A/N: I spent the day in a water park – mostly the wave pool! So now is the big chapter, the one holding both POVs. Why? Because otherwise it'd be about five really really short chapters. That's why . . . but here, it gets exciting and tense . . . *smiles* Now go ahead readers, enjoy!
Cora & Percy: A Rescue Mission Gone Wrong
I wasn't sure how much time had passed. It was hard to gage. No one came for me, the bindings on my limbs never loosened, and I was as miserable and angry as a person could be. I got no food, no water, no nothing to keep me alive. Every once in a while I would drift into a half sleeping state of mind. But I never got any real rest; it's a little hard when you're tied up in a sitting position. All in all, time was going by and I was getting weaker.
After the gods know how long went by, I was roused from my half sleeping state by the sound of stone grinding against stone. I blinked my tired eyes open and craned my stiff neck upwards. The doorway beside the long-dead torch was yielding light.
Straightening myself up the best I could, I waited silently for whoever they were to arrive, my eyes aching. If I was extremely lucky, it would be Hunter, Percy, and Annabeth. I just didn't have that kind of luck.
A minute later, a robed man walked in to the underground cavern. He was followed by one of the warrior's who bore the torch. I stared at him, my eyesight full of spots from the amount of light after so long in the darkness. The man was dressed in a long linen robe of purplish-green. He too had a beard, but whether or not it was the same man as before, I couldn't tell.
The man walked smoothly forward, his footsteps creating that grinding noise. Were his shoe soles made of rock or something? Defiantly I sat as straight as I could and pushed my shoulders back, my eyes calmly shooting daggers at the man. The man regarded me with cold hard eyes.
Snapping his fingers, the rope binding my ankles fell away. Immediately a faint tingling spread across my feet, I guess they had been going numb. I shuddered internally at how my arms and hands must be, they had been bound for much longer, who knew how bad it could be.
"Get up and follow me," the man hissed. Hesitantly, I rose to my feet, my stiff body screaming in protest. Shakily I wobbled through the rock covered ground towards him.
Once I reached the stairs, the man walked swiftly up and I struggled up the best I could. The warrior bearing the torch followed behind me. If I wasn't so weak and in a bad situation, I'd probably fall backwards on him and try something that way. But I didn't get the opportunity.
The grinding noise from the man pounded in my head, making it ache. Soon my legs became leaden and my vision was swimming. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, we came out of the rising tunnel and into a long hallway of stone. More and more stone, great, I was sick seeing of stone.
Without pause the man continued down the hallway. I followed as quickly as I could, which wasn't too easy.
We passed an endless amount of side tunnels. They all had strange carvings chiselled into the rock above them. They all gave me the shivers; horrible carvings with no doubt gruesome meanings. I saw many that did not make me feel good.
After a very long time, when I could barely keep going, we walked into a vast underground hall. The roof was a mash of multi-coloured crystal and grey stone. There were stone paths on the ground, weaving in and around raised platforms, rock formations, and many fountains and waterways. I stared at the place in amazement; it was absolutely breath-taking! Of course, it just had to be inhabited by evil people.
They made me walk for a while, weaving through the different paths. I couldn't help but look around at the beauty of this place, despite the exhaustion of my body and the swimming of my head. Soon, we came to a platform; on it were several more men.
The men all looked alike; wizened faces, long white beards (the odd one didn't have a beard), long robes with the same grey base colour. Their skin was an unnatural colour and they were inhumanly tall. There were about eight of them, all standing in a semicircle facing an altar. On the altar was a bowl and a jagged knife – well that was clearly not a good sign.
The warrior that had been forcing me to walk shoved me into the middle of the platform, directly in front of the altar. I would have tried once again to break the ropes, but my limbs were nearly numb and I could barely twitch my fingers.
I swallow nervously and looked around; I saw a small movement near to far end on my right. Please, oh, please let that be help!
That morning all of us woke up early. The sun was just appearing over the mountain peaks as we finished eating our breakfast. Quickly we packed up, leaving no trace that we had been there.
We hiked down the rough mountain and made headway towards the small entrance into the mountain. Before we went in, Annabeth scouted ahead invisibly, just in case there was a guard.
Unfortunally, there was. That immediately crossed out using the main entrance. Instead we took a detour climb up the mountain side, hoping to find another entrance.
