It was just a regular day on Olympus. Hahaha. Sorry if I got your hopes up. No.

The throne room was in chaos.

"Another child! I'm your wife, for Hades sake!"

"Obviously your head full of seawater wouldn't understand that!"

"Sorry if I'm not a Brainiac!"

"I'm not your little sister!"

"Are too"

"Enough!" Hestia screamed from her place at the hearth. "I am constantly tired of your bickering and arguing"

Everyone looked surprised at the usually calm goddess so worked up and angry, but there's only so much one can take, even an immortal.

A bright flash ran through the room and group of very grumpy looking mortals as well as Hades, his daughter (My oc sorry) and Persephone appeared to the Olympians along with a note.

"What do you want?" a blond haired girl with grey eyes stepped forward with a notebook and demanded. (By the way set in 1970's and demigods and my oc are from after the Giant War) "Who are you?!" Zeus thundered. "Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena and architect of Olympus"

"Architect?!" Ares asked on his blood red throne.

A handsome boy with black hair and green eyes stepped forward, "Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon and Saviour of Olympus and a bunch of other stuff"

"You broke the oath!" Zeus yelled at Poseidon.

"Well, its not like you haven't" a girl around 15 with black hair and electrifying blue eyes stepped forward. "Thalia, daughter of Zeus" Hera glared at Zeus.

"We'll introduce ourselves later. Why are we here" a pretty girl with kaleidoscope eyes and choppy brown hair said. Aphrodite squealed and recognised her as her own.

Dear Gods and Demigods (and Oracle),

We are extremely sorry for disturbing your arguing and have brought you together to read a book from the future.

The Fates and Charities

PS. Gods, keep arguing we will toss you into Tartarus.

Hermes fluttered down on his winged shoes and picked up the note and read it out.

"What book?" Apollo asked lounging back on his golden throne. He was answered with a thud of a hard cover book on his head. It depicted a teenage boy crouching on the floor, while a godly golden figure shot an arrow to the sun. The title read, "The Trials of Apollo". He was getting a bad feeling about this.

"Well, what does it say?" Poseidon asked. "The Trials of Apollo" Apollo said weakly, handing the book over to the god of the sea. He tried for a smile, "That's gotta be good right"

"Oohh, somebody's in trouble" Sophia called, from her seat next to Hades. He ignored her.

Zeus cleared his throat. "Well, let's start"

Poseidon opened the book, "I'll read"

"Do you know how to?" Athena muttered and he glared darkly back.

"Mother!" Annabeth scolded and that's when Athena noticed her hand intertwined with that sea spawn. She made a strangled gasp sort of noise earning odd looks which we waved off.

Hoodlums punch my face

I would smite them if I could

Mortality blows

"Mortality?" Hephaestus grunted. Apollo was getting paler by the minute. Artemis looked genuinely concerned for her brother.

MY NAME IS APOLLO. I used to be a god.

"Used to?" Hermes asked. "Stop asking questions?!" Apollo snapped. The gods backed away as did the demigods.

In my four thousand six hundred and twelve years, I have done many things. I inflicted a plague on the Greeks who besieged Troy. I blessed Babe Ruth with three home runs in game four of the 1926 World Series. I visited my wrath upon Britney Spears at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.

Percy snickered as the last sentence, "Wrath on Britney Spears?" "It was horrible" Apollo sighed. Zeus scowled, what could his son have done to deserve mortality. It gestured to Poseidon to keep reading.

But in all my immortal life, I never before crash-landed in a Dumpster.

"A dumpster?!" Apollo squeaked, his voice getting higher by the second and cracking at the end.

I'm not even sure how it happened.

"Obviously" Sophia rolled her eyes, not looking that concerned for the sun god's fate.

I simply woke up falling. Skyscrapers spiraled in and out of view. Flames streamed off my body. I tried to fly. I tried to change into a cloud or teleport across the world or do a hundred other things that should have been easy for me, but I just kept falling. I plunged into a narrow canyon between two buildings and BAM!

