#like you can see the skeletons strewn around and there’s skeletons of children like fuck man

[apollolovescheesecak]

MAJOR outer wild spoilers

sometimes when i’m doing art of the nomai i momentarily remember that they’re not just a beautiful race that i love to draw all the time they actually died an agonizing death trapped in an alien solar system after trying their hardest to make the best of a bad situation before an uncaring universe wiped them out and that sobers me a little bit and then i go right back to drawing

[messymessyml]

Sometimes a premonition is destined to happen

Hi all, 

This is the craziest thing I’ve written in a long while and the strangest part about it is that my top three oddest pieces of writing have all had a Greek Mythology worldbuild. It’s what the ancient Greeks would have wanted.

This is my Secret Santa 2020 gift for @bunathebunny and my prompts were ‘Percy Jackson AU’, ‘turning into cats’, ‘no soulmate AU’,  ‘Jason x Luka’, and ‘Stephanie x Marinette’. There were a few other requested ‘fors’ and ‘against’s’ I was able to include here, but I have to say, this was the most reader-specific thing I think I’ve ever tailored. I hope you like it!

FYI: “~~” indicate POV changes, and while I ended up breaking this into chapters, this is essentially a oneshot. I curse when Jason is the narrator since I can’t see Jason as Jason without it so if that’s not your thing be forewarned. This is also cross posted on AO3.

@maribat-secret-santa-2020

Chapter 1

The camp was noisy, with people’s inner songs reaching out to the treeline in a mess of chaotic synergy. Word had arrived that Artemis and her hunters had just reached the outer edges of the barrier around the camp and the camp-goers who were not busy with sentry duties or away from camp were frantically working to put the finishing touches on the new lodgehouse erected for Artemis’s feast. Artemis was one of the more frequent godly visitors to Camp Half-Blood, but it was rare that she deigned to make the visit official, much preferring to conceal herself as another half-blood or a visiting instructor under a different guise. As son of Apollo, Luka was aware of a more mischievous side of his father’s twin sister, and the grating cacophony of sound combined with the foreboding feeling he felt down to his bones stemming from this impending visit was just on the edge of overwhelming for him. 

Finding a quiet area was relatively easy, all told, though his senses tried to disagree with him as they quailed from the near sensory overload all he had to do was move to the outskirts of the lake as he followed a very familiar and well worn path. As Luka approached his boyfriend’s House, that marrow-ache he always felt from prophesy tightened in tandem with the relief that enveloped him as blessed silence cloaked him in it's comforting embrace. It seemed that the adventures of today wouldn’t be as easy to dodge as he’d hoped, but it was comforting to know that his boyfriend would be along with him for the ride.

~~

Jason was having a no-good gods-be-damned day. 

He’d been woken by Emma and Darcy who had managed to get into what appeared to be no holds barred fight to the death a four in the fucking morning. Emma, the eastern screech owl he’d found a few years before making his way to Camp Half-Blood, was hooting up a storm and fluffed to Elysium while Darcy, the mustard-bellied snake Luka had given him about a year and a half into their relationship lunged at Emma’s clawed legs with his teeth extended. Suffice to say, he wasn’t happy to wake up like that, and it served them both right that they were now separated on either ends of his lodge by a verifiable army of skeletal mice. It made a sort of macabre justice to see them cornered and policed by their own undead meals as he had left his lodge after breaking up the fight. 

He was currently in the mess hall grabbing food, but it wasn’t much of an improvement over his living quarters. The raucous environment grated on his ears after a less than full night’s sleep and the fact that it was mostly the higher pitches of the girls making most of the noise didn’t help matters. The porridge he’d grabbed was looking less appetizing by the minute. 

He’d just decided to give up on his breakfast when Jason heard a familiar voice call out “Hey bozo, whatcha up to this fine morning!” at the same moment another body hit his side. Jason faintly registered the girl who hit him let out an “oops'' as this action pushed his hand into his spoon and sent mush into his face. Miraculously, not a drop landed on the perpetrator, which gave Jason enough of a clue to know the identity of both the girl hanging from his shoulders as well as the girl still approaching from behind him. 

“What. The. Fuck.”, Jason deadpanned. Taking a napkin from the center of the table, he did his best to wipe up the mess even with his tag-along making the stretch all that more difficult.

“Aww, don’t be like that, Jay. Marinette didn’t mean to do it, you know that.” Saying that, Stephanie slid on to the bench on his other side, leaving Marinette to cage him in from the right.

“Sorry, Jason. Next time I’ll check my landing!” Marinette added with a cheeky little grin.

The nerve. Jason couldn’t really say this minor level of chaos was out of the norm for his friends, but after his early wake-up call Marinette’s clumsiness wasn’t appreciated. 

“Why the fuck are you two so energetic today? For that matter, why are all the girls acting like Eros came for a visit?” Jason asked. 

Marinette piped up stating, “Artemis and her hunt are set to arrive today! Steph and I aren’t on sentry duty so we won’t get to join the welcoming party, but that just means everyone who isn’t on duty can join Artemis on her hunt later today!”

“I think she’s looking to recruit some new huntresses, and after her last visit to the Amazons, this is the next spot scheduled.” Stephanie confided. “Obviously everyone only means all the girls, so that’s why you’re hearing mostly girls talking about Artemis’s visit.”

