Kerberos, 2313

Three men, one noticeably younger than the other two, stood on an ice-covered planet, wind whipping at their garments. The three of them were on a mission to collect ice samples for scientific research—it was a big honor to be accepted to go on the mission, and quite impressive at the age of two of them.

The younger man bent down to pick at the ice, right before slipping and falling on his back. He huffed in frustration, and the older man held his arm out for the younger to grab. He grabbed it, and he helped him up.

"Careful, son," the man said. His voice sounded stiff and a bit cold, as if he wasn't used to expressing affection—even if it was only telling someone to be careful. "This ice is delicate—you wouldn't want to mess up the results."

Nico sighed. "But isn't this ice so cool, Luke?" he turned to the other man, who had been watching the exchange.

Luke nodded. "It is—but Mr. Hades has a point, Nico. You want to be around to greet your sister when you get back, not frozen in an obstacle." Hades nodded at the young boy.

Nico rolled his eyes. "I get it, I get it, no slipping up, even though it was just an accident. Now, back to the samples." The two men behind him exchanged a look that said Teenagers, before returning to their own work as well.

They were only able to get a couple of seconds into their work, though, before the area around them began to rumble. Luke tried to hold onto as much of their tech that was around them as he could, even though he knew that it was impossible for any of it to break.

Nico yelped, and fell onto the ground once more. "What's going on?" he shouted, as it was nearly impossible to hear anything over the rumbling. "Maybe some kind of seismic activity?"

Luke helped Nico up. "I don't know, but we should get back to the ship—" he was cut off when he saw what was in the sky.

Filling up the entire sky, was a giant purple warship—it didn't look like anything from the Garrison, with its deep purple color and sheer size. Hanging from the side was a flag, with a logo that none of them recognized.

Nico's mouth hung open. "Is that—no way!" Hades grabbed him suddenly, and began running away. Luke quickly joined them. However, they didn't make it far before a bright purple light enveloped and they were stopped in their tracks, unable to move any further.

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All Luke could hear was some sort of garbled language—he didn't understand any of it, and it didn't sound like any language he had heard before. His eyes felt like led—it took all of his effort to open them. When he did, he couldn't believe what he saw.

There appeared to be two purple, furry beings standing in what looked like to be a control room. One was clearly the commander, and was listening to what the shorter one was saying to him. It probably had to do with him, Nico and Hades.

Nico and Hades. Twisting his head best as he could, Luke turned to his side—sure enough, Nico and Hades were being held right next to him, but they were both unconscious.

The two purple creatures hadn't noticed him yet. Luke, panicking, blurted, "Please! We come from a peaceful planet! We mean you no har—"

Before he could finish his plea, a rag was clapped over his mouth and nose, and his vision began to darken as he lost consciousness.

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The Galaxy Garrison

One Year Later

A young man with tanned skin and messy, raven-black hair sat confidently in a commander's chair. He looked over at his two comrades, a younger, and shorter black boy with curly hair, and a chubbier Asian boy with cropped black hair. The younger boy was looking to the guy in the chair for answers, while the other was looking like he was about to puke.

The man in the chair smiled cockily, before speaking. "Galaxy Garrison flight log 5-11-14. Begin descent to Kerberos for rescue mission." He moved a joystick on his chair, and the ship moved.

The boy who looked like he was about to puke jolted forward, perturbed by the sudden movement. "Percy, can't you keep this ship straight?"

"Relax, Frank, I'm just getting used to the controls. After all, it's not like I did this!" Percy tugged on the joystick jerkily, causing Frank to fall out of his chair and land face-down on the floor. He managed to get himself back onto the chair, right before Percy did the same thing again. Thankfully, Frank managed to stay on, but his face was just as green.

Frank groaned. "Percy, unless you want to spend extra time in here cleaning up vomit, please knock it off."

The younger boy, who sat in a chair at the opposite corner, spoke up as his monitor in front of him activated. "Guys, we've picked up a distress beacon!" his voice was a little quiet, which made sense seeing how shy he was—or could be, since at some times he wasn't shy at all. Nonetheless, the other two heard him.

Percy straightened. "All right, look alive, team! Dot, track coordinates." Dot nodded.

The simulator began to rumble and alarms blared. Frank groaned. "Percy, please knock it off!"

"This one's on you, bud. We've got a hydraulic stabilizer out."

Frank frowned, and pulled up a monitor. "Oh no," he groaned, choking down his vomit. Percy saw this, and his face froze. "Fix now, puke later, Frank!"

"I lost contact. The shaking is interfering with our sensors." Dot said, trying their best to ignore all of the talks of puke.

