Author's Note: This has been sitting in my computer for a little over a year now, and I feel that it has potential, so I'm posting it. The characters may be OOC, but they'll be back in character soon enough, I promise.

Enjoy!

I drove up to my new school, East High. It was compact, and small, like a cube, with the gym, a smaller cube, sticking out of it. On the side of the gym, there were painted murals of basketball players in red and white uniforms. Immediately I could tell that this school is patriotic towards their basketball team.

I parked my Prius in front of the entrance. I saw groups of kids around my age standing around and talking, like there was nothing else better to do at the time. Nearly all of them were wearing the school colors-red and white. Above their heads hung a huge red and white banner that looked like it said GO EAST HIGH WILDCATS!

Gods, these people love their school basketball team a little too much.

I opened the car door and swung my backpack over my shoulder. Suddenly, everyone's conversations came to a halt and they all stared at me like I just jumped out of a UFO. Cautiously, I walked to the top of stairs in front of the school. Much to my relief, people gradually went back to talking and ignored me. Ah, just how I liked it. I only needed to be here for as long as it takes for me to complete my mission-to find this Troy Bolton guy and teach him to defend himself for when he goes to California in the fall, like Rachel said. I wasn't here to make any friends.

Besides, I'd have to lie to any of the friends I made here anyway. I would be hiding the fact that I'm, well, you know what. I don't want to say it, because someone with a big mouth could be eavesdropping- anyway, I would eventually have the truth come flying out of my mouth before I knew it, and that would mean trouble, because then they would know. And we all know that nobody's supposed to know anything.

Here's how it is: we save mortals from monsters and angry immortals (gods, titans, etc.), and mortals stay stupid and happy. It's not a very fair system, but at least the world is safe, which is all that really matters to us.

As I made my way into the building, I found a huge crowd of kids, this time all of them wearing red and white, admiring a gold basketball trophy encased in glass standing on a spotless white pedestal. Standing around it, as if guarding it, were a bunch of jocks signing autographs. What jerks, I thought. As if they won a war or something. Which I actually happened to do, ever so conveniently.

I made a beeline through the crowd and approached the little clan of basketball-playing celebrities.

"Hey, what's this?" I asked them, putting on an innocent façade as
I pointed at the trophy.

"That's the trophy we won at last night's game," one guy said, sounding annoyed, as he walked up to me, as if I should know that the Wildcats won their stupid game the other night. Everyone else around us fell silent. The guy was tall and bulky, almost as tall as me, with chocolate colored skin, dark curly hair in an afro, and even darker eyes, which bored their way towards mine. I tried half-heartedly to not let them get to me, which didn't take much effort.

On my little field trip to Olympus a while ago, beholding a disguise spell so I looked like a girl (nobody recognized me-but I couldn't help but feel awkward, I mean, I was a girl), I heard stories about me. One of them was never to look in my eyes. They were the color of the Mediterranean, but could change to the color of the Black Sea in an instant. I never really paid much attention to my eyes, and I didn't know they changed color when I got irritated. I never felt it. But hey, that's cool.

"Well, I'm new here. This is my first day," I said with the demure act. "Congrats on the win. It must've been impressive. Wish I could've seen it."

Another guy walked up to me. This guy was the same height as me, with skin just a little darker than mine, and shaggy light brown hair that was cut just above his blue eyes. They set me off a little; they reminded me of Thalia's.

"Thanks. What's your name?" He asked me. This guy sounded way nicer than his stupid jerk friend.

"I'm Percy."

"Nice to meet you, Percy. I'm Troy, and this is Jason, Zeke, and Chad." He said, pointing to the guys behind him. So that jerk's name is Chad, huh?

Wait a second. Troy? Was this Troy Bolton, the guy who I was assigned to? I pictured the photo Chiron showed to me and compared. Yep. This was the mortal I was looking for.

"Well, it was nice meeting you all, but I have to get to my homeroom-" I stopped mid-sentence. Someone was behind me. Someone who's presence filled me with relief and slight anxiety.

"Percy Jackson, I didn't know you went to school here too," said Thalia Grace.

The kids surrounding the jocks and the trophy case parted before my cousin as she fearlessly strode up to me, her blue eyes glowing with pleasure.

I felt the corner of my mouth curl up. "Yeah, Thalia. Today's my first day," I responded casually, adding So, how's life been the last few months? Did you hunt any special monsters in particular? to her with my mind. You see, not only can I communicate telepathically with sea creatures, equestrians, and Grover, but I can talk to Thalia and my other cousin Nico mentally as well. Not by magic or whatever, but we have cool new telecommunicators that we wear behind our ears. They're invisible, and extremely handy.

Ah, the usual. A hellhound or two, a couple empousae, nothing special, she replied. Ya know, I had a feeling that someone would arrive today, though I didn't think it was important enough for Mr. Alpha to investigate. I dunno. Guess I should learn to trust my instinct.

"Er, how do you two know each other?" Troy asked.

"Our parents are close friends," Thalia lied slyly. What exactly were you assigned for? she asked me in my mind.

I continued the conversation mentally as I nodded to Troy. I'm here to keep an eye on the mortal. Be sure that there aren't any monsters, while I'm at it, I replied.

Oh. Sophisticated, she smirked to me as she said to Troy and his jocks, "Well, I'm gonna show Percy to his homeroom, so I'll see ya round."

As we walked away,she then added to me, Did that dumb Chad dude get in your way? He's an ignorant jerk, just so ya know. In fact, they all are, except for Troy. The rest of 'em think that they're just so awesome 'cuz they play basketball. Whoopee.

Yeah, I can tell. Troy's different for some reason. I dunno. He just, seems to be... less shallow-minded, like, well... I'm not sure.

Maybe it's 'cuz he can see through the Mist.

That stopped me. "What do you mean, he can see through the Mist!?" I hissed. Only after I said it did I realize I said it aloud. Oops.

"Yesterday, he had something like a panic attack at lunch," she answered simply. I saw him get up from his table to go to the gym to practice for the game that night, and I think he saw an empousa, 'cuz he kept muttering stuff about fire and fangs for the rest of the day, she finished telepathically.

"Well, that'll actually make my job much easier," I reminded her. "He's seen what's out there; all I have to do is tell him that he's not hallucinating, and teach him to fight. Piece of cake."

Thalia's face grew dull. "Let's hope so."