Disclaimer: I do not own Rick Riordan, the Percy Jackson books, characters, series, movies, or anything else you may recognize.
Chapter Nineteen
Finding Direction
"We carry on though the storm
Tired soldiers in this war
Remember what we're fighting for."
"Meet Me On The Battlefield" by Svrcina
"Everyone to the control room. Now!" I demanded as I walked on to the top deck and kept moving, rerouting myself to the control room. Annabeth was at my side in an instant.
"Jason and Piper are in the Zeus cabin," she said. "Jason's still out cold and Piper refuses to leave his side."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Couples. "I'll heal him as soon as we debrief."
"Oooh, debrief. You're starting to sound like a child of Athena," Annabeth said and I gave her a good shove, but smiled.
"So what the hell happened out there?" I asked with a sigh as she hooked her pinky with mine like we did when we were younger. It was so comforting – it brought my stress levels down by like, ten times.
"Apparently Clovis was telling one of the counselors what happened earlier with you and your…well, your incident, and Octavian overheard. So he invited himself on board, fought with Leo and fired the ballistae on his own camp, but then told the Romans it was Leo doing it," Annabeth said.
"You know, I'm really going to have to have a conversation with my dad about his legacy when this is all over," I told her and she just grinned.
When we entered the control room, Leo was being the helm with his Wii remote, gripping it tightly as he frantically pushed buttons and moved it around. I gently tapped him on the shoulder so he'd know we were all there.
"Festus, take over if you can. We'll get you some supplies soon, buddy."
There was a loud creak in response and Leo turned to face me, paler than normal and with a grim expression. His face was all scratched up and once cheek was starting to bruise. "Are you okay?" I asked.
"Little bit of a fight, no biggie," Leo said, shrugging it off. No matter how tough he tried to act, I knew he was more shaken than he was letting on. "The better question is if you are okay?"
"You know me, I'm a fighter," I said, giving him a hug.
"You know that's not what I was referring to," Leo said.
"And I'm ignoring it," I said with a smile, giving him another squeeze. "I'll grab you some ambrosia and nectar after the meeting, kay?" He nodded as I turned to look at everyone in the room. Annie was looking at the different control modules, making sure everything was working while holding on for dear life as the room shook.
The only other people in the room were two strangers I had never seen before.
One was a sturdy-built guy of Asian descent, and his face was very young looking – okay, he had a baby face, to be honest. He had black hair in a military-style haircut and brown eyes. He had a tattoo like Jason's, but with two crossed spears. A son of Ares...or Mars, I guess it would be.
The other was a guy about a foot taller than me. He had black hair and eyes the same green of the ocean. He was well-muscled from what must have been years of training. He had like, the perfect tan. He wore normal shorts and a t-shirt, but with a purple cape over top, telling me he was the other Praetor of Camp Jupiter. He also had the SPQR tattoo but his was red and raised, telling me he only just got it. His had a trident which meant he was a son of Poseidon – impressive. And also important, he was so, so handsome…gods! He was looking at me strangely, kind of like the others had been earlier, but in a more confused way. Something in my stomach turned and flipped at the sight of him, and I wanted to get to know him better.
Gods, he was cute.
"Shouldn't there be more of you?" I asked. "As in, two more of you?"
"Well, there's one more of us," the Asian guy said. "Hazel, she's going to meet with us later. The quickest way for her to get out of New Rome was on Arion."
"Arion…as in the Arion?" I asked and he nodded. Okay, these Romans were very impressive. "And you are?"
"Frank Zhang, son of Mars, legacy of Poseidon and centurion of Camp Jupiter," he introduced. I half-expected him to salute me at the end.
"And you?" I asked the other boy with the gorgeous green eyes.
"You're kidding, right?" he asked. I stared at him blankly. "Andee, it's me, Percy, you know that."
This was the Percy everyone had been asking me about. Suddenly everything clicked – why I couldn't remember the past few hours. I was because of him. His name was Percy, which I could only assume was short for Perseus, which meant he was the one from the Prophecy. Which meant I had to stay far, far away from him.
Scratch everything I said about him being attractive. I take it back.
"I've never met you before in my life," I said. "Now if you don't mind, could you please answer the question?"
"Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon and Praetor of the Twelfth Legion," he said, still staring at me oddly. I wished he would stop doing that because he was really attractive.
Crap, Andee, stop thinking that.
"Okay, so we're still missing one. Awesome," I said, looking away from Percy. If I had taken a potion to forget him, then I knew what had happened had to have been bad and it was imperative for me to stay away from him. I couldn't let what I had done go to waste. "Leo, what's the prognosis on Festus?"
"The hull is compromised in multiple places, and the port aerial oars have to be fixed if we want to go full speed again. We need supplies – celestial bronze, tar, lime –"
"Where do we find all of that?" Frank asked. "And when can we land so Hazel can come aboard?"
"Well, Festus only has one landing in him right now with the shape he's in, so it needs to all be in one place," Leo said.
