This is most likely a very bad idea.
Recently I was getting back into Percy Jackson, and started thinking of how unfair it really was that the "leaders" that Hera chose to swap were Percy and Jason, rather than Annabeth and Reyna. Then, to assuage this feeling, I set out to read some fanfiction about it, and realized that almost no one has ever gotten past Reyna. So bitterness led to thinking, led to more thinking, led to finally writing.
I can't make this a fully plotted story. I don't have that kind of time or patience. But what this will be is a series of oneshots, probably sometimes out of chronological order, set in a general universe where Annabeth and Reyna were swapped. More than that, the premise is that Hera actually set out to swap Jason and Percy (since the details on the quests seemed to be so perfectly tailored to them individually). But she wasn't specific enough, and said "leaders," assuming that it would be Jason and Percy, but instead it was the girls who were switched. So people keep expecting the boys and finding them instead.
Right now, all I have written is some stuff taking place at the camps - very little on the quests themselves. I don't imagine too, too much would have changed - or rather, don't have the patience to rewrite the entire books. Also be aware that I will probably abruptly stop updating this at some point. But, if you're itching for some Annabeth-at-Camp-Jupiter, I hope that this story delivers.
The gorgons were back.
It was the cackling that gave them away: the loud, raucous voices behind Annabeth that were getting too loud, far too fast. Apparently, these two weren't easy to get rid of.
This wasn't a new realization. She'd sort of gotten that sense the first two times she'd killed them, when they'd fallen to dust and started reforming again before she could even resheathe her knife. So she knew it wasn't like getting rid of them would be easy.
But she'd thought she'd lost them for good a few days ago when she'd set them on that false trail along the West Coast. Had thought they'd make it all the way up to Washington by the time they noticed she wasn't there, by which point she would manage to find someplace safe.
Who knew? Maybe they had, and they were just really, really fast.
"Annabeth Chase!" screamed Euryale. "We will have our revenge!"
"Styx," she muttered, and could practically hear Lupa scolding her in her head. She knew she was a demigod, which meant she was supposed to speak Latin easily on top of her first language. But for some reason, whenever she stopped thinking about it too hard, the Greek names kept popping into her head instead. Lupa kept trying to condition her not to use them, but not only was it hard, Annabeth couldn't shake the feeling that it meant something.
And, considering almost all of her memory was gone, she wanted to have as much as possible to examine.
She'd hoped that with the gorgons gone she'd get a bit of a break, but that was not to be. Not all monsters were as hard to kill as they were – or rather, once they'd been killed once, they tended to give up on you as prey and go find someone else – but there had been more than a few of them. Annabeth hadn't sustained any massive injuries, thank the gods, but there were shallow cuts, so many bruises, and she hadn't gotten more sleep than few-hour snatches here and there. So she hadn't had any chance to really probe into her mind and figure out if she had any more memories than the few clearest. Her fighting abilities, that strange knowledge of Greek that kept popping into her head, her own name – and one other.
Percy.
She didn't remember much about him, but there were some associations that came up every time she thought of him. Green eyes, a smell of salt water, and – something about seaweed? It was slippery and hard to pin down, but she knew there was something important there. Something important to her.
The gorgons – Euryale and Stheno, she knew from having heard them talk to one another, but the names were familiar even beyond that – were drawing closer now. Annabeth ran, mind racing furiously, trying to think of a plan to get rid of them. Cars were lined up all along the roadsides, but – despite the fact that she had no memory – something inside her warned her that she had never learned how to drive.
She wished she had.
Lupa had told her she would know the end of her journey when she found it, and she could feel that it was close. Maybe if she could just outrun them, she would make it there before them. Could get to safety.
But – something felt off.
She knew that the end of her journey was close by, and she knew that she didn't have much choice but to go there, but it was like a blaring voice in her head. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong, you are not welcome here, this is not your home. Wrong, turn around and run in the opposite direction.
But she couldn't, because there were Gorgons in front of her. So she ran forward instead, followed the internal radar blaring two messages at her at the same time –
Followed it to the top of a hill from which there was no easy escape.
She was cornered.
Cursing – herself, for getting so distracted; the Gorgons, for existing – she drew her knife and turned around.
"Annabeth Chase!" hooted Euryale. "Nowhere to run now!"
"Cheese 'n' Wiener?" offered Stheno helpfully, brandishing a tray. She was still wearing her uniform and carrying the tray from the Bargain Mart where Annabeth had run into them. She'd been starving, but not yet at a stealing point, so she'd decided to go trolling for samples, and accidentally found far more than she was looking for.
