A/N: OHMYGOODNESS. DID I JUST...WRITE PERCY JACKSON?! O.O
Haha, hey PJO fandom that I totally did not abandon two years ago! I'm back!
IMPORTANT STORY BREAK DOWN: This was written for my British Literature class. It's meant to be a scene of Beowulf rewritten in modern times, and I was allowed to do it in the Percy Jackson fandom. The scene from Beowulf is where Beowulf goes after Grendel's mother after she eats someone in their dwelling, Heorot Hall, and kills her (the reading of Beowulf is not required to read this fic). As a result, this story is a massive hodgepodge of canon and partially made up stuff to fit with the Beowulf story. For example, Percy still has the Curse of Achilles in order to take the place of Beowulf's indestructible armor, yet the story is set post-HoO, and Keto dissolves into acidic goop like Grendel's mother. Oh, and Leo's still alive. You're welcome ;)
Bear with me here, I got an A on this project ;)
I do plan on rewriting this to fit with canon (it'll probably end up a lot bloodier without the Curse of Achilles) so keep an eye out for that in the next few months!
But for now, please enjoy :)
Percy woke to a mixture of yells and screams echoing through the door of his cabin. Dazedly, he scrambled out of bed, just keeping his footing on the rough floor. Rubbing the sleep hastily from his eyes, he yanked on a pair of jeans and a bright orange T-shirt, fumbling for his pen, Riptide—aka, his sword—from his bedside table.
Not a moment too soon.
The second his fly was up, the door to the Poseidon cabin burst open, revealing a panting, sparking Leo Valdez. Before Percy could open his mouth, the Latino gasped: "Percy! We've got...a problem. You're needed...in the Big House."
"What is it?" Percy asked.
Leo shook his head tiredly, gesturing behind him. "Camper...dead. Dragged off...to sea."
"What?!" Percy was barreling across the lawn and through the door of the Big House before he fully registered his legs were moving.
The other cabin counsellors were already there, sitting grimly around the ping pong table.
"What happened?" Percy panted, sliding into his seat next to Annabeth, head of the Athena cabin. "What did I miss?"
"Bella Cullen, Aphrodite cabin," Jason Grace recited, "attacked on the beach. Her body was left behind, but ripples were seen headed north through Long Island Sound."
"Who saw it?" Percy demanded.
"No one," Annabeth responded, steel grey eyes glaring at the table. "We heard the screams. First one to the scene was Drew Tanaka, but...she doesn't want to talk about it right now."
"Apparently Bella was jumped searching for seashells by the water," Will continued, filling the awkward pause. "Drew came up just in time to...well...stop her from getting carried off."
There was a tense silence.
"Do we know who did it?" Percy asked softly.
The other campers hesitated, exchanging nervous glances.
"I said, 'Do we know who did it?'"
"Keto," Annabeth answered finally.
Percy blinked. "The mother of all sea monsters? Why?"
The daughter of Athena shrugged. "Apparently in an act of revenge for us killing her 'baby' back in the Atlantic."
"Shrimpzilla?"
"The Skolopendra," Annabeth corrected.
"Like anyone can say that with a straight face."
The look on Leo's face was almost worth the steamy glare sent his way.
"As I was saying," Annabeth enunciated, "we need to decide on a course of action."
"We can't just let Keto go," Jason said firmly. "She's out for blood. It won't be long before she'll be back."
"I'll go after her," Percy volunteered. "No big."
"No," Annabeth cried. "No way."
The room was soon filled with protests, backing up Annabeth's statement, but Percy held his hands up for silence.
"Look, last I checked, I'm the only one in this room who can breathe underwater," he yelled over the remaining voices. "And I have iron skin, remember?" He met eyes with Annabeth, impervious to her stubborn glare. "I'll be fine."
The staring contest stretched on for a seeming eternity, but for once, Percy held her gaze. He wasn't going to back down—not for something as important as this.
"Fine," Annabeth snapped. "But no dying on me, Jackson."
Percy broke into a relieved smile. "Yes, ma'am."
The remainder of the counsel shifted uneasily, but didn't protest as Percy got to his feet.
"I'll be back by sunset," Percy announced. "If I'm not... Well, give me a couple weeks, I'll show up eventually."
Annabeth slapped his arm.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"Just get to the beach, Kelp Head."
Barely two minutes later, Percy stood on the hot golden sand, the little waves of the rising tide lapping at his toes at the edge of the surf.
The entire camp had come to see him off, hundreds of demigods standing a good distance back and looking on as Annabeth gave Percy a quick, but fierce hug.
"Come back alive, Seaweed Brain," she murmured.
"Yes, ma'am," Percy agreed again.
Turning his back on his fellow campers, Percy faced the brilliant blue waters of Long Island Sound. He took a step forward, landing ankle-deep in the waves. He continued wading, only pausing in his path when the water lapped at chest height.
With a deep, calming breath, Percy immersed himself fully into the sea. Instantly, the familiar cold, dark silence of the water surrounded him, transporting him into another world as he sank into the icy depths.
