[Full Summary]

The Second Giant War is over and the demigods have won. The Greek and Roman camps are finally united. Percy and his girlfriend finally have the chance to live normal lives in New Rome, without monsters, Titans, Gaea, or crazy gods to worry about. Jason has kept his promise and is hard at work giving all the gods shrines, temples, or at least trading cards. But not all is well. Leo Valdez is still missing, thought to have died sacrificing himself in the final battle against Potty Face. The Romans (under Reyna and Frank's leadership) are struggling to grasp some sense of normalcy after Octavian's betrayal. Apollo is desperately trying to reclaim Zeus's trust, and the Oracle still has not spoken. And although a year has passed and summer has rolled around again, the days are mysteriously getting shorter.

When Ella the harpy remembers an old prophecy, a new quest is set into motion. Three new demigods head off on the adventure of a lifetime. Their mission? To find Leo Valdez, for new information hints towards his survival; to rescue the mysteriously godnapped Apollo; and to uncover the truth behind new enemies who claim to be gods from another universe.

Now let's get it started, shall we? Chapter One, start!

Chapter One

I Slide into a Slightly Dangerous Situation

The first clue that the end of the world had started was the fact that I moved to a different state.

Dad hated change. He'd been forced to go to school in ten different places as a kid, and that was before he even reached high school, so he swore he'd always keep me in one town. He wanted to give me the opportunity he never had to make friends and stay with them. It worked at first. I've always been scrawny and doubtful of my own strength. The ADHD and dyslexia didn't help, either, but my jokes managed to make up for that. I was the weird but funny kid, the kind that even the meanest bullies kept around for a couple of laughs.

That was where my trouble started.

It began on a field trip to some boring science museum in Ohio whose name I don't even remember. (That's where I live, by the way - - up in the least important state of the US.) The other boys of the group were flirting with the girls, attempting to flirt with the girls, being total doofuses, and generally not paying attention. The girls were completely ignoring the guys and texting on the their expensive smartphones. Sometimes they spent so much time texting, I swore one of them would end up marrying their iWhatevers. The teacher either had no control over the group, didn't give a crap, or both. My vote was on both.

I was telling jokes to the big, beefy jocks who were two stupid to do any of those things.

For a while, it went fine. I poked fun at blondes, quoted nigahiga videos, and made some quips about our school principal's Dumbledore beard. But I soon exhausted my usual repertoire. That made me a little nervous. At my old school - - Oakwood High - - as long as your family was whiny and had enough money, your kid got any position of anything he/she wanted. That was how a lot of the jocks had won their way into the High School football team, and they were kind of sensitive about it. They didn't like anyone else in the ninth grade, sure that all the other kids secretly hated them for it, and I was no exception. The only reason they stuck around me was my amazing sense of humor, and now that it was dwindling down, they were beginning to remember they were supposed to hate me. I could tell from their slowly deepening scowls aimed in my direction.

I nervously took a few steps back.

"And what we have here is the Photic Gallery," said the tour guide amiably. She had led us into a room with a strobe party for a ceiling. Various objects were roped off around the dark gallery, like telescopes, a magnifying glass, and cameras. There was even a hose spraying water into a small pool, with a bright light shining on the water spray to create a thin rainbow. "Collectors from around the globe have donated us several amazing light-related objects. Everything in this gallery uses light in some way. We have the world's largest convex mirror here. Well, third largest, anyway. I wouldn't have admitted that, but they don't pay me enough to keep me telling lies about the exhibits..."

Our class tour group wandered around the Photic Gallery. The jocks and I started to pass the rainbow fountain.

One of them studied me. "You got any funnier jokes?" he said gruffly. He already had enough facial hair that he looked like a mini King Kong. Like, seriously, hadn't anyone taught him how to shave?

"Um... alright, I'll shoot," I said, thinking quickly. "What about this one? Mr. Red lives in the red house. Mr. Green lives in the green house. Mr. Yellow lives in the yellow house, and Mr. Blue lives in the blue house. So where does Barack Obama live?"

"How am I supposed to know? That had too many periods," mumbled another of them.

