A/N: Long wait for a small chapter, but all I can say is that I'm lazy.
But ah, I'm glad some people liked the previous chapter. And yes, the line breaks are rather interesting.
Obviously if you've made it this far, then you must have taken a liking to the story. That's great! Hopefully you're not some stalker or something. But just in case you are, hello. Please don't kill me. Thanks.
I honestly have no idea what the heck the pairing will be or if there even will be one.
Imstead of deciding on that I'll just casually throw a cliffhanger in near the end of this chapter in preparation to introduce another member of the cast.
Obligatory disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the source text. I do own copies of the source text, but that's frankly unimportant.
My Normal Mythological Life - Part 9 (When all else fails, try dumplings)
Percy and Grover were in the cafeteria, rapidly approaching the end of the year at Yancy Academy. This also meant final exams, and Percy was having a rough time. Grover told him he would be fine if he continued his strategy for english tests.
Of course, the strategy was to select a random answer and hope it was correct. Unfortunately, this failed when faced with a test that wasn't multiple choice. Percy was destined to fail Latin and Pre-Algebra because of this.
For now, though, Percy and Grover were enjoying an absolutely lovely meal at the cafeteria.
The lunch ladies had pulled out all the stops to make these last few meals perfect. This meant dumplings.
It was surprisingly good for cafeteria food, and Grover was bleating to Percy about their recent English test.
"Percy, why did you have to say that?"
"G-man, he deserved it. Calling him an old sot is reasonable!"
"How?"
"All year he's asked me to read! In English class!"
"..."
"G-man, you know I have trouble with that."
Grover bleated unceremoniously as he scooped up a spoonful of rice. He was pretty sure that wasn't the correct way to eat it, but he didn't care as long as it made its way to his mouth. "I know, I know."
"Well, look who's here?" a familiarly unwelcome female voice chirped.
Percy and Grover groaned. It was Nancy, of course, with some of her goons.
"Hey, Nancy. What do you want?" Percy sighed and banged his head on the table.
"Well, I want a lot of things," she spoke, cocking a hip sideways and winking. Grover winced at Nancy's obvious attempt at being seductive.
Percy banged his head on the table. "Go away, Nancy."
Nancy pouted. "You can have my dumplings."
Grover's eyes widened. "Don't do it, Perce!"
Percy banged his head on the table. "I'm not falling for that."
Nancy glared. "Fine. We'll settle this with another round of Rock Paper Scissors!"
Percy banged his head on the table. "No, the cafeteria was serving rice and dumplings today, so we should play the chopsticks finger game instead."
Nancy frowned. "What?"
Percy stopped banging his head. "You know, chopsticks. The finger game."
Nancy frowned more. "No."
Percy shrugged. "Then no deal. Go away."
Nancy growled and lobbed a dumpling at Percy's face. He caught it, then tossed it back at her. "Try not to waste food," he casually remarked, turning back to his tray.
Nancy seethed, and ate the dumpling before storming up to him, grabbing his arm, and tugging on it forcefully.
Percy stood, turned around, then shoved Nancy, hard. She fell to the ground, rolled under a table, and found her face pressed against the floor.
She hurriedly got up and stormed off somewhere, face bright red.
"What a moron," Percy groaned as he went back to eating his dumplings.
The school intercom decided to publicly humiliate him at that moment. "Perseus Jackson, please report to the principle's office."
Grover snickered, but wore a worried expression.
Percy groaned and finished rest of his dumplings as fast as he could before standing. "Well, this is the end of the road for me," he sighed.
Grover paled at that, knowing that he was supposed to keep Percy out of trouble.
"Relax, G-man, I'm just messing with you."
Grvoer nodded slowly.
Percy chuckled and walked away, knowing full well he was about to be expelled which was fine by him.
Robot (The kind robots will be doing soon)
Hephaestus frowned. His had was hovering over the button to activate his new contraption, made in a few seconds.
The button flashed red and a keypad swiveled into view on the front of the robot. "Please enter your four digit PIN code."
Hephaestus frowned, keying in his personal code.
"Thank you for choosing Hephaestus robotics. For a standard cleaning of the floor, please press 1. To clean a specific portion of the floor, please press 2. To clean all walls, please press 3. To clean a specific wall, please press 4. To clean a specific portion of each wall, please press 5. To clean the ceiling, please press 6. To clean a specific part of the ceiling, please press 7. To clean-"
Hephaestus frowned, slamming his finger on the 1 key.
"Understood. For dust cleaning, please press 1. For dirt/mud cleaning, please press 2. For liquid spill cleaning, please press 3. For all purpose cleaning, please press 4-"
Hephaestus frowned, slamming his finger on the 4 key.
