Chapter Text
Look. I didn't want to be a Half-Blood, especially at first. I may have grown to accept it, even enjoy it, but my circumstances are... Special. And I doubt you'll be so lucky
If you're reading this because you, for some unknowable reason, suspect you might be one, drop this and run. Believe the story your family told you about your birth, forget you ever saw this, and go live as normal a life as you can.
Being a Half-Blood is dangerous. It can be scary, awful, and frankly just inconvenient. It comes with some perks, yes, (several, actually) but for many they don't seem worth it, especially in this day and age. For a long time, all most of us got was a nasty, painful death.
If you're reading this because you think it's fictional, good for you. Read on, enjoy it, maybe even learn something. Some of us will certainly envy you for being able to believe none of this actually happened, and I for one will appreciate my story being known to someone that will never have to live through anything like it.
But if you recognize yourself in these pages, if you feel something stirring within you, if you felt inexplicably drawn to this—Stop reading immediately. Drop it. You might be one of us, and if you've figured that out, soon they will, too. And after that... Well, I'm sure you've got the idea so far.
Still here? Okay. Remember, I warned you.
My name is Perseus Jackson, but you can call me Percy.
I'm 14, and until recently I went to this fancy boarding school in upstate New York, Yancy Academy. A private school for troubled kids.
Am I troubled? Depends on what you mean by that, but most would say Yes.
I could start at really any point in my relatively short, somewhat shit life to prove it, but our story begins right when it really started kicking off. Last may, our 8th grade class took a fieldtrip to Manhattan—28 mental-case kids, two teachers and a single T.A. who I legitimately pitied, all crammed into a yellow school bus and headed for the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at 2000 year old Greek and Roman artwork.
I am aware it sounds torturous, and frankly it kinda was. Most of Yancy's fieldtrips sucked. But our Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, was leading the trip, so I figured it couldn't actually be all that bad.
Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair that somehow looked perpetually tired and wired simultaneously, with thinning, slightly graying hair, a scruffy beard, and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee and what I would eventually identify as straw and dry strawberries. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also happened to have this awesome collection of Greek and Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class never put me to sleep.
I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't be the one getting in trouble. Unfortunately, this was too much to hope for, especially in my life.
See, my track record with field trips was not exactly... Stellar. Like last year, we went to the Saratoga battlefield, and there was an... Incident, involving a revolutionary war cannon and the school bus. Thankfully, I actually didn't get into too much trouble for that, since the cannon shouldn't have been loaded to begin with, and it was chopped up to a freak accident. Either way, it wasn't a good look for me. The year before that, at a different school, we'd gone on a behind-the-scenes tour of Marine World, and while we were above the shark pool I sorta bumped the wrong lever on the catwalk and we all went for an unexpected swim. Nobody got hurt thankfully, but I still got expelled. And the year (and school) before that, there was the incident with that bronze statue... Yeah, you get the idea.
But this time, I was determined to be good. Or at least the least bad.
All the way into the city, I did my best to put up with Nancy Bobofit, a freckly red-headed kleptomaniac girl who I personally think should have been in juive, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of his head with peanut-butter-and-ketchup sandwich, only stopping when I turned to give her the stinkeye.
Grover was, unfortunately, a rather easy target. He was scrawny, scrawnier than me, he cried when he got frustrated, and was probably held back at least one grade because while a few other guys in class had the beginnings of whispy beards, (myself included) he was the only one rocking an actual goatee, as small as it was. To top it all off, he was also a cripple. He had a note permanently excusing him from P.E. because he suffered from some kind of muscular disease, namely in his legs. He walked funny, like every step was a struggle not to fall over, and he even had a cane to help him get around better like when he was going up and down stairs. He'd clearly had that cane a while too, going off the fact it was customized with a couple fancy bronze bits at the ends and along the handle. Don't let any of that fool you though, he could still haul it quick. Especially on enchilada day in the cafeteria, that was a sight to behold.
Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of groady sandwich that kept getting stuck in Grover's curly brown hair, safe in the knowledge that I probably wouldn't do anything. I couldn't, I was on probation from the headmaster, and if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly inconvenient happened on this trip that could be traced back to me at all, it was death by in-school suspension. Not that it was doing a good job at dissuading me at this exact moment.
"I swear I'm actually going to kill her." I muttered under my breath, my knuckles slowly turning white from how tight my hands were balled up.
Grover tried to calm me down with a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. I like peanut butter."
He dodged a particularly large wad of Nancy's lunch that splattered against the bus floorboard, followed by a single beat of silence.
"Alright, that's it." I moved to get up before Grover shoved me back into my seat.
"Dude, you're already on probation." He reminded me. "If anything bad happens, you know who they're gonna blame first."
Looking back, I wish I'd spun around and knocked Nancy's teeth loose right then and there. Any punishment they could reasonably give would have been nothing compared to the insanity I was about to fall into ass-first.
Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.
He rode up front in his wheelchair, gliding about with surprising agility as he guided us through big, echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of ancient orange-and-black pottery. It really blew my mind that something that seemed so fragile could survive so long, two thousand, three thousand years, maybe even longer.
He gathered us all around a 13 foot stone column with a statue of a kneeling figure at the top, and started telling us it was a grave marker, a stele, for a young girl. He told us about the carvings along the sides of it. Or at least he was trying, and I was trying to listen because it was actually interesting, but everyone around me was whispering, and while they'd listen whenever I told them to shut up, one of the other chaperones, Mrs. Dodds, kept giving me the evil eye for it.
Mrs. Dodds was this cranky little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was at least fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker and leave it idling just to spite you. I'm pretty sure if you looked up the word "crone" in the dictionary, her picture would come up. She had actually come to Yancy around halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a coffee mug-related nervous breakdown.
For reasons beyond my comprehension, from her first day onwards Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy and seemed to think I was demon spawn. She'd point her crooked finger at me and say "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew that detention was in my future. And she did it almost every chance she had, which really ticked me off.
One time, she made me erase answers out of old math books until midnight. After that I'd told Grover I didn't think she was human. He looked at me, serious as the grave, and said "You're absolutely right."
Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funerary art. But Nancy just kept talking, snickering something about one of the pictures on the stele, and I looked over my shoulder and hissed at her, "Will you shut it already?"
It came out louder than I'd intended.
The whole group giggled a bit, and Mr. Brunner stopped his story.
"Mr. Jackson," he began, "Do you have a comment?"
I took a moment to try and calm myself, taking a breath before I answered. "No, sir."
Mr. Brunner pointed to a few pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this represents? Since you have our attention."
I looked at the carving, and let out a quick sigh of relief because I actually recognized it. "Uh, that's... Kronos swallowing his kids right?"
"Correct." Mr. Brunner said, though clearly not totally satisfied with my answer. "And he did this because...?"
I paused to rack my brains for a moment. "He was, uh... King of the gods.. no, not gods, sorry, titans, king of the titans, and he didn't trust his children, who were the gods, so he ate them. But his wife, rhea I think, hid Zeus and tricked Kronos into eating a rock instead. And when Zeus grew up, he tricked Kronos into vomiting up his brothers and sisters-"
"Ew..." Several girls behind me said. And I don't blame them, it was gross.
"-and the gods and titans went on to get in a war that I can't remember the name of right now, and the gods won." I finished the story, actually glad I hadn't stumbled through it horribly this time.
There were some snickers from the group regardless.
Behind me, I heard Nancy Bobofit mumble to a friend. "Like we're ever actually gonna use this. Name one reason you'd need to know why Kronos ate his kids."
"Good question Miss Bobofit." Mr. Brunner said. "Mr. Jackson? Do you have an answer for that?"
"Oooh, busted." Grover muttered
"Shut it, Underwood." Nancy hissed, her face now brighter than her hair. At least she got packed too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong, or at least the only one who acted on it. That man had a radar set for ears.
