So, I wasn't originally going to update this early, but i have a snow day, so yay no school. I've decided that I'll post a new chapter every Friday if I remember, and put up extra ones on my day's off from school, where I'm not busy with things like teachers and homework.
Note: Thank you to the Guest who pointed out the spelling/grammer mistakes I didn't catch. I'll go through and fix those when I have a chance.
Part One: Chapter Four: Changes
=Nico=
I woke up, felling abnormally ill. It felt like the entire room was rocking back and forth and there was a lot of noise from outside my room. That's odd, when is there ever noise outside my room? Opening my eyes, I found dark wooden planks above my head. Not something I ever saw waking up. A patch of light hit my eyes and I shielded it before turning my head to see a large glass window, masterfully designed with different colors of glass. Outside the window, was the sun drifting in and out of clouds and... water. Too much water. I did not live this close to water. I jumped up just as the door to the room burst open.
"Perseus Jackson!" The yell made me wince.
"Clarisse." The calm voice responded.
"I am not going to babysit Leo and your fucking brother all day." I turned to see a girl, one I remember meeting yesterday and the back of a boy, the girl marched up to him and grabbed him by his shirt. "You either tell them to stop pranking me or I'm throwing them both overboard!"
"Could you give me five minutes, I'm in the middle of something." The boy responded and she threw him over her shoulder and out the door. My jaw dropped. Whoever this girl was, she wasn't someone to mess with. Does this boy realize this?
"This is the third time this week! Clarisse stop throwing the Captain out of closed doors!" A complaint called out.
"It's your own fucking fault Valdez!" Clarisse called out marching out of the room. I slowly got up and walked towards the door frame, I saw the boy pushing himself up and out of the mess of wood he was in. He wasn't facing me, but he dusted himself off.
"Leo!" He called out, and fast as a squirrel a tall, thin boy was in front of him. Above them the sky was darkening. Leo had dark tan skin, and curly black hair, he was in a white shirt covered in grease and black pants. Around his waist was a belt filled with tools. "Fix this door for me, and try not to hassle Clarisse too much. She's in a bad mood."
"No problem." The boy saluted then bent down to start picking up the door. He noticed me standing there. "Uhh... Dude?"
"Yes Leo?" The man turned slightly to look at him, I saw part of his cheek and the long black hair that concealed his eyes from me.
"Prince Charming is awake." Leo responded, the man turned even more to look at me, I still couldn't see much of him, his hair concealing most of his face at the moment. But he smirked for a second.
"Rachel," he said, and the redhead from yesterday popped out of nowhere. He took off his coat and gave it to her. "Get our guest some food, and keep him busy until I get back."
"Get back?" Rachel asked skeptically.
"I'm going for a swim." He said as if it were a completely natural thing for him to do. "I might want to take Clarisse with me, or maybe her boyfriend just to piss her off."
"Wait, if I can't make her mad then why can you?" Leo looked up at him.
"Because I can beat her in a fight." He answered simply. He looked around to see if who he was looking for was above deck then shrugged and wandered over to the railing.
"He's not going to jump is he?" I asked getting Rachel to turn. I could see the start of a smile on his lips as he climbed onto the railing, then dove straight down into the ocean. I rushed over to the railing to find nothing. He was just gone.
"Don't worry about him." Rachel grabbed my arm, "worry about yourself. You're on a Pirate Ship remember?"
"What?" I tried to remember how I had ended up here but I couldn't recall anything right away. Slowly it all came back to me, these people their... I felt goosebumps on my skin. "Where's my sister?"
"She's fine, and so are Frank and Jason. Their eating." She said to me, dragging me below deck and into a large mess-hall type room. Sitting awkwardly together were the three that had been kidnapped along side myself. But Rachel didn't bring me to them. "What all do you remember?" She asked me handing me a bowl and dragging me through the kitchen. "About yesterday."
"You guys showing up, some odd things and an artifact you wanted information about." I responded. "I refused to give any information so you knocked out Frank then Jason and my sister and..." I paused, what happened after that? "And..." She looked at me with bright green eyes before filling my bole with soup and getting me a spoon before serving herself some food.
"Shock," she finished for me. "You're probably repressing the memory. You pulled a knife on our brilliant leader and he walked right up to you, grabbed your hand and stabbed himself. It's an affective method of rendering someone incapable, though dangerous." She grabbed herself a spoon. "But of course Percy takes those risks without a second thought." She sighed then led me out of the room and back to the mess hall. We walked over to my sister and company.
"Nico!" Hazel jumped up and hugged me, I carefully moved the bowl out of the way so she wouldn't make it spill on the both of us. "Oh gods, you look paler than a ghost. Sit, eat." She ordered me, I sat next to her and she basically fed me until the soup was gone. Rachel had taken a seat next to Jason and was suppressing a laugh. "What did you do to him?" Hazel glared at Rachel.
"From my understanding, we brought him aboard the ship like we did with you, and put him right in a bed to sleep." Rachel responded.
"But he wasn't in the same area as us." Hazel demanded. "You're not keeping him in the brig are you?"
"Sadly enough our brig is nicer than the rest of the rooms on this boat, aside from, of course, the Captain's cabin, by the way that's where he stayed last night. In the Captain's bed while the Captain was in the brig."
"What?" Jason asked in disbelief. "Percy slept in a jail cell?"
"He does it quite often," Rachel shrugged. "Odd habits he has, truly odd."
"Like jumping overboard?" Nico asked. Rachel nodded and swallowed the last of her soup.
"Well, that one can be blamed on parentage. Son of the Sea God after all." She shrugged. "If you want, when your bored ask him about his adventures."
"Are you... we really going to the Sea of Monsters?" Frank asked nervously.
