Allen1996
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Rage against the heavens: Chapter 5: obols for the dead
🕑 Added 2024-12-12 07:05:58 +0000 UTCThe Ancient Greeks had ways to honor their dead. Their funeral rites were both intricate and solemn because they supposedly were to serve as both a farewell and a promise that no soul would wander lost and hungry beyond the mortal veil. Before placing the body into the ground or offering it to the flames, they would wash and anoint it, dress it in garments of purity, and place coins—obols—on the eyes or in the mouth. Those gold coins were nothing but a toll for Charon, who guided shades across the dark river into the underworld.
Family and friends would gather to lament the loss, keening voices rising in unison, to show the world grief and reverence. When the morning’s pale light crept over the horizon, the ekphora would commence: a procession leading the dead to its final rest. Whether interred in earth or cremated upon a pyre, the departed would find a home beneath marble markers or simple stones, remembered through offerings of food, wine, and flowers.
If I remembered it well, to die without proper rites risked eternal unrest, a fate the Greeks feared more than almost anything else. Even warriors, legends forged in blood and sweat, received lavish honors and were sometimes immortalized with grand tombs or funeral games, ensuring that memory would not fade like smoke in a night breeze.
I knew these customs in theory. Bits and pieces gleaned from old stories, fragments of my past life’s knowledge, and insights gleaned from my current life’s reading Yet none of this prepared me for what I was doing now, what I had to do.
I had seen death before. I knew death. I already had once fallen in its embrace after all but I never could have imagined that one day, I would be the one expected to perform rites—improvised though they were—over a child’s mutilated corpse.
I had not known this boy, never learned his name. I was not his family but in the end,? did it matter? His tiny, broken body demanded respect. In my heart, I felt he deserved a hero’s burial, for had he not faced unimaginable horror? Had he not fought, if only in instinct, against a fate he did not deserve?
Beryl stood nearby, her presence a trembling silhouette at the edge of my vision. She helped as best she could, though neither of us knew what we were doing. None of my gained knowledge—none of the starts in my mind—had taught me, could teach me how to mend what the cyclops had done to fragile human flesh.
No manual, no guide, no inspired whisper offered a clue on how to clean the remains of a child so that he might appear at peace. We were honestly out of our depth, groping in the dark for comfort that would not come.
I forced myself to examine the body. Probably Four hours if not had passed since the Cyclops had ended his short life. Maybe I was wrong but I was basing this timeframe on the moment Beryl and I encountered the Cyclops.
The corpse was not a pretty sight. It was the kind of sight you never could forget. It was the kind of sight that haunted you all your existence. The corpse bore the signs of terror and agony. Rigor mortis likely set in, stiffening small limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Discoloration bloomed across pallid flesh as blood pooled and settled. There would be no gentle sleeping face, no quiet repose. Only ruin.
Focusing on the details, I felt my stomach churn. The torso lay splayed open, flesh peeled away in places like old bark stripped from a dying tree. Organs half-devoured or torn spilled forth in a grisly tableau. Bones gleamed wetly. One arm hung limp, the other gone entirely. Legs savaged by what to be crushing blows and sword strikes that knew no mercy. The face was scarcely human, features distorted into a mask of permanent horror.
An empty socket where innocence once shone, a bloodied gape where screams had found no savior. Around him, shredded fingernails and bloodied soil bore silent witness to what had clearly been his last struggle. The child had fought to survive, had wanted to live. That child had probably died scared.
I swallowed bile and rage. How could I regret what I did to that Cyclops now? If anything, I wished I had taken more time, inflicted greater torment. I knew A pointless wish—nothing would restore this child. The deed was done, and all that remained was to honour him with whatever dignity we could muster, to make sure that at least in the underworld, he would not have to wait for who knows how long. That was the least he deserved.
In both my lives, I had not handled something so awful. I tried to recall if I had ever, as a human in a simpler age, confronted gore so raw. Perhaps I had seen terrible images in my past life, Reddit posts, war photographs or news stories, but never had I knelt beside a butchered child in a quiet clearing.
