#lightning thief

But she poured her blood, sweat and tears into becoming the best warrior she could be. She trained hard for years because she knew she had disadvantages and she didn't want to be seen as weak.

I- look man it's just good idk what to say

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover stood nervously before a figure seated behind a large, organized desk. He wasn't the menacing, shadowy figure Percy had imagined. Instead, he was a young man with glowing green eyes, silver hair, and a faint, cold aura.

Beside him stood a woman with dark and light hair and a mocking smirk playing on her lips as she looked at the demigods.

Percy, voice trembling slightly, declared, "Uncle! I've come for the Master Bolt. Give it back so we can stop the war!"

The young man raised an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement in his old but young eyes. "Uncle? Thanatos, what's this child talking about?"

The god of death, Thanatos, stepped forward. "My Lord, it seems Olympus is still unaware of the former King Hades' retirement."

The woman beside the young man, Queen Melione, Goddess of Ghost, added, "Yeah, Danny. They have, like, no clue Dad stepped down a hundred years ago. They still think he's running the underworld."

Annabeth, her brow furrowed as she slowly said, "...You're not Lord Hades, King of the Underworld."

"I believe they just clarified that," the young man replied. "Call me Phantom of Danny. And why would I have the Master Bolt? The ozone radiating like a bonfire is coming from you, not me."

Percy, Grover, and Annabeth exchanged stunned glances, then simultaneously looked down at the backpack Ares had given them. "Ares..." they murmured in unison.

Danny gave them a final, assessing look. "Thanatos, escort them out of the Underworld. And send an Iris message to Olympus. Give them proof of Ares' theft of the Bolt as the true thief. Melione and I have paperwork. We're almost finished cleaning up the River Styx."

As Thanatos began to usher them out, Percy turned around and yelled, "Charon wants a raise!"

Danny turned to Melione, a look of bewildered exasperation on his face. "...Didn't we just give him one two weeks ago?"

Melione chuckled. "His Italian suits are expensive."

Outside the Underworld.

Annabeth, still reeling, turned to Percy and Grover. "Wait, if Hades retired, where is the God of the Underworld now?"

A sunny beach in the Maldives.

Far away from his brothers, on a pristine beach in the Maldives,

Hades reclined in a beach chair, a contented sigh escaping his lips. His wife, Persephone, rested her head on his shoulder.

"My foolish brothers," Hades mused, a hint of smugness in his voice. "If they'd just give up their thrones, they'd have such an easy life. Just like me!"

He smiled, thinking of the young halfa he'd mentored. "That boy took to the job like it's the duty of a hero. Him dating Melione helped smooth things over, of course. I really should thank Pandora for introducing them. My idiot brothers must be terrible teachers." He took a sip of his drink. "Now, where were we, my dear?"

Poseidon

take this as a 'luke steals the lightning bolt later for plot purposes'. percy, twelve, acts like he's super scared of water, absolutely avoids it, pretends that it will actually kill him if he jumps in. this is not good for him btw, as he needs to avoid water at all times but he desperately really wants to just go into the lake and chill to his heart's content. alas, he has to do so to not like... die.

Poseidon, seeing the whole thing play out, makes it a point to not claim him, especially because the lightning bolt hasn't been stolen, so he doesn't need a demigod to go find it for him and prove his innocence. The problem comes when percy's not used to his powers and all as he doesn't get the chance to embrace it, so when summer ends he's only got a random unbalanced sword to fight with when he goes back to live with his mom.

This proves to be a p r o b l e m and because of his lack of actual helpful defenses (no riptide, no other power he can use because he doesn't know how to, and its honesty the second monster he fights, because hades doesn't actually send any monsters its just random ones that come after percy), so he goes back to camp to ensure he gets good with a flimsy sword and he and his mom can actually be safe in the mortal world.

Maybe after seeing how long percy's gone unclaimed, luke tries to get him on his side. very slyly of course, because chiron still has a suspicious eye on percy as he knows the boy is strong but is confused why he hasn't been claimed yet. Kronos also feels the vibe that this demigod kid that luke's kind of interested in getting on his side (after their first sword fighting session) is interested and he can feel Percy's power.

I think this could lead to a high probability that the moment the lightning bolt goes missing, Poseidon tells percy that he either superstitiously recover it or poseidon will have to claim him so that he has to go anyway. this leads to percy's first sneak out of camp, and annabeth helps because they're both very determined. because the monster that first chased percy was 100% not a whole ass minotaur, grover actually got his searcher's license and percy does I-M him once explaining the entire situation but he's not on the quest (rip im so sorry my dear grover)

I think this leads to a squashed timeline of lightning thief and sea of monsters with a percy who thinks the lightning bolt has absolutely no relation to kronos, because kronos is observing this weird-ass kid who's way too powerful to have some random godly parent. percy and annabeth bicker in the whole quest, and it only gets more curious when its ares who gets punished at the end because it doesn't make sense as it seems like he wasn't acting of his own actions but he was???? what?? because they don't know its kronos.

Kronos, who sees how well its working as ares is now mistrusted, decides it'd be a better idea to pick off the olympians one by one, using these two demigods to "expose" gods and their actions that are trying to ruin the other gods, play on their weaknesses so that when he attacks it will all have already fallen, so he doesn't reveal himself by any measure to anyone except luke and some select demigods.

luke, meanwhile, sees percy realise grover is in danger and volunteers to go with them as annabeth would wonder why luke didn't want to come with them. Luke tries to work in the background and planning to poison thalia's tree and blame it on Dionysus. Luke sees the fleece and annabeth and percy are both highly suspicious when he keeps arguing to take it for himself, so they decide to sacrifice that annabeth will keep it in the big house, and luke decides that after organizing mistrust against dionysus using thalia's tree, he'll use the fleece to heel the tree and immediately heal kronos so that luke's stability in camp half blood is even more recognized.

basically, this idea has no descended into :

annabeth and percy sneaking into every single quest

kronos and luke, literal spies

discord amongst the god themselves