"Delicious as those sound," Annabeth said lightly, stalling more on instinct than anything else as her eyes scanned around for any escape route, "I'm not very hungry. But I'm impressed with your dedication!" Flattery tended to get you places. "The Bargain Mart people should really give you a raise."
Stheno looked down at her uniform as though she was only just considering that. "Yes!" she agreed. Then she frowned. "They don't pay me at all!"
"Not at all?" Okay, there was no way Annabeth was getting down this hill – at least, not from this position. If she could distract them enough to inch around them, though – it looked a little less steep off to the right, and her internal radar was telling her she was in exactly the right spot, just too high up. "Isn't that illegal? There are workers' rights laws, you know. Have you ever considered a labor union?"
"No!" squawked Euryale, smacking her sister's arm. Annabeth took that distraction to shift just a couple of inches to the right, and the Gorgons reoriented their position as though without even realizing it. "The Bargain Mart was a front, you idiot! We don't work there!"
"Really?" Annabeth feigned curiosity, even as her mind tried to calculate angles and slopes. "Have you ever considered a career change? It looks like you've found your calling, and that uniform suits you so well!"
Stheno – definitely the weaker link – looked down at herself and preened. "It does!" she agreed.
Euryale groaned again, and Annabeth shifted position once more. "We don't have time for side careers!" she howled. "We're on a revenge quest!"
"Revenge, really?" said Annabeth. As long as they didn't realize they were giving away information, she might as well get some of her own. Of course, it was entirely possible that they were talking about her, given that she couldn't remember anything about her life. But they might be able to help fill it in. She might not know much, but she did know that in a choice between safety and knowledge, she would choose knowledge every time. "Against whom?"
"You!" screamed Euryale, lunging forward.
Annabeth dodged – and, incidentally, moved just a little further in the right direction. "Hey, hey, let's calm down a minute here!" she protested. "If you're going to kill me, don't I at least to get to know why? I don't remember anything, so you're going to have to tell me what I did to make you want revenge on me."
"Our sister!" cried Stheno, samples for the moment forgotten. She brandished the platter, and the sun glanced off of it in a ray of light. Annabeth's eyes seized on it. Hmm. "We smell her blood on you!"
Right. The conversation. Sister . . . Annabeth's mind scanned back through her knowledge of the Gorgons. All she had was what she'd learned with Lupa, which was frustrating, because she was pretty sure she should know a lot more. But she did remember . . . "Medusa?" she guessed. "Her blood is on me?"
"You were the last to kill her!" wailed Euryale. "You and that upstart, Percy Jackson!"
Annabeth froze. Plans for the moment forgotten – her heart sped up, her throat constricted. Percy. He had a last name now. Percy Jackson.
Luckily, Euryale didn't notice. "Our patron told us he would be here," she complained, "but we will settle for you!"
"Percy Jackson?" managed Annabeth. She tried hard to keep her voice light, but it was difficult. "Who is he?"
"Don't play dumb, spawn of Athena!" Annabeth's blood sparked and fizzed at that last word, but she had to put it aside to focus on Euryale's bloodthirsty eyes now. "You may not have struck the final blow, but you killed her just as much as he did!"
"Look, I'm sorry." She tried to keep her voice light, but she could tell she was running out of time. "Like I said, I don't remember anything. But maybe if you'd tell me who your patron is, I can get you in touch with Percy Jackson. That way you can take your revenge on him, too."
It was a pretty thin excuse to her, and clearly to them as well. "We don't need you to get us in touch with her!" Euryale cried. "She is everywhere – right beneath your feet!" But before Annabeth could start making any sense of that, the Gorgons' patience finally ran out. "But enough talk!" she howled, launching herself forward. "Now we kill you!"
The plate. She had to get to the plate. She tucked and rolled forward under Euryale's legs, but if she ran, they would just catch her now. Stheno, yelling, "Cheese 'n' Wieners!" had thrown herself into battle as well, and as Annabeth surged to her feet, they came face to face –
She moved fast. Slashed Stheno across the throat with her dagger, and before the Gorgon could even begin to crumble into dust, Annabeth snatched the plate away from her, tossed the samples into Euryale's face, whirled to face the hill – no time to double-check the angle now – and threw herself forward.
…
Sledding down a non-snowy hill on a snack platter, Annabeth found, was not fun.
She didn't scream, but that was hardly from any kind of superior self-control – rather, screaming took more energy than not, and she was too busy focusing every ounce of her concentration on not dying.
