Hey guys! Wow, I've posted, like, twice in a month. I'm so proud of myself! Anyways, I hope you like this chapter. It's a bit of a major turning point for... well, I won't say it, enjoy reading it!

Disclaimer: Me no own

Dedication: My friends. Easy to judge as crazy, but you lose if you do.

10

Gunpowder and a Very Sick Blade

"We take it for granted we know the whole story - We judge a book by its cover and read what we want between selected lines." - Axl Rose

His friends panicked when their calls to 'are you okay?' and 'Stupid bloke, you're tripping on thin air' came back empty.

They ran in after. Stupid idea: the first one tripped and Hylla hauled a cannonball and threw it at his head. I wasn't sure if he died or not, but it wasn't looking good.

I backed up into the room with another knife in my hand and held it up.

"Oh," he said, for a second looking scared. Then he composed himself and got mad. "How'd you escape? Where'd you..?"

If this were a movie, I'd have let him finish, and I would've replied something snarky and intelligent and badass. But because fights in the real world aren't fights where the fighters are told that the good guy has to win; I didn't do that, I just threw the knife. My aim didn't fail. I was scared to death that it would.

Hylla then swept the legs of the other guy out from under him before he could move and he fell and broke something important in the leg area.

The fifth guy on the other hand, my knife missed because he ran.

Hylla ran out after him and raised a gun. Her finger pulled the trigger and I heard a fall.

"Thank God the gods of aim decided to favour me and not you for two seconds," Hylla said. "He was nearly out."

"You fired a gun," I said. "Why? I could have nailed him," I said.

"You wouldn't have had time," Hylla said. "Besides. They were going to figure it out soon."

I didn't argue with her.

Okay, my knives were inside of dead people. Dead people I'd killed. Oh my god, I was officially a murderer and a criminal and I could go in prison for life and be stuck wearing orange jumpsuits and stuck between four walls for the rest of my life. My heart beat a whole lot faster. I wasn't sure whether I was just panicking, feeling guilty, or getting an overdose of adrenaline.

But those knives were still knives. They were still metal. They were still sharp. I could still throw them. And I wasn't exactly in a position to me picky.

I knelt next to the two pirates who'd died. It was a lot different when I killed a pirate than when Hylla did. For one: I felt victorious, but only for about a quarter of a second before I thought that man is dead, and it's your fault.

But really what bothered me was that he would've done exactly that to me. Or did the world not work like that? Were your crimes truly held against you; listed and piled up in the Underworld? Were they justified? Did the person with the shortest list and smallest pile win? I was doing something I couldn't undo, but would it be redone and held to me one day? Were your crimes considered crimes if that's under what you'd been living for the last months? Was this some kind of… of rightful evil? Was there such a thing?

Now was not a good time to think these deep thoughts.

Alright, I didn't have to touch him. I could just grab the handle and…

Oh gods, blood was trickling out, like maple trees tapped for syrup. Oh, there went my enjoyment of pancakes as well… Oh gods, that was…

I just grabbed the other before I could change my mind. This one was stuck. Oh gods, against what?

I was really panicking at this point. Hylla took the blade from me and rubbed it on her top, before handing it back, the blade clean. Somehow that calmed me down an ounce.

"You're amazing," she said. "You're my little sister and I'm supposed to tell you to be good and not to play with sharp things like I always have, but you're amazing."

I nodded, although I felt more 'scared' than 'amazing'.

She touched my cheek. "If you wouldn't have killed him, I would've. There was no way he was going to ever r… do those things to you. There is such a thing as self-defence."

We jumped over the bodies and looked at the forecastle. Hammocks and simple straw beds were here and there. Bundles of personal property like clothes too. The accordion was on the floor, and so was the gunshot body.

I wanted to find Andrew's hammock and light it on fire all of a sudden, it just felt like I had to make vengeance even bigger when it came to him. But I had my priorities. Besides, the fire would catch to the rest of the ship and that would suck.

"What now?" I asked.

"We can go upstairs, where the others will be on deck. I'm estimating about fifteen of them are left. Or we can try and drag some of them down here bit by bit. They won't all come down. And if they do…"

"That won't happen," I said.

"Then we need their attention," Hylla said.

I took out a gun. "I can shoot."

"No," she said. "Save your bullets. Scream, and shoot the one who comes down. Save your knives for hand-to-hand. Also, at least one bullet; keep it as an emergency."

