Overinquisitive Girl

Alrighty, since almost everyone wanted Touka, I shall give you Touka. On a side note, the Lightning Thief story arc takes place a year before Tokyo Ghoul's canon, so don't expect Kaneki to pop in anytime soon.

With that out of the way, I give you the next chapter in the saga of Green-Eyed Ghoul.

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Percy's eyes opened blearily. That was one weird dream. A horse fighting an eagle, some creepy voice telling him to 'come down' and calling him a 'hero.' Percy would openly admit to being many things, but hero was not one of them. He ate people, for God's sake. He ruined families by consuming fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Sure he knew he couldn't help it, sure his Ghoul-ology gave him the benefit of not caring about who he killed (on some level), but he still destroyed the livelihoods of many people.

That was why Anteiku made it a point to collect bodies from the suicide spot. Less guilt.

His mind functioning more properly now, Percy began to think about what had happened, and what this day was going to be like. He had revealed his kagune and his kakugan, not like any person here knew what those were, unless they somehow had access to Japanese media that wasn't censored. The campers would either clap him on the back and thank him for saving them all from the monsters, or they would all scramble away at the mere sight of him.

Probably the latter.

Percy was also now the head councilor of Cabin 3. That meant he could wake up and go to sleep whenever he wished, he could pick his own activities for the week unopposed, sit at his own table, and being councilor gave him a small bit of political power.

Good. It'll make getting this damn quest started and over with that much easier.

The familiar scent of Annabeth Chase entered Percy's nose, and the son of Poseidon wondered why she was about to knock on his door. BANG BANG BANG. Whoops, did he say knock? He meant vigorously bang. When the Ghoul didn't immediately get up to open the door, Annabeth began to bang faster and harder…that sounds wrong.

Percy made an annoyed sound, before dragging himself out of his tangled mess of a blanket, the warm material unintentionally wrapping around him like a prom dress. He opened the door, his eyes half-lidded. "Can I help you with something?"

Annabeth raised a brow, "No, but I know some guys looking for a prom date." Percy didn't laugh. "Right, Chiron wants to see you at the Big House, like, right now."

"Uh-huh." Percy slammed the door in the girl's face, making her growl.

The Ghoul untangled himself and quickly threw on some clothes that were laying on top in the bag. Black capris, black shoes, an orange camp t-shirt for the hell of it, and a black hoodie. Huh, this was his hunting outfit. Did Touka pack it on top for a reason, or was it just happenstance?

Percy didn't dwell on it too long. He opened the cabin door just in time for Annabeth's raised fist, intended for door-banging, to slam down upon his nose. Annabeth recoiled, holding her throbbing hand, and Percy blew air out his nostrils, trying to ignore the burning/inflamed sensation of whenever your nose gets hit. That was always an unpleasant feeling.

"Gods, what is wrong with your skin!? That felt like I just punched a brick wall!" Annabeth gasped out.

Percy's eye twitched, his regeneration finally getting his nose back together. "Maybe if you had some damn patience instead of banging on my cabin door, you wouldn't be having that problem, now would you?"

"And maybe if you didn't take so long to put some clothes on, I wouldn't have to keep banging on your cabin door, now would I?"

"Maybe if you got the hell out of my way, we could get to Chiron a bit faster, now wouldn't we?"

Percy didn't give the annoying girl time to respond as he brushed past her, and made a beeline from his cabin to the Big House. Annabeth caught up with a scowl on her face, "You didn't answer my question. Why is your skin so hard? Come to think of it, what happened to your eyes? Why are you so fast? Why are you so strong? What were those tentacles that came out of your back?"

"None of your business. Bye." Percy poured on the speed and tore away from the daughter of Athena, appearing on the Big House porch.

Annabeth's jaw dropped, before her face morphed into a deep scowl. That boy…no, that thing. There was no way Perseus Jackson was human, even by demigod standards. Those black eyes with the veins, those tentacles, how he massacred an army of monsters that had been too much for Thalia. Annabeth would get to the bottom of this, one way or the other.

There was no way a monster like that was here to save the world.

Percy happened upon a game of pinochle, Chiron winning, Dionysus drinking Diet Coke, and a couple of invisible opponents making it appear that cards were just floating in the air.

"Well, well, if it isn't our little Ghoul," Dionysus drawled. "Don't be so surprised, brat. You're little display last night has got Olympus in a frenzy, and Athena made it her personal mission to find out everything about you and your…species. If I had my way, I'd make all of your molecules erupt into flames, but Chiron seems to feel that this would be against my mission at this camp: keeping little brats like you safe from harm."

"Spontaneous combustion is a form a harm, Mr. D."

"Nonsense, Chiron; boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've decided to turn you into a dolphin and send you back to your father."

