Oh my gods I am SO SORRY! A couple of empousai dragged me to the Labyrinth where I was jailed until release today. In other words, my grandmother's house.

To: MJ-Booklover: No, Percy is not an idiot, despite being a Seaweed Brain.

To: MyFangirlingWays: Thanks! But Percy always looks the same, doesn't he ;)

Aaaaaaaaaaanyways, on with the story!

Percy P.O.V.

I didn't know what to do. I thought that my mom was dead, and here's my former Latin teacher, telling me she's not dead. Then, a terrible thought occurred to me.

I jumped up and tried to pick Chiron up, but the moment I sprang out of bed, I felt dizzy. Chiron grabbed me and slowly eased me into the bed.

"Relax, my boy. Your vital signs are stable, but you're in no condition to jump out of beds."

I tried to shout, but my voice wouldn't work right, so it was only a hoarse whisper. "If this is a joke, I will personally tear you apart."

To my surprise, Chiron chuckled. He gently shook his head, like the motion hurt him. "No, this isn't a joke, I swear it by the River Styx."

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

I frowned. "Wait, you swore on the Styx, and thunder actually rumbles? Does that mean that the Styx is real?"

Chiron smiled. "Yes, Percy. The River Styx is real. And also everything else from all Greek and Roman stories."

I was shocked again. "But they're just myths! Stories to explain lightning and stuff!"
Chiron put on a mask of an emotion I couldn't read. "Tell me, Percy. If you were offered immortality, to live forever, would you accept it?"

I was about to answer that it sounded like a done deal to me, but the tone in which Chiron said it made me hesitate. What was he getting at? Then it hit me like a brick.

"You mean, whether people believed in whether you existed or not."

Chiron grinned. "Exactly. And then people would make you a myth, to explain how twelve-year-old boys get over losing their mothers."

Me, being offended, said, "Ouch."

Chiron continued. "So, the gods are real. What are you going to do now?"

I was about to answer when I realized I didn't have an answer. My one purpose of living was gone. I was stopped by Chiron's raised hand.

"Don't speak. I know it must be hard to be gone from your mother, but you could live here at camp. You could leave, of course, but that would be suicide. Monsters would track your scent immediately, because your stepfather isn't here. But this camp can help you train and become stronger. This is your home now, Percy. You're one of us. Demigods."

Now, I was wondering who I'd managed to piss off in my last life. My life (my current one, that is) is so hard. Dyslexia, monsters on our tails, and forced to train like barbarians. Why do demigods have it so hard? And in that moment, I may have experienced a million different emotions, but only one was directed at the gods: pure hatred. They can have kids, but when the kids need them as a parent, they do nothing. When the gods fight, the humans are stuck in the middle.

Chiron's voice carried me out of my hatred. "Percy? Have you made up your mind?"

Startled, I try to take a step back, then realize I'm still on the bed. "Yeah. I'm staying here." So I can figure out a plan to destroy the gods and implement better rulers, I added in my head.

When I'm finally free to go, I run into a guy. Right as I'm about to apologize, I look at his face and gasp.

"You're that guy from my dream!" Instantly, I blush. It's not every guy that talks about their dream about a total stranger. My blush deepens when I realize he said the exact same thing, but relieved to find I'm not the only one. The guy is beet red, and I'm pretty sure I was the same color.

"Uh, let's talk about this in private, okay?" I quickly nod, and he leads me behind a cabin that looked old.

The guy sticks his hand out. "The name's Luke. Luke Castellan."

I shook his hand. "Perseus-"

"Jackson," he interrupts. Seeing my confused look, he adds, "From the dream."

Oh right. We sit in an awkward silence, until Luke clears his throat.

"Uh, do you have the envelope? From the dream?"

I was confused. It's in real life too? Not possible- never mind, I thought, as I reach into my pocket and pull out the same envelope. I rip it open and read.

Perseus Jackson,

Do you ever feel like the gods are bad rulers? Would you implement different rulers? Well I, Kronos, would be a much better ruler. No more demigods ignored. Did Poseidon ever do anything for you? The Titans would actually answer their prayers instead of ignoring them. So fight against the Olympians. The master bolt has been stolen, and when you get sent on a quest for it, betray the gods. All you have to do is repeat these lines: I, Perseus Jackson, turn my back on the gods and pledge allegiance to Kronos. Then, we shall fight the Olympians together!

Kronos

"Clichéd letter," I murmur, then look back at Luke. "You're supporting this? You're not some evil bat demon that's gonna try to kill me when no one's around, right?"

