Chapter Text
Percy’s nightmare started like this:
He was standing on some abandoned street in some little beach town at like midnight. He could smell the Sea in the whipping air. He turned at the sound of hooves clattering on the pavement and saw Grover running as fast as the Satyr was capable. Wet sand caked his furry hindquarters and his eyes had gone all sideways slit pupiled like he did when he was terrified. A bone rattling growl sounded over the storm, and a flash of lightning revealed something at the end of the street.
Grover bleated and started muttering to himself “have to go, have to get away! It’s a trap, I need to warn them.”
Percy winced. He knew what was happening. This was the second time he lived through this life after all. The first time had been terrifying in how confused and scared he was all the time. Now he functioned with the knowledge of what was coming, which took care of about 42% of his fear. That didn’t mean he enjoyed watching Grover fling himself through the window of a Bridal Boutique and into a rack of wedding dresses. The monster stalked by, stinking of wet fur and rotten meat. Sadly Percy knew that the reprieve wouldn’t last long, proven correct when the Monster took a deep sniff and whirled around to face the Boutique.
“MIIIIINE!”
He sat bolt upright, fear making his heart rate skyrocket. The scar across his thumb ached like it was freshly cut open. Percy did not know what was up with that, but every now and then it opened itself and bled... he was ignoring it for now. His leg kicked out, unfortunately landing against the invisible form curled up at the foot of his bed. Annabeth yelped loudly and fell out of the bed. Percy cringed, picturing her glare even though she was invisible. His mother did not approve of them sleeping together, even though they were both technically getting close to seventeen. She said that as long as their bodies were underaged they would follow her rules in her house.
They mostly behaved.
Sometimes.
Every now and then.
No they didn’t.
At all.
Any time Annabeth left Camp Half-blood and rocked up to his apartment they ended up curled around each other. It was one of the only ways for them to sleep well, without being woken up by PTSD driven nightmares. It hadn’t happened much over the school year, but as soon as Annabeth took off from her fathers they set up the habit. Usually once a week if they could manage. Not to mention the near daily Iris Messages set up between different members of the Seven.
“Percy! You’re going to be late!” his mom called.
“I’m up,” he called back.
Annabeth shimmered into visibility, rubbing her elbow with a sour look. Percy just snorted at her. She knew better than to sleep at the foot of his bed, but she had gotten in after he went to sleep. And if Percy went to bed thinking he was the only one there he embodied his starfish cousins the best he was able. How a 5’2 teenager took up a whole full sized mattress no one knew. He felt under his pillow and pulled Riptide free.
The blade felt as perfect in his hand as it ever did. He still wore Telos around his neck at all times. His mother had put a ban on weapons in the apartment, but he still kept them on him. The amount of times he had been attacked by low level monsters over one school year was frankly a little silly. He remembered from his first life that nothing had happened until the last day of school, not nearly every other day. Sally knocked on his door and Annabeth vanished.
Percy opened the door and smiled at his mom, “morning.”
She glanced around the room quickly and he crossed his fingers behind his back. Sally Jackson had always been able to see through the Mists that separated the Mortal and Immortal worlds. And over the year she had gotten better and better at finding an invisible Annabeth. Thankfully she was hiding in a good enough spot that they didn’t get in trouble. Again.
“Last day, are you ready?”
Percy nodded. He had made it through a whole school year without any issues or anything going wrong. No weird accidents. No fights in the classroom. No teachers turning into monsters and trying to kill him with poisoned cafeteria food or exploding homework. And his grades were better than they had even been by the grace of this being his second chance and routine study sessions. All he had to do was make it through one more day. Considering he knew that cannibalistic giants were about to show up… well he was pretty sure he would be fine actually.
His mom made blue pancakes and eggs for him. Percy devoured them with the enthusiasm he showed any food these days. Not to mention his mom was a great cook. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye as he ate. She was dressed in her work uniform: a starry blue skirt and a red-and-white striped blouse she wore to sell candy at Sweet on America. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Even though she was taking night classes, and had a good nest egg of money from selling his Ex-Stepdads petrified body, Sally still worked at the candy store. She said it kept her busy while he was gone.
