Chapter 1, A Rude Awakening

Present Time, School Bus, Museum of Greek & Roman Art ~

Percy sat by his two best friends as their whole class tried to push their way out of the bus. The trio of friends had decided to wait for everyone else to get off before they followed after seeing their classmates run to exit the bus. Percy looked over at his two friends, Grover Underwood and Thomas Badawi. Grover is a scrawny guy who was exempt from P.E class for life due to a muscular disease in his legs that forced him to use crutches. He has curly brown hair and just as brown eyes, Grover was also an easy target for any bullies and Percy has lost count of how many times he or Thomas saved Grover from a bully. Well to be honest the bullying hasn't been as bad since he and Grover met Thomas, there was something about that guy that seemed to scare people.

Percy wasn't sure what about the dark haired teen scared people. Sure, he has deep red eyes and was decently athletic for a 12 year old. But he wasn't scary. Thomas was one of the nicest people Percy has ever met, even if the red eyed teen was a little competitive and dressed in all black and wore a weirdly shaped cross necklace that had a loop on top instead of a point. To be perfectly honest Percy wondered if his classmates were scared of Thomas just because he looked like an Egyptian prince due to his darker complexion. The three boys watched as the main antagonist of Grover, Nancy Bobofit, left the bus before they decided to get up and leave themselves.

The trio, as always, lagged behind the whole class and just listened to their Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, as he spoke about each piece of Greek art. At one point Mr. Brunner stopped by a statue depicting a young girl who died in ancient times and he looked so sad it was almost like he knew the girl personally. Then the class got to a huge depiction of the Gods fighting the Titans. Mr. Brunner turned around and addressed the class.

"Can anyone tell me what this is a depiction of?" The old Latin teacher asked as the other teacher chaperone Mrs. Dodds walked up behind him with a look of longing at the art piece on the wall. Mr. Brunner's gaze passed over the entire class as Percy told Nancy to shut up.

"Ah, Percy care to answer my question?" Mr. Brunner asked the green eyed boy. Percy heard the class snicker around only to fall silent when Thomas glared at them. Percy's ears turned red as he gulped before answering his teacher.

"Uh, isn't that a depiction of the Titanomachy? And wasn't it caused by the Titan King Kronos eating his kids? The Titan Queen Rhea gave Krona a rock instead of their youngest child so that he could raise a rebellion against the Titans after causing Kronos to throw up his siblings, right?" Percy responded with shaky confidence in his voice.

"That is correct Percy, good job." Mr. Brunner said with a fatherly smile upon his face. Percy let out a sigh of relief that he got it right before he heard Nancy start speaking to her friends again.

"Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Badawi," Mr. Brunner started, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted." Grover muttered.

"Shut up." Nancy hissed, her face as bright red as her hair.

Percy snickered at Nancy getting called out by Mr. Brunner, the only teacher who ever seemed to catch Nancy being Nancy. The Latin teacher seemed to have radar ears.

"I believe this knowledge is important to real life because learning from the mistakes of history and myth allows us to not make the same mistakes, like a life lesson of some sort?" Isaac answered with a question of his own.

"Good answer Mr. Badawi, and the answer to your question is yes it is a good life lesson." Mr. Brunner said who then led the class out to the front of the museum for lunch.

Once outside, the trio of boys decided to sit by the large water fountain away from the rest of their class in hopes of not being connected to the group of boys pelting pigeons with crackers or Nancy pick pocketing old ladies as they walked by. They decided to look at the crazy weather that had been blowing in lately. Grover looked at Percy like he was about to drop some crazy philosophical quote then asked to eat his apple. As Thomas pointed this out to the two of them Nancy walked over to the trio followed by her gang of goonies.

Before the boys could say anything Nancy pushed Grover onto his back and took one of his crutches before breaking it over her knee. Percy and Thomas looked at each other with eyes that clearly spoke of anger.

Same Time, Large Water Fountain, Museum of Greek & Roman Art ~

Thomas was pissed after watching Nancy break his crippled friend's only way of walking properly. With an expression of pure righteous anger, Tom stood up and shoved Nancy towards the water fountain as the water somehow rose up and pulled Nancy into the fountain completely drenching her clothes. Tom looked at his friends with a face of gleeful confusion before noticing that Percy's eyes seemed to be glowing slightly. However, before he could address his friends eye problem Mrs. Dodd appeared out of nowhere to check on Nancy.

