Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus, Kane Chronicles, Magnus Chase, any other future mythology series Rick Riordan writes about, or the Rich Riordan Presents series. If I owned this series, I wouldn't be writing here. I am simply a humble fan, writing this for the enjoyment of other fans. Please support the official release.

Going to the bathroom was the worst part of my new body. You might think that it would be simple. It's stay coming out, the same system, right? WRONG! I'll skip the details because it's gross, but suffice to say it was not the same. The... Plumbing, so to speak, was a lot different than what I was used to. It felt wrong going out and I dreaded going to the bathroom.

It wasn't forever, I reminded myself often. Once I wake up and die, or I wake up in the hospital, this craziness will come to an end. This hellish fever dream will break one day and I'll be back to being me.

Newsflash: It never did. I know, shocking, right? I came to accept that this might not be a dream after three days. Surely, if this was a dream, I would have woken up by now, right?

Three full, long days in a dream? That would never happen. So when I went to sleep the third night and woke up back in Thalia's body, I came to the conclusion that if this was a dream, I was in a coma, and it was never going to end. Hurrah!

I spent the first three days avoiding the others. I didn't know who Victoria and Isaac were, I don't remember ever reading about them, so they were easy enough for me to avoid. Bianca dies when she's twelve, in the first books she's in, but was that still the case here? I didn't know if it was, but I felt like I was talking to a dead girl.

Then there was Luke. The champion of Kronos. The guy who helped him rise. He had a change of heart there at the end, and redemption is a powerful thing, but I didn't trust him. I remembered the five Percy Jackson books. Luke works for Kronos. Kronos wants a big three kids for his prophecy.

Who am I? Thalia Grace, Daughter of Zeus, big three kid. Freaking perfect. In the seemingly more likely event that I had indeed been, isekai'd across time and space, I didn't feel like siding with Kronos. Sure, the gods might be horrible rulers of the universe, but they were better than the titans. Not a great bar, I know, but it was something.

For the first time in my life, I experienced what it was like to be homeless. The five of us were constantly on the move, dodging monsters, trying to stay one step ahead. That wasn't always possible, given how much scent I must have radiated off. We had to steal or pay for water since we didn't have access to a constant source of it. I never imagined I'd miss my skin so much.

We hardly changed clothes and we could only manage a shower once or twice a week. If we were lucky. The new clothes Thalia, Isaac, and Luke had stolen for me were stained and dirty. If my mother from my last life could see me now, she'd have a heart attack.

If going to the bathroom wasn't awkward enough in my new body, with all the wrong plumbing, going to the bathroom out in the woods or under a bridge was worse. How could it be worse you ask? I'll leave that to your imagination, but let's just say I grew up in the city the first time around. The only time I left L.A. was when I died. Other than a few short trips. I didn't exactly know what Poison Ivy looked like. We had to wipe with something...

After I accepted that this most likely wasn't a dream, or if it was I was stuck here in a coma, I decided to try and make friends with my... Companions.

Bianca and Issac were easy enough. If this was a manga, those two would be the protagonists of a battle manga. They loved to fight and they were good at it. Bianca and Issac became my instructors. Neither of them carried a sword, but they showed me the ropes.

Luke joined us sometimes, but he had been fighting monsters since he ran away when he was nine. He was thirteen now. When he sparred with us, it felt more like he was keeping his skills sharp, as opposed

I didn't want to get too close to Luke. At least... Not yet. For all I knew, he could be dreaming about Kronos right now, though I liked to think Kronos hadn't made contact yet. Either way, I was going to keep my distance. Even if he seemed to be doing everything in his power to make sure he got as close to me as possible.

Victoria was the odd one out. She seemed distant with me and Luke, which wasn't surprising. We were new. She was more friendly with Issac, but there was still a certain amount of distance from him. The only one she seemed to open up to was Bianca. The daughter of Hades was a good friend and she seemed to enjoy Victoria's company, but I got the feeling that Victoria liked her in a way that Bianca couldn't reciprocate.

