3. Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants

The rest of the trip saw Grover constantly looking at me like I was a dead man and muttering about "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?" It was starting to annoy me because while I had just seen my 'life' be cut short by the three fates I wasn't too worried. I mean, if Shion had dreamed that I would die by being pierced by a bunch of tails from a demon in hydra form and I managed to live for eighty two more years before falling asleep and not waking up, what was a bunch of old ladies simply cutting a piece of yarn? That may have sounded like I felt like I was invincible, but the truth is I have a way of denying my fate in such a way it usually leaves people with their jaws hanging after the fact.

That said, I was still spreading my senses out as far as I could in the hopes that I could detect whatever was coming for us before it got too close. It didn't pay to be confident about your ability to stay alive in sticky situations only to get killed in a surprise attack when the other guy sneaks up on you and sticks a kunai into your back without you ever even knowing he was there.

When the bus reached the bus terminal, me and Grover got off and I melted into the crowd pulling Grover behind me as I looked for an area where we would have some privacy. I found it in the nearby smoking area where it was walled off for both privacy and to keep the smoke away from other people. Thankfully it wasn't occupied and I pushed Grover into the enclave while making sure we weren't being watched.

I stepped into the enclave to the sight of Grover nibbling on a soda can that had been left behind and rose my eyebrow at the sight of a supposed human nervously chewing on a piece of aluminum. Grover saw me and blushed before he spat out the can and said "What? I eat when I get nervous."

I shook my head not wanting to know and walked over to one of the vending machines that was hanging back in the corner and quickly bought a 3 Musketeers which I tossed at him before I walked over to one of the benches and sat down. As I did, I said "Grover?"

"Hm?" Grover asked around the mouthful of chocolate and marshmallow that was now in his mouth.

"These creatures that you and Mr. Brunner are expecting to come after me, how would they find me?"

Grover nervously swallowed the candy bar and said "Uh, by smell. You smell different than most people so they'll use that to find you."

"I see. Is there any chance that they could find my mother by confusing her scent with mine?" I asked, knowing that if the monsters were able to track down my mother by confusing her for me due to similar scents than I would have to move fast to make sure she was safe. A small part of me whispered if she was still even alive but I crushed it under a boulder of reason that said that if anything had happened to her while I was at school I would have been contacted.

Grover shook his head and said "It's possible that some of your scent may rub off on her but you've been gone from home for too long for that to be much of a probability."

I nodded before I stood up and said "Well if there is even the slightest chance that they can find her than I need to get back home quick and make sure she's safe. And since it's me they're after, we should probably split up here."

Grover's eyes went wide as he said "But I'm supposed to protect you! How am I going to do that if we split up?"

I smiled and said "It'd be more dangerous for you to be near me now Grover. But don't worry, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Stay safe okay?" Before Grover could respond, I made a ram hand sign and disappeared in a swirl of leaves shocking Grover who caught one of the leaves and wondered just who I was. Meanwhile I reappeared on the roof of our apartment in another whirlwind of leaves and headed down thinking about what I should tell my mother if I had to take drastic action to keep her safe.

A word about my mother from this world before you meet her. Her name is Sally Jackson, and in my opinion, is one of the best people you could find in this realm which just proves the theory that most people have that the best people have the worst of luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative writing program. Then her uncle got cancer and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad from this realm.

I don't have any memories of him, but I know for a fact that he must have a strong affinity to water since my mother always compared him to the ocean when she talked about him and my new water manipulation skills had to come from somewhere. Or rather, I should say when I finally got her to talk about him. She didn't talk about him much though because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey and he never came back. Lost at sea, she told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I know all of the situations I kept finding myself in at school was hard on her.

