Imagine (Son of Hades! Percy; Godswapped! Big Three’s kids) The Lost Hero AU (1/7) (6/12)
Okay so before you read this, there’s the whole PJO AU that I’ve wrote on this - check on the masterpost - that is more or less essential to this plot. So enjoy! Have a good reading, and leave reviews and ideas! And don’t forget to check the warnings before reading :))
Jason wakes up on a bus - he doesn’t remember where he is. Why he is here? How is he here? He is not supposed to be here - where is he supposed to be? Who is this girl holding his hand?
Coach Hedge seems familiar - somehow. Something in his posture, in the way he walks a little wobbly, it’s strangely comforting. And he knows that Jason doesn’t belong here - it means he is not going crazy. Maybe. The jury is still out on that one.
He doesn’t know her. He doesn’t know what a “Wilderness School” could possibly be - and who is this messy-haired hyperactive boy cracking jokes? Why is he with them - they’re all seventeen? Sixteen? This boy looks young.
Piper. Leo. He has names now - information. Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. Say not always what you know, but always know what you say.
Jason has no idea where he learned that, but it seems like good advice. He doesn’t stutter - his back contracts with the phantom pain of lashes. He starts to ask - who are they, where are they, where are they going.
They are not helpful at all. Leo thinks he is joking - Piper is too busy defending her heritage, and he can’t really blame her for it - a flash of black skin, dark as night, crosses his mind, but is gone before he can connect it to anyone.
There’s a pen in his pocket, a name carved onto it. It says Undisonus - which he knows means “resounding with waves”.
They are in a Dam. The Hoover Dam. Jason ditches hyper kid, and goes to talk with the Coach - the man is a crackpot fool and Jason kind of thinks he is hopped up on cocaine or smh. He makes no sense - and he explains shit, like who lets this dude supervise children if he can’t be clear.
At least Jason is not going crazy. Or not going crazy alone. There’s something evil in the storm - and the coach is a faun-…satyr-…Half-goat. Well, Jason hopes he is not traveling with his dude after this - the whole bus will smell like a barn.
They are fighting an evil storm. Jason’s pen is not a pen - it’s a sword, made of gold with green stones in its handle. Apparently, the rain doesn’t make him wet, and his sword can absorb energy.
He destroys the monster - Dylan was his name - By singing. He sings - it’s not really singing as much as it’s producing a very deep sound out of his chest - and the monster gets sloppy, erratic. The weaker ones - the venti - explode when the sound waves connect. It’s like he is drawing the sound from the water itself.
Then he saves the girl from falling by using the tides to form something - a tornado? - and catch her. She seems cool. Kinda. Jason feels weird - he doesn’t know her last name. He doesn’t remember his last name.
Some teens come - three of them, in flying horses that he can hear on his mind, like badly connected radios. One of them is a tired blonde girl, who seems to take his presence as a personal offense. The second one is a buff girl who could probably break his neck by flexing her biceps, while the third one is a boy - a boy missing half a leg.
Jason tunes the rude girl out for a second - he is already getting punished for this mess by having to hear her. Apparently, she is after someone that is not Jason. But then, the boy missing half a leg - Alabaster - brings a name up, and Jason startles.
That’s the thing: He doesn’t remember anything - anything but a name. Perseus- no. It sounds wrong. Percy.
“Percy Jackson?” He asks.
Annabeth - or Commander Chase, how he thinks it would be right to call her - the rude blonde - looks like he just solved world hunger. Her voice cracks a little - Percy Jackson. Jason feels weirdly possessive of the name - it’s his memory, his link to whoever he is.
“How do you know him? Do you know where he is?” She is on the verge of either fainting or crying, but Jason can’t blame her - he would be bawling his eyes out too if only something inside of him didn’t fear the sheer idea of sobbing.
Because Jason can’t tell why, or how, or who he is - but he knows that Percy is the key to unlock his memory. But he’s been missing for a month.
He knows things. Jason knows they are demigods, what it means to be one - and Valdez (it sounds wrong to call him Leo in such an official situation) is a son of Vulc-… Hephaestus.
The blonde doesn’t ask a lot of questions: he has been trained to follow orders, he has been hardwired to be a soldier. He stays in military parade rest the whole time until Commander Chase drags him to see an Oracle.
Jason is pretty sure it should’ve been called an augur. But they go anyway - and it’s not the official person he is expecting. It’s a redhead girl painting a face - a black teen, more or less Jason’s age, with a purple and orange flower crown and a closed-off expression.
That’s Perseus Jackson. He learns a lot about the boy in a conversation - Perseus is a son of Hades (Pluto, God of Riches and the Dead, his mind supplies). He is not sixteen/seventeen like Jason apparently is - he is eighteen and a high school graduate. He was - is, because Commander Chase is sure they’re finding him - taking a sabbatical year before going to college - MIT or Stanford, the impossible choice, the Oracle jokes. No one calls him Percy - except for a select few close friends.
