Author's Note*

This is my first FanFic on this site. I would really appreciate it if you could please read it all the way through and give me feedback. I know it's not good, but I thought it would be worth it to upload. Out of all the FanFics I've ever written this is, by far, my favorite and I hope you like it.

I won't ramble, but please, read it all the way through. I know it starts slow, but I am proud of the way it turned out.

Please let me know what you think, and let me know if you want me to upload more.

Thank you,

Angel Montano

I

Perseus

My dream began as soon as I woke up.

It had been a beautiful Monday morning; Winter break. Despite the horrible weather we'd been getting, it had been sunny and warm. The plants had been glittering with morning dew. And there had only been one cloud in the sky—right over the Empire State Building. It had been the type of morning that Michael Bay would have loved to blow up.

Having said that, it all seem to crumple to nothing like Mount Othrys compared to being with Annabeth.

She'd called my mother in the morning, asking to talk to me. I'd rolled my eyes as she handed me the phone—Grinning, shrieking, and jumping up and down as she clapped. It was no secret that Annabeth and I were now a couple. Mom had known as soon as it had happened.

Despite the memories of almost dying about a million time a day, last summer had ended on a good note—with Annabeth and I kissing, then being thrown into the canoe lake by our friends. You know? To 'cool off' (Clarisse's idea). After being down there, underwater, for a while, we decided my mom deserved to know. As anxious as we were, we settled for sending her an underwater Iris Message. Mom hadn't been too happy that we hadn't told her in person, but taken the news she'd just been given, there was no way she could stay mad.

Now I playfully told her I regretted ever telling her. She only laughed at that. That's my mom, for you, ladies and gentlemen.

Paul had taken It with a much more calm, but proud, reaction. He may not have been my real father, but he thought, and I agreed, that Annabeth was beautiful. He really couldn't help but pat me on the back and yell "'Atta Boy!"

Everything had been going perfect. Even the date we were in the middle of.

We'd started our day at 11 in the morning after she'd called me on my mother's phone. Even with the Titan Lord, Kronos, dispersed across the United States, it wasn't safe for demigods to use cell phones. I'd even nagged Annabeth about getting rid of hers, but I had to agree with her saying that it was the most convenient method of communication.

We first went to Mount Olympus. Ever since Annabeth had been given the opportunity to rebuild the now ruined Olympus, she spent every moment she could spare up on the mountain.

The cleaning process had been going wonderfully. Tyson was a surprisingly good leader. He lead the Cyclopes from wreck to wreck, cleaning and disposing of everything that couldn't be salvaged. Annabeth had beautiful ideas, from a new aquarium for the Ophiotaturus, to a statue of me bravely dipping in the River Styx. Well, I offered the last one; she didn't seem to like the idea as much as the naiads and I did.

After I decided I'd had enough of watching Annabeth mindlessly scribbling notes on blueprints, and after she'd had enough of me nagging and whining like a four year old, we left.

We decided to pay my mom a visit, but decided to leave after our visit turned into a competition between Paul and my mother consisting of them battling to see who could make our faces turn redder.

After an evening picnic on the South Shore, we walked along the beach, hand in hand.

She was wearing a sky blue sundress over her hot pink swim suite. A light breeze kept blowing her lose, blonde hair on her face. Her stormy gray eyes gazed upon the horizon. She had a distant, but concentrated look in her eyes, like she was calculating the world's next move. I felt a little ignored, but the way her eyebrows scrounged up as she thought made me smile. Gods… She was seriously beautiful. I wanted to ask what she was thinking, but didn't want to bother her.

I didn't have to.

"Percy?" She stepped in front of me and took my other hand.

"Yeah?" I gave her a playful, yet sincerely questioning frown.

She hesitated. "Back on Mount Olympus, how did you know you could trust Luke?" She asked, looking out into the ocean. "Why give him the knife?"

The reminder brought back unpleasant memories. Last summer, when I'd turned sixteen, the Great Prophecy had all come true, a prophecy that stated that I was going to make a decision that would either doom or save Olympus. Even, now, I'm not quite sure what the decision really was. As far as I could understand, the decision had been whether I gave Luke Annabeth's knife or not. I did. He killed himself, turning the Titan Lord, Kronos, into nothing but a pile of ashes.

