Percy's year was going pretty well up until the day he murdered his math teacher.

It was a dreary day in May when his Latin teacher decided that his class should take a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It only made sense, he supposed, since it was such a short distance from the school and so thematically appropriate to the class. Lucky for him, his pre-algebra teacher, Mrs. Dodds was one of the chaperones, and she did not like him one bit.

Not to say that the other teachers liked him because they absolutely did not, but Mrs. Dodds treated him like he came straight up from hell to torture her specifically.

At first glance, Mrs. Dodds wouldn't look like anything special. She stood a few inches taller than Percy's twelve-year-old stature and wore a leather jacket like she drove a motorcycle straight out of the 80s. She talked like a disappointed grandmother most of the time, but the type of grandmother came from the deep south and was constantly angry at everything.

Percy knew as soon as he saw her that he would never pass her class. Whether that was because Mrs. Dodds refused to cut him some slack despite his ADHD and dyslexia, or the fact that he began intentionally failing that class after the first week with her, he didn't know.

The other teachers weren't as bad as Mrs. Dodds, but he knew they all thought he belonged in a different environment.

He really tried his best in the other classes, but it was still difficult. Dyslexia made English practically impossible, so most days he would end up sitting there like he couldn't understand the language while the teacher droned on about something Shakespeare said five hundred years ago. Science and history weren't much better.

The only class Percy could stand was Latin with Mr. Brunner.

Mr. Brunner was a middle-aged paraplegic man with wavy, thinning hair, and he had the most extensive knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome that Percy had ever seen. Every day was jam-packed with Mr. Brunner style retellings of Greek and Roman myths filled with jokes, Latin phrases, and, if he was feeling generous, he may even bring a student to the front of the room to reenact a scene with his collection of armor and weapons that Percy, for the sake of Mr. Brunner, really hoped were fake.

The best days were the days when he gave tests. In any other case, Percy would hate the test days the most, but with Mr. Brunner, teams of two would take turns racing to the board and try to write everything that they recalled from the unit, only stopping when one failed to produce an answer.

Percy was almost certain that Mr. Brunner gave most of the students an A for effort, but he and his best friend, Grover, always dominated the 'tests'. It was one of the few things he could confidently say he was good at, right up there with physical education and making teachers hate him.

Grover looked like what Percy thought of when he imagined a stereotypical bully victim in a high-school drama- curly hair, acne, and a scraggly little beard, which would all be fine if he wasn't also in sixth grade. Percy had to assume he was an extremely early bloomer. That, or he was too embarrassed to admit he had been held back a few times.

To top it all off, he needed crutches to walk. Percy could never remember if it was from a disease or an accident, but he knew that it would probably be awkward or insulting to ask after eight months of being friends.

Percy made sure to stick close to Grover as they approached the museum together. The two of them, especially when paired together, had a bad history of being targeted by bullies. Grover always told him that the combination of his own disability and Percy's innate ability to tick people off was basically an invitation for simultaneous kicks in the teeth, and Percy didn't doubt it.

Mr. Brunner led the tour in his motorized wheelchair, piloting the group of students through exhibits displaying relics and depictions of many of the myths that he had gone over in class.

Percy elbowed Grover as they passed a depiction of Perseus beheading Medusa, an event that the two of them had the opportunity to reenact a few weeks before.

Grover flinched when he saw the image of Medusa. It wasn't hard to catch him off guard, but it looked like he had actually seen a ghost.

Percy didn't dwell on it for too long, because a few steps later, Mr. Brunner stopped the class in front of a stone frieze that depicted a large figure consuming several smaller ones.

"Now, as you all should know, have you been listening in my class," He began, pausing to send a side-eyed glance to a group of kids that weren't paying him any attention, "Kronos" He pointed to the largest figure, "was the father of the first six Olympian gods. Can anyone tell us which of the Olympians were his children?"

Percy squinted at the image. He could rattle off the twelve Olympians like nobody's business in class, but which of them were the children of Kronos? Maybe he'd missed a day.

"Mr. Jackson?" Mr. Brunner offered, taking note of the boy's analyzing eyes, "Would you mind giving us a refresher?"

