Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.
Author's Notes: Hi, everyone! Yes, I changed the chapter title. This one fit better.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Until next week,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
Edited on 11/17/23
~The Finding Home Saga~
~Finding Home~
~Chapter 38: We Enter The Sea Of Monsters~
Alabaster landed on the lifeboat with a solid thump, groaning miserably. His groan only intensified as Bianca landed on top of him with an "oomph," and then they both groaned when somebody obviously landed on top of her, despite the fact that they were invisible. A second later, a baseball cap fell onto the lifeboat floor, and a head of curly blonde hair became visible, as well as the rest of the daughter of Athena.
Annabeth Chase.
There was no time for me to ask them – "them" being Bianca and Annabeth, obviously, it was kind of obvious that Alabaster hadn't fallen over of his own accord – what the hell they were doing. The Princess Andromeda was treading on by us, and although it wasn't sucking us down underneath it, the waves it was creating were choppy and easily threatened to topple us over. Plus, I didn't want anybody to come after us, whether they be a monster, unknown demigod, or even Ethan and Chris. They were – had been – my friends, but they were also traitors and we already had one of those onboard now. I wasn't going to take any risks.
Sliding off my backpack from my shoulders, I pulled open its zipper and grabbed the thermos. "Everybody, hold on!" I shouted.
"Percy, what – ?" Silena started.
"Jackson!" hissed Annabeth.
"Ugh..." groaned Alabaster.
Clarisse and Bianca got the message. The daughter of Ares wrapped one arm around Silena and held onto one of the ties of the lifeboat with the other, and Bianca grabbed the ties as well. It was only with some quick, instinctive thinking that Alabaster and Annabeth did the same. Which was probably a good thing.
Looping one of my arms through one of the ties as well, I gave the thermos lid a quarter turn.
Instantly, a jet of air was released from the thermos, sending us propelling off. We skipped like a stone due to the rough start, first once, then twice over the water, before we started whizzing like a speedboat. Behind us, the Princess Andromeda began to reduce to the size of a white toy boat.
"Wait!" Alabaster cried. "Go back!"
Bianca gave a kick to his stomach. He made a cry of pain, then shut up.
At any rate, he was hard to hear over the wind, as it seemed to laugh as it escaped the thermos, glad to finally be free. But that didn't make much sense, or at least to me, because there wasn't just one god of the wind. Well, there was, but Hermes had said the wind from the "four corners of the earth." So, north, east, south, west.
Whatever. I would think about that later.
It was a struggle to keep the lid on the thermos. The wind pressed against my hand, like it was begging to go "faster, faster, faster!" I grimaced, trying to do the best I could. But as the minutes passed, I realized this was not a battle I could win – not when the lid of the thermos was still partially open. So, with a scream of effort, I twisted it back shut, until it was too tight to let any air slip through. Our boat slid down, going from insanely fast to a more manageable pace, and heading quickly towards a rate even slower than that.
Too late, I realized this might not be a good thing.
Because instead of holding on for dear life, now the five people I was stuck on the lifeboat with were free to do what they wanted: which was going after each other.
"Alabaster Cain Torrington!" Silena shrieked. She ripped out of Clarisse's hold and stormed across the lifeboat, nearly falling overboard in the process. But she didn't care about that. "How – how dare you join Kronos? How dare you betray the gods? How dare you – you betray me?" I couldn't see her face, but I heard her voice warble as she spoke.
Unadulterated pain crept onto his face. "Silena," he began.
"You left me!" she shouted. "You told me you liked me, and then you let me go close to you, and we – and we spent the Fourth of July fireworks together, and then you left me! After you'd heard that Ethan and Chris had promised to always be there for me after my brother died, and you went and did the same! Why?" She sniffled, falling back to her knees from both the churning of the sea underneath us and her sobs. "Why did you leave me?"
Alabaster looked absolutely crushed. He reached forward to grab her hands, but she flinched away, shaking her head. That only made his expression worse.
Clarisse, meanwhile, was glaring at Annabeth and Bianca. "Chase, Bianca," she growled. "What the hell are you two doing here?"
Annabeth flushed an angry red. "What do you think?" she snapped, crossing her arms. "We were trying to find the Golden Fleece!"
"So you wound up on Luke's ship?"
Bianca smiled sheepishly. "That's my fault. I'm sorry." She waved a hand. "I meant to get us to the Sea of Monsters, but...I guess I wound up rerouting us instead."
