AN: Sorry for the late chapter, the real world's just hit me hard as of late. I had this conference for one of the clubs I do last to last week, and then I just had prom, so my plate was pretty full for that period of time. As of now, I just want to rush and get a chapter out there for the sake of moving the story along, so you can consider this a filler chapter, if you'd like. 'Till next time

Maroon

Destruction.

Destruction everywhere.

Fire rained from the skies, smashing into the ground with large and often times deafening explosions. Sounds of battle raged, metal on metal, metal on dirt, metal on skin…

Percy awoke to seeing this all unfold. Nearby, a horse was mercilessly picked off by a catapult, and was whisked away with an alarmed neigh. The ground next to him went up in a plume of smoke and flames.

Real Percy yelled in fright, and tried to turn away. Dream Percy just stood there, like it was any other normal day.

"They have Zoe!" Percy heard a voice call. He looked down, and found himself dressed in golden armor while carrying two swords. He felt the familiar thrum of power circulating in his veins.

Not this dream again. God, anything but this dream. Percy tried to wake up, but he couldn't.

"Hades," He heard himself swear, his voice feel and confident despite the seemingly terrible news he had just been given.. "Stand back and help Artemis."

His swords melted into one. Percy could hear his heart beating in his ears. "Rest easy, Zoe." He muttered to himself. "I am coming."

Percy ran fast, faster than he'd ever ran before. The world around him blurred as he shot down the battle ground. Percy always tried to slow himself down, trying to see if he could recognize anyone in the dream. He never did.

As he came to a stop, he saw a man dressed in black holding his sword up to a teenaged girl in silver. As always, the man wasn't really a man, per se. He was gargantuan; 10 feet tall, at least, and built like an Olympic wrestler. The girl, who Percy vaguely identified as Zoe, had tears running down her face.

"Well?" The man asked, obviously expecting a response.

"Put her down." Percy commanded. "We both know that you will not last a moment against me in battle."

"Ah, ah, ah, Perseus." The man teased, wagging his finger. "I am not fighting you right now, am I? I am fighting your daughter."

As if on cue, Zoe looked up. "You were the best father a girl could ever ask for. I love you." She said, like always. Percy saw the acceptance and warmth in her eyes. "When I reform, I expect a baby sister from you and Artemis."

"Zoe, do not speak like that." Percy echoed, and he felt himself tense up, ready to shoot forward again.

"The most sublime act is to set another before you," She said, and then smiled as if she and Percy had shared an inside joke.

The man in black sent him a wicked grin. He raised his sword, his inhuman grip denting the flimsy metal hilt. "You fail again, Perseus. You fail again."

He dove the sword into the girl's chest.

"Zoe!" Percy Jackson yelled as he shot straight up in his bed. Beads of sweat trailed down his forehead, and his chest was heaving as if he'd just ran a marathon.

"Yo, Perce, you okay?" A voice asked from the bunk underneath him.

"Yeah. Yeah Grover, I'm fine." Percy replied, taking in shaky breaths. He blinked away the tears that were threatening to fall. It all felt so real…

"Zoe again?" He asked knowingly. "It's just a dream, man."

Percy sighed softly as he leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. He tried remembering her face. He'd seen it so many times before, but it again eluded him.

Silver eyes, pale skin- No that was Artemis, another person from his dreams.

Gray eyes, tan skin- Athena.

Silver-ish eyes, tannish skin, black hair- Ah, Zoe.

"Who are you?" He whispered, sighing. He gently laid his head back down against his pillow and drifted off.

The next day, Percy and Grover were woken up by a rapping on their doors.

"Get up!" A shrill voice yelled from outside. "The bus leaves in 10 minutes."

"Yes, Ms. Dodds." They both said robotically, and began to get ready.

"Excited?" Grover asked Percy as he pulled on some pants.

"Oh, yeah." Percy replied. "Who wouldn't be excited to take a field trip to Manhattan with twenty eight mental case kids and two teachers to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of all places. I'm practically bursting with joy."

"Hey, hey." Grover defended. "I think that going to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff is a really cool field trip, and one that we should be happy to take."

"You're just saying that 'cause you have a man crush on Mr. Brunner." Percy joked, putting on his watch. He took a moment to glance at the engraving along the simple dial as Grover sputtered indignantly (I just like his style!).

With love, Mom

Percy had received this watch on his tenth birthday from his mother, Sally Jackson. Percy had no idea at all how she afforded it while working at a candy shop, because he knew all too well that most, if not all, of her money went straight to Smelly Gabe (his stepfather)'s poker games or his schooling.

"Yo, Perce." Grover said, snapping him out of his stupor. "Bus time."

"Alright," Percy said, following Grover out of his room.

"Ah, Mr. Underwood, Mr. Jackson, glad you could join us." They were greeted by a man outside of the bus. He was a middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which Percy noted always smelled at least faintly of coffee.

"Sorry, Mr. Brunner." Grover said, sucking up to him.

Percy went to say something, but suddenly found himself on a teetering boulder overlooking a giant drop.

He looked up, and saw Mr. Brunner, only he wasn't in a wheelchair. Actually, for a moment, he forgot he was even looking at Mr. Brunner. His bottom resembled that of a huge white stallion-all animalistic and muscly, with sinew under coarse white fur. But where its neck should be was the upper body of Mr. Brunner, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"We need not make haste," Brunner-Horse said, removing a bow from around its body. It drew the air, and fired.

A loud sizzling noise filled Percy's ears as the arrow left a trail of smoke in its wake. "Think you can follow that, Perseus?"