Something about this is wrong, just wrong. Augurs - Oracles, whatever - are not supposed to be girls in ripped jeans. They are not supposed to be planning to go to Parsons in the next summer - Aug- Oracles shouldn’t even have close relationships to soldiers!
Something must show in his face - because the Cherokee girl, who followed them for a tour of the place, tries to grab his hand. He doesn’t let her - Jason knows he shouldn’t show affection in front of officers.
Commander Chase asks questions he can’t answer. He doesn’t know where Perseus had gone for a week without communication six months ago, nor why he came back with no memories of it. He doesn’t remember meeting him. He doesn’t know if he was in Kronos’ side - even if a pit of rage opens in his gut at Saturn’s - Kronos - name.
Perseus starts to sound wrong in his mind - Perseus is their leader, and it’s clear in the way Commander Chase talks about him that she is his second in command - so he starts calling them General Jackson and Lieutenant Chase in his mind. He doesn’t voice this - because even McLean is being called by her first name, and Jason follows as well.
Jason has a tattoo of a trident with bars - no, not a tattoo, a brand. So they split ways - Jason goes see (Senator? Consul? Magister? Consiliario?) Chiron, and McLean stays to be weaponized - It’s bad management, Jason thinks, to give a soldier weapons before they know how to use them. But Jason is also just a foot soldier here - he has no opinion and no voice.
Piper is not having a good day - she is not having a good week. Her boyfriend, apparently, is not her boyfriend. Her mother, a goddess. She keeps having dreams - and the Queen of Gods just gave her a mission. To save her - or the whole world ends.
And Annabeth - the beautiful girl with the missing boyfriend (who Piper is not sure is hers or Rachel’s, but she is pretty sure all priestesses must be virgins or something) - just rolls her eyes.
This happens all the time - the gods mess things up, and they clean it up. It’ll have to wait until they have more information - and until there’s an official quest.
They give her a weapon too - she has no idea how to use it, but it’s a beautiful dagger. It even has a name, Katoptris. She feels like Arya Stark in that new show that aired in April - a true wolf.
Leo is also having a very weird experience - he has half-siblings. After all those years in the streets or being shoved in and out of foster homes, he has a family - and they think he is the second coming of Jesus or the Antichrist - no one is really sure yet.
Leo is a fire manipulator. Some of the younger kids there look at him with fear - but most of the older ones talk about Perseus Jackson (and isn’t that a very popular person, jeez), and how he saved all of their collective asses with his own fire.
Leo gets curious - it’s the boy Jason has never mentioned before, but is the only thing he remembers, his brother?
Jake Mason - their incapacitated leader - says that unofficially, yes. The dead counselor - the one that brought the curse - was Perseus’s father figure, before he died in the war. But Perseus wasn’t - isn’t, they avoid using the past tense - a Hephaestus kid. He was the one and only son of Hades.
The thing is, Leo doesn’t have a filter. So the first thing he blurts out is “Well, at least they did the fire right in the Hercules movie”. Nyssa - and the idea he has a sister is equal parts amazing and terrifying - looks at him like he is crazy, but laughs anyway.
Jason has a vision of a goddess - he doesn’t know her. She calls him her champion - but it sounds wrong - and she doesn’t tell her anything, because why would her, really. Then, McLean enters, and, apparently, the Oracle was possessed (how is this any news, isn’t the Oracle supposed to be possessed?).
This is all connected by the fact that Jupiter - Zeus - has closed off all mortal communications. Well, mostly - Magister Chiron says that it’s possible the King still has some contact with his only mortal son, Nico di Angelo.
And isn’t it just marvelous that the name makes something stir on him like everything else? Even so, Jason doesn’t say anything - Magister Chiron is an officer. Di Angelo is clearly also an officer - and one who answers directly to Jup- Zeus.
Di Angelo appears - looking like a beggar in need of a shower and a haircut - and isn’t this a blessing. Jason wants to interrogate him - but the moody teenager has important news - Hera is missing. And she is probably the goddess sending them the messages.
They go see a boy named Clovis, in the Hypnos Cabin - and that makes something stir in Jason - he feels happy. They’re so relaxed - and while he has no memories, this feeling of comfort is foreign in his body.
Clovis - who Jason is half-sure is a zombie in human skin - tells him what he already knew - someone took his memories. News: It was Hera. Or Juno - because Jason didn’t fall out of the railway yet and the gods have split personalities.
They go to sleep - all three of them because this has been a long day and none of them are in shape for the bonfire later.
Piper dreams of her father, and a fiery giant that tells her to go to a quest - and she is so, so tired of these all-powerful beings telling her to do something and not explaining anything. When she wakes up, she tells Rachel exactly that, and the redhead laughs.
“You and Percy, you’ll be best friends. I don’t even need to be an Oracle to tell you that” And then proceeds to tell Piper all about Perseus Jackson roasting the gods for being awful parents.
