I'm pleased to say that I got a good response and I have some more ideas so I went and wrote another chapter. This one's a little longer and you can consider the first a prologue. Hope you like it!
Oh no.
As Percy waited for the little girl to come back from exploring their strange environment he recalled Annabeth once telling him a story concerning a certain goddess named Eris. It was a worrying one. In the myth, Eris had been angry because she hadn't been invited to a cool party or something and in revenge started an argument between Athena, Aphrodite and Hera on who was the prettiest. That argument had somehow escalated into the Trojan war. Annabeth had recommended adding Eris to his list of names to stay far, far away from. It looked like he'd failed.
Oh well, he still had to figure out exactly what she'd done. He'd been on the beach and now he was in a building in different clothes. He looked around the small, sparsely furnished bedroom but he didn't recognise it at all. The lone window indicated that it was late at night, which was about the same time as before he'd somehow teleported here, at least. That meant she couldn't have put him half-way around the world. The completely different assortment of clothes he was somehow wearing indicated that it wasn't some sort of 'normal teleportation' (if those existed at all) though. Especially as the petite goddess herself didn't appear to know where they were, not that he could really trust anything she said.
There was also the strange sensation of the brief teleportation itself. The gods could teleport but they did it in a divine flash of gold, not falling into an inky black crevice that appeared in front of him. Upon entering it, he'd been in a world of darkness, his entire being moving at a breakneck pace but all of it beyond his control. Then he was just... here. Nico's shadow travelling had involved darkness, of course, but it had been far smoother.
Still he looked around, Eris had said she'd come back in a minute hadn't she? He didn't feel much like chasing after her. If he found out where he was now, then he could find a way to get back to Camp Half-blood.
Percy was drawn to the sight of some framed photos lying on a table – a desk actually- and examined them, inwardly wishing he didn't have to intrude on someone's privacy. There were five different photographs. The first looked to be… a picture of himself and Annabeth? He froze, chilled at the sight. Why would a picture of them be lying in a random room. Particularly one he didn't recognise - Annabeth's long hair was barely brushing her shoulders they both looked old enough that it had to have been taken within the last year or so.
Looking for sense, he forced himself to turn to the other pictures. He found himself looking at a photo of himself (again?) and Thalia, except she looked way older than she ought to be. How could Thalia look so old? She couldn't look that old because she was an immortal huntress who didn't age. Even if she was aging, she still couldn't be that old, like at least twenty.
He turned to the others, taking a deep breath to remain calm. Maybe he was really stuck in a weird illusion. The next showed Bianca di Angelo, together with Silena Beauregard of all people? There was an another of Chris Rodriguez standing next to him and Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis. Finally a last picture with all seven demigods, including himself.
This was too much. Three of those people were dead. Why would there be photos of them here? And he was standing next to them but he didn't remember ever posing for a picture with any of them. Where could these pictures have possibly come from? Just looking at the mix between familiar and unfamiliar was making his head hurt.
Percy hadn't been able to hold a civil conversation with Ethan when he was alive so getting a picture taken just didn't make any sense whatsoever. He recalled Ethan had been obsessed with revenge on the gods. And he'd only known Bianca for such a short time. He forced himself to look away from the questionably genuine photographs, as realistic as they looked. Maybe some divine being (Eris maybe?) was attempting to mess with his mind?
Trying to distract himself from them for the moment, he looked around the room again. The only thing that caught his eye was a large rectangular glass tank full of water, sort of like a fish tank but without any fish in it. He wondered what it could be there for – maybe someone was planning to get some fish soon and was preparing in advance? There was also a small bed in the room but it didn't look particularly threatening so he ignored it. He couldn't resist turning back to the desk, but allowed himself to focus on a curious object he'd missed – a mobile phone.
Usually demigods avoided phones as they had an annoying tendency to alert monsters to their presence, this was supposed to be a demigod's room wasn't it? Well, Annabeth had a phone and she was a demigod so it didn't exactly rule out anything. He picked it up nervously, and tried to turn it on, but it immediately requested a passcode before it would tell him anything interesting. That was a little infuriating but he probably ought to have expected it. Trying to guess the passcode was unlikely to work and to be honest he didn't want to be taking someone's phone.
As he was putting the phone back down, he heard the light footsteps of someone running and turned to see Eris come bounding back into the room. He immediately grabbed her by the right arm because she'd already landed into his list of possible enemies. It was best if she wasn't able to do anything. Eris didn't seem to care about being grabbed, in fact she was laughing, looking excited by whatever she'd seen.
"I'm back!" She announced grandly.
"Okay, so what did you discover?" He asked, with far less enthusiasm, not that it was possible to have more. Nevertheless, he need answers.
The girl was practically bouncing in excitement. "Well we're in a house and it appears that seven demigods live here. We don't appear to have moved through time at all!"
Percy wondered if that information was really worth being that excited about. He'd already guessed some sort of demigod was living in this room. Still, seven was rather a lot in one place. He wondered how often it would be attacked by monsters. He had a foreboding feeling that they weren't safe inside Camp anymore.
"Right. How did we get here by the way?" He asked in a serious voice. She wasn't taking this seriously at all.
She rolled her eyes at his lack of enjoyment. "I pushed you, obviously."
That just raised more questions. At least he knew for sure that this was all her fault though. "Why?" He asked.
She attempted to wrestle her arm out of his grip, purely for some dramatic gestures and arm waving. He didn't let go. "Because this is going to be really exciting!" She declared, stretching out her arms as if suggesting it was 'that' exciting.
