PJO Fic Idea
When I awoke in this world, I had thought I had superpowers. As it turns out, I did. Just not the superhero kind.
I had the shittier, Demigod kind.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Introductions are in order.
I am Julia Braidman, an empath, reincarnation, and daughter of Aphrodite.
And I gotta say, being a Demigod sucks, even if the powers are awesome.
Demigodliness means you can read Greek but not English. And what use is knowing Greek when you live in the USA, instead of Greece?
Plus, monsters tend to sniff you out and try to eat you whenever they can. If I didn't have my trusty knife, I'd probably be dead by now.
Also, you grow up with only one parent. Or in my case, no parents. Because while my dad, Mr Braidman, is rich and handsome, he also has no idea how to parent and usually just leaves me alone to do my own thing. At least he gives me money.
The silver lining to all this though, is the superpowers. Like for instance, despite being an unfeeling piece of shit, I have 'empathy powers' (insert dramatic arm-wave) because mom is the goddess of love, or some shit. Like, I could be on Sesame Street with how family-friendly my powers are.
Not that I use them in family-friendly ways. Emotion powers have a surprising amount of utility.
I can tell how someone is feeling just by looking at them. I can also manipulate their emotions and pleasure centers, to an extent. So getting people addicted to my presence is actually pretty easy.
Not that I do that very often. Addicts, while fun to mess with, are also kind of boring.
Hmm... I wonder if all empaths are emotionless. Mine run the gamut from rage to some kind of muddled amusement, but never beyond.
Hmm...
---------
I sat in a chair beside my victim, reading a book and radiating pleasure. Said victim was chained to the warehouse wall, unable to move.
It looked like some kind of demented flower-goblin, but it wasn't. It was probably actually some kind of ancient Greek monster I'd never heard about before.
Currently, I was trying to see if I could do my addiction thing on it and make it obey me.
Every day for gradually-increasing amounts of time, I'd come into this warehouse and read a book while radiating pleasure right next to the goblin-thing.
And from what my emotional sense was telling me, it was definitely feeling crazy.
Let's see... this monster is feeling:
-Pleasure
-Despair
-Hatred
-Love
-Confusion
-Desire
And all of those are just for me!
Hmm, hatred is still on the list though. It's been getting weaker and weaker lately, so I'll have to wait a day or two for it to disappear. But once that's over, I'll have my very first brainwashed monster!
Yay!
---------
On the way home from the brainwashing-warehouse, I stopped at the convenience store for some snacks.
It was a crappy store. No working cameras, and little-to-no security. Just some poor schmuck working the counter and occasionally cleaning the floors.
"You don't want to charge me for this." I said, my voice slipping into charmspeak.
His eyes glazed over, and he nodded.
"Yeah, you can have it for free. They don't cost that much anyways." He said, his mind conforming to my will.
I took the chips, and then remembered to add: "Oh, and forget I was ever here."
He nodded again. "Who are you?" He asked.
Gods, I loved charmspeak. It meant that people would give me free stuff.
Hmm? What's that? You're condemning me for being irresponsible and using my mind-control powers for theft?
That's a riot. You'd be no better if you had these powers. You just think you would, because you don't have them.
I strode through the streets, whistling a jaunty tune and crunching down on my chips. Delicious.
I had been getting better and better at reading the emotions of others. It turned out that powers were kind of like muscles, and using them more often made them stronger.
Like for instance, three years ago, all I could tell was a person's general mood and maybe a sublayer or two of emotion.
But today, if I looked at the lady walking in front of me on the sidewalk, I could tell that she was both frustrated and horny, probably because her boyfriend had refused sex today. Oh, and she was mildly angry at her parents for berating her for underage sex the previous day.
Such an increase in detail.
It was great.
After some more walking, I made it home. The Braidman house was pretty big. Courtesy of having a rich dad and no other family.
Dad wasn't home. Cool beans.
Knowing the man, he was probably out in the city, partying it up at a club somewhere.
Well at least someone's enjoying themselves.
I sighed to myself and wondered what possessed mom, a literal goddess, to sleep with Carl Braidman.
...It was probably his looks.
I plopped down on my bed and rolled over to face my bedside table, where a small cage was. Inside it was my pack of mice, running around and rustling up the wood-shavings of their enclosure.
I could see their tiny little brains were working hard, pumping out the chemicals for fear, pleasure, and disgust.
Cute. That's why I liked mice.
I laid down flat on my back and read my book. Hours later, the downstairs door opened.
"Julia- aym home!" Called my dad, slurring.
He was probably drunk.
"Hey Dad!" I shouted back.
I didn't go downstairs to greet him. I knew he wouldn't care if I did, and honestly, there was nothing I needed from him.
My dad didn't love me. As a child of Aphrodite, I could say this with complete confidence.
He just didn't. 'Fatherly' just wasn't the kind of person he was. And that was okay by me.
He did not feel love for me. At most, he felt a familial obligation and some lust for the features of my mother he saw in me. A feeling that I reciprocated, to an extent, since he was good-looking too.
