Alecto and Chiron

Alexander trained for another few months, his swordsmanship and other skills improving. Everything seemed to have gone back to normal, even with the two mythical characters teaching at school. Alexander discovered no new dungeon and therefore had to train at night, when Grover and Percy were asleep. Everything seemed normal, until they had another field trip, to the museum this time. Most of the time, field trips at Yancy were dead boring but since Percy came to the school, more and more weird things happened, more monster attacks, more incidents, more trouble in general for Alexander but he wouldn't trade it for anything. Percy and he became good friends, often serving detention together. Grover was also sometimes roped into their hijinks but he managed to get out of detention more often than not.

During breakfast, Percy was complaining, "Why does it have to be Dotts? I swear, I sometimes think she isn't really human, some kind of monster"

"You are so right", Grover and Alexander deadpanned. When Grover realized that he hadn't been the only one who said it, he turned to Alex, suspicion in his eyes, a look that said, 'we'll talk about this later'

Should he have kept his mouth shut? But Grover also said it, didn't he? Was Mrs Dotts' real nature some kind of secret?

"Anyways, at least Mr Brunner will be with us too", Alexander turned back to Percy, who hadn't noticed the pointed glances that they exchanged.

"Yeah, Brunner is cool, especially when he brings that sword with him to our tests", Percy smiled absentmindedly.

That's right… that sword.

When he had first seen that sword, he recognized it to be celestial bronze, the same material as his crude weapons, so, he had observed it.

[Anaklusmos/Riptide]

Made from the divine essence of Zoe Nightshade, a Hesperide, given to Herakles and later found its way to the safe keeping of Chiron, the trainer of heroes. This sword can transform into a pen and always returns to the pocket of its wielder if lost.

That day, he had read up on the Hesperides, nymphs of the sunset. There were a few named in the myths but none named Zoe and that sword, despite having been given to Herakles, was in none of the stories he read.

Back to the topic at hand, Alex was munching on his sandwich as they were gathered up into the bus. Mrs Dotts was taking headcount, "Alexander Dorn", she hissed his voice as she marked him in attendance. He felt her penetrating gaze follow him as he walked into the bus, that woman was vicious, even as a teacher, not counting in that she was a literal monster sent to punish the damned.

He sat down, his eyes glancing over the other students already in the bus. John Burn, Reinhart Angler and, of course, Nancy Bobofit. The ginger girl was a real pain in the arse and Mrs Dotts' favorite student, probably because they both liked to torment. The girl had tried to pickpocket his backpack several times, too bad for her, he kept all his valuables in his inventory. She was a true kleptomaniac but most of the students were now cautious, after some things went missing, so, she had to try and rob the younger and older kids from the grade below and above them and -of course- during field trips, she pickpocketed all the tourists.

He was pretty sure she had a crush on him too, which made standing up to her very awkward. As his piercing white eyes locked onto her brown ones she blushed and looked away. She had no chance with him, especially with how she treated Percy and Grover, his two friends. Grover was a timid goat person, he cried when he got upset and never stood up for himself, easy to bully.

As they drove to the museum, Nancy kept throwing pieces of her PB&J sandwich at Grover, sticking in his hair. Percy was getting more frustrated.

"Don't Percy, you are already on thin ice, one more incident and you are gone", Grover said, "besides, I like peanut butter"

Percy was about ready to burst, Alexander could see that and so, he focused his godly blood, speaking, "Just breathe, Percy, just breathe", as the son of the god of calmness, he could manipulate it at will, making people more or less calm. It seemed to have worked, as Percy sat back down, calm as a light breeze.

They arrived soon after.

Brunner walked(or wheeled?) them through the ancient greek section of the library. Alexander had a hard time listening to him, though the subject was interesting, due to the constant chatter of the other students.

"Would you shut up?", Percy seemed to have felt the same way, as he snapped at the other students.

"Mr Jackson", Brunner said with a calm smile, "maybe you would like to tell me what this painting depicts?"

What he pointed to was the Francisco Goya piece 'Saturn devouring his son'. Alex recognized it from art class.

Percy also remembered it, as it didn't take long for him to answer, "that is Kronos, eating his children"

"And why did he do that?", Brunner raised a dark brow, coaxing the information out of Percy.

"Well, he was the king god-"

"God?" Brunner interrupted.

"Titan! And there was a prophecy that his children, who were the gods, would overthrow him, so he ate them but baby Zeus escaped him and he later forced him to throw up his other children, who were all still alive, due to being immortal gods", Percy explained. Alex had gotten him into greek mythology, as sort of 'preparation'. They were both demigods, so it seemed like a good hobby to have.

"And why are we learning all this? It isn't as if on our job interviews they would ask 'please explain why kronos ate his kids'", Nancy mocked.

"And why, as Ms Bobofit so kindly put it, are we learning this?", he turned to Percy, who just shrugged, then to Alexander, "Do you have any suggestions, Mr Dorn?"

"They are- tales that tell us about the cultures of those that came before us, they have important messages in them and- well, if you ever run into the nemean lion, you know how to kill it, if you are strong enough", he laughed, as did most of the class, only Grover, Brunner and Mrs Dotts seemed to have caught on that what he said wasn't some joke, he was serious. Satyrs were real, so why not the nemean lion?

"Well, I think it is time for us to break for lunch, if you would be so kind to go out into the open, as we can't eat in here, can we?", Brunner wheeled them outside and Grover grabbed Alex by the arm, "We need to talk, now"

"Sure", he nodded, turning to Percy, "try not to get into too much trouble whilst we are gone"

"Aye aye captain", Percy did a mock salute and the two of them walked into an empty corner.

"You know, don't you, about your real self? Did your mom tell you?"

"That I'm a demigod? No, I just figured it out one day", he shrugged, "Why, goat boy?"

"You know that too?", he looked more than a little surprised.

"Yeah, your laugh gave you away. When you are nervous, you bleat like a goat", he shrugged.

"Now that you know, you are no longer safe! You have to get to camp after the school year finishes", he gave him a business card 'Camp Half Blood, 3.141 Farm road, Montauk', "It is where demigods, half bloods like you and Percy go to train. Speaking of Percy, where is he-?"

A wave of magic washed over them and, for a split second, Alexander forgot that Mrs Dotts was ever there but then, the system purged him of the mind alteration. Percy came walking out of the museum, a thin layer of golden dust on his hair. He had just killed Dotts!