In my past life, I didn't have ADHD or Dyslexia. I didn't have any conditions like that, and for the most part, my school days were easy. The first time I tried to read a sigh after getting put in Thalia's body, the letters started floating off the sign. Literally floating off the sign...

How the hell was I supposed to read if the letters wouldn't cooperate? Victoria was the one to help me the most, surprisingly. She helped me learn to calm down and when I did, the letters didn't jump off the page as much. Or the sign, I should say. In my last life, I loved reading, but it was going to become a problem for me.

It turned out that everyone in the group had dyslexia. It had been a very long time since I first read the Percy Jackson books as a child and I forgot that demigods had dyslexia. Our brains were hardwired for ancient Greek.

If dyslexia wasn't bad enough on its own, I had a bad case of ADHD. It was helpful when I trained. My body always seemed so ready to move, but when I tried to relax? When I just wanted to sit down and have a moment of quietness? No. Gods forbid. My body constantly twitched, as if it was ready to counter a monster attack. Which I guess it was.

When a monster found me and I had to fight for my life, I was sure I'd appreciate it, but as it stood, the ADHD was starting to keep me up at night.

On day seven, a full week after I woke up as Thalia, I was cursing my life. If being made a demigod wasn't bad enough, I was also going through puberty problems. Places that shouldn't be were sore. Very sore. A constant, freaking bother that just wouldn't go away. The constant soreness made it hard to fight, but thankfully Luke, Victoria, Issac, and Bianca had been dealing with the monsters whenever they found us.

I started to get annoyed. I felt like dead weight and I kind of was. I was the only one sitting back and doing nothing. So I threw myself into training as hard as I could with Bianca and Isaac. I was not going to be anyone's burden. The soreness made that hell, but whenever I thought about quitting or giving up, I just remembered the time everyone fought but me.

I don't know if Bianca decided to take pity on me, or if she thought I'd need the skill in the future, but she taught me one of the most important skills a half-blood would need.

We were at the California-Nevada border, about to cross into the next state. We would have gone through a few days away, but it seemed like every few hours a monster would find us, forcing us to run or fight. We were able to collect supplies because of the monsters.

Luke, Issac, and Victoria had gone to salvage food, leaving the two of us alone. We hoped that with me and Bianca here, the two big three kids, they wouldn't be as noticeable.

"Do you know how to manipulate the mist?" Bianca asked out of the blue.

Manipulate the mist? Since I had been reborn, I was given a crash course on the world of demigods. The mist was the veil that kept the mortals from seeing what the world truly was. Powerful forces could manipulate it, including half-bloods. In The Titian's Curse, Chiron had taught Thalia.

"I don't."

"Do you want to learn?"

Learn to control the best? It sounded pretty cool. I could manipulate the minds of mortals with the mist, which would make going out a lot easier. "Can you do it?"

Bianca grinned. "Of course. One of the furies showed me."

"Furies? As in Hades's enforcers?"

Bianca nodded. "Yeah. I am his daughter. He sent them to get me out of the hotel and they gave me this sword. They taught me how to survive."

Huh. As a kid of Zeus, I doubted they would be so kind to me. "So how do I manipulate the mist?"

"First things first, you need to feel it."

"Feel... The mist?"

"Yep. You have to feel it. The mist is a veil that keeps the mundane world separate from the divine. The mortal world doesn't have gods and monsters. It's all around us, Thalia. It's here at all times. All you have to do is feel it."

I tried to feel anything, but the only thing I felt was cold. It was an overcast day and it was misting heavily. If we stepped outside our little encampment, I was sure I was going to get moist.

But I didn't feel any magical barrier or veil. "I have nothing."

"Don't worry about it. I didn't get it at first either. Imagine feeling a veil, coming down from the sky. Wrapping over you and everything else. It's not cloth or anything physical, but it's everywhere at once. It's connected to all things."