She thinks she might like him - Piper has never seen a black hero before. There’s not much prejudice against color or gender or sexual orientation here - its harshly punished, and the person has to undergo classes about equality and prejudice. When Rachel spins her tale, it’s clear Perseus was in love with Luke - and it’s obviously unrequited but no less important for the decision that saved their civilization.
Leo is in a much similar situation - he dreams about his Aunt Rosa, and wakes up in a panic - he hated the woman. It’s Nyssa - the acting counselor - who calms him down - she tells him all the newbies are like that, and once, it was Perseus who hold her.
It’s weird how the hero seems like this larger than life person - everyone talks about him, all the time. He was their hero, an invincible wall of muscles and shadows with a giant ax, but most of the people his age see him as a big brother, a soft protective guy with big blue sweaters and horrible morning breath.
Leo goes spend time with Jake - but Jake is occupied. Being half a mummy and preparing to lose one foot because of nerve damage doesn’t make him incapable of snogging his nurse, a very willing Will.
Jason is also on the Perseus Jackson boat - but he is in much deeper. He dreams about the hero.
He wasn’t doing anything heroic though - it was just him, not even eleven yet, alone in a playground. He is sitting in the grass and there’s a book in his lap, and some bigger kids are calling him names - charcoal lump, nigger, ape, monkey, negro - it just goes on.
Jason is a white person. A very Californian tanned one, but a white, blonde person nonetheless. He doesn’t remember anything, and he has had no real contact with racism - that he remembers - even though he knows what it means.
But he is pretty sure people of color shouldn’t be racist. Shouldn’t they support each other? Why is there an Asian and a clearly Hindi (maybe Muslim, Jason is no good with this) person attacking him for his skin?
The memory changes now. Perseus is in his early teens, and he is at camp - well, at least this should be better. It’s not.
Perseus is walking alone - this time, there’s no one mocking him. It’s worse. People look at him with a mix of fear and disgust - even people who have been singing his praises since Jason entered this camp. Even Chase steers clear of him.
The pavilion is different, Jason thinks. There are fewer tables, and the Hermes one is full - is where Perseus sits. People enter after him, and, although there’s plenty of space around him, the only people who sit with him are three boys: one dark-haired in his later teens, a young blonde adult with an ugly scar, and Alabaster, with his full two legs and at least five years younger.
Jason feels some kinship for Perseus - the feeling of being ostracized is not unfamiliar. He tries to push after it - but he just wakes up.
When he wakes up, the first thing he does is chase Lt. Chase down (ha) and ask her about his dreams.
He doesn’t tell her the first vision - she wasn’t there, is not his to tell - but the second in great detail. She asks for a description of the two boys - and suddenly, she is both sad and happy.
“It happened to him,” She says, and there’s a tear rolling through her cheek that makes him think that this is Annabeth “Those guys… These are Luke Castellan and Ethan Nakamura… You’re… You’re getting visions of Percy. This… This is good. We can work with that.”
Then she leaves muttering to herself, so Jason goes to track down the person who can tell him more: Alabaster.
Jason tells his dream again - and Alabaster gets a sad and wistful face. There are blue sparks playing in his fingers, and his mechanic prosthetic - a bold shade of red with a whip painted across the knee, the mark of Nemesis - whirs a little.
Alabaster doesn’t paint Perseus as a hero or a beloved leader - he paints Perseus as a scared, relatable kid, twelve years old with the weight of the world in his shoulders.
He tells Jason how Perseus never had his own bunk - how most of them slept on the floor. How there were no cabins for minor gods and Cabin 11 brimmed with unclaimed children. How Perseus raged against the gods - but couldn’t leave his friends to the mercy of Kronos.
How Perseus was never a hero just because he fought in the war - but because he fought for them, all of them, no matter which side they were in. They were just kids - the real battle was with the immortal beings.
Jason learns this, and something shines in his eyes. Lou Ellen snorts from her top bunk from where she is half-watching the scene - it’s the same shine Nico Di Angelo got after Grover told him about Percy Jackson and that never left his eyes. At least this one is older.
The three newbies go to the bonfire - and they trade stories in the way. All of their stories involve Perseus - it’s like he is the entity of this camp. He is this camp - there’s no other explanation.
Jason starts talking about his dream - and Piper and Leo, who “remember” the blonde’s crush on Piper, look at each other with resignation. Their memories may be fake - but this is very much the insufferable Jay they know.
Piper thinks she should be much more worried about her relationship with Jason, but she is cool - first, she apparently doesn’t even know him, though she would like to, cause he is cool. Second, he is just a boy. The real life version of Aquaman - but a boy nonetheless. And she has bigger problems - like, for example, who is her mother?
They go to the bonfire - Jason creates a hurricane, and he’s proved to be a son of Poseidon - he has a sister apparently, the Lieutenant of the Hunt.
