Percy drove the blade home.

An explosion of light. Percy gripped the knife with both hands, the sensation grounding him. Heat blistered every inch of exposed skin, and he could distantly feel a tornado of wind whirling around him and Luke (Kronos?), dust and debris stinging against his raw skin.

And then, nothing.

Percy squeezed his eyes shut, having made his acquaintance with several explosions over the years: normally there was the initial burst, and then there was a pause where time seems to stop and one's heart drops (in disappointment, if one is a pyromaniac, or in fear, if one doesn't like explosions but is well aware of what exactly goes on for one reason or another), and then there was the big one. The one that was a thousand times worse than the initial blast.

He braced himself to be meeting his uncle sooner than he thought.

Power.

Nothingness.

Percy woke to the ceiling of Camp Half-Blood's infirmary.

"Ah, our guest is awake."

Chiron.

"Strange afterlife scene," Percy croaked, and winced. It sounded like he had a frog for his voice and someone had poured a truckload of salt over the poor amphibian.

"No, no, you are quite alive," the centaur said, chuckling. "You did give us quite a scare, however, appearing like you did."

"How am I alive?" the sea's son rasped. "I fully expected to die…"

"What were you doing?" Chiron asked. He seemed genuinely interested.

Percy struggled to sit up, his sea green eyes locked on his mentor, tracing over his face. He had less stress wrinkles. His face wasn't as lined. His eyes were happier.

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" Percy whispered.

Brown eyebrows lifted slightly. "Should I?"

"You should," Percy confirmed. "I got in trouble often enough."

"What did—"

"Sir?"

Percy swallowed at the voice. A voice that he recognized. A voice that died on a quest at the beginning of the summer.

A dark head, followed by a dark neck, followed by a buff body, entered the room. Percy took a deep breath and exhaled shakily. He patted his pockets; Riptide was there. There was a window behind his bed. He had failed. Kronos was still around, and for some reason they had kept him alive, and now they were torturing him with dead friends and happy mentors, things that would have been if he had died when he was young or if he hadn't been born at all.

"The part for your wheelchair," Beckendorf explained shortly.

"Thank you, Beckendorf," Chiron said, taking the part from the teen's outstretched hand.

The teen exited without a backwards glance.

Percy gathered his energy, shifting in the infirmary bed, muscles coiled.

Chiron noticed. "You have nothing to be afraid of. Beckendorf would have never harmed you."

"I know," Percy said, his voice dead. "I know, because he's dead."

And he somersaulted backwards, colliding with the glass behind his head feet-first, shattering the window, drawing Riptide. He fell probably fifteen feet, turning the impact into the roll but still having the wind knocked out of him. He shot to his feet, bolting for the forest, namely the creek. He could defend himself at the creek. It didn't matter who he was up against. He could break the time spell as long as he was near a source of water.

He could hear sounds of pursuit, and changed direction, heading for the cabins. He was fast. He was strong, unlike when he first arrived at Camp Half-Blood. True, he probably looked like a half-cooked hamburger patty from the burns and he hurt like Hades, but there was nothing wrong with his energy levels, cluing him into how long he'd been unconscious.

His leg muscles burned as he reached the cabins, running straight up the side of one in two long strides, bolting over the roof and then leaping, landing on the Ares cabin's wooden roof, crossing it in three short paces, and jumped again. He landed on his father's cabin, felt it singing in triumph, and continued on, leaping and pushing off of the marble side of Zeus's cabin, rolling with the impact and his feet hit the ground running.

He grinned as his pursuers let out shouts of surprise as the cabins' defenses acted too late to catch him but caught the follow-ups.

Percy fairly flew through the forest, his steps confident and sure, pivoting on a dime to avoid trees and compensating for the sliding tendencies of the leaves underfoot.

He heard hooves, and his grin fell, and he pushed his body faster, feet thumping in a faster rhythm, his heartbeat soaring in the thrill of the chase.

No wonder Wise Girl called him insane.

The son of the sea could hear the rushing sound of the creek. And then, he could see it, and in the next second he was in it, and he skidded to a stop in the creek's pebbly bed, turning to face the not-Chiron.

"You haven't gone past the Camp's boundaries," Chiron said calmly, his bow drawn.

"Of course not," Percy dismissed. "But I can protect myself here."

"You are standing in a creek, my boy."

Percy grinned.

Slowly, Campers revealed themselves in full armor, showing that they surrounded Percy. Then, as one, they charged.

Percy swept his arms up, and a wall of water completely encircling him erupted around him. Campers faltered in stride at this show of power, even Chiron's eyes widened at the implications.

And then, he felt something he had never felt before. It felt like someone was trying to tug away the water he was controlling. He was desperate, scared, awed.

