Percy had thought he had seen weird things before. He was a demigod, for crying out loud. Seeing a commando version of himself zipline out of a militarized flying warship? This was an entirely new level of weird.

Percy, Annabeth, and Jason stood stock-still for a full minute, staring at the new arrival. Annabeth was blinking rapidly, almost like she was trying to wake up from a dream. Jason kept switching his gaze back and forth from Percy to Percy, apparently trying to figure out what on earth was going on. Finally, Percy coughed into his arm, breaking the silence.

"Um, you're not Percy Jackson," Percy said, pointing to the new arrival, and then to himself. "I'm Percy Jackson. Unless something changed when I wasn't looking."

Percy glanced over at Annabeth, as if checking to make sure she hadn't duplicated him when he wasn't looking. Fortunately, Annabeth looked just as confused as he did.

The newly-arrived Percy raised an eyebrow, glancing at Annabeth and Jason. "Am I really this dense?"

"Yes, you are," Annabeth and Jason replied simultaneously.

"Thanks a lot," Percy grumbled, still gripping Riptide tightly. Call him crazy, but he wasn't really eager to trust the… other Percy. Whatever circumstances caused a duplicate of himself to come sailing into camp on a warship completely decked out in riot gear, Percy wasn't exactly eager to get into.

The other Percy sighed, putting his hands in the air as if to prove he wasn't carrying a weapon. "I said I come in peace. Seriously, why can't even the other me trust me?"

Percy frowned, continuing to hold his sword level to the other boy's chest. "You tell me."

Jason raised his hand, like he was trying to be called on in a classroom. "Um, as surreal as it is watching two versions of Percy bicker, I think we're all forgetting that the, uh, new Percy said something about how we're all going to die?"

The new Percy shrugged, as if he was considering Jason's statement. "Well, most of you, anyway. Err, most of us. Well, more accurately, most of-"

"Hold on," Annabeth interrupted, holding up her hand to halt the conversation. "You're saying that we're all going to die as you arrive in a warship, and we're not expected to take that as a threat?"

The new Percy sighed in exasperation, adjusting the holster attached to his side. "I'm not the one trying to kill you! Honestly, give me, I don't know, maybe two minutes to explain and I'll-"

The new Percy was interrupted again, this time from an ear-piercing explosion from the Achilles. For a moment, Percy thought that the warship had opened fire on the camp, and his heart stopped. He was reminded of the scene of few months ago in Camp Jupiter, when his brief attempt to talk the Romans out of killing the Greeks was interrupted devastatingly by the Argo II opening fire on the city of New Rome. Percy wasn't keen to reenact the following sequence of events.

To Percy's surprise and relief, however, the Achilles showed no signs of opening fire. Instead, dark clouds of smoke poured from every crevice of the ship, causing the warship to resemble a gigantic oily cloud. The port side of the ship sank slightly, causing the entire ship to tilt twenty degrees.

The new Percy swore under his breath. He turned back to his ship and squinted up at the deck.

"Leo!" he shouted over the groaning and choking engines. "Please tell me you didn't blow the ship up again!"

A scrawny boy poked his head up over the rail, his hair splattered with machine oil and smoking around the edges. Percy felt his lungs freeze for a second time, and he heard Annabeth and Jason exchange a few cusses behind him. Leo Valdez peered over the rail of the ship, his face grim. Percy had to wait several seconds for his brain to process what he was seeing. Percy was used to seeing dead people. He had crawled through Tartarus, fought a legion of ghosts, and hung out with Hazel, for crying out loud. Seeing someone that had died while Percy had known them? That was a new one. Besides, Leo's face seemed a little… off. Percy wasn't sure if it was just a reflection, but he thought he had seen a flash of celestial bronze near Leo's right cheek.

"Bad news, Percy!" Leo shouted down, nearly hacking up a lung from rapid inhalation of smoke. "Reactor's fried! If I had a few more days, maybe I could fix it. But right now, we're stranded."

The new Percy shook his head, swearing under his breath as he turned back to the three demigods in front of him. "Okay, not good. But anyway, back to the really pressing topic: do you have anything for me to eat?"

