I'm back! Hello all, I'm sorry this chapter took so long to write. The holiday season is kicking my ass, not to mention that my mother got a new puppy that's barely 9 weeks old. If you don't know, puppies are a lot of work. Oh, and I also broke up with my boyfriend before Thanksgiving (He ignored me for two months and then acted surprised when I called to break up with him, the asshole) so I've just been a tad bit busy. Thank god for fanfiction otherwise I would be losing my mind. Anyway, that's all of my excuses out of the way so enjoy the chapter!
Oh! Also I've got a poll up on my profile asking who your favorite OC is, please go take it!
This is placed in the first chapter of HoH, btw.
Also thanks to Athenian-Ravenclaw-In-A-TARDIS, Bunny's daughter, Corin Wolfkin, DarkHero12, LovePercabeth4eva, RosettaQueen20, as9414413, geupard12, moonwolf0093, hannahpjoleonard, ZebraGirl202, aaquater, EspeonAuraGirl55, RosettaQueen20, BRINK555, flora writer, for following and favoriting this story!
(Ethan)
Ethan never thought that dodging boulders is what he would be doing with his life, but here he was.
"Hard to port!" Nico yelled from the foremast of the flying ship.
At the helm, Leo yanked the wheel. Lily, right beside him, clung to the control console, her knuckles white. Ethan moved on instinct when he saw Hazel peer over the railing. He grabbed her by the waist and threw them both to the ground, the boulder whistling past their heads.
CRACK!
Ethan lifted his head from the floor and winced. The foremast had collapsed, bringing Nico down along with it. The son of Hades tumbled out of the bird's nest, rolling onto his back, stopping painfully.
Hazel pushed Ethan off of her. "Nico!" she yelled worriedly as she ran over to him.
Ethan stumbled to his feet as Leo leveled the ship. Emily burst out of the stairwell with Zack on her heels, tripping over a stray piece of wood. Hazel helped Nico up as he muttered, "I'm fine."
Ethan reached his cousins, bracing Zack as he swayed dangerously. The poor boy had barely gotten any sleep since Charlie and Silena had jumped into Tartarus. Zack's dark blue eyes were bloodshot while his black hair was greasy and tangled. Ethan mentally growled; the only reason Zack was this bad was because of Percy and Jason.
Annabeth and Piper had come to Ethan a day after their confrontation, wanting to know specifically what Charlie and Silena had planned. After Ethan had told them the plan the two women had promptly burst into tears before giving out apologies. Percy and Jason, though, were both still furious, and refused to listen to their respective girlfriends. They gave the four cousins the cold shoulder, throwing glares at them whenever they saw them.
Ethan was sick of it.
So were Annabeth and Piper.
Both women had been refusing to talk to their boyfriends in retaliation, and when they did talk to them, it usually ended in a screaming match that left both sides fuming. Ethan had taken to hiding in the stables for cover. Lily hid in the engine room with her dad, while Frank, Emily, Hazel, Nico and Zack all avoided the mess hall as a whole and were usually on the deck.
Ethan shook his head and ignored his dark thoughts, instead grabbing Emily and Zack to pull them away from another boulder that was thrown in reply to Leo's explosive.
"Why are they attacking us?" Emily asked, ducking low.
Ethan shrugged. "Because we're here? I don't know."
Nico cut off their conversation with a shout towards Leo. "Get us out of here!"
Leo snarled insults towards the mountain gods that were attacking them as he did as Nico said. Emily pushed away from Ethan and Zack and stumbled over to Lily and Leo. Ethan placed his hand on Zack's shoulder, causing the younger boy to glance up at him.
"You okay?" Ethan asked, trying to mask his worry.
Zack nodded tiredly, impulsively looking toward Nico wistfully. Ethan clenched his jaw and pulled Zack into a side hug. Nico had been ignoring Zack's existence since he had been told the truth, even walking out of the room if Zack walked in. Ethan was about ready to smack the crap out of his uncle, even if the man was his godfather.
"Right," Ethan said, sighing. "Go get some sleep, alright?"
"But-" Zack protested, only for Ethan to cut him off.
"I could hide the Argo ll in the bags under your eyes, kid." Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Are you really telling me that you're not tired?"
Zack gave a petulant pout, conceding defeat. "Noooooooo."
Ethan rolled his eyes and shoved him towards the stairs. "Sleep. Then you can cause mischief, okay?"
"Fiiiiiiiiiiine," Zack grumbled, doing as he was told.
Ethan shook his head in amusement as he watched Zack drag his feet, hopping over the stray debris that was in his path. He caught Nico looking at Zack out of the corner of his eye. Ethan scowled darkly at him before moving over to Leo and the girls.
