Annabeth

Percy had just done something that was, objectively speaking, perfectly harmless but was, emotionally speaking, one of the, if not the, biggest fear of mine: Percy, the one secure constant in my life, had left me.

While I had been sitting on Percy's bed, the logical part of my brain trying to get the emotional part to shut up, Piper had come in, sat down, put an arm around my shoulder. As I already mentioned, charm speak works best when you're emotionally weakened. This made Piper unreasonably good at consoling people who were going through a lot. On the other hand, she would also have a much easier time making you feel worse. While the idea of Percy turning evil was certainly frightening (I might even have some trauma relating to that, but I'm not sure), you equally certainly didn't want to get on Piper's bad side, especially not if you had any sort of trauma. Speaking of girls on whose bad side you don't want to get, especially if you have trauma; Hazel. One time she had, with my explicit consent, tried how long it'd take her to incapacitate me. She hadn't even had to use Tartarus. Just a big( actually big, not just by Athena kid standards) spider crawling over my bed had been enough to put me out of commission. Later that day, Piper had spent ten minutes convincing me to go back into my room, which brings me back to the present. Piper was sitting next to me and talking to me with charm speak. "Annabeth, first, I'm gonna need you to calm down" Her charm speak was so strong that I didn't even have a choice but to follow her suggestion. "Up until a moment ago, you were really on edge and alarmed but now you're relaxed meaning that, posture wise, I have made you less straight" "Piper Mclean, your entire existence is making me less straight and that has nothing to do with posture" "I am aware of the effect I have on women" "Charles Miner, The Office, episode "two weeks" which aired on March 26th 2009" "How do you know that?" "You've known me for over nine months now, how are you still surprised?" "By not analyzing everything everyone does in order to recognize patterns and be able to predict their next actions." "Makes sense. Not everyone's brain works as logically as mine" Well, my brain worked in logical patterns most of the time, but then there was also this thing called emotions, most importantly my love for Percy, who had just left me and suddenly, all the sadness about that was back. Like sure, it was just school, but some part of my brain didn't care. I felt my eyes getting just a tiny bit wet. I looked over to Piper. She didn't even say anything, just gave me a hug. "People think I'm strong. They need me to be strong and yet here I am, devastated because my boyfriend went to school" "Annabeth Chase, don't you dare call yourself weak. You're- forget this, I'm not gonna use charm speak. I'm gonna convince you properly. I'll be back in a few minutes, try not to drown in tears or something." "Hey, I'm not crying that much" "I'll be right back. I am not leaving you"

After a few minutes, Piper returned. "So, I know Percy is very defensive of his title of bad analogy maker, but he's not here right now, so I can do whatever I want. Look at this." She gave me a rock. "Would you say this rock is weak, structurally speaking?" "I have no idea where you're going with this, but no, it seems very stable" "Good. Now watch" Piper took the rock from me and placed it a few meters outside the door. When she had returned to cabin three, lightning struck the rock. It crumbled to pieces. "Look, the rock is broken, just like you're kind of emotionally broken down right now. Now I am asking again: was this rock weak?" "No, it broke because it was hit by one of the strongest concentrated forces nature has to offer. Let me guess. You're going to tell me that it's the same with me, I was hit with the worst schist life has to offer which is why I'm crying over tiny things, even though I am not weak." "Yeah, that's the Annabeth I love" "And when you say love, do you mean like platonic or-" "Not exclusively. Speaking of non-platonic love, I gotta check up on Jason." "Didn't you talk to him like two minutes ago to tell him to summon lightning?" "I Did, anyways, got to go now. Percy didn't leave you, byeee" Despite being said so hastily, the last sentence had still carried so much charm speak that I could almost physically feel it and it managed to do what logic had failed at: convince the emotional part of my brain. And let me tell you, you need some insane ability if you want to overpower my logic. The last time I remembered that happening was when the lotus casino had completely numbed my brain and Percy had snapped me out of it by saying 'Spiders. Big hairy spiders' So Congrats Piper, you're as powerful as Percy literally just talking. I swear that's a compliment.

