GG, Kronos, But I Have Foresight

Alone in my dorm room as I waited for my Camp Half-Blood escort, without even Nancy Bobofit picking on me, I stared out the window to the busy street below. Pedestrians swarmed the streets like flies around a UV lamp. Traffic rolled by in inches and centimeters at a time. Everyone waiting impatiently in their cars, or having fun exploring the city, or simply walking up to the nearest Starbucks to grab a quick coffee... It was amazing to me how they had no idea of the realm of monsters and gods that ran directly within their own. Ignorance really is bliss, I thought, rubbing my neck where Mrs. Dodds/Alecto had choked me against the bust of Kronos eating his kids earlier that day.

It all just felt so strange to me that I was still only half-convinced it wasn't all just some coma-induced dream. I'd been operating close to normally so far thanks to a mixture of adrenaline, anger, and the excitement of being in one of my favorite worlds. Now, however, five hours after my conversation with Chiron, I'd calmed down, and everything felt different.

Here I'd been tossed into a school in an entirely different, fictional universe - probably as a self-insert - and had met Percy Freaking Jackson. Hell, I'd even broken Nancy Bobofit's nose and killed a Fury! And yet, now I was leaving this school behind me without even a single proper class. I'd only barely gotten to know Percy, Grover, and Chiron, but not even close enough that I could call them friends. I still had no idea how to properly function in a girl's body, even if I was getting slightly more balanced and better at going to the bathroom. And now... now I was going to change my entire life again, this time voluntarily. Now I was going to be the first mortal to enter Camp Half-Blood in gods know when.

I placed my palm, the one that had been impaled by Celestial Bronze that morning, gingerly on the window pane. It must be nice to live unaware of the forces that literally hovered in the sky above everyone. It must be nice to not have to be questioning your religious beliefs thanks to now being stranded in a world where mythology was alive and kicking.

I heard a knock on the door, which I'd closed earlier to give myself some privacy while I packed up the few belongings Eve had in a *shudder* pink suitcase. I'd also used the time to change into something that would be better for travelling than a school uniform: a leather jacket, a pink shirt, and dark camouflage shorts. I had to hand it to the Mist; it had given my girl side good tastes in clothing. Except for the pink.

"Who is it?" I called out, turning to look curiously at the door. At least this would be a nice distraction from myself.

The smooth, semi-confident voice of Percy came through the other side of the door. "It's me, Percy. Can I come in?"

I frowned and weighed my options. Chiron had said to keep Percy in the dark about everything, but that didn't mean I couldn't talk to or say goodbye to him.

"Go ahead," I said loudly. "Door's unlocked."

The door entered slowly, and Percy slipped through. He didn't close it behind him, but I shrugged that off - I didn't need privacy at the moment, anyway. I smiled softly at him and sat down on Nancy's lower bunk, patting beside me for him to follow suit. What Nancy wouldn't know wouldn't hurt her. I'd shooed her out of the room while I packed, and since she'd gained a sort of fear of me after the field trip, she'd vacated the premises. The redheaded bully likely wasn't going to be back for a while, too.

"Are opposite genders allowed to be in each other's dorms here at Yancy?" I asked, grinning a small grin.

Percy chuckled and leaned back against the wall. "Nope. But then, punching people in the face isn't allowed, either, and you seemed perfectly fine with doing that earlier today."

"Touché." We both laughed, and I sighed. "Alright, so what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

"I wanted to say goodbye," he admitted. "I heard someone say that you're leaving."

"News already spread that fast?" I blinked rapidly. "Wow. I don't know how many people Nancy told, but I guess the grape vine is a ridiculously efficient method of transportation."

"So... it's true, then?"

"Yeah. It's true."

We were silent for a few moments, just staring at the mirror on the makeup table in front of us. I still could hardly believe that girl in the reflection was me. It felt unnatural, but at the same time, I didn't really care and was fine with it. Being a girl didn't mean I was any different on the inside, after all. The mixture of opposite feelings was confounding.

"Where are you going to?" Percy asked suddenly. "And why?"

"A sort of... year-long camp," I said evasively. But, crap! What was supposed to be my reason for leaving? Chiron had never told me what to say, so I supposed I was just going to have to make something up on the fly. I said the first thing that popped into my mind (not the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man). "I've been on probation with Yancy for a while, too. Troublemaker, you know? I guess fighting Nancy was the last straw. They would've still kept me for the rest of the year, they just wouldn't have accepted me next year; however, my parents had been getting brochures for this camp for a while, now, and in light of recent events, decided to transfer me there."

I shot a winning smile at the future savior of Mount Olympus. He looked like he wasn't buying it.

