AU Percy Jackson Post Apocalypse Quest

Vote is officially closed.

Will roll tonight when I get off work. Texting this from my 10 minute break.

Also, given the popularity of Age of Death, this will influence things with the chosen scenario.

The vote that wins will be chosen, but if it's close, I can take that into account (in spirit if nothing else).

QM said:

[X] An Age of Confusion
In the War of the Titans, the proudest of the Gods fell so that the rest could hide.....

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Not a soul was on Olympus the day it fell.

None, but the King.

Before there was a single battle, the fate of Olympus had been decided. And the blame, as it had for millennia untold, fell up on the head of its ruler. There were no courtiers to gossip, no muses left to sing. Were ambrosia or any other divine food capable of rotting, the tables where feasts once graced these hall would be a matt of mold and lichen, overgrown and putrid.

No hands left to maintain any of it.

In the Halls of the Gods there were 12 thrones and each one was empty but one. It still hummed with power, still set alight the ever dimming rooms and halls. Torches of Greek Fire died out day after day, shrouding the Halls of the Gods in peerless darkness, but the throne room still shown bright.

But the rest were cold, hollow things. Once those seats were anchors for the power of the gods that sat them, but now no longer. They were empty reminders of a dead court and an abandoned cause. All that was contained in those artifacts that could be taken was taken, and the rest was left to fade away, to be taken or to be seized.

Every God houses a measure of their power in their artifacts and possessions. Once claimed, a piece of themselves remains with whatever they once held. Only a vow of the gravest severity can sever such connections and so quickly as these ancient pillars of power.

They were never coming back.

Every retainer had been evacuated along with their master or abandoned to the wrath of the King of the Gods.

It was not a question, it was law.

Olympus would never be again, not in the way it was. Zeus could never be its king, the Gods could never bow to him.

All that was left was the silence of a thousand thousand broken oaths and promises. The cruel impotence of being a King with no army, father with no family, to be completely abandoned to whims of fate, that was the manner of punishment chosen for the King.

Before the enemy ever sat foot on Olympus, the Olympians were no more.

But in time, the King did find company.

The Palace of the King was once protected with the most potent of magics, guarded and elsewise in every manner afforded to the ruler of the Heaven and Earth.
This was no longer the case.

When War came, all the Gods were sought out: for battle, for capture, for vengeance and the cruelest indulgence of an embittered enemy; one by one.

And Zeus was not the exception but the example.

Olympus was surrounded, and under waves of blood and lightning and searing light, the King was worn down, depleted. The battle raged for weeks on end. One God against an army of abominations, Titans, ancient monsters whose names were etched into stone older than the Gods themselves. And yet, the King still stood for a time. Wavering only to consider flight, like his children, like his wife, all of his kin.

Whether it was by guile, by a blessing to the Conqueror, or by a curse on the Conquered, Zeus did not know but the Son of the Earth and Sky had brought him to heel after 30 days of siege.

Wearing the face of a mortal boy, his own father had him chained down as Zeus once did to him so many ages ago, sickle in hand, with an army at his back, sacking and looting the palace of every object of power, every morsel of ambrosia and carting it back to Mount Othrys.

Diminished and tattered, their victory was a Pyrrhic one, but oh so very sweet.

And sweeter still was Kronos' retribution for being reduced for so long, so began the reaping.

First: Kronos cut Zeus' manhood from him by the same sickle that castrated Ouranos.

Kronos mused about what to do with his grandchildren, mocking that Zeus had no time left to find a womb for them. He had wanted a piece of every nymph he ever laid his eyes on, so Kronos thought it fitting to divide the seed into bloody parts and cast them into every stream, river and sea until there was no more. No care for where they landed, as Zeus never cared where he planted.

Second: Kronos had his eyes and tongue taken. Every moment that this usurper spent in the light was an insult. His place was in the dark of his gut, just like the other children. This reign of his, this millennia of torment, it was all some foul joke. And while Kronos no longer saw fit to give his children a home in his body, they could at least feel like home, blinded and dumb to the world.

Third: He was flayed.

Kronos would take that skin for himself. So long without a divine body had left him longing. Left him vulnerable and weak. That was not his rightful place, and the Fates had allowed him this victory, long awaited. He would seize his dominion in the skin of his own flesh and blood, even if he had to tear it off of one.

The husk of the mortal was devoured by hellhounds and drakons, discarded like a soiled robe.

In the skin of a God, the King of Titans once more attained a body.

