Writing prompts are getting kind of stupid. -_- I was freaking out about what the prompt was going to be because I thought it was going to be hard but then it turns out to be something about a celebrity being in your town. I wanted to choose some cutie patootie like Channing Tatum, Johnney Depp, Logan Lerman, Jake Gylnhaal (Sorry if I spelled his last name wrong) or, you know, cutie patooties. But then I realized that I wouldn't really have anything to write about so I chose Ellen DeGeneres. :) She's an awesome chic. Then it kills me because I think I did Really good, like a six, but I won't get the score back until THE END OF APRIL. What if I die before then and never know?! It's murdering me that I can't find out what I got right away.
Guess what else I found out? I thought House of Hades was coming out THIS fall. It turns out its NEXT YEAR. NOOOOOOOOOOO What if I die before then?!
Okay. I'm done ranting.
I hope you've had a very happy Tuesday like I did but I'm sorry to say that this is the last chapter. :'( I'm really happy at the same time, don't get me wrong. It's been the greatest first finished fanfiction I could ask for. I really, really, really, really love and appreciate all you followers and favorites and reviews. Without you guys, I probably wouldn't have continued the story.
But, heads up, I've been getting some really good ideas for another PJO fanfic sand a 39 Clues fanfic. So keep an eye out for my name again. :)
I do not own PJO.
Proceed please.
Annabeth ran around the back side of the hydra. One head followed her while the others tried to shake Percy off. She knew her boyfriend had been in other worse situations before, but she caught a glimpse of him and his green face, which had a tint of blue, and looked like he was about to pass out. Before she could help him, she needed to start her plan with the hydra.
So as Annabeth passed by the huge hole, she turned her glasses in its direction. Then as she sprinted to Piper, dodging a tail the size of a building, the lens in front of her eyes calculated how large the hydra was compared to the hole.
All Annabeth needed to know was that it was a perfect fit.
Finally, she reached Piper who was still tending to Leo and Jason.
"Is Leo okay?" Annabeth asked first.
Piper nodded, "Just a bit—"
"I'm not here at the moment so please leave a message at the beep." Leo said hoarsely although his eyes were heavily closed. He still wouldn't move. But mini-Festus did the honors of sitting comfortably by his owner, opening its tiny metal jaws and letting out a loud squeak that sounded like it came off an answering machine of a phone.
"Okay…that was creepy," said Jason, who was still injured, but awake.
Annabeth and Piper blinked at the two, unsure about where Leo's health now stood.
The screech of the monster was what shook them out of their thoughts.
"Piper, I need you to charm speak the hydra," said Annabeth hastily.
Piper looked incredulous. "Why? And tell it to do what?"
Annabeth pointed at the hole in the ground without saying a word. Piper seemed to realize now. "Oh…but what about Percy; he'll tumble down with it."
"That's what I'm going to try to take care of." Annabeth said and then turned on her heel, sprinting toward it.
Piper got from her knees with a last squeeze to Jason's hand and walked with shaky feet toward the hole. She stood ten feet away from it, not wanting to fall in.
Annabeth, who stood the same distance away from her, turned around and mouthed, "On my cue,"
Piper nodded and tried to force the fear out of her system in the meantime.
Annabeth jogged back around the hydra, her knees bent with stealth. Piper wished she could look that confident sometimes. Annabeth then eased up at the back of the hydra, next to its tail, and crouched. She then leaped into the air, grabbing onto the tail with both hands and slowly crawled up its back.
Sweat gathered at her temple, but she eased onward. She gripped every handful of skin she could. It was like climbing the rock wall at camp. She pushed those thoughts away and when she got to the shoulder blade, she straightened and moved her left hand along the side of the hydra, trying to move around the front side. Finally, she held on to the monster at its chest, an inch away from Percy.
She could tell that if he didn't turn the other way, she was going to be covered with puke. And she knew why, seeing how her nostrils and eyes stung from the smell seeping off of its skin. She swallowed it down so that she could try to talk to Percy. Before she did, though, something vibrated from the top of her glasses. Her eyes looked up but she couldn't see what the cause was.
Percy looked at the hole that opened up next to the lens. Some sort of fragrance spit out of it and a cloud engulfed him and Annabeth. Without thinking, he breathed in a lungful. It smelled so good that he took as many deep breaths as he could. To him, it smelled like sea water; glorious sea salted ocean water; and just breathing that in gave him strength.
To Annabeth's surprise, she could smell ocean water too. She almost thought that Poseidon stepped foot in the room. Leo must've known what her favorite perfume smell was.
The green and blue escaped from Percy's cheeks, but grew stronger in his beautiful orbs. He no longer looked like he was about to throw up.
