Disclaimer: Kuroko no Basuke and Percy Jackson are not mine.

Summary: Aphrodite was definitely lurking around somewhere, Midorima decided, observing Akashi and Kuroko's unhealthily lovey-dovey relationship, Momoi's unrequited but everlasting love for Kuroko, Murasakibara's cluelessness towards Himuro's feelings, and Aomine and Kise's so-obvious-it-hurts unresolved sexual tension. This could only be her doing. PJO AU.

Author's Note: I'M SUPPOSED TO BE STUDYING FOR MY PHILOSOPHY MIDTERMS BUT I WROTE THIS INSTEAD AND I DON'T REGRET A SINGLE THING OKAY THANKS ENJOY

Beware of OOC Midorima.

The Quest-keteers
Akashi Seijuurou – Son of Zeus
Murasakibara Atsushi – Son of Ares
Aomine Daiki – Son of Poseidon
Midorima Shintarou – Son of Apollo
Kise Ryouta – Son of Aphrodite
Kuroko Tetsuya – Son of Hades
Momoi Satsuki – Daughter of Athena

Other
Himuro Tatsuya – Son of Dionysus
Kagami Taiga – Son of Hephaestus
Aida Riko – Daughter of Atlas, Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis
Takao Kazunari – Son of Hermes (unclaimed)

Sometimes, Midorima wondered if he had been cursed by some higher power—more than a demigod usually was. There should have been no reason for him to have incurred the wrath of a god (aside from maybe Artemis but that would be due to his parentage and he couldn't exactly control that). He was a good son of Apollo. He was good at archery, good at healing, a good cabin counsellor, and he had complete faith in his father's Oracle despite it being a creepy hippie mummy that quite frankly should've been buried a long time ago. He was dutiful; he watched Tyche's morning show on Hephaestus TV every morning, followed her every advice and did all he could to acquire whatever lucky item she recommended every day. Other campers made fun of him for it, but Tyche was a goddess and he's rather take the word of the Goddess of Luck and Chance on matters of luck as opposed to his idiotic cousins and half-siblings.

See? He was a good person.

So how in Hades's spooky underwear did he get involved in a quest that could make or break the world's chances of averting the apocalypse?

Two words: Akashi. Seijuurou.

Midorima wanted to strangle whoever stole Zeus's Zeus-damn Master Bolt and created the need to have this stupid quest to begin with. And he wanted to strangle the Oracle even more when she ambled her way down the attic and announced in that disturbing green-smoky-eerie-prophecy way of hers that, translated into normal, non-cryptic English:

1. The Son of Zeus shall go west

2. The Son of Zeus shall confront the deity that stole the Master Bolt

3. The Son of Zeus shall find the Bolt and return it to Daddy

4. Someone that is not the Son of Zeus and looks like a total carrot shall have to endure a boatload of awkwardness that could put a classroom of adolescents taking Sex Ed for the first time to shame

5. Also, they shall run into another demigod, and it shall be important for some reason or another

Now, traditionally quests were only supposed to have three people on it: the leader and two companions of his choosing. Three was a good number. Three was a sacred number. There were three Fates, three Furies, three sons of Rhea—when all else failed, three was the way to go. Quests with three people on it usually succeeded more and had less of a mortality rate than quests with more or less participants. It was tradition, and it worked, and that was why it was tradition.

But Akashi Seijuurou, being the privileged Son of Zeus who thought he could do whatever he wanted and damn the consequences, decided to hell with tradition and brought with him on his quest all six of his friends (minions) plus a hellhound.

That right there was an entire century's worth of bad luck, in Midorima's educated opinion. Especially when said six friends contained the likes of Aomine Daiki and Kise Ryouta. It was a situation he never, ever, ever wanted to be in. He wanted to opt out of the quest. For the first time in his life, he wanted—truly wanted—to defy The One Demigod You Should Never Defy. He wanted to tell Akashi to take his terrible, dreadful, awful, horrendous, no good, bad-luck-ridden quest and shove it up Kagami's fiery ass.

