Hello, Bookworm here with a new story! It took me FOREVER to get the outline done, but now that it is I started typing!

I'm only doing this once this entire story, so pay attention: I am not Rick. If I was, I would keep my version of BoO for an entire year and make all of the fandom suffer. (Ha, ha... BoO. Boo. BOO! That is so much fun to say.)

PS: I spent a super long time trying to have the story sound like Rick's style of writing and have all the characters not OOC. Please give me feedback and tell me how I did!

I PERCY

PERCY THOUGHT WARS WERE BAD. How he ended up in two of them was beyond his human capabilities.

Rewind back a few hours, and he found himself battling a giant cetus—a sea monster—in the middle of the Ionian Sea. Rewind a few more hours, and he was in freaking Tartarus. As you can very much tell, his life sucked.

The cetus in question was thirty feet long and particularly aggressive. Frank blasted exploding arrows at it from the mast; Piper shot baked goods and very impressive profanity; and Leo helped by yelling out random boat elements that were in the process of being annihilated.

Percy was supposed to be resting. He had even gotten cozy in pyjama pants and was sleeping in an actual bed. But all the noise from upstairs wouldn't let him. Someone screamed loudly—Piper—and it took all his energy to stop himself from bounding up the staircase and letting loose some extreme demigod-fu.

Sleep! he yelled at himself.

No! he replied. My friends need me!

No, they don't! This is the third sea monster that attacked us since your escape from Tartarus. And where are those monsters now, hmm? In Tartarus.

Percy turned over on his side, squeezing his eyes shut. There was a loud explosion. The cetus roared, and the ship rocked violently.

I hate my life, Percy thought as he kicked back his bed sheets. He pulled a T-shirt over his bare chest and crossed into the hallway, bounding up the stairway two steps at a time until he reached the upper deck. The cetus caught sight of him and screeched, and Percy was surprised his ears didn't explode. The boat lurched to a side.

"Do something!" Leo yelled, just as Piper loaded the ballistae and shot another blazing fireball the size of a very flammable pineapple. It hit its snout, and another screech pierced the (mostly) silent summer day.

Percy's eyes flitted over to the mast, noticing how it was just as high as the cetus's head. He raced over to the ladder and began to climb.

"Stupid monsters," Frank was grumbling as he arrived. He had an arrow between his teeth Mexican-dancer style and was taking careful aim with another. The first projectile took flight, hitting the cetus just below the eye. The second arrow was loaded and shot only seconds afterward. Watching him shoot with such precision reminded Percy of a Chinese version of Robin Hood—without the silly green leaf hat. "Stupid monsters that keep attacking us. Oh hey, Percy."

"Frank," he replied, gauging the distance between him and the monster. About twenty feet. If he tried to jump he would most certainly miss and die.

Eh. He'd been through worse.

He backed up a few steps to gain momentum, then ran and threw himself forward. For a moment he imagined how he must have looked to the casual observer—a less-handsome Superman without the cape and godly sun powers, leaping toward his inevitable doom. The water from the sea below churned and vaulted upwards, catching him midair and pushing him forward. Percy landed horizontally on the cetus's face, causing another shriek that disoriented him. He fell, tumbling into the water.

Percy was enveloped in seawater from head to toe, and instantly felt his energy restored. Underwater, he pulled out his pen and it returned to its true form. In the dark seawaters, Riptide cast a gentle pulsing light over the sea creature and the hull of the Argo II. His movements slightly sluggish due to the force of the water, Percy plunged the blade right into the cetus's fin like an evil Russian lady nurse's needle.

Suddenly he was glad he was underwater, because the final shriek certainly sounded painful. The sea monster slowly sank beneath the surface, deciding it was a better idea to leave the Argo II alone than risk more pointy things getting stabbed underneath its skin.

The water vaulted Percy upwards and into the air, and he landed back on the ship's deck. He scampered back over to the railing, watching the silhouette of the cetus sink deeper and deeper into the sea.