It hit me that most people had emergency flashlights in their cars, or emergency make-up in their purses for cocktail parties. Maybe this was what demigods did.

Go up, now, a voice in the back of my head said. You don't win by enclosing yourself. And the unconscient ones will wake up. Backing yourself up against walls is a sure way to get killed when you're fighting greater numbers.

I recognised Bellona's voice and figured that the advice of a war goddess was very valuable at the moment.

"No, I won't." I said. "Let's go, upstairs, now!"

"Why? Rey, what are you..?"

I grabbed her hand and pulled.

"We have to!"

"Who said so?" Hylla asked.

"Mom!"

"-Is something you've never said before," Hylla finished. She followed me, even took the lead. I guessed that she wanted to protect me from anything shooting downwards.

I decided to let her. If it was going to make her feel better; then by all means.

We were climbing the stairs when the first pirate crossed our way.

"Reyna!" Hylla said as she ducked. I threw a knife without thinking about it, so thank gods she did duck.

It sailed past the first guy's ear but struck the first one in the neck, which got him off-balance, falling against his partner. They fell down the stairs, and I jumped and caught my feet onto the railing on either side to avoid them, my hands on the walls to stabilise myself. Hylla pushed them away.

I looked over my shoulder. The one I hadn't knifed was knocked out, which I guessed happened a lot to people who fell down stairs. The other had his hands around the knife and he pulled it out. Blood gushed and he chocked, either on it or by trying to breathe, I didn't know. I wasn't a doctor (and frankly my chances of becoming one had become significantly lower in the last twenty minutes). Although my stomach tightened, I kept my head in the moment. He wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.

"We're good," I said, jumping back onto the stairs. My feet didn't like that- owe.

Hylla got up, and kept going up. We paused at the door.

"Ideas?" I whispered once we reached the top of the staircase. It was like a giant trapdoor in the floor of the ship. I imagined that it'd been closed –which was why Hylla's gunshot had gone by unnoticed-, but that these guys had left it open.

The other pirates were all bunched together on the Forecastle Deck, talking about something loudly and passionately. If one turned around and spotted us, we were dead.

Hylla surveyed the space.

"We'll need something big to knock out a bunch at once. Arrows would be useful since they're quieter than guns."

"That would test our ability to use a bow and an arrow. Besides, we don't have one." I said.

"I know, I'm just throwing ideas," she said, clucking her tongue.

I looked around. I couldn't see anybody from where I stood.

"I'm thinking that gunpowder would be pretty powerful," I said. "Like… in those cartoons… When the guy's setting up a line of gunpowder and he sets a match to it, the flame travels down the trail, and blows up the barrel? I bet there's some downstairs, for the cannons. I could do that."

"And blow yourself up? That'd be too dangerous, no way are you doing that," Hylla said. My jaw dropped. So to make this clear; she was letting me handle knives and swords and fight for my life, but apparently playing with gunpowder wasn't? My sister made no sense.

"I'll do it." She said. "I think I have one more spell left that I can use… One last thing I can do before the magic Circe gave me drained."

Hylla wasn't all that great at magic, she told me once (when we were on the ship, of course) that it was the blood of Bellona protesting against the magic. And now that Circe was dead and we were far away from the island and she hadn't used magic in about forever; I was kind-of cynical about the whole thing.

Besides; part of me didn't believe in magic anymore. I mean, it was still there, but snapping your fingers and getting out of messes seemed too good to be real right now. A piece of candy that was way too sweet.

We headed back down, knocked out a guy who was waking up, and found gun powder. My job was to find a lighter, which I didn't because the lighter presumably wasn't invented by the time this ship was around. But I did find a flint stick.

Something bothered me, like a voice in the back of my head. That wasn't Bellona.

Why anybody else hadn't come down after us. Why? We hadn't exactly been quiet.

We climbed back up, and the next part was terrifying to me.

I had to stand there, on hold. I'd never used a flint stick before, but I'd already watched a couple of wilderness survival shows when nothing else was on and Hope and I were bored enough to watch them. I knew at least how it was done. That seemed like so little right now. It seemed useless and stupid and foolish. I felt like a little kid pretending to be an able warrior. Like those little kids with little plastic cell phones and car keys who make-believed that they were grown-ups, but would get crushed if they were.

