Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or Camp Half-Blood or mythology. Rick does. Well, at least the characters and Camp Half-Blood.

Chapter 8

Percy was amazed that he hadn't been eaten by a random sea serpent that was hungry and wanted lunch.

He head was still ringing from the whole Scylla and Charybdis incident, and he figured he hit a rock or something. He knew that would probably give him a concussion, though, with the force he'd hit the thing. Whatever it was it hurt to think about it. He was floating through the ocean, face down, with the steaming rays of the sun glaring down at him. He didn't want to move. He felt calm just floating in the sea. But against his desire, he lifted his head.

Now that he was in the Sea of Monsters, the water glittered a more brilliant green, a colour somewhere in between the bright green fields and dark-leaved trees at Camp Half-Blood. The wind smelled fresh and salty, but it carried a strange metallic scent, too—as if a thunderstorm was coming. Or something even more dangerous. He knew where he needed to go. He knew he was exactly one hundred thirteen nautical miles west by northwest of his destination. But this was still the Sea of Monsters. If legends about the Sea of Monsters were true, it was a dangerous place. He wished he'd looked up about it more at camp.

Too late now, he thought miserably.

He floated for hours, and occasionally he would submerge himself so he'd refrain from getting sunburnt. There were tons of fish swimming around… like regular, oceanic fish. It was weird because he'd expected, in the Sea of Monsters, to have an ocean full of weird aquatic monsters. But he only saw one. He saw a spiky green dorsal fin about fifteen feet long curl out of the water before disappearing. Fortunately for him, the monster didn't eat him.

The sun was beginning its descent from atop the sky when he finally hit land. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed when suddenly he felt like he was being pushed into something soft and grainy. He put his hands down and immediately felt sand. He shot straight up in alarm and turned around.

"Oh my gods," Percy muttered.

He blinked and found himself on a beautiful island. It looked like a giant resort. There were dazzling white buildings everywhere, and he saw a small mountain rising from what he assumed was the center of the island. The beach he was on was lined with palm trees, and barely twenty feet away was a harbour filled with a strange assortment of boats. It was a tropical paradise.

He blinked again, and suddenly a lady with a clipboard appeared in front of him.

She looked formal—blue business suit, perfect makeup, hair pulled back in a ponytail. She shook his hand and gave him an analytical stare. She had dark eyes and dark hair. She reminded him a bit of Brooklyn, though she was a lot slimmer and a lot prettier.

"Welcome," she greeted happily, "to C.C.'s Resort and Spa!"

Percy looked at the boats in port. The boats… and other things he saw fit the expectation he had for the Sea of Monsters more than the island did. There was something odd about the place, because along with a bunch of pleasure yachts, there was a U.S. Navy submarine, several dugout canoes, and an old-fashioned three-masted sailing ship. There was a helipad with a "Channel Five Fort Lauderdale" helicopter on it, and a short runway with a Learjet and a propeller plane that looked like a World War II fighter.

His hand crept to his pockets. A bad feeling crept up his spine.

He sighed internally when he felt both Riptide and the bottle of multivitamins in his pockets.

"Is this your first time with us?" the clipboard lady inquired.

Percy hesitated for a second and looked around. He decided to nod. "Um, yeah."

"First—time—at—spa," the lady said as she wrote on her clipboard. "Let's see…" She looked him up and down critically. "Complete makeover for you… as always."

"What?" he asked.

She was too busy jotting down notes to answer. "Right!" she said with a breezy smile. "Well, I'm sure C.C. will want to speak with you personally before the luau. Come, please."

Percy knew this was a trap, but he'd been floating in the ocean for most of the day. He was tired, hungry, and the word luau put him into a trance. His stomach sat up on its hind legs and begged like a dog.

"I guess it couldn't hurt," he muttered.

Of course it could, but he followed the lady. He made sure to keep his hands in his pockets. But the farther they wandered into the resort, the more he forgot about the magical defences he had stashed.

The place was amazing. There was white marble and blue water everywhere he looked. Terraces climbed up the side of the mountain, with swimming pools on every level, connected by waterslides and waterfalls and underwater tubes people could swim through. Fountains sprayed water into the air, forming impossible shapes, like flying eagles and galloping horses.

They passed all kinds of tame animals. A sea turtle napped in a stack of beach towels. A leopard stretched out asleep on the diving board. The resort guests—only young women, as far as I could see—lounged in deck chairs, drinking fruit smoothies or reading magazines while herbal gunk dried on their faces and manicurists in white uniforms did their nails.