"Understood. Preparing to initiate an all purpose standard floor cleaning. This cleaning will cover the entire surface area of the floor, clearing dust, dirt, mud, and stray liquids. Is this okay? To proceed with cleaning, please press 1. To select different cleaning parameters, please press 2-"
Heohaestus frowned, slamming his finger on the 1 key.
"Understood. Initiating an all purpose standard floor clearing."
The robot began moving, before stopping with a jolt.
"Your session has expired. Thank you for choosing Hephaestus Robotics. Please enter your four digit PIN code."
Hephaestus frowned.
My Normal Mythological Life - Part 10 (Latin test)
Percy's next final was Latin, with Mr. Brunner who was actually Chiron. He knew he needed to study, but once again, he just couldn't read it. He could read Latin a little bit after visiting Camp Jupiter, but he couldn't read the English instructions telling him what to do.
He sighed, deciding to see what Grover and Chiron would talk about this time.
He crept down the ball, and sure enough, they were having a nice friendly chit chat. Percy listened in but was somewhat disappointed to finding that they were repeated themselves exactly, not missing a word. So Zeus and Poseidon were once again about to go to war against each other.
Percy could tell already, based on the weather alone, but this completely confirmed it. Obviously, he hadn't screwed up too badly yet. He made his way back to his room, determined to score at least a high C on his exam.
Percy sighed, and turned away from Grover when he came back in.
"Percy, it's nearly midnight, you'll be fine," Grover called.
"You're right..."
Percy finished his exam feeling confident. He managed to get through it all, and he was reasonably sure he was right considering he still sort of retained what Latin he had learned from his time at the roman camp.
Afterwords, Mr. Brunner pulled him aside.
"Perseus... I heard about you... being expelled from Yancy. It may be... for the best."
Percy frowned. Before, he had been angry, slightly. But now, he understood.
"Wait," Chiron backtracked. "It's just that, you're special, Percy-"
The rest of the class laughed at him from their seats. He was nearly the last done turning in his exam.
Percy nodded. "I think I understand, partially. Thank you, Mr. Brunner. I respect you a lot," he added. Maybe that was pushing it. He didn't know, but he hoped he wasn't screwing up the timeline.
Grover asked him how he did.
"Passable," Percy replied. "I think I might get a B."
Rock Paper Scissors (Nancy)
"You ready to be beaten?" Nancy challenged, shaking her fist.
Percy shrugged. "Round three it is, then."
"Shut up!"
Percy rolled his eyes. "Whatever, lets go."
"3... 2... 1... go!"
Percy grinned triumphantly. He had won with rock, while Nancy used scissors.
Nancy growled. "Best of three."
Percy nodded.
"3... 2... 1... go!"
Percy smirked. He was victorious once again. Nancy had played paper. Percy had scissors, winning two of the three games already.
"Best of five," Nancy narrowed her eyes.
Percy shrugged.
"3... 2... 1... go!"
Nancy's eyes widened. She'd won! Using scissors against Percy's paper, she sneered at the result. "Ha!"
"3... 2... 1... go!"
Percy shrugged. "Well, that's game." He'd won his third round out of five with the same outcome of the very first round.
"... best of seven."
Percy groaned. "Oh my gods, this is going to be my whole day, isn't it!"
My Normal Mythological Life - Part 11 (Bus, old ladies, and large socks)
Percy managed to get kicked out of the same school again, so he and Grover decided once again to take a bus back to Manhattan.
Except things were a little different. Grover immediately said "I'm coming to your apartment with you, and then we need to talk with your mom."
"Why? What are we going to talk about? That crazy demon lady who was our math teacher?" Percy said nonchalantly.
Grover stuttered and squeaked a bit, stomping his fake human feet nervously. "Erm..."
"Grover, it's alright if you don't want to explain everything, but I know something is up that you and Mr. Brunner and my mom have been keeping a secret from me."
Grover paused, trying to figure out how to respond to that. "Percy, that information is dangerous, I can't tell you right now. I promise your mom and I will explain, but for now you need to trust me, okay?"
Percy nodded. "I got it," he said as he handed some cash to the bus driver to pay for both their rides. Turning to look for open seats, he gasped. "G-man, the bus is empty!"
Grover's mood changed. "Uh oh."
Percy groaned internally. "What, are you worried we're going to encounter another wild math teacher?"
Grover stuttered, not moving. Percy, meanwhile, relaxed by lying down and resting across multiple seats at the same time. Inside his head, he was grumbling at how he'd changed the timeline again, but it hardly mattered since it didn't seem to alter too much.
Inside Grover's head, alarm bells were ringing loudly, screaming danger. Sure enough, the bus broke down. Percy didn't seem to care, seeing as he was still relaxing on his seats.
The driver groaned. "Sorry boys, but I need y'all to get off while I see if I can fix this blasted thing," he spoke with a gruff voice.