It wasn't easy climbing that mountain side. It was steep and there were several loose rocks and boulders that might have come crashing down any minute. We scrambled on for I don't know how long.
After a while, we decided to take a break on a wide ledge that didn't look like it might collapse.
We flopped next to each other in the hot, burning sun. We were dozing a little bit at first. We were all tired from our climb. I leaned back against the side of the mountain, and prepared to relax for a few minutes – not too long. Since we had to get in today and bust Cora out!
Leaning back, I half closed my eyes against the bright glare of the sun. I shuffled uncomfortably against the rock. It felt odd; not as rough and pointy as it should be. Maybe it's just my imagination, I thought. Of course, knowing my luck, that wasn't the case.
The next thing I knew, I was tumbling backwards, my Achilles' Heel painfully bumping against a rock, which spread a numb tingling feeling along my spine.
Before I could completely do a backwards somersault, there was a hard tug on the front of my shirt. I stopped rolling backwards and felt my body be lifted forward out of the hole I had fallen into. I dropped hard on my knees once I was back out on the rock ledge. Annabeth's hand was grasping the front of my shirt tightly, the expression on her face grim and serious.
Twisting back around, we looked in amazement at the hole. Turned out it wasn't a hole. It was a long tunnel leading into the mountain. It had been covered by some sort of leather like fabric that had been designed to blend into the mountain. It had been pulled tight, and me leaning on it had caused it to tear right though the middle.
Me and Annabeth tore off the rest of the material, widening the hole. Once we finished, all three of us stuck our heads in and peered down. It was a long dark shaft, the air dry and stale. Guess that's not too surprising since it was coming from inside a mountain. We didn't dare go down it just yet, even if it was tall enough for us to stand up in. Now that we had a way in, we had to come up with a plan.
"Even though that probably wasn't intentional," Annabeth leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "Great work Seaweed Brain." I smiled at Annabeth, glad at the turn of events. She returned it for a moment, then her eyes got that faraway look. The one she got whenever she's thinking about architecture or coming up with a strategic plan.
"So what should we do?" I asked her after a few minutes. She turned to me, her stormy grey eyes looking troubled.
"I'm not sure; we don't know what it's like in there. I suggest we sneak down and see what the place is like. I'll figure something out once I see it, but Percy, be ready to use you powers, I have a feeling we'll need them," she told me. I nodded my agreement, noticing there was almost a moist quality to the tunnel air, she had a good point.
As quietly as we could, with Annabeth leading, me behind, and a confused Hunter bringing up the rear; we walked softly down the sloping passageway of stone.
It was dark, and we didn't have any flashlights on us; so we went by feel. It was straightforward, no unexpected twists and turns. That was about the only good thing, otherwise I would have felt we re-entered the Labyrinth (which would be cause for panic since it's destroyed).
After about ten minutes we came out of the tunnel on to a small platform that was still surrounded by rock so we were hidden. I gazed out wide eyed at what lay before me. My jaw dropped, it was spectacular.
It was like an underground city. The ground paved with interconnecting pathways, and roads. Fountains and pools were placed in various places around them. The odd platform was placed, with huge marble steps leading up to them. It was well organized and neat, like it had been well thought out.
Looking up, I saw that the ceiling was made of crystals. They glowed faintly in many different colours. The torches that were lit in rows along the paths reflected in them, casting them with a strange reflection. This place was a natural wonder, and I couldn't imagine how people so evil could have access to a place like this.
Turning my eyes downward again, I noticed the place wasn't deserted like I had originally thought. There were roughly a dozen people gathering on one of the platforms. There were hard to see from this distance. The only thing I could tell about them was that they all wore long robes of a gray like hue and were really tall. It was weird, were these something from Rome? Probably, I had never heard of anything like this. Even Annabeth was looking confused.
I looked harder at the platform with people. I had a feeling something was very, very wrong. Scanning around the huge hall, I noticed something. There was a slight movement behind one of the many fountains; it was heading in the direction of the platform. I watched it, it was three people moving.
After a minute, they mounted the platform and came into view. One of them left, one went to join the robed people, and the last had been forced to stand before a table-altar thing. I inhaled sharply. The last figure had bright hair . . . the colour of fire . . . with blue streaks . . . I began to tremble slightly. It was Cora!