"... I'm supposed to imagine feeling something I can't feel?"

"Yep," Bianca said cheerfully, popping the P.

Great. That sounded perfectly easy and reasonable.

It took me an hour just to feel the damn mist. Bianca was right, it did feel like a veil, a power that existed everywhere and nowhere at once. I had no idea how I never noticed it before. It was obviously there. It was TOO obvious. How could this veil separate the worlds, when it was easy to feel. It didn't seem solid, more like an invisible mist floating everywhere and clinging to everything.

Maybe I was just blind. Maybe that's why I couldn't see or feel it before. Did that make everyone else blind?

"So... How do I manipulate it?"

"You have to force your will over it. First, you focus on your target or targets. Then you will the mist to influence your target. It's not that easy. You have to have a goal in mind. What do you want the mortal to see are think? Your will determines what they see or feel, Thalia. If you don't have a clear idea in your head, it won't work. You have to engrave that idea on the mist itself. You have to force that idea to be real to someone else."

It was harder than she made it sound, which was hard enough.

Bianca had me practice on her, which she admitted wasn't ideal. "I can see through the mist, so you won't be able to force it on me. You should be able to get a feel for what it's like to manipulate the mist against someone."

She was right about that part. It took two more hours of constant effort, but I was able to bend the mist to my will and veil it over Bianca. It was useless to try and control her, but I think I got the general idea of how it worked.

When Isaac, Luke, and Victoria could back, they weren't very well off. "Monsters found us," Luke said, tossing down two bags of canned food and some water bottles.

"It wasn't that many," Victoria said. "I don't want to think how many of them would have come after us if Bianca and Thalia were there."

"It's a good thing they stayed behind," Luke said, sitting against one of the trees. His clothes were a little moist. "I tried to find some jeans that would fit you, but the monsters were coming."

"What?" I asked.

He nodded at my skirt. "I know how much you hate wearing that skirt. I wanted to get you something else."

I was touched. After I had gone out of my way to put some distance between Luke and myself, he had done that for me. If the monsters didn't come when they did, I might not be wearing this skirt anymore. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all...

Then the whole Kronos thing came back to me. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy right now, but that didn't mean things couldn't change. That didn't mean the future I had read in the books was set in stone, either. Bianca should have been in the Lotus Hotel and Casino right now. Thalia didn't meet Luke until she was twelve, but according to my school ID, I was only eleven. Things had already changed from the canon I understood.

Or maybe I was just remembering the books wrong. I wish I could go back and read them. That would shine a light on most of my problems.

That night, as we all huddled next to a campfire to keep warm, I was on first shift. When I thought everyone had gone to sleep, a grabbed a blanket and slung it around my shoulders. The night was getting colder, but the fire was so warm. I understood the lyrics to that stupid Christmas song now: The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful.

"Thalia?" Isaac asked. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"You're still awake?"

"Not for long, hopefully," Isaac admitted. "I'm going to try and get some sleep, but..."

"But?"

"I've been having some bad dreams," he admitted. "Nightmares. Not very manly, I know."

Demigod dreams were almost never dreams. "What have you been dreaming about?"

Isaac shook his head. "Bad things happening to us. Bianca, you... I don't want to talk about it. I wanted to thank you."

His thank you came so far out of the left field, I didn't zero in on the dreams. "Thank me? For what?"

"Bianca's been smiling a lot more since we've found you. I wanted to thank you for that."

It clicked for me then: "You like her, don't you? Bianca."

Isaac grinned. "I didn't think I would at first. When I first met her, me and Victoria had been running for a couple of months."

"You and Victoria?"

"Oh yeah. We go way back. We grew up on Applewood Drive together. In a small town in Wisconsin. We've been friends for as long as I can remember, but I guess it might not look that way to everyone, huh? We had been cornered by a couple of giants and we were going to be eaten. Then became came, waving around her scary-ass sword.