"Come on, Frank!" Percy said, frustration growing.

"It's not responding—ugh…" Frank replied, clutching his stomach as he unbuckled his seatbelt to fix the stabilizer. He wobbled with every step he took, trying not to fall down or vomit. Or both.

As Frank did that, Percy's monitor activated on the armrest of his chair. After quickly reading the message, he announced, "Never mind, fellas. Thar she blows. Preparing for approach on visual."

Dot frowned. "Um, I don't think that's wise, given our current mechanical and…other issues." he added, glancing at Frank's green face and stooped-over body.

"Agreed," Frank replied.

Percy shrugged nonchalantly. "Stop worrying, guys. This ship can take it. Can't you?" he pat the ship as if in an effort to redeem it, but it rumbled violently at his touch. Percy glanced up a bit to see his two comrades looking at him with a doubtful look on their faces. "See? She was—nodding. She was nodding. Dot, hail down to them and let them know their ride is here."

Dot unbuckled his seatbelt and reached over for the microphone. He cleared his throat, before speaking into the mic, "Attention lunar vessel—Agh!" he fell onto the floor before he could finish his sentence.

"What are you doing? Seatbelt safety!" Percy shouted, before turning to Frank. "Frank, stop that shaking!" he added as he saw Frank wobbling over to the sides of the ship, before promptly vomiting in the main gearbox.

The rumbling stopped. Dot spoke into the microphone, glad to finally have some silence. "Attention lunar vessel, this is Galaxy Garrison Rescue Craft One Victor Six Three Tango. Coming in for landing and extraction."

Percy rolled his neck around a bit, before placing his hands on the joystick. He drove the ship towards the surface of Kerberos, nearly missing an overhang—according to Dot, at least. "You know, my first year in flight school, know what they called me? 'The Tailor,' because of how I thread the needle. Come around, come around! Come on—" he mumbled, frustrated, sweat forming on his forehead.

The ship struck the overhang. The three pilots groaned as the ship crashed.

"Simulation failed." Informed the emotionless voice of the computer. Thanks, computer.

Dot pat Percy's back, only partially sympathetic. The door opened, and their commander, Mr. D, appeared in the doorway. "Come on, out with you!" he said to them, taking a sip of his Diet Pepsi (vintage). It was against Garrison regulations to have soda on-campus, let alone during a class, but Mr. D never cared. People were too afraid to tell them that, for fear of what he might do. The guy made Hawaiian shirts (again, against regulation) look intimidating.

Percy, Frank and Dot all exited the simulator, and stood before their class. Mr. D took another sip of his coke before barking to the class, "Well, let's see if we can't use this trash can of a lesson for the rest of you. Can anyone point out the mistakes that these 'cadets' made in the simulator?"

One student piped up, "The engineer puked in the main gearbox!"

"Yes, as everyone knows, vomit is not an approved lubricant for engine systems. Anything else?" he added, skimming the room for promising-looking students.

One student answered, "The Comm Spec removed his safety harness." Another responded, "The pilot crashed!"

"Correct," Mr. D said, "And worst of all, the whole jump, they're arguing with each other! Heck, if you're going to be this bad individually, you'd better at least be able to work as a team! The Galaxy Garrison exists to turn young cadets like you into the next generation of elite astroexplorers, but these kind of mental mistakes are exactly what cost the lives of the men on the Kerberos Mission."

Dot's hands curled into fists at his sides. "That's not true, sir!" he shouted, not caring about any consequences. He'd never looked that angry before, Percy noted.

Mr. D looked sharply at Dot. "What did you say?" he barked, with a bit of a slur in his words (alcohol was definitely against regulation).

Percy clasped his hand over Dot's mouth, but Dot still continued, his voice a bit muffled by the hand so it was impossible to tell what he was saying. "Sorry sir!" Percy responded nervously. "I-I think he may have hit his head when he fell out of his chair. But point taken."

Mr. D narrowed his eyes. "I hope I don't need to remind you that the only reason you're here is that the best pilot in your class had a discipline issue and flunked out. Don't follow in his footsteps. Next!"

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Percy and Frank hid in the halls of the Garrison as the curfew began, Mr. D issuing commands for lights out. Frank nervously whispered, "We shouldn't be doing this."

Percy brushed off his concerns. "Come on, you heard Mr. D! We need to bond as a team. So we're going to grab Dot, hit the town, loosen up, have fun—"

Frank cut him off. "Okay, I'm just—I'm just saying this here, now: this is a bad idea." The lights all turned off.

Percy and Frank crept through the hallways, trying to be as quiet as possible. They weren't in any dorm areas, but you could never be too careful. Plus, it was really hard to see where they were going with no lights on.

