A/N: I struggled a lot with how to have young Percy handle having all those dreams be shunted into his head, but I think I found a way I'll be happy with. Also a big shout out to FFN for logging me out while I was doing a final once-over of this chapter to fine-tune it. Lost all of the changes, so forgive me if I missed a few on the second pass.

Disclaimer: Rick Riordan owns everything except the idea and execution for this fic, including various lines from the actual books that, due to the nature of this fic, had to be used.

Chapter 1: I Dream about my Math Teacher, Apparently

"Night, Percy."

"G'night, Grover."

I laid down in bed and tried to get some sleep. Tomorrow was the field trip to Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I wanted to at least try to be rested for it. I figured I wouldn't get much sleep, but the second my head hit the pillow, I was out.

"Good luck, Perseus Jackson, and let us hope you are able to make use of this gift."

It sounded like someone was speaking right above me, and I would have jumped out of my skin had I been in control of my body, but for some reason I couldn't move. Suddenly, my head exploded. I'm sure Grover could see my body spasming, and if he couldn't, he'd certainly be able to hear me screaming.

It was like flipping through an encyclopedia-sized picture book on fast forward. There were countless bizarre images going through my head at a million mile per hour, but none of them were fading after they appeared, as though they were each finding a part of my brain and sticking to it, determined not to be forgotten. Eventually the mental overload got to me and I blacked out.

When I eventually came to, I sat up and looked at my alarm clock. 3:23 a.m. I still had a few hours before I needed to be awake and I felt like I had been run over by a truck, but I don't think I would have been able to fall asleep again if I tried. I looked over at Grover, sound asleep and snoring, and considered waking him up to ask if he saw me freaking out when we went to bed, but when I thought back to the event I was glad I was still sitting in bed; the vertigo would have knocked me off my feet had I been standing.

I couldn't tell what part of my memory was real, it was too jumbled up. If I focused, it split into two sets of memories, one where I was here in my dorm with Grover getting ready for bed, and another where I was in some sort of prairie house like I saw on some of the older movies my mom and I used to watch. I knew the memories of my dorm were real because I was still here, but I could clearly remember being in that other house, talking to… someone. The guy must have been in a costume or something because he had big white wings and a cream-colored tunic with a belt at the waist – I think Mr. Brunner called it a chiton? But that was all I could remember; it was like a snapshot with a vague sense of context. I think he was asking me to help him with something, but I couldn't remember what.

As I tried to follow the memory backward, the vertigo got worse. There were my proper memories, boring school classes, expulsions, Smelly Gabe, mom, all where they should be, but interspersed with them were these weird fuzzy snapshots of things I didn't really understand: a big flying boat, what I can only describe as a nightmare too horrible to dwell on, a weird Roman-style boarding school, a really big wolf, another boarding school that seemed more like a campground than a school, a tall blond guy lying dead on the ground, a war in the streets of Manhattan, an impossibly old man on a bed surrounded by exotic animals, sitting at a table with a pretty girl on the beach, a massive robot warrior, a giant one-eyed monster surrounded by really big sheep, and a wrinkly, hag-like monster with wings that seemed oddly familiar. There were some others, but it was like chasing the edge of a dream, and the pounding headache wasn't helping.

And there beside me through all these weird memories was a different pretty girl with blonde, curly hair and storm-grey eyes. And for most of them, Grover was there beside me, too, but he seemed different. I tried to focus on the weirder memory of him to figure out what was different and sat up in shock when I realized it was because he had goat legs.

That, more than anything, convinced me that I just had a really intense, weird dream. Stuff like that happens sometimes, right? Like a nightmare that stayed in your head long after you woke up. Maybe I hit my head on the headboard when I laid down? That would explain why I fell asleep so fast. But my head's not sore and that wouldn't explain that voice I heard.

I looked back over at the clock. 4:47 a.m. I had been awake for an hour and half thinking on this stuff, I still felt tired, and I still had to go on the field trip tomorrow. Wait, today. I decided to try and get some rest and maybe talk to Grover about it in the morning if those weird memory-dream things stick around.

When I woke up, I took a second to check if those dreams had persisted in my head. Unfortunately, they had, and I stayed on the image of that nightmare place a bit too long. I opened my eyes and felt myself breathing harder, and I felt sweaty. I glanced over and saw Grover looking at me with genuine concern and a bit of panic. I guess he saw me shivering.

"Sorry. Just… had a bad dream. Freaked me out a bit. I'm fine, Grover, don't worry about it."

He tried to hide it, but when I said I had a bad dream he froze up and his eyes widened a little. Grover's always been just a bit too honest about his emotions.

His shoulders eased down a little and he said, "Are you sure, Percy? You didn't see anything… strange?"

This time it was my turn to freeze up. I tried my best to deflect. "Aren't most nightmares strange?"

