AN: My first entries. I wanted to do something easy. Test it out and play around. This story is also cross-posted on Wattpad under SwordQuillIncx18, same title.

Okay, I knew it was armada. Really!

This huge, honking war ship that's suppose to be the tank-tank leading a frontal assault into a battle, if we're talking Earth equivalent these days.

Yeah, a person could say it's an interest of mine this interstellar conflict junk sue me.

Though to say what it was, these Reach freaks being a war race savage as they claimed us humans are, they didn't get to be that cool.

Though I'm sure you're asking what some punk like me has anything to do or who I think I am to comment?

See it started like this.

I'm Percy Jackson, New York born and raised, Brooklyn taxis and bad attitude are in my blood. And a problem child escaping true horror and torment. Yancy Academy.

I like my city, it's cool. Most of the time.

There was a month left for the winter holidays. One month to go home for two blissful weeks where it could just be me, my Mom and Montauk.

Well no, not really. There is Smelly Gabe but I don't think on it, so don't worry about it.

He is the last thing I want on my mind at this particular moment.

See, Yancy is, how to say, one of those schools.

The ones rich parents send their wayward kids which they spoiled rotten to deal with the consequences. Hopefully turn them into productive members of society.

Good luck.

What had I done wrong? Why so eager if I was chucked just the same?

Nothing. Much like being poked and prodded by green-skinned cephalopod hippies the blame was more on whatever force in the universe hated me so much.

I suppressed a wince best I could, but they'd seen.

Some cricks of their tongue and my 'nurse team' fiddled with the controls of yet more brazen, alien technology.

I went dizzy and my eyes shoved full of coarse cotton.

"Fascinating!"

What was so joyous?

Being the thing on the slab bound and drugged high I didn't quite get the cause for celebration.

My lip curled, absolutely gross these monsters were.

It caused some fuss that after all that, I wasn't quite out yet. Yet a problem easily solved.

When volts coursed through my spine and across my body in a stinging deluge of hurt.

The door to my quaint, personal little bath pod closed.

Water... beginning to bubble and flow.

Submerging my mouth, my head.

Cool across my skin. Similar to a soak through my gym clothes.

I'd run away amidst changing out for some field laps in the cold. No slickers or hoodies allowed.

Out into the stormy, grey washed city...

Grover...

Bleating shrill and in fear like some broken squeaky toy.

I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.

I'd just- I wouldn't have gotten another chance.

I'd just-

I didn't want to cry.

I shut my eyes tight.

But my Mom, so kind and warm, never angry or irritated with me when her most of all, had every right to be.

Or I dunno, at least lose it for just a moment. I wouldn't mind and I wouldn't show it even if it would break me in half. She deserved to matter to herself the way she did to me.

Putting up with us both. Smelly Gabe. And me.

Her job at Sweet in America.

Hugging her I inhaled the scent of candy and sugar, and just everything good.

If I could have just heard her voice...

I could have kept going for the rest of the month.

Now... I heard it as consciousness slipped away. Into a grim, death-like sleep.

My pod is at the very edge of this room lit eerie, bloody red.

An entire rigid line of matching pods just like mine, floating with kids just like me.

"No one cares about them. They're runaways."

And in that far right was the entry door, from the adjacent prep and check room we'd be laid up on.

These last few days I'd heard screams before.

They became a somber lullaby. Routine. The world's worst soprano.

Always cutting through my sleep. And starting my day with nourishing thoughts of murder and fire.

"BLA-A-AAAAAA! BL-AAAAAAAAAAA!"

It cut through the haze, a dark outline of the main command began to take shape. But my body wasn't moving, firmly in off-mode and- would probably be mad if I tried to say otherwise.

But Grover! That was Grover!

They had taken him too! They really had!

One of the few things I'd had to hold onto was my best and only friend being safe. Relatively. And secure. Or, just freaking out in front of someone who wouldn't slug him for it.

"No no really, you don't have to-!"

A shrill, trembling yell came at whatever they had done.

And there again, the noise of an animal.

A goat!? What were they doing to him?

Being cross-bred with a goat?

My head spun, heart racing a mile a minute.

The water began to feel like ice instead of liquid, suffocating and unbreakable.