Beryl, pale and trembling, knelt opposite me. We labored in silence. We did what we could: took scraps of fabric, some conjured by my unnatural power, to cover the child’s remains. I had managed to use Adaptive Material Synthesis to create a chiton of rich purple hue. I had chosen purple because if I remembered it well, it had been the colour of kings and emperors in the past in Greece and Rome.
The cloth draped over the ruined torso, hid the worst of the carnage from the moon’s gaze and our eyes. The child’s form remained broken, but wrapped in royal color, he looked less like carrion and more like a small, fallen prince. I could not help but see the ridiculousness of it all, the irony, of bestowing royal honours on a boy whose life was stolen by cruelty.
I remembered the Greeks placed coins for Charon. Without proper rites, souls drifted, lost, never reaching the judgment of the underworld. I had no coins of ancient make, no drachmae, but I had something better: the power to transform matter. Reaching into the dirt, I selected two round pebbles. Closing my eyes, I tapped into the gift in my mind. Atoms danced, rearranging themselves into gold. Warmth spread through my fingers as the pebbles shimmered, losing their dull grayness and emerging as two perfect discs of gleaming yellow metal. I placed them gently over the child’s closed eyelids—Beryl had done that for me, pressing down on stiffening lids until they sealed forever in repose.
Now the child bore gold, and a purple garment. It was a pitiful attempt at dignity, but what else could we offer? No family stood here to weep. No mourners queued to lament his passing. Only me, my sister, and the silence of the forest. One might think nature would cry out at such horror, but only a quiet hush held sway, as if all living things recoiled and retreated from this ugliness.
“Alex,” Beryl whispered, her voice thin and broken, “I think he’s ready to be buried.”
I nodded. I had to do more. The Greeks believed strongly in burial. Without burial, no soul could pass into the underworld properly. I didn't know if it was the same thing in this world with the universe of Percy Jackson technically being when you thought about it truly a Greek mythology fanfic that sometimes added or forgot or modified or removed some of the elements of the original myths.
Bending down, I pressed my hand to the soil.
I felt glad by the knowledge given to me by the adaptive material synthesis star because I would have not been able to do anything with it by myself. I wasn’t a genius after all.
Soil in itself was a mix of organic debris, minerals, and moisture. In it lay carbon and other elements. Ebony, I recalled, was a dense, dark wood rightfully in my opinion prized for its hardness and beauty. I was trying to make ebony-like material from the ground beneath my sister and me.
I envisioned carbon chains tightening into dense structures, impurities expelled as heat and faint sparks of light. Slowly, the ground beneath the corpse shimmered and twisted. A low hiss filled the air as matter rearranged, steam and faint wisps of energy curling skyward.
I guided the process. Carbon atoms slid into place, forming tight bonds, mimicking the rich black grain of ebony. Excess minerals burned away in tiny sparks. The coffin took shape around the child’s form: a dark, lustrous box without ornamentation but gleaming with a quiet solemnity. The lid sealed perfectly, each edge fused to prevent the intrusion of insects or decay.
Under moonlight, the ebony coffin looked oddly serene.
The process would most likely cause the ground around it to blanch, like ash scattered in a ring. I had technically after all robbed the soil of its richest components. Equivalent exchange and all of that.
With another exertion of will, with another gesture, I forced the coffin to sink gently into the earth, leaving only a smooth patch of ground. No marker, no name—just silence and the memory of what had happened etched in this ground.
The Adaptive Material Synthesis was truly overpowered, bullshit to be frank. Still Such power, and yet a part of me felt disappointed that It could not save the child with it. I could only bury him well. In a way, all of this made me feel hollow.
I considered the absurdity of it: I had, with my powers, done things beyond mortal ken. Turned forest soil into ebony, pebbles into gold, cloth from air. I was limited now, restricted by molecular-level transformations and by how much I could manage at once. If I had complete mastery—if I reached the pinnacle of this strange gift—could I have resurrected the child? Would the line between mere matter manipulation and true godlike power blur until I could shape life and soul? A pointless thought. The boy was gone. I needed to focus on what I could do moving forward.
