GG, Kronos, But I Have Foresight (PJO Self-Insert)

[TheRealEvanSG]

Summary: In which the Greek gods are all pretty much Jerkass Gods with their own agendas, Percy is a ridiculously sassy little kid, Chiron is awkward af, and I'm just a punk-ass, possibly bisexual otaku making butterflies so big that they create fucking tornadoes. Oh, and I also appear to have been turned into a girl for some largely unknown reason. Fuck it, I'm not taking this. Kronos is getting so many blue plastic hairbrushes to the face.

Table of Contents:
Prologue - I'm the Only One Without a Vote on My Fate, As Usual
Chapter 1 - And I'd Just Escaped High School, Too
Chapter 2 - Nancy Bobofit is Not the Best Roommate
Chapter 3 - I Have Fury
Chapter 4 - Your Friendly Neighborhood Horseman
Chapter 5 - Everybody's Got a Water Buffalo
Chapter 6 - We Take a Bull By the Horns
Chapter 7 - Mr. D Predicts My Demise
Chapter 8 - Obligatory Training Montage
Chapter 9 - Murphy's Law Sucks, Really Badly
Chapter 10 - I Narrowly Avoid Being Smote
Chapter 11 - Lady Luck is Literally Against Me
​

For those curious, here's a picture of me as I am now. Just imagine me as a chick, and there you are.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Prologue - I'm the Only One Without a Vote on My Fate, As Usual
​

It was early in the morning of the Winter Council, and the tension in the air within the throne room of the gods was a churning soup of discomfort and nervousness. Even in normal times, the Winter Council was never exactly a peaceful place when you grouped together twelve immortal beings who were all at varying degrees of boredom, as well as annoyance with each other. But group together twelve of these people when war with the king of the Titans, Kronos himself, and his small army is gearing up for full-on war? The tension was so thick one could cut it with a knife. Literally. Ares was actually congealing tension around him and cutting it with his knife.

"Plans are all stupid," Ares said sagely as he spread his tension on a slice of bread, humming something suspiciously similar to Iron Maiden. "This is never going to work out for us, you know. I don't care what Hypnos's dream said, mortals never succeed at anything we send them to do. And demigods are only slightly better than them. I'm telling you, we should just send hobbits. Those movies were awesome."

Athena's eye twitched. "First of all, hobbits aren't real. And second of all, plans always work better than just flying by the seat of your pants and trying to bust through with your strength."

"The sweet-ass silver Harley I rode through an alt-right rodeo during a solar eclipse begs to differ."

"Girls, girls," Apollo hummed, strumming his lyre, "you're both pretty. In Athena's case, stunning." This earned him a scathing glare from the god of war and a particularly loathsome frown from the goddess of knowledge (and olive branches). The musician poet pointedly ignored this. "But Athena is correct. I have a hunch that Hypnos's mysterious dream the other day might be just the thing we need to put a cork in this entire plot of our dear... forefather."

Zeus's hands clenched on his arm rests. "To think that we would desire help from a mere mortal... unthinkable!" he cursed, his godly knuckles whitening. "I refuse to go through with this plan!"

"Even if it means putting a stop to this pointless death?" Hades hissed, leaning forward in his own dark throne, eyes gleaming. "The immeasurable expansion of my kingdom -- which, I might add, is already filled to bursting?"

Poseidon raised a steady hand. "Peace brother," he requested. He sighed and shook his head. "We all know about the state of your kingdom -- you've been complaining about it since 1865. And Zeus," the enormous being added, his eyes green like the sea, "would you really refuse help that might save all of our children from countless unnecessary deaths? Haven't you already suffered from Thalia's first 'death' enough? Would you really risk the possibility of her dying a second time?"

Zeus's fists clenched his throne tighter. Ozone crackled in the throne room. "Thalia is stronger than she used to be," he hissed, his words like the soft, rolling thunder coming from the horizon on a stormy day. "She won't lose again."

"That Percy kid seems to be able to beat her ass just fine," Ares reasoned.

Hermes snorted. "Never thought I'd hear the warmongerer try to use logic," he snarked, grinning widely and high-fiving a smirking Apollo while Ares gritted his teeth. "But in any case, yeah, that's right. And..." His eyes grew downcast. "My son, Luke... he's an even better fighter than Percy. There's no telling who might lose their lives in the coming battle. But if it were at all possible to avoid it altogether..."

"I'm all for saving our children," Artemis said with a frown, "but must it be a mortal male? And must he be a mortal male from another world?"

Persephone stroked her chin. "According to Hypnos's dream, he apparently knows our future from a series of books... but can he really save us all?"

"Perhaps if he'd eat more cereal," suggested Demeter to Persephone's immense chagrin.

A few moments of silence hung in the air.

"We shall put it to a vote based on majority rule," Zeus said at last, sitting up straight. "Do we pull Evan Gamble from his world into our past to save our future, or do we proceed as we are now?"

One more moment of hesitation passed before Hades rose his hand. Three other hands rose into the air for the first option. Four hands rose into the air for the second option. The gods glanced at each other to see who had yet to vote, and everyone's eyes fell upon Artemis.

"Artemis? Hera?" Dionysus yawned, turning a page in his latest magazine. "I don't particularly care what you choose, but can you two at least make your decisions? I have a game of Pac-Man I need to get back to in Minneapolis."

Artemis sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Does this hero really have to be a hero? What's particularly great about him that a girl can't do, or do better?"

Hermes and Apollo looked at each other and shrugged. Athena, however, stood up and shook her head. "He's quite the smart young man, and his writings have shown he is a kind person who would be willing to change events for the better if placed in these situations."

The silver-eyed huntress sighed. "Be that as it may, he is a man, and I cannot let a man do a job a woman could do just as well at."

"I agree with Artemis," Hera huffed. "There are too many male heroes in the stories these days."

"What if we made him a girl?" Aphrodite suggested, tilting her head. "I could handle that. Would you both be willing to accept then?"

Artemis and Hera exchanged glances. An unspoken agreement passed between them, and they nodded.

"Very well," the Huntress said at last, and her and Zeus's wife raised their hands. "Do this, and I shall accept his... or rather, her involvement in the proceedings of our future."

"And I as well," Hera agreed.

Zeus, who had voted against, cursed. "Blast! Then it is decided. Evan Gamble shall be in charge of the future of our entire world... as Eve Gamble." There was a clap of thunder, and flashes of lighting rained down on New York City despite there being no storm clouds or rain. Foolish mortals, unaware of the giant mountain hovering above their beloved Empire State Building, were left to watch the light show with great confusion. And as for me? Well, I was left to curse like a sailor as, far away from the gods and goddesses in an entirely alternate version of the United States, I felt the ground suddenly disappear from beneath my feet and send me tumbling into a great abyss.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Chapter 1 - And I'd Just Escaped High School, Too​

I don't know if you know anything about Ohio, but normally, the ground doesn't open up right beneath your feet, toss you into a vortex of confusion, color, and contrast, and then dump your sorry ass on a bed in a boarding school at New York City. The ground is normally very solid and unmoving. You can usually expect it to keep you in your own plane of existence.

Me, though?

I wasn't so lucky.

Falling through the magical rabbit hole, I quickly laid out a few possibilities as to how this could be happening. First: pipe dream. Evidence to this would be the whacky and shimmering rainbow colors that the walls of this otherwordly tunnel were composed of. Evidence against this would be that I'd made it a point to never ingest any sort of drug I didn't need, even over-the-counter allergy pills that didn't do shit to my allergies. Fuck Zertec.

Second: I was drunk and hallucinating all of this. There was only evidence to the contrary on this point, sadly. I had no idea whether drinking could give you the sensation of continuously falling at sufficient velocity. Furthermore, just like with drugs, I'd gone out of my way to never accept any drinks offered to me, even from my parents. The only alcohol I'd ever partaken of was Sunday morning church wine, and I highly suspected that the priests commonly cheaped out and replaced the stuff with grape juice, anyway.

Third: I was asleep and dreaming all of this. Again, not even close to an option. It had been bright, mid-August daylight mere minutes ago. I had an unfortunate habit of consistently failing at any and all attempts to take a nap, so unless I was having some weird daydream -- which I supposed could be possible since I was ADD -- that was out of the question.

So, what did that leave, then? Bad mushrooms? Nah, I was picky eater; I hated mushrooms.

...Hmmmm.

As I continued to fall through this rainbowy dimension, I folded my arms across my chest and crossed my legs. Cold wind buffetted my brown hair around and peeled my somewhat ovular face up. To any outsiders, I would've looked cartoonishly uncomfortable, and I was. Do you think having your lips ripped upwards by the sheer force of the wind striking your face is fun? If so, you're even more insane than I am, which is saying something, since I once binged the entirety of Ouran High School Host Club while I was sick and could barely keep my eyes open because of my damn allergies. My eyes were itchy as hell after that incident, but goddammit if the laughs weren't worth it.

Oh, lookie there. The tunnel's stopping. Seems like my pointless, internal rambling had managed to pass enough time that I'd finally escaped this weird wormhole aaaaaand oh, fuck, now I'm falling at terminal velocity, directly onto a bed in the middle of some completely random room.

WHUMP. My soft body landed heavily on the bed, which seemed just barely able to fit my 5'9" body in it. Its wooden legs creaked, and the bed shook dangerously. All of the air I had in my body rapidly escaped my lungs upon impact and I choked dryly. Owww. That had hurt. Human bodies weren't designed to experience high-velocity impact on a cheap-ass bed mattress that was barely softer than a prison floor! I think I cracked a rib or two. Possibly three. Sue me, I'm no doctor.

Actually, please don't! I'm dirt poor as it is and really don't need to hire a lawyer.

I groaned painfully as I bounced once, twice, on the very hard bed before finally stopping. My head spun, and my entire body ached. My chest especially hurt. In fact, it hurt strangely bad, like someone had kicked me in the balls but kind of a lesser sensation. It was making it a bit hard to breathe. That might've been from the added heaviness on my chest, though. It wasn't much at all, but I definitely noticed it, and it definitely felt like I had two weights strapped above my non-existent man-boobs. Like, what the hell? Had the thing that spirited me away from walking my dog on a bright, sunny August day also decided it cared about my physical strength? Screw you, mysterious ROB, if I want to be lazy about my physical condition, then I'm not gonna just half-ass it.

Can you half-ass half-assing things? ...I don't rightly know. Give me a few seconds on that one.

I opened my eyes without even realizing I closed them, groaned as I swung my shapely legs over the edge of the bed, and rubbed my head. Well, at least the pain told me this was real.

Closing my eyes, I sighed and shook my head. I couldn't just sit here all day. I had to figure out some clue as to where I was and exactly what had happened to me. For the first time, I took stock of my new environment.

Going by the fact that I was actually on a bunk bed, I was in a generic, unassuming dorm room, with depressing grey walls that seemed designed to give absolutely no psychological stimulus to the occupants, be it positive or negative. The floor was a fluffy, light yellow wool carpet, the kind of yellow that people use when they don't want to be blatantly in your face about it. Plastered to the wall were posters for various celebrities, like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and the posters had pink paper hearts of varying sizes taped to them. Noises of some city -- the high whine of cars, the honking of horns -- permeated softly through the grey walls.