I thought about his question for a moment, and just shrugged. "Dunno about that one sir."
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked vaguely disappointed. "Very well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld, and leveled a curse upon him should he ever attempt to return. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"
The class drifted off as everyone settled in for lunch, a few girls looking queazy and most of the guys acting like idiots.
Grover and I were about to follow suit when Mr. Brunner said "Mr. Jackson."
I knew what was coming.
I told Grover to keep going before turning to Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"
Mr. Brunner, he just had this look that wouldn't let you go. Intense brown eyes that could have been a thousand years old and seen everything in that time. "You must learn to answer my question." He said.
"What, about the titans?"
"About real life. And how your studies will apply to it."
"Uh... Okay?"
"It may not seem like it," he began, "but what you learn from me is vitally important, and I hope that you treat it as such. I wish to see only the best from you and for you, Percy Jackson."
I grumbled, my fists clenching a bit. I wanted to be angry this time, I really did. He just pushed me so hard...
I mean, sure. It was cool on tournament days, when he'd get dressed in Roman armor and shouted "What ho!" And challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and write down the name of important Greek and Roman person who ever lived, and their mother, and the god they worshipped. But he expected me to be as good as everyone else, despite the fact I'm dyslexic and have ADD and have only had a grade better than a C- maybe once in my life. No, he didn't just expect me to be good; he expected me to be better, the best even. But I just couldn't remember all those names and facts off the top of my head, much less spell them correctly even if I did.
I sighed and mumbled something about trying harder, ignoring the fading pounding in my temples, while Mr. Brunner just took a long, sad look at the stele. Like he'd been at this girl's funeral.
He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.
The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic, and actual traffic, along fifth avenue. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured it was probably just global warming or something, because weather all over the state had been weird since Christmas. Snowstorms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes, a few tremors, you name it. At this point I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.
Nobody else seemed to notice, or particularly care if they did. Some of the guys were throwing crackers at the pigeons, which seemed to have the opposite effect as intended and was drawing more birds in, Nancy was trying to pickpocket some poor tourist, and naturally Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a damn thing.
Grover and I sat at the edge of a fountain, off to the side from everyone else. I guess we thought that if we did, maybe nobody would realize we were from that school—the school for losers and freaks who couldn't make it anywhere else.
"Detention?" Grover asked
"Nah." I said. "Not from Brunner, he's too cool for that. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—It's not like I'm a genius or anything, even if he seems to think so."
Grover didn't say anything for a while, seemingly lost in thought. And when he opened his mouth again, I thought he was gonna make some deep, philosophical comment to try and make me feel better. Instead he just asked "Can I have your apple?" I'll admit, it made me chuckle a little. But my appetite wasn't really there, so I let him take it.
I watched the stream of cabs drive by along fifth avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment. It was only a little ways uptown from where we were sitting right now. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted to just jump into a cab and go home. She'd be happy to see me and give me a hug and everything, but she'd be disappointed too, and send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to keep trying. This was the only school I hadn't been immediately kicked out of after one year after all, and if I just gave up on that... I wouldn't be able to stand the sad look she'd give me.
Mr. Brunner had parked his wheelchair at the base of a handicap ramp. He ate a celery stick and was reading a paperback novel in the negligible shade of a red umbrella sticking up from the back of his chair. He honestly looked like a motorized café table.
I had just barely unwrapped my sandwich when Nancy and her ugly friends appeared in front of me and Grover. I guess she'd gotten really bored of trying to rob tourists and was looking for drama, because as soon as she got within range she and her buddies dumped their half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap. "Oops..." She grinned at me with crooked teeth and freckles so orange they looked like bits of Cheeto buried in her face.
I tried to stay calm. Really, I did. The school counselor had been trying to help me control my temper for a while now. "Count to ten, get control of your anger." I'd heard it too many times to count. But this time I couldn't let it slide. I stood up forcefully, my temples pounding and a wave roaring in my ears.