"Tom and Percy pushed me!" The little red headed stepchild screeched at the teacher aide. Mrs. Dodds turned her angry glare to the two boys only to flinch away after locking eyes with Tom. The flinch was so slight that Tom wasn't sure he even saw it.

"You two will follow me, now." Mrs. Dodds all but screeched at the two friends before walking towards the museum. Tom shared a look with Percy before the two climbed the stairs behind the angry old lady, the wind blew hard reminding the boys of the freak weather Manhattan has been having lately. The wind also rustled the intricate bracelet Tom wore on his left wrist, it was a dark silver bracelet made out of leather wrapped steel with a small spear charm that dangled slightly from the bottom of the bracelet. This bracelet was the only thing Tom had left of his dad, who according to his mom had to return to his homeland of Egypt for some family problems and never returned due to supposedly getting lost in the desert.

Tom shook himself out of his sad mental state before hurrying after Percy and Mrs. Dodds who somehow was very quick for an old lady. He was quite tired of his temper getting him in trouble and was not excited to get chewed out by one of the few teachers he actually liked but he also wasn't just going to sit silent while his crippled friend was bullied for no reason.

Mrs. Dodds led the two friends into a back room of the museum which threw red flags up in both boys' minds. Before either teen could ask their teacher why she brought them this far back into the museum, she started to speak to them.

"We know you two stole it!" She actually screeched this time. As she was saying this her body started to transform into some kind of demon bat thing. Instinctually Tom pulled on the spear charm dangling from his fathers bracelet and watched as a beautiful Ox Tongue Partisan Spear grew from the charm. The shaft was made of dark oak wood inlaid with gold linings spiraling from top to bottom, the broad blade had two spikes at the beginning of the blade as the blade elongated into a sharp point with gold swirls on the black blade. Engraved on the shaft of the spear was Al Sahra' Al Hamra' in Arabic which Tom easily translated to The Red Desert in English.

Still following his instinct Tom got into a battle ready stance with the tip of the spear pointed towards the floor in a two handed grip. Before Tom or the demon lady could do anything everyone heard the squeaking of Mr. Brunner's motorized wheelchair's wheels roll into the room and watched as he yelled at Percy.

"What ho Percy!" The old man yelled as he threw a ballpoint pen at Percy which once it was caught by Percy it elongated into a beautiful bronze Greek Xiphos. Percy also entered a battle ready stance as Mrs. Dodds rushed towards Tom with her talons out, before she could get too close Percy jumped in front of her and slashed at her with his newly acquired sword. The demon bat dodged the bronze blade and faded into her own shadow only to reappear behind Percy and rake her claws across his back, with a cry of pain Percy fell to one knee. Mrs. Dodds then turned around and punched Tom in the face, forcing him to take a few steps back and shake off the pain.

Seeing his friend get injured and then getting decked angered Tom who unknown to him started to faintly grow red before rushing towards the demonic bat-like form of Mrs. Dodds, stabbing straight through her left wing and using the momentum he gained from his run towards her to push her forward until they reached a wall. At which point Tom buried his spear blade up to the spiked guard into said wall. He then kicked Mrs. Dodds' knee as hard as he could hearing a satisfying crack that also sickened him slightly.

Mrs. Dodds screamed out in pain at both her wing getting pinned and her knee breaking but before she could do anything Percy, who had gotten up and staggered over, swung his bronze blade and decapitated her. Both boys stood there panting as they watched their teacher crumble into a gold sand that blew away.

Tom left his spear embedded in the wall and turned to his friend before taking his hoodie off and ripping the sleeves off to use as a bandage for the gashes upon his back.

"Thanks Tom." Percy said in a pained tone as he watched his friend wrap what was left of his ripped up hoodie around the injuries on his back. Once Tom was done he helped Percy stand up and supported his weight as they slowly walked back to the middle of the room. The two boys looked around the room noticing that Mr. Brunner was no longer there then they both laid their eyes upon the weapons they used to kill their teacher. The spear Tom used disappeared in a flash of red as the spear charm appeared back in his hand while the sword that Percy used simply wasn't there, it had somehow already appeared back in pen form in Percy's hand as well.

The two confused and battered teens stood there as they took in what just happened to them.

And that is where I will leave this part off. Now if any of you read the original story then you probably already guessed that Tom Badawi is the same Tom from Son of the Desert. You may have also noticed that Percy is actually here this time. Anyway before I give away too much I just want to thank you all for reading this, good day my friends.

Erebus, Signing off.