"Riiiiiiight," he said slowly, narrowing his sea green eyes. "Eve, you're a terrible liar. You know that, right?"

I wilted. My mom and dad had told me as much several times before, but I'd been really hoping that wasn't the case. "Yes," I said hollowly. "Yes, I do."

Another couple moments of silence passed before Percy broke them. "How did you know I'm on probation?"

"What?" I turned to him, blinking.

"Earlier, on the ride to the museum. You mentioned how I'm on probation after I said I wanted to punch Nancy. You shouldn't have known that, though. Nobody else except the school staff and Grover do, and we only just really met you yesterday."

Oh, drat. This was a problem. I had no idea how to explain this. "Uh," I said, my smile twitching, "Grover mentioned it when he calmed you down."

"No, he didn't." Just wonderful, now he was even more suspicious. Percy narrowed his eyes, but at last sighed and fell back on the bed. He winced at the uncomfortable stiffness of the mattress.

"Yes, he did," I insisted, sweatdropping.

Percy's frown deepened. "No, he didn't."

"Yes, he did."

"Yes, he did."

"No, he didn't... wait, what?" Percy blinked, then rolled his eyes. "You're not gonna trick me into changing my mind just because of a little game like that."

I sighed. "It was worth a shot."

"So how did you know?" he prodded, and I groaned. Letting him in had been a bad idea after all. What was I supposed to say now to convince him that my knowledge of his probation was for some mundane reason? Gah, all this was making me really nervous! Wait... Percy had said that the faculty members all knew, right? Aha! A solution!

"I accidentally overheard the teachers talking about it," I said quickly.

Percy raised an eyebrow. "...Seriously? That's all?" I nodded, and he blinked. "Well, I... I don't know what I was expecting. Something different, I guess. What do you know about Mrs. Dodds?"

Caught off-guard by the sudden change in topic, I started to say, "She alm -" Then I froze and paled. I'd almost let him realize that she was real. I didn't want to get on Chiron's bad side, so that was a definite no go. "She's never worked here as far as I know. Sorry, Perce, Mrs. Kerr has always been the Math teacher."

But Percy had caught my slip-up. I had to give credit where credit was due; Annabeth was right, this boy was much smarter and more attentive than he let on. He sat up quickly again, eyes wide. "You started to say something different there!" he exclaimed. "So then you know she's real, too! Ha! I knew you and Grover were lying!"

"Sorry, but what?" I said, my smile twitching. Crap, crap, crap! This wasn't going well! "I don't even know how to spell the word 'Dodds' - where did you get that, some fantasy book or something?"

"Yes, because I pulled a name from something that I can't even read," Percy deadpanned.
I flinched. "Oh. Point taken."

"So, tell me then!" Percy demanded, literally on the edge of his seat. He was so damn eager for information that he was practically beside himself. It must have been such a confusing day for him. I had to pity him, suddenly finding out that the evil Math teacher he'd had up til then had been replaced altogether, and only he seemed to have memories of her. He had to have been so ridiculously confused.

I couldn't meet his gaze. I looked aside and started to open my mouth, but was saved by another knock on the door.

"I'm Charles Beckendorf, here to escort Eve Gamble to Camp Half-Blood," someone said, and both Percy and I looked at the doorway to see a tall African American kid with black hair and brown eyes. He was ripped, like he spent all day working out in the gym. He looked like he was only thirteen or fourteen, and he had a kind smile. He wore a blacksmith's apron, with several pouches strapped around his waist and stomach. Underneath the apron he wore an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, though the lettering was hidden behind the apron. He put his right hand on his waist and leaned against the door with his other arm. "Are you Eve?" he asked, motioning to me.

"That's me," I said reluctantly after a confused pause. I was still trying to get used to reacting to the name Eve instead of Evan, but my brain was handling this slowly. "I didn't expect you to arrive this soon."

Beckendorf shrugged. "Yeah, well, time waits for no man," he said. "Chiron said that you'd be in this room, and it wasn't that hard to find it once I got here." He raised his eyebrow at Percy. "Who's your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend!"/"She's not my girlfriend!" we both said, blushing.
Percy scooted a little bit away from me. "Who's Chiron? I swear I've heard that name before..."

"Must be the head of the camp," I said quickly with a falsely confused shrug.
Two blinks later, Beckendorf exited to the hallway and motioned for me to follow suit. "Well, whatever. Come out when you're ready. It'll be getting dark here, soon, and this city is... dangerous at night."

