Author's Note: Hi! :) I'll try to make this A/N short. I realized that the past chapters have been short, but I needed each one to end where it did. But, I tried to make this one longer for you guys! :)

Please review and tell me what you think of the story! :) Thanks!

Replies:

Jay: Thank you so much! That's all I can say. Your review made me so happy! I try to write as much as I can whenever possible, so... yeah! :) Thanks again, and I hope you continue to read this story and enjoy the rest of the chapters! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HOO. I don't own the character from the series either. Rick Riordan owns all of that, as well as the Mark of Athena book.

Chapter 11

PERCY

He tried to grab on to Annabeth's hand as she was pulled away, but the monster was too fast. Percy recognized it to be a Gegeine, otherwise known as an Earthborn, though he might be wrong. He didn't have the greatest monster-identifying abilities. He usually left that to Annabeth and the dictionary of monsters that she seemed to have memorized.

Percy ran after her, but had to dodge to the side when another Gegeine swiped at him. Uncapping Riptide, he swung at the giant, and in the corner of his eyes he saw Annabeth being thrown off the side of the ship.

Leo, Hazel, Thalia, and Frank were nowhere to be seen, and Jason and Piper were fighting three or four giants on the other side of the deck. They were actually fighting pretty well, but there were more Earthborn than demigods, and they were battling close range, so they probably would be overwhelmed soon unless something amazing happened.

Nice way to stay positive, Percy reprimanded himself. Wait, right, there's a battle. Stop it, ADHD.

Percy had to break his gaze away from them, though, to fight the Gegeine that was trying to kill him.

He expected it to be relatively easy, but the giant easily dodged and backed up when Percy slashed its arm with Riptide. At first, he thought that the giant was going to leave, but he just moved backwards so he could throw some rocks at Percy.

Where he got the rocks from—Percy didn't know. What he did know was that they were big and pointy, and some were probably deadly. He ended up hopping from foot to foot like a hyper second-grader, while trying to get close enough to kill it. Eventually, he realized that it wouldn't work. The six-handed giant was purposely keeping away, because it knew that's where it would have the advantage.

Percy finally risked a look around to see where his friends were, and when he did, he felt like jumping overboard.

Jason and Piper had disappeared; maybe they had been thrown into the water like Annabeth. Hazel, Frank, Thalia, and Leo—Percy didn't even know where they had been before. And if they were all in the water, and hadn't surfaced, as far as Percy knew, that was bad. Especially for Jason, Thalia, and Hazel. Frank would be fine, but he didn't know about Leo and Piper. Annabeth, she could probably handle it.

Still, seeing his friends missing—well not seeing his friends, spurred him on. He felt that familiar tugging sensation in his gut, not as intense as usual, which sort of surprised Percy, and the water exploded, encasing the two or three Earthborn that were left.

The giants were floating a few feet above the ground, and they were flailing their arms around trying to send rocks flying at Percy, but the water wouldn't allow them.

Percy ran up to them, and simply stabbed them through the water, sending the golden monster dust falling to the ground, mixing with the pure, clean water. It was an odd sight that disturbed him for some reason—the monster dust swirling around in water.

He shook the thought out of his head and swiftly killed the other giants. It felt too easy, like the giants weren't trying that hard to kill him, which unnerved Percy.

Percy took a deep breath in when he killed the last giant and raced towards the railing of the Argo II to save his friends.

Suddenly the world turned upside down. Percy realized that the boat had flipped—by whom and how, he didn't know, but he had other priorities.

With some difficulty, he swam out from under the ship, navigating through the things attached to the main deck.

He panicked when he didn't see any of his friends down there. He realized that if he couldn't get to his friends right then, he might as well try to push the ship upright.

He felt the pull in his gut again, this time as strong as usual. Swimming over to the side of the ship, he called the ocean to help him and directed it to push the Argo II until it was sitting normally again. The water responded to his call and Percy forced all of his energy out and against the wooden side of Leo's prized possession.

The ship submitted to the power of the water and kept turning over and over until Percy heard it thunk onto the water, right side up.

He didn't waste any time and dove back into the water to find his friends. Part of the coldness that had been surrounding his heart lifted when he spotted Frank in dolphin form, along with Hazel, Thalia, and Leo.

Frank was struggling to pull Hazel and Thalia up, and Leo was on his back, half-conscious. For some reason, Hazel was being dragged down. Percy wasn't sure why that was happening, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was a daughter of Pluto.

The currents propelled him over to Frank, who smiled when he saw Percy. Well, it might have been a smile; it was hard to tell on a dolphin.