Bubbles seemed to mirror my new frantic pace.

I tried to scream, only to find my voice had flown out along my vague hopes too.

The one deemed 'scientist' raced in. The only female for space miles, tall, regal, certainly someone of highly pompous standing right down to her mouth veil that did nothing to cover a mouth.

At least Reach mouths were vaguely human. Or maybe that was the point.

Her furtive gaze was mainly on some screen. There were a million. Though this one put her right at my vantage point.

And though crazy thoughts seized me of taking her and the rest of her infestation with her I knew full well that was impossible.

All her crazy talk of "meta-gene" had clearly seeped in. Ugh, why couldn't math or English be like that?

Then again, he much didn't like how this mad science was rewiring his brain.

"No."

Whaaaat?

Some voice had just-? Did that-?

"My son."

It was a man.

Slowly overtaking the sounds of the pod, the beeping... Grover.

"Awake."

Who are you?

"Awake."

Bro really.

"Your end is not yet come."

And I'm delusional.

I knew the likely only way I was getting out by this point was either tossed in the failed test bin or somehow-

"Take hold, your true potential my son."

Produce this non-existing "meta-power" supposedly dormant in an ADHD screw-up.

Breathing in and out, I settled I may as well get a better look. This blurry, shadow stuff was really not doing it for me.

And then water went up my nose.

It burned.

That had... never happened.

Water began to whip furiously.

Growing darker.

Growing stronger and my legs no longer keeping me upright.

There was some sound of a flushing drain.

What- what?

Ocean waves thundered and cracked in my ears.

"Your time is at an end."

The cold, unfeeling face watched. Simply watched my life ebb away. Watched and then- walked away.

My hand smacked on the glass, trying, trying...

Trying uselessly to hold on.

If he, Ambassador, could be so audacious he'd say in this moment he was ecstatic.

Their most fragile, curious discovery had displayed signs at last.

It had been a concern to the medics and Scientist that the odd foreign agent within red human blood had either suppressed or even disintegrated the meta-gene.

However, the water proved a most valuable recourse of information in how it responded to the child's mere presence.

Mirroring his heartbeat and almost feeding and nourishing to the body weakened and worn by their stress.

Making activation via distress a much more complicated matter.

It was with a near smile that he gave the defining order.

"Drown him."

"I'm sorry?"

"Ambassador-" Scientist challenged.

"You heard me. The boy is not in any manner of stress, we have confirmed that life-altering stress or end of life is the most consistent means," he said, icy power to his tone.

"But, the other one, he has complied so long," Ambassador cut such notion off with a mere look.

"I was not aware we were to the point a Savage's idle threats or pleas supplants my counsel."

There seemed to be a shiver passing amongst his security.

Then clearly some reassignments were in order.

"No sir, we apologize."

"Hmm," he furrowed his brow but ultimately, "granted. Now-"

Though he let it hang Scientist obeyed nonetheless.

She turned off the suspension and gravity modulation of Perseus Jackson's incubation chamber.

And so surely, within this moment...

Within this moment, the blood in Percy Jackson's veins shone, perhaps a vague inkling in his skin, but flashed dangerous as lightning at his iris bringing awareness to glazed green eyes.

His hair began to stand to end.

And his lungs cleared, spewing water hot and thick- he could almost mistake it for his blood.

Only his blood didn't send such a revitalizing surge through his system.

Clearing his mind and easing a shaken, fraught sense of self. Now slotted neatly in place at his navel.

The dark gave way to rushing water and the sand beneath my feet.

In a way, I knew my eyes were still closed.

It was something I could almost-see- detached in some other place. Out of my own head but not?

The dark gave way, to a steady, not unpleasant ring.

And the air around me burst with almost vengeful strength.

Water gushed in a savage spew, pooling onto the floor along the storm of glass.

And I dragged it all towards my complete control.

The same vague inkling of a warship's interior.

Sweeping my hands in a wide arc.

A flash took over of startling, crackling green.

"GET HIM!"

"...CONTAINED...!"

At a clap yet more water... the other capsules broke loose.

CLICK.

Rays cocked.

Took aim.

And there my brain cracked oozing like a split egg.

