Hi! I'm back. Well, I wasn't really gone, but anyway.

II: ANNABETH CONTINUED

"Hey, Sirius, hand me that sack."

"Um, I'm surrounded by sacks. This is practically Sackville. Which sack?"

"The one on your foot. How long do you think they'll be out, Ro?"

"Meh, long enough for us to make pancakes and dance the can-can. Relax, Orion, we've got plenty of time."

"Really? 'Cause Blondie there has just about woken… yeah she's awake."

Annabeth woke with a start, feeling momentary panic. This panic was then replaced by an Olympus-sized headache, and an unpleasant awareness that she was tied to something wooden, presumably the mast. When she opened her eyes, she saw that she was, in fact, tied to wooden pole that was nailed to the ground near the prow. Leo was tied up next to her, and Piper and Frank were tied up on a similar pole opposite her. Percy, Jason and Hazel were tied to the mast.

The girl was standing next to a pile of burlap sacks, piece of paper in hand and ticking something off. The dark-haired boy (whose name Annabeth still did not know) was holding a paper plate and both of them were eating off it. As she watched, the sandy-haired boy walked up the stairs and put down another sack that sounded like it contained metal.

Annabeth focused her fuzzy head and shouted at them, "Hey! What do you think you are doing?"

The sandy-haired boy looked at her in alarm, and then back at the girl, "Ro, you said they wouldn't wake up for a while yet!" The girl (whose name was presumably Ro) shrugged her shoulders. "Ah, I miscalculated. But in case you haven't noticed, she's tied to a pole. This, by the way, was my idea. Portable, expandable pseudo-wooden poles, excellent for tying up inconvenient foils to our plans. I should get an award or something."

Annabeth tried talking again. "Excuse me, but you didn't answer my question. Who are you – and don't say 'pirates' – and what are you doing with our things?"

The dark haired boy smiled again. "Um, stealing it. And I would tell you who we are, but it's none of you business. Pancake?" he added, holding out the paper plate. He turned back to his companions, "Is Abe ready? And can we please get off this boat more elegantly than we got on it?" The girl chucked a sack at him, and sniggered as he almost fell over. "There's your elegance. Now," and she whistled loudly.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then what looked like a ship came sailing out of a cloud, straight towards the Argo II. As it got closer, Annabeth could see it was less like a ship and more like a dinghy. It was ridiculously small compared to the Argo II, and there was no mast, just a deck with a shack built onto it. It was dark blue, with flecks of silver on the hull, and was sitting on part of a grey cloud.

By this time, everyone Piper and Jason were awake and staring at the pirates. Leo was mutter under his breath in Spanish. It sounded like if translated to English, she still wouldn't know what it meant. Annabeth looked at him (as much as she could, being tied to a pole), his eyes were narrowed and he was glaring at Ro. When she looked back at Ro, Annabeth could see why. Leo's toolbelt was lying next to her foot, and the zipper was open.

The dinghy was still approaching the Argo II, but its speed was increasing as it came closer. None of the pirates were looking at it; they were in a huddle around the sacks, piling them up. Frank, who had twisted himself around to look at the dinghy, said loudly, "Um, guys? Your, uh, boat is about to hit us. Seriously, it's travelling way too fast and it's going to–" Frank stopped talking, possibly because he didn't feel like continuing, possibly because the dinghy slammed into the Argo II and the pole he was tied to fell over.

Ro turned to the sandy-blonde boy and said, "Orion, I think we may have a problem." Okay, Annabeth thought, so he's Orion. Why do I know that name? Orion was… the hunter! Orion the Hunter! Wait, thatguy is Orion the Hunter? That means the other one must be Sirius. I know that name, but I can't remember who that is. Nobody major, anyway. Still, he's probably dangerous.

Annabeth turned to ask Leo whether he remembered who Sirius was, but Leo wasn't there. She looked around and saw he was on the high-castle (the elevated part of the ship down the poop end). He was aiming one of the blasters at the pirates, particularly Ro. Annabeth watched as he took aim and… slipped over. The blast still fired, but it missed by about half a meter.

However, the force of impact was enough to knock Orion, Ro and Sirius off their feet. Leo ran down the stairs, whooping, and yelled, "Score! Even my fails are awesome!"

Not everyone was so thrilled, though. Annabeth's headache wasn't going anywhere. Jason and Piper were still out cold, Hazel looked like she was going to be sick, Frank was pale and sweating, and Percy's nose was bleeding. Annabeth looked sideways at where Leo had been tied. The rope should have been loosened, but when she looked at it more, she could see that she and Leo had been tied on different ropes. So when his one was loosened, hers was still tight. Couldn't he have cut her rope too? And, argh, why wouldn't this headache go away? The harder Annabeth tried to reach for her knife, which was in her back pocket, the worse the headache got.