"Well, she killed the giants. I thought she was going to kill us, but she cut us free and feed us. She was gloomy, back in those days. She never once cracked a smile. Not even a twitch of the lips. There was an aura of fear around her. She freaked me out.

"Then one day she started to smile and laugh and all of that ice queen mask melded away. I think I fell for her when I saw her laugh. It lit up her face. Ever since we found that dead end, Bianca hasn't been smiling so much. She's worried for her brother.

"I don't know what you and Luke did, but she's smiling again. So I wanted to thank you."

"We didn't do anything."

"if you want to be modest, who am I to argue."

Isaac yawned and rolled over.

I stayed up until Victoria's pocket watch alarm went off. She took over, pulled a couple more logs onto the fire, and I curled up in the spot she had been laying. I was so exhausted I passed out before I knew it.

I dreamed I was on a tropical island. The ocean sparkled a brilliant, crystal blue and I could see fish swimming in the water. The lush green grass swayed in the window under the palm trees.

Circling the island was a brilliant golden eagle. No, it wasn't circling the island, it was circling me. Standing in the shade of the palm tree was a cat as white as snow. The animal was just as beautiful as the eagle flying above it. Like the bird, I seemed to be the focus of the cat's attention.

Then the dream shifted and I found myself standing in the middle of an ancient city. At least, I thought it was an ancient city at first, but the people around me were all speaking English.

The city looked like a Roman city, down to the roads and the architecture. A purple flag hung down the side of one of the buildings, with the gold letters SPQR displayed across them.

"I don't want to stay in New Rome!" a boy's voice called. I turned and found three people standing together in an alleyway. The older man was Hispanic and his arm was draped over a dark-skinned girl's shoulder. She was wearing a purple cloak and an eagle metal on her shirt. Those were the symbols of a praetor.

Then this must be New Rome. These were Romans. I was a Greek demigod, why was I dreaming about Romans.

"Hazel, dear," the middle-aged man Hazel? As in Hazel, Daughter of Pluto? From the Heroes of Olympus books? Wasn't she supposed to be dead right now?

"Jr. just wants to see the world!"

A boy glared at the older man. He was the older man's mirror image, just in miniature. "My name is Sammy! Call me Sammy."

The older man laughed. "That might be a little confusing, don't you think?"

"Sammy Jr. don't you speak to your father that way," Hazel scolded.

"Now, now, dear. It's okay."

Hazel sighed and turned to him. "Sammy, my love, he needs to go to the Wolf House for training. If he's to join the legion-"

"I don't want to join the legion!" Sammy Jr. snapped. "I want to take over your old shop, dad!"

"My old shop? In Texas?" Sammy Sr. said. "I left it to my old business partner-"

"I saw the letter dad," his son cut him off. "Don't lie to me! Your old partner died of a heart attack. His wife wants to sell his share and I have the money to buy it! I don't want to join the legion and fight monsters!"

Sammy Jr. pulled out a box from his pocket. It looked like a ring box. "I still have this, remember? Please, mom, I don't want to be Roman. Elizabeth married that man from that old Roman family. She became a centurion before she retired. Isn't that enough?"

Sammy Sr. wagged his finger at him don't. "Don't bring your sister into this."

Hazel sighed. "Sammy... My son... If you truly don't want to join the legion, you have my blessing to leave New Rome. When you turn eighteen. Until then, I know a chariot repair shop you can work at."

Sammy Jr.'s face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Thanks, mom! You're the best!"

Both of them were warm and pleasant dreams. I woke up feeling refreshed in a way I hadn't since I first become Thalia. Even as fully woke up, I didn't understand why I got that dream. Thalia was a Greek demigod. The Greeks and the Romans weren't supposed to know about each other. So why the dream? Though I wasn't truly a Greek, was I? I knew about the Romans from the books. Maybe that had some kind of effect on me?

"-ever get separated," Luke was saying when I came to. "And you have my bag, I need you to go to this address."