A closet was shoved against the wall to my right, with a door next to it. The closet was filled to bursting with a rather ridiculous amount of items, not a single one of them having any sort of relevance to the rest. Another closet sat next to a window on the wall to my left, and upon inspecting its contents, I noticed that it was much more orderly than its brother. Clean, ironed clothes dangled carefully on hangers. They were all definitely girls' clothes, and certainly were a school uniform. A bead of sweat rolled down my cheek, and I looked to the wall directly in front of the bunk bed I was sitting on. A desk with a large mirror sat there beneath a heart-covered poster of Brad Pitt, and upon its surface sat a variety of makeup supplies and brushes and whatnot that I couldn't even begin to name.

Well, that settled that, then. I was in some sort of girl's dorm room in some random city. Going by the rather aggravating amount of honking that came from the traffic outside, and the fact that I could see what looked to be a row of brownstone buildings from the window, the city was New York. I'd been to New York about four times, and had vacationed in several other important American cities, and I could say with some certainty that the Big Apple had the nosiest drivers of them all.

The thought crossed my mind that I might not be in an American city altogether.

I furiously punched and kicked that thought into the back of my mind, where it cowered in darkness. I was not spending the rest of my life kidnapped and forced to live in a Russian girl's dorm.

I pushed myself off of the bunk bed, cursing as I landed on my foot badly, and hobbled over to the door. It opened before I could get a chance to even grab the knob though, and my momentum carried me forward into a soft body. My vision was momentarily blocked by said soft body.

Oh God, please don't let this be a face-in-the-boobs cliche, please don't let this be a face-in-the-boobs cliche, I whined desperately in my head.

A sharp intake of surprise reached my ears and I backed away from the soft body to examine the girl whom I'd accidentally run into. Judging from my height and hers, I had lucked out and hadn't actually gotten my face stuck in her breasts. Then again, she didn't actually have much in that way to speak of. She was a short thing, shorter than me at least, and my vision had been blocked by her hair, not her chest. She currently was not in a school uniform, but rather in an edgy black shirt that depicted a heart pierced by an arrow with a jaggedy shaft. She wore equally edgy black pants, and from how well she would've blended into a night sky, to me she kind of looked like she was trying to simulate both a robber and an early 2000's punk band groupie. Then again, she didn't really have the hair for my last judgement; it was straight and a natural red, tied into a ponytail that hung on her back.

We stared for a few moments. She looked highly unimpressed with my accidental faceful of her hair.

"Um, hello, Earthling," I said, offering a small, nervous wave. "Are you Russian?"

Was my voice always that high? I mean, I had a naturally high voice, but I'd thought it was at least low enough to be considered a male's.

The girl cocked her eyebrow. "Eve," she said slowly, like I was a piece of gum on the bottom of her black school shoes, "you are so weird."

"My name's not Eve, it's Evan!" I snapped, wincing as she shoved past me and elbowed me into the door. Owwww, my funny bone. Seriously!? On top of having cracked ribs, I now also had a hurt funny bone!? This was not funny, God. Just what was going on, anyway? I randomly got stolen from walking my dog in Ohio, I ended up in what's probably a girl's dorm room in New York City, my voice is higher, and this edgy redheaded girl just called me Eve.

...Wait.

Waaaaaait. Just what did I like to do in my free time? Just what did I pour my life and soul and precious hours of sleep into every day of my life?

Fuck. I was a self-insert.

While the redheaded girl gaped at me, I rubbed my non-existent beard and paced in circles in the doorway, largely ignoring the aching in my chest and funny bone. Okay, so I at least know this much now. But what series was I in? Shit, I'd read and watched a lot of stuff. How was I supposed to know where I was? I still didn't know enough about this location to make an accurate guess...

I rushed over to the redhead, grabbed her, and shook her desperately. Her eyes widened in surprise and she attempted to knock my hands off of her shoulders. "What year is this!?" I asked hurriedly.

"2005!" she yelped, eyes wide. "Hey, let go, bitch!"

2005... okay, so I was definitely on Earth, then. Of course, I'd suspected as much anyway from the posters of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, but it was nice to have confirmation. Swallowing dryly, I asked, "Where are we?"

"Did you hit your head or something?" The girl squinted at me and punched my elbow. Yelping, my grip on her shoulders relaxed, and I keeled over to nurse my poor elbow. "We're at Yancy Academy, home to every kind of problem child you could name. I'm Nancy Bobofit, and you're my annoying roommate, Eve Gamble."

That got me to look up from my elbow. Yancy Academy... Yancy... why did that name sound familiar? Nancy Bobofit was ringing a bell, too. A very faint bell, to be sure, but it was ringing something. Yancy Academy... Nancy Bobofit... Some series I had watched or read.... I tapped my foot as I tried to link them together.

Furies. Centaurs. Decapitating math teachers.

My pearly, hazel eyes shot open in recognition. Sweet Jesus on a Harley Davis, I was in Percy Jackson.

...Fuck, I was in Percy Jackson.

.......Awesome! I was in Percy Jacks -- waaaaaait a minute.

"Did you say 'Eve Gamble,' and roommate?" I asked awkwardly.

Nancy growled and sighed. "Yes. What is wrong with you today? I mean, you're weird normally, but this is nuts even for you."

I rushed over to the mirror on the makeup desk and stared. Long, chocolate hair, beautiful hazel eyes, pink blush on the cheeks, lips turned a soft, gel-ish pink from lipstick, and a girl's school uniform. I blinked. The person in the reflection blinked back. I blinked again. She copied me again. Behind me, Nancy Bobofit lifted her eyebrow and stuck her hands in her pockets before collapsing on her bunkbed. "Whatever, bitch."

Brain.exe has suddenly stopped working. Reboot? Yes/No.

Yes.

Rebooting...

I screamed.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Chapter 2 - Nancy Bobofit is Not the Best Roommate
​

Okay, okay, okay, step one -- don't panic. Step one failed. Step two... what was step two? I didn't have a step two. I didn't have a step two. Step three -- panic some more. At least I was able to pull that one off. Step four -- Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" I howled, punching the makeup desk's oaken surface. My knuckles throbbed, and I rubbed them gingerly in response. In hindsight, perhaps slamming a twelve-year-old, feminine fist into a hard surface wasn't the best of ideas. Then again, I wasn't exactly well-known for my good ideas, and that was before I was turned into a tween girl.

Tween... Oh, shit. I'm gonna have to go through puberty again, aren't I?

I'm gonna have to go through puberty again.

I'M GONNA HAVE TO GO THROUGH PERIODS.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

"You done now?" Nancy asked dryly, blowing a pink Double Bubble bubble.

Panting, I clutched my still-aching chest and plopped myself down on the floor. "Yeah, I'm done now. Oh, wait. YAAAAAAAARGH! Okay, now I'm done."

"So what was that about, weirdo?" the redhead asked casually. She pulled out her cell phone, her thumbs flying over the keys. I blinked at that. Were kids at Yancy Academy allowed to have cell phones? I had no idea. I also had to blink at just how ridiculously crappy the cell phones looked. These were not your 2017 smartphones, people. "I am definitely texting all my friends about this, and I'd like some reasons as to why my annoying dormie suddenly freaked."

"You're too young to understand," I quipped, groaning as I picked myself off the floor. Now that I was over freaking out, there was only one thing left to do: head to the bathroom.

"Bitch, your birthday's in November. Mine's in June. I'm way older than you."

I paused with my hand halfway to the door. I was younger than Nancy Bobofit in this universe!? I threw my hands up to the sky and glared. "Aw, what? Come on, seriously?"

"Yes," Nancy drawled. "And, where are you going?"

"Bathroom." I marched out the door. Moments passed, and I poked my head back into the room. "Um, where exactly are the bathrooms again?"

Apparently the bathrooms were not that far from our dorm room, which was pretty lucky. I hurried across the marble floor of Yancy Academy's hallways and came to a stop at the bathrooms after making one right turn and jogging down the stairs. I definitely didn't trip a couple times due to my misplaced center of gravity. I also definitely didn't use the wall to keep my balance the rest of the way. I did, however, pause and stare at the entrance to the girl's bathroom for about five minutes when I finally arrived.

My skin crawled. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Dare I step foot in the one place forbidden to all men for centuries? The garden of femininity, the sacred trust of solitude and peace from perverts?

I took a nervous step forward. Every atom in my body screamed, and I stopped.

Come on, dude, I told myself in a pathetically whiny voice. If you don't take this chance now, you'll never be able to do it again!

My fists shaking by my side, I lifted a trembling foot high into the air. I brought it down hard across the threshold of the entrance, my black school shoes thudding against white-and-blue tiles. Gulping, I lifted my other foot and set it down ahead of the first. Lift, fall, lift, fall. My fists were clenched so tightly that my knuckles were turning white, but at last, a giddy feeling swept over me. I'd done it! I'd entered the girls' bathroom!

I rushed around the corner, skidded to a stop in front of the mirror, shrugged off the straps keeping up the black tank top-ish part of the uniform, and whipped off my baggy, white hand-me-down shirt.

Hazel eyes blinked.

"...This is not as fulfilling as I imagined it would be," I thought aloud, "but I am strangely okay with this."

I wasn't exactly what one would consider pretty. My new feminine body had a pretty average build for being in the tween years. Despite the boring white bra which covered my chest (did my girl side not understand what water and Murphy's Law did to white clothing?), I could tell that her -- no, my breasts were on the smaller side. My hourglass figure wasn't quite defined yet, but it was getting there.

Man. It felt really weird to be thinking those thoughts. Like, really weird. But, like I'd said, now that my initial freak out was over? Yeah. I was... kind of alright with this. I wouldn't say comfortable -- not by leagues. Just, alright. Adjusted. Honestly, I was just super thankful I hadn't turned out to be Mary Sue-beautiful. That would've made things a little awkward. Somehow being so average, just like in my past body, made things a little easier to cope with. It was true that I might have to deal with annoying looks from men for the foreseeable future, but that wasn't -- oh, no, wait, I was not tempting fate. No, siree.

Thunder rumbled high above the rooftops of Yancy Academy.

Fuck.

I shrugged my clothes on, my curiosity about my own body satiated. I was just about to step out of the bathroom when I felt a clenching below my stomach that was both familiar and unfamiliar. I froze in horror and sloooowly turned to look at the bathroom stalls.

Di immortales. How was I supposed to do this?

~o~​

Nancy Bobofit looked up from her phone, a curious frown on her face as she regarded my disheveled form stumbling into our dorm room. My face was pale, I was clutching my stomach, and my entire body was trembling.

"So, care if I ask what took you an hour in the bathroom?" she asked, line of sight returning to the soft glow of her phone screen.

I shuddered in horror. "A Thing Man Was Not Meant to Know. In every sense of the phrase."

"By the way, I thought you might care to know," Nancy added as I climbed the ladder to the top bunk -- which was apparently mine -- with a nasty shudder, "but I stuffed a lot of your clothes with ketchup sandwiches."

Anger washed over me and caused me to momentarily forget about my horrific attempt at utilizing different plumbing. I lowered my head over the edge of the top bunk to glare down at Nancy, who seemed altogether too pleased with herself. "WHY!?" I demanded, my voice cracking. "Just... why!?"

"Because I was bored."

"Aw, shit, I don't even have a good response to that." I pulled myself up and collapsed in exhaustion on my hard bed, which just an hour before had broken my fall into this messed-up alternate world. "I'm too tired for this bullcrap."

I closed my eyes, thinking about things. If I was forced to be in Yancy Academy with a twelve-year-old Nancy, that meant I was likely supposed to live through the events of at least the first PJO book. But what was I supposed to do? I growled angrily. Everyone knew that messing with prophecies could land you in some serious trouble, and wouldn't avert them anyway. Was I meant to eventually join forces with Percy and the gang? Could I even do anything if I did? Was I human, or was I demigod? Or was I something even stranger?