"'Rerouting?'" Clarisse quoted angrily.
The daughter of Hades shrugged. "I learned how to shadowtravel. You know, travel by shadow. It's something children of the gods of the Underworld and a few others can do. Don't ask me why. But I don't have the best hold on it yet..."
"Okay, okay, but that's not what Clarisse meant," I interjected. "Why are you guys trying to find the Golden Fleece?"
Annabeth huffed. "Why are you trying to find the Golden Fleece, Seaweed Brain? We want to save the camp!"
I resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose. Annabeth had only been around me for ten minutes at most, and already I wanted to throw her over the side of the boat.
Relax, Percy, I told myself. She's just a spoiled brat. It's not worth it to be mad at her.
"The Golden Fleece is in the Sea of Monsters," I said, keeping my voice as even and calm as possible. "That's a crazy dangerous place for the two of you."
"We're not little kids!" Annabeth spat. "I'm almost fourteen, and she already is!"
"Wow, that is so helping your case," I quipped sarcastically. "Have you ever been on a quest before?"
That made her falter. "No, but that's only because you – "
"Have you ever been to the Sea of Monsters?"
"No – "
"Have you ever even fought one of the deadliest monsters before, and not just hellhounds or a Cyclops?"
She went quiet. Her face went as white as a sheet. "How do you know about that?" she whispered.
"It doesn't matter." I wasn't about to tell her the extent of the backstory she shared with Luke and Thalia that he had told me last summer. Granted, I didn't actually know too many of the specifics, but still. I knew I knew more than she would've expected me to know. "This is not the quest you should've decided to play tagalong with. Hell, this probably isn't a quest we – " I gestured between myself, Clarisse, and Silena, who had retreated between the two of us, wiping the tears from her face " – we should've gone on, either, but we did. Not to mention, you've technically broken the rule for only three people going on a quest at a time."
"It's rule of threes, not just three," Annabeth returned hotly. She pointed at Alabaster. "Torrington makes six."
He raised his hands defensively. "I want no part in this! The second we get on land, I'm finding a way back to the Princess Andromeda!"
"Shut up, traitor!"
"What happens when you two die?" I pressed on. I looked Bianca directly in the eye. "Who's going to look after Nico, Bianca? Or your half-siblings, Chase?"
Annabeth fell silent again. Bianca's eyes quickly filled with tears.
I felt bad, but I knew I wasn't wrong. I didn't need two more people trying to go on this quest to make up for my mistakes, most of all when they were both as inexperienced as they were.
"And you." I whirled on Alabaster, and decided to use the same rhetoric Clarisse had used against me earlier. I held him against sword-point as I did, Riptide glittering in the sunlight. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't call upon milady to drag you up to Olympus myself."
Annabeth and Bianca each looked confused as to who I was talking about, but I knew Alabaster had to know I was the champion of Demeter. It wasn't something Luke would keep secret."
Alabaster kept his hands raised, but his face twisted up into a sneer. "So, what? They can kill me? You wouldn't let them do that!"
"No, I wouldn't," I agreed, lowering my sword. "I'm not like Luke. I don't try to kill the people I love, even when they side with the people who tried to kill me."
It was a low blow. I knew as much from how the pain and guilt returned to his visage.
Letting out a sigh, I capped my sword and put it in my pocket, before running both of my hands over my face. It was an understatement to say this was a mess.
"...What are we going to do?" Silena asked quietly. "Where even are we?"
"About sixty miles off the coast of Georgia," I said without even thinking about it. They all stared me for it like I was crazy, but I didn't care.
I now had an idea.
We stayed the night at a motel in some small Georgia coastline town, once I got us over there with my powers and some help from the thermos. Because of this, I was extremely cranky. I didn't grumble when Silena convinced the clerk with her charmspeak to give us three rooms for free, nor did I try and send Annabeth and Bianca back to camp, since I figured they'd just find some way to get back here or worse, they'd actually go to the Sea of Monsters and get themselves killed. Better to be stuck with them than for them to end up dead.
Still, because of my crankiness, Silena, Clarisse, Bianca, and Annabeth gave me a wide berth. Alabaster didn't, as he was stuck with me in my room. Silena had also gotten the clerk to give us a set of police grade handcuffs – and I was notgoing to think about why a twenty-one-year-old nerd with glasses had those handcuffs on him, no siree – so I handcuffed him to one of the beds, choosing the other one as my own. I turned on the TV to something mindless and looked at him expectantly. "I'm going to the vending machines, do you want something to eat? Something to drink?"