"I—don't know." I admitted. I hadn't known what the decision would be until after I gave Luke the knife. So many times I thought, surely, I'd come to that fork in the road, but after choosing my path, I'd simply come to another fork.

She pursed her lips. "I though—maybe you'd try to kill him yourself. I never thought you'd give Luke my knife" She still wouldn't look at me.

"Well…" I sighed, releasing her hands.

She whirled her head to look at me.

"I did." I continued, "And Luke saved the world. He killed Kronos"

She slowly wrapped her arms around my neck, "You both did."

We stood there—the sea to my right, to sunset to my left—for so long, staring into each other's eyes for so long I thought our feet would sprout roots. The setting, red sun hit my side, sending a warm, fuzzy feeling down the side of my body. I looked out into the sea. It was painted bloody shades of red, which morphed and wove like cherry flavored jell-o. I looked the other way, toward the sunset which turned the sky all different shades of red, pink, and orange. A thought occurred to me: the only reason the weather had been so perfect was because the gods had been nice enough to make it that way. I wasn't sure if it had anything to with our date, but I made a silent prayer to every single one of the gods.

The sun flashed a little brighter. I smiled. Thanks, Apollo.

I looked down to see Annabeth staring at me, and innocent frown on her face. "What is it?"

"Don't worry about it." I smiled.

She rolled her eyes but let the subject drop.'

The kiss she gave me then… well, let's just say: Aphrodite would have been amazed.

But our kiss was interrupted when the Earthquake started…

"Earthquake!" I demanded.

A fissure opened up between us. At first I thought it was the work of Athena, and my blood boiled. But then…

"SSSSSsssssss" Something hissed inside the chasm. Something big, and definitely not friendly.

Annabeth leapt over the crevice to stand by me. She drew her knife from a strap on her thigh. She was so hot with a swimsuit and a knife. I tried to shake that thought out of my head, but it was rather distracting, I uncapped Riptide.

The tremor stopped, along with the hissing. I inched forward, looking into the dark opening.

"Aaagggghhh!" Kampê erupted from the chasm, a half dragon, half ugly woman with dark scales and wings. Along with dragons feet and two arms, one of which was holding a poisoned scimitar. I jumped back, barely dodging the monster's sword, but her scimitar radiated death, and it made me feel like I'd been hit. I realized that no amount of invulnerability would save me if I got poisoned by Kampê.

"Run!" I yelled at Annabeth.

"What? No! Per—" She began to protest, but I cut her off.

"Annabeth! I'm practically invulnerable! YOU'RE NOT!"

"Percy, no! We both fight!"

I had no time to argue with her. Kampê lunged. I rolled to the side and came up on my feet, I jabbed at the monster's side with Riptide, but her armor-like scales simply deflected the blade.

She turned on me, and hissed something in an ancient language I didn't understand.

"Good to see you, too, buddy." I climbed on its back. She tried to swat me with her free hand. I sliced and jabbed, but Kampê was an armored tank with a poisoned sword, a bad attitude, and a serious need for a breath mint.

"Hey, you worm!" Annabeth shouted. When Kampê charged at her she put on her New York Yankees cap, which she took everywhere with her, and vanished. The monster was confused. It circled twice, looking for Annabeth, but unable to find her. She let out a nasty snarl.

Annabeth materialized next to me, scaring me so bad that I almost fell of Kampê.

"How do we kill it?" I demanded.

"I—I don't know. I don't remember." She tried to sink her knife into the demon's back, but only managed to hurt her own wrist. Her blade fell to the ground as she clenched her wrist.

My brain hurt as I tried to think. How can I kill it? I remember facing this thing once, two years ago, during our adventure in the Labyrinth. I remember all the destruction that it'd caused. We'd eventually destroy it, but it took the combined efforts of Tyson and Briares, the Hundred-Handed One, to finally stop her. But Tyson wasn't here to help, and I didn't think Briares would have liked it If we gave him a call and demanded for his help. And, anyway, how would I contact him? I doubted he had a 1-800-SAVE-A-DEMIGOD-FROM-BIG-UGLY-MONSTERS hotline. All I really knew was that Briares was probably somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

Ocean...

That was it!

"When I say 'now', jump off." I dropped off of Kampê.

"What—?" She began, but I was already on the ground.

I ran for the water "Hey, Kampoop!"

