I apologize for any grammar/spelling mistakes. Thanks so much for reading this you guys.

I do NOT own PJO/HoO or any of the characters.

The Gender-bent names:

Percy: Persephone/Persee Jackson; Annabeth: Anthony Chase; Jason: Jasmine/Jaz Grace; Piper: Peter McLean; Hazel: Hayden Levesque; Frank: Francis Zhang; Leo: Leilani/Leia Valdez; Calypso: Caleb Ogygia ; Reyna: Ryan Ramirez-Arellano; Nico: Nicolette/Letty di Angelo; Will: Wendy Solace

Peresphone, Jasmine, Nicolette, and Hayden walked together inside the school building. It was their first day back and Persephone— or Persee, as her friends called her— had been complaining about that all week. Now, Nicolette and Jasmine were dragging her inside, with Hayden rolling his eyes, but chuckling at his cousin's antics.

"B-but, I don't wanna!" she whined, fitfully.

"Oh, shut up, Kelp Head!" Nicolette said, clearly annoyed. She was the easiest among the four to tick off. Though she was like five-foot-two, the girl still could pull off looking terrifying. She was dressed in black t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A few tattoos and several bracelets decorated her arms and she wore a silver, skull ring on her right, index finger. With her black eyeliner, brown, almost black eyes, ripped skinny jeans and black combat boots, she looked like no force to be reckoned with. And she wasn't. Her black hair was pulled back in a pony tail and her flat bangs hung in front of her pale face.

Jasmine shot Persee a wink, "Don't worry, babe. I'll protect you."

Persee let go of Nicolette to wrap her arms around Jasmine. "Aw, Jaz, do you really mean it?" she asked teasingly.

Jaz pulled her closer, "Of course I do, baby. Anything for you!"

Nicolette smacked them both, "Oh, will you two shut the hell up!? You're both straight and you're cousins!"

Jaz grinned, "That didn't stop you from crushing on Persee, though."

Nicolette flipped off her cousin. "Shut up," she growled.

Persee patted Jaz's shoulder. "Don't worry," she said, "I'm not her type."

Nicolette angrily kicked Persee's shin and stormed off towards the table to get her schedule.

Hayden frowned at them both. While he was merely Nicolette's step brother, he was still really close to her.

"Guys," he chided, "Don't tease my sister so much. It's been hard enough after she came out to our parents."

Jaz looked a little guilty and was about to say something to Nicolette when the three witnessed a particularly odd scene:

Nicolette was about to walk away from the table when a tan hand grabbed her shoulder. A girl with blond, curly hair and bright blue eyes grinned down at the pale girl. There was some sort of flirtatious bickering held between them and then, blond girl winked at a blushing Nicolette and walked off.

After the others got their schedules, Jaz leaned over and nudged Nicolette.

"Who's that?"

Nicolette blushed, "No one!"

Hayden smirked, "That was Wendy Solace. They've been hanging out for most of the summer."

"Hayden!"

Jaz joked, "Lesbi-honest.. you totally are crushing on her, aren't you?"

Nicolette smacked her cousin, "Not one more word." She stomped off.

Persee's only response— which Nicolette was luckily out of earshot for— was, "That's her type?"

Hayden rolled his eyes, "Letty's allowed to like other people besides you. Now, I'm going to go meet Francis and go to class." With that, he walked off.

Jaz's boyfriend, Peter arrived shortly after and Persee was left alone.

The rest of the day went by slowly. Listening to hand outs and guidelines repeatedly was definitely not exciting. And when you were ADHD and dyslexic, that made everything worse. During one of his classes, Persee caught Jaz's best friend, Leilani Valdez— Leia for short— tearing up pieces of her hand out and using them for spit wads. Her boyfriend, Caleb Ogygia— a former ex of Persee's— merely rolled his eyes at his girlfriend's behavior and continued to doodle on his paper. It was all going well until Leia accidentally hit Ryan Ramirez-Arellano on the back of the head. Ryan wasn't football player material, but he had the build of what looked like a ninja. He was tall and slender with skin like Leia's. His eyes were dark like Nicolette's and he had silky, black hair. He turned around and glared at Leilani, showing her that he'd get revenge later. Leia merely shrank back in her seat after that.

