Percy Jackson
It took Percy and Annabeth a bit of walking around before they found Trident's Point. Most would've assumed they went looking for it as soon as they got off the train, which would've been correct had Percy not convinced Annabeth to stop at Waffle House. Annabeth tried to argue with him since they got there in the afternoon and waffles were strictly a breakfast thing. Percy didn't care.
Percy was slightly annoyed by the fact that he had no idea where Trident's Point was. His dad hadn't even bothered to give them a map or address. He wondered how exactly were they supposed to find the place they needed to get to.
Downtown Jacksonville was huge and not to mention, dangerous. Nearly one million people lived in Jacksonville, that meant a lot of monsters. Monsters were attracted to large urban centers, there's a reason New York was packed with monsters. Monsters liked hiding in buildings and amongst mortals.
Luckily, he had years of experience. Annabeth being with him nearly made it impossible for any monster to sneak up on them. If they got cocky, maybe they'd slip up but that was it, they rarely got cocky. Tartarus taught them some valuable lessons, slipping up once could mean death.
At first, Percy went to the nearby mortal military installations, mainly the huge naval airbase and port nearby. He didn't find anything there that looked like it belonged to half-bloods. Annabeth meanwhile was working on theories of where they may need to check.
Somehow, her theories had led them to the beach, which was somewhat packed. By the time they had gotten to the beach, the sun was starting to go down and the beachgoers were starting to pack up and go home. Families walked past the demigod couple back to their vehicles.
"Well, I think we should stick to the coast." Annabeth said, "If I was going to launch a submarine, I'd do it right on the coast."
"But you saw how big that river was downtown, you think it might be near the river?" Percy asked.
"I doubt it. There were bridges going over that river. Depending on the size, the submarine might not fit or be able to navigate without hitting the bridge." Annabeth said.
The two walked down the beach, not really expecting to find anything. Percy was going to be honest, he wasn't sure if the submarine even existed anymore. His dad said it was made during the Cold War, anything could have happened to the sub. He wouldn't be surprised if he found out some mortals took it apart for scrap.
Annabeth looked out over the sea. Percy glanced at her and couldn't help but realize how younger and carefree she looked as her eyes took in the ocean. It was like how his mom looked when they went to Montauk. He wondered if that was a common thing amongst women who fell for Poseidon and his children. Would they always have a sense of longing when they looked at the sea?
The sea lapped against the beach, soaking the sand before retreating. The moon was full and casted light down onto the waters below. Percy noted a shark fin a ways from the beach. Then he saw something that definitely wasn't natural.
Something light greenish blue seemed to be snaking around in the water. It was a small sliver, and he had no idea what it was. He watched as it squirmed and spun before shooting off into one direction: further down the beach.
Percy broke off into a run after it. He had a feeling whatever that was, was very important.
"Hey, Percy, what are you doing?!" Annabeth yelled as she chased after him.
Percy didn't respond, the light was getting away. He put more energy into his sprint. If he was on solid ground, he'd be faster. The issue was that the sand made it harder to run, though it certainly lessened the pain of running on a hard surface like concrete.
The light zoomed into a inlet at the end of the beach. The inlet didn't lead to a river though, it led a large, sloped structure. He looked closer and noticed metal bolts and lines as metal panels were attached together to from two pairs of doors. The doors looked like they were meant to be opened by gods in their full-size, they were huge.
"What is that?" Annabeth asked after she caught up to him.
"I don't know, let's look around and see if we can find out." Percy said.
He and Annabeth scoured the surrounding area. He even climbed on top of the structure but it led to nothing. The top of the structure was covered by grass and dirt, you wouldn't be able to tell you were standing on something other than grass or dirt. Yet when he looked over the side, he found himself still at the doors. The metal was brown and old but it seemed to be holding strong.
"Fuck me!" Annabeth shouted.
Percy looked over and saw Annabeth on the floor, rubbing her foot with a look of pain on her face. He slid down the slope and ran to her. Annabeth hissed and moaned as she rubbed her foot.
