Fandom High

James K. Jason

"I don't understand." Ace said. "If you're a son of Zeus, doesn't that mean there have to be gods too?"
"Maybe." James shrugged. "We don't really know yet. But that does seem like the most likely scenario, so all the Jackson Majors just assume they're there."
Ace eyed him quizzically over the table they both sat by in the train passenger car. It was deserted besides the two, along with Cherri, Wesley, and Thomas. The train had continued to make its way to the school a few minutes after the students had reentered the metal form of transportation, at which point all five had quite a few questions to answer.
"But I have read Percy Jackson, or the first book at least." Cherri said. "There is a rule about the three major gods, last I checked. Where like Zeus and Neptune and Hades or whatever cannot have kids with mortals. Is that not in place?"
"Yes indeed." James said. "Children of the Big Three are incredibly rare and equally powerful. In fact, there are only four others like me that we're aware of. One besides me is Zeus, one is Poseidon, one is Hades, and the last is Neptune. The rest are either mortals or the sons and daughters of other gods."
"So you can like... Do your lightning thing and stuff?"
"Technically, yes." Tom cut in suddenly.
"Technically?" Ace asked.
James raised an eyebrow. "Technically?"
"Your sword." Tom explained. "It has several alloys attached that allow it to conduct electricity thousands of times easier. Technically, it allows you to call lightning without the usage of any godly power."
"Yes, very good. Care to go on?" James said, seemingly curious as to Tom's abilities of deduction.
"Gladly." Tom leaned against a seat across the aisle. "I couldn't help but notice, as you were flying, the wings on your shoes were flapping."
James grinned. "Yes, someone finally got it on the first try! Brilliant!"
Ace stared at him in confusion. "Huh?"
"Care to explain, Basil?" James asked.
"Oh, I'd love to." Tom said, looking around at the others. "James is not a son of Zeus. He uses a special weapon that conducts lightning and winged converse to make it look like he's a son of Zeus, which would cause enemies to be far more intimidated than by a son of Demeter."
"Demeter?" Ace asked. "What does she do again?"
"I'll show you." James took off his backpack and pulled out one of those pill separators; only instead of pills in it, there were seeds of all sorts. He took one out of the Tuesday compartment and held it in the palm of his hand. "Watch closely." He said.
Ace and the others watched as the seed started to tremble almost unnoticeably. Then, in a split second, it blew up in a massive explosion of green vines that spread all over the train car in a second. Ace and the others yelped in surprise.
"Whoa, what the-?!" Wesley yanked his hand free of a vine that seemed to be fond of his wrist.
"Oh no, I did it again!" James shouted. "Wrong seed!"
Tom groaned, being held upside down by a thick vine wrapped around his waist and right leg. "I think I got a branch up my-"
"What the hell was that?!" Cherri shouted.
"Hang on, hang on!" Ace said. "If you can make trees and stuff grow can you do the Groot thing?"
"...Groot thing?"
"In Guardians of the Galaxy, Groot emitted all these glowing seed pods from him that floated around. Can you do that?"
"If I can, I don't know how." James said. "But I'll research that and see if I can figure it out." He winced as he looked around. "Ack... I always do this. I'm such a clutz with my seeds, I'm sorry."
Ace just sighed, brushing herself off. "I can see why you're scarier as a son of Zeus..." She looked at him. "Why'd you call me Annie before, anyways?"
"Because I... Well..." James looked around, noticing that the others weren't paying attention. Cherri and Wes were too busy trying to get Tom down. James rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I heard you look yourself up in the Hitchhiker's Guide..."
Ace blinked in surprise. "You were there?"
"Yeah, you and Cherri were shouting and it woke me up."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Don't be." James smiled sheepishly. "If you hadn't you would be dead."
Ace smiled back, then glanced behind her. "Oh, I guess you haven't met the guys." She gestured back at her new friends. "That's Wesley O'Conner with the orange hair. He's a Who Major. And the one upside down is Tom Basil, Wesley's escortee. They don't seem to like each other much though. And the girl with the pink hair is Cherri-"
"Cherri Kumiko." James nodded. "I know who she is."
Ace blinked in surprise. "You do?"
"Oh yeah." James said. "Everybody in Fandom High knows who she is. She's part of two of the most dangerous fandoms, and she excels at them farther than almost anyone."
"It must be interesting being her flatmate..." Ace said.
"Oh, it's beyond interesting." James looked at her. "Her last flatmate died. I mean it wasn't her fault, but that's why she's here getting a new one."
"...Ah." Ace said.
"Don't worry, you'll do fine. I heard about your falcon stunt, I think you're all set here. Look, lemme see your phone." Ace pulled her phone out of her pocket, where it had miraculously stayed put, and gave it to him. James typed something, then showed it to her. "There's my number. If something happens and you need me, just text me and I'll help you. Okay?"
Ace smiled and nodded, snapping his picture for his profile. "Okay."
"Oh holy shit no they're doing that John Green feels thing!" Tom said. James rolled his eyes and swiped a hand upwards. Basil yelped as the vine around his waist suddenly let him go, dropping him on the ground roughly.
Wesley eyed James and winked. "Call me if you get any free time."
James blushed brightly and Ace rolled her eyes. "Ignore him, he flirts with anything that breathes."
"Except Tom." Cherri added.
"Yeah, except Tom." Ace agreed. "He doesn't like Tom."