I don't really remember what happened immediately after that, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was in the fountain, soaked and looking like she'd just been ragdolled, screaming "Percy threw me!"
Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.
There was a lot of whispering, too: "How did he—"
"Did you see that—"
"—water just yanked her in—"
"—like it was angry—"
I had no idea what they were talking about, but I was pretty sure I was in trouble again. Right after Mrs. Dodds was done making sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt in the gift shop and all that, she turned to me with a triumphant fire in her eyes. Figures she'd been looking for a reason to punish me. "Now, honey..."
"Yeah, I get it." I snipped, "Erasing workbooks. Yippee..." As it turns out, this was not the proper response.
"Come with me..."
"Wait!" Grover yelped. "I did it. I shoved her." I stared at him, genuinely stunned. Not only was that a bold-faced lie, something Grover didn't really do... At all, to my knowledge, but he was also trying to cover for me against Mrs. Dodds. He was scared to death of this old hag. And now she was glaring at him so hard his beard was wilting.
"You really expect me to believe that Mr. Underwood?"
"But—"
"Sit. Down."
He did as he was told, and looked to me desperately, but I just waved him off.
"It's okay man, I'll live. Probably. Thanks for trying though." I told him
"Honey..." Mrs. Dodds said sweetly, before barking out "Now"
Nancy smirked at me smugly, though it died a little bit when I gave her a deluxe I-am-going-to-hurt-you stare before I turned to Mrs. Dodds and... How'd she get over there? One second I could have swore she was right next to me, but when I looked she was standing at the museum entrance, impatiently tapping her foot. I have moments like that sometimes, where my brain just seems to skip forward a bit and I'd be stuck wondering what the hell happened. Apparently it was part of my ADHD, my brain just not processing things correctly, assuming it processed something to begin with. But this, this I wasn't so sure about.
I followed after Mrs. Dodds.
About halfway up the steps, I looked over my shoulder, glancing at Grover. He'd gone pale, and his eyes were darting between me and Mr. Brunner like he was waiting for him to notice something, but the Latin teacher was absorbed in his novel. Looking back ahead, Mrs. Dodds had somehow skipped ahead again, now she was at the end of the entrance hall. At first I thought she was just gonna make me buy Nancy a new shirt at the gift shop, but apparently she had something else in mind.
I followed her deeper into the museum, and when I finally caught up with her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. Aside from us, the gallery was empty, and she was just standing there with her arms crossed, staring up at a big marble frieze of the gods. Well, maybe scowling would be more accurate, giving most of them the stinkeye like they'd personally insulted her somehow and she wanted to beat the crap out of them for it. Even without the hate that seemed to flow from her gaze, I felt uncomfortable. It's weird being along with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds.
"You've been giving us problems, honey." She said, but something about her voice was just... Off.
I probably should have agreed, but the awkward air and my own sour mood made that almost impossible. "So I've gathered. And I'd love to apologize but I feel like it'd be insincere."
She seemed to growl at my response, tugging on the cuffs of her jacket before turning around to look at me and speaking. "Did you really think you'd get away with it?" She asked, her voice still sounding off, and her eyes beyond hateful. They were practically glowing with evil.
I reminded myself that she was a teacher. She wasn't gonna hurt me. Probably. But regardless, I tensed up, not liking where this was going and wondering if 'self-defense' would stick with my record if I actually had to punch her out or something. "Uh, what... What exactly are you talking about?"
Thunder suddenly rattled the building.
"We are not fools, Percy Jackson." She said, her voice... Seemingly getting younger. "It was only a matter of time before we found out. Confess, and perhaps I will be merciful."
I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Was I getting busted for that candy smuggling thing I was running out of my dorm? No, couldn't be, a bunch of teachers had come to me around Halloween and I hadn't been busted then. Or did they find out I hadn't actually read Tom Sawyer and got my essay off the Internet? That hadn't even been graded yet, would they fail me for it? Or worse, make me actually read it? "Well?" She asked, again in a voice that didn't match her face.
"Uh... What are you..."