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world class jerk. When he first came into our lives I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, I know I should be above name calling by now, but it's the truth. The guy reeks like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

It's suffice to say me and Smelly Gabe don't get along. And unfortunately our interactions probably weren't doing mom any favors. He tries to intimidate me and I wind up nearly beating him to a pulp. That intimidates him for a little bit, but I guess he has memory problems because every time I come home from school for the summer he tries it again. Take what happened as soon as I walked through the door as an example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN, chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

My eyes narrowed as I said "Don't sound so disappointed. Where's mom?" I absentmindedly noticed that he had put on weight. He looked like a tusk-less walrus in thrift store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

Smelly Gabe looked up and his own eyes narrowed as he said "Watch your tone boy. And for your information, she's at work."

"Or you'll do what big boy, spank me?" I asked while I smirked. The one time Gabe actually tried that I had him on the floor with his arm bent behind him less than a pound's weight of pressure away from breaking. Gabe's poker buddies, Eddie our superintendent and two other guys I never bothered learning the name of both looked up from their cards. Meanwhile I resolved to myself to go sage as soon as I had some privacy and locate my mom before anything could happen to her.

Gabe scowled as he obviously remembered the incident before he grunted and said "Got any cash?"

I began walking to my room as I said "Yeah, but you can't have it. If you can't keep what money you earn and actually use it for something useful than why should I give you mine?"

Gabe actually growled as he said "Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight, don't you think boy?"

"True, but then again, you don't exactly pull your own weight around here now do you? When was the last time you actually worked at your job?" I said as I continued walking.

Gabe manages the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stays home most of the time. I don't know why he hasn't been fired yet. He just keeps collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous and on beer of course. Always beer. He keeps expecting me to provide for his gambling funds, and I keep shooting him down. The guy never learns.

Gabe stood up and grabbed my arm as I passed him, tight. Growling, he said "You'll give me the proper respect I deserve boy." Eddie looked like he wanted to intervene but wasn't sure if he should. Meanwhile Gabe's other two buddies passed gas at the same time.

I looked down at the hand that was on my arm before I looked back up at Gabe's face and said "I would have thought you would have learned by now Gabe, that you really shouldn't touch me like that." The next instant, the hand on my free arm was around his wrist and applying just enough pressure for the guy to reflexively let go. Not satisfied with just that, I sent a palm thrust into his gut getting a satisfying "Oomph" out of him as he fell back into his seat.

Gabe stared at me with rage in his eyes but I was beyond caring. I had a bunch of monsters that could be tracking me down right at this moment and this walrus in cheap clothing was really ticking me off. So when he began to get back up to try and hit me, I glared at him while I blasted him with twenty percent of my killing intent which made him literally wet himself as his eyes widened in a type of fear that he couldn't explain.

I leaned in so that there was only a foot between our faces and said in my Hokage voice "Now you listen to me. I don't care if mom did marry you. If you ever try to touch me like that again, I'll send you to the permanent ward of the hospital, am I clear?"

I upped my killing intent another two percent at the end showing I was dead serious and he swallowed before nodding. I dropped my killing intent back to zero as I headed to my room once again and closed the door in a firm manner that while not quite slamming the door, did get my point across.

Once in my room which was Gabe's 'study' while I was away, I noticed that he had once again spread his disease of being a complete slob into this room as well. The thought of Gabe actually studying anything other than old car magazines made me snort before I made three clones who quickly got to work literally throwing everything that was Gabe's into a big pile in a corner of the room. Meanwhile, I found a spot that didn't have old cigar butts or beer cans on the floor and began gathering the necessary natural chakra to enter sage mode.

As soon as I felt my senses get an exponential boost I sent them out looking for a familiar presence. I sighed in relief as I felt that presence entering the building. Knowing that my mother would be here soon, I switched to trying to find any presences that didn't seem human. I didn't sense anything in range so I let the sage mode go with another sigh before I helped my clones throw the last of the stuff in the corner and dismissed them. The smoke from the clones being dispersed hadn't been gone for more than a couple of minutes before I heard my mother's voice.