“Knowing your luck, you’ll be offered a spot and rope Steph here into joining too.” Jason directed to Marinette with a raised eyebrow. 

“I may have luck on my side, but I doubt Steph or I will actually join.” Marinette responded, continuing over his head with a smile, “I’m too happy with you to give all this up.” 

Jason could see Steph smile from the corner of his eye as he wiped the last of the oatmeal from his face as she replied, “Babe you and me both.” 

“Not that this isn’t exactly what I want to hear before eight in the fucking morning, but I need to get back to my cabin; I left Emma and Darcy in time-out and I need to re-up the power behind the undead mice keeping them away from each other.” Jason reluctantly got out.

“Ha, what the fuck? I thought those two got along, did they decide to wake you up, Mister Grumpypants?” Stephanie teased him even as Marinette relinquished her vice hold and scooted to the side to let him up. 

“Sure as the Underworld, they decided 4AM was the best time for it. I swear, good ole pops must have remembered I existed for once and decided to have E and D play messenger or somethin’.” Jason grumbled as he got up and grabbed his tray. 

“Don’t be a stranger! You won’t like the consequences, Jay!” Stephanie called out.

“Yeah-yeah-yeah, I got it. See you guys.” Jason said as he waved over his shoulder and dropped his bowl off at the clean up station on the way out.

Jason made his way back home, not in a hurry to arrive but not making any stops on the way. His father didn’t do him any favors in the PR department, and most camp-goers avoided him on principle. It wasn’t like there were many demigods with Hades as a father, and most avoided children of the Big Three out of practicality if not fear. Jason soon found himself entering his cabin, pleasantly surprised to see his boyfriend Luka calmly sitting waiting for him on the bed, gently strumming his guitar. Less pleasantly, it seemed his broken concentration at breakfast cost him a few skeleton mice enforcers whose bones were strewn across the floor and a clear path of destruction was shown leading from the corners each animal were previously penned into to the center of the room. He couldn’t see any blood and it looked like Luka had been able to calm them down as Emma and Darcy were now perched on his shoulder and leg, respectively, but it didn’t take a genius to see that they both weren’t done fighting.

“Hey love, I didn’t expect to see you until later today, what had you up so early?” Jason queried.

Giving one last strum to his instrument, Luka pulled a hand away to capture Emma in one hand, preventing her from diving down to the snake anklet just visible from under Luka’s pant leg. Darcy seemed content to stay where he was curled around Luka’s warmth. Sometimes it was eerie watching his boyfriend’s knack for precognition in action. Mostly, it got him hot.

“There were too many conflicting songs near Apollo’s cabin this morning so I woke up early. I came over here for some peace and to see you.” Luka calmly replied.

Nodding, Jason moved over to the washbasin, washing his face and hands, a simple “wait a sec” enough for the time being. He wanted to hug his boyfriend, gods dammit, but he didn’t want to do it with porridge on his body. 

“Marinette struck again.” Jason complained, “She managed to land on me without me hearing her or her shadow reaching me first and got me covered in my breakfast. Not a drop landed on her, Luka! Luck shouldn’t be that powerful, babe.”

Luka’s eyes twinkled as he grinned and said, “What did you expect, mon beau, she is the daughter of Tyche.”

“The minute she and Steph got together it seemed they were a match made specifically to punish me. I swear, if Steph uses her powers on me one more time to rig another prank in her girlfriends favor, I will fill her bed with dancing bones.” he said as emphatically (read: dramatically) as he could.

“Sounds like a plan.” Luka full-out grinned, hardly able to get the words out. Once he’d gotten a bit of a handle on his response, Luka continued, “What do you say about joining me on our date a little early? Since we’re both up, let’s try to get to the river fort a little early; we might be able to watch the hunt from that vantage without incurring Artemis’s wrath.”

“Ugh, yeah, lemme just…” Jason said as he pulled power from the ground, focused on the mice bones scattered around his cabin. Commanding the dead to do his bidding wasn’t all that hard, but he wanted to make sure both Emma and Darcy stayed away from each other so he also instructed the shadows to form a barricade, making sure that the shadows understood that they needed to remain opaque and in between his companions while he was gone. That done, he turned to Luka and caught the tail end of his softened expression which never failed to soften his own brow in return. 

“Ready, love?” Jason asked.

“With you? Always.” Luka replied.

Chapter 2

Jason found himself following after Luka as he moved through the forest like he belonged. Most of the time, he found himself bringing up the rear as it was easier for him to keep in contact with the shadows a step or two away from his child-of-the-sun boyfriend. Jason felt more secure being able to keep in touch with his shadows as they acted as an early warning system for any ambush. His time on the run while he made his way to Camp Half-Blood gave him a healthy dose of fear for the unknown and a respect for the utility of his powers to keep himself and others safe. With how distracted people had been that morning, there was no telling what might have slipped past the sentries divided attention. 

Luka was up ahead, likely channeling the song of the forest as he usually did on these hiking dates of theirs. Today’s melody was a bit more playful, with individual notes that rang out loudly every few chords. With one last set of instructions to the shadows, Jason left them and pulled abreast of his boyfriend.

