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

[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.

 

[Ralfil]

Isn't there the issue where mortals can't enter the camp?

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Isn't there the issue where mortals can't enter the camp?

Click to shrink...

Certain members of the camp, I forget who, can do something that allows mortals to enter when needed. I think it's a sort of blessing or something. I believe Annabeth did it for Rachel in Book 4 or 5.

 

[Malbutorius]

Isn't there the issue where mortals can't enter the camp?

Click to shrink...

Honestly that has always made no sense to me looking back. An enchantment to make it so mortals turn back or get distracted if they're not forced through it sure, but outright unable to enter? Seems incredibly impractical as Camp Half-Blood is one of the safest places in the world.

Then again, mortal's don't matter in the slightest as far as PJO is concerned in the grand scheme of things.

 

[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.

 

[Sharkface]

This all going according to your cunning plan to keep percy out of the spotlight, eh?

 

[Malbutorius]

Honestly, Humans being ignorant is probably way worse for them then knowing what's going on.

 

[GreyDragon0]

Next thing you know she is going bull riding! If she finds a cowboy hat I'm going to lose it.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

This all going according to your cunning plan to keep percy out of the spotlight, eh?

Click to shrink...

lol accidentally on purpose

But nah, Percy's gonna get the chance to prove himself... When pigs fly... heheheheheh this is gonna be gud!

 

[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]

Oh, and this is a bit of a side note, but I just finished reposting my original story, The Seichi Chronicles, over here on Sufficient Velocity from Spacebattles. So, if you like this story, you should head on over to either thread. I'm really proud of it and would love to see some feedback from you guys. It's definitely one of the best works I've ever written. It's currently got six chapters out, and it updates biweekly. There's a summary on the first post in the thread for the SV link.

 

[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.

 

[Malbutorius]

Are the tighty whities even his? I mean, I figured he just bought them someplace to replace his loincloth.

Also! Continued evidence that Mortal's not being able to see the monster's is more dangerous than useful!

 

[Krazyfan1]

....wasn't there a Paul Jennings story about Underpants that granted the Wearer Superpowers?
wonder if these pants are the same...

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Are the tighty whities even his? I mean, I figured he just bought them someplace to replace his loincloth.

Also! Continued evidence that Mortal's not being able to see the monster's is more dangerous than useful!

Click to shrink...

And now I am imagining the Minotaur as having a part-time job to get enough money to pay for proper underpants. Thank you for this. XD

....wasn't there a Paul Jennings story about Underpants that granted the Wearer Superpowers?
wonder if these pants are the same...

Click to shrink...

And NOW I am imagining Beckendorf as Captain Underpants. XD I really, really love this thread!

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Chapter 7: Mr. D Predicts My Demise
​

I didn't stop laughing clear until we'd nearly arrived at Camp Half-Blood. Naturally, our Southern/Chinese taxi driver was not very impressed with this. Neither was Beckendorf, who insisted there was nothing funny about winning underpants from a Minotaur. Beckendorf was obviously that one percent of people. Actually, that was me, but don't tell him that I fully admit to that -- I have a reputation to uphold, you know.

"Girlie," the driver said at last with a very annoyed tone of voice, "I would really appreciate it if ya let me pay attention t'the road!"

I immediately stopped laughing to frown at him. "Do not call me girlie," I said. I didn't mind being a girl, not really anymore, but being called that just did not feel right.

Beckendorf raised an eyebrow. "So that's how you get her to shut up," he said interestedly. I huffed at him, and he shrugged, grinning a small little, victorious grin. "Hey, you have been laughing a while now. I'm not sorry."

"Ugh, point taken," I sighed, rubbing my throat. My intense giggling was actually beginning to hurt my throat, like that annoying scratchy feeling that you get when you sing for too long. I knew that particular feeling all too well. "It was pretty funny, though, you have to admit it."

Beckendorf sighed like he was just done. "Okay. Yeah. It's a little bit funny."

"A lot bit funny," I corrected.

"You kids done back there yet?" the driver called back, and as we rumbled up a hill, I spied a single pine tree that had appeared over the side.

My mood immediately dampened. Thalia. It was… crazy to think that a girl was saved from the brink of death by being changed into a tree. Even as a guy changed into a girl, and as someone who'd read all the Percy Jackson novels, I simply couldn't wrap my head around it. She'd sacrificed herself by willingly facing at least a hundred of the nastiest monsters in Hades's repertoire in order to save her three friends. How does one have the guts to do that?

"Thalia's tree, huh?" Beckendorf had followed my line of sight. "We're close now. The stories they tell about Thalia, though… I wish I could've met her at least once."

"Yeah…" I frowned sadly. We were both quiet for a few moments, the now melancholic taxi rumbling up the road to Camp Half-Blood like a horse saddened by its master's emotions. Our silence was extremely awkward, especially in the face of the humor and mirth we'd had up to this point. Then we reached the crest of the hill and popped over it, and the sight that greeted us was a fan blowing away the depressing mist which had fallen over us.

Camp Half-Blood stretched out across the valley on the other side of the hill, nestled between a forest, a lake, the bay and the rolling hills. Arranged in a u-shape were the famous cabins for the twelve Olympians' children, and they were a magnificent sight to behold. Closer to us sat the Big House, which really did not do it justice; it was huge. Random bursts of fire swept into the night sky off and on, illuminating the treetops in brilliant, flickering orange light. The canoeing lake reflected the night sky like a beautiful blanket with a twinkling constellations design, with a river cutting off us and the Big House from the other half of Camp, which included the forest, strawberry fields, and cabins. Speaking of the cabins, the fire in the center of the "U" was lit, with a whole bunch of shadows that I assumed to be people dancing around it.

