This is a rewritten version of my old, abandoned fanfiction. Hopefully, this version will be at least ten times better, and if not, 9.9 time minimum!

It's no secret that Athena disapproves of her daughter's choice of boyfriend. What might be. a slightly better-kept secret, however, is that Athena went as far as to reroute destiny itself in an attempt to get her favored daughter to see reason.

Annabeth Chase:

I was at school, sitting at my regular lunch table with stacks of sheets of graph paper spread out before me and a blinding headache stabbing me in the forehead every few seconds as I peered closely at the muddled mess of words on the textbook, when the owl came.

Now, owls aren't uncommon. They're my mother's symbol, after all, and so I have all kinds of owl-haunted memories – hanging above my bed in the form of a dream catcher as a fruitless attempt to ward off demigod dreams, plastered all over Cabin 9, dangling from my neck in a cute owl pendant necklace Percy gave to me – but I'd never seen a real, hooting owl.

I was sitting outside, because at least then I wouldn't be confined if a monster attacked me, and at least then I'd have an easier time leading the monster away from the other mortals. The sun was nearly non-existent and the clouds had painted the entire sky white, but the weather was still sweltering hot.

Just then, in the middle of the afternoon, I heard the soft hoot-hoot of an owl's screeches. I immediately leapt out of my seat, climbing the cafeteria table and uncapping my knife. It seemed logical at the time! – when you start hearing nocturnal animal noises in urban California and you're a demigod, you don't exactly hope for the best and continue in your back-breaking math homework.

Everyone sitting at the lunch table, which consisted of approximately one other girl who happened to be sleeping, abruptly woke up, screamed, and scrambled away from me. I swiveled around carefully, watching for the monster, when I heard a sharp, annoyed hoot! from right behind me.

I screamed and tumbled off the table, managing to land somewhat gracefully and brandish my knife at the creature. What I saw wouldn't have been all that surprising had I not been a demigod.

An owl.

Owls, which also coincidentally make hoot-hoot sounds.

Well.

Perhaps I should've expected that.

"Huge bee!" a teacher yelled, which didn't help at all.

I didn't relax, though. Maybe it was a monster, disguised as an owl. It could've been my mother, trying to test my reflexes and wit. She might've thought I needed training, that I was getting slow. It was true I hadn't practiced sword-fighting recently, but what with Percy getting banned from the arena because he once exploded it hadn't exactly helped.

The owl clutched a letter in its claws, and as it flapped closer to me, it dropped the creased envelope in my lap. It looked reproachfully at the scattered sheets of paper and left a last, disapproving hoot behind it as it flapped powerfully away.

I sighed heavily as I turned my attention to where the owl had been looking at, groaning and running a hand across my face. "Great," I said unenthusiastically. "Just great. I just had to knock over my homework, didn't I?"

Bending and gathering the papers together in my arms, I leaned against the bench and peeled open the letter flap, swallowing as I did so. Hopefully it didn't contain any news of impending wars or rising Titans.

To Annabeth Chase, Daughter of Frederick Chase:

I know you don't appreciate filler conversations. I don't either.

The gist of what I meant to say is that I don't approve of your relationship with the son of the sea scum. I've been monitoring your interactions, and nearly none of them were productive, with the exception of one where he convinced you to try a blue pancake. Those, admittedly, seem delightful.

Moving on – filler conversations are despicable – I've done a slight investigation into Perseus's memories, and I've made a book out of it. I'll send you to the past, where you haven't met Percy yet, and you will read it. You will believe the book to be a prophecy from Apollo, but will be compelled to not disclose the nature of the book to anyone else.

After you finish the book, you will be returned to the current time. Your original past self will return, and all events you have experienced will have never conspired in reality. If you still feel the irrational fondness for the sea spawn, I suppose I will have done my part. You are free to do whatever you wish with him.

You're welcome for the generosity.

From Lady Athena, Goddess of Crafts, Weaving, and All Civilization Products

...If that wasn't a winning example of the Best Mom of the Year, I didn't know what is.

That might prove some justification for the flaming school bus parked in the school parking lot.

There was a large, bulky school bus that was idling impatiently in the first parking spot, and the driver leaned out of the window, flexing a muscle and admiring himself in his sunglasses. He muttered something to himself and subsequently began touching up his hair.

Moving on from that awkward display, the bus itself was on fire.

Quite literally on fire.

The only thing I could think of was Apollo's sun ride, but why would it be here? Did it have anything to do with the letter, or did Apollo want me to do something for him? Both options seemed pretty likely.

Then again, it could very well not be, because I'd never seen Apollo actually land his sun ride anywhere. Wouldn't landing the sun on the Earth melt the ground or at least burn people's eyes? Maybe the sun ride was on low heat or something.

I remembered something about a new modification to Apollo's sun ride, something about a new ability to travel through suns of different times. Something about a bus, something about a project of Athena's.

Oh.

This bus was for me, I knew that much, but would my mother really arrange all this because she didn't like Percy? Would she really do that? Would she borrow Apollo, send me to the past and all this simply because of her rivalry with Poseidon?

On the other hand, she had started wars merely because she was offended by something Poseidon had done. She'd also started some mass genocides of fish before, but that was all in the past now. Poseidon had retaliated with some of the world's fiercest book burnings, which had eventually been balanced out by my mother starting the trend of sushi, but –

Anyway, moving on. My mother was right about one thing: I really don't like filler conversations.

I stepped inside the bus. Couldn't hurt more than my mother smiting me because I didn't follow instructions, right?

Or I hoped my mother wouldn't act so drastically. My mother was usually pretty good about not smiting people, but she also tended to be harsh when she's upset, as could be evidenced by what happened with Medusa.

I nodded at the teachers and started towards the bus. As I began to slide into a seat, I threw my camp necklace onto the ground beneath the bus. Even though my mom had said I'd return to my current self, which probably meant no one would notice me being gone, or at least it wouldn't matter, it couldn't hurt to leave some part of me behind in case it was a trap, right?

I craned forward, squinting to see against the fiery light. Was that Apollo?

"I know I'm so hot.

Even hotter than a fire.

Hotter than the sun," a low voice said from the driver's seat, disguised with an obnoxiously fake cough. "Guess who?"

Well, that answered my question pretty quickly.

"Apollo?" I asked dryly, stuffing my graph paper beneath the passenger seat and sitting down carefully, barely stopping myself from rolling my eyes.

"How'd you guess?"

This was going to be a long ride.