"What happened?" He asked, looking around for any crabs or stonefish. Those things hurt when they got you, especially if you stepped on one, which is what he thought Annabeth had done.
"What kind of asshole leaves a piece of metal buried in the sand?" Annabeth complained.
"Metal?" He looked around and found what Annabeth had kicked. Something was jutting out of the ground, but he wasn't sure what.
He walked over and found himself staring at a circular hatch. The metal was rusted, just like the door. Sand clung to the bars to open the hatch. He wiped it off and motioned for Annabeth to come over. She hopped over, still cursing about her foot.
"No wonder that hurt so much." She said as she knelt down and ran her hands along the top of the hatch.
Percy pulled on the hatch, but it didn't open. He grunted and pulled harder before he heard Annabeth clear her throat. He looked over and saw her twist a lever. Instantly, the tension on the hatch released and he was able to pull the hatch open.
"Thanks." He smiled.
"Moron." She replied.
Percy stuck his tongue out at her before climbing down the ladder. The hatch didn't have lights on the way down, so he was basically hoping to the god of ladders that he didn't slip and fall to his death.
Annabeth climbed down with him though he kind of wished she waited since she would accidentally step on his face. Often times, he'd find Annabeth's sneaker on his face, leaving a sandy imprint on him. He started to think she was doing it on purpose.
When they finally reached the bottom, Percy was amazed by the absolute fucking nothing that he saw. It was literally pitch black and downright impossible to see anything. He couldn't even see Annabeth, the only reason he knew she was there was because she was gripping his arm.
He took out Riptide and filled the darkness around them with the faint celestial light of his sword. He quickly found they were in a small room, like an airlock. There was nothing around them except the ladder behind them and a door with no doorknob or handle in front of them. He wondered if the handle had fallen off or something.
Percy walked to the door and turned to Annabeth, "Any ideas on how to open this?"
Annabeth tilted her head before walking to the door and pressing her hand against it. At first nothing happened.
"Let me see your hand." She said, grabbing his wrist and pressing his hand to the door.
Sure enough, the door lit up with a green and blue glow. Metal gears cranked and groaned as the door moved out of their way, revealing another dark empty space. He and Annabeth crept forward cautiously, anything could've been ahead of them.
Then the lights suddenly came on. The lights were mounted in the walls rather than the ceiling, and they didn't light up the whole room. Annabeth looked around in amazement. Percy stared in awe.
The room they were in was big enough to fit a jumbo jet. A large canal ran through the middle of the room with drawbridges extended across the canal to the other side, a large black submarine sat in the canal's waters. There were large industrial machines on the other side of the canal, Percy had no idea what they were and how they worked, that was more Leo's thing.
Annabeth started walking off.
"Annabeth!" He said with alarm.
"What?" She asked, turning to look at him.
"I don't think we should split up. Something about this place doesn't feel right." He said.
"Relax, Percy. There's no way there's anyone down here except us, you saw how buried that hatch was. No one has been down here in years." She said.
Percy tried to listen to her, her logic made sense, even to him. Yet at the same time, something about this place felt…wrong.
Percy then looked at the canal and found himself looking at the submarine like it was a old friend. It was huge, far bigger than mortal subs. The black paintjob showed very little signs of wear. The only damage he could see was a line of circular scars going down the side of the sub, most likely due to a giant squid attack.
He wondered how they were even supposed to board the sub until he saw a folded ladder on one of the drawbridges. It seemed the previous occupants had left the ladder there in case of an emergency.
"Hey, Percy!" Annabeth called, "Come look at this!"
Percy jogged towards Annabeth's voice, turning down a hallway and following where he thought he heard her. When he reached the end of the hall, he found himself in a room that looked like auditorium. A giant screen stood in the front of the room, the light from it illuminated everything.
Annabeth stood in front of him, her eyes locked on the screen.
