It was Percy's earliest memory, his fourth birthday. It was a small affair, his mother wasn't very well off, and his step dad hadn't come into the picture yet. He had spent the day running around with his mom, playing with toys with her, and eating better food than usual, but the little party from the day was not what still held strong in his memory, it was the bath that came after it.

While climbing into the tub, he tripped on the edge of the porcelain, and apparently hit his head. While that was a little hazy in Percy's memory, he vividly remembered waking up. He was swarmed with the warmth from the bathwater, staring from his place at the bottom of the tub up to the ceiling without even a little bit concern for his lack of oxygen.

Even though he was barely four, he understood breathing underwater was not normal. Quickly after waking up and coming to terms with being able to breathe underwater, his mother had run in to check on him and had quickly screamed when she saw him, thinking he was drowned and dead. It was the very first time he had seen her so freaked out, and it was the first time he had surprised her with his powers.

Thinking about it now, there had to be at least three different times he had blown her mind after that, before he was sent off to Yancy.

He was six the next time it happened, and it had scared him too if he was being honest. His mother had been making dinner for him and his smelly step-dad, Gabe, when he had gone to the bathroom to wash his hands. Sally wouldn't have let him eat if his hands weren't clean.

Percy had been under the weather for the past week, a cold had gone around his preschool, and he caught it because he wasn't careful. He was a little hard to tell to stop running around and touching everything after all. Because of this, it was extra important he washed his hands.

It really is a shame that he blew up his faucet like a pipe bomb because of a little old sneeze.

Gabe had rushed into the room, probably more concerned about his sink than he was about Percy, but that's besides the point. When he got in, all he could see was cracked marble and a slightly ill boy sitting on the floor.

Percy remembered this as both the predecessor to a heavy night of drinking and yelling by Gabe, and as the first time he had blown something up.(It certainly wasn't the last)

After his mother had calmed down and made sure he was ok, Sally Jackson sent him a look in her eyes, something indecipherable to Gabe but something Percy understood on an innate level. A look of love and recognition.

Percy liked that memory because Smelly Gabe had to buy a new sink for reasons beyond his understanding. He deserved it.

When he thought about it some more, he kind of thought it was funny how the catalyst for him learning all that he knew now, was a little bathroom explosion. It wasn't the last time he was lord of the plumbing.

The third time he shocked his mother with his abilities, was a lot less expensive, in Percy's opinion. It was also a lot more wholesome.

Eight year old Percy Jackson tugged on his mother's shirt, whispering for her to come follow him upstairs and into the bathroom so Gabe wouldn't hear them. What he had led her to was a closed bathroom door. She had looked at him and asked, "What is this, honey?", and saw him slowly place his hand on the door and open it without a word.

The usually sad, bland looking room was alive with activity. Hundreds of glistening orbs of water from the bath were carefully floating around the room, bouncing off of one another and the walls, leaving the areas they touched perfectly dry. A hand had covered Sally Jackson's mouth, one of her own. It was quite the miraculous sight.

With a wave of a hand, Percy stilled them all, before making them spend independently of each other, eventually collecting into a small, glittering cyclone in the Jackson's apartment bathroom. A tear fell from his mother's eye, and that was Percy's favorite part. It was one of the best mother's days they'd ever had and have had since.

She had given him a big hug after that, and had told him that after dinner was done, they would have a long talk.

The forth, and most recent time he had surprised his mother had not been the most pleasant for either of them. Scratch that, it had been by far the most terrifying moment in his mom's life, and one of the most difficult in his to date.

It had been a rainy day on eleven year old Percy's birthday, which was fine by him on every account. He always felt refreshed after the rain, and he never got wet if he didn't want to. He still celebrated inside though, because his mom didn't have the same luxury.

It had finally cleared up for mid afternoon, and Percy needed to get out of the house. Just a block around the house is what he told his mom, but he barely made it past the halfway point before he heard the howling.

Usually, Percy would pay most land animals no mind, he couldn't talk to them after all. But there was something about this dog's howl that sent shivers up his spine, and convinced him to turn back and head home. Not today, he thought. Clearly, he didn't think that hard enough, because it happened anyway.

The largest dog Percy had ever seen came bounding out toward him from the shadows of a nearby alleyway, bowling straight towards him with it's wet maws as wide as they could be. Percy didn't even think twice, he dipped.

Empowered by the many puddles he stepped in as he ran, he almost made it to his house before the beast caught up with him and swatted him to the otherside of the road like a fly. He would have bruised ribs for ages after that, but it wasn't the worst he got that day.