"Never thought we'd be in this position, eh, Wise Girl?" Percy said, his voice calm as ever.
Annabeth grinned. "Never thought we'd be in any other position before, but there we were," Her mind showed images of them in their earlier adventures. She was shocked to find that they also played right in front of her eyes.
Percy returned the grin, making butterflies erupt in her stomach.
Once she was reminded of it again by her glasses, she whipped her head around and shouted, "Start talking to it now, Piper!"
Piper obliged after she took a deep breath. "Hydra!" She shouted. She felt uneasy calling to it, but how else was she supposed to get its attention.
"Just call it what I did!" Thalia offered as she then stood next to her brother.
Piper then yelled at it, "STUPID TRIPLETS!"
All four heads stopped what they were doing and slowly turned toward her with pure hatred and evil in its eye.
Piper gulped but then began motioning it toward her. "Come here. Forget the demi gods on you and walk towards me," she tried to lean forward and look confident like Annabeth had, but she had her mind on keeping her voice calm and steady.
Gratefully, the hydra began to make its way toward her.
Faster than Annabeth thought it would. She explained to Percy her plan as quickly as she could and tried to find a way of getting off of the hydra. They were not unexpectedly falling down a giant hole in the ground again.
The monster kept easing forward and Percy tried to wiggle Riptide from the skin. That only shook the hydra out of Piper's charm speak.
Percy stopped and cringed when the monster shrieked with pain and moved to snap at him again.
But then it stopped and sniffed the air.
It was deathly quiet in the room.
Percy stopped breathing again, not because the poison-mouthed hydra was inches away from his face, but because of how worse its breath smelled. Percy nearly gagged—but remembered to do so silently. He knew its vision was probably off enough for him to do the action.
The hydra stopped moving again and before it could do anything, Piper then said strongly, "Come here,"
Annabeth and Percy felt like hopping off the hydra and walking towards her, but knew not to.
The hydra didn't though. It ignored Percy and returned its attention to Piper.
Percy let out a sigh. "That was a close one."
Annabeth slugged him in the shoulder. "Yeah, too close. Don't do it again."
"Oh I…don't think I ever will want to ever smell a hydra's morning breath ever again. Unless if I desperately wanted to kill myself,"
Annabeth glared at him, but then a thought occurred to her as she remembered how she felt during Piper's charm speaking. A plan formed and she could literally see her and Percy jumping off the hydra at the last second. It was risky, but they had to in order to not distract the hydra beforehand.
"Percy, you're going to have to forget the sword,"
"Forget the sword?!" He asked credulously. "My precious Riptide?!"
"It can return to your pocket, can't it?" Annabeth did a slight head-roll, looking at him matter-of-factly.
"Oh…oh yeah," he said as if he just remembered it.
Annabeth rolled her eyes as a small smile graced her lips.
Piper walked backwards around the edge of the hole, still talking swiftly to the monster. She glanced every now and then to make sure that she wasn't going to fall in, but otherwise kept her eyes locked on the hydra. A chill would creep up her spine as she looked at the foul creature. Finally, she reached the other side of the hole, taking a few steps back. The hydra must've seen the giant hole that she was guiding it towards, but it didn't seem like it had.
Annabeth gripped Percy's hand. "You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." He sighed. Annabeth's stomach was in her throat as she looked down. At the moment, she wished she wasn't wearing glasses for two reasons. One, so that she couldn't see the hard ground. And two, so that her glasses didn't measure the exact distance. It only made matter worse once she found that they were over 200 feet up.
Percy squeezed her hand and then kissed her fingertips. "We'll be okay." He promised.
She nodded, her heart now in her throat.
"On three, we jump together. Okay?" He said. Annabeth gave a small nod. "One," he started. The hydra was only a couple feet away from the hole.
"Two," Annabeth whispered along with him. The lens even started a countdown in the top, right-hand corner as they calculated the math and showed were they should land and how they should jump and at which moment the hydra was falling forwards that they should jump….But Annabeth kept her eyes locked with Percy's.
He hesitated as they both felt the movement of the hydra tripping forwards as its paw couldn't feel any ground below it.
Time slowed as the hydra began falling into the hole, its shrieks and screeches muffled in their ears. Their knuckles began to relax as their grasp softened from the skin.
"Three," They said together and jumped, the hydra thrashing next to them, and the ground coming nearer. Annabeth squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see the ground or the lens measuring what the ground was made of and how much damage it could do to her face.
Finally, she landed on something soft, it heaving up and down.
It was breathing.
She snapped her eyes opened only to meet a pair of green ones that looked anxiously excited. Annabeth instantly smiled at Percy.
He grinned back at her. She had landed on him, both of them shaking from the anticipation. They had been through this feeling together many times before. Annabeth wasn't sure why they kept feeling it; she thought they'd be used to it by now.
