Gabriel, Marine Biologist, and Percy's partner POV

When Percy starts talking to sea lions, you'll know that someone was coming. It was a habit of his, chatting with the sea lions. When I asked him about it, he replied: "Sea lions have external ears. They're always listening to you, so if you need to rant, they're pretty helpful and give good advice."

"But they're animals. They don't know what we say to them." I had stated.

"Or do they?" he gave me one of his smirks that made girls melt. To me, it was the sarcastic smirk that meant 'trust me.'

And I did trust him. I've worked with him for three years on doing conservation work and trying to discover how to create a more sustainable living environment for sea creatures, and I had never met anyone so dedicated or talented. Percy had a way with sea creatures that I had never seen before. He talked to them, had conversations with them, laughed with them... He claimed that he just listened to what the sea told him. The water did the talking. I thought he was like Aquaman. Perce had serious skills.

"Yeah, I know Beck. She's coming today. You better tell the penguins to be on their best behavior." Percy was talking to the sea lions again, and usually when a guest was coming over, 'Beck' was the one to talk to. Or, so he said.

He claimed that the sea lions all had names, and he tried to explain them to me. The biggest of the bunch was Beck, and his mate was a pretty little thing called Lena. There were three other sea lions that he chatted to. Mikey and Fletch were brothers and were recognizable by their similarly shaped fins, and that Mikey was really small. Smaller than even Lena. The last one was Luke. This one had fought with all the rest of them before and was covered with battle scars from fighting with the other males. His most noticeable feature was a scar that ran down his face under his eye, and it was badly infected when we first rescued him.

I had asked Percy why he chose to befriend Luke. He was always grumpy, always ignored Percy, and kept causing trouble and fighting with the others. Percy had responded with a sad sigh, before looking me in the eye. "I had a friend called Luke. He pushed everybody away, made everyone hate him, but when the time came, he sacrificed his life to save us all. Sure he was a terrible friend, but at the end, it's what he chose to do that mattered."

"If he's named after your friend, what about the rest of the sea lions?"

He gave a small and wistful smile. "His victims."

Sea lions weren't the only ones he chatted with. He had a habit of naming all of the animals, and when I asked him about that, he had shrugged his shoulders. "Some of them are after friends. The others? Well, some animals like to choose their own names." The other two animals he chatted with most were two female orcas they stayed in our wildlife section and were allowed to leave whenever they wanted to, but it seems like they liked Percy too much to leave. 

Zoë was a killer whale that acted very snootily around me. It was obvious that she bossed around other killer whales in her herd, and unfortunately for them, she was an excellent huntress. She could devour so much fish in one bite that I made sure to stay a safe distance away from her. Bianca, however, was much sweeter, and to add to that, she was an albino. I had never seen one in my life, but with Percy, I was even able to touch her.

Back to Percy and his surprise guest. I had just finished feeding the penguins (who were squabbling as usual, and all had names: Leo, Frank, Hazel, Jason, Piper, Reyna, Thalia, Grover, Juniper... I don't even know where he comes up with these names) and was about to take the speedboat out into the ocean to look for some injured animals when Percy stopped me, his goofy smile plastered on his face.

"What?" I asked, a grin on mine. "Someone special coming to visit?"

Last time he had looked like this, his fiancé Annabeth had come. She was some architect in some fancy firm, and god did she look scary. Scary as in scarily stunning. I was definitely not getting in her way any time soon. Those grey eyes were intimidating. One look at her, and I'm like okay no thanks let's go the other way.

"Someone really special." He said with a giddy tone, before squinting into the distance towards the sea. "She's coming." He announced dramatically, outspreading his arms.

"Who?" I asked, puzzled. 

He chuckled. "The princess of the Seas."

"The who now?"

"Can't you feel it? Can't you hear it?" He closed his eyes and gave a contented sigh. "They're all quiet. They can sense her. She's nearly here."

I perked my ears. Sure enough, the conservatory was strangely silent. There was no splashing, no squawking, no bashing around. It was like everyone, everything but me was anticipating something coming. Or someone...

I squinted out towards the sea and was met by a surprising view. A girl, with tumbling dark curls, speeding towards shore on a raft. The girl was at perfect ease, sitting on the raft as it seemed to move by itself-

-or not. That wasn't a raft. That was a dolphin. She was riding a dolphin. What in the world.

