A Son From Lands Unknown (PJO x Male Reader)

Last Day Before Summer

Percy bolted upright, shivering in his bed. He had just had a nightmare, one filled to the brim with storms and monsters, along with Grover Underwood, the satyr who had helped him to Camp Half-Blood the previous summer and had helped him when all sorts of problems arose. But now, Percy was in his bed in his mother's apartment, morning sunlight filtering through his bedroom window.

Percy thought he saw a shadow flicker across the glass- a humanlike shape. But then there was a knock on his bedroom door, his mom calling, "Percy, you're going to be late," which prompted the shadow to disappear.

'Must've been my imagination,' Percy decided. A fifth-story window with a rickety old fire escape... there couldn't have been anyone out there.

"Come on, dear," Sally called again. "Last day of school. You should be excited! You've almost made it!"

"Coming," Percy managed. He felt under his pillow. His fingers closed reassuringly around the ballpoint pen he always slept with. He brought it out and studied the Ancient Greek writing engraved on the side. Anaklusmos, Riptide. He thought about uncapping it, but something held him back. He hadn't used it in so long...

Besides, Sally had forced him to promise not to use deadly weapons in the apartment. He'd swung a javelin the wrong way and taken out her china cabinet. Percy put Anaklusmos on his nightstand and dragged himself out of bed.

He got dressed as quickly as he could. He tried not to think about monsters or nightmares or the shadow at his window.

Key word, tried.

Something about the nightmare still haunted him, how Grover was saying something about getting away and warning someone. What did he mean?

Percy made a three-fingered claw over his heart and pushed it outward, an ancient Grover had once taught him for warding off evil.

The dream couldn't have been real.

Last day of school. His mom was right, Percy should have been excited. For the first time in his life, he'd almost made it an entire year without getting expelled. No weird accidents. No fights in the classroom. No teachers turning into monsters and trying to kill him with poisoned cafeteria food or exploding homework. Tomorrow, he'd be on his way to his favorite place in the world, Camp Half-Blood.

Only one more day to go. Surely even he couldn't mess that up.

As usual, Percy had no clue how wrong he was.

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(Y/N) stared down the scope of Tentazione in its bolt-action sniper form. It was a standard sight, nothing fancy, magic, or infernal about it, but it was able to keep a zero even after being removed, so it worked just fine for this purpose. The son of Mammon was up in one of the many sniper nests he had set up in the forest surrounding Camp Half-Blood, just in case. Ever since he had arrived, Thalia's tree and the associated barrier were beginning to crumble. Probably something to do with him burning his way in.

Even if he hadn't, though, he was sure the barrier would be falling anyway. After all, someone had poisoned Thalia's tree, and it was getting worse every day. Ever since it had been poisoned, (Y/N) and a few other campers had taken on the job of patrolling the edges of the camp to make sure that no monsters were coming in. Thankfully, none were stupid enough to attack the cabins directly, but (Y/N) wasn't sure how long that would last.

(Y/N) pulled his eye away from the scope, letting out a yawn. He hadn't been sleeping well, not since the end of the last summer session, and especially not now that he was sacrificing some sleep time to provide overwatch. He suddenly heard the sound of rustling in the forest down below, prompting him to put his eye back on the scope and look in that direction. It was an Eidolon, a spirit that would take the form of another person, kill the person whose form they took (or convince them to dispatch themselves), and then use the person's name or position for nefarious purposes. (Y/N) could tell it was an Eidolon by the mild wisps of smoke coming off of it. Hard to notice normally, but the zoom made it a little clearer.