So of course he joined the quest.

(The prophecy did say that they needed someone that looked like a carrot. Not that Midorima was acknowledging that total lie in any way, and no he did not pack extra orange camp t-shirts, go away.)

And, as if as a final "fuck you" to Midorima from Life (aka the Fates), Kuroko just had to bring along his pet hellhound too. He insisted that Nigou would have no one to play with and get super lonely if all of them left, so of course they had to take him with them.

(Midorima called bullshit on that. Aida Riko and her Hunters were currently residing in the Artemis cabin and would continue to do so for a few more months until Artemis finished her secret godly business and would be more than happy to take care of the oversized mutt for the duration of their stay.)

(Everyone really liked Nigou, for some reason. Except for Kagami, who had some sort of traumatic experience with hellhounds that Midorima never bothered to learn or care about.)

The reason for Midorima's dislike of Nigou was simple. Midorima's first meeting with the hellhound involved a shield, a bronze chariot, and a whole lot of hellhound waste (you can guess what happened there), and that single meeting pretty much erased all hope of Midorima ever feeling anything but pure loathing towards the hellhound for the rest of its regenerating monster life. No buts, no second chances, that was it, Midorima was a permanent member of the Send that Damn Hellhound Back to Tartarus Club, of which the only other member was Kagami. But the last thing Midorima wanted was to be associated with that idiot son of Hephaestus, so he liked to imagine that he kicked out Kagami from his imaginary association and banned him from their imaginary headquarters for life.

But enough about that. I'm sure you get by now that Midorima = not a Nigou lover.

And Akashi knew this very well; that was probably why he was smirking and kept looking back and forth between Midorima and Nigou as the chosen campers made preparations to leave Camp Half-Blood, the conniving bastard.

Finally they were all set and left the camp feeling bright and cheery. Unusually, no monster attacked them the moment they stepped out of the protective barriers.

This continued on for a few days, and it was getting more and more suspicious. You'd think a group of seven powerful demigods, three of which were children of the Big Three and the rest exceptionally powerful children of Olympian gods, and a hellhound would be attracting every single monster in the entire northeastern United States. But no, not a single monster approached them.

It wasn't until they stumbled onto a lost telekhine that they found out what was going on: apparently Akashi's reputation within the monster circle had preceded him, and not even the most monstrous denizen of Tartarus was willing to risk his wrath by attacking his group.

Akashi was pleased. The rest of the group was terrified. Just what had Akashi done to garner that kind of reaction from monsters?

Thus the quest, due to the lack of monsters, was somewhat lacking in terms of fighting and violence and heroic (stupid) acts of courage.

What it was overflowing with, though, was awkwardness. Sheer, unadulterated awkwardness.

Somehow, Akashi had manage to convince Kuroko that he was perfect boyfriend material and got together somewhere in Pennsylvania. And by Zeus were they the most disgustingly sweet and terrifying couple to ever walk the earth. Just looking at them interact made you want to hide your head in a plastic bag and wallow in the misery that was your nonexistent love life. Both of them, much to everyone's surprise, didn't mind public displays of affection. Of any level. At all. But they were also terrifying together so if Midorima woke up one morning to strange sounds coming from those two's shared sleeping bag—well, he still valued his life, so that never happened. Nope.

Moving on.

Momoi was both heartbroken (due to her crush being taken by Akashi) and thrilled (due to her crush being taken by Akashi) at the news that her crush was taken by Akashi. Her inner yaoi fangirl fantasy had finally been realized. She now alternated her time between trying to woo back Kuroko and nosebleeding from overload of yaoi goodness. A shame she caught such a serious disease, Midorima thought. She had been one of the most level-headed people in the quest, and now her considerable intelligence had been reduced to a mere shadow of its former glory due to one power couple.

Next up was Himuro Tatsuya. How was Himuro involved when he was all the way back in Camp Half-Blood? Easy: Iris Message.

