It had been three years since Percy and Natasha had started to train together. In that time they had become closer than siblings, both would take a bullet for the other without a second thought and many times almost had. This was because after a year of training Natasha decided that Percy needed some real-life experience and thus allowed her to follow her on less dangerous assignments. However, with the Black Widow nothing was ever really that safe and many of her missions had involved more weapons than had been predicted. In fact Percy's first mission had been a simple file retrieval, which had ended up involving a seismic gun, a chicken and an old British woman... Don't ask.
Percy had also trusted Natasha as much as she would a sibling. After a year of working together she had shown and told Natasha, she was polygender. She had shifted her form and explained to her the mentality of gender identity. Natasha had been ecstatic that Percy trusted her enough to share such a big secret with her and that Percy had an incredibly useful skill for an agent. Sadly not everyone was as accepting of the idea. After her success in telling Natasha, seven year old Percy had told her ,thought to be friend, Kamila, she was polygender. However unlike Natasha, Kamila had mocked Percy and told everyone at school what a freak she was. That had been the only school Percy had left rather than been expelled from.
After her horrifying experience Percy had reverted from the happy, open kid she was with Natasha, to her previous closed off self. It had taken weeks to bring the girl back and after she recovered she still didn't return to school for nearly a year. In that year Natasha had taken on as many domestic missions as she could, so it was easier for Percy to go with her.
Percy's training had also progressed exceptionally well. She could now speak eight languages, she spent six months learning general vocabulary and grammar and one month perfecting accent and intonation. She had difficulty reading most of them due to her dyslexia, but she could speak English, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, German, French and somehow Greek and Latin. The last two had been discovered accidentally.
Natasha and Percy had gone to a museum in an attempt to discover the origins of Percy's powers and had found they were able to read the ancient texts in the Roman and Greek sections. It had actually been quite funny because they had unintentionally started to speak the languages after they had read them and were confused as to why the curator couldn't understand them.
Percy had made progress in other areas of her training as well. She was probably one of the most fit and deadly nine year olds on earth, having learned every martial art she could find, mastering all the weapons in Natasha's extensive collection and honing her senses to the peak. She was also strong and scarily flexible, her double joints and constant training allowing her to bend into shapes that would normally be impossible. Percy and Natasha had actually worked on devolving a personal martial art that likely only Percy would be able to perform, due to it's extremely high criteria. With every level the requirements compounded, to pull off even basic moves you had to be incredibly flexible, for the next level it was strength and the most advanced moves required almost prophetic reflexes.
Percy's education had not been neglected either. With Natasha's tutelage and self-study, Percy would be taking college level classes by the time she was ten. And when in came to tech skills Percy was second to none. Percy had already surpassed Natasha when they had first met, so she had received wireless tutoring on the subject from the world's top computer scientists and hackers. However Percy had even surpassed these experts and had to teach herself by the time she was eight.
And last but not least were Percy's powers and their origins. The pair had come up with a fairly solid theory about not just Percy, but Natasha as well after years of research and comparisons. They were both able to naturally speak Greek and Latin and could only easily read the two languages. They also had incredible inborn combat skills and had put them to use when they had been attacked by monsters on a few missions.
The first one had been a half-man, half-bull hybrid. It had attacked Percy when she was sitting in a tree scouting the area, while Natasha had been meeting with an information broker. She hadn't seen it come up behind her and ram the tree, resulting in her being knocked to the ground. She had rolled when she hit the ground so she didn't splatter, but a root had grabbed her foot and twisted her ankle. The bull thing recovered from hitting the tree and charged again, towering over the small girl on the ground, as Percy was barely able to roll out of the way before the beast trampled over the space she had previously occupied.
Panting Percy tried to regain her bearings, the monster was similar to the strange creatures she had seen around her apartment, solid, yet slightly blurry around the edges with a light that was unique to each being. The bull's light was a coppery blood color mixed with a brown, like rotting meat. She tried to shoot it, but the bullets just passed through it like it was vapor. After bullets didn't work Percy tried her knives and Taser disks, yet everything just passed through it. Thankfully the beast kept up it's pattern of charging and recovering, and Percy kept rolling out of the way. She noticed every time the beast charged the light surrounding it flared slightly, so the next time the monster charged instead of rolling out of the way, she timed her jump perfectly. She grabbed a branch above her and pulled herself out of the way of it's lowered head. Startled the beast stopped it's charge early, confused as to where it's prey had gone. Before it had a chance to recover Percy leapt onto it's back and grabbed onto it's horns. However one of it's horns broke off from the force of Percy's fall. This enraged the beast, causing it to rampage and run amuck. With no option other than being thrown off, Percy took the broken horn and rammed it into the beast's neck, right where the spinal column was weakest.