“Were you able to eat before you made your way to my cabin, Luka? I didn’t see you in the mess hall.” Jason began.

Still strumming, Luka responded, “No, I had a feeling that we should stay together today and try to get to the fort by the waterfall as quickly as possible. It feels like one of those omen-filled days.”

Small chills went down his spine as Jason digested that information. The fort was pretty far away from the residences and probably the furthest training ground in Camp Half-Blood. They would sometimes go to it on their days off since the location was hardly ever visited so he hadn’t thought much when the spot was originally proposed, but Luka’s intuition was never to be taken lightly. Even though they’d been walking for an hour or so, talking or enjoying each other’s presence, there was still a way to go to reach the fort. Time to get a move on, then.

“In that case, babe, let’s get moving.” saying that, he placed his hand on Luka’s hand holding the guitar, making eye contact, and after a gentle squeeze he let go.

~~

Luka knew that the music would have helped, but he was weak. They’d been dating for over three years at this point and friends for almost five and he was still weak to those eyes.  Sometimes Jason seemed to reach inside his chest and squeeze his heart to pulp, the only thing left the breath in his lungs calling him to sing. Sing his feelings and leave all else to the wayside. 

It meant he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going.

It meant he didn’t feel fate grab hold.

Jason with laser focus on the path ahead and him with his head in the clouds, it meant they stumbled upon the hunt in progress without realizing it. 

~~

Chaos. Stephanie couldn’t have stopped the trainwreck that just happened to save her life. Unfortunately, her friend’s lives might be at stake at this point, so that just wasn’t gonna cut it. Time for damage control.

Stephanie and Marinette had joined the hunt after Artemis called for volunteers for the day stating that a training session was in order. They’d been tracking the golden buck that was the star of the hunt for almost two hours at this point and it was getting close to midday. The sun was shining almost directly down on the buck as it paused in a clearing where the animal trail intersected with one of the paths more commonly used by camp-goers. Stephanie and Marinette were shadowing Artemis while Artemis’s third-in-command waved three other girls to fan out to surround the clearing, both groups moving in tandem to corner the buck and lead him on a chase to the river. The purpose of the training exercise was to learn how to pursue large prey and tactically block all escape rather than a simple kill the buck, otherwise their team of demigods and goddesses would have finished the hunt over an hour ago.

Unfortunately, it seemed her dumbass friends didn’t get the memo and stumbled directly on the clearing, obscured from view until they were directly in the sunlight. As they came into view, the buck stiffened and the game was up; the buck’s nostrils flared and the animal ran in the exact opposite direction as intended, straight for Artemis. 

Artemis swiftly shifted from the red-haired youth she had chosen for the hunt to a body with an Amazonian stature, her hair shifting to a sleek brown and her features shaping into an adult countenance. The buck, startled, reared up and attempted to hit the goddess, hooves aimed to cut and bruise. Artemis swiftly moved around the buck’s shoulder, pulled a knife from its sheath at the base of her spine and slit the buck's throat as it’s feet came down, spasming as it fell to the ground.

Sternly, moving to face her friends, Artemis’s booming voice could be heard: “What nonsense goes here? Who are you to dare ruin this hunt?”

Stephanie bit her tongue to avoid speaking on their behalf. Her own powers beat with Artemis’s thirst to mete out her comeuppance on the boys. 

Her eyes cut from Artemis’s back to Jason’s as he straightened his spine and stepped further into the clearing to state: “Apologies, Artemis, we didn’t intend to interrupt your hunt. I was hiding myself and my partner in the shadows to avoid startling your prey, but it seems luck wasn’t on our side today.” 

“Son of Hades…” Artemis said thoughtfully. “Your father has been kind to my children lately. I may be lenient on your punishment because of this. However,” here, Steph could see Artemis’s head tilt to fully view Luka, “Apollo has been quite impertinent lately. You, I do not feel so kind toward. You, I may turn into a boar for today’s hunt and I might not guarantee your safe return to humanity.”

The threat hung in the air. Stephanie so badly wanted to intervene. Perhaps...her eyes cut to Marinette’s and a moment passed between the two. Darting her gaze to Jason’s, she mouthed the word ‘luck’ and ‘Tyche’ to her girlfriend, hoping Marinette would be able to pick up her plan.

“Artemis,” Stephanie spoke. “Perhaps a middle-ground would be satisfactory. Marinette over there is the daughter of Tyche and I am the daughter of Nemesis; perhaps she could help you verify their claim about luck and I could propose a suitable punishment?”

Artemis half-turned around to view her as she contemplated the offer, her eyes piercing as their color shifted with her thoughts. Stephanie could feel her breath catch in her throat as she waited for Artemis’s response. 

“Hmm, I suppose you all are still young, perhaps my usual punishments for men who interrupt a hunt can be bent.” Artemis’s gaze turned in Marinette’s direction. “What say you, daughter of Tyche? Are your powers strong enough to judge their statement true?”

Stephanie could see her girlfriend straighten her spine and tuck her chin determinedly before she replied, “Yes, I can do that.”

“And you will answer truthfully? You know I will know if you lie.” Artemis warned.

“Yes.” Marinette swore. 

“Hmm. Very well, show me your skills.” 

