Disclaimer: Once upon a time there was a narrator who took it upon herself to screw up every story she could get her hands on. With complete and utter disregard for the opinions of others, authors and fans alike, she made it her mission to corrupt any good plot line or character development she had the means to. With the help of her tech-savvy computer and her skills of destroying anything she put her mind to, she quickly set to work on annoying the crap out of everybody. These are her stories.
He ran up to her, his tattered shirt flapping in the wind. So close, he thought, so close. And that's when it hit him.
"Dammit, Thalia! I told you to control your helicopter!" Argus shouted at the demigod.
"I don't like flying! I don't even know how I got in this metal death trap! Hang on, you don't talk. You've never spoken."
"I'm speaking now!" he growled.
Thalia gasped, "You have an eye on your tongue! That's so weird."
"Darling, please put the plane down slowly," Luke asked politely, taking her hand and guiding her safely to the ground.
"Percy!" Annabeth cried as she knelt on the ground next to her crushed friend.
"Damn. Another one," Grover said without emotion as he picked up the child and slung him over his shoulder. "Someone grab a shovel. Let's get this over with."
The boy groaned and stirred, letting out an anguished cry.
"Wait, Grover, he's still alive," Thalia called out with renewed hope.
"Percy!" Annabeth screamed, yanking the half-dead demigod out of the satyr's grasp and taking off down the hill with him wrapped around her neck like a minx scarf. The small band of distraught mythical beings followed close behind.
At the Big House, the group found Annabeth giving mouth-to-mouth to the bloody and beaten boy.
"Annabeth, this is no time to make out with your boyfriend," Thalia chastised, "Give him some nectar, now!"
Annabeth vomited gold ambrosia into the kid's mouth. Thalia shrieked and shielded her eyes from the gruesome sight.
"Let me try," Luke volunteered, pushing Annabeth aside and giving it a go.
"Luke, that's disgusting!" Thalia screamed, then got a puzzled look on her face. "Hey, wait. Aren't you supposed to be dead?"
"Thalia! You stupid half-breed! You have to say SPOILER ALERT! before you ruin the book for everyone!" the narrator reprimanded.
"'Ruin'?" Luke giggled, pronouncing the word exactly as the narrator had.
"Yes, 'ruin'. Why does everyone laugh when I say that? I don't say it in a funny way," the narrator complained.
"I am so lost," Thalia declared, grabbing her head with both hands.
"It's okay, darling. We all go through a time in our lives where nothing makes sense," Luke sympathized, putting an arm around her shoulders, "You'll understand someday. Puberty is just tough."
"Get off me!" she jerked out of his grasp, "You don't know what it's like when nothing feels alright. No you don't know what it's like to be like me."
"I've already used that one," the narrator grumbled, "You'll have to quote another one as well."
"What?" Thalia asked in a high pitched voice, not realizing she'd just sung a song.
"It's tough to be a god?" Luke tried.
"Already used. I remember because someone corrected me about its origin," the narrator stares pointedly at a certain reviewer.
"If I say you have a nice body –"Grover threw in.
"Done that too."
"Mary had a little –"Argus started.
"Aaaagh!" the narrator bellowed. "I need a bigger bank of songs!"
"Percy!" Annabeth sang.
"That isn't even a song," the narrator snapped, then chuckled and said, "But I appreciate the thought."
"What is going on here?" Thalia yelled, jumping to her feet angrily. "You're all talking about songs while a boy lay dying in front of us!"
"Don't tell me if I'm dying," the boy choked out, "'Cuz I don't wanna know."
"Perfect!" the narrator cried in glee, clapping her hands together. The camp shuddered in response.
"You could have damaged all our eardrums!" Argus shouted at the narrator.
"I don't like your tone. Or the eyeball on your tongue. Squish." A giant thumb came out of the sky and crushed the groundskeeper into a little pile of dust.
"You just killed him!" Thalia screamed in outrage and dismay.
"Keep screaming at me," the narrator threatened, wiping the dust off her thumb.
"You seem more violent than usual, mistress," the dying boy on the table pointed out.
"Yeah, I didn't sleep well last night. I woke up grouchy. But I feel better now that I've killed some people. You all are lucky I like you, else I'd kill you all now and not postpone my vengeance until the next story."
"We're not worthy," everyone said in unison as they dropped to their knees before her; everyone excluding Thalia and Annabeth, that is. Instead, Annabeth dropped to her knees and said, "Percy."
Thalia was enraged and stood her ground. "This is obscenely ridiculous. Who do you think you are?"
"I am the narrator," the narrator said rather redundantly. "And the goat-boy eating Argus's ashes is Grover."
"What? Ew, Grover! Gross! Stop it!" she began swatting the satyr.
Just then, a shadowed figure walked into the building, pulled a lazar gun, and shot both Luke and the dying boy in the head, where they promptly exploded, disintegrated, and were eaten by the cannibalistic satyr.
"Percy!" Annabeth shrieked in despair, grabbing desperately at the particles of dust.
"Annabeth," the murderer said in a voice of immensely sexy gruffness.
Annabeth looked up from her task and saw clearly the boy's face. "Percy?"
"Of course I'm Percy. That dying boy obviously wasn't me. If the narrator won't name a character directly, you shouldn't assume the character is who people say he is," Percy reasoned.
"He's right, you know," the narrator vouched.
"Percy," Annabeth whispered.
"Okay, why does she only say Percy?" Thalia exclaimed in irritation.
"She is under the Echo curse, except she only says one word. In fact, it's pretty much not like Echo at all," Percy answered.
"I didn't have a cool name for it, sorry," the narrator amended. "This is an extremely long story. Let's hurry and wrap it up, okay, pumpkins?"
Percy gave her a thumbs-up. "You got it, dude." He put his hand on Annabeth's head and shouted, "Healing in the name of Apollo!"
Annabeth cried out in pain as her skull split open and a small infant popped out. Thalia dove and caught it before it hit the ground. Annabeth's skull magically healed itself and she fell over backwards, passing out in the bed.
Thalia stood and looked in bewilderment at Percy. "What is this?"
"A baby," Percy said slowly, taking the child from her with distrust in his eyes. "This is my and Annabeth's child. We made it just now. Since this is a kids' book, we don't have a traditional way of making a baby, thus this is what we get. I think I'll name it Sue."
"Uh, Percy," Thalia cocked a brow, "This baby is a boy."
"A boy named Sue?" Annabeth asked as she suddenly woke up, completely healed of her ailments. She skipped over to Percy and their new baby. She examined him, turning him over and back, smearing blood all over Percy's arms. She took him from Percy's arms and cradled him against her chest, getting even more blood on her orange Camp Half-Blood shirt. She nodded thoughtfully, "Sue fits him."
"This is nuts!" Thalia exclaimed.
"No, this is Sue," the two replied in unison.
Suddenly, a rainbow appeared on the deck, and the happy family skipped up the bridge and into the sky.
And that's how I got my middle name.
The End