Percy was glad other campers told him stories of their autumns and winters and springs outside of camp otherwise he would have been behind on everything.

As they headed up a staircase toward what looked like the main building, he heard a woman singing. Her voice floated through the air like a lullaby. Her words were in some language other than ancient Greek, but just as old. They sounded kind of familiar… magic. There was definitely some element of magic to her words. Even though she was singing about moonlight in the olive groves and the colours of the sunrise, the magic was enough to throw him off. Kronos spoke in the ancient tongue of magic sometimes, and though it sounded much prettier coming from a lady's mouth, the language itself haunted him.

"So when's the luau?" Percy asked, trying to keep his mind off the singing.

"Oh, don't worry," the woman said with a suspicious twinkle in her eyes. "You'll get all you need from the makeover. The luau will just be dessert. You'll get all the vital essentials you need. Trust me."

Then a small voice from behind them shouted, "Hylla! Hylla!"

The older woman turned and frowned. "Reyna, what are you doing here?"

Percy watched as the woman—Hylla—approached what looked like her twin… except for the fact that her twin was like ten years old. And she looked like she was in her late teens to early twenties. They began to have an argument, and the one named Reyna didn't seem to notice him. Percy's hands accidentally found their way back in his pockets and he remembered the woman singing.

What was written on the label of the multivitamin bottle? And everything you need to be yourself. How did Hermes know? If there was magic here, he needed to make sure nothing happened to him. The Mist was complicated enough… but potions. Percy wondered if there were any children of Hecate that had been sleeping in the Hermes bunk.

He took the opportunity, while Reyna and Hylla were distracted, to take a couple vitamins out. He popped them into his mouth and swallowed them. Was that… cherry and lemon together?

"Who's that?" Reyna asked, pointing at him.

"Percy Jackson, but that doesn't matter. Just go!"

After a couple more words, the little girl ran off, and Hylla gave him a fake smile. "Sorry about that, Percy. Shall we go?"

"Definitely a trap," he muttered as he entered the big room in front of him. They knew his name, and he never told them.

Percy hoped that there were no empousai here. Hopefully all the young women were just… witches or something.

Even knowing it was a trap, Percy looked at everything in awe. The whole front wall of the room was windows. The back wall was covered in mirrors, so the room seemed to go on forever. There was a bunch of expensive-looking white furniture, and on a table in one corner was a large wire pet cage. Were those… guinea pigs? Then he saw the lady who'd been singing… and whoa.

She sat at a loom the size of a big screen TV, her hands weaving coloured thread back and forth with amazing skill. The tapestry shimmered like it was three dimensional—a waterfall scene so real he could see the water moving and the clouds drifting across a fabric sky.

"It's beautiful," he marveled.

The woman turned. She was even prettier than her fabric.

Her long dark hair was braided with threads of gold. She had piercing green eyes and she wore a silky black dress with shapes that seemed to move in the fabric: animal shadows, black upon black, like deer running through a forest at night.

"You appreciate weaving, my dear?" the woman asked.

Percy gave her a blank stare. All he could manage was: "Uhhhh…"

She laughed. "It's all right. My name is C.C." She turned to Hylla. "Thank you, Hylla. You may leave. And would you shut the door on your way out?"

Percy tried not to make too much eye contact with C.C. She was really, really, really beautiful. Enchantment, he thought.

Hylla left, and only the two of them were left.

C.C. took his arm and guided him toward the mirrored wall. "Don't worry, Percy. I'm going to give you a wonderful makeover. Something you would want… something you desire. You see, Percy… to unlock your potential, you'll need serious help. The first step is admitting that you're not happy the way you are."

Percy hoped the vitamins would last for more than a few minutes. He'd need more than that. And he needed to act like he was another victim to whatever trap this was.

It wasn't hard finding all the faults in his appearance. He actually felt disappointed that he wasn't better looking. But he was eleven. What could he do?

"There, there," C.C. consoled. "How about we try… this?"

She snapped her fingers and a sky-blue curtain rolled down over the mirror. It shimmered like the fabric on her loom.

"What do you see?" she asked.

The shimmering stopped and he gasped. On the blue cloth, a reflection, but not a reflection, appeared. An image of a cooler version of Percy Jackson appeared—with just the right clothes, a confident smile on his face. His teeth were straight. A perfect tan. More athletic. Maybe a couple of inches taller. It was him, without the faults, and a little bit older.

"Whoa," he managed.

