So hi. Who's a procrastinator and irresponsible poster? This girl! But I'm here now. And I'm going to try to be more activey and such. Sowwy! Thanks a million to those of you who review, it pushes me to write faster, honest. Enjoy the chapter! I'll try to have another up tomorrow!

XIII

Hazel

"Leo! What's going on in there?" Hazel called. She was waiting outside the engine room, holding on to the doorknob for dear life while the rest of her floated upwards. The ceiling in this section of the ship was higher than the rest, which meant that if she floated up with the momentum of the fall, tumbling back down would be like falling off the roof of a one-story building.

"Well, uh, it's not Buford," Leo shouted back from in the room. Shortly later, a loud crash came from inside, followed by a string of cussing in Greek. "I don't know, the whole system just stopped working and I don't have the supplies! They were hard enough to get at camp… I almost blew the whole place apart, just trying to assemble this engine!"

"How in Pluto did you manage to do that?" Hazel asked, astounded. It was just a machine, wasn't it? It couldn't blow up a whole camp! Could it?

"Lots of technical stuff and calibrations gone wrong, to put it mildly," he responded, sounding strained. "Hey, I didn't want to have to ask, but can you give me a hand with this? It's pretty bulky for a one-person job… Sorry."

Hazel rolled her eyes; she would never understand why everyone nowadays wanted things so complicated, but if it kept them from plummeting to their deaths (or re-deaths, in her case) then the least she could do is help a little. It was tricky, but after a little bit she managed to twist the doorknob open. Immediately, she gasped at the complexity of it all. She figured that she could probably spend anywhere from hours to years trying to figure out how it all worked, but decided that she'd rather put it in the list of "weird modern day things she didn't understand and probably never would." Right alongside mobile telephones the size of a playing card, and the internet (which Frank was just starting to explain to her.)

Leo looked up at her from behind a cluster of cogs and carious metals that were assembled together to make a beautifully intricate yet ginormous design. Somehow, he was not floating in the air as she was, a fact that he appeared to be smirking about. "Well," he said, mischief soaking his voice, "What are you waiting for? Quit floating around and give me a hand, hm?"

"Leo," Hazel said, exasperated, "I can't stop floating around! How are you avoiding it, anyways?"

"Magnetic shoes; I need them for ceiling repairs sometimes. There should be another pair on the wall, grab it and put it on but hurry, I managed to slow our fall but not by much."

"Right," Hazel muttered, letting go of the door handle with one hand as she stretched for the pair of clunky-looking shoes with her other. They came free from the wall, barreling down to the ground heavily, toting her along with them. She cursed in Latin under her breath as she shoved her feet into them, pulling the Velcro tight one-handed so that they would stay on. Dakota had taught her all about Velcro after she had come across it in one of the shops in her first week at Camp Jupiter. Hazel felt her heart pang for her old camp, remembering how serene it was after training hours, when all the legionaries dispersed for their hour or two of free time. That had always been her favorite time of the day, even though she had not been there long. She had loved to take out her sketch pad and try to capture the Romans as they chattered to one another, the evening light casting a warm golden glow across the camp, legionaries mixing in with those retired from the legion and those too young to have joined yet.

Once the slightly too big boots were on her feet, Hazel released the door. She let out a breath that she had not realized she had been holding when she was able to stand up and not fly towards the ceiling. She clunked over to where Leo seemed to be destroying his beautifully constructed engine as he muttered under his breath in angry-sounding Spanish. Without looking up, he tapped a bolt in the machine with a wrench. "Take this and unscrew the bolt," he ordered, still working.

Figuring that he knew what he was doing, Hazel did as he asked as fast as she could. By the time she finished, Leo was wrapping up disassembling his part of the machine. He grabbed onto the edge, motioning for her to do the same. The metal was cool and surprisingly smooth under Hazel's fingers as she gripped the very edge where it seemed to come apart. Together, she and Leo pulled at it, and she found that it was much heavier than it looked. After a moment's struggle, the panel hesitated, and then peeled away with a satisfying clatter. It almost sent both demigods flying backwards, but their special-made boots kept them rooted in place. Leo immediately set to work, muttering words under his breath that made no sense to Hazel. The words might as well have been in another language, though she could tell that they were not since Leo spoke with a slight accent whenever he spoke Spanish. She sat back on her heels, still crouched down to the height of the engine's panel, watching as Leo's fingers flew across the hundreds of buttons and levers, adjusting screws and wires in a seemingly random order as he went.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, the dropping feeling in Hazel's stomach lessened and though she felt no change other than that, she knew they were no longer falling. Leo rocked back from the open panel, grinning like a maniac; his whole face lit up with relief and pride. Hazel saw hesitation flicker across it for a split second before he was hugging her fiercely, laughing in relief. She understood why; he hadn't thought they would make it, even with the ship falling at a third of the rate it should have and his knowledge of the engine. She hugged him back and when they pulled away she was grinning just as insanely as he was. Even as demigods, near-death experiences could be pretty traumatizing.

"I'd better tell the others that we aren't in danger of plummeting to our imminent doom, anymore," Leo said after a moment. As he got up, Hazel noticed his hands were shaking. When he offered them down to her, she saw that hers were no exception. Another side effect of "imminent doom" as Leo had put it, she supposed. It truly was a miracle that she had not been even a little sick during the whole production, though it may have just been the adrenaline fueling her.

"We should spread out and tell them all to meet in the dining area," she suggested, ignoring the lurch in her stomach as she thought about her seasickness. It was odd how even a thought could trigger any feeling.

Leo gave her an odd look, causing her to suspect her thoughts were showing vividly on her visage, but then he shrugged. "Alright, I'll go up on deck and check on Coach first. You take the lower decks. See you there."

Hazel nodded, and together they walked back to the corridor where he headed up one set of stairs and she the other. She decided to try Frank's room first because not only was it closest, but she wanted to talk to him before any of the others. It was just a habit that came with having a best friend after being lonely for so long. She knocked, then knocked again, but received no answer. Assuming he was asleep (though she didn't know how he could sleep through that,) she opened the door, but Frank was not in there. Disappointed, Hazel continued down the hall to collect the others.

When they were all finally collected in the dining room, Frank included, Leo began to explain what had happened with the ship. As soon as he opened his mouth, though, the ship rocked again, and in an instant, they were all on what Hazel was pretty sure had just been the ceiling, the furniture piled on top of them painfully.