Luke shook his head, amusement clear in his blue eyes. "Yes, Percy, I'm not going to stab you in the back, I swear it on the Styx. I have a bad feeling that you spoke from experience."

Thunder rumbled softly, recognizing the urgent secrecy that this required.

I chuckle, confirming his suspicions. I cleared my throat, and tried to speak in a normal voice, but it came out as a hoarse whisper. "I, Perseus Jackson, turn my back on the gods and pledge allegiance to Kronos."

My whole body was bathed in a soft ethereal light that seemed to glow golden. Luke smiled coldly.

"Congratulations, Percy. You've officially become one of us. Welcome to the Titans."

I grinned. "So what's the plan? I'm guessing that Kronos feeds instructions through you, and you carry them out."

Luke frowned. "I don't like being a puppet for Kronos, but it's the only way. It's also much better than being a puppet for the arrogant gods."

I wholeheartedly agreed. Kronos used puppets, like the gods, but unlike the gods, he doesn't toss them aside and claim all the credit.

Luke continued. "Most likely, the quest to get the master bolt would be for you, so the plan is to get the bolt and give it to Kronos. He's waiting in Tartarus."

I paled. "So I have to go to Tar-?"

Luke hastily whitened, and resumed. "No, pray you never fall in. You only have to drop it down and pray it doesn't hit anyone. Anyway, another thing. The bolt's in Denver, our spy's gonna meet you in a diner. You get there, he's gonna give you the bolt and the helm, then-"

"Whoa, whoa, back up a sec." That caught me off guard. They had not only the master bolt, but also the Helm of Darkness? "You have the helm as well?"

"Stole both of them during the winter solstice meeting," Luke stated proudly, drawing himself up straighter.

"You look like an arrogant asshole," I grumble, which earned me a glare.

"Getting back on track, the items are there. When you get to the Underworld, drop the bolt in Tartarus and use the helm to escape. Then we'll talk more." Luke dragged me over to the Hermes cabin. "Stay here until I get you some stuff."

As he walked away, he called over his shoulder, "Undetermined!"

A collective groan spouted out of everyone's mouths.

"Guys! Show a little more politeness!" An Asian teenager walked forward. His expression was stern, but a mischievous glint was in his eye. "Welcome to Cabin Eleven, Percy."

Another guy leaned over and whispered something in my ear.

"This guy says: Ethan's a jerk, don't listen to him." I couldn't help blurting it out.

"Hey!" The Asian guy, Ethan, I guess, exclaimed indignantly. "At least I don't have an evil twin that douses me with water!"

"Wha-?" A similar figure leaned over and dumped about a gallon of water on his head.

Ethan shook his head. "Connor, you're purely evil. I swear, if we cut open your body, we'd have to gear up for battle because a demon would pop out of your soul."

Travis grinned. "He's pretty dense and inobservant as well."

Everyone waited, but no prank came. Somewhere off to the distant left, in another cabin, kids screamed and cursed our cabin. Immediately, everyone's lips became extremely red. I wiped my mouth and saw, to my horror, a deadly weapon-lipstick.

Before we could complain, the door was wrenched open, and a laughing camper stumbled in. He had lipstick on like everyone else, except he had five extremely pissed off girls on his tail. They looked like they had makeup on at one point, but all of them were covered in dirt, Aphrodite kids that were pranked, I guessed.

Travis cursed. "It was supposed to go off in here!"

"Probably explains why you're in a corner!" A girl marched up, and her hand was outstretched. Then, a resounding smack, and a split second later, an indignant Hey! was heard.

"You have five seconds to explain yourself!" Everyone backed up, and a guy, Connor, I think, rifled through his pack.

"Here, Silena, I'll explain. With THIS!" Right when he said this, he pulled out a smoke bomb and threw it on the ground. Silena shrieked, "Oh no you don't!", grabbed into the smoke, and came up with the camper. Connor produced a neon pink ball and it went Splat! against Silena's shirt. Her skin started glistening with something I recognized: grease. Silena's buddies started throwing stuff, and that's how the Hermes-Aphrodite war started.

After the initial "battle" (no fatalities...that would've majorly annoyed the gods, and despite how much I wanted to kill them, Luke alerted me that I needed to stay in the shadows for a while), Grover trotted up to me.

"Chiron wants to see you," he said. "You're going on a quest."

Yus! Finally rolled it out! Severe writer's block!

Also, I've decided to postpone judgement on Percy's relationship status.