Chapter 1

First Impressions

(Third Person POV)

The boy was far from his home. He hugged his biker jacket tight to him as he forged on through the bitter rain. His golden eyes were like flashlights to all those who could see them. People were scared of him, despite him being but a mere child. Even his mother who loved him dearly but was scared and it was all because of who his father was.

His father had materialized in the world for just long enough to rape his mother and create a demigod child for himself that would hopefully come to help him rise to power. Young Perseus could not despise Kronos more for it. The golden eyes of his heritage brought him nothing but hatred and cruel people calling him the spawn of the devil.

Percy was scared.

Scared of people; scared of monsters; scared of life in general.

The Titans are often mistakenly though of as a different race to the gods but in truth they were just gods that reigned before the Olympians. Percy was a child of the eldest gods which had to be a child of any of the elder Titans or the Big Three. The gods had never anticipated the creation of a Titan demigod because the Titans despised humans but now they knew that there was one, Zeus was out for his blood. Few Olympians actually opposed Zeus's decision to hunt Perseus down: Poseidon, Ares, Apollo and Hermes.

Poseidon was like a second father to the boy. Perseus's step-father, Gabe Ugliano, was an abusive jerk — the very thing Percy ran from. They would go to Montauk beach every weekend and Poseidon would meet them there. At one point in time Sally had been dating Poseidon but they broke it off when she was raped and were now on just friends basis as she wanted Percy to be as safe as possible.

As far as the boy knew, his mother was dead. He hadn't been back to New York in a while now. He ran away when Gabe smashed a vase over Sally's head. The first thing he did was run to find a cop. The cop he asked didn't believe him and instead chased him out of the city.

He walked though Charleston on New Year's Eve; hearing the joyful cries of happy families; wishing that he were in one them. Today may be the day before the New Year, but to him, it was the first anniversary of the day he ran from home.

Lost in thoughts, he didn't even realize that he was now wandering through open fields outside of Charleston until he reached a creepy looking cave. He reached into his pocket and drew Ανακλυσμος and walked in. The soft glow of his blade lit the cave up slightly. He tensed slightly when he saw the bones of a dragon lying on the ground but relaxed a bit after realizing it was dead and not some weird undead shit.

(Thalia's POV)

I saw a faint glowing sword enter the cave which I was hiding out in. I had stopped here for rest after Zeus's goat, Amaltheia, had led me here. The person approached the dragon bones and I stood up and approached him cautiously. As I neared, the boy whirled around and pressed his sword at my throat and questioned, "Who are you?"

I squealed indignantly and took note of the glowing gold eyes he possessed, "Don't kill me!"

He repeated his question again but with a clearer and more threatening edge to his voice, "Who are you?"

I took a breath and relented, "I am Thalia, daughter of Zeus. What about you?"

The boy did not acknowledge my question and demanded, "Did Zeus send you here to kill me?"

Feeling skittish and frightened, I took a deep breath. Why would my father want him dead? Is he a criminal? "Why would I kill you?"

"Just answer me! Did my brother send you here to kill me?" He demanded and pressed the blade more firmly against my throat, causing me to yelp.

"No! No one sent me to kill you! I swear it on the River Styx!" I yelled in desperation as thunder rumbled across the sky. The boy eyed me warily but lowered the sword.

"Good, then I shall now answer your question. I am Perseus Jackson, son of Kronos. Can you now guess why your father wants me dead? Right now I swear on the Styx that I hold no loyalty towards the enemies of the Olympians."

I stiffened noticeably and couldn't help but not trust him. Slowly I backed away from him until my back was against the cold wall of the cave. My hands shook from both fear and cold. His shoulders sagged when he saw that I didn't trust him and he just sat against the opposite wall. Then I decided to get to know him a bit better as I hadn't actually talked to another human being in a while, "Tell me a bit about yourself."

The boy looked up with his glowing golden eyes that I must say were rather beautiful and sighed, "I'm twelve. I come from New York and I'm a runaway. You?"

"I'm twelve as well. I come from LA; chased Amaltheia here. I'm also a runaway. Why did you?"

He looked confused, "Why did I what?"

"Run."

He looked out of the cave and sighed again. It seems that he does that a lot; sighing. Running a hand through his hair, he replied, "Abusive stepfather. He killed my mother. I asked a cop for help but he thought I was pulling a prank and chased me out of the city. How about you?"

I gave him a pitying look but replied, "My father abandoned my mother who became an alcoholic. She neglected me but I didn't care… not until…"

I choked up a bit and he saw that it upset me. He stood and walked up to me to sit beside me, draping an arm over my shoulder. I looked into his eyes and he smiled sadly, "It's all right, you don't have to tell me."

Shaking my head I continued; I had to tell someone, "No its fine. She neglected my little brother Jason and he died. Then I ran away. Amaltheia — Zeus's goat — appeared and I followed it to this cave."