Percy chuckled bitterly. "That was a long fall."
Annabeth smiled and was too speechless to say anything. She nodded.
"You closed your eyes," he noted.
"Did not," She snarled out the lie.
"Did too,"
"Nuh-uh," she protested as she heaved off of him. He winced at her weight against his ribs. She got to her feet, Percy next to her.
They found the others, except Leo, staring down at the large hole, the remote shadow of something big thrashing and screeches echoing through the dark tunnel.
Thalia whistled. Her voice was soft when she said, "That's a long way down…"
"It leads to the mortal world, doesn't it?" Jason asked. He was leaning against Piper, rubbing his temples.
Annabeth said, "The mist might cover it up to the humans."
"If it doesn't…."Piper trailed off.
There was a silence of pondering. Nobody gave a direct answer, but they all thought the same thing.
But Percy voiced it. "That's really gonna freak someone out."
Annabeth snorted and her lips curled upwards.
"Ha!" Jason exclaimed, "So it was a good thing that I put that hole in the ground!"
"Yes, Sparky; yes it was," Piper sighed exasperatedly.
Thalia murmured that she had some explaining to do to Artemis, and with another farewell, she was gone from the room.
Nearby, they heard quiet moaning. All heads turned to find Leo stirring. His eyes fluttered open. Leo saw a blindness and thought he was in heaven again. But then all the memories flushed back into storage and he remembered what happened before he passed out. It only felt like that had happened seconds ago, and to open up to his friends staring at him, cuts on their skin and sweat plastering their shirts to them—and no hydra? It definitely wasn't a dream.
"What happened?" He asked in a raw voice. He tried to sit up, but he felt like his skull was being split opened. Leo decided that the position he was in now was fine enough.
Annabeth limped towards him, her ankle possibly sprained from the fall. She looked worn out and she slid down the wall, coming to an ease as she sat next to him. Up close, Leo could see her glasses and he knew he had done a wonderful job.
"Well, Leo," she sighed. "Long story short, you saved the day."
"What!" He yelped, but it only made his pain worse. He winced and said, "How? I didn't even do anything. I was completely worthless; I was knocked out not even five minutes in."
"Are you kidding? You did the most of all!" Annabeth patted his arm.
Leo gave her a look. "Did that hydra do something to your head, Annabeth?"
She didn't roll her eyes—she wasn't in the mood. She laughed. "Oh, Leo, possibly." She said airily.
Leo kept his narrowed eyes trained on her. "Okay…now you're really freaking me out."
She chuckled. "Good."
"But seriously: what happened?"
"Nothing much." She said. "Well…except for one thing."
The other demi gods came and sat with their backs against the wall next to them.
"And what would that be?" Leo asked, voicing the others thoughts as well.
Annabeth slipped off her black glasses and inspected them. She smiled and put them right back on. She tilted her head to the side to look at Leo. "You have, for once, proven me wrong."
"No way!" Leo said in awe. "Will you tell me how this time?" he asked, his cheeks still smiling as if they were now forcing it.
"That I really love glasses." Annabeth stated simply.
Leo's fake smile fell, but the smile in his eyes remained grinning. Annabeth actually liked something he had done. For once, he didn't feel as scared of her as he used to be. The others smiled too and there was a silence in the room. But you could hear the gods shouting and hollering, loud footsteps banging through the hallway. They were still far away.
"So…nobody's going to explain how the hydra suddenly disappeared?"
Mini-Festus stepped up in front of Leo and opened its tiny jaws, playing a holographic screen against a slab of concrete. It was responding to its owner's request. For, after all, it could capture any moment.
Once the video was over and all of Leo's questions were answered, Zeus stepped into the room.
"What on Earth happened here?!" His voice boomed, his temper beginning to rise. After all that work and after an hour or so, the whole thing was destroyed!
The demi gods had no more energy to deal with the god. They exchanged a look, having a silent conversation.
"APOLLO DID IT." They said in unison.
Zeus looked like he was about to crack a lightning bolt.
"Oh, but if you see him, remind him that he still has to give us a ride back to Camp Half-Blood." Percy flashed the god a bemused smile. He then reached into his pocket, suddenly feeling something heavy, and pulled out his golden pen. Percy smiled sadly at it.
I know, I know. I'm sobbing too. Not sure why and I'm not exactly sure why I made the ending kind of...sad. I feel like some endings should be...mourning. Comfortable settings since the main characters just had to deal with an epic battle scene, saving the world from some jealous dude who didn't get to do it earlier. *Scoff* Drama Queens.
Anyways, so that's the end! I'm kind of happy to mark this as my first Completed story. :)
