Disclaimer: - This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of any character or any happening in the story to any person living or deceased is purely coincidental. No copyright infringement is intended and no monetary benefit is being derived from this story. All characters in this story are either mentioned in the Greek mythology or were created by Rick Riordan. No rights reserved. All rights of the original series lie with Rick Riordan and publishers which include but are not limited to Disney Hyperion.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
-Mahatma Gandhi
RADIUM GREEN EYES
1993
A freezing, unnervingly quite wind was blowing through the abandoned city, not even the chirping of sparrows disturbing the eternally silent city of concrete.
The grey walls of the apartment buildings were reflecting the dim setting sun. The huge mangled mass of steel and cement was bathed in a dull red hue, announcing the sad tale of death still lingering in the shadowed lanes of the place. Trees had grown by the sides of the broken pavement though something about them was odd.
Among the mangled mess that had once known glorious days , a single ray of deep blue light could be seen diffracted by a boulder was invisible to the casual human eyes, had a man stumbled across the ruins somehow.
A shadow of some sort was moving among the lost city of Pripiat towards the yellow coloured Mary-go-round which was rotating at a slow speed due to the wind.
About a mile ahead the river after which the city was named was gushing with a strange tinge to the water. Straight on ahead towards the blue ray was visible faintly coming from the north-east. The shade started following the light to its source.
The shattering chill left by the shade advanced on into the three miles of red burnt dead forest towards the huge towering plant where the source of the light was. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant located in the former Ukrainian SSR was towering the whole otherwise serene landscape.
He slowly crossed the Partisan's oak tree passing into the direct vicinity of the plant. The red brown dry leaves which seemed dead long since, but refused to be decomposed rustled as a shade passed through the air sucking all energy wherever it went and finally turning the poisoned leaves to dust after seven years.
It has been seven years since he had escaped from his prison, seven years since he had broken out into the world, unseen and unnoticed by the 'gods'. Seven years since the "meltdown" of reactor 4. Six years since he had forged his excellent plan to gain his former power. Four years since his plan to kidnap the daughter of Zeus had backfired. He will finally get his hands on a child of the eldest gods.
The shade now looked lazily at the closed and sealed rusted iron gates to the monstrosity. Gaea will be very angry when she finds out about his 'works'. But who cares? As long as he gets his hands over her little secret, he would RULE the world. The shade gleefully passed through the Iron gates rattling the bars ever so slightly. He had been waiting for this day since years now. How ironic that the men created by Zeus were helping him win the race against time. Oh the irony, considering he was time in every relevant sense of the word! Cackling internally, he darted forward even more quickly to the graphite boulder invisible to human eye, the same boulder which he blasted out of the reactor when he gained his freedom but lost his powers.
How he resented that day! The day he had sacrificed his power, his essence, and his chopped up body to the essence of Gaea! Blast that stupid radioactivity of her! But it was his only chance; the radioactivity had been building up in the area for about an year now, with the dumping of the spent Uranium he had forced the foolish mortals to carry out in the vicinity of the plant. How he had felt it, the weakening of the powers of the gods, the strength of Gaea was increasing; the dark powers were at work! And there was a reason his rule was called the Dark Era! The dark power was strengthening him for a long time.
He could have broken out from that horrible pit five decades ago, if that attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was known to him! He had prepared himself on the tenth day of August 1945 for a third attack which he would use to free himself, but that day never came! And those blasted humans did more tests only underground now, tempting him but not letting him break free.
And in the four long decades of wait he had become so engrossed in his own complacency that he had not even batted an eyelash when he had lost everything! But he had a very nice plan and he would get back whatever he had lost. The son of Poseidon would destroy the gods!
He was standing in front of the famous Lava flows in the basement. In front of him was a glowing Delta, as blue as the clear sky. Smiling, he reached for the entrance and the symbol turned a delicate red for a second. As soon as he withdrew his hand the concrete block fell apart admitting the shade to the dark tunnel.
After a mile or so the tunnel reached a dead end. Of course it just seemed like a dead end, but he knew better.
"Icarus" he hissed to the wall, his voice coming out in a series of hollow whistles.
The wall melted down as if it was made up of soft wax.
"Are you done with the essence?" He asked the darkness.
"Yes I have made the concoction, all I need is the essence of a shade and a single vial of anti-matter. Then I have to extract essence of a god and burn it in hellfire and age the potion for three years in the skull of the said god's sacred animal. Then you can forge the weapon by quenching it red hot in the solution."
"Good work Quintus. Your work shall be rewarded." The shade said.
"Please, I don't want any reward. Let me go! Let my son's soul rest in peace." pleaded the voice.
"Your son is safe as long as you are loyal to me. Now stop talking and start working. Extract my essence. It would be better since he is my weapon." The shade snapped angrily.
"Please spare my son!" The voice begged.
"You are not known for your loyalty Quintus and I am not known for my kindness." The shade threatened.
"Yes, of course." Quintus said with a barely concealed malice.
"Then get to work."
"Yes, Lord." He replied meekly.
