Okay, this chapter is kind of a filler. I promise there'll be more action in the next Percy or Annabeth POV. And the next chapter will be uploaded sooner.
ANNABETH:
"What is the meaning of this, Luke?", Annabeth cried.
Suddenly they weren't in Thalia's tent anymore. They were in the alley where Luke and Thalia had first met Annabeth.
"Walk with me", Luke gestured ahead and since Annabeth had no choice, she started walking.
"You will have to bear with me", Luke started, "This is going to be long and hard to grasp"
"We're not going anywhere till this is finished so you might as well start", Annabeth replied trying not to sound too cold. "But first, tell me what that was about?"
"With Thalia?", Luke asked, his eyes downcast and Annabeth nodded.
"We don't have enough time for that, right now", he answered.
"Is she going to be okay?", She asked worriedly.
"I truthfully don't know", Luke sighed.
Luke reached out and touched Annabeth's cheek but before she could protest she was transported to the Castellan living room.
May was pouring baby food into a bowl decorated with cartoons while a year old Luke sat on a high chair, banging his hands on the table in front of him and giggling.
Hermes sat beside Luke and played with him with little clay models of monsters which Luke kept smashing and laughing.
"That was the last time I saw my father, before seeing him again when I came back here with you and Thalia", Luke said sadly.
"He was the messenger of gods and he was very busy. He couldn't make time for us."
"Luke", Annabeth whispered, "Don't do this to yourself"
The scene changed. A four year old Luke hid under the table while May Castellan's eyes turned green and she shouted, "He can't do this! He deserves better!"
"I'm not doing this for myself, Annabeth", Luke sighed. "Atleast not all of it."
Annabeth ignored the ramblings of the old woman and opened the door, leading Luke away from the bad memory.
They walked out into the surrounding woods and sat down on the greener part of the forest floor.
"I sent Hermes", Luke confessed, "I talked to him and got his two forms to reconcile for long enough to get the Athena Parthenos back to camp Halfblood."
"Still working to reach the Isle of the Blest?", Annabeth asked with a broken smile.
Luke smiled teasingly, "No, just trying to save you. Like the old times"
The old times.
Annabeth shifted uncomfortably.
Just then everything started to shake. The ground shook and the sky rumbled.
"Listen, Annabeth", Luke said urgently, "I have to explain everything to you so it might take time but-"
"I'm a daughter of Athena", Annabeth replied, getting up, "Do not underestimate me"
"I'm not", Luke said honestly, "They're waking you up, I can't keep you here any longer. I'll still be here when you come back"
Luke smiled one last time and kissed her forehead. Annabeth had this sudden urge to cry but she gritted her teeth and kept her face as blank as she could.
Then she woke up to Piper shaking her.
When she noticed Annabeth opening her eyes, Piper stepped back with a guilty expression.
"I'm sorry for waking you up", she apologized, "But I haven't had anybody super smart to talk about some of the prophecy lines I've been thinking about"
Annabeth was a little irritated that Piper had woken her up and taken Luke away for this but she gave her a smile anyway. She had missed Piper and Hazel. She even missed Rachel.
As if on cue, there was a knock on the door and Hazel peeked inside. "Girls time out?", she asked.
Normally, Annabeth didn't have "Girls Time out" and she doubted Piper and Hazel did either. But they were a different group of people and they probably needed this.
She slipped onto the floor and patted the area next to her. Piper sat down and Hazel came in.
They sat in a triangle discussing their past. Anything to forget about what was to come. For Hazel it was harder, but she needed to face things. Or so Annabeth thought.
Piper talked about her father and the problems he faced before he became famous, how he was detached and distant before Piper, long with Jason and Leo, saved him. How it did hurt her that he didn't remember what had happened.
Hazel talked about how her mother hadn't wanted her and how racism had treated her in her previous life, how she was glad for a second chance and that she owed it to Nico. And she was worried about him.
"I guess you're not the only one who owes a lot to Nico", Annabeth said and talked about her father, her stepmother and had stepbrothers. She didn't mention the dreams, but surprisingly, she found herself talking about Luke and Thalia and the times they had while on the run. Maybe it had something to do with her dreams but she felt like she had to talk to somebody about all this.
"I've been seeing things", Piper said carefully and Annabeth's mind buzzed. She'd been seeing things too. Or maybe Piper was seeing things in a different ways that she was.
Before her mind could come up with a billion more questions and situations, she asked, "Go on, Piper, you need this"
One of the parts of her brain told her maybe she should tell somebody the things she'd been seeing but I other part shut the voice up.
"Katoptris has been showing me images of a giant sitting on a dark blue throne", she started, "I think it's Porphyrion."
It seemed like the cabin went cold as soon as his name was spoken.
"And that's not all", Piper continued, "I've seen the image of a reddish brown giant, about 50 feet, who seems to be intent on destroying everything in his way"
"Another giant?", Hazel asked helplessly.
"There are too many of them", Annabeth replied, biting her lip.
Just then, the Argo II jerked.
Then suddenly, it was falling.
The three off the them rushed out to the deck to see Jason and Frank holding on to the railing at the edge if the deck, Jason trying to hold them down by controlling the air pressure.
Percy was trying to cushion their fall if they landed on the ocean with a painful expression on his face which made Annabeth feel like somebody had kicked her in the stomach. The Argo was hurtling towards a nearby island but Leo appeared to be pulling lever and jutting out panels and pressing buttons. "TRYING TO GET IT TO FALL INTO THE OCEAN OR NOT FALL AT ALL", he screamed.