"Try it, and we'll see how good the gods are at fighting."

Dionysus took a swig from his Coke. "Oh-ho-ho. Quite the set you have there, boy. Maybe I should rearrange your genetic code a little, mix and match your penis with a vagina, create a new gender, and then curse you to be forever chased by some horny creature."

Thunder boomed as lighting lit up the early morning sky.

"Oh, come now. I was only joking. Anyways, I'm off for an emergency meeting with my esteemed family, and there's another route you can take boy, but it's deadly foolish." Dionysus stood, and floating cards collapsed to the table. "If you're still here when I get back, Perry, I'll turn you into an Atlantic bottlenose."

Threat delivered, the God of Madness became transparent before fading away altogether, teleporting his essence to Olympus.

Chiron sighed, "Please, have a seat."

Percy sat down.

"May I inquire as to where Annabeth is?"

"She got annoying, asking a bunch of questions, so I left her behind."

"Ah, I see. You must forgive her curiosity. As far as children of Athena go, she is one of the more suspicious, and vocal of her opinions. I have no doubt she'll pester you until you answer her questions, and the longer you rightfully keep your secrets, the more hostile she'll become. She may do something rash, and all I ask is that you be patient with her."

"Right, when she learns how to ask nicely instead of demanding, I might talk to her. Until then, she's just going to have to learn how to shut up. Anyway, she said you wanted to see me?"

Chiron nodded. "I trust you know what all of this commotion has been about?"

"Zeus' magic firecracker was stolen and he blames me for it, even though I've been living in Tokyo my entire life and have never had any interaction with any divine entity or creature since I was four and a hellhound tried to eat me? Yeah, I know what all of this commotion is about."

Chiron blinked. "When you put it that way, it does make sense that you're not the thief."

"Uh-huh. Let's fix this problem right now, shall we?" Percy leaned back in his chair, so that his head peeked out from beneath the deck roof. The sky looked remarkably dark. "I swear on the River Styx that I didn't steal the Master Bolt."

Thunder boomed, signifying the sealing of the oath. The Kraken remained perfectly unharmed.

He let his chair fall back into place, and smirked at the complete and utter look of loss on Chiron's face. A question now hung in the air: what now? Percy had just proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that he wasn't the Lightning Thief, and the centaur was pretty sure that every Olympian had been watching him make the oath.

Just then, there was a pop, and a letter fell onto the table.

Chiron picked it up, sniffed it cautiously, ran his finger along the seal, pulled out the paper inside, skimmed over it, rubbed his forehead with a tired look on his face, before he handed the letter to Percy. It read:

Don't care if you're not the Thief. Bring me my bolt, or I'm starting World War 3.

-Zeus, Lord of the Sky, King of Olympus, God of Honor, Justice, Rain, and Lightning, Imprisoner of Typhon, Husband of Hera, Father of (a whole lot of people), and Rhea's Favorite Son

Percy looked back up at Chiron, "Is he being serious?"

"Yes, yes he is. I trust that you've accepted your quest, but in order to officially start it, you must consult the Oracle in the attic."

"Sweet. Bye." Percy was gone in a blur, and Chiron jumped when the door to the Big House was busted down. "Sorry!" The centaur sighed and rubbed his temples. Out of all the heroes he had trained, none of them were this rambunctious, not even Heracles was this much of a handful. It was almost like that child lived on caffeine…

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The attic was full of a bunch of attic-y stuff. Souvenirs, stuffed heads, trinkets, knickknacks, jars of pickled monster organs, and a mummy dressed like she was from the era of hippies.

Percy approached what he assumed was the Oracle, and asked, "Where the hell is the Master Bolt?"

The mummy's eyes glowed green, and green mist poured out of its shriveled mouth. The mist swirled around the attic, obscuring everything in sight. When the mist cleared, Percy was standing in Anteiku, but he could tell that it wasn't the Anteiku.

He couldn't smell any coffee.

Yoshimura and Uncle Enji were cleaning glasses, while Aunt Kaya and Sally were wiping down tables. Percy's heart ached at seeing his family, and knowing that it wasn't his actual family. But, where was Touka?

Suddenly, everyone's eyes started to glow pure green.

"You shall go west, and face the god who has turned," Yoshimura rasped in a feminine, snake-like voice.

"You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned," Enji said in the same way.

"The third member, to be found on the hill," Kaya rasped.

"A choice to make, to spare or to kill," Sally finished.

The everything exploded back into green mist, which was quickly sucked back into the Oracle. Percy blinked. That was…a remarkably easygoing-sounding prophecy. Where was he going? To the west. Would he succeed? Apparently so. Who were the members of the quest? Himself, probably Annabeth—her brain had to be good for something—and the third person was going to be on a hill. And he was going to have the choice of killing someone of letting them live.