Percy grabbed Grover's arm and pulled him off the bus because Grover was still standing frozen.
Similarly to the previous timeline, Percy noticed the Fates working at their little stand. One was holding a basket with the balls of string, the next was in the process of knitting another sock, and the last was attacking a humongous pile of bloated clothing with a deadly pair of scissors.
The middle one picked a string from the bunch, then snipped it by stuffing it into the pile of her friend. She smiled and then the bus turned back on.
"Back on, boys!" the bus driver yelled at the top of his lungs, and Percy let put a small cheer.
Grover was still frozen, so Percy had to drag him back on.
"G-man! Snap out of it! Was that bad? Do I need to be worried about anything?" he asked, knowing full well that it could be interpreted as bad and something to worry about.
Grover bleated nervously. "That was very bad... they cut a string, probably yours..."
Percy pretended like he was figuring stuff out. "Sounds like they killed me or something. But I'm not dead! If cutting a string would kill me, then I'm not dead! I'm hoping that was my step-father's life string or something."
Grover cast him a sideways glance. "Perce, where'd you get the idea of life strings? And you're right, maybe you should've died then..."
Percy winced slightly. Maybe he'd said too much. Or maybe he felt bad about lying to Grover knowing that the Fates cutting a string predominantly predicted the future, not the present.
He still came up with an excuse about all the life string business he wasn't supposed to know about yet. "Er, mythology in Latin? Mr. Brunner kept saying about how all that stuff was important, so I guess I started to learn a lot of it," he fibbed easily, mainly because it wasn't a complete lie.
Grover seemed to buy it, and they spent the rest of the ride in silence occupying seats normally for a change.
Robot (...)
Hephaestus watched in disappointment as his robot failed to clean any part of the room.
"Your session has expired! Please enter your four digit PIN code."
"It took so long to finish programming the cleaning parameters..."
Hephaestus frowned.
My Normal Mythological Life - Part 12 (Smelly Gabe)
Grover really really had to go to the bathroom again, but this time Percy waited for him and they walked the rest of the way to Percy's apartment together after riding in the back of a taxi. Percy had decided not to ditch him this time, so hopefully his mom could drive them both to camp half-blood without the intervention of the Minotaur.
If there was one thing Percy did not want to see again since he'd traveled to the past, it was the Minotaur. He was even smellier than Smelly Gabe, and just as ugly and stupid. Percy did think that Gabe could play poker better than the beef-man, but that was only because said bull-man was basically blind. If only there was a monster repellent spray. An idea to pursue a later time.
They were trudging up the stairs talking, Grover trotting nervously while Percy walked with purpose.
"Are you excited to see your mom again?" Grover asked, trying and failing to bring down the tense atmosphere that had enveloped the two the moment they had begun their ascent of the stairs.
"She'll be at work," Percy replied somewhat stoically. Clearly, he wasn't looking forwards to seeing Smelly Gabe... again, given that he'd traveled back in time.
"Oh." Grover frowned, reading Percy's emotions through a limited filter.
"My step-dad will be home though. We need to make a beeline for the bedroom."
"Got it. But Percy, why is your step-dad-"
"Just be silent and hopefully he won't notice you. Walk to my bedroom without being seen, you can't miss it."
Grover nodded silently, understanding the gravity of the situation. Once Percy set his mind on something strange or weird, there was no stopping him.
Percy opened the door back to his good old apartment, calling out. "I'm home! And I didn't fail at school! I mean, I got expelled, but I have money for you, the change from the bus and taxi. Here, take it."
Percy managed to capture the attention of the three other poker players, who didn't have direct lines of sight to where Grover was sneaking by.
Gabe himself kept his back turned and extended a hand back over his shoulder for the money silently. Percy pressed half of it into his hand, and Gabe didn't bother counting as he was still focused mostly on his cards. In fact, he didn't really bother harassing Percy much at all, and both Grover and Percy made their way back into the bedroom safely.
Shutting and locking the door, Percy sighed with relief.
"That was kind of close. But we were successful."
Grover didn't answer, he was too busy frozen in shock.
Percy slowly turned around, and what he saw made his jaw drop. "What the ****?!"
A/N: Who - or what - has appeared in Percy's bedroom? How did they get in? What changes in the timeline could have caused this to happen? When will Percy's mother arrive? And will Smelly Gabe comment on the questionable word choice demonstrated by his step-son?
Find out in the next chapter, which has yet to be written as of the writing of the author's note.
At this point, I'm just trying to bolster the word count, so don't mind me.
Thanks for sticking around and reading this stuff. There's really no reason for you to. But it's nice to know at least a few people enjoy this somehow. ^-^
Review and tell me how I did. I order you to.