[Beta version]
Review replies: (because I'm too lazy to individually reply)
NinjaPotter5: I'm glad. Your other review scared me.
Orochi-Ne: Sorry, you're wrong. :( I may check out your story, one day I have time.
Lady Chocobo: Tara! Ily. :) Thanks for the review!
lily potter: You're wrong, sorry.
Avalonfreak: Thank you once again for your review. All of your guesses are wrong, but good job trying anyway. I dislike those stories too. Like, God. Poor Nico.
Emedy Linaira: Thanks for the review! I personally wanted to do something scandalous. Just cause I could. Lily will play a big part, and there will be more character death before this is out.
Ralor: Thank you for the awesome two reviews. I'm sorry if it seemed rushed, sometimes I tend to do that. I'm sorry, you're wrong, and I didn't actually mean the rain as anything, FYI. I think. I noticed that you're from Jamaica. That's pretty cool. :D
: Wow. Run on sentences. Uh, thanks for the review, and I killed her off because I wanted to, and it was instrumental to the plot.
David-El: Thanks for the continued support for my story. All will be explained by the closing of the story.
Anna Jackson: Thanks!
Haris: Wrong, but nice try.
riptide2010: Thanks for the review!
Finally, I may have led you to some misconceptions. Sorry for that, and don't crucify me. The story is winding down, only about six chapter left to go, or so.
o)(o
"Urghhh."
Giac blinked, waking up in a concrete room, devoid of any personalization. The only other feature apart from the wooden chair he was tied to was Lily, who was also tied to a chair.
"Lily," he asked her, testing the ropes. "You awake?"
"Giac, where are we?" she asked, scared.
"Uh... I don't know," he said. "Can you get loose?"
"No..." her voice trailed off.
"Hang on," he said. He frowned, wiggling his palm just enough so that it pointed to the concrete below. Concentrating, he closed his eyes and pictured a plant erupting from the grey floor. He felt the familiar sick-feeling tug in his stomach, but nothing happened.
He pushed harder, and the nausea got worse.
"Urk... I don't feel so good..." he said, before vomiting and blacking out.
A hairline crack ran through the concrete, but nothing more.
o)(o
Ugh...
There was a sour taste in his mouth. He blinked awake, and was surprised when he saw Lily standing in front of him.
"Are you awake?" she asked.
"Yeah... How did you get out of the chair?" Giac asked her, curious.
Her face clouded over. "I don't know," she said, pointing at a pile of ashes. "You fainted, and I felt funny, and then I fell on the floor."
"Wow, you did that?" he asked, pointing at the ashes.
She nodded. "I think so."
"Could you do it again?" Giac asked. "To me? Well, not to me, but to my chair."
She shrugged. "Don't know. I'll try," she said, uncertainly.
She walked around behind him, and he felt the rope move slightly.
After a couple of minutes, when Giac was about to ask her to give up, there was a crackle, a flash of light, and a blast of heat. The ropes went slack.
"Good job," Giac said, jumping out of the chair and carefully avoiding the pool of vomit. "Let's get out of here."
He pushed against the door. It was locked. He tried to judge the thickness, before stepping back, pulling Lily back as well.
"You might want to close your eyes too," he said, frowning. "I don't know exactly how this is going to play out."
He could taste earth on the other side of the door, so close, separated by only a wooden door. He concentrated, and felt the same nausea, though it was far milder. And it had more spectacular results.
A very large, thick vine smashed through the door, splinters flying around the room. As the dust and debris cleared, Giac opened his eyes and grinned. The vine shuddered and pulled away, back into the earth.
"Come on, Lily. Let's get out of here." He grabbed her hand and they stepped outside into bright sunlight.
It was pleasantly warm, and Giac felt optimistic. A plant formed itself beside him, filled with clear water. He drank until the sour taste in his mouth disappeared, and offered it to Lily, who also drank.
Finally, they set off into the trees, in the direction that the trees said Camp Half-Blood was.
o)(o
Percy had a pounding headache when he awoke. That was alright though, because the pain gave him a focus for his oddly fractured thoughts.
Slowly, he started to piece together what had happened.
They'd eaten the food, and felt kind of funny. He had stumbled across the room, and then... nothing.
But there was no immediate danger here. It was a plain concrete room, with a flimsy door and a single window, not barred. Percy was in there alone.