Dawn peeked at him over the clouds, giving off light and welcomed warmth. Ethan took a deep breath to calm down, basking slightly. For some reason, his emotions had been out of whack, more than they should be. He found himself being easily angered, which wasn't like him at all; usually, he was the one keeping everyone else's tempers in check.
He released the breath he had been holding in and focused on Leo.
"Well, that was sucktastic," Leo glowered at nothing. "Should I wake the rest of the crew?"
Hazel bit her lip in thought before shaking her head. "They need rest. We'll have to figure out another way on our own."
Ethan felt relieved. The last thing he wanted right now was for Jason and Percy to come up and start picking a fight with him and the others. His temper was already balancing on the knife's edge. If anything set him off, he would explode.
"Huh," Leo said, turning his glare towards his console. "Another way. Do you see one?"
On his monitor glowed a map of Italy. Ethan crossed his arms, matching his uncle's glare. He didn't see how they were supposed to get out of this without waking up the others. Lily and Emily moved to stand on either side of him, resting their heads on his shoulders. Ethan gave them amused looks as he put his arms around them, comfortably resting around their waists.
Hazel and Leo bent over the console, throwing out destinations back and forth. One would point out a route and the other would instantly shoot it down by pointing out all the dangers.
Hazel eventually gave a frustrated sigh. "It's our fault," she admitted. "Nico's and mine. The numina can sense us."
Ethan made a noise of agreement. "Not to mention Zack and Emily." He jostled Emily as he spoke her name, causing her to pick her head up and give him a glare for disrupting her comfortable position.
Nico nodded. "Earth spirits don't like children of the Underworld. That's true, even grandchildren of the Underworld are disliked heavily. We get under their skin - literally. But I think the numina could sense the ship anyway. We're carrying the Athena Parthenos. That thing is like a magical beacon."
Ethan grimaced at the mention of the statue. He hated that thing; its magical power was always buzzing in the back of his mind, becoming just another thing that kept him up at night. It didn't help that his and Frank's shared room was close to the stables, where they had stored the gigantic ivory statue.
Leo traced his finger down the map of Italy. "So crossing the mountains is out. Thing is, they go a long way in either direction."
"We could go by sea," Hazel suggested. "Sail around the southern tip of Italy."
"That's a long way." Nico shook his head. "Plus, Percy's not exactly stable at the moment, after, uh, Charlie and Silena."
Silence fell across the six of them at the names of their two missing members. Ethan felt the now familiar rush guilt pass through him. He knew that they would survive, he knew they would. He just didn't know what shape the two of them would be in when they returned. Percy and Annabeth, Future Percy and Annabeth anyway, always said that while they would never regret closing the doors, they would always regret leaving Bob and Damasen behind. Percy especially.
Hell, before they got married, they broke up for little bit. Not for very long, it was barely two months, but they had agreed that they couldn't get married until both of them had dealt with their issues, separately. Both went to counseling and worked on their issues: survivor's guilt and PTSD, apparently. Five months later, they were out of counseling and were happily married, then the rest was history. Or at least, it would be.
Ethan always looked to Percy and Annabeth to how he wanted his relationships to go. They both knew each other's weaknesses and strengths, they moved around each other without looking, as if they always knew where the other was. They finished each other's sentences and thoughts.
The only people he had ever seen that were that close were Zack and Emily, Charlie and Silena, and him and Lily. But their closeness came from growing up together and only having each other. Percy and Annabeth's connection went deeper, as if their very souls were connected to each other. It amazed him, honestly.
"What about continuing north?" Hazel asked, breaking Ethan out of his thoughts. "There has to be a break in the mountains, or something."
Leo fiddled with the Archimedes sphere. Lily stepped out of Ethan's hold and started helping her dad configure the sphere into the appropriate setting. Ethan noticed Hazel eyeing the sphere worriedly, which he understood. As much as he trusted Lily and Leo, he knew sometimes things just went wrong.
Luckily, the sphere just grew a camera lens and projected a 3-D image of the Apennine Mountains above the console.
"I dunno." Leo put his hands on his hips as he examined the hologram. "I don't see any good passes to the north. But I like that idea better than backtracking south. I'm done with Rome."
No one argued with that. Everyone agreed that Rome had not been a good experience.
"Whatever we do," Nico said, "we have to hurry. Every day that Charlie and Silena are in Tartarus..." he trailed off.
Ethan swallowed before shaking his head. "Those two will be fine. They're like cockroaches, they just can't seem to die no matter what you do."
Lily snorted. "That's one way to put it," she muttered.
Nico scowled at the Italian countryside. "Maybe we should wake the others. This decision affects us all."
"No," Hazel said instantly. "We can find a solution." She drummed her fingers on the hilt of her sword in thought. "We need some creative thinking. Another way to cross those mountains, or a way to hide ourselves from the numina."
Nico sighed heavily. "If I was on my own, I could shadow-travel. But that won't work for an entire ship. And honestly, I'm not sure I have the strength to even transport myself anymore."
