Chapter 10: It's All About the Head

AN: First, I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long. I kind of wanted to go back and do some editing before I posted. It was just also a hard time for me during COVID. It's my senior year at University and there's a lot going on in my life. Thank G-d, everything is okay. I just didn't have the time to take a breath and post until now.

That brought down the mood in the room. It was so deathly quiet for a few moments that it seemed there was something in the room. The scene didn't start again for a few moments again.

Percy asked if she really thought this was its head? Annabeth said it had to be. The Myrmekes probably dug it up and thought it was precious metal but couldn't take the whole thing, so they probably chewed it apart. The body couldn't be far.

"It's crazy how you figure this stuff out."

"Daughter of Athena, idiot," Annabeth said proudly to Frank. She blushed when she realized who she was talking too. Somehow, she felt worse calling him idiot than others. Probably because Frank was the one everyone acknowledged as a giant teddy bear. He wasn't an idiot in the sense that Percy, Leo or Magnus were. "Sorry."

Percy said if they chewed it apart it was useless. Annabeth said not necessarily. They could reassemble it and could activate it. Silena caught on and said then it could help them rescue Charlie!

"That's risky."

"What plan of ours isn't?" Percy asked with a pointed look at Samirah. "I'm sure you guys have had the same issue plenty of times."

"Nothing as risky as yours," Samirah protested weakly. At least none of hers had been. Magnus was a different story.

Percy said to hold up. It was a lot of it. If they found it, if they could reactivate it, if they did it in time, if it would help them. Annabeth had said it disappeared fifteen years ago.

"He's right. Plus, you're running out of time really fast. Reassembling the dragon will take a while as well, especially when you have to drag the head there as well," Thalia told Annabeth.

"Trust me, idiot. I know, I calculated the possibilities."

"Of course, you did. But still…"

"Idiot. It already happened Thalia," Annabeth reminded her with a small eye roll.

Annabeth nodded and said some people say it's motor wore out and so it deactivated itself. Others said it went haywire. But no one knew. Percy looked at her and asked she wanted to reassemble a haywire dragon.

"That's your plan?" asked Reyna surprised.

"A lot of the times it's the plans you'd expect Percy to come up with that are actually Annabeth's," Grover groaned. "Not that his plans are always great either. It's just sometimes Annabeth has the crazy daring ones and Percy is the rational one. It's no wonder with all these flips and flops that you two drove me over the edge a long time ago."

"Love you too, Bro," Percy grinned at him.

Annabeth said they had to try. It was Beckendorf's only hope. And it had to be a sign from Hephaestus. The dragon would want to help one of his kids. And Beckendorf would want them to try.

"You make it sound like he's already dead," said Chris somberly.

"You know that's not what I meant," Annabeth said. She dropped her voice under her breath. "Idiot."

"Just not fun to think about."

Percy sighed and said alright. They should go find a headless dragon. They followed the path of the dragon's head had made when it was dragged in the mud by the ants. The scene skipped them wandering around. Annabeth gasped saying di immortales!

"You found it?" asked Blitz excitedly.

"How long did it take you?" Walt said. "There's not a lot of time left for him. Is there? And you still have to reconnect the dragon somehow and get it back in time."

"They managed," Nico assured him. "I mean we've seen the proof, and even before that I've seen that they always come out well somehow."

There was a large crater were a piece of metal with wires sticking out of the end was lodged in the dirt. Percy assumed it was the dragon's neck and asked if the ants made that crater.

"No," Calypso frowned. "It looks familiar. Something crashed into it. The same thing happened to my dining table."

Leo gave her a blinding grin accompanied by finger guns. Calypso rolled her eyes at her boyfriend and sighed. "What I mean is something large and flaming crashed into it."

Annabeth shook her head and said it looked more like a meteor blast. Silena said it must have been Hephaestus who unearthed it. He wanted them to find it.

Hazel nodded. "The way it's caved in and everything, there's no way that was just dug up. You guys are probably right."

