Shattered

Annabeth

First Period: Home Room

The academy's intercom came alive with the high pitched voice of the headmistress, "Good morning ladies! I have exciting news!" 

Annabeth fought the urge to roll her eyes. It was a cool Monday morning, and her in opinion it was far too early to have to listen the falsetto coming through the ancient intercom system. Maybe if she had not been out late the night before with Percy, her mood would been better.

Percy had taken her to the Central Park Zoo as a last minute date. They had stared together in awe at the newborn elephant, held hands as the strolled through the reptile house, and laughed at the antics of the orangutans. Seaweed-brain had even gotten one of the orangutans to mimic him, making kissing motions with his lips. They had shared a coke, thankfully not blue, outside the penguin exhibit. It was both romantic and cost effective, something any true daughter of Athena could appreciate.

It had been an amazing time, until the cyclops appeared.

In hindsight she should have known better, it had been more less a baby. A six-and-a-half feet tall baby but, a baby none the less.

It had somehow managed to sneak up on both of them on their way home from the zoo. It had erupted from a storm drain and tackled Percy into a nearby alley. Percy had just enough warning to push her out of the way from the lumbering oaf's tackle; the same could not be said for seaweed-brain. Percy's head had connected with the corner of one of the many dumpsters in the alley, knocking him out cold.

Before Gaea, Percy was next to impossible to knock out. The incident was clearly a result of spending to much time with Jason.

Apparently, Percy's impact with the dumpster had given him a small laceration above his eye. Fun fact: wounds above the eye line bleed profusely. So when Annabeth and into the alley, and saw a cyclops sitting on her boyfriend, who was laying in a puddle of his own blood, she did the only rational thing: she unsheathed her new dagger from her ankle.

"Play!" the cyclops shrieked, while clapping its huge meaty hands.

It was play time all right. Annabeth charged and buried her new dagger deep between the cyclops' shoulder blades. Crying out in anguish as it turned to dust.

She didn't bother to retrieve her dagger, instead rushing to Percy's side, and was relieved to see that he was still breathing. After checking for any life threatening injuries, thankful to see there were none, she began to gently slap her seaweed-brain's cheek to rouse him.

Eventually the son of Poseidon groaned, "Wise girl? Why are you hitting me?"

Panic turned to relief, and she hugged her boyfriend like her life depended on it. "Don't ever do that again Seaweed-brain," She cried. "I thought I lost you to a runty cyclops!"

Percy's eyes widened, "Runty cyclops?"

"Yeah! It jumped out of the storm drain, and you pushed me out of the way."

Percy's eyes practically popped out of their sockets, "Oh gods, Mikey!"

Annabeth stared at him in confusion, "Mikey? Who's Mikey?"

"The cyclops! Gods Annabeth, he's just a baby! He found me a couple weeks back, scared out of his mind. Tyson is supposed to come and take him to my dad's this week," he explained, while looking around the dark alley. "Where is he? Did you scare him off?"

Annabeth couldn't look Percy in the eye any more, instead turning her gaze to now amazingly interesting shoes. "Percy, I-"

"He must have went back down into the sewers," interrupted Percy, while pushed himself up off the ground. He walked over to the ruined drain and yelled down, "Hey Mikey, it's okay! Annabeth is a friend! Come on-"