Not that there was much she could do.
It was luck, more than anything else, that carried her down the hill in one piece, though more than a little banged up. Bruises upon bruises anyway, and her shirt was already so tattered and faded that she couldn't read what it said, so what were a few more scrapes and knocks? When she hit a rock (painfully bruising her tailbone) thankfully near the bottom, the tray finally gave up. It bounced off, shot forward across an entire highway, and launched Annabeth into the air.
Again, she tucked and rolled. Came to a stop in a clump of prickle-bushes, because why not? But as she finally came to a rest, she did a quick mental scan and came up with no serious injuries. Somehow.
Struggling to her feet was hard, though. Pure exhaustion on top of that drastic adrenaline rush and roll made her dizzy, and she swayed alarmingly before catching herself and turning around – to see the two gorgons approaching fast, on wings.
Oh, perfect.
But she was close. She just needed to cross this street, and she'd get where she needed to go. Forget the wrongness. Right now, Annabeth just needed to get away.
So, of course, that was when the old lady showed up. "Annabeth Chase!" she said.
Annabeth hated her before she even turned around, and when she did finally get a look at the woman, she hated her even more. She was old and homeless-looking, but that wasn't what got Annabeth. It wasn't even the smell – Annabeth herself was in no place to judge. It was the face. The gleeful look in her eyes, as though she were taking pleasure in Annabeth's misery.
"What do you want?" she asked, in no mood to be polite.
"Why, a lift, of course!" giggled the woman, as though making Annabeth uncomfortable was the best part of her day. "Literally, in fact. I want you to carry me to camp?"
"Camp." Despite everything, Annabeth savored the word. There was something about camp that made it synonymous with home. "But that's – that's camp?" She looked across the road at the tunnel entrance, where she could just make out two small figures.
"Indeed it is!" cackled the woman. "So now you have a choice, daughter of Minerva." Like when Euryale had said Athena earlier, something in Annabeth perked up. "You can leave me here and run. The gorgons will be happy to attack me, and you will make it to safety. I guarantee you can find a place. But you will never get your memories back."
That wasn't an option. Annabeth wished they could be having this chat when there weren't two snake-haired women approaching far too quickly. "And the other option?" she asked, teeth gritted.
"Give a helpless old woman a lift," the lady repeated. "Carry me to camp. That way lies pain and suffering and difficult choices. But it is the only way you will ever remember who you are."
Frankly, Annabeth doubted that. There was always another way. But she also knew the stories – knew enough to know that when a random old woman showed up asking you to carry her, it was probably a god in disguise. And that if there was anything you didn't want to do, it was anger the gods – even though Annabeth had the sneaking suspicion that there was a reason she already hated this one.
And there was no more time to waste. "All right," she sighed. "Hop on."
The old woman babbled away at her as they careened across the highway, Annabeth trying to run, carry, and glance behind them at the same time. The Gorgons were catching up quickly – but the tunnel entrance was so close, and as Annabeth approached it, she could see that the two people she was looking for were heavily armed.
Thank the gods.
"You can call me June," the woman on her back – who seemed to be getting just a tiny bit heavier with every step – informed her. "They named the month after me, after all!" and Annabeth, using every last ounce of her self-restraint, did not snap back that she didn't care.
Stheno swooped so low that Annabeth tried to duck, stumbled, and avoided falling to her knees in front of a moving car. She staggered forward and felt it whoosh by her, way too fast. Stheno cackled, flying back up for another pass. "Found a goddess to carry, did you?" she yelled.
Well, there was one suspicion confirmed. Annabeth couldn't think about it now, though. Too busy running.
She was close enough now to see one of the sentries drawing back a bow. Annabeth was too tired even to yell – all she could do was hope he wasn't aiming at her.
He wasn't. Stheno cried out in pain, and fell to the road as a shower of dust. But she had started reforming before Annabeth had even made it through the next lane of traffic. She was close enough to hear the boy's noise of confusion.
And then she was there, meeting the two kids at the tunnel. So tired she could barely talk, but she did manage, "Thanks."
"That should have killed her!" he protested.
"Get used to it," Annabeth said grimly. "Do I get to put you down now?"
"Not at all," laughed June. "We have a river to cross, after all."
A river. Annabeth remembered Stheno's shower of dust falling out of the sky and got an idea.
"You two," she said. "Will the borders keep the Gorgons out?"