Katie - a girl with the most amazing dreads Piper has ever seen in this life and a staff, which is not as cool as Piper’s dagger, but just as lethal - tells her all about the huntresses.
Piper thinks that if there’s a thing that she would give up boys forever for, it’s an immortal hunt with a goddess. She asks Katie if the hunt accepts trans girls - perhaps after this whole business with Hera, she can join.
Maybe there, she will finally be accepted as a tomboy. Maybe there, she won’t have to fend off questions of why does she “wants to be” a girl if she likes her messy hair and doesn’t care about “girly” things. If cis girls are allowed to like skating and use baggy clothes and have short hair - why isn’t she?
But she is kind of against the whole misandry thing. Sure, she can stop being with a man in romantic or sexual ways, but to not have male friends because “man is evil” is clear prejudice - doesn’t matter where it comes from.
Rachel issues a prophecy - Leo volunteers (under the condition he must find a water-based way of transportation), and Piper thinks that’s her chance, she is been having those weird dreams for a while now. But- as a girl she hasn’t met, named Drew Tanaka - points out, she is not claimed.
Well - that changes pretty quickly. The dress isn’t her style - not at all - nor is the make-up. But at least her mother recognizes her gender - it’s Aphrodite, what could she expect? At least there are no feathers in her hair or animal skin clothing - the stereotype is just ridiculous.
At least now her magic voice has an explanation and she can throw it in Leo’s face - see, she was asking!
Piper is given a bunk on Aphrodite’s cabin - which has twenty-one children between the ages of 7 and 25, of all races and genders - and learns quickly that no one there is prejudiced - beauty comes in very different ways.
She makes friends, and discovers that Drew isn’t a counselor - she trash-talked Silena Beauregard once and tried to use her charm speak on a young boy, and everyone ousted her - all Aphrodite children are resistant to charm speak.
Lacy is thirteen, and just a summer camper - she is cis and white and blonde with blue eyes. She also has social anxiety - so she is the only one Drew doesn’t bitches to in public.
Mitchell is the only boy (of her fourteen half-brothers) in this cabin who actually talks to her. He is from Texas, and he’s a shy nerd, with a big crush on both Annabeth Chase and Malcolm Cage - who Piper learns leads the Trans Support Group on camp, which has more or less twenty-five kids, from the now 157 campers.
Piper is surprised - it’s 2011, and gender is still kind of taboo - but she shouldn’t be. They tell her the gods are way freer with both gender and sexuality - Lacy doesn’t have a father, but a mortal mother. There’s a lot of year-rounders who stay because of homophobic parents.
She asks if gods can transition people. They tell her maybe Aphrodite, maybe Eros - but the ones who are over eighteen can ask to go on quests to see the deity Hermaphroditus - they are the only one who magically transitions people, but it’s not without a price - they are a god, after all.
She decides that - prejudiced or not - Drew Tanaka is a bitch of mythic proportions. The girl has weaker charmspeak than Piper - but she uses it way more, and for worse reasons. She is twenty - almost four years older than Piper - and picks on everyone she cans - mostly young children of other cabins, even though she already got punished for it four times - counselors are ridiculously protective of their children.
Piper thinks Drew is such a bitch because of her trauma - the Cherokee girl sees her walking with a cane that looks directly out of a Prada store, and Lacy tells her Drew had to do a total knee replacement after the war, and when it’s way too cold it bothers her. When she tells her theory to Mitchell, the boy laughs for the first time.
“Darlin’” He starts, with the southern drawl that makes people doubt he has no charmspeak “Drew was always a bitch. She was a bitch before she even knew she had charmspeak. She was a bitch when she got to Camp if that fella from Demeter is too be believed.”
The older Aphrodite children just roll their eyes at it - Drew has no real power here.
“Don’t worry, kiddo,” Says the counselor, a non-binary kid that goes by Ariel and has an uncanny similarity to the princess, if not for the undercut and the pixie hair “She does her thing once more, and she is in laundry duty for the rest of the summer. And if she says an A about Silena too you, you come directly to us. No one trash talks Silena Beauregard in this Camp.”
Leo has just done something amazing, he thinks. He fixed the steel dragon - Festus because maybe Jason will feel better with a Latin name - and he can totally make him work on water - like a sea serpent! He always wanted a Gyarados anyway.
It leads to an underground bunk - and isn’t this the coolest camp ever - and Leo attaches motors to it. And a tail that works in water, so the transport is well and done.
Jason goes to explore his cabin - and he finds pictures there, of Thalia Grace’s friends, that she left behind. There’s one with Perseus, two girls in silver jackets with bows, a faun and Thalia herself - in the same Dam they were this morning.
She is his sister. He knows it, just like he knows the curve of his nose and hers are the same, the way both of them have the same curls when they let their hair grow - that’s why both of them have it cut short.
He tells it to Lt. Chase. Not under the Styx vow - he has no need for it. Jason hopes she contacts his sister, and tells her about it - even when she tells him Thalia never told anyone about him. Well, maybe they’re estranged. She might know something about him, anyway.
