Ground Rules: I can change whatever I want in the storyline. The larger story will be the same, and I'll go through the first five books, but anything other than that is fair game.

This is AU, so you should have expected that.

P.S. there will be a bit of strong language used. Percy is a dick, what'd you expect?

Onto the story:

xxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxxx

Was Percy Jackson the only person who ever wondered how plumbing in Ancient Greece worked? Without electricity, all they had was gravity working on their side. Percy didn't even think himself bright enough to even realize that plumbing was needed…unless he was standing wherever it would come out onto the streets anyway.

Percy Jackson was his name…and oh how we wished he could be lame…no really. Looking back on the events about to unfold, and where he is now, he would have much rather been the loser son of some idiot in Queens or something. Even during that gods-forsaken field trip, he wished he wasn't on it.

To explain a bit about where he was coming from, here's the gist. The above-mentioned random thought about Ancient Grecian plumbing? That was pretty much how Percy's brain worked on a continuous basis; random thought after random thought. His ADHD made sure of that. As for why he was never able to put these thoughts into words and make a kickass reality TV show about them, well, he could thank his dyslexia for that.

Anyway, as for why he was thinking of Ancient Greece at that moment, well, it was where he was heading. Actually he was heading to an exhibit on Ancient Greek and Roman mythology somewhere in Manhattan on a field trip courtesy of Yancy's Academy for Troubled Kids (X-Men?). Why they felt that this knowledge was important at all, you'd have to ask a smarter guy, but at least Percy's favorite teacher was chaperoning.

Mr. Brunner; old, crippled, and extremely lenient in his classes. He usually made the tests really easy too, so he was alright in Percy's eyes.

Who was not alright was the assistant chaperone, Mrs. Dodds. She just kinda…appeared one day. No one really knows what happened, but they say the teacher she replaced had like a nervous breakdown or something. It wouldn't have surprised Percy; anyone who was normal would never be able to handle the worthless idiots that attended the school.

"Yo, Perce," a voice came from Percy's left. His friend Grover Underwood had tapped his shoulder, forcing him out of his thoughts. Percy had known Grover for a while, with the kid being the only one to welcome him to Yancy out of everyone in the student body, but he wasn't quite sure about him.

Grover was obviously an older kid, but no one really talked to him and he attended the same classes as Percy. Thus, one could only assume he was held back a few years, meaning he was stupid. That part kind of excited Percy because that meant that they could be clueless together. However, Grover was a bit too jittery for Percy's taste, too…polite, even with his slang. Grover eventually started calling him 'Perce' as a nickname a while back.

When Percy looked forward, he saw his class, and especially Mr. Brunner, looking at him expectantly. "What'd you say?" he questioned, trying to pass off that he just had trouble hearing the old man, not that he was completely ignoring him.

Mr. Brunner kind of did a half-sigh, like he had already heard this excuse before. Still, he remained calm, even in the face of Percy's disrespectful tone. "I asked you which scene is depicted in this particular exhibit," he repeated.

Percy glanced up at it, finding it familiar. "It's, um…when Cronus-"

"Kronos," Mr. Brunner corrected his pronunciation. Percy shot him a dirty look; he hated being corrected. "Go on."

"When Kronos ate the rock."

"And why did he eat the rock?"

"Because he thought it was Zeus."

"And would you like to explain Kronos' reasoning for this?"

"Depends," Percy narrowed his eyes. "Is this twenty questions?"

A couple of chuckles shook throughout the clump of students, and Mr. Brunner looked slightly peeved himself, even as his facial features barely moved from the mockery. "Well, Mr. Jackson, I do hope you enjoy your jokes for now," he said it as if Percy would regret it. Somehow, he knew he would.

As Mr. Brunner finished Percy's explanation, Mrs. Dodds came up behind him. "See me during lunch break, Mr. Jackson."

"Bite me," he wanted to say, but he just nodded, knowing he couldn't get out of this scolding.

By the time lunch had rolled around an hour had passed. So, Percy thought, he could pull the ol' "I forgot you told me, sorry" excuse he'd pulled many times before to get out of punishment. Unfortunately, Mrs. Dodds didn't forget, and she pulled him aside, holding onto him liek her life depended on it. Or maybe like his life depended of it. Her fingernails actually hurt him, not that he would admit it, but they honestly felt too sharp to be safe for school grounds. She had to be breaking a concealed weapon rule with her nails alone.