Grover seemed to relax at that. "Just… making sure, man. Um… could you, uh, promise me that if you have any really weird dreams again, you'll tell me about them? It's better to share those kinds of things, helps relieve stress and stuff."

He seemed kind of timid toward the end, but I promised to tell him if my dreams got too weird. In fact, I think I will share these dreams with him, just not right now. I need some time to sort out my own head before I get his involved.

I was still thinking about my weird dream when Grover and I sat down on the bus. I didn't even notice Nancy Bobofit, our evil math teacher Mrs. Dodds' golden child, sit in the row behind us until Grover jolted forward in surprise, only to find a chunk of peanut butter and ketchup sandwich in his hair.

"Of course, she had to sit there," I groaned. Grover looked over at me.

"It's fine, man. I like peanut butter." He tried for a smile, but I could tell she was getting to him. He glanced at her and dodged to the side, avoiding another chunk that would have been a pain to clean out. It stuck to the seat in front of us instead.

He looked over at me again, this time his eyebrows were furrowed a bit. "You seem… off, Percy. Is it, um, your nightmare?" He kept his voice gentle, but there was a persistence there that was kind of unnerving.

"Um, yeah. It's just… distracting. Weird. Hey, Grover, when we get back, do you mind if I talk about it with you? You, uh, showed up a lot in it, actually. I thought about what you said earlier, and I think you were right about talking about it."

His face seemed somewhere between genuine concern and total fear, but I couldn't figure out why. It was just a weird, jumbled mess of flashes. Sure, one of them in particular was pretty scary, but it's not like Grover knew about it.

"Yeah, sure, Percy. What are friends for?"

We sat in silence after that as we waited for the bus to get to the Museum. Nancy was still chucking bits of sandwich at Grover, but he was so deep in thought he barely seemed to feel it. I'd never seen such a cowardly guy have such a serious face; it was disturbing.

I tried not to think too much about it. I wanted to enjoy this trip. I wasn't going to let Nancy Bobofit, Mrs. Dodds, or some weird nightmare get in the way. Mr. Brunner was leading this trip, and I wanted to at least look like a good student for him.

When we got to the museum, Mr. Brunner was already waiting out front in his wheelchair. He always took his own ride when we went on school trips so that we wouldn't have to find a bus that could fit him. I had to poke Grover to get him to realize that we had arrived.

After everyone had gotten off the bus, Mr. Brunner led us through the entrance to the museum and down the halls to whichever particular exhibit he wanted to talk to us about. We passed by display after display of insanely old pottery and statues. It was incredible to me that this stuff survived so long. Finally, we got to a big stone column with a large sphinx on top.

"This monument here is called a stele, a grave marker. This one in particular is for a young girl, about your age. The carvings you see around the sides typically depict events related to the deceased or aspects of their personality. In this carving here-" Mr. Brunner continued on, but the kids behind me had started talking to each other and it was murder on my ADHD. I couldn't focus on either noise and it just annoyed me.

After maybe another minute or two of my focus bouncing back and forth between Mr. Brunner's lecture and my obnoxious classmates, I heard Nancy Bobofit snicker to one of her friends about the naked guy on the stele, and I lost my cool a bit. I turned around to her and said, "Will you shut up?"

It was a bit louder than I meant, and Mr. Brunner stopped his explanations.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

Embarrassed, I replied, "No, sir."

He held my gaze for an extra beat and turned back to the stele, to one of the carvings he hadn't gotten to yet. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

As soon as my eyes connected with the focus of the carving, I felt something like an ice pick hit my brain, and I winced. When I refocused on it, I realized I knew exactly what the scene was, but not just because I remembered reading about it before. Some part of me intimately knew exactly what I was looking at, and it didn't leave a good feeling in my stomach. "That's Kronos, Lord of the Titans, eating his children the gods."

Mr. Brunner's eyes were boring into mine with that weird intensity he gets sometimes, like when it's tournament day at school and he calls on me and asks me about Greek family trees. "Yes, that's correct, Percy. Could you explain why he did this?"

I looked back at the stele and another jolt hit me. It felt similar to last night, but not nearly as painful; I guess it was kind of like déjà vu, but instead of feeling it mid-way through the experience it was before. "Well… Kronos was a Titan, and he didn't trust his kids, the gods. He had heard a prophecy saying that once they came of age, they would dethrone him. So, he, um, he ate them. Except his wife hid Zeus from him and gave him a stone instead. It worked, and Zeus grew up away from his father, and returned when he was fully grown. He got Kronos to throw up his kids using… I think it was wine and mustard?" I paused to glance at Mr. Brunner for confirmation. His eyebrows were furrowed, but he gave me a nod of encouragement, so I continued.

