V
Jason
Jason felt like he was useless.
On this journey, he'd been made useless too many times. First, it was the hard hit on the head at Camp Jupiter, then the eidolons, then Khione. Now, he had been knocked out while Percy and Hazel had fought a demonic, power-hungry witch.
He felt really honored.
Jason was staring at the reddening horizon, which was growing paler behind them as the Argo II sped along. He kept thinking, Why do I never get to be the one to save the day?
Although he knew that nobody was expecting him to save the day every day, he still felt miffed that he never really was the hero. Most of the time, someone else had done it for him. Really, the only time he'd been the hero was when he'd defeated Otis and Ephialtes with Percy. Pretty much. Getting the ship off the coast of Africa didn't really count.
The ship was skimming the waves on the Adriatic Sea. Jason was about to go to bed when he suddenly felt a chill in his bones.
Jason whipped his head around, preparing himself for the worst.
But there wasn't anything there.
A small breeze started up. Jason walked over to the stairs. Suddenly, he realized that the wind wasn't just blowing…it was spinning. His blood turned to ice.
"Leo!" he yelled, panicking. "We need to go faster!"
"What?" Leo yelled back, over the wind. "I'm already going-"
Suddenly the ship lurched to one side. Everything slammed into the guiderails, including Jason. The small breeze turned into hurricane force winds. The Argo II was thrown about in the air. The waves were so high that they splashed onto the deck. Percy ran up the stairs. "What the-?" he yelled.
"I don't know!" Jason yelled back. "Could you get the water off the deck? We shouldn't have any extra weight!"
The wind howled. "What is this storm doing?!" Leo yelled. "Firstly, it wasn't on the predictions, and secondly it took about, like three seconds to whip up! Whoa!" he slid back and hit his head on the mast. Seawater was seeping in. The wind howled.
"Leo!" he yelled. The ship had tilted to one side, throwing Leo over the edge. He landed with a splash, barely audible over the waves and wind. "NO!"
Jason looked around. Percy was still getting the water off the deck, a shocked expression on his face.
"Percy! Do you have any idea on how to calm the waves?" he asked.
Percy shook his head. "I've tried already. The waves aren't responding."
Suddenly the wind howled, and Jason could swear that the wind was saying, I AM CHAOS.
Jason turned around to face Percy. "Did you hear that?"
"Yeah." His face turned pale. "Why are we facing Chaos? I thought that it was just where everything came from!"
Jason remembered a little bit of what they'd learnt about Chaos in Camp Jupiter. "No. That wasn't all of it-he also was the god of the lower air." Jason suddenly realized. "We need to go higher!"
"What about Leo?" Percy yelled.
"If we don't go up, the entire ship is going to break!" Jason yelled back. "You can feel it, right?"
"Yeah." Percy said. "I'll go rescue him! Be back in a minute!"
He just jumped of the deck and into the sea. Jason took a moment to realize that Percy was a son of Poseidon and had all these water powers, and that it wasn't really necessary to jump in after him.
A couple of moments later, Percy came back up, with Leo slung over one shoulder, still retching from his little swim. He dropped Leo on the deck. "Jason, you know how to fly the ship?"
Jason ran to the controls, looking at them. He'd been given a crash course a little while back, by none other than Captain Valdez, and he had a rough idea. He picked up a GameCube controller, and hit the A button repeatedly. The Argo II slowly rose into the air. The waves and wind battered the ship relentlessly.
Percy yelled, "We need to go faster! At this rate, the ship is going to break apart! I'm basically holding it together with the raindrops at this point!"
"I'm trying!" Jason yelled. "But I can't use the Archimedes Sphere, and this A button is the only way I know!"
"How about the instruction manual?" Percy yelled, pointing at a tiny drawer in the middle of a Wii Remote, NES and MacBook Pro.
Jason took it out, careful to shield it from the rain. He flipped to the contents-kind of hard to do while continuously pressing A.
Where was the chapter for Up/Down? Boarding, Starting, Landing, Steering… there! Jason flipped to page 57, and scrolled down the page.
"To go up, press the A button on the GameCube controller continuously." Jason read.
"Maybe something else?" Percy gasped.
The wind was buffeting Jason and Percy. Leo had slid across the deck, slamming into the door to the bottom levels, tumbling down the stairs.
Jason kept going. "To make the ship ascend faster, press the 1 button on the Wii, open the application "Argo II" on the MacBook Pro (Select fast Ascent), and step on the accelerator."
"Why does Leo have to make things so complicated?" Percy yelled, gasping.
Jason got to work. His hand and feet flew all over the controls, and within seconds, the ship started to zoom up towards the clouds.
Annabeth suddenly stormed up the stairs, hair messy and eyes stormy. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"As a matter of fact, there is!" Jason yelled. "Get belowdecks! Ask Leo where the heating system is! It's going to get really cold!"
"On it!" Annabeth rushed downstairs.
The wind battered relentlessly against the ship. Percy concentrated. Jason called forth a giant gust of wind-risky, considering the ship was about to break apart-and it raised it up even further.
The ship was only moments from touching the clouds. It was unbearably cold. Jason had never touched clouds before. As the ship hurtled upwards, he got his first chance.
Clouds felt like a rainforest, which didn't feel nice at all. The deck suddenly turned warm, and Jason knew that the heating system was on. Didn't help with the sweat that was pouring down his back. Just a few more meters, and the Argo II would be safe from the battering winds. They would be able to sail on to Athens-and Mount Olympus.
But as the ship broke the clouds, Jason's-and Percy's- faces fell.
"Oh no." Percy said.