After some time, I finally rolled over and sighed. First things first -- I was going to have to get those clothes washed now, wasn't I? Yeah, I was. I didn't want to have to spend the entire rest of my school year in white shirts stained with red ketchup. Hopefully Nancy had done it recently enough that I could still bleach out most of the stains. Growling about school bullies and unfair situations, I heaved myself over the edge of the bed, landed badly on my foot again, and limped over to my closet.

Well, I assumed it was my closet, at least. As I'd described earlier, there were only two in the room, and one of them had all sorts of mismatched belongings in it. I was fairly positive the female version of me wasn't a kleptomaniac, which meant I had the cleaner closet.

At least one version of me had some sense of order about their sleeping quarters.

Sighing, I opened my closet and winced at the amount of ketchup stains that were covering the shirts. Yeah, that was a lot of sandwiches. Nancy must've raided the kitchen for all of this. I grabbed all of the shirts that were stained, shook out the sandwiches that were somehow lodged into them, and strode out of the room after gaining directions to the school laundry. I hummed something inspiring to myself, one of my favorite tracks from My Hero Academia. Music always helped keep my mind off things when they went badly, and it was no different here. The music helped calm my nerves, though my anger and annoyance at Nancy and at being in this whole situation in general weren't quelled very much.

Actually, the closer I walked to the laundry room, the angrier I found myself getting, despite the music.

I'd been taken unwillingly from my home. I'd lost the ability to see my family again, unless they were somehow still existing in this alternate world. And I hadn't even met the person or thing that had done it all. Hell, I hadn't even been told what it was that I was supposed to do here! Was there some divine task assigned to me? Or were the gods just bored and decided to pull me here for fun, like Nancy with her sandwiches? Was it even the gods who had brought me here?

I had millions of questions and not a single answer, and I was pissed. Off.

Upon finally reaching the laundry room, I noticed that there was a group of four girls, all wearing the same uniform as me, waiting inside, around the lines of washers and dryers. I spared them a frown as I walked by and shrugged my gaggle of stained shirts into a more comfortable spot over my arm. I opened up an empty washer, dumped my load inside it, added some bleach, and set it to wash them. I waited impatiently, all the while feeling the girls' eyes on me.

"So, Eve has finally snapped, has she?" one of them (I had no idea who) snickered behind my back.

Nancy Bobofit's statement came back to mind: I'm definitely texting all my friends about this.

I was gonna kill her.

There was a chuckle from a different girl -- a higher-pitched voice, a crueller voice. "Yeah, but I mean, it's not like we all didn't see it coming. She got in here because she kept claiming that she saw monsters everywhere, after all. It was only a matter of time."

"Yelling her head off like a lunatic," giggled someone else. My shoulders shook. "Must have been so scary, seeing ghosts and goblins in her dorm room."

I unclenched my fist long enough to grab some of my shirt and scrunch it up inside my hand. What had Eve gone through in her past life? I had no idea, but hearing these girls make fun of her like this -- make fun of me -- was setting my blood to boil. And furthermore, was Eve an actual person or were these all just memories created by the Mist?

I calmed down somewhat. Yeah, that was probably it. It was like that thing with everyone forgetting about Mrs. Dodds when Percy decapitated her in canon -- I'd bet that these memories everyone has of Eve are just false ones conceived from a prehistorical magic.

Beyond the laundry room, I heard footsteps and two boys talking. Some of the footsteps were off-beat, like the person making them was limp or something.

"If I were her," someone said, "instead of being insane all my life, I'd have just jumped off the nearest rooftop."

I gritted my teeth. That was it.

"You know, telling someone to commit suicide is a federal offense," I growled, turning around and glaring at the four girls who had been laughing behind my back. They smirked at themselves and rolled their eyes, and my eyes narrowed. "I'd suggest that next time, you think before you speak. If I actually were to jump off a rooftop, you'd be thrown in jail."

One of them, a brunette with a freckly face and a mean smile, shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Monster Whisperer. See, I didn't actually tell you to do anything."

My fists shook. "You were clearly insinuating it," I hissed. I was so fed up with everything that I couldn't stand it.

"What are you gonna do about it, freak?" one of the brunette's friends, a tall blonde, asked cheekily.

I glowered at them, and started to raise my fist, but I hesitated. Was I really about to punch these people? They were just bullies. They didn't deserve my time of day. They were just human, and humans are mean to each other. It's just a natural law of the universe. Besides, most of my rage wasn't even directed at them.

I lowered my fist, disgusted with myself as much as them, and turned to glare daggers at my washing machine. "Just leave me alone."

The footsteps from earlier drew close and louder. "Is everything alright here, girls?"

Blinking, I raised my head to look at the entrance to the laundry room, where two kids who were about my new age stood with passive expressions. One of them, the boy with the crutches, had acne and just a few whisps of hair on his chin. He looked nervous, and his lower lip was trembling, but he was resolute as he frowned at the girls who'd been trying to egg me on. He had a baseball cap on his head. Beside him was a boy with a Mediterranean complexion, who would've looked pretty plain had it not been for his unkempt hair, which looked rather strikingly like a surfer's, and his sea green eyes.

My eyes widened.

Beside me, the girls hesitated and looked at each other. Even though Percy and Grover, because that's who these boys had to be, looked pretty weak at the moment, it was clear my bullies liked doing their thing more when other people weren't around. They paused, exchanged looks, and all herded out the door past Percy and Grover.

"We're fine, punks."

"Beat it, Enchilada Boy," the brunette snarked, shoving Grover into the side of the entrance.

He bleated in surprise, and my back stiffened. Dear Lord, that sounded exactly like a goat. I stared as a furious Percy turned swiftly to her. "Hey, watch where you're going!" the son of Poseidon growled.

"Sorry." She didn't sound sorry.

"It's alright, Perce," Grover reassured his friend as he stood up straight. "She didn't hurt my leg."

Percy's fists lowered. I hadn't even realized he'd raised them. "Oh. Alright, then." The duo turned to me as the quartet of bullies at last vanished from sight. "Hey, there, Eve. You alright?"

I blinked. "You know me?"

"Um..." Percy's brow furrowed. "Kind of? I mean... I think I've seen you in class before, but... I don't know?"

"Wow, great answer," I said flatly. Grover studied me carefully.

"I've never seen you around," he said slowly. "Who are you?"

"Evan --" My voice caught, and I paused, leaving only the slight whirring of the washing machine in the background. That wasn't quite right anymore, was it? The undercover satyr raised his eyebrow as he caught my slip-up. "Er, Eve Gamble." I stuck out a hand. "Nice to meet you."

Grover studied my hand and looked from it, to my face. His nose twitched, and I realized he must have been sniffing to gather my scent. Oh, yeah, that's right! If this was before the museum field trip, then he would've known there was a monster in the school, but had no idea who it was. My face paled for a moment. Oh, crap. It was obvious now that the Mist was messing with people's memories of me, but as a satyr who knew about all of this, he wouldn't have been affected by it like Percy was. I was sure that he was thinking I'm the monster.

"Grover Underwood," Grover said, very uncertainly, as he slowly accepted my handshake. "Nice to meet you, too."

Percy grinned and shot me a winning smile as he firmly shook my hand after Grover. It was a much more confident and friendly shake than Grover's had been. "Percy Jackson. Give us a shout if those girls bother you again."

"Uh, thanks," I said intelligently as my childhood hero grinned, waved, and pulled his best friend back out into the hall.

I swallowed nervously as Grover's studious gaze didn't leave me until they were around the wall.

Oh, yeah, that satyr didn't trust me. He didn't trust me in the slightest.

Greaaaaat.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Chapter 3 - I Have Fury
​

It turned out that the day of the week I'd fallen into the Percy Jackson world on had been a Sunday, which was different from that same day back in my world. I found this out after I went to bed that evening. That had taken a whole lot of staring up at the dark ceiling to accomplish, but somehow I'd managed it. Luckily, I didn't have any demigod dreams. Or perhaps, I should've said unluckily? After all, since I definitely knew about the world of gods and monsters, if I'd become a demigod upon falling into Yancy, I should have started getting demigod dreams. But since I didn't, that was a definite clue pointing towards me being a mortal. Which was obviously less than ideal for a number of reasons.

I digress.

Nancy Bobofit woke me up by blowing a fog horn right in my face. "Get up, loser, classes start in ten minutes."

Blearily, I sat up stiffly and glared through my tired, hazel eyes at my bully of a roommate. She grinned and waved the fog horn in front of my face like a pendulum, moving it away from my hand quickly before I could snatch it away. I groaned. Then I realized that yesterday hadn't been a dream, and groaned some more.

"First of all, I'm gonna seriously get you for yesterday," I snarled, taking the ladder to the floor (I didn't want to twist my foot again). "Second of all, why did you wake me up only ten minutes before classes? And third of all, GIVE ME THAT DAMN FOG HORN!"

Nancy deftly dodged my attempts to steal the fog horn from her. She leaped to the side as I jumped up to try and snatch it from her hands, and I tripped over her foot, faceplanting into the soft yellow carpet. She chuckled, twirled the fog horn around her finger (how was she even doing that?), walked over to her closet, and stuffed the noisy object right deep down into her pile of random crap. I wilted as I scrambled to my feet. Yeah, there was no way I was digging around in that mess for a dumb little fog horn.

"First of all," she said in a high and altogether bad impression of my new voice, "in your dreams, second of all, because no makeup can improve your looks, and third of all, nope. See ya in homeroom with Mrs. Dodds!"

My jaw hung open in disbelief as she swaggered out the door, snickering to herself.

"How much of a bitch can one person be?" I asked nobody in particular at last. Man, this school year was going to suck. Groaning to myself about unbearable jerkasses, I pulled off the *shudder* lace-lined, pink pajamas that I'd found in my closet and pulled on one set of my school uniform. It was only when I was half way out the door, with seven minutes remaining, that I realized I had no idea where Mrs. Dodds's classroom was.

Oh. Crap. I really did not want my first experience with the literal Math teacher from hell to be me running late.

Luckily, I found someone in the halls who knew the way, and following their directions, I raced as fast as my current mobility in my new body would allow. I managed to sneak into class and plop down in my seat seconds before the bell rang. I probably looked like crap. My long, flowing hair was still disheveled from my restless slumber, I still had eye boogers that I hadn't quite yet blinked away, my face was kind of broken out, and I was squirming in my seat because I hadn't gotten the chance to go to the bathroom.

Mrs. Dodds narrowed her eyes at me as the bell rang mere moments after I sat down in the only empty desk in the classroom -- clearly mine. No recognition gleamed in those eyes, but something else about her was strange: namely, everything. Her skin was leathery and her feet were like a bird's, with nasty talons sticking out of the toes which were so sharply pointed they looked like they could pierce bones. Attached to her arms were dark wings that reminded me of a vampire's, and her hair was black and scraggly. One long tail curled out from her back.

I drew in a sharp intake of breath, my eyes widening and my face paling. I looked around at the other students in the room desperately -- didn't they see this!? Percy was just grinning and waving at me, and Grover only eyed me nervously. All of the other students were regarding Mrs. Dodds normally, like she was just another person and not a Greek monster. Dammit, the Mist was strong stuff... but then, if I was human, why was I seeing through it more clearly than even Grover?

Something here was off. Something here was very, very off.

"As you all know," said the demon from behind a podium at the front of the room, "today is the day of our field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art."