"Do you want that?" C.C. asked. "Or shall I try a different—"

"Um… no that's good," Percy said. He glanced at the mirror. It was rather appealing… "Can you really—"

"I can give you a full makeover," C.C. promised.

"What's the catch?" he said. "I have to like… eat a special diet?"

"Oh, it's quite easy," C.C. said. "Plenty of fresh fruit, a mild exercise program, and of course… this."

She stepped over to her wet bar and filled a glass with water. Then she ripped open a drink-mix packet and poured in some red powder. The mixture began to glow. When it faded, the drink looked just like a strawberry milk shake. It was not a strawberry milk shake. He knew that much.

"One of these, substituted for a regular meal," C.C. said. "I guarantee you'll see results immediately."

"How is that possible?"

She laughed. "Why question it? I mean, don't you want the perfect you right away?"

Percy tried to find something to stall with. He couldn't. "Uh…"

"Now, Percy," C.C. chided, "the hardest part of the makeover process is giving up control. You have to decide: do you want to trust your judgement about what you should be, or my judgement?"

"Your judgement," he said.

C.C. smiled and handed him the glass. He lifted it to his lips, but before he drank, he noticed the guinea pig cage out of the corner of his eye. That would be enough to stall, just in case the vitamins wore out.

"Hey, you know the guinea pigs back there?" he asked. "You think I could get one. You know, as a pet?"

C.C. turned to look at the guinea pigs and frowned. "I'm sorry. Those pigs aren't available. They're going off to Kindergarten classes all over the world!"

"Pigs?"

C.C. seemed to notice her slip-up. She caught herself well. "Oh, just what I call my guinea pigs. It's not a big deal."

Sorceress. Pigs. C.C.

"Is there a name for this island?" he asked.

C.C. looked at him cautiously. "What is the point of that?"

A lie popped straight into his head. It was ridiculous, but he hoped it would work. "I wanna get my other friends into this. This sounds awesome. I'm sure they could find this on Google or something, right?"

"Friends? What is an eleven-year-old boy doing out in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle? That is my question. Because if you had friends at home, you would not be here right now, demigod." She laughed evilly, and Percy took a step back. "No man leaves Aeaea!"

"Odysseus did," Percy noted. It was the wrong thing to say. "You're Circe!"

C.C. let loose a blast of magic. He was sent flying into the corner of the room, and the milk shake flew out of his hands and smashed into the wall. He looked up from where he was and saw the guinea pig cage. He remembered Circe's story. She lured men to the island with magic before turning them into pigs after a feast. He figured pigs were too stinky and messy for the resort full of young women so she chose to turn them into guinea pigs when Europeans found them in the Americas.

Everything you need to be yourself.

"How are you not a shrew!?" shrieked Circe.

Percy got up and felt a sudden boost in confidence. He reached for the bottle of multivitamins and showed it to the sorceress.

She howled in frustration. "Curse Hermes and his multivitamins! Those are such a fad! They do nothing for you."

He grinned wickedly. Knocking the top of the cage off, he poured the rest of the vitamins inside.

"No!" Circe screamed.

Suddenly, the guinea pigs began to grow. Percy stepped away from the cage as it exploded. Six other guys, who all looked disoriented, blinking and shaking wood shavings out of their hair, appeared on the ground at his feet.

"No!" Circe screamed. "You don't understand! Those are the worst!"

One of the men stood up—a huge guy with a long tangled pitch-black beard and teeth the same colour. He wore mismatched clothes of wool and leather, knee-length boots, and a floppy felt hat. The other men were dressed more simply—in breeches and stained white shirts. All of them were barefoot.

"Argggh!" bellowed the big man. "What's the witch done t'me!"

"No!" Circe moaned.

Percy stared at the pirate. "Are you Blackbeard?"

"Aye, lad," the big man growled. "And there's the sorceress what captured us, lads! Run her through, and then I mean to find me a big bowl of celery! Arggggh!"

Circe screamed. She ran from the room, chased by the pirates.

Percy knew he needed to make his escape. He sprinted outside and turned to run down to hill. He ran down the hillside through the terraces, past screaming spa workers and pirates ransacking the resort. Blackbeard's men broke the tiki torches for the luau, threw herbal wraps into the swimming pool, and kicked over tables of sauna towels. They lit the resort on fire. They were burning it down.

When he reached the docks, he stopped to look for which ship to take. He couldn't take the sub or the fighter jet. He couldn't pilot any of those things. And then he saw it.

"Argggh!" Blackbeard yelled somewhere behind him. "That scalawag is a-boarding me vessel! Get 'em, lads!"

