Straight from The Pits of Tartarus

Story Time!

Oh that was such a great song! Don't you think so? I personally get in a story mode, so before we prepare for bed, get ready to listen to the tale about Perseus Jackson and Annabeth Chase!

You have already heard that? How?

Wait what, who is this Rick guy? How does he know all this?

...Oh..well, have you heard the story about the beach date gone horrible wrong then? You know, the one set back when Percy still had The Curse of Achilles?

No? Good, then let me tell that one.

(Note: Okay so what some off you may have noticed is that this oneshot has replaced my previous one named "Candles". It's not the same plot, because I got a carried away, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless. A big thanks to Angie for editing the story and listening to me talk about it constantly for 5 days straight. Hope you enjoy!)

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It had not been Percy's idea to make candles. Granted, the girl who billowed red smoke and the hoard of screaming people trying to kill him had not been in his plans either, but weird stuff trying to kill him rarely was. Despite what his girlfriend Annabeth thought, he did usually try to avoid trouble.

His original plan had been to enjoy a nice picnic at the shore of the beach eating home-delivered pizza, taking a nap while Annabeth read a book or two and just generally enjoying being alive without having to worry about monsters, the gods or the newly defeated titans.

Yes, life was great when you didn't have a certain death-threat called Kronos hanging over your head. He and Annabeth had even enjoyed the said date in half an hour's time before the smoking-red-girl had come into the picture.

Annabeth had been the first one to notice that something was off, which truly wasn't surprising since a) he was about to take a nap (one of the side-effects of The Curse of Achilles was his constant need for sleeping, which was fine unless you were in the middle of a math class) and b) since she was better at spotting things trying to kill them. She had gently nudged his ribs, to which his intended response had been, 'What is it Wise Girl?' but due to the fatigue it had sounded something more like, 'Wizard White Earl'.

Luckily Annabeth was at this point used to his weirdness and her brows only furrowed for a second before she worked out his intended meaning. "It's the people," she had answered, her grey eyes storming as she scanned the area, "They're looking weirdly at us."

This had been enough to lift the fog from his brain, and he had bolted right up, trying to figure out what Annabeth was talking about. "Monsters?" he had asked, but as he had scanned the area he had seen no sign of them. The beach had looked like a normal beach; on the blanket besides them a woman in her late thirties had laid looking at her husband, and her kids playing, over the rim of her book. A bit farther a way laid a young couple-much like Annabeth and himself-engaged in a rapid discussion while somehow still managing to hold hands and further away... It had looked like the most normal beach ever, but as he had continued to watch, he had noticed the same thing as Annabeth: The mom had kept sending sideways glances to them and both girls in the couple had kept glancing over their shoulders to look at them. Perhaps it could've been Annabeth's beauty that had attracted their glares (she had looked exceptionally pretty that day, wearing a solid grey bathing suit that matched her steely eyes, her hair thrown up in her normal messy ponytail and her camp-necklace gracing her neck as usual), or maybe even their delicious looking pizza, but his instincts had been telling him it was something else. 'Something else', meaning anything remotely related to the Greek gods.