Death in battle is honourable. Bellona said.

Maybe so, but I don't want to die in battle- I need a plan…

Hylla was moving carefully and quietly, but quickly at the same time. She didn't make a single noise as she moved on the deck with the rusty pail she'd filled with gunpowder. She moved her hands in slow and wide movements, and muttered whatever chant she was muttering under her breath. It was like an invisible hand had picked up the bucket, and was now making it float across the ship's floor, black trails like a tram's tracks.

I had no idea what she was going. As a rule, magic training didn't start until you were thirteen and I only turned that age in November. Was it November right now? Possibly. It felt like forever had passed since I'd last seen a calendar.

How everybody stayed clueless of the flying bucket amazed me, and terrified me at once because the second that one turned around, there went my sister. She suddenly turned around, her eyes wide. They were tired because of the magic, I could tell, but also shocked.

She hurried back to where I was and pointed frantically.

And then I realised why they were so preoccupied.

Another ship was sailing towards the Queen Anne's Avenge…

That's why they'd only sent a few people after us despite the noise; because they needed these people on deck.

From what I could tell, it was a cruise ship- there must be plenty of those on the sea. It was far out, but the pirates were getting excited- they'd finally get to see a ship and highjack another one and la-di-da.

Hylla grabbed me from behind and put an arm above my mouth.

They don't know we're out yet. We can just jump ships- literally. I thought. Hylla dragged me back under the deck.

I gave her a look so she knew I understood, and she let me go.

"Let's wait it out," she whispered in my ear.

"Once they attack the other boat we run to it, we help them fight off the pirates and get out of here," I said, laying out the game plan.

"Deal." I said. We both flattened ourselves against the walls and I realised how exhausting that'd been. Just the getting-out-of-jail part had taken forever. It was harder than it must've looked, and for someone who hadn't walked into much open space for –what- months and had nearly forgotten what stairs looked like…

I recovered my breath and met Hylla's eyes. She squeezed my hand.

"It's nearly over," she promised. I nodded.

"It's nearly over," I repeated. Mostly because she deserved to hear it too.

I was itching to go above deck and figure out how far this boat was. The pirates were getting all excited and speaking in pirate slang and ancestral English, so I didn't understand a thing. I heard yelling and protesting and finally Blackbeard said something like 'let the ship approach'.

A few minutes later there was talk of a white flag, and there Blackbeard's order was 'let their leader come on ours'. I caught my breath.

No.

This was… This was one of their sister ships, an ally of some sort. Maybe the Queen Anne's Revenge itself if they hadcaught up to that bastard Percy Jackson. Maybe it was an illegal fishing boat or something- I'd heard of those sailing from one country's seas to another.

No, it's a cruise ship. What the frigg does that mean?

I darted up the steps and I heard Hylla snap my name to get me to stop but I didn't. I poked my head above to see who was there and what was going on.

A plank of wood had been extended, and a young guy, college aged, was standing on its edge. He must've walked from the cruise ship the pirate vessel was linked to. His sandy blond hair and blue eyes made him very easy to look at. Even the scar on his face made him look like he'd done some pretty intense things.

I shut that part of my brain off.

"A crew of twenty, hmm?" Handsome and blue eyes said.

"Twenty or so." Blackbeard said. "Depends. And our prisoners are fighters when they want to be."

"I'd be interested in meeting the prisoners." Handsome and blue eyes said. "What are they? Demigods?"

"Sisters," he said. "Daughters of war; rare at that. They're in the holding cell. There was a stirrup earlier; my men are calming 'em down." Blackbeard said.

Calming us down. Sure. Might be what their feverish unconscient dreams are about, I thought. But I smiled. He had no idea… Not that that helped if he sent someone to get us, but I liked the idea that we were totally catching him off-guard.

"For what is your cause? Will you buy them from us?" Blackbeard asked. Handsome blue eyes laughed and suddenly, he wasn't so great anymore. He was cold. I nearly felt a chill go down my spine.

"Buy? What do you want- gold? Because I have gold, but it would be a fair enough payment on my behalf if I let you live." He said.

"Is that a threat?" Blackbeard growled.

"No, a promise," he said.

"Don't get cocky with me, child of Hermes."

The son of Hermes -as I tried to figure who his father was- drew a sword and landed it under his chin.

