LEO'S POV
90% of my mind was trying to get me to not shit myself and the other 10% was focused on fixing this mess I got myself into.
Neither of those were working out too well.
Frank's fists were clenched, and his jaw was contracting. His frosty gaze were fixated on mine and Hazel's joined hands. I tried to worm my fingers free from Hazel's grasp, but the shock she was in made her unconsciously hold on to me with a vice grip. When she saw Frank, her face crumbled at his expression.
And before I could make my next move, a new, light voice approached from the staircase.
"There you are, Frankie boy!"
Footsteps clambering up the staircase brought way to Peri popping up behind the big Incredible Hulk before me. Her usual devious grin was plastered across her face, and she opened her mouth like she was going to say something to Frank, but then she saw the anger quite literally radiating off of his body. Her brows knit together, and she followed his gaze.
Right to Hazel and me, hands still clasped together.
I expected her to scream in rage or break something or just plain kill us where we stood. I expected her to slap me or yell at me or do something.
But instead, her expression didn't even waver. Her eyes flickered for a fraction of a second, before it was like she was looking right through me. Her soft brown eyes were glassy and emotionless. Her hands slid into her back pockets and she snickered- a cold, short sound nothing like her usual airy voice -before she turned on her heel with a flick of her blonde locks, disappearing down a corridor to the left.
"Peri, wait!" I cried.
Then the ship suddenly lurched to starboard, and everyone struggled to maintain their balance. With the sudden movement, Hazel let go of my hand and gripped the rigging. Frank was thrown into a wall, and just behind him Peri tumbled back into view, a few choice words spilling from her mouth.
"Coach!" I yelled, desperately searching out the satyr.
Festus whirred in alarm and blew flames into the night sky. The ship's bell rang.
"Kid! Those monsters you were worried about?" Hedge shouted. "One of 'em found us!"
And as if on cue, the Argo tilted to the left.
Hazel's face went green, and right now I was just so upset all I wanted was for my ship to stay puke-free. Was that too much to ask?
I crawled the tilting deck and managed to grab the port rail. I started clambering sideways toward the helm as fast as I could. Peri had scrambled to her feet and was clutching the wall to stay grounded as the ship rocked violently.
She glared at me. "What the hell, Leo? Hazel comes around and all of a sudden you don't know how to steer the ship?"
I held up my hand. "Excuse me? I'll have you know that I have Grade-A steering, okay? There's a monster under us!"
She quirked an eyebrow. "And wasn't it your job to keep an eye out for that sort of thing? Oh, but wait, you were too busy locking lips with Hazel to do your job correctly, huh?"
"Hey!" I snapped. "That never. . . n-never. ." My voice died in my throat.
"Yeah that's what I thought-"
"No," I whispered. "Behind you."
Confused, Peri turned around, and she was able to see what I saw.
It looked like a cross between a giant shrimp and a cockroach, with a pink chitinous shell, a flat crayfish tail, and millipede type legs undulating hypnotically as the monster scraped against the hull of the Argo II.
"Oh," she said quietly.
Yeah, oh just about sums it up.
Its head surfaced last- the slimy pink face of an enormous catfish with glassy dead eyes, a gaping toothless maw, and a forest of tentacles sprouting from each nostril, making the bushiest nose beard I'd ever had the displeasure to behold.
"Come on, Valdez!" Hedge yelled. "Take the wheel so I can get my baseball bat!"
"A bat's not going to help," I said, but made my way toward the helm.
Behind me, the others stumbled up the stairs.
Percy yelled, "What's going- Gah! Shrimpzilla!"
The monster rammed the ship again. The hull groaned. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason toppled to starboard and almost rolled overboard.
I reached the helm, and my hands flew across the controls. Over the intercom, Festus clacked and clicked about leaks belowdecks, but the ship didn't seem to be in danger of sinking- at least not yet.
I toggled the oars. They could convert into spears, which should be enough to drive the creature away. Unfortunately, they were jammed. Shrimpzilla must have knocked them out of alignment, and the monster was in spitting distance, which meant that I couldn't use the ballistae without setting the ship on fire as well. If only I could-
"Hey, jackass."
I turned towards Peri, and she looked down her nose at me. "What do you need me to do?"
My eyes flickered over her momentarily. There was no way she had gotten over. . . that so quickly. Her face was placid and unnerving as if nothing had happened at all. The way she'd looked at me; the way she'd shook her head. It all makes sense now.
She just doesn't care about me anymore.
"Leo," Peri snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Today, yeah?"
I blinked and turned away, beginning to feel like I was going to throw up just like Hazel.
~ You will be the seventh wheel ~
"Just." I clenched my fists. "Just look out for the others, okay?"
She didn't even reply, just took off. I watched her for a minute, speaking urgently with Annabeth and Piper just out of earshot.
Annabeth grabbed Percy's arm. "Can you talk to to that thing? Do you know what it is?"
The son of the sea god just shook his head, clearly mystified. "Maybe it's just curious about the ship. Maybe-"
The monster's tendrils lashed across the deck so fast, I didn't even have time to yell, Look out!
One slammed Percy in the chest and sent him crashing down the steps. Another wrapped around Piper's legs and dragged her, screaming, toward the rail. Dozens more tendrils curled around the masts, encircling the crossbows and ripping down the rigging.
"Nose-hair attack!" Hedge snatched up his bat and leaped into action; but his hits just bounced harmlessly off the tendrils.