I ran over the surface like it was solid ground, trying to go as far out into the sea as possible. I was running incredibly fast, the water seemed to blast me forward every time I took a step. If I hadn't been in water, I would have died a while ago.

I dodged Kampê's first attack and kept running. I wasn't sure how far out I needed to go, but I knew I was only 50 yard into the water. I poured on the speed. 60, 70, 80 yards. Kampê's attacks became more and more frequent, and came closer and closer to hitting me. I got the feeling she was just toying with me. I reached 100 yard. I hoped this was far enough.

I jumped and rocketed upward, like propelled by a geyser, Kampê flew right under me. She turned abruptly to glare at me, with what looked like amusement in her eyes. Annabeth was still on its back.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do now. I hadn't thought about how exactly I would take down Kampê. I only worried about getting her out into water where I would at least have somewhat of an advantage.

She hissed at me, a serpentine screech that I imagined meant something along the lines of: You'd look tasty with barbecue sauce!.

An idea hit me, I wasn't confident it would work, but it was all I had. I willed the currents to mix, hot and cold streams to intertwine and combine. I felt them responding, becoming stronger, and spinning in a fury of high and low temperatures. They grew greater and stronger, along with the pain in my gut. Kampê was taking her time, considering ever possible way for her to get rid of me.

She lifted her sword and swung downward, I intercepted her blade. Even with the water yielding me its power, her blade made my eyes burn and my arms feel tired. I wondered if I could be poisoned with a touch, if her blade would even cut through my skin, or if it would just harmlessly bounce off. I didn't really want to find out.

She went in for another swing but I dove to the side. The force had keep getting stronger. I wasn't sure if I'd waited long enough, but it would have to do.

I dodged Kampê's next attack, then released the pressure.

A gigantic whirlpool, a hundred feet across, opened under Kampê.

"Jump!" I told Annabeth.

She managed to leap off the monster's back as she was sucked into the vortex. I shot up and forward with another geyser. I caught Annabeth mid-fall and landed safely on the other side of the spinning crater as Kampê disappeared under the surface with a "NOOO—GLUB! Gurgle gurgle." The monster didn't come back up.

Annabeth stared at me, completely horrified. "SEAWEED BRAIN!"

I shrugged, "I was expecting something more along the lines of 'My Hero!', or 'You ROCK!', but I guess that works, too."

I could tell she was trying hard not to laugh, I smiled sarcastically at her, still in my arms.

"Put me down!" She commanded.

I let her fall into the water. She submerged a couple feet and came up gasping indignantly.

"What the —! You BIG—! Arg!" She crossed her arms for a second, then went back to swimming.

I couldn't help but laugh. I pulled her out and willed the water to leave her clothes. She was a little red, now, like she'd finally managed to get a little mad. I simply smiled at her, innocently.

Annabeth didn't get over our little incident until after dinner. She couldn't believe I'd made her jump off a dragon-lady, dropped her into the sea, and then laughed at her. I tried to argue that she would have done the same thing, but she didn't seem to agree. She only forgave me after I promised to take her out to dinner the next day.

I wished I'd gotten the chance to do that.

We were about to open the front door and head out when my mother called.

"Where do you think you're going?" She was drying her hands off on a dish towel.

"Um, I'm diving Annabeth home." I said, brilliantly.

"This late at night? I don't think so. Too dark to drive, it could be dangerous. And we're not about to let you walk, Annabeth. You're staying the night."

"Mr. Jackson—?" Annabeth tried backing me up, uselessly.

"You can drive her home in the morning. Now get some sleep." She left to her room with a mischievous smile on her face.

A moment of uncomfortable silence passed in the room

"So—" I turned to look at Annabeth and blushed. She was bright red too. "I guess we should…sleep."

"Yeah," she agreed awkwardly, "let's sleep."

We went back to my room, both boiling red. We laid down on my bed, and fell asleep.

I'm sure you've had nightmares, and I'm sure some of them have haunted your dreams for several nights. But see, when you're a demigod, nightmares are never just nightmares. So if in your dream you hear a guy saying "Hey, let's give Frank an atomic wedgie!" and the next day you find your friend Frank hanging from the flagpole at school off his underwear, then, be careful, you might be a demigod.

But this dream was the worst one I'd had all year, and that was saying a lot.

I was standing in the attic of the Big House. It was dark and cold, and smelled like a thousand snakes had been using it as a nest. The only source of light was a small ball of fire at the far corner of the room.

