I decided to continue this story, thanks to the reviews of ClaraoftheSea, summergirl012, Guest, and a guest. Special thanks to DarkSilver and Guest for reviewing even before the Author's Note, as well as a guest, who was the only one out of all the reviewers to actually suggest some ideas for future chapters. Waiting for reviews was part of the reason this chapter took so long, but most of it was because I had an idea in mind, but wasn't sure how to write it. Again, thanks to all the reviewers!
Frank and Hazel were watching Annabeth pace the deck. "Where are they? They should've returned by now. It doesn't take that long to get a crystal," Annabeth muttered worriedly.
Suddenly, Piper shouted, "I see them! There they are!"
Frank squinted. He could dimly make out some shapes moving towards them. "But why are there only two of them?"
Annabeth was silent, but as the figures got nearer, she gasped in horror. "Percy's not with them! Where did he go?"
Jason and Leo boarded the ship, Jason looking miserable and downcast, Leo helping him along.
"What happened?" Hazel asked, a frown creasing her forehead.
Jason was silent. Leo spoke up for him. "We...don't exactly know..."
Frank raised an eyebrow. "How can you not know? You guys were supposed to stick together."
"Well…" Leo told them the whole story. "So we had to leave, but we found his sword on the ground." Leo held it up. Annabeth was stock-still, gaping at Leo.
"Oh no. That's very bad. You know what it means, right?" Hazel started to pace. "It means that the giants only need one more female demigod to raise Gaea. We have to be very cautious from now on."
Annabeth managed to choke out a sentence. "Percy's...gone?"
Piper put a consoling arm around Annabeth and led her away so they could talk.
Frank was dumbstruck as well. Percy? His second-ever friend since he had arrived at Camp Jupiter? The demigod he admired most? No. It couldn't be happening.
Jason had sat down with his face in his hands. "It's all my fault. I could've convinced him to leave."
"Jason, that's not true," Hazel said gently to him. "But you can't dwell on the past. You couldn't have done anything. It was Percy's choice to stay behind and protect you guys; you couldn't have done anything. Your best option was to leave, or you probably would've died."
"I know," Jason said despondently. "But I can't help but think that if I had done something different, maybe things would have turned out differently. I was supposed to be a leader. I shouldn't have left him behind."
"Um, guys, I really think we should go. Like maybe before those monsters over there come here and attack us?" Leo said. Frank looked up and saw an army of telekhines and empousai heading their way.
"Oh. Yeah, that'd be a good idea," Frank said. "Better hurry before those monsters reach us." Leo ran to the helm and started punching some buttons.
"I need more time to start up the ship! Can you guys distract them?" Leo yelled.
Frank took an arrow from his quiver and drew his bow back. Thwack! The arrow hit a empousai right in the middle of its eyes.
As Frank continued to shoot more arrows, Hazel asked Leo, "How much more time do you need?"
"Just another minute." Leo's hands were flying over the controls. Jason summoned some lightning and blasted a whole group of telekhines into the air. Festus helped by spewing fire at the monster army.
Hazel concentrated hard and a mirror image of the Argo II wavered into view, some distance away from the real ship. The monster army paused, and they ran towards the fake ship.
"Nice job, Hazel," Frank said. "You're getting good at this."
"We're invisible to them. For now," Hazel said. "Better hurry, Leo, before they realize the other ship is fake."
"Almost got it," Leo said. "There!"
The ship rose into the air, water dripping from its sides. The mirage ship rippled and then faded from view. The monster army stopped and milled around in confusion. Then an empousai spotted the real Argo II and led the army to a spot below the ship. They were now throwing spears and rocks at them, but had no effect on the ship.
Frank peered over the side of the railing and jerked back. A spear flew by the space where his head had just been. "That was a close one."
He turned around and saw that Piper was leading Annabeth downstairs, and Jason was following. Frank went back to Hazel. "So...How's Annabeth feeling?"
"I don't know. Piper just said that Annabeth was crying and needed some rest. She's probably feeling absolutely miserable, though. First he disappeared from Camp Half-Blood for six months, then they fell into Tartarus, and now who knows what happened to him?"
"Yeah… I hope he's all right."
Hazel nudged him. "You stay safe, okay?"
Frank laughed. "I should say the same to you. The giants just need the blood of a female demigod, so you're the one who's going to have to be careful."
Leo joined them. "I called a meeting in the mess hall to discuss Percy's disappearance. I don't think Annabeth's going to be there, which is understandable."
They headed downstairs to the mess hall. Jason and Piper were already there, having a heated conversation with lots of hand gestures. They stopped when they saw that the trio had arrived.
Frank sat down. "Well...now what?"
"I think the first thing we should do is try to figure out the identity of the giant so we have a better idea of what happened to Percy. That mist thing was obviously the potion in my dream," Hazel said.
"All I know was that the giant was dark and mysterious. He kept himself hidden in the shadows." Leo leaned back in his chair. "Besides, I don't know the names of any other giants."
"Yeah, it was hard to see his face. But his words cause pain," Jason remembered.
"What kind of giant is that?" Leo scoffed. "Giant of painful words? It's not like there's a god of non-painful words."
"It could be a goddess," Frank suggested.
"Okay, or goddess," Leo amended. "That's still not helpful."
"I think that first we need more info on this giant," Piper said. "There's no way we can figure out his name if you guys hardly even saw him. What about the potion? Was its only purpose was to make Percy disappear?"
"As far as I could tell, yes, but it could have done something else," Jason said. "It didn't take his sword, though, for whatever reason."
"He probably just dropped it or something, so the mist didn't take it," said Frank half-heartedly. "At least it's something."