Jason drew his sword. He tried to free Piper, but he was still too weak from storm-summoning. His gold blade cut through the tendrils with no problem, but faster than he could sever them, more took their place.
Annabeth unsheathed her dagger. She ran through the forest of tentacles, dodging and stabbing at whatever target she could find. A long bronze blade with a jagged edge materialized into Peri's hand, and she hacked away at every bit of monster that came close to her. She stabbed through a nearby tendril, dragging the blade through the monster and raking it through its body.
Frank pulled out his bow. He fired over the side at the creature's body, lodging arrows in the chinks of its shell; but that only seemed to annoy the monster. It bellowed and rocked the ship. The mast creaked like it might snap off.
We needed more firepower, but we couldn't use the ballistae. We needed to deliver a blast that wouldn't destroy the ship. But how. . . ?
My eyes fixed on a supply crate next to Hazel's feet.
"Hazel!" I yelled. "That box! Open it!"
She hesitated, then saw the box I meant. The label read WARNING. DO NOT OPEN.
"Open it!" I yelled again. "Coach take the wheel! Turn us toward the monster, or we'll capsize."
Hedge danced through the tentacles with his nimble ass goat hooves, smashing away with gusto. He bounded toward the helm and took the controls.
"Hope you got a plan!" he shouted.
"A bad one." I raced toward the mast.
The monster pushed against the Argo II and the deck lurched to forty-five degrees. Despite everyone's efforts, the tentacles were just too numerous to fight. They even seemed able to elongate as much as they wanted. Soon they'd have the Argo II completely entangled. Percy hadn't appeared from below. The others were fighting for their lives against nose hair.
"Frank!" I called as I ran toward Hazel. "Buy us some time! Can you turn into a shark or something?"
Frank glanced over, scowling, and in that moment; a tentacle wrapped around his torso and slammed him into the deck before throwing him overboard.
Hazel screamed. She'd opened the supply box and almost dropped the two glass vials she was holding.
I caught them. Each was the size of an apple, and the liquid inside glowed poisonous green. The glass was warm to the touch. My chest felt like it might implode from guilt. I'd just distracted Frank and possibly gotten him killed, but I couldn't think about it. I had to save the ship.
"Come on!" I handed Hazel one of the vials. "We can kill the monster- and save Frank!"
I hoped I wasn't lying. Getting to the port rail was more like rock climbing than walking, but we finally made it.
"What is this stuff?" Hazel gasped, cradling her glass vial.
"Greek fire!"
Her eyes widened. "Are you crazy? If these break, we'll burn the whole ship!"
"Its mouth!" I said. "Just chuck it down its-"
Suddenly I was crushed against Hazel, and the world turned sideways. As we were lifted into the air, I realized we'd been wrapped togeter in a tentacle.
And I'd seen enough hentai to know where this was going.
But was worse than being invaded by a tentacle was the fact that Hazel's arms were pinned, which meant at any moment the vial trapped between us might break. . . and that would be extremely bad for our health.
We rose ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet above the monster, and I caught a glimpse of some of our friends fighting a losing battle.
At this point, almost everyone had been ensnared by the nose hairs. Piper was just screaming as she was suspended upside down, and it just about broke my heart. Jason was being slammed repeatedly into the side of the ship, but the way his eyes were closed told me he had long since been knocked unconscious. Or worse. My head swam when I caught sight of Peri, trapped tightly in a tendril and being swung violently back and forth. Her eyes were wide with something I'd never seen in them before.
Fear.
Whenever she was brought close to the water's surface she would thrash violently. The way her eyes bugged out of her head. I was starting to believe something that I really hoped wasn't true right now.
I don't think Peri can swim.
Which made it all the more difficult for me to do this.
I raised the vial in my left hand. Pressing my right hand against the tentacle, I summoned fire to my palm- a narrowly focused, white-hot burst.
That got the creature's attention.
A tremble went all the way down the tentacle as its flesh blistered under my touch. The monster raised its maw, bellowing in pain, and I threw the Greek fire straight down its throat.
After that, things got fuzzy.
I felt the tentacle release us, launching us sky high, the rush of the air enough to make my ears pop. I heard a muffled explosion and saw a green flash of light inside the giant pink lampshade of the monster's body.
A feeling of weightlessness overcame me, and it felt like all of my insides were getting jumbled up; my stomach in my head and my heart in my throat.
Throughout all of this I heard a blood curdling scream.
Below me was Peri, flailing and screaming as she fell like a rock.
I tried my best to angle in her direction so I could fall faster. The powerful wind made tears prick the corners of my eyes as I rocketed to her.
"Peri!" I yelled, stretching my hand out as far as it could possibly could go.
Her eyes peeked open, and when she saw me, her own arms outstretched desperately. "Leo! Catch me, stupid!"
Wow. Falling to her death, and she still manages to be a polite young lady.
"Stretch your hand out more!" I shouted over the roar of the wind.
"I'm trying!" She cried, and even in her voice I could tell. She was scared. Peri was really, genuinely terrified.
We were so close now. About six inches, and I'd be able to clasp her hand and grab her and everything would be okay.
And that's when the tentacle came.
The monster's final strike blew right through my torso, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending me flying in the opposite direction. I watched helplessly as I spiraled farther and farther away from her. Until I had to watch as she was finally swallowed by the murky, churning waters.
I'd never screamed louder in my entire life.
And the last thing I heard before the world turned dark was Peri's horrified shriek.