They leave in Festus, and Jason’s water powers aren’t even needed - Leo has it handled with his magical mechanic beast.
It’s difficult to travel in the cold water - but Jason wills the water away, and it obeys.
Do you know who doesn’t obey? Khione. The boreads go away easily with Piper’s charmspeak - and isn’t it a scary thought that she can will away gods - but Khione is more powerful than her.
And the gods keep complicating their lives. Instead of appeasing Aeolus - no. Let the demigods pay the price for their mistakes. However, Jason is a son of Poseidon - or Neptune, because Boreas exchanges form when they talk.
Their next stop is Chicago - which is really convenient because they can go the whole way by water.
The travel is, however, long, and Piper dreams of the fiery giant again - Enceladus. She hates dreaming about him - he calls her boy, doesn’t care for her pronouns, and is clearly the villain, and Piper knows about dreams.
Her father may not care for their culture - and she is okay with that. However, she loved her grandfather’s stories. And while Piper is Cherokee, she knows about the Navajo dream walkers and the Abenaki legend about the world created by the dream of the Great Spirit.
Dreams have power - in all cultures, in all religions. She is not making a deal with a creature that uses her dreams to communicate.
Jason - Jason Grace - Also dreams. And once again, he dreams of Perseus Jackson.
His first vision - they’re not dreams, dreams mean they’re not true - is of Percy in his middle teens. He is in a familiar pier and it’s winter - as far from the water as he can possibly get. By his side, Luke Castellan - the one Jason knows later becomes Saturn.
They are talking. Well, Castellan is talking, all wide smiles and side-hugs. Perseus laughs at his jokes and blushes every time they get close to each other. There’s not a sliver of Percy’s skin to be seen under his neck - but Jason is pretty sure he is shivering when Luke whispers something in his ear.
It makes Jason weirdly bothered - two men aren’t supposed to act like that towards one another outside of the privacy of their tents or the throes of war. It’s a weakness - same sex’s company is stimulated in battle - to unite the ranks. But soldiers are supposed to do their duty and procreate more soldiers - even if he doesn’t remember who the war is against.
Perseus eventually leaves - melting into the shadows - and with him, Luke’s smile is gone. Alabaster and the dark-haired boy - that Jason knows it’s called Ethan now - come to talk to Luke, who is clearly bothered by something.
Alabaster asks him if he convinced Perseus yet. Luke says he didn’t, but he’ll keep trying - the son of Hades would be a huge asset to Kronos’ army. The blonde’s face is as cold as the waters must be.
The memory changes. Perseus is now maybe sixteen, hopefully, older - Jason doesn’t know - with a giant hellhound by his side, hugging his own knees. He is in front of a river - somewhere dark, the Underworld probably - and he is crying.
This is the first memory where Perseus - Percy, for this memory is too intimate - shows any bare skin. He doesn’t have a shirt on - nor shoes or socks. Jason gets sidetracked by the muscles - totally in a comparative way - but the presence of Alabaster brings him back to reality.
“Luke is going to rebirth,” Percy says, full of sorrow “I saw him in Elysium only once - I’m barely able to get there, I’m no good with spirits, and I couldn’t talk to him. It’s his last rebirth before the Isle of the Blessed. Is it selfish, that I wanted him to wait for me?” Alabaster shakes his head, hugging the younger boy close.
“Did he ever love me, Alabaster? Even as a friend?”
Jason can’t see how it would be any different. Men don’t love men - men share beds and quick escapades into the night. But this - this thing Perseus has for Luke - is different. It’s all encompassing.
“Of course, Percy. He loved you as much as you love him. Just… Just not in the same way.” He doesn’t even hesitate to lie.
Jason wakes up furious for no reason - but he has no time to deal with that now because Festus is caught in a tempest. Without ways of controlling him, they shipwreck in a deserted beach - in Detroit of all places, still a day and a half of Chicago, even with Festus’ speed.
There’s an abandoned warehouse there. Both Jason and Piper are distraught from their dreams - everyone talks it over (kinda, Jason is too angry with his visions and too deep in denial) and they try to calm themselves while letting Leo solve the dragon problem.
Leo is worried about his companions. They can’t sleep without having weird dream visions - Nyssa told him back in camp that was “normal” for demigods, especially those questing, but Jason has been dreaming of a missing person while being a missing person himself, and Piper is having dreams of a monster he is already 80% sure they’ll confront sooner or later.
He must’ve been really sleep deprived and way too into his friends’ stories, because he has a hallucination.
His sleep paralysis demon is clearly not up to news - She thinks Jason and Piper are together, even if Jason is having a hard crush on his literal dream dude and Piper is in love with her dagger - Leo thinks that if she doesn’t get to stab something soon, she’ll be stabbing them while they’re asleep.