"Do they suspect?" A voice boomed. It was a harsh voice, evil and threatening. "I don't want any 'accidents' this time."

"Y-yes sir. No, they are not aware. They have no idea what's coming." The girl who spoke could not be older than 14 or 15. She was standing in the center of the room, facing the darkness. She wore an orange camp t-shirt and faded skinny jeans. She was about my height, with long, straight, brown hair that flowed to the bottom of her shoulder blades. The girl was obviously a camper, but she faced away from me, so I had no way of identifying her.

"Good. They think their beloved Perseus Jackson ended it all last summer when he defeated Luke, and destroyed Kronos. Bah! Things are stirring, girl, things they could not even begin to imagine. Soon, very soon they will some across something that their precious Hero cannot defeat. And it will be the end of them. And you, my loyal servant, will play a key role in their destruction." The man boomed with laughter. It wasn't loud, but it was powerful, and filled the room with a cold evil feeling of dread. I immediately knew two things: He was big, strong, and powerful. And he was definitely immortal.

The dream shifted. I was now inside the Hades cabin at camp. Despite the fact that Hades was the god of the underworld, his cabin was beautiful. It was all black stone, at first I thought there were paintings of faces on the wall, then one of them moved, and I realized that they weren't painted. Real ghostly faces of Heros, monsters, and mortals floated across the walls like sick-minded decorations. They all looked panicked, as if they were staring death in the face. Then again, this was Hades's cabin. There were two bunk beds on each side of the room. Each of their four corners was decorated with a miniature replica of Hades' Death Helm—it even changed shapes and everything. The black stone walls seemed to be fading, almost see through. Like they were made of smoke and the air was making it drift away. I was impressed with the way it'd turned out. Nico Di Angelo had lead its construction last summer after the Titan-God War.

Nico!

He was laying on a top bunk, snoring. I wanted to yell "Wake up!" and tell him about what I'd seen, but my voice wouldn't work, and I couldn't move. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, like someone had just yelled "FREE CHOCOLATE CHIP PANCAKES!"

"Percy!" he gasped. He jumped out of bed and ran outside. I tried my best not to laugh at what he was wearing—Let's just say that I decided that if footie pajamas could be manly, these were. They were black pajamas with dark gray flames that flickered across and even seemed to be affected by the wind as he ran.

We reached the front door of the Big House. Argus was standing in front, arms crossed. The simple fact that he was there made me nervous, he hardly ever showed up unless there was trouble.

"Let me through!" Nico ordered.

Argus simply raised his eyebrows, which looked pretty psychedelic, like a wave flowing from one side of his body to the other. He shook his head.

"Argus, you don't understand! Kronos is alive! He's planning another attack on Olympus!"

Argus' forehead beaded with sweat. He swallowed hard, but continued to stand guard, refusing to let Nico in. I wanted to help him persuade Argus, but I couldn't do anything.

"What is going on here?" An irritated and half asleep Mr. D came to the door. He regarded Nico angrily. "What is a son of Hades doing out at this hour of the morning?"

"Dyo—" Nico began, "Mr. D, it's Kronos. He's planning another atta—"

"Enough!" Mr. D waved his hand, purple fire burned in his eyes. "Did you think you would sense the Titan Lord before your all powerful camp director?"

"Well —"

"Do not ever pronounce his name. At any rate he has been dispersed, tuned to ashes. You can thank your friend Perseus for that. Return to your cabin. This is not the time, nor the place, to discuss this." Mr. D turned and left.

Nico left reluctantly.

"Percy," he said, once we were back in his cabin, "you have to help me!. You have to—" but the dream faded.

"Percy!" Annabeth was shaking my shoulder, a look of concern plastered on her face. "Wake up."

I shot up to a sitting position.

"What's wrong? You—"

"Camp's in danger." I said, putting on a shirt. "We have to go. Now." I grabbed Riptide and my keys from my night stand. "Come on."

"Percy, it's four in the morning—"

"Annabeth, Camp is in danger, we have to defend it." I ran outside, she, reluctantly, followed me. We got into my car. I turned the ignition. A feeling of dread washed through my body, but I swallowed hard and floored the accelerator.

Thank you! If you actually read all the way through, I want to thank you. It really means a lot to me to finally get my ideas out there. Please let me know what you think and let me know if you want me to upload more.