The Ocean Never Ends

And neither will we.

Chapter 1

Nico is actually pretty good at shadow travelling now.

If you don't count the accidental trips to China or when he landed in the shadow of a sleeping elephant or the time he ended up in the middle of a hooded cult that immediately tried to sacrifice him or – anyway.

Not the point.

That was a long time ago, when he was just starting out and getting used to his powers and definitely not trying to fight off a bunch of weirdoes with ancient magical rocks of power while sorta tipsy and carrying a sleepy and also a little drunk Penelope Jackson.

It would definitely be a different story if they were both awake and sober, but as it is, Nico is pretty hard-pressed to fend off the delusional fanatics while keeping Penny out of trouble.

Not cool, guys.

His zombie army is being taken out easily by a bunch of glowing rocks – seriously, what in Hades- so Nico decides its time for him to leave.

Fortunately, there's a very convenient shadow to his right.

Much less fortunately, he manages to accidentally stomp on a sparkly blue stone and crush it beneath his heel as he begins to shadow travel.

That, he decides later, was definitely the one mistake to rule them all.

Then the shadow-travel decides to screw up, and it really feels like he's riding a charging chimera into a battle filled with knives and other pointy projectiles, which is an interesting experience but definitely not one he wants to repeat cause he's feeling kinda sick and-

He throws up, and promptly manages to somehow drop Penny in the middle of inky shadowy darkness.

Aw crap, he thinks as light finally reappears and he's dumped somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Where's Penny?

He spits out a mouthful of seawater and blinks blearily at the sun.

Poseidon is gonna kill me.

-x- -x- -x-

The last thing Penny remembers seeing was a bunch of crazy people waving rocks around and converging on her and Nico, before she decides what the heck, her head hurts and Nico can take care of these guys no problem and promptly buries her head in his shoulder and takes a nap.

The next thing she knows, she is being dumped in the ocean, which does wonders to wake her up and fix her head but very little for her mood.

Damnit, Nico.

She's all set to give him a good dunking when she realizes something very important.

Nico is missing.

She's alone, and he's dumped her in the middle of the sodding ocean- one of the best places she could have been dumped, but still. When she gets her hands on him, he's going from ghost king to ghost.

Because he is so dead.

Penny is just about to will the currents to take her back home, before she freezes in place.

The water still listens, still bends to her will. But it is far wilder than any ocean she knows, harsher and more dangerous.

Water is her territory, Earth's oceans her playground.

This is not an ocean she knows.

This is not her world.

-x- -x- -x-

Nico gives up on calling for Penny after a while. He can't see or hear her, and in any case, there is nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see. That's Penny's territory, and she would have a far better chance of finding him.

"This sucks," he grumps, floating on his back like a starfish. He'd try and shadow-travel himself out of there, but there aren't any useable shadows near him and he has to save his energy to travel both him and Penny home.

That one trip away from those maniacs drained him far worse than expected.

He floats around a while longer before his stomach lets out an embarrassingly loud growl, and he jerks his head up to glare at it. "Seriously?"

One hand jabs irritably at his stomach as the other roots around in his pockets, before emerging with a squashed energy bar, half of which is promptly devoured. After a moment's consideration, he shoves the other half in his mouth as well – no use putting it back in his pocket to get soggy and gross.

The sun beats down with an intensity that is both comforting and annoying, and Nico floats and drifts as the heat slowly lulls him to a state of semi-consciousness.

He tries shadow-travelling again, but he's far too drained and with nothing but the sun and sea for miles around, shadows are in short supply.

I've survived Kronos, Tartarus and so much shit just to drown because I got lost in an ocean. This freaking sucks, he thinks, and shuts his eyes. Father is never going to let me live this down.

"Hey, look! A dead person!" A voice draws his attention like Grover to Enchiladas, but before he can react, something wraps around his arm and sends him flying into the air.

Oh shit, he barely has time to think before landing face first on solid wood. "Oww," he groans, before freezing in place. A ship! I'm saved!

"Oh, wait. He's not dead – Ow, Nami, why'd you hit me?" The same cheerful voice was back, switching rapidly from nonchalant to indignant.

"Luffy, you idiot! Don't drag dead people onto our ship!" Shrill, young, female.

"But he's alive!"

"You didn't know that! Anyway, stop dragging random strangers on board! We're pirates, not a charity cruise!"

A pirate ship. Nico just can't catch a damn break, can he?

Well, no use putting things off. They don't really seem like the bad sort.