"That's Luke to you," he said. Guess Handsome and blue eyes had a name now. Good; Handsome wasn't working on him anymore. Never had, when I took in his harshness.

"Alright then, Luke, what is your cause? Why are you gathering mercenaries in the English seas?"

"We're not in the English seas," Luke said. "Your equipment is old and outdated. You're in the Pacific. That's on the West coast of America if you know what America is."

"Of course I know what America is!" Blackbeard bellowed. I was guessing that it was an act because he pronounced it wrong. For the first time I wondered how old Blackbeard really was and in what time frame he thought we were. "Do you know nothing about me? I am the terror of their coasts! The scourge of the seven seas!"

"Was," Luke said. "I'm afraid this… Circe story of yours means that you've missed a good chunk of history. To the world you are dead. To the world you are a memory and you have no power."

"It doesn't matter!" Blackbeard said. "I am freed now! I will be terror!"

"I bet you made a reallycute guinea pig." Luke said. "I'm surprised they didn't put you down for rabies."

Okay, so I didn't like this boy very much, but I had to hand it to him; I thought I was the only one that could get Blackbeard's face to turn colours like that.

"I am not illiterate! I know land and oceans!" Blackbeard said.

"Really? I thought you were. That was the only explanation I could figure out as to why you kept him," Luke said nudging his towards –hey, he was still alive, where had he been all this time? - Andrew. "And the surgeon of course; but no matter. I fight for my Lord, and I ask for your vessel and alliance on his behalf."

"Hermes? What would I have to do with the Messenger god?" Blackbeard grunted.

"Not Hermes." Luke snapped, as if his father was terrible. "Kronos."

A dead silence inflicted itself onboard and I assumed it was really bad.

"Kronos the Titan Lord." Blackbeard said.

"Oh, you're not illiterate after all," Luke said.

"I may be illiterate, but I know a Titan when I see one," Blackbeard said. He looked shocked. Not scared, not petrified, but shocked by Luke plenty. "And I know a traitor to Olympus when I see one too."

I scanned my brain to try to figure out what Olympus was. I racked everything I knew about the mythological world; dream with Bellona, Hylla's bits and bobs, Circe's old stories… It was where the gods crashed, wasn't it? Their home? Was that where the fields of Mars that Bellona had showed me were? On Olympus?

I thought back to what she'd said about the fields. 'They' fight here. Who was 'they'? I'd missed or discarded that fact back when Bellona had mentioned it, but now the detail bugged me, like a spot on a windshield. I couldn't get it out of my head, and considering I was trying to figure out what was happening; I had to.

"I'm not a traitor," Luke said stiffly, like this hit a sensitive spot, which dragged me back to reality. "I'm not a traitor to something that's never meant a drachma to me."

Drachma?

"Olympus means something to me. Wenches or not, whether they chew at our rations or not-" What rations, you barely feed us? I wondered. "-They're not going to fight against where they're from. I have enough respect to them for that."

How touching.

"Reyna!" Hylla whispered. Her voice was nearly at its normal level now- she must've been trying to get my attention for a while.

I turned to her and motioned my hand cutting across my throat before turning back.

A pair of grey eyes had landed on us. Oh no. Andrew.

But for some reason -although I didn't duck or hide or anything- he looked away.

Luke looked cold outside, like I'd heard in his voice.

"Well then. That's a no."

"You promised us direction," Blackbeard said, raising a riffle at Luke's chest. "Tell us where the nearest Olympian shore is or I shoot."

Luke raised an eyebrow.

"I don't imagine that my crew will be happy if you do that."

"You'll be dead anyways, so I suppose you wouldn't find out." Blackbeard said. Luke contemplated that for a few seconds before saying;

"Head South East until you get to a place called Seattle."

"And if I want to go to England?"

"Stop at a place called Vancouver, which is at the North East, and refuel." Luke said. "It's in the country above the current Olympus. They call it Canada now. Or you can go south and find San Francisco. But that's unlucky land- Mount Othrys and so forth. I don't personally find it unlucky, but I know that demigods are superstitious."

"Aye. You may leave." Blackbeard said, waving his riffle towards Luke's ship. Luke turned around and I noticed a sword at his side. The second my eyes landed on it, my head hurt. Buzzing took over the inside of my head. My eyes burned and I had to look away. I sighed in pain.