He scowled. "Let me go, Percy."
"A Coke, chips, and one of those cinnamon roll things, then. Got it."
I went to the vending machines and got him and myself some food and a Coke each. As I did, I smushed my cheek in my hand, rubbing it tiredly. I felt like I'd aged years just over the course of the events of today.
When I got back to our room, I unlocked Alabaster's handcuffs just enough that he could eat. "Don't try to go anywhere," I warned him. "I'll be in even less of a forgiving mood if I have to track you down."
He didn't seem all that willing to call me out on my bluff.
After we were both done eating, I handcuffed him back to the bed. Then I went to the bathroom to take a shower. The water felt good on my skin, rejuvenating me. I rested my forehead against the tile, sighing lightly. I was looking forward to the sleep I was going to get tonight, demigod dreams or not. I really needed it.
I was toweling my hair as I walked back into the room and sat on my bed. The show that was now playing wasn't something that I really wanted to watch, so I flipped through the channels until I wound up stumbling upon reruns of Law & Order. That would do.
"...Percy?" Alabaster asked me.
I bristled. "What?"
"You know Luke loves you, right?"
Abruptly, I wanted to scream, my anger from my conversation with Luke returning. "We're not talking about that."
"Fine. What do you want to talk about, then?"
"Nothing," I told him bluntly. "I have nothing to say to you. You dumped me as a friend, twice, broke my best friend's heart – " I ignored how his face crumpled at this " – and became a traitor to the gods. You should consider yourself lucky I haven't decided what to do with you yet."
"I didn't dump you as a friend." He winced. "Okay, so maybe I did once, but not twice."
"What else do you call joining him?"
"Doing what's best for us demigods," he said seriously.
I snorted. "Ha. Okay."
"You don't get it, do you?" he scoffed. "I don't want to be a pawn of the gods anymore, Percy. I don't want to be weak. Don't you know what that feels like?"
I was supercharged from everything that had gone on today, which was the only reason why I let that part of his comment dig into me more than I should've. "Actually, I do know what it feels like to be weak. I know it better than you might expect," I seethed, my hands clenching into fists. "So don't you dare tell me that I don't, Torrington."
Something in my expression must've told him not to push it any further, as his mouth formed into a small "o."
That was alright with me. I didn't want to have this conversation any further. "Lights out," I said, reaching over to the table lamps to do just that. Then I laid down, shifted so my back was to him, and pretended to fall asleep.
In all actuality, I didn't fall asleep for a long time.
The next morning, we went to one of the harbors in the town and snuck onboard of the swiftest- and nicest-looking boat we could find. Silena and Annabeth worked together to get it going, hot-wiring it in a similar way as you would a car. There was a guy that came running down the dock as we exited the harbor, waving his hands and yelling at us. I presumed he was the owner. I felt kind of bad for him, but the boat was a brand new yacht. I figured if he had the money to afford it, he had the money to afford another one.
When we got out a good distance from the shore, I looked at Annabeth expectantly. "Remind me again what we're aiming for."
She fidgeted with pride at the fact her intellect was useful, standing on the balls of her feet then letting herself fall back down. "There are two entrances to the Sea of Monsters," she began to explain for the second time. "It doesn't matter where you try to enter it, the entrances move. You'll have to enter one of them no matter what you do. The first one is Scylla and Charybdis – "
"And we don't want them," I interjected.
She shook her head. "No. If Scylla doesn't pick us all off, Charybdis will suck us up like with Odysseus' crew. We don't have the resources to deal with that."
"So we don't want that one," Clarisse surmised.
Annabeth nodded. "The other one is the Symplegades. Jason and the Argonauts got through them. We just have to track how long it takes them to smash together and plan accordingly."
"'Just,'" I muttered. "You make it sound like it's easy."
"It'll be easier than dying to Scylla and Charybdis, won't it?" she returned.
Alabaster held up his handcuffed hands. "Can I just say this sounds like a bad idea?'
"Shut up, Torrington," Clarisse, Annabeth, and I said at the same time. I stopped myself from shuddering at the last second. Man, jinxing with Chase was creepy.
"Bianca, Annabeth, you two stay down here with him," I spoke. It wasn't a request. "Make sure he doesn't escape."