"Since the gods were immortal, they had been growing up in Kronos' stomach the whole time, and when they got out they helped Zeus defeat him and his brothers. They used Kronos' own scythe to cut him up into thousands of pieces and scattered him into Tartarus, below the Underworld." I felt rather confident that I had gotten it right, but something about it didn't feel complete. The story didn't feel finished.

"Except… that's not the whole thing, right? Every… every now and then Kronos stirs and tries to mess with everyone, right? He's not gone, just… biding his time?" I had been pulling from bits and pieces of the flashes in my head. I was initially pretty sure that they were just dreams, but the more I spoke the less confident I felt, that the flashes and dreams were something else. I looked up at Mr. Brunner in my confusion and realized he was wide-eyed with surprise.

"Mr. Brunner?" I asked, quietly. I could feel the rest of the class' eyes burning holes into the back of my head.

"Um, yes. Half credit, Mr. Jackson. You had everything spot-on right up until the end. I'm not sure where you got the idea of Kronos lingering on from. These entities have been long-gone for centuries, after all." His tone was formal and teacher-y, but his eyes looked like he just repeated a really old joke he'd been told to say for years and years, but I couldn't tell why.

The class started to whisper to each other again, I guess they sensed that pop quiz time was over and boring lecture time had started up again. Nancy's voice stood out among them. "Why do we even need to know this stuff anyways? It's not like we'll ever use it in real life," she scoffed.

"An excellent question, Ms. Bobofit. Why, indeed does any of this matter in real life?" Mr. Brunner apparently had heard her, too. He's the only one who ever catches her doing anything, and she always gets red in the face when he does, like now. "Mr. Jackson, since you seem to know a thing or two about all these musty old relics," he paused for an even stare at someone in the back of the group, "would you like to wager a guess?"

I cursed in my head. Why does he always turn back to me to answer these things? But the question was already asked, so I thought I'd give it my best shot and think about it before answering. Eventually I gave up. "I don't know, sir. I can't think of a reason. Sorry."

Mr. Brunner sighed lightly, but seemed like he expected to hear that. "That's okay, Percy. Well, class, I'd say it's about time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?

Grover and I were about to head off for the rest of the class, but Mr. Brunner seemed to have other things in mind.

"Mr. Jackson."

I hope he doesn't think I've lost my mind. I don't even know how to explain why I said what I did. "Sir?"

"I'd like to have a word with you before you take your break."

Figures. I motioned to Grover to head off without me. I didn't know how long this would take and I didn't want to deprive the guy of his food. Mr. Brunner turned and wheeled himself off to the side of the gallery, clearly intending for us to be out of earshot of everyone else. I followed him over a few steps behind.

He turned to me, glancing over my shoulder towards the entrance as he did. "Percy, I must ask you, why did you say that Kronos wasn't gone?" He couldn't quite keep the urgency out of his voice, and I pretended not to notice.

"Um… Just… a feeling, I guess. I think I let my dream last night get to my head a bit. When I looked at the stele, it reminded me about what I dreamed and it just kinda… came out. Sorry, that's a lame excuse." I had been talking to the floor, so I looked up at him when I apologized, only to find that the urgency in his voice had found its way to his face, which was now kind of slack.

"A dream, you say...? If you don't mind me asking, Percy, what else was in this dream of yours?"

I got the feeling he expected me to answer whether I minded the question or not, so I told him what I could. "Well… not much, sir. Nothing that really makes sense. It was just a lot of flashes of things that didn't make sense. Places, mainly, but nowhere that I've been. San Francisco, a couple of boarding schools, Rome, and a few other places, I think. A couple of faces that I didn't really recognize."

He thought about what I had said for a moment or two, but I guess it didn't bother him too much because before too long he said, "I see. In any case, Mr. Jackson, you must learn the answer to my question from earlier."

I didn't know what he was referring to for a second, but then I risked, "… do you mean about how this applies to the real world?"

He looked at me with a somber gaze, one that refused to be ignored. "Yes, Percy. Everything I teach you is vitally important, and I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Mr. Jackson."

It always made me angry when he said that kind of stuff. He always pushes me so much harder than everyone else even though he knows I have dyslexia and ADHD. School is hard enough as it is without being told that he expects me to be the best. I mean, deep down I do appreciate that he doesn't think I'm a failure of a student or anything, but I wish he would let me take it easy sometimes.

I sighed. "Yes, sir. I'll try harder, study some more."

But he wasn't looking at me; he was looking at the stele again, but he looked like he was mourning her, like he'd known her somehow. I took that as my cue to leave, so I walked off to join Grover for lunch.

When I came out of the building, I saw that the class had spread itself across the bottom steps of the museum, I guess so they could people-watch along Fifth Avenue from up close. I looked up and saw that there was another huge storm brewing, with almost black clouds rolling in. We'd had some weird weather for the past couple of months since Christmas, and some of the kids in class were joking that it was an omen for the rest of the year when we had a massive snowstorm in the first three days of the new year. They shut up when we had a wildfire three weeks later.