"Time's up." She hissed, her voice starting to layer over itself. And then the weirdest thing happened. She started glowing, her eyes lighting up yellow as she morphed from cantankerous old woman in a leather jacket to... Uncomfortably attractive middle-aged lady in a black and red outfit that looked somewhere between a dress and armor, with a headdress that kinda looked like a set of old scales. The only things that hadn't changed were her hate-filled eyes. She also had a pair of scars on her chest. Very large scars. I swear that's all I was looking at, until one of her arms seemed to be consumed by... Ink, if I had to guess, before turning into a very, very sharp tentacle that was about to run me through.
Then, it got weirder. Mr. Brunner, who'd been in front of the museum only a minute before, rolled into the gallery with a pen in hand. "What ho Percy!" He yelled, tossing the pen at me. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me, and I side-stepped it as best I could, feeling the sharp end barely knick my ear. I fumbled to try and catch the pen, but when I did it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword, Mr. Brunner's bronze sword to be exact, the one he used on tournament day.
I looked at it for a moment, slightly bewildered, before remembering where the hell I was and turning to keep Mrs. Dodds in sight. She practically slithered along the floor to turn back to me, murder in her eyes. My knees almost felt like jelly, hands nearly shaking, but more than that, I was legitimately pissed off. I glared at her, and for a moment she seemed... Almost taken aback, before she lunged at me again, no words this time, just a shriek of anger. Swallowing my fear, I yelled back, and did the only thing I could think of. I swung the sword, as hard as I could.
It met the flesh of her tentacle arm with a wet slicing sound, cleaving through it like... Gelatin, I wanna say. The hit seemed to knock her off course, too, as she stumbled past me and crashed to the ground, before slithering back into a standing position. I turned around to see her arm writhing on the floor and her clutching her stump, both of them leaking more of that ink stuff as the severed limb began to dissolve into black smoke with a sound like sizzling meat. But she just stared at me and pointed, her voice far calmer than he expression. "This is not over... Honey." She spat out, before she vanished in a black flash that I looked away from, and leaving nothing but a hot smell and an aura of evil, like those yellow eyes were still watching me.
But I was alone, and there was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Just me. As the adrenaline faded, I realized just how badly I was shaking, and tried to rationalize what the actual fuck just happened. My lunch must have been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something, I had to have imagined that, right? I went back outside, and found it was starting to rain. Grover was hiding under a museum map that was making for an admirable umbrella, while Nancy was just standing there, huddled with her ugly friends, and still soaked. Oh well, small mercies and whatnot.
But when she saw me, she said something that made me more confused that I already had been. "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."
I paused. Mrs. Kerr was the third chaperone, and a TA for algebra who seemed more afraid of Mrs. Dodds than Grover was. "Eh? She wasn't in there."
Nancy muttered something about me being a dumbass (which... Fair, but I wasn't gonna tell her that) and told me to go away.
Heading over to Grover, I asked him where Mrs. Dodds had gone, but he just asked who I was talking about. But he sorta paused before he said it, and he wasn't looking at me, so I assumed he was messing with me. "Knock it off dude, this is serious." Before I could grill him further, thunder cracked overhead, making him jump and let out a nervous laugh.
Leaving Grover, I looked around and saw Mr. Brunner, right where he'd been before, still reading and further along in his book than I'd last seen him, like he hadn't moved at all. I headed over to him, and he looked up at me, seemingly a little distracted. "Hm? Oh, hello Percy. Thank you for getting my pen back for me." I hadn't even realized I was still holding it, and just handed the little pen back to him.
"Uh, Mr. Brunner?" I asked, sounding a bit more nervous than intended. "Where's Mrs. Dodds?"
He paused a moment in thought before he looked up at me. "Who?"
"Mrs. Dodds? The pre-algebra teacher? Came along with you and Mrs. Kerr?"
He thought for a second before looking at me with concern. "Uh, Percy, as far as I'm aware I don't think there's ever been a teacher by that name at Yancy. Are you feeling okay?"