Before Percy could slap himself for not giving himself enough information to possibly save himself, Piper ran up from the crowd of demigods, coughing from the layer of smoke that had settled around them.

"Okay, would any of you mind explaining what is going on?" Piper asked, looking at her three friends. She glanced at the second Percy and did a double take. She stared at the new arrival for several seconds, as if he might just float away with the smoke cloud.

"Okay," she said slowly, raising an eyebrow and glancing back at Jason, Annabeth, and Percy. "Do you three see the second Percy, or is it just me?"

The new Percy glanced over at her, as if deciding what to do next. "Alive," he said suddenly, pointing at Piper.

Piper stared at him, slightly taken aback. "I'm alive? Um, I've already figured that out."

The new Percy ignored her, instead pointing to Jason, Annabeth, and Percy in turn. "Jason's still alive. Leo's still alive, as you can tell. Annabeth…" The new Percy skipped over her, trying not to meet her gaze. Instead he went straight to Percy. "Percy's still alive, as far as I know. I'm still standing, so I assume that he'll survive for a while."

The new Percy crossed his arms, as if he had proved an important point. "The rest weren't so lucky. And I'll explain exactly how they died, if you three can get me something to eat!"

The newly-arrived Percy ate like a starving wolf, and Percy had enough experience with wolves to know. The boy was sitting cross-legged in the sand, devouring the little food that Piper had managed to scrounge up from the pack of campers. The collected food was by no means impressive. It consisted of exactly two candy bars, a can of soda, and a single hotdog from a boy who seemed to have come directly from the mess hall. Still, the other Percy dug into his meal like a starving man on Thanksgiving. Annabeth had offered the other Percy a meal with more sustenance at camp, but he had shot the idea down before she had even finished her sentence. Apparently he wasn't too comfortable with getting too far away from the Achilles.

The new Percy finished his meal in less time than Percy would use to tie his shoes. Immediately after chugging down the remains of the soda, the boy whipped out a scrap of note paper and a pencil so short it was pretty much just an eraser with a small nub of lead. He began to scribble down a short list, muttering to himself as he did so.

"Let's see… a crate of celestial bronze, two gallons of nectar and twelve pounds of ambrosia… oh, yeah, and ten pounds of unaltered imperial gold." The new Percy folded up the scrap of paper and held it out to Piper expectantly. "I'm going to need this before my crew and I even try to set out again."

Piper stared at him, shifting her gaze between the paper and the boy holding it. "Um, even if we had most of that on hand, I'm not about to go fetch it for you. Besides, I may have misunderstood this, but didn't you just say most of us were going to die?"

The new Percy sighed, shoving the paper into his hoodie's pocket. "Geez, I'm getting to that. I'm just trying to make sure my crew doesn't die, first."

Jason cleared his throat, scratching his head. "Okay, hold up. Seeing a clone of Percy is weird enough, and a Leo double isn't exactly normal, but you're telling me you have a whole crew? How? Who, or what, are you?"

The new Percy frowned, as if he was trying not to lose his patience. "First of all, I'm not a clone. If I were, I'd probably go psycho and try to kill Percy to take his place. Which I'm not going to do, by the way. And secondly, it's not exactly a crew. I think a crew requires a bit more than three other people."

Annabeth stared up at the sky, apparently deep in thought. "Okay, give me a second. You're saying that most of us are going to die, a fact that you're somehow very familiar with. You look just like Percy, for better or worse," Annabeth began, piecing the sentence together slowly, as if assembling a complicated jigsaw puzzle.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Percy and his doppelgänger protested.

"And you somehow have at least one of us on your warship," Annabeth finished, ignoring the outburst. She thought for a moment, apparently doing some major calculations in her head. Finally she sighed, shaking her head. "Okay, I only have a few guesses, and most of them are a stretch."

"Take your best shot," new Percy said, downing the remainder of his soda. "I haven't had a good laugh in a while."

Annabeth frowned, apparently a bit irritated by the comment. "First guess," she said, raising her index finger. "This is some type of elaborate prank from either one of the gods or… Leo."

The new Percy made a choking sound, almost drowning in his own soda. By the time he cleared his throat, his chuckling was starting to die down. "Yeah, I wish. That would make things much easier for me."

