Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You know, there was something in Percy that knew that waking up where he didn't fall asleep shouldn’t have become normal. Yet, here he was, laying somewhere, with the sun blaring into his eyes far more than should have been possible in his west-facing apartment’s window. At least he could feel Annabeth beside him. They were lying on grass, which was honestly, starting to itch.

“Annabeth,” he said, shaking her shoulder in as calm a voice as he could muster, “somethings wrong.”

She shot up, grabbing the dagger she normally kept under her pillow, though was now just under her head. Percy followed closely behind her with far less grace, and together they began to survey their surroundings. 

They were at the top of a hill, a single pine tree stood before them behind a small rock wall which stood at a slight curve. There was nothing for a hundred yards in the other direction except grass and small trees and foliage. At the hundred yard mark, the hillside abruptly hit a road where people wearing reflective vests and hard hats were moving the wreckage of a couple cars onto one of those giant semi-trucks.

“We’re at camp,” Annabeth said after a few moments, sheathing her dagger and picking up her sword which lay on the ground next to her. “Are you okay?” She asked, turning to look at Percy. 

It took Percy a second to move his eyes away from the wreckage, memories of his first few days at camp coming to mind. He watched as someone began sweeping the road of the glass and small metal pieces before turning to look at Annabeth and whatever Percy was going to say got caught in his throat.

She was bathed in the morning sunlight from behind causing her hair to almost look like it glowed. She looked ready, the kind of ready that gave him confidence that whatever was going on, they were going to be okay. There was also a bit of dirt on her cheek that reminded Percy of the first time they sparred, and he got lucky enough to trip her. She looked so angry when he did that, it was-

“Snap out of it, Seaweed Brain, we need to focus,” Annabeth said, interrupting Percy’s train of thought with a serious face. “Do you remember me?” She asked.

“What, of course I do, Wise Girl,” Percy said. He tried to not look hurt by her question. It made sense to ask, but he hadn't forgotten about her even when he’d lost his memory.

“So, this can't be as bad as last time,” Annabeth said as she smiled. The only reason Percy didn’t get lost in it again was because someone from the road yelled something unintelligible, and the big truck carrying the car wreckage started on its way.

“That car is giving me some serious déjà vu,” Percy said. His words caused Annabeth to look down at the scene, scowling at it before patting her pockets and looking at her immediate surroundings.

“What are you doing?” Percy asked.

“Checking what we have, personally, I have: bone sword, dagger, Yankees cap and camp clothes.” Annabeth then looked at Percy who began to follow suit.

“I've got: Riptide, Tyson's watch shield, and my camp clothes...” Other than that, Percy’s pockets were empty. In other words, they didn’t have much. “If we're next to camp, we can figure out what's going on and grab some supplies before…” Percy decided to cut off what he was going to say at Annabeth’s ‘obviously hiding that she's upset’ face. “Whatcha thinkin’?”

“They couldn't even give us a year at university?!” She yelled, “We were finally going to a demigod school, we could’ve had a few semi-normal years. But nooo: cut off a normal senior year because you need letters of recommendation from the gods! Cut off all the years before that because we had the end of the world hanging over our heads! That doesn't even mention all the years before that, because we were demigods and didn't know!”

“I’m pissed too,” Percy said simply. Annabeth huffed out a breath which calmed her, if only slightly.

“Let's figure this out quickly,” she said. “You've got finals to write.”

“Hey, you have finals too!”

“I designed Olympus, I think I’ll be okay to write a math exam. You on the other hand, Seaweed Brain, are taking more than just marine biology.”

“Hey, I’m smart, I got into university too!” Annabeth paused for a moment at Percy’s words. 

“Let's be honest, we both need to study. Especially if we’re going to miss a week of classes because of,” she took a moment to point up at the sky, “whatever they are going to use us for, again.”

Percy hugged her, thankful to have her at his side, “Come on Wise Girl, let’s go find out what’s wrong this time.”

“It’s capture the flag day,” Annabeth said. Her words filled the silence that was the currently empty camp. Things looked different. The cabins, for one, were taller. However, the most noticeable difference was that they all had the same Grecian design, with each Olympian’s symbol above them. There was no razor wire around Cabin Five, the Apollo cabin wasn’t shining in the sunlight…

“Everything looks different,” Percy said.

“I know,” Annabeth replied. Her voice burdened with melancholy.

“There are only twelve cabins.”

“Percy, can we wait to talk about this until we’ve found Chiron?”

“But Annabeth-”

“I know Percy, it’s scaring me too.” That brought their argument up short. There was a very short list of things which scared Annabeth, and most of that list had eight legs.

“Together,” Percy said and Annabeth nodded back. “Together.”

Annabeth appeared to know where she was going as she walked with purpose toward the canoe docks. Suddenly, Percy could see that a large crowd had gathered through the gaps in the trees in front of them. There was a large splash which caused Annabeth to start into a light jog, staying out of sight in the nearby forest.

There was a kid in the water, and a massive blue trident over his head. 

“What the f-” Percy almost blurted out before Annabeth quickly spun around and placed her hand over his mouth and put her invisibility cap over his head.

“You have been claimed,” an older voice said from somewhere in the forest. “Earthshaker, Storm bringer, all hail Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon.” All the campers started to kneel as someone who looked nothing like their Chiron, but must’ve been, because centaur, stepped out of the forest and kneeled for a moment before standing and addressing the campers around him. “The Hermes cabin has successfully captured the flag and won, to our victors go the glory! Let the celebration begin!”

Now, Annabeth was dragging Percy away from the large group, sprinting toward the boundary line. “What just happened? What was that?” Percy asked. Annabeth turned to shush him before they took the small step created by the rock wall down and then walked through the clearing into a nearby area of foliage. A few of the trees around them, which granted them partial cover from camp, had been overturned. Percy unconsciously figured that a battle took place near here, recently.

“Did mini-me fight Asterios here?” Percy asked, but Annabeth wasn’t paying attention, instead she was currently cutting the bottom of her shirt. “What are you doing?”

“We need to cover up your tattoo,” Annabeth replied. She moved to grab a small bit of the bottom of Percy’s shirt and cut it off with dagger and tied the two pieces together. “I’m not forcing a twelve-year-old me to follow the Mark because you have ‘Rome’s still around!’ branded on your arm.”

Percy took a moment to register exactly what she was saying before nodding, “I really don’t want to do that again.” That place still haunted them both, it was best not to think about it.

“I also need your beads,” Annabeth said, causing Percy to pause for another moment as he brought his hand up to the leather strap around his neck. Annabeth shook her outstretched hand expectantly; Percy knew better than to doubt Annabeth when she was planning. So, he quickly undid the leather band and handed it over to her. “You’re Jason, I’m Piper.”

“What?” Percy asked.

“You’re Jason Johnson, I’m Piper Bell. We’re both demigods, we met when we helped each other fight a cyclops. We don’t know who our godly parents are. We met a satyr named Ferdinand who gave us vague directions towards a safe place before he had to leave in search of Pan. That’s our story, if someone asks for more, pull a random story from one of our quests, do you understand?” 

“I-” Percy got like half of that, “can you repeat that?” She did, slower and without complaint as she tied the scraps of their t-shirts around Percy’s forearm, covering his tattoo. “Why do we have to do this? We can just walk up to camp and say that we’re Percy and Annabeth from the future and need help getting back.”

“Because this isn’t the past, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth said in a very serious tone of voice.

“But- I- I  was getting claimed. That happened when I was twelve.”

“You saw that the cabins were different, Chiron looked different, you looked different, I looked different. If my guess is right.” She said was speaking offhandedly when she said that. “Plus, it didn’t look like a Hellhound attacked you, just Clarisse.”

“Okay, so?”

“This isn’t the past, it's an alternate reality. One where things are similar but slightly different, I’m just glad that we ended up in one where we’re both still half-bloods.” 

Percy, finally catching up to what Annabeth was saying, followed up her explanation with a proud smirk, “You’ve been planning for something like this, haven’t you?”

Annabeth raised her eyebrows and allowed her head to drop slightly, ‘really’ etched onto her face.

“Okay, okay, things are extra weird. But either way, if we're hiding, we can’t walk in with camp shirts,” Percy said after a few moments. His words caused Annabeth to pause her attempt to find a spot to hide their beads while keeping them on their persons and look at him for a moment.

“Gods, how did I forget that?!” Annabeth’s eyes widened for a moment before pulling herself together and giving the ‘I have a plan look’ that she gets sometimes. She held the palm of her hand up to Percy, “Stay here, I’ll go get us some clothes.”

“Sure thing, Wise Girl,” Percy said. He handed over her invisibility cap from where she dropped it in her frantic planning. “Just don’t let too much seaweed get in your brain.”

“I’m blaming you for that,” she said as she began to walk away, pointing at Percy.

He chuckled for a moment as she disappeared.

“I love you!” Percy called to the air, “I love you too!” The air called back.

“Okay, now we have to wait for a monster to show up,” Annabeth said after she returned with a set of stolen, long sleeved, shirts.

“Sure thing Wise Girl,” Percy said, thinking about how cute she looked in plaid, “Wait, what?”

“You smell like the sea, but you are not my quarry,” a Kindly One said as she landed in the clearing before them.

“Alecto?” Percy asked before turning to Annabeth. “Does she work?”

“She can talk, so no,” Annabeth said casually. “Just leave us alone, like you said we don’t have what you want.”

“You are demigods, walk into your silly little camp, give me Perceus Jackson, and Lord Hades will reward you with anything you desire,” Alecto offered.

“Did the punisher of passion just offer me anything I want in return for a kid?” Percy asked.

“Hey, look at you, that mythology course is paying off,” Annabeth said. She drew her drakon bone sword as she sent Percy a smile full of pride.

“In case it isn’t obvious, Lady Alecto, that was a no,” Percy said.

Alecto sneered at Percy. “So be it. My quarry is the hero type. He will come if he hears that two nameless demigods will die if he does not.” She pulled her whip from - wherever her whip came from - Percy could never really tell.

“At least she tried to make a deal first,” Percy said before pulling Riptide. He and Annabeth rushed forward a moment later, together.

“They don’t turn into gold anymore,” Percy said. He was cleaning the darkened dust that was once Alecto off his sword.

“Just another difference,” Annabeth said with an air of calmness over her.

“So, we’re waiting for a non-intelligent monster then?”

“Don’t need someone yelling ‘I’ll kill you sea spawn!’ as we walk into camp.”

The two of them sat there for a while, waiting for another monster to show up.

“So, Alecto was kinda a chump, huh?”

“Percy!”

“Does a Keres count!” Percy yelled as the pair of them sprint toward the boundary line.

“Yes! Don’t stop running and avoid her claws!” Annabeth yelled back.

“Oh trust me, I remember! One small problem, Wise Girl, she’s faster than us!”

“Don’t stop running, and if you get scratched, I will flip you!”

Percy looked behind him, the Keres was going to catch up to them before they reached the boundary. Apparently a hundred yards was just a little too far for two puny human legs to stay ahead of the flying immortal. Annabeth, slightly behind Percy, very quickly became his main concern. Her plan had been to run into camp trying to flee a monster. It would’ve worked, if the Keres wasn’t so close. They honestly only needed a few seconds, so Percy, in a moment of pure, unadulterated, genius, hucked Riptide in the Keres’ general direction in hopes to slow it down just a bit. An effort that proved fruitless when a trio of arrows appeared from the nowhere that was the other side of the boundary and impaled the monster causing her to turn into the now familiar looking darkened dust. Though this time, the dust smelled. Like a combination of rotten vegetables and a battlefield a couple hours after it was used. The smell caused the pair of dimension hoppers to gag and force down old memories.

“Throwing your sword was stupid, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth said through her cough. Though Percy could see that she was trying to bring a smile to her face after a few moments.

“It worked, and… you always have my back,” Percy said as he smiled back at her.

“Come on pretty boy, we’ve already missed most of the party.”

“Pretty boy?” Percy asked with an even wider smile on his face. Annabeth just shook her head and held out her hand, together they cross the boundary.

The campers were whispering to one another as Percy and Annabeth follow Chiron to the Big House.

“They look old,” one of the campers from the gathering group said.

“How did they find camp?” Another asked.

“How did they survive so long on their own?” A girl close to the front of the group inquired.

Annabeth’s touch was grounding as each step reminded Percy of just how different this place was from his home. They walk past the volleyball courts and strawberry fields, but there was no lava wall. The Pegasus stables and archery range were just where Percy remembers them being, but the forest run was overgrown.

‘At least it's not gone,’ Percy thought.

Annabeth leaned into him pulling his attention back to what was in front of them. The Big House was different too, not by much, but there were differences. It had a fountain now, which Percy had to admit was pretty cool, but it also just looked more… alive.

Overall, it was the most noticeable change that Percy actually kinda liked. Nothing had been bad; he definitely wasn't going to miss burning his skin on the lava wall. Still, it wasn’t his home, but it was so similar, he could learn to love this place too if he needed to. 

He looked over to Annabeth as she took in the Big House with her, ‘I’m analyzing’ face. Much like how Percy could get lost playing with fish, she was lost taking in how the building was designed.

She lost that face quickly as they rounded the corner to a windowed room where a god was sitting playing pinochle with himself. The gods had never been known to be tied down by something so pedestrian as appearance, so the physical differences didn’t even really register as important to Percy then.

“Oh great, two more problems,” Mr. D said as they approached the table. At the very least, his personality hadn't seemed to have changed. Maybe that was something that hadn’t changed at all? Who the people were.

“Lord Dionysus,” Annabeth said with a slight bow of her head as she sat. Percy just nodded and stood behind her, like a bodyguard.

“At least one of you pays me a little respect,” the god said. “What do you want from me? Send ‘em off to Lucky, I have better things to do.”

Chiron finally spoke for the first time since he greeted them at the border, “Your duties, Mr. D,” he said. He sounded like a father chiding his kid for not saying ‘thank you.’

“Right, welcome to Camp Half-Blood, Problems. Don't make too much of a mess of everything. Now leave, my Olympus Daily is set to arrive soon.” Mr. D waved them off and Annabeth was all too hasty in her exit, Percy close behind.

“He knows,” she whispered as soon as they left the god’s range of hearing, if their hearing had a range. “He just doesn't care.”

“That's good. It’s good right?” Percy asked.

“I hope it's enough for us to get established as useful enough to not get smited,” Annabeth said, causing Percy to pause. Now he understood the fake names and new backstory. 

“We'll be okay,” he said as he lay a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Together?” Annabeth asked, looking for support. Her anxiety regarding the meeting they just had shining through. Sometimes there were downsides to thinking six steps ahead of everyone.

“Always.”

“I will come by tomorrow morning to pick you up and give you both a proper welcome to camp. In the meantime: have some food, listen to some music, and have fun,” Chiron said before trotting over to the dining pavilion. On the way the centaur stopped beside someone close to Percy and Annabeth’s age and pointed in their direction.

“I think that's Luke,” Percy said. Annabeth just nodded and started walking the two of them toward the inevitably tense encounter.

“I know.” Annabeth had a hard look on her face as she said that, like she was fighting the urge to stab or hug, or maybe it was stab-hug, the boy walking towards them with a kind smile on his face.

“‘Beth if you want to, you know-”

“Later. Please? Just- be nice for now,” Annabeth interrupted.

“Of course, Wise Girl. Though, I will start stabbing if I have to,” Percy said. He got a calming pat on his arm as a response.

“Hi there, I'm Luke, the Head Councillor of Cabin Eleven. When you guys want to head off to sleep just let me know and I'll take you to your bunk, okay?” Luke asked as he held out his hand for them to shake.

“Thanks, Luke,” Annabeth said as she shook the not-blond-anymore boy.

“Anytime… Sorry I didn't catch your names?” Luke asked.

“I'm Piper, this is my boyfriend, Jason,” Annabeth said as Percy nodded at his introduction.

“Awesome, nice to meet you two. I'll see you around, yeah?”

“Totally,” Percy said.

As Luke ran off Annabeth, once again, pulled Percy aside. “We’re not going to hurt him.”

“Are you sure that's a good idea? Imagine what would happen if we managed to stop Luke before… well before all of it?”

“He’d just find another pawn. At least this way it's a pawn who we know will make the right choice in the end. Besides, he’s just a baby,” Annabeth almost whined

“So, what? We just… let things play out? What about Bianca, Zoë, Michael, Charles, Silena… all of them. Also, he’s not a baby, is a seventeen-year-old demigod, that’s like, geriatric in mortal years,” Percy joked.

Annabeth’s face shot toward epiphany, “That's just it,” she whispered. “For most of them it was Fate that decided that they would die when they did.”

“This isn't a quest; we have no prophecy. We can stop it from happening,” Percy said. He all but growled out the final sentence.

“Exactly, Fate decided that it was their moment to die. We're going to… disagree.” Annabeth put a faux lightness in her voice at those final words.

“So, we only show up to stop people from dying? Wouldn't that just make us reverse Thanatos? Sot - A - Nath?” Annabeth chuckled and muttered ‘unbelievable’ at Percy’s antics. She let herself laugh for a moment before she stopped and looked like she was holding the weight of the sky again.

“People are still going to die, Percy. We’re,” Annabeth said as she pointed between them, “going to try to stop it from happening.”

“Okay, yeah, we can totally do that. Just one thing, no one dies until… you know.” Percy pointed to the sky where the moon was slightly visible behind a cover of clouds and then mimed holding something heavy over his shoulder.

“Yeah, that's like a year and a half from now, so until then, we're going to Alaska.”

“The land beyond the gods, makes sense. It'll be easier to hide out until we’re needed.”

“Once we're finished there we’ll be going to California.”

“What? Why Califor- oh. Really? New Rome? You wanna get called Graesus for the next year and a half?”

“I want a safe place where the people we once failed to save won't be staring at us everyday.”

Percy paused, closing his eyes to think for a moment. He must’ve looked like Annabeth just had. The him from this reality was twelve. Could he really abandon a twelve-year-old to the fate of going on quests and fighting for his life without help? Could he do that to twelve-year-old Annabeth? Grover? 

What about his mom? She was going to be worried sick if they didn’t Iris message her soon. Something which he doubted worked across dimensional boundaries or whatever he and Annabeth had crossed that morning. He’d have to ask Annabeth to help him find a way back then, once the threat of godly punishment for existing stopped being a problem. Though to be fair, that had been Percy’s whole life so he could do it again.

Before he could continue down that line of thinking he felt Annabeth’s hand on his cheek, pulling him softly to look down at her. “Trust me?” She asked with an indiscernible pain in her eyes.

“Of course. Let’s go kill a giant.”

Chapter Text

The party ended without much of note. Luke, who Annabeth thought was the reason that she was probably breaking Percy’s forearm in an attempt to hold herself back from doing something rash about, brought the pair to the Hermes cabin. He handed them some toiletries and a pair of sleeping bags before pointing toward one of the empty areas with enough space for them to sleep near one another.

At the start of the next day the pair were woken for breakfast, where they were told the schedule for the day. Nothing of note occurred, aside from Annabeth stopping Percy from asking for blue breakfast, until Cabin Eleven had weapon maintenance and crafting in Cabin Nine.

“You need a new sword,” Annabeth said. She pulled her boyfriend away from the lecture that an alive, and mixed emotion causing Charles Beckendorf, was running on how to use a whetstone properly.

Percy eyed her with confusion before he reached into his pocket, pulled out his pen, and wiggled it around like a bell. “Pretty sure I’m good, Wise Girl.” 

“You threw your sword away when we came into camp yesterday,” Annabeth said as she tried to get her seaweed brain of a boyfriend to pick up on the subtle clues of what she was trying to put down. He’s the best, but gods Percy was an idiot sometimes.

Percy smiled like Annabeth was telling a joke and was about to say something stupid like ‘it always ends up back in my pocket,’ before she gave him a stare which caused his mouth to close with an audible click. Annabeth leaned into his ear and whispered, “Who else in this camp has a sword that can turn into a pen and magically always ends up in his pocket?”

Percy’s gaze shifted out the front door of the Hephestus cabin and toward Cabin Three. The twelve-year-old, and blonde, version of Percy Jackson was sitting in front of a pool of water just staring into it as Chiron and the younger, melanin having, version of Annabeth called out to the kid to get him to follow.

“I can see how that could be an issue,” Percy said before chuckling to himself and turning to look at the ramshackle group currently enraptured by Beckendorf’s skill. “Remember the last time I tried to pick out a sword for myself though? It might take a while for us to find something.”

“It takes as long as it takes. Believe it or not Per- Jason, I’m with you no matter what,” Annabeth said with a smile. She might come to regret it if it ended up taking more than a day. ‘Still,’ she thought, ‘there has to be something else in this absolutely sword cluttered building which was blessed by the sea.’

“Thanks, Wise Girl,” Percy said with a genuine smile.

It ended up taking a little over four hours before Percy could hold a blade at its balance point and not have it magically tumble out of his hands. Just in time for something that Annabeth was honestly hoping that they could avoid.

“So, I guess we can finally go join up with the rest of the cabin. What’s on the schedule from three to four?” Percy asked.

“Archery,” Annabeth said with a frown. The statement had also caused Percy to turn to her and whine.

“Can I throw this sword back in the pile and pretend we didn’t find it until after archery? Please?” He begged.

“No. If you two spend one more minute in this cabin with your insipid teenage flirting I’m calling Chiron,” Beckendorf said from behind a workbench.

“Hey, our flirting was not teenage or insipid!” Percy called back to the young child of Hephaestus.

“I’d say that our flirting was plenty interesting if you’re making mention of it, Beckendorf,d” Annabeth said, backing her boyfriend up eccentrically.

“Is that what insipid means?” Percy asked, turning toward her. Annabeth nodded while smiling up at him. “Then we were definitely not insipid. But we will get out of your hair Beckendorf, thank you.” Charles simply waved them out with a huff.

Camp Half-Blood Handbook 

Rule #427: Don’t eat the lizards which rest on the rocks near the capture the flag boundary line.

Rule #428: Don’t be on the archery field at the same time as Percy Jackson.

As Percy Jackson approached the archery field, he handed Annabeth his watch. He hadn’t been allowed here since his second year at camp. Where it was finally determined that Percy holding a bow was a hazard to the health of everyone within a hundred feet. Chiron’s tail being no exception. So, he was glad to see Annabeth’s thankful smile at his actions. He was giving her some protection from the hazardous activity, though she was also a little apologetic for making it necessary in the first place.

5 Minutes Ago

“We cannot go to archery,” Percy said simply after they left Cabin Nine.

“We need to blend in, and we have been away from the rest of the cabin for long enough,” Annabeth retorted.

“I could hurt someone,” Percy said as he tried to control his shaking hands.

Annabeth grabbed and pulled one of them toward her. “You won’t, I’ll stop any arrow that flies anywhere but the target.”

“Promise?” His voice was pleading. It wasn’t often that Percy was afraid of himself anymore, it hadn’t been like that since their multiple many-hour-long talks after Percy discovered that he could feel people just like he could water.

That conversation contained a lot of crying, so many apologies, and, miraculously, just as much forgiveness for her past words. Percy spent a lot of time walking around larger and larger groups of people to get used to how the world was different now. Annabeth also learned an important lesson; how important talking about what happened, confronting her victimhood, even if it made her feel small, was. As well as acknowledging and working around its effects.

“I swear, I will keep everyone safe.” Percy nodded at her words and used his held hand to pull her into a hug.

They were greeted by the Stoll brothers saying that ‘it’s about time they showed up,’ and were then given instructions to get in line. Chest and forearm protection made for an archer was fitted around their shoulders and Percy approached the daughter of Apollo in a wheelchair who was managing the archery training today. As Percy’s arrow was offered to be lit on fire both he and Annabeth jumped suddenly to shout their own versions of ‘definitely not.’

Percy lined up in a proper stance, like he’d been shooting a bow his whole life. Annabeth tapped the unlocking mechanism of Tyson’s watch, which caused many people’s eyes to turn toward her.  “Look at the one with a potentially dangerous weapon, not me,” Annabeth said, causing all the campers to blink at her words and slowly they turned back toward Percy. He drew the arrow back with a Mediterranean draw, in time with his breath, held the arrow for a moment in a cant, and released it as he exhaled.

*PANG*

The arrow bounced, well, not harmlessly, but without hurting anyone, off Tyson’s shield directly behind where Percy was shooting. Percy looked back with a guilty expression, “I’m sorry. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen.”

“It’s not your fault,” Annabeth said as she moved forward to lay a comforting hand upon her boyfriend. Neither of them paid much mind to the line of campers which were currently ducking away from the boy who would shoot arrows in the opposite direction of his target.

“Sorry guys!” He called out as he handed his bow delicately back to the Apollo camper.

“At least we have someone who's worse at shooting than Percy!” One of the unclaimed kids yelled from his confident position at the back of the pack.

The campers all started laughing as the Apollo kid held out the bow to Annabeth. “Your turn.”

Annabeth retracted the shield into a watch and handed it back to Percy. “I’m worse than him.”

It was one of Percy’s nightmares which woke Annabeth at some point in the night. It was an old song and dance to them now, waking each other up because of their despotic dreams. She whispered stories of their shared time at camp: the time they found Grover in the woods cuddling a pair of chipmunks, the time the Stolls cursed the Demeter cabin to talk like chickens for a day. They were whispers of comfort as Percy’s heart slowed its pace and he fully woke from the images his sleeping mind had provided him.

Eventually, the two heroes got antsy sharing Percy’s sleeping bag and snuck their way out of Cabin Eleven. Catching a glance at the clock before they left informed Annabeth that it was four in the morning, and they made their way to the canoe lake. It was there, sitting at the edge of the dock, watching the sun rise roughly two hours later, that she and Percy felt someone made the dock shift beneath them.

“Uh… hi,” the blonder version of twelve-year-old Percy said from the end of the dock closest to the shore. Kid Percy, Kidcy if you will, was wearing a traditional camp shirt and jeans… he also looked scared. Most would say that he looked ready, but Annabeth knows Percy. She knows the look Percy gets when he knows what he needs to do but doesn’t think that he can do it. She can tell because despite how he stands tall, strong and ready, he couldn’t look her in the eye for more than a moment before turning away. A stance that, while rare, was one she was all too familiar with seeing.

“Hey there,” Annabeth said with a smile. “Percy, right?”

“Yeah.” Kidcy said. He was finally looking at Annabeth though still avoiding her eyes. “You’re Piper, right?”

“That’s me, and this is my boyfriend, Jason,” Annabeth said. Lying to the kid probably wasn’t going to sit will with Percy, it didn’t sit well with her, but she saw Percy give a little wave in response all the same.

Kidcy nodded and stood there, fiddling with his thumbs for a moment, before speaking again. “Listen, you can tell me if this is like bad to say or whatever, but…” The kid took a deep breath. “Have you two been on a quest before?”

Percy and Annabeth looked at each other. Percy has what Annabeth likes to call ‘Demigod Big Brother Instinct’ and the look he had on his face right then told her that the instinct had kicked in big time.

A new kid is having a hard time riding a Pegasus? Swinging a sword? Or any one of the other things that Percy is ridiculously good at? Even if he’s planned on doing something else, he can’t just leave them on their own. Most other senior campers just call the look ‘puppy dog eyes’ because they only see it when he is asking them to help someone new with what they are good at.

