Chapter 1: Birthday boy

It was a warm, comfortable day on Long island sound as Percy Jackson; son of Poseidon woke in his cabin in Camp Halfblood, however Percy wasn't feeling all that warm or comfortable.

Today was his 17th birthday, which would have given any other person a sudden feeling of elation and joy. But not Percy, the night before his girlfriend Annabeth had broken up with him, suggesting that "it was the right thing to do" for them to be happy. Percy overall disagreed.

This all burst through Percy's head the second he woke up like water from a hose and immediately he felt miserable despite the slanting sunbeams streaming through the windows and the soft comforting sound of the water fountain gurgling on the far wall. Percy decided to get up; maybe today wouldn't be so bad.

First things first, Percy trotted off straight to the shower. The hot steamy water always seemed to boost his mood and today would be no different. As Percy walked into his own en-suite bathroom designed around the theme of an old Greek trireme he quickly took off his boxers with no care about his throbbing semi bursting out into the salty-smelling air (one of the many pros of being an only child, which exceptions to Tyson). He stepped nonchalantly into the cubicle and simply willed the hot water to burst forth onto his bare body, after about 5 minutes of pure bliss he heard a loud bang out in his cabin which launched him from his soapy trance into a battle stance in a mere second. Still conscious that he was nude he snuck to the bathroom door whilst controlling the steam to conceal him from whomever may be out there as it might well be an enemy, no other demigod had the ability to enter Percy's cabin without his permission. After silently waiting for half a minute and hearing no further sounds from the rest of the cabin Percy quietly snuck forward slightly crouching, and sitting there in the middle of the wooden floor of his cabin was a pocket-watch.

By now Percy was both utterly confused and extremely curious; a pocket-watch had just landed in the middle of his cabin. "Am I still dreaming" he wondered silently to himself before leaning down to pick up the strange timepiece. At first glance it was no special pocket-watch with Percy's keen demigod eye he could just see the words "Kronos Timepieces Ltd" engraved into the copper rim. This only confused him even more, then before he could explore this strange device even more there came three hard knocks on the large wooden door and the voice of Chiron saying "Percy Jackson, wake up! You are needed at the Big house for a counsel meeting about the upcoming war tournament! May I come in?" To which I replied briskly "yes, let me just get dressed first!". Saying this I put the watch in my pocket and mentally pulled all the remaining water of my bare body and quickly put on a black pair of boxers, a Camp Halfblood T-shirt, some dark blue jeans and some sneakers on and strode over to the door to open it. As Chiron walked in slightly ducking under the frame he said "Percy you really need to be more punctual, don't you have a watch on you?". "Yes I do Sir but I haven't set it yet" I stated, talking of course of the watch now in my pocket, I had not meant to say it was mine but as it was in my possession I may as well go with it. "Well why don't you set it now?" He replied with a tone of impatience. I nodded and clicked the button on the top but nothing had happened so I looked up at Chiron and was about to say something but instead was puzzled by the look of Chiron, he wasn't moving at all, in fact he seemed to be frozen solid.

At that moment a burst of light came bursting from my fountain and for the second time that morning I thought I was being attacked. A spout of water had started to protrude from the fountain strangely and had begun to snake its way diagonally down to a spot on the floor about 4 feet away from me. It then began to move upwards again creating a figure of a man of about 6 foot 3 with a muscular frame, a lightly shaven face and sea-green eyes, he was also wearing the attire of a gladiator but instead of metal made out of coral and shells. I recognized him instantly but before I could talk he spoke three words. "Happy Birthday Son".