"Oh yeah, don't worry thought we'll get through safely. Few will get injured, none of you though." Rachel informed them. "By few I just mean Percy. And like always he lives."
"How do you know this?" Jason asked her.
"Oracle of Delphi." She responded before getting up and looked at them all. "Whelp, I have things I need to do, don't get into trouble, don't anger Clarisse and when Percy gets back from his swim, don't protest when he kidnaps Nico." She sauntered off, dropping her bowl in a bin on the way out of the room.
ΩΔΩ=ΩΔΩ=ΩΔΩ
Clarisse was able to kidnap me before Percy had the chance. She was waiting outside the mess hall with a tall boy standing next to her. The boy looked like a thief generally did, he had that look in his brown eyes. He had light peach skin and short black hair. His outfit matched Jason's current one. "You," she pointed to me, "and you." she pointed to Hazel. "Do you know how to fight?" She was looking more at Hazel than at me.
"They've been taught." Jason responded.
"Oh please, what they teach you on land is nothing like out here in the seas." Clarisse glanced over at him. "That basic stuff will save your life for maybe three seconds." Then she glanced at me. "I know you have to learn how to fight Lord di Angelo. Freezing up after Percy makes you stab him. What a wimp."
"Clarisse," the boy next to her warns quietly. I felt Hazel's eyes on my back as Clarisse waves off the boy.
"Starting today, until I deem you're ready. All four of you will be learning how to fight." She told us. "Yes that involves actually going to injure your opponent specially if it's that moron of a leader we have."
"If you hate him so much why don't you throw a mutiny?" Jason asked. "You look like the leader type."
"Leave the son of Poseidon stranded at sea, yeah right." She looked at him with a cold look, then it softened just the slightest. "I owe him a debt, I have to repay it." She responded. "On deck maggots!" She ordered before marching off herself.
"What kind of debt gains that much loyalty?" Frank murmured to Jason as we all started after her. Better to follow orders than to be thrown overboard.
"A life debt." The boy she had with her answered. Frank looked at him. "We all owe Percy our lives."
"Of course." Jason rolled his eyes. "That sounds absolutely natural. Form a party of Pirates that all owe you their lives. No wonder he's the cruelest Captain out there."
"Percy doesn't seem that cruel..." Hazel put in her opinion. "More respected than anything. He is the Prince of the Sea after all, many people fear and look up to him." They walked up onto the deck and saw an oddity of sites. Clarisse was soaking wet, I could almost see her anger gauge boiling past the top. The entire of the deck was silent as they waited to see what would happen next.
"I..." she hissed out. "Deserved that."
"Yes, I quite agree." The voice came from the railing, the boy from earlier was sitting on it, completely dry from his swim. "You can only throw me through so many doors without some form of punishment." Faster than I could manage, Clarisse had out her spear and was throwing it at him. A pocket of water shot towards the boy and shielded him. The spear made a small splash then fell down with the water. A second later he shifted enough to let an arrow flash by his head.
He didn't say anything, not even when the Silver and Gold dogs ran out from under the deck and nearly bit off his legs. He was standing, perfectly balanced on the railing and walking over to the net leading up onto the rafters. "You're a fucking ass Jackson!" Clarisse yelled at him.
"Would you like me to dry you off?" He asked casually.
"Burn in Hades." She hissed at him.
"That's too kind of a punishment." He shrugged grabbing hold of the ropes and starting to climb up them. A girl I didn't see yesterday came above deck. She had on bindings around her chest and black pants. Her long brown hair was tied up with a cloth.
"Is it Tuesday?" She asked. Leo, the boy from earlier materialized next to her.
"I think so." He nodded. "But I prefer tomorrow, watching Percy beat them every week gets old. He's more lenient on Wednesday's." By the time Leo finished speaking, Percy had made it to the beam holding a mast. Thalia was waiting for him up there. Clarisse, pushed her wet hair out of her face and marched over to a box. "Valdez!" She snapped and Leo was at her side. "Get those four suited with a blade."
"Yes ma'am." He said picking up the box and bringing it over to us. Once it was opened I could tell that I wasn't going to like the next half hour. There were a mess of weapons in here, swords, knives, bows and arrows. "Take your pick and go after Clarisse as if you mean to kill her. Of course if anything gets too dangerous in the Captain's eye, he's going to intervene." Jason didn't look too please at being told what to do, but he chose a golden sword. Frank pulled out an bow that he seemed to be quite interested in. Of course he would. He's Frank Zhang leader of the archery squad back home.
Hazel was much more hesitant but after some speculation, at the weapons and situation we were in, she pulled out a spatha. I looked at the collection and noticed that most were either gold or bronze weapons. Accept for one black sword. He pulled it out and Leo immediately backed away from him. "Nice choice, just don't touch me with it. I'd have to burn you."
"What?" I asked confused.
"Now you attack Clarisse," he told us all. The girl near him, who the metal dog's took kindly too looked at us.
"It'd be better for you to go after her before she gets the spear." She told us, as she said this the warrior was moving towards her sword. "And if you don't attack her, she'll attack you, all of you at once."
"Why would we..." The spear was coming straight towards my head, but like what happened with Percy, a barrier of water blocked it's path, and for a moment, my vision was distorted by the ever moving clear liquid.
"That's interfering!" Clarisse yelled up at the boy who was fighting with Thalia. She didn't get a response and that angered her. She charged at us and out of habit it seems Jason sent a wind storm at her, pushing her back several feet. "So you do know how to use daddy's powers." The statement was directed towards him. She charged, the wind picking up but having no further effect on the girl. She charged straight for Jason who, instinctively blocked her attack with the sword.