Annabeth's hand was placed reassuringly on my shoulder. Glancing over, I saw Hunter was also staring intently at Cora. Well, it's not like she's hard to spot or anything. I caught Annabeth's eye and we reached a silent agreement. We retreated back into the shelter of the tunnel, pulling Hunter along with us.
Over the next ten minutes or so, we came up with a plan. The reason it took so long is because communicating with a French speaking kid is very difficult. Eventually we all reached an understanding of the plan – at least we hoped we did. It was time to set it in action.
We began our perilous descent into the hall as best we could. We kept to the shadows and went slowly. It took forever, but finally we neared the floor. Taking a deep breath, I dropped to the ground first. Closing my eyes and concentrating, I felt the all too familiar tug in my gut. Slowly, a mist began the rise from all the water, now for phase two.
I had managed to not look at that one dot one colour on the edge of my vision. But it wasn't easy; it was just too easy to get distracted. Why must demigods have ADHD? Oh right . . . we need it for battle. Unfortunally for me, the events happening around proved good for capturing my attention.
I was only standing there for a few minutes, the whole time my eyes focused in a sidelong look on the strange dot of colour that suddenly disappeared.
With it out of view, I turned my eyes back to the men standing around me. They were looking at me curiously. I glared at them each in turn, just to let them know I was not going to back down.
The one man behind the altar raised his hands. This man looked a bit like a stereotypical wizard or mage or whatever you want to call them. Necromancer, that's probably what he was, at least I knew they existed. But whatever he was, I did not like the look in his steely eyes one bit.
He began to chant in a strange language. Every warning bell in my mind was going off at once. It took all my self control to not tremble. His chanting became louder. The other men took up the chant as well. The smell of evil filled the air; an invisible wind ruffled my hair. I squared my shoulders and stared straight ahead.
That's when it happened.
In the corner of my eye, I noticed a small dot of colour the size of a pin-prick on the floor of the hall. But it didn't make me get nervous, it actually calmed me down. Then slowly a faint mist began to rise up from the pools and fountains. And it wasn't me who was doing it.
A man nearby looked at me sourly as he chanted. I couldn't help but shake my head slightly at him.
Slowly the mist began to thicken. The air grew chillier and darker from the spell/chant they were weaving. My head gradually grew more and more muddled. I started finding it hard to think clearly.
Then there was a burning feeling on my chest and my forehead. It helped to clear my thoughts, though I still felt muddled and confused. I couldn't seem to remember how to breathe.
I blinked hard, and for the first time I noticed everything was becoming blurred by a thick fog. The men's chanting faltered to a stop, and they were angrily looking around. I held my breath; please let this be my friends! Within a minute, the fog had deepened so much I could barely see a foot in front of me. The men had disappeared from view; I was standing there confused and completely alone.
I heard light footsteps running somewhere. Rough voices yelled out in the strange language of these people. Heavy footsteps came from in front of me, thankfully moving away. More light footsteps. My heart pounded against my rib cage.
Suddenly warm hands were placed lightly on my shoulders. I tensed, heart pounding, thinking it had to be one of the men. I felt warm breath tickle my ear. "Cora, come on, it's me. We're getting out of here," a familiar voice whispered to me. I released the breath I hadn't realized I had been holding. It was Hunter; they were here.
I gave a small nod, my nerves still settling down. His hands left my shoulders for a brief moment. Then he put his arm reassuringly around my back, so he could both guide and support me. I didn't need any encouragement to go. We took off, Hunter steering me. He seemed to have no problem seeing through the fog. Maybe it was just from my exhausted and muddled brain that I couldn't.
We ran as fast as we could down the steps and went softly along one of the many pathways. We went as quickly as I could manage, but it wasn't fast enough.
As it turned out, I was worse off than I had been thinking (and I had been thinking I was pretty weak). We were trying to get around the hall and back to the opening they had come through. At least, that's what I thought we were doing; I could only assume it was them I had seen as the 'dot' of colour.
It didn't go to well though. We were still navigating through the fog when we heard it. The heavy sound of stone grinding against stone. It was moving fast, as if it was running footsteps. It was coming front somewhere in front of us.