"They started the campfire without us?" Beckendorf groaned. "Great, that means there will be barely any s'mores left."

The driver peered through the night out to the camp below us. "What are ya talkin' about, boy?" he asked, genuinely confused. "There's just a strawberry field there, no fires ta be seen."

My newest friend raised an eyebrow at me. "Yes, of course," the demigod replied back.

Mist was a strange thing to wrap my head around. Everything just seemed so clear to me; how could others not see it for what it was?

He finally let us out just after we reached the top of the hill, in line with Thalia's tree. Beckendorf paid the man and added on the tip he'd said he'd give, too. I had to be a little skeptical about where a year-rounder camper like him had gotten the money to pay for all that, but Beckendorf explained that Mr. D had (reluctantly) given him a bunch of emergency money. We then walked a handful more meters down the hillside to the border of the camp, where my newest friend said something under his breath that I couldn't hear. Then he beckoned me forward, and I was able to cross through without issue underneath the ornate Greek archway that stood as the entrance.

As the taxi puttered away back to the city, we continued to make our way down the hillside to the camp. As we drew nearer the cabins, we heard cheerful voices belting out stupid campfire songs at the top of their lungs, and the fire danced twenty feet high, the tongues of flame looking as though they'd been woven from pure gold.

I immediately loved the place.

"This place," I gasped with wide, happy eyes, "is so awesome!"

Beckendorf, his hands in his pockets as he walked beside me, grinned. "Yeah, it's pretty great. It's like a second home to all of us. I can't even imagine how I survived before Camp Half-Blood. It just feels surreal to even think about."

The closer we got to the campfire, the louder the voices became, the clearer I could see the people around it, and the more I wanted to just drink in the entire camp with my eyes. Sadly, it was night, so despite there being no clouds in the sky I couldn't see everything very well. I did see what looked like the Apollo cabin circled around the fire, though, leading the campfire songs… and these songs definitely seemed to consist of some strange lyrics.

"This land is Minos's land, this land is gold land!" the campers sang as we finally joined them. "From old Crete Island! To the Mediterranean!"

Beckendorf's grin widened at my confused expression, and he lifted up his own voice in song. "From the Vai Palm Forest! To the Platis Potamos! This land was made gold by Minos!"

The song ended with a lot of voice cracks and a lot of laughter from the other campers. The campfire danced even higher, embers pirouetting and vanishing into the dark sky.

"Um, what?" I said at last.

"This Land is Minos's Land," Beckendorf said, as if that explained everything. At my continued blank expression, he stared. "Haven't you ever heard a campfire song before?"

"Yes," I replied slowly, "but most of the time they're not badly written parodies about dead and gold-obsessed kings."

He chuckled, rolled his eyes, and swatted my arm. I winced and rubbed it gingerly. My injured leg was already smarting something fierce from walking down the hill; I didn't need to be down an arm on top of that. "You just haven't been to the right camps," he told me. He then turned back to the other campers and cupped his mouth with his hands. "Hey, everyone! I'm back!"

A couple hundred heads—there were too many to count, and frankly I was too tired and hungry to bother anyway—all turned to look at us. The campfire immediately shrunk a few feet as the campers' joy turned into confusion and a careful study of, well, me. By the flickering light of the magical campfire, I could feel everyone's eyes gazing directly at me.

"She's the mortal?" someone sneered loudly. "She looks like a breeze could knock her over."

"Yes, Clarisse," Beckendorf said, "and she's a friend of all of ours. Everyone should treat her as if she was just another demigod." It felt weird to be talked about as she, but I didn't get a whole lot of time to think about this, because my friend turned to me and offered me a polite nod. "Eve, care to introduce yourself?"

"Um, hello," I said nervously. I was pretty outgoing normally—hell, back home, I'd been preparing to go live for an entire eleven months abroad in Brazil with another host family—but here, I was a weak mortal in front of one or two hundred very capable demigods, almost all of whom could probably very easily break my bones if they decided I was somebody to bully. "My name's Eva… er, Eve Gamble. I'm eig… twelve years old, and I g-guess I'll be staying here for the time being?"

I hadn't really meant that to be a question, but my nerves and ADD ended up accidentally making it one. I mentally facepalmed. Great first impression, Evan… no, Eve (Gotta use that name so that I can get used to it…). Way to sound confident and cool and not at all like a punching bag.

"Why?" someone called out.

"Um," I said again, about to launch into some dramatic lie, but Beckendorf beat me to the punch.

"Because since she is clear-sighted and has already saved the lives of a demigod, Chiron decided it would be better for everyone if she were to learn how to kill monsters, and Eve accepted."

It wasn't exactly the truth, but it wasn't exactly a lie, either. I glanced at Beckendorf, impressed. That had been way better than whatever I'd been about to blurt out. And it seemed to have worked, too. The campers were mumbling again, but this time it was more of an, "Okay, whatever, cool with me" sort of mumble. I smiled gratefully at my friend, who shot me a thumbs-up.

"Now, where's Mr. D?" Beckendorf asked the campers. "Eve here needs to see the orientation video, get a place to stay while she's here, and get her schedule together."

"I am right here, Chuck Benzenburg."