He kept bombarding Murasakibara with IMs literally every few hours, even interrupting their sleep to ask how Murasakibara was doing, whether he had enough snacks, if he was being tortured to death, et cetera. Everything a person would ask their significant other if their significant other was away on a deadly quest to save the world. And despite all the obvious clues Murasakibara didn't notice a damn thing. At one point, Himuro even outright stated the three magic words (I. Love. You.), and Murasakibara replied by saying he loved Himuro's cooking too.

The man was hopeless.

Speaking of hopeless, don't even get him started on Aomine and Kise. Just looking at those two bicker and argue and touch and flirt made Midorima want to lock them both in the Aphrodite cabin until they either killed each other or fucked each other so much they died of sexually-transmitted diseases. Either way they'd both be out of Midorima's hair.

Taking all that into account, how would you feel if you were the only demigod without a love interest while being surrounded by six other demigods who had too much love interests?

Awkward, that's how. The plight of Midorima Shintarou could not be overstated.

So how could a situation like this occur? There was only one answer.

Aphrodite was definitely lurking around somewhere, Midorima decided, observing Akashi and Kuroko's unhealthily lovey-dovey relationship, Momoi's unrequited but everlasting love for Kuroko, Murasakibara's cluelessness towards Himuro, and Aomine and Kise's so-obvious-it-hurts unresolved sexual tension. This could only be her doing. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if Aphrodite was the one responsible for this entire damn quest just so she could gather in one place the most socially, sexually and romantically awkward group of demigods in the history of Greek mythology. And that was saying something.

Of course, Midorima was right.

Aphrodite was indeed the one who stole Zeus's Master Bolt. They caught her in an abandoned Tunnel of Love in some defunct water park in California.

Her reason?

So she could have an excuse to gather seven of her favourite demigods (and one hellhound, Kuroko reminded her) and bestow upon them more romance drama than all the soap operas and romantic comedies in the world combined.

That bitch.

Midorima was this close to peppering her beautiful, perfect face with his quiver of special poison-tipped celestial bronze arrows, godly wrath be damned. Fortunately (or unfortunately, in Midorima's case), Momoi had been quick to confiscate his bow the moment she saw his bandaged fingers twitching ominously.

In the end, Akashi and Kise managed to talk it out and charm Aphrodite enough for her to peacefully hand over the Master Bolt, and that was that. It was quite possibly the most anti-climactic end to a quest in recent demigod memory.

It was kind of disappointing, considering the awkward hell Midorima went through to get to this point. He wanted to at least have something to unleash his pent-up rage on. He couldn't take it out on monsters thanks to the Demigod Spawn of Tartarus Akashi Seijuurou. He had been expecting some sort of strong enemy to shoot at; maybe a god holding one of the Big Three's symbol of power hostage, or a traitorous demigod working undercover for the enemy. A narcissistic, romance-obsessed goddess with a goal to ruin their love lives wasn't exactly what he had in mind.

And then, after everything was said and done, Aomine—Aomine Daiki, the ultimate Ahomine—had an epiphany and asked why they didn't just use Kuroko and Nigou to shadow travel west. Just as Midorima was about to commit suicide—because all of that awkwardness could've been avoided what the Hades is this—Kuroko patiently explained that Nigou was still a hellhound pup and was still learning how to travel long distances using shadow travel; and his own shadow travel abilities were still shaky enough that there was a 50/50 chance they could either land in their intended destination or in some stinky alley in Mongolia. That made Midorima feel a bit better.

That was that, and so they made their way back to New York the same way they left it: by hijacking cars and abusing the power of the Mist and the weakmindedness of mortals.

On the way back, they ran into an unclaimed, raven-haired demigod named Takao Kazunari.

And that was when Midorima realized that Aphrodite was far from done with them.

Author's Note: There was literally no point to this fic other than to satisfy an insane urge to write a KNBxPJO AU. This wasn't what I had in mind—FAR from it—but it ended up like this and I don't quite remember how it happened and I'm too lazy to figure it out.

I'm also running on my fifth cup of coffee so that may have something to do with it.

Also, this is unedited. I'll go back later to fix it up, when I don't have midterms to worry about.