After this chapter, my words started flowing better. So expect better. And hopefully I won't have too many more week-long silences, if any.
To Hope Vandarez(guest): Thank you very much, and yes, my depression is much better. Pretty much gone, in fact.
To Phoenix Rise from the Ashes: Congratulations, I'm pretty sure your review is the longest I've ever gotten! And if not, than it's definitely pretty close. I like your ideas, and, actually, some of them are only a smidge off from my own...Also, I was actually planning on making Percy and Piper get closer (not romantically), like sister and brother. And epic bromances are in the future. :)
To Joseph: Chill, dude. A series of seriously sappy Renico chapters is coming up. And you are not allowed to stop reviewing. Because you are my most frequent reviewer (i'm pretty sure, at least)
Chapter XXXII
Hazel
Piper is lying on one of the cots. A nasty purple bruise has spread across her left temple. Hazel wonders how long it will be before she wakes up, and hopes it'll be soon.
Jason is sitting on the cot adjacent to Piper's, eating a square of ambrosia. Hazel had to help him relocate his shoulder. The sound it made when it popped back into place made her stomach churn even worse. She almost threw up.
She's fine now. Except for the fact that she wishes she was back on deck with Frank. She taps her spatha impatiently against her leg, wandering around the infirmary.
I should be up there helping. She thinks to herself, pacing around the room. I hope they're okay. The ship hasn't been hit any more. But that's what worries her. The silence.
The quiet before the storm. The words come, unbidden, into her thoughts, but she pushes them away. Everything will be fine. She reassures herself.
She was never a very good liar.
She sighs loudly, and Jason glances over at her.
"If you want to go back up on deck, Hazel, you can go. I won't mind." He says.
"Oh, no, it's not that." Jason gives her a look. "Okay, maybe it is that." She admits.
"So go." He tells her, gesturing towards the doorway. Hazel stands there, torn. She looks at Piper, then at Jason and the way he winces every time he moves his shoulder.
"What about you?" She asks.
"I'll be fine, Hazel. My shoulder already feels better." He reassures her. She waits for a split second longer, than turns to leave, guilt tearing at her. But she can't stay there, clueless as to what's going on upstairs.
"Thanks, Jason." She calls over her shoulder as she races out.
"No problem." He calls back.
Hazel arrives on deck just in time to see water erupt around the ship, surrounding them. With the sound it makes, you'd think the Argo II would shake, or rock a little. But it's steadier than it has been all day.
Speaking of day, the water makes the sky look even darker than it actually is. Hazel can't even see the sunset anymore.
"I suppose that would be Miss Tuna Fish?" Leo asks, drawing Hazel's attention to the demigods. Percy looks grim and determined, with not a single sign of the mischevious twinkle he usually has in his eyes. Annabeth stands a little to his left, a similar expression on her face, clutching the hilt of her new sword. Leo is next to the controls, but turned so he's facing the others.
Frank is next to Percy and Annabeth, a sword belted at his waist, holding his bow. He keeps it lowered, but an arrow is already set on the string.
My name is Thalassa! A female voice hisses in Hazel's head. She flinches. It reminds her too much of how Gaea speaks. Except Gaea doesn't yell. She whispers, persuades, scorns, but she doesn't yell, even as a mental voice. Hazel hurries over to Frank, standing at his shoulder.
"What's going on? Who's Thalassa?" She whispers in his ear, standing on tiptoe in order to do so. Sometimes Hazel really hates how short she is.
Frank looks down at her, smiling reassuringly before answering. "According to Percy, she's the Primordial goddess of the sea. And she wants to kill us, which is what is going on now."
"Who doesn't want to kill us." Hazel says, sighing. She doesn't pose it as a question, but Frank answers anyway.
"That's what I'd like to know." He mutters. He tightens his grip on his bow.
Hazel unconsciously leans into him. His presence is so solid, so...real. He reassures her and calms her frazzled nerves. But almost soon as her mind quiets, it starts racing even faster than before.
Hazel sighs, so quietly that Frank doesn't hear her. Maybe she shouldn't have played with the Mist last night. It made her more hyper than usual.
"Yeah, I don't do weird Ancient Greek names. I think Tuna Fish is much better anyway, don't you?" Leo says, being his usual annoying self.
A particularly loud mental hiss of annoyance makes Hazel want to claw at her ears. The goddess' voice is like nails on a chalkboard.
Water arcs down onto the ship, molding into the form of a woman. A remarkably beautiful woman.
She has long, flowing hair (Hazel finds that a little funny, considering the woman is made of water), high cheekbones, arching eyebrows, and full lips. Her eyes, though, ruin the image, as does her expression.
Her eyes are dark, soulless black; twin black holes that have no light at all. There are no whites. It's just emptiness. Evil. And her expression is much the same, with her lips twisted in a soundless snarl, revealing pointed teeth like a shark's.
"You do not want to cross me, Son of Hephaestus. You might have power over fire, but water is dominant here. And where water is dominant...fire must be extinguished." She says out loud, although Hazel can still hear an echo of her voice in her mind.
