(One day ago)
The siren had passed out cold after quite a considerable amount of struggling and thrashing, allowing the pirates to finally put him in the tub. After pushing it to Nico's cabin, everyone made themselves scarce except Jason and Percy, who hesitated at the door.
"...are you sure you'll be alright? We can always move it to Jason's cabin, if you want," Percy tried.
Nico shook his head. "I'm fine, Jackson, Grace. Go get some sleep." He sat at his table, signalling that he wanted to end the conversation. Jason and Percy glanced at each other before heading out of the door.
Just before he closed the door, Jason turned around. "You know, if you intend to keep him, you might as well tell him…"
Nico shook his head again and plopped on the table with finality.
With a last worrying glance, Jason pulled the door shut. As Nico closed his eyes, he had his usual nightmares again.
Father, he desperately yelled. Bianca! Don't leave me alone…
But his dreams would leave him drowning in the seas of bad memories.
"No, Sunshine. You are going to be our new surgeon."
With quite a lot of difficulty, Nico bit back a wide smirk as the siren's eyes widened. Holding back peals of laughter proved to be even more difficult when Will sputtered in indignation and confusion.
"What!? Wait - why would I even agree to - you know what, you guys are crazy," Will pouted as he curled up his tail in defiance, golden scales shimmering under the light. (He has a cute face, Nico thought absentmindedly. Maybe the sirens of the Seas of Apollo all have good looks and pretty scales.)
Leo, who was somehow taking out tools that couldn't possibly fit on a belt out of his belt, answered. "Think about it, fishboy. You get good food and proper treatment. In exchange, all you gotta do is use your hocus pocus. You get the better end of the deal, in my opinion. The quartermaster zombieman was probably feeling lenient about keeping prize yesterday, so you might as well take the opportunity!"
Will knit his brows in confusion. (Hey, that's cute, too.) "But why wouldn't you guys sell me instead? Isn't it a lot better to, like, get a human surgeon? I don't even know how you humans work, jeez," he muttered. "Not to mention I could just sing you guys dead anytime."
Nico laughed drily. "Well, first of all, I don't think we'll be docking at a port anytime soon. Secondly, our previous surgeons all had some loyalty issues and had to be... dealt with. Thirdly, we kinda know how to deal with your kind," he said, dangling the packet of beeswax.
"Loyalty issues? What makes you think that I won't just ditch you someday when I get the chance?"
"I don't mean deserting when I say 'loyalty issues', Solace. I'm talking betrayal and double-crossing. There's a reason why our ship only has eight members - well, nine, now that you're here - and we have skeletons for the rest of our crew."
Meanwhile, Leo had been tinkering with the siren's tub. He patted the base of the tub and stood back to observe his work. "There. All done!" he beamed.
"What's done? What did you - aaaargh! " Will screamed as the tub suddenly slid forward.
Leo grinned proudly at his creation. "Wheels, sunny boy! You just gotta lean in whatever direction you wanna go, and it listens to your command! Just lean back when you want it to stop. It's stairs-friendly, too! Oh, and don't even think about rolling out of this ship, I've installed a tracking system on your tub so that it can't cross the boundaries of the ship," Leo added.
Nico looked on in amusement as Will struggled to keep himself still, his tub sliding back and forth in the cabin. He had always wondered how Leo managed to use those weird plastic wires that gave you a nasty feeling if you touched their insides.
Nico got up from his chair and looked at the siren. "Well, now that you've got your own trolley, it's time to meet the crew."
A dragon masthead? A dragon masthead! was easily the first thing Nico thought when he first boarded the Argo II . He remembered that the ship was a magnificent sight to behold, easily reaching about 200 feet long with a single mast. He could tell the siren was thinking the same when his eyes shone brightly in fascination as he peered over the bronze hull. Nico never understood how the controls of the ship worked (it was only known to Leo and perhaps Annabeth), but although Will didn't manage to make any more progress than Nico did, his fingers still hovered over the board, eyes flitting from one button to another.
Leo, being the good man he was, allowed the siren to press any button that he deemed safe (if you could trust Leo's definition of safe). Will oohed and aahed whenever the crossbows snapped upwards, or the oars turned into spears...although he never pressed the button that made the masthead breathe fire ever again.
Some of the crew came to the control board in interest to observe the siren. "Leo, when did you add in the party popper function?" Annabeth asked as she shuffled over, amused.
"Hmm…? Oh, that. Eh, probably when you weren't around. That was quite some time ago," Leo answered halfheartedly, surrounded by sparks from whatever he was doing. "Say hi to Annabeth, fishboy."
Annabeth turned to smile at Will. "You must the siren, our new surgeon! I'm Annabeth Chase. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Oh, hi, Nico."
Nico looked expectantly at the siren for him to reply.
"Uh...hi. Will Solace," he replied, unsure.
Annabeth beamed. "That's a nice name. Let's introduce you to the rest of the crew, shall we?" She didn't wait for Will to reply. "I suppose you already know Nico and Leo. The blond guy at the helm is our captain, Jason Grace. The Cherokee girl next to him is his girlfriend, Piper. Piper has an amazing way with words - she could probably convince you to kill yourself."
"Morning, Annabeth, Nico," Jason called from the helm as Piper waved. "Oh, hi, Will."
