Poseidon's Idea

Percy - 9

The next time Percy woke up, he was once again lying in bed. The same bed that he woke up in last time, the only difference, he wasn't restrained and there was a Red-Haired man staring at him from the end of said bed.

The two of them stared at each other for a couple of seconds before Percy's mind caught up with him and began to panic. He sat straight up in the bed, not unlike what Dracula does in his coffin. Percy began to wave his hands around his head in an attempt to... get rid of the confusion? Percy didn't know why that was his first reaction, but it was. He was brought back from his thoughts when the man shifted himself on the trunk he was sitting on and dropped a letter on the bed.

With no words spoken, Percy asses the man in front of him. He was unlike anyone he'd seen before. Percy couldn't link him to any sort of familiarity and yet, Percy felt as though he knew him. This man had the brightest red hair ever, a straw hat, a sword, and loose dress clothes on. While his physical features were slightly intimidating (in the sense that Percy didn't know what he was capable of), it was his body language and facial features that triggered his danger radar.

The man was sitting in a position that would have looked relaxed and entirely unguarded, but there were undertones that Percy could pick up on being both a 2-time war veteran and a person with ADHD. This red-haired man was ready to fight at any moment and he wasn't about to hold back either. The look on his face was another story all together.

Every major aspect of his face was relaxed in the same carefree way the rest of his body was, except his eyes. Percy felt like he was staring down both Gaia and Kronos. This time, however, instead of feeling the absolute terror and dread that came with facing gods as strong as them, he felt he could manage and fight against this apparent power. It felt like it was simply a mask representing what could be.

In response to the man's intimidation tactics (none of which Percy was fond of), he glared back. If Lupa had taught him anything, it was how to glare someone into submission. The man simply raised an eyebrow and increased his glare, the power mask rose with it.

Between the small display of power, the letter on the bed was long forgotten. At least it was until the wax seal holding the emblem of Atlantis started to shimmer with a blue hue. Both men were knocked out of the intense staring contest to look down at the unsuspecting paper.

They quickly looked back at each other finally ready to introduce themselves. The strange man sat up straight and all previous posture was forgotten about "My name is Shanks and you're here, on my ship"

Lupa didn't just teach him to glare at people, she taught him how to do things the Roman way and sometimes you have to be cordial "My name's Percy Jackson and I have no idea where here is"

Percy shifted his position from the uncomfortable Dracula-esque posture to sitting criss-cross on the bed. He smiled warmly at this Shanks man as he introduced himself once he had surveyed the room and decided that if the man was going to kill him, he would have done it already.

"Well Percy," Shanks said with such a heavy sigh that it seemed like he was yawning "you've brought a lot of chaos with you"

He pointed to the letter he left on the bed "That was left for you"

Percy didn't know what to feel, but if there was anything that could tell him just what kind of situation this is, it was that letter. He began to reach for it before a hand came out and stopped him.

Shanks was looking him straight in the eyes, hand holding his wrist down "That letter will be read a loud, understood?"

All Percy could do was narrow his eyes and respond with an "understood". He wasn't one to usually back down from something like this, but in a situation that he knows nothing about and there is a man the obviously could match him in a fight, he wasn't going to fight this fight.