There was a flash of light and a voice from directly behind us. I yelped in surprise, drawing some strings of laughter from the demigods, and whirled around quickly. Standing there was a short, pudgy man who looked like he belonged in one of those trailer parks. He wore tasteless, tacky clothes that told of a fashion sense with -5000 skill points. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark glasses which looked like they'd been bought from your average Wal-Mart. He was pretty much the last person I would've expected to be a god in secret, and it was only thanks to my avid binge reading of Rick Riordan's series that I was able to pin him down as Dionysus at all. I mean, seriously, the dude was a train wreck.

"Ah, there you are." Beckendorf was entirely un-put-off by the banished god and his entirely dismal appearance. "I assume you heard all of that, then? Since I escorted Eve to Camp in the first place, I'll go with you all and help put everything in order."

"Alright, alright, whatever," I said, groaning and rubbing my poor stomach. "Just get me a cheeseburger and a nice, soft bed… that's all I really care about now…"

Mr. D *cough* Dionysus *cough* glared at me and looked like he was going to say something, but evidently remembered my status as a mortal. Ha! Take that, you Greek god with your… stupid, divine… customs… Man, monster fighting was really taking it out of me. I needed to get that dinner and some rest, stat, lest I simply knock myself out from the exhaustion and stress I'd undergone today.

"Follow me to the Big House, Evana Chance," Mr. D said blithely, turning around and staggering half-drunkenly towards said Big House. I said half-drunkenlybecause it was clear from the non-terrible smell of his breath, the way his eyes remained focused, and the fact that he was omnipresently grumpy that he hadn't had any drinks in forever. "It is time for your orientation."

"Ha!" I crowed triumphantly, my mirth momentarily chasing away my drowsiness. "That's closer to my name than you probably meant it to be!"

The god stared at me critically. He must not have liked how nonplussed I was about him misnaming me. Well, my mom accidentally called me by my dog's name sometimes, so I was already used to being humiliated like that.

I could feel his eyes burning at me from behind his glasses.

This was fine.

With the entire congregation of demigods staring at us like some weird religionists staring at their divine being, Mr. D stopped and turned back at me. "Even considering what Chiron said… You feel different from the other mortals," he announced, frowning and instead stalking closer to me. "Just who are you?"

This was probably fine. I mean, it wasn't like Chiron had told him everything about my status, right? Right?

"Evan Gamble," he said, quieter now, staring directly at my eyes as if he were looking right into my soul, "for what purpose and how did you come to our world?"

"Um, I-I—"

His frown deepening, Mr. D, now only one step away from me, reached his hand out and grabbed the top of my head roughly. Beckendorf tensed, looking ready to bring out his sword from his Tardis-like tool pouch, and the campers watched with bated breath. My face paled as coldness washed over me, and the god's hand glowed white for a few moments. Then Mr. D hissed and withdrew his hand, shaking it roughly and staring at it with wide eyes, like it had been burned or something.

"I see," he said quietly. He looked at me with a very dangerous half-glare, one that was part angry and part curious. "I do not know why, or how, but it appears as though some god managed to find a way to bring you here him or herself. We already know everything you know, of course, but with this in mind…" Mr. D paused and thought for a moment. Then his strange little half-glare bore deep into me again, harder this time, and I whimpered and backed away. "I know your fatal flaw, mortal, and for the sake of us all, I will tell it to you. Do not try to change the future. Attempting this will only end in tragedy. There's a reason why prophecies always happen. Trying to mess with the future will only result in more deaths and pain than you could have ever imagined. Your fatal flaw is the desire to change what you see for what you perceive to be the best. And in doing so, not only will it be fatal for you, but it will be fatal for us all."

Even though the campers had no idea what he was talking about, tension skyrocketed in the area around the campfire. The magical bonfire itself shrank to a measly two feet high, and turned to a shade of purple so dark it was nearly black.

Anger replaced my tiredness.

Who was this god to tell me what I should or shouldn't do? I was put here for a reason. Even if I didn't know what that reason was, and even if I didn't want to be here myself, that didn't mean that I wasn't going to just do nothing! I couldn't do nothing! It went against every cell in my body to stand around and just watch as people went to die before my eyes!

Regardless of the demigods behind me, and Beckendorf's pleading, warning hand that stretched out to grab my shoulder, I stepped forward until Mr. D and I were almost nose-to-nose. I was seething. I felt like Dracula in a blood drive which had just suffered a massive robbery.

"I can change the future!" I hissed, my hands trembling at my side. I bit my lip and fought back tears. "I will! Even if it's just a little bit, even if all I can save is one life, I will do so with all my heart and soul! Otherwise…" A single tear rolled down my cheek, unnoticed by me at the time. "Why am I even existing right now?"

Mr. D lifted his glasses off his head so that his eyes could glare directly into mine, unobstructed by any mediums. "And what happens when that single life you save causes another, or two more, or three more to be taken that otherwise would not have?" he asked, his eyes flashing with rage but his voice betraying no emotion. "What happens when that person's or people's parents have to hold funerals for them when without your thoughtless involvement, they could've continued living a bountiful life? What happens when the surviving family, furious at their late son or daughter's death, vows to seek revenge and causes countless more deaths in the process? When you've inadvertently caused tens of hundreds of thousands of deaths, clear off into the unforeseeable future, what happens then, Evan Gamble? What happens?"

I shivered. Somehow, his use of my actual name when everyone else had been addressing me as Eve made it all the more terrifyingly serious.

He paused for a moment, and I thought he might be done. But his jaw set, and he said, "The Fates do not enjoy anyone trifling with them. For everyone's sake, do not do so, or you will get burned."

The sky was still dark and cloudless overhead. Thunder boomed regardless.