Sorry, little brother, Percy thought. But I value my life more than you value your Camp.

The Campers hit the creek and Percy froze the water in an unexpected flash-freeze with a sharp gesture with his sword, several with their ankles coated in ice and completely stuck. He could feel that outside force again working to unfreeze the water around the Campers' feet, and Percy let him.

Everyone backed off, scrambling out of the frozen creek. Percy let the creek melt back to normal, but keeping the barrier of water up between him and them. He could feel the force trying to tear the barrier down as well, but he kept it up fairly easily, and heard swearing.

He chuckled a little.

"Chiron…strong…incredible will…definitely…Poseidon."

"…tried?"

"I'm thirteen," the first voice snapped loudly. "Whoever he is, he has a lot more training than me!"

Probably quite a few more years of training, and plenty of near-death-experiences, Percy thought, amused.

"Sir? Would you mind lowering your barriers so that we may talk?"

I would, in fact, mind, Percy thought snappishly, his barriers not budging.

"Would you lower your barriers if we promised not to harm you, directly or indirectly?"

Percy swallowed, thinking. The water whirling in his barrier stilled and froze into ice reminiscent of glass.

"Good as you're going to get," he said, eyes roving over familiar—achingly familiar—faces. And they stopped just to the left of Chiron, where a boy with messy black hair and sea green eyes with a pale face stared back at him. He knew that face. He saw it in the mirror three years ago.

And, suddenly, it clicked, and he snarled in anger, his ice barriers shattering into a thousand pieces. "One last gift to me," he snarled, stalking out of the river. "Well, Kronos, guess what. You have just made your own worst enemy."

Eyebrows raised.

"Sir?"

"I am at Camp Half-Blood, correct, Chiron?"

The centaur nodded warily.

"And you have finished your second quest?" Percy demanded of the teen standing next to Chiron—damn, had he really been that scrawny?

"Who the Hades are you?" the teen demanded.

"I'll take that as a yes," Percy said curtly, and opened his mouth to continue, and then clamped it shut when an arrow was fired. Water flew around him, crackling and turning to ice in an instant, trapping the arrow. He broke off the arrowhead, sniffing it. "Mm. Tranquilizer. Good to know that at least you people aren't trying to kill me."

The ice half-melted, crackling and shifting, until it became a transparent piece of ice, where both parties were able to view the other easily. Percy's eyes roved over the faces, lingering on Annabeth's, where worry and fear and awe showed in her grey eyes. He paused as he saw faces of the dead: Silena, Beckendorf again, Pollux, Michael Yew…

He met his younger counterpart's eyes, sea green on sea green. And then his eyes shifted back to Chiron, whose brown eyes looked more like his old mentor's: saddened and understanding. Percy's eyes went back to his younger self, mind whirling, and he saw the exact moment that Percy Jr. realized just who he was.

Percy Jr. took a step forward, eyes wide, and Annabeth tried to stop him, flinging her hand that wasn't gripping her knife in front of Percy. Her eyebrows rose when he brushed her aside, moving towards him anyways, and decided that she would move with him if she couldn't stop him.

"Are you…?" Me?

Percy smirked, laughter lighting in his eyes. "Sure am."

"You'll show me?" How to control all these random powers?

He actually let out a little chuckle. "I will run you to the ground." And you'll have a great time doing it.

"I'll learn what I can do, though," he responded, smiling.

Annabeth's mouth opened silently, her grey eyes widening with understanding, eyes flicking back and forth.

"You get him?" Percy Jr. asked. Kronos.

"Sure tried my damnedest," Percy Sr. offered. "Never really got to see the end result."

Percy Jr. nodded. We'll make sure of it in this time.

"For those of us who don't speak Percy," Katie Gardener cut in dryly. "Please elaborate what the Hades is going on."

And suddenly, Annabeth grinned. "May I introduce, Percy Jackson," she said, waving her hands in such a way that it could have been either Jr. or Sr.

"May I introduce, Percy Jackson," Percy Jr. corrected, grinning just as widely, bowing gracefully in the direction of Percy Sr.

"Hey, Percy," Percy Sr. said, laughing as a thought occurred to him. "Wonder what Mom'll say?"

Percy Jr.'s delighted, mirthful laugh rang throughout the forest.

You guys might appreciate this...I want to say that my creativity was lacking when I created the document, but the story speaks for itself. Anyway, the working title of this was oh-so-original "Time Travel!" XD

(You guys I actually have a plot planned out for this thing. It was terrifying. The entire premise of it made like Athena and sprung fully-formed into being.) I frickin love time travel.

Lots of love, Ruby