If he recalled correctly, Jason had said the ripples had gone north...
"North it is," Percy decided, bubbles streaming from his mouth as he adjusted course and shot off in that direction.
Time became squishy and elusive as Percy cut through the water, steering only by his senses as the light from the sun was long ago lost on the surface of the water. For all he knew, it could be the light of the moon now.
Normally, he enjoyed deep sea swims like these, reveling in the realm that was his father's with only fish for company. But now, all he felt was wariness, his hands jittery at his sides as he swept through the pitch black water.
After an eternity, he realized something was missing: the actual fish.
During his deeper swims, it was expected for the wildlife to change from the lighter, brighter creatures of the surface waters to the blind, dark creatures that lurked in the bottomless chasms at the ocean floor. But now, he sensed absolutely nothing, the water around him eerily empty and silent.
And suddenly, it wasn't.
Before he could react, the water around him came alive, muscle and sinew wrapping around his body and pinning his arms to his sides even as he reached for the sword tucked in his pocket. The giant eel that had appeared out of nowhere squeezed Percy with bruising force, unrelenting in its grip no matter how hard Percy struggled. Within seconds, Percy could barely breathe, his ribcage creaking in protest under the immense pressure.
And then they were moving, faster and faster through the water toward some unknown destination that Percy knew he wouldn't like.
Just as suddenly as he'd been caught, he was released, the eel throwing him up and over in a stream of bubbles. He flew upward through the water, and suddenly the rush of liquid in his ears stopped. His body felt weightless as he suddenly found himself whistling through open air.
Percy crashed down on something solid, icy, and slippery, the last vestiges of oxygen whooshing from his lungs and leaving him gasping like a fish out of water. Spots danced across the floor in front of him, his vision swimming from lack of oxygen and the violent impact.
Wait...the floor. With a muted groan, Percy pushed himself up onto hands and knees. He realized with a start that he could actually see his hands in front of his face, contrary to the total darkness of the water he'd been accustomed to for the last several hours.
Now armed with his sight, he flipped himself over onto his back, sitting up to take a better look at his surroundings. His heart stuttered in his chest.
Jagged black rocks bordered a large, cave-like area the size of four football fields (stadium seating and all). Everything was highlighted in a faint greenish glow that flickered almost like fog through the air, bouncing off the inky water at his feet. The eel was gone, not even a ripple marking the fact it had ever been there at all.
But he wasn't alone.
A feminine voice hissed along the cavern walls, reverberating menacingly through the cave: "Well, if it isn't the famous Perseus Jackson."
From behind a particularly large specter of rock, the goddess of sea monsters stepped out from the shadowy gloom. Fizzy black hair stuck out in all directions, scaly cheeks stretched in a feral grin to reveal gnarled yellow teeth.
"I was wondering when you'd show up," she sneered. "After all, the guilt you must feel for killing my darling should have been enough to bring you back weeks ago."
Scrambling to his feet, Percy glared at the not-quite woman. "How about, no," he suggested. "Your son was a monster that tried to kill me and my friends. He deserved what he got."
Any pretense of friendliness disappeared from Keto's face, a ferocious snarl replacing her overly large smile. From a hole in the ground, she pulled a fleshy, pink worm thing that actually wriggled in her hand.
Percy recognized it as one of Shrimpzilla's nose hairs.
"This is all I have left of him!" Keto wailed, shaking the twitching nose hair at Percy. "It will take centuries for him to reform from Tartarus after that explosion!"
"Sounds great to me."
The goddess's eyes flared red. "You will regret that insult, Son of Poseidon."
"I'm sure I will," Percy said cheerfully.
With a screech of pure rage, the goddess shot toward him, her nails lengthening into inch long claws and her teeth sharpening to resemble that of a shark's. Before Percy could so much as twitch, she was on him, mauling his shirt to shreds within seconds. However, they scraped harmlessly against his actual skin, not a single scratch etching his body no matter how hard she dug into him.
Percy thanked the gods for the Curse of Achilles. It was certainly nice to know iron skin worked against crazed, immortal sea goddesses.
Keto seemed to be thinking along similar lines. "Why...aren't...you...bleeding?" the mother of monsters screamed, foam dripping from her open mouth.
"That's my little secret," Percy grunted, his legs finally connecting with her stomach. He kicked hard, launching her across the room to crash into the opposite wall.
The brief reprieve gave him the chance to pull his ballpoint pen from his pocket, yanking off the flimsy plastic cap. Immediately, the pen swelled, the familiar weight of his Celestial bronze sword, Riptide, hanging heavy in his hand.
Just in time.
Keto whirled around, fury etched in every feature of her face. Slowly, she tugged a long, curved dagger from the folds of her tattered dress. Her tongue flicked snake-like over her lips.
When she pounced, Percy had just enough time to raise Riptide to block the sickle in her hand from coming down in his nose.
The two weapons became a blur of motion, a wild series of slashes, stabs, and parries so fast Percy could barely keep the knife from his skin. He had long ago learned from sparring with Annabeth that enemies with knives were quick, light, and deadly on their feet—and awfully hard to combat at close range.