"Woah." Percy said as he stepped next to her.
The screen was a map of the world but with arrows pointing at different parts of the world. Some countries had target marks on them while others had shield marks. The arrows seemed to be leading to the countries with target marks. He noticed all the arrows came from the U.S, they never came from another country.
"Do you know what that is?" Annabeth asked, looking at him.
"Uh, a map?" He said, he wasn't too sure what he was looking at. The targets and shields didn't give him a happy vibe at all.
"That's a war map." She said, "I've never seen one this advanced though."
That's when Percy took a deeper look at the map. Where Russia and a few other countries normally would be, USSR was written over them. It also happened to have the biggest target on it.
"Your dad was definitely telling the truth." She said, "This place was definitely run by Cold War demigods. The Soviet Union doesn't even exist anymore, it collapsed a decade or two ago."
That's when it hit Percy. The reason this place felt off was because he was standing in the same place that a nuclear war would be waged from. He imagined hundreds of demigods running around and preparing for a war that would very well end the world, some of them possibly being his siblings.
"Well, do you want to check out the sub and see what's in there?" Percy asked.
"Later, let's do some more exploring." Annabeth said.
Ω
After some exploring, Percy and Annabeth finally came to the submarine. They had checked the rest of the facility out and found a entire barracks area deeper inside, though it was empty and looked like it had been that way for decades. The only sign anyone had ever been down there was a broken sword lodged in a wall.
The facility had more than just barracks, the submarine and its canal, and the war room. Percy had personally found the kitchen, game room, and a very small gym. Annabeth found the armory and an infirmary. Sadly, none of these rooms had anything worth taking or anyone who they could talk to.
The more Percy explored the place, the more he felt like something had forced the previous occupants to leave. The place was stripped of every personal belonging and every single crate of food, canteen of water, or boxes of medical supplies. Even the armory was barren, save for a few empty bullet casings. The war room's file cabinets were empty and full of cobwebs.
Annabeth pulled the entry hatch to the submarine open. Percy didn't have high hopes that it would even work anymore. It had to have been sitting in the same spot for at least a decade without anyone checking on it.
Percy peered into the darkness of the submarine. Annabeth nudged him to go forward.
"You first." She said.
"What? Scared of the dark?" He asked teasingly.
"Shut up and just go." She rolled her eyes.
Percy clambered down the ladder and dropped into the dark hallway of the submarine. He pulled out Riptide. The sword's light barely illuminated anything in front of him. He almost wished he had an actual light.
I'll be packing you some headlamps, submarines can get pretty dark if the power goes out. Athena's voice said in his mind.
Percy nearly slapped himself on the forehead, how could he have forgotten that they had headlamps? He pushed his aside when he was reaching into his bag to pay for their meals at Waffle House.
He slung his backpack off his back and unzipped it, reaching inside until he felt the stretchy band of the headlamp. He took it out and made sure to carefully put it on, lest he let go of the rubber band and smack himself.
Annabeth hopped down the ladder and looked around just as Percy switched the light on. The light illuminated a long hallway. The odd thing was that it was spacious, something that was rather rare on a submarine.
"Let's see if we can find the controls." Annabeth said.
The two demigods carefully made their way through the submarine, eventually accidentally stumbling into the crew's quarters. The crew's quarters were huge and definitely made with luxury in mind. There were TVs, mini fridges, bunks that were just like Percy's in cabin three, and even a pool table.
"Were they preparing for a war or a vacation?" Annabeth asked.
"Knowing my dad, probably both." Percy replied, not forgetting the time when Poseidon was so worried about his game room being destroyed during the Titan War.
The deeper they got into the sub, the more they genuinely wondered what the thought process was behind the design. There were at least three different crew's quarters, a galley that was actually really similar to the one on the Argo II, a armory, and a bathroom that could easily fit a couple dozen people and still have room.