Percy grabbed both of Hazel's arms and one of Thalia's and kicked upward, shooting to the surface. When they broke into the air, he gasped and took a breath of air, which was odd. Usually he was able to breathe perfectly underwater, but it was harder now, which was also weird.

He laid Hazel gently down on the deck, and Frank dropped Leo. They both had been holding one of Thalia's arms, which had been awkward. They dropped her next to Hazel.

"Get the rest," Percy said, breathing heavily. Frank nodded, and they both jumped overboard again, Frank turning into a dolphin again as the water rushed up to meet them.

Percy dove into the water, swimming deeply, looking around frantically for the three other demigods. A flash of blond caught his eye, and he thought that it was Annabeth or Jason, but turned out to be some light reflecting against a patch of seaweed.

After what seemed like hours, but was actually seconds, he spotted Annabeth and shot towards her like a bullet.

Her face was pale and slowly turning green—which was not good. He quickly checked for a pulse on her and sighed in relief when he felt it beating.

He grabbed her arms, like he had done with Hazel and hauled her up through the murky water.

It was a hard process—Annabeth was taller and heavier than Hazel, and she had been deeper into the water. Even though he had also been carrying Thalia before, Frank had been doing most of it.

Annabeth shouldn't have been down there, she would've known to stay afloat near the boat, but not too close.

When they reached the surface again, Percy was tired and ready to nap, but he knew he couldn't. He used up his remaining energy to shoot the water out and onto the ship, sending him and Annabeth with it.

It wasn't the best landing, but Percy was pretty sure that no bones had broken.

He was dimly aware of Frank, Leo, and Piper huddled around Hazel and Jason, but Percy let them deal with it, since Annabeth seemed to be the worst off. He checked and felt her steady pulse again.

Percy wasn't the best first-aid person—he was actually really bad, but he did whatever he could remember from Camp. He nudged part of an ambrosia square into her mouth. Not too much, though, he didn't want her to burn up from eating too much of the godly food.

A little water squirted out of her mouth, which Percy hoped was a good sign. He squeezed her hand and felt himself slumping backwards against the deck.

He was too tired. Proper sleep hadn't happened since before the quest. Running on only a little dream-infested sleep was bad enough, but try doing that while fighting a giant or two, an army of ghosts and monsters, as well as surviving through a not-too friendly quest and a 'friendly' game against hostile Romans. It can take a lot out of a person.

The last thing he heard before blacking out completely was one of the other demigods, probably Frank, making his way towards him and Annabeth, calling his name worriedly. He quickly hoped for no dreams, but already knew that it was a futile effort.

"Well, well, well," Gaea said. Percy was back in the now usual cave. It was creepy that what might be Gaea's resting place was now a familiar sight for Percy.

"Go away. Don't you have better things to do?" Percy grumbled.

"I do," she said simply. "But this is also necessary."

"I won't join you," Percy said.

"Oh, young foolish one. I understand that now. All I needed you to do was to prove yourself, one more time, before I really begin. That was simply a test. You cannot even imagine what else is in store."

"You won't beat us. Ever. We beat the Titans, and we can beat you too," Percy warned.

"Ha! I have a much better force than the Titans. They were so disorganized—and based their whole plan on the foolish son of Hermes, who betrayed them. I will not make such mistakes. I will make Olympus crash and burn, along with those silly Olympian gods. Do not underestimate me, hero," she said, laughing.

"Yeah, right," Percy said.

"Ooh, well I'm glad I chose you know. Such abilities! You have proved yourself today, Perseus; you have proved yourself well. I am now sure about it. I hope you had a good time as a hero, because you won't be one for long, Perseus Jackson."

"What? What are you—" Percy started nervously. There was no evil, cruel, cold laughter this time. Everything just blacked out, like someone saw the dream, freaked out, and cut it off.

"PERCY!" Freezing cold water splashed on his face, which was not a nice wake-up.

"Wha-OW!" Percy jerked upright and fell back down with a groan. "I need to stop passing out."

"You think?" Frank muttered.

"What happened?" asked Hazel. She was wrapped in a blanket with a steaming mug in her hand. Jason had a similar mug, but no blanket. Both of their faces were pale, and Hazel was slightly shaking. They didn't seem to be injured, though, which was good.

Annabeth looked asleep, leaning against Thalia, but otherwise looked fine. That was really weird, considering only a while ago she had been practically drowning underwater, turning green and unconscious. Then, again, everything in a demigod's life was weird. Which almost made it normal… Percy's head started hurting, so he shook the thought out of his mind.

Frank, Leo, and Piper looked a little on edge, but better than the others.

Thalia looked absolutely fine, but very, very mad. It was almost funny. Percy could imagine her in one of those TV cartoons, her face turning purple and steam coming out of her nose and ears.

