"Percy, are you paying attention?" Mr. D. asked, sounding frustrated.

Percy Jackson was no stranger to the Principal's office. Many times at Yancy High School, he had been called there, to answer for acts of troublemaking the school believed he had committed. Granted, they weren't usually wrong. Percy was far from the model student; seizing any opportunity he could to make the lives of the staff hell. As a matter of fact, Yancy was a school that severely lacked model students, having acquired a reputation as one of the worst schools in New York in terms of behavior. While this largely stemmed from how underfunded it was, most people in the local area would tell you that there was a more obvious cause: gang activity. Most of the older students were involved in a gang of some sort, and most of the younger students aspired to be just like them. What constituted as a gang was often debated; many would claim they were just friends hanging out in the streets. This however would not usually be the case.

Percy Jackson, about to enter his senior year, was one of those students. Like most of the teenagers who lived on his estate, it was the norm, all your friends do it and although he knew giving in to peer pressure was bad, Percy also knew that sometimes, particularly in their home, it was worse to be the kid on their own. That being said, he genuinely did want to be a part of their little gang. It was fun for him; he got to spend time with friends, messing about and just getting up to no good. They were all still relatively young and did little more than let off steam, get into fistfights and arguments, sometimes with other groups, sometimes amongst each other. Occasionally they'd steal from a local store or something like that. Percy knew it was wrong to do it, but what did he care, his life wasn't worth much to the outside world anyway, he was just another juvenile delinquent.

Yet, Percy's case was different, it wasn't just that his friends had made him want to join a gang, he had practically been told since birth that the gang would be his future. Why? Well, it may have something to do with the little fact that his father ran the gang. Yes, that's right, Percy Jackson's father, who was known but most by just his nickname Poseidon, was in charge of one of the largest gangs in New York. They were big time, committing serious crimes and when Percy was old enough, it was expected by everyone on the estate that he would move up to work with his father. At least, that was the plan for his future, until this morning.

It was actually because of Poseidon that Percy found himself in the Principal's office on this Tuesday morning. He sat in a chair, opposite the desk where Mr. D was sitting. He'd been in this situation hundreds of times; the difference with this one was that he did not recognize the office, or the man in front of him, because he had never met Mr. D before this morning. Mr. D was the Principle of Goode High School, Percy's new school. He was short and plump, with jet-black hair and a scraggly beard. He wore an expensive suit that didn't quite fit him, and looked as if it needed a good iron. His amazingly startling purple eyes had a hint of anger in them, and somewhat distracted from his rosy cheeks. He had the look of a man who had enjoyed a few two many glasses of wine for a few too many days in a row, and would've looked more at home in the local bar than a Principal's office. As Percy looked around, he thought to himself how different this room was to the one he had frequently visited at Yancy. It was neat, clean and well organised, not like the mess that Percy was used to. Whereas Yancy's old principal had to deal with multiple incidents per day, Mr. D's office gave the impression that he was the only person who was ever in here. Percy could see thin layers of dust on bookcases, filing cabinets and the windowsill. Yes, this room was definitely not used to disturbances.

"Percy?!" Mr. D half yelled

"Mmm? Yeah- yeah, I'm listening" Percy replied. Having ADHD did mean he often found it hard to pay attention, but he also really didn't care what Mr. D was saying.

"Okay then, what did I just say?" Mr. D asked, a line teacher's loved to throw at Percy when they knew he wasn't listening. It was a cliché, but it also did work quite a bit of the time.

"Um, I'm here for my own benefit?" He answered

"Along those lines, yes. You are here because your father feels that you should get the best possible education for your final year, so that you can 'better your life in the future', his words, not mine." Mr. D told him, somewhat indifferent himself. Somehow, Percy highly doubted what he said; his father had never taken an interest in his education before now. In fact, his father had rarely taken an interest in him in general, leaving him to be raised by his mother. While they both lived on the same estate, Percy's mother and father did not live together. He hardly supported them either. His father had always been present in his life, but he had not been there for Percy; he had not been a dad to Percy.

"So anyway" Mr. D continued, "You will carry out your final year of high school here at Goode. Now Goode is an excellent school with an excellent record of excellent grades, blah blah blah. You get the point, excellent" Mr. D sounded almost as uninterested as Percy was. It was an odd sensation, typically teachers at least pretended to care.

"Now here at Goode are not used to having a student of your… background here so-"

"You mean poor!" Percy snapped. He knew what Mr. D had meant by it. Goode was a school full of New Yorks richest. Kids who lived in huge houses and drove to school in Mercedes, whose parents all had memberships to golf clubs and worked big city jobs. Percy knew the type of people he would be spending his Senior year around. He really was annoyed at his father for sending him here. He didn't fit in around these people and he was almost sure that they wouldn't accept him.

"No, I mean the involvement in the gang Percy" Mr. D said calmly. Percy must've looked shocked or defensive, because M. D smiled and chuckled under his breath, revealing a set of wine stained teeth. "Yes we know all about your friends and what you get up to. The only reason I let you into the school is because your father and I were once very good friends, and honestly he isn't a person I want to get on the wrong side of" Well, Percy couldn't blame him for that. Poseidon was not the most understanding of people, and Percy had often been witness to him at his angriest. As a young child, it had been Percy's biggest fear, to anger his father, and no matter how many times his mother assured him that Poseidon did love him deep down, Percy was always doubtful.

