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Godly council meetings weren’t anywhere near as cool as they sounded. It was easy to think they were about something actually important, you know, like an impending world war or a celestial crash out of eternal proportions. Poseidon would’ve been happy if the meetings were even a tiny bit as interesting as all those things.
Instead, all the peace time council meetings consisted of nothing more than gods complaining about things they’d no doubt forget by the morning. Supposedly, the council meetings were supposed to serve as a sort of public forum, one where gods could bring their problems and get advice or help with them. Most of the time, the advice was something along the lines of ‘did you try turning it off and on again?’ or ‘sounds like a skill issue’, and thus the meeting would go nowhere.
This time, the meeting hadn’t just gone nowhere, it was heading fucking backwards.
Poseidon lounged on his throne, his trident glinted brightly as it leaned against the arm rest. Judging from how things were going, he had a feeling he was going to need it. His eyes tracked the two gods standing in the center of the throne room, yelling at each other as their ‘discussion’ had devolved into nothing more than playground insults.
Hermes stood on one side, still dressed in his Hermes Express uniform. His phone buzzed in his pocket incessantly, Poseidon couldn’t help but wonder just how exactly he was able to keep up with all the phone calls, it was like he was always on the phone in every meeting. At least the phone made his interruptions a little less disruptive, the days of smoke signals and messenger pigeons were far more entertaining albeit very disruptive, especially considering the time a pigeon flew into Zeus in the middle of one of his dreaded speeches.
On the other side, Ares stood dressed in full battle armor. The comically large sword hanging by his side scraped against the marble flooring, causing just about every god and goddess with a set of working ears to cringe at the sound. If Ares noticed, he didn’t care. Instead, he elected to spend all his energy on spewing insults at Hermes, some of which only made the messenger laugh which in turn only made him angrier.
“My granddaughter clearly inherited her good looks from me, not you!” Ares argued.
“Every mortal that looks at her says her eyes are beautiful and guess whose eyes she has?” Hermes shot back, “That’s right, mine. If she looked anything like you, people would be wondering what kind of failed government experiment could produce such a thing.”
A few gods snorted, save for Artemis, who frowned at the notion of being cruel to a child. Sometimes Poseidon forgot she had a soft spot for children, being the goddess of childbirth and all. She was usually so busy convincing young girls to join her little fan club that it was easy to forget she wasn’t just the goddess of the Hunt.
“You little—” Ares stormed towards Hermes, his hand drifting towards his sword.
“You know, if you two are really this curious about who Clarisse and Chris’s daughter inherited the most traits from, you could just bring her up here and let me get a good look at her.” Apollo suggested, “I can tell you the exact percentage just from looking at her.”
“Great idea!” Ares raised his hand, ready to snap and teleport his granddaughter to Olympus.
“Idiot!” Hermes scolded, “She’s in school! Don’t you dare interrupt her education over something this stupid.”
“You, caring about education?” Athena sounded impressed, “That’s new.”
Hermes turned to her with a horrified expression, “I always care about my children’s education!”
“Whatever you say.” She waved him off.
Personally, Poseidon didn’t think Hermes was all that shabby when it came to his kids’ education. The guy went as far as to mail the answers to math tests to his kids when he deemed it necessary and a couple of them had magic calculators in their possession courtesy of their father. While Athena might’ve called all of that cheating, Poseidon didn’t think it was too bad, he thought of it as setting them up for success.
“She can make up whatever she misses.” Ares dismissed before snapping his fingers.
A few minutes later, a brilliant white flash filled the throne room. When the light faded, a child stood in the center of the throne room, right between the two gods. Everyone, including Zeus, sat up as they all got a good look at the child.
Look, Ares was an idiot, that wasn’t a secret, even the plants in Hera’s garden knew that fact very well. However, even he had enough intelligence to be able to tell the difference between his own granddaughter and some random kid.
Except this wasn’t some random kid.
This kid, unlike Ares’s granddaughter, was a boy. He also looked nothing like Hermes or Ares. He didn’t have that manic look in his eyes like Ares or the upturned nose like Hermes. Instead, he had a familiar brooding look and a smirk that screamed troublemaker. His raven black hair was all ruffled and he had a small cut on his chin, he looked like he’d gotten into a fight with an alley cat.
What really got Poseidon though were his eyes. His eyes were a gun metal gray color. Just looking into them felt like looking down the barrel of a rifle. There was only one person on Olympus who had eyes with that kind of intensity. He glanced over at Athena, who also seemed to be staring intently at the boy.
“Who’s this greaseball?” Ares asked rudely.
The kid opened his mouth to answer but Hermes cut him off, “You should know, you brought him here, dumbass!”
Ares turned with gritted teeth, ready to skewer Hermes where he stood. The only thing that stopped him was Athena standing up, “Wait.”
“What?” He asked impatiently.
“You didn’t bring your grandchild here, you brought mine.” Athena said and it was at that precise moment a few of the gods realized just how badly Ares had fucked up with Poseidon being one of them as he realized this child was also his grandchild.