Percy perked up and looked at Mrs. Dodds with probably the most attention he'd ever looked at her with before. He didn't say anything, however. He'd probably learned not to talk over demon Math teachers, even if he hadn't yet learned she was a demon.

"You all should have gotten your permission slips signed and turned in by now," she continued, "and from what I see..." She reached into her desk, pulled out a black binder, and flipped to some random page. Her eyes roamed down it, and then she looked back up to me. They narrowed further. Her head tilted back down to the binder, and again up to me.

Sweat rolled down my forehead.

"You all have done so," Mrs. Dodds finished at last, stuffing the binder carefully back in her desk. She didn't break her gaze from me. I swallowed nervously. Just like Grover before her, this Fury knew I wasn't meant to exist in this classroom. My body trembled, and every cell screamed at me to get up and run. But I was too afraid even to do that. This woman's true form was terrifying to look at in real life.

Mrs. Dodds then went over some more rules and regulations -- the basic field trip procedure. Be polite, don't touch anything you're not supposed to, no food or drink on the bus, don't annoy the driver. My eyes fell upon Nancy Bobofit at those last two points. She was leaning back in her chair with her feet resting against her desk, using her bubble gum to blow bubbles without a care in the world. I did notice that she discreetly flipped me off when I turned my gaze back to the demon teacher, however. Of course, Mrs. Dodds didn't bat an eye.

I took a deep breath and calmed my nerves. It's alright, Evan... er, Eve. Calm down. At least you don't have to deal with Trump's presidency anymore.

As per the teacher's instructions, after she was done talking, we got up and waited at the entrance of the Academy for our bus. It arrived a minute later... pretty good timing, I'd say. I remembered my school's buses always arriving at least three minutes late for our activities, but whatever. Chiron joined the group just before the bus showed up. Everyone piled onto the bus, with Mrs. Dodds ushering us all in and looking like she'd much rather be at an all-you-can-eat buffet, with demigods as the food. Despite the nasty image of people getting eaten, that thought had made me realize how hungry I was. It was around eight o'clock, and I'd missed breakfast.

My stomach growled, and I slumped over in my seat. "At least I didn't get dropped in some world without McDonald's, like One Piece," I told my stomach.

I don't think it was very comforted.

Percy, who sat in the aisle seat across from me with Grover to his right, blinked and looked at me. "What?"

"Nothing," I said quickly with a wince. I hadn't realized I'd actually said that aloud. Whoops.

Percy shrugged and turned back to chat with Grover about Mr. Brunner's next pen-to-sword quiz.

How had I manipulated things so that Percy and Grover sat next to me, you ask? Upon the bus arriving, I'd shoved my way to the front of my new class. I wanted to be sure to sit down near two of the heroes of the book, for several reasons. I wanted to be able to try and help them when Nancy inevitably threw PB&J's at the back of Grover's head; I wanted to be somewhat protected if Mrs. Dodds and her scathing glare tried anything on me; and really I wanted to just sit by two of my childhood heroes. Even if one of them didn't trust me in the slightest.

I really needed to fix that.

New York City traffic was just as bad as I remembered, even at eight in the morning. The streets were clogged and everything was moving slower than molasses. I had a funny joke about molasses -- no, no, get back on track. Anyway, everyone was getting more than a little impatient as we crawled along the streets and roads. Bored, I decided to bite down and strike up a conversation.

"So, um, Percy?" I said nervously. Dammit, I was never good at knowing what to say to people I'd only just met. Especially when this person was Percy Freaking Jackson. "Grover?" They turned to me curiously, and I paused, swallowing. "Thanks... Thanks for trying to help me out back there. It was fine already... but I appreciate your help."

Grover frowned. "It's... no problem," he said. Yeah, he still didn't trust me.

Percy shrugged. "Felt like the right thing to do," he reasoned. "So, anything you looking forward to on this field trip, Eve?"

Decking Nancy Bobofit in the face for you if she pelts Grover with PB&J's, I thought. "No, nothing really. I think I've been to the Metropolitan before. I forget, though. I've vacationed here in New York several times, and they all kinda blended together."

"I know how that feels," Percy sighed. "ADHD sucks."

"ADD here," I said, jabbing my thumb at myself. "Apparently I'm not hyperactive enough to add an H in."

"No kidding?" Percy chuckled.

Grover narrowed his eyes. "You said you'd vacationed here in New York before? So, the city isn't your home, then?"

"Er..." Crap. I realized I had no idea about what Eve's past was supposed to be.

Percy snapped his fingers. "Ah, now I remember!" he said suddenly. "I remember seeing you on the first day with introductions! You said that... um... you came from Ohio?"

"Yeah..." I said slowly. That was right, for sure, but how had Eve ended up here, then? I was just gonna make something up off the top of my head and roll with it. Memories of things Nancy's friends had said in the laundry room came to mind. "For some reason, I can't help but see monsters everywhere. It terrified me, and my parents had been beside themselves trying to figure out what to do. A friend of a friend of a friend mentioned Yancy and it's good reputation with 'troubled kids.'" Here, I made air quotes with my fingers. "And the rest, as they say, is history."

The sea god's friend blinked as something dawned on him. He leaned over Percy. "Do you see any monsters now?" he asked under his breath.

Percy frowned at him. "Hey, what? I thought you were better than that. Don't tease the poor girl about it."

"I'm not!" Grover blushed. Okay, I will admit it. The goat boy was cute when he was embarrassed, in the way that a little kid is cute when they're pouting. "It was an honest question!"

"It's fine, Percy," I said quietly, leaning across the aisle. Thoughts bounced around in my head. Could I prevent Percy from beginning to realize who he was, and keep him safe for a little while longer? I pointed up the bus to where Mrs. Dodds, the bat-winged monster, sat. "Her."

In spite of what he'd just said, Percy cracked a smile. "I always knew she was inhuman," he quipped, and Grover smacked him lightly on the head.

"Not funny, dude." Grover turned back to me carefully. "What do you see when you look at her?"

I opened my mouth --

SPLAT. My head jerked forward in surprise as I felt something soft and squishy smack into it. I quickly reached up and grabbed the offending object as it fell, and growled. It was a PB&J sandwich. Percy frowned at the torn off piece of food in my hand, and we both turned around. Two seats back from the demigod and satyr sat Nancy, who was grinning cheekily at me. Her hand flashed in an arc--

I ducked quickly. Another piece of PB&J splatted into the window. I glared at her, dropping the piece of sandwich I was holding on the floor and running my non-dirtied hand through my hair. Blast it all, now I had flicks of peanut butter in my hair.

"No food on the bus, Nancy," I said with a glare.

She smirked. "What are you gonna do about it, bitch?"

"Hey, watch it!" Percy said. "She's your roommate! Shouldn't you at least be nicer to her?"

"Nope." Nancy popped the 'p.'

Sea green eyes flashed with annoyance, and Percy growled under his breath, "I'm gonna punch her."

"Don't!" Grover yelped, pulling his friend back down. The boy had been standing up, getting ready to go back there and deck the bully. "Mrs. Dodds will be furious."

Furious. How ironic. In spite of everything, I snorted. I always did love a good pun, even if it was an accidental one. "You're a pretty funny guy, Grover," I said mirthfully, the humor making me forget my anger towards Nancy. I faced forward again and slumped down below the back of my seat to avoid being an easy target. Unfortunately, this left Grover open to the next piece of unusual ammunition. He followed my example along with Percy.

"What do you mean?" asked Grover, genuinely confused.

I looked back at Mrs. Dodds. "Bat wings. Leathery skin. Big tail. Humanoid. Looks like she never got out into the light. She kinda looks like a demon."

Grover's and Percy's eyes followed my gaze. Percy blinked. "Nope, sorry. I still see a Math teacher."

"Yeah," Grover said, confused. "And what does that description have to do with puns...?" He blinked, and then his eyes widened in sudden terror. "Wait..." He looked at Percy and immediately closed his mouth, his face like a ghost's.

I sighed inwardly in relief. Thank the gods, he understood. Maybe now he could get Chiron alone and talk over it with him, and then take care of Mrs. Dodds quietly without Percy ever getting pulled away from the main group. And maybe I was also far too optimistic about my future-changing abilities. Yeah, the latter option was far more likely. Still, though, if it meant keeping Percy safer, this was the far better option. Hell, if his status as son of Poseidon was kept secret longer, Hades might not even send the Minotaur after them -- Percy's mom might not be captured!

Or I could fail altogether.

Yeah, there was also that very high possibility. I very sincerely hoped Murphy's Law did not pride itself on being a large playing factor in this world.

~o~​

Spoiler alert: It did pride itself on that, apparently. And very, very highly so at that.

Percy failed on Chiron's pop quiz as expected. I took pity on him and covered for him, answering the question about the origin of the gods with flying colors. Chiron's eyes were on me the whole tour; Grover had evidently warned him about me yesterday, and he hadn't had any time to update his opinion to the wheelchair bound centaur. Therefore, the grizzled half-man trusted me even less than Grover had before my talk with him.

A very sarcastic thanks to you, Grover.

The head of Camp Half-Blood was definitely a very cool dude. I could easily see why Percy liked him so much. He was kind and gentle, handling each of the Yancy Academy students with warm care as one might expect a grandfather to do with his grandchildren. Percy was also right about the constant smell of coffee that hung around Chiron omnipresently. One could smell it even from ten feet away. At least it was that, though, and not smoke. I could handle the somewhat pleasant aroma of coffee, but if it had been smoke, I would've likely stayed as far away from the centaur as possible. Nothing against smokers; I just did notwant that stink on my clothes.

Ahem.

After some time, we went on a break from the tour so that we could get lunch, and my stomach growled in delight. I dug around in my pockets desperately, hoping beyond hope that the girl version of me had money on her, and -- relief. I pulled out a twenty. Oh, sweet, greasy hamburgers, come to daddy! Er... mommy? Okay, you know what, no. I am never saying that again. That's just... too weird.

I ordered some food from the museum cafeteria. I hadn't even realized that the museum had had a cafeteria, but I wasn't questioning it. While everyone else dug into their packed lunches that they'd brought, the cheap saps, I chowed down on a very tasty crispy chicken salad. Yum. While I ate, I walked back out the museum to regroup with the other students, and sat down next to Percy on the fountain.

Percy grinned. "You know, I sat here to avoid contact with other life-forms."

"Earthling, I am here to steal your sandwich," I snarked back, taking another bite of my salad. He smirked back, patting the edge of the fountain next to him. An obvious invitation to scoot closer; I'd sat down about five feet from him.

I scooted closer.

"You wouldn't want my sandwich," Percy told me, unwrapping it and showing me the contents. "Corned beef."

I wrinkled my nose. "Yuck. You're right, I'll pass on that." I looked past him to his other side. Grover was nowhere to be found. "So, Pinky, where's The Brain?"

Percy rolled his eyes. "Grover wanted to talk with Mr. Brunner about something. They're in the museum. I don't know where, though."

I raised my eyebrow at that. I almost asked who Mr. Brunner was, before remembering this was Chiron's stage name, so to say. So Grover was actually convincing Chiron about things. They must've re-entered the museum while I'd been ordering my food, though -- I hadn't seen them come in. I looked up at the sky. It looked like a mother of all storms was gonna brew up soon -- damn war between gods. Thinking things over while I ate my salad, I asked him, "So, then, ever read Harry Potter?"

"You think I could read that?" The kid snorted. "Nah, man, I'm dyslexic."