Percy had a moment of clarity while in the middle of the air however. He understood that monsters were always a threat to him due to him being a god's descendant, according to his mom. Normal mortals couldn't see them due to a magical veil called the Mist, but she had been special and could see through it clear as day, it was one of the things that had apparently attracted his father to her. (ew)

What had just tee-balled him across the highway was probably one of those, and given it was the size of a small truck, probably a Hellhound. He and his mom had talked a lot about what she knew of the Greek world to him. She couldn't really hide what he was to him after he made his bathwater float in front of their eyes after all.

She wasn't really up to date on monsters these days, but from what she did know was that Hellhounds, while some of the biggest, meanest monsters around, were pretty dumb. What she knew, Percy also knew. Another thing Percy knew was that it had just stopped raining.

It was probably the only thing that saved him. That, and the fact that the roads were closed due to the rain.

The Hellhound had tried to follow up on it's assault after it had hit Percy the first time, but it found itself pushed back towards his house by a wall of dirty road water being thrown at it by its prey. Confused, it howled once more and pushed back through the wave to once again pounce at the eleven year old.

With ample time to dodge, Percy was able to avoid the monster and push it again with the same water as before, sending it tumbling down the road. It was at this moment that Sally opened the door to see what was going on, and that's when she started screaming her head off.

Percy's head whipped towards the sound, and even though the monster was pushed at least fifteen meters away from Percy, it closed the gap in an instant while he was distracted. Three wounds from the knife-like claws of the Hellhound opened up and ripped through his shirt and chest, nicking the corner of his neck on his left side to his right hip. The slash both sent him flying and put the world around him into a hazy, barely recognizable buzz.

Percy barely remembered the fight after this because of the pain, but he did remember landing on a manhole cover. The water from the puddles in the street hugged him like a safety net as he slammed into them despite their lack of depth, keeping him from breaking any bones, and without any input from the boy coagulated as a second skin around his chest, which was what kept him alive.

Still hurt like hades, though.

Knowing he was probably going to die, all he could think about was that after the beast was done with him, he would go after his mom. The thought burned into his mind, and his vision focused on the monster in front of him.

Even though he was bleeding out, it was either do everything in his power to live and save his mom or both of them die, so he had no choice. He reached around him with his will over water, and grabbed.

A blob of water from both the road and the manhole shot up to his side, having yet to be molded into anything. Percy needed something to end this monster here and now, he needed a weapon. So he took control, and he made it sharp. The blob of water lengthened into a thin pole, its end splitting off into three different endings. Most of all, he focused on holding it together and tightly.

With three gashes in the chest, a hail mary was all he could muster.

In the only truly clear moment in his memory, he flung his arm in the direction of the beast and the trident followed his command, shooting from its place at his side to slice through the air towards his attacker. While Percy was sure it was very cool, his body gave out before he was able to see his creation get the kill, his mind suddenly wandering to other things. Like his probable death, and pancakes.

Currently, in his bunk at Yancy Academy, Percy still couldn't remember the days after that. Thinking about it too hard made his chest hurt, a hand tentatively touching his neck, covering the spot that he was clawed. Definitely not something he wanted to scare his mom with again. But knowing his luck? Probably won't be his choice. Current Percy sighed.

"Hey, Grover? You up?" He whispered to his roommate. A strange satyr boy who seemed to think Percy didn't know he was a satyr, Grover was an odd character. He loved enchiladas, claimed to be vegan, but he was never around anyone else on purpose and never really talked to anyone except Percy.. He was a great guy though.

"Y-yeah man. What's good? It's like 12 p.m." Percy nodded, even though he knew that his roommate couldn't see it in the dark. He didn't really care.

"We're going to the history museum tomorrow, right? Do you also have a bad feeling about it? Cause I'm getting bad vibes, bro." A sleepy, slurred voice replied back.

"Nah man, you just thinkin' bout Nancy Bobofoot or whatever her last name is. Tomorrow will be fine man, bahh." Percy smiled at his friend's tiredness, but inside he still felt a little ill about it. Ever since Percy's first encounter with the Hellhound, he had always gotten a bad feeling when monsters were around or about to attack him. Or just when anything was about to go wrong in general.

It hadn't happened much though, so right now, in the peace of his dorm room at school, it was probably just a fluke. The thought brought him a measure of comfort; enough comfort to be able to fall asleep for the night. His worries followed him into his dreams that night though…

Demigods don't have normal dreams, that much Percy figured out. He didn't really have people to tell him a lot of these things, but ever since he became a realized demigod, his dreams have always been far beyond what they were before.