Percy had to give it to his siblings, they certainly knew how to design a submarine. He'd heard of how miserable submarine life was for mortals, yet this submarine was easily one of the nicest war machines he'd ever seen.
When they got to the control room, they were surprised to find it was rather small compared to the rest of the sub. Percy expected it to be bigger since he expected most of the crew to be spending their time in there.
Annabeth turned her headlamp on and looked around, eventually finding a chart of the entire submarine. Percy inched in next to her to look at it.
"Okay, so it looks like there's three floors to the submarine." She said, "We're on the first floor," She pointed to the control room which technically was the only thing on the first floor since it was in the coning tower of the sub, "The second floor is where we just came from."
"Looks like we missed a few rooms." Percy said as he pointed to a area marked as missile bay.
"Yeah but that looks like where the missile launchers are, we can check it out once we turn this thing on." She said, "It looks like all the utility stuff is on the third floor."
The third floor held the engine room, torpedo bay, oxygen recycling center, and what looked like a water purification hub. Percy figured the submarine was designed to be underwater for long periods of time, it made sense the crew would want to make their own water.
Annabeth started walking around the control room. Percy guessed she was looking for an instruction manual but he wasn't sure if there would even be one, or at least one that wasn't written using a bunch of military jargon.
"Found it!" Annabeth said as she pulled out the instruction manual. It was literally just a blue book with the words 'instruction' written on the front. Percy thought it looked a bit too thin to be the entire manual.
When Annabeth flipped the first page open, her eyebrows furrowed as she stared at the black letters on the page.
Percy looked at what she was reading and was in awe.
Written in black sharpie were the words 'Go back to sub skool, noob!'
"How the fuck are these instructions?!" Annabeth seethed. She flipped through the pages, only to find different ways of being ridiculed for lack of submarine knowledge.
Percy backed away when he noticed Annabeth's face getting redder with every flip of the page. He knew she didn't take to kindly to being called stupid, especially not by sons of Poseidon or by someone who couldn't even spell 'school' correctly.
He knew Annabeth had a short temper when it came to her intelligence. He'd called her stupid once back at camp and he lived to regret ever saying that. All he had done was call her stupid for hiding the flag during capture the flag in a different spot than what he wanted. After they ended up losing, she ended up tying him up in her cabin while she made him watch 12 hour long videos on big O notation.
Percy stared at the main controls for the sub. He knew he really shouldn't be sitting at the controls of a nuclear submarine but he figured the Fates wouldn't let him end the world just yet. Or maybe they would just because it'd be funny to them or something.
The screen were all blacked out yet there were a few buttons that glowed a green blue color, just like the one he had seen on the beach. A few levers and switches were glowing the same exact color. He wondered how they were glowing since there wasn't any electricity that was currently switched on.
"Hey, come look at this." He said over his shoulder to Annabeth.
The daughter of Athena walked over to him, a flustered look on her face. "What?" She asked.
"These buttons are glowing." He said.
Annabeth looked at the buttons with a blank stare before looking back at him, "No, they're not."
"Yes, they are!" He said, "You don't see that blue glow?"
"Percy, there's nothing there. Are you good?"
Percy grumbled something about not being high before pressing the buttons. Annabeth tried to stop him but before she could, the submarine trembled a little. Suddenly, the lights flickered on and filled the room with a dim blue light. The buttons lit up white with black letters and numbers. The screens booted up, showing different stats and information.
Annabeth stared at him with an impressed look, "Wow, and here I was thinking you were about to blow us up."
Percy shot her a dirty look before turning to one of the screens. There were screens for just controlling the sub, some were for the weapons, and then there was one for the canal doors. He noticed there was a signal icon on the top right with a green checkmark over it. He pressed the big blue open button. A screen for the front facing camera on the submarine's tower turned on and showed the doors to the tunnel they were in were slowly opening.
Annabeth laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled, "Alright, try not to crash us into the beach, okay?"
