Summary: Percy had banished the thought of a normal life after Annabeth and he escaped Tartarus and he defeated Gaea. The chance for him to have teenager troubles completely disappeared when a new problem rose up: the Fall of the Mist. Countless people were in chaos after realizing the unseen truth of this world: The Greek mythology wasn't a myth. Religions were questioned, people took advantage of the chaos for power, powerful countries fell... The whole world changed when the Mist fell. And the Demigods? They just had to survive.
Disclaimer: Blah blah blah, I don't own PJO and HoO, blah blah blah...
Prologue: School's Over
When hiding becomes impossible
Percy yawned, before putting his hand on his mouth. He scratched some notes on his paper, but didn't really pay attention to his Greek Mythology classes. Why? Well, if you live your life as a demigod, killing monsters, titans, giants and primordials, you really don't want to learn about what Aphrodite's love-life was like back in the days. He closed his eyes and tried think why exactly he needed to go to school again...
After winning the second Giant War and creating a shared camp between the Romans and Greeks, Percy didn't see why it was important to go to school and learn some useless facts, which he really didn't need in the rest of his life.
Sure, it was for his future. But the future he had was so uncertain... He honestly had no idea what would happen tomorrow. Would a primordial rise again? Would Zeus have one of his temper tantrums? Would he have to borrow Paul's car again, just for Blackjack to land on it? Or would he have to make his stupid math test - which he really sucked in, by the way - and get a lecture about him not paying attention again?
"-rcy. Percy", he opened his eyes and looked up to his teacher, who was scowling at him. Probably the last option. "Pay attention. That you get straight A's for this subject doesn't mean you have the privilege to sleep in this class." The rest of the class snickered.
Percy averted his gaze and felt his cheeks burning up.
The teacher - Mr. Carter - returned to his lesson. Percy had to refrain himself from yawning again, since he knew that Mr. Carter would be watching him for the rest of the class.
The bell rang, indicating that the class was over, and Percy almost cheered. He grabbed his stuff and went to the cafeteria.
Soon, he was surrounded. "Per-"
"-cy!", the man - what? Artemis herself called him a man, so why wouldn't he be? - in question looked at the twins and grinned.
"Morning", after he said that, all Hades ran loose. Even though both of the dark haired twins - Dave and Danny - had ADHD, they were mortal. They weren't in his class, but still saw them frequently. How? At the place where they'd met: detention class. The joy.
"I heard you were sleeping in class again", Dave - the taller one - said, while grinning. Percy frowned and took a seat on one of the tables.
"I was just thinking, not sleeping!", Percy pointed out. His answer? Two grinning faces. He sighed. The D-twins (Dave and Danny Davidson... You could see how that escalated) always thought he was the ultimate rebel at school.
Just because he fell asleep during multiple classes - after fighting monsters all night - or sometimes carried a knife - which was Riptide in full form for the mortals - didn't mean he was worthy of the title 'the ultimate rebel'.
That would be Danny. Even though Dave seemed to be more dominant of the two, since he was the oldest and loudest, Danny was the worst of the two. He did absolutely nothing what the teachers wanted and everything the teachers didn't want.
The D-twins made him think about the Stolls: ADHD, rebels and thieves. Thieves? Yeah, they were the reason how teachers' pens miraculously disappeared during classes.
"Good morning", Percy looked up and watched the brown-haired boy take a seat. Percy smiled back as a response.
"Morning -"
"- Michael", Dave and Danny both grinned at him and loaded him with questions about how his day was. Percy already felt sorry for Michael, who was pretty much the most quiet one of the group.
Percy watched their conversation for a while, but couldn't shake off a feeling that something was about to happen. Something big. I have a bad feeling about this...
One of the bigger windows shattered open and screams erupted in the cafeteria. Out of reflex, Percy stood up and looked at the monster before him. Dragon.
Terror appeared in everyone's eyes and people began to mutter things Percy couldn't hear. He wondered what the Mist made them see, but he forced that thought away. The Mist wasn't important now.
He walked toward the dragon and took his pen out of his pocket. He smiled when he uncapped Riptide. That was when the dragon noticed him.
He dodged the fire that was sent toward him and ran toward the monster. Lucky that the dragon couldn't fly in this relatively small room, Percy stabbed Riptide multiple times inside the monster.
The hard skin made it hard for him to stab deep enough. With a flap of his wing, the dragon forced him to fall backwards.
Percy frowned as he made some distance. He'd lost his touch. That's when the sprinklers and the fire alarm went on. He grinned, turned his sword back into pen-form and put it in his pocket. He was going to try something new. He raised both of his hands.
Water captivated the dragon immediately at his command. He slashed his hands down in an X-form and hardened the ice. Thousands of ice-swords pierced the dragon.
