Ladies, gentlemen and everyone in between, how are you doing? I'm back with some fighting at last! I haven't much to say, except that I hope you enjoy :)

PJO belongs to Uncle Rick.

"You will excuse me?" Annabeth frowned. "How exactly are we going to prevent them from destroying the ship? They are armed with canons, and who knows what more!"

"Explosives."

"Why of course," she replied. "And we have, let me think... absolutely nothing outside of our targeted ship that can work as a weapon."

He appeared baffled, "Ammunition isn't always official weaponry. We use whatever we can spare. We can gather huge amounts of scraps, perhaps even some explosives of our own."

"And you will throw them with your arms?"

"Listen here, love," Percy sighed. "This horribly dangerous post is a fort. Or was. Same difference. There's canons that make those in any ship look like a child's toy."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Fine," he admitted. "Perhaps not a toy, but they're better."

"And why am I supposed to go to the last rendezvous point? Do you still not trust me?"

Percy looked at her in the eye, careless of hiding his growing irritation, "It's not a question of trust. You'll be safer the furthest from the ship. It's where we're all boarding the ship to leave."

"I can fight!" she insisted. "My aim leaves little to be desired."

"You've never even loaded a canon, much less shot one."

"At least let me join the second post," she begged. "It's the highest, therefore it is the hardest to hit from the King's ship!"

Percy took this into account. He let out a small exasperated sigh.

"Don't come any closer to the main conflict!" he conceded finally.

She smiled and took his hand in both of hers, "I won't disappoint you!" she said with conviction.

As soon as she crouched behind a stone wall, Annabeth realised her excitement was met with solemnity, and even in most cases, grave faces.

Her hopes fell, and she felt her heart beat faster.

"You do not give me much confidence," she stated.

"Your King returns us the favour," a voice she didn't identify offered from behind her. "Take our word, this can turn ugly real fast."

She suppressed an uneasy sigh. She couldn't deny to herself that she was disappointed. These were pirates. Actual thieves, and –from what they themselves had expressed- some were even murderers. They were supposed to be fearless, cunning, to ignore the odds of failure and gain victory through any means.

Her disappointment quickly turned into anger. She'd given up trying to get away from these people's clutches and had joined them in their pointless escapade only for them to give up at the first sign of danger.

She fumed in silence for what felt like an eternity, until at last, she heard the distant sound of open fire.

The King's float had divided, a couple of ships were coming their way, and she felt both anxious and restless as they drew nearer.

She saw one of her fellow crewmates grab hold of a cannon, fill it with what she hoped was nothing short of pure dynamite, and position himself.

When she heard the first cannon hit the cliff ten metres below her position, she expected the boy to shoot immediately, but he chose to wait.

She heard the cannons hit closer, and closer to their target, and decided enough was enough. If this young lad, whatever his name was, lacked the nerves to do something, she wasn't going to die for it.

She shoved the boy aside, wasting no time in apologies. She thought it would all be very easy: point, light the fuse, BOOM! Enemy was gone. It happened to be quite harder.

For half an instant she was half tempted admit that her foolishness had led her to behave in such an impulsive manner, and with sincere apologies step down. Then her pride imposed itself above her other emotions.

She was a well-bred lady who learned fast and stood her ground. She didn't step down to cowardly pirates who kidnapped her, made an enemy of the king she'd served her whole life and then regretted it so foolishly.

She grabbed somebody's linstock and lit the fuse.

The cannon shot with the force of a hundred horses. It backtracked so quickly, Annabeth barely had time to stumble out of its way. It didn't hit the ship, which continued its attack undisturbed.

She didn't feel put out, on the contrary, she felt powerful. She had power to hurt these men who, in exchange, tried to hurt her and her new friends.

She called for more ammunition –which someone handed her immediately-, copied the way the boy had loaded the weapon earlier, and aimed the cannon better. This time, she heard a satisfying crunch of metal hitting wood, and knew the shot had found its mark.

Easing her eyes to look around herself, she found the rest of her group staring at her with something akin to awe.

"Well, come on people!" she yelled above the noise of the enemy cannons, which by no means had stopped after her small retaliation. "Grab a weapon and return fire! What are you waiting for? The captain needs our help!"

She didn't stop long enough to see if they'd followed her command, she grabbed more ammunition herself from the pile stacked next to them and shot again and again.

She stopped only when someone put a hand on her shoulder when she was about to light what had to be her fifteenth fuse.