Just as she reached the pier, she leaped off the dolphin's back and landed neatly on the wooden platform, half-heartedly squeezing water out of her damp clothes. Amazingly, she had been wearing a leather jacket, leggings, and boots, and the only thing that was wet was her boots and the edge of her leggings, which were soon dry enough as she squeezed the water out. She removed her boots, holding them tentatively, and then peeled off her jacket. "Hello, fellas." She said in a warm tone. "Am I late?"

Percy's grin was huge. "Not at all, Thelle. Thelle, meet Gabriel, my partner who does most of the science stuff here. Gabriel, meet Arthella, princess of the Seas."

"I swear Seaweed Brain if you've been talking about me using that title and calling me Thelle-"

"-I have and have not."

"-I am going to get Annie to whoop your ass back to Long Island Sound. My name's Thea, and I am not the princess of the Seas, it's just a joke that Percy likes to make." She stuck out her hand to shake, and I obliged. "The only reason he calls me that and I don't mind is that calling me the princess means he's the prince. I'm his little sister."

"Hardly. Pretty sure you're like four years older than me."

"In intelligence, of course, you're useless compared to me, but you have to give yourself credit, Perce. Can't keep being self-deprecating."

"But it's my star quality!" He pouted.

"You're literally the most respected, honored, loved and feared person back at both of the Camps. You're enough of a star."

"Who thinks that?"

"About 300 of us."

"Dam it."

So they were siblings. Made sense. Percy's dark hair was wild and messy, and I could see how it resembled Thea's long dark curls. But their eyes were the ones that were eerily similar. Percy's eyes were as green as the sea, a strange shade between blue and green but not quite turquoise, and Thea's irises were carbon copies of his. If I didn't know better, I would have thought that they were twins.

"You can call me Gabe." I offered, but she wrinkled her nose. "I'm sorry, did I offend you?"

"It's nothing." She said with a pained smile. "Just- Perce, you never told him?"

"You know I don't like my past, Thelle." He replied, his eyes dark, before glancing at me. "It's just that my step-father was called Gabe."

"Was he a jerk?"

"He abused me and my mom and wasted all our money on betting and poker."

"What happened to him?"

"He disappeared, and Sally managed to sell a statue called 'The Poker Player' and earn enough money to go back to University." Thea rolled her eyes. "Or that's the story."

I gulped. Crap. That was big. I had met Percy's rage before. There was a guy about our age, mid-20s, who was trying to hit an injured seal. Percy's eyes had darkened to a stormy blue-green and had 'ordered' something under the water to deal with him. A few seconds later, Zoë had burst out of the water and snapped the guy in two. 

"Sorry," I said quietly, before gesturing to the speedboat. "I'm about to head out to go for our daily round. Want to come?"

"Sure. Just, let me change first," She held up a bag I didn't even realize she had with her. "Can't exactly go save some lives wearing this."

She quickly ran off, and I was left puzzled. "I didn't even tell her where the toilets were."

"You don't need to," he said with a grin. "She knows her way anywhere. If she even needs help, she can just ask the fish."

"She's a fish whisperer too?"

"We get it from Dad."

Two minutes later, she had returned, wearing a loose tank top and shorts with flip-flops. Strangely, she still had two sheets of metal wrapped around her forearms, some type of gauntlet that had dark swirling markings. "You're not going to take it off?"

"My forearms are basically shattered and only held together with pins and nails and wires. These gauntlets are basically just a permanent cast for them." She explained patiently. "What will we be doing?"

We piled into the back of the speedboat, and I hopped into the driver's seat and started the engine. "We usually like to drive around, see if there are any hurt animals tangled in the trash or any things like that. If we find any rare species, we try to lead them back to our sanctuary, where they can choose to stay or not-"

"-they usually stay."

"And if we find out there's an animal that shouldn't be in this region we try to lead it back in the right direction or find out why it's here."

"Cool." She nodded, barely audible over the roar of the engine. "So, keep our eyes peeled?"

"And our ears open." Percy gave a childish grin. I didn't know what they meant for that. Most sounds that animals made had frequencies we could not hear. Percy claimed he could hear them, and had hunches, and they were usually right. It was slightly creepy, but it helped our cause so I didn't mind.