"Well…" Percy hesitated, trying to piece it together as he went to avoid making a complete fool of himself, "Zeus was the youngest, right? Then Poseidon and Hades..."

He paused to think back on his classes. It couldn't be Apollo or Artemis, they were Zeus's children. Same could be said for Ares, Dionysus, Hermes, and Athena. Hephaestus was Hera's son, and Aphrodite was a weird one but wasn't really involved with the stories about Kronos, from what he could recall. That only left-

"Demeter and Hera."

It was only when he met Mr. Brunner's less-than-satisfied stare that he realized he'd forgotten one.

"Almost, Mr. Jackson," he said pointedly, gesturing to the figure closest to Kronos's mouth on the stone, "While yes, she is lesser known and not one of twelve classical Olympians, she is still one of the first six to hold a throne. Extra credit if you can name the third sister."

Percy did his best to ignore the laughter that rose up from the rest of his classmates as he turned back to the frieze.

He couldn't explain it, but as soon as his eyes met the image of the oldest sister, he knew exactly who it was.

"Hestia," he declared, secretly praying that he hadn't picked the first name that popped into his head. An odd sense of pride welled up in his chest as he said the name. He brushed it off as being happy that he could pull a name like that out of nowhere.

Mr. Brunner raised an eyebrow and nodded approvingly, "Correct, Mr. Jackson. Now, can anyone else explain exactly what this frieze is depicting?"

Percy sighed in relief as Grover patted his shoulder. Mr. Brunner liked to pick on Percy, always choosing him to answer questions even when he didn't want to be chosen. He knew the older man meant well, but it would be a lie to say it didn't get on his nerves. Mr. Brunner acted like Percy and Percy alone should know everything about everything that ever happened in Greek mythology. Maybe it was because his ADHD had a tendency to make him zone out in the middle of 'vitally important' myths.

Soon enough, the class had retreated to the front steps for lunch.

Percy and Grover took a spot on the rim of the leftmost fountain, a good distance from the rest of their classmates but still within viewing distance of Mr. Brunner. Grover had made the excellent point that maybe if they sat away from their classmates, neither of them would get an entire bottle of soda dumped in their hair again.

As Percy reached for his grocery-bag lunch container, he couldn't help but notice that the sky above was filled with dark gray- borderline black- cumulus clouds. Sure, the weather had been going a little nuts since Christmas- tornadoes, lightning storms, blizzards, flooding- but this was beyond weird. He was confident that it had been sunny, no signs of clouds anywhere when they entered the museum.

"Weird weather, huh?" He said through a bite of sandwich.

"Y-yeah," Grover muttered. He kept glancing upwards as if the storm clouds might open up at any moment and swallow him whole, "Weird."

If he noticed Percy's concerned stare, he didn't make it known.

The two friends began working their way through their lunches in uncomfortable silence. Right as Percy finished the last bite of his sandwich, Grover made a noise that vaguely resembled what Percy thought a disgruntled goat would sound like.

"Twelve o'clock," he muttered, turning his head down into his own unfinished lunch.

Before Percy even had a chance to look at who or what Grover had been referring to, a cup of school-provided yogurt exploded against his chest, and a half-eaten apple clocked Grover right in the forehead.

A round of laughter exploded from the stairs as someone shouted, "What a shot!"

Percy growled under his breath as he scraped a glob of the yogurt from his shirt, leaving a large white stripe across his chest. The sound of their joy made him wish that he could go line them up and punch their lights out one by one, but he and Grover were two of the weakest kids in the school, and unfortunately, they seemed to be the only two who ever received the blame when a fight broke out. All he could do without risking a broken nose and a month in detention was imagine sweet vengeance as they continued to laugh.

Suddenly, the laughter stopped. One by one, kids around them began hollering, screaming as if they'd been set on fire.

He blinked. Not only did they sound like they had been set on fire, but there were thin plumes of smoke rising from several tiny burnt holes in their clothing. It looked like someone had dipped their hands in lava and flicked what stuck to them onto the bullies.

"Did you do that?" Grover asked incredulously, looking like his entire world had been flipped on its head.