It was hard to explain what they were before and what they are now, but beyond is the best word. Not exactly prophetic, or psychic, but they have more substance, more presence in his domain of slumber. When big things happen, he dreams of it. When bigger things happen, he dreams of them before it. So it was very concerning when in his dream tonight, he found himself alone in New York City.

In front of the Empire State Building, Percy stood without a single observable human around him. Above the famous building, there was a floating mountain. Yeah, weird dream stuff. Surrounding him was empty streets, with an overhead storm cracking lightning down from above.

As per protocol of many of Percy's vivid dreams, he didn't move. Not because he couldn't, just because it didn't feel right to do so. So he just observed. Lightning struck the ground before him, wind knocking him back. The road cracked in two, consuming the area where Percy had just been standing. He now stood on top of a nearby building that remained untouched, and watched as the surrounding buildings all crumbled to dust. All the while he didn't move.

Once the dust settled and the storm ceased, Percy looked around himself, and looked up. His own reflection stared at him from the sky, stretched far beyond the limits of any mirror on the planet. He didn't move a muscle, but he watched as sky-reflection-Percy smiled.

Percy shot up in bed.

The journey to the museum was as uneventful as one would expect, even for someone as prone to bad luck as Percy. Nothing weird had happened to him in a while to be honest, and that was what was worrying the boy.

"Aye, Perce, you good? You don't look so hot." Percy looked to his seatmate, Grover, who always seemed to worry about him. He smiled tentatively.

"How could I be good being anywhere near Nancy Bobofoot? Chill out man." Grover sheepishly rubbed his head for his sleep-induced mistaking of the bully's name. He nodded over to the main chaperone of this trip, their latin teacher Mr. Brunner, who had finally managed to get his wheelchair off the bus. He quickly grabbed his student's attention, collecting them all around him.

"Alright guys, we're gonna be here for four hours. We're gonna go check out the greek exhibits first, then latin, then we'll break for lunch and take a vote for the final sections of the museum. Now, come on! Let's go and see what this place has to teach us!" The man was quite the character to Percy. He definitely cared about what he taught, but he pushed his students a little hard for something that wasn't really useful in the real world for anyone but Percy himself. Then again, Percy did get a weird vibe from the guy, maybe he's some sort of mythical creature whose sole purpose is to teach and spread knowledge for demigods. Probably not though.

The class all followed the disabled teacher around, some barely able to keep up with the wily man's speed on his chair. Soon enough they arrived at some artwork type exhibits; from what Percy could see, it looked like a big black figure eating a big black blob, but from the caption, Percy was able to make out that this was Kronos eating the rock instead of Zues. He was very familiar with this story, not only because of his own greek research, but because Mr. Brunner drilled this story into his kid's heads on a weekly basis.

"So, class, anyone recognize this work?" Mr. Brunner asked the class. Some of them nodded, but some of the slower ones didn't quite seem to grasp it. He looked to Percy, before asking him again.

"Jackson, can you share with the class what this is?" Percy rolled his eyes. He's always the first person he calls on.

"Kronos eating a rock instead of Zues." A series of "ahhhs!" and "Oh, my bad hahas." were heard from the slower kids. Once again, Percy thought that he goes over this one story too much, especially for being a latin teacher. Mr. Brunner smiled though, which made answering worth it. Mr. Brunner was Percy's favorite, afterall.

"Correct. And why did he eat the rock?" Percy fired back immediately.

"He didn't want his kid to kill him like he killed his dad." Mr. Brunner nodded.

"And why should we care about this today?" It was always the same question with Mr. Brunner. "Why should this matter today?" Percy was a little slow sometimes, so it would make it easier if he could just say he was a demigod, and that everything Mr. Brunner taught him about greek mythology was helpful, but he couldn't, so he was forced to give a more mundane answer.

"Well, we should care because we don't want our parents to eat us, preferably." Despite his general unpopularity among the other kids, they all laughed at his joke. The teacher even chuckled a little.

"Quite right, Jackson. Now, onto the next exhibit!" It went on like this for a while, them finding random mythological pieces and Percy getting drilled with questions before anyone else.

Eventually, the class approached a wall of art that according to the caption and biography of the piece on the wall adjacent to it, but with little remaining time, Mr. Brunner pulled them away to go to the actual reason of the trip, Latin history, which was on the other side of the museum. Percy's gaze lingered on the wall of art, his eyes naturally dragging to the imposing figures on the wall. The gods of Ancient Greece.