No one else seemed to notice the weather, though. Or maybe they'd gotten used to it by now, thinking that global warming was starting to set in or something. Everyone was kind of muted. The guys were throwing crackers at pigeons who apparently didn't really mind, and Nancy and her friends were trying to pickpocket passersby. Mrs. Dodds was, of course, completely blind to it all.

I joined Grover on the edge of the fountain, away from the rest of the class. It was the only way we could think of to distance ourselves from them so that people wouldn't know we were from that school – the school for losers, misfits, and freaks who couldn't go anywhere else.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes, you know? I mean, I'm not a genius."

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

I wasn't feeling very hungry, so I passed it to him.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we were. I hadn't seen her since Christmas, and I wanted so badly to jump in one of those cabs and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy and remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I would probably be kicked out again. I sighed and kept my butt on the edge of the fountain; I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

I looked over as Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He had set up a red umbrella on the back of his chair while he ate some celery and read a book, so he looked like he was sitting at a motorized café table.

I was about to unwrap my own lunch – a sandwich – when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her equally ugly friends. I guess they had gotten bored of stealing from the tourists. She dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth and her Cheeto-orange freckles.

I tried to keep my cool, I really did. The school councilor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, soaking wet, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us, which didn't really help my mood.

Some of the kids were whispering to each other: "Did you see – "

" – the water – "

" – like it grabbed her – "

I didn't know what they were talking about, I just knew I was in trouble again and no amount of protesting was going to change that.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., she turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey – "

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

I should learn to shut my mouth.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me; Mrs. Dodds scared the guy to death on a good day. Case in point, she glared at him and his chin started quivering.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But – "

"You – will – stay – here."

Grover looked at me desperately, but I couldn't imagine why he was so determined.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy smirked. I gave her my best I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the entrance to the museum, all the way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

I had moments like that from time to time, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school councilor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds. Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted him to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She must have started sprinting, because now she was inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She was going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. That's not that bad.

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. It was completely empty except for us.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said. My stomach dropped for some reason.

I did the safe thing and said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me. But for some reason the image of that leathery bat-creature from my weird dreams last night flashed in my head. Usually my head doesn't wander when I'm in trouble like this, so it threw me off a bit and I stuttered my response.

"I'll – I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building. My stomach was doing flips now. Apparently, it didn't like the comparison of Mrs. Dodds to a monster out of a nightmare.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I had no clue what she was talking about.

All I could think of was that the teachers found my illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't…"

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then three impossibly weird things happened. The first was Mrs. Dodds. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she looked like she was ready to use them.

The second was that I recognized her like this. Or rather, I had seen this monster briefly in my dream last night. But, how was it here now? How was Mrs. Dodds that monster? I couldn't make sense of it.

The third strange thing was Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum at the bottom of the stairs a minute ago was now wheeling his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. That got me out of my shock.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword – Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day. But it was more than that… I recognized this sword from somewhere else… but where?

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. I'd have time to think about this later, when I wasn't about to be killed by my math teacher, the bat monster.

But my knees were jelly and my hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!" and flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. My brain chose that moment to be annoying, and pulled a memory from somewhere to show me. Except, it was a memory of this moment, right now. There was Mr. Brunner in the doorway, there was Mrs. Dodds diving at me, and there I am holding a sword with arms so shaky I looked like I had just done 100 push-ups with no break.

The memory kept going. She got closer. My body in the memory froze for a moment and then swung the sword at her. The second it hit her, she screeched and exploded into a big poof of yellow powder, filling the area with the smell of sulfur.

Then the memory was gone, and I was back in reality. That whole episode apparently happened in an instant because Mrs. Dodds was only marginally closer, and I suppose I was grateful for that. I still didn't really have a plan to get out of this, so I decided to follow my memory and hope for the best. I swung the sword at her as she was about to hit me.

Just like in the memory, she vaporized on the spot, leaving behind a dying screech and the smell of sulfur and a small pile of yellow dust which was starting to disappear. There was a chill of evil in the air, and a chill ran down my spine.

I looked up and realized I was completely alone. No Mr. Brunner. The sword wasn't a sword anymore, it was a ballpoint pen. If it wasn't for the traces of sulfur in the air, I could almost believe I had imagined the whole thing. After all, teachers don't turn into monsters from their students' dreams and try to kill them, only to be thwarted by another teacher giving the student a sword.

Not knowing what else to do, I walked back outside. It had started raining.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

What? I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher, duh!"

I blinked. Who? We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about, but she just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused at first, and wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead. Fitting.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

I was getting tired of hearing that. "The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling alright?"

A/N: And that's my spin on the first chapter. It was harder than I thought it would be, but I enjoyed it. Made me want to keep writing.