I’m not really sure if they believed me. They certainly didn’t at first. My trainwreck of an introduction to Glory Girl certainly helped my case––basically everyone around here understood the whole cape secret identity thing and even a brand new hero should have had at least that much figured out––but it wasn’t enough to reassure them that I wasn’t crazy.
Still, I’m glad I chose to start talking only after we’d ordered, because I have a feeling they might have just up and left otherwise. As it was, both girls looked… let’s say very skeptical as I continued my story.
In all honesty, I didn’t have that much proof to go off of. I just hoped it would be enough to get a foot in the door. Presumably the PRT would have some way of checking my story, but I’d been in enough trouble throughout my life (and heard enough stories from my former classmates) that approaching the local authorities without someone like a lawyer behind me seemed foolish.
As we ate I laid out what I did have. First of all, a handful of crumpled one-dollar bills and pennies minted in the last decade. Apparently they didn’t have either of those around here. They only used dollar coins and pennies had been phased out years ago. I’d managed to dodge a bullet by paying for my food that first day with just twenties and a five. Getting the police called on me for counterfeiting would have been really, really embarrassing without the Mist to get me out of trouble.
Unfortunately, that was really the end of my tangible proof. Everything else was just me rattling off other differences I’d noticed. We had a different president, and not the guy they had in Aleph either; I’d double checked just to be sure. There had been an attack on nine-eleven, just like in Aleph.
Most of that was easily accepted. The one that really raised some eyebrows was when I mentioned that Brockton Bay didn’t exist back home. Not that it had been totally destroyed, but rather that it had just never been founded in the first place as far as I could remember.
Vicky frowned at me and told me that was nonsense because Aleph and Bet only started diverging when Scion showed up. I had no real answer to that. I’d already decided to keep the entire god/monster/demigod business on the down-low for now so I couldn’t really go out and say that I knew that the divergence point was not that. Instead I just shrugged and moved on.
By the time I was finished, the food was mostly gone and Vicky and Crystal were staring silently at one another. Eventually Crystal turned to me and flashed me a small smile. “Do you think you could give us a few minutes?”
“Yeah, sure. Not a problem.” I stood up and headed to the bathroom.
Once they were sure I was gone, the two girls broke into hushed whispers. If I had been a normal mortal, there was no way I could hear them through the bathroom door and across half the restaurant. I wasn’t a mortal. I wasn’t even your run-of-the-mill demigod, as much as any demigod can be run-of-the-mill.
I felt a bit bad intruding on their private conversation, but not as bad as I would feel if I walked into a trap and had to hurt someone to get out. I strained my ears, focusing intently on the both where we’d been sitting. A gentle sea breeze blowing in through the crack in the door caught their words and carried them to my ears. It wasn’t a perfect solution and I lost a lot of words, but it was enough.
“...sounds completely crazy, but he seems…”
“...give him a chance…”
“...could be a Master…”
“...my aura...flattened a bullet against his shoulder…”
“...Haywire’s been dead for…”
“...said it was someone on his side…”
“...he could be making things up…Madison…”
“...call Mom...Amy could check if he’s telling the…”
“...don’t know if it’s safe to…”
“...we’re heroes. Helping people…He gave me his secret identity like it was…”
“...fine, Aunt Carol can…”
I washed my hands, cleaned a bit of maple syrup off my cheek, and headed back. It didn’t seem like they were plotting anything nefarious and I counted that as a win in my books. Just in case, I grabbed a plastic water bottle filled with seawater from my hoody, soaked a paper towel, and then wrapped it around my bare bicep before covering it back up with my sleeve. This way I could finally stop focusing on blocking out Vicky’s aura.
I got back to the table just in time to get my glass of soda refilled. Vicky waited until the waitress was gone, then took a deep breath. “Okay so I don’t know if I totally believe your story, but I think that even if you’re just crazy you deserve our help.”
Crystal elbowed her cousin. It had exactly as much impact as it would have if she’d tried to elbow me––Vicky didn’t even move––but it did make her shoot Crystal a sharp glare.
“I’m just paraphrasing what you said,” Vicky hissed.
“But you didn’t have to just go out and say it like that!”
I laughed. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. It’s a pretty crazy story.”
“Right. Anyway, as I was saying before someone elbowed me, we think that what you’re saying makes sense. I sent mom a text. She went into the office this morning, but she should be home in a few hours. I think if you talked to her she’d be willing to give you a hand, or at least point you at someone who can.”
