Percy stumbled upon a big open area that was being operated in. There were two warehouses, one seemed to be carrying water and other liquids while the other was holding food. There were workers carrying barrels and crates from the warehouses and loading them onto an ironclad ship.

The ship itself was completely bizarre. It had a pink body with white masts and a white head. The head itself was in the shape of a swan with hearts for eyes. Speaking of hearts, they littered all of the sails and were also in various other places on the boat. Percy imagined that if the Aphrodite cabin were to design the Argo II, this is what it would have looked like.

The strangest part about the ship was that it had two Jolly Rogers tied around the main and secondary mast of the ship, indicating a pirate ship of all things. Percy honestly didn't know what to think of the counterintuitive pirate ship. He'd never think of a pirate ship being so 'lovey dovey'. Seriously, what was their game plan with this ship design! Pillaging and looting with love and affection!?

Percy just shook his head. He'd seen far stranger things in his previous life, after all.

Percy had a feeling that he'd need to make contact with these pirates one way or another. He had learned a little about pirates during the ancient times, and they would often have deserted islands that made for good hiding spots for both the pirates and their stolen goods. If the casual demeanor of the pirates in front of him was any indication, he was probably on a deserted island.

If that was the case, these pirates would be Percy's only way off of it. Of course, if he still had his water powers at full force, he wouldn't even need to bother at all. He would've been able to simply swim across the ocean. But that wasn't the case now. He needed to board a ship, and there was only one to choose from.

Percy thought about how he should face the pirates. The pirates would most likely act hostile towards him upon interaction, so peaceful negotiation wasn't an option. He could also sneak onto the ship as a stowaway, but he would probably be discovered later, and his stealth wasn't that good anyway. He could also … He was just confusing himself, so he decided to go with the Percy option.

Winging it.

Percy trailed along the edge of the forest surrounding the clearing until he arrived near the wooden warehouse. He looked himself over, deciding to try to blend in and pretend to be part of the crew.

He gave a good look over himself. He was wearing tan cargo pants and a form-fitting black t-shirt. He didn't look very similar to the pirates in attire, but he also spotted some pirates speckled around that looked like absolute clowns, so who knew, he might be safe anyways.

Percy looked for a person he could go up to without causing a fuss, but nobody looked promising. Every pirate he saw gave an air that said, 'Don't look at talk to me, look at me, or stand within 15 feet in proximity." It honestly looked like blending in was hopeless.

Percy wondered whether he should just go in guns blazing when he saw a chore boy rolling a barrel off of the deck of the ship. He looked utterly depressed, eyes focusing on the ground to avoid making eye contact with everyone in the clearing.

Percy saw that maybe the chore boy would be willing to have a conversation, and saw his chance. Percy casually walked right into the clearing, acting like he completely belonged. Some of the pirates noticed this and started staring. There weren't any malicious looks thrown his way, but no one looked away after they saw him, which was a little concerning. After what felt like hours under the intense gaze of many pirates, Percy finally stopped in front of the chore boy.

"Hey, would you mind if I took that off your hands?" Percy casually asked the chore boy.

The chore boy's expression lit up in surprise, and he accidentally dropped the barrel in his stupor. Everyone who hadn't seen Percy yet stopped what they were busy with, and stared at Percy with confusion and apprehension.

"U-um, who are you?" the chore boy stuttered, then waved his hands in front of him in a panic after realizing that he was speaking to a potentially dangerous person. "Sorry, I didn't mean any offense by that!"

The chore boy looked like he was internally struggling with how he should get out of the situation he was in. Percy realized that his cover was already quickly falling and was desperately trying to find something to say to evade conflict.

He was about to say something that was probably stupid when he heard one of the pirates speak up from near the wooden shed, "Hey! How the hell did you get to this island." he had a vicious glint in his eyes. Welp, his cover was blown.

"This is an island far away from any standard marine shipping routes, and those of us on this island ..." He spread his hands outwards, indicating the other pirates in the clearing, and they in response gave threatening looks towards Percy, "... are the only ones who know where this island is."

Percy cursed his luck. He didn't expect his plan to fail so quickly. He had held the idea that pirates were pretty similar to mercenary gangs, and as mercenaries, they wouldn't care for the other people within their band unless their task called for teamwork. But it seemed that this group of people all knew each other for him to be found out so easily. It confused the Hades out of him. How could these people that earlier seemed to want no part in dealing with each other all know each other enough to know that Percy didn't belong?