Oh, right, I'd forgotten about that. Man, that would suck. That was another point towards me being a human, though: I'd definitely been able to read all words and lettering I'd come across so far. No headaches or dancing letters at all. Things were not looking up for my chances of survival in this world. I sighed and leaned back as far as I could without falling into the fountain.

"Man, that sucks. You'd probably love it. The main character is kinda like you, actually. He has black hair and green eyes and everything."

"You don't say?" Percy hummed, moving to take a bite of his lunch.

And that was when I felt sloppy, messy spaghetti splatter all over my pants. I gasped in surprise and anger. I stood up so quickly I almost fell backwards into the fountain, and stared furiously at the perpetrator as noodles and sauce slowly slipped off of my pants. "Nancy!" I snarled, setting my plastic bowl of salad on the floor. I stabbed the fork I'd been given by the nice cash register lady in the middle, and stomped forward until I was inches from her face. "Really!?"

"Oops," said Nancy. She grinned a mouthful of braces and annoying self-pleasure.

I saw Percy shaking with anger out of the corner of my eye. I gulped and looked behind me. The water was starting to swirl unnaturally. I glanced back to Mrs. Dodds, who was standing near the Metropolitan Museum of Art's front doors, and who was watching our group carefully. Then I turned back to Nancy and narrowed my eyes.

Okay. I had two options here -- let Percy wash her out, or deck her in the face and stop him from getting attacked by Mrs. Dodds. I knew that from how she'd been looking at me all day, the Fury was very likely to attack me instead if I chose the latter.

I sighed. Gods, my life was screwed.

I punched Nancy Bobofit in the face.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

So, I only just realized I forgot to upload this picture to here, but I made some art of Eve today because I was bored. Here y'all go!

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Chapter 4 - Your Friendly Neighborhood Horseman
​

Punching Nancy so hard that I broke her nose was very, very cathartic for all of two seconds. Then my hand smarted terribly, and I pulled back to shake it off with a yelp. I heard Percy gasp, and I looked over to see his jaw touching the floor. Well, not really, but it was hanging so far it might as well have been. The water was also now flowing normally, although the rim of the fountain was now slightly wetter than it had been before.

"You..." Percy searched desperately for words. "You just punched Nancy Bobofit in the face. And broke her nose."

I looked back at Nancy, who was so shocked it seemed like her brain had stalled. Hey, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Blood ran out of her nostrils, and some of it stained my fingers. I casually wiped this off on my school uniform. "Why, yes, yes it appears I have."

Percy gaped. "Okay," he decided, blinking rapidly, "Eve, you are out of your mind."

"Welcome to Yancy, kid," I said with a shrug. I considered that statement and amended it. "Actually, welcome to New York City."

Unfortunately, I didn't get any further chance to trade sarcastic remarks with my new friend, because I could feel Mrs. Dodds's glare on me. Nancy also chose that time to shake out of her shocked stupor, clutch her broken nose, and scream. I winced. My poor ear drums! Yes, she was a girl, but did her scream have to be that high-pitched, especially when it was being done barely a foot from my ears?

"Eve punched me!" Nancy bellowed, her voice warped from lack of a proper nose.

Talons crunched cement as Mrs. Dodds swept over to us, about as calm as your average neo-Nazi. "Eve," she said, the word twisting in her throat in a way that made my spine shudder. This wasn't going to end well. "Come with me. Now!"

"Wait!" Percy said, leaning forward and reaching out like he wanted to go in my place, but I shook my head.

"You're on probation with the school, remember, Perce?" I said. "Don't try anything. I'll be fine on my own." No, I won't. Send help!

Percy blinked in confusion. I turned and walked up to the demonic form of our Math teacher, not wanting to wait for her to draw closer. If I was going into the lion's den, it would be on my own time! Or something like that. Trembling, biting my lip, I made my way up to Mrs. Dodds, whose stern, terrifying eyes glowered down on me like I was a glass of curdled milk she'd just tried to drink. Nancy looked at Percy, then at me, and finally ran off quickly, rubbing her broken nose and crying like a baby the whole way.

Then again, I would probably have some tears in my eyes if I'd just felt my nose get broken.

"Come with me," said the Fury, and she grabbed my arm so tightly I swear it almost cracked my bone. It took all I had not to scream out in pain, and I limply struggled to keep up with her as she stomped to the museum and yanked me inside it. She took me to the bust of Kronos eating his children, which was ridiculously disturbing, by the way, and shoved me against it.

"Ow!" I cried. "Watch it!"

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Mrs. Dodds snarled. "Are you the thief? Or are you an accomplice? Tell me!"

"The thief? Wha--?" It clicked in my mind that she must've thought I was the one who stole Zeus's bolt and Hades's helm. It only made sense that she'd think that after my sudden appearance, and everyone suddenly gaining false memories of me. She'd probably been itching all day to get me into a position where she could interrogate me alone. Luckily for her, there was no one else in the same room as us in this museum, otherwise she'd be looking like a lunatic. "I never stole anything! If you want a thief, look at Nancy -- she literally got in here for being a kleptomaniac."

She pressed me harder into the bust, and I choked as she bared her pointy teeth. "How do you know that!? You weren't in this school at all until this morning!"

Yesterday, actually, I thought, but that would've been plain stupid. "I d-don't know what you're t-talking about," I choked out, because I was starting to get really low on air, and her hand against my throat was getting really painful. I clawed at her arm, tried to get it off of me. "P-Please... let me go...!" The Fury didn't like that answer one bit. Instead of letting me go, she squeezed my throat tighter, actually choking me now.

"WHAT HO, EVE!"

I was just about to ask who the hell said 'what ho' anymore in this day and age, but a metallic gleam caught my eye. Shining bronze spun through the air, and my eyes widened in relief. Anakulsmos, better known as Percy's sword, Riptide! I stopped trying to claw at Mrs. Dodds's -- actually, can I call her Alecto now? Would that be alright? I'm gonna say that would be alright and just go with that. -- Alecto's hand and reached an arm out to catch Riptide.

And gasped as the sword stabbed right into my hand.

"YAAAAAAAAaaaaaarggggggh..." I cried out, my voice slowly dying as I realized that... I didn't actually feel any pain. Yes, I now had half of a bronze sword blade buried in and through my hand, but it wasn't hurting me. Actually, there wasn't even a drop of blood on the part of the blade that had already pierced through my hand! Alecto, Chiron (who was wheeling himself into the Greek mythology exhibit with our favorite satyr yrotting behind him), Grover, and I all stared dumbly at my hand.

...At least my species was now confirmed. I was still one hundred percent mortal, squishy and easily breakable.

I gulped. As they say in 2017, dat's not good. My survival chances in this world had just got immensely lower, especially since I'd just failed to so much as properly catch the first sword thrown at me. The one thing I seemed to have going in my favor was that I appeared to be one of those rare mortals with the ability to see through the Mist. Like Rachel, or Percy's mom. Sadly, I didn't have a lot of money or the knowledge of how to cook blue food, so I was still largely fucked.

I looked from the sword in my hand and up to the surprised (and a little confused) Alecto. Then back at the sword in my hand. A smirk turned my lips up, and I hummed, "Ohhh? What's this? Do you need a hand, ya batty freak?"

The Fury paled. She was at point blank range, and she knew it. "Wait...!"

"TOO BAD, SUCKER!" I cackled, thrusting my hand, palm forward, at her, and the pointy end of the sword, stabbed her through her eye before she had time to try and block it. I grimaced at that; I hadn't been expecting to make things that grotesque. Anyway, the moment the tip of the wickedly sharp blade pierced through her brain, she burst into dust like a really nasty piñata.

The exhibit was silent as Chiron, Grover, and I stared at the grains of Alecto's remains. That had been... a bit anti-climactic. I sweatdropped, but my attention was drawn away by a suddenly appearing Percy, who had just dashed into the exhibit, panting and sweating.

"There you are, Eve!" Percy gasped, wiping sweat from his brow. "Are you alright? I was worried and ended up following you and Mrs. Dodds in, and then I heard shouting... IS THAT A SWORD IN YOUR HAND!?"

I blinked. "Um... yes?"

"WHAT!? WHY!? HOW!? And where's Mrs. Dodds!?"

I ignored him. My head tilted back up to gaze at Chiron and Grover, who looked like they didn't quite know whether to jaw drop or facepalm. "I don't suppose you have a janitor handy?" I asked, yanking Riptide out of my hand.

They facepalmed. Chiron then coughed into his fist. "Erm, in any case, Eve, I would like to speak with you alone after the end of classes today."

Crap. That couldn't be a good sign. "Um, okay," I gulped.

"Can we go back outside now?" Grover asked worriedly. "This place feels... uncomfortable now."

"Alright, then. Come along, Eve, Percy."

Swallowing, I jogged to catch up with the satyr and centaur as they turned and started to head back out. Percy hung behind, flabbergasted. He blinked rapidly, rubbed his head, and stared as I jogged past him and tripped thanks to my center of gravity. Blushing, I pushed myself to my feet using the hand not holding a sword in it, and continued after Chiron and Grover.

"Hey, wait up!" he called after us, hurrying to catch up with me. "What the heck's going on, guys? Why was there a lot of dust in front of Eve? Why did she have a sword stuck in her hand, and why wasn't it hurting her? Where's Mrs. Dodds!?"

Hm... should I say something? I probably shouldn't say anything. Fuck it, I'm saying something.

"You'll understand when you're older," I told him.

He desperately wrung his hands through his hair. "Phwah... Wha...? Huh!? That doesn't make any... GAAAAH!"

Heheheh! Kids were so fun to mess with!

The rest of the school day passed without incident. Percy hounded Grover and me for info on Mrs. Dodds and the sword that had been in my hand, but I played dumb under pointed looks from the two secret Camp Half-Blooders. The new math teacher hired from gods-know-what method did give me detention, which really sucked since that meant I was in trouble on technically my first day of class. Everyone else saw Riptide as a pen save for the still very confused Percy, Grover, and Chiron, and I was able to hand it back to the horseman without any weird looks. After lunch ended, we looked at a couple more exhibits, then headed home to Yancy on the same bus as before.

Chiron had me come with him, alone, to his room once we got back. It was the end of the school day, and therefore I didn't have to return to any classes.

The man wheeled himself into the center of his classroom as I shut his door behind me carefully. My face was pale, and I was a bit sweaty. What did Chiron want? How would I be able to answer him without making him more suspicious?

"Eve Gamble," he said, sounding out my name carefully and tapping his fingers against his armrests. "Who exactly are you?" He looked me directly in my eyes. "Please tell me everything."

My hands trembled. Somehow, this conversation with a nice, coffee-smelling, Latin-teaching centaur was scarier than facing Alecto. Gritting my teeth, I decided to relax myself a little and sit on one of the desks. Not the chair, but the actual schooldesk itself.

My mouth opened, and words spilled out before I could stop them. "I'm a boy from another world where the adventures of Camp Half-Blood and everyone in it over the next four years are chronicled as a fictional book series, and nothing relating to the Greek myths are real," I said. "I don't know why, but yesterday, I was randomly brought from my world to this one. I have no idea who did it or what their intentions for me are," I added, gripping the fabric of my pants, "but I wasn't even originally a girl. I used to be a guy."

Several moments passed. Chiron stared at me. "Well... that's new," he managed at last with a shake of his head. "Still... you punching Mrs. Dodds... she would've tried to attack Percy instead, and you put yourself in his place. That's why you warned Grover about her true nature, right?"

I nodded numbly. Why had I said all that? I hadn't meant to tell him the truth. It had just come out.

