Zero to Hero (Percy Jackson Fanfic)

Chapter Twenty-Two - Discoveries

I'm sorry this one is so short. For some reason the chapters where they only just start figuring out what's happening are the boring ones for me to write. Hopefully you find it entertaining and informative, however.

Annabeth's POV

The "e" key on my computer was broken. The worst part of it was that I didn't realize until I'd written my thesis and two whole paragraphs of an essay explaining my thoughts about the titans Menoetius and Mnemosyne. So naturally, I had to go back through all that work and add in the "e"s through copy and paste before I could move on to the last paragraph and conclusion. 

I had decided to write the essay, not to convince others of what I was starting to believe, but to organize my thoughts and to make sense of them. I hoped I was wrong, but at the moment, it was the only theory I had. Until I knew for sure, no one would ever lay eyes on that essay. 

"What did the keyboard do this time?" 

I looked up, pausing in my repeated stabbing of the offending key. "Oh, hey Percy. I didn't hear you come in." He was standing in the doorway, glancing between me on my bed and a few other Athena kids in the library. 

"What's up?"

"What?" he said distractedly, "Oh. Um nothing."

I stared at him. He stuck his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. His hair fell into his eyes and he raised a hand to bat it away.

"I mean...can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure," I said, suspiciously, "Um...I guess." I closed the laptop and swung my legs off the bed. "Like alone?"

Percy glanced again at the other kids, then nodded.

I followed him outside, stepping close to him since he seemed to want to keep things private, but he hopped back like he'd been stung. 

"So," I said, annoyed, "What's up?"

"I wanted to tell you, I believe you."

"You..." my brain took approximately fifteen seconds to process what he was talking about. "Oh! You mean about the myths being real?"

"Yeah," he said, "Here's the thing. I was just talking to Jason and Piper yesterday, and Piper said she'd been having dreams where her mom gave her cryptic warnings and whatnot. Which would have been completely normal, if I hadn't been getting the same kind of dreams about my dad."

A dozen questions buzzed around in my head, the first being: what was Piper doing talking to Percy? With Jason? But I didn't ask that. "What kind of warnings?"

"Oh. Um..." Percy glanced at her nervously, "Nothing. Just stuff like, 'you're being watched,' and, 'the curse must be broken,' and weird things like that. He wasn't making much sense."

"And..." I said, still trying to understand what he was getting at, "This made you believe me because...?"

"Don't you want me to believe you?"

"Of course I do Seaweed Brain; I'm just trying to understand."

"Fine." He still seemed flustered and nervous. What else had happened? "It's just...too many weird things have been happening. And talking to Piper made me wonder....

"What's your dad's name?" he said suddenly.

"What?"

"What's his name?"

"Uh, Fredrick. Why?"

He furrowed his brow. "How about your mom?"

"It's..." I paused, then laughed nervously, "That's funny. I...don't remember." I stared at a spot over Percy's shoulder. "I...don't remember my mother's name." I snapped my gaze back to his. "Percy! I can't remember!"

He bit his lip, but did not look particularly surprised. He shook his head in apprehension. "It's the same with my dad. I know what he looks like. I can hear his voice. But I can't remember his name."

My hands shook. "What is going on?" I whispered.

"It's like you said," Percy suggested hopefully, "Those Titan dudes are messing with us, right?"

"I...guess." I really wanted to sit down. How could I just not remember my own mother's name? It wasn't even like it was on the tip of my tongue. It was like those random matrices that we used in math once in eighth grade and not since: I knew I had known it at one point, but there was no way I'd be able to remember it now. "But...why would Menoetius and Mnemosyne, assuming they are real...why would they want us to forget our parents' names?"

Percy stared at me. "Does it matter?"

I narrowed my eyes in disbelief. "Of course it matters! It's strategy. The pair of them are attacking us in every way they can. They probably know our weaknesses better than we do, they're Titans. Maybe they didn't want us trying to call our parents for help, maybe we'll gradually forget everything about them, piece by piece!"

"Sure," Percy said, suppressing a smirk, "Or maybe our parents are actually gods in disguise."

I blinked. Something about that....

"Yeah...maybe."

"Uh...I was joking--"

"No," I said, "It kind of makes sense. If our parents are gods, then it would be obvious why the Titans wouldn't want us to know them. They wouldn't want us making the connection. And all the magic stuff that's been happening...well, maybe that was our parents helping out."

"Annabeth!" Percy said, sounding scared in a concerned way, "this all sounds really...strange."

"I know, Seaweed Brain, but it fits!" I couldn't contain the excitement in my voice, despite how crazy it made me sound. "What if we're right? What if the gods are real? And we're their children."

Percy paused thoughtfully, still not looking thoroughly convinced. "You said you think Mnemosyne is manipulating our memories of our parents, right? Well then, I think the question we should be asking ourselves is, what are we supposed to do to stop that from happening?"

I stared off at the top of the hill with the big pine tree on top, next to a giant metal statue of the goddess Athena. And then it hit me.

"I don't know about that, but I think I figured out what my mom's name is."

"Really?" Percy asked, "Does that mean she isn't a goddess?"

I shook my head. "Her name is Athena."