Here's some more Annabeth! Since I haven't been writing her POV for sometime.
And about Percabath and Percico, I'm still not sure. GOD. This is really difficult.
Thank you for all the review and favourites!
Annabeth:
Her vision blurred as the spongy tentacle wrapped around her waist, grabbed and pulled her off the ship.
She must've screamed pretty loud because the tentacle stopped in midair for a while.
That hadn't been the smartest thing she ever did because when the tentacle stopped, it dangled her upside down.
The sudden stop made her dizzy as her blood rushed to her head, and she knew she should've closed her eyes to keep the food down in her stomach but she couldn't bring herself to.
She could see Piper struggling to cut the plant that had wrapped around her leg.
Leo was burning down the creepers that were trying to edge over to the control room.
Frank was nowhere to be seen but Hazel was standing on the deck shouting at two creepers who seemed to be fighting each other.
What in the name of Hades?, Annabeth wondered.
While the plant that held her seemed frozen, Annabeth used the opportunity to wriggle her hand through the tight grip around her waist and pulled out her Drakon-bone sword.
She cut the vine (which seemed to prove more difficult than she had originally thought since the stem of the creeper was very spongy and hard to cut) that held her and prayed to whichever god that was listening to save her as she fell towards the forest floor.
Somebody must've heard her because when she fell to the forest floor, she bounced back four feet.
The forest floor was as spongy as the crazy plants and for a second Annabeth was afraid the ground would swallow her up.
She heard Gaia laugh. That I eventually will, demigod. Your end isn't far.
"You can go to Tartarus for all I care, hag", Annabeth snapped as she slowly stood to her feet, careful not to bounce again.
She looked around and almost jumped again.
The trees around her had thick trunks with eyes and mouths. They had six massive branches which were like creepers. Or tentacles.
They were bigger than giant redwood trees with faces.
They seemed to be talking to each other but their mouths and eyes were closed.
Her skin prickled. They had to be sons of Gaia.
She though hard about legends she might have heard but she came up with nothing useful.
Was Gaia creating new horrors now? That was plausible. Trees were in her territory, especially large trees like these whose roots went deep into the earth.
If these trees weren't inhabited by nymphs, Gaia could control them and make them do her dirty work.
She refused to think about the scenario where these trees did belong to nymphs and Gaia had taken the tree away from them.
Her stomach churned at the thought of Percy. What if he was passing through a forest like this and he didn't know?
Annabeth gulped. She strained her ears to catch a drift of what these trees were saying.
"...you better do it", said one tree.
"But that wasn't part of my job, it was his", the second replied.
"no, it was yours all along", a third replied.
"Can't we just all destroy the ship together?", a fourth whined.
"Yeah, mother will love us all equally", the fifth replied.
An angry argument broke about who Mother loved most.
The first tree hushed them all and said, "I guess you're right. But our first threat is the Fire Human. Let's destroy him first"
That was enough for Annabeth.
Usually, Annabeth would've used her brains and talked her way out of a problem. Fighting wasn't her first instinct, thinking was. But this time, the warrior in her took over.
She ran (half bouncing) to the first tree and slashed at his creepers with her bone sword.
Wherever she managed to make a cut, the plant withered but the problem was that it was hard to make a cut. The spongyness made it almost impossible to cut the vines.
The first tree had six thick creepers but Annabeth managed to cut only two.
She fell to the forest floor and bounced again, desperate to make another attempt when the fifth tree grabbed her by the ankles and turned her upside down.
She felt another creeper slither up her back and wrap around get neck.
Her throat burned. She writhed gasped for air but nothing happened. She was choking and her lungs were burning. She felt her voice box being compressed and she knew if the plant twisted even slightly, she would dead instantly.
"Stop!", the fourth tree exclaimed and the fifth tree's grip slackened.
Annabeth gasped and sweet air filled her lungs. She coughed and clutched at her throat trying to shake off the horrible feeling of the plants tentacle around her neck.
"We cannot kill her", the fourth tree told the fifth one. "Mother prefers her blood. She wants this demigod to be sacrificed for her"
"He's right", said the second tree, "We need to capture the her and kill the rest"
Her mind raced to find a way out of this mess.
She felt her waist and found her sword hanging in an awkward angle. So the trees weren't smart enough to take her weapons away. Okay, that was an advantage.
She looked around her in hopes of finding something to her advantage.
She saw nothing but the bouncy forest floor, trees and a bird.
The creepy tress were only six, Annabeth noticed, the sixth one asleep farther away from the rest. She guessed because he wasn't talking and his branches were limp unlike the others. The rest of the forest was full of normal trees, as far as she could see.
She groaned. The bird chirped.
She glanced at the bird and the bird cocked its head.
She didn't dare to hope but she whistled softly, hoping her plan would work.
The bird whistled the same tune she whistled, back at her.
So the bird was Frank.
The bird stared at her with its beady eyes and flew to the sky.