Natasha had heard loud roars and what sounded like a bull from where she was meeting an information broker. Knowing Percy was the only other person within a ten mile radius, Natasha had rushed to her last known location. She was greeted by the sight of the small girl driving a black horn into the neck of bull monster. As she watched in utter astonishment the beast started to dissolve into gold dust, dropping Percy onto the ground as she rolled to a defensive position. Finding no more enemies Percy straightened from her crouch and smiled brilliantly at Natasha.
That hadn't been the last time either of the two had been attacked, but it had been the last time they were defenseless. They had taken the horn, the only part of the beast that had remained, and ground it into a dust, which they then mixed with metal. They called the metal Aura Steel, as the dust gave it a multicolored glow. Weapons made from Aura Steel or parts of the beasts were the only things that could hurt the monsters.
The monsters were a key part of their theory, they were perceived as large animals or hobos by most people and the weapons made of Aura Steel were usually seen as lighters or pencils. The monsters were also always from either Greek or Roman mythology, even the bull thing that attacked them was from an ancient Greek myth and was actually called a minotaur.
However perhaps the most damming evidence in their hypothesis was were Percy's powers. They discovered that healing was just a part of Percy's abilities. Percy actually had power over water and being able to heal with it was just one aspect of her powers, she could also move water, create storms, breath underwater, stay dry in water and talk to fish and horses. Yet she had a power that wasn't related any of her other abilities, she could see auras. At first she could only see strong auras like Natasha's but with practice she was even able to see the auras of inanimate objects.
All of these things had finally cumulated in this moment, Percy and Natasha awkwardly standing in front of Sally Jackson and presenting their case.
They had both seen her covered in the same gold dust that monsters left behind when they died and less than a week ago Percy had seen her mother walk through a fountain an come out perfectly dry. If their theory was correct, Percy's and Natasha's strangeness was due to genetics and seeing how Natasha didn't know her biological parents, that left Sally.
Percy's POV
This is it, I'm was either going to learn one of the great secrets of my life or have three years worth of research wasted. I'm finally here, finally going to ask and finally going to get some answers.
Taking a deep breath I asked "Mom, if I'm insane please let me know, but does our family have anything to do with Poseidon."
Mom looked shocked, whatever she had expected me to say it definitely wasn't related to the gods. She looking down she seemed to be having an internal debate before she let out a deep sigh. She looked at Natasha and I and asked, "What do you know?"
Meeting Natasha's eyes we had a silent conversation and decided to stick with the plan. Neither of us knew what was normal in this situation and had decided to hide the majority of what I could do. It wasn't that we didn't trust my mom, but rather we didn't know who else was involved nor if the situation was dangerous. So I started my edited version of the tale.
In this story I could breath underwater, talk to horses and fish and control a little bit of water. I told her how both Natasha and I understood Latin and Greek and described some of our less dangerous battles with monsters. I left out seeing auras and the true strength of my water abilities.
Even with the edited version, my mom looked blown away, especially when I mentioned how we had fought monsters. By the end she looked resigned and did something that really confused me. She told me to change into my male appearance, which I did, but then she yelled, "DAD!" The reason this was so shocking is because according to her, her dad was lost at sea before she was born.
As I was about to question her there was a flash in the dining room and a man walked out and stood next to my mom. He was 6'5 and looked about thirty, he wore khaki pants and a long sleeved navy shirt. He had tangled black hair, tan skin, lines on his face and eyes that I would recognize anywhere. They looked exactly like my mom's and a bit like mine. I instantly knew this was my grandfather, he and my mom looked too similar not to be related.
We all stood there for a second, awkwardness pervading the air.... Finally my grandfather said "So any questions?"
He sounded mildly terrified of me and if everyone else wasn't being so serious I would have laughed. I mean, apparently he's a powerful immortal being with control over a majority of earth, and he was afraid of his nine year old grandson. But with all of Natasha's training I was able to keep a neutral expression and hold in my laughter.
I made sure I had control over myself and asked him "So just to clarify, you're my grandfather Poseidon, a Greek God."
If possible he looked even more awkward, "When I umm, visited, your grandmother she was special, when I was with her I was able to exist as both my Greek and Roman forms." As he told me his forms, he changed into a happy go lucky looking man wearing khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, and then into a far sterner looking man in a dark blue toga and hard eyes.