The first shot him a weird look. "What the heck are you talking about?" He turned back to me, thinking. Then he said confidently, "The black house."

"Wrong, you racist," I snickered. "He lives in the White House!"

"Hey, I'm not racist!"

The jocks glowered at me. I gulped. I hadn't meant to actually call him racist, but it had just been too funny. (By the way, test that joke on your friends - - it's a great way to tell which of them are racist and which of them can actually think!) I glanced anxiously to the left. The fountain creating the rainbow was right next to me. From the way the football guys were glaring, their hands clenching and unclenching, I could tell I was about to take an unplanned swim. I tried to position myself in a way that they wouldn't be able to push me into the fountain, but they cut me off.

"You've gone too far this time, Alistair," growled the jock I'd called a racist.

His big buddies behind him nodded so hard they looked like oversized woodpeckers. "Yeah!" they agreed in sync. "Too freakin' far!"

"I hope you brought your swim trunks and a pillow, because tonight you'll be sleepin' with the fishes!"

"Yeah!" his buddies crowed. "With the freakin' fishes!"

"Shut up," mumbled the first guy over his shoulder.

I probably should've kept my mouth shut, but I said, "Well, actually, there aren't any fish in that fountain, and fishes isn't actually a word..."

The jock's eye twitched. "That's it!" he cried. "I hate it when people twist what I say around!" He stomped forward as the teacher, attracted by his shout, turned towards us curiously. My hopes were lifted. Perhaps I wouldn't have take a full-clothes bath! I really hoped not, because I had my phone and 3DS in my pocket - - Can you blame me? Super Smash Bros for 3DS was the best thing since sliced bread! - - and they really worked better when not soaking wet. But before the teacher could shout to us, the football-playing bullies were already upon me. I felt two powerful, meaty hands shove against my chest, and suddenly I was reeling backward.

My feet hit the stone edge of the fountain. The world tipped backward, and I was momentarily weightless, suspended over the fountain waters in mid-fall.

Then, the strangest thing happened.

You know that feeling you get when you eat twenty packets of Sour Skittles at once - - an intense buzzing in your head, like a thousand bees decided to build a hive in your gray matter? I experienced that coupled with a swirl of colors in front of my eyes, as if I'd fallen into the fountain's rainbow. A moment later, my whole body felt like it was being compressed in a car crusher. An intense burst of fear bubbled up in my chest. What was going on? Was I having some weird nightmare? Maybe I had never actually been on the school field trip. Maybe the bullies hadn't pushed me into the fountain. Yeah, that was it - - it was all the product of a weird mushroom, or a piece of badly digested beef. I was really in my bed, probably sweating buckets. It was just a really bad, and weird, nightmare.

But if that was true, then why did it hurt so much?

As quickly as the weird sugar high, rainbow vision, and body-crushing sensation began, it all stopped.

The world went back to normal.

I was suddenly falling into the fountain again. I landed in it with a light splash, and luckily it wasn't too deep. I had fallen in such a way that only the top half of my body was submerged in the water, and it was only partly submerged at that. My phone and 3DS had been saved, but I was still in shock. The Vision (as I would call it later) had left me shaken, staring up at the Photic Gallery ceiling with wide, unfocused eyes. I almost didn't realize that everything was, in fact, normal again.

"Al!" the teacher's voice called. It sounded like he was speaking from the other end of a long and echoey tunnel.

I noticed vaguely that I was panting harder than if I'd run a marathon. I took some deep breaths; tried to slow my breathing down. Some water from the hose sprayed onto my slightly tan face.

"Alistair!"

I finally felt as if I could breath normally again and took in my surroundings. I was still in the Photic Gallery of the museum whose name I couldn't remember. Cold water was freezing my back and soaking my T-shirt. My teacher had put the jocks in the custody of the tour guide, who was properly admonishing them. He himself was standing over me, offering me a kind hand.

"Alistair Shepherd," he said again, his eyes bunched up worriedly. "Are you quite alright? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

I blinked, wondering just what had happened to me. "Um, yeah," I said with some confusion.

