Percy Jackson as a deity of free will.
(I'm reading Descendants of Olympus by CaffeinatedFlumadiddle on ao3 (part 2 of Son of Sea Foam) and I am obsessed with the concept of free will. So. Heavily inspired.)
Sally Jackson was a demigod. The daughter of the Roman Libertas, goddess of freedom. She's a minor goddess. Sally deals with the occasional monster but she manages by herself just fine. She never integrates into the godly world and as such never uses her power.
Perseus Silas Jackson is not.
He inherits power from his mother. And this boy, the Fates know, will not remain complacent, unlike Sally. His father's genes will not allow him to be so.
This boy can change things.
So they start sending him visions. Of the future, of Halcyon Green and all the other cursed prophets, of Oedipus and all those who tried outrunning their fate. They teach him what the future is meant to look like, and hope the threats are enough for him to allow it.
It starts when he sees the Minotaur kill Sally. He knows the price he might face for this, but isn't it worth trying? He can deal with being punished if it saves her.
He runs away at seven and stumbles into the Labyrinth. A place that doesn't make sense, designed to make people go insane. But Perseus Jackson is used to a world that doesn't make sense. To living in two times at once. To silent rules of the adult world that he doesn't comprehend just yet.
Childrens' mind have a unique ability to adapt. And so, young Perseus doesn't just survive. He thrives.
He learns how to not just react to the changes of the Labirynth but control them, recognise them, use them. He learns to navigate and use this breathing, malicious thing.
He learns the different aspects of his powers. Poseidon is said to have built the gates of Tartarus and helped make the impenetrable walls of Troy. Poseidon is the Earthshaker. Perseus might be his son, not that he knows it, but he does not belong to the see.
He makes the Labirynth into more than a trap and prison, he makes it his home.
Of course, he leaves it on occasion. To steal food, to see sunlight, to outrun some particularly dangerous monster.
He's ten, when he stumbles into the wolf's den.
Two boys raised by danger. They fight, at first, and when they're both too injured to continue they will laugh, covered in blood and become brothers.
One will become the hero of New Rome. The other, his silent shadow. Percival Jackson, as he will introduce himself, to keep his two worlds separate (he might only be part of one, for now, but he knows it will not remain that way) doesn't stay at Camp Jupiter. He knows he doesn't completely belong there.
Poseison's children, the cyclops, are good at forgery. Who's to say his mortal children aren't either? Jason is the first who is given a bracelet by young Percy, but he is far from the last.
But Percival Jackson will be known and recognise by these people regardless. The Legacy of Libertas, who fought like a son of Mars. The green-eyed brother of Lupa's wolf. Later, the closest advisor of both their Praetors and the Augur.
The second time Perseus intervenes with the Fates' plan is after Luke steals the bolt. He had seen this coming, but he wanted to see this play out in reality, not just in his visions. Which is how he finds himself in the Lotus Casino, watching a son of Hermes, a daughter of Athena and a satyr.
And Percy will be damned if he doesn't try to save him.
Luke wakes up to the voice of his dead best friend coming from a kid who looks almost exactly like her. A kid who looks him in the eyes and forces him to understand what exactly he's doing wrong.
Luke doesn't walk away with any love for the gods. He'll never get that back. But he does gain understanding. He learns to hate Kronos more than his father.
That is the day Perseus Silas is introduced to the other side of his world.
From that day on, the world changes.
Perseus returns to the Lotus Casino and emerges with two children. He tells them about the Great Prophecy, their father and gives them choices.
Nico di Angelo chooses safety. Percival makes him the son of Pluto and joins Jason Grace in the 5th cohort.
Bianca di Angelo chooses freedom. Perseus gets her a place at a school he knows Grover will get stationed at soon. She stays there, waiting. One day she'll become a hunter.
Percival sneaks into the Underworld. There are many entrances within the Labirynth, not that anyone really knows. He leaves with yet another sister. She stays in the Labirynth for the most part, as neither Percival nor her want to risk the Fates' wrath for speeding up her revival.
Reyna and Hylla will escape Circe's island before its destroyed, forewarned by a boy whose name the first will only learn after arriving at Camp Jupiter.
Polyphemus never dies. The demigods sent on the quest are to scared to risk Poseidon's wrath. It took Odysseus ten years to get home after blinding him, what would happen to them?
Thalia comes back to life gasping on air, greeted by a kid who looked like her. He tells her about the Great Prophecy, why her father chose to turn her into a tree instead of actually saving her. He tells her about her options.
Thalia chooses freedom as well.
Perseus isn't actually there, when Thalia, Luke and Annabeth go get Bianca. He's in the Labirynth, trying to keep Clarisse alive and from running into Hazel.
During this time, when out to get food, Hazel runs into a girl with red hair and poisonous green eyes.
"You're not meant to be alive." She will say, not understanding the things she sees yet, not understanding who's voice she's talking with.
"No. And you're not meant to know that."
The moment Zöe first meets Perseus is in the Junkyard. The new huntress, Bianca, took something despite being warned not to. As the girl goes to sacrifice herself, she's pushed out of the way by another figure.
They move fast, and Zöe is unsure where they came from. One second they weren't there, then, Bianca was saved, then, Talos was falling and they were shrugging of a shock of electricity that should've killed them.
(Jason Grace is not always capable of controlling his powers during fights. Percival has learnt to roll with it.)