"Great," Piper muttered, clearly exhausted. That morning her hair had been put back in a nice and tidy bun, but now her choppy brown hair hung loose around her shoulders, soaked in seawater. Her shoulder bore a nasty bruise and her left arm seemed limp, but she was already chewing on some ambrosia to deal with it. Her jeans were ripped (Percy wasn't sure if that was intentional or not—clearly it was a fashion for girls nowadays), and Winnie the Pooh characters danced on her T-shirt. "It's gone."

Frank climbed down the mast's ladder, wearing his bow and remaining arrows as a backpack. The big guy was wearing a too-small gray T-shirt with trousers that had a pants leg shorter than the other. That was certainly not intentional. "Percy, I thought you were on monster-duty an hour ago," he said.

Percy nodded, the sudden weight of exhaustion falling on his shoulders. "Just thought you guys would need some help," he replied honestly. His hand trailed to his pocket, where Riptide was already back in his pocket.

"But you must be so tired," Piper said, and the truth was that she was right. But Percy couldn't sleep.

"So?" he told her, trying to sound nonchalant. It didn't work.

"Is the monster thing gone?" Leo asked, completely fixed on his Archimedes sphere. That thing was so complicated-looking Percy had concluded that Leo had entered a delusional state while he and Annabeth were away, deciding that round rubix-cubes were special futuristic technologies that could do anything. Then on the first cetus attack after Tartarus Leo had twisted his fingers over the sphere's glassy bronze surface, and suddenly the Argo II was speeding three hundred miles an hour over the crystal blue surface of the water while the ballistae shot rapid-fire celestial bronze ammunition into the air and the Legend of Zelda theme song blared over the intercom.

(ADHD was amazing.)

"Yeah," Piper told him, eyes warily hovering over the sphere. Obviously Percy wasn't the only one to notice Leo never seemed to go anywhere without it.

Frank turned out to the ocean, frowning. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at something in the distance.

Piper sighed. "I'll get the ballistae ready," she offered unenthusiastically.

Percy shook his head. "That's just land," he said.

Leo clapped his hands together once. "Great!" he exclaimed. "Where there's land, there's a harbour. We can dock there for an hour or so while Festus fixes the ship, decide on a plan, and get ice cream."

"That… actually doesn't sound like a bad idea," Piper said. "I'll go wake the others."

-o-O-o-

Leo was disappointed. There was no ice cream.

Annabeth, Hazel, and Jason were present. All three of them were still half asleep, yawning every thirty seconds so accurately Percy wondered if they were timing themselves. Piper, Frank and Leo seemed more alert, but not by much. Percy guessed he didn't fare any better.

Leo had dimmed the lights and was projecting a screen onto a wall opposite to the one showing live feed of Camp Half-Blood. A map of Greece was shown.

"And so, my fellow demigods, this is where we are," Leo started, and as he spoke a blinking red dot appeared on the map way on the west coat of Greece. "As you can see, we are docked on an island somewhere named Garbansos, which in Spanish is a kind of pea."

"Gaios, Leo," Hazel corrected halfheartedly. She was slumped forward on the table, her lunch pushed off to one side so that she could rest her head on her folded arms. Her frizzy brown hair was set up in a lazy ponytail with loose strands falling down next to her face, and her eyes were half-closed. Percy bet that if nobody made any more pronunciation mistakes for the next ten minutes she would be asleep by the end of the meeting.

"Sure. Anyway, we're in Gaios." Leo made sure to pronounce it properly, though Hazel couldn't seem to care less. "And here is Athens, our final destination." A black dot appeared over a large city, on the opposite end of Greece. "We basically have three options to get there. There's up, headed northward and performing a large semi-circle over the country." A green dotted line appeared on this path.

"Sort of like what we did in Rome," offered Piper.

"Yeah. Then there's across Greece, in a straight line toward the capital." This also appeared in green. "But both of these courses are impractical. The northern one because it would take us more than a week to arrive to Athens, not including those side-missions we always seem to have."

"And what about the one that goes across?" Annabeth asked, completely engrossed on the blinking red dot on the screen. Percy could tell she wasn't completely awake yet.

"Well, the one across for obvious reasons. The mountains," Leo explained, and the range was suddenly highlighted in red.

Everyone seemed to nod, remembering some past incident. Percy figured it had been while he and Annabeth were away.

Jason seemed to remember first. "Numina," he said, as if it answered everything logical in the world.