"We're supposed to," said the girl warily. "But if they can't be killed" –
"I have an idea," Annabeth said. "There's a river?"
"Yeah." The girl gestured up ahead. "The Little Tiber. But" –
"They'll follow me," Annabeth knew. "If you two stay out of sight, track them until I'm in the river, and shoot them right above the water – it'll have to be a killing shot, but" –
"I can do it," the guy promised. "Hazel" –
"I'll help you hide, hold them back if I can." She gestured. "Through the tunnel up ahead, straight on forward until you find the river."
"Perfect." Annabeth hefted June higher on her shoulders. "Let's do this."
…
The river was not pleasant.
It wasn't too fast, exactly, nor even too deep, but there was something about the way that it swirled around her that Annabeth didn't like. It could have been exhausted hallucinating, it could have been June's now-sandbag-like weight on her shoulders, but it felt like it was warning her away. Like it didn't like her.
She could hear noises from behind her; rumblings in the tunnel, yelling gorgons. She couldn't let them cross, though, so despite the unfriendly feeling of the water she reached the middle – the deepest part – and waited. Water rushed by her, pulling at her tattered shirt; freezing coldness soaked into her legs, up to her waist, but she waited.
"Ha!" came a shriek from right above her. Euryale had arrived, Stheno right behind her. "Now, Annabeth Chase, you will" –
Thunk-thunk. Annabeth jumped out of the way as two arrows, shot so quickly and in succession that she marveled, sank into the Gorgons one after another. Right above where she had been standing, dust showered into the water.
She heard wailing, but the river churned the dust around in circles, keeping it separate, and soon enough, two of Annabeth's three tormentors were swept away down the river.
The third, of course, was still on her shoulders, but Annabeth had finally staggered the rest of the way across the river, and it was only dignity that kept her from collapsing on the bank. "Can I put you down now?" she bit out.
The lady smiled and began to climb down from her back while the other two caught up to them. "Nice shooting," Annabeth said to the archer.
"Nice thinking," he responded. "How'd you think of using the river" –
But other people were arriving now. Hordes of them, in fact, all in purple shirts like the ones Annabeth's saviors were wearing. All staring, and talking, and trying to ask questions –
It was so much that Annabeth swayed with exhaustion. Maybe this time she would have even crumpled to the ground, but June caused a distraction by changing form. Growing to several feet taller, a staff appearing in her hand and an animal-skin cloak around her shoulders. Gasps resounded, and the others began to sink to their knees.
Despite having wanted to be on the ground two seconds ago, now all Annabeth wanted to do was stand. She refused to kneel to this lady she'd just lugged across a highway and a river.
"Juno," spoke up a boy, awe in his voice. "Lady" –
The goddess smiled. "Romans, I present to you your newest camper. She has been asleep for many months, but now she has come to you for the times ahead. She may have been my second choice, but" –
"Hey!" Annabeth protested. Carry a lady across a highway and a river, and then she introduces you as her second choice? She really didn't like this goddess.
"Meet Annabeth Chase," the goddess Juno interrupted, smiling wickedly, "Daughter of Minerva."
More gasps. In the midst of the shock, the goddess disappeared.
Okay, so apparently there was something wrong with being a child of Minerva. For some reason, Annabeth's brain wanted to correct that name even more vehemently than it did any of the others – Athena, it insisted, not Minerva, Athena – and maybe this was somehow related to that? Either way, she knew she didn't like being whispered about, and the quiet, "Minerva?" – "How?" – "What?" did not make her feel any better.
But she was so very tired, and cold, and wet. Her pants clung uncomfortably to her legs, still dripping river water. She lifted an arm to press a hand to her forehead, and grimaced as she hit yet another bruise at her hairline. "Look," she said tiredly, "I'm not sure what's going on here, okay? Frankly, I don't even know who I am. Who's in charge here?"
A blond boy stepped forward, out of the crowd. "I am," he said.
Annabeth sized him up. He was fairly tall, and wearing a purple cape, but even if not for those, Annabeth would have known he was a leader. It was something about the way he held himself: straight posture, confidence in the set of his face, and a deep, deep tiredness in the lines around his eyes.
His eyes.
When she saw them, she staggered. Bright blue, almost electric – a wave of something hit her mind, like a really, really strong déjà vu. "I know" – She had to stop after just those two words, because she didn't. Not really. "Not you," she finished lamely. Stared hard at his eyes. "But" –
"I'm Jason Grace," he informed her. "Praetor of the Twelfth Legion of Rome. And it looks like you and I have some things to discuss."