Chiron considered that carefully, closing his eyes. He rubbed his beard in deep thought, and I blinked as I realized that was the first time I'd seen someone who actually had a beard -- even if Chiron's was just stubble -- do that. Finally he said, "How would you feel about staying in Camp Half-Blood until at least the end of summer?"

My jaw dropped. I leaned forward so quickly I almost fell off my schooldesk. "What, seriously!?" I demanded, gaping. "Just like that?"

"I'm a good judge of character, and I don't sense any malice or ill intentions from you. Furthermore, if you do happen to have knowledge of future events as you claim to do, then you are going to have many enemies looking to capture you and force you to spill your secrets in the near future. It would be safest to keep you at Camp Half-Blood, out of the way of any greedy monsters, gods, or.." Chiron's brow darkened. "Other things."

I stared for several moments before finally resetting my jaw. I mulled over his offer. It was true -- Camp Half-Blood was definitely the safest place for me to end up right now besides Camp Jupiter, since I currently amounted to an immortal's punching bag. It would also give me the opportunity to escape having to suffer through more school when I'd just graduated high school. Chiron or Grover or somebody could allow me to cross the borders of the camp, like they'd done with Rachel in the books. Furthermore, I could use the extra time at Camp to train in weapons and at least become a little more than an ant in a world of giants.

I licked nervous perspiration from my lips. "I'm in," I said.

Chiron smiled. "I thought you would be," he admitted. "Allow me some time to contact Camp and get someone to bring you there safely. Pack up anything you may have; you'll be leaving very soon. And in the meantime, please remain keeping Percy in the dark about all of this. Monsters will be coming for him soon regardless since he is now twelve, but the less he knows about his identity, the better."

"Of course, Chiron," I said, pushing off the schooldesk.

Chiron smiled again, his stubble twitching up with his mouth and skin. "You are dismissed," he said. "Have a nice evening, Miss Eve."

I sighed in relief. That hadn't been as bad as I'd thought it was going to be. "Thank you, sir," I said gratefully, bowing and making my way back to the door. I opened it and jogged out into the hall, my mind reeling.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Chapter 5 - Everybody's Got a Water Buffalo
​

Alone in my dorm room as I waited for my Camp Half-Blood escort, without even Nancy Bobofit picking on me, I stared out the window to the busy street below. Pedestrians swarmed the streets like flies around a UV lamp. Traffic rolled by in inches and centimeters at a time. Everyone waiting impatiently in their cars, or having fun exploring the city, or simply walking up to the nearest Starbucks to grab a quick coffee... It was amazing to me how they had no idea of the realm of monsters and gods that ran directly within their own. Ignorance really is bliss, I thought, rubbing my neck where Mrs. Dodds/Alecto had choked me against the bust of Kronos eating his kids earlier that day.

It all just felt so strange to me that I was still only half-convinced it wasn't all just some coma-induced dream. I'd been operating close to normally so far thanks to a mixture of adrenaline, anger, and the excitement of being in one of my favorite worlds. Now, however, five hours after my conversation with Chiron, I'd calmed down, and everything felt different.

Here I'd been tossed into a school in an entirely different, fictional universe -- probably as a self-insert -- and had met Percy Freaking Jackson. Hell, I'd even broken Nancy Bobofit's nose and killed a Fury! And yet, now I was leaving this school behind me without even a single proper class. I'd only barely gotten to know Percy, Grover, and Chiron, but not even close enough that I could call them friends. I still had no idea how to properly function in a girl's body, even if I was getting slightly more balanced and better at going to the bathroom. And now... now I was going to change my entire life again, this time voluntarily. Now I was going to be the first mortal to enter Camp Half-Blood in gods know when.

I placed my palm, the one that had been impaled by Celestial Bronze that morning, gingerly on the window pane. It must be nice to live unaware of the forces that literally hovered in the sky above everyone. It must be nice to not have to be questioning your religious beliefs thanks to now being stranded in a world where mythology was alive and kicking.

I heard a knock on the door, which I'd closed earlier to give myself some privacy while I packed up the few belongings Eve had in a *shudder* pink suitcase. I'd also used the time to change into something that would be better for travelling than a school uniform: a leather jacket, a pink shirt, and dark camouflage shorts. I had to hand it to the Mist; it had given my girl side good tastes in clothing. Except for the pink.

"Who is it?" I called out, turning to look curiously at the door. At least this would be a nice distraction from myself.

The smooth, semi-confident voice of Percy came through the other side of the door. "It's me, Percy. Can I come in?"

I frowned and weighed my options. Chiron had said to keep Percy in the dark about everything, but that didn't mean I couldn't talk to or say goodbye to him.

"Go ahead," I said loudly. "Door's unlocked."

The door entered slowly, and Percy slipped through. He didn't close it behind him, but I shrugged that off -- I didn't need privacy at the moment, anyway. I smiled softly at him and sat down on Nancy's lower bunk, patting beside me for him to follow suit. What Nancy wouldn't know wouldn't hurt her. I'd shooed her out of the room while I packed, and since she'd gained a sort of fear of me after the field trip, she'd vacated the premises. The redheaded bully likely wasn't going to be back for a while, too.

"Are opposite genders allowed to be in each other's dorms here at Yancy?" I asked, grinning a small grin.

Percy chuckled and leaned back against the wall. "Nope. But then, punching people in the face isn't allowed, either, and you seemed perfectly fine with doing that earlier today."

"Touché." We both laughed, and I sighed. "Alright, so what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

"I wanted to say goodbye," he admitted. "I heard someone say that you're leaving."

"News already spread that fast?" I blinked rapidly. "Wow. I don't know how many people Nancy told, but I guess the grape vine is a ridiculously efficient method of transportation."

"So... it's true, then?"

"Yeah. It's true."

We were silent for a few moments, just staring at the mirror on the makeup table in front of us. I still could hardly believe that girl in the reflection was me. It felt unnatural, but at the same time, I didn't really care and was fine with it. Being a girl didn't mean I was any different on the inside, after all. The mixture of opposite feelings was confounding.

"Where are you going to?" Percy asked suddenly. "And why?"

"A sort of... year-long camp," I said evasively. But, crap! What was supposed to be my reason for leaving? Chiron had never told me what to say, so I supposed I was just going to have to make something up on the fly. I said the first thing that popped into my mind (not the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man). "I've been on probation with Yancy for a while, too. Troublemaker, you know? I guess fighting Nancy was the last straw. They would've still kept me for the rest of the year, they just wouldn't have accepted me next year; however, my parents had been getting brochures for this camp for a while, now, and in light of recent events, decided to transfer me there."

I shot a winning smile at the future savior of Mount Olympus. He looked like he wasn't buying it.

"Riiiiiiight," he said slowly, narrowing his sea green eyes. "Eve, you're a terrible liar. You know that, right?"

I wilted. My mom and dad had told me as much several times before, but I'd been really hoping that wasn't the case. "Yes," I said hollowly. "Yes, I do."

Another couple moments of silence passed before Percy broke them. "How did you know I'm on probation?"

"What?" I turned to him, blinking.

"Earlier, on the ride to the museum. You mentioned how I'm on probation after I said I wanted to punch Nancy. You shouldn't have known that, though. Nobody else except the school staff and Grover do, and we only just really met you yesterday."

Oh, drat. This was a problem. I had no idea how to explain this. "Uh," I said, my smile twitching, "Grover mentioned it when he calmed you down."

"No, he didn't." Just wonderful, now he was even more suspicious. Percy narrowed his eyes, but at last sighed and fell back on the bed. He winced at the uncomfortable stiffness of the mattress.

"Yes, he did," I insisted, sweatdropping.

Percy's frown deepened. "No, he didn't."

"Yes, he did."

"No, he didn't."

"No, he didn't."

"Yes, he did... wait, what?" Percy blinked, then rolled his eyes. "You're not gonna trick me into changing my mind just because of a little game like that."

I sighed. "It was worth a shot."

"So how did you know?" he prodded, and I groaned. Letting him in had been a bad idea after all. What was I supposed to say now to convince him that my knowledge of his probation was for some mundane reason? Gah, all this was making me really nervous! Wait... Percy had said that the faculty members all knew, right? Aha! A solution!

"I accidentally overheard the teachers talking about it," I said quickly.

Percy raised an eyebrow. "...Seriously? That's all?" I nodded, and he blinked. "Well, I... I don't know what I was expecting. Something different, I guess. What do you know about Mrs. Dodds?"

Caught off-guard by the sudden change in topic, I started to say, "She alm --" Then I froze and paled. I'd almost let him realize that she was real. I didn't want to get on Chiron's bad side, so that was a definite no go. "She's never worked here as far as I know. Sorry, Perce, Mrs. Kerr has always been the Math teacher."

But Percy had caught my slip-up. I had to give credit where credit was due; Annabeth was right, this boy was much smarter and more attentive than he let on. He sat up quickly again, eyes wide. "You started to say something different there!" he exclaimed. "So then you know she's real, too! Ha! I knew you and Grover were lying!"

"Sorry, but what?" I said, my smile twitching. Crap, crap, crap! This wasn't going well! "I don't even know how to spell the word 'Dodds' -- where did you get that, some fantasy book or something?"

"Yes, because I pulled a name from something that I can't even read," Percy deadpanned.

I flinched. "Oh. Point taken."

"So, tell me then!" Percy demanded, literally on the edge of his seat. He was so damn eager for information that he was practically beside himself. It must have been such a confusing day for him. I had to pity him, suddenly finding out that the evil Math teacher he'd had up til then had been replaced altogether, and only he seemed to have memories of her. He had to have been so ridiculously confused.

I couldn't meet his gaze. I looked aside and started to open my mouth, but was saved by another knock on the door.

"I'm Charles Beckendorf, here to escort Eve Gamble to Camp Half-Blood," someone said, and both Percy and I looked at the doorway to see a tall African American kid with black hair and brown eyes. He was ripped, like he spent all day working out in the gym. He looked like he was only thirteen or fourteen, and he had a kind smile. He wore a blacksmith's apron, with several pouches strapped around his waist and stomach. Underneath the apron he wore an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, though the lettering was hidden behind the apron. He put his right hand on his waist and leaned against the door with his other arm. "Are you Eve?" he asked, motioning to me.

"That's me," I said reluctantly after a confused pause. I was still trying to get used to reacting to the name Eve instead of Evan, but my brain was handling this slowly. "I didn't expect you to arrive this soon."

Beckendorf shrugged. "Yeah, well, time waits for no man," he said. "Chiron said that you'd be in this room, and it wasn't that hard to find it once I got here." He raised his eyebrow at Percy. "Who's your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend!"/"She's not my girlfriend!" we both said, blushing.

Percy scooted a little bit away from me. "Who's Chiron? I swear I've heard that name before..."

"Must be the head of the camp," I said quickly with a falsely confused shrug.

Two blinks later, Beckendorf exited to the hallway and motioned for me to follow suit. "Well, whatever. Come out when you're ready. It'll be getting dark here, soon, and this city is... dangerous at night."

I took a deep breath and got up from the bed, giving the dorm room one last look. I wasn't particularly fond of it; I'd had no time to grow attached to it. But still, it felt strange to be leaving it so soon after I'd arrived in it. And furthermore, it represented the last time I would ever lead anything close to a normal life again, for the foreseeable future. I was attached to my previous mundane life, hence the last look. Sighing, I made my way over to my *shudder* pink suitcase and pulled up the extendable handle to a height at which I could easily pull it.

Percy walked over to me and put his hands in his pockets. "You mind if I go find Grover, and we walk you guys out of the school?" he asked.