“If you really want to go through with this, she’s going to need to hear your story as well. I know it's one thing to unmask to Vicky and me, and a whole other deal to do it in front of an adult like my aunt.” She paused for a moment, “On that note, how old are you? I know you said you’ve had your powers for a few years now and you probably didn’t bring a legal guardian with you from your Earth, but that sort of thing could be important.”
“Honestly I thought Vicky would have told everyone who I was already. I don’t really care much one way or another. As I said, I don’t really have a secret identity, nor any friends and family to protect. I doubt Percy Jackson exists here, and if he does he’s a completely different person than I am.”
I paused for a moment, suddenly curious if there was a Sally Jackson in this world. If so, what did her life look like? In this world she never would have met my dad, never had me, never married Smelly Gabe, and so much more. Maybe her parents had never even died, maybe her uncle had been saved by a parahuman healer, maybe, maybe, maybe. It was impossible to say now, but perhaps I’d look into it someday.
“Oh, and I’m an adult, you don’t need to worry about that,” I lied quickly, “I turned eighteen in August.”
Crystal seemed to relax slightly at my words. “Oh that's good. Vicky told me she knew your name, but she didn’t tell any of us who you are. I know it doesn’t feel important to you right now, but maybe it will someday in the future if you’re stuck here. At the very least, other people will think it's a big deal. You sh––”
Vicky cut in before Crystal could finish. “Yeah, yeah, I think he gets it, right?” Without waiting for an answer she continued. “I’ve been dying to ask, so what’s your power? I saw that bullet on Wednesday so I know you’re a Brute, but like, are you a full Alexandria package? How strong are you? How durable? I’d love a new sparring partner––Uncle Neil, uh Manpower I mean, and Aegis are the only ones around who I can really practice with and I sometimes have to be a bit careful with them. Do you think––”
This time it was Crystal’s turn to stop her exuberant cousin. “Breathe, Vicky. He can’t answer your questions if you’re just going to talk over him.”
Vicky deflated instantly, “Sorry, I got a little too excited.”
“Don’t worry, I completely understand. I’ve had trouble finding practice partners before too. I’m not super familiar with all the categories, but I think I’m a Brute/Shaker? I’m pretty strong, invulnerable, and I can control water. Oh, and I can sort of sometimes cause earthquakes, but only little ones. I collapsed a bridge once. Long story. No flying for me unfortunately, but I can swim pretty quickly in a pinch. I really don’t know enough about all the numbers to say where I fall. PHO seems pretty hazy on what they all mean and I had other things to focus on.”
Our conversation was once more disrupted by the arrival of the waitress, this time with a small woven basket with our check. She collected our plates and hurried away, leaving me with a sudden quandary: Here I was sitting in a restaurant with two sort-of-law-enforcement-people. The only money I had on me was either functionally counterfeit or a magic credit card that was… probably also not great.
“So, uh, I––” I began awkwardly.
Crystal seemed to realize the problem about five seconds after I did. “I’m not going to ask how you paid for things, though Aunt Carol definitely will. Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” She slid several bills into the basket, then stood up and turned to look back at us. “I’ll go pay up front.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
We watched her go for a second, then Vicky turned to me curiously. “So how have you––”
I looked around in an exaggeratedly furtive way, then leaned forward and whispered, “I have a tinkertech credit card. My normal card is a dud, but this one still seems to work.”
She blinked several times, then tilted her head to the side. “Huh. I guess that's not too weird. The PRT headquarters have a tinkertech elevator. A credit card seems a lot more useful than that. How does it work?”
I shrugged. “No idea. I know the money on it is real and it only works for small purchases, but it comes in handy.” I probably shouldn’t, but I couldn’t resist. “May as well be magic for all I know.”
Glory Girl thankfully seemed to appreciate the ‘joke’. “Tinkers are kind of bullshit, huh?” she asked rhetorically.
“They sure are. Back home we have this giant bronze dragon automaton thingy named Festus. It's as big as a house and weighs a bajillion pounds, but I know for a fact they have some wings somewhere that they can stick on him in a pinch.”
I paused for a moment, considering if this was something I wanted to reveal now or hold off on for later. Well, it was whatever. Trust had to start somewhere and Glory Girl seemed nice. “I also have a tinkertech sword that turns into a pen for storage. It’s actually where I got my cape name, the sword’s called Anaklusmos, that’s Greek for riptide.”
“That sounds sweet! You’ll have to show me later!” Her expression suddenly turned serious. “Though I’m not sure how long you’ll be able to use it for. Unmaintained tinkertech can be dangerous.”