Marinette stepped forward, circling around the fallen buck and towards the boys. Jason was leaning just the slightest bit forward, while Luka seemed at ease. Stephanie’s eyes caught Luka’s and the amount of Zen in them was calming. Hopefully, he was calm because he had foreseen this gamble pay off. Stephanie could see Marinette’s hand raise to face their friends and a light pink glow started to emit from her hands, forming the Greek words for ‘ominous end’ over Jason’s head and ‘bright mayhem’ over Luka’s. Below, a timer formed, showing Luka’s current luck to have started at sunrise that morning, while Jason’s was marked in years, days, and hours. It wasn’t clear from what Stephanie could see whether Jason’s timer was moving backward or forward. It gave her chills either way.

Marinette’s voice rang out with her verdict: “Their luck was at fault today. It appears the Muses found these two to be fun to play with. Chance was at play.”

Shaking herself out of it, Stephanie stepped forward and pulled that sense of vengeance and judgement to the forefront of her mind as she spoke, “Since the hunt was not interrupted maliciously and was due to bad luck shared between the two, a shared punishment would be best. I propose the boy’s take the place of the buck in the hunt, but ask that they fall to no harm and their punishment ends at sundown. Do you agree this punishment is fitting, Artemis?” 

A mirthful chuckle left the goddess’s lips while a yelp exited Jason’s. Stephanie kept her eyes on the goddess’s; the boys were on their own if Stephanie let on she wasn’t as impartial as she wished to appear to be to the goddess.

“If a time limit is what’s called for, daughter of Nemesis, then so be it.” Artemis said. “I agree to your proposed punishment and am willing to ensure no permanent harm befalls them so long as they stay within the boundaries of Camp Half-Blood, but if we only have until sundown, they’d better work hard to keep the hunt challenging. You two won’t be prey animals, oh no, let’s see what predator’s you’ll be.” 

Artemis didn’t wait to hear from any of the campers present, including the boys, waving her hands in their direction even as Jason opened his mouth to argue. Jason’s comically open mouth shifted along with the rest of his body into the form of a mountain lion, leaving a large cat with a panting mouth in his place. Luka’s form shifted to that of a European lynx, even that unflappable friend of hers looking ungainly and awkward from the suddenness of the change. 

Both boy’s clothes and bags had disappeared in the shift and Stephanie couldn’t help hoping that they’d return with the boy’s human forms when they were changed back at sundown. She shuddered at the thought of leading two whining toddlers back to camp in nothing but their birthday suits, and if Luka lost that guitar he wouldn’t be able to play for her anniversary dinner with Marinette. There’s no way she’d be able to propose to Marinette without Luka’s musical help. Stephanie sent a prayer for continued good luck towards her soon-to-be mother-in-law, stepping back as Artemis said, “Let the hunt recommence!”

Chapter 3

This was worse than any stint he’d pulled in the Underworld. He’d lost Luka a while back when another hunting party found them. Luka had bounded for the trees and he’d headed in the direction of the river. His powers weren’t working in this form and it bit him pretty deep as it felt like an entire sense of his was missing. Since he’d ‘woken’ back up from his near perma-death after his mom had died and learned to access his control over the shadows and bones around him, he’d come to rely on them pretty heavily without realizing it. 

That was probably why he’d gotten Luka and himself into this mess in the first place; he didn’t realize that the clearing was entirely devoid of shadows and it was too close to midsummer for the clearing to allow him to hide in the shadows like he was used to. He’d managed to escape the hunting party on his tail but he was worried for his partner; moving in a new body and effectively becoming prey wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.

~~

Luka could tell that this series of events was what his intuition was telling him would happen when he woke up this morning. All told, it wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever gotten himself into, and it was kinda cool to be able to leap from tree to tree and traverse the forest at this pace. It seems like most of the hunters had moved towards the river, as he hadn’t encountered any other hunters after losing his tail near the cliff face further inland. He was currently making his way towards the fort, figuring Jason would manage to follow the river to their intended destination without too much worry. For now, he’d enjoy this new body and feel the new rhythm he could feel through his paws and his nose while he waited for sundown. 

~~

Fuck.

Fuckity fuck fuck. 

Claws were not for him. Whoever (read: himself and most definitely Steph) got him into this mess, they’d pay. That was the fourth hunting party he’d encountered and the second time he’d had to cross the river and backtrack to hide his tracks and he was sooo not down for the feel of wet fur. This just went to show how feathers and scales were so much better and why Emma and Darcy were the only pets for him; he could tell he wouldn’t want to pet an animal with fur for months after this.

Currently, he was hiding in a tree, taking a page out of his boyfriend’s book and hiding in the trees rather than at ground level. He could see Marinette and another girl from a different hunting party conversing about 10 yards away; there was no way he was getting down or giving away his position anywhere near where Artemis’s party could be found. That psycho goddess had it out for him, lenient his ass.

~~

Marinette could tell Jason was hiding in that tree, the water puddle slowly forming underneath him was a dead giveaway. She loved the goofball too much to actually hunt him though which was about the only bit of luck he’d seen today (she could tell). Honestly, he’d have been caught at least seven times by now if she hadn’t miraculously shifted the tides of luck surrounding him or redirected other hunters like she was doing now. Mirabelle was a nice girl, but a little too vicious to let her in on the game she was playing, so she was focused on sending her off on a wild goose (or cat) chase as soon as possible. 

