"Cassandra!" we shout in unison. Annabeth realizes she's still holding her knife, so she pulls back and mutters, "Sorry." I don't know who she's talking to, Cassandra or the desert beneath our feet. The back of Cassandra's hair near her neck changed from electric green to maroon. I ask about it and she says it changes with her mood. She must be moody, because it changes quite often. Now it's silver.
"Did Chiron send you to help us?" I asked.
"Nah, I just came here on my own free will," Cassandra replied. Being a daughter of Hecate, she didn't need much protection.
"Blackjack's having a bit of trouble. He just sent me a message telling me to tell you to help him," I say to her.
"I'll bring him to safety," Cassandra says. She closed her eyes and brought her hands up as if she was pulling something. The Mist came out of the ground like smoke and looked like a pearl, lustrous, shear curtain waving with the wind around her ankles. Cassandra opened her eyes. Her silver eye wasn't dull this time though; it was like a brilliant cut diamond, hinting at every color of the rainbow but glimmering whitish silver. She rounded her fingers and touched each fingertip to its twin, and all the Mist gathered inside her hands. Now it really resembled a pearl, but looked even more so like a gypsy's crystal ball due to the Mist moving like smoke.
"Stand behind me," she said. We were obliged to do so. Now the back of her hair was plum purple. She brought her hands high above her, flattened them, and painted an oval made of Mist.
"Wait for it. Three, two, one, now-" she said as Blackjack burst the portal. Bits of the Mist flew everywhere. Blackjack screeches to a halt, looks around confused, and then sees us behind him. Cassandra's eyes dull back to the color they originally were like a light flickering before a blackout.
"Yo, boss!" he says as he canters up to me.
"Hey, Black! What happened?" I say.
"I was flying over the eye of a small hurricane, being in Poseidon's territory, perfectly safe, but a lightning bolt strikes directly in the center of it. Not good," Blackjack says.
"Hey! Sorry if I confused you," Cassandra says.
"It's okay," Black says, nipping her on the ear.
Instinctively, she covers her ear and a look of panic crosses her face. Annabeth protectively escorts her to a huge, round boulder, conveniently 50 feet away.
Annabeth says to Grover, "Go get me some aloe vera."
"Hey! Vera's a person. Dryad rather," he says. A young girl, maybe nine years old, emerges. She shyly gives Annabeth the balm and then runs away. Annabeth takes a bobby pin out of her hair and pins Cassandra's hair up.
"Don't let anyone see!" panicked Cassandra twitters.
"I won't," replies a soothing Annabeth. She applies the aloe vera to her ear and covers it with a Band-Aid from her pocket first aid kit.
"Guys, we better keep moving," I say. I was a bit confused about the whole fuss with Cassie's cut, but honestly, I was worried about more important things then. What Blackjack had described something unheard of; and it wasn't good. It was probably the result of Zeus's and Poseidon's bickering; which, more often than not, results in a war, a godly banishment, or mortal/demigod casualties.
"C'mon, guys. We're almost there. We'll just get Gretchen and Stephanie and pray to the gods that we don't get killed by a mob of angry cheerleaders." I was trying to lighten the mood, but all I got was Grover's laughter, which was short lived due to Annabeth's "oh my gods not now" stare and Cassandra's confusion.
"Okay, guys. Let's go," said Annabeth said, mainly to Cassandra. We headed towards the school. Before we entered, Cassandra turned to us.
"Wait. We don't want another tragedy to occur, like the one that took place with Nico and Bianca." She was referring to Annabeth's capture.
"So, I'm going to disguise us." She walked over to Annabeth and placed her hand on her head. Immediately, Mist started pouring onto Annabeth, and as the Mist left the top of her head, nothing was under it. It was the same until it got right above her ankles, where gray fur appeared. The Mist revealed the cutest gray cat I've ever seen. She looked at me and let out a desperate "MEOW!" Cassandra just replied "it's okay." Grover looked at me and said, "Dude, she wants to let you know to not make fun of her."
"Okay, Wise Cat," I said, just before Cassandra placed her hand on my head. I got this weird feeling; like I was being placed down by a giant who kept filling helium in my body to see how long it would take until I floated away. All of the sudden, my vision got clearer, like I was putting on glasses that made my vision 20/10. The dark didn't look dark. If anything, the light was harder to see through.
"Oh my gods, why do I feel like this?" I asked Cassandra. But what she responded was in a different language.
"Percy, we're cats. We can't understand English anymore," Annabeth said.
"Well, Wise Cat, look at Grover." Grover was a tabby with brown and tan stripes. His eyes were glowing yellow, and he most closely resembled a deer in headlights. Cassandra was now an ebony-black cat with piercing yellow eyes. I realized that Annabeth was the only cat with eyes that weren't yellow. Even as a cat, I couldn't stop staring at her.
"Alright guys, let's go," Cassandra meowed. But then, a man came out of the building. "Hello, Sssson of Possssseidon," he said. "It'ssss been to long ssssssince we firsssst met."