Hi! Sorry for the cliffhanger (but not really). Today you get two chapters- feel special. Thanks for the review.

Disclaimer: I don't own the concept or characters or camps in Heroes of Olympus.

Enjoy, happy weekend!

X

Quinn

July 10th

"Man the Scorpions," Jason said. "Frank and Tyson at least," he said.

Shoot at the hull- that'll keep them away from us. All we'd need is aim, and that we have. Any closer and we'd need to be able to manoeuvre this, and only Tyson could do that with the expertise needed, Leo's just teaching me the basic controls, and that's nowhere near enough…

"Tyson drive," he said. "Need get away."

"I'll go," Quinn said, rushing towards one of the Scorpions. She'd given the last working bomb she had to Percy before he'd left, she was empty handed for that…

"Aim towards the hull, to destroy the ship," Frank said. "Then they won't be able to come at us."

"Theoretically speaking," Jason said.

Quinn sat down at the Scorpion. For those wondering, a Roman Scorpion was the same as a ballista, but for as long as she'd known about them, Quinn –and every other Roman- had called them Roman Scorpions. You basically sat down, and pulled a string towards you like a bow. Then you'd let go. Sometimes there were two people manning a Scorpion- one for the arrows and one for the pulling back. But here? Not so much. When you had a good line of fire, you let go, and hoped you landed it. The beauty of these Scorpions was that unlike traditional Scorpions, they took cannoballs and arrows instead of just one projectile.

Jason kicked off the deck to get some height, and a better view of what was going on.

"Fire!" Jason called. Cannonballs flew and they hit the ship, which was becoming a hazardously big spot in the horizon. They fired a few more shots, but either missed- or the projectiles bounced off from what Quinn could make out. That was not normal.

"This isn't working," Hazel said nervously.

"Hold on a sec, I'll try something," Frank said. He took off his jacket and jumped into the ocean. Seconds later, Quinn saw the back fin of a shark cutting through the water.

"He's going to snap off his teeth on that ship," she muttered.

"He knows, he's got another plan." Hazel promised, watching eagerly. As far as Quinn could tell, she had gathered every scrap of metal –it was funny, a whole chest of shrapnel was stored with the food, just for her- to use as projectiles. Hazel didn't need a Scorpion.

They couldn't see what was going on even if the boat was gliding towards them even faster.

"I should go help him," Jason said. "Or at least go see…"

"No, he's got this." Hazel insisted. "Trust him. If he didn't ask for help, he doesn't need it right now."

Nobody protested. They couldn't shoot because they had no idea where Frank was and hitting him would not only be humiliating, frustrating, terrible, but alsohard to explain to the Greeks when they got back. They couldn't do anything because Frank wasn't coming…

"Brother not coming," Tyson said. Quinn nodded to herself because she really couldn't see anything but the other ship now.

"He will," Hazel promised.

"No, he told me." Tyson insisted.

"He told you?" Jason asked.

"I hear brother's voice." Tyson said. For a second Quinn was caught on thinking about her own voice. They'd scared her half to death last night.

"You mean… What?" Hazel asked, just completely confused now.

"Tyson's a son of Poseidon; Frank must be some sea creature he can communicate with." Quinn said.

"Okay, makes sense. Where is he? Tyson, do you know if we can shoot because we won't have much of a choice soon." Jason said.

"Don't know," Tyson said. This was scary, not knowing what to do…

"Frank knows we'd have to shoot," Hazel said. "He'd be out of the line of fire."

"Aim for the deck," Jason said. "If we can't navigate past this Graecus ship, then we can use what we do have."

Aim, Quinn thought. Just because the lifetime supply of peas, canned pears, beans and soup (all in can form) downstairs didn't count as using something that they had.

They took their shots and aimed. The cannonball Jason and Quinn fired crashed through the planks making up the deck.

"Again!" Jason called. Hazel was willing anything she could to fly at the ship. Hazel could accomplish both distance and momentum with those, it was scary. Yesterday she and Percy had been practising. Hazel tossing them as fast and far as she could, and Percy willing the tide to carry them back to the ship and fish them out. At Annabeth's suggestion, she'd summoned as much treasure as she could when she felt it around, plus there was the initial New Rome stack; so there was a pretty solid stack of ammunition for her.

