Look, I really didn’t ask for any of this.

Sure, it’s kind of cool now, thinking about it. I mean, what part about it wouldn’t be cool? You’re walking down the street one day and bam, you know all those myths about Greek gods and goddesses? Yeah, no, they’re one hundred percent real. They live high up in a palace that moves with western civilisation, currently residing over the Empire State.

You must also think though, The Empire State Building? What? I don’t see any floating city of the gods. You’re crazy! And the gods live on Mount Olympus. There aren’t any mountains within two hours of Manhattan!

Think again. They’re there, all right, and they shoot lightning at you if you get too annoying. Mmhm, I’m serious.

Alright, fine, you got me, I’m only half joking. But that’s just the least of the craziness. You’ve heard of heroes like Hercules, Perseus, Theseus and Odysseus, and how they’re all demigods, right? Yeah, demigods. Half human, half god. Usually quite powerful, better equipped than the average mortal, and an annoying knack to attract monsters straight from the pit of Hell… er, Tartarus, actually. Their names all end with the letter ‘S’ too, which is kind of odd.

See where I’m going with this?

No? Well of course not, you’re mortal. If you’re not, then screw you, you’re a god. If you’re feeling like something is up and you feel like you know what I’m talking about, it’s probably too late. You’re a demigod. In that case, you should probably grab the nearest kitchen knife and check your front porch for any empousa. Trust me, an infestation of those things can kill.

I should probably start with the train back to Manhattan after I visited my cousin in Canterlot, because all great stories start with train rides. They’re like, literal transitions from one place to another. And yes, I only said that because someone else said it before me, as most things turn out to be.

I drummed my fingers on my bag, restlessly staring out at the quickly nearing Manhattan skyline. With almost practiced unease, I pulled out my wallet and rifled through some of the bills I would need for the fare back to my Aunt’s place. I’d gone through the motions a million times, but for some reason I felt incredibly uneasy.

I kept checking behind my back, as if someone were boring their eyes into me. I glanced suspiciously at anyone I deemed weird or out of place, and I would give my worst stink eye to anyone I caught looking at me. Everytime someone turned away after making eye contact, I smirked a little, but that was it. This “uncooperative delinquent” was more worried about the feeling in her gut than what others would think.

It was as if something were tugging my insides around and placing them all in the wrong place. Something was wrong, and I doubted it was because of the time of month. That was last week. Today, nah. Feeling in my bag, I felt for my little pocket knife. I had a feeling I might need it, and an even worse feeling that it wouldn’t be enough.

As the train slowed to a stop and jarred a little in place, everyone around me started getting up. Checking I had everything with me since I could be forgetful sometimes, don’t judge, I slung a strap over my shoulder and pursed my lips.

When the song I was listening to on my iPod Nano came to an end (call me sentimental, I like the way they look), the silent transition felt like an eternity. As if with a mind of its own, my head swivelled, falling on a strange girl. Her eyes glinted with a feral ferocity I couldn’t place, and her grin was unsettlingly. She sat there calmly, legs crossed and hands folded. She was staring straight at me when she smiled.

The next song came up and I felt my heartbeat start to match the quick tempo of the bass and drums. Tearing my eyes away, I quickly shoved into the line before I could be left in last place. As soon as I made out of the train car, I walked away as fast as I could without looking to be in a rush.

As I turned a corner, I risked a glance behind me. She was there. Separating the two of us was a large body of other commuters, but it was clear where she was headed. After me. Why? I dunno. Maybe she was an undercover cop who finally found out I stole a packet of gum from a vending machine by reaching into it when I was eight.

I highly doubted it, though.

Knowing that she couldn’t possibly see me anymore, I started running as fast as I could. The people I passed and bumped into as I lay low and darted through gaps and legs gave me looks of annoyance, but I didn’t care. I was being stalked by some random chick. I didn’t want to be the perfect candidate for America’s Next Top Model, or whatever reason she was looking to reach me. The faster I could leave the station, the better.

I reached the stairs and bolted up them, skipping two, even three steps until I broke into the blinding glow of the dying Manhattan sunset. At that point, I looked behind me just to check. Sure enough, there was no sign of her. Almost with a sigh of relief, I leaned on my thighs for a few seconds and caught my breath. Maybe I could grab a little something to eat before I took the cab to my Aunt’s apartment. Throwing my hood up and throwing my gaze around at anyone who seemed to question me, I moved to the nearest bakery.