Percy opened his mouth to deny it, yet no words came out. Did he?

Before either of them had a chance to properly process what had happened, a leathery hand clasped onto Percy's shoulder, nearly shocking him back into the fountain.

"Mr. Jackson," Mrs. Dodds sneered, having somehow gotten between the two friends without either of them noticing, "Come with me."

"Wait what?" He asked, "You seriously think I did that?"

She didn't need to say anything for Percy to realize that yes, she thought he did it, and no, she wasn't planning on showing any mercy.

"Follow me."

Percy wordlessly began trailing behind the teacher, barely noticing that Grover tried to defend him, only to be shot down immediately. All he could think about was ways to prove to Mrs. Dodds that he hadn't caused the fires. After all, he was at least thirty feet away from them. There was no plausible way that it was his doing.

Right?

Before he'd even realized where Mrs. Dodds was leading him, Percy found himself staring at the frieze of Kronos once again.

Something about seeing it a second time sent an unexplainable chill down his spine.

"Mrs. Dodds, I-"

He turned to his right, where he had been sure Mrs. Dodds was standing, only to find that she was no longer there.

"Mrs. Dodds?" He asked nervously, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead as he spun in a circle, hoping that he had simply forgotten which side she was standing on.

"I must admit, I am surprised, Mr. Jackson," her raspy voice cut in from somewhere opposite of the frieze, "I was expecting… more."

Her tone sent a violent shiver down Percy's spine. In his experience, she only used it when he'd messed up big time.

He slowly turned away from the frieze, certain that she hadn't stood behind him a moment ago, "Mrs. Dodds, I swear that I had nothing to do with… whatever that was. I-"

His breath caught when his eyes met Mrs. Dodds. She was behind him, sure, but she was also on the opposite end of the gallery standing on the head of a massive statue of what was supposed to be Hades, much higher than a human should be able to reach without being Spider-Man or sent to prison.

"Do you think I am a fool?" She hissed, glaring at him with so much fury behind her eyes that he thought they might burst into flames.

"N-no, ma'am," he sputtered.

"It was only a matter of time," she sniffed, rolling her shoulders as if her leather jacket was suddenly very uncomfortable, "Confess, and we may do this the easy way."

For a moment, he considered accepting whatever punishment she had waiting for him. After all, negotiating with Mrs. Dodds had never worked before. He only stopped himself because he had a strange feeling that she wasn't talking about what had happened outside.

"Last chance," she warned, waving her crooked finger at him like he'd eaten a cookie before dinner without her permission.

All he could do was blink. Unfortunately, blinking was the worst thing he could have done, for once his eyes reopened, Mrs. Dodds was no longer there. In her place stood a wrinkly, razor-toothed, bat-winged monster that looked like she belonged three-thousand years in the past with all of the other relics that surrounded them.

"Mr. Jackson," she hissed, "Time to die."

Faster than he thought possible, the creature swooped down from the statue and swiped at his head with her previously unseen claws. Had he not collapsed in fright, he may have been eviscerated right on the spot.

As she came back for another slash, the magnitude of the situation finally sank in. This… thing, whatever it was, was seriously trying to kill him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"PERCY!"

As if the universe could convince Percy he was any more crazy than it already had, Grover suddenly burst through the doors that led to the exhibit, Mr. Brunner following close behind wielding an ornate pen as if it were a sword.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, lobbing his pen in Percy' direction.

Percy wouldn't question until much later why he thought catching Mr. Brunner's pen would help in any way, but he would never take the decision for granted, for when the pen landed in his hand, it was no longer a pen. In its place was a gleaming bronze sword.

The thing that used to be Mrs. Dodds hissed at the sight of the blade and charged like a falcon diving at a field mouse. Percy's stomach dropped so hard that he nearly passed out. Everything around him faded into darkness, everything but her campfire-coal eyes that approached him like twin bullets. His mind went blank, and the crackling of a low fire filled his ears as he gripped the sword tighter and swung with all his might like he was about to hit the world's deadliest home run. The blade pierced the monster's shoulder and passed through it like a hot knife through butter. As it exited the other arm, the former math teacher exploded into golden powder, like a finer grain of cornmeal, and blew off into the air, the only evidence of her existence being the faint smell of rotten eggs and the fear that remained in his heart.