Getting off track, Percy thought. Stop it, ADHD.

"I'm not sure…" Percy said.

"Well, what do you know?" Jason demanded. "Weren't you the one above water for the longest?"

He looked pretty pissed off; probably because he had missed something else that Percy had taken part in…again.

"Well, um, I don't know what happened at the beginning," Percy said. "I wasn't there yet."

"Nothing much," Jason said impatiently. "When the ship started shaking, after we landed, Piper and I went up onto deck. Then, the Earthborn came at us and we fought until—well one of them grabbed Piper and dropped her overboard, and while I was distracted they threw me off the ship. They could've left us there, but they sort of pushed us deeper."

Annabeth spoke up. Percy hadn't even known that she'd woken up. "This doesn't make any sense. Why come to fight us, and then just drop us overboard?"

"Er—" Percy said. "I think I know. After you guys, you know, went under, they almost seemed like they gave up. It was easy to defeat the last ones—almost too easy, like they weren't even trying."

"What's wrong with that?" Leo asked. "Maybe they were tired."

Percy shrugged. "It just seemed like all they cared about was throwing you guys off the ship—which is weird."

"Well, what else happened?" Hazel repeated.

"After the last Earthborn turned to dust, the boat tipped over. I don't know how or by what, but it all just flipped over," Percy said.

"My baby—it flipped over?" Leo asked, glancing worriedly at the wooden deck he was sitting on.

"Why isn't it wet?" Annabeth demanded.

"I think I might have dried it, on accident," Percy said.

"On accident?" Jason spluttered.

"Mhm," Percy nodded. "Anyways, I was also flipped into the water when it tipped, and I figured that we needed the ship to be upright again, before I found you guys. It took longer than I wanted—I didn't know if you guys were drowning or dead, and I needed to find you fast. So, I willed the water to push it upright, and then—"

"Just like that?" Leo asked. "You pushed the whole ship over—180 degrees—just like that?"

"As I was saying," Percy continued, "I started looking and found Frank the dolphin trying to drag Hazel, Leo, and Thalia up to the ship."

"A dolphin? Really, Frank, really?" Leo commented.

"Hey, I was under pressure. I couldn't think of anything else," he protested.

"Will you guys stop interrupting?" Jason exclaimed, getting agitated.

"So," Percy said, also getting annoyed by Leo's constant comments, "I helped him and went back down, found Annabeth, brought her up, gave her some ambrosia, and then…passed out."

"And then," Leo continued, "Frank woke him up by yelling 'Percy!' and then Percy got up, groaned, and then fell back down, saying 'Wha-OW!' which I'm pretty sure isn't a word. Then he said 'I need to stop passing o-"

"LEO!" Piper exclaimed. "Stop it."

"Fine, fine, fine. Am I the only one here who understands the word 'joke'?" he muttered.

Percy grinned, despite the situation.

"You still haven't answered my question, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth grumbled. "Why did they throw us overboard and flip the ship? Why not just attack?"

"Flip the ship," Leo grinned. "That rhymes."

"Oh, you be quiet," Piper scolded.

Percy attempted to answer her question. "It was a test. At least that's what Ga—I mean I think it's a test." Percy said the last part quickly, trying to hide his slip-up.

Annabeth's eyes narrowed a fraction, but she didn't mention their earlier conversation.

"Gaea?" Jason demanded. "What about her?"

Percy sighed. "It's nothing. She just appeared in a dream… well, more like a nightmare." He muttered the last part.

He felt Annabeth glaring at him, like she was trying to read his mind. He ignored it, though, and continued.

"She said that the whole thing was a test for me. I don't know exactly why she wants to test me, but it can't be a good thing," Percy finished.

"Well, at least that's over now," Piper sighed.

"Hopefully, we can have a break now," Leo muttered, looking at the sky a little nervously.

"Leo, don't jinx it," Annabeth said.

"Well, I'm tired," Percy said. "So, I'm going to sleep now. You know, because all we've been doing is like fighting, talking, and passing out since this boat took off."

He walked away, not waiting for a reply, hoping that they would actually get a break.

Just a quick thing. So, my motivation for this has gone down a little after the real book came out, but don't worry, I won't just stop writing.

Can you guys please review and tell me whether you think I should:

a) Stop this story right now and do a 'House of Hades' fanfiction (it would be a sequel to Rick Riordan's Mark of Athena).

b) Finish this fanfiction and then do a 'House of Hades' fanfiction (it would be a sequel to Rick Riordan's book).

c) Finish this fanfiction and then do a sequel to my version of Mark of Athena (this story).

Thanks! :) Please review and also tell me what you think of this chapter and the whole story! :) Bye!

-smileyface9 :)