Slashes appeared in what was left of his clothing, the unnaturally black blade of Keto's knife sharp and frigid against his skin even though it didn't actually cut flesh.
With a sudden jerk, Keto slipped under Percy's defenses, twisting the dagger around his wrist and forcing the sword from his clenched fist. It skittered uselessly across the rocky floor, a loud PLUNK sound echoing across the room as Riptide apparently hit the water—Percy was too busy fending off a rabid sea goddess to know for sure—and Keto tackled him to the rocks.
One larger than normal pebble dug into Percy's lower back, right in his Achilles heel. He gasped in shock and surprise, knocking the woman off with one desperate shove and jerking upright to remove the contact. Shivers rocketed from the spot where the rock had touched, rippling up his spine so his teeth chattered reflexively.
Noticing his reaction, a feral grin appeared on the hag's face. "Every hero has a weak spot, Perseus Jackson," she said sweetly, almost sing-song. "I just have to find it."
Percy back pedaled rapidly, keeping his front angled toward Keto and back braced flush against the floor. His hands probed the wall behind him, searching for a loose rock, a pile of seaweed, something to use to defend himself with as the goddess advanced, leering wickedly in anticipation.
And then, his hand hit a razor thin metal edge so quickly it probably would have cut off a finger if Percy wasn't mostly invulnerable.
Risking a glance backward, Percy realized that he'd just backed right into a massive bronze sword that now lay bare under his fingertips.
What was an old sword doing down here?
Percy didn't question the mystery further, instead scrabbling for the weapon as Keto bared down on him, clawed hands flexing in anticipation and dagger raised high. Finally, his groping fingers wrapped around the rough leather of the sword's hilt. With a wild cry, he slashed the sword up and over as the monster pounced with a vicious roar.
The sword skipped only slightly in his grip as if it had encountered a gust of wind, then it dragged his arm to the ground as momentum carried it further into its arc.
Above him, Keto ogled him with blank, dimming eyes, golden blood oozing from the massive wound across her chest.
"You," she hissed, "you spawn of the sea. I'll be back. You...can't..." She crumbled to dust at his feet, a slight breeze scattering the brackish powder across the cavern floor.
"Oops," Percy snarked, "I just did."
Taking a moment to revel in his victory, it took a bit before he suddenly became aware of a sizzling, bubbling noise to his right. He glanced down...and realized the ancient sword in his hand was shrinking.
With a yelp, he dropped the now much lighter sword, watching in awe as the blade melted like hot candle wax into a pile of oozing, bubbling metal mixed with the golden, apparently acidic blood of the mother of monsters in a crevice of the rocks.
"There's something you don't see every day," he muttered.
Shrimpzilla's nose hair lay beside the rapidly cooling sword hilt, only giving the occasional spasmodic twitch against the gravel like a dying worm.
Percy hesitated a moment. "Well," he murmured with a shrug. "Spoils of war, I suppose."
Intact sword hilt and fleshy thing in hand, Percy gave the cavern one last look. Then, striding down to the water's edge, he dove into the massive basin of seawater in the center of the cave without a backward glance, dolphin kicking through a rocky underwater tunnel he hadn't noticed coming in. Finally, he made it to open sea, rocketing up and south toward where he knew was the familiar bay of Long Island Sound.
The trip back went much faster than the trip there. Percy didn't have to worry about an ambush or tracking a murderous sea monstress into the depths this time around.
Light finally began glimmering through the ripples in the water, and with a few powerful kicks, Percy broke through the surface into the open air.
The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, the sky blood red at his right and dark purple at his left as he paddled for the not-so distant shore of Long Island.
Just as the last rim of the sun dipped into the ocean, Percy clambered onto the beach—and was immediately assaulted with noise as campers flooded onto the sand from nowhere, surrounding him.
"What happened?"
"Did you catch her?"
"Where's your shirt?"
"Er..." Percy tried. "Long story short? Eel grabbed me, Keto killed my shirt then bit bronze."
A single voice rose above the resulting cheers of the campers: "Perseus Jackson! You are late!"
Silence encompassed the beach, the crowd parting quickly to make way for the speaker.
Percy winced as Annabeth Chase stalked toward him, the picture of righteous anger as her piercing grey eyes bored holes into his soul. "Um...I brought a nose hair," he offered weakly.
Annabeth's eyes sparkled suspiciously in the moonlight, an irritated huff escaping her lips. "Seaweed Brain."
"Aw, come on, Annabeth," Connor Stoll chided. "Lighten up! Percy just defeated the mother of all sea monsters. That warrants a party!"
Immediately, the campers erupted into shouts of joy and laughter, hefting Percy onto their shoulders and carrying him toward the open air dining pavilion.
"Percy! Percy! Percy!" they chanted in unison.
But only one opinion mattered to him. Percy glanced down, eyes meeting with that of a certain daughter of Athena.
Annabeth rolled her eyes, then smiled softly. She mouthed, Great job, Seaweed Brain.
Percy grinned happily. Sometimes the hero gig wasn't so bad after all.