He blinked, and the sword landed on the floor with a loud clang.

"Percy!" Grover squeaked, lunging under his friend's arm to catch him, "Are you alright? Did she hurt you?"

Percy wouldn't notice until much later, but Grover had effortlessly held him up without the need for crutches

"This is a prank or something, right?" Percy gasped, his tongue turning to lead as he spoke, "Did that really just happen? Did she actually just turn into that thing?"

Grover and Mr. Brunner exchanged a disheartened glance.

"Percy… What did she want?" Grover asked cautiously.

Percy shook his head as his adrenaline wore off and panic began setting in, "I have no idea! She said… she said she expected more? And that she wanted me to confess to something? Maybe she thought I… stole something? I don't know!"

A degree of fear that Percy didn't even know existed flashed across Mr. Brunner's face, but only for a moment before he masked it, a clear and poor attempt to keep the boys from losing it.

"They've found him," he whispered. That was all it took for Grover's attempted brave face to vanish.

"They? Who's they?" Percy tried, only for Mr. Brunner to cut him off by slapping the sword, now a pen again, back in his hand.

"Listen to me and listen carefully. You are in danger. Grave danger."

Percy swallowed thickly. As much as he wanted to tell off Mr. Brunner for talking like that to his student, and that he wasn't some scared little kid who needed to be kept in the dark, he couldn't bring himself to disagree.

"Was Mrs. Dodds that thing the whole time?" he asked incredulously, "Did you know?!"

Mr. Brunner grimaced and drew in a sharp breath through his teeth. "We wanted to give you more time, Percy," his voice was heavy with regret, "Unfortunately, it seems that time is the one thing we no longer have."

Percy turned his head to Grover wildly, who looked nearly as distressed as himself.

"Grover," Mr. Brunner said sharply, "You know what you must do."

"Y-yes, sir!" Grover yelped, turning on his heels and moving towards the nearest exit. His limp was more pronounced than usual, but it didn't slow him down.

"Come on, Percy!" he called, waving his arm frantically for Percy to follow, "We need to move!"

Percy hesitated for only a second before ultimately deciding to follow his friend out the doors, nearly slipping down the stairs on the freshly fallen rain as thunder rolled through the streets.

"Wait!" Percy cried out over the pounding raindrops, "Where are we going?!"

Grover's head snapped back and forth, searching every direction, every shadow, and every person for more danger as they sprinted further and further from the museum, "Ah, Styx… your place. So you can grab whatever you want to take. Chances are you won't get to come back. Not for a while, at least."

Try as he may to keep running to whatever safety Grover could offer, Percy's feet dug themselves into the street. "To Gabe's?" he stammered, his throat like someone had crammed a fistful of salt down it.

As if he could read Percy's mind, Grover ground to a halt right beside him. "H-hey… we don't have to. I know how you feel about him-"

Percy nodded along with him. His legal guardian, his foster father, Gabe Ugliano, wasn't what one would call the most pleasant person on the planet. How a man like him, one: got approved for foster care and two: ever wanted to participate in the first place, was beyond Percy's D report card level mind.

The one thing he did know was that Gabe hated his guts, and showing up out of the blue? That was like begging to get his lights punched out, especially since he wasn't due to be back from Yancy Academy for at least a few weeks.

So no, Percy did not want to go back. But…

"No, no," he muttered, "you're right. You're always right. There is one thing."

Grover gave him a curt nod before resuming in his hurry. "Bus station. You've got cash, right?"

The bus ride took no more than fifteen minutes. As soon as they stepped off the greyhound, Percy swore he could already smell Gabe even though they were several blocks away. The closer they got to the front door, the more Grover's nose crinkled up too.

Grover wafted the air away from his nose and tried to suppress a gag, "I know you call him Smelly Gabe, but yeesh, what is that?"

"Beer and cigars, probably," Percy searched around the entryway for the fake rock that kept the key. Gabe would never trust him with a house key, "Any chance you see a key lying around?"