It was the end of the school day and Persee was not quite free. Since she was her cousins' ride home, they merely had to wait around for her. Except for Nicolette. Wendy had convinced her to hang out at her house so they could study. Nicolette reluctantly agreed and as the two walked out the school doors, an immediate bet went on between Hayden and Jaz on whether they would kiss or not. Jaz said they'd kiss by the end of the week and Hayden said they'd kiss while they were over at Wendy's house. Both of them sat around and patiently waited for Persee to finish her tutoring session.

The girl grumbled all the way to the door about how stupid and unfair this was. It wasn't her fault that school was such a struggle. She was a smart girl, wasn't she? The again, there was a reason why Nicolette often called her "kelp head" based off of her sea-green eyes and dense personality. She sighed and pushed open the door and her jaw nearly dropped. Standing there was Peter McLean and Ryan's best friend, Anthony Chase. He was the smartest guy in the school and an acquaintance of Persee's. And Persee did not at all have a crush on the guy. Nope, nope nopity, nope. Well…. maybe… kind of.. fine, yes, Persee was mad about the guy. From his curly blond hair, to his tan skin, to his intense gray eyes. He stood before her, crossing his arms.

"You're late," was his only statement before they took a seat and started going over Persee's math homework that she'd received as a "welcome back to school gift". She struggled to work out all of the different equations and formulas. Anthony would constantly roll his eyes and erase her answers and call her out on her mistakes. But, none of the criticizing remarks actually seemed mean. Half way through the first session, she noted that Anthony was calling her "Seaweed Brain" a lot. It was similar Nicolette's nickname for her, but almost cuter in a way. The sessions weren't work and stress though. During nearly all of their sessions, they'd take a few breaks and simply chat and got to know each other. Turned out, Anthony was a huge geek when it came to architecture and was fluent in Ancient Greek. Persee wasn't quite sure why the guy wanted to learn a dead language, but she went along with it. Nearly every tutoring session, Persee found herself falling more and more in love with Anthony. Several months of their tutoring sessions had passed and they seemed to get a lot closer to each other, even becoming best friends.

One day, after they had finally finished, Anthony sat back in his seat, studying her with his gray eyes.

"You're such an idiot, I'll have you know," he told her.

"Gee," she said sarcastically, "thanks for boosting my self esteem."

Anthony laughed and then a slow smirk spread on his face. "You're smarter than you let on though," he praised.

"That's what Ryan told me, once."

"Sounds like him."

Persee nodded and they went on talking casually.

"Did you hear about Nicolette and Wendy?"

Anthony nodded, "Those two finally got together. I remember seeing Jasmine Grace give Nicolette's step-brother ten bucks on the second day of school when Nicolette and Wendy had been announced as a couple. What was that about?"

"Oh, they had a bet on when those two would kiss."

"Ahh. Glad Nicolette is finally happy. Poor girl looked so depressed after her brother and mother died."

"Yeah. And I'm glad she found someone that is her type."

Anthony laughed, "What's THAT supposed to mean."

"She had a crush on me for a few years. And then she told me and said she was over it and I wasn't her type. Can you believe that?"

The blond boy rolled his eyes, "Wow, Seaweed Brain, egotistical much?"

Persee laughed, "Eh, it's just kind of a joke between us now. I'm straight anyways."

"Are you? You and Jasmine seem to prove otherwise."

"Oh, we just are really close cousins and like to piss of Nicolette."

"That doesn't sound that smart. Then again, you are kind of stupid."

"Hey!"

Anthony laughed and then drummed his fingers against the table, "I'll tell you what. Would you mind memorizing a few more digits for me?" Without waiting for an answer, the boy ripped out a piece of paper and scrawled something on it.

"Here, memorize this for me." He picked up his books and walked out of the room.

Persee stared down at the paper which had Anthony Chase's name and cell number written on it. Underneath he had written, "Call me sometime, Seaweed Brain. ;)"