He was tied to a chair, rough rope and simple wood. He began to struggle against it, and would probably have succeeded, if the effort hadn't made him so lightheaded. He was in danger of blacking out.
He sat there for maybe an hour, half-dozing as he regained his strength. It was as he was finally regaining his strength that he heard footsteps outside.
Bracing himself in case the person who was outside was the one who had tied him up in the first place—which it very likely was—Percy struggled against the bonds. Unfortunately he still wasn't strong enough, and as he sat back in the chair, the door finally burst open.
"Argus!" Percy exclaimed as he saw who was standing in the doorway. "I'm so glad to see you, man."
Argus winked at him, before simply ripping the ropes away from the chair.
"How did you find me?" Percy asked as he stood up. Argus simply smiled and tapped the side of his head with a long finger.
"Eh, doesn't matter. Hey, do you know where Annabeth and everyone else are?"
Argus frowned and shook his head.
"Oh, well, let's go find them."
They walked outside, Percy stretching in the sunlight.
"Hey, do you know where to go?" he asked Argus. Argus nodded, and set off into the trees. Percy looked around for a moment, shrugged, and walked after Argus.
o)(o
He didn't know where he was. He didn't know what he was doing. Branches cut his face and arms, whipping at him as he staggered past them, walking forward, always forward from the place in the woods.
She's dead, Annabeth's dead... he thought, despair evident in the tears that ran down his face, mixing with the blood that ran from the cuts on his face. The warmth that had shined on his back faded, and the stars in the night sky lent little comfort.
He didn't know when, but he finally stumbled out of the trees, onto a two lane highway. It must have been very late, because there was very little traffic. He walked along it, going faster, the trip being easier because he wasn't stepping over branches and going around trees.
He didn't know where he was going, just that he needed to go, before Dempsey found him. He needed to warn everyone, and needed to tell them of Annabeth's death.
The highway ended as the rain began to fall, again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was annoyed, but it washed all of the blood, sweat and tears away.
He was walking along a road with houses on either side of him, when he tripped over a rock. He crashed to the ground, skinning his elbows and lay there in a heap, crying again.
The last thing he felt before exhaustion took him was gentle, cold hands, which lifted him softly from the ground.
o)(o
I was lying underneath something soft, unusually comfortable.
That's strange, I thought, as I pulled the covers off of myself. I was in my own clothes, but they were clean and smelled faintly like lemon.
I was about to get up, feeling in danger, when I saw the cursed lipstick tube on the table beside the bed.
Oh, that's right, I have a sword now... I thought, rolling my eyes. Then I remembered what had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
Oh, I thought, the smile sliding off my face. However, before I had time to lament upon what had happened, a woman came bustling into the room with a tray.
She had straight black hair, pulled neatly into a bun at the top of her head. Her skin was pale, but not overly so, and she looked in her late thirties. But what struck me were her peculiar grey-green eyes.
"Hey," I said, suddenly realising who she was. "You're Grace's mum, aren't you?"
She nodded, putting the tray down in front of me. The smell of toast wafted up my nose and my stomach growled unhappily.
"Yes I am," she said. "And you're lucky I found you when I did. A monster had been following you for goodness knows how long. Now, eat up. We have a lot to do."
I devoured the food, already feeling a lot better, and quite safe with Grace's mother.
"How's Grace?" I asked her, and looked at her face. She remained impassive, but her eyes hardened.
"She died in the battle against Hyperion," Alice—who's name I had come to know—said, before continuing with her plans, not relating to her daughter.
So many dead already...
"Are you full?" she asked me, taking the tray. I nodded.
"Come on then, let's go. I have a feeling in my gut that there's going to be a large show down at Camp."
I nodded, kicking off the covers and jumping out of bed. I followed Alice down the stairs of the small house, the sun beaming in through the windows. It was a beautiful day outside, the rain gone again. How fickle the weather is. It rains for three whole days, and then suddenly sunlight fills the next.
Why am I thinking about the weather? My friend just died. And then I stopped dead.
Oh, Gods. What am I going to tell Percy?
Boo. It's me again. Yeah, sorry, writer's block, RL, the works. You know how it is.
Think we can get to 80 reviews? That'd be good.
Thanks to my Beta, Reading Obsession. Now, if she'd just hurry up and post a story, I could read that, too.
:)
November Rising.