Percy looked around the area at the various pirates. They were just staring at him, most of the stares malicious. Some of the pirate's body language told Percy that they were ready for a fight. Some of them even looked like they were struggling to hold themselves back.

Percy needed to think of something fast. He didn't want to fight these guys just yet. He simply didn't know how powerful they were, even if he was growing more confident that he could handle them. They looked like they would be an easy fight, but if there was one piece of information that was hammered into him, it was to not underestimate your opponent, ever. But it looked more and more like he would have to resort to combat, whether they were an easy fight or not.

Percy's thoughts were interrupted by the pirate that originally confronted him, "Hey, are you going to answer me, or do you seriously want us to beat the shit out of you!" The pirate looked close to the end of his patience.

"No, I'm not looking for a fight," Percy reassured while holding up his hands in a placating manner. "My name is Percy Jackson, and I, um…", he paused to think of some bullshit excuse, "got stranded here?" He tried, then realized how stupid the response sounded when framed as a question.

Stupid seaweed brain.

"Ok, so that last part was a lie, but I seriously want to get off this island without conflict, and I don't know how strong each of you is ... " Percy's demeanor then did a 180, going from relaxed and carefree, to that of a beast about ready to claim its prey. "But you should hesitate before you decide to fight me." He then gave his quite infamous, almost trademark among demigods, wolf stare.

This caused some of the pirates in the area to back away from their glares, gaining looks of apprehension instead. The chore boy was the most put off by the wolf stare, gaining a pale look on his face. Percy briefly felt sorry about that, but then resolved to help the kid out later, because now, he wanted the person interrogating him to accept peace.

It didn't work out that way.

"Listen, brat. I don't give a damn if you could beat me in an arm wrestle, or that you might have experience with combat. Right now, you don't have a weapon on you, and you're completely surrounded. Do you really think such a stupid bluff would work?" This caused the group of pirates to regain their confidence, and they all started to pull out their weapons, standing in a battle-ready stance once again, some looking more excited than before.

"Hey, shouldn't we tell Alvida about this before trying anything?" one of the pirates suggested but that was then dismissed by the main pirate with a scoff, "As if she needs to know about this guy, let's just take care of him and continue with our day as normal."

Welp, it looked like it was guns blazing after all. Percy got into a fighting stance, brimming with anticipation. The main pirate was about to charge him when the sound of wood splitting was heard followed by a deeply satisfying yawn.

"Man … That was a nice nap." He said while stretching out his arms.

Everyone stared completely slack-jawed at the new face. Standing with his bottom half in a barrel of all things, the same one the chore boy was carrying earlier, was a younger-looking man or teen wearing a red button-up vest. He scanned the crowd curiously, a scar under his left eye.

"Who are you?" He asked no one in particular.

"Who are you!" more than half of everyone there shouted back at him, but the guy looked already bored with getting an answer to his question.

Wait, is he just making small talk! that very well might have been the case considering the man took out a straw hat, put it on his head, then stretched both of his arms while still remaining in the barrel.

"I'm hungry!" The barrel man eagerly stated, then pointedly gave a random pirate a look as if expecting him to be the person that would lead him to where the food was.

Percy was honestly confused more than anything. He had seen far stranger things in his previous life, but this person seemed completely oblivious of the situation he was in. That or … Percy wondered if maybe he just wasn't afraid of these people in front of him.

Either way, this person wasn't someone these pirates had seen before, setting common ground between them. So that was nice.

Percy was about to talk to him and let him know that these people were pirates, and weren't too friendly. However, he faintly heard with his honed senses a massive object screaming towards him.

After being briefly startled, his demigod instincts took over and he ducked towards the ground, also pushing down the chore boy just as a massive mase careened over their heads and hit multiple pirates, directly hitting the guy in the barrel.

"Who is slacking off!" a scratchy voice sounded from the ship.