"Percy?" I looked back from where I was looking out the window and saw the door open. I suddenly felt all of the tension leave my body and I smiled. A trait both of my mothers shared in common was making me feel good just by me being near their presences. Sally Jackson was most definitely a person who you could only find maybe once in a lifetime. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light and her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but you would never think of her as old. And when she looks at you, it's like she's seeing all the good things about you, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even to me or Gabe.

"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!" Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things I'd come to love in this world when it came to sweets: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of 'free samples' the way she always did when I came home.

I rose an eyebrow and grinned as I said "You expected me to shrink?"

She smiled and led me to the edge of the bed. She allowed me to attack a blueberry sour string as she ran her hand through my hair. I leaned into the touch always enjoying when she did that since I never got the chance to experience it with Kushina. When I finished with the sour string she demanded that I tell her everything that I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled although she was proud of how I had once again managed to get straight A's all throughout the year including in Latin class. What she wanted to talk about now was if I was alright or not.

I smiled as I told her that I was fine even as I thanked Kami for the hundredth time for choosing me to come here and myself for agreeing to it. Growing up I never had a mother worry over me like this. The only one who came close was Tsunade but it wasn't the same. Oh sure, there were Ayame and Shizune as well, but they were more like sisters than mothers to me. And having an actual mother who cared about you more than anything else was probably one of the greatest things in my life. Sometimes I could only wonder why some kids didn't truly enjoy the time they spent with their mothers. I know that if I had lived this life first with her and then had to live my first life without a mother afterwards I'd probably go insane.

I was brought out of those thoughts by Gabe who yelled "Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth as the urge to shove a rasengan right up that guy's ass made its presence known for the thousandth time since I met the guy. Sally Jackson was the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire who actually cared about her, not to some jerk like Gabe.

For her sake, I put in as much of an upbeat tone into my year at Yancy as I could without telling a lie. I told her that I had actually managed to get through the whole school year without something blowing up and me getting blamed for it. I'd made a new friend, and I'd loved Latin class. And really, the fights hadn't been as bad as the Headmaster said. The teachers just had rose tinted glasses when it came to some of the other students.

"Well that's good." My mom said with a smile once I was finished. "Did you go on any interesting field trips while you were there?"

Thanks to my previous life as a shinobi I didn't give away my true thoughts as I said "Yeah, we went to the Metropolitan Museum and looked at their Greek and Roman exhibits." 'And I turned a Fury who was posing as our Math teacher into a shower of sand while I was there.'

"That's nice. By the way, I have a surprise for you, we're going to the beach." She said.

I couldn't help myself, I grinned like the blond dead last I had been at the academy as I said "Montauk?" Meanwhile on the inside I was thinking that this was perfect since I could protect mom a whole lot better on that beach than I could here since I wouldn't have to worry about collateral damage out there .

"Three nights-same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch him. Here he was acting like she was his slave when he could just go into the refrigerator and get some of the stuff instead of coming to my room. I knew that would make mom mad though. Still, I had officially reached the end of my rope so instead I gritted my teeth and let loose with my killing intent and knocked the fat slob unconscious. Gabe's eyes suddenly rolled into the back of his head and he fell backward into the hall landing with a solid sounding thump.

My mom's eyes grew wide from surprise and she began staring between me and Gabe. I couldn't really blame her since I had never used killing intent around her. She finally settled on looking at me with an unidentifiable look in her eyes.

"Percy? Did you just knock Gabe out?"

I shifted my gaze to mom and smiled as I said "Gabe should really lose some weight don't you think? All this summer heat isn't good for overweight guys." I leaned in and kissed her cheek before I said "I'll go pack the car. You go ahead and get changed. We can leave a note for him when he wakes up."

She started to say something but I closed her mouth with my pointer finger before I grabbed my suitcase that I hadn't unpacked yet and began pulling it into the hallway. Meanwhile, Eddie had come to see what the weird sound was and was staring at Gabe with a confused look as he muttered to himself "He doesn't look dead."