Percy looked around at the hopeless maze of sail and ropes. The old sailing ship was in great condition for a three-hundred-year-old vessel, but it would still take a crew of fifty several hours to get underway. He didn't have several hours. He could see the pirates running down the stairs, waving tiki torches and sticks of celery.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the waves lapping against the hull, the ocean currents, the winds all around him. Suddenly, the right world appeared in his mind.

"Mizzenmast!" he yelled.

The air was filled with whistling sounds as ropes snapped taut, canvases unfurled and wooden pulleys creaked. He didn't know how, but the ship was responding to him as if it was a part of his body. He willed the sails to rise and willed the rudder to turn.

Percy stared guiltily at the island of Aeaea as it burned. But he couldn't stay and help. He had to go.

He raised his arms and thrust them toward the beach. A huge twenty-foot-wave picked up the three-mast ship before sending it propelling back into the Sea of Monsters. The wave exploded forward and doused the burning terraces. He hoped it was enough to put out the fires, but he turned around, directing the Queen Anne's Revenge toward his destination: the island of the Cyclops.

Percy was dead tired when he spotted the island. It was just a dark spot in the mist, but from the lack of land around, Percy wondered if it was another trap. It had to be.

He'd already seen weird monsters. A plume of water as tall as a skyscraper had spewed into the moonlight once. Another time, a row of green spines slithered across the waves—something maybe a hundred feet long, reptilian. He didn't really want to know.

Then the rocky coastline of the island came into view. And Percy began to hear the song.

In alarm, he realized he was heading toward the island of the Sirens. He was glad he'd checked out what was below deck before; otherwise he probably would have been screwed. He rushed downstairs to the tub of candle wax and kneaded them into earplugs. Just as he was about to stuff his ears, the enchantment reached him.

He couldn't control himself as he walked above deck, the candle wax still in his hands, and stared out at the Sirens.

In his vision, he was in Central Park. It was a normal day, and spread out in front of him was a picnic blanket and a giant feast. There were four people sitting on the blanket. His mother was back, alive and healthy. She looked just as he remembered, and was dressed casually—in blue jeans, sneakers, and a white T-shirt. Next to her sat a young couple: Nathan and Rose. They both wore Camp Half-Blood shirts, but underneath CAMP HALF-BLOOD was, in smaller letters, Summer Camp for Children and Teens with Dyslexia and ADHD. They looked peaceful. And the last person there was Grover… but not the satyr Grover. His pant leg was rolled up, and Percy saw a human leg. Grover was just a kid with a physical handicap. He was laughing and said, "You look ridiculous, Percy. Look at yourself."

He handed Percy a mirror, and Percy looked at himself.

There were drawings all over his face. It looked like some sort of face paint, but that wasn't what caught Percy's attention.

His hair was still messy but it was brown, like his mother's hair. And his eyes weren't green. His eyes were brown. Just like his mother. He looked back up at his mom, and her radiant smile was contagious. He smiled back. He was in the world he desired. He was in the world he wanted.

Poseidon wasn't his father. He took after his mother instead. And Grover wasn't a satyr. Percy looked up at the Empire State Building. This was a world where the world of Greek mythology didn't exist. He wished that things were just normal. Where humans existed solely without demons and monsters shrouded in a magical curtain called the Mist.

He looked at his mother and hugged her. But then he pulled away and took a step back.

"I love you mom, but you're dead," he said. "You can't live again as my mom." He turned to Grover. "You're a satyr. A wonderful satyr. Nothing will change that." He turned to Nathan and Rose. "You gave your lives to help others. And maybe, Rose, maybe you survived. Who knows? But you helped me. And I… I have to accept the truth. I want you all back. But I learned, the hard way, that almost nobody likes the truth. They just have to accept it."

The vision dissipated, and Percy nearly slammed into the wrecked hull of a yacht. He was submerged in the water. The candle wax was in his ears, and he willed the water from pulling him to the island of the Sirens.

Ordering a rope ladder to drop over the side of the ship, he climbed aboard. He sailed until the island was completely out of sight, and by then he was on the verge of passing out. He would never admit it to anybody but he wept as he thought about the vision he had. He wanted his mother back so bad. But she'd been dead for years. He had accepted that for a while now. And it was better if he stayed away. He didn't want to relive her death anymore.

Percy knew he got attached to people too easily if he didn't absolutely hate them. He even wished that nothing bad would ever happen to Clarisse. Nathan and Rose were gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The Sirens had gotten something wrong, though. As much as he didn't want to live in the world of the gods, he would never want Grover any other way. The satyr was good the way he was, and even though most of their friendship had happened in the background of his life and was more of a daily thing, Percy couldn't dream of Grover as anything but a satyr.