"Hi," he says finally. "I'm Nico. Thanks for the save." Then, when a more pressing concern makes itself known, "Do you have any food?"

-x- -x- -x-

If she closes her eyes, Penny can feel everything in the water for miles around, from islands to boats to fish and weird giant sea creatures.

No Nico, though.

It might be a good thing for him, to not be stuck in a different world, but that would also ruin almost any chance she has of getting home as well.

Oh well, it's not like she had much to lose anyway. Better not to think about it.

If Nico is really in this world too, she'll find him. Or he'll find her, which is actually more likely.

In the meantime, she starts swimming.

Less than an hour later, Penny has resorted to solidifying a wave and sitting on it like a boat as it speeds across the ocean. As long as she's touching the water, her strength doesn't wane, and it's a far more comfortable ride than it would have been otherwise.

She's just over halfway to the next island when a storm hits. It's not a huge problem for her, since the storm isn't even that big, and she can barely feel it once she drops into the ocean.

That tiny yellow boat about twenty feet to her right however, might be having a little trouble. Especially since the one person manning it just fell into the ocean.

I'm a good person, Penny reminds herself as she dives for him. And she is, just a little tired and cynical and sad.

When she heaves the man back onto his tiny boat, he isn't moving.

"Oh, shit. Wake up, dude!" She's not first-aid trained and barely knows how to keep herself alive. Still, she tries fruitlessly to pump his chest and is actually considering attempting CPR when the man lets out a loud snore.

A wave of relief washes over her, before it is replaced by pure, unfiltered, annoyance.

He falls overboard and makes her save his half-naked ass and worry about him because he's asleep?

Seriously, the nerve of some people.

He hasn't even woken up after a storm, falling into the ocean and her feeble attempts at resuscitation. If he goes overboard again, he might really drown.

So she stays on the boat and protects it from the storm, keeping it on course to the nearest island. Because really, she's pretty hungry and this guy has no food anywhere on his dinky little banana boat.

She'll make him buy her lunch as payment for this.

-x- -x- -x-

Ace is really surprised when he wakes up to a pretty girl, which is pretty unexpected by itself, but made even more so by the fact that he was on Striker in the middle of the ocean when he fell asleep.

It's even worse somehow, because she's talking to a massive Sea King, which is pulling them along and nodding it's massive squid-head at intervals- like it's actually listening.

What the hell, is his first thought.

Lunch, is his second.

"Hello, what are you doing on my boat?" Is what he says instead, hands preparing to burst into flame if she tries to attack him.

"You were going to drown if I didn't save you," is her blunt answer, and Ace winces.

"Thank you," he bows his head briefly, "but where did you come from?"

"From the sea," she replies with all seriousness, and Ace feels like slamming his head against something hard. He doesn't, of course, because the only available surface is Striker, and if he breaks it, it's pretty much the end of him.

He checks the log pose on his wrist instead of talking to the weird girl, and surprisingly, they've been heading in the right direction.

"You should thank Patricia too," she says again. "She's the one who's been pulling us along, haven't you, girl?" The sea king lets out a trumpeting squeal and waves a massive tentacle.

Dear God, she's gone and named the bloody thing.

-x- -x- -x-

Nico shovels bread into his mouth as the pirates stare at him, but he's a little more preoccupied staring at that one kid who just shoved an entire fish into his mouth, bones and all.

Before regurgitating a perfect fish skeleton.

No one else looks shocked.

What in Hades-

"Thanks for the food. Hey, where am I?" He asks, gulping down the water they'd offered him.

"We're pirates!" The kid in the straw hat cheers, punching his fist in the air. "This is our ship, Merry. I'm going to be the Pirate King!"

Nico's never heard of that title before. "Cool," he offers, and that seems to satisfy him.

"You idiot!" The orange-haired girl whacks him on the head with a rolled up newspaper before turning to Nico. "I'm Nami, the navigator, and this guy is Luffy, the captain of this ship. That one with the swords is Zoro, and Usopp's the one with the long nose."

Good to know, but still not really answering his question.

"I'm Nico," he says again for good measure. "Er, where exactly are we?"

"We're still in the East Blue, don't worry. We passed the Gecko Islands two days ago, but we're on route to the Baratie."

East Blue? Gecko Islands? Baratie?

"Where's the East Blue, exactly?" Damnit, if he's somewhere in Australia again, he'd be better off heading straight to Camp Half-Blood and finding Penny there.

"Are you an idiot?" Luffy asks bluntly, finger shoved up his nostril, and Nico resists the urge to clobber his savior.

Nami rolls her eyes but spreads out a map, jabbing at one particular spot.

