This is not my main fanfiction. This will not be updated regularly. I deleted NEW ROME, because I had my own issues with it. I've reworked it into something else. Hopefully you guys enjoy it, but just in case I'll tell you why I deleted NEW ROME.

There were a lot of issues with it.

I handled the Annabeth breakup pretty badly, and I wrote it in a terrible way. This fic will address and fix that. My entire writing style wasn't very good, and it still isn't but I'm actively working to improve it, so hopefully you guys enjoy this. I didn't plot NEW ROME at all, while this has a definite beginning and ending. I know how this story will end, and it won't be very long.

Percy looked around: the cages and stables, the Celestial bronze lamp hanging from the beam, the smell of hay, and of course Annabeth sitting close to him, her face ghostly and beautiful in the soft amber light. "That zoo truck," Percy decided. "The one we took to Las Vegas." Her smile told him he'd gotten the answer right.

"That was so long ago," Percy said. "We were in bad shape, struggling to get across the country to find that stupid lightning bolt, trapped in a truck with a bunch of mistreated animals. How can you be nostalgic for that?"

"Because, Seaweed Brain, it's the first time we really talked, you and me. I told you about my family, and…" She took out her camp necklace, strung with her dad's college ring and a colorful clay bead for each year at Camp Half-Blood. Now there was something else on the leather cord: a red coral pendant Percy had given her when they had started dating. He'd brought it from his father's palace at the bottom of the sea. "And," Annabeth continued, "it reminds me how long we've known each other. We were twelve, Percy. Can you believe that?"

"No," he admitted. "So…you knew you liked me from that moment?" She smirked. "I hated you at first. You annoyed me. Then I tolerated you for a few years. Then—"

"Okay, fine."

She leaned over and kissed him: a good, proper kiss without anyone watching—no Romans anywhere, no screaming satyr chaperone.

He remembered earlier in the night, when Piper had forced the eidolon to leave his mind. Percy hadn't been aware of its presence until she had used her charmspeak. After the eidolon was gone, he felt as if a hot spike had been removed from his forehead. He hadn't realized how much pain he had been in until the spirit left. Then his thoughts became clearer. His soul settled comfortably back into his body.

"Anna-" he began, before she clapped her hand over his mouth.

He tried to push her away softly but her grip was like iron over his face, constricting him and stopping him from speaking.

Something was wrong. A switch had been flipped. She didn't look calm, or happy anymore. She didn't even look aroused. And with a sickening squelch in his stomach, he realised she looked curious.

Then a smell wafted through his nose. Warm and comfortable; it filled his head with dreams of love and romance, each fleeting and painfully finite. Roses and laurels; softer and more beautiful than he could even imagine. And so, so familiar.

He struggled. He was a son of Poseidon and called out "Annabeth… please. Stop.".

She looked at him and again Percy shuddered as she studied him before smiling sweetly and asking "What's wrong?"

No, Percy wanted to say but didn't. He was tongue-tied, frozen with discomfort when Annabeth leaned in and licked the corner of his heaving mouth.

She pulled back after a second, licking her bottom lip as if savoring the taste of his mouth.

Percy closed his eyes for a second, sucking in a deep breath because this wasn't happening. This wasn't—

This wasn't fucking happening. He had to have been knocked out cold, suffering through some nightmare because this couldn't possibly be real.

This was Annabeth. And she would never do this.

Her fingers slid down his throat, her index finger tracing along the collar of his shirt with something akin to fascination. Percy pushed into the floor below him, hoping that he could melt through it and that he could disappear. His face was on fire, his skin was crawling in a way that he had never experienced before.

Why is this happening? What is even happening? He couldn't move, and something was so wrong with him.

"I want you—" Annabeth said, a blunt nail digging into his skin before she pulled the collar of his shirt down to bare more of him to her gaze. Her stormy eyes darkening with each passing second, the flush of her cheeks more pronounced, more obscene the longer this went on. "— all of you."

She trailed a finger down his muscular chest.

Percy shifted beneath her, hands raising up to push her away.

"None of that now, there's no need to be afraid."

His limbs froze, his hands hovering just centimeters from Annabeth's shoulders. There was something forcing him still, muting the panic in his gut.

"Come on, Seaweed Brain, I won't hurt you" Annabeth purred, and Percy blanched, noting with dread how his limbs were forced back down to his sides, pinned to the cold floor. "I love you."

Percy's world was spinning.