I thought about that. "No, I don't," I said with a smile. "That would be nice."

"Great!" He started jogging out of the dorm, grinning. "Then you guys wait up for us!"

It took Percy only a few minutes to find Grover and bring him back to my dorm, where Beckendorf and I were waiting patiently in the hall. An iPod had been included in Eve's belongings, and I had to wince at first at how medieval it looked compared to my day's technology. I put earphones in and turned on some Maroon 5, however, grateful once again for "Eve's" (read: the Mist's) good taste, this time in music.

"Alright!" Beckendorf grinned and clapped his hands. "Now that the gang's all here, let's head out."

"And look for clues?" I asked with a grin while the Songs About Jane album played softly in my ears.

Grover blinked. "What clues would we be looking for?"

"In your case," said Percy with a knowing smirk, "an enchilada."

I snickered and high-fived the boy. Beckendorf shook his head bemusedly.

Walking through Yancy's halls for the last time again felt strangely non-nostalgic. I felt like I should've been missing at least some aspect of the school, but as I mentioned earlier, I just hadn't had enough time to get to that point. By the time we finally reached the front doors, Percy and Grover shoving each other around good-naturedly, I'd gotten from Harder to Breathe to the beginning of Shiver.

"I guess this is it, guys," I said with a nervous breath. I turned to Percy and Grover, who both looked a little disappointed to see me go, though Grover, who I'd spoken with less than Percy, wasn't as disappointed as his demigod.

"You have a safe trip to the camp," Grover told me seriously, holding out his hand for a handshake. I shook it firmly. He winced and flicked his hand once I let go. "Ow! You shake hard!"

"I try."

"See ya, Eve," Percy said, a little sadly. "I wish you could've hung out with us some more." He shook my hand, too, wincing but showing no other signs of pain otherwise. Shame, I'd tried to purposefully shake his harder than I had with Grover. "If you have any time, you should come over to my mom's apartment and hang out with me when school's out." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with an address on it, and handed it to me. "That's where we live."

"Thanks, Perce," I said with a smile, and I meant it. It meant a lot to me that he was willing to be so friendly with me even though he'd caught me in my lies and hadn't known me for very long.

We stood there smiling at each other like idiots for a few moments until Beckendorf cleared his throat.

"Alright, then, let's get going, Eve," he said, and he started walking towards the doors. "We have a fair bit of ground to cover before we reach Camp."

"Lead the way, cap'n," I said sagely, and trotted behind him, pulling my suitcase across the floor as we went.

Percy and Grover didn't stop waving until we'd left their sight. I knew because I had my head turned just enough to see them as long as possible. I had to grin to myself as Beckendorf and I merged into the rest of the city pedestrians. They were good people, that demigod and that satyr. I'd eagerly await their own return to Camp Half-Blood. Until then, though, I wanted to know just how we were getting to Long Island.

"By taxi," Beckendorf said after I asked him such.

I couldn't help but stare. "...By taxi?"

"Yep." He tilted his head at me and raised an eyebrow. "Did you expect something different?"

"I... um..." My face twitched. "Kind of?"

"Well, sorry, Eve," he said, actually sounding very apologetic. "We do things as normally as we can outside Camp Half-Blood, so that the mortals don't suspect anything..." He winced and rubbed the back of his head. "Er, sorry. No offense."

I waved it away. I knew I was a squishy human and I was... not exactly proud of it, but I liked being who I was. "None taken."

"I assume Chiron filled you in on what exactly we are?"

Well, no, he didn't, but he didn't need to, I thought. Because I already know. Not that you need to know that, of course. "Yeah, he did," I lied.

"Alright, good. That makes things easier, then." A yellow taxi cab rumbled down the street towards us, and Beckendorf and I shoved our way through the pedestrians to the edge of the street. Beckendorf raised his hand, and the taxi stopped in front of us. The taxi driver, a short Chinese man (stereotypes, really?) got out and opened the trunk for me, and I shoved my suitcase inside. We then hurried into the back seats. Beckendorf reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of ones and a couple tens while the driver closed the trunk and ran to hop back in the driver's seat. "Take us to Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141, Long Island."

The driver closed his door, reached up to a GPS on the dash, and punched in the address. He frowned at the screen. "You sure, son? It don't look like there's nothing there 'cept wilderness."

The driver's accent was grating, and I shook my head.

"I'm sure," Beckendorf said. "And don't call me son," he added under his breath.

The driver shrugged. "Whatever. It's yer money yer wastin'." He pushed the car into drive and sped forward back into the traffic, which had actually cleared up some. It wasn't good traffic, per se, because this was New York City; but it was at least decent. I was on She Will Be Loved by this point, and humming along to the amazingly awesome music. Seriously, I swear that Adam Levine had to be a son of Apollo or something. If I ever saw the god of music, I was going to seriously ask him about that.

We slowly weaved and maneuvered through the gridlocks. There was road construction on Third Street -- the taxi driver said something about the crazy weather lately having ripped up some of the road -- and so we had to detour around it. We ended up going past the Bronx Zoo, which I gazed out at as we went by.

"Never been to the zoo before?" Beckendorf guessed, noticing my stare.

I shrugged. "I've been to the Central Park Zoo and the Cleveland Zoo. Not the Bronx Zoo, though. Up here this far in Manhattan is new territory for me."

Strangely, in the distance, I thought I could see a giant, brown figure over the zoo walls. When I blinked, however, I didn't see anything. Still, though... I could've sworn I'd seen horns. A chilling cold that had nothing to do with the taxi cab's air conditioning made me shiver. "Um, are there bulls at the Bronx Zoo?"

"I dunno." The Hephaestus cabin counselor's brow furrowed, and he looked funny. He patted the driver's seat. "Sir, are there bulls in that zoo back there?"

The driver hummed in thought and honked furiously at a very slow Corvette which he was passing. "GET OFF YER DAMN CELL PHONE!" he hollered, regardless of the fact that both his and the other car's windows were all up. Beckendorf and I jumped. "Can't rightly say," he said back to us. "I've been there once or twice, and I don't think I've seen any bulls there. Maybe a bison."

"Why were you asking?" Beckendorf queried me.

I sagged in relief. Whatever I'd seen, it was probably a very big bison. "Oh, no reason. Just curious."

The car shook, like the earth was trembling from some large force. "Damn tires need air," the cabbie muttered to himself.

A nasty little voice in the back of my mind whispered that it probably wasn't his tires needing air. I punched it in the face just like Nancy Bobofit and told it that yes, it very much was his tires needing air, and I didn't want any other reasons. Especially ones involving very large, very powerful, and very heavy Greek monsters.

A few uneventful minutes of our driver passing cars, beeping, and causing a lot of beeps at us passed by.

The car shook again.

"Aw, seriously?" the driver groaned, slapping the wheel. "I just got those darn things filled up the last time I went to get gas..."

Beckendorf frowned and leaned forward against his seat belt. "Is it alright if I roll down the window, sir?" he asked kindly. "I think I hear something going on outside."

The driver waved his hand. "Go right ahead, it's a free country."

"Won't be in twelve years," I muttered with furious thoughts of Cheetos and white hoods.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

The car shook again as the African American teen beside me started to roll down the window, and then we could all hear what Beckendorf had thought he was hearing: distant screaming, and lots of it. The car shook again, along with my hastily constructed confidence in the cause not being what I hoped it wasn't. Beckendorf and I turned around, and that was when we saw it.

It was huge, far over ten feet tall, with muscles like buses. If Beckendorf was ripped, then this thing was motherfucking Hulk Hogan taking Chuck Norris-brand steroids. Seriously, those guns couldn't be legal. It was covered in brown fur, and I swear fists for nipples would not have looked out of place on this thing. Two white horns rose out of its head dangerously.

Oh, and held high above its head with its enormous meaty hands? A tour bus. A thankfully and somehow empty tour bus, but a tour bus.

Beckendorf and I paled as the motherfucking Minotaur threw the tour bus across twelve hundred feet of city traffic directly at our taxi cab, frightened mortals running away from the incident and screaming on the sidewalks. Lord knows what they were seeing, but it couldn't have been pretty.

"Meep," I squeaked.

"Oh, Hades," Beckendorf choked.

"GODDAMNED TRAFFIC!" screamed the driver, pressing down on the horn mightily.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

GG, Kronos, But I Have a TV Tropes Page!

No, but seriously, I now have a pretty decent TV Tropes page up for this fanfic. Go check it out, I'd love it if some of you could help edit/leave reviews or whatnot. And if there's any tropes I missed, feel free to add them in yourself. I'm bound to not catch everything, after all. I will say that I also included some little tidbits and cool info that you may or may not have caught while reading the story.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Chapter 6: We Take a Bull By the Horns​

You may be asking, "Eve, when faced with a half-bull, half-human monster who was throwing a tour bus at your taxi, what very heroic and very brave action did you take?"

I have one answer: I screamed like a girl. Granted, I was a girl, so that wasn't really as much of a hyperbole as it should have been.

Beckendorf winced and covered his ears as my piercing scream blasted from my vocal chords. The driver growled and turned around to glare at our backs. "WEREN'T YA DAMN KIDS EVER TOLD NOT TO DISTRACT YER DRIVER!?"

"B-B-Buh… B-Buhhht i-it's the… Mino… Mino…" I stammered, my fear of the beast causing my words to wrap around themselves on my tongue. The tour bus was nearly upon us, now, and Beckendorf gritted his teeth and whirled around to face the Chinese driver with the Southern accent.

"STEP ON IT!" he roared. "I'LL TIP YOU FIFTY DOLLARS IF YOU DO!"

The older man grinned, his squinty eyes getting squintier. "Deal!" he said. He looked back at the road and slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, swerving into the left lane to pass the guy ahead of us. We accelerated so fast that Beckendorf and I jerked back into our seats. My scream was cut off by the small impact, and the fact that I had to breathe.

"WE'RE GONNA DIE!" I sobbed to Beckendorf, tears streaming from my hazel eyes. Back in the right lane, the empty tour bus, a red double-decker, slammed into the street, bounced over five cars, and smashed into a Maserati. The cars both skidded off the road and into the sidewalks, causing terrified pedestrians to dive out of the way as Maserati and tour bus crashed into the side of a random brownstone.

I stared dumbly. "That could have been us," I whimpered as our driver continued to weave erratically through the traffic. "Thatcouldhavebeenusthatcouldhavebeenusthatcouldhavebeenus!"

"Calm down," Beckendorf said, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "We're going to be fine. You already survived a monster attack, didn't you?"

"YES, BUT THAT WAS WITH A SWORD STUCK IN MY HAND!" I cried. Beckendorf blinked at that. "DO YOU SEE ANY SWORDS STUCK IN MY HAND!?"

The dark-skinned man stared. "...Not even going to ask," he decided at last. "Anyway, this time, you don't have to do things yourself. Now you have a highly trained son of Hephaestus on your side. It's going to be alright. I won't let that thing hurt us."

"Are you two LARPers or somethin'?" our driver asked, keeping his gaze on the road as he ran a red light and scared a few people crossing the road.

I stared at him incredulously. "Did you not see the tour bus that hit that car?"

"Girlie, what are you smokin'?"

"I don't smoke!! What the hell would make you think that!?"

"You did say that you'd had a sword stuck in your hand," Beckendorf pointed out.

"Quiet, you," I grumbled.