The map is surprisingly blue, and looks completely different from what Nico is used to. He eyes them suspiciously. "Are you sure you're not the idiots?"

That earns him his own whack on the head. Hades, this girl's worse than Annabeth.

-x- -x- -x-

"So, where are you headed?" Ace asks, though what he really wants to know is, when are you going to get off my boat?

"I'm not sure," is the blithe reply, and Ace really feels like smacking his head. "I'm looking for someone actually. I don't suppose you've seen him around? He's about fifteen, black hair, eyes and clothes, sorta grumpy? Answers to the name 'Nico'."

She slumps when he replies with a negative, and Ace feels sort of maybe a little sorry for her. He knows what it's like to worry about a troublesome little brother.

They sit in awkward silence as Patricia leaves with a final squawk and shove towards the island. The girl waves and calls out a goodbye, but otherwise stays seated as Ace ropes Striker to the jetty and climbs out.

"Hey, are you gonna sit in there all day?" He asks, annoyed. He's hunting for someone too and doesn't have time to baby some girl, even if she did jump out of the sea with a giant pet squid and save him. "If you're looking for your brother, this is as good a place as any to start."

-x- -x- -x-

The Straw-Hat Pirates, as they call themselves, turn out to be the good sort and agree to let him stay on their ship for a while instead of locking him up or throwing him back in the sea. In the next few hours, Nico manages to figure out a few things.

There are other people on the boat, two goofs called Johnny and Yosaku, who are not part of the crew but supposedly the best bounty hunting pair in this sea. Nico doesn't say it, but they seem pretty deluded to him.

"Captain" Usopp, Scourge of the Seas, is a compulsive liar, but deadly accurate with his slingshot. He's a pretty good storyteller too, even if less than a fifth of his stories are true.

Zoro has monstrous brute strength- seriously, he uses the anchor as a weight – and fights with three swords. At the same time, somehow. Nico would really like to go up against him one day, or watch Penny take him on. That would be cool. Maybe he'll mention it when he finds her.

Nami is money-hungry and probably the only one on their ship with any common sense. She and Annabeth would probably get along like a house on fire, but Nico hasn't decided whether that would be a good thing or not.

Luffy is perpetually hungry, weird as hell, and an idiot to boot.

"No, I'm not going to be a pirate and I'm not joining your crew," Nico grumps as he goes off to hide in a closet or something. Zoro and Nami throw him pitying looks and snickers, but Nico isn't really in the mood for that, because something is terribly wrong with his shadow travelling powers.

He had tried a few minutes ago on deck, aiming for camp half-blood and stepping into the shadow of the mast. He'd melted into familiar darkness for a second, before being thrown out abruptly. Trying again had gotten the same result.

"Hey, that was so cool! Shadow-guy, join my crew!"

He ends up locking himself in the pantry.

None of the usual ghosts are answering him, no matter how much bread and cheese he rips up and shoves in the bucket he is using. No Greeks, no Americans, no Demigods or anyone vaguely familiar.

What he does get is a couple of pirate ghosts whose ship sank in the spot they are sailing over now, and he manages to wring them for information before sending them off.

The four blues. Grand line. Red lines, calm belts, marines. Devil fruits?

A whole new world, and he's lost Penny somewhere out there.

"I hate my life," he sums as he opens the door and gazes out onto the deck, where there is shouting, screaming, and a giant balloon Luffy bouncing a cannonball towards a massive ship shaped like a fish.

Then he turns around and walks back to the pantry, shutting the door firmly behind him.

-x- -x- -x-

For lack of a better idea, Penny follows her boat buddy all the way to the market square.

It's a little like an old-timey sea port, with cobblestone paths and fishermen pulling in their catch of the day, but a few stark differences serve to remind her that it's a different world.

Some of the ships at the dock fly their jolly rogers, and pirates swarm the marketplace, some loud and jocular while others are sullen and have greedy eyes.

Still others are showing off interesting abilities, like that one guy growing and shortening his foot-long fingernails, or that other lady with the elephant ears.

Absorbed as she is in taking in all the rights, Penny doesn't forget to keep in pace with her target as he makes his way towards a bar.

His silly orange hat stops moving, and she stops a few feet away. "Are you still following me?" He asks, sounding a little annoyed. He doesn't wait for her to answer but steamrolls on. "Come on then, I'll buy you lunch as thanks."

Penny follows silently in his wake as other people take one look at the giant purple tattoo on his back and practically leap out of the way, and doesn't say anything until they're both seated at the bar counter.