And even if they were together - what does it matter for Leo? In his fake memories at least, he has been third-wheeling for a while now. He doesn’t really care - he is fifteen, for gods sake. Leo jokes a lot - but he had like, two crushes on his whole life: Penelope Cruz and Johnny Depp, and both because of the pirate movie they watched in class last semester.
Turns out the Muddy Mary was just stalling him - but he is Leo Badass Valdez, and he totally destroys those cyclops - What name is Ma Gasket anyway, what was Poseidon thinking.
They try to reform, but Jason mixes his relatives - and yes, Leo is holding this over him forever - with water: Monster Kool-Aid.
It gains time for them to get back on Festus and go to Chicago - with the tune up Leo gave on the disk, they’re there in half a day and they don’t even drown in Lake Michigan - even though Jason says he thinks there are sirens there.
Then its explore the sewers time. Festus is too small for them - so they are disgusting alone. Leo feels like a rat.
He and Jason talk - they start talking about their powers, and how Leo is confused about his own fire. If a hero had it, it couldn’t be bad, could it? Jason equals it to his water powers - its the same, but in different sides of the elemental spectrum.
“If I learned anything with the Camp’s fan love for Perseus - and I’m not kidding, Lacy totally has a shrine for him somewhere,” Piper starts “Is that our powers, our parentage - it doesn’t define us.”
“I’m not a manipulative bitch because I can charmspeak… shut it Leo! It was just a car” Leo mimes driving away, and she swats him upside the head.
“Leo is not a demon because of his fire. Maybe a gremlin but-…” It’s his time to try and swat at her, even if she is probably capable of killing him with her pinky after spending the whole two days in Camp with Rachel - her Oracle facade doesn’t fool Leo, he saw that knife strapped to her leg - doing gods knows what.
“And Jason is not a fish, so we’re all fine” They are laughing - and Leo thinks this is way better than those fake memories.
Their encounter with Medea goes a little differently this time. Jason is a son of the sea - his mind is too fickle. He and Leo don’t fight each other - even though the scrawny boy tries really hard and Jason will lord this over him forever.
They battle the Sun Dragons - they’re no match for Jason’s power over water, and he does the weird singing thing - this time to lesser results. Maybe the bigger the monster, the less his powers work.
They escape through the sewers - with one very petrified Coach Hedge and a cage full of air spirits in tow. Jason liquefies the vapor trail in the sky - and they pray together for Zeus not to strike them out of his sky.
Leo finally has prophetic dreams of his own - his father. He is less cool than Leo though he was - but maybe that’s Leo’s internalized ableism talking. Or the fact that the god looks like he hasn’t showered in a week - Leo can identify with that, being a sewer rat himself.
Their prayers don’t work. Zeus - or something up there - shot them out of the sky when Festus is malfunctioning. Jason cushions their fall with a mini-hurricane - because the dude is clearly Ororo Munroe’s frat boy version.
His baby is broken, partially cause someone up there hates him, partially because of where he landed. He prays to his father - and Leo thinks he’s way cooler when he actually answers. With nowhere to go, the three of them go into the house.
Midas didn’t count Jason being capable of controlling water. Soon, nothing is gold anymore - And he loves his sword a lot, but he hopes he doesn’t have to see it for a while because anything gold will burn his retinas again.
Jason dreams of Perseus again. This time, the demigod is with a goddess who has the same exquisite skin color as him - and dreadlocks adorned with bones. They are curving shadows like smoke around their hands - even if Jason can barely focus on their conversation, because the guy he has been having visions about every time he naps is basically in a skirt and nothing more. Is he allowed to appreciate him if he is wearing womanly clothes?
It’s really weird, to be peeving in a boy - in a man - he has (probably) never met and does not remember - but Jason is watching the guy’s life. Private moments that someone (probably Hera/Juno, he bets she is the one who took Perseus too) is showing him - he feels like he knows him.
Perseus and the goddess talk - mostly about Perseus’ school and Rachel. He seems happy - and carefree, even though he is probably over sixteen (if the last memories make any sense), and Luke Castellan is already dead. This is perhaps a little before he disappeared - and Jason rages against the unfairness of the gods’ games.
Jason knows men aren’t supposed to be together - but he saw them at Camp. Same sex people holding hands and kissing in public - wherever Jason comes from, this isn’t talked about. He wishes that he could stay forever at Camp - this alternative reality where they are allowed to live freely. Jason thinks he might’ve asked Perseus for a date - lunch at the beach, perhaps. If he is allowed to stay and they find the son of Hades, he might do exactly that.
They rest in a mountain cave - and discuss Jason’s dreams about Perseus (not in great detail, because Leo is teasing him enough about it) and Piper’s nightmares about the evil fire giant - who Medea told them it’s Enceladus. They have no idea who it is, but Jason is apparently a human encyclopedia of mythology - it’s the bane of Athena.
