---

A/N: Hello ladies and gents, and welcome to the ramblings of a mad mind.

In short, this is an AU fic. As in Alternate Universe. Got it? You should have been alerted to this by the summary "AU, slightly mauled." And by slightly, I mean very. This means I can and will mess with details such as prophecies, plots, relative ages, and so on. So don't come whining to me about how Thalia is not Percy and Ananbeth's age, how Luke is Hermes counselor before he goes all evil, all that stuff. Oh, and how there's no House of Death (you'll find out later). I DON'T CARE.

This is also operating under the assumption that prophecies are self-fulfilling. Don't make a prophecy, events play out differently because people aren't scrambling all over themselves to avoid it. After all, if there had been no ban on the Big Three's children, would the prophecy still apply to Percy, definitely not the first to turn sixteen?

I will also warn you that OCs run rampant. Mind, I will still do my best to keep the canon characters the focus of this – but hey, OCs are fun. So if that annoys you (and I apologize if this offends you) stick a sock in it.

Now that we have that over with, please enjoy the show.

---

The First Divergence

The only thing that Percy Jackson absolutely hated about his cabin was that his older siblings were far too fond of violence.

Take this morning, for example. Percy had, without fail, been woken up by the conch shell. While he had attempted to roll over and grab a few more minutes of sleep (it wasn't like the bathrooms wouldn't be swarmed first thing in the morning), that attempt had failed. This time it was Celina's fault. Celina had thrown a pillow at him and yelled something about lazy little brothers. Percy normally had nothing against Celina – actually, she was kind of nice once you got past the violent tendencies. But interrupting any opportunity to sleep was one of the worst acts possible, at least according to Percy. Percy had, of course, returned the favor – and her pillow (at a high velocity). Not that Celina cared, since she'd caught her pillow, which was really disappointing.

"And that's why I hate my family," Percy explained, waving his hand vaguely in the air.

"You need to work on your throwing arm," Annabeth criticized him.

"Pfft," Thalia scoffed, carefully balanced in a lower branch. "Wait'll you hear what Seth did to Stark. Okay, what Stacey did to Stark."

"You mean the pretty boy who tried to hit on Jasmine Huang?" Annabeth asked.

"I remember that," Percy chimed in. "It was epic. Especially the part where she threatened to rip out his pancreas with a spork."

"I'm still not entirely sure that's possible," Annabeth muttered.

"Anyway, back to Matt Stark," Thalia said. "Didn't you hear the screaming this morning?"

"Not really," Percy and Annabeth admitted in unison. Annabeth added, "I thought it was normal to start Thursdays with screaming."

Thalia snickered. "So basically, Stark leaves this little wind-up bunny in a box for Stacey. Everyone thinks it's adorable (except me, but you know, no one listens to me) so Stacey winds it up and it starts dancing in a circle and Stark's recorded himself singing this love song. It's actually kinda cool. Except he's singing to Alexis. You know, Aphrodite girl, Stacey's mortal enemy. Frickin' hilarious."

"So what did Seth do?" Annabeth asked, referring to the incredibly overprotective counselor of the Zeus cabin.

"Oh, him," Thalia yawned. "He barges into the Hermes cabin, threatens to, and I quote, 'eviscerate you if you even think about my kid sister the wrong way'. And of course Stacey is cheering him on the whole way, except when he calls her his kid sister. Then she throws the rabbit at Seth, except Stacey's aim sucks, so she hits Stark instead. And then his head started bleeding. Apparently metal toys are sharp. And anyway, it was really boring. Haley's such a stick in the mud – she refused to let Seth even get his spear so he could shish-kabob Stark or something," the daughter of Zeus shrugged.

"How do you spell eviscerate?" Annabeth wondered.

"Who cares?" Percy asked.

"Oh, shut up, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth scowled. "Hey, where's Luke?"

"He got caught trying to sneak away while Stark was whining like a baby," Thalia said in a sing-song voice normally reserved for children under the age of eight. "So Haley stuck him on archery duty. Luke's lucky he's not the target."

"So Seth hasn't noticed you're gone yet?" Annabeth asked.

"How should I know?" Thalia shrugged. "He mighta."

"Nathan wouldn't," Percy muttered. The head of the Poseidon campers, unlike Seth, didn't really care what his siblings did, so long as none of them died. Percy appreciated this, as he really didn't want to be ordered around all the time like the Zeus counselor was prone to doing. Percy and Thalia glanced over at Annabeth.

"I'd give Livvy another ten minutes before she asks Malcolm," Annabeth estimated. "We should probably head back now, shouldn't we?"

Thalia swung down quickly from her branch, landing with a soft thump on the thick grass. Despite their morning meetings, Thalia still disliked heights. Annabeth followed, and Percy scowled. This was the part he dreaded – despite the fact that Percy had no problems climbing up the branches, getting down was a different story. He couldn't begin to count the number of bruises, scrapes, and scratches he'd acquired by landing the wrong way. Thalia liked to call him a cat because of this, and Luke often joined in when possible.

Annabeth grinned at Percy. Even after only one summer, Percy knew exactly what that grin meant – betcha can't do it, Seaweed Brain. Thalia, noticing this, put her hands at the crown of her head and waggled them in a painfully bad imitation of cat ears, snickering the whole time. With a scowl, the son of Poseidon dropped from the tree. He landed hard, but at least it was on his feet and not on, say, his spine.

"So there," he glowered. Annabeth laughed, jabbed his ribcage with an elbow in a way that was probably supposed to be friendly, and ran off, beginning their customary race to the main activities area. Thalia followed at a slower pace, mumbling something about whippersnappers and feeling old. Overhead, the sun was bright, marking another beautiful day at Camp Half-Blood. With summer approaching its height, it seemed like nothing could possibly be wrong in the world.

---

A/N: God I hate filler/exposition. =.= At least three more chapters of this! Argh… I need to work on getting more plot time.

Oh, by the way, anyone wanna be a beta? Mostly I need someone to bounce plot ideas off of and annoy with senseless chatter. Preferably someone who types grammatically correct and all that, 'cause I could use someone to double check my stuff.

Now let's see if I'll actually finish this (the smart money's on no).

---