Chapter three

Annabeth

Annabeth felt completely exposed. Eighty demigods, camped out on a watery ocean platform (courtesy of Percy) with no cover of any kind? Not exactly an ideal place to regroup. Unfortunately it was the best they had.

Things were looking grim. The demigods that had made it to the safety of the water didn't even amount to a third of those that were there for the start of the battle. Nico was nowhere to be found. Frank and Leo were missing too. All the survivors looked a mixture of terrified and furious, especially Hazel.

Annabeth looked out at the wreckage of camp half-blood, feeling sick. The land that had been the battlefield stopped churning and solidified into Gaea's snarling face, strangely cracked and crumbled. Gaea hissed, "YOU WILL NOT LAST-" Then Hazel screeched and charged the goddess.

Annabeth tackled her to the water before she could get herself killed.

"Hazel DON'T!"

"Let me go Annabeth!"

Hazel struggled against her and it was all Annabeth could do to keep her friend pinned.

"I'll tear her apart! I'll kill her! She-she killed them!"

"You're going to get YOURSELF killed!" Annabeth yelled. The other soldiers were getting up now, unsure of what to do.

"I DON'T CARE! I don't care- I don't-"

"Hazel, stop."

Piper's voice washed over them, heavily enhanced by charmspeak. She had propped herself up on a makeshift cane and hobbled over to them. Hazel half-heartedly kept trying to push Annabeth off, but was in no danger of doing so.

"Nico and the rest are fine. I'm sure of it."

"Really?" Hazel asked, her voice like a small child's. She had gone completely limp. Annabeth cautiously got off of her and helped her to her feet.

Piper looked pained, but forced a smile and nodded. "Absolutely, and… even if something did happen, it's not worth throwing away your life for. Nothing is."

Hazel nodded. "I-I'm sorry. I guess… I'll go see if I can find any weapons on the ocean floor. We'll need to stock up."

Piper smiled. "That would be great."

. . .

Fifteen minutes later, Annabeth, Reyna, Percy, Jason, and Clarisse were sitting in a circle in the middle of their watery raft, discussing what their next move should be.

One question kept coming up over and over again: How can we defeat the earth? Annabeth replayed the events of the day over and over, trying to glean as much information as possible from what had happened. The rest of the soldiers were either injured, or lining up to get a soggy new weapon from Hazel. She had managed to bring dozens of barnacle encrusted spears, swords, and daggers up to the surface.

The Hermes cabin had had a sort of tradition-they would steal the opposing cabin's prize weapons before a big capture the flag match and dump them in the ocean. Annabeth never thought she'd be grateful for their tricks, but hey, having an entire armory underwater proved to be useful.

"I'm out of ideas." Percy said as he stood up and stretched, glancing up at the sky. He paused, staring in disbelief, then grinned. "It's them!"

Annabeth turned to see a dragon diving towards them and a tiny figure riding on its back. Campers scattered as the dragon landed. It shrank and transformed back into Frank Zhang, and Leo promptly fell off his shoulders in a disgruntled heap.

"Come on man! Warn me next time!"

Hazel pushed through the crowd and wrapped them both in a bone-crushing hug. Percy, Annabeth, Jason, and even Reyna weren't far behind.

It turned out that Frank had taken to the skies when things got ugly, picking up Leo on the way. They'd spied on the enemy forces after the retreat.

"Gaea's been sending her minions to carry messages to the sea monsters, and rally them to attack." Frank said. "We picked off all of them though, I think."

"It was Awesome!" Leo gushed. They never even saw us coming!

"Sorry to be a buzzkill," Clarisse interjected, "But what's Gaea even doing trying to get sea monsters on her side? She can control the ground under water. What's stopping her from skewering us right now?"

"What a lovely thought." Percy said.

"You know I'm right." Clarisse shot back.

It was true, Gaea had been awfully quiet the past hour. Annabeth scanned the torn-up earth of the battlefield, looking for answers. She noticed some of the smaller cracks smoothing out into solid ground. The biggest chasm was slowly, almost imperceptibly, knitting itself back together. Annabeth remembered the last time Gaea had made an appearance, the cracks in her face, and smiled.

"She can't attack. She pushed herself too far. She's healing herself."

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Hope you guys like this! This is my first fanfiction, and I'd love to hear what you think!

-FreakofNature