Quinn focused on her ballista again.

"This won't work," Hazel said. Quinn could make out the shapes onboard now if she squinted really, really hard and put her glasses on at the right angle. She saw sailors wearing ancient Greek tunics –chitons- with swords at their waists and they ran around the ship, pulling on ropes and tying knots and manoeuvring their craft with the same ease as Percy.

Quinn frowned. Percy's skills were god given and inborn. How did they..?

"These aren't normal," Quinn whispered.

"What do you mean Quinn- we know they're not normal, we're supposed to be the only trireme on earth!" Jason said.

"I mean that they're too good! I know a thing or two about sailing- I grew up near a river," Quinn said. "But they're… They're too good. They can't be real!"

She looked at them. They had to understand this, they just had to!

"These aren't just brought back from the dead; they're elite!" Hazel realised.

"Just what he needed," Jason mumbled.

And that's when Frank popped up again.

Piper

"Tartarus!" Annabeth yelled. "And I'm not cussing- don't fall!"

That was really hard considering they were falling to their dooms right then.

Leo produced rope from his belt and threw it as they fell. It hooked on to something and he was safe. He grabbed onto Piper's wrist since she was the closest thing around.

It was like those interior skydiving air tunnels; that had you floating around thanks to air currents blowing in from the bottom. Except Piper couldn't see the bottom, the walls were sketchy and sharp black, and they were definitely not floating.

"Where are Percy and Annabeth?" Piper asked Leo.

"I don't know," Leo said. "But Beauty Queen, I'm not calling you fat here, but this rope won't hold."

"Do you have anything else?" Piper asked.

"Nope, toolbelt's dead." He said. Piper wondered what she had on her that she could ditch to ease the weight, and she could do an inventory over her worry for Percy and Annabeth and where in the world were they.

"I have a dagger!" She said.

"Well that took you a long time to figure out," Leo said. "And the best thing is that right now, you can't slap me for saying that."

Piper looked at the wall.

"Maybe," she said. Eagle landings; she'd done a million of them from one bird to another. If she could just…

"I'm going to try something, and it's insane, but I'm going for it." Piper said.

"Sounds like a plan," Leo said. Piper started sweating (as a matter of speech, this place was about as cold as Boreas' penthouse); she couldn't build up her momentum or anything, she'd have to just jump.

She took a deep breath, and threw her dagger at the wall. It landed point first and sunk in the wall- which was a good thing, because Piper didn't feel like going down with it.

She jumped from the rope and she was halfway from Leo to the wall, when she though 'hmm, what if the dagger isn't deep enough?'

Too late, she felt her hands scrape rock and she was just in time to hang on to the dagger for dear life. In the unevenness of the rock, she found foot holes, but that was it.

"Okay," she said. "Okay, that takes care of us."

"Great; now where the heck did our residential lover birds go?" Leo asked.

Piper didn't have a clue.

Jason

They were doing reasonably okay at not dying.

Quinn was right; these guys had been dead once. She'd called them the sailors of some-place-with-a-Greek-name, where the best sailors of Ancient Greece had been. That hadn't been the good part, but their bullets had finally started piercing through the ghost boat.

Then Frank had popped up.

He'd been a dolphin- jumping high and friendly and oh-my-gods-its-a-cute-little-dolphin-take-a-picture, and when he'd been just a bit above the other ship's railing, he'd lurched so he turned to head towards their deck and he'd shifted into a whale. So there was this huge whale sized dent in their deck. The wooden planks were broken, and the railing destroyed.

Frank had turned back to his human self; he was duelling the sailors now; and most of them weren't that great at it. Between that and the animals he changed into (which was a shock all in itself), they were doing fine.

Hazel had taken to projecting metal over at them. And when she ran out, she either lured it back to throw it with momentum, or she simply willed it through someone's throat from afar. Either method was acceptable.

