Hi guys. This is what I think The Blood of Olympus is going to be like. Since this is my first story, please forgive any mistakes or if you just hate my writing. Thanks and please review!
After the attack of the flying chicken ladies, Annabeth didn't think she would ever eat chicken again.
She was leaning against the rail of the Argo II as it sailed through the Ionian Sea, gazing at the sky and the water. The sunset really was amazing. She wondered what it would be like to have a normal life, to know where you would wake up each morning, to know that none of your friends or family would die because of a vengeful god or monster.
Lost in her thoughts, she almost didn't see the winged shapes making their way towards them. They were pretty far away, though. She squinted. They looked like…chickens. Okay, dangerous death chickens, with razor sharp teeth and claws.
Annabeth figured that the harpies would be easy enough to defeat, though they had a nasty temper. After all, they had battled much more dangerous creatures. She ran to Leo, who was at the helm, tinkering with some XBox controls. "Do you think you can handle those harpies?" She pointed to them.
Leo studied them. "Yeah, probably. I can use the ballistae or something. Maybe the special Celestial Bronze machine guns. But maybe you should call up Jason or Percy or somebody, just in case we need backup." He got the cannons ready. Annabeth hurried down to belowdeck, trying to figure out where her Seaweed Brain could be. As she was about to enter Percy's room, hoping he wasn't asleep, Hazel and Frank came up the stairs.
"Hazel! Frank!" she said, catching their attention. "We're under attack by harpies!"
"Okay. Just let me get my spatha." Hazel ran back to get her sword. Once she was back, they went back up to the deck.
As the harpies got closer, Annabeth could see that the harpies looked uglier than normal. Maybe they were a special ugly batch sent to attack them. There seemed to be an awful lot. Maybe a few dozen. They were screeching and getting ready to dive at the ship.
Leo aimed. He waited for the harpies to get in range, and shook the Wii remote to fire. The first shot took out about a quarter of the whole group. Now the remaining thirty-odd harpies took the hint and spread out to make less of a target. They dived, pecking at the mast and sail, grabbing at some random items on the deck.
"Hey! Get them away from the gunpowder and Greek fire!" Leo said as he continued to fire the ballistae.
Annabeth unsheathed her knife, and with Hazel and Frank, they ran at the harpies. Up close, she could definitely see that they were especially vicious. Their claws seemed to be leaking some kind of substance that she really did not want to touch. Hazel yelled and slashed a few to dust. Frank turned into griffin. Annabeth didn't stop to wonder about that. She stabbed one, and it disintegrated into dust. She sensed one behind her, so she whirled around, cutting it down.
Frank was grabbing harpies in his mouth and throwing them overboard. He flew up and knocked several out of the sky. But when the airborne harpies focused on him and dived, he wasn't able to avoid them all. He fell down back to the ship as a human, and landed in a small pile of…was that harpy bird poo? Annabeth wrinkled her nose in disgust and gagged. Ew. Hazel ran over to help him up. Then Annabeth saw a harpy prepared to dive at them.
"Hazel! Look up!" Annabeth shouted a warning. Hazel looked up, sweeping her sword at the sky. The harpy instantly exploded. While Annabeth was watching Hazel and Frank, a harpy had landed behind her. She turned around, but not quickly enough. The harpy knocked her knife out of her hand and was extending its talons to claw her when an arrow from Frank, now in human form, made it explode into dust.
Annabeth ran and picked up her knife. "Thanks, Frank!"
Hearing the commotion, Piper, Jason and Percy came up the stairs, saw the chicken ladies, and attacked. With their help, the crew managed to destroy or wound all the harpies, driving them away.
As soon as the last of them flew away, Percy came over to Annabeth. "Are you all right?" Percy asked her.
"Yeah, I'm okay. What about you?" she asked him.
"I'm fine. I just arrived, anyways. Right in the middle of dinner, too," Percy smiled. Just then, Piper ran over. From her expression, Annabeth could tell that something was wrong.
"What is it?" Annabeth asked.
"It's Jason. He's, well...You should see for yourself," Piper swallowed anxiously.
"How bad is it?" Percy asked. The whole crew, except for Leo, who was steering the ship, was gathered in the sick bay, where Jason was lying unconscious, looking very pale.. He had been badly scratched by the harpies. The wounds were covered with a cloths, which were stained with blood and some kind of foul black substance.
"What's the black stuff?" Hazel asked.
"I'm not sure. My guess is that the harpies' claws were poisoned, but who knows?" Piper shrugged. She seemed to be testing the black stuff, but without success.
"Did you feed him some ambrosia and nectar?" Hazel asked.
"Some. It helped his fever a bit, and the flow of the black liquid has slowed down a little,"
Frank was looking over Hazel's shoulder. "I don't suppose any of you have met poisonous harpies before?" Everybody shook their heads. Annabeth walked over to the counter where Piper was.
"Here. Let me have a look at it." Annabeth took over. "Too bad we don't have a child of Apollo here. They would know what to do. Probably."
Jason mumbled in his sleep. Piper sat next to him and brushed his hair out of his face.
"I think you're going to need to shower. You stink. Like, a lot." Hazel wrinkled her nose at Frank.
Frank laughed. "Well, I didn't ask to fall in a bunch of poo."
"Come on," Hazel murmured to him. "I think we should give them some more space. After you're done showering, I'll meet you above deck."
They left the infirmary and went to clean the poo off of Frank.
"There's nothing we can do until we can identify the poison, which I can't seem to do," Annabeth said. "The best thing to do would be to let him rest.