Ace had been instructed to sleep, but after she nearly died, she wasn't exactly that tired. So she took a shower to wash out all the rain and sweat and leaves and the smell of squid ink, then sat down on her bed. "Damn..." She muttered as she remembered her wings had gone off to start a new life in the big apple.
She looked around for something to do on the train, but couldn't come up with anything. She had already gone through her feed on Tumblr and she didn't have her wings to tinker with, so she didn't have many options. She glanced outside and the still falling rain and wondered how much longer it would take to get to the school. She didn't know where exactly it was in Europe, but it had to be near land at least, surely.
Ace hesitated a moment longer before she took out her phone and typed in a message.
Me: Hey Storm. You awake?" She said, deciding them she would nickname the so-called son of Zeus after the badass weather-controlling woman of the x-men.
There was a moment's hesitation before she received a reply.
Storm: Yeah, I can't sleep. What's up?
Me: I can't sleep either. I'm really bored.
Storm: Same.
Storm: Actually, I have something cool we can do if you want. Can I come over?
Me: Sure, why not, I'll meet you in the aisle thing the all the seats.
Storm: ...You mean the car?
Me: Yeah that
Ace stood and left her room, walking out into the deserted car and sitting down in one of the seats. She was only waiting for a minute or so in the dark corridor before James joined her. She looked peered at him over the edge of her seat. "Hi."
James smirked a little. "Hey."
"What've you got planned?"
"Well we don't have anything to do so I thought... I might read some Percy Jackson to you."
Ace blinked. "You do realize I haven't read a single book."
"I figured." James laid down on the floor of the corridor casually. "So I brought the first book. What d'you say?"
Ace shrugged. "Can't see why not. Although you and I know nothing about such other."
"We don't really have to, do we?" James asked. "I mean we're just two kids who happened to be bored at the same time and we decided to help each other out."
"Still... I feel like we should do something." Ace said.
"Well, alright." James sat up. "What's your favorite Superhero?"
"Oh god, don't make me choose between my children."
James laughed. "Alright, fine, what's your favorite place to watch a movie?"
"I'm kinda good with any place." Ace said. "A movie is a movie... But there's this one theater back at my house in San Francisco that has these wicked drink machines. Looks like something out of Stark Industries."
James laughed. "So you're attracted to sci-fi drink machines then?"
"No, you don't understand." Ace said. "These freakin' drink machines are so cool. You like press a button and opens up this huge range of flavors to add to whatever drink you want. Have you ever had lime sprite?"
"Uh... No."
"Well don't, it tastes terrible." She and James both laughed. "So what about you, what's your favorite theater?"
"Let's see..." James thought for a minute. "Well there's this really old cinema a few miles from my house in downtown Cincinnati, and they play all sorts of new movies on an old projector and they have this old juke box and it's just such nice antique place."
"So you really like old stuff?" Ace asked.
"Oh yeah." James replied enthusiastically. "Old radios, old planes, old music, old cars. Especially old cars."
"I like cars a lot too." Ace hesitated. "Y'know... My mom was a car mechanic back when I was younger. I used to help out a lot, which is kinda how I got into mechanics. We had a lot of old cars come into our garage."
"Yeah? I'd like to meet her someday."
"Oh, no, that's not possible."
"Huh? Why not?"
"She um..." Ace looked away. "She died two years ago."
"Oh..." James's face fell. "How... How did it happen?"
"I don't really wanna talk about it." Ace looked back at James with a false smile on her face. "So, how about that reading thing?"
James smiled back and nodded. "Yeah that." He laid back down on the ground, holding the book above his face as he read the title. "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Chapter One: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher."
Ace snorted. "Accidentally!" She exclaimed.
"Well yeah, who wants to kill their math teacher on purpose?"
"Literally everyone."
James hesitated. "...Good point." Ace laughed again and leaned her back against the wall of the train as James smirked and started to read. "Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood..."