There were three brisk knocks on the door. Sally went to answer it, letting in Annabeth. His friend joined him at the table, thanking his mom for the plate of breakfast that was put in front of her. Annabeth wore what he recognized as her normal going out ware, a camp shirt, black cargo pants, heavy combat boots, her curls in a long braid threaded through with a celestial bronze garrote wire, and her dagger at her waist. They finished their food quickly, trying to outrace the clock. Percy took the food his mom held out and slid it into his backpack for lunch.
Once the clock went off for 7:30 he rose from the table. His mom tried to tame his hair before she gave up. He constantly looked windswept and a little messy, it was part of his charm. He hurried out to catch the 2 Train, Annabeth at his side. She would be hanging out invisible for most of the day until the trouble started. Percy waited at the station for a second until Tyson showed up. Had Percy mentioned how much he adored his half brother?
The young Cyclops crushed him in a hug every morning as if it had been months since they saw each other. They hopped onto the train and made it to school without anything else happening. Meriwether College Prep was still one of Percy’s favorite schools. They worked with his ADHD and Dyslexia better than anywhere else. And most of the classes were pretty freeform or fun enough to keep his attention. The only spike of trouble Percy had gotten into was when he lost his temper and knocked the Hades out of Matt Sloan.
The bastard had tried to tease Tyson.
It didn’t go well for him. Percy had accepted his week of suspension without any argument or shame. The only reason he hadn’t been kicked out was because the Mortals thought that Tyson was on the spectrum and Percy was standing up for him. He wasn’t going to say otherwise when it bought him leniency. He would do it again too.
Percy tried to convince his mother to take Tyson in, but their apartment was only a two bedroom. And with how often Annabeth was around they didn’t have much room. Tyson didn’t mind, he just slept on their couch anytime the weather got bad. Anyway, for the most part the other kids had learned to leave Tyson alone. Between Percy being a little bit feral and more than willing to sink his teeth into people and Tysons own incredible strength they more often than not regretted their choices. Which meant they were left alone in the yard for their English final exam, a reenactment of Lord of the Flies.
They went to chemistry next, which was another easy exam. All they had to do was mix chemicals until something exploded. Tyson’s childish clumsy nature had them succeeding in under thirty seconds. They got evacuated from the class while the hazmat's were called to clean up the mess. Annabeth laughed near silently behind him, hand brushing the small of his back. Tyson twitched at the noise, head coking to one side and the other. Percy felt a tiny bit awful for not telling Tyson what was going on yet. But he didn’t think that his brother would be able to keep his mouth shut.
Percy wasn’t sure if Tyson was really young or possibly actually on the spectrum. He was massive, yes, but there were just little things that Percy took notice of. It didn’t really help that Tyson hadn’t been raised around Mortals either. At Percy’s best guess Tyson seemed to be around 7 or 8 by human standards. In any case Percy felt responsible for his younger half brother. Which made not telling him that Annabeth was following them around all morning annoying. He was glad time was passing quickly though, it kept him from being a jumpy mess.
Not to say that he wasn’t his normal level of jumpy, but it wasn’t worsened.
Social studies was fine until it wasn’t. Percy spent most of his time drawing a messy rendition of a latitude/longitude map of the area around Camp Half-blood. It might have been cheating considering how many times he had stared at professionally done maps of the area before both wars but Eh. he was almost enjoying the task until Matt Sloan and his ‘buddies’ started acting like idiots. They had torn up their own paperwork and were shooting spitballs at the back of everyone's heads.
“Can you stop?” Percy hissed.
“Better get used to it Jackass. These guys are moving here next year,” Sloan bragged, like that was supposed to scare him. “I bet they can pay the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend.”
Percy stopped. He turned in his chair. A hand drifted to his pocket. Chiron’s voice whispered in the back of his mind, warning Percy to never take out his anger on helpless mortals. Especially not children, no matter how hateful they were. A much louder voice argued that Sloan would find it harder to talk without a few teeth.
“Percy?” Tyson whimpered.