"Yeesh" Hermes winced.

Is anything sadder than the sound of a god hitting a pile of garbage bags?

"Yes"

Everyone turned to look at Percy. He shrugged and said "The sound of someone else eating the last blue cookie and that horrifying crunch and then they swallow it – crushing your dreams"

Annabeth leaned over and kissed Percy on the cheek, much to Hermes's happiness who was now wriggling his eyebrows at a very murderous Athena. Posiedon was reading ahead the book and hadn't even noticed what happened.

I lay groaning and aching in the open Dumpster. My nostrils burned with the stench of rancid bologna and used diapers.

Sophia, Aphrodite and Piper looked sick.

My ribs felt broken, though that shouldn't have been possible.

My mind stewed in confusion, but one memory floated to the surface—the voice of my father, Zeus: YOUR FAULT. YOUR PUNISHMENT.

"Punishment for what?" Hera mused, elegant on her peacock chair. Zeus's frown was getting deeper by the minute.

I realized what had happened to me. And I sobbed in despair.

Everyone looked concerned for Apollo who was gripping his throne so hard, everyone was worried the sun would come crashing down on them.

Even for a god of poetry such as myself, it is difficult to describe how I felt. How could you—a mere mortal—possibly understand?

"Gee thanks" a burly, Chinese looking guy noted. Ares form flickered to Mars as he recognised his son.

Imagine being stripped of your clothes, then blasted with a fire hose in front of a laughing crowd. Imagine the ice-cold water filling your mouth and lungs, the pressure bruising your skin, turning your joints to putty. Imagine feeling helpless, ashamed, completely vulnerable—publicly and brutally stripped of everything that makes you you. My humiliation was worse than that.

All the gods looked genuinely scared and were hoping this would never happen apart from the one who rolled her eyes and said, "Drama King"

YOUR FAULT, Zeus's voice rang in my head.

"For what?" a sweet looking girl with cocoa smooth skin and curly cinnamon coloured hair and gold eyes asked. Hades looked surprised at seeing his daughter, alive as his form switched to Pluto. Sophia saw that and seeing her sister, subconsciously switched to her Roman form, Herminia.

"No!" I cried miserably. "No, it wasn't! Please!"

Nobody answered. On either side of me, rusty fire escapes zigzagged up brick walls. Above, the winter sky was gray and unforgiving.

"Could you be more depressing?" Percy asked. "Oh, I don't know. Hades is the expert on depressing" Demeter chimed, glaring at the Lord of the Dead and then smiling at Persephone who had stayed rather quiet.

My memory was too fuzzy. I could barely recall what Zeus looked like, much less why he'd decided to toss me to earth. There'd been a war with the giants, I thought. The gods had been caught off guard, embarrassed, almost defeated.

"War with the giants?!" Poseidon stopped and looked alarmed. The demigods shrugged and stopped talking. "Keep reading" Annabeth urged.

The only thing I knew for certain: my punishment was unfair. Zeus needed someone to blame, so of course he'd picked the handsomest, most talented, most popular god in the pantheon: me.

"Someone's a bit full of themselves"

I lay in the garbage, staring at the label inside the Dumpster lid: FOR PICK-UP, CALL 1-555-STENCHY.

Nico snorted, earning a few scared jumps, "1 – 555 – STENCHY?"

Zeus will reconsider, I told myself. He's just trying to scare me. Any moment, he will yank me back to Olympus and let me off with a warning.

"Hasn't that happened before" Ares asked.

"Yes…" My voice sounded hollow and desperate. "Yes, that's it."

"Most likely not" Percy chimed.

I tried to move. I wanted to be on my feet when Zeus came to apologize. My ribs throbbed. My stomach clenched. I clawed the rim of the Dumpster and managed to drag myself over the side. I toppled out and landed on my shoulder, which made a cracking sound against the asphalt.