Annabeth and Percy filed out of the sick bay. "Well, now that the chicken attack is over, you'd better get some rest. You don't look like you've gotten much sleep recently. Plus, you've been on watch all day today," said Percy to Annabeth.
"I guess I haven't been sleeping well lately," admitted Annabeth. "You know, the usual stuff, but with the added bonus of Tartarus."
"I know," said Percy in such a dark tone that it made Annabeth wonder what he'd been dreaming about. "Either way, you have to sleep sometime. I'll take you downstairs."
After eating a quick dinner, they went to their respective sleeping quarters. "Good luck with the dreams," Percy said.
Annabeth yawned. "You too." As Percy closed his door, she flopped onto the bed but couldn't seem to fall asleep.
After a while, Annabeth got up and opened her laptop. After she had lost Daedalus's, Annabeth had bought a new one and was trying to retype all of his ideas from memory. When she finally felt herself started to get sleepy, she climbed into bed and drifted off into an uneasy and restless sleep.
RING! RING! RING! Annabeth woke at five in the morning to the sound of the alarm bell. She grabbed her knife and ran up to the deck. She stopped, confused. There weren't any monsters attacking. Why would Leo ring the alarm bell then? She checked the helm. Leo wasn't there. Neither was Frank.
As she made her way downstairs, she bumped into Piper. "What happened?" Piper asked through bleary eyes.
Annabeth shrugged. "I don't know. There aren't any monsters, as far as I know. I was just about to check on Leo. He's not at the helm. Maybe in the engine room?"
"Ok. I'll come with you. There's no way I'm going back to sleep now." The two girls went to the engine room. There they saw Leo, asleep with his head on the alarm button and some machine in his lap. It looked like a microwave with two legs and a cannon on top. Next to his head was an astrolabe and a crystal.
Annabeth went over to him and shook his shoulders. "Leo! Wake up!"
He jerked awake. "Wha-?"
"You fell asleep. What were you doing here anyway?" she eyed the contraption in his lap suspiciously.
"Oh, that? I was just fixing something." He shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry. Did I wake everybody up?"
"No." Piper spoke up. "I didn't see anyone else in the hallway. They must have been exhausted to be able to sleep through that noise." Despite having been woken this early, Piper looked well rested.
"Sorry." Leo apologized again. He yawned. "I think I'll sleep in my room until breakfast." When he opened the door, he bonked his head on the low doorframe. Annabeth and Piper could hear him cursing as he left.
"Do you know where Frank is?" Piper asked Annabeth.
"No. I didn't see him on the deck. Wasn't he supposed to be on watch?" Annabeth asked.
"Actually, I was supposed to take over in half an hour. I'll see if I can find him." Piper left the engine room. Alone, Annabeth wandered through the ship. She eventually went back to her room. With nothing to do, she opened Daedalus's laptop again.
After a while, she heard a knock on her door. "Come in."
Percy came in. "Where'd you get that from? I thought you lost Daedalus's computer," he said.
"I did. This is a new one. I'm hoping I can rewrite some of his ideas from memory."
"How'd you sleep?"
"Not so well. Only a couple of hours." Annabeth yawned.
"Well, I think it's time for a good breakfast. Are you going to come?"
Annabeth smiled and they both walked to the mess hall together. Piper was already there, eating scrambled eggs and pancakes.
"Hey Piper," Percy said, sitting down at the table.
Annabeth sat next to Percy. "Did you guys hear the alarm bell this morning?"
"The alarm bell rang? Wow. I didn't hear a thing," Percy ran a hand through his messy hair. "What happened?"
Annabeth explained what had happened with Leo and the alarm button. The rest of the crew eventually came in, and they all sat together and ate their breakfast.
"How's Jason?" Annabeth asked Piper, munching her pancakes.
"Still unconscious, though the wound seems to be looking better," Piper said. "He should be all right in a couple of days. Hopefully."
Hazel stood up. "Okay people. We need a plan once we get to Athens. We should be there in a few days at best. More likely, since our luck is really, really bad, we'll reach there in quite a bit more than a few days."
Annabeth said, "We have to be very careful in Athens. For all we know, the giants are luring us into a trap for their plan to spill blood on Mount Olympus." They had discussed this problem before, and Annabeth thought it was a very likely probability.
"You're right. We'll have to scout around," Percy said. He turned to Piper. "Piper, have you seen any useful images in Katoptris?"
Piper shook her head. "I tried, but the stupid blade wouldn't show anything at all."
"Maybe that means nothing bad is going to happen," Frank suggested hopefully.
"No, of course not. Something bad always happens," Leo said. "After all, what fun would a quest be without almost dying every five minutes?"
"I'll try again later," said Piper, ignoring Leo. "But the blade always shows something totally useless and depressing, so I don't know how it's going to help." They had discussed this problem before, and Annabeth thought it was a very likely probability.
"Well, we're going to have to figure out this problem later. I have to finish fixing the engine after it malfunctioned yesterday," said Leo, leaving the mess hall.
"I'll go with him. He might need some help," Piper left as well.
"I'll go back to guard duty," Hazel said.
"I'll do the watch after you," Annabeth volunteered.
"Okay. My shift ends in an hour or so," Hazel and Frank went up to the deck. That left just Annabeth and Percy.
"So…what are you going to be doing?" Annabeth asked Percy, secretly hoping he would stand with her on watch so they could discuss some things that Annabeth had been thinking about.
"I'm going to practice my swordplay. You could catch up on your missed sleep," He got up and kissed the top of her head, and then he left.
Annabeth sat there and stared at the remains of her eggs. She decided to follow Percy's advice.
In her room, she collapsed onto her bed and immediately fell into a dream-free sleep.
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