Thankfully for Sloan the bell rang, “You’re such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I’m gonna put you out of your misery next period.”
Percy watched them go with hard eyes. His lip quirked at one corner when Sloan ‘tripped’ and fell face first into the wall. He bet there was an invisible foot caught up in the boy's legs. Tyson sniffled next to him, staring down at his massive hands.
“Do you think I’m ‘tarded Percy?” the big softy asked.
Percy shook his head and knocked their shoulders together. Well, his shoulder to Tysons bicep, “Nah big guy. You just got a later start than other people. You’ll do great things one day, trust me!”
Tyson sniffled and crushed Percy into a hug before he could dodge. Percy wheezed, wondering if his lungs were going to escape his mouth, and awkwardly patted Tyson on the back. They got up and headed to the gym for the party that was about to happen. The gym uniform at Meriwether was sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Fortunately, they did most of our athletic stuff inside, so Percy didn’t have to tolerate jogging through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.
He was already in the Cult that was Camp Half-blood. It didn’t need to get worse.
Percy changed quickly and then guarded the door to the weight room for Tyson to change. He winced at the memory of how annoyed his child self got at doing such things. With age came empathy he supposed. They walked out of the locker room together and gathered with the rest of the students in front of Coach Nulany. Percy had the theory that Nulany and the Oracle at Camp had been twins. They were the same shriveled age, and both smelled disturbingly like mothballs and ammonia.
Sloan called, “Coach can I be captain?”
It didn’t even matter that Nulany agreed, Percy figured Sloan would do what he wanted anyway. He just rolled his eyes at being made the other captain. Predictably all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan’s side. So did the big group of visitors. That was okay though, Percy had been subtly trying to stage a riot with the quiet and weird kids anyway. They were all fed up with Sloan and ready to take the arrogant bastard out. Sloan smirked and dumped the basket of balls free. It was a scramble for everyone to get one, but both teams managed.
“Scared,” Tyson mumbled. “Smells funny.”
“I know big guy,” Percy replied, “get them out and hopefully they’ll go away.”
Tyson nodded, easily palming two balls. Sloan blew the coach’s whistle and the game began. Percy’s team did surprisingly well for a bunch of geeks and losers. He supposed that a year's worth of bottled anger made for good motivation. They knocked out a bunch of the popular kids quickly before they even realized what was going on. He was proud, but mostly focused on dodging the weapons that were dodge balls hurled by Giants. All around Matt Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They were eight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tattooed with snakes and hula women and Valentine hearts.
Sloan dropped his ball and scurried backwards, “whoa! You’re not from Detroit, who the hell-”
The other Mortals in the gym started screaming. Fast as lightning one of the Giants whirled around and chucked a ball at the door. It slammed shut, nearly crushing some kids hand, and sealed as if by magic.
“Let them go!” Percy ordered, trying to pretend like his voice didn’t crack obnoxiously.
The one with the name tag that read Joe Bob snarled, “And lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren’t just playing for your death. We want lunch!”
Right! Laistrygonians. That’s what the giants were actually called. That was too much, Percy was just going to call them Giants- even if he had totally fought the real Giants and these guys weren't shit compared to them. Annabeth shimmered into view next to him, arms crossed over her chest. Tyson yelped and reflexively threw one of his balls at her. Percy batted it out of the way before it got close enough to hit.
Joe Bob waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line but the balls weren’t made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of cannon balls, perforated like wiffle balls with fire bubbling out the holes. They must’ve been searing hot, but the giants picked them up with their bare hands.
“We’ve got to distract them,” Annabeth said, twisting away from one of the flaming balls, “protect the Mortals!”
Percy nodded and went to grab Riptide. Except he was in gym clothes. Which had no pockets. Thank the stars for Triton. Percy reached up and pulled the Trident Charm his half brother had given him before his first quest off of the chain he always wore around his neck. It sprung to life with its customary flare of blue light. He used Telos like a baseball bat to knock a flaming ball into one of the Giants.
“Flesh!” two giants bellowed. “Hero flesh for lunch!” They both took aim.