His chest constricted with panic, his thoughts racing a mile a minute. Everything about this was wrong, so fucking wrong. He couldn't move, could barely breathe when Annabeth was sucking up all the air in the room.

She was looming over him, her hair curtaining their faces from the cool air of the empty stables. Her eyes were trained on him, eating him alive, consuming him in the same fashion Percy imagined a wild beast devouring its prey.

Except Annabeth wasn't some monstrous creature. She was his friend. His best friend. The one person that she shared all of his secrets with, the one person that he loved, the one person that he needed..

"Yo-you flipped me over," Percy whispered, skin prickling when Annabeth paused in her movements to look at him, eyes shining.

"My shoulder… you dislocated it. I didn't tell you, because I didn't think you did it on purpose."

Annabeth nodded mutely and pulled her hand away from his chest, reaching for something in her pocket.

Percy's chest began to thump with ferocity as within seconds, Annabeth had pulled her knife from her back pocket and pressed it against his chest. The celestial bronze was practically freezing and Percy shuddered as Annabeth drew circles against the skin, applying slight pressure when she twisted her wrist to tug on the collar of his shirt.

"You left me, Seaweed Brain" Annabeth said, the end of the knife digging uncomfortably over his chest. "You needed correction."

The sound of tearing cloth echoed in the room.

"Wha-what are you doing?" Percy hated that he stuttered through his words, that his ears were bright red with embarrassment when Annabeth began to cut down his chest with her knife, shredding away the royal purple Camp Jupiter shirt.

"Undressing you," Annabeth replied, and Percy choked on his spit at how casual she sounded. As if she were talking about the weather rather than, quite literally, getting him naked. Why? They'd never really done… it.

That stirred Percy into action, struggling now against the invisible binds keeping him pinned to the floor. There was no way in hell he was going to allow this. She could threaten him, choke him, cut him, or whatever it was that she did, but this was going too far.

"What the fuck? You can't just—" Percy's protest was quickly cut off by the sound of more tearing, the knife tip now hovering at the waistband of his pants.

A blush was burning against his cheeks, spreading from the skin of his neck and down to his chest.

"But I am."

Annabeth's smile was wide and devastating, and Percy could only watch as her knife skirted over the button of his jeans for a moment, as if relishing in the anticipation.

Percy wanted to crawl into a hole, to hide away because this was the first he would ever—

"Why?"

The sound of ripping cloth filled the air.

Percy flinched, gooseflesh prickling over his body as cold air hit sensitive skin. Annabeth had cut a slit down his boxers.

"You're not listening."

Annabeth shook her head, her hand coming up to card through her hair before dropping to the collar of her own blouse, undoing the buttons one by one.

Percy tried not to stare, but he couldn't look away. With each subtle twist of her fingers, she bared more of that tan flesh that he'd often seen peeking from beneath the collar of her shirt when he most certainly wasn't staring at her.

Annabeth paused to look at him, a slow smile creeping up her face.

"Like what you see?"

Percy blushed and Annabeth laughed, her fingers renewing their task.

"I-no, I don't."

She didn't stop until her clothes were cast aside.

"No need to deny it, I know you want it."

The retort died on Percy's tongue as everything began to fade into darkness. It was all too much. This wasn't right, this wasn't Annabeth, this was so wrong. He began to cry out blindly as his vision darkened.

Then everything was silent.

Perseus Jackson woke with a start.

The bedsheets were wrapped around him, and he couldn't breathe. He gasped and pulled the headboard, like a drowning man would to a life preserver and pulled as hard as he could. He was so clammy. Instead of pulling himself out of the thick blankets, he pulled the headboard clean off, throwing it onto the opposite wall with a resounding crash. Struggling was useless. He clamped his mouth shut, forcing himself not to scream, but he could barely keep from panicking. And suddenly he was there. Back in that muskeg, back in those stables, with the bronze lamp and the hay, back in the chamber underground where the corrupted nymphs had tried to drown him, back...

Somehow he managed to forcefully extricate himself from the blankets and stumble towards the terrace doors in a daze. He wrenched open the engraved maple doors and staggered onto the terrace.

The Parisian night was cool. The wind coolly swept his hair around and the lights of Paris glittered and flashed like exploding stars in the black night. The moon luminated the small glowing boats on the Seine and somewhere below in the streets, a man serenaded his lover.

It was beautiful, something better suited to being a painting than real life, and he couldn't help but hate it.

