Hours later, I found myself sitting on an old bench staring out at a nearly empty stretch of beach. Low tide was just a few minutes out here, the ocean having retreated to reveal a long stretch of smooth, wet sand. Despite the cold, two barefoot teens were running along the waterline, leaving shallow footprints in their wake.
Without really meaning to I watched their path, my eyes instinctively drawn to the only movement in my field of vision. I could feel the water welling up from the sand to fill their heel-prints, the way spray from occasional shallow puddles beaded on their water-resistant jeans, and even the bouncing and shaking of their water bottles.
Did that count as a thinker power, I wondered idly. Or perhaps it was all part of one big shaker power? I didn’t really know, nor did I particularly care. The way the locals classified their abilities was… strange, if potentially rather useful, but I had only briefly glanced over them before I decided it was high time to leave the library. For now, I had bigger things to worry about.
I leaned back, folded my hands behind my head, and crossed my legs. The cool sea breeze wasn’t the same as a dunk in the ocean, but it was still rather pleasant and I really just needed some time to think.
My current situation honestly reminded me a little of those first few days at camp. It felt like it had been a lifetime, but in reality only six short years ago I hadn’t known the first thing about gods, demigods, monsters, and all the baggage that came with my family history.
It had taken days for me to even begin acclimating to everything, but once I had, everything had felt so natural. I’d known the truth deep down in my blood even when it had been hidden from me for my safety. I doubted that was going to happen this time.
Everything here felt so… alien. Wrong. Just, fundamentally not how it was supposed to work. I had spent nearly four hours at a computer, browsing the internet and looking at forums and wikis, and not a single monster had been attracted to the library. I’d even taken periodic breaks to scout around outside at first, once I realized there was too much to learn in just half an hour, but before I discovered that there was no horde ready to break down the doors to feast on demigod flesh.
Was it strange that I missed getting attacked by hordes of monsters? So many demigods would have given an arm and a leg to never have to worry about monsters again, but here I was freaking out because of the opposite situation. There were no monsters here, at least not in the way that I understood them. I’d found references online to monster capes and the Endbringers, but those weren’t monster monsters. With the Mist this thin, it should have been impossible for people not to notice Empousai and cyclopes, gorgons and satyrs hidden among the mundane population.
More than that, these ‘monsters’ could be hurt by mortal weapons and didn’t explode into dust when they died. Morbid or not, I’d found plenty of pictures of dead ‘monster’ capes. They just looked… dead. Like people. Not monsters.
And then there were the Endbringers. I’d only found a scant few pictures of them online, but everything I’d read painted them as impossible, unstoppable horrors. Still, they were modern horrors. Not ancient calamities, but something that, like ‘superpowers’, had only appeared in the past decades.
I… I didn’t know what to think. Heroes, villains, capes, parahumans, and so many more words spun through my head like sand sucked into a hurricane. They weren’t demigods. I was absolutely confident that they weren’t demigods. The internet was rather cagey about how exactly people became capes, but I’d met several of them now, and they didn’t feel like demigods.
Glory Girl, Assault, Battery, that girl… No. No, they weren’t demigods. Or gods. Or monsters. They were… something else. They were an impossibility. I knew what all those felt like, the way my blood rushed and sang in the presence of danger and divinity. The way Mist swirled around monsters and demigods alike.
I’d seen videos online of what some capes could do, and it was intimidating, but also… strange. They were powerful, but oh so limited in so many ways. Their abilities almost seemed like specialized Magic, but that was impossible given how they repelled the Mist like a Mets fan at a Yankees game.
I clenched my teeth as my thoughts drifted back towards the Endbringers, and the one they called ‘Leviathan’ in particular. I didn’t know what I could do about the other two, but that beast’s days were numbered. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could feel the barest echoes of its power rippling through the ocean depths.
Just thinking about it made my blood boil. It dared to infringe on my father’s domain, to bring to bear the rage of the seas without his say. Entire cities, regions, millions of innocent mortal lives, gone. The nearly imperceptible traces of golden ichor in my veins burned at the thought of it. Thief, intruder, blasphemer! I had a sudden urge to dive down into the lightless depths and hunt this beast that dared to style itself as master of the waters.
The barely screwed-on cap of the water bottle clutched in one of my hands burst off, dousing my hair and neck in sea water and pulling me out of my daze. I took several long, slow breaths and dropped the crumpled plastic bottle on the bench beside me.
As much as I wanted to go hunt down that monstrous creature, now was not the time. I couldn’t get distracted. Certainly the next time it dared to emerge from the sea to menace mankind I would be there to face it. I could wait that long. Figuring out more about this strange world in which I’d found myself and how I’d gotten here took priority.
I stood up and jogged down towards the ocean to refill my bottle. Along the way I also scooped up a handful of seashells and tucked them away in my pockets. It was always a good idea to have a little bit of the ocean with me wherever I went.
