Percy let the information settle for a minute, before saying "Now the next story actually happened before this quest,"
"Then why didn't you tell this story before the quest?" AC asked
"Two reasons." Percy told her, "1. I wanted to put off telling this story for as long as possible and 2. is that we were told to tell this story with another one, and the other one wouldn't make sense without telling the Labyrinth story first."
"The sword?" Nico and Thalia asked
"The sword," Percy confirmed, "But anyway, the first story starts at school, when I noticed Clarisse was getting attacked outside the window, so I went to help her,"
"How did you get out of school, as I don't think that you could control the mist that well then," Annabeth asked
"I used the magic word," Percy replied
"Please?" AC guessed, which all Hermes kids, and future demigods shook their heads to.
"Of course not," Travis scoffed
"That will guarantee that you will not leave the room until the lesson is over," TS advised
"What you need to do is make sure they don't want to follow you," Conner continued
"And is believable so that it could actually happen," CS finished
"So, say you're going to puke," Every future demigod told those of the past
"Puke is a magic word?" AC asked in disbelief
"Of course," Annabeth told her past self, "Nothing will get you out of class quicker, and if you do get too injured, then you can stay away from school for the rest of the day.
"Wow," TS and CS beathed in awe, while the rest of the past demigods stared at her in shock.
"The great daughter of Athena getting out learning," TS and CS said in unison.
Annabeth shrugged, "With the titles we have, it's become almost a competition to see who could kill one of us," and many other futures nodded their heads in agreement to the previous statement.
"It's also rather annoying because they now like to dress up as us for Halloween," Percy complained, "If I see another Telkhine wielding a fake Riptide, then I don't know what I will do,"
"Hey, at least yours is only stuck to Halloween," Piper yelled to Percy, "I've got the cyclops Ma Gasket who now likes to braid her hair with feathers because she liked the way that I did it,"
"Anyway, I got outside and helped Clarisse kill the bird things that were attacking her, when she told me that she was doing," Percy explained
"I was looking after Ares' chariot, the first of his daughters to do it in 50 years," Clarisse said proudly,
"So naturally it went wrong and Phobos and Deimos decided to prank her and stole the chariot," Percy told everyone, "It was at this moment that Phobos decided to show up and reveal himself to us, and taunt Clarisse and I, as well as giving a hint as to where the chariot was,"
"Staten Island Zoo," Clarisse revealed
"On the way to the zoo, we were attacked by Deimos this time, as well as riding a sea monster, which we quickly defeat and get onto the island, where the chariot was, disguised as park vehicle," Percy explained
"That seems too easy," Annabeth mentioned
"It was," Percy and Clarisse replied in unison
"Phobos and Deimos were there, so the two of us had to split to fight them, with me taking Phobos, and Clarisse taking Ares." Percy continued, "I managed to make my way to the Aquarium, where Phobos got me under his powers, and made me see my worst fear,"
"And what was?" Travis asked, wanting to get some ideas for his next prank him and his brother would pull on Percy,
"This fear has changed, and I won't tell you what it is now, but at the time, it was camp in flames, with all of my friends dying, begging me to choose," Percy explained, "It was of the choice that I would make when I turn 16,"
"That's horrifying," Jason muttered, with wide eyes,
"I know," Percy deadpanned back, "But fortunately the fish were there to get me out of the illusion, for me to properly fight Phobos, which was the easiest fight with a god that I have had,"
"Damn, that's a lot of gods," Leo whistled
"I know," Percy grinned back, "I caused Phobos to retreat, so I followed the destruction to Clarisse and Deimos, where Deimos had Clarisse under an illusion of her own."
"I'm not going to tell anyone what I saw," Clarisse quickly told everyone, as they turned to look at her,
"Come on Clarisse," Conner begged, "Please,"
"Quit bugging her," Percy told them, "She won't tell you and made me promise not to tell anyone,"
The two sons of Hermes pouted in response
"Anyway, I convinced Clarisse that it was an illusion, which she fought her way through, and defeated Deimos," Percy explained, "Now we had to get the chariot back to the aircraft hangar, where it needs to be stored."
"How did you do that?" Leo asked
"If you allow me to continue, then I will explain," Percy shot back at the son of Hephaestus, "We ran the chariot over the water, which easily cut down the amount of time needed to get the hangar, so we were able to get there very easily. At the hangar, Clarisse said thank you, and made me promise not to say what her fear was, and told her that she was a part of the friends that were there, before parting ways,"
"And that is the story we promised never to tell anyone," Clarisse finished
"So, that's how Percy and Clarisse went from hating each other to whatever the fuck their relationship is now," Travis wondered
"Yep," Percy and Clarisse confirmed
"How are you confused as to their relationship?" AC asked
"The way the act around each other, when they see each other for the first time in a while," Annabeth listed
"And their bond doesn't make sense either," Piper mentioned
"Bond?" An Athena child asked
"As a child of Aphrodite, I can see the different bonds between people, apart from those connected to myself," Piper explained,
"Pink means romantic love, Red means hate, Green means jealousy, Blue means parental, Purple means friendship, Brown means sibling," Silena continued on from her sister
"And what's mine and Percy's?" Clarisse asked Piper and Silena
"Yellow," The two of them replied at the same time
"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that you mentioned yellow," Leo said, gesturing to the daughters of love,
"We, didn't" Silena confirmed
"Which is what makes the bond so confusing," Piper said, eyeing the Percy and Clarisse.
