Thank you very very much to Caring Reviewer! If everyone would take a detour to the review page, that was beautiful. Precisely what I wanted. And thank you, I fixed everything to 'stormy blue' as described in the Sea of Monsters. Additionally, Piper is supposed to feel secure enough with Jason that all of her fears go away.

Piper

Crack! Piper's heart leapt into her mouth when the noise came from somewhere to her right. She looked for the source of the noise and made the mistake of looking away from the dragon. A huge barbed tail smashed into her chest, sending her sprawling across the deck of the Argo II. She gasped and reached down to where one of the spikes had sliced open the skin on her hip. She looked down at the wound and she saw something suspiciously white. Her stomach turned and she covered it with her hand to avoid looking at it, scrambling to her feet.

She saw Mrs. O'Leary and Tyson appear out of thin air and start sliding across the deck. She looked frantically for that blonde head she loved so much, but when she saw it she was less than pleased. Adrian was taking Jason's limp body from Tyson and running across the deck, sliding into a room and disappearing.

Piper took a deep breath and sprinted after her, but the dragon got in her way. She lashed out at it with her dagger, but it didn't even scratch the dragon's hard golden scales. Fire arced across the sky as though a bonfire had started in the dragon's mouth. The heat dried her hair from the far end of the deck. She caught a glimpse of Leo hanging on tight to the dragon's neck, trying to keep from being flung into the raging sea below.

The boat was sinking through the air, and they only hovered perhaps 10 yards above the churning waters below. Piper was worried that they would fall in and never make it back up to the ship, but she put the thought from her mind.

Leo was waving a sword over his head, trying to get it in between some of the dragon's scales. If he could slide it between the chinks in the dragon's armor then maybe they would win. She could see Leo's hands blistering and blackening from the dragon's heat, even though he had fire powers.

Frank appeared on deck and shapeshifted into a giant eagle, soaring up into the sky. He clawed at the dragon's eyes and flew around its head, trying to anger the beast. The dragon snarled and sparks flew from its teeth, catching Frank's wings on fire. Frank tumbled into the ocean below. Hazel's scream reached Piper's ears and she could just make out Hazel's golden eyes reflecting the firelight as she stared over the rails of the ship, searching for Frank's form among the waves.

Where was Percy when you needed him? Or Jason? Or any of the ones with particularly kickass powers? Piper dodged another slap of the dragon's tail. She was scared; she still wanted to make it to Jason, but she wasn't sure how she could do that with this gigantic monster in between her and the room. No, she would have to wait to get to him; but that meant that both Adrian and Jason, who were easily the two most powerful of the demigods aboard the ship, were unavailable. Where was Nico? All that left was her, Leo, and Hazel, and Hazel was pretty preoccupied. Leo's fire was doing nothing against the dragon, too.

That left her. But what could she do, talk the dragon to death?

... Could she?

What if she charmspoke?

She stumbled for the railing of the deck, crouching under the bar to protect herself. She gathered her courage and opened her mouth.

"Dragon!" she called out. Her voice came out as a frightened little squeak. She took a deep breath and tried again. "DRAGON! Halt in your steps!" The great golden beast paused and swung its huge neck around with lightning speed. It stared down its long golden nose at her, a great red-orange eye focusing a dark slit on her.

She swallowed self-consciously as she realized that the dragon had not one, but three heads. Another rearing head looked at her from somewhere to the right with ice blue eyes, and the third head was busy with Leo.

"Who are you," the dragon asked, in the voice of a hundred serpents, "Who speaks as sweet as the Goddess?" The voice was enough to freeze Piper in place. Her fingers clung to the railing so tightly that they were white, and she summoned her courage to speak again.

"I am called Piper," she answered, squaring her trembling shoulders. "May I inquire as to your own identity, great Dragon?" She tried to mimic Adrian's formal, respectful manner of speaking.

"Do you not know me, child of Aphrodite?" the dragon hissed. Piper decided that the voice was probably male, and she would refer to him as a he. "Does no one remember the guardian of the golden apples?"

Piper's mind raced through every Greek myth she had heard of. She wished desperately that Annabeth was here; she knew all of this stuff. But noooo, Annabeth just had to fall into Tartarus...

Her heart leapt into her throat as she remembered something she had talked about with Annabeth ages ago. When Annabeth was talking about Percy one time, she relayed a story that Percy had told her. It had to do with a dragon named Ladon, and Ladon guarded the golden apples. Her eyes flickered slightly when she caught movement to the right, and she saw a fourth head.

"I am every so sorry, Ladon," she said, hoping she recalled the right name. "The tales do not do such a brilliant dragon as yourself justice." She bowed her head slightly to him and continued, her voice lowered in what she hoped came across as a respectful tone. "Might I ask why you are here?"

"Lady Gaea has requested your demise," Ladon hissed, "And so it shall be. It's a shame such a pretty and flattering girl as yourself shall die... But die you must."

She opened her mouth to say something else, something diplomatic and that would placate the dragon and perhaps convince him to spare their lives, when the dragon's red-eyed head flew down at her, mouth gaping and jaw unhinged. She screamed and let go of the railing, sliding backwards under the banister, off the deck and down, down, down... down...

All the way until the water slammed upwards to meet her in a shower of icy spray.

She gasped on reflex and the cold water filled her lungs. Adrenalined filled her blood stream, filling her with panic. She couldn't think clearly, all she had was fear... a fear of drowning. She lashed out and struggled through the bubbles, but she could no longer tell which way was up and which way was down. She felt like she was sinking, and she didn't know what to do.

She tried to scream for help but more water filtered in. This time, the water didn't burn. It felt calming. The pain left an her eyelids began to grow heavy. She stopped struggling and hung there, suspended in the water. A sound reached her ears; a beautiful voice whispering. The voice became clearer and clearer until she could make out the curse words being spewed at her.

Dear gods, woman. I'm taking care of your boyfriend! Can't you keep after yourself on your own and stop drowning for like, two whole seconds? Seriously, mate?!

Piper saw a pale face appear in the water in front of her. Two different colored eyes peered at her through a mass of floating red hair, and Piper frowned. The face was familiar, but where did it come from?

A steely hand wrapped around her wrist. Suddenly there was air, and the waves were lashing around her neck. She coughed and spluttered, warm sea water spewing out of her mouth and down her chin. Her mind cleared quickly and she saw Adrian next to her. Adrian was glaring fiercely, but Piper didn't watch her. She turned her attention quickly to the ship, which was so low now that it was almost touching the waves.

The dragon was raging on the deck. From this distance she could tell that the dragon didn't have one, nor four, nor even ten heads. There were closer to a hundred. Each of them were wheeling around; some ground their teeth into the banister to anchor the body in place, some were attacking her friends, some were attacking each other.

One of the dragon heads spun around, biting into Hazel's leg and sending her flying through the air. Adrian opened her mouth to scream a warning to Tyson as another head neared him, but Tyson was already running.

Tyson snatched a fallen blade from the deck of the ship. The blade was long and thin like a needle, and it glittered with water droplets. Tyson clutched it carefully in his hands with the point away from him and ran across the deck. He ran under Ladon's serpent-like stomach.

Tyson avoided swing after swing of the beast's heads, feet, and tail, looking up at its underbelly. He was looking for something, but Piper wasn't sure what. He finally found it; he slammed the sword into a chink in between Ladon's scales. The blade sunk all the way up to Tyson's meaty fists and stayed there, quivering.

Golden blood ran down Tyson's thick arms, and a hissing noise came from Ladon's hundred mouths. The hundred heads curved down to look at Tyson but before they could hurt him, the dragon combusted. A spray of fine soot layered the ship's deck.