I was tired of sitting around. Of reading and thinking. I needed to move, to run, to do something. I didn’t typically go out looking for trouble, usually trouble found me, but I could make an exception. According to what I’d read, the docks here were filled with villainous capes and evil gangs. With the curse of Achilles I wasn’t scared of a few mortals with guns, and a good fight would help me gather the measure of these local villains.
Apparently one of them could turn into a dragon! I’d never had a chance to fight one for real––a few had appeared during the battle for Olympus, but I had always been in other parts of the battlefield at the time. The idea was exciting, intoxicating even. Ever since my dip in the Styx, I’d found myself eternally hungry for a good fight, and heroes fighting dragons was a story as old as time.
First though, I needed to make sure I could blend in with the locals if it came down to it. When in Rome, do as the Romans, right? I wasn’t a parahuman, no more than these capes were demigods, but I was pretty sure I could do a rather convincing approximation.
The easiest option would probably be to deploy my armor fully. I’d only ever used it a few times to acclimate myself to fighting in full armor, but in its third mode it fully covered my body and the helmet left my face completely unrecognizable.
However, that came with its own downsides. The armor was… a bit much, to say the least. That was one of the reasons I tended to wear a hoodie over it even when I just had the chestplate deployed. Gleaming celestial bronze scale armor embossed with my father’s trident symbol and polished to a mirror shine tended to be noticeable even through the Mist. If I also decided to use the helmet to hide my ‘secret identity’, the bright blue horse-hair plume, taken from one of Poseidon’s prized hippocampi, and featureless faceplate would stand out like a beacon in any crowd.
That was something I could bring out quickly enough if a fight did break out, I decided as I knelt down on the edge of the water. Angling the crumpled bottle towards the incoming waves, I directed a powerful stream of water into the warped plastic, carefully ballooning it back out to its original size.
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For now, I could probably just settle for the classic disguise of comic book heroes everywhere. I had seen a shop selling domino masks as I scouted around checking for monsters after I’d left the library. Seeing a good opportunity to test out my credit cards, I hid my face under my hoodie and bought a half-dozen.
The Poseidoncard turned out to be a dud, but thankfully my Lotus Cash Card still seemed fully functional. I noticed a barely-perceptible drop in Mist density around it when the wary-looking cashier swiped it through his machine, so that probably meant that the bank accounts Dad gave me access to were invalid, but the magic on the cash card still worked fine. It was probably best not to use it for any large purchases, there wasn’t really very much Mist for it to work with, but for groceries and basic necessities it was probably good enough.
Well, there was no time like the present. I stood up, brushed the sand from my knees, and headed purposefully towards these so-called ‘docks’. I really didn’t like that name. Judging from the maps I’d seen, the majority of the docks weren’t even near the water! It was a stupid name.
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Four entire hours later, my not-so-charitable opinions about the docks hadn’t gotten any brighter. The only good thing I could say about the past few hours was that the chicken lo mein I got from a tiny hole-in-the-wall place was good enough. Though I probably should have taken off my domino mask and hood before ducking into the restaurant; the lady behind the counter had clearly been put off by my attire and spent the entire time I was waiting for my food throwing me fearful glances.
In hindsight, it was probably my own fault. I’d gone out looking for criminals during a weekday afternoon. Even with my very fringe understanding of how this superhero thing worked, I should have known better.
Of course as soon as I decided to take a bit of a break, that was when something finally happened. I had just sat down and torn open the plastic wrapping of a half-crushed fortune cookie when I suddenly felt several gaps in the Mist, something I had been focusing on intently in the past hours, rushing in my direction.
I roughly shoved the cookie in my pocket and hurriedly scanned the surroundings. I saw them nearly immediately. Three massive tiger-lizard-dog monster things were bounding down the road towards me, each just a bit smaller than Mrs. O’Leary.
I was on my feet with Riptide in hand a moment later, though I didn’t take the cap off the blade yet. Standing up gave me the angle to see the costumed figures riding in pairs on two of the monstrosities.
I… didn’t recognize them. There were four of them: a guy, two girls, and a fourth who’s gender I wasn’t quite sure of from this distance. None of them resembled any of the heroes or villains I had read about in this city, though honestly that didn’t really mean much. Apparently this city had a huge number of capes, and I had only looked up the rosters of several of the more important teams.
From a glance, I assumed that these were supervillains. The monster mounts and skull helmet certainly made me think they were villains. Everything I’d seen mentioned how important public relations was to the local heroes and I doubted they would let their members get away with black motorcycle leathers and a skull motif.
I uncapped Riptide and stepped into the middle of the road. “Hello there!” I called out loudly, “You lot wouldn’t happen to be supervillains by any chance, would you?”
Two of the figures, the one in a skull mask and a blonde girl wearing very flattering skin-tight lavender spandex, exchanged looks, and I realized that they weren’t going to stop. In fact, the other girl shouted something to the dogs and they began to turn towards the nearby intersection.