"Georgia," I said immediately and the group looked at me. "There are a couple places there that should have what we need. Besides, Annabeth and I need to stop by and see a friend there. Frank, do you think Arion can get Hazel there or is that too far?"
"He can get Hazel there."
Annabeth was looking at me strangely, but I ignored it and blocked off my mind from her so she wouldn't know what I was planning. She'd find out soon enough. "So three teams," Annabeth suggested.
"Is splitting up such a good idea?" Percy asked.
"It's our only choice right now," Annabeth said. "We need to get a lot done in an impossibly short amount of time. Octavian and the other Romans will catch up to us pretty soon. So Andee and I will go do our thing, Frank and Percy, you can go get the tar and lime and such, and Leo and Hazel will get the Celestial Bronze. Jason and Piper will stay on the ship and watch it. How does that sound?"
Percy and Frank both looked like they wanted to protest, but with one look from Annabeth, they both wisely kept their mouths shut.
"Good," Annabeth said. "Now I suggest everyone eat and rest before we get there – something tells me our little pit stop won't be nearly as easy as it seems."
I took that as my opportunity to go see Jason and how he was doing. When I got up to the cabin, I could hear Piper and Jason talking in low voices. I knocked lightly on the door and Piper looked my way, a blush creeping up her neck.
"Interrupting something?" I asked, a mischievous grin plastered to my face.
"No, of course not," Piper said a little too fast.
"Guys, I'm not a chaperone," I said. "I'm not going to separate you two or whatever. Do what you want – I'm sure I'd be doing a lot more than talking if I had a boyfriend on the ship with me."
Piper started blushing even more and made her way out of the room, avoiding eye contact with me at all costs. "Thanks for that," Jason said, fixing me with a death glare.
"You're welcome," I said cheekily, looking at the large cut on his head. "So what kind of idiot gets hit in the head with a freakin' brick during a fight?"
"Hey!" Jason protested as I sat down in the chair Piper had been sitting on. "That – they snuck up on me!"
"Sure," I said in mock disbelief, just to bug him. "Now lay back, because this is going to hurt a little." I pressed a hand to his forehead and started singing one of the lesser healing spells my dad had taught me. With the ambrosia and nectar Jason had already been given, there wasn't too much left to heal so I didn't need to go all out.
"Happy birthday, Jason!" a young Thalia – maybe eight or nine – came out holding a little vanilla cupcake with two little candles on top of it. She walked over to Jason (who must have been in a high chair) and placed it in front of it. "You have to blow the candles out! Like this!"
Thalia mimed blowing them out and I felt the happiness and love Jason felt towards his big sister. He heard the words she was saying but didn't necessarily understand them, but he just loved her so much.
He 'blew' at the candles, which was more of a raspberry, so spit got everywhere, but Thalia laughed which made him laugh.
She quickly plucked out the candles and pulled off the wrapper before giving Jason the all-clear, and he shoved the cupcake in his mouth, getting icing all over himself.
When I came back, the lump on his head had receded and the cut was gone. "You know, that never feels any better." Yeah, healing wasn't necessarily a pleasant experience. "How embarrassing was the memory?"
"It was cute," I said. "It was your second birthday. Thalia gave you a cupcake and tried to teach you how to blow out the candles. It's actually pretty amazing that you can remember that far back."
"That's actually a really good memory," Jason said. "How does that work, by the way? I know when you heal, you can see into people's memories, but what determines whether it's a good or a bad memory?"
"I don't know," I told him honestly. "I've found when the injury is particularly, it will usually bring up a good and a bad memory. Smaller injuries are usually just one short memory, which tends to be on the good side. It varies all the time, though."
"Have you ever seen people's deepest, darkest secrets?" Jason asked.
"All the time. The amount of blackmail I have on people is astounding."
He nodded, impressed. "So how are you feeling?"
"Angry and determined," I said. "Why?"
"Just…earlier, you know. I need my co-strategos in top form, you know," Jason said.
"Are we still talking about that?" I sighed. "What's done is done. So let's keep moving forward and keep focused on the task at hand."
"Do you know what you're not remembering?"
"What kind of question is that?" I asked defensively before remembering to lower my guard. Jason was my friend – he wasn't here to hurt me. "Yes. And I still agree with my decision. If whatever happened hurt me enough that I used something Kronos taught me, then it had to have been for the best."
"Okay," Jason said, putting his hands up. "I will say no more on the topic."
"Thank you."
When we finally landed in Georgia, everyone gathered their weapons and made sure they were ready before we all went our separate ways.
"Andee?" Percy asked, giving me that look that made my stomach flip. "Be careful, okay?"
"Careful is for people who can die," I snapped, brushing past him with Annabeth.
"So where are we going?" Annabeth asked a few minutes, once we were well on our way to our destination.
"Somewhere that will help us find direction," I said vaguely, wanting to pat myself on the back for such a brilliant plan and such a brilliant pun. After what seemed like an hour of walking, we arrived at a large office building in bright colors.
"Google?" Annabeth asked doubtfully.
"Trust me, Annie, I know what I'm doing."