The teacher looked like he didn't believe me, but he sighed, offered me a hand anyway, and helped me out of the fountain. It wouldn't be until I looked back on the incident months later that I would realize my clothes dried the moment I got out of the fountain, or that my skin had never been wet at all.

Everything went downhill from there. I got over the Fountain Incident rather quickly, but The Vision haunted my dreams for weeks afterwards. I would wake up in a cold sweat, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. I actually screamed once. That was how my dad found out about it. He heard my shout and ran up to my bedroom (which was always really messy; I'm no good at housework). He demanded to know why I looked so scared, and I told him about what happened at the museum.

"I just couldn't do anything against those big jerks," I mumbled, embarrassed. "I'm too weak. And that vision thing was freaky."

Dad closed his eyes thoughtfully. After a while, he said, "You know, Al, sometimes you don't have to be the strongest to make an impression on someone. And although there are annoying people in the world, there's times when you have to hold your tongue. Even if you aren't physically the strongest, you don't always have to make up for it with burning comebacks and snappy remarks. It took me a while to learn that, and I'm sure it won't come easy to you, either - - but when you understand, you'll be better off for it."

I stared at him in angered shock. How could he say something like that to me at this time? I clenched my bedsheets in my fist. It was as if he didn't even care that the jocks had bullied me. He was blaming me for what had happened! I glared at him.

"If you're going to blame me for it, then just go away!" I said, my voice raising in volume.

Dad looked away, his teeth gritted tightly. "I was just trying to help!" he said defensively, and stomped briskly out of my room.

It wasn't just problems at home that made the rest of my school year worse. My jokes seemed to be making less and less people laugh. In fact, I was slowly picking up on the fact that the other freshmen were getting increasingly annoyed with me. Usually, I was invited to at least one Christmas party. But as Christmas break rolled by, nobody sent me any letters or Facebook messages. Even my closer friends started distancing themselves from me. It was if I was in a totally different Oakwood High than before the Fountain Incident and The Vision. Even some of the teachers seemed to like me less. Several of them were downright hostile to me.

I'd always been around the top of my class, despite my dyslexia, but my grades slipped. I found myself more stressed than usual. I even started picking fights (and losing, of course) with some of the other kids in my grade, something extremely unusual for me. I distracted myself by spending more time than ever playing video games. I talked back to teachers and even made fun of the principal's Dumbledore beard to his face. If Oakwood High would choose to turn its back on me, I had decided that I would return the favor.

Finally, the school couldn't handle me anymore.

I was called down to the principal's office one day in late March, where I was told that I would no longer be welcomed at Oakwood High. I would have to find a new school to go to.

Fine, I told myself. I never liked that school much anyway. Even before all of this started happening, I had felt out of place, like I didn't really belong there. The fact that everybody there decided to hate me only cemented the feeling. The only problem I could see was that my dad would be disappointed with me. I knew that he'd only wanted for me to make friends, and in the end, I hadn't been able to do that.

Sure enough, when my dad got home from work that night - - he was a journalist for the town newspaper - - he didn't speak to me for the whole evening. He avoided me for several days. I could tell he was intensely upset with me. When he wouldn't see me for long periods of time, it was usually so that he wouldn't yell at me. It almost hurt worse than actually getting punished.

A few words about Dad: his full name is Carson Abraham Shepherd, he's tall and strong-willed, and he's been through a hell of a lot. Part of the latter was a result of all the moving around he'd done as a kid. He'd gotten mixed up with gangs in L.A.; he used to be addicted to smoking cigarettes; and he'd once been arrested for shoplifting a store in New York City. He'd even lived in Costa Rica for some time, which he claims was the worst three months of his life. He used to be somewhat handsome but you wouldn't know if you looked at him now. He has a pot belly, rings of frown wrinkles outline his forehead, and his hair started turning silvery-gray by the time he reached forty.

He always said I look like my mom - - somewhat small for my age, with bright red hair and sea green eyes. My eyebrows were somewhat bushy and my arms and legs were dotted with freckles. Despite not being particularly muscly, I was surprisingly quick on my feet and had even thought about joining the cross-country team once or twice. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen now.

