The Olympians: The Fall of Kin

Regime

24 hours later

They were close. The boat they'd gotten was an old Navy destroyer, which looked all the more conspicuous travelling alone. But, according to Bartholomew Black, his power should convince everyone that was near to see a small fleet, and hundreds of active personnel manning their stations on each of the fictional ships. A strange ability, to be sure, but Clarion couldn't judge.
"What are we going to do?" Kyn said as he entered the bridge. His voice echoed in its empty shell, made all the emptier with only the two of them there.

"What do you mean?" Clarion asked as he puffed on his cigarette, hoping his headache would go away soon.

"I mean...we have a formidable force, to be certain, but my brother will have an army."

"You can't know that."

Kyn gave him a knowing stare. "Yes. Yes, I can. I promise you, he will have an army."

"Yeah? Where the hell is he gonna' get them?" Clarion asked dryly.

"Guys." Athena called over comms from her bunk. "Pull up the news."

"What channel?" Clarion asked, reaching for the remote that controlled the Television on the left wall.

"All of them. Any one of them." She said quickly.

Clarion looked at Kyn. "Why do I have a bad feeling?" Despite that, he still tuned in to the first news channel he could find.

Tempest walked in a second later and let out a short gasp.

"What?" Clarion asked her.

"Th-that girl..." She was referencing a young woman who stood by none other than Roman Titanus on the front lawn of The United Nations Building in New York, surrounded by hundreds of newscasters.

"My name is Delilah Jones. Some of you may know of my father...he went by Neon." There was a surge of questions, but she raised her hands, quelling them as she spoke more. "I won't try and excuse the things my father did...not to anyone...but he was still my father! He was slaughtered, but not for something as stupid as greed. He was killed for getting money the only way he knew how because—" her voice broke. "Be-because he couldn't get a job. It's a problem that's affected The Godkin for far too long. No one wants us. We're second class, below the human majority!" She slammed her fist on her podium. "And because of that, my father was forced into a life of crime to gain enough to pay for my treatment, all because no insurance will cover one of my kind. And—and I'm goddamned tired of this treatment. Tired of it all. They use our own people as weapons against us, going as far as unleashing them on Seattle, where the majority of dead were Godkin! The humans have their boots dug into our backs, forcing our faces into the dirt, as if to say that's where we belong! Why do we accept this? Why do we allow this to happen? We didn't ask to be created, but we were...by a human, one of the few men in the world that accepts us, Roman Titanus! I'm asking all of you...where do you stand? Do you really believe that Atlantis being made a country is best for us? Or is it them tossing us a bone so they can continue what they've been doing for over two centuries? I ask these hard questions for one reason: in four days, when the leaders of our world gather to tell us not to worry, I'm organizing a protest to stop thi—"

"You're the reason for all these deaths! Why can't you just leave? Leave our country or die!" A reporter yelled fervently.

"Yeah!"

"Just get out of here! Criminal scum!"

There was a gunshot that erupted from somewhere in the crowd. The bullet pierced her shoulder, knocking her aside. Roman's guards shielded her and secured the perimeter as the crowd grew frantic before dispersing.