"Should we continue with the next story?" Percy asked, and when he got nods of approval, he began,
"Now a bit of backstory, this takes place after the Labyrinth quest, so I am now at Paul's school, when we are doing our end of term exams for Christmas, when my excitable puppy shows up to take me out of school," Percy started
"Why do you call Mrs. O'Leary a puppy?" AC suddenly asked
"It's because she certainly doesn't act like a grown-up dog, she acts like an excitable puppy all of the time," Percy replied shrugging, "So I call her a puppy,"
"Cerberus acts the exact same," Nico told everyone, "He sees the colour red, and he wants to play with it. He sees a ball; he wants to play with it. But the worst is if he sees a red ball. Then you had better give him it, otherwise you will drown from the amount of slobber that he produces after he has pounced on you to get the ball, if you keep it away from him for more than a minute,"
"When Mrs. O'Leary stopped running, she was in the middle of a clearing in a forest, which was then filled with a deer, and a Pinecone Face running after it," Percy began, "After getting over our surprise of meeting one another again, a shadow appearing in the clearing, and there stood Nico in his full final line of Fall Out Boy, Wilson Expensive mistakes outfit,"
"I was not!" Nico yelled in protest, "And besides, that was my emo era,"
"You left your emo era?" Piper asked
"Yes, I have, thank you very much," Nico told her, "I'd like to say that it is represented in my music taste,"
"You have gone from only having My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and Panic! At the Disco, to now including Stone Sour, Imagine Dragons and 3 Doors Down for examples," Percy pointed out
Nico scoffed, "You say that as if you don't listen to them,"
Percy shrugged, "I do listen to them, but I also listen to other bands and artists as well,"
"Like what?" Nico challenged
"The White Stripes, Led Zeppelin, Avicii," Percy listed on his fingers, "Do I need to continue?"
Nico contemplated for a second, before shaking his head, "I should have realised, Stairway to Heaven is your favourite song of all time,"
"Damn right it is," Percy agreed, "Second best guitar solo of all time, only behind Free Bird,"
"Doesn't stop you from trying to learn it though," Annabeth muttered, "I swear that you love your guitar more than me,"
"I don't," Percy protested, "Honest," He cried out at Annabeth's disbelieving face
"You know guitar?" Will asked
"Why did you learn the guitar?" Thalia also asked at the same time,
"Yes, I can, and my Guitar Hero addiction got a bit out of hand," Percy answered both of them,
"How did you hide it from us?" Jason asked
"I didn't," Percy replied, in confusion, "Annabeth brought my guitar on the Argo II,"
"I thought that was hers," Piper admitted
Annabeth shook her head, "I can play a few chords, but no, I don't play guitar,"
"But your fucking amazing on a piano," Percy told her, who blushed in response
"Yeah," Thalia agreed, while Luke nodded his head, while AC blushed, "When we were on the run, we slept inside a music store, and Annabeth got bored and started playing Piano, I thought we were listening to Beethoven or someone,"
"How did we not know that?" Piper asked incredulously,
"It's not that easy to lug around a piano, is it?" Annabeth replied
Leo seemed to contemplate something for a second, "No it isn't, but I can make you one that it is,"
"You can?" Annabeth asked in surprise
Leo shrugged, "Of course, will take me about a week as I have only made one musical instrument before, but I will be able to do it,"
"Should we get back on course?" Chiron asked
"Probably," Hestia agreed, though she was kind of hesitant to agree. She did find it amusing listening to the conversations that the kids were having. Even if some of them were rather crude.
"Okay, next thing the three of us knew, and that was that we were falling, as we had figured out that it wasn't a coincidence that all three of the known Big 3 children were all at the same place at once," Percy explained, "And it wasn't. Persephone explained that the Underworld was on lockdown because a new weapon was being developed, known as the Sword of Hades. In this weapon, it had a key of Hades, which had the ability to unlock death,"
"What does that mean?" AC asked, her Athena genes showing through
"A single touch from the blade would be able to kill you instantly," Nico revealed
"And the problem was that it was stolen, so Persephone brought the three of us together to track it down. She also told us that Hades wanted to keep it under wraps, because if it came out that it was lost, then it would be very dangerous for the Underworld," Percy continued, "Persephone gave us a flower that slowly died as the sword was being taken out of the Underworld."