Upon hearing that sound, I skidded to a halt, swaying back and forth nervously.
"What is it?" Hunter asked me quietly. Gradually the sound was growing louder. I was so nervous I couldn't speak. "It's one of them, isn't it?" he said after a pause. I nodded and Hunter nearly let out a curse. Looked like it was time to change tactics.
Breaking into a run, we headed to the left. All of a sudden, we were out of the fog. Percy really is a Seaweed Brain if he didn't cover the whole hall intentionally.
Directly in front of us was a long dark hallway leading further into this maze of a place. Pausing in front of it, I risked a glance back.
A second later I saw Percy and Annabeth running in our direction. Their faces had a look of alarm on as they charged past us into the tunnel.
We stood frozen for a second, and then raced after them. Anything that made Percy and Annabeth run, I was running from too.
We all ran for a few paces, just barely getting into the tunnel. Suddenly, Percy and Annabeth ducked to the right. They were hiding inside an alcove. There was one on the left directly across from it.
Me and Hunter stumbled into the one on the left and collapsed on the ground. Our bodies were pushed back out of the way of the tunnel.
It wasn't more than a few seconds before the sound of many heavy footsteps rang. A moment later we dimly saw legs and feet run by. No one checked the dark alcoves.
Once they past, we let out the breath we had both been holding. I slumped against the wall, my head pounding. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
"You feeling okay?" Hunter whispered to me.
"I'll – I'll be fine," I managed; my voice airy and cracking. "Can you just untie me, please?" Just by saying that, my head ached. Gods this was not good.
Immediately Hunter got started. I felt his fingers move gently across my wrists. It tingled slightly. He went on in vain for a minute; the knots just wouldn't come undone. He paused for a moment, cursing under his breath. Then I heard a small metallic ring. I felt the faint feel of cold metal against my skin. With a few strokes he slashed through the cords binding my wrists.
My hands dropped limply. With another few slashes, the ropes tying my arms to my side fell away. I breathed a sigh of relief. Feebly I moved my arms to in front of me. They started to tingle and felt like they were being pricked with needles. Groaning I stretched my limbs, trying to get the blood flowing again.
I bit my lip hard, feeling the inside of my jacket unsticking from the scrapes and cuts on my upper arms. My wrists stung, and so did my arms as fabric brushed against them. I felt a tingling start at the top of my arms, gradually moving down my arms. Making it feel like they were being stuck constantly with pins.
For a minute, I just sat there getting the blood back into my arms and hands the best I could.
Then I vaguely saw Percy's face appeared in front of me out of the gloom. He beckoned with his hand, and the disappeared back into the darkness. Me and Hunter looked at each other for a second, before crawling across the passageway into the alcove across.
The one Percy and Annabeth had ducked into was much bigger. It was about twice the size and easily fit all four of us.
My head spun, and my vision was fuzzy for a minute.
Percy pulled out Riptide and uncapped it, the enchanted bronze sword casting a faint glow. All three of them looked at me worriedly. Did I look that bad? Apparently . . . But that wasn't important right now. What was important was getting out of here.
Let me put it this way . . . no plan every works out like it's suppose to for me! As soon as we had raced down into the fog to rescue Cora, we were swarmed. Using the fog as cover, we did manage to evade the men. But we had no way of getting out of there, or knowing if Hunter had managed to get to Cora. That was his part in this.
We had raced away from the men as best we could, with me maintaining the fog. Me and Annabeth accidentally ran out into a spot clear of fog. And that was not my fault! I didn't know it wasn't covered!
Anyway, standing there was Cora and Hunter. That was one consolation. Behind them was a passageway. We raced past them into it, and a moment later we heard them follow us.
It was a sheer stroke of luck to run into the alcove. Once we had dived inside, and after I had judged to be a suitable amount of time, I crawled partway out and motioned for the others to come over in our surprisingly large alcove.
Once they joined us, I uncapped Riptide and the small space was illuminated by the glow of my sword. In its light, that was the first chance I actually got to look at Cora. I felt horrified by it.
