As Fate Watches
is a The Camp Half-Blood Series Peggy Sue fanfiction written by Ianoliano.
Gaia has won. The gods are dead, and the camps are in ruin. Only seven heroes remain, and even they are doomed to fall as well. But they find themselves six years in the past with a second chance to win. A second chance sounds like a blessing, but it may just be a curse.
As Fate Watches provides examples of:
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- From an outside perspective at least, Piper and Leo. They arrive at Camp Half-Blood while Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are on their first quest five years early.
- The Nemean Lion shows up at the St. Louis Arch, a year and a half early.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The story starts with Gaia winning and destroying the world, which is what causes the events of the fic.
- Back from the Dead: Bringing Hazel back to life a second time, without waiting for the Doors of Death to open again, is one of the short-term goals for the Seven.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Bryce Lawrence attacks Frank to exploit his transformation abilities so that he can torture multiple animals.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: The fact demigods have such dreams is used on occasion by the Seven to explain where their knowledge comes from.
- Downer Beginning: Have we mentioned that the story begins with Gaia winning, the gods dead, and the world being destroyed?
- Fate Worse than Death: Hazel is in a weird situation since she's technically dead, but she sees her time in Asphodel as sheer torture. Unlike everyone else there she remembers everything, and this time around she has people outside who need her. Before Percy and Annabeth Iris Messaged her, their were signs she was starting to Go Mad from the Isolation, though it wasn't helped by her worry they'd abandoned her and were in Elysium.
- Family of Choice: The Seven consider each other family, and, aside from their intentions to fix things, the first thing on their minds after returning to the past is reuniting with each other.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Jason notes that he can't understand Bryce dedicating time and effort to the sake of hurting others. Even saying that there'd no way Bryce would be able to justify it to him if he cared enough to ask.
- Happy Flashback: We see flashbacks to times the Seven were just having fun on the Argo II, such as Hazel's birthday party.
- The Heart: Piper's position as this is somewhat deconstructed, because she's the one who keeps the group together, but she's having trouble keeping herself together.
- Heroic BSoD: Hazel has one after waking up in the Fields of Asphodel, coming to the incorrect conclusion she was sentenced to it after dying a second time and believing her friends didn't try to intercede on her behalf.
- Ideal Hero: Camp Jupiter sees Jason as this, but it's deconstructed. Jason knows, and Frank comes to understand, it has more to do with his status as a son of Jupiter, king of the gods, than anything about Jason himself. It's noted Jason felt this way the first time around, but it bothers him even more now. He has friends that see him for himself rather than his father, but he's isolated from most of them for the time being, and unlike last time he can't choose Camp Half-Blood as his true home yet.
- Misery Poker: Played for Laughs when Frank and Leo complain about the state of their respective girlfriends. Leo claims he has it worse than Frank because not only is his girlfriend (Calypso) trapped, she doesn't even remember him. Frank asks if it's a competition, with a mix of annoyance and amusement.
- Peggy Sue: The entire group of the Seven are experiencing this. They all return at around the time Percy arrives at Camp Half-Blood in the original timeline.
- The Promise: Leo failed to keep his promise to Calypso in the original timeline. Not long after returning to the past, he swears by the River Styx he'll get back to her this time, and chooses to make the part of the Prophecy "An oath to keep with a final breath" about him.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The Lawrence family has a great deal of influence in New Rome and this is part of the reason why Bryce got away with so much. As Jason also reflects with annoyance, it means his eulogy can't acknowledge that he tried to torture and kill Frank.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The goal of the seven, collectively. Gaia won and their world ended. They're determined to make sure that doesn't happen this time and, if at all possible, save the lives of others lost along the way.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Because Frank is with him instead, the person who originally helped Jason fight the Trojan Sea Monster isn't killed by the beast when it attacks Camp Jupiter.
- Jason is attempting this with the Centurion Bryce Lawrence killed by taking the psychopathic Roman with him on the quest to fight the Trojan Sea Monster because he murdered them while Jason was on that quest.
- According to the tags, Bianca is going to live.
- Undying Loyalty: An odd example for Roman demigods. Unlike the Greek demigods, who had some members betray Olympus because they felt they were mistreated, that's just not something Roman demigods do. Jason and Frank discuss it, and it's mentioned he discussed it with Percy and Annabeth in the past. To Roman demigods, serving Rome and its gods is just who they are. They never question it because it's the reason they exist. Even if they're willing to betray their fellow demigods, they wouldn't betray Rome or its gods.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Percy and Annabeth were hoping they could prevent Luke from joining Kronos, but the prophecy for Percy's first quest flat out says that they'll fail much to their sadness and anger.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Like in canon, Jason is struggling with this, but in some ways its worse since he'd resolved it once before already. The fact he's stuck at Camp Jupiter for the time being, despite embracing Camp Half-Blood as his home, makes him feel trapped.