“It should be fine, I think? I guess if something is damaged it's going to be hard to fix, but the sword is pretty durable, as is my armor. I’ve never had to go back and get them maintained before, hopefully that won’t change anytime soon.”
She looked unconvinced. “If you say so…”
We sat in awkward silence for a few seconds until Crystal finally came back. Glory Girl instantly perked up. “Let’s go! Mom shouldn’t be home for a few hours yet. We can go practice!”
“Vicky––” Crystal began reproachfully, but I was honestly just as eager as Glory Girl seemed to be.
“Sure! That sounds like a great idea.” According to PHO Glory Girl was one of the strongest up-and-coming heroes in the city and I was very curious to know what exactly that meant. My excursion two nights ago had been informative, but not very satisfying. The curse of Achilles meant I was always ready and itching for a fight, and it had been days since I’d faced a meaningful opponent.
Crystal sighed. “Fine. But you two need to promise you’ll be careful and we should get Amy before we go.”
“Yup! Promise! I’ll go get her. See you guys at the place, okay? Bye!” Glory Girl blurted out. A moment later she was gone, rushing out of the restaurant and launching herself up into the air.
Crystal watched her go for several seconds, then sighed again. “Sometimes it's exhausting just looking at her,” she mumbled. “I feel so old.”
“She’s certainly something,” I agreed. She reminded me a little of Annabeth. Not the way the other Athena girls did––I could never stand to talk to any of Annabeth’s sisters for more than a few minutes, the resemblance was just too painful––but they had the same sort of build and the obvious passion and intensity in Vicky’s eyes and words reminded me of her.
Honestly it was a good thing that both Crystal and Vicky’s hair was more platinum-blonde than Annabeth’s honey-colored hair and that they had bright blue eyes instead of Annabeth’s stormy gray ones (really the two of them could have easily passed for sisters, not cousins like I knew they were). Annabeth’s face haunted my dreams as it was and I always did my best to avoid things that reminded me too much of her.
I squashed that thought. Not the time, not the place.“So, uh, I guess Amy is Panacea, right? That one makes sense just in case someone gets hurt, but what is ‘the place’?”
Crystal laughed. “Oh, it’s just a bare stretch of beach a little past the boat graveyard that we sometimes use for our practice sessions. Mom found it ages ago and we’ve been using it on and off ever since. It's isolated and basically impossible to get to by car so it's a pretty convenient spot for us. Ever since Eric and I triggered we’ve had enough fliers that we can just carry dad and my aunt and uncle over without having to bother with driving. Saves us a lot of time and trouble.”
“That does sound pretty convenient.”
Crystal suddenly looked a little bit unsure of herself. “Are you fine with me carrying you?” she asked quietly. “My force fields aren’t really strong enough to carry a person on their own so I’m going to have to hold you.”
A twinge of worry flickered through my mind at the mention of flying. Zeus was a huge jerk and me and flying rarely got along. Still, getting carried sounded a lot more like flying on a pegasus than in an airplane, and anyway I was pretty sure Zeus… wasn’t around here. Not anymore at least.
“Yeah, that… should be fine. Can we stick to flying over the water? I’m pretty durable but I’d feel more comfortable with the ocean under me than concrete.”
“Yeah, yeah, definitely! I promise I’ve never dropped anyone by accident before, but if it makes you feel more comfortable I’d be happy too.”
“I appreciate it,” I told her with a smile.
“Great!” She looked away quickly, “We should get going. I’m faster than Vicky when I’m on my own, but carrying someone slows me down a lot more than it does her.”
We headed out of the restaurant and down towards the beach, talking about mostly inconsequential things as we went. Crystal wanted to know more about my life and world and I was happy to oblige her. I told her about camp––though I did my best to avoid saying anything about gods and demigods so I had to tweak some details––some stories about my past quests, and a little bit about my life before I found out I was a demigod.
In exchange, she was equally happy to answer my own questions. Research was all well and good, but there was no substitute for a first hand account. She told me a little bit about what it meant to be a hero in Brockton Bay, gave me some funny anecdotes about her family and the protectorate, and even a little bit about herself as well.
She was eighteen, just like I was pretending to be, and was going to be starting at Brockton Bay University in the fall. She didn’t really know what she wanted to do with her life, unsure if she wanted to become a full time hero in the future or go for a law degree like her aunt.
Once we had walked out of sight of the boardwalk, Crystal stopped and a bubble of nearly-opaque crimson-red light snapped into place around. “So uh, I can either like, hold you in my arms, or I can hook my elbows under your armpits and carry you like that?”