"Not probably," Apollo said. "Definitely."

"What I don't get is why you guys didn't find Bunker Nine?" Piper asked. "It's very close, isn't it?"

"Like right there," agreed Leo, he paused and shrugged. "I guess it wasn't time yet or some nonsense."

"Hey! There's a lot of things around there," Percy said defensively.

"Wolves, monsters, Maenads at the right time of year, the geysers, the Grove of Dodona apparently, and a bunch of other stuff we haven't discovered, idiots that demigods are" Annabeth listed on her fingers.

"Do you think it's all related? The Myrmekes burrowing could have disturbed the Grove, not to mention the activity from Festus and in Bunker Nine. Right?" Rachel asked looking around.

"You might be right. Not that it matters now. The Grove is restored, and no one was permanently harmed."

Percy told them to come on. They should reconnect this bad boy. They pushed the dragon's head, so it fell down clanging against the neck in front of them. They looked at the wires helplessly. Annabeth grabbed them and cursed in ancient Greek. She looked at the others and said they needed Beckendorf. He could do it in seconds.

"Not seconds," Leo corrected. "It takes even me a while to work on Festus. And to reconnect his head?"

"It's a pretty complicated piece of machinery. I really want a better look at it sometime," Blitz said leaning forward.

Leo grinned, "If we ever make it to Boston, then sure."

Percy asked her confused saying her mom was the goddess of inventors. Couldn't she do it? Annabeth glared at him and said it was different, she had good ideas, but she wasn't good at mechanics.

"Not true!"

There was noise of protest from half of the room. Percy shook his head. "She likes to pretend. And she's gotten better since this, and since she got the laptop."

Thalia nodded. "I've seen you design and build things yourself. And one is a big part of the other."

"It's true. Annabeth is really the only one I trusted to control the Argo II besides me. And I even let her fiddle with the Archimedes sphere once or twice."

"Doesn't mean I'm good with this stuff. Like I said, ideas and mechanics are different. I'm even a bit of an idiot there."

"Doesn't mean you can't do it at all," Grover groaned. "Between you and Percy and self-confidence…"

"Look who's talking," Annabeth said with an eye roll. "Idiots. My fatal flaw is hubris. Self-confidence isn't really my issue."

Percy looked at her and said if he was going to pick one person to reattach his head it would be her. Silena and Annabeth turned to him surprised. He started to blush. Then Silena sniffed an aww and wiped her eyes saying he was so sweet.

"You guys are disgusting," Nico said again.

"You don't get to talk," Thalia mimed barfing.

"It was sweet though," Hazel smiled at her two older friends.

"And it's true," Percy grinned. "No offense to all of you but there's no one I trust more than Annabeth."

"We know."

"I mean besides the actual people who work with medical stuff here I think I'd ask her if that happened to me too," Thalia said, suddenly looking a lot more serious.

"I still really don't know what to make of these idiots' compliments," Annabeth said with a mock thoughtful look. "But I'll take them."

"Wait, isn't your dare done?" Sadie asked.

"No, idiot," Annabeth said with a groan. "It's getting annoying but it's not until I compliment Percy. The opposite is what just happened."

Annabeth blushed too. She told Silena to shut up and give her the dagger. Silena did and Annabeth used it as a screwdriver to open panels in the dragon's neck. She looked at it nervously and said here went nothing. She started to put together the wires.

"This is taking too long," Jaz said nervously. "Much longer than a half hour."

"Not so much. It seems that way, but we still had time," Percy assured her.

"Only five or ten minutes, idiot. I'm not that fast."

"Great," Magnus said. "That's assuring."

"Idiot," Annabeth said again.

Annabeth worked on the wires for a while. At one point the dragon moved, spitting oil on her. After a long time, Annabeth stood up and took a breath. She was covered in mud and scraped up. There was still a streak of oil on her forehead.

"The oil thing," Calypso winced. "I don't like when he does that."

"It's not that bad."