That was close! Percy felt his adrenaline spiking. Within a moment, he examined everything that was going on. There were sounds of pain coming from multiple pirates surrounding him. There were around five pirates that were knocked unconscious, one of them being the aggressive pirate that confronted him earlier. The barrel man was gripping his straw hat to his head while his barrel was spinning like a top and bouncing into the treeline. Percy also noticed some completely random things, like how one of the pirates was wearing pants two sizes too big, or how three of them had pissed their pants.

Percy briefly thought back to his previous life. Back then, after the second giant war, his demigod senses became so good that time seemed to slow down when he was chock-full of adrenaline. Whenever he went into battle mode, he would be able to perceive multiple events going on over a minuscule period. He didn't exactly know how it was possible, but he eventually just assumed that it was because of all of his endless monster fights that it happened. It was probably the reason he lived as long as he did. When he was in this slowed-down perception of time, almost nothing could take him by surprise.

Percy was removed from his thoughts with the sound of a barrel breaking against a tree. The barrel man was now removed from his barrel and casually looking around his new surroundings.

Now he wanted to talk to the barrel man even more, as he looked completely fine after being directly hit by the mace. The barrel man greatly interested him from the way that he acted around everyone else. He noticed that most of the pirates had their attention completely moved away from him, drawing fearful looks towards their pirate ship.

Percy saw that he could probably move over to the barrel man without getting noticed, so he did just that. As he made his way over, he noticed that the chore boy had the same plan.

"Hey, let's go into the forest before anyone notices," Percy said with slight urgency once he came into contact with the barrel man.

"Huh, who are you?" the guy asked curiously.

Is that the only phrase in his vocabulary?

"I'm Percy Jackson," he said quickly to get it out of the way. "I want to talk to you without being interrupted by those guys" Percy urged, pointing towards the pirates.

The barrel man just gave Percy a bright, carefree smile. "Sure Jackson! Oh, who's that guy?" he pointed towards the chore boy.

Seriously, does he ask every stranger this question?

"Um, my name is Coby. I have an escape boat on the other side of this island that we could use to escape this island." The chore boy, now known as Coby, said with more determination than Percy had seen from him previously.

Percy became excited. "An escape boat? Yes, that would be great Coby! I thought that I would have to fight the entire crew to escape this island!"

Coby spluttered, then frantically shook his head "Fight the crew!?. You can't do that! You'll die for sure!"

"Well, I wasn't planning on it anyways." Percy just shrugged, then something came to mind. He turned to the barrel man. "Hey, what's your name?'

The barrel man grinned. "Monkey D. Luffy!," he then grinned at Coby. "This is great. My previous boat capsized. I thought that I was going to die." He then laughed.


"So wheres the boat?" asked Percy. They had reached the other end of the island relatively quickly, but upon seeing the shoreline, he couldn't find a boat at all. The only thing unnatural that he could find was a collection of worn-out wood that sort of resembled a… Oh, don't tell me.

Coby looked down at that very same collection of wood. "Uh, the boat is right here. I've been working on this boat for two years so that I could escape the island on my own." He then looked like he realized something, his face quickly saddening. "Oh, no! It can only fit one person, so only one of you can escape. I didn't think about the fact that there are three of us. Sorry!"

Coby looked like someone had shot his dog in front of him with the dejected look he was giving. "It's okay if one of you takes it. I can always just make another boat again." he sniffed a little.

"What's this. A coffin?" Luffy bluntly said.

Percy sadly had to agree with Luffy on this one. "Sorry, Coby. I know you spent two years on this, but this would have killed you if you sailed away on it."

Coby looked utterly devastated as tears started to fill his eyes. Percy felt empathy for the chore boy. He looked like he had it rough all these years serving under whoever the pirate captain was.

He decided to offer some consolation. "If it's any help, now you don't need to worry about which one of us leaves the island."

This didn't seem to help Coby's mood at all, so Percy just decided to leave it there.

"Man, you're pathetic, aren't you?" Luffy laughed.

Percy looked at him. "Dude!"

"Huh?" Luffy just looked confused.

"... never mind."

Percy decided to ignore Luffy's rude remark and turned to back to Coby, "Anyways. Coby, while I'm sorry about your boat, it looks like we will just have to fight your crew and captain. Could you tell us about your captain so that we could be prepared?"

Coby looked terrified at where things were going. "You want to fight Alvida!?"

