Piper P.O.V
The two massive rock formations in front of Piper had finally smashed together, which caused a massive boom that shook Piper's bones and made waves and had water splashing on deck. Piper wouldn't consider herself a worry-wart, of course there are many things in her life that has definitely caused her sleepless nights and this moment was no different. Piper's eyes scanned the deck frantically and Percy and Nico were nowhere to be found, Piper's heart was had made it's ascent from her chest to her throat – Hazel and Annabeth seemed to be experiencing the same thing. Piper had only one experience with shadow travel and she wasn't knowledgeable enough to know whether or not to be worried if they hadn't re-appeared after ten seconds. The Argo II lurched forward, they needed to get the ship moving whether or not Percy actually made it to the other side or not would have been for little if they didn't get the Argo through the rocks. Then it happened, it would definitely go down as one the most pleasant surprises in Piper's life. Percy quite literally melted into existence and landed on Hazel leaving them on deck as a bundle of limbs, Nico also melted out of nowhere and he crash-landed on Reyna, lucky pervert style. It would have been funny if Nico didn't have a huge bleeding lump on his forehead.
"Someone get Nico something quickly", Percy had finally untangled himself from Hazel, Reyna did waste much time she was already moving before Percy said anything and so was Piper between the two of them they quickly carried Nico to his room and placed him on his bed. Reyna rifled through Nico's stuff looking for what she didn't know, after her second time pulling out an aviator jacket – Piper wished she had a jacket of her own, December on the sea was cold – she gave up and hustled out the room and soon returned with some ambrosia and a rag.
"Thank you, Piper. I can handle the rest." Reyna stated. Piper didn't object but before she put herself through the door her sixth sense was telling her to turnaround. She watched as Reyna wiped the blood from Nico's face and she cupped his face and carefully fed him the ambrosia square by square. The bump on Nico's head had visibly gotten smaller, he mumbled something to Reyna that Piper couldn't hear and Reyna she smiled down at him. Piper was hopeful that maybe Reyna had finally moved past her mother's words.
Piper figured that Nico took the brunt of their troubles for going through the Clashing Rocks as their journey through the massive structure was fairly uneventful. Piper was momentarily frightened by the walls closing so quickly but according to Percy it was only due to the fact that they were going open sea and so fast. After they passed the wreckage of the Queen Anne's Revenge they burst onto the open sea. Now, Piper had expected the Sea of Monsters to be more treacherous. Of course there were many monsters, they had passed countless islands and had gotten pretty much a full re-teaching from Camp Half-Bloods monster class but they were – for the most part – on islands and they were on a very fast boat.
Aside from the monsters on the sea there was something else that consumed Piper's worry time. Something had interrupted her dream with Calypso. Whatever it was, Piper had never been manipulated by something else in her dream. It was a blinding light that extracted Piper from the island more of the lights came as Piper began to pick up speed till she was shot straight out of her dream as her face planted itself on her cabin floor. Piper came to the conclusion, that this someone other cosmic being was trying to prevent them from getting their friend. This was all the more reason for them to go though, since the big bads usually wanted those who could do something to their grand schemes out of the way. Despite all that Piper wished she didn't have to go experience something like Gaea again. She had finally gotten to go to school like a normal girl with her boyfriend she wasn't excited to see more of her friends and people in general die.
Piper found herself constantly thinking of the ball of light she saw so she consulted Annabeth – the most knowledgeable and experience of the monster hunters.
"No I've never heard of something like that Piper", Annabeth answered on inquiry. Piper's chest fell if Annabeth didn't know it was very likely that no one on this ship knew either. They didn't know what they were sailing into and she didn't like it and she could see on Annabeth's pensive face that she didn't like it either.
The ship had incurred minimal damage when it fell from the sky, taken a couple decent blows from Blackbeard's cannons and now that the monster attacks had come in the ship had some fresh scratches littering it hull. The bronze beaked squid made sure to leave a mark before Nyssa chucked a vial of green fire to finish the job. They had drawn close to their destination over the past two days even stealing on aerial jaunts to decrease travel time with the added bonus of soothing Hazel's sea to Nyssa, they had entered the Puerto Rico Trench about 30 minutes ago and all that was left for them to was to find the veil that hides Ogygia. Piper, try as she may, was unable to dream of Leo and Calypso again. With each attempt the bright lightswould always be present to interrupt her. In the light of the afternoon sun the sea was a very deep blue, which Piper attributed to massive difference in the depth of the waters they were sailing over.
The search was fruitless, both Hazel and Percy were unable to find anything unusual in the areas they had passed through and there was still so much ocean left to look through. The mood around the ship reflected the state that their questwas in. The young demigods mulled around getting their dinner the ship was devoid of the usual energy that they had whenever their monthly the ship started to move, much to the surprise of the demigods who were eating at the moment, since they were keeping the ship stationary during their searching periods. Nyssa entered the dining room soon afterward, drenched in sweat with a satisfied smile on her face.
"It took a while to finish but we're finally on course to the island now" Nyssa declared as she took a seat. Piper hated when people did this she had seen enough of it her dad's movies, when people decide to use pronouns instead of being explicit which force another character or person in this case to ask the question.
"What? What did you finish?" Frank was the one who paid the toll of Nyssa playing the pronoun game.
"Harley was making this beacon, a little – a lot – of tweaking and we have our very own tracer." The ship as if on cue slowed to a stop. "I think we're here."
Piper carefully raised herself from her seat as she headed toward the armoury and found her sword and preparing herself for what she hoped wasn't going to be outside waiting for her and her friends. Piper could see Jason using his usual cute worrying face she hadn't told him or anyone other than Annabeth about her suspicions. To Piper's surprise, Nico was the second to arm himself.
"We can never be too careful right? I'm not anxious to be on the wrong side of an unprepared excursion." Jason nodded in agreement; Jason too has had his share of injuries in the field. Piper marched herself toward the stairs to the deck and when she completed her ascent she was of course greeted with what she hoping to not see. The rest of crew of the Argo II arrived to see a multitude of bright balls each one like a spotlight in Piper's face. The one which was closest to her started to vibrated and made a sound that resembled a voice.
"We are Aether's Wisps and you will go no further."
A/N: Thanks for reading and also please leave a review if you'd like. They're nice to see. :D