Sophia winced, if there's one thing she could relate to right now, was that broken bones hurt. Her hand drifted to her leg which had been crushed in a battle once. The leg had healed but there was sickly imprint like dent left behind.

"Araggeeddeee," I whimpered through the pain. "Stand up. Stand up."

Getting to my feet was not easy. My head spun. I almost passed out from the effort.

"Mortals are weak" Ares sneered.

I stood in a dead-end alley. About fifty feet away, the only exit opened onto a street with grimy storefronts for a bail bondsman's office and a pawnshop. I was somewhere on the west side of Manhattan, I guessed, or perhaps Crown Heights, in Brooklyn. Zeus must have been really angry with me.

"What's wrong with Manhatten?" Percy demanded.

I inspected my new body. I appeared to be a teenaged Caucasian male, clad in sneakers, blue jeans, and a green polo shirt. How utterly drab. I felt sick, weak, and so, so human.

"What do you have against humans?" Sophia questioned. She spent of lot of time with humans in Middle Earth, Minas Trinith and Esgaroth especially.

I will never understand how you mortals tolerate it. You live your entire life trapped in a sack of meat, unable to enjoy simple pleasures like changing into a hummingbird or dissolving into pure light.

Most gods sighed at their priveleges while the demigods looked annoyed.

And now, heavens help me, I was one of you—just another meat sack.

"Meat sack" an impish boy with curly black hair muttered.

I fumbled through my pants pockets, hoping I still had the keys to my sun chariot. No such luck. I found a cheap nylon wallet containing a hundred dollars in American currency—lunch money for my first day as a mortal, perhaps—along with a New York State junior driver's license featuring a photo of a dorky, curly-haired teen who could not possibly be me, with the name Lester Papadopoulos. The cruelty of Zeus knew no bounds!

Zeus was not liking this book. What had Apollo done to make him so angry?

I peered into the Dumpster, hoping my bow, quiver, and lyre might have fallen to earth with me. I would have settled for my harmonica. There was nothing.

"You play the harmonica?" Nico asked.

Apollo snapped out of his deep concentration on the book and answered, "Yes, very well"

He didn't notice the other gods share a look like Don't tell him.

I took a deep breath. Cheer up, I told myself. I must have retained some of my godly abilities. Matters could be worse.

"Could they?" Hermes asked, concerned for his half- brother.

A raspy voice called, "Hey, Cade, take a look at this loser."

"Well, that was a jinx" Hermes answered himself.

Blocking the alley's exit were two young men: one squat and platinum blond, the other tall and redheaded. Both wore oversize hoodies and baggy pants. Serpentine tattoo designs covered their necks. All they were missing were the words I'M A THUG printed in large letters across their foreheads.

"You needed a Sharpie at that moment" Sophia grinned, her ebony hair falling out of her messy braid.

"What would I do with that?" Apollo asked confused.

Sophia and Hermes shared a look, like He has so much to learn.

"Well, you see, you would knock them out and write I'M A THUG on their head" Hermes explained.

"Very effective" Sophia nodded.

The redhead zeroed in on the wallet in my hand. "Now, be nice, Mikey. This guy looks friendly enough." He grinned and pulled a hunting knife from his belt. "In fact, I bet he wants to give us all his money."

"Couldn't he just steal it? I mean, no offence Apollo, but you were weak already"

You can guess who said that one but he was shut up by Zeus's thundering glare.

I blame my disorientation for what happened next.

I knew my immortality had been stripped away, but I still considered myself the mighty Apollo! One cannot change one's way of thinking as easily as one might, say, turn into a snow leopard.

"I want to turn into a snow leopard" Leo noted. Piper though, remembering Khione, just shuddered.

Also, on previous occasions when Zeus had punished me by making me mortal (yes, it had happened twice before), I had retained massive strength and at least some of my godly powers. I assumed the same would be true now.

I was not going to allow two young mortal ruffians to take Lester Papadopoulos's wallet.