"Oh he's not. His body just couldn't handle the heat and so he lost consciousness. I'd put him under a fan and damp cloth if I were you." I said as I walked into the master room and grabbed mom's bags as well before I walked out and to the apartment door. As I passed my room I saw that mom was still staring with that confused look causing me to shake my head and knock on the door frame to snap her out of it. She jumped before she looked at me and said "Percy, what-"

"We can talk at the beach mom." I said before I continued out of the apartment down to the car.

Ten minutes later we were out on the road and I reclined into my seat even as I made sure that I could still sense anything that came even remotely close to unfriendly that came near us. As mom drove she kept sending glances my way but otherwise kept all of her attention on the road.

After half an hour of the awkward silence, I sighed and said "What is it mom?"

Sally gave me another glance and she seemed to hesitate before she said "Tell me the truth Percy. Did you make Gabe faint?"

I smirked and said "Yeah. I've been wanting to do that for years. Should have knocked the seiuchi out when I first met him."

Mom frowned as she said "Seiuchi? And that's not very nice Percy."

"It means walrus in Japanese. And let's face it mom, that guy deserves it."

"Regardless, you shouldn't have done that Percy. You're going to have to do some serious apologizing when we get back."

"If he even remembers the incident." I said.

Mom sighed before she seemed to choose another topic and said "You've said you've wanted to do that for a while. Can you do other things besides knock people out without touching them?"

I could hear both curiosity and a trace of expectation in her voice, like she already had an idea and just wanted confirmation and specifics.

I bit my lip as I debated with myself what I should tell her. On one hand, I had just confirmed that I wasn't exactly normal. On the other hand, I wasn't ready to tell my mom that I was a hundred and ten year old shinobi who could most likely completely level New York city within twenty four hours. But then again I had a bunch of ancient Greek monsters after me and my mom deserved to know about that even if I planned on protecting her so well that the creeps wouldn't get within a square mile of her if I could help it.

Finally, I sighed as I said "Mom, I'm not exactly normal." Turning my head away from her so that I wouldn't have to see her expression I said "I can also manipulate water when it's around me."

I could feel her frowning before she said "Percy. It doesn't matter to me if you are normal or not. You're still my son. You know you could have told me about this."

"Could I? Face it mom, me being able to knock anybody out without touching them and being able to make water do whatever I want it to isn't exactly something that is supposed to be possible in the real world. It's more like something out of a comic book." I said. I sensed that she knew something about what I could do and why when it came to manipulating water and I was hoping I could get her to tell me about it. At the very least she could probably confirm my crazy suspicions of who my father actually was. Although I wasn't looking forward to that particular meeting if I was right about one of those theories.

"Abilities that seem unnatural are not as uncommon as you might think." Mom said softly and I turned my head as my eyebrow rose. I was about to ask her what that meant since in this world there were absolutely no other chakra users here. (Kami had been quite clear on that.) However, something told me that this conversation was over and I looked back forward as our car continued down the interstate.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in if you weren't covered in polar bear fur. I still loved the place.

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work. I guess I should explain the blue food.

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, she went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano- was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak.

Now that mom knew of at least my ability to manipulate water, I was free to practice with it out in the open around her instead of having to sneak out at night like I used to do. I summoned a stream of sea water from the ocean that formed a swirling ring around us before I sent it over a flock of seagulls who scattered squawking at the water which caused my mom to laugh even as she told me to be nice to the birds. It felt nice being able to make her laugh like that by using my water manipulation skills and a not so small part of me wondered what she would think of my shinobi skills.

When it got dark we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

It was an hour after she had finished talking and we were just watching the camp fire when she sighed and said "Percy, we need to talk about where you're going to go this summer."

I turned my eyes toward her and said "What do you mean? I'm staying with you right?"