"Thinking back on it, I think that Nico should have held the flower, now that he is determined to be the flower boy at Frank and Hazel's wedding," Thalia mused
"But I had to lead the way," Nico protested
"And the flower was leading the way," Thalia pointed out, stumping the Son of Hades.
"As I was saying, we followed the flower to Sisyphus, who we convinced to give us information about the thief, with Thalia taking his punishment," Percy continued, "He revealed that the thief had an eyepatch across one of his eyes, telling us that it was Ethan. Sisyphus then tried to get away, before we trapped him back in his punishment. He told us to go to Melinoe, but on the way, we got attacked by Keres."
"Who?" Leo asked
"Keres, the spirits of painful death," Annabeth informed
"Keres mentioned that Iapetus was waiting for us, before I was scratched with one of her claws, before I killed it." Percy said
"That's not good," Chiron frowned, "The poison is at the level of a Pit Scorpion, if not higher. Almost incurable, but will take a while to kill as it is designed cause the victim as much pain as possible,"
Annabeth's eyes widened, and whispered something in Percy's ear, which he nodded to.
"Thalia and Nico dressed the wound and gave me Ambrosia, but we couldn't wait to properly heal, as the flower was very quickly dying. Unfortunately, we had to get past the River Lethe, and the only way past it was by me controlling the water," Percy explained
Travis frowned. "Why doesn't Thalia just shoot a line across the water with her bow?"
"Only works in movies," Thalia shrugged, apologetically, "Two of the new girls in the hunt tried this. One of them got away with a broken wrist and two sprained ankles, while the other had to deal with a broken leg and collarbone, didn't you Reyna,"
Reyna blushed, "Shut up. It's not as if you haven't done any stupid things in the hunt. Like when you dyed everyone's hair silver, in commemoration of Artemis' birthday. Only you were an idiot and got yourself caught in the prank as well,"
Percy burst into laughter. "It's not that funny Kelp Head," Thalia groaned
"Oh yes, it is," Percy told her, "But that's not why I'm laughing."
"Then why are you laughing, Perce?" Thalia asked
"Because great minds think alike," Percy grinned at her, while Will made a groan of annoyance, "I managed to dye every child of Apollo's hair gold and cover them in gold paint. It was hilarious."
"It was not," Will deadpanned back
"I thought you looked cute," Nico mentioned, lost in the memory of his boyfriend becoming gold.
"Though I am proud to say that I used the opportunity to bribe Apollo," Percy told everyone
"What did you do?" Annabeth asked, putting her face in her hands.
"I asked him to stop my name from being rigged to appear in prophecies and main events in the future," Percy explained, grinning, "I feel so liberated,"
"Did you remove mine as well?" Annabeth asked, with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
"Yours was the first name I removed, when I stumbled across Ra, Zeus and Odin when they were shuffling the names for who would be a part of the inter-pantheon prophecy that is coming up." Percy explained to her
"Thank you," Annabeth cheered and gave Percy and big kiss and stared up at him, "Now how about we celebrate?"
"Weapons shed,"
"Bingo," And with that Percy and Annabeth went walking off, while PJ and AC became blushing messes.
"Well now what are we going to do?" Leo cried out, "Our storyteller has gone off to do Annabeth,"
"I'm more worried about the weapons shed," Chiron said
"Don't worry," Piper assured "Everyone makes sure that they clean whatever they touch and couple of the things that they don't touch, just in case. It is one of the few rules that the Aphrodite cabin makes sure is followed,"
Chiron still didn't look convinced.
"And don't worry about the storytelling, me Death Breath here were there for the entirety of it." Thalia assured, and rebegan the story, "Percy managed to split the Lethe, a la Moses, and allowed Me and Nico to pass, though when Percy was crossing, he lost control over the water, and it crashed down on him. Fortunately, he was able to stay dry because of his Poseidon powers and climbed out the river."
"I've never heard of a demigod who can control the 5 rivers of the Underworld," Chiron stated in awe.
"Percy does always say impossible is just another form of possible," Jason advised
"Oh he 100% got that from his mother, no questioning it," Clarisse told Jason.
"Pretty quickly after that, we came across Melinoe, and began to show us ghosts of our past. First was Thalia, when she showed her her mother, and then she showed me my mother. Percy managed to break her control of us, and we forced her to flee." Nico explained
"It was also then that the flower completely wilted and died, meaning we had failed, but the hubris of deities, they couldn't flee without feeling like cowards, so Iapetus decided to attack Percy, while me and Nico tried to distract him, after Nico summoned skeletons to attack Ethan." Thalia continued, "Despite that, Iapetus batted us away, so it was just Percy and the Titan. Percy managed to control the Lethe again, and wipe Iapetus of his memories and renamed him Bob, leading to Ethan fleeing,"
"Bob," Hazel echoed, "Don't Percy and Annabeth mention him when talking about down there?"