Leo looks shaken, but he summons a laugh. "You sound like Khione. Why do goddesses always have to be so dramatic?"
"She has nothing on Zeus." Percy mutters, not once looking away from Thalassa. It unnerves Hazel, the way he stares at her so intently, like a wolf tracking its prey.
"You dare mock me?!" Thalassa shrieks. A little bit of color seeps into her colorless limbs. "Me, Primordial goddess of the sea? Sole ruler of the Ionian?"
Percy looks coolly into her eyes. "Yep."
Thalassa looks slightly taken aback. Apparently she didn't expect that answer. Then she narrows her eyes. "Oh, Jackson," she practically spits his name, "you are going to regret ever crossing me."
Annabeth steps forward. Apparently she doesn't take too kindly to people threatening her friends, because her eyes are stormy with anger. It makes Hazel want to take a step back.
"No, Thalassa, I think it's you who's going to regret messing with us." She says, her voice dangerously low.
Thalassa narrows her eyes even further. When she speaks, her voice is haughty, disdainful. "Oh, I've heard of you, Daughter of Athena. You defeated Arachne and took back the Athena Parthenos. But I have no need to fear you. You have no special talents."
Annabeth takes a step forward in anger, but Percy puts an arm out to stop her. Hazel is shocked. Usually it's the other way around; Annabeth stopping Percy from doing something impulsive. But this time, he's the calm, collected one.
"Leave, Thalassa. You don't want to cross me." He tells the goddess, his tone deadly serious.
Thalassa laughs, but Hazel suspects that it's mostly to hide the flash of uncertainty in her eyes. "You? Why should I be afraid of you? I'm a Primordial, boy. I'm thousands of times more powerful than you will ever be."
"Maybe so," Percy says, "but that didn't seem to matter much when I killed Pontus."
Silence. Thalassa doesn't say a word. She just studies Percy warily, looking him up and down.
"Enough of this." She finally says. "Enough stalling. It's time for you to watch your friends die, Perseus Jackson."
She lunges forward, her fingers curled like claws. Frank lets his arrow fly, but suddenly Thalassa isn't there anymore.
"What-" He starts to ask, confused, but then Percy shouts a warning and shoves him, causing him to fall to the deck. On top of Hazel.
Hazel would protest, but under Frank's arm, she can see Thalassa standing where Frank was moments ago, a wicked-looking dagger in her hand. She hisses in frustration and dissolved into water vapor. Hazel takes a moment to stare, wide-eyed, at the place where the goddess disappeared, before her attention is brought to other things. The fact that she can't breathe, for example.
"Frank," Hazel groans, "would you please get off of me?" Frank blushes and scrambles to his feet, somehow managing to elbow her in the stomach, shouder, and cheek while he does so. Hazel sits up, holding her hand to her cheekbone. She presses on it gingerly and winces.
That's going to bruise tomorrow. She thinks. Frank offers her a hand, still blushing and stammering apologies. She smiles. He's definitely her same old Frank.
She uses his hand to pull herself up and then they both look around, searching for Thalassa. Percy is on the other side of the ship with Annabeth, inspecting the wall of water surrounding the ship, presumably trying to find a way to break it or get through it, otherwise Frank and Hazel would be thanking him. Leo is still over by the controls, only now he's squinting at the screen and messing with all the buttons and levers, muttering under his breath. Thalassa is nowhere to be seen.
And then, somehow, she's behind Leo, thrusting at him with her dagger.
"Leo!" Hazel shrieks. He turns, but slow, too slow, and Thalassa's dagger continues, unimpeded, on its way...
...Until a blast of water hits Thalassa full-force in the face. It doesn't stop the dagger, but it moves her arm to the side just enough that it only grazes Leo's side, instead of stabbing him. He gasps in pain, but manages to twist away from Thalassa before she can do anything else.
Thalassa snarls and lunges after him, but Percy steps in her way.
"Not so good at fighting hand to hand, are you, Thalassa?" Normally, from Percy, that would be a taunt, but now he just states it as a fact, with that same grim, determined look on his face.
Thalassa bares her teeth at him. She opens her mouth to respond, but then her eyes lock on something behind him, and she smiles evilly.
"Maybe not." She says. "But I play dirty." And then she dissolves, again, except this time, Hazel can track her progress by a sort of vapor trail she leaves in the air. But Percy doesn't seem to see it.
Still, from the look on his face, Hazel knows that he knows what Thalassa is doing. She calls out a warning anyway.
"Annabeth!" She yells. She raises her spatha. Frank nocks another arrow. But Percy is already there, moving faster than Hazel would have thought possible, pulling Annabeth behind him just in time for Thalassa to reform in front of him.
So, this is a crap chapter, but I had to get something written. And working with writer's block is soooo not easy.
My mom said to me today, "There are some chapters in life you don't want published."
I think that applies to this fanfiction pretty well. I really did not want to post this chapter. It's not one of my best.
But I hope it wasn't too terrible.