WE'VE HIT SIX HUNDRED REVIEWS! YAY!
Gods, guys, I love you all so much. I'm getting so many reviews now, and even if some are short, they all give me the energy, the willpower, and the heart to continue with this story-and lots of other things that aren't even related to fanfiction. Thanks so much for everything you do for me.
All right, guys, since you got to our goal early, this means we have to set a new one! I'm getting about 20 new reviews every day, there are about 15 more days until my birthday...so let's say we go for 900 reviews by May 3. Sounds like a lot, I know, but 20 times 15 is 300, so you all should be perfectly capable of getting there just by continuing to do what you've been doing. I BELIEVE IN YOU.
Divergent-R-Us (guest): No, not at all! It'd be really cool, but there would have to be certain things to think about. Time zones, like you said, and then for younger authors, you'd have to think about when they're at school, and plenty of other things...Honestly, I'd be surprised if no one's ever thought of this before. It's genius. We really ought to look it up and see if a spot like this exists.
Megan Stark (guest): Well, here's some mist for you, and nightmares, of course, are coming up soon. It's just that it's not time for sleep yet.
Piper (guest): Don't worry, I'm not gonna stop writing. Ever. Being an author is my dream job. In fact, I'm planning on going to college for Creative Writing.
Random Person (guest): Rambling is okay, I promise. I ramble all the time. A lot of times, rambling yields ideas. Or just super funny conversations. Either way, rambling is not a bad thing.
Nobilist: Yeah, you're my six hundredth review-thanks for that. I mean it. And thanks also for all the amazing compliments-they mean a lot to me.
Okey-dokey, my friends, time for the chapter!
Chapter LVI
Hazel
Monsters are really starting to irritate Hazel-and that's putting it mildly. She even goes so far to curse at one when it slams her against the control panel and causes the ship to hurtle skyward. And Hazel never curses.
She slashes the monster to dust and stumbles forward, trying to put some distance between herself and the controls. Normally, she might have tried and corrected the way it was rising quickly into the air, but she didn't understand any of the controls. If she hit the wrong button, she could blow up the whole ship.
Plus the fact that her stomach was violently protesting the sudden movements of the ship. She stumbles over to the rail and vomits over the side, before turning back to the deck, where the monsters are close to overrunning Piper.
Despite the disgusting taste in her mouth and the churning of her stomach, she plunges into the battle, fighting her way to Piper's side.
"What in Hades are these things?" Piper yells, over the sound of the monsters.
Hazel is pretty sure that opening her mouth is a bad idea, but she answers anyway. "No idea! Just focus on killing them! Find their weak spots!"
The monsters are covered in green feathers that extend halfway down their legs and halfway up their necks, but they have the head and legs of a deer-if deer had black fur and fangs, with razor sharp silver hooves. Their wings are light blue.
One of them dives down in front of Hazel, lashing out with its hooves. Hazel fends it off with her spatha, and the thing opens its mouth and makes a weird noise-something like a mixture of a hiss and a bray that's definitely unsettling. But that part doesn't really bother Hazel-it's the smell that gets to her.
It's a thousand times worse then anything she's ever smelled before; a disgusting mixture of rotting meat, moldy food, and maybe a couple hundred garbage barges. All way stronger than normal.
Her stomach heaves violently, and she just knows her face turns green. She unconsciously slows her defensive thrusts and slashes, instead concentrating mostly on trying not to puke.
The monster takes advantage of her distraction and it darts forward, getting past her guard and sinking its teeth deep into her left shoulder.
Hazel screams in pain, and her vision darkens, obstructing her view. The monster's bite feels like someone just buried red-hot spikes into her arm, and her knees wobble, but she forces herself not to pass out. She strikes out blindly with her sword, and feels the blade hit something. A second later, the monster dissolves into dust, but from what Hazel can feel, it left half its teeth in her shoulder.
"Hazel! Are you okay?" Piper shouts in concern, trying to fight her way back to Hazel's side.
"I'm fine!" Hazel calls back, trying to wave Piper away. She knows her wavery voice can't be very convincing, so she isn't really surprised when Piper sends her a disbelieving look and only tries harder to get back to Hazel.
Hazel slashes her way through another of the monsters, trying not to jostle her left shoulder too much. At least it wasn't my sword arm. She thinks.
Just then, Annabeth and Leo burst onto the deck, both with weapons drawn. Leo yelps when one of the monsters hisses at him, backing up and almost falling down the stairs.
"Holy-What are these things?" He shouts, echoing Piper's earlier question.