Alas, she dragged him back to the Greek exhibit, where he expected a typical scolding, where he'd have to kiss up to get the least amount of punishment and whatnot. But no, instead, she turned into a chicken with a human head.

Well, not really. Once they were alone (literally, the exhibit was even empty of tourists), Mrs. Dodds materialized farther away from him. "You've done it this time, Mr. Jackson," she said, calmly, like she'd done this a thousand times with delinquent students like him.

"I know," Percy said half-heartedly. "I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

Mrs. Dodds ignored him. "Confess," she said, her voice somehow different than before. "Confess your crime."

"Which one?" he wondered, thinking himself clever for the comeback. It was all a farce however; he'd never committed a crime…that he knew of.

"Enough games!" the creature suddenly snapped, as its form blurred from a scrawny Mrs. Dodds, to a strange, almost bat-like creature with leathery, dull-gray skin.

"Whoa…" was all Percy had time to say before it attacked.

"Confess to the theft!" it screeched, it's voice sounding like a cat's when it was in danger, only, like, a thousand times gruffer and scarier.

As the monster lunged, Percy let his instincts take over. It was a gut reaction, as he rolled to the side to dodge its initial attack, and it was one he was thankful for.

"It's time," Percy heard a voice in his head. Well, he didn't actually hear it, but he definitely felt it. The feeling was so foreign that Percy actually thought he had said those words in his head himself. Either way, he felt something in his pocket catch his attention. Unfortunately, this allowed the monster to get a shot off on him, just barely scratching his shoulder.

Even Percy himself was surprised he reacted to that attack so quickly, getting off with just a minor injury. With the creature rearing for its next attack, Percy reached into his pocket, expecting something like a knife. He wasn't sure why he expected a knife, but enough movies had hard-wired the idea that a pocket knife would be in his pocket. In fact, that's exactly what this felt like to him, after the fact; a really bad movie.

Instead, though, all he pulled out was a pen. Percy's shoulders momentarily drooped, like he just saw his favorite football player get intercepted or something. "Great," he muttered, though he didn't have time to think about it, as the monster attacked again.

"Click it!" the voice in his head persisted. This time, Percy was sure he was hearing things, but he clicked the pen anyway. Soon, he felt its weight shift, and before he knew it, his pen had magically elongated into a mighty, three-foot-long sword.

"Da-yum…" Percy was understandably impressed…and totally not freaked out in any way. He suddenly knew what he had to do: swing the oversized toothpick.

As the monster came toward the boy, everything seemed to slow down for him. He easily side-stepped the blow, and swung down onto the creature's leg, which fell off like a twig would from a tree.

"Gah!" the creature reared back, now keeping its distance from the dangerous boy.

Despite the very real danger that Percy knew he was in, he felt his blood pumping and his heart racing. He was having the time of his life. "Oh, this is gonna be fun," he said confidently, slinging the flat of his new sword over his shoulder. It was like he was made to fight with this blade. The creature he was facing was now breathing hard. With the loss of one of its legs, it seemed to be straining. Percy beckoned it toward him. "Come 'ere, I'll take a wing, too, you old hag!" he challenged.

With no other choice, the creature charged again, but it had much of the same result, and Percy really did take a wing. The creature tumbled onto the ground, blood gurgling from its mouth. Percy was absolutely horrified by its appearance, but he was too filled with adrenaline to care. He walked toward the creature. "You will fail, thief."

"I may be able to butcher you, but I'm no thief," he assured it, before stabbing into its chest.

Just as quickly as the Mrs. Dodds-bat appeared, it exploded into a yellowy power which then disappeared in the nonexistent wind.

Percy examined his sword. Part of him thought he should put it into one of the exhibits; it definitely looked like it belonged. But it was his, right? "The pen this transformed from was in my pocket, after all," Percy said to himself, finalizing the matter. Wait, what did he just say. He was so baffled after he said it that what exactly had happened finally dawned on him. Did he just murder his math teacher? Where did she go? Why was she a bat-chicken-thing? So many questions ran through his mind. And then another, more immediate, one came to him. "What do I do with this thing?" he wondered.

Unable to figure out or find a button to make it go back to being a pen, Percy was left with no other choice than to walk out carrying a sword. His fellow students looked at him weird, but he expected them to run away in terror. "Why do you have a baseball bat?" one student asked.