My face pale as a ghost's, I gaped wordlessly. Beckendorf stared in shock, his mouth opening but speaking no syllables. The campers whispered again, and this time, it was a hushed disbelief that I heard.

Another ten tense seconds passed, during which nobody in the general vicinity dared move.

Mr. D turned curtly and marched off to the Big House as though he hadn't just forced me to question my very existence here, the causes of my existence here, and if I was even able to do anything at all. "Now, then, Miss Gamble. You have an orientation video to watch, and I have pinochle to play with nervous satyrs who probably purposefully lose against me."

 

[Malbutorius]

Welp, you've got divine mandate not to change the future. And the best way to change the future is to make it so you can't by killing yourself!

Surprised you didn't bring up the topic since if you're not supposed to have an effect than why even bring you there in the first place? It's utterly pointless. Unless, of course, what you're supposed to do is change the future accidentally by wandering off and doing your own thing rather than being a wish fulfillment generic self insert fantasy.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Welp, you've got divine mandate not to change the future. And the best way to change the future is to make it so you can't by killing yourself!

Surprised you didn't bring up the topic since if you're not supposed to have an effect than why even bring you there in the first place? It's utterly pointless. Unless, of course, what you're supposed to do is change the future accidentally by wandering off and doing your own thing rather than being a wish fulfillment generic self insert fantasy.

Click to shrink...

Eve will definitely be questioning that very heavily from here on out. However, that wasn't really the purpose of this chapter. Eve's fatal flaw is the desire to change the future for what she perceives is best. She will try to do so. She won't be content with sitting tight on the sidelines, doing her own thing and hoping something goes right as a result. The trouble with that is that she's been thrust into a world almost solely designed to prevent the future from being changed. It's a world designed pretty much completely against self-inserts. This chapter isn't really meant to make her question everything she knows about her current life, although it will, but to make a point about the true antagonists of this story.

Kronos, Luke, and their minions? Yes, they're antagonists. Gaea and the giants? Definitely. But they're Percy and Camp Half-Blood's problem. Eve's problem is bigger. Eve's enemies aren't any mere rogue demigods, Titans, giants, nor even the Earth Mother. Eve's enemy is fate itself.

 

[Krazyfan1]

....how often do the Gods actually communicate with the Fates?
i'm picturing the Fates actually being fine with the SI, it shakes things up a notch from boredom/they were the ones to bring them here because they can't change the future themselves once they wrote it?

 

[Malbutorius]

....how often do the Gods actually communicate with the Fates?
i'm picturing the Fates actually being fine with the SI, it shakes things up a notch from boredom/they were the ones to bring them here because they can't change the future themselves once they wrote it?

Click to shrink...

I can just imagine them meeting Eve for the first time and they start fangirling over her leaving her utterly and completely confused.

 

[Krazyfan1]

I can just imagine them meeting Eve for the first time and they start fangirling over her leaving her utterly and completely confused.

Click to shrink...

Mr D: "Don't Mess with Prophecies the Fates will be mad"
Fate 1: "Lookie here girls, adventure!"
Fate 2: "look at all our hard work!"
Fate 1 and 3: "yes but now we can make different things, better things"
Mr D:

 

[Doomed Wombat]

I'm surprised she didn't mention that
A. She's already changed the future by existing
B. She's also already changed the future... in fact as far as I can tell she's pretty much derailed the plot of book one, at least as far as Percy goes for now.

 

[TheRealEvanSG]

Chapter 8 - Obligatory Training Montage
​

After Mr. D's terrifying little speech, I was left to question everything I thought I'd known about myself for the rest of the night. I could barely pay attention to the (poorly made) orientation video, which I would've had trouble paying attention to anyway thanks to my ADD. What if Mr. D was right? What if by attempting to change the future, I really did make everything worse? But then, what was the point of me even being here in the first place if there wasn't some plot point that somebody wanted me to avoid or butterfly away? Why had some god or goddess went through all the effort of forcibly dragging me out of my world, switching my gender, and dropping me in Yancy, if I wasn't meant to do anything about all these lives which would be lost in the wars with the Titans and Gaea?

I barely even regarded Beckendorf with anything more than an aside nod when he handed me my schedule of events and led me to the Apollo cabin, which was apparently where I'd be staying. I would've thought that I'd be hunkered down with Hermes' kids, but apparently, during my orientation, Apollo had called in and personally accepted to host me. Something about the fact that I was "cute in a tomboy-ish sort of way" and had good taste in music.

I distracted myself from my internal conflict by mentally promising to punch the sun god in his freaking face for that comment.

I was set up in a bottom bunk on the southern-facing wall of the Apollo cabin. A young Will Solace was falling asleep in the cabin above mine; I found it a bit weird that they had boys and girls sleep together, but then again, it was normally half-brothers and -sisters sleeping here, so I supposed there wasn't much chance of anything suggestive happening. A smell similar to clean clothes that I couldn't quite place hung in the cabin, as well as the aroma of dried sage, which I recognized from tufts of the stuff I'd pulled from my grandfather's garden as a kid. The walls were barren of decoration except for a small amount of racks holding various weapons. Mainly swords. In the center of the cabin was a cot which I supposed had to be there for sick or injured demigods; the medical supplies around it were pretty good clues to this.

I was in Camp Half-Blood. I was in the Apollo cabin. I had befriended the Percy Jackson and Grover Underwood, met the Chiron, the Charles Beckendorf; hell, I'd met a freaking god, and all of this in the same day!

And I was miserable.

