I was lying face down. Floating. The waves carried my body up and down. You float on water, yeah I knew that. You didn't breath in water, though, and yet here I was breathing in water. Sea water. I opened my eyes. Where was I? What happened? Questions ran through my mind too fast for me to think of an answer. I felt my chest, no cuts or gashes. Did I live through that attack? How could that be possible? I decided that none of these questions would be answered if I just stared at the bottom of the sea.
I lifted my head and kicked my legs a little to stay afloat. Sunset. How long had I been here? Where were Annabeth, Nico, and Grover? Blackjack and Maurice? I turned around. I was at a beach, far from the surface. I could see the silhouette of a person. I hoped it was somebody I knew. I swam towards the beach. The waves seemed to carry me faster. They had always responded that way to me, I knew why now. Maybe my father had always been with me. I stood as the water got too shallow to swim in. What was left of my shirt hung loosely on me. Completely dry. How could I be in the water and be completely dry? This never happened when I swam in a pool. Maybe it only worked in bodies of water. I didn't have time to think of an explanation and I'm sure if I had it would only give me a headache. The person had become clear now. Her face was covered by her long curled blonde hair and she was looking at the ground.
"Annabeth." I said. When she didn't respond, I said it again. She looked up and I could tell she had been crying. She looked surprise before she stood and ran up to me. she jumped, wrapped her arms around my neck, and her legs around my waist.
"You're alive." She breathed out as she nearly squeezed the life right out of me.
"I won't be for long if you squeeze any tighter." I managed to choke out. I really enjoyed it, though.
"Sorry." She apologized as she let go.
"What happened?"
"That thing..it nearly killed you, but that guy and girl that were following us came and killed it. You weren't breathing so I told them we had to get you to the ocean. You were in there for hours. I..I almost gave up."
"Where are we? And where are the others?" We sat down side by side and watched the ocean.
"We're in San francisco. Jason and Reyna took Grover, Nico, and Maurice to their camp." She answered.
"What about BlackJack?"
"He stayed with me, but then he left. I don't know where he went, though. They come back every hour. They thought that you were done for, but I didn't think you'd give up that easily." She explained.
"You know, Annabeth, I think we're gonna be great friends. You know me so well, Wise girl." I joked.
"Wise girl?"
"Your new nickname." I replied simply.
"You're terrible at making nicknames, Seaweed Brain." she responded.
"That was a nice one." I smiled at her and she smiled back. We turned towards the ocean and watched as the sun set. It was a beautiful sight and I hoped no monsters came and ruined the moment for Annabeth and me.
"I'm sorry, Percy." Annabeth said after a while of silence.
"For what?"
"I didn't do anything. You were being mauled to death and I just stood there. I mean what if Jason and Reyna hadn't come? You would have died and it would have been my fault." She said.
"Annabeth, you were scared and in shock. The same thing would have happened to anyone."
"Not you. You wouldn't have stood there and watched, when there's a chance that you could save your friend."
"It doesn't matter. Either way, I'd still trust you with my life."
"Even after that? Why?"
"You're my friend and I can tell it won't happen again."
"I hope it doesn't happen again." She whispered.
"Don't worry." I said as I wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
Not even a minute later a "You're alive!" was shouted from somewhere behind us. We turned around to see the blonde boy from earlier running over to us followed by the girl. Jason and Reyna is what Annabeth said their names were. I stood as he reached us and helped Annabeth up.
"Yeah, thanks for coming to the rescue." I told them.
"No problem. We were kind of..following you guys anyway." He looked really uncomfortable telling us this.
"Yeah, about that, why were you guys following us?" Annabeth asked.
"You knew?" Jason looked surprised while Reyna rolled her eyes.
"You guys weren't really doing a very good job." I said.
"I told you, you were flying too close." Reyna scoffed.
"Well, that's besides the point. We were following you because we got a prophecy and you matched it." Jason responded.
"What's the prophecy?" Annabeth and I questioned.
"Brown and Black travel high, four come to save Vesta captured within the sky, rivals together shall prevail, as thunder and sea save mother and heir." Jason said. Well, that prophecy sounded a lot better than ours. I glanced at Annabeth, she looked like she was deep in thought.
