Well, I hope everyone likes this chapter! I know I enjoyed writing it! If you have ANY corrections I need to make, please tell me because I only proofread this once instead of my normal three times before posting it.

Disclaimer: As usual, if you saw it in PJO or HoO, it's not mine.

Chapter Seven: Percy

Percy's day was going horribly. First, he woke up to find his outfit. That was enough to put him a bad mood. Percy spent a good half an hour searching around his room before coming to the conclusion that unless he wanted to go to school in his pajamas, he would have to change into the outfit Aphrodite has prepared for him. At first, he actually did try to go in his pajamas. He grabbed his backpack and headed to the kitchen for breakfast, only to find himself fully clothed in ripped and faded black jeans that were way tighter than he would have ever wanted to wear. He was also wearing a t shirt and an unzipped leather jacket. To top it all off, he found himself in black sneakers- possibly the only thing in his entire outfit he would have considered wearing in public. Percy sighed and went to check his room again just in case there was any chance more, better clothes had appeared. Unfortunately, the mannequin remained empty.

As he grudgingly walked back towards the kitchen, he checked his watch to see it was already time for him and Annabeth to leave for school. He'd found a note the last night on his nightstand explaining that he'd be driving the two of them to school and that Hephaestus had already supplied them with a car. He checked his watch to see if it was time to leave yet. It was. He wasn't even going to get to eat breakfast. And he was really in the mood for some blue waffles.

Percy rolled his eyes up to the sky and mumbled, "Why me Aphrodite?" before he went to wait for Annabeth.

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And now he was headed into Goode at last. His friends probably thought he was insane. His girlfriend had a stab wound that he could tell hurt a lot more than she was letting on.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" he asked her yet again.

"Percy I'm fine! It didn't hurt that much. Would you stop worrying?!" she snapped back, practically yelling. Percy blinked at her before shrugging and turning to walk to his first class, which was math. He didn't trust himself to say anything else to her, afraid he would offend her again, somehow.

Percy barely paid any attention to his math teacher. She was a nice lady with a cheerful smile but Percy just couldn't keep his mind on quadratics when he was already focused on Annabeth. What worried him wasn't the lashing out at him, although that did hurt. What worried him was the way she had acted while fighting Kelli. She'd decided to tell the mortals. Right there and then. It was a rash decision. And Annabeth never made rash decisions.

Percy was so occupied with his thoughts that he didn't notice when the bell rang. And he also, unfortunately, didn't notice when a girl sauntered up to him, batting her very fake looking eyelashes.

"Hi," she said breathlessly, taking in Percy. She was wearing a skirt that he was almost certain didn't pass dress code and an off-the-shoulder top. She had straight black hair and even Percy could see that she had way too much makeup on. And makeup was definitely not Percy's department of expertise.

"Um, hi," he responded awkwardly. Percy knew that he was supposed to be making friends, but every instinct he had was telling him to run from this girl right then and there. Percy never before had had problems with the kinds of girls that this one was. They usually ignored him and decided to seek out guys that looked more like…well, exactly what Percy looked like at that day. She twirled her hair around her manicured fingernail and advanced on him. He looked around for an escape route and noticed that nobody was in the hallway. Percy cursed mentally.

"I've…um…swim team," he said before slipping past the girl and heading as quickly as he possibly could towards the boy's locker room. He pulled on his swim suit as quickly as he could and leaving his t shirt on, headed towards the pool door. The swim coach was a burly man who immediately looked up when Percy walked in. He blew his whistle and the swimmers slowed to a stop, looking up curiously at their new arrival. The man didn't bother to get up from his chair beside the pool. He made a tsk tsk sound that was a lot more intimidating than Percy would have thought.

"What do we have here?" he said.

"Hey, it's that stunt kid!" somebody offered, making Percy cringe at his experience earlier that morning.

"What's your name, kid?" the man asked gruffly.

"Percy, sir."

"Percy, eh?" The man said his name as though he were weighing it, trying it on for size, "Well, Percy, you must be the latest addition to my team. Now, normally I would throw you out right now for getting here late. But, I heard you were really fast. So how about this. Let's race you instead. And if you're good enough, I'll be real nice and not kick you off the team."

"Okay," he responded warily. He had a feeling of what was going to happen next. And he didn't like it one bit. Percy was absolutely confident that he could beat anyone on the team. Powers or not, he was a really good swimmer. The problem came with what he had to do to get in the water. How would the coach react…

"Pull off your shirt and get in the empty lane!" the coach barked. Percy shifted uncomfortably. "What are you hesitating for? You're wasting precious time here!" Percy sighed. There really was no way out of taking off his shirt. So he pulled it over his head, revealing his scars. He had plenty of them from over the years. The sword slashes from his quests with Camp Half Blood that hadn't quite healed. The stab wounds and cuts he'd gotten from his quest to unleash Thatnos. The slightly more recent scars from his journeys with the seven on the Argo 2 and battle with the giants. And then of course, there were the ones that came from Tartarus. Those would never fully heal. He'd met so many demons, faced so many challenges, and the scars were like a reminder of what he and Annabeth had had to go through. His mind was in about the same condition as his body was after surviving the pit of hell: horribly scarred yes, but stronger all the same.

Percy heard a bunch of the swimmers gasp simultaneously but he figured that they were going to discover it at some point. He hopped in the pool and willed himself to become wet, just like a regular mortal.

"READY! SET! GO!" the coach shouted. Percy kicked off the side of the pool and immediately took the lead. He swam, lapping the others with ease until the coach blew his whistle and declared that practice was over. Percy heard the coach say something but he was no longer listening. At the bottom of the deep end of the pool there was a Naiad. He swam towards it.

"Hello!" the spirit said merrily, before her expression soured, "I'm afraid I'm not here to watch you swim, although you are absolutely lovely when you do!"

"Thanks," he replied. How strange, that he felt so at ease with this spirit and so awkward in the world of mortals.

"Come," she said with a great sadness in her voice, "your father wants to see you, Percy." She led him through some sort of water portal, and he was suddenly standing in his father's kingdom, next to a bed of soft seaweed and reeds. Beautiful water spirits, fish, and other various sea creatures were all rushing to and from. Percy leaned over the side of the green cocoon, and his breath caught. In it lay an old man. He had very pale, wrinkled skin and long white hair. His almost white skin appeared as though it was stretched tight over his bones, and his eyes were sunken holes. He radiated a godly aura, one that flicked, was very weak. This was a god Percy had certainly never met before. He searched around for the water spirit that had brought him, but he couldn't see her anywhere. He clenched his teeth and leaned over the edge of the man's deathbed, for he was indeed dying.

"Excuse me sir," Percy said, "but would you happen to know where I can find Poseidon?" The man chuckled and Percy stumbled backward. He knew that laugh. The dying man was Poseidon. The dying man was his father.

"Percy, don't be afraid of this," Poseidon said, not unkindly. "My creatures give me strength. I know what you're thinking, but I am not yet on the verge of fading. The sea is polluted. It's not long before I do fade. But right now? I'm still in existence. Weak, but existing." Percy could only stare at this man that was his father, dumbfounded. He remembered Poseidon had once told Percy that his physical appearance represented the kingdom. The kingdom must be doing very badly.

Finally, Percy managed to croak out, "How long?"

"You have but weeks to complete this quest. Or I may fade away forever. The gods are not strong, Percy. Pan was like the first domino in a long stack. We're going to have to move the other dominos out of the way before the first can knock them over. Or I could very well be the second to fall."