The chimes jingled as I came in, the bustling monotone and roar of golden-hour traffic coming to a muted silence as all I could hear was the hum of several heat lamps. Smiling, I took my headphones out, letting them hang from my shirt, and I walked forward to peruse the selections.

This particular croissant was looking pretty good.

Ah yes, croissants. What did you expect? Some random junk food that would probably pack on another ten pounds of disgusting, frozen-for-ten-days meat that had been cooked in a vat of grease? No thanks. At least, not when I knew there was a bakery. Croissants are good, bro. They’ve got this crustiness I just, oomph. And sometimes, the glazed ones or drizzled ones are amazing enough to make me want to cry.

Of course, I’m a bad girl, so I don’t cry. Don’t hate, appreciate.

I guess I’m not that bad, but there was this one time where I basically pushed my cousin’s friends apart just because I wanted to look cool. Totally not cool, in retrospect. I ended up apologising to Applejack for that later, but she gave me this look of disappointment. Still sits with me today, I guess. Like a heavy weight on my heart. Ugh. I hate myself.

“What would you be having today, dear?” the cashier asked. I glanced up from my musings and widened my eyes a little.

“Oh, uh,” I stuttered. Pointing to this one plump croissant that looked particularly tasty with a light drizzle of chocolate, I looked back up. “This one, please.”

“Will that be all?” she asked, smiling sweetly. It was a little disarming, but I smiled back. I couldn’t help the feeling that I’d seen that smile somewhere before, though.

“Yep,” I said.

“That’ll be two drachma.”

As I reached for my wallet, I stopped. Drachma? What in god’s name was that? Pulling my wallet out, I clutched it a little tightly.

I looked up at her, frowning. “Excuse me, but drachma? What?”

A flash of darkness swept across her features. Before I could even register the look, she smiled again. “Oh, I’m sorry, you must’ve misheard me. I said ‘that’ll be two dollars’.”

Eyeing her a little warily, I handed the change over and made sure to watch as she stuffed my prize into a little white paper bag and handed it to me. Reaching for it, I took it tentatively before backing up slowly. When I decided it was an okay deal, I turned tail and pushed the door open.

“Have a good day, Babs! I’ll be seeing you soon enough.”

I waved mindlessly and rushed to the street, not wanting to stay in the presence of a weird baker any longer than I had to. Waving for the next taxi, I tapped my foot restlessly against the pavement, several people bumping into me as they rushed to their next destination. For me, I just tried to clear my head of all the weirdness that had just happened in the span of half an hour. Surely, it was all just a big fat coincidence, right? It wasn’t just the summer heat messing with my brain?

But what the heck was up with that baker? She was nice, but weird. Very weird. And I almost felt sleepy in her shop, like the smell of baked goods would be enough to woo me unconscious. And that girl on the train, the one who had been looking for her… it hit me. They both smiled the same way at me. On the train. Over the counter. It was as if they knew something about me.

At that moment, an icy hand of gripping fear wrapped my heart. I had never told the baker my name.

I turned around to look into the shop I had left moments before, only to see two people conversing quickly. One was the baker. One was the girl. Before I knew it, they both smiled as if sharing a joke, before the baker turned toward me and nodded with this glint in her eyes. It felt dangerous. It felt deadly. The girl turned to me as well, and I gulped. This was not good.

“Taxi!” I cried quickly, glancing behind me. I watched the baker twist the sign to CLOSED and they both nodded to one another. I waved my hand frantically. “TAXI!”

They opened the door. I bolted into the street. Running to the nearest taxi, I tore the door open and glared at the passenger in the back seat. I growled menacingly. “Get out.” The man complied, clutching his work bag for dear life as he stumbled out. I slammed the door as I sat down and thrust a wad of cash into the driver’s face. “Get me to Brooklyn!”

The driver grumbled. “What about the money for-”

“I’ll pay for the other guy’s travel, just get me out of here and quick! I’ll pay you more!”

He didn’t need any more incentive. Before I knew it, he was doing his best to manoeuvre out of his current lane, getting out of the current traffic. I glanced nervously out the side of my window and bit my lip as I saw the two ladies staring at me from the edge of the sidewalk. I breathed heavily, trying to stare them down and see what they were planning on doing.

They started wading towards me.