From behind us came the sound of smashing, lots of screaming, and cars crashing into either each other or buildings. Beckendorf and I turned around again to see what was going on, and we paled. The Minotaur had apparently decided that throwing buses at us was too boring, because now it was charging right up the street towards us. Any unlucky vehicles in its way got kicked aside, their drivers fighting and failing to maintain control over the wheel. One person in a white car accidentally smashed through the window of a shop, the glass scattering across the sidewalk.

"So much collateral damage!" I gasped in a small voice.

My escort's fists clenched. "We have to put a stop to this so that no more mortals get hurt. Hey, driver!" He leaned forward. "Can you find somewhere to pull over as soon as possible and let us out? Then get away as fast as you can and meet us back wherever you drop us off in about ten or fifteen minutes. I'll add to your tip if you do."

"Um, okay?" The driver tilted his head. "Weird, but I'm on it, feller!" He immediately swerved into the right lane and almost took out another car in doing so. Some severe honking rose up in our wake. I wept for my life; we'd obviously chosen a very dangerous person to have as our taxi man. After he got in the lane, he pulled as close up to the curb without going over it as he could, and Beckendorf and I rushed out of the car. The driver immediately made a hasty getaway, not questioning the purpose of our demands.

The Minotaur was a mere fifteen yards away now, and the distance was shrinking rapidly by the second. At this rate, he'd be on us in a matter of moments. I looked up nervously at Beckendorf. "I sincerely hope that you have a plan," I told him, "because otherwise we're just gonna die here, and I will haunt you in the Underworld. Even if I'm put in the Fields of Asphodel for annoying everyone by singing Frozen songs all the time."

"What's Frozen?" Beckendorf frowned and shook his head. "Whatever, that doesn't matter now. I do have a plan, however—you can rest assured on that. I will protect you, Eve."

"If it helps any," I said, scooting behind the hero, "he kind of only has one direction: forward. If you can daze him by getting him to run into a wall, you can take him out much easier."

He hummed in thought. "Thanks for the information. I assume someone fought the Minotaur in one of the books you told Chiron about?"

I sweatdropped. "He let you know about that?"

"Of course. It'd interfere with my mission if I didn't know as much about you as I could."

"Point taken," I sighed. "Wait, that doesn't matter right now anyway! It's here!"

And here the Minotaur was. During our little conversation, it had nearly completely closed the gap between us, and the setting sun's angle cast threw the monster's huge, inky shadow over us. It loomed above us, more than twice Beckendorf's height. We both took an involuntary step back. Beckendorf reached into one of the pouches that were strapped around him and extracted what looked like a mechanical spider of sorts, without any eyes. It did have something that looked like a periscope extending from the top of its head, however. Either way, Annabeth would've ran screaming from it.

"What's that?" I asked.

"My plan," Beckendorf said.

"That little thing?"

The tall man smirked. "Just watch."

I watched. The moment Beckendorf set his contraption on the ground, the spider darted forward, darting in and out of some random peoples' feet. The mechanical creature's periscope-like extension on its head swiveled around and locked on the Minotaur, which paused to glare down at the spider. The huge beast growled and tried to swat Beckendorf's bot, but it scurried out of the way. When the half-bull's arm rose back into the air, the spider was aboard it, and the sidewalk was cracked.

Beckendorf's eyes widened as he looked down at the cement. "...That thing is really strong," he said quietly.

I nodded meekly.

Meanwhile, the spider continued to scuttle up the monster's arm to its shoulder. The Minotaur, now completely distracted from us thanks the feeling of eight annoying legs on its shoulder, glared at it and blew actual steam from its big, flat nose. The monster, in full underpants, slammed its right fist on its left shoulder in an effort to squash the human-made bug there. It failed, and only grunted when something loud and painful-sounding cracked; the Minotaur had broken or dislocated its shoulder. My fearful gaze turned into one of admiration as the spider climbed around the Minotaur's body and made the increasingly angry beast hit itself. It was smaller and had greater mobility, meaning that even though its unhappy host was fast and accurate, it could escape each and every blow.

"Whoa," I said, staring. "Well… that's one way to kill a Minotaur, I guess."

The African American teen chuckled. "That's not all this thing can do, either," he said, reaching into the same pouch as before and pulling out a button hooked up to a wireless joystick. "Watch." He pressed the button, and as I kept a careful eye on the bronze arachnid, some sort of thin, green liquid seemed to be leaking out from where it normally would secret the silk—I couldn't remember what it was called.

I narrowed my eyes. "What's it doing?"

"That stuff coming out of its spinnerets?" Beckendorf's smirk widened. "That's Greek fire, liquidized. It's highly volatile and reactive. Once it touches the air, it only takes a short time for it to make like Michael Bay…"

BOOM! My jaw dropped as green fireballs covered the giant creature. The Minotaur howled, and we grinned. Smoke billowed into the air in amounts that would make the CPA cringe, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Man, that was satisfying, even though my eyes hurt like hell from staring directly at the explosions.

"Did it work?" I leaned forward, trying to see through the smoke.

Beckendorf frowned. "I don't know. I didn't think about how quickly the Greek fire would explode when building the spider, so it may have not gotten enough of the stuff on the monster to kill it."

Just as the heavily muscled demigod was finishing talking, an angry roar rose up from the smoke, and a limp hand wafted away the remaining air pollute. The Minotaur stood there, panting and looking much weaker, but very much not dead. I squeaked and backed up. This thing was tough. Even worse news for us was the unmoving, broken bronze arachnid clutched in the Minotaur's left hand. It dropped the spider and punted it so hard that the crumbling contraption flew clear above and beyond the building behind us.

Beckendorf growled. "I spent a month working on that thing," he grumbled, frowning at the Minotaur. His eyes narrowed as it stomped slowly over to us, its own body half broken from hitting itself and getting exploded at point blank range. "Alright, it shouldn't take much more to kill it. Have any weapons?" he added.

"Um… no." I sweatdropped.

He stared. "Chiron forgot to give you a weapon?" Upon my flat look, he sighed and reached into another pouch. "Oh well. Good thing I brought extra." He immediately withdrew two swords clenched tightly in his hand, which were both at least as long as my body and had absolutely no right to be able to fit in that small tool holder.

I gaped. "H-how…?"

"Perks of being a son of Hephaestus," Beckendorf chuckled. The Minotaur patted the ground with one foot and leaned forward. "I know how to be as efficient with my storage space as possible. Now, you're probably going to want to move. It looks like that thing's CHARGING!"

The last part was done as a yelp when the Minotaur suddenly launched itself at us with incredible speed. Beckendorf and I both leaped away with mere inches to spare. The monster raced by like a really mad freight train, almost barreling over some mortals. The commonfolk hauled ass out of Houston and screamed something about a stampeding herd. Our enemy skidded to a stop only a few feet before it slammed into a wall.

My eyes widened. "Beckendorf! Let's move closer to one of the buildings and get it to charge at us! Then let's jump away like we did just now!"

"Roger that!" The hero threw me one of the Celestial bronze swords, the shorter of the two, and this time I managed to actually catch it by the pommel and not the blade. It was heavy, but the grip felt much nicer around my fingers than Anaklusmos, and the balance of the weight seemed more attuned to me as well.

"Thanks!"

"Don't mention it!"

Beckendorf regrouped with me and we ran to put our backs against the nearest wall. The Minotaur was already on our tails, barreling at us with more energy and speed than Usain Bolt. It loomed over us, and my body seized up at first. Then my sense of self-preservation kicked in and like before, I jumped to the side at nearly the last second. But this time, the Minotaur was smarter, and its hand shot out to grasp me and lift me up high. Lightning bolts of pain tore through my body and I tried to scream, but nothing except a dry choke came out. It felt like the very life was being squeezed out of me. Beckendorf saw this and instead of leaping to the side, he ducked and rolled under the beast's legs.

My body started to glow bright gold, and I uselessly struggled. No! I refused to be taken to Hades! I wasn't going to be kidnapped here! I didn't know what his deal was with me, but I refused to be the plaything of the gods!

"EVE!" Beckendorf roared from behind the Minotaur as we crashed into the wall and it stumbled backward blearily. It gripped me tighter, and I heard a sickening crunch of some bone. Fear and denial rose rampant in my mind, and I desperately struggled to get at least one of my arms free so I could kill this thing!

My body glowed brighter and brighter, and as my vision started to blur I saw my escort leap high into the air, directly at the arm which clutched me tight, and slice down.

"I WON'T LET YOU KILL HER! HYAAAAH!"

Air. Breathing. I fell to the ground, gasping for air as the Minotaur's hand released its hold on me and I could breathe once more. My body still hurt from having the life literally almost squeezed out of me, but it wasn't compounding anymore, which was nice. I swore that I heard an annoyed Tch out of the corner of my ear when Beckendorf dropped his blade and caught me. I had to manually keep my sword from accidentally cutting him. The moment his hands touched my back, my glowing faded away.

"Hah… hah… just… dropping in?" I panted, grinning gratefully at my savior.

He stared. "Really? That's what you say after you almost die?"

"You don't know me very well yet, do you?"

After a short pause, he shook his head and grinned. "I guess I don't. But either way…" He set me down gently on the sidewalk, and picked up his dropped sword. Then he pointed it at the Minotaur and said, "It's time for this thing to die."

"Yeah, it's given us enough bullcrap," I agreed. Beckendorf snorted. I tried to stand up and winced as a sharp pain blared in my leg. I must've cracked one of the bones in it. It didn't feel or look broken, so that was good, but it was definitely at the very least sprained.

See, this is why I wish I'd been made a demigod. But noooo.

The Minotaur staggered from both the impact against the brownstone's wall, which was now cracked like a vertical crater, and the fact that its already self-broken arm was now sliced clean off and turned to dust. It stumbled around almost drunkenly, and Beckendorf walked forward casually. He brandished his Celestial bronze blade out before him. The Minotaur noticed the demigod and pawed the ground angrily in preparation for another charge. It took off at him, but Beckendorf stood still and held his ground. Then, the second that the monster was almost upon him, he swung his sword upwards with impressive speed, and the Celestial bronze stabbed clean through its neck like a knife through butter.

POOF. Bye-bye, Bull Nye. Gross, yellow monster dust was carried off by the wind, never to be seen again. Or at least, not until the Battle of Manhattan, if I couldn't butterfly that away.

I shot Beckendorf a thumbs-up. "Nice Shoryuken!" I mean, it wasn't exactly a Shoryuken at all, but he was a heavily muscled guy fighting in the streets, finishing off the battle with an upwards attack, so fight me.

"Shory…" The African American turned towards me, confusion etched across his face. His brow furrowed and he blinked rapidly. "Uh… what?"

"Ah, forget it. Hey, don't you usually get a spoils of war or whatever from monsters? So what did you get from beating that thing?"

Beckendorf shrugged. "I don't know," he said, and we both looked back to where the Minotaur had last been. And in its place…

Was its tighty whities.

We stared.

Several moments of silence passed.

"OH, COME ON!" Beckendorf complained loudly, while I erupted into a flurry of giggling so hard I almost couldn't breathe. "How is THAT useful!?"

"Maybe... it's made out of magic… Fruit of the Loo-hoo-hoom!" I chortled, gasping for breath and nearly crying.

"It's not funny!" he protested with a depressed groan.

"It definitely is!" I insisted, wiping tears from my eyes.

Beckendorf groaned and gingerly slipped his sword into the smelly underwear, grimacing as he lifted it up in the air. He sniffed it, and immediately reeled back from it, holding his nose with his free hand and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Oh, gods does that reek," he announced, and my laughter gained even more momentum. It was actually starting to hurt my chest.

And that, my friends, is the story of how a pair of tighty whities got added to the Big House's attic.