The moon rose higher, its silver glow bathing the clearing. The scene felt dreamlike now: the earth unstirred, the monster dead and vanished, the corpse laid to rest beneath our feet, the scent of blood and violence lingering only in memory. If a traveler wandered by now, they would see nothing amiss. Just a quiet patch of forest. But I knew what transpired here. I would carry it like a secret weight.
Beryl’s voice came to me, softer than a sigh but laced with a bitterness that cut deep. “Thalia,” she said, voice catching as though she choked on her daughter’s name, “she’s probably facing worse than this monster, isn’t she?”
I tensed. That name, that reminder, made anger coil once more in my chest. The fury was colder now, a blade forged in ice and regret. I had known that monsters roamed these lands, that Thalia, my niece, was out there somewhere, hunted, hounded, suffering gods-know-what horrors. The realization that this child beneath us had died screaming while a savage beast devoured his flesh… and Thalia might face something similar. My rage sharpened, yet I did not lash out at Beryl. Instead, I answered simply, “Yes.”
She gave a mirthless chuckle, hollow like wind in an abandoned house. “Did I tell you?” she murmured, voice rasping with suppressed tears, “There wasn’t a day Thalia didn’t ask for you. She begged me to let her see you, talk to you. She hated begging, you know—she’s proud, but she loved you more than that pride.” Her voice trailed off, heavy with self-reproach. “If I had told her where you lived, would she be safe now, instead of out there, alone, chased by monstrous things?”
I bit down on my tongue until I tasted blood. The temptation to wound Beryl with words was strong. Part of me wanted to roar at her, to blame her for everything—the laws Zeus had twisted, the forced separation, her silence. If she had given me the chance, I might have protected Thalia. Or so I told myself. But I pushed that anger down. What good would it do? Beryl was not my enemy. The gods were. Zeus, the bastard king who allowed these abominations to roam free, who rigged the system so that I could not stand by Thalia’s side. If I turned my fury on Beryl, I would become blind to the true source of this tragedy.
Still, bitterness lingered. I imagined Thalia: hungry, maybe cold, hiding in abandoned corners of America, pursued by claws and fangs. Was she forced to run without rest, clutching stolen food? Did she know that I would tear down mountains to find her if I could? Was she scared? Did she believed that no one cared, that I didn't care?
Zeus had rigged everything everything in his favour. The justice system bent to his will, laws twisted to keep me from my niece probably only possible because he was also the god of justice. Of course justice would be corrupt. Monsters roamed unchecked. Future horrors waited in the wings.
There was also the fact that the Eta construction store existed, the fact that according to the books, the daughters of Ares, the literal Amazons would literally create and control in this world the company of the same name, one of the biggest company in the entire world and to finish, the fact that if the books were truthful and not exaggerating the fact that the Western world, that America currently was the seat of power of the Olympians meant that making it obvious, contacting police stations or even the news would more than likely make it even harder if not impossible for me to retrieve my niece.
Calling the police or the media would achieve nothing but drawing more attention from those I could not afford, I was not strong enough to face yet. Thalia deserved better. All demigods deserved better. All humans deserve more.
I knew the wise path would be to gather strength first, to wait, to plan. But patience had never been my virtue. More than that, Seeing what a Cyclops had done here steeled my resolve. Time was slipping through my fingers. Every moment I waited, Thalia remained at risk. Even if I knew from certain that canonically she would survive, that Thalia would survive, join the hunters of Artemis which was a lot of reminiscent of a cult now that I thought about it, the fact that she would be manipulated, used as a tool, turned into the equivalent of a child soldier for uncaring psychopathic gods that were barely better than the titans, the supposed bad guys was not something I think my consciousness would allow me to do. I refused to sit idle while the gods played their cruel games.
My anger ebbed and flowed, a tide against a rocky shore. I reminded myself that ripping into Beryl served no purpose. She was no ally to Zeus. She was as much as a victim of the situation than my niece. In a way, it could be said that she had at worst sinned by omission, by weakness, but not by malevolence.
It would not be right to truly forget who was the true enemy, who technically allowed this to happen, the king of the gods who didn’t care about what monsters and gods did to those who were not his favourites. The true villains sat on high thrones. They had let monsters like this Cyclops roam free. They had allowed children to be torn apart. They would pay in time.