“If we pincer attack, we can pin him down. “ a branch broke off from Jason’s direction and fell on the ground, causing Marinette to pause and do her best not to glare and give away the game. “...does that makes sense?”

“Yeah, I think the best bet would be for me to go down and try to pick up the trail, and run him back to you. Sounds good?” Mirabelle said.

“Yep, let’s do this!” Marinette sweetly smiled in reply.

Mirabelle nodded, turned, and Marinette watched her go, waiting until she was out of earshot to say, “You are the absolute worst human-in-cat-form I have ever seen.” 

Marinette marched over to Jason, seeing him freeze and look her dead in the eye. It wasn’t exactly easy to tell what Jason wanted to say, but she could fill in the gaps for him.

“You, monsieur, are going to give yourself away at this rate. I’d like to keep you in one piece if it’s all the same to you, so here’s what you’re going to do: head inland and away from the river. We were driving our prey towards the river to trap it, so any hunting party worth their salt will be crawling along the riverbed. You are going to head to the fort upstream and hide; not many other camp-goers go there as frequently as you and Luka do and it’s your best chance to stay out of Artemis’s sight. Stephanie and I will continue to run interference, but you are acting like a teenager going through a growth spurt with how clumsy you’ve been, and that’s saying something coming from me!”

The big cat scoffed at her, but leapt to the next tree, struggling a bit to land gracefully but not with too much trouble and continued on like that further inland as directed. Marinette didn’t watch for too long; she had a job to do.

~~

Luka ends up outpacing most of the hunters he’s encountered, but one is hot on his tail, following him at forest level as he makes his way through rocky outcrops to the fort. He’s not sure if it’s an official member of the hunt or another camp-goer, but he tries his best to wind his way  around boulders and choose outcroppings that blend in with his fur color to avoid his pursuer. 

Taking a small break, he waits in the shadow of an outcropping, watching. His pursuer is good; that he can tell, and he doesn’t want to lead them directly into the fort and make it even hard on him and Jason to get through this debacle. It seems, it’s time to call for help.

“Apollo, hear me please. Your companions the Muses have struck a game between Artemis and I, and I need your help. Grant me aid avoiding my pursuer.”

“Luka, son of mine.” Apollo’s amused tone filtered through his mind. “You’ve gotten yourself trapped by one of Artemis’s hunter’s I see. Very well, I will help you this once, but I will be joining as a spectator for this one. Artemis’s main trouble is with me, after all, and I’d like to see her face when she realizes you’re under my direct protection.”

Soon after, a flash of light appeared, blinding his pursuer, and Luka moved onward while she was distracted. 

~~

It was close to sundown, and Jason was finally in reach of the fort by the waterfall. After his encounter with Marinette, he’d seen evidence that Stephanie was also redirecting heat away from his passage through the forest, but it was still slow going. His bulk had almost ratted him out more than a few times, and he’d taken to any groundcover he could when possible as it was almost impossible for him to figure out how to move through the trees without sound. He was stealthy enough on two legs to give assassins a run for their money, but put him on four legs and he was worse than a toddler was at stealth. He hadn’t seen Artemis since the beginning, but knowing his normally catastrophic luck, that was only due to Marinette’s aid. 

Crawling forward, he inched his way around the watering hole below the waterfall in the direction of the fort, when suddenly an arrow passed in front of his paw and hit the stump he was crouched by….Clearly, Marinette’s blessing was wearing thin. Taking his chances, Jason bolted.

Arrows pelted behind him, and the aim they held was mocking in its accuracy. Just close enough to scare but not close enough to injure. The direction they came from was just as confusing as they seemed to originate from the water. 

Diving behind another tree, this time close enough to the fort to see his boyfriend peering from the battlements, he peered out in the direction of the water to see none other than Artemis hovering in place, this time in a blended form that combined the youthfulness and agelessness of the two forms he encountered her in earlier. She was also holding a really fucking scary recurve bow, so there’s that. 

“Come out and play, kitties. You know you know a good hunt is part of your deal with me.” Artemis crooned.

Jason wasn’t fucking moving, dying was not part of the deal. Unfortunately, it seems his slow arrival also allowed Artemis to set up an ambush as two women lept at him from the shadows (the traitors, he was going to train so much to overcome this dependency he’s built on them), forcing him to emerge. Jason kept his eyes pinned to Artemis, even as he heard others leave their hiding places to encircle the clearing at the base of the waterfall. 

He was trapped.

~~

Luka watched as his boyfriend was driven into the open. He was also being ushered out of the protection of the fort and into the open himself.

“Now would be a good time, dad.” he whispered his prayer.

~~

Marinette was about to lose the game she’d decided to play, and she was NOT happy. Nothing she could really do about it; she could see that the balance of luck and fortune were too stable to shift. 

She was so focused on trying to parse the threads of fate that she almost missed the flash of light that signaled Apollo’s arrival. Marinette did see Artemis whirling around to glare at the newcomer, though, a bright man in a Hawaiian shirt and chacos. Apparently, being a deity did not automatically give you god-tier fashion sense. 