Jason blew a gust of wind over to the stockpile of metal, and they all floated in midair, waiting for Hazel to punch at them before going flying.

Tyson had stopped trying to steer the ship away, and he was fighting with them now, flawlessly manning a Scorpion, so Jason was about to take off to join Frank on the other ship and help do damage there. That was when Quinn started screaming.

Jason didn't know Quinn the best- not like Hazel or Annabeth did. He'd met her, he'd been the one to give her a tour of camp, he'd helped to keep her out of Octavian's legion, and he'd talked to her at meals, or in the streets and such. He'd spent a day short of a week on the flying ship with her- which had to count for something- and even the people who'd just met her on this ship such as Percy knew that Quinn Hunter did not scream. She looked shy and afraid, but she never screamed.

He was expecting her to be hurt. He spun around to look at her, but she was just bent in too, her knees buckling and buckling, and her face twisted with pain, her hands to her ears.

"Quinn-" He said. He knelt in front of her, and tried to touch her wrist to see if that'd focus her back.

"It's Percy!" She told him. She looked at him. "Percy and Annabeth- something's going to happen- they're both in trouble!"

"Quinn, how do you know?" Jason asked. Percy and Annabeth were all that way on that island. And what'd happened to Leo and Piper?

"I…" Quinn bit her lip. She didn't want to say.

"Okay, never mind, never mind- what kind of trouble?" Jason tried to soothe it out of her. He knew he had to go fight but someone had to take care of Quinn.

"Gaia's better half," Quinn said. She closed her eyes in pain again, and Jason was just completely clueless.

"Okay, Quinn, you need to go below deck." Jason said. "We'll finish these guys off, and then we'll figure out what that's about."

"I can- I can fight…" Quinn said, picking up her sword.

"Are you sure?" She asked.

"Yes, I'm sure." Quinn nodded. "I'm used to it."

"Used to..?" Jason let it go; later. Right now they were supposed to fight.

"Stay here. From what I hear you can throw a mean spear, and just in case Hazel needs help with a ballista," he said.

He took off towards the other ship. When he landed on the enemy deck, every worry about Quinn or Percy, Annabeth, Piper and Leo peeled off like sunburnt skin; and his only instinct was to help out Frank. They immediately met up and fought back to back, like the legion had taught them to.

And it was working pretty well until the sea threw up on them.

Annabeth

Percy grabbed her hand as they fell, and they were both screaming their heads off. At least she wouldn't lose him when they landed (if they landed).

"Can't fall!" She yelled.

"We don't have options!" He yelled. Seaweed. Brain.

"Do you know what's at the bottom?" She yelled at him. They were falling for far too long- there should be a bottom.

"Well, you yelled out Tartarus…"

"Bingo!" Annabeth said. "I am not going down there with you!"

"What's wrong with me?" Percy yelled back at her.

"You know half the people there personally!" She yelled at him. Okay, this was bad. Tartarus was the second half of the giants, he was their father! If they ever touched the bottom… Annabeth could only start imagining how happy with seeing Percy the giant would be.

"Percy stab Riptide in a wall or something!" She said.

"What?"

"Percy do it!" Annabeth yelled over at him. He got the message (a.k.a.- we have limited options so you better listen to me and do this) and they stopped falling. The momentum swung Annabeth towards the wall, and she crashed into it. She felt the familiar choc in her nose that meant she was bleeding. Before the weight would be too much she took out her knife and stabbed it in the wall. She let go of Percy's hand.

"Okay, what now?" He said. She looked up at him and tried to think. They had to go up, but how were they supposed to do that?

"Okay, first thing, take off your armour." She said.

"What? We sort of need armour!"

"If it weighs you down and you fall into Tartarus completely and die painfully and tediously, you won't." Annabeth said.

"I hate it when you're right," Percy said. She didn't mind him, and took off her own armour. She kept two essential pieces; the owl helmet and the chest plate. She watched her armour fall deeper into Tartarus. She winced. Beckendorf had made that for her when she'd been little. It'd grown with her, literally expanding as she grew up. She hoped the magical properties wouldn't affect Tartarus or fuel him somehow; but she had bigger problems.