She sees Bianca hand Perseus, as she will learn his name is, a figurine. Telling him to pass it on to 'him'. As she does so, Zöe will see the bracelet on her arm.
A bracelet made with copper wire and faux pearls. The same bracelet Thalia, the daughter of Zeus, wears.
Perseus never meets Rachel in the dam, as she's with Hazel in the Labirynth.
Zöe still dies. Some deaths, even Percy is unable to stop. Not yet, at least, not with how undiscovered his power is.
Annabeth falls into the Labirynth with Luke, next summer, and in this world neither had ever known there was an entrance to it at Camp before. Coincidentally, they stumble into an injured Perseus, who had ran into Kronos' army.
"They're escalating." He'll tell them later, voice cracking. "They're turning my home into a weapon."
Four questers enture down below. They have far less trouble navigating it, with Perseus there.
They still fail to get the string from Daedalus.
The Hunters join them for the battle, and its Bianca who kills Daedalus. However, the Labirynth doesn't crumble. Its ownership falls to Percy.
Neither Perseus nor Luke ever bathe in the Styx. The former is too Roman to do so, the latter simply doesn't have a reason to.
Kronos' army is far smaller in this version of events. Still, the demigods and hunters have trouble holding back, especially since no gods come to help them, despite not having to deal with Typhon.
Still, they hold out by themselves. They have Perseus, who has foreseen large parts of the war. They have Bianca di Angelo who inherited enormous amounts of power from her father. They have Thalia, who is a brilliant leader and a nuisance in her own right. They have so many others.
Kronos loses. He's killed by Luke, who sacrifices himself in the end.
Kronos dies on Percy's 16 birthday. No one knows that fact, and the Great Prophecy is assumed to be in regards to a different conflict.
The Campers aren't happy with their gods. They had to fight Kronos by themselves. This is a wrong that will never quiet be righted.
Rebellion slowly builds throughout Camp Half-blood during the next few months.
Three demigods stumble into Camp. A son of Hephaestus. A daughter of Aphrodite. A son of... Zeus?
Jason, he introduces himself, Jason Grace. That's one of the only two things he can remember. The other is the face of a young boy with dark hair and dark eyes.
Jason Grace has blond hair, blue eyes and a scar on his lip. Jason Grace carries himself like a leader.
Jason Grace is their chance at revenge against the Gods.
Jason Grace might not fight like Luke Castellan did, not controlled and practiced but untamable and furious, but that's just for the better.
The hunters are anxious. Their Lady is stuck on Olympus after it was locked down. And now this.
Their Lieutenant, Thalia, was missing. They still had her right hand, Bianca, but something was very, very wrong.
Then one day, they stumble into a hurt girl with dark curls and golden eyes.
"I think it was Hazel." She'll say when asked her name. "I don't- I don't remember anything but her face."
"I don't know. But she had red hair and poisonous eyes."
Hazel has a bracelet made of copper and pearls on her wrist.
Hazel might not be good at archery, but she can do so many other things. The earth responds to her in the way Bianca has seen it respond to Percy. She creates intricate illusions, more than that, she changed the universe to trick monsters.
Bianca can't help but wonder if Hazel was Perseus' biological half-sister.
Camp Jupiter is missing their praetor. Nico di Angelo has been running himself ragged, trying to control Octavian, figuring out why nothing quiet stays dead, finding his brother and dealing with the pressure Camp was putting on his shoulders.
Somehow being Jason and Percival's younger brother meant that they expected him to lead alongside Reyna when the two were gone.
He missed Jason. He missed Percival, but he understood that he had other responsibilities as well. Most of all, he missed Bianca.
And then, yet another variable.
A girl with electric blue eyes like Jason's and a face that looked like his, like Percival's.
She said her name was Thalia. That was one of the two things she remembered.
A face of a girl with dark hair in two braids and dark eyes.
Thalia, as she had introduced herself, was wearing a bracelet made of copper and pearls.
Something in Nico wondered. He had found a sibling outside of Bianca when they were separated. Could it be that Thalia was his sister's?
He didn't have a lot of time to wonder. Free Death first. Convince Octavian that no, this isn't a sign from the gods that you should usurp power, Percival will not be happy with you if you do. Prepare. Something is clearly happening and it might just mean another war.
Thalia doesn't fight like him, or Jason or Percival. She doesn't fight like a wild thing, desperate to survive. (He knows he doesn't exactly fight like that either. He wasn't raised by danger the way these two were. But they were the ones who taught him to fight, and that will make its impact.)
Instead, she fights... She fights like she's constantly expecting someone to be there, to aid here. Like she's long since forgotten what it's like to be alone. She fights well though, shooting arrows laced with lightning, twirling with a sword elegantly like the wind.
She becomes praetor. Nico isn't even surprised, just relieved.
Everything is fine, until another girl appears. She has furiously red hair and poisonous green eyes like Octavian's.
"Where," she'll demand to know. "the fuck is Hazel?"
That is the moment Nico realises this is far more complicated than he expected.
It's only months later, when the two Camps and Hunters manage to resolve this. Bianca and Nico manage to reunite after years, as do Thalia and Jason. It's only then, when they all talk, do they realise the following:
they had all thought Percy was busy with one of the other groups.
No one has heard from their brother since then.
Meanwhile, the Fates have finally punished the boy who broke their plans.
A boy stumbles through hell alone. On the upside, he had many names. Down here, he has none.
A boy stumbles through hell, with only one thought on his mind.
The copper and pearl bracelet on his wrist.
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