Percy tried to calm Coby as best he could. "We don't really have much of a choice right now, so I'd rather be prepared. Look, I've gone through more battles while on the brink of death than I can count, so stop panicking," Percy finished with a sigh. Coby reminded him of when he was first experiencing his demigod life, scared and unsure of what to do.

Luffy ignored Coby and turned to Percy with stars in his eyes. "Oooooh! Are you strong?!"

Percy shrugged, thinking about his current lack of water power. "I could be stronger, but I still have plenty of combat experience."

After hearing that, Coby looked up at Percy with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "Do you really think you could beat Alvida?"

Percy shrugged again. "You haven't described to me how strong she is, so I really can't say. I'm not going to make any promises. But don't think that I don't have a chance even if she's stronger than me. I've beaten stronger opponents than myself before and I can do the same thing again."

Luffy laughed. "Listen to Jackson, Coby! We'll beat up Alvida easily!"

Well, Percy didn't exactly say 'easily', but maybe it would be easy. He just wanted to fight someone to know the strength of the average person in this world already. These uncertainties were proving to be a hassle.

Coby finally gained a look of trust towards Percy and Luffy. It looked like he was about to ask another question before Percy was once again interrupted by a giant flying mace.

Percy once again pushed Coby to the ground before they could be hit by the flying mace. He then looked up and saw something that made absolutely no sense.

The big iron mace, against all logic, was curving like a boomerang. The boomerang mace then curved around 360 degrees and flung into the arms of a woman.

Percy examined the woman who caught the mace. She was fat, ugly, and had a scowl on her face. Percy noticed that whenever a pirate looked in her direction, they acted with respect and reverence. Is she Alvida?

"Who said that they would beat me up?!" the person that was most likely Alvida snarled.

Luffy raised his hand. "here," he said bluntly as if responding to classroom attendance.

Man, this kid is dense. Well… I guess I'm dense too. Annabeth would probably think that we would get along great. Would we? Percy decided to let that remain a mystery for the time being.

"You brat!" Alvida looked ready to pummel Luffy until she noticed the person standing next to him.

"Coby!" she said slowly and viscously. "Are you helping out these scoundrels!?"

Coby gulped loud enough that Percy could hear it from three feet away. The chore boy looked indecisive on what he was going to say next. However, after a few moments, he seemed to make up his mind. He gained a determined look. "Yes" was all he said.

Percy gained a bit of admiration for Coby for standing up to Alvida. Standing up to someone far stronger than yourself, while also being in front of their face took a lot of courage. He honestly wouldn't have minded if Coby denied being with them. They would have to fight anyway, and he wouldn't want to protect someone while doing it, but he was happy for Coby's little declaration.

Alvida looked more annoyed by Coby's answer than anything else. "Damn you, Coby! Now I'll have to find a replacement for you."

Percy ignored the reaction from Coby and instead studied who he had to fight now that he was close enough. Alvida's crew looked like they had normal strength. Percy would probably be able to handle them without a weapon or water powers if this was the case. Alvida looked really strong judging by how hard she threw her massive mace, but she was also very big, which limited movement. All in all, it looked like he would be able to handle all of them unless they weren't what they seemed.

Now that he knew that he probably wasn't in any danger, Percy smiled at Coby. "Coby, while I'm still not making any promises, you can be almost certain that I can defeat these guys."

To say that Alvida was furious was an understatement. She was fuming, and she looked like she was about to pummel the person nearest to her. That particular pirate seemed to have the same idea and looked terrified because of it.

She gave a sickly smile that didn't look genuine in any way. "I am going to kill you," she said slowly, each word deliberate, sending shivers down everyone's spine, except for Percy and Luffy.

"However," She pointedly stared at Percy and Luffy. "I won't kill you that painfully if you say I'm the most beautiful woman in the world."

"But you're ugly," Luffy said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, causing Percy to laugh out loud.

And that's how the fighting started.

"RAH!" Alvida went straight for Luffy in a blind rage. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew surrounded Percy and Coby.

Guess it's time to see how rusty I am Percy thought to himself. He cracked his knuckles and stretched out his arms and legs. He had the time to do this because the pirate that confronted him earlier was monologing for some stupid reason.

Percy turned to Coby and whispered to him, interrupting the monologue, "Just stay by the shore and wait for them to be distracted by me. Once that happens, try to escape into the trees undetected. You got that?" Coby nodded.