The sword which was laid on the floor disappeared and we were plunged into utter darkness. Lightning flashed in the sky outside and seconds later a loud burst of thunder rumbled — so loud it shook the ground. We were silent for a while and even with his comforting arm across my shoulders; I couldn't help but not trust him. I shivered a bit and he seemed to notice as he took off his black leather bikers jacket and draped it over my shoulders. I was only wearing a black death to barbie shirt with and jeans because when I had left LA I wasn't thinking about how I would cope in the future.

Still I complained, "You didn't have to do that."

I looked at him to see him smirking from the light of the lightning, "My mother always taught me to be a gentleman. Zeus must be pissed that you aren't killing me."

That brought a smile to my face, "Why should I care?"

"You shouldn't." He grinned like a madman.

Slowly I felt myself lightening up towards him as he really did seem to be harmless. A smile touched my lips and I leaned into his warm embrace. Percy looked enlightened that I was starting to trust him. Then I asked, "So what do you plan on doing?"

He gained a thoughtful look before shaking his head, "You know, I really don't know. I heard there was some kind of a camp somewhere around the New York but I could never find it. It probably wouldn't be a terribly good idea for me to go there anyway: Zeus would have me killed."

Looking at him, I could see that he looked rather sad. "I'll stand for you if you help me."

His golden eyes brightened and he looked surprised, "You would?"

I nodded but then he deflated, "What's wrong?"

"Zeus wouldn't care; that's what. He seems to forget that he too is a child of Kronos. Brother or not; he will kill me... I might help you get to camp though..." He trailed off with a wistful look in his eyes before he changed the subject, "You can keep the jacket; I was going to get a new one anyway."

Raising an eyebrow I asked, "Really? You don't have to. How can you afford one?"

He smiled and shook his head, "Its fine. Whoever said anything about buying it anyway? I just freeze time around the shop and steal it. That's how I've been surviving so far."

I laughed and pulled my arms through the sleeves, "Ok, thanks. Now my punk look is complete."

The rain outside the cave slowly died down and Percy got up to peek outside the cave. The lightning seemed to have ceased and all I could see were his glowing eyes in the darkness. He then turned back and asked, "When's your birthday?"

"December 22nd. You?"

He nervously scratched the back of his head and chuckled, "I don't really have one. I can change my age so I don't really know what day my birthday is on right now. I was born August 18th though."

"You can change your age? That's freaky." I commented.

"It is." He seemed to squeak and I realized that he had actually made himself younger; perhaps as young as a seven year old. "I can also change other people's ages."

As soon as he said that I felt myself shrinking and I shrieked involuntarily, "What the heck? Turn me back!"

I heard him chuckle and snap his fingers again and I grew back to myself. Taking a deep breath I yelled, "What was that? How can I know my birthday now? I have a prophecy to complete you know!"

In the darkness I could see the golden eyes rolling which looked scary as I could not see the rest of his face, "Don't worry I only turned you back exactly four years. Your birthday is still the same. If you want I could always buy you more time to train for the prophecy with this power."

To be honest I never thought of that, "You can?"

He grinned, "Sure I can. Oh and I matched my age to be exactly the same as yours. Another cool power of mine is the ability to time travel but it's a bit... dangerous. It's much safer if I want to go into the future to use a stasis."

"Stasis?"

"Frozen in time until a specific date. Its less harmful to the person who wants to travel to the future." He explained while I just nodded my head. "I can also speed up or slow down time in specific areas; make it look as if I'm running at a million miles per hour even if I'm only going at an average speed."

He thought for a second before grabbing my arm. It felt like I blacked out for a millisecond but when I blinked I saw it was daytime, "What was that?"

He grinned, "I put us in a time stasis for five hours. It knocked you out so I sped up time around you to shorten your sleep to about two-seconds. You'll feel like you had a whole nights rest even though it was only a couple seconds to me. Pretty awesome huh? Come on let's go."

I was dumbfounded. He was that powerful. "Ok then... Where are we going?"

He pointed to Amaltheia who was already jogging off and my lips formed an 'O'. For the first time I was able to get a good look at Percy. He had messy black hair, lightly sun-kissed skin and beautiful golden eyes. He only wore black jeans and a black Green Day T-Shirt. I grinned at that and said, "You like Green Day?"

Smirking he nodded and I said, "Me too."

We followed Amaltheia until she suddenly froze and turned to look at another boy who was jogging up to us and had blond hair and sky blue eyes came running past us. Then we saw what he was running from; a hellhound. Percy pulled out... a pen... while I pulled my mace canister out and turned it into my spear. When he uncapped the pen, it expanded and turned into a sword.

The hellhound suddenly slowed down from high speed while Percy held his hand out as if he were straining to hold it back. I realized he was slowing the hellhound down in time and took action to leap forward and plunge the spear Athena gave me right through its side and vaporizing the hellhound. Percy gasped out as he was relieved of the effort. I found myself wondering how he could use a time stasis and speed up power without problem but slowing down the hellhound made him tired. But that would wait as we leveled our weapons at the neck of blond boy and demanded at the same time, "Who are you?"

We both shot each other glares but looked back as the boy cleared his throat nervously.

"Luke Castellan; son of Hermes." He spat his father's name angrily.