The first half an hour wasn't very interesting. I drove around our usual route that I went every day, while Percy and Thea chatted in the back of the boat, looking out to the sea. As I tried to eavesdrop, I realized that they weren't speaking in English. Instead, they were chatting in... I had no idea. When I asked them, they had responded in perfect sync. "Greek."

"You're greek?" I asked, bewildered.

"Dad's greek. Sally is American, my mom is Italian."

"You guys have different moms?"

"What, you think I call my mom by her first name?" Thea scoffed.

Percy snorted. "Well, you do."

"Tanya is not my mother."

"You came out from in between her legs..."

"She was a surrogate mother who put me through hell."

"Still your mother."

"Did she do anything to stop my surrogate father from hitting me with his broken wine bottles?"

"...no."

"Then my mom is Athena."

"Can you guys stop arguing? I think I see something." I cut in, pointing at the distance as I slowed down the boat. They both swiveled their heads towards me, and then to where I was pointing, and closed their eyes. All in sync. It was really creepy. "Is there something?"

"There's a seal. It's trapped in some fishing nets and there's a..." Thea cocked her head. "Something is trying to eat it. I can't tell what it is. It looks a bit like an octopus?"

She opened her eyes, blue-green eyes suddenly completely silver. "That's a skolopendra." She whirled on me. "What's the protocol for situations like this?"

"What's a skolopendra?"

"Giant shrimp. Tentacles. Dangerous. Big enough to sink a cruise."

"Umm..." I was puzzled. What fish was big enough to sink a cruise? "Usually we have one person to deal with the injured animal, one person try and hold off the attacking, and one person on the boat to deal with the extraction process."

"Okay. Percy, you're on seal duty. I'll deal with shrimpzilla." And with that, she flicked off her sandals and hopped into the water, fully clothed, with no equipment whatsoever.

"I forgot to mention the part about scuba-diving equipment and wetsuits right?" I sighed, glancing at the ripple in the water. "She doesn't have any gear."

"She doesn't need any gear. Hand me the camera. You can watch. Keep an eye out for anything weird, because the moment you do, run. Just ditch us, we can handle ourselves, and run." Percy looked at me, his gaze steady and serious.

"I can't just leave you. You're my partner! We've been doing this for two years, and we never ditch each other. Why am I being ditched now that your sister is here?"

"Because my sister can handle herself. She's faster and stronger than me, even if she's my baby sis." He said with a smile as I handed him the camera. "Wish me luck. Time to save our seal." He tugged on the wetsuit and goggles, before giving me the thumbs up. I returned the gesture, opening my laptop, and began to watch the live feed of what was happening underwater. 

When the screen flickered to life, the only images that appeared was the clear blue water of the ocean, and a trail of bubbles as Percy exhaled. He didn't need an oxygen tank either. He could hold his breath as long as a seal. As he kicked his legs forward, an image of a struggling seal was soon in place. "Clippers." He said over the speaker, waving his hand in front of the camera to grab my attention. I hurried over to the gear bag, and finding a pair of clippers, tossed it into the water.

Percy had another gift. He always managed to catch anything I threw into the water perfectly. Even if I threw it in the wrong direction, it would find its way into his hands. Creepy, but useful.

I watched as he clipped off the netting around the trapped animal, one hand comforting the distressed seal, the other expertly snipping away at the wires that were wrapped around the seal's body. It was an easy job for him, but as I squinted at the feed, realized that there was something going on in the background.

There seemed to be a mini-war going on between Thea and the 'skolopendra'. Although I did manage to see glimpses of it, I was more focused on Thea. Her wild curls were not so wild under the water, and seemed to float gently in the water, like waves on a beach. Her hands were outspread, a silver sheen emitting from her skin, and although I could only see her back, she seemed to be completely still, neither floating towards the surface nor sinking to the seabed.

I watched as she slowly pointed her right arm towards the flurry of bubbles, silver blades suddenly in her hands, and she propelled herself through the water, hopping and jumping from each tentacle and slicing them off with expert precision. She seemed to be wreathed in silver flames, her aura powerful and terrifying.

I glanced up from the screen, observing the situation above water. Random rays of light would occasionally flare up, before disappearing as fast as it appeared. The footage had been cut short, and Percy soon appeared back at the surface, a seal with some terrible cuts around its torso next to him. He gently lifted the seal back onto the boat, and gave me a look. "I'm going to go help Thea. Bring the seal back to base first. You don't need to come back for us."