Annabeth's heart sank. Was it not Frank after all?
As she strained against the creeper around her ankles to follow the bird with her gaze, she saw a white shape in the sky, almost camouflaged in the pinkish sky.
The pink Pegasus with Hazel on it.
She had never been so happy to see Hazel, even after they had taken the elevator from the doors of death. At that time Percy had been with her. But this time she only had creepy trees who assaulted demigods.
The Pegasus vanished as soon as it had appeared. Seconds later it strolled softly, twenty feet from where Annabeth hung.
Hazel got off the Pegasus and motioned for Annabeth to come to her.
Annabeth rolled her eyes. Couldn't she see she was tied up?
She decided to try her luck.
"You trees aren't that smart, are you?", she taunted them.
The trees barked and started boasting of their wit all together so that they made no sense at all.
"I mean if you were smart enough, you wouldn't have kept me dangling here while you all discussed how you're going to destroy my ship or what Gaia's plans are. Now I know all your plans", she said throwing in a smirk.
If the trees were actually smart they would just laugh and remind her that she was in no shape to escape and help her friends and since she was going to die, she might as well hear about Gaia.
But they weren't smart. They roared at her.
"That's exactly what we were going to do", the first tree replied.
"Yeah, we were going to tie you up far from where you can't hear us", the third tree piped in.
"No you guys aren't smart. If you were, I would've been tied to that tree, far from you guys but near your sixth brother", she replied, giggling fakely.
The trees erupted in angry retorts.
The fifth tree shouted, "Quiet, brothers. She's not smart enough. If she was, she wouldn't have told us a better plan to imprison her"
Annabeth almost thought they'd find out that something was wrong. It was almost funny how stupid these trees were.
Instead, the fifth tree plopped her in front of the sixth tree and tied a her up with a bow around the sixth trees's trunk with the trees own tentacles.
"Ha!", the fifth tree exclaimed.
"That does look better", the second tree replied.
"Now she'll never get away", cackled the fourth tree.
"Let's destroy the ship!", the third tree cheered.
As soon as they had turned their attention towards the ship, hazel rushed to Annabeth's side and cut off the tentacles and Annabeth grabbed Hazel and rolled away towards the Pegasus.
That too, in time, because the sixth tree roared and grabbed for them with its remaining four tentacles.
They jumped on the pegasus' back and flew, dodging the tentacles, towards their ship.
They were high above the Argo, where the tentacles couldn't reach them but they could clearly see what was going on.
Piper was charmspeaking the tentacles to strangle each other and Leo was burning them up whenever they tried to get too near the control room. Frank had turned into a leopard. Annabeth didn't know why he chose to be a leopard. Except that probably gave him speed and sharp claws to slash through the vines.
But she was sure there was some other animal with a better advantages. If she had his ability...
She forced herself to concentrate.
There were too many of the plants. Once in a while Piper stumbled as one of the creepers caught her leg and her charmspeak faltered. Leo was doing well enough. Frank wasn't doing badly either.
The Pegasus dropped them on the deck and flew off to fight alongside its only remaining brother.
Annabeth had already formulated a plan and told Hazel her job.
Hazel was supposed to confuse the plants by using her powers to bend the mist. She would set the trees against each other. She would ask Frank to cover Annabeth's back while Leo and Piper would defend the ship.
Annabeth grabbed a tentacle and swung herself off it and slid down towards the supposed head of one of the trees. It must've been the first or the sixth tree because it only had four tentacular branches.
As soon as she was close to the point where the branches began, she started cutting with a vigorous speed.
One, two, three, four, she cut all the branches off and they withered and the point where they began became stumps. She could hear the tree whimpering but she felt no sympathy.
Two other tentacles made a grab for her but she jumped at them and swung herself. The branch tried to shake her off but she hoisted herself back on the ship.
"One down, five more to go", she muttered.
She grabbed another tentacle and slid down to it's trunk. She noticed this tree had only two tentacles left. The others were burnt off. Seemed like Leo was good enough.
She quickly cut off two remaining two and hoisted herself back on the ship.
It took about fifteen minutes to finish off the rest. Leo burnt most of them and Frank slashed them. Piper talked. Hazel even had tree four uproot tree three.
At last they sat on the deck checking for wounds. There weren't many but wherever the tentacles had grabbed them, a reddish rash was beginning to sprout.
Only two of their pegasi remained, the pink and the yellow one, and Hazel called them aboard and fed them apples. Piper insisted on doughnuts. "They like it", she said softly, but insistently.
"Do we have everything under control?", she asked everyone.
Leo nodded and went back into the control room, refusing to leave while Hazel tried not to throw up. Piper fed doughnuts to the pegasi. Frank was inspecting the damage to the ship, which wasn't much. Just a few broken boards.
Annabeth went back to her cabin, took a bath and settled herself on her bed.
Then she began to draw, wondering how many would die in the coming war.