II

Hazel

Hazel watched as her friends all collapsed on the deck, their heads hitting the wood floor with a hollow thump.

She was going to have to fight this battle alone.

The ship stopped, the oars stopped moving, and Festus' bright red eyes went dull. With a giant splash, the ship fell into the water.

"I've made everything fall asleep." Pasiphaë said. "Ah. You wonder what happened to Festus. Well, even automatons have some level of consciousness, magically speaking. I simply caused some strain on them. They'll all wake up in an hour or two."

Pasiphaë walked up to her. "You can't fall asleep, of course; you've got magic in your blood." She walked over to Frank. "Centurions." She spat. She raised her wand, preparing to strike Frank.

Hazel wasn't close enough to tackle Pasiphaë, nor did she have the strength to push the entire crew out of harm's way. She was going to have to resort to trickery.

The mist.

Hazel concentrated hard, thinking of the entire crew behind her. But as Pasiphaë raised her wand, they entire grew… glitched, as a more modern person might say. For a moment, they were behind her back. But as soon as they got there, they were transported back to where they were before.

NO!

Pasiphaë laughed. "You honestly though your little trick with the mist would work? I am the master of magic! You think your puny Mist can defeat my powers?" she shot a beam of green light straight at Frank.

Time slowed down. Hazel could feel her heart pumping. She forced herself to concentrate. She forced the Mist to listen to her, and with all the power she could muster, she bent it. Maybe it was skill, maybe dumb luck, but just as the beam was about to hit Frank, she managed to temporarily engage the Mist, and she thought of the entire group behind her. They disappeared and reappeared right next to the mast-like she'd envisioned- and the beam fired through the deck, straight into a room. Hazel hoped Percy wouldn't mind having a hole in his bed.

But before the smoke had dissipated, the group warped back to where they had been before. Frank fell through the floor, but as soon as he did, he got warped back to his original place-and fell down again. Pasiphaë had such a powerful control on the Mist that she could keep someone in the air forever. And she didn't even seem to be fazed by the effort. Hazel would probably have fainted if she had done that for about 5 seconds.

Pasiphaë was too powerful. Hazel attempted to make a mad dash for the stairs, but Pasiphaë shifted the stairs behind her. Hazel crashed into a brick wall.

"I only had enough time to make it brick. Count yourself lucky that you didn't crash into a wall of lava. Time to finish this." Pasiphaë cackled.

She put a foot on Leo's head. "He dies first."

Suddenly had an idea-crazy by a long shot, but she had no choice. She could spend the next hour or so constantly warping the others to and fro, or she could finish it now. She focused.

Time once again moved in slow motion. Pasiphaë raised her wand, preparing to strike. Hazel forced the Mist to her will, but it wouldn't budge. It was as if the Mist was saying: You suck! We will become independent!

Hazel was the ruler, and for her friends, she had to resort to tyranny. She concentrated, practically yelling in her mind, If you don't co-operate, I will kill you! Images of all her friends flashed across her mind, giving her more strength. With her home stretch coming up, she threw up all her power, and just before the green beam hit Leo, Pasiphaë warped through the hole, and it closed, covering her.

Surely enough, Pasiphaë didn't control the Mist. Kind of hard to do when you're drowning. Hazel rushed downstairs as fast as her legs would take her, and grabbed Percy's pen. Riptide, as he had called it, had more versatility. She had to admit, Greeks were smarter than Romans. She could slice and stab at the same time. She ran into Percy's cabin, and she heard the creak of the floorboards as Pasiphaë tried to escape her "prison". Technically, all she needed to do was swim out to the side. Hazel concentrated. In her mind, she saw Pasiphaë struggling under the ship. She didn't want to do this, but Pasiphaë was too hard to beat. She had to kill her. She envisioned stone walls around her, and they were created.

Killing a god by drowning was something Hazel had never thought of. She knew that gods were unkillable by swords, but god lungs couldn't possibly breathe water, could they?

After what seemed like ages of struggling, Hazel couldn't stand it. She just didn't have that much of a heart. She looked at the clock. It had been almost an hour.

She ran abovedecks. Percy was still knocked out. The entire crew, in fact, was knocked out.

Hazel just couldn't stand watching Pasiphaë slowly drown to her death. She knew that she would regret it, and concentrated. The Mist created a hole right in the middle of the room, and when Hazel looked into the water, the expected to see a floating woman, perhaps coughing up blood. But when she peered in, a cackle came from behind her, and Pasiphaë stood at the doorway, blocking off her escape. She was soaking wet, but she grinned cruelly nonetheless as she pushed Hazel into the water. The hole closed up, and Hazel was left in the water, holding her breath.

Hazel swam for the sides, her mind starting to fog up. She banged her head on the stone, and realized that she was trapped inside her own trap. Pasiphaë's voice resonated in her head, causing some massive headaches.

You were fooled-once again.

Your instincts got the better of you.

You can die a slow and painful death!

Hazel tried to get the walls to disappear, but her mind was so foggy she couldn't concentrate. Pasiphaë was getting the upper hand. She cursed. Why had she opened up that floor? Pasiphaë had used her caring instincts against her-and look where she was now. Stuck in a giant stone cage, with no escape, fading consciousness, and now, potential drowning.

Just that little bit of brain activity pushed her over the edge. She couldn't hold her breath any longer, and she stopped thrashing about, sinking to the bottom of the trap. Through her blurry eyesight, she saw black.

Then, she fainted. Her last thought was, Well, this is ironic. Fainted saving a couple of fainted people.

She could still hear Pasiphaë's cruel laughter in her ears.