Annabeth glanced at Percy, as if to blame him for the attitude of their visitor. Percy felt like smacking himself in the forehead. Usually he would only have to worry about messing up his own reputation. Now there were two of him, messing everything up twice as efficiently. Not a change Percy was excited for.

"Okay, second guess," Annabeth continued, raising a second finger. "Some sort of alternate dimension? A dark world?"

The boy shook his head, a disappointed look on his face. "I remember you being smarter, Wise Girl."

Both Annabeth and Percy gritted their teeth. Okay, note to self, Percy thought, fighting the urge to pull back out Riptide. Strangle myself the next chance I get. Percy ticking off Annabeth was one thing. A clone doing Percy's job for him? Not the most pleasant experience.

"Okay, last guess," Annabeth said, clearly agitated. "Time travel. You're from the future."

The newer Percy pretended to ring a bell, a slight grin on his face. "Ding ding ding! Give the girl a hand, folks."

Percy stared at him, trying to ignore the rising sick feeling in his throat. "Wait, so you're actually me? This isn't some bad prank? Please tell me this is a prank."

New Percy stared back at him, raising an eyebrow. "How in Hades could this be a prank? Oh, let's go find a kid who looks exactly like Percy Jackson, that'll freak him out. Besides, I'm not you, you're me. It's complicated, but I'm older than you, so..."

Percy threw his arms out in frustration. "Why does it matter that you're older than me?"

New Percy shrugged. "Well, that makes me automatically cooler. Wait... does this mean I can call you Percy Jr.?"

"You can't call me that!" Percy protested. "And it doesn't make you automatically cooler."

Piper faked a cough into her arm. "HACK Percy, the thing about us dying HACK HACK."

Jason held up his hands, waving his arms to draw attention to himself. "Um, I hate to agree with cooler Percy, but-"

"Why is he cooler?!" Percy shouted.

Jason shrugged. "He has a gas mask, he just ziplined out of a warship, and he can do everything you can do. He's cooler by default. But seriously, what are we going to call you two? I'm used to calling Percy, well, Percy, but what about the older one? What do we call him? G.I. Jackson? Percy McFly? The Demi-Godfather Part Two?"

"Just Jackson would work," the new Percy mumbled, although he looked pleased with "G.I. Jackson".

Piper frowned. "And hold on just a second. Before you tell us we're all going to die, prove you're from the future. Tell us something only Percy would know."

Jackson stared at her for a second, as if digging through his memory banks. He quickly pointed a finger at Percy. "Percy never washes his camp t-shirts. He just makes sure to jump into the ocean every once in a while."

"Seriously, dude?!" Percy protested, his cheeks turning crimson. "I… I wash my shirts! I know where the camp washing machine is!"

Piper leaned away from Percy a bit, eyeing his shirt like she would a cockroach. "Um, there is no camp washing machine. You just made that up, didn't you?"

Jackson wasn't finished. He quickly pointed at Piper. "Let's see... Piper accidentally broke Jason's arts-and-crafts vase and never told him. She asked Percy to hide the pieces in the lake."

Piper's face turned pink, and Jason looked like he had just been kicked in the face by a horse. He stared at Piper. "I spent a week on that! You told me it was sent to Camp Jupiter!"

Jackson pointed a finger at Jason. "Heh. Jason cries at the end of movies." He began ticking them off on his fingers. " Titanic, A River Runs Through It, E.T., um..."

Jason looked like the horse had decided to kick him in the gut, too. He glared at Percy. "You promised you wouldn't tell anyone!"

"I didn't!" Percy protested. "He did! Well, I guess he's technically... ah, forget it."

Jackson chuckled, obviously enjoying the embarrassment he was causing. He shifted the finger to Annabeth, and a smile crept across his face. "Where do I start? Well, Annabeth once-"

"That's enough," Annabeth interrupted, cutting Jackson off before he could spill any more secrets. "We get the picture, you're from the future. Why did you come back? And how are we all going to die?"

Jackson shrugged. "Okay, today's the tenth or so, right? Well, we needed to come back to early August so we could get here before-"

"Twentieth," Percy corrected before he could stop himself.