Several cars swerved around them, trying to miss the crazy pedestrians walking into the street. People who were on the sidewalk started pointing. Somehow, they didn’t get hit. Then again, I somehow didn’t get hit, but that was because I chose a moment where everything had stopped for a second. Now, cars were moving, I was moving, and the crazy ladies were starting to reach me. They were only two cars away, at best. I locked my door.

“Hurry!”

“I’m trying!” The driver slammed a horn before glancing back quickly. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but this traffic is busier than the usual!”

I gritted my teeth. They were one car away. They would be on me any second.

Just when they smiled at me, like I was just another customer, the car lurched forward and we started speeding away, weaving in and out of cars on the road. I could’ve sworn heard scratching noises from the side of the car, as if a set of claws had tore through the metal. I was just glad that I was making it out of there. That place was honestly freaky.

I threw my earbuds on just as a song came on singing about how crazy the world is compared to their imagination. I only smiled to myself, the irony of the situation getting to me. Two weird woman deciding suddenly deciding it was okay to just pounce on a teenager like me? I mean, I know I look like a punk, but you could at least respect me as I am. Most people do.

The baker seemed so nice though, and the girl could’ve been like any other passing person. What made them special? The fact that they tried to grab me? Or maybe their smiles? They both seemed to have nothing wrong with them, yet they tried ganging up on me like I had stolen from them. Being reminded of the pastry I still clutched in my hand, I was reluctant to really eat it. What if they had put something in it? It was a possibility I wasn’t risking at the moment.

Unfortunately, the same moment was suddenly filled with screaming and shouting when our cab swerved around the baker in the street, staring us down with no intent on moving. The driver yelled something and honked before the baker jumped into our evasive path. The driver, not expecting this, jerked his wheel and we went rolling.

I blacked out. I know I blacked out, too, because I came to with a severe headache and the feeling of a bruise forming on the side of my head. The world wavered around me, and I almost felt like throwing up. Sluggishly stuffing my hand into my bag, I felt for my knife. When I knew my grip had tightened around it, I felt for the door. After what felt like an eternity, I tried opening it.

It didn’t budge.

I growled in frustration. Eyeing the door to see what might be wrong, I blinked a few times. The whole door was basically crumpled. The edge where the door would’ve separated from the car completely was crumpled against my seat. Glancing to the other side, I noticed it seemed intact. I somewhat dragged myself over, trying my best to ignore the unconscious taxi cab driver.

Trying the door, I almost sighed in relief when it opened. It was short lived.

A pair of strong hands grabbed my wrists tightly, forcing me to drop my knife. Woozy, beat up, apprehensive and with a million thoughts racing through my head, I became dead weight. I couldn’t think. I just… this was all so crazy. What the hay was happening?

I heard laughing. Giggling. Two voices conversing excitedly. My head swam. Was this the end? Would I be kidnapped? Murdered? Would I just disappear off the face of the earth? Would anyone care about me?

“-and then we can bake several of her parts into high quality pastries!”

“Stop it! Stop with the baking! Seriously, what is with you and baked goods? We can just kill her now and roast her over a fire, simple. No need to spend hours making several baker’s dozens of stylised donuts and crepes!”

The baker pouted. “Come on, it doesn’t take that long. I can make good muffins in half an hour. I added some of the ingredients from her, that would be thirty minutes well spent!”

Train girl sighed. “No. Fire. Roast meat. Five minutes. So simple!”

“But that isn’t any fun. Where’s the creativity? Just let me have at her for a few minutes!”

As the two women argued, I tried to shake the fuzziness from my head. It was like trying to ride a bike through two feet of water going uphill. I was making progress, but it was painful. It was brutal, to be honest. Here I am, being held by my arms and being argued over by two cannibals as I blinked the bright lights away. Who said real life was crazy? No, this is insanity.

When I almost felt back in tip top shape, it seemed they had finally resolved their whole ordeal. They were calming down now, with a lot more sighing going on than I was comfortable with. They both looked down at me, when they realised I was starting to become more lucid.

“Well, that’s no good,” train girl said. “She’s waking up more.”

“It’s funner that way,” the baker said. “It just means we can have more fun splitting her in half.”

“S-splitting in half?” I mumbled worriedly.

The train girl smiled. “Oh yes, we’re splitting you up. One side for me, one side for Leila. All because she wants to spend time turning you into some sort of bread.”

