance and Percy did the only thing that made sense. He swung the sword as hard as he could.
The blade bit into Mrs. Dodds's right shoulder and continued through her body, the attack surprisingly easy, once again, as if Percy had far more strength than he should have. The wound spouted yellow-green blood and revealed grey flesh and blackened bones as the blow tore through the monster and out the other side, and as Mrs. Dodds’s two halves began to fall, her eyes dimmed her bisected corpse fell to the ground spattering blood in viscera everywhere.
Percy only had a few panicked moments to think about how the hell he could explain the monster's body to the cops when it began to flake away, the corpse and blood dissolving- as if he were watching a timelapse of a rotting corpse- and returned to dust before vanishing completely, as if the solid marble tiles were a sieve. Looking down at his hand, Percy expected the sword. Instead, he held the pen, the cap still in his left hand. Percy recapped the pen and numbly stuck it in his pocket. Then he saw the cracks in the floor, the ruined exhibits, repairing themselves. The iron grate across the nearby exit had vanished, with no sign of disturbance to the tiles. Looking up into the corner of the room, Percy saw the security cameras shooting sparks.
Not knowing what else to do, numb, scared, and high on adrenaline, Percy ran out of the museum as fast as he could.
≺ ⋞ ♆ ⋟ ≻
Percy walked outside in a daze.
“I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your ass, Jackson,” Nancy commented as he walked by her on the steps, now wearing a shirt with some Greek designs like those on the orange and black vases in the museum and the caption: I’m a Greek about archeology!
“Who-” Percy cut off when he saw a perky blonde woman chastising some of the guys who had been throwing Lunchable crumbs because it seemed like they had tried to grab a pigeon or two, considering the amount of feathers plastered to their bodies and hair.
Walking over to Grover, Percy asked, “Dude, where is Mrs. Dodds?”
Grover only hesitated for an instant, but in that split second, Percy felt that itch on the back of his neck. “Who?”
“Dude, not funny. I’m serious-” Then it started to rain, thunder booming overhead, and Percy felt something, like someone was looking for him, and knew he was close, but unable to find his exact location, a deep anger filtering down from the skies.
“To the bus!” Mr. Brunner called, looking up worriedly at the storm, and the motley class of delinquents rushed toward the parking garage down the street where the bus had been parked. Percy jogged over to Mr. Brunner and was surprised when he said, “Ah, thank you for returning my pen, Percy,” Percy numbly handed over the pen as they walked- well Percy walked, on unsteady feet, and Mr. Brunner rolled along in his wheelchair.
“Sir,” Percy asked, dreading the answer, “Where’s Mrs. Dodds?”
“Who?” Mr. Brunner answered immediately. He really didn’t know who she was, genuine puzzlement on his face.
“Our Pre-Algebra teacher? The other chaparone?” Percy asked, his mouth going dry. What's happening to me?
Mr. Brunner looked at Percy with concern. “I don’t know any Mrs. Dodds, and as far as I am aware Yancy has never had a member of faculty with that name. Are you feeling all right Percy?”
Percy felt sick as he rushed to a trash can and disgorged his lunch like Kronos with his kids. He had almost died. That couldn’t have been a daydream or hallucination. He had felt the heat of the fire, felt the blade bite into her body, and ran nearly a hundred meters in a few breaths. There was no way that was a hallucination.
And Grover was lying.