"Don't waste any more time on these two ships," a voice she did recognise advised.

Annabeth stood up to face Thalia Grace.

"Were you here the whole time?" she demanded.

"No, I got here just in time to see you go into a rampage. I'm proud of you yelling these men into action, but now it's time to leave."

Annabeth looked around to see that, indeed, the group had clicked back into action. She was relieved. Now that she thought of it, had they ignored her orders, she would've looked pitiful.

As it was, she nodded her head.

"Where to now?"

"Now, we run to give Percy a hand," said Thalia. "Some of the King's troops disembarked in the harbour. Our job is to distract them long enough for our captain to get the ship on the move."

They ran down the hill and stopped short of a pier with a perfect view of the harbour. A view which, Annabeth found out quickly enough, also included two dozen soldiers armed to the teeth.

She tried not to let her concern show, but she realised with trepidation that she hadn't thought it necessary to bring a weapon with herself that morning.

Thalia seemed to have thought of that, she gave Annabeth a long sword she carried on her side.

"It's no knife," the brunette pointed out. "But it'll have to do."

The Duchess took the gleaming metal carefully. It suddenly came to her attention that she might have to kill someone. She wasn't sure if she could do that.

"I do not know…" she started weakly.

"Don't think," Thalia suggested. "The more you think, the more you endanger yourself and the team."

She swallowed, feeling her head spin more than it should.

Thalia took her to the side and grabbed her shoulders.

"Annie," she said in a comforting, but firm voice. "I'm not asking you to assassin these men freely. You saw how armed they are, and you know their intentions. They will kill us without a second thought, and they will lose no sleep for it tonight. I'm asking you to defend yourself, if you don't find it in your heart to willingly inflict pain on another."

Annabeth nodded, she wasn't expected to attack, just defend. It seemed a bit hypocritical to her, having urged the others to attack up in the edge of the cliff. But hand to hand combat? She had no idea how she could lynch someone without feeling moral repercussions.

The others had come closer, apparently waiting for Annabeth's new instructions. She eyed them warily, how could she order them to attack the regiment when she herself was having second thoughts on the matter?

Luckily, Thalia took it from there, "All right men," she said loudly. "We get the bastards quickly so that they won't see us coming. Quickly, all of you!"

And with that, she led them into battle.

Annabeth's had never seen men engage in such aggressive combat before. She had seen both soldiers and pirates challenge comrades into practise engagements. Never had she seen combatants in a proper duel.

At first, she kept to defence. No one paid her any mind, that with the others being a much more obvious opponent. They both looked and acted much more dangerously than she herself did.

The Duchesses' reservations dissolved to a distant memory the second she saw one of the soldiers struck a sword to the boy whom she'd stolen the cannon from, up on the cliff.

The first thing she could process was his shock. She expected the boy had never really thought of his own mortality until the instant the blue coated man ran a weapon through his abdomen. She guessed in half a second that the wound was fatal. Not even God himself could bring the boy from the brink of death.

From that moment hither she saw red.

She heard an inhumane cry escape her throat, unaware that she herself was making it, and charged into battle. She sparred, and stabbed, and slashed wherever she saw the King's emblem gleam with teasing pride.

She felt unstoppable, she was a machine. She was tired. Tired of the pretence she put up every day. She was no perfect socialite, nor a charming young lady meant for the shallowness of court. Wielding that sword she made the first choice in her life she could call her own. She felt powerful, like she had finally found what she could excel at. She was, as she would find the words afterwards, a warrior.

Ignoring the pangs of pain she felt from her muscles, which clearly were not used to being overexerted in such a foul lasting manner, she brandished her weapon until no foe was left to fight.

Annabeth saw the astonished face of her allies, the cold, expressionless bearing of the dead boy, and then promptly, she blacked out.

Thanks for the reviews! Specially to Fiction is the Truth for bringing into my attention that I accidentally left an asterisk in the last chapter. If you ever see asterisks, that's because I meant to write words in italics, or I somehow wanted to call my attention when I foolproof the writing. I pay terrible attention to detail, and for that I'm sorry! (Please keep letting me know so that I'll fix those :D).

Also, Jeanne Mei (sorry I can't answer privately) "savvy" is used as "get it?", which I've no idea if it's the correct way of saying that, that's just how they use it in Pirates of the Caribbean, which admittedly, might not be a particularly good historical source, but I'm too much of a fan to disagree.