"Are we headed straight to Athens?" Piper asked Leo.
"Yeah, unless you guys want to stop somewhere along the way," Leo said. "
Jason shook his head. "No. We can't. We're running out of time, and I think that the most likely location where Percy will be is at Athens, because that's where the giants intend to awake Gaea."
"Okay, then we'll be there in a few more days since we're already at the mouth of the Gulf of Patras. I've been pushing the ship as fast as it can go."
"So our to-do list would be to go to Athens, find Percy, stop the giants from raising Gaea, and defeat them. Oh, and try not to die," Frank said.
Leo whistled. "Pretty hefty."
"Yeah, and we all have to be careful, because like Hazel said, the giants are one demigod away from waking Gaea," Piper said.
"Okay, then." Jason looked around at them. "I guess the meeting is adjourned." Frank and Hazel left together.
"You know, for some reason I always feel like we're going around in circles whenever there's a meeting," Frank commented. "We don't get much done."
Hazel smiled. "Maybe it's because there isn't anything to be done until we reach Athens."
"True," Frank conceded. "Do you want to go to the armory? I have to get some more arrows."
"Sure." They walked down to the lower level of the ship and entered the armory. Frank went to the archery section and picked out some magic arrows, along with normal ones. Hazel was wandering around the cavalry section, which was pretty small.
"You miss Arion, don't you?" Frank asked her.
"Yeah," Hazel sighed. "I prefer riding him than sailing on the boat, but traveling by land is not good." They left the armory and went to Frank's room, where he deposited the arrows in his quiver.
"You're doing pretty well with the Mist thing," Frank said.
"Yeah, I've been practicing," Hazel said nonchalantly.
Frank raised his eyebrows. "On what?"
"Oh you know...Just normal things like pencils and apples and chairs...and the occasional person."
"Was it some poor mortal who didn't even know what had happened to him?" Frank inquired.
Hazel laughed. "Well...maybe. Don't worry, he didn't even notice.
Suddenly a voice from behind them said, "Hello? Can you guys hear me?"
Frank whirled around and saw that the voice had belonged to Reyna, who was Iris-messaging them. Behind her, Frank could see Nico sleeping on the ground, leaning against a column.
"Reyna!" Frank said. "How's it going with the Athena statue thingy?"
"Lots of monster attacks. Right now, we're in Barcelona, Spain. Nico's resting. He's exhausted after all that shadow-traveling, and I've been taking care of all the monsters. We have to make a huge jump over the Atlantic Ocean. Do you guys know where Percy is? I tried to Iris-message him, but nothing happened. I thought maybe that I did something wrong, because this is mostly a Greek thing."
"Um…" Hazel looked at Frank helplessly. "He's not here at the moment."
Reyna frowned. "Well tell him that Octavian plans to attack Camp Half-Blood soon. We managed to Iris-message Chiron to let him know we were coming, and he told us to hurry."
"Um, yeah sure we'll tell him," Frank mumbled.
"He also said to tell Annabeth that they were going to try to use Daedelus's plan twenty-three again to defend Camp Half-Blood. Whatever that is."
"Okay. Got it," Hazel said. "Any other news?"
"No. How's your quest going?" Reyna asked.
"We'll be at Athens in a few days," Frank said. Suddenly, he heard something hissing in the background. Reyna glanced to the right.
"I have to go and kill this monster here." She blew the hair out of her face. "I'll talk to you later." She slashed her blade through the rainbow and it dissolved.
"I guess we'd better go tell Annabeth what she said." Hazel turned around and headed for the door. Frank the corridor, they bumped into Piper.
"Is Annabeth still in her room?" Frank asked.
Piper shrugged. "I'm not sure. She probably is, though. I'll come by once I grab Katoptris."
Hazel nodded. "Thanks." They continued on towards Annabeth's room. Frank knocked on the door.
"Annabeth? Are you in there?" Frank asked tentatively. He heard her moving around and the sound of something falling. Then he heard her cursing in Ancient Greek.
"Um...Is now not a good time? Should we come back later?" suggested Hazel worriedly.
This time Annabeth replied. "No, it's all right." She opened the door. Frank saw that she had been crying and her hair was a mess. He felt uncomfortable.
"We came to tell you that we got an Iris-message from Reyna," Hazel said. She told her what had happened.
"And she said to tell you that Camp Half-Blood is going to try to use Daedelus's plan twenty-three again to defend the camp," Frank finished. "I assume you know what she's talking about?"
Annabeth nodded and leaned against the doorframe. "It's a dangerous plan. They might malfunction." She frowned. "Also, the demigods in Camp Jupiter might be seriously harmed."
"Who's 'they'?" asked Frank nervously.
"The automatons. We used them to defend Olympus during the Second Titan War," Annabeth explained. Frank gulped.
"Have they malfunctioned before?" asked Hazel.
"There weren't any major problems before," said Annabeth. "But there's a bigger chance this time because they've already been used once."
"I won't mind if Octavian dies, but everyone else...well, they're just following his orders. Hey, maybe you should ask Camp Half-Blood to specifically order the automatons to attack Octavian!" Frank suggested excitedly.
Hazel punched him lightly on the arm. "Frank!" she scolded, but Frank could see that she was trying not to laugh.
"Hey!" Piper called from down the hallway, coming towards them. "I've got news." From her expression, Frank couldn't tell if it was good or bad. It seemed like a little bit of both.
"I have news about Percy," Piper repeated.
I tried to make this chapter longer, because the 2nd-5th chapters all seemed to be a lot shorter than the first one. Hope you enjoyed it! Please review!