Poseidon cleared his throat, “Athena is right, look at his eyes.”
Ares teleported in front of the kid and bent down, startling the poor boy. “Would you look at that?! He has Bird Brain’s eyes after all!”
Athena clenched her fists but didn’t move.
Ares straightened up and looked over at Poseidon, “You know, this kid looks a lot like Jackson, don’t you think?”
“He does.” Poseidon nodded, “And that’s perhaps because that kid happens to be my grandchild as well.”
If the rest of the gods weren’t aware of the colossal mistake Ares had just made, Poseidon’s words were sure to make them aware now.
“Wait a second,” Apollo started, “If that kid is your grandchild, doesn’t that mean—”
“That Percy is his father?” Poseidon finished, “Yes.”
As if they’d been waiting for that very moment, the throne room doors exploded. Every god and goddess jumped in their thrones, some reached for their weapons while others stood up. Zeus’s eye twitched as one of the doors bounced off a marble pillar, leaving a pretty sizeable crack on the pristine designs.
“This is about to get very interesting.” Poseidon started to smile as he leaned on his forearm.
Through the wispy white smoke, a tall figure clad in a suit stormed in. As he got closer, the smoke seemed to turn a yellowish color as the glow from his sword illuminated the air.
“You done fucked up big time.” Hermes said, stepping far away from Ares.
The figure stepped through the smoke to reveal none other than the man, the myth, the legend, and incoming cause of death for Ares: Percy Jackson. Judging from the look on his face, he was not in a good mood.
Despite the danger, Poseidon couldn’t help but admire Percy, he’d grown quite a bit. He’d reached his maximum height a long time ago but his features had become a lot more rugged over the years. In short, he’d grown more handsome over the years but also a lot more dangerous looking. He was the not the guy with fuck with on the evening train, even if he was wearing a suit and tie, which weirdly enough fit him.
“What are you doing to my son?” Percy asked, eyes locked on Ares who happened to be the closest to his son. His voice had a dangerous edge to it, sort of like a missile warming up.
“I’m not doing anything to the little piss ant!” Ares said, “I was just—”
If Ares hadn’t been looking directly at Percy, he wouldn’t have been able to dodge the incoming sword aimed at his throat. Despite being a good few years into his twenties, Percy hadn’t slowed down at all, if anything, he got faster.
“Alright, you asked for it!” Ares started to draw his sword but stopped when another blade appeared just under his chin, “What the—”
Athena glared at him, her sword aimed right at his jugular, “Don’t even think about drawing your sword. I will not have you turn my daughter into a widow.”
Poseidon almost laughed. With just how pissed Percy was, he had a feeling Annabeth had nothing to worry about when it came to losing her lover. Now Aphrodite on the other hand…
Sensing just how outnumbered he was, Ares raised his hand to show he wasn’t reaching for his sword. “Fine.”
Athena lowered her sword and turned just in time to see Percy walk over and kneel down in front of his son. They both talked quietly, not nearly loud enough for the entire council to hear. A few nosy gods leaned in anyways in an attempt to eavesdrop.
Poseidon couldn’t hear the first part of this conversation but eventually Percy’s son rolled his eyes, “Dad, I’m fine. They actually did me a favor, Mrs. Tweed was about to put on a documentary about erosion. Seriously, erosion?”
Percy smiled fondly, “Don’t let your mother hear that or she’ll teach you everything about erosion and more.”
Percy’s son shuddered with fear, “No thanks.”
Percy laughed and stood up, the smile on his face fading as he turned to face Ares and by coincidence the rest of the gods. “I’ll let it slide this time but from now on, leave me and my son alone. I’m retired and my son isn’t questing age.”
“Questing age?” Percy’s son perked up.
“Don’t worry about it.” Percy said quickly.
Poseidon smiled. His grandson seemed to be quite the interesting boy already, he was eager to see how he would fare in the demigod world. If he was anything like his father, his run was bound to be very entertaining at the least.
“We did not intend to bother you or your son.” Zeus said, “Ares merely made a mistake.”
“Good, I’m glad you get it!” Percy said, the smile returning to his face. He gave a half bow to the king before putting a hand on his son’s shoulder, “Come on, I have to take you back to school.”
“Dad!” Percy’s son whined.
Just before they could both leave though, there was a distant sound echoing from the streets of Olympus. Poseidon frowned, the sound was drawn out and awfully loud.
“What is that?” Demeter asked, cupping her hand over her ears.
“I didn’t know Olympus had air raid sirens.” Ares turned to the rest of the gods, “Not that I’m complaining but when did we get them?”
“A few years ago, when Annabeth was setting up the defense network for Olympus. She said they were only supposed to go off if a major threat was on Olympus.” Athena said.
“What’s the threat?” Hermes asked.
As if right on cue, another tall figure stepped into the throne room, her high heels clicking against the marble and her blonde hair tied in a neat pony tail.
“Hello, daughter.” Athena greeted, “Ares kidnapped your son by accident.”