Disclaimer: I, T'BD'A, do so humbly swear upon the River Styx that I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or any of it's characters.

Chapter One

My Uncle Teaches History

It was the mddle of April. The sun was shining, the flowers were blossoming, and I couldn't wait for school to get out so that I could go to my favorite place in the world; Camp Half-Blood. I had been counting down the days since Easter, and my only mortal friend that I had known for more than a few months, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, had started to think that I was going insane.

"Percy, there is still a month and a half before school gets out, so please stop daydreaming in class," She said giving me an exasperated look. "One because even though we have the same classes all day, I won't be able to cover up for you every time the teacher asks you a question, and two, because you should be thinking about how to stop Kronos on your sixteenth birthday."

I winced. She was right. I knew it, she knew it, and everybody else at camp knew it as well. I had been trying to push the thought of fighting the Titan Lord out of my mind, but it seemed that every five minutes, Rachel seemed to be bringing me out of my thoughts of camp and my friends and back into reality where in about three and a half months, I would decide the fate of the world.

It was the last hour of the day. History. I groaned inwardly. By far my least favorite subject of all. It seemed in every school I had gone to, I would always have the same kind of history teacher. Middle aged, speaking in an emotionless drone, and at the end of class, assigning a metric ton of homework.

Boy did I have a surprise when I walked into class.

The desk occupied by Mr. Morrow, our history teacher, was empty.

Everybody started whispering. I knwe why. Mr. Morrow was never gone. I suspected he would walk through the Fields of Punishment, go through every torment known to man, climb every mountain in the world, and swim through a sea of broken glass to teach. He was the kind of stiff-necked teacher who wouldn't take a vacation day.

Suddenly, the door opened, and in walked a man in his mid forties who looked five years younger than he really was. he had black hair with a few streaks of gray in it and he was wearing a gray pinstriped suit. His eyes were a startling electric blue.

I thought, Oh gods of Olympus, NO. NOT HIM.

Unfortunately, it was.

"Good afternoon class. I am Dr. Seuz." There were a few snickers at the name.

"No, I am not Dr. Seuss. I am not related to him, and I have never met him." I thought, Yeah, right.

"Please turn to page 296 in your book."

It was about, big surprise, the Ancient Greeks.

I suppose I have some explaining to do.

The supposed substitute teacher was in fact, Zeus, Lord of the Gods, in all his powerful thundery glory. When one of the students asked where Mr. Morrow was, he gave the class a weird look and snapped his fingers. Sure enough, he manipulated the Mist, a substance that makes mortals see mythological things differently. There were no more questions after that.

After class (and after assigning a ton and a half of homework), he said "Mr. Jackson and Ms Dare, may I have a word with you?"

We didn't dare disobey. A) He was Lord of the Gods and could vaporize without a thought. B) My father was Poseidon, and it was well known that Zeus and Poseidon were bitter rivals, which made him want to vaproize me even more. And C) I was the subject of a prophecy that would decide the fate of the world on my sixteenth birthday. I knew Rachel (who could see through the Mist) could probably see Zeus for who he was, didn't entertain any notions of disobeying him either.

"Percy, I have some bad news. The Princess Andromeda has been docked in New York Harbor at least twice a week for the last six months. It appears Kronos has found a way to infiltrate Camp Half-Blood, because branches of the tree have fallen off. Peleus, the guard dragon, has had several head injuries throughout the past few weeks, and the Golden Fleece has even slipped off the tree a couple of times.

I gaped. The very notion of it was absurd. I nodded dumbly as Zeus explained that I had to go to camp to train, to help protect the borders, and to learn what the Titan army was doing.

When I left the building, Blackjack and Porkpie, two of the camp's pegasi, swooped down.

Yo, boss! Chiron wants me to get you and your mortal friend to camp pronto!

I nodded. Rachel and I mounted the pegasi, (Rachel had trouble because Porkpie kept trying to buck her off. I stopped this with a snippet of correction), and we were zooming off over the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

I could smell Camp Half-Blood before I saw it. Time seemed to turn to jelly.

I thought, Oh, no. . .

But sure enough, there was my old enemy, Kronos.

There was Thalia's tree.

And, sure enough, it was burning.