Chapter Text
Percy stood and watched while his father effortlessly pulled in a 50-foot-long sea serpent at the end of his fishing line. The monster wrestled and fought against the line, thrashing as it displaced hundreds of gallons of water. The God of the Sea sighed. Holding his fishing pole in one hand, he whipped out a knife and cut the line. The beast sank below the surface.
“Not eating size,” Poseidon complained, “I have to release the little ones or the game wardens will be all over me.”
“Little ones?” Percy said, astonished.
His father grinned. “You’re doing well with those new cabins, by the way. I suppose this means I can claim all those other sons and daughters of mine and send you some siblings next summer.”
“Ha-ha.”
Poseidon reeled in his empty line without saying anything.
Percy shifted on his feet. “Um, you were kidding, right?”
Poseidon gave him a wink before he disappeared into the sea breeze. Percy stood there in shock, still not sure whether his father was serious or not.
* * *
A week later and 200 miles away; a teenage boy found himself at the backend of an alley. He looked around himself and cursed, not seeing an obvious exit. New construction had warped and changed the streets he had been so familiar with just a week before. It also didn’t help that his home was the most disorganized city in the entirety of the US.
“Isaiah.” A voice spat from behind him, and he turned around. Three other teenagers slowly approached him, slowly separating as they came closer. The looks on their faces weren’t friendly, and they sneered at the lone boy. It probably didn’t help that Isaiah held one of their wallets behind his back.
They looked at Isaiah wearily, gathering the courage to get closer. Isaiah wasn’t a small guy. Over 6 feet tall and well built, with bronze skin and a delinquent’s face, he wasn’t the type of person you would approach alone. Such was the reason 3 goons inched ever so closer.
“Finally messed up, huh?” The boy in the middle mused, brandishing a pocket knife.
Isaiah narrowed his eyes and took in his assailants, thinking to himself how to solve his predicament. Lead boy is thin and small. Makes up for it with a knife. “Hey, not my fault the T’s expansion is disturbing my entire city.”
“ Your city? ” The lead boy laughed, “What makes you think that? You're nothing but an orphaned brat. Stealing from the wrong people.”
The one on the right is a fighter. A threat. Him first.
“Well, I did choose you guys for a reason. A pretty good one, I think.”
The one on the left isn’t. What’s that stance? Unbalanced. Simple. Easy. Trivial.
“And what was that?”
Isaiah smirked. “You’re all pretty dumb.” In a swift motion, Isaiah pocketed the wallet and brought out a dense stone from his pocket. He threw it with impressive accuracy, hitting the boy with the switchblade and sending him reeling.
Isaiah closed the gap between him and the nearest boy quickly, blocking his jab with his forearm and responding with a devastating hook. The boy crumbled. The second one went down just as fast, Isaiah catching his foot mid-kick and toppling him onto his back.
The last boy looked up, having recovered from his rock-induced injury. His eyes darted wildly at his crumpled friends and the uninjured teen standing over them with a pleasant smile.
“ Scram, ” Isaiah instructed. And he did.
Isaiah looked around at his handiwork and brushed his hands dramatically before briskly taking the boys' wallets. Without much more consideration he darted back out onto the main street, rejoining the bustling life of the city of Boston.
* * *
Isaiah Zebo was an 18-year-old orphan and former ward of the state. Growing up in various orphanages and foster homes, he survived by being the biggest and meanest boy there, for good reason too. He had always been massive for his age. Even when he was younger he stood at the same height as most adults and with a muscular thickness that came naturally with minimal work. He had always been a fighter, gaining notoriety in his last home for cracking a concrete wall with a barehanded punch. When he wasn’t running from government-issued home to the next, he was causing problems.
Having been on the streets for a few months had done little to temper his attitude or his delinquent nature. He started fights. He stole. He did everything he could to survive alone and without help. Having friends was dangerous. Especially for people like him and he knew it. He knew the truth about this world and what lurked within it, he had survived so long by knowing what to avoid and how to hide.
He drew his hood as he walked down the crowded streets, dodging bicyclists and moving through the spiderweb of streets. He pretended not to see the strange things around him, knowing his gaze would only draw their attention. The group of thugs with just a single eye. The two ladies that seemed to be a strange cross between plump chickens and old women. The news coverage of the “freak storm” that tore apart the country and mysteriously dissipated over New York. He pretended not to see the massive hand reaching out of the clouds that must have belonged to a being of impossible size.
Ignorance was bliss. It was protection. Isaiah never would have survived if he didn’t learn that early. The scars and scratches on his body stayed as painful reminders of the cost of mistakes.
Monsters would ignore him if he ignored them…most of the time.
It was that reasoning that justified his next action. As he came to realize three large men in massive trenchcoats were walking straight towards him. They had even followed his movements when he strolled to the opposite side of the street. Over the course of his life, Isaiah had grown pretty talented at sensing monsters, and these men absolutely fit the bill. Knowing walking right past one was a good way to start a scene, he ducked into the nearest alley planning on doing nothing but waiting them out.
It was his routine. Live his life and narrowly avoid monsters when possible and run when it wasn’t. Most ignored him. So why did the group of men stop at the mouth of the alley?
Why does this keep happening to me? Isaiah cursed in his head and continued further in, the brick walls towering on either side of him. An obstacle. A challenge. A puzzle to be solved.
A puzzle with stakes , He thought sardonically scanning his surroundings. The group of men were still lingering at the mouth of the alley. One of them removed their large-brimmed hats, revealing a monster that Isaiah was absolutely sick of.
Sporting a pudgy face, a single eye, and a large maw with brown teeth, the cyclops sniffed the air. It chattered something to its friends who seemed to sniff too.
“What a shitty day,” Isaiah grumbled, focusing on the rickety fire escape that scaled the side of one of the buildings trapping him. It would’ve been a trivial escape if it wasn’t for the rusted ladder leading up to the stairway having been long collapsed.
The cyclopes began to slowly walk down the alley, its eye milky white but its nose sniffing in overdrive.
Cyclopes, Isaiah recalled in his head, Slow but powerful. Half-blind but with excellent senses. Suicide to fight without a weapon. Suicide to fight 3. Suicide to stay.
He slowly approached the base of the fire escape, careful not to make a sound. The cyclopes continued further in, being only a few yards away.
“Demigod…” One of them grumbled, “I smell him…”
“Wher’ is he?” Another answered.
“So close, so close.” The other mumbled.
Isaiah felt a bead of sweat travel down his forehead as he reached the base of the fire escape. His heart hammered in his chest, his legs felt like lead. He experimentally reached out above him, gauging how far he would have to jump to make it up. The disheartening amount of open-air between the tips of his fingers and the first rung of the fire escape did nothing to calm his nerves.
The cyclopes inched closer, one looking directly at Isaiah. He thanked whatever deity in the sky made these things blind as bats.
He mentally prepared himself to jump. It would be a single chance, a single shot to get out of this situation. The only solution to the puzzle that had the end result of him breathing.
He bent his knees and calmed his breathing, focusing on every muscle in his legs. He could do this. He had to do this. And he was going to.
He jumped, kicking up dirt and making enough noise for 3 eyes to fixate on his position hungrily. He felt himself moving through the air, stretching both his arms and legs to their limits as he came closer and closer to the bottom rung. He swiped wildly, ready to grab on and yank himself to safety.
His hands found nothing but open air as reality set in.
He missed. Landing right back to where he started as he faced down three cyclopes that stood exactly 1 yard away from him, eying him hungrily as saliva fell from their lips.
“ Demigod…”