“Percy needs help!” Tyson bellowed, jumping in front of the oncoming balls.
Percy cringed. Just because he knew that Tyson would be okay did not make it any easier to watch. The balls whistled as they flew through the air but they were caught harmlessly. The two Giants had enough time to gape in shock before Tyson launched them back, then they were just an outline of dust. Three down, three to go.
Kids were running around screaming, trying to avoid the sizzling craters in the floor. Others were banging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court, watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him. Nulany still wasn’t seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions were giving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine. Annabeth had fallen back to protect the Mortals, her small dagger wasn’t very useful against flaming balls.
Percy ducked under another one of the flaming balls, heat searing his skin. Good to know that his child's body hadn’t become heat resistant yet. He was glad he hadn’t found that out by grabbing one of the death balls. He popped back upright and launched Telos with all of his strength. It turned one of the Giants into a surprised looking shish kebab. Tyson took out the other one with its own ball. That only left Joe Bob. Annabeth took out that one for him.
Her dagger arched through the air like a shooting star, landing firmly in the bastard's eye. He blinked a few times as if he was stunned before poofing in a cloud of dust and green smoke. Matt Sloan, who’d been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses.
He looked around, heavily blinking a few times before he started babbling, “what the hell? Who were those guys? They said they were from Detroit!”
Percy just rolled his eyes and punched him square in the face. Automatic off switch. He felt a lot better after putting up with Sloan for the whole year. He sighed and turned to check on the other two. Besides a few small singed holes in their shirts both looked fine. Well, Tyson was very confused, and sent Percy guilty looks, but that was understandable. The gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. Percy heard sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. He gave the sprinkler system a gentle tug and set them off to fix at least one of those issues.
Percy grumbled to himself. He really didn’t want to be kicked out of school again. Especially after he had worked so hard to make sure that this school year went well for him. He had even made friends! Sorta. Most Mortals didn’t really want to interact with him, but he had a few that he could sit with at lunch and be tolerated. Plus Meriweather just worked well with his learning disabilities. And it was close to home, he only had a twenty minute sub ride both ways, and it was a station where he could easily hop the turnstiles.
The Headmaster finally broke open the doors and came running in, looking around frantically. Annabeth proved that she was the smartest of all of them by bursting into loud messy sobs and running to his side. Tyson also started crying, but that was almost normal.
“Sir!” she sobbed, “those awful boys had Molotov's! How did they even get into the school?”
Percy didn’t know if it was the Mist itself, Annabeth manipulating the magic, or if Headmaster Bonsai was just confused by having an unknown teenage girl sobbing on him but he slowly nodded. Percy joined them, chewing on his cuticles and twitching at every sound like he was terrified.
“I think they were friends with Matt Sloan, he said they were visiting him from Detroit,” he said quietly.
He didn’t even really feel that bad about manipulating Headmaster Bonsai. The man was nice, if a bit spacey, and genuinely cared about running a decent school that worked with troubled kids. He’d taken in Tyson as a pet project, and hadn’t given Percy detention for missing homework. One of the other loner girls, he thought her name was Maria, came up to them, scrubbing tears off her face.
“They ran out into the street,” she pointed over her shoulder where one of the balls had blown a hole into the wall.
Headmaster Bonsai nodded slowly, “we’ll bring up the camera footage and send it over to the police. Are all of you okay? I’m sure this was very traumatizing for you.”
Percy, Annabeth and Tyson quickly said they were. Bonsai waved them off and went to go check with the other students. Percy thought that Nulany might be getting fired. Did it make him a terrible person to not be upset by that? Percy quickly jogged over to the unsealed locker room and fished Riptide out of his singed pants. Sadly he couldn’t change into them, they were mostly ashes and belt loops. Annabeth grabbed Percy's hand and started dragging him away. He grabbed Tysons wrist to not lose the big guy and they escaped the school like a messed up conga line. They ducked into an alleyway a few streets over where they could talk.
“Invisible girl smells funny,” Tyson said as soon as they stopped moving.