Annabeth looks grim, but her eyes are calculating, watching the creatures, searching for weaknesses. "They're Perytons, I think. Carnivorous bird/deer monsters. From what I remember, they won't stop attacking until all of them have killed and eaten a man-or at least until every man is dead."
"Wonderful!" Leo replies sarcastically, braining one of them in the head with his hammer. "I've always wanted to get eaten by a flying deer!"
"Do you have anything that we can use against them, Leo?" Hazel calls, trying to ignore the pain stabbing through her shoulder.
"Of course I do! But I'd have to get to it first!" He replies, gesturing towards his controls.
To Hazel's left, Festus incinerates three of the Peryton when they fly in range of his fire. Piper slashes through another. But Hazel knows there is no way they can kill all of these things on their own; there are dozens of them. They have to be able to destroy a bunch of them at once-which means getting Leo to the controls.
She slashes through the Peryton blocking her way and then runs across the deck, weaving underneath the wildly thrashing legs and deadly hooves of the monsters until she reaches Leo and Annabeth.
Leo chokes when he sees Hazel's shoulder. "Gods, Hazel, what happened to your arm?"
Hazel, who still hasn't closely inspected her wound and has no wish to do so, really wants Leo to stop gaping at it. It's making her feel queasy-well, queasier.
"I got bit." She explains shortly. "Come on, Leo, I can get you over to the controls."
He looks at her, and then stares doubtfully into the midst of the monsters. "How?"
"Just trust me." She tells him. He looks on the verge of protesting, but then he just sighs.
"Fine. But if I get eaten, I'm going to come back and haunt you." He says. Hazel rolls her eyes.
"You aren't going to get eaten. I promise." Then she turns to Annabeth, who's been keeping most of the monsters away from them while they talked. "Annabeth, can you help Piper? She can't hold them off on her own for much longer."
"On it." The blonde girl promises, before plunging into the crowd of monsters and making her way towards where Piper is fending off several of them at once, using her charmspeak to keep them confused.
"All right, Leo, our turn." Hazel says to him. She grabs his hand on her shoulder-her good one. "Hold on to me and don't let go." She orders.
"Uh...okay?" He agrees, obviously confused. Hazel ignores him and closes her eyes, concentrating. She calls on her new powers, using her emotions to her advantage. Even then, though, the pain in her shoulder distracts her, and she opens her eyes in frustration, looking over at where Annabeth and Piper are now fighting side by side. As Hazel watches, one of the Peryton's hooves slices across Piper's forehead, and she cries out.
Anger rushes through Hazel at the sight of the cut. Her friends aren't going to get hurt. She won't let it happen.
Her determination gives her the boost she needed, and adrenaline courses through her veins. She opens her eyes just in time to see white Mist curling from her fingertips, seeping towards the monsters. Then she says a quick prayer to Hecate and walks into the crowd, with Leo stumbling right behind her.
Apparently, her trick with the Mist worked-the monsters don't seem to notice them. Instead, they continue swooping towards the doorway leading downstairs, where they'd been standing just moments ago. Even when Hazel thrusts her sword into the chest of one of the monsters that gets in her way and it explodes into dust, the others don't seem to notice anything is wrong.
They get to the controls without further incident, and Leo immediately lets go and snatches an Xbox controller-Hazel only knows that's what it's called because she heard Leo call it that once-off a shelf.
"Shouldn't you do something about the fact that we're still going up?" Hazel asks.
"I will, as soon as I get these stupid man-eating deer off my ship." He promises. He presses a few more buttons on the controller, and one of the cannons lining the sides of the ship swivels around to face the Peryton.
"Please try not to blow up Piper and Annabeth, Leo." Hazel pleads.
"Like I would!" He retorts, before pressing a small blue button on the controller.
A net woven out of Celestial bronze erupts from the end of the cannon and spins through the air before tangling itself around at least a dozen of the Peryton and vaporizing them on contact.
"Celestial bronze barbed net." Leo states proudly. "Guaranteed to kill most monsters on contact."
"That's the first time you've used it." Hazel points out.
"So? That doesn't mean it doesn't work!" He protests.
"Whatever, Leo. Just focus on killing the rest of them." Hazel replies wearily, leaning back against the railing.
"Fine with me." He answers, turning back to the controls. He starts moving back and forth from different areas of the controls, punching buttons, typing directions into the keyboard-oh, yeah, and he finally stops the ship's ascent.
