Small talk with Toby was a little awkward. He never really lived a normal life, and I don't remember anything about myself.

Plus he didn't seem like he was the talkative sort.

So there wasn't much we could talk about.

So the first fifteen minutes, we just kind of sat there. I didn't have a great sense of time in the debriefing room, or the whole castle now that I think about it.

Finally Toby broke the silence.

"You're taking all of this surprisingly well." He started. I turned back to him, he was still sitting in the same chair from when we originally came into the room. I had gotten too restless and I was exploring the debriefing room. I couldn't sit still for some reason. Do I have ADHD?

Great.

Another thing I don't know about myself.

I thought that my memories of who I was would come back to me after a bit of time. Yet here I was, I knew my name, Percy. I sleep in garbage, and I have a pen.

Reflexively I pulled the pen out of my pocket, it felt like a motion that I've completed many times before.

Was I a writer?

No, I doubt that, I don't think I'm that smart.

Well what did I know about myself?

Well I have black hair, green eyes, and I'm pretty buff.

Maybe I was a model or something? But if I was a model why would I be sleeping in the garbage?

The questions had started to make my head hurt, I should probably stop thinking so hard.

Probably not a writer.

I twirled the pen around in my hands, something caught my eye. There was writing on one side of the pen, I studied the writing closer.

Written on the pen was one word, Anaklusmos. Was it a name?

I didn't have much time to wonder

"You're just gonna go silent on me?" Toby said. My head snapped up, I had completely forgotten about Toby. Trying to remember what he said I stammered an answer.

"Sorry, just kinda thinking about things. And yah, I guess not really remembering much helps for accepting things"

Toby seemed satisfied with the answer I gave him, and wasn't looking like he was going to ask any follow up questions, so I turned back to the pen.

Anaklusmos

Riptide

All at once, like a current taking me away I remembered something, A shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. I saw myself battling creatures, large black dogs and giants. I saw myself make short work of them with my sword. I was fighting another figure, who also had a sword, one that was half steel and half bronze, I could feel the tension as our blades clashed. I was in an arena, fighting someone who wielded a dagger. Our blades locked, but my memories faded before I saw their face.

I woke up to Toby shaking me awake. He had a panicked look on his face and he was yelling my name over and over again. He visibly relaxed when I opened my eyes.

"Are you alright? You just collapsed on the floor! I thought you had like a stroke or something." I smiled, Toby's tone was sincere and concerning, which was nice seeing as I've known him for all of thirty minutes.

"I'm fine. I uh, I remembered something." Toby helped me to a stand in front of the table, his face took on a new curious look.

"What did you remember?"

Without explanation or reason, with only what I thought was pure instinct I picked up the pen from the floor. I uncapped it.

I almost killed Toby.

The sword nearly skewered him as it emerged from its pen form. The blade was every bit as magnificent as I saw it in my memories.

I was too shocked to speak, to do much of anything except hold it in my hands. The blade felt perfect, I could feel it as if it were an extension of myself. Not too heavy, not too light, I gave it a few test swings. The sword cut through the air in graceful gliding arcs. I studied the blade more intently. The hilt of the blade had the same word that was on the pen.

Anaklusmos

Riptide

That was its name, Riptide. I held the blade and didn't even feel the wide smile on my face. I didn't see Toby's utterly shocked expression. I definitely didn't notice the Council return into the room.

A small -ahem- caused me to almost drop my sword.

LINE BREAK

This guy just keeps getting more surprising.

I've been trying to pin him down ever since I picked him up from outside of the Rabbithole. I had a few theories obviously.

The first: He was a fairytale. It doesn't happen often but it happens. Fairytales die, suffer trauma of some kind, or simply grow weak. Next thing you know you have an ageless storybook character wandering around, not really knowing who they are, and generally causing problems.

But Percy didn't exhibit any of those characteristics. Sure he didn't know who he was, but he seemed like a pretty normal guy otherwise, and not at all like his mind had taken a long walk off of a short pier. Plus, I've never heard of a fairytale that matched his description.

The second: He was a Mundane that had been exposed to the Magical World in some way. That happens every now and then too, usually the barrier between the two worlds keeps the Mundanes from ever noticing anything out of the ordinary, but every now and then one of them has their eyes opened. Either forcefully or by pure accident, and their Mundane minds just can't handle the change and they shut down.

This didn't work for two big reasons. The first was the same as for the first theory, that Percy seemed like he was in pretty good control of his mental facilities. The second, was the bronze sword he pulled out of a pen from his pocket. Normally Mundane don't do that.