"Good morning," Annabeth called back. "The tall Asian guy at the quarterdeck is Frank Zhang. He may look scary, but actually he's pretty shy. That doesn't mean you should mess with him, though. The girl with the curly cinnamon brown hair is his girlfriend, Hazel. Hazel is a genius with all things money and wealth. Frank, Hazel! Say hi to Will!"
Frank waved back timidly while Hazel beamed widely and waved both her hands.
"And there's my boyfriend, Percy Jackson. Nico, do you know where he is?" Annabeth asked, squinting at the cabins.
Nico shrugged. "Maybe he's still asleep."
Annabeth hissed angrily. "That seaweed brain, he doesn't even have the manners to welcome our new member. I'm going to hunt him down. Don't rescue him if he calls for help," she told Nico.
Nico shot her a thumbs-up.
Annabeth then stomped down the corridor to commit homicide.
Nico looked at the siren, who was curiously looking around the ship like a little child. "You alright?"
Will hummed thoughtfully. "This ship is amazing. Did you guys build it using magic, or something? Can all humans use magic? The abilities of the Big Three all sound like magic to me, at least."
Nico thought about how to respond. "The ship wasn't built by magic, and no, not all humans can use magic. The ship just looks like it was built by magic because Leo and Annabeth are probably among the smartest few people in the world. As for us three and magic, it wouldn't exactly be correct to say that we have magic. Why our abilities seem like magic is because have the three strongest magical artifacts in our possession. The three artifacts are basically the reason we're constantly running away from someone, and why many people think we're worth betraying. Do you know about the artifacts?"
Will shook his head. Looks like there's going to be a lot for him to learn, Nico thought.
"Ilivis, Anaklusmos, and the unnamed Stygian Iron sword. They were created for the captains of the ships Zeus, Poseidon and Hades respectively. Ilivis is a golden coin that can turn into a golden sword on heads, and a golden javelin on tails. It can only have one true owner at a time, and most of the time its true owner remains unknown until he or she dies and the next owner is decided. The true owner of Ilivis can use it to control air, weather and electricity.
"Anaklusmos, otherwise known as Riptide, is a 3-foot tall double edged sword made out of celestial bronze, a magical material. Riptide is a weapon that was passed down a noble family line of sailors, and only the eldest child of a new generation can wield it. The wielder of Riptide can use it to control any water body. Also, as the captains of Zeus and Poseidon were close friends, Riptide has the ability to deflect lightning summoned by Ilivis, and Ilivis has the ability to slice through water summoned by Riptide. Currently, Riptide is probably tucked off somewhere in Percy's pocket as a ballpoint pen." Nico smirked at Will's confusion. "Yeah, it can become anything the owner wants it to be. All Percy has to do is uncap it and you'll be swimming to your death.
"As for my Stygian Iron sword…" Nico paused, not knowing how to continue. It can cause you to die a very painful death. Yeah, all swords could do that. It's magical. Wow, what a boner.
Its blade can turn humans into…
Nico decided that the abilities of the sword would have to wait. "Well, you experienced it firsthand. I told you not to touch the blade and you did. Back then I thought maybe you didn't understand English, but turns out you were just being annoying."
"It was out of self-defense!" Will protested. "Come on, just tell me what it is!"
"Huh. Maybe you should have thought twice about being stupid, then."
"I'm not stupid! Tell me what it does!" the siren wailed impatiently. Nico snickered, opting to ignore him.
After a few minutes of trying to tease information out of Nico, a sudden thought struck the siren. "If these magical items are so powerful, why are there only three of them? And wouldn't humans be all using magic if it was so great?"
Immediately, images flooded into Nico's mind in large, crashing waves.
Bianca being shot, too shocked to even scream. Father collapsing before him, limp and lifeless. The endless, vast sea that wouldn't end. Pain. Pain. Pain.
Pain.
Nico didn't even realize that he had spaced out for almost a minute straight. Will looked at him in confusion, searching his eyes for any signs of response. "Hello? Nico? You alive?"
Nico snapped back to attention. "Oh. Uh...right. What...what did you say again?"
Will rolled his eyes. "I asked why are there only three humans with magical artifacts, sir."
Nico sighed and leaned over the side of the ship, looking at the horizon. "I told you before, Sunshine. All these come at a price. For humans to use magical artifacts, it comes with a curse."
Will gulped. "A curse?"
"The curse usually comes in the form of a fatal flaw. Most of the time, it makes people go crazy. Honestly speaking, it's a miracle none of us has lost our minds yet."
"...that sounds bad," Will said.
"It is," Nico agreed.
The siren seemed to think about something for a while, before he talked after a polite pause. "If you don't mind me asking, what's...what's your curse?"
All the common sense in Nico's mind told him not to think about that. Still, it was hard. Staring blankly at the horizon, he tried to think of a way to ignore Will's question in an attempt to distract himself from some very unpleasant thoughts. He chose to focus on a object in the distance that seemed to be making its way to where he was.
Wait.
Squinting harder at the figure, Nico's heart froze with dread as he recognized the ship. To affirm his fears, Percy came running towards the helm, closely followed by Annabeth. Sweat beaded his face as he yelled in panic.
"Jason, call for a vote to engage the battleship due west right now! The Royal Navy is back! And this time, they're with Octavian!"