"You know," Percy whispered as he tiptoed, "For someone in a space exploration program, you don't have much of a sense of adventure."

He could almost imagine Frank scowling at that. "That's because all of your little 'adventures' end up with me in the principal's office."

Percy snuck by the Instructor's Lounge. The door was closed, but the lights were on from the inside. He motioned for Frank to follow, which he does, eventually. As a guard passes by, the two of them hide in recycling cans. The guard doesn't see them, thankfully.

As the guard walks away, Percy jumps out. Frank tries to follow suit, but gets stuck and falls over. He stands. "I'm fine," he assures Percy.

The two see Dot leave Mr. D office. Percy narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Where's he going?"

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Dot's sitting on the roof of the Galaxy Garrison, listening to radio chatter through headphones and special equipment. Frank crawled along the roof, as Percy carefully removed Dot's headphones to speak close to his ear. "You come up here to rock out?"

Dot started, nearly yelling. "Ah! Oh, Percy, Frank. Nope, just, uh, looking at stars."

Percy hummed, then poked some of the tech lying around Dot. "Hey, where'd you get this stuff? Doesn't really look Garrison."

"I built it," Dot answered proudly. Frank whistled. "You built all of this?" he tried to touch the equipment himself, but Dot smacked his hand away. "Stop! With this thing, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system."

"Whoa," Percy answered. "Really? All the way to Kerberos?" Dot looked away, silent.

"Come on, you go ballistic every time the instructors bring it up. What's your deal?"

Frank tried to touch the equipment again, but Dot shot him a look. He stopped. Percy sighed. "Dot, if we're going to bond as a team, we can't have any secrets."

Dot sighed, then reluctantly spoke. "The world as you know it is about to change. The Kerberos Mission wasn't lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake. So, I've been scanning the system and picking up alien radio chatter."

Frank gasped. "Wait, what? Aliens?!" Percy, however, took a different approach. "Okay, so you're insane. Got it."

"I'm serious!" Dot replied, a little bit offended. "They keep repeating one word: 'Voltron.' And tonight, it's going crazier than I have ever heard it."

Percy raised his eyebrows. "How crazy?" But Dot wasn't able to answer, because the Garrison's alarms blared.

"Attention, students," Mr. D's nasally voice blared over the intercom, "This is not a drill. We are on lockdown, security station Zulu Niner. All students are to remain in their barracks, unless you want to die a very painful death."

Percy frowned at that last part, until he saw the flaming meteor in the sky. Frank gaped. "What's going on—is that a meteor?!...A very, very big meteor?"

Dot grabbed his binoculars. He could see what looked like to be a very large, purple thing in the sky, with a tattered flag on the side. It was hard to see much of it, as the flames concealed a lot. But it was coming towards them. Fast. "It's a ship!"

Percy took Dot's binoculars for himself. "Holy frick! I can't believe what I'm seeing! That's not one of ours!"

"No. It's one of theirs," Dot said grimly.

"So, wait, there really are aliens out there?!" Frank cried incredulously. The three of them watched as the alien spacecraft crashed into the desert. They saw land rovers being sent from the Garrison to the crash site.

"We've got to get to that ship!" Dot said, and ran off to the crash site.

Percy, not wanting to miss out, grabbed his friend's arm and followed Dot. "Come on, Frank!"

"Oh, this has got to be the worst team-building exercise ever." Frank grumbled as he was dragged across the dirt.

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I've had this idea for a couple of days now, and instead of letting it die from lack of water, I decided to actually plant it. I probably won't be able to finish it, but meh. Honestly, I'm not too happy with where it is right now—it's basically just (part of) episode 1 but with Heroes of Olympus characters. However, I have big plans for this fic. But it'll be a (little) while until it'll start actually diverging from canon, though. Also, instead of calling Hazel Pidge (that would be quite unoriginal), I decided to call her Dot. I may or may not explain that later.

I'm planning on giving this 5 seasons, instead of 8. Just so that it can more follow the setup of PJO. Especially since I'm planning on having Percabeth, and I don't want to diverge from Rick Riordan's winning formula that he used for Percabeth. Speaking of Percabeth, I kind of want to change Lance from Percy to Leo, since Leo and Lance are more similar, and Percy feels a bit too much like Lance and less like himself. But I also want to do Percabeth, so I'm not sure what to do. Let me know which you prefer.

Please review! Constructive criticism is very much appreciated (as long as it's not just flames, that is). I did feel like the characters were a little OOC in this, so if they are, please tell me, and tell me how I can improve that.

Thanks for reading!

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