The third and final theory that I could cobble together was that this "Percy" was a liar. An enemy of some kind hoping to get inside The Huntsmen and destroy them. I have to say I didn't really like this theory. Percy seemed like a really good guy. A little clueless, but altogether a solid dude.

So if all three of my theories are out the window, then everything else might be as well.

That is to say.

I had no idea what this guy was.

So I did what I normally would do. I observed.

First I noticed the way he carried himself, a small slouch, but other than that he stood confidently, without knowing it as well. He was clearly well muscled. A streak of grey hair disrupted his otherwise black. That was perplexing.

He was handsome, that could easily be seen. Percy had a slight mediterranean look to him, like something from antiquated times.

I also observed Percy's twitchiness, he was never standing still or looking in one direction for long. Most of this could be attributed to ADHD, but I noticed other qualities that led me to believe there was more to it than that.

Percy never shoved his hands into his pockets, he either had never made frequent usage of a smartphone or simply didn't have one. This was a rare quality.

The twitches and lumpiness looked somewhat trained and honed. I believed that Percy's past wasn't very typical, he did fighting of some kind and was involved in more than one dangerous situation.

He also didn't have much of a reaction to the fact that Fairytales were real. He seemed more intrigued than shocked. Whether he knew it or not, Percy must've been around that type of block before.

Curious indeed.

Which finally brings me to the sword. It was a beautiful weapon, a work of art on all accounts. I've never seen a blade quite like it. There was a lot of material there as well. The blade was one handed, meant for use in lightly armored combat or with a shield. Or as a backup weapon, but it wasn't quite small enough to be a short sword. Furthermore the way Percy handled it, even as he was giving a few test swings told me that it was a weapon he was intrinsically familiar with. After that was the obvious magical nature of the weapon, what with it being a former pen and all.

Finally was the writing on the hilt. I say writing because I couldn't read it, it looked like it was a name of some kind, perhaps the name of the weapon. I did somewhat recognize the language, I saw similar markings on old pottery and college fraternity and sorority shirts.

Ancient Greek.

Very Curious.

I considered myself observant, a Huntsmen after all has to be. There were a lot of tricky characters in the world of magic. Years of training had refined my senses into that of an animals. It took me about thirty minutes to put together my case on Percy Jackson, based on nothing else besides his up front looks and his fidgets.

The way my father and the other members of the council are now studying them, it had taken them all of about five.

Seconds.

Merlin had that dangerous, curious glint in his eyes that was warning you to back up several feet from the splash zone yet also inviting you closer to see some really cool stuff.

Robin was admiring the sword that shown in Percy's hand, clearly very much impressed by it. Robin Hood only ever got so excited about a few things, and fine blades was one of them.

My father, I mean, Commander Grimm, was unreadable. But from the way his eyebrow ever so slightly inched its way up his face, I could tell that he was very much intrigued.

Which was never good for anybody.

He smiled.

This was never, ever, good for anybody.

"Well well Mr. Percy, looks like you've been holding out on us."

I had hunted witches, dragons, trolls, and even demons.

None of them were anywhere near as terrifying as Markov Grimm.

LINE BREAK

Toby was right, Markov sucked.

From the debriefing room I was whirled around the castle (I think they call it The Lodge?). Luckily I had managed to put away Riptide, turns out it's a matter of capping the blade. The pen now sat in my pocket, the presence was a comforting blanket in the whirlwind of activity.

Markov took me first for "threat assessment" as he called it. For what felt like ages I was stuck in a black square room sitting at a sparse table as Markov picked my brains apart and threatened me with all kinds of torture if I were a spy.

I had nothing to hide (I thought so at least) so I told him everything. About the flash of memory, the name of the sword, anything I could think of. Eventually it worked, and Commander Grimm, as he was apparently called, allowed Robin Hood to take me.

I liked Robin Hood, which didn't seem obvious at the time, but he was fun, jovial, and all in all relaxing. It was still annoying that he put me through a series of increasingly difficult physical tests.

Finally it came to the point where we tested my skill with various weapons.

The first thing Robin handed me was a bow. For about half of a millisecond I thought I could maybe hit the target.

Turns out the only thing I could hit with a bow was the ground.

Spears, axes, pole arms and clubs of all kinds I did decently with, but the weapons felt heavy and extremely cumbersome in my grip.

Finally we moved to swords. I was pretty sure that Robin had saved this step for last.

Instead of giving me a sword, he told me to simply use my own.

I uncapped Riptide for a second time that day.

After doing a few practice swings and checking my form, Robin Hood challenged me to a duel.

