RED TIDE
CHAPTER ONE: PIERCING ARROW
(I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, nor do I own Cheetos.)

Addie figured that she must have done some pretty awful things in her past life, because her current life sucked. That was how karma worked, right?

She frowned as she made her way up the Metropolitan Museum of Art's front steps. The building itself was quite dramatic, large columns and fancy facades, and on any other day, she might have stopped to appreciate it, but today was blustery and rainy and all around unpleasant, and she was already in a bad mood thanks to Bobo.

Her brother Percy seemed to understand and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they entered the heated building. "Maybe it won't be so bad." He gave a small half-smile. "I mean, this stuff is kind of interesting."

She smiled back. "Yeah." At least Percy was making an effort. The least she could do was try as well.

Mr. Brunner was leading their class in his motorized wheelchair. Out of all the teachers at Yancy Academy, Addie definitely favored him if only because he was just so cool. His class, Latin, sounded about as interesting as sorting through her step-father's dirty socks (a task that she was, unfortunately, acquainted with), but he made it fun by adding interesting anecdotes and showing everyone his collection of Roman weapons (no way the School Board would approve of that if they knew). The fact that Percy was one of his favorite students was also nice, even if Mr. Brunner did tend to set the bar a little too high.

As Mr. Brunner explained about a certain stele displayed on the museum wall, a group of girls giggled loudly behind them, pointing to a naked figure on the other wall. Percy scowled and turned around. "Will you shut up!?"

All at once, everyone went silent, including Mr. Brunner, and Percy's shout echoed in the empty air. "Mr. Jackson," he said, "do you have a comment?"

Percy's face flushed red. "No, sir." There was a hushed giggling behind them again, and Addie turned to glare. Of course Bobo was leading them. Bobo was Addie's nickname for Nancy Bobofit, a redheaded kleptomaniac who thought she could do whatever she wanted just because Mrs. Dodds favored her. Even now, the evil Pre-Algebra teacher stood behind the class, glowering at Addie and Percy's general direction. She was more like a bat than a woman.

"Then perhaps you can tell us what this picture represents?" Mr. Brunner motioned behind him to the gruesome picture that Addie just noticed: a giant, bearded man swallowing an infant while a woman in a toga stood in front of him, almost disinterestedly watching on as her husband ate their child.

It seemed familiar to Addie, but, then again, she sometimes had trouble remembering her own name. Percy was much better at this kind of thing.

"It's Kronos," he finally answered, "eating his kids."

"Yes…" Mr. Brunner responded, waiting for Percy to continue.

"He was King god—"

Mr. Brunner cut in. "God?"

"Titan," Percy corrected himself as he explained how Kronos was distrustful of his children because of a prophecy that they would one day rise and take power, so he ate them. Finally, with the birth of his last son, his wife tricked her husband and fed him a substitute and hid the baby on earth, where the child grew up and came back to trick his father into barfing his siblings back up. What resulted was a ten yearlong war with the gods winning. It was real warm, fuzzy story in the way that Mrs. Dodds was warm and fuzzy.

Bobo made a snide comment behind Percy's back that Addie didn't quite catch, but she had a feeling that it certainly wasn't a compliment. Addie felt an itching to throw her shoe at her, but, fortunately, Mr. Brunner came to the rescue.

"And to paraphrase what Miss Bobofit's question, does this matter in real life?" Mr. Brunner gave a pointed look to Bobo, then glanced back to Percy.

Grover smiled, nudging Addie. "Busted." She covered her laugh with a cough.

Bobo heard and hissed at them to shut up, but that couldn't take away the fact that she was redder than Cheetos.

Percy shrugged. "I dunno, sir."

Mr. Brunner seemed disappointed. "I see. Well, half-credit, Mr. Jackson," and he corrected Percy's story, but Addie didn't pay particular attention, mostly because she didn't really care about this ancient history stuff. Sure, it was interesting, if inapplicable to Addie's life. Right now, her largest concern was how she was going to wipe Bobo's prideful look off her ugly face.

Mr. Brunner dismissed the class for lunch, which translated into 'do what you want for an hour,' and with twenty-eight hyperactive kids, Addie wondered the wisdom behind that decision, but whatever. She wasn't about to say no to some free time. She and Percy and Grover followed the rest of the class outside, but at the last second, Mr. Brunner called Percy back.

"Keep going, I'll meet you two outside," Percy nodded.

"Think he's in trouble?" she asked Grover as they made their way back down the steps. The rain had stopped, leaving big puddles but the storm clouds still stuck around, threatening to spill at any second. After so many weeks of bad weather, she'd forgotten what the sun looked like.

"Nah," Grover said, but he looked a little worried. Then again, that's what he always seemed to be looking like. He glanced back at the Museum, but then shook his head. "He'll be fine," he reassured, not exactly looking reassured himself.

They found a spot near the fountain. Addie took out her unimpressive lunch (a plastic-wrapped peanut butter sandwich) and offered it to Grover, who shook his head. "After this morning, I think I've had enough of peanut butter for a while," he explained. The bus ride from Yancy had involved Bobo sitting behind him and throwing bits of her lunch at him. Addie hoped Bobo had nothing to eat now, and when she looked over, she found her trying to steal money from an old lady.

"Unbelievable," she muttered, shaking her head. That was it. This day officially sucked.

Having lost her appetite, she got up to throw her lunch away when, by chance, she happened to glance at the museum. Percy was coming back down from his chat with Mr. Brunner, but… behind him. There was a woman standing at one of the entrances, which was ordinary enough. She had black hair and green eyes, like Addie, but her clothing was definitely not ordinary. She wore a long, pleated toga made of a light, summery material tied at the waist by some kind of golden cord. It would have been pretty for warm weather, but it was blustery today, the kind of weather that required a jacket.