Frank, who was recently untied, came over and cut her rope. "You okay, Frank?" Annabeth asked. "Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "just… there's something about the rope. I couldn't transform, and I was getting this massive headache, and… well, when I wasn't trying to transform, I was fine. But as soon as I did, and I strained against the rope, the headache came back. Whoa, Annabeth, are you alright?" Frank caught Annabeth's arm as she fell against the pole. She was doing a lot of falling today. The headache was getting worse. "I'm fine, Frank. Nothing's wrong. Are they… the pirates, are they unconscious?" Frank looked over to Orion, Ro and Sirius and nodded.

Percy, who had also been cut loose, came over to where Annabeth and Frank stood. "Hey, are you guys alright? They didn't do anything to you, did they?"

"No," Annabeth said, "I was knocked out by those weird grenades. Are you okay? Your nose is bleeding. Where did I put the first aid kit? Are Jason or Hazel or Piper hurt?" At the sound of Hazel's name, Frank walked over to where she was sitting, propped up against the mast. Percy and Annabeth followed him. Leo, who had been busy looking through the sacks, also walked over.

Annabeth knelt down next to Hazel. "What's wrong?" she asked, as Hazel's eyes were open very wide, and she was clutching her stomach. "Who were they? What were they doing here," Annabeth asked Leo, who was holding Sirius' leather jacket, and going through the pockets. Leo pulled out a wallet and handed it to her. "I don't know. Really, he's got a student ID for some Russian place, looks like a college, but no birthdates I can see. A few cards for pizza places and, uh, video rental stores in what looks like Egypt. There's also a business card for Allstar Investigations Inc. Never heard of them, but guess where they have an office," he said, smiling at Annabeth's expression as she read the card and passed it to Percy, who made an O_o face.

It read:

Ω Allstar Investigations Inc. Ω

13/597 Empire State Building, New York City, NY

There is always an answer, even when there's not

.com

"Catholic cat ladies? What? Who are these people?" Percy said, laughing. Frank furrowed his eyebrows and said, "Wait, they have an office on floor 597, Empire State building? There is no floor 597. There's only 102." Annabeth straightened up and replied, "Actually, there are 103. The 102 mortal floors, plus floor 600, which is the entrance to Olympus. I've never even heard of floor 597. But that doesn't really matter right now."

Frank nodded. "Yeah, what matters is: how did these, um, pirates bypass all of your security systems?" he said, looking at Leo, whose euphoria crashed and burned. He shook his head. "I don't know, really. But the systems were only really supposed to detect magical beings; gods, monsters, spirits, that kind of thing. So if my system didn't detect it, then they can't be magical beings or have been using magic. Which is pretty weird, considering they actually managed to find the ship. The only thing I could think of would be if they had a frequency reader, and could detect a vacuum with a total absence of readings, since I stopped all energy coming out of the ship from showing up on energy readers. And if they did, that's also weird, considering how low-tech they are. I mean, ropes and stink bombs? Not exactly NASA, know what I mean?" Leo finished, looking around. Annabeth nodded, but everyone else was looking pretty confused.

"Okay… so I have no idea how this happened. But what do we do now? And what about that – Hazel, what is it?" Hazel had sucked in her breath and ran to the port side of the Argo II.

"The boat! Where is it? I know it hit the ship, but I can't see it," she said, looking down through the clouds. Percy walked over towards her and stared down as well. "What was it that the girl did?" he said, and whistled loudly, as Ro had done. Everyone who was conscious held their breath, waiting for the dinghy to appear.

It didn't.

Next to Annabeth, Orion was moving. He was almost awake. They needed somewhere to keep the pirates, at least until they could deposit them on land. If they hadn't used magic and the systems hadn't detected them, then Annabeth didn't want to kill them, as they weren't monsters. Probably.

"Hey Leo," Annabeth said, removing her foot from under where a sack had fallen on it and placing it on Orion's back. "Do we have a brig?" Leo, Hazel, Percy and Frank looked at her, and Leo grinned again.

"Yeah, I think so."

Second chapter done. :) I think I might just write from Annabeth's perspective for the whole story, she's so easy to write. I mean, with Percy or Leo I'd have to be almost constantly witty, and that drains on me. I can't make pop-culture references with Hazel, which I looooove doing. I don't like Piper (but I found a way to make her less annoying: knock her out). Hmm, maybe I'll try Frank or Jason. Also, I try to avoid writing romance, so fluffies should go elsewhere.

Dot points!

. So, what do you think of the pirates?

. What is/are Allstar Investigations, and why do they have an office 597 floors above ground?

. What happened to the dinghy (that Ro refers to as Abe)?

. Can you guess who Sirius or Ro are?

. Catholic Cat Ladies?

-E