How else was I supposed to feel when I'd just been told that my attempts to make history better would only get me and others killed? I mean, Dionysus was no god of prophecy, but his words held a weight to them that just could not be ignored. What he'd said wasn't wrong, and that was what was eating me up the most. Many times in the book had Rick Riordan emphasized the invulnerability of prophecies. It was canon that trying to change prophecies spelled bad news, both in the original books and in Greek mythology. I thought about how deeply Dionysus cared for his two sons.

What if I saved Castor, only for Pollux to die in his place? Or what if both of them died of something else entirely because the Fates were angry that I'd interrupted their mysterious ways of planning people's lives?

What if I managed to avert the Titan War, only for something even bigger than Gaea to crop up because of that? I mean, hadn't Gaea started to wake up in the first place because Kronos was defeated? What if she woke up even faster than normal because he never got to rise to power in the first place?

What if one of the Seven died because they faced some kind of monster too early and were too weak to fight it?

It would all be my fault. Any casualties in the future that were non-canon? I'd be the cause of them, however indirectly.

Dionysus had shaken me up, and hard.

A yawn took over my mouth. Swallowing dryly, I rolled over on my bunk bed (it was nice to have a soft and comfortable mattress to sleep on again) and looked through the dark cabin at the sole clock which hung on the opposite wall from me. It was just past one o'clock in the morning now. I was losing my damn sleep because of this.

But still...

"What then, Evan Gamble? What then?"

Unconsciously, I raised my left hand to my mouth and started chewing on its fingernails. I had a bad nervous habit of that. And right now, I was very nervous indeed -- I couldn't find a good answer to Dionysus's question. Damn it all. This shouldn't matter! I shouldn't be concerned with this! I shouldn't worry about what could happen, or what lives might be lost!

I sat up in my bed, eyes wide.

That was it! That was my answer!

It really didn't matter what could happen, or who might die, because as long as I made the necessary plans, I could change everything for the better and still avoid any unnecessary casualties. Would it be difficult? Oh, Hades yes. But then again, what quest was ever not difficult? What quest ever did not have zero chance in failing, or zero chance in succeeding?

As long as I focused on what would happen, what lives would be lost, I could create a better future for everyone. Uncertainties were just that -- uncertain. And worrying about them could only result in what was happening right now; me losing sleep. If I just distanced myself from the problem altogether, ran away from it and never looked back, the same result would occur. If I wanted to be at all happy with myself or the world, I could only walk with a high head into the unknown, a plan at my side, friends in front of me, and canon behind me.

My confidence thus renewed, I smiled to myself at last, rested my head on my pillow, and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

~o~
​

"You look better than you did last night," Beckendorf observed at breakfast the following morning. I stood at the back of the line of Apollo's kids who were bringing their food to the sacrificial flames, my stomach growling from the absolutely scrumptious smells of Camp Half-Bloods homemade food. Fresh eggs and ham, fresh strawberries, fresh herbs and vegetables, basically every breakfast food that you could consider fresh, all of which one could choose from at will. It smelled amazing, especially to my hungry stomach. My stomach growled, and Beckendorf cracked a smirk. "Got over Mr. D's speech from last night?"

"Yep!" I said cheerfully. My eyes were a little bit heavy and I almost definitely had bags under them, but that was nothing new. I was no stranger to late nights spent staring blankly at the ceiling.

"That's good," Beckendorf said. "What will you be doing from here on out?"

"I'm gonna proceed as I'd planned before," I said, narrowing my eyes at the ceiling. "Much more carefully, though."

The person in front of me, Michael Yew, moved aside to go back to the Apollo table; he'd evidently tossed his sacrifice to Apollo into the flames already. I stepped up and considered my plate with a frown. What piece of food should I sacrifice? What god should I sacrifice it to? A particularly ripe strawberry, large and deliciously red, stood out to me, and I sighed. Well, I supposed I owed him a favor, even if I didn't particularly enjoyed his reasoning for it...

Thanks for harboring me, Apollo, I thought. I grabbed the strawberry and tossed it into the flames. An incredible scent I hadn't expected rose up; all kinds of summery smells, like the briny air of an early-July Floridan beach, warm coconut milk, newly picked lavender, a McDonald's hamburger, and tons of other things I couldn't identify all swirling together to create one unique, almost fulfilling smell. I was completely taken aback. Regardless, I sighed and gave a slight bow to the flames. You didn't have to take me in... you could've just left me to the Hermes guys, but you gave me shelter regardless. So... thanks.

As I made my way over to set my plate beside Michael and sit down, the sunlight slipping through the open walls of the dining pavilion seemed a tad warmer than it had been seconds earlier. My eyes felt a little bit less heavy than they had before my breakfast sacrifice.

"So, Eve." Across the table from me, Will Solace grinned and lifted out his hand. He looked like he couldn't be more than fourteen or fifteen, and he was kind of ridiculously handsome, on the level of Old Spice advertisers. Like seriously, he reminded me of a kid Isaiah Mustafa, if Isaiah Mustafa was a blond surfer dude. If I'd been into guys, I might have gotten a crush on him. "You didn't have much of a chance to get to know any of us last night, so why don't we make up for it now?"

"U-Um..." Gingerly, I grasped his hand and shook it. Wow, that was a weak handshake on my part. And was his hand a little warm? Yeah, his hand was a little warm. Like the sunlight against the back of my neck. "H-Hi. My name's E... Eve." No it's not, it's Evan! Why did I so willingly say that!?

Will's grin widened. "Will Solace. Pleasure to meet you."