"Eh?" Percy must've been hearing things. He held up his sword.

"Yeah, that's what's called a baseball bat," the kid mocked. Percy was tempted to run him through, but he only gave the kid a 'I'm going to kill you last' look like from Commando. He returned to Grover, who had been eating lunch alone. He eyed the sword suspiciously, and hesitated before speaking.

"Yo, Perce, where've you been? Lost track of you."

"Back in the Greek exhibit, getting a 'scolding' from Mrs. Dodds," he explained bitterly, trying to pass off what happened for what was supposed to happen.

Grover gave him a look of confusion. "…Who?"

"Mrs. Dodds, our math teacher," Percy repeated.

"Never heard of anyone like that," Grover claimed.

Percy chose to ignore it. He'd had enough shit for one day, except… "Hey, Grover, any idea how to put this sword away?"

He was expecting another perplexed look, but Grover responded almost right away. "Just tap it against your foot," he explained, before shaking his head. "I mean…that's a baseball bat, isn't it?"

Grover look to Percy was so serious that the boy wasn't even sure if the cripple was playing a prank. Still, sure enough, when Percy tapped the edge of the blade on his shoe, it took the gesture as sign to retract back into a pen.

"…Weird," he said as he put the pen into his pocket, opting to try and forget what had happened that day.

Unfortunately, nothing ever worked out like that, and sure enough, once the year ended, Percy was kicked out of Yancy Academy.

He expected to be riding back to his mom's house alone, but it turned out that Grover was staying near where Percy lived for the summer, meaning that he rode the same bus as he did. "What a weird coincidence,"Grover claimed.

"Right…but why not get a subway?" Percy questioned. "Why ride with me?"

"Well, two fourteen-year-olds are less likely to get mugged than one, right?" Grover reasoned.

Well, that may have been true for Grover. The kid was a scrawny, stubble-faced cripple, after all, but no one would really want to mess with Percy. He dressed in darker colors, usually with at least a black shirt on, his sleeves ripped up to his shoulders. On top of looking like he was the initiate to some biker gang somewhere, he didn't look like he had really anything worth mugging off of him.

Unfortunately for them, nothing ever went right. The bus actually broke down, and after a while of the interior increasing in heat endlessly, Percy decided he needed some fresh air. Besides, he wanted to check out that stand across the street.

The stand was…unimpressive. What Percy really wanted to check out were the old ladies, the three of them. Not in that way, weirdos, but in the way of morbid curiosity. They were easily as old as time itself, meaning their skin totally should have fallen off.

The main point is that Percy wanted to get off to make fun of them. They probably wouldn't have heard him anyway. Grover, however, had different plans. "Hey, Perce, let's get back on the bus," he said, tugging at Percy's arm.

"Why?" Percy questioned, oblivious to the fact that Grover was crippled so standing up and being active wasn't exactly his forte. He was far too busy having a staring contest with the old ladies, who were staring right at him, as opposed to the dozen other people standing outside.

"Oh gods…" Grover grimaced. "Don't look at them," he said. "They'd better not be looking at you."

"Eh?" Percy was fixated on the yarn they were spinning. The middle lady acted slowly, methodically. She took a pair of scissors, and cut the yarn. Instantly, Percy felt a bit light-headed. "Y-yeah, let's…get back on the bus."

Once they were on it, Percy smirked, already having forgotten about his light-headedness. "Damn, man, that was cold, when you said 'don't look at them'."

"What?"

"I mean, they weren't that ugly," Percy nudged his friend. "Didn't think you had it in you."

"You say that like you're proud…" Grover moaned. Percy didn't realize it then, obviously, but making fun of those particular old ladies was probably the worst thing to do…he was lucky he didn't end up going over there to say anything to their faces. He would've probably died right there.

Author's Note:

Hey guys! First off, I urge you to read these whenever I put them at the end, if you care about it. They contain either small behind-the-scenes tidbits or important information regarding scheduling. Or something else that's cool like this.

I'm currently writing the sequel, and in an experiment to save my sleep schedule (because I usually write a lot after midnight) I'm going to be dedicating about an hour to two hours every day that I can to write. During this time, I'll be streaming on twitch, under the username "hikaridewd54". Whether zero people come or a hundred people come, I'll be there writing, and if people are in chat, feel free to ask me anything, whether it pertains to a show, a movie, my writing, or...anything really. I enjoy a good dialogue.

And thanks for reading!