Only after Piper had left, I noticed that my old teddy bear was lying in my bed half covered by the blanket. I reached for it and held it close to me. Within a few minutes, this, in combination with what Piper had told me, brought me back to an acceptable level of mental stability. I packed my stuff and brought it back to the Athena cabin. Once there, I took out my Knife and went to the practice area to go stab something.

Turns out being on the brink of an emotional breakdown is actually very good for fighting and I was, for the first time in weeks, able to defeat Clarisse herself. "Good fight. You're still not as good as before your lungs were destroyed by sulfur and liquid fire, but you're definitely recovering." "Yes, it's getting better. If I compare it to the first few hours when I could barely walk and talk at the same time, I'm so much better now. I've also recovered mentally. I've more or less been talking about the place for a good 45 seconds. Just six weeks ago, that would have sent me right into a flashback, but now it's fine. Okay, maybe fine isn't the right word, this is still thin ice and I should probably stop. Ready for round two?" "Bring it on"

This time, Clarisse tried to disarm me, but instead she almost disarmed herself. She had hit the tip of my blade with that of hers. What she didn't consider though was that due to Newton's third law, the force that my dagger exerted on her sword was equal and opposite to the force that she exerted on my dagger. But due to the fact that these forces were applied where the blades touched and the fact that a sword is much longer than a dagger, the lever laws stated that the force arriving at the hinges, in this case our wrists, was far greater for Clarisse than it was for me, meaning that Clarisse was putting a lot of strength into attempting to cause a movement that I was able to very easily cancel out. This isn't the only example of a scenario where the stronger one doesn't win even though it intuitively seems like this should be the case. Another example is tug of war, where you essentially have a system of two rigid bodies: the two teams (of you don't account for the flexibility of the rope, which can be ignored since it is always stretched) and the earth (well, technically, it's not like the entire planet, more like just the continental plate you're standing on. The movement of body #1 is dependent on the direction of the force that it applies to body #2 or rather the direction of the force that #2 applies back onto #1. This force stems mostly from friction, so in a game of tug of war, the winner is not necessarily the stronger of the two competitors, just the one with better traction to the ground. That was science hour with Annabeth, now back to our blades clashing into each other.

I raised the tip of my dagger a few centimeters, which Clarisse wasn't even remotely able to counter, but she still pushed harder than before which was exactly what I wanted. When I pulled my dagger away, Clarisse's sword shot down and would have crashed right into her own leg, had I not intercepted her blade with mine. "Thanks. I think that means you win. I wouldn't have had a chance with a sword lodged in my leg" "I win? Sounds great. At least one battle I can win today" "What do you mean? What battle can't you win?" "The battle against my stupid emotions that can't tell the difference between Percy leaving me out of malicious intent and him leaving me involuntarily to go to school" "Oh, that sucks. Yeah, uh, just remember that he didn't really leave you" "Piper already told me that before deciding that she needed to see Jason right then and there. Well, technically she made that decision first, then told me about Percy on the way out. Even in that short time, she got out a bit of charm speak so strong that it almost completely fixed me up" "Either she's gotten a lot better since the last time I've seen her use it or you're just gay as Hades for her." "Maybe a little bit. Wouldn't be the first time a daughter of a war deity fell for a daughter of Aphrodite." "Except in your case, she's still alive." "Sorry" "It's okay. I'm over it. Took a few months, but I've dealt with it. At least she's together with Beckendorf now, down in Elysium. Wonder what they're doing" "Well, I happen to know the last thing Beckendorf did. He built a grabber arm reaching all the way to Tartarus." "So you can say it now" "Yes. It's not easy though. It probably helps that I don't actually remember it. Chris is responsible for that" "So you have an alter named Chris" "Yes" "Responsible for holding trauma related to being stuck at a dangerous place for a long time" "Correct. Why are you- oh, your boyfriend Chris. He was traumatized from the labyrinth and now my trauma…" "Do you think it was a coincidence?" "No idea. Probably not, I've heard that there's always some reason for every detail of someone's DID, from alter names to House arrangements in the inner world, but whether or not that reason makes sense to you, that's a completely different question" "Well, the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe, at least according to itself. Anyways, round three?" "count me in"