My cheeks warmed.

...Actually, scratch what I said earlier. I did have a crush on him.

Um... huh. This... this could get awkward.

Stop blushing, cheeks! I demanded to my face, slapping it furiously. He's gay! And -- wait, does this make me bisexual? Or would I still be considered straight? I mean, I definitely like girls, but damn, that smile is just... GAH, I'M SO DAMN CONFUSED RIGHT NOW!

"I see you've found the reason why we call Will the Wife-Stealer," Michael Yew quipped as he took a bite of succulent bacon. He swallowed, sighed happily and chuckled. "Although he's really the Husband-Stealer, too." He offered me a smile and handshake of his own. I accepted the handshake and returned the smile. "Michael Yew. Nice to meet you, Eve."

"Nice to meet you, too, Michael," I said.

"I'm really not that attractive," Will denied. "I don't get why you guys always say that about me."

"Will, you should've been born a child of Aphrodite," Michael deadpanned.

"I'm not that attractive!"

"YES, YOU ARE!" shouted someone from the Aphrodite table. "IT'S KIND OF UNFAIR!"

Michael shook his head bemusedly. "See? Even they agree."

"Eve?" Will turned to me with pleading eyes. Dammit, for a boy, he did the puppy dog eyes remarkably well. "Tell them I'm not that attractive, pleeeease?"

Dammit, don't put me on the spot like this, man! This is your own problem, not mine! I've got my own issues I need to sort out right now, like exactly what sexuality can define a man in a woman's body having his/her first man crush! I'm stressed enough as it is!

Of course, I couldn't exactly say any of the above without sounding like a doofus, so I settled on, "Hu-buhhh?" and maybe a little drool.

My forehead greeted the table hard as Michael chuckled and Will hung his head in despair.

"It's alright, man," a young man who sat next to Will soothed him, chuckling. He looked a bit like Will, but had more of a sharper face and a pointier chin. He was also significantly less handsome, although when compared with Will, that included just about every other man in the entire camp. His hair was parted to the side. "We get that Dad blessed you with the best of his genes. We get that you've been swamped with love letters and been forced into hundreds of awkward situations because of your good lucks and tasteful dressing. But it's over now. You won't be accosted by fangirls or fanboys anymore. It's fine."

"You guys don't understand!" Will insisted, shuddering, lost in some horrible memory. "All of those girls coming at me at once, screaming me for me to marry them... hundreds of them... Every day of elementary school, I opened my locker to an avalanche of letters. An avalanche, Lee! Of cards and letters! That shouldn't even be physically possible to fit that many in a locker! I don't even like girls!"

"His handsomeness is sometimes more of a curse than it is a blessing," Michael said to me, shaking his head in wonder. He blinked and pointed to the guy comforting Will. "Oh, that's our Head Counselor, Lee Fletcher, by the way."

Lee perked up at his name and waved at me. I waved back.

"Hey, Eve," Lee said suddenly, reaching into his jeans pocket and pulling out a piece of folded, slightly wrinkled paper. "I nearly forgot, but I have our schedule of events for our cabin here. Since you'll be hangin' with the cool kids -- that's us, by the way," he added, to much booing from the Ares cabin, who appeared to have been eavesdropping the whole time. "You get to share a schedule with us. Don't worry if there's anything on it you think you might not be able to do -- no one's perfect at everything just starting out."

Will perked up and grinned. "Yeah! And if there's anything you need help with, like archery or medical lessons, just ask us and we'll help out."

"Thanks, guys," I said sincerely. Lee slid the paper across the table, and I picked it up and examined it. Here's what my Tuesday schedule looked like:

8:00 A.M. - BREAKFAST & CABIN INSPECTION
9:00 A.M. to 10:00 A.M. - ARCHERY PRACTICE (BOW AND ARROWS REQUIRED)
10:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. - MONSTER ASSAULT TECHNIQUE with ARES CABIN (LERNAEAN HYDRAS: WHAT TO DO IF YOU EAT AT THE WRONG FAST FOOD CHAIN)
11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. - SWORD & SHIELD COMBAT with ANNABETH CHASE (FIRST HOUR LUNCH, SECOND HOUR ONE-ON-ONE COMBAT TRAINING, FULL COMBAT ARMOR REQUIRED)
1:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. - PEGASUS RIDING with ATHENA CABIN
2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M. - FREE CHOICE (CANOE RACES with NAIADS - FIRST PLACE PRIZE = 20 DRACHMA CREDIT AT CAMP STORE)
4:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. - CLIMBING WALL with SATYRS
5:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. - FOOT RACING with DRYADS
6:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. - FREE TIME, CABIN CLEAN-UP, DINNER
9:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. - LEAD BONFIRE SING-A-LONG
10:00 P.M. - PREPARE FOR BED (LIGHTS OUT BY 11:00 P.M.)​

"Looks like we have a full day ahead of us," I declared.

Michael and Lee grinned. "Just wait until the climbing wall," they said in tandem, in a way that suggested I wouldn't like the climbing wall very much.

From then on, my life fell into a sort of abnormal normality. Did that sound weird to you? Yeah, well, try getting your canoe dunked by a sudden wave because of a side remark that the water looked a little scummy. Or try coming so close to getting crushed by crashing walls that your sleeve gets torn off as you hurriedly climb away. As days turned into weeks, I lost footraces to a tree, made a stone sculpture that was about a thousand times less beautiful than an eight-year-old's, and had the Aphrodite cabin mob me and forcibly put makeup on my face. The only reason that they left me alone at all was because Argus came over and instantly one over fifteen staring contests in the same moment.