"Why?" Victoria asked as I sat up, stretching. The sky above us was a perfect navy blue, with not a single cloud in the sky.

"My mother lives there. Or at least... She should," Luke said. "This crown is the only thing that can cure her."

"What about Dionysus?"

Luke snorted. "He's a god. Why would a god help us?"

"My dad sent me this bow and these arrows. He saved my life with them."

"That must be nice. My dad hasn't given me anything. He's never even spoken to me."

"None of our dads have. Their gods... Well, maybe Bianca's dad."

"Don't look at me. He sent a fury to get me out of the hotel and to give me this sword. She showed me how to use it, but that's about it."

"That's more than what my dad did for me."

"Thalia, you're awake," Bianca called. Luke closed his mouth. "Good, we can start training early today."

I stood up, rolled my shoulder, and put the Greek and Roman thoughts firmly out of my mind. "I thought you wanted to cover some ground?" I asked.

"A sparring match won't take too much time. Besides, I want to see your shield."

"My shield?"

"Yeah. The demigod who told me to give it to you said it was a shield. Never tried it myself."

Bianca twisted her silver skull ring and it transformed into her black sword. Huh? Didn't she have a sheath for it yesterday? When I brought it up, Bianca laughed. "I have a sheath, but it can also turn into a ring."

"Then what's the sheath for?"

"It looks cool when I sheath the sword on my back."

"Seriously?"

She nodded. "Seriously."

I couldn't imagine this girl being gloomy the way Isaac had described.

"Now come on. Let's get rolling."

I pulled my mace can out of my backpack and twisted the cap. The spear sprang to life, electricity crackling at the end of it.

"The shield too!"

I looked at the bracelet on my wrist. How the hell did she expect me to get it to transform? "What do I do?"

"Tap it and say Aegis. That's what he told us to do."

So I did it and the shield came to life on my arm. It was heavier than I thought it would be, though not so heavy that I couldn't lift it. I wasn't facing it, but Bianca, Luke, Victoria, and Isaac were. Isaac went white and fell over. Victoria froze and dropped her sandwich. Luke jumped up and pulled his sword out. His teeth were bared and he looked ready to attack me. Then he seemed to get control over himself and slowly put the sword back.

Bianca flinched once, but she didn't move. After a few seconds, she whistled. "Damn. I kind of wish I kept that shield."

"That the first time you've ever been scared?" Isaac asked, recovering himself.

Bianca nodded slowly. "Scared of another person? Yeah. That's not the real shield, though is it? We'd all be stone if it was. Some kind of replica?"

Isaac eyed it. "Remarkable craftsmanship. There's no way I could make a shield half that nice. Must be a gift from Zeus alright."

"I'm not going to hold back this time," Bianca warned. She flicked her sword and the blade was covered in black flames. Then she charged at me.

I had spent the week learning to control my powers, to a certain degree. I wasn't super good at it, but I was better than when I started. As she charged, I felt a pulled start from my cut. It felt like electricity was coursing through my nerve system, which it was, but this felt like more of a godly nature. More divine, if that makes any sense. It made me feel strong and fast like my body was reacting at one hundred and ten percent.

The end of my spear crackled and I shoot a bolt of lightning at Bianca, but the girl ducked. I didn't know how a human could dodge lightning, but I assumed my lightning must not be as fast as natural lightning.

Before I could counter, Bianca was in front of me. I swung my speech but she ducked again. This time she got under my shield and swiped my leg out from under me. I was on my back before I knew it and her flaming sword was an inch from my face.

"... Since when can you control fire?" I asked. She could bend shadows to her will and summon the dead and who knows what else? On top of all of that, she gets black fire? Where's the justice?

Bianca pulled her sword back and offered me her hand. I took it and she hauled me up. "Well... It's not so much as controlling fire, as it is conjuring it."

"Explain the difference."