Neither sounded particularly dignified, but I was much more concerned with not getting dropped and/or struck by lightning so I didn’t particularly mind. “Whatever you’re more comfortable with.”
“Okay,” she said with more hesitance in her voice than I was fully comfortable with. “Brace yourself.”
She leaned down and scooped me up in her arms, a few small crimson force fields appearing beneath me to take some weight off her arms. I found myself cradled against her chest like an oversized dog, with one arm under my knees and the other supporting my head. In hindsight, perhaps the other option might have been better. Crystal was wearing a coat and blouse, but my side was still basically pressed directly under her chest.
Once she had a firm grip, we lurched up into the sky and I felt my stomach drop momentarily as we rapidly gained altitude. For all that Crystal had said that flying with someone really slowed her down, she was still very fast.
Even as the earth fell away beneath us, Crystal continued to keep a bright red force field around us, blocking out both the wind and any unwanted observers. I did my best to focus on the sea far below and not on the minimal support beneath me and Crystal’s presence beside me.
After about a minute, Crystal seemed to notice my discomfort. “Are you doing okay? I know flying can be a little rough. It makes me nauseous sometimes even when I’m the one doing the flying.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. I just… I don't like flying very much.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have––”
“No, it's all fine. I appreciate you offering. I’m not like, scared of heights or something. It's just my world has a really powerful cape with uh, weather powers, and he has a bit of a grudge against me. I try to avoid airplanes because of it.”
“That sucks. What did you do to him?”
“Me? Nothing, but my dad’s a cape too, though I didn’t know about that until a few years ago, and the two of them have some beef that goes way back.”
“Oh, I see. I didn’t realize you were a second generation cape like me. Do you guys have similar powers?”
“Something like that. His water powers are stronger than mine, but I’m a bit more of a Brute than he is. I think your family is pretty similar, right?”
Crystal nodded, “Yeah. Second generation capes are pretty rare, especially since secret identities make it really hard to identify people like that, but powers do run in families sometimes. Me and my brother have basically the same powers as my mom, though my lasers and flight are better than hers and Eric––Shielder I mean, has stronger shields than both of us.”
Did that mean that powers were genetic like demigod abilities? But no, I knew what Glory Girl’s mom and dad could do, they were both capes with public identities, and neither did anything close to what powers Vicky ended up with. What did laser weapons, turning into a ball, and light grenades have to do with flight and super strength? That wasn’t even mentioning Panacea, their other daughter, whose powers were even more different than what the rest of New Wave could do.
“We have a lot more capes like that back home than you guys have here. I think it's probably because we don’t worry about secret identities and there are a lot fewer capes in general. Most of the people at camp have a cape parent and powers similar to theirs.”
“That sounds pretty cool! I sometimes wish I had more people outside my family I could talk to about both normal life and being a cape. My friends try, but sometimes they really just don’t understand, you know?”
I considered her words. I’d never really had any friends that weren’t involved with the supernatural, I realized. Well, not close friends at least. Still, I’d spent enough years at school to know a little bit about what she was saying. “Yeah, I get that.”
She grinned down at me, her cheeks red from the cold. I suddenly realized that her coat was still somewhat wet from before and it was pretty cold this high up.
“Here,” I willed the water out of her clothing, leaving her dry and hopefully much warmer, “you looked cold.”
“Oh! Ah, thank you. Yeah, that’s much more comfortable.”
A few more minutes passed in silence. I kept my eyes closed and my hands clutched over my chest. Not thinking about flying didn’t seem to help, but flying over the water really did make the experience much more pleasant than it could have been. Worst comes to worst, I could have a column of seawater catch both of us as we fell and protect me from any further wrath from above.
“Okay, we’re basically here. Hold on tight!”
I wanted to ask what exactly I was supposed to hold onto, but my words vanished as we suddenly dropped from the sky. Wind howled outside our shield and my stomach leapt into my throat. A handful of seconds later it was over and Crystal decelerated, coming in for a gentle landing on a stretch of rocky beach.
“Hades,” I swore softly, my heart hammering in my chest. Crystal made to set me down, but I just sort of rolled out of her arms and hit the ground face down with a thump and a clatter of loose stones.
“Percy!” Crystal exclaimed, “Are you okay?”
I rolled onto my back and looked up at her. There wasn’t a single bruise anywhere on me and I had barely felt the impact.
“Oh right, Brute. Sorry. I forgot.”