This round I lost. Maybe my lungs hadn't recovered as much as I had thought. From behind me, I heard someone say the word static. I turned around and noticed Piper and Jason a few meters behind me. I gave Piper an encouraging look. "Every time we kiss" Piper said, sounding vaguely threatening, before actually kissing him. "I swear you could fly" she finished her line before judo flipping him onto the ground. "And this is what you call romance" She said. "I see you have learned well from Percabeth" "speaking of Percy, I wonder what he's doing right now" I checked the time. "Well, considering his schedule, the airspee-" "Considering everything" "Yes, considering every factor, I'd say he's currently landing in front of our school and is just now realizing that he can't get in because it's considered a construction/repair site" "Not without charm speak. Jason, fly us over"

Jason flew both of us over to our school without passing out, which was, you know what, I don't feel like being electrocuted, so I won't finish that sentence. We landed behind Percy. "Hey Seaweed brain. Do you happen to need someone capable of performing charm speak to get you past the workers here?" He turned around. "That would indeed be helpful." "Okay, here's the plan: Piper gets us past the guards, and maybe asks how far they've come. I try to figure out what the problem is and explain it to Percy. Percy then solves the problem and gets rid of the remaining water. Jason, uh, I'm sure we'll find a job for you. With commercially available mortal technology, such a thing would take about 10 weeks, so hopefully you'll be a little bit faster. Jason, your job is to kill anyone who seems like a monster." "Why do I get a job that barely has anything to do with the actual quest?" "First, this isn't a quest. Also, achieving our goal just so happens to require three distinct skills: convincing, thinking and water which exactly match everyone but you. But maybe you can help Percy get the air humidity out." We walked up to the school's gates. "Hey, no access for anyone who isn't part of the drainage team." Piper stepped forward. "Oh, I'm sure that rule specifically doesn't apply to us" "Hm, why wouldn't it apply to you?" "Because we're here to help you dry this up. "But you're just kids" "Hey, we both want this to be over. The students want school to start again (" I was relatively certain that many students, including Piper did, in fact, not want school to start again ") and I also have a feeling you don't like guarding this gate all day for the next multiple weeks" "We work in shifts, so it wouldn't be all day" "I'm sure you also don't feel like guarding this gate for a fraction of every day for the next few weeks. This will be easier and faster for all of us if you just let us through" The guard finally gave in. "Fine, you can come in, but don't break anything. These machines are very expensive." "We'll be careful" I led us over the school grounds to the basement, where I assumed most of the damage would be. There was a large pipe running up the stairs, out the door and to the nearest drain. Piper approached one of the workers. "Your boss wants an update on your progress." She demanded. "I'd rate the situation as 'kinda fricked'. The cable powering our pump somehow got detached from the wall socket and fell into the water, and now the basement isn't just filled with water, it's filled with electrocuted water. The water level then kept rising up until a few minutes ago, we assume it's now overflowing into the toilets. Anyways, the pump is probably also destroyed, we're currently in the process of ordering a new one. "We'll take a look at it ourselves" "Are you allowed to do-" "Yes, we are" Once in the building, Jason got to work finding the cable. "Got it. The water should be safe now." "Then I'll try to figure out where the water is coming from." He created a narrow region where there was no water along the walls of the basement so they were better visible.

So, Percy and Annabeth were separated for a few hours and Annabeth almost didn't have a breakdown. I'd say the recovery is going great. By the way, the Chris thing was actually a coincidence, I named the alter after a character from a cartoon I watched years ago and didn't eve notice the parallel until a day or two later.