“Artemis, dearest, what’s this I hear about a grudge against my son and his partner? I thought you left the animal transformations back in the Hellenistic period.” Apollo drawled. 

“You! I can’t believe you have the audacity to show up now of all times! Where have you been?” Artemis yelled.

“Sometimes a god has to go on vacation too;  you — of all of us — leave Olympus the most, dearest, so I assumed you’d understand.”

“Sometimes?! Sometimes doesn’t happen midway through a war council when you’ve promised to share a prophecy pertinent to the fight at hand! Ares about had my head about wasting the council’s time on petty matters because you flaked out to — where, Tahiti???”

“What can I say? Sometimes the sun in this hemisphere just isn’t it. I’ve got to share the light with everyone.”

“Apollo, you — !” screeching, Artemis brought her bow to bear on Apollo, shooting faster than even the demi-gods present could see.

Apollo was shifting around, using the last rays of the day’s light to bend away from her arrows, periodically reminding her “This is Camp Half-Blood, dearest.” and “You don’t want to hit one of your precious hunters, do you?”

Giving one last yell of frustration, Artemis released her quiver and lowered her bow and arrow, pinched her brow and said through gritted teeth, “Apollo, you insufferable child. You. Are. Coming. To. Olympus. With. Me.”

With a brief glance at the sky and a one-handed vice grip on Apollos bicep, Artemis stated, “A fine hunt, your debt is repaid.” Then she waived her hand towards the big cats seemingly frozen in place and teleported away. 

~~

Stephanie was closest to Jason and saw as his form crumpled to the ground, shifting back into human form. Stephanie ran to help him up even with the shadows swarming around him as his powers returned in a sudden influx. She grabbed him and hoisted him up onto his feet, keeping her hands firm and grounding while he readjusted to his normal form again.

Stephanie just thanked the gods that her friends weren’t naked after returning to normal.

“You two need to stop getting into so much trouble; you’re lucky Marinette and I were there to help.” Stephanie commented, finally releasing her hold on Jason to let him stand under his own power.

“Yeah, fuck you too.” Jason growled out.

~~

Luka picked himself off the ground, checking his guitar for any damage. He saw Marinette approach from the corner of his eye with her palm facing him, granting him good fortune, so he wasn’t too surprised that he couldn’t find any damage to his instrument on close inspection.

Luka glanced up at her and said, “Thank you, Melody. This day would have turned out much worse without your help.” 

Marinette just smiled softly at him in return. “Let’s go home.”

[the-tales-of-horror]

Law & Order Doesn’t  Always Lead To A Happy Ending

Original Link By feyedharkonnen

“Knock, Knock”

“Who’s there?” I said it automatically now, which is what happens when your kid tells knock-knock jokes incessantly, having discovered their appeal about a week ago.

“Smell Mop” It was funny the first few dozen times she asked me this one but even as the guy who told her most of the jokes she now regurgitated, ad nauseum, in every waking hour, the novelty was wearing thin.

“Andi, honey, Daddy doesn’t want to knock-knock right now, I know, let’s watch your favorite show!” I jumped to my feet and yelled “DUN DUN!” Andi squealed with delight at the hallmark of her favorite, Law and Order. Who knew 3 year olds would prefer police procedural dramas over Dora the Explorer. I’m still waiting for Boots and Dora to find Swiper in an alley, having been killed by his fence.

I turned on the TV and went in the kitchen to make us some PB&Js and grab some Sunny Delight. It turned out to be a re-run, as was the norm at 2pm on a Thursday, but it was new to Andi, so she sat in her accustomed spot, right next to me with one of my arms over her shoulder, using my bicep as a pillow. The bright little sprite was wise enough to realize that Jerry Orbach, who played Detective Lenny Briscoe was also the voice of Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast. She referred to him as “Loomy Bisco”.

This episode was a good one though and it involved a missing person, so at the end of the episode, as L&E will often do they flashed across the screen, real missing people, both adults and children. I had gotten up to clear our mess of paper plates and refill the Sunny D when I heard Andi, “Daddy, that’s Unca Billy and Jeffy!” I looked up and saw on my screen, a younger version of the old guy William, who lived across the street from me with his grandson Jeffery. It certainly looked like them but I didn’t want Andi to get overly excited and exascerbate her asthma. “It kinda looks like them honey, but that couldn’t be them, does Billy look like a bad man?” She thought about it for a moment and then said “Ok Daddy, you right.”

I sent a text to my wife who was at work and told her what we’d seen. She called me about 5 minutes later and told me I should contact the 800 number for missing and exploited children to give the tip, you know, just in case. So I did, all the while pacing by the large picture window in the front room, seeing if there were any activity across the street. I explained to the person on the line that I wasn’t entirely certain, but someone on one of their broadcasts could be my 60-something-year-old neighbor and his “Grandson” could be the kid this guy abducted 9 years ago. I felt like an idiot and that I was betraying him in some way by jumping to this grandest of conclusions. If we’d had the technology in 2001, I could have sent a picture somehow. I didn’t own a fax machine and my indestructible Nokia just didn’t have the capabilities.