"The gods were Greek first but after it's fall, the center of western civilization moved to Rome and so did we. Because we lived there for such a long time we didn't just adopt traits from the culture, we actually created separate personas. Thus most of the gods and goddesses have a Greek persona and a Roman persona. When we umm, meet, humans we automatically shift into the form which best matches them. Your grandmother was the only mortal I have ever encountered that allowed me to expression both parts of myself." At the end of his explanation he looked mournful, but regained his smiling expression when I started to talk again.
"Which means my mom is a quarter Greek god, a quarter Roman god and half mortal, a...."
"To keep it simple, a Demigod", my mom chimed in.
"Ok, and so I'm a, quadrigod?"
They both nodded at this.
"Then what is Natasha? Unlike you guys, her aura isn't just one color and it isn't as strong as yours granddad nor as weak as yours mom."
As I told them about Natasha's aura, both my granddad and my mom looked rather shocked, while Natasha literally face palmed. As I got the last words out I realized I wasn't supposed to tell them about seeing auras, especially Natasha's.
"Oops?" Was all I could say to Natasha.
In the most annoyed voice I have ever heard Natasha told me "Sometimes I forget just how old you actually are."
While I tried to apologize to Nat before realizing she was just giving me a hard time, my relatives were having a silent debate before they reached a consensus and stopped our good-natured bickering.
"Perseus"
I stopped my granddad before he could continue. "Just Percy please, only monsters or monster like adults, call me Perseus"
"Ok then Percy, only gods or incredibly powerful demigods should be able to see auras, and even then only Hecate can see such detailed strength or color . I have never heard of a demigod being able to see as much as you do, let alone a quadrigod."
Now far more somber I asked "So what does that mean?"
My mom hesitantly said "It means that you're far stronger than we thought. We were going to observe you to see if you developed any powers, if you didn't then it wouldn't be safe to expose you to the mythological world. If you had gained weak powers we would be able to train you here. However given the powers you have already shown and your young age it's likely that the third situation will occur. You will have powers and abilities on par with the children of the Olympians and thus will have the same scent which will attract monsters to you. You will be safe at home but only I have a blessing which masks the scent of demigods from monsters. It extends in a five mile bubble, but if you ever want to leave you'll need to be able to defend yourself and the best place to learn to how is at camp."
"So does that mean you're sending me away?"
"No! I won't just abandon you, if I had to I would quit my job and move with you. However there's actually a camp very close to here. It would allow you to attend and me to live there while keeping my job. It's called camp Half-Blood, it's actually where I was trained and it's a Greek camp.
At the mention of a Greek camp my granddad butted in.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you! Just as there are two types for most gods, there are also two types of demigods. When we, ah... have children with mortals, the form we are in will change what type of demigod is produced. If we were in Roman form the child will be Roman, if we were in Greek form the child will be Greek. There is a camp for Greeks, camp Half-Blood and a camp for Romans, camp Jupiter. However the two Cannot learn of each other, the relationship between the two has always been rocky, but the last conflict resulted in the American Civil war. So if whichever camp you choose you cannot tell them of the other camp, or your full heritage."
My mother was glaring at granddad the entire time he was speaking and I couldn't blame her. He had interrupted her.
"As I was saying, if you wanted you could go to camp Jupiter, but it would probably be easier if you went to camp Half-Blood. They already know me and wouldn't question how I survived on my own this long and the trainer there, Chiron, knows of both camps and my mixed heritage. Do you know which one you want to go to?"
"If I went to camp Jupiter, would I be able to see Nat a lot?"
My granddad chimed in "Probably not, Camp Jupiter is quite a bit stricter than camp Half-Blood and considering your mom doesn't have credibility there, it would be difficult to leave for at least a year if not more."
"Then I'm going to camp Half-Blood, I don't want to leave Natasha."
Turning I looked up at my adopted sister, she looked worried.
"Percy are you sure you want this? I don't want you to make a decision you'll regret just because of me."
"I'm sure. You've been there for me through thick and thin, and besides, you know I don't do strict very well." I said the last part with my trademark smirk.
"That is true, if we hadn't mediated so much I'm pretty sure you would have intentionally blown up some of your schools."
(I might have accidently blown up some more schools' things up while fighting monsters. I swear it wasn't on purpose.)
"Oh yeah, granddad can you tell us if Nat is a demigod, she has a lot of features like me."
"Let's see... That's odd. She's definitely related to a god, but it's quite a bit stronger than a normal demigod and I can't sense who her parent actually is. It's actually similar to the feeling your mother and you give off. She might be a mix between a powerful Roman and Greek demigod, but I can't be sure. I'm sorry"
"No, it's not your fault. But what should I call my self? I'm not exactly a demigod."
"How about a semigod?"