Ω
After a few near death experiences, Percy found driving the submarine wasn't that hard. It seemed his siblings had idiot-proofed the sub. Turns out there was no big red self-destruct button waiting to be pushed.
Annabeth had went down to the engine room to take a look at what powered the giant metal monster they were in. There, she found the instruction manual behind running the sub. Percy nearly laughed at the look on her face as she walked in with the manual in her hands.
The manual told Percy everything he really needed to know. The submarine was designed to hold a large crew but could actually be run by one person if it came down to it. Survivability was one of the key foundations for the submarine it seemed. Every mechanical, electrical, logistical, and digital mechanic had an automatic function.
After setting the sub to head towards the Sea of Monsters, Percy left the control room with Annabeth.
"You know, this is a really nice submarine." Annabeth said, "I wonder if any of my siblings helped make it."
"I don't know. Poseidon said there were some Hephaestus kids helping with the project." Percy said as they turned into the crew quarters.
Annabeth kissed him, "Goodnight."
Percy smiled, "Goodnight." He watched as she found a bunk and climbed in.
Percy sighed, he was pretty tired too. He'd lost count of how long he had stayed up. He could definitely stay up for longer but he knew it would be better if he got some sleep. Sailing the sub may have been easier for him but that didn't excuse letting him deprive himself of sleep.
Percy found a bunk next to Annabeth and climbed in before falling asleep.
Ω
Percy's dream led him back to the canal. The canal was far different from what he saw at first. The canal door's were open, the sunlight shined in as ocean water lapped against the canal walls.
Multiple workers wearing red helmets walked around the canal. Some had toolboxes in their hands while others had clipboards. The submarine was tied down to keep it stable. The missile doors were open while a crane being operated by the workers loaded missiles into each compartment.
Two adults walked by wearing dark green camouflage uniforms. They looked angry and familiar, though Percy knew he had never seen them in his life.
That's when a young naval officer stepped into view. His dress blues uniform was sharp and actually pretty nice. Percy noticed he had sea green eyes, just like him. The officer walked back and forth, watching as the submarine was loaded. His face was stern and worried.
Another naval officer stepped forward. He was younger but he too had sea green eyes. Percy noticed he and the older officer looked very similar, save for the older one having more scars.
"You know, you should just give up." The younger officer said, "This is the tenth expedition you've went on. We're not going to find this guy."
"We have to!" The older one snapped, "If we don't, we'll lose this war!"
The younger officer sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "What was that line in the prophecy again?"
"Something like, 'A half-blood of the eldest gods shall reach sixteen against all odds.'"
"Exactly." The younger officer said, "Eldest gods, that means either a Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades kid. The issue is that none of those gods have any children below twenty, we've checked everywhere."
"Then we'll check again!"
"Dude, you're driving yourself insane with this hunt. Maybe the prophecy isn't about this war. We should be getting ready to leave the Navy, not spend our lives looking for someone who might not even exist."
The older officer turned to him, his eyes full of rage, "If you want to give up and leave, then go ahead! My job isn't over yet."
"Why are you even doing this?" The younger officer snapped, "The guys from cabin one have used every air asset they have and they still haven't found any clues."
"Those airheads are stuck in a dick-measuring contest with the Soviets, I don't want to hear shit about them." The older officer grumbled, "We're doing a service to Olympus by hunting down this half-blood and making sure he never turns against the gods."
Percy stepped away from the two officers as they started to discuss potential hideouts. As soon as he heard the prophecy, he realized that the half-blood in question was him. They were looking for him.
He nearly felt bad for them. They were way too early. He wouldn't be born until decades later. He wouldn't want to be. If he had, he might've never met Annabeth, and he definitely would've never dated her.
The older officer leaned over the railing and peered down the sub, "I'm going to find this kid, or die trying."
A/N: Sorry for the long wait, midterms were last week. I saw the reviews, i should be able to write longer chapters while keeping the same upload schedule, though some chapters may be smaller depending on what happens in them. Thanks to everyone who responded!