THE GOD OF DECEPTION

Chapter One: Return to the Maze

Percy

…

Percy was getting tired of waking up in unknown locations. Couldn't the gods be a bit more original? Too much re-use. He was over it. This was probably going to take a toll on him when he got older, trauma is real. At least this time, it seems the gods have had some mercy on him, and left a couple of memories. Everything is a bit fuzzy, mostly because Percy is disoriented by his new surroundings.

Let's see. He was in a dark cave, though the cave part of that might be an understatement. An arena shaped pit is more accurate. It was very rocky, and the ground was jagged. When he stood up, with a start he realized there was a medium sized bag slung across him. Percy took the zipper and opened it up, peering to see what's inside. Ambrosia and Nectar. The food of the gods.

Still, no information about what this place was. There was a faint bit of light coming from a corner, causing a beam to gleam through. Inching toward it, Percy looked through it, but was blinded by the sudden light that flowed into his eye. That's not very nice. He decided to move away from it. Curiosity was what killed the cat, anway.

As always, he scanned the area to see if anyone else might be around. With much staring, he concluded that he was indeed alone. That was a good thing and a horrible thing. For one, no monsters, which is always a plus, but on the other side of things, no Annabeth. No anyone. And Percy was not sure how to get out of this situation. Feeling in his jean pocket for the Riptide, he took out the pen, and un-capped it. Although no one was there (yet), you could never be too safe when it came to monsters. Especially when hidden in desolate caves.

Now, to figure out where he was and how he got here. For some reason, as he tried to reach that memory, he couldn't grasp it. It wasn't budging. That was very frustrating, considering he'd already lost all of his memories once. Doing that all over again isn't fun at all. The opposite of fun. Even more, unoriginal, Percy thought the Gods were more creative than that.

Percy wished Annabeth were here. She would know how to get out of a situation like this. Rolling her eyes, she'd say, "Seaweed Brain, it's simple," and then explain some ridiculously complicated plan so cleverly came up with in less than five seconds. Annabeth was brilliant like that. He already missed her. They'd probably figure out where they were quickly.

How frustrating. With Annabeth not here to help him, Percy would have to rely on his own wits. If we're being completely honest, without Annabeth, he doesn't have much in that department.

"Echo!" He shouted in the dark cave. It bounded across the walls, causing a symphony of sounds to, well, echo around the pit.

The word was repeated several more times before Percy decided it was time to stop and think. He slumped over to a small stump and plopped down onto it. This obviously isn't an ideal situation, he thought to himself, then again, many of the situations I've been in aren't ideal. The majority of the time, situations like this were at the fault of the gods petty bickering, and Percy thinks that in this situation, it was no different. There must be a mistake. Why would the saviour of Olympous be placed in such a dark, dank and inescapable place? No sense can be made of it. Sure, the gods can be stupid (and Percy could be smited for even thinking that), but this was too big of a mistake, they should notice it soon.

So he waited. Annabeth, at least, would help them see their mistake. Being the amazing person she was, she'd point it out to the gods immediately, this minor fiasco would not mean anything, and they would move past it.

Even so, as Percy has learned plenty of times over the course of his seventeen year life, nothing is a mistake when it comes to the gods. Except when it is. They just don't admit to their mistakes, meaning this could be a somewhat permanent situation. "Somewhat" meaning long and adventurous if he was unlucky (and he was). It's easy to get sick and tired of all these quests. This was supposed to be when everyone finally settled down. It's certainly been an eventful decade for the gods. Did anything like this happen in the twentieth century?

No answers, not even to that. Percy wasn't expecting anything though, he never does. Just gets forced into aimless situations like this, ones where luck is the saviour over all else. His luck could be running out soon, which is scary.

Just as Percy was settling down, in what seemed like a split section, an entire scene played in Percy's mind, causing him to black out for just a moment. A memory, information, or something. It was almost like a dream, but not quite. Not entirely.

…

Olympus, Percy recognized. The home of the gods and the center of Percy's frustrations. It was almost as if he was viewing a scene through one of those fancy VR headsets that he'd probably be into if he wasn't a demigod. Like he was there, but not completely. Overlooking a scene, but not involved directly within it. Like an out of body experience or a lucid dream. Annabeth had told him about those before, saying they were an anomaly for mortals, but more common for demigods.

Large white pillars hold up the ceiling which is adorned with a beautiful scene. The gods sit on their thrones with a glassy look to their eyes, of confusion. Athena is the first one to pop out of it. That makes sense. She's one of the more reasonable ones, except for the fact she tried to get Percy to back off from Annabeth.

"The boy," Athena's stealy calm yet booming voice fills the room, "he must go."

Who's the boy? Why does he have to go? Percy wondered if Athena could be any less vague.

A burly, long-bearded man Percy recognized as Zeus spoke. "Bring him in."

In a split second, large doors open, the entrance to Olympus, and a boy, one that Percy realized in a start was himself, stumbled in, being held up by Annabeth. He attempted to call out her, but of course, this was a stupid dream, so no sound came from his mouth. Frustrating.

The most confusing part of all of this is the fact he didn't remember any of it. Did Hera syphon this one moment out of his head just for a laugh? And if so, why is she allowing him to see all of this happen? It could be a sign, or something like that.

