Corsair: Nico, your up.
Nico: Corsair doesn't own Percy Jackson or anything associated with it. All he owns is the plot and OCs.
Corsair: Thanks Nico. Now for the story.
The four of us drove off in the van, probably to our most certain demise. We drove to the other side of Pennsylvania before finally stopping at some National Forest; I couldn't quite make out the name as we sped past the sign. I got out of the van and almost kissed the ground.
"Why did we let Nico drive?" Clarisse asked, who was, in fact, kissing the ground.
"It isn't my fault I'm a bad driver. I never really have to, you know with the shadow travel."
"Let's get going. I'm driving back if we survive this though." I said.
We walked into the forest until we came upon a small clearing. Nico was leading and motioned for us to stop.
"I hear somebody up ahead." He said.
"I'll go check it out."
Clarisse walked around the clearing. She paused and stared into the forest away from the clearing. I saw the gleam of sunshine on metal inches away from her throat.
"She's in trouble. There is somebody with a blade to her neck." I told the others.
A man's voice started to yell. "I have your friend over here. I suggest the rest of you campers put your weapons on the ground and step into the clearing."
"I told you, there ain't nobody else here." Clarisse said.
Nico sheathed his Stygian Iron sword and walked into the clearing. Behind his back, he motioned for us to stay put.
"What have we here? I thought you said you were alone?" the man said.
"We're just looking for our friends and then we'll be on our way." Nico told him.
"I'm afraid you're not going anywhere. You see, we can't let you go warning that camp of your about us just yet."
"Camp already knows about you, that tends to happen when you start killing people and leaving them to be found." Clarisse said.
"You mean those Hunters? They walked in on us. We couldn't let them tell your gods, so we had to do something.
"What about Thalia?" Nico asked.
"You mean the daughter of Zeus? She just refused to die, so we took her back to our camp. I imagine she is feeling the full effects of those powers she uses right now."
"What do you mean?" Nico said.
"I have already told you more than corpses need to know. Now, I can't let you leave." He whistled and more demigods stepped into the clearing from behind him.
"You need so many people to fight two of us? Here I was thinking the Norse were strong." Nico joked.
Nico summoned legions of undead that met the Norse demigods' charge. As much as I wanted to help, I knew we had to stay put in case things turned south. Clarisse managed to break away from her captor and was fighting four demigods at once. The fight ended quickly leaving around twenty Norse demigods dead in the clearing. Nico had the man at sword point in the middle of the clearing. I walked out from behind the tree and Annabeth ran over to Clarisse, who had a rather large hole in her leg. Together, they managed to walk/stumble over to us. Nico tended to Clarisse while I talked to the man.
"Where's Thalia?" I commanded. It was about the tenth time I asked the question and the answer never changed.
"Go to Hel."
I reached over and pulled Annabeth's knife from her hand. She went to grab for it again, but I had already put it in the man's thigh.
"I am going to ask one more time. Where… is… Thalia?" I twisted the knife with each word.
"Percy…" I could see the fear in my friends' eyes. I pulled the knife out and handed it back to Annabeth.
"I don't know what to do. Thalia could be dead, this guy won't tell us where she is, and on top of all that, he's laughing at us."
As soon as I pulled the knife out, the man had started to laugh. Nico unsheathed his sword and put it through the man's shoulder.
"Percy's right. We have to make him talk somehow." He told Annabeth.
"Umm… Nico, I think we should have used something other than stygian iron to do that." I said.
"All we have to do is wait." He insisted. "If he starts to die before he talks, I'll just pull the blade out and we can do it again."
So we waited for a while. Things started to get really boring so I started talking to the prisoner again.
"You going to tell us yet?"
"Go to Hel."
"You will be soon, if you don't talk."
"I died in battle, I'll go to Valhalla." He said.
"Hate to break it to ya, but the battle ended like ten minutes ago. Now you're just dying a pointless death that could be prevented. All you have to do is tell me where my friend is."
He thought about my words for a while before answering.
"They're at our ship."
"What is with my enemies and boats? Kronos had a boat, and now you guys have one. Who will get one next?" I asked, more to myself than anybody standing there. "Where's your boat?"
"Just outside of Boston."
"Nico, I'm driving." I said.
We ran back to the van and I dove into the driver's seat. We sped down the road towards Boston.
"If there on a ship, why don't we go get one of ours from camp?" Clarisse asked.
"When did you guys build boats?" I replied.
"We put the Hephaestus cabin on it a few years ago. The oars row themselves and each boat can hold around 30 people."
"Then let's get a boat."
I turned back towards camp and drove well over the speed limit. When we got there, Clarisse led the way to the new docks, which I am ashamed that I didn't notice them before. We got into a boat and the ship took off. I should probably explain the ship to you. It was an Ancient Greek trireme with 170 self-rowing oars. On the front, was a large, metal battering ram and there were grappling hooks inside to pull a boat closer.
Anyway, the ship took off for Boston. It took a while to get there, but we managed to get there before the five longboats left their makeshift boat ramp. The Norse demigods were pushing the boats into the water as we arrived. Their boats started to move down shore.
"We need to ram the one in the back, Clarisse." Annabeth said.
"What if Thalia's on board?" Nico asked.
"You said she disappeared two weeks ago, right? So, they wouldn't wait until now to send her to their base, or camp, or whatever. They would have done it two weeks ago. I think they are looking for something up here and can't find it. That's why they keep coming back."
"We've sent enough of our campers there that they could think camp is there." Nico suggested.
"Or, there looking for whatever you guys are looking for." Annabeth said.
"We got word of an old monster in that area. We sent the first few groups to see what it was and the next few to find the first few." Clarisse said.
"Sorry to ruin the let-Annabeth-figure-it-all-out session, but brace for impact." I called.
We all grabbed onto something as the metal tip of our trireme cut through the longboat. I jumped over the railing onto the sinking longboat and grabbed an unconscious demigod. I dove into the water and willed it to push us to the trireme. It was turning around to ram another longboat. I willed the water to throw us on board and then dragged him to the hatch on the roof. I lowered him through it and dragged him over to the grappling hooks. I used one of the ropes to tie his hands together and to the side of the boat. As soon as I finished the trireme collided with another longboat. The collision threw me to the back of the boat. I hit the wall and it drove the air from my lungs. Two of the longboats turned around and came along side us while the fifth continued on its path.
The Norse demigods swarmed onto the trireme from both sides. I could see Annabeth and Nico struggling to hold them off. I got up and ran to them. As I ran, water flowed up over the boat and surrounded me with a mini-hurricane. Annabeth and Nico backed off as I took on the remaining Norse demigods. After a few minutes, they were all dead or in the ocean. I concentrated on the waves around the remaining longboat as we sped toward it. A storm started to form, but it wouldn't go near the boat.
"You think you are stronger than me. I am the son of a storm giant." A kid called from the longboat.
We sped toward the longboat, but they increased their speed before we hit them. Our battering ram collided with the back end of the longboat spinning it around. It caused the kid to lose his concentration on the storm enough for me to push it over the longboat. Waves swamped the boat with enough force that their rowers were thrown from their seats. I used the last of my strength to smash the boat in between two waves. The wood cracked under the pressure and the boat broke apart. As the waves died down, I slipped into unconsciousness.
AN:If you don't know what a trireme looks like, it has a flat roof across the top and the side of the boat is open and a railing runs along it to stop people from falling out. They usually had 170 oarsmen and could carry an extra 30-45 people depending on the size of the boat.
Tell me what you think. If you have ideas for what you want in the story, I would love to hear them. Fell free to PM or put it in a review, I check both constantly.