Cora's skin was deathly pale and drawn tight. Her eyes had a lost the old confidence and strength, now they were nervous and unsure. She looked frail and thin, I wondered if she had had anything to eat. Probably not. Above her left temple was blood. It ran down her face all the way to her jaw. It was clumped up around the cut, and I think it was pulsing slightly. The blood was dark, not the dark dried blood colour, a shade lighter. That made me worried; her head had been bleeding again.
She looked at me, and I saw she had absolutely no idea what to do. She was depending on us completely. Even if she knew what to do, she wouldn't be able to do anything, she looked that bad. I felt angry; no one has the right to do this to someone. Least of all my amnesiac sister. I wanted to charge down back into the hall and take out those men one by one. But I knew that wouldn't be right, they were mortals and I couldn't go around killing them, no matter what they did to the people I cared about.
I slung off my backpack and pulled out a canteen of Nectar. I offered it to Cora, and when she grabbed it I noticed her wrists were cut up. I mean, I knew she had been bound, but not so tightly that that would happen! Cora gratefully drank some Nectar and passed the canteen back to me. Straight away the colour returned slightly to her skin, and her wounds close up a bit. I placed the canteen back in my bag and looked worriedly at her.
"How are you feeling?" I asked her, keeping my voice low.
"I'll be fine," she said. I noticed how she said she would be fine, not that she was fine. I sighed inaudibly, so far, phase two was not working out. I should probably explain what our plan had been.
In our first phase, that had been to sneak in and create a cover with the fog. Phase two had been for Hunter to grab Cora and led her back towards the tunnel while me and Annabeth covered for them by fighting the men. The last phase had been we all get out through the tunnel. As you can clearly see, that did not work out at all.
"Okay, so we need a new plan," I said thinking. "Annabeth can you -"
"Yes," she said answering my unfinished sentence. She stood up and stepped out of the alcove, putting her invisibility cap on her head. She vanished and we just had to wait now. After a few minutes I heard a few light footsteps around me then Annabeth shimmered into existence. Sitting back down I noticed the pleased look she had in her grey eyes.
"We're lucky," she said. "The tunnel is straightforward and it doubles back into the hall. The exit is closer to the escape tunnel, only about a few hundred feet. If we distract the men for long enough we can get out." A little piece of luck in this chaos, now we just had to use it.
"So we distract them and Cora makes a break for it," I said. I looked back and forth between the others; Annabeth was thinking hard, Cora was looking at me a little annoyed. What did I do?
"I don't think that will work," she said. "You don't understand, these men . . . it's weird, but they almost seemed to know when you are going to do something. They could predict what I had been thinking. Besides, I'm not running from these men." She looked defiant, weak and scared, but she still had the same look of defiance as always. I sighed and looked at her.
"Cora . . ." I said quietly. "I understand where you're coming from, really I do. But it's too risky. We don't know about these men, you're hurt, and right now we need to focus on getting out of here. We can't face these men now." Cora opened her mouth to respond but I cut her off by holding up my hand. I had a pretty good feeling of what she was going to say.
"Yes, that's a possibility, but judging by how my luck has always been, we will probably meet them again. But we need to focus on getting out of here." For a second I thought she was going to yell at me or something, then she thought better of it and just nodded grumpily. I looked over to Annabeth; sure she was going to say something. Her eyes seemed to be just coming back into focus.
"I think I know how to make this work to please everyone," she said thoughtfully. "We will need a distraction, and I don't think the fog will help too much now. So I was thinking . . . Well, Cora, do you think you can shoot? Providing you still have your bow. I was thinking that you could shoot a couple arrows, to disorganize them. Then we make a break for it. So can you shoot?" I was surprised, but then again, this was Annabeth, she always thought things through. But my main concern with that wasn't the plan itself, it was if Cora could cope.
"I . . . I think I should be able to," Cora said. I need to stop underestimating my sister, she deserves much more credit then I give her.
The others looked at me expectantly, I gave a firm nod and we rose to our feet.
Me and Annabeth stepped out of the alcove. Cora reached into her pouch and pulled out her twig – I mean bow. Her bow.
She held it out in front of her and it exploded into her bow. She slipped her quiver over her head, wincing; and we set off down the tunnel with Annabeth in the lead.
As we went down the tunnel, I thought I heard a faint whispering behind me. But I couldn't make out any words and half the time I couldn't hear it. I'm pretty sure it was Cora explaining everything to Hunter. I thought about mentioning that they should stick together in there, but since they were best friends and Hunter did follow Cora on the quest - that was already pretty obvious.
