Thinking of You- A Percy Jackson Story

Chapter 10

This takes place the day after Chapter 9. There's an important element that was mentioned there (a specific holiday) that's important to remember.

 

Chapter 10

“It’s done! Annabeth! It’s done,” yelled a voice. Annabeth was sitting on a chair at the Big House with her laptop on April 2nd. When she looked up, she saw Leo running toward her like a mad-man. Piper, who was next to her with a book, stifled a laugh.

“You finished it, already,” Annabeth asked, dumbfounded. The Argo II wasn’t supposed to be finished for another month. How in the world did it finish early?

Leo stopped in front of the girls, who were still sitting in their chairs. He was gasping for breath as he said, “I don’t know, I guess all of the extra hours you were putting in made a huge difference.”

Annabeth turned her head to Piper, disbelieving. Was it possible for her to get to Percy sooner than originally thought? She hoped so. Piper’s grin returned from Annabeth’s facial expression.

“I just told Jason. He was talking to some satyrs and he’s going down to the cave now. I just need to tell you two.”

Annabeth finally composed her emotions. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go check out that big boat!”

Piper and Leo laughed at her urgency, but nonetheless, they followed her sprint to the caves.

Annabeth gasped as she saw the final project. The Argo II was massively beautiful. She always admired the craftsmanship that goes into building ships as big, but there wasn’t anything that you could compare to this one. There was a wood was dark. The masts were big and white and towering. She could tell that the cabins on the ship’s interior were beautiful, even without looking at them.

“Wow, Leo, this is awesome,” Jason muttered.

“Thanks, but I really didn’t do too much more recently. I guess we have Annabeth to thank for that one,” he replied.

Annabeth cocked her head. That doesn’t make sense. It was true that Leo was working on completing this project as if his life depended on. True, he wasn’t working on it whenever he had his free periods, but still. Annabeth had also slowed down at how much she was doing; she was becoming too busy with her archery classes and worrying about Nico, Grover, and Tyson.

“Umm, Leo, I haven’t been working on it that much either.”

Piper caught where Annabeth was going. She shared a puzzling glance with Jason and asked, “Then who finished it?”

Leo threw his arms up above him. “Who cares?! This means we can get over to Camp Jupiter and save the whole wide world sooner! I say we take it out for a test drive right now. Then we can leave tomorrow morning for the sunny west coast!”

“Ahh Leo, I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” Annabeth started.

“Hang on, you’re telling me you aren’t excited this is finished? This means we can save your boyfriend faster,” Leo protested.

“I know, I know. It’s just if it magically got assembled, we need to be careful. You don’t know who could’ve tampered with it.” Like Hera, Ares, Gaea, or some other gods that aren’t fond of Percy or demi-gods in general.

“But, I still say we need to take a test drive. Come on, Annabeth. You know you can’t wait,” he urged.

Annabeth looked at Piper’s face and then Jason’s. Piper seemed curious. Jason seemed to think that it was alright for the test drive. She sighed and said, “Alright, I’ll IM Chiron and tell him to warn the campers.”

Leo cheered and the other two smiled. As Annabeth turned away from the others, she rolled her eyes. She quickly IM-ed Chiron and told him about the test run. Afterwards, she joined the others on the ship.

Leo started up the ship. Jason used his powers to raise it about fifteen feet from the ground so he could get it out of the cave. It slowly chugged along. All the while, Annabeth and Piper were admiring the boys and what they were doing.

The ship was about to pull completely out of the cave when everyone heard a deafening noise. Then the engine stopped running.

“What’s happening, Leo,” Piper shouted.

“I don’t know!”

“Well you better find out before we crash into some of these trees. Without an engine, I can’t lift it up high enough to avoid them,” Jason said, irritated at the situation.

“Alright, I’ll check it out. Annabeth take the wheel,” Leo said before he disappeared to check out the engine.

Annabeth steered as well as she could. She thought that she could steer with no problem at all, but that was before she realized how hard the wheel was to turn.

“Are you sure you can’t get this thing higher in the sky,” Piper asked, worried.

“I can’t, the mass is too much,” Jason replied.

“Great,” the daughter of Aphrodite mumbled.

Suddenly, Leo reappeared. His face was a mixture of emotions. Annabeth saw worry, anger, and confusion there. “The motor and engine are no good. Oh yeah, and the whole front port-side has disappeared.”

“WHAT?!”

Leo shrugged. “I know it was finished earlier. We all saw it. But it’s like someone manipulated the Mist to make us think it was done.”

Annabeth was still steering through the trees. “Well that’s great, but how do we solve our problem now? We’re coasting on air with an incomplete ship and no motor or engine.”

Then Jason pointed to Annabeth’s right. “Make a sharp right turn when I say. We’re going to make a crash landing.” He looked at Piper and Leo. “You two may wanna sit for this. It’s not going to be pretty.”

Piper nodded. Annabeth and Jason sailed a little more until he told her to suddenly turn right. At the same moment, Jason dropped the ship from his grasp. The Argo II instantly crashed.

“Is everyone alright,” Piper asked. She was lying on the ship after the crash. Dust clouded every possible inch, making it nearly impossible to see anything.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Leo shouted.

“I’m okay,” Annabeth yelled.

“I’m fine,” Jason said. Then the four carefully and quickly made their way off of the damaged ship.

“Oh my gods,” Annabeth muttered. The damage was worse than she could ever imagine.

The bow on the ship was implanted into the ground. There was no left side at all. Who knew what sort of other damage was caused by the accident. Plus, who was the person who would even manipulate the Mist to make everyone think the ship was done in the first place?

In an instant, she knew her answer. Honestly, it didn’t help since they were standing right by the damaged ship, snickering.

It was Connor and Travis Stoll.

“April Fools’ Annabeth! It’s about time we got you with a good prank,” they shouted in unison.

“I’m gonna kill them,” Leo mumbled.

“Not if I get to them first,” Annabeth said, angrily before taking off after the two brothers.

Alright, so my boat-logic isn't that great. I hope you all understood the accident part. Basically, Connor and Travis tricked the Mist somehow to make Annabeth think the ship was ready as an April Fools' joke.