"Oh Percy, I wish you could. But with your abilities coming through you can no longer stay with us for the summer. Your father wanted me to send you somewhere but I had hoped that I could keep you close to me for a while longer. They had told me that was a mistake. But I couldn't bare the thought of sending you to where your father wanted to send you. It could have meant I never saw you again. This is the only way now to keep you safe."

I frowned since the last time I was sent away to be kept safe I ended up having to break through the Leaf Village's barrier team with Bee in order to help fight a war. I looked into the fire and said "Where did dad want me to go? Some kind of special school?"

"Not a school," She said softly. "A summer camp."

My eyes narrowed as I took out the card Grover gave me and said "This wouldn't happen to be the place would it?"

My mom took the card and her eyes widened as she saw the name of the camp on the card. Looking up at me she asked "Percy, where did you get this?"

I shrugged as I took the card back and said "Friend of mine gave it to me. Told me to come visit him if I needed anything this summer. I guess I'll be meeting up with Grover after all."

Mom just stared at me before she turned to the fire with a look of extremely deep thought on her face.

That night as I slept while a perimeter of clones kept watch I had a vivid dream. It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!

I woke up with a start. Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight that revealed the nearby clones that were standing on the water, and twenty foot waves that pounded into the dunes like artillery that the clones were using their water manipulation skills to form holes in before they crashed into them. With the next thunderclap, mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said "Hurricane."

I knew that that was both crazy and wrong. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. And this was no normal hurricane either. This seemed to be a class six at least. Before I could say something along those lines, one of my perimeter clones dispelled and I stiffened as the memory of hearing a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made itself known over the storm and I felt my hair stand on end. And then a second clone dispelled and I began cursing in rapid Japanese drawing mom's attention to me as I bolted out of bed and began getting dressed.

"Percy? What is it?" Mom asked obviously deciding to ask how I knew so many Japanese words that were obviously swear words for later.

I sent a mental command to the rest of my clones to dispel as I went to the cabin's entrance and said "We've got unexpected company coming. Both friendly and unfriendly." My mother opened her mouth to ask me what I was talking about, but I was already outside, shielding my eyes from the storm as I saw a form running towards the cabin. Mom was dressed and by my side by the time the figure could be properly seen and she turned to me with a look of terror on her face.

"Percy, what happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

She had to shout to be heard over the rain but even then I didn't pay attention since I was too busy thinking 'Well that explains a few things.'

The figure finally stopped next to us panting. It was Grover, but not exactly the Grover I was used to. Or at least the legs weren't the same. Instead of human legs, he had goat legs. Grover was a Satyr.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that it'd be safer for you if we split up. Remember?" I said in a voice that was at the same time both conversational and the voice of a military commander.

Mom and Grover both stared at me before that bellowing sound came again from the same direction that Grover came.

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" Grover yelled. "It's right behind me!"

I absentmindedly noticed that my best friend just cursed in Greek and I still knew exactly what he said. My Mom grew pale as she said "Percy Jackson, you tell me what is going on right this instant!"

I cracked my knuckles and neck as I said "Long story short, we encountered the Three Fates on the way home while they did their needle work. They snipped their cord while looking at me so I thought it best to split up from Grover to keep him safe. I was planning on taking you somewhere isolated to do the same when you said we were coming here. And now we apparently have company coming."

Mom's face grew extremely pale before she said "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!" She then turned and bolted back to the cabin to presumably grab her keys while Grover wasted no time running for Gabe's '78 Camaro. But I noticed he wasn't running exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly a small part of my mind realized why his story about a muscular disorder now made sense. I understood now how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

I was pulled from those thoughts by another bellow causing me to look back towards where I knew our uninvited guest was coming. I briefly considered leaving the cabin by foot and going after the beast so that way mom and Grover could escape. But then my more rational side said that there could be more than one of those things out there and a shadow clone might not cut it. I turned around and bolted to the car using every ounce of my shinobi speed and slid in just as mom got in on the driver side and we took off like we had the hounds of hell after us. Which we kind of did.