Annabeth has never been able to say no to those eyes.

“At least one a year since we were twelve,” she said, causing Percy’s eyes to widen and a big smile to crawl onto his face.

“Whoa, really? Everyone says they’re dangerous though,” Kidcy commented.

“They are,” Annabeth said. He words caused more fear to enter Kidcy’s eyes and Percy to snap and look at her with a pleading expression. Annabeth rolled her eyes and gestured at the kid with her head.

“You’ll be alright. Not every quest is super dangerous, you can handle it,” Percy said, likely hoping that his words would instill some much-needed confidence in the kid. “Who did you pick for your quest?”

Kidcy smiled at Percy’s confidence in him. “My best friend, Grover, he’s a satyr. And Annabeth, she’s a daughter of Athena.”

“Smarts, nature and the sea. Classic combo,” Percy said, causing Annabeth to tap him on the arm. Chuckles were had on Percy’s part and Annabeth’s eyes rolled once more at his antics. “Why’d you pick them?” He followed up.

“Well Grover’s my best friend, I know I can rely on him–” Kidcy said before stopping his sentence suddenly.

“And Annabeth?” Annabeth asked, wondering what caused Kidcy to choose her this time. The way she remembered it, she volunteered herself for this quest.

“Oh…” The kid was quiet for a few moments. “Because I’m pretty sure she hates me.”

“So, you chose your quest mates for two opposite reasons?” Annabeth questioned. Percy looked at her, wondering what she was doing, but stopped at one ‘I’ve got a plan’ look from her.

“Oh… I… well… it’sbecauseoftheprophecy,” Kidcy quickly mumbled.

“What prophecy?” Annabeth asked with false curiosity. 

The kid looked hesitant, then looked around to check if they were alone before he walked to their end of the dock and whispered, “You shall go west and face the god who has turned. You shall find what was stolen and see it safely returned,” the kid paused, seemingly getting the courage to say what he was going to next.

Gods, this kid was so much like her Percy, it literally hurt her to see him so small and scared. “You shall be betrayed by one who calls you friend. And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.”

Annabeth took a moment, pretending to catalog the prophecy she already knew. Percy waited for a sign on what they were going to do next, trickery was only his style when it came to monsters. Tricking other demigods was Luke’s thing, so this had probably brought back some old memories.

“You didn't tell Chiron that last part, did you?” Annabeth asked.

“No.” The kid admitted quietly, “I mean… how could I? I’m destined to fail.”

“You’re not,” Percy said firmly, causing mini-him to look at him like he was Elpis finally freed of her jar. “Reading into prophecies is never a good idea, but you’re starting off right, you are listening to what it said and using it to make decisions…”

“He’s right,” Annabeth followed-up. “You chose your quest mates because of what the prophecy says. That is an example of a good amount of paranoia around these kinds of things, but thinking that you are going to fail because of that last line…”

“Like I said, you’re not going to fail. The second line, to me, seems like you’ll find the bolt and return it,” Percy said confidently.

“The last line seems to imply that there is something more important to you that you are trying to save on this quest, and that you will fail to save it.” Kidcy’s eyes widened at Annabeth’s words, then he hunched over slightly and got the look on his face that Annabeth had only ever seen when someone close to Percy died. Which caused Annabeth to remember something that she felt very, very foolish for forgetting. “But, and this is a big but, that doesn’t mean that someone else will be able to save them. Or that you might fail to save them at first and then save them later. Like Jason said, reading too much into prophecies is really not a good idea.”

Kidcy still looked sorrowful. “Yeah, I hope so. Thanks,” he said in a very quiet voice before walking away.

After Kidcy left, Percy was looking at Annabeth in silent hope that she would somehow develop the ability to read his mind and then agree to do whatever it was he wanted to do.

Lucky for him, Annabeth had the next best thing to telepathy. She’d known her boyfriend for a long time. Her boyfriend couldn’t, and would never be able, to leave a kid who is about to do something dangerous or deadly on their own. The problem was how they could fix it, Kidcy was going to leave for his quest in the next few minutes, if the car at the top of Half-Blood Hill was any indication.

Percy wanted to help mini-him… and dammit if Annabeth didn’t want to too.

“Okay, we’ll follow him,” she said after a few moments. She immediately started to think over a plan while trying to remember what happened on their quest. “Can you go grab us a Pegasus, babe? I need to grab us some supplies.” Percy lit up at her words, thankful that she had developed telepathy and kissed her cheek before running off in the direction of the Pegasus stables.

Annabeth’s first stop was Cabin Nine, whose forges where much more outside than she remembered, thank the gods. It was this design flaw which made it much easier to sneak in unnoticed and steal some very thick cloth which could easily be fashioned into a blindfold.

Percy had a Pegasus by the time she was done in the Hephaestus cabin, he was standing outside the stables, speaking to a younger girl who was brushing the winged horse. He gave her a wink from beside the beautiful beast and blew her a kiss as she passed. She shook her head and mumbled ‘Seaweed Brain’ as she made her way to the Big House’s infirmary to “borrow” some ambrosia and nectar, as well as a normal, mortally useful, first aid kit. She then grabbed the remainder of the clothes she stole from the camp store yesterday from the Hermes cabin and left to find Percy.

He was exactly where she’d left him, though with four Pegasi instead of one. Percy shrugged casually when she walked up. She purposefully ignored the shocked look from the younger camper as she climbed onto a Pegasus at the same time as Percy.

It wasn’t the first time that either of them had snuck out of camp, and honestly, it went pretty well. The Pegasi flew calmly, seemingly content with chatting away at Percy without much of a care in the world. Percy was able to keep the Pegasi on course, following the trio of kids as they took a cab from the camp’s borders to New York City. It was when the kids arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal that things started to go… not as planned.

There is an apartment building a little down and across the street from the bus terminal where she and Percy decided to land on as the kids exited their cab.  “Okay, we can rest here. Sundance and Domino,” Percy said as he motioned toward the Pegasi they borrowed, “really want snacks.”  Annabeth nodded and moved to get off her Pegasus when she suddenly found herself wrapped in grapevines.

“I told you two to not make a mess of everything, yet here you are. What part of what I said didn’t make sense to you?” Dionysus said as he turned the pair of them and their Pegasi to face him.

“Mr. D,” Percy said as he cursed under his breath.

“You got that right kid. You mind telling me what you’re doing in New York City and not back at camp?” The god asked, demanding an answer.

“We’re going to help them,” Annabeth gritted out; her chest was slowly constricting as the vines worked their way around her.

“Did you need help when you did this? Don’t answer that, I know you didn’t. So why on our green Earth are you helping them anyway?” Dionysus asked as he raised his arms in confusion.

“They’re just kids.” Percy said, it took him far more effort to get the words out as, even from her bound position. Annabeth could see that the vines had wrapped Percy much more tightly than they’d wrapped around her.

“So what? You’re demigods, going on quests is literally what you’re made for,” The god said unempathetically.

It was then that Annabeth realized her mistake. She had grown used to a Mr. D who had watched his son die in front of him while he could do nothing. He had to watch another son, a twin, grieve for his brother and not be able to do anything. Perhaps, he was a god after all, those moments would fade in time and he would return to how they were seeing him now, but she forgot to account for the fact that Mr. D would be like this after they left.

“You were in our heads, right? Did you see everything?” Annabeth asked, as a plan formulated in her mind.

“I saw enough owl-head, I know that those three misfits succeed, the oracle practically confirmed it. That’s all that I care about,” Dionysus said as the vines picked them up and floated them back, away from the bus terminal, toward Long Island.

“Look again, right now,” Annabeth demanded. It's dangerous to make demands of a god, but Dionysus didn’t want to kill them… yet.

The god scowled before looking into Annabeth’s eyes. There are few things more dangerous than looking the God of Madness in the eye, but Annabeth had seen things beyond even his comprehension in The Pit.

She stared back and brought her memories of Castor to the forefront of her mind. The good: the time they worked together to plan the strawberry field expansions, the times they worked together to win capture the flag. The bad: The moment he was stabbed in the arm and thrown onto a rock with a thunk, the look upon Dionysus’ face when the battle was over, and he kneeled next to his dead son.

“Was that a threat?” Dionysus growled angrily, his eyes beginning to glow a very menacing kind of purple-pink which Annabeth definitely didn’t want to be on the other side of.

“That was something we are going to stop,” Annabeth rushed out quickly. “But we won’t survive long enough to stop it if we are stuck in camp. Let us do this and I promise that we’ll do everything we can to save your son.”

“Swear it, little girl,” Dionysus sneered as his eyes lost some of their glow. “But know that I will not help you anymore. You will be alone: no more mother to guide you when you don’t know what to do, no more father to save you when you fail, and no gods who owe you favors for past actions. Do you understand?”

“I swear on the River Styx to do everything I can to save Caster when his life is in danger in three years time at the Battle of the Labyrinth.” Thunder boomed in the distance and the god nodded, releasing the pair and turning to walk away. “Lord Dionysus?” The god turned back. “There is at least one who is interested in our continued survival.” 

The god looked confused for a moment before chuckling, “Wisdom worthy of your former mother, Annabeth. May Tyche grant you her favor,” and with a snap, he was gone.

Percy was still on his Pegasus looking at Annabeth in awe. “That was hot,” he said as he climbed off his horse.

“Thanks,” was all Annabeth could muster as she breathed heavily from where she was standing, half in the Pegasus’ stirrup.

Chapter Text

The trio of young heroes, smartly, left the Port Authority Terminal on a bus bound for Los Angeles. If an entrance to the Underworld was still in DOA Records, Percy was proud of himself for remembering that tidbit, then a straight shot from New York to LA would be their best bet. Though how they managed to get tickets for that long of a trip for only two-hundred bucks… look inflation sucks and the camp needed to up its questing budget, was all Percy was going to say.

It was honestly really smooth sailing for a good while after the confrontation with the God of Wine. Percy and Annabeth spent their time talking about what they remembered from their first quest. Do you remember something that you did six years ago in perfect detail? Exactly. However, they did remember some things, namely the monsters they encountered and what, if any, weaknesses they had.

The Kindly Ones on the bus just after they entered New Jersey were up first. Honestly, if they could stop those three and give kid them a simple shot to LA while they played ‘Guard the Bus,’ then Percy would be a very happy quester.

Medusa in Aunty Em’s Garden Gnome Emporium showed up next. After the armies of the Crooked One used it as a staging ground and her sisters attacked him while he had god-induced amnesia, she and her statue garden/graveyard had left Percy’s mind to be replaced by more important things. Luckily, Annabeth was the best and deserved a million more hugs. Medusa has one weakness, one which Annabeth was ready for in the form of a bandana and ‘training’ from the time she went blind in there.

Echidna, she was scheduled to show up at the Gateway Arch, if the kids ended up near it. Percy could still listen to Annabeth talk about random architecture stuff as they walked around New York, so kid-him had no chance if she caught sight of the math building. Gods they had done so many of the ‘don’t do if you’re on a quest’ things on their first one, even if it was worth it. Hopefully the consequences of those mistakes wouldn’t impact their tiny versions as much, Annabeth relented that they might step-in if the literal children (how was Percy remotely okay?) put themselves in danger like they did.

Getting back to Echidna though, her ‘true’ form is that of a snake-nymph-thing, and while her with a Chimera is dangerous for twelve-year-old them, it was definitely not so dangerous for eighteen-year-old him and Annabeth.

Next up is Ares and his hallway of nope (or tunnel of love if you're not arachnophobic). Annabeth still shuddered at the memory of that place. A request to stay as far away from there as she can on this mission is all Percy needed to hear. Spiders had, had it out for her with a vengeance after everything that had happened in Rome. So, it was just a no from Annabeth and a water park party for Percy.

Then came the Lotus Hotel and Casino and the hypothetical time for them to make an actual decision. Bianca and Nico Di Angelo said that they were in the hotel in their timeline. Whether or not they should break them out is the thing that he and Annabeth talked about the most during their flight over New York and part of New Jersey. Ultimately, they decided to hope that they would avoid being anywhere near there. However, Annabeth pointed out that they definitely didn't have the time or capacity to take care of two, powerful and temporally displaced demigod children.

Especially, while they were on their personal quests of ‘gain enough favour with as many gods as possible in as short a period of time so that no one would be able to kill the both of them for existing in spite of a billion prophecies saying that their existence should mean the downfall of Olympus,’ or ‘make god friends, don’t die’ for short.

After the Lotus Hotel came Crusty, Percy or Annabeth could just stab the guy. So… they were good.

Finally, the Underworld itself. Annabeth had a plan for when they arrive which involved Sir Naps’a’lot and asking for something powerful enough to put a Giant under long enough for the two of them to water-power the big guy across the bay to good old Canada. Good enough reason to go to the Underworld, good enough, namely, if kid-them or kid-Grover ever picked up on the whole, alternate universe/future version of them, thing.

After that, they probably wouldn’t have enough time to leave the Underworld, at least without the magic pearl-things, to catch up for a fight with the God of War. But hey, Percy can dream of making it so that Kidcy wouldn’t have to stare the God of War in the face and say, ‘fight me.’

Of course, the kids got lucky, and Hermes had time to not get their driver lost. Unfortunately, the bus had to stop eventually. As it pulled up to a gas station somewhere in New Jersey, Percy and Annabeth flew down to the nearby tree line to rest their Pegasi.

“I can fly all day mi lord, don’t worry!” Domino, the Pegasus Annabeth had been riding, said as Percy told them that they’d be taking a break.

“Yeah my lord, we can, like, totally fly forever,” Sundance confirmed with a whinny.

“Yeah, yeah, you two are the best,” Percy said as he pulled out the bag of hay he borrowed from the stable. “But we should rest when we can.”

“Whatever the lord wishes, he shall get,” Sundance said in response, then turned to speak to Domino. “Hear that bro, we’ve got it easy this time.”

“Told you bro, he’s, like, totally chill,” Domino replied.

Percy was thankfully saved from the rest of the bro-filled conversation by Annabeth tapping on his shoulder. She pointed behind her, toward the gas station. Percy nodded at her plan, and Annabeth pulled out her cap and turned to leave. But not before calling out “Don’t forget to eat something too.”

It was kind of awkward for Annabeth, standing there, invisibly watching the twelve-year-old version of herself contemplate which flavour of ‘BIGOOF’ gumballs to buy. Annabeth heard a noise behind her causing her to glance and move a step else she’d have bumped into a mortal who was grabbing a soda. As she took that step though, Kidabeth stopped. She turned and stared in Annabeth’s general direction, like… well like a kid caught with her hand in a candy bowl. It was honestly kind of funny considering the BIGOOF’s which had fallen to the floor since she turned.

“Show yourself.” Kidabeth said as she tried to keep her voice low and threatening. It would’ve been cute if it wasn’t for the previously mentioned falling candy being dropped so Kidabeth could grab the dagger on her hip. Annabeth slowly took off her cap and raised her hands in front of her, doing her best to look non-threatening.

“Where did you get that?” Kidabeth asked as she moved her open hand to her back pocket, likely feeling for her own hat.

Annabeth’s attempt to look non-threatening was probably unsuccessful; to be fair though, she was a two-time war and one-time there veteran. Despite the failed attempt, it seemed to at least stop kid-her from jumping her with her knife. “It was a gift,” Annabeth answered honestly.

“You’ve been following us,” Kidabeth accused sharply.

“Yes,” Annabeth answered simply, taking a step to move her back away from the door of the building.

“I knew it!” Kidabeth whispered as she pointed the hand which was on her sword toward a potential version of her older self.

“No, you didn’t. But good job for noticing me.”

The compliment was obviously missed as Kidabeth said, “Yes, I did! I knew you were weird back at camp, now… what are you doing here?”

The kid had regained her suspicion quickly, she’d put her hand back onto her sword as she asked that. “Whoa. Hey!” Annabeth said as she raised her hands again, “We’re going to the Underworld too. We thought that we might as well keep an eye on you three since you’re heading the same way.”

“I don’t need your protection; I can complete this quest myself,” Kidabeth said.

“Of course you can, but-” The girl who Annabeth remembered referring to herself as Piper began before stopping suddenly.

“But what? But you’re worried about me, you think I can’t do it? News flash lady, I’ve been training to do this since I was seven, I can-” Anything else Annabeth wanted to say was cut off when Piper quickly whispered, “Shut up.”

“Shut up? No, you shut up! If you think that you are going to get in the way of my glory-” Annabeth was cut off once more by Piper as she pulled Annabeth behind her. Piper then pulled out a sword and pointed it toward the woman in a dull purple trench coat who had appeared at the end of the aisle.

“Meg,” Piper said to the woman – no, monster Annabeth realized. Piper pushed Annabeth further behind her as Annabeth drew her dagger.

“Have we met before, little demigod? If I have, I'm not surprised I don't remember you. But… no one calls me Meg beside the denizens of the Underworld,” Meg’s smile showed just a few too many teeth as she took a slow, menacing, step forward.

Piper took a step back in time with the monster’s advancement, pushing Annabeth as she did so, “We don’t have It… It… oh clever, I can’t say It,” Piper said, whispering the latter half of her sentence.

“So, you know, do you? And how is that? Perhaps you are protecting the one who did?” Meg asked, cocking a coy smile as she took another heavy step forward.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Piper said, but seeing the monster’s, Meg’s, raised eyebrows the older girl huffed. “I swear on the River Styx that I didn’t steal anything from your master.” Thunder rumbled at Piper’s words, “See, we don’t have it, tell him that he’s looking in the wrong place.”

“We know you did not, little demigod, it is not you we are hunting… Ms. Chase,” Meg’s eyes bore into Annabeth as the monster turned to look at her. “Lead Mr. Jackson away from prying eyes and we will allow your quest to go on, unimpeded.” Meg took another step forward, but when Piper pushed Annabeth back a step it caused the young girl’s back to hit a shelf.

“Okay, don’t say that I didn’t try,” Piper mumbled before lunging forward to stab the Fury, only to have her sword batted away by a sharp claw. Annabeth quickly ducked off to the side as the two women engaged in a duel. It seemed as though Piper had the Fury on the back foot, until she literally got a foot behind the monster causing her to trip. An attempt to stabilize with a flap of her wings resulted in a sword going through the Fury’s centre, turning her into dust.

“You need to go,” Piper said as she brushed some monster dust off her face. “Find your friends, grab your things, I’ll deal with the Kindly Ones.”

“We need food,” Annabeth said, stepping back toward the snack pile she had been accumulating. Seeing as how no one in the store even turned their head toward the fight, she could go back to grabbing the food they needed.

Piper sighed. “Just grab the blue ones and go! You don’t want to get separated if another Kindly One shows up.”

“Why the blue ones?” Annabeth asked, grabbing the blueberry flavoured candies all the same.

Piper audibly sighed before she said, “I don’t have time to explain, we need to go before someone decides to fire whip your bus.” The older girl grabbed a couple of the blue candies for herself before making her way to the door. 

The lady behind the counter tried to shout, “Hey, you need to pay-” but was cut off with a snap of Piper’s fingers as she pulled Annabeth out of the store and toward the bus.

“Are you a god?” Kid-her asked during their quick walk back toward the bus. 

Annabeth paused mid-stride at her question, turning to look at the young girl before her as she tried to formulate a response. However, “What?” was all that she was able to say at the moment, apparently.

“You did something to that woman that let us leave,” Kidabeth said, taking a cautionary step back from her.

“What? No, I’m not a god, I just manipulated the Mist to make her not care about us. Like a Jedi mind trick, nothing more,” Annabeth explained.

“A what?” Kidabeth asked, looking at her with a confused expression which Annabeth had seen in the mirror several times. Gods, when was she ever this small?

“A Jedi mind trick, have you not seen Star Wars?” Annabeth asked.

“I mean, yeah, when I was like four,” Kidabeth mumbled.

“Do yourself a favour and ask one of the Cabin Nine kids to make a DVD player one of these days,” Annabeth said as the pair neared the entrance to the bus. “Okay, when you get on, tell Percy and Grover what happened. You can bring me up or not, your choice. Just, be ready to run if you have to.”

Considering how far Percy was from the gas station, feeding the Pegasi while eating some snacks and enjoying the sunshine, he honestly should have noticed the whole ‘situation’ earlier. He should’ve noticed a lot of things earlier, Annabeth without her cap on, the Fury which had just flown into the bus’s back window… It was just nice, taking a break and spending time with horses for a minute.

However, the aforementioned Fury + window situation caused Percy’s head to shoot up from where he was and toward the bundle of pre-teens falling out of the back of the bus. Then is gaze quickly turned toward the capless Annabeth who was currently duking it out with Alecto in front of a gaggle of mortals. Also known as, ‘go time was five minutes ago, Seaweed Brain’ by one of his favourite people.

He was roughly halfway to Annabeth when the Fury pushed her back and pulled out her flaming whip. Immediately, Annabeth backed even further away, and Percy came to a stop. Even more mortals were pulling out their phones as a few of them shouted ‘fire’ and started to back away from the now extremely lethal demon.

Listen kids, there is a very good reason why there are strict rules about no smoking or open flames at gas stations. Namely, gas is very flammable. So flammable in fact, that you should ground yourself from static electricity before starting a pump. Leo would have no troubles with the currently inevitable fireball, Percy too, probably. Annabeth and the mortals however, the same mortals who seem to have been noticing a bit too much for the Mist’s liking as they had started to wander around in a sort of daze, were very much in danger.

“Stop!” Annabeth’s shout caused Alecto to smirk wickedly. “Put that away or you’ll kill us all.”

“Yes. I suppose I should thank the mortals for the wonders of modern technology. Provides us with so many new ways to kill you demigods,” She sneered as she teased the flaming death noodle closer to the gas station.

“Is this about the chump thing?” Percy asked from behind the monster which caused her to quickly turn in his direction. “If it is, I’m sorry, I didn’t really mean it.”

“The sea spawn. Come to protect Poseidon's latest whelp once more?” She retorted, doing one of Percy’s favourite things for a monster to do, ignoring Annabeth. Perks of being the super powerful big three kid? More dangerous powers and the tunnel vision of monsters.

“Nah, stabbing you has just become a hobby of mine lately,” Percy said as Annabeth quickly pulled out her cap and vanished from view.

“The gods cannot involve themselves in the affairs of their mortal children, what has the God of the Sea offered you in exchange for your services?” Alecto asked with a heavy layer of obtuse seriousness.

“Nothing,” Percy said, stalling with single word responses was not the best idea, but the look of confusion that crossed Alecto’s face proved that Percy’s strategy had worked.

“Nothing?! You do this for nothing? What oath has he bound you to? Why are you here?” Alecto screamed, causing her whip to burn brighter and bluer.

“Yes, nothing. I’m not bound by oath to be here; I just want to help.” Percy was purposefully using ‘I’ there, as to not mention the fact that Annabeth was also here. Though he was wondering what was taking her so long.

Alecto barked a laugh at Percy’s response, tilting her head down in much the same way anyone would tilt their head up to laugh. “A monster protects a demigod for no reason but ‘I want to.’ No wonder Olympus has been restless, far too many things are changing.”

Outside observers of this conversation, with no context of Alecto’s words, would see just how visibly Percy flinched at that. He took a few steps back, away from the Fury, before responding in a wavering voice. “I’m not a monster.”

“Oh honey, nothing mortal smells like the Pit,” Alecto cooed, which was exactly when a bone sword made its way through the now grey-black dust of Alecto’s disintegrating form.

“Percy!” Annabeth yelled, quickly putting her sword away as she ran up to her boyfriend, who was looking more and more like the mortals had a few seconds ago, as he stared off into nowhere. Said mortals, however, seem to be coming back around to reality as one shouted, “Hey, what’s wrong with the pump’?”

“Percy! Dammit, we need to go.” She began to pull him away from the rapidly growing crowd and toward the nearby forest with a worrying ease. She paused only long enough to grab the three bags the kids had left behind as she made her way over to the Pegasi.

Once they reached the tree line, out of sight of the mortals, Annabeth helped Percy down to the ground. The guilt from having to pull him like that was heavy on her mind, but she had more important things to worry about. So, she began to ask him to breathe for specific amounts of time while keeping her voice calm and helping him feel his immediate surroundings.

Eventually, Percy’s eyes were looking at her once more. “Where were you?” He asked her, and the guilt came back with a vengeance. This was her fault, but she couldn’t just kill Alecto while the Fury was as close as she was to causing a fire. If she or her whip fell in the wrong way, then that gas station would’ve been a goner. So, she explained why, she explained the emergency shut-off switch that all gas stations have to prevent these sorts of accidents or to stop the pumps if a nozzle is spewing. She explained how she had to sneak away from Alecto, find the switch, pull it, then sneak back to stab her. Then, she apologized for taking so long for a good minute.

Percy stopped being upset once she explained how close Alecto was to doing the thing he feared. Instead of responding right away, Percy opened his arms and pulled Annabeth into a crushing hug. Wiping away the traces of tears which began to form on her cheeks Percy whispered, “Thank you for doing that, Wise Girl.”

Annabeth nodded into his chest. They both sat there, in each other’s arms, basking in the sunlight as Domino and Sundance talked about pinecones for several minutes as their racing hearts began to calm. Annabeth eventually spoke up however, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“She just mentioned… there. Brought up the nightmare I have where I end up alone in the end,” Percy replied, placing a kiss on top of her head as he finished speaking.

“You’re not a monster, Percy,” Annabeth said, knowing the nightmare. She pulled out of the hug a little to stare at him as she reminded him.

“I know…” he said, though even he wasn’t convinced with how small his voice was. He further compounded the belief held in his words by turning away from Annabeth to stare at a particularly green leaf on the ground.

Annabeth softly took Percy’s chin in her hand and lifted his gaze back to her determined, grey, eyes. She stared at Percy long enough to win the contest before pulling his eyes back onto her and said, “You. Are Not. A Monster.”

Percy held back tears before nodding. Alecto’s words would likely hang out in his mind for a little bit but the pure certainty with which Annabeth had reminded him were enough to hold them at bay for now.

They hugged one more time before getting up. “You got more bags,” Percy commented. Annabeth nodded and pointed in the rough direction she saw the trio travel. “Ah well, you know how Grover feels about litter. Had to do something, didn’t I?”

Chapter Text

Percy was really starting to get on Annabeth’s nerves. 

“- haven’t even gotten to Trenton, and we’re wandering through a forest. I didn’t even know they had forests in New Jersey, but we’ve found one. I would say we’re the opposite of fine,” he said, still holding the shoebox that Luke had given him back at camp.

“We were sent on a quest by the Oracle, by the gods. What’d you think, it would be easy?” Annabeth asked, turning to look at Percy for a moment but was unable to keep his gaze without descending further into frustration. “It’s supposed to be hard. That’s why only certain people are chosen. Plus, we have that girl and her boyfriend following us. If we call the camp for help: Chiron, the campers, not to mention the gods… our parents… they’ll see us as incompetent.” 

“I’m completely comfortable with that. Everyone makes mistakes,” Percy said. It took everything in Annabeth’s power not to scream in his stupid face. She just couldn’t wrap her head around why he didn’t understand. Without achieving glory, a demigod was nothing. Sure, being seen as incompetent was fine for mortals, but for demigods, doing something great was the only way to be seen by their parents. It was like he didn’t want to be who he was, like he was afraid of what his existence represented to his old life.