Bianca accepted this readily, but Chase's face reddened. "You're going to need me, Ja – "
"You're right, I will. But I don't right now," I retorted. "Clarisse, Silena, let's go on top."
I didn't give the daughter of Athena a chance to reply.
Once we'd shut the door to the cabin, I groaned. "Are you really sure you saw what you did?"
"A ten-foot golden casket in the stateroom with Ancient Greek engraved on it, cities in flames, and people in general suffering? Yes," answered Silena. She blew out a hot breath, sending strands of her hair flying. She'd cut off most of her hair last night after Mia Argent had ripped off the chunk, giving herself a bob. It looked nice, although I knew she could've pulled anything off appearance-wise and made it look good, as a daughter of Aphrodite and all. "It's for Kronos, Percy. I know it is."
"I agree," Clarisse gruffed.
"That probably could've gone without saying." There was a reason why the Titans were called what they were: it was because they were so tall. Not as tall as their parents or the rest of the primordials in their actual form, to be sure, but they did dwarf the god-gods, that was for sure. A ten-foot casket was just around the right size for the youngest of them, who was a little bit of a runt. "And that's why Luke took over that cruise ship and is heading South, like us. Because he wants the Golden Fleece so they can use it to resurrect Kronos."
"Yep," Silena confirmed, acting like it was a question.
"We just need to get it before him."
The three of us fell into position: I was at the back of the yacht, the thermos in my hands, and Silena and Clarisse were at the front. They had their weapons at the ready, in case someone – something – tried to attack us.
I opened up the thermos again, sending us skittering off. I had a feeling there was an undercurrent of magic to the wind, or to the Princess Andromeda, or both. There was no way we should've been in Georgia already yesterday, we hadn't been off at sea very long, even with Despoina's yacht. On the plus side, if the wind was more magical than I'd thought, that gave us an advantage we very much needed.
We sailed for about thirty-five minutes until a dense layer of fog appeared on the horizon of an otherwise perfectly sunny and cloudless day. I closed the thermos so we didn't approach it too fast. The only sounds in the air were the soft roar of the yacht's engine, the waves of the ocean, the breeze, and –
BOOM!
All of us nearly jumped out of our skins. The clashing of rocks reverberated in my ears, almost making my teeth chatter.
"Well, looks like we got the entrance we wanted," I attempted to joke.
Neither Silena nor Clarisse laughed.
The cabin door opened and Annabeth came tumbling out. "Are those the Symplegades? The Clashing Rocks?"
"What else would they be?" I remarked dryly.
As we got closer, a distinctive shape began to appear in the fog: a solid wall of rock for as far as the eye could see on either side, with a narrow opening in the middle. The rocks were a distinctive shade of greyish-blue, like the rocks at Stonehenge; I could see what Euripides had meant in calling them "dark blue."
We were still too far away to see what caused it, but suddenly, the rocks clashed together once more with another sickening BOOM! Slowly, afterwards, they moved apart.
Silena looked a little sick. "Are you sure about this?"
"I mean, we're caught between a rock and a hard place right now."
I earned searing looks, even from Annabeth. "Not funny, Percy."
"Sorry. But we have a plan. We're going to get through these Rocks, right?"
Annabeth's nod was shakier this time, like even she was now having doubts.
Clarisse cut the engine of our yacht when we got close enough. She then went down to the cabin, and came back up with Bianca and Alabaster, her grisly arm holding a celestial bronze knife to his throat. "One wrong move, and I'll kill you," she warned.
"No, you won't," he pointed out. "It would destroy Silena."
Silena's face scrunched up, but she didn't bother trying to deny it, her eyes wet once again.
"Even so," Clarisse pushed on. She lifted the knife up to his face, ghosting it along his cheek. Instinctively, he flinched back. "Don't think there's not other ways I can make you do what we want."
Let it never be said that the children of Ares couldn't be terrifying.
"Alright, Clarisse, that's enough," I cut in. I walked up to Alabaster, holding the key to his handcuffs in my hands, and looked him dead in the eyes. "You're going to summon, or create, or whatever it is that you can do with your magic to accomplish this, a dove. Got it?"
His eyes, already cold, hardened even further. "Perfectly clear. It's not like I could escape from you guys right now, even if I wanted to. Teleportation isn't one of my tricks."
I wasn't sure if I believed that, but still I unlocked the handcuffs and stepped away.
