III

Percy

Percy woke up with a start, his head ringing. He'd barely seen Pasiphaë when Hazel had fought her at the House of Hades, and he'd fainted in the first two seconds.

Yeah. Great. With his luck, the fight was already over and the crew would be telling him how amazingly Hazel had saved all their lives.

Percy realized he was lying down. He sat up, and realized that all of his friends were sleeping next to him. Something told him that it was the same day, and something told him that it was noon. Perhaps the shadows, or was it the fact that he was covered with sweat.

Then he realized Hazel wasn't in the pile. Something wasn't right.

"Wake up!" he yelled. Unfortunately for him, no one woke up. Great. He was going to have to solo this. He ran to the side of the ship, jumping into the water. He could see perfectly clearly, but the water did not like him.

He swam towards a giant cube of rock. Inside, he saw an unmoving figure.

Yeah. Underwater heat-vision rocks. His vision wasn't really heat vision, since he could make out colors, but in a way, it was, since he could make up Hazel. Maybe he was developing more skillz. Whatever.

Hazel was most certainly the unmoving figure. He swam directly towards it, and he realized that the cube was filled with water. He immediately made all the water inside the cube-tons and tons of H2O-seep into the rock. The rock became gravel, and all of it sank to the bottom. Percy realized that Hazel only had had a moment's worth of air. She immediately started to choke. He summoned a huge bubble and enveloped her in air. Luckily, she didn't pop the bubble or anything. Percy realized that his sword was at the bottom of the sea. Why Hazel had taken his sword, he didn't know, but he decided to go back for it later. Besides, after a while, it would return to his pocket, in pen form.

He dispelled the water from her lungs (just what he did every day), and carried her back up to the ship.

When he got back on board, he realized that the others were still fainted, and he deposited Hazel on the deck.

How had Hazel gotten into that giant stone cube?

Pasiphaë. She was still on the ship, somewhere.

He put his hand into his pocket. Why hadn't Riptide come back to him? Then his questions were answered when Pasiphaë came up the stairs, her dark hair a complete mess, falling all over her shoulders, creating a huge frizz-like thing that Percy knew needed some correcting.

She looked amused at Percy waking up, and from her pocket, took out a pen. She uncapped it, and out sprung Riptide.

"Well, well, well. I suppose you want your sword back?" she taunted. "Well, you're going to have to get it!" she recapped the sword, and it shrank back into a pen. She tucked it into her pocket.

Percy's head roared with anger. But he hesitated. Pasiphaë was most likely trying to trick him by giving him unnecessary anger. He noticed that Annabeth had her drakon tooth knife in her pocket (always great to have a girlfriend that prepares), and promising her in his mind that he would return it later, he took it.

But Pasiphaë wasn't going to just give him a weapon, and as he reached out to grab the knife, Pasiphaë shot a bolt of green light at him. Percy fell backwards, just barely managed to dodge the spell, and immediately stood up, ready. Losing his balance would be a bad idea here.

Pasiphaë fired another spell at him. He focused on the ocean, and all of its power, and he suddenly gained renewed strength. He jumped up-far higher that he'd ever jumped before. He could have easily hit 10 feet on it. But as soon as he launched himself into the air, Pasiphaë fired another bolt at him. He managed to use a bit of water to swipe it away. He landed, and realized another spell was coming straight into his face. He cursed, and threw the dagger.

Percy was prepared to duck, but the drakon tooth absorbed the spell, and flew straight into her kneecap.

"OW!" Pasiphaë said. Being a god didn't give you immunity to pain. Percy immediately took the chance, and rushed up to her and grabbed the pen from her pocket. He kicked her right in the back, and she fell onto the floor, the knife digging into her kneecap even more.

Percy was now facing the group, and Pasiphaë was facing the stairs.

Not a moment to lose, because at that point, Hazel was starting to come to. Luckily, she had the decency to not yawn or cough, and when she sat up, Percy looked up and down, signaling that she should keep down.

Percy started to shape the clouds, forming shapes. He could only hope that Hazel got the message.

Pasiphaë was picking the drakon tooth out of her kneecap. "You cursed, wretched little-" she held it in her hand, and with superhuman speed, she threw it at Percy's face. Percy just managed to dodge it, and it hurtled straight into the wall behind him.

Pasiphaë snarled. "Die!" she yelled, Coach Hedge style, shooting a three-pointed beam of blue light at him.

Percy managed to deflect one with the sword. He turned and avoided the other one, but as he was turning he caught sight of the third beam flying straight into his face. Any moment now… come on, Hazel! He thought, silently praying that Hazel got the signal.

The beam got closer. And closer. And just as it was about 5 centimeters away from Percy's face, it disappeared.

Pasiphaë stopped laughing, momentarily having a confused look on her face. She started, "What-"

Then, Percy turned just in time to see the green light magically reappear in front of Pasiphaë's face, and it hit her right on the eye.

"OW!" she yelled. She fell back down on the floor, her body trembling.

Percy eyed Pasiphaë suspiciously. He didn't know if she was acting or not, but he carefully walked up to her and looked down at her face. Her eyes were shut, and she looked like she might have been knocked out.

Just as he was about to grab her and toss her over the edge, her eyes flew open and she yelled, "JK!"

She jumped back up and fired a spell at him.

Percy muttered a few choice words of his own, and sprung back from Pasiphaë. Would this goddess ever faint, just long enough to allow him to toss her clean over the edge? Nope. It was like she was giving him an endless amount of trolls.

Pasiphaë charged- and the most stupid thing happened. She tripped over a loose floorboard and fell, face flat, onto the floor with a Ker-bunk.

If Percy had the chance, he would have probably yelled out, "Genius Level!", but there wasn't the option. He sneaked up to Pasiphaë, tucked her arms in, and made sure she was still out.

Sure enough, she was drooling in her sleep. Seriously, what kind of god drools in her sleep?

At the exact moment, Leo woke up. He saw the goddess at Percy's feet, and stammered, "Wha- what?", with a very surprised look on his face.

"I'll explain later." Percy said. "Could you turn the ship on turbo, please?"

Leo grinned. Going turbo was his thing. "Got it!" he ran to the helm and typed in some code to the Archimedes sphere. In about three seconds, the boat was hurtling towards the shore. Percy yelled over the wind, "Hazel! You can get up now!"

Hazel woke up, and grinned as she realized that her work had been done. She lifted up Pasiphaë, and together, they flipped her over the ship. Percy stirred up a whirlpool (in case she decided to follow them), and with a whoop, Leo steered the Argo II back towards the shore.