That weapon… it wasn't right. It felt like… like it had a pulse of its own. Something about that weapon was not right. It was at war with itself- forget bringing it to a real war!

He stopped and turned back.

"Your ship is old, starving, and you frankly don't have any idea what the new world is." Luke said. "You dare bring your men in these seas?"

"My men dare come with me." Blackbeard said. "They had choices."

"Well let me offer them one more," Luke said. He had the kind of face of someone that knew he was going to be successful. "My ship," he said. "New armor, new weaponry, a new life they can manage in, and live thoroughly. After my army is done with mercenaries, they can go to shore and spend the wealth my master shall give them as they want."

"Stop," Blackbeard said. "My men can leave me, but they cannot leave Olympus."

"I have," Luke said. "And it's paid off. Look at me, look at my weapon, look at this quality ship under my control. You want the best for your men, don't you? That's what being a Captain is all about."

Blackbeard's eyes looked heavy. "The best is not treachery and betrayal."

"Says a pirate," Luke said after a short laugh. "Surely going against the law once is the same as going against the law twice."

"If you go; you leave me, and you leave Olympus," Blackbeard said to his men. I felt something for him all of a sudden. Whatever he was and whatever he did or had done to us; Blackbeard believed in this. He believed in Olympus and he wasn't about to let go. He was loyal to something. Wasn't that what I was trying to do? Hold on to something? Not let go?

That burst of gushy didn't mean I liked him any better, or respected him more. He was still nothing. But I noticed.

A man came forth.

"Aye," he said. "I need to find out what happened to me old mother. I need to go places. The pirate loot was to pay off school, but if that's useless now then so is this. I don't owe anything to Olympus, I'm mortal." He walked away.

Another two chimed in, and finally one more went forth; I recognized small and skinny and even worst-off-than-usual looking Andrew. I mean, his face was brutal. Cheeks sunk in, cut across the forehead, his lip slit. For a second I wondered if when the pirates weren't taking their anger or whatever it was on us, they were taking it out on him.

"I might be treated right this time." Andrew said. "There are other half-bloods on your ship?

Andrew was a half-blood. I'd never thought he was anything like me. I'd never thought of him as something more than a two dimensional face that came, annoyed me, and went.

I suddenly started wondering about all these pirates. They had to be from somewhere? Why had they chosen a life of piracy?

"All half-bloods," Luke promised. "You are a demigod?"

"My mum wasn't around when I was a baby," Andrew said. "But I wasn't claimed when Blackbeard took me from Camp."

Camp? What is this 'camp'? I wondered.

"One day all half-bloods will be claimed," Luke promised. "They will be treated right as well. Believe me Andrew; I know a ton of kids your age who've been through exactly that. Remind me to introduce you to Ethan."

"I'd like that," Andrew said. "That's… that's never happened to me. Not even other half-bloods give me chances. People don't in general. They ignore me. They never thing that I might be trying to do something good, or be helpful. That I might be trying to tell them something… People still do it now."

Puzzle pieces clicked in my mind in a way I was surprised they could. Why he was always around me, why he tried to talk to me, why he volunteered to come down all the time, he'd fixed the one piece of clothing I had to spare…

The way that Luke said that Andrew was educated and knew how to read and how he said that he'd been taken from 'camp' whatever that was… He'd been kidnapped. I'd always thrown him into the same pile as the other pirates. Never had I thought of him as being an own person with his own standards, and his own history, and his own merits. I'd just judged him as 'one of them'.

And even worst he… me… like in a…

I'm sorry Andrew, I suddenly realized. It wasn't a good time for you to try and reach out to me. I wasn't fair to you either. I promise I won't do it again.

"I know the feeling. Come, all four of you. I hope our paths do not cross again, Captain Blackbeard." Luke said. "I highly doubt the presence of a white flag next time."

The four rebels and Luke crossed the plank of wood onto the cruise ship and the plank was pushed into the sea. For a second I wondered if I could run, jump on it and float off.

I determined that no, and I watched the cruise boat sail away like the other pirates.

"Well, back to the wenches." Blackbeard said.

Shoot

I scratched my knife across the magnesium flint stick and luckily –nearly miraculously, and I mean that literally- I got a healthy spark on the first try, and it traveled down the black trail.

And blew up once it reached the big pile that the bucket had emptied its left-overs as.