"It is after you started to mix his oil with your hot sauce," Piper said accusingly. "It got in my face once."

"Okay, I can see there might be a bit of a problem…"

"A bit?"

"I'll try and fix it again, but it's one of his more charming quirks," Leo said as he put his hands up as if surrendering.

Annabeth said she thought it was done. Silena looked at her and said she thinks?

"Not reassuring."

"Idiots," Annabeth spitted viperously. "I already said I wasn't sure if I could do it at all."

"Obviously you did," Jason reminded her. "Or we wouldn't have Festus running around."

Percy said it had to be done. They were out of time. He asked how they started it? Was there an ignition switch or something?

"He's not a car," Leo yelped.

"This was a long time ago! And the way he is turned on isn't much better."

"I mean that was only when I still had to turn him on," Leo shared a secret grin with Piper. "And I didn't design him."

Annabeth pointed at the eyes and said they turned clockwise. She guessed they had to rotate them. Percy agreed if someone tried to twist his eyeballs he'd wake up. Then he asked what if it went crazy on them. Annabeth replied then they were dead. Percy said great. He was psyched.

"Like this is any crazier than most of the other things you've done," Nico told him.

"It kind of is," Percy said. "Usually I don't put together the thing that can kill me. It's getting into a fight with an opponent that I don't know how to beat. Like jumping right into the Ant hill."

"Thank the gods Annabeth was there," Reyna said with her eyes raised to the ceiling.

Both of them grabbed an eye turning it. Then both backed up, going so fast they tripped over each other as the dragon's mouth opened. It's head turned to them and it's ears steamed as it started to try and get up. Then it realized it couldn't move. It looked confused and coked it's head to look at the dirt, realizing it was buried. It moved several times until the dirt around it cracked. Dirt flew everywhere. The dragon pulled itself up and shook off the dirt. Percy, Annabeth and Silena were splattered with dirt. The dragon was covered in it, had wires loose but otherwise it looked to be in good conditions. It shook again and looked up to the sky and blew fire up into it.

"It moves," said Zia amazed.

"And it's not trying to kill you," Carter added equally in awe. "I guess it didn't go haywire. But it doesn't seem like it was broken either."

"I wouldn't say any of that yet."

Percy said in a cracked voice that it still worked. The dragon turned and looked right at him. It's eyes looked right at him and moved its nose right to him. Percy's hand moved to riptide.

"Oh," Carter said.

"If Festus was gonna kill you, how aren't you dead?" Leo asked him amazed.

"Because killing me wasn't his main function," Percy shrugged.

"Because he's Percy," Annabeth answered at the same time. "Idiot."

Silena yelled for the dragon to stop. She swallowed and shifted nervously saying they'd woken it up to defend the camp. Did it remember? That was his job. The dragon tilted it's head as if thinking.

"Could she charmspeak?" Piper asked looking between Percy and Annabeth.

"I don't actually know," Percy frowned.

"Weakly. She didn't use it often. And it was never as strong as yours and Drew's."

"You forgot something," Sadie reminded her.

Annabeth grimaced and looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. "Fine! Idiot."

Silena continued saying that Charles Beckendorf was a son of Hephaestus and he was in trouble. He'd been taken by Myrmekes and needed he dragon's help. The dragon's neck straightened, and it shook again sending more mud everywhere. The dragon looked around and Annabeth eyes glinted as she said they needed to show it. She drew her sword and yelled to the dragon to come on. It was this way to the son of Hephaestus. As they climbed out of the pit she yelled for Hephaestus. They charged with the giant dragon right behind them, steaming as it did.

"You guys look insane," Will said.

"Who's saying they aren't?" Clarisse grumbled. "Not that it matters. Silena did it."

"You mean they did it," Grover bleated. "Annabeth helped."

"What about me?"

"You didn't really do anything," Grover said to Percy. The latter put his hands over his heart and fell backward, in. over-exaggerated hurt. There were a few reactions before Calypso rolled her eyes and pulled him up.