The sound of wood splintering shocked Percy back to his feet. Grover was lowering one of his crutches back to the ground, the lock very thoroughly smashed out of the screen door.

He apologized, but didn't look too sorry. He was more anxious than ever. "We need to move fast."

Percy stepped in first, nearly passing out as the smell intensified tenfold, planting the seeds for one heck of a migraine later. "Hey, G-man, you don't need to come in with me. I need to grab one thing, then we can go."

It was obvious how sick the smell was making him, far worse than Percy, but he grit his teeth and followed suit. "I'll be okay. And I feel a lot better sticking close to you right now."

Percy nodded. "Thanks. Let's go."

He turned around to hurry up the stairs and was met with the sweat-stained chest of one walrus of a man. The smell alone would have knocked him out if not for the sight scaring him back to life.

"The fuck did you do to my door?" he slurred drunkenly. The sound of a football game could be heard up the steps. Gabe's friends were over for one of their poker nights.

"I couldn't find the key," Percy tried to explain, but Gabe wasn't hearing any of it. His meaty fists wrapped around Percy's collar and lifted him clear off the floor.

"What are you doing back already?" he growled, though it sounded more like a belch he was trying to speak over, "Get kicked out of school again? I'm getting real sick of your shit, brat. You have any clue how much it costs to send you to those schools?"

"No, sir," Percy tried to stay defiant, but it was hard to be tough when you were two feet off the ground.

"Enough that you're gonna wish you hadn't spent all your cash fixing that lock you busted."

Gabe set him back down, then shoved him as hard as he could. Percy's head bounced off the wall. Not hard enough to seriously hurt him, but enough that it made his head spin. So much so, in fact, that he barely registered the crunch of Grover's crutch bashing Gabe's kneecap in. He barely had time to curse before a second swing hit his family jewels like a high speed train crash, sending him crumpling to the floor.

Percy rubbed his eyes, thinking that maybe the dazedness from his head hitting the wall was making him see things, but once his vision cleared up Gabe was still in a heap on the floor, and Grover had finished readjusting his crutch.

"Come on, Perce," he waved for him to follow as he galloped up the steps, far quicker than Percy would have ever thought someone with crutches could go, "Where's your room?"

"O-on the left. Hold up, Grover, can we talk about that?!"

"No time right now! Grab whatever it is you want and let's go!"

They stepped past Gabe's friends, all huddled in a pile of beer cans and poker chips that they seemingly couldn't bring themselves to leave. If they had heard the sounds Gabe had made, they didn't show it.

Percy took a hard left turn to what would be his room during the summer, but at the moment was as filthy as the rest of the house. Gabe would "rearrange" everything, meaning that it would all get shoved in boxes or in the trash to make room for his stacks of magazines and even more empty beer cans.

Percy was smarter than Gabe, so he knew that if he wanted to ensure something wouldn't get roped in with the rest of the garbage, he needed to hide it somewhere secure.

Grover couldn't stop himself from choking on the scent of this room. He excused himself momentarily, claiming he needed a bit of fresh air as Percy rifled through a stack of, according to Gabe, invaluable baseball cards, until he finally found what he was looking for.

It was an old polaroid photograph. Not even the entire thing, as the top half had been burned off long before Percy could even remember. There were three subjects in the picture. An average looking guy dressed like an English teacher and the lower half of a much smaller woman, and between them, a baby with a set of ember eyes that could only have been Percy himself.

Gabe didn't know where the picture came from, so Percy could only assume that the people pictured were his parents. His real parents. There wasn't a ton he could do with such limited information, but it comforted him, in however small of a way, hoping that these people were still out there, and maybe they were looking for him, too.

"Alright, I got it," he pocketed the picture and hurried back out the door to meet Grover, "Now, where are we going? What do we need to do?"

Grover licked his now incredibly dry lips and gestured for Percy to follow. "There's a camp out on Long Island. Once we get there, we'll be safe."

"Long Island? How do you expect us to get all the way there quickly?"

Grover nervously glanced back at the apartment, then held out a car key. "Gabe's got a pretty nice car."