In the words of the ever-wise Rick Riordan,
"To my wonderful readers: Sorry about that last cliff-hanger. Well, no, not really. HAHAHAHA. But seriously, I love you guys."
:)
Jason:
Jason could see everything that was going on. He could hear Piper giggling and saw himself kiss her even though he didn't want to. Worst of all, he saw Reyna, who looked at Piper with hate beyond imagining and him with pain and loss. And he saw Reyna run.
Suddenly, Jason came back to his senses, but not before the damage was done. He made a choking noise in the back of his throat and then he could speak again.
"REYNA!" He called. Piper grabbed his arm.
"Why are you running after her? You've got me now,"
(I know Piper's not actually that mean. I've kind of turned her into Drew)
He shook her off roughly and ran after Reyna.
"Wait!" He yelled. She ran up to the deck, Aurum and Argentum streaks of silver and gold behind her. Reyna turned around to face him.
"I can't figure you OUT Jason," she screamed," One minute you're kissing another girl and the next you're following me around. Aurum and Argentum snarled at him. Reyna sank to the deck. She sobbed uncontrollably; her face buried in her hands.
"Why?" she cried.
"I- I don't know. I just- I don't know." Jason stuttered. They were interrupted by a thump next to them.
"Gods of Olympus," exclaimed Jason momentarily forgetting Reyna,
"Leo what happened to you!?"
His hair was greased back. He had welding goggles on his forehead, a lipstick mark on his cheek, tattoos all over his arms, and a T-shirt that read HOT STUFF, BAD BOY, and TEAM LEO.
"Long story," he said. "Others back?"
"Not yet," Jason said.
Leo cursed. Then he noticed Reyna on the floor,
"Uh, what happened?"
Jason shook his head despairingly.
I'll be in the engine room then." Leo ran off with the sheet of bronze, leaving Hazel by herself.
"We met Narcissus," Hazel said, which didn't really explain much. "Also, Nemesis, the revenge goddess."
Then, there was another thump as if a heavy creature had landed. Annabeth and Percy came running over to them. Percy was toting a steaming five-gallon plastic bucket that smelled horrible. Annabeth had a patch of black sticky stuff in her hair. Percy's shirt was covered in it.
"Roofing tar?" Jason guessed.
Frank stumbled up behind them, which made the hallway pretty jam-packed with demigods. Frank had a big smear of the black sludge down his face.
"Ran into some tar monsters," Then they saw Reyna.
"Er- I'm going to let you deal with that. Hazel, where's Leo?" Said Percy
Hazel pointed down. "Engine room."
Suddenly the entire ship listed to port. The demigods stumbled. Percy almost spilled his bucket of tar.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"Oh…" Hazel looked embarrassed. "We may have angered the nymphs who live in this lake. Like…all of them."
"Great." Percy handed the bucket of tar to Frank and Annabeth. "You guys help Leo. I'll hold off the water spirits as long as I can."
"On it!" Frank promised.
The three of them ran off, leaving Hazel behind. The ship listed again, and Hazel hugged her stomach like she was going to be sick.
"I'll just…" She swallowed, pointed weakly down the passageway, and ran off.
Jason and Reyna walked below as the ship rocked back and forth. More accurately, Reyna stormed off furiously and Jason helplessly followed her. For a hero, Jason felt pretty useless in this situation. Waves crashed against the hull as angry voices came from above deck—Percy shouting, Coach Hedge yelling at the lake. Festus the figurehead breathed fire several times. Down the hall, Hazel moaned miserably in her cabin. In the engine room below, it sounded like Leo and the others were doing an Irish line dance with anvils tied to their feet. After what seemed like hours, the engine began to hum. The oars creaked and groaned, and Jason felt the ship lift into the air.
The rocking and shaking stopped. The ship became quiet except for the drone of machinery. Finally, Leo emerged from the engine room. He was caked in sweat, lime dust, and tar. His T-shirt looked like it had been caught in an escalator and chewed to shreds. The TEAM LEO on his chest now read: AM LEO. But he grinned like a madman and announced that they were safely under way.
"Meeting in the lounge, one hour," he said. "Crazy day, huh?"
Jason saw that Reyna had fallen asleep. He put his arm around her. He was glad she had because he would not have done it if she was awake.
After about half an hour, Reyna began to wake up. He hurriedly removed his arm. Assuming he wanted to keep it of course.
Coach Hedge took the helm and the demigods gathered below for dinner. It was the first time they'd all sat down together—just the eight of them. Maybe their presence should've reassured Jason but seeing all of them in one place only reminded her that the Prophecy of Eight was unfolding at last. No more waiting for Leo to finish the ship. No more easy days at Camp Half-Blood, pretending the future was still a long way off. They were under way, with a bunch of angry Romans behind them and the ancient lands ahead. The giants would be waiting. Gaia was rising. And unless they succeeded in this quest, the world would be destroyed.
The others must've felt it too. The tension in the lounge was like an electrical storm brewing, which was totally possible, considering Percy's and Jason's powers. In an awkward moment, the two boys tried to sit in the same chair at the head of the table. Sparks literally flew from Jason's hands. After a brief silent standoff, like they were both thinking, Seriously, dude? they ceded the chair to Annabeth and sat at opposite sides of the table.
The crew compared notes on what had happened in Salt Lake City, but even Leo's ridiculous story about how he tricked Narcissus wasn't enough to cheer up the group.