"Mother, you know he didn't do anything wrong," Annabeth snapped up at the Gods. It was a funny scene, a seventeen year old yelling up at a bunch of super old deities. Though Apollo probably would object to being called "super old". Four thousand years doesn't mean anything these days.

The glassy look comes over everyone's eyes again, save for Annabeth. Dream Percy eyes close, and real Percy raised an eyebrow, trying to inch closer, telling Annabeth that he's here. No use, obviously, but he does it without a second though, subconsciously.

Athena shook her head. "No daughter, he's—" she stopped herself, pondering to herself, "he's done something!"

"Percy always does something." Real Percy felt quite offended on dream Percy's behalf. "But he did nothing wrong. What do you even think he did? Why do you need to send it to us? This just seems like a big misunderstanding."

Ares is the next to speak. "He did— something!" Both repeating Athena and eloquently putting it to. Even Percy can speak better than that. They must be under something. But what? The God's are all powerful, no one could deceive them like this.

"No he didn't." Annabeth rolled her eyes. "You obviously have been messed with or something because this isn't reasonable."

Apollo counted on his fingers. "Everyone must pay, the gods cannot be defied, Apollo is the best."

Real Percy cringed and mumbled to himself, "Haikus? Now?"

Dream Annabeth shook her head. "You too? What's next?" She looked over to Poseidon, who was staring down at his trident, not saying a word. "Are you going to defend your son?"

What scared Percy, was how robotically he repeated the words. "The gods can't be defied."

Dream Percy's head perked up at this, his eyes dropping down. "The Labyrinth," Zeus with his oh-so-commanding voice spouted. "With her?"

Two things: that told him just where he was, the Labyrinth, again. Yay. Awesome. Great. Percy has survived that once, what could be different about this time. And two, is said 'her" Annabeth? That would be awfully convenient. The gods are anything but convenient.

Each god and goddess nodded slowly, heads tilting up and down at the same time. That was when Percy really knew something wasn't right. Before he could see anything more, in a split second, everything went black, then white, then red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. The colors of the rainbow, transportation, Iris. He was leaving the scene, and would once again be left with little to no information as always. Percy sometimes really, really, hated the gods.

…

When he next opened his eyes, he was in the same position as before. Same stump, same cave, same everything.

Who was this "her?" What could make her so bad? Most of all, why was Percy here anyway? Something had come over the gods, maybe the Eidolons or something like that. But it couldn't be, for one, Eidolons shouldn't and couldn't have enough power to do something like that, and two, the sort of possession held over the gods was different, nowhere near the same as what Percy felt when he was possessed.

Could "her" be the one commanding the gods? Or was "her" some twisted form of punishment to prevent Percy from escaping this terrible place? Neither answer was something Percy would want to hear. Neither could have a plausible answer.

Again, this was very irritating. After so many years of fighting for the gods, they sent him here as what? Punishment? That was stupid. The gods must be really off the rocker too. Or, maybe something happened to them. Percy really would not like to dwell on that right now, the possibility that Olympus was in danger again, was not a nice prospect to think about. Especially since he had other things to deal with now. They really should just commission a personal SWAT team, even Mrs. O'leary could work. He'd have to pitch those after he got out of this dank situation.

Whoever, "her" was, she must be just as crazy as the gods. As many know, they aren't exactly kind or benevolent when handing off punishments. Just look at Prometheus.

And in that moment, Percy was kindly jolted out of his thoughts with the sounds of a large bang. Then a crash. It sounded like something big was coming toward him, something large was stomping close. Percy, through his many years of practice had learned that big stomping sounds never led to anything good. So despite not knowing who that was, or what it was, he began to run.

That is, until he discovered there was nowhere he could run too. As large as this cave seemed, it still was not that hard to run in around it, so Percy soon ended up tired and still unsafe. The stomping sound came closer and closer, until it stopped, several feet in front of him.

Hands shaking, Percy slowly looked up. A scally, green torso with various animal parts sticking out, reaching toward him. A woman likes her head but with snakes, much like Medusa snaking from her head. Ugly, ugly, ugly features. This was no Medusa. Percy almost wished it was.

But nope, he got stuck with her. If he made a list of top one hundred camping companions, she would be at the very bottom of the list next to several other individuals he'd rather not name for safety's sake. This is the last person he wanted to see here, well, arguably, one of the last people he wanted to see period.

Kampe.

…

disclaimer: no secret Rick Riordan's here, I'll promise you that, and only that.

a/n: first chapter! I've never really thought about writing a canonverse quest type thing, tbh, I prefer writing AU's, but I decided to try it out. The canonverse is my favorite part of PJO, obviously. So yeah! Although my update schedule is usually Mon, Weds, Sat, I think this will be slower because of obligations. Maybe just Wednesday and Saturday, Monday might be a stretch. Idk, I'll let you all know once I get to a consensus, but for now, expect Weds and Sat, maybe Monday sometimes. Chapters are going to be shorter, like around 2k words, maybe sometimes 3k, because I'm starting to work on an original book rn too. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter! Leave a review, lmk what you think, it's much appreciated. Stay safe and healthy and until the next chapter!

—TheLil'Lion