"Okay, how about we talk about this later? Can you take me to Grover and Nico." Even though it had only been about a half a day, I was already starting to miss Grover's nail biting and Nico's unusual enthusiasm.
"Yeah, sure." He said and before I knew it my feet were being lifted off the ground.
"Woah! Wait a minute." I touched the floor again and Jason looked at me expectantly. "What was that?"
"That's how they travel, Percy. They actually fly." Annabeth told me. I looked at them all like they were crazy.
"I'm not gonna like this." I whined as I prepared myself for the flight.
Hey, boss, you're back. I never thought I'd be happy to hear a pegasus.
"Blackjack." I smiled as Blackjack came down from the sky and landed next to me.
I thought you were done for. He said as he trotted around us.
"Yeah, me too. Hey, Blackjack got time for a ride?" I asked. Hopefully Blackjack had a nice horse heart. I liked flying, but flying without knowing how to control myself was not something I wanted to try.
Yeah, boss, anything for you. Where we headed? A donut shop?
"I'm not really sure. I'll get you some donuts, later. For now, you have to follow this guy." I pointed to Jason and I think Blackjack nodded. Jason and Reyna were staring at me while Annabeth had a small smile on her face, probably because of the look on their faces.
"Are you talking to that horse? " Jason asked.
"Yeah, it comes with the whole 'my father's Poseidon' thing." I answered as I climbed onto Blackjack. Annabeth quickly followed my lead probably not wanting to fly solo, also.
"Well, lead the way." Jason looked like he wanted to say something, but I guess he decided not to because he and Reyna took flight with Blackjack doing the same.
—
This Camp Jupiter place looked great. There were ghost floating around all over the place, but still the place looked great. The buildings were laid out in neat grids. The barracks had shady porches, where campers seemed to be leaving. Each dorm had a different collection of banners showing Roman numerals and lots of different animals. An eagle, bear, horse, and many more. There were shops advertising food, armor, weapons, and lots of other things.
There was one building that was really impressive. It had two white columns where guards stood. It looked like a big white old fashioned bank. There was a big purple banner with the gold letters SPQR hanging over the doorway. Jason and Reyna kept walking, I'm guessing we were heading to the infirmary. As we continued walking I could smell all the different foods being made. It made my stomach growl, I didn't even know how long it had been since I ate.
I glanced at Annabeth, she looked like she was in heaven, she stared at the buildings in amazement. We reached a building that I was guessing was the infirmary. It was chaos inside. Skeletons were running around all over the place and the kids were trying to fight them off. Clipboards and pens weren't very good weapon choices, though.
Only one word ran through my mind. Nico.
I ran in any direction, not really knowing where I was headed. When I reached the room Nico was in, he looked pretty pissed.
"Nico! Call them off." I told him.
"Percy! Where have you been?" Nico asked as the skeletons still wreaked havoc on the kids.
"Call them off, Nico." Nico looked exasperated as he snapped his fingers. The room grew eerily quiet as little holes opened up and the skeletons jumped in them.
"Who's the worthless greek, now?" Nico shouted.
"You did all this because they called you a worthless greek?" Honestly, Nico could be really stupid sometimes.
Before Nico could say anything the others came in. Reyna and Jason had horrified faces, but Annabeth looked the same.
"Wow, Nico, you wake up and the first thing you do is terrorize the Romans." Annabeth said.
"Well, the romans should learn some respect." Nico looked accusingly at Jason and reyna as if they committed a crime just for being roman.
"We Romans have respect. Greeks and Romans don't have a great past. So, it is only natural that they don't treat you nicely." Reyna explained. Nico grumbled about something as he sat on the bed.
"Well, excusing that. Can we talk about this prophecy, now?" I asked, hoping we could just forget about Nico's incident."I'm afraid that will have to wait. It's almost dinner time and then we have war games."
"War games?" Nico, Annabeth, and I repeated.
"Yes, we'll explain, later." Reyna answered.
"Hey, Nico, where's Grover?" I asked as I realized he wasn't in the room.
"I'm not really sure. I don't think he's here, though."
"Well, hopefully he shows up soon." I said as we walked out of the infirmary.