"So where to now?" Leo asked with a mouthful of pizza. "I did a quick repair job to get us out of the lake, but there's still a lot of damage. We should really put down again and fix things right before we head across the Atlantic."
Percy was eating a piece of pie, which for some reason was completely blue—filling, crust, even the whipped cream. "We need to put some distance between us and Camp Jupiter," he said. "Frank spotted some eagles over Salt Lake City. We figure the Romans aren't far behind us."
That didn't improve the mood around the table. Piper didn't want to say anything, but she felt obliged…and a little guilty. "I don't suppose we should go back and try to reason with the Romans? Maybe—maybe I didn't try hard enough with the charmspeak."
At that Reyna stormed off. Jason didn't try to follow her, he knew it would be useless. Hazel gave Jason a wide eyed look like she was trying to say, Oh Gods, what have you done?!
"It wasn't your fault, Or Leo's," Annabeth said. "Whatever happened, it was Gaia's doing, to drive the two camps apart."
"Maybe if we could explain that, though—" said Piper.
"With no proof?" Annabeth asked. "And no idea what really happened? I appreciate what you're saying, Piper. I don't want the Romans on our bad side, but until we understand what Gaia's up to, going back is suicide."
"She's right," Hazel said. She still looked a little queasy from seasickness, but she was trying to eat a few saltine crackers. The rim of her plate was embedded with rubies, and Jason was pretty sure they hadn't been there at the beginning of the meal. "Octavian won't listen. The Romans have honour to think about. They've been attacked. They'll shoot first and ask questions after."
Jason stared at his own dinner. The magical plates could conjure up a great selection of stuff. He especially like the cheeseburgers, but tonight he didn't have much of an appetite.
"You're right," he decided. "We have to keep going. Not just because of the Romans. We have to hurry."
Hazel nodded. "Nemesis said we have only six days until Nico dies and Rome is destroyed."
Jason frowned. "You mean Rome Rome, not New Rome?"
"I think," Hazel said. "But if so, that's not much time."
"Why six days?" Percy wondered. "And how are they going to destroy Rome?"
No one answered.
"There's more," Piper said. "I've been seeing some things in my knife."
Frank, froze with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. "Things such as… ?"
"They don't really make sense," Piper said, "just garbled images, but I saw two giants, dressed alike. Maybe twins."
Annabeth stared at the magical video feed from Camp Half-Blood on the wall. Right now, it showed the living room in the Big House: a cozy fire on the hearth and Seymour, the stuffed leopard head, snoring contentedly above the mantel.
"Twins, like in Ella's prophecy," Annabeth said. "If we could figure out those lines, it might help."
"Wisdom's daughter walks alone," Percy said. "The Mark of Athena burns through Rome. Annabeth, that's got to mean you. Juno told me…well, she said you had a hard task ahead of you in Rome. She said she doubted you could do it. But I know she's wrong."
Annabeth took a long breath. "Reyna was about to tell me something right before the ship fired on us. She said there was an old legend among the Roman praetors—something that had to do with Athena. She said it might be the reason Greeks and Romans could never get along."
Leo and Hazel exchanged nervous looks.
"Nemesis mentioned something similar," Leo said. "She talked about an old score that had to be settled—"
"The one thing that might bring the gods' two natures into harmony," Hazel recalled. "'An old wrong finally avenged.'"
Percy drew a frowny face in his blue whipped cream. "I was only a praetor for about two hours. Jason, you ever hear a legend like that?"
"I…uh, I'm not sure," he said. "I'll give it some thought."
Percy narrowed his eyes. "You're not sure?"
Jason didn't respond.
Hazel broke the silence. "What about the other lines?" She turned her ruby-encrusted plate. "Twins snuff out the angel's breath, who holds the key to endless death."
"Giants' bane stands gold and pale," Frank added, "Won through pain from a woven jail."
"Giants' bane," Leo said. "Anything that's a giants' bane is good for us, right? That's probably what we need to find. If it can help the gods get their schizophrenic act together, that's good."
Percy nodded. "We can't kill the giants without the help of the gods."
Jason turned to Frank and Hazel. "I thought you guys killed that one giant in Alaska without a god's help, just the two of you."
"Alcyoneus was a special case," Frank said. "He was only immortal in the territory where he was reborn—Alaska. But not in Canada. I wish I could kill all the giants by dragging them across the border from Alaska into Canada, but…" He shrugged. "Percy's right, we'll need the gods."
Jason gazed at the walls. He really wished Leo hadn't enchanted them with images of Camp Half-Blood. It was like a doorway to home that he could never go through. He watched the hearth of Hestia burning in the middle of the green as the cabins turned off their lights for curfew.
Jason wondered how Frank and Hazel, felt about those images. They'd never even been to Camp Half-Blood. Did it seem alien to them, or unfair that Camp Jupiter wasn't represented? Did it make them miss their home?
The other lines of the prophecy turned in his mind. What was a woven jail? How could twins snuff out an angel's breath? The key to endless death didn't sound very cheerful, either.
"So…" Leo pushed his chair away from the table. "First things first, I guess. We'll have to put down in the morning to finish repairs."
"Someplace close to a city," Annabeth suggested, "in case we need supplies. But somewhere out of the way, so the Romans will have trouble finding us. Any ideas?"
No one spoke.
"Well," Piper said, "how do you guys feel about Kansas?"
I know I left a few unanswered questions in this and the previous chapter, but I promise ill answer them in the next one.