Like hell I was listening to that. I sped back to base as quickly as possible, cleaning up the seal's wounds and placing him in the recovery tank, before driving the boat back to where I had left the siblings. Since I wasn't going at average speed anymore, looking for distressed sea creatures, I pushed up the gear, speeding back towards their location. 

Unlike those two crazy people, I needed an oxygen tank to stay under the water for that long, so gearing up took a much longer time. By the time I was done, it had been an hour. How long did it take to deal with a sea creature?

A really long time. That was the fact that became apparent to me when I dived under the water to join them. As I plunged into the icy cold water, the scene in front of my eyes was appalling.

Thea wasn't in her tank top and shorts anymore. Instead, she seemed to be in some sort of silvery battle armor, decorated with green swirls that made her seem like a part of the water. She didn't seem to have any helmets of any sorts and instead had a silver ringlet around her forehead. Her gauntlets were still there, and she wore a silver metal-plated skirt as armor, as well as feathery shoulder guards that adorned her upper arm and shoulders. In her hands were, as I had seen in the footage, two silver blades, shimmering with silver fire, glowing from an unseen source.

Percy, my basically-best-friend for two years, wore similar gear, but obvious armor fitted for a man and not a woman. It was green and blue in color, and unlike his little sister, wore a green helmet with a deep blue plume, and wielded a leaf-shaped bronze blade and a shield in his other hand. Both wore laced up boots, but not like any I had ever seen. Thea's were tipped with metal, how she was still afloat with that weighing her down I had no idea, while Percy's had small fins on the back of his.

I had never seen anything so wild in my entire life.

Except, when I saw the skolopendra.

The moment I saw it, I was tempted to just run, exactly as Percy had instructed me to. But, I stood my ground. Percy was my friend. I had no idea that creatures like this lived in the sea (which as a Marine Biologist who had to go through years of university lectures to get this title, was very embarrassing and amazed), and had no idea how Percy and Thea were, 1) wearing metal armor under the sea and breathing perfectly fine, 2) fighting a giant shrimp thing, and 3) where did they get the armor?

Thea was the agiler of the two, and the more powerful, it seemed. She clapped her hands together, and the pressure dropped, popping my ears. A surge of water blasted towards the monster, and she caught her two floating blades in her left hand while outstretching her right. A beam of energy blasted from her open palm, and the shrimp (she was right to call it shrimpzilla) reared back in pain.

The only weapon I had with me was a harpoon. I was not expecting something this big; I thought Thea was joking when she said it was big enough to sink a cruise ship. Still, I swam forward, harpoon in hand, ready to help. Percy must have noticed me, because he whirled around, shock and surprise plastered on his face.

"What are you doing here?"

Although we were underwater, I heard him perfectly clearly. What the hell? "I'm helping you!" I tried to yell out, but my mouth was still wrapped around the oxygen tube. He seemed to get the gist, and swam towards me, waving his sword and shield. 

"Go away! This is too dangerous!" He shouted, his body rigid as he zoomed towards me. I must have attracted the attention of the giant shrimp and distracted Percy, as soon, a gigantic slimy tentacle came slicing towards us.

Was it not for Thea, me and Percy would have been wrapped up already. She reacted with inhumane speed, crossing her blades and blocking the tentacle, before she outstretched her hands again.

The electric harpoon flew out of my hands into her open grasp, and with an almighty yell, she flicked on the switch and threw it, plunging into what seemed to be the forehead of the skolopendra. 

I braced myself for the electricity to course through my veins, closing my eyes, but nothing happened. 

I opened my eyes again, only to see that I was standing in a bubble on the seabed, completely dry, with Percy in his full armor next to me. Thea was in a similar bubble, slowly floating towards us, before the two bubbles merged to become one big bubble. "Can someone explain what the hell just happened?" I managed to blurt out.

"You never told me he was one of us," Thea said, unfazed.

Percy shrugged. "I never could tell. Couldn't figure out who's he was."

"His name is Gabriel. You know how much they like messing with names." She turned to me now. "Hi. I'm Arthella Dianne Carter, daughter of Poseidon, child of Athena, champion of Artemis. This is my half brother Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon and Hero of Olympus. And you, my friend? You are Gabriel, the single son of Galene, goddess of Calm Seas. Welcome to our world. Your world."

She glanced at Percy to continue, and he sighed, ruffling his hair.

"The world of the Ancient Greek gods."