"Hephaestus is the god of fire, right? So he can control it. I can't do that. I can conjure this black fire, but that's about it. It only works when I'm holding a weapon, then the fire burns along the blade. If it's anything else, it doesn't come. I can't shoot black fireballs or burn my enemies by touching them. That would be cool, but I don't think I'm going to get that lucky."

Okay. The universe had kind of balanced out. A bit.

"I didn't know you could conjure fire like that," Victoria said. Bianca shrugged.

"It's new. I haven't been able to do it to this degree for very long. Before it was only a wasp of fire. The fury that found me said it was a rare ability for a child of Hades. Anyway, Thalia, let's go again."

I didn't feel like having my butt kicked by a twelve-year-old, but I doubted I had a choice. Bianca was the unsaid leader of our mary band of men... And women? We did outnumber the guys...

Wait. Since when did I consider myself a girl? I might be trapped in Thalia's body, but I was most assuredly a guy. I had better nip than in the bud right now.

Our second match went better for me. We had a repeat of the first part, with the lightning bolt and the duck, but when Bianca got close enough, instead of lightning, I willed the wind to make a shield. She ran head first into it and got turned around, allowing me time to electrify my hand. I grabbed her shoulder and she fell to the ground twitching.

At first, I assumed I had made a mistake. Maybe I went overboard? Did I hurt her bad? When I leaned down to check on her, she pounced, pinning me to the with her whole body.

"That's not fair!"

Bianca laughed. "Life isn't fair!" she declared. "This is a good lesson for the future! Don't let your guard down! Even if it looks like your enemy is down!"

Then she leaned down and whispered in my ear: "Good job."

My heart started beating fast, but Bianca jumped off me and high-fived Victoria.

"Time for round three?" Luke asked.

I shoot him a glare. "How about you fight her? You're good with a sword."

"That wasn't what I had in mind-"

"You scared?" Bianca taunted.

"Not on your life! Let's go!"

It was clear from the fight that Luke was the better swordsman. Swordperson? Whatever. He was better with the blade. He outshined Bianca before he disarmed her. The only problem was, that Bianca was a daughter of Hades and she summoned a FREAKING skeleton warrior! Nope, make that two! They assaulted Luke, he couldn't kill them fast enough, and when Bianca joined the fray, he was finished.

Author's Note:

Don't expect normal updates to come this quickly. I plan to update every Saturday and in the event I update twice a week, the second will be on Tuesdays. I just wrote these two chapters at once. Originally they were one chapter, but it was getting too long. So now two.

Sorry to all my Frank and Hazel lovers. I ship them, but I also ship Sammy and Hazel too. Since this is an AU and she got together with Frank in canon, I figure we could show Sammy some love! As you can see, in this AU, Sammy marries Hazel, and let me tell you, they live happily ever after! It's just a fanfic, we can give them one story, can't we guys?

As you can see, Hazel even went to Camp Jupiter. As you can also see, she even got permission for Sammy to live with her in New Rome. Demigods, being half divine, live longer than normal mortals. I read that somewhere, not sure if it's true in canon, but for this AU it is. While they can't live as long as magicians, they can live longer than most mortals. This means that Hazel MIGHTstill be alive. We mightsee her in the future... As an old, retired praetor. Also, I didn't stick this dream in there for the hell of it. It has significance for the story I want to tell. Maybe not this first fic in particular, but the wider, overarching story.

Does this make Leo a legacy of Pluto? You betcha! He'll probably be slightly more powerful than he is in canon, as he has some Roman roots haha! Does this mean he knows about Camp Jupiter? Maybe. His grandfather Sammy Jr. sure did, but that is a tale for another day, my dear reader.

What does this mean for Hazel's mom and Gaea/Terra? Simply put... She made a deal with the devil. Not Gaea, but not someone else just as trustworthy. Oh no. However saying anything else would be spoilers, so we will move on from this topic haha!

A special thanks to my readers! SkullWolfSteam, codepercy, and batmanuchiha! You guys make writing this fic worth it!