I took a deep breath and got up from the bed, giving the dorm room one last look. I wasn't particularly fond of it; I'd had no time to grow attached to it. But still, it felt strange to be leaving it so soon after I'd arrived in it. And furthermore, it represented the last time I would ever lead anything close to a normal life again, for the foreseeable future. I was attached to my previous mundane life, hence the last look. Sighing, I made my way over to my *shudder* pink suitcase and pulled up the extendable handle to a height at which I could easily pull it.
Percy walked over to me and put his hands in his pockets. "You mind if I go find Grover, and we walk you guys out of the school?" he asked.

I thought about that. "No, I don't," I said with a smile. "That would be nice."

"Great!" He started jogging out of the dorm, grinning. "Then you guys wait up for us!"

It took Percy only a few minutes to find Grover and bring him back to my dorm, where Beckendorf and I were waiting patiently in the hall. An iPod had been included in Eve's belongings, and I had to wince at first at how medieval it looked compared to my day's technology. I put earphones in and turned on some Maroon 5, however, grateful once again for "Eve's" (read: the Mist's) good taste, this time in music.

"Alright!" Beckendorf grinned and clapped his hands. "Now that the gang's all here, let's head out."

"And look for clues?" I asked with a grin while the Songs About Jane album played softly in my ears.

Grover blinked. "What clues would we be looking for?"

"In your case," said Percy with a knowing smirk, "an enchilada."

I snickered and high-fived the boy. Beckendorf shook his head bemusedly.

Walking through Yancy's halls for the last time again felt strangely non-nostalgic. I felt like I should've been missing at least some aspect of the school, but as I mentioned earlier, I just hadn't had enough time to get to that point. By the time we finally reached the front doors, Percy and Grover shoving each other around good-naturedly, I'd gotten from Harder to Breathe to the beginning of Shiver.

"I guess this is it, guys," I said with a nervous breath. I turned to Percy and Grover, who both looked a little disappointed to see me go, though Grover, who I'd spoken with less than Percy, wasn't as disappointed as his demigod.

"You have a safe trip to the camp," Grover told me seriously, holding out his hand for a handshake. I shook it firmly. He winced and flicked his hand once I let go. "Ow! You shake hard!"

"I try."

"See ya, Eve," Percy said, a little sadly. "I wish you could've hung out with us some more." He shook my hand, too, wincing but showing no other signs of pain otherwise. Shame, I'd tried to purposefully shake his harder than I had with Grover. "If you have any time, you should come over to my mom's apartment and hang out with me when school's out." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with an address on it, and handed it to me. "That's where we live."

"Thanks, Perce," I said with a smile, and I meant it. It meant a lot to me that he was willing to be so friendly with me even though he'd caught me in my lies and hadn't known me for very long.

We stood there smiling at each other like idiots for a few moments until Beckendorf cleared his throat.

"Alright, then, let's get going, Eve," he said, and he started walking towards the doors. "We have a fair bit of ground to cover before we reach Camp."

"Lead the way, cap'n," I said sagely, and trotted behind him, pulling my suitcase across the floor as we went.

Percy and Grover didn't stop waving until we'd left their sight. I knew because I had my head turned just enough to see them as long as possible. I had to grin to myself as Beckendorf and I merged into the rest of the city pedestrians. They were good people, that demigod and that satyr. I'd eagerly await their own return to Camp Half-Blood. Until then, though, I wanted to know just how we were getting to Long Island.

"By taxi," Beckendorf said after I asked him such.

I couldn't help but stare. "...By taxi?"

"Yep." He tilted his head at me and raised an eyebrow. "Did you expect something different?"

"I... um..." My face twitched. "Kind of?"

"Well, sorry, Eve," he said, actually sounding very apologetic. "We do things as normally as we can outside Camp Half-Blood, so that the mortals don't suspect anything..." He winced and rubbed the back of his head. "Er, sorry. No offense."

I waved it away. I knew I was a squishy human and I was... not exactly proud of it, but I liked being who I was. "None taken."

"I assume Chiron filled you in on what exactly we are?"

Well, no, he didn't, but he didn't need to, I thought. Because I already know. Not that you need to know that, of course. "Yeah, he did," I lied.

"Alright, good. That makes things easier, then." A yellow taxi cab rumbled down the street towards us, and Beckendorf and I shoved our way through the pedestrians to the edge of the street. Beckendorf raised his hand, and the taxi stopped in front of us. The taxi driver, a short Chinese man (stereotypes, really?) got out and opened the trunk for me, and I shoved my suitcase inside. We then hurried into the back seats. Beckendorf reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of ones and a couple tens while the driver closed the trunk and ran to hop back in the driver's seat. "Take us to Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141, Long Island."