Percy didn't dwell on that last line for too long; if there was one thing about Greek myths that the Kraken knew for sure, it was that everything always worked itself out in the end.

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"What did the Oracle say, Percy?" Chiron asked. The Ghoul shrugged and recited the lines that had been told to him. When he finished, the centaur looked equal parts relieved and worried. "It's good that you will succeed, and the third member of the quest will be decided on its own, but the god who has turned, and the choice of either taking a life, or not…that is what worries me."

"Any ideas on who the god who has turned might be?"

"Come now, my boy, surely you can tell me that."

Percy rolled his eyes, "Hades. God of the Underworld."

The centaur nodded, "Yes, and, following the tradition of things moving west, the entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles, California."

"Thanks, but I've heard that LA is a really big place, so could you be a little more specific?"

"DOA Recording Studios." What? This was a matter of war, and saving the lives of billions. This was not the time to play teacher, or be as vague as possible in the hopes that Percy would find the answers for himself. For the sake of civilization, Chiron was more than happy to give directions to the Underworld.

"Great. So we go west to Los Angeles, find the Underworld entrance, confront my uncle, get the bolt back, and make it to Olympus just in time to prevent global war? Sounds like a plan."

"Indeed. Who will your first companion be, seeing as the third will be found 'on the hill'?"

Percy's kagune flicked out, and knocked the magic hat off of Annabeth's head, revealing the surprised daughter of Athena. "How did you-?"

"I could smell you, smart one. Your hat might make you invisible, but it doesn't hide your scent."

Annabeth's grey eyes narrowed, "Yeah? And what kind of half-blood can smell another? That's something only monsters can do."

Percy shrugged. "Well, smelling someone who has never heard of a shower, nor can wipe their butt properly, isn't very difficult." Annabeth's cheeks flushed at the jab to her hygiene. She didn't have time to take a shower last night, but she was about to this morning, and she was a girl.

Girls don't poop.

"Do you want to join me on this quest or not?"

"Of course I'm joining you on this quest. I don't trust you not to do anything stupid when you get the Bolt, so I'll be making sure you don't try to take over the world, freak," Annabeth said with absolutely zero regard for comradery.

Percy sighed, suddenly looking more like an old man than a child. So, even among demigods Ghouls were considered untrustworthy monsters. It was times like this where the Kraken could understand why Ayato hated humans. The struggle of trying to fit in, and become something they're not, just for people to still spit at them, and call them names. It was such an unrewarding lifestyle, most of the time.

As Chiron berated Annabeth, a very familiar scent hit Percy's nose like a freight train. It couldn't be, she was supposed to be in Japan, and she didn't just faze into his olfactory range, she just popped right in. But there was no mistaking that scent.

Percy's face lit up in absolute joy, and the other two in the room blinked at the sudden change in the boy's downtrodden demeanor. Without a word, Percy streaked out the Big House, easily ignored the light rain, and barreled straight up the hill.

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Meanwhile, in the Land of the Rising Sun

Touka, still asleep because her shift didn't start for another two hours, was suddenly pulled into a dream. The Rabbit found herself in a black void, with mist covering the floor. She raised a brow, wondering what the fuck was going on, when she heard a triple-layered cough from behind her.

Touka leapt forward and spun in midair, releasing her kagune, firing a torrent of spikes at the sound.

The cough came from three old ladies, knitting a really big pair of socks. Touka's spikes flew straight through them as if they weren't even there. Trippy.

"Do you want to help Percy, child?" One of them asked.

Touka blinked, surprised by the question coming from a complete stranger that somehow knew about her little brother. Regardless, her answer was as positive as you would expect. "Fuck yeah I do! What the hell kind of question is that anyway? Why would I not want to help my little bro, when he's off God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what, with God-knows-who?"

The old ladies grinned, "Excellent."

The mist surged up and blinded the Ghoul, but her senses went haywire because she noticed some distinct differences. One, she couldn't smell coffee. Two, her nose was filled with the scent of grass, dirt, trees, and rain. Three, she was somehow wearing her casual clothes. And four, Percy was sprintingrightather-!

"TOUKA!"

"Oh sh-oof!"

A black missile slammed into the Ghoul with all the force of a destroyer battery. Touka cracked the ground where she impacted, and she put on a strained smile at seeing her little brother again. The brat was grinning broadly at her, his smile so wide it forced his eyes shut. His arms and legs had wrapped around her like a boa constrictor, and that was why her smile was strained.

Touka was pretty sure the spider-monkey clinging to her was about to crush her spine. She activated her kakugan, causing her RC cells to become active in her body. There, now the pressure was barely noticeable. She sat up, Percy still clinging tightly to her, before standing on her feet. Little brat was still squeezing.