“Not like you have the mind for it, Jilly,” Leila the baker retorted.

Jilly shrugged, smiling immediately afterward with sharp teeth that worried my immensely. “And then, after that, we can trace her scent to all the other demigods from her school. Oh, how exotic they all smell, just from her jacket! I can’t wait.”

Wait. Demi-what-nows? All the other demigods? What the hay?

“Wait, what.” I managed to push words out clearly, and they both giggled a little bit.

“Oh, of course,” Jilly laughed, “This makes it even better! Haha!”

“That’s odd,” Leila muttered, “She’s fifteen, a daughter of the Big Three and doesn’t know who she is?”

“Don’t question it, Leila,” Jilly snapped. “We can’t give too much away to her in case she escapes. Wouldn’t want our employer to know that we planned on eating her before we could give her to ‘em-”

At that moment, a large glowing bronze-ish sword impaled the lady in the chest.

Jilly stared down at the sword as if it were something unexpected, squeaking a little when the sword left her and all she had was a large gash in her abdomen that went from front to back. “Ow,” she said. “That hurt a lot.”

Before my very eyes, one of my arms was set free as Train Girl disappeared into golden dust, crumbling until she was nothing. In her wake was a boy wearing a swim-team sweater and sweats, looking particularly annoyed. In his hands was a leaf-shaped sword that seemed to radiate power, and he regarded me with frowning sea-green eyes.

“You okay?” he asked. “Empousa didn’t hurt you?”

“Empousa?” I asked.

“Yeah, part bronze leg, part goat, kinda weird looking after you get past the Mist. No?”

I shook my head.

The boy studied me for a second before pursing his lips and turning to Leila the Baker. “Let go of her and I might just let you go free,” he said. I felt a chill go down my spine.

“Promise?” Leila said. “I have a bakery I need to run and pay for, I can’t do that while I’m in Tartarus.”

Sword Boy looked at Leila and shrugged. “I got nothing against bakeries, but you’re a pretty freaky monster that was just talking about eating one of my kind. That sits a little wrong with me.”

Nodding for a second, I felt the empousa’s grip on me slacken a little before she dropped it completely and bolted for the nearest alley. Me and the boy watched as she disappeared, the boy looking particularly torn between what looked to be confusion and disappointment. After another moment, he winced and looked down at me, offering a hand. I took it, and before I knew it, I was leaning on him, the world swirling around me threateningly.

“Woah there, you’re going to need to munch on this or else you’re going to pass out. Can’t have that.”

I was offered a couple squares of an odd cracker snack thing, and I frowned a little. “What? What’s this?”

“Ambrosia. You know, food of the gods? Doesn’t work on mortals, but it definitely helps heal us.”

I took them and regarded him for a second, unsure. “Us.” With that, I popped the squares into my mouth and immediately felt a rush, as if a pressure had been released from my head. My thinking was sharper already, and my headache lessened to a throb. And the taste… wow, it tasted just like the baklava my Aunt’s made on special occasions. Just sweetness and… this was crazy.

“Why does it taste like-”

“Your favourite food?” the boy offered. “It just kinda does. Never really questioned it. Now, if you’re feeling good enough, you can stop leaning on me. There might be more monsters coming soon, and I can’t fight them with a demigod falling asleep on me. Not when you can be useful too.”

“W-wait,” I said. “What? What the hay is going on? I mean, who were those people? Why’d you murder the- the lady? Why do you have sword?”

He furrowed his brows for a moment before shrugging. “I guess you have a lot of questions, but I’ll have to answer them later. Do you hear that?”

I cocked my head to the side, not quite sure what he was talking about.

“Rumbles. Foot stomps. Something a little big is coming. We need to get you moving and to Camp Half-Blood, it’s the safest place for people like us. Don’t worry, just follow my lead.” As he darted away, I struggled to catch up, a million questions rushing through my mind. I picked the easiest off the top of my head.

“Wait!” I yelled again. “What’s your name!?”

He stopped jogging enough for me to catch up before he grinned widely. “Right. Of course.” He promptly thrust a hand out for me to shake, and I grabbed it. His hand was equal measures rigid and gentle and I could feel a few callouses, Other than that, all I could see was his bright smile and mischievous eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I was probably blushing, and he shook my hand.

“Hi, I’m Percy Jackson.”

Author's Note

Let the trolling and Percabeth begin.