It was all so familiar. He remembered sitting on a rooftop terrace watching the lights of Paris and the boats on the Seine. Eating bouillabaisse across from her and holding her hand as they casually strolled down the riverside, under the stars.

Percy shook his head and walked inside, closing the doors quietly.

The gods of Mount Olympus knew power.

In the Age of Magic, the smallfolk knew their place. "Infinite and powerful", they'd whispered at their hearths at the mention of the gods. For the Asgardians in the North, resplendent in their noble shining armor in their golden castle protected by the rainbow bridge, the undead heroes and the winged women. The Olympians in the West, tall and beautiful, furiously championed the armies of Sparta, Athens and later on the Legions of Rome. The Egyptians in the South and their vast sanded fortresses, and the ever-battling Shinto and Hindu's to the East, epitomized everything that they aspired to be, but had no hope of being. They were beautiful and graceful, so perfect that the men and women of earth had no choice but to not admire and worship them. Even now, power thrummed through their veins and gushed forth from their fingertips, making the very air warp and twist in a heart-pounding rhythm.

But as the years went on, Man became cynical and dispassionate. They lost their belief in the higher power and created their own gods. Loving ones, that would pander to their needs and reaffirm their own needs and wants.

And so, the gods slowly faded from power, keeping themselves alive solely through the worship of their children. The demigods who enforced their will on earth, who fought a losing battle year in and year out against the hordes of the Dread God Tartarus.

And then the Second Age of Heroes came. Perseus Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Jason Grace, Frank Zhang, Piper Mclean, Leo Valdez, Hazel Levesque, Nico di Angelo, Luke Castellan, Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arrellano. Heroes who rivaled those of old.

But the Gods of Olympus soon came to a troubling realization.

Their enemies were far too numerous, for them to keep on getting saved by their children at the last moment. Unlike the titans, giant's or even the Primordials, their power came not from the state of their respective domains, but rather from the belief that their name invoked.

They'd been at their height long ago, and the only way to survive would be for them to return to the old ways.

The Olde Gods could no longer remain in the shadows.

"So we're looking for… a scroll?"

"Yeah." he responded shortly, loading the clip into the Bushmaster ACR 3 Automatic Rifle.

Over the years he'd used a lot of guns in a variety of different ways, and this one seemed to serve his purposes the best.

The van was silent, save the loading-and-cocking of weapons. Percy unzipped his vest before sliding an armor plate inside and closing it back up. He slipped a semiautomatic Para-9 into his shoulder holster and looked back up to see the grim men.

Percy internally cursed. He'd never been the best at speeches, and leading these men into a battle that they probably wouldn't survive didn't really appeal to them. Nevertheless he gathered his resolve and began.

"The job is simple." he started as coldly as he could. It was better not to bond with them. "While I search the prison, your job will be to take defensive positions. I've provided each of you with celestial bronze ammunition, enough to last you through the night."

"As long as you follow my orders-" he said, "all of you will make it out alive. As far as I can tell, the only monsters that should be guarding the church are Dracaena and Cyclops. I've killed countless of those, and they're really not that different from humans."

He had no illusions about the men that he had hired. Mercenaries, hired killers, ex-veterans who had cut their teeth working for mortal clients. Fighting monster's was no different. He knew that given the chance, they would stab him in the back and run, but Percy'd promised them each two million dollars for a three hour job.

Enough money to set them up for a lifetime.

They nodded jerkily, as the car slowed down, and a loud thunking noise echoed past the partition separating the driver's seat and the back.

"Alright. Go, go, go." Percy growled, kicking the door open and stepping out into the night.

The prison in question was a grim place.

Built only a few miles from Fuerte Sherman but it had been forgotten for a hundred years. Its name was Albuerge and it was built into the side of the cliffs, draped in moss and trees. There were six buildings on the island, surrounded by wild grasses and poplars, and they all looked condemned. The largest of them was a monastery, built around a courtyard, with a red-brick bell tower, slanting very slightly, next to it. There was a crumbling hospital and then a row of what looked like apartment blocks with shattered windows and gaping holes in the roofs. A few boats went past Albuerge but never docked there. It was forbidden. And the place had a bad reputation. There had once been a small, thriving community on the island. But that had been long ago, before the conquistadors came and slaughtered it's residents and built a prison upon the ground soaked with their blood. It had been ransacked countless times, given the conquistador's tendency to dump pirates there. Eventually the Pirates had broken out and taken control of the prison only to kill each other within a matter of days. Finally it had been abandoned and left to rot. But there were fishermen who claimed that, on a cold winter's night, you could still hear the laughs and cheers of the joyful pirates who last inhabited the island.