They’re attacked by Lycaon - who calls Jason “Lupa’s seal cub”. Jason is so tired of not remembering anything because this is probably supposed to be offensive, but it just sounds funny, and now Leo is going to keep calling him seal cub. If they survive, because Jason is way too exhausted.
He meets his sister - with Leo, because he needs a security net, and Piper has hypothermia - he feels guilty, because he did this to her.
And their story sounds like a tragedy. Thalia thought he was dead - and then she ran away, became a crying tree for five years, was saved by Perseus - because clearly, that Camp does not work without him - went on a mission with him to save Chase, almost destroyed the world, lost over half of her quest mates (because apparently, Perseus left the camp for reasons she won’t explain - he doesn’t care, he’ll probably dream about it later), became the Lt. of the Hunt - and was now going stir-crazy because her mistress is locked up in Olympus.
Lieutenant Grace - how his soldier mind reverts her name quickly, sister or not, is really worrying - is happy to see him. They hug - and it feels for the first time, things are going well for Jason. Thalia and Leo even bond a little - over laughing about Jason’s stupid decisions and dream crush on Percy Jackson.
He does have a crush on a guy - at least in the privacy of his mind. It’s just the boy’s stupid muscles and his stupid curls, and the way he was so carefree with that goddess, the way he curled in Alabaster’s arms, the way Luke Castellan never deserved him.
They keep talking - about Perseus, their missions, their lifes - and he feels like this was what he was supposed to find all his life, the missing piece to a long-standing puzzle.
They go to Aeolus castle. Due to their shared conversations, Leo doesn’t make any conclusions - because all of these theories, about exchanging camps, they were talked about in the cave - when Jason first discovers the Wolf House.
They leave the mountain in a hurricane - Jason is really handy with these. At least they know where to go to find Enceladus: Mount Diablo. What a fitting name.
Piper meets her mother - and it’s pleased that, when Aphrodite looks at her, she doesn’t see blonde hair or green eyes - she sees a Cherokee woman, with short-cropped up hair and a lightning tattoo - the mark of a warrior. It’s the woman she wants to be - not a boy she considers now one of her best friends.
Aphrodite tells her where they need to go. She tries to talk about Jason - but Piper says it was a bad idea. She shouldn’t have given her those fake memories - it hurt more that way.
Aphrodite gives Piper a potion - and not only that, but she tells her that, when they meet again - not in a dream, but in life - she shall give Piper what she wants the most.
Her mother tells her some of her children are destined for greatness, and Piper is the Aeneas of this generation. Aeneas founded Rome - and Piper will shape the future of their civilization.
Then she tells Piper about the true enemy: Gaea. Suddenly, she wakes up, and oh Toto, they aren’t in Kansas anymore.
They are in San Francisco - which triggers something in Jason because when they take a taxi, it’s like he can’t stop looking at everything.
There’s a pier - Pier 36 - that Jason looks ready to cry when they pass through it. If not for the fiery giant threatening to kill Piper’s father, she would probably stop the taxi - it’s the first time Jason’s facade breaks.
She thinks he might’ve been indoctrinated, as they do in cults or some religions, to believe that males have to act a certain way. Or fighters have to act a certain way - because he is certainly not misogynist. He looks fearful just to talk about his dreams about Perseus, though - like someone will come and take those from him because he likes them.
There’s no much time for consideration, Leo thinks - soon, Piper saves her dad (who is prettier in real life). Then, they’re fighting against Dirty Bubbles - because Jason is clearly Mermaid Man - if the way he keeps singing and the creatures get rekt by his voice are any signal. Does that mean Leo is Barnacle Boy?
The Earthborn holds no candle to Jason’s power on an island. And Leo is helping a lot too because that’s his best friend’s father and he can totally paralyze mud with fire - is basic Chem.
Poseidon helps them defeat Athena’s Bane - and how is that for irony - with an earthquake followed by a giant wave that - if not for Jason - would’ve killed them all.
Jason dreams on the helicopter - it’s the first one not about Perseus. This one, there’s a woman - her skin is as dark as the soil, but her hair merges with the wheat around her. She is clad in a green dress and holds a basket of strawberries to her chest as she whistles through the plantation.
Then, she sees him - and changes. Her hair goes up - there’s a staff in her right hand, the corn went in exchange for loaves of bread. The woman smiles, and Jason feels like he’s been embraced by warmth.
“My champion” Ceres starts, for he knows her name, with infinite care in her voice “You don’t need to fear Juno’s machinations. She knows nothing of motherly love - she shall never understand it. The winter is difficult - but the Harvest will bring deliverance.”
It’s the first time he is sad to see a deity go. Deliverance - does that mean that Perseus will come back by June? Summer is harvest - even if June is six months away.
Piper doesn’t use the potion on her father - no. It won’t help anything, to forget - she learned that with Jason. The boy has no memories and all kinds of triggers and internalized problems. Tristan McLean is going through shock - and as soon as Piper is done with the whole Hera/Juno and Gaea thing, she is going home and taking care of him.