The woman also had a faint glow about her, like a greenish-blue aura barely noticeable. She seemed to stare right at Addie. Weird enough, but then she motioned for Addie to follow before she turned away and walked into the museum.

Addie looked around to make sure if anyone else had just seen what she had. Nope. The other kids were messing around, not paying attention to anything in particular and Grover was digging into his own lunch, absent from the real world.

"I'll be right back," she told him. Grover's eyebrows wrinkled, but he nodded anyways.

She raced up the steps, taking two at a time, passing by Mr. Brunner, who was now outside, though she had no idea when he had arrived. He was absorbed in his book so she said nothing to him. She also went by Percy who called her name in confusion.

"I'll be back in second," she shouted back before she entered in to the museum again.

Why was she doing this again? She wondered, searching for the woman in the toga. Maybe she had another hallucination. It certainly wasn't the first time. That kind of thing went along with her ADHD, so most of the time, Addie went through her day with bits and pieces of information missing from her brain. It was like looking at a portrait with holes in it.

"Addie." Someone said her name. She followed the voice into another hallway where she caught a glimpse of the tail end of that toga and followed it deeper into the museum.

As she ran, she figured if someone were trying to rob her, they'd be sorely disappointed.

Finally she ended up in the Ancient Egyptian gallery, which was just adjacent to the hallway that led to the Ancient Greeks and Romans section the class had visited earlier. The woman stared at a painting of the Nile River, which was etched into four thousand year old stone. Surrounding the Nile were a multitude of beings, divine or mortal, Addie couldn't tell.

"Um…" Addie awkwardly cleared her throat. "Hi."

"Hello, child." The woman turned around and Addie's breath caught in her throat. She was suddenly aware of how ragged her clothing was, the holes in her sneakers and her unkempt black hair. In contrast, the woman was absolutely stunning and her smile was kind.

Well, at least she wasn't going to rob Addie.

"You've grown," the woman commented.

"Um, do I know you?"

The woman laughed. "No, but I've watched you grow up since you were a baby."

"Who are you?"

The woman shook her head. "It doesn't matter." She reached out to touch Addie's face, but on reflex, Addie flinched away. The look of disappointment flashing across her eyes made Addie feel sorry that she had. "I have a gift for you," she continued.

"A what?"

"A gift," the woman smiled again, holding out her hand. In her palm was a bracelet made of leather strings with a single silver charm tied to them: an arrow with streamlined designs leading to a wicked sharp point. Experimentally, she poked herself with it and almost yelped at contact. The ADHD part of her loved it, but the smaller, rational side of her questioned it. Why would someone give her a gift, especially one like this? She remembered signs at train stations that said never to accept baggage that anyone else gave you because there could be a bomb or something.

"Are you a terrorist?" she blurted out, then turned redder than Bobo's hair. Smooth.

The woman raised an eyebrow then shook her head, chuckling. "Our time together is cut short," she said, raising a hand in goodbye. "I cannot stay much longer, but always remember that we are with you."

"Wait, what? Who's we?"

"Goodbye, Ariadne."

The woman literally faded in front of Addie's eyes, leaving the scent of a fresh ocean breeze behind, and she was left alone in front of the Nile drawing. What just happened—

Then there was a terrible, inhuman screech that echoed in the air. It sent shivers down Addie's spine. Doing the logical thing that came to her ADHD mind, she ran towards it, which happened to be the Greek and Roman section just down the hallway.

She found Percy in front of that Kronos-eating-his-kids-stele—only he wasn't alone. There was this thing flying in front of him—a bat-like monster with black wings and talons and wrinkled, leathery skin. Addie screamed. The thing turned around to reveal a mouthful of deadly sharp fangs and it dove at her.

"Addie! Get out of here!" Percy shouted.

She dodged the thing's talons, but it pulled back, rearing for another attack.

Use the bracelet, a voice in her head commanded. Pull the charm, it echoed.

She didn't stop, she didn't think. She tugged the charm and as she pulled, a five and half foot spear, longer than she was tall, appeared from the strings. It was a wooden staff and a dangerously sharp metal arrow at the end that she vaguely realized as the charm from before, just larger and deadlier.

"Come at me!" she screamed, holding the spear with both hands, arrow pointed at the monster.

The thing lunged, and Addie realized that she literally had no idea what to do.

Just as she was sure she would die, the monster hacked and exploded into a yellow sulfurous powder. Percy stood where the monster had been vaporized, a three-foot long sword in his hand. He looked equally as confused and shaken as she did. They were alone, but it still felt as if they were being watched.

Addie gulped and her knees failed her. The spear clattered onto the marble floor. She fell along with it, unable to rationalize what she had just seen—or hadn't seen? Was this just another hallucination? She looked down. The spear was gone, and on her wrist was the charm bracelet from before, the arrow catching and reflecting the light back to her almost painfully.

There wasn't a sword in Percy's hand, just a pen. A regular ballpoint pen.

They both looked at one another, unable to speak. Percy seemed to recover first, if it could be called that. He helped Addie up, but she could feel him trembling. Thunder echoed in the museum, a low rolling sound that jarred them back to reality.

"Let's go," he said, shakily.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is my version of a Percy-has-a-sister fic. I saw what other people were doing and I finally wanted to put in my own two cents. What resulted was Addie. She'll only be sticking around with Percy for a few more chapters before I start to change things up for her. I hope you all enjoyed Red Tide thus far. As always, feel free to review and thanks so much for taking the time to read.