Hey, don't judge me. It's not like we actually did anything.
It was just what happened when there were no genuine feelings of love involved in a family like ours. The weaker emotions like lust, familial duty, and reason took over and dictated our actions. That's all.
I read, for the next hour, and then I slept.
---------
The next day, I headed to the warehouse.
The flower goblin was still tied up, so I began doing my thing while keeping an eye on its emotions.
Pleasure, confusion, pleasure, despair, pleasure, hatred, pleasure, pleasure, blah, blah, blah.
Just an endless stream of boring feelings. Mostly pleasure...
Eventually though, the creature's hatred died down.
The time was right, so I gradually lessened the pleasure I was emitting. But even though I did, the monster's pleasure levels stayed the same. I'd successfully conditioned it to feel good when around me.
Awesome.
I was about to unchain it when some weirdo burst into the place. He had horns on his head, digitigrade legs, and was wielding a spear.
I raised my knife to block any strikes, but the crazy guy didn't go for me. Instead, he thrust his spear at the monster I'd been about to unchain. It got skewered through its head and dissolved into yellow dust.
"Whew!" Said the guy cheerily, wiping his forehead. "You aren't hurt, are you?"
I was not hurt. Not physically.
I stared in disbelief and anger.
I'd spent months on that fucking goblin, trying to brainwash it and make it my slave. And the moment I had succeeded, this motherfucker jumped in from out of nowhere and killed the monster, ruining all my hard work.
Pissed out of my mind, I focused my powers on the goat-man and poured a cocktail of despair and depression into his brain.
He crumpled to the ground, tears streaming from his face. He tried to say something, but all that came out was a moan of horror, blurred by the deluge of feelings I'd forced onto him.
I kept him like that for a few moments before letting up the pressure.
"You motherfucker. Do you realize what you just did?" I asked, once I was sure he was lucid enough to understand me. "You just killed my pet monster. I spent four fucking months training that bitch. FOUR. FUCKING. MONTHS!"
He coughed a bit.
"I thought-"
"Shut the fuck up!" I interrupted.
I blasted him with terror and fear, just to get my point across. He curled up into a ball and started crying again.
For some reason, I felt hot watching him.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts.
"Just shut the fuck up you cocksucking bitch-ass dick-wrangler. I have half a mind to kill you right here and now for what you did!"
I began pacing around the guy, studying his body a little more.
He had strange horns on his head, like those of a sheep. His legs were furry too, and digitigrade, like a goat. Ironically, he wore a goatee. On his hip was some kind of pipe-like musical instrument.
Hmm... a goat person wielding a spear and pipe-instrument. Where had I seen that before?
Hold on, was this guy...
"Wait, are you a Satyr?" I asked.
He groaned. "Yes... please don't hurt me."
...Maybe I was being a bit too violent about this.
I decided to let the goat-man get his bearings. But not before taking his spear and pipes away from him.
Once he was no longer curled-up in a ball of fear and despair, we were able to have a mostly civil conversation.
"So, what's a Satyr like you doing here?" I asked.
"I was-"
I shifted my leg and he flinched.
"Go on." I said.
"Right. Um, I was going through California searching for Pan-"
I suddenly moved my arm to scratch my shoulder, causing him to twitch again.
I struggled not to laugh. Messing with this guy was fun. Espeically since he was so scared of me now.
"I was searching for Pan, but then I smelled a demigod and a monster. I figured that you were in danger, so I, um..."
"You killed my precious pet, ending an experiment I might never get to conduct ever again." I finished for him.
"Well... yes." He said. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to come to Camp Half-Blood with me? There aren't any monsters over there... well, you're very unlikely to be attacked by monsters there"
Camp Half-Blood, eh? That was over in Long Island, on the other side of the continent. If I recall, that's where all the demigods were. And demigods had superpowers.
If I emotionally enslaved enough of them, I could have my own army of super-soldiers!
"Sure. Let's go!" I said.
He blinked.
"Really? Just like that?"
I nodded. He raised an eyebrow at me.
"You're not bothered that I, a stranger, want to take you to somewhere you don't know the location or nature of?"
"Yyup." I said. "What are we waiting for?"
He turned and stared off into the distance, a look of suffering upon his face.
"Y'know, if you're not going to take me there, then just tell me where it is and I'll go on my own." I said.
He jumped a little.
"No, please don't go alone. I'll take you."
And that was how I ended up on a Fall road trip with a goat-man to a Summer-camp for the kids of Greek gods.
---------
The goat man's name turned out to be Mack. Mack Manchineel. But his friends just called him Manny.
I called him Big Mac.
Oh, and he had a car. Inside of which we were currently on the interstate, heading East.
"So Big Mac, do the Camp Half-Blood people just give you cars? 'Cause if so, then I want in on that." I said.
He gave me a weird look.
"Are you sure you're not some kind of Hermes kid?" He asked. "Because you seem really comfortable with theft."