“I’m a demigod like Percy,” she answered shortly, looking over her shoulder as a firetruck screamed past.
“Like Percy?” Tyson asked.
“Not like me!” Percy said quickly, “Annabeth is a daughter of Athena, not Poseidon.”
Tyson nodded. He seemed fascinated by her braid, reaching out to try and touch it. Annabeth batted his hand away uneasily. She was mostly okay with Tyson, but still a little uncomfortable. And she just didn’t care to be touched by most people in general.
“If you are Son of Poseidon…” Tyson said slowly.
“We don’t have time,” Annabeth said, not unkindly but rushed, “we need to get to Camp.”
Percy nodded in agreement, “we’ll talk more in a bit big guy, let's find a ride first.”
Tyson frowned, but followed them out of the Alley. Annabeth led them to the corner of Thomas and Trimble before she started fishing around in her backpack. She cheered a little once she pulled out a golden Drachma.
“Stêthi,” she shouted in Ancient Greek. “Ô hárma diabolês!”
Percy ran the translation in his head. Stop! Oh chariot of Damnation! He still thought that sounded awful. She threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the Drachma sank right through and disappeared. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool about the size of a parking space bubbling red liquid like blood. Then a car erupted from the ooze.
Percy made a face and stepped away from the Taxi. Not the regular and eye-catching yellow taxi, or even one of the black ones. It looked like it had been crafted from pure smoke, as if he could walk through the doors with no issues. There was something printed on the side, that he knew was Gray Sisters, but Dyslexia made actually reading it a pain. The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair covering her eyes, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she’d just had a shot of Novocain
“Passage?”
“Three to Camp Half-blood.” Annabeth said confidently.
“Ach!” the old woman screeched. “We don’t take his kind!” She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.
Percy leaned in close to the window and gave her a sweet smile, “keep acting like that and you won’t take anyone.”
“Three extra coins upon arrival,” Annabeth sighed.
Percy glanced at her, catching the stormy glare she directed at him. He just shrugged, he was tired of Tyson being treated like shit.
“Fine!” the old lady squawked.
They piled into the Taxi. Thankfully Percy had learned, and he made sure Tyson had a window seat. Just in case he needed to puke again. He glared at the three old women, meeting the single eye of the one in the middle.
The one driving said, “Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!”
She stomped the accelerator like she was a wannabe Nascar driver. Percy swore and clung to the seat. The recording playing over the speakers recommended buckling up, but there were no seatbelts. He ignored the arguing and yelling of the Gray Sisters, just trying to hold down his breakfast. Tyson moaned from beside him, both hands pressed to his stomach. He tried to close his eyes and pretend it wasn’t happening, but that only made his nausea worse.
He cringed all the way back into the seat when Anger smacked their shared eye into the back seat and directly into his lap. Percy didn’t need the coordinates this time around. Annabeth had an eidetic memory, it made things much easier for him. Then again he remembered the changed prophecy from the year before. The scar in his thumb still occasionally opened up and bled randomly. He steeled his nerves and pulled off a part of his signed shirt to grab the eye.
“Nice boy!” Anger cried, as if she somehow knew he had her missing peeper. “Give it back!”
“Not until you explain,” he told her. “What were you talking about, the location I seek?”
Percy let the arguing and byplay pull out again. He was stubborn enough to hold onto the eye until the Taxi fell apart around them. They went faster and faster, the outside world becoming a sickening blur of colors.
“I’m rolling down the window,” he warned even though he was in the middle seat and could do no such thing.
“Wait!” the Gray Sisters screamed. “30, 31, 75, 12!”
Percy nodded and tossed the eye up front. Wasp snatched it up and slammed it into her eye socket like she was catching an M&M out of the air. She yelped in shock and slammed the brakes, sending the three teenagers crashing into the back of the front seats. Percy would have gone straight out the windshield if Tyson hadn’t caught the back of his shirt. Tyson kicked open the door and stumbled out to puke onto the ground loudly.
“Shit!” Annabeth cursed.
He looked over her shoulder and joined in on the swearing. They had reached Camp Halfblood alright. And the Camp was under attack.