The dragon tried to move, but couldn't. Percy felt the familiar feeling in his gut, when he controlled the water in de monster's body. He clenched his hand into a fist and made the water turn into ice, inside its body. He opened his hand again and saw the dragon being stabbed from the inside of its body. The monster dissolved into dust almost instantly.
Percy looked around to see if there were any more threats, but there were none. The only things he saw were the other students looking horrified at him and the pile of dust before him, and the damage.
I wonder what they've seen, he thought as he walked over to the fire. He was shocked when he heard someone sobbing under a burning table. He frowned as he went over toward the table.
He summoned some water to stop the fire from spreading any further and looked at the boy, who was only two years younger than him. He offered him a hand, but the boy moved backwards, as if he was afraid of Percy.
Percy frowned. "What's wrong?"
"W-what's going on?"
"How do you mean?", Percy asked back, confused.
"What was that monster?! What did you do with it?"
"Good evening, my name's Susan Smith and today's headlines are: the president visits France, concerning the international money crisis. 16 deaths and 33 wounded after an impingement in Egypt. And the bomb on Miami Beach dismantled after its discovery by a 9 year old boy.
But first. Since yesterday, strange things have happened all around the world. Out of nowhere, strange animals or monsters appeared, causing chaos all over the country. In total, 78 people had died in the middle of this occurrence and hundredths of people are wounded, and that's only in the US. Many experts tried to come up with a theory, concerning these monsters.
With us here today is one of those experts: professor Parker. " Susan gestured to the man, who was sitting next to her on the couch. He looked around his 60's with his white hair and old clothes. He got frowning wrinkles on his forehead, but on his face, you could see a small smile. "Thank you for being here today." He nodded in acknowledgement as the camera closed up on his face.
Then, the camera was back to normal, giving a good view of Susan and the professor. "Now mister Parker", Susan began, "is there a conclusion about the strange occurrences?"
The professor nodded. "Yes, there is. After looking at most of the cases, we have concluded that these strange monsters are indeed mythological creatures. The Greek ones to be exact. How this is possible, no one is yet to know, but what we do know is that they're extremely dangerous."
Figuring Mr. Parker was done talking for now, Susan turned to the camera. "If you come across one of those monsters, the best thing you should do is flee from it. It could get you killed. Though, strange video's have been send to our studio, where you can see kids attacking these monsters and eventually also killing them. Here is one of them."
On the screen appeared the video, revealing a 15 year old girl with a bronze sword in her hand. Before her stood a young hellhound, who was baring his teeth at her, before dashing toward her.
The girl dodged the attack and made an upper cut toward the hellhound's neck. The hellhound disappeared within the shadows just in time and appeared a few feet behind her. The girl expected it though and stabbed her sword into its furry skin. A pile of gray dust was all that was left of it.
The video stopped and Susan was viewed again. "As you can see, the monster was turned into dust. This means that it died. The main questions here, though, are: who are these kids? How did they get those skills to kill the creatures? Where did they get such weapons?" She turned toward the professor. "Mister Parker, do you have the answers of those questions?"
He frowned. "Let's begin with the name of the monster in that video. It was a Hellhound, also known as a creature of the Underworld. I've seen cases where they were much bigger than this, so I guess this was a young one.
And the girl... There is a theory on that one. We have analysed those kids' fighting styles and discovered something truly amazing: one style is similar to the Greek style of sword fighting, but there was also a more disciplined style: a Roman one. Remember the heroes of Ancient Greece and Rome? Like Hercules, Perseus, Achilles and Orion?
They fought these monsters in the old times, just like these kids. And they all had something in common: they were half God, half human. Also known as Demigods or Half-Bloods. If everything is true about the Greek mythology, there can also be Demigods alive in this world. And they would be these kids, like that girl."
Susan nodded. "But how would they get such skills, then?"
"We honestly not know. We think there could be one or more training centers of some sorts, but that's still a theory though. We know nothing for sure."
"If everything is true, could there also be Greek or Roman Gods?", Susan asked.
The man shrugged. "There could be. Eventually the real question is how, if everything has always been true, we only see these things now? I believe all these creatures can't have appeared all at once. There has to be something that happened what made us see these things.
It could also be that everything is an illusion, seen by everyone in the world. Maybe out minds are playing tricks with us. We only have theories, not facts. People should believe what they think that's true. When all the facts will be revealed we'll know the answers of your, my, everyone's questions."
"Thank you, professor", Susan turned toward the camera. "As you can hear, nothing is certain. Except that these monsters are extremely dangerous and should not be attacked by inexperienced fighters. If these 'heroes' are dangerous or not, only time will tell", she finished.
[A/N]: So... New story :) The chapters will be 2k+, but because of this, I won't be able to update that often. Just expect a new chapter every week ;P. If you want faster updates, you should check my other story: The Hidden Gladiator. I update that one at least twice a week (most of the time every two days)... But the chapters are also smaller: 1-2k. ;)
Please tell me what you think of this story/chapter/idea ;P
'Till next time ^^
Xx Anny