"Yeah, you show 'em" Ares yelled.

I stood up straight, hoping Cade and Mikey would be intimidated by my regal bearing and divine beauty. (Surely those qualities could not be taken from me, no matter what my driver's license photo looked like.) I ignored the warm Dumpster juice trickling down my neck.

Sophia made a face at that last sentence and shuddered.

"I am Apollo," I announced. "You mortals have three choices: offer me tribute, flee, or be destroyed."

Apollo relaxed, yes, that was it. Everything would be fine now. He was not in trouble. He grinned.

I wanted my words to echo through the alley, shake the towers of New York, and cause the skies to rain smoking ruin.

Apollo grinned wider.

None of that happened. On the word destroyed, my voice squeaked.

His smile dropped. "What?!" Ares roared, "Squeaked?! You gotta' intimidate them punk!"

The redhead Cade grinned even wider. I thought how amusing it would be if I could make the snake tattoos around his neck come alive and strangle him to death.

"I should have done that" Apollo noted. "It didn't look like you could" Sophia pointed out, folding her legs under her and raising some skeleton mouse jugglers to dance.

"What do you think, Mikey?" he asked his friend. "Should we give this guy tribute?"

"YES"

Mikey scowled. With his bristly blond hair, his cruel small eyes, and his thick frame, he reminded me of the monstrous sow that terrorized the village of Crommyon back in the good old days.

"The good old days?" Dionysus questioned. "You're awake grapehead?" "I was listening"

"Not feeling the tribute, Cade." His voice sounded like he'd been eating lit cigarettes. "What were the other options?"

"Leaving him alone" Zeus growled, his hand on his master bolt, like he was going to travel in time and smite these two ruffians himself.

"Fleeing?" said Cade.

"Nah," said Mikey.

"Being destroyed?"

Mikey snorted. "How about we destroy him instead?"

Cade flipped his knife and caught it by the handle. "I can live with that. After you."

Artemis looked murderous, "How dare these MEN threaten him?" she had her hunting knife in her hand.

I slipped the wallet into my back pocket. I raised my fists. I did not like the idea of flattening mortals into flesh waffles, but I was sure I could do it. Even in my weakened state, I would be far stronger than any human.

"Well…"

"I warned you," I said. "My powers are far beyond your comprehension."

Mikey cracked his knuckles. "Uh-huh."

He lumbered forward.

"This isn't going to be good" Sophia stated. Apollo thought she would be a good Oracle. NOT!

As soon as he was in range, I struck. I put all my wrath into that punch. It should have been enough to vaporize Mikey and leave a thug-shaped impression on the asphalt.

"I would have paid to see that" Persephone smiled. Most gods looked surprised at the springtime's goddess's statement but Hades smiled, his wife was brave and strong.

Instead he ducked, which I found quite annoying.

I stumbled forward. I have to say that when Prometheus fashioned you humans out of clay he did a shoddy job. Mortal legs are clumsy. I tried to compensate, drawing upon my boundless reserves of agility, but Mikey kicked me in the back. I fell on my divine face.

"Divine face" Sophia snickered.

My nostrils inflated like air bags. My ears popped. The taste of copper filled my mouth. I rolled over, groaning, and found the two blurry thugs staring down at me.

"Blood. You were bleeding blood not ichor" Annabeth noted, her gray eyes full of intelligence.

"Mikey," said Cade, "are you comprehending this guy's power?"

"They should be" a tall blond kid with a Camp Half Blood shirt said.

"Nah," said Mikey. "I'm not comprehending it."

"Fools!" I croaked. "I will destroy you!"

" %ck yeah" Ares yelled. "Language" Athena chided. " %ck yes" Ares repeated.

"Yeah, sure." Cade tossed away his knife. "But first I think we'll stomp you."

"Oh no"

Cade raised his boot over my face, and the world went black.

"Well, that's the end of that chapter" Poseidon finished closing the book.

Zeus looked at Apollo. "We need to talk son."