"Nah." I replied. "My mom's Aphrodite. She's kind of a bitch-" Thunder rumbled "-but I'm not sure how uncommon that is."
"Can you not insult the gods while we're in a two-ton vehicle moving at more than seventy miles per hour?" Manny asked.
"What, so the gods kill you if you insult them, even if they're not around, because they're constantly watching everybody at all times?" I asked. "Sounds kind of Orwellian."
Manny winced.
"Please just don't talk." He said.
Boring.
"You know, if you weren't driving, I'd hit you with some shock and fear." I grumbled.
"Please don't do that either." He squeaked.
I rolled my eyes.
"What's this Camp Half-Blood like, anyways?" I asked, changing the subject. "What do people do there?"
Manny straightened up in his seat a little.
"Well, it's a summer camp, but for demigods. And since demigods are, well, basically born for combat, most of the activities at camp are based around that. Things like mock-wars, capture the flag, duels, battle-tournaments, et-cetera. We've even got corrosive pantball gunfights and a volcano rock-climbing wall with real lava."
"Wow." I said. "What about stuff besides fighting?"
I wasn't really the 'fight fair and square' type. I was more into manipulating the people around me into fighting for me. Or, y'know, just enslaving my enemies so that I didn't have to fight them at all.
I reserved direct combat for those weaker than myself.
"I guess there's the pottery and music clubs, though those are mostly just done by Apollo's kids..."
It looked like there really wasn't much to do that didn't involve fighting.
"What about living arrangements. Where do campers sleep?"
"Cabins are divided based on divine parent. Apollo's kids live in the Apollo cabin, Ares kids live in the Ares cabin, and so on. Well, except for Hermes. The Hermes cabin is for Hermes kids, and the unclaimed kids."
"Unclaimed?"
"It means we don't know who their parents are."
Right. I'd forgotten about how screwed-up Camp Half-Blood was, when it came to cabins.
You were either a child of the big twelve, or you got stuck in the Hermes cabin.
"You don't have a separate cabin for unclaimed kids?"
"Well... no." Said Manny.
Hm.
"How many gods are there?" I asked.
"Uh, I'm not sure. I know about, like, thirty of them, but that's probably not all..."
"How many cabins are there?"
"Twelve."
Yup. Gotta love that storybook logic. Gotta have the characters placed into easily-identified boxes (cabins), so that the reader knew what to expect from each one.
And in the process, it created a convenient reason for the villain to have a 'point'. Luke Castellan wasn't really wrong for hating the Olympians. They were rather shitty people.
I mean, there were more than just twelve greek gods. Off the toop of my head, I could list twelve minor gods.
Aether, Thanatos, Ananke, Hestia, Eros, Aeoleus, Nemesis, Ourea, Thalassa, Eris, Morpheus, and Phantasus, to name a few. And there were a lot more than just those guys running around out there.
So it would make sense for at least half of the demigods at camp to be from non-big-twelve parents.
So why did only the big twelve have cabins? Why was at least half of the camp's population shunted off into the cramped Hermes cabin?
Luke had a point. Camp Half-Blood was rather shitty to anyone who wasn't a child of the twelve 'main' gods.
Good thing I wasn't one of them.
---------
Strangely enough, we didn't run into any monsters on the way back to Camp Half-Blood. It was smooth sailing (or driving) across the entire US.
We stopped for gas and sleep a few times, but five days later, we were almost at Long Island.
"So Julia," Said Manny. "What are you thinking about?"
"Ah, nothing. Just wondering what my dad's up to, now that I left."
Manny spun to face me.
"You were living with your dad?!"
"Never said I wasn't." I glibly replied.
His face contorted into amusing shapes.
"I thought you were a runaway, like most of the other... dammit Julia! You need to tell me these things!"
The Satyr started cussing greek. I didn't bother translating, and instead focused on enjoying the feelings of shock, rage, and frustration he was emitting.
Once he'd calmed down a little, I spoke.
"Chill out, Big Mac. My dad's probably cool with it. We're not super close or anything, so me being gone shouldn't matter too much to him. I'll just check in on him in a year or two and we'll be square."
If he wasn't currently driving, Manny probably would have begun banging his head on the steering wheel.
"You know Julia, I think I'm starting to realize why you have the emotional capacity of a teaspoon."
"Rude~" I said, in a singsong voice. "As a daughter of Aphrodite, I can say that I know your emotions better than you do. But just because I know how you feel doesn't mean that I care."
He shook his head.
"That just makes it worse. You'd think being able to understand how others feel would make a person kinder..."
I smiled. Silly Satyr. Being an empath just meant that I could use the emotions of others as weapons. Effective weapons.
Call me Heartbreaker, 'cause them hearts gonna break.
---------
A few hours later, we arrived at the camp. Amusingly enough, it was disguised as a strawberry farm.
[Insert Sudden Cliffhanger Because I Can't Remember The Details Of What Camp Half-Blood Is Actually Like]