Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians


Scene: End of Chapter Six: "I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom" from PJATO: The Lightning Thief


I was not impressed with Percy Jackson.

There was usually always the same questions from every new camper. There was usually the same disbelief that one of their parents was not human. But Percy Jackson…well, Percy Jackson was just being stupid!

As I dragged him away from the Hermes cabin, I said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that." I was trying to be helpful. Trying to get him to realize that if he wouldn't ask these stupid questions, maybe he wouldn't embarrass himself so much.

"What?" he asked, as if he had no idea what I was talking about.

So I do the only reasonable thing I can think of at that moment. I rolled my eyes and mumbled, "I can't believe I thought you were the one." I really did, too. When he came stumbling into camp, with Grover under one arm and the Minotaur horn in the other, I truly thought he could be the one who would finally get me on a quest (more so due to the horn than Grover). I even helped to nurse him back to health, hoping he would be the one I was waiting for all this time. Now I wasn't so sure.

He started to get angry then, even though I don't know why. Honestly, all I did was offer some friendly advice. He didn't seem to get how much anyone would have loved to have had his chance at the Minotaur, so I deemed it my responsibility to set him straight. When he didn't believe me that we're talking about the Minotaur, I once again had to set him straight. I spent the next few minutes explaining everything to him, which took longer than usual with other new campers until the subject of parents came up.

"You don't just choose a cabin, Percy," I explained, mortified that he could think he could just go and sleep in any cabin he felt like. "It depends on who your parents are. Or…your parent," I corrected myself automatically. I stared at him, thinking that he would get this. It was a no-brainer, since I practically spelled it out for him.

"My mom is Sally Jackson," he said, slowly and finished off by explaining where she worked.

I felt bad for him a little, since she was just killed. She sounded like a nice woman. Because of this, I withheld my inclination to sigh at him and his thick-headedness. "I'm sorry about your mom, Percy," I said sincerely. "But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."

His reply was instantaneous. "He's dead. I never knew him."

He seemed pretty adamant about it, so this time I did sigh at him. I've had this conversation before with other new campers, but none of them made me as exasperated as Percy Jackson. "Your father's not dead, Percy," I explained painstakingly.

"How can you say that? You know him?"

"No, of course not," I replied. My patience was wearing thinner by the minute with this kid. Either he was in denial about who he was or he was the stupidest boy on the earth.

"Then how can you say—"

"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about me."

Stupid stubborn boy. I bulldozed over him and any of his protests, while I explain to him, just how fully how much I knew about him. Because in those ways, with the dyslexia and the ADHD, we had something in common. I firmly believed the similarities stopped there. A child of Athena would have never taken this long to figure it out. "Face it," I said, finishing. "You're a half-blood."

At which point, Percy just gave me a stupid, stunned, deer-in-the-headlights look. I was about to try and bring him back to earth when a most unpleasant voice reached my ears.

"Well! A newbie!"

"Clarisse," I said with a sigh, resigned that I had to deal with her. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

We argued about the game on Friday, which I had hoped would be enough to get her attention off Percy. He certainly didn't need to deal with her on his first (conscious anyway) day at camp. But her attention was not diverted and I ended up introducing her to Percy. He questioned the daughter of Ares part, which made me wonder again if there was any scrap of intelligence in that brain of his, but he seemed to recover a bit and even managed a jab at Clarisse. I privately smirked at this and thought that maybe the boy wasn't completely hopeless after all.

But when Clarisse mentioned the "initiation for newbies", I knew I had to try and stop it. "Clarisse—" I tried to say, warning her to back off, but she wasn't having it.

"Stay out of it, wise girl."

I pursed my lips. I hated when she called me that. My eyes flicked to the four Ares girls. If it had just been Clarisse, I probably would have tried to take her, but four-against-one was a bit more than I could have probably handled. Percy surprised me by handing me the horn. I looked at his face, which had determination plastered all over it. I almost smiled. Not hopeless, indeed.

I followed them to the bathroom, wanting to support him and looking for a chance to perhaps rescue him. I stood in the corner of the bathroom and put my face in my hands, resigned that I was going to let this happen. I peeked through my fingers, determined that I would jump in if Clarisse truly tried to harm Percy in any way.

I wasn't prepared for what happened next. The next thing I knew, the toilet water was blasting around, taking out Clarisse and her gang. I didn't seem to get spared either, as I got soaking wet, but at least I wasn't flushed out of the bathroom like the other girls. Once the water settled and stopped, I looked over to where Percy was and saw that he was sitting on the floor, completely dry. In fact, there was a complete circle around him that wasn't wet at all. That didn't make sense, as he was as close to the exploding water as Clarisse had been. He stood up and I could tell that he was shaking a little.

"How did you…" I trailed off, for once at a loss for words to explain what had just happened.

"I don't know," he said, simply.

I didn't know whether to believe him or not. We went out to look at Clarisse, who looked like a mess. I knew Percy had made a life-long enemy with the look she was giving him. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."

"You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."

I wanted to laugh, but restrained myself as Clarisse was dragged away. I kept my face blank as I stared at Percy with an idea curling into my brain. The idea turned into a strategy. After a long few seconds, Percy demanded, "What? What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that I want you on my team for capture the flag," I said honestly. He didn't seem to understand, but I didn't explain further as I went to show him the rest of the camp.

Maybe, just a little bit, I was impressed with Percy Jackson.