"Here it is," I said.
We were at the location of Poseidon's trident; the closed entrance to the labyrinth in the middle of the Lincoln memorial, in Washington D.C. (which was waaay too hot and humid). The only problem? The trident was underneath the statue, and we couldn't get it out until night time when the statue's density weakened (blame the mist) and you could move it.
NOT EASY.
"So, uh, how exactly do we get it?" Percy asked, scratching his head in confusion. I told him what I had just went over in my mind.
"That doesn't really make sense… but okay," Luke said in his deep, but still cute, voice.
Annabeth looked like she was having a brain fart. For such a smart girl, I didn't get why she wouldn't get something as simple as a volume explanation. Percy waved his hand in front of her face. "Helloo? Earth to Annabeth."
"Sorry, what?" she said, snapping back to reality.
"Nothing, we just need to occupy ourselves until tonight – midnight. That's when the density lightens up."
The tall marble room started to tremble and groan as a 6.2 magnitude earthquake rocked D.C. Tourists screamed and fled down the stairs to solid ground.
"Leave now and you shall not die," an ancient voice said clearly in my head.
At first I thought someone had said it directly into my ear, but Luke whispered to me, "It's Uranus. Or Gaia. I can't tell who, but whoever it is, they're speaking directly into your mind."I looked at him quizzically. "I only know this from experience," he said innocently, but I could tell the memory pained him.
A hazy fog-like mist appeared in front of us. From what I knew, this was an Iris message.
Chiron's face popped into view. "What just happened?" he exclaimed.
"Earthquake," Annabeth and I said in harmony. Oh that's right, she lived in California for a while, just like me. I had lived in southern California for a few years when I was younger, and had experienced more than my share of earthquakes.
"Then it must have been Gaia. She is mad, correct?"
"Mhm," I said casually. Pft, a puny earthquake couldn't hurt us.
A mortal mindlessly walked through the Iris message, disconnecting our signal with Chiron.
"Percy," I started. "Isn't Poseidon the god of earthquakes too?"
"Well yeah but… no. No. I can't control the earthquakes that Gaia is causing. Impossible."
"Oh come on," I whined. "Don't be a pansy!"
He frowned at me, but Annabeth giggled. "You sort of are being a pansy, Percy. But an incredibly cute pansy."
That brain fart of hers must have made her loopy, because she started making out with Percy right smack in the middle of the Lincoln memorial – and Percy didn't stop her. Blegh.
A big pair of hands covered my eyes; Luke's hands. "You don't need to see this, Nat."
Ugh! Percy and Annabeth grunted. When Luke uncovered my eyes, Percy and Annabeth were both tenderly rubbing the back of their heads. Nico had a smug smile on his face, so he had probably smacked them on the back of their heads. Suckers!
It was 11:55 p.m., and in precisely five minutes time the statue of Abraham Lincoln would be moveable – but only barely. It would still be at least a whopping five-hundred pounds to move, though.
"How do we do this?" Luke asked me.
"We push it aside. We'll have about ten minutes until it turns back to its original density, and regains its weight. If we don't have the trident out by then, we're doomed… or just losing time."
He nodded. "Easy enough, we just can't lose focus on the quest."
"Tell Percy and Annabeth that; they're sucking face again."
"Again?" Nico groaned.
Three minutes left, and the statue started groaning; the density was lightening quickly, and it disturbed the marble's natural form.
"Someone separate them," I said, and paced over to the statue. I pressed my hand against the statue, finding that it now had the consistency of a rubbery brick. "It's almost ready," I murmured to myself, barely over a whisper.
"Oof!" Percy grunted as he was thrown halfway across the room, and slammed into a wall. "What was that for?"
"That was for being disgusting. This," Nico flicked him on the head, "is for being overly obnoxious in front of my sister. You too Annabeth; control yourselves." Ah, there was Nico's age catching up with him. He sometimes acted his age when he was stressed, or too tired. Poor guy.
Annabeth sniffled. "Sorry," she said.
"No time for apologies; we have to move this statue now. We have ten minutes."
Annabeth, Luke, Nico, Percy and I gathered on the left side of the statue and pushed as hard as we could, moving the massive statue inch by inch across the spacious marble floor.
"Ugh, it's still heavy!" Nico moaned.
"If you think this is bad, try holding up the sky sometime," Annabeth said.
"It's not that bad…" Luke started, but suddenly stopped, realizing that Lucas had never held up the sky – Luke had.
"What?" Percy and Annabeth said in unison, but kept pushing.
"Later," I stalled. The statue had been moved far enough to see a narrow stairway leading down into darkness. "And there we go, come on!"
I ran ahead, turning my flashlight on so we could see, and ran down a straight tunnel, until it forked off in two directions. Both ends were dark.
"What do we do?" Percy panted.
"Split up," was the simple answer. Percy, Annabeth, and Nico went right, and Luke and I went down the left tunnel. The tunnel went down several steep slopes, and came to a stop. There, shining in front of us, was Poseidon's trident.
"It's shiny," Luke exclaimed.
I smiled. "Yeah, it is. Now let's get it and go!"
I tugged at the glowing trident, only to find that it was stuck deep into the rocks. "It's stuck!"
Luke tugged with me, but it still wouldn't move. I could hear the start of the statue moving back to its original spot in the center of the room – we were almost out of time. When almost all hope was lost, I spotted the glowing blue symbol of Daedelus and pressed it with my foot. The trident released from the ground, and Luke and I ran back the way we came.
The statue was two-thirds of the way over the hole, and closing the gap quickly. "Jump!" I screeched.
We landed on the cold floor, and the statue covered the hole completely, and turned back to stone.
"Nico! Percy! Annabeth! No!" I yelped, pounding my fist on the base of the statue. They were trapped inside. I could hear their muffled yelling from under the statue.
Their yelling died down, but I barely noticed over my crying. Panting sounds came from behind us. Luke and I turned around to see Nico, Percy, and Annabeth collapsed on the ground behind us.
"How'd you guys get out?" I cried, flinging my arms around Nico's neck in a tight hug.
"Shadow traveled," Nico choked, tugging at my arms to loosen the hug. "You got it?"
"Yeah, what was at your end of the tunnel?"
"A collapsed tunnel. Yours?"
"The trident."
No one said anything – they were either too tired, too exhausted, or too confused.
"So what next?" Percy said, breaking the silence.
"Next? To the water park to get my dad's helm back."
Annabeth giggled. Dang her, why did she have to think about her and Percy's past at a time like this?
So… yeah. It's 9:08 pm here right now and I'm still on western time zone. Not good for me, I woke up at 4:30 am this morning because I was so used to getting up at 7:30 in New York. Grr… But I liked this chapter. It flowed easier than most of the others.
And secondly, my chapters might be a bit weird for a while. I'm very busy writing two fan fics and two books – one is Greek mythology related and the other is Norse mythology related, so I'm switching between Greek and Norse so don't blame me if something's out of place. I'm a very busy (by busy I mean grumpy) person, so writing is harder right now.
Love y'all!