"Now what?" Percy asked.

"I'm still working on that!" She said. She looked around. Down was not an option; which left up. But they had no way of doing that. Her backpack had disappeared along with the illusion of the old Camp Half-Blood. She couldn't believe they'd fallen for that- it had been a distraction. Then she wondered what the ones on the ship were dealing with… Something Romans on a ship weren't good at; this had had to be Gaia's way or getting rid of the biggest players…

Oh no…

She returned her focus to the moment.

"The best we can do is hold on," Annabeth said. She hated this. She should have something up her sleeve, but all she had was what she'd already used. Wait a minute- use… reuse…

"Okay Seaweed brain, this is going to be complicated." She said.

A few minutes later she was holding onto Percy and they were both hauling each other above the other. Their progress was slow, and tiring, but neither of them had a better idea, and they had to get out of here somewhere.

Percy dug Riptide into the wall.

"Okay, I'm good," he said holding his hand down. She took it and with her dagger, and feet, she hauled herself up. She finally put her foot on his shoulder, and dug her dagger in the wall.

"I'm solid," she said, holding out her hand to him. It was harder for him to move up because he was heavier, and she wasn't as strong as he was; but they managed. They had to, it wasn't like either of them dying was an option.

"This is when you wonder where the one who can fly is," Percy said. He sunk Riptide in the wall and held out his hand to her. She took his hand with a finger-cracking grip he returned.

Suddenly he tensed.

"Percy?" She asked. "Percy what's wrong? Tell me right now…"

"Gaia's in my head." He said.

Annabeth froze. He had told her that Gaia was under some kind of illusion that he was about to help her. But not now.

"Percy, ignore her." Annabeth said. "Come on, focus on me. I'm here." She held his hand, but didn't take her dagger out just in case…

"Yeah," Percy said. "Totally." His hand tightened around hers and he helped her up. She sunk her knife in and extended her hand to him. His eyebrows were scrunched up, like he was worried.

"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"Do you want us to stop and take a break?" Annabeth asked.

"We'd waste our energy." Percy said. Annabeth didn't say anything, she held out her hand and Percy found further foot holes in the wall to climb.

"Percy, what is she saying?" Annabeth asked, as she pushed her foot off his shoulder, and sunk her dagger as high as that went.

"I don't know," he said.

"Percy it is inside your head- of course you know." Annabeth said. She started getting worried, when Percy didn't tell her stuff… It was usually really bad-sounding and it turned out to be really important information she could've used beforehand.

"Percy…" She said.

"Something about us meeting her better half… Whatever that means…" Percy said.

Annabeth's brain snapped into one name.

"Oh no…" She said. "This is not good…"

"You say that a lot when we're about to go through something that usually ends with a-"

And suddenly her knife, Riptide, and both of them melted through the wall.

She landed on her hands and knees and looked up immediately. The room looked pretty much like the tunnel had, except with a floor and ceiling and the man on the throne.

Annabeth knew he wasn't a man. Men had faces, not smooth black surfaces like the tops of pianos. His clothes were like wisps of black smoke, curled around him like robes, and his skin was crusty and black. He was twenty feet tall; his throne was the same size as the ones on Olympus. She got to her feet and raised her knife. She saw Percy with Riptide drawn, at the corner of her eye.

"Annabeth…" He said. "Look around."

She risked a glance at every monster around and her breath froze inside her throat.

She saw the Minotaur, Echidna, the chimaera, a hydra, hellhounds by the handful, dracanae snake-women aplenty, Antaeus the giant son of Poseidon and Gaia, the Manticorn, Agrius and Oreius the bear twins who'd been Luke's bodyguards, Kampê- spitting venom and rage as always, a few Hyperborean giants, basilisks, mean looking Cyclops and Laistrygonian, rogue centaurs , the Nemean Lion, a few anemoi thuellai, a bunch of mean harpies, telekhines, the Clazmonian sow, giant scorpions, and a few karpoi grain spirits Annabeth had seen last summer while searching for Percy...

"Oh gods," she said. "That's every monster we've ever killed."