"They do," Jason realised with wide eyes
The group pondered over that revelation for a minute, before deciding that they would find out later.
Well.
Except for Nico with his dream that he had the night before, but that was for later.
"We found our way back to Dad's palace with Bob and the sword, after Bob healed Percy, where Hades eventually swore that he would never use the Sword against the other gods, and reprimanded Persephone, before disappearing and ordering the completion of the sword." Nico explained, "And it was then Percy realised that Hades didn't order the creation of the sword, it was Persephone, and she was the one who put the Underworld on lockdown."
"Percy figured it out?" Leo asked
"Yeah, he did, yet he can still act like a complete idiot." Thalia confirmed, "But after that, Nico stayed to get the newly dubbed Bob incorporated into the underworld, while Percy and I went up to the normal world for Cheeseburgers."
"Of course it was cheeseburgers," Reyna said fondly shaking her head
"Speaking of cheeseburgers though," Thalia said, and turned to Hestia expectantly.
"Yes," Hestia confirmed, getting at what Thalia was asking, "We can have some lunch."
And with that, the nymphs went around preparing food for lunch and cheeseburgers, because nobody wants to get on the bad side of a daughter of Zeus as well as some Blue Cookies because everyone loved them so much.
A little while later, Percy and Annabeth showed up, with crinkled clothes, and slightly out of breath.
"Sorry about that," Percy apologised, "Do we need to finish the story, or have you done it without us?"
"Don't worry," Piper assured, "Thalia and Nico finished telling it,"
"Perfect," Percy grinned, "How was listening to the first ever Little Big 3 meet up,"
"Will you ever tell us what you actually do in those meetings?" Annabeth asked
"We already told you," Percy reminded her
"No, you just lied," Annabeth denied
"How do you know that he lied?" AC asked
"Because Thalia said that the 5 of them were about to have wild and passionate sex, before they all ran off," Annabeth deadpanned back
Everyone stared at blinked at the 5 of them, before Will broke the silence, saying "They definitely didn't do that,"
"No shit Sherlock," Clarisse said rolling her eyes
"Fuck you Watson," Will retorted
"Sorry, but that is Chris' job," Clarisse smirked back, causing Will to roll his eyes in return, mirroring what Clarisse had just done.
"So, what do you actually do?" Chiron asked
The 5 of them froze. They weren't about to admit that they use their powers to get away with some rather illegal things, like doing a jewellery van robbery. Percy, Nico, Thalia and Jason all praised Hazel to high Olympus at her plan to get in and out of the truck, without getting caught, and that they now have a garage full of random stuff they have, with the garage being paid for Nico's Lotus Casino card, that he kept because he liked the design.
Gods forbid that anyone finds out that they stole the Mona Lisa. It was their proudest moment. They had stolen it and put the painting on a photocopier so what people see in the Louvre is just shoddy paper and two different ink cartridges because they ran out of ink halfway through printing it. The Louvre is yet to notice the difference.
Or when they "accidently" started a new round of gang warfare in Detroit. It wasn't their fault that they had "accidently" started a fire on one gang's turf, with graffiti in the backdrop say that the fire was started by their rival gang. It also wasn't their fault that the guns that the rival gang owned had all mysteriously disappeared from their storage holdings, into that of the original gangs.
"Football," Percy blurted out, "Me and Nico like to double team Jason while Thalia and Hazel are rubbing themselves clean,"
"Generally, when girls rub themselves, its so that they can get dirty," Calypso told him
"Well how are they supposed to get the mud of themselves," Percy told her, getting fully invested in the lie
"Will you ever tell us what actually goes on?" Annabeth asked
"We got to go to a galaxy far far away," Thalia offered
"And we found the Arc of the Covenant, and when the Nazis that also found looked at it, they melted," Jason added
"Also, we got picked up by a tornado in Kansas and had to get home after visiting a colourful land by clicking our feet together," Hazel said
"And we followed a ginormous gorilla back from and undiscovered island, where it then hung of the Empire State Building," Nico included
"Finally, we walked through a closet and found an undiscovered world," Percy finished
"You know what, I give up," Annabeth said to the relieved sigh of the 5 children of the big 3, "Just continue with the story,"
"Gladly," Percy grinned, "The end of the world started when a pegasus landed on the hood of my car,"
A/N I don't know American Football. I am British. Nobody outside of North America gives two shits about it. It actually physically hurt to call American Football just Football in this. The closest comparison in the UK to American Football, is Rugby, which is very similar, but dial down the protective gear to nothing, and a few rule changes.
Also, the fact that rugby is a global sport doesn't hurt.
Another thing, I don't know why but I really headcanon that Percy can play the guitar, and I don't know why.