Eyes blowing wide open to see everything and then some. Feel out either a blue or greenish pulse to everything and everyone.

Namely, Reach gum-wads in dark, sleek metal covering.

So, so much. Something else tugging at my gut? Stomach? Acid reflux?

Another portion of that navel snuggly bed.

I want that gun.

Ambassador and Scientist bore witness as Perseus Jackson's eyes emitted light wholly unnatural. Mouth open, his own voice held captive.

To which the boy only made a single rigid swipe.

Contorting their guards, squeezing them to a pop within their own armor.

Weapons long discarded— thrown to the wall.

My bare feet touched the floor.

Across the hall kids sputtered and coughed.

I couldn't find myself to care simply ripping away the metal door.

I had a feeling it became formality to touch the door once blowing away its hinges from the frame.

Grover lay on nothing but a metal table.

Rather than his human legs were goat hooves, looking around I couldn't find the corpse of the donor animal.

"P— Perce, I know how…" his voice uncertain and full of horror.

"Later," I grunted, hefting my now shaggy legged best friend, one of his arms draped over my shoulders.

Everyone had begun to wake up, coming to clarity of this screwy situation.

Many now on their feet.

Snapping towards an older guy on his feet I urged him to take Grover.

"Wait Percy!"

I glanced, taking in how he almost looked… frightened. "Whatever your plan is..."

But it was quickly shelved, with a dissonant bravery I'd never seen before. "I'm with you."

Could very well be the superpower they'd managed to unlock.

Boundless brain dead courage.

"We're not getting back to New York on our own. I know that much," I said while skidding down the corridors, metal thrumming under my feet jostling my teeth like live wire dancing beans.

"But what can we do about that?" Grover asked. And I didn't need to ask.

Even before looking out the window it had been fairly clear that there was only one place to hide an operation like this.

Up the atmosphere until Earth could be no bigger than a meatball in galactic broth.

"The Justice League. Or any hero really," I said, finding the room in question.

Where the ship received program data to fly and operate their mutations waste.

"This is their field."

A somber, lonely Earth was on screen. Likely the subject of targeting eyes, hunting for more kids.

The buttons and even the simplest computer keyboard was either a convoluted mass or written in a language I knew less than basic English.

"Even if we could find communications— and they could get up soon at this point," Grover pointed out. "I'll scout on…"

"No," I cried out before Grover could leave my sight.

Much less the range at which I knew I could shield us.

The other kids I wasn't completely sure.

I quickly realized, there was no time for any of that. Not to translate the equipment, much less get those who would help to believe the transmission. "We're out of time."

But surely escape pods would activate. Ships like this sometimes did spawn a backup battery so the story never ended with the frozen bloated space balloons called humans.

My eyes mapped out a surface plan of just what to press, and to that effect I pushed any and all keys I could find, pushing up a certain valve pump.

Grover bleated, pitching across the length of the control chamber behind me as the ship lurched. Several safety measures went offline and certain resources dumped into the void.

Air began to get thinner.

"We'll need to MAKE them listen!" I bellowed. So I slammed my fists onto the console, causing the metal to bend and snap apart.

Activating the urgent and grating alarm, the absolutely delightful AI pilot warning... "dangerous reentry to planetary atmosphere imminent."

"Baaahh! What now?" Grover asked.

The Earth began to loom closer.

I centered upon the room and beginning to concentrate, putting my all and extending my will with guidance of the odd force, hooked and ready to tear the spirit from my mere human body.

With the sheer weight of power thrown around out of me there was the distinct sensation of the flesh on my body tearing, in the back of my mind anticipating blinding horrific pain and the imminent need for stitches.

With each stream of water I found and brought on to my will the further my senses could extend, until I could feel and see the entire armed vessel.

"Take my hand," I warned urgently, doing just that to give Grover a lift.

We held each other.

The roar of fire and the metal turning a searing, molten red began to degrade at the near infallible lead.

But nearly, was not invincible. That with much doing paneling on the floor and wall came close, shielding us within an Iron Maiden egg. I had no time for anyone else.

Closing my eyes I could only pray.

To not have doomed Grover and these other kids to being the yolk of a galactic war egg.