Leo’s fire can’t see to open Aunt Callid-… Hera’s cage. And isn’t really weird his babysitter was a goddess grooming him for war - even though Aphrodite told Piper Gaea only awakened after Kronos, and they didn’t even know Kronos would rise twelve years ago.
So Hera just groomed him because her mind went “Oh, Hades’ child. May cause the end of the world - Idk how. Might need firebender - time to groom this child”. Was he supposed to be her pawn for the first Titan War? Her way of being recognized - but she hid away her card when she saw the bigger threat on the horizon, to gain what? Prestige? Glory?
Is that why he survived so many years away from Camp, with no random monster attacks? Was he just… just hiding for later use?
Man, he sure understands now why people rose against the gods. They are assholes.
Khione is pretty - but as Leo said, a goddess. So, an asshole. She has this whole elaborate plan to make Jason’s demigods (Romans?) start a war - but her plan is shit. So he fights her because she is an asshole and isn’t even a good villain.
A mysterious horse appears - a very rude horse if Jason’s increasingly appalled face is to be believed. Its (his) name is Arion, and together with Jason, they literally turn the battle tides.
Piper is magical. Literally - Aphrodite’s blessing apparently doesn’t cover only beauty - it makes her a battle queen. She jumps - and the air supports her. She falls - and the earth trembles. Piper moves like a dancer - even though she barely fought before - and her and Jason’s voice make the wolves so confused they start banging their heads in the walls.
Piper sometimes forgets her mother is a daughter of the sea and the sky - because Jason’s tides don’t touch her, and the air seems to help her, to mold her. Aphrodite is not only pretty - Love is always in the last place you expect it. And so is Piper.
Jason fights Porphyrion - and the only thing he can think about is why. Why is he doing this, for a goddess who took his life from him - who took everything he was. Why him? Why not Di Angelo, who is a son of Zeus? Why not anyone else?
They keep fighting and fighting and fighting - and Hera helps, in the end, and claims all the credit - because this apparently isn’t all her fault at all. She almost kills Jason - because is not enough to wipe his mind - but water (and Piper’s reality control power) save him.
They go back to Camp - and nothing changes. They don’t become their Cabin counselors - except for Jason, because he is the only mortal kid of Poseidon.
Lacy suggests it - but the older ones quickly shut it down. Piper might be a hero - but she knows nothing of schedules or child care, she has no idea of how to counsel - She is barely seventeen. She is a sophomore - Piper can’t even be a year-rounder, and there are young children there.
Ariel does say she has potential - worth grooming to succeed be second in command to their second in command - Troy - when Ariel leaves for her master’s degree in Chemistry on Princeton.
And Leo - Leo has no responsibility to take care of others. He is an incredible engineer - and his firebending powers are amazing - but he is also not a counselor. Between the sixteen Hephaestus children, he is the second youngest - he’s beat by nine-year-old Francisca Alves - a Brazilian girl who gave them a whole lot of problems to immigrate because her mother was Hi Merimã (an isolated indigenous tribe north of the country).
Being a counselor is not something harsh - is hard work, taking care of tens of demigods of all ages, taking stock of their basic needs, and making sure they are educated and welcomed - it’s not a job given away freely to fifteen-year-olds.
The cabins with more people generally have older demigods in charge - twenty-year-olds who don’t run into danger unless under dire circumstances, who are year-rounders and take online college courses - an exception of technology rule made by Chiron when they first started getting old enough for it to be possible.
Ceres talks to Jason - she is the one to deliver back his memories, for Juno is otherwise incapacitated. She tells her what it means - the Greeks, the Romans. And that they shall not go looking for Perseus Jackson - for it’ll damage the Romans’ trust if the hero doesn’t win them by himself.
Jason feels bad for Perseus - he won’t find in the Romans the kinship he found in the greeks. The Romans are people of war and discipline - soldiers, and not friends. Everything within Rome, nothing outside Rome, nothing against Rome.
Leo is the Captain of the Argo II - who will go to Greece so they can defeat the giants. The prophecy is clear - Seven shall answer the calling. When Jason comes bearing news of Ceres’ message and his past memories, it’s pretty clear - Seven shall go to the Jupiter Capitol - the head of the Twelve Cities that compose the Roman side of the demigods.
It’s easy to decide who goes. Jason, Leo, and Piper - for obvious reasons. Annabeth and Malcolm - who are diplomatic leaders and have their own mission on Greece. Nico Di Angelo - for they’re traveling by both air and water. Will Solace - for they also need a healer.
Fourteen cabins are build - they don’t know how many Romans are coming with them, but at least Perseus is. Well, probably. He has been through one Great Prophecy - he might just be way too tired of this bullshit.
Jason has his memories back. The Prophecy is in the works. He didn’t count, though, on keep dreaming of Perseus for the next six months it takes for them to make it to Rome.
Oh, how he’s going to be so happy when his counterpart punches Juno in the face.
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