Albuerge had at one point housed a very well-known pirate captain by the name of Henry Morgan. He was so famed, that news of his exploits reached the eastern seas, where the true Pirate Powerhouses battled the governments and each other. Morgan had been a ruthless bastard, who had raped, pillaged and slaughtered his way around the South American coast, until he'd finally been defeated by the conquistadors. It was at this point he'd supposedly received a message from Hızır Hayreddin, a famous Barbary pirate who was famed for stealing the helm of Damocles, a helmet that would transform its wearer into the Black Centurion.

Hades wanted the helm of Damocles.

Very much so. Almost enough, in fact that he would do anything to receive it. The Black Centurion was a key symbol of the underworld, and was one of Hades's foremost generals. A warrior comparable to the likes of Achilles, Theseus, Kratos and both Perseus's. Since he was a god, he was aware of Percy for a living now, and contacted him with a proposition.

He'd let Percy return five people from death.

Initially, the idea hadn't appealed to him. People died for a reason, and Percy had made peace with the ghosts of his conscience, thinking that they were in Elysium for their sacrifice.

That was until Hades had gleefully informed him that Luke Castellan and Silena Beauregard had spent the last ten years in the fields of punishment, hidden from Nico under the orders of Zeus himself. Charlie Beckenderof who had become despondent, thinking that he would never see Silena Beauregard again, spent his days trying to end his misery by coming with new and increasingly inventive ways to kill himself. Permanently.

If Percy was smart, he would have accepted that as destiny and moved on. That was life, and as sad as it was, fate had made it happen for a reason.

He wasn't smart.

So that's why he was here in front of a prison filled with countless monsters, looking for the remains of Henry Morgan, whose last known location had been this prison.

The waves no longer endeared him. Now all they did was serve as an irritant.

He was somewhere in Massachusetts.

Magnus had told him this was the place to summon the giant.

The fog was shallow, and from above, it looked like a cloud hugging the ground. Farther out there was nothing but a grey-green sea, breached by nothing but the crashing waves and seagulls. A strong wind failed to blow the fog away.

Percy dug his hands into his backpack.

It'd been a tiring three months. He'd barely escaped the prison which had been home to the literal devil. Like, with bona fide horns and goat legs. He'd killed all of Percy's hired help, which had saved him a couple million dollars, but had forced him to make a few difficult calls to the deceased's families.

He was used to it now.

He swung open the cooler and fished the head of the cow out, before spearing it with a hook and lobbing it roughly a hundred yards. Percy watched the head disappear into the mist and sighed in weariness, uncapping Riptide with it's usual shink, stabbing it into the frosted sand.

He began to strip himself, throwing aside his gun and holster, accompanied by the clips of bullets and plunked down on the ground.

Then the water pulsed. A blast of wind, shredded the fog. It was gratifying and irritating at the same time, knowing that the chaos was being caused by him. Spray blew against the mountain, and the wind battered him until a gargantuan shape.

Jörmungandr was described as a gigantic serpent… which was an understatement.

Jörmungandr with his scaled hide glistening in an armored patchwork of white and grey. His ridged forehead and tapered snout gave him a distinct dragon-like appearance. His eyes resemble huge dark black spotlights the size of houses speared through sunbursts of lava-like orange. When Jörmungandr opened his mouth, the stench of serpent poison was so strong that Percy's clothes smoked. The serpent's teeth gleamed in rows of perfect white triangles, with his pink maw being big enough to eat a literal mountain. A beard of thick, shaggy moss lined his jaw and his eyes gleamed with a bevy of emotions. His length was incomparable, moving on for what seemed to be forever. Miles of skyscraper thick body coiled around the air and underwater, he wondered how Jörmungandr had managed to conceal himself.

Eh, magic did a lot of shit.

Surprisingly he didn't hiss. His voice was a deep and bassy cacophony of snarls, roars, and growls merged into one low note not unlike a foghorn. His voice shifted and wavered constantly, alerting him to the fact that the World Serpent was trying to talk to him.

"It has been many years since a demigod of your caliber visited me." he said curiously in olde giant, his voice shaking the very land.

"And yet… Ragnar Lothbrok would not hold a candle to your power."