“Sir, this is very important,…” The person on the line interrupted my wandering mind, “I’m sorry, ma’am, what was the question?” The woman repeated herself, “Do you know if the gentleman in question owns any firearms?” It was a bit of a jarring question after making a call on a whim. “Will? Yeah, the guy is an avid hunter and fisher, has a collection that would make Charlton Heston proud, I’m kind of jeal…” She cut me off, “Stand by please sir.” and the dulcet tones of Kenny G’s “Songbird” filled my ear, gross.

30 seconds later, a man came on the line, “Mr. Jacobs, my name is Carl Singleton and I’m a Special Agent in Charge of the Cincinnati Field Office for the Federal Bureau of Investigations.” I held my phone away from my ear and stared at it for a moment, looked over my shoulder at Andi watching Disney and brought the phone back to my ear. “I’m sorry, did you just say you were with the FBI?” This was becoming surreal. “Yes sir, I’m going to ask you a series of questions about your neighbor, William.” I balked at the idea of divulging the information at first. “Are you serious?”

“I take things of this nature very seriously Mr. Jacobs. Please just answer the questions.” He asked how long we’d lived here and how long we’d known Will, any distinguishing features, quirks, and odd behavior in public around Jeffery. Questions about his temperament, any substance or alcohol abuse issues, and suspicions of any skeletons in my neighbor’s closet. I felt like I was in front of the McCarthy Commission ratting on suspected commies. I answered as best I could but nothing seemed to concern the FBI guy until I mentioned Will’s ring and a scar on his chin.

“Wait, go back to the ring, can you describe it?” I thought for a moment, “Yeah, everybody in the neighborhood can describe that ring, it’s just like the ring that Tom Selleck wears in Magnum P.I., you know, the cross, Will is a huge Magnum fan.” I could hear Singleton muffle his end of the phone and yell something to another person, he came back to me. “Mr. Jacobs, I’m going to ask that you refrain from any contact with William at this time while we look into some things, it may be nothing.” And with that, he ended the call, leaving me to stare at the cordless phone in my hand. The nothing he spoke about happened 20 minutes later as I watched 2 unmarked cars block off the end of my street.

I picked up the phone to call my wife and was greeted by a dead line. I grabbed my Nokia and it read “No Service”. I looked out the window to see men clad in black tactical gear dodging between houses toward Will’s house, the activity outside finally caught the attention of Andi, who had been riveted by Disney this whole time when a helicopter wheeled overhead and took up a stationary hover about 150 feet above my neighborhood. “Daddy! A Whirlybird!” she squealed in delight, that’s what we called them. I told her to go back to the tv while daddy tried to figure out what was going on. I walked to my front door and opened it.

Three feet to the left of my door, the muzzle of an M-16 swung up to my chest then dropped again just as quickly and the uniformed gentleman who held it said through gritted teeth, just loud enough for me to hear, “Sir, get. The. Fuck. Back in your house, and stay there.” And he pulled my door shut. I noticed Andi a few feet away with wide eyes, “Daddy, that man said a bad word!” It made me laugh through the nervousness in my stomach, “Yes baby, yes he did. Shame on him.” There was no keeping her away from the window now since she’d seen the chaos going on in our little corner of the world.

I turned my Lazy Boy in the front room toward the picture window and got popcorn, since there was nothing else I could do. Andi sat on the arm of the chair commenting on the various figures running here and there. After about an hour, a black car came though the roadblock at the end of our street and came to a stop just behind the large RV that had been rolled in, a tall grizzled looking man got out and fixed his tie, Andi stared after him with rapt attention, “Loomy Bisco?” she asked. I laughed and said, “No baby, Loomy is on TV.” As if that would distract her from the guy in front of my house who clearly looked like he could be Jerry Orbach’s younger brother.

He spoke with one of the tactical guys for a moment and then went in the RV. After 15 minutes of static nothingness, a group of the uniform clad men burst into action, one team in the front, and I can only assume one team in the back, I knew the layout of Will’s house, as we lived in a cookie-cutter neighborhood, his house was almost identical to mine. At the front, a large man stepped up to the door with what looked like a large metal pipe with handles; he swung it back once, and brought the end crashing into the door just to the left of the doorknob. The frame, to the right, came apart like kindling and the door swung violently inward.

The big man swung to the side and the uniforms, huddled in a line, streamed in the gap like an armored centipede with a shield at its head. I can’t tell if it was five seconds later or ten, but the front picture window exploded outward in a fireball, the concussion blowing in my window and showering Andi and I with small chunks of glass. I picked her up, and ignoring the cuts to the bottom of my feet rushed to my bedroom at the rear of the house. I looked her over and aside from a few small cuts here and there, she was fine.

I could see her crying, but I couldn’t hear a damn thing except for a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I felt something oozing in my ear, and judging from the small amount of blood coming from Andi’s, I could well guess what it was. I walked, Andi in my arms to the front of the house to peek out the window to see if there were new developments, there were. It was a nightmare of burning cars, people staggering around blindly, carnage, the team that had entered Will’s house, what was left of them, was strewn across the once carefully manicured lawn, viscera and limbs here and there.