It was in that moment that Annabeth became ready to turn and confront Percy, he needed to get it into his head that he wasn’t a normal kid anymore. If any of them wanted to have any chance at surviving this quest, he’d have to accept and adapt. However, just as she planted her foot to anchor her spin, she heard the telltale sound of a horse neighing in the distance. It was a sound closely followed by that of the flapping of wings.

She wasn’t the only one to notice, Grover asked aloud if anyone else heard that, and Annabeth got ready for whatever would reign its monstrous head this time. Percy might not understand what the life of a demigod meant, but Annabeth knew that they had to be ready for anything.

It was because of this that she, unlike Percy, didn’t gawk at the sight of a Pegasus suddenly hovering above the pathway roughly fifty feet ahead of them. Even through the cloud covered sky, Apollo’s light shined through the outstretched wings of the beautiful beast as it landed softly. Its rider was none other than Piper, the girl who “helped” her back at the gas station, she looked less put together than she did the last time Annabeth saw her. Her Pegasus’ saddle also had three bags clipped to the side of it, their bags. Piper climbed off the Pegasus with the grace of someone who’d done it a thousand times before, grabbing the bags as she did before she made her way over to the group.

It didn’t escape Annabeth’s notice that the girl was armed, but she had her sword sheathed. So, she took a moment to turn and look at her companions. Grover was looking at the older girl like she was water to a man lost in the desert (or perhaps a woman carrying his food supply). His eyes were wide and mouth open in surprise. A quiet ‘wow’ escaped his lips before Annabeth had enough of looking at Grover’s misplaced admiration and turned to look at Percy.

Percy was just standing there, showing far less of a reaction than Annabeth thought he would. He was surprised, but Annabeth had to admit that she was surprised to see the older girl too, her display when she arrived definitely added to the feeling. At least she knew that Percy wasn’t going around ogling. His mom, if his insistence at espousing her upstanding disposition was any indication, had likely taught him to do better than that. She could admit to that being one point in his favor.

Annabeth had taken her eyes off the older girl for long enough though, she took a step forward to place more distance between herself and her quest mates while also placing herself between Piper and the group. If something went wrong, it would give her more space to defend them and more time for them to run away.

“What are you doing here?” Annabeth asked. She needed to let Piper know who the biggest threat was. Make Piper focus on her rather than Grover or Percy. She also needed to get Piper out of here, they didn’t need anyone’s help with their quest.

Piper placed their bags down in front of them and then took a few steps back, away from them while raising her hands to be outstretched before her. “I’m just returning your bags, then I’ll get out of your hair.”

No one said anything as Piper walked back to her Pegasus and began to climb on. She had one foot into the foot-thing on the side when Percy, a boy with more seaweed in his head than brains, called out, “Wait!” Piper paused for a moment before murmuring something under her breath that Annabeth couldn’t hear and climbed down from the saddle.

Percy took a step forward, putting himself between Annabeth and Piper. “We need your help.” He said in a pleading tone of voice, a tone which Annabeth thought that Percy took on far too often.

Annabeth couldn’t reel back her reaction in that moment, a ‘mother give me the strength to deal with this stupid, stupid boy’ passed through her mind at the same time as she shouted, “No! We don’t!”

Piper looked on seemingly amused at their interaction as she walked over to them. Annabeth and Percy gave each other a withering glare. “Alright you two, settle down,” Piper said in a tone of voice Annabeth had yet to hear from the older girl, it was almost like when Luke had to break up a fight between two of the newer campers. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Annabeth waited for Percy to start, planning out what she was going to say to convince the girl to just leave them alone and let them do their assigned quest. Percy didn’t even take a second to pause, he just spoke. “We’re lost, we have no idea how we’re going to get to the Underworld, and Annabeth says that we can’t call the camp to get help!”

Annabeth could tell that Piper knows what it means to be a half-blood, but so far, she hadn’t let them fight their own battles. She hadn’t let Annabeth do what she was made to do when that Fury showed up at the gas station. It was an unnecessary action seeing as Annabeth killed the other one only a minute or two later. Still, she knows that based on Piper’s past behaviour, the older girl wouldn’t listen to common sense, and like Percy, would take the fact that this quest was their responsibility as well as a vegan would take an all-beef burger. 

“Why are you so afraid of who you are?” Annabeth asked as she realized that appealing to the older girl's probable understanding of the dangers of the life of a demigod was likely a moot point.

“What?” Percy asked, turning away from Piper to look at Annabeth with squinted eyes, like he couldn’t believe what she’d just said.

“You know, what’s interesting about this particular satyr path is that its-”

“Stop Grover, that’s not going to work,” Piper said, interrupting his attempt at changing the subject.

“What’s that supposed to mean, afraid of who I am? I’m not afraid,” Percy said challenging Annabeth, ignoring Piper and Grover’s interaction completely.

“Yes, you are,” Annabeth began, but before she could continue, before she could finally get the facts of Percy’s new reality into his head, Piper spoke up again.

“Okay, just stop. Both of you.” Piper had raised her hands, they were clenched into fists, as if she were trying to squeeze her frustration out of the air. “Annabeth, cut Percy some slack. He’s gone from being told that he’s seeing things, to those things being real only a few days ago. You’re the one who's been doing this for years, trying to get him to just ‘get it’ by explaining that he isn’t normal isn’t going to do any good. Percy, you are a demigod now, and as much as I want to help you, and trust me, I do, I can’t. You have a job to do, not the quest, all of that is pointless. Your job is to learn, learn what your life now entails because if you don’t you are going to die. Monsters, real, dangerous, sometimes flesh-eating monsters, will want to kill you for the rest of your life to steal that little fragment of divinity you hold within yourself.”

Annabeth tried to understand what Piper had just told her, but only parts of it made sense. “So what if Percy is new to being a demigod, he’s on a quest now, he’s a forbidden kid, he doesn’t have the luxury of getting to act like… like a mortal!”

Annabeth hadn’t realized that she had spoken her thought until Piper responded, “Is that what you call it?”

“Call what?” Annabeth asked.

“Forbidden kids,” Piper said with a bit of a chuckle.

“What else would you call him?”

“A child of the Big Three,” Piper said before shaking her head slightly. “Look, I’m sorry Percy, but Annabeth is right. You were given a quest, and you accepted. You have to complete it. But if the three of you keep doing,” Piper took a moment to wave her hand in a circle in the general direction of the trio, “that. You’re going to end up failing. What really matters is that, when the chips are down, you have each other’s backs. Everything else will work out so long as you remember your goal and do your best, okay?”

Piper’s smile was much kinder than Annabeth thought it would be, a reaction that Percy obviously shared as he mumbled out an “o-okay” before looking down at the ground. Piper took a few steps forward and placed a comforting hand on Percy’s shoulder. She looked almost heartbroken in that moment, like it physically hurt her to be doing this. “I’m sorry Percy. I want to help you, I- I really, really do. But I can’t. And I’m so sorry.”

“We don’t even know where the Underworld is! Could you at least tell us that?” Percy asked, the warble in his voice made him sound like he was close to tears.

“You’re on the right path, just keep following it,” Piper said, moving away from Percy and turning to Annabeth. The older girl gave her a toothless, kind, smile before looking at Grover. “It’ll be okay Grover; you’ll be able to keep them safe.” Grover’s eyes brightened at her words, and he matched the older girl’s tight-lipped smile.

“Oh, before I forget,” Piper said before she walked over to her Pegasus once more and reached into her saddle bag. She paused for a moment after she rifled through it, mumbling, “I only had one of these.” She pulled out three strips of darkened cloth. Her expression changed from something akin to fear to her previous smile as she turned to look at the trio.

“These are for you,” she said as she tossed the cloth over to them.

Percy dexterously grabbed the cloth out of the air, Annabeth did the same a few moments later but Grover seemed to have a hard time as his caught the wind in just the wrong way and he fumbled the cloth causing it to fall to the ground. It dropped into the dirt for a moment before he quickly bent to pick it up.

“What are they?” Annabeth asked, holding the cloth up to the sun to try to get a better look, only to find the sun completely blocked by the thin strand.

“Blindfolds, you’ll need them,” Piper said as she finally climbed onto her Pegasus, for real this time. “Good luck you three.” Were her final words before she kicked the horse into gear, and it began to fly up and over their heads.

Percy, her Percy, was waiting for her near where they’d cuddled up after their brush with death at the gas station. There was a nervous energy to his tapping foot as he brushed Sundance waiting for her to return. It was hard to keep Percy Jackson still at the best of times but with the number of times he’d imitated his father on their kitchen table with his leg bouncing… let’s just say that they’d managed to quell that habit a little. Now though, he was obviously having a hard time keeping it still, his right foot was tapping the ground at such a pace that Annabeth was a little worried that he might start to put a hole in it.

Before she could announce her arrival, Percy whipped his head around to look at her. His leg stilled almost immediately, and even from a few dozen meters away Annabeth could see him breathe a sigh of relief. Domino had likely shouted something to alert him of her arrival. She landed with a practiced grace and swiftly climbed down. Percy must’ve picked up on her annoyance as he shot her a questioning look.

“We were so stupid when we were twelve,” Annabeth said, trying to explain how she was feeling.

Percy shook his head with a slight smile and looked to the ground for a second. “Yeah, at least we got a little smarter. Well, you got smarter, I just learned to start listening to you.”

Annabeth blinked, thinking back to her conversation with the kids and remembering how that Percy acted, what he’d said. “Percy, you know that you're smart too, right? Like, I know I call you Seaweed Brain and stuff but… it's meant to be a joke. I don't want you to think-”

“‘Beth, it's okay. I know that we are both smart in different ways, okay?” Percy said, interrupting her inevitable ramble.

“Okay, good.” They smiled at one another, Percy opened his arms, and she walked into the comforting embrace. 

“Everything go okay though?” Percy asked as he rested his chin atop her head.

“Yeah, but… I… younger you asked for help. I… I wanted to say yes, to help… but I just couldn't. Not without putting you at risk now, or them at risk later.” Annabeth said, struggling to fully convey her feelings in that moment. “I sounded exactly like one of them.” At the sight of Percy’s confused face, Annabeth clarified. “The gods.”

Percy nodded and leaned back in, to encompass her in a hug. “We aren't helping because if we do, we could get hurt. Our reason isn't ‘we can't help you because we have to follow rules’ ours is ‘we can't help now, for our safety, but we will in the future.’ They will understand once we can explain why, don't compare yourself to the immortals who’ll kill us for existing.”

Annabeth nodded stiffly. “Someone duplicated the blindfolds in my bag.”

“Do you think we should be worried?” Percy asked, pulling away to hold her by the shoulders and look her in the eyes.

“No. It just seemed like someone wanted to help. Albeit subtly,” Annabeth said, pausing for a while before adding the second sentence.

Percy nodded; Annabeth felt so full knowing that he had her back like this. He just trusted her. “We should get going, they've got enough distance on us already. It'll take us a little bit to catch up again,” Percy said.

They both climb onto their respective Pegasi and took off in the direction of their sort of past selves.

“What do you mean ‘Ya Ya made you cookies?’” Was all Annabeth heard before she was suddenly met with the overly familiar sensation of falling.

With a little effort, Annabeth managed to stabilize her fall and get her bearings. The forest canopy gave way to what Annabeth thought was Princeton only a mile or two east of where she was falling toward what looked like a small homestead.

Annabeth looked in the direction of where Percy had been, only to have to jerk herself into a better position as quickly as she could as Percy almost flew into her. She braced herself and they collided with minimal jostling of their craniums.

“There's a pond!” Percy shouted over the wind as he worked to angle them in a seemingly random direction.

“How big?!” Annabeth yelled back, her hair flapping wildly in the wind. She would still likely need to angle herself to land feet first. She would be less likely to break anything one-hundred percent necessary to live if she did that.

“I think it was once a koi pond!” Percy yelled back, starting to angle himself feet first while reaching his arm out.

“But that's almos-”

*BWOOSH*

Suddenly Annabeth was standing on a gravel path completely soaked with a very dry boyfriend next to her. There was water all over the path, as well as two stone sculptures of koi fish which seem to have been cracked in half with the force of Percy's life saving water blast.

Annabeth looked up and straight into the wing of one Alecto, Punisher of Passion, Fury of the Underworld, and bitch who just wouldn’t stay dead. She let out a sharp gasp, rushing to grab her weapon only to pause when the Fury made no move to attack them. As she stood there, Alecto spoke. “Be careful, godlings, stay there too long and you'll regret not letting me kill you. I've heard you mortals get so uncomfortable standing in one place too long.”

Annabeth was confused by Alecto’s words until she remembered. Stone fish. She snapped her eyes closed in an instant and whisper shouted at Percy to do the same.

“Alecto?” Percy questioned, surprise was laced heavily in his voice, “Didn’t we kill you like, half-an-hour ago?”

Alecto stood there for a moment; Annabeth risked opening her eyes to look at her, foul smelling smoke left Aletco’s nostrils as she breathed out the Fury equivalent of a sigh. She looked like a proper Fury already, but under the combo of foul breath and situation they were now stuck in, Alecto appeared to almost grow taller for a moment.

Percy, Annabeth’s favourite lovable idiot, seemed to have missed the memo on Alecto’s anger and instead chose violence. “Look, I would say ‘I’m sorry about the calling you a chump thing’ but I’m really not. You’ve called me way worse, so can we just let bygones be bygones?”

“Percy!” Annabeth said in the typical tone which would have indicated that he needed to reign in his normally wonderful sarcasm in the face of the angry, immortal thing which was two seconds away from turning them into pigeons. For all her plans though she didn’t account for how hard it would be to keep up their secret persona’s after having adopted them two days ago. Even from those with the best of intentions, when someone changes their name people will slip up from time-to-time. Only this time Annabeth couldn’t fix the mistake with a quick correction and a moving on.

Alecto, who seemed shorter than she did five seconds ago, was eying them like they were a bottled version of Ganymede’s chalice on an especially hot day. It was glee, a predatory smirk that told Annabeth just how bad she messed up slipping up the whole secret identity thing in front of her.

The Fury had started laughing, it was an odd shrill thing which sounded more like a thousand violins screeching than a laugh, but the ‘ha’ sound so typically associated with the gesture could still be heard behind the near ear bleeding drone.

“Perceus Jackson… how… fitting.” Alecto paused between each word she spoke as if she was swallowing a delicious smoothie. “I suppose my… placement before you and quick reconstitution makes sense now. It appears that you have angered our dear, beloved, trio of sisters.”

Annabeth, perhaps predictably, took a step back, reeling at what was said. Angering the Fates was something which usually resulted in especially gruesome and horrible deaths followed by cursed and harrowing experiences in the afterlife. This would normally be standard course for a demigod, but being the Heroes of Olympus times two and all, Annabeth had at least expected a nice quiet rest after kicking the bucket.

“That means that you must be Annabeth Chase, though how you’ve managed to change yourself so… drastically, I cannot say,” Alecto continued, like a detective who’d solved the case and got the chance to expunge how smart she was to the murderer. “Did He tell you to do this?”

Who He was, was obvious to Annabeth, and, evidently, Percy as he spat, “We don’t work for Chronos.”

The world lost a bit of its colour at his words, a bird which had started to fly away, seemingly startled at the mention of the Titan Lord’s name, seemed to slow down in its exit from the tree. Annabeth couldn’t help but watch, it was like watching a slow-mo video. She knew she was moving, an unconscious movement to lightly squeeze Percy’s wrist in hopes that he would understand to not invoke that name again, but she felt like she was moving through molasses.

Colour returned to the world slowly, like a splattering of water trailing down a wall, it started with the sky and ended just below their feet. Annabeth had hold of Percy’s wrist faster than she thought she would and stumbled as the force pushing against her movement quickly faded and she was lurched forward. Percy managed to catch her as she did and looked her in the eyes, it was obvious that neither of them would be mentioning that name again.

“That was foolish Mr. Jackson,” Alecto chided, like how an old teacher would admonish a girl who ‘broke the dress code.’

“It’s just Percy, Mrs. Dodds, Mr. Jackson is my father.” Annabeth turned and gave Percy a look of ‘really?!’ Percy just smirked ‘you love it’ back at her.

“How quaint,” Alecto said, crossing her arms. She stared at them as if she was trying to cause them to explode with her mind, Annabeth silently prayed that, that wasn’t a secret skill the Furies possessed. “You will deliver your younger counterpart to Hades’ palace before the Summer Solstice, for a demigod of your power and experience it should be a task of little difficulty. Should you fail, I will ensure that your tenure under my care shall be more agonizing than that of Sisyphus. Good luck, little godlings.”

Then, with a beat of powerful wings, Alecto took off into the air. Leaving the two of them alone on Medusa’s front lawn wondering just how royally damned they were. Then Annabeth heard the sound of a door opening behind her.

Chapter Text

“Just… make sure its pointing in the right direction before you take my hat off,” Annabeth said as they approached the outer door of Medusa’s house.

“Good tip,” Percy said. He was having a hard time keeping the nervousness out of his voice. Then again, he was technically holding what could be considered a very deadly weapon, so Annabeth couldn’t really blame him.

Annabeth tried to muster up words to encourage him, but it seemed that she and Piper shared the trait of not knowing what the right thing to say was. At least Piper was able to get out a sentence, all Annabeth could muster was, “Okay.”

He was still standing there, nodding his head in small movements, Annabeth thought she might be doing the same but the sound of her heart beating out of her chest was drowning out her perception of anything other than the stupid boy in front of her. Like, the three of them hadn’t just fought Medusa, this was the most dangerous thing she’d ever done. To be fair, Percy was putting himself in a lot of danger if he didn’t do this part right…

Percy interrupted her thinking with, “My hands are kinda full…” before shaking the invisible monster head in his hands. Annabeth wondered if he could feel the snakes jostling as he did that or if… Annabeth made the active decision to stop thinking about the dozens of snakes which came attached to the petrifying machine and open the door. It was not like snakes where slimy or anything.

Annabeth was spending way too much time thinking right now, for the daughter of the mother of all thinkers, literally, that was a strange thought to have. She quickly said, “Of course,” back to Percy as she opened the door for him. “Your blindfold.” She added before he could take a step out.

“Right.” Percy said as he lowered it in front of his eyes. The blindfold’s had really saved them. When they weren’t fighting, they acted like normal blindfolds, but as soon as Annabeth lunged forward to put her cap on Medusa it was like she could sense exactly where Medusa was. They were magic, and ‘Piper,’ Annabeth know knew that Piper wasn’t her real name, had casually given them three.

In hindsight they probably should’ve double checked who was waiting outside that door, they did have a pair of interloping gods following them. Annabeth didn’t think that making them angry would go well, even with Medusa’s head. In essence, she really shouldn’t have been surprised when she heard a familiar voice say, “Whoa, watch where you’re pointing that thing, Percy!”

Percy was very glad that Annabeth was standing beside him because he was too enraptured by the fact that the Fury, Alecto, had just given him a task. He wasn’t calling it a quest because that was just weird. He was also not paying attention to mini-him walking out of Medusa’s front door with a severed head. Annabeth had not so gently grabbed his head and yanked it to be looking at the ground, which, you know, sucks, but also was necessary considering his momentary lack of awareness.

“Oh crap! I’m so sorry!” Kidcy said from somewhere, Percy didn’t know. Annabeth had decided that being threatened by severed head of an ancient monster was the perfect time to run her fingers through his hair and thus he was gone from reality.

Okay, that wasn’t true, Percy wasn’t completely gone from reality, he was there enough to hear Annabeth yell, “Please tell me you’ve put the head away?!”

“It’s good. You’re good,” Kidcy said with a breathless voice. Like he’d forgotten to breathe during the seconds, or hours, Percy couldn’t tell at this point, it took to put away the future-past stepdad extermination cranium.

The source of Percy’s bliss, Annabeth’s hand, was pulled away far too soon for his liking but he would be able to get more head scratches later. He lifted his head to see Kidcy standing in front of Medusa’s door with a thick black cloth over his eyes and with his hands positioned roughly a heads height apart.

“Please don’t tell me that the only thing keeping Em’s head from turning us to stone right now is the invisibility cap,” Annabeth said. Percy quickly turned to look at her. That would’ve been a good idea, can’t be turned invisible by something that you can’t see. Percy wished he was smart enough to think of that before, though he guessed that technically that either kid-him, kid-Annabeth, or kid-Grover had been this time.

He could be honest with himself though, it was probably Kidabeth.

“Um… Yes?” Kidcy said. Suddenly Percy’s head was once more being whipped toward the ground. He didn’t mind, Annabeth had started running her fingers through his hair again, so everything was fine.

“Okay, lets all be very careful. When you’re invisible, mortal science would say that small pinpricks of your pupils are still visible so that you don’t become blind. We don’t know if the magic of the hat cares about that, but we should be extra careful,” Annabeth said. Percy hummed in contentment. Head scratches and listening to Annabeth being smart. Best. Day. Ever. Even with the falling, monster fighting, and task giving part.

“Wait! What? But then- but it worked fine after we cut of her head,” Kidcy said. He sounded extra worried. Like Percy did back when he got called to the principle’s office for dunking kids into the shark tank the day before. Double humiliation was not fun.

“Its okay Percy.” Annabeth quickly said. She’d lifted her hand to do something which caused Percy to quietly whine at the loss of contact. “You’ve done amazingly, your plan was really good. Cleverer than what I would’ve thought to do, if I’m honest.”

Percy moved from the ‘ready to receive head scratches position’ for a moment, an occasion usually so impossible so make sure to mark your calendars, to give Annabeth a concerned look. Annabeth’s smarts were her greatest asset, Percy wanted to make sure that younger them having a better plan wasn’t affecting her. He shouldn’t have been worried though, she had just spoke about a potential flaw in younger-them’s plan. Besides, a plan like that was likely the result of time and different circumstances, perhaps even presentation mediums, not because of anything Percy needed to be worried about.

He was affirmed in his thinking by the little smile Annabeth gave him followed by a slight jostling of his head. With that jostle, Percy was enjoying his blissful head massage once more. This one lasted much less time as Annabeth pulled for him to follow her into Medusa’s house.

They followed the younger-them into a basement, Percy didn’t remember Auntie Em’s having a basement, and through a maze of shipping containers to where Kidver was looking through a binder absolutely overflowing with paper. “Hey! You’re back!” Percy heard Kidver say before he rounded the last container, “I haven’t found…” The young, but would somehow still be older than Percy, which he thought was ridiculous, satyr slowed his speaking as he and Annabeth rounded the last container. “You’ve brought friends.”

“Hello Grover,” Annabeth said with a polite smile. “What’cha looking for?”

“Um… yeah. I was just looking for how we can get into the Underworld. Medusa sold her statues all over the mythological world. So, I thought it would make sense that she would ship to the Underworld too,” Grover explained. His voice got brighter as Annabeth nodded along to his explanation.

“Here, let me help,” Annabeth said. Percy thought that reading a giant binder full of shipping information sounded like a headache worthy of ambrosia and decided to go looking at Medusa’s statue shipping warehouse. Percy thought that the place probably had a tagline like, ‘For all your terrifying, horrible and grotesque gardening needs.’ He knew of a few gods who would eat that up.

Percy found a rather expansive collection of giant animals: snakes, boars, scorpions, a crab (Percy thought he killed something that looked similar), and even a giant horse. Percy felt for the last two, but his attention was rapt upon the last statue. He didn’t know that horses could get that big… he also decided to make it his mission to ride one. He walked around the underground warehouse for what felt like hours, but was probably minutes, before he heard Annabeth shout, “Found it!”

Percy made the choice to briskly walk back to where Annabeth and the kids had been which allowed him to hear Kidcy say, “-ustus? I’ve never heard of the guy.”

“Sorry. Procrustes? As in the waterbed guy?” Percy asked as he walked up to the group.

“And where did you run off to?” Kidabeth asked him with a sharp glare.

“I was just looking at the statues,” Percy said, pointing over his shoulder in the rough direction of the giant animals which had drawn his attention. He didn’t understand why Kidabeth was staring at him with such suspicion.

“Of course, just looking at the status.” Kidabeth scoffed before turning to Annabeth. “So, Piper, how do you two know Procrustes?”

“Jason killed him once,” Annabeth said without hesitation. She didn’t even bother to look up from where she was writing something down.

“Okay, that’s it!” Kidabeth shouted as she banged the binder she was looking through on the table. “Would the two of you just quit it with the fake names!”

“I’m sorry?” Annabeth asked the younger version of herself as she slowly looked up from her writing.

“You two are worse than him!” Kidabeth yelled while pointing at Kidcy. “Would you stop hiding and just embrace who you are?!”

Annabeth and Percy share a look of confusion and follow it up by sharing that look with the young daughter of Athena. Kidabeth groaned as she waved her hand in the air and then pointed at the older pair once more. “We,” she began as she waved her pointer finger at the younger trio, “know you’re gods! Would you just stop pretending and either leave us alone or go get the bolt for us!”

Annabeth shared a confused look with Percy. She decided to raise her arms to display that she wasn’t a threat to the younger version of herself, but Percy had a way to nip this particular topic in the bud.

“Look Annabeth, we’re not gods,” Percy said as he stepped forward to put himself between Kidabeth and his girlfriend. He unsheathed his “replacement” sword and pricked the end of his index finger and held it up for the younger trio to see. “See, we have red blood, not gold.”

Annabeth reached into her bag to bring out a small med kit, mumbling something about Percy being a seaweed brain, and the dangers of poking himself with potentially contaminated metal. Kidabeth’s befuddlement at the red blood which was now present on his finger made it worth the risk though, Percy didn’t really like the idea of being a god at all.

“Okay, that just doesn’t make any sense!” Kidabeth shouted in reaction to Percy’s actions. “Why are you following us then?! Why are you helping us?!”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Annabeth said calmly before lightly kissing the now cleaned and wrapped poke wound on Percy’s finger.

“Ugh! You are so frustrating! You’re lying, I know you are. Just like him!” Kidabeth shouts, pointing at Kidcy.

“What are you talking about?!” Kidcy shouts back as he turned away from the older pair to look at Kidabeth. Percy didn’t know where the invisible, severed head of Medusa had been placed but Kidcy had obviously put it down somewhere seeing as how the kid’s arms were now empty.

“‘You could have saved your mother.’ That’s what Medusa said to you, like you discussed it already. Is your mother still alive?” Kidabeth asked. Percy felt like he’d missed something important in his time away to explain why this was happening.

“She’s with Hades. But I appreciate your concern,” Kidcy said back in a low tone. Percy recognized it as the one where Annabeth would usually either subtly ask him to stop or not do anything, because he’d gotten too angry. He was working on it.

“Guy, please just stop,” Kidver said from the now near abandoned pseudo desk the four of them had made while they searched from an address to the entrance to the Underworld. The kid looked tired, and sort of defeated as he stared down at the pile of papers and shook his head. He acted like the two kids were having an old argument instead of being two people who’ve known each other for barely a day after, essentially, going to the same school for a week.

“Oh, I’m concerned,” Kidabeth said, completely ignoring Kidver outside of a slight shifting of her head as he spoke. “What are you actually doing on this quest and why did I have to hear about this from Medusa?”

“Okay,” Kidcy fired back immediately, “while we’re at it, ‘You should have accepted my offer?’ What’s that about do you think? And why did we have to hear it from Alecto?”