I'd never known makeup could be magical before, but after it took me a full week to rub that stuff off me, I gained a new (horrified) respect for beauty products. A worthy enemy, to be sure.

...Was I saying that about makeup? Damn, my life was weird.

How good was I at archery?

"Not bad, not bad," Lee Fletcher hummed one day as he watched me land my fifth arrow in the final ring. "Your technique is pretty good, but your aim is off. Are you sure that you're aiming with your dominant eye?"

I shrugged, frowning at my missed marks. "I'm right-handed, so... yeah?"

"Hm... well, it's true that your dominant hand isn't always on the same side of your body as your dominant eye, so what if we try switching it up a bit? Here, try this left-handed bow."

"But I told you, I'm --"

Lee rolled his eyes. "It's more for eye dominance than anything." He held up the longbow and shook his hand a little. "Here, take it and just try."

"Alright," I said uncertainly. I reached into a quiver that hung on the fence directly in front of me, and notched an arrow onto my bowstring. I then placed one finger above and one finger below the arrow. I pulled back with my left hand, trembling somewhat from the force acting opposite me, and narrowed my eyes as I stared at the target. FWIP! I let go of the bowstring, and it sprang back to its original position, quivering to a stop like a bobblehead. As a result, the arrow was launched forward, whistling through the air before burying itself in the target.

My Head Counselor's eyes widened, and he slapped my back happily. "Look at that, Eve! You made the third ring! Nice!"

"That still sucks, though," I muttered, wilting. "It's barely a millimeter from the fourth section. I'm no good at archery."

"Hey, hey, don't beat up on yourself like that! All it takes is a little practice, and I bet you'll be hitting bulls-eyes in no time! Now, come on, show me that technique again. And this time, tilt your bow just a tad more to the right."

And learning Ancient Greek from Annabeth? Despite how admittedly good of a teacher she was, it was absolute hell. By the time I'd had my tenth class with her, my head was so confused with lettering and words that I couldn't tell what from which. As hard as it was for demigods to read English, I simply could not understand their alphabet. I'd been having a hard enough time trying to learn Portuguese for my Youth Exchange to Brazil back home, forget a lost language with an entirely different writing system!

In any case, weird, freaky, and as sometimes dangerous as my life grew to be, my first meeting with Luke Castellan took the foreboding cake.

It happened in my second week of camp, after another failed hour of swordplay. I collapsed on the ground outside the armory, panting and so sweaty that I was more soaked than a naiad at any given time of the day. Gasping for breath, I wiped my forehead and simply wished for my body to cool down faster. The rest of the Apollo cabin were still cleaning themselves up, drying off after an intense round of fighting.

"Hey, there, Professor Trelawny," someone's smooth and masculine voice greeted my ears from my right. It was a nickname many of the campers had started calling me because of Mr. D pretty much telling everyone about my secret on the first night. Only a few campers, like ones who hadn't come to camp yet or who were at the back of the bunch, like the Hermes cabin, hadn't heard. "So, is what they say about you true? You can really see into the future?"

"Back to the Future got zip right," I stated, tilting my head to the owner of the voice.

The speaker was a young man who looked ruggedly handsome, with a squarish jaw and a vertical scar on his right cheek. Over his orange Camp Half-Blood shirt was his bead necklace, which boasted an impressive five beads. A satchel hung over his right shoulder.

"Too bad," the boy said. "It was a good movie. I'm Luke Castellan, by the way."

My back immediately stiffened and my face paled. L-Luke!? This boy was the future vessel of Kronos, the Titan of Time!? The hero destined to die in the Great Prophecy!? He didn't look like a final series villain at all. He looked like your average high schooler, if more on the noticeably trouble-maker side of things. Crap -- well, anyway, I had to keep up appearances. Nervously, I held out my hand for him to shake.

He didn't.

"Um... heheh..." I rubbed the back of my head nervously, wincing at how heavy my long hair was with my sweat. "Well, I don't really know the future. More like, uh, glimpses. I... dreamed some stuff, and then found myself here, and some of it turned out to be true."

Luke raised his eyebrow, not buying it for a sec. "You're a bad liar, you know that right?"

Percy's words back at Yancy echoed in my head. I hung my head. Damn it, I needed to work on that. "I'm telling you, that's what happened."

"Mm-hmm," the Big Bad of the first Percy Jackson series hummed. "Well, how much do you know? Is there anything bad that happens? I'm a head counselor; you can trust me. I'll tell Chiron, and we can call a war council to figure out what to do about it. I'll bet if there is, that it's been stressing you out trying to come up with someway to avoid it; we can help with that."

Red alert! Red alert! Bad idea! "No, no, no, I really only know a handful of details," I chuckled awkwardly, my grin twitching. "Nothing big that needs dealt with right away!"

"Right away? Does that mean there will be something later?"

"Ahahaha..." I sweatdropped and mentally gritted my teeth. Dammit, Luke, you pick up on way too much for your own good! "Um, oh, sorry, I just remembered that I needed to get the Hephaestus cabin to make me a weapon! Ha, yeah, I... I'll go do that!" I scrambled to my feet and darted away. "See you around, um, Luke!" I turned to wave nervously at him.

Luke stood up, too. His eyes were narrowed, but he had a semi-pleasant smile on his face. "Just remember that if you need any help with anything future-related, I'm always here for you!" he shouted to me with cupped hands. "Anything!"

My jog increased to a run.