"Now, as I was saying before you interrupted me" Mr. D said, glaring slightly at Percy, "we aren't used to having a student of your background at Goode, and under any other circumstance, you would not have been allowed in, but your father assured me that there would be no serious behavior incidents with you. Now, I will ask you, will there be any serious behavior issues with you Percy?" He added an edge to his voice that Percy recognized as intimidation, as if that would work. Yet his purple eyes were not messing around.

"No." Percy replied, deadpan.

"And why is that Percy?"

"Because my father assured you." He said, a slight smirk on his face. Mr. D narrowed his eyes, before speaking up.

"Honestly, Percy Jackson, you may be the most interesting student to walk through my door in years. Everyone at this school is all the same, 'Yes Mr. D' 'No Mr. D' 'It wont happen again Mr. D', it gets boring. You get the kids who are scared that I'll tell their parents and they'll lose their car privileges, or you get the kids who think their money makes them untouchable. You, on the other hand, are neither; you are a complete anomaly in the history of Goode High. It's almost quite refreshing. However, as much as I may welcome a bit of change, I cannot risk you causing any trouble" Percy was surprised, he assumed Mr. D would looks down on him, but he almost sounded like he could relate to Percy. How did Mr. D know his father again?

"Go off to class now, I believe your first lesson is-" He paused as he looked at Percy's new timetable "-Math, with Mrs. Dodds." He seemed to smirk a bit at that "Good luck with her" He added.

Just before Percy walked out of the door, he turned to Mr. D one last time.

"Mr D., if it was such a risk, why would you let me into the school?" Percy had been wondering that since Mr. D had brought it up. Surely he wasn't worth the risk?

"Well Percy, I looked at both sides. If I let you in, I may have a horde of angry, rich parents who don't want you near their precious children, but on the other hand, if I don't let you in, I would be in your father's bad books, and honestly, I'd rather face one hundred angry parents than your father." He laughed slightly once he finished. What he had said surprised Percy. He always knew that his father scared people, but he never realized how much power his father truly had until now. It went beyond the local estate, Mr D. seemed like a well paid, educated man who would never be seen anywhere near anywhere Poseidon would be, as well as being fairly intimidating himself, and yet here he was, openly telling Percy how much his father terrified him.

"It was just that then?" He asked, inquisitively.

"Yes, well that and, honestly, I think that you may have potential." He added. That completely caught Percy off guard. No teacher had ever said anything of the sort to him before. "But you didn't hear that from me, now get to class."

Percy was still slightly too shocked to react instantly. He doubted Mr. D said that to a lot of students.

"Get to class!" Mr. D was almost yelling by now. It was enough to snap Percy out of his confused state. He left Mr. D's office and slowly made his way to Maths.

As he walked down the pristine, grey corridors, Percy thought about his old school, his old friends, his life back at home. At Yancy, he'd had fun, he'd had friends. Here, he already felt like an outsider, and he hadn't even met anyone yet. He walked past a trophy cabinet full of all the sporting achievements the school had won. Clearly that extra funding and fees paid off. Yancy never had anything like this. The trophies would've probably been stolen anyway. As he examined them, he worked out that Goode had a very good football team, with more than half the trophies belonging to them. Percy remembered hearing talk around town of a few good sports prospects coming from here.

He pondered whether or not he should try out, but in a second erased that thought. Sure, Percy loved football, he watched it whenever he could, which was rare, and played whenever he could too, which was even rarer. When he was younger he'd been into it, and while he was still athletic, a life on the streets meant there wasn't much time for sports. He thought about how his friends would mock him. Percy Jackson playing high school football. The jokes would be relentless.

That was the kind of people Percy hung out with. To the outside world, they were gang members, juvenile delinquents on a fast track to nowhere, but to Percy, they were more like brothers, family. Some of them really were family. He had a half brother, Tyson, and a cousin, Nico. Outside of them, there was also Grover, Percy's best friend. Grover was always weak. He scared easily, and was one of the least aggressive people you'd ever meet. Grover wasn't really a gang member, but he had been raised on the estate just like Percy and all the other guys, and they all looked out for him. That was what no one understood about Percy and his friends. Outsiders branded them as cruel and hurtful and violent, and there were definitely times when they were, but they weren't all bad all the time. They really were like family.

Percy finally arrived outside the correct room. Just like everything else in this school, the door was grey. Briefly, Percy wondered if there was any real colour or character to this place, or if he was about to spend his year with a bunch of goody two shoes, study obsessed robots. Before he entered, he paused. He could run right now. He could leave the school, go back to the estate. No doubt Nico was skipping school, he usually did nowadays. But then, Percy thought about his mother's reaction, disappointment no doubt, and then his father's, anger. Just like Mr. D., Percy knew he didn't want to face that. Disappointing his mother would almost be worse. Sure he'd done it multiple times as he was growing up, becoming more involved in a bad lifestyle, but that didn't make him feel any better each time. Then he remembered Mr. D's words, "I think that you may have potential". Well it was time to find out if that was true or not. He pushed the door open and walked into class.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or any of it's original characters that appear in this story. All credit goes to Rick Riordan.