“Enough!” Kidver said in a louder tone of voice than Percy has ever heard, except when his missing counterpart called on the Wild. “The hat was a gift from her mother. It’s the only thing she’s ever possessed that connects them. That oughta matter to you.”

Percy realized that in his wandering, he’d obviously missed a rather important part of the conversation.

“Okay, but how are we gonna make sure this thing is safe?” Kidcy asked. Percy was just kind of standing there; in part he was reliving old memories, half forgotten from a time when he and Annabeth were like that. Vindictive and distrusting, constantly fighting with one another. Another part of him was feeling like he was not allowed to interrupt, he and Annabeth got through that portion of their relationship… rockily. Percy couldn’t think of a better word, they’d gotten through it because time and time again they had each other’s backs and grown to learn… to care. Percy didn’t want to risk that for his younger, blonder, self.

“I’m not up to that yet,” Kidver said in response. His words pulled Percy away from his thoughts, Kidver pointed at Kidabeth “Have you not heard a word they’ve said. Really? His mom’s alive. Can you imagine how confusing that must be for him? Feeling like he may have to choose between the fate of the world and the fate of the only person who’s ever card about him?”

Well damn, Percy had to give Kidver credit he was doing a much better job getting Kidabeth and Kidcy to stop fighting. Satyr powers for the win!

“Why are you talking like this?” Kidabeth asked, her voice was almost a whisper.

“Because all day I’ve been trying to keep this quest on track without upsetting either of you,” Kidver said before taking a trio of deep breaths. “But maybe things need to get a little upsetting before they move forward.”

Kidver nodded at the younger pair, like he was trying to get them to agree to that uncomfortable reality. “She asked you a question back in the woods, and you never really answered. What are you so afraid of?”

“What are you talking about?” Percy asked.

“You heard me,” KIdver fired back.

“I don’t know,” Kidcy said, the words slightly mumbled.

“I think you do,” Kidver said, barely missing a beat. “You’ve been fighting with her, you’ve been fighting with me.”

“Because the Oracle said one of you would betray me. Okay?” Kidcy said with a shaky voice. “‘You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, and fail to save what matters most in the end.’ That’s the rest of what she said to me. I chose her because I couldn’t imagine we’d ever be friends. And I chose you because I thought that if I can count on anyone to be on my side, no matter what, it was you. And now, I’m feeling so… alone. I don’t know what to think or who to trust.”

“Woo! Yeah! There you go Percy! I knew you could do it!” Annabeth said from… beside him? Percy was so engrossed in the conversation he had no idea when she’d gotten there.

“Wai- what?” Kidcy asked.

“She was upset because you were hiding things,” Annabeth said as she pointed to her younger self, then moved to point at Grover. “He was upset that you were hiding things. Now you’re telling them, trust is a very important step.”

“That’s pretty hypocritical of you,” Kidabeth mumbled.

“That’s because if we tell you our secrets, the gods will smite us,” Annabeth said with a cheery voice. Like the act of getting smited was a banana smoothie on a hot July day. “Not because we want to keep secrets. Seriously though Percy, good job, doesn’t it feel better now that you’ve gotten that off your chest?”

“I mean- I guess?” Kidcy said.

Percy silently thought that maybe Annabeth had picked the wrong time to interject herself into the conversation. But if there was one thing Percy was good at it was being there for his friends. “That was brave of you Percy, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Kidcy said, still quiet and uncertain.

“Look, what really matters is that when Medusa offered to help if you, Percy, gave up your friends… you cut off her head. And when Meg offered to leave you alone, Annabeth, so long as you gave up Percy… well she ended up getting stabbed in the back. Do you see what I mean?”

The two demigod kids nodded at one another, Percy could’ve sworn he saw a familiar look in Kidabeth’s eyes, a silent sorry.

“You didn’t choose to be demigods. We didn’t choose this quest. But we can decide that as long as the five of us are together, none of us are gonna be alone,” Kidver said.

“Wait, five?” Kidabeth asked, looking at Grover with narrowed eyes.

“The Oracle didn’t say that a specific number of people needed to be on this quest. I figured that if they’re already coming along…” Kidver said, slightly sheepish.

“Fine,” Kidabeth said with extreme reluctance.

“Sweet, besides, if we can’t do that, we might as well just head back to camp right now… ‘Cause we won’t make it,” Kidver said. Kidcy and Kidabeth both nodded to one another. Kidcy then turned and nodded in Percy and Annabeth’s direction. Kidabeth looked reluctant to do the same but still followed suit.

“I’ve got an idea about what to do with the head,” Kidcy said with a smirk.

“Cool.” Percy said, “Where’d you put it?”

“Uhhh…”

It ended up taking the group a solid twenty minutes of stumbling around the general area where the head had been before Kidabeth hit a soft, fleshy surface. Impertinence ensued, though it seemed as though Kidabeth’s mind seemed to have changed as Kidcy wrote his name on the package, for she took the opportunity to grab the sharpie from Kidcy’s hand and write her own name. She pointed the pen at Kidver and instructed him to do the same.

He, reluctantly, agreed. Though not without protest and while ensuring that everyone knew that he was only doing it in the spirit of togetherness. The kids offered Percy and Annabeth the sharpie, but Annabeth shot the idea down before Percy could make a hasty decision with one word. ‘Smited.’

Kidcy, however, didn’t really seem to care as he started to clap his hands together and start to sing. “Oh golly, the roads getting”

“No,” Annabeth interrupted. “Just give me the marker.” She signed the box ‘Wise Girl’ before handing the marker to Percy with a pleading look for not wanting to hear whatever togetherness song Kidver had probably come up with.

Percy signed it, ‘Seaweed Brain <3’

Turned out, monster lairs were treasure hoards of mortal currency. Seeing as how they would have no use for it but know that its valuable for blending in, or whatever. The quintet of questers stepped out of Auntie Em’s with over seven thousand dollars. American, Percy was like 90% sure.

With no driver’s licence or car, it seemed that their best bet for getting across the country would be train. It wouldn’t be too bad though; they would just have to tell the kids to not get off the train in St. Louis and everything would go just fine.

Right?

Chapter Text

As it turns out, a little over seven thousand dollars is just barely enough to get five people on an Amtrak from the New Jersey to LA. The process involved changing their train twice, first going from New Jersey to Washington, then from Washington to Chicago. But in the end, they’d somehow managed to start the 44-hour trek from Chicago’s Union Station to LA’s Union Station. ‘Weird how many train stations are called Union Station.’ Percy thought.

His stomach was grumbling by the time they got to eat their first meal in the dining car. He didn’t want to think about how much it was going to cost to get the kids back across the country. Everything was so expensive in this universe. Though, Percy is not one to forget the one and only time he flew in an airplane, so the kids should be able to get back once they grab Zeus’ bolt. Who knows, maybe Kidcy will stumble upon some Pegasus and get the chance to learn how easy it is to get kicked by talking horses? Either way, Percy thinks that the kids will be okay in the end, if a few hundred bucks poorer.

He couldn’t stop worrying about everything else though. The rhythmic ta-tunk ta-tunking of the train was keeping him awake. He and Annabeth had gotten their own room to share while the kids had the pleasant experience of finding a way to shove three people into a sleeper box. Past experience told Percy that it was not a fun time.

Speaking of his girlfriend, Annabeth’s eyes were scrunched closed more than they usually were when she slept. However, it wasn’t accompanied by quiet whispering or unintelligible murmurs which would’ve signaled a nightmare. She was having a demigod dream.

Sometimes no time would pass between those kinds of dream’s beginning and end. Other times the dream would keep a demigod stuck for hours. Percy knew that, even if he wasn’t struggling to, he couldn’t fall asleep now. He’d found that after everything involving Hera, and her kidnap-switcheroo, he wanted to be more present in Annabeth’s life. Sleep should’ve been an escape, a few hours of the day where they could both stop worrying about everything that’s happened and just… exist. But their dreams, and their nightmares, had left them stuck without that particular reprieve and in constant need of the comfort of one another.

Annabeth changed near instantly from dreaming to awake just as Apollo’s chariot had begun to navigate their part of the sky. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t need to, she simply got up and Percy followed. He had no time to grab his things, he hadn’t even realized that his temporary sword lay forgotten in their cabin, reflecting the beautiful orange light of the sun shining through the open window.

Annabeth was on a mission Percy realized, whatever she had dreamed had spurned her into action and he was almost glad that he didn’t sleep. He was more awake, and therefore more prepared, but he could tell that he was worn a little thin. He’d need to splash himself with some water if he wanted to get through today.

Percy felt a little guilty for not realizing, until they’d arrived in the hall which led to the dining car, where Annabeth was leading him. She’d drawn her dagger and Percy, tired and acting partially on muscle memory, pulled Riptide from his pocket and uncapped the pen. Maybe if he’d been more awake he’d have felt the difference. How his sword had gone from feeling slippery and cumbersome to an extension of himself again. Maybe what happened next could’ve been avoided.

“Can I ask a dumb question?” Percy decided to ask after Grover reaffirmed their ability to complete the quest in time, like he was providing exposition.

“It’s like you need me to make fun of you.” Annabeth said in response. Percy didn’t think that he needed her to make fun of him, he’d just realized that his companions, especially the older kids, knew a lot more about this questing stuff than he did. In fact, he asked if he could ask because of his worry that he was annoying them by asking questions that might have obvious answers to them. So, he actually wanted the opposite, thank you Annabeth.

“Shoot.” Grover said. Percy silently thanked Grover for being willing to explain things to him. For all the times his mom had taken him to the Natural History Museum, they almost never had anything new to add the to the exhibits. He knew what was going on with Medusa, at least the fighting parts, but Hades wasn’t exactly his forte. Unless someone wanted him to talk about how the story of Persephone was actually made to explain winter and the grief which comes with the death of someone you care about, especially a kid.

“The Oracle told me; you shall fail to save what matters most in the end. I told you guys that this quest would fail, and no one’s mentioned it since. I talked to the other guys, since we’re not calling them by there names anymore,” Percy said while staring at Annabeth, “but they said that everything would be fine. Shouldn’t we be taking it a little more seriously…”

As he finished the last word Percy caught something out the corner of his eye. Outside of the train, running through the open fields on the other side of the train’s frontage road, were a quartet of half-horse, half-men. The pinks and oranges of the morning light shaded the centaurs in shadow, obscuring their features but something about watching their legs pump in tandem with one another, with the way they almost seemed to glide across the land at supernatural speeds... The shade only added to their majesty in Percy’s eyes.

“Hey.” Percy said, to him they looked beautiful, but he was hesitant to share what he was seeing. A habitual practice he’d picked up with his “imagination” being what it is. Though, Percy supposed, it was never really his imagination, what he was seeing was real, what he’d seen was real. All those thoughts passed in a moment of pause, but it filled Percy with something he couldn’t quite recognize as he continued, “Look at that. Are those…”

Percy couldn’t quite bring himself to say it out loud, just in case he really did just see things that weren’t there, but he looked over to see the smiling face of Grover and Annabeth also staring on in awe.

“Centaurs.” Annabeth said.

For Percy, this was the first time they were seeing something mythical outside of camp or when something was trying to kill him. The centaurs really were wonderful as they galloped, something inside of Percy’s chest longed for a thing he couldn’t recognize as he did, like he was missing something seriously important. The feeling passed quickly as his chest filled with something akin to giddiness as he realized that it really was true, he wasn’t just imagining things.

He wasn’t alone in being able to see something so beautiful.

Percy felt melancholy at the idea that everyone else couldn’t see them, that no one knew that something so beautiful was just out of sight. He turned to look, just to make sure but only saw the other passengers going about on their own business. “No one even knows they’re there.”

“There used to be herds of them everywhere.” Grover informed him.

Percy felt his sadness return like a wave breaking upon the shore. “What happened to them?”

“Humans.” Grover said, Percy congratulated himself for not reacting outwardly to hearing his friend refer to humans as an other. It was all still so new to Percy; he knew he would eventually grow used to it and it wouldn’t even warrant the thoughts that he was granting the phrase right now. “A few thousand years ago, the God of the Wild, Pan, disappeared. And ever since, without Pan to protect the natural world, humans have been trying really hard to chip away at it.”

“The bravest satyrs volunteer to become Searchers, trying to find Pan.” Annabeth said, taking over for Grover who looked close to tears. Pan, what he represented to Grover, or what he was, Percy supposed, considering the whole ‘the gods are real’ thing, obviously meant a lot to his friend. Percy couldn’t bring himself to say sorry, he knew that it would never be enough. “None have ever returned.” Annabeth finished.

Percy turned back to Grover who stared with somber eyes out the winder at the passing centaurs, “Your uncle we found at Medusa’s, Ferdinand. He was a Searcher?” Percy didn’t know why he wanted that clarified, but it felt important to be certain that he understood what was going on with his friend.

Grover simply nodded.

“The Oracle-” Annabeth began, but before she could continue, Grover saw the older girl who’d been travelling with them shove open the door to the dining car and run inside with her dagger drawn. Her boyfriend was only a second behind with his sword drawn. They both look harried, like they’d just woken up. Grover watched as the pair scanned the room, they took notice of the doors in and out, the windows and the other occupants of the car. However, when the older boy looked out the far door, he patted his girlfriend on her shoulder.

“Gods dammit.” The older girl said, Grover was half a second away from admonishing her for her phrasing before he spotted what they did. There were a pair of police officers who’d seemingly locked onto them that were walking into the dining car from the direction of their cabin.

Grover was quick to point the cops out to the group. As he looked back up, turning in sync with Percy and Annabeth, they all watch as the older boys sword turned from a sword into a pen, and then he stuffed it into his pocket.  If one were to be looking and Grover and Annabeth, they’d be watching them look at the older boy, then Percy, then back at the older boy with shock racing across their faces.

The older boy had the same sword as Percy.

Grover could only ask himself ‘how?’ before the older pair jumped into the neighboring chairs. The police officer calmly approached them a few moments later, hands upon his vest’s straps. “Excuse me. Can I see your tickets, please?” The officer asked as his partner took up a protective stance behind him.

The older boy from their protective companions jumped up from the seat, “Is there a problem, officer?” He asked as he placed himself between them and the officer. The older girl stood between the officer and his partner.

“Please, sit back down sir.” The officer said with an authoritative voice as he raised his hand flat to put some distance between himself and the older boy who’d lied to them about his name.

“I think I have a right to know why you’re questioning my little brother and his friends, specifically, out of everyone on the train.” The older boy said. As he did, it made Grover think about that as an idea for a second. He quickly realized that the older boy did kinda look like a dark-haired version of Percy with a little tanner skin and green eyes instead of blue.

“There’s been a disturbance in one of the cabins, an eyewitness reported hearing children running away from the cabin. These are the first children we’ve encountered on the train. Now, your tickets, please, all of you.” The officer explained with an authoritative but calm voice, his partner stepped to the side to no longer have the older girl between her and her partner.

“Look, officer,” The older boy began, “my girlfriend and I have been with them the entire time we’ve been on the train. The only disturbance they’ve caused in a cabin is insisting that they all get to stay in one room.”

“And which cabin is it that they insisted on sharing?” The officer asked with a raised eyebrow.

“17-B, officer.” Annabeth said with a slightly shaky voice, Grover struggled to remember if she talked about any interactions with the cops while she was on the run, but worried for his friend none-the-less. Her nervousness was uncharacteristic, at least to Grover.

“Look, when I went to grab them for breakfast their room was fine. Everything is fine.” Percy’s ‘brother’ said as he snapped his fingers.

The officer looked at the older boy with a raised eyebrow and then turned toward Grover and co. “Will you come with me please?”

The wind was whooshing through the now broken window of the kid’s cabin as Annabeth approached it. The officer had led them through the train while his partner followed behind them, it reminded Annabeth of the few moments she spent in the line for the Underworld, though back then she wasn’t the one marching to her doom. She felt like she was now.

She noticed Kidabeth and Kidver’s surprise at Percy’s sword, she felt like an idiot for not noticing it sooner but the image of the black cloud breaking into the train had spurned her to run toward the kids as soon as possible. She’d thought that it was a bit of precognition to help them against attack, an unfortunately uncommon blessing from Hypnos or Morpheus.

She was now looking at the evidence of what had actually happened. If she were being more analytical when she woke up, she probably would’ve noticed that the cloud hadn’t entered through one of the dining car’s windows, but her fear over what might happen to the kids overtook that side of her and she was forced into action by instinct.

Now she had to deal with two problems: who, or what ever was on the train, and finding an explanation for Percy’s magic weapon. She felt confident that, if a monster came near, she and Percy could handle it, so she decided to focus on explaining the sword. The first problem was an explanation as to why he had a normal sword in addition to the magic one. They could lie, say that the sword was new, but to a trained fighter like Kidabeth, and even Kidver to an extent, his ease and familiarity with the weapon would kill that idea quickly.

She could pass it off as needing another sword because the pen one doesn’t return quickly, so if he throws it away, he needs a backup. It could work, but would be faced with the scrutiny of the sword itself having Riptide inscribed on the cross guard, Annabeth didn’t know if the kids had seen that bit.

They could fess up, risk the wrath of every god, titan and monster of Greek and Roman mythology who’d see them as breakers of Fate. The weaving sisters likely already knew about them, perhaps they were under the same restrictions as she was and thus couldn’t report their presence to the Lord of the Sky. Annabeth couldn’t think of another reason why they weren’t piles of demigod dust on the side of the road now.

If she let younger her figure it out, she could just say that they couldn’t explain because of those restrictions, using Hades Helm as an example of what was wrong. She was hesitant to do it though, she’d already lied to the kids so much.

She could also just let the cards fall where the will, roll with whatever punches come her way and avoid planning ahead. Something about that idea made Annabeth’s breath become stuck in her throat, she felt her head pound for a few moments until she realized how dumb that idea was and decided to focus on planning again. The panic began to rescind almost immediately… didn’t stop what had just occurred from scaring the Hades out of her.

She turned to Percy, she needed to see what he was thinking but when she did, she only saw a threatening face. It wasn’t pointed at the cop, he was looking down the hallway, back in the direction they’d come, to the cop’s partner who was currently talking to a middle-aged woman. The cop had a notepad in her hand, obviously getting the woman’s statement.

Well, at least it wasn’t hard to find the monster.

Annabeth immediately started thinking about monsters who could take a human form, most wouldn’t be able to create an illusion that could beat a demigod as old as she and Percy were’s vision. She thought about Echidna, who was set to make an appearance at the Gateway Arch, but this woman didn’t have a chihuahua, nor was she plus-size or wearing unfashionable denim. Then again, many things had been different about this universe, so Annabeth couldn’t count anything out.

She just didn’t think it was Echidna’s style to be so subversive, she had the strength of her monsters to make up for the lack of subtilty which came from a small pet dog having deep growls and too many teeth. So why was would she be doing this? Perhaps because she was only tasked with finding the bolt by Zeus, it would explain the destroyed room if Echidna was searching for it. She must think that the kids have it then… not good.

They needed to get off this train.

It seemed the Tyche was on her side this time, as, just as she thought it, she felt the train begin to come to a stop.

 Look, serious advice time, punching a cop isn’t a good idea. The power of the Mist is nothing in comparison to the unfortunate sense of duty shared by every cop in America. Its appealing, Percy knows, the idea of punching the literal symbol of authority in the face, but you will get in so much trouble if you do. Both legal and social, especially after you get arrested for assaulting a cop.

Didn’t stop them from needing to escape, and little side note of pretty major importance, did you know that mortal weapons work on demigods? Hope that important tidbit wasn’t forgotten because ever since Percy had gotten between the cop and the kids, he’d had a hand on his gun.

Percy looked over at Annabeth and could see her looking for a way out, the cops had both ends of the hallway closed off with their bodies, leaving jumping into a room full of broken glass as their only other option for escape. Annabeth looked around again, seemingly unable to settle upon a best course of action.

“Wise Girl.” Percy said, the dude cop took a step back to put some distance between himself and Percy as he said this.

“I’m thinking.” Annabeth said through gritted teeth. Percy looked back at the gal cop, she was closing her notepad and nodding the woman in their direction.

When planning fails, improvisation wins, and to Percy the math was simple. One side would hurt like hell, literally with the whole ground made of sharp glass thing, another side had a monster and a mortal cop, and the last side had a cop. One option was easier than the other. So, despite the previous warnings, Percy took a full step forward, into dude cop’s space, and decked him in the face.

Demigod strength and intense knowledge of hand-to-hand combat from sparring sessions with Clarisse and Annabeth meant that the hit was clean, and the cop’s head snapped back faster than was probably safe for his neck. He fell down with a wham and Percy yelled, “Run!”

Annabeth was the first to run, away from the cop and monster and toward the back of the train. Percy let the kids go next, though it took a moment as they looked stunned at the sight of the grown man wearing a tac vest collapsed on the ground with a potentially broken nose. They didn’t have time to wait though, he could see and feel the woman, the monster, begin to rush in their direction. He pushed the kids to follow and took up the rear guard against whatever monster might be coming.

He’d made it to the door at the end of the hallway, the kids were through, and Percy was about to close the door when he heard a BANG. The monster didn’t throw a fireball though, so Percy just leapt through the door and closed it behind him and then quickly pulled Riptide to break the handle, hoping it would slow them down.

By the time he reached the end of the train he was tired. Each time he took a breath it felt like he was jabbing himself with a thousand pins and needles, and he was pretty sure that everything’s colour was just slightly wrong.

“Oh gods, Percy!” He heard someone yell, it sounded like Annabeth, but she wouldn’t call him by his name right now, that would get them in trouble.

Annabeth pushed the stumbling kids out the back of the train, she hefted the unresponsive Percy over her shoulder once more. Something wet had begun to cake her side but there was nothing she could do about it now except get Percy to water. She yelled to the kids to run, but as she did something CRASHED behind them.

Turning quickly, she saw the blood matted mane, lions head, and goat horns of Echidna’s Chimera. She shoved Percy into the kids hands and drew her drakon bone sword, she didn’t bother with her invisibility hat, if she was gone the monster would just attack the kids.

She didn’t have a spear like Bellerophon did in the myth so she couldn’t rely on her knowledge of what happened except for the fact that she could probably kill it by stabbing it in the mouth, Nemean Lion style.

The Chimera’s tail had more in common with the sea urchins Percy had shown her off the coast of California than the cobra head Annabeth was expecting as it whizzed toward her. She managed to take a step to dodge and then take several strides toward the beast before it retracted its tail and started its own charge toward her.

Somewhere in the back of Annabeth’s mind she registered hearing Kidabeth yell, “Oh gods, Percy!” They were tit for tat on saying that today apparently.

She couldn’t focus on what happened as she slid under the Chimera’s tail again, this time she felt the explosive force of it impacting the ground behind her, forcing her into a roll to stay balanced. When she came out she was just under the Chimera’s jaw, its almost slime-like saliva oozed down into her hair as she stabbed forward, toward the monster’s neck, with her sword.

The Chimera just barely managed to pull back in time to save itself, but its tail was still caught in the ground leaving itself open to Annabeth slightly changing the direction of her stab to bisect the odd appendage.

The beast mewled at the pain of losing apart of itself as the end of the tail turned into dog-breath smelling smoke. Annabeth got up and began to rush toward the beast once more, determined to finish it off before anything else could happen. She barely managed to see the glowing power which grew in the Chimera’s throat before diving out of the way of the incoming blast of fire.

The Chimera was still back peddling after it attacked, the burning gravel was being turned into molten slag next to Annabeth as she continued her relentless charge forward. The Chimera was acting as if it were coughing up a hair ball as it attempted, and failed, to build more fiery charge in its throat.

Its insistence on stay away from her was its downfall, eventually its back hit another train in the yard and, with it unable to properly regain its fire breath in time, Annabeth got within arms reach of the thing with ease. It lashed out with its claws like a cornered animal, growling in an attempt to intimidate. As it did, Annabeth side-stepped the attack and grabbed hold of the overextended paw with her off hand and pulled, causing the Chimera to be the one to stumble forward.

She raised her sword and brought it down on the unbalanced creature, separating its head from its body causing her nose to be bathed in the smell of the thing one should pick up when your dog does its business and her arms to become obscured by the corpse’s blackened ash.

When he could see again, a part of his mind wondered when he stopped being able to see, he was being carried through the streets by Annabeth. He had no idea where he was, but they were surrounded by buildings and the air smelled like gasoline and garbage. “What…?” Percy asked with a slight slur in his voice.

“You were shot.” Annabeth said with a level voice which, to anyone but Percy Jackson, would’ve meant that she was determined, but to him it meant she was terrified.

“I’ll be fiiine.” Percy said, “Invincible, remember?”

“You should stop talking.” Annabeth said as she shoved a straw into his mouth. He sucked down liquid blue cookies and Estelle pasta special, the burning sensation on his side came back with a vengeance but quickly dissipated. “You’re at the limit. You can technically take more but I’d rather save it just in case something else goes wrong.”

“Nothings wrong, I’m fiiine.” Percy drawled again.

“Percy’s fighting off Chimera venom.” Annabeth said as she slightly turned them to their left to look at the pale and sickly looking Kidcy. He looked dizzier than Percy felt, a feat unto itself, and his face was as pale as the horizon of the sky at midday.

“That’s bad.” Percy said, remembering the experience, though to be fair he was falling from a couple hundred feet when he was feeling it. “You once said that it was lethal without magical healing.” He was proud of himself for getting that much sentence out of himself, talking kinda hurt.

“I’m working on it, but that kind of healing needs a more potent water source. Also, stop talking, your lung is perforated.” Annabeth rounded a corner, and they were suddenly only a few blocks away from the Gateway Arch. ‘So much for avoiding it.’ Percy managed to think.

“Wait.” Percy said, ignoring Annabeth’s order, “Did I get shot?”

“Yes, Seaweed Brain, you got shot. Now stop talking, you’re only making it worse.” Annabeth looked actually worried, like a tear was welling up in her eye. Annabeth never cried in front of other people anymore.

“Gods, what a way to go. If I die from this, you have my full permission to curse me and sick Cerberus on me.” Percy said, still ignoring the thing he was told to do which would actually help him with the whole dying part.

“If you are anywhere other than Elysium waiting for me when you die, I will drag your ghost to our house and trap you in it.” Annabeth said, like she wouldn’t just go down to the Underworld and drag his dumb self back to the land of the living if he died. Silly Annabeth, forgetting how good she was when she set her mind to something.

Percy felt something shift in the air, it took him a second to recognize it which hinted at how delirious of a state he was in. “Hey,” he said, “there’s a river nearby.”

“I’m surprised you forgot; I thought you’d always remember this place.” Annabeth said again. Percy couldn’t hear the kids talking, despite how close they were. Percy registered that was being another thing which was probably pretty bad.

“I remember the arch.” Percy drawled. Annabeth must’ve given up on trying to stop him from talking. Percy wasn’t thinking that whatever a perforated was in his lung was that big of a deal so why stop talking to his favourite person?

“And what’s beside the arch?” Annabeth asked. Percy thought that there was a chance that she was just trying to keep him awake. Or at least, not in whatever state he was in when he missed them making the trek into the city. He also, finally, realized that he would’ve also missed how the Chimera managed to land a hit against kid him. That was bad, he thought that maybe it was a good idea to listen to Annabeth and stop talking.