The air around them seemed to freeze. Jackson stopped moving, now as still as a statue. A few moments passed with no sound whatsoever. Percy could swear that he could hear the naiads holding their breath.

Jackson seemed to shudder. He looked up slowly, staring at Percy. "What did you say?" he said quietly, his grip tightening on his handgun.

Percy reached into his back pocket, pulling out the folder newspaper from earlier that day. "See for yourself. This is today's newspaper."

Jackson ripped the paper out of Percy's hands, flipping it over to read the date inscribed at the top. He stared at the date for several seconds, a strange mix of anger and horror crawling across his face. The newspaper crumpled in his clenched fists.

"Damn it," Jackson whispered, balling the newspaper up in his hands and letting it fall into the sand next to him.

Suddenly, Jackson leapt to his feet, a murderous look in his eyes. "Leo!" Jackson roared, whipping around and charging back towards his ship. In one fluid motion, he whipped back out the zipline contraption and slammed it down onto the wire, giving himself a kickstart back up towards his ship.

Jason and Piper were the first to react. They began sprinting after Jackson, Jason glancing back at Percy and Annabeth as they ran.

"We're going to fly up, make sure he doesn't hurt Leo!" Jason called back, grabbing Piper and leaping into the air. In an instant, the two of them were rocketing up towards the ship, right on the tail of Jackson.

Percy glanced at Annabeth. "There's no way that we're just going to let them stop me without me, right?"

Annabeth sighed, shaking her head. "Percy, if I had a nickel for every time you went charging in headfirst-"

"You'd be a rich demigod," Percy finished, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, you're the smart one. Figure out a way to get us up there."

Annabeth stared at him, almost incredulously. "Percy… we're on a beach."

Percy shrugged. "Yeah, so? How are we supposed to get up there in time?"

Annabeth smacked her forehead. "Percy, fill in the blank. A beach is half sand, and half..."

Percy stared at her for a moment, and then something clicked in his head. "Oh. Right, I knew that."

Percy took off sprinting towards the water, Annabeth right behind him, muttering something about idiots under her breath. Within a few seconds, both of them were waist-deep, as Percy desperately tried to pretend he knew what he was doing. He glanced at Annabeth for ideas, but she just stared at him expectantly. Right. Water was his element. He was expected to have the plan here.

Percy glanced out at the waves in the distance, trying to make himself look in control and definitely not without a plan. Difficult, to say to least. Percy desperately tried to concoct a plan. Percy was skilled at using the water to go sideways and down. Going up? Not so much. The only thing that came to mind was an old trick that he had pulled on Jason back on the Argo: subtly building up the pressure inside a water bottle until it exploded when the son of Jupiter had opened it. Not the most sophisticated idea, but it could work. Or maybe kill them.

Percy focused on the water around him, a skill that had almost become instinct by now. The water level lowered a few inches around them, and Percy felt the water surrounding them grow tighter and tighter as it compressed. If Percy weren't the son of the sea god, the pressure would shatter both his and Annabeth's legs.

Annabeth shifted uncomfortably, noticing the increasing pressure. "Um, Percy?"

Percy bit his lip, trying to keep his concentration. This took way too long. If he messed this up, there would be no time to try again. He could only grunt a few words.

"Aim... For... Something... SOFT!" Percy managed, before releasing the pressure around them in one massive burst. The water around them shot in every direction, blasting Annabeth and Percy skywards like they had been shot out of a water cannon. Percy couldn't hear Annabeth over the rushing water, but by her shouting, it didn't sound like she was singing his praises.

Within a moment, the two of them were fifteen yards above the deck of the Achilles. Percy whirled around, trying to find a part of the ship that wasn't made completely out of steel. If he hit the deck from this height, it wouldn't be only his fall that was broken.

Unfortunately, Percy didn't have much time to figure out how to survive the fall. There was a brilliant white flash from the side of the Achilles. A blast of flame roared out of the side of the ship, raging directly towards the airborne demigods. Judging by the size of it, the ball of flame would char both Percy and Annabeth to a crisp the second it came close to them.

Great, Percy thought. This day just keeps getting better and better.

(Note: I do not own Percy Jackson or any related series) Sorry for the long wait, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this.