Touka rubbed her brother's hair. "I guess you didn't miss me at all then, huh?"

Percy just lightly nipped at his sister's neck, and she nipped him back. It was their special way of saying hi to each other. Not nearly hard enough to break skin, but just enough to feel it. Percy squeezed just a little tighter, before dropping back to the ground, a smaller smile on his face.

"You're just in time. We're about to start the quest for the Master Bolt."

"The what?"

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Touka stared at Annabeth.

Annabeth stared at Touka.

Percy felt like a cat fight between a saber-toothed tiger and a kitten was going to break out.

Chiron was mentally writing an obituary for his favorite student.

"So you're a Ghoul, like Percy?"

"Yeah. Got a problem with that?"

"Yes. I don't trust you not to eat me in my sleep."

"Psh, why would I bother trying to digest your little ass? You don't even smell good; you smell like musty old books and owl shit."

"Grrrrr…well, you smell like rotten monster!"

"You are what you eat, human."

"I'm not human, I'm a demigod."

"Right, because demigods have such a positive history of not tricking and betraying others for their own benefit."

"Hey-!"

"If you two are finished," Chiron cut in sharply, "there's an all-powerful weapon that's been stolen, and war on the horizon that can only be prevented by you three. Yes, Ms. Kirishima has to come, it was foretold in the prophecy. No, Annabeth, you don't have to go; it's up to Percy since he's the leader."

"That big brain of hers has to be useful, right? Besides, you wanted to go on this quest."

"Not on a quest with a bunch of monsters!"

Chiron sighed, Percy frowned, and Touka's hand slammed down on top of the shorter girl's head with enough force that Annabeth accidentally bit her tongue. "After I'm done with you, you're going to have to pick which asshole you want to shit out of, princess."

The daughter of Athena whipped her dagger from her shirt-sleeve, but Touka had already leapt back. Before Annabeth could reset, she took a light kick to the gut, and she slammed into the wall behind her. She struggled to raise back up, desperately keeping calm as her mind and body registered the sudden lack of breathing ability as her diaphragm was locked in place. What she saw almost made her pee herself.

Touka was stalking forward, kakugan blazing. Her eye was red, as opposed to Percy's green. Were every Ghoul's eyes a different color? Behind Touka, a raging inferno of blood began to spread out, taking the form of a writhing, fluctuating wing.

"So," the Ghoul started. "You know what it feels like to have shit slide out of your ass, right? Of course you do, you're human. See, we Ghouls have a slow metabolism; we can eat about once a month before becoming hungry again, and we mostly burn everything we put in our bodies. Because of that, we might only have to shit about once every six months, maybe even longer, but I'm getting off topic here." A stream of electricity traveled up the wing, turning it into a crystalized death-herald. "I'm going to introduce you to what it feels like to have something slide up your ass, princess, so prepare your anus."

Annabeth sat frozen, her body paralyzed with a primal fear she hadn't felt since her first encounter with a cyclops. The crystal wing raised, and the demigod screamed as she braced for impact. It never came. A grey eye cracked open, to see a red point probably an inch away from it. Annabeth opened both of her eyes, and saw that only reason she was still alive was because Percy had buried his head in Touka's side, his arms wrapped tightly around the Ghoul's midsection.

"Please don't kill her, Touka," Percy mumbled quietly. "She just doesn't know enough about us yet. We can show her we're not monsters, just let her come with us, please?"

Touka valiantly tried not to look down, but a quick glance down-just a glance-was enough to shatter her refusal. How could she possibly say no to her brother's puppy-dog eyes? God, she swore that she had a little sister more times than a brother; there was no way a boy could pull-off looking so damn cute by making his eyes big and watery.

The Rabbit sighed and let her kagune revert to its maneuverable form before drawing it back into her upper shoulders. Her kakugan deactivated, and she glowered down at the trembling Annabeth. "You're lucky my little bro has more of heart than I do, bitch. If he wasn't here, I'd be sampling your entrails right now."

Chiron coughed, having no idea how to handle this situation so he just let it play out (it was rather heartwarming to see such a strong sibling bond), but now it was time to get back to business…and probably get a new set of close for Annabeth.

"Now that we've all calmed down; I believe we can begin packing for the quest."

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And now we have all the pieces in place for the beginning of the quest. Percy cleared his name in the most logical fashion possible, Touka was brought in due to the power of divine intervention, and Annabeth's going to be picking her words very carefully from now on.

Nothing like a little near-death experience to keep the troops in line, eh?

Sorry for the shorter-than-usual chapters, but I'm just covering everything I want to for a specific chapter, so deal with it. You can also deal with some much less drama-infused canon, but you can really expect that just about every single one of my stories, now can't y'all? Gotta love OP/Strong Percys, amiright?

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