“Dangerous chihuahuas?” Percy asked, deciding that talking to Annabeth was worth whatever was going on, she was just so pretty. She helped him feel like a kid whenever they were spending time together, as long as they were away from the important mission stuff. Percy wanted to be able to do that more.

“The Mississippi, Seaweed Brain. Biggest river in America.” Annabeth said. Percy would’ve sworn that he remembered falling into the Mississippi once, but memory was a difficult thing right now, honestly, he was beginning to feel like the only thing he remembered, again, was Annabeth. Though do doesn’t remember why remembering only Annabeth was something he was doing again.

He could feel the people around them grow in number; an uncoordinated chorus of thump-thumps rang around him as he stumbled down a set of steps. Just as they grew, they faded, until he could only feel the unsteady beats of the four people around him and the seemingly unending rush of thousands of liters of water meandering slowly before him.

Percy Jackson would like to, once again, extend some boyfriending knowledge to the hypothetical readers of this story. If your partner doesn’t have the guts to push your bleeding out butt into potentially dangerous river waters, twice, within a year, knowing full well that it will have no impact on your relationship other than a cool story somewhere down the line, they just ain’t it.

Percy’s mind began to clear as the muddy water washed the blood from his wound, his breath no longer brought sharp pain to his side, replaced by a dull ache which even the water couldn’t entirely remove. He thrashed a little when he realized that he was sinking, trying to stabilize himself and float, he’d need to get out of the water in a reasonable amount of time or else the kids might start to wonder how he was down there so long. Not that he had much incentive to stay, swimming in the polluted water of the Mississippi, right next to a city, was a recipe for a rough visit to the infirmary, even for the son of Poseidon.

Percy felt a splash above him and looked up to see Kidcy sinking down toward him. Even with the muddy brown water around him obscuring his vision, Percy could see that his younger self was pale. Percy swam up next to him and tried to compel the water toward healing the kid a little faster. It didn’t do much aside from make the water swirl around a little faster, but Percy was of the opinion that it was the thought that counted.

Having misjudged their depth, Percy lost sight Kidcy for a moment as the sediment picked up and a decent sized cloud formed around them as they hit the surf. Percy quickly caused the cloud to follow the direction of the river’s flow. When it dispersed, he found himself face-to-face with his younger self. Percy could see the kid look at him with a confused face and a slightly tilt of his head for a few moments before the kid realized where he was and started trying to swim.

Kidcy’s attempts to swim upward were cut short, however, by a bit of metal which had caught his foot. “Calm down. You’re okay, you’re okay.” Percy said as he placed his hands on the kid’s shoulders to stop him from getting himself stuck further into whatever had caught him or the loose sand of the riverbed.

The kid looked on in horror and Percy realized that the kid was holding his breath, probably had been since he fell into the river. “Breath, Percy. Just, breath.” Percy said, weird as it was to say, both in the context of the situation and because they shared a name.

The kid, to credit his survival instincts, didn’t listen and started to try to pull away the things which had caught his foot. “Kid, you’ll be fine, you need to breath.” Percy said as he tried to get the kid to calm down, but Kidcy wasn’t listening. Percy silently wondered if the kid was able to listen to him through his panic, usually helping someone get control of their breathing was the way Percy helped in situations like this. Kinda hard to do while you’re stuck underwater. Well, for anyone but them.

Finally, after a few seconds of abject horror passed over Kidcy’s face causing Percy to feel an intense amount of guilt, the kid’s body overrode whatever was stopping him from breathing in a last-ditch attempt at survival, and he breathed. The kid hefted a few underwater-audible breaths before turning to look at Percy with even more confusion.

“You’re okay Percy, just breath.” Percy said in as calm a voice as he could. The kid was red in the face and looked like he’d lost his mom in a grocery store. Percy felt a little sorry that he couldn’t relate, the first time he breathed underwater it was instinctual, he’d passed out and woke up breathing, only to realize that he was doing so a few moments later. This was after he started talking to magical ocean lady too, so it seemed as though Kidcy was going to have a much rougher memory about this than him.

Speaking of magical ocean ladies, Percy wondered where the Nereid was, he really hoped that she would show up because Percy did not want to have to figure out another way to get the kids of the Underworld. He would, obviously, but he could use the easy out, for once.

Before Percy could question anything else, Kidcy piped up from beside him, “How… how is this possible?”

“Your dad’s the God of the Sea, Percy. You and water go together like satyr’s and volleyball.” Percy said while giving the kid a smile, he was probably getting used to the whole, ‘there’s a camp full of kids with superpowers,’ thing, so Percy gave him a second.

“Wait, then how are you breathing underwater?” Kidcy asked.

Percy, to give his survival instincts some credit, thought about his answer for a second before deciding that if there was anywhere safe for him to explain things, it would be in his dad’s domain. “That would be because we have the same dad.”

Kidcy’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened into a massive O. Percy just gave him a small smile. “So, you’re like what? My brother?”

“Eh.” Percy said while moving his hand in a ‘sort-of’ gesture. “It’s a little bit more complicated than that.”

“How is it more complicated? You just said that we have the same dad!” Kidcy yelled.

Percy raised his arms, placatingly. “It’s just… hard to explain.”

“I feel like all that anyone has been doing, ever since I woke up in that stupid camp, has been explaining things to me. So, if you think that I wouldn’t understand it then you haven’t been paying attention, mister.” Kidcy argued with heat in his voice. His hand had gone to his pocket, where Riptide would be. Percy didn’t think that the kid would actually use it, but he’d just had a very hands-on lesson on just how scary he could get when he was angry.

Percy didn’t even really understand how being honest with the kid had gotten him this angry. Maybe it was just because of everything that happened today, or because of the kid’s obvious exhaustion but Percy knew he needed to calm Kidcy down. Quickly.

“I’m you!” Percy yelled, and the water which Percy hadn’t noticed had begun to swell around him came to a halt.

Percy wondered for a moment how he’d missed that it was happening, but his pause only gave Kidcy the chance to speak again. “What?”

“I’m you. My name is Percy Jackson, my mom is Sally Jackson, I grew up in New York City, my dad is Poseidon and I’ve been on this quest before.” Percy said quickly.

Kidcy didn’t respond, just stared at Percy with, what was to Percy, an unreadable expression. It was a little jarring to say the least, to look upon a younger version of himself and have no idea what was going on inside his own head.

“And so, the secret is finally revealed.” A feminine voice said from beside Percy’s head, causing him to water hop away several feet. Floating next to where Percy was just standing was the Nereid, she glowed a beautiful white/blue which shone like the sun underneath the water’s waves. The water around the nymph seemed to almost regain its natural colouring, further increasing the otherworldliness of her presence.

“What?” Kidcy asked, for the second time.

“Greeting, Percy Jackson.” The Nereid said as she bowed before Kidcy, “Percy Jackson.” Bowing towards Percy. Percy, having a few more wits about him at the moment, bowed back, in respect.

“Your father is glad that the two of you finally know of one another. It is so hard for him to stand back. To see you both struggle. It is so hard for us all. But he is happier now. And so very proud.” The Nereid said and to Percy it was a relief, his dad knew about him. How he knew, Percy didn’t really care, it just meant that he could finally be as kind to his younger self as he wanted to be.

“What?” Kidcy asked again and Percy could suppress himself from rolling his eyes.

He grabbed his younger self and gave him a hug. “I guess I am your brother, in a way.” Percy said. “Now that you know, it’ll be a lot easier to keep you safe.”

Kidcy, they were going to need better names if they were going to be more open about this, just kinda nodded and lamely hugged back. It was okay though; Percy knew they’d have a lot of chances to work on it.

“Your father sends a gift, to remember this occasion.” The Nereid said as she held out four, gods dammit they get four! small blue pearls.

“Thanks again, dad.” Percy said.

Chapter Text

“Start talking,” Kidabeth said shortly after the two sons of Poseidon submerged themselves in the Mississippi.

“Seriously, you want to do this now?” Annabeth asked as she stared down into the water, silently praying to her boyfriend’s father to heal his son. It was a desperate plea, but Poseidon had always tried to be closer to Percy than the other gods did. Having only one demigod child likely made that a little easier for him.

“We are being chased by the Mother of Monsters; I don’t want to die without learning what exactly is going on,” Kidabeth said. She was glancing down into the water as she spoke. So was Kidver. Poor kid was probably overwhelmed right now, it would explain his quiet demeanor and suddenly paled complexion.

“Look, its complicated,” Annabeth said as she continued to try to find a trace of her boyfriend and his younger counterpart through the murky waters.

“You called him Percy. You lied to us, again,” Kidabeth said with a layer of accusation so heavy it could’ve crushed a baseball. “We deserve answers.”

“Deserve?” Annabeth questioned as she looked up from the river for the first time since dumping Percy into it. She stood up, towering over the younger version of herself. “What exactly have you done to deserve answers?”

“We let you travel with us, on our quest. We didn’t call camp and tell them that two campers had run away. We helped you drag your boyfriend here,” Kidabeth said, unafraid of Annabeth’s threatening stare. “We would’ve been just fine if you weren’t here, but no, you just had to get yourself involved when we don’t need it!”

“You seriously think that?” Annabeth wouldn’t raise her voice to match her screaming younger self, she was the adult here, she needed to keep her emotions at least partially in check. “You’ve been able to sleep in beds, have a change of clothes every day, and you haven’t had to run and hide from cops behind dumpsters because you’ve been travelling with ‘older family members.’ We have done nothing but help you.”

Annabeth was close to yelling that last sentence, but she had miraculously kept herself in check. “Despite everything, there is one thing I can promise you Annabeth. No matter what, you were always going to end up here.”

Kidabeth didn’t seem to know what to do in the face of Annabeth’s words. Annabeth belatedly realized that she had likely brought up memories of her time on the streets, sleeping where she could while following Thalia and Luke.

“You don’t know that,” Kidabeth said in a small voice. Kidabeth looked like she was doing her best to fight until she couldn’t fight anymore. It was a good thing, for a demigod at least, but only when the fight was an actual fight instead of demanding something she couldn’t know. She wouldn’t be safe if she knew, right?

“Yes, I do,” Annabeth said before going back to looking at the water. She still couldn’t see anything. It was terrifying. Would the kids really be in so much danger if they knew? What crimes could Justice charge them with? They had nothing to do with whatever had happened.

“How? You said that you weren’t a god,” Kidabeth said. It was the way she said it that got to Annabeth, like she was holding back tears. Annabeth didn’t understand why. Was Kidabeth scared? That couldn’t be the case because Annabeth knew what she could handle. This wasn’t a spider trying to bite her, this wasn’t a fall from a great height, and this definitely wasn’t a betrayal. Unless the little girl knew how close she’d become with Percy, how she would never be able to leave his side.

Had one encounter with the Furies and Medusa been all it took?

If it was because of how she felt, then she would be thinking that she was looking at herself. She would be looking at herself, seeing how she didn’t even trust herself, and realizing that she was somehow afraid of herself.

“I’m you,” Annabeth finally said in a voice smaller than the one the kid version of herself had used to state that she didn’t know that they’d always end up here. It really was true, no matter what happened, they were always going to end up at this moment, when the truth came crashing down with a weight heavier than the sky. “Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena.”

Kidabeth just shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes, conveying all the emotions Annabeth had guessed she was feeling. “How?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” Annabeth said. Because she really didn’t, and she hadn’t had time to try to figure it out yet.

“Why? Why not just tell us?” Kidabeth asked. Annabeth noticed that Kidver had taken a few steps away from them once Annabeth had revealed herself.

“You think the gods wouldn’t just kill him? Once they learned who he was. Once they saw that he’d survived past sixteen? Do you honestly think that his uncle would ask if he preserved or if he razed?” Annabeth asked, finally voicing the reason for her deception aloud, and to her younger self to boot. It lifted a small measure of the weight upon her shoulders. She felt like a monster for it.

Kidabeth’s eyes widened at the words repeated from the prophecy. Annabeth noticed that a weight had lifted off her shoulders as well. She did just learn that maybe, she wasn’t so closely attached to someone who was doomed to die so young. “Did he? Preserve it, I mean,” she asked.

Annabeth shook her head, memories of the Olympian throne room came to mind, the bright flash, the apology. Suddenly she was crying too. “It was never his choice to make,” was all she could say.

Whatever was going to be said next was interrupted by a thunderous BOOM.

The trio of heroes shot up, Annabeth wiped the tears from her eyes and turned toward the source of the sound. The ground roiled beneath them, signaling that whatever was coming after them was huge.

Annabeth was getting ready to fight, she was feeling her adrenaline begin to spike as everything around her started to come into more focus, when Kidver’s voice entered her ears. “Its good to finally meet you, Annabeth.”

Annabeth couldn’t help the honest smile which climbed its way onto her face. She’d really missed Grover since they’d gone to university, it was nostalgic to have him back this way. “You too Grover.” Another BOOM emanated from somewhere in front of them. However, there was a building between its source and the trio.

“Do you know what’s coming?” Kidabeth asked as she drew her xiphos from its sheath.

“No. We only had to deal with the Chimera,” Annabeth said in response, drawing her own blade.

“Well, whatever it is, it smells big,” Kidver said with a grin as he stood behind the daughters of Athena.

“You think?” Kidabeth asked with the same tone of voice one would react to a lame pun with.

“What? The Percys aren’t here, so someone had to be sarcastic,” Kidver said with a knowing smile.

His plan worked. Already Annabeth could tell that she wasn’t thinking about the emotional encounter she’d just had with her younger self anymore, and neither was said younger self. Annabeth let herself smile, a small smile mind you, Kidver’s words weren’t even a joke really, just dumb, but quickly allowed her focus to recenter to the oncoming storm.

The next BOOM which resonated through the air gave the trio their first sight of a part of the incoming monster. It was a claw, roughly the size of the metal roof it had landed on. The trio were far enough away from the source that they couldn’t hear the screech which emanated as the claw racked its way through the, thankfully empty, old church. They could hear mortals screaming and running away. Anyone close to the park had turned tail and run, the Mist would likely cover this up as a gas leak.

A second claw made its way to the top of the dome roof and crumpled the marble of its supporting pillars beneath its weight. Chunks of stone and dust tumbled downward and broke into the ground around a figure which walked toward them in a stance like a pouncing cat.

“You killed my baby!” Echidna yelled. She’d apparently been wearing mascara, as the makeup streamed down her face. “You will die for that! Colchian, kill them!”

“Oh no,” Annabeth breathed out as the body of the two claws finally rose above the building. It was easily two-hundred feet long, its black scales gleamed in the midday sun while its eyes bore into Annabeth in a way which reminded her of her earlier encounter with Dionysus.

“I thought that the Colchian Dragon guarded the golden fleece!” Kidver said.

“Jason stole the fleece, remember. Its on A Place… A Place… stupid curse,” Annabeth said as she tried to explain how this monster was here, already forgetting her and Percy’s second adventure. Though that was not an accurate assessment, it was more like she had more important things to worry about right now. A two-hundred foot long, probably unkillable dragon being the third on that list.

“Again, with the fake names?” Kidabeth asked.

Annabeth couldn’t tell if she was being serious, but decided to answer seriously just in case, embarrassment was better than an argument. “No, the original Jason. The Argonaut.”

“Okay…” Kidver said, paying attention to the situation at hand. “How did Jason beat the Colchian Dragon?”

“He didn’t, Medea put the dragon to sleep with a spell, and Jason stole the fleece and ran away,” Annabeth answered, trying to remember if she knew anything else about the story.

“Okay, so we have to put it to sleep. We can do that,” Kidabeth said. “How do we put it to sleep?”

“Grover, do you know any nature magic that can put something that big to sleep?” Annabeth asked.

“Only searchers would know that kind of nature magic, protectors usually focus on binding spells and stuff. Gotta let the demigod get the glory, you know?” Kidver answered.

“Okay, we’ll unpack that later.” Annabeth racked her mind. The dragon had started to descend the building now, its two front claws thudded into the grass before it as the other four limbs maneuvered their way down the columns and ledges of the building, crushing everything in its path.

“Grover, the shoes!” Kidabeth yelled suddenly. Annabeth’s experience with them didn’t mean that they couldn’t use them now.

“That’s a great idea Annabeth! Throw me the shoes, I’ll fly up and distract it while you try to get our Percys up and at ‘em. If anyone has the power to stop this thing on their own, its them,” Annabeth said.

Kidver threw the entire shoebox he’d been carrying in Annabeth’s direction. She threw the lid off and watched as the laces of the shoes started to flap together into a more wing-like shape. She pulled them out of the box, fighting against the shoe’s flapping, before throwing off her own shoes.

“Thank gods for magical resizing,” Annabeth mumbled. “Stupid Luke and his stupidly long feet.”

By the time Annabeth had the shoes on, the dragon had walked its way halfway across the massive lawn which stood behind the Gateway Arch. “Maia!”

Annabeth felt herself become unbalanced and was met with the impossible sensation of both falling and flying. She felt like she was back there, falling with a boy who’d die for her down an impossible depth. Alecto was right, nothing mortal escaped The Pit. Now she was back, and she had no idea what to do other than fall.

“-abeth! Annabeth! The shoes respond to your thoughts, you have to be specific about what you want them to do!” It was odd, her mind tried to justify the existence of Grover falling with them. That brough her mind back to the logical point of there being no Percy in her arms, she couldn’t be falling if Percy wasn’t there.

Suddenly she was met with the face of a massive dragon and Annabeth yelped in surprise as she willed the shoes to dodge her to the side. She felt a rush of adrenaline as the gargantuan maw snapped in front of her, and Annabeth was confronted with a single, beading yellow eye which looked straight at her out of the side of the dragon’s face. It was staring at her like she had kicked its puppy.

Technically she’d beheaded its little brother, so she supposed that the reaction was reasonable.

Annabeth swung her body through the air and back in the direction of the dragon. She requested the shoes to burst her forward, in the direction of the leering eye. The sword passed through the hardened scales of the dragon’s eyelid with a nauseating squelch, and the dragon reared back in a massive ROAR.

Annabeth suddenly experienced the sensation of falling sideways as she held strong to her sword. It was still embedded in the dragon’s eye, as the massive beast reeled itself back in pain. Her body was then thrown in directions, Annabeth couldn’t tell which ones, and she poured her entire focus onto not loosing her grip on her sword.

Eventually, the dragon grew smart and brought one of its claws up to bat away what was the equivalent of a toothpick in the eye to it. Annabeth planted her feet against the dragon and pulled away just in time to dodge the incoming appendage.

She tried to reorient herself for another attack, but the dragon’s eye was open a second after she’d removed the sword and stared back at her uninjured. Annabeth tried to understand how that was possible, and it was in that moment that another of the dragon’s claws batted her out of the sky.

Percy and Kidcy climbed up the ladder at the end of the wooden dock nearest to where he’d pulled kid-him’s foot out from under a bit of rebar. Percy was dry, Kidcy wasn’t, so Percy thought that this could be the time for a lesson.

“Okay, I want you to imagine yourself dry,” Percy said as he took a knee.

“How?” Kidcy asked. He was staring at Percy with an expression that he didn’t recognize, he’d have to ask Annabeth what it meant later.

“I don’t know, its mostly instinctual. Just try it.”

Kidcy closed his eyes, and the water fell off him like it did a glass window after being wiped away with wiper blades. When Kidcy opened his eyes, he brought his hands up and inspected them. He looked almost excited to have this power. “It was almost like–”

“–something was tugging on your (my) gut. Exactly,” Percy finished.

“Wow,” Kidcy said in a whispered voice. “Can you teach me other stuff?”

“Of cours–” Percy’s words were cut off by the sound of a massive ROAR somewhere in the distance. A second later, both Percy’s had their swords drawn as they jogged their way up the dock and onto the lawn. On the other side of the Gateway Arch was a massive black dragon, and it had just hit the flying figure of Percy’s Annabeth out of the sky.

“Wanna learn something?” Percy asked Kidcy, who nodded in return. “Then learn why no one should fight you near water.”

Percy felt the tug in his gut again and reached an arm out behind him. The water of the Mississippi swirled in a small whirlpool before shooting up and out of the river and underneath his legs, propelling him upward like a hoverboard. Then Percy pulled harder, and the water level of the river dropped as Percy pulled a massive wave behind him. As he flew, the wave knocked into the Gateway Arch, cracking the monument under its weight and Percy instructed the water to begin pulling the chunks of debris with it as it uncaringly made its way toward the beast who’d hurt Annabeth.

He willed the water to protect Annabeth and the kids as he rose higher above the dragon, who’d turned is scaly attention completely onto Percy. He screamed and threw his hand forward as thousands of pounds of water and debris crashed into the beast at the same time as Percy stabbed Riptide into the dragon’s hide. Percy felt scales and flesh give way as he rode the dragon down to the ground much like pirates do with sails in movies.

When Percy’s feet hit the ground, he immediately directed all the river water back into the riverbank. The small flood he caused with his actions receded as funnels of water brought mortals safely to the ground, all of whom looked to be in the dazed state the mortals had been back at the gas station when Alecto had attacked it.

Cameras experienced a minor glitch, cell phones suddenly stopped recording, and footage was deleted from servers across the world. The only evidence of what had happened during Percy’s attack was the now half destroyed national monument, once known as the Gateway Arch.

‘Oops,’ Percy thought. He didn’t care for long, Annabeth would probably have some feelings about it akin to, ‘thank you for saving me but destroying buildings is bad.’ However, Percy only really cared about running up to her side and making sure she was okay right now.

“Annabeth!” He screamed as he slid next to her prone form. She groaned in response, which Percy decided to take as a good sign as he quickly started to pull a cube of ambrosia from one of his zipped pockets and tried to get her to wake up enough to eat it.

She did and started chewing without question. The large cut on her leg started healing quickly, though it would likely leave yet another scar on her once it was done. It ran down most of her calf. The source of the blood on her forehead would seal too, as would the dozens of small scrapes she’d gotten from tanking a dragon’s slap and resulting tumble.

Percy’s attention moved away from Annabeth once she started to look better, once her eyes focused and she stared at the scene around her. Where there had once been a dragon, there was now a pile of rubble. One that would likely grow smaller once the dragon’s body finished turning into dust. The kids were all looking at Percy with a mix of fear and respect, like all the other kids at camp did.

The mortals were all running away, the ones Percy had unconsciously saved walked calmly away from the scene and toward the nearby parking lot which contained a bus that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The bus was labeled with the Visit Missouri logo on it, once the mortals had either entered the bus or gotten into a line to enter it, they started screaming at the half-destroyed monument. Percy could’ve sworn he heard someone say, “we were just there.”

Everything was okay, maybe the kids would be a little scared of what Percy could do, but who wasn’t? He supposed that his mom, Paul, Estelle, Annabeth, and his dad didn’t, but he’d have time to show that the power he controlled was not who he was. In fact, the startling display had left Percy winded, he’d need so many snacks soon. Or a nap, that sounded pretty nice right about now.

Then the rubble moved.

Chapter Text

The earth rumbled as the large pile of concrete, rebar, and glass that covered what should have been the dustified corpse of a giant, black scaled dragon moved. Annabeth, bleeding and dizzy, felt like she was back in Daedalus’ maze once more. Overwhelming power was their cheat code. Since arriving in the past, she’d not been concerned about the monsters they fought, brushing them off in comparison to the other monsters they had faced, the other gods.

Now, collapsed under the weight of a good portion of the Gateway Arch, there was proof that no matter how strong Percy was, how good her plans were, they were always a step away from Thanatos’ arms.

Exposure to the Golden Fleece had done something to this dragon, what it was exactly wasn’t important, what was important was the outcome. It would be as if they were fighting Antaeus in the Labyrinth, except there was no source of his healing that Annabeth could see, it was just a fact of the dragon’s existence. The monster had been beaten once before, but only barely, put to sleep by one of the most powerful sorceresses ever. Not something in their current tool kit.

Annabeth tried to pull her now loopy boyfriend – if such a small word could describe what they were to each other anymore – away from the now dust cloud creating pile of building. However, her earlier injuries meant that she was going slowly, too slowly. She was facing pressure from too many angles, fight the dragon, keep the kids safe, help Percy, survive… it was too much. Annabeth couldn’t see a way out. There likely wasn’t one, except, maybe, a miracle.

‘Lord Dionysus, please, help us,’ she prayed. She had no offering, if he helped them, they would be in his debt. Annabeth was not so foolish to think that the bill would be small, but anything was better than death.

The dust cloud rose, pushed by the force of the massive creature beneath but still obscuring its form. Annabeth didn’t know whether to be glad that she was saved from the sight of what was likely repairing flesh and person-sized snapping bones or dishonored that she would not get to look her potential murderer in the proverbial face before she met her end.

There was a moment, a second of time where everyone waited for what happened next. Annabeth didn’t bother to look at anyone else. To her the kids… right now they didn’t matter. Right now, she looked down at the rapidly blinking eyes of Percy Jackson and saw one of the tears she hadn’t known she was making fall onto his cheek. She looked at his hair, his nose, his everything. She drank him in, begging to all that whatever grace she’d earned through her lifetime of sacrifice meant that this sight would be her last.

Then the cloud of dust burst open, and an ostensibly immortal dragon that was the size of a building, flew toward her with its maw ready to clamp down around her. This was the end, and she’d apparently earned her final wish.

Grover had been planning to do something… dangerous. He’d been inspired by a movie, a sort-of adaptation of a book which argued some points that Grover really agreed with and was planning to bring together some spirits to take action. He’d wondered, when he’d read the book, if he could meet the person who wrote it. He knew that they’d probably have a lot to talk about.

Though, technically, the most important part of that sentence, at least to the reality Grover suddenly found himself in, was the fact that he had been planning to do something. Right now though, he was wondering where on Earth he was.

If he had to describe the space it would be a sea of stars. Clouds of various colours lit up the sky around him in a partitioned half-sphere. Each cloud contained a cluster of stars, or perhaps provided a window to view them, and each were uniquely beautiful.

The space itself though, it started to grip into him with the feeling of being trapped inside a snow globe, a feeling that Grover understood because of adventures from before his time with Percy that he would not be elaborating on.

In total, there were twelve cloud groups which dotted the sky. Each pervading a sense of weight that Grover typically felt whenever he was in the presence of the gods. However, each of these auras were muted, only noticeable due to how each presence overlapped the other. Like how wearing one shirt isn’t noticeable, but wearing twelve shirts would be.

“Um… hello?” Grover called to the aether, but it seemed that nothing was interested in responded. Several more moments passed, moments that started to feel like minutes, then hours, then years. Then something happened.

It started with a small group of clouds whose stars started to shine and dim, each in the same way, but none in the same way as the others. It was as if the flashing lights were the star’s, or cloud’s, attempt to communicate, but Grover, for all the languages he understood, could make no sense of it.

Then, the other clouds of stars started flashing as well, and the liminal space he’d found himself inside became hostile. It became hard for Grover to open his eyes, there were too many stars, too close, too far, undulating too often, and with too much or too little intensity. Grover closed his eyes, trying to save himself from the visual onslaught, but it did nothing to combat the pressure. The stars still flashed behind his eyes, the clouds still coloured his vision.

He tried looking at the ground, but the space quickly flipped on its head as he did, and suddenly he somehow knew that he was looking up instead of down. There was light, and colour, and it hurt. He screamed, he begged for it to stop, he tried to cover his eyes with his hands. Nothing helped.

