Under water, things didn't seem so bad. When you're surrounded by blue, how can things ever be bad?
I knew there was a war going on on land, but traveling at 50 miles an hour, enveloped in water, you hardly seemed to notice. To me, the ocean always had this peaceful quality to it. Never changing. Steady. Everything was in the hands of Mother Nature. The proverbial Mother Nature of course. The real one didn't have anything to do with it. Gaia didn't care if everything went to shit or not.
The fight of a lifetime was going on at that moment and I wasn't in it. My friends and family were in trouble and I wasn't fast enough to be there and help them.
It all started when a goddess woke up from a long nap and decided she was pissed off. As usual, my brother got involved because he's powerful and stuff. A born leader, loyal, a demigod, bad ass and so on. And as usual, I was there to protect his ass while he goes off being the son of Poseidon and all that. This is the story so far:
Eight months ago, my half-brother Perseus Jackson, disappeared and everyone had a meltdown. Including me. His girlfriend, Annabeth Chase, daughter of the goddess Athena, went on a quest to find him while me and my ... friend, Luke, son of Hermes, did the same.
Only difference was: She got a prophecy, and I didn't, seeing as I'm not technically...human.
Anyway, we tried to ask the gods for help but they didn't answer. They had closed off Olympus and Zeus decided no interaction between gods and demigods was allowed. So we were on our own. When Annabeth came back from her quest, two months later, she brought back some friends.
A handsome blonde guy named Jason, a pretty brunette named Piper and a...funny guy named Leo. It took us a while to figure this out but basically: Jason was the son of Zeus, Piper a daughter of Aphrodite and Leo a son of Hephaestus.
Then they went off on their own quest, slayed a giant, killed some monsters, released Hera, Queen of the gods from a magic cage with an electrical saw. You know, the usual. In the meantime, I was scouring the globe, land and water, to find my little brother.
Not that anyone noticed. The three musketeers came back from their little trip and brought back some pretty useful information.
Turns out Jason was Roman and his pops was Jupiter, Zeus's Roman form. He was from a Roman demigod-camp called Camp Jupiter and he was the long lost brother of Thalia Grace(who we all know and love). He figured since he was sent to the Greek camp by Hera, Percy must've been sent to the Roman camp by Juno, Hera's Roman form. Of course this was all new to us Greeks so we were skeptical at first.
Then the funny kid, Leo decided we should all start building a flying warship to visit the Romans. (When I say 'we', I mean the handy people.)
So that's pretty much what happened. The kids from the Greek Camp Half-Blood built a shiny flying boat and were heading towards the Roman Camp Jupiter, hoping they wouldn't get blown out of the air.
Being a child of Poseidon, I didn't risk the air travel. Zeus didn't like his brother's kids invading his territory so I took the liberty and stole a car.
I stopped at a small river in Berkeley, San Francisco after driving five hours straight. Needless to say, I was exhausted.
I sat down on my knees by the river and hovered my hands over the surface. I instinctively knew the water ran due North and then circled back South after a few miles. My eyelids started feeling heavy and I put my hands in the water. Immediately, I felt an energy surge.
The water renewed my power and I felt better than ever. This is a gift every child of the Sea God gets.
It comes in handy when you're in need of a quick boost. I hated being on land for so long so I decided to risk it. The mortals would probably recognize me as a fish through The Mist anyway.
The Mist is like a magical vale protecting mortals from the dangerous world of gods and demigods.
There are some unlucky few who can see through it but this isn't something I would wish on anybody.
I got up on my feet and stepped back in the '67 Shelby GT500 I had picked up somewhere in downtown Manhattan.
Why would you have such a nice car in Manhattan anyway? To sit in traffic? What a waste. I parked the vehicle beside a tree under some low hanging branches and tried to squeeze between the car door and a giant oak tree.
After my minor struggle with nature, I made my way back towards the stream and put my brown satchel on the ground.
It was covered in stickers, pin-back buttons and about two dozen names written in black marker which I had collected over the years.
The first name ever to be written on it was from my dad when he gave it to me. It wasn't really a name, it said 'From Dad'.
It was the first and last gift he ever gave me and I protected it with my life. The writing hadn't even faded like all the rest of the names.
I figured it was probably written with some weird magical sharpie. After checking if no one was around.
I took off my pants, shoes and my orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, revealing a golden coloured breastplate. It looked ridiculous.
Me, standing there in a metal covering in nothing but underwear and a Celestial Bronze necklace.
I stuffed my clothes in the bag, scanned the area one last time and jumped into the blue.