Very rude. I was really getting sick of the recent tendency for monsters and other enemies to try and run away when they saw me. These people didn’t even know who I was! Sure none of the demigods that had sided with the Titans wanted to face Percy Jackson, the Hero of Olympus. Unlike some of the other campers, I didn’t take prisoners. Here though, I was a nobody and they were still trying to run away!
Well, I couldn’t have that. Fortunately, I had a lot of practice stopping people from running away. Sometimes, water was not readily accessible or simply not the most optimal tool for the job. For years I had stayed away from certain abilities for fear of the damage they could cause. After what had happened to Michael Yew, I had honed my skills with other parts of my dad’s divine portfolio until I was certain such a tragedy would never be repeated.
I raised one foot and then slammed it back down into the already cracked and weathered pavement. As the dogs readied for another long bound, the earth beneath their feet rippled and rolled, sending all three of the beasts sprawling as they tried to push off from the suddenly moving street.
Casually spinning Riptide at my side, I walked towards the downed group. None of them were injured; they hadn’t even fallen from their makeshift saddles and my stomp had barely even damaged the road beneath them. I just wanted to slow them down, not hurt them.
“Hello there,” I called out again. “Running away when I’m trying to talk to you is very rude. So, I take it you guys are supervillains then?”
The muscular girl wearing a plastic dog mask glared at me and the dubiously gendered renaissance reenactor sitting behind her reached down to grab what looked like a gaudy gold scepter strapped to the saddle beside him. The other two exchanged hushed words before the skull-masked guy turned towards me.
“We are, and if you don’t get out of our way we’ll show you exactly what that means.” Dark smoke poured out from beneath his helmet and his voice was deep, echoing, and vaguely hollow. He sounded confident and intimidating. Perfect.
“Sounds good to me!” I said cheekily, “I’m new around here and I’m curious to see what you can do!”
That turned out to be a poor turn of phrase a moment later when billowing clouds of black smoke erupted from the supervillain, hiding him and the others and plunging the world into total darkness.
Huh, that was pretty neat. Darkness generation was a damn cool superpower for a villain, very spooky. It wasn’t super effective against me, I could still feel seven distinct blobs of water moving around and sense the disturbance the four capes made in the Mist, but I imagined it was probably pretty useful against most people.
Even more interestingly, I felt a sort of… quiver in the Mist around him when the smoke first emerged. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before and I didn’t know what it meant, but it felt significant.
I waited patiently to see if they would try to use the cover to attack me. Judging from their movements, only the big guy could see through the smoke he made and the others were just following his directions. I was pretty sure they were talking, but I couldn’t hear a word. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything but my own heartbeat and slow breathing. A few experimental swishes with Riptide told me that the smoke pushed against me when I tried to move. It felt a bit like when Kronos tried to freeze time around me, but much less effective. Apparently the darkness muffled more than sight.
I was rather disappointed when the group decided to flee. I waited for the three monsters to bound up onto a nearby rooftop, then followed after them. Focusing on the nearby ocean, I leapt up and out of the darkness onto the nearest roof, the ground beneath me rippling to give me a bit of extra height .
“That was pretty cool!” I called out after them. The blonde girl spun around in the saddle, staring at me with wide eyes beneath her domino mask.
“Bitch, get us out of here,” she called out to the other girl. “Grue, I don’t think your darkness is going to stop him, but it might slow him down!”
Grue and Bitch, huh, Well, the first one was probably a cape name and the second one made it sound like those two didn’t have a great relationship, but it was something to go off of the next time I was at the library.
The so-called ‘Bitch’ let out a piercing whistle and the three monsters accelerated. I shrugged, recapped Riptide, and set after them. I might not be a son of Hermes, but I was still considerably faster than any mortal.
After less than a minute, it was clear that I was catching up to them. Grue summoned walls of smoke in my way, but I simply ran through them and used my water sense to avoid losing the group when they tried to descend back down to street level. Several times I felt something trying to grab at my limbs and muscles, but grabbing a seashell from my pocket and calling a slow trickle of salt water from it to run down my hand quickly put a stop to that as well.
They seemed to realize that as well. “Judas, Angelica, stop! Brutus, hurt!” The dog-masked girl called out suddenly. The dogs stopped and the riderless one turned and lunged towards me, crossing the street in a single leap, its tooth-filled jaws open wide.
I danced nimbly out of the way and drew Riptide. As the monster came in for another bite, I experimentally slapped it on the nose with the flat of the blade and was surprised when I felt a solid impact and the monster reeled back in pain. I had been half expecting the celestial bronze to pass clean through the thing’s head. It seemed this creature really was a monster. Curious.
I dodged around two more lunges, then slammed my elbow into the side of its bony jaw, sending the monster crashing to the ground. If this was a tame monster like Mrs. O’Leary I didn’t want to hurt it too badly. As much as I wanted a good fight, a conversation was probably going to be much more productive. Hopefully this show of force was enough to stop them from running off again. Like my stepdad Paul always said, primary sources are the best when you’re trying to figure something out.
I spun Riptide around and turned to face the watching group of supervillains. “So, do you guys think you could answer a few questions for me?”