Grover’s head felt like it was being squished and expanded simultaneously, his body felt too big and too small. His entire existence was slowly starting to make less and less sense…

Then it stopped. The stars, the clouds, the sound… Grover, addled and in more pain than he thought possible, wondered when the sound had started, before realizing that it had been the sound of his own scream.

Everything had stopped, and suddenly he was in a blank space. For the first time, Grover understood what mortals meant when they said that they expected death to be nothingness. It was impossible to describe beyond that single word, nothing, yet Grover was seeing it.

Then a voice, if it could be called that considering the size of it, spoke. “Your friends need you. Forget this and help them. I will die if you do not.”

Grover, in the middle of the nothingness, watched as everything snapped its fingers, and something returned.

To Percy, it felt like it was raining. Now Percy, quite smartly if he could say so himself, was one to avoid storms. It would be all to easy for a certain uncle to let a lightning bolt stray just a few hundred feet to the left and put an end to his endearing nephew. Still, Percy did technically have a big advantage if he was fighting in the rain, an advantage that could only be compared to if he was fighting in the ocean. Or a river, or a lake, or somewhere with internal plumbing… you get the point.

Still, the water helped massively as the exhaustion drained from his body like water into the previously stated internal plumbing. His vision shifted from blurred to focused as the form of a dragon reeled from being struck with a two-person tall water fist. The apparent cause of the sudden rainfall Percy, and apparently Annabeth who was behind him holding him by the armpits, were experiencing.

Percy braced himself against the ground and pushed himself upward. It was an extremely awkward way to stand, a way which only succeeded thanks to Annabeth giving him a helping shove from behind. Then he pulled the water which rained down from the exploding water fist and coalesced it into a second strike. It was slightly smaller, one point eight people tall instead of two, but it caused the massive dragon that Percy was almost certain he’d crushed beneath a building to stagger.

Percy reached out a hand and helped Annabeth stand. Adrenaline rushed into his system, and he prepared to run. Before he could move, he sneaked one glance at Annabeth and saw her staring somewhere off in the distance, pride and awe clearly etched into her face.

Percy followed her gaze and found himself, well his younger self, looking down at his fist with a mix of giddiness and surprise. ‘Nice job me,’ Percy thought before he saw the trees to Kidcy’s right start to topple.

The dragon was moving fast, faster than Percy had seen something that big move before, and it was heading right for the kid. He heard the Annabeths of their group shout in warning, he saw Kidcy recognize that he was suddenly in danger, and Percy saw his younger self freeze in the face of death. Percy reached out a hand, felt the thing, the roughly sixty percent of Kidcy’s body that he could move, and he pulled.

The kid flew toward Percy faster than he thought the kid would, forcing Percy to catch him and tumble backwards to absorb some of the impact. Annabeth took off into the air, propelled by a pair of flying shoes that Percy needed to remember to toss into something before it was too late. Kidcy looked up at Percy in thanks, in admiration.

Percy, on the other hand, felt like a monster.

The dragon missed Kidcy by a hair as Percy pulled the kid toward himself and Annabeth did not have time to think about that as she took off with a shout and started to taunt the dragon. She needed more time; she needed to think of something, but she couldn’t do that while also planning how to save everyone at any given moment. She probably couldn’t do that while also trying to save her own bacon but that was a problem for two seconds from now her.

The dragon couldn’t fly, so she flew just high enough that it could reach her if it jumped. Dashing side-to-side when she could, baiting it into knowing that it could reach her, but having to go upward more times than she liked due to the monster’s sheer speed.

Kidver was screaming at her and waving his hands above his head. Annabeth spared a moment to look at him and saw him point toward where Kidabeth was. She was holding a dust covered spear and looked ready to throw it.

Annabeth understood the plan almost instantly, she flew down a few feet to once more be in the range of the dragon’s jumping attack. If she was in between Kidabeth and the dragon, it was purely for cinematic reasons. When the dragon jumped to attack her, she flew out of the way, allowing the dragon a few moments of view as Kidabeth threw the spear with expert ease directly into the dragon’s eye.

The beast roared and sputtered as the spear flew through its eye with a meaty chunk, all but and hands-width disappeared into its skull. It swayed for a moment, and Annabeth felt elation that the spear could actually kill it.

Then she heard whispers pervade the air, like she was in the middle of a room where everyone was speaking but she couldn’t pick up on a single conversation. Then she watched as the dragon reached the highest of its six hand-like appendages up and pulled the spear out of its eye before snapping the thing like a twig.

Annabeth watched for a few moments. The Gateway Arch, according to Kidabeth, was a monument to Athena. A building built on math. She’d figured that if there was a weapon that could damage the Colchian Dragon on hand, it would’ve been beneath the rubble. She’d trusted Kidabeth to find it. In fact, she was almost certain that she did find it. So why didn’t it work?

Grover had been planning to do something… dangerous. He’d been inspired by a movie, a sort-of adaptation of a book which argued some points that Grover really agreed with and was planning to bring together some spirits to take action. He’d wondered, when he’d read the book, if he could meet the person who wrote it. He knew that they’d probably have a lot to talk about.

Though, technically, the most important part of that sentence, at least to the reality Grover suddenly found himself in, was the fact that he had been planning to do something. Right now though, he was wondering where on Earth he was.

See, yesterday he’d fallen asleep in a desert, but right now he’d just woken up on grass. There was a small tuft of it in his mouth from where he’d been sleep chewing, which he quickly swallowed as a quick ‘morning-after-waking-up-where-he-didn’t-fall-asleep-breakfast’ and looked around.

There were squirrels panicking about their winter hoards, birds crying about their nests, and fish screaming about a drop in the water level all around him. If the powers of the Lord of the Wild wanted to grant him a quick teleport to a natural disaster site, Grover was not going to complain.

He rushed toward where he heard something huge crumble and was met with the site of the former Gateway Arch. Annabeth was flying around with winged shoes, screaming at a giant black dragon, and Percy was holding a young, Powerful – capital P – demigod in his arms as he rushed toward another powerful demigod and their satyr protector. So this wasn’t a natural disaster, but Percy and Annabeth going all out probably counted as one, so six one way, half a dozen another.

Grover quickly pulled his pipes from his pocket and got to work. Big, dark, and scaly needed to be stopped before he could give flying Annabeth a smack down. So, Grover pulled from the nature around him in the park and grabbed the beast with several overgrown roots. The dragon tried to jump but was forced back to the ground as the roots pulled against it.

Grover, seeing that holding the big guy down would work for a few seconds, ran toward Percy. A Percy Jackson with two free hands was far, far better than one with his hands full, especially when fighting a monster. The sound of his hooves must’ve finally reached Percy’s ears over the gargantuan roars of the root twined dragon, because he finally turned to look at Grover.

“G-Man?” Percy questioned.

“Hey Perce,” Grover said as he took the demigod in his arms into his own. “Whose amphibian got out of their enclosure?”

“You’re here,” Percy said. Grover noted the odd tone, the confusion and happiness that their bond radiated. The confusion was manageable, it was similar to whenever Percy was doing math homework, but the happiness was overwhelming. Like being stuck in the center of a group hug where everyone was twice your size and squeezing.

“Grover!” A voice shouted from above before he could question what was going on anymore. “Sleep! You need to put it to sleep!”

It was Annabeth, flying above and stabbing the giant scaly guy like she was in a superhero movie. Grover was, if anything, a good listener. So he gently placed the kid – who looked a lot like a blond version of Percy (Grover had a moment to panic that he’d somehow missed Annabeth having a kid and at least a dozen years of said kid’s life) – onto the ground and pulled out his flute once more.

“Hope he likes lullabies,” Grover mumbled before he began to play his rendition of ‘Rock-a-by Baby.’ The dragon turned to look at Grover almost instantly, grinding into the dirt as it broke through the no longer magical roots which held him down and slowly trawled its way across the open field between them. The dragon’s eyes were locked onto Grover like he was a well-cooked zucchini, yet Grover could feel the magic slowly taking shape in the dragon’s mind.

“Uhh… Grover,” Percy said with a trusting level of terror in his voice.

The lullaby continued though, leaving Grover unable to respond. Eventually, the kid – who might be Annabeth and Percy’s kid, how did Grover miss that? – got up and started to slowly back away from the menacing beast. Then, as if strings had been cut, the dragon flopped into the ground with a thundering BOOM, followed by the worlds loudest snore.

With panting breaths, Annabeth led the group away from the destroyed national monument, and sleeping invincible dragon, and toward… a place she would figure out eventually. The shoes on her feet seemed to almost flap with each step, making it easier than it had ever been to run. It was a shame that she was planning on destroying them.

Grover, the member of the Council of Elders, blessed by Pan, was running with them. It was another thing that Annabeth planned to deal with later. Right now, she was just trying to get away. The last time that Percy blew up a small section of the Gateway Arch… compared to that, destroying the building with a wave of water was not comparable.

“We need–” Kidabeth said as she held up a hand for them to stop in front of a convenience store built into the side of a building, “to take a break.”

“‘Beth,” Grover said. “She’s right. I can’t hear any sirens anymore, and Mr. Big Black and Snorey is not going to get up for a while.”

Percy was silent then. Annabeth was surprised though, normally it was him leading these kinds of escapes. He did, however, take a step forward to stand behind her before laying a soft hand on her shoulder.

Annabeth raised her own hand to Percy’s and touched his hand softly, he dropped his hand to his side and its lack of presence allowed for all the aches and pains her body was experiencing to blossom. The pain in her leg felt like fire, but she hissed her way through it. “We need to find somewhere safe,” she said.

“I can do that,” Grover said before turning to look at his younger self. “Wanna help kid?”

Kidver’s face was one of awe. Here before him, he must’ve realized, was someone he could be. Never mind the obvious differences, this was a full-grown satyr, one with a full set of horns, an air of power, and a layer of charm. It was proof that Kidver’s goals, his dreams, could be real. In some world or time, they were real.

“Y-yeah,” Kidver said after shaking his head. “Let’s go!”

Grover smiled at the kid before turning to Annabeth and Percy and holding out a wallet shaped object that looked to be made of juniper leaves. “Could you grab me a snack? I’m starved and I haven’t had a can in forever.”

Percy reached around Annabeth’s shoulder and grabbed the wallet. He opened it and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill before handing it back. “We’ll grab something,” Percy said while pointing to the convenience store behind them.

The four of them stepped inside, there looked to be a small section of fresh fruit in a fridge near the back of the store which Percy immediately beelined to. Kidcy followed him after a second but before Kidabeth could also follow, Annabeth tapped her on the shoulder.

“We’ll talk more,” Annabeth said. “Once we’re safe.”

Kidabeth nodded grimly and looked away. The reaction surprised Annabeth, it was one she was familiar with, it was something she used to do when a plan of hers didn’t work. These kinds of things used to hit her harder, especially if they escaped without her being able to come up with a better plan.

“It was a good plan,” Annabeth decided to say. Perhaps, to anyone other than Kidabeth (or maybe Percy), the comment would’ve looked to come out of the blue. Right now, however, Annabeth saw that it hit close to home for Kidabeth as she turned to look away. “I thought that it was going to work.”

“I should’ve realized that it wouldn’t. As soon as I picked up that spear –” Kidabeth whispered.

“Why? Because the magic spear in a monument to the gods didn’t give you the magical ability to sink it two feet into a twenty-foot-tall dragon?” Annabeth asked.

That had apparently been the wrong thing to say because Kidabeth turned even further away. She was now looking away from Annabeth completely, looking to Percy and Kidcy as they debated over which of the two blue drinks they should get.

“She told me,” Kidabeth said in a whisper that Annabeth almost couldn’t hear. “She said that I had disrespected her, that I was impertinent. That’s why the spear didn’t work, why the dragon was able to get so close to her temple. She let it in, let it almost kill us.”

Kidabeth’s voice was strained as she fought to say those last few words. Annabeth grimaced as she closed her eyes and looked away. ‘Let downs and build ups, that’s how Athena works.’

Annabeth got down on one knee and pulled Kidabeth to look at her. The kid wasn’t crying despite saying that her mom was willing to let her die because she upset her. Kids shouldn’t have to be strong like that though, so she pulled her younger self into a hug.

That brought the tears out, they were subdued but present, and Kidabeth clinged to Annabeth like she was a rock.

“You flew in,” Kidabeth said through her sobs. “You weren’t scared, you didn’t hesitate. You just jumped in and fought a dragon! How do I do that? How weren’t you afraid?”

“I was,” Annabeth whispered back. “I was terrified, but there was nothing else to do. I had to act, so I did.”

“Is that who we become?” Kidabeth asked as she pulled herself out of the hug, tears staining her cheeks. “Just someone who acts on animal instinct whenever I’m in danger? There’s the monster, time to fight?”

Annabeth looked away, for all the times she saw herself from seven years ago in the girl, this reminded her that Kidabeth also knew her almost as well as anyone else. “Its not, but sometimes its who we need to be.”

Kidabeth took a step back, “I don’t want that. I want to be a hero! Someone Mom can be proud of! Someone worthy of her name!”

Annabeth didn’t dare move closer as she looked down at the child. “But that is not all I am. I’m also someone who’s grown to love blue food, who is going to be the greatest architect in the world. I’m someone who was hurt, who never got to be a kid. And in spite of that, I am someone who is proud of herself.”

Kidabeth’s face became sympathetic as she looked away. “Do we ever get back to what it was like before Dad got married?”

“When we were kids? Sometimes, but feelings like that are fleeting things that we can only enjoy every once and a while,” Annabeth said with a slight smile on her face. “Isn’t that amazing? In spite of everything, there are still moments where we get to just laugh like we’re kids?”

Annabeth felt small tears begin to build as she remembered all those moments, the little snippets of time where she, who has felt the true weight of the world on her shoulders, felt it all leave her. The moments where she just smiled and laughed and danced and lived. In a way, she supposed, that was part of why she did all of this. If she didn’t, if she hid in her cabin back at camp and stayed there, day-in day-out, she’d never open herself up to the chance to be in those kinds of moments.

Kidabeth’s eyes picked up similar tears as she nodded acutely. Annabeth shambled forward and pulled the girl into her arms and whispered, “I’m proud of you,” into her ear.

Annabeth led the group away from the convenience store and around the corner as per Grover’s directions. The street sign was too jumbled for her to get the chance to read, but she trusted Grover’s ability to navigate them.

They walked a few more blocks before Grover pointed to building on the other side of the road from them. “We should be safe there,” he said. “I think.”

Annabeth silently thanked Grover and his wonderful sense of smell as she led everyone, battered and tired, toward the classic looking diner. It’s most standout feature was ‘pink.’ The roof was lined with a semi-circular overhang made of pink plastic, the doors and windows were lined with pink panels, and the sign hanging above the door was pink.

In English, it read, ‘Dawn’s Diner.’

Chapter Text

The diner really was pink. The seats, the floors, the ceiling. There was even a small pink statue of a set of four horses pulling a chariot on a shelf in the far corner. Percy followed his older self into the diner, and all but threw himself into the pink booth seat, dead on his feat. Ever since he pulled all that water together, he’d felt like his body weighed a thousand pounds. He’d been trying to copy Oldcy, (his new name for his older counterpart, Percy had to distinguish himself somehow), but he didn’t think it would come with such severe side effects.

There was a few minutes of awkward sitting. Percy across from his counterpart, Annabeth from hers, and Grover across from his. Percy had placed his hands on the pink table and was twiddling his thumbs over one another, waiting for someone to say something.

Oldcy and Oldabeth were looking at one another with questioning faces. Oldcy was shrugging his shoulders a lot and Oldabeth was shaking her head side to side every few seconds. Percy turned to look at Annabeth who look toward him in turn. He cocked his head to the side, and she shrugged back at him. She didn’t know what was going on either.

“Are they always like this?” Grover asked.

“It gets worse as they get older,” Oldver responded as he grabbed the can that used to hold Oldcy’s soda. “Eventually they start making plans with nothing but looks. Which leaves the rest of us scrambling to catch up.” Oldver’s tone was chiding as he took a bite out of the soda can with a loud crunch.

“It also… leaves the bad guys scrambling to catch up with us?” Oldcy seemed to ask Oldabeth.

“We’re working on it,” Oldabeth said simply.

“Like how you’re working on telling us what’s going on?” Annabeth questioned with a glare that Percy had only ever seen when his mom found out that Gabe didn’t think blue food was real.

Oldcy and Oldabeth looked toward Oldver, who shrugged his shoulders. “I went to sleep in my prep… I mean… I fell asleep and then woke up in the tree and came running. I thought that it was a natural disaster or something.”

Oldabeth nodded once before turning back to look at Annabeth. “The same thing happened to us,” she pointed at herself and Oldcy. “Only we woke up in front of Half-Blood Hill just before Percy was claimed.”

“And you wanted to help us get through our quest,” Grover commented.

“I made a plan, it involves us going west,” Oldabeth said. “We weren’t planning on coming with you until we talked with Percy…”

Oldabeth trailed off, but Percy still picked up that, initially at least, they were going to leave them alone. They were going to do exactly what Annabeth had wanted them to do. Percy didn’t think she wanted that anymore, but there was a part of him that felt… He didn’t know. Perhaps it was hurt, but really, he was scared that it was betrayed. He’d listened to what Oldabeth and Oldcy had said, about how he had to learn, not because he was expected to be a hero but because he would have to fight to stay alive.

Maybe they wanted him to learn because they also thought that he was important. It was pretty obvious from how Oldcy had talked about himself that his ego around his ability to fight was a lot bigger than Percy’s. That was probably because he had done some awesome things, killed some legendary monsters.

Well, more than Percy already had.

Luke had said that they’d be unlucky if they fought anything that Percy could identify. He’d fought a Fury before he even got to camp, and two more since starting the quest, and Medusa. He didn’t know about the dragon, but it still was not going great by Luke’s metric.

“So we followed you, you remember everything that happened after that,” Oldcy said. Either Oldcy had taken a very long time to speak, or Percy had managed to think about a lot, very quickly. Was faster thinking a demigod power?

“So what happens next?” Grover asked his older self. “You’ve pretty obviously done this before, so what did you do next?”

“Oh that’s simple, next we went to a diner,” Oldver said while raising his hands up to be aligned with his shoulders, palms up, elbows bent near his ribcage. “Then we did a thing. Did a thing? Why can’t I say did a thing?”

“We’re cursed,” Oldabeth said quickly. “The only person I’ve managed to inform about the future was Mr. D. But he did it by reading my thoughts, so I don’t know if that counts.”

“Oh I can see why Lady Aphrodite likes you so much darlin’,” a voice in a St. Louis accent said. The voice came from a woman in a typical diner waitress uniform of jeans, t-shirt, and apron, each in a subtle but complimentary shade of pink.

It was as the waitress lent down to place the many plates of food, the ones they had most definitely not ordered, that he noticed the pair of angelic wings which sprouted from the woman’s back. The colour of which seemed to shift through a gamut of reds, oranges, yellows, and, of course, pinks. A connection formed in Percy’s mind akin to ‘definitely not mortal then,’ before his entire focus was on the smell of the food. It was divine, as if it were the sweetest of ambrosia.

As the waitress drew her hands away, Percy saw that her hands didn’t match the rest of her body. They weren’t made of anything different than the rest of her, they were just a bright shade of red that stood a few hues away from pink before fading back into her darker skin tone as the colour met her wrists. As the waitress rose, Percy saw a singular four-pointed star on her forehead.

“Now eat up y’all, everyone should start their day with a filling breakfast,” the angel waitress said as she collapsed her tray stand and stood waiting for everyone to eat. Percy looked down at the food on the table and could do nothing but be drawn in. The pancakes looked straight out of a TV commercial, the eggs had been perfectly scrambled, and the bacon looked like it was the perfect level of crispy.

As he reached to grab his fork, it pays to be polite after all, a hand shot out to grab his wrist. Percy looked up to see his older self, his own hand held by Oldabeth before it could reach his own fork. Oldcy shook his head, Percy would’ve said that Oldcy’s furrowed brow and tight lips meant that he was worried. Percy could feel something bubble beneath his skin. Anger perhaps, he’d felt something similar when Nancy Bobofit had been throwing peanut butter sandwich chunks at the back of Grover’s head.

It was too soon! They’d just barely gotten away from the giant dragon with their lives, now they were going to have to fight something again so soon! Oldver was supposed to have “sniffed” this place out as safe. Why? Just why? Why? Percy just wanted his mom. His mom who was trapped in the Underworld.

That raised Percy’s sails. He wouldn’t let this monster stop him. He wouldn’t let any monster stop him. His older self had just summoned a mini tsunami out of a river, Percy had punched that dragon in its face. This woman, whatever she was, would not get in his way.

“Oh please,” the winged woman said. “I swear heroes these days just can’t accept that maybe someone is just interested in serving a good breakfast. I promise, the enchantment on the food is only to make it more filling. Gotta reup all that energy y’all used fighting that mean beastie.”

“Eos, my lady,” Oldver said. “We mean no offense. We’ve just been burned one too many times by others taking advantage of us…”

“Ugh, fine,” Eos groaned as she lowered the tray table she’d delivered the food on. “May Styx take me should what I said be false.”

Percy hadn’t heard that one before, but judging by Oldabeth’s accepting shrug he chose to accept it as something that made it so he could eat.

The food tasted like home. Like the first breakfast of summer break, or the first time Percy’s mom had made blue waffles. He swore he could see that day in his mind, each bite granting the memory more and more clarity.

Percy’s mom was smiling from the kitchen as she placed another round of batter into the waffle press. Vance Joy was playing from his mom’s phone, and Percy remembered that Gabe had left for the day over an hour ago while his mom had the Saturday off. He’d finished his first waffle just in time for the second to be done cooking, it didn’t really taste any different, a slight berry flavour on top of the already excellent recipe his mom used to make them.

He'd gotten up from the table and his mom smiled at him. The smile was so… weightless. Like everything that had weighed his mom down during the week was leaving as she flicked some batter onto his nose, hoping that she’d get the chance to try some waffle too. Especially considering how good they were, seeing as Percy was eating them so fast.

It rained shortly after they finished eating, and his mom took him to the balcony and told him the story of Prometheus. His gift of fire to humanity at great cost to himself.

“I don’t get it,” Percy had said. “If the gift of fire was supposed to be such a good thing, then why was Prometheus punished for it?”

His mom had pursed her lips at that, thinking over her answer. “The story has a lot of messages Percy. It can be read in a lot of different ways. What do you think Hesiod was trying to say?”

“Maybe he was just trying to explain where fire and all the other bad stuff in the world came from,” Percy said, though his voice held a heavy weight of self-scrutiny.

His mom snickered for a moment. “That’s probably true. But let me ask you this, do you think that it was okay for Prometheus to be punished?”

“No,” Percy said quickly. “If Zeus was hiding fire from mortals, it was because he knew that it was important. He shouldn’t have been able to do that. Prometheus did a good thing when he stole it back.”

Percy felt something shove against his arm and suddenly he was back in the blindingly pink diner. Grover nodded in Eos’ direction and Percy saw that she was giving everyone at the table a motherly smile. He belatedly realized that she had somehow made bacon, eggs, and buttered toast taste like blue waffles, godly food really was the best part of his demigodness so far.

“This is delicious Lady Eos,” Oldabeth said. “Thank you for the meal.”

“Of course deary. I’m always happy to provide people with a bit of light in the morning.”

“Uh, I’m not trying to be rude or anything, I’m legitimately curious,” Percy said. Judging by the look the Annabeths were giving him, he probably should’ve shut his mouth, but he wanted to know the answer. “Who are you?”

The tray table she’d picked up after delivering her food shifted, taking on the shape of a torch. Her clothes changed from a waitress’s uniform, into a rose-coloured gown that couldn’t have looked better on someone if it were a marble statue in a museum. “I am Eos, Perseus Jackson. Titaness of the Dawn, Dew and Frost. Sister of Helios and Selene. I am also the owner of this here, mighty fine establishment.”

“You, Medusa, Chiron. What’s with divine entities owning normal mortal stuff?” Percy asked.

“What’s with you mortals invoking us when you name your businesses?” Eos countered.

“I thought it was the other way around,” Oldver noted.

“Guys,” Oldabeth said. Percy looked down to see that he had finished eating. The food had been so good that he’d unconsciously started picking at the crumbs of his dish, hoping to catch another divine hint of flavour. “If that was all, Lady Eos, we’ll be on our way.”

“Just,” Eos quickly spurted, “one more thing.”

Percy watched as Oldabeth visibly held back a curse and Oldcy’s hand went for his pocket. Annabeth looked like she was contemplating her excitement. It was obvious that her initial reaction was to be glad that she would have a chance to gain a titan’s favour. However, there was something else in her reaction, Percy noted that the contemplation appeared just after Annabeth had looked toward her older counterpart.

“I would like the shoes,” Eos said as she pointed toward the cardboard box Percy had placed next to him.

Percy immediately pulled the box closer to himself, wrapping his arms around it. They were a gift from Luke, Annabeth’s best friend – older brother basically – he couldn’t just get rid of them. Annabeth shared his opinion as he saw her reach for her sword. Everyone had their hands on their weapons at least once since the Titaness had made her request, Percy noted, it was perhaps a habit he should acquire before it became one caused by experience.

“They were a gift, from a friend,” Percy said. “We can’t just give them-”

“Here,” Oldabeth said, now barefoot as she slammed the winged shoes onto the table.

“You can’t just decide that!” Percy shouted. In Percy’s mind that wasn’t Oldabeth’s choice to make. The shoes had been useful against the dragon, they’d been a gift, they’d helped them beat Medusa. They were too useful to just give away for a free meal!

Oldabeth ignored him though. As Eos reached toward the shoes Oldabeth shot out of her seat, her bone sword placed just beneath Eos’ chin. “You don’t want to go there,” Oldabeth said. “So be careful about how you use them. Because if you do, I’ll know.”

As Annabeth lowered her blade, Eos tapped the shoes causing them to disappear in a sparkle of golden light. “Thank you, Ms. Chase,” Eos said. “There is a van, parked behind the diner, this is its key. And here is a driver’s license for you Mr. Jackson. A final word of warning, for the stellar advice.” To Percy, it didn’t seem like Eos thought that Oldabeth’s ‘advice’ had been very stellar. “You have one final hurdle. I look forward to seeing how you solve it.”

Eos then disappeared in a flash of light. The pink of the diner around them faded like water sliding down a window. The food on Grover’s plate suddenly brightened before burning its way through the table, floor and down into the ground. Smoke filled the hole, causing the fire alarm to begin to sound.

They all quickly made their way outside and around to the back of the building. The fire alarm continued to scream, but it seemed as though it was entirely because of the smoke rather than an actual fire.

“Puts a new spin on breakfast for dinner,” Oldver said.

“You don’t think it was actually made of sunshine, do you?” Grover asked.

“More likely it was a small piece of the actual sun, if I had to guess,” Annabeth said. “Wouldn’t have burned through concrete that fast if it wasn’t.”

“Okay. Crazy yes, but are you saying that I missed out on having the chance to have vegan bacon?” Grover asked.

“You couldn’t smell it?” Oldver asked. “There wasn’t a hint of animal in the ‘eggs’ either.”

“Well I smelled that. I just haven’t had vegan bacon before.”