I took a breath, my voice calm. I would have tried to make it comforting if I didn't felt so hollow at this moment “What happened happened. No use lamenting what we cannot undo.” I raised my eyes to the spot where the boy lay buried. “I promise you this: Thalia will return to us and she would never have to fear again in her entire life, she would never have to fear to be hurt.”
I felt my sister’s gaze. Perhaps she saw resolve in my eyes. Perhaps just madness. It didn’t matter. I would not fail again.
In that moment, I knew I needed more resources. Power. Influence. The gods had centuries of advantage. I had cleverness, knowledge from two lifetimes, and a anger that would not be denied. Money, technology, allies—these were the weapons I needed to forge. I had ideas on how to raise wealth, how to gain power in a world overshadowed by divine caprice.
“Beryl,” I said softly, “you mentioned that you, an A-tier star, would still face challenges to get hired due to what happened before. What if you didn’t just act? What if you directed as well?”
She looked at me, brows lifting in surprise. The forest around us seemed to hold its breath. The moonlight cast long shadows. I pictured her behind a camera, a modern one, one more than forty years in advance. I would be helping her to make sure that she didn't fail, that we didn't fail. Cinema and media were tools of influence. Perhaps a subtle war at first, waged not with swords but with stories.
I could adapt campione for example years before it was even created. I could make I knew with the inspired inventor movies, TV shows that even in my past life, people would be mesmerized by it. I could recreate the Nasuverse and focus on the monsters who became such because of the gods unfairly.
I would have to be subtle of course. I could create games, gacha games. I could literally invent this week in a better way the technologies that would only come decades later.
I remembered my old world where information and image had been king. My past life’s experiences told me that controlling a narrative was the key to altering reality. Truth in the end was only what was accepted as such. I needed Beryl’s talent, her face, her name, even if tarnished. A tier star status might still open doors if leveraged properly.
In other words, it was time for me to truly become abusing the stars of knowledge in my mind, it was time for me to create the biggest corporation this world will ever see and I already had a name in mind, Arasaka.
Comments
avatarjedi
Loving this fic!
Slayer 10321
Now you just need to get ahead of the curve and create Amazon (and other major companies) yourself to keep them in Human hands.
Slayer 10321
Pretty sure you just traumatized every single Dryad within a mile of your location after what you did to the Cyclops. That or made them thirsty af. Then again, you did just True Death a Monster while being a purely mundane Mortal. So kudos for that.
Anthony Maxwell
Hmm 🤔 I'm not sure how to say this but I don't think the Greek gods are just let you run a propaganda campaign against them smearing their image. As I feel like it would be pretty hard for them have relationships with mortals if they did because of the story's and I feel like someone throughout the history of Percy Jackson had to have tried this exact same thing and failed probably because they came down on people who tried this like a hammer and they either killed these people or mind f***** them like a muggle from Harry Potter and flip The narrative of the story. As I feel like they probably control their image very closely. I also think that any human run company that gets too successful runs the risk of being taken over by the supernatural elements of Percy Jackson via mind control fuckery or charm magic and it essentially become the slaves of whatever supernatural faction takes over and Zeus proved that the supernatural elements could do this by wiping his memory in the story. I also have to wonder what year is it in the story. I only ask because it might be more beneficial to his goals recreate Google if the story takes place TimeWise before the year 1998 cuz that's when Google was created and the other social media giants like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube were created in the years between 2000 and 2010. Also FYI the guy who created Facebook during the early 2000s was the richest man in the world before Elon musk if I remember correctly or he was at least one of the top contenders for richest man in the world.
Alex Aiello
Maybe look into Campione along with nasuverse for inspiration on using the myths of the gods to change and affect them
Gerardo Hernández Sánchez
Cyberpunk this world in the future.
Cesar gonzalez
And create artificial nulls that repel divine power, or in this case artificial clear-eyes, as foot soldiers like that scene in the third book where an attack helicopter shot at Percy and crew.
An_Reader89
This is giving 40k empire of men vibes, and I’m all for it, I wonder if he can pull a necron and create power sources made from gods fragments
Skyman
Mankind is Eternal. Long live the Master of Mankind!