"Hey what the hell?! Were you not listening to me?!" Percy did, in fact, not listen. "Listen brat! If you find that I'm not important enough to pay attention to, I'll make you regret it." He took two curved swords out of the scabbards attached on either end of his waist. "After all, my 20,000 berry bounty isn't-"

He couldn't finish his sentence as Percy stepped in front of him and punched him in the face so fast that the surrounding people could only see a blur. The man quickly blacked out and crumpled into the sand. This action caused all of the surrounding pirates to take a step back in fear.

Coby saw his chance and tried to escape from the ring of pirates. He wasn't lucky, however, as one of the pirates got out of his stupor and caught on to what Coby was doing.

"Hey, Coby is trying to get away!"

More pirates got out of their stupor and started chasing after Coby. Coby tried to run as fast as he could, but the pirates were quickly catching up to him.

Before that could happen, however, Percy managed to run ahead of the group of pirates. He grabbed the back of the lead pirate's collar, then pivoted around the pirate's leg so that he was now in the front while tripping the pirate in the process.

Before the pirate could faceplant, Percy used the leg that he used to trip the pirate and kicked him in the gut so hard that the pirate was kicked into the remaining pirates that were chasing Coby. This caused all of them to fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs, making Percy grin at his accomplishment.

The pirates that didn't chase after Coby looked at Percy in awe and slight apprehension. No one made a move in fear of taking the brunt of Percy's attack.

Percy was having a blast at their reactions. It was official, these guys were easy fights.

Now if only I had a weapon. This would be so much more entertaining.

As if Chaos answered him, which was probably the case, he felt a sudden weight in his pocket. He took out the object and realized that it was Riptide.

Percy gave a wicked grin. He felt slightly stupid that he didn't think about the sword up until now, but that feeling was completely overpowered by newfound excitement. Chaos was truly being nice to him, and now he was wondering when he would act like the typical God.

Percy waved his pen in front of the pirates. "Hey, would you guys like to see a magic trick?" Percy asked jovially. He flicked the cap off the pen, and it immediately transformed into a sword, making the pirates flabbergasted. Instead of Percy feeling elated at the success of the trick, he frowned.

Instead of the xiphos that Percy was used to seeing, it was a katana that was held in his grip. It still felt completely balanced in his hand, but all of the tricks that he was used to performing with the xiphos were now incompatible, deeply frustrating him.

Percy sighed. I guess even Chaos needs to perform his godly duty to be a complete bitch at times. He realized that Chaos could probably hear his thoughts so he cut off that chain of thoughts right away.

The pirates had meanwhile seen Percy's stunned silence and went for the attack. Percy noticed this and gripped the katana, feeling both weird and comfortable at the same time. He took a breath, throwing aside his frustrations with riptide's change.

Percy swept into the crowd and let his instincts take over. The pirate that was closest to him was immediately removed from the fight with a crisp and swift slash. He then went to the next pirate without losing any momentum from the first. One pirate after the another was cut down by him.

Despite the one-sided battle, Percy felt a little awkward working with the sword. It was around a foot longer than the xiphos, making the close-quarter combat he was so used to slightly harder to maintain within the range he was comfortable with. It also was only edged on one end, making him accidentally slash with the blunt end of the sword at times, dealing blunt damage. Whenever that happened to a pirate, Percy would use his free hand to punch the lights out of the pirate, but that always slowed his momentum, which was deadly with stronger opponents.

Despite the difficulty and awkwardness, Percy was still having a good time with his first fight in a long time. Eventually, there was only one pirate left, then that number turned to zero once that pirate realized he was Percy's complete mercy, passing out from sheer terror.

Percy surveyed the results of the one-sided fight. Everyone was completely down for the count, or maybe just pretending to be, Percy didn't care.

He had made sure not to cripple or kill any of the pirates because they weren't the monsters that he was so used to fighting. While pirates could be despicable people, not all of them deserved the death sentence just because they were pirates. There was also the fact that Percy just hadn't ever had killing intent towards one of his own kind. The only mortals or demigods that Percy was ever ok with dying in his previous life were Gabe and Octavian, and that was within good reason. It would take a lot for someone to end up with Percy wanting them dead.