“There are vegan eggs?” Percy asked. He hadn’t been keeping up with the conversation. He didn’t know where the Grover’s had gotten ‘sunshine’ from, but he wanted to ask his question anyway.

The sound of a car unlocking stopped the conversation as Percy looked toward a blue, mid-two-thousands minivan which had indeed been parked in the back of the alley. There would be more than enough seats to fit everyone, with extra space for their gear. Percy could see himself owning a car like it in the future… If he needed that many seats for whatever reason.

Percy ended up in a seat on the second row, just behind Oldcy and Oldabeth, beside Annabeth and in front of the Grovers. Their conversation continued, talking about food, and the ethics of consuming animals when you could talk to them. They eventually started talking about Mythomagic, though Oldver seemed a lot more knowledgeable on how to play the game than either Percy or Grover.

It was around then they Percy noticed that Oldcy and Oldabeth hadn’t contributed at all. Oldcy was silently driving forward. The streets leading up to the Gateway arch had been closed off, leaving the 64 as the only way out of the city. Oldabeth was staring out the window, unfocused, probably thinking.

Percy could see Oldcy make the occasional glance at Oldabeth. So he followed suit, looking at Annabeth. He saw that she had a similar face to Oldabeth’s. It was both a mostly literal statement, and partially because of their expression. They were obviously thinking about everything. A lot had happened in St. Louis, and Percy didn’t want to wrap his head around it right now. He trusted Annabeth to figure out what they should do, and he trusted Oldcy to look out for him. Mostly.

‘This was what family was supposed to be,’ Percy supposed. It was nice, far kinder than his mom’s apartment for certain. It was just missing one critical detail.

They’d made it to roughly fifty miles out of Denver before they’d stopped for the night. Percy noted that they’d been travelling for almost fifteen hours, based on what the clock on the dashboard said. They’d gotten lost at one point, a connection of two interstates confused Oldcy and Oldabeth as they tried to read the road signs, causing them to have to take a longer path toward LA. Oldabeth had cursed Hermes. Percy blamed their collective dyslexia.

The town they’d stopped in was tiny. A population less than five hundred people, and a single diner sitting on main street, they’re current place of rest.

Oldcy was asleep in his seat, Oldabeth rubbing her hand across his back as she looked at the menu. The waitress hadn’t come up to ask them for their orders yet, and Percy didn’t think that it took as long as they had been waiting to figure out what they wanted to eat.

Oldabeth looked up suddenly, followed by Oldver, before she patted Oldcy on the shoulder, waking him up. Percy, on the other side of the booth, turned his body around to look out the window. A pair of sheriff’s cars had stopped outside the diner, and their four occupants were getting out and making their way toward the door.

“Don’t think this town has a police station,” Oldver said.

“They don’t,” Oldabeth answered with certainty.

“They aren’t here for us, are they?” Percy asked.

“Let’s find out,” Oldcy said as the sheriff’s entered the diner.

One stood close to the entrance, another had stayed in his car, while the final two walked straight up to the waitress who had been laggard in taking their order. Percy noted that the waitress hadn’t even try to hide it when she pointed in their direction.

“Guess that answers that,” Grover said.

Annabeth had seen Percy reach into his pocket to pull out his pen. She tapped his shoulder and shook her head.

“Did they not tell you?” She asked in a whispered voice.

“Not tell me what?”

“They don’t work on mortals.”

“Oh. Right, I remember that.”

Annabeth likely couldn’t stop herself from quietly snorting before turning back to the cops. The sheriff looked like a stereotypical modern-day cowboy. He had the hat, the boots, a close cut of grey hair and a bushy mustache. His partner looked more like a bearded soldier. Everything about his form screamed muscles, wide shoulders, and thick arms. He was also carrying a shotgun, hanging it down by his leg and he had pushed a pair of sunglasses up to cover his eyes as he approached the table.

“Good evening,” the sheriff said. “How’re you folks doin’ tonight?”

“We’re alright officer,” Oldcy said. “Can we help you?”

“Yes. You see-”

“Jason?” The deputy cut in. “Wow kid, what are you doing all the way out here? Camping trip?”

“Ari?” The sheriff asked.

“This is a mistake Sheriff,” the Deputy, Ari, said. “Jason’s my cousin. Denver native. Couldn’t be the guy were looking for.”

“Your sure? The kid…”

“That’s his brother Sheriff. Here, how about I stick around, and explain what’s going on. I’ve got a bike parked with Henry down by the old waterpark so I can head back on my own.”

The sheriff’s expression went blank for a moment, his hand left the holster at his hip and fell to his side, before his eyes blinked back into focus.

“That’s a good idea, you ride safe,” the sheriff said.

The sheriff left after a quick word with the deputy who’d taken up near the front door. Front door cop went to his patrol car and the sheriff went to his. They didn’t bother to radio in what had happened, they just started driving away.

Deputy Ari’s head lolled around to stare at the group, the movement was jarring, wrong. Percy couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but he swore that he felt a hot gaze upon him, soaking in his presence. Then the cop’s clothes started to shift. Gone was the uniform, seamlessly replaced by a black leather jacket, loose fitting jeans held up by a black belt, and a gigantic great sword that was replaced the shotgun as ‘Ari’ dropped it onto the table.

“Ares.”

Percy didn’t know who said it, there was something in the back of his head that was causing all sound to become muffled. He’d squeezed his hands into fists so tight that Percy felt as though he’d punch a hole through his palms. Something in his right hand shifted, and Percy noted that he was holding Riptide, the leather handle straining beneath his strength.

Then there was a TANG of metal as two blades connected. Oldcy was there, his sword dancing through the air as he and Ares dueled. Ares kicked one of the free-standing tables as he took a step away and ducked under a horizontal slash. Oldcy took a single step back, anticipating a counterattack that never came as Oldabeth forced Ares on the defensive instead, attacking from beneath Percy’s extended arm.

Ares smiled. No, he look resplendent, like Percy’s mom did when she could dance in the rain with him.

Oldver had his pipes up to his mouth just as Oldcy traded off from Oldabeth as she overextended in an attempt to get a hit off. Vines whipped around the hand which held Ares’ sword, causing the weapon to disappear, only for it to reappear in his other. Ares was no less efficient with his off hand.

More vines sprouted from the ground, wrapping around Ares’ foot. He blocked a strike from Oldcy and caused his sword to disappear as he ducked beneath Oldabeth’s follow up. He pulled the vines away from his feet with ease and ripped the others free of his arm as he jumped away, through the window of the diner.

Oldcy threw the soda machine at him, not literally, but there was an explosion of fizz as Ares was knocked backward. Oldabeth jumped out to follow him, her shoes long replaced during their drive, but Ares was ready to fight back in an instant. They exchanged blows that were coming too fast for Percy to see. He realized now that he could help, he took a step forward to rush outside but found that he was held back by Grover and Annabeth.

Their mouths were moving, but Percy couldn’t hear them, he didn’t know why.

As Oldcy jumped out the window Ares swung his sword at Oldabeth, it was easily blocked. So easily that Oldabeth swung her sword beneath Ares’ and pulled up, flinging the sword away, the same move that Luke had taught Percy a week ago. Oldabeth’s was cleaner, more refined, and undoubtedly took whatever godly abilities Ares had into account.

Ares didn’t care though. He swung his arm around at Oldabeth once more as if he did have a sword. Oldabeth used his lunacy to stab him in the chest, gold liquid streaming down his shirt. It didn’t stop Ares, he swung, swordless until the final moment when his sword reappeared in his hand and struck her in the arm.

Oldcy had managed to stop Ares, using what was left of the soda water to grab Ares’ arm. Percy didn’t know how deep the sword was embedded, but Oldabeth screamed in pain as Ares pulled his sword back. The sight made him sick to the stomach.

The same soda water began to drag Oldabeth back toward the diner. Oldver began running toward the edge of the parking lot, to which Percy’s mind supplied a single word, the first word he heard since the god had revealed himself. ‘Coward.’ Where that thought had come from, he didn’t know, but Percy knew that it wasn’t like him. Grover was the opposite of a coward, and Oldver had stepped in front of an invincible dragon with the casual calm of someone taking a midday stroll through a park.

“-ercy! Can you hear me! You can’t move. Do you understand?” Annabeth asked.

“Yeah,” Percy said with a surprisingly hoarse voice. “I got it.”

“Thank gods,” Annabeth sighed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good. What happened?”

“Don’t look now, but there is a very poisonous snake wrapped around your ankle,” Grover said. “And she is very angry.”

Percy didn’t have to look. Now that sound had returned to him, he could hear the rattling and the sharp hissing coming from his feet.

“What do we do?” Percy asked.

Percy didn’t get his answer, instead Grover simply said, “look,” while pointing toward where Oldcy and Ares had been fighting.

Oldcy was standing over Ares, his sword biting into the god’s throat as gold streamed from the wound and onto the ground. Oldver had returned to the fighting, holding a clump of moss to Oldabeth’s shoulder as he whispered out a calming tune. Ares hadn’t lost his smile, though it had lost much of its luster as he lay defeated.

“Have fun Cuz?” Ares asked, speaking loud enough that even Percy could hear him. “Felt the thrill of the fight there, I know you did. Addictive, isn’t it?”

“Give It to me,” Oldcy said.

“I’m thinking about it,” Ares said as he casually pushed against Oldcy’s sword. It shunked out of his throat and granted him enough space to stand. He was taller now, pushing eight feet, Percy hadn’t even seen the transition happen. “Nah. You know you can’t beat me if I wasn’t holding back. The kiddos do a quest, you get what you want. Deal?”

Oldcy growled as anger crossed over his face. He adopted a fighting stance and looked ready for round two until Oldabeth’s hand, ‘when had she had a chance to move?’, touched his shoulder.

“Show us,” she said simply, and suddenly there was a blue canvas bag in Ares’ other hand.

“Satisfied?” Ares asked with a sardonic grin.

“Heal her,” Oldcy said.

Ares tsked. “No.”

Oldcy looked ready to fight again, but Oldabeth stepped between him and Ares. “Deal,” she said.

Ares’ grin widened and he snapped his fingers. The diner had windows again, the tables were upright, and the staff that Percy hadn’t noticed until now started moving again. Plates of food were placed in front of them, piled high with everything Percy could ever want from a diner. Ares and the older trio returned to the booth. The trio sitting across from Percy and Ares grabbing a free chair and pulling it up to the edge of their table.

“So, I lost my shield,” Ares said as the canvas bag landed with a resounding THUD onto the table.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Oldabeth said. Oldver was still holding some moss to her shoulder, treating the clumps of green more like a bandage than a water soaking plant.

“You grab it for me, and this here bag is yours.”

“We have plenty of supplies,” Annabeth said, something calculating on her face. “Why should we be interested in your bag?”

“Trust me kid. You want it,” Ares said. “Small rule though, the satyrs and the older kiddos stay. As collateral.”

“No way,” Oldcy said.

“You don’t got a choice kid,” Ares said. “Or do you wanna go again, no holding back?”

Oldcy looked like he wanted to. He looked like he thought he could take him, a god. Percy couldn’t stop himself from questioning what was going to happen to him. How did he become someone who could even consider that?

“If the kids don’t come back, you won’t leave here alive,” Oldabeth promised.

“Sure blondie,” Ares snarked. “Whatever you say. So here’s what you gotta do.”

Chapter Text

To Annabeth, ‘up the road’ meant a few minutes away. To Ares, ‘up the road,’ apparently, meant a several miles.

It had been close to seven when they’d arrived at the diner, Oldcy and Oldabeth having gotten barely a wink of sleep while trading off shifts in the car. It was closer to ten now. Old pickups and the odd car made their way down the road in what, according to the road signs, was the direction of Denver. Annabeth had realized after the fourth car that she didn’t need to jump behind cover every time they passed.

“So… how are you… feeling?” Percy asked.

Annabeth figured that he was just trying to fill the time, and she could use the distraction from the constant walking.  “The last couple days have sucked.”

“Yeah.”

What followed was a couple of seconds of awkward silence as Percy failed to continue their conversation. Annabeth really didn’t want to be stuck meandering with only the trees as a distraction, so she decided to pick up the slack. “What do you think of… you know?”

“Ares?” Percy asked. “He really makes we wonder what kind of family we have.”

“No, not him. The…” Even now she struggled to voice it. She’d been sitting on this fact for the past day. She thought that the existence of an older, or alternate universe whatever, version of themselves was a pretty big deal actually. “Us,” she settled on.

“Oh,” Percy said as he became suddenly interested in the road. “I think that Oldcy’s cool.”

“Oldcy?”

“Yeah. I mean, I can’t exactly just call him ‘Percy’ can I? That would be, like, weird.”

Annabeth hummed affirmatively. “I’ve been calling him that too.”

“Really?” He asked, and Annabeth nodded.

“That’s a weird coincidence,” he said.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, they did say that they were cursed. Maybe we are too.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. They’re not actually cursed.”

“You think they’re lying?” Percy asked.

“Who would curse someone to not be able to say specific things? It such a complex problem with so little reward. Like, they’d have to stop gestures to prevent charades, words but only in specific contexts.”

“Maybe the person who sent them back in time?”

“What reason would anyone have to send people back in time, and then limit their ability to change the future?”

“I don’t know,” Percy said, shifting uncomfortably. “So other than ‘they’re not actually cursed,’ what do you think of them?”

“I haven’t spent enough time with Oldver to form an opinion on him,” Annabeth said.

“Come on,” Percy almost whined. “You can’t dodge the question forever.”

“I’m not dodging,” Annabeth corrected. “I’m simply laying out the facts, if you’d let me answer.”

“Right,” Percy said apologetically. “Sorry.”

“Thank you. As for the older versions of us, they’re… heroic.”

“Heroic?”

“Yeah. As soon as they see a problem they jump in. Always putting their bodies between us and whatever danger they’re facing. They’re always pushing is away from the fights, like we don’t know how.”

“To be fair, I don’t,” Percy joked.

“Says the guy who beat up Clarisse during his first game of capture the flag,” Annabeth said.

“I don’t know, that was mostly just… instinct.”

“A lot of fighting is instinct.”

“Yeah, but you saw them. They fought Ares! The God of War, and they won!”

“He only let them win.” Annabeth was sure of that. There was no way that any future version of her could go toe to toe with Aphrodite, much less Ares.

“I don’t think so,” Percy said with a contemplative expression. “Didn’t you see them? They were fighting together almost perfectly. Every time Oldcy would go for an attack that left him open, Oldabeth filled the gap in his defence, and vice versa. It was like they knew that fighting normally wouldn’t work on Ares, so they made a lot of risks, knowing that the other had their back.”

“So they’ve fought a lot. Not always a good thing.” Annabeth wasn’t trying to be dismissive of what Percy said, she’d seen it too. How their attacks looked preplanned, practiced, and lethal with every swipe. She just, didn’t know how to think about how close they looked with one another.

Oldabeth had introduced Oldcy as her boyfriend, and he didn’t look surprised about that. No, Oldcy looked proud, even though that couldn’t be true. Sure, Percy was naïve, unserious, and a royal pain in Annabeth’s backside, but he was also funny, supportive, and unbelievably kind. Different.

“We’ve fought a lot too you know?” Percy asked.

“I didn’t mean that kind of fighting,” Annabeth answered.

“Are you sure?”

Annabeth turned to look back at Percy, trying to express her exasperation without words, but Percy simply shrugged back. Confident.

“No, it wasn’t what I meant. I meant that they had seen a lot of combat together.”

“Whatever you say.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I just think that you’re afraid,” Percy said. Annabeth took a step into his space, daring him to continue. He didn’t stop. “Just like me.”

With those words, Annabeth’s fight was drained out of her. She’d massively misread this situation. This was Percy opening up, and for whatever reason he’d decided to do so with her. Was that because of older them’s relationship, or because of something else? Did that matter? He was doing it, and dammit if Annabeth didn’t wish she’d had someone to talk to about all of this. Without their older selves listening in. Acting like parents, or worse, siblings.

She had enough siblings who would be relentless in their teasing if it ever got out that Annabeth Chase was dating someone.

She took a step back, stuffing her hands into her pockets and turning away while she tried to figure out what to say.

“Yes,” she finally admitted. “I’m afraid.”

“Do you, want to… I don’t know. Talk about it?”

“Yeah,” Annabeth said. “I do.”

“Cool,” Percy said. “Cool, cool, cool.”

There was a small period of silence that followed, only broken by the sound of Annabeth’s steps onto the dried grass beneath her feet.

“You know their dating, right?”

Annabeth stopped. Inhaled a heavy breath and turned to Percy. “We don’t know that” she denied.

“I mean… they act like their dating.”

“Are you trying to say something Percy?” Annabeth accused.

“What? No! I just, I figured we should, you know, talk about it.” Percy paused. “Because we’re friends and stuff.”

“Since when are we friends?”

“Since when are we not?”

Annabeth wanted to deny, deny, deny. Deflect the line of thinking currently racing through her head, but she also didn’t want to lie. To purposefully hurt Percy because of whatever emotion she was feeling at the thought of her dating Percy Jackson, child of the eldest gods.

“We are,” she admitted with a heavy exhale.

“Cool.”

They once more fell into silence as Percy walked past her and continued on his way toward Ares’ shield. Annabeth caught up to him, now standing beside him and looking down the road for the waterpark he’d described.

“I don’t know how to feel about it,” Percy said after a few hundred steps.

“About what?” Annabeth asked, hoping that he wasn’t thinking about what she thought he was.

“Dating,” Annabeth absolutely kept her face to a neutral level of curiosity. “Like, I haven’t really ever thought of it before. I was just the weirdo who changed schools all the time. I’ve never even thought about having a girlfriend.”

“What about now?” Annabeth asked, considering nothing as she did.

Percy took a moment to center his thoughts. “I still don’t know if I even want to. I really don’t want to think about it, I just want to save my mom.”

Annabeth definitely agreed with his answer. She most certainly did not think about Oldcy or compare him to the guy in front of her.

“What about the bolt?” She asked, reorienting herself to more important matters.

“I don’t really care. I mean like, sure, I’ll get Zeus his stupid bolt back if I find it, but I really just want to help my mom.”

“If you don’t give Zeus his bolt back, then the gods will go to war.” Annabeth really couldn’t understand how Percy didn’t care about that. A war between the gods could end the world.

“I get that, and I don’t want them to go to war, but like, how am I responsible for that?”

“Because the gods think that you were the one that stole it, Seaweed Brain.”

“But I didn’t steal the Master Bolt. You and Grover didn’t steal the Master Bolt. If the story old us told us is true, then they didn’t steal the Master Bolt. We’re pretty sure that Hades has the Master Bolt, but he couldn’t have stolen it himself. So, we don’t even know who actually stole the thing, or why, or how deep this goes.”

Annabeth looked at Percy with an expression akin to ‘oh really?’ He got the message pretty quick.

“You’ve already thought of that, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Annabeth deadpanned.

“Okay, so maybe we can ask older us, see if they can tell us who stole the Master Bolt. That way we can, I don’t know, stop them?”

“If they could have told us, then they already would have.”

“You think so?”

“I trust them,” Annabeth admitted. “To not want to destroy the world, at least. Plus, it’s what I would do.”

“Cool. Good talk.”

They fell into another period of strained quiet. Annabeth tried, and failed, to not think about Oldcy. Percy had basically said it out loud, ‘another you is dating Percy Jackson.’ The problem, she could absolutely see herself dating someone like Oldcy. So much so, that it made her feel awkward for not having a better name for him than ‘Oldcy.’ It made her feel guilty, because she didn’t know if she could see herself going out and doing the types of things people do with boyfriends with Percy.

So how had it happened? What about Oldabeth’s Percy had changed? He was obviously older than sixteen. Was that when it happened? After she figured out that Percy Jackson lived. Did Annabeth’s Percy live? Or was that another difference, like Oldabeth’s and Oldver’s skin, or Oldcy’s hair?

Annabeth decided that it was too much to think about. If she wanted relationship advice, which she didn’t. She had a literal older twin to whom she could ask questions.

She needed to focus. The quest was what was important. She couldn’t afford to worry about stupid stuff right now. Ares’ shield, she just needed to get Ares’ shield.

Annabeth had been so caught up in her own head she didn’t notice when her feet started touching gravel, following Percy unconsciously.

“I haven’t seen a lot of horror movies, but this seems like exactly the kind of place they’d suggest to avoid,” Percy said.

Annabeth looked up at the gate before her. She’d never seen any kind of movie, to which she admitted, not that she could remember at least, but she knew what they were, and what horror meant. So she got the impression that Percy was probably right.

As the sun rose a few hours earlier, it seemed to purposefully bounce off a napkin dispenser to shine directly into Ares’ eye.

Percy chuckled at the sight of Ares trying, and failing, to block the petty sun beam with his hand. Until he eventually grabbed a pair of sunglasses that hadn’t been in his coat’s pocket a moment ago and put them on.

“Think my half-brother’s pranks are funny, do ya?” Ares challenged.

“When he does them against you?” Percy asked. “Absolutely.”

Ares rumbled for a moment before standing abruptly. Percy followed suit, letting himself get grabbed as he brought his hands up to Ares’ head and brought them down onto the table, hard.

The plastic and corkboard table cracked in half as Ares was forced back into his seat. There was a small trickle of gold running down his nose, which he wiped away and healed soon after. Percy contemplated punching him in the face again, he hadn’t bled long enough for breaking Annabeth’s arm.

He did say that he contemplated. Though that contemplation ended pretty quickly when Annabeth punched Ares in the face herself, swinging the pain out of her hand as she returned to her seat.

Ares, in response, laughed.

“You two really are something,” he said.

“Three,” Grover interrupted. “I’d kick you, if I wasn’t focused on binding her wrist.”

Ares laughed again as Kidver slid further into the booth, hiding behind Grover even more.

“Now I know I’ve definitely pissed you off. Come on, lay it on me, what did I do to you in the future?”

“Your general existence pisses me off,” Percy said.

“Ha! True, Kid, but come on. There’s got to be something behind that glare?”

“Technically, I’m pissed because of something you already did,” Annabeth said, taking a square of ambrosia from Grover.

“Ahh,” Ares said as he raised his arm above the table. When he brought it down, it was met by a metallic clunk as a helmet appeared between his arm and the table. “You mean this.”

“We’ll need that,” Percy said.

“And that’s where we find ourselves in a predicament. You see, I don’t really have a reason to hand it over. Something like this,” Ares patted the helmet with his other hand, his ring’s tapping echoing through the diner, “could do me a lot of good.”

“That would put you at war with Hades,” Grover said. Kidver, who had been confused at the sight of the helmet, went suddenly pale.

“Sounds like a great deal for me.”

“You’d lose,” Annabeth said.

“That’s fine with me. I’d still get a good fight.”

Percy looked at Annabeth, but she looked too distracted by something else that Percy couldn’t see to focus on getting the helm from Ares. Unless Grover had an extra pair of goat legs, something that Percy was ninety percent sure he didn’t, he’d seen Grover pantless enough, it would be up to him to deal with it.

“You want to fight again? Bet the helm, see how much I was holding back?”

“Naw kid,” Ares denied. “I’ve seen what I need to out of you.”

“Then what do you want for it?” Grover asked.

“Convince me.” Percy figured that he must have looked confused at Ares’ words, so the god continued. “You’re a hero, if D is to be believed. You must’ve given an impassioned speech or two. So come on, convince me. I’ll steal it for my next blockbuster.”

Percy thought about what Ares would want to hear. He’d said impassioned, something to play to Ares’ betters, but Percy didn’t think that he had any. So, he played to Ares’ ego instead.

“We know who made you agree to take them in the first place. Something I’m sure the rest of Olympus would love to hear about.” Percy paused. “Ares, God of War, as gullible as any mortal.”

“I’d watch your tone, boy.”

Percy had obviously not given Ares what he’d wanted. Thus, he doubled down.

“What do you think the rest of the Olympians will do, when they find out that you willingly chose to help…” He couldn’t say the next word but chose to continue on despite that. Annabeth was, after all, sneaking her way out of the booth now that Percy had Ares distracted. “The other gods aren’t stupid, unlike you, they know you’d want a fight. They’d do everything they could to get back at you, without kicking your teeth in. Maybe they convince Aphrodite to spend some time in France, I’ve heard its beautiful this time of year, unlike say, Australia.”

“They couldn’t afford to send me away like that,” Ares said. “I’m no poet.”

“Couldn’t they? If they need muscle, I see some excellent ones here.”

“You’d never do that,” Ares said with faux confidence.

“To spite you? I think you’d be surprised at what I’m willing to do.”

The door to the diner opened, though Percy couldn’t see what had opened it.

Ares released his arm from the Helm of Darkness and leaned back in his booth. Percy nodded his head at it, causing Kidver to reach forward and grab the helmet. Ares continued to stare at Percy, the sun reflecting off his glasses failing to hide the literal fire behind his eyes.

“This isn’t over,” he threatened.

“I think it is, but we’re stuck together until the kids get back with your shield. Too bad you sent them away without a car.”

Said car, the blue minivan, then turned out of the parking lot of the garage and drove off in the direction Kidcy and Kidabeth went.

“I did say that I’d do a lot. Distraction just so happens to be something I’m good at,” Percy admitted.

“You little-”

The door to the diner opened again, the small chime that accompanied it sounding like a fire alarm. The woman who entered seemed to have come from nowhere, yet she strode across the diner with a calm demeanor. Her leather jacket shifting as she sat down next to the God of War.

“The Helm, Mr. Underwood.”

Kidver hesitantly held the helm forward, until Mrs. Dodds clasped her hand around it.

However, whoever, summoned her, Percy silently thanked them. Promising his next sacrifice to them. Seeing as who it was probably Annabeth, he was happy to provide his donation.

“Lord Hades wishes to have a word with you,” she said before the floor beneath Ares opened and he fell through it. “I will ensure you receive your prize from the children.”

She had called that out down the hole which quickly closed afterward. Then, she turned back to Percy. “I will ensure that Lord Hades hears about what happened here.”

“Thanks, though…” Mrs. Dodds tilted her head. “He was supposed to buy us breakfast.”

Alecto stood from the booth and started toward the door. “I will request Lord Hades ensure that Lord Ares sends you his reward when you are finished.”

Annabeth didn’t know how far the waterpark was from the diner, but after passing the first police car, going at a reasonable speed thanks to a passing biker tapping the top of his head, she was forced to follow the speed limit.

She really didn’t feel like twenty-five was a good speed for a country road.

“I need you to promise me something,” Percy said. He had copied what Oldcy had told him, willing the water away from him. He didn’t understand how Oldcy did it unconsciously, but he’d figure it out, when he got out of here.

“I won’t leave the Underworld without your mom,” Annabeth promised.

So much for my heroic moment, thank you Annabeth. He thought. “Thank you. I was gonna say, when this quest is done, can you maybe swing back here and try to get me outta this thing?”

Annabeth scoffed. Her faced was still soaked, but it didn’t hide the tears brimming in her eyes. Percy had really messed up, he should’ve just told her that he liked her. That he thought she was awesome, inspiring. That he didn’t really know what it meant to like someone, but he wanted to be in her life, however she’d take him.

Stupid chair.

“You think you had to ask?” She answered. Of course she was going to. She’d probably steal a car and get older them. They could kill dragons, they could probably get him outta here.

“Just making sure,” Percy said with a tense smile.