"And Zack is powerful, but not powerful enough to shadow-travel the entire Argo ll without help," Ethan admitted, shifting Emily to stand front of him so he could rest his chin on the top of her head.
Nico looked like he had been slapped. "He can shadow-travel?"
"Yup," Emily said dryly. "Maybe you would know that if you actually, I don't know, talked to him instead of acting like he doesn't exist."
Nico flinched at the accusation as Ethan hid a vicious smile in Emily's bedhead. 'Looks like I'm not the only one annoyed with his BS.'
Leo cleared his throat awkwardly. "I could maybe rig up some kind of camouflage, like a smoke screen to hide us in the clouds."
Hazel ignored Leo as she stared off into the distance, eyes widening suddenly. "Arion."
"What?" Nico asked in confusion.
Leo let loose an excited whoop as the dust cloud that Ethan could finally see got closer. "It's her horse, man! You missed that whole part. We haven't seen him since Kansas!"
Hazel laughed happily, smiling brightly. "We have to meet him," she said. "He's here to help."
"Yeah, okay." Leo scratched his scalp. "But, uh, we talked about not landing the ship on the ground anymore, remember? You know, with Gaea wanting to destroy us and all."
"Just get me close and I'll use the rope ladder," Hazel said firmly. "I think Arion wants to tell me something."
Everyone scrambled around as Leo moved the ship closer to Arion. In three minutes, they were hovering a hundred feet above the ground while Hazel climbed down the ladder. The moment her feet hit the ground, she ran for her horse and hugged him.
"Awww," Emily said. "That's so cute."
Ethan gave her a glance. "You have never sounded more patronizing than you did in that moment."
"Rude," she grumbled, focusing on the scene below her as Ethan snickered.
"Hazel!" Nico hollered. "What's going on?"
"It's fine!" she shouted as she fed Arion a gold nugget. "Arion wants to take me somewhere."
Everyone exchanged slightly nervous looks; they had all seen the beginnings of a tornado over a small hill.
"Uh..." Leo pointed north. "Please tell me he's not taking you into that?"
Hazel followed Leo pointing and paled as she saw the storm. She looked back at the stallion and asked him a question that Ethan couldn't hear. Whatever the answer was, Ethan had a feeling Hazel regretted asking it as she seemed to sigh and climb onto the horse's back.
"I'll be okay!" she called up to the five of them. "Stay put and wait for me."
"Wait for how long?" Nico shouted. "What if you don't come back?"
"Don't worry, I will," she promised, avoiding the question.
She and Arion shot off like a rocket, heading straight for the growing tornado.
'Yeah,' Ethan thought sarcastically, 'this is gonna end just peachy.'
Whew, this chapter took forever to write, but it's done! And I've already gotten the first part of the next chapter written, which you'll be happy with as I'll be showing you what's going on with Charlie and Silena. Also! I've been working on my Avengers story called Heroes For Hire, you should go check it out, I promise it's sorta good. Also, also! Please go check out my deleted scenes fic for the FTS series called A Helping of Missing Moments if you want more fluff rather than angst in your life. Anyway, that's all for this chapter, it's about 12am as I finish this and send it off to my wonderful beta, aaquater. I'm tired.
See ya next time! Comic out!
EspeonAuraGirl55- Yeah, there is a very good reason why everyone reacted the way they did, you just won't know why for awhile. And don't forget, Charlie and Silena have a side mission for Tartarus, they didn't go to Tartarus just to save Percy and Annabeth the heartache. So, the two of them have a looooong trip ahead of them. Alright, that's all the hints I'm gonna give, thanks for reviewing and I'll see ya next time. P.s, how was Thanksgiving with your boyfriend? I hope you had a nice time.
Didi- Hello! I had a very good Thanksgiving, thanks! I hope you had an excellent one as well! Hahaha, the depressingness will only last for a few chapter as I have a sneaky plot twist up my sleeve I don't think anyone will see coming. as for the overly dramatic reactions, there's a reason for that and it has to do with the plot twist that I just mentioned. The kids can't say much about the future because of unintended consequences, meaning if they let something slip that they shouldn't have then things might change in a very bad way. They're pissing the Fates off as it is. See ya!
aaquater- Yeaaaaaaah, nobody is very happy at the moment. However there is a reason for it that you'll see later.
Guest- !
Guest (2)- Aw thanks! I love you too!
Trisha (Guest)- I do actually plan on doing all three books. I'm glad you find Fated To Save interesting! I've got a few ideas planned that I think you will all like. Um, I think you misunderstood though, none of the cousins will be dating each other. They see each other as cousins, that all. I don't think I'll be putting romance in this story other than the Parents since I want this story to focus on the Kids and how they deal with being in the past. Thanks for reading!
