1.

THIRTEEN YEARS LATER

"Okay, Cedric," Irene turned towards her butler, "You can go now."

"Have nice day, Thia," he said.

"I hope so and thank you," she smiled at him and walked towards her so not favourite private school. Yancy Academy. For all the troubled kids in upstate New York. She was sent to England for education but after blowing up the schools and getting out of the schools in England, she came back to New York in search of schools where she could actually educate herself. Although, she suffers from ADHD dyslexia, her brain is much more productive than the brains of the geeks or nerds.

Today, they were taking the sixth-grade class to a field trip to Manhattan with twenty-eight kids and two teachers. They were taking them to the Metropolitan Museum of art to look at ancient greek and roman stuff. And that was very interesting for Irene, excluding the fact that she'll have to go with twenty-eight mental case students.

She was hoping the trip would go well without any disaster.

On their bus ride, Irene took the back seat, at the corner where probably no one would care to tease her there and she could have a peaceful ride.

"Take that, creep!" giggled a girl's voice. She knew who it was. Nancy Bobofit. She's the annoying little creature who'd bully anyone who is fit to be bullied and would have fits of unusual alien-like laughter at them. Right now, she was throwing wads of sandwich at Grover. Irene always felt pity for Grover and his friend, Percy; they were always bullied by Nancy. They weren't bad and in fact, Irene felt like hanging around with them but she also preferred staying alone. She watched how Percy was trying to defend Grover but Grover wouldn't let him while Nancy was enjoying her own show.

Irene rested her head back on the seat when someone came and sat beside her, "What's up, freak?"

"Would you mind leaving me alone, egg-face?" I spat at Nancy.

"Aren't sitting with that brother of yours?"

"Shut-up," I still didn't look at her.

"Sea-green eyes, jet-black her, same creepy face and attitude, both retarded, ah!" she teased.

"At least, our abdomen doesn't bulge out, our eyes aren't like ugly animals and we aren't gremlins," I retorted.

"You-" her face turned red with anger and she almost was about to pounce at me but someone interrupted.

"Nancy! Irene! We're here, come on!" Mr. Brunner called out. Ah! Life saviour, Irene thought. She pushed Nancy out of way and ran towards Mr. Brunner and followed him towards the Museum.

She was glad that she was inside the gallery now as the place was echoic and Nancy won't be able to bully her there. She stared at the statues and admired it. Were these statues truly old? They were all so amazing and Irene suddenly had a sudden urge to build a statue herself. She was all lost in the stories which Mr. Brunner was explaining when a voice interrupted-

"Will you shut up?" That was Percy Jackson's voice. She along with everyone turned towards him. She didn't laugh at his comment unlike others.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

She stared at Percy, he's so busted.

He said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

She looked at the carving which was of the Titan Kronos, eating up his kids. Percy looked at the carving, and he let out a sigh of relief, because he actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." Percy continued. "Kronos was the king god, and -"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," Percy corrected himself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind Irene. Why can't they just be silent? Irene thought.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," Percy continued, "and the gods won." Some snickers from the group.

Behind him, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

Irene heard Grover whisper something to Nancy which made her face even brighter than her red hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

"I don't know, sir." Percy answered the question.

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doo –a fuse which was not at all surprising for Irene. She heard Mr. Brunner call out Percy; might dish out a punishment to him. She ignored it and walked outside towards the fountain where she could sit and eat her lunch. Water always made her feel better though she didn't know why. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than she'd ever seen over the city. The weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. They had massive snow storms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. Nobody else seemed to notice; they were all busy in their own world of chaos.

She kept on staring at the sky until the water from the fountain emerged and grabbed Nancy and making her fall flat on the ground. What was that? Probably she didn't do that now? Mrs. Dodds came rushing towards Nancy, soothing her. Then she turned towards Percy, "Now, honey-"

"I know," Percy grumbled, "A month erasing workbooks." Wow. Brave but wrong.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

Irene stared at him, stunned. She couldn't believe he was trying to cover for Percy. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death. Maybe they were really best friends. She looked at Percy and saw him staring at Grover the same way as she was.

Mrs. Dodds glared at him, "I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But -"

"You -will-stay -here."

Grover looked at Percy desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked at them and then turned towards Irene. Great, Irene thought, I'm her next meal.

"I still do remember my revenge on you, Water!" she spat.

"Walter," I corrected.

"Whatever,"

"What should we do to her?" one her ugly 'friends' snickered.

"I'm thinking,"

"Oh! So, you actually think," Irene said, in a bored tone. Before Irene could actually laugh at her, Nancy pushed Irene into the water. The troop of ugly army laughed at Irene, throwing back their heads like maniacs.

Irene recovered herself from the incident and got out of the water, ready to smash Nancy's face.

"You-"

"Why aren't you wet, freak?" Nancy asked.

Irene ignored Nancy's comment and grabbed her by her shoulders, "Why don't you mind your own business and go find some bloody work to do rather than eating my hand, you cannibal!" Irene hissed. Suddenly, Nancy shook wildly and Irene let go off her. Nancy fell on the ground, her eyes wide in shock.

"Nancy," her friend called her.

"What's wrong?" one of them asked. Oh!, Irene thought, not again, I didn't do it, no, and I didn't.

"I-I," Nancy stuttered and then she recovered, "She electrified me!"

Irene fled away from there before she could hear the shocking remarks of Nancy's friends. She ran towards the museum and bumped into Percy.

"Sorry," he apologized.

"I'm sorry," she said and then she realized it. The pen of Mr. Brunner. What was it doing with Percy? She looked at Percy; he seemed like he was in a great shock. He quickly walked away and as soon as he was out, rain started to pour down. Maybe a hurricane was about to arrive.

Now, that would mean that she'd have to go back…and face others who saw what she did- mistakenly.

But the unexpected happened.

No one remembered what she did. No one. When she asked Nancy and her friends about it, they just laughed at her, calling her a major freak and went away. Was she imagining things? No it can't be as she still had bruise which she got when she fell into the fountain. What was going on? Possibly no one would forget the fact that they got electrified, would they? Then what happened to Nancy?

*BLOOD OF OLYMPUS – SNEAK-PEAK*

'LUKE!' Percy charged towards him, angrily thinking about the injured Annabeth and Irene's suggestion to kill Luke. The one who betrayed them all- again. He heard Piper's voice behind him but it was hard to make out whatever she was trying to say.

'ARRRGH!' he cried and attacked Luke, this time, not to injure him but to kill him. But then-

'Percy! NO!' Irene cried. Everything happened so fast that it wasn't at all easy for Percy to register what had actually happened. He pulled his sword back out from the body of his victim-

Irene fell into Luke's arms.

'No, no, no, no,' Luke wailed, 'what did you do, Percy?!'

Percy looked at his sword which was smeared with the blood of his victim. He looked at Annabeth who just woke up after injuring herself and fainting. Her expression clearly stated that she was horrified. Near her, was Jason who was trying to help her up and he had the same horrified and shocked expression plastered on his face.

Percy looked at the blood on his sword and then at Luke, who was covered in blood and was holding Percy's victim gently, assuring her that it will be okay. Would it really be okay?

Tears started to fill Percy's eyes and he dropped his sword. His strength and energy completely died out and he kneeled down, staring at the almost dead Irene, 'What did I do!' he wailed.