The step up to the throne felt like it was a mile high, yet Percy felt himself climb it with the ease of summiting a drop of water on the floor. He made sure that he was looking at Annabeth when he started sitting down. He made sure that he kept his fear out of his face, she deserved older Percy, someone who stared down gods and smiled. He could be that, if only for a few moments.

There was the sound of gears turning when he sat. It really wasn’t so bad, he supposed, Annabeth would save his mom. Then she’d have an older Percy to look after. He’d have preferred if Mom had two Percy’s to take care of, she could probably figure out a better name than Oldcy.

The gold wasn’t even cold. He thought it would be, like a metal bench in winter. It was almost comfortable, if made for someone twice his height.

Then it started getting weird, like there was something slithering up his spine, over his hands, under his skin. He had to take his eyes off Annabeth for a moment, look at his hands, see that there was, in fact, nothing there. He still told her, he couldn’t keep it out of his throat.

He also told her that it was warm. That was equally important, he figured.

Then he looked at her again and noticed how much closer she was to crying. Percy didn’t want her to cry, didn’t want her to feel guilty, responsible. Annabeth deserved better than that, so much better.

Percy was really starting to hate Ares, even more than he already was. Which was a lot. Basically, he understood why older them had attacked him on sight.

“This is a bad idea. Stand up,” Annabeth ordered as golden leaves began to overtake Percy’s legs. He couldn’t see them, just feel them, the rapid loss of feeling. He had to give Hephestus this, he knew how to make one pretty pattern.

Still, Annabeth had asked, so he tried. He really did try to move. The gold had covered every part of him which was touching the chair now, and he was stuck. He couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t even feel the water sloshing at the edge of the platform as another boat approached it.

“Percy, stand up, I mean it,” Annabeth begged. That’s weird, Percy thought. Annabeth shouldn’t have to beg him to do anything.

He was never going to let her sit in the chair though. He really hoped that she would never have to make a sacrifice like this for anyone else. It was okay, he figured, because it was for her. He would’ve done it for Grover too. Heck, Percy would’ve done this for Clarisse.

Ares would’ve had to take a seat though.

“It’s okay,” Percy promised, focusing on that part of his thinking. “I’m okay.”

Annabeth looked scared as the boat finally hit the edge of the platform and the person riding it jumped off. He watched Annabeth turn around, tears flying from her eyes like shotputs. She probably shouted something, but he couldn’t hear her.

He just told her again. “I’m okay.”

“I’m okay.”

That one was for himself. Can you blame him? He needed it.

There was another person, he figured he should tell them too. “I’m-”

“Percy!” Annabeth yelled as she watched gold over take his body. Before she could even reach him, he had turned into a statue, solid upon what could only be Hera’s Golden Throne. A Hephaestus trap, and Percy Jackson, self sacrificing idiot he was, had sat in it for Annabeth Chase.

Annabeth was going to kill him.

Not really, but she didn’t care as she started running to the back of the chair. Gears had finished clicking there a moment ago. She couldn’t stop herself from sliding as she came to a stop, desperate for something to free him.

She ignored the shield which fell to the ground behind her with a thunderous crash.

The gears made no sense, there were too many that simply floated on their own axel. They were all intermingled in an impossible pattern, the kind only a certain member of the Valdez family had any chance of making heads or tails of. That didn’t matter though, Annabeth could figure this out. All machines relied on some portion of logic. It was core to their design. If they didn’t then that would mean even the creator wouldn’t know how to operate it.

Annabeth tried to think of it like a puzzle, she just had to find the corner pieces, the first gears that she could turn.

Kidabeth had chosen the large gear directly in front of her. Annabeth chose to help her, hoping that they could turn it together. It gave, but only slightly.

“Hold that in pressure, like a lock,” Annabeth instructed. Kidabeth nodded.

“Can I help you?” A voice asked from an upper balcony. Annabeth chose to ignore whoever decided to interrupt them now.

“Do you need some help finding your way out?” The voice asked again. It was masculine, but oddly nasally. Great, Annabeth thought, Hephaestus will see the quest as complete, try to get us to leave. She hoped that Kidabeth would also be able to ignore him.

A whistle whined, a harmonious tune impossible for a single whistle to produce, and a something metallic rose, Annabeth focused on finding whatever gear had come loose from the turning of the first one. She was having a hard time.

“So, off you go.”

“I’m not leaving without my friend,” Kidabeth promised. Annabeth couldn’t keep the pride out of her smile if she tried.

“Yeah, that isn’t really how it works,” Hephaestus admitted. Annabeth didn’t care. If their current strategy wasn’t working, she’d find a new one.

“Turn that one,” she said as she pointed to a different gear.

“It’s kind of a one-way sort of thing. It can’t be undone,” Hephaestus continued, ignoring Annabeth’s comment. She was fine with that, considering how she was ignoring him too.

“How do you know?” Kidabeth asked. Annabeth accidently looked at Kidabeth when she said that, but she refocused a moment later, she couldn’t afford to get distracted. She directed Kidabeth to try a different gear.

“Because I built it.”

Kidabeth let go of the gear as she slowly turned her head toward Hephaestus. Annabeth couldn’t take the time to get her attention again, she had to figure out how to get Percy out. She knew that she couldn’t rely on the gods, that they would all take any opportunity they got to kill Percy.

Kidabeth sucked in a breath through her nose and went to try a different gear again, without Annabeth’s direction. “We’re not leaving here without my friend. And if you aren’t going to help us, could you maybe leave us alone so we can focus?”

“In spite of what my brother might’ve told you,” Hephaestus said. “I am not someone who’ll be pushed around.”

Unless its off a mountain, Annabeth thought. Kidcy was a statue in a chair and she was feeling petty, can you blame her?

“I know your mother was displeased with you recently,” Hephaestus continued. Kidabeth faltered for a moment at his words. Annabeth placed her hand over Kidabeth’s.

“I can’t do this without you,” she whispered.

Hephaestus couldn’t hear her though, and continued over her, causing them to speak at the same time. “We both know how she gets. But this… was a lot.”

Kidabeth’s hand fell out from beneath Annabeth’s, forcing Annabeth back into action with a huff. She had to get him free, and this chair made absolutely no sense!

“Even for her.” Kidabeth stood, staring at Hephaestus with an expression Annabeth couldn’t see. “You walk outta here with that shield… and you’re a hero. On your way to the greatest glory. She will be proud and you will be forgiven, and all will go back to being as it always has been, always will be… just ask her.”

Annabeth figured that Hephaestus had pointed at her.

“It isn’t how it should be! It isn’t!”

Annabeth stopped and turned to look at her younger self. She was expecting something, but not this. At least, not when she was this young, not without Luke breaking that illusion with a dying boy on a shoreline.

“Eat or be eaten. Power and glory and nothing else matters. Ares is that way. Zeus is that way, my mother is that way.”

Damn, pop off me. Annabeth thought.

Kidabeth looked toward the front of the throne, at the hand still visible from the back of it. “He isn’t that way. He’s better than that. Maybe I was that way once. But I don’t wanna be that way anymore.”

There was a pause, and Annabeth watch Hephaestus swallow a lump in his throat. Annabeth really hoped that he hadn’t lost whatever let Hera out of this stupid chair all those years ago. A couple thousand years was a long time to lose one’s keys.

“I won’t be like all of you. I just won’t,” Kidabeth whispered before going to crouch behind the throne. Annabeth stopped her though, turning her back to Hephaestus.

He took out his whistle once more, chiming a similar tune. Something beneath the throne unlocked, and the gears started to turn once more. Kidabeth stood there for a moment, waiting for something to happen. Hoping.

Then the flesh of Kidcy’s hands started to become visible, and she ran around the throne.

Annabeth let out a sigh of relief as she closed her eyes and let her head thump against the back of the throne. She gave herself a few moments to let the nausea that had been building in her stomach unnoticed calm before standing again.

“Thank you for your kindness, Lord Hephaestus,” she said.

He nodded to her before looking back at the kids, something fatherly on his face. If she didn’t know the gods any better, she would’ve called it pride.

“Some of us don’t like being that way either,” Hephaestus admitted. “You’re a good kid, Annabeth. I’ll put in a good word with your mom for you.”

With that, he turned, and used his cane to walk through a door behind him. Annabeth waited for it to close. Then she started laughing. Just laughter, the kind that she just couldn’t get to stop.

“Annabeth?” Kidcy asked.

She was on the floor now. Breathing was difficult, especially as she tried to suck in between bouts of laughter. She also didn’t know how long it had been, and she honestly didn’t care.

“I think something’s wrong,” Kidabeth said.

“What do we do?” Kidcy asked.

Annabeth opened her eyes, she saw the two of them hovering over her with concerned expressions. She didn’t care, she grabbed the both of them and pulled them into a bone crushing hug, her laughter reignited.

Eventually, her laughter died down, and her voice returned.

“I’ve never seen that chair in my life,” she admitted. “And you two beat it without me, without any of us.”

The kid’s eyes widened at that revelation. A few moments later, they joined in her laughter. Joyous, and oh so very alive.

Chapter Text

Luke walked out of the front door of the Hermes Cabin and into the courtyard. The early morning sun glistened through the trees as a little girl minded a fire by the small pond.

He had a few hours before his cabin would be expected at their next activity, giving him time to make the rounds. Everyone was either on edge or had spent more time in the infirmary than normal over the past few days. If he thought back, it all started when it rained. Breaking the barrier, disrupting events. The excitement surrounding Percy, Annabeth, and Grover’s quest was quickly lost, replaced by upset preteens with a love for sharp pointy objects and fighting.

His first stop was checking in on the armory. Chiron had asked some harpies to watch the place, hoping that would prevent the campers from stabbing each other again. It was a smart move, were it not for a certain group of children, the one he was technically in charge of, seeing anything locked or protected as a challenge.

The Stolls, in this instance, appeared to have decided that it was their turn (again) to try their hand at getting inside. Travis noticed him first, patted his brother on the shoulder, and pointed in Luke’s direction. Shyly, Connor raised his hand and waved it slightly.

Luke shook his head. He didn’t have the energy to deal with any more mischief until, at least, lunch today.

Connor raised his hands and tapped his twin’s chest, making him do the same as they backed away from the shed, saw in hand.

Silena was standing, well sitting, guard outside the front of the building. She didn’t have the keys, Chiron had them around his neck these days, but she did have a rapier hanging by its sheath on a small metal bar which normally held a grapevine. She didn’t look like she was paying attention to her surroundings, engrossed in her compact, but Luke knew better.

“Hey,” he said as he approached.

“Oh! Hey Luke. What’s up?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be guarding the equipment shed?”

Silena looked around for a few seconds, then back at the shed she was still standing in front of before squinting her eyes at Luke.

“Yeah?”

“I just chased the Stolls away from sawing another door into the back of it.”

“So?” Silena then looked back at her compact, applying mascara to her right eye.

“I can’t be dealing with any more incidents today. I missed breakfast.”

“So your… what? Getting in my face because your hungry?”

“No, just… I need you to start at least pretending that you’re doing your job.”

“Jeez, okay. I’ll start listening for saws or whatever. Happy now?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Luke sighed as he walked away, continuing his walk around camp. He broke up a fight between an Ares and Demeter camper which started because of some trampled strawberries. Helped an Athena camper find where the rest of his cabin was, and finally managed to sneak a sandwich out of the kitchen before any of the harpies could notice him stealing it.

Now, he was sitting on the ledge of the small fountain in front of the Big House, staring at his own face as he ate. He didn’t really look like his dad, there were some features he’d inherited from the God of Messengers, his dark eyes and hair mostly, but it was impossible to not see his mom when he looked at his face.

Luke hadn’t seen May Castellan since he’d gotten a scar on his cheek, as subtle as it was, and he did miss her. Missed her both because he couldn’t see her, it was too dangerous for him to leave camp right now, but also because she wouldn’t actually see him if he came home.

He'd tried, while he was travelling for his quest. It had been nice at first, until she looked toward the TV for a moment and then acted surprised to see him again. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t keep his emotions in check, seeing his mom hurt like that. So, he took her latest container of pb and j and left. Unable to watch her any longer without screaming or breaking something.

Luke was glad that it was hard to see much of his father in him, because it was Hermes’ fault that his mom would spend the rest of her life broken. Hurt beyond even godly repair. That was what the gods did to those they loved, he knew. He’d read enough stories to know what would always happen in the end, but he didn’t get the luxury of a death. No, he had to watch it happen over years, and years. All because they just couldn’t let her go.

He threw his lunch onto the ground, unable to eat any more as he stood from where he was sitting. There was something racing through him, egged on and supported by an invisible presence hanging just over his shoulder. The question of why he’d even started thinking about his father leaving his mind like sand falling from a closed fist, one ever loosening but always angry.

Then, he watched as the water from the fountain began to mist into the air, forming a rainbow as the sun shifted its position to allow for a single ray to pass through the trees above him. An Iris message? Now? Who could be wanting to talk to him?

He straightened his spine and turned away from the rainbow. Whoever was trying to message him wouldn’t catch his initial expression, allowing him to school it into whatever the other person expected.

“Luke?” Percy asked as he, Annabeth, and Grover appear behind him through the mist. They looked surprisingly good. Well feed, hydrated, and not nearly as tired as Luke thought they would this far into their quest. He also noted that he couldn’t see Percy’s feet. Unfortunate.

“Annabeth? Grover? Percy! Are you okay?” he asked as he adopted a concerned expression. The message was extremely limiting, only showing their bodies instead of what was behind them, but he could hear the sound of water spraying from a hose and what sounded like music playing from a radio.

“Yeah,” Annabeth answered, “w– we’re fine. Where’s Chiron?”

He had no idea where Chiron was, but if the past few days were any indication, “Chiron’s holding camp together with both hands. Everyone thinks we’re going to war, so the cabins are taking sides. Please tell me you’re calling with good news.”

He really needed Percy to make it to the Underworld. The whole plan hinged on that. Once it was done, he could go down and rescue Annabeth himself if he needed to. Right now however, he needed to know how things were going.

“We found the bolt,” Percy said.

Luke stepped back slightly as he kept his expression measured. How did they have the bolt? That was impossible, not without entering the Underworld first, and the old man’s spies would’ve told me if they did, Luke thought.

“You did? That’s great! Are you on your way back?” he asked, slightly panicked.

“There’s a slight problem,” Percy said. “We need to get to the Underworld to transform the bolt back into its original form. Right now we think that its either a stapler or a granola bar… We’re keeping both safe regardless.”

A stapler? Luke thought. “So, what? Just hop into the Underworld for a minute, then climb back out?”

 “No, we have to go to a specific spot to transform it. Plus we also kinda have an invitation to Hades’ Palace for returning his Helm of Darkness.”

This is bad, Luke thought. The plan really is falling apart.

“That’s great!” he said instead, focusing on schooling his features into what Annabeth would expect. He needed to fix this somehow. If they were smart enough to figure out that Hades’ helm was stolen, they could figure out that Luke had been the one to steal it. “Did you figure out who stole the bolt in the first place?”

“We don’t know yet,” Grover answered, “but we think it has something to do with Ares. He was covering for the thief by holding onto both the Bolt and the Helm.”

“Ares? Who would he be protecting?” Luke questioned, leadingly. Thankfully, the others adopted the raised eyebrows and tilted heads of expecting the obvious answer. “Besides his favourite daughter? Do you think Clarisse is the lightning thief?”

“Chiron’s gotta keep an eye on her, find out what she knows,” Percy said. Luke didn’t think he could be more lucky, they were pointing towards Clarisse themselves. “There’s more to this than just the bolt, something bigger. Don’t ask me how I know, you just gotta trust me.”

“Okay, I’m on it,” Luke said. He could fix this, get things back on track. Once Percy got to the Underworld… he needed to make sure he was wearing the shoes but be natural about it. “So, Ares? What was that like?”

Luke watched as both Annabeth and Percy adopted hesitant looks, turning toward Grover, who was still looking at Luke, before he noticed the other’s stares and shrugged at them. “It was scary,” Percy admitted. “But… compared to the Dragon on Monday and Medusa on Sunday, it could have been a lot worse.”

“Medusa was Saturday,” Annabeth noted as she turned to look at Percy.

“I thought it was Sunday,” Percy responded, meeting her eyes.

“No monsters on Sunday. We spent Sunday on the train.”

“Right. So, Medusa on Saturday-”

“Guys,” Luke interjected, confused at their sudden chumminess, “what is this?”

“What?” they both responded.

“When did you turn into an old married couple?”

Luke watched as Grover snorted, and Percy and Annabeth turned their heads away from each other. Luke did not like that response to his joke.

“Not to change the subject, but I’m gonna,” Percy continued after a few moments of awkwardness. “We could use your advice on something. The shoes you gave me. Will they work in the Underworld?”

“Of course they will,” Luke responded instantly. This was his chance to ensure that Percy was wearing them. “My dad delivers to the Underworld all the time, and he can’t get anywhere without his flying shoes. Make sure you’re wearing them, Percy. Use every advantage you can get down there.”

Percy’s smile was kind. Thankful. “You got it Luke, thanks.”

Just before he could respond, Luke saw Lee, the head councillor of the Apollo cabin, racing up the path to the Big House carrying something behind his back that looked a lot like a stretcher.

“Listen guys, something just came up, but I’ll pass this news on to Chiron. I’ve got to go.”

He dispelled the Iris message before Annabeth, Percy, or Grover could start talking to anyone else. Hopefully, Lee would see who he was talking to and bring it up during the head councillor meeting which would inevitably follow whatever was happening here.

Luke ran forward and met Lee roughly two thirds down the path. His stretcher was holding a girl named Katie who looked like she’d been hit in the shoulder with a piece of wood. Another demigod, hurt because of the gods.

“What happened?” Luke asked.

“Some of the Ares kids were setting up ‘defences’ near the beach. A wave came by and blew them into splinters. Katie was complaining about them chopping down trees.”

This was just what Luke needed, even more tensions between cabins four and five. He couldn’t let the kids start hurting each other more yet. Everything that was happening in camp was not part of the plan. He needed to take this one step at a time, “Will she be okay?”

“Help me get her into the infirmary and yes. Though she’ll need to rest her shoulder until the nectar can do its job.”

The implication was clear. Lee could keep her here, so long as she didn’t need to leave to defend her siblings.

Luke nodded and helped carry Katie the rest of the way to the infirmary and, once she was placed into a bed, he began to run to the beach. The Ares cabin had indeed been working on a now demolished palisade on the gravelled beach Percy had been claimed on a few days earlier. The wall itself had been split in half horizontally, with splinters of wood now darting the gravel of the beachhead.

Before Luke could see more, he heard shouting. He put some pep in his step and arrived just in time to see Clarisse’s hand moving toward her new sword.

“Stop!” he yelled.

Every head on the beach turned to look at him. Catherine, one of Katie’s sisters, looked furious, but Luke’s arrival had obviously surprised her. Clarisse, on the other hand, looked almost smug. Whatever high ground she thought she had, Luke would have to bring it down. A little fighting amongst the demigods was expected, he wasn’t so naïve as to believe that everyone would agree with him right from the start, but they were on the same side.

“What in Hades do you think you’re doing?!” Luke shouted. “Building a wall next to the beach? We aren’t preparing for a siege!”

Clarisse, having noticed that Luke wasn’t taking her side, switched expressions with Catherine. “The gods are going to war. We need to be prepared.”

“Percy is on a quest to retrieve Zeus’ Bolt, right now.”

“Come on, Luke,” a different Ares camper responded. “You know that pipsqueak isn’t coming back alive.”

“That pipsqueak is the son of Poseidon, and I seem to remember him kicking you into the ocean, Curtis.”

Luke took a moment to straighten his spine, having noticed his anger only now. This really was too much, especially with the plan going so poorly. He closed his eyes and gave himself a moment to breathe. Tensions needed to settle, at least for a few days. The gods would start killing each other soon, and everyone will need to unite to survive that. The war would force them too.

“Percy just sent me an Iris message,” Luke admitted. “He has the Bolt. He needs to go to the Underworld to remove some magic, then he’ll be right back up to the surface and home in time for the Solstice. He is going to succeed.”

The news caused the now assembled crowed to stir, though, Luke noted, only the Ares cabin kept their scowls. Everyone was excited, as if they thought his quest was a sure thing now. Percy did, admittedly, have the Bolt. So Luke could understand their thinking.

“The punk still has to survive the Underworld,” Clarisse yelled. “No way that’s going to be easy. Plus, there’s those two college students who went missing. Who knows what could happen.”

Luke still had no idea who those two were, only that he needed to find out as much as he could about them were they ever to show their faces again. Luke figured that they were just a pair of minor gods. Out on a date, or something equally stupid.

“Percy will succeed,” Luke repeated. “Until then, enjoy camp and keep an umbrella close. Cabin Five, you’re in charge of cleaning this mess up. Cabin Four, go check on your councillor. Everyone else, return to your tasks!”

It didn’t take long after that for the campers to disperse. There was close to a hundred of them this summer, even with the number of kids whose parent’s wanted them to stay home due to the “weather.” The number seemed so large, yet Luke knew that there were hundreds, if not thousands more out there. Unclaimed, unknowing of their heritage. In danger because of the gods’ inaction. Camp should’ve been twice the size it was now. No, three times.

“You did well there,” the voice of Chiron said, shaking Luke out of his thoughts.

“Just doing what I thought you’d do,” Luke joked.

Chiron adopted a shy, proud smile. “You are a good leader, Luke. I’m incredibly glad to have you in this camp. I expect we will need leaders like you in the upcoming years.”

“What does that mean?”

“There is more than one storm brewing on the horizon, my boy. I’d just hoped that they were farther away.”

Chiron was talking about The Great Prophecy. He really thought that Percy was the one who was going to reach sixteen. Luke could only feel slightly guilty that he had ensured that, that wasn’t the case.

“You trust him,” Luke commented, lacing a questioning tone into his voice, “Percy?”

“You don’t?” Chiron asked.

Luke looked away, allowing himself to feel the shame he’d been holding back until this moment. It was okay to show it now though, it would be an understandable reaction.

“Do you think they bought it? The speech.”

“Leaders are faced with their own share of hardships. Trusting things to be done when you cannot be ensured that they will be, is one such task. You have done admirably at that Luke, I’m proud of you. Still, do not underestimate Percy. He is far more resourceful than anyone thinks.”

Luke looked back at Chiron, confused. His face caused Chiron to laugh for a moment.

“His compassion, care. Those are his greatest weapons, because his enemies will always underestimate them.”

Luke could understand that, from what he’d seen of Percy. Too bad compassion and care do very little against gods.

“But, as inspiring as your speech was today. I believe that Percy would have you beat there. Few things beat genuine care for those who have placed their trust in you. Such bonds take incredible strength to break.”

Luke stayed silent for a few moments beside Chiron. Then, the centaur tapped him on the shoulder and trotted off to wherever he was needed next. Leaving Luke alone to watch the water, gazing over the waves which now calmly brush against the beach’s shore.

As much as Chiron’s comment was… well rude, the view was nice. For the next few minutes Luke could forget about everything that was going on. He didn’t need to worry about Katie in the infirmary. Clarisse’s inevitable backlash for the clean up he’d put on her cabin’s plate. He didn’t even have to worry about the old man, a gift of ever-increasing rarity these days.

Then he watched as a wave reached its crest and then cease moving.

Immediately, Luke felt his blood pump in his ears. His breath became uneven, and his eyes started darting around him, trying to find the familiar cloaked figure.

“You have failed me,” the voice said behind his ear.

Luke turned and found an empty blackness directly in front of him, causing him to jump back. He lost his footing as he did, tumbling to the ground.

“Hades will no longer take part in the conflict between the gods. He believes that the one who stole his helm has been punished.”

“I know,” Luke said quickly. “I found out a few minutes ago!”

“And you didn’t think to inform me?!”

“I’ve been busy. The camp’s a mess. I was going to. Soon!”

“Oh Luke,” the eerie voice said before taking what sounded like a calming breath despite the figure’s unmoving form. “I apologize. Can you forgive me? I reacted too quickly.”

“Its alright,” Luke said, quickly getting to his feet to help the figure sit down into a nearby chair that Luke hadn’t noticed before. “I should’ve told you earlier.”

“Nonsense. I understand now. I just wish there was something we could do to fix this.”

“Do you have an idea?” Luke was eager to find a way to get things back on track.

So, when the cloaked figure responded “No,” Luke failed to hold back his response. Turning and shouting an expletive into the air. A boney hand fell upon his shoulder and turned Luke back to him. “But I do have a Plan B.”

“Plan B?”

“Your friend, Thalia. She was killed by Hades, was she not?”

Something ugly roared within Luke at that reminder. It made him want to hit something. Too bad that the only thing around would kill him if he lay a hand on him.

“Yes,” he ground out.

The cloaked man shifted his hand to Luke’s back and turned the both of them toward Thalia’s tree, pointing toward it with an open palm.

“Does that seem like love to you?”

Luke remembered the moments just before they’d crossed the boundary, the look of fear on Thalia’s face as she told Annabeth that she would be okay. He remembered the line of campers Chiron prepared before Percy’s arrival. They’d waited for days. He remembered the line of archers who arrived in time to save Jason and Piper. He remembered how no one knew he was coming to camp the first time.

“No,” he said, gripping the sword at his waist with a white knuckled grip. “That just looks like what the gods love for us means. Too little, too late.”

“She deserves to be free of that curse. Doesn’t she?”

“How?” Luke questioned. Unbridled excitement subsuming his body.

“There is a fleece, I’m sure you know of it. Another of its finder’s namesake arrived at camp a few days ago.”

“The Argonauts,” Luke said, realizing exactly what the cloaked man was saying. “Could it bring her back?”

“Only if the tree was weakened.”

“But that would destroy the barrier.”

“I know. I promise I will find a different solution, once she has been freed.”

Luke was hesitant. A lot of campers didn’t know how many monsters waited just outside the camp, salivating at the thought of finding a demigod lost in the woods. He didn’t know if he could do this, to many people would get hurt if he did.

“Luke,” the cloaked man interrupted, “do this, and I will reward you with the power to keep your friends safe. The power to exact revenge against the gods who only see you as objects, tools for their unchanging purpose.”

Something galvanized in Luke at the thought of receiving that power. So much would be better if he had it. Annabeth would be able to live her life without worrying about monsters. Grover could go in search of Pan, and Luke would know that he would come back alive. Hustice for Mom. Everyone in the camp… they wouldn’t come here for safety; they would come to be with friends. It was his dream.

All he had to do was keep listening to Chronos. Do whatever he said, and Luke would get everything he ever wanted.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Not much, my boy. Prometheus will come by with what you need, just keep an eye out for him.”

The world returned to motion, waves lapping upon the shore and Luke felt like he could breathe again. He couldn’t think too hard about the conversation he’d just had. Too many emotions, all at once. He rarely thought like that. Yes, perhaps on the odd occasion, like earlier when staring at his own reflection. But ever since he’d met the old man, thoughts like those had become more and more common.

He didn’t know if it was the old man’s influence, or if it was because he finally had a chance to act on all he’d bottled up over the years. Either way, it was who he was now. The kind of demigod who waited for Prometheus to deliver what he needed, like the fire he’d once delivered to humanity. That had gone well last time, for humanity at least, and that was who he was, human.