We reached the exit of the tunnel and halted. Cora drew two arrows from her quiver and knocked them. I was relieved she wasn't trying to shoot five (Cora actually could do that; she tried it back at Camp. Her aim wasn't exactly that good, but she still shot them no problem and they hit the target).
Cora nodded to let me know she was ready. With that oh-so-familiar tug in my gut, a faint mist began to cover the hall. Not too thick, we could still see quite well, but it would be enough to confuse our enemy.
I motioned with my hand, and together we sprinted towards the exit. At first everything seemed to going perfectly. There was no one; it was as if they had left. I started to relax, maybe they had moved to a different area looking for us. That was my mistake.
We were almost there, maybe another hundred yards, then the appeared. They surrounded us, the warriors and a couple of those robed men. They just appeared, almost out of thin air. They formed a loose ring around us.
Before I could even react, two arrows exploded at the feet of some men. They burst open and wires lashed out and wrapped around the men tightly. Hydra arrows. I never knew she had those.
A second later, a few regular arrows were lodged in various men's weak points. Unfortunally, I was just staring shocked at this while a fight had started everywhere else.
I was brought back to the situation when a sword stroke glanced off my shoulder and the blade shattered. That jarred me; I pulled out my pen and uncapped it, Riptide springing to life in my hand.
The warrior had already lost his sword, so all I had to do was bang him on the head with the hilt of my sword and watch him crumple. That's the problem with dressing for defence; your own armour becomes your downfall.
For the next few minutes I was busy knocking out people. I tried getting near some of those robed men, but it didn't work. All of them seemed to be ignoring me. I saw one of them slash at Annabeth, their seemed to be more around her. I couldn't see Cora or Hunter.
I was racing towards Annabeth, when suddenly a golden glow appeared around her, then around me. Then two more domes of golden energy appeared. The men all slowly backed up, I looked over and saw Cora looking around in confusion; her sword in hand and shield on arm. I didn't know how she did it, but her ability to do this is amazing.
"Cora, run for it!" I yelled at her noticing how the men had now moved so she had a clear path to the exit. "We'll hold them off!" Then I ran for the men. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her run.
For a few minutes, I was fighting alone. Then Annabeth was fighting next to me. We fought back to back, and I noticed she had a cut on her arm and a couple bruises. She probably had more cuts.
"I think they're out, let's go," Annabeth managed to tell me under her breath. I did notice how the domes had faded, and that all the men were around us. I gave a nod. But now we had to get out of here.
With a yell, I willed the water nearby up and swirled it around me and Annabeth; blasting the men around us to the ground.
We ran for it, scrambling up the steep incline to make it back to the tunnel. The men threw a couple swords in desperation at us. One or two threw javelins. But I kept Annabeth above me so if anything reached us; it would hit my invincible body (hopefully). Once at the top, we raced down the musty smelling tunnel and slowly made our way to the open air beyond.
I hate to admit it, but I was really lying when I said I was okay to shoot. I was feeling much better after having some Nectar, but I still wasn't feeling the best. I felt faint as we went down the tunnel and began running out towards the exit.
It was comforting to be with my friends and for the light mist to be concealing us. Unfortunally, it didn't help much.
I sensed the men coming, before we actually saw them. I could tell where they were, but judging by the faces of the others, they couldn't.
Hefting my bow, I drew back. It hurt, my arms were sore and I could barely draw back. I was fighting to hold the bow. I aimed the best I could and fired. Drawing two more, I fired a few more rounds. But at that time the men were to close for me to shoot.
In relief I pulled my quiver off my back and shrunk it and my bow down. I put it back in my pouch. I thought I'd have to use my dagger – since my sword had flown out of my hand when these men got me. But I found it in there; without really thinking I pulled it out and held it in my hand.
It felt a bit heavier than usual; gods I really was doing badly. On instinct I opened my shield (I was surprised they didn't take it. But then again, my hands had been tied the whole time) and a second later I heard a clang and the feeling of impact went through me.
For the next few minutes I was busy fighting. Several men were around me. Not as many as you think there would be, but they probably knew I was weak. I was playing a defensive game. I was weak and hard pressed, too slow to notice any opening for attack. All I could do was defend and hope for the best.