Before long, the class had left Percy alone, who still was silently gazing at the gods. Specifically, one god beside the King himself. A name, no, a word appeared on his tongue. Something that he grappled with, and would grapple with for the rest of his life. His lips touched together to mouth the name of the god who his attention had been drawn to, but before the name could escape his lips, a harsh hand was placed on his shoulder.

"Mr. Jackson, care to tell me why you snuck away from the group?" Ms. Dodds, the secondary chaperone and the only human besides his step father that Percy hated had her hand on his shoulder, and her condescending tone snuck into his ears from behind. He lightly knocked off the hand from his shoulder while casually turning around and looking up at her.

"I didn't mean to, I just got lost in thought. Where is everybody?" The woman's unpleasant features turned more unpleasant as she almost bared her teeth as she replied.

"That trick won't work on me, young man. Come with me immediately." She sharply took his wrist and practically dragged him away to an exhibit room that was left untouched by visitors for some reason. A bad feeling washed over Percy as they entered the threshold of the oddly clean room. He was released, and Percy immediately backed away from the woman. She looked at him coldly.

"I know you did it, you thief. Give it back immediately." Percy was kind of floored with the change in direction. Wasn't he just in trouble for leaving the group?

"Wait what? I didn't take anything! What are you on about?" She got up in his face, and tried to grab his wrist again but he pulled away, startled.

"The bolt, you dolt, everyone knows you took it. Give it back so I don't send your family directly to hades!" Percy noticed the woman's snarling human face slightly morph to be a little less human and a little more bat-person. Beady black eyes and sharp teeth with an upturned nose, and slowly getting worse as the conversation went on.

"Woah woah, are you crazy? Who the hell are you and what bolt?" Slowly backing away towards the door as the seemingly crazed woman (who Percy was starting to realize was probably not a normal human, if human at all. The bat-features were giving it away) started marching towards him spouting what would sound like nonsense to a normal person, but scared the daylights out of him.

"You stole Zues's master bolt, ancient child! And the helm! You little thief! You'll only bring destruction and war with your crimes!" The older woman's back exploded into several sets of wings, and her face fully morphed into a monstrous snarl. Before she did anything though, Percy heard what sounded like a gallop.

"Percy my boy! Take this!" Mr. Brunner's voice sounded off to his left, (Percy added that as something to think about later) and Percy's hand reached out somewhere on instinct. His fingers closed around a small, metallic pen. He would never take his eyes off a monster again.

He brought the pen up to his face in between himself and the monster, taking as best a look as he could at the thing before he might die. His eyes washed over the item, and for a split second it looked like a woman's hairpin, but a millisecond later it looked like a pen again.

It hummed with power in his hands, and Percy knew it was magic. The bat-bitch in front of Percy took her moment to do a final scream at him before charging,

"You won't be forgiven until they're back you half-blood scum!" Ms. Dodds reached back a tiny hand to send her clawed fingers straight through Percy's head, but instead of Percy dying at her hands, she found herself with a Celestial Bronze sword straight in her gut. Her eyes widened.

"Of course you'd be a fish brat…" The hole in her stomach turned to golden dust, and quickly spread out from there to her whole body. Percy didn't get to see this happen the first time, and had rarely seen it since. There had been a few minor monster attacks since the Hellhound attack, it was why he was now at a boarding school. Gabe's stench was supposed to work until he would be a young adult, but for some reason monsters were coming anyways.

He looked at the sword in his hands, taking another swing in the now empty room. It felt right.

Percy left the weird exhibit where he killed his math teacher on a quest to find his latin teacher, but when he found him all he discovered was another woman people were calling his actual secondary chaperone and his teacher relaxing while reading a book. The mist sure must be powerful, if they can create whole people.

He marched up to his teacher, who was tucked away from the rest of the students eating lunch, reading in the shade.

"Mr. Brunner, I have your pen." Percy took out the now pen-form of the sword, holding it in between the two of them as if for his teacher to take it back politely. He reached for it, smiling.

"Thank you Percy, I was wondering where this went-!" Percy flicked the pen away from his teacher's hands as he went to grab it, instead holding onto the pen himself. He lowered his voice so no one else could hear him.

"Who the hades are you, Mr. Brunner?"

An: so i deleted the other version of this i made a week ago because i re-read it again and i couldn't get through it. This version is much more digestible i feel. I want to make a 4k quota. Please review yall, even though i wont be able to see it for weeks because of the system back up on the servers bc corona :/ -datmofo