He's basically doing a complicated dance around his controls that makes absolutely no sense to Hazel and gives her a migraine. She massages her temple with her free hand, trying to alleviate the pain building up in her head, but it doesn't help much. The fact that her free hand is her left hand doesn't help much either, considering that the pain in her left shoulder is on a whole new level from her headache. Mostly she's just trying to ignore it, but it's becoming harder and harder as the pain grows.
Something behind her explodes, and several of the Peryton shriek in protest.
"Ha!" Leo exclaims, pumping his fist in the air. "Take that, stupid man-eating deer!"
Hazel turns her head to see that at least half of the remaining Peryton have been disentegrated into dust, although she has no clue what could have done it. Her only hint is the smoke swirling through the air. But even with so many gone, it still leaves dozens, most of which are swarming around Piper and Annabeth, who are growing more and more tired by the second.
Even as she watches, one of the monsters gets in a lucky shot at Annabeth, sneaking up behind her and sinking its teeth into the back of her calf. Hazel sees pain flash across her face, but she manages not to make a sound and quickly decapitates the monster.
"Come on, Leo, do something!" Hazel urges him impatiently.
"I am doing something, or haven't you noticed?" He grumbles. One of his newer additions whirs to life and turns to face the monsters just like the cannon did, firing what looks like small bronze arrows into their midst. Monster dust showers the deck.
Hazel watches agitatedly as Piper and Annabeth's movements start to slow even more, torn between staying to protect Leo in case her Mist fails and the Peryton come after him, and going to help the other two.
"Leo, will you be okay on your own?" She asks finally, impatiently waiting for his response.
He glances up at her. "I'll be fine, go ahead and help them."
Hazel barely waits to hear the rest of his sentence after hearing him say "I'll be fine," racing across the deck to join in the fight. Since her trick with the Mist is still keeping her hidden from the monsters, she manages to cause quite a bit of havoc, diving through them and dissolving monsters left and right.
She'd kept Annabeth and Piper exempt from the whole Mist thing, so they barely even looked her way when she joined them, instead concentrating on the attacking Perytons.
"Nice of you to join us." Piper greets her tiredly. She stabs one of the flying deer in the neck, and it disentegrates into dust that flies all over Piper. She spits it out of her mouth, annoyed, and Hazel can't help but smile at her expression.
"How's that dust taste, Piper?" She asks.
"Like dirt and unwashed socks." The daugher of Aphrodite grumbles. "Absolutely disgusting."
"You're the one who had your mouth open." Annabeth points out.
"Trust me, I learned my lesson." Piper mutters. "I'm never going to kill a monster with my mouth open again."
"Wise decision." Annabeth tells her, lunging forward and stabbing one of the Peryton in its feathered stomach.
After that, they fight in silence. Occasionally, Leo will use a new weapon against the monsters attacking them, like his water cannon, which blasts the Peryton with water so hard that a bunch of them spiral off into the air and out of sight, and others get blasted to dust by the force of it. At one point, he gets annoyed with one that keeps flying closer to the controls, distracting him, and he throws his hammer at it, smashing it to dirt.
Hazel's trick with the Mist doesn't hide her from view for much longer-she can't keep up the energy for it. But she still manages to keep the monsters confused about Leo's location, effectively protecting him from their attention, so he doesn't have any more trouble from them-besides the obvious fact that they're still attacking the ship and trying to eat his friends.
Hazel, Piper, and Annabeth all get several more wounds as the battle progresses. Piper gets a deep cut high up on her sword arm that trickles blood down to her hand and makes her grip on her sword slippery. Hazel gets slashed on her thigh. Annabeth, though, probably gets the worst of it.
One of only five remaining monsters flies at her, knocking her onto her back. Hazel's pretty sure she hears bones crack when Annabeth hits the deck, but the girl continues to fend off the creature until Piper cuts off its head.
Leo kills the last four for them, firing Celestial bronze cannonballs at them that explode on contact, killing them instantly-although somehow the explosion is contained to the air above the deck. It doesn't affect the ship at all.
When the last monster is gone, they just stand there for a minute, breathing hard. Then Hazel starts to sway in place, and her sword drops from numb fingers.
"Hazel!" Piper cries, lunging forward to catch her. The last thing Hazel remembers is being slowly lowered to the deck before her mind spirals into unconsciousness.
Nice ending, right? Anyhoo, Jason's up next, then Frank, and then four more chapters after that before we get back to the Argo. So, six more chapters between this and...I think it's Piper's POV?
I love you, you're amazing, drink blue Coke, try not to become a hellhound's chew toy, and see you tomorrow!