Percy was unaffected by her enthusiasm. "You pushed both of us through an evil portal for fun? Am I going to be stuck here forever or something…?" He asked feeling worried, because gods liked doing things like that.
She cackled. "Yes, lots of fun! I'm not powerful enough to keep both of us here indefinitely though. I'm only some minor goddess. And that's not even taking into consideration your alternate self."
"Wait my alternate self?"
Eris suddenly silenced, smile disappearing. For a few seconds she remained very still. Percy waited for her to respond as it seemed pretty important.
Then she tugged her arm out of his grip once more and he, not expecting it, let her loose. The goddess simply turned and dashed away, through the doorway and into the hall. She was really going to run away to avoid his questions? Percy quickly gave chase to demand some more information from her; it was clear she was hiding something and he still had to demand that she bring him home.
It seemed to be a long hallway with many doors, (presumably they were more bedrooms). Eris was hurrying forward with purpose, but she wasn't as fast as him. Just as he was about to catch her, she tried turning a corner and froze before she could crash into a wall in her haste.
Percy immediately lunged for her, hoping to grab her so she couldn't escape again. She turned to face him and gave him an expectant, evil little smile. He grabbed her shoulders and held her in a firm grip, giving the girl a hopefully very serious glare. Why was she smiling?
He soon found out. She deftly placed her little hands on his chest before he could stop her and she pushed him as hard as she could. Normally this wouldn't be much of a worry but unfortunately for him, trying to take a step back to stabilise himself utterly failed and he lost his balance and found himself tumbling backwards down the staircase, for she'd led him to the very top of it.
"Aaahh!" He yelled, angrily.
He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the hard impact but it wasn't as bad as he'd feared – someone had caught him, preventing him from getting seriously hurt.
He looked around, dazed, and was pleasantly surprised to catch sight of his girlfriend Annabeth's face. He grinned at her, and tried to orientate himself – he was now lying on the carpeted stairs, with his feet a few steps above his head. Annabeth appeared to be upside down to him. She was here too, and she'd just saved him?
He quickly righted himself and sat down on the second step next to Annabeth who was looking at him in concern, and just a tiny bit of amusement. She often laughed when he got himself into silly situations but always came to help him if he needed it. It was a relief to know that she was here with him, because they could sort it out together. He was aware of a dull pain on his head, which was odd because he wasn't supposed to feel any pain since his dip in the river Styx.
"You alright, Percy? Please try to avoid killing yourself every time you walk down the stairs, it's not hard," she lectured but looked at him in concern.
"Don't worry, I'm fine," Percy replied quickly, smiling at her. He glanced up the stairs but didn't see Eris anywhere; she was probably just out of sight though. He'd have to get revenge later.
"Of course you're fine, I stopped you from falling!" Annabeth smiled back.
"Yeah thanks, hey did you cut your hair?" He asked, noting its short length. Percy easily got distracted, but he didn't want to mention Eris just yet. Maybe Annabeth knew what was happening though?
Annabeth just rolled her eyes at him. "Of course not, you know I haven't left the house in a few days?"
She'd been here a while? Before he could try and interpret that, another two people walked over to them, coming through a doorway from some other part of this building. He recognised Chris Rodriguez, son of Hermes, but paused at the sight of Thalia whom looked to be at least twenty years old or older. That was impossible, wasn't she nearly sixteen for life? Was this some sort of weird dream maybe?
"What happened?" Old Thalia asked briskly, looking at the pair of them.
Annabeth was acting like everything was perfectly normal, oddly enough. "Percy fell down the stairs but he seems to be fine, still featherbrained unfortunately." Her tone was warm rather than insulting, he was half-expecting her to call him a 'seaweed brain'.
Thalia sighed but her eyes were glittering. Maybe she wasn't that old. "That's far too much to be expected of a staircase, Annabeth," she said. She was so at ease that she was casually teasing him?
Percy tried to catch Annabeth's eye, waiting for her to give a clue as to what to do, or a hint as to why she was pretending that everything was alright, but she just gave him a blank, uncertain look. Was something wrong with Annabeth?
"Well guys, ready for a quick meeting?" Chris cut in, before the girls could tease him anymore. He was good for defusing tension.
What was going on? Why were they acting like nothing was wrong? Percy hadn't heard of any meeting however the others didn't seem surprised. What had happened to them? Did none of them find it all strange to be in this house, looking different? Annabeth had mentioned that she hadn't left in a few days and implied that Percy had also been here except that he didn't remember anything like that. And according to Eris (who wasn't exactly reliable), they hadn't moved through time either. The whole situation was just baffling.
Still, without any better option, he followed the others into another room, a dining room judging by the large table in the centre. One of Percy's strategies for dealing with the unknown was to just pretend he knew exactly what was happening and hope it would eventually make sense. Usually someone ended up noticing just how clueless Percy was and ended up explaining it to him.
He froze at the sight of three other occupants in the new room. Maybe he ought to have expected this as those pictures had been a dead giveaway if he stopped to think about it. But as it was, nothing prepared him for the sight of three dead people casually sitting or standing as if they belonged there. Silena Beauregard, daughter of Aphrodite. Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis the goddess of revenge (they had been enemies until he'd betrayed Kronos and sacrificed his life). Finally there was Bianca di Angelo, huntress (was she still a huntress) and the daughter of Hades, Nico's sister. What was he supposed to think about all this?
That's it! What did you think? Please review with your comments as they're very appreciated.
Alternate!Annabeth and Alternate!Percy are going to be quite different from the canon characters, but they're close to each other anyway. Some people who were dead are alive here - interesting right?
Hopefully I'll update soon, especially with encouraging comments. Thanks for reading!