The driver closed his door, reached up to a GPS on the dash, and punched in the address. He frowned at the screen. "You sure, son? It don't look like there's nothing there 'cept wilderness."

The driver's accent was grating, and I shook my head.

"I'm sure," Beckendorf said. "And don't call me son," he added under his breath.

The driver shrugged. "Whatever. It's yer money yer wastin'." He pushed the car into drive and sped forward back into the traffic, which had actually cleared up some. It wasn't good traffic, per se, because this was New York City; but it was at least decent. I was on She Will Be Loved by this point, and humming along to the amazingly awesome music. Seriously, I swear that Adam Levine had to be a son of Apollo or something. If I ever saw the god of music, I was going to seriously ask him about that.

We slowly weaved and maneuvered through the gridlocks. There was road construction on Third Street - the taxi driver said something about the crazy weather lately having ripped up some of the road - and so we had to detour around it. We ended up going past the Bronx Zoo, which I gazed out at as we went by.

"Never been to the zoo before?" Beckendorf guessed, noticing my stare.

I shrugged. "I've been to the Central Park Zoo and the Cleveland Zoo. Not the Bronx Zoo, though. Up here this far in Manhattan is new territory for me."

Strangely, in the distance, I thought I could see a giant, brown figure over the zoo walls. When I blinked, however, I didn't see anything. Still, though... I could've sworn I'd seen horns. A chilling cold that had nothing to do with the taxi cab's air conditioning made me shiver. "Um, are there bulls at the Bronx Zoo?"

"I dunno." The Hephaestus cabin counselor's brow furrowed, and he looked funny. He patted the driver's seat. "Sir, are there bulls in that zoo back there?"

The driver hummed in thought and honked furiously at a very slow Corvette which he was passing. "GET OFF YER DAMN CELL PHONE!" he hollered, regardless of the fact that both his and the other car's windows were all up. Beckendorf and I jumped. "Can't rightly say," he said back to us. "I've been there once or twice, and I don't think I've seen any bulls there. Maybe a bison."

"Why were you asking?" Beckendorf queried me.

I sagged in relief. Whatever I'd seen, it was probably a very big bison. "Oh, no reason. Just curious."

The car shook, like the earth was trembling from some large force. "Damn tires need air," the cabbie muttered to himself.

A nasty little voice in the back of my mind whispered that it probably wasn't his tires needing air. I punched it in the face just like Nancy Bobofit and told it that yes, it very much was his tires needing air, and I didn't want any other reasons. Especially ones involving very large, very powerful, and very heavy Greek monsters.

A few uneventful minutes of our driver passing cars, beeping, and causing a lot of beeps at us passed by.

The car shook again.

"Aw, seriously?" the driver groaned, slapping the wheel. "I just got those darn things filled up the last time I went to get gas..."

Beckendorf frowned and leaned forward against his seat belt. "Is it alright if I roll down the window, sir?" he asked kindly. "I think I hear something going on outside."

The driver waved his hand. "Go right ahead, it's a free country."

"Won't be in twelve years," I muttered with furious thoughts of Cheetos and white hoods.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

The car shook again as the African American teen beside me started to roll down the window, and then we could all hear what Beckendorf had thought he was hearing: distant screaming, and lots of it. The car shook again, along with my hastily constructed confidence in the cause not being what I hoped it wasn't. Beckendorf and I turned around, and that was when we saw it.

It was huge, far over ten feet tall, with muscles like buses. If Beckendorf was ripped, then this thing was motherfucking Hulk Hogan taking Chuck Norris-brand steroids. Seriously, those guns couldn't be legal. It was covered in brown fur, and I swear fists for nipples would not have looked out of place on this thing. Two white horns rose out of its head dangerously.
Oh, and held high above its head with its enormous meaty hands? A tour bus. A thankfully and somehow empty tour bus, but a tour bus.

Beckendorf and I paled as the motherfucking Minotaur threw the tour bus across twelve hundred feet of city traffic directly at our taxi cab, frightened mortals running away from the incident and screaming on the sidewalks. Lord knows what they were seeing, but it couldn't have been pretty.

"Meep," I squeaked.

"Oh, Hades," Beckendorf choked.

"GODDAMNED TRAFFIC!" screamed the driver, pressing down on the horn mightily.

Notes

Whoops, accidentally forgot to upload the rest of the chapters of the story that I've added since posting this! I will be doing so immediately. In the mean time, though, if you want to read this story elsewhere, I also have posted it on fanfiction.net, Spacebattles, Sufficient Velocity, Wattpad, and AO3, so while I'm updating this, go ahead and feel free to check those postings out if you want to read the rest of the story.

I also have a TV Tropes page for this story, so feel free to check out that as well.