After looking around, Percy noticed that Coby wasn't nearby, and he took a breath in relief. It looked like the chore boy had made it out safely. Luffy, on the other hand, he wasn't too sure about.

Was he strong enough to defeat Alvida? He looked confident in front of the fat and ugly captain, but he was also completely oblivious to almost every situation Percy had seen him in.

Percy didn't have to worry about it for long as he heard a cheery voice from the treeline. "Wow! You're strong!" Stepping out into the clearing was Luffy, with Coby following close behind.

Before Percy could even feel relieved,' Luffy continued. "Hey! Come and join my crew!" He shouted, bursting with excitement.

Percy's thoughts were briefly thrown off track before he decided to ignore the question for the time being. He was curious about something else. "Hey, what happened to you and Alvida?" Percy asked Luffy.

"Oh, her? I used gum gum bazooka to shoot her into the sky." Luffy answered as if it was as simple as taking out the trash.

"?"

Coby, looking a bit frazzled, noticed Percy's confusion and tried to help elaborate. "Uh, you see … " he looked like he was trying to find the right words, only making Percy anticipate the answer even more.

"Luffy has a devil fruit power." Coby finally got out.

"?"

"Yeah, I ate the gum gum fruit," Luffy nodded in agreement. He then proceeded to swing his arm forward but instead of stopping at full extension, it stretched forwards, and it kept going for around 10 meters before slamming back into its original position.

"?!" Percy was shocked for a while, but then he realized he was being stupid again. That's what he was here for. The crazier the world, the better. After all, it would be nigh impossible to beat the craziness of his life as a demigod.

"How did you get those powers?" Percy asked, extremely curious.

"I just told you. I ate the gum gum fruit." Luffy said.

"So, just to clarify, you ate a fruit … and it gave you powers."

Luffy nodded. "Yeah. are you an idiot?"

Percy decided to stop that line of questioning after that. He would figure out specifics later.

"So …" Percy hesitated. "What did you mean earlier when you said you wanted me to join your crew?"

Luffy immediately turned excited. "Join my pirate crew! I'm going to find the one piece and become the king of the pirates!" He yelled with absolute confidence.

Percy frowned after hearing that. Luffy looked so promising to be Percy's first friend in this new world he still knew so little about. But he was just a pirate!?. One of those scoundrels who loot and pillage as a business? He was both saddened and disappointed.

Coby had a completely different expression on his face, looking at Luffy like he was a dead man walking. "Are you crazy?! You can't become the pirate king! There's no way! No way! Do you want to die!" Coby shouted franticly, surprising Percy with his outburst.

Luffy responded by hitting Coby upside the head and catching both Coby and Percy off guard.

"Why'd you hit me?" Coby asked in surprise.

"Because you're annoying," Luffy huffed. He proceeded to answer one of Coby's earlier questions. "It doesn't matter if I die if it's fighting for my dream," Luffy said with raw determination, effectively shutting Coby up.

Percy was getting more and more suspicious of his earlier assumption on Luffy being a pirate. Luffy wasn't acting like a standard pirate at all. Pirates and mercenaries and didn't have dreams, especially dreams that were declared with such conviction.

Percy then wondered what One Piece was. It sounded like a treasure … wait a minute

"Hey, Luffy. Why do you like being a pirate?" Percy asked.

Luffy gave a simple yet amazing response. "Because a pirate is the freest person on the sea."

Percy just stood there for a minute. His suspicions were confirmed. He felt a feeling of warmth budding inside of him that continued to grow stronger.

This was what he always wanted in his own life. He never knew freedom ever since he was twelve and his fate was decided. Prophecy after prophecy and quest after quest, he was forced to be a part of all of them. While he eventually grew to enjoy the fighting, deep down, he always felt like he was tethered to his fate. Being forced to do what you like versus choosing to do what you like made all the difference, and now he had the latter option.

It was a dream come true and Percy wasn't about to let it slip through his fingers.

"Ok, I'll join your crew."


(A/N) I've decided to update once every two weeks on Tuesdays. Hopefully, that will give you something to look forward to. Along with that, I've decided to make the chapter length for each update over 10k words. This is still an introductory chapter so that's why it's only 5k.

Please review and thanks for reading!