Percy cleared his throat. This was gonna be painful as shit. He coughed before yelling as accurately as he could "I am a-"

"Roman."

Percy blinked. He hadn't been expecting that, unconsciously rubbing his tattoo. It was one of the only reminders of his old life, ever since he threw the necklace away and donated his shirts to the goodwill.

"Yes, my lord-"

"Dispense with the formalities," the massive snake interrupted. "The Olympians may demand respect from their champions, but we do not. I know who you are Perseus."

He shifted.

"Godbreaker, Titankiller, Praetor, Legionnaire, Liar, Thief, Murderer, Cheater, Hero. A product of two Great Prophecies."

"Murderer seems like an overstatement," Percy muttered under his breath before looking up "How do you know so much?"

"One like you does not walk unnoticed in this world. Those who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see can interpret the signs easily enough. The birds sing of your coming, the beasts of the earth heed your scent, and the very trees and grass remember your touch," he responded, bass reverberating through the air bending trees and forcing birds to take flight, "And, you are Poseidon's pride and joy."

Percy scoffed. He'd heard that one before. "You know my father?"

"He does." a new voice interrupted.

Percy turned around wearily to see a man in a faded dirty flannel shirt over a pair of splattered dark green overalls. Under the Sox baseball cap, and behind the dirty black beard was unmistakably a pair of glittering green eyes.

"Father." Percy nodded, dipping his head.

"My boy," he said warmly before turning to the World Serpent.

"Jörmungandr, my friend," he called to the Serpent, who's shifting probably upset the entire eastern seaboard "It has been too long!" The World Serpent, followed Percy's move and dipped his head slightly.

"Indeed Poseidon." he growled.

They sat in a diner with a nice view of the sea. Waves crashed against rock, and the sound of 50's rock and roll faintly filled the air with a vibe of nostalgia. The diner itself was nice. Clean white booths, stools, ice cream, the whole shebang. They'd slidden into one of the most isolated seats, away from the counter and ordered coffee.

"Why are you here dad?" Perseus asked tiredly, fingering the sharp edge of the helmet of Damocles. The fucking thing smelt like Nico, and had attracted one very stupid hellhound that Poseidon had incinerated without a second thought.

"Well, my purpose is to protect and lead the armies of the oc-" he began before Percy interrupted.

"Neptune." Percy said, his voice ringing with authority. He loved his dad, but he couldn't play the godly game right now.

The man sitting across from him shifted from a bedraggled fisherman into an admiral in full dress blues. His face was clean shaven and bronzed, and his eyes were harder.

He nodded clearly. "My son. It is not often that you speak to me." he said sternly.

Percy bent his head "No. No I don't, my lord."

The sea god seemed proud. "I will not entertain you with pleasantries. Your brother requests your presence."

Percy frowned "Why does Triton need to see me. And why did he send you?"

Neptune shook his head "I misspoke. My descendant requests your presence. He has served faithfully, and I- I wished to meet you." he said, his voice lowering "I have not been the father Poseidon has."

"Father..."

Poseidon seemed to recover and looked up. "Your brother; Frank is wedding the daughter of Pluto. He would like you to be there."

Percy shook his head. "They think I'm dea-"

"You may have fooled the daughters of Minerva, Pluto and Venus, and the son of Vulcan, but the son of Jupiter and your brother are not so easily fooled. They know you live."

Percy groaned and looked down. "Father it's best I stay away."

He waited a few moments, expecting some sort of proverb or mysterious quote, but all he found was silence. He looked up to see the booth empty, save the smell of a sea breeze and a sea-green envelope.

"Of course he's gone" he muttered as he picked it up cautiously and tore it open to see Frank's neat Canadian cursive .

Perce,

If you're reading this, then that means that you talked to Neptune.

Come home.

We're getting married on the twenty-first. I want you to give Hazel away. Nico can't do it because he insists upon being the flower boy for some reason. I don't know why you left, but Jason and I know you're alive. Killing a eastern european warlord and his entire private army in a battle to find Shambhala isn't exactly low-key.

Clearly something happened, and I want to know what made you go MIA for more than half a decade. If you don't show up, then I'll find you.

The 21st of December, Blue Mountain Lake

Percy scoffed irritably. He wasn't going to go.

Obviously.

That would be stupid.

And Percy wasn't stupid.

This fic was inspired by so many different things it's crazy.

This will not be updated regularly. Sometimes I might pump out two chapters in a week and sometimes I might put up two chapters in three months.

-Godmofede