"Hi, I'm Penny." How rude of her to forget to introduce herself. Mum would be rolling in her grave if she knew.

"I'm Ace. Where are you headed?"

Cool name. "Actually, I'm lost. How do I find a missing person around here?"

Ace tilts his head. "Actually, I'm trying to find someone myself. I'm not sure where exactly he is though, so I'm going off rumors mostly, but he's definitely on this half of the grand line and not that far from here." He stops talking to start in on an alarming amount of food, which disappears at an astonishing rate. Penny stops to stare.

Nico can't possibly have done anything to start rumors in the couple of hours they've been apart, so Penny dismisses that suggestion for the moment.

Maybe it will work next week or something.

"How about the…marines?" She asks, having heard them mentioned in town and even seen a few in their uniforms. They seem to be the people in charge, this world's police force or protectors or whatever. "And what's the grand line?"

This makes Ace pause, drumstick hanging out of his mouth comically. "Marines? Well, I suppose you could go to them, maybe, but they probably won't be much help if you're a pirate too. Wait, you've never heard of the grand line? Have you been living under a rock or something?"

Ace is a pirate? "Yeah, that sounds about right. Tell me about this world, please?"

It turns out to be a very fruitful conversation.

-x- -x- -x-

It's worse than he thought. The girl- Penny- knows nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

It's impressive, in a rather horrifying way.

"How can you not know any of this?" He demands, shoveling stew in his mouth as she eats her own food rather less hurriedly. She shrugs, but doesn't seem inclined to answer, so Ace lets it go.

He's sorry for her, but not sorry enough to drag a civilian girl around the world with him.

At least, that's until a squad of marines bursts through the doorway and starts yelling and waving their weapons around.

"Fire Fist Ace!" The leader yells, brandishing his sword, "You and your associate are both under arrest!"

His cronies burst into cheers and chants of "Captain Boris is the strongest!" as Ace and Penny exchange incredulous glances before bursting into laughter.

"You're my associate now," he sniggers childishly, spooning mashed potatoes into his mouth. "Better start running. I'm a famous pirate, you know."

She throws a fork at him.

-x- -x- -x-

Penny makes her escape by following Ace out the window, a horde of screaming marines chasing after them.

Their run doesn't last long, because that loser captain is apparently smarter than he looks, and sent half his squad chasing after them while he retreated to the docks to wait.

"Hey, I don't have anywhere else to go, so can I follow you?" She asks, reaching into her pocket.

"Sure, whatever," is the distracted reply, and Penny allows herself a grim smile as Riptide shimmers into existence in her hand.

A massive fireball blasts most of the marines into the sea as their captain launches himself at her, clearly deeming her the lesser threat.

Penny ducks his sword, and a quick test shows her Riptide doesn't work here, so she slams its hilt into the back of his head and scoops up his sword instead, capping Riptide and shoving it back into her pocket.

Her new sword is balanced and of acceptable quality, but not as good as she is used to using. Oh well, it'll make do, she thinks, as she fights her way through the remaining marines and towards Ace's yellow boat.

He's already there and waiting impatiently, mooring rope burnt neatly off by the time she jumps on.

"Not bad for a Rookie," he smirks, one foot turning into freaking fire, "but you might want to hold onto something."

She wraps herself around the mast just in time for the boat to blast off, skimming over the surface of the sea. In less than a minute, the island is out of sight.

Don't do anything dumb, Nico, she thinks as she slumps down into her seat. I'll find you soon.

-x- -x- -x-

Author's note:

Sorry, I just had to do this. It's been eating away at my brain for a while, so I had to get it out in order to concentrate on other stuff.

If any of you read my other fic Ascension (new chapter coming soon, I swear) you'll probably know I'm not really the best updater. Once a month was like, my limit, and that was with only one fic to work on, so I have no idea how frequent updates will be, but I'll try.

I actually intended this to be a one-shot, but then it got too big so I had to split it up sigh.

Yes, I'm aware that my characterization isn't really the best, but bear with me please. I gotta admit that I've only read the PJO series and not the whole Heroes of Olympus part, and it was really really long ago so I'm super rusty with that fandom. Penny needs some work especially, since she's a little different here, besides the whole she's-a-girl thing.

I'm more familiar with One Piece, though all my knowledge post fishman-island arc is pretty much from all the fics I read, since those were the last chapters out when I started reading OP and I have very bad manga-following habits. (They're basically non-existent, hint)

So yup. Any comments or suggestions, please feel free to leave a message or something!

Thanks for reading!