Slowly I grew more and more exhausted. I could barely keep up, and every hit went through my body like an electric shock. I staggered around. I was losing this fight, and there was nothing I could do about it. My friends were busy fighting themselves, and I couldn't get a second to breathe.
Weakly I lifted my shield and this time when the stroke made contact I stumbled backwards.
Straight away, I began feeling a tingling all over me. It seemed oddly familiar, but I couldn't place it. It grew more and more powerful when suddenly: BAM! I saw the men fly backwards and fall to the ground. I looked around in confusion, the tingling feeling growing fainter, yet stronger at the same time – if that made any sense. Then I saw it.
This giant dome of glowing, sparkling golden energy. This giant dome of pure energy surrounding me like a force field. I looked at it bewildered, I did this? This was me?
I noticed three other domes a seemingly random spots. Did that mean it was more, ones protecting my friends? This was me; I had somehow created giant force fields. All I could do was looked at this in confusion and surprise.
Suddenly I heard, "Cora, run for it! We'll hold them off!" I turned my head to the right and saw I had a clear path to the exit. I didn't really want to leave my friends, but maybe the domes would hold long enough . . . in a split second I made a decision. I ran for it.
As I ran, I changed my sword back to its charm form and placed it in my pouch. I reached the rocky path/wall and began to scramble up the best I could. My head was pounding and my sight was slightly fuzzy. I was panting. I really wished I was invincible then; rather than being that lucky I had to block with my shield whenever I could.
I could only have been climbing a minute and I was making extremely slow progress. I heard light footsteps behind me. At first I thought it was one of the men or something. I started to turn around, but then I saw who it was. He motioned for me to keep going, grabbing my hand as he ran past me.
I ran as hard as I could, my heart pounding, my head swimming. Hunter had to guide me, helping me over the hardest parts. I couldn't have made it otherwise. We reached the tunnel and charged through it. Under normal circumstances, I would have beaten Hunter by a couple minutes, now I was barely keeping pace with him.
Sunlight appeared ahead, and the tunnel widened on to a cliff ledge. We burst out and I fell to my knees, closing my eyes against the spinning of my head. I drew a few deep breaths before sitting up straight.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and I opened my eyes.
"We need to keep moving," Hunter said softly.
"No," I managed, shaking my head stubbornly. "Not yet, not while Percy and Annabeth are still in there." I tapped my shield at that moment, and it shrunk back into my bracelet.
"It's not safe here, please, I can tell you're tired. But we have to keep moving," he said. Hunter stood and tried me to make me stand as well. I sat there for a moment before standing up a little too quickly. My head spun.
"I'm not going, I'm not leaving them," I said again. Hunter sighed in annoyance. I looked as hard and stubbornly at him as I could, but it somehow strained my head, so I gave up and just stood there. Hunter looked at me pleadingly, but didn't bother actually trying. Guess he knew just how stubborn I was . . . Suddenly I noticed a large cut on his arm and a black eye.
Before I could completely freak out at that, I heard footsteps. Turning around I saw dim shapes coming out of the tunnel. A second later Percy and Annabeth were there with us. They both looked surprised to see us standing there, but we didn't have time to talk.
We went as fast as we could down the mountainside. Could they not have picked an easier path? This wasn't exactly easy at the moment.
It took several minutes, the sun was almost down and the sky had turned a beautiful shade of purple by the time we had made it down. Oh gods, how long was I in there for? The rising moon was in not in the same phase as before. Wait, why was I even noticing that?
When we finally did reach the base, we took off through the rocky ground. We ran, and ran, and ran. We just kept going, when we suddenly stumbled upon a forest. What a forest was doing near mountains, I wasn't sure. But together we charge in and left the threatening mountains behind in exchange for the welcoming shadows of the forests.
A/N: They're safe! Quite a few hiccups along the way, but they're no longer having to worry about the kidnappers . . . or will they? Was this just a passing enemy, or something more sinister? With me, you can honestly never tell, because I can never tell myself! So tell me vie either review or fav or alert if you enjoyed this and what you think! Thank you readers, and I will be with you for a few more weeks . . . I have only a few completed chapters left.