For the next few hours Quintus worked relentlessly extracting some kind of ink black vapour from the smoky robes of the shade. Carefully cutting the robes with a knife of stygian ice he fused it with hellfire to remove any matter from the smoky gaseous robe then he collected the dark vapour left with a spatula carved from Unicorn horn, the sheer intense purity of the horn repelling all darkness surrounding it forcing the vapour to get confined in the form of a ball.
He then washed it with human blood freshly collected from a dying man to give it a liquid form and stored it in a vial of quartz.
The process left the shade exhausted and it left a sad and depressed Quintus alone looking gloomily at the sinful creation he had made today, the essence would literally outmatch the power of a stygian ion blade, no one had made such an invention before.
If the shade got hold of a god other than the Greek ones, the godly essence would destroy the god which is unknown to the weapon. The only one to stop the weapon would be...
Two days later Quintus travelled to Pahalgam in the Indian Kashmir and collected some ice from the ancient Amarnath cave, the cave where the Hindu god Shiva explained the secret of life and immortality to his divine consort.
The essence from the small amount of ice was very difficult to burn in Greek hellfire, taking a lunar month and burning only on the day of the summer solstice. The ashes were subsequently added to the secret concoction making it sharp radium green from all the radioactive Corium added to it.
He carefully stored it in the skull of a Minotaur, bull being Shiva's most privileged animal.
Despite the guilt of making the world's deadliest substance, a small smile appeared on Quintus' Ragged automaton face. A smile which only a scientist could have at making something unprecedented...
This was not how he planned to take his revenge on the gods, but this weapon would surely be their end.
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Three years later: 1996
Poseidon had left her forever. Sally Jackson was struggling through her early twenties as a single mother and a 'special' love child who caused.
She was heartbroken and betrayed by her lover, ironically he didn't love her, but was a womanizer.
She looked at the crying child in front of her and flinched at those sea-green eyes and messy jet black hair. It hurts her to even look at the child. Even at the age of three he looked too much like his father.
And it broke her heart even more to take care of him constantly. She just wanted to forget and move forward, but that did not mean her love for her son was anywhere less than infinite. Percy's little brother Alex looked like her even though he was Neptune's son. He had curly brown hair and blue icy eyes. She had just laid Alex in his crib when Percy had stumbled upon her lap crying.
"What happened Percy?" she asked worriedly.
"Mum I saw a snake woman at school today. She tried to hurt me." He replied sobbing.
"Don't worry baby. Momma will protect you, always." She hugged him and lulled him to sleep before falling asleep by his bedside.
It was midnight and she was woken up from her weary sleep by the sudden hollow whistling sound at the open window. Her eyes opened and she was suddenly wide awake. She had a gut intuition that something evil was lurking nearby. She immediately got up and retrieved her steel knife tipped with imperial gold, which unlike celestial bronze could coat steel without serious evil magic.
She gripped the blade tightly and started walking towards the window. She could hear the hollow hissing near the window but the source was not visible.
Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around.
It was Stacey. Stacey was a saleswoman who worked along with her in the candy store and lived with her. She was particularly fond of the kids and one of her only friends who understood.
"It was just me Sally! Don't worry!" she whispered not wanting to wake Percy up.
She relaxed and sat down on a chair.
The last thing she heard was a muffled "Sorry Sally" before a steel tumbler knocked her out.
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The shade came back to the workshop a month after the aging of the potion was complete.
"Quintus I want you to add one last thing to the potion." Its voice rattled sending shivers down the inventor's back.
"Of course" he replied.
"Add this!" the shade ordered putting a vial of nectar on the lab table.
He obediently added the nectar to the mixture and handed over the skull of the minotaur to the shade.
It waved its hands of smoke over the small space in the lab and chanted in the old tongue.
Suddenly a boy appeared on the floor of the laboratory. He appeared three year old and was sleeping.
"Isn't it nice Quintus for my young grandson to join me. After all he is the weapon I have been forging for the last ten years! He is the Obscuro Semideus-" the shade cackled gleefully.
Quintus's expression changed from shock to disgust and finally settled on absolute loathing and hatred.
Quintus lunged towards the shade intending to kill the anomaly.
His robotic hand passed straight through the black smoke. The shade on the other han had clenched his hand on his throat and the metal was smoking from its touch.
"Don't you think it would be a bit more troublesome to kill me, Quintus" it asked in amusement.
The metal automaton was smoking profusely now.
"You have to die Quintus, to keep my secret from discovery."
And with that the shade crumbled the automaton to dust, leaving a white smoke.
You too forget Kronos that for every Obscuro you have, there would be a lux Semideus.
A/N: So this is my second fic. Kindly review if you want more chapters. I was selected for an undergraduate five years BMBS course and I have a hectic schedule. Only reviews give me the impetus to write more.
From now on I would write in British English, as I was taught the same since infancy and I am more comfortable with it. I have started a new community for fresh PJO stories. So check it out and subscribe if you like it. Any suggestions for the story are welcome but should be compliant with the charter.
There is no pairing for about ten to fifteen chapters, but would most probably be Percabeth.
FEATURING DARK! Percy...