Nope nope nope nope. I was not falling for that trap.

I'd made it to the forge when I happened to run into Beckendorf -- literally run into him. We collided with enough force that I fell on top of him and then rolled painfully away.

"Owowowowow..." I grumbled, rubbing my now-sore cheek. "What are your muscles made of, iron?" I asked as the African American helped me to my feet.

He smirked. "Yes. What is your sweat made out of, oceans?" he asked, motioning to his shirt. Even though my hair had only briefly touched his Camp Half-Blood shirt, it had already gained one heavy, damp line down the center.

"Yes," I said in his exact tone of voice. I turned around and stared worriedly back at the armory, but the only people there were my other cabin-mates, all staggering out, many of them bruised up. Clarisse, who had been our goal for the cabin challenge today, fought hard.

Beckendorf followed my gaze. "What are you doing over here so early anyway? Slacking off again? I was just coming over to make sure you all got to the forge just fine, but I didn't expect you to be done this early."

"Beckendorf!" I gasped in a falsely hurt voice. "I only hid from the nine-mile dryad run one time, and that was because it was nine freaking miles!"

"Watch the language," he warned. "Chiron and Mr. D don't like it when we swear. The small children could get their innocent ears marred."

I had to stare at that. "How innocent can pint-sized monster slaying warriors be?"

Beckendorf raised his eyebrow. "You try saying no to Whitley's puppy dog eyes."

"He's eight, and a son of Aphrodite," I said, putting my hands on my hips. "That's just an unfair example."

"Touche. So, your reasoning for leaving your lesson this early?"

I hesitated. It was probably best not to let as many people know about the future as possible -- if I said too much with the gods possibly listening in, everything might be all screwed up. Someone might get smote, and then a newer, less human Luke Castellan might end up as Kronos's meatsuit.

"Nothing, just looking for you," I said quickly. "I lost earlier than everyone else and wanted some time to cool down. So, um, heheh, speaking of my weapon, you ever heard of RWBY?"

Beckendorf blinked. "What do rubies have to do with a weapon? ...You don't want one in the hilt of a sword or something, do you?"

"What!? No! I'm not that vain! RWBY -- R, W, B, Y! It's an anime..." I trailed off. Oh, wait, how would Beckendorf know what I was talking about? The first episode of Roosterteeth's amazing series wouldn't come out for another eight years. All concerns about Luke Castellan forgotten, I froze in horror. I wouldn't get to listen to "Caffeine" for another eight years!? NOOOOOOOOOO!

"A-ni-me?" my best friend sounded out carefully, tilting his head in confusion. "What's that, some kind of weird Japanese food?"

"What? No!" I stared at him. "...I have much to teach you, my good friend."

"Hey guys!" It was Michael Yew, jogging up to us with the rest of the Apollo cabin. "Just in time! We were wondering where you'd run off to, Eve. Were you guys talking about what kind of weapon you'd like, Eve?"

I jolted. "Oh, right, I nearly forgot! Geez, I'm such a scatterbrain..." I turned back to the African American demigod, who just looked amused with all of this. We started walking towards the forge, and I coughed into my fist. "Ahem. As I was saying before I started to go off on a different course, I'm kinda bad with a sword, so I'd really appreciate not having to use one. But there's this one character in RWBY who has these really cool nunchucks..."

~o~
:: ELSEWHERE, THAT NIGHT ::
​

The pit was dark and cold, a stale air drifting through the area. Shadows crept along the rocky floor like black ghosts flitting through the sky. A virus of evil permeated the atmosphere, tinging everything it touched with a vague sense of despair and death.

"Did you talk to the girl, my servant?" rasped an ancient voice, one warped by pain and dismemberment. "Did you find out anything from the one who caused the tear in space-time?"

"Yes, Master," Luke Castellan replied, invisible in the darkness but kneeling. "She refused to say very much, but I did glean that she indeed knows the future. She seemed frightened of me the moment she learned my name, so I can only assume she knows who I am and that I work for you. However, since no authorities from Olympus have come to bring me to their clouded sense of justice, I believe that she has not let anyone know exactly what she knows. Only that she does indeed know the future."

"I see," Kronos, master of time and currently Titan In a Thousand Pieces replied thoughtfully. "Still, the fact that she is here in the first place... the gods would not even entertain sending someone back in time unless they were in danger and they knew it. This means that our plan, to some extent, will work. Even so, we must be more careful. We must raise the stakes. If they brought someone who knows what's coming into play, we must make what's coming unforeseeable. Is Echidna's son reformed yet?"

"Yes, Master. I received word in a dream from Hyperion before coming here that the ripples in the universe's magic, caused by Eve, have had an unforeseen effect of increasing the recovery rate of monsters in Tartarus. Because of this, it is now ready."

"Good. Send it to Yancy Academy -- the gods must have had a reason for putting her there, and that reason must be a strong demigod, since that fly-covered centaur to be teaching there."

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

"Muahaha! Rise, Phaea! Rise, and destroy the gods' plan!"

 

[beowolf]

"Still, the fact that she is here in the first place... the gods would not even entertain sending someone back in time unless they were in danger and they knew it. This means that our plan, to some extent, will work. Even so, we must be more careful. We must raise the stacks. If they brought someone who knows what's coming into play, we must make what's coming unforeseeable. Is Medusa's son reformed yet?"

Click to shrink...

Stakes?

 

[Doomed Wombat]

Chrysaor

Click to shrink...

Greaaaaat, now he's either sending a boar, or a guy with a golden sword... still a son of Posidon though.