I didn’t have to worry about Andi seeing this scene of devastation as she had her face firmly planted in my shoulder. I could feel her tears soaking my t-shirt. The Loomy Bisco look-a-like came staggering out of the RV, a red stain about where you’d guess his appendix would be, the stain spreading slowly, his hand absentmindedly, occasionally touching the small, shiny, crimson shard of metal that protruded from his shirt. I walked as steadily as I could toward him. I could start to hear things very faintly through the ringing.

My voice sounded, to me, like I was speaking from somewhere around the vicinity of my chest. “You’re Singleton, aren’t you!” it was more of a statement than a question. He looked at me, confused, I could see him saying “Who the fuck are you?” I mimed the sign for a telephone and said “Jacobs”. His eyes passed over me and then Andi, then around the scene; his eyes showed regret, “I’m sorry, I should have known it wasn’t going to be this easy.” He waved over a group of rushing paramedics, refusing treatment until his knees buckled and it wasn’t his choice anymore. They looked us over and we received a ride to the hospital to check us for any internal injuries. I called my wife to let us know what was going on.

Tabitha nearly beat us to the hospital, that woman is a Formula One driver when it comes to needing to get to the hospital, as evidenced by her collection of speeding tickets from Andi’s occasional visits due to her asthma, which, surprisingly had not made an appearance as a result of the excitement of the day, I don’t know if my baby was in shock and it just hadn’t hit her yet, I was ready for anything by now.

Andi had fallen asleep in her exam room near the ER so Tabitha and I stepped into the hallway to discuss what had happened. A familiar, by now, face strode up to the pair of us and introduced himself to Tabitha.

“Carl Singleton, Special Agent in Charge, FBI. I can only assume you are Mrs. Jacobs. May I speak with you and your husband a moment?” We looked in Andi’s direction and he nodded, “Agent Samuels will be watching her.” He introduced a tall black man with scrubs on who nodded deferentially to us and proceeded to enter the room and take a seat in one of the chairs near the bed.

Singleton led us to a quiet office off one of the many hallways and sat heavily in a chair, wincing when he did so, he stopped his hand from goin to where I’d seen him bleeding back in the neighborhood. “You alright?” I asked, he responded with “I’ve had worse, but that’s not why we’re here. Your neighbor…” Tabitha chimed in, “Will?” Singleton sighed and corrected her, “Will as you call him is really one Staff Sargent Jonathan Merrill; former Army Ranger, veteran of three tours in Vietnam, and a psychopath of the highest order.

He initially came to our attention in 1977, shortly after his medical discharge from the Army. He claimed to be suffering from severe PTSD and was in custody after murdering his wife and four children in a particularly bloody fashion, a Family Annihilator is what the eggheads at the Behavioral Analysis Unit classed him as. He escaped custody on his way to a lifetime stay at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas and has been on the run from us ever since, leaving us a trail of bodies from one side of the country to the other, even foraying into Canada and Mexico. This is the closest we’ve come to him in 7 years.”

“The eggheads really want their hands on him alive because he’s unique as far as serial killers go, they usually stick to a pattern and that becomes their thing, and I rarely, if ever changes. But with Merrill, he’s a special snowflake, he changes, he went from the family, to prostitutes, then hikers, then truck drivers, and now, teenage boys, we want to stop him before he changes his stripes again, so to speak. The Bureau refers to him as Mercury, because he’s so fluid and deadly. It wasn’t until recently, with forensic advances, that we were able to attribute dozens of other victims that we had originally thought were completely different killers with varying modes operandi. Personally, this guy terrifies me.”

“Why have we never heard of him? We could have…” Tabitha started to say, but Singleton cut her off, “The powers that be kept this under for wraps for reasons that I was never made privy to, but now, after today, they can’t hide this anymore. They’ll have to give us more now, or at least give us a deadly force option, he’s responsible now for the deaths of nine of our best tactical operators. That’s on my conscience because I underestimated the lengths he would go to escape and evade us, but this was calculated, that bomb was waiting for us. And that’s not all, when the explosive ordnance disp… I’m sorry, when the bomb squad finished clearing the residence, they found several… disturbing things.”

He paused and chewed his bottom lip a bit, as if trying to decide to tell us. “We found what we believe to be several graves, which means he’s been active and we will be unaware of if he has changed anything in regards to his M.O. until we autopsy the victims. One of the oddest things was a book of knock-knock jokes, we have no idea if theirs any significance to it.” Singleton shrugged, dismissing the statement he’d just made. I felt my intestines turn to ice and I was on my feet and sprinting down the hallways before my brain came to a full realization of why. Andi.

The world started to come back to me a little at a time as I ran, people shouting at me for running in a hospital, the pain in my feet from the glass I’d stepped in earlier, the dull quality to sounds from the blast damage. I got to the room where we’d left Andi with the undercover FBI agent. I pushed the door open to an empty room. I heard a groan from the other side of the bed, I scrambled around the side to see Samuels gasping for breath through the ragged hole in his throat, foamy blood surrounded the wound and streamed down his chest. “Where’s Andi!?” I screamed at the dying man. Fear and sorrow filled his eyes just before he died and he pointed above his head to the bed-side table. There was a note.

“Knock Knock, Neighbor, (turn over)”

I felt a paralysis of sorts set in as my mind filled in the blank, “Who’s there?”

I turned over the note as I heard Tabitha and Singleton come into the room behind me.

“Nobody, bye bye.”