Finally, on the Sunday night after I got expelled, Dad had calmed down enough to speak to me. "Alistair," he said, and I immediately knew this was a serious conversation. He only ever used my full name when what he was talking about was of great importance. "I need you to listen to me. For the past few months, you haven't been yourself. You've been angry. I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice, and tell it from the way you act. You've never been very good at concealing your emotions."

"As if you've ever taken the time to ask me how I feel," I muttered.

We were sitting on the leather couch in our small living room, watching Sunday night football. It was dark and rainy outside. Black storm clouds covered the night sky like an ominously fluffy blanket.

Dad flushed. "That's not fair, Al. I've done all I can to make you happy, but you haven't used what I've given you."

"What you've given me?" I repeated in frustration. "Like what, Dad? Words of discouragement?"

"I never tried to discourage you, Alistair. I've only tried to give you advice to make you a better person. I want you to be the best man you can be. Clearly Oakwood High could not turn you into that man. We need to discuss where to send you - -"

My voice cracked. "Where to send me? Don't tell me you're planning on putting me in a boarding school!"

"Don't be silly. We live in Ohio. Since when did you ever hear of a boarding school in Ohio? I've never liked that idea, anyway. No, Al, I simply meant that I have to get you into another school. It may be too late to get you into one this year - - it's already March, after all - - but I can at least home school you until your sophomore year, if we can't do that. In any case, we need to find a new school."

"Okay, okay, I get it," I said. On the TV, the home team scored a touchdown, drawing uproarious cheers from the fans.

"I've already contacted several different schools in the area, but none of them want to take you in. I've thought about it, and I remembered that my own dad - - your grandpa - - used to own an apartment in New York City, and never sold it. He left it to me in his will, though I've never thought about it since then. I could quit my job for the newspaper and sell this house, then we could move there. Maybe I can get a job for the New York Times, though I doubt it since I have a criminal record."

"You mean we'd live in New York? But what about our family here in Ohio... Aunt Josephine and Uncle James?"

Dad shrugged. "I never liked my brother much, anyway. He doesn't like me either. I'm sure I've told you about the time he gave me a lump of coal for Christmas, didn't I?"

In spite of myself, I smiled. "Yeah," I said, "and you put shavings from it in his coffee."

"So, New York it is?"

I considered it. I'd always sort of wanted to see the Big Apple, and it wasn't like Ohio was that important to me, anyway. I didn't have any friends here, anymore. My house certainly had a lot memories, but I was feeling like I needed change. Ohio was pretty enough in summer, with tall fields of corn, rolling green hills, and tons of forests, but it was kinda drab in winter. You weren't even guaranteed snow where we lived. Plus, everyone in my family besides my Dad, Aunt Josephine, and Uncle James were either dead, or hadn't been heard from in years.

I nodded. "Alright. New York it is."

Little did I know that would be one of the worst, and yet best, decisions of my life.

There you go! The first chapter of Alistair's story is finished. I'm feeling good about this fanfiction, and I hope you all enjoy it, too. I know how much you all hate Mary Sues and Gary Stus - - this isn't my first rodeo, after all - - and I will try to make all of my original characters as far from those as possible. I will also be keeping all canon pairings and personalities, and will try to be as true to the books as I can. Also, I picked up on the fact that Uncle Rick was somewhat hinting toward Nico di Angelo and Will Solace dating in the future, so that will probably come up in later chapters, or perhaps later books. Even though I am a boy myself, I am perfectly accepting of the fact that not all of the canon characters are straight.

I welcome everyone to read this fanfiction and appreciate any follows, favorites, and reviews that I may receive! Please note, however, that flames will be duly ignored. If there is something you do not like about my fanfic, please tell it to me in a kind and sophisticated manner. I will gladly take constructive criticism, however. Do not hesitate to inform me if I accidentally create plot holes or spelling/grammar mistakes. I'm not perfect, after all; it's bound to happen.

Happy reading, and Happy New Year's!

-TheRealEvanSG