"Please, Chiron." Percy replied. "You taught me well." Percy felt his body shift in the direction of the arrow. He began to jump-

"Mr. Jackson." Mr. Brunner said, louder. "Seat 23. Are you feeling well?"

"Uh, yeah. Fine. Thanks, Chir-Mr. Brunner." Percy said, smoothly fixing his mistake.

Mr. Brunner looked surprised for a moment, but it was quickly gone. "Yes, of course, Mr. Jackson. After all, it's my duty to prepare you for what lies ahead."

Percy nodded, feeling like he'd heard those words before. He got on the bus and sat next to Grover, as per usual.

"What'd Brunner want?" Grover asked, leaning a bit to let the other kids past him. He adjusted his Rasta cap.

"Nothing." Percy said, which was pretty much true. It is my duty to prepare you for what lies ahead.

After taking a short nap, Percy was woken up by Grover shaking him.

"We're here."

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where they could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

"Hot dogs, get ya free hot dogs!" A man wearing a red apron was yelling with wieners in both his hands. Percy turned to face the oddity, as you'd be hard pressed to find anything for free in New York. "You know what that they say about wieners, the more the merrier!"

The man suddenly faced Perseus, shocking him slightly. He was in a crowd of maybe 100 kids, yet the wiener guy was definitely looking straight at him.

"It will happen tonight, Perseus." The man said, his red cap covering the majority of his face, besides his smirk. "It'll be good to have you back."

Percy somehow heard him from below the stairs, which in itself would be nothing short of a miracle- yet, Percy was on guard. While Percy was his preferred name, Perseus was his actual name. As it was, barely any people knew of this.

Especially not some random hot dog guy.

Percy craned his neck to see him again, but he was gone.

"Mr. Jackson." Mr. Brunner said, wheeling next to him. "Are you quite sure you're feeling alright?" Percy noticed that the rest of the kids had gone away, and he'd been standing alone for quite some time.

"Yeah, I just, I've been seeing weird things all day. I must've had a bad sleep."

"Yes, that is certainly very possible." Mr. Brunner agreed, stroking his beard a bit. His eyes looked at Percy curiously. "Say, Percy, we're having a quick snack on the fountains, if you'd like to join your classmates."

Percy caught the underlying message and nodded. "See ya, Mr. Brunner."

Mr. Brunner inclined his head. What Percy didn't notice as he walked away were the looks he and Mr. Brunner were getting- after all, they'd just had a conversation in perfect Ancient Greek.

After a small occurrence with the resident cheeto, as Grover called her, Percy made it into the museum. Little did he know, his day-and life- would take a steep turn from that point.

The museum tour was fairly plain; Mr. Brunner rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding the kids through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

Percy yawned as Mr. Brunner walked through the story of how the Olympians came to be. Asking to use the bathroom to spare himself the same long winded rendition he always got, Percy left the crowd.

BATHROOMS AHEAD, He saw a sign say and he followed it.

"Ah," A woman stopped him. "Bathrooms, huh? Might want to be careful, I heard there were some leaky pipes."

"Okay," Percy said weirdly. All kinds of strangers were talking to him today. She glanced down at him for a moment, and he was able to better see her gray eyes and tanned skin.

"Say, are you Athena?" Percy asked, squinting at her. She had the decency to blush.

The girl shook her head and raised a finger to his lips. "Names have power, Perseus. Be careful."

She vanished, and Percy rubbed his eyes warily. Was she ever there in the first place?

He nervously fiddled with his watch as he reached the bathrooms. An old janitor opened the bathroom door, pulling along his janitorial supplies with one hand and holding his mop with the other. "This bathroom here is damn near unusable, my boy. Maybe go use another?"

"Look man, I just wanted to miss my teacher's tirade about the Olympians." Percy admitted. He felt exposed to this man, like he could see right through any lies Perseus could tell. "I don't have to pee."

The man made a tsk noise before smiling kindly at Percy. He walked past him, and before turning the corner, whispered, "Don't forget the watch, Perseus."

Percy's head whipped back, but he too, disappeared. Only this time, Percy noticed some lingering black mist. It seemed familiar, but he couldn't place his finger on it.

People really didn't want him to use the bathroom, apparently.

As he opened the door with a creek, the smell of wet animals assaulted Percy's nose. He gagged for a moment, before pushing through completely and walking in.

He saw another boy that was about his age.

Brushing past him to use the urinal, Percy almost grimaced at how he smelled. It was like the wet animal smell, only magnified by a million.

As Percy, well, did his business, the other boy began to wash his hands. Percy didn't really see what happened exactly, but this boy must've been a freak or something, as the faucet he tried to turn snapped off. Water shot up from the faucet to the ceiling, dropping back to the ground.

If that wasn't bad enough, the pressure building from the broken faucet exploded all of the sinks in a row.

"What the fuck?" Percy cried, thankfully finishing his business as this happened. He faced the boy.

"Ah," The boy said, his guttural voice not at all matching his appearance. "My mistake, my lord." He said my lord with an iciness that caused Percy to blink.

"I'm sorry, what?"

The boy grinned, and his grin actually began to stretch the rest of his face apart.

"Hades," Percy instinctively swore.

"Nah, good guess though." The boy breathed, his body doubling, tripling in size to the point where his head was against the ceiling. In the blink of an eye, brown fur began sprouting out of odd places on his body, which was one rippling with muscles.

Crash! The wall was smashed as a huge, snaking tail rose out of the boy's back and whipped around.

The boy groaned, his teeth being sharpened to a point, and his eyes glowed red. His nose grew smaller and wider, like a cow.

Percy backed up the opposing wall, trembling. "Help!" He yelled. "Someone, help!"

"No help." The beast snorted, horns protruding from its head. "You and me, we're going to have some fun."