The first thing that Alabaster did was rub at his wrists, which were lined with red. Then, closing his eyes, he held his hands out in front of him. Under his breath, he murmured lowly in Ancient Greek as a green mist was emitted from his hands. The mist swirled into a sphere, before it started to take the shape of a bird. Green gave way to red and white, flesh and bones, then more white, orange, and red: feathers, a beak and feet, eyelids. The bird opened its eyes and trilled as it began to flap its wings, trying to fly away, but Annabeth caught it at the last second.
Alabaster groaned, sagging into Clarisse's arms. "Fuck," he swore. "Been a while since I've had to do something like that."
I slapped the handcuffs back on his wrists before he could do anything more.
Annabeth petted the dove's feathers. She almost seemed sorry for it. "Fly," she said, throwing it up in the air.
We all watched the dove. Having just been spawned into existence, it flew around haphazardly, probably confused about where it was or just what the hell it was supposed to do. Seeing the rocks, land, it flew off towards them. Our breath was bated as it decided to fly through the rocks instead of landing on top of one of them. It seemed like it was going to pass thro –
BOOM!
"Did it go through?" I cried out. "Did anyone see it go through?"
Silena, Clarisse, and Bianca shook their heads. Annabeth spluttered.
"It...went...through," Alabaster grunted. I spun around, and saw his eyes were glowing. "But it's...injured."
"Can you make it fly back?"
Like the rocks, his eyebrows knitted together. "N – no. It's – it's in pain. I can feel it." A tear fell down his cheek, and then the glow in his eyes was gone. He shook his head. "I'm sorry."
Silence fell over us.
Even with Jason, the dove had been able to fly through the Symplegades with only the tips of its tail feathers being injured. If ours couldn't even do that...
"Should we try to find the other entrance?" Bianca suggested. "Scylla and Charybdis?"
I opened my mouth to speak. What I was going to say, I didn't know.
"No, we're doing this," Annabeth insisted.
Bianca frowned. "Annabeth..."
"We're doing this!" she yelled. "Percy, get your thermos ready!"
I didn't instantly react.
She marched over to me and held her bronze dagger to my chest, fury glinting in her stormy grey eyes. "Get. Your. Thermos. Ready."
"What if I don't?" I asked stupidly. In my defense, I didn't exactly like feeling like I was being held hostage on my own quest.
"We're getting the Golden Fleece. We're going to save Camp Half-Blood. And we're going to save my sister! I don't care if it kills us or not!"
She realized at the same time as the rest of us what she had said. Angrily, she turned away and headed to the other side of the yacht.
I took out the thermos again and held it in my hands. Unsteadily, I opened it, just an eighth of a turn this time.
We sped towards the Symplegades. Silena's face became tinged green, as did Alabaster's. Clarisse didn't release him, instead tightening her hold. Bianca put a hand to her mouth, the other being used to steady herself.
At first, I thought we were going to make it. The yacht began to speed through the Symplegades, going fast, much faster than the dove. I released a little bit more wind, thinking it would work.
But then, impossibly, and now I knew why the dove had been injured, the sea and wind both worked against us. "What the – ?" Clarisse shouted.
The Clashing Rocks began to move.
"Go!" I shouted. "Come on! Run!"
I shoved Clarisse and Alabaster forwards, so they were completely on the other side like 75% of the ship, outside of the rocks. Then I grabbed Bianca, pulling her close to me, so she wouldn't be hurt as the rocks closed the rest of the way. The two of us were the farthest back, but I thought we would be just beyond the rocks. "Percy!" she screamed.
I felt the pain then. It was the most wretched agony I had ever felt. I screamed as my right leg felt like it had become crushed into a million pieces, because it had. It had and the rocks were opening back up, but that wasn't enough, because the ship was destroyed and Bianca and I were falling, and Clarisse, Silena, Annabeth, and Alabaster were screaming as the remnants of the yacht, already sinking, suddenly jetted away, like they was being swept away in a current.
Bianca and I crashed into the waves. I couldn't move, I was paralyzed from the pain, as ribbons of red swirled around us. Bianca's mouth was opened in a silent scream as she dove towards me. It was her I watched as my vision turned black, my eyes closing shut. Unconsciousness pulled me down like the namesake of my sword, and that was that.
I was pretty sure as it did that, when I woke up, I would either be in the DOA or somewhere else like it if that was possible, waiting for my turn to the enter the Underworld.
Word Count: 4,494
Next Chapter Title: We Find Unexpected Sanctuary Pt. 1