The Argo hit the water with a soft bounce. Jason fainted from creating the pressure around the ship and directing its fall and Percy collapsed, barely conscious from saving the ship from crashing on impact.
Leo burst onto the deck. "This is the worst couple of worst days ever. And trust me when I say this cause I've had a lot of worst days"
He sank to his knees. "What happened to my baby?", he asked spreading his hand on the floor, feeling the machinery underneath.
Then his expression changed. "We'll be here for a while, I think"
PERCY:
His consciousness seemed to be slowly slipping away from him. Getting the water to support this extremely heavy ship took too much out of him. But he was afraid if he lost consciousness, he would never wake up again. That probably wouldn't be such a nice end for the great Percy Jackson. Zeus would probably fall off the top of Olympus laughing if he wasn't the one in trouble along with the other gods.
He felt warm hand on his face and somebody stuffing ambrosia into his mouth. It tasted like the cookies his mom made.
His mom.
Thinking if her made Percy want to fight this, get up on his feet, destroy Gaia and go back home to her. He hadn't talked to her in nearly two years. It didn't matter that a half of that time he was asleep and the other half time he didn't have his memory and the other half time he was in Tartarus. There probably couldn't be so many halves but he was a demigod and math didn't really matter.
He struggled to open his eyes. The ambrosia did heal him but it was making him drowsy. He couldn't make out what the others were saying. It seemed like they were talking through layers of bubble wrap.
Fighting the urge to close his eyes, he supported himself with the help of the railing and stood up.
Annabeth held on to him as he swayed, balancing himself.
"I'm fine", he croaked.
Piper was kneeling beside Jason who was beginning to regain consciousness.
"We'll have to get off on land and check the engine out", Leo said in a depressed tone.
He looked horrible. His hair was messy and he looked like he was about to cry. "Festus isn't responding"
All of them turned to look at the island which wasn't that far but reaching it without any help from the ship would be hard.
"We could manually move the oars. Maybe we could keep it up long enough to reach the island", Leo suggested and Percy could almost see the gears in his head turning at the speed of light.
"Or I could get the waves to support us and push us towards the island", Percy replied.
"No, I don't think you should be exerting yourself anymore", Annabeth interrupted sternly. She looked and sounded so much like her mother, Percy fought the urge to jump into the ocean.
"I could jump into the ocean and turn into a whale and push the ship", Frank suggested. He looked determined to do something to help.
"Are you sure you could do that?", Hazel asked slipping her arm into Frank's.
"I'm sure", Frank said positively.
He jumped into the water with a clumsy dive. Percy was happy to see that the kid he had met the first time he came to the Roman camp was still somewhere there behind the hunky body.
They felt the Argo move towards the island, but only a bit.
"I should go help him", Percy announced and before Annabeth could turn into her mom, Percy dived into the ocean gracefully.
He had never practiced diving but it was as if his body naturally readied itself to greet the ocean in the most lithe and graceful way. It had something to with being the son of Poseidon.
This reminded him of a question Nico had asked him years ago, while at the hunters' camp. If he could surf really well since he was the son of the sea god. At that time, the question had irritated him because he had lost Annabeth because if his stupidity. But now it just made him smile. What made him sad was the the loss of Nico's innocence.
He hadn't realized he was already in the water and various fish were swimming towards him. "Master! Master! Master!", they all shouted to get his attention. It was like a million voices were speaking inside his head, which probably was the case.
He greeted them and quickly swam towards the giant whale that was pushing the Argo. As he reached the Frank, he heard his voice inside his head, above the chirping of all the other fish, "This ship is very heavy!"
Upon seeing Percy frowning over the ship, the little fishes started to push the ship but the Argo still moved very slowly.
Percy realized the water had refreshed him and had given him a lot of strength. He tried to push the ship himself, but it didn't budge. Okay, so maybe he wasn't that strong.
"I wish I could turn into a blue whale", Frank muttered inside Percy's head.
Percy whistled and huge hippocampi, the size of Rainbow arrived, looking excited to help.
"Would you guys be kind enough to help us push the ship towards the island?", Percy asked, hoping the hippocampi here were as kind as the ones back at home.
They wagged their serpentile tales and helped Frank push the Argo.
The ship glided through the water smoothly and in a matter of minutes, it had reached the island.
The hippocampi whinnied an Percy turned to pat them.
"Lord, please be careful", one of them warned, "There's something off about this island. Something strong and evil resides here"
Percy's stomach dropped. It wasn't a coincidence their ship had stopped working just near this island, because there were no coincidence in demigod-land.
"There are a lot of us and we're pretty strong ourselves", Percy replied confidently and smiled and the hippocampi and the fishes swam away.
He and Frank swam towards the surface as Frank slowly turned human again.
They walked on to the shore, to see Jason, Piper, Hazel and Annabeth standing on the sand while Leo was fidgeting with his Wii controller.
"Everything is dead!", he cried, "Nothing is responding. Nothing is wrong. It's just dead"
"Where are we?", Piper asked, looking around.
The shore where they stood, was empty but at a distance there were houses and shops with thatched roofs, bustling with people. A few children were playing around in the sand, far towards their left.
A few fishermen were rigging a small boat and nets towards the ocean. Percy hoped they didn't catch any of the fish who had helped Percy and then felt bad for wishing the other fishes death.
"Uh, guys", Hazel said in a shaky voice and pointed towards a board.
The colour drained out of Percy's face.
'Welcome to Gaios' it read.