Percy raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?" he asked.

Annabeth rolled her eyes at her boyfriend. "Ourae," she translated in Greek. "They're mountain gods."

"For some reason I feel like all the gods are either pitted against us or too stubborn to help," Frank commented, slouched forward on the table, his head resting on the heel of his hand. For some reason he was having waffles for lunch. "That or too stubborn to speak in anything but cryptograms and riddles."

"What's the last one, Leo?" Piper asked.

"Under," he said, and the final dotted line appeared in black to distinguish it from the others. "We sail by water instead of air, and theoretically if we move in super-stealth mode we should get to Athens in three or four days. Supposedly."

"Sounds good," Percy admitted. "I like the sea part. But is there absolutely no other possible way to get to Athens?"

Leo tapped his chin in thought, considering it. "Hmm… We could go south, then cross upwards once we pass the mountains, then south again, or we could backtrack and completely avert Greece in general and finally approach Athens from the west… or go in squiggly lines across the map. Gaea definitely won't see that coming." All three of these options showed up in green dotted lines on their improvised screen, rendering their map unreadable.

"Let's just stick to Leo's idea," Jason told Percy. "It's easy, plus—"

He was interrupted by something loud crashing from outside. There were screams, and the sound of things blowing up could be heard.

"Monsters," Annabeth concluded immediately, already standing and heading for the door.

"No way," Leo said. "Festus would have caught them." He relented, backing up a few steps. "But… it doesn't hurt to check."

The demigods raced upstairs.

-o-O-o-

Percy was disappointed to find he was surprised when he learned that the racket had nothing to do with them.

Some idiot driver shouted from the top of his lungs, blasting dubstep music so loud Percy could hear it all the way from the ship. He laughed, performing a one-eighty in the middle of the street and nearly running over two pedestrians.

As much as Percy hated bullies, this wouldn't have been his problem… except he was driving a chariot made of solid gold.

"Your horse would love this," Leo told Hazel.

"I think he'd be more jealous that the chariot is being driven by winged horses," Jason offered.

"Nah," said Hazel. "Their wings are too small. They'd never be able to carry themselves, much less themselves and a golden chariot. Arion would be more jealous of their… wild temper? I don't know."

Piper chose to ask something a little more helpful. "What is he doing?" she asked.

"Being stupid," Percy said. The guy in the chariot couldn't have been more than five years older than him, and for some reason reminded him of someone he had met before. The guy whooped loudly, and his chariot forced someone to jump out of the way and into the disgusting sea.

But that wasn't what made Percy do a double take. There, on the side of the chariot, was the obvious impression of a merman.

"Dad…" he muttered under his breath. The man and the chariot disappeared around a street corner. A little more loudly, Percy announced, "That's my dad's chariot."

Frank scratched his head like he had the time Leo tried explaining to the crew why the answer to life, the universe and everything was 42. "Huh?" he asked.

"I know that chariot," he persisted. "It's my dad's. I saw it! The last time I visited him. Why does he have it?"

Annabeth laid a caring hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure it's your dad's?" she asked. "I mean, there are tons of chariots with mer-people on them…"

"Gold chariots?" Leo asked.

"I think I should go talk to him anyway," Percy decided. "Just to make sure he doesn't kill anyone."

"But, uh, Percy?" Piper started gently. "I hate to be rude, but we're on a deadline. We can't stop for every single little thing we stumble across."

Percy sighed, running a hand through his tangled black hair. "You're right, Piper." He gazed back at the spot he had last seen the chariot. "Let's go."

"Wait." Annabeth hesitated, and then added, "If you're certain that's your dad's chariot, then… then I think we should go at least figure out why he's got it. But we should bring someone else." She glanced over at Hazel. "That guy's chariot is gold. You could help us. Plus, you have the… Mist." She hesitated before saying the word, as if she was still unused to saying it in a sentence like that. Hazel shrugged, still yawning a bit.

"Sure," she said. "Let's go teach that guy some manners."

I was actually planning on ending this chapter at the second line break, but I figured it would have more of an impact on readers if I didn't.

Tell me what you think! Feedback is very much appreciated! (Which means I'm subtly trying to nudge you into reviewing!)