Maybe it was because he wanted too much.

Suddenly, he dropped to the deck like an anchor and fell right into a dream.

He began reliving his mother's death, again. He stood in the forest and watched the man stab her. He saw his younger self slap a hand on his mouth. Percy grimaced as the shadow dissipated into thin air. That moment when the tip of the blade went right through to the opposite side was the moment that flashed in his head the most.

And each time, it took all of his will to hold back the tears. There was no anger. Just tragedy.

On Olympus… in the throne room, there were twelve thrones curled around in a semi-circle, all of them occupied, watching a shimmering image of Percy passed out on the Queen Anne's Revenge above the hearth. The head throne was occupied by a man in a dark blue pinstriped suit, and he looked like he wanted to smite Percy right then and there.

"How dare you save your boy?!" Zeus crackled with electric energy.

"You were about to smite him!"

"That boy of yours is too powerful!" Zeus boomed. "No hero, especially not one as young as him, has ever escaped the Sirens without more aid than this. I should kill him right now."

"Need I remind you where your daughter is?" Poseidon threatened. He waved his hand, and the image changed to one of Thalia. She and Annabeth were running on the beaches of Atlantic City, right along the ocean. "At the current moment, Hades' monsters are coming from the south and from the west. And I have shown her no contempt, so she chooses to stay along the beaches. At any time I can kill her. And I will if you lay a single hair on my son."

"It is a wise choice to eliminate a threat before it grows into an issue," Athena said. "I agree with Father. It would be best to kill the boy. We've watched him for years. And we've seen him grow a hatred for us."

"He's not a bad person," Aphrodite said, filing her nails. "I can sense his love. Oh, the poor dear. He just needs people to comfort him. Such a traumatic event with his mother. What do they call it nowadays, Dionysus? Traumatic disorder thingy?"

"PTSD," the wine god said in a nasally tone. "Post-traumatic stress disorder. Though he's not as insane as most victims are."

"That's because he's a demigod," Poseidon said. "He has to deal with this. Everything we bring upon them is traumatizing. His brain is messed up somehow. The Sirens couldn't trick him as well as the average hero. His desires aren't things he has to have. He knows what he wants are things that are impossible to have. He's lived for too many years at camp to not accept his mother's death."

"He is still dangerous," argued Zeus. "He can't—"

"NO!" Poseidon slammed his fist on the armrest of his throne. He growled at Zeus menacingly. "I already lost Sally! I will not lose Percy. Not without a price, Zeus."

The throne room fell silent at the Sea God's rage.

Poseidon turned to the image of Thalia running. "Your daughter can be saved, as much as I don't like it, Zeus. I have a feeling she, and the daughter of Athena, will help my son regain at least a part of his sanity. And perhaps…" He glanced at Hermes. "Perhaps they'll help change his mind. If your daughter survives, perhaps they will force him to change. He'll realize his mistake."

"That's a gamble," Dionysus pointed out. "Works for me."

"If we get someone that powerful on our side…" Apollo's eyes gleamed. "Olympus will stay. Percy, hero of the day. Bad guys go away! How was that haiku? Good? Good?"

Artemis sighed and put her head in her hands. "I don't think I can trust a boy." She gave a pointed glare at Apollo. "Not to change."

Hermes cleared his throat. "Well, I don't think that everything will end happily. But… I'm sure Percy will make the right decision in the end. I'm not even sure if he's the one we have to worry about." Hermes looked off in the distance absentmindedly.

Poseidon grimaced, knowing what Hermes was thinking about. "We'll have to wait and see. Only time will tell." He caught Hermes' attention again. "Only time will tell."

"Yeah," chuckled Hermes darkly. "Time. What a bastard. Screws everybody over."

If anybody understands that last line...

It's a reference to a line in the Fault in Our Stars (the book; not gonna watch the movie tbh) that says "What a slut time is, she screws everybody." I thought it was kind of clever, though it's pretty obvious what that hint is. Percy keeps going through. Now the story is beginning to get to the main points. I originally intended for this part to be a one chapter thing, but I figured, might as well have Percy destroy Circe's Island now so (SPOILER ALERT!) when he comes back, he can see the destruction he caused. (END OF SPOILER!) Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter.

Leave a review if you want, follow if you haven't, or favourite if you feel obliged to.

Thanks,

Sharky