It caught me a little off guard.

"I'm sorry, I thought you said you were challenging me to a duel?" I asked, hoping against hope that I heard the Englishman wrong. The look on his face told me that no, I didn't hear him wrong, and that he was very excited.

"Think of it like a small sparring session!" Robin said to try and lift my spirits.

We made our way out to the middle of the arena.

I should've mentioned the arena.

I didn't have much time to really look at the rest of The Lodge as I was shuffled around. The hallways were more or less the same, but I did see some other people dressed in the same dark tunics. They would stop in conversation and whisper to each other whenever I passed.

The weird thing being that this entire scenario felt extremely familiar.

So anyway the arena.

The arena was very different from the rest of the building. Robin and I had entered from the bottom, and I looked up.

It was like about the size of a basketball court, with tiers of seats surrounding it. On the are a itself grew soft green grass. I don't know how all this grass was kept healthy without the sun or anything, but that was a question for another time.

So I found myself standing about twenty meters away from the one and only Robin Hood. He had found some time to change his clothes. No longer was he sporting the black tunic and wraps, now he wore a dark green tunic underneath a mottled green cloak. He wore tough grey traveling boots, simple pants that went along with the color scheme, and a green hat upon which sat a red feather.

I nervously gripped Riptide and I could feel sweat in my palms.

The duel went about as well as expected.

I was knocked onto my butt within seconds, Robin standing above me with his sword leveled against my throat.

"You're thinking too much." Was all he said.

I don't think I've ever gotten that type of criticism, but I realized he was right. I took my place again, and this time, I tried to let instinct guide me.

We circled each other warily, both holding our swords in a guard position. Robin seemed to be taking this one more seriously. His eyes narrow and laser focused, and I felt a bit like a deer in headlights.

He darted forward at a speed I thought not achievable by anything short of an unladen swallow (don't know where that came from). And even more amazingly, my blade met his.

In a smooth parry I had deflected his sword, which was aimed for my right side, and immediately pulled a slash for his center. Robin jumped back, letting the tip of my sword breeze just past him.

If he was surprised, I couldn't tell. Robin Hood was all business now. He came at me now in a flurry of movements, feinting left and striking from the right, jabs when I was off balance, quick swings when I tried to press and advantage.

I was holding my own however. I didn't fall for his feints, I managed to deflect or dodge anything that I couldn't outright avoid or duck under.

The duel continued at this pace for another minute or so, and I was starting to feel exhausted, while Robin looked like he might start breaking a sweat.

I was determined to beat him, or go down fighting. With my sword in my hand and blood pumping through my veins I felt more alive and focused than ever. I knew I wouldn't win the war of attrition, so Ihad to go on the offensive.

After dodging another wide arc, I seized my opportunity and rammed my shoulder into Robin Hood.

The impact surprised him more than anything, which gave me critical time to begin an offensive of my own. I made a backhanded slash, forcing Robin to hastily block it and prepare for another attack. Now he was on the back foot and I wasn't going to let up.

I jabbed forward, forcing him to sidestep, which allowed me to duck under his counterattack, I was about to slash again, and hopefully end the duel when I saw her.

Passing by the arena entrance, a girl with blonde hair and stormy grey eyes.

A new wave of memories crash over me.

A young girl, with hair curled like a princess standing over me. The same girl, older than me now, climbing a rock face. I see her shouldering a terrible burden, a streak of grey hair. I see a heroic decision, and I see a face underwater, shining beautifully in the moonlight.

I remember a name

Annabeth

The next thing I know, I'm lying on the ground and Robin is standing over me, worry in his eyes and a crease in his brow.

"You alright mate?" He simply asks.

I manage to nod my head, but this particular memory brings with it a wave of emotions, they run the gauntlet all the way from frustration and anger to joy and love.

Love?

Was I in love with her?

The girl at the doorway wasn't the girl in my memories, I guess the similarities triggered them. I looked over and the doorway was empty.

"Well I think that's enough. You're a pretty fine warrior Sir Percy." Robin's jolly tone returned and he helped me to my feet. I capped Riptide and put it in my pocket. Almost as if on a trigger a wave of exhaustion washed over me and I staggered on my feet. Robin moved quickly to help me stabilize and placed one of my arms over his shoulders.

I didn't see the broken shards of the practice sword that had shattered against my skin.

A/N: Seems like as good a place to end the chapter as any. I tried to do some more characterization this time, and include a little action (which there will soon be a lot more of). Next chapter we're going to meet some exciting characters, and maybe get started on a quest?