Fourth: The remains were shredded and burned. Zeus was scattered like ashes on the four winds in pieces so light and fine that they would never touch the earth or sea again.


The bounty of Olympus had mostly gone in the hands of the fleeing Gods, not much remained. But there was the Master Bolt.

It was spent, damaged, but it was there for the taking. Many of the generals had thought it good spoils for their hard won battle. Many wished to hold it, even for just a moment. But the right and honor of first refusal remained with the king.

Kronos had a choice, to claim this tool of his child as his own, or do away with it, like all the other memories of his shame and defeat.

---

What horror this battle for the heart of Civilization must have appeared to the people below, the human beings, trampled as the King of the Titans brought all the might of his court to bare down on the hapless people of New York.

There was no protection. No veil of sorcery. No disguise for the wrath of Divine combat.

New York was awash in a hell of bronze, gnashing teeth and claws for nearly a month as Zeus fought all his enemies alone.

All that stood between the hapless folk of the Boroughs were a small band of heroes raiding through the tunnels and sewers, harassing the Titans' forces. They did not have the numbers to be called an army, the Gods children were never so numerous as to be an army just of themselves. But they were potent. No Great Quest was given, no prophecy. It was decided among the heads of the Cabins, of those that were present and alive, that Camp Half Blood was on borrowed time. They had choices to make.

Many had family in the city. Many others had a conscience. This Godless world was a terrifying place, they found. As hands off as their protection once was, the threat of the Gods kept a soft balance in the world, and that balance was gone.

A tree was not going to hold back the tides of monsters currently in New York, not once Olympus fell and the Titans turned toward them. So it was decided to muster two forces: One to hold the entries to the city to take the fight to the monsters first, possibly to contain them or at least give the younger campers and what nature spirits could leave time to run and escape, and another force to rescue as many people as possible.

Some even floated the idea of bringing home defectors to Kronos' army. There were demigods who fought in the armies of Kronos, after all. But upon reaching the city, none were seen in all of the Battle of New York. The only humans to be found were civilians.

The Campers did not go to The City to support the King of the Gods, or to save Olympus, but to save as many of their own as they could, as many people and children as possible. So they set to work on what they could do and kept the fates of their estranged friends and lovers out of mind.

Theirs was a kindness born of desperation.

It was understood that the Fates had long since turned against them. And that hope did not lie in either the thundercracks and blistering heat of the Master bolt firing again and again and again nor was it in the hordes of the Titans.

The Gods had gone, their parents no longer answered their prayers. No more blessings, no more boons. And they had abandoned them to this army from the depths of Tartarus, screaming and writhing through the shattered streets and high rises tilting against the once beautiful skyline of what was New York.

What faith ever existed for their sires died in their hearts as the lack of Divine assistance freed the monstrous hordes of the Titans to attack and devour at their leisure. Only near Olympus itself did the monsters dare not go unless commanded.

The fighting even in skirmishes was worse than anything the campers could be prepared for. But they rose to the challenge for a time.

Love of their divine kin inspired no courage or innovation. All that was left between humanity and the precipice was Bronze and not enough of it.

Only the desperation of a lonely doomed struggle pushed them onward. Of the population of New York that had been caught in the massacre, the amount of people saved was little more than a few subway cars worth. A lot, but nowhere close to making a dent in the carnage.

As the lightning strikes became weaker, it was decided to fall back to the bridges. Whatever was happening in the heart of the storm that had been raging weeks had begun to die down, but the monsters were still pouring in.

Zeus was no longer in a stalemate. He was losing. So, they had to go.

The rear guard held the line as the main force retreated farther and farther from the City along the New Jersey Turnpike, away from Camp Half Blood, past even Jersey Itself. The plan was to keep walking until they found a place to hide or a fortress they could hold. The Rear's job was to give them a chance not to be followed, to not be routed and cut down. They were bloodied to ribbons, but there were some survivors, the Camp Leaders were sure of it. They were to follow a path of signs to a checkpoint down south where they could meet connect to the rest of the Campers, the Survivors.

But the hope that they'd all make it out of New York, of those who were alive for the retreat, died in a mountain of light, electricity, and pure unyielding energy rising over the skyline.

---

A/N: While I'm working on the Character creation, I wanted to give a taste of the consequences of the first choice.

Every one of the Olympians got a roll. New York